Living and Eating for Maximum Nutrition

salmon-steakFor the last several years our interest in healthy living and healthy eating has been at an all time time! And that is a good thing. We all know that most people do not eat enough fruits and vegetables, and that many people eat too much of the wrong things – like sugar, salt and fat. Reversing this trend will take some time and some effort, but starting with your own diet is a great way to improve your health and your life.

The key to changing your diet, of course, is to change it is ways that you can live with for a lifetime. The reason that most diet and lifestyle changes fail is that they are too difficult to follow once the initial excitement has worn off. The key is to make small changes, simple changes, that you can follow for the rest of your life.

Where you start your healthy eating plan depends in great part on your particular goals. For many people, a healthy eating program can be as simple as eating more fruits and vegetables. For others, a healthy eating plan will require a radical change in the way they shop, cook, and eat.

Since healthy eating means so many different things to different people, it is impossible to come up with a single healthy eating guide that will be right for everyone. The runner toning up for a marathon will have different nutritional needs than the factor worker who wants to lose 20 pounds.

No matter what the goal, however, it is important to eat a variety of foods, and to make smart choices when shopping, when cooking and when eating. Eating out can present special challenges, and it is important to familiarize yourself with the ingredients of the foods you order in your favorite restaurant.

Making healthy food choices means eating more of the good foods – like vegetables, fruits, whole grains, etc., and less of the bad foods, like salt, sugar and fats.

Starting by eating more high nutrition, low calorie foods is a good place to start. Luckily, the produce section of the local grocery store likely contains hundreds of different examples of such foods. Fruits and vegetables are almost always low in calories and fat, and they are generally very nutritious as well.

Since variety is so important to a healthy diet, it is a good idea to try out a sampling of different fruits and vegetables on your first healthy eating shopping trip. Start with some of the fruits and vegetables you have always wanted to try but never gotten around to. For instance, many people have never tasted asparagus, spinach or Brussels sprouts. While some love these foods and others hate them, you will never know unless you try them for yourself.

This kind of foraging is a great way to introduce yourself to foods you have never tried before. It is a great way to try new things, and you just might discover a new favorite food while you’re at it.

Experimenting with cooking all these exotic fruits and vegetables is another great idea. There are a ton of healthy cooking recipes and cookbooks on the market, and a new cookbook can be a great motivator for healthy eating.

It is important to remember that making your diet healthier does not necessarily mean making a radical change. Simple changes, like trimming the excess fat off of a steak, or substituting nonfat yogurt for sour cream on your baked potato, can go a long way toward enjoying a healthier lifestyle.

As a matter of fact, in the long run the simplest and easiest to follow changes are the ones that matter most. That is because making easy changes means that you will be able to stick with them for the long run. Healthy eating is a marathon, not a sprint.

Healthy Eating for Healthy Joints

eat-healthyMuch attention is often paid to the healthful benefits of nutrition and the heart and cardiovascular system, but seldom is advice seen for how to eat for healthy joints. Here are a few nutritional elements that are vital for keeping your joints and cartilage in tip-top shape.

• Manganese is a major player in building cartilage in the body by boosting the glucosamine in the body – which maintains healthy cartilage, and thus, joints. Some great sources for Manganese: Whole Grains, Beans, Seafood, Dark leafy Greens, Milk, and Nuts.
• When included in your diet, Omega 3s give your body anti-inflammatory support and improve blood flow and mental health. Omega 3s provide the joints with the support they need to stay functioning properly. Some natural sources include: Flax seeds, Walnuts, Cod Liver Oil, Egg Yolk, and certain types of fish, such as Salmon, Cod, Trout, and Sardines.
• Vitamins C & E are an antioxidant rich duo and support each others function. While Vitamin C is the hero of healthy bones and joints with its ability to help the body form collagen, it can’t perform at peak without its partner, Vitamin E.  Collagen is a protein that is found in your bones, tendons and cartilage. Citrus fruits, strawberries, watermelon, cantaloupe, tomatoes, broccoli, corn, nuts and oats are all great sources for this powerful duo.

Surprising as it may seem, it’s easy to have a strong, healthy musculoskeletal system with a few easy additions to your diet. Try the fish recipe below to get started.

Recipe for Salmon with Citrus Honey ?

Honey and citrus juices flavor these tasty salmon fillets, and  the combination of healthy omega 3s from the Salmon, and the glucosamine booster Vitamin C makes this dish a winner for your joints and cartilage. Great with Rice.

Ingredients:
4 salmon fillets, about 6 ounces each, skin on
4 tablespoons honey?3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons orange juice
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:?? 

Preheat oven to 400° Grease a 9x13x2-inch baking pan. Place salmon, skin-side down, in the prepared baking pan. Combine the honey, lime juice, and orange juice, stirring until well blended. Sprinkle the fillets with salt and pepper then spoon the honey and juice mixture over the fillets. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork. Sprinkle the fillets with salt and pepper then spoon the honey and juice mixture over the fillets. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork.

Exercise – An Effective Way To Lose Weight

Photos-351-300x200Are you trying to lose weight? Have you tried exercising? In case you do not know, exercising regularly is the most effective way to lose weight. Dieting is another way to do it and people choose it very often because it helps them to achieve weight loss very quickly. The problem with dieting is that, in most cases, when dieters return to their old eating habits they gain back all the weight they had lost, which is something very frustrating. That is the reason why you should try exercising regularly and changing your eating habits gradually instead of following diets that will not help you to maintain your weight in the long run.

If you are the kind of person who likes doing nothing but sitting and watching television when you come back home from work, it is going to be hard to start with an exercise program. Anyhow, you can start bit by bit, for example you can start doing just fifteen minutes of exercise a day and you will feel and look a lot better. Then, once you begin noticing the changes it will be easier for you to get on exercising more often.

Always bear in mind that you should consult your doctor before starting any exercise program to lose weight. It depends on your cardiovascular health the type of exercise program that you can do. Doctors also tell you how much exercise your body can stand. With the guide of your doctor you will be sure that any kind of exercise program you follow will do you good.

Have you ever embarked on any kind of exercise program? If not, the best you can do is to join a gym or hire a personal trainer. The majority of health clubs have a great variety of free classes for their members. You can chose from the traditional stair-stepping classes and aerobics to the newer and more specialized classes like kickboxing, Pilates, and yoga. In some cases, gyms offer Spinning classes, which consist of an instructor and various stationary bicycles. But if what you are looking for is to exercise on your own, you should ask for help to a personal trainer to make a program especially for what you need. You can choose from a private personal trainer or an employee of a health club.

If you do not like going to the gym, you can join the sport you like the most. This way you are not only going to lose weight but you are also going to have fun. There are many recreation centers and YMCA’s from where you can choose the sport you like. There are many options: you can choose to play with a group of friends or join a team already formed with people you do not know. It is the best opportunity to meet new people, make new friends and have fun.

After some time you will notice that exercising has become a habit, and at that very moment you can begin to increase the amount and intensity of the activity you are doing. For example, if you have started by walking, you should try, after some weeks, running a little bit. It does not matter how much you increase, you should do it bit by bit.
When you are exercising with the intention of losing weight, it is very important to bear in mind that the most important thing is getting healthier and not just reducing pounds. You have to know that it could be very probable for you to gain some weight when you start exercising just because you are augmenting your muscle mass and muscle are heavier than fat. Yet, when you acquire more muscles, you also use more calories every day. Therefore, even if you do not change your diet, you will still be losing weight. However, it is vital to have a very healthy feeding in order to have enough energy to go through your workout sessions.