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Low Carb Diet Foods – How to Identify Them So You Can Lose Weight Fast

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Losing weight and sticking with a diet is all about not giving up. You give up when it gets too challenging – thus the easiest way to diet is by… making it easy on yourself! This can be as simple as making smarter food choices during the day, and substituting one thing for another in ways you’ll hardly even notice.

Lets talk about low carb diet foods and how to incorporate them to melt fat off you immediately.

The number one carbohydrate you need to avoid is sugar. Sugar will send your body into fat storage mode by spiking insulin immediately. That seems simple – stay away from soda, right? Unfortunately even the foods you believe are the healthiest are loaded with sugar.

This is the reason so many people are confused when they diet. Low fat yogurt sounds like a diet staple, right? Would you be surprised to hear that one small low fat yogurt has nearly the amount of super-fattening refined sugar as a can of Pepsi? Check the label.

Read labels, and pick only the items and sauces that have less sugar. Even easier than this is by adjusting what you drink. Fruit juices are loaded with sugar and can be subbed out for teas you can sweeten with Splenda. Obviously, soda should be switched for diet soda.

Even replacing sugary beverages alone will allow you to cut between 200-800 calories per day. Less sugar will also keep your metabolism boosted, allowing you to burn more calories as the day progresses. Green tea will also turbo-charge your metabolism and reduce your appetite.

To Go or Not to Go Herbal, that is the Question…

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Many people nowadays are turning to “organics” and “naturals” otherwise known as herbals. The rising popularity of herbal supplements has created a new fad if not a new health lifestyle. But before you join the bandwagon, here are some things you need to know about this mean, “green” dietary supplementing machine.

What is the difference between a drug and a dietary supplement?

herbal

According to the definition set by food and drug administrations in different countries, drugs are chemicals that can prevent, prolong the life, treat other effects of a health condition, improve the quality of life, and/or cure ailments and diseases, or alter the function of any part or chemicals inside the body. These drugs have approved therapeutic claims.

For example, paracetamol is a drug given to bring down the body temperature in fever. Ascorbic acid is indicated for the treatment of scurvy. Iron supplements are given to treat mild cases of anemia.

Herbal supplements are not classified as drugs but as dietary supplements. The main difference is that they do not have approved therapeutic claims unlike in the case of drugs. Moreover, dietary supplements could either contain vitamins, minerals, herbals, or amino acids, all aimed to add to or supplement the diet of an individual. They are not intended to be taken alone as a substitute to any food or medicine.

Most of the manufactured medicines we now have once came from animals and plants. Through the years, chemists isolated the life-saving or life-curing components and separated them from the harmful ones. This lead to the further drug research and drug development that lead to the production of a different variety of drugs for many ailments and conditions from synthetic sources.

But still we have semi-synthetic drugs, as well as drug that more or less approximate more natural composition. Since herbal supplements are made from a mixture of crude herbs reduced into powder or gel form, and later on packaged as tablets and capsules, there is a possibility that life-threatening or at least body chemistry-altering components are still present, thus the expression of concern from the medical community.

Is there a growing concern with the use of herbal supplements?

Yes. With the rising popularity of using and consuming anything herbal or organic is the proliferation of fake herbal supplements that threaten to endanger lives. If that’s the case, then why are herbal supplements given drug administration approvals? One way of ensuring the safety of the people is to have all candidate drugs, food, drinks, and dietary supplements registered with the proper authority. Otherwise, they would pose more risk with these things being sold in the black market for a hefty sum. We could ensure the quality and safety of herbal supplements if they get proper classification with the food and drug administration. Moreover, people may be able to file the proper complaints in the event a worsening of health condition is proven to be linked to the use of a particular herbal supplement.

Is using herbal supplements worth the risk?

Yes. It cannot be discounted that many who have tried herbal supplements experienced an improvement in their health—whether this is due to the herbals themselves or due to a placebo effect, as long as they do not worsen the condition of an individual, then using them is worth the risk. But of course, certain things must be considered before taking those herbal supplements:

Your doctor knows best.

First of all, clear your condition with your doctor. Ask him/her if taking a particular herbal supplement is safe given your health condition. People with heart, liver, or kidney trouble or malfunction, are usually not advised to take these, or at the minimum is to take these herbals in minimum amounts. All substances pass through the liver and kidney to be processed and filtered respectively. Kava, which is used to relieve people from stress, has been pulled out from the Canadian, Singaporean, and German markets because it contains substances that cause liver damage. Certain herbals such as Ephedra used for losing weight, contains chemicals with heart-inducing effects that can increase heart rate, which in turn can exhaust the heart and cause heart attacks in several documented cases by the American Medical Association.

Follow the directions for use.

Never take more herbal supplements than what is directed by the doctor or as instructed on the bottle. Each individual reacts differently to the components of herbal supplements. While it is perfectly safe for one individual to take in a supplement of primrose oil capsules, another person may be allergic to it. So, do not even think about downing one bottle of

It has no approved curative effect.

No matter how the product pamphlet or the label of the bottle sounds about how it has been found to be helpful in certain health conditions, these herbal supplements are not therapeutic. So do not substitute these for the medications prescribed by your doctor for the treatment of certain diseases, or for the maintenance of blood pressure, lowering of blood sugar and cholesterol, and fight off infections.

Bodyweight Training – Fit to Fight

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I love this saying: “Fit to fight”. I heard this from the #1 man of bodyweight training world records Paddy Doyle. And he has it right, you need to be fit to fight. More and more men and women are taking to bodyweight training as the way to optimal fitness in record time. MMA fighters and athletes all over the world are starting to take notice of the benefits of bodyweight exercises and getting results that push them to the next level.

Using your own bodyweight as resistance is not just a few pushups and sit ups it’s so much more. Bodyweight exercises are so versatile that you never have to do the same workout again. A man that has well over 100 bodyweight and martial arts world records is a man I want to learn from. Using your own bodyweight will make you a better athlete or will burn the fat from your waste line like a spreading wild fire.


The physical fitness aspect of bodyweight training will not only work in the ring or to make you physically fit, it will make you mentally fit that will carry you in life. The more you improve using your bodyweight as resistance the more you will push yourself. You will start to push yourself farther and harder, you will start to feel as if you are unstoppable. Martial artists and other athlete’s will become faster, stronger, more explosive with a ” I’d rather die then give up” attitude. Bodyweight training will get you fit to fight either in the ring or in life.

Bodyweight training will build a physical and mental toughness that you will be proud of. So become fit to fight. A short workout you can try will only take a few minutes so no excuses on time.

Pick 4 bodyweight exercises. For example Burpees, Pushups, Jumping Jacks, Bodyweight squats. Each exercise is to be done for 1 minute with a 1 minute rest in between each exercise. After you go through this 1 time rest for 2 minutes and repeat one more time.

Don’t be fooled by the simplicity you’ll be calling for oxygen soon enough.

Are Low Carb Diets for Everyone?

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When I hear low carb to me it means, “low sugar,” or “less processed foods.” If we’d all make an effort to avoid chips, cookies, cakes, high corn syrup drinks, and candy, then we’d be reducing our overall carbs and eating more healthfully at the same time.

There is also no need to avoid foods that are grown and served as close to their natural state as possible such as fresh fruits and vegetables, nor must you avoid brown rice or even pasta.

carb

It’s not pasta that makes us fat, it’s the creamy sauces and the loaves of bread, desserts, and drinks we have along with our spaghetti. It’s the combination and quantity of food, not just one food or category of nutrients. When I hear someone say they eat bacon non-stop but they refuse to eat a baked potato or fresh peeled orange it makes me want to scream. I’m not a nutrition expert (even the experts can’t agree at this point), but it does not take a genius to know that bacon is not a better choice over an apple. It just makes sense to eat the foods that grow in our soil first and to avoid the processed versions (think apples versus Apple Jack’s cereal).

For a good basic diet overall, eat as much as you like of wholesome, clean foods. Include healthy grains, rice, beans, salads, vegetables, fruits, nuts (in moderation). Use nut and vegetable oils for cooking. Cook at home once in awhile. Stop super sizing. Buy fresh produce when it’s available from your local farmers. Buy as close to home as possible, and walk to the store, if you can! What a concept.

Check the Serving Size on Processed Foods

If you want something pre-packaged read the label. How many servings does the label state? If more than one, multiply the numbers if you know you’ll eat the whole thing, or if you and your spouse will eat it all, then multiply by servings and divide by two. I’ve seen candy bars that say they serve 2.8 people! When’s the last time you split a candy bar?

I teach people to incorporate healthier eating into their lifestyles, not go on food plans dictated by some book or program which say what you can and cannot eat. Even those who can stay on the plan and do lose substantial amounts of weight, eventually eat something “off plan,” which leads to something else and finally to the mental shift, “Well, I’m off that plan. Better eat up!” What did that experience do for that person? Nothing, but probably they’ll end up a bit heavier than when they started.

Far better to learn how to eat within your usual lifestyle and create new habits that you then can live with, so even though Sunday is the big family party and you may (probably will) overeat, it won’t matter because Monday you’ll be back to your usual habits and patterns. That’s how people without a weight problem eat whatever they want — they just usually eat reasonably with the occasional deviation into unhealthy foods and quantities, rather usually eating an unhealthy diet and occasionally dieting like crazy to lose weight before a big event.

If you want a treat, have a treat, and no, it’s not a treat if you eat it every day. That’s a habit.

Start by Cutting Back Only 500 Calories

Get a reasonable idea of how many calories it requires to maintain your weight, i.e. if you are basically sedentary (get little or no movement regularly) then multiply your body weight by 12. Example, 200 X 12 = 2400. That would mean that if you did nothing but sit in a chair all day, you’d still need 2400 calories just to maintain your body weight!

Start by cutting back the calories required to maintain your weight by 500, so our 200 pound fellow would be perfectly fine eating 1900 calories a day. I eat around 2200 calories on average every day (weekends I eat more than weekdays but it averages out to around 2200). I’m active, and I maintain my weight at around 135 pounds which on my 5’7″ frame is fine for me.

No matter where you begin, start by cutting back by just 500 calories, instead of trying so valiantly to stick to 1200 calorie eating plans that aren’t suitable for a 10-year old child. Remember, your activity increases your calorie requirements, so if you do get out of bed, you’ll likely need more calories than your base. Whether you prefer low carb, low fat, low calorie or any combination thereof, just start to reduce what you’re eating now, make substitutions where possible and create a healthier diet that fits, then add more daily exercise and you’ll reach your goal in no time. Stand up in your chair, sit down. Stand up, sit down. That’s exercise. It can be that simple.

So yes, the low carb approach can be right for everyone. We can all adopt the low carb approach when it means eating less processed foods and adding more fresh fruits and vegetables.

Beating Panic Attacks Permanently

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Suffering from panic attacks can be one of the most frightening things of all, struggling to breathe and feeling your chest tightening and your legs trembling. Your heart is pounding and you’re gasping for air, you may well feel that you are suffering a heart attack when all this begins to happen to you, and that your time on this mortal coil is at an end.

The most likely answer is that you are suffering from a panic or anxiety attack, and you need to learn how to naturally stop and prevent these attacks so that you won’t have to go through the same thing again.

panic attacks

The first time you suffer an attack, you will probably find yourself in a confused and shocked state afterwards. It is natural to question why this is happening to you and what it is, and how could your body be reacting in this way. The fear of another attack is also a natural response, and the more anxious you are of this, the more likely another attack is to happen. If you have suffered from a number of attacks, you are likely so distressed that it will affect your daily life and stop you from operating normally.

However severe your attacks, and no matter how many you have suffered, these aren’t a disease and they can be prevented.

If you have had a number of attacks you will probably understand and have tried many things which haven’t worked. Medicines, calming breathing exercises, thinking positive thoughts and distraction methods aren’t effective in combating these attacks and stopping them from happening. The reason they don’t work is that they aren’t dealing with the problem, but are trying to switch the focus of the problem and trying to help you deal with what is happening, rather than preventing it from happening.

There is however a natural solution to help you prevent panic attacks from occurring.

It is a unique solution which has brought relief to over 54,000 people around the world and helped them to end their problem with panic and anxiety attacks. As the principle of this treatment deals with the source of the disorder, it is not only effective, but can promise the results required. Due to the years of study and a basis in advanced psychology, it can promise to make a real difference with permanent results that will cure the problem forever.

Bodyweight Training Exercises for Strength and Stamina

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Are you worried about your body’s shape? Do you want to improve your stamina and be fit? Then start the bodyweight training exercises and see the change. Fitness experts say that exercise is very good for health and that is the best way to keep your body in shape. Along with a fitness training plan you would need a healthy diet to support your body with nutrients.

Otherwise your body would become weak and you will lose your strength. Stamina is very important and it can be improved only with the help of bodyweight training. One thing you should keep in mind is that bodyweight training doesn’t suit everybody and you need to check your weight from time to time. If there are drastic changes in your weight then you should immediately stop them and look at other alternatives to improve your strength.

bodyweight training

Bodyweight training can be quite rigorous and women cannot support such exercises. Men who want to have a chiseled body and who wish to acquire the macho looks only should take up bodyweight training exercises. You can spend very little time and practice intense sessions if you want to finish it up quickly.

Such exercises will not only improve your strength but also increase body flexibility. People who want to burn their fat fast and shed extra pounds can take up these exercises and they will see a change very quickly. Many of the weight programs do not concentrate on the back and that is the reason why the waist line increases and women accumulate fat. The bodyweight training exercises will reduce the waist line and get rid of the girdles.

The advantage of these bodyweight training exercises is that you can practice them indoors and you wouldn’t need any gym equipment. It is a common notion among people that gym is the only thing that reduces weight and increases stamina. That is completely wrong and exercise is a very good way of losing weight and building your body.

A complete body workout for about 30 minutes or less than that is beneficial and you can speed up your exercise process. Planning the bodyweight training exercises is quite important and it will help you in maintaining a routine. Initially you would have to do a few warm-up exercises and then practice rigorously.

Leg raises, jumping jacks, push-ups and pull-ups should be the initial exercises you would do. Everyday 10 leg raises, 10 jumping jacks and 10 leg raises can be done and slowly the number should be increased. Intense bodyweight training exercises would require 50 to 60 of each of the exercises and they should be juggled.

Never exercise in the same way and keep juggling in between. That will ensure that the routine doesn’t get boring for you. Bodyweight training is the best way to sculpt your body and within no time you would be flaunting a chiseled body.

A healthy diet should always be followed while you are practicing the bodyweight training exercises. People generally do not eat well and go behind crash diets that just fill the stomach. All these might seem to be good in the first days of your training and as the intensity of the exercises progresses, your body will grow to be weak and it will not support you.

Sickness follows and you might even be bed ridden due to severe weakness. Eat healthy food that is rich in proteins and carbohydrates and always keep your body hydrated. This kind of a planned bodyweight training exercise will always keep you fit and maintain your stamina.

Low Carbs Diet Guide

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So there has been a lot of talk about low carb diets and how remarkable they are. In this article we’ll get down to business on exactly what low carbs diets means so you’ll have a enhanced grasp on the how and why.

Let’s get this out of the way first: It’s not NO carbs, but it’s LOW carbs. You body is fueled by what you eat, and your body can’t operate properly without carbs. It is a essential energy source that supports all bodily systems, specially your muscles and brain.

carbs
What we don’t need is the quantity of carbs the average person consumes and particularly the types of carbs that are thrown in front of your face on every corner, magazine page and menu.

Let’s get down to the fundamentals which is being healthy, right? What better way to be healthy than to eat foods in their whole unprocessed state right? The closer the food can stay to it’s natural state, the better. Eating foods in this state will give you the most fiber and nutrients possible.

So you want a simple way to create a low carbs diet? Following these tips will really help out:

  1. Go for fruits! – These are sweets in their most natural form.
  2. Green means go! – Green vegetables are plentiful with chlorophyll and nutrients
  3. Say NO to refined sugars! – Watch out for hidden sugars in breads, lunch meats, dressing, soda, candy and cookies.
  4. Legume you say? – It’s not as strange as it sounds. These are foods rich in fiber like beans, peas and peanuts.
  5. Whole gains only! – When eating carbs, stick to products that contain only 100% whole non-refined grains. These have a much better stabilizing effect on your blood sugar.
  6. What’s all this talk about soy? — The miraculous bean has been used to substitute just about every food know to man. It’s a super food high in fiber and has also been known to diminish your risk of certain cancers and heart disease.

Here is a simple rule of thumb to go along with those quick tips: Permit yourself 5 servings of complex carbohydrates a day. A single piece of toast, serving of oatmeal, crackers, rice or a small potato.

I know everyone has different serving sizes, but for simplicity, half the size of your fist or it’s about a ¼ cup uncooked, ½ cup cooked. For a real thrust in slimming down, make your last serving no later than 6pm when your body is slowing down and has not a lot demand for these calorie dense foods.

Now let’s talk about a bit of the technical information on why so many have been so successful with a low carbs diet. First off most calorie dense foods come in the form of simple sugars and refined wheat products. When, not if, you get rid of these types of food from your diet, you will be cutting out a ton of calories. This also includes regular sodas and coffee drinks with added flavorings.

The first two weeks of a restricted carb diet, you body starts to break down glucose from your muscles and liver. The make up of glucose is a substantial amount of water, which is why you frequently hear the term “water weight.” For this reason during the first two weeks or so, many people can see impressive results which regrettably will taper off. This weight loss is predominantly water, but weight none the less.

If you keep up a diet with less than fifty grams of carbohydrates a day for more than fourteen days, that is when your body will start burning fat for energy! The name of this is called ketosis. A derivative of the breakdown of fat is called a ketone which is released in the blood stream and filtered through the kidney. Because of this increase in ketones in the blood, it is essential to drink more than the recommended eight cups of water a day while on this type of diet.

How Natural Medicine Can Help You

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When you get sick, you go to the doctor. And the doctor will, of course, prescribe medicines. You will go and buy medicines. You take them, and hopefully, you get well. This is how the health profession goes on nowadays – a cycle of diagnosis and prescription.

If anyone were to give you herbs for medicine, you would probably say that that person was a quack. But nowadays, studies are being conducted to see if there are really is any merit to what is called natural medicine.

medicine

Natural medicine is the use of natural methods, herbal medicines, and traditional practices to heal ailments. Every culture has a form of natural medicine. In ancient cultures, village medicine men served as the doctors of the community, passing on medical knowledge to the apprentices that followed them.

Many categories of the healing methods fall under natural medicine. Among these are traditional medicine, complementary medicine, and alternative medicine.

Usually, natural medicine refers to medical practices that were in place before the advent of modern medicine.

This includes herbal medicine, or phytotherapy, which is prevalent in Chinese, Ayurvedic(or Indian), and Greek medicine.

Upon the advent of modern medicine, many professionals discarded the use of herbs in favor of man-made medicine. The fact that these treatments are based on the healing properties of some herbs was forgotten.

For example, opium, digitalis, quinine, and aspirin all have their roots in traditional medicine.

Natural medicine can be considered as a lost art. This does not mean that it has lost efficacy over time. In some cases, natural therapy is actually better than modern medicine. This leads some doctors to seriously consider and study the possible uses of natural medicine

Before we continue, it is important to stress that not all the natural remedies are legitimate. It would help to only try those remedies which have been thoroughly studied and are relatively risk free.

Take herbal medicine for example. There are many well-documented and studied herbal remedies available. However, only those that deal with minor ailments such as cough, colds, fever, skin rashes, and its ilk are likely to be recommended by health professionals. These remedies are sometimes superior to synthetic medicine. This is because herbal medicines are less likely to cause negative side effects.

Currently there are numerous organizations that study the effects and advocacy of natural medicine – among which is herbal medicine. Some governments and health agencies openly advocate the use of natural methods since they are inexpensive and relatively risk-free.

As their studies compile, more herbs and treatments are added to the list of accepted medicines. However, many herbs and treatments have been proven to be bogus medicine. This represents a challenge for both the user and the agencies because they have to ascertain that the treatments they either use or advocate are legitimate.

There exist today many alternative medical treatments that fall under natural medicine. However, not all of them have been proven to be effective. You could mention homeopathy, aromatherapy, acupuncture, and other alternative medical treatments. It would pay to consult the experts as to the legitimacy of these treatments.

Natural medicine should also be thought of as an accompanying medicine. Right now, the current collective medical thought suggests that natural medicine be used only to supplement accepted modern medical practices. In that case of minor ailments your expert we actually advise you to take natural therapies instead.

The practice of modern medicine revolves around diagnosing an illness and prescribing treatments for such. Natural medicine is helpful because it suggests that treatment be not necessarily given only when sick. Natural medicine strives to make each patient practice good health habits. These habits include good diet, healthy living, and the regular natural treatment.

It is this same line of thought that leads our parents to tell us to eat our vegetables. Yes, a healthy lifestyle and will do no harm to our well-being. And this is the foundation of natural medicine – may it be massage, herbal medicine, aromatherapy or others.

It is funny but true that science, in its quest for excellence, is studying the knowledge of sages past. This, surprisingly, leads us back to the remedies nature offers. The possibilities of finding remedies to everyday illnesses in natural medicine are encouraging. So staying tuned to studying these remedies is worthwhile until we can verify that these therapies are truly helpful to our health and our society.

The Benefits Of Bodyweight Training

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It’s been close to 10 years since I stopped training at a gym and have been training at home. I train with bodyweight exercises and some isometric exercises. If there is one thing I’ve learned it’s that bodyweight training can work wonders if you’re willing to be motivated enough to stick to it.

I started with a bodyweight workout routine earlier on as a desperate measure to make my workouts more efficient and it quickly became an eye-opener about the vast benefits of bodyweight training.

bodyweight

The Benefits are as follows:

Very little equipment

If you use your imagination, you can do these exercises without special equipment. All you need is some space and motivation. So bid farewell to time lost travelling to the gym. Get on floor and do push-up, hang from the door way and do pull-ups and squat with your bodyweight. As you get stronger, make these exercises more challenging by adding the single limb variations – e.g. Single arm push-ups, Single arm pull-ups and Pistol Squats.

The Gym is never shut

When you use bodyweight exercises, you are your own gym. You can workout anytime, anywhere.

Keeps you honest

When you training with weights, your bodyweight increases creating the illusion that you are lifting more. In case of a tie in powerlifting, the lighter athlete is selected as the winner. With bodyweight training, this isn’t so, if you get fatter, you will find you bodyweight movements getting worse.

Builds strength and develops joint health

When properly done, the bodyweight training system can develop incredible strength and stamina, often together. The fact that it doesn’t use unnatural loads to develop strength means your joints, ligaments and tendons grow strong too. Unlike in the bodybuilding style of training where the muscle bellies grow far stronger than the supporting tendons thus leaving you vulnerable to injuries.

Bodyweight exercises are natural

This is the most important factor supporting bodyweight exercises. These movements come to us naturally. Unlike bench presses and bicep curls which aren’t the way our bodies were designed to function. Our bodies have evolved over millions of years to be able to move itself, first and foremost; they weren’t really “designed” to lift progressively heavier external loads regularly.

Bodyweight exercises are basic to human nature. The body is designed to move and needs to do so more efficiently. Unlike training with equipment in a gym where it’s just the limbs moving, usually, bodyweight exercises are designed to utilize the entire body as resistance and forces the entire body to participate in the exercise.

The core goal of any fitness training routine should be the improvement of your own physical (joint) mobility and movement. Very few bodybuilding exercises like the squats and deadlifts can give this benefit. However, these movements do place a lot of stress on the joints and spinal column.

There are other reasons that I could mention and they’d make absolute sense to start with hardcore bodyweight exercises. But nothing, at least for me, trumps the fact that it is an incredible time and money saver. You don’t have to pay expensive gyms to workout, no time wasted travelling to the gym and no time wasted waiting for the equipment to be vacated. Nothing trumps bodyweight training when it comes to tackling these issues.

Are You Fooling or Fueling Your Body?

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Year in and year out, people promise themselves that this is the year they will start exercising and losing weight. However, that journey is much more complex that many people think. Losing weight and taking care of your health also includes nutrition.

If you go to the gym and do cardio, lift weights or even group exercise classes you will not see a change in your overall physique if you don’t provide your body with the necessary fuel to make that change happen. The marriage between nutrition and exercise could make the difference in making this year the year that your life changes.

fuel

During Anaerobic exercise (resistance training) your body uses up muscle glycogen (a carbohydrate) in order to find energy sources of ATP (adenosine triphosphate). In high intensity exercises the body’s glycogen can be depleted quite quickly due to the small amount found in the muscle. Due to this decline, blood sugars drop leaving you at risk of a poor workout and it can even influence your next one. Therefore, post workout, your body needs to replenish these glycogen stores in order to prepare your body for your next workout.

Think about what are you eating now? Do you know if you are supporting a change in your physique or hindering it by neglecting to add the right things into your diet? Are you incorporating healthy fats, carbohydrates and lean protein in your diet? Your body needs macronutrients to provide it with calories and energy for functioning. Macronutrients are classified as carbohydrates, fats, and protein. All of these macronutrients are essential and provide you with various amounts of energy in calories.

Carbohydrates provide the body with 4 calories per gram, Protein 4 calories per gram, fats 9 calories per gram and ethanol-in alcoholic beverage form-delivers 7 calories per gram. Adding the right macronutrients into your body-along with a smart exercise/training program-can help you lose FAT weight and hold onto or even gain lean muscle.

However, neglecting to add these macronutrients in the right amounts-or NOT engaging in an exercise training program-could lead to fat loss and muscle loss, which is a less than desirable result.

Many of you know the importance of eating macronutrient rich foods to support your exercise but what about supplemental forms of them? Food should always be your first resort however there are certain situations when supplements can benefit your workout and maximize your results more efficiently.

Protein shakes are a common supplement used at the gym post workout. One of the main reasons for having a protein shake at the end of your workout is to replenish the body and support the rebuilding of muscles that have been broken down during resistance/weight or endurance training.

Another reason to have protein in the form of a shake after a workout is because it is a lot faster to make and consume than eating a meal (unless maybe you have a meal already prepared and can quickly swallow large chunks of food!). However, protein drinks should not be the only element of your post-workout drink.

When your body becomes efficient at creating and using energy for fuel, you begin to burn fat as well for energy. You do not exhaust all of your muscle fat during exercise and therefore you do not need to replace fat after a workout, especially if you are doing resistance training or short duration (less than several hours) endurance training or racing. However, it is important to maintain a diet with a modest amount of healthy fats.

Another great supplement that can be incorporated into your workout is a patented, sugar-free carbohydrate called Vitargo. Vitargo is a research based “supercarb”-an extract of starch-which has been studied in prestigious university laboratories. The subjects who took the Vitargo increased their work output by up to 23% just 2 hours after completing exhaustive exercise, compared to when they took a maltodextrin and sugars drink, or calorie-free placebo.

Vitargo also doesn’t cause the common bloating that occurs after ingesting other carbohydrates because it has been shown to move through the stomach and into the intestines 2.3x faster than a combo of maltodextrin and sugars (over 90% maltodextrin).That means you will get the necessary fuel you need for your muscles without experiencing that “heaviness”, when taken pre-, during (“intra-“), or post-workout. Vitargo also has been researched to show that it replenishes glycogen stores 1.7 times faster than a maltodextrin plus sugars combo-again 2 hours after exhaustive exercise.

Glycogen is the body’s way of storing carbohydrates, like plants and grains store starch. It does this in muscles, and the liver and brain. This means you will be able to provide your body with the necessary fuel/energy replenishments needed for your next workout. In addition to all of these bonuses, Vitargo also increases the rate of blood sugar rise 2 times quicker compared to Maltodextrin and sugars.

So, what does all this mean? In order to get maximum results from your workout you need to be eating adequate amounts of macronutrients like carbohydrates, fats, and proteins every 3-4 hours in order to provide your body with the necessary energy and rebuilding components. You also, however, need to make sure that you are also giving your body the right supplements pre and post workout.

Because of the unique nature of Vitargo, you can drink it pre-workout to provide your muscles and your brain with the necessary fuel you need to make it through an intense workout. You can also mix it with your protein powder post workout to replenish your glycogen stores, support muscle repair, and promote faster recovery before the next time you dive into an intense workout.

Providing your body with the necessary fuel pre and post workout, can not only bring yourself one step closer to your fitness goals but also fuel your workouts, not “fool” them! Next time I’ll write about why many find it hard to train/work out while on a low carb or “keto” diet and how to use pulsed fueling tactics to have better workouts… and better results!