Processed foods lead to weight gain, but it's about more than calories

Nutrition • 6th Jul, 22 • Comment

 

There are plenty of studies in mice linking processed foods to problems such as obesity and intestinal inflammation.

But mice are not people, as critics of such studies are quick to point out.

In humans, researchers have reported associations between processed foods and health outcomes, such as an increased risk of developing obesity, cancer, autoimmune conditions, and even death.

Yet, ultra-processed foods make up a staggering 57.9% of energy intake in the United States.

According to the NOVA food classification system, ultra-processed foods include soft drinks, packaged snacks, meat nuggets,…

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Gym Workouts for Beginners

Workout Plans • 4th Apr, 22 • Comment

 

Everyone has different reasons for joining a gym. And lots of people are worried about using the equipment if they’ve never worked out in a gym before. These beginner gym workouts are ideal for various goals, whether you want to lose some weight or burn fat, build muscle and strength or improve your fitness.

And don’t forget, your gym membership will include an induction with an expert personal trainer, so make the most of this time with…

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10 commandments for improving your qualify of life, courtesy of strangers

Lifestyle • 3rd Apr, 22 • Comment

 

BY TANNER GARRITY

A user with the account name u/ChrisVIII posed a fascinating prompt in the r/AskReddit subreddit over the weekend. He wrote: “What improved your quality of life so much, you wish you did it sooner?”

Reddit — for those who’ve never really taken the plunge — has a bit more self-awareness (and self-moderation) than social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram. Commenters tend to be more honest, factual and thorough than most others…

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Picks: 12 Go-To Fitness and Exercise Apps

Motivation • 3rd Apr, 22 • Comment

 

The benefits of fitness go on and on, but you need consistency and discipline to stick with a routine long enough to reap those benefits. That’s where technology can help.

The right app can act as a virtual personal trainer or training partner to keep you motivated and accountable.

Healthline looked high and low for the best fitness apps to help you out, and we chose the year’s winners for their quality, user reviews, and overall reliability.

Keep…

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Active Living

Health • 3rd Apr, 22 • Comment

 

The key to a successful fitness program

We like to call it “lifestyle adaptation”. Your fitness habits should become a part of your daily routine. Take the stairs when you can. Add walks to your day. Make small life changes as you work towards your goal. Change habits.

Your nutritional and exercise choices should not be that thing you do when you have time. It's who you are. You make healthy decisions because, well, they are healthy and make…

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Setting a Goal

Motivation • 3rd Apr, 22 • Comment

 

Two things are certain:

If you don’t know where you are going, you can’t get there.

If you don’t start, you can’t get there, either.

This is where many fitness plans struggle. Many start (and good on ‘ya, that’s huge), but they don’t know where they are going.  They are uncertain about how to train or how to eat, and they are often left frustrated. Some have a great plan and never start. 

Goals are good. 

Small steps will help.

Your…

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Eat with Purpose

Nutrition • 3rd Apr, 22 • Comment

 

Eat to live. Food is the fuel for everything you do. Nutrition not only effects physical function, but plays a role in emotional function as well. Some foods offer high nutritional value, while others offer nothing but empty Calories. 

Whatever your fitness goal, you have to eat accordingly. Purposeful dieting is taking control of what you put in your body and making nutrition work for you, instead of the other way around. Athletes seeking to gain mass eat one…

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Training for Loss

Training • 3rd Apr, 22 • Comment

 

Training a muscle is training a muscle. You can maintain and keep the muscle that you have, increase muscle mass, or lose it. Muscle responds to stimuli, whether you are maintaining or gaining.

The concept of “toning” isn’t really a thing ...well, kind of, but not really.

Toning is a blend of concepts: maintaining or adding muscle mass while decreasing body fat to reveal that muscle. 

Exercise while adapting nutrition to lose weight, is the difference between losing weight (muscle,…

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Train with Purpose

Training • 3rd Apr, 22 • Comment

 

Training without direction will most likely result in frustration when you start hitting the gym. Even for workout veterans, if you try to make a change or addition to your workout routine, you have to be clear on the results you expect for your hard work. Muscle growth requires muscle specificity, overload and recovery. A weight loss plan requires a combination of dietary restrictions and physical activity to decrease body fat, while maintaining muscle.

You've got…

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7 Benefits of Regular Physical Activity

Wellness • 12th Mar, 22 • Comment

 

Exercise: 7 benefits of regular physical activity

You know exercise is good for you, but do you know how good? From boosting your mood to improving your sex life, find out how exercise can improve your life.

Retrieved from The Mayo Clinic

Want to feel better, have more energy and perhaps even live longer? Look no further than exercise. The health benefits of regular exercise and physical activity are hard to ignore. And the benefits of exercise are…

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The Skinny on Fat

Nutrition • 23rd Feb, 22 • Comment

 

Let's jump right in:

You can limit your diet to only foods that are high in fat and not gain body fat (or you could even lose body fat). You can remove fat from your diet all together and still increase body fat. 

Don't do either of these; it just isn't healthy. The statement above is meant to shed some light on the direct role of fat in diet.

Fats, more specifically good fats, play a necessary role in a healthy diet. Fat…

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Training to Failure: Necessary for big results?

Training • 13th Feb, 22 • Comment

 

Training to failure: attempting to lift a certain weight a certain number of targeted repetitions, so that the last rep isn't possible. It is a widely debated topic. 

The support for it: 

Training to failure has worked for a lot of people. We cannot dismiss proof of concept. Muscle reacts to fatigue and there is no question that pushing a muscle to fail results in fatigue. Without overload, muscle will not grow.

The science behind it:

Recent research compared groups…

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New Evidence on Heart Health in Endurance Athletes

Health • 4th Jan, 22 • Comment

 

article by Alex Hutchinson at Outside Magazine

About a decade ago, a series of studies emerged with the counterintuitive message that modest amounts of exercise might actually be bad rather than good for your heart. The newspaper headlines—“One Running Shoe in the Grave,”—were almost gleeful. The evidence, on the other hand, was weak.

That debate has mostly faded out of the headlines, but the questions haven’t been completely dismissed. Some of the initial fearmongering about the dangers of, say, training…

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Training Your Mind

Lifestyle • 4th Jan, 22 • Comment

 

Don't begin your health and fitness journey because you want to like yourself more. Begin the journey because you like yourself enough.

Your emotional well-being is the most important fitness factor. We get healthy and fit because we want to be a better us.  Will confidence increase when you drop a size or two? Of course it will, because your hard work will show. You are pretty awesome.  Keep being awesome.

That being said, the emotional benefits of exercise are pretty…

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Life After Pregnancy: Getting Motivated

Wellness • 3rd Jun, 21 • Comment

 

By Danielle Underwood

I recently gave birth to a beautiful, 8 lb 1 oz baby boy. This was my first pregnancy so needless to say, everything that has and is happening to my body is completely new territory for me. While being novice to the whole motherhood thing I had kind of an interesting experience to say the least. I had my son via Cesarean (which spoiler alert – wasn’t planned – at all!). I was…

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How Exercise Can Help Us Sleep Better

Wellness • 4th Feb, 21 • Comment

 

As a clinical psychologist and sleep researcher at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, Kelly Glazer Baron frequently heard complaints from aggrieved patients about exercise. They would work out, they told her, sometimes to the point of exhaustion, but they would not sleep better that night.

Dr. Baron was surprised and perplexed. A fan of exercise for treating sleep problems, but also a scientist, she decided to examine more closely the day-to-day relationship…

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