Health & Fitness

Regular exercise is an important habit to develop a healthy body and build a healthy mind. It helps reduce the risk of chronic diseases and can improve the benefit of therapy for people with depression or anxiety. It also benefits people of all ages. For children, it can improve their cognitive abilities and their focus. It can also help manage pain from arthritis and other conditions. For seniors, besides improving health and aiding in accident prevention, it can help maintain cognitive functioning.

You’ll look and feel better when you exercise.

People workout for many reasons. Some start exercising to lose weight. Others want to tone their muscles. Exercising regularly does both. Weight loss helps with other physical problems. Exercise without weight loss can improve posture. When you combine it with weight loss that reduces belly fat, it can improve posture by changing the center of gravity and reducing back pain. Improved posture also relieves breathing problems and acid reflux. You’ll look and feel better when you workout regularly.

You’ll look younger when you stay fit and exercise regularly.

Exercise helps keep you younger at a cellular level. It lengthens the telomeres that protect the DNA. Telomeres act much like aglets on the end of shoelaces that prevent the lace from unraveling. They prevent damage to the DNA. As DNA is damaged or corrupted, aging and disease occur. Exercise also boosts the production of stem cells that adults manufacture. They can replace any damaged cell in the body and function like the original cells. If you’re menopausal, exercise can relieve symptoms of menopause.

Exercise improves your microbiome.

Your microbiome is the collection of the trillions of microbes in your body. Some are beneficial and some aren’t. Beneficial microbes aid digestion, improve mental health, and may even play a role in reducing weight gain. Studies show that people with a more diverse gut microbiome are less likely to be overweight. Exercise also improves digestion by aiding the movement of food through the digestion process.

• Children often fail to get adequate exercise. Their play is passive in front of a screen. Exercise helps them grow stronger bones, healthier hearts and lungs, develop improved concentration, and reduce the risk of chronic disease.
• You’ll improve your body composition with more muscle mass. More muscle mass can prevent osteopenia, the natural wasting of muscles. Osteopenia can lead to osteoporosis, the thinning of bones.
• The more muscle mass seniors have, the less risk they face of falls and life-altering injuries. Exercise also helps maintain aerobic fitness. The more aerobically fit you are, the less exhausted you become doing daily tasks.
• It also can significantly reduce the risk of diabetes. It can lower blood pressure. If you lose weight when you exercise, it also helps lower blood pressure. Studies show that losing 2.2 pounds can lower blood pressure by one millimeter of mercury.

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You’ll find many fat-burning detox soups if you google detox or weight loss soup. These options are popular for weight loss because they work. Before you get too excited, they only work in the short run and aren’t sustainable for long. Even though these detox soups may not be the solution for long-term weight loss, there is a place for them in your diet. Studies show that people who eat soup regularly often weigh less.

One of the best-known detox soups is cabbage soup.

The cabbage soup diet is a seven-day plan for jump-starting a long-term weight loss program. You consume the soup daily and include other authorized foods. You can eat unlimited soup and fruit except bananas on the first day. On the second day, eat leafy greens and even a baked potato. You can’t have potatoes on the third day but can have any other fruit or vegetable. More food choices in limited amounts continue until the diet ends. The soup is relatively nutritious, although many variations may not be. It contains onions, green pepper, tomatoes, celery, cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, bouillon cubes, and water.

The vegetable bean detox soup also contains healthy ingredients.

The list of ingredients for Dr. Greger’s Champion vegetable bean detox soup is more extensive. It contains onions, celery, salt-free vegetable broth, mushrooms, bell peppers, chili peppers, garlic, tomato paste, chili powder, turmeric, diced tomatoes, pinto beans, corn, and smoked paprika. In this version of the bean detox soup, you eat two bowls daily and all the unprocessed fruits and vegetables you want. The soup combined with the fruits and vegetables fills you, contains fibers and nutrients, and doesn’t add many calories. This soup diet is more sustainable than many detox soups.

Another short-term diet that’s not sustainable is the Sacred Heart soup diet.

Promoters say the Sacred Heart Medical Center developed the diet to prepare obese patients for surgery. There are no records of any Sacred Heart Medical Center using it. You may shed quite a few pounds when you follow it for a week, but that weight often returns. It may have other benefits similar to fasting. While the recipes vary, most contain chicken or beef broth, Beef or chicken broth, stewed tomatoes, carrots, green beans, green onions, celery, and green bell peppers. The rest of the diet is similar to the cabbage diet.

• Eating soup may help you lose weight. Soup takes longer to eat. That gives your stomach a chance to signal to the brain that it’s full. Soup also tends to have more water and fewer calories than solid food.
• One reason soup may help detox the body is it usually doesn’t contain offenders like sugar, artificial sweeteners, or highly processed white flour. Broth options don’t contain substances some people don’t tolerate well, like lactose or gluten.
• The extra fluid you intake when you consume detox soup with a meal can help flush out toxins. Adding spices like turmeric, which are anti-inflammatory, can also protect your body.
• Make soup ahead and freeze them. Detox soups aren’t creamy or contain potatoes, so they should freeze well. After a while, you’ll have enough to create variety and can enjoy including healthy detox soup every night.

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No matter how fit you are, you should always warm up before you workout and cool down at the end. Warm-up and cool-down sessions should last about five minutes, so it doesn’t extend your workout by much. They both play a vital role in protecting your body from injury and boosting recovery. When you warm up you increase circulation and as the name implies, warming the muscles. Cooling down helps prevent blood from pooling in extremities.

Get your muscles ready for increased effort.

If you’ve been laying around all day and then got up and immediately started running at top speed, it could overstress your heart. Instead, gradually increasing your speed and effort slowly increases your heart rate and breathing, taxing the heart far less. A warm-up warms the muscles and slowly increases your heart rate. Warming the muscles before doing strenuous tasks helps prevent injury and increases productivity. You’ll get better results and prevent a sudden rise in blood pressure.

Warm-up exercises increase coordination.

You’ll be more agile and have more muscle control when you warm up before a workout. Warming up also improves reaction time. The increased circulation helps prevent the build-up of lactic acid in the muscles by increasing circulation slowly. It builds if there’s a sudden demand for oxygen. That can happen if you transition from sedentary to intense activity. The build-up causes the blood to be acidic and increases the body’s pH, making it harder to maximize your efforts during your exercise session. That can cause you to tire quickly and quit too soon.

Cooling-down plays a vital role as well.

If you suddenly stop after an intense workout, blood can pool in your extremities. That can cause you to get lightheaded and even faint. When you gradually decrease your intensity and cool down, your heart rate, blood pressure, and temperature return to normal slowly. Stretching can also help reduce any lactic acid build-up and speed recovery. Your muscles are warmed, so they’re more flexible, making it a good time to stretch and improve your range of motion. Improved range of motion can help prevent future injuries when working out.

• Warm-up exercises should mimic the activity you’re doing. If you’re running, walking around is sufficient. Cool-down exercises should use static stretching to take advantage of the warmed muscles and flexibility.
• Warming up before a workout helps improve your focus. It gives you time to get your head into your workout before the movements get intense. It’s as important mentally as it is physically.
• Cooling down is also a transition time. It allows you to review your workout and mentally note any changes you might make or areas where you need extra work.
• Cooling down can prevent DOMS—delayed onset muscle soreness. It can be extremely uncomfortable. You don’t have to stretch. You can use other mild exercises like cycling to help reduce the potential for soreness and DOMS.

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You might think eating something before working out is counterproductive if you want to lose weight, but it’s not. The food you eat can give you more energy and improve your workout. Many people in Louisiana realize they hit the wall mid-workout if they don’t fuel up and know the benefits a meal or snack can provide. There are many benefits if you time your meal or snack properly and eat the right food.

What should pre-workout food be, and when should you eat it?

Your pre-workout snack should be a combination of carbs and protein. You should avoid high-fiber and high-fat food. The ratio should be approximately 60% carbs. If you’re eating a snack, it should be about a half hour before working out and contain approximately 100 to 200 calories. It can be as simple as apple slices with peanut butter. Besides giving you the energy to maximize your workout right through the end, a pre-workout snack also helps jumpstart the recovery process.

Put fruit in the blender with milk, protein powder, or both.

Make a smoothie. It’s easy to toss fruit into the blender, add a liquid source of protein, and blend away. You can even get several bags of frozen fruit and divide them up into plastic bags containing one serving. Just put in your liquid and protein if it’s not liquid, toss in the fruit in one individual serving and blend until smooth. It takes about a minute. The natural sugars give you the energy you need and the fiber keeps your blood sugar level.

If you eat a full meal it should be two to three hours before exercising.

A pre-workout meal should be well-balanced but not contain a lot of fat. If it’s higher in fiber, eat closer to three hours before working out. Include a protein source like chicken breast or make a chicken salad sandwich served on whole wheat toast and topped with a tomato and mixed greens. Add a side of fresh fruit. Make it juicy to boost your hydration. Watermelon, grapes, and oranges provide both liquid and potassium. Include a side of baked or roasted sweet potatoes for the perfect pre-workout meal.

• An easy-to-transport snack is a stuffed date. Slice a pitted date down the middle on one side and stuff it with cream cheese, peanut butter, or other nut butter. Put a few berries on top for a bit of freshness.
• Overnight oats are a quick solution if your workout day is crowded. Add nuts, fresh fruit, or seeds on top. Use a small amount of honey if you need more sweetness.
• A large lettuce leaf makes the perfect container for a chicken salad. Make it with a small amount of chicken, celery, onion, and seasoned yogurt for flavoring. Roll the leaf around the salad and eat.
• Leftovers make good pre-workout snacks or meals. Salmon and sweet potatoes with a small side salad is an excellent meal. Dip leftover fresh veggies in a yogurt or hummus dip for a satisfying snack.

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For centuries, doctors noted the beneficial effects of fasting to control epileptic seizures but realized fasting isn’t sustainable. In the 1920s, they found using an extremely low-carbohydrate diet accomplished the same thing. Cutting back on carbohydrates forced the body to switch metabolism from burning sugar to burning fat. The body converts fat to ketones and burns them. That was the birth of the Keto diet that eventually morphed into a weight loss diet. It works, but as with any diet, it has pros and cons.

It’s more than just a low-carbohydrate diet.

Low-carb diets can vary dramatically. It’s all about the source of calories. In traditional diets, between 45% and 65% of the calories come from carbohydrates Low-carb diets like the Atkins diet get 25% to 40% of the calories from carbs. With the keto diet, 5% of calories come from carbohydrates, 20% from protein, and 75% from fat. If your caloric intake were 2000 calories, you’d only be able to eat 100 calories from carbohydrates. Since one gram of carbohydrates is approximately 4 calories, you could eat 25 grams of carbs. That’s a half cup of cooked asparagus and 5 grapes at 5 grams each, and 1/3 a cup of rice at 15 grams. The rest of the calories come from protein and fat.

The good news is that you’ll feel fuller longer.

The high protein and fat content of the keto diet keeps you feeling full longer. By switching from burning glucose to burning fat, it reduces insulin levels. That helps reduce insulin resistance and lower inflammation from high insulin levels. Keto diets burn more fat and that fat tends to come from the abdomen. It’s visceral fat, the most dangerous type of body fat. It can improve your blood cholesterol profile, help control diabetes, and may lower blood pressure.

There are drawbacks to using the keto diet, too.

The first thing most people notice when they use the keto diet is the keto flu.

There are negatives to the keto diet. It can cause dizziness, fatigue, nausea, headaches, and constipation. It comes from the adjustments made by the body when switching from glucose to ketones. A keto diet can be hard on the kidneys and interfere with your microbiome. It’s the sudden limit of fiber that creates that problem. The keto diet can lead to nutritional deficiencies. It can also cause blood pressure to drop too low. Using a keto diet may affect bone health.

• Even though a keto diet may lower blood pressure, there’s also a danger that it increases the risk of chronic conditions like heart disease or cancer.
• Since fruits and vegetables are carbohydrates, the keto diet limits the amount of healthy foods. It’s one reason why it can cause nutritional deficiencies.
• While the keto diet gets most of the calories from fat, people often focus on the bacon you can eat and forget about the healthy fat of avocados and nuts.
• There are both positives and negatives to the keto diet. If you choose to use the keto diet or any other diet, always check with your healthcare professional first, especially if you have health issues.

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