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Fitness Workout Basics - What Every Weight Loss And Cardio Program Should Include


It is important to know how to make your workout as productive as possible. When working out, you want to be able to spend the least amount of time and get the best results. This article will give you some basic knowledge about exercising that will help make your workouts more effective.
Drinking water is extremely important when working out. Staying properly hydrated will help reduce any injury as well as give you the ability to workout for a longer period of time. As you are working out, you are losing water each time you sweat. In order to maintain proper hydration, make sure you have a water bottle and are taking small sips every five to ten minutes. When you are dehydrated, your body will start to shut down, and you don't want that happening in the middle of your workout routine.
Along with staying hydrated, you want to make sure that you are stretching before and after each work out. Stretching before the workout will loosen up your body so that your muscles will remain flexible. Stretching after a workout will relax your muscles and prevent you from feeling sore later on in the day. It is also a great way to cool down and get your heart rate back to where it should be.
Another good workout tip to remember is to eat an adequate supply of protein before and after each workout. Eating protein before a workout session will help you keep your body going at an optimal level. Eating protein after a workout will help to rebuild the muscles that you were working on. You can get a protein shake or a bar so it is easy to eat it when you are finished. Just eat or drink while driving home from the gym.
The type of workout you are doing is also important. Cardiovascular workouts will help to get rid of loose fat on your body. It will also help to build your endurance and give you more energy throughout the day.
Strength training is just as important as a good cardio workout, though this is something that many people skip all together, especially if they are only trying to lose weight. When you do strength training, you are building your muscle mass. Having more muscles means that your body will be burning more calories throughout the day. Once you are done weight training for one day, your body will still be burning calories for up to an hour after your workout.
Whenever you are working out, no matter what type of exercise you are doing, you need to make sure that you are wearing the right clothing. Make sure you have gym shoes that are supportive and your clothing is not too tight and restrictive. If you are lifting weights, you may want to bring a back brace and some gloves to avoid injury.
You have just read some very simple and basic exercise tips. Everything that has been stated in this article is extremely important if you want to have a solid foundation in fitness. If you start following these guidelines, having a body that looks great and is in shape will not be that far off in your future.
Want to discover more about weight loss and cardio workout programs?
Nichole Marie is a diet consultant and writer currently living in Chandler, AZ. To find out more about real diets and weight loss programs that work go here!
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Weight Loss Basics - Calofires in, Calories Out


The Simple Truth

Pay close attention to the next sentence, for it contains the entire subject of weight loss success. Burn more calories than you consume. End of class.
All truths are basically simple, and the Weight Loss Truth rests squarely on the First Law of Thermodynamics, long proven to hold very true indeed:
The increase in the internal energy of a system is equal to the amount of energy added by heating the system, minus the amount lost as a result of the work done by the system on its surroundings.
In plain language: You provide heat (calories) to your system (body) through food, you lose energy (calories) by work done.
If you add more heat to the system than you lose as a result of work, you increase the internal "energy" which the body stores for future use, usually as fat.
The Body
In essence, the human body is a carbon-oxygen engine that with an operating temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit runs on low combustion fuels, mainly derived from other life forms (plant and animal).
As early as 1640 René Descartes viewed the body as a machine, where the heat of the heart caused the movement of the body. And being a brilliant man, he was not so far off.
For taking a wholly unromantic view of the human body, we see that it is nothing more than a machine, composed of a very large number of cells (running into the trillions), aggregated to form a cohesive, and cooperating whole.
Basal Metabolism
This machine, as machine, needs a certain amount of fuel (food, calories) to simply turn over. We call this the Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is the amount of energy expended while at rest in a neutrally temperate environment, in the post-absorptive state (meaning that the digestive system is inactive-for digestion itself is work, and takes a lot of energy- which requires about twelve hours of fasting in humans).
The BMR determines how many calories you burn doing absolutely nothing in an environment that is not too hot (necessitating sweating and such to cool the body down-which is work) nor too cold (calling for additional calories in an attempt to stay warm-also work).
Once the BMR is established, all that you have to do to maintain your weight is to feed this machine precisely as many calories as it needs, just to turn over. The moment you move about, however (such as picking up a remote), you will perform work, which according to the First Law of Thermodynamics requires energy. This energy, if not consumed has to come from somewhere, and this somewhere is the body's "internal" food, such as fat, or if no fat about, muscle.
Weight Loss
Those of us who need to lose weight, usually carry the excess baggage around in the form of fat-energy stored by the body for a rainy day.
Fortunately, if we expend more calories through work than we consume in food, the metabolism assumes it's raining now, and turns to the stored fat for the necessary energy.
The net result of this is that you will lose weight. There simply is no way around it, not in this universe-and according to its laws-anyway.
To lose weight you simply have to burn more calories than you consume.
Complexities
On paper, this is a very simple proposition. Off-paper, as experienced by every person who has tried to shed the extra pounds, it gets a little more complex. This, however-no matter how many complexities you pile on top of it-does not negate, or invalidate the basic principle:
To lose weight you simply have to burn more calories than you consume. End of class.
The multiTRIM Diet
All diet plans-except for the outright fraudulent ones, and be warned: they abound, have as their goal for you to burn more calories than you consume.
Possibly the most sensible plan we have seen in recent years is the multiTRIM diet which supplies all needed nutrients to maintain health and ease hunger in a fifteen calories meal-replacement drink; making the First Law of Thermodynamics work for you.
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Weight Loss Basics - Health Vs Appearance


Narrow View
Ask a child about death and he or she will look at you as if you just landed from some distant planet. Death? They may have heard the word at some point or other-perhaps when a pet passed away-but it means nothing, and has absolutely nothing, to do with them.
Ask any teenager, or anyone under the age of thirty for that matter, and if you really listen, you will hear that deep down they firmly believe they will never die. Well, let's restate that, death is still so far in the future as to be inconceivable.
Health As A Given
These are also the strata of one's life when health is a given. You really have to work at it to grow unhealthy as a teenager; and as a child it is almost impossible to get sick.
For the body is still growing, is still on the up swing; everything works perfectly, or corrects itself quickly if it doesn't. That is, if you let it.
And in these age brackets, you can eat just about anything without putting on weight; your metabolism will break down iron nails. Life the way it should be.
With health as a daily given, other issues take the front seat; and as you sail into teenagership, of those, appearance will brook few competitors.
Admiration
Someone said that admiration is what we value the most on this Earth. Empirically speaking, that cannot be far from the truth. We all crave it, in varying degrees; especially from puberty onward, and somehow, we never seem to let go of that thirst.
Diets
As a result, a huge percentage-not matter what reason is ostensibly given-most diets are undertaken, suffered, and re-undertaken, and re-suffered for the sake of appearance. For the sake of admiration.
This may work while you're still in your thirties, but by the time you slide off that particular bracket, fast food and too many years spent in front of the television will have begun to come home to roost, and health is buckling. Not seriously yet, but those extra fifty or so pounds is putting quite a strain on the system, and here and there leaks are sprung, and valves are blowing.
Still, appearance is far more important.
Friends and Health
Someone else said the most valuable commodities in the world are true friends and good health.
And, amazingly, true friends rarely, if ever, care about appearance.
Deterioration
As you age, the body will start to deteriorate-yes, the word is used quite precisely. Your DNA includes various milestones, the main one, perhaps, being the peak of growth, which some peg at about the late twenties. It's apparently downhill from there.
Things are never stationary. As long as we have gravity, they either rise or fall-the peak of rest at apex is very short.
Until the body reaches peak growth, it's all systems go. Once it arrives, and growth ceases, deterioration will set it, fast for some, slowly for others, very slowly for the lucky, and very very slowly for the few who value health above appearance.
Happiness
It's funny-or perhaps not so funny-but the happiness we experience in the wash of admiration is rather shallow, and always needs someone to reinforce it with more oohs and aahs. We rarely wake up into it.
The happiness we experience from a task well done, on the other than, or from a friend helped, from a promise kept, or a lie not said, runs much deeper, lasts much longer, and does not need external confirmation. And it greets us with the dawn.
Health vs. Appearance
I believe that good health is your most valuable asset. With it, you can do or accomplish just about anything; without it, you're shackled to a degree. With it, you dare to dream; without it, dreams fracture.
Appearance will stay with you only so long, and then it's gone. Fact of life.
One of the most beautiful women of all time, Greta Garbo, suffered intensely from the wrinkles that appeared on her upper lip as she aged, and her mouth was the first thing she would cover from the cameras; appearance being everything.
If you, sooner rather than later, treat health as the priority it should be all through life-and if you at the same time devalue appearance as the fad it really is-you will be a much happier person.
The long way of saying that you should diet for the right reason: Health.
(Eighth in a Series)
The multiTRIM Diet
All diet plans--except for the outright fraudulent ones, and be warned: they abound--have as their goal for you to burn more calories than you consume.
Possibly the most sensible plan we have seen in recent years is the multiTRIM diet which supplies all needed nutrients to maintain health and ease hunger in a fifteen calories meal-replacement drink.
At

Bariatric Surgery Basics and Weight Loss


Bariatric surgery is mainly recommended if you're morbidly obese and if basic lifestyle changes are no longer enough to lose the excess weight. Generally those with a body mass index of 40 or more qualify for bariatric surgery. You should also keep in mind that while bariatric surgery helps you lose the excess weight, you'll still need to eat healthier and exercise more to keep the weight off after the surgery.
When you meet with the doctor to discuss the surgery, he'll tell you about the risks. Some of the common symptoms that may occur after the surgery include nausea, lightheartedness and stomach cramps. You should also consider your budget because the average price of the surgery can be in the tens of thousands of dollars and your health insurance provider may not cover it.
Bariatric surgery seeks to restrict the amount of food and nutrients you store in your body. In gastric banding, the surgeon places a band around the top part of your stomach. The most popular form of gastric banding is LAP BAND. Gastroplasty, or stomach stapling, is when the surgeon seals off part of your stomach with staples, which is similar to gastric banding. In gastric bypass surgery, the surgeon removes the small intestine temporarily then attaches it to the stomach pouch and this helps you digest food better.
Once the bariatric surgery ends, you won't be able to consume coffee, soft drinks and tea for the first three months because this may cause your stomach size to increase. You'll also be put on a liquid diet which will include protein shakes, water and soups. Then you'll be able to eat soft solid foods before going back to your regular diet. Another thing you'll want to do is eat slowly and eat in smaller portions. Be sure to stop eating when you're full because your stomach is smaller.
One benefit of this kind of weight loss surgery is that you reduce the health risks associated with obesity such as diabetes, kidney failure and sleep apnea. Bariatric surgery also makes it easier to consume food without re-gaining the weight, and you can move around better because the excess weight is gone. You reduce the pressure on your knees and legs, and you're not as fatigued as you were before the surgery. Most importantly, weight loss surgery restores your self-esteem.
It's important to research different bariatric surgeons to make sure they're licensed and certified. Read customer reviews of different bariatric doctors to see what customers said about these physicians. Ask friends who have had the procedure done and get recommendations from them.
A few months after the surgery, you want to continue to exercise and eat healthier meals. Also meet with a psychotherapist to discuss the root of the weight gain so that you won't return to emotional eating as a way to relieve stress and anger. Get help from relatives when you're tempted to go back to your old ways. A support group is important so that you don't fall back into old habits.
Derrick L. Hartman writes about San Jose bariatric surgery plus other general medical-related topics.
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Weight Loss Basics - Melting Fat Off Your Body


In the United States alone, 40 million people are obese and 58 million are overweight. Obesity can lead to a lot of health problems such as stroke, diabetes, and heart diseases. That is why it is very important to stay fit so that you will have a well functioning body. Fortunately, there are ways on how to lose weight effectively. Below are some of the weight loss techniques that are essential if you want to shed off those extra pounds.
Proper Diet
What you eat reflects the way you look. This, of course, does not apply to those people who have diseases of the thyroid gland, wherein the function of their metabolism is altered. When it comes to weight loss, all you have to remember is to eat a balanced diet that is composed of the major food groups like protein, carbs, and fats.
Good sources of protein are egg whites, turkey, tuna, bean, salmon, lentils, almonds, nuts, and chicken breasts. People who want to lose weight always stay away from carbs. However, removing carbs from your diet is not the right thing to do because our body needs carbs for energy. This is something you shouldn't worry about because there are good carbs such as whole pasta, wild rice, whole flour bread, sweet potatoes, almonds, fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Same thing goes with the fats. People think that fats should totally be avoided when one wants to lose weight. This is not true because just like the carbs, our body needs fats in order to function normally. And just like carbs, there are also good fats such as flax seeds, almonds, nuts, fish oil, coconut oil, and olive oil.
Exercise
Proper diet alone is not enough to help you lose weight and keep it off. That is why you need to incorporate exercise in your daily routine. Exercise can help a lot in increasing the body's metabolism. At least 30 minutes to 1 hour of exercise a day is already good enough to speed up your metabolism and burn down fats. If you are not accessible to a gym, you can talk a walk outside with a friend.
Plan ahead
It is important that you plan everything before you start. Set a goal as to how many pounds you would like to lose and a specific time when you would like to achieve that goal. Make sure that you weigh yourself before you start and every morning thereafter so that you will know if there are some improvements. Also, keep a record of your daily weight to keep track of your improvement. Seeing even a slight drop in your weight can help keep you motivated in reaching your goal.
Lastly, you need to believe in yourself that you will succeed in losing weight. Losing weight and keeping it off is really not that hard if you only focus on your goal. Once you are successful in your goal, remember that it does not end there. Make sure that you still make necessary measures in order to keep your desired weight.
Bill has been writing about health topics for years. He loves teaching people how to be healthy. You can take a look at Bill's current project here: Black Kitchen Faucet [http://www.blackkitchenfaucet.org]. This is a site that provides information on various home products including Commercial Kitchen Faucet [http://www.blackkitchenfaucet.org/commercial-kitchen-faucet.php]. Bill is a homebuilder, which helps keep him fit.
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Weight Loss Basics - Willpower Vs Barrier


A to B

If we are to believe Nike, it is simply a matter of "Just Do It." Looks good on paper, and even better in the commercials-but of course, all those Nike hard-body models have long since arrived at B (or never left, more likely).
When A is 300 pounds and B is 150 pounds the commercial simile "Just Doesn't Do It" and quickly at that. In fact, it can seem an insurmountable task, not made simpler for having accumulated a dozen or more failed attempts to "prove" how impossible it is.
Still, the not so healthy you at A knows that you must arrive at B, come what may. Remaining at A is not an option. You doctor tells you so, those who love you tell you so, you tell yourself so (over and over). Yet, B seems at least 5,878,630,000,000 miles (a light year) away. The other side of some very impressive mountain range, say the Himalayas. Some pessimists maintain that you cannot get there from here. Pessimists tend to lie.
The Mathematics
I like mathematics. Mathematics is so unemotional. And it well behooves us to bring an unemotional yardstick to a subject like weight loss, which can get quite emotional.
And this is the mathematical truth:
To reach a distant B you have either to raise your willpower or lower the barrier.
In other words, either grow very tall, or grind down the Himalayas-or, of course, some of both.
Willpower
Willpower carries a nice string of synonyms, among them: determination, resolve, resolution, iron will, strength of will, strength of mind, self-control, self-discipline. Pick any of them, it will serve well. And willpower is defined as: a combination of determination and self-discipline that enables somebody to do something despite the difficulties involved (Encarta). Indeed. And when it comes to weight loss, willpower is that quality you acquire by deciding that few-if any-things are more important than your health; that few things are more important than arriving at B (for more information, see the previous article in this series:
Weight Loss Basics - An Investment In Health).
Barrier
The main barrier to arriving at a distant weight-loss B is hunger. Look back at previous attempts. Willpower and enthusiasm alone can carry you for days, perhaps even weeks, until it rises, this raw, uncompromising thing in search of sustenance, louder and louder, this hunger. Willpower buckles, determination evaporates, justifications work overtime to make shutting the beast up (as with a huge pizza) the absolutely right thing to do. Were there no such thing as hunger, long-term weight loss projects would be proverbial walks in the park.
A Helping Hand
As covered in more detail in the next Weight Loss Basics article, when the body is starved of either nutrients (such as vitamins, minerals, and amino acids) or energy (in the form of calories) it lets you know, and in no uncertain terms. A percentage breakdown of physical craving for nutrients vs. energy is probably impossible-and most likely varies from individual to individual-but let us, for simplicity's sake, say that fifty percent of physical hunger is a demand for nutrients and the other fifty for energy.
Now, to lose weight you need to cut down on calories, so there little hope of pacifying the beast in that department, leaving nutrients. And here is the good news: you can supply the body with calorie-free nutrients and so reduce hunger cravings by perhaps as much as half. And if, at the same time, you step up your willpower a fraction, to at least a tad taller than the remaining hunger, you will in fact succeed. There is no doubt about it. Like many others have succeeded before you, like so many are succeeding as we speak.
Appetite Suppressants
Appetite suppressants, such as caffeine or amphetamines, do not actually reduce physical hunger, they reduce hearing. Your body still pleads, you just don't hear it. Hearing is a good thing. Stay away from chemical suppressants.
The multiTRIM Diet
All diet plans except for the outright fraudulent ones, and be warned they are abound, have as their goal for you to burn more calories than you consume.
Possibly the most sensible plan we have seen in recent years is the multiTRIM diet which supplies all needed nutrients to maintain health and ease hunger in a fifteen calories meal-replacement drink; making the First Law of Thermodynamics work for you.
At
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