Potassium is another important source. Getting enough of this mineral may help lower your blood pressure. It's best to get potassium from food instead of supplements. Aim for 4,700 milligrams (mg) a day. Try these potassium-rich foods:
- Potato: 926 mg
- Sweet potato: 540 mg
- Banana: 420 mg
- Avocado (1/2): 345 mg
- Cooked spinach (1/2 cup): 290 mg
You don't have to skip all sweets. But you should try to have five or fewer servings a week. That’s 1 tablespoon of sugar or jam, 1 cup of lemonade, or 1/2 cup of sorbet at a time. Choose sweets that are low in fat, such as gelatin, hard candy, or maple syrup. Instead of high-fat desserts, try having fresh fruit over low-fat ice cream.
Nuts, legumes, and seeds are rich in magnesium, protein, and fiber. Walnuts are full of omega-3 fatty acids, which may help lower your risk of heart disease.
Enjoy as many as five servings of these foods each week. That’s 1/3 cup of nuts, 2 tablespoons of seeds, or a 1/2 cup of cooked dried beans or peas in each serving. Grab a handful of seeds or nuts as a snack. Or add beans to your salads or soups.
Low- and no-fat dairy foods are good sources of calcium and protein, which can help maintain a healthy blood pressure.
Try to get two to three servings of dairy every day. Choose skim or 1% milk, buttermilk, and low- or no-fat cheeses and yogurt. Frozen low-fat yogurt is OK, too. One serving equals 1 cup of yogurt or milk, or 1 1/2 ounces of cheese -- about the size of three dice.
Fruits offer lots of fiber and vitamins that are good for your heart. Many also have potassium and magnesium, which lower blood pressure.
Have four to five servings of fruit every day. One serving is a medium apple or orange, or 1/2 cup of frozen, fresh, or canned fruit. One-half cup of fruit juice or 1/4 cup of dried fruit also counts as a serving. Try adding bananas or berries to your breakfast cereal or have fruit for dessert.
Vegetables give you fiber, vitamins, and minerals. They don't have a lot of calories or fat -- a good recipe for controlling blood pressure.
Have four to five servings of vegetables a day. That’s 1/2 cup of cooked or raw vegetables, 1 cup of raw leafy vegetables, or 1/2 cup of vegetable juice for each serving. Iffy about veggies? Start by adding a salad at lunch and dinner
Eating whole grains like whole wheat breads, brown rice, whole grain cereals, oatmeal, whole wheat pasta, and unsalted pretzels or popcorn is a good way to get fiber. Fiber helps lower your cholesterol and also keeps you feeling full longer. For a diet of 2,000 calories per day: Eat six to eight servings a day. One serving is a slice of bread, 1 ounce of dry cereal, or ½ cup of cooked whole wheat pasta, rice, or oatmeal (about the size of half a baseball).
For dry skin, incorporate more avocados into your diet. They're rich in monounsaturated fat and vitamin E, both of which promote healthy skin. Try them on salads and sandwiches, and even in smoothies.
Adding raw or lightly cooked garlic and onions to your meals may help keep you healthy in winter. Both foods appear to possess antiviral and antibacterial properties and are believed to boost immunity.
People whose diets are rich in potassium may be less prone to high blood pressure. Besides reducing sodium and taking other heart-healthy steps, eat potassium-packed picks such as bananas, cantaloupe, and oranges.
According to some research, catching a whiff of this aromatic herb may increase alertness and improve memory. To stay sharp, try smelling fresh rosemary or inhaling the scent of rosemary essential oil before a test or meeting.
Is your energy lagging? Though it may be the last thing you feel like doing when you're tired, exercise -- even a brisk walk -- can be more effective than a nap or cup of coffee at fighting fatigue.
Certain trigger points -- spots of tension in musculoskeletal tissue -- can cause back pain. Ask a massage therapist or other body worker who specializes in myofascial release or neuromuscular therapy to focus on these points during a massage.
For athlete's foot, reach for tea tree oil, an extract of the leaves of an Australian tree. It appears to have antiseptic properties and may work as well as or better than over-the-counter anti-fungal products. Apply a light coating of the oil to affected areas two to three times a day; continue for a week or two after symptoms disappear.
It's in our basic nature to reach for a large portion when hungry. Therefore, workouts apart, it's a must to keep high-satiety food options available at hand, simply for the times when you feel those hunger pangs.
With all the energy you devote to shedding kilos, you might actually know very little about the why most diets fail — hunger pangs. It's never easy to resist that third serving of pizza even if you are bursting out of your seams. The guilt always strikes after the damage is done. Know the signs of hunger, the cues for stress eating, and what triggers your cravings to tame yourself when hunger strikes.
The culprit
You've been working since 10 in the morning and consistently thinking about the deadline. Too busy to eat, there is a chance you would suffer from starvation. "Hunger is your body's cue to eat. Due to habits such as erratic timings and long gaps between meals, hunger cues get out of sync, leading to severe hunger pangs."
A simple solution
Firstly, understand your body clock. Know the difference between actual hunger and stomach contractions. Also, at times you may be misguided by people around you. "You may feel that eating less is better but it isn't true." "Starvation is never a great survival strategy. Eat less but eat more often."
Is it hunger or thirst?
Figure out whether you are hungry or thirsty? Sometimes your body can send off signals to the brain that you are hungry. This is because food has lots of fluid contained within it. However, you don't want to be confused with taking on-board unwanted calories when you simply haven't had enough to drink. The key is to ensure you keep your fluid intake up over the course of a day.
What to eat and when
If you're following a particular diet, you will always prefer to carry a lunch box to work. A wheat bread sandwich, unpolished rice ( a bowl) and curd, a tortilla roll filled with vegetables or two to three fruits are best options for the day. For mid-night hunger pangs, foods like salad sandwich are a big no-no. You would certainly not wish to sleep with a heavy stomach that leaves you restless all night. Instead, eat a fruit and drink a glass full of water over it.
The bottomline
To make sure you don't experience hunger pangs when on a diet, use top quality meal replacement drinks like coconut water, green tea and butter milk and get your hands on whatever snacks are allowed in the diet programme like soy nuts or energy bars. Eat a healthy balanced meal that doesn't leave you feeling hungry, and this way you'll get to snack on some treats when you want to!
To avoid severe hunger pangs
- Skipping breakfast is a sin. Don't skip breakfast, or you'll be starving and cranky by mid-morning. A breakfast with complex carbs and low fat protein will help stave off snack attacks.
- Plan ahead. Make sure that you have low calorie snacks and drinks with you. Take note of what times of day you become hungry and plan your meals and snacks accordingly. If you always cave in around 4 pm, schedule a snack for 3.30 and drink a big glass of water, too.
- Your body requires a certain amount of fat. Choose healthy fats, like olive oil. Mediterranean people include a lot of olive oil in their cooking and they have famously low rates of obesity and heart disease.
- Do not take drastic steps. Cutting your calories too drastically will make your metabolism slow down and cause you to be plagued with hunger all of the time.
- Eat volumes of low-cal food. Broccoli, cauliflower and veggie salads will fill you up and help stave off hunger.
- Stay away from sugary snacks and simple carbohydrates like sticky buns, cake and donuts. If you eat them your blood sugar will soar, and then crash and you'll find yourself irritable, jittery and famished.
- Eat sufficient protein. Scientific studies show that protein leaves people feeling full longer than carbohydrates.
To keep those hunger pangs at bay, distract yourself and divert your mind from food by getting involved in a task or a hobby you enjoy doing the most.
What is belly fat?
Belly Fat goes by many names - beer belly, pot belly, abdominal fat, organ fat, intra - abdominal fat or simply fat. But how is this fat different from the fat that is found in other areas of the body?
'Visceral fat, ...is located inside the peritoneal cavity, packed in between internal organs and torso, as opposed to subcutaneous fat, which is found underneath the skin, and intramuscular fat, which is found interspersed in skeletal muscle...An excess of visceral fat is known as central obesity, the "pot belly" or "beer belly" effect, in which the abdomen protrudes excessively.'
Causes of stomach fat
Excess calories and hormonal changes are the reasons for stomach fat. Sedentary lifestyle and lack of exercise too can cause belly fat.
Waist to hip ratio
The common misconception, that only visibly over-weight and obese people have belly fat, needs to be debunked. Belly fat can attack anyone, whether skinny or fat. What does this mean? As mentioned earlier, visceral fat is the real belly fat we are discussing here, and the real belly fat that puts you at risk of many diseases. This is due to the inflammatory properties of visceral fat as it constricts important body-regulating hormones in your abdominal region.
More than the weighing scale, a better measure of how much belly fat an individual has, is the waist to hip ratio. You'll be surprised to know that several, seemingly thin people have a poor waist to hip ratio, which puts them at risk of the same heart diseases and other ailments usually associated with obesity. So what's a good waist to hip ratio? Here's a table:
How to measure: Divide your waist measurement at its narrowest point by your hip measurement at its widest point.
Male Female Health Risk Based Solely on WHR
0.95 or below 0.80 or below Low risk
0.96 to 1.0 0.81 to 0.85 Moderate risk
1.0+ 0.85+ High risk
Why is belly fat worse than fat stored in any other part of the body?
This brings us to the difference between visceral and subcutaneous fat. Subcutaneous fat helps in the supply of oxygen. It acts like a cushioning effect if you fall or experience impact. It also serves as a store house of energy. Excess subcutaneous fat will give you the flabby arms, thighs etc and is easily burned off with exercise rather than diet.
Visceral fat only increases your waist line, choking and tightening your internal organs. As you will see later visceral fat is linked to cardiovascular diseases and cancer.
Thin individuals too have visceral fat; if you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there. If you plan to lose weight based only on a diet rather than exercise you have a higher deposit of internal fat around internal organs. Hence even thin people are prone to diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
Link between visceral fat and cardiovascular diseases
Visceral fat is responsible for inflammation in the body, which in turn is linked to heart diseases. 'Excess VAT is accompanied by elevated triglycerides, reduced high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, elevated blood pressure, and/or elevated fasting plasma glucose.' (Source)
These high levels are an indicator of cardiovascular diseases, but physical activity and diet can help you control the risk of heart diseases.
Link between visceral fat and cancer
Since visceral fat leads to the inflammation of the body, it is linked to cancer too, especially colon cancer. Visceral fat contains an immune cell macrophages, which produces a hormone Cytokines that causes cancer.
This hormone 'can increase oxidative stress and boost free radical production and they can disturb insulin function.' (Source) High levels of insulin can cause cancer.
Prevention of visceral fat
- Losing weight the healthy way.
- De-stressing by meditation and breathing exercises.
- Drinking plenty of water to flush out salt from the tissues so as to feel lighter and not bloated.
- Eating a proper diet by including anti-inflammatory foods like oats, wheat bran, brown rice, green vegetables, fruits, green tea, nuts, fish etc and avoid inflammatory foods like refined cereals, sweets, fried foods etc.
- Liposuction removes subcutaneous fat and not the visceral fat because it is too close to the internal organs, which would make it unsafe.
Fitness: Ways to a flat stomach
The simple science behind six pack abs is that they exist in everybody. It's just when you start putting on more body fat that these abs disappear. A combination of two major muscles transversus abdominis and rectus abdominis muscles make up what we consider to be our 'abs' zone.
These muscles are buried under the front and side of torso mucles and exist around your midsection like a girdle. Now, if you ate a healthy diet comprising of lean proteins, balanced carbs and less, yet good, fats, you would enter a zone with minimal superficial body fat, and your muscles would become visible, resulting in six pack abs.
Diet: Ways to a flat stomach
Protein: When you regularly eat healthy sources of lean proteins such as chicken, beans, fish, and soy, you find yourself losing body fat and at the same time giving shape to your body.
Stay hydrated: When we are well hydrated the basal metabolic rate of our body goes up; this would mean that our body is able to digest the food we eat in a proper manner, the food is used to burn sufficient calories required by the body and thus you end up with a nice flat belly to improve your figure.
Fiber: The main function of fiber is to clean our system deep within, help propel our bowel movements and thus form the basis of detoxification of our body. Most astonishing is the fact that when we consume fiber, our body burns ample calories in the digestion process of fiber.
Stay away from fruit juices, alcohol and fruit punches for a flat belly.
If you’re sitting, you may find it most comfortable for your monitor to be at or even slightly above eye level. This helps you look straight ahead without requiring downward head tilt, which often leads the rest of the upper thoracic into a slumping pattern – especially if you’re not vigilant and you’re prone to lapsing back into bad habits. This simple habit change will go a long way in ensuring reduced back, neck and shoulder aches that are so common among the cubicle crowds.
Women should work out at 75-85% of their maximum heart rate. When your heart rate is too low, it's a sign that you're not working to your full potential. Too high a rate, on the other hand, shows that you're pushing yourself to a potentially dangerous level. Keep a heart rate monitor on hand or do a manual count incrementally during your workout to ensure that you're reaching, but not exceeding, your ideal target heart rate.
Munching on a energy bar before the gym can actually pump up your energy, as all those bars are high in fiber and sugar. If you're very hungry beforehand, opt for a banana instead which is digested super quickly and will also provide the necessary energy.
If you just focus on reducing the numbers on your scale, then ultimately you will land up gaining pounds. Instead, you goal should be to maintain a healthy and fit life, by eating right food and practicing right exercise.
Warming up your muscles before starting up your exercise routine is very important. Warm ups will prevent muscle injury during workouts. Thus, before starting any workout regime, start at the lowest speed and increase it gradually.
Carbs are very important, as they fuel your body with energy. Hence, up your intake of fruits and other high-fiber crackers. Also include some protein in your diet, so that the carbs break down more slowly.
If you are bored to work out alone, then call your best friend or take your pet along with for a workout session. Working out with someone whom you know will help you to achieve goals and keep you motivated as well. Besides, working out in company is always fun and cool.