It’s so serious an issue, in fact, that US military leaders are now viewing obesity as a potential threat to our national security. As I wrote last week, obesity is the number one reason why applicants fail to qualify for military service, and it poses serious health problems within the services.

It’s a truly disturbing sign of how modern life, with all of its conveniences, can undermine health and happiness – and perhaps even national security…

How Food Culture and Obesity are Related

As British chef and food advocate Jamie Oliver explains in the video above, our food culture has changed so drastically over the last 30 years, a majority of young children of today do not know what fresh, whole food is.

They can’t identify foods, let alone figure out where they come from or how they grow.

He shows how the three aspects of the “food landscape,” home, school, and main street, have all abandoned real food in favor of quick, cheap, processed foods.

Three decades ago, the food available in each of these three areas was mostly fresh and grown locally. Now the majority of foods served, whether at home, in school or in restaurants, are highly processed foods, filled with sugars and chemical additives.

During that same time, childhood obesity has more than tripled. Now, one in three children aged 10 to 17 is overweight or obese.

Healthy Eating Starts at Home

Home used to be the heart of passing on food culture. This rarely happens anymore, and children are suffering the consequences.

Many parents don’t even know how to cook with fresh ingredients, because their parents had embraced the novel convenience of the TV dinner back in the 50s.

I’ve said this for many years, and it’s worth repeating many times over because it’s one of the main solutions to the obesity epidemic – cook your food from scratch, at home!

Many people are under the mistaken impression that cooking from scratch is an extremely complicated affair that takes lots of time and costs more than they could possibly afford.

Listen, that’s NOT necessarily true!

There are plenty of sources for simple recipes, many of which are free if you have access to the internet. In this previous article, Colleen Huber offers a list of helpful guidelines on how to cook whole food from scratch, while keeping your day job.

It does require some pre-planning in many cases, but remember that learning to plan your meals may actually reduce your stress levels rather than increase them!

Many people resort to fast foods and processed foods simply because they’re too frazzled at the end of their work day to figure out what to cook. Planning a menu and shopping ahead could actually turn meal time into a more relaxed time spent with family.

Also remember that whatever money you think you’re saving now by using processed foods, you’ll end up paying many times over later on when your health begins to fail.

Proper nutrition, consisting mainly of whole, fresh foods, really is your number one health insurance policy.

Likewise, children will not know which foods are healthy unless you, as a parent, teach it to them. Please, understand that poor eating habits at home, combined with poor food selections at school, may set your child up for long-term physical and behavioral problems.

According to a recent national study, preschool-aged children, in particular, reduce their future risk of obesity if they regularly engage in one or more of three specific household routines:

1.

Eat dinner together as a family
2.

Make sure your child is getting enough sleep
3.

Limit your child’s television viewing time

I would add ‘cooking whole foods from scratch’ to that short list.

School Lunches are a Prescription for Disaster

Ideally, schools should arm you with solid tools for survival and success. Alas, proper diet and health is not on the curriculum in most schools. At least not if you judge by the foods served.

Considering the fact that most children eat two square meals a day in school (breakfast and lunch), these meals are a vitally important consideration in the fight against obesity.

Altering school lunches CAN help diminish the obesity epidemic, as one Swedish study has shown. They eliminated all sweet buns, sweet drinks, and candy from school premises, and saw a 6 percent drop in obesity in four years. Behavioral problems have also been remedied by giving kids healthier lunches at school.

Unfortunately, the system is largely run by accountants, not food experts, and budgets are tight. The result is cafeteria food that consists of cheap, highly processed foods with a long shelf life. Many schools use little or no fresh foods at all.

This type of diet is loaded with sugars and unhealthy carbs, which also break down to sugar in your body.

In a misguided effort to make children drink more milk, many schools even offer sugar-laden, flavored milk products. This is foolishness at its finest, as pasteurized milk is more harmful than healthful, and these milk drinks are loaded with fructose, which is the major culprit for the obesity epidemic.

It’s easy to see that if you, as a parent, do not take the time to teach your child about proper, health promoting nutrition at home, they simply won’t learn it. And as Oliver states, every child needs to know how to cook 10 healthy dishes from scratch. It’s an essential life skill!

Fructose is the Leading Cause of Childhood Obesity

Although the American Beverage Association claims there is “no association between high fructose corn syrup and obesity,” a long lineup of scientific studies suggest otherwise. For example:

* Dr. David Ludwig of Boston Children’s Hospital did a study of the effects of sugar-sweetened drinks on obesity in children. He found that for each additional serving of a sugar-sweetened drink, both body mass index and odds of obesity increased in the children he studied.
* The Fizzy Drink Study in Christchurch, England explored the effects on obesity when soda machines were removed from schools for one year. In the schools where the machines were removed, obesity stayed constant. In the schools where soda machines remained, obesity rates continued to rise.
* In a recent study, 16 volunteers were fed a controlled diet including high levels of fructose. Ten weeks later, the volunteers had produced new fat cells around their hearts, livers and other digestive organs.

They also showed signs of food-processing abnormalities linked to diabetes and heart disease. A second group of volunteers who were fed a similar diet, but with glucose replacing fructose, did not have these problems.

Please understand that while there are many contributing factors, I am convinced that FRUCTOSE is the primary cause of the obesity epidemic in both children and adults.Sweetened beverages and processed foods are the main sources of fructose.

For an in-depth understanding of just how fructose is destroying your health, and that of your children, please watch this excellent video lecture in its entirety (part 1, and part 2). Dr. Lustig’s presentation on this subject really opened my eyes to this issue, and then Dr. Johnson, who is the chairman of medicine at the University of Colorado, reinforced that with his book The Sugar Fix: The High-Fructose Fallout That Is Making You Fat and Sick.

If you disagree with my assessment then please review these resources above and see if you still hold the same position. The evidence is beyond compelling.

Common Sense Guidelines for a Healthier Life and Weight

By changing your lifestyle (or your child’s) in the following ways, you can naturally reach, or maintain, the ideal weight for your body:

4. Keep all fructose under 25 grams per day. Fructose is the number one source of calories in the U.S., and it is very clear that it is the primary cause of the obesity epidemic. Your children need to dramatically reduce foods that are high in fructose, such as fruit juices.

Fruits need to be carefully measured as well to make certain that no more 15 grams of fructose are consumed. See the table below to get an idea of how much fructose is in your favorite fruits.

I recommend limiting it to 15 grams of fruit because it would be VERY unusual for you not to consume fructose from your other foods, as it is added in just about ALL processed foods even though it might not be listed on the list of ingredients. Remember your TOTAL daily fructose intake should be under 25 grams, not just fruit.

Also keep in mind that most processed food is loaded with fructose and is best avoided completely. For instance, there are about 40 grams of HFCS per can of soda.

Fruit Serving Size Grams of Fructose
Limes 1 medium 0
Lemons 1 medium 0.6
Cranberries 1 cup 0.7
Passion fruit 1 medium 0.9
Prune 1 medium 1.2
Apricot 1 medium 1.3
Guava 2 medium 2.2
Date (Deglet Noor style) 1 medium 2.6
Cantaloupe 1/8 of med. melon 2.8
Raspberries 1 cup 3.0
Clementine 1 medium 3.4
Kiwifruit 1 medium 3.4
Blackberries 1 cup 3.5
Star fruit 1 medium 3.6
Cherries, sweet 10 3.8
Strawberries 1 cup 3.8
Cherries, sour 1 cup 4.0
Pineapple 1 slice
(3.5″ x .75″) 4.0
Grapefruit, pink or red 1/2 medium 4.3

Fruit Serving Size Grams of Fructose

Boysenberries 1 cup 4.6
Tangerine/mandarin orange 1 medium 4.8
Nectarine 1 medium 5.4
Peach 1 medium 5.9
Orange (navel) 1 medium 6.1
Papaya 1/2 medium 6.3
Honeydew 1/8 of med. melon 6.7
Banana 1 medium 7.1
Blueberries 1 cup 7.4
Date (Medjool) 1 medium 7.7
Apple (composite) 1 medium 9.5
Persimmon 1 medium 10.6
Watermelon 1/16 med. melon 11.3
Pear 1 medium 11.8
Raisins 1/4 cup 12.3
Grapes, seedless (green or red) 1 cup 12.4
Mango 1/2 medium 16.2
Apricots, dried 1 cup 16.4
Figs, dried 1 cup 23.0

5. Follow my nutrition plan and tailor your diet to your nutritional type. These are the foods that are right for your biochemistry, so they will naturally push your body toward its ideal weight. (By the way, these foods may be high in fat, high in carbs, heavy on protein, or mainly veggies. It all depends on YOU).
6. View exercise as a drug. Many studies find that exercising for one hour, five days a week is ideal for weight loss, and I tend to agree with that. Sometimes you may need even up to 90 minutes of exercise every day.

For best results, be sure you are incorporating the appropriate variety of exercises into your routine. For instance, there is compelling evidence that strength training and high-intensity anaerobic interval training may be especially effective for weight loss, so you’ll want to incorporate these into your workout program.
7. Let go of your emotional blocks. Tools like the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and Meridian Tapping Technique (MTT) are your friend and ally when it comes to losing weight. For some, emotional eating is more complex, and an experienced EFT practitioner may be able to help unravel some of your deeper emotional issues.

To give your child the best start at life, and help instill healthy habits that will last a lifetime, you should strive to lead by example. There is perhaps no better way to help your child lose weight than to model the healthy behaviors I’ve described above in your own daily life.
Related Links: Seven Risk Factors for Childhood Obesity The Three Variables That Affect Childhood Obesity Parents: The Weakest Link in the Childhood Obesity Epidemic

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Water aerobics or aqua aerobics can also be referred to as waterobics. This kind of workout is usually performed in a swimming pool with waist-deep water. It could be in an indoor or outdoor pool, with water temperature of 82 F to 86 F. Come to think of it, the most common form of waterobics is swimming. Water aerobics would focus on building body strength, flexibility, balance and providing a cardiovascular workout. Its one session usually lasts for about 40 to 50 minutes.

Just like any other aerobic workout, there is a five-minute warm-up and ends with a  five-minute cool-down. There could be floatation devices provided to the participants if the water is deep. Kickboards and water barbells are also provided to help participants stay afloat or they can be used for exercises. Water weights and floating belts are also used to increase the resistance of the water . Music is often used during workout sessions.

When starting out with water aerobics, the basic thing that you need is your swimsuit. There are some participants who also use a swimming cap to keep the hair our of the face and special aqua shoes. These special shoes can support your ankles and also prevent your feet from slipping. They may also serve as protection against cuts and scrapes.

There are numerous benefits from including water aerobics in your lifestyle.

Since water provides buoyancy and support to the body, there are less risks of bone and joint injury, which makes it ideal for seniors or those who are suffering from arthritis or back pain.  Working out in water makes the individual less achy and sore after the workout. Body joints have fewer problems maximizing their movement.

Some users say that they experienced faster shaping, toning of muscles and quick weight lose when doing water exercises, compared with conducting the same exercises on land. Water aerobics could help the muscles develop 12 to 14 times faster than when the work out is on land. Since water has higher density than air, it has higher resistance which is one of the reasons for better muscular development and endurance, and most of all it lose fat as fast at it could be.

The heart works better when doing water aerobics. Compared to activities like running or swimming, the heart rate is maintained at a lower rate.  This is great for burning calories and losing weight. Walking for instance, when done on land can burn about 135 calories in half an hour. If performed in water, you could burn by as much as 264 calories for the 30-minute session.

Aqua aerobics are great for those who have arthritis, osteoporosis or for those who are pregnant because the workouts are actually gentle enough to avoid joint damage but quick enough to build muscle mass and it is the best exercise for fat loss.   However,even with all the benefits, water aerobics is still not perfect. Since it requires the use of facilities and equipment, water aerobics exercise tend to be more expensive than other exercise classes. . Some health insurance providers might provide coverage for the aqua aerobics as long as it is recommended by the attending physician.

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There are as many reasons for people to drink, as there are people who love to drink. Some people love to enjoy a nice glass of wine to compliment a fine meal. Others enjoy socializing and find that a couple of drinks relax them. The cosmo or margarita not only tastes great, it makes them friendlier.

Wine aids digestion. Drinking red wine has hidden health benefits. These statements are true, but they may make the process of losing fat last longer or worse it could even cause more weight gain.

Many people count calories, and watch carbohydrates. Most people don’t know that alcohol converts directly into sugar, which causes insulin levels to rise. This is horrible for losing weight.

There are two hormones that are responsible for fat processing. These two hormones are insulin and glycogon. Almost everybody has heard of insulin in reference to diabetics. What they don’t know is that high levels of insulin cause the body to store fat. Glycogon, is a hormone most people have not heard of. Think of it as the reverse of insulin. It makes the body utilize fat rather than sugar. If you have high levels of glycogen then losing body fat will be simple.

Another reason alcohol is bad for weight loss is that most people don’t drink straight alcohol. They drink mixed drinks. These drinks generally have a ton of sugar added to them. Soda, juice, and various mixers add calories and sugar to the drink. Where we might be only drink a drink or two, these drinks can reach upwards of several hundred calories. Not a good think if we want to lose weight.

In addition, the fact that alcohol is processed in the body faster should be noted. This is before fats, carbohydrates, and proteins. Why is this important? It’s important because your body takes the remaining foods and decides to store them as fat and process them later.    Stomach fat to be more precise, which is where we get the term beer belly.

I will admit that I do drink from time to time. I am not saying drinking is wrong, just that when you are losing weight drinking should be moderated.

Losing weight is easy when you understand why it happens. For fast fat loss tips and tricks please see Matthew MacLeod’s website at Fast Track To Lose 20 Pounds

1. Walking: People underestimate the power of walking and therefore do very little of it. But just 30 minutes per day everyday can work wonders on your body. Over time these 30 minute sessions will trim and tone as well as improve your lung function. It is great for the body and mind and will help you function better in every aspect of life.

2. Swimming: Not the usual water sport, this stretching technique can do wonders for your arms and shoulders. To perform this exercise and warm up your shoulders for the next exercises simply hold 2, three pound weights and with your feet together, “swim” your shoulders backwards ten times and then forward ten.

3. Obliques: To stretch your oblique muscles, put your feet together and use the same weights. Lift the right weight as high as you can toward your right armpit. Bend your elbow and lower, as you lower lift the left side. Repeat twenty times on each side. Doing an oblique stretch can help tighten and tone your waist line.

4. Ballet Squat: Ballet is wonderful for your body, stretching and toning your muscles with this exercise will help you lose weight fast. A ballet stretch you can easily do anywhere is a ballet squat. To perform this stretch open your legs to second position with your feet pointed outward. Keeping your knees over your ankles, lower yourself slowly, hold the weights in front of you. Straighten back up with your knees slightly bent and repeat twenty-five times.

5. Tailbone Lift: The final stretch that will help strengthen your core is the tailbone lift. Lay on your back with your hands interwoven behind your head. Lift your legs up holding them as straight as possible above your hips. Lift your tailbone off the floor one inch and bring it back down as slow as possible. Repeat twenty-five times.

This article discussed 5 easy workouts to help you trim your body. These exercises to lose weight will help tone muscles and target the trouble areas most people have. By targeting these areas it will be easier to trim your body and shed pounds quickly.

Want to know more?

Tess Rainey, a mother of two and health enthusiast, has created a website that can help you lose weight fast and keep it off. Her website, FastestWayToLoseWeight.NurturingYourBody.com, has the best exercises to lose weight as well as simple exercises to lose weight.

Running is something really important . Like or not running is crucial if you want to get in shape. When you run you burn fat in key areas – when you lift weights you burn fat in non key areas like your arms and legs etc. By running you can get a slim stomach which will better allow you to quickly get ripped.

Maybe the most important part of getting ripped however is eating right. Eating right is crucial if you ever want to get in really good shape. When you put bad foods into your body they create fat that makes the exercises you do simply ineffective.

There are some key foods that you must eat if you want to get in really good shape. Contrary to what most people think it’s not the quantity of what you eat, it’s the quality. You can eat grapes, carrots, or green beans all day and you won’t get any fat on you, they are all great foods. But when you start to eat tons of hamburger or chicken and junk foods  that’s when you run into problems.

Remember to always do your homework before you buy every product. You don’t want to get burned or even worse get scammed. Simply visit a few forums and ask around before making your bid purchase. Good luck!

Want to find out more about how to get ripped? Then visit David Argo’s site on how to choose the best workouts for your needs.

To get 6 pack abs, you don’t have to spend many years killing yourself in the gymnasium or starving yourself and skipping meals. In fact, these things will do more harm to you rather than helping you. To start off, we will be looking at the kind of foods you will need to eat to burn off that excess fat so you can finally see your abs, and eating right is very important.

Fruits, vegetables, nuts, and wholegrain bread are the best things to eat for meals and snacks. Many of us think that snacks are the demon’s play thing, but the fact is that so long as you are eating healthy foods, it’s O.K to snack a bit. You should be eating when you are hungry. Some people make the big mistake of eating even after they are full, which truly becomes a difficulty, but as long as you eat when your gut tells you to you’ll be okay.

The other part of getting 6 pack abs that you’ll need to follow closely is the exercise and weight lifting aspect. While it’s correct that you don’t have to spend many years going to the gym before you achieve serious and conspicuous results, you do have to go continually for a minimum of two weeks before noticing a difference in your body.

In the end you’ll be glad that you buckled down and took the time to follow this very effective methodology that has worked for thousands of people.

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What exactly is interval training? As the name implies, it is an exercise that changes at different intervals in order to mix low, medium, and high intensity workouts on a session. Some may wonder why this would be a recommended means of performing cardiovascular exercises, would it not be best just to pick one and stick with it? The reason interval training is so helpful is because it not only allows you to boost your endurance, but also allows you to cut calories big time. And both and goals people want from their exercise sessions.

A common example of interval training entails a treadmill workout that involves walking, jogging, sprinting within the same 20 minute workout session. You would pretty much walk for 30 seconds, jog for another 30, and sprint for 30 seconds more.

Why is this? Well, some people could never jog or sprint for 20 minutes straight. By mixing up the workout within the same session, you can include jogging and sprinting with walking in such a way that you can get some of the higher intensity level workouts into your 20 minute session.

Also, here is a very important point about high intensity workouts. When you are sprinting, your heart rate increases significantly. When this occurs, the number of calories you burn will increase significantly. When you switch to jogging and walking, your heart rate will lower but because you are shortly returning to jogging and sprinting, the heart rate will not drop down to what it would regularly be when walking.

You will now be in a situations where your calories will be burning at a high rate through the process. Now do you see how effective interval training is? For many people, the ability to jump from one level of intensity to another all during te same session can open the doors into getting in the best shape of your life.

Obviously, the walk, jog, run method is only one example. You can perform interval training with pretty much any kind of aerobics exercise you wish. The great flexibility makes it possible to be creative with interval training while also losing weight and getting into shape.

Just be sure to warm up and cool down prior to starting the interval training session. So, if you want to perform 20 minutes of interval training, a five minute warm up at the beginning and five minute cool down at the end is highly advisable. That means the overall workout will be 30 minutes. Or, more accurately, it will be a highly effective 30 minutes.

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A great place to start is changing what you eat and when you eat it. Many people don’t change their eating habits because they are not willing to prepare food an continually return to comfort foods. One thing you’ll realize however is that not all good food tastes bad. In fact, much of today’s healthy foods taste the same or better than what you’re currently eating. Try to find healthy replacement foods for the foods that are damaging your well being.

Vegetables can be eaten in a variety of ways. Do you like eating raw vegetables? Try to eat a salad at least 3 – 4 times per week. But go easy on the dressing. Salad dressing is usually loaded with unhealthy fat and tons of calories. If you don’t care for salad, try raw carrots or other vegetables you may like. If you add these into your diet slowly over time, you’ll enjoy the benefits of healthy eating.

Sticking to a meal plan or diet alone is not enough to keep you healthy. Exercise is an essential part of any regimen that will result in a healthier you. The concept of exercise doesn’t have to be complicated. You don’t have to spend hours in a gym or time running a race. Start slow and build up to a daily exercise routine. At first, walking or jogging for just 20 minutes three times a week may be all you need.

Starting an exercise routine is the most important step to lasting health. And notice I said routine. Exercise needs to be part of your daily or weekly routine. Start small, doing something you enjoy, a couple days per week. Over time, as you get more comfortable and improve your stamina, add an additional day. Get to where you feel comfortable but challenged. Always have fitness goals in mind.

Muscle building, or weight lifting, provides a great deal of benefit to your body. Muscle burns fat more quickly and can significant improve your strength and energy. By focusing on building muscle, and supplementing with aerobic exercise, you can quickly change your state of health and well being.

Many people are focused on getting a strong six pack of abs. Strong abdominal muscles come from a combination of nutrition, aerobic exercise, and abdominal or weight lifting exercises. To get a strong mid-section, you need to peel away any fat that is covering your mid-section as well as build your abdominal muscles. By working the problem from both angles, the solution becomes apparent.

To get lasting results, you must attack your mid-section from a number of different angles. Healthy eating habits alone won’t do it. Exercise alone wont have a lasting effect either. You need to combine both diet and exercise if you want to achieve a six pack of abs or strong core. In combination, you can achieve lasting results.

Learn how to quickly and easily get rid of abdominal fat with the help of fitness experts. Proven methods to get rid of belly fat and helpful information and advice.

Today, we will go on on to the basics. Just to be certain, a heart rate watch is an digital gadget which you strap on your wrist or chest or both, and it assists you evaluate and keep a tab on your heart beat rate when it comes to your heart Beats per Minute, or BPM. These monitors are an indispensable tool in a specialized, customized and goal specific exercise program. Based on the aims and objectives that you just want to accomplish from your work out regime, you’ll want to plan, calculate and stick to a range of heart beat rate. This will depend on your age, your sex, your current weight, your height and your desired goals. The heart beat rate plays a significant role in an exercise regime, and your fitness trainer will probably be able to explain the exact role of the heart beat rate in your daily exercise regime, and also its influence upon the desired final results. However, we can help you out when it comes to recommending the numerous heart rate monitors that go while using various operate outs which may well form a part of your exercise session(s).

According to your objectives, you can find different models you can go for, some have more functions than the others depending on your needs:

* When you want to lose weight, go for a heart rate monitor that keeps a an eye on your calories burnt and also the time spent within your heart rate zone.

* If you in general desire to stay fit without any specific fat loss or muscle building ambitions, one that features intensity and has details on the different workout zones shall be good adequate.

* Then you can find people who just will not go along well with technical what’s its and gadgetry. For us, you can find basic heart rate monitors out there which keep a track on the heart beat rate with a simple one button command. Eg: Polar FS1

* Expert and non expert athletes who need to measure their performance want a monitor that offers multi tech support and more features such as the Garmin Forerunner.

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