Best magazines for weight loss, Muscle & Fitness

Losing weight is the national past time. Driven by the obesity epidemic, weight loss is the goal of millions of us. A convenient source of reliable weight loss and diet advice are magazines who rely on nutrition experts. Muscle & Fitness magazine is a leader in the field of fitness and nutrition.












Long time fitness icon, Joe Weider, began Muscle & Fitness magazine as an easy to understand guide to fitness and diet for the average Joe and Jane. People seeking to shape up will find valuable and entertaining articles on diverse topics including nutrition and diets, supplements, fat burning, fitness and training, proper exercise form, and even gym etiquette.

Muscle & Fitness magazine features must read articles including recently featured gems like "Unlikely Fat Burners: Burn more blubber with this quintet of adipose annihilators," "50 Rules of Fat-burning," and "Nutrition Notebook: Anti Obesi-Tea."
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Nutrition 101: What are the benefits of a low carbohydrate diet?

Most people view low carbohydrate diets as weight loss diets. Actually low carb diets promote health. Does this mean eating no carbohydrates including fruits and vegetables? No, of course not. But following the government's dietary guidelines of eating primarily carbohydrates (60 to 80 percent of your diet) is not healthy, nor is it based on science.

Dr. Mary Dan Eades says it's nearly impossible to reach the recommended 300 to 375 grams of carbohydrates a day by eating fruits and vegetables. You'd have to eat too many refined carbohydrates like breads or dense starches like potatoes, rice, or pasta.
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Summer treats, all American recipes

We’ve all heard the phrase, “As American As Apple Pie.” And most of us have also heard the argument that apple pie originated in Germany and the recipe came over on the boat with somebody’s grandmother. But if you search most cookbooks on German cuisine, guess what? No recipes for apple pie are to be found.

Although there is often a recipe for apple pie’s distant cousin, German Apple Cake or Versunkener Apfelkuchen, apple pie is uniquely American after all. While Frankfurters originated in the town of Frankfurt, Germany, the American hot dog we have come to know and love originated on the Boardwalk at Coney Island, New York. Nathan Handwerker, a Belgian immigrant, developed the recipe while working at another food stand.

Many of America’s favorite foods did travel across the ocean with our ancestors and remained relatively close to their original recipes through the years. Pizza in Italy tends not to have as much cheese as its American version. And in Belgium, the actual home of the “French” fry, fries are served with a mayonnaise sauce! But American cuisine is unique, whether the dish is a cousin of an Old World recipe or a totally American concoction like barbecued ribs or a Dagwood sandwich.

Wait a minute…barbecue originated in South America. And the sandwich was invented by The Earl of Sandwich, an Englishman. So are there any true “All American” foods?

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Nutrition Info 101: What are carbohydrates?

The government touts a diet high in carbohydrates, while many weight loss experts and low carb advocates swear by low carbohydrate diets. So, what exactly are carbohydrates? What happens when you eat carbohydrates?

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Nutrition Info 101: What are the benefits of caffeine?

Over the years caffeine has been both demonized and glorified. Studies yielded various outcomes and gave the media fuel for reporting both sides of the story. Caffeine was bad for your heart (if your had heart disease and drank 10 cups a day.) Caffeine was good for your metabolism (again, one study claimed only if your drank it to excess.) So what's the truth about caffeine? Does drinking caffeine have benefits? Read more.

Summer Muscle: Bodybuilder Tuan Tran

Bodybuilder Tuan Tran poses for photos and video in Miami following the 2009 Musclemania Universe competition.

Your Weight in Muscle Fiber

You probably have heard that muscle weighs more than fat. Many people notice a small weight gain when they begin lifting weights consistently. As a general rule, if you lift weights 2 to 3 times a week, you can gain 1 pound of muscle per month for about 6 months. After that, the rate of increase slows down as you start to reach your genetic potential. For the same reason, you will make a lot of progress on weight progression at the beginning, but the longer you lift; your progression will lessen because you are reaching your genetic potential.

Don’t be alarmed at the extra pounds of weight from weight training because it is well worth the effort. For every 3 pounds of muscle you build, research shows you increase your resting metabolic rate by about 7 percent. For example, if your body burns 1,200 calories per day (not counting exercise or any other movement), you would burn an extra 84 calories per day with those 3 extra pounds of muscle. Many women have a difficult time outgrowing 2-3 pound dumbbell weights, because they are afraid that if they increase the weight they will bulk up.

If you are happy with the strength and appearance of your muscles, you can do a maintenance program with 5 pound weights. However, if you want more strength, you could progress to 8 or 10 pound weights and still not bulk up. Using heavier weights can increase muscle size, but it’s highly unlikely that you’ll get bulky. Women don’t naturally have enough of the hormone, testosterone, required to build huge muscles, and even if you could bulk up, you’d have to use significantly heavier weights. Another option to tone muscle is to increase your repetitions instead of increasing weight. A high-repetition/light-weight program will develop muscle tone and increase strength and endurance without significantly increasing muscle size.

I like to tell my clients to not just go through the motion when lifting weights. I use the word squeeze” a lot to describe the contraction of the muscle you should be focusing on. Think about the muscle you are working and squeeze or contract it as you are lifting. You will get a lot more benefit for your efforts if you squeeze the muscle on the lift rather than just raising and lowering the weight without focusing on the muscle.

Article Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com

Free ice cream! July 19th is National Ice Cream Day

The weather is blazing hot and everyone's looking for ways to cool off. Ice cream tastes so very creamy and sweet, but it's the ice part of the equation we really seek this time of year. National Ice Cream Day is the third Sunday of July. It's time to take a break from our diets and indulge in a cool treat.

While many view ice cream as a diet no no, one cup averages 268 calories, 14.3 grams of fat, 32.5 grams of carbohydrates, and 4.7 grams of protein. Ice cream is also rich in vitamin A, calcium, phosphorus, and riboflavin. If you don't over indulge, ice cream can be part of a healthy diet.

Until July 19th, Starbucks is giving away free ice cream...

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Nutrition advice shouldn't be one size fits all

We're unique individuals with diverse health, weight and fitness issues. Nutrition needs vary and a "one size doesn't fit all" approach dosen't work. Just because “expert A” swears by low carb, “expert B” extols low fat, and “expert C” insists you must eat your fruits and vegetables at every meal, does not make their advice right for you.

Standard “healthy diet” advice can be downright harmful if you have a disease or condition for which it is counter intuitive. Examples are colitis, Crohn’s disease, celiacs, and irritable bowel syndrome, which are conditions in which dietary practices considered healthy, or foods and beverages other people eat and don’t give a second thought to, can cause painful and damaging symptoms.

Okay, let’s look at some standard nutrition and diet advice and why “one size fits all” recommendations like these may be detrimental for some. Read more and watch the videos.

Top five websites for buying budget friendly gourmet food

Go gourmet and make any occasion exquisite.

Eating is a natural pleasure. All healthy people enjoy good food and we should. Food isn't just fuel for the body, nor was it designed to be something to avoid or fear. Our taste buds don't just make food pleasurable, they signal our brains that a food will meet our nutritional needs. And taste points us to the right foods to nourish and sustain us physically and psychologically. Food is a natural mood elevator as well as a means to keep our bodies healthy and energetic.

Summer is filled with opportunities to enjoy fresh, whole, healthy foods. The internet has many excellent websites that cater to our desires for delicious gourmet treats. Even decadent foods like chocolate, cheeses, and wines have their place in a healthy diet. Dark chocolates, with at least 45 percent cocoa, are rich in antioxidants. Wines also supply health promoting antioxidants and moderate drinking lowers the risk of heart disease. Cheese is rich in calcium and adds zest to other dishes, as well as being a delightful stand alone treat.

Shopping online is a time saving convenience that offers a world of products not available in even the biggest grocery warehouses. For treats out of the ordinary, try these top online gourmet food websites: Read more, get the links, and watch the videos.

Hotel Muscle Service

How to Build Oblique Muscle

Aside from an actual six pack, the oblique muscles help frame your abdomen and give it a great look. In this article you will learn about the necessary workouts and nutrition that go hand in hand with building oblique muscles.

The most important thing to remember here is that you need a low enough bodyfat percentage in order to see the oblique muscles. The same applies to your abs. So it's important that your diet is correct in order to reach a bodyfat percentage that is low enough to begin to see the obliques. To lower your bodyfat percentage, you need to widen the gap between calories burned vs. calories consumed. The "calories consumed" part of the equation should obviously be lower than the "calories burned" part. The bigger the caloric deficit, the more fat you will lose and the more your bodyfat percentage will drop.

From a workout perspective, performing a combination of ab crunches, twisting ab crunches, and oblique specific exercises is ideal. A great exercise to target the obliques is performed by holding a dumbbell in one hand down to your side. Keep your lower body stationary as you drop your torso directly to whichever side you're holding the dumbbell, and then raise back up. This targets the obliques and will help you put on oblique muscle.

It's very important to understand that you need a low bodyfat to see your obliques. Otherwise if your bodyfat is too high, it doesn't matter how many oblique exercises you perform, you will simply never see them. In fact, you will make it worse because the added muscle will only add size underneath the fat, which can give you the appearance of having a higher bodyfat percentage.

Summer treats, eat gourmet smoked ham and lose weight

Summer is the perfect time for sandwiches. It's easy to make these no cook meals gourmet. Premium meats are a must for delicious sandwiches the whole family will enjoy. Your grocery store's deli department has decadent, yet healthy, options like lean roast beef and turkey.

To take your sandwiches to the next level, try a delicious ham from iGourmet.com. A top seller with grand appeal and versatility is their Le Cochon d'Or Smoked Ham. Available in Black Forest and honey varieties, these gourmet hams are a sandwich lovers dream. They also go well with eggs, salads, cheeses, and stand alone as a ham steak.

Fine ham is not just for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. And lean hams are extremely diet friendly. Simply by switching out a lean 4 ounce sirloin steak at 200 calories for a 4 ounce ham steak at 100 calories, you save 100 calories. Read more and watch the videos.

Summer treats, POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate juice review

Make POM Wonderful your super hero.

Summer's heating up, it's time for cold beverages, and juice in a natural choice. POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate juice has health benefits unique to the pomegranate fruit. Clinical studies have proven 8 ounces of POM Wonderful pomegranate juice, drank once a day, improved heart, prostate, and erectile health. The only brand of pomegranate juice proven 100% pure, POM Wonderful is a delicious way to cool off this summer and toast to your health.

Diet friendly at 160 calories per serving, this Superfruit drink contains no added sugars. POM Wonderful is naturally sweet because its goodness comes from 100% pure pomegranate juice grown by the POM Wonderful company. Tightly controlled quality makes this outstanding product stand out in the crowd of fruit juices. Backed by 25 million dollars in medical research, POM Wonderful is a health promoting treat you can believe in. Read more.

Demon fat found to make foods more nutritious

Low carbohydrate advocates have long preached the value of fats in our diets. While certain hard core anti-fat experts like Dr. Dean Ornish cry foul, it appears recent studies prove that health promoting vitamins, anti-oxidants, and other compounds found in fruits and vegetables are fat-soluble. This means we need some fat to be consumed with these foods for the body to properly absorb these nutrients.

Studies by Steven Clinton, of the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, found that choosing a fat free salad dressing, or skipping fatty toppings like cheddar cheese, avocado slices, or olives, means you get a lot less nutrients out of salads and side dishes.

Simplified, this means you can take low fat and fat free eating habits too far. If the nutrients don't get into your system, then you don't reap their benefits. Dr. Clinton's "salsa study" fed test subjects a meal of fat free salsa and bread. Later, a similar meal with avocado was fed. The avocado meal raised fat consumption to an extra 37 percent of calories. But the good news was that the blood levels of the test subjects showed they absorbed about 4 times more lycopene and 2.5 times more beta carotene. This is just one example of scientific research reinforcing fats as part of a healthy diet. The key is moderation. You don't need to down a stick of butter with your spinach. Read more.

Hot dog! You think you pigged out this 4th of July

Chicago style hot dog.

Competitive speed eaters are a rare breed. They train to overeat. While Americans as a whole tend to overeat from time to time for various reasons, then tend to feel guilty afterwards, these overeaters do it for the thrill of competition.

Yesterday, Joey Chestnut won the Nathan's hot dog eating contest by eating a record 68 hot dogs. Eating, or should we say gobbling, two hot dogs at a time, Chestnut crammed the bunless hot dogs into his mouth and barely bothered to chew. He gulped, forcing dogs down his throat in record time. Then he dipped the buns in water after the hot dogs were gone, and swallowed the wet bread. Not appetizing, yet totally fascinating to watch.

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Fourth of July recipes you can enjoy all Summer

As we celebrate July 4th, few of us will stick to our diets. That's good news. Studies show sticking to any diet too long leads to boredom and failure. Sticking to one style of dieting, such as low carb, low fat or low calorie, leads to a slowed metabolism and weight plateaus. This means it's actually a good idea to take a break and enjoy a cheat day every now and then.

Just get right back up on your diet horse after your day of decadence. And lose the guilt. By cheating now and then, as long as it's not an all out binge, you're actually doing yourself a favor.

Click here to read more, enjoy the recipes and check out the videos.

BeSt Sport EvEr - BoDYbuilDing

BeSt Sport EvEr - BoDYbuilDing

Food manufacturers play tricks on consumers and dieters

One of the biggest mistakes dieters make is trusting food manufacturers, not reading labels, and not researching nutrition information on unlabeled food items like meats. This can lead to consuming hundreds of extra calories a day. Not only can this stall your diet it can lead to unwanted weight gain. You may think you're eating healthy, yet end up packing on extra pounds.

Food manufacturers play tricks on consumers by commonly marketing products like sodas, candy, and snack foods like chips and cookies, in packages that appear to be single servings. But most are actually two or more servings per package. Few people who eat high calorie, refined snack foods bother to read the nutrition labels. This is one reason so many people are overweight. Simple oversight on how much you're really putting in your mouth is a crime against your waist.

We assume we're sticking to our diet when we shop the frozen foods section and buy prepackaged diet foods. They're portion controlled for us and low in fat and calories. Well, maybe not.

On example is Michelina brand Lean Gourmet Snackers Baked Pepperoni Pizza. The package is the same size as the other diet entrees. Read more and and watch the videos.