Best Self Help

Should you be taking an Amino Acid Supplement?

When it comes to playing sports, you need to be at your best. Practice makes you stronger, more skilled and a better player overall. Can supplements help you also?

There has been a debate over supplements. How many should you use and when? Supplements are just that – an addition to what you are already eating. If you can’t get what you need from food, a supplement may be needed to step you up to the next level.

Now, let’s talk about sports. Training for sports is a necessity these days. It has always been standard to train but the gap between the best and the second best is a lot narrower today. It takes extra effort to stay on top of your game. If you don’t, someone else will be there to take over.

This might be the pep talk your coach gives after a loss. It is meant to help you to refocus your practices and your training sessions.

Amino Acid Supplements

Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. In the body, protein is essential for building strong muscle. When you work out, you are actually tearing down your muscle. This is how the body builds stronger fibers. Weight training traumatizes the muscle, so it needs time to repair. When it does, the new fibers are able to withstand more weight.

With that in mind, there is a recovery period between workouts, especially weight training. Weight training is used in virtually all sports to build muscles that can endure long hours of running, swimming, jumping, kicking or whatever your sport requires.

The body needs twenty amino acids for protein synthesis. Eight of these are essential and twelve are non-essential. Non-essential means that these amino acids can be produced by the body when it is needed. As for the remaining eight, they come from foods that we eat. When we don’t get them in the food we eat, our muscles feel the loss. They can get sore and prone to more injuries.

Supplements are one way to get the levels of vital amino acids up to the optimum. The best way to take amino acid supplements is to find one that includes all the amino acids. They can decrease your recovery time from a workout, meaning that you can engage in a hard workout sooner than you could before.

Types of Amino Acid Supplements

Here are a few types of supplements you can use to enhance your sports performance.

* Creatine – This supplement is created from three amino acids: arginine, glycine and methionine. This protein has the benefit of being fat free so you won’t see any extra of that on your body. It is used to increase power and strength.

* Branched-chain amino acids – This supplement includes leucine, isoleucine and valine. It increases protein synthesis so you can train more often.

* Glutamine – This amino acid is the most abundant in the body. It helps to prevent you from overtraining, boosts immunity and prevents muscle breakdown.

Before taking any supplements, consult your doctor. While you want to enhance performance, there may be dietary changes you can make to facilitate better workouts instead of adding supplements.

Book Recommendation – The Healthiest Kid in the Neighborhood

The Healthiest Kid In the Neighborhood
Where to buy: www.amazon.com
Review by: ACHMom

As parents, one of our main concerns is to raise healthy kids and teach them to appreciate good and nutritional food. If they like good food, they are more likely to continue to stay away from junk food, even as adults. Unfortunately, childhood obesity is still on the rise, kids are inactive and at risk of developing terrible health conditions, such as diabetes or heart conditions.

The Healthiest Kid in the Neighborhood is a great resource on how to make vital nutritional choices for your family. It is written by “America’s pediatrician”, Dr William Sears, together with his wife, Martha Sears, and his two pediatrician sons, Drs. James and Robert Sears. It’s a book on how to prevent diseases and enjoy a healthy lifestyle full of energy and vitality.

Inside the book you will find practical and down-to-earth advice on how to shape your young children’s tastebuds, how to make vital nutritional changes to help your child live a healthy lifestyle, how to feed your family the right carbs and the right fats, why omega 3 fatty acids are essential to a growing brain. Learn how to cook with immunity-boosting foods. I particularly like the section on food shopping with your kids. In there, you’ll find lots of great tips on how to spot the best foods in the food aisles in your supermarket, i.e. be supermarket savvy, and how to keep your kids safe from marketing lures and ploys.

The section on Recipes offers mouth-watering and super-healthy snacks, dinners and lunches and desserts. They are a great way of introducing healthy and wholesome food to your family and why not start by cooking together? This is not only a fun family activity, but I am sure your kids will be much more likely to eat their own home-cooked food.

Overall, this is an unpretentious book by the Sears family, packed with lots of great pointers and tips on how to get your family on a healthy, nutritional path.

Read more about this title >

Start a 10 Week Shape Up Challenge

It’s just about 10 weeks before swimsuit season begins. Are you ready?

If you could use a little fine tuning, Tanya Stroh Training Solutions is now offering the Tanya Stroh’s 10 Week Shape Up Challenge

Tanya Stroh Training Solutions provides customized online exercises routines that are designed to meet each individual’s fitness goals. With seven goals to choose from, Tanya ensures members will get a challenging and productive workout every time.

Tanya Stroh’s system draws on the combined expertise of certified professional trainers, physical therapists, weight lifting & body building trainers, nutritionists and doctors to create  workout routines, fitness exercises and weight lifting programs that you can follow from work, home or anywhere.

Learn more about the Tanya Stroh’s 10 Week Shape Up Challenge:  Get Fit. Get Healthy. Get Results. Start Now!

Make Your Own Energy Drinks

There are many energy drinks on the market these days but they are not all what they appear to be. There are ingredients in them that you might not want to ingest. And there can be side effects from extensive use.

Learn how to create your own nutrient-rich energy drinks at home to meet your energy needs.  (And, no, I’m not talking about lattes or other drinks that derive their energy-boost from caffeine.)

Energy is the result of food eaten and broken down inside the body. When you eat the right foods that the body can use, you have more energy at your disposal. You can regulate how much energy you have by how much food you eat that the body can use.

This means that the right foods go in and then the right results come out. How about making your own energy drinks? It does require choosing the right foods for the job.

Here are a few foods to consider for your energy drinks:

* Berries – All kinds of berries are on the table. Darker berries contain resveratrol in their skins. This is a compound that helps to increase heart health. All berries contain antioxidants. They are known to increase immunity, reduce disease in the body, increase energy and add balance to the body. Berries also contain fiber which lowers cholesterol and keeps the digestive system moving.

* Green leafy vegetables – This includes spinach and kale. They are filled with protein and vitamins like E, K and A. They contain carbs that are filled with nutrients but with few calories. They provide sustainable energy for the body.

* Apples – Apples contain fiber. This is good for filling you up and lowering your cholesterol. One of the best ingredients in apples is quercetin.

* Fruits – Try different varieties that blend well like mango, peaches, bananas, pineapples and oranges. They are full of vitamin C to boost immunity and energy.

* Seeds – You can use a bit of texture in that energy drink if you’d like. In fact, ground your seeds into powder. Try some flaxseed and wheat germ to add a bit of fiber to your drink. They also add protein which is much needed to fight sugar cravings.

Smoothie Recipes

We call it an energy drink but it is in reality an energy smoothie. You can put all of your ingredients together at night and pop them in the blender in the morning.

Berry Smoothie

* 1 cup of fat-free plain yogurt
* Generous portions of frozen berries of your choice
* Ice cubes

Use the natural flavor of the berries to sweeten the smoothie. If you need more liquid, try a fourth of a cup of 100% apple juice.

Energy Smoothie

* 1 banana
* 1 cup of strawberries
* 1 cup of soy milk or 1 cup of yogurt
* 1 cup of green leafy veggies like spinach or kale

Green Smoothie

* ½ cup of carrots
* Ice cubes
* Plain yogurt
* ½ cup apple juice
* Swiss chard

You can combine fruits and veggies in whatever combinations taste best to you for that energy-packed punch. Sweeten with fruit juice or cinnamon or nutmeg. Using a good blender will ensure a smooth taste with no large pieces.

Celebrity Diets

Everyone wants to look their best. Part of that is what we eat.

Do celebrities have an “in” that we don’t know about?

Do these celebrity diets they use actually work?

What makes a diet popular? It is often down to the types of people that latch onto it. When you have a celebrity endorser, people are more likely to take notice. Unfortunately that goes for any diet, no matter how little substance it has to it.

Let’s take a look as some celebrity diets and what they contain or don’t contain.

* Lemonade diet – Naomi Campbell likes this one. Beyoncé was on it for a while. This is a liquid diet that allows you to lose a lot of weight in ten days. You drink lemon juice, maple syrup, cayenne pepper and hot water. According to professionals, this is a starvation diet. You lose weight because you are expending energy without taking in any nutrients. This is hard to maintain and the weight comes back as soon as you eat.

* Cabbage soup diet – Oprah was on board with this one at one time. Like the celebrity diet above, you eat a soup mostly composed of cabbage and water. You alternate fruits but basically you are cutting calories to extreme levels. Again, once you get back on a normal diet the weight you lost came back. Why? It was mostly water weight that you lost in the first place.

* Zone diet – Renee Zellweger is a fan of this one. It involves food combining in proper proportions to achieve weight-loss results. For the busy family, this can be hard to do. Portion size is usually the biggest obstacle. There are prepared meal services but they are expensive.

Many celebrity diets work for them because of two things: personal chefs and personal trainers. When you have a busy schedule it is also advantageous to have someone else do the thinking for you. A personal chef is useful for many celebrities. All they have to do is give instructions on what their diet calls for and then eat what is fixed for them.

Ever wonder why a celebrity can look in tiptop shape a couple of months after having a baby? That is the job of the personal trainer. They work side by side with you to create the best body possible according to your needs.

The average person doesn’t have a personal chef or a personal trainer. Most celebrity diets are designed to lose weight fast for a movie or a premier.

To maintain a healthy body and lose weight that will stay off, you need to eat more whole foods, smaller meals and learn about portion size. Celebrity diets may work at first but they are not meant to last. Choose an eating plan that will put you n the right track. It won’t be easy but it will be lasting.

Here are links to more information (and money-saving coupons) on our favorite diets. Each of the diets below has stood the test of time. And whether you’re looking for a strong educational component, or you’re looking for a meal replacement alternative, there’s something here for everyone:

Weight  Watchers Online
Medifast Diet
Diet to Go
NutriSystem

Dukan Diet

Have you heard all the buzz about the Dukan diet? This has been one of the leading diets in France and is now taking the world by storm. The online coaching program is a personalized plan that is unique to the individual. Check it out today:

Learn more at the Dukan Diet Homepage

Kathy Smith’s Kettlebell Solution

Kathy Smith’s Kettlebell Solution
Buy at: amazon.com
Review by: ACHmom

If you are already familiar with Kettlebells, you know of the many benefits that this type of training can bring you. That’s why it is one of America’s top choices when it comes to all around fitness. It improves your muscular endurance, strengthens your muscles and is lots of fun.

Kettlebells look like cannonballs with a handle that enables you to swing them around. They  come in different weights, and the Kathy Smith’s Kettlebell Solution is aimed at beginners and comes with one 3lb soft Kettlebell and one 5lb soft Kettlebell. Soft means that these Kettlebells are filled with sand and come with a soft outer shell (just in case you drop one onto your toes). It also includes a workout DVD to show you how to effectively use the Kettlebells to target various parts of your body. There are 4 different workouts in total to target bums and thighs, core muscle group, fat burning workout and upper body. The DVD set also features a nutrition guide to complement your training and a wall chart to mark down your training progress.

As you progress through the training, you will find that your body becomes stronger, leaner and more flexible. This will, in turn, increase your level of fitness and wellbeing.

Overall, I think that Kathy Smith’s Kettlebell Solution would make a great purchase for anybody wanting to try out this popular fitness product at home. You can’t go wrong with Kathy Smith’s products. She’s been a leader in the wellness and fitness field for over 20 years and has been changing people’s lifestyle for the better ever since.

Burn Fat Fast: The Best Exercises and Fitness Programs for Fat Blasting

If you’re looking to burn fat quickly then there are a few fitness programs to consider. The key to a high fat burning workout is intensity. Take a look at these high impact fitness programs.

Running. Running is great for fat burning. It’s one of the most effective and efficient exercises you can do. It embraces both weight bearing activities and cardiovascular. Each time your foot strikes the ground you’re bearing your own weight. This is good for muscle strength and bone strength. The cardiovascular is good for your heart and lungs. Combined, running is superior for burning fat fast.

Cross country skiing. You might think that cross country skiing is only good for the winter months. Actually, with the use of indoor fitness equipment or outdoor roller skis you can actually participate in this activity year round. It’s easy on your joints, unlike running. And it’s fantastic for your cardiovascular fitness. It builds muscle, burns fat and improves your health. It’s also fun.

Swimming. If you love the water, then you can’t go wrong with swimming. Swimming is a whole body workout. It strengthens your upper and lower body. It builds your core muscles – the muscles on your stomach and back. It also provides a complete cardiovascular workout. Swimming is a significant fat burner. It’s also great to help quiet the world.

Dancing. Dancing is so much fun. It’s great for the spirit. It’s also good for your body. And perhaps even better, it burns fat. There are many different dance fitness programs you can choose from.

Zumba is a particularly popular fitness program right now. It blends Latin rhythms and dance steps with a fun filled and exciting fat burning workout. There’s also Soul Sweat if you prefer a more soulful style of dance and music. And of course any jazzercise or dance aerobic class is going to be good for your body and mind.

Strength training. Finally, you may be aware that muscle burns more calories than fat. This means if you add a strength training workout to your fitness routine you’re able to increase your fat burning results. One easy way to add strength training to your routine is to purchase and use a fitness ball. You can also lift weights. If those ideas don’t appeal to you consider rock climbing, yoga, Pilates, or boxing and martial arts.

If you want to burn fat fast, consider adding one of these fantastic fitness programs to your routine. The more energy you put into your fitness program, the more you’ll get out of it. Take a look at your perceived effort. If it’s less than a five, kick your effort up a notch. Enjoy the results.

Top Tips for a Lower-Fat Lifestyle

One of the big questions today is how much fat we should eat. Some people agree with low-fat diets and others say that this limits the healthy fats. Here are some tips to help you get the fat you need, but not too much of the saturated fats that you don’t want.

What fats should you eat?

Some people categorize fats as good or bad, but we are going to get a little more technical and use their real names so you know what to look for on food labels.

There are good fats: polyunsaturated fats and monounsaturated fats.

There are also bad fats: trans fats and saturated fats.

Let’s begin with the fats that are going to be healthier for you to eat.

Think about nuts. Nuts are a great source of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. Eating a handful can be a filling snack because they also contain fiber.

Eat some beans. Beans are a good source of plant protein but without the saturated fat that accompanies most meat protein sources. At least once a week, try substituting beans for meat as your main dish for dinner/and or lunch.

Cut back the fat in dairy foods. Dairy contains vitamins and minerals that the body needs but also fat that the body doesn’t. Have your milk and cheese but try to choose lower fat or no-fat varieties. If you want to use cheese in a recipe, reach for low-fat block cheese. The cellulose in shredded cheese keeps it from clumping and also from melting well in casseroles and other dishes.

Use polyunsaturated oils when cooking. If your recipe calls for using butter to sauté your food, instead use olive oil or canola oil. Even better would be to use a non-stick pan and eliminate added fat altogether.

Make your own salad dressings. Many of us need to have a little dressing with our salad. Lighten your touch with an oil and vinegar mix that is infused with herbs. You can use a cruet and make your own at home. Try flax seed oil or walnut oil to add a nutty flavor to the dressing.

Visit the butcher. At the butcher you can select your cuts of meat and also have them trim off all the excess fat. To add flavor, marinade the meat with spices before cooking.

There are ways to limit your fat but not the flavor of your meals. Eat your favorite foods but with a healthy twist.

Balance Ball for Weight Loss DVD

Product Recommendation – Balance Ball for Weight Loss DVD

Where to buy: www.gaiam.com
Review by: ACHMom

If you own a balance ball and want to take full advantage of its exercise potential, have a look at the Balance Ball for Weightloss DVD. I like the fact that this DVD covers various short (10-15minute) exercise sessions that can easily be included into anybody’s busy schedule.

The exercises are derived from Pilates and Yoga and help to strengthen and tone your muscles while encouraging calorie burning. Done regularly, you will notice your abs, glutes, thighs and upper arms will become toned. In order to speed up your weight loss and fitness, you can peruse through the included nutrition guide on how to enjoy a healthy lifestyle with the appropriate food to encourage healthy weight.

All you need now is a balance ball, a mat and the will to get fit and lose weight; then this DVD will help you to achieve a healthier and fitter you.

In my opinion, if you want to lose weight, be stronger and more toned, this DVD will give you the opportunity to incorporate short and purposeful balance ball routines into your busy lifestyle.

Balance Ball for Weight Loss DVD