Getting to the Root of Nutrition: The Pillars of Nutrition

What are we made of? While this may seem like a simple question, the answer is essential to the study of nutrition. Over hundreds if not thousands of years the study of nutrition has aimed to break down the different compounds from which the body is made and to understand where they came from. The simple fact is that the entire human body is made out of food and water and to a lesser extent air and light. The things that do not fall into these categories may be toxins and actually cause a burden to the structures and functions of the normal body. Many toxins are added to our food today and you may be surprised by what some of them are. Knowing what supports correct bodily function and what burdens it can help you make better choices about your lifestyle and your diet and the result is an improved level of wellness.

Understanding that from the very beginning you were and continue to be made out of the compounds found in food and water, nutrition and the study of it is obviously primarily health care and neither alternative nor complimentary. Nutrition is the most fundamental aspect of life.

What makes the food that makes us?

First we have the so-called “pillars of nutrition.” These are also known as macronutrients because they take up the largest portion of the food, apart from water which makes up a substantial portion of any food.

· Protein
· Fats
· Carbohydrates

Just like the basic parts used to make a car, these parts are all required for life and in a ratio of about 30% protein, 20% fats and 50% carbohydrates.

The quality of each of these pillars is very important. After all, do you want to be made from high quality parts or low quality parts?

Protein is composed of twenty different amino acids. In adults there are eight essential amino acids. Essential means there is no way for your body to get these building blocks other than through your diet. With children there are ten essential amino acids and premature babies require eleven amino acids. Again, they cannot get in these other way than through diet.

Meat from animals contains a complete profile of the essential amino acids, but some erroneously believe that vegetarians have a difficult time getting enough protein in their diets. Protein is a basic building block in all life and vegetarians eating a reasonably varied selection of foods not only get complete protein support, the protein from plants tends to be easier to digest and does not cause a build up of toxins like uric acid in the kidneys as is the case with all animal protein.

Modern diets tend to have the least amount of high quality essential fats but large amounts of low quality and harmful fats. These essential fats are found in foods such as flax seed, fresh nuts, avocados and certain types of fish. Processed foods and red meat contain saturated fats and trans fats which are neither essential nor beneficial.

The essential fats not only assist the body in the management of inflammation and other bodily processes, they make up some critical structures in the body as well. Over 50% of the mass of a healthy brain is composed of these essential, unsaturated fats.

A word of warning: have you ever opened a jar of raw nuts and discovered the smell of “oil paint”? This is a sign that the essential fats have gone rancid. Throw this food out.

The final pillar is the much maligned carbohydrate group. These foods provide energy as well as fiber to the diet. Fiber is found in most plants and is not considered a nutrient, but it is important for normal bodily function and waste elimination. Fruits and vegetables provide the best source of carbohydrates and varying amounts of fiber. Grains also provide beneficial carbohydrates as long as they are whole and are an excellent source of fiber. Refined grains provide the lowest quality source of carbohydrates and in excess may now only lead to unwanted weight gain, but also an increased risk of diabetes, and heart disease.

These three pillars of nutrition are very important and provide the bulk of any healthy diet. For hundreds of years, they were considered to be the only components of nutrition in food. That all changed as research moved forward in the late 19th and early 20th century.

In the next article, we will peer further into the essentials of food.

Fitness in Your Fabulous Forties

As we get older, we often pause to evaluate ourselves: Am I accomplishing all I want? Am I doing enough to help others? Am I flossing enough? Do I like my work? All sorts of questions pop into our minds. But, when you turn 40, 50, 60, and beyond the questions change. Why is my body making that noise? Am I eating right? What sorts of exercises do I need to stay fit?



We all ask these questions because we want to feel better and live healthier lives. However, as we age the exercises we did in our 20's and 30's are not as easy or as much fun anymore. It's time to find new ways to make fitness work for us, not against us. We know regular exercise can and will keep us strong and vital. It is just a matter of finding activities that fit our needs.



Our Body is Changing. Our bodies change throughout our lives. We tend to notice these changes more as we age. "We see the results of physiological changes around 40 and after," states Greg Payne, author, professor at San Jose State University's Human Performance Department. Payne says, "Strength, cardiovascular capacity, metabolic rate, flexibility and reaction time decrease as we grow older." Over 40, specialist believe our functional capacity of most organ systems start to decline at the rate of one percent a year (or 10 percent a decade) if left unchecked. Decrease in bone mass, which hastens osteoporosis (especially in women), and water loss are major changes that take place.



Optimistically, many of the symptoms of aging are really symptoms of lack of exercise. Studies show we can prevent as much as 50 percent of functional decline by participating in regular exercise. Decline is related directly to lifestyle choices rather than the biological process of aging.



Getting Motivated. Everyone has different motives for working out – from feeling and looking physically better to stress management and a need for physical fun and social activity. One major reason people choose to exercise is to improve appearance. However, the consultations, health histories and goals my over forty clients share with me indicate exercise becomes a health issue and stress-relief mechanism. Flexibility and strength become functional priorities in preserving their quality of life. weight loss is important for appearance, as well as for health issues; e.g. high cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, breathlessness and fatigue.



Exercise importance is pretty much a given, while adherence is the key. Having fun and working out with a friend or family member helps encourage regular activity.



Over Forty Exercise Programs. A balanced exercise program that includes cardiovascular exercise (preferably low impact), muscular strengthening, endurance training and flexibility exercise is important for clients over 40. Fitness level, not age, determines the design, content and approach of a program. It's never too late to exercise and you are never too old to start. When considering the average inactive population, my philosophy is that something is better than nothing, and my goal is to encourage participation in any activity that will result with health benefits. For more information and tips on exercise, go to http://www.easyexercisetips.com



Linda Geyer, entrepreneur, speaker and author has spent her entire career in health related businesses helping clients and audiences make health a priority. She is Founder and CEO of Vitality Management and owner of Peak Physique Fitness Training in Michigan. Linda inspires, motivates and educates on health prevention through exercise, healthy eating and positive attitude. For FREE tips go to http://www.easyexercisetips.com

To contact Linda Geyer, email linda@peakphysiquefitness.com

8 Tips to Help You Become a Networking Guru!

Effective business networking is the bringing together of like minded individuals who, through relationship building, become walking, talking advertisements for one another.



Keep in mind that networking is about being bona fide, building trust, and seeing how your relationship can genuinely help others.



1. Always figure out before you even walk into a room, what your specific goals are in attending each networking meeting. This helps you to pick groups or associations that will help you get what you are looking for.



2. Ask open-ended questions during your networking conversations, questions that ask who, what, where, when, and how. Try to avoid questions that require a simple yes or no response. By using this line of questioning you can open us the discussion and show listeners that you are interested.



3. Become a walking resource centre. When you become known as a strong resource, others remember to turn to you for suggestions, ideas, names of other people, etc. This keeps you at their "top of mind".



4. Make sure you have your "elevator speech" prepared and know it like the back of your hand. An elevator speech is the commonly known as the response you would give in the amount of time it would take to reach the tenth floor in an elevator. Always rehearse your spiel and be genuine, so that you don't sound automated when you relay it to someone who asks what you do.



5. Always know what is going on in current affairs, if you don't feel comfortable just rolling into a spiel when you first meet someone, have a back up topic to break the ice until you do.



6. Never just throw your business card at someone the minute you meet them, you must get to know the person and their business as well as explaining your business before you even contemplate a business card exchange. Some people will find you rude, pushy and unprofessional which will in turn reflect badly on your business.



7. Always phone or email your new contacts and let them know that you enjoyed meeting them. If possible mention things that you discussed on a more personal note (i.e. I hope you enjoyed that movie you were going to see that night.) people will come to know you as someone who listens, remembers them and they will form a trust with you.



8. The most important thing to remember is to follow through quickly and efficiently on referrals you are given. When people give you referrals, your actions are a reflection on them. Respect and honor their trust and your referrals will grow exponentially.



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Lauren is the founder and Director of Small to Medium Enterprise Growth, http://www.smegrow.com. She has assisted others to start and grow various online businesses Australia wide, including her own, and is the author of the FREE Business Growth Newsletter, which is jam packed full of fresh and innovative ideas that you can use to grow fabulously profitable online! So why not log in, sign up and get started TODAY!

You can find additional info at the following links:

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Eating Onion and Its Health Benefits

Onion is one of the most widely used vegetable in the kitchen. It can be found in a large number of recipes all over the world. Besides its culinary uses, this vegetable also has lots of health benefits. Since the ancient times, it has been used for various medical purposes. These days, onion is still widely used for its medicinal properties.

In early times, there were two primary uses of onion. It was utilized as a pain reliever or in reducing pain. The second application was on healing wounds.

Onion is good at for people who has anemia. The high iron content in this plant helps to increase the red blood cells in our body.

Vitamin C is instrumental in strengthening our blood vessels, decreasing inflammations, lowering blood pressure as well as inhibiting the growth of tumor in the colon. Onion may not have Vitamin C, but it does have a couple of phyto-chemicals that aids Vitamin C in making the body healthier. These two chemicals are flavanoid and quercetin.

Eating onion is additionally beneficial to people with diabetes. Chromium, a mineral which is found in onions, helps the body cells react to insulin. In this way, onion is able to aid the body control glucose.

There has been a breakthrough in the medical application of onions. It has been found out the onion can potentially fight osteoporosis. Besides adding flavor to our food, onions may also be good for our bones. Researchers at the University of Bern in Switzerland have identified a compound in the popular vegetable that appears to decrease bone loss in laboratory studies using rat bone cells.

Onions have many more health benefits. A few other minerals which are found in this vegetable are phosphorous, magnesium, potassium, and selenium. It also has anti-bacterial properties which allow it to be used in alleviating the symptoms of urinary tract infection.

Your Dogs Nutrition 101

Dogs have specific nutritional needs, but most pet owners do not realize that all dogs and most pet foods are not alike. Many commercial dog food brands are lacking in key nutrients, so reading the labels is a must. Price and brand names are not good gages of quality when it comes to food.

Dogs are carnivorous so they need meat and protein, along with carbohydrates, vitamins, fat, minerals, and water. The manufacturers have choices as to the types and amounts of proteins, minerals, and vitamins that they put into their products. Higher levels of animal protein like chicken, lamb, and beef are needed by active dogs, while proteins found in plants or grains such as corn, soy, wheat, and rice are sufficient for less active dogs.

Puppy foods generally contain more protein than adult or maintenance foods. What you are looking for is a food that has two animal proteins in the first three ingredients listing. This is a good rule of thumb that applies to all dogs and breeds, not just puppies.

Carbohydrates are important buy only in small amounts. You should avoid foods that contain soy, because altogether soy is high in protein, it is also a carbohydrate that slows down digestion and prevents other vitamins and minerals in the food from being absorbed.

Vitamins come in two types, water soluble, and fat soluble. Vitamins B and C are water soluble, while vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat soluble. The B and C vitamins are lost through urination and need to be included in every meal, while vitamins A, D, E and K are stored up in the fatty tissues of the body and liver.

The type of dog food is important, because of digestion time. Raw foods, such as meat, vegetables, and even fruit are the easiest foods to digest, and usually in about 4 ½ hours. Semi moist processed dog foods take longer, usually around 9 hours to pass through the stomach, and dry dog foods take up to 16 hours before the dog is receiving energy from the food.

For more information, please consult your veterinarian, as they are the best judge of your dog’s individual needs. But it is up to us, the pet owners to care for our four legged friends by continuing to read those labels!

Healthy Vegetarian Weight Loss

Not all vegetarian weight loss programs and plans are healthy. You probably have suffered from using them, which leads you to seeking healthy vegetarian weight loss. Losing weight and gaining health at the same time, in fact, are not difficult. All you need is just a dash of common sense and healthy habits.

Let me bring out the contrast between the unhealthy and healthy vegetarian weight loss methods to show you a clear picture of what's good for you. You'll then know how to work towards a healthy vegetarian weight loss in your diet plan.

Unhealthy Vegetarian Weight Loss - High Protein, Low Carb

This crash vegetarian weight loss diet is created from those infamous meat-laden fad diets. The principle is the same - you eat about 2- 3 times more protein than carbohydrate and when your body needs additional energy, it'll turn to your fat stores for fuel. No doubt you'll lose weight with this diet, you get a host of health problems tagging along such as headache, bad breath, loss of concentration, constipation, etc.

There are these groups of dare-devils who can't be bothered with their health. Their priority - weight loss first, health later. Meaning, they'll lose weight and suffer some health issues first, then once they achieve their target weight, they'll try to fix their health problems. By the time you reach your weight loss goal, your body could have suffered irreversible damages to some degrees, which had already happened to some people. How sad!

Health Vegetarian Weight Loss

What constitutes a healthy vegetarian weight loss? Numerous human physiological and behavioral studies / researches have proven that we need carbohydrate for prime functioning.

Especially the human brain, it needs immediate energy to power it up to process, handle, manage and control data. With low supply of carbohydrate, you can imagine how much your brain has to suffer. Moreover, our human bodies do not need as much protein as we normally think. We need protein to build new cells and repair damaged tissues. We actually need only about 35 - 45 grams for women and 60 - 75 grams for men, per day.

So, a healthy vegetarian weight loss should not compromise these basic macro nutritional needs. You need high-carb, but carb composes of good carb (natural, unrefined complex-carbohydrate) and bad carb (simple, refined carbohydrate). Good carb comes from whole vegetarian foods while bad carb comes from processed vegetarian foods.

Similarly, you have good dietary fat (coconut oil, olive oil, flax oil) and bad dietary oil (animal fat, soybean oil, corn oil, rapeseed oil).

Having said that, your diet for healthy vegetarian weight loss should encompass as much whole food as possible, with carb bearing 40 - 60 %, protein 15 - 25%, fat 10 - 15%. You can alter the percentage slightly to make your meal plans more interesting. But never make your protein 2 - 3 times more than your carb.

Oh, include exercise as part of your healthy vegetarian weight loss too. Exercise has been scientifically proven to promote health and fat loss. Bottom line - don't sacrifice your health for weight loss.

The importance of nutrition in our daily life

Whenever we take any food or nourishing liquids, our body digests and absorbs the simple but essential minerals, vitamins, fats, proteins, carbohydrates, fats and water from these food or nourishing liquids and converts it into the bloodstream and energy that help our body to grow and keep it healthy.

The nutrition value is more important for any individual's health. The food or liquids whenever we take it affect our body and health as well both. So it is very important that we should be more aware of the foods or liquids whatever we take in our daily life. A large number of diseases occur only due to wrong diet. Some certain diet may itself cause some disease or alter the course of a known disorder such as diabetes, heart or kidney disease.

Why nutrition is important for us?

As we know that food and water is necessary to build up our body and keep it healthy. Every good food and liquid contains some important nutrition like proteins, carbohydrate, fats, some vitamins, minerals and water. These all play different role to keep our body healthy and build new cells in our body.

These are the important nutrition and their role in our body:

Protein:

Protein helps our body to build muscles and strong immune system. Basically proteins are made up of long chains of amino acids. There are 22 different types of amino acid and our body needs all these amino acid to function properly. Protein is abundant type of nutrient in our body that builds new tissues and repairs all damaged cells in our body. It also helps in formation of hormones and enzymes which play variety of roles in our body such as metabolism and sexual development. There are many types of protein that play different types of important role in our body. For example collagen is a protein and it gives the strength, elasticity and composition of our hair and skin. Some of the good protein sources are lentils, low-fat dairy products, tofu, nuts, seeds, peas, tempeh. Some common foods such as whole grain bread, potatoes, corn and pasta also have protein. Soya protein is the most essential and strong protein and it is equal to any animal origin protein.

Carbohydrates:

Carbohydrates give us energy. This is an ideal source of energy for the body because carbohydrates converted more readily into glucose. It helps our body to supply the energy for the formation of cellular constituent. Carbohydrates are made up of three compounds Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen formed by plants. There are four types of carbohydrates are important - Sugar, Starches, Fiber and Gums. If carbohydrates taken regularly it doesn't cause any weight gain, unless like other food group. There are two types of carbohydrates - Complex and Simple. Efficiency of carbohydrates can cause the production of ketones in the body, it can results into a condition known as ketosis. The good examples of carbohydrates are breads, potatoes, pasta, soda, chips, candies/sweets, cookies/biscuits, puddings, cakes, sugar, bananas etc.

Fats:

Fat provides us extra energy. It is a nutrient and a particular amount of fat is necessary for our body. It doesn't always make us fat. It play role to insulate our bodies by giving us protection from sudden changes in temperature and also protects our vital organs. Fats consists of a wide group of compounds are soluble in organic solvents and insoluble in water. Fats provide 9 calories per gram. When dietary fat is digested, fatty acids are produced. It is also important for healthy skin and blood pressure regulation.

There are two types of fats Saturated (solid at room temperature) and Unsaturated (liquid at room temperature). To obtain an adequate amount of linoleic acid, one of the few fatty acids the body cannot produce on itself. Any adult needs one tablespoon of unsaturated fat daily. Saturated fats mainly occur in dairy products like butter, cream, cheese and some chocolates. The source of unsaturated fats are soybean, sunflower and corn oils.

Vitamins:

A vitamin is an organic compound, it regulate our body processes and plays an important role to make our body function properly. The term vitamin was derived from 'vitamine', a combination word from Vital and Amine. Today a chemical compound is called a vitamin. Our body needs vitamins as substances to grow and develop normally. There are 13 vitamins necessary for our body. Some of them are A, B, C, D, E, K, vitamin B-6 and vitamin B-12. In our daily life we get all most all these vitamins form foods whatever we take. Our body can also produce vitamins D and K.

Each vitamin plays specific jobs. Any particular low levels of vitamins cause deficiency disease. For example, if we don't get enough vitamin D it can cause rickets. Deficiency of vitamin 'A' can cause Night Blindness.

If we eat a balanced diet we get enough essential vitamin automatically form our daily food or liquid. We don't even need to take any particular vitamin separately. Only in some cases we need to take a daily multivitamin for optimal health.

Minerals:

Minerals regulate our body processes and also make body tissues. Minerals make our body work properly same as vitamin play the role but it doesn't prevent weight loss. Although we get it form our daily foods, so we don't need to take it separately. Minerals boost our immune system. Some important minerals are Chloride, Calcium, Copper, Chromium, Fluoride, Iron and Iodine. These types of minerals can be found from our daily food or liquid supplement like salt, soy sauce, milk, vegetable oils, whole grains, cheese, nuts etc

Water gives cells shape and acts as a medium where body processes can occur. It is the well known yet most important nutrient our body needs. It is also the most abundant type of liquid found in our body contributing 70% of our total mass. It helps to dissolve and carry the essential nutrients to all parts of the body. It is also needed to help maintain the body temperature and aids to carry away the body's waste products.

Water:

In human body there are 70% of total mass is covered by water. Water gives cells shape and acts as a medium where body processes can occur. It is very necessary nutrient than available all nutrients. It is also the most abundant type of liquid found in human body. Water help maintain the body temperature and aids to carry away the body's waste products.

We see that nutrition plays a very important role in our lives, each food and liquid contains its own nutrition value which is very necessary in our life. It could help to extend or decrease our life span as well as define our degree or livelihood. It helps in our mental and physical development as well. We must should aware about the food and liquid what we take regularly. Popper food in our daily life leads to a lifetime habit toward a healthy extended life.

Check out this website http://www.eatyourveggie.com for more information about the vegetarian foods and recipes.