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Yoga Poses for Anxiety, Pain, and More
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From Health magazine
Try this quick routine created by Health's yoga guru, Kristin McGee. It's designed to fight anxiety, ease backaches, cool hot flashes, and power up your libido.
Next: Child's Pose
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The Truth About Low-Carb Diets
But here's the thing: Eliminating carbs is risky business. "It's preposterous," says David Katz, MD, director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center and author of Disease-Proof. "All plants are carbohydrate sources, so eating no carbs means eating no plant foods, period." Carbs are important for your brain and body; the right ones even reduce your risk of disease.
Yet the misconception that the fewer carbs you eat, the better persists among health- and diet-minded Americans. "Everyone is jumping on this bandwagon," Larson says. "But the science just does not bear it out." In fact, studies now suggest that going low-carb for a long period of time may be harmful to our health.
Related: The Truth About 10 Bogus Health Trends
You can't live without carbs
While many of us think of carbs as bread and pasta, they're in any food that comes from a plant, including fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, seeds and legumes. "It's a huge, diverse class of foods," Dr. Katz explains.
To make carbohydrates, plants trap the sun's energy inside molecules of glucose—a simple sugar—then connect the glucose molecules together (sometimes along with the other two basic sugar building blocks, fructose and galactose) to create longer carb molecules such as sucrose and starch. When you eat that plant, your digestive system breaks the longer carbohydrate back down into glucose, which travels through your bloodstream into your cells. The cells process the glucose, releasing the captured energy and using it for fuel.
Far from being poison, then, glucose sparks life. "If you're in a hospital and they need to get some energy into you, they'll use a glucose drip," says Joanne Slavin, PhD, professor of food science and nutrition at the University of Minnesota and chair of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on Carbohydrates. Dr. Katz adds, "If you don't have enough glucose in your blood, you're dead. It's that simple."While you don't have to eat carbs to get glucose into your blood (your body can manufacture it if needed), "carbohydrates are the most efficient fuel source that we have," says Heidi Schauster, RD, a nutrition therapist in Boston. Low-carb advocates (most famously Robert Atkins, MD) point out that your body can also use other fuel sources, such as protein or fatty acids, to power itself. But many experts say that this method of converting fats into so-called ketone bodies, known as ketogenesis, is much less efficient than using glucose for energy. And when too many ketone bodies are produced, the body is in a state of ketosis. "Ketosis can be tolerated for a short time, but in severe cases it could have very serious effects in the long term for the brain, as well as the kidneys, liver and skeletal system," Dr. Katz says.
Related: 11 Women Who Lost Weight Eating Healthy Carbs
Besides providing much-needed glucose, plants are our only source of dietary fiber. Like other carbohydrates, fiber is composed of many bonded sugar units, but human enzymes can't chop it up, so it passes relatively unscathed through much of the digestive tract. And it benefits you in many ways. "People who eat more fiber have less cardiovascular disease," Slavin says. "They also weigh less and gain less weight over time."
You probably know that fiber helps move food through your body, keeping you regular. In addition, some forms of fiber (including resistant starch, found in bananas, lentils and many other foods) are prebiotics, a type of carbohydrate that feeds the growth of "good" bacteria in your gut.
Not to mention, skipping carbs could mean falling short on essential nutrients. "Cutting out whole grains eliminates a good source of great nutrition, such as zinc, magnesium and B vitamins," Larson says. Steer clear of fruits and vegetables and you miss out on many vitamins and powerful antioxidants. These nutrients play a critical role in keeping us healthy long-term. "When we look at population-level studies of people who live well across the span of a lifetime," Dr. Katz notes, "they almost universally eat diets high in good carbohydrates."
Get the latest health, fitness, anti-aging, and nutrition news, plus special offers, insights and updates from Health.com!Your Half-Marathon Training Guide
Sure, walking has its benefits, but research shows that running kicks its butt when it comes to shedding pounds. One recent study of 47,000 runners and walkers, from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., found that the runners burned more calories and had a far greater decrease in BMI over a six-year period. The joggers who started out heaviest (those with a BMI over 28) lost up to 90 percent more weight than the walkers did.
Dropping pounds and toning up are hardly the only benefits of this killer cardio workout: You'll also reduce your risk of heart disease and diabetes, boost your mood, temper stress and build muscle, especially in the lower body and core. You don't even need to dedicate a lot of time to reap these rewards; do 20 to 30 minutes, three to four days a week, and you'll see significant improvement.
Ready to hit the road? Here's a plan for experienced runners. And it's smart to add in one day of cross-training (think cycling or swimming) to rev up calorie burn and help prevent injury. Soon enough, you'll feel as if you were born to run.
Your stats: You run three to four times a week for at least five miles nonstop.
The goal: Boost your overall performance—speed, endurance and distance—over the course of 12 weeks, then challenge yourself with a half-marathon.
Your coach: Andrew Kastor is coaching director at Asics L.A. Marathon and head coach at Mammoth Track Club in Mammoth, California.
The plan: In Week 1, run three to four miles at an easy pace (think 5 on a scale of 1 to 10) on your first day; four to five miles on Days 2 and 3; and five to six on Day 4. In subsequent weeks, keep doing one easy-pace day, and vary half-mile-long to mile-long speed intervals. The detailed schedule also tells you how to add in race-pace workouts, so you can hold your speed for longer distances.
HERE'S YOUR GUIDE: Expert Half-Marathon Training Plan
Train smarter!
1. Buddy up
Face it, sometimes you just don't feel like going for a run, especially when you've been seriously challenging yourself. Having someone by your side is a great way to make the miles more tolerable and maintain your performance. "When you train with a group or pack, you almost always run a little harder or faster," says Kastor. Grab a friend or find a new jogging pal at buddyup.com or the Road Runners Club of America (rrca.org). Choose partners who are a bit better than you; you want a challenge but don't want to get burned out or injured.
2. Take the plunge
Kastor, who works with many elite runners (including Olympian Deena Kastor, his wife), recommends a cold bath right after a hard workout. "It helps reduce inflammation by constricting the blood vessels, so there's less blood pooling through the muscle tissue, and you're not as sore the next day," he explains. Massage can speed recovery, too: Give yourself a five-minute rubdown using a foam roller; roll slowly up and down your legs, butt, shoulders and back. You can also alleviate soreness by gently pressing into the area with your fingers.
3. Write down your goal
You're amping up your workouts—pump up your motivation, too! Jot your goal time for the half-marathon or just 13.1 on a sticky note, and post it onto your mirror. As Kastor puts it: "Seeing that number will remind you to make the best choices for your body."
MORE: 7 Tips for Running Your First Race
Get the latest health, fitness, anti-aging, and nutrition news, plus special offers, insights and updates from Health.com!Think Yoga
Walk Right
The Truth About Low-Carb Diets
But here's the thing: Eliminating carbs is risky business. "It's preposterous," says David Katz, MD, director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center and author of Disease-Proof. "All plants are carbohydrate sources, so eating no carbs means eating no plant foods, period." Carbs are important for your brain and body; the right ones even reduce your risk of disease.
Yet the misconception that the fewer carbs you eat, the better persists among health- and diet-minded Americans. "Everyone is jumping on this bandwagon," Larson says. "But the science just does not bear it out." In fact, studies now suggest that going low-carb for a long period of time may be harmful to our health.
Related: The Truth About 10 Bogus Health Trends
You can't live without carbs
While many of us think of carbs as bread and pasta, they're in any food that comes from a plant, including fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, seeds and legumes. "It's a huge, diverse class of foods," Dr. Katz explains.
To make carbohydrates, plants trap the sun's energy inside molecules of glucose—a simple sugar—then connect the glucose molecules together (sometimes along with the other two basic sugar building blocks, fructose and galactose) to create longer carb molecules such as sucrose and starch. When you eat that plant, your digestive system breaks the longer carbohydrate back down into glucose, which travels through your bloodstream into your cells. The cells process the glucose, releasing the captured energy and using it for fuel.
Far from being poison, then, glucose sparks life. "If you're in a hospital and they need to get some energy into you, they'll use a glucose drip," says Joanne Slavin, PhD, professor of food science and nutrition at the University of Minnesota and chair of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on Carbohydrates. Dr. Katz adds, "If you don't have enough glucose in your blood, you're dead. It's that simple."While you don't have to eat carbs to get glucose into your blood (your body can manufacture it if needed), "carbohydrates are the most efficient fuel source that we have," says Heidi Schauster, RD, a nutrition therapist in Boston. Low-carb advocates (most famously Robert Atkins, MD) point out that your body can also use other fuel sources, such as protein or fatty acids, to power itself. But many experts say that this method of converting fats into so-called ketone bodies, known as ketogenesis, is much less efficient than using glucose for energy. And when too many ketone bodies are produced, the body is in a state of ketosis. "Ketosis can be tolerated for a short time, but in severe cases it could have very serious effects in the long term for the brain, as well as the kidneys, liver and skeletal system," Dr. Katz says.
Related: 11 Women Who Lost Weight Eating Healthy Carbs
Besides providing much-needed glucose, plants are our only source of dietary fiber. Like other carbohydrates, fiber is composed of many bonded sugar units, but human enzymes can't chop it up, so it passes relatively unscathed through much of the digestive tract. And it benefits you in many ways. "People who eat more fiber have less cardiovascular disease," Slavin says. "They also weigh less and gain less weight over time."
You probably know that fiber helps move food through your body, keeping you regular. In addition, some forms of fiber (including resistant starch, found in bananas, lentils and many other foods) are prebiotics, a type of carbohydrate that feeds the growth of "good" bacteria in your gut.
Not to mention, skipping carbs could mean falling short on essential nutrients. "Cutting out whole grains eliminates a good source of great nutrition, such as zinc, magnesium and B vitamins," Larson says. Steer clear of fruits and vegetables and you miss out on many vitamins and powerful antioxidants. These nutrients play a critical role in keeping us healthy long-term. "When we look at population-level studies of people who live well across the span of a lifetime," Dr. Katz notes, "they almost universally eat diets high in good carbohydrates."
Get the latest health, fitness, anti-aging, and nutrition news, plus special offers, insights and updates from Health.com!M van der Mark et al, 2014, A Case-Control Study of the Protective Effect of Alcohol, Coffee, and Cigarette Consumption on Parkinson Disease Risk: Time-Since-Cessation Modifies the Effect of Tobacco Smoking, PLoS One, published online ahead of print.
S N Bhupathiraju et al, 2014. Changes in coffee intake and subsequent risk of type 2 diabetes: three large cohorts of US men and women. Diabetologia, published online ahead of print.
T Otake et al, 2014, Linking lifestyle factors and insulin resistance, based on fasting plasma insulin and HOMA-IR in middle-aged Japanese men: A cross-sectional study. Scandinavian Journal of Clinical & Laboratory Investigation, published online ahead of print.
Y H Lee et al, 2014. Coffee and tea consumption and the risk of rheumatoid arthritis: a meta-analysis. Clinical Rheumatology, published online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
The aim of this study was to analyze published results for an association between coffee or tea intake and the development of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We investigated the evidence for a relationship between coffee or tea consumption and the development of RA by performing a meta-analysis of the published results. Five studies (three cohort and two case-control studies) including 134,901 participants (1,279 cases of RA and 133,622 noncases) were considered in the meta-analysis. Meta-analysis of the cohort studies revealed a trend of an association between total coffee intake and RA incidence (relative risk [RR] of the highest versus the lowest group?=?4.148, 95 % confidence interval [CI]?=?0.792-21.73, p?=?0.092). Meta-analysis of case-control studies showed a significant association between total coffee intake and RA incidence (RR?=?1.201, 95 % CI?=?1.058-1.361, p?=?0.005). Combining the data of the cohort and case-control studies showed a significant association between total coffee intake and RA incidence (RR?=?2.426, 95 % CI?=?1.060-5.554, p?=?0.036). Meta-analysis stratified by seropositivity indicated a significant association between coffee consumption and seropositive RA risk (RR?=?1.329, 95 % CI?=?1.162-1.522, p?=?3.5???10-5), but not seronegative RA risk (RR?=?1.093, 95 % CI?=?0.884-1.350, p?=?0.411). No association was found between tea intake and RA incidence (RR?=?0.880, 95 % CI?=?0.624-1.239, p?=?0.463). This meta-analysis of 134,901 participants (most of the participants were controls) suggests that high coffee consumption is associated with an elevated risk of RA development. The association between coffee and RA was found in seropositive RA, but not in seronegative RA. coffee for weightlossView the original article here
How Does Drinking Black Coffee Help You Lose Weight?
Definition of Caffeine
Caffeine's Effect on Weight Loss
THE TRUTH ABOUT CAFFEINE!
SO WHAT'S THE TRUTH?
CAN CAFFEINE HELP YOU LOSE WEIGHT?
1
BY BOOSTING YOUR METABOLISM
2
BY GIVING YOU AN ENERGY BOOST
HOW MUCH CAFFEINE DO YOU NEED?
TIP
- Pills
- Energy drinks
- Coffee
- Tea
- Various foods
- Shampoos and soaps (No kidding!)
BUT HERE'S THE PROBLEM
CAFFEINE IS AWESOME - BUT BE CAREFUL
GETTING CAFFEINE VIA SUGARY OR HIGH-CALORIE DRINKS
TAKING IN TOO MUCH CAFFEINE
USING CAFFEINE WHEN YOU'RE IN A "HIGH RISK" GROUP
GETTING ADDICTED TO CAFFEINE
CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
- Kirchheimer, Sid. Reviewed by Michael W. Smith, MD. (2004) "Coffee, the New Health Food?" WebMD Feature Archive. Accessed September, 2010.
- "Caffeine". The Pharmacogenetics and Pharmacogenomics Knowledge Base.http://www.pharmgkb.org
How to Lose Weight with Coffee
1. Consume coffee in moderation. This is the most important aspect of fitting coffee into your weight loss plan. Excessive coffee consumption can lead to increased stress levels and insomnia, both of which can lead to overeating. Try to cut your coffee consumption to just 1 or 2 cups per day, or try switching some of your daily coffee intake to decaf.
2. Forget the cream and sugar. This is an obvious but extremely effective technique for losing weight with coffee. Adding large amounts of cream and sugar to your coffee can give it the caloric content of a candy bar or more. If you cannot wean yourself entirely onto black coffee, try using skim milk and sugar-free sweeteners instead.
3. Ditch the specialty coffee beverages. Even worse than adding cream and sugar to a cup of brewed coffee is drinking the large, flavored, espresso-based beverages that are becoming more and more popular at coffee shops. These drinks often contain large amounts of milk and flavored sugar syrups and can contain as many calories as a whole meal.
4. Try coffee after dinner to reduce cravings. One of coffee's positive attributes is its role as an appetite suppressant. For this reason, try drinking coffee after your dinner each night. This may help you to reduce your cravings for dessert or other late-night snack foods before bed.
- You can also try brushing your teeth shortly after dinner or after your after-dinner coffee. Having a freshly cleaned mouth may help to reduce your temptation to eat anything else before bed.
Does caffeine help with weight loss?
To Lose Weight, Just Drink a Gallon of Coffee
5 Drinks to Help You Lose Weight
Busting Diet Myths
Myth : Coffee Can Help You Lose Weight
The reality: While coffee may temporarily squelch your appetite, drinking a couple of cups a day won't have enough of an effect to help you lose weight. Besides, pouring too much coffee into your system―drinking, say, four to seven cups a day―may lead to anxiety, sleeplessness, and an increase in heart rate and blood pressure.
The best advice: Enjoy a cup or two of coffee (or tea) every day, if you please. Just be sure that if you add anything to the brew―like cream, sugar, or cocoa powder―you take those calories into account. For example, a 16-ounce Starbucks Café Mocha can contain a whopping 330 calories (60 more than some chocolate bars). What's more, those calories might not make you feel as full as the same number of calories eaten in solid form. Another coffee concern: sleep disruption, which new evidence reveals is linked to weight control. "Every time people feel tired, they think, I have to have a latte," says Liz Applegate, Ph.D., director of sports nutrition at the University of California, Davis. "They become addicted to caffeine on a higher level, and it takes four to six hours to clear out of the system. Sleep is not as good, and you're tired the next day." And probably hungrier, too. At least two studies have shown that when people are sleep-deprived, they produce more of the hormone ghrelin, an appetite stimulant, and less leptin, an appetite suppressant. Not to mention that your resistance to the doughnut's siren song is a whole lot lower when you're pooped.