Nuke Your Veggies for Better Benefits

Our busy lifestyles have turned stovetop cooking into a distant memory. The microwave has replaced the solution for quick meals that satisfy the whole family. You'll be glad to hear that 'nuking' your food in the microwave may help retain more nutrients than other methods of cooking.

Harvard Medical School released an article that may influence the way you cook your vegetables. Cooking your veggies in the microwave may help retain the nutrients your body needs!

"Some nutrients break down when they’re exposed to heat, whether that heat comes from a microwave or a regular oven. Vitamin C is perhaps the clearest example. So, cooking with a microwave probably does a better job of preserving the nutrient content of foods because the cooking times are shorter. Cooking vegetables in water causes some of the nutrients to leach out into that same water. For example, boiled broccoli loses glucosinolate, the compound that may be responsible for its cancer-fighting properties."

Next time, nuke your veggies for a quick and very nutritious solution.

www.health.harvard.edu

Fabulous Fiber

Fiber is the part of plant foods that the body cannot digest. It moves through the digestive system, absorbing water. This helps eliminate food waste from the body more quickly. Since fiber is not absorbed, it is not a nutrient. Rather, we refer to fiber as a "component" of food.

Fiber is found in plant foods such as fruits, vegetables, dry beans and peas, nuts, seeds, bread, and cereals. (It is not found in animal products — meat, milk, eggs.) Fiber can also be added to foods during processing.

Fiber’s health benefits

Fiber comes in two varieties: soluble, which dissolves in water, and insoluble, which does not. Although fiber does not nourish our bodies, it has other ways of promoting good health as the chart below illustrates.

	Soluble Fiber	Insoluble Fiber (Roughage)
Name	Pectins, gums, mucilages	Cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin
What it does	Dissolves in water, forming a gel in intestines	Holds on to water, moving waste through intestines
How it promotes good health	Binds to fatty substances in the intestines and helps carry them out as waste, lowering LDL or bad cholesterol Regulates the body's use of sugars, helping to keep hunger and blood sugar in check.	Helps push food through the intestines quickly, promoting regularity and helping prevent constipation.
Where it's found	Dried beans and peas, lentils, oats, barley, apples, bananas, citrus fruits, berries, pears, carrots	Whole-wheat products, wheat and corn bran, brown rice, oats, cauliflower, green beans, potatoes, broccoli, asparagus, carrots, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, fruit skins (apple, peach, pear)

Reprinted from Harvard Health Publications

Low-Carb, High-Protein Diets: The Bottom Line

Beware of closely following an Atkins-type diet for an extended period of time. At the same time, beware of the amount of refined carbohydrates in a typical low-fat/high-carbohydrate diet. They cause people to become unhealthy and overweight.

We come back to the same old trusty recommendations, continually borne out in the research, with some new twists:

• Eat lots of fruits and vegetables.
• Whole-grain carbohydrates with a low glycemic index are part of a healthy diet.
• Eliminating refined carbohydrates, which have a high glycemic index, helps you to lose weight and improve health.
• Choose moderate servings (3 to 4 ounces) of lean protein, balancing animal and plant sources. Poultry and fish are the leanest animal proteins. Beans, nuts, tofu, and meat imitators such as veggie burgers are good sources of plant protein.
• Include healthy sources of fat for nutrients and satisfaction, such as nuts, nut butters, avocado, olive- and vegetable-oil-based dressings, canola oil, and trans-fat-free margarines for baking.
• Limit manufactured, synthetic food products. These are labeled as low-carbohydrate, and are made with sugar alcohols that are not digested and can cause gas, bloating, and diarrhea if eaten in quantity.

Reprinted from Harvard Health Publications

Top Foods for Burning Fat

It seems everyone these days is looking for the best foods to burn fat. Just eat those particular foods and see the fat melt away, or so we wish! Of course, it just isn't that easy. But, research does indicate that certain foods seem to help burn fat when used sensibly.

The reasons vary for why some particular foods are better at burning fat than others. Some foods are thought to increase metabolism, some seem to satisfy cravings so that we don't overeat, and still others work wonders because they are rich in Vitamin C or contain lots of fiber. However, most people looking to get rid of fat don't care about the scientific details; they just want to know what works!

Instead of looking at specific foods, let's look at the top categories of foods that tend to burn fat. For instance, some lists of top fat burning foods include cayenne pepper. However, there are several other similar foods that could also be listed such as garlic and mustard, which all fall into the category of spicy foods. Thinking in terms of these broad categories will give more variety in choosing foods to help burn fat.

Here are some of the top categories of fat burning foods:

* Spicy Foods - we already mentioned foods such as cayenne pepper, garlic, and mustard. Cinnamon and ginger should also be included in this group.

* Protein - lean meats such as turkey and chicken, very lean red meat.

* Essential Fatty Acids - best sources are fish, salmon, tuna, herring, mackerel, and sardines.

* Dairy - low fat and nonfat milk, cheese, and yogurt, eggs, especially egg whites.

* Fruit - apples and berries, bananas, citrus fruits, especially grapefruit.

* Green Tea - natural and safe to use, it helps to rev up the metabolism.

* Water - good for you in so many ways, it's necessary to flush the burned fat out of your system.

* Vegetables high in Vitamin C - these include broccoli and cabbage, celery, carrots.

* Soybeans - considered by many to be the newest wonder food, soybeans can be found at most health food stores.

* Whole Grains - oatmeal, brown rice, whole grain breads.

The above list is by no means all inclusive. And it has to be said that you can't expect to just eat some of these foods and then sit around while the fat burns away. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work that way. As in all nutrition and dieting programs, a combination of proper diet and exercise is the key to healthy weight loss. But being aware of the food categories that can help burn fat will guide you in adding more of these foods to your diet.

By Laura Hinkle

Burning Off Excess Stomach Fat

Burning off excess stomach fat is just like getting rid of fat from any other part of the body. You must lose fat everywhere in order to burn stomach fat. Unfortunately there is no wacky ab contraption anywhere that will burn your stomach fat - they will only strengthen the muscles.

Don't be afraid of resistance training
Besides improving your strength and overall health, resistance training elevates your metabolism for hours after you finish working out. Not only that, but by packing on lean muscle mass, your basal metabolic rate raises, which means you will be burning more calories when you're at rest. If you're a woman, don't be afraid of 'bulking up' - it requires a lot of testosterone to build the amount of muscle that male bodybuilders have!

Do cardio before your first meal
If you run before your first meal, you have to rely on burning stomach fat for energy because your body has used up all its left-over carbohydrates during the night. This trick has been proven to increase fat metabolism by up to 300%! You'll raise your metabolism for the rest of the day, which will help you burn more calories.

Eat every 2-3 hours
Eating every few hours allows you to get a constant, controlled stream of blood sugar. This will prevent you from having those 'highs' and 'lows' we all are too familiar with! Also it will limit insulin release, which will lower overall fat storage.

Drink enough water
Water is essential for just about every function in the body. It removes toxins from the body, improves elasticity of the skin, and increases fat metabolism. Make sure you get enough of it!

Get plenty of sleep
Your muscles grow when you are out of the gym, not in it. Exercise breaks down the muscles, and while you're sleeping, your body rebuilds the muscles a little bit stronger to adapt to the stress they were put under. Getting enough sleep will ensure you have plenty of time to rebuild muscles.

So there you have it, five quick tips to help you burn stomach fat.

Main Event Daily Tip: Weight Loss is 90% Mental

Jennifer Gruenemay of Lifescript.com had a great tip on Weight Loss and slimming down.....
Original Link

While a personal trainer is one of the best coaches you can have in your weight loss journey, a positive attitude is even better to have in your corner, and it won’t cost you anything extra. While the science behind weight loss breaks it down to a “calories in vs. calories out” equation, the reality is that weight loss is largely a battle of the mind. But the battle is lost when you end up talking yourself out of exercising, talking yourself into ordering that cheeseburger and listening to negative self-talk every time you look in the mirror and pick apart your image. If you want to get serious about weight loss, don’t just pay attention to how much you eat and how often you exercise – also make a mental checklist of how often you put yourself down, even as you’re trying to build yourself up. Once you get an idea of how damaging your attitude really is to your goals, start putting encouraging thoughts and images into your mind. Stomp out those negative thoughts and keep a positive attitude, even when things aren’t looking so great. So you missed a workout and had a piece of cheesecake for breakfast – so what? Don’t beat yourself up over it. Rather, tell yourself you’re human and you’re allowed to make mistakes now and then, but you’ll do better next time. Visualize yourself at your goal's end and you’ll find yourself there sooner than you know.

Now you know and knowing is half the battle!

Nutrition - Online Monitoring

One of the coolest new features of our website is our Online Nutrition Monitoring. Members can access this feature from any web browser. Just click and go!

The Skinny:

This innovative online tool assists our members in tracking their diet and helping educate them along the way. Introduced in 2007, our new software system allows a Main Event Fitness coach to advise our members on their meal planning and caloric intake (versus caloric expenditure). The online program is different than other online diet programs in that we do not provide a meal plan to follow. The meal plan approach has proven to cause a great deal of stress and frustration because it alters a person’s eating and food preparation habits significantly. This makes it very difficult for the individual to follow the program long-term. Main Event advocates recording what eat and gradually making changes to your diet by substitution of healthier alternatives that contain fewer calories.

To take a tour of the industry’s newest technology, please visit https://mef.stayinstep.com/login.htm.

Some of the features include:

• An integrated Food & Exercise Log
• Ideal & Goal Setting
• Integrated Calendar that displays:
  • Daily Weight
  • Gain or Loss
  • Calories Consumed
  • Calories Burned
  • Net Calories
• Over 8,000 foods in the database
• Over 600 exercises in the database
• User community with Forums

The online monitoring is both affordable and convenient. For more information, please call Dell White at 770-951-2120 or e-mail him at Dell@MainEventFitness.com.