http://www.eatstopeat.com

3,900 - According to an article by Michael Pollan that was published in the New York Times, this is the amount of food calories produced every day for each American citizen.Think about this number for a minute. 3,900 calories is easily a thousand more calories than almost any of us will ever need in a day- but they are being produced so someone has to eat them.

This is what I like to call the North American paradox. Food companies and food producers need us to consume more and more calories to keep their profits coming, yet we want to consume less and less calories to maintain our health and weight.This is why it is not an exaggeration when I say it is a constant battle to try to avoid overeating, and to make sure that the foods we do eat are healthy, nutritious foods.

Imagine what would happen if everyone in North American suddenly decided to eat half the amount of calories produced by the food industry? That’s 1,950 less calories per day and that’s 1,950 calories worth of profit that food companies would lose out on. Most likely this would be financially disastrous. This is why we are bombarded with food advertising.

The best way to win this battle is to get closer to 1,950 than 3900. The key to doing this is always remembering that the foods you see in convenience stores and gas stations are there because someone wants you to buy them. Not only this, but they have spent a lot of time and effort to figure out what colors, names, and sizes will make you notice their products.So the way to win this battle is by not being a “good little consumer”.

Try your best to buy only planned foods - The foods you plan to buy during your grocery run. Resist all unplanned purchases…gas stations, convenience stores, vending machines and checkout lines…these are all examples of places where we typically make unplanned impulse food buys.

Avoid the temptation to think that eating several meals in a day will “cause” weight loss. If you are eating too many calories, you are eating too many calories. It doesn’t matter how many meals you eat.There are diet plans out there such as my book Eat Stop Eat that promote very brief periods of short term fasting as a method of weight loss. Plans like these teach us that we don’t have to be constantly eating to be healthy. In fact, taking small breaks from eating every once in a while may actually be healthy for us.

By making at least one of these adjustments (avoiding “unplanned foods” and avoiding the urge to eat constantly) you will be one step closer to a healthy and nutritious diet. And remember, 3,900 calories per day is overeating for almost everyone.

Proteins are made of amino acids. When you eat proteins, your gut breaks them into individual, pairs, and trios of amino acids before they enter your bloodstream. Once in your bloodstream, amino acids are taken up by your organs and muscles for repair and recovery. Next to water, muscles are primarily protein. Weight lifting damages your muscles and fosters a hormonal response that favors muscle growth. In consequence, your muscles need an ample supply of amino acids for two reasons: 1. To repair and replace damaged proteins. 2. To build new ones and fuel muscle growth.

Your muscles build up with the amino acids your body has absorbed from the proteins you have eaten. If you eat lots of protein, you are maximizing your rate of muscle growth, by giving your muscles an ample supply of building blocks. This poses a question: how much protein is exactly enough?

Thus, to maximize your muscle growth rate, you have to make sure your body has plenty of energy and protein available to your muscle at the times when your muscles are the hungriest: during the workout and right afterwards. Energy and protein from consumed food will fuel the muscle building mode, and your muscle will build up. Since your body begins digesting food about half an hour after you’ve eaten it, you should eat a pre-workout meal 30 minutes before each workout.

Digestion slows down when you are working out, and many lifters experience discomfort when they eat food during the workout. One way to prevent this is to drink your energy and protein instead.

Try this:
Take a calculator and find the amount of protein you need per day by multiplying your weight in pounds by 1.2. Afterward, figure out what you ate yesterday, and how much protein you consumed. If you didn’t reach your goal, pick a few foods that you like to add more protein to your diet. Good sources of protein include eggs, fish, chicken, and steak. Including an animal source to each meal and adding protein-rich snacks will help you meet your protein quota each day.

I thought this answer would be clear to me after an 100-hour long review of the research on this topic while earning my bachelor degree in exercise science. Everything I read after this study on protein consumption seemed like children’s books, until the day Lyle MacDonald published The Protein Book. I pre-ordered my copy and was blown away by the detail of his information. He not only researched various sources that I hadn’t thought of, while presenting his ideas clearly with practical applications.

Researchers have shown, however, that the body doesn’t enter the muscle-building (anabolic) state until you eat. That’s right. If you lift weights and don’t eat, you’re not building muscle. You’re actually losing some, as the weightlifting session damaged your muscles.

Since your body only digests food 30 after you’ve eaten it, it’s a good idea to have a pre-workout meal about half an hour before you begin to train. Digestion will slow when you are training and many lifters have some discomfort when eat food during the workout. I recommend you drink you protein and energy instead to prevent this.

Pre-Workout:
0.2 grams of carbohydrate per pound of body weight;
0.2 grams of protein per pound of body weight.
During Workout:
30 grams of carbohydrate ; 15 grams of protein.
Post-Workout:
0.4 grams of carbohydrate per pound of body weight;
0.2 grams of protein per pound of body weight.

No special celebration and occasion is without some kind of face painting. With a fun face painting design, your kids can enjoy being tigers, princesses or vampires for the day. If you want out-of-the-ordinary results use other materials besides the basic paint. This article will show you some information about body glitter and jewelry and how to use them to boost your face painting design.

The Glitter

Here’s how glitter can add a new twist to your face painting design:

-Adding dimension - the sheen created by glitter gives your finished product a rounded effect.

- Visually interesting - glitter can be used to emphasize a certain spot on the face such as the nose or the eyes.

- Gives that magical effect - glitter is perfect for fantastical themes like fairy and dragon designs.

Here are kinds of glitter for face painting:

- Loose glitter - can be applied and works best while the skin is moist with water or wet with paint. It can come in a variety of colors, which can be metallic or iridescent. Loose glitter is great for emphasizing certain parts of your face painting design since they tend to have a coarser grain and therefore more reflective effect or “sparkle.”

- Gel glitter - is a liquid-type glitter that resembles transparent glue with glitter in it. Use this type of glitter to trace over the fine lines of your face painting design, as it is more convenient and gives cleaner results.

- Powder glitter - is powder-like in texture. These grains tend to be so fine that they easily stick on moist skin. It is best to use powder glitter on large areas of the face for that “pearly” effect.

Some tips on how to apply glitter:

- To achieve an even and an all-over glittery effect, simply dip a moist sponge in some glitter and dab over the face with gentle, sweeping motions.

- When tracing over fine lines, use only a fine brush. Wet the brush with water and pat with fingers to squeeze out excess water. Dip the brush into glitter and sweep over details in abrupt motions.

Skin jewelry:

Stick-on jewelry can be used with your basic face painting design to add more texture. Skin jewelry is:

- Inexpensive - skin jewelry can be found in a crafts shop, department store or online. They are often made of plastic so they usually cost close to nothing.

- Quick to stick - all you have to do is peel the back of the jewel and stick on the skin.

- Reusable - there are now skin jewelry that can be put on, taken off and then applied again.

- Versatility - skin jewelry can come in a different colors, shapes, textures and styles.

A beautiful face painting design usually doesn’t require expensive material. All you really need to add more dimension and texture to a basic design is by simply using glitter and stick-on jewelry. Proper usage is easy to accomplish and can give you more than just the usual face painting design.

People are more concerned about their health nowadays and it is hard to not hear of the acai berry when watching TV, listening to the news or reading magazines, especially if they are health related. If you watch Oprah or the Rachel Ray Show, you will hear of the acai berry and how great it is for your health.

The acai berry is not a new type of fruit. It is not a hybrid berry and its nutrients and health benefits are natural, not artificially created. The acai berry is native in low-lit, swamp areas. There are a lot of acai berries in the Brazilian rain forest where it is hard to get to.

The acai berry grows on a tall, large tree called Euterpe oleracea but most people just refer to the tree as the acai palm tree. The acai palm tree can have many trunks. Some of them have just a few trunks but there are some that have 25 trunks. Each acai berry tree can be as tall as 25 meters tall and as wide as six inches in diameter.

Hanging from an acai palm tree are its many branches where acai berries are. The acai berries, in turn, hang down the branches like spiky, cluttered bushes. Each acai berry on a branch is right next to another berry on the same branch.

Most people know what a blueberry looks like. The acai berry is very similar to the blueberry in appearance because it is small and round. Its color is purple/black. Some acai berries are more black than purple whereas others are more purple than black. Each acai tree has many fruits and are capable of producing up to 20 kgs of acai berries.

Like most berries, the acai berry is edible. Many people eat the acai berry as fruit but some make use of other parts of the berry too. The acai pulp is where most of the nutrients are and it is very commonly used in wines, liqueurs, or as food flavoring or colorant. The acai berry has many uses so it is not surprising that there are many acai berry products around.

The acai berry has many healthy and medicinal properties. It is one of the best antioxidant and contains many minerals, essential fatty acids, and lots of other nutrients that the body needs to be healthy. The acai pulp is where most of the nutrients are found so to get the most health benefits of the acai berry, eat the pulp too.

With so many acai berry research articles flying around, people are finding out more and more about how good of a fruit the acai berry really is. While most countries cannot get fresh acai berry, they can often buy acai berry juice, acai tea, acai pills and other acai berry based products that are good for their health.

By Brad Pilon

http://www.eatstopeat.com

The Two Types of Food

Nutrition is a hot topic that is discussed by just about every magazine writer, talk show host, fitness expert and guru in the industry. It seems like just about everyone can quote some scientific research, touting the benefit of eating one certain type of diet or another, or ramble on about the scientific reasons why some foods are better for you than others.

In my opinion, all of these scientific intellectual ramblings may actually be part of the reason why people still have a hard time eat healthy.

Let’s face it, when it comes to understanding what’s good for us and what’s not, “science” is confusing the heck out of us!

Because the science of nutrition seems to involve flip-flopping your opinions every other day, the best approach to eating healthy is to look at nutrition with the most simplified technique possible.

I call this technique the “good food, bad food” technique. In your mind think about what your current goals are, whether it is sports performance, weight loss, weight gain or overall health, identify your goals.

Once you have your goals firmly in your head, think of a food, any food.

Now ask yourself “Will this food move me closer to my goals or farther away from my goals?”. If you believe it will help you move closer to your goal, then eat it.

If you believe, it will actually move you away from your goals, then don’t eat it, or at least eat it moderately and in very small portions.

The key to this technique is that you have to believe that there are no “neutral” foods. It is either good or bad.

The main reason many people shy away from eating healthy is that they believe that nutrition is a very complex and confusing topic.

But when people stop thinking about their nutrition, they start eating whatever is put in front of them, and when we eat what is put in front of us, chances are we over eat, and eat the wrong foods.

However, when we simplify the problem down to “good food, bad food” it becomes very easy to “think nutrition”. It is not complex or confusing. It simply returns to very fundamental wisdom that your grandmother probably told you when you were a child. Gravitate towards fruits and vegetables and lean protein, and be weary of anything processed (generally foods that you buy in a bag or in a box).

So forget all the debates and all the fads. It doesn’t matter whether or not aspartame is good for you. Look at that diet cola and ask yourself if it will move you closer to your goals. If the answer is no, then go get a sparkling water, or green tea or any other drink that you think will move you towards your goals.

By following this principle, it makes it easier to “think” nutrition. Every time you put some food in front of you ask the simple question “good or bad” and then act accordingly.

You will find that by simplifying nutrition down to this simple equation you can make dramatic improvements in the way you eat, and avoid a lot of the confusion that is out there.

Brad

Brad Pilon strength training and nutrition enthusiast who writes for http://www.eatstopeat.com