Health and Fitness Truth

The Importance of Logging

2008-11-25T02:45:00.001-08:00

You have the most intimate knowledge of your body. Although we are all human, our differences can mean the difference between an exercise and nutrition plan working or failing. Perhaps the most powerful tool in your arsenal its logging your diet and exercise.

By recording what you have done and the results, you are armed with the knowledge necessary to make a diet and exercise program work for you. We have all heard the insanity quote: doing the same thing over again and expecting different results....

So how does it work? For every day, you should record your weight, what you ate, and what exercise you did. You do not have to have exact calories (although that would help), but just general items will do (chicken salad for lunch, 6oz steak 2 servings steamed veggies for dinner) etc etc. Be sure you include EVERYTHING you eat, especially drinks!

Then, after a given period of time--a month for example--look back over the log. See how much weight you lost or gained, what you ate, and make adjustments for the next month.
Even the act of writing down your daily food intake and exercise will cause you to eat less and work out more, because you know there is going to be a record of it!

You can also use this information and post it to online forums such as www.bodybuilding.com and ask for help. With the information you provide, it will be much easier to get accurate advice.

There are many methods to go about recording, from a 15 cent pad of paper to computer software. (see below for examples). Just remember to look back over it often and make adjustments if you aren't getting the results you want.

If you don't like the pen and paper route, you can use www.fitday.com or even make your own excel spreadsheet. I use a word document and it works great!

A good product

2008-11-22T09:03:00.000-08:00

Occasionally there is some good commercial diet advice out there. Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle might be one of those products. It's by a natural body builder (no roids') and is heavy on solid hard work. Usually the diets and workout programs that don't spend any time convincing you its going to be easy are the ones that have some truth.

Check it out.

Click Here!

Does Microwaving Your Food Destroy Nutrients?

2008-11-20T08:03:00.000-08:00

I remember my brother once stayed with a girl who would not allow the microwave to be plugged in for fear of its harmful effects!

I think most of us can live with the machine, but what about those rumors of microwaves destroying the healthy nutrients in our yummy food?

The short answer is that any type of heat will destroy some of the compounds. Some nutrients like beta carotene actually are enhanced when they are cooked.

So what about our friend the microwave?

Microwaving is actually one of the healthiest methods of cooking.

Scientific Info:
More Info

General Source:
More Info

Nutrition Facts?

2008-11-19T09:01:00.000-08:00

I really hate to do this to you calorie counters but it appears as though its more of a pain in the butt than you think.

A recent study from the Obesity Center at Columbia University has determined that the so called nutrition facts on food labels may be closer to fiction.

See this research here.

Perhaps portion sizes may be a better way to go?

Which fat loss diet is right for you?

2008-11-19T06:04:00.000-08:00

Atkins, Zone, Weight Watchers, super low calorie, the choices are endless! It seems everywhere you turn these days there is a new book, program, or expert recommending a specific diet that is better than all the rest. Who are you to believe?

It turns out you are indeed what you eat. Eating a specific mix of foods will affect the results that you are looking for, but you are probably focusing too much on this part of your diet.

Remember this... Calories In Vs. Calories Out.

It absolutely doesn't matter if you are clairvoyant and know for certain that eating nothing but chicken and broccoli is the best nutrition for loosing weight or that adding some miniscule amount of green tea extract will improve your metabolism.

NONE OF IT MATTERS.

Nothing--absolutely no supplement, food, diet, or voodoo that is currently available will make up for the truth in Calories In vs. Calories Out.

So what does this phrase mean?
Your body needs a certain amount of energy (we call a unit of energy a calorie) to function for the day. It uses some energy just to operate your normal body functions, and extra energy for any activity you do (from picking up a pencil to running a marathon).

If you consume (eat) more energy (food) than your body needs for the day, it will store it either as fat or muscle.

If you consume (eat) less energy (food) than your body needs for the day, it will take some from your stored energy (fat or muscle).

You cannot escape these truths! There are many rules (some truthful some not) about how to tweak your fat loss (such as drinking green tea or taking some thermo-genic supplement or that if you consume too little calories your body can go into starvation mode and make it even harder to burn fat). Please understand that while some of these are helpful, they are mostly insignificant for fatloss especially if you are consuming more calories than you expend! 10mg of some supplement wont undo the 300cal piece of banana bread that put you 50 calories over what your body needed for the day.

In future Fat Loss posts, we will expand on some of the pitfalls of specific diet aids.

In the meantime, please see the research for yourself...

What The Doctors Say

Welcome!

2008-11-19T03:28:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Health and Fitness Truth blog. This blog is sponsored by Freeman Health and Fitness (freemanhealthandfitness.com).

Freeman Health and Fitness was started in December 2007 by brothers Austin and Allen Freeman. We have been working out, eating right, and researching health and fitness information for our own benefit for over 10 years.

Although the company has it's own branded health and fitness information, we wanted a method of keeping our customers (and anyone else who is interested) up to date on the latest health and fitness news, research, products, techniques, foods, and other facets of true health and fitness. There are many widely accepted "truths" in heath and fitness but many of them are based on conjecture and falsehoods that have been repeated over and over untill they are accepted. Austin and I are focused on challening these accepted facts, researching the truth, and reporting it to anyone who is thirsty for this unbiased scientific information.