10 Foods Every Dieter Should Eat

Studies have found that these foods help curb cravings, fight certain food addictions, boost metabolism and burn fat. And you actually get to chew and savor these slimming sensations.

1. Eggs Averaging 6 grams of protein per egg and only 4-5 grams of fat and 30 calories, eggs have been superstars in many dieting studies. One study found that obese women who ate 2 scrambled eggs for breakfast accompanied by toast ate less in the next 36 hours than those who ate a bagel of the same calories. 36 hours is a LONG time to control your cravings—wouldn’t it be nice to have your food do it for you?
2. Beans Keeping food in your stomach longer is the key here. I know, that sounds like bloat waiting to happen, but actually slower-digesting foods will lead to a tighter tummy in the long run. Beans contain a digestive hormone called cholecystokinin, which is known as an appetite suppressant. One study found that men who ate beans had cholecystokinin levels twice as high as those who ate a low-fiber meal. Beans can also stabilize your blood sugar, minimizing those sneaky snack attacks
3. Salad Everyone enjoys the process of eating. Cutting up your food, creating that perfect bite and savoring the flavor is most of the fun. That could be why one study found that women who ate a large salad before a meal consumed 12% less pasta than the women who just dived into the carb-heavy plate. Just the sheer volume and effort of eating the salad made the women feel full.
4. Apples I believe the saying is “an apple a day” but change that to 3 apples a day if you’re trying to lose weight. With 3 grams of fiber per medium-sized apples, and the blood-sugar stabilizer pectin, apples can greatly curb inter-meal cravings. In one study, women who ate just 3 small pears or apples a day lost more weight than women on the same diet who did not.
5. Lean Beef Muscle loss is a big problem for dieters. Fight this unwanted side effect with 9 to 10 ounces of beef a day. The amino acid leucine—found in lean meats and fish—helps you lose more weight and fat without losing muscle.
6. Green Tea This could be why the Japanese don’t struggle with obesity nearly as much as Americans—they consume the stuff with almost every meal. The antioxidant called catechins helps speed up metabolism and burn fat.
7. Olive Oil... for Breakfast? Mixed with cereal, it sounds a little funky, I know. But one study found that women who ate muesli cereal with oil-laced skim milk benefited with a boosted metabolism. Not to worry, the stuff is just as great on salads and grilled vegetables, too.
8. Grapefruit Drop 3 pounds in 12 weeks! No, this isn’t an infomercial. This is what 91 obese people did in a study observing the benefits of eating half a grapefruit before each meal. Three glasses of the juice per day will result in the same weight loss.
9. Vinegar Not just for salad dressings, this tangy stuff contains natural acids and enzymes that act as an appetite suppressant and boost your metabolism. Research has also found a link between vinegar and insulin response, showing vinegar’s power to slow down blood sugar rise after a meal, keeping you full longer.
10. Cinnamon You may associate it with unhealthy foods like holiday cookies, but cinnamon has actually been found to help fight diabetes by increasing your body’s insulin response. One study observed the affect of two teaspoons a day of cinnamon on the blood sugar of type 2 diabetics. Participants experienced lower blood sugar and increased insulin production.

Three myths about abdominal training

By Coach Jon | Fit to Post Sports – Mon, Aug 29, 2011

Getting a nice "six-pack" or "toned" abs is a top priority for many of our fitness boot-camp or personal training clients. When a new client comes in for a consultation, we ask them to state their top 2 goals so we can help them reach these goals. A nice set of abs or a "strong core" is often at the top of the list.

However, there are several big myths when it comes to ab training and getting a nice, firm midsection. I will explain what these three myths are, and at the end I will give a sample ab training workout that trains your abs in a safe, and science based way.

While there is a lot of good information on the Internet, the amount of information has also increased a lot, making it more difficult for a reader to tell the difference between what is correct and what is not.

Myth 1 - You should use an unstable surface for 'core' training

One of the main myths of "core" training is that you should use an unstable surface because it makes the training "harder" and your "core" has to activate to do the exercise.

An example of this is doing squats on a vibration plate or on a swiss ball. These surfaces do make the exercise harder, but this is because the unstable surface makes it harder to keep your balance, NOT because your core muscles work more.

In fact, studies show that, apart from a situation where we are trying to rehabilitate an injured client, unstable surfaces are a bad idea. This is because the body senses the shaking, and switches off the muscles you are trying to train (the legs and buttocks in the case of squats) so you can't lift as much weight, and cant get as much benefits. This is a protective mechanism. After all, it is dangerous to exercise during an earthquake.

So Myth 1 is that you should not confuse unstable surface training, which trains your BALANCE, with training for a nice hard set of abs.

Balance is something that is learned as a child during play. If you are 40 years old, your balance is not able to improve much. However, using the exercises at the end of the article, you should still be able to get a strong set of core muscles regardless of age.

Myth 2 - Sit-ups are the best way to get a nice set of abs

This myth is based on the assumption that your abs get really tired from sit-ups, and since your abs are the most "visible" of the core muscles, sit-ups must be good for you.

Much of the de-bunking of this myth has been done by Dr Stuart McGill at the University of Waterloo. He is probably the worlds no.1 researcher in lower back and core issues. He spends a lot of his time with pig spines (the pigs are already dead don't worry) trying to find the best ways to injure them, so we can learn about the best ways to prevent humans from injuring their backs.

One of the best ways he found to injure a spine is to flex and extend it repeatedly, and to injure it even faster, rotate it at the same time! That's what many people do when the perform fast, uncontrolled situps with a twist!

In fact, much of Dr McGills' research points to the fact that most of our core muscles, are design to resist movement rather than create movement.

So myth 2 is that lots of twisting and situps is a great idea for your abs. In fact, if done excessively, its a great way to hurt your back.

Myth 3 - Spending lots of time on ab training will give you great looking abs

Most people love to train abs. Fitness corners and gym around Singapore are full of people doing all kinds of ab training.

A recent study at the University of Southern Illinois took 2 groups of people and had one group do lots of core training for about an hour, five days per week. Exercises like crunches, situps, leg lifts etc.

The other group had the easy job of NOT training.

The group that trained had a great increase in endurance, they could do about 50 percent more situps in a minute than the non-training group. But they had little chance in their waistlines, overall bodyfat or abdominal fat!

Their time would have been much better spent on a proper whole body-conditioning, resistance-training program which, combined with a good nutrition plan of unprocessed meats, veggies and fruit, would certainly have decreased their abdominal fat.

From experience, even this increase in endurance has a diminishing effect. After about 6-8 weeks of core training, you hardly get any benefits. The only way to make your core muscles stronger after six weeks of direct training, is to use more and more load in basic exercises like overhead presses and squats.

So to avoid myth 3 -- do some core work, but after 6 weeks, focus on becoming stronger overall for the best benefits.

Sample workout

Below is a sample beginner and advanced training program to add to the end of your 3x a week training sessions. So if you train Mon, Wed, Sat... Mon would be day 1, Wed would be day 2, and Sat would be day 3.

Remember to do these at the END of your workouts because tiring your core muscles at the beginning can be a cause for injury. Chris will demonstrate the exercises.

Beginner

• Day 1: Front Bridge
• Keep your core braced. That means that you tense up your butt, lower back and abs as if someone is going to "punch" you in the stomach.
• Hold this position for 30 seconds. As you improve, extend this time to 60 seconds.
• Repeat 4 times

Core training exercise (Coach Jon)

• Day 2: Swiss Ball Crunch
• Keeping your core braced, extend yourself across the swiss ball. Don't let yourself flop around. Stay in control by bracing.
• Curl up till you are fully "crunched" hold the top position for 1 second. Then lower yourself under control in four seconds.
• Repeat 10 times for four sets.
• As you improve, hold a dumbbell across your chest for added resistance.

Core training exercise (Coach Jon)

Core training exercise (Coach Jon)

• Day 3: Side Bridge
• Keep your head, hips and knees in line while bracing your core. Don't bend forward at the waist.
• Hold for 30 seconds, work up to 60 as you improve.
• If this is too hard for you, try the variation in the picture below with your knees on the floor.
• Perform three sets per side

Core training exercise (Coach Jon)

Core training exercise (Coach Jon)

Advanced

• Day 1: Hanging Garhammer Raise
• Start with knees raised till legs are parallel to the ground. Knees are bent and big toes should point inwards till they touch each other. This keeps the hip flexors out of the exercises, and focuses the effort on the lower fibres of your abs.
• Curl your legs up as high as you can, and try to hold the top position (its hard!) then lower under control in 1-2 seconds.
• Stop in the start position. Don't let your legs drop lower than that.
• Immediately repeat 10-12 times
• Perform four sets

Core training exercise (Coach Jon)

Core training exercise (Coach Jon)

• Day 2: Suitcase Walk/Lift
• Pick up the weight in one hand and walk (or just stand if you don't have space) for 30 seconds. Increase this to 60 seconds as you improve. Once you reach 60 seconds, increase the weight.
• Keep your body totally upright. This trains the core in resisting movement from side to side which protects your back, and is the primary function of the core muscles.
• Repeat four times

Core training exercise (Coach Jon)

• Day 3: Roman Twist On Swiss Ball
• Keeping your core braced, move a dumbbell or medicine ball to one side.
• The lower back should hardly move. It should be tight and braced. The main movement should come from your chest area. This trains your core to resist rotational movement, another of its key functions.
• Slowly move the ball to the other side in four seconds, holding the end position for two seconds.
• Repeat 10 times for four sets.

Core training exercise (Coach Jon)

Core training exercise (Coach Jon)

There we have it. Two workouts that will get you stronger abs. Just remember, do each set for about 3-4 weeks, and then that would be enough core training for a while. Performing a challenging strength training program after that would keep and improve the core strength you gained from these 6-8 weeks of workouts.

Coach Jonathan Wong is a Singapore personal trainer and health expert. He is also a fitness author and a member of Singapore Men's Health Advisory Panel.

For the best personal training and top indoor fitness boot camp program in Singapore visit www.coachjon.com

Tone Those Legs + Relieve Back Pain

By Melissa Williams, Yoga Instructor, RYT

Low backache? Your inner thighs may be to blame.







While we attribute much of that pain to sedentary lifestyle, or a lifestyle where too much time is spent sitting (in a car, at a computer, etc.), there is another cause of back pain... weak inner thigh or adductor muscles.

Mothers often complain of back pain, whether their children are newborns or grown and out of the house.

Why? Pregnancy can weaken the inner thigh muscles, causing the tailbone to tuck, creating tension in the low back and further weakening the legs. If it goes uncorrected, posture can be affected as can every day movements.

Ready to get started in righting this wrong, without having to buy the 1990s ThighMaster?! We’ve worked out and we are going to walk you thought them!

Oh, and take your fish pills of course. Check out today's sponsor, Res-Q, we take them every day here!

Perfect Your Posture With These 3 Easy Yoga-Inspired Moves

Low Lunge

From standing, step your right foot back into a lunge, releasing your right knee to the floor. Imagine you’re squeezing a small ball between your inner thighs, lifting the pelvis in the process. Once you feel that engagement, feel free to bring your arms to your left thigh, or extend them overhead. Hold for 10 breaths and switch sides.

Side Plank with Legs

This is a challenging pose, so take your time working into it. Start in a push-up position. Slowly rotate your weight onto your right hand, lifting your left hand off the floor. Bring your left leg so it is resting on top of your right. You’re now in side plank. If you have the strength, try lifting your right leg off the floor. Your left inner thigh will fire up, helping provide you with balance and stability. Stay for a breath or two and switch sides.

Tadasana

Mountain pose in yoga is an essential pose for evaluating your posture, and helping create good posture. Come to standing. Make sure your feet are parallel and hip-distance apart. Feel all four corners of each foot rooting to the ground. Draw energy from the floor up through your arch and through your inner thighs. Draw your inner thighs slightly back, and then gently tuck your tailbone. You should feel your inner thighs working. Extend the crown of your head toward the ceiling, draw your shoulders onto your back and bring your ears above your shoulders. Notice your breath. Close your eyes and try and imprint this basic standing posture into your body.

9 Ways to flatten your belly in one week

by The Editors of Prevention, on Tue Aug 2, 2011 11:54am PDT

Another reason to hate Mondays? Tight post-weekend waistbands. Unless you spent the past 2 days living like a monk, the cocktails, movie snacks, and dinners out can all add up to one thing: belly bloat.

“If you wake up bloated on Monday morning, your weekend food choices are likely to blame,” explains Keri Gans, RD, author of The Small Change Diet. “In fact, overindulging for two days straight can easily cause a gain of three pounds. Fortunately, this weight gain is usually temporary and easy to get rid of in less than a week.”

Feel flat again by Friday with these nine easy tips:

Reduce belly fat and lose inches by eating delicious foods!

Season Food Differently
You may be attracted to your saltshaker, but water is too. When you take in higher-than-usual amounts of the salty stuff, you’ll temporarily retain more fluid, contributing to that sluggish feeling, a puffy appearance, and extra water weight. Avoid salt, overprocessed foods, and salt-based seasonings. Gans suggests you also ditch the frozen microwaveable meals while you’re de-bloating—they’re packed with sodium. Instead, she recommends a simple turkey sandwich or a salad with chicken for lunch this week. And eat plenty of fruits and vegetables that are packed with water.

Add zest to your dinner recipes with fresh herbs and salt-free seasoning blends such as the Original and Italian Medley Mrs. Dash.

Trim Down Carbs
Stay away from heavy carbs such as bagels and pasta. When you decrease the carbs in your diet, you temporarily train your body to access stored carbohydrates called glycogen and burn them off, while also eliminating excess stored fluids.

Trim back on your daily carbs by having eggs for breakfast, making your sandwich open-faced with only one slice of bread, and packing protein-rich snacks such as turkey slices, low-fat string cheese, seeds, and nuts.

Switch Your Starch
If your belly bulges after a high-carb meal like pasta, complex carbohydrate-rich foods may be the cause of your bloat, says Jackie Wolf, MD, author of A Woman’s Guide to a Healthy Stomach. Most starches, including potatoes, corn, pasta, and wheat, produce gas as they are broken down in the large intestine. Rice is the only starch that doesn’t cause gas, so have a ½-cup serving of brown rice (which has more fiber) if you want carbs with dinners.

Stop Milking It
If you’ve ever felt gassy, crampy, or bloated after dairy, you may be one of 30 to 50 million Americans with lactose intolerance. This occurs in people whose bodies lacks the ability to break down and digest the sugar in milk, resulting in digestive issues like gas, bloating, cramping, and diarrhea. Try lower-lactose foods (such as hard cheese or yogurt) or lactose-free dairy products (such as rice milk and almond milk), or take a lactase enzyme to help break down lactose. Dr. Wolf recommends soy milk as a dairy alternative but warns that some people experience gas and bloating from soybeans as well.

Your Guide to Healthy, Happy Tummy

Make These Fruit Swaps
Wolf recommends you eat fruits that are kinder on your belly. Berries, grapes, and citrus contain a near-equal ratio of the sugars fructose and glucose, making them easier to digest than fruits with more fructose, such as honeydew, apples, and pears.

You can also eat canned fruits in natural juice or small portions of dried fruit, such as raisins and dried plums.

Hold The Hot Sauce
IF you love four-alarm food, lay off the Tabasco, barbecue sauce, and garlic for a few days while de-bloating. Spicy foods stimulate the release of stomach acid, causing irritation. Give dishes a flavor boost with in-season fresh or dried herbs such as dill, basil, mint, sage, tarragon, and rosemary. You can also use curry powder or lemon or lime juice—all perfect with fish or chicken. Also, steer clear of black pepper, nutmeg, cloves, chili powder, onions, mustard, horseradish, and acidic foods such as catsup, tomato sauce, and vinegar.

Use Prevention’s Recipe Finder Tool to Find Tasty Recipes Seasoned with Fresh Herbs

Ditch Diet Foods
Avoid low-calorie or low-carb products containing sugar alcohols, which go by the names xylitol or maltitol and cause gas, bloating, and worst—diarrhea. And don’t reach for a stick of gum when you’re trying to quell that sugar craving. Instead, satisfy your sweet tooth by using a little maple syrup on your morning oatmeal or yogurt snack.

Get On The Wagon
Steer clear of alcohol for the next few days to maximize your body’s belly-flattening capabilities. Alcohol causes dehydration and may slow your body’s ability to eliminate that excess weekend waste, so if you had a little too much to drink this weekend, start chugging the H20.

It’s best to eliminate that occasional glass of wine, beer, or hard alcohol this week while you’re on a skinny jeans crusade—all are high-acid beverages that can irritate your GI tract and cause swelling.

Do Some Activity Every Day
A study from Spain's Autonomous University of Barcelona suggests that mild physical activity clears gas and alleviates bloating. That's because increasing your heart rate and breathing stimulates the natural contractions of the intestinal muscles, helping to prevent constipation and gas buildup by expediting digestion. Take a short walk after meals or pedal lightly on a bike at the gym to help relieve bloat.

More Remedies For Belly Bloat
If you want extra belly-flattening aids, consider one of these products to soothe your belly problems.

• Get gas relief with an over-the-counter product such as Gas-X.
• Try peppermint capsules to kill bacteria that cause bloat and aid digestion.
• Stay regular by increasing fiber with flaxseed or a fiber supplement such as Benefiber.
• Take a daily probiotic capsule. Dr. Wolf likes Align, Digestive Advantage Intensive Bowel Support, and Pearls IC Intensive Care Probiotics.

A definite belly-flattening “don’t” is weighing yourself every day, says Gans. “Bloating is about how you feel. A lot of women will start weighing themselves daily—it’ll drive them crazy and could be discouraging. Go by how your clothes feel rather than letting the scale rule your week.”

Six Effective Cardio Exercises You Can Do at Home

In this world, time always seems to be the resource that is the most finite. We can always go back to school or bang our heads against the wall to find new ways to create abundance and find money in this world. We can make new friends when old ones move on. We can find new jobs, homes, etc. But time is the one resource that is impossible to renew. So, we have to do everything in our power to make the most of the time that we do have.

When it comes to working out, our ability to dedicate enough time to training is very often influenced by the amount of extra time we have in each day. Sure, there are some things that are inflexible in our daily schedule. Work and school, as well as family and relationship issues, come to mind. Sleep and eating are two basic necessities of life which cannot be ignored or overlooked. They gotta get done! Very often, when we are weighing the opportunity costs of which tasks to omit from our daily routines, cardiovascular exercise will be the first thing on the chopping block. This isn’t to say that cardio isn’t important. It most certainly is, in terms of both overall health as well as for shedding body fat and displaying our muscles in the best possible manner.

We all know that the logistical parts of attending the gym – from driving there to parking to waiting for machines then showering before driving back home – can take a great deal of time, that we often do not have. For this reason, many people opt for completing their cardio exercises at home. It isn’t that difficult if you just use a little bit of imagination. Here are some suggestions for effective cardio exercises at home.

Walking
First and foremost – walk! Open your door, step outside, and move as quickly as you can around your block for 30 minutes. Wear a iPod to pass the time, or just open your eyes and enjoy the world! If you prefer it (and your sinuses and schedule allow for it), consider stopping at a nearby park or public track (assuming it is in a safe area) and doing your walking there. Surely you can squeeze in 30 minutes a day for all the basic and simple benefits that walking provides.

Jump roping
Once you’re ready to bump up your intensity, add jump roping to the mix! Boxers use jump roping to prepare them for their very intensive matches, and for very good reason. Nothing builds up cardiovascular endurance and leg strength like jumping rope! You’ll find your daily walks or other cardiovascular exercises becoming much simpler if you supplement your training with rope jumping. And it’s affordable too – a jump rope will run you less than $10 and will last forever!

Stationary bike
If your budget allows, drop the $119 on a standard stationary bicycle! You can watch television while you pedal, and 30 minutes will pass before you even know what hit you! Or, choose to surf on your laptop or check your email on your mobile phone device. Stationary pedaling is great low-impact cardio which is preferable for athletes with pre-existing knee injuries which make walking and jumping rope painful at time. Pedal away, and pass the time!

Elliptical machine
If you have $300 to $500 in your budget, and believe that home cardio exercise is in your best interest, then you should very much consider adding an elliptical machine to your home equipment list! You’ll soon discover it’s an exciting way to train your entire body at once, and the results will show much quicker than would be seen with just stationary biking, which does in fact neglect your entire upper body. If you can afford it, have the room, and don’t mind building it (which is NOT always easy), check out an elliptical machine for home cardio workouts!

Stationary jumps
When time or budget factors are weighing heavily, try something as simple as stationary jumps! Done in one place in front of the television or computer, you can knock out this cardio in 5 minutes or so daily. Stand up straight, then use your knees and elbows bent to propel yourself as high into the air as possible. Land, and repeat a few hundred times! Your legs and back will be pumped, and your calves will grow like they never have before. Give jumping a shot – it’s simple but highly effective!

Yard sprints
When it doubt, air it out! If you have a yard and you have 10 to 15 minutes, you can give your thighs the thrashing of a lifetime with yard sprints! This movement is free, painless (thanks to the reduced impact on knee joints thanks to the grass) and they sure are done quickly. Measure about 40 yards worth of distance in your yard, then get to pumping those quads! The results will come quickly, and you will very likely notice a strong improvement in your midsection. The abs and particularly side abdominals, or the obliques, are targeted very specifically when sprinting. Good luck!