Shifting those stubborn, unsightly pounds has been a subject of preoccupation for the health conscious for centuries. Indeed, an entire market has arisen around our need to keep wobbliness at bay, despite the demands of modern living. After all, with many of us working longer hours than ever before in jobs that traditionally require us to be bound to desks, a perfect flat tummy can be hard to attain.
Taking fitness seriously not only means training regularly but also means paying attention to the vitamins and nutrients that our body needs. While working out is often half of the battle towards increasing fitness, enhancing health and protecting against anti-aging, getting the right amount of nutrients is a long term battle.
Most of us know about the ‘headline’ vitamins such as vitamins C and D but B is often talked about much less, and specifically B12 is one of the most under discussed vitamins, that a growing number of people are deficient in. B12 plays a vital part in many of our body’s core functions such as the production of red blood cells and nerve cells.
Not only that, being deficient in B12 is likely to make you tired, sluggish and prone to getting headaches. To find out more about vitamin B12 and the symptoms, causes and treatments check out the below infographic by psysci:
There are countless restrictive diets on the market and more are being created each and every day. These diets claim to drop pounds in a short space of time so that people can shed any excess fat without having to follow an exercise regimen.
Restrictive diets are defined as diets with a calorie restriction, which can be achieved through following a strict diet plan or cutting out an entire food group. Diets, like people, come in all shapes and sizes. Crash diets cause rapid weight-loss over a few weeks but the daily calorie intake is dangerously low and unsustainable.
Skipping breakfast is not a habit that you should adopt, but still many people do it because they don’t have the time or the energy to eat in the morning. To each their own, of course, but you should know that having the first meal of the day on a regular basis allows your metabolism to go on full speed from an early morning and it actually helps in waking up. Healthy breakfast regulates your blood pressure and blood sugar, not to talk about the fact that it has a significant impact on how you’re going to eat for the rest of your day and if you’ll be able to keep cravings away.
All of these reasons are but the tip of the iceberg of why you should always have your breakfast of the champions and we’re here to help you out in this domain. Here are some breakfast ideas that won’t take up a lot of your time in the morning, they are perfect for every fitness enthusiast and they are delicious.
What is Garcinia Cambogia?
Garcinia is a small, sour tropical fruit of a small to medium sized tree that grows in India and South-East Asia. It is used traditionally as a condiment, to prevent formation and to increase the release of intestinal gas. The dried fruit rind known as Malabar tamarind is traditionally used to help in the treatment of rheumatism and gastrointestinal complaints.
One of the few things to unite meat-eaters, vegetarians and even vegans, peanut butter is perhaps the great leveller of the fitness industry. High in calories, fat and protein, the delicious substance has been a go to option for muscle fanatics over the past century. Some use it as a spread whereas others, myself included sadly, eat it right out of the jar until someone catches us.
In today’s post on peanut butter, we’re going to look at the origins, invention and growth of one of the gym goer’s greatest allies….Peanut Butter.
As many readers will no doubt be aware, protein bars have become almost ubiquitous in certain parts of the Western world, owing in part to their durability and in part to their successful advertising. Indeed, at the time of writing, I can walk five minutes to the local shop where I will be greeted by the sight of Quest, Fulfil, Yippee and Weider protein bars among others. To quote Jasper from the Simpsons…’What a time to be alive’.
Now if we leave aside the fact that most of these bars represent nothing more than candy with a scoop of protein in it, we are still left with a hugely profitable element to the fitness industry. An element that has often been neglected by those interest in the history of health.
This element, as will become clear, is a relatively recent introduction to the world of bodybuilding and fitness more generally. Indeed, today’s post on Bob Hoffman’s Hi-Proteen Fudge reveals that one of the first precursors to the modern protein bar only came about in the early 1950s, sometime between 1953 and 1954.
Earlier this week, Physical Culture Study was lucky enough to chat with Sally Fallon Morrell, the President of the Weston A. Price Foundation. For those readers who are unaware of the Foundation’s work, the WAPF has spent nearly two decades educating people on healthy dietary practices.
Advocating the consumption of saturated fats, raw fullfat dairy and a host of other supposedly ‘unhealthy’ foods, the WAPF can be seen as a sane voice in a world of low-fat fanatics. More recently, the Foundation has spearheaded the move to make raw milk sales legal into all 50 American States. With 42 down and only 8 more to go, few would bet against them.
So without further ado, check out a rather enlightening discussion with Sally.
Q)
In both the bodybuilding and fitness community more generally it is commonplace to see diets that are high in lean cuts of meat, carbs and low in fat.
How does the Western Price diet differ from such approaches and what do these approaches lack?
Bodybuilding and physical culture has, at its core, always been about pushing the limits of nutritional consumption. After all, no other sport promotes periods of intense dieting in the manner of the iron game. The quest for new nutritional approaches has led to some rather interesting diets, Armand Tanny’s raw meat diet being a case in point.
For those of us too young to remember, Tanny was a highly influential name in the bodybuilding business of yesteryear. An accomplished bodybuilder in his own right (Winner in the 1949 Pro. Mr. America and the 1950 Mr. USA competitions), Tanny also spent many decades writing on bodybuilding for the various Weider magazines.
Unlike his fellow iron game compatriots however, Tanny followed an almost entirely raw diet. That meant raw milk, raw vegetables and of course, raw meats.
So what prompted Tanny to follow this diet, what did the diet entail, and what can the modern lifter learn from it?
Having previously discussed Rheo H. Blair’s revolutionary protein blend on this site, it seems only fair to look at another Blair invention, the ‘$1000 method to cook your eggs’ . Why $1,000? Well according to […]
