As a gym owner, personal trainer and former body builder, the question I get asked almost as much as, “How can I lose weight fast?” is, “What are the best muscle building and/or weight loss supplements?” With shelves upon shelves of different supplements that each supposedly serve a unique purpose, the confusion and apprehension is understandable. After all, if it truly takes all of those supplements to reach your weight loss and muscle building goals, you’ll be in bankruptcy pretty quick.

The good news is that you don’t need all those supplements. While many of them do have positive effects, most are unnecessary if you’re not out to place first in a bodybuilding competition. For most people, only a handful of muscle building supplements are required on a regular basis. You’ll notice that not many are necessarily considered to be weight loss supplements. However, by virtue of helping increase your muscle mass, they are fat-busters. Experts such as the American Council on Exercise tell us that building and maintaining muscle burns more calories than a soft, sedentary body does. That’s why, even though the following supplements are mostly considered to be muscle-building supplements, they’re also effective weight loss supplements, helping you to achieve two goals at once.

Good Ol’ Protein

At the top of the list of the best supplements for women and men alike is every dieter and body builder’s best friend: protein. It’s a vital element for building muscle tissue. If you’ve been protein shopping, you already know that there are a number of different types and sources of protein, including powders made from egg whites as well as whey. Whey is one of the best forms of protein, as it’s easily absorbed by the body, even more readily than food sources such as fish or chicken. If you like to cover your bases with several types of protein, Beverly International’s Ultimate Muscle Protein (UMP) is your dream protein. In addition to whey, it contains egg white and casein, which is ultra-useful in the repair stage of muscle building.

Creatine Supplements Enhance Anabolic Results

Creatine supplements are useful for improving muscle and strength gains and busting through plateaus. According to a study published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, creatine supplements increased IGF-I (insulin-like growth factor-1) which is essential for the repair and building of muscle tissue. You may have heard of negative side effects associated with creatine, but if you stick to the recommended cycling and servings, you should do fine. Also, because creatine works partially by drawing water into the muscle cells, you’ll want to ensure you’re drinking plenty of water to avoid muscle cramping and other symptoms of dehydration.

Muscle-Metabolized Aminos

Whether or not you’re familiar with all nine essential amino acids, you should familiarize yourself with the three known as the Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs):

• L-IsoLeucine
• L-Leucine
• L-Valine

These ones are metabolized in the muscles, instead of in the liver like the rest of the aminos. BCAAs are awesome because they support energy levels, strength and recovery. Additionally, a study published in the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness found that supplementing BCAAs reduces fatigue during workouts and also increases fat oxidation — yep, that’s fat-burning to you and me. More good news for those taking UMP: this “ultimate” muscle building supplement also contains the three BCAAs in addition to L-Arginine and L-Glutamine.

Take Your Viteys

Even with the best intentions, your diet will fail in providing you the complete nutrition you need to build lean muscle to burn fat. A study published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition revealed that, even when careful attention was paid to improving nutritional intake, most (up to 90 percent!) failed to provide 100 percent of recommended micronutrients. A quality multivitamin that also contains minerals is the answer. Vitamins provide energy and give your body what it needs to build and repair muscles. If you’ve plateaued and have been dragging, the lack of a quality multivitamin could be the reason. It will fill in the blanks left by your diet to help you get through your workouts, building lean muscle and burning fat.

Still, your diet does play an important part in your health and fitness goals. Taking vitamins and protein doesn’t mean you can slack off on eating right. Making healthy choices when you eat, drinking plenty of water, and including these few supplements will get you over the hump, off the plateau and back on track to building muscle and burning off body fat.

–Matt

Keeping fat weight off and muscle weight on as you age is a topic that’s been discussed before, but the subject is getting renewed attention. It could be because more people are struggling with their New Year’s resolutions or maybe it’s that some experts are finding new ways to age with satisfaction rather than settling for “aging gracefully”. Whatever the reason, if you’re over 40 and are finding that your go-to plans for shaping up and dropping a few pounds aren’t working anymore, it’s time to make a change.

Old Strategy Getting New Attention

Compound exercises have been around for as long as people have been working out, so there’s nothing new about recommending them. The element that makes them fresh news is that they’re ultra-effective for helping people over 40 lose weight and get in shape. As Bodybuilding.com explains, compound exercises are ones that employ multiple joints to execute. Using more than one joint naturally recruits more muscle groups, so you’ll expend more energy to work more muscles, and get better results than with isolation exercises. In simple terms, you’ll get more bang for your buck from chin ups or hammer rows than from biceps curls.

Cut the Cardio?

Some experts cite a National Strength and Conditioning Association study to back up claims that excess cardio exercise depletes testosterone levels and, therefore, works against older adults of both genders, decreasing their energy levels and making it hard to lose fat weight and build muscle. The keyword there is excess–traditionally people are prone to attending an hour-long aerobics class or setting the timer on the treadmill or elliptical and going full-bore for 45 to 60 minutes. For someone over 40, that much cardio in one shot is excessive. When it comes to an aerobic workout, as you age, less is more, but you still need between 75 and 150 minutes of cardio each week. There’s a fine line between getting enough cardio and under-doing it.

Breaking that total number up into 10 to 20-minute increments each day is the easiest way to get your cardio exercise. That’s why physicians and personal trainers alike are nuts about HIIT workouts. Getting your cardio from High Intensity Interval Training three or more times a week is more effective than traditional cardio exercises plus, Dr. Mercola points out that HIIT workouts encourage your body to produce more human growth hormone–an element that decreases significantly after the age of 30. With more HGH and testosterone in the system, men and women alike will feel better, have more energy, be able to build muscle and burn fat easier.

Putting it All Together

So that’s the plan for people over 40: using compound exercises in High Interval Intensity Training workouts to keep your body lean and fit. The only drawback is that heavy free weights can be brutal on mature joints. That’s why professionals recommend using bands such as the ones on the TargitFit Trainer for resistance instead of iron, even before you hit the 40-year mark.

Putting it all together, the three steps for adjusting your workout after 40 are

1. doing the compound exercises you already do, or adding more to your routine
2. performing them with resistance bands instead of free weights
3. executing the workout in a HIIT format

If you’re having a hard time coming up with your own exercises, we’ll post some below. First, though, here’s how to use them in a HIIT workout for various fitness levels:

• Beginners–do an exercise for 30 seconds, rest for 15 seconds, then move on to the next exercise for 30 seconds. Rest for 15 seconds and continue on through the exercises in the same manner.
• Experienced Exercisers–exercise for 45 seconds, rest for 15 seconds, working through each exercise.
• Advanced–exercise for 60 seconds, rest for 15 seconds, working through each exercise.

All levels can take a 90-second rest after working through the exercises once, but then start at the beginning again and go through the circuit one to two more times.

Compound exercises for an effective full-body HIIT workout can include bench press, rows, squats, hack squats or leg press, lat pull downs, deadlift, and a military press. Alternatively, you can write your own workouts, grouping upper-body compound exercises together for one day and lower-body ones for another day for more variety.

Source

This week, TargitFit is pleased to bring you an informative health and fitness article from Carnivore Aurelius:

Whatever you do…do not be a mouth breather.

I will not stand for any mouth breathing from my followers…

It’s almost the equivalent of being on the Beyond Meat diet…(but probably not as bad).

You breathe more than you do anything else in life…other than read my tweets.

But most people don’t know how to properly breathe.

In fact, humans are probably the worst breathers in the animal kingdom.

Improper breathing, like eating the wrong foods, has some devestating consequences.

And no matter how healthy you’re eating, you can offset many of the benefits if you breathe improperly.

Incorrect breathing can lead to mineral depletion, misshapen jaw lines, HPA axis dysfunction and imbalanced co2 / o2.

So I’m here to help you ensure that you’re breathing correctly.

Here are my favorite breathing exercises.

Exercise #1: Only breathe through your nose

You were designed to breathe through your nose. In fact, breathing through your mouth is like eating through your nose…

Some experts think that people only breathe 10%-20% of their full capacity because they never breathe through their nose.

Breathing through the nose allows you to take fuller and deeper breaths which will distribute greater amounts of oxygen. It will also help to calm the mind.

The nostrils and sinuses are also built as filters…(they’re almost like built in n95 masks…) whereas the mouth is not.

Exercise #2: Tape your mouth at night

I was very skeptical at first after seeing people do this.

To be honest, I was shocked more people weren’t dying from this given the propensity to mouth breathe…

But it works. And it worked really well for me.

Similar to how you need to take drastic measures when you fix your diet early on, you need to take some drastic measures to fix your breathing.

Even if you are breathing through your nose all day, you may not be while you sleep.

Are you snoring? Or waking up with drool around your mouth? If that’s the case, you’re probably a night mouth breather.

The best way to fight this is to tape your mouth when you sleep.

When I did this, I noticed an immediate increase in energy in the AM. Over time, you can remove this mouth strip.

Exercise #3: Try box breathing whenever you are stressed and before you go to bed

This is my favorite and easiest breathing exercise. Whenever you’re stressed or find yourself aimlessly scrolling on social media, put the phone down and try some box breathing.

One of the biggest reasons for the health epidemic today is because people are stressed all the time. And when they are, they reach for toxic substances to cover up their pain. Porn. Junk food. Social media. Etc etc.

Notice that whenever you’re scrolling the most through social media, or feel the urge to eat junk food, you’re probably also feeling some internal pain.

Instead, try this.

Breathe in through the nose for 4 seconds.

Hold the breath for 7 seconds

Breathe out of the nose for 8 seconds.

Repeat 4 times.

When you breathe out for longer than you breathe in, this will activate your parasympathetic nervous system.

Exercise #4: Breath hold walks

Increasing co2 tolerance is one of the best ways to improve your health.

As discussed in the article, carbon dioxide is responsible for offloading oxygen into cells.

Most people have an extremely low co2 tolerance and because of this, they feel the urge to constantly mouth breathe.

In fact, the urge to breathe is triggered by co2. If you breathe too much, in turn, you’ll offload excess co2 causing you to be fatigued.

Holding your breath is one of the best ways to increase tolerance.

Multiple times a week in the AM I go on walks where I breathe through the nose for 1 minute, then continue walking and hold my breath to the first point where I feel a strong urge to take in air. I then go slightly beyond then and breathe in as slowly as I can through my nose for another minute and repeat.

Exercise #5: Swami Rama 2:1 breathing

Swami rama is a himalayan monk who believes that mastering your breathing can banish sickness and disease. Similar to the 2 exercises above, he is focused on increasing co2 capacity.

Here’s how to do so:

Assuming your natural breath is 2 seconds in and 3 seconds out (it’s probably a lot shorter), start here:

Lie down

Breathe in for 2 seconds then out for 4 seconds. This is one breath.

Do this 10 times and this is one round. Breathe normally for a few breaths and then repeat 3 more times.

Do this for about 4 weeks and after try to increase the length of one breath to 3 seconds in and 6 seconds out.

Exercise #6: Static Apnea Tables

These stables are formulated to increase co2 tolerance for free divers. There are great apps out there to help with these to accustom the body to extreme co2 levels. For instance, here’s a co2 table below that accustoms the body to more co2 by reducing the amount of time between each round.

I do these 1 – 2 times a week.

Hold breath – 1:30 min

Rest – 2:15 min ; hold – 1:30 min

Rest – 2:00 min ; hold – 1:30 min

Rest – 1:45 min ; hold – 1:30 min

Rest – 1:30 min ; hold – 1:30 min

Rest – 1:15 min ; hold – 1:30 min

Rest – 1:00 min ; hold – 1:30 min

Rest – 1:00 min ; hold – 1:30 min

—-

When I discovered the benefits of breathwork, it changed my health almost as much as discovering the benefits of beef liver.

This article was originally published at www.carnivoreaurelius.com.

Carnivore Aurelius is a nutrition and biochemistry expert who’s studied for over 5 years. He used the carnivore diet to cure IBS, rheumatoid arthritis and his acne. He’s passionate about distilling complex nutritional information down to actionable advice.

This week, TargitFit is pleased to bring you an informative health and wellness article from Help And Wellness:

As we get older, our bodies become less capable of fighting off infections and mending after injuries. The healthier we are going into our senior years, the better chance we have of staving off illness and injury.

Staying fit and healthy is always a bit of a challenge. Finding the time and motivation to exercise, cook good meals, and drink enough water is difficult!

However hard it is, staying healthy is important. If we want to live long, happy, healthy lives we need to keep our bodies and minds in tip-top shape.

We’ve put together a short guide for seniors to help you stay fighting fit for many more years to come! A crib sheet of sorts.

1. Be Active

Physical activity is important to our bodies for so many reasons. First and foremost, it helps us burn calories and keep our weight down. It also triggers a number of hormone chemicals that boost our mood and bodily functions.

You might not be able to move like you used to but there’s no reason why you should stop altogether.

Physical activity comes with some risks, of course. You need to move at a pace you can manage. If you’re struggling with joint pain, for example, try low-impact activities like swimming or walking.

You should be aiming for 150 minutes of moderate-intensity cardio/aerobic exercise a week. This works out to about half an hour a day for five days a week.

Moderate-intensity exercise is an activity that raises your heart rate and makes you sweat a little. You don’t need to run ultra marathons, you just need to keep yourself moving.

You also need to take part in some resistance training. This will help your muscles stay firm and toned.

Resistance training doesn’t mean that you need to be lifting iron. You can increase or decrease the resistance as you feel comfortable. The key thing is to keep the training within your limits.

Try using resistance bands for resistance training. You can gradually increase the strength of the bands as you feel comfortable.

Resistance bands are a safe and effective way of incorporating resistance training into your daily activity. They provide plenty of challenges but don’t put you at risk of injury from falling weights or dropped barbells.

It’s also important to remember that any activity is better than no activity at all. If you can get yourself up out of a chair to stroll around your garden, that’s a great start! The more you move the better you’ll feel.

2. Eat A Balanced Diet

There’s no reason why you shouldn’t treat yourself to delicious food in your senior years. You’ve earned it! The key is to enjoy it responsibly as part of a balanced diet.

A balanced diet should contain food from all of the major food groups however, it is not the same balanced diet as you may have eaten in your younger years.

For a start, we need fewer calories as we get older. Our bodies aren’t growing and producing and mending tissue as much, so we’re using less energy. Also, we tend to slow down, stop working, and take things easier in our older years.

Despite needing fewer calories, we do need the same amount of nutrients from our diet. This means seniors need to focus on nutrient-rich foods like fruits and vegetables, beans and legumes, whole grains, and lean proteins.

You also need to ensure you get enough fiber to maintain a healthy digestive system. Soluble fiber is plentiful in foods like fruit and veg, lentils, and oats.

3. Sleep Well

It’s true that as we age, we need fewer hours of sleep. Again, this has to do with the body slowing down and not needing so much time to recuperate from the day’s activities.

However, sleep is still hugely important to your health and well-being. It has an impact on your mood, your memory, and your concentration. All three of those things can and do take a hit as you get older. It’s important to do what we can to maintain them.

Those over 65 should aim for 6-8 hours of sleep a night. Ideally, this sleep should be uninterrupted so that you are able to go through all the stages of your sleep. However, staying asleep can be a problem for some people.

If you find that you are waking up during the night, try to adjust your sleeping situation. Make sure lights are off, sounds are limited and the temperature is just right for you. If you’re waking to use the bathroom, try not to drink just before bed, and stop drinking caffeine by midday.

It’s not unusual to have trouble sleeping as you get older. You might be kept awake by aches and pains, medications, or conditions like sleep apnea. Speak with your doctor to address the underlying causes in order to get better sleep.

4. Be Calm

Stress is a killer no matter what your age. Stress triggers the production of cortisol which is a chemical that is intended to get us out of dangerous and stressful situations.

Cortisol effectively suppresses functions that it deems superfluous to an emergency situation. These functions include the digestive system and the growth production systems.

Repeated or sustained stress, known as chronic stress, can do lasting damage to many organs including the heart, digestive system, and brain.

As a senior, you need to curb this stress response as much as possible. It can exacerbate problems in your heart and brain.

Try to take up relaxing activities like reading, painting, or music. If you aren’t already meditating, try to add a few minutes of meditation to your daily routine.

Ultimately, you need to try and limit the amount of stress in your life. Your golden years are a time to relax and enjoy yourself, after all.

5. Reduce Risk

You can eat well, keep active, and get plenty of rest, but the fact remains that older bodies are not as able when it comes to fighting off infections.

Exercise is proven to boost your immune system. It gives your body a jolt that encourages the growth of T-cells which are key for fighting off infections.

Exercising daily can help you stave off infections and illnesses. It can also help you get better quicker.

What’s more, there are a few things you can and should do on top of your daily exercise routine to reduce your risk of illness.

As the saying goes, the best cure is prevention. You need to reduce your chances of illness and infection to have the best chance of beating them.

The first thing you need to do is stay away from sick people! It’s tempting to call in on the grandkids or your old friend when they’re unwell. You want to cheer them up and make them feel better.

However, doing this puts you at greater risk. Your young grandchildren can shrug the flu off in a few days–you might not be so lucky!

The next thing you need to do is wash your hands frequently. Whenever you come home, wash your hands. Before you eat or touch food, wash your hands. If possible, wash your hands after touching public surfaces like door handles.

It might seem excessive but, remember that viruses can live on surfaces for up to 24 hours, and some can survive even longer. You don’t want them on your hands, much less in your body.

Final Thoughts

Old age comes to us all. However, we don’t have to let our age be a limiting factor in our lives.

Staying healthy and fit is the best way to get the most enjoyment out of your senior years.

You don’t need to be a professional athlete to feel the benefits of daily exercise. Just doing what you can helps your body stay young and strong.

And, if you’d like a longer guide and more advice, check out this article! It has plenty of information to keep you fit and healthy.

There’s no shortage of ab exercise machines, fitness exercise programs that target the midsection, or late-night infomercials about toning and trimming the tummy. There are plenty of people ready and willing to tell you how to lose belly fat in exchange for your credit card number. The cold, hard truth is that you don’t need a special ab exercise machine (even if it does look and feel as comfortable as a hammock), and there’s no one magical ab workout that will suddenly accomplish what your half-hearted attempts at diet and exercise haven’t in the past. There are three keys to flat-ab success, and you can have them right here for the price of your time.

Step One: Get Your Cardio

Any fitness exercise program worth its salt includes aerobic exercise. That’s because getting your heart rate up and expending energy burns fat and calories. The goal is to burn more calories than you take in so that your body is forced to use up stored fat, including the flab affectionately known as your “love handles.” Military.com recommends doing cardio four to five times a week, for 20 to 45 minutes a shot. You know the drill: any activity that increases your heart rate such as biking, running, aerobics classes or working out on the treadmill or elliptical trainer. More is not necessarily better when it comes to duration or level of vigor. IDEA Health and Fitness Association recommends two different approaches to maximize fat loss overall as part of a plan to lose belly fat:

• short, dynamic workouts, such as 30 minute HIIT sessions
• long bike rides or similar activities of 90 minutes to 2 hours during which your heart rate hits and maintains about 65 to 70 percent max HR

Step Two: Work Those Abs

There is no such thing as spot-reducing, but it is useful to perform abdominal exercises to strengthen and tone your core. Toned ab muscles give your midsection the flat look you desire–especially after you start losing the layer of fat that conceals your abs–and, when you work to develop those muscles, you can even get a six pack going if that’s what you want. The really terrific thing about ab workouts is that the best ab exercises without equipment are essentially the best ab exercises, period. For years, planks have been the ab workout darlings of many personal trainers, but the American Council on Exercise says that jacks, mountain climbers, and even side planks are more effective for working your abs from top to bottom and side to side. ACE actually did a study on ab exercises and found the most effective ones to be the bicycle maneuver and the captain’s chair (leg lifts). They’re both effective for working the obliques as well as the main ab muscles that run along the front of your torso.

In your impatience to lose belly fat and flatten your tummy, don’t work your abs every day. Your abdominals are just like every other muscle in your body, and they need recovery time between workouts. That doesn’t mean you can’t do ab exercises more than once a week. Just be sure to allow 48 to 72 hours between workouts.

Step Three: Get a Grip on Your Diet

Ack. There’s that four letter word. Again! Unfortunately, you cannot eat trash and expect to have a trim tummy. Remember the saying: what you eat in private, you wear in public — right around your middle. No one is saying you can’t eat food you like, just think “moderation.” That means limiting sweets and fried foods, choosing naturally low-fat cheeses over the creamy fat-filled ones, eating ample fresh veggies and fruits, and opting for lean meats instead of fatty ones. TargitFit’s never-fail extreme weight loss diet recommends cutting out soda altogether, but if you can’t go cold-turkey on the cola, wean yourself off, cutting back a little at a time until you’re off it entirely. Drink water instead as part of ensuring you get enough H₂0 each day. Try eating five smaller meals throughout the day instead of three large ones. If you get a grip on your diet and include both cardio and ab exercises in your routine, you’ll be sportin’ that six pack in no time.

In this age of social media and publishing every random thought that occurs, you’d think that keeping a food diary would be easy. But if that were true, then so many people wouldn’t still be fighting the battle to lose weight. Maybe you’ve heard the advice before—that keeping a journal to track your food intake can be beneficial—and maybe you rolled your eyes. Or, possibly, you thought it was a good idea but just haven’t gotten around to doing it yet. Well, it’s time to take this weight loss secret seriously. A study published by Kaiser Permanente found that keeping a journal on food intake can double weight loss, and the more detailed the diary is, the more weight you’re likely to lose.

What’s more, listening to and understanding your body is important in general, but especially when you’re trying to lose weight. Health says that keeping a food journal will shine a light on issues such as why you eat when you’re not hungry, how who you’re eating with may affect your meals, and can even identify foods you may be allergic to or that have negative effects on your health.  Armed with that kind of insight, you’ll be more in touch with your body and its relationship with food, and will be able to fine-tune your eating habits to reach your goals. So grab a notebook and a pen and start writing to lose weight.

The Magic Of Writing

One reason food journals can be so successful is that they track the amount of food you eat to give you an accurate picture of what you’re actually eating. Kristin Kirkpatrick, a Registered Dietician, says that clients routinely tell her they hardly eat at all, yet still can’t seem to lose weight. One of the first things she does is have them start keeping a food diary, and they’re always surprised at how much they really do consume.

That’s because many people have gotten used to eating on the run, so they subconsciously dismiss any food not eaten at the dining room table. Another trick of the mind is that they don’t see the “little” calories adding up: a handful of chips here, half a sandwich there, several spoonfuls of Ben and Jerry’s furtively scarfed down in the middle of the night (if you don’t eat it from a dish, it doesn’t count, right?). It all does add up, though, and writing it down makes you accountable, putting you face-to-face with the truth of how much you’re really eating.

How To Keep a Food Diary

Keeping a food journal is about more than writing down what you eat. According to Organic Authority, there are several important issues that need to be kept track of that relate to the food part of the log. Start with writing down the time of day you’re eating and exactly how much of each item you consume. Plus, every time you eat, you should record your hunger level, the reason you’re eating (stress? it’s noon? I’m bored? everyone else is doing it?), how long it takes you to eat, and reactions, such as whether the food affects your mood or makes you feel contented, happy, hyper, nauseous, tired, or irritable.

Periodic summaries are essential, too. Do it daily, do it weekly, or do it monthly, but the summaries will centralize the data on the food you’re eating and give you the clearest picture of your diet. What’s more, summarizing reveals patterns in your health, moods, and eating habits, and identifying those can do more than help you lose weight. That information can end up being vital for improving your general health.

Get In the Habit and Don’t Stop

However you choose to record your experience with food, make a commitment to do it consistently for at least 90 days. By then, the habit should be ingrained enough that you won’t have trouble keeping it up if you want to or if you haven’t reached your goal yet and need to keep journaling. You’ll be surprised at the picture the diary will paint over those 3 months and may be even more surprised at the incentive you get from reviewing it.

Although we tend to focus on the topic of exercise, we recognize that many people’s New Year’s Resolution to get healthy is more about diet than working out. Some resolve to eat healthier in general, while others aim for a more specific goal, like cutting down on their sugar intake. If that’s your objective this New Year, we asked our friends at Pyure Organic to offer some advice on ways to make January 2021 sugar free:

It’s that time of year again–when everyone resolves to finally get in shape and/or lose weight. Many are flocking to fitness centers already in anticipation of doing right by their New Year’s resolution, but some are looking at outfitting their own workout spaces at home. For those in the second camp, we’ve got advice from Andrea Lozoya on setting up the ideal gym in your home to make the most of your workouts:

This article first appeared on porch.com.

Andrea Lozoya is a Marketing Analyst and does Content Marketing at Porch. She has a MBA, and her hobbies are running, playing piano, and singing.

No, the headline isn’t a typo—it’s a fact. Bodybuilding pros, dieticians, and doctors all know that a planned cheat day can improve the results of most diets. It might seem counterintuitive to encourage someone who has been trying to lose weight to indulge in “real” food on a regular basis but hear us out. There are benefits to cheating, especially if you do it right. That’s great news, particularly at this time of year when extra temptation is everywhere.

The Leptin Factor

Low calories are one of the reasons diets fail. Cutting the number of calories you eat often results in hunger which, in turn, causes leptin levels to drop. Leptin is the hormone that informs your brain that you have plenty of energy in reserves, but when the levels drop, your brain thinks that you’re starving. The result is that your metabolism slows down, and you end up burning fewer calories. It’s a vicious cycle that typically causes frustrated dieters to quit dieting altogether.

Toss a cheat day into your dieting schedule, however, and, according to EatThis,  your leptin levels will go up, notifying your brain that all is well. It will keep your metabolism set to burn calories instead of conserving them.

Avoid Feeling Deprived

Another reason it’s tough to stick to a diet is that you usually can’t eat many of your favorite foods, and you end up feeling deprived before you start seeing results. Consequently, working a cheat day into your diet will make you feel like you’re not being deprived at all. Bodybuilders like King Kamali tell Muscle & Fitness that cheating gives them a mental break. Knowing that you’ll be able to treat yourself on a specified day will make it easier to stick to stricter meal plans the rest of the time. What’s more, you might notice you perform better in the gym or TargitFit class the day after you cheat. Those extra calories will give you the energy to power through a beast of a workout, which will benefit your weight loss goals in the end.

Tips for Cheating the “Right” Way

Make a plan. If you want to use cheating as a dieting strategy, you can’t just randomly decide that “today’s the day” and then go back to dieting tomorrow. Having a plan is always the best bet. Decide if you’re going to allow yourself one cheat meal every 10 meals or an entire cheat day every 10 days. There’s nothing magic about the number 10, so don’t get hung up on that. The point is to pick specific times for cheating and stick to that.

Don’t over-restrict your calories before your cheat day. You’re already cutting back by being on a diet, so it’s not necessary to cut back extra right before a cheat day. Eliminating additional calories will only result in binge-eating on your cheat day—which is unacceptable … and it’s the next tip.

Don’t binge! Allowing yourself a cheat day is not the same as getting permission to eat everything in sight. You’ll still need to eat reasonably on your cheat day; it’s just that you’re allowed to have foods typically off limits. Eating slowly can help. Not only will you get to savor every drop of silky Alfredo sauce or delicious crumb of chocolate cake, but eating slowly will give your stomach enough time to signal your brain when you are full.

Keep working out. You should have rest days worked into your exercise schedule, but it’s a good idea to manage them so that they don’t coincide with your cheat days. Resting on a day when your caloric intake is low will help keep your body from thinking it’s starving, and working out on a day when you indulge will help work off those extra calories before they’re stored in fat cells.

Be strategic with your cheat meals. Dr. Oz  advises that having structured meals on a cheat day can minimize some of the cost of going off your diet. The Good Doctor’s plan even allows for you to eat three meals plus two snacks: have your “cheat fat” at breakfast, “cheat salt” during your morning snack, your “cheat carbohydrate” at lunch, your “cheat sugar” in the afternoon, and your “cheat protein” at dinner. This plan still has you eating foods that you might consider to be diet foods, so you’ll hardly feel like you’re cheating at all. If Dr. Oz’s plan isn’t for you, another cheat day strategy is to cut down the number of eating hours on your diet day off—kind of like daylight savings time for your diet.

The way to do that is to eat a high-protein meal for dinner the night before your cheat day, so you’re not starving by the next morning. Then, push your first meal of the day to lunchtime. That doesn’t mean skipping your morning meal altogether, but unless you are living for pancakes with syrup and bacon, have a protein shake or granola bar for breakfast and indulge in your cheat foods for lunch and dinner. Alternatively, have that big breakfast but be sure to include fiber and protein so that you can skip lunch and won’t be famished to the point of gorging yourself when dinnertime rolls around. Yet another choice could be to have the big breakfast and one other meal in the late afternoon that takes the place of both lunch and dinner.

You really have nothing to lose but pounds, so why not give cheating a try? It might feel a little naughty, but you may be surprised at how easy it is to stick to a diet and lose weight when you know you have a reprieve coming.

This week, Targitfit is pleased to bring you an informative diet article by Carnivore Aurelius:

Source

The internet is rife with vitamin C remedies for the common cold, vitamin B concoctions to boost energy and high doses of vitamin D for bone health.

Yet vitamin A gets the cold shoulder. Think about it, when was the last time you saw a vitamin A shot at the gas station??? Exactly.

While Vitamin A isn’t exactly known as a sexy vitamin, it does, in fact, have superpowers:

• It rejuvenates your skin
• Protects cells against free radical damage
• Powers your immune system
• Supports vision
• Accelerates muscle gain

These are just some of the many benefits. Supposedly enough vitamin A can even give you X-Ray vision…I haven’t tested this out yet though.

Stay with me here as we dig into the nutrient powerhouse you’ve been ignoring, what it does and how to make sure you get enough.

A Primer on Vitamin A

Vitamin A is a term that encompasses a group of vitamin compounds including carotenoids and retinoids. Carotenoids are precursors of the active Vitamin A that your body needs and retinol is the active form. There are three forms of active retinoids in the body: retinal, retinol and retinoic acid.

As is always the case, when plants and animals have a different form of a nutrient, the animal form is always the one you need. It makes sense. Your eyes aren’t made of carrots. They’re made of the same building blocks that animals have in their eyes…

Foods high in carotenoids are most commonly fruits and vegetables with bright red and orange colors but also include some dark leafies. Some examples of foods high in carotenoids include:

• Sweet potato
• Pumpkin
• Carrots
• Butternut squash
• Kale
• Collard Greens
• Red palm oil

Humans and animals make retinoids (this is the active form of vitamin A, remember?) from some of the carotenoids. Active vitamin A is stored in the liver and in fat, making animal liver and animal fats the best sources.

Beef liver, for instance, is the best source of Vitamin A retinol in the world. Just 100g of beef liver contains over 15,000 IU of Vitamin A.

Interestingly, besides liver, foods that naturally contain the highest amounts of vitamin A are those that are meant to sustain young animals through development like milk and eggs. The highest natural sources of retinoids include:

• Liver
• Cod liver oil
• Butter
• Whole milk
• Egg yolks

Cereals and other grain products may be fortified with vitamin A but I’m obviously not promoting those as good sources. If that surprises you, check out my posts on saponins and lectins to learn more.

Carnivore is King

Plants do contribute to vitamin A status however, many factors impair our body’s ability to convert carotenoids into active vitamin A.

First things first, only about 10% of the over 500 carotenoids can be converted into active vitamin A.

Second, there are physiologic factors that play interference in our ability to convert, including:

• Certain health conditions like diabetes and celiac disease
• Age (infants and children)
• Low thyroid function
• Low fat intake
• Diarrhea
• Pancreatic dysfunction
• Fiber in the diet
• Parasites
• Nutrient deficiencies including protein, zinc, and iron
• Genetic variation (reduces ability to convert by up to 75%)

For many people, the conversion rate of beta-carotene to retinol is only 5%. For instance, this study shows that every 15 mcg of carotene in spinach is equivalent to 1 mcg of retinol .

Layer in genetic polymorphisms, low fat intake and gut issues and absorption rates may be even lower. It makes sense why there are so many health issues today, as this is one of the most important vitamins in the world.

As you can see, relying solely on plants to meet vitamin A needs is a problem for the majority of people.

So it makes sense to let mother nature take the guesswork out of it for you and incorporate animal sources to get what you need.

If you’re interested in maximizing your amount of vitamin A intake, the carnivore diet is the best diet in the world.

What Does Vitamin A Do?

Vitamin A has a wide range of benefits. It’s important to note that the benefits do not apply universally to both carotenoids and retinoids, they are separate compounds with different jobs. Here, I’ll discuss mostly the benefits of active vitamin A with some comments about carotenoids noted throughout.

1.  Reproduction

Adequate vitamin A is required by both female and male reproductive cells for healthy reproduction. You heard correctly – if you want to procreate, both sperm and eggs rely on vitamin A. What could be more of a superpower than helping to create a human?

2.  Healthy Pregnancy for Mom and Baby

From conception to birth, vitamin A is required for a healthy pregnancy. Starting from embryonic development, through the formation of the organs, development of healthy eyesight, and sound immune function, vitamin A is an essential nutrient to make sure physiologic systems are formed and healthy.

For mom, Vitamin A deficiency also increases maternal mortality in pregnant women. Vitamin A deficiency is of highest concern in the third trimester when both mom and baby need this essential nutrient.

3.  Healthy Vision 

Vitamin A deficiency is the leading cause of preventable blindness in children worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, this is a major health issue for at least half of the population of every single country on earth.

This supernutrient is required for eye development, proper functioning of the retina and protection of the surface of the eye. Vitamin A is a structural component of rhodopsin, the pigment within the cells of the retina that allow us to see colors and dim light.

So next time someone tells you carrots are good for vision, you can inform them that Carrots are a wanna-be beef liver.

4.  Immune Function

Vitamin C and zinc aren’t the only superstars when it comes to immune function. In fact, vitamin A was originally nicknamed the “anti-infective” vitamin almost a century ago because of its importance in normal immune functioning.

The body’s barrier tissues including the skin and linings of the digestive tract and airways rely on vitamin A. Vitamin A is required for the creation of the cells that make up those tissues as well as the mucous they produce. These tissues are the first line of defense for keeping out harmful substances like some types of bacteria and viruses.

The organs of the immune system need a constant supply of vitamin A to produce cells that help to fight off infections in the body. Research shows that vitamin A reduces infection and death of many serious illnesses including tuberculosis, pneumonia, measles, and malaria.

Whenever I’m getting sick, I load up on beef liver and my cold virus vanishes — maybe because it can’t stand the smell of the liver?

5.  Clear, Vibrant Skin

Vitamin A helps maintain healthy, vibrant skin through a number of ways including:

• Production of new skin cells
• Promoting collagen production
• Preventing sun damage
• Supports oil glands around hair follicles

Adequate vitamin A helps maintain moisturized, supple skin. In the case of acne, wrinkles or scarring, vitamin A-based creams or serums may be recommended to increase cell turnover and promote collagen.

Eating vitamin A will transform your skin. How do you think mine looks like porcelain?

6.  Gene Regulation

Genes aren’t just those things created by Levi’s.

They’re the code that regulates all cellular function.

Most people don’t know that your diet can directly impact your genetic material. Your genes aren’t carved into stone and can actually change over time. Actually, there is a whole field of study dedicated to this phenomenon known as nutrigenomics. Vitamin A is a great example of nature and nurture both impacting how the body functions.

Vitamin A regulates the response of over 500 different genes. Genes are parts of your DNA that are passed down to you from your parents. They act as instructions and govern how proteins build and regulate different functions of the body.

7.  Healthy Blood

Vitamin A is vital for the physiologic processes of cell differentiation and commitment. Sounds complicated right? Not really, this simply refers to the change in stem cells to cells that have a particular function in the body.

Lab studies done outside of the body suggest vitamin A may be required to turn undifferentiated cells known as stem cells into red blood cells. Vitamin A also helps mobilize and transport iron from various tissues in the body. As such, deficiency of vitamin A contributes to the development of anemia.

8.  Strong Bones

Vitamin D and calcium have gotten most of the attention for strong bones but vitamin A plays a critical role as well. Strong healthy bones rely on bone cells called osteoclasts and osteoblasts for remodeling, the process of building and strengthening bones in response to stress. This delicate balance of breakdown and rebuilding requires vitamin A.

How much is required for good bone health? The jury is still out. Some observational studies have shown that too much or too little vitamin A increases fracture risk but others have shown no association, or reduced fracture risk.

Because bone health depends on both vitamin A and vitamin D, including food sources that contain both nutrients such as cod liver oil, beef liver, and eggs are a good idea.

9.  Reduces Inflammation

Many carotenoids act as antioxidants, protecting cells from free radical damage and reducing inflammation. Vitamin A’s role in immune functioning and cell turnover also contributes to an overall anti-inflammatory effect.

Acute inflammation plays an important role in health but chronic unchecked inflammation is known to play a role in the development of a number of chronic diseases like heart disease, arthritis, and dementia.

 10.  Accelerates Muscle Gain

Read through any bodybuilding magazine….You’ll see countless ads for whey protein and men with traps so big they can barely put on a shirt.

But they’re missing one of the most crucial things. Vitamin A.

Vitamin A increases muscle gain via several mechanisms.

It’s critical to the production of testosterone. Rat studies show that greater concentrations of Vitamin A in testes increases testosterone secretion .

Vitamin A also increases transferrin production which is responsible for a variety of growth factors, like IGF-binding protein 4.

Lastly, the incorporation and utilization of protein requires vitamin A. Rats fed a diet low in vitamin A synthesized protein at a lower rate

It’s true what they say — beef liver is the new steroids (fine, I’m the only one saying it).

Am I Getting Enough Vitamin A? Probably not. 

So how much vitamin A is enough? This isn’t as easy a question to answer as you might think. There is some discrepancy over current vitamin A recommendations.

The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for vitamin A varies based on age, gender, and reproductive status.

The RDA for Vitamin A is far too low. But even then, 25% of American’s don’t even consume half the required amount. This makes sense. Vitamin A is largely found in foods like organ meats. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen beef liver on the menu at Chipotle…

Surveys of the US population show that about half do not meet need the Estimated Average Requirement (EAR) of vitamin A. Compared to the RDA, the EAR is the amount of a particular nutrient that is estimated to meet the requirement for half the healthy individuals within a population.

Some experts contend that dietary inadequacies are more widespread yet go undocumented due to current recommendations being too low and shortcomings with using serum vitamin A as the primary marker for deficiency.

Serum vitamin A is tightly controlled to maintain homeostasis and will not start to fall until liver stores are too low. To get a better sense of total vitamin A status it is recommended serum vitamin A be combined with another test like retinol binding protein (RBP).

In addition, public health messaging has vilified vitamin A during pregnancy due to a study that showed that very high doses of vitamin A early in pregnancy are associated with negative pregnancy outcomes such as birth defects.

As a result, and out of an overabundance of caution, many prenatal vitamin formulations changed to limit active vitamin A content. And, as we’ve established, inadequate vitamin A intake during pregnancy is bad for both the baby and the mother. Just because too much is harmful doesn’t mean the vitamin should be avoided altogether. As the old adage goes “the dose makes the poison.”

Researcher Weston A. Price reviewed diets of healthy indigenous populations and found that intake among these largely disease-free groups was around 50,000 IU per day. This is about 10x the current RDA recommendation.

This threshold can be met by consuming a tablespoon of cod liver daily, organ meat from pastured animals a few times a week and regular consumption of high-fat animal products like butter and cream (again, from pastured animals).

Other experts that also look to ancestral dietary patterns for clues on optimizing nutrition for good health recommend aiming for 3-10,000 IU’s per day. To accomplish this you’d need to eat at least one of the following foods daily:

• 4 oz of liver per week
• 3 whole eggs per day
• 1 tablespoon of cod liver oil per day
• Liberal use of grass fed butter and red palm oil
• 3 servings of pasture raised full fat milk daily

Vitamin A Toxicity

It’s true. Too much vitamin A can indeed induce toxicity. But reports have only been seen in the case of people taking synthetic vitamin A supplements for months at a time. Usually these subjects are taking close to 100,000 IU a day for several months…which would be equivalent to eating over 1lb of beef liver a day for months.

Studies also show that Vitamin D increases the toxicity threshold. This study shows that in a typical 160lb male, vitamin D supplementation increases the threshold to 200,000 IU a day .

Please save some liver for the rest of us and don’t eat that much…

For most people, too little Vitamin A is a much bigger problem than too much.

The Take Home

Regardless of which side of the vitamin A debate you sit on, the evidence is clear that most people need to do better at reaching even conservative adequate levels in the diet.

While plant foods do contribute to vitamin A status, there are a number of factors that impair their conversion to active vitamin A (the source of our body’s need). Therefore, the best sources for vitamin A are from animals.

To get what you need, make sure to include some combination of organ meats, cod liver oil, grass fed butter and cream and whole eggs into your regular diet.

 

This article was originally published at www.carnivoreaurelius.com.

Carnivore Aurelius is a nutrition and biochemistry expert who’s studied for over 5 years. He used the carnivore diet to cure IBS, rheumatoid arthritis and his acne. He’s passionate about distilling complex nutritional information down to actionable advice.