50 Healthiest Foods

The  most nutritious foods are right at your fingertips. Do you frequently include any of these into your diet? If not, you're missing out on some of the healthiest foods in existence.
See the complete list and slideshow on The Huffington Post!

"And so we turned to some of our favorite medical and nutritional experts to come up with this list of 50 of the healthiest foods, presented alphabetically. Pad your grocery list with these and you'll be on your way to a healthier, more vibrant diet. Of course, even as we editors finished the list, we started thinking of more ("How could carrots not be on the list?" "What about black pepper?"). So we plan to follow up with a second list of healthy foods. Let us know in the comments which of your favorites we skipped and they could appear soon."

See them here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/29/healthy-food-healthiest-list_n_1636409.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

Intuitive Eating

Diets can be painful and frustrating. Even worse, all of the calorie-counting and deprivation of certain delicious, energizing foods can paint out food to be an enemy rather than a source of nutrition and life. For Americans, most of the trouble for obesity seems to lie in our tendency to eat greasy, unhealthy foods in portions that are much larger than we'd ever require. Eating this way isn't what your body want or needs.
Intuitive eating is a dieting philosophy that encourages you to stay in tune with your body's needs to keep yourself satisfied and healthy. You eat until you're 80% full and intake the nutrition you require to be happy and healthy. Calorie counting or food-loathing is strongly against this philosophy. A blog on The Province discusses this thought in detail.

"Are you tired of repeated dieting without results? Do you feel you are at war with food? There is a nutritional philosophy called “intuitive eating” that may help free you from the power of food. What does it entail?
Intuitive eating involves listening to your body’s natural cues and signals like hunger and fullness and mastering your own feelings and internal dialogue (whether negative or positive) about your body and food. Intuitive eating abandons the old diet mentality of counting calories and fat grams that our culture has been stuck in for far too long — a diet mentality that doesn’t always allow us to accept ourselves as we are, and one that can further deepen our negative relationships to food."

Read more: http://blogs.theprovince.com/2012/02/20/intuitive-eating-listening-to-your-bodys-cues-to-lose-weight/

Little Protein, Lots of Fat

A diet lacking in proteins could cause your body to retain more fat. Makes sense since muscles are calorie-burning powerhouses that require proteins to be built and maintained.
The Huffington Post shares the results of a study on the Journal of the American Medical Association that explains why this is. They even share advice on how to incorporate more protein into your diet! Heres a snippit of the article:

"People who consistently consume more calories than they burn each day will lose lean muscle and accumulate body fat more easily if their diets contain too little protein and too much fat and carbohydrates, suggests a study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association."

Read More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/04/protein-body-fat-diet-_n_1183516.html


Stay healthy and eat your proteins!

Add Years to your Life with these 15 minute workouts.

Even people who don't have the time to do a full workout should stay healthy with these nifty tips from Jenny Sugar from fitsugar.com

If your busy schedule doesn't allow for the recommended 30 minutes of daily exercise, a large study from Taiwan should make you feel better. The 13-year study tracked 416,000 participants and found that just 15 minutes of moderate exercise increased their life expectancy by three years, compared to those who didn't exercise. Daily workouts lower the incidence of cancer, and therefore lower the risk of cancer-related deaths.

Stay healthy everyone!

Cutting Carbs? Try these low-carb snacks!

If you are looking to lose more weight through doing cardio, you might want to cut down on your carbohydrate intake. Check out these cool ideas via fitsugar.com for healthy, low-carb snacks for the summer!

I love carbs —  love them! And while I'll never ban bread and pasta from my diet, thanks to my trainer, I am trying to be more aware of my carb intake. Easy, right? Not so much for me. As I found out pretty quickly, a good part of my meals consist of brown rice and bread, lots of bread. And while it's been easy to get more protein and fat into my meals, cutting down on carbs has proved to be difficult. To balance my meals out and shed a few pounds in the process, I've been striving for low-carb snacks through the day. Check out what I've been eating!

10 cool ideas for snacks after the jump! As always, stay healthy and eat right this summer!

Help for parents: body image health

Kathy Kater, LICSW, wrote a classic essay, Debate About Fatness Increases Health Risks, for the British Medical Journal, reprinted here at BodyImageHealth:

...Genetic predisposition aside, it turns out that the most common advice for reducing fatness has made things worse. Research published over fifty years ago demonstrated how and why even a moderately restrictive diet is counterproductive for long term weight loss. New studies bear this out: weight can be lost on virtually any contrived plan to restrict calories or food groups, but between 85% and 95% of this weight is predictably regained, with over half of all dieters gaining more weight than they lost. If you doubt this, check the National Institute of Health for the data, then check your own observations to consider how many people you know who have gone on a diet once. If dieting was effective why would it be a perennial activity, and why would most dieters be fatter today than before their first effort?

Aside from weight loss, what other unpleasant recommendation with a 90% failure rate would still be prescribed? Even so too many health authorities persist in the belief that if we can make people feel bad or afraid enough about their weight they will “do something” about it. This flies in the face of new studies that document what many of us working in the trenches to reverse disordered eating have known for years: body dissatisfaction does not serve as a motivator for healthy behaviors. To the contrary, unhappiness about weight is a catalyst for disordered eating, weight gain, and poorer overall health. Worry about weight is a self-fulfilling prophesy. In light of this, how can we persevere like Sisyphus in unrelenting talk about the risks of fatness and the need for weight loss as if this will make people repent? In four decades the thinner we have tried to be the fatter we have become. But if fat phobia and efforts to lose weight contribute to the problem, what is the solution? The way out of this spiraling and dangerous problem requires the courage to ask the right question: fat or thin, what should we be doing for our health in any case? Few will dispute the evidence showing that fatter people who are well fed and fit are at lower risk for health problems than thin people who eat poorly and are sedentary. In light of this, what if instead of fear and loathing of fatness, health initiatives pushed the value, ways and means for wholesome eating and fitness for everyone—irrelevant of size? If instead of size or a BMI a sustainable, healthy lifestyle were the goal, then some people would remain fat, some would be thin, but virtually everyone would be healthier. Isn’t this the point?...

Check out BodyImageHealth for help promoting healthy body images for your kids, friends, loved ones, students -- whoever needs a bit of kindness on their journey toward better health.

Sports In Central Park via Time Out NY!

Get out of the gym and enjoy this wonderful city we live in for all its exercise possibilities! Check out this great article from our very own Time Out NY about all that NYC fitness has to offer!

Sports in Central Park via Time Out NY

How do YOU hydrate?

Especially important in the hot summer months, but still important all year round is hydration. Staying hydrated is absolutely necessary to human survival and functionality, especially if you are working out. We all take water for granted, but it is an absolute necessity for everybody. However, water is by no means the only method of hydration. Sports drinks, juices, hot beverages and the like we all consume every day. But what really is the best way to stay hydrated?

Water

Water is unarguably the most available and common method of hydration in the world. It is also hydrates better than sugary juices and sports drinks, mainly due to the fact that it is pure H20 and nothing else. While it might not have the energy-boosting electrolytes, carbs and the sweet flavors of sports drinks, it is the best when it comes to basic hydration. Especially if all you desire is basic daily hydration without consuming excess calories, water is your best choice.

Sports Drinks

Sports drinks do not hydrate as well as water does, but they do have carbs, sugars and electrolytes to replenish nutrients usually lost through perspiration when working out. However, the upside is that they are not bland like water, they taste good and they “replenish” by helping you get your energy back up after or even during a workout. The downside to sports drinks is that, especially if you are working out or training to lose weight, they tend to replenish the calories and carbs as you burn them off. This can lead to a neutralizing effect on your workout if you drink a lot of sports drinks.

What does it come down to?

Personal preference. Drinking water everyday is the best way to hydrate, but it is good to mix things up once in a while.


**Have an idea for a blog or need advice? Email: info@elementfitnessny.net!


Wanna know more? Read more! For more information on hydration and on the effectiveness of more methods of hydration, check out about.com’s article! http://chemistry.about.com/cs/foodchemistry/a/aa070803a.htm

Super Food 7-Day Diet from Self Magazine!

So what is a "Superfood" exactly?

According to Wikipedia.com, the term Superfood is "a term sometimes used to describe food with high phytonutrient content that may confer health benefits as a result.For example, blueberries are often considered a superfood (or superfruit) because they contain significant amounts of antioxidants, anthocyanins, vitamin C, manganese, and dietary fiber.^[1] "

Fight wrinkles, weight gain, cancer and colds all at once! Try this 1600 calorie-per-day menu designed by SELF magazine to be healthier and summer slim in no time!

*Do you have an idea for an article, have questions or need advice? Please write us at info@elementfitness.net! Subject: Blog

July Updates from Element Fitness!

Element Fitness is now on Yelp and Insider Pages!

Have a great training experience? Do something special in your last training session? Hit a new milestone with an Element Fitness trainer? Just love Element Fitness? Please take the time to give us a review on Yelp and Insider pages and share you experience!

The right and wrong way to weight train...

Though weight training can be very beneficial when body building, loosing weight or keeping trim, improper technique can leave you with hyper-extended joints and pulled muscles.

Check out this slide show by webmd.com which shows 9 common exercises and their safer, more effective alternatives.

Fresh Feast via Self.com!

Eating healthy in the summer can be difficult. BBQ's, trips to the beach, cocktails, vacation -- all these fun summer activities can help you pack on the pounds.

Take a cue from Self Magazine. This great article is from people who "know". Dishes crafted from chefs who grow their own -- and great tips on what ingredients you can look out for at a local farmer's market for gorgeous and ripe fruits and vegetables.

Recipes in the article include: Farro and Pine Nut Tabbouleh, Roasted Beet and Goat Cheese Salad, Spicy Grilled Tuna with Garden Salsa and Grilled Lamb Loin with Tomato and Cucumber Raita and Israeli Couscous. All so deliciously good and good for you!

Click to see these "Fresh Feast" recipes via Self Magazine Online!!