Fight cancer with fiber
Fiber works with the levels of acids in the intestines changing the way that certain bacteria do the job. The result is increased fermentation. Yes, it may cause gas but it also makes it harder for carcinogens to get in your body. It also plays a role in regulating the levels of intestinal bile acids that play a part in the beginning stages of colon cancer.
The “stuff” that causes breast, pancreatic and prostate cancers latch onto fiber like a magnet which means that those carcinogens are carried away with other body waste.
Researchers believe that insoluble fiber also contributes to reducing levels of harmful estrogen that can contribute to the beginning of breast cancer. Experiments appear to suggest that doubling fiber intake and reducing fat can reduce the tumor rate by 50%.
If you can imagine eating foods that can actually stop or slow the growth of tumors wouldn’t you want to eat it? Well, you can.
How fiber fights disease
Before we take a look at how fiber can combat cancer, we need to explore the two different types of fiber – insoluble and soluble. Each type works differently to fight disease.
Insoluble fiber comes from a substance that forms in the cell walls of plants. The reason it is called insoluble is because your body does not break it down as it passes through the digestive system. It is what gives your stool its bulk helping it to move faster through your system. This is why certain foods that are high in soluble fiber like bran are said to be natures laxatives.
Grain products and vegetables have loads of fiber. While at first look it appears more as rabbit food than cancer fighting, studies show that insoluble fiber helps to fight colon cancer and researchers believe it also helps to fight breast, pancreatic and prostate cancers as well.
Fiber - your friend for life.
If there was one element of our diets that we would ‘wish away’ it might be fiber. Fiber is what is left over after our bodies have squeezed every bit of nutritive value from the foods we eat. Don’t discount fiber, however. It is a very important part of a healthy diet but sadly, most older Americans get no more than 14.8 grams of fiber a day when you actually need 25 to 35 grams to protect against disease!
You can make up the difference by changing dietary habits and do it easily. Researchers have found an astounding 33% drop in cholesterol in some patients who did nothing more than increase fiber and reduce fat.
And, there is research being conducted that indicates the perillyl alcohol contained in fiber shows promise of actually slowing down the growth of certain cancer tumors.
Watch out for dietary fats.
The problem is that not all fats are created equal and many of us just don’t understand the difference.
Monounsaturated fats such as olive and canola oils and polyunsaturated fats like corn and safflower oils are considered somewhat healthy when taken in moderation.
Saturated fats that we find predominantly in meat, eggs and dairy products are attributed with causing major health problems especially when consumed in large amounts.
Trans-fatty acids are another type of harmful fat. These are unsaturated fats that food manufacturers use to solidify certain foods like margarine and vegetable shortening. In addition to being harmful they have no dietary value at all.
It is unfortunate that a typical American meal does not consist of one type of fat or another but a combination of several so that when we eat we can consume a large amount of bad fat.
Good fats v bad dietary fats
Cancer is another possible by-product of excess fat in the diet. In fact dietary fat is credited with playing a role in as much as 40% of cancers in men and 60% of cancers in women. Read meat is considered to be one of the biggest culprits, increasing the instance of colon, rectal and prostate cancer in men. For women the results are colon and possibly breast cancer. And, researchers are now beginning to believe it may play a role in lung cancer as well.
So why do we still eat it? Believe it or not, many of us just haven’t gotten the word yet, especially those over 60. Even though the information about fat has been around for a long time, many people believe that fat is a necessary part of diet. Yes, it is true that dietary fat exists for a reason. It does provide us with the fatty acids we need to control our body temperature, give us healthy skin and hair and protect nerves and our vital organs.
Living longer.
We are living longer as a whole. Singularly, that can be a curse or a blessing depending on your perspective. In this series we will explore low and no cost methods you can use to help in the anti-aging process. Some of our material may be new and some serve as reminders of things we may have forgotten. We may not have had much say in how we arrived on this earth, but we can certainly determine how and when we will depart. Just remember, YOU are in control.
Women’s Fitness Magazines Keep you Up to Date to Stay in Shape
If you are a fitness buff, you know how important it is to keep up with the latest and greatest workouts and equipment to keep you looking fit and trim. The best way to stay abreast of the fitness world is by reading a few of the women’s fitness magazines that have found there way onto the store shelves today. It seems that marketers and publishers have discovered that the world of weight training and cardio work is not merely a man’s world any longer. Women have learned the importance of staying fit as well, and many have gotten into weight training and other formerly “male” exercise programs. Many of the women’s fitness magazines of today will address this new trend and help women keep up with current information and trends in the fitness world.
Best Women’s Fitness Magazines for Health and Exercise
Many of the women’s fitness magazines will address more than just the exercise concerns. These publications will also carry articles relating to beauty, style, and other types of health issues. Some of the more popular women’s fitness magazines that follow this formula are “Shape”, “Health”, and “Prevention”. All of these publications will meet the needs of most women by discussing health and beauty topics as well as the many fitness issues facing women today. All of these women’s fitness magazines will give you all of the information that you need to maintain a health lifestyle overall. Other good magazines that will give you fitness articles on top of a host of other topics include “Allure” and “Self”.
Best Women’s Fitness Magazines for Weight Training
While bodybuilding was long though of as a man’s sport, more and more women have joined the boys at the gym to flex their muscles and build their biceps. Women’s fitness magazines, as well as the traditional bodybuilding publications have acknowledged this trend, and now women can find plenty of good weight training and bodybuilding articles just for them. Some of the bodybuilding magazines that are good for men and women include “Muscle and Fitness” and “Muscular Development”. There are also some good online women’s fitness magazines like “Body Elite” and “Bodacious Bod”. It is good for women to find all of the up to date information that will keep their bodies in the perfect condition that they are striving for.
If you are thinking about beginning a regular exercise program, or if you are in the thick of one already, a women’s fitness magazine can help you to stay up the latest and greatest workout programs and equipment that will give you the luscious body that you are working toward. Read up and get fit.
Women Fitness Models: Staying Healthy And Fit
The standard of beauty for women in our modern times, include the size and shape of the woman’s body. Since thin is considered as beautiful, a lot of women are very much conscious about the shape of their bodies. In most cases, women look up to women fitness models who are thin as having the idea body shape and weight. However, according to experts, different women have different body mass requirements so it is wrong to say that the ideal body shape and size is like those of women fitness models. Experts warned that body composition is actually more important than body weight so women should be very careful about trying to imitate those women fitness models especially if they are not of the same age, height and circumstances as the women fitness models that they want to emulate. Staying well within the idea body composition is therefore more important than reducing weight.
What Is Body Composition?
Body composition includes the total combination of ligaments, bones, organs, tendons, muscles, fluids and fats. In other words, body composition is the sum total of all the body parts of the person. Since body composition should be well balanced to stay healthy and strong, a person should make sure that he or she does not develop certain parts of the body to the detriment of the others. This means that if a woman wants to look like one of those women fitness models, she should make it a point to balance the ratio between all the components of her body composition. Once the woman starts to tip the balance of her body composition, she can no longer be considered as healthy in the truest sense of the word. It is therefore very important to create a balance between exercise, rest and diet to stay healthy and fit. Exercising too much and eating too little will not do you any good so forget about reducing your food and fluid intake to reduce your body size and weight fast. You will get sick if you do that.
Is It Normal To Gain Weight When You Exercise?
A lot of women may notice that they gain weight when they exercise. It is normal for women to gain weight when they exercise. Muscles are three times heavier than fats so when a woman gains more muscles, she will naturally weigh more. According to studies, most women fitness models weigh more compared to women who do not exercise. In fact, many women fitness models who look small and thin actually weigh more than some bigger women who do not exercise.
A Physical Fitness Primer
Physical fitness has remained a buzz word in people’s vocabulary for many years. The term is an often repeated one that acts as a sweeping generalization used to describe getting in shape. Then again, the term “getting in shape” is a sweeping generalization as well. Part of the reasons that generalizations are made is because physical fitness can refer to a significant number of different areas that comprise the totality of exercise programs. Considering the fact that a broad based cross training regiment is more desirable than an over-specialized one, making such generalizations is not too, too bad. However, categorization needs to be employed at some point in order to pinpoint what type of specific workout you wish to perform. If you want to burn fat, you probably will want to avoid a mass building workout since mass building is not known for raising heart rates. So, in order to get the most out of a particular physical fitness program, it becomes necessary to categorize and define the specific purposes for the program.
Fat Burning
When you consumer calories that you do not expend, the excess calories will be stored as fat. If you are ingesting a diet high in saturated fat or refined sugars, then the volume of excess calories you consume will be so high that storing excess fat becomes almost unavoidable, In order to eliminate such stored fat, a physical fitness program designed to raise one’s heart rate and burn stored fat for energy must be utilized. Such exercises include: running, kickboxing, swimming, rope jumping or any other type of activity that requires movement.
Increasing Muscle
In order to increase muscle mass, the muscles must be overloaded with stress by progressive resistance (weight lifting) so as to stimulate the expansion of muscle size in order to reduce the resistance. Basic compound moves such as bench presses, pull ups, squats and military presses can all accomplish this goal. (On a side note: increased muscle mass will lead to fat burning as well as muscle will metabolize stored fat in order to maintain size)
Expanding Endurance
This is probably one of the more difficult areas of physical fitness because it involves increasing one’s oxygen capacity as well as reducing one’s muscle fatigue threshold. The exercises required for such increases are difficult and include sprint, plyo-metric exercises and weight lifting ‘maxing.’ While these physical fitness programs are difficult, they also yield significant results. It is advised, however, to build up to them slowly.
The Benefits Of Reading Physical Fitness Articles
When it comes to exercising most of us will hit the gym or go swimming, either alone or with a friend. What we don’t tend to do is pick up a magazine to learn more about our chosen sport or form of exercise.
That’s a shame, because physical fitness articles have a lot to offer. They not only introduce us to sports we may not have thought about trying before, they can also reveal more about how to get the best from activities we are already enjoying.
Build Your Knowledge As Well As Your Muscles
If you’re looking to get the best from your daily dose of exercise, try surfing the net to find physical fitness articles on your chosen activity. This may seem a little strange at first – after all, you know how to run, so why do you need to read physical fitness articles about it?
The reason is simple. Whatever sport or activity you choose, it’s important to make sure you are doing it properly. Not in terms of rules (if it’s a team sport), but in terms of safety. It’s very easy to injure yourself by not adopting the correct posture or footing when you are out for a run.
You can also search for physical fitness articles that advise you on how to warm up before your run, and warm down again afterwards. This is something many people neglect to do, and searching for physical fitness articles on this subject will ensure you develop a good routine to prevent injury or muscle strains through not preparing yourself for exercise.
It may be that you don’t currently exercise regularly, and you are looking to take something up two or three times a week. If this is the case, then reading a wide range of physical fitness articles may alert you to an activity you might like to try.
Another advantage of physical fitness articles is that they reveal a lot of information about what health benefits to expect from each sport or activity. They will help you to decide which activities will fit best into your lifestyle, and how long it might be before you can expect to see results, both in terms of fitness and in health benefits.
So the next time you are thinking about going out for a jog, or going swimming, or playing tennis, why not do some reading instead? It won’t help your fitness levels at first, but the knowledge you’ll gain will pay off in the long run.