How to Improve Your Mental Health Through Fitness & Nutrition

By Steph Rice

Your mental health is an important key to your physical health and wellbeing. Tension, stress; anxiety and worry can all affect your mental ability and illness is often a direct result of mental and emotional stress overload.

Two factors can help to improve your mental wellbeing; the first one we are going to look at is fitness. Unfortunately too many people still think that fitness just improves your physical side. This is untrue as exercise can have such a positive effect on the mind and is especially effective in treating depression.

A survey carried out by the charity Mind found that 83% of people with mental health problems exercised to lift their mood or to reduce stress. Six out of ten of the people said that exercise helped to improve their motivation, 50% said it boosted their self-esteem and 24% said it improved their social skills.

I'm sure you have heard of the exercise high that people feel from doing physical exercise, this is because the brain elevates your mood by releasing serotonin and endorphins which help reduce feelings of anxiety, stress and depression. The main benefit of exercise is that you feel better instantly, where as if a person is put on a course of medication it may take weeks to actually kick in! Sleeping is a major problem for people who suffer from depression and regular exercise has been proven to aid sleep. It also boosts energy levels which again is something people with depression lack.

Another area to look at is nutrition. People are aware that a healthy diet is paramount in reducing the risk of obesity, heart disease and diabetes but it is also extremely important for our mental health.

Eating four to five small meals a day will keep your blood sugar levels regulated. When they drop, low moods; irritability and tiredness are experienced. Always include protein with each meal as recent research suggests that a component of protein, the amino acid tryptophan has a very important effect on the brain where it can influence your mood.

Eat plenty of fruit and vegetables throughout the day including whole grains and natural foods.

Stay away from processed food and high sugar foods as they can cause a quick surge of energy in the blood sugar levels which wears off very quickly and this is then followed by a crash leaving you feeling low and tired.

Although exercise and nutrition are extremely important and can aid recovery, a physician should always be consulted as the number one priority when severe mental health problems are concerned.

Steph Rice is a Certified Personal Trainer and a Certified Nutrition Advisor.

Steph is best known for being the No1 Womens Motivational Fat Loss Expert; helping hundreds of women across the world achieve their fat loss goals with amazing results.

Please visit [http://thesexyflatstomachsolution.blogspot.com/] for further information and to sign up for your free download, The Fastest Fat Burning Solution Known to Women

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Steph_Rice/320984

Most Depression Is Diet Related

By Madeleine Innocent

It seems strange to think that depression is diet related. But it has been estimated that 90% of chronically depressed people are deficient in proper nutrition.  
Depression is a serious and debilitating illness which can break families apart. It can cause problems at work and often leads to suicide. The trend is, alarmingly, on the rise.

Depletion of the neurotransmitter called norepinephrine can result in loss of alertness, a poor memory and clinical depression.

The medical solution is to prescribe anti-depressants. These not only take time to work, but are toxic in nature. They do not deal with the cause of depression. Side effects can be extremely unpleasant. And one of them compounds the depression, making it worse.

There are as many causes of depression as there are people with it, so this is a complicated area to venture into. Everyone needs a different solution, to match their individual needs. And the best way to resolve the cause of your depression, on an individual basis, is through homeopathic treatment.

However, there is also something you can do yourself. Dr Abram Hoffer and Dr Andrew Saul (author of Fire Your Doctor) have discovered that depression can be significantly improved, if not cured, by increasing your nutrient intake.

It has been said that the west has never been do well fed but so poorly nourished. Not only do most people lack the knowledge of good nutrition, the modern farming methods are focused on quantity rather than quality. However, there are ways around this.

The production of norepinephrine can be increased dramatically by increasing your levels of vitamin C and the vitamin B complex. However, before you rush out and buy these vitamins as supplements, you need to be aware of problems they can cause.

The majority of nutrient supplements on the market today are isolated and synthetic. They are made in a laboratory. They can give you a short term favourable result, but can be harmful in the long term. Your body does nor recognise nutrients in isolation as it has been designed to get all its nutrition from the perfect balance of healthy food.

All nutrients are co-dependent on a complex array of other nutrients. So your best source of perfect nutrition is to eat healthy foods. With 90% of depression diet related, discover the way to cure it, along with any other ailments, with healthy eating.

By the way, all medical drugs upset the absorption of nutrients, further compounding your depression.

Madeleine Innocent is a full time natural health consultant specialising in diet-for-health and homeopathy. For more information, visit: Healthy Eating For Weight Loss

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Madeleine_Innocent/269113

Improve your Nutrition

by Heather Finlay

As part of a healthy diet we are constantly being informed of how many portions of fruit and vegetables we should eat every day, how much alcohol we should consume and that we should increase our intake of fibre.  We also need to have a balanced diet – as well as fruit and veg, we need protein, fats and carbohydrates.

However, it is not always easy to understand or follow the guidelines.  Below are some ideas to help you improve your diet without increasing your weekly spending and perhaps without your family even noticing!

Fruit and Vegetables – our 5 a day

We are advised to eat at least 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day; in fact, some studies say it should be as much as 8.  So if you don’t regularly eat many portions of these, how can you increase your intake without completely changing your diet?

(A portion is around 80g or a handful of fruit or vegetables; potatoes don’t count as they are starchy foods usually used in place of bread, rice or pasta)

• Add a portion of fruit to your breakfast – add blueberries to your porridge or chop a banana onto your cereal, or eat a bowl of prunes 
• A glass (150ml) of fruit or vegetable juice counts towards your total (only 1 per day); use unsweetened
• Make a smoothie with your favourite fruit, using unsweetened fruit juice as a base.  Don’t break the fruit down too much so that fibre is retained
• Add in a handful of fresh spinach leaves to your smoothie; you will barely taste it
• Add extra vegetables into pasta dishes eg courgettes and aubergines into lasagne
• When making shepherds or fish pie, throw in some sweetcorn or peas
• Buy whole fruits such as pineapples or mangoes, peel, chop up, put into plastic storage containers in the fridge and take a portion to work to eat
• Buy fruits such as cherries, blueberries, raspberries and grapes that you can pick at at work
• If you have a sweet tooth, grate a square of dark chocolate over a bowl of fruit; it may not seem like much but actually goes a long way and is better than adding sugar, cream or ice cream
• Heap salad leaves and tomatoes into your sandwiches
• Start having a small side bowl of salad with your main meal.  Adds to your total portions and has fewer calories than a slice of bread or extra potatoes
• Add some chopped peppers, onions or mushrooms to shop-bought pizza before cooking
• Cook and then blend vegetables about to go past their best into soup.  Boil enough water to cover the vegetables (not too much water), cook the veg, take from the heat and add vegetable stock and herbs, blend.  Done.  Perhaps potato and leak, carrot and orange, mushroom or parsnip.  They can also be frozen
• Make a fruit crumble or pie; if making a pie, just use the pastry for a lid, rather than to completely encase the fruit.  Not only is this healthier but it also allows you to make a bigger pie!  Why not use fallen apples and blackberries from the roadside?
• Cut up peppers, cucumber, celery and carrots and dip in hummus or a tomato salsa for a snack or starter
• Eat small handfuls of currants and raisins as snacks, but only small amounts as the concentrated fruits are high in sugar
• Add tomato puree into pasta dishes and onto pizzas – it is a concentrated form of tomatoes, rich in lycopene which is good for your skin in protection against sunburn
• Make stews and casseroles with a small amount of meat or chicken (if not vegetarian) and add lots of vegetables to pad out the dish and reduce the cost per portion.  Use turnips and swedes, carrots, small whole onions and tinned tomatoes.  Additional portions can be frozen
• Make vegetable-based dishes such as mushroom risotto and stuffed peppers
• Frozen and canned fruit and vegetables all count towards your total; beware of fruit canned in syrup as this is full of sugar
• Beans, including baked, kidney, haricot and cannellini all count as one portion (3 heaped tablespoons, one portion per day) so have beans on toast or add butter beans to a stew
• If indulging in a cooked breakfast, add in some mushrooms, tomatoes and baked beans
• Enjoy a starter of grilled asparagus or melon – simple and always popular
• Make pancakes for a weekend breakfast – make the pancakes and leave in a low oven to keep warm.  Use the pan on a low heat to warm through some fresh fruit (any fruit - pears, cherries, apples) with a tablespoon of maple syrup; spoon over the pancakes
• Add some grapes or celery to your plate of cheese and biscuits
• When creating a salad, add in some fruit such as mango, pineapple, raspberries.  Go easy on the dressing
• Stuff apples with currants and top with some brown sugar; bake in the oven

 Try to use fruit and veg that are local and in season as they will be cheaper and are better for the environment

Increase your fibre intake

In the starchy food group (potatoes, pasta, rice, bread) you should try to look for products that have more fibre.  There are two types of fibre - soluble and insoluble:

Soluble fibre can be digested and may help to reduce cholesterol.  It can be found in oats and barley, fruit and root vegetables

Insoluble fibre helps digestion - it cannot be digested and helps other foods to be moved through the intestines, thereby keeping bowels healthy.  It can be found in wholemeal bread, bran, cereals, nuts and seeds

As well as helping with digestion, fibre makes you feel fuller, thus reducing food cravings and helping with weight loss.  Adults should aim for 18g of fibre a day.  If you feel you are often bloated and your digestion is sluggish, try to eat more fibre.  Opportunities for this are:

• Eat more fruit and vegetables
• If making fruit and vegetable smoothies, try not to blend completely smooth so that not all of the fibre is broken down
• Swap white or low-fibre bread for wholemeal or one that states it has added fibre
• Look at your breakfast cereal – see if you can move to one with more fibre
• Cook oats with milk to make your own porridge - warm the milk gently in a pan – don’t boil, add oats and stir.  Make sure there is enough milk so that it is still fluid.  Top with fresh fruit such as blueberries.  Bags of oats are also very inexpensive 
• Eat the skin on potatoes (1) – this could be jacket potatoes as they come, or scoop the potato out of the jacket (to use as mash), cut the skins into wedges, add some cheese and grill.  You could also add some roasted vegetables before adding the cheese.
• Eat the skin on potatoes (2) - if making potato salad, chop jersey or salad potatoes in half (leaving the skin on), boil the potatoes until just soft (not mushy), drain, leave to cool and then add low-fat mayonnaise.  You can add other ingredients such as chives or mustard to taste or follow a recipe
• Eat brown rice and whole-wheat pasta, rather than white, as they have more fibre.  Also, have tomato-based sauces rather than creamy ones
• Add some oats to your crumble topping
• Eat uncooked whole fruit (ie not blended) to retain the fibre
• Dried fruits such as apricots, currants, prunes and dates contain good amounts of fibre; but be aware that they are also high in sugar
• Don’t overcook vegetables so that they retain their fibre structure
• Eat small amounts of nuts which are a good source of fibre but can be high in fat

Protein – alternatives to red meat?

We all need protein, and the main source that often comes to mind is red meat.  Whilst it is a good source of protein, iron and vitamin B12, it can also be expensive and has been linked to greater risks of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.  However, we need to remember that there are differences between unprocessed and processed red meat, and there are also many foods that can act as our source of protein

• If eating red meat, reduce your intake of processed meats such as bacon and sausages, salami and pate; they can be high in saturated fat
• When buying unprocessed meat, look for labels indicating a high level of welfare for the animals – better for you and them
• Use lean cuts of meat / lean mince and cut of the excess fat
• Eat more ‘white’ meat such as chicken and turkey
• Try to eat 2 portions of fish each week, with 1 of these being an oily fish such as salmon, trout, sardines and mackerel
• Eggs are a good source of protein; the white is fat free so try making an egg-white omelette.  When cooking eggs, think about boiling, scrambling or poaching rather than frying.  For a treat, have scrambled eggs with a small amount of smoked salmon on wholemeal toast
• Pulses are high in protein and include beans, lentils, nuts and seeds
• Add beans and lentils to soups and casseroles – they are cheap and reduce the cost per portion
• Sprinkle chopped nuts and seeds to salads to add crunch
• Put some seeds into your smoothies – eg pumpkin, linseed, sesame or sunflower seeds
• As with nuts, eat small handfuls of seeds as a snack

Dairy products

These include milk, cream, butter, cheese and yoghurt and they are high in calcium which is important to maintain strong bones.  However, they are also high in fat so adults should try to eat lower fat versions such as skimmed milk, cottage cheese and lower fat yoghurts.  Unfortunately in lower fat versions the fat is sometimes replaced by sugar, so be careful.  Sometimes you just can’t win….

Reduce your fat and sugar

Both fat and sugar have their place in our diet, but unfortunately they are high in calories so should be consumed in moderation.  In addition, fat can be split into saturated and unsaturated fat; the former is worse for us and increases cholesterol, which in turn increases our risk of heart disease (see Health page).

Much of our saturated fat intake is in processed foods – cakes and biscuits, junk food, processed meats such as sausages and pate, as well as naturally occurring in cheese and butter.  We should reduce our intake of these types of foods.  However, unsaturated fats are beneficial and help to lower cholesterol.  Unsaturated fats can be found in nuts, avocados, oily fish, and olive and vegetable oils and should be part of our daily diet

Our diets now also consist of too much sugar.  There are different types of sugars - fruits and vegetables contain naturally-occurring sugar (fructose), as do dairy products (lactose); the sugar we use for baking is sucrose (a combination of fructose and glucose).   The body is able to process small amounts of fructose and lactose, so can manage the quantities from our healthy fruit and vegetable diets.  However, we can overload our body by eating sugary foods which the liver is unable to process, and being high in calories, this additional sugar can cause us to become overweight.

Sugary foods include cakes and pastries, fizzy drinks, ice cream, biscuits and ready-made meals and sauces.  In order to cut down on your sugar intake, think about the following:

• Swap fizzy drinks for water (still or carbonated).  If necessary, dilute fruit juice with carbonated water
• Look for alternatives to mid-afternoon sugary snacks like chocolate, cakes and biscuits, exchanging them for fruit (perhaps with a little grated chocolate), scones or malt loaf
• Reduce the sugar you take in tea and coffee until you can cut it out completely.  Also, look at your recipes and reduce the sugar content there as well
• Find alternatives to top your toast, such as a sliced banana or low-fat spread or cream cheese
• Check labels on processed foods for sugar content
• Buy tinned fruit in juice rather than syrup
• Eat breakfast cereals that do not have a sugar or honey coating, and do not add sugar yourself.  Instead, add fruit
• Look for alternatives to sugar such as Stevia, fruit juices, molasses and syrups such as maple, brown rice and barley malt

Look at your salt intake

Moderate salt intake is needed by the body; it helps the body to retain water, stimulates muscle contraction and is needed in the digestive process. 

The loss of too much salt from the body, creating sodium deficiency, can result in dehydration as the body is no longer able to retain sufficient water.  One cause of sodium deficiency is through sweating in high temperatures, so be careful when exercising.

Too much salt is also bad for you - it results in excessive water retention and can cause hypertension. 

All foods contain a low level of salt, however, 80% of our daily salt intake is through processed foods; the remainder is added during cooking and at the table.

In order to reduce your salt intake:

• Check labels on all processed foods, not just those that are obviously salty such as bacon, anchovies, crisps and salted nuts
• Be aware that some items used during cooking such as stock cubes and soy sauce are high in salt
• Where possible, switch to low salt options
• Taste your food – when cooking and at the table – before adding salt.  Consider using other flavourings such as herbs and spices instead

How to Achieve Health and Fitness

By Adrian Joele

Many people are in search for health and fitness, but what are really the essentials for health and fitness and how do you achieve good health and overall well being?

When you have a closer look at the concept, it all boils down to the following four components, which are crucial for healthy living.

They are:

*1 Good Nutrition

*2 Regular Exercise

*3 A Good Night Sleep

*4 High Quality Nutritional Supplementation

If we choose to make good nutrition - including supplementation - and an active lifestyle a daily habit, we could add 5 to 15 healthy years to our lives.

Healthy living means: keeping a balanced, healthy diet, avoiding smoking, excessive use of alcohol and toxic chemicals, taking regular exercise, a good night sleep and supplementing our diet with high quality nutritional supplements.

I will describe in more detail the above mentioned four components for healthy living.

First of all: Good Nutrition.

You probably heard it before: "You are what you eat." Although I like a more accurate definition.it is better to say: "You are what you can get out of your food."

Good nutrition is fundamental for good health.

The human body is a complex system that requires a full spectrum of nutrients for optimal health.

What do we mean by "good nutrition"?

Good nutrition means: eating the right food that contains all the right carbohydrates, protein, fat, fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and trace elements, based on your body type.

A second factor that determines good nutrition is our body's ability to absorb the nutrients from the food that we eat. The nutrients have to be in a form that the cells can accept them, and the cells have to be in optimum condition to be able to absorb the nutrients. This is called bio-availability.

These are the keys to successful nutrition and two often overlooked facts. That is one of the reasons most nutritional supplements miss the mark, they don't address the cellular condition of the body.

You may think that regular exercise, a positive mental attitude, while applying the golden rule: 'everything in moderation' the key is to good health. However, if you understand the damage caused by processed foods, it will motivate you to change your diet, if you are aiming for a high level of health and freedom of degenerative diseases.

Acid-alkaline balance. We should consume acid- and alkaline-forming foods in the right ratio's. This is not hard to realize, when we know that, generally speaking, fruits and vegetables are alkaline-forming and the rest is mostly acid-forming, with a few exceptions. You can read more about acid- and alkaline-forming foods in my article.

The Australian diet contains nearly one-and-a-half times more acid-forming food as it does alkaline-forming food. This ratio should be the other way around. The problem with eating too much acid-forming food is that it builds up toxic waste products, and is the cause of most of our health problems. A diet that contains insufficient fruit and vegetables is missing vital antioxidants, beta-carotene, vitamins and minerals. They are most important to prevent oxidation, caused by free radicals, which are the main cause of heart disease, stroke, cancer and other diseases.

We also need a sufficient amount of antioxidants, to counteract the formation of free radicals, caused by our stressful lifestyle, pollution in air and water and malnutrition. Oxidative stress has shown to be the root cause of over 70 chronic degenerative diseases.

Every day, the DNA in each cell in your body faces about 10, 000 attacks from cell-damaging forces known as free radicals, which are unstable oxygen molecules that have lost an electron. Free radicals are naturally produced as your body turns fuel to energy, but you also get them from pollution in air and water, stress, smoking and radiation from the sun.

These volatile molecules cruise around your body trying to stabilize themselves by stealing electrons from other molecules. When they succeed, they create still more free radicals, causing a sort of snowballing procession of damage.

Free radicals don't just occasionally pop up here and there. Up to 5% of the oxygen that each cell uses is converted into free radicals.

Free radical damage is thought to play a role in the accumulation of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and the lining of your artery walls. This can lead to a narrowing of the arteries called atherosclerosis, which contributes to heart disease. And when free radicals damage DNA inside the cells, the results can be cell mutations that lead to cancer.

It is not all about nutrition, neither is it all about exercise. A balanced lifestyle is the key. Exercise at least three times per week. Aerobics, jogging, swimming, cycling and also include weight lifting in your exercise routine, which is important for maintaining a healthy bone-structure.

The key is to do the right exercise. Aerobics are usually recommended in the weight loss industry, the more intense the better, which is all wrong!! The problem is that aerobics exercises that raise your heart rate above 120 beats per minute, which include running, rowing, swimming, cycling and many of those fancy aerobics classes in health clubs, all strip off muscle almost as much as they strip off fat.

And as you know, muscle loss reduces your ability to burn fat and sets you up to become even fatter. Remember, muscle is the engine in which body fat is burned. You should do everything you can to maintain it for the rest of your life.

Walking is good for many health reasons, it also burn some fat and will not burn muscle. But the best exercise for fat control is wide-variety high repetition resistance training, using weights or machines.

By exercising all the muscles of your body, you burn a lot of fat. Another advantage of resistance exercises is that it increase muscle and as a result provide more muscle cells to be able to burn fat. It's a real health bargain.

Another important factor is proper pace. Don't overdo it. You can't force things to happen at once. The secret to good health is consistency and steadiness. The right amount of food and regular exercise.

The simple technique of 'deep breathing' can make a powerful contribution to feeling good and being fit and well. Our bodies need an abundance of physical and mental energy to be able to function at their best.

The energy source is food, but food is useless without oxygen, which is the key to our power. The more oxygen we deliver to our cells, the more energy we will have.

Breathing is the way we obtain oxygen and the benefits of periodic deep- breathing are enormous. However, if our breathing is shallow, we cripple the functioning of our systems. When the oxygen supply to our lungs is not sufficient, it can contribute to illnesses, both physical and mental. Posture is important for proper breathing.

The third factor of health and fitness is a good night sleep. There is nothing more beneficial than a good nights sleep and there is a great physiological need for it if the individual likes to feel refreshed and alert during the following day. Sleep is also important for your memory and learning capacity and possibly for maintaining a good immune system. But there are still many unanswered questions regarding the function of sleep.

This is possibly best explained with the fact that people suffering from insomnia also suffer from reduced concentration, reduced memory and decreased ability to accomplish daily tasks. They are also at greater risk for work related accidents and road accidents, many sick days, increased use of healthcare services and a lower perceived quality of life.

Insomnia is usually perceived as related to not getting enough sleep, which means that the person either has trouble falling or staying asleep. However, poor quality of sleep, whereby the sufferer wakes up not feeling refreshed, even after sufficient hours spent sleep, is a common complaint, especially by elderly people.

Melatonin is a naturally occurring hormone in the brain, manufactured by the pineal gland and secreted at night. It is quickly degraded, but by being continuously secreted all through the night, it acts like a sleep regulator and 'signal of darkness' in humans. However the natural production of melatonin tends to decrease with age. specially in elderly suffering from insomnia, the production of melatonin is decreased compared to elderly with no sleep problems.

Research has proven that melatonin, when taken in small doses of 0.1 milligram, can decrease the effects of jetlag, like sleeping difficulties and tiredness.

The fourth component is: a high quality nutritional supplements. As I mentioned earlier, most supplements do not address the cellular condition of your body. Even worse, many are in a form that is unacceptable for the cells themselves and don't contain biological available substances that are useful for the cells in your body.

People who are suffering from a chronic degenerative disease are under greater oxidative stress than normal. In this case, optimizers are important to use in order to support any existing nutritional program.

It's been scientifically proven that there are substantial health benefits in taking nutritional supplements. The benefits of nutritional supplements are scientifically verified over the past two years. Hundreds of scientific studies have proved that nutritional supplements can significantly reduce the risk of degenerative diseases.

Apart from the future benefits, eating well and exercising regularly to achieve health and fitness, also enable us to enjoy life so much more right now!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9669171