Veritably, yoga was something other than a strategy for instructing; it was a lifestyle. You committed yourself to a way of life and culture that outperformed contemplation strategies and included smart dieting propensities, washing propensities, social connection and work. Its way of thinking is established in a physical culture of well-being and prosperity that is as yet accentuated today at yoga withdraws and clarifies why more than 15 million individuals on the planet currently practice this antiquated convention.

Each yoga asana (present) has an alternate name and incorporates standing stances, situated turns, back bends, arm adjusts, reversals and centre holds. The descending confronting hound for instance, is in itself said to quiet the cerebrum, invigorate the body, improve processing, fortify arms and legs and be helpful for hypertension. While these advantages come as a given with most stances, the act of yoga all in all gives a lot a larger number of advantages than you may might suspect…

7 Most Important Benefits of Yoga

1. Improves Flexibility

One of the first and most clear advantages of yoga is improved flexibility. Regardless of whether you will probably contact your toes, lessen the snugness in your hamstrings, or to just feel less hardened, the stretches and postures performed during yoga will help with this. Creating more prominent quality and adaptability in your muscles will thus diminish your danger of damage and will permit more noteworthy development in your body to assist you with performing better genuinely.

2. Increases Energy

Do you feel totally depleted before the day’s over? Transporting through tasks, and performing multiple tasks persistently can be very debilitating. A couple of moments of yoga regular gives the genuinely necessary fillip that lifts our vitality and keeps us new. A 10-minute online-guided contemplation is all you have to energise your batteries, in a frenzied day.

3. Improves Posture

Studies have indicated that yoga practices help improve terrible posture.
Posture is a significant measurement in remaining healthy through life. The spine is the focal channel of the sensory system, so when your spine is sound, pathways of the sensory system are solid and clear and essential vitality streams all the more unreservedly. Rectifying stance irregular characteristics will likewise assist with forestalling and assuage incessant back torment.

4. Reduces Stress and Anxiety

It is known that ordinary exercise impacts emotional well-being and can help decrease feelings of stress, tension and discouragement. Yoga has been appeared to go about as a self-alleviating method, and can assist with overseeing pressure reaction frameworks by decreasing the pulse, bringing down circulatory strain and facilitating breath. Various investigations have additionally indicated that yoga can diminish the discharge of cortisol, the essential pressure hormone.

5. Yoga for inner peace​.

We as a whole love to visit quiet, tranquil spots, rich in natural beauty. Little do we understand that harmony can be discovered right inside us and we can take a scaled down vacation to encounter this anytime of the day! Take advantage from these little occasions each day with yoga and reflection. Yoga is likewise perhaps the most ideal approaches to quiet an upset personality.

6. Benefits breathing and lowers blood pressure

In the event that you practice yoga consistently, your lung limit will increment because of the profound breathing procedure. This will at that point positively affect more intense sports that you may take part in, expanding your stamina and endurance. Besides, reflection and quieting yoga asanas hinder your pulse which thus brings down circulatory strain and have additionally been connected with improving the invulnerable framework and bringing down cholesterol.

7. Improves instinct / intuition

Yoga and reflection have the ability to improve your instinctive ability with the goal that you unexpectedly acknowledge what should be done, when and how, to yield positive outcomes. It works! You just need to encounter it yourself.

Keep in mind, yoga is a consistent procedure. So continue rehearsing! The more profound you go into your yoga practice, the more significant will be its advantages.

Namaste!

I hate fast food joints, but sometimes everybody else wants to go there, so you just have to make the best of it and find something at least somewhat healthy.

If you’re forced to eat fast-food, here’s a tip to make sure that you’re not doing much damage to your body…

ALWAYS AVOID the soda and anything deep fried including french fries, hash browns, and anything breaded like chicken nuggets, chicken patties, or breaded fish sandwiches. These are all absolutely soaked in deadly trans fats from the industrial hydrogenated vegetable oils they use to fry all of these items. 

Note: Even though some fast food restaurants have vowed to not use hydrogenated oils loaded with trans fats any more, they are still using highly refined processed oils, which are still inflammatory and negatively affect your health (and waistline).

Remember, as I’ve said before, I’ve seen studies indicating that as little as 1 gram of artificial trans fat per day can have serious degenerative internal effects in your body such as inflammation, clogging and hardening of the arteries, heart disease, various forms of cancer…not to mention packing on the ab flab. That’s as little as 1 gram!

Consider that a typical fast-food meal of a breaded chicken sandwich (or fish sandwich), along with an order of fries can contain as much as 10 grams of trans fat! Add on a cookie or small piece of pie for dessert (which are usually made with deadly margarine or shortening), and now you’re up to about 13 grams of trans fat with that entire meal.

If 1 gram a day is slowly killing you, imagine what 13 grams is doing! And that was only one meal that you ate. Some people are consuming 20-30 grams of artificial trans fat per day, and not even realizing what they’re doing to themselves internally. Please realize that nobody, I mean NOBODY, is looking out for your health, except for YOU.

Anyway, back to the topic of how to avoid this stuff and eat a reasonably healthy meal on the rare occasion that you’re forced to eat fast-food. As for drinks, avoid the sodas…they’re nothing but heavily processed high fructose corn syrup which will surely end up as extra belly fat. And yes, that mean NO DIET SODA either!  This stuff is pure evil to your body.  Your best bets for drinks are always water or unsweetened iced tea.  You get the added benefit of the antioxidants in the unsweetened iced tea (but stay away from any sweeteners).

At breakfast, the best choice is an egg, ham, and cheese on an english muffin (not on a croissant, which is full of nasty trans fats !), or a fruit & nut salad.

At lunch or dinner, the best choices are a grilled chicken sandwich, the chili, a grilled chicken salad without croutons (again…croutons = more trans), or even just a plain cheeseburger.   This doesn’t mean these fast-food items are truly healthy and organic, but they’re the best options you have at most fast food places.

The main take-away point from this little fast-food article is that the nastiest stuff at these fast food joints are the sodas and fries, and any other deep fried items. If you stay completely away from those items, you’re at least making better choices than 95% of most people.

For any of you that have seen the movie “Super-Size Me”, you saw how eating fast food every day absolutely destroyed that guy’s health, but did you happen to notice the one guy that was the king of eating big macs (or some kind of burger)? I don’t remember what kind of burger it was, but basically this guy has eaten these fast food burgers almost every day of his life for the past 30 years or something like that.

Did you notice that he stated that he almost never eats the fries or soda, even though he eats the burgers every day? And he’s not necessarily overweight. Now I’m not saying that fast-food burgers made with their refined white bread and low quality beef and cheese are the healthiest thing, but the point is… it’s the fries and sodas that are the real health disaster.

Alright, so next time you’re out at one of these places, remember these tips and choose smart!

By the way, if you haven’t heard yet, McD’s has added a nutrition label to all of their food wrappers now. Remember that as little as one gram of trans may cause some internal harm and now you can actually see how many grams of trans fat you’re eating right on the food wrapper. That might change your mind about finishing it.

Here’s why COFFEE can be extremely GOOD for you if you do it right!

Mmm, coffee… almost everybody drinks it… some people have 3-4 cups per day or more. 

Be that as it may, a great many people don’t consider it a “wellbeing drink”. What’s more, it’s surely NOT beneficial the manner in which a great many people make it with heaps of included sugar or counterfeit sugars and fake flavors.

But I’ll give you my tips here on how I make a healthier cup of coffee and what to watch out for…

First, you may have seen debate in the past about how coffee has some compounds in it that could have negative health effects such as small amounts of acrylamides or other possibly harmful compounds in brewed coffee.  But, the good news is that coffee has such high concentrations of beneficial antioxidants, phenolic nutrients, chlorogenic acids, and other healthy compounds , that it more than counteracts any bad compounds. 

Truth be told, espresso gives the greatest wellspring of cell reinforcements for most Americans… in spite of the fact that that for the most part has to do with the way that numerous Americans don’t get enough cancer prevention agents from products of the soil, so espresso winds up being their greatest source. You should attempt to differentiate your wellsprings of cell reinforcements from natural products, veggies, flavors, herbs, berries, beans, unsweetened natural cocoa, teas, and truly, even espresso on the off chance that you like it.

So what’s the best way to make a healthy cup of coffee?   Well, here’s my 3 most important tricks to maximize the benefits of coffee and minimize the negatives:

1.   First of all, you need to AVOID adding any refined sugar or harmful artificial sweeteners. 

What I do instead is use either a very small touch of organic maple syrup or a half packet of natural stevia to just lightly sweeten my coffee.  I’ve also become a big fan of coconut sugar recently, and this is healthier than plain sugar because it does contain some minerals and other nutrients, and has a lower glycemic index than regular sugar.   On the other hand, if you like your coffee black with no sweetener at all, that’s the healthiest way.

If you’re getting your coffee at a coffee shop, make sure to avoid all of those fancy specialty coffees (sweetened flavored lattes, frappuccinos, etc) as they are almost ALWAYS loaded with extra sugars or artificial sweeteners.  Some of those fancy coffee drinks at Starbucks or other coffee shops can have 300-400 calories in just one coffee!  Definitely not good for your body or your blood sugar or insulin levels. 

A latte or cappucino can be okay as long as you make sure to ask for it unsweetened, and then use your own stevia if you need a light sweet taste.  Since almost every coffee shop only has either sugar or artificial sweeteners as options, I always carry packets of stevia on me when I know I might be getting coffee at a coffee shop on a particular day.

2.   You also should try to AVOID at all costs any of those terrible artificial creamers

(liquid or powder), which are usually made with corn syrup solids and hydrogenated oils (harmful trans fats).  Instead, use a little bit of REAL full-fat cream (organic grass-fed if you can find it, as the CLA and vitamin K2 in grass-fed cream can be very healthy ).  The brand that I’ve found at many grocery stores is Organic Valley and they have an option for a pasture-raised cream that is really good!

Or, if I can’t get grass-fed cream, what I’ve also been using for a while now is coconut cream as one of the healthiest creamer alternatives.  I get this by buying cans of organic coconut milk, and then after opening the can (shake the can well before opening), I store the coconut milk in the fridge in a container.  Note that the cans of coconut milk are much creamier and better as a coffee creamer than those cartons of “coconut milk drink” which are just watered down coconut milk.

The thick creamy coconut milk is the healthiest option for coffee creamer because it’s loaded with super healthy saturated fats called medium chain triglycerides (MCTs), which are known to boost your immune system and your metabolism!  Plus, coconut milk in coffee is just plain delicious!  It’s the best healthy creamer option by far aside from just using real grass-fed dairy cream.

When people visit my house and we make a pot of coffee, many times I’ll have them try the coconut cream in their coffee and almost everyone always comments how much they love it!

3.   If you want to load your coffee up with more healthy antioxidants and good taste, consider trying some added cinnamon to your coffee (cinnamon can help control blood sugar and has many other health benefits).  It’s also really tasty in coffee!

I also occasionally like to add a teaspoon of organic cocoa powder (non-sweetened) to my coffee to make my own sort of mocha coffee (but without the loads of sugar in a typical mocha you’d get at the coffee shop, so just use a little stevia to sweeten).  The added cocoa powder also gives you great taste and a good dose of extra healthy antioxidants (and cocoa is also known for helping to lower blood pressure!)

I personally only drink 1 cup of coffee per day, because I don’t want to overdose on caffeine and don’t want to get addicted to caffeine like some people are.  Also, excessive amounts of caffeine can cause adrenal fatigue over time in some people.   I usually even mix my beans half regular and half decaf to reduce the caffeine amount per cup.    

I see people that drink 3-4 cups per day that get a massive headache if they don’t have their daily coffee due to caffeine withdrawal.  I choose to avoid this addiction by only drinking 1 cup per day max.  I drink various teas like green, oolong, black, and white teas at other times, which are much lower in caffeine.  Or I like to use rooibos or other herbal teas many times which have no caffeine at all.

But despite the caffeine content, there is loads of data that show the high antioxidant levels and health benefits to coffee. 

Lastly, it’s extremely important to choose  organic coffee beans , as conventional coffee is one of the most heavily treated crops with pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides.  Remember that one of the many health risks with these chemicals is that some pesticides can act as “xenoestrogens” in your body, disrupting hormone balance for both men and women.  Chronic xenoestrogen exposure can also be one cause of “stubborn abdominal fat” in both sexes as well as “man boobs” in men… so choose organic as often as you can with most foods, but especially with coffee!

Enjoy your coffee and these additions that we talked about in this article, knowing that it can actually do your body good in moderation! 

But BEWARE…

Although coffee can be a super-healthy choice for a lean, healthy, & strong body as well as keeping your digestive system healthy…if you follow the tips you just learned…

When you hear about the ketogenic diet, the first thing you perhaps think of is what could possibly make it as good as people say. The answer is, there are enough benefits to change your life.

What exactly is a ketogenic diet?

The keto program recommends a diet that is low on carbs, moderate on protein and high in fat. The idea is to fine-tune nutritional intake in order to send the body into the metabolic state known as ketosis.

The body enters a state of ketosis when it no longer has stores of glycogen sugar to fuel its energy needs. With sugar out of the way, the body has no choice but to tap its stores of fat to get by. The liver converts fat reserves into ketones to present to the body as an energy source. This is why the keto program is a good way to lose fat.

7 benefits of the keto diet

Unlike other diets that offer practitioners a weight loss benefit and little else, the keto diet comes with several benefits.

Weight loss

Without a doubt, weight loss is the primary goal of the keto diet. It works because it makes the body look to its fat reserves to power its metabolism. It can be interesting to go deeper into the process, however.

When the body is deprived of carbs, it enters a state of ketosis. Blood sugar and insulin levels fall when that happens. As the body taps the energy in fat cells, they release considerable quantities of water, making for some great weight loss. The fat cells are then able to enter the bloodstream and make their way to the liver, where they are turned into ketones for energy processing. As long as your diet allows you to stay in a caloric deficit, you get to enjoy the weight loss benefits of the keto diet.

It takes the edge off your appetite

When your diet isn’t heavy on carbs, you’ll find that you don’t crave as much food as before. Many people who get on the keto diet are able to fast most of the day, and only eat at mealtimes. They are simply not as hungry as before.

Improved ability to focus

When you choose a regular diet that puts carbs into the body, your brain has to deal with the rise and fall in sugar levels that happens as a result. Inconsistent energy levels can make it hard for the brain to focus. With the keto diet, however, the energy source is constant and consistent. The brain is better able to stay focused.

You feel more energetic

When you are on a regular diet, your body is always on the verge of running out of energy. You need to constantly eat and refuel. With a keto diet, however, the body taps its fat reserves, a nearly unending energy source. The body, then, is able to maintain constant energy levels throughout the day. The result is, you end up feeling a lot more energetic.

It helps you fight diabetes

When you suffer from Type II diabetes, your body experiences high levels of insulin. Since the keto diet takes excess sugar from your diet, it helps stabilize HbA1c counts, and reverse Type II diabetes.

You get improved levels of good cholesterol

HDL cholesterol helps get rid of the body’s bad cholesterol reserves. When you’re on keto, your body’s triglyceride levels fall and your HDL cholesterol levels rise.

You get better blood pressure

When you’re on the keto diet, it drops your blood pressure. Many people on the keto diet find that they are able to stop taking blood pressure medicine altogether.

The keto diet can change a person’s life. It isn’t a difficult diet to get on, either. There are plenty of great recipes for the keto diet. All it takes is the willingness to give it a shot.