Nutrition

Nutrition Supplements

The food industry has for years subtly controlled the nutrition supplements of Americans by adding various elements and chemicals to a variety of different foods. The lack of these nutrition supplements runs counter to having a healthy life, and all of these should be included to some extent in a healthy diet. However, having too much of any of these can in fact be harmful. With all the nutrition supplements we receive, people should now start to be concerned that we don’t get over-supplemented in a way that interferes with a healthy life, especially for people who are prone to issues with any of the following nutrition supplements.

1. Iodine

Iodine is necessary for proper thyroid function in the body and, thus, a healthy life. Back in the 1920s, iodine deficiencies were fairly common, so iodine started to be added to salt in order to improve health. This was important as a nutrition supplement back in the day, but since so much of our food contains salt, it’s possible that people who have diets high in salty foods will be getting too much iodine. Iodine in extremely small amounts is essential for a healthy life; iodine in high amounts is exceedingly toxic.

2. Fluoride

Fluoride is added into most public water systems as a way of improving tooth health. It has been added constantly for years as a nutrition supplement, however new studies are starting to suggest that fluoride has no benefit as a nutrition supplement, and that we have added so much fluoride into our water that we are now reaping negative side effects from it that interfere with a healthy life, or indeed even a life at all. Some studies even suggest side effects as harmful as cancer and increased levels of lead poisoning, certainly interfering with a healthy life, though these studies have yet to be widely accepted.

3. Water

Some studies suggest that the commonly prescribed amount of eight glasses of water a day may actually be too much for a healthy life. These studies say that drinking that much water could actually cause one’s body to reduce nutritional content, causing it to require nutrition supplements, and possibly reducing the benefits of an otherwise healthy life.

4. Vitamin C

Vitamin C is essential for a healthy life (mainly for preventing scurvy which can be horrendous). Vitamin C is water soluble and so plenty of people think that they can’t have too much. Evidence shows, however, that too much vitamin C can actually be harmful. Products such as EmergenC that have up to 1000% of one’s daily dose of vitamin C in a single packet could, apparently, contribute to kidney stones, diarrhea, nausea, and fainting, among other problems. Furthermore, vitamin C is one of the most common nutrition supplements in food because it is so easy and cheap to obtain. Be wary of consuming too much in pursuit of a healthy life, though, especially if you consume a lot of vitamin C fortified foods.

Nutritionist

Often in America we use the terms “nutritionist” and “dietitian” interchangeably, assuming that both generally advise on good health. Some people are adamant that there is no difference; that a dietitian is really just a certified version of a nutritionist, while others maintain that a dietitian is exclusively for health problems while a nutritionist helps with a general plan for good health, even for people without issues. For most people, the difference rarely matters too much, but for people looking to pursue one of these options as a profession, or for someone with a real, medical need for one of the other (instead of just advice), the difference can be serious and vital.

1. Certificate

With the rise in popularity of the profession of nutritionist, many schools have started to take certification as a nutritionist to be a more serious topic. In some schools, this is now a legitimate profession, separate from a dietitian, who studies good health practices. Some associations like, for instance, the American Association of Nutritional Consultants, will purportedly give out certificates stating one is a nutritionist without any form of verification, and some people claim that anyone who offers advice to another on good health practices can be considered a nutritionist. The Certification Board of Nutrition Specialists, though, is supposedly far more stringent about its regulations and certifications. Recently, some states have begun requiring actual degrees in order to officially allow one use of the title “nutritionist”, though it really depends on the area.

2. Purpose

A nutritionist is usually considered to be more concerned with teaching good health practices to the general public. For instance, a nutritionist may hold seminars or conferences educating people on good health, while a dietitian may be more inclined to have a practice to meet with people who have serious dietary issues affecting their health. Furthermore, a person who may be advising in health matters may find themselves accidentally falling into the position of a nutritionist. Someone who has worked within the sports field for many years may find him or herself advising others on the best diets to achieve good results in the sport, and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

3. Insurance

Since some nutritionists can claim the title without having been certified, some insurance companies will only offer coverage to people seeking the health opinions of a dietitian. “Nutritionist” is considered to be a looser title, and so is not always recognized as a health professional by insurance companies, so seeing one may not be covered by insurance.

Nutritional Food Pyramid

The United States Department of Agriculture has recently published a new version of the famed nutritional food pyramid that supposedly leads to a healthy diet. This nutritional pyramid is similar to how it’s always been, but does have a few changes. According to the USDA, it is important to have a full understanding of this new pyramid as a key to having a healthy diet, and important to teach younger people this new pyramid to teach them good nutritional habits and to encourage a lifelong healthy diet.

The most important difference between this new pyramid and the old nutritional pyramid is the fact that none of the food groups are on top of any others any longer. Instead, all of the food groups are vertical stripes running the length of the pyramid and with a width that suggests the nutritional value of each and the number of servings each group should be allotted. This is to suggest that none of the categories contributes to a healthy diet more than another, and that all should be considered.

1. Grains

In particular for having a healthy diet, the USDA suggests consuming at least 3 ounces of whole grains a day. It is commonly believed now that whole grains are healthier than refined grains and offer better nutritional value. In particular, eating whole grain breads and cereals can be an easy substitute for refined grains to serve your nutritional needs.

2. Vegetables

The USDA recommends getting anywhere from 1-3 cups of vegetables a day, depending on your age and gender. It is important to note that 2 cups of leafy vegetables often counts as 1 cup of vegetable servings. The USDA also suggests that darker greens and orange vegetables are high in nutritional value. They also suggest that a healthy diet requires a variety of vegetables.

3. Fruits

It is especially important to have a healthy diet high in fruits. The USDA recommends only slightly less fruit in one’s diet than vegetables, but still several cups each day, depending on your age and gender to get the best nutritional value from your food.

4. Milk

The USDA now defines the milk category to be any milk-based products such as milk, cheese, yogurt, or milk-based desserts. A healthy diet, they say, should include about 3 cups of milk or milk products a day for everyone above a child’s age.

5. Meat and beans

For a healthy diet, the USDA recommends eating 5-6 ounces for most people above children’s age. They say that most Americans consume enough from this category already, but do not make choices that are lean and healthy enough.

6. Oils and fats

Most of the oils and fats that Americans consume come from, as the USDA says, cooking oils and fish and nuts. For most people, the allowances of oils and fats are 5-7 teaspoons per day, however the difference between this group and the others is that oils and fats have an allowance. This means that these oils and fats do not contribute to a healthy diet; instead, a healthy diet involves limiting this group as much as possible.

Exercise Tips

For someone without a regular exercise routine, starting on the path toward living a healthy life through adding exercise can be difficult and, initially, seem insurmountable. While most doctors may recommend getting thirty minutes of exercise a day, this can seem preposterous to one who has never had a serious health regime before. Instead of convincing yourself to go to a gym for a week before giving up, instead try incorporating aspects of a healthy life into your manageable but less than healthy life, such as adding small amounts of exercise here and there on your way to proper health.

1. Take the stairs

If you live or work in a building with multiple stories and you usually take the elevator, try taking the stairs instead. This may seem daunting, but if you are serious about having a healthy life, this can really be a great way to get in a little exercise. If this seems impractical because you, say, live on the fortieth floor of a high rise, try doing it in steps. Walk up to the tenth floor before getting on the elevator, or get off the elevator a few stories lower than your floor. Similarly, try taking the stairs downstairs. Walking downstairs can have great health benefits, but may feel much easier than going up, so you’ll be inclined to doing more, making the transition to a healthy life easier. Stairs can also be a great place to get a little bit of exercise for good health in if you’re feeling so inclined, but don’t have the time to traipse all the way over to a gym.

2. Walk to close places

Rather than driving to the corner store or to a local restaurant, try walking instead. Walking is a great way to fit in some exercise to your new, healthy life, without the stress of running. Moreover, walking can be calming, and can offer a bit of relaxation in between an otherwise packed schedule, thus contributing to healthy life both mentally and physically. To motivate yourself to do this, think about all the traffic you’ll bypass by walking, and how you won’t have to worry about parking. If you’re worried about having to carry home purchases, bring along a backpack or other type of bag to make it easier. Not only will this contribute to your healthy life, but the carrying of your purchases has a fair few health benefits as well. Similarly, if you work at a desk and have to speak with a colleague frequently, rather than calling him or her, as part of your new, healthy life, instead try walking over to see the colleague. If the colleague is busy at the moment, you will have another reason to go speak with him or her later, giving you more exercise and more health benefits, just from working.

3. Do clenches while sitting

Doing muscle clenches can be a great use of otherwise wasted time. If you have a long commute to work or spend a lot of time sitting at a desk, try clenching muscle groups in turns to get a work out. A good work out to improve your health could consist of 20 second interval clenches of 12 times each, perhaps with a few reps in turns. Though they won’t seem like much at the time, strong, simple workouts can be a great path to a healthy life, and may often have more health benefits than you would have thought.

4. Laugh more

Laughing is a great health tip, and only offers positive benefits for someone on the road to better health. Doing all you can to laugh as much and as hard as you can is a great way to get in shape and stay happy about it.

Nutrition Tips

With the current healthy life craze in America right now, many people are looking for ways to live a life with better nutrition in earnest. This can, however, be extremely difficult, especially for someone who has never lived a healthy life before. Many of the healthy life tips constantly tossed about, such as getting large amounts of exercise, can be extremely difficult for someone who is unused to such things and is unsure of how to get up the motivation or make time for a healthy life. The following tips about nutrition are far more practical tips to help redirect anyone’s lifestyle who is looking for a healthy life that is better than how they have been living.

1. Stop buying sweets

Plenty of people know how difficult it can be to reduce intake of sweets, especially when so many of them look so delicious around you. To stop your sweets intake, your first nutrition tip for a healthy life should be to just stop buying them. It’s far more difficult to resist sweets when they’re sitting in your kitchen tempting you than it is to resist buying them in the first place, when you’re unable to consume them immediately anyway, and far easier to resist buying them when you remind yourself that your goal is a healthy life.

2. Make ready-made meals

Plenty of the temptation to eat out (which often leads to poor nutrition) comes from not wanting to cook meals. This is understandable, most especially after a long day of work, or late at night. However, much of America’s poor nutrition comes from meals prepared outside of the home, in fast food restaurants and pre-packaged at the grocery store. To be able to live a fully healthy life, with plenty of good nutrition (that is also far cheaper than eating out), you really need to start making your own meals. If you’re disinclined to cooking every night, though, make extra meals when you do cook. This does not have to be as far as cooking new meals, but simply making more food than you know you can eat, and then refrigerating or freezing the rest. Frozen meals can last quite a long time and, when defrosted, taste just as good as if they were made new, and be far fuller in nutrition than ordering out.

3. Get a cookbook

Having a cookbook with food that has good nutrition is more effective than relying on the internet or other resources for recipes. This is because you are more likely to pick up the cookbook if it is physically tangible around you, just as you are more likely to consume sweets if you have them lying around. Moreover, a cookbook directly aimed at leading a healthy life will have nutrition facts in it so that you’re aware of what you’re consuming. On top of this, you should learn some very fast, simple recipes that also have good nutrition content. If the recipes that you enjoy are easy to make, you will be more likely to make them. More importantly, if they take less time than ordering out, you will be far more likely to order them.

Sports Nutrition

Sports can be very stressful, especially if played competitively. Recently, the level of competitive sports continues to trickle down all the way to children, with the appearance and growth of little league baseball and peewee football. Coaches of these teams are often very demanding, imploring their children (not their children, but children on their team) to play hard and imply that they should do “whatever they can to win.” The truth is, while sports can build camaraderie and responsibility, it can also cause high amounts of stress and expectation.

As information about and use of nutrition supplements continue to grow, the idea of sports nutrition continues to grow alongside of it. Athletes are starting to use more and more nutrition supplements to achieve their dream of becoming top-tier athlete. Sports nutrition has become a big field of study in nutrition, usually focusing on work outs as well as muscle and agility building. Nutrition supplements are commonly used in sports nutrition, usually combined with extreme work out regimens. Although most athletes use some sort of nutrition supplement, sports nutrition is much more than just the use of supplements. In fact, a sports nutrition regimen usually involves a number of important factors, the two biggest of which are a healthy diet and proper exercise.

While nutrition supplements are mostly harmless, there are a number of nutrition supplements commonly used in sports nutrition that may have adverse effects, one of which is quickly racking up suspensions and fines for breaking rules in sports. Some of the most popular sports nutrition supplements are listed below.

1. Androsetnedione and DHEA

Also known as andro and DHEA, these nutrition supplements are prohormones (or natural steriods) that are broken down into testosterone. However, researchers who studied the supplements have concluded that they do not increase muscle size, improve strength or enhance sports performance.

2. Creatine

Creatine is naturally produced in the liver, kidneys, and pancreas. Creatine supplements are very popular in teens, as it has been found to improve strength. The adverse effects of Creatine, however, have not yet been studied in teens and children. Creatine as a sports nutrition supplement has not been proved useful as of yet. Athletes under 18 years of age should not use creatine.

3. Testosterone Boosters

Many nutrition supplements companies may claim that their plants and vitamins can increase testosterone levels and, subsequently, raise sports performance. However, there is little research or proof regarding the effectiveness of these supplements. Excess testosterone may cause unwanted side effects of hair loss, acne, or converted to estrogen, which brings its own problems of gynecomastia and testicular atrophy.

4. Glutamine

Glutamine is an amino acid found naturally in human muscle and is supplemented to refill depleted glutamine levels following anaerobic exercise. This is usually done to avoid a weakened immune system and wasting of muscle tissue. The effects of glutamine in sports nutrition is not proven, however, with conflicting reports on its effect.

Nutrition Guide

When you pick up a pack of Skittles at the local convenience store, it is likely that you are not thinking about the nutritional facts in the nutrition guide the side of the pack. This nutrition guide is placed on food to provide a quick, informed summary of what you are ingesting. It may seen like common sense to know what you eat, but looking at the nutritional guide is often forgotten by consumers.

The information included in the nutrition guide include most if not all of the nutritional facts that one would need regarding the food product. Being conscious about this nutrition guide can help you control your calorie, fat, sodium or sugar intake, enabling you to follow all of the nutritional facts of the foods you are eating. This can be particularly useful when on a diet or when you are watching what you eat.

The truth is, however, that many consumers do not read the nutritional facts in the nutrition guide, and many more do not fully understand every thing that is listed. It is important to understand each section of the nutrition guide, as the label is nearly universal in its format, as well as the specific nutritional facts listed. The rest of this article will break down all of the nutritional facts listed on this label.

1. The Serving Size

This part of the nutrition guide is the first thing you see. This section lists the serving size and the number of servings in each package. All serving sizes use standardized measuring systems to allow easy comparison of other foods. Always pay attention to the serving size, as it is often a recommendation of how much you should eat. For example, if one serving of Pringles is 12 chips, do not finish the whole can!

2. Calories (and calories from fat)

This section of the nutrition guide lists the amount of calories per serving. Calories measure how much energy you will get from each serving. You should note the calories from fat section, as these calories are much more harmful to your body. For one serving, a low calorie count is approximately 50; a high calorie count is 400 or more. Be aware of this section, as eating too many calories is directly linked to gaining excess weight.

3. Nutrients

This part of the nutrition guide shows how many nutrients are consumed with each serving. There are typically two sections, one section of nutrients to limit (such as cholesterol and sodium) and one section of nutrients to aim for (vitamins or calcium, for example). Most Americans consume too much of the top section and not enough of the bottom section of nutrients. These nutritional facts can be used not only to limit bad nutrients, but to increase nutrients that help your health.

4. The Percent Daily Value (%DV)

The % Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie daily diet. Following this section of the nutrition guide is subjective — if you are trying to gain weight, you will likely eat more then 2,000 calories a day as an adult. Conversely, an individual who is dieting will eat less than the recommended 2,000 calories a day. This section of nutritional facts assists you in determining whether the serving of food is high or low in a particular nutrient. The percentage that you see on the label is the percentage of that particular nutrient, recommended for an adult on a 2,000 calorie diet, daily.