Fat Burning Foods for Women

Understanding how the body uses the foods that we eat can unlock the hidden powers of certain food.  Many types of foods contain bonuses that help women to burn fat or lose weight.  Knowing what to eat and when to eat is less about dieting and more about making a lifestyle change that works to reduce fat.

 

Tip #1:  Complex Carbohydrates:

Complex carbohydrates are a natural metabolism booster.  Raising the metabolic rate burns calories and fat by keeping insulin levels low after meals.  Higher insulin levels are an indicator that the body is storing fat not burning it.  Drinking milk, which is high in calcium and consuming other metabolic trigger foods can enable women to lose weight quicker because these foods speed up the metabolic rate.  Calcium is also a great bone strengthener, especially for women who are prone to osteoporosis.

Whole Grains and Whole-Grain Cereal are wonderful sources of complex carbohydrates that work well by keeping insulin levels low.   Insulin is a chemical trigger that tells the body what to do with fat.  Lower insulin levels burn fat while higher insulin levels instruct the body to store fat.

Tip #2 Drink Water: 

The human body is mostly made up of water and we need to drink water to keep the complex systems at peak operation.  The human body is a mass of cells that all retain sodium and other toxins.  Drinking water allows the natural cleaning functions of our bodies to work at peak efficiency.    Water is also another great food for speeding up the metabolic rate is water.  Water does many positive things within our bodies.  Water speeds up digestion and acts as a natural appetite suppressor by aiding in the removal of sodium and other toxins on a cellular level.  Drinking water can also boost the metabolic rate by 30 percent.  

Tip #3 Understanding The Role of Fiber:

Soluble fiber is a dietary miracle.  Soluble fiber suck up fat like dry paper towel absorbs water.  Foods that are rich in fiber such as oats make a great addition to diets.  Oats which are typical morning food that boosts metabolic rates.  Incorporating oats throughout the day is one way  to maintain a higher metabolic rate.  Find snacks that contain high-fiber oats.  

Tip #4 Capsaicin:

Capsaicin is a chemical that is often found in Jalapeno peppers.  It naturally increases the heart rate and boosts the metabolic rate.  Jalapeno and other peppers that contain capsaicin make excellent snacks or ingredients in snacks.  Snacking is a great way to maintain a higher metabolic rate throughout the day.  The other benefit to eating hotter peppers, especially the red ones, is the natural opportunity to sweat.  Sweating is the bodies natural air conditioner but more importantly sweating acts as a purger of cellular waste.  Keeping the body's cells in top form helps to eliminate toxins and sodium from the body both of which are steps in fat burning.

Tip #5 Chicken, Pork and Salmon:

Chicken is a protein that helps to boost the metabolic rate and when eaten as a substitute for carbohydrates can help to burn more calories over the course of a day.  Protein is an important chemical component to dietary success.  Chicken is also a lite protein that is easier for the body to digest. Other protein choices such as pork can be substituted for chicken on occasion as they make the body work harder during digestion.  That extra work can help to burn extra calories.  Eat pork in moderation and concentrate more on consuming chicken.   Salmon is a rich source of an Omega-3 fatty acid.  Omega 3 fatty acids are important to dietary function because they help to lower the hormone Leptin.  Lower levels of Leptin cause the body to burn more calories.   

Tip #6 We Are What We Eat:

Our bodies are a complex and wonderful creation.  Understanding body function is a great way to improve your health and to find the inner happiness with your body.  We are what we eat and for those of us who wish to burn fat can gain an advantage over his or her own body but just discovering how the basic body functions.   We are a mass of cells that function through chemical reactions.  Digestion is a chemical reaction that breaks food down into simpler chemical forms that the body then uses for various functions.  Feeding the body foods that are rich in the natural fat burning chemicals is the basis of directing internal chemical reactions that lead to losing fat.

Foods to Build Muscle

Whether your goal is to look like The Situation or just to add a little extra muscle to what you have now, the best way to do this is to eat a large variety of proteins, vegetables, fruits, carbs and healthy fats. Protein is an especially important nutrient to include in your diet when trying to build muscle instead of fat because protein has a high thermic effect, which helps to speed up your metabolism so you don't store too much of the fat you eat in food. It may sound unusual, but eating healthy fats is actually a good way to avoid being fat. This is because your body only feels compelled to store fat when you don't keep replacing those fats in your diet. It's important to include fruits and vegetables in your diet because these foods have essential vitamins and minerals that allow your body to recover from an intense workout. Carbs in your diet give you a large amount of fuel so you have plenty of energy to work as hard as possible while at the gym. Since all of these components work together to help you gain muscle and lose fat, you must have them all represented in your daily diet. Choosing the right foods to build muscle is a difficult subject for many people who aren't experts in nutrition. This article will walk you through some of the most important foods you can eat in order to achieve your goal of losing fat and building muscle.
First, you have to include a healthy dosage of red meat in your diet if you expect to build a lot of muscle. Red meat contains a large amount of protein, zinc, vitamin b-12, iron, creatine and carnosine. One of the main reasons red meat is so efficient in gaining muscle is because meat is nutrient-rich. This is because herbivores, like cows, retain these nutrients from grazing all day and having a large stomach to extract the nutrients. Next, include whole eggs into your diet. One whole egg contains seven grams of protein. It's important to eat the whole egg because the yolk of the egg contains half of the protein, most of the nutrients, cholesterol and vitamins A, D and E. With the amount of cholesterol in eggs, you can naturally increase your testosterone levels, which help for having energy and building muscle.
If you're on the thinner side and have trouble packing on weight to build muscle, I would definitely recommend including mixed nuts into your diet. Mixed nuts are caloric dense and contain mono and polyunsaturated fats, protein, fiber, vitamin E, magnesium, zinc, potassium and more. Essentially any nut works or you can even substitute with peanut butter, as long as it's organic and all-natural without extra salts and sugars added. Keep a good balance to your diet by including berries. Berries are great for building muscle because they are antioxidants that prevent serious diseases such as cancer and heart disease. Any kind of berries work and you can buy them either fresh or frozen.
Fish oil is another important essential for a diet intended for building muscle. Since fish oil is difficult to attain straight from a fish, a fish oil supplement is probably your best bet for getting this nutrient. Fish oil reduces inflammation of the joints and skin, reduces body fat and raises testosterone. Approximately 9000 mg of fish oil is recommended for a daily dose in order to build muscle. Spinach is the perfect vegetable representative for your muscle-building diet. Spinach is an alkaline food, which means it increases the amount of blood oxygen intake. Because spinach is so high in nutrients, it prevents muscle and bone loss as well as cancer and heart disease.
Finally, the best drinks you can add to your muscle-building diet are water (obviously) and green tea. Drinking two cups of water with every meal helps to prevent water retention, assist in muscle recovery and prevent dehydration during muscle-building strength exercises. Green tea is a natural diuretic and a powerful antioxidant. It increases fat loss, helps to prevent cancer and improves blood circulation and blood sugar. Be sure your source of green tea is authentic and not from a teabag.
Following these simple dietary rules will allow you to get that perfect, muscular body you've been dreaming of and allow you to be healthier and more energetic in the mean time.

How to Build Muscle for Women

Women typically shy away from wanting to build muscle, since some feel the muscles will make them massive and masculine. Because of working out, however, women have gained a better understanding of the importance of having muscles. The only drawback is that not all women know how to properly build muscle, and they are also not aware of how to use supplements to assist with their muscle growth. This article provides this information.

In the article, women will learn proper training methods to build muscle and the nutritional supplements required for muscle growth.

Workout Schedule
The first step that women need to take to start building their muscles is to develop a workout schedule. This workout schedule should consist mainly of resistance training, since it provides the means to stimulate muscle growth.

When engaging in resistance exercise, women should concentrate on working certain muscle groups. The body's muscle groups can be divided into six parts: legs, back, chest, shoulders, arms, and abdominals. Aside from the abdominals, which can be worked out several days a week, women should work each muscle group one day per week.

However, since time is a factor for many women, they should work no more than two muscle groups each day. Good muscle group combinations are: chest and arms, shoulders and back, and legs and abdominals. These muscle groups complement each other, which is why they are typically worked together.

Nutritional Supplements
Protein
The most important supplement that women need to build muscle is protein, and here's why. Biochemistry teaches us that the building blocks of many tissues in your body is made up of amino acids, which are also the components of protein. When women engage in resistance exercise, their muscle tissues breakdown. Thus, they will need protein to repair these tissues.

According to the International Society of Sports Nutrition, protein intake should be around 1.4 – 2.0 g/kg/day for physically active individuals. For a woman 110 pounds, that would mean that she would need to take between 70 g and 100 g of protein a day.

A popular protein supplement choice is whey protein. When choosing a whey product, women need to make sure that it has a high bioavailability. This term simply means that the whey's amino acids are closely matched to a person's body's amino acids requirements, which is, of course, a good thing.

Carbohydrates
Adequate amounts of carbohydrates are also needed in women's muscle building diet. This is because carbohydrates are the predominant energy source used to power their workout. When women ingest carbohydrates, their body converts it to glycogen, which is stored in the muscles.

Since muscles can only store a limited amount of glycogen in their cells, women need to make sure that they eat an adequate amount before working out. Sport nutritionist suggests 2 - 3 g/lb/day of carbohydrates when working out for about an hour. If women plan to work out longer, they may need to go as high as 4 g/lb/day.

Good sources of carbohydrates are grains and vegetables, which are complex carbohydrates. Simple carbohydrates also have their place. Since they are more quickly absorbed into the body than complex carbohydrates, simple carbohydrates should be taken after a workout. Their quick absorption helps to replace nutrients that are lost during workouts.

Fats
Despite what the media has been trying to convince us to believe, fats are good. Fats supply the full feeling you get after you finish eating. In fact, it is the hormone leptin that is secreted from fat cells that send signals to your brain that you're a full and you need to stop eating.

Like carbohydrates, there are also different forms of fat. They are monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, and saturated fats. The fat that you want to avoid is the saturated fat, which has been associated with heart disease and other maladies.

Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats have generally been associated with lowering bad cholesterol levels and raising good cholesterol levels. Great sources of fats are olive oil, flaxseed oils, and fish oil supplements.

In short, when women adhere to their exercise program and supplement with the proper building blocks for muscle growth, they will be fast on their way to building muscles.