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Tag: weight loss

How Guava Juice Is More Nutritious for You Than These 7 Popular Fruit Juices

Guava juice is healthier than most fruit juices, including apple and orange juice! But sadly, this exotic fruit juice is less known, leading many people to choose less nutritious, more sugary fruit juices over it. Here are a few fruit juices that aren’t as healthy as guava juice.

Most people have a glass of fruit juice in the morning – usually orange juice. They think they’re doing their health a favor, which is true. But they don’t realize there are healthier fruit juices out there – like guava juice. Guava juice is actually healthier than many popular fruit juices.

If you’re one of those who enjoy a glass of fruit juice once a day, here are some that you should switch for guava juice and why:

1. Guava Juice Has More Vitamin C Than Orange Juice But With Fewer Calories

Orange juice is known for its vitamin C content. When you need vitamin C to fight off a cold or scurvy, you’re quick to go for the OJ. But did you know that guava juice would have five times more vitamin C than orange juice (if you assume they use the same amount of guava as oranges in one glass of fruit juice)?

And if the same number of guavas are used as the number of oranges in one glass of fruit juice, then a glass of guava juice would also have about half the calories of a glass of orange juice!

Guava juice also has more vitamin A than orange juice, and twice the amount of vitamin E. Guava juice has vitamin K, while orange juice does not. But orange juice does have more B vitamins than guava juice.

Choose guava juice if your reason for drinking orange juice is primarily to get vitamin C.

2. Guava Juice Has More Vitamin A Than Apple Juice With Half the Calories

If apple juice is your thing, you should know guava juice is better. One glass of guava juice has over three times the amount of vitamins A, B3, B6, and C as one glass of apple juice. It also has about 20 percent more magnesium, potassium, phosphorous, and vitamin E than one glass of apple juice.

If you’re anemic, one glass of guava juice has twice more iron than one glass of apple juice.

But if you’re looking for vitamin K, guava juice falls behind because one glass of apple juice has about four times more vitamin K than one glass of guava juice.

3. Guava Juice Has More Vitamin E Than Pineapple Juice With Less Than Half the Calories

If you make your own pineapple juice and use the same amount of fruit as you would to make guava juice, then guava juice would come out nutritionally on top. One glass of guava juice would have 400 percent more vitamin E than one glass of pineapple juice. But that one glass of guava juice would have only about 45 percent of the calories of the glass of pineapple juice.

One glass of pineapple juice would also have less than a third of the vitamin A in one glass of guava juice. One glass of guava juice would also have almost twice more vitamin C than one glass of pineapple juice. One glass of guava juice would also have more rare, but essential nutrients that your body needs, like zinc, copper, and selenium. Your body uses these three elements to bolster your immunity, protect you from toxins, and other important daily biological processes.

One glass of guava juice would also have a bit more vitamin K, phosphorous, and potassium than one glass of pineapple juice.

But one glass of pineapple juice would surpass guava juice when it comes to select key nutrients. It would have up to about 200 percent more B vitamins. It would also have 10 times the manganese content and over three times more calcium and iron.

Depending on which nutrients you’re going for, you’d probably be getting more from one glass of fruit juice by choosing guava juice over pineapple juice – and you won’t take in as many calories too!

4. Guava Juice Blows Cranberry Juice Nutritionally Out of the Water

Cranberry juice is a favorite among all ages – it’s probably one of the most popular fruit juices. But did you know guava juice is many times more nutritious? If you use the same amount of fruit to make a glass of cranberry juice as you would guava juice, that glass of guava juice would have about 26 percent less calories and almost five times as much vitamin A and about 10 times as much vitamin C.

One glass of guava juice would also have six times more vitamin B3 and over 25 times more folate than one glass of cranberry juice. It also would have more calcium and about twice more magnesium and potassium. It would also have more phosphorous.

But cranberry juice would have four times more manganese, three times more iron and vitamins E and K than guava juice. Except these select nutrients, one glass of guava juice would have more nutrients in multiples compared to one glass of cranberry juice.

5. Guava Juice Is on Par With Pomegranate Juice

Pomegranate juice is another household favorite – mostly enjoyed by older generations. This fruit juice actually holds its ground to guava juice in terms of nutrition. It’s actually richer than guava juice when it comes to protein because it has almost 300 percent more if the same amount of fruit is used. Pomegranate juice also has about 40 times more vitamin K, and more than three times more vitamin E than guava juice.

But guava juice has vitamin A, while pomegranate juice does not. It also has about five times more vitamin C than pomegranate juice.

On the other hand, pomegranate juice is far richer in B vitamins than guava juice. It also has about twice more calcium and magnesium. It also has eight times more iron and a lot more phosphorous, potassium, and the rare nutrients copper, manganese, and selenium.

Both guava juice and pomegranate juice are top options for your daily glass of fruit juice. Depending on which nutrients you want more of on the particular day, you can switch between the two!

6. Guava Juice Has Over 10 Times the Amount of Folate Than Grape Juice

Grape juice is a cult favorite of children and many adults. But it too is nutritionally blown away by guava juice. If the same amount of fruit is used in one glass of grape juice as one glass of guava juice, the glass of guava juice would have about 30 percent more protein and over four times the amount of vitamin A, all while still having less than half the calories. It would also have about 10 times more vitamin C and folate.

That one glass of guava juice would also have about three times more vitamin B3 and selenium than the glass of grape juice. It would also have about 25 percent more magnesium.

But one glass of grape juice would have almost 18 times more vitamin K than guava juice and a lot more B vitamins (except B3 and folate). It would also have about 30 percent more calcium and five times more iron. It would also have a bit more phosphorous and potassium.

If your usual is grape juice, switch to guava juice to take in more nutrients — unless you’re looking for the specific nutrients that grape juice has more of.

7. Guava Juice Has More Nutrients Than Coconut Juice

Everyone enjoys coconut juice once in a while. It has a clean, sweet taste. But did you know guava juice tastes sweeter and has a ton more nutrients, but far less calories? If the same fruit is used in one glass of guava juice as in one glass of coconut juice, the glass of guava juice would have more than 500 percent less calories and over 300 percent more vitamin A.

That one glass of guava juice would also have over 100 times more vitamin C, about 14 times more vitamin K, and four times more vitamin E. It would also have more vitamin B6, three times more vitamin B3, and over 200 percent more folate.

When it comes to minerals, the glass of guava juice would have 10 times more iron and about 30 percent more calcium, potassium, and magnesium.

But coconut juice still has some redeeming qualities over guava juice when it comes to some rare nutrients. That glass of coconut juice would have five times more zinc, 200 percent more copper, seven times more manganese, and over 10 times more selenium. It also would have about twice more phosphorous.

Based on these nutritional comparisons, guava juice is the winner and should be your choice of fruit juice if you usually enjoy coconut juice. If you’re trying to get more essential rare nutrients, like selenium, eat two Brazil nuts instead with your guava juice. They certainly have fewer calories than a glass of coconut juice, but with a wealth of copper, selenium, zinc, and manganese.

If you drink any of these fruit juices, switch to guava juice today! But if you’re looking for specific nutrients that are lacking in guava juice, then stick to your regular fruit juice. But if you’re looking to slim down, one glass of guava juice always has fewer calories than a glass of any of these fruit juices (if the same amount of fruit is used).

September 15, 2017
Can Losing Weight Permanently Reverse Diabetes Mellitus Type 2?

Scientists may have found a way to permanently reverse diabetes mellitus type 2. If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because the catch is something you probably will find difficult doing. But even if you can’t go through the treatment, there’s still hope – losing weight may also permanently reverse diabetes mellitus type 2.

Doctors have always said that diabetes mellitus is a lifelong condition – and your doctor must have given you that speech too. But a UK study may have changed that – researchers reported they were able to completely reverse diabetes mellitus type 2 in patients that followed their very low-calorie diet.

Actually, “starvation protocol” might be the better term to describe their diabetes mellitus cure. That’s because for eight weeks you can only eat 600 calories total everyday. Remember that a single slice of toast and one egg are already around 160 calories combined. But their diet may further constrict you to eating only non-starchy vegetables and liquid diet drinks – so no solid foods, like toast, at all!

Does the starvation protocol really cure diabetes mellitus type 2? All diabetes mellitus patients who participated in the study were cured – that means the cure has a 100 percent success rate. But after 90 days, about 36 percent of the participants regressed and developed diabetes mellitus type 2 again – all participants were advised to eat a healthier diet after the study, but some regressed back to their normal eating habits.

How Weight Loss Can Affect Diabetes Mellitus Type 2

The starvation protocol is extreme, and the researchers strongly advise anyone who’s thinking about undergoing it to seek the supervision of a licensed medical practitioner. But when pressed about the diet, lead researcher Professor Roy Talor says that what’s important is the 600-calorie limitation and not the liquids and veggies component.

He also says that bariatric surgery can also reverse diabetes mellitus type 2. This may mean that the key to reversing diabetes mellitus type 2 is losing weight.

It does make sense – if you’re on a 600-calorie diet for two months, you’re going to lose a significant amount of weight. But also, Harvard says that 90 percent of diabetes mellitus patients are overweight. By losing weight until you’re at a normal body mass index, you may have a 90 percent chance of reversing your diabetes mellitus. What are the chances that you’d end up in the 10 percent percentile of diabetes mellitus patients who are normal weight?

If you lose weight, there’s no downside. At best you’ll have reversed your diabetes mellitus, and if not, then you’ll be healthier and lower your risk for many chronic diseases, like cardiovascular problems.

A Few Easy Changes That Lead to Weight Loss

If eating less isn’t easy for you, there are other ways you can shed a few pounds:

Exercise more. If you spend an hour a day doing moderate exercise, you’ll lose at least a pound per week. Of course, you need to make sure you’re eating the same or less. It’s simple math – you’re burning more calories per day without taking in more. A brisk jog outside or joining a karate class can help you meet this requirement. You can do fun things too – like play football, basketball, or any other high-activity sport. Dancing to pop music for an hour is great too – you can enjoy your favorite songs while burning carbs.

Include more fiber into your diet. Fiber does wonders for your appetite and blood sugar level control. It keeps you feeling full and can help you eat less. If you include more fiber in your diet, you may find that you’re eating less because you’re not as hungry. Fiber also prevents sugar from being absorbed into your bloodstream all at once, which helps prevent blood sugar spikes and that helps treat diabetes mellitus.

Walk to the grocery, take the stairs, park further away. You can also boost your daily carb burn by changing a few of your daily habits. Instead of taking the elevator, take the stairs. Instead of driving to the grocery store, walk there – it will save you fuel costs and help you get more vitamin D from the sun exposure while you’re burning carbs. Park further away from work or places you drive to – this makes you walk a longer distance and burn more carbs.

Drink a solution of vinegar before eating. Drinking water or a vinegar solution before a meal helps sate your hunger. Mix a tablespoon of vinegar with a glass of water and enjoy. Vinegar has appetite-suppressing effects, which means you’re more likely to eat less during your meal. But vinegar also lowers your blood sugar levels by up to 33 percent – so it also helps treat diabetes mellitus.

Feel empowered that you can reverse your diabetes mellitus type 2 – all it takes is a lot of sacrifice for eight weeks. If you think you can’t handle that, try losing weight and getting back to a normal BMI – you’ll most likely also reverse your condition because it seems as though diabetes mellitus type 2 largely affects overweight and obese people.

June 26, 2017
3 Reasons Why Doctors Might Say You Should Drink Four Cups of Coffee Everyday

It’s 5 A.M. and you’re reluctantly getting up to do your morning exercises before you have to prepare breakfast and drop the kids off at school. Believe it or not, having a cup or two of coffee now instead of during breakfast or before heading out to work can improve your workout. In fact, having another two cups of coffee throughout the day, like during lunch, protects you from chronic illnesses like cancer! Sounds crazy? Well, scientists don’t think so.

Drinking coffee gets you more kick from your workouts.

Drinking coffee before working out increases your metabolism while you exercise, according to a study published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism. They found that you’ll burn 15 percent more calories if you drink 4.5 milligrams of caffeine per kilogram of your weight. If you weigh 110 pounds, that’s around 224 milligrams of caffeine or 2.5 cups of coffee.

Research also shows that drinking regular coffee increases your blood flow by 30 percent, which allows your muscles more oxygen during your workout. They also found that drinking two or three cups of coffee an hour prior to a 30-minute high-intensity workout reduces muscle pain. That means drinking coffee also helps you endure longer during strength or endurance workouts.

If you do endurance training you’re most likely doing intense workouts everyday. Thus, your glycogen stores must be replenished quickly. Muscles store and use glycogen to give you power and endurance during exercise. If your muscles’ glycogen stores are high you can last longer and deliver more power. Fortunately, drinking coffee with your post-workout meal helps with that! Research shows that a diet of caffeine and carbohydrates increases your muscle glycogen by 66 percent four hours after an intense, glycogen-depleting workout.

Drinking coffee also protects your muscles in the long term. Studies find that regularly consuming coffee offsets natural muscle strength loss due to aging. This isn’t limited to the muscles you actively tone during your workouts – the protective effects were observed in the diaphragm too, protecting your body’s ability to breathe as you get older. Researchers believe from these findings that your coffee habit may preserve your overall fitness and even decrease your risk for age-related injuries too.

Drinking coffee helps prevent chronic diseases.

If you party hard on Fridays after work with your friends, remember your cup of Java! Research by the University of Southampton finds that drinking four cups of coffee daily reduces your risk of developing cirrhosis from long-term alcohol consumption by 65 percent.

These daily four cups of coffee also protect you from other chronic diseases as well. Research by Harvard University finds that drinking one to five cups of regular or decaf coffee everyday helps protect you from cardiovascular disease, stroke, neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, and diabetes mellitus due to coffee’s bioactive compounds which protect against blood-brain barrier blockage and reduce systematic inflammation and insulin resistance. However, drinking more than five cups reverses these health benefits.

Furthermore, a study published in the Journal of Neurology and Psychiatry finds that drinking at least four cups of coffee everyday reduces your risk for developing multiple sclerosis by 26 to 31 percent. There seem to be compounds in coffee that have neuroprotective effects.

Drinking four cups of coffee everyday helps prevent cancer too. Another Harvard study found that colon cancer patients in remission who drank four or more cups of coffee had a 42 percent decreased risk of cancer recurrence and a 34 percent decrease in overall mortality (including cancer-caused mortality).

Ultimately, researchers found that drinking coffee reduces overall mortality by 15 percent.

Late night studying with coffee to keep you awake is actually good for you.

Drinking coffee while you study improves your memory. A John Hopkins study found that consuming caffeine enhances your memory for 24 hours. Caffeinated participants scored higher than non-caffeinated participants when shown images and asked to recall them. Remember that next time you’re studying for grad finals or working late finishing paperwork!

If you chug a lot of coffee to boost your energy don’t be ashamed – it’s actually good for you! Drinking coffee before and after exercising enhances your performance and supports your muscles’ recovery. Coffee is also holistically healthy, helping prevent a wide range of diseases. Coffee also helps you cram for exams! But to be on the safe side, drink only four cups of coffee daily – you don’t want to reverse these health benefits.

Sources:

http://news.health.com/2014/06/19/5-reasons-to-drink-coffee-before-your-workout/

http://www.health.harvard.edu/colorectal-cancer/harvard-researchers-link-coffee-with-reduced-colon-cancer-recurrence

http://www.newsweek.com/coffee-could-lower-risk-ms-only-if-your-drink-excessive-amounts-stuff-433201

motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2015/11/science-says-drink-your-coffee

http://healthcare.utah.edu/healthfeed/postings/2016/02/coffee_cirrohsis.php

http://www.hngn.com/articles/169080/20160113/weight-loss-5-best-new-superfoods-losing-recipes.htm

May 17, 2017
Here’s Some Hope for Lazy Dieters – Research Shows You Don’t Need to Be Fully Committed to Lose Weight

New research finds that fasting regularly on some days, then going back to your normal diet on other days works just as well as the normal weight loss method of being on a calorie-restricted daily diet.

Have you been putting off losing weight because you feel it’s too hard to stay on a strict diet for weeks or months? The idea certainly is daunting – it’s easy to go on a diet for a whole day, but if you had to do it every single day for over a month, it just feels like tremendous work and sacrifice. But now researchers say going on these one-day diets can help you lose just as much weight as diligently dieting everyday.

The Comprehensive Weight Loss Study Followed Dieters for Four Years – Not Just Months

Researchers wanted to see if regularly fasting on alternate days can help you lose weight in the long run. They took 100 adults suffering from obesity and gave them one of three eating regimens: an alternate-day fasting diet, a mainstream calorie-restricted daily diet, and no diet at all. The no diet group served as the control group for researchers to compare both diet regimen results to.

The group with the calorie-restricted daily diet could only eat up to 2,000 calories everyday, which is 75 percent of the average calories people eat daily.

The group with the alternate-day fasting diet enjoyed a lot of freedom. They only dieted three to four days out of the week, and during their non-diet days they could eat up to 2,500 calories, which is about 125 percent of the recommended daily calorie intake. But during their diet days, they could only eat 25 percent of the normal daily calorie intake — which is only 500 calories.

All three groups followed their diet regimens for 365 days. Surprisingly, the alternate-day fasting diet group lost more weight than the group diligently following the everyday calorie-restricted diet! They lost 6 percent of their original weight relative to the control group who didn’t change their eating habits. The daily calorie-restricted diet group only lost 5.3 percent.

What makes this even more amazing is that the alternate-day fasting diet group also ate more calories than they were supposed to during their fasting days, but less than they were allowed to on their off days. Whereas the daily calorie-restricted diet group mostly kept within their prescribed calories.

Despite the alternate-day fasting diet group eating almost whatever they wanted during their off days, they had almost the same blood pressure, heart rate, and blood levels of fat, sugar, insulin, and other relevant metabolic blood factors. But during the sixth month, the alternate-day fasting diet group experienced higher cholesterol levels than the calorie-restricted daily diet group. But by the 12th month, both groups had almost identical metabolic parameters again.

The researchers went on to study the participants and run more trials for four more years.

A Great Option for People Who Can’t Stick to a Diet

The alternate-day fasting diet group lost almost 12 percent more weight than the calorie-restricted daily diet group. But researchers say the difference in negligible and both groups should be treated as losing almost the same amount of weight.

What does this mean for you? If it’s too hard to diet everyday, you can go on a more stringent, calorie-limited diet for a couple of days, then switch back to your normal diet. If you keep doing this, you’ll end up losing as much weight long-term as if you had been following a less stringent diet everyday. Doing so has also been found to be just as safe as dieting everyday.

Think of it this way – let’s say you were planning on dieting for a month. That means you just need to fast for a cumulative of 30 days. Every day that you fast is one day completed of your 30-day diet. Even if it takes you 90 days to complete 30 days of fasting, you’ll lose the same weight as though you dieted for a month!

May 2, 2017
How Running Regularly Every Week Can Extend Your Life by 7 Hours Per Hour

Researchers released findings that adopting a weekly running routine will likely extend your lifespan by about seven hours per hour you run.

Running Is One of the Best Cardio Exercises Overall

When you think of cardio, running and jogging are probably at the top of your list. Why? They’re two of the easiest exercises to do. Running is also a top calorie burner – in half an hour of running you’ll burn between 350 to 550 calories, on average, depending on how fast you run. Compare that to doing gymnastics or playing competitive volleyball, which only burn between 120 to 178 calories, on average.

Unlike other cardio exercises, running is also an ideal outdoor exercise. The combination is marvelous because running in nature has been found to lower your risk for depression, relieve pain, and boost your mood. If there are trees around where you run, it’s especially good for your heart because being near trees has been found to lower your blood pressure.

If you run during the daytime (with sunscreen on), the sunlight catalyzes vitamin D production in your skin. Healthier vitamin D levels has been linked with better bone, psychological, and heart health. Higher vitamin D levels has also been linked with helping prevent developing diabetes.

How Running Lengthens Your Life

Now new research has come out that makes running regularly sound even better. Researchers found that people who run regularly enjoy a 25 to 40 percent lower risk of dying before their time is up. They also live an average of three years longer than people who don’t run regularly.

They found that every hour you run, you add seven hours to your life! They recommend running two to four hours every week to add years to your lifespan.

The sooner you add a weekly running regimen to your lifestyle, the sooner you can start adding 7 hours and more to your life. But make sure to change your running shoes after they’ve become worn to avoid developing orthopedic diseases. Doctors recommend getting a new pair of running shoes after 300 to 500 miles used. That’s about every four or five months.

April 19, 2017
Why Doctors Want You to Eat Chocolate This Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is hallmarked by the giving of chocolates to your romantic interest. Medical and scientific research reveal that gifting chocolates is not simply an act of affection. It turns out that regularly consuming chocolate prevents cardiovascular disease, promotes weight loss, and aids in meditation. Chocolate is no longer a junk food – to the contrary, it’s a holistic treat that supports the mind and body.

Chocolate was first introduced into Europe soon after Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés came upon the Maya and Aztecs and observed them preparing cacao drinks. Writings from 1556 contain a passage written by an anonymous Spanish conquistador describing how cacao seeds are ground into powder and mixed methodically to create a foaming liquid.

The anonymous conquistador wrote,

This [foaming] drink is the healthiest thing, and the greatest sustenance of anything you could drink in the world, because he who drinks a cup of this liquid, no matter how far he walks, can go a whole day without eating anything else.

Of course the original Mayan and Aztec cacao drinks didn’t contain sugar and the tasty additives of modern-day chocolate products. Even so, what that conquistador wrote half a millennium ago is surprisingly true of cacao and today’s dark chocolate products according to scientific experts and physicians.

Dark Chocolate Is Good for Your Heart

Regularly consuming dark chocolate increases artery flexibility while also decreasing blood vessel leukocyte adhesion. Arterial stiffness and long-term buildup of white blood cells stuck to blood vessel walls are two significant factors in atherosclerosis.

In fact an 11-year study revealed that people who regularly consume up to 3.5 ounces of chocolate daily experience a 5.4 percent decreased risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

Furthermore according to Professor Larry Stevens of Northern Arizona University, dark chocolate is a vasodilator and regularly consuming it lowers blood pressure for the long term. According to findings by Louisiana State University, one explanation for this is that your gut bacteria convert cacao into compounds that protect blood vessel cells from stress and reduce inflammation.

Chocolate Helps You Lose Weight

Regularly munching on any kind of chocolate, regardless of cacao content, leads to weight loss. Research by Dr. Beatrice Golomb, an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego revealed that people who ate chocolate five times a week experienced weight loss without an increase in physical exercise. She states that a “5-foot tall woman weighing about 120 pounds… was likely to be about five pounds lighter if she was a frequent eater of chocolate.”

According to Joshua Lambert of Penn State University, one factor contributing to chocolate’s weight loss effects is that some specific polyphenols found in cacao may inhibit pancreatic lipase, which is the enzyme responsible for digesting dietary fat. Thus, these polyphenols could be preventing the fat in commercial chocolate from being digested and absorbed into the body.

Another contributing factor included in Louisiana State University’s findings is that your gut bacteria convert cacao’s fiber into short chain fatty acids, which make you feel full after you absorb them.

Chocolate Helps You Meditate

Chocolate Mindfulness meditation is an increasingly popular kind of meditation. It involves making you more aware of your senses by taking a piece of chocolate and deeply inhaling the chocolate’s aroma, staring at the chocolate and examining it deeply; and finally placing the chocolate into your mouth and trying to notice each one of its 300 flavors while playing with it with your tongue and allowing it to melt. Then you repeat the process until all the chocolate is consumed, and while doing so you’re gently keeping your mind focused on the chocolate, shepherding your focus back when it wanders away.

Professor Stevens’ research sheds light on why this meditation technique is effective. He conducted a study involving 122 participants between 18 to 25 years old consuming confection containing 60 percent cacao. Brain activity was monitored via EEG and blood pressure was recorded.

When we asked him via email, he responded that the 60 percent cacao group experienced an increase in alpha brain waves, which is one of the desired meditative states. The group also experienced an increase in beta brain waves. He stated that increasing alpha and beta waves should produce “a more alert, attentive, and calm state.” Being calm but attentive is key for meditation.

However the participants experienced a short-term increase in blood pressure when consuming the 60 percent cacao. The 60 percent cacao confection still lowers blood pressure in the long-term, but the short-term increase in blood pressure might be troubling for some people, like those with hypertension.

Thus, Professor Stevens introduced an amino acid naturally found in green tea, L-theanine, which lowers blood pressure, to the confection and administered it to another group of participants. This group experienced an immediate drop in blood pressure rather than the short-term increase experienced by the 60 percent cacao group.

He reports in his email that this 60 percent cacao plus L-theanine group also experienced “a slight increase in alpha [waves] over that of the 60 percent cacao only [group].”

He states that theoretically, a mixture containing L-theanine and 90 to 100 percent cacao should further increase the desired brain waves to produce a more powerful attentive and calm state. He’s looking forward to conducting future studies involving higher-content cacao and L-theanine.

Thus, consuming a mixture of L-theanine and 60 or more percent cacao can aid in meditation by facilitating your transition into a calm but alert state.

However, Professor Stevens also hopes that a high-content cacao chocolate bar containing L-theanine will become a mainstream healthy alternative to coffee due to its attention-increasing and blood pressure lowering properties. He states, “A lot of us in the afternoon get a little fuzzy… so we could have a higher cacao content chocolate bar and it would increase attention.”

When you give your love chocolates this Valentine’s Day you’re protecting their hearts and waistlines, while enriching their mind. Conversely, if you’re receiving chocolates their health benefits should keep you from feeling guilty about enjoying them. It’s even better if you’re making your own gift chocolates because you can add L-theanine to them to add more blood pressure-lowering and mental therapeutic effects.

February 3, 2016
Zero Carb Diets: Why You’ll Lose Muscle

According to the CDC, approximately 70 percent of Americans are either overweight or obese. If you’re fighting the tide by going on a diet, make sure you educate yourself first. You might feel compelled to avoid sugars and carbs at all costs — but doing so could seriously harm your body. Carbohydrates are essential for your hormones and muscle building and maintenance.

Your muscles are made up of protein, which are composed of only 20 amino acids. Your body uses carbohydrates to produce 10 of these, called nonessential amino acids. Your body can’t produce the other 10 (essential amino acids), so you get them from eating protein. Your body also needs these 20 amino acids to synthesize enzymes and hormones which regulate most of your bodily functions, from temperature regulation to fat breakdown.

Fat can’t be converted into the nonessential amino acids you need. Although not eating carbs rushes your body into burning fat, burning fat gives your body energy, not protein. Your body will then break down your muscle to get protein to make amino acids. Thus, not getting carbohydrates will result in muscle loss. This is worse if you’re simultaneously exercising and dieting; your body won’t be able to repair your muscles post-workout, leaving you sore and weak.

You might consider eating protein to replace carbs. Fitness experts advise against this for two reasons. If your protein source is meat, you’ll be increasing your cholesterol, which is dangerous long term. If your protein sources are zero-carb protein shakes, your body still won’t be able to fully repair or build muscle without carbohydrates.

Losing weight is great if you’re overweight. Make sure to eat foods with slow-burning carbohydrates, like blueberries or red potatoes. Your body needs carbohydrates to build your muscles, enzymes, and hormones. Some amino acids require carbohydrates to be synthesized; because of this and the high cholesterol involved, a meat-only diet is even more harmful than a no-carb diet.

January 1, 2016