Lipstick, Foundation and More

More than 50% of people in the US take dietary supplements to enhance an aspect of their health. Maybe you take supplements on a regular basis…

You see, as a nation we spend an absurd amount of money on supplements, to the tune of billions per year.

The main issue here, however, is that lot of these supplements are sold with downright deceptive advertising, and in extreme cases, can cause serious health issues.

Thus, here are 4 dangerous myths about supplements:

1. Dietary supplements are 100% safe: Absolutes don’t exist and supplements are no exception here. In fact, just because a supplement is natural is no guarantee that it’s completely safe. The reality is that many things exist in nature that are deadly.

2. They are backed by valid studies: Most of the sexy charts and graphs you see on the labels and advertisements are made up. You see, the bulk of the data is performed by biased entities that are directly related to the supplement companies themselves.  Read more...

There used to be a time when women only ate what was available in nature. I suspect that arm flab was probably not an issue back then.

Then came along the food industry and the marketing of magic-bullet diets.

Once big businesses caught wind of the profit to be made by selling food and diets, all the lies and misinformation starting hitting the air waves. Eating became very confusing for the average woman.

Perhaps one of the most influential fad diets of all time has been the high protein diet because it produces the fastest short-term weight loss of any other type of diet.

Nevertheless, consider the following 5 arm flab pitfalls of high protein diets before buying all those steaks:

1. Massive drops in energy: You can expect a significant decrease in mental output, and once in ketosis, the need to frequently sleep. Why does this happen? Because your body can produce energy 300% faster when being fed carbohydrates.

2. An inability to exercise hard: Without carbohydrates, exercise will be extremely painful and your ability to recover will virtually vanish. Your body needs carbs to efficiently produce its energy currency, ATP.  Read more...

There is no doubt here: excess fatness is eroding the health of our country. Even worse, excess fatness is directly related to a wide range of extra diseases.

And the facts don’t lie: a lot of the leading causes of death in our country are associated with being overweight. So getting in shape is vital for a healthy life.

And the key to getting in shape the right way is to have a balanced exercise plan. After all, if you go too far in any single direction, you can get diminishing returns.

So here is how to balance your exercise routine:

1. Cardiovascular conditioning: Working your cardiovascular system is a great way to maintain and even increase the health of your heart. You see, working your heart with cardiovascular exercise makes it bigger and stronger. And a bigger and stronger heart will lower your heart rate and blood pressure.

2. Resistance training: But don’t worry, you don’t have to become a power lifter in order to see benefits. In fact, the best approach here is to pick a program that fits with your type of personality. After all, if you enjoy what you are doing, you are more likely to stick with it.  Read more...

Improving core stability means improving torso strength by training muscles that make up your torso. Some muscles that help are responsible for core stability are muscles near the spine, internal and external obliques, and of course abdominal muscles. Why would you want to improve these torso muscles?

Torso or core muscles help provide support for your bones during your everyday activities. Improving these muscles will increase your general physical fitness and decrease your likelihood of back and neck pains or injuries from physical activities.

One important thing to remember when performing core stability exercises is to make sure you activate all of your torso muscle groups evenly. The following is a list of five top exercises that will help you activate all of your torso muscles evenly.

1. Straight Crunch. Although old fashion, the straight crunch helps strengthen the “6-pack abs” section of your torso.

2. Crossover Crunch. The crossover crunch is a great exercise that adds a twist of the upper body to the straight crunch movement. This strengthens the muscles that are on the side and front of the abdomen.

3. Back Extension. The back extension exercise is performed lying on your stomach, and contracting the back muscles that run along your spine.  Read more...

Aging is something that most of us associate with fine lines and skin spots and hence, many of the anti aging treatments out there will involve products that treat such skin problems. And we have certainly came up with some cutting edge ways to help us accomplish such feat through cosmetic solution to actual internal-based solutions that work at the roots of skin aging. There will be a host of options for anyone looking to go through with it.

But many people tend to neglect the concept that fighting skin aging does not only involve cream products and surgery. We sometimes forget that the good fight against skin aging must happen even before it happens and that prevention is still the best approach when dealing with it.

Below are two of the best health habits that will prevent not only skin aging but also keep you healthy in general.

Lifestyle Considerations

One of the most abused aspect of many people’s lifestyle is their sleeping habits. However, if you really want to stay younger longer, you need to mind how much sleep you are regularly getting because it is when you sleep that your body works hard with cellular healing and repair goes into overtime. Hence, more sleep means your cells, including your skin cells, get the best repair jobs during sleep.  Read more...

Trying to diet doesn’t work. But eating healthy and changing the way you think about foods does. You can find many fat burning foods that are not only good for you but taste good too. You can have some great meals and be fighting fat in the process.

Hitting the fruit section first, apples are a great fat burner and are chalked full of vitamin C as an added bonus. They also have a lot of fiber and are water based so they make you feel full. They have many benefits in addition to them fighting fat.

Also in the fruit section are berries. They are great on their own or in a shake. You can use them as toppings as well for sweetening other foods. Berries are also full of fiber and keep you regular. There are a variety of berries to mix it up and not get tired of just one kind. You can find them at fruit markets as well fresh from the vine.  Read more...

If you are looking for ways to get more from your workout routine, then think about dynamic stretching. While the term may not sound familiar, many of the actually exercises will. What the term refers to are really conventional stretches, however instead of holding the end position, you remain in constant motion. We have all learned many of them at some point in time and just never realized that the group had name.

Walking lunges should be familiar to most people. Many people learn these in junior high gym class. As you step forward you lunge downwards toward the ground and then immediately back up to switch legs, just like walking. Not only does the motion do a great job of stretching the hamstrings, it also does wonders for the muscles around the hips.

Arm circles are another one that most people are familiar with. For these you hold your arms straight out to the sides and make circles . This stretches and exercises the shoulder muscles. A common complaint is not actually about the discomfort from the stretch, but from the accompanying work that other muscles do during the motion.  Read more...

Your body requires a continual stream of new challenges or it will stop changing. Your body is simply too smart to keep on changing if you keep on providing it with the same challenges.

Now a major problem here is that constantly challenging your body is not an easy undertaking. In reality, it can become a very big chore if you are not mentally prepared. And most people simply do not have what it takes to always be pushing the limits of their performance.

So without further ado, here is how to set your mind in the right mode to obtain peak training:

1. Bust out of habits: Constantly try new things. By doing this you will train your mind to do something counterintuitive: venture into the unknown. And venturing into new territory is key if you want to keep on getting results.

2. Quantify the risk: If you’re afraid to try out a new combination of exercises or a new class that is very intense, write down the worst case scenarios. In other words, quantify the risks and make a pro and con list of sorts. More often than not, you will notice how exaggerated your fears are.  Read more...

Do you know what the best arm exercises for toning are? Ask a couple fitness buffs and you’ll get a different answer from each one. Could this get any more confusing?

If the experts have different opinions, how are you supposed to form an opinion? As you can see, this can get very very challenging to say the least.

So to help you out, I am going to be reviewing a bunch different arm exercises for toning. This should help clear up some of the confusion.

My analysis of different arm exercises for toning should save you a substantial amount of time. Today I will be reviewing dumbbell curls:

1. Fast-track description. This exercise works the biceps which is the first muscle people see on your arm when greeting you from the front. Its strength lies in the ability to use full ranges of motion. This gives you a better bang for your buck.

2. Exercise technique. Grab a dumbbell with each hand and stand erect with your palms facing inwards. Rotate one hand and bring the weight up in a controlled fashion. Slowly lower said weight and do this for the other arm.  Read more...

Is this a flabby upper arms joke? Nope. The truth is that you can lose arm fat without having to touch a weight.

The secret lies in spontaneous fat loss. This method of losing the flab is the easiest one out there, I promise.

Instead, it focuses on manipulating the tools you eat with (spoons, bowls, glasses), the environment you eat in and the types of foods you eat. And the arm fat melts away without any conscious effort on your part.

How do you spontaneously lose fat? Well, here are 4 things you can start doing today so that the flabby upper arms are gone by tomorrow:

1. Buy foods with labels from not-so-cool places. Studies have shown restaurant goers will unconsciously eat up to 500 fewer calories at dinner if they are presented with wine that comes from an undesirable wine-producing area. You have to be creative here, but it’s worth it.

2. Stick with slow digesting carbohydrates. Studies have shown that obese teenage boys will eat 621 fewer calories per meal if they’ve had slow digesting carbs earlier in the day. The slowest digesting carbohydrates on the planet are legumes and vegetables.  Read more...