Answer Fitness®: Practical Fitness Advice for Everyone

Espresso Royale Organic Dark Sipping Chocolate | Healthy Snack of the Day

Get The Health Benefits of Organic Dark Chocolate without the Fat and Calories with this Fantastic Premium Dark Hot Chocolate

Chocolate and fat-loss are not two things you normally associate with each other. But with evidence mounting that chocolate, especially the dark variety, has a number of health benefits it’s suddenly become okay to include a little dark chocolate in your diet, even if your goal is fat loss.

The Health Benefits of Dark Chocolate

Because chocolate is made from plants, it contains many of the same types of phytochemicals and polyphenols – including powerful flavanoids (specifically epicatechin and gallic acid) with antioxidant properties — that you find in other antioxidant powerhouses like blueberries, pomegranates, tea and red wine. 

Antioxidants are believed to help the body’s cells resist damage caused by free radicals, which are formed by normal bodily processes such as breathing or environmental contaminants like cigarette smoke or environmental pollution. 

In fact, in terms of total antioxidants, chocolate ranks at the top of the list.

It also contains arginine, an amino acid that helps the body produce nitric oxide (NOS), which aids in cell division, wound healing, and removal of ammonia from the body. Arginine also is a vasodialator — which means it causes blood vessel relaxation, which can decrease blood pressure. There is also some indication that arginine may improve sexual function as well, which may explain why chocolate is considered an aphrodisiac.

The health benefits of chocolate may include:

• Lower blood pressure, especially among people with hypertension
• Increased HDL cholesterol (the “good” kind of cholesterol)
• Increase glucose metabolism
• Improvements in mood
• Possible anti-cancer properties due to the high antioxidant content of dark chocolate

Over the past decade, a number of studies have provided clinical research to back up some of these health claims.

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Fish Oil | Benefits and Side Effects from Answer Fitness

Hooked on The Idea of Taking Fish Oil Supplements? Before You Start, Learn About the Benefits and Potential Side Effects.

Fish oil is on a roll.

It’s difficult to open up a health or fitness magazine, browse the Internet or turn on the TV without seeing yet another piece on this “wonder” supplement. The health claims made in the media and online are often as amazing as the idea that we can distill down the oil of hundreds of fish into a single capsule: Reduce heart disease! Prevent cancer! Stave off depression! Stop arthritis! Improve your mood!

Not since Linus Pauling published his work on the benefits of Vitamin C (which has come under increased scrutiny by scientists in the past few decades), has there been so much buzz around a single supplement.

So before we dig into some of the possible benefits (and the potential side effects) of fish oil, let’s take a look at how we got here in the first place.

A Brief History of Fish Oil

The whole fish oil story started with a simple observation: People who had diets high in certain types of fatty, cold-water fish appeared to have lower rates of heart disease than other populations who ate less fish. The traditional Japanese diet, for example, contains large amounts of fish, as do certain Norwegian and arctic populations (like the Inuit.)

Scientists were intrigued enough with this correlation that they started to conduct studies to see if whether including more cold-water fish in the diets of people who don’t normally eat fish, could produce a similar benefit. Their results, while not conclusive, did find a strong correlation between the consumption of certain fats contained in fish, and decreased risk for certain form of heart disease. 

So what’s so great about fish?

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Kimkins Diet: Big Fat Fraud? | Diet Reviews

The Kimkins Diet Promises Dramatic Weight Loss, But A Little Investigation Shows Kimkins Is A Diet Disaster

I first saw the Kimkins Diet pop up in the Yahoo Answers Diet and Fitness category about 12 months ago.  Someone calling herself “Kimmer” was trolling the diet-related questions and posting cookie-cutter answers touting an amazing new diet that was “better than Atkins.” The claims seemed incredible: weight loss of up to 124 lbs and zero need to exercise.

Being curious about this “miracle diet” I clicked through.

What I found was typical of a fad diet site: Unbelievable claims of dramatic weight-loss, the usual testimonials (predominately from women) with before and after pictures, and “Kimmer’s” story of how she went from fat to model-thin using her own “amazing” diet plan.

There were even before and after pictures of Kimmer demonstrating her own transformation from morbidly obese to svelte beauty. With her low-cut leopard top and smoky eyes, I had to admit Kimmer looked pretty hot. It was hard to believe she was the same woman in the grainy “before” picture who looked like she was steadying herself with the handrail to keep from falling over under all that extra weight.

I clicked back to Yahoo Answers, marked her post as “spam” and moved on. 

Over the coming months, I saw a few questions about the “Kimkins Diet” here and there, posted some responses dismissing it as a unhealthy crash diet and recommended spending your $79.95 “membership fee” on some healthy, whole food.

I more or less forgot about it.

And then it hit. In June 2007, Woman’s World Magazine featured a cover story on the Kimkins Diet, complete with the pictures of glowing Kimkins success stories and the sensational headline “Better Than Gastric Bypass!”

Suddenly, Kimkins had gone mainstream.

What Is The Kimkins Diet?

The Kimkins Diet website describes the Kimkins diet as a “low-fat, low-carb” weight-loss program that “doesn’t require pills, special foods, expensive supplements” or “exercise.” It also presents itself as an alternative to costly gastric bypass surgery, which immediately throws up a red flag that the diet is targeting the most desperately overweight people — people who really need the help of a nutritionist and medical weight loss professional, not an Internet guru.

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Steamed Asparagus with Dijon Mustard Sauce | Healthy Recipes

Let The Flavor of Springtime Asparagus Shine Through With This Simple and Healthy Dijon Mustard Sauce Recipe

Note from Matt: Today’s post is dedicated to the memory of my Grandmother, Doris Williams, who had her own asparagus patch and taught me everything I know about preparing and eating this amazing vegetable. Grandma, I just ate my first asparagus of the spring … seven beautiful stalks I plucked out from the among the weeds in the side yard at your old house.  Yes … they still come up each year. You are missed.

Nothing says “spring is here” like a bowl of fresh steamed asparagus.  We’re not talking about the bland stuff that’s shipped in from California during the winter — this is the real deal, in season, in all of it’s sublime glory.

Crisp, slightly sweet and never tough or chewy, asparagus is one of the first vegetables to make it’s way onto the table in the spring, and if you’re lucky enough to have a u-pick farm nearby, or even your own asparagus patch, once you’ve had asparagus in-season, it’s hard to ever get used to the store-bought stuff again.

The Health Benefits of Asparagus

And asparagus is wicked good for you.

It’s an extremely nutrient dense food. It’s high in folic acid and is a great source of potassium, fiber, vitamin B6, vitamins A and C, and thiamin. It also has no cholesterol or fat, and is low in sodium and calories. 

A single 5.2 oz serving of asparagus provides 60% of your daily requirement of folicin (folic acid), which is critical for blood cell formation, growth, and prevention of liver disease.

Folic acid is critical during period of rapid cell growth and division, such as infancy and pregnancy, and research indicates a link between insufficient folic acid and birth defects, like neural tube defects. Folic acid also may decrease circulating homocysteine levels. There is evidence that elevated homocysteine levels are an independent risk factor for heart disease and stroke.  A recent study from the University of California - Berkeley also found that men who eat folate rich foods may also lower the risk of birth defects in offspring, since folate seems to prevent certain chromosome abnormalities in sperm.

In other words, if you’re not eating asparagus, it’s time to start.  

Why Does Eating Asparagus Make Your Pee Stink?
Asparagus contains sulfur compounds that give off the distinct “asparagus pee” odor when broken down by the body (usually within 15-30 minutes after ingestion.) Believe it or not, there is actually a raging scientific debate over what the actual compound is that’s responsible for this unique “scent.” One theory says it’s methanethiol. However, in 1975, a California chemist using gas chromatography claimed that the offending compounds are actually S-methyl thioesters.  One interesting point: while all people produce these stinky compounds, only but only about 40% of the population have the autosomal genes required to smell them. 

A Simple, Delicious Asparagus Recipe That’s Ready In Five Minutes

This particular recipe for preparing asparagus is so simple, that you’ll be surprised at how good it tastes based on the little time it takes to prepare and the limited ingredient list. Asparagus is almost always best served with a very simple sauce, since you want the flavor of the asparagus to take center stage — not the sauce that it’s swimming in.

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Planet Fitness Gym Review | Gym & Health Club Reviews

The Planet Fitness Health Club Chain Promises a Less Intimidating Gym Experience, But Do They Deliver? And At What Cost?

Gym/Health Club: Planet Fitness
Location Reviewed: Northville, MI
Hours: Varies by location; many locations 24 hours

Ratings (1-4 Scale: 1= poor, 2= fair, 3= good, 4= excellent)

Cleanliness: 3
Weight Training Equipment: 2
Cardio Equipment: 3
Fitness Knowledge of Staff: 1
Amenities: 1
Overall Facility: 3
Price/Value: 3
Overall Rating: 2.2

Planet Fitness Review

First, let’s be honest: gyms and health clubs can be intimidating places, especially for a beginner.  If you are overweight, out of shape and trying to live a more active and healthy lifestyle, being surrounded by really in-shape people can either be an inspiration or incredibly demotivating.

And because everyone’s goals are different, most gyms will attractive a diverse group of people, from hardcore bodybuilders, to power lifters to soccer moms and teenagers. This of course varies tremendously from gym-to-gym, but in general, gyms are a microcosms of the rest of society. And like the rest of society, we have to live with each other and get along. Period.

Gyms can also be a magnet for all kinds of stupid and annoying behavior, from high school kids loitering around the bench press and flexing in the mirror, to middle-aged “bodybuilders” in striped clown pants grunting loudly with weights that don’t really warrant that level of exertion, to rude patrons who needlessly bang weights around or leave their equipment strewn across the floor behind them after each exercise like a Tsunami of sweat, testosterone and ripped Gold’s Gym shirts.

So when Planet Fitness says it wants to change that and make gyms a little less intimidating for average people, the fitness populist in me says “it’s about time.”

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