Nikola Govorko asked:


When speaking of metabolism most of people think about weight loss. Our Metabolism and weight is a kind of a stepping stone in defining our bodies. But theres one big difficulty with this, we often fail to remember that dieting doesnt mean denying yourself food.

Rather the opposite it means controlling food intake and paying attention to what you eat.

Most of the modern day weight loss diets are bad for overall body health. Most of them require complete absence of certain food groups (carbohydrates and fats) if you want them to work for you.

Likewise majority of these diets works only as long as you stick with their strict regimen, once you stop, you will very likely gain all the weight you lost and probably gain a few pounds extra.

The key to increased metabolism lies in actually eating more, not less. But you have to eat smart, drop the junk food and include much more vegetables and fruits in your diet.

The good news is that it is much easier to do then most people think. All you have to do is to substitute bad stuff for good and that is it. Example, instead of eating Mars bar eat an apple.

That is it, apply the same principle on every one of your meals and you will soon feel the benefits of it. Not only will you lose weight but your general health condition will gain a huge boost.

When you eat fruits and vegetables try to eat as many of them as you can raw. It doesnt mean that you have to eat every single vegetable and fruit raw, but if something needs to be cooked – cook it.

List of foods that increase metabolism:

Vegetables asparagus, aubergine, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots, Cauliflower, Celery, Chicory, Cress, Cucumbers, Fennel, Gourd, Leek, Lettuce, Marrow, Peppers, Radish, Spinach, Tomatos, Turnip

Fruits Apricots, Blackberrys, Blackcurrant, Clementines, Damsons, Grapefruit, Guava, Honeydew Melons, Melon Canteloupe, Oranges, Peaches, Plums, Raspberrys, Strawberrys, Tangerines

Try not to delude yourself by eating for example caned peaches, stuff like that is full of sugar, and it will only harm you.

When it comes to vegetables the best thing to do is to steam them.

This will preserve most of the minerals and vitamins. Avoid fried (any fried food) and processed food.

You do not need to avoid all the fats, for example you can substitute regular oil or whatever fat you use for cooking and use olive oil instead. This way your food will taste great and youll receive numerous olive oil benefits.

One other example, use non-stick pans instead of regular old ones and ad the olive oil at the end, when meal is all but done.

For your body to work properly you need to maintain balanced diet, do not deny your body essential nutrients. Try to eat at least 3 5 smaller meals per day, use food pyramid as guide for setting up your meals.

Eating 3-5 meals per day will significantly increase metabolism, eating just 1 or 2 large meals however slows it down. Your body thinks about meals in this way, if you eat seldom a food crisis is happening and a food must be accumulated and preserved and it is done by lowering your metabolism.

For most of us it is hard to eat right all the time but if you want to succeed in your weight loss effort you must try as hard as you can. By combining exercise with diet you will manage to increase your metabolism naturally.

Jim Brown asked:


A person might take the initiative to lead a healthier life by reducing the amount of fat in their daily diet. While supplementing health initiatives with healthy diet plans a person is also taking an active part in ensuring better health by taking vitamins and supplements to improve their quality of life. People that take nutritional supplements will often feel more energetic and able to cope better with the stressors that are presented in day-to-day situations they encounter.

Some people feel that they are supplementing health initiatives established by a physician by avoiding stress at all costs. This is especially true for people that suffer from respiratory, circulatory, or coronary disorders because stress seems to make these disorders worse over time and physicians prefer to ward off these occurrences whenever possible. People can take an active part in protecting their health by avoiding things that make them unhealthy and this includes some hobbies that people enjoy doing such as riding roller coasters after they reach a certain age.

Supplementing health initiatives released by the Food and Drug Administration might require people to use nicotine replacements in the form of patches or gum until they are weaned from the chemical effects of smoking cigars and cigarettes. Some people might need to implement further health initiatives by undergoing treatment at a detoxification center to deal with the psychological and physical effects of nicotine withdrawal. The result of these smoking cessation programs will be a healthier body and mind because the person will no longer have to worry about where they can smoke or if they have enough money to purchase another pack.

Parents will begin supplementing health initiatives established by parents when they have children of their own to take care of. Parents will learn to dress their children warmly and prohibit them from any activities that they know will bring them harm and some of these preventative measures will be for events that were not around when the parents were young. Parents will take children in for immunizations on a regular schedule just as their parents did for them. By supplementing health initiatives learned from trial and error, parents can establish good health initiatives that their children can refer back on when they have children to care for.

Many people rely on product information placed on food labels in a store to be accurate but some numbers and percentages might not look right at first glance. Before families begin supplementing health initiatives that will improve product quality or packaging, many families will write to the manufacturer for a thorough explanation of the numbers posted on the outside of certain food brands.

Many times people will sacrifice nutritional benefits for convenience of use. People who are focused on the quality of nutrition that children need to grow up healthy and strong will send concerns to product manufacturers to get more nutritious facts listed on product labels and decorative labels that will entice children to eat more products which are healthier for them. By supplementing health initiatives established by dieticians after many hours of research with a little concern, parents are making considerable progress toward establishing health guidelines for lunches served at school and those quick fix meals enjoyed by children after school.

Ruth Tan asked:


(c) 2008 Ruth Tan

How about taking a glass of sour milk and honey at the start of each day?

Bifidobacteria is a group of good, friendly bacteria which are essential for life and good health and particularly important to the health and proper function of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. One way to increase the Bifidobacteria populations in the intestine is by consuming foods containing prebiotics — nutrients that stimulate the growth of probiotic Acidophillus and Bifidus bacteria. Research conducted at Michigan State University has shown that honey, a natural sweetener comprising vitamins, enzymes, minerals, and antioxidants, contains a number of fermentable carbohydrates including a variety of oligosaccharides that can function as prebiotics enhance the growth, activity and viability of bifidobacteria in milk, and fermented dairy products such as yoghurts.

Honey is known as a compound made up of fructose sugar molecules linked together in long chains — fructooligosaccharide (FOS), which can also be in other plants such as Jerusalem artichoke tubers, onions, leeks, barley, rye, oats. FOS are also available as a nutritional supplement and the food industry is jumping on the band wagon by adding FOS such as honey to yoghurts, and combining milk and honey to form healthy food. Benefits of FOS are numerous. They help carry moisture through the digestive system and therefore promoting healthy bowel movements. Growth of the beneficial bacteria encourages the production of short chain fatty acids, lowering pH, inhibiting unhealthy bacteria land detoxifying carcinogens in the diet. FOS helps to lower blood sugar and cholesterol levels by reducing absorption of carbohydrates and fats into the blood stream, nourishes the cells in the gut which is important for digestive well-being and the prevention of constipation. Improving digestion is key to establishing good health. When in good health, we get rid of wastes and toxins through regular bowel movements and eliminate the build up of unhealthy micro-organisms and internal toxins, providing a strong and intact intestinal barrier to prevent the leaking of undigested food fragments into the blood stream. As more research becomes available and we learn more about bacteria and how they affect our health, the more important both probiotic and prebiotic products will become and the more of these home remedies such as milk and honey you will see on the supermarket shelves.

Honey also has a major role to play as a carrier of foods containing relatively high levels of vitamins and minerals, and has been shown to help the body absorb minerals such as calcium. Elderly people have higher risk for fractures from osteoporosis or low bone mass. One of the ways to avoid this is to consume adequate calcium, and make sure that it is absorbed. And researchers at Purdue University has shown in its preliminary findings that honey added to milk could enhance calcium uptake.

Many facial cleansing and skin moisturising products have also included milk and honey as part of their ingredients to claim beauty benefits such skin hydration, smoothness, purification, anti-aging, and revitalization. A warm glass of milk with a teaspoon of honey is also known to be a good remedy for sleeplessness.