Theathens Directory

Weight Watchers (also known as WW through out this article), the famous diet and weight loss program that promotes a point system for meals in food in order to help dieters keep track of their food intake, recently decided to revamp their point system. This new point system is called Weight Watchers Points Plus. Although the old point system, typically called simply Points, is still available in older books and recipes, the new system is now what the official Weight Watchers program uses. This new program is both online, in books, recipe pamphlets, and other WW material. Although the system of counting points remained unchanged, the revamped program introduced several new key features that require a little getting used to. I decided to try the new point system and see how it compared to the original program’s system.

The biggest difference is how the points of each meal or food are tallied. Originally, it was mainly the caloric content of a meal or food that determined how many points the meal or food was. With the Weight Watchers Points Plus program, the formula is now determined by how nutritional the food is. For example, under the old system, a meal could be low in calorie but high in sugar, fat, or nutritionally empty preservatives and still only count as a few points. Under the new system, protein content, fat content, carbohydrate content, and fiber content are all important along with the total number of calories in determining the total number of points in a food or meal. I find that this new formula is superior to the old formula because it puts the focus on the overall nutritional value of the food, and not simply the number of calories. The program also explains that calories from nutritionally superior food are often processed better by your body, making them less likely to remain around and become fat stores.

Another new feature is the completely new point ranges. The point ranges have been raised overall. This is mainly because the WW Points Plus program assigns higher number of points to foods and meals, now that the focus is less on calories and more on the overall nutritional soundness of a meal. I also believe this is part of a mental confidence booster. To me, it feels better to have 30 points (new system) instead of 18 (old system) even if technically I am going to be eating the same meals and foods to reach both totals.

One change that might frustrate WW followers is the removal of the daily target range calculations from their books. For someone to find their daily point range now, they must attend a WW meeting, purchase access to their online program, or purchase a Weight Watchers calculator. Personally, I find the last option the best. Purchasing the calculator is a onetime buy, and it will help you in the WW program in more ways than one.

Overall, the new Weight Watchers Points Plus system is an improvement!

By: Dee Cypress

About the Author:

Create a video blog…instantly.

Fall is upon us and it’s the time of year many of us tend to start falling off the health-kick, dieting bandwagon we hopped on in the beginning of summer. The fall and winter months are packed full with temptations such as large Thanksgiving dinners, holiday parties and simply the heartier foods (potatoes, warm breads, hot chocolates, etc.). However, it doesn’t have to and shouldn’t be this way. There are many aspects of fall that we can use to either continue weight loss or maintain a healthy weight. Not to mention many food and weight loss programs such as Nutrisystem offer special deals to enroll in their plan during this time of year. Fall can be a perfect time to continue or even begin a weight loss regimen that will help you get through the next few months and come out on the other side actually slimmer instead of plumper for once. Here are a few great tips to help smartly manage your weight through fall and winter, and still be able to enjoy this wonderful time of year:

1. Soups are a perfect fall food, but stay away from cream based versions which are loaded with tons of fat. Hearty vegetable and beef or chicken stews are just as comforting and satisfying on a chilly day, and you will save as much as twice the calories.

2. Eat Pumpkin! Pumpkin is a perfect fall food, loaded with lots of fiber and nutrients without many calories. Interestingly the crust on a single slice of pumpkin pie can have as many as 300 calories! But you can make a crust-less pumpkin pie that tastes just as great and has next to zero fat. You can have your pie and eat it too!

3. Don’t forget breakfast. Making sure you have a nutritious meal before you leave the house will help you avoid sugary or fattening temptations later on in the day. Even just an apple and a yogurt or a piece of cheese will get your day off on the right foot.

4. Take advantage of the weather cooling off and get outside before it gets too cold! Go for a run or even just a walk around the block for 20 minutes will help burn extra calories.

5. Know that it’s OK to indulge every now and then. Have a small slice of that pecan pie; just be sure to watch the portion. If you deny yourself too much you will just end up giving up altogether or binging later on.

6. Don’t forget to drink water. This is very important because while it is easy to remember to drink water when it’s hot out, when the weather cools off we have a tendency to drink less. Staying hydrated is crucial to controlling appetite. A great option is to drink hot tea, this way you can have a warm drink while keeping hydrated.

7. Make a plan and have a goal in mind but focus on progress, not perfection. Especially when going out to parties or even just planning what you will eat for the week. Having a plan prepares you to make the right decisions.

8. If you are the type of person who needs a little direction or help to get you through, then take advantage of the fall and winter specials being offered by meal programs like Nutrisystem, it could be just what you need to get you through the holiday months while still being able to enjoy great tasting foods.

By: Lorianna Moreno

About the Author:

Kansieo.com

I am going to tell you what I feel is the best exercise ever for getting that beach body of your dreams. I’m really excited about it because you can burn up to 20 calories a minute and lose as much as 1% of body fat a week!

You will be doing high intensity interval training using a kettlebell. A kettlebell looks like a cannonball with a handle on it and is ideal for swinging. Because of this there is an added cardiovascular element that is usually missing from weight lifting. You will be using this KB to do high intensity interval training which is simply moving from one exercise to another as quickly as possible with as little rest in between.

This is a killer workout. It takes me somewhere between 10 – 15 minutes to get through two cycles and I’m exhausted and sweating profusely. If you really want to have some fun get a 50 pound bag of sand and put it in a backpack and wear that when you are working out, you’ll have a beach body in no time.

Day 1: Chin ups, dips, pushups, renegade rows, cross over clean and press, bottoms up military press
Day 2: halos, figure 8, 1 handed swings, step ups, extended dead lifts (standing on a platform)
Day3: chin ups, dips, pushups, renegade rows, 1 armed clean and press, 1 legged bent over rows, high pulls
Day 4: halos, figure 8, 1 handed swings, step ups, single legged extended dead lifts (standing on a platform)
Day 5: pull ups, dips, pushups, renegade rows, clean and press, 1 legged bent over rows, military press

By: Jim Conway

About the Author:

Website content

Do you want to know what the best all-around upper-body exercise is? Of course you do! You must be thinking it is something really complex, something you have never heard of and need to spend money to do. Well you’re wrong! This exercise is possibly the simplest most effective exercise out in the fitness world. It requires no weights! That’s right, none. All you need is yourself. That is it!

So enough of introduction, the exercise I refer to is one which most of you are probably familiar. I am referring to the pushup. The pushup and the pullup are tough contenders for the best upper body exercise. But it’s time to spice up the traditional pushup and give you some variations that are even more effective.

A lot of people seem to think that it is not worth doing pushups in lieu of bench pressing. I mean lifting hundreds of pounds off your chest is definitely more effective (and manly) right?

Well, this outlook is flawed. The pushup will always provide solid results. The pushup is unique from the bench press because it is a closed-chain exercise, meaning that during the exercise, your hands and feet remain in constant contact with a certain surface (the floor).

Because of this, the pushup forces you to significantly utilize your chest muscles. This is opposed to a bench press or fly, which is an open-chain exercise, where your hands and feet are free to move. In an open-chain exercise, your body will be in a position where the chance of utilizing other muscles, such as the shoulders, arms etc… be much higher. Thus, the amount of energy being put forth by your chest will be decreased.

Many people dismiss the pushup as being too easy, or unmanly. Yet how many of these big time benchers, the guys who can bench three hundred, could actually do a significant amount of pushups, one hundred for example? Even fifty? I would venture to say only a few.

The beauty of the pushup is that it can be done anywhere, anytime and it costs no money, something a lot of people are probably looking for. Additionally, the pushup is great because there are so many variations and ways to mix it up and make it a little more difficult and interesting.

There are four different variations of pushups, besides for the standard pushup, which I would like to focus on.

- The first is the close grip pushup. This pushup will focus more on the triceps and shoulders but also put some stress on the chest muscles.

- The second is the plyometric pushup. This is the clap pushup. You’re doing a standard pushup except when you push yourself up, you are going to do it with enough force (explosively) that your body will raise and you will be able to quickly clap your hands. This is obviously advanced, but also extremely effective, as it will develop tremendous power.

- The third type is the Incline pushup. You are going to put your hand on a high surface and do a pushup. It is an easier form of pushup and effective, especially if you are new to strength training, and cannot currently do standard pushups

- Lastly there is the decline pushup. This pushup increases the load on your chest. Therefore it is a more difficult form of the pushup. To do it, you must place your feet on a raised surface and your hands on the floor and do a pushup. This style of pushup works your upper chest very effectively.

As you can see there are plenty of ways to build impressive strength and size in the chest muscles, as much, if not more than the bench press. The pushup is called a classic exercise for a reason. It can yield tremendous results for impressive upper body development. I like to utilize all these different exercises in a workout I designed. I take each exercise and do ten reps of each in circuit fashion. If you want an intense full body workout, alternate the variations of pushups with bodyweight squats and lunges to really ramp up your fat burning and full body development.

By: Avi Bagley

About the Author:

Kansieo.com

Breast cancer is a bad, sometimes frightening diagnosis at any time but a triple negative breast cancer diagnosis is particularly disturbing. Generally speaking, this cancer is defined in terms of a receptor which reveals specific genes. The three receptors are estrogen, progesterone and Her2.

The type of receptor determines the type of medicine prescribed for the patient to best attack the cancer. But if the diagnosis comes up negative for all three receptors, the medical response is more difficult. How can you attack a particular receptor if it doesn’t exist? Receptors help the cancerous cells to multiply and in order to best tackle them, a specific medicine is required.

But it is not all bad news because there are other drugs which can still be found to work. Finding the correct drug is the tricky task but once found, it can have a success rate which compares favorably with those using standard responses. Chemotherapy has been found to work successfully with triple negative breast cancer patients and the best medicine has thus far proved to be a combination of drugs. Because triple negative breast cancer is a relatively new discovery by doctors, a particular drug has yet to be announced. One line of treatment is to use drugs in chemotherapy which are not usually used for treatment in the early stages of breast cancer therapy.

Triple negative cancer does have certain characteristics. It is an aggressive cancer, it is found more in younger than older women, it is more likely to develop into metastatic breast cancer and is more likely to be found in women of African and Hispanic descent. This is interesting because, generally speaking, African American women have fewer incidents of cancer of any type than do white American women. Clinical trials are currently being carried out using patients with triple negative cancer. The future for better results is always hopeful. It needs to be understood that trials are not held over a few weeks or even months but rather years. One current trial is being run over a period of six years.

Recent studies indicate that of all breast cancers discovered, about 15% will be triple negative breast cancers. Taken as a whole, triple negative breast cancers have a high rate of secondary cancers or metastatic cancer and in many cases the additional tumor is found in the brain.

There are several unpleasant aspects to the triple negative cancer scenario – its high rate of recurrence, resistance to standard medicines in chemo, its aggressive nature and potential to become metastatic cancer. But there is a concerted effort by cancer specialists around the world to discover much more about this special type of breast cancer. Clinical trials are on-going, results are being shared and progress is being made. Women who have been diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer are urged to join a support group particularly those online because it enables you to learn much from many. Hearing from those who have gone through what you are now experiencing can be stimulating and a real boost to your spirits.

By: Rita Goldman

About the Author:

Website content

Recently, we have become aware of the importance of Omega 3′s fish oil dietary supplement. They are prevalent usually in oily fish such as tuna, mackerel and sardines, but what if you didn’t want to eat large amounts of these types of fish or in a worse case scenario didn’t even like them?

What is also unfortunate is that if we do decide to increase our fish intake we will receive more of these but will also be receiving the toxins found in large doses of fish as well. Not to worry, using a fish oil dietary supplement is your answer to reaping all the wonderful benefits of this supplement without having to eat large doses of fish.

To understand why our body needs a fish oil dietary supplement each day one must truly understand the importance of Omega 3′s. Plain and simple without this supplement we could not survive. It also allows our brain to function more effectively each day. It has been reported to prevent heart disease, suppress some autoimmune disorders and improve memory as well. This is so important for our daily existence that the government has discussed increasing it in the diets of schoolchildren. Sadly, we can only get the Omega 3′s that our body greatly needs through our diet. This is the main reason why people are so sorely lacking in this necessary nutrient. In a perfect world, healthy individuals should focus on getting their Omega 3′s through their dietary intake. But with the realization that everyone lives a busy and hectic lifestyle, a fish oil dietary supplement may be the answer to better health.

The way a fish oil dietary supplement works in the body is that it contains two different Omega 3 fatty acids. Interesting enough, it works a lot like aspirin. Aspirin makes blood platelets less likely to adhere to each other which are exactly what this supplement does as well. This prevents blood vessels becoming inflamed and then reducing the chance for coronary heart disease and so many other serious afflictions. You will be receiving all these wonderful benefits by just taking a supplement each day.

Now that the science behind the importance of Omega 3′s is understood and why our body needs them and how we benefit from them is understood as well, there are a few other points that must be noted about how easy taking this supplement each day really is. Fish oil dietary supplements are extremely inexpensive and they are also found anywhere vitamins are sold. They also have very little possible side effects and the small side effects that they may cause are nothing compared to the benefits that they reap.

We are living in a world where we crave and strive for better health. More people are exercising, watching their diets, losing weight all for longevity of life; fortunately it is helping many people out there. But there are other things that we can do as well, supplements being one of those things. They have been helping people for ages get the nutrients they need easily. Utilizing supplements such as fish oil with a healthier lifestyle would be the best thing we can do for our bodies to almost guarantee a long and healthy existence.

However it is important to find the right source of this Omega 3 dietary supplement to ensure you are taking the purest form. It must be pure, of high anti-inflammatory properties, and provides you with the most optimum health benefits.

By: Ingrid Gillette

About the Author:

Create a video blog