Health N Fitness

A Very Simple Program Anybody Can Follow To Gain MASS

Until I started following a routine to eat, my gains were minimal. Once I set my eating times to a specific time during the day along with a protein boost, I could see the gains immediately. This sample program is a quick way to get your protein WAY up and generally increase your food intake. But it doesn't require the traditional sit down 6+ a day to eat 30 chicken breasts and spend all day cooking. I've got a full-time job at a corporate office. Cooking isn't an option. Nor is eating 6+ times a day involving meals with Tupperware and the likes. I need food and I need it fast. Try this program on for size and notice the size you just might see.

Meal 1 - 7:00am 1 packet of a meal replacement with 16 ounces of skim milk 1 serving of whole grain cereal 1 cup of non/low-fat yogurt 1 piece of fruit

Meal 2 - 9:00am 1 serving of whey protein mixed in 10 ounces of water 1 large apple

Meal 3 -12:00pm 2 grilled chicken breasts 1 serving of brown rice 1 cup of low-fat yogurt 1 serving of whey protein

Meal 4 - 3:00pm 1 packet of a meal replacement with 16 ounces of water and 5-10 grams of L-Glutamine 1 large banana

Pre-Workout 1 workout bar of your choice (preferably some carbs and 20+ grams of protein)

Meal 5 - 6:00pm (Post-workout) 1 serving of whey protein combined with a 5gram serving of Creatine mixed in kool-aid. (This is an important meal and is designed for an insulin spike at just the right time to increase creatine and amino acid uptake by the muscle cells).

Meal 6 -7:00pm 8 to 10 ounces of a lean round or flank steak 1 serving of rice 1 medium baked potato 1 large green salad

Meal 7 - 10:00pm 1 packet of a meal replacement with 16 ounces of skim milk 1 large banana 3 to 5 grams of L-Glutamine

And that's about it. Simple? You will be significantly increasing the protein uptake. Which means you should be increasing that water consumption as well. I'm not a fan of waking up at 1:00am to get more protein and therefore, I did not include anything beyond 10:00pm. I've noticed some significant gains from this program. My workouts were hardcore but my nutrition was lacking. By putting my eating times to a set schedule, I felt better during the day and was even more ready to tackle that workout later in the day. Good luck

Carrot for Acne
Eating a healthy diet is considered the first step towards health and a healthy lifestyle. Eating fruits and vegetables is important part of a healthy diet, they provide the body with essential nutritions. Carrot is a great source for nutritions and it is rich in Vitamins A and C as well as sodium, Calcium and fiber. It is considered to be great for skin health and acne treatment. This is because acne can be caused because of deficiency of calcium while other nutritions in carrot like vitamin A, C sodium and fiber are also good for the skin care.
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How to Use carrot:Carrot can be used in the following ways.
Raw
Salads
Juice
Raw:Eating carrot raw in the day could be a great addition for the diet. It is the best way to get the nutritions in their organic form without meddling with nature. You will feel a lot better after eating it for a week or so. You will start noticing better skin conditions but you would have to consume significant portions of it to be effective.
Salads:People who have problems eating carrots raw can add them in a salad and eat them in combination with other fruits and vegetables and salad toppings of your choice. Eating this as lunch will not only help you stay in shape but also will help your skin become more vibrant and free of acne.
Juice:Drinking a glass of carrot juice in the morning can be great for acne. It will provide all the necessary fighting agents against acne that will keep resisting your acne for the rest of the day.
Adding carrot to your diet will do wonders to your skin condition and acne but expecting instant success would not be wise. You should see it as something that aids the treatment rather then a treatment for the skin condition.

The simple steps you can take to keep your skin in shape

Our body's first defence, skin is under attack every day. So what can we do to help our largest organ stay in shape?
1. Sleeping beauty: We all know the signs of sleep deprived skin; A dull sallow complexion complete with fine lines and dark circles. A good night's sleep really is the biggest beauty boost your skin can get, allowing it to rest and repair itself.
2. Cleanse the day away: Resist the temptation to roll into bed without removing the day's make-up. Not only will you be left with a grubby pillow but during the night a build up of oils, make-up and pollution will sink into the skin, leaving it bumpy, dell and grey. Not what you want to wake up to.
3. Exfoliate: Skin is constantly renewing itself, shedding old cells to be replaced by sparkling new ones. Sometimes though, dead skin cells cam become stuck to the skin's surface (especially with oily skins) leaving the complexion dull and lifeless. A regular exfoliation will help to slough away the dead layer to leave you looking fresh and radiant.
4. Cover up: An SPF is the best anti-ageing product you can apply. And we're not talking about when you're on the beach here. UV rays penetrate and damage skin all year round – even on a cloudy winter's day damaging free-radicals are being created by these ageing rays. Many products now contain an SPF15 (the minimum you should be wearing), making it easier to cover up when you go outside. Check your foundation and moisturiser and if neither contains an SPF make sure you apply it on top.
5. Stub out that cigarette: Smoking ages skin. Fast. Stub it out and your skin will loose its dullness and will stay line-free for longer.
6. A firm foundation:Some people still think that foundation is bad for the skin. It isn't. Foundation provides a physical barrier on the skin, giving added protection against the elements. And if you're lucky enough not to need a foundation then make sure you apply a good moisturiser every morning to help your skin stays healthy.
7. Stop squeezing: It's so tempting, but try and resist. Squeezing spots can cause deep down damage, impacting on vital collagen production, as well as leaving unsightly acne scars and blackheads.

Also Check out

• Facial Skin Care and Acne Solution
  
• Acne Solution and Blackhead Treatment
• Using Carrot for Acne Treatment

Growing long, beautiful and healthy hair is not an extremely difficult process. It does not require the upscale hair products hawked by salons, handfuls of expensive vitamins, or any sort of sacrifice to the long hair gods. What it does take is common sense, dedication, and a lot of patience. Indeed, growing long hair is more a question of what you shouldn't do rather than what you should.
If you make the commitment to closely follow the twenty steps below, not only will you grow long hair but your hair will be in beautiful condition throughout the process. This guide was written specifically for the person who wants to grow extremely long hair - waist, hip, knee-length or even longer, but it will benefit anyone who is seeking longer locks. Keeping hair in excellent condition at extreme lengths takes more caution and conscious effort than may be necessary if you intend to keep your hair shorter... at mid-back length, for example. If your goal is to encourage healthy hair growth but not to the extreme, then certain modifications may be made to a few of the steps below and still maintain successful results. If you use common sense and don't allow damage to occur, you know you're doing the right thing. It is also important to know that just about everyone has a "terminal length" which is the longest your hair will grow based on the active growth period of your hair follicles (the growth cycle of individual hair follicles turns on and off as determined by your genetics). Nothing here can help you alter your genetically predetermined terminal length.
Hair loss, extreme dryness or any sudden change in your hair's condition may be due to a medical condition. If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, it is imperative that you seek advice from a qualified medical practitioner rather than from this guide.
First Step !!
1. The first step to growing long, beautiful hair is by far the most important. It is absolutely non negotiable for anyone who wants healthy hair at any length, but it is also by far the hardest step you will have to follow. In order to have long healthy hair you absolutely have to start with healthy hair. You must cut off every inch that is damaged. If you are going for extreme length, from that point on you will have to treat your hair like delicate, antique lace at all times. Remember, once your hair is at your waist the ends can be as many as six years old. Your hair will go through a lot of trauma in six years no matter how careful you are with it. You *must* start out with healthy hair to have healthy hair when it's long, there's no way around it.
Sec0nd Step !!
2. Trim your hair often. Damage to your hair will move up from the ends and the only way to stop the damage in its tracks is to remove it as soon as it happens. Trim hair a half inch every month or so (the average rate of hair growth) if you are maintaining your length. If you are actively growing your hair, trim it a half inch every three or four months. In between trims it is beneficial to sit in bright light and snip any splits off the ends of individual hairs with a good pair of hair cutting scissors that you explain to the men in your house are absolutely not to be used for anything else, especially prying off bottle caps when they can't find the bottle opener, which is of course in the drawer where it belongs if they'd just look. I digress. If you are persistent with this method, regular trims may be able to be postponed even longer. If your hair begins to show damage, it is important to trim it more often! Damaged hair doesn't grow, it breaks, and damage will only increase with time.
ThirD Step...
3. If you don't have someone you trust implicitly to trim your hair for you, find a salon that caters to long hair or at least has a long hair specialist. Remember, it is not in the best interest of most salons or stylists if you rarely make visits to their salon! If your hair is short and styled, you are always there spending money for maintenance. If your stylist tries to convince you that your long, healthy hair should be cut, run screaming from the salon immediately! Make sure that anyone whose advice you consider, be it a stylist, friend or family member, has only the best interest of YOUR acknowledged hair growth goals in mind. Otherwise smile politely and ignore every word they say. You absolutely are not too old, too thin, too short, too gray, too anything to have long hair.
4th Step..
4. Avoid using any heated appliances whenever possible. No blow drying, no curling irons, no hot rollers, and especially no flat irons or crimpers! If you absolutely must blow dry, do so minimally. If you must use hot rollers, use flocked or soft rollers, not spiked plastic rollers. If you insist on using curling irons, flat irons or crimpers on a daily basis, really long healthy hair isn't in your future

Best Of Luck ;-)

How Many Calories Do I Need Per Day?

How Do I Calculate Caloric Needs Based On My Goal (gain/loss/maintain)? Listen, figuring out how many calories a day you need to lose weight, maintain your weight or gain weight really isn’t too hard. And with the formula I’m about to give you plus a very cool website, you can easily track where you are and what you need to do daily to reach your goals. So lets’ begin!

IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE, THEN LOSING, MAINTAINING OR GAINING WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE!
Step 1:
Take your current body weight in pounds (lbs) and multiply by 11. Example: 194 lbs x 11 = 2134 calories This is what I need to just keep what I have, without moving. But remember, you do move. So you have to then calculate your metabolic factors into this… so off to step 2…
Step 2:
Figure out your metabolic factor according to the table below.
But first, some definitions to help you determine where you might fit in:
Slow Metabolism: You basically look at food and you seem to put on pounds. You can gain weight by eating salads but it’s difficult to lose the weight.
Moderator Metabolism: You can gain weight if you try. You can lose weight if you try. You really don’t have trouble losing weight depending on what you want to do.
Fast Metabolism: You are the skinny guy or gal who can eat *ANYTHING* and it makes no difference. Gaining weight is difficult. Losing weight can happen overnight. Just by watching T.V. you seem to shed pounds.
Metabolic %
Under 30 years old
Slow Metabolism- 30%
Moderate Metabolism- 40%
Fast Metabolism- 50%
30-40 years old
Slow Metabolism- 25%
Moderate Metabolism- 35%
Fast Metabolism- 45%
Over 40 years old
Slow Metabolism- 20%
Moderate Metabolism- 30%
Fast Metabolism- 40%
Example: 2134 calories x 35% = 746.90
I took my calories needed above just to sit here and not move and multipled it by my metabolic factor and I find that I need an additional 746.90 calories because of my specific metabolism.
Step 3:
Put it together.
2134 + 746.90 = 2880.90 calories
I need 2,880.90 calories to maintain my current weight with my current activities.
Note: You can also adjust your metabolic factor if you do something that might take you to the next level. If you are a moderator metabolism person but you do distance running, it might make more sense to put your self in the fast category since you burn a lot more calories.
Step 4:
Now change the above with about 500 calories every day to reach your goals!
Lose Weight: I would take 2880.90 – 500 = 2380.90
Maintain Weight: I would just leave it at 2880.90 and continue what I was doing in my activities
Gain Weight: I would take 2880.90 + 500 = 3380.90
Note: 500 calories a day is just a general term everybody uses to say that adding this amount is within safe limits. Eat too much, and you end up storing fat. Cut too many calories and your body just goes into starvation mode and ends up retaining more fat. 500 is a safe, recommended guideline.
Step 5:
You must track what you are eating so you’ll know if you’ve made your goal for the day. And tracking food does not have to be complicated with weights and scales. It's a shame that so many people just start training and never figure out what they need to eat daily to reach their goals.
You can keep doing the math over and over as you reach a goal. If you are bulking, your requirements will change as you progress. And when you lose weight they will as well. You might want to lose weight, reach a target weight and then maintain. So you will do this formula again when you have hit the weight you want.

We all feel hungry and the desire for food is there. The quantity consumed depends upon our appetite. There are times when we are very hungry and sometimes we do not feel like having anything.

One must have a good appetite. It is sign of good health. One must eat well in order to carry out the daily chores. But how does one ensure a good appetite?

Home Remedies for Good Appetite
Individuals with poor appetite or appetite loss may eat less than usual, not feel hungry at all, or feel full (satiated) after eating only a small amount. There are home remedies to improve or appetite:

Horse radish, garlic, safflower, hops, goldenseal, oatstraw, barberry, parsley, and ginseng will help increase appetite. A thiamine supplement along with zinc, vitamin A, niacin, B-complex, and biotin to increase appetite. Peppermint tea to increase appetite. Take some fresh ginger, chop a little into small pieces, add some lime juice and a pinch of rock salt, and chew it up. It stimulates the appetite. Kernels of fully-grown mango seeds are to be dried. Add a few curry leaves and a few pepper corns to the kernels (1-2 seeds) and grind them to a fine paste using water. Mix the paste in buttermilk. Add a pinch of salt to taste. This is then added to rice and taken. Tender mango leaves can be used in place of mango kernels. This brings about good appetite and helps sensitize the taste buds. Bitter greens consist of arugula, radicchio, collards, kale, endives, escarole, mizuna, sorrel, dandelions, watercress, and red/green mustard, which help, in increasing appetite by improving digestion. Fennel, like its cousin caraway (both belong to the Umbelliferae family of herbs), is a familiar digestive aid, both for relieving stomach upset and for boosting the appetite. Hot pepper increases metabolism and the appetite. Ayurveda Remedies for Increasing Appetite.

Extract a cup of pomegranate seed juice. Add a pinch of rock salt and a spoonful of honey. Sip it slowly and it removes the bad taste from the mouth and increases your appetite. Take equal parts of mustard seeds, asafetida, ginger, cumin seeds and black salt and grind the mixture to a fine powder. Add this mixture to a glass of buttermilk and drink it an hour before meals for increasing the appetite. One part each of cloves, nutmeg and long pepper, 3 parts of Indian gooseberry and 8 parts of ginger. Grind the mixture to obtain a fine powder. Add sufficient sugar to make it tasty enough to eat. Consume a spoonful of this mixture twice or thrice a day helps in improving lost appetite. Mix in equal parts cinnamon bark, small cardamom, coriander seeds and fennel seeds. Soak the mixture in cold water overnight. Strain this blend with a tea strainer. Drink this early in the morning for better appetite. Soak about 10 grams of tamarind in a cup of warm water for 30 minutes. Squeeze the mass to obtain tamarind juice. Add a pinch of table salt to suit your taste. Add about 2 grams of powdered ajowan seeds. If taken before meals, this juice improves appetite. Basil tea helps in increasing appetite. Improve your appetite the natural way and enjoy your meals. A good appetite promotes general well-being.

Learn the secrets to performing the perfect bench press, and send your muscle and strength development into the stratosphere.

Why is it that so many people are not aware of the correct way to perform one of the most popular exercises in the gym? If you don’t do the Flat Barbell Bench Press properly, you will be missing out on the amazing results possible with this exercise. What I’m going to describe below will help to ensure that you do the exercise in the most efficient and productive way to gain amazing results. You will not need any extra equipment and, if you find it helps to see pictures of exercises, there’s a link at the end of this article to pictures of the exercise being performed.
The perfect bench press rep starts without any weight on the bar! Because the first thing you need to do is get your hand spacing on the bar right. Lie down on the bench, unracking the bar as usual. As you lower the bar to your chest, have a partner note the orientation of your forearms, which should be as close to vertical as you can manage at the bottom of the rep. With your partner’s assistance, adjust your grip and remember their location by noting the position of your hands in relation to the smooth rings on the Olympic bar.
The reason for this adjustment is simple, the wider your hands are placed, the more of your push will be extended outwards, rather than upwards. By the same token, if your hands are too close together, the more energy will be extended inwards. You want your push to be directed as vertically as possible.
Now you can put some weight on the bar!
Lay back on the bench, with your feet planted firmly on the floor, knees at about an 80 degree angle. Do not place your feet on the bench, that will simply serve to destabilize you, which means that you will spend more power keeping yourself stable on the bench than pushing the bar upwards.

Now, remembering that perfect hand position, put your hands on the bar.
For maximum strength and stability, instead of placing your palms on the bottom of the bar, place them on the back of the bar (don’t worry, there’s a picture on the link for this). Then, without changing your grip, rotate the bar so that your palms are directly underneath it. You will feel as if you are locking your shoulders and the effect is to place your shoulders in their most strong and stable position.
As you perform the rotation I’ve just described, lift your torso slightly off the bench, forcing your shoulder blades together tightly.
The effect will be to push your shoulders backwards and puff out your chest, which will place your pecs in a position that gives them a more effective line of pull. It will also make your torso thicker, effectively reducing the distance you need to press the weight.
Remove the bar from the racks and tighten up the muscles of your torso.
Begin lowering the bar to a position where it is about even with the bottom of your breastbone – keeping the bar under complete control throughout. Think of your muscles as springs that are storing up the energy of that weight you are lowering, getting ready to recoil and explode the energy back out as you press the bar upwards. As you lower the bar, you should be inhaling.
Touch the weight lightly to your chest, but do not bounce it back up – this can cause injury to your ribs and/or breastbone.
Start to change the direction of the bar, beginning to press it up, driving with your legs. This technique is not often practiced, but the additional leg power really can help you to bench press more weight.
You should practice this technique with an empty bar before going on to perform it with weights. Remember the 80 degree leg position? Well, this technique is the reason for that. So, with an empty bar, lie on the bench and plant your feet firmly on the floor, knees at about 80 degrees. Lower the empty bar to your chest and, the minute you start to push the bar back up, push hard with your legs, as if you are trying to slide yourself up the bench. In fact, with the bar empty, you probably will have to slide yourself up the bench but, with weights in situ, your torso will be firmly fixed. This will have the effect of transferring your leg power through your body and into pushing the bar upwards. It’s known as driving with your legs.
As you are raising the bar, you should be exhaling forcefully through your pursed lips, which will help to keep you stable on the bench.

Even if you struggle with pressing the weight keep your feet on the floor. If you lift them, you will break your base of power.
As you raise the bar, it should follow a slight backwards arc – moving from your lower rib cage and ending up over your face at the end of the rep.
Instead of allowing the bar to slow its movement through your known sticking points, try to drive the bar through that point without hesitating.
Power the weight through to lockout. There – the perfect rep. Now repeat it!
If you know that you have a tendency to move your feet around during bench presses, try placing 2.5lb weights on them. The aim of this is to make you aware of the movement of your feet and, if a plate falls off, you will know that you have moved your feet.