Fun Facts

Carbohydrates have gotten a bad reputation the past few years. To hear Dr. Atkins speak, you would think we should all eat nothing but meat, and eschew carbs entirely forever. Unfortunately, this is taking things a bit too far. Going all out on any kind of diet leads to bad things, and moderation is needed no matter what you do. So while it’s great to go with low carbs, you do need carbs. The following are some reasons why.

Keeping Your Muscles Healthy

Your muscle mass is nothing more than a collection of proteins that your body uses for two things: moving around and as an emergency source of energy. If you do not eat carbs, your body will assume that you are starving. Since muscles use calories, it makes sense to make them smaller if you aren’t getting enough already. So you need carbs to make sure your muscles aren’t cannibalized by your body.

Carbs Provide Energy

Without sugars, your cells will die. Your body turns carbs into sugars, which allows you to do all the things you want and need to do. If you don’t get carbs, you won’t be able to do anything for very long and you’ll soon begin to feel as sluggish as slow moving niobrara oil – not a good way to live.

Carbs Support Proper Bowel Movement

A lot of people never think about this, but fiber is a type of carbohydrate. Since your body can’t break down fiber, it simply moves through your system. Like a broom, it sweeps out things that aren’t good for you, and this is extremely healthy. So you need to eat carbs, if only to get your fiber.

Breaking Down Fats and Proteins

Fats and proteins are difficult to break down, so your body has to work harder for this process. Without carbs, your body will not have enough energy to power the process of breaking down proteins and fats.

So your body won’t be able to access the massive amounts of energy you’ll have taken in, and all the food you’ve eaten will go to waste while you starve. The process won’t be quick, but it will eventually happen.

Carbs are a vital part of staying alive and doing everything else you need to do, including digesting and drawing nutrients from the fats and proteins you eat. Without carbs, you will starve, and your body will not function well at all. So ignore the people who say carbs are evil, and simply eat smaller amounts of carbs instead of forsaking them altogether.

Fun Facts

You probably already know that quitting smoking is definitely a good idea from a health perspective. In order to give you some more angles on this topic however, here are 7 fun and interesting facts about quitting that you may find intriguing or even surprising. These facts are all well supported by studies and experimental evidence.

Focusing

It has been shown that simply focusing on quitting smoking increases your chances of successfully quitting. The more you focus on this outcome, and the more intense that focus is, the higher the odds of your dropping the habit will be. This stands to reason in many ways, but it’s nice to know that there is experimental evidence to back this up.

Avoiding Cues to Smoke

Avoiding the typical cues to smoke – others lighting up, having a smoke in the car as you turn in the radio, and a routine in which you tend to have cigarettes at certain times – increases the odds of your quitting. You can try things like changing around your usual routine, leaving the room when someone else lights a smoke, and so on to avoid having familiar things cue you on to smoke.

Strategies

The more strategies you employ to help you quit smoking the greater your likelihood of quitting. You can consult a bunch of different sources that offer quit smoking advice and select several strategies to employ. You might, for instance, use an E cigarette, employ some focusing and affirmation techniques, and avoid some smoking cues. These techniques all in conjunction with each other would make it more likely that you would quit than trying each of the techniques on their own (though that, of course, could work as well).

Exercise

Exercise has been shown to go hand in hand with successful attempts to quit smoking. So you might add a regular workout each morning or every other morning to the set of strategies you are employing (as mentioned above). This will tend to encourage other goals and values than just getting to the next cigarette.

Quitting Makes you Sexy

There is a lot of evidence to support the fact that quitting smoking makes you more attractive to the opposite sex. These are only statistical averages based on people that are surveyed and so forth, and some may find smoking attractive, but the weight of the evidence points to the fact that the majority of people find a non smokers to be the sexy.

Heart Disease Risk Reduction

Risk of heart disease beyond the ordinary non smoker averages has been shown to reduce by a half after you have quit smoking for just one year. It continues to decrease as more time passes. There are still other considerations such as diet and the amount of exercise you get that play into the overall heart disease risk, but quitting smoking puts you at a great advantage here.

Expectant Mothers

Expectant mothers can reduce their risk of their baby’s experiencing perception, motor control, and attention problems by quitting smoking. This is a sure motivator as regards quitting to anyone who cares about the health and well being of a newborn.

Fun Facts

Losing weight can be a difficult task for everybody, no matter what your body type or size. However, doctors are beginning to find the people who follow a no carb dieting program are having more success than others. This kind of diet involves eating foods with a low glycemic index, or GI. These types of foods break down glucose and other sugars slowly over time, preventing your body from putting too much weight on in one go. Here are some tips to follow a no carb diet.

Count Your Carbs

The term ‘no carb diet’ is actually a misnomer as even the most carb-obsessed dieters will take on some small amount of carbohydrates each day. You should aim to eat less than 30 grams a day to help your body change to burning fat rather than carbs. Counting the carbs contained in everything you eat is essential, while you should avoid certain kinds of foods altogether. Similarly, limit yourself to eating vegetables, meats and nuts to ensure you are getting the right kinds of proteins and fats.

Eat Small Meals

It is also a good idea to eat smaller meals at more regular intervals throughout the day, rather than three large meals. Eating around six small meals a day will help increase your metabolism and burn extra fat. This will also ensure that you are less hungry throughout the day and will not be tempted to snack on unhealthy foods like crisps or biscuits.

Get Plenty of Vegetables

Filling up on vegetables will serve two purposes in your new dieting regime. Firstly, the vegetables will fill you up, leaving you feeling less hungry but with only a marginal amount of calories added to your diet. Additionally, eating plenty of green vegetables will give you extra fiber. This will help give you regular bowel movements and avoid the constipation that is so common among low-carb dieters. Typically beneficial green vegetables for your diet include broccoli, cucumber, lettuce and spinach.

Eat The Correct Ratio of Fat and Protein

It is important to eat one part fat to two parts protein while you are on a no carb diet. This will ensure that your body effectively breaks down the fat in your body rather than carbs, helping you lose weight. If you fail to do this, your body will resort to burning proteins and body mass, which is not a desirable result.

Avoid ‘Frankenfoods’

It is often tempting to eat ‘Frankenfoods’ when dieting – that is, foods such as ice-cream, bread and biscuits that purport to be low in carbohydrates. Although they are technically low in certain types of carbs, they are astronomically high in sugar alcohols which will unfortunately make you put on weight. The best technique is to just stick to your no carb foods and avoid the temptation to cheat!

Fun Facts