In 1918 the Spanish Flu infected between 20 and 40% of the world's population – about 50 million people died.
Today, you're still likely to catch the seasonal flu and while your chance of dying from complications are less, it's still a risk.
Health24's CyberDoc Heidi van Deventer shares seven tips for surviving the flu, making sure you're on your feet as soon as possible while avoiding any possible complications.
Step one: go home
Flu symptoms usually last between three and 10 days. The onset is often sudden – one minute you’re feeling fine and the next you feel as though you’ve been run over by a bus. If you’re at work, school or any public place, go home immediately. You’re contagious and the best place to be is in bed where you can rest.
Step two: see your doctor
You will need to see your doctor – you won’t be able to go back to work or school for a few days so you’ll need a sick note. Chat to your doctor about your symptoms and what medication or treatment you need.
Step three: call in sick
Now that you’re contagious and feeling pretty rotten, you won’t want to go back to work or school. You must phone in and explain why you won’t be at work for a few days. The doctor’s note will tell your employer when you can return – even if you feel better, stay at home until your doctor says you can return to work. If your child has the flu, check the school’s policy to see when they can return – some schools prefer that children stay home for at least 24 hours after a fever has subsided.
Step four: rest
One of the best remedies for flu is rest and plenty of fluids. Follow your doctor’s advice and take the medication as prescribed.
Step five: medicate
Avoid rushing off to the chemist to grab over-the-counter medication; instead follow your doctor’s advice on what medication to take. Use a humidifier to keep your airways moist, which will make it easier to breathe. If your symptoms don’t clear up after a few days and you feel worse, you may need to go to the doctor again. Dr Van Deventer suggests taking 500mg of vitamin C three times a day.
Step six: ask for help
Resting your body when you have the flu is important. As a parent, ask for help getting the kids ready for school, getting them to school, fetching them after school and then preparing dinner. If you don’t have children, make sure you delegate your work to colleagues. Do not work from home – you need to rest!
Step seven: look out for complications
Some people are at a higher risk of developing complications from the flu. These include bronchitis or pneumonia and will warrant another trip to the doctor. Don’t ignore the symptoms – a two-week-long nagging cough (bronchitis), painful cough (pneumonia), ear infection or sinus infection will need to be evaluated by your doctor.
By Mandy Freeman
Since food is an important part of many holidays, celebrations, family and cultural traditions. In fact, special occasions often center around food. Consider these 10 tips for fully enjoying the holiday season without gaining weight!
1. Focus on weight maintenance vs. weight loss during the holidays. If you are currently overweight and want to lose weight, this is not the time to do it. Maintenance of your present weight is a big enough challenge during the holiday season.
2. Plan on NOT dieting after the New Year. Anticipation of food restriction sets you up for binge-type eating over the holidays. It has been found that restrictive diets don’t work in the long run.
3. Be physically active every day. Physical activity, especially aerobic activities (like brisk walking, jogging, bicycling, roller blading, and swimming) can help relieve stress, regulate appetite, and burn up extra calories from holiday eating.
4. Eat a light snack before going to holiday parties. It is not a good idea to arrive at a party famished. Try eating some almonds or an apple before you go.
5. Make a plan. Think about where you will be, who you will be with, what foods will be available, what foods are really special to you (that you really want to eat) vs. those that you could probably do without, what are your personal triggers to overeat and how can you minimize them.
6. Take steps to avoid recreational eating. At parties and holiday dinners, we tend to eat (or keep eating) beyond our body’s physical hunger simply because food is there and eating is a “social thing.” To avoid recreational eating, consciously make one plate of the foods you really want. 7. Reduce the fat in holiday recipes. There are plenty of low fat and low calorie substitutes that are amazingly tasty.
8. Choose your beverages wisely. Alcohol is high in calories. Liquors, sweet wines and sweet mixed drinks contain 150-450 calories per glass. By contrast, water and diet sodas are calorie-free. If you choose to drink, select light wines and beers, and use non-alcoholic mixers such as water and diet soda. Limit your intake to 1 or 2 alcoholic drinks per occasion. And, watch out for calories in soda, fruit punch, and egg nog as well. Try adding a lemon lime diet drink with wine to make a wine spritzer and always have a bottle of water handy!!
9. Enjoy good friends and family. Although food can be a big part of the season, it doesn’t have to be the focus. Holidays are a time to reunite with good friends and family, to share laughter and cheer, to celebrate and to give thanks.
10. Maintain perspective: Overeating one day won't make or break your eating plan. And it certainly won't make you gain weight! It takes days and days of overeating to gain weight.
Now go out and enjoy the holiday season!
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By: Douglas Scott
People are ALWAYS asking me how to gain muscle, as fast as possible.
I guess athletes and weekend warriors alike are fixated on building those muscles up just as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, there is so much misinformation out there that it may seem complicated. However, sticking to tried and true principles can make the process of building muscle size and strength quite simple. Follow these five steps to refine your workout plan and start getting bigger and stronger today.
Step 1: Get Stronger on Basic Exercises
If your goal is to build muscle in record time, then you need to get stronger. Physiologically speaking, as a muscle gets stronger (produces more force), the cross sectional area grows larger (i.e., it hypertrophies). Your workout plan should include basic exercises that address all the muscles of the body, such as Shrugs, Deadlifts, Leg Presses, Chest Presses, Chin-Ups and Dips.
Step 2: Repetition Reproduction
The foundation of every successful workout plan is repetition. This is when the muscle comes in contact with resistance, causing it to grow in size and strength. Perform each repetition in a controlled fashion. Remember, each rep has two phases—the positive phase (lifting the weight) and the negative phase(lowering the weight)—and both are important. Focus on each, especially the lowering phase. Bouncing or jerky movements reduce muscular tension and therefore slow strength gains.
Step 3: Year-Long Progression
Muscles are amazing at adapting to the stress of exercise. Once you are able to complete an exercise with a given resistance for a certain number of repetitions, your body has adapted and you should increase the weight. However, too many young athletes overestimate the weight they can lift today and underestimate the weight they can lift a year from now. For example, if you're a freshman in high school who is able to bench 150 pounds for 10 reps, it might be tempting to increase the weight to 160 pounds in your next session to force-feed muscle growth. Avoid this and look long term. Instead of rushing things, aim to add a larger amount of weight, say 50 pounds, but do so over the course of the entire school year. This may not sound like much, but think of where you will be in four years: 150x10 as a freshman, 200x10 as a sophomore, 250x10 as a junior and 300x10 as a senior. Small increases in weight can lead to big increases in size and strength if you are consistent.
Step 4: Focus on Sleep and Recovery
You do not get stronger and build muscle when you work out. The actual growth occurs while you are recovering between sessions. If your goal is to gain strength and build muscle fast, limit strength training to two to three times each week and make sure you are getting quality sleep every night. Numerous sleep studies suggest that lack of sleep or poor-quality sleep hampers the body's ability to build muscle. Sleeping at least eight hours a night promotes protein synthesis and lean muscle gains.
Step 5: Eat Healthy Foods
The body needs fuel to build muscle. That fuel comes from food. Eat a variety of nutritious foods from all the food groups. Pay attention to lean cuts of protein, vegetables, fruits, nuts and grains. If your goal is to gain lean body weight, increase your food intake, but remember that you can't force-feed growth, and you may start to store excess body fat.
Developing a stronger and more powerful physique is not as complicated as many make it out to be. If you can commit to following these steps for a sustained period, you will be pleasantly surprised by how big and strong you become.
NOW... GO AND BE A VIKING!
By Marie Spano
What started for one purpose (to give thanks) inevitably turned all (or mostly) about food. Here are some tips to help you stay healthy this Thanksgiving.All holidays are great but you have to love Thanksgiving. You can wake up and run a 10K road race, get home in time to watch most of the Macy's Day Thanksgiving Parade, sit around and watch football and drink beer while other people cook and then stuff your face since you burned off several hundred calories in the morning.
Then the next day when your alarm rings at 4 a.m. you may find yourself immediately turning it off and rolling over in your food-stupor and going back to sleep until 11 a.m. - well after the Black Friday sale items have been snatched up by eager beavers (or the insane as I call them).
FOR SOME COUNTRIES DINNERTIME IS ABOUT SHARING WITH FAMILY AND ENJOYING COMPANY.
Thanksgiving seems to create a state of food anxiety among many people across the U.S. What started for one purpose (to give thanks) inevitably turned all (or mostly) about food. Not that this is terribly surprising given our food-obsessed nation. For some countries dinnertime is about sharing with family and enjoying company.
Here, it's about how fast you can put food on the table and eat so you can get on to the next task (and yes I am eating a meal, or something that resembles a meal, as I type this article). Next thing you know you ate more than you should have, found yourself snacking later and a few weeks from now your clothes don't fit quite right.
TIPS FOR THANKSGIVING
So back to Thanksgiving - the holiday of all holidays that is centered around food and physique-unfriendly drinks. As you approach this day, what do you need to know? First of all, take the focus off of food and the notion of "good" food and "bad" food. Once you put a mental tag on a certain food as being "forbidden" you are setting yourself up to binge on it.
Food isn't "good" or "bad" the way a small child is depending on the day and what you catch them doing. Yet I seem to run into people all the time who like to educate me on what is "good" and "bad". French fries? "I never eat those, they are awful," an obese woman once told me.
Veggie chips? "Horrible! Those are the worst thing a child should eat!" several school nutrition employees once told me (all had one or more obesity related chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, metabolic syndrome etc.). "You are going to get high blood pressure!" my uncle has lamented after seeing me salt my food (of course he blames his hypertension on salt and not his obese abdominal area, i.e. fat gut).
Most people I know with a forbidden food list half as long as my nephew's Christmas list are overweight or obese. Why? They lecture anyone around them about what to eat and not eat, "diet" while others are around and then binge on those foods behind closed doors. So, if you don't want to look like them, skip the forbidden foods.
Don't treat Thanksgiving as an all-you-can-eat buffet. I don't remember the concept of buffets growing up. But I've found the South is loaded with them. People pay one small price and go in and stuff themselves on cheap-quality fat-laden food like they are eating their last meal.
There's nothing like a huge meal to prompt a heart attack or bout of acute pancreatitis. Please, do 911 workers a favor and don't put yourself in a predicament where you'll need their services. Here's a reality check: there is nothing that you will eat on Thanksgiving Day that you can't eat any other day in this country.
Pumpkin Pie? Check the freezer section of your local grocery store. Cobbler? Same place. Stuffing - rice/pasta isle. Seriously, food is everywhere and this isn't the last time (hopefully) you are going to eat whatever is served this day so get the idea of gorging out of your mind. I guarantee you'll only feel like garbage later if you overeat.
Don't diet during the day. If you eat very little all day you will overeat by the time Thanksgiving dinner is served. The idea of "saving" your calories for later doesn't work. Eat like you normally would so the desire to stuff yourself doesn't overwhelm you.
A FEW MORE TIPS
If you are watching your calorie and fat intake (and yes, this can be done even on Thanksgiving), fill up on salad or steamed veggies before digging into the casseroles and pies. Bring a veggie platter to the feast and snack on this while watching TV.
Beware of the side dishes. The majority of calories and fat come from the side dishes and desserts on Thanksgiving, not the main course (turkey). Even deep-fried turkey (if cooked at a high temperature - above 350 F , the entire time the turkey is cooking) without the skin, isn't that fattening. Casseroles and mixed dishes though? Expect those to help you pack on the pounds.
THE MAJORITY OF CALORIES AND FAT COME FROM THE SIDE DISHES AND DESSERTS ON THANKSGIVING, NOT THE MAIN COURSE, TURKEY.
Eat slowly and stop when you are full - novel concept, I know. Chew on this - do you really need another helping of squash casserole or pecan pie? The experience of eating it lasts a brief period of time. The weight you may add to your waistline usually lasts for weeks or years for some people. So, savor the flavors, textures and smells of the food on your plate.
Drink water or lower calorie beverages throughout the day. If you are drinking alcoholic beverages, alternate them with water, tea, Crystal Light or vitaminwater (B vitamins + tasty hydration).
Skip the seconds or go outside and throw a football after your first course. By the time you go in for seconds they'll be gone.
CHOOSING THANKSGIVING FOODS
If you really feel the need to eat a lot of food, take a look at the information below and at least be cognizant of how your favorite dishes stack up. Choose dishes with fewer calories and fat and eat those first.
If you stuff yourself with healthier options you'll have less room (I hope) for less healthy options.
Have a great Thanksgiving and keep these tips in mind. This holiday should be about the 3 Fs: family, friends and football. Keep your focus on the real purpose and truly enjoy the food you are eating and you won't start 2009 fighting with gym members over the allotted time on the cardio equipment.
By Kris Gunnars, BSc
There are many ways to lose a lot of weight fast.
However, most of them will make you hungry and unsatisfied.
If you don’t have iron willpower, then hunger will cause you to give up on these plans quickly.
The plan outlined here will:
1. Cut Back on Sugars and StarchesThe most important part is to cut back on sugars and starches (carbs).
These are the foods that stimulate secretion of insulin the most. If you didn’t know already, insulin is the main fat storage hormone in the body.
When insulin goes down, fat has an easier time getting out of the fat stores and the body starts burning fats instead of carbs.
Another benefit of lowering insulin is that your kidneys shed excess sodium and water out of your body, which reduces bloat and unnecessary water weight (1, 2).
It is not uncommon to lose up to 10 pounds (sometimes more) in the first week of eating this way, both body fat and water weight.
This is a graph from a study comparing low-carb and low-fat diets in overweight/obese women (3).
The low-carb group is eating until fullness, while the low-fat group is calorie restricted and hungry.
Cut the carbs, lower your insulin and you will start to eat less calories automatically and without hunger (4).
Put simply, lowering your insulin puts fat loss on “autopilot.”
AdvertisementBottom Line: Removing sugars and starches (carbs) from your diet will lower your insulin levels, kill your appetite and make you lose weight without hunger.
2. Eat Protein, Fat and VegetablesEach one of your meals should include a protein source, a fat source and low-carb vegetables. Constructing your meals in this way will automatically bring your carb intake into the recommended range of 20-50 grams per day.
This has been shown to boost metabolism by 80 to 100 calories per day (5, 6, 7).
High protein diets can also reduce obsessive thoughts about food by 60%, reduce desire for late-night snacking by half, and make you so full that you automatically eat 441 fewer calories per day… just by adding protein to your diet (8, 9).
When it comes to losing weight, protein is the king of nutrients. Period.
A diet based on meat and vegetables contains all the fiber, vitamins and minerals you need to be healthy. There is no physiological need for grains in the diet.
Don’t be afraid of eating fat, trying to do both low-carb AND low-fat at the same time is a recipe for failure. It will make you feel miserable and abandon the plan.
The best cooking fat to use is coconut oil. It is rich in fats called Medium Chain Triglycerides (MCTs). These fats are more fulfilling than others and can boost metabolism slightly (10, 11).
There is no reason to fear these natural fats, new studies show that saturated fatdoesn’t raise your heart disease risk at all (12, 13).
To see how you can assemble your meals, check out this low carb meal plan and this list of low carb recipes.
Bottom Line: Assemble each meal out of a protein source, a fat source and a low-carb vegetable. This will put you into the 20-50 gram carb range and drastically lower your insulin levels.
3. Lift Weights 3 Times Per Week
You don’t need to exercise to lose weight on this plan, but it is recommended.
The best option is to go to the gym 3-4 times a week. Do a warm up, lift weights, then stretch.
If you’re new to the gym, ask a trainer for some advice.
By lifting weights, you will burn a few calories and prevent your metabolism from slowing down, which is a common side effect of losing weight (14, 15).
Studies on low-carb diets show that you can even gain a bit of muscle while losing significant amounts of body fat (16).
If lifting weights is not an option for you, then doing some easier cardio workouts like running, jogging, swimming or walking will suffice.
Bottom Line: It is best to do some sort of resistance training like weight lifting. If that is not an option, cardio workouts work too.
Optional – Do a “Carb Re-feed” Once Per Week
You can take one day “off” per week where you eat more carbs. Many people prefer Saturday.
It is important to try to stick to healthier carb sources like oats, rice, quinoa, potatoes, sweet potatoes, fruits, etc.
But only this one higher carb day, if you start doing it more often than once per week then you’re not going to see much success on this plan.
If you must have a cheat meal and eat something unhealthy, then do it on this day.
Be aware that cheat meals or carb refeeds are NOT necessary, but they can up-regulate some fat burning hormones like leptin and thyroid hormones (17, 18).
You will gain some weight during your re-feed day, but most of it will be water weightand you will lose it again in the next 1-2 days.
Bottom Line: Having one day of the week where you eat more carbs is perfectly acceptable, although not necessary.
What About Calories and Portion Control?
It is NOT necessary to count calories as long as you keep the carbs very low and stick to protein, fat and low-carb vegetables.
However, if you really want to, then use this calculator.
Enter your details, then pick the number from either the “Lose Weight” or the “Lose Weight Fast” section – depending on how fast you want to lose.
There are many great tools you can use to track the amount of calories you are eating. Here is a list of 5 calorie counters that are free and easy to use.
The main goal is to keep carbs under 20-50 grams per day and get the rest of your calories from protein and fat.
Bottom Line: It is not necessary to count calories to lose weight on this plan. It is most important to strictly keep your carbs in the 20-50 gram range.
10 Weight Loss Tips to Make Things Easier (and Faster)Here are 10 more tips to lose weight even faster:
Bottom Line: It is most important to stick to the three rules, but there are a few other things you can do to speed things up.
How Fast You Will Lose (and Other Benefits)
You can expect to lose 5-10 pounds of weight (sometimes more) in the first week, then consistent weight loss after that.
I can personally lose 3-4 lbs per week for a few weeks when I do this strictly.
If you’re new to dieting, then things will probably happen quickly. The more weight you have to lose, the faster you will lose it.
For the first few days, you might feel a bit strange. Your body has been burning carbs for all these years, it can take time for it to get used to burning fat instead.
It is called the “low carb flu” and is usually over within a few days. For me it takes 3. Adding some sodium to your diet can help with this, such as dissolving a bouillon cube in a cup of hot water and drinking it.
After that, most people report feeling very good, positive and energetic. At this point you will officially have become a “fat burning beast.”
Despite the decades of anti-fat hysteria, the low-carb diet also improves your health in many other ways:
You Don’t Need to Starve Yourself to Lose WeightIf you have a medical condition then talk to your doctor before making changes because this plan can reduce your need for medication.
By reducing carbs and lowering insulin levels, you change the hormonal environment and make your body and brain “want” to lose weight.
This leads to drastically reduced appetite and hunger, eliminating the main reason that most people fail with conventional weight loss methods.
This is proven to make you lose about 2-3 times as much weight as a typical low-fat, calorie restricted diet (46, 47, 48).
Another great benefit for the impatient folks is that the initial drop in water weight can lead to a big difference on the scale as early as the next morning.
Here are a few examples of low-carb meals that are simple, delicious and can be prepared in under 10 minutes: 7 Healthy Low-Carb Meals in 10 Minutes or Less.
On this plan, you can eat good food until fullness and still lose a ton of fat. Welcome to paradise.
How to Reach Your Goals! -Experts describe strategies for setting goals and making sure you achieve them.
By Carol Sorgen
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
WebMD Feature Archive
We all have goals. What are yours? To lose 20 pounds? Get in shape? Buy a new house? Make more money? Having a goal is the easy part. Reaching it? Well, that's something else entirely. If you're frustrated because you feel like you keep coming up short when it comes to realizing your dreams, maybe it's time to try a different approach.
When setting a goal, ask yourself first of all if your goals are realistic and if you are really ready to make the changes in your life necessary to reach those goals.
"Most people don't take into consideration whether they're ready to do what it takes to achieve their goals," says Steven Rosenberg, PhD. Rosenberg is a behavior therapist, the team psychotherapist for the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team, and author of I Hope the Hell I WIN! Turning Hope into Reality…How Winners Win! If you're going through a stressful time at work, for example, this may not be the best time to start a weight loss program; maybe you'd do better to wait a few months and start on, say, your birthday.
Be realistic as well, says Rosenberg. You can't lose 40 pounds in two weeks, or even a month. Set an achievable objective, such as 1 to 2 pounds a week; by the end of the year, you will have lost the 40 pounds.
Goals that get reached are those that are firm, well-defined, and to which the individual is truly and completely committed," says Susan Schachterle, director of the Denver-based Ahimsa Group, which provides consulting and coaching services to individuals and organizations worldwide. "Without that commitment, trying to reach goals is like grabbing Jell-O -- you think maybe you have it, but there's really nothing to hang on to."
Schachterle suggests that you check your commitment. Ask yourself why you want to achieve that particular goal. What will that do for you? Why is it important? What will your life be like when you have reached it? How will achieving your goal change things for you?
"If you're having trouble making a strong commitment," says Schachterle, "make sure it's the right goal and the right time for you."
The Art of Saying 'No'
Another reason many people don't reach their goals is that they just can't say no -- to everyone else. "Many of us, especially women, put other things and people first," says Susan Newman, PhD, a social psychologist at Rutgers University and author of The Book of NO: 250 Ways to Say It-and Mean It and Stop People-Pleasing Forever. We're unable to refuse when asked for our time, our talent, our expertise, or merely our presence.
"Saying yes is a habit we're not even aware of," says Newman. "Think 'no' before you think 'yes' (not the other way around). By adding the word 'no' to your vocabulary, you open up vistas of time, not only to work toward a goal but also to think about how to reach it," Newman says. "In short, you put boundaries in place and establish priorities in the correct order [for you]."
If you haven't mastered the art of saying "no" and you think that's derailing your efforts to reach your goals, Newman suggests taking these steps:
There are two tricks to properly setting your goals, says University of Alabama at Birmingham clinical psychologist Joshua Klapow, PhD. Klapow is co-author of Stop Telling Me What-Tell Me How: The Simple Answer to Better Health.
First, turn goals into specific behaviors, says Klapow. "To say that you are going to exercise doesn't tell you which exercise to do, for how long and how frequently. If you don't know what to do, you are less likely to do the behavior. Be specific. Saying that you plan to walk five minutes a day -- and increase the time by one minute each week until you are walking 30 minutes per day -- is better than just saying that you plan to exercise."
Klapow's second tip is to make sure you are successful at reaching your goals right from the start. "Resolutions need to be things you can actually do," he says. "This is important because you are more likely to repeat the behaviors in which you are successful. Set short- and long-term target goals and make the short-term goals easy to reach."
At this time of year, when many of us are making New Year's resolutions, Klapow reminds us that resolutions are basically a set of new behaviors. Because the behaviors are new, and not learned habits, we have a tendency to slip back into our old behavior patterns.
"The best way to keep track of what you are doing every day," says Klapow, "is to get a calendar and write down every time you perform your new habit. Don't leave it up to your mind because your mind can play tricks on you. Three days without performing your new habit is your sign that you may be slipping."
The Benefits of Intuition
Using your intuition can also help you reach your goals, says Lynn A. Robinson, MEd, author of Real Prosperity: Using the Power of Intuition to Create Financial and Spiritual Abundance. Robinson offers three tips for achieving a specific goal:
The Benefits of Intuition continued...
Getting your friends and family involved can also help you reach your goals, says Sandra Beckwith, leader of "Finding the Courage to Change" workshops. "You need someone who will reject your usual excuses -- 'I can't afford it,' 'I don't know how,' etc. -- and help you see that there's a way around every obstacle," says Beckwith. "He or she can brainstorm with you. … This allows you to see a situation from a different perspective, through fresh eyes."
Actually seeing your goal written down can also help you keep it in the forefront of your mind, adds Newman. "Tape reminders all over the house so your goal will always be in front of you -- literally."
Visualization and mindfulness (including approaches such as meditation and hypnosis) are also ways to help you achieve your goals. Mindfulness trainer Maya Talisman Frost explains that goal-setting is only one aspect of getting what you want. "It's the intention that gets us where we want to go," says Frost.
Goals tend to be arbitrary and number-oriented, says Frost, such as the number of pounds lost, amount of money earned, number of hours spent in the gym, and so on. Intentions, on the other hand, are "big-picture" statements about what fulfills you.
Yes, your goal is to lose 20 pounds in six months, but what's your intention? How about, "I feel strong, healthy, fit, confident, attractive, and sexy," says Frost. "The number on the scale isn't what matters most -- it's how you feel each day."
Positive thinking is often more effective than negative thinking when it comes to changing health behaviors. For example, people quit smokingmore readily when the positive aspects of health are emphasized, rather than the negative side.
"Intentions allow us to picture ourselves -- and how we'll feel -- when we are successful," says Frost. "There's no room for failure in the picture. We focus on the positive and powerful feelings we'll have."
Picturing SuccessThe most effective way to change our beliefs is to create a mental story of success, Frost says. We need to picture ourselves as we want to be, and we need to talk about it. Her basic formula: See it. Say it. Hear it.
(ESPN) -- At 53, Bryan Cottrell looks in better shape than most men at his age! Ever since the his win at the Mid Atlantic Grand Prix Bodybuilding Show people around the world have been trying to discover his secret: Is it steroids, supplements, or just good genes?
After months of poking around the story and keeping our ears open, we can reveal the exclusive scoop detailing what he was staying silent about, or trying to, at least! Read on to find out.
During an exclusive interview with ESPN, Bryan Cottrell was pressed to explain his ridiculously beefed up body at 53 years old. We asked him, "Now, please tell us how you manage to keep your body in perfect shape for so long throughout your career, we know it's not easy when you work 10 hours a day work." Cottrell's response shocked us all: "Things are different now I would say easier than back in old days.. back then there was no help & if there was, it was not safe to use. But these days the whole world including me are getting major help with legal supplements like VIKING SWORD & VIKING AXE. I'm not naming any fellow bodybuilders or athletes of course but just saying it's today's safe alternative & recommended by all personal trainers."
Every since Bryan's response went viral, VIKING NUTRITION has received thousands of emails from people all over the world asking about VIKING SWORD and VIKING AXE. In an attempt to answer these questions and to discover just how much VIKING SWORD with VIKING AXE has benefited Bryan Cottrell, we decided to test it ourselves in an exclusive case study!
This wouldn't be the first muscle building system we put to the test. Over the years VIKING NUTRITION has evaluated numerous hardcore workout programs and diets but all too frequent the results are just shy of being painfully disappointing or require dramatic changes in both a person's lifestyle and diet to see any real changes. As we began researching VIKING SWORD and VIKING AXE we were shocked to discover countless success stories reported by real individuals from all over the world. It gets even better, there was even a clinical case study performed on both VIKING SWORD and VIKING AXE that proved the following:
VIKING AXE has been clinically proven to:
VIKING SWORD has been clinically proven to:
PUTTING THE METHOD TO THE TEST For the VIKING NUTRITION Test, a bottle of VIKING SWORD & VIKING AXE were consumed over a 30 day period. VIKING SWORD & VIKING AXE are two of the most concentrated and purest products on the market. It was our shared opinion that this would give me the most accurate results for my test. Below you can see my results and testimonial.
My Results - I lost 14 pounds of body fat and gained 16 back in pure muscle in just one month using the combination of both products.
One week after starting I was surprised at the dramatic results. My energy level was up, and I wasn't even hungry. A welcomed side effect of the VIKING NUTRITION diet is its power to curb the appetite.
Best of all, I didn’t even change anything about my daily routine. On Day 7, I got on the scale and couldn’t believe my eyes. I had lost 3 pounds. But I still wasn’t convinced, since they say you lose a lot of water weight at the beginning of any diet. I wanted to wait and see the results in the upcoming weeks.
After 3 weeks, all my doubts and skepticism had absolutely vanished! I am down, from a 40 to a 36 pants size after losing another 6 pounds, and I still have a ton of energy. Quite often, around the third week of other diets, you tend to run out of steam. But with the VIKING NUTRITION diet my energy levels didn't dip, instead they remained steady throughout the day.
After the fourth week, my final results were shocking. I lost an unbelievable 14 pounds since starting the VIKING NUTRITION diet! Actually everyone who knows me is kicking themselves for not having volunteered to be the guinea pig. Using the VIKING NUTRITION diet I even lost an additional 5 pounds in week 4 too!
People had their doubts in the beginning too, but this case study has surely turned them into believers.. This stuff actually works! The question is... how long has VIKING been keeping this a secret?
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It is popular in Japan to drink water immediately after waking up every morning. Furthermore, scientific tests have proven its value.
Apparently, for old and serious diseases, as well as modern illnesses, the water treatment had been found successful by a Japanese medical society as a 100% cure for the following diseases:
Headache, body ache, heart system, arthritis, fast heart beat, epilepsy, excess fatness, bronchitis asthma, TB, meningitis, kidney and urine diseases, vomiting, gastritis, diarrhea, piles, diabetes, constipation, all eye diseases, womb, cancer and menstrual disorders, ear nose and throat diseases.
METHOD OF TREATMENT:
1. As you wake up in the morning before brushing teeth, drink 640 ml (21.6 oz) of water;
- The water must not contain fluoride;
- There is another version of this therapy on Yahoo! News, but they recommend drinking in the morning 1.5 liters (50.7 oz) of water. In my opinion this is a deception, because drinking too much water is dangerous to your health:
"The opposite of dehydration is a condition known as hyponatremia (...) which means "low sodium" and is sometimes referred to as water intoxication.
Drinking too much water in too short a time overwhelms the kidneys and can cause a sudden drop in blood sodium levels. Sodium is one of the body's electrolytes (the others are potassium, chloride and bicarbonate). A drop in sodium leads to water entering the brain, causing it to swell. Results include lethargy, disorientation, confusion, seizures, coma and death." (Source)
"Rapid intake of too much water floods the inside of cells when sodium is depleted. This sodium depletion, called hyponatremia, can rupture the cells, either from extra pressure on the cells from without, or from pressure within flooded cells.
Generally speaking, we hit the danger zone when we take in more water than what our kidneys can process in a hour. And for someone with extremely healthy kidneys that is about 30 oz. of water in a hour (please don’t drink that much!). Drinking too much water in rapid succession can prove fatal and should definitely be avoided." (Source)
2. Brush and clean the mouth but do not eat or drink anything for 45 minute;
3. After 45 minutes you may eat and drink as normal;
4. After breakfast, lunch and dinner do not eat or drink anything for 2 hours;
5. Those who are old or sick and are unable to drink 4 glasses of water at the beginning may commence by taking little water and gradually increase it to 4 glasses per day;
6. The above method of treatment will cure diseases of the sick and others can enjoy a healthy life;
The following list gives the number of days of treatment required to cure/control/ reduce main diseases:
1. High Blood Pressure - 30 days
2. Gastric - 10 days
3. Diabetes - 30 days
4. Constipation - 10 days
5. Cancer - 180 days
6. TB - 90 days
7. Arthritis patients should follow the above treatment only for 3 days in the 1st week, and from 2nd week onwards - daily.
This treatment method has no side effects, however at the commencement of treatment you may have to urinate a few times. It is better if we continue this and make this procedure as a routine work in our life.
By Sarah Elizabeth Richards
Are you looking to make your occasional strength class or Sunday spin session a regular ritual? Many casual exercisers want to sweat more often, but they struggle with finding the workout motivation to make fitness a part of their daily routine.
Conventional wisdom hasn’t been particularly helpful in figuring out how to get in the groove and become that person who says, “I’ll meet you for brunch later. Gotta fit in my run first.” You’re told you have to “want it” enough. Or that you have to do something 21 days in a row before it becomes second nature. But what do you do on the 29th day when it’s cold outside and you’re dying to skip your run and sleep for another hour instead?
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Fitness Motivation Made EasyFortunately, economists and psychologists have been studying how to crack the code of what compels us to repeatedly do something we don’t always want to do. Here are some of their best strategies.
1. Give Yourself a Real Reward Sure, some people might be motivated by vague goals such as “better health” or “weight control.” But if that’s not doing it for you, journalist Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business advises making the benefits of working out more tangible, such as by treating yourself to a smoothie or an episode of The Leftovers afterwards.
“An extrinsic reward is so powerful because your brain can latch on to it and make the link that the behavior is worthwhile.”
He describes creating a neurological “habit loop,” which involves a cue to trigger the behavior (setting out your spinning shoes next to your bag), the routine (making it through spinning class) and then the reward. “An extrinsic reward is so powerful because your brain can latch on to it and make the link that the behavior is worthwhile,” he explains. “It increases the odds the routine becomes a habit.”
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Over time, the motivation becomes intrinsic, as the brain begins to associate sweat and pain with the surge of endorphins — those feel-good chemicals released in the brain that are responsible for that “I-feel-freaking-amazing” rush you get after a great gym session. Once you’ve trained your brain to recognize that the workout itself is the reward, you won’t even want the treat.
2. Sign a Commitment ContractWe can make promises to ourselves all day long, but research shows we’re more likely to follow through with pledges when we make them in front of friends.
You can up the ante even more by signing a contract agreeing to pay a pal $20 every time you skip Pilates. “It’s a simple notion of changing the cost,” explains Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University who studies health decision science. “I say I’m going to make a commitment to do something for a certain amount of time, such as exercising 30 minutes three times a week for 12 weeks. If I don’t do that, I’m going to pay some kind of penalty, whether it’s monetary or the embarrassment of having friends know I didn’t live up to my word.”
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In studies of people who created online contracts via the site www.stickk.com, Goldhaber-Fiebert and his colleagues found that those who signed longer contracts ended up exercising more than those who agreed to shorter durations. “We have to get past the initial experience of displeasure in order to recognize the longer-term benefits,” he says. “The challenge is designing tools to help make that happen.”
3. Rethink Positive ThinkingDevotees of positive thinking have long promoted visualizing the benefits of a behavior as a motivational strategy. For example, when I’m deciding whether to get out of bed to go running in the morning, it helps to imagine how the sun will feel on my face as I run around the reservoir. Or how delighted I’ll be when I see my new muscles developing.
“After you imagine the obstacle, you can figure out what you can do to overcome it and make a plan.”
But such feel-good fantasies are only effective when accompanied by more realistic problem-solving methods, according to Gabriele Oettingen, PhD, psychologist at New York University and author ofRethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation (due out in October).
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Here’s the rest of the formula: After identifying your wish and visualizing the outcome, you have to identify what’s holding you back — a technique she calls “mental contrasting.” In one study of 51 female students who claimed they wanted to eat fewer junk food snacks, researchers asked each woman to imagine the benefits of nibbling on better foods. Those who identified the trigger that made healthful snacking difficult for them — and came up with a plan to reach for fruit when cravings hit — were most successful at sticking to their goal.
Feel too tired to go to the gym after work? “After you imagine the obstacle, you can figure out what you can do to overcome it and make a plan,” explains Oettingen. For example, you can switch to morning or lunchtime workouts or go straight to the gym instead of stopping at home first.
4. Get PaidStill struggling? It may be time to turn to cold, hard cash. (Because, hey, money talks.)Research looking at monetary incentives and exercise found that people who were paid $100 to go to the gym doubled their attendance rate. “You just need to get people to keep doing an activity, and paying them money was effective,” explains study author Gary Charness, PhD, behavioral economist at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
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Don’t have a generous benefactor? Check out the app Pact, in which a community of fellow users will literally pay you to stick to your schedule. If you miss your session, you authorize the app to charge your credit card or PayPal account. When you reach your goal, you get paid out of a common pool funded by yourself and other pact-breakers.
No matter how you get there, you know you’ve succeeded once the day arrives when you can’t imagine skipping your workout. You can call it an addiction, a pleasure or an escape. But the important thing is that you’re doing it on a regular basis, and that you’re doing it for you.
Originally posted August 27, 2014. Updated May 2015.
By Kevin Asuncion
“First we make our habits, then our habits make us.” – Charles C. Noble.
Committing to exercise is always a difficult thing. We throw ourselves at the task only to quit a few months later because we just don’t have the time for it. Over the years I’ve come to realize that exercise isn’t something we find time for, but rather it’s a behavior we need to build up so that it carves a space for itself in our daily routine. Just like how brushing our teeth is something we just do in the morning, exercise can be just something we do on a daily basis without having to think about it. So how can we make exercise as automatic as brushing our teeth? By approaching it with the intent to build a habit.
Here are the 4 steps you can take to build the exercise habit:
Kevin Asuncion is a NASM certified personal trainer and Founder of Movemo, a health and fitness company that teaches and empowers those who move our world forward to live healthier so that they can increase the positive change they make in the world.
After years of fighting the "Battle of the Bulge" I finally focused on my goals and desires so that I could win my fight for fitness. Now as a 54 year old father, competitive bodybuilder, personal trainer, and a business owner I'm here to help you to do it too!