Internal Endocrinology and Medical Blog

The latest fad diet or drink will not turn your fat into muscle. You must reduce your caloric intake if you want to get rid of the fat. You also need to give your body the right nutrients needed to build muscle.

It takes time and dedication, something that many fad diets do not require. Here are some tips to help you quickly convert your unwanted fat to muscle.

Reducing Your Caloric Intake

This is the first step in turning fat into muscle. Unfortunately, many people think they can simply lift weights and see results. However, when you consume fewer calories than your body burns for energy, it will reduce the amount of fat on your body.

While it certainly won’t happen overnight, you will notice that your muscles look more defined. You will also notice that your body mass index will decrease.

It’s vital that you know how many calories you consume and how many you burn each day in order to start converting fat to muscle.

How to Determine Your Caloric Needs?

In order to burn fat, you have to eat fewer calories. However, if you don’t want to eat fewer calories, you can increase your activity level. The fastest way to reduce fat and increase muscle mass is to do both.

A reduction of 500 calories is all that is needed to start seeing fat loss. Muscle does not build as fast as fat, so you won’t see all your fat replaced with muscle right away. Because muscle grows slower, you need to start building muscle while you are losing fat. Don’t wait until you have lost fat to begin building muscle.

Nutritional Requirements

One of the main nutritional requirements to build muscle is protein. You will need to give your body enough protein to build muscle, but it also must be from a good source. Currently, the recommendation of protein is .36 grams per one pound of body weight.

The only time you may need more than this is if you are training extensively, such as for a marathon. Protein is made up of amino acids. Not all amino acids and protein are the same. Foods such as a steak and beans contain different types of protein.

Do you drag yourself out of bed in the morning or crave a `pick-me-up’ in the afternoon? Do you have low self-esteem, trouble concentrating or hair growing where it shouldn’t?

Hormones control everything in our lives. They are powerful chemical messengers, the communication system between the brain and body. They affect everything from sexual reproduction to mood, sleep, appearance and almost every other aspect of daily life.

Many of us show signs and symptoms of hormonal imbalance every day. Not only do whacky hormone levels affect our quality of life now  but left unchecked, these imbalances age us and increase our chances of developing conditions like cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis and heart disease.

The answer for hormonal imbalance is clearly… balance! In the quest for optimal health, Natasha Turner, N.D., may be the white knight galloping in to save us all. Her expert solution is in The Hormone Diet, a 3-step wellness program focusing on hormonal balance so we can age gracefully and remain youthful.

Antioxidants neutralize free radicals in the body. For years, they became very popular because of their natural cleansing power.

The most common antioxidants are those foods that contain large amount of vitamins A, C, and E.

Many companies also started manufacturing supplements made from natural antioxidants like herbs.

Studies proved that they do not only cleanse the body, but serve many other purposes. Here are some of them:

1. Build a stronger immune system

Research showed that some of the most dreaded diseases like diabetes and arteriosclerosis are caused by free radicals that cause cell damage. Antioxidants rid the body of these harmful radicals and help prevent diseases from attacking the body by boosting the immune system.

2. Improve metabolism

Antioxidants can also improve your body’s metabolism rate. It will be easier for you to break down food and avoid constipation and diarrhea. The nutrients you get from food are also easily absorbed by your cells.

3. Care for the skin

You don’t need to apply expensive creams nor undergo surgery just to keep your skin young looking. Antioxidants can do the trick. They help prevent skin from sagging and drying.

Antioxidants play a unique role in keeping our body strong, healthy, and protected. Make sure you include food rich in antioxidants in your daily diet.

People usually get confused on how to tell if a person has a cold or flu. It is also a common misperception that colds are in season during winter. But studies revealed that people are more prone to colds during the summer and spring seasons.

It is a common knowledge, and everybody believes that exposure to cold and cold water can make a person catch cold. The truth is that exposure to cold temperature is not accountable for someone who catch a cold or a flu. The reason behind it is that when a person experiences either of the two, he or she feels cold or chilled, so the misconception may be derived from that. Aside from that, cold air at times may cause runny noses, and not necessarily only during a cold. Some of the known causes of cold are having a slightly depressed immune system, malnutrition and not having enough sleep.

People who get sick on vacation are actually experiencing “leisure sickness”. In a research, it found out that when a person is busy, the body is likewise active. When at rest, the body’s defenses are also at rest. A research conducted at Netherlands arrived at the conclusion that workaholics are most likely to catch cold during vacation.

We all know that herbs are by far some of the most powerful things in the world – if you are looking for alternative health remedies, herbs are going to help you out in one way or another.  What most people do not know is that there are actually top herbs that can be used for many different things and can help you in many different ways.  That is exactly what we are going to explore below – some of the top herbs of the future and how they can truly help you in the long run!

The first herb that is honestly powerful and all around fantastic for you is garlic; garlic is one of the most powerful antioxidant herbs in the world and whether you use it for cooking or you take garlic pills – having it in your diet can help you with everything from cardiovascular disease all the way to high blood pressure.

Garlic is also fantastic for your liver, which is why people with liver problems are told to eat a lot of garlic, it truly does help!

In a study that covers approximately 5,700 American adults it arrived with the findings that those who suffer from chronic pain, aside from arthritis, are four times more prone to try suicide.

According to the researchers of University of Michigan Ann Arbor, head pain and pain from various parts of the body are associated to suicidal thoughts and actions. Men and women with recurrent or severe headaches were two times more likely to try or conceive a suicidal plan.

Among the controlled subjects with three or more chronic pains, 14 percent revealed that they had thought of trying to do suicide, while an estimated 6 percent of the subjects reported an actual suicide.

Pain is defined as a typical sensory experience that may be characterized as the unpleasant awareness of a noxious stimulus or bodily harm. The International Association for the Study of Pain defined pain as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage”.

Dr. Mark A. Ligen, the lead researcher, stated that pain is just one of the factors that can make a person feel less optimistic and more hopeless. It can also heighten one’s desire to end the unpleasant feeling by the conception of suicide.

Even other specialists described other factors contributing to suicidal thoughts, pain in its sense in greatly associated to it, and to psychological health.

Dr. Ligen expressed that the study is to make all the medical practitioners aware of the suicidal tendencies of persons in chronic pain.

Yup, you’re reading it right. Losing the belly fat will help a person find ease in troubled breathing. That is according to French researchers. Excess fat on the abdomen can weaken lung function, and will also make a long list of disorders in the body.

Abdominal obesity has been associated with hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, all when combined are known as metabolic syndrome.

The French researchers have studied the health conditions of approximately 120,000 people in France. They weighed up the demographic background, history of smoking, consumption of alcohol, and the lung function with the measurement of their obesity known as body mass index and other gauges of their body metabolism.

Dr. Natalie Leone of the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research stated that they had made findings that revealed the positive independent connection between the metabolic syndrome and weakening of lung functions. Dr. Leone wrote the research process and findings in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

But how did the researchers characterized abdominal obesity? It is a condition wherein the waist circumference is greater than 35 inches in women and for men, it is greater than 40 inches.

Though the study did not make it clear, the researchers believe that an excess belly fat damages lung and diaphragm expansion. Aside form that, fatty tissue deposits is also recognized to increase the chances of inflammations in the body.

Meanwhile, there are already vast studies that associate poor lung function with increased incidents of mortality and morbidity. So: head over to the Weight Loss Site and make sure to lose that extra belly fat!

What happens if you don’t have a prescription but need to buy medication from an online pharmacy? No prescription pharmacies sometimes operate illegally or unethically and it is up to the consumer to make sure that both medication and money is transferred correctly. Counterfeit drugs and shady operations can haunt the world of the online pharmacy, so make sure to do your research before you enter your credit card number!
Most pharmacies online ask you to enter detailed and complex medical information which is stored on their site confidentially, so the online doctor or trained medical professional can fully assess your needs. Using this method, prescriptions are not necessary when you buy medication through online pharmacies. Your prescription will be issued by the online pharmacy in a safe and secure manner, with minimal hassle and in ultimate privacy.
If you are in doubt as to the legality of your chosen website, make sure that you look for the secure SSL stamp that assures the protection of your medical and financial data. If you look around for the best deal for online medication, make sure you thoroughly research the history of the websites as well.

Fitness as a term has a number of meanings and definitions. And all of them are related to health, to be more precise to well health condition. Thus being fit means being healthy; these words are often used as synonyms. In general when we say ‘fitness’ we mean the state of being physically active on a regular basis to maintain good physical condition.

We all want to have a good and high-quality life. Achieving it is not that easy. It requires hard and regular work. We are not talking about having a well-paid job that you enjoy now (though it’s also important). At the moment we are talking about working at yourself which supposes fighting with your own laziness and illnesses with the help of fitness activities.

Sometimes it seems even a bit weird that so many people don’t realize that their successful life totally (or minimum at 90 per cent) depends on their good or bad physical condition.

Tight relation between health and fitness is proved by the components which physical fitness is usually divided into. They are:

Cardiorespiratory (CR) endurance
Muscular strength
Muscular endurance
Flexibility
Body composition

Physical exercising in its turn is divided into such categories as aerobic exercise, anaerobic exercise, strength training, and agility training. Each of these components and categories takes separately can bring a great use for people who intend to keep fit. And taken all together they make an amazing fitness system.

A certain number of people give up their fitness activities because they find them boring, and they can’t make themselves working out any more. It’s not a secret that those activities which are interesting for us and make us having fun during work out are more useful and give more sufficient and stable results. So, if you find your fitness activities boring it’s not a good reason to give up fitness at all.

It’s only a reason to look for new and better ones. The variety of fitness activities is amazing starting with jogging, aerobics, bodybuilding, Pilates, swimming, walking, and weight training, and up to numerous fitness equipment. And it’s a fact. So, absolutely everyone is able to find at least a couple of fitness activities to stay fit and enjoy them at the same time.

It’s always good to ask for a professional advice when choosing your individual group of fitness exercises/activities. Experienced and professionally prepared trainers know better what kind of physical loads and how often you need according to your age, weight, sex, and current health condition in order to safely and quickly achieve your goals.

If you think that you can do it without paying extra money for trainer’s services then go ahead, everything is in your hands… and legs. Thousands of people are able to get and stay in shape and can brag of good health condition without any fitness trainers. Many of them train regularly at their home gyms. It’s up to you which way to choose. Just make sure that you have chosen the healthy one, and keep it so.

In Monday’s post, Are We All Just Hormonal?, we introduced Doc Turner as our wellness kinght in a shining white and teal book cover. Using hormones as a guide towards achieving health, she says sleep, along with stress management, is the most important aspect for restoring hormonal balance.

The hormonal benefits of superb sleep are enticing:

• calms the nervous system for relaxation
• maintains youth (anti-aging hormone is released)
• increases happiness (feel good hormones released)
• protects against harmful effects of excess estrogen
• maximizes metabolism
• enhances appetite control
• keeps muscles moving
• sharpens mind and memory
• greater night-time repair and fat-burning benefits

The importance of sleep to health and wellness is unanimous among health professionals. Here are 3 links to get you started:

1. This article published by the American Psychological Association (APA) explains the importance of sleep, what happens when you don’t get enough and suggests how to increase the quality of your sleep.
2. The National Institutes of Health believes sleep is essential for everyone and tells us why in this piece written for parents.
3. emedicinehealth.com provides us with the basics of sleep.