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Weight Loss Exercise

Why You Need Magnesium


Why You Need Magnesium

Magnesium is an extremely important mineral to both your weight loss goals and your health. In fact, it’s the 4th most abundant mineral in your body and it’s constantly being depleted. Half of your magnesium is contained within your bones. The rest is found in your cells and blood. It’s needed to carry out more than 300 processes and reactions in your body. A deficiency in magnesium could cause complications and weight problems.

Increasing your intake of magnesium is likely to have positive effects on your weight, but magnesium itself doesn’t cause weight loss. It’s not your typical weight loss supplement, since your typical weight loss supplement will work either by increasing metabolism due to containing stimulants or causing you to feel full due to containing appetite suppressants.

If it doesn’t do either of those things, how in the world can it help with weight loss? It helps in a variety of meaningful but subtle ways. Let’s go into more detail

Magnesium Affects Blood Sugar

Why You Need Magnesium

Nuts are high in Magnesium

Blood glucose (sugar) levels have a big impact on weight fluctuations. The steadier your blood sugar remains, the healthier you will be and the healthier your weight will be. When your blood sugar spikes, insulin is released by your pancreas to help your cells take in the sugar where it can be stored as energy. When glucose is stored for energy and not expended, it turns into fat. Blood sugar spikes and insulin surges also signal the release of cortisol – the belly fat hormone. When your blood sugar spikes all the time, your body becomes resistant to insulin and more and more is needed. Constantly raised insulin levels also increase cortisol levels.

Magnesium helps you to maintain a steadier blood glucose level by improving the function of insulin. Adequate levels of magnesium discourage insulin resistance, making the amounts of insulin released by the pancreas more effective.

Magnesium Makes Other Nutrients More Accessible

This wonderful little mineral does a good job at helping your body better absorb other minerals too. Suffering from a magnesium deficiency leads to improper absorption of fats, carbohydrates and proteins. Think this is a good thing? Like you’ll be able to eat food and it’ll pass through you unused? Wrong. Your body needs the correct amount of fats, carbs and proteins to function properly. When your body has adequate amounts of these nutrients, it will activate the enzymes that tell your brain your body has had enough to eat. It helps you feel satisfied, leading to reduced calorie intake.

It Gives You Better Sleep More Energy

How does one mineral accomplish seemingly opposite effects? Well, as mentioned, magnesium is responsible for a number of processes and biochemical reactions. Falling short on this mineral leaves people tired but doesn’t allow them a deep, restful sleep. Getting more magnesium (if deficient) can help you fall asleep easier, enjoy a higher quality sleep, and have the benefit of increased calm energy while awake. These are all necessary for weight loss, since the sleep deprived tend to weigh more (due to increased cortisol resulting from the lack of sleep) and the fatigued have less energy to use for resisting temptation and exercising.

Magnesium: The Great Stress Fighter

Did you know that one of the most common ways people react to stress is to eat more than they usually do? And guess what they eat? That’s right, crap foods… Disgustingly delicious, easy-to-overindulge-in comfort foods. Junk like chips or ice cream. No effort required fast foods. You get the idea.

Your adrenal glands will excrete adrenaline (also known as epinephrine or norepinephrine) whenever it feels stressed. For many of us, this happens way too often. Like any other part of your body, your adrenal glands can suffer from poor health. Magnesium, though, is one of the supporters of healthy adrenal glands. Getting adequate amounts of this mineral make your adrenals less likely to overreact and flood your body with the stress hormone adrenaline.

And you already know how magnesium helps to control cortisol by helping us sleep better. Reduced amounts of stress hormones will do a world of good for your health and will help to whittle down your waistline, too.

Foods high in Magnesium

By now you’re sold on the benefits of magnesium and are ready to make sure you have adequate levels to keep your body functioning, right? Good!

Dietary sources of magnesium are bran cereals, all types of nuts, spinach, potatoes, beans, oatmeal, peanut butter, brown rice, bananas, and – oddly enough – chocolate milk. People also take Epsom salt baths to absorb magnesium through their skin. Supplements are yet another option. If you choose the supplement route, look for magnesium chloride, magnesium lactate, or magnesium citrate on supplement labels. Avoid magnesium oxide as it isn’t as bioavailable (absorbable and usable by your body) as other sources.

Obviously, you should discuss your plans to get more magnesium with your doctor to make sure it doesn’t cause you any complications. Your doctor can also give you a personalized dosage recommendation tailored to your individual health profile.

Magnesium is a valuable nutrient that can help a great deal in helping you lose weight as long as you use your common sense along with it. Please don’t go expecting a magnesium supplement to help you shed 20 lbs if you sit around all day eating cheeseburgers and fries. Take advantage of all magnesium has to offer, along with employing a healthier lifestyle as watch the pounds melt away.

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General Weight Loss Tips

Me Vs. The Lawn

lawncare Me Vs. The Lawn

You know, I kind of love the idea of exercise that gets something done in the process. And that’s why this year (after two years of living in this house) I’ve taken on our yard work as my new chore. Usually we just pay someone to keep up with the fast-growing grass, but it’s kind of expensive.  I have to tell you though that me and Josh are not “handy man” material. Computer people, yes, but not the do-it-yourself type.  I’m convinced that keeping up with the yard myself will help me with my weight loss goals. I don’t know many overweight landscapers or gardeners, do you?

Pushing this mower was hard work.

pushmower Me Vs. The Lawn

There is one big hill on our lot and its crazy steep. I chose the push mower for a few reasons, 1. its old school and I’m always nostalgic for times I never belonged to 2. it’s harder than a gas or riding mower 3. it’s cheaper 4. it’s easier. I honestly can’t imagine me and josh purchasing and storing gas. The thought of going to the gas station and putting gas in a container and then figuring out how to put it in the mower without the fear of blowing myself or the house up and then finding a place for it, is just not going to happen. 5. it’s better for the environment.

I did have the yard man do one round of mowing for me so that I could start fresh with short, easier to cut grass. I read a story recently  about a woman who stays in shape by push mowing her lawn for an hour every day. I can believe it. I looked up the calories burned and it’s anywhere from 450 per hour (for an “average” size person) and closer to 800 for me.

IMAG0432 1 1024x613 Me Vs. The Lawn

Not only will I be taking care of the grass, but I will be doing things like trimming these wild hedges. I’m not 100% sold on having bushes in front of the house, but I can’t think of anything better right now, and think they are fine for now.

My other project is building a new walkway in front of the house which I started digging out last night. Digging is hard work! And I used the old heavy step stones like weights, doing sets above my head several times.

This work makes me feel satisfied and happy in the strangest of ways. I love planning out my ideas for the yard and then getting my hands dirty and making them happen. This is such a foreign world to me. Growing up, my Dad took care of the yard and then after that I just lived in apartments where I had little more than a few potted plants.

Today, I’m planning a special trip to the local green house to get more plants! Pinterest is helping me gather my inspiration. Want to see?

My biggest inspiration is the yards I saw on the Venice Beach Canals in California. If you’ve ever been, you know what I’m talking about. It’s incredible what these people can do with a small space.

Venice canal Bridge view Me Vs. The Lawn

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linniecanal Me Vs. The Lawn

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Venice Canals2 Me Vs. The Lawn

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5872954007 a9ac109e1f Me Vs. The Lawn

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Of course, I don’t have the California weather to support most of these plants, but I’m  inspired by the arrangements more than anything. Ah, I will live there, if only for a month, once in my life! That would be a good time.

If you’d like to see more of my outdoor inspiration in pinterest, you can view them here and here.

 

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Weight Loss Exercise

The Biggest Secret of Successful Weight Loss

When it comes to successful weight loss, the biggest hurdle that people face is that of getting started. They just don’t have any idea of where to start from. If you are one of these people then this article is for you. It doesn’t really matter whether you want to lose ten or hundred pounds, the tips I am going to share with you in this article are going to help you anyway.

The first step to successful weight loss is to set some goals. Goals should be used in the same way as milestones are used on highways. Just as without any milestone, you will have no idea of where you are going, without a goal, you will have no idea of how much work you need to do to shed all the extra pounds.

Questions To Ask Yourself for Successful Weight Loss

1. How much weight you want to lose?

2. By when you expect to lose all the weight?

The Biggest Secret of Successful Weight Loss

Successful Weight Loss

These successful weight loss answers must be written on a sheet of paper. Oh yeah, before I forget, let me tell you that writing your goals is one of the surefire ways of making sure that you never forget them. Write your weight loss goals on a piece of paper, make copies of that paper, and stick each paper on every place you can.

Make sure you don’t forget to stick this paper on your refrigerator and kitchen, since it is in these places that the demon called temptation tries to ruin your weight loss efforts.

Setting goals is just not enough; in order to make the goals achievable, you must set REALISTIC goals. If you have a goal of losing sixty pounds within a couple of weeks or a month, that is not going to happen. Setting such unrealistic goals for yourself will nullify the very effect of goal setting.

When you set unrealistic goals and fail to achieve the same, you will be disappointed and frustrated with yourself and your weight loss efforts.

Ideally, no matter what you do, you would be able to lose no more than 1-2 pounds per week. So create your goals accordingly. If you want to lose sixty pounds, it will take you at least six-seven months to achieve the same.

Set small and achievable goals for yourself so that when you achieve them, you will feel more confident to move forward. This is the biggest secret of successful weight loss.

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