Healthy Diet

Healthy Diet

Replacing a healthy diet with shunning food every other day may be a feasible way to slash calories -- if you and those around you don't mind the crankiness that comes with it, according to researchers.

Their study of 16 nonobese men and women looked at the effects of alternate-day fasting, a possibly healthy diet type of eating plan that interspersed fasting days with "feasting" days that allowed participants to eat as much as they wanted. They found that the healthy diet plan was indeed "feasible," at least for the duration of the 3-week study. Healthy diet participants were not able to "make up" for what they didn't eat on fasting days.

Overall, the men and women on this healthy diet lost an average of 5 pounds, while shedding some body fat. On the other hand, on this weight loss diet, most people were not happy -- a major problem being the crankiness that erupted on the fasting days and did not abate over the 3 weeks.

Exercise and Metabolism

When you diet, or restrict your daily calories, your metabolism slows down. Exercising can help to reduce this effect.

Exercise burn calories, and causes your metabolism to stay elevated well after you finish exercising.

Your body runs on the blood sugar and fat circulating in our blood. When we exercise the amount of blood sugar in our blood is decreased and hormones are released that instruct your fat cells to release fat into our blood. The fat then circulates to the muscles for fuel, and you end up with less fat on your body.

There are two main types of exercise:

* aerobic exercise or cardiovascular exercise or simply cardio. This type causes you to breathe harder and increases your heart rate, activities such as running and swimming improve both your respiratory capacity (lungs) and your circulatory system (heart and blood vessels).

* strength building, also called resistance training, increases the percentage of muscle that makes up your body, activities such as weight lifting with free weights or using a variable resistance machine.

Because muscle is a metabolically active tissue, the more muscular you are the higher your metabolism will be. This means that you will burn more calories even at rest.