What are the best foods to eat to lose weight and gain muscle

Nutrition is extremely important factor in implementing the objective of gaining muscle or losing weight. Muscles are demolished during training and are rebuilt during resting. Materials to do this should be provided promptly. You ensure not only adequate quantity but also in terms of quality requirements. Imagine a wall built of bricks and mortar; however it is not adequate quality, walls cannot be solid.

Try to avoid the impact of bad sources of food and prioritize the best foods to eat to lose weight and gain muscle.

Things You Should known Before You Get Pregnant

Pregnancy is a condition when the woman conceives and is carrying an embryo or embryos (though in rare cases), and is supposed to deliver a baby in a few months time. An embryo is the developing baby within the would be mother that develops slowly inside the womb. Actually it takes 38 weeks or a little more than 9 months for the baby to be born. However for other animals (read mammals), this time differs.

Pregnancy in humans starts when a matured sperm from the male enters the female body and successfully fertilizes the egg that is released in certain days of the month after the menstrual cycle. This happens of course when the couple engages in sexual intercourse and the male ejaculates inside the female. Interestingly, it is almost always impossible to know for sure whether pregnancy has happened or not. The first signs are normally noticed when the woman misses her period. And when this happens, the doctor wants a blood test to be carried out which confirms whether she is pregnant or not. These tests work by trying to detect any change in the hormone levels in the body. Other sings of pregnancy include nausea that may come with vomiting. Minor bleeding from the vagina is another sign that it might be a case of pregnancy.

However these days, with the advances being made in medical science, pregnancy can happen even without sexual intercourse. Artificial insemination is carried out on couples that cannot have a baby under the normal circumstances due to some problem related to the male, the female or some unknown reason. This has become possible with the advent of ICSI (intra cytoplasmic sperm injection), IVF (in vitro fertilization) and others. The number of test tube babies has also increased rapidly in recent years.

Pregnancy not only brings in a new person to the world and carries forward the human race, it is much more than that (though it is in the natural instinct of humans to reproduce and have babies). Pregnancy is a wonderful thing both for the couple that is having the baby, and also for the entire family. Sometimes a new baby brings in the extended family together, and that is something great in these lonesome times. The birth of a baby has been known to bury differences between quarrelling couples who re-rediscover the lost love that had brought them together.

Some practical suggestions for losing weight

1. Importance of goal setting

Like any other important task, weight loss also requires proper goal setting. Invest some amount of time in setting a realistic goal. For e.g. our goal in this book is to lose 10 pounds.  One way to do this is to create a symbol that represents your goal. You can find a dress or a suit that will fit perfectly when you reach your goal. It can also be an activity such as playing ball with the kids or climbing a mountain that you have not been able to perform lately, and that you are looking forward to doing as you reach your goal.
 

2. Adjust the rate of weight loss to not more than 1 pound per week. Sudden and large amounts of weight loss is usually non sustainable and also detrimental to physical health.

3. Home cooked meals are the best option while you are on a weight loss regimen. Learn the caloric values of your home dishes and control their consumption. This does not mean that you have to be obsessed with calorie counter. Even if you have eaten something fattening once in a while, you can burn the extra calories by doing an additional round of exercise.

4. Anticipate plateaus when you will find that you are not losing any weight. This phase will be common to all. They happen due to accumulation of water in the body as fat is used up. You should increase exercise during this period to get rid of this accumulated water.

5. Avoid commercially available low calorie foods. They are no better than low calorie home- made meals.

6. When you are eating away from the home, in a restaurant or in a party, avoid excesses but do not get upset if you miss your planned diet. You can always adjust the following day’s menu or the remaining part of the day’s diet to compensate for the occasional increased calorie intake.

7. Include ample amounts of protein in diet, as it is ultimate fill-me-up food. Incorporate healthy proteins such as lean meat, yogurt, cheese, nuts and beans in your meals and snacks.

8. Always eat your breakfast. Skipping breakfast will make you hungry later on in the day and you may end up eating more at lunch and dinner.

9. Make it a habit to weigh yourself at least once a week.

Children SEE, Children DO?

If you want to teach your children to listen, you must listen. If you want to teach them to be healthy, you have to make healthy choices. Knowing what we want for our children is the easy part. Unfortunately, telling them over and over only goes so far. We must show them how to “walk” through our actions as parents in day to day life.

In one study, a psychologist from the University of Queensland in Australia named Mark Neilsen, wanted to test children and how they imitate adults. He set up a situation where children were given a box with a simple opening mechanisms. The children were allowed to play with the box and open it first. Then they watched an adult from their community open a box to retrieve the toy. The adults did unnecessary steps, including touching the box with a feather. When the children were given a turn, they copied every step the adult did to open the box, including the steps unnecessary to opening it. This behavior was consistent among 90 children from both Australia and Africa ages 2 to 13.

This research suggests that children will copy the adult’s actions, even imitating ways that are not efficient. Parents in the household set the patterns that children will follow. When and what the parents do, have shown to shape the habits and future preferences of the children in the house. Children model parent’s behavior subconsciously by absorbing the patterns in the environment and repeating those patterns in their behavior, whether good or bad.

What are many children copying in today’s modern world? In the last 30 years, we have seen a rapid advancement of the economy. We have utilized new technology that has transformed many parts of our lives. We now have televisions, smart phones, laptops and video games that have changed the way we spend our free time, work and communicate with each other.

Children are growing up watching an average of 4 hours of television a day. It is no wonder they are doing so. Entertainment through technology is very easy and requires no work. Children don’t have to run, explore or find something to do. Additionally, parents are increasingly using their smart phones and computer in the home. Sherry Turkle, a director from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Initiative on Technology, conducted 300 interviews with children. She was investigating how parent’s technology use affects children.  What she found was the children had feelings of neglect, jealousy and competition with technology across the board.

Along with this technological advancement, we have seen a transition of mothers to the workplace out of necessity to contribute to the household’s income.  Nowadays 52% of children have a mother who works. Not only that, 50% of children are living in a single parent home by the time they are 18. A busier lifestyle leaves less time for children to spend with their parents and observe what to do from them.

A study from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development found that when mother’s go back to work in the child’s first year, the first 7 years of that child’s development are the same as if the mother would stay home. This suggests that children fare well in childcare facilities. With the knowledge that children are imitating everything they see during those years, choosing who will spend time consistently with your child will determine how they behave. Armed with this knowledge, parents can observe their child’s behavior and find the origins in those main adult figures in the child’s life. “What example are you living?” is what parents must ask themselves. “What is my child learning from those around us?” is another important question for working parents. What does an unobscured child’s eye see?

Life is very busy in today’s culture, but taking the time to connect with our children on an emotional, intellectual, spiritual and physical level is an investment worth slowing down for. Also, ensuring other caregivers of young children are connecting with them and setting the example we want is crucial. It is natural instinct for children to want to be like adult figures who they love and are attached to. The foundation for how children will interact, think and make decisions in the future is formed by watching the people who have a regular presence in their life. Let us choose wisely!

Resources

http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/parents-working-affect-children-3446.html

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/12/working-mothers-children-dont-suffer

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-prime/201212/how-technology-is-changing-the-way-children-think-and-focus

http://news.sciencemag.org/social-sciences/2010/05/kids-overimitate-adults-regardless-culture

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2009/01/i_spy_daddy_giving_someone_the_finger.html

http://www.parents.com/toddlers-preschoolers/development/behavioral/learning-by-imitating-you/