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Top 20 Fittest Foods

March 2, 2009 / Anthony Stalter

If your diet needs a boost, you might want to check out MensFitness.com?s top 20 fittest foods.

5) Broccoli
31 calories per cup
Eat 2-3 half-cup servings per week
This fleshy green should be at the top of your list when it comes to vegetables. It’s rich with a healthy supply of iron, calcium, fiber, and vitamin C, meaning it’s good for the circulatory system, bones, and fighting colds. “As far as vegetables go, this is the one I try hardest to get more guys to eat,” says Niki Kubiak, R.D., a private practice nutritionist in Omaha, Neb. Brocco-phobic? Try it on the sly: Slip it into stir-fries, onto pizza, or use raw chunks as a vehicle for your favorite dip.
4) Tomatoes
83 calories per cup
Eat 4 servings per week
Yes, it’s true that tomatoes used to be called “love apples” and have a reputation as a powerful aphrodisiac. But that lore has nothing to do with why we picked the tomato as the best food for sexual health. Rather, tomatoes win their place on our chart-and their relatively high ranking overall-because of a single nutrient: lycopene.
This powerful antioxidant, which comes from the pigment that gives tomatoes their red color, may actually help fight off a number of diseases and ailments-most important for men, prostate cancer. Numerous studies show that men who have the most tomatoes and tomato-based products in their diet are less likely to develop prostate problems than men who rarely eat the stuff. And the good news for guys on the run: Tomatoes are also that rare food that’s more nutritious when cooked than when eaten raw. “Lycopene becomes more bio-available to the body after it’s been heated,” says nutritionist David Ricketts, a prostate-cancer sufferer who used his disease as the motivation for writing the cookbook Eat to Beat Prostate Cancer. “You can start off the day with a glass of tomato juice and have a tomato-based sauce a couple of times a week. However you can work it in, you’re pretty much on the way.”
3) Oatmeal
148 calories per half cup
Eat 3-4 servings per week
When it comes to eating breakfast in the morning, there’s nothing better than a bowl of oatmeal to spike your energy levels and provide you with an hours-long supply of fuel. Oatmeal is also filled with stress-fighting and immunity-boosting zinc.
If that weren’t enough to convince you to pop a bowl in the microwave, keep in mind that oatmeal can also help promote weight loss and lower your risk of heart disease. Oatmeal is filled with high levels of soluble fiber that protect your heart and arteries by trapping and expelling cholesterol, dropping levels by up to 30 points or more in some cases, says Kubiak.
The best oatmeal may not be the most convenient, however. Those flavored, single-serving packs that litter grocery-store aisles are often filled with added sugar-and therefore excess calories. Instead, stick with the big tub of instant oatmeal and add your own fruit and calorie-free sweeteners, if you need them.
2) Blueberries
41 calories per half cup
Eat 1-2 cups per week
Of all the fruit you can eat, blueberries may be the absolute best. Whether you’re getting them raw, tossed into cereal, mixed in fruit salad or a smoothie, blueberries pack more fiber, vitamins, and minerals per ounce than any other fruit in the produce aisle. Chief among those nutrients are free-radical-fighting antioxidants. Free radicals, which increase in number as you get older, travel around your body damaging cells, promoting disease, and triggering signs of premature aging. And blueberries harness the firepower to knock them out of service.
Need another reason to eat them? How about your memory? Those same antioxidants that fight disease are also effective in helping keep connections between cells in your brain and nervous system healthy, ensuring clearer, quicker thinking and the best memory possible.
1) Salmon
121 calories per 3-oz serving
Eat 3-4 servings per week
Salmon tops our list for a number of reasons, but the biggest has got to be because its so densely stuffed with omega-3’s. These fatty acids are thought to slow memory loss as you age and boost heart health by regulating heart rhythms and keeping arteries and veins supple and free of blockages. While saturated fats lead to obesity, the polyunsaturated fatty acids in fish appear to correct and prevent obesity, according to a study published in Clinical Science.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Salmon is also an excellent source of protein. A three-ounce cooked serving contains 20 grams-making it ideal for building muscle and trimming fat. Besides helping stimulate your metabolism three to four times more than carbs or fat, protein is the absolute best food for helping fill you up, so you take in fewer calories and burn more. And that’s what being a fit food is all about.

To see the entire top 20 list, click here.

Diets, Nutrition, Xternal Fitness, Xternal Furci

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Exercise is not bad for the joints.

February 27, 2009 / Mike Furci

Exercise is beneficial for overall physical health and psychological well-being. However, there is a perception that exercise is potentially harmful to joints, in particular those of the lower extremities.

There is no good evidence supporting a harmful effect of regular exercise on normal joints, according to a review of studies.

Researchers reviewed existing studies on the relationship between regular exercise and osteoarthritis (OA) and concluded that in the absence of existing joint injury there is no increased risk of OA from exercise.
(Eurekalert.com 1/27/09)

Anti-Aging, Exercise, Men's Health and Wellness, Sports Health and Fitness, Weight training

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Avoid staph infections

February 27, 2009 / Anthony Stalter

Men?s Fitness.com writes that staph infections are becoming alarmingly common. Use the guide below to avoid getting staph infections when spending time at the gym or pool.

Post-workout showers rock, but as great as they feel on beaten-down muscles, they could have you leaving the locker room with more than a spring in your step. The culprit? Staphylococcus, or staph, is a family of more than 30 different types of bacteria that’s easily transmissible ? especially in warm, overly populated areas like locker rooms. It may already be present in up to 25% to 30% of the population, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. (You may have heard renewed staph talk a few months ago when infections hit the NBA.)
In most cases, the presence of staph on the skin causes relatively few problems. But if you get a cut or damage your flesh in some way, and the bacteria enter your bloodstream, it can cause a wealth of problems ? some of which can turn fatal. Here’s how to protect yourself:
STAY CLEAN
Good personal hygiene is the first step in protecting yourself and staying ahead of a staph infection. Shower daily, wearing flip-flops when in a public location, and wash your hands regularly, especially after leaving the bathroom.
DON’T SHARE
Many people carry staph bacteria without realizing it. When it comes to things like towels and razors, it’s always best to use your own since these things act as vehicles for bacteria.
DISINFECT, DISINFECT, DISINFECT
Keep all wounds clean and properly covered. This will cut down your risk of infection and prevent infected areas from spreading farther.

Check out MensHealth.com to find out more.

Hygiene, Men's Health and Wellness, Sports Health and Fitness, Xternal Fitness, Xternal Furci

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Men using Botox?

February 26, 2009 / Gerardo Orlando

I have to admit I was pretty surprised when I read these numbers.

Botox is now being used by men, some of whom did not even run for President. The number of men in the U.S. who paid to get a series of tiny injections in their face nearly tripled from 2001 to 2007–to 300,000, or about 7% of the total Botoxed population. And despite the recession, those numbers aren’t going down yet; one of the many things the laid-off cannot afford is to look their age.
Men usually get Botox to remove those two vertical lines between their eyebrows that make them look angry and confused and thus, one could argue, masculine. They also use the product to smooth out the horizontal creases in their foreheads, though, unlike women, they don’t tend to worry about crow’s feet. Men do, however, fret a lot more about the pain. “They get so jacked up worrying that it will hurt,” says Botox enthusiast and nine-time Olympic gold medalist Mark Spitz. “Maybe that’s why women have babies and we don’t.”
When 1970s Olympic heroes–and mustachioed ones at that–get work done, it would seem to mark social acceptability among guys. Spitz, though, is a spokesman for Allergan, the company that makes Botox and has started to market directly to men via its website. Sure, Spitz first considered getting the world’s most common cosmetic procedure after a friend, former Olympic gymnast Nadia Comaneci, told him that the wrinkles between his eyes made him look old and overly serious, but he got a whole lot more interested when Allergan started paying him.

Everyone is obsessed with looking younger, so we shouldn’t be surprised by this.

Men's Health and Wellness, Xternal Fitness

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Your guide to healthy Chinese food

February 23, 2009 / Anthony Stalter

Eating Chinese food can also be interpreted as a ?healthy choice.? But as MensFitness.com pointed out, Chinese dishes can be loaded with sodium, fat and calories.

Below is MF?s guide to eating healthier at Chinese restaurants.

Chinese food may be tasty, but more often than not it’s an ab-killer. We asked Jim White, R.D., a Virginia-based dietician, to help us make some smarter choices.
LEARN THE LINGO
Anything steamed is obviously good, as is Jum (poached), Chu (broiled), Kow (roasted), Shu (barbecued), lightly stir-fried, dry stir-fried, or braised. Anything breaded, fried, or coated in flour is not.
USE THE RIGHT TOOLS
Chopsticks are your friend. “You’re going to get less oil than you would with a fork,” adds White.
GET SAUCED
Steer clear of thick gravy or sauces made from sugar, flour, or cornstarch (such as those found on General Tso’s or Sweet and Sour Pork). They’re loaded with corn syrup. Instead, White suggests hot mustard sauce, hoisin sauce, or oyster sauce. And no matter what, always make your order “half sauce.” That way, you get half the sauce?and half the calories?of what they’d normally use in the dish.
GO VEGGIE
Here’s an inside tip: Order your meal cooked in vegetable stock (a traditional Chinese style of cooking called “stock velveted”) to reduce the calories in your dish by 150-300 and the fat by 15-30 grams. “Expect your protein to be a bit more moist and tender, with less crunch than usual,” says White.
SKIP UNNECESSARY SIDES
A serving of crispy noodles can set you back as much as 200 calories and 14 grams of fat, and Lo Mein is even worse. That dark brown color in the noodles? It comes from soaking up all that oil. A large portion generally runs in the thousands of calories.

Click here to read the entire article.

Cholesterol, Diets, Nutrition, Xternal Fitness, Xternal Furci

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