Health & Fitness | Military Workouts

(Model: Shanita)

One of the fastest and most effective ways to get fit and lose tons of weight is to try military exercises! They usually consist of endurance and strength training while at the same time doing high lactic acid threshold training. In other words, the goal in military exercises are: Fat loss, coordination, strength, and stamina. The routines are generally very hardcore, but on the plus side they don’t take up too much time, so if you’re quite busy, this may be just what you need to get into shape ASAP. We’ve got Navy / Armed Forces Veteran Danny L. to provide us with a few tips and exersizes he endured during his aircrew training! To the left is our gorgeous and stunning military model, Shanita, who is August’s cover model!

First off the hardest thing about military training is really pushing yourself. There were times when we would get sick with the flu and still have to push ourselves to do these exercises. It didn’t matter if it was raining or snowing. Under all circumstances, nothing stopped us.

Here’s what we did daily:

Push-ups
Under 35 years of age- men:19 women:9
35 and Older- men:14 women:7

Sit-ups
Under 35 years of age- men: 19 women:15
35 and Older- men: 17 women:12

Hand Grip (kilograms)
Under 35 years of age- men: 75 women:50
35 and Older- men: 73 women:48

Chin-ups
Under 35 years of age- men:6 women:3
35 and older- men: 4 women:2

While this seems pretty simple, keep in mind that this is on a daily basis, whether you’re sick or just simply don’t feel like doing it. We had to.

On top of all this, they had to do other things like swimming in full uniform, and blindfolded.

This is exactly what Danny says about his aircrew training at first…”Why do u want to know this stuff? lol and it was a 1 mile swim in the pool. We couldnt touch the ground or walls or we would fail. We had on our full flight suits and flight boots and only had one hour to do it.”

So it does get tougher, and there were other more harsh things we had to do, but the basic daily exercises is what really prepares your body for anything and keeps you toned and in shape.

Other things that can help you burn fat quickly to to focus on one muscle group. Flex your abs all the time. Eventually it becomes a habit and you’ll constantly be flexing (and strengthining) your abs. You can also pretend that you’re sitting on a chair and hold it for as long as possible. Doing this to music helps. At first I could only hold this stance for about ten seconds, but now I can go for about 15 minutes sitting on an invisible chair.

By now, we probably all have heard that margerine is only one molecule away from being plastic! It’s true! Margerine will never grow mold, and if left out amongst flies, the flies won’t even touch the stuff because it contains no nutrients!

We should also know that most juice is pasteurized, (heated) therefore killing off some important nutrients, but leaving in the juice’s natural sugars (and in fruit juice, that is usually a lot of sugar!).

We also probably know that if you leave a piece of steak in a bowl of coca cola for a couple days, the coke will eat away at the meat leaving just the bone! Imagine what it does to your body?

Most people don’t give soda to their dog, cat or newborn baby… you don’t let them smoke either… or give them alcohol. I mean, most of us don’t. We usually think it’s not good for them. Yet, we have the same organ systems that they have. People tend to forget this and think they are machines and can consume anything!

Here is a Nutrition Do and Don’t list to summarize this article

DO choose butter over margerine. There are some butters which are easy to spread if that is your concern.

DO drink more vegetable juice than fruit juice. Also eat more vegetables than fruits. While fruits are healthy, vegetables generally contain the same vitamins, but contain less sugar. Even further, buy a juicer and juice your own fruits and veggies! That way you skip the pasteurization process and get the full amount of nutrients.

DO choose organic foods whenever possible.

DO eat meats that are high in protien, low in fat (because fat holds a lot of toxins from pesticides, antibiotics, and other chemicals that animals eat). Turkey or other poultry is always a good choice, chicken comes second to turkey though. Substitute beef or pork (if you can) with turkey anytime possible. There is turkey bacon, turkey burgers, etc. Fish is also good, but do the research on where it comes from. Is it wild or farmed? Does it contain heavy preservatives or any metals? This DO is of course for those who are not vegetarians.

DONT eat white bread! It turns into just sugar once digested, and contains hardly any nutritional value! What’s the point of eating it?

DO choose whole wheat bread. Some breads may say on the label “Made with 60% whole wheat…” forget it! Get only 100% whole wheat products. Anything else is just a marketing scheme to make it look healthy, when the only true healthy bread is whole wheat. Even better if it is organic of course, because then you know the wheat had not been sprayed with pesticides.

DO drink plenty of water, approximately 6 glasses a day. Filtered water of course. This not only keeps you hydrated, but flushes toxins out of your body and keeps your appetite suppressed throughout the day.

DO choose to eat foods that have been around for centuries.

DONT choose to eat something scientists brewed up recently, because they are only finding out about the long-term effects of those products in our generation.

An ideal breakfast: a bowl of puffed wheat ceral (0 grams of sugar per serving, also high in protien and fiber), with organic milk, sprinkle on a little brown sugar for taste, with a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice, vegetable juice, or organic milk, and perhaps a piece of buttered organic whole wheat bread with some peanut butter, and one piece of fruit.

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Good Ol’ Sunny D.

My favorite drink as a kid, also many of my friends’ favorite drink growing up. Kids still drink it! Why? Because it’s sweet, it tastes good, and it’s cheap!

Aside from the high amount of sugar and calories, guess what one of the ingredients is??

Vegetable oil!! It’s true, they use it as a thickener. It’s kind of disgusting thinking you are drinking fattening vegetable oil just so that the manufacturers can save money! Also, many other drinks like this one, contain sodium benzoate. Sodium Benzoate is used in just about every canned drink, also in many salsas, fruit juices, pickles, ect., as a preservative. Sodium Benzoate is also used to prevent mildew and rust. Rust?! That’s right, it was also recently used as a corrosion inhibitor in engine coolant systems. And we eat this….why? Because it is a lower costing preservative, and manufacturers need to add preservatives so they can produce more products and get all of them sold rather than throwing them off the shelves every couple days.

How about a food product like Cheetos or cheesy twists, or even gummybears? They aren’t natural! You can’t find it somewhere on the eart growing naturally. They were brewed up by scientists! Just as pesticides came to be within the last century. They spray fruits and veggies with pesticides (obviously to keep the bugs off so they can grow a larger amount of produce) but if they’re enough to kill and keep away insects, why would humans want to ingest that? On top of the pesticides, most grocery stores then put wax on their fruits and veggies! Why? So they look better on display! In many states it is illegal for stores not to let you know if there is wax on their fruits and vegetables or not, so read up! Search the internet for your local grocery store’s policies on waxing. Definitely buy organic products if you can. They are a little more expensive, but you can’t put a price on your health. Even something that grows underground like potatoes, or carrots, that you think don’t get sprayed with pesticides… well, farmers usually have pesticides in the soil in which these vegetables grow in.

Cancer and diabetes as well as many other new-age diseases are usually caused by our lifestyle. The foods we eat, the drinks we drink, not getting enough excersize, smoking, ect.

Think about it. If these diseases were hereditary, why didn’t these diseases exist centuries ago? You know, before scientists and farmers started using chemicals in our food, and manufacturing companies add a lot of sugar but display the nutrition information so that it confuses people.

So when a patient is diagnosed with cancer, why does the doctor ask them if they have a history of cancer in thier family? Doctors simply don’t have the time to sit there with each patient going over their lifestyle history with them. Sure they could ask patients what they had for breakfast that morning to get an idea of how they live… but the patient would then ask why they wanna know! And the doctors simply do not have the time.

What can we do?? Find out…

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It is a well known fact that new-age diseases such as diabetes and cancer are usually linked to an unhealthy lifestyle. You try to be healthy. You are told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so you start off your day with a bowl of cereal, skim milk, a glass of apple juice, and perhaps some fruit, or yogurt, or toast. That all seems pretty healthy… or is it?

Let’s take a look at cereal first.

Many booxes of cereal use words like “Made with Whole Grain”, or “Low Cholesterol”, however you should always check the lables of everything you consume, not just for calories and fat, but for sugars!

How much cereal does a normal person eat? Everyone I know eats a normal-sized cereal bowl full to the top and sometimes even has seconds! I used to do that too. It takes quite a bit of the stuff to fill you! Well let’s take a look at the nutrition label and find out what we are supposed to eat… according to the manufacturers, that is.

Okay, so we’re using Honey Nut Cheerios only as an example, but look for yourself on any cereal box at the nutrition label. For now we’ll look at this one together.

The first red circle shows that one serving should be 3/4 of a cup. 3/4 of a cup?? Who eats that little cereal?? Even one cup isn’t enough to fill a bowl… we tried it!

The second circle shows the amount of sugar inside. 9 grams. Doesn’t sound so bad. Did you know that 4grams of sugar = 1 teaspoon? So basically there is approximately 2 teaspoons of sugar for every 3/4 cup of Honey Nut Cheerios.

Here the picture shows 3/4 cup of cereal. Below is a regular size cereal bowl, after we poured in 3/4 cup of cereal. It isn’t even half full!

So what’s my point (You’re probably asking)? Let’s do the math. Let’s say you pour yourself a full normal bowl of cereal. That is about 4 times the suggested serving amount. So 4x 3/4.

We said that there are 1 teaspoon of sugar for every 4 grams. So 9grams x 4(servings)= 36grams. Now let’s see how many teaspoons of sugar that is… 36 divided by 4= 9 teaspoons of sugar, plus the amount of sugar in your milk, as well as the sugar from your juice. What if you have a second bowl of cereal?

The scary part is that Honey Nut Cheerios aren’t even that bad when it comes to sugars as a lot of other cereals are. Do the research! And this is just the sugar we’re talking about.

How about the sodium, as well as the calories? 110 calories for ever 3/4 cup x 4 (for approximately a full, normal sized cereal bowl) = 440 calories! This is without the milk and the other breakfast items we mentionned! As for the sodium… 170mg x 4 = 680mg of sodium!! I am not too sure what sodium can do to a person, but that seems like a lot!

Let’s take a look at what’s next

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How to Look Thin: Teen Weight Loss Guide

By Kayce

You tried losing weight in time for summer, you tried toning up your body, but you just didn’t get the results you hoped for.Now you have a big summer activity coming up and want to slim down ASAP. As you know, it’s next to impossible to drop major pounds safely within a few days. All you’ll really lose is water weight and energy, not fat. Here is a guide to help you achieve a skinnier appearance, as we explain not how to lose weight, but how to %LINK1%.

Clothes
One of the best ways to appear thinner is with the types of clothing you wear. It is well known that darker clothes, especially black, will make you look smaller.

You can wear clothes that are vertically striped or ribbed as well, to trick the human eye into thinking you are thinner. You may also want to try a top with a large square neckline or a top that is dark in color and has two thick lines running vertically down the front area. This will create an optical illusion and make you look 4 sizes smaller.

Corset tops are designed to flatten your tummy, so this is always a great choice when you need to seriously slim down your stomach.

Platform shoes may not always be in style, but they will always add height to your body in a way that is easier to walk than in little stiletto heals. Grab a pair of chunky black platform sandals.

Just as celebs do, those big bug-eye sunglasses can make your face appear smaller. If you like this look, it is still in style.

You can also create a lot of volume in your hair so that you appear thinner overall.

Makeup
Yes, you can in fact use makeup on your body to look thin. Using a spray tan or bronzer, put one coat all over your body. People with a golden tan tend to look thinner than they would if they were pale and had no glow to their skin.

Now, for the tricky part. Carefully spray (or brush on powdered bronzer) on the front of your leg bones. Just a two inch wide line on both your legs. Tis will make you appear to have thinner legs. Carefully blend outwards to it all looks natural. Do the same on your tummy, spraying to one-inch thick lines down each side of your stomach. You’ll appear to have abs! Do the same on each arm, just spray a line down each arm and carefully blend.

If you don’t understand or feel like you’ll be able to do this correctly, either stick with practicing using a bronzer your can wash off rather than a self-tanning spray. Or you can simply visit a tanning salon where they do airbrush tans, and ask them to do this for you.

Model: Jessica P.

Drop your winter weight & get bikini ready: Teen Weight Loss Guide

By Kayce

Spring is here full-force, and it’s time to shed your winter weight and get ready for baring more skin as the weather gets hotter. Here are a few ways to drop pounds safely – the healthy way.

Start with a Clean Slate

Choose a day this week that you’d like to start fresh and begin building your summer body. This day will be to clean out your body. You’ll need to drink tons of water, and only water this day. No coffee, juice, soft drinks, milk, or any other beverages. Don’t even add those little packets of flavor to your water. Today, you will just drink refreshing, all natural water. You can eat fresh, raw fruits and veggies too. If you want to eat something else, you can eat very lean turkey or fish. But since you are trying to clean out your body today, focus on lots of water, fresh fruits and vegetables.

The Next Day

Stick with drinking only water. You should keep eating fruits and veggies, and you can now add healthy, lean turkey, fish, or chicken. You can eat cereal like pure whole wheat or puffed wheat. Keep in mind that any other cereals other than these will give you empty calories, way too much sugar turning into body fat, and hardly any nutrients. Whole wheat cereal tastes bland if you’re not used to it. But bear in mind, we don’t live to eat, we eat to live – and after a while you will grow to love how plain whole wheat cereal tastes and you’ll feel amazing after you eat it.

Day Three

Try to stick with this type of diet as much as you can. Your body is only starting to be filtered out, and all you’re adding to your body is nutrients that it can use, rather than useless junk like extra sugar, coloring, toxins, pesticides, and preservatives.

The Rest of the Week

Choose water as your main drink, but you can have milk, preferably organic milk, and whole milk is fine. Don’t drink skim milk if you don’t like it. Choose vegetable juice over fruit juice. Why?! Am I insane?! No. Fruit juice is all sugar. Even if it says 100% fruit juice, fruit contains sugar. Once the juice is pasteurized (heated to kill bacteria) all the nutrients are killed too. So all you’re getting is the sugar from the fruit. Vegetable juice is different since it hardly contains any sugar. You’ll lose weight much faster by drinking vegetable juice than fruit juice. Try out this diet for a week, eating nothing but nutritious, wholesome:

• fruits
• vegetables
• only whole-wheat products (not 80%, but 100%)
• lean and organic turkey, fish, or peanut butter
• organic cheese
• drink milk, and vegetable juice as a treat
• and drink water as your main drink for every meal.

You can also drink tea you’ve brewed, or if you have your own juicer – you can make your own fruit juice. It will be healthy if you juice it yourself because it won’t get pasteurized and will keep all it’s nutrients.

The reason for eating 100% whole wheat bread & products is because you are getting the nutrients for your body that are needed – and nothing extra. White bread is made a certain way that all the wheat inside becomes useless. So once you digest the white bread, it turns entirely into sugar in your blood stream. The same goes for 80 or 90% whole wheat. It’s just a marketing scheme to get people to think it’s something healthy that tastes good.

Daily Work-Out

Start every morning as soon as you wake up, or every night before you go to sleep by doing a set of 20 situps and pushups. This will give you 140 situps and pushups every week as part of your usual morning or night routines, so it won’t feel like a work out even though it’s tigtening up your body. Do pushups from your knees if you can’t do it from your feet.

The best thing for toning your body ASAP is to tighten your muscles. Flex your stomache muscles all the time throughout the day. Laugh hard whenever there’s something to laugh at, flex your stomache muscles while sitting in class, flex, flex, flex. It will often slip your mind, but as soon as you remember – flex! Walking with perfect posture while you flex your stomach muscles will increase your muscle power here and burn fat a lot faster.

Dance around your room as much as you possibly can or do whatever sort of cardio activity you love best. Once or twice a day, you should also sit on an invisible chair. Squat down as if you’re sitting on a chair, and hold it for as long as you can. They do this exercise in the military sometimes to get better at endurance. This will work out your abs, butt, and thighs. I used to be able to hold this stance for a couple seconds, but can now go on for 10 minutes before feeling a burn. Remember, when you feel the burn, it’s the fat disolving!

The Biggest Mistake

So many teen girls make is hardly eating anything, and when they do eat, they only eat “low calorie” or “low fat” junk food. The stuff like gummybears or rice cakes. Stuff that isn’t real food, has no nutrition, and no poin being in your body. Sure these things taste good, but if you want to be healthy, look better, and feel better – you can give up self-satisfaction of how something tastes, and rather take something healthier that will also taste good – but naturally, not artificially.

Following these guidelines will not only make you drop pounds of body fat, but will improve your skin, hair, and the way you feel. By taking everything unnecessary out of the things you eat, your body will be able to absorb the nutrients it needs to make you look healthier. Your skin won’t be over dry or full of acne. Your hair will be softer and silkier. Your body will maintain at a healthy weight, and you’ll have tons of energy to work-out and drop even more pounds, and tone up your muscles.

So hang in there. It’s going to be a tough lifestyle change at first, but it will be worth it in the end. Try it for at least a week, and once you see how great you feel and look, you won’t want to go back to your old habits. You’ll look at your friends eating habits like they’re crazy! How could they eat all that artificial garbage?! They’re probably going to get cancer eating like that! So, stick with these guidelines for a while, and start soon so you’ll be bikini ready in a few weeks.

Model: Angel

Love halloween for the treats, but wish they were healthier?

Here are a few recipes for you to try this halloween!

All you need are a few potatoes, and some olive oil! Cut the potatoes in half lengthways, and then split each half into two or three ‘claws’, by slicing part way up the potato. Put a little olive oil onto a baking tray, spread out the potato slices in a single layer, brush them lightly with olive oil and bake in a moderate oven for 30 minutes until browned and tender. Add a little seasalt and pepper for extra flavor if desired.

Mix cooked white rice with canned white beans (maggots). It sounds and looks disgusting, but if you are looking to serve something creepy, this is the perfect choice to creep somebody out and is also very healthy.

Top 1-inch carrot stubs with a 1/2 teaspoon of low-fat cream cheese and half of a pitted black olive, or a raisin.

Try a mango salsa served with black bean tortilla chips! If you don’t like the mango salsa, any salsa will work, but we recommend an organic salsa. Check the ingredients to make sure they’re all natural!

• 10-12 medium organic apples (20-24 for double)
• 1/2 cup soy margarine, or butter (1 cup for double)
• 2 cups brown sugar (4 cups for double)
• 1 cup corn syrup (2 cups for double)
• 1 1/4 cup non-dairy sweetened condensed milk (2 1/2 cups for double)

1. Wash and dry apples, remove stems. Insert a wooden stick into the stem end of each apple, or a fork if you feel like being ghetto.

2. Melt butter in a saucepan. Stir in brown sugar, corn syrup and dash of salt (preferably sea salt); mix well. Use medium heat, stirring constantly, until it boils. Then stir in condensed soy milk.

3. Keep cooking and stirring it for about another 12 to 15 minutes.

4. Remove from heat. Dip each apple into carmel mixture; turn to coat. Set on an olive-oiled baking sheet, or use parchment paper, and chill the coated apples in the fridge for a few hours. Feel free to roll other yummies on the outside of the apple such as; nuts, shredded coconut, crushed cookies, dark chocolate chips, crushed dried fruit, or whatever! Not the healthiest treat in the world, but it is healthier than most halloween treats, and eating in moderation is perfectly fine.

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