What to avoid eating when feeling stressed
By Jake Berlin

Everyone knows that to live a long healthy life we need to eat well and exercise. Unfortunately not everyone follows these principals and ends up having many health problems as a result.

If you want to start reducing your stress levels today, then you should know that a well balanced diet is critical in preserving your health and helping to reduce your stress.

Surprisingly, certain foods and drinks have the ability to act as powerful stimulants to the body and can be a direct cause of stress. The first step to eliminating this stress is discovering which of these foods and beverages may potentially cause you to go into stress overload!

Warning: although the stimulation that the following foods provides may be quite pleasurable in the short term, in most cases they can end up being quite harmful in the long run. So please brace yourself, you may be in for a shock!

One of the biggest and worst stressful-food offenders is caffeine.

Caffeine is most commonly found in beverages like coffee, tea, Coke, etc. Even certain types of chocolate or sweets may contain caffeine. Caffeine causes the release of adrenaline in your body which increase your stress levels considerably.

Although when taken in moderation, coffee can increase your alertness, and help keep you awake, too much caffeine can also affect your muscles, nervous system and heart.

An over-consumption or caffeine can lead to unwanted long term stress. It is also important to note that caffeine intake has a direct connection with high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels and could potentially cause many serious health problems.

But the worst thing about caffeine is that it can be highly addictive.

Trying to stop drinking coffee can be one of the hardest and most challenging tasks you can undertake so you might want to take it easy when trying to reduce your coffee or caffeine consumption. If you try to quit cold-turkey you may experience withdrawal symptoms such as headaches and irritability.

It is highly recommended that you slowly cut back on your caffeine intake over time until it becomes easy to eliminate it from your life. It should not be a struggle or a process that brings even more stress into your life.

Here’s a quick habit-busting tip: If you’re currently addicted to coffee – like most people – try drinking drink black tea instead of regular coffee; it has less than a third of the caffeine of coffee, and none of the harmful oils. It’s an easier way to cut down on your caffeine consumption than just quitting coffee cold turkey.

The next stress-offender you’re going to want to minimize is alcohol.

Alcohol has many adverse effects on the body. It can impair your judgment and even cause kidney or liver failure.

Now although when alcohol is consumed in moderation it may benefit your cardiovascular system for a short period of time, the negative long-term effects far outweigh the positive short-term effects.

In most cases, alcohol is used by many of us to help relieve stress, when in actuality it puts more stress on our bodies. Alcohol users experience problems such as nervous tension, irritability and insomnia caused by the secretion of adrenaline from alcohol intake. Alcohol can also increase the amount of fat deposits in the heart and decrease the immune function when taken in excess.

Our liver is a major part of our elimination system and alcohol limits the ability of the liver to remove toxins from the body causing many severe problems over time. When we are stressed our bodies produce several toxins in the form of hormones which require filtering through the liver.

When alcohol impairs the liver’s ability to function these toxins do not get filtered and continue to circulate through the body resulting in serious often chronic health issues.

Smoking is One of The Worst Stress-Relievers.

Surprisingly, most smokers use smoking as a way to cope with stress. For most of them it actually seems to do the job in the short term, even though most smokers know that smoking is one of the worst habits you can pick up.

Smoking cigarettes is proven to be responsible for multiple forms of cancer, hypertension, respiratory illness and heart disease.

After smoking for a while your breathing becomes restricted and forces the lungs to work harder to deliver oxygen to the rest of your body. When your vital organs are forced to work more than they are used to it adds unnecessary stress to your life.
If you are a smoker who smokes to relieve stress, you may want to think twice before lighting that next cigarette.

The Sweetest Stress-Offender — Sugar.

Although it’s found in the majority of the foods we eat, sugar has no essential nutrients. All sugar really does for us you provide you with a temporary boost of energy.

When you’re on a “sugar high” your adrenal glands end up working over-time and wear out quickly.

If you don’t mind being irritable, dealing with a lack of concentration or enjoy being depressed, then sugar is the way to go. But if you’d prefer to stay happy, keep your focus and enjoy your life, then you’ll want to do whatever you can to avoid putting sugar into your body.

Many forms of diabetes can also be avoided if you manage to keep your sugar intake low. Too much sugar a severe load on the pancreas and adds a great load of stress to the body. The best way to deal with stress in regards to sugar is to try and keep your blood sugar levels constant, and don’t look to sugar when you need a boost. An apple or a banana will do just fine.

Why Salt May NOT be Your Best Friend.

First of all, salt increases your blood pressure, depletes your adrenal glands, and in many cases causes emotional instability.

If you have the option, try using a salt substitute that contains potassium rather than sodium. Many of today’s junk foods also contain too much salt and should be avoided. Here are a few of the salty foods that you should try to avoid or least eat less of: bacon, ham, pickles and sausage are just a few.

Remember, nutrition is a huge part of health living. IF you really want to live well, then eating right is key… especially since now you know what not to eat when you’re stressed out.

About the author:

Jake Berlin is the creator of "The Killer Ab Workout System" — a simple system designed to help anyone develop a stunning set of abs and flatten their stomach in record time.

To learn more about "The Killer Ab Workout System," visit: www.Killer-Ab-Workout

The Killer Ab Workout System" — is a simple 3 step system that shows you exactly what you need to do develop, stronger, flatter abs fast. This system can be used from the comfort of your own home, or anywhere in the world.

How to instantly increase your energy levels with this simple secret
By Jake Berlin

If you’ve ever wanted to boost your energy and you’re not quite sure, how to do so without coffee, then you need to try this.

Recipe for my fruit smoothie.

Although you’ve probably heard time and time again that you should stretch before doing any kind of physical exercise, do you know the reasons why stretching is important?

Well after this quick lesson, you’ll find out why an you’ll also learn how to get the most benefit out of your stretching sessions every time.

Stretching before and after any physical activity can help prevent injury, increase range of motion and it also allows your muscles to warm up and cool down faster.

The more more time you spend stretching, the more flexible your muscles and connective tissues will become.

And if your muscles and connective tissues are flexible, you’re less likely to develop painful chronic symptoms such as arthritis. Plus by increasing your flexibility, you’re also increasing your ability to move your bones and joints, reducing your risk of injury.

Be Warned: If you do any type of physical activity at the moment and neglect to stretch, your risk of injury grows with age!

Little do most of us know, but it’s not actually the muscles that are doing the stretching, it’s actually the connective tissues that hold you muscles in place that are getting lengthened.

This connective tissue needs to be stretched slowly and in a controlled movement, or it could easily get injured if the proper precautions aren’t taken.

This connective tissue kind of acts like cellophane wrap in a way. If you grab a piece of cellophane and you slowly pull on it, you’ll notice it slowly begin to lengthen… but if you pull on it to fast, it tears, resulting in cellophane wrap that is no longer usable.

Stretching your muscles using quick, jerky movements can lead to serious injury and can cause you to have a restricted use of that muscles until it’s fully healed… which could be weeks, months or even years after the incident!

So to prevent this from happening, follow some of the following simple guidelines:

When Stretching, you should always use slow, deliberate movements and hold the active stretching positions for a minimum of 30 seconds at a time if you want to get any real benefit from doing it. Your tissues only begin to relax and loosen after 12 seconds in the same position and only get any really benefits if you hold the stretch for more than that time.

The optimal amount of time to hold your stretches is between 30 and 60 seconds at a time, and it’s recommended to stretch the same areas up to four times per session.

So pick your stretch, slowly get into position with a controlled movement, hold that position for between 30-60 seconds, slowly release the pose, and repeat the stretch another 2 or 3 times to get the maximum benefit from your stretching session.

The best times to stretch are first thing in the morning after getting out of bed to give your morning a kick-start, right before bed to enjoy a more relaxed and restful sleep, after coming home from stressful day of work to relieve tension, and of course, before and after any physical activity to help reduce the risk of injury and avoid muscle soreness.

But if stretching isn’t already a part of your daily routine, do whatever you can to find a way to fit it in somehow.

Over the long run, you’ll notice that stiffness from sitting at a computer all day, or from muscle soreness exercise will be reduced and your ability to move around in your body will be greatly increased over time.

If you make stretching a part of your daily habits you’ll reduce the risk of any type of injury, your muscles will respond better and you may be able to avoid or even eliminate arthritis all together!

About the author:

Jake Berlin is the creator of "The Killer Ab Workout System" — a simple system designed to help anyone develop a stunning set of abs and flatten their stomach in record time.

To learn more about "The Killer Ab Workout System," visit: www.Killer-Ab-Workout

The Killer Ab Workout System" — is a simple 3 step system that shows you exactly what you need to do develop, stronger, flatter abs fast. This system can be used from the comfort of your own home, or anywhere in the world.

How to Develop Six Pack Abs
bY Jake Berlin

If you’ve ever wanted to have a set of six pack abs, then this will be the most important article you’ll ever read.

Developing your abdominal muscles takes work and determination but the funny thing is, once you’ve got them, they’re pretty much there to stay.

The trick to getting started is to be committed for 90 days. Once you’ve gone past the first three months the rest is a breeze!

Plus, once you have developed and toned those muscles once, you hardly have to do any work at all to maintain them.

As far as what exercises you need to do, you’ll want to pick 7 highly effective exercises (like the ab bicycle and the reverse crunch.) Perform between 10 and 25 repetitions for each set or exercises. Repeat those 7 exercises three times for a total of 21 sets in all.

Once you’ve done that workout, wait at least a full day before doing it again. You need to give your abdmoinal muscles some time to rest and repair themselves to develop and grow.

Now surprisingly enough, you can fully work your abs in about 15 minutes a day. So developing a great set of abs doesn’t really have to be all that time consuming.

The real secret to developing a stunning set of six pack abs is not only about abdominal exercises, it has much more to do with what you do outside of yoru abdominal exercise routine.

This may not be surprising to you, but you need to reduce your body fat percentage if you want to see those ripples. But don’t worry, burning fat can be extremely simple if you take the right steps.

The other part of the formula is to take up cardiovascular exercises (like riding a bike, swimming, jogging or even skipping rope) for about half an hour at a time to increase your metabolism and to process food faster in your body. Once you can digest your food quicker, it’s easier for your body to begin using stored fat as energy.

The other thing that’s als extremely important is what you put into your body to fuel it. Having healthy eating habits that fuel your body with the right type of nutrients will make a huge difference in your fat burning efforts.

I highly recommend seeing a nutritionist or a dietician for their recomendations.

Once you’ve got the fat out of the way and have effectively learned how to keep it off, your abs will show through and you’ll have that washboard look in no time.

Unfortunately, doing abdominal exercises alone doesn’t help much to burn fat, but combining an ab workout with a cardio routine and a healthy eating plan will definitely lead to a strong sexy set of six pack abs that’ll make anyone drool.

About the author:

Jake Berlin is the creator of "The Killer Ab Workout System" — a simple system designed to help anyone develop a stunning set of abs and flatten their stomach in record time.

To learn more about "The Killer Ab Workout System," visit: www.Killer-Ab-Workout.com