Vitamin D3 - 10 Reasons to Increase the Sunshine in Your Life

Vitamin D3 the sunshine vitamin is a fat-soluble and essential to bone growth and strength. It is found naturally in very few foods, the body makes it naturally when the rays from the sun reach your skin. It seems that your skin is a vitamin D3 production center for your body.

People wearing sunscreen, those that are house bound or have dark skin have more difficulty manufacturing enough vitamin D3 for needs of the body.

Vitamin D3 is found in from a few foods we eat and also from supplements. If you are house bound or extremely sun sensitive then supplementing your diet with high quality D3 capsule or spending a little time under full spectrum light or in tanning booth are the alternatives to naturally increasing the D3 levels in our bodies.

How does the body use this essential vitamin?

1. Promotes calcium absorption in the gut .

2. Helps maintain adequate serum calcium and phosphate concentrations to enable normal mineralization of bone and prevent hypocalcemic tetany

3. Is needed for bone growth and bone remodeling by specific bone cells called osteoblasts and osteoclasts. Without sufficient Vitamin D3, bones can become thin, brittle, or misshapen.

4. It helps balance blood calcium levels.

5. It helps increases absorption of calcium from the intestines to the blood stream where 95 per cent of the calcium is stored.

6. It stimulates calciferol to absorb phosphorus into the body.

7. It helps calcium calm the nerves.

8. It regulates muscle contraction and bone strength.

9. It helps regulate the immune system and reduce inflammation.

10. It also helps many genes make proteins that regulate cell multiplication, differentiation, and cell death especially in deficiency and rickets in infants and young children.

Vitamin D3 is obtained the following foods:

Butter, cheese, cod liver oil, eggs, liver, fortified margarine, milk (human and other animal), mushrooms, salmon, sardines, flax seeds, shrimp, tuna, sunflower seeds.

By Dr. M. Wolken

The Importance of Nutritional Supplements

The subject of nutritional supplements is a broad and seemingly complex issue, do in great part to the system or systems that control, regulate and enable the dispensation of medicines, pharmaceuticals and if you will...supplements. In no way or shape am I attempting to butt heads with any organization, agency or protocols of their structures, what I would like to communicate is merely that an entire multi-billion dollar industry exists solely to manufacture and distribute nutritional supplements and the variety, quality and efficacy that distinguishes any two like products can be as broad and vast as the industry itself.

With that being said, I along with a handful of other educated, ethical and integrity based fitness and nutrition professionals subsist entirely to inform, educate and provide superior products and services to the global community. Not necessarily for the profit, although there is absolutely nothing wrong with getting paid well to do what you love and are passionate about and I for one am not only passionate about my work, but feel that this my calling, as well as both a professional and moral obligation.

Consequently, this article is not an attempt to advertise, but it is meant to be more of a communique, so please accept my apology in advance for the seemingly self-righteous posturing... Quite literally, I have been asked a variation of the same question/s a thousand times, and that all important question or questions are... "Why should one take nutritional supplements and or why should an individual supplement dietary intake with supplements?" And although I would love to communicate the answer/s as simply as possible, I cannot and will not and here is why! The veracious truth is that de-conditioned, inactive people interested only in growing hair, skin and nails can perhaps meet their "low metabolic" needs through food alone. I said perhaps, who knows... What I do know is that this nation on a whole is not well and if all that you desire is to just merely exist, than obtaining this low level of existence might just be met with what poor quality food that most folks consume on a daily basis. This concept to me is like settling for what life gives you and not getting what you truly want and personally, I don't know anybody that would pick illness and disease over optimal health and a fruitful sense of being well.

And lets just say you actually want to feel...oh, perhaps just passably alright, than ingesting an inexpensive "Costco" daily multi-vitamin/mineral complex should fulfill that need as well. But if you exercise, make an effort to eat to support daily activity and have somewhat of a functional life...well than you are looking at assisting your metabolism, digestion, assimilation, the bio-availability of important nutrients and a whole host of other vitally necessary physiological necessities, so suffice it to say that food alone in today's world simply is not enough anymore. Besides, a boatload of research has proven that physically active people have much higher bodily and metabolic requirements than those that spend their time doing little more than consuming the couch.

The amount and quality of your caloric intake, in conjunction with nutritional supplementation, is of utmost importance. Not to mention that if being healthy, functional and feeling well are any of your objectives...additional supportive dietary aids (supplements) should be employed! Movement, thought (yes, thinking is invariable quite an undertaking) and other random daily voluntary and involuntary human tasks will cause stress on the body, both internally and externally and when you begin an efficient exercise program, you increase this stress, this taxing workload on your body. And, when you increase physical stress on your body, fueling it (through proper nutrition) becomes more than a major consideration. Supplements accomplish two things. They help in the digestion and utilization of foods, thus creating "higher octane fuel" for your body. Secondly, they ensure that all nutritional gaps are satisfied allowing your body to efficiently and effectively burn fat, build and maintain lean muscle tissue and fully adapt to increased physical stress.

Again, if you do the research and Google the heck out of this subject, you will indeed find that only a handful of ethical and integral professionals are willing to take the high road and stick their proverbial necks out and speak the truth about such matters of controversy, hype and a blatant misleading and misguiding of reality. After many years of exhaustive R&D, my team and I at KREATEFitness.com and Synergy Fitness Systems Provo have made available what we refer to as an ultra-premium supplement line aptly titled NEO PHYSIS,(New Life, New Nature) to specifically provide not only what we think is a superior product, but to also inform and educate. Unlike popular brand names, they are not marketed through those multi-level organizations, discount health food stores, drug stores, supermarkets or other retail venues. Instead, they are distributed through elite fitness centers, medical facilities and professional sports and fitness associations and more importantly they boast a much shorter shelf-life and contain absolutely no preservatives, binding agents, sugars, starches, flours or enteric coatings. Only the highest quality ingredients are used such as Pancreatine 5x (digestive enzymes), polynicotinate (instead of picolinate) and whey protein instead of lower cost substitutes.

That's why NEO PHYSIS ultra-premium supplements are recommended by fitness and medical experts for people interested in reducing body-fat, gaining lean muscle and enhancing overall fitness and athletic performance. In addition these products were specifically designed to bridge the gaping hole that exists between the "educated" and "uneducated". I compare it to the differentiation between owning a Mercedes Benz and a Hundai, sure the former is substantially more expensive, but in the long run, a far better vehicle. Wealthy and successful people own expensive vehicles, not because they can, but because of the performance, efficiency and more importantly...the ROI or the return on investment (more bang for the buck).

Afterall, too many people believe that eating a well balanced diet provides all the vitamins and minerals necessary for good health. In ideal circumstances, this could be the case, but in reality there are many reasons why you need supplements to cope with living in the 21st century environment. Taking vitamins when required is a safe method of optimizing your dietary sources of nutrients, providing that you follow the instructions on product labels.

So, although I know without any doubt and have staked my career upon the fact that supplements are more than just contributors to expensive urine or the controversial subject of an industry that grosses multi-billions, it is really up to the individual to discern for themselves, to self-educate and even perhaps even experiment with if only a little... For the truth about what it is that we are eating in this fast food nation is indeed quite a harsh reality and without this necessary adjunct (supplementation) into our daily personal maintenance regime, our health, wellbeing and quality of life is surely diminished!

By Kurt Hurley

Do Push Ups to Build Muscle Mass and Boost Metabolism

Having spent many years doing many different workouts involving weights, cardiovascular machines, and calisthenics, I determined that the best way to build mass and boost metabolism is by doing pushups. Lots of pushups! After less than three months training, I was able to complete a one-thousand pushup routine in exactly 80 minutes.

Calisthenics, like pull-ups and pushups, are commonly avoided because they can be extremely painful. Because strength training exercises are typically anaerobic, with few exceptions, the body produces a high amount of lactic acid, thus causing a burning sensation in the muscles. Coupled with physical and mental exhaustion, an abundance of lactic acid can persuade even the hardest of athletes to give it a rest. Remember that your body will prevail, as long as you maintain your mental strength.

To begin, I would recommend a routine consisting of no more than 100-200 pushups, spread out over an entire day. Break them down into even sets, of say 20 pushups per set. Whenever you feel confident in yourself, drop to the floor and pound out a quick set. If 20 pushups are too many when you begin, then do more sets consisting of fewer repetitions per set. Do not concern yourself with the amount of time it takes to complete the first few workouts, just make sure you drink a lot of water and eat a lot of high protein food throughout the day. The day following your first pushup workout, your chest, stomach, shoulders and legs will be sore. It will become apparent just how many muscle groups are worked when doing pushups. Take 2-3 days rest.

The secret to building the endurance strength necessary to do extremely large numbers of repetitions is to strategize with your own body. The workouts need to be strategically spaced apart and sometimes stacked together to maximize results.

The second workout should be the same as the first, however do not take a 2-3 day rest after the workout. Instead of taking a long break, work out every other day, until you no longer get sore the day after. It may take a few weeks in order to be comfortable doing 200 pushups every other day. Do not lose sight of your goal. Remember that pain is a result of muscle wear and recovery, and should mentally represent progress, not a limitation. It will never go away, but it will greatly diminish over time as your body adjusts.

The third stage requires that you compress your workout into a set time interval. For the sake of example, let's say one hour. Find a comfortable number of repetitions that you feel that you will be able to repeat until you have reached your daily goal of 200 pushups. In this example, we'll do 10 repetitions. This workout will consist of 20 sets of 10 repetitions. 20 sets, evenly divided across 60 minutes means that you will need to do one set of 10 pushups every three minutes. Make sure that whatever goal you choose is achievable, and also poses a challenge. Repeat this routine every other day, until it becomes comfortable.

Because your muscles will quickly become fatigued doing calisthenics, it is very difficult to continually add more reps or sets to your workout. The easiest and most successful method [in my opinion] for building endurance is stacking workouts. By stacking, I mean completing the same workout more than one time in less than a 24 hour period. During the fourth stage, complete a 200 pushup routine in the morning and in the evening, followed by a day of rest. Once again, just like the previous stages, do this routine until your body becomes comfortable- this should only take a couple of weeks. At which point, you will complete the workout stacking, by coupling the two sessions into one two-hour session, consisting of 40 sets of 10 pushups, totaling 400 pushups. My buildup workouts include two sessions of 300-500 pushups apiece, followed by a day of rest. Note that you should not work the same muscle group two days in a row without rest. This method gave my body time to rest and refuel between sessions without going completely into recovery mode.

If your body responds quickly and you start to build considerable muscle mass in a short period of time, which I'm sure you will, the next thing to do is increase the number of repetitions per set and decrease the amount of time between sets. I would recommend a goal of 25-30 reps per set, beginning one set every 2 minutes. If done gradually, the workout compression can be very smooth and your 400-pushup routine can be completed in 32 minutes. It sounds very difficult, but it is achievable.

Now that you have the tools; timing your sets, timing your workouts and adding reps, you can pull the strings and make the workout work for you. If you have any difficulty in any particular aspect that prevents further gains, use the other techniques to manipulate your body into cooperating. For example, if you cannot add more reps to your sets, do more sets, or if you cannot do more sets, do two larger workouts spaced apart from one another.

Two important things to remember when doing mass building exercises such as pushups are; drink lots of water and eat lots of high protein food throughout the day. When doing my one-thousand pushup routine, I drink at least one full gallon of water daily to avoid dehydration and joint fatigue. Good luck! 

By: Richard West