Healthy Curves: Gloria shares the secrets of her awesome transformation

Gloria shared her amazing transformation with us last year. She lost 55 pounds. We asked her to share the details of how she created healthy, beautiful curves with healthy food, exercise and the right mindset. You don’t want to miss her awesome advice. She’s dropping gems. How have you maintained your weight loss? I actually did not maintain […]

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Weight Loss

Mecca lost 70 pounds

Transformation of the Day: Mecca lost 70 pounds in six months. She was tired of tired of feeling sluggish and lacking confidence. Her journey was not easy, but this Agriculture major belived in herself and found the strength to commit to a new lifestyle. Check out how she did it. Within six months I was able to lose 70 pounds. […]

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What You Need to Know About Bloating, and How to Stop and Fix It

Ever tried to cure bloating with diuretics, sauna suits, saunas, or fancy pills? Learn the real deal here.

The post What You Need to Know About Bloating, and How to Stop and Fix It appeared first on A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss.

Weight Loss

The 10 best fitness apps

If you are trying to be more physically active, up your daily steps, or burn more calories, fitness apps can help you on your way. We have trawled through fitness apps galore to bring you the best based on usability, design, user ratings, update frequency, and their capacity to get you moving.

Fitness apps are designed to keep you motivated while running, walking, cycling, or taking part in any other physical activity.

Exercise is the miracle cure we have all been waiting for. It is free, easy to start, has few side effects when done properly, and does not need a prescription. If exercise were a drug, it would be the most cost-effective medicine of all time.

Being physically active has an overwhelming number of attached benefits, such as helping you maintain a healthy weight, strengthening your heart, improving lung function, and reducing your risk for coronary heart disease. Furthermore, physical activity lowers your risk of depression, cognitive decline, diabetes, and cancer.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services guidelines for physical activity recommend that for significant health benefits from exercise, you should take part in at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity each week, although some advantages can be seen from as little as 60 minutes per week.

Physical activity comes in many forms, from high-intensity running to leisure cycling and yoga stretches. Here are Medical News Today's top 10 fitness app selections to make hitting those recommended physical activity targets fun.

RunKeeper

Android: Free

iPhone: Free

RunKeeper tracks walks, runs, and any other physical activity. From the casual stroller to the 5K runner and those building up to a marathon, this GPS app boasts a community of 50 million users and is suitable for everyone. You can build, save, and discover new routes with GPS to keep your workout stimulating.

Whether your goal is to train for a race, lose weight, or hit a particular pace target, RunKeeper can help you to plan your route to get there. The My Plan dashboard provides custom training plans based on your answers to a series of questions, or there are ready-made schedules that can be selected.

It is easy to stay motivated with RunKeeper. You can join challenges to push yourself, win rewards for your workouts, and share your progress with friends. You can also create your own challenges, invite friends to join you, and encourage and cheer each other on along the way.

Strava

Android: Free

iPhone: Free

Strava aspires to connect the world's athletes by providing an inspiring experience minus the junk posts you might find on other social networks. They say that you might join Strava for the app's tracking ability, but you will stay for their motivating and competitive community. Strava is our top pick for social training.

Strava's community involves millions of cyclists, runners, active adventurers, and pros that record their activities. Strava's activity tracking provides key statistics such as speed, pace, distance, elevation gained, and calories burned during and after exercise. An interactive map of your activity is also displayed.

You can compare your performance with other users and connect with the community, as well as share highlights of your activity, stories, and showcase photos of the best moments from your run or ride. Encouragement and motivation can be gained or given through comments and kudos. A bit of friendly competition can also be injected into your workout by shooting for the best time on the leaderboard.

Yoga Studio

Android: $4.99

iPhone: $4.99

Yoga Studio is the most highly recommended yoga app and for a good reason. With more than 70 ready-made yoga and meditation classes with levels ranging from beginner to advanced and lasting from 15 to 60 minutes, there is something for everyone.

You can customize classes and choose whether you want to focus on strength, balance, flexibility, relaxation, or a combination of all four. The commentary provides clear and easy-to-follow instructions on how to do a pose and how to move from one pose seamlessly to the next.

With step-by-step instructions of more than 280 poses, plus their benefits, modifications, variations, and cautions of those poses, you have an instant yoga library in your pocket. You can also sync classes with your phone calendar to make sure you can fit regular yoga practice into your busy schedule.

Sworkit

Android: Free

iPhone: Free

Sworkit is a simple and customizable workout app rated number 1 by the American College of Sports Medicine for quality of instructional exercise standards. Sworkit has delivered more than 40 million workouts to people of all levels of fitness.

After entering your personal data, you can select your motives and goals to make sure every second counts. The workout dashboard introduces numerous exercises for strength, cardio, yoga, and stretching demonstrated by your coach. Individual exercises can be viewed using the custom dashboard to compile your personalized workout.

You can choose workout plans to become "Leaner," "Fitter," or "Stronger," and each of the three categories contain workouts, which are free for 7 days, for the beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Upgrading to Premium gives you full access to guided workouts, custom intervals for high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and Tabata, and unlimited custom workouts.

J&J Official 7 Minute Workout

Android: Free

iPhone: Free

The J&J Official 7 Minute Workout is a science-based workout method designed by Chris Jordan, director of exercise physiology at the Johnson & Johnson Human Performance Institute. The app is centered around research on HIIT and circuit training that shows that short bursts of hard exercise with short recoveries can improve aerobic fitness quickly.

Setup is fast. You can jump straight into a 7-minute workout, or 9.07 minutes with a warmup. Swiping between workout views on the slick interface displays time, video, or music, which can be selected from your phone music library. You can also give a thumbs up or thumbs down for exercises that you like or dislike.

Browsing through the video tutorials teaches you how to perform each of the 72 exercises safely and effectively. Your progression is tracked in the performance dashboard to indicate the days, number of cycles completed, and effort. A snapshot of your training can be shared with your friends to help keep you motivated, or perhaps to involve a little healthy competition.

Couch to 5K

Android: $2.99

iPhone: $2.99

Couch to 5K helps you go from couch potato to running 5K in just 9 weeks by following their easy and fun training plan. The app is designed for complete beginners to spend around 20 to 30 minutes working out, three times per week, to get 5K-ready.

The race training tools allow you to log your workouts and share progress on Facebook. Your distance and pace progress can be monitored in the graphs section, and workouts can be manually entered if you train on a treadmill.

A choice of four interactive, motivating virtual coaches - Constance, Billie, Sergeant Block, or Johnny Dead - help you to stay on track, while audio cues guide you through each workout. The app syncs with your phone's playlists so that you can listen to your favorite tracks while running.

JEFIT: Workout Tracker Gym Log

Android: Free

iPhone: Free

JEFIT is the essential app for gym-goers. Say goodbye to pen and paper for good, and use JEFIT to log the weight and repetitions on each gym machine in one-click. JEFIT enables you to track your workout routines and your rest time, and log and graph all body measurements as you progress.

If you are a gym beginner, JEFIT provides you with more than 60 routines devised by the JEFIT team, or you can access more than 2,000 community-created plans to get you started. An exercise dashboard displays an excess of 1,300 exercises for weight lifting equipment and cardio machines, and it provides visual step-by-step instructions on how to complete the exercises, as well as useful tips.

JEFIT has an active workout community. There are millions of other users to connect with, or you can add friends to keep you motivated and on track. You can share your training progress with the community and compare statistics.

Zombies, Run!

Android: Free

iPhone: Free

Zombies, Run! is an immersive running game and audio adventure. Upon installation, you are presented with a story detailing that you are runner en route to one of humanity's last remaining outposts after the zombie epidemic. Your job is to gather supplies, rescue survivors, and defend their homes.

By running in a park, walking trails, or even jogging on a treadmill, you can save hundreds of lives and discover the truth about the zombie apocalypse. Your mission and music channels play through your headphones, and if you are chased by zombies, you must speed up.

The first four missions are free, and a new mission can be unlocked each week. Upgrading to Pro unlocks unlimited access to more than 260 missions and interval training. If you want to get your heart racing and have an adrenalin rush, this is the app for you.

Charity Miles

Android: Free

iPhone: Free

If you fancy making a real difference with your training, Charity Miles is for you. By going out to grab a coffee, walking your dog, biking around the neighborhood, or shoveling some snow, not only will your health benefit from being physically active, but charities will also benefit too. Users of the app have already raised more than $2 million for charity.

On setup, you can select from more than 40 charities to support. Once you start your activity, you are sponsored by a brand to complete your task. Your activity, distance, duration, and the total amount earned by the community for your chosen charity is displayed on the dashboard.

As all physical activity contributes to charity, you will be motivated to go that extra mile and move more. As a bonus, you will also increase your fitness levels and improve your health. The more steps you do, the more you earn; "Every Mile Matters."

CARROT Fit

iPhone: $3.99

CARROT Fit is the fun way to get fit with your sadistic computer-generated coach. CARROT has one goal - "to transform your flabby carcass into a Grade A specimen of the human race" - and will stop at nothing to achieve her objective. CARROT bribes, inspires, threatens, and ridicules, saying, "You will get fit - or else!"

The app is based on the same 7-minute science-based method as the J&J Official 7 Minute Workout. However, those 7 minutes are sweat-and-pop-culture soaked, involving activity such as Celebrity Face Punches, Dragon Mating Dances, and Mt. Doom Climbs. You can take part in 30 seconds of punishing exercise, followed by 10 seconds rest, "just in case you need to hydrate, catch your breath, or vomit into a bucket."

CARROT tracks how many steps you have taken and your weight loss, as well as displays your workouts on a calendar. CARROT will pass judgment on your progress. If CARROT is upset by your progress, her harsh demeanor has a 74.9 percent chance of making you cry. However, if CARROT is impressed by your progress, she will reward you with app upgrades and permission to watch a friend eat a bag of potato chips, and she may even present you with cat facts. Lucky you!

Weight Loss

Karessa lost 128 pounds

Transformation of the Day: Karessa lost 128 pounds. Her 3 year old son was her motivation. Giving up on her weight release journey would have been like giving up on him. She opted for gastric bypass surgery and commited to a healthy lifestyle to keep the weight off. What motivated you? What inspired you when you […]

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Honey vs. sugar: Is honey really better for you?

Honey and sugar are two of the most commonly used sweeteners. Honey is often regarded as the more healthful option, but is this really the case?

Both honey and sugar add sweetness to meals and snacks. However, they have different tastes, textures, and nutritional profiles.

This article explores the benefits and disadvantages of both honey and sugar for health and diet.

Honey vs. sugar: Similarities and differences

Honey contains less fructose and glucose when compared to sugar, but contains more calories.

Honey and sugar are both carbohydrates, consisting of the two types of sugar: glucose and fructose.

Refined fructose, which is found in sweeteners, is metabolized by the liver and has been associated with:

Both fructose and glucose are broken down quickly by the body and can cause spikes in blood sugar levels.

The proportions of glucose and fructose in honey and sugar are different:

• sugar is 50 percent fructose and 50 percent glucose
• honey contains 40 percent fructose and 30 percent glucose

The remainder of honey consists of:

These additional components may be responsible for some of the health benefits of honey.

Sugar is higher on the glycemic index (GI) than honey, meaning it raises blood sugar levels more quickly. This is due to its higher fructose content, and the absence of trace minerals.

But honey has slightly more calories than sugar, although it is sweeter, so less may be required. Both sweeteners can lead to weight gain if overused.

Benefits of honey

Honey has been used since ancient times as both a sweetener and medicine.

It is a viscous liquid produced by honeybees and ranges in color from straw yellow to dark brown. The bees collect nectar from flowers and mix it with enzymes to form honey before storing it in honeycomb cells to keep it fresh.

Honey is associated with several benefits:

More nutrients and less processed than sugar

Honey varies in its nutritional composition based on the origin of the nectar used to make it. In general, it contains trace amounts of local pollen along with other substances, such as:

Some research indicates that dark honey has more antioxidants than light honey.

Also, honey is less processed than sugar as it is usually only pasteurized before use. Raw honey is also edible and contains more antioxidants and enzymes than pasteurized varieties.

Cough suppressant

Some research suggests that honey is a natural way to ease a cough in children.

A 2007 study found that children with bronchitis who were given dark honey experienced greater symptom relief than those taking a placebo. However, the benefits were small.

More recent research suggests that honey is better than no treatment at all for a cough, although some medications provide greater symptom relief.

Allergy relief

Anecdotal reports indicate that locally-produced honey may help reduce seasonal allergy symptoms. However, clinical studies have not demonstrated this consistently.

One study published in 2011, found that people with birch pollen allergy, who took birch pollen honey, experienced:

• a 60 percent reduction in symptoms
• 70 percent fewer days with severe symptoms
• twice as many days without symptoms

They were also able to reduce their antihistamine intake by 50 percent compared to the control group.

These benefits may have been compounded by honey's antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits.

Also, one treatment for allergies is to desensitize the body to reactions by repeatedly introducing small amounts of allergens. In line with this, local honey may contain traces of the pollens that cause seasonal allergies.

Topical use

Honey has shown benefits when applied topically, as it has antimicrobial properties:

• Wound healing: Research suggests that honey offers considerable benefits in the natural and safe treatment of chronic wounds, ulcers, and burns.
• Seborrheic dermatitis: Raw honey was found to markedly improve seborrheic dermatitis, which is an itchy and flaky scalp condition. Weekly application of honey also reduced hair loss associated with the condition and prevented relapses among study participants.

Easier to digest

Honey may be easier than sugar on the digestive system.

Due to its composition, regular sugar has to be ingested before being broken down. As bees add enzymes to honey, the sugars are already partially broken down, making it easier to digest.

Disadvantages and risks of honey

Some of the most common disadvantages and risks associated with honey include:

High calorie count

One tablespoon of honey contains 64 calories, which is higher than that of sugar at 49 calories per tablespoon.

Risk of infant botulism

It is not safe to give honey to infants younger than 12 months. Honey's bacterial spores can cause infant botulism, a rare but potentially life-threatening disease.

The spores that cause botulism in infants are harmless in older children and adults. Symptoms of infant botulism include:

Impact on blood sugar and risk of illness

Honey has similar effects as sugar on blood glucose levels. This is especially problematic for people with diabetes and insulin resistance.

Too much honey can lead to blood sugar issues in healthy people too, increasing the risk of:

Benefits of sugar

There are many different types of sugar and they have no added nutrients except molasses.

Sugar comes from sugarcane or sugar beet. Although it is derived from natural substances, sugar needs a lot of processing before it becomes the finalized product.

There are several different types of sugar including:

• brown
• muscovado
• powdered
• raw
• turbinado
• white

All these forms of sugar comprise glucose and fructose, which bond to form the sugar known as sucrose.

Sugar has no added nutrients. However, brown sugar, which is a blend of white sugar and the byproduct of sugar manufacturing known as molasses, may have some trace minerals.

The main benefits associated with sugar use include:

Lower in calories than honey

Sugar contains 49 calories per tablespoon, while honey has 64. However, honey is sweeter than sugar, so less may be needed to achieve the same sweetness.

Low-cost and long shelf life

Sugar is cheap, easily accessible, and has a long shelf life. It also makes many foods more palatable, and so, it is an attractive store cupboard staple.

Disadvantages and risks of sugar

There are some disadvantages and risks associated with sugar consumption.

Higher on the glycemic index than honey

Sugar can spike blood glucose levels faster than honey. This leads to a quick spurt of energy, followed by a sharp decline characterized by tiredness, headaches, and difficulty concentrating.

Increased risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes

Weight gain and obesity are associated with high sugar consumption, increasing the risk of illness.

More problems for the liver

Since the liver must metabolize refined fructose, issues relating to liver function may occur with high sugar intake. These include:

• nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)
• cholesterol management
• obesity

Cavities

Dental caries or cavities develop faster and in more teeth with a high sugar diet.

This is true for everyone. Sugar should be avoided to reduce the risk of cavities.

Changes in gut bacteria

A high sugar diet is associated with less healthy and gut bacteria diversity. It may also increase the risk of chronic diseases.

More difficult to digest than honey

As previously said, sugar does not contain the enzymes that honey does, so is more difficult to digest.

Honey vs. sugar: Which is best?

Too much honey or sugar in the diet may lead to dental issues such as tooth decay.

It is possible to consume too much of both honey and sugar. The risks of overconsumption are the same for both, as well. The main concerns are:

• weight gain
• increased risk of illness
• blood sugar peaks and crashes
• increased risk of tooth decay

Therefore, both products should be used in moderation or not at all. While honey does have some health benefits, they are mostly observed when used in response to specific issues, such as a cough or allergies, or when used topically, which does not affect blood sugar levels.

If opting for honey over sugar, choose dark, raw varieties, which contain more nutrients, enzymes, and antioxidants than white sugar.

Cutting down

The American Heart Association (AHA) suggest that women consume no more than 100 calories a day from sugar (approximately 6 teaspoons) and men have no more than 150 calories per day (9 teaspoons).

It is important to note these amounts take into account sugars already added to processed and pre-packaged foods, as well as all types of sugars, including honey and syrups.

Tips for cutting down on sugar and honey intake include:

• Cut portions in half: Use a half spoon of honey or sugar in drinks and on cereals instead of a full spoon.
• Reduce sugar in baking by one-third: This reduces intake without having a big impact on flavor or texture.
• Use extracts or sweet spices: Extracts such as almond or vanilla can provide a sweet flavor to smoothies or baked goods without increasing sugar intake. Ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg are examples of sweet spices that can add sweetness without calories.
• Substitute unsweetened applesauce or mashed banana: These natural fruit purees can be substituted for sugar in equal amounts in baking and other recipes.
• Satisfy sweet cravings with fruit: Fresh berries, bananas, mango, and other fruits can satisfy a sweet tooth without the need to turn to sugar. Fruit canned in water is also a good choice. Avoid fruit canned in syrup.

Alternative sweeteners are not recommended to reduce sugar intake. These are known as non-nutritive sweeteners.

Examples include aspartame, saccharin, and sucralose. Though the FDA reports these sweeteners are safe to use, recent research reveals they can:

• increase sugar cravings
• cause disruption to gut bacteria
• indirectly affect insulin sensitivity

Written by Jayne Leonard

Weight Loss

How Ken Brookes Lost 102 Pounds

Weight Loss Win is a weekly series I do for Yahoo Beauty. Here is an excerpt from this week’s inspiring story:

Ken Brookes Lost 102 Pounds: ‘I Never Want to Go Back to Being Unhealthy’

Ken Brookes is 62, 6 feet tall, and currently weighs 206 pounds. In 2014, after his doctor told him he had to change his diet or face significant health consequences, he was able to make critical changes for a healthier and happier life. Click here to read the story of his weight-loss journey.

Weight Loss