Hey folks! We’re back again with our weekly recap on the best health and fitness blogs from last week. I know how tough it can be to find the time to keep up with all the articles out there with everything else going on in your life which I why I pick out only the best articles that cross my inbox so you can keep trucking towards your weight loss goals.
This week we go over how to prevent a sunburn while you’re exercising outside, how eating healthy isn’t more expensive than grabbing fast food, General Mills’ update on natural ingredients in their cereals, the Beachbody Performance Supplement Line, and the connection between loud traffic noises and obesity in Stockholm, Sweden. And don’t forget, no matter where you are on your where loss journey, we all had to start somewhere. What matters the most is that you start and you keep pushing ahead.
Last Week’s Best Health & Fitness Articles
How To Prevent a Sunburn
Summer is finally here and if you’re like me, you’re taking full advantage of the good whether while it lasts. Sure, there have been unbearably hot days here and there, but getting outside and experiencing activities that are best ignored during winter is what this season is all about! Join a soccer league. Go to the beach with your friends. Take your bike on a scenic 10 mile ride. Get out there and mix it up, but don’t forget about your sunscreen. Your skin will appreciate it.
Sun damage to the skin is caused by two types of rays: UVA and UVB. UVB rays are the primary cause of sunburn, but they each play a role in skin-aging and increasing your risk of skin cancer.
Putting on at least 1 ounce of broad spectrum sunscreen (at least SPF 30) will protect you against 97% of UVB rays for roughly 2 hours depending on how much you sweat, if you get into the water, or if you towel yourself off. Naturally, the more you do of any of those, the less time your skin will be protected and the sooner you’ll need to reapply. If you regularly spend time outdoors during the summer, read this article to help reduce your chances of not only getting sunburned, but developing skin cancer later on in life.
Autumn Proves Eating Healthy is Not More Expensive
Autumn decided to prove once and for all that a healthy home-cooked dinner can cost the same as fast food from McDonald’s.
As Coaches, one of the reasons we keep hearing about why people don’t eat healthy is because of how expensive it is. Bluntly, this just isn’t true. It’s actually the opposite. Autumn Calabrese, Beachbody Coach & creator of the immensely popular 21 Day Fit workout program, decided to blow this myth out of the water once and for all with her latest video.
General Mills Joins the Push for Natural Ingredients
“People don’t want colors with numbers in their food anymore. They want their food to be as real as possible, and they want their ingredient list…to represent what they would pull out of their pantry.” – Jim Murphy, President of General Mills Cereal
Among many other companies leading the way, General Mills has joined the clean eating crusade and plans to have all artificial colors and flavors removed from their cereals by 2017. This news is huuuuuge for cereal lovers and parents across the nation as General Mills is responsible for making Cheerios, Trix, Wheaties, Lucky Charms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Kix, Cocoa Puffs, and many more which means that your kids will be eating a healthy bowl of cereal rather than one full of artificial ingredients.
The million dollar question on the table is how are they going to replicate the vibrant colors found in Trix and Lucky Charms? Here’s a hint, they aren’t. When the natural version of these cereals hits shelves in 2017, the colors will be much softer as they’ll be using fruits and vegetables like strawberries, blueberries, etc. to provide the coloring.
How the Beachbody Performance Line Helped A Cyclist Ride from SF to LA
Denis Faye, Beachbody’s Director of Nutrition, rode his bike from San Francisco to Los Angeles (461 miles!) over the span of two days to raise money for the Lymphoma Research Foundation. Along the way, he tested Beachbody’s new Performance line of supplements (Hydrate, Recover, Recharge, and Energize) to push himself beyond his single day record (208 miles) and recover so he could finish the final stretch the following day.
As far as I’m concerned, they worked.
Could Traffic Noise Lead to Weight Gain?
I know. It sounds crazy, right? It’s not like someone honks a horn and you magically gain five pounds. (That would be horrifying by the way.) A recent study of the areas prone to noise pollution (near highways, airports, train stations, etc.) in Stockholm, Sweden compared to the health data of ~6,000 citizens suggests a correlation between the noise and obesity for those that live in high traffic areas compared to those that do not.
After-hours disturbances that wake people from a deep sleep can affect their metabolism, reduce energy expenditure, increase their appetite, and increased cortisol production from higher stress levels from a lack of sleep. Higher levels of cortisol in your body can lead to weight gains and storage of fat around your waist.
“Sleep is an important modulator of hormonal release, glucose regulation and cardiovascular function,” wrote Andrei Pyko, lead author of the study.