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Most of us, if not all of us, like something that is sweet, a little tasty and appealing. In fact, even when it comes to green smoothies, we would like to add something that makes our drink a little bit tasty and enjoyable. However, while this can be good, using processed sugar could prove to be detrimental and only work to undo the healthy benefits you want to get from your drink.

It’s possible to sweeten your smoothie naturally by adding some healthy sweeteners to the blender as you mix your ingredients. Doing so will help you stay away from health problems such as liver dysfunction, diabetes, high cholesterol levels and weight gain among others. It’s true that some green smoothies can be a bit flat and unappealing to the taste but don’t turn to sweeteners and sugar while you could use natural, healthy substitutes. Here are some of the substitutes which are lower in fructose and also rich in minerals and vitamins.

Honey

Even in sleep, the body burns 0.42 calories per pound per hour. That means a person weighing 150 pounds burns 63 calories per hour. That equates to 504 calories after 8 hours of sleep. In comparison, jogging for an hour consumes 398 calories for a person of the same weight.

We burn off calories even when we sleep because our body does not stop working—just to keep us alive.

It might seem counter-intuitive because we often associate weight loss weight energy-expending activities—not sleeping. Surprisingly, we don’t just burn calories during sleep. A good sleep can also help us increase the rate of weight loss and stave off the adverse effect of losing weight.

Here are some things you can do to maximize weight loss with sleep:

#1 Eat protein before sleeping

When our body is in tip-top shape it’s easy for us to exercise. It’s something we enjoy doing. But when we encounter actual physical barriers in our movements, as in the case of arthritis, exercising to keep fit and lose weight can become much harder.

One of the most common forms of this is arthritis. While it is largely thought of as an elderly person's problem, arthritis can strike much younger. Anyone who has dealt with the condition will know just how hard even the simplest activity becomes.

Below are 10 tips for beating arthritis and making sure you keep active and healthy at all stages of life.

1. Warm up

Completing a thorough pre-routine warm-up prior to your workout will make your exercise session much less painful and much more enjoyable. Warming up improves the flexibility of your muscles and the connective tissues that support your joints—the better they move, the less stiffness you’ll experience. A light five-minute walk or bike ride will get you started on the right foot.

2. Hit the pool

What defines a healthy lifestyle? Is it solely the food that you eat or the frequent exercise that you do? The truth is, there is more to it than those two. There are no hard or fast rules, but there are lots of different factors to consider.

Keeping up with being healthy entails tons of discipline in all aspects of your everyday routine. With your balanced diet and choice of workout, you have to observe the proper use of your body. I am talking about good posture.

Most of us, if not all of us, are too busy going about our busy day to even think about posture. I never thought about it myself. I would just go on waking up, finishing work and going home without the slightest thought of how I stand; until I started streaming and watching exercise videos from which I learned a lot on the subject of keeping a good posture.

While we almost all neglect keeping good posture, we do not notice how important it is to our well-being. We do not realize how beneficial it is to improve our posture. Most importantly, we forget that good posture can boost our overall confidence and self-esteem too.

In a society that is obsessed with good health, there have been countless methods of losing weight. Because it's effective, a cardio workout is regarded as one of the best ways of losing weight. When it comes to weight loss, a cardio workout is an effective tool that can help you lose that stubborn weight within a short time.

While all forms of cardio training provide many benefits, low intensity and high-intensity methods have specific benefits that you can enjoy. Here are some of the most important benefits of cardio:

• It increases the number of red blood cells in the body thereby enabling greater circulation of oxygen.
•  Strengthen the muscles used in respiration that in turn assist in muscle function.
• Improves your self-esteem.
• Strengthen the muscles of the heart thereby improving the pumping efficiency and resting heart.
• Reduces tensions and stress and increases your overall well-being.
• Increases blood circulation throughout all parts of the body.

But what are some of the best cardio methods for losing weight? Here are the top 6 methods

1. Running

Getting in a comfortable lifestyle routine can help bring structure to your life and ultimately help you lose extra weight. By sticking to a schedule with your diet, exercise, and life, you will be less likely to consume excess snacks and more likely to stick with your workout goals. With a schedule, you can keep yourself accountable and not accidentally slip up on your health priorities.

Schedule Your Meals

Whether you are someone who tends to skip breakfast or reach for a late night snack, when you choose to eat has an impact on how your body will process the food, which in turn influences the likelihood of gaining weight.

What do you know about healthy eating? Have you experienced seeking advice from medical experts or people who have succeeded in losing weight?

Preparing a healthy food plan is no longer a difficult task with the advent of the Internet. Healthy recipes are everywhere in blogs, news articles, and the likes.

Furthermore, you may no longer need to hire a nutritionist to fix your diet. Almost all health concerns are now answerable by self-help books and DIY guides.

However, there could be a lot of unsolicited and terrible advice about healthy eating too. The thing is what we usually do is just follow the norm and conform.

Beginners feel the need to do just about any workout routine or diet plan in front of them. Although this could work for some, we still have to understand that following a healthy lifestyle needs careful planning too.

Moreover, we have to set our goals and minds to achieving them fully. This includes the understanding that a healthy body is more attainable only if backed up by regular exercise. Don’t worry; I will not be talking about the need to set up your gym or keep adjustable dumbbells.

Ever wondered how some people have super strength when it comes to working with their hands? The kind of people who easily open tightly shut jars and bottle tops? Pros at tightly screwing bolts and nuts? Well, the secret is in their forearms. If keen, you will notice that handy people such as carpenters, truck drivers, and plumbers naturally have strong forearms because they constantly exercise their forearms muscles even without realizing it.

Photo via: legionathletics.com

Where muscle toning and fat burning is concerned, most people tend to solely focus on biceps, shoulders, abs and thighs. This may be because these are the areas that bulk up faster hence an appealing physique. However, certain areas such as the forearm are equally important and deserve ample attention as far as muscle building is concerned. Weak forearms equal inability to fully perform an activity with your arms. Basic activity such as lifting a water bottle off the floor will be an almost impossible task.

Alright, it’s the time to forget about why you didn’t make it to the gym (even once) last year. Now that you have prepared your new resolution list for this year let’s get started by ditching those tedious fitness lessons and looking at some of the favourite fitness trends for 2017.

Home Workouts

Workout and Chill for 2017 anyone? Home workouts have gained a lot of popularity since the last couple of years. Gone are the days of traveling miles through traffic jams just to reach to a gym. Home workouts will not only help you save time, but you can also vary your workouts on your will. Browse through different workout DVDs, YouTube fitness channels or even better – live fitness classes and all this at the comfort of your home. Cool, isn’t it?

Apps, Gadgets and Wearable Tech

Like yester years, wearable technology will rule this year too. Because why not? Already a stronghold of gyms and used by fitness enthusiasts all over the globe, fitness applications, and wearable fitness gadgets can help keep track of everything from workout routines, diet schedule, and individual fitness goals. Moreover, with tech giants like Apple and Garmin putting in their best in this field, things are certainly looking good for fitness fraternity across the globe.

If you take a look at the present market, things are not getting better for people who want to stay healthy. The junk food has more than just accessible prices. This makes it easier for us to cheat on our healthy diet. Whenever we are on the go, it seems easier to grab fast food and see not much of a difference in our wallets. However, a healthy diet at a reasonable price is not an impossible mission. You need to plan it ahead and avoid buying food on the go. And you need to play it smart. Today, we’ll see how the ultimate diet plan under $200 really looks like.

1. Bulk is Better

So, to be able to run the whole ultimate diet plan perfectly, you need to plan and go shopping for an entire week of groceries. This approach might seem daunting. You don’t know what you want to eat today, let alone for five days in advance. However, you can think in broad terms. You will need a light breakfast to keep you up and running for a day, a dinner with meat and/or side dish, and healthy snacks to keep the hunger between meals as far away as possible.