John Aaron Wellness

No muscle in your body works harder than you heart. That's why you should always strive to take good care of it! But - What's the best way to do that? Well, I'm sure you've already had it pounded into your head that working out and eating right are the first two major steps to protecting your 'ticker,' but here's something you probably haven't heard: A simple essential mineral can practically "bulletproof" your heart against disaster (and disease). I'm talking about magnesium. So what exactly can this commonly overlooked mineral do for you? A study in the American Heart Journal found that magnesium is incredibly effective at slashing the risk of sudden cardiac death. In fact, the researchers found that folks with high amounts of magnesium circulating in their bloodstream are 41 percent less likely to die of a sudden heart disaster. [1] But that's not all... A study published in the Journal of Hypertension links low mag...

So most fitness trainers believe that the only way to make certain you were eating the "right amount" of food was to count calories. And, in some respects (like competitive bodybuilding) this is true. However, it is not just the quantity of calories that is important, it's the quality of those calories consumed that really matters for overall health. The old adage "a calorie is a calorie" isn't true. A gram of fat yields more than twice as many calories as a gram of carbohydrates or protein - that's not new. What is new is that studies now indicate that calorie for calorie, fat is more fattening (duh). In one study, two groups of people were fed the same number of calories per day but with different amounts of fat. After several months, the group that was fed a larger percent-age of the calories from fat gained more weight than the group on the lower fat diet. The explanation has to do with metabolic efficiency. Since dietary fat is already fat, i...