Coaches, mentors, trainers, teammates, partners, fans. Even the greatest athletes in the world can't do it alone.

People naturally perform better when others are on their side and helping out. Even in everyday weight loss and fitness, we've found that people who involve others and ask for help get much better results and stick to their programs longer than people who try to go the distance on their own.

Why is that? For starters, positive peer pressure can be one of the most powerful motivators around. It's tougher to quit when someone else is counting on you. In fact, with a team that's pulling for you, it's less likely that you'll want to quit.

When you involve others, you have access to more knowledge, more ideas, more enthusiasm, and more resources. Bicyclists and race car drivers are finding out that they need teammates looking out for them if they have any chance at all of winning. You can take advantage of the same benefits.

Finally, having other people help out just makes weight loss a heckuva lot more fun. In particular, if your fitness personality is a Social Scene Exerciser, and you're trying to lose weight alone, you're probably bored out of your mind.
 
Business people draw on a team of accountants, lawyers, financial advisers, headhunters, board members, etc. Together, they form a team of specialists that open up possibilities to that businessperson and his/her business goals. You can build a similar team around your weight loss goals. People that can help with your diet are all around you. You can do this without making a lot of demands on anyone's time. Some possible ways to build a strong team by only asking one thing of each person:

 

*  Ask a friend to check with you once a week to see how you're doing.

*  Ask your spouse to be there when you need to unload.

*  Ask a coworker to keep you upbeat.

*  Ask your kids to help you find ways to have active fun.

*  Ask your brother-in-law to pass along inspirational reading and interesting health news.

*  Ask your photographer sister to take "before" and "in-progress" pictures.

*  Better yet, why not ask someone to join your quest for a healthy lifestyle? Going through and succeeding with a weight loss program with a friend or diet buddy can create a bond that carries over into other areas of your life. 

Asparagus: This green veggie is high in folic acid, which can help stabilize your mood. When you're stressed, your body releases hormones that affect your mood. Eating certain vitamins and minerals like folic acid and B vitamins can help keep your mood steady because they're needed to make serotonin, which is a chemical that directly affects mood in a positive way.

 

Cottage cheese and fruit: Cottage cheese is high in protein and calcium. Foods with high protein content that aren't loaded with sugar won't cause a spike in blood sugar and will keep you satiated for a longer time. Try mixing the cottage cheese with a fruit that is high in vitamin C like oranges. Vitamin C plays a role in fighting stress because it's an antioxidant that fights the free radicals that get released when you're stressed. These free radicals have been shown to cause cancer.

Blueberries: Very rich in antioxidants, blueberries offer a high- fiber, low-calorie fruit option that is also rich in stress-fighting vitamin C. Try them with cottage cheese or as a snack on their own.

Tuna: A great lunch option, tuna is high in stress-fighting vitamins B6 and B12. Tuna is also a good low-fat protein source. Don't load tuna down with fat by using a lot of mayonnaise; choose a fat-free mayo or add the tuna to a salad without adding the mayo. 

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The soreness that you feel 8 to 24 hours after an intense workout is caused by a tearing of the muscle fibers. The fastest way to get muscles to heal is to have your body produce lots of insulin and also provide a supply of protein to repair the damaged tissue. We have known for a long time that insulin drives sugar into cells for energy. Now we know that it also drives protein building blocks called amino acids into the muscle cells to help them heal faster. A study from New Zealand shows that protein loading immediately after exercise helps cyclists recover faster so they can ride harder for several days after an intense workout (Physiologie Appliquée, Nutrition et Métabolisme, February 2008).

On the surface of muscle cell membranes are little hooks called insulin receptors. Before insulin can do its job of driving sugar and protein into cells, it must first attach to these receptors. Hard exercise markedly increases insulin's ability to attach to insulin receptors and therefore makes insulin more effective. However, this increased response of insulin to exercise lasts only during exercise and for perhaps half an hour after exercise. An hour after you finish exercising, you have lost this added sensitivity of insulin receptors to insulin. So to help muscles recover faster, you need to take a carbohydrate source during a hard workout and immediately after you finish. Any source of carbohydrates will be broken down into simple sugars that call out insulin. Then, as soon as possible after your workout, you should eat any source of protein to supply the amino acids needed to heal damaged muscle tissue. 

 

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