How to Calculate Your Daily Calorie Needs

There are many complicated calculations available that can be used to estimate one’s daily caloric needs.  The question is:  How reliable are these formulas?  Regardless of the source, or how valid the formula seems to be on paper, all calorie calculations are simply estimates-best guesses if you will.  They can give you a general idea but there are simply too many variables involved to come up with a hard and fast formula for calculating daily caloric intake that can be applied to a majority of people without taking into consideration age, gender, height, amount of lean body mass, hydration, frame size, individual goals and more.  

Some formulas are better than others, naturally, but keep in mind that even the most seemingly scientific formula should serve mainly as a baseline or a starting point from which you can gauge whether your body is really changing and what should be adjusted in your program in order for more fat loss to occur and/or more muscle to be gained.

A Sweet and Healthy Fat you HAVE to Try

Product  highlight

MCT Colada from Designs For Health

Not too long ago, my Designs for Health sales rep sent out an email asking if anyone wanted to purchase a few discounted bottles of MCT Colada available through an overstock.  I bought all that she had. This is one of my favorite products and I was thrilled to be able to buy it in bulk at a discount because this is a product I use a lot of-almost every day.  It tastes just like  pineapple-coconut syrup.  I put it on my chicken to give it a delicious tropical flavor, I add it to my shake at lunch and I'd pour it over my waffles at breakfast (if I had them...but I don't.)  Next thing I know, my friend Mikell is featuring it as the product-of-the-month on her website.  That sealed the deal.  If Mikell was featuring it, I knew I was about to benefit by reading a great review of this product by a true expert and that I would probably learn something new in the process. Well, I was right...

For those of you who want to exercise to help burn fat, MCT Colada needs to be a part of your workout program. What makes this product so special? 

Can Coffee Prevent Cancer?

Today's post was too good to pass up.  Or rather, not to pass-along.  It comes from my friend and holistic nutritionist, Karen Roth, MS, NC who does a feature on her website (and in mailings to her "community") every Thursday called Food for Thought Thursday in which she examines a food, nutrient, practice or other topic of interest to the holistic health community in a brief and always informative post-like the one below.  Karen maintains a clinical practice in the Los Angeles area with offices in both Santa Clarita and Encino, CA.  

Karen and I see eye-to-eye on many issues in the world of health, wellness and alternative medicine but this one is near and dear to my heart so I wanted to share it with you.  Although I am not one of those people who turns into a zombie if they don't have their morning coffee, I really do enjoy it.  If it seems as though research has coffee falling in and out of favor every month, here's your chance to catch up on the latest....

I admit it, I like coffee. But in recent years I have cut back and almost totally eliminated it from my daily routine. But I recently read an article by Dr. Oz and Dr. Roizen about the benefits of coffee that made me want to dig deeper into the research and make sure this was not just a sound bite. According to the article:

"In the war against cancer, caffeine may turn out to be one of the most beneficial, surprising weapons you never suspected. But with at least one type of cancer, even decaf coffee may be just as powerful as the caffeinated stuff."  Woo Hoo!

The article (Good News for Starbucks Lovers: Coffee May Prevent Cancer) stated that "coffee has been linked to lower rates of four kinds of cancer." Let's take a look.

Water: It's Not Boring

I graduated from high school in 19XX.  The actual year isn’t important (I keep telling myself.)  That year, our yearbook was titled “It’s the Water.”  I remember thinking to myself at the time, “what water?”  Our school wasn’t located near a beach, lake, river or other waterway so why was water so important that it had to be our yearbook’s theme?  I never found out why it was chosen for The Quixotion that year.  It might have just been a random title for the Agoura High School yearbook but I actually wondered about that for years.

Time went on and I couldn’t read anything health related, any fitness book, magazine, or news story without hearing about the importance of water. Most articles touched on keys points such as how important staying hydrated is to your health, or the