Senin, 01 April 2013

Essential Fatty Acids Foods for Better Fitness

Essential Fatty Acids (EFA’s) are crucial, not just for our fat loss and muscle building results, but for our overall health and well being, too.

Omega-3 essential fatty acids are not made by the body but are essential for a variety of important functions, including lessened risk of cardiovascular disease, improved metabolism, better eye health and more.

Omega-3′s also help your body’s sensitivity to insulin. This helps your body store less fat. In addition, the fat you do store is more readily and easily converted into energy and burned during activity.

This keeps your blood sugar levels stable and keeps you away from those famed sugar crashes and cravings and irritable mood swings.

A big obstacle to getting enough omega 3′s from food is that very few foods have a significant amount of Omega 3′s in them. On top of that, the typical Western diet does not include many of the foods that are good sources of Omega 3.

To make the problem worse, by not getting enough Omega 3′s, we end up with an imbalance between other fatty acids, such as Omega 6 and Omega 9, which may cause a variety of health problems.

Here are 4 Essential Fatty Acids Foods High in Omega 3


1. Cold-Water Fish: Wild Salmon, Trout, Herring, and Sardines
These cold-water fish are very rich sources of EPA and DHA. Salmon and trout are best purchased wild or organically farmed. You can make salmon patties for dinner, or add sardines to a salad. Fresh caught, jarred, or canned varieties of these fish are equally high in these special fats, so you’re free to choose the form that works best for you. Just make sure you purchase jarred or canned items that have no added sugar or artificial flavors.
2. Seaweed, Spirulina, Chlorella

The cold-water fish listed above are rich in EPA and DHA due to their consumption of seaweed, which they convert to and store as EPA and DHA. You can add these special green foods to smoothies, or eat them on a salad. They’re also a rich source of iodine, which supports normal thyroid function.
3. Krill oil and Fish Oil

For some people, the simplest and most cost-effective way to get EPA and DHA omega-3 fats into their diets is to take it in supplement form. The two most concentrated sources of EPA and DHA are krill and fish oils. Ensure that you’re buying these oils from a reputable source that screens their product for mercury contamination, so that you avoid this harmful chemical at all costs. Fish also carries the risk of mercury, but salmon, trout, herring, and sardines contain very little compared to fish like swordfish and tuna.
4. Omega-3 Eggs
These special eggs come from chickens that were fed fish or algae oils. The EPA and DHA are then stored within the bright yellow yolks, making them an ideal source of omega-3s for people that dislike eating fish directly. Have an egg or two a day in scrambled eggs, boiled on a salad, or cooked in a quiche, to give your body the omega-3 fats it needs. Besides the long list of health benefits, Omega 3 fatty acids also help to burn fat and build muscle by increasing your metabolic rate (for fat burning) and boosting your testosterone levels (for muscle building).

Our testosterone levels start to fall naturally in our twenties and getting enough essential fatty acids can help to combat the drop.

And if you workout and stay fit…

“Studies show that higher-fat diets make more sense for fit people than low-fat diets,” says Liz Applegate, Ph.D., author of Encyclopedia of Sports & Fitness Nutrition. “In one study, endurance athletes ran up to 24 percent longer before they fatigued when they ate a diet that was above 30 percent fat compared to one that was below 20 percent,” she says.

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