When it comes to our well-being, not much pricks up our ears like the word miracle. But when referring to health and fitness, the word miracle is generally synonymous with the word scam. That is unless finding yourself suddenly motivated to exercise and eat better is something you would consider a miracle. Other than that, miracles don’t exist.

At Beachbody, we’re always on the lookout for the next great thing. We analyze every diet, every workout, and every medical breakthrough that promises to reverse the obesity epidemic and make the real world look like, well, the set of The Real World.

1. You can get thin with a supplement. One of the most common questions we get is whether or not our programs will work without the supplements. Given how many claims there are about miracle cures involving a pill, this question makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is that when we tell people that diet and exercise are the major components of our programs, they often become skeptical. We’ve been led to believe by advertisers that the reason we’re overweight or out of shape is because there’s a secret ingredient in some supplement that we’ve been missing. This, to put it a noninflammatory way, is not how it works. The obesity epidemic is the result of two rather simple numbers: we eat about 5 percent more calories than we once did, and we exercise about 20 percent less.This in no way means that supplements are worthless. While there are many shady supplement manufacturers in the marketplace, the reason that we have supplements at all is because they can be effective in keeping us healthy. The use of supplements goes back thousands of years. Traditional medicines were the original supplements. There have been many advancements in the modern world, but basically, those same herbs and nutrients that aided people’s health once upon a time have the same effects today. But they weren’t miracle cures in the old days, and they still aren’t. This is the reason we refer to our programs as being supplement-assisted exercises.
2. Medicine can make you healthy. Medicine can make you not sick, but it can’t make you healthy. Along with curing us from diseases and injuries, doctors now inject, alter, and prescribe us into becoming healthier-appearing beings. Cosmetic medical advancements are indeed impressive, but let’s not lose sight of the facts. The human body needs exercise and nutrients to run smoothly. There is no way to chemically change this. There are certainly medical alterations that can be done to change our bodies once they’ve been misused and started to fall apart. And there are drugs and other chemical alterations that can reverse certain conditions. But try as they might, scientists have still yet to come up with a way for us not to need to exercise and eat properly so that we can perform to the best of our abilities. We may be able to increase our natural abilities using medicine, but without the fundamental groundwork that is exercise and what we eat, no amount of medical help will allow us to live long and vibrant lives.
3. You can get ripped with the right diet. With the “Flat Belly Diet” on the bestseller list and the “Abs Diet” on the cover of Men’s Health, it may be hard to believe that no diet alone is going to land you on the cover of a Joe Weider publication. Dieting can help you lose weight and greatly improve your health. But since that isn’t what marketers like to spin, it’s generally not what they pitch. The only diet that will give you ripped abs is a starvation diet. And that one comes with a lot of undesirable side effects.Many of these diets, including the two referenced above, are basically very healthy. But if you want your body to look ripped, you need to exercise and diet in combination. A healthy body can look lean but rarely ripped. A muscular body with too much fat won’t look ripped, either. Only a healthy and muscular body can allow you to both look ripped and perform well. A starved body will be both lean and ripped in appearance, but this is not due to your body being healthy—rather, it’s due to the catabolic state you enter as your body feeds on its muscle for survival.
4. You can have a six-pack by only working out your abs. Ab work will make your abdominal muscles strong, but you won’t be able to see them unless your diet is in line with your exercise expenditure. The easiest and quickest way to see your abs is to work your entire body intensely and eat well. The more muscle you add to your frame—your entire frame—the more your metabolism will increase, the more fat your body will burn at rest, and the sooner your ab muscles will appear. And, of course, the cleaner you eat, the faster you will make this happen.Six-pack abs—like most things used to gauge fitness—are a function of one’s overall health and condition. They won’t pop up on their own.¹ But you’re also not wasting your time working on them. Your core, which is in part your abs, is the foundation that all of your movements are based on. Having a strong core is the single most important aspect to being physically fit.
5. One supplement can make up for a bad diet. We love miracles, especially when they don’t require much work on our part. That’s why we’re always looking for a pill we can take that will make up for our bad habits. Supposed muscle-enhancing supplements have been available since Jack LaLanne invented the Universal Gym, but in the last decade, we’ve also been bombarded with things promising the opposite. Fat blockers, carb blockers, diet pills, cleansing pills, and so on all promise to rid us of something we wished we hadn’t eaten in the first place. This, unfortunately, can’t be done.There are many good dietary supplements, but heed the word “dietary.” Supplements work along with the other factors of your diet. Nothing can even hint at offsetting a poor diet. In fact, one of the main advantages of supplements is exactly the opposite: they make the biggest difference when you’re dieting already. Supplements are, basically, condensed nutrients. When you’re exercising and also attempting to lose weight, it becomes difficult to get all of the nutrients that your body requires to recover from exercise. This is the realm of the highly effective supplement. Proper supplementation can allow you to eat fewer calories than you normally could and still allow you to recover from hard workouts, which greatly enhances your results. Beachbody’s ActiVit Multivitamin is a great way to make sure you get the nutrients you need each day to get the most out of your fitness program.
6. Cardio is the only exercise you need. Cardio isn’t even a scientific term for a type of exercise, yet it’s still often trumpeted as the be-all and end-all for exercise effectiveness. This, in my experience, is often a cop-out by medical practitioners who feel the need to recommend exercise but don’t want to risk being specific. Cardio as a general term means anything affecting the heart. The problem with interpreting the term is that everything you do has an effect on your heart. And although intense exercise works the heart much more than easy aerobic exercise does, it seems that most people define cardio as aerobic, meaning low-level movement. And low-level movement is not the only exercise you need, unless your physical state inhibits you from doing something more intense.The key to changing your body composition, staying young, and remaining healthy is to do short bouts of high-intensity exercise. If done correctly, this is all the “cardio” you need. It also promotes muscle breakdown and hormonal releases that have a pronounced effect on your health. All “cardio” training is good, including low-level aerobic training. It just should, however, not be the only exercise you do.
7. You can plug in and get ripped. Remember the old exercise machine that had a strap you placed around your butt that would vibrate like a washing machine? Back in the 60s, this odd contraption filled fitness centers worldwide and, undoubtedly, made someone a lot of money. It also never shed a pound off of anyone. And even though it’s used in many gimmick jokes, we just can’t stop trying to replicate it. If you ever see an advertisement for something that does all the work for you and claims you’ll look better because of it, start searching for the remote. The calories you burn looking for it will exceed any amount you’ll burn using the device.As is the case with most gimmicks, there is a scientific example at their root somewhere. Most of these modern contraptions are some type of electronic muscle stimulation (EMS) device. These machines use electrodes to contract your muscles while you do nothing. They were designed for physical therapy and work well within this application of keeping your muscle tissue from atrophying when you can’t work your muscles naturally. So, yes, these machines do build muscle. But they lack the ability to stimulate anything near what you would do naturally. To keep the type of physique you would acquire in a round of P90X would require you to be plugged in for most of any given 24-hour period. And if you’re going to go to this much trouble, you’ll save yourself a lot of effort by doing any 30-minute exercise video—shoot, one 10-Minute Trainer workout will do a lot more for you than a full night on an EMS machine!
8. A single type of workout will make you fit. Beware of exercise that promises to be “the only workout you’ll ever need.” Even if one workout did cover all of your energy systems using each workout modality, it still would not be all you need. The reasons are many, but, primarily, it’s because your body adapts over time to any exercise regimen. To achieve continued progress, you need to alter what you do from time to time. The more planned out this is the better.There is a reason that Beachbody designs fitness programs. For best results, you should train your body progressively and periodizationally. That is to say that you need to progressively overload your system as it becomes used to any one thing. Then, you should change the focus of your program to target various energy systems. By doing this, you keep your body stimulated and your progress curve will continually ascend.

As the days get longer, kids are back in school and autumn leaves start to show their colorful foliage. The last rays of summer are leaving us, but there’s still time to take advantage of healthy summer fruits before they leave the produce shelves. We’ve assembled a bunch of quick and easy desserts using these summer fruits that you can whip up in no time. While they’ll satisfy your sweet tooth, these desserts are actually good for you!

1. Melon salad. Gone are the days of melon ballers and fruit drowned in whipped cream and (shudder) mayonnaise. Just get a couple of your favorite melons, such as honeydew, cantaloupe, or watermelon, and slice them up. Arrange them artfully on a serving platter, drizzle them with a bit of honey, and toss some chopped fresh mint leaves on top. Voilà! Not only do you have a beautiful presentation, but you have a healthy choice, too.

   Since melons have a high water content, they are low in calories and can be eaten as much as you like. They are also a good source of vitamin C and beta-carotene. They may also help lower your risk for developing cancer and heart disease.

2. Grilled stone fruit. Fruit on the grill? That may sound like a bad idea, but stone fruits (like peaches, plums, apricots, and nectarines) are wonderful on the grill. Just cut each of the fruits in half, remove the pits, and skewer them with thick wooden skewers (it’s best if you soak the skewers in water for a bit beforehand to prevent them from burning). Spray a grill rack with nonstick spray, and preheat the grill (to about medium-high heat). Just put the fruit on the grill (cut-side down) and grill until the fruit gets heated (about 5 minutes). Serve nice and hot off the grill, skewers or not.

   Generally, stone fruits are rich in iron and potassium. Peaches are low in calories and high in vitamin C. Plums have a high vitamin E content and are wonderful antioxidants. Apricots are rich in beta-carotene and help regulate blood pressure. Stone fruits also serve as gentle laxatives and help regulate your bowels.

3. Chocolate-covered bananas. You can make a delicious and easy version of chocolate-covered bananas at home. Just take a handful of semisweet chocolate chips (the higher the cocoa content, the healthier) and melt them in a microwave. In the meantime, get a plate or shallow bowl and slice bananas into it. Drizzle the chocolate over the bananas, and sprinkle them with some toasted almonds, if you like.

   Bananas are a good way of getting potassium and vitamin B6. Chocolate has antioxidant effects and may help keep your blood pressure down. Almonds can help lower cholesterol levels and are high in protein, calcium, magnesium, potassium, and vitamin E. They actually serve as an appetite suppressant, so even just eating a handful of them makes for a healthy snack.

4. Mixed-berry frozen treats. Get some of your favorite nonfat sorbet (raspberry and lemon are delicious options). Top it with a mix of berries, such as strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and/or sliced strawberries.

   Strawberries are low in calories, are a good source of vitamin C, and help raise antioxidant levels in your system. Blackberries are an excellent way for you to get vitamin E into your diet. They help fight off infections and contain vitamin C, folate, and phenolic acids. Rich in vitamin C, iron, potassium, and folate, raspberries also have wonderful antioxidant properties. Blueberries, of course, have some of the highest antioxidant properties of any fruit. They also have wonderful anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, and antiaging properties.

5. Yogurt and fruit. All you need is some nonfat yogurt and a variety of fruit to make this flavorful dessert (which you can enjoy any time of day!). Layer some unsweetened yogurt in a cup (sprinkle a bit of raw sugar or honey if you want it a little sweeter) and then add some cut fruit that you like. Good candidates are pineapples, kiwi, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, or bananas. Add another layer of yogurt and more fruit. If you want to go wild, sprinkle a bit of granola on top.

   We’ve already covered the benefits of fruit, but yogurt is an excellent source of calcium, protein, vitamin B12, and riboflavin. It’s better for you than a glass of milk. We suggest nonfat yogurt because there’s no need for the extra fat. For those of us who are lactose intolerant, yogurt cultures produce lactase, an enzyme that breaks down lactose.

These are just a few of the plethora of healthy options you have to satisfy your sweet tooth. You can come up with so many more; just visit your local farmers’ market for ideas of your own. But get there soon—the last of the summer fruits may be leaving. However, there are so many wonderful fall vegetables to choose from, too. Happy hunting!

Low-fat pumpkin cookies.
And since fall is coming, think about making cookies with some of the seasonal ingredients coming around the bend, like this recipe from the Team Beachbody recipe archive for low-fat pumpkin cookies:

1/2 cup plain, nonfat yogurt
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg
1-1/2 cups pumpkin puree
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp. cloves
1/8 tsp. ginger
1 cup rolled oats
2 tsp. baking powder
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup white flour
1/2 cup raisins or dates
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, blend together first five ingredients. Mix in spices, oats, and baking powder; then fold in flour, raisins or dates, and nuts. Drop cookie dough by tablespoons onto a nonstick cookie sheet, and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Yields 2-1/2 dozen cookies.

Preparation Time: 15–20 minutes
Cooking Time: 10–12 minutes

Nutritional Information: (per serving)
Calories: 67 Protein: 2 g Fiber: 1 g
Carbs: 12 g Fat Total: 2 g Saturated Fat: < 0.5 g

by Cecilia H. Lee

Okay, I know you think this may be another typical article on the perils of not getting enough calcium every day, that it’s going to describe in painful and extreme detail all the terrible things that will happen to your health as you age if you don’t receive enough calcium. Although the above is correct (you will suffer health problems in your elderly years if you have a lifetime low intake of calcium), that’s not what we are going to discuss today.

Nope. I promise not to talk about that well worn-out topic. This will be a positive article on a topic all of us are interested in: losing weight.

Calcium intake increases weight loss

A recent study at the University of Sao Paulo (Source: Nutrition, July 2008) of 1,459 adults aged between 20 and 59 suggests that intake of dietary calcium is related to body weight. The group with the highest average daily intake of calcium was less likely to be overweight. Conversely, those with the lowest average intake had a 25 percent greater chance of being overweight.

One of the researcher’s theories behind calcium’s role in controlling weight is that calcium seems to bind more fatty acids in the intestines, thereby inhibiting fat absorption.

A 2003 study showed subjects who consumed three servings of yogurt daily as part of a reduced-calorie diet lost about 20 percent more weight than those who simply cut calories alone.

The yogurt eaters consumed around 1,100 milligrams of calcium daily. The non-yogurt eaters consumed about 500 milligrams of calcium a day (the average amount in the typical American’s diet). The yogurt eaters lost 22 percent more weight, 61 percent more body fat, and 81 percent more stomach fat than the non-yogurt eaters. As with the most recent study, the researchers hypothesized that the extra calcium provided by yogurt played a role in increasing the amount of weight lost during the study period.

Sources of calcium

At this point, due to the preponderance of data to support the theory, most researchers agree that calcium plays an important role in weight control and weight loss. The debate within the scientific community, however, is with the SOURCE of calcium. Most of the studies investigating calcium’s role used dairy-sourced calcium from foods. “Dairy for some reason, yet unexplained, has a greater effect on fat loss and specifically trunk fat loss than does calcium alone,” states Rachel Novotny, PhD, RD, professor and chair of the department of human nutrition, food, and animal sciences at the University of Hawaii.

Researchers also believe that there are various potential mechanisms that may explain those additional benefits. For example, some of the minerals in dairy foods, such as phosphorous and magnesium, may enhance calcium’s beneficial effects on fat breakdown within cells.

What the research doesn’t support is the benefits of calcium from sources other than dairy, or simply taking a non-dairy-sourced calcium supplement (such as calcium lactate or gluconate). The data to support the weight loss benefits here is limited and ambiguous at best. The bottom line is that if you want to ensure your efforts of maximizing weight loss with calcium, make sure the calcium is from dairy sources.

Dairy isn’t for everyone

This is great news, but what about those who cannot consume dairy because of lactose intolerance or allergies? Lactose intolerance is a condition caused by a lack of an enzyme called lactase, which, in turn, causes the body to be unable to digest lactose, a sugar found in milk products. A lack of lactase can cause uncomfortable symptoms for some people.

Thirty to 50 million Americans (adults and children) are lactose intolerant. The disorder affects some populations more than others:

• Seventy-five percent of all African-Americans and Native Americans are lactose intolerant.
• Ninety percent of Asian-Americans are lactose intolerant.
• It is estimated that 75 percent of adults worldwide show some decrease in lactase activity during adulthood, thus decreasing their ability to digest milk products.

Startling statistics

To add fuel to the fire, the group with the greatest need for calcium, girls in their teen years through young adulthood, has an alarmingly deficient intake of calcium. In fact, African-American girls in this group have the lowest average intake, adding up to little more than half the recommended daily amount of calcium (Source: Journal of the American College of Nutrition, April 2006).

Adult men and women in general aren’t doing much better. According to the National Institutes for Health, 55 percent of men and 78 percent of women ages 20 and above do not meet the recommend daily intake for calcium.

Add this all up, and most of us simply aren’t meeting our calcium needs every day. Keep one thing in mind. These values are established for calcium in its known roles for bone health and other biological functions, and not for weight loss.

What are your options?

Obviously, for those of us who can consume dairy without any issues, including milk, cheeses, and yogurt in our diets is a viable option. However, for many others, that simply isn’t a possibility. In fact, for many of those who can safely consume dairy products, a simpler alternative could ensure adequate daily intakes.

One viable option is taking calcium supplements, and there are literally hundreds of calcium supplements on the market from which to choose. Many of them are excellent choices for meeting your bone health needs, but unless those supplements are dairy-sourced, they probably won’t help you with your weight loss program.

Beachbody Nutritionals Core Cal-Mag is one of the very few calcium supplements on the market today that uses milk calcium as one of its calcium sources. Most calcium in Core Cal-Mag is sourced from calcium-, phosphorus-, and magnesium-rich milk. It’s all the benefits of milk without the unwanted issues associated with it. Core Cal-Mag is lactose free and free of allergens found in milk and dairy. It also contains vitamin D, which is necessary for helping absorb and utilize calcium; 230 milligrams of phosphorus; and 500 milligrams of magnesium (125 percent of the recommended daily value), an essential mineral required for over 300 metabolic and biological processes. Core Cal-Mag also supplies the nutrients in dairy associated with weight loss, and in similar ratios. Plus, purity and potency are guaranteed: no risk of lead contamination as with some calcium sources. It’s the next best thing to drinking three glasses of milk every day.

I started off by promising not to talk about the dire consequences of inadequate calcium intake, and I hope I’ve kept that promise. Of course, you want to ensure an adequate calcium intake every day to protect the long-term health of your bones, but wise choices in your calcium sourcing can pay dividends in your weight loss program, too. Regardless, if you use dairy foods or a supplement like Core Cal-Mag to meet your daily calcium needs, your bones-and your waistline-will thank you for it!