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paleo dietNew here?  Like Athlean-XX for Women on Facebook to stay up to date with new posts, great fitness and nutrition articles, motivations and inspirations, fitness challenges, Q&As, giveaways and more!

If you consume fitness and health literature often, you’re bound to have heard about the Paleo Diet (sometimes referred to as the Caveman Diet).  CrossFit enthusiasts swear by it, and many doctors, nutritionists and fitness gurus agree that the diet has got its merits for both health and weight loss.

The basis of Paleo is to eat a diet as similar as possible to that of our Neanderthal ancestors – mostly lean meat, veggies and fruits.  Sounds healthy enough…but is there scientific basis to this diet?  Would we be missing out on any crucial nutrients?  Is this just another in a long series of diet crazes that will go out of style faster than we can say ‘Paleolithic’?

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cats exerciseNew here?  Like Athlean-XX for Women on Facebook to stay up to date with new posts, great fitness and nutrition articles, motivations and inspirations, fitness challenges, Q&As, giveaways and more!

On the days I work from home, I get the opportunity to hang out with and watch the behavior of my two young cats throughout the day.  I’m forever amazed by their energy levels (while awake), and their incredible strength and balance.  Sometimes I try to imagine what it would be like to be a cat…to have the strength to jump from the ground up to the second floor balcony of my house with little effort!  Or to have such lightning fast reaction time that I could get out of harm’s way in the blink of an eye.

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acupuncture sports injuriesNew here?  Like Athlean-XX for Women on Facebook to stay up to date with new posts, great fitness and nutrition articles, motivations and inspirations, fitness challenges, Q&As, giveaways and more!

Visiting a Chinese medicine doctor or an acupuncturist is certainly a very different experience than you’re accustomed to with traditional Western medicine. If the practitioner was trained in Traditional Chinese Medicine, it’s probable he or she will analyze your tongue and several ‘pulses’ of the different veins running through your wrist in order to make a diagnosis.  Then the treatment begins – based on your diagnosis the practitioner will determine which points in your body the acupuncture needles will be used.  The placement of needles is generally almost painless, as needles enter only a few millimeters beyond the surface of the skin.  Some acupuncturists will apply a heat lamp or electric current to the needles, and then you’re left to lie in peace and relax while the needles do their work.

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keeping a food journalNew here?  Like Athlean-XX for Women on Facebook to stay up to date with new posts, great fitness and nutrition articles, motivations and inspirations, fitness challenges, Q&As, giveaways and more!

One of the most common reasons women keep a food journal is for weight loss.  While this typically involves counting calories or nutritional values, it certainly doesn’t have to!  There are ways to use a food journal to help with weight loss that don’t involve calories at all…and keeping a food journal can help you keep tabs on other important aspects of your health, too.

In our Athlean-XX for Women Nutrition Plan, we actually discourage calorie counting.  Instead, we ask you to eat small healthy meals 5 – 6 times per day.  Not only will this help you metabolism speed up and burn fat more effectively, you’ll find that you desire to eat less at each meal because your body will naturally begin to moderate your appetite.

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cheat daysNew here?  Like Athlean-XX for Women on Facebook to stay up to date with new posts, great fitness and nutrition articles, motivations and inspirations, fitness challenges, Q&As, giveaways and more!

Some health and fitness experts say that a Cheat Day in which you can eat whatever we want for one day per week can be helpful when we’re dieting. For example, some celebrity trainers like Harley Pasternak recommend a Cheat Day to help keep you from feeling deprived and give you something to look forward to each week.  Others, like “The 4-Hour Body” author Tim Ferris take the Cheat Day to the next level by allowing an all-out gorge fest for all of his favorite vices so that he has no desire to even look at them during the rest of the week. Continue reading article