Health, energy, and nutrition have become the primary focus in society.  Everywhere you look there are ads for nutritious foods, energy drinks, buys for the health-conscious shopper. But unfortunately,  this fast paced world leaves very little time for you to devote to yourself, even enough time to exercise. Day to day routines can be so hectic and exhausting; you're too tired even to think about being active after a hard day of working. Energy drinks are highly popular right now, and the temptation is to pop open a can of energy so you can do more, be even more on the go, get that much more done in a single day.  But energy drinks aren't really healthy or very good for your nutrition.

They are notoriously filled with sugar and caffeine, both things that you body doesn't need. So where does that leave you?

Energy drinks are different from sports drinks. Most energy drinks simply provide lots of sugar or caffeine. Sports drinks are intended to replenish electrolytes, sugars, water and other nutrients and are usually isotonic (containing the same proportions as found in the human body).

As more and more consumers are becoming health-conscious, the market is slowly beginning to change. We do not have to consume sugary, high-caffeine energy drinks any longer.

Zsenso iced green tea and Zsenso iced peach green tea, made of rare Chinese green tea leaves, may be your healthy alternative to standard energy drinks. After trying these delicious iced green teas, you may never go back to sugary energy drinks again.  Tea has played a significant role in Asian culture for centuries as a staple beverage, a curative and a symbol of status. It is not surprising its discovery is ascribed to religious or royal origins. Even the earliest texts discuss the health benefits of tea.

Discovered in China, tea has swept the world and become a staple of many cultures around the globe.

China, the world's leader of tea, still produces more varieties of tea than any other country. For five thousand years, claims have been made that green tea is beneficial to your health. Recently, more and more studies are being done of green tea and scientists are discovering that these claims are not wholly false.

An article in New Scientist magazine  mentions that numerous studies suggest that green tea protects against a range of cancers, including lung, prostate and breast cancer.

Zsenso iced green tea and Zsenso iced peach green tea, made of rare Chinese green tea leaves, can be a health-friendly alternative to sugary, highly caffeinated energy drinks. Look for Zsenso iced tea products in your area, or purchase Zsenso iced green teas online.

But, if you like a lot variety in your energy drinks, XS energy drinks are the best choice for you. XS energy drinks are available in all options: caffeine-free, zero-carb, and sugar free choices. The list of flavors goes on and on: root beer, cranberry-grape, tropical, citrus, cherry, tea-berry, and electric lemon, to name a few.

In caffeine-free versions, buyers can find root beer blast, cranberry-grape blast, and tropical blast.

You can be health conscious, care about nutrition, and still find an energy drink that won't do you more harm than good as long as you know where to look for it. XS energy drinks and Zsenso iced green teas will taste great and won't fill you up with sugar and carbs that will hurt more than help. Energy drinks that can be healthy, too?  You'd have to drink it to believe it!

There is no single athlete that does not want to be considered famous in his sport. To be recognized and accepted as an athlete, one needs to have the proper nutrients included in his regular diet. These nutrients are nothing else but sports nutrition proteins. Ordinary people can do with having a balanced diet and drinking enough water. Sports people must have supplementary nourishment, as they need extra energy and fuel.

If you want the best exploitation of your athletic talents, you should combine thorough training with sport nutrition that is a proper amount protein. You have talent, and you want to show what you can achieve in the field. Meticulous training is what you need. But you should take sports nutrition protein to carry on the training.

Proteins can be found in animal products. Meat, poultry, fish, dairy products and eggs contain proteins. They can also come from beans, nuts, or other kinds of food. Twelve to fifteen percent of the daily needed calories can be taken from these foods. It is difficult to get this percentage and not use the excess. Sports nutrition protein has been formulated to overcome this difficulty.

It works pretty much on the same principle as vitamins work. To obtain the necessary amount of C vitamin, you need either to eat lots of orange, or take the elemental form of the vitamin. Sports nutrition protein spares you the need of eating kilos of meat every day.

Protein is responsible for creating new tissues. Extra protein is used to produce energy, or it is converted into fat. A proper amount of protein is therefore needed, especially for athletes.

Each individual will need a different protein amount, depending on the intensity o the exercise, its duration, the fitness level, or work regimen. Protein intake also depends on the total calorie intake including carbohydrate. It is therefore essential to remember that besides being an important source of energy, protein provides the body with the power to build new muscular tissues.

New tissues are necessary when the existing one have undergone a sort of decomposition during hard exercise. This destruction is needed for system immunization. It should also be acknowledged, especially by those who see no point in practicing sports that all the healing powers of the body are gathered together during exercise.

The nature of the exercise is also to be taken into account when taking nutrition protein. For a new coming athlete much more protein is necessary that before. If it is an endurance sports type, protein will often be burnt to get energy. There appears thus an acute necessity for nutrition protein.
If the consumption of calories is smaller than what is needed, the body automatically burns more protein.

It usually happens when insufficient nutrients and food mix with over exercising. Protein is also used as energy source if exercise is done with low muscular level of glycogen, or if there are not enough carbohydrates. It is therefore important to stick to a specially formulated nutrition.

An athlete requires all the adequate nutrients to perform well in the related sports. To keep yourself healthy and fit your body requires all the nutrients in adequate amounts.   A good diet provides you the adequate amount of protein, vitamins, minerals, carbohydrate, fats, dietary fiber and water.
Production of the required energy is the main aspect of eating a nutritional diet. This energy is required to perform any type of activities from running to jumping. A muscle requires fat and carbohydrate to function properly. Minerals and vitamins are required for all the metabolic activity of the body. A performance of an athlete gets affected if his body lacks the required amount of minerals and vitamins.

Why high-vitamin diet is required?

To maintain the energy balance in the body during the sports or training session it is important that minerals and vitamins are present in your body. A person usually requires 1,200-1,500 Kilo calories per day to perform the normal activities.

For the sport like cross country skiers and ice hockey a person needs at least 3,000 Kilo calories per day. This amount of mineral and vitamin can be achieved by the right type of foods. If you are eating mineral and vitamin enriched food then there is no need to take any supplements.

Fruits and vegetables are perfect for getting a higher level of vitamins. These vitamins also act as a good source of antioxidants. 5-9 fruits and vegetable servings are advisable for the athletes. Some grains are also the best source of minerals and vitamins.

Although, Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDSs) for minerals and vitamins can be achieved easily with the foods but some athletes take supplements to enhance their performance level. Some sport activities requires more energy that requires more vitamins for example B-vitamins releases more energy from nutrient so the athlete that requires more energy takes the excessive B-vitamins than the normal athletes.

Eating more vitamins enriched food can fulfill that requirement still some athlete prefer to take supplements.

The safe and required amount of vitamins can be achieved by multivitamin supplement if it has 100% of Daily Value. Moreover, these supplements should only be taken if your diet cannot fulfill the energy requirements. But also eating variety of vitamin enriched food is mandatory to achieve the goal. Food contains a multitude of phytochemicals and fiber that are good for health due to its benefits in metabolism activities of the body.

Minerals for the injury prevention

Calcium, zinc and iron are essential minerals that are required by the athletes. The required quantity of these minerals depends on the body of athletes, some sports require the higher strength of bones and it can be concluded by measuring the density of bone minerals. Less density of calcium or lack of adequate amount of calcium in body can cause bone loss and ultimately to a risk of fracture. Dairy products, broccoli, fish with bones, and fortified cereals and fruit or vegetable juices are rich source of calcium.

Similarly, Iron is the key substance of hemoglobin of blood and for proper oxygen transport and other metabolic activities it is required. Lean red meats, legumes, whole grains, and fortified cereals are rich sources of iron. Zinc is essential to the antioxidant enzymes, these enzymes help in energy metabolism of a body. Zinc plays an important role in protein synthesis and immune function. Zinc enriched foods are seafood, meat, poultry and whole grains.

Without all the essential minerals and vitamins an athlete cannot tune up and boost his performance. However, excess intake of these essential substances can cause severe damage to the health. So, it wise to keep a perfect ratio of every nutrients in the food.

Do you want to know how to feel good? Do you want to be vibrant for a long time? Take care of your body and it will take care of you.

Digestion takes probably more energy than anything else. The average meal takes 3 hours and 30 minutes to digest if combined properly. Incorrectly combined food can sometimes take up to 14 hours to digest. This is a very powerful way to conserve energy.

Take note: Recall the last time you had a huge meal...a huge meal when you felt so full you could hardly move. That doesn't make you feel like going out and running a marathon, does it? How often do you feel like going out and running a marathon after eating a huge steak?

How would you like to learn something interesting? Starches and proteins require different mediums to digest in the stomach. One requires acid in the stomach to digest and the other alkaline. Now anyone with even a basic knowledge of chemistry knows that acids and alkalines cancel each other out.

If you want to have more energy you need to learn to properly combine your foods.

You've probably heard people say you need to eat more vegetables. I heard that too for a long time. It didn't motivate me to go out and eat it. It wasn't until I understood that food is literally the building blocks of all the substances of your body that I understood the importance of it. What you eat literally becomes your brain, your liver, your kidneys, your skin and your eyes. This is powerful. What you put in to yourself becomes part of your body.

If 70-80% of your body is water, what does it make sense to eat? Foods which have a 70-80% water content. Vegetables are the most important food you will feed yourself in your lifetime. Vegetables will cause your energy to increase, your skin to look brighter, your eyes to sparkle, your energy to rise and your libido to increase. Vegetables are high in almost every substance known to be essential to the building of the body and life.

For the next 7 days eat a salad with every meal.

See, would you take a green shiny apple, spray it with fly spray, then eat it? You know how ridiculous that sounds. Would you eat it? Of course not. Yet that's what's happening to our food every day. Our fruits and vegetables are now being treated with pesticides and industrial strength sprays that are poisonous to the delicate insides of our body. Some foods are now being treated with radiation. It's now proven conclusively that radiation contributes to cancer.

If you tried describing sex to an alien, they probably wouldn't understand it until they experienced it. They wouldn't understand it until they did it. You won't understand the power of making at least 50% of your diet vegetables until you take this and do it.

Vegetables are around for a reason, and for the same reason there are no hamburger trees!

Organic food contains up to 3 times the amount of nutrients of conventional fruit and vegetables. How would you like to eat spinach and have the nutrients of 3 times the amount? I certainly would. As food grows, it's draws nutrients from the ground. The better the quality of soil, the more nutrients can be drawn into the food. Research reports many of our foods are missing vitamins, minerals, enzymes etc because of depleted soils. Buy organic food wherever possible.

The brain knows when you are full, because the stomach sends a signal to a part of the brain called the hypothalamus.

The hypothalamus is 12 minutes "behind" the stomach. There is literally a 12 minute delay between being full, and your body knowing you are full. When you stop eating before you are full, you give your body a chance to recover energy.

Sugar is widely considered to be one of the most dangerous substances for the body. Avoid it at all costs. There are a few other ingredients to keep away from if you are serious about your health and energy. Salt dehydrates the body. It's not widely known that black pepper is 17 more times irritating to the liver than alcohol.

That brings us to the next point, caffeine.

I understand people love their coffee. I was once a coffee drinker, before I became interested in health. Caffeine gives us energy because it opens up the capillaries in the brain. The same effect can be had by deep breathing. The challenge comes when the effect of caffeine wears off. The capillaries in the brain restrict causing us to feel lethargic. Caffeine works because the body has to "speed up" to cope with the dose of poison it's been given.

Unfortunately, while alcohol has perceived benefits, it is pure fermentation and decay, rotting sugar. It is absolutely toxic. There are other things you also need to be aware of. White rice is treated with bleach. It starts out brown and is bleached to become white. What about white flour? It's also bleached.

What about sugar or pasta? They too have been bleached to give a false sense of purity. Would you go to your laundry cupboard and drink bleach? That's preposterous, yet most of us eat food treated with bleach. Bleach has the effect of ripping the stomach lining - an effect that is similar to the drug ecstasy. A report out of Germany states "they're putting fine pieces of cracked glass now in ecstasy, those pieces have the effect of putting finite tears in the stomach lining enabling the substance to enter the bloodstream more quickly".

Do you like food? Amazingly, most people I interview say "Yes". What's the purpose of eating food?

While it tastes good and feels good, physiologically eating is the building blocks of the body. Skin, eyes, internal organs, joints, white and red blood cells, they are all built out of the food and liquid that goes into our body. So logically, what's one of the most powerful ways to change the appearance your eyes, skin and strength of the organs?

Change the building blocks that you choose to take in. Literally improve the food you eat. There's an old saying that goes "There was no hamburger in the garden of Eden". Religion aside, when your body starts getting the food it wants and needs, it will start to desire healthy foods. Try it; you'll literally make new food choices.

Due to the common diet, most people's bodies are full of bacteria; these bacteria are what are responsible for cravings for terrible food.

It's not the built in mechanism of the body to crave these substances, it's the bacteria! No one smokes a cigarette for the first time and says "Oh boy, this tastes great!" Over time, the body learns to adapt to the poisons put in.

As you give your body more and more wholesome food and treat yourself with respect, you will naturally crave better and better food. There are plenty of delicious recipes around, recipes that will leave you with energy for hours rather than tired and bloated. It's just that very few people know about them.

Eating natural food will also return your body to a more wholesome weight.

Have you ever had the case of eating a big meal and immediately afterwards having to go and raid the cupboard? Why is that? The brain has a built in survival mechanism that when it senses the body is lacking nutrients, it tells us to get hungry. That is the sense of hunger is the body telling us it needs nutrients. If you suffer from the problem of being frequently hungry, it's because the hunger mechanism is literally turned on all the time, the body is in a constant state of asking for nutrients. Due to our poor diets and low nutrients in most of our foods now, many people find themselves living in a case of constant hunger.

Ideally, you should invest in a "juicer".  A juicer takes all the nutrients in food and releases it for the body to absorb readily and quickly. A glass of vegetable juice is more filling than an entire pizza because of the concentrated amount of nutrients.