How to Get Your Child To Try New Foods

On the one hand, every child will at some point start being whimsical and picky with his/her food; this is the result of their changing metabolism and growing rate, but also because they want to assert their independence. On the other hand, parents' duty is to make sure that their child gets all his/her vitamins and proteins, and will stop at nothing in their quest. When parents and children are at war with each other, the odds can flip on either side: the child eats only what he/she wants or the parents find some creative ways of tricking him/her into eating healthy without knowing it.

Many parents opt for the second conflict resolution strategy for obvious reasons, and although it can be a success with some children, others will not fall for it. Let's have a look at some of the wisest ways of teaching your child that trying new foods is both fun and healthy.

· Offer options and make meal time fun.

The first rule to encouraging diversity is to offer options. For example, you can make two dishes and have the child pick which he/she wants to eat, in this way he/she will feel empowered and not trapped into doing something. Or better yet, have the child choose ingredients from each in order to make her/his custom plate. Remember that you can also allure your child into eating healthy by playing creatively with the colors, by arranging funny food displays or just by mixing a favorite dish with some new ingredients.

· Disguise vegetables.

With a picky eater, vegetables are probably the hardest ingredient to swallow and will often end up on the floor. But if you try to puree and add them to the main course, chances are that children will not tell the difference and eat them anyway. If the child enjoys eating fruits, there is nothing easier than throwing in some carrots in his/her daily dose of homemade fruit juice.

· Get children involved in the cooking process.

Besides being fun one-on-one quality time, having your child help you with preparing breakfast, lunch or dinner will also teach him/her about responsibility and diversity. A child, who has actively participated in the cooking process, will in the end be curious to taste the outcome because of all the effort and time invested into it. In this way, he/she can better appreciate the food and actually enjoy it more.

· Avoid forcing them into eating, instead apply corresponding punishment.

Just as with any other misbehavior, refusing to eat should be follow by disciplinary consequences. Having a mild punishment (i.e. no more TV time) prepared whenever this happens is better that resorting to ultimatums like "You are not allowed to go to your room until you finish everything on your plate!". In time the child will try to avoid the punishment and will prefer conforming to your requests.

Tips on How to Build Muscle and Lose Fat For Men

Building muscle and losing fat at the same time, in theory, won't happen. It is a dream for a lot of men carrying extra fat dreaming of building muscle and losing fat. To burn body fat you need to eat less and to add muscle you have to eat more, so it can seem downright impossible to have these two goals.

In general, there are several situations where you can build muscle while losing fat WITHOUT creating that caloric deficit that is otherwise crucial for fat loss...

1. You're weak and not strong enough but you wish to build muscle and make yourself look strong. Strength is directly related to muscle size. If you are average and only want to lose some fat on your belly for example, then you will gain muscle fast as you don't need to burn extra fat here and there from your body. You can go to a GYM and do weightlifting to gain muscle on your arms. You can do push-ups to gain muscles on your arms. By gaining strength on GYM excises, as a result, your body fat percentage will decrease and you'll look leaner at the same weight.

This is why so many weightlifting GYM goers have built muscle while losing fat with ease. They gained strength fast, built muscle as a result, and thus their body fat went down. This is called "newbie gains". It's pretty hard for a guy who has already had a good foundation of strength to build muscle while losing fat.

2. You've been well trained before. Science and technology are now backing up what GYM goers have been saying for a long time: it's easier to regain muscle than building it from scratch. If you have been trained and quit for a while and then resumed months/years later, you'll regain muscle faster than you first built it and are more likely to lose fat in the process.

Muscle has memory. If the program is taken properly, the muscle will be rebuilt, once the muscle is there, the strength will come back and will go forever at the same time. Men will look stronger than before.

3. You're a generic Freak. Some guys are born with magic metabolism and hardly gain any fat when building muscle. They have an athletic build although they don't go to a Gym often - usually mesomorphs. They hardly finish one round of push-ups or weight lifts and their body can burn fat easily to keep them looking fit. There are not too many men like this, most of them still need a program to burn fat first then build muscle.

4. You're Using drugs - Steroids. Some men go with drugs such as Steroids. They eat junk food always when they attend Gym programs. However you never see them put on extra weight. Why? The answer is simple - drug taker. Men use drugs to keep themselves fit. Actually those men are lacking confidence, inconsistency and motivation. They never learned how to stay smart and eat in the right way. If one day they stop taking drugs, extra fat grows very fast and they are never healthy. Wise suggestions for those men - Stop taking drugs, attend a healthy Gym program and control your fat and keep your life healthy.