Elizabeth Blumberg: Hi! I am Elizabeth Blumberg and I am talking about the connection between nutrition and stress. Now, I would like to talk about some nutrients that I call the lost nutrients. First let's start off with water. Now, large majority of your body is comprised of water. When you're under stress, this water is actually utilized for that energy, that immediate energy because it's so abundant, a large percentage of the hydration in your system can be lost during times of stress. This is one of the reasons why it's so incredibly important to make sure that you maintain optimal hydration. A minimum of 64 ounces per day is necessary to ensure hydration during times of stress. However, if you're more physically active and sweating throughout the day, you need to make sure that you're drinking at least another 16 ounces as well. Another function of water, it's very, very helpful for people to think about when they're trying to increase the frequency of consuming water is that water helps to flush fats out of the body. It flushes fats as well as toxins. So it can be a wonderful tool in helping to promote weight loss and a healthy metabolism. Next we have sleep. Sleep is also a nutrient. Without enough sleep, your body is unable to function optimally. Think of sleep like recharging your cell phone at night. Without enough charge, the battery is going to die. So this translates into having lower energy levels all throughout the course of your day and possibly starting to create those sugars and carbohydrates that give you the quick energy. Sleep is also very important for promoting longevity. It's not called beauty sleep for nothing. Getting approximately 6-8 hours of quality sleep is essential, and I stress the word quality. If you're having any problems, whether it'd be getting to sleep or staying asleep, it's very important that you consult the help of an expert in sleep management. The reason being, is because without enough sleep, again your stress levels and your metabolism might suffer. So do make sure you make getting sleep a priority. And lastly, we have exercise. Exercise is extremely important for stress reduction. But there is a very specific kind of activity that can be very useful in helping to better manage your levels of stress. This type of exercise is called high intensity interval training, and it consists of intermittent periods of high intensity, whether it would be running for a very quick pace or even increasing the level of intensity or the resistance on a machine such as the elliptical machine or even the bike. You're basically exerting more energy in a very short period of time, approximately one minute, and then you follow that with approximately 1-2 minutes of recovery. This mimics that type of good stress that is so helpful in promoting benefit to the body. If you continue the cycle of one minute of high intensity versus one minute of low impact or recovery for a minimum of 20 minutes, you actually get the benefit of a 30 plus minute workout. So doing high intensity interval training workouts can be very helpful in allowing your body an opportunity to restore and revive itself during times of stress. Next, we're going to talk about how to find nutrition plan that's right for you.