In recent years, more and more people are trying out acupuncture to lose weight. Just what is acupuncture? How can acupuncture treatment help you lose weight?
Acupuncture is a branch of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and has been around for about 5, 000 years. It is the practice of inserting very thin needles to stimulate pathways or meridians in the body to treat many illnesses and diseases especially to relieve pain from chronic disorders.
Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners or TCM physicians claim that acupuncture can help you to lose body fat by making you feel full and so will eat less. This curbs excess caloric consumption in the patient treated with acupuncture and is a great help in the patient’s weight loss program.
Acupuncture treatment can also be used to raise your metabolic rate and help you to burn more calories to speed up weight loss. Some Chinese medicine practitioners say that acupuncture stimulates the production of a hormone called endorphins and this hormone helps to lower body fat, insulin and lipid levels in the bloodstream thus less insulin is converted into body fat.
Acupuncture is not a miracle cure for obesity. TCM physicians often stress that to achieve good weight loss results from your program and maintaining your weight, acupuncture treatment alone is not enough. To lose weight effectively and keep the fats off permanently, acupuncture treatment must be combined with healthy eating habits and regular exercises.
Before you begin your acupuncture treatment, your Chinese physician will conduct a medical examination on you by checking your pulse and examination of your tongue to ensure that you are suitable for acupuncture weight loss treatment. This is because TCM is a holistic branch of health care and do not just specifically target the ailment or medical complaint. So an investigation into other reasons why a patient is obese is necessary to solve the problem holistically.
So, if you want to lose weight naturally and without drugs, you may consider TCM acupuncture for your weight loss program. However, always consult first!
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Friday, July 13, 2012
Tips on How to Boost Your Metabolism!
There are a lot of people who would give a lot to increase their metabolism. Having a high level of metabolism enables one to burn fat and lose weight fast with the least amount of exertion. Metabolism is the rate by which the body produces and consumes energy and calories to support life.
There are several factors that affect the metabolism of a person, such as the amount of muscle tissue, the frequency of the meals one consumes, genetics, the digestive system, stress levels, personal diet, and activity levels. Metabolism slows down due to the following: loss of muscle because of not enough physical activity, the tendency of the body to cannibalize its own tissue because there is not enough food energy to sustain it, and the decrease of physical activity that comes naturally with old age.
1 . Build up on lean, mean body mass. It is only natural that metabolism decreases along with age, but it is possible to counter the effects. The amount of muscle a person has is a very strong determinant in the ability to burn calories and shed fat. So it goes without saying that exercise is essential. Build strength and resistance by working out at least twice a week, preferably with weights. Do easy exercises in between workouts. Simple tasks such as walking the dog and using the stairs in place of the elevator can already take off calories. The key is to match the amount of eating to the amount of activity one has. Here are some guidelines in getting the right exercise:
-Increase the amount of repetitions of a particular exercise.
-Add the level of resistance
-Utilize advance exercise techniques if possible
For cardiovascular training
-Insert intervals between exercises
-Perform cross-training and combine the exercises
-Add up on resistance and speed
2 . Eat breakfast. A lot of people are ignoring the fact that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Surprisingly, the ones who eat breakfast are thinner than the ones who do not. Metabolism can slow down considerably if breakfast is taken during mid-morning or if one waits until the afternoon to eat.
3. Avoid sugar. Sugar enables the body to store fat. It is recommended that a person consumes food that helps sustain an even level of blood-sugar. Additionally , progressive exercise 2-3 times a week should be in order to stabilize blood sugar.
4. Eat spicy foods. Hot cuisine with peppers can increase metabolism.
5. Sleep more. According to research, it is riskier for people who do not get enough sleep to gain weight. Also, muscles are regenerated during the last couple of hours of slumber.
6. Increase water intake. Water flushes out toxins that are produced whenever the body burns fat. Majority of bodily functions involves water, and lack of water causes the body system's operations to decrease its speed, and produces unneeded stress as a result.
7. Detoxify the digestive system. A clean and healthy digestive system not only helps the body to run more efficiently, it also gives you energy and helps you to crave healthier foods. This makes a cleansing program, such as Isagenix 9-Day Cleansing and Fat Burning System, a great way to jump-start a weight loss regimen.
8. Eat smaller meals. It is advisable to consume 4 to 6 small meals that are timed 2 to 3 hours apart.
9. Never skip meals. People tend to skip meals in order to lose weight, which is a big mistake since it slows down metabolism.
10. Plan meals in detail. Always prepare the right amount of food to be consumed at the designated intervals. Do not commit the mistake of eating meals in sporadic patterns.
11. Ditch the stress! Stress, be it physical or emotional, triggers the release of a steroid called cortisol, which decreases metabolism. Also, people tend to eat excessively when stressed.
12. Guzzle up on green tea. It can be used as a substitute for coffee. Tea has the ability to stimulate metabolism, and unlike coffee, it has no undesirable side effects when too much is consumed.
13. Include more energy foods in the diet, such as fruits and vegetables, beans and whole grains.
Achieving the desired body weight is never impossible if one has the determination and patience needed to stabilize the metabolism level, which plays an important role in weight loss. A person needs to realize that eating right and working out is not just a passing fancy, but a way of life. Fighting cravings is hard for most of us. A great help in the quest to eat healthier --and fight those unhealthy cravings-- is a body cleansing program.
There are several factors that affect the metabolism of a person, such as the amount of muscle tissue, the frequency of the meals one consumes, genetics, the digestive system, stress levels, personal diet, and activity levels. Metabolism slows down due to the following: loss of muscle because of not enough physical activity, the tendency of the body to cannibalize its own tissue because there is not enough food energy to sustain it, and the decrease of physical activity that comes naturally with old age.
Here are several ways to fire up one's metabolism:
1 . Build up on lean, mean body mass. It is only natural that metabolism decreases along with age, but it is possible to counter the effects. The amount of muscle a person has is a very strong determinant in the ability to burn calories and shed fat. So it goes without saying that exercise is essential. Build strength and resistance by working out at least twice a week, preferably with weights. Do easy exercises in between workouts. Simple tasks such as walking the dog and using the stairs in place of the elevator can already take off calories. The key is to match the amount of eating to the amount of activity one has. Here are some guidelines in getting the right exercise:
For strength training
-Increase the amount of repetitions of a particular exercise.
-Add the level of resistance
-Utilize advance exercise techniques if possible
For cardiovascular training
-Insert intervals between exercises
-Perform cross-training and combine the exercises
-Add up on resistance and speed
2 . Eat breakfast. A lot of people are ignoring the fact that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Surprisingly, the ones who eat breakfast are thinner than the ones who do not. Metabolism can slow down considerably if breakfast is taken during mid-morning or if one waits until the afternoon to eat.
3. Avoid sugar. Sugar enables the body to store fat. It is recommended that a person consumes food that helps sustain an even level of blood-sugar. Additionally , progressive exercise 2-3 times a week should be in order to stabilize blood sugar.
4. Eat spicy foods. Hot cuisine with peppers can increase metabolism.
5. Sleep more. According to research, it is riskier for people who do not get enough sleep to gain weight. Also, muscles are regenerated during the last couple of hours of slumber.
6. Increase water intake. Water flushes out toxins that are produced whenever the body burns fat. Majority of bodily functions involves water, and lack of water causes the body system's operations to decrease its speed, and produces unneeded stress as a result.
7. Detoxify the digestive system. A clean and healthy digestive system not only helps the body to run more efficiently, it also gives you energy and helps you to crave healthier foods. This makes a cleansing program, such as Isagenix 9-Day Cleansing and Fat Burning System, a great way to jump-start a weight loss regimen.
8. Eat smaller meals. It is advisable to consume 4 to 6 small meals that are timed 2 to 3 hours apart.
9. Never skip meals. People tend to skip meals in order to lose weight, which is a big mistake since it slows down metabolism.
10. Plan meals in detail. Always prepare the right amount of food to be consumed at the designated intervals. Do not commit the mistake of eating meals in sporadic patterns.
11. Ditch the stress! Stress, be it physical or emotional, triggers the release of a steroid called cortisol, which decreases metabolism. Also, people tend to eat excessively when stressed.
12. Guzzle up on green tea. It can be used as a substitute for coffee. Tea has the ability to stimulate metabolism, and unlike coffee, it has no undesirable side effects when too much is consumed.
13. Include more energy foods in the diet, such as fruits and vegetables, beans and whole grains.
Achieving the desired body weight is never impossible if one has the determination and patience needed to stabilize the metabolism level, which plays an important role in weight loss. A person needs to realize that eating right and working out is not just a passing fancy, but a way of life. Fighting cravings is hard for most of us. A great help in the quest to eat healthier --and fight those unhealthy cravings-- is a body cleansing program.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
The Exact Reason Why Cardio is Essential: Avoiding The Starvation Response
Cardio, Calories, and the Starvation Response
Most of the time, when someone decides that they want to lose fat, they inevitably head for the nearest fad diet. However , 95% (closer to 100%) of the time, these fad diets fail. The reason they fail is because exercise is rarely incorporated into the program. In order to lose fat, there must be a deficit of calories in the diet. In other words, your body must use more calories than you eat in order to use its fat stores for energy. This seems simple enough; however , it becomes a bit more complicated.
There are two ways a calorie deficit can be accomplished. The first one is to eat fewer calories. The second one is to use more calories (exercise). The best way to accomplish fat loss without hitting a plateau and failing is a combination of both. You must eat less calories and burn more calories. If you try to accomplish a calorie deficit only by eating less calories, then you're body thinks it's starving, and will go into a "starvation mode" where it lowers its metabolism in order to prepare for a period of little food (this is more than likely a protective response from years ago when food actually did become scarce, unlike today).
Another reason that the metabolism is lowered is because when there is a period of little food, your body tries its best to protect the brain. The brain always requires glucose (carbohydrates that are in the body) to run; however , glucose can not be stored in the body. Therefore , the only way for the body to get glucose is to eat its own muscle (muscle can be converted to glucose) - which lowers your metabolism and causes the starvation response. So , the body accomplishes two things by eating its own muscle: it provides glucose for the brain and causes your body to require less food, since less muscle equals a lower metabolism. When the starvation response is elicited, you smack into the fat loss plateau and the fad diet fails.
When you incorporate exercise into your routine, your body feels more comfortable with not lowering your metabolism. If you are exercising frequently, then your body thinks, "I'm actually doing something, so there is probably an abundance of food now, and I shouldn't worry too much. " Therefore , the starvation response is mostly avoided. Two important forms of exercise to produce this affect are weight training and aerobic exercise (cardio). However , this article is mostly about cardio.
The goal of cardio is to burn calories while avoiding the starvation response. Many times when you mention "exercise" or "cardio", people immediately get negative thoughts in their head about the extreme difficulty of doing such exercise, but these thoughts are misguided. Cardio gets easier as your body adapts, is very rewarding, and can even be fun.
However , with your new, more adapted body, you will be able to accomplish exercise that burns even more calories resulting in even more fat loss. For instance, in order to burn 300 calories, you would have to walk for about 1 hour and 45 minutes. In contrast, jogging for about 25-30 minutes (the amount of time will vary depending upon your speed) will burn 300 calories. Obviously, the last one is more practical unless you just have a huge amount of time on your hands. Walking also doesn't elicit the endorphin high that running/jogging does either (discussed later).
Pretty much, the overload principle reveals that doing the same routine every time without trying to push yourself harder will result in no adaptations. For instance, if you do the same aerobics tape everyday, then your body will never adapt any further - since there is no need for it to. However , if you were to get a more advanced tape and do it, this would initiate an adaptation in your body, but then you would have to find an even harder tape to initiate any further adaptations. Keep in mind though, if you decide to stay at the same level of fitness and do the same routine, then you will still burn the same amount of calories, and if your goal is just fat loss this may be a potential option for you.
Therefore, doing cardio in a fasted state will burn more fat than doing it in a non-fasted state. In one study, the researchers concluded that this method can burn 17% more fat in comparison to if you had just eaten (1). Another study agrees with this by stating, "our results support the hypothesis that endurance training enhances lipid oxidation (lipid oxidation means the burning of fat) in men after a 12-h fast at low relative exercise intensities" (2). If you decide to perform cardio in the morning, remember to drink lots of water before-hand (you'll be dehydrated after waking up), and if you want the extra fat burning response, you'll have to avoid breakfast until after you're done.
Another reason to exercise in the morning is due to the fact that it will allow you to be in a better mood and to think more clearly for the rest of the day due to the endorphin high. You are also probably more likely to perform cardio in the morning in comparison to the afternoon when you could just blow it off because you are "too tired".
Ever had that thick, cotton-like feeling in your mouth while exercising? Cotton-mouth is an obvious sign that you are dehydrated; if you ever get cotton-mouth while performing aerobic exercise, please realize that you could be performing much better and reducing your risk of experiencing dehydration's nasty side effects if you only had drank more water beforehand. It is best to drink water throughout the day rather than only around the time you exercise.
As stated before, the hardest part about a cardio regime is starting. Remember to incorporate the overload principle when trying to cause an adaptative response, to stay hydrated, and to listen to music while performing your cardio regime. Also, you may even decide that you want to perform your cardio in the morning to feel good and be able to think more clearly for the rest of the day and to burn even more fat.
Once you get passed that point and experience some of cardio's effects such as fat loss without hitting a plateau, a feeling of accomplishment, and that awesome endorphin high, you'll become addicted. However , no exercise routine is complete without the proper support from an intelligent nutritional program; for more information on this you can visit http://www.weight-loss-resources.com.
1. Brehm, B. A., and Gutin, B. Recovery energy expenditure for steady state exercise in runners and non-exercisers. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. (1986) 18: 205.
2. Bergman, BC, Brooks, GA. Respiratory gas-exchange ratios during graded exercise in fed and fasted trained and untrained men. Journal of Applied Physiology. (1999) 86: 2 .
Click here for more information
Most of the time, when someone decides that they want to lose fat, they inevitably head for the nearest fad diet. However , 95% (closer to 100%) of the time, these fad diets fail. The reason they fail is because exercise is rarely incorporated into the program. In order to lose fat, there must be a deficit of calories in the diet. In other words, your body must use more calories than you eat in order to use its fat stores for energy. This seems simple enough; however , it becomes a bit more complicated.
There are two ways a calorie deficit can be accomplished. The first one is to eat fewer calories. The second one is to use more calories (exercise). The best way to accomplish fat loss without hitting a plateau and failing is a combination of both. You must eat less calories and burn more calories. If you try to accomplish a calorie deficit only by eating less calories, then you're body thinks it's starving, and will go into a "starvation mode" where it lowers its metabolism in order to prepare for a period of little food (this is more than likely a protective response from years ago when food actually did become scarce, unlike today).
Another reason that the metabolism is lowered is because when there is a period of little food, your body tries its best to protect the brain. The brain always requires glucose (carbohydrates that are in the body) to run; however , glucose can not be stored in the body. Therefore , the only way for the body to get glucose is to eat its own muscle (muscle can be converted to glucose) - which lowers your metabolism and causes the starvation response. So , the body accomplishes two things by eating its own muscle: it provides glucose for the brain and causes your body to require less food, since less muscle equals a lower metabolism. When the starvation response is elicited, you smack into the fat loss plateau and the fad diet fails.
When you incorporate exercise into your routine, your body feels more comfortable with not lowering your metabolism. If you are exercising frequently, then your body thinks, "I'm actually doing something, so there is probably an abundance of food now, and I shouldn't worry too much. " Therefore , the starvation response is mostly avoided. Two important forms of exercise to produce this affect are weight training and aerobic exercise (cardio). However , this article is mostly about cardio.
The goal of cardio is to burn calories while avoiding the starvation response. Many times when you mention "exercise" or "cardio", people immediately get negative thoughts in their head about the extreme difficulty of doing such exercise, but these thoughts are misguided. Cardio gets easier as your body adapts, is very rewarding, and can even be fun.
How Cardio Becomes Easier While Still Burning the Same Amount of Calories
As you do cardio more and more, you body begins to adapt and become better at performing the same work, but with less perceived effort. The body becomes able to move nutrients and oxygen around faster because you build new capillaries, the cells produce more mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell), your heart becomes more powerful, your body produces more blood, and a host of other adaptations that would cover a whole textbook. The main thing to note here is that you still burn the same amount of calories, even after your body adapts and cardio becomes easier.However , with your new, more adapted body, you will be able to accomplish exercise that burns even more calories resulting in even more fat loss. For instance, in order to burn 300 calories, you would have to walk for about 1 hour and 45 minutes. In contrast, jogging for about 25-30 minutes (the amount of time will vary depending upon your speed) will burn 300 calories. Obviously, the last one is more practical unless you just have a huge amount of time on your hands. Walking also doesn't elicit the endorphin high that running/jogging does either (discussed later).
The Overload Principle
When you begin a cardio program, your first goal should probably be to adapt to the point where you can burn a sufficient amount of calories. This involves the overload principle. The overload principle is simple: in order to initiate adaptations within your body you must exercise with either a greater intensity, duration, or frequency. Depending upon the type you decide to overload (intensity, duration, or frequency), you will adapt to that type. For instance, if you want to run faster in the same amount of distance, you should run faster, and your body will adapt to that. If you want to run farther, you should run farther, and your body will adapt to that. There is a high degree of specificy that goals along with this principle, but that is the topic for another article.Pretty much, the overload principle reveals that doing the same routine every time without trying to push yourself harder will result in no adaptations. For instance, if you do the same aerobics tape everyday, then your body will never adapt any further - since there is no need for it to. However , if you were to get a more advanced tape and do it, this would initiate an adaptation in your body, but then you would have to find an even harder tape to initiate any further adaptations. Keep in mind though, if you decide to stay at the same level of fitness and do the same routine, then you will still burn the same amount of calories, and if your goal is just fat loss this may be a potential option for you.
Just Get Started!
If you haven’t done any cardio for a while, you should obviously start out small. Start out with just a brisk walk, then intermittent jogs while you are jogging, then finally, you will be able to jog the whole time, and then increase your times/speed to the point where you are happy. The hardest part is really just to start doing something. Once you get your momentum going by exercising for the first time, even if you have to start out small , you have already accomplished the hardest part.
Your Body's Reward to You: An Endorphin High
In addition to burning off unwanted fat, doing cardio gives you something called an "endorphin high". This all natural high induces a feeling of well-being, relaxation, improvement in mood, and increase in your ability to think more clearly. It's theorized that this is the reason why many long distance runners are "addicted" to running - they love the high they get afterwards! Once you've experienced one of these, you're even more likely to continue your regime and therefore continue to burn off fat.
Cardio in the Morning?
Although calories are the most important thing when considering fat loss; you must also realize that not all calories are created equal. When you wake up in the morning, you body is low on something called glycogen. Glycogen is essentially another word for stored carbohydrates in the body. When exercising, glycogen is a more preferred fuel source to the body in comparison to fat. Your body always uses a mixture of glycogen and fat to run, but the ratio is many times dependent upon the availability of these fuel sources. So , when your body is low on glycogen in the morning, it is forced to burn fat at a higher ratio than if you had just eaten.Therefore, doing cardio in a fasted state will burn more fat than doing it in a non-fasted state. In one study, the researchers concluded that this method can burn 17% more fat in comparison to if you had just eaten (1). Another study agrees with this by stating, "our results support the hypothesis that endurance training enhances lipid oxidation (lipid oxidation means the burning of fat) in men after a 12-h fast at low relative exercise intensities" (2). If you decide to perform cardio in the morning, remember to drink lots of water before-hand (you'll be dehydrated after waking up), and if you want the extra fat burning response, you'll have to avoid breakfast until after you're done.
Another reason to exercise in the morning is due to the fact that it will allow you to be in a better mood and to think more clearly for the rest of the day due to the endorphin high. You are also probably more likely to perform cardio in the morning in comparison to the afternoon when you could just blow it off because you are "too tired".
Make Sure You're Hydrated
Before starting on your new cardio regime, make sure you are properly hydrated. Water increases your capacity to think and exercise more efficiently. Water is required for nearly every reaction inside of your body. Most people walk around in a state of semi-dehydration. Exercising can cause you to get dizzy and pass-out (this author has experienced this), suffer a heat injury, or in severe cases, cause death.Ever had that thick, cotton-like feeling in your mouth while exercising? Cotton-mouth is an obvious sign that you are dehydrated; if you ever get cotton-mouth while performing aerobic exercise, please realize that you could be performing much better and reducing your risk of experiencing dehydration's nasty side effects if you only had drank more water beforehand. It is best to drink water throughout the day rather than only around the time you exercise.
Music!
One sure fire way to get you pumped up and associate cardio with something positive is to listen to some music before and while doing it. You'll be surprised at how much better you perform and how much more fun cardio seems.As stated before, the hardest part about a cardio regime is starting. Remember to incorporate the overload principle when trying to cause an adaptative response, to stay hydrated, and to listen to music while performing your cardio regime. Also, you may even decide that you want to perform your cardio in the morning to feel good and be able to think more clearly for the rest of the day and to burn even more fat.
Once you get passed that point and experience some of cardio's effects such as fat loss without hitting a plateau, a feeling of accomplishment, and that awesome endorphin high, you'll become addicted. However , no exercise routine is complete without the proper support from an intelligent nutritional program; for more information on this you can visit http://www.weight-loss-resources.com.
1. Brehm, B. A., and Gutin, B. Recovery energy expenditure for steady state exercise in runners and non-exercisers. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. (1986) 18: 205.
2. Bergman, BC, Brooks, GA. Respiratory gas-exchange ratios during graded exercise in fed and fasted trained and untrained men. Journal of Applied Physiology. (1999) 86: 2 .
Click here for more information
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Quickest Way to Lose Weight: How Deep sleep Impacts Weight-loss
From one of our contributors:
Can sleep be the most effective way to shed extra pounds?
"I will go to sleep when I'm dead". This is my normal response to people who cared enough about me to ask me to go to bed whenever I was working late through the night replying emails from colleagues halfway around the world, watching a dvd or just refusing to go to sleep.
I never say those words anymore.
Not only because it is impolite, but it is also because I'm afraid that might very well end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy in the event that I actually continue to deny myself of sleep.
In regards to the quickest way to lose weight, sleep is actually an often overlooked component. People simply talk about eating and working out to lose weight. Not everybody ever says sleeping is critical for weight reduction. Yet somehow, this really is one of the most crucial components in the weight-loss equation.
The majority of us find it hard to get yourself an ideal 7 hours of rest every night. Maybe you work for a international corporation just like me and want to stay up late in order to correspond with co-workers from some other time zone. Or maybe you have family responsibilities or fairly recently have a newborn baby. No matter what the primary reason is, understand that your insufficient sleep not just affects your entire body from performing at its highest performance, but it could also cause you to be overweight.
Listed here are reasons exactly how sleep could affect weight loss:
Messing up your fat loss hormones:
Our hormones determine if we reduce or put on pounds. Many of those hormones within our body are influenced by sleep. These include hormones that control your hunger such as; Leptin and also Ghrelin.
Leptin is a hormone that gives us the feeling of fullness that informs your body that it's satisfied after you've finished a meal. While Ghrelin conversely stimulates food cravings and tells your body that it's starving.
Studies have shown that whenever we do not get enough rest, our leptin amounts decrease resulting in us feeling not as contented from a meal. During this time, ghrelin amounts boosts transmitting the wrong stimulus to your brain causing us to feel perpetually hungry even when our daily caloric intake is enough.
To make up for the insufficient energy attributable to inadequate rest, ghrelin triggered food cravings has a tendency to lead to the consumption of carbohydrates and calorie rich food.
Inadequate rest equals greater craving for calorie rich foods which will finally end in fat gain.
No sufficient workout recuperation:
Whenever we sleep, our bodies restore itself after a long day of work, preparing and recharging you for another day of work. Each and every single extra hour of rest your body obtains, is actually additional time your body is able to recover.
Exercising is without a doubt amongst the quickest way to lose weight. In case you have exercised that day, you need to get a lot more rest! Without adequate rest, your muscles won't be able to recuperate and also grow. Unless you allow your body to fully recover, your muscles is not going to get stronger and also the fat burning effect of your workout sessions will be diminished.
Influences your regular regime:
Do you recollect what it feels to get jet lagged? I am not referring to those 7 or eight hour flights. I am referring to those 17-hour-deep-vein-thrombosis-inducing flights.
My first ever long haul flight to Toronto, I did not have adequate sleep for more than 20 hours including flight time. (With thanks to the stinky heavy snoring man who sat beside me). In my luggage, I already brought my workout attire and I was intending to make full use of the resort's fitness facilities. But the time I managed to get inside my hotel room, I found myself so depleted that I just changed into something comfortable, turned off all of the lights and crashed - for 14 hours straight. I never had the strength to use the health club in any way throughout my four day stay.
You might not have gone through the identical level of lethargy. But continuous lack of sleep may result in an identical effect. When you consistently do not have sufficient rest, many of your bodies priorities change. It no longer cares about your own workout routine. It no longer cares if you make unlhealthy food choices and also you will certainly notice yourself consuming anything you can come across just to offer your own body instant energy to compensate for the lack of sleep.
Basically, fat burning is no longer something your body is concerned with. How can your body help you to lose weight when it doesn't actually have sufficient energy for you to stay awake?
How to get better sleep?
If you are really serious about burning off pounds, you will need to assure that your body is actually set up for fat burning all the time. And having plenty of sleep is an important aspect to the whole weight-loss formula. Here are a few hints that you can easily begin following today in order to get yourself a proper nights slumber:
Back in the army, there is actually a fixed "lights out" time just about every night to tell us that it is actually the period we have got to sleep. Figure out what is your own "lights off" time everyday and adhere to it. When it's time for "lights off", switch off the lights and immediately get to sleep. No excuses, no delays.
We have to program our bodies to realize a daily sleep time. 30 minutes just before your "lights off" time, be ready yourself for night time by carrying out the following:
- Turn down or switch off all the lights inside your room leaving only the bedside lamp. Sit upward on your bed and read a fictional story. Nothing at all intense, no "War Manual of Sun Tze", absolutely no email or anything that involves you to think or strategize.
- Turn off your blackberry! This is actually a cursed object that binds every corporate individual to his/her task. Your fellow workers will certainly not blame you if you do not reply their email messages at 11. 50pm. So shut that darn thing off!
- If you feel hungry, make yourself a nice warm glass of milk. Hey, this made it easier for us sleep better when we were young and you'll be shocked to find out it still works for you now.
- Warming up your feet by wearing a cozy pair of socks can easily help stimulate better sleep due to the increased blood flow.
I'm sorry ladies, this idea is actually more for adult males. During male orgasms, our bodies give off a combination of chemicals including oxytocin which usually assists our bodies to relax and causes a semi sedated condition ideal for sleeping!
The relevance of rest on your weight reduction success cannot be understated. As we make the effort to be much more productive at work by taking advantage of just about every hour of everyday, we are compromising the much required rest needed by our bodies. Continuous rest deprivation shifts your bodies attention away from fat reduction and over to an increase in weight.
Simply by having sufficient rest, your own body will be ready to function at its highest potential. You will be a lot more successful and productive at your job, at the workout room and on the fast track to rapid weight-loss.
Can sleep be the most effective way to shed extra pounds?
"I will go to sleep when I'm dead". This is my normal response to people who cared enough about me to ask me to go to bed whenever I was working late through the night replying emails from colleagues halfway around the world, watching a dvd or just refusing to go to sleep.
I never say those words anymore.
Not only because it is impolite, but it is also because I'm afraid that might very well end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy in the event that I actually continue to deny myself of sleep.
In regards to the quickest way to lose weight, sleep is actually an often overlooked component. People simply talk about eating and working out to lose weight. Not everybody ever says sleeping is critical for weight reduction. Yet somehow, this really is one of the most crucial components in the weight-loss equation.
The majority of us find it hard to get yourself an ideal 7 hours of rest every night. Maybe you work for a international corporation just like me and want to stay up late in order to correspond with co-workers from some other time zone. Or maybe you have family responsibilities or fairly recently have a newborn baby. No matter what the primary reason is, understand that your insufficient sleep not just affects your entire body from performing at its highest performance, but it could also cause you to be overweight.
Listed here are reasons exactly how sleep could affect weight loss:
Messing up your fat loss hormones:
Our hormones determine if we reduce or put on pounds. Many of those hormones within our body are influenced by sleep. These include hormones that control your hunger such as; Leptin and also Ghrelin.
Leptin is a hormone that gives us the feeling of fullness that informs your body that it's satisfied after you've finished a meal. While Ghrelin conversely stimulates food cravings and tells your body that it's starving.
Studies have shown that whenever we do not get enough rest, our leptin amounts decrease resulting in us feeling not as contented from a meal. During this time, ghrelin amounts boosts transmitting the wrong stimulus to your brain causing us to feel perpetually hungry even when our daily caloric intake is enough.
To make up for the insufficient energy attributable to inadequate rest, ghrelin triggered food cravings has a tendency to lead to the consumption of carbohydrates and calorie rich food.
Inadequate rest equals greater craving for calorie rich foods which will finally end in fat gain.
No sufficient workout recuperation:
Whenever we sleep, our bodies restore itself after a long day of work, preparing and recharging you for another day of work. Each and every single extra hour of rest your body obtains, is actually additional time your body is able to recover.
Exercising is without a doubt amongst the quickest way to lose weight. In case you have exercised that day, you need to get a lot more rest! Without adequate rest, your muscles won't be able to recuperate and also grow. Unless you allow your body to fully recover, your muscles is not going to get stronger and also the fat burning effect of your workout sessions will be diminished.
Influences your regular regime:
Do you recollect what it feels to get jet lagged? I am not referring to those 7 or eight hour flights. I am referring to those 17-hour-deep-vein-thrombosis-inducing flights.
My first ever long haul flight to Toronto, I did not have adequate sleep for more than 20 hours including flight time. (With thanks to the stinky heavy snoring man who sat beside me). In my luggage, I already brought my workout attire and I was intending to make full use of the resort's fitness facilities. But the time I managed to get inside my hotel room, I found myself so depleted that I just changed into something comfortable, turned off all of the lights and crashed - for 14 hours straight. I never had the strength to use the health club in any way throughout my four day stay.
You might not have gone through the identical level of lethargy. But continuous lack of sleep may result in an identical effect. When you consistently do not have sufficient rest, many of your bodies priorities change. It no longer cares about your own workout routine. It no longer cares if you make unlhealthy food choices and also you will certainly notice yourself consuming anything you can come across just to offer your own body instant energy to compensate for the lack of sleep.
Basically, fat burning is no longer something your body is concerned with. How can your body help you to lose weight when it doesn't actually have sufficient energy for you to stay awake?
How to get better sleep?
If you are really serious about burning off pounds, you will need to assure that your body is actually set up for fat burning all the time. And having plenty of sleep is an important aspect to the whole weight-loss formula. Here are a few hints that you can easily begin following today in order to get yourself a proper nights slumber:
1 . Lights off:
Back in the army, there is actually a fixed "lights out" time just about every night to tell us that it is actually the period we have got to sleep. Figure out what is your own "lights off" time everyday and adhere to it. When it's time for "lights off", switch off the lights and immediately get to sleep. No excuses, no delays.
2 . Establish a sleep habit:
We have to program our bodies to realize a daily sleep time. 30 minutes just before your "lights off" time, be ready yourself for night time by carrying out the following:
- Turn down or switch off all the lights inside your room leaving only the bedside lamp. Sit upward on your bed and read a fictional story. Nothing at all intense, no "War Manual of Sun Tze", absolutely no email or anything that involves you to think or strategize.
- Turn off your blackberry! This is actually a cursed object that binds every corporate individual to his/her task. Your fellow workers will certainly not blame you if you do not reply their email messages at 11. 50pm. So shut that darn thing off!
- If you feel hungry, make yourself a nice warm glass of milk. Hey, this made it easier for us sleep better when we were young and you'll be shocked to find out it still works for you now.
- Warming up your feet by wearing a cozy pair of socks can easily help stimulate better sleep due to the increased blood flow.
3. Make love:
I'm sorry ladies, this idea is actually more for adult males. During male orgasms, our bodies give off a combination of chemicals including oxytocin which usually assists our bodies to relax and causes a semi sedated condition ideal for sleeping!
The relevance of rest on your weight reduction success cannot be understated. As we make the effort to be much more productive at work by taking advantage of just about every hour of everyday, we are compromising the much required rest needed by our bodies. Continuous rest deprivation shifts your bodies attention away from fat reduction and over to an increase in weight.
Simply by having sufficient rest, your own body will be ready to function at its highest potential. You will be a lot more successful and productive at your job, at the workout room and on the fast track to rapid weight-loss.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Fattening Foods: Not So Fattening After All?
Have you seen those “fat free” foods in supermarkets? Have you possibly delighted in them guiltlessly thinking that they are healthy for you? There’s a good chance that you have because we usually follow what the media and the world around us says. In this day in age, along with other health fads, many people believe that fat makes you fat. This is true, to an extent. What we fail to notice is that not all fats are bad.
If I had to guess, since the words fat (as in what’s in food) and fat (as in excess body tissue, or adipose tissue) are the same word it makes sense that when you eat fat, you get fat. However, this is not the case. Now don’t get me wrong, there is a difference between good fats and bad fats. If you eat the bad fats they can make you fat, and also contribute to several diseases. Your body uses the good fats in several ways to repair itself, grow, and work more efficiently. Some of the benefits of eating these healthy fats include:
In this article we will discuss what exactly these healthy fats are, where to get them from, easy ways to add them into your diet, and the optimal amount of fat that you should consume. I will also explain why the belief that “fats make you fat” has developed because fats can make you fat if you eat too many of them.
The Bad Fats
Trans Fats
Trans fats are made by bubbling hydrogen through unsaturated fats in order to make them solid and have a longer shelf life. In addition, it was once thought that trans fats were a healthier alternative to saturated fats. However, this is far from the truth. In a statement made by the Bush Administration they warn us to keep consumption of trans fats "as low as possible" and also state that “the food industry has an important role in decreasing trans fatty acid content of the food supply.”
Some of the top Harvard nutritionists state that replacing trans fats with a safer alternative would “prevent approximately 30,000 premature coronary deaths per year.”
In fact, Denmark has already taken an initiative and banned the sale of trans fats to not allow more than 2% of the food to contain trans fats.
Now that you know that trans fats are bad, how do you avoid them? In America, the FDA has required food manufacturers to list the number of trans fats a food contains. This has helped consumers make wiser choices, but according to FDA regulation, “if the serving contains less than 0.5 gram, the content, when declared, shall be expressed as zero.” This rule allows food manufacturers to list very small serving sizes and as long as the amount of trans fats is less than 0.5 grams in that particular serving, they are allowed to list it as 0 grams of trans fats.
The ultimate way to tell if a food contains trans fats or not is if the ingredients list contains the phrase “partially hydrogenated” or “shortening”. Trans fats are mostly contained in foods such as candies, cookies, snack foods, chips, shortenings, and many restaurants.
Saturated Fats
Saturated fats are widely recognized as being bad fats. You probably know or believe this to be true, and it is to an extent. There is actually quite a controversy between many dieticians and nutritionists about saturated fats concerning the optimal amount that we should consume or if we should even consume them at all. The reason for most of the bad rap that saturated fat has been given is due to the fact that the liver uses it to produce cholesterol. It has been noted to raise the good (HDL) cholesterol as well as the bad (LDL) cholesterol. The FDA’s general guideline for saturated fat is to limit it to about 10% of total calories per day. This would convert to about 20 grams per day for diet containing about 2,000 calories per day.
Saturated fat is mostly found in foods that are derived from animals. The exception would be coconut, palm, and palm kernel oils, which also contain saturated fat.
The Healthy Fats
Monounsaturated Fats
Monounsaturated fat is believed to help lower the bad cholesterol (LDL) and raise the good (HDL) cholesterol. As listed in the beginning of this article, they also provide many healthy benefits.
Monounsaturated fats are mostly found in vegetable oils. Some examples would include olive oil and canola oil.
Polyunsaturated Fats
Polyunsaturated fats contain the family of fats known as Essential Fatty Acids, or EFAs. As you can tell by their name, these fats are essential to the body because the body cannot produce them on its own. The main EFAs are the Omega-3 fatty acid and the Omega-6 fatty acid. They provide many of the benefits listed at the beginning of this article as well. Good sources of these fatty acids are fish, mustard seeds, pumpkin seeds, walnut oil, leafy green vegetables, sunflower, soybean, avocados, and perhaps one of the best sources is flax seed (make sure to grind them or buy them in an oil form – the stomach has trouble digesting the whole seeds).
-Why Fat Supposedly Makes You Fat
(Note: You can calculate your TDEE at http://www.weight-loss-resources.com/calculators/dailycalories.html)
There is a simple law known as the Law of Thermodynamics. In addition to this, our bodies burn a certain number of calories per day (this number changes everyday and is influenced by many factors). This burning of calories everyday is known as total daily energy expenditure or TDEE. If the amount of calories we eat in a certain day is below our TDEE, we lose weight (this weight is not necessarily fat all the time). If the amount of calories we eat is equal to our TDEE, our weight stays the same. If the amount of calories we eat is greater than our TDEE, we gain weight (as stated before, this weight is not necessarily fat all the time - it could be muscle). Many people skip this important fundamental and look at the type of food they are eating or several other factors before they investigate how many calories they are eating per day and how to adjust their amount of calories consumed to achieve their goals.
Fat holds 9 calories per gram, while carbohydrates and protein hold only 4 calories per gram. This means that eating fat (any type of fat, even the good kind) will result in a greater number of calories consumed. Therefore, it’s more likely that you’re going to go over your TDEE and gain weight, especially if much of your diet comes from fattening foods. In addition to this, fat is very similar chemically to the fat that your body stores. This makes it easy for your body to store consumed fat as fat (adipose tissue), but you must take into consideration that storing fat (consumed) as fat (adipose tissue) is not the only thing your body does with fat (consumed).
The Optimal Levels of Fat
You’re going to want to eat part of your calories from fat to get their many benefits, but not go too high. Like anything else in the world of nutrition and fitness, there are many opinions on what the optimal levels of fat in the diet are. For instance, advocates of low-fat diets opt for absolutely no fat and believe that fat is what makes us fat. However, there is a flaw in this belief as they are also cutting out the good, numerously beneficial fats. Then there are high fat diets, such as diets suggesting low carbs (they usually say you can eat all the fat and protein you want). Although, it is generally accepted to consume between 15% - 25% of your calories from fat while severely limiting the amount of trans fats and watching the amount of saturated fat that you consume.
Some Easy Ways to Add Fat Into Your Diet
Now you may be wondering how you’re going to add some of these healthy fats into your diet. There are actually some really easy ways to do so. If you eat salads, you can add about a tablespoon of olive or canola oil. In my experience, you usually cannot even taste these added oils. If you buy some flax seed and grind it, you can add it to almost any food. Once again, these flax seeds are mostly tasteless. Really, adding these healthy nutrients into your diet isn’t that big of a burden.
Disclaimer: This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace medical advice from a physician or your health care provider.
If I had to guess, since the words fat (as in what’s in food) and fat (as in excess body tissue, or adipose tissue) are the same word it makes sense that when you eat fat, you get fat. However, this is not the case. Now don’t get me wrong, there is a difference between good fats and bad fats. If you eat the bad fats they can make you fat, and also contribute to several diseases. Your body uses the good fats in several ways to repair itself, grow, and work more efficiently. Some of the benefits of eating these healthy fats include:
- Healthy fats are essential for absorption of fat-soluble vitamins
- Healthy fats have an anti-inflammatory effect – they can help relieve many of the pains that we experience around our joints
- Healthy fats are essential for lubrication of our joints
- Healthy fats improve insulin sensitivity. Insulin is the hormone our bodies use to transport nutrients throughout the body. Insulin sensitivity is essentially a measure of how efficient our bodies use insulin. Insulin resistance is the opposite of insulin sensitivity and is one of the early stages of diabetes.
- Healthy fats can increase the strength of our immune system
- Healthy fats play a major role in the production of energy from foods we consume
- Healthy fats are required for our body to efficiently use oxygen
- Healthy fats can improve skin texture
- Healthy fats can increase your metabolism
- Healthy fats can help you burn more fat (the kind that is attached to your body)
In this article we will discuss what exactly these healthy fats are, where to get them from, easy ways to add them into your diet, and the optimal amount of fat that you should consume. I will also explain why the belief that “fats make you fat” has developed because fats can make you fat if you eat too many of them.
The Bad Fats
Trans Fats
Trans fats are made by bubbling hydrogen through unsaturated fats in order to make them solid and have a longer shelf life. In addition, it was once thought that trans fats were a healthier alternative to saturated fats. However, this is far from the truth. In a statement made by the Bush Administration they warn us to keep consumption of trans fats "as low as possible" and also state that “the food industry has an important role in decreasing trans fatty acid content of the food supply.”
Some of the top Harvard nutritionists state that replacing trans fats with a safer alternative would “prevent approximately 30,000 premature coronary deaths per year.”
In fact, Denmark has already taken an initiative and banned the sale of trans fats to not allow more than 2% of the food to contain trans fats.
Now that you know that trans fats are bad, how do you avoid them? In America, the FDA has required food manufacturers to list the number of trans fats a food contains. This has helped consumers make wiser choices, but according to FDA regulation, “if the serving contains less than 0.5 gram, the content, when declared, shall be expressed as zero.” This rule allows food manufacturers to list very small serving sizes and as long as the amount of trans fats is less than 0.5 grams in that particular serving, they are allowed to list it as 0 grams of trans fats.
The ultimate way to tell if a food contains trans fats or not is if the ingredients list contains the phrase “partially hydrogenated” or “shortening”. Trans fats are mostly contained in foods such as candies, cookies, snack foods, chips, shortenings, and many restaurants.
Saturated Fats
Saturated fats are widely recognized as being bad fats. You probably know or believe this to be true, and it is to an extent. There is actually quite a controversy between many dieticians and nutritionists about saturated fats concerning the optimal amount that we should consume or if we should even consume them at all. The reason for most of the bad rap that saturated fat has been given is due to the fact that the liver uses it to produce cholesterol. It has been noted to raise the good (HDL) cholesterol as well as the bad (LDL) cholesterol. The FDA’s general guideline for saturated fat is to limit it to about 10% of total calories per day. This would convert to about 20 grams per day for diet containing about 2,000 calories per day.
Saturated fat is mostly found in foods that are derived from animals. The exception would be coconut, palm, and palm kernel oils, which also contain saturated fat.
The Healthy Fats
Monounsaturated Fats
Monounsaturated fat is believed to help lower the bad cholesterol (LDL) and raise the good (HDL) cholesterol. As listed in the beginning of this article, they also provide many healthy benefits.
Monounsaturated fats are mostly found in vegetable oils. Some examples would include olive oil and canola oil.
Polyunsaturated Fats
Polyunsaturated fats contain the family of fats known as Essential Fatty Acids, or EFAs. As you can tell by their name, these fats are essential to the body because the body cannot produce them on its own. The main EFAs are the Omega-3 fatty acid and the Omega-6 fatty acid. They provide many of the benefits listed at the beginning of this article as well. Good sources of these fatty acids are fish, mustard seeds, pumpkin seeds, walnut oil, leafy green vegetables, sunflower, soybean, avocados, and perhaps one of the best sources is flax seed (make sure to grind them or buy them in an oil form – the stomach has trouble digesting the whole seeds).
-Why Fat Supposedly Makes You Fat
(Note: You can calculate your TDEE at http://www.weight-loss-resources.com/calculators/dailycalories.html)
There is a simple law known as the Law of Thermodynamics. In addition to this, our bodies burn a certain number of calories per day (this number changes everyday and is influenced by many factors). This burning of calories everyday is known as total daily energy expenditure or TDEE. If the amount of calories we eat in a certain day is below our TDEE, we lose weight (this weight is not necessarily fat all the time). If the amount of calories we eat is equal to our TDEE, our weight stays the same. If the amount of calories we eat is greater than our TDEE, we gain weight (as stated before, this weight is not necessarily fat all the time - it could be muscle). Many people skip this important fundamental and look at the type of food they are eating or several other factors before they investigate how many calories they are eating per day and how to adjust their amount of calories consumed to achieve their goals.
Fat holds 9 calories per gram, while carbohydrates and protein hold only 4 calories per gram. This means that eating fat (any type of fat, even the good kind) will result in a greater number of calories consumed. Therefore, it’s more likely that you’re going to go over your TDEE and gain weight, especially if much of your diet comes from fattening foods. In addition to this, fat is very similar chemically to the fat that your body stores. This makes it easy for your body to store consumed fat as fat (adipose tissue), but you must take into consideration that storing fat (consumed) as fat (adipose tissue) is not the only thing your body does with fat (consumed).
The Optimal Levels of Fat
You’re going to want to eat part of your calories from fat to get their many benefits, but not go too high. Like anything else in the world of nutrition and fitness, there are many opinions on what the optimal levels of fat in the diet are. For instance, advocates of low-fat diets opt for absolutely no fat and believe that fat is what makes us fat. However, there is a flaw in this belief as they are also cutting out the good, numerously beneficial fats. Then there are high fat diets, such as diets suggesting low carbs (they usually say you can eat all the fat and protein you want). Although, it is generally accepted to consume between 15% - 25% of your calories from fat while severely limiting the amount of trans fats and watching the amount of saturated fat that you consume.
Some Easy Ways to Add Fat Into Your Diet
Now you may be wondering how you’re going to add some of these healthy fats into your diet. There are actually some really easy ways to do so. If you eat salads, you can add about a tablespoon of olive or canola oil. In my experience, you usually cannot even taste these added oils. If you buy some flax seed and grind it, you can add it to almost any food. Once again, these flax seeds are mostly tasteless. Really, adding these healthy nutrients into your diet isn’t that big of a burden.
Disclaimer: This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace medical advice from a physician or your health care provider.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Can't Lose Weight? It May Not Be Your Fault!
Are you frustrated with your weight problem and don't know what to do about it? Do you find that you lose weight at first, only to gain it all back later, and maybe more when you stop dieting, or when you find yourself bingeing? Are you fed up with weight loss programs that don't work?
There is a good reason for that. You don't lack willpower. You are not doing anything wrong. It is just that dieting doesn’t work!
Facts About Dieting
* Dieting rarely works. 95% of all dieters who lose weight regain their lost weight and more within 1 to 5 years.
* Dieting can lead to eating disorders. The obsession to be thin can lead to anorexia, bulimia, bingeing and compulsive exercising.
* Dieting impacts your mental health and restricts your brainpower, leaving you mentally unfocused.
* Dieting robs you of energy and slows your metabolism down.
* Numerous studies link chronic dieting with feelings of depression, low self-esteem and increased stress.
* Dieting increases compulsive eating.
* You are fatter after a diet than before!
Why Dieting Doesn't Work
Quick fix diets usually never give long lasting results. The reason is most of the weight loss is due to loss of water. When you restrict calories, your body interprets it as impending starvation. When the body is under stress of starvation, it hoards the fat and burns the muscles first. The weight lost comes from water and the break down of muscles - the places we don't want to lose it from.
So, the last thing you want to do is drastically cut calories. When you do, the body will start breaking down muscle protein to produce energy for vital body functions. The body will use muscle protein as fuel, before it starts burning fat, so you end up losing more muscle mass than fat during dieting. The body then uses large amounts of water to flush the broken down muscle tissue out. Thus you lose weight fast. No matter how much you drink, you can't prevent this loss of water. The only way to get control of your water balance is to stop starving yourself.
When dieting, the body starts saving energy by turning some functions off and running others at a slower pace. Fat is designed to provide the body with energy and protect it from starvation. If you go below 1000 calories a day, your body will slow your metabolism down to compensate. That is why weight loss slows down dramatically after a few days on a crash diet. And a slow metabolism is exactly the opposite of what you want to lose weight.
Another reason that diets don't work is bingeing. Bingeing doesn't happen because of a lack of willpower. It is a direct result of dieting. As your body senses a restriction in calories, it goes on the alert for an impending threat to survival. As a result, it tells you to eat, which results in your bingeing on calorie and fat filled foods. The more successful you are at starving yourself, the more the body will increase it's efforts to eat more foods. Eventually the body wins because survival is our strongest instinct. Bingeing is also a result of depriving yourself of something, which psychologically makes you obsessed with what you can't have.
After the Diet
After the quick weight loss diet you go back to your normal eating pattern, and what happens? The body that has shut off functions in order to conserve energy is now, suddenly, fed. The cells in your body have an immediate response to the sudden abundance of food, and that is to keep on saving energy, storing up for the next famine. As your body saves energy, it also begins storing all the extra energy - as fat. So , you end up having lost fat burning lean muscle tissue and added more fat! That wasn't your goal when you started your diet.
In addition to building fat again, the body has no ketone-bodies to get rid of. Consequently, less water is secreted and your water balance is restored. As you replenish your emptied water stores you rapidly gain back the weight you lost. So , by building fat, and replenishing water, you will gain weight quickly the first few days after a diet.
And each time you diet, you are teaching your body how to deal with starvation by hoarding fat, so each round of dieting increases your overall body fat!
Freedom from Dieting
So, how can you lose weight if dieting and restricting calories don't work? There is no quick fix answer. Any healthy weight loss needs to come gradually. The goal is to give up dieting forever and get back in balance. Stop trying to lose weight. No more counting calories. Instead make a commitment to get healthier.
When you get off the diet roller coaster, you will feel better, become healthier and lose the weight for good. When the body is well fed with healthy foods, it will shed the extra fat. It doesn't have to store it anymore. And when you give the body the nutrients it needs to be healthy, you stop having all the cravings for less healthy foods.
Enjoy the freedom from counting calories. You will find yourself moving slowly and safely to your perfect body weight, and you will feel better than you ever have before, lean and full of vitality, energy and health. This means developing some new healthy eating habits, as well as other health habits such as exercise.
Try to avoid extremes, such as eating a high protein, low carbohydrate diet. There are many complications associated with unbalanced low carbohydrate diet regimens. At the other end of the spectrum, some diets are saying avoid protein and fats, but eat as much carbohydrates as you want. Too much of the wrong kind of carbohydrates, especially refined sugar and white refined flour will turn to fat in the body also. Most commercial breads, breakfast cereals, and prepared foods are loaded with empty, fast-release carbohydrates, causing levels of blood-sugar to rise, leading to obesity and hypoglycemia.
All of the experts agree that unprocessed complex carbohydrates such as fruit and vegetables, whole grains, potatoes, and legumes are far superior to other forms of refined carbohydrates and should play a significant role in people's eating habits. According to the American Heart Association, a healthy diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables along with regular physical activity can help most people manage and maintain weight loss for both cardiovascular health and appearance.
Losing weight and becoming healthier requires a lifestyle change, not a six week diet “quick fix”. The first step is to eat a balanced diet, filled with plenty of healthy foods, such as whole grains, fresh organic raw, fruits and vegetables, healthy fats and organic meats.
There is a good reason for that. You don't lack willpower. You are not doing anything wrong. It is just that dieting doesn’t work!
Facts About Dieting
* Dieting rarely works. 95% of all dieters who lose weight regain their lost weight and more within 1 to 5 years.
* Dieting can lead to eating disorders. The obsession to be thin can lead to anorexia, bulimia, bingeing and compulsive exercising.
* Dieting impacts your mental health and restricts your brainpower, leaving you mentally unfocused.
* Dieting robs you of energy and slows your metabolism down.
* Numerous studies link chronic dieting with feelings of depression, low self-esteem and increased stress.
* Dieting increases compulsive eating.
* You are fatter after a diet than before!
Why Dieting Doesn't Work
Quick fix diets usually never give long lasting results. The reason is most of the weight loss is due to loss of water. When you restrict calories, your body interprets it as impending starvation. When the body is under stress of starvation, it hoards the fat and burns the muscles first. The weight lost comes from water and the break down of muscles - the places we don't want to lose it from.
So, the last thing you want to do is drastically cut calories. When you do, the body will start breaking down muscle protein to produce energy for vital body functions. The body will use muscle protein as fuel, before it starts burning fat, so you end up losing more muscle mass than fat during dieting. The body then uses large amounts of water to flush the broken down muscle tissue out. Thus you lose weight fast. No matter how much you drink, you can't prevent this loss of water. The only way to get control of your water balance is to stop starving yourself.
When dieting, the body starts saving energy by turning some functions off and running others at a slower pace. Fat is designed to provide the body with energy and protect it from starvation. If you go below 1000 calories a day, your body will slow your metabolism down to compensate. That is why weight loss slows down dramatically after a few days on a crash diet. And a slow metabolism is exactly the opposite of what you want to lose weight.
Another reason that diets don't work is bingeing. Bingeing doesn't happen because of a lack of willpower. It is a direct result of dieting. As your body senses a restriction in calories, it goes on the alert for an impending threat to survival. As a result, it tells you to eat, which results in your bingeing on calorie and fat filled foods. The more successful you are at starving yourself, the more the body will increase it's efforts to eat more foods. Eventually the body wins because survival is our strongest instinct. Bingeing is also a result of depriving yourself of something, which psychologically makes you obsessed with what you can't have.
After the Diet
After the quick weight loss diet you go back to your normal eating pattern, and what happens? The body that has shut off functions in order to conserve energy is now, suddenly, fed. The cells in your body have an immediate response to the sudden abundance of food, and that is to keep on saving energy, storing up for the next famine. As your body saves energy, it also begins storing all the extra energy - as fat. So , you end up having lost fat burning lean muscle tissue and added more fat! That wasn't your goal when you started your diet.
In addition to building fat again, the body has no ketone-bodies to get rid of. Consequently, less water is secreted and your water balance is restored. As you replenish your emptied water stores you rapidly gain back the weight you lost. So , by building fat, and replenishing water, you will gain weight quickly the first few days after a diet.
And each time you diet, you are teaching your body how to deal with starvation by hoarding fat, so each round of dieting increases your overall body fat!
Freedom from Dieting
So, how can you lose weight if dieting and restricting calories don't work? There is no quick fix answer. Any healthy weight loss needs to come gradually. The goal is to give up dieting forever and get back in balance. Stop trying to lose weight. No more counting calories. Instead make a commitment to get healthier.
When you get off the diet roller coaster, you will feel better, become healthier and lose the weight for good. When the body is well fed with healthy foods, it will shed the extra fat. It doesn't have to store it anymore. And when you give the body the nutrients it needs to be healthy, you stop having all the cravings for less healthy foods.
Enjoy the freedom from counting calories. You will find yourself moving slowly and safely to your perfect body weight, and you will feel better than you ever have before, lean and full of vitality, energy and health. This means developing some new healthy eating habits, as well as other health habits such as exercise.
Try to avoid extremes, such as eating a high protein, low carbohydrate diet. There are many complications associated with unbalanced low carbohydrate diet regimens. At the other end of the spectrum, some diets are saying avoid protein and fats, but eat as much carbohydrates as you want. Too much of the wrong kind of carbohydrates, especially refined sugar and white refined flour will turn to fat in the body also. Most commercial breads, breakfast cereals, and prepared foods are loaded with empty, fast-release carbohydrates, causing levels of blood-sugar to rise, leading to obesity and hypoglycemia.
All of the experts agree that unprocessed complex carbohydrates such as fruit and vegetables, whole grains, potatoes, and legumes are far superior to other forms of refined carbohydrates and should play a significant role in people's eating habits. According to the American Heart Association, a healthy diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables along with regular physical activity can help most people manage and maintain weight loss for both cardiovascular health and appearance.
Losing weight and becoming healthier requires a lifestyle change, not a six week diet “quick fix”. The first step is to eat a balanced diet, filled with plenty of healthy foods, such as whole grains, fresh organic raw, fruits and vegetables, healthy fats and organic meats.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Top Twenty Weight Loss Tips, Tricks and Solutions
Here are some everyday, helpful hints to get you started, keep you going, and help you stick to your diet.
1. Never leave home "starving. " Always have a light snack before eating dinner in a restaurant, such as a piece of fruit, a glass of juice or a carrot.
2. Don't go food shopping on an empty stomach! You'll be tempted to buy everything in sight.
3. Don't be tempted by treats. Store them out of view, off counter-tops and as out-of-reach as possible.
4. Don't eat in front of the TV. Watching the boob tube -- instead of watching your plate -- lulls you into overeating. Also avoid being tempted by food and snack commercials.
5. Make it a rule in your house to confine your meals to the dining room or kitchen table! Never eat standing up! This leads to mindless snacking.
6. Think before you drink. Alcohol adds lots of calories, but no nutrients. Also, it weakens your willpower to avoid the wrong food choices. Hangovers can cause wicked cravings for fatty or high carbohydrate foods that can sabotage any attempt at weight loss.
7. Fill up on soup first. Begin every meal with non-cream hot soup; it forces you to eat slowly and fills you up so you won't overeat.
8. Take time to taste your food. Don't gobble food down! Rushing through your meals doesn't give your brain the time that it needs to signal your body that you are full.
9. When dining out, request sauces and low-calorie dressings on the side.
10. There is no law that requires you to finish everything on your plate.
11. Prepare a shopping list (with menu ideas in mind) and stick to the list. Avoid being tempted by bargains that grocery stores place on the outer aisles and at the back and the front of the store. The healthiest foods are usually in the long narrow aisles.
12. Use non-stick pans to reduce the need for cooking with fat.
13. If you must use oil, try a flavorful one like olive or sesame oil. Now remember, a little goes a long way! Make just a spritz of oil go even further by buying a Misto. A Misto is an aerosol can that you can fill with a good fat such as olive or canola oil.
14. A pinch of grated cheese or blue cheese will provide a flavorful kick without adding a lot of calories to a salad or grain dish.
15. If you cook in large quantities for your family, store leftovers in individual serving size containers. This is a way to practice portion control for yourself so you don't eat too much at one sitting.
16. Nibbling off someone else's plate may seem harmless -- but those calories do add up!
17. Drink six to eight glasses of water a day. A beverage before mealtime will also help you feel full faster and longer. Water also helps your body digest food, which is especially important now that you're eating a fiber rich diet.
18. Store really tempting treats in opaque containers or silver foil -- and stick them in the back of the refrigerator. Out of sight out of mind!
19. Are you stuffing yourself? If you have to loosen your belt a few notches after meals you're definitely eating too much!
20. Mashed bananas, prunes and apple sauce are great baking substitutes for fat, especially in bread, brownie and cake mixes.
Here you go! let us know how helpful these tips were :)
1. Never leave home "starving. " Always have a light snack before eating dinner in a restaurant, such as a piece of fruit, a glass of juice or a carrot.
2. Don't go food shopping on an empty stomach! You'll be tempted to buy everything in sight.
3. Don't be tempted by treats. Store them out of view, off counter-tops and as out-of-reach as possible.
4. Don't eat in front of the TV. Watching the boob tube -- instead of watching your plate -- lulls you into overeating. Also avoid being tempted by food and snack commercials.
5. Make it a rule in your house to confine your meals to the dining room or kitchen table! Never eat standing up! This leads to mindless snacking.
6. Think before you drink. Alcohol adds lots of calories, but no nutrients. Also, it weakens your willpower to avoid the wrong food choices. Hangovers can cause wicked cravings for fatty or high carbohydrate foods that can sabotage any attempt at weight loss.
7. Fill up on soup first. Begin every meal with non-cream hot soup; it forces you to eat slowly and fills you up so you won't overeat.
8. Take time to taste your food. Don't gobble food down! Rushing through your meals doesn't give your brain the time that it needs to signal your body that you are full.
9. When dining out, request sauces and low-calorie dressings on the side.
10. There is no law that requires you to finish everything on your plate.
11. Prepare a shopping list (with menu ideas in mind) and stick to the list. Avoid being tempted by bargains that grocery stores place on the outer aisles and at the back and the front of the store. The healthiest foods are usually in the long narrow aisles.
12. Use non-stick pans to reduce the need for cooking with fat.
13. If you must use oil, try a flavorful one like olive or sesame oil. Now remember, a little goes a long way! Make just a spritz of oil go even further by buying a Misto. A Misto is an aerosol can that you can fill with a good fat such as olive or canola oil.
14. A pinch of grated cheese or blue cheese will provide a flavorful kick without adding a lot of calories to a salad or grain dish.
15. If you cook in large quantities for your family, store leftovers in individual serving size containers. This is a way to practice portion control for yourself so you don't eat too much at one sitting.
16. Nibbling off someone else's plate may seem harmless -- but those calories do add up!
17. Drink six to eight glasses of water a day. A beverage before mealtime will also help you feel full faster and longer. Water also helps your body digest food, which is especially important now that you're eating a fiber rich diet.
18. Store really tempting treats in opaque containers or silver foil -- and stick them in the back of the refrigerator. Out of sight out of mind!
19. Are you stuffing yourself? If you have to loosen your belt a few notches after meals you're definitely eating too much!
20. Mashed bananas, prunes and apple sauce are great baking substitutes for fat, especially in bread, brownie and cake mixes.
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