Quick Weight Loss For Teens

Is Binge Eating Making You Feel Alone?

2009-05-29T16:40:00.001-07:00

If you have Binge Eating Disorder, you understand the feelings of loneliness. You know what it is like to live in a secret world that no one knows about. You have a big secret, but no one is allowed to see that side of you.

At restaurants with friends, you order just the right amount of food and can't finish it all because you are so full. Little do your friends know that you had already eaten enough food for three people just two hours before meeting them for another dinner.

You talk to your friends about why you are overweight. You don't know why, you say. They are just as stumped as you are. They see what you eat and it is small portions. Not even unhealthy foods most of the time.

But what they don't know is that you have Binge Eating Disorder. You have something that is constantly looming over your head. Food. Food is a dream and a nightmare mixed into one. Food makes you feel better and then makes you feel worthless the very next minute.

You don't want to let your friends into your secret world though. This is your world and they will not understand. They may just tell you to stop eating so much. They won't understand.

But, if they are your friends, they will understand. You cannot let any self-limiting beliefs stand in your way anymore. Your friends love you and will stand by your side when asked for help. You mean everything to them.

The first step that you can take is to tell someone that you trust. Stop dealing with this big problem on your own. Ask a friend to just listen to you when you need them. Often talking about problems and just getting things off of your chest will make you feel so much better. Plus, if you are hanging out with someone and talking about it, you are less likely to turn to food. It isn't as available and you are not alone. You are forcing yourself out of your comfort zone and that is okay.

Get help and find a trusted confidant. Expose your secret world to them little by little, or by however feels right to you. Listen to yourself and let that be the judge. Once they know where you are coming from, they will be able to help you to where you hope to go in the future.

Don't let binge eating disorder get the best of you; seek a friend to talk to and watch you start to feel better about yourself and your situation.

By: Kristin Gerstley

Notice to publishers: you have rights to republish this article on your website as long as you keep all links in tact and clickable. Thank you.

Kristin Gerstley is the owner of which is a site that helps people overcome their Binge Eating Disorder. She also publishes a free newsletter offering tips on how to stop binge eating and regain control of your life.

Five Great Exercise Machines for Burning Fat

2009-05-29T04:40:00.001-07:00

These exercise machines are related to cardiovascular and aerobic workouts. The equipment listed here allows for more challenges and more variety in your exercise routines. These machines are great for anyone looking to lose weight and improve their overall health.

Some advanced exercising machines include electronic devices that measure your weight before and after you do the exercise, the amount of calories you burned, time elapsed, heart rate, and other useful information. Let's look at what these mackines are and what benefits they provide.

Treadmill:

A treadmill is an exercising device consisting of an endless belt on which a person can walk or jog with or without changing pace . It is supported by a sturdy deck propelled either by an electric motor or by the user. It generally has some shock absorption system, usually rubber cushioning, to minimize stress on your joints.

Using a treadmill will speed up your metabolic rate and allow your body to absorb and utilize greater quantities of the nutrients that you consume. It will also help to stabilize your blood pressure and blood sugar as well as increase your energy level.

When using a treadmill to burn fat and lose weight, you need to exercise on a daily basis.

A treadmill helps you burn more calories by increasing your exercise frequency. It gives you a LOT of workout versatility. You can start with a slow walk and then speed it up as your body gets into better shape, and there are also various incline levels to provide extra resistance when you become more advanced. By using the large muscles of the legs, a treadmill helps you burn more fat calories.

Elliptical Trainer:

Elliptical trainers are exercise machines which combine the natural stride of a treadmill and the simplicity of a stair climber. On an Elliptical trainer, you stand comfortably in an upright position while holding onto the machine's handrails and striding in either a forward or reverse motion.

The elliptical trainer burns more calories than either the treadmill or the exercise bike. With an elliptical cross trainer, you get the benefits of both aerobic and resistance exercises without the wear and tear on your joints. It provides a great cardio workout that pumps you heart to the max without the strain and stress on your joints. It uses all of the muscles of the lower leg. Therefore, you will strengthen and build your lower legs. This is an ideal workout for those exercisers out there who are overweight and do not want to jog.

Exercise Bikes:

There are two types of exercise bikes you can use, upright bikes and recumbent bikes. Upright bikes simulate the action of a real bike except you do not go anywhere. Recumbent bikes on the other hand, have bucket seats which have the pedals out in front of you. Exercise bikes are great for cardiovascular fitness and toning or building your thighs. The recumbent bikes are especially good for toning your butt. Being stationary, you can enjoy your favorite magazine or TV program while working out.

For overweight people, the recumbent bike offers bucket seats which can be more comfortable than traditional uprights. This type of bike is more ergonomically correct than a traditional upright exercise bike and an effective way to improve aerobic capacity, as well as burn fat. Plus, it offers more back support and may be a little more comfortable to those people with lower back pain.

Rowers:

There are two types of rowing machines. A hydraulic machine uses a piston to provide the resistance. With a cable-driven machine, your pull spins a flywheel which produces a smooth action similar to rowing on water. The smoothness of the flywheel creates little strain on the back. If handles are not adjusted properly for height differences, hydraulic rowers can create back strain.

Rowing machines provide a whole-body aerobic workout: arms, shoulders, back, abdomen, legs, heart and lungs. It also builds muscle strength and endurance in addition to the aerobic benefits. It improves your whole cardiovascular system with a low impact workout. Other benefits include improved flexibility and muscle strengthening in the arms, abdomen, and back.

Steppers:

Steppers are available as simple hydraulic steppers or as computerized stair steppers. It tones the buttocks, thighs and hips. These are the areas that, paticularly in women, have a tendency to "balloon" from too many calories and not enough exercise. Stair stepper workouts are calorie burners that rank as one of the best cardiovascular exercises for people of all ages and fitness levels.

Jim O'Neill gives you tons of valuable information on the subjects of weight loss, fitness, and nutrition to make it easy for you to live a healthy lifestyle. Sign up now for his free 7 part mini e-course at:

Binge Eating is Not Black and White Thinking

2009-05-21T04:40:00.001-07:00

It's the little things that you will need to notice and congratulate yourself on when beginning the recovery process of Binge Eating Disorder. These little things will be the stepping stones to gaining full control over yourself when food is involved. These tiny stepping stones will prove to you that you are in control, at least somewhat control, of your actions. It's time for you to rejoice in them, instead of beating yourself up about why you aren't fully recovered yet.

Are you someone that binges twice a day for about five days out of the week? What are your trigger foods that you binge on? Let's say that an example day of binging for you includes three bags of chips, one whole cake, one gallon of ice cream, ten cookies, and three sugary, carbonated drinks. When you start to take notice of you eating less, you need to pat yourself on the back. Instead of three bags of chips, do you only consume one? If so, this is a building block for your road to success. Instead of ten cookies, do you only eat two? Again, time to congratulate yourself for this accomplishment.

The reason why this is so important for your recovery is because most people see their life as black or white. Their life is either good or bad, right or wrong, sad or happy. Who puts these stipulations on us? Why such extremes? When you rid yourself of these chains and start living your life in most of the gray area, you will take things as they come and not be so hard on yourself for failing. Extremes will lead you to failure because it will be highly impossible that you will be able to live that way.

When you can learn to accept yourself, including all of your flaws, this is when you move into the gray area of life. The gray area allows for mistakes and is a constant learning experience. The gray area also allows falling, but pushes you to get right back up. The gray area is where we all need to be living; but sadly, it is not most of our realities.

We put insurmountable pressure on ourselves to be perfect. We want the perfect car, the perfect outfit, the perfect body. Society helps to fill our head with the perfect mentality. Anything short of that will not do. We are taught that perfectionism is the only way and that we should all constantly be striving for it.

Strive to get out of that mindset. You will only be setting yourself up for failure. It's the harsh reality of it. Learn to live and prosper in the gray area. Congratulate yourself for the small things that you overcome throughout your day. It's when you are at the point of seeing your obstacles being taken over by you that you will be creating your own path for recovery of Binge Eating Disorder.

By: Kristin Gerstley

Notice to publishers: you have rights to republish this article on your website as long as you keep all links in tact and clickable. Thank you.

7 Reasons Why You Should Be Using Coconut Oil

2009-05-20T04:40:00.001-07:00

It is a common misconception that coconut oil is bad for you. People all over the world are experiencing the healthy benefits of using coconut oil. It is actually one of the healthiest oils you can consume. Here are the top seven reasons why you should use coconut oil as an alternative to other common cooking oils.

1. Coconut oil doesn't turn to fat in your body.

Unlike many other common oils, like soy (vegetable) and corn, coconut oil won't make you fat. Coconut oil contains medium-chain triglycerides (MCT), which are an easy fuel for the body to burn, without turning to fat. Most other cooking oils and fats contain long-chain triglycerides (LCT). LCT's are usually stored as fat. Since coconut oil is a MCT, it is more easily absorbed and converted to energy quicker.

People in the tropics have relied on coconuts as a traditional staple in their diet for centuries. They consume large amounts of coconut oil every day. Instead of getting fatter, it helps them stay healthy, lean and trim. When they switch from coconut oil to our modern oils, they develop obesity and the health problems that our modern society faces.

Some other people who have known this truth for a long time are people who are in the animal feed business. When livestock are fed vegetable oils, they put on weight and produce more fatty meat. When they are fed coconut oil, they become very lean.

2. Coconut oil increases your metabolism.

Not only does coconut oil convert to energy quicker in your body, it increases your metabolism, which promotes weight loss. Because it boosts your metabolism, it helps your body burn fat more effectively.

Coconut oil may triple your calorie burn. Since coconut oil is a MCT, it is converted to energy so quickly that it creates a lot of heat. In a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, MCT's burn three times more calories for six hours after a meal than LCT's.

The February 15, 2005 issue of Woman's World magazine stated that coconut oil is the "underground high-metabolism secret."

This is great news for people who have thyroid problems, since coconut oil improves sluggish thyroids by stimulating the production of extra thyroid hormones. Most other common oils, like vegetable (soy) and corn have been shown to inhibit thyroid function.

3. Coconut oil has omega 3 fatty acids.

Most cooking oils contain omega 6 fatty acids, something we get way too much of in the United States. Our omega 6 to omega 3 ratio should be 1:1 but it is more like 50:1. We need to drastically cut back our omega 6 oils and consume much more omega 3 oils to be healthy. And coconut oil is filled with these healthy omega 3 fatty acids.

4. Coconut oil gives you energy.

Because of the healthy omega 3 fatty acids and the fact that it increases the metabolism, most people that switch to coconut oil feel a burst of added energy in their daily life.

This is because coconut oil is nature's richest source of medium-chain triglycerides (MCT's), which increase metabolic rates and lead to weight loss. MCT's promote thermogenesis, which increases the body's metabolism, producing energy. Many people with chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia have found that adding coconut and coconut oil to their diet was helpful to them.

5. One of the best things you can use on your skin and hair is coconut oil.

Coconut oil one of the best things you can apply directly on your skin and hair. It gives temporary relief to skin problems like rashes. It aids in healing and restoring skin to a younger appearance. It has also been known to help with people who suffer from yeast infections in the skin, as well as many other skin problems.

Not only does is soften and smooth your skin, coconut oil has antioxidant properties that protect the skin from free radical damage. Coconut oil makes excellent massage oil too.

6. Coconut oil has healthy benefits that most other oils do not.

Evidence is mounting that coconut oil has anti-fungal, anti-bacterial and anti-viral effects when both consumed and used topically on the skin.

Most oils oxidize and turn rancid very quickly causing free radical damage in our bodies. Coconut oil is not easily oxidized and does not cause harmful free radical damage like polyunsaturated vegetable oils. Free radical damage is thought to be responsible for many ailments in our body from arthritis to increased susceptibility to cancers.

Coconut oil also helps our bodies absorb other nutrients more effectively, such as Vitamin E.

7. Coconut oil is one of the best oils you can use for cooking.

It has a higher smoke point than olive oil, which means it can take higher temperatures better. There are several healthy omega 3 oils we can choose to consume, such as flax and olive oil, but they don't do well under the high heat we use for cooking. Coconut oil can be used in higher cooking temperatures.

It is harder for coconut oil to go rancid, unlike other cooking oils, which are usually rancid long before you even bring them home. Rancid oils cause free radical damage in the body, which is a leading cause of cancer. Coconut oil is stable for over a year at room temperature.

Because of the misinformation we have been given for years, we have lost out on the healthy benefits that coconut oil has given the people of the tropics for centuries. But now it has been rediscovered! Coconut oil is so effective, it won't be long before we see coconut oil supplements promoted, but you can get the jump on the popular crowd and start consuming and cooking with coconut oil today!

With all these healthy benefits, isn't it time you gave coconut oil a try? For more free information about coconut oil, check out the FREE ebook "Coconut Oil Diet Secrets" at Coconut-Oil-D By Dianne Ronnow © 2006 Mohave Publishing.

Severe Obesity in Adults: Weight Loss Treatment and Tips

2009-05-09T16:40:00.001-07:00

Severe obesity is a serious medical condition experienced by people with a body mass index of 40 or above. Previously called morbid obesity, it affects an estimated six million American adults, or about 1 in 33 of the adult population. Associated with a range of complex metabolic disorders including type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance syndrome and raised blood-fats, plus other weight-related health problems, this condition should not be confused with overweight (BMI > 25) or regular obesity (BMI > 30). It is a serious disease requiring professional help.

Since I started my weight loss consultancy over 24 years ago, I have met and spoken at length with hundreds of severely obese individuals weighing 300 pounds or more. For most of them, their weight was a major source of discomfort - both physical and emotional - yet over the years most had "adapted" to their growing waistline and were resigned to remaining seriously overweight for the rest of their life.

For doctors and other health care specialists who work with obese patients, this type of patient-resignation to lifelong obesity is no surprise. But in fact it is only one of many obstacles to long-term weight loss. Many clinically obese individuals struggle with a variety of psychological issues to which they have trained themselves to respond by overeating. Some of these issues - for example, the early loss of a parent - require sophisticated counseling and even then may remain unresolved. In addition, many obese people struggle with family, educational or financial difficulties which further reduce their treatment and recovery options. Given the complex causes, responses and conditions surrounding obesity, it comes as no surprise that many conventional treatments remain largely ineffective. Sadly, many people of normal weight - including members of the medical profession - still find it difficult to accept the intractable nature of the condition, which only adds to the sense of alienation and guilt experienced by the very obese.

Obesity Treatment Options

How effective a treatment is in helping severely obese patients to reduce weight, largely depends upon its ability to tackle the root causes of the condition. Most treatments deal with symptoms (excessive calorie intake) rather than causes (why obese individuals overeat).

Conventional Weight Loss Diets

Now that the low carb approach championed by Atkins Diet seems to have run its course, leaving many obese dieters close to if not heavier than their initial starting weight, the efficacy of conventional weight loss diets is more questionable than ever as a means of reducing obesity. Whatever their dietary composition, most reduced-calorie diets offer insufficient support to help obese patients make the necessary changes to their eating and exercise habits.

Bariatric Surgery

Gastric reduction surgery is a vital "last resort" treatment option for patients with severe weight-related health problems. It typically leads to very significant weight loss and health benefits, but it deals with symptoms not causes. So although it compels patients to eat less, thus forcing them to lose significant amounts of weight in the 2 year period following their gastric bypass or banding operation, it tends to have less success in dealing with the root causes of disordered eating which have built up in the patient's mind over the years. As a result, about 2-3 years after their operation, a large percentage of bariatric patients find it too difficult to follow the recommended dietary guidelines and end up regaining most if not all their starting weight.

Obesity Drug Treatment

The increasing number of obesity drug prescriptions issued to patients shows that doctors continue to lean heavily on pharmaceutical intervention for weight reduction. Furthermore, with obesity now labelled as the "trillion dollar disease", drug companies continue to invest heavily in their search for a scientific breakthrough. Yet clinical trials of FDA-approved obesity pills continue to show minimal long-term weight loss benefits for severely obese patients, almost certainly because drugs are not yet capable of dealing with the fundamental causes of disordered eating.

Does This Mean Obesity Is Untreatable?

In view of the limited success of conventional diets, surgery and drugs, does this mean that obesity is untreatable? No. It simply means that more specialised or support-based options are necessary. The first step in finding the best treatment option for any obesity condition is to talk to a doctor, who should be able to outline what specialised treatments are available. For example, there are a number of excellent medically-supervised weight loss programs run by hospitals and clinics in the US and Canada, that offer real support and counseling. Self-help support groups like Overeaters Anonymous (505-891-2664) or TOPS (800-932-8677) can also be extremely helpful. Alternatively, contact the American Dietetic Association (800-366-1655), or the American Obesity Association (202-776-7711) for further information.

Some Practical Tips If You Are Obese

For anyone who is 300 pounds or more, seeking medical advice and getting proper support is essential. Relying upon pills, diets or willpower alone is not enough. However, you can do a number of things to help yourself and improve your chances of losing weight. Here are a few suggestions.

Stop Telling Yourself That You Can't Lose Weight

Whatever your size or shape, and whatever your history of weight gain, the truth is you can lose weight and you can keep it off. In 24 years I have yet to meet anyone who was unable to lose weight, although I have met lots of people who lacked the motivation to stick to their diet! The point is, not being able to do something is quite different from not really wanting to do it. Yet most dieters confuse these two things. They think they can't lose weight, whereas in fact what they are really describing is an unwillingness to make the necessary changes to their eating habits. So stop telling yourself that you can't lose weight - because it's not true. The real question is: do you want to reduce weight, and if so, why?

Start Telling Yourself Why You Want To Lose Weight

The messages we transmit to ourselves in the form of thoughts have the same effect as radio commercials. The more often we hear a particular message, the more we believe it. Tell yourself every day that you want to lose weight and gradually it will become a bigger and bigger priority. But don't stop there. In addition, tell yourself how losing weight will improve your life. Maybe your goal is to receive more male attention; or maybe your aim is to fit into a pair of regular jeans; or perhaps you think a leaner body will boost your confidence. Frankly, it doesn't matter what benefit you think weight loss will give you, the important thing is to advertise this benefit to yourself at every possible opportunity. Start today and try it for three months, and I guarantee it will help you to lose weight.

Start Understanding Your Body Chemistry

There are three things you need to know about body chemistry and obesity control. First, the longer you go without food, the more likely you are to overeat later. So eat something small at least once every three hours. This reduces the risk of bingeing and helps you burn calories at the fastest possible rate. Second, the less chewy and more easily digestible a food is, the easier it is to overeat. By comparison, chewy foods tend to contain more fiber and therefore keep us fuller for longer. A good example of an easily digestible food is a creamy dessert. Even after a huge meal, most of us can demolish a serving of cheesecake or a bowl of rich ice cream, without much difficulty. In comparison, eating 5 oranges or 6 apples after a large main course would be almost impossible. So include plenty of high fiber foods in your daily diet. They contain fewer calories, they fill up your stomach, and they keep hunger at bay for longer. Thirdly, most women experience food cravings in the week before TOM. This is perfectly natural as well as forseeable. So make sure you have an extra supply of healthy snacks to keep yourself satisfied. Above all, don't try to deny yourself the extra food your body craves - you won't succeed - just make sure you have healthy options available.

Don't Try To Be Perfect

God doesn't create perfect people, he creates humans. And humans enjoy tobacco, alcohol, double chocolate chip muffins and truck-sized boxes of movie popcorn. So unless you come from Mars, don't try to be a perfect dieter because it ain't gonna happen! Every dieter has bad days, bad weeks, sometimes even bad months. But so what? Losing weight isn't a race - it's a journey. How long it takes to arrive at your destination is not important. The only thing that matters is that you do eventually get there. Besides, once you accept that your diet-wagon is going to lose a wheel from time to time, you can plan how to react when it happens. Whereas if you assume your diet is going to be trouble-free, you are less likely to be prepared when disaster strikes.

Stay Guilt-Free Under All Circumstances

Suppose you are 300 pounds. You start a diet, you start exercising with a neighbor, things go well and you lose 30 pounds, you feel on top of the world, then you have a huge bust-up with someone. Result? Your diet falls apart, you stop exercising and start comfort-eating. How can you prevent this from happening? Answer: you can't. This is Life. This is what happens. All you can do is go with the flow. If this means bingeing for a week until you feel better, so be it. But whatever you do, DON'T FEEL GUILTY. Because guilt will eat you up and will keep you obese for ever. In my experience, a dieter's initial bout of overeating is rarely the problem - it's the guilt which it inspires that does the damage and causes them to quit. Losing weight should be a guilt-free zone, and don't believe anyone who tells you different. On my weight loss program and forum there is no guilt, no matter what happens.

Join A Weight Loss Community

If you are connected to the Internet, try to find an active forum where you can post your weekly weight, keep a food or weight loss journal, swap ideas with other dieters and generally have fun. Many people regard weight reduction as a totally serious matter. But it's not. It's a journey from A to B. And just like any journey, it passes more easily when we have fun and learn interesting things along the way. My weight loss forum is a very supportive place, but there are dozens of other forums to choose from. One of the biggest benefits of an active dieting forum is the opportunity it gives you to express your feelings. You can vent about your personal success or failure and also show your support for other people, which is equally therapeutic. So look out for a suitable online weight loss community and watch your obesity gradually disappear into thin air!

Anne Collins, 54, is a qualified nutritionist and full time weight management consultant with over 24 years experience. Her clients range from top celebrities to ordinary people of every age and shape. Her website, attracts 9 million unique visitors per annum, and her weight loss forum is one of the most active support centers on the Internet.Tips About Weight LossHelp To Lose Weight

Gastric Bypass Surgery - A Successful Alternative

2009-05-08T16:40:00.001-07:00

"Obesity can damage the body by its mechanically and metabolically adverse effects on normal bodily function; not to mention the psychological anguish it can also bring."

Gastric bypass surgery is a very successful alternative to normal dieting for the obese and overweight, and is an operation that makes the stomach smaller and causes food to bypass part of the small intestine. As a result, a person feels fuller quicker when eating compared to before gastric bypass surgery. The amount of food consumed is less and therefore fewer calories are absorbed - the end result being weight loss.

There are several forms of gastric bypass surgery:

Roux-en-Y Bypass: This is probably the most common gastric bypass being done today. This procedure involves making a small gastric pouch high in the abdomen and just below the esophagus. A segment of small bowel is then divided and attached to this pouch, sometimes behind the colon and remainder of the stomach. The remainder of the small bowel is then attached to the bowel leading from the liver and pancreas in a shape that resembles a 'Y'. Despite its popularity, there are some risks associated, including a narrowing at the connection between the stomach pouch and the small intestine which may require stretching at the opening, and the risk of a slowing down of the emptying of the pouch and small bowel, causing nausea and vomiting.

Mini Gastric Bypass: This gastric bypass was developed by Dr. Robert Rutledge in 1997. The mini gastric bypass creates a small gastric pouch much lower in the abdomen than the previous technique and incorporates a loop connection with the small bowel that provides for a malabsorption effect similar to that used by the Roux-en-y bypass. A patient who has undergone a mini gastric bypass must be careful to avoid calcium and iron deficiencies. Risks from this operation include leaking, bowel obstruction, blood clots, and pneumonia.

Laparoscopic Gastric Bypass: A Roux en-Y gastric bypass performed laparoscopically. Even though this operation takes slightly longer than the standard Roux en- Y, the recovery time is shorter.

Gastric Banding: This gastric operation also limits food intake by placing a constricting ring completely around the upper end (fundus) of the stomach, creating a shape similar to that of an hour-glass.

Gastric bypass is not an operation for everyone who is obese, as it is a major procedure that poses significant risks and side effects that can require permanent alterations to one's lifestyle. However the contented customers are numerous including many figure-conscious celebrities.

Paul MacIver writes about a variety of health related topics. To read more about Gastric Bypass Surgery and Bariatric Surgery visit the Gastric Bypass information website. You may freely reprint this article as long as nothing is changed, and bio is included with all links intact.

Are the barriers of dieting psychological or physical?

2009-05-05T16:40:00.001-07:00

Part 1.

On the last count the word 'diet' produced in excess of 157 million web pages of diet plans, pills, potions and dieting tips from health institutions, diet companies, nutritional professionals and otherwise - from all over the world. And yet we are approaching the peak of an obesity epidemic which is causing untold mental misery and depression, aside from the ever increasing debilitating diseases being linked to those overweight or obese. With such an abundance of information available - how can this be?

The trend is unforgiving and is second only to smoking in terms of the cause of self-inflicted premature loss of life, but left to its own devices within the next five years obesity is sure to take the number one slot. Mother Nature is ruthless in her approach to life, in that she only allows the fittest to survive and the trend we see today is her reaction to the effects of a diet that is clearly not suited to the well-being of the human body and mind. We only have to stop, take a step in back and look around us to see that there is one hell of a serious problem. There is no need for statistics, reports or media news to tell us such. It's clear that we as individuals have to make a change in what we do if we have any intention to reverse the current obesity trend. The ultimate responsibility lies with each and every one of us to act for the benefit of ourselves.

We have to accept the fact that the grocery industry is a host of contradiction in that it sells both dietary products along side the very products that cause us to be overweight or obese in the first instance. This is so obvious in our supermarkets today. It has become human nature that profit has a higher weighting than human health, and this is evident in many industries around the world, and is far from unique within dieting circles. We must also bear in mind the diet companies, whilst they portray an air of interest and concern, in reality they are totally dependent on your failure to diet for their very own business survival. If they were good at what they do their businesses would surely fail. So who can we trust aside from ourselves. The evidence is clear -there is no debate.

We may have one reprieve but it will be sometime in the future, but not now. Science and technology is getting nearer and nearer to the possibility of a wonder drug with the ever-increasing understanding of the human genotype and genetic engineering. But in reality, who would ever wish or want to be dependent on diet drugs, potentially an ongoing daily basis, simply because of a lack of understanding about the relationship between the food our body has been designed for, and the food we eat. Why is it, we knowingly overeat when we know it is bad for us and that we are doing harm to ourselves? Why is it, that the only time we choose to ignore our food is the time when we are eating it!

So, is it a psychological thing, a physical thing or is it both?

In order to answer this we must first look at the change in our diet over the last 50 years. Consumption trends of refined carbohydrates such as sugar has risen dramatically, but at the same time the consumption of fats and proteins has remained reasonably stable. Saturated fats has indeed become and still is a problem although thankfully now overall consumption of saturated fats has dropped slightly, but still remains an issue.

Many studies particularly those associated with research in how the Atkins diet worked revealed that the effect of refined carbohydrates and fats both have a form of addiction associated with them. Studies have shown that refined sugars have the effect of playing havoc with the fine balance of maintaining the level of glucose in the bloodstream. This in turn has a detrimental effect on our hormonal activity, such as insulin and glucagon which are both responsible for maintaining the level of glucose to its normal level following a 'surge' intake of refined carbohydrates in our diet. These acceptable levels of glucose in the bloodstream are maintained at surprisingly narrow margins.

Refined sugars therefore induces excessive hormonal activity in its attempt to restore homeostasis. These unnatural 'swings' in hormonal activity often cause differing mood swings from that of being happy and content to being sad, on edge, and even feelings of anxiety or panic. Prolonged exposure to these hormonal swings can often lead to the whole process becoming less effective and subsequently diabetes can be the end result.

Other studies have shown surprisingly that the effect of eating significant quantities of fats actually leads to an unexpected human reaction in terms of nutrition. You would think that eating food rich in fats would have the effect of satisfying feeling of hunger. But amazingly medical research has shown the opposite to be true. Clinical trials have shown that foods rich in fats actually induces people to eat more not less. At the time the results from such experiments were groundbreaking as they completely contradicted the nutritional thinking of the time.

It is also interesting to learn that further medical studies have suggested that foods rich in protein have been linked to the response that indicates that you have consumed sufficient food. In other words, it is believed that proteins in some way, triggers the 'I am full' response.

And then of course there is the massive change in our energy expenditure. We used to hunt and gather food but now we happily pop to the local supermarket to buy it, or at worse, have it delivered to our front door. Food has changed from being scarce to being in abundance (at least for us), and we have changed from being 'active' to relatively 'dormant'. Move less and eat morewhat should we expect?

And many believe that even the act of not exercising can trigger the bodily response to lower the metabolism and build fat layers under the skin for 2 key reasons, both being linked to human survival. In evolutionary terms, it may be that you are unable to 'hunt' and therefore unable to secure food. Reducing the metabolic rate of your body makes total sense to preserve energy. Secondly, if food is available during a spell of non activity, does it not make a whole load of sense to lay down fat layers under the skin to retain bodily heat and secure an energy source during potential 'lean times'. Perfect sense, perfect design and yet we don't understand ourselves and if we do, many choose to ignore the warning signs out body is offering.

In essence therefore, it is very clear that part of the problem within the dieting world that we humans face is certainly a physical one that is linked to the interaction of the food types we eat with that of our body. And clearly, over the last 50 odd years our diet has changed out of all recognition and yet our body is doing the same as it has been doing for well over the last 100,000 years. We are in the 21st century, our body is still in the 'Stone Age'. Evolution is a slow slow process but over millions of years the relationship and reaction of chemicals in our food with the cells of the human body has been cemented and cast, for eons of time.

So, it is us that need to changebecause Mother Nature will not entertain us for thousands of years to come

Run with it, eat what your body has been designed for and successful weight loss will follow for sure

Jeff Garcia

Part 2 to follow

For more information please visit:

Email: jeffgarcia@ Jeff Garcia author of Glycemic Superfoods, qualified as a biologist, served the public for 15 years in the retail trade, and for the last 3 years has subsequently retrained and successfully markets on the Internet.

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Email: jeffgarcia@

Considerations of a Vegetarian Diet

2009-05-04T04:40:00.001-07:00

Our society is set up to regard meat eating as the 'norm'. Those people who choose a vegetarian diet are often thought of as difficut, 'trying to be different' or just odd. A common nutritional fallacy is that meat and animal products must be consumed in order to maintain a well-balanced, healthy diet.

Many people these days are finding out the many health benefits of a vegetarian diet. Additionally, many physicians and nutritionalists are prescribing and endorsing plant-based meals in order to promote health, prevent and treat certain diseases, and even to reduce weight. There are many products now becoming available in shops and supermarkets that contain health enhancing plant extracts.These are mixed in yoghurts,spreads and cheeses, to specifically lower cholesterol levels, reduce blood pressure, enhance energy levels and boost immune systems. Who knows what other benefits are just around the corner in plant extracts.

Although vegetarianism may seem like a modern idea, in reality, its health benefits have been known for many years in cultures around the world. India and the far east make up the largest percentage of the world's vegetarians, both for health and spiritual reasons. One group of people, the Hunza, who live near the Himalaya's have a diet which is exclusively vegetarian. Members of their community reportedly often live to be over 100 years of age.

The American Dietetic Association say that the benefits of a vegetarian diet can include;

Lower cholesterol levels

Lower levels of saturated fats

Lower body fat

Reduced rates of heart disease

Lower blood pressure

Lower incidence of type-2 diabetes

Lower instances of certain cancers

Higher levels of important minerals and antioxidant vitamins

Obesity is one of the major health concerns in the western world. It can be addressed with a vegetarian diet, one that eliminates excess protein and animal fat consumption, and increases fiber in the form of fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Those who consume a vegetarian diet tend to maintain a lower body mass index (BMI), which significantly aids in the treatment and management of other chronic illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. A lower BMI is an aim of anyone looking to improve their general health, whether by diet, exercise, or preferably both.

One question often asked by those considering a vegetarian diet is; "Will I get enough protein? This is certainly a valid question, as protein is necessary for the building, maintenance and function of all body cells. In fact, a varied and well-balanced vegetarian diet actually provides all the protein the body needs, obtained by eating such things as whole grains, beans, nuts and soy products.

In fact, meat-based diets typically provide an excess of protein, which may actually be harmful. High protein levels can put more strain on the kidneys. A leading gerontological journal reports that too much protein can cause a person to lose about 30% of their kidney function by the time they reach old age. It can also cause systemic acidity, which the body attempts to counter by leeching calcium out of the bones, which can lead to osteoporosis.

Becoming a vegetarian does not mean you are limited to eating carrots, fruit and nuts. There are many types of vegetarians that eat meatless diets in a variety of combinations. Some of the more common types include;

Lacto vegetarians, who do not eat meat or eggs, but do eat dairy products such as milk and cheese.

Lacto-ovo vegetarians do not eat meat, but will eat dairy products and eggs.

Ovo vegetarians do not eat meat or dairy products, but will eat eggs.

Vegans do not eat meat, dairy products, eggs, or any animal products at all.

There are many medical and health organizations that promote, endorse, and support people on a path toward changing their dietary lifestyle to one that includes more plant-based foods. There is a lot of information on the internet, as well as through medical providers and vegetarian organizations. Numerous books and articles are easily found.

Many restaurants, grocery stores and supermarkets now provide meals and products to vegetarians, making it simpler to choose this healthy lifestyle.

Remember that at the end of the day it is your decision. If you want to simply keep eating a little meat, while exploring deeper into the vegetarian side, then do that. Don't worry about the 'purists'. There is no law to say you cannot eat a little meat, fish or chicken along the way - it's your life and your choice. Once you start eating more vegetarian food though, many people find they start to lose their taste for meat. The main thing is to enjoy the food and feel healthier by doing so.

On a final note, consider using either all organic vegetables and fruit, or at least as much as you can source. Organic produce really makes a great deal of difference to the taste and texture, and you have the security of mind that what you are eating is free of pesticides and other chemicals. More information on this will be found in the next article, or on our web site.

Article supplied by Michael Aldridge.

For a complete and extensive guide to weightloss, please visit our web site at

Which is a Better Workout Treadmill or Elliptical Trainer?

2009-04-12T04:40:00.001-07:00

We live in a society obsessed with losing weight and getting fit. In response there are countless products on the market that claim to get you in shape. Most are fads that come and go. For example, how many people are still working out with a Thigh Master. But, occasionally an exercise machine is designed that gets results. It promotes fitness and wellness. It helps both novice and fitness enthusiasts reach their exercise goals. It has 'staying' power!

The two most popular fitness machines that fit this qualification are treadmills and elliptical trainers. The tried and true treadmill has been around for years. It remains popular due to its appeal to both novice and seasoned athletes. It is a simple machine that requires no special skills, all you need to do is walk, jog or run.

Although relatively new in comparison to a treadmill, the elliptical trainer is growing in popularity. In shear numbers the treadmill outsells ellipticals, but by percentage the elliptical is gaining in sales. It offers the benefit of a total body workout without the impact.

How do treadmills compare with elliptical training equipment? What benefits do each machine offer? Could either be right for you?

Treadmills

Treadmills are the most popular fitness equipment. They are simple to use and provide an excellent cardiovascular workout. Treadmills allow you to walk, jog or run. In addition, they can simulate hill climbing.

In shear numbers running and walking are the most popular form of exercise. Whether you are a casual walker or a serious runner, a treadmill can accommodate your exercise needs. By setting the speed and incline you can adjust your cardio workout to any level from casual walking to heart pounding running.

Most power treadmills offer a number of pre-set programs and intensity levels from which to choose. On these particular machines, you may program in your personal information (i.e. age, weight, height, fitness level, etc.). Then, you may choose a pre-set program (such as 'killer hill,' 'interval training' or 'weight-loss'), and the unit will automatically adjust the workout to fit your specifications.

You can bypass the pre-set programs and manually adjust the incline, speed, and the time yourself. And, even if you've chosen a pre-set program, you have the option of changing the incline level or speed level at any time.

Running on a treadmill with a nicely cushioned running surface provides less impact on the knees, shins, ankles, back, and joints than does running on pavement. As a result, the runner who uses a treadmill is less likely to sustain a running injury than a runner who runs upon a harder surface. (Nonetheless, a runner's body will still experience impact when the foot lands on the belt.)

Outdoors, you could possibly trip over a rock or twist your ankle in an unseen hole in the ground. You don't have to worry about unseen road or trail hazards when exercising on a treadmill. You need only maintain your rhythm on the moving belt.

Treadmills not only efficiently burn calories, but their impact reducing surfaces decrease the chances for injuries.

Elliptical Trainers

Elliptical trainers are relatively new to the fitness equipment industry. They have increased in popularity during the last few years, and the rate of growth is surpassing treadmills. But, do they deliver what they promise a low impact, total body workout?

Elliptical trainers allow the user to burn a similar number of calories as they would from walking or jogging - but without the risk of injury to the back, knees, hips, or ankles. The difference in comparison to a treadmill is your feet never leave the foot pedals.

As a result, an elliptical is very low-impact and significantly reduces the pressure on your joints. In fact, whereas exercising on a treadmill requires your body to absorb the impact of walking or running, exercising on an elliptical can be compared to running in midair. Running can result in 2.5x your body weight impacting a treadmill.

Because of the low impact quality of an elliptical trainer, this machine may be the best choice for older people or individuals who are recovering from injuries. That is the obvious reason ellipticals are so popular with us baby boomers. Our joints are starting to tell us they've had enough.

Elliptical machines mimic the normal elliptical motion of the foot, the extension of the leg, and the rotation of the hip during walking or running. This motion uses all the leg muscles, giving you a total lower-body workout.

But what makes an elliptical workout so enticing is you also get a upper body workout (unlike the treadmill, which works only the lower body)! As the feet go through their elliptical motion, the hands grip the moving handlebars, exercising the arms. The movement of the dual handlebars mimics cross-country skiing. This particular type of upper body workout will not result in a bodybuilder's physique. However, because you are including the upper 30% of your body in your workouts, the results will be more efficient exercise in less time.

Because elliptical trainers DO work the upper and lower body simultaneously, the heart rate climbs more quickly. Thus, less time is required to achieve more results. The amount of energy expended is optimized. As the legs are being worked, the back, shoulders, chest, biceps, and triceps are also working...making it possible to burn more calories in less time. (An optimal workout need only be about 20-30 minutes long, if you apply the right amount of resistance.)

Another advantage of elliptical trainers are the foot pedals can be worked in a forward or reverse direction. When you change the direction of the pedals, you'll target your lower body in different ways. It is nice to be able to add versatility to your elliptical workouts, and such a change works to ensure optimal training of the leg muscles.

The intensity level can be adjusted on elliptical equipment to fit your personal level of fitness. Resistance may be added as desired to increase the workload on your legs throughout the forward or backward stride. With such an efficient workout, you can say 'goodbye' to flabby thighs and derrieres!

Studies show working out on an elliptical trainer can trick the body into believing it is working easier than it actually is. Therefore, as you're burning more calories in less time on an elliptical trainer, your body feels as though it doesn't have to work as hard to achieve its goals. This phenomenon is known as the "Rate of Perceived Exertion."

An elliptical device is safe to use (i.e. it stops when you stop). It uses very little electricity and is economical to operate. Because of its low impact, there is less wear and tear of the machine, making maintenance quite low. It has a small footprint, so it takes up less floor space than other fitness equipment. And, as with the treadmill, it allows you to exercise in a controlled environment for more comfort and convenience.

And the Winner Is!

Which is better, a treadmill or elliptical trainer? Both give an excellent cardio workout and when used regularly will burn unwanted calories.

For a walking or running devotee, the treadmill is the machine of choice. Even if you prefer the great outdoors, the treadmill allows you to continue your favorite sport all year long and in the most inclement weather. A treadmill will reduce injuries since you workout on a flat surface that is cushioned. It can add variety to your workout through various challenging programs. And with heart rate control you can optimize your exercising by allowing your heart rate to control the level of exertion.

The appeal of an elliptical is the combined upper and lower body workout, and the low-impact. You exercise more muscle groups, while avoiding the kind of impact that can result in injuries. For those of us whose knees or ankles just can't take it any longer, the elliptical trainer is the obvious choice.

So which one do you choose? Depending upon your preference and needs either can be an excellent choice.

Fred Waters worked in the fitness equipment industry for over 7 years. To learn more about treadmills you can visit his Treadmill Ratings and Reviews site. For information on elliptical trainers check out the Elliptical Trainer Best Buy Recommendations.

Why Are Our Children Getting Heavier? -- The Five Truths Every Parent Must Know To Get Their Childs Weight On Track.

2009-04-03T04:40:00.001-07:00

With as many as 50% of all children being overweight in this country, parents are beginning to realize that something must be done. There is no shortage of information about nutrition and exercise, but the task of helping an overweight child without setting them up for a lifetime of dieting is a daunting challenge. Parents who understand the five truths of getting a child's weight on track can begin to address the issue in a healthy and effective way.

Truth #1: Parents are the problem AND the solution. Heavy kids eat too much and they don't get enough exercise. It's that simple. Parents of overweight children must own up to the fact that they are allowing and enabling their children to eat too much and move too little. Once parents accept this, they will begin to understand that they have tremendous power to solve their child's weight problem.

Truth #2: Kids need to be educated. You may know how much, and what kinds of foods your child should eat. And you may expect that your children have the common sense to know, too. But did it ever occur to you that your children really don't know? They understand that too much is bad and that some foods are better than others. But without education, they have no idea why, or what effects eating too much of the wrong things have on how they look and feel in their daily lives. Once they are educated, children take great pride in becoming good stewards of their own bodies through activity and nutrition.

Truth #3: An overweight child is a family issue. Whether one, some or all in a family are overweight, solving a child's weight problem must become a priority for the entire family. Otherwise, a child can feel singled out, different and ashamed. Getting the whole family involved helps with the child's self-esteem by letting them know they are part of a powerful team that will help ensure success.

Truth #4: Your child has an "ideal weight." No two children are alike, but your child does have a "normal" weight range based on their height, gender and age. They also require a set number of calories each day. Knowing a child's normal weight range and knowing how many calories they require is fundamental to getting their weight on track.

Truth #5: Parents need a plan. Losing weight is not rocket science. But changing the habits and lifestyle of a family in today's busy world is difficult and multi-dimensional. Especially when the emotional well-being of a fragile overweight child is at stake Parents need a plan and they need perseverance. Many parents fail because don't have a solid, long-term plan for success.

As a mother of an overweight child, Lisa Alexander experienced the joy of helping her daughter shed her weight and grow her self-esteem. As the creator of The PariPlan- Seven Steps To Get Your Child's Weight On Track, Lisa has helped families across the country help their children. For more information, visit

Diet After Forty

2009-03-26T16:40:00.000-07:00

Death in middle life is usually due to the giving out of various vital parts of the body when subjected to strain. Nervous collapse, high blood pressure, hardening of the arteries, apoplexy, heart failure and kidney disease are some of the types of functional diseases that are likely to set in at this time.

To meet this period successfully, certain precautions need to be observed.

1) Cut down on the amount of food eaten sufficiently to combat the tendency to put on weight.

2) Be very moderate in the use of meats, salts and condiments; take plenty of water.

3) Get plenty of fresh air and exercise, but avoid strenuous exertions which overfatigue and place undue strain on the heart.

4) Take more recreation and rest.

5) Cultivate mental hygiene; avoid nervous strain.

Although the same nutritive essentialsfuel, protein, mineral salts and vitaminsare required to nourish the body from the cradle to the grave, it should be emphasized that the amounts needed are less in the latter part of life, especially after seventy, than in the more active adult years.

There is no further need of tissue-building materials for growth, and the amount of these substances for tissue maintenance or repair is at a minimum. For this reason, the protein requirement in old age is reduced, while at the same time an excess of protein is more difficult for the body to handle than ever before.

The calorie requirement is also materially reduced for two reasons:

1) Less energy is used in muscular activity

2) Basal metabolism is lowered

It is far easier and wiser to cut down moderately on one's fuel intake and take more exercise when the tendency to put on weight first manifests itself, than to try to take off excess weight by radical dieting or excessive exercising later on. This advice should not be taken to support excessive reduction in the amount of fuel foods with the desire of attaining underweight, which is fully as undesirable as overweight.

Beyond a slight reduction in the amount of fuel foods and some care to keep down the consumption of meats and other protein-rich foods, no special modification of the diet is needed during this period.

What has been recommended as the best diet for maintaining the body in health and vigor during younger years continues to be "optimum diet" in later yearsnamely, a diet the basis of which is milk, cereal products, fruits and vegetables, with moderate amounts of protein foods, fats and sugar. The importance of milk, whole grains, eggs and green vegetables as protective foods still holds good.

Grace Palce is writing health, diet and exercise articles for her 1200 calories diet site and herbal diet related articles for her herbal diet site.

"The Way to Health & Vitality"

2009-03-24T16:40:00.001-07:00

It's time to start a Healthy life:

your 7 days program

How many times have you gone to sleep at night, swearing you'll go to the gym in the morning, and then changing your mind just eight hours later because when you get up, you don't feel like exercising?

While this can happen to the best of us, it doesn't mean you should drop the ball altogether when it comes to staying fit. What people need to realize is that staying active and eating right are critical for long-term health and wellness -- and that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

exercise at the proper intensity, you are informing your body that you want to burn a substantial amount of fuel. This translates to burning fat more efficiently for energy.

In other words, proper eating habits plus exercise equals fast metabolism, which, in turn gives you more energy throughout the day and allows you to do more physical work with less effort.

The true purpose of exercise is to send a repetitive message to the body asking for improvement in metabolism, strength, aerobic capacity and overall fitness and health. Each time you exercise, your body responds by upgrading its capabilities to burn fat throughout the day and night, Exercise doesn't have to be intense to work for you, but it does need to be consistent.

I recommend engaging in regular cardiovascular exercise four times per week for 20 to 30 minutes per session, and resistance training four times per week for 20 to 25 minutes per session. This balanced approach provides a

one-two punch, incorporating aerobic exercise to burn fat and deliver more oxygen, and resistance training to increase lean body mass and burn more calories around the block.

Here's a sample exercise program that may work for you:

* Warm Up -- seven to eight minutes of light aerobic activity intended to increase blood flow and lubricate and warm-up your tendons and joints.

* Resistance Training -- Train all major muscle groups. One to two sets of each exercise. Rest 45 seconds between sets.

* Aerobic Exercise -- Pick two favorite activities, they could be jogging, rowing, biking or cross-country skiing, whatever fits your lifestyle. Perform 12 to 15 minutes of the first activity and continue with 10 minutes of the

second activity. Cool down during the last five minutes.

* Stretching -- Wrap up your exercise session by stretching, breathing deeply, relaxing and meditating.

When starting an exercise program, it is important to have realistic expectations. Depending on your initial fitness level, you should expect the following changes early on.

* From one to eight weeks -- Feel better and have more energy.

* From two to six months -- Lose size and inches while becoming leaner. Clothes begin to fit more loosely. You are gaining muscle and losing fat.

* After six months -- Start losing weight quite rapidly.

Once you make the commitment to exercise several times a week, don't stop there. You should also change your diet and/or eating habits,' says Zwiefel. Counting calories or calculating grams and percentages for certain nutrients is

impractical. Instead, I suggest these easy-to-follow guidelines:

* Eat several small meals (optimally four) and a couple of small snacks throughout the day

* Make sure every meal is balanced -- incorporate palm-sized proteins like lean meats, fish, egg whites and dairy products, fist-sized portions of complex carbohydrates like whole-wheat bread and pasta, wild rice, multigrain cereal and potatoes, and fist-sized portions of vegetable and

fruits

* Limit your fat intake to only what's necessary for adequate flavour

* Drink at least eight 8-oz. glasses of water throughout the day

* I also recommend that you take a multi-vitamin each day to ensure you are getting all the vitamins and minerals your body needs.

I suppose that's all I can think of for now. I should extend my thanks to a doctor friend of mine. Without him, I wouldn't be able to write this article, or keep my sanity.

Enjoy life, we all deserve it.

You'll find many more useful information and articles at Health & Vitality - to Enjance Your Life.

Health & Vitality for all your life-enhancing and personal development products. - Visit: >>> John and Helen Williamson ran an exclusive Lifestyle Training Centre in Glasgow, UK. for many years, offering courses in Aromatherapy, Baby Massage, Reflexology, Reiki, NLP, and training in many aspects of Health, Fitness and Personal Development - -

Now providing help and advice on general health, nutrition and personal development via the Internet and our many Websites:

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Size 10, Going On 50, Ten Weight Control Tips For Lasting Weight Control.

2009-03-21T16:40:00.001-07:00

Ten Tips on How to Establish Lasting Weight Control

1. Walk a lot. Leave the car at home, catch the bus or train.

2. Try not to eat pork at least for three or four months, then decide.

3. Eat red meat only once or twice a month. Take your time and coach yourself. If red meat is a daily habit for you, take your time and coach yourself. Go off the red meat for 3 or four months and then decide what you want to do.

4. Take liquid vitamins (very important) try not to put undo stress on your digestive system by expecting it to digest massive vitamin pills.

5. Hold your stomach in and breath deep, as often as possible.

6. Eliminate waste from your body, often. In fact, learn how to give yourself a high colonic to clean your colon. (This alone can help you drop up to 10 pounds in a week)

7. Talk to your body; ask it if it's OK to eat something You will be surprised at how your intellect will respond over time to questions that you ask your inner self.

8. Love your body just as it is and it will change for you.

9. Do not covet your neighbor's slim body, however, see yourself thin, and if you need a little help look at your neighbor's thin body and know that in time, that will be you. Then believe it.

10. Do not diet. You loose the entire battle if you diet. I realize this may be hard for some of you to realize. To diet is in direct conflict with the "love your body just as it is" Use common sense when eating, however, do not diet.

Depending on how much weight you have to loose, it could take 3 months or 3 years. Take your time, meditate a lot and if you pray, then do so. If not, then meditate and listen to what the universe has to say. I cannot stress how important this step is.

The trick is to believe that you can and faith will come into play. Once you are in the "faith zone" it is only a matter of time. The only physical requirement (consult with your doctor) would be to continually remove waste from your colon. The rest is what we call natural weight loss. For more information about this methodology visit: (NDA - No Diets Allowed)

Article written by Cassandra Ingraham, Editor and Publisher for "Purple Monkey e-Publications with a home base at

Thinking as the Thin Think

2009-03-17T16:40:00.001-07:00

When you lose a massive amount of weight after undergoing the Gastric Bypass Weight-Loss Surgery, it's difficult to change our mindsets and how we incorporate our new lifestyle habits. As we slim down, it is important that we begin to "think as a thin person" or rather (let's all practice this tongue-twister together) "thinking as the thin think."

Why should we do this?

Because if we fail to do this, we can run the risk of easily falling into those unhealthy and bad habits that strolled us down the paths of obesity in the first place. No matter what stage along your weight-loss journey you are currently experiencing, sooner or later you will fall prey to those nasty life-long ugly companions (aka habits). They will devour your positive thoughts and urge you to glutinously consume all of the wrong things so you'll succumb to your food bondage again. But DON'T DO IT! Put on your armor of THIN THINKING quickly to thwart all advances!

I recall as a young teenager, I knew many peers who, even at a young age, were obsessed with watching their weight, counting calories, worried about getting enough physical activity, and monitoring the snugness of their clothing. I thought this was very bizarre since I didn't have any weight issues then. I could virtually eat anything and it would never show a pound on the scale. Of course, thinking back, I was a high-level physically active person, and so this is why weight-watching was not a critical factor in my life at the time. I didn't need to think like a thin person.

However, when I gradually became very heavy (317 pounds), I realized that I got that way partially because I didn't have the foundation of "thinking as the thin think." And without that foundation to utilize, I missed great opportunities to change some of my bad habits. Take into consideration that morbid obesity is far deeper than just succumbing to unhealthy habits morbid obesity has many facets to it; but for this writing, I want to focus on one element, and that is how we "think" we are.

When I explore the rationale of how thin people think, I discover some interesting behaviors. Thin people think about:

Food portions

How full they feel at each meal. They know when they can't take another bite and they stop eating

How snug their clothes are fitting

How they look in the mirror

How they appear to others

Exercising or doing something outside that is fun rather than doing something sedentary

Parking further away from the store entrance for extra walking

Taking the stairs rather than the elevator or escalator

Drinking water rather than soft drinks

Using sugar substitutes, protein supplements, and religiously taking their vitamins

Eating fruit rather than potato chips for a snack

Maintaining a "low-burdensome" weight for any EMT squad in case of an emergency

OH, how the list of concerns in the minds of thin people goes on and on! I bet you are thinking of a few right now!

I have to laugh when I think of one of my high-school friends who asked me everyday after school lunch if I wanted to go outside with her and "freeze off my calories".. REALLY! She believed that shivering caused the burning of calories; so no matter if it was five degrees outside during a snow storm, she would march outdoors for a full five minutes and SHIVER her calories away! CRAZY, huh? Well, each time I see her at my class reunions, she is STILL the same slim gal she was way back when.so maybe she knew a thing or two about shivering off calories! Today the scientists call it "fidgeting", which has been proven to burn calories throughout the day. So when you tap that nervous foot, you are burning calories.

What we once viewed as odd obsessions by those who are thin, we should now view as having more value and importance, and we should incorporate some of their wisdom into our own daily lives so as we become slimmer and trimmer people, we will be thinking and acting like one too.

Thinking like a thin person everyday does not happen overnight. It is something that must be practiced continually.

Now of course, I would NEVER endorse the sad eating disorders that anorexic or bulimic people partake in, nor would I ever endorse or encourage starvation as some super-thin folks do to maintain that "waif" look. Such disorders are dangerous and have no part in thinking like a thin person! Such thinking and practices are warped and do not represent the norm.

They say that after the surgery, it takes the mind about three years to truly get used to the "new you." And I can vouch for that, as I am over three years post-op now and at times will forget I have lost so much weight as I find myself still inadvertently wandering in the Plus Size department! The scale and the label in the clothes may say one thing outwardly; but inwardly our mind hasn't totally been convinced we are thin.

Make some commitments today to begin changing your mindset. Observe the good practices of thin people and find a place in your life for those same good practices. Little by little you will become a thin person, both inside and out!

Meloney Hall successfully lost 170 pounds in 19 months after a gastric bypass bariatric weight-loss surgery. She is dedicated to helping others achieve their goals along their weight-loss journey. Visit her website at for more information on the RNY procedure and how it can cure morbid obesity.

Healthy Dining Out

2009-03-17T04:40:00.001-07:00

With our busy lives these days we are more apt to dine out, pick up take out food, or have food delivered to us. The problem is we are not aware of the calories and fat we are consuming when we continually eat food other than what we, ourselves have prepared.

The average dinner meal at a restaurant is 1200 calories, and 60 grams of fat. Men should not have more than 70 grams of fat a day, and women 40 grams of fat a day. One meal alone can make up one whole days worth of fat, or two, in the case of women's diets. If you do find a meal that is low in fat, make sure you do not consume such a large serving that you eat more calories than you should.

There are restaurants out there that do have meals considered lower in fat and calories. If you do not see it on the menu ask your server for the information. Remember low carb is not low-fat. When you are eating a low carb meal out at a restaurant you are usually eating high-fat. Make sure you do not take in more than 20 grams of fat in a meal. Below is a list of restaurants that offer low-fat meals.

RESTAURANTS

APPLEBEE'S

CALIFORNIA PIZZA KITCHEN

CLAIM JUMPER

CHILI'S

MACARONI GRILL

TGIF FRIDAY'S

MIMI'S CAFÉ

OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE

TONY ROMA'S

FAST FOOD

ARBY'S

BURGER KING

CARLS JR.

CHICK-FIL-A

JACK IN THE BOX

MC DONALDS

SUBWAY

WENDY'S

KFC

We use food as an important part of our cultural and social lives to connect with one another. We also use it as a comfort when we have had a bad day, a bad week, a bad month, or a bad year. Reducing the foods we do not need helps us stay healthy in mind and body.

Remember, even though we are overwhelmed, stressed out and tired, we must make healthy decisions when it comes to what we eat. Trans fat, found in most cooking oils in restaurants- is the worst kind of fat you can put in your body. It increases the level of blood fat called triglycerides, and has even been found to contribute to insulin resistance, which raises the risk of Type 2 diabetes. Children as young as 10 years old are developing heart disease and diabetes. Set an example for your children and ensure you both will live long, healthy lives.

The Author Libby Sustacheck has over twenty years of experience in the healthcare field working with such industry giants as Kaiser Permanente and Aetna. She has assisted many organizations with their wellness programs You can read more from Libby at Or contact her at info@

Five "Health Foods" That May Be Making You Sick!

2009-03-16T16:40:00.001-07:00

There are many of us who are dieting and trying to live a healthy lifestyle. We exercise and go out of our way to eat the best foods we can. Most of us already know that trans-fats, white sugar and white flour are not the best health choices, especially if we want to keep our weight down.

Unfortunately some of the very foods that we think are healthy are ones that can cause a lot of trouble for our bodies, and even make us ill. Below is a list of some surprisingly unhealthy "health foods."

Artificial Sweeteners

Many people who are dieting, whether it is low calorie or low carb diets, will opt for beverages with artificial sweeteners instead of sugar. Admittedly sugar is certainly a troublemaker and should be avoided, but artificial sweeteners are actually worse for you and could even be dangerous to your health.

All the artificial sweeteners are bad, but one of the worst sweeteners for us is NutraSweet (Equal, aspartame). There are over 92 different health related side effects associated with aspartame consumption, including brain tumors, birth defects, diabetes, emotional disorders and epilepsy/seizures. There are more adverse reactions to NutraSweet reported to the FDA than all other foods and additives combined.

A much better alternative to chemically derived sweeteners is stevia, which comes from a plant. It has been used for centuries with no know side effects. It can be purchased in most health food stores in the United States.

Sports Drinks

Although marketers would have us believe that sports drinks are what the body needs when exercising heavily, the truth is that sports drinks are filled with sugar (sucrose, glucose, and fructose) and salt (potassium and sodium) as well as artificial flavorings and colorings. Add a little salt to Cool-Aid and you have about the same thing. You would be much better off drinking spring water or diluted freshly squeezed juices while exercising.

Most Energy and Sports Bars

Most sports and bars are also filled with things that are not the best for our bodies, and are little better than candy bars. Many of them contain sugar or artificial sweeteners, chemicals, preservatives, and synthetic nutrients. Check the ingredients before you buy an energy bar. Try to find one that is made with whole foods, such as oats and flax seeds, fruits, and natural sweeteners.

Soy Products

This is one of the most surprising ones of all, after all soy has been used for countless generations in Asia. But the way we now use soy is very different than the way the Asians have traditionally used it. The ancient Asians knew that the soybean was hard to digest, so they had extensive fermenting processes that broke down most of the indigestible components, making it much healthier to eat. Examples of this would be products like soy sauce, tempeh, and miso. These were used in small amounts as condiments and flavorings, not as a meat replacement.

But the way we use soy as a meat alternative (texturized vegetable protein or TVP) can be very unhealthy, since soy contains large amounts of toxins or anti-nutrients. Some of the problems the anti-nutrients in soybeans cause are conditions of the pancreas, cancer and thyroid problems. Soybeans also can block the body's absorption of essential minerals.

Granola (and Other Unprepared Grains)

For the last 30-40 years granola has been synonymous with heath food. But eating unprepared grains, or grains that have not been soaked, fermented or sprouted, has only come about in the last 50-100 years. People who lived before our time understood that unprepared grains could cause dietary distress.

There are anti-nutrients in grains (like there are in soybeans), such as phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors, that make them harder to digest. These antinutrients can cause serious problems like Crohn's disease, colitis, and even mental disorders. Our failure to prepare our grains properly is one of the reasons that celactic disease is so prevalent now.

So, stay away from the granola. Oatmeal is an excellent addition to our diets, but use whole rolled oats (not instant) and soak them overnight before boiling them for breakfast. Go to our recipe blog at for a good recipe for coconut oatmeal.

Good breads to eat are those that have properly prepared grains, including whole grain sourdough and sprouted grain breads. You can usually find these in specialty grocery stores and health food stores.

If you are trying to lose weight and/or eat healthier, remember that just because a company markets a "healthy" product well or a health food store sells it, it doesn't mean that it is really healthy for you. Do some research before you grab that sports bar, or better yet, reach for an organic apple, cherries, or some other natural (not processed) food. Your body will thank you and reward you for it.

How To Lose Weight Without Really Trying

2009-03-16T04:40:00.001-07:00

Sound impossible? I think not. You'll find plenty of opportunities to slip these easy weight loss tips into your routine and watch the numbers on the scale go down. If you've already begun to lose weight, these tips will maximize your efforts and speed up results. The bottom line is that one pound is equivalent to 3,500 calories. Whether you make slight changes to your diet or increase exercise levels, a deficit of 500 calories a day will lead to a loss of about a pound a week for you without really trying! Here are some tips you can try:

Chew a piece of gum. Researchers recently discovered that chewing sugar-free gum all day increases your metabolic rate by about 20 percent. It speeds up the digestive system, burns more calories, and sometimes stops a craving. This method alone could help to burn off more than 10 pounds a year.

Pack a lunch. Dining out a lot (5 or more times per week) can make you eat more than if you dine out less frequently.

Sprinkle flax on your cereal. High-fiber, ground flax seed can help curb your appetite and also eliminate calories. You can add it to yogurt, a muffin or your oatmeal. It is readily available in health food stores or online.

Brush your teeth. Brushing your teeth after a meal seems to send a signal to your body that you're done eating, and it makes your breath fresh without relying on gum and mints made with sugar that can cause you to crave something sweet. You can also brush your teeth instead of eating when you feel the craving to eat something you know you shouldn't.

Get rid of the remotes and other labor-saving devices. You could easily burn a lot of extra calories a day if you stop using the TV/VCR remote, garage door openers, electric can openers, riding mowers, and other things made to cut down on manual work.

Smell your food. When you really have a craving for something like a fresh-baked cookie, try this little trick to satisfy yourself: Indulge in the smell for 30 seconds and then place a small bite on the tip of your tongue for another 30 seconds. Savoring the smell and taste can help you stay in control of food.

Post inspirational messages. To keep yourself on track and motivated, place quotes in strategic spots where you might need some motivation: on the refrigerator, TV, dashboard of the car, or your computer. Some suggestions: "Eat to Live; Don't Live to Eat" and "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels."

Eat more soup. Begin your lunch or dinner with soup and it may help you eat less during the main meal. Soup helps curb your appetite and also forces you to eat more slowly. You are more likely to pay attention to what you. Eat soups are that are low in fat and calories such as broth-based soups. Avoid creamy soups like clam chowder or cheese and bacon. Choose vegetable to work in some extra nutrients.

Drink lots of water. Drinking about eight glasses of water every day raises your metabolism slightly and allows your body to avoid retaining extra fluid. Drink a glass of water before and during every meal and before and after workouts.

Do not skip meals. Eating small, frequent meals help to balance your calorie intake throughout the day and also keeps your blood sugar level balanced. Instead of eating 3 big meals, try to eat 5 - 6 smaller meals throughout the day. This way you won't overeat at meals because you're less hungry. Skipping meals hurts your diet efforts because it causes your body to hold onto its stored food instead of burning it off.

Stop avoiding exercise. Think about how you can work more activity into your life. Why not park your car farther away from your door at work or the mall? Take the steps to your apartment or office instead of the elevator. Walk to someone's desk in another department to ask them a question instead of e-mailing them. You can even wear a pedometer and set yourself a goal to walk a certain number of miles per day.

Reduce caffeine intake. Reduce your consumption of caffeine to lose weight faster. Caffeine leads to an increase of insulin in your body that stops the burning of your stored fat. This is a simple chemical reaction in your body that you can change easily by eliminating caffeine.

Plan Your Eating. Have a snack, such as fruit, an hour before you go to a planned party or dinner. This way you will feel full and be less likely to overeat.

Keep striving for your weight loss goals. The small changes that we make every single day that will make a big change in the long run!

Article by Patricia Kopp. Please visit our site for more easy weight loss tips.. We offer a free diet tip newsletter to help you lose weight with recipes, support and motivation.

Waiting for the Mood Bus to Arrive

2009-03-15T04:40:00.001-07:00

How many times have your heard "I'm not in the mood" or "When I'm in the mood, I'll do it,"?

We talk about our "moods" as if they are things that come along like buses or trains and we hop on and ride them until it's time to get off when we reach a destination, wherever that is and wherever it ends up.

Pull the Cord DING time to get off!

When it relates to the gastric bypass bariatric weight-loss patient, the "mood" is a very funny thing to measure since we find ourselves on incredible mood swings at times. Why is that? Why do we have such mood swings for about the first six months of our weight-loss journey?

It's basically because fat cells harbor our hormones; and when we are shrinking away our fat cells, our hormones are affected tremendously, and often, they appear out of control. Some of us are better at coping with these drastic hormonal changes, and others certainly are challenged with disguising their mood swings. I bet right now, you can identify a few situations where you didn't understand why you suddenly lashed out at someone, cried unexpectedly, or totally misunderstood something and took it offensively. You're confused as to why you have reacted in this fashion when it's not even in your character. If it normally isn't in your character to behave in such a manner, then you have to realize that your fat cells and hormones are on the roller coaster ride of their life and they too are confused! They've never before been subject to such sudden and dramatic changes because you've never lost so much weight so rapidly before in your entire dieting history.

How can you counteract these mood swings? Here's some tips:

Recognition: They are what they are fat cells and hormones trying their best to function.

Be Hopeful: The swings won't last forever only for about six months along your weight-loss journey until the hormones get settled and back to normal.

Pause Before Responding: You've heard that "counting to ten" thing. This gives the mind a bit of time to rationally and logically prepare rather than burst out like a cannon with bad aim.

Inhale Deeply: Additional oxygen in the lungs gets to the blood cells which gets to the brain. Don't make your brain be on an oxygen diet because that only impairs your thinking.

Consider the Consequences: Will your mood hurt someone? Will it cause more confusion to the situation? Bad consequences can never be escaped. And if you're not good at apologizing, you'll damage important relationships even further.

Get Adequate Rest: The body and the mind needs to shut down and regroup to function at its best. Cheating yourself of adequate rest magnifies the mood swings.

Eat Nutritionally: This is a no-brainer to us, isn't it? We are more aware of our body's nutritional needs than we've ever been aware in our lives because our bloodwork will show our doctor the truth during our follow-up visits.

Walk it Off, Soak it Out: Take a walk or a long hot bath to relax yourself. Don't make important decisions when you feel tense.

Get Help: if things are too overwhelming, seek help from supporters or even from the medical profession. There's should be no shame in asking for help.

Inform Others: Or shall I say "warn" others of your temporary circumstance? You just might avoid future misunderstandings this way.

Get Sunshine: Every chance you get spend some time in the sunshine! Part the drapes, open the blinds, take a walk, go for a drive, sit on a park bench just enjoy the sunshine! Serotonin (chemical in our body that affects our moods) is increased when we are in the bright sunshine.

Write it Out: Write your moods/frustrations down on paper. Keep them in a journal for future review or instantly throw them away. This exercise is simply to release the steam that might be building up inside of you.

It's Not Unique: When you consider that you're not unique to these mood swings, you can take comfort to know that others are experiencing the same kind of things. You're not going crazy.

Select ONE item from the list above and work on it RIGHT NOW TODAY. It all begins HERE! Keep adding ideas from the above list, and soon you'll be feeling better about your moods and become less prone to surrendering to your out-of-control feelings or emotions.

Stop waiting for the Mood Bus to come you're no longer the passenger, you've been promoted to the DRIVER in control of your own route!

Type Of Diabetics And Diabetes Health Management

2009-03-14T16:40:00.001-07:00

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is first treated with weight reduction, a diabetic diet, and exercise. For type 2 diabetics, diabetic management consists of a combination of diet, exercise, and weight loss, in any achievable combination depending on the patient. James Barnard from UCLA, the study showed that type-2 diabetics could lose weight and control their blood sugar levels by diet alone. The key to a healthy diabetic diet for healthy weight maintenance, is BALANCE. The document discusses what constitutes a balanced diet, and includes sections on meal planning, weight management, and the importance of physical activity for diabetics.

Stabilize that blood sugar Many people don't realize there's a place for pork in a diabetic diet. This sheet describes the value of small amounts of sugar in the diabetic diet, and explains briefly the difference between sucrose, glucose and fructose. This sheet outlines briefly the alternatives to sugar for those on a diabetic diet. These medications combined with diet and exercise keep the diabetic's blood sugar within that desirable range. Diabetics and anyone wanting to reduce sugar in their diet. Overall, diabetic diets can include moderate amounts of sugar, as long as they are carefully monitored. In terms of diet modifications, diabetics can control blood sugar levels by appropriately managing the carbohydrates, proteins, and fats in their meals.

The diabetic person must pay particular attention to their diet - aiming to keep blood sugar at consistent and acceptable levels. Canning Fruit can be safely canned without sugar for the diabetic or reduced-calorie diet. The GI diet is definitely useful for diabetics striving to keep their blood sugar regulated. It is quite important for diabetics to understand the principles of carbohydrate counting and how to help control blood sugar levels through proper diet. To keep blood sugar levels under control, a diabetic diet strikes a balance among the carbohydrates, fats, and protein you take in. Healthy diets for diabetes type b, grapefruit diets depression and birth control pills, new fad diets diabetic sugar free diets low testosterone apnea.

Diabetes patients have an increased risk of high blood pressure, so regular monitoring is important on low-fat, vegetarian diets are ideal for diabetics. The diabetes diet can also be found on the Internet, including diabetic meal plans with recipes, portion sizes, detailed nutritional analyses, and educational materials. A balanced diabetic diet can save you from diabetes symptoms that plague people with diabetes. Whether your diabetes requires insulin, a diabetic diet and exercise, or oral medications, you'll find helpful information about its impact on your life and you should follow a diabetic diet to keep your diabetes under control. Type 1 diabetes mellitus is treated with insulin, exercise, and a diabetic diet. Every person having diabetes must consult a Registered Dietitian to prepare for his diabetic diet plan. For general information on the diabetic diet. Now, some diabetes educators are saying diabetics shouldn't worry about a specific diet and simply concentrate on healthy eating.

You need to get enough sleep (usually about eight hours), follow your diabetic diet and get regular exercise. Some adult onset (non-insulin dependent or type 2) diabetics can be controlled with diet and exercise alone. Type 2 diabetics who are not controlled by diet and exercise alone may require one or more medications to achieve glycemic control. The most important component of any diet plan should be exercise, and in a diabetic diet plan this is doubly so. Even so, a good diet and regular exercise can minimize the amount of insulin these diabetics require. Talk to your doctor about cutting back on processed food carbohydrates and increasing your exercise activity while following diabetic diets.

Usually a low fat diet is recommended as part of a diabetic diet plan. The back page of the diabetic exchange booklet is where the dietitian writes the individual meal plan, including snacks. Creating a customized meal plan using dietary guidelines essential to the treatment of all diabetics. Bernstein advocates in his diet plan for diabetics. The best diabetic diet plan is usually a personally balanced plan, and most dietitians can help create one. But finding a good diabetic diet plan is often difficult for diabetics. Any diet plan which advises on large meals once a day, or concentrates calories in any way will not be suitable for diabetics. The diabetic diet plan Diabetics have two main problems when trying to diet. A diabetic diet or meal plan should be based on the specially designed diabetic food pyramid.

Prescription drug prices adipex without a prescription history of birth control diet for diabetics steroid use in sports foreign pharmacy zyban michael thurmond diet. You have a lot of questions that need answers, one of which is how well can you control your disease with a diabetic diet. Nutritional needs: Dietary control is an integral part of management for the diabetic. Control of dietary fat in relation to diabetic complications in children.

The dietary exchange and nutrients listed after each recipe is based upon the recipe shown here from the Diabetic Cooking magazine. This is one of the first detailed studies specifically examining the dietary composition of elderly, institutionalized diabetic patients. Nutritional status and dietary management of elderly diabetic patients. Effect of dietary corn oil on lipaemia in diabetic children.

Many diabetics would prefer to take a pill or insulin injection and not worry about diet. Along with taking Insulin, I have also had to go from a diabetic diet to a renal diet. However, increasing evidence shows that monounsaturated fats (found abundantly in almonds) is beneficial to insulin regulation in the diabetic diet. Some vegetarian diabetics have reported such improvements to their health on a meat-free diet that they have had to inject less insulin.

A diabetic diet limits how much carbohydrate (kar-bo-hi-drate), fat, and protein you eat. In general, vegetables contain only a few grams of carbohydrate (5 grams per serving) and can be used more liberally in the diabetic diet. A diabetic diet helps you schedule your carbohydrate intake so that your cells can get the glucose that they need. A diabetic on a 1600 calorie diet should get 50% of these calories from carbohydrate. High carbohydrate diets have been traditionally associated with a diabetic diet. A diabetic diet has to be low in fat (especially saturated fat), high in carbohydrate, and high in fibre.

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Prevent Health Complications - Reduce Weight!

2009-03-03T15:40:00.001-08:00

These days we are becoming increasingly aware that we may be overweight or even obese and that this increase in weight can lead to health complications. Excess weight places a strain on our backs, heart and other parts of our body and health professionals advise us to take a closer look at our diet and lifestyle in general and make the necessary changes to control our weight. Exercise is one major consideration in any weight loss program and we often do not fit enough into our increasingly hectic lifestyles.

Exercise can come in many forms and can focus on toning different parts of the body as well as helping us to lose weight caused by excess body fat. Gyms are a familiar sight in most towns and cities and the vast array of equipment available can help us to control our weight and improve our overall fitness levels. This may not be everyone's ideal method of losing weight as you may feel self-conscious when surrounded by all those perfect bodies, but we all have to start somewhere in our fight against excess body weight.

Gyms aren't the only option available to us if we want to exercise more to lose weight. Simply walking more each day can provide us with an increase in activity that soon leads to us losing weight and feeling better. As our fitness levels increase we can then move onto jogging or even running. Believe it or not, climbing the stairs is one of the easiest and most effective exercises that most of us can do very easily. Not only does this help to shed some of our extra weight but also provides a great workout for our heart and cardiovascular system. Once you have broken yourself into exercise gently and begun to see your weight falling you may want to take up a new sport or other physical activity to further your weight loss.

The hardest part about exercise is actually starting to do it. Once you have made the effort to fit more exercise into your daily routine, and stick to it, you will find it becomes easier and almost automatic. If you become really enthusiastic about toning your body and want to begin weight training you must seek the advice of a professional trainer to prevent serious injury.

John Rivers is owner of Fitness Tips Blog, Nutrition, health, diet and fitness tips, information, support, advice for all ages.

Does Hoodia Work? 3 Ways Hoodia Helps You Lose Weight

2009-02-27T15:40:00.001-08:00

You've seen the name everywhere. Hoodia Gordonii has taken the weight loss world by storm. Being touted as the next miracle weight loss pill, Hoodia is now being put into everything from multivitamins to Trimspa.

But does Hoodia work?

Considering the debacle that was Ephedra, consumers are right to be cautious about this new weight loss pill. Does Hoodia actually work to help you lose weight? Does it really do what the pill manufacturers say?

Well, Hoodia has been shown to have some specific effects in the area of weight loss. But there are certain things you should know before running out to buy the latest Hoodia pill from your drug store.

Here are 3 ways Hoodia helps you lose weight and 3 other things you should know to make Hoodia work best for you.

#1) Hoodia Makes You Physically Less Hungry

Pure Hoodia contains a molecule scientists called "P57" which, they believe, is responsible for making you feel full.

Normally, when you eat food, this food turns to glucose. When the glucose in your body rises it eventually signals to your brain (the hypothalamus) that you are full.

It is believed that "P57" molecule in Hoodia mimics the effect that glucose has on your brain, telling part of your brain (the Hypothalamus) that you feel full. Consequently, you are physically less hungry.

One of the first studies of Hoodia Gordonii was done in the UK on obese patients. Half of the volunteers were given Hoodia Gordonii, the other half were given a placebo.

The subjects were allowed to do nothing but read, watch television and eat. After 15 days it was found that those taking Hoodia had reduced their calorie intake by 1000 calories a day. Despite having unlimited access to food, the Hoodia subjects lost weight without feeling hungry.

#2) Hoodia Turns Off The Desire To Overeat

Some people have reported that not only does Hoodia make them feel full, but it also shuts off their desire to eat.

As many of us know, we can feel physically satisfied but still eat for a variety of reasons like emotions, timing and social influence. In fact emotional eating is actually responsible for more overeating than physical hunger.

Hoodia can help some people lose weight by quenching this desire to eat and breaking the emotional attachment to food.

By quenching this emotional attachment to food, Hoodia can help the individual to develop new emotional coping skills that don't include using food for comfort.

Note: Hoodia may not have this effect on everyone, however many people have reported having less of a desire to eat after taking Hoodia.

#3) By Turning Off Your Appetite Hoodia Allows You To Start Making Positive, Healthy Food Choices

How many times have we planned to eat healthy and then that old, ugly hunger rears it's ugly head and demands food NOW. We end up reaching for anything that's fast, easy and usually unhealthy.

By turning off your appetite, Hoodia allows you to start to make positive, healthy food choices. It takes the pain out of building new healthier eating choices. Since you probably don't want to be on Hoodia forever, this is a great way to lose weight and transition your eating to a healthier, lighter diet - with less pain and deprivation.

So those are 3 ways Hoodia Gordonii can help you lose weight. Does that mean that it will? Not necessarily. In order for Hoodia to help you achieve your weight loss goals there are several factors you must consider:

1) Make Sure You Buy From A Pure Source.

Unfortunately, there are scam artists who are taking advantage of the current demand for Hoodia by packaging fake Hoodia, fillers or even sawdust - and then selling it as Hoodia.

Look for genuine South African Hoodia from a seller who displays both a C.I.T.E.S certificate on their website along with Lab Assays and testing of their Hoodia pills. If you're not sure about which Hoodia brand to buy, do more research until you feel comfortable with your decision.

2) Make Sure You Are Taking Enough Hoodia.

The correct dosage varies depending on whom you talk to but most people start with about 400 mg three times a day before meals. They then increase the dosage up as high as 1000 mg three times daily until they find the dose that works for them.

Also, give it several days for the Hoodia to take effect before you increase your current dose.

3) Make Sure You Consult Your Doctor Before Taking Hoodia or Making Any Change To Your Diet or Exercise Routine.

This one is a given but surprisingly many people don't do it and it can result in you wasting your time and effort for no good reason. If, for example, you have a medical condition that makes it hard to lose weight, Hoodia may not work for you as you'd hoped. Talk to your doctor before trying anything new.

So those are 3 ways Hoodia works to help you lose weight and reach your goals. Hoodia does work. Make sure you follow these suggestions and you'll be well on your way to weight loss success with Hoodia.

Vienna Miller is a contributing writer to Hoodia Review - a website giving you the latest information and tips about Hoodia Gordonii.

For more Hoodia weight loss tips visit

Simple Ways to Get Slim, Drop Cellulite and Increase Breast Size Without Surgery

2009-02-27T03:40:00.001-08:00

Warning: Side effects may include increased energy, better mood, mental clarity, renewed health, and incredible self-esteem.

Whether you're struggling with that last stubborn 10-20 pounds or considering gastric bypass surgery, this article is for you! You can achieve your beautification goals naturally and easily with the simple advice found in this article.

The problems many of us have encountered in losing weight have not been because we didn't understand the basic physics of eating less and exercising more. It is because, no matter how hard we try, we have not been able to follow through. Cravings get in the way, and the sweets and fatty fried junk foods become irresistible.

It becomes a vicious cycle, we eat junk and then we find we don't have enough energy to exercise. By overeating and exercising less than we should, weight loss becomes very difficult. The first thing to do is address the issue of cravings - and not through some artificial appetite suppressant.

Cravings are often a sign. The body is telling you something is out of balance. Cravings can be a signal of the early stages of a vitamin deficiency. The body can compel you to overeat as it seeks vital nutrients it is lacking. It's ironic that we can eat so much and get so little nutrition while seeking to fill the gap by eating more lifeless, dead and nutrient depleted foods.

Ensuring that your body receives all the proper nutrition it needs makes weight loss far easier.

Getting the right nutrition with your diet can seem difficult. Your body needs a whole rainbow spectrum of nutrition, and you may only like red, orange and green.

Don't despair - there is a quick and easy way to make sure you are getting all the nutrition your body needs to help eliminate your cravings. You need to eat and drink powerful superfoods!

Superfoods contain vital nutrients and powerful antioxidants. The number one superfood, according to Dr. Nicholas Perricone, is the Acai berry, which is a little known fruit of the Amazon rainforest. Number two is garlic.

Another very powerful superfood is Yerba Maté, a South American plant beverage. Like Acai, it contains many vital nutrients and antioxidants in fact, it contains pretty much everything you'd see in a daily multivitamin, and then some more! Plant nutrients such as this are best ingested in their live natural state, making it a far superior source of nutrition than any vitamin supplement.

Yerba Maté has even been used as a food substitute due to its rich nutritional profile. It helps to eliminate feelings of hunger and gives the sensation of having had a full meal. Yerba Maté has been recognized for helping to lose weight.

Now that you are ingesting live superfoods such as Yerba Maté, garlic, and the potent Acai berry, you have addressed your body's full spectrum of nutritional needs virtually effortlessly with a few simple foods. Your cravings are decreased and you are eating less, and more healthily. You also find that you have a lot more energy. This in turn helps you to exercise!

Exercise regularly, incorporating stretching, aerobics, and strength training. There are many various combinations you can tailor for your needs, such as Yoga, Tae Bo, and Pilates, or a traditional gym routine. Having incorporated superfood nutrition you will be amazed at how much more you can do than before. You will also notice enhanced results of the exercise you do, as superfoods like Acai and Yerba Maté will also help to increase your metabolism.

Now your cellulite will start to disappear! The combination of eating less and exercising more plus the powerful antioxidants help your body to detoxify and flush out the junk stored in your fat cells. As you stop eating junk, lose weight and tone up, your cellulite will naturally disappear.

While you're losing weight, it's very possible you will lose some fat from your bust! You'll want to restore the fat - in the right places of course! Don't resort to plastic surgery, you can save a lot of money, risk and danger by doing this yourself the natural way.

You may have heard of natural breast augmentation. It actually does work, as long as you are using the right product. Apply a powerful nutraceutical breast augmentation cream for 1-6 months. You can develop your breasts to the size you want them. Most women experience an increase of 1-2 cup sizes with the right product such as this:

Follow these simple steps to meet your beautification goals and find yourself healthy, glowing, stronger and more beautiful than ever before, inside and out.

Carina MacInnes is a writer and health expert who recommends an easy way to bring the superfoods Acai and Yerba Maté into your diet with this potent liquid nutrient: - Visit now to learn more about the amazing benefits of superfood nutrition.

Indian Food as Part of a Weight Loss Regime

2009-02-26T03:40:00.001-08:00

Most people think that you can't possibly eat Indian food, if you're on a slimming diet. That's a fair statement if you always eat Indian food in restaurants, because many traditional Indian recipes involve either deep frying or the use of ghee (clarified butter). However, if you cook Indian food at home, it can easily form part of a weight loss regime, just the same as any other food. You just need to follow a few simple general rules.

- Avoid altogether recipes which involve deep frying.

- If you need to seal meat before braising it for a curry, use a good non-stick pan and a spray bottle with sunflower or vegetable oil in it. Lightly spray the surface of your pan with oil and that should be enough to prevent the meat from sticking while you brown it.

- If a recipe includes cream or coconut cream, substitute plain yoghurt and another flavouring to replace the coconut.

Tandoori recipes are great as part of a low calorie or low carbohydrate diet. Just marinade some fish (cubed or whole), chicken (cubed or in pieces) or prawns (shrimp) in a mixture of low fat plain yogurt, ground turmeric, ground coriander, ground cumin, crushed garlic, grated root ginger and a little chilli powder (or to taste) for at least an hour. If you're using cubed meat, thread onto skewers. Grill or barbeque with a medium heat until done. Serve with mixed salad and wedges of lemon to squeeze over. If your diet isn't too severe, you can also have a pitta bread, a baked potato or some boiled rice with this.

Curry dishes are fine too (preferably fish or chicken). If you use a recipe which has just a spice and water base or a tomato base, it certainly won't do your calorie intake any harm but be sure to keep the oil you use for frying onions, spices or whatever, to an absolute minimum.

For vegetarians or those trying to cut down on meat because of its relatively high calorie content, Indian cooking is ideal. There are so many recipes for vegetables and pulses which are really tasty that you won't even know you're on a diet!

Don't forget paneer (Indian cottage cheese), which can be cooked as per the tandoori idea above, or in a spicy sauce. If you can't get paneer, try substituting tofu.

Here's to a slim new year!

For all your Indian cooking needs why not visit my Asian Food Online Store.

Liz Canham is the webmistress of Asian Food and Cookery and Travellers' Tales.

Diet Not Working? The Yo-Yo Diet

2009-02-25T15:40:00.001-08:00

Does it seem like no matter how little food you eat, you never lose a pound? You start your day out with an apple, eat vegetables for lunch and have a tiny dinner. You have all week, but you're still the same weight. Why?

It seems to be the first thought in someone's mind when they decide they're going on a diet: I need to eat less. The general rule is eat less and exercise more. In all actuality, this will do nothing but cause you to gain weight and become fatigued. When you eat less your body believes that it is being starved and will hoard every fat cell it can. It will do whatever it takes to keep these fat cells and no matter how many calories you burn, you won't lose weight. Your metabolism slows greatly. Your body is in starvation mode.

People who start these diets will quickly end them when they realize they aren't losing weight and they will return to their normal eating habits. Because the body still thinks it is in starvation mode, it will hoard all the fat cells of which there is twice the amount being eaten now, and the dieter will actually gain more weight back than they lost. This will prompt another diet and the process begins again. This is called a "yo-yo diet."

The number way to avoid yo-yo dieting is to see a nutritionist. They will create a proper diet plan tailored to your needs and they have all the know-how to create a healthy and safe diet. Diets are not about eating less, they're about eating better. A nutritionist will help you balance what types of food you're eating, when you're eating and how much you're eating.

The second way to avoid yo-yo dieting is proper exercise. It is recommended to visit a personal trainer in order to receive a personalized workout plan to properly introduce you to regular exercise and muscle building. It is also imperative to ignore diet pills at all costs.

Eating better, not less, and exercising properly will lead you to weight loss!

Dana Goldberg is the owner of Lose

Weight Free Tips. Do not get engaged in a battle of willpower. Lose weight tips through self-knowledge, pleasant activities and self help.

Enhance Your Bodybuilding Diet with Quality High-Protein Groceries from your Local Supermarket

2009-02-25T03:40:00.001-08:00

If you are getting into bodybuilding then you need to understand that what you eat is just as important as what you exercise. In other words, you can lift as many weights as you like but if your muscles are not getting the fuel they need to grow, you are wasting a great deal of effort.

Protein is a MUST for Bodybuilders

With just a little research into an effective bodybuilding diet you will quickly discover that enough protein is one of the most (some say the most) important parts of your nutritional intake. In short, protein is the building block of lean muscle - a lack of protein means your muscle building potential is much lower.

There are many opinions on how much protein your body needs each day and it may depend on your bodybuilding goals. Typically you might consider taking around 1 gram of protein per pound of your body weight each day.

Check the Food's Nutritional Info Before You Buy

There are plenty of foods in your local supermarket or grocery store that contain a useful amount of protein. Today's regulations that ensure food product manufacturers display the nutritional content of their product make choosing your groceries a breeze. However, before you go running off to buy every high protein food you can find, a certain amount of care must be taken. Take the time to read through the food's nutritional information table in it's entirety. Not only are you looking out for the protein content but you also need to consider fat content, sugar content, carbohydrates, and so on. If your goal is to grow lean muscle then it is a good idea to avoid too many products high in simple sugars, calories and refined carbohydrates.

Recommended Quality Protein Sources for your Shopping List

You are now ready to hit the supermarket in search of quality protein food sources. These are foods that are high in protein but not so high in other elements that will hinder your lean muscle targets (i.e. calories, carbs, etc.):

MEATS: If you enjoy eating meat then generally 3 meats are recommended. The favorite is chicken (the number of recipes you can find on bodybuilding forums show this). Chicken is very lean and cheap. Similarly, turkey is actually slightly leaner then chicken and has higher protein percentage. Lean beef (look for cuts that are really red without any visible fat when possible) is another great source of protein.

SOY: The vegetarians amongst you will no doubt be aware of the protein content of soy products. Soy beans are pulses and so they contain a good helping of protein. Soy beans are used to make soy milk, tofu and many meat substitutes, many of which taste like the real thing. This not only helps vegetarian bodybuilders but also people with a lower tolerance for dairy products.

MILK/DAIRY: 'Skimmed' or 'fat free' milk is another good source of quality protein and can be consumed as it is (think homemade shakes or in your breakfast cereal) or in so many dairy foods. You need to take care with which dairy products you choose but there are always options for the dieting conscious. You can eat fat free versions of your favorite yogurts, ice-creams (watch out for other ingredients), cheeses (cottage cheese is always highly recommended), and more.

EGGS: Raw or cooked, eggs are another staple in a lot of bodybuilder's diets. Many people will avoid the yolk of the egg and simply eat the white, discarding some quality protein. It's true that the yolk of an egg contains most of the calories but it also contains most of the eggs nutrients as well as some protein. Why not save a few of the yolks!

FISH: Fish is an important source of protein and many bodybuilders live off cans of tuna. In fact I knew one guy who would mix in a can of tuna with his cereal every morning - not really my idea of a tasty start to the day.

AND MORE...: There are plenty of other foods high in protein such as nuts (good for vegetarians) pulses (another good source for vegetarians), cereals, and so on. Take some time to research other foods on the internet - there is a massive amount of information on websites, forums, newsletters, and so on.

Is Protein All I Need to Focus On?

No. Protein, although a vital part of a bodybuilder's diet, is not the be all and end all. Bodybuilders also need the energy to physically perform their exercises and this comes mostly from carbohydrates, or more specifically, complex carbohydrates. This is a subject of another article so watch this space. You need both a higher protein intake to 'rebuild' your muscle and the appropriate complex carbohydrates to fuel your workouts.

Build a high quality protein source shopping list then hit the grocery store!

Adam Zahler has built a site about using Whey Protein Powders in Bodybuilding. The site is a free resource with information on using commercial supplements in your own bodybuilding recipes. Visitors to the site can find recipe ideas and also share their own recipes for making protein shakes, protein bars and other more.

Hypnosis What it is and how it can help

2009-02-24T15:40:00.001-08:00

Hypnosis is a naturally occurring altered state of consciousness in which the critical faculty is bypassed (mind in the conscious mode) and acceptable selective thinking established. Wow! That's a lot of technical jargon! Simply put, this means that the reasoning, evaluating, judging part of your mind (conscious) is bypassed.

You've seen the stage acts where a hypnotist selects someone out of the audience and when he claps his hands, the unwilling participant struts around the stage clucking like a chicken. You've also seen movies where the hypnotist waves the pocket watch in front of the subject as he utters, "you're getting sleepy very sleepy." Hypnosis is a little more than what Hollywood or Vegas make it out to be. Below is a brief overview.

Hypnosis deals with the subconscious. Have you ever driven to work or home or anywhere, arrived at your destination but then had little to no recollection of the drive? Your reasoning, evaluating and judging parts of your mind were still intact and functioning (read: you safely arrived at your location) but your cognizant mind was bypassed. Hypnosis feels very much like that. It's the same or similar feeling as when you day dream. People under hypnosis know exactly what they are doing.

What about control? Many people fear being hypnotized because they falsely believe they will have to give up control of their mind. Not true. Think about when you are so engrossed in a movie and you find yourself in tears. If you've ever watched Saving Private Ryan, the Titanic or the Passion of the Christ you know this scenario all too well. During these movies you were so involved that you actually felt emotion. You were literally in a hypnotic trance. Most importantly, though, you still had the power to emerge from that state if desired.

Your mind may be guided by a movie, self-hypnosis tape, or hypnotist, but you still have the power to resist. If you fully believe and acknowledge that you have the power to resist any control of emotions, then hypnosis is nothing to fear. Unfortunately, some people seem to give up partial control of their minds because they misunderstand who has the power. Unquestionably, someone can be fooled into believing that he has given up control in some forms of stage hypnosis or other experiments. That is likely what often happens in stage shows. But just because someone was tricked doesn't mean it is right or that it will happen to you that way.

Think about it. All hypnosis is self-hypnosis. You are the one who allows your mind to be placed into deep states. You are the one who has the power to resist any unwanted suggestions. It's really a misnomer when people say they were hypnotized. What they really mean is that they allowed their mind to be hypnotized or they allowed a hypnotist to give suggestions that they chose to follow.

Just remember that no one controls your mind unless you first grant permission!

Visit the Self Hypnosis Forum today to find more information!

The Skinny On Diet Pills

2009-02-23T15:40:00.001-08:00

Have you been hanging around the buffet table for far too long? Do your jeans snap open when you do a simple twist? Have you ever had any part of your body jiggle when you walk? It is an incredibly frustrating situation when your body does not look (or even feel) the way you would like.

While some might opt to take the dangerous turn of acquiring eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia to hasten their weight loss progress, there is a safer and far more pleasant feeling method of achieving weight loss. Exercising at least 30 minutes a day may even be enough to do some significant positive change to your appearance and weight even in just a matter of one to two months. Couple this with the right kind of diet, but never deprive yourself food such that your body is legitimately hungry all the time.

Unfortunately there are people who would really like to lose weight but are either too lazy or impatient for them to make healthy lifestyle changes. It is important to note that while some doctors prescribe weight loss pills or diet pills to their patients, this doesn't mean that just about anyone could buy them from any drug store or pharmacy and just pop them in their mouths.

1. Think Before You Act

Before buying diet pills, you must first go to a registered physician or a registered dietician for them to be able to assess your weight and your body mass index (BMI) among other health related information that concerns yourself. These doctors would really have to know your family's medical history like if your family tends to lean towards the healthy side or are there any cases of cancer, high blood pressure or heart attacks in your family.

2. Risks Associated With Diet Pills

Hereditary illnesses are an incredibly important reference point for registered doctors and registered dieticians. They need to know this information so they can prescribe to you the correct pill. In addition, some people can have allergic reactions from weight loss pills or a multitude of side-effects.

A popular diet pill that has been around for quite some time called Xenical. This diet pill acts by draining the excess fat through constant bowel movements. This may be a little gross or inconvenient for some (especially those people who are always on the go) but with the proper diet and exercise this weight loss pill promises to help you shed off at least twenty pounds in just a matter of two months. People who have used this weight loss wonder have had nothing but praise for this drug. However, they testify that it was incredibly inconvenient, not to mention a foul smelling experience. Doctors are actually praising this drug for another reason, it also lowers the risk of high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

Other diet pills, however, are not as great for our bodies. The notorious Bangkok pill, which has been circulating all over the world, promises significant amounts of weight loss in just a mere 2 weeks. A lot of people fall prey to this unhealthy weight loss drug because it's a lot faster than the other weight loss drugs and doesn't require you to go the bathroom every now and then. There are three sets of pills that one must take everyday, these diet pills are labeled as breakfast, lunch and dinner (which contains several more packs of diet pills) and you have to take one or two from each of these packs and take these weight loss pills after every corresponding meal. The weight loss effect from these Bangkok pills are indeed drastic but they are banned and considered as illegal due to their extremely high chance of causing heart attack or stroke.

For more great diet pills related articles and resources check out

Whatever You Do, Don't Quit Your Job!

2009-02-23T03:40:00.000-08:00

The world today is based on work. You work for someone else. You work for yourself. You own your own business and you work at that. You own someone else's business, and they work for you. You're a mover and a shaker, and people everywhere work because of you and your influence.

Work work work work work!

Do you like to work? Do you enjoy commuting every single day, wasting hours and hours of your life behind the wheel? Do you love your boss? Do your co-workers inspire you to become a better person? Can you even IMAGINE your life without that job to hold you together?

Well, luckily, you don't have to! Utilize all of the following concepts as a reminder that no matter what, whatever happens, NEVER EVER QUIT YOUR JOB!

College - Go through 4 years of high school wanting to do nothing but get drunk, do drugs, and have sex. Be denied all of that by your entire society. Now pay $20,000 to $40,000 per year, move into a dormitory unsupervised where you can indulge in as much sex, drugs, and booze as you want to, and then be expected to focus on your career goals. This makes sense, right?

Job Hunting - This one is simple. You can't get a decent job because you don't have any experience. You can't get any experience because you don't have a decent job. Repeat.

Payroll - You make plenty of money, right? In fact, you wish you could give some BACK to your employer every week. After all, they have been generous enough to give you a job, the least you could do is add some of your own pitiful salary to their already fat bank accounts.

Management - Your boss could not possibly be any smarter or more in touch with you and your fellow coworkers. In fact, it's a miracle that your boss is only a manager, and doesn't actually own the whole company. He or she is, in fact, your very Guiding Light. Don't do anything to jeopardize that valuable resource!

Day Shift - Here's a question: Whose bright idea was it for almost every person in America to go to work at exactly the same time, to go to lunch at exactly the same time, and to leave at the end of the day at exactly the same time? Your life would NOT be easier if you were allowed to telecommute, set your own hours, or perhaps think of your own resourceful way to get your job done every day. Stick with day shift, and pass the road rage, please.

Co-workers - Now here is a lovely idea. Take a whole bunch of people who have absolutely nothing in common except their need for a very small paycheck, force them into situations that they hate, and ask them to get along, smile, and be team players. Don't forget to give a wink and a nod to Greaser Bob at the office who may actually not even own a shower, or to Perfume Pam who thinks that personal aroma products are to be doled out in serving sizes, not in spritzes.

Benefits - Thank the Maker that you can work between 50 and 80 hours each week for the privilege of paying hundreds of dollars of the money that you make working 50 to 80 hours each week for a benefits package that doesn't cover squat in case you end up in the hospital and have to stay for 50 to 80 hours each week. Was that a run-on sentence?

Pension Plan - Here is another gem of today's society. Work for the same company for the 40 years needed to retire in order to earn a pension plan that gives you a small weekly percentage of the money that wasn't enough for you to live off of in the first place.

In conclusion, it seems that we have clearly demonstrated that getting and holding on to a corporate position is DEFINITELY something that you want to to do.

However, if you think that any or all of the above rings very true and you just want OUT, then by all means, take the leap. The ridiculous scenario illustrated above will still be there later if you decide to go back to it!

Aaron Potts continues his one-man crusade to teach the world that the corporate mentality simply does not work! If you want to shed your corporate chains and make a true difference in the world - oh, and make some great money in the process - email Aaron at unitedplanet@

Speed Up Your Metabolism - Seven Days Brings Success

2009-02-22T03:40:00.001-08:00

I recently was prompted to publish an article dealing with health related issues involving our choice of diet, and particularly with regard to the very unhealthy diet which we tradiitionally have in my part of the world, namely Central Scotland in the UK.

I expained that I was motivated to publish that article after seeing a very graphic billboard showing two giant grey hands sqeezing the life out of a human heart. I complimented our Health Authorities for the very effective campaign which they have been running for some considerable time, which has been entirely aimed at raising public awareness of important lifestyle changes.

This has illustrated that we can very easily make simple changes to greatly improve our health, and prolong our lives.

To follow on that theme, I want to demonstrate in this article, that sensible excercises can also play a very important part in overall health, as well as helping to speed up weight loss, for thise who may be afficted with that problem. One secret to shedding unwanted pounds is not a mystery, simply put, you must speed up your metabolism by sensible exercise.

I have outlined some very effective steps below to achieve results in just seven days.

How many times have you gone to sleep at night, swearing you'll go to the gym in the morning, and then changing your mind just eight hours later. This is probably because when you get up, like most of us, you don't feel like exercising! It can be a big enough struggle just getting to work on time nowadays.

While this can happen to the best of us, it doesn't mean that you should drop the ball altogether when it comes to staying fit. What people need to realize is that staying active and eating properly, are critical for long-term health and wellness.

You may well have heard the saying that an "ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure".

The more you know about how your body responds to your lifestyle choices, the better you can customize a nutrition and exercise plan that is right for you. When you eat well, increase your level of physical activity and exercise at the proper intensity, you are informing your body that you want to "burn a substantial amount of fuel".

This translates to burning fat more efficiently for energy. In other words, proper eating habits plus exercise equals fast metabolism, which in turn, gives you more energy throughout the day and allows you to do more physical work with less effort.

The true purpose of exercise is to send a repetitive message to the body asking for improvement in metabolism, strength, aerobic capacity and overall fitness and health. Each time you exercise, your body responds by upgrading its capabilities to burn fat throughout the day and night. Exercise doesn't have to be intense to work for you, but it does need to be consistent.

I recommend engaging in regular cardiovascular exercise four times per week, for 20 to 30 minutes per session. You can actually achieve this by simply taking a brisk thirty minute walk. You should also undertake to do some resistance training four times per week for 20 to 25 minutes per session. This balanced approach provides a two fold benefit, incorporating aerobic exercise to burn fat and deliver more oxygen, and resistance training to increase lean body mass and burn up more calories.

Here is an effective sample exercise program.

Warm Up - Seven to eight minutes of light aerobic activity intended to increase blood flow and lubricate and warm-up your tendons and joints.

Resistance Training - Train all major muscle groups. One to two sets of each exercise, then rest 45 seconds between sets.

Aerobic Exercise - Pick two favorite activities, they could be jogging, rowing, biking or cross-country skiing, whatever fits in with your lifestyle. Perform 12 to 15 minutes of the first activity, and continue with 10 minutes of the second activity. Cool down during the last five minutes.

Stretching - Wrap up your exercise session by stretching, breathing deeply, relaxing and meditating.

When starting an exercise program, it is important to have realistic expectations. Depending on your initial fitness level, you should expect the following changes early on.

From one to eight weeks - You will feel much better and have more energy.

From two to six months - Lose inches while becoming leaner. Your clothes will begin to fit more loosely, and you will be gaining muscle and losing fat.

After six months - Start losing weight quite rapidly.

Once you make the commitment to exercise several times a week, don't stop there. You should also change your diet and eating habits. Counting calories or calculating grams and percentages for certain nutrients is impractical. Instead, I suggest these easy-to-follow guidelines:

1. Eat several small meals (optimally four) and a couple of small snacks throughout the day.

2. Make sure every meal is balanced, and incorporate palm sized proteins like lean meats, fish, egg whites and dairy products.

3. Fist-sized portions of complex carbohydrates like whole-wheat bread and pasta, wild rice, multigrain cereal and potatoes, and fist-sized portions of vegetable and fruits.

4. Limit your fat intake to only what's necessary for adequate flavor.

5. Drink at least eight 8-oz. glasses of water throughout the day.

6. I also recommend that you take a multi-vitamin each day to ensure you are getting all the vitamins and minerals your body needs.

I do know that sometimes life just gets "in the way", but looking after yourself is just so so important. Take time out for it, you will feel so much the better!

Marie Gordon is Author and Publisher of "Your Fastest Way To Permanent Weight Loss" the complete solution to all your weight loss problems. You can find out more by visiting

Zone Diet A New Weight Loss System

2009-02-21T03:40:00.001-08:00

The Zone Diet works on the principle that 100,000 years ago, we were meat eaters, and our metabolism is designed to handle the demands of a meat-based diet.

Madonna, Demi Moore, and Jennifer Aniston swear by the results of the Zone Diet, which was created by Barry Sears, PhD. The Zone Diet contains 40% carbohydrate, 30% protein, and 30% fat and is known as the 40-30-30 plan.

As the food industry evolved, more carbohydrates have been introduced into our daily diet, thus causing an imbalance in our metabolism to burn fat. The reason for our extra weight can also be attributed to the many grains and starches in our diet (pasta, rice, breads, and potatoes). The Zone Diet's approach calls for a return to the diets of our ancestors where meat, fruits, and vegetables are the main dietary foods.

The Zone Diet suggests that you need the right ratio of carbohydrates to proteins and fats in order to control the insulin in the bloodstream. Too much of the hormone (insulin) can increase fat storage and inflammation in the body (conditions that are associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease). Sears asserts that by using the Zone Diet, you are actually optimizing the body's metabolic function. Through the regulation of blood sugar, you allow your body to burn excess body fat.

Although you are not prohibited from any particular food group, it is best to avoid food with high fat and carbohydrates such as grains, starches, and pastas. The ideal sources of carbs are fruits and vegetables and for monounsaturated fats olive oil, almonds, and avocados are recommended. The Zone Diet claims to use food as a drug for overall good health, weight loss and prevention or management of heart disease and diabetes.

Sears says that you can test to see whether you are 'hormonally' correct by eating following the Zone diet and see how you feel four hours later. To simplify the Zone Diet, fill one-third of a plate with low-fat protein, and then two-thirds with fruits and vegetables.

Celebrities and some health experts say that the Zone's recommendations do not stray far from the USDA's (United States Dietary Association) dietary guidelines and therefore are advocates of the Zone Diet. Others argue that the Zone Diet has flawed ratios but Sears argues that the Zone diet is a low-glycemic-load diet that has adequate protein. .

A critic of the Zone diet such as the AHA (American Heart Association) classifies the Zone Diet as high protein and does not recommend the Zone Diet for weight loss. They contend that the Zone Diet has not been proven effective in the long term for weight loss. The AHA issued an official recommendation warning against diets like the Zone Diet. They believe that the Zone Diet is hazardous as it restricts the intake of essential vitamins and minerals present in certain foods. The AHA also contends that the protein ratio in the Zone diet is too high even if the minimal fat ratio is good. Robert H. Ecker M.D of the A.H.A. finds the Zone Diet's theory on insulin flawed and argues that there is no scientific proof that the hormone insulin plays a big role in weight regulation.

For more information about the Zone diet and weight loss, visit Zone Diet and Weight Loss

Writing For Your Weight Loss Success

2009-02-18T15:39:00.001-08:00

Motivation is one of the key variables for the equation that yields long term weight loss success. The question is how do you maintain the motivation to attain the ultimate goal? Regardless if your weight loss goal is 20 pounds or 100 pounds you must change your thinking to change your behavior and writing makes that happen.

Weight loss really does begin in your head. Every successful athlete understands that his thinking process is either working for him or against him. The same holds true with weight loss. If your internal dialogue is negative, your results will eventually manifest the same result! You can't degrade yourself to a healthy new you! You must change your thinking to work for you, to build your resolve, and to maintain that all important motivational factor.

Writing is an exercise that will help your mind change its thinking! It allows you to process the negative emotions and helps to instill the positive changes. Start with these simple exercises:

1. The Negative Emotions Daily Dump: Many success coaches advocate writing out your negative thinking on a daily basis. Simply spend approximately 15 minutes writing out all the frustrations, bad feelings, and discouragement. This helps you to process these bad feelings out of your system so that you can make room for positive affirmations. Do not reread the entries and do not keep them. Write it out, and then throw it out. We call this the Negative Emotions Daily Dump.

2. Affirm Your Goals: Prepare a list of affirmations that will help your subconscious work with your conscious brain to make those all important behavioral changes. Then write your affirmations at least twice a day. Write them once after you have written your Negative Emotions Daily Dump. Don't do the Negative Dump without filling it with the positive affirmations. You should always end with this. Write the second set of affirmations either right before you go to bed or first thing in the morning. Read your affirmations several times a day.

3. Understand your Motivations: In order to stay motivated you must understand your real reasons for losing weight. In other words, understand why YOU want to lose weight. Not why your spouse or friends want you to lose weight but why losing the weight is important to you. Do you really want more energy? Do you just love skinny clothes? Do you want to participate in an activity that would be easier if you were slim and healthy? Write these motivations out in detail so that you can solidify them in your head and they can continue to motivate you through the entire weight loss journey.

4. Accountability: Keep a food diary. Keeping a food diary has been proven time and time again to increase your weight loss success by as much as 50%! A food log is your accountability factor. It keeps you honest with yourself.

5. Visualize: Visualize yourself enjoying the portions of your weight loss program that you are currently struggling to do. For instance if you hate the cardio portion of your day, start seeing yourself loving it. See it as ""your time". It can be your time to read while you're on the stationary bike. Or your time to watch all those movies you feel guilty watching any other time. Once you begin to visualize positive feelings about a certain activity the easier that activity will become.

6. The Pat-On-The-Back: Keep a written log of your weight loss success. By writing down your weight loss on a weekly basis you are validating your efforts and giving yourself a pat-on-the-back. This will go a long way to keeping you on track.

Keep in mind that if you are utilizing the assistance of a personal fitness trainer or weight loss professional that they may use techniques to help you face your self-defeating habits. This might feel harsh and negative, however it isn't. Honesty is necessary to motivate change and this is different than running yourself down! Sometimes we have to hear the hard words to make the hard changes. Keep in mind that these professionals are seeking your ultimate success. Your success is their success. Let's face it, the weight gain started with you and to change that behavior you may have to deal with some uncomfortable feelings. A good trainer will help you feel cared about while still insisting that you deal with your bad habits. It's a good thing to be pushed past your comfort zone to becoming a better you!

Writing is the new "exercise" that can make all the rest of your weight loss efforts including good nutrition, exercise, and resistance training work for you because you will be working with these principles instead of against them. You will start seeing these weight loss techniques as a positive and permanent part of your life, instead of a temporary device. That will result in faster results that last forever!

Dr. Fit, Sidney E. Reeves, CFT is a nationally recognized personal fitness trainer. Dr. Fit has been helping overweight America understand and change their self-defeating habits while learning the important elements of good nutrition, exercise and positive change. He has launched a website to compliment his daily fitness show at where members receive all the tools to lose weight permanently. Join Dr. Fit as your fitness trainer today at http://WritingForWeightL

Why exercise is a must for combating obesity

2009-02-17T23:39:00.001-08:00

Exercise is a must for combating obesity. According to research, increasing physical activity helps in reducing gastrointestinal symptoms in sufferers of obesity. The study, published in the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, found that a high body mass index (BMI) and physical inactivity both contribute to symptoms of Gastrointestinal (GI) problems such as stomach pain, diarrhea, constipation and irritable bowel syndrome in people suffering from obesity.

Another study has found that a high BMI, a common measure of obesity, is associated with worsened symptoms of irritable bowel, diarrhea and abdominal pain. Therefore any form of exercise is beneficial for overweight people as it has been observed that those who incorporate some form of physical activity into their routine life suffer less from these symptoms as compared to those who are inactive.

Weight loss is a must for the potential reduction of GI symptoms. It could mean the difference between leading a normal life or leading one filled with constant discomfort. Obesity, which is defined as a BMI of 30 or higher, has become a major health problem in the United States with an estimated one-third of adult Americans considered obese. Weight loss is the best method to curb this dreaded ailment of obesity.

Weight loss can be attained by a variety of means such as diet pills, weight loss surgery, dieting and exercise. Amongst these methods, diet pills are the most effective means of weight loss as they make weight loss a reality without requiring any changes in our lifestyle. So if you dream of having a perfect figure then you can go ahead with these appetite suppressant pills such as phentermine after consulting your doctor to attain maximum benefits from it. If you desire to remain fit and fine for a longer duration then compliment your life with a proper diet and some form of physical exercise. It will change your life for the better.

Peter is an associated editor to the website It is committed to provide visitors with complete information on weight loss, diet pills, and online prescription drugs like Phentermine, Didrex.

Bariatric Surgery Things You Should Be Aware Of

2009-02-17T15:39:00.001-08:00

Bariatric Surgery Things You Should Be Aware Of

When all other measures fail to control morbid obesity, weight loss surgery is a source of hope to the overweight. American doctors perform weight loss surgery over 140,000 times a year.

The oldest form of weight loss surgery is the most familiar, stomach stapling. In this 30-year-old procedure, most of the stomach is sliced and then stapled shut.

After the procedure, only a small pouch remains. Shrinking the stomach so it can only hold half a cup of food makes it easier to feel full.

In fact, most people who have weight loss surgery feel full after eating the amount of food that you could put on a coffee saucer. It becomes impossible to eat more than two quarter-cup servings (about 50 grams altogether) of anything at a single meal. Weight loss follows calorie restriction.

The newer and now more common form of weight loss surgery, the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, also makes the stomach surgically smaller. In this procedure, however, the stomach is not dissected and stapled shut.

In this newer form of weight loss surgery, the stomach is cut and sutured, or sewn, and the intestines are moved so that the end of the stomach is connected farther down the intestine.

This procedure leaves a smaller stomach that fills more quickly. It also leaves a shorter length of intestine to absorb fats (and other nutrients) from the smaller amounts of food that are eaten.

With this form of weight loss surgery, you don't just eat less. Your intestines absorb less of the food you do eat. Roux-en-Y bariatric surgery produces quicker and more significant weight loss than just stapling or banding the stomach.

There's also a third approach to weight loss surgery, the lap band.

The benefit of the lap band is that the weight loss surgery to install it can be laparoscopic, that is, done through an incision as little as one inch (25 mm) wide.

Lap band surgery can even be an outpatient procedure, with the patient going home the same day. After lap band surgery, many patients go back to work in three to four days and resume all normal activities (except eating) within a week. The other gastric bypass procedures require a minimum of four days in the hospital and six to eight weeks before resuming an active lifestyle.

Another advantage of lap band surgery is a much lower risk of infection. Lap band surgery goes around the stomach, not into the stomach. The bacteria in the stomach do not leak into other parts of the body, and the risk of infection is greatly reduced.

Lap band surgery is much less painful than the other procedures. And since pain in the muscles is so much less, patients are very unlikely to develop pneumonia or other breathing problems.

The disadvantage of lap band bariatric surgery is that not everyone can have it. The FDA at one time required that recipients of lap band bariatric procedures be at least 18 and no more than 50 years of age. It's also utterly essential not to be allergic to the material used to make the band.

And if you overeat after you have a lap band in place, the effect is a little like pulling a napkin through a napkin ring. Too much food can stretch the band so that it damages the stomach. Lap band surgery is easier, but requires more discipline.

There is no form of weight loss surgery that is a complete cure for obesity all by itself. Lifetime attention to diet and exercise are still necessary. But successful weight loss surgery can give you the boost you need to regain control of your life and become truly, lastingly, healthily thin.

The Promise and Potential of "Fat Surgery" When Diets Fail

When all other measures fail to control morbid obesity, weight loss surgery or "fat surgery" is a source of hope to the overweight. American doctors perform surgical procedures to make weight loss easier well over 100,000 times a year.

The oldest form of fat surgery is the most familiar, stomach stapling. In this well-established procedure, most of the stomach is sliced and then stapled shut.

After this form of fat surgery, only a small pouch of the stomach remains connected to the esophagus. The newly resized stomach can only hold half a cup of food.

Having a smaller stomach makes it easier to feel full. In fact, most people who have fat surgery feel full after eating the amount of food that you could put on a coffee saucer. It becomes impossible to eat more than two quarter-cup servings (about 50 grams altogether) of anything at a single meal. Weight loss naturally follows.

Stomach stapling is the oldest form of fat surgery, and you can probably find a physician in your area who has a lot of experience doing it. In fact, you should only consider physicians and hospitals who have performed at least 100 operations. You don't want your doctor's training to be performed on you.

Other procedures are little harder to arrange.

The newer form of stomach reduction, the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, also makes the stomach surgically smaller. In this procedure, however, the stomach is not dissected and stapled shut.

Instead, after the stomach's size is reduced, it is reattached to the small intestine at a lower point.

Roux-en-Y fat surgery leaves a smaller stomach that fills more quickly. It also leaves a shorter length of intestine to absorb fats (and other nutrients) from the smaller amounts of food that are eaten.

With this form of fat surgery, you don't just eat less. Your intestines absorb less of the food you do eat. Roux-en-Y bariatric surgery produces quicker and more significant weight loss than just stapling or banding the stomach.

There's also a third approach to fat surgery, the lap band.

The benefit of the lap band is that the weight loss surgery to install it can be laparoscopic. The entire fat surgery can be done through an incision as little as one inch (25 mm) wide.

Lap band surgery can even be an outpatient procedure, so you can go home the same day. After lap band surgery, many patients go back to work in three to four days and resume all normal activities (except eating) within a week. The other forms of fat surgery require a minimum of four days in the hospital and six to eight weeks before resuming an active lifestyle.

You may be asking, "Why just shrink the stomach? Wouldn't it be simpler just to surgically remove all the fat?"

This procedure, called lipectomy, actually exists. Liposuction has the same effect.

The problem with both lipectomy and liposuction is that high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high blood sugars don't go down just because fat is removed from the body. Only the process of dieting seems to have this effect.

There is no form of fat surgery that is a complete cure for obesity all by itself. Lifetime attention to diet and exercise are still necessary. But successful weight loss surgery can give you the boost you need to regain control of your life and become truly, lastingly, healthily thin.

Author is marketer for sites such as :

Bariatric Surgery

Bariatric

Some Food For Thought-Is Your Diet Killing You!

2009-02-16T23:39:00.001-08:00

I must admit that I don't usually write articles with such a chilling headline, so I feel that I should give a little background on a relatively innocent experience which prompted me to write this piece.

I would also say quite candidly that there is nothing really new in the main context of it, in fact most probably, everyone is concious of these facts in some way or another.

What I really do wonder though, is just exactly how many of us are actually making any real attempt to seriously look after ourselves, healthwise that is!

I live in Central Scotland in the UK, and according to statistics, we have one of the highest mortality rates from such things as coronary heart disease, strokes, obesity, etc, etc, and I often wonder why this should be the case!

Of course many things are contributory factors to this, and I am no medical expert, but there is one very important factor involved which I have studied extensively, and that is diet!

In Scotland we are renowned for our love of deep-fried foods such as fish and chips, pies, takeaway meals, our alcohol consumption, and so on. Every region of the Western world has its favourite "goodies" I suspect, so I am sure that you get the picture.

I must hand it to our Health Authorities however, because for some considerable time now there has been an extensive and on-going campaign of Health Education, including some excellent TV and Radio ads, outdoor billboards, and similar such things.

It was one of the latter that really caught my eye recently, so much so, that I can't quite get the image out of my mind. It is a large billboard, which contains a graphic picture of a human heart with two giant grey hands sueezing the life out of it. Very very effective,(at least I thought so),my congratulations go to the person who devised it!

This was the spur that prompted this article, and as I said at the beginning, there is nothing really new in it, but I think it bears repeating nonetheless. Life is a precious gift, and although we are not immortal, there are many many things that we can do to prolong it, and preserve our health.

As far as diet is concerned therefore, here are some of the important ones again:-

Cut down on the fat,and cut down on the carbs.

You've heard the popular advice on weight loss diets. Cut thefat! Cut the carbs! Cut the calories! Eat a balanced diet! But how can you cut though all of the confusion, and eat a diet that is balanced and healthy. Not always easy is it! Here is some advice from nutritional science,which might help.

Cut down on the junk fats.

Most people do not need an ultra low fat diet, but most of us could improve our diet by cutting out the junk fats. These are processed fats, hydrogenated fats, polyunsaturated oils that have been heated, and fats that are combined with junk carbohydrates. Processed fats are those fats most likely to put on flab and clog your arteries. We do all know this don't we!

Cut down on the junk carbohydrates

The majority of people do not need an ultra low carb diet, but unfortunately, many people who do go on a low fat diet continue to eat highly processed foods. They switch from processed high-fat foods to processed low-fat foods, and then when the food manufacturers create low fat foods, they tend to replace the fat with junk carbs.

These can actually pile on the pounds, because basically junk carbs are low-fiber carbs, like sugar, fructose (and all the other *oses), flour, cornstarch, fruit juice, and such. Yes, fruit juice is a junk carb too you know!

After all, how much fiber is there in fruit juice. Virtually none, simply because it's yet another junk carb. You would be better to eat the whole fruit instead, with its fiber intact.

Cut down on the junk calories.

Most people do not need an ultra low calorie diet, but just think what your diet could be like if you dropped the processed fats and the low-fiber carbs. You would then be eating mainly natural proteins, with lots of vegetables plus whole fruits, and the odds would be that you would be eating far fewer calories as well. That's the kind of calorie cutting most of us should be doing!

Make every attempt to eat a balanced natural foods diet.

By natural foods, we mean those kinds of foods that would have been eaten by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. They would have had lots of whole vegetable foods giving them vitamins and fiber for instance, and also moderate to small portions of meats, fish, seafood, and other animal and protein foods. These they would have grilled, stewed or baked, not deep fried! They would also have eaten small portions of fresh whole fruit in season, which is the diet on which the human race evolved!

So the next time you're about to order a meal with fries and a sugary soda, stop and think about how it could be improved. Replace the fries with a salad for example, and the soda with a mineral water say. It would probably surprise you, how much significant progress you have already made towards a healthier balanced meal.

Just simple sensible changes can work wonders!

When you are at home, look for recipes that use whole fresh foods, with a minimum of processing. Try and make sure that your meals include natural unprocessed foods, with lots of healthy vegetables, both cooked, and raw when in salads. Avoid processed fats and processed low-fiber foods.

Here is a little simple menu that I often use and enjoy.

Grilled fish with steamed green beans and peppers. Large mixed salad, dressed with small amounts of olive oil and,vinegar or lemon juice. Then a fresh fruit platter to finish off! A healthy balanced diet can actually be that simple you know!

Life is there to be enjoyed, but moderation in all things is the watchword in my opinion. I do hope this article has given you some food for thought however!

Marie Gordon is Author and Publisher of "Your Fastest Way To Permanent Weight Loss" the complete solution to all your weight loss problems. You can find out more by visiting

The Fear of Sugars -- A Worthy Phobia

2009-02-16T15:39:00.001-08:00

It's vital that the bariatric patient keep an eye on sugar grams in food!

About 97% of all bariatric surgery patients learn to become very familiar with what is known as the "dumping syndrome", which is a way the body tells you that you ate something that you really shouldn't have eaten. "Dumping" shows up in many forms from sudden fatigue, to nausea, to vomiting, and even diarrhea. When the "dumping" comes, take note of what you most recently ate, and do your best to avoid it again.

Many things can cause dumping. Foods containing too much grease, fats, carbs, and sugars CAN make you "dump." But the biggest culprit in this short list (yet so many foods have these elements in them), is SUGAR and SUGAR ALCOHOLS.

What exactly are "Sugar Alcohols"?

Basically, Sugar Alcohols are artificial sweeteners or "anything that serves as a sweetener in food but cannot be labeled as a sugar since it isn't pure sugar."

Sugar Alcohols may not add calories (as real sugar does) to your body, BUT they DO ACT like sugar in the sense they will make the bariatric patient DUMP as if they partook of real sugar. On average, the bariatric patient cannot tolerate more than 12 grams of sugar PER MEAL. Beyond 12 grams of sugar will almost always cause some type of dumping, be it mild or severe. This is why it is essential to add up both the sugar AND the sugar alcohols that are being consumed per meal.

Let's say the food label says the product has 2 grams of sugar and 14 grams of sugar alcohols. Does that mean it's safe? It is NOT safe because when the sugar alcohols act just like sugars, in essence, you are consuming 16 grams of "sugar-action" because you have to ADD the two together since they react in the body the same way. Some "diet" foods claim to be low in sugar TRUE but then they contain 22 grams of sugar alcohols. This is okay for non-bariatric patients, but a sure "dumping in the making" for us!

What exactly is "Sugar"?

Chemically, sugars are carbohydrates. As the body digests food, carbohydrates (except fiber) break down into sugars. We can find sugars in a variety of forms. Sugars just aren't used to sweeten food: they are also used as natural preservatives and thickeners. Sugars are added to foods during processing and preparation. The body cannot tell the difference between "natural" sugars and artificial sugars because they are the same in regards to chemical breakdowns.

"Incognito" Sugars

Watch out for these sugars in disguise! Some are obvious while others are tricky:

Brown sugar

Corn sweetener

Corn syrup

Fructose

Fruit juice concentrate

Glucose (dextrose)

High-fructose corn syrup

Honey

Invert sugar

Lactose

Maltose

Molasses

Raw sugar

Table sugar (Sucrose)

Syrup

If you find these things listed on food labels, remember this: the product is likely to be high in sugars if one of the above-mentioned shows first or second in the ingredients list. If several of these are listed, then the product most-definitively will be too high in "sugars" for the bariatric patient and will cause dumping.

Also, fruits contain "natural sugars". And fruits, unlike packaged foods, don't have convenient wrappers on them revealing any sugar values within them. This is where we have to "know" how much sugars are in the fruits we eat. Pineapple is one of the highest natural-sugar fruits out there, and grapes are pretty high too. Fruits are good for our system, if taken in moderation. But too much of the "natural" sugars can also cause an ill effect.

If you haven't developed the FEAR OF SUGARS by now, then you might be doing yourself an injustice. It is important o know how sugars effect you personally so you can learn how to eat anywhere with confidence. When you begin to understand how sugars affect your system, you can then attend any social event and know what is okay to eat and how much of that "party" food you can safely eat without causing an embarrassing and inconvenient dumping episode. When you're dumping, attention is naturally drawn to you because others genuinely care and will inquire about why you're not feeling well. If you don't want this kind of attention, then get your Sugar Intake Safety Zone down to a personal science for you so you can always relax and enjoy your food.

It Starts with Bed-Dancing

2009-02-16T07:39:00.001-08:00

This "Bed-Dancing" concept often gets a few chuckles but I want you to stay with me on this one as I explain exactly what it is (and isn't) and how you can incorporate this in your exercise routine today.

I'll begin by expressing how essential Bed-Dancing was in my life right after I had the RNY gastric bypass bariatric weight-loss surgery: VERY ESSENTIAL. That's shooting straight from the hip!

Definition of Bed-Dancing: "the exercise activity that incorporates established exercise movements while positioned on your back in the bed to minimize the stress and strains on joints and muscles when a person is morbidly obese." This is the best brief definition I could come up with since I am nowhere near a Webster genius.

Right after my surgery, I knew that it was important to MOVE MY BODY and begin to exercise. The biggest benefit I saw at the time was that it increased my blood circulation that was necessary to help my surgical wounds to heal. This was my main motivation. And when I weighed 317 pounds, there was no way I was "eager" to incorporate an exercise routine because my body was so large, and my arthritis so painful, I just could not bear putting such stress on my joints and muscles at that heavy weight.

I had a master plan to put on my favorite "high-spirited" CD (Latin music makes me feel like dancing), put on my sweats, and I went into my bedroom as I announced to the household, "Don't bother me for one hour.no matter what," then shut the door. As I began to "dance" to the tunes, OH MY GOLLY I couldn't last more than five minutes! My incision hurt, my joints hurt, and I collapsed on my bed, falling deeper in disappointment that I could not see myself achieving an exercise routine.

But soon, as the Latin CD kept spinning, I found myself "moving" to the music while I was in bed WOW I then thought, "Hey, I can DANCE on my BACK!" So with legs and arms in the air flailing like a floppy fish I discovered how someone who weighed 317 pounds COULD exercise but not the traditional way but by Bed-Dancing! Thus, the birth of my newly-found method launched me into a very SUCCESSFUL exercise routine that I could do often without putting stress on my joints!

But be cautious when you talk about Bed-Dancing to others they automatically begin to chuckle at what you call the standard "bed activity" now. (blushing yet?)

What you need for Bed-Dancing:

A bedroom with a bed and a bedroom door that you can shut so you can bed-dance in private. Be sure to announce to the household that this is YOUR TIME and they are capable of getting along without you for at least the length of a CD. If not, they are far too dependant on you!

A CD that excites you into "dancing". A CD is better over a cassette tape or radio because you can "program" your music selection to skip, repeat, or play at random your tunes according to what you want to dance to.

An exercise outfit such as sweats, t-shirt and shorts, or even your slip. Since you'll be behind closed doors, you can wear whatever you want. However, when you actually have an "outfit" set aside for exercise, the mind gets in gear and stays more focused on what you are telling it to do and that's EXERCISE.

An attitude to do Bed-Dancing. This is vital too. Keep you movements simple but aggressive, meaning that you aren't making complicated moves with your arms and legs, but rather you are making the simple moves in a forceful and deliberate way much as a tap dancer or ballet dancer uses simple moves but with controlled and deliberate body disciplines.

So as you can see, the equipment you need for Bed-Dancing is minimal and low cost since you already have most of what you need as these things are probably already around the house. If you lack in a dancing CD, go get one most cities have "used" CD shops. And as for your exercise outfit, you can find sweats at your local thrift store. And if you like Bed-Dancing in your "unmentionables", that's okay too. Whatever works for you!

Bed-Dancing helped me begin my "serious" exercise routine which eventually morphed into exercising on my feet and even to full-fledged real dancing again as the pounds fell off! I still Bed-Dance occasionally to get me "started", then I'm up on my feet and going to town!

Weight loss is synonymous to good health

2009-02-15T23:39:00.001-08:00

Weight loss is synonymous to good health. Our health is a big asset which requires proper care and nurturing. A healthy diet pattern with a mix of regular exercise leads to a fit and trim body. Possessing a good physique gives us inner and outer confidence whereas an obese physique makes us dull and pessimistic. Apart from this, obesity or overweight breeds other diseases and makes our existence uncomfortable and unpleasant. Apart from causing physical torture, it often results in emotional suffering which is one of the most painful aspects of this ailment.

Most of us have this notion that obesity is just a cosmetic problem but in reality, it's a health hazard. A person with excessive weight is twice as likely to die prematurely as compared to an average-weight person. This is because obesity has been linked to several serious medical conditions such as diabetes and strokes. A weight increase of 11-18 pounds doubles the risk of developing type 2 diabetes in comparison to individuals with normal weight.

Diabetes and overweight is interrelated and due to this factor a term diabesity has been coined to signify the close association between obesity and diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is one of most prominent ailment found in obese people. This form of diabetes reduces body's ability to control blood sugar. The most alarming factor about this disease is that it is a major cause of early death, heart disease, stroke, and blindness. Overweight people are twice as likely to develop type 2 diabetes compared to normal weight people.

Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes. In type 2 diabetes, either the body does not produce enough insulin or the cells ignore the insulin. Insulin is necessary for the body to use sugar. Sugar is the basic fuel for the cells in the body, and insulin takes the sugar from the blood into the cells. The chances of its occurrence can be reduced by losing weight and exercising more.

If you have type 2 diabetes, losing weight and becoming more physically active can help control your blood sugar levels. Increasing your physical activity may also allow you to reduce the amount of diabetes medication intake. Losing a small amount of weight can also reduce your chances of developing heart disease or a stroke and make your body ailment free. One of the easiest methods of weight loss is diet pills. Diet pills such as phentermine have helped millions of people in overcoming obesity so make it a part of your life for the benefit of your health.

Rianpeter is a contributing author to the P for distinct article sites/journals.

Visit the website for more information on Phentermine Diet Pills.

Smoking Cancer may cause most cancer in black males U.S. than other ethnic groups

2009-02-15T15:39:00.001-08:00

For African American males, smoking may be a serious problems because the last researches have estimated that the cancer death rate for black men it is about 40 per cent more higher than for white men and remain very higher than others ethnic groups in the United States.

For black men, cancer according with the new cancer's studies clarifies that is tobacco smoke the first cause of this disease; death cancer for African American males is about 35 per cent higher in males than females today.

National Cancer Institute reported that four of ten cancer death in black men in United States could have been related to this disease; in 2000 the rates have been dropping but remain higher than the other ethnic groups especially white groups.

Some areas of United States have strongest tobacco-control programs, like higher cigarettes taxes, antismoking education programs, and penalties for selling tobacco to minors, but the government and others no-government organization is still working in this illness.

There are a lot of studies and researches, but always it is important to mention that today the people know and have more information than 10 years ago for instance; and the government is constantly educating the new generations in tobacco cancer.

By the way, Reiki is an alternative therapy treatment that might be used in cancer and other diseases with interesting results, this one works with energies and could be very useful if Reiki is applied for Reiki Masters or Practitioners, research in your locality for further information.

Article written by Hector Milla; editor of a website about alternatives therapies like Reiki and others, they have recently published a free online guide with weight loss tips, visit at , Thanks for reproduce this article in you web site or ezine keeping a live link.

Ultrametabolism - The Simple Plan For Automatic Weight Loss

2009-02-15T07:39:00.001-08:00

What's the greatest threat facing our civilization? (No, it's not the Islamic jihad.) It's obesity. Due to its attendant health and economic costs, scientists predict that obesity alone will topple economic and social structures, induce a wide range of dire diseases, and drastically cut short Americans' life spans.

These are more than another set of statistics -- they predict things that can and will affect you, your family, your health, and your pocketbook. If you are among the two thirds of adult Americans struggling to escape escalating weight gain, (or even if you're teetering on the edge with ten persistent pounds you can't seem to lose), as a physician, I recommend that you take action to lose weight and protect your future health.

And I have good news for you. I've developed a simple plan to help you lose weight automatically based on a new scientific breakthrough.

Despite the abysmal failure of conventional medical approaches, this plan is different because it's based on recent, groundbreaking scientific research, research that I predict will totally revolutionize weight loss and change the landscape of medicine as we know it.

Many of the answers to our weight and health problems are buried in thousands of research papers. With the aid of a number of very brilliant thinkers and scientists, I've gathered and synthesized the greatest advances in medical science over the last 20 years -- advances that usually take decades to get incorporated into medical practice. Translated into a simple program that has brought easy, sustainable weight loss to thousands of people, you can access them today.

In the recent past, many pundits theorized that society-wide weight gain was due to our genes. In a sense, they were right, but genes only tell half the story. We share the same genes as our hunter- gatherer forebears who foraged in the woods and hunted wild game 20,000 years ago. What's changed is the environment within which our genes operate.

Up until modern times, man's natural environment supplied the foods we were genetically programmed to eat. But with the advent of industrialized agriculture and food production, we began eating mass-produced and processed foods that genetically program us to add pounds.

Here's how:

Food is information -- not just calories -- and food information speaks to our genes, turning some genes ON and other genes OFF. That's why it's genes, not calories, that count.

Until recently, scientists believed that the critical mechanism for weight loss was caloric intake and expenditure -- you eat little and exercise hard to lose each pound. But that's hard to do and harder to maintain, recent scientific studies reveal (and no doubt not surprising to anyone who has tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to lose weight).

Using the caloric mechanism for weight loss is a bit like manually cranking a lever to open your garage door inch-by-inch and then having to hold the door open. Wouldn't you rather push the button that activates the circuitry to open your garage door automatically?

To do that for weight loss, you have to access the master biological mechanisms controlling weight loss and weight gain. Using those mechanisms opens the door to automatic weight loss. The recent scientific discoveries I've assembled decode the instruction manual of our basic biology. At last, we can control the master mechanisms: our genes themselves.

The new genetic science (called Functional Medicine) teaches that our genes interact intimately with our environment. Every bite of food we eat, every thought we think, every stress we experience, or toxin we inhale carries a specific message to our genes, turning them on (or off), and telling them how to behave.

As a result, our genes are programmed moment-by-moment to actively create either weight loss or weight gain. Scientists have tracked exactly how all the different foods trigger the messages sent to your genes. With that knowledge, you can give your body the foods that work in your favor -- and avoid ones that don't.

For instance, for decades, people were warned to avoid fats at all costs, but now we know that the type of fat you eat is more important than the amount of fat you eat. The new science traces the biological impact of good fats, like the omega-3 fatty acids (contained in fish, fish oils, certain nuts and many other foods) and bad fats like the trans-fats contained in many processed foods.

What researchers found is that good fats turn on your body's fat burning genes and bad fats turn off the fat burning genes. When you consume EPA or DHA, both omega-3 fatty acids, they access a metabolic gateway called the PPAR receptor, to activate genes that increase your metabolism, help you burn fat, and assist you in processing bodily glucose more effectively so that foods won't get stored as fat.

It's as if the EPA and DHA opens up an extra lane on your hormonal superhighway, making for a smooth and easy route towards slimness and health. That's why, for automatic weight loss, I recommend adding EPA and DHA (both found in fish oil) to your diet, beginning today. On the other hand, unhealthy transfats (such as found in many processed and fast foods) act as a metabolic roadblock to weight loss, and if you eat them, you may find yourself crawling along at a snail's pace, going nowhere.

These are just two of the hundreds of ways that you'll learn to awaken the fat-burning code hidden in your DNA. In my new book, UltraMetabolism, due out in March, 2006, you'll discover a wide range of foods that tell your genes to shed pounds, while learning to avoid the many other foods that tell your genes to pack on the pounds. Eating the foods right for your genes allows you to literally program your body to lose weight automatically, even as you sleep!

And that is the key: be simply learning to eat the foods that ignite your body's fat burning engines, and avoiding the foods that snuff out these engines, you finally begin the process of working WITH your body, instead of against it -- something that all fad diets fail to do, which is why they all fail in the long-run.

But, because UltraMetabolism teaches a simple plan to harness your body's own powerful fat burning forces -- ones that have evolved over millions of years -- you are actually programming your body to lose weight, automatically.

Why struggle and suffer with ineffective diets when you can actually teach your body to be slim and healthy? With the simple two-step plan I've developed, you can program your body to lose weight automatically. In the first step, you eliminate all of the bad foods that slow your metabolism, make you feel lethargic and lead to disease; in the second step, you add the good foods that crank up your metabolism, boost your energy and revitalize your health.

Twenty-first century weight loss is easier than you've ever dreamed. And it's something that I am confident about since I've treated over 2,000 patients, many of whom have experienced the very same automatic weight loss that I've described here.

My message to you is simple: If you want to fit into your jeans, you have to learn to fit into your genes!

Mark Hyman, M.D.

Did you know that exercising less and eating more can actually trigger your body to automatically lose weight? Unbelievable? It's true and it's why most people fail on diets. To find out more, grab your free sneak preview of UltraMetabolism.

Eliminate Negative Thoughts and Lose Weight

2009-02-14T23:39:00.001-08:00

You think thousands of thoughts each day. You talk to yourself more than anyone else. You are your most trusted advisor and confidant. Many of the conversations that you have with yourself you would never share with anyone else because to do so would expose the "real" you. The you that is filled with self doubt, worries, sadness, guilt, hurts and disappointments.

But this is not the "real you" at all. This is the you that your ego and belief systems have constructed. These negative beliefs have been constructed by you, and accepted by you as truth. The sad thing is that nothing can be further from the truth.

Where did these false ideas about you originate? They mostly came from others; parents, teachers, co-workers, and friends. They might have planted the seed by saying something like "she is fat" and you have cultivated those comments to the point that they have become your truth.

You are allowing your entire life to be controlled by some obscure comments made years ago. Nobody has the right or power to dictate who you are. Only you know who you truly are and what's in your heart.

When you were born you entered this world without the burdens of you current negative belief system. You entered this world as a beautiful bundle of joy filled with unlimited potential and possibilities.

I'm here to tell you that you have not changed. You are still and will always be a beautiful bundle of joy with unlimited potential and possibilities.

The only difference is what you give your attention to. Let me ask you a question. If you stopped all the negative talk that you currently have with yourself such as;

- I'm too fat

- Why would anyone want to love me

- I will never be thin

- I always fail

And the list can go on and on How would you feel ? Do you think that you would feel emotionally lighter ? Do you think that you would feel happier ? Do you think that you would feel more confident ?

Now how do you think your life would change if you were to go one step further and modify your self talk by only speaking positively about yourself. If you take some time and focus on what you like about yourself and focus on only that your emotional state will become positive to the point that you will be able to accomplish anything.

Once you begin looking for the positive things within you, you will be surprised to realize your magnificence has always been there just below the surface. You have never been anything other then that shining bundle of joy that entered the world years ago. It's easy to uncover positive aspects of yourself by asking some questions.

- What am I good at?

- Who has benefited by me being in the world?

- Who am I, what is in my heart that only I know?

- What do I like about my body?

Your goal is to feel good now. How do you feel now? If you only observe what you feel is positive about you, you will feel good, you will be happy. Decide right here and right now how you want to feel. Decide that you will always look for the good within you and appreciate that goodness.

So what does all of this have to do with losing weight? Everything!!! Your emotional state is the control valve that determines what you draw into your experience. How you talk to yourself creates your beliefs and programs your subconscious. So you need to ask yourself do you want your beliefs and subconscious programming to be based on false negative thinking. Or do you want your beliefs to be based on the truth, that you are and always have been a perfect being.

Begin today to love and nurture yourself. Allow the joy, playfulness and enthusiasm that you naturally had as a child begin to flow into your everyday experiences. Allow yourself to celebrate each and every success no matter how small. Love and appreciate yourself every opportunity you have. Do this everyday and watch your weight begin to dissolve just as your old negative beliefs about yourself begin to dissolve.

If you have any questions you can email me

at bill@

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Taking Care Of Inner Health

2009-02-14T15:39:00.001-08:00

Taking Care of Inner Health 1.

Inner health is a very important subject because 95% of life threatening diseases starts inside our bodies where we can't see what is happening. By ignoring symptoms we often allow the problem to increase until treatment becomes difficult or, in the worst cases, impossible. It is also true that one hour of prevention is far better than one year of treatment. In this article we will look at the main source of "body fuel" the food that we eat and, more importantly, how we eat it. But before going into that subject there are other things we should not be doing:

1. No smoking.

2. No drinking alcohol to excess.

3. No taking of unprescribed drugs.

This article is written on the assumption that you abide by the three rules above.

What we eat is the starting point. There is no point in eating foods that are saturated in fat as your basic diet and complaining that you are overweight and/or feel unwell. Of course you do because this is self-inflicted by inadequate diet. A good diet requires daily intake of the five major food groups that we have covered extensively in previous articles.

Small meals taken regularly (even six meals each day) are better for you than long periods without food followed by a heavy meal.

Large, rich, meals late at night should be avoided, especially for older people. A cooked meal at midday is digested better than a late night meal.

You should drink at least one and a half quarts (1.5 liters) of fluid each day; much more if the weather is hot. If you become ill you should double your fluid intake. Water is best.

Improving your diet is not as difficult as most people claim. In most instances it is simply a case of adjusting the balance of what we eat. Here are a few tips:

Eat more fiber in the form of fruit, vegetables and whole grain bread. In addition add two tablespoons of coarse bran to your breakfast cereal. This provides bulk, or roughage, that your digestive system depends upon to function properly.

Cut down on fat, normally taken in fast foods and fries etc. Eat more lean meat, fish. Grill rather than fry foods where possible.

Eat less sugar (This means no soda's because the average can of soda contains an equivalent of 20+ Tablespoons of sugar equivalent) Do not drink beer with meals because beer stops your body from breaking down fats. Water is the best drink followed by low calorie drinks and unsweetened fruit juices.

Walk for at least half an hour each day. Park your car at the furthest parking space from the supermarket; the exercise will increase your lifespan. If possible use stairs rather than escalators. All of these small things, together with your balanced diet, will increase your health and lifespan.

David McCarthy is a prolific writer of articles about health and wellness through the foods that we eat. His entire works can be found at You will also find a vast array of recipes for all types of food from weight watchers to banqueting. The site is free

Whats A Pedometer And Why Would I Need One?

2009-02-14T07:39:00.000-08:00

A pedometer is a great inexpensive exercising tool that tracks your progress and keeps you motivated to stick to your daily workout. Let's take a look at what exactly a pedometer is and why you need one.

A pedometer is a small electronic device, about the size of a pager or smaller. The basic function of a pedometer is to track or count how many steps you take. Most models will also convert our steps into the number of miles you walked and calculate how many calories you have burned. More advanced models will save several days worth of date and some will even connect to your computer so you can chart your progress through software provided as well.

So the pedometer helps you keep track of how many steps you walked. I find that I'm much more motivated to take a little walk through the neighborhood, or park a little further when I'm running errands when I'm wearing my pedometer.

A recent study by the University of Minnesota shows that people wearing pedometers tend to walk more. The study split people up in two groups who were both encouraged to walk each day. Only one group was given pedometers to track their steps.

Those with pedometers increased their steps by about 2100 per day, or 20 minutes of steady walking, a 30% increase in daily steps. They walked almost twice as many blocks as those without pedometers. People using a pedometer also tend to stick much longer with a walking routine.

To get the most out of your pedometer, set daily and weekly goals. Start by setting a baseline number of steps. To do this, simply wear the pedometer for a few days. Don't try to aim for a certain number of steps. All you are doing at this point is measuring how many steps you take in a normal day. Calculate the average number of steps you take any given day. Next you want to start taking 500 to 1000 steps each day. You can easily accomplish this by taking a little walk around the block, parking a little further away during errand and at work, as well as walking to a college's office instead of calling him or her. Each week, or every two weeks increase your steps and additional 500 to 1000 steps until you reach a minimum of 10,000 steps per day. If you are walking to lose weight, work yourself up to 12,000 to 15,000 steps per day.

Walking is one of the easiest ways to exercise every day and a pedometer will help you track your progress and motivate you to keep walking. All you have to do is put on some comfortable shoes, clip on your pedometer and put one foot in front of the other. I encourage you to give walking and using a pedometer a try.

Susanne Myers is an avid walker herself and encourages others to do the same with her website. She provides you with great resources to walk off the weight, including articles on healthy eating and walking, low calorie recipes and product reviews. Visit to learn more and to sign up for her weekly tips and encouragements to keep you walking off the weight.

Avoid the "Take-Home-Box" Overload

2009-02-13T15:39:00.001-08:00

After you've had the RNY surgery, there is one thing you immediately begin to notice.. and that's what I call the "Take-Home Box Overload". This is what happens inside your refrigerator as a result of you brining home all of those take-home boxes from restaurants because you cannot finish the meal. Even prior to surgery, you couldn't often finish the meal when some restaurants serve such large portions. So packing up the leftovers after an eat-out meal seems natural to you, so you do it often.

PROBLEM ONE: The Take-Home Boxes can actually establish huge neighborhoods inside your fridge!

PROBLEM TWO: You feel you MUST NOT throw all of that food out because you have been taught from the early days of your crib that you SHALL NOT WASTE FOOD because of all the starving children elsewhere who certainly would appreciate the food you are wasting, right? Frankly, when you heard that guilt-phrase that was supposed to motivate you to gobble up, didn't you feel even MORE compelled NOT to finish eating and MAIL your uneaten portion to those starving children? I never really understood that philosophy of telling me I better eat because some poor children don't have enough to eat. A puzzlement.

PROBLEM THREE: Because of the guilt, you decide that you'll just "snack" on the food in the take-home boxes. So you snack, snack again, snack some more, and HOORAY you've eaten everything in the box and you didn't waste the food! OH, but you've done yourself a BAD turn!

Bad turn? How?

Let's consider that the food in that take-home box could contain 1500 to 2000 calories. So what? Well, when you eat those leftovers, you are consuming those ADDITIONAL 1500 to 2000 calories that you DON'T need in your eating routine especially if you eat them as SNACKS and not meals. It is a DANGEROUS thing to leave those take-home boxes in the fridge when they scream at you to be consumed. Don't listen to them!

Here's what you need to do instead:

If you truly plan on eating the leftovers as "another meal portion", then you should wrap them according and place them in your FREEZER for eating LATER. You know that adage, "out of sight, out of mind?" well, this is that basic concept. By doing this regularly, you'll be able to rotate your frozen meal portions for a better variety rather than eating the leftovers time after time. How appealing is it to eat six servings of chili in a row? It's not so freeze the portions and eat them later.

The FREEZER is your solution to curb the "snacking" out of those take-home boxes. So use it as your new best friend, you new best meal-planner buddy, and your calorie-saver!

Getting use to the idea of tossing out food is a hard one, but it's something you have to get used to as well. The dog or cat will always be there to volunteer to eat what you can't', and the animals will show you a deeper devotion that ever imaginable! And your household loved ones often appreciate you giving them an open invitation to anything they find in the take-home boxes.

Get a grip on this early so you won't sabotage yourself with those additional calories that will creep up on you if you fall pray to snacking or through guilt-eating. As an RNY patient, you are only to consume a minimal amount of calories anyway.. so don't fall into the trap of eating more than you need. This could be a factor as to why you seem to not be losing enough weight or why you are gaining some back after awhile.

Bottom Line: Take-Home Boxes can be Dangerous Tame them before they do you harm!

Write A Love Letter ON Your Body

2009-02-10T15:39:00.001-08:00

Have you seen the movie "What the Bleep"? There is a great scene in that movie where the body-hating star breaks through to loving her body. She starts to draw hearts and love messages all over herself and relaxes into appreciation instead of loathing.

We're taught a lot of things to do to our bodies. Work it, sculpt it, starve it, push it, train it, discipline it. Most of them are not pleasant. What about loving it? What if we treated our bodies with love and tenderness?

Okay, it sounds a little sappy, I know. But really think about the idea for a moment. WHAT IF you made a decision to treat your body with the ultimate in kindness?

How would your body feel if you...

*Fed it the best, most delicious, most nutritious foods

*Gave it just the right amounts of food to feel light and full of energy

*Pampered it with fun movement

*Let it nap or rest when it was tired

*Treated it to healing massages and long soaks in warm water

*Noticed all the wonderful, beautiful things about it and overlooked its flaws

Writing love letters all over yourself is a great way to make friends with your body. It's much harder to assault your body with overeating when you know you have "I love you," hearts, spirals, "thank you," etc. written underneath your clothes.

Adopt self-nurturing as a way of life. Your body will LOVE YOU for LOVING IT. You will naturally live at your own perfect weight without effort or strain. Treat yourself well and love your body into the peak of health.

©2006 Nancy Hill has helped thousands break free from the nightmare of dieting with her ebook, "Undieting - 11 Simple Steps to Reclaim Your Body and Your Life." Sign up now to get the free Undieting Newsletter and discover how intuitive eating makes it easy to live at your ideal weight without ever dieting again.

Two Opinions on Marilyn Monroe

2009-02-10T07:39:00.001-08:00

Norman Mailer said of Marilyn Monroe:

"Her stomach, untrammeled by girdles or sheaths, popped forward in a full woman's belly, inelegant as hell, an avowal of a womb fairly salivating in seed - that belly which was never to have a child - and her breasts popped buds and burgeons of flesh over many a questing sweating moviegoer's face. She was a cornucopia. She excited dreams of honey for the horn."

And Elizabeth Hurley's opinion:

"I'd kill myself if I was as fat as Marilyn Monroe."

When I came across Normal Mailer's words in his biography of Marilyn it reminded me of the famous Hurley quote and I thought the comparison between the two views of this iconic beauty was quite poignant and sad.

Hatred of a womanly body seems to be a common situation in our culture. Women are brainwashed into thinking they need to be as skinny as possible. We diet, workout, starve ourselves, judge each other harshly, and spend our lives in deprivation and desperation.

Meanwhile, men naturally adore the lush, sexual, curvy female body. They desire the soft, voluptuous bodies we women are born into.

Our natural bodies don't require stringent dieting or starvation or plastic surgery or sculpting. We are each a perfect, unique creation and the more we accept and love our womanliness, the more wonderful life feels.

The Hurley quote used to make me angry. Now it just makes me sad that we have learned to be so shallow and so mean to one another, and to ourselves, with the thoughts we have about the female body.

©2005 Nancy Hill has helped thousands break free from the nightmare of dieting with her ebook, "Undieting - 11 Simple Steps to Reclaim Your Body and Your Life." Sign up now to get the free Undieting Newsletter and discover how intuitive eating makes it easy to live at your ideal weight without ever dieting again.

Top 5 Red Flags Of Diet Scams

2009-02-09T15:39:00.001-08:00

Have you wasted valuable time and money trying to lose weight? Then tried again and again? One thing Americans know how to do is market. The desire for quick and easy weight loss has created an ideal opportunity for modern-day snake oil salespeople to pick your pockets by selling magical diet products.

One minute you're innocently reading the newspaper and the next minute you find yourself ordering a sixty dollar, one month supply of diet pills. After all, those before and after photos look great and they say it works.

Or you're now the proud owner of the latest infomercial gadget that promises to wrap, buzz, sway, steam, lift, or glide you to slenderness. All too often you find it's only useful for drying your clothes on.

In our desperate quest to be skinny, we buy the strangest things. Next time you're hypnotized by a diet commercial, remember these red flags:

1) The product involved putting anything non-food into your body. Pills, potions, chemicals, herbs. None have been proven to cause substantial, permanent weight loss.

2) Promised results require the purchase of any special gadget at all. The only thing you really need for physical fitness is a good pair of walking shoes.

3) The program is based on unproven fads like food combining, "forbidden" foods, or magical effects of certain types of foods.

4) The advertising promotes use of a product but the small print explains that the plan requires drastic calorie restriction and exercise to get results - so why buy the product?

5) Outlandish or miraculous claims are made of rapid weight loss, changes in body shape, or weight loss from specific parts of the body.

The fact is that 95% of diets fail and the constant search for a quick fix is a sure path to disappointment. The human body is naturally healthy and strong. It doesn't need potions and gadgets and certainly doesn't need starvation.

Listen to your body. Give it the food it wants when it's hungry and stop when it's full. Move in ways that feel great. Play more. All of these are completely free and will create vibrant, natural, long-term health that expands and enriches life.

Three Facts the Media Does Not Want You to Know

2009-02-09T07:39:00.001-08:00

I don't know about you, but I usually feel rotten after I leaf through one of the popular women's magazines. Have you ever noticed suddenly feeling ugly, fat, frumpy, or flawed after reading a copy of Vogue, Glamour, Mademoiselle, etc.?

Well, it's not a coincidence. The fact is that most women's magazines don't exist to inform, help, or entertain us. The sole reason for their existence is to sell us stuff ~ mostly stuff we don't even need.

How do they do that successfully? In marketing, it's called "creating a need." They make us feel bad about ourselves so we'll buy products to fix us. It's a nasty little game they play...

1. Magazines cater to advertisers on what content to offer. For example, they won't publish photos of women who love and accept their normal bodies. If they do run an article with that idea (which doesn't happen often), they'll accompany it with a photo of an underweight model. Women who love their natural bodies aren't good customers for the diet advertisers.

2. They consistently depict images of unattainable beauty. Models generally stand about 5'9" and weigh around 110 pounds. The average American woman is 5'4" and weighs 140. Most of us are never going to look like models no matter how hard we try. And not even models themselves can live up to the photoshopped-to-perfection images that are created when their photos are digitally "airbrushed." The media specifically set out to convince us that we are unattractive unless we look like these fake images. Blatant ads or "recommendations" within the articles convince us to eagerly buy products.

3. Then they keep changing the rules. Every magazine issue has a better diet, different makeup, and/or the latest style. They continually promote the newest, best, improved, reformulated, etc. products. There is no way to ever keep up so we keep buying and buying, ever hopeful that the latest purchase will make us look and feel good.

It's a bad trade-off. We spend our days feeling bad about ourselves and squander our hard-earned money on junk. We waste our life energy dieting in a futile effort to change our bodies. Meanwhile, the media and advertisers skip happily along with their ever-expanding profits.

Well I don't know about you, but I'm tired of the message. I am choosing to not look at magazines that depict unrealistic images of beauty, that make me feel bad about myself, or that show endless images of emaciated actresses. I've decided to like who I am rather than trying to emulate anyone else.

I'm taking back my life and telling the media to take a hike. And I'm on a mission to invite others to join me. I'm tired of women wasting their money and their lives. I invite YOU to join me in walking away from the emotionally violent content of today's women's magazines.

I believe that we are each beautiful in our own unique ways. I'm all for taking delicious, nurturing care of ourselves and for being well-groomed.

But I also believe women have a lot to offer the world beyond how we look. And I'm calling on all of us to enjoy life and make a difference in the world instead of wasting our time and money trying to attain the media's impossible version of perfection.

The Stunning Effects Of Blessing Your Food

2009-02-08T15:39:00.001-08:00

Grandma was right. Bless your food.

It's a rare thing these days to hear someone blessing their food. Other than Thanksgivingand quaint Norman Rockwell paintingsour food goes unblessed. Happily consumed, largely unappreciated.

There is real magic in the blessing of food - or anything else. This is not airy-fairy New Age stuff. Nor is based on any religious tradition. In fact, science is proving that the thoughts we think about something dramatically alter its physical structure.

Japanese researcher Masaru Emoto has been doing amazing work recording the effects of energy on water. He photographed the crystal structure of water before and after being labeled with words relating to various aspects of life.

Water samples exposed to hateful words like "I hate you" or "you make me sick" took on random, unattractive appearances. Water that was exposed to words like "love", "thank you", or "peace" changed to beautiful, crystalline structures much like elaborate snowflakes.

You will find photos of Mr. Emoto's water samples at http://www.hado.net/water_crystals2.html. See for yourself what water samples looked like after they were blessed with various thoughts.

What Mr. Emoto photographed is how water reacts to thought. Water makes up 70% of the planet - including our bodies and the food we eat. If thought can affect water so much, imagine what it can do in our lives.

Try an experimentwrite "thank you" on a slip of paper and tape it to the bottom of an opaque coffee mug. Tape a blank piece of paper to the bottom of a matching mug. Fill both mugs with identical amounts of tap water. Mix the mugs up so you so you don't know which one is which.

Now do a taste test and see what you notice about the taste of the water. Most people taste a difference in the water sample that was labeled "thank you". No wonder cultivating an attitude of gratitude can create such huge changes in a person's life.

Each time you sit down to eattake a moment to bless your food. You don't have to do it out loud if that would make you feel self-conscious. Just bless it in your own heart and soul.

Food has life and energy. It's not just a thing. It's still alive. If you look at food from the perspective of quantum physics, it's quite dynamic. In fact, it's mostly energy and empty space. Like everything, food exists in relationship to the thoughts and the world around it.

Pay attention to the food that is about to become you. Be aware of what you are putting into your mouth. Eat with the care and awareness of what you want to become. That food is literally going to be YOUR body.

Stop Exercising And Start Playing

2009-02-08T07:39:00.001-08:00

Have you ever berated yourself because you didn't exercise yet again today? Have you felt that creeping guilt in the back of your mind when you climb into bed knowing you didn't follow through on your workout plan?

Well, it's possible that you are not at fault. You may just be acting like a normal human being.

Take a moment to imagine how it feels to be

1) In a hot, sweaty gym full of people who are grunting through their routines, sweating all over the equipment, and strutting their bodies around in front of the mirrors.

2) Rounding a curve in the trail with a light breeze gently caressing your skin in the soft evening air.

How about the difference between

1) Running around an oval track gasping for air and feeling your lungs burning.

2) Racing up and down a soccer field fully challenged by the game and having a blast with your friends.

It's not difficult to decide which choices would be more enjoyable to most people. Our culture has taught us to suffer as we exercise. "No pain, no gain" has been the mantra for years.

The only problem is that for most people, "pain" is not a daily choice we're willing to make. The natural human tendency is to do things that are fun, things that feel good. Forcing ourselves to do miserable exercise routines goes directly against our own nature.

An easy way out of that trap is to play more. Find ways of moving the body that are wildly fun or rewarding to the soul.

Dance around your house. Take a nature walk. Fly a kite. Go to the park with the kids and play some tetherball.

Make the choice to move every day because it's fun and feels great. Choose to move because it make you feel healthy and strong and vibrant. You'll find you're getting a lot more "exercise" without even thinking about it in that way.

Life is meant to be an enjoyable journey not an endless round of suffering. Choose to have more joy and you'll feel the difference in your body and in your spirit.

I Have A Dream

2009-02-07T15:39:00.001-08:00

Like Martin Luther King, I have a dream.

My dream is...

· Of women loving the uniquely beautiful bodies they were born with.

· Of no one wasting another minute of their short, precious life trying to diet into some skinny, impossible ideal.

· Of women in beautiful, curvy, womanly bodies fully ripe and gorgeously inhabited.

· Of women doing good work in the world and loving their families instead of obsessing about food and what size they wear.

· Of a world that no longer shames the naturally curvy female body.

· Of bigotry toward body sizes fading away and becoming as unacceptable as bigotry toward skin color or race.

· Of children being accepting of varying body sizes instead of learning to make fun of each other.

· Of people enjoying food and loving life instead of depriving themselves and being miserable in the name of beauty.

· Of movies that cast actresses who look like women instead of emaciated skeletons.

· Of a world rich with love and acceptance rather than one of souls starved by hatred and rejection.

To be honest, it feels awkward to apply a great man's signature line to a different cause. And yet, I think Reverend King would understand. I think he would agree that bigotry and hatred of any kind is unacceptable.

I think he would support women living rich lives instead of starving themselves and being miserable due to extreme cultural prejudice. I think he would agree that a person can no more change their genetic body size and shape than they can change the color of their skin. And that neither shape, nor color, have anything to do with the quality of the person.

How to Stop the Media Attack on Your Body

2009-02-07T07:39:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of the ongoing message that the natural, curvy, womanly body I was born into is unacceptable. I'm tired of being horrified when I hear that five-year old girls already criticize their bodies and think they need to lose weight. I'm tired of the media forcing their limited, unattainable version of beauty on us.

The underweight beauty ideal of today is a complete invention of the media machine. Nature never intended women

to look like teenage boys with large breasts, but the relentless media depiction of this body type powerfully

defines it as the ultimate in beauty.

Without starvation and plastic surgery, it's impossible for 99% of women to achieve this ideal. So we learn to dislike our naturally gorgeous bodies and try desperately to change them. The toxic body messages we are deluged with every day cause eating disorders and widespread unhappiness.

53% of 13 year-old girls and 80% of adult women spend every day disliking their bodies. It doesn't have to be this way. People naturally have all sorts of different body shapes and sizes. We don't have to let the media continue to define just one type of beauty as the ideal. We don't have to let them continue to ruin countless lives in their quest for more profits.

The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) Media Watchdog program is working to change the toxic media

message. You can help by joining the free program and monitoring magazines, television, and radio. Keep track of

what you see then send your positive and negative findings to NEDA.

Every quarter they write at least one letter of praise or protest to companies on behalf of the Watchdogs and post the results on the NEDA Media Watchdog website. Since the inception of the program in 1997, over half the ads they

protested have been discontinued.

It's time for the media's attack on our bodies to stop. The Watchdog program gives us a powerful voice for change.

What to look for:

Protest:

· Ads with a message or image intended to make people feel bad about their body shape or size.

· Promoting thinness as the only acceptable body size.

· Shows or ads that make fun of heavy people or imply that they are inferior or unacceptable.

· Idealizing people who are dieting or starving themselves.

· People shown using food for comfort, stress relief, or companionship.

· Emaciated models or actresses portrayed as the beauty ideal or star of the program.

· Promoting fitness and exercise solely as ways to get thin rather than ways to get healthy, feel good, and have fun.

Praise:

· Ads that have people of all sizes and shapes depicted in positive ways.

· People eating healthy, good foods including desserts.

· Celebration of natural diversity and the enjoyment of life.

If you want to take the campaign even further, write your own praise or protest letter to the advertiser or the media outlet.

Ruffle a few feathers and let them know that attacks on our bodies will not be tolerated and that positive diversity is appreciated. Tell them you won't be buying their products due to the offensive advertising.

Be sure to thank companies for positive messages, too. Every little move in the direction of healthy body diversity is great. Thank them for being part of a culture that appreciates health and all kinds of beauty.

Click here to join the Watchdog program and be part of bringing about positive change in the world.

12 Things You Can Learn From A Two-Year Old

2009-02-05T23:39:00.001-08:00

If you ask any child about the adults around them, they'd probably say we're a little wacky and seem to be stressed out a lot of the time. Here are a few simple things they can teach us...

1. Nap when you're tired.

2. Eat when you're hungry.

3. Don't starve yourself, it makes you tired and cranky. Eat little bits often to keep fueled up.

4. Stubbornly refuse to eat even one more bite once you're full. If you're full after a few bites, gleefully throw the rest away.

5. Leave the table with a satisfied, full belly and an eagerness to dive back into your delicious life.

6. Be picky and only eat foods you love. If it doesn't taste great to you, clamp those lips shut and refuse to eat until something better is found.

7. Be in awe over how amazing and wonderful your body is. Notice how it moves, hugs, plays, loves, heals, and enjoys life.

8. Run, jump, skip, play. Move your body because it's so much fun and it feels good. Be amazed at all the incredible physical things your body can do.

9. Wear clothes that are comfy and that make you feel good.

10. Appreciate the people around you for who they are rather than for how they look.

11. Hang out with fun, friendly people and stay away from mean, critical ones.

12. Feel great about yourself because, well, why wouldn't you?

If you don't have a two-year old around right now, seek one out and watch them for a day. Their simple enjoyment of life, and their absolute respect for their own bodies is something to aspire to.

No More Fad Diets Healthy Weight Loss is in!

2009-02-04T23:39:00.001-08:00

Health is back! People have finally realized that healthy weight loss is the way to go. Fast fad diets are losing their popularity as more people begin to realize it doesn't last and the health risks aren't worth the weight loss benefits.

According to One of the new approaches uses the Glycemic Index to help you make healthy dietary choices that help you maintain weight. Soy is one of the products that has a very low GI and can be a great addition to your diet is you want to lose weight without worrying about what it's doing to your health.

As of the writing of this article, January 4,2006, many people have just made their new years resolution to lose weight. Some may have already broken it and others are still trying to make 2006 the year they lose that extra weight. Most people set goals that are unattainable, unfortunately. To keep up with their goals, they turn to fad or fast weight-loss methods that may not be good for them.

A better new years resolution or, since it's past new years day, a better amendment to your new years resolution, would be to promise to stick to a well-balanced healthy diet that will also help you lose weight.

Counting calories, popping pills, starving yourself, eliminating carbohydrates, and other methods may work for the short term, but you soon find you've added the weight back that you lost while on the fad diet. has other suggestions on fast, healthy diets you should know about.

The Glycemic Index is a nutritional system that ranks foods according to how they affect blood sugar levels. Paying attention to which food has a low GI, you can maintain weight and improve health.

High GI foods that are 70 or above on the index, like potatoes, trigger a quick rise in your blood sugar level. Your body then overproduces insulin, the hormone that clears away blood sugar and stimulates fat storage. This rapid rise in both blood sugar and insulin causes you to be hungry again in a short period of time, causes you to crave sugar, causes mood swings, as well as causing fatigue and more production of fat in the body. It also increases the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and serious side effects in those who already have diabetes.

But low GI foods that rank 55 or less on the index, like oatmeal do the opposite. These foods produce a slow rise in blood sugar that the body can easily deal with. That keeps your body's blood sugar stable and your insulin levels under control. Low GI foods a help lower your appetite and helps you keep up your energy. Low GI foods also help prevent heart disease and diabetes.

Medium GI foods between 56 and 69 have effects on the blood sugar that fall somewhere in between the other two, thus the name, medium GI.

There are more factors to consider for a healthy diet, than just the GI Index. Some foods with a low GI, like candy bars and potato chips, are high in fat and calories, while some foods with a high GI foods, like potatoes (not fried) and watermelon are very healthy and low in calories. The trick is to find low GI foods that are healthy, nutritious, and tasty. For help in choosing a healthy weight-loss plan, go to

Putting soy into your diet is a healthy way to lose or maintain your weight. Recent studies suggest that obese people lose weight faster by adding soy protein to their healthy weight-loss plan. The same studies conclude soy protein is much better than animal protein in maintaining a healthy weight-loss plan.

A 2004 study found that a high soy-protein, low-fat diet can also help you preserve muscle mass. Soy protein is the only plant protein that is contains all 9 essential amino acids in the right balance. Only 9 of the 20 total amino acids found in animal and plant-based proteins, are essential, meaning necessary elements in a healthy diet because the body cannot produce them, they must be consumed.

The FDA recommends 25 grams of soy protein daily, along with a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, in order to help reduce the risk of heart disease. Medical studies have also shown that soy protein helps reduce hunger by convincing the brain that the stomach is full.

Greg Lucas' website, was created to help you learn more about healthy weight loss and diets. Chris McElroy also contributed to this article. His website at has articles about consumer rights.

Discover How to Use Abdominal Equipment the Right Way for Sculpting Tight, Sexy Abs

2009-02-04T15:39:00.001-08:00

Stop wasting your money on useless informercial abdominal products.

Learn how to effectively work your abs with the right ab equipment

so you can finally develop a flat sexy waist with abs you can be

proud to show off.

What ab equipment you need depends on how you go

about training your abs. If you train your abs

with the most people get ab exercise - lots of

sets and reps - then you don't need much in the

way of ab equipment. Performing sets of the

basic floor crunch and reverse floor crunch

are all you realy need. If these ab exercises

are uncomfortable for you, then you may

need some basic equipment just for comfort

reasons.

Now, if you decide to train your abs properly,

you'll most likely need some quality ab equipment.

What do I mean by training your abs properly?

Your abdominals are a muscle group, just like

any other muscle group.

Let's take a look at some common misconceptions

with regard to ab exercise and then we'll mention

some ab equipment that actually works for you.

Is there anything out there in the fitness world

suffering from more misinformation that how to get

abs?

The number of ab machines constantly coming to

market is mind boggling. Especially considering

that they aren't needed and won't give you the

results that you want.

Let's set the record straight on ab training right

now and give you the real information you need so

you can say no to the next infomercial ab machine

and yes to actual abs.

Training your abs consistently will eventually

give you the flat stomach or six-pack that you want.

No. It's not gonna happen if your abs are covered

by a layer of body fat and doing endless sets of ab

exercises is not the way to rid yourself of that

excess body fat.

Train your abs everyday for best results.

Again, no. Your abs are a muscle, just like your

chest, lats, arms and so on. You should train your

abs just like these other muscles, with progressive

resistance and high intensity - then allow them to

rest and recover. Never train your abs more than 3

days a week.

You need to do hundreds or reps and feel the burn

to get great abs.

Yep, again the answer is no. The abs a muscle just

like I mentioned above. To get six pack abs you

need to strip off the fat, but you also need to build

the abs to get them to really pop out.

If the muscle isn't developed, you'll just have a

flat stomach but no abs. The name of the game is

progressive resistance for sets of 8 - 20 reps, just

like your other muscles.

Train the abs with lots of sets and high reps to

burn off stomach fat.

You guessed it. This is also false. Spot reduction

just isn't going to happen as much as we'd all like

it to. You can't burn fat on your stomach by doing

endless crunches.

In order to do the proper ab exercise and develop

a flat, toned, tight midsection, you need to follow

these rules. And that means working your abs

with progressive resistance weight training, just

like your other muscles.

You need to put together a proper weight lifting

program, nutrition plan, and cardio in order to rid your

stomach of that stubborn layer of fat and bring yout

your abs.

Gregg Gillies is the founder of Build Lean M

His articles have appeared in Ironman Magazine. He has written two books

and writes for Body Talk Magazine. He publishes a free

newsletter available at his site Build Muscle

and see how you can get a customized nutrition plan at

Your MIND and Its SUPER-Powers Hidden Within

2009-02-03T23:39:00.001-08:00

The human mind is an Infinite wonder.

It has the power to transmute your Inner desires into their physical counterparts once focused.

What the mind can conceive, You can achieve, just as long as you have the inner Belief and Will Power to back it.

For example, take the case of where cancer patients were given 'Placebo Pills'.

These pills were just plain old pills that have absolutely NO healing capabilities what-so-ever.

So what, how did they get well?

The healing power came from their thoughts.

They were told that these pills contained the highest amounts of cancer-fighting ingredients which can effectively cure them in just a matter of months.

So the point here is, they naturally assumed in their mind that if they took this pill it would make them better and that their health will be restored.

Do you see how powerful your mind can be?

They simply registered it in their minds that these pills would cure them of their illnesses and in the process, the belief embedded within their subconscious mind became a reality.

This is just one example of the SUPER-Powers hidden within your mind.

So... now that I have your attention your probably asking yourself this question, "How can I use my mind to achieve my dreams?

Well, one of the most effective ways is to use the "as if" principle.

And what I mean by that is, act "as if" YOU are the person you want to be.

Act "as if" You are already possess whatever it is you have longed for.

Simply put, Think, Act and Feel like you've already accomplished what you have dreamed about all your life.

This principle is a very Powerful principle if you simply believe.

And you'll be much closer to your goal if you're constantly intact with your objective(s).

It's okay to be obsessed with your dreams.

It doesn't mean that if you want to be Superman you'll be able to fly out of a window and into outer space.

That would be Crazy!

I'm simply saying, "Do what needs to be done".

Take ACTION on your dreams.

Let your visions Encourage and Motivate you.

The problem with people in todays world is that they are too pre-occupied with Worries, Anxieties and Negative Emotions.

As a result of this, people are adversely affecting their state of health.

White lies unfortunately have become prevalent nowadays in order to ease the burdens or to persuade others to do things that they thought are unattainable.

A famous person once said, "Whenever you think you can or you can't, you're right!"

If you think you are poor, then you are; unless you properly condition your thoughts to a 'Positive Mindset'.

I know it's hard to think "Rich" if your environment is not conducive to such way of thinking.

Use your imagination and 'Visualize' in your head that your house is a mansion and your old car is a Porsche,...

Well, I think you get the picture.

There is absolutely NO limit to what the mind can achieve but You have to combine Belief, Will Power, and ACTION with positive thinking in order to achieve your inner desires.

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5 Quick and Easy Ways To Wiping Out Obstacles To Goal Achievement

2009-02-03T15:39:00.001-08:00

Life is nothing but an obstacle course, its all about getting through that obstacle course *successfully* to your desired goal that most people seem to have a problem with.

And it's only normal to encounter these obstacles in the pursuit of your goal.

It's kind of a test to see if your worthy.

However, when these obstacles start to become a nuisance to the point of almost putting a stop to your goal(s); or worse, making one completely abandon his/her goal, one must take action and think things through.

So, with that said, here are some helpful, tested pointers that will keep your attention focused in achieving any goal that you put your mind to.

Step #1. Think positive.

This means: Do not quit. Especially when one is midway in working for a goal, there should be no room for quitting.

To quit is tantamount to going back to the starting line of goal accomplishment. That is time, energy, money, and a whole lot of things wasted and lost. It is more costly to quit than to find a solution to the problem, not to mention the frustration one feels.

Step #2. Keep a clear, open and tense-free mind.

Always be ready to receive new ideas. Focus and concentrate. Think on a wide scale manner and always be open for options(even unconventional ones) to eliminate the particular obstacle you are currently dealing with.

Step #3. Persist and Persevere.

Be sure to exhaust every possibility, even to the point of trial and error, just to be sure that there is a solution to correct the problem your dealing with.

Step #4. Simulate.

Try to picture inside your head a possible solution to help overcome and/or solve the obstacle that's setting you back.

Step #5. Get assistance.

If all fails get assistance from other you know who are more knowledgeable on the work being done. They may be able to help you or not. Their suggestions might not necessarily be the right or exact ones you were hoping to hear, but they may trigger some NEW ideas in finding the right solution to your problem.

Those are the basic 5 steps to overcoming any obstacle that's holding you back.

But... before I go I'd like you to consider this scenario as an example.

Let's say you thought of a COOL new product and you are confident and excited that this product will be sellable to your target market once it hits the market.

You then go tell a friend about it, but your friend says that your product would be waste of time and money.

Your friend also tells you why it will be such a flop and gives your their reason why as follows:

"If your product idea is to be a success, how come nobody else is doing it?"

Does this sound familiar?

With that being said you decide that your friend is right and forget about your new product idea because of your friend's comment.

This exact scenario happens all the time all over the world.

Don't fall victim to this.

You are your own person with your own opinions and beliefs.

Though it is good to hear other peoples opinions and their reasons, what really matters the most is yours in the end based on the information you have received and researched.

So the lesson here is, be firm in your beliefs and follow your heart and minds desire.

You just never know what the outcome might be.

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Train Your Brain This New Years

2009-02-03T07:39:00.000-08:00

It's that time again when people start thinking about their New Years Resolutions. Usually they involve, losing weight, quitting smoking, and joining a gym, just to mention a few.

What about you? What News Year Resolution have you planned for this year?

Have you considered the benefits of improving your mind? Usually, this is the last thing people consider, but in reality it's one of the best things you can do for yourself and those around you.

People who want to build their muscles know that it takes time to work on specific areas in order for the muscles to develop properly and these same people will pay big bucks to join the local gym to work on these areas and yet they forget to invest in things that will enrich their minds.

By enriching your mind and building yourself up mentally you will be able to challenge yourself to take on other areas of your life that need improvement. Your life is influenced by your thought processes.

You can learn to build up the muscles in your mind, so to speak, and strengthen your inner man with positive goal producing thoughts.

Most New Year Resolutions fail, mainly because people do not have the proper mind set to set proper goals and lack the ability to make a roadmap that will lead them to success.

What is it you want for you and your family next year? Doesn't investing in yourself by improving your mind make sense.

You don't need to spend thousands of dollars in order to benefit from the great motivators of the world. People such as Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy and Les Brown can be heard via your computer for about the cost of a cup of coffee per day!

What are you waiting for?

Make this year the best year ever by investing in your mind!

Visit Success University Today!

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Sharron Myers has been a teacher of Spiritual Truth for over 30 years. She also is a Certified Aromatherapist and Personal Development Consultant. Be sure to check out her site:

To Live the Life You Want, Learn the Skills You Need

The Bariatric Patient and "Set Point"

2009-02-02T15:39:00.001-08:00

New Bariatric patients often ask this basic question: "How do I determine my goal weight?"

The SET POINT:

Each person has his/her own "set point" that the body has programmed deep inside which lets the body know the amount of weight it wants to maintain. Basically, this "set point" was established near puberty; so based on if you were a slim or chubby child approaching puberty, this will determine what your set point" is.

Think back to when you were in your pre-teen years and then what type of body (slim or overweight) you had as you entered puberty. This will give you an idea of what your body would be comfortable at weighing again. Of course, you should add a few pounds because the matured adult body is different from the body at puberty. Take in consideration your level of activity as a child, your eating habits, etc. These are factors for why the matured adult body will not appear exactly as your body at puberty. For instance, at puberty, if you weighed 120 pounds, your matured adult body after weight loss may not return to 120 pounds, but rather may return to an adult body of 135 or 140 pounds. This is reasonable since you are not eating these days as you did as a child and you may not be as active as you were as a child like playing on the playground everyday, walking or riding your bike everywhere, etc.

Some patients are actually able to go past their set point because as a matured adult, they are more active and eat healthier than they did as a child. The task of truly evaluating your young life's habits and routines will be the first step in understanding the number you want to expect on the scale once you are done losing your weight. Be realistic in this evaluation. There's no sense or happiness is setting a goal weight that your body just refuses to accept.

Take upon a personal assignment this week to fully consider what your goal weight "should" be, then add a few pounds to that number for reality-check.

Go through this list below and write down your answers. This will help you in your evaluation. All of these questions refer to YOU as a pre-teen near puberty:

Did you eat healthy snacks or eat a lot of junk food?

Did you participate in sports, bike ride, swim, dance, or do other high-energy activities?

Did you sleep-in a lot on school days off or in the summertime?

Were you happy with life in general?

Did you worry about weighing yourself often?

Were you instructed to always finish your plate at mealtimes?

Now look at your answers you wrote down.

Are you surprised at your answers? Have you ever thought of these things being a part of who you are today?

Keep your answers and review them often and do this.

REPEAT the things in your life that brought you success in the past, and DON'T DO the things on your list that you know could make you GAIN weight after you've lost your weight.

So, now that you have the image of your young life in your mind, reflect upon your habits and routines you had then, and incorporate the GOOD THINGS back into your life today. Skip the BAD THINGS you used to do because they certainly won't work for you as an adult.

In short, BE REALISTIC in determining what your goal weight should be in the end. Be kind to yourself and remember that if you end up being 20 pounds shy of your goal weight, YOU SHOULD REJOICE that you were able to achieve so much in the first place! It may take a long time to lose that final 20 pounds, so don't despair. Just stay focused and keep doing what works best for you.

Meloney B. Hall underwent the Roux-en-y Gastric Bypass Bariatric Surgery in September 2002 and lost a total of 170 pounds in a 19-month period. She is actively involved in helping others find success in achieving their goals along their weight-loss journey through her online support newsletter website and message board. She sells a variety of merchandise that she designed herself to help others celebrate and announce their achievements, whatever they might be in life. She is also available for Speaking Engagements. Learn more at

4 Tips Toward Making Resolutions That Matter!

2009-02-02T07:39:00.001-08:00

Turning the calendar over is an excuse to make personal resolutions for the coming year. It is also a way to bring about certain frustration for you if the goals that you set for yourself are unreachable, unattainable, or just something you have no interest in doing. Making resolutions can be done at any time of the year, but if you have been thinking about several new ones for the coming year, here are four tips to help you not only make resolutions, but to keep them.

1. I Resolve To... Okay, you have made your resolutions. Now, step back and take a look at each one. Are they resolutions you wanted to make or resolutions others have told you to make? Make certain that each resolution is something you definitely want to keep, not a half hearted attempt at reaching a goal that you really aren't interested in reaching. If your resolution needs to be modified, do it at once.

2. My Goals Are... Are your resolutions reasonable or are they reaching well beyond what can normally be expected? Let's say your goal is to lose 70 pounds in the coming year. While the weight loss resolution is admirable, do you have the time to exercise regularly? Change your eating habits? Change your lifestyle? Is the 70 pound weight loss goal too much, too soon? Would it be better for you to stretch the amount you want to lose beyond one calendar year? Consider your health: both physical and mental when evaluating your goals. Keep in mind how your resolution may impact friends and family members...you may be a "bear" to live with over the next twelve months!

3. I Have Fallen and I Cannot Get Up! Do you quit at the first sign of failure? If you splurge on food, do you consider your diet and resolution to be over? If so, why? Simply start again and continue. The road to any goal is paved with pitfalls and you are bound to backslide from time to time. Best advice: Find an accountability partner who knows [and understands] your resolution and can encourage you to keep it.

4. Reward Yourself. At the end of the year, reward yourself based on how well you kept your resolution. If you hit your weight loss goals, consider going on a cruise -- don't overeat! -- as a reward for good behavior. If you miss your goals, keep the cruise idea open for when you do meet your goals. In other words, some resolutions are ongoing and shouldn't be restricted by a 365 day calendar.

Remember this: resolutions are for your benefit, not your detriment. Your attitude toward a particular resolution will help you determine whether you should make that particular resolution or not. Any resolution made which doesn't have your enthusiastic backing will certainly become a hindrance come February or March and forgotten altogether by April. Make resolutions that matter and be the better for it!

Spare Change and CaloriesThey All Add Up!

2009-02-01T07:39:00.001-08:00

My young son, like most toddlers, has a piggy bank. Every evening he and his Daddy have fun putting spare change from Dad's pockets into the pig. In fact, we've had to empty the pig contents several times in the past months. It sure does fill up quickly. Before the pig, the spare change was just left lying on the dresser, leaving us with a big mess, and no idea how much had accumulated.

What do piggy banks and food choices have in common? I honestly would have had no idea before this past week when I decided to start keeping a food journal. Calories are a lot like the spare change from my husband's pockets, they add up fast. Unfortunately, before I started writing them all down, they were exactly like the mess on our dresser, only harder to clean up, or loose.

Since having my son two-and-a-half years ago, I have attempted numerous times to loose the extra 'baby weight'. Although becoming harder to do so everyday, I have to laugh at the 'baby weight' excuse. Honey, the so called 'baby weight' was lost when the bundle made his first shrill squeal at the hospital. What I'm packing around is twenty pounds of pocket change with no pig to put it in

At the end of the first day of 'food journaling', I expected to discover a miraculous remedy for what's ailing meand guess what? I did. I discovered that I eat too much. Huh? That's it? I eat too much? Actually, it's not the quantity, most of the time anyway, but the choices that are the problem. But come on, I had no idea that one stinking piece of American cheese had seventy calories, and forty-five of them came from fat. Boy, nibbling on a few of those through out the day can shoot your entire plan to heck.

The first day I just ate and wrote it all down. Other than trying to remember to jot down the food and calories for each bit I ate, I didn't change a thing. After needing to use a calculator to add it all up that night, the reality was heavier than all of the piggy bank change in the world. I really needed to make some healthier choices in what I was consuming each day.

Food journaling has opened my eyes not only to how my choices were preventing weight loss, but how easy it is to just pop quick snacks into my mouth rather than planning my meals for the day. I've also taken up another foreign conceptthe art of exercise. Just like emptying the pig when it gets too full, I'm depositing extra calories everyday with some very much needed walking.

At the end of your day, are you just dumping your spare change on the dresser, or do you keep count of how much you've accumulated? Come on. You can do it. You'll be surprised at how fast those nickelsahem, calories, can add up! Bank those calories in your own food journal today.

Author Bio: Sherry Frewerd is a WAHM who publishes a number of websites, including Family Crock Pot Recipes where you'll find free and easy slow cooker recipes and family meal planning ideas.

Getting Your Family Into Fitness

2009-01-31T07:39:00.001-08:00

Getting and staying in shape is important for you - but your workouts may be more important for your family. The reason: your family is inexorably drawn to follow your fitness example - for good or bad. How you manage your personal fitness and nutrition has a ripple effect that spreads across your entire family.

Your "personal ripple effect" may be one of the most powerful forces shaping your family's mental and physical future. Consider the following:

We are products of our environment. We gravitate toward what we are repeatedly exposed to. It's a simple matter of repetition. The more we see, hear, use, or eat something the more it becomes ingrained in our psyche. In fact, social scientists believe environmental repetition may have an effect on gene expression and can literally change your biochemistry.

The power of suggestion is strong. The power of repeated suggestion is practically unstoppable. So if you're making poor fitness and nutrition choices at any age, it's likely your family will be making the same choices shortly.

"When Junior sees Dad parked in front of the tube and digging into a bag of chips, it's hard to resist the same lifestyle. And chunky Mom, plus chunky Dad, often equals chunky kids".

The evidence is compelling. Your example, your behavior, your habits are being absorbed by your family at warp speed. The secret is making it a blessing instead of a curse.

It's never too early or too late to start. In the research center,

my staff and I see the impact that consistently exposing people to a healthy lifestyle has on individuals. As people mature, they embrace exercise as a natural, fun part of their lives.

You have the power to influence the health and fitness of every person in your family (your children, your spouse, your siblings, your parents --- and even your friends). The fitness habits you help them build will keep serving them in every area of their life. I can think of no better gift to give people than the gift of health.

But here's the secret...

You absolutely must lead by example. Never "tell" a person what they should do, just keep living a healthy life in a tight lean body, and people will instinctively gravitate to you and learn from your examples.

The process for some "hard-headed" folks might be a bit slower, but they'll come along once they see how much more fun you're having in your new body than they could ever hope to have unless they pick up the pace and learn from your example.

So how do you do it? It's a day-to-day process and a series of

repeated small steps that add up to awesome health habits. Every time you choose the vegetables over the chips, a walk over a drive, and an active game over T.V., you've just made another donation to yourself and to your families lifetime health and fitness fund.

It's your personal ripple effect in action

Christopher Guerriero, is the founder of the National Metabolic & Longevity Research Center and a best-selling author, speaker, and coach to millions. He is creator of the award-winning 'Maximize Your Metabolism' system. To learn more about this step-by-step program, and to sign up for FREE how-to articles and FREE teleseminars, visit: Maximize Your Metabolism

Nutrition What are the Nutritional Needs?

2009-01-30T23:39:00.001-08:00

Nutrition as it applies to our daily lives means that we take in what we need to maintain our body's healthy state. Nutrition has become an important word thanks to the involvement of the USDA in our daily food requirements, and the FDA's involvement in determining what is and is not dangerous for us to consume.

But what is our responsibility in the nutrition game? Do we understand what our nutritional requirements are, how to fulfill those requirements, and how to look for real nutritional value in our foods?

I'm not sure that nutrition has been successfully addressed in its own right. We hear nutrition in relation to our vitamin intake, our fortified cereals and milk, and in the context that we need "nutritional value" from our food choices. But what really is nutrition when applied to our daily bodily functions?

Today, we must determine how much nourishment we need, how much physical exercise we need, and how best to accomplish those ends. Calorie needs, nutritional needs, physical needs, and education about those needs now is information we should all understand, at least as it applies to our individual self.

If you will visit your local doctor, library, or fitness center, there is massive amounts of information available to help educate and to help you make good health choices, no matter what the age group.

Nutrition refers to the nurturing of our body, in our ability to keep it healthy and functioning as it is supposed to do. Our ability to provide the body with all it's necessary food, vitamins, and minerals so that we continue to thrive in our daily life processes.

If you were to take a cross section of the population, and check for adequate levels of the most used and fortified vitamins and minerals, you would probably find that as high as 80% or the population is lacking in a least one of the vitamins and minerals.

Now, that doesn't sound too bad, until you stop to think, what if it's calcium? A calcium deficiency brings on osteoporosis, a deteriorating of the bone. This disease alone costs millions in medical expense to the population.

Can you see how a little more cooperation and open-minded participation on the part of our medical field could result in far fewer health problems? It would also have provided the general population with a viable way to discern their nutrition, vitamin and mineral needs, accurately.

So how do we determine that we are providing the essential nutritional needs? That knowledge comes by educating ourselves about what our individual needs are, the needs of our family, and then taking that knowledge and applying it to the foods we buy, that we prepare, and that our families consume.

Quite often, our vitamin and mineral needs outweigh our caloric needs. In those instances, we turn to manufactured vitamins and minerals to fill the gap. This is a part of our nutritional needs, also.

Nutrition is one of the most complex areas to gain useful knowledge about, because there are so many components, and because each person has their own individual needs.

Women needs differ from those of men, and older women's needs differ from those of a young girl. As we age, our needs constantly change; therefore continual education about nutrition is a fact of life. The nutritional needs of a cardiac patient are different than those of a healthy, middle-aged hiker.

Can you see the complexity of the situation now? What we really need is to develop a scale that determines the nutritional needs of our bodies on a cellular level, so that as we age, as our physical condition changes, or our health changes, we can recalculate our needs, based on cellular changes and content in our body.

Individuality is the key to understanding each person's nutritional needs, and then working to educate us is the key to fulfilling those nutritional needs. Good nutrition should be the ultimate goal of every person alive.

Nishanth Reddy, is an author and publisher of many health related websites. For more information on how to be fit and healthy visit his website at Deit and Nutrition

Weight Loss Diets: How To Make Them Work

2009-01-30T15:39:00.001-08:00

As we all know, weight loss diets are big business. And looking at the statistics, it's easy to see why. Currently, an estimated 58 million American adults are overweight (BMI 25+), of whom an estimated 40 million are obese (BMI 30+), 9.6 million are seriously obese and 6 million suffer from super-obesity (BMI 40+). Worldwide statistics on overweight are equally alarming, as reflected in the new word "globesity". In China, the number of overweight people has risen from less than 10 percent to 15 percent in just three years. In Brazil and Colombia, the figure of overweight is about 40 percent - comparable with several European countries. Even sub-Saharan Africa is seeing an increase in obesity, especially among urban women. In all regions, obesity appears to escalate as income increases. And the higher the incidence of obesity, the higher the incidence of weight-related disease, including: type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders like insulin resistance, and cancers of the breast and colon.

CONVENTIONAL DIET METHODS

Both the US Surgeon General and the Dietary Guidelines For Americans (2005) issued by the US Dept of Agriculture emphasise the need for calorie control and increased physical exercise to reduce the overweight epidemic, but evidence suggests that conventional diet methods do not provide significant weight reduction, due to poor compliance. Surveys show that annual weight loss resulting from convention diet and exercise programs averages less than 8 pounds per annum, while in a 4-year follow-up study of programs incorporating the use of obesity drugs, behavior modification, diet and exercise, the final average weight loss was 3 pounds. This apparent failure of conventional weight loss methods is often contrasted with the 30-40 percent average weight loss following bariatric surgery.

FOOD COMPOSITION OF DIETS

Fashion sells products, and weight loss diets are no exception. First we had low-fat diets, which were promoted as heart-friendly ways of reducing weight. Unfortunately, this message was interpreted by consumers as "all fats are bad, all carbs are good", and led to an unhealthy overconsumption of refined carbs. With the relaunch of Dr Atkins "New Diet Revolution", the fashion penduluum swung the other way. Now carbs were the enemy, not fat.

After Atkins came the South Beach Diet, which offered us a more moderate low-carb approach. Now, it is GI diets - based on foods with a lower glycemic response - that are high fashion and, being scientifically more beneficial, are likely to remain so for some time. However, while the food composition of diets may change, the basic law of weight loss remains unaltered: calorie expenditure must exceed calorie intake. To this extent, provided a diet is calorie-controlled and includes foods from all food groups, the exact composition of foods remains no more than a matter of personal taste.

GENERAL EATING AND EXERCISE HABITS

When assessing the effectiveness of conventional dieting methods, due regard must be paid to general eating habits. In America at least, these do not appear to be helpful. Despite the mounting evidence of weight-related ill-health, social eating habits continue to develop in unhealthy directions. Value-for-money "supersizing" continues to attract customers, while fast-food sales continue to rise. And the continuing demand for "instant" food only inspires the food industry to produce more and more refined food options bulging with nutritional deficiency and calorie-overload. Is it any wonder that levels of diet-compliance among average dieters is so low? Meantime, an estimated 78 percent of Americans do not meet basic activity level recommendations, while 25 percent are completely sedentary.

IS SUPPORT THE ANSWER?

If conventional diet programs remain less than perfect ways of tackling overweight in the face of engrained eating habits, it would be misleading to write them off completely. Not only does research data from the US National Weight Control Registry demonstrate that long term weight reduction is perfectly achievable, a number of diet programs, especially medically-supervised clinic-based programs, are consistently effective. What distinguishes these diets is the level of counseling support which subjects receive. Nowadays, this support can be provided in various ways, including: mandatory group meetings, one-on-one sessions, online forums or chat-rooms. And it seems to work. For example, according to recent studies, the average weight reduction for a 10-12 week clinic-based obesity program involving meal-replacement diets, exercise and counseling support is 5.5 pounds.

FINDING MORE SUPPORT

If getting proper support is one way of improving conventional diets, dieters need to rethink their approach. Instead of focusing attention on finding the optimal eating-plan, they need to look for programs offering optimal support. Weight Watchers is an obvious choice but diets organised around the workplace or other social groupings may also provide natural help. Online programs with forum support might also be considered. In any event, there is no substitute for a reliable dieting partner.

ADOPTING HEALTHY HABITS

Given the fact that losing as little as 7-10 percent of body weight can improve many of the problems linked to being overweight, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, some obesity experts advocate a less formal approach to calorie control. They recommend adopting certain healthy habits rather than following a specific diet. An example might be a 200-calorie-a-day reduction achievable by taking a moderate 30 minute walk, and switching from (say) whole milk to skimmed milk. This saves 73,000 calories a year - the equivalent of 20 pounds of body fat. The commercial response to this approach is already visible in programs such as the "Three Hour Diet", which recommends regular eating to maintain a regular rate of calorie burning. Expect to see more weight loss programs like this, which emphasise specific habits.

CONCLUSION

Current levels of overweight and obesity require urgent attention. To be effective, conventional diet programs need to provide optimal support rather than optimal food composition, in order to facilitate diet compliance. For people who are unable or unwilling to follow a specific weight loss plan, making small but specific changes may be sufficient to achieve significant improvements in health.

Linda Smyth B.Sc., RD, aged 51, is a qualified dietitian and nutritional consultant. She is part of the editorial team at which provides a range of information about diet, nutrition and weight management to more than 5 million visitors per year.

Diet Information

The Biggest Misconception About Weight Loss Programs

2009-01-30T07:39:00.001-08:00

Nowadays there are zillions of free articles, e-books, free reports and publications about weight loss programs and products. Most of the authors don't even realize that they are only losing your time by providing you free information, promoting commercial products.

Considering this it looks like you need to pay for a diet plan and diet pills, and losing weight will be a peace of cake. Guaranteed!

But this is not true. You can achieve your goal weight simply by cutting down on your food.

Do you believe that if you decrease your daily calorie intake by 30%, you can lose up to 4 lbs a week? This can be easily done if you stop eating chocolate, cookies and candies between meals, and limit your food to one normal portion 3 times a day.

I am not saying not to follow a personal customized daily meal plan, combined with natural weight loss supplements. It is always better to have a plan for whatever you do, but it is possible to lose weight if you simply reduce the amount of calories you take daily.

Think about that:

What Do All Commercial Weight Loss Programs Do?

They simply tell you to eat no more than 1200 -1500 calories daily and/or to throw away all high carbohydrates and fat foods. And you get the calories table and start counting

after a while you understand that you need to leave all your favorite meals, to eat only tasteless food and this will continue indefinitely. I don't know about you, but this will despair me.

At this time of desperation the question is: "Are there any secrets for fast and easy weight loss?"

And you will find a lot of answers like: "Ultimate weight loss secrets revealed in this book!" or " Fast weight loss secrets lose 20 lps for 2 weeks!".

What are these secrets? Are these secrets protected by the US government? And do you believe, that if there are any secrets, they will stay secrets for long time?

No, the only secret is to have the right motivation, permanency and to make the effort.

Why Choosing A Diet Plan Combined With Natural Supplements?

How do you prefer to go to your place - by a sports car or by bus?

I mean, following an effective diet plan, and combining it with natural supplements, is like driving a sports car on a first class road - easier, faster and costs you a lot of bucks out of your pocket.

It's your decision!

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Diet Pills The Answer Or Not?

2009-01-29T23:39:00.001-08:00

So if diet pills work and I am overweight, why shouldn't I use them to get myself back to where I want to be? The truth is that we live in an obese society. With that being the case, then it stands to reason that the business of losing weight is big. We are all busy, so we want the easy way out, the quick fix, and to lose those extra pounds without having to disrupt our busy lives. Diet pills seem to be an easy answer, so why not give them a try? Well there are actually two big reasons: harmful side effects and addiction (physical and emotional).

The biggest reason that the dangers on diet pills exist is that they are not really regulated. The law does not require a diet pill to be tested by the FDA before release to the public. The FDA will pull a diet pill product from the shelves if it shows to be dangerous, but by then you may already be taking that particular drug. So what are the side effects that can result from this lack of regulation?

Diet pills generally do one or two of a few things: they may suppress appetite, increase metabolism, block fat absorption, or even make use of laxatives to flush the body of waste and fluid. The chemicals in the diet pills that helps them accomplish these things have been known to cause varying side effects. Some of the best known of these are anxiety, insomnia, heart palpitations or attacks, stroke, fever, dry mouth, blurred vision, hair loss, disturbance in sex drive and menstruation, urinary tract problems, digestive problems, and even congestive heart failure. There are numerous others as well, so the risks can be high when it comes to side effects with diet pills.

The other danger with diet pills is addiction. The chemicals and drugs used in the pills can very often cause physical addiction. On the other hand, if they pills do work, even to a small degree, emotional addiction can follow. You may think that you cannot keep your weight or even live without the pills and can find yourself in the midst of complete dependency.

When there are side effect problems in conjunction with dependency, there are overdose risks as well. In the rush to lose as much weight as possible as quickly as possible, you might be tempted to take more diet pills than is recommended. The result can be convulsions, hallucinations, breathing difficult, or even a heart attack. It is important that if you feel or have any of these symptoms that you get medical attention promptly.

The risk of using diet pills is varied and high. Without regulation and with the high availability, those seeking an easy fix to a large problem may end up jumping from pill to pill, ending up addicted, or suffering terrible side effects. What many don't realize is that the only proven way of keeping weight off for a sustained amount of time is through a balanced diet and exercise.

If you would like to read more of my online articles, please feel free to visit my health blog!

Tips to Stick To Your Diet

2009-01-29T15:39:00.001-08:00

It has happened to all of us at some point or another: we were doing so well with our weight loss diet or exercise regime. Then suddenly we fell off the horse and decided that if we had already gone this far we might as well give up entirely.

There's an old Chinese tale about a father and his son who lived on a farm. Together they raised sheep and cared for them. They lived off of these sheep and were able to make money from the sheep's fur. Every day both the father and the son walked around the field where they were raising the sheep to check that the fence was in good order. One night, the fence broke and some wolves sneaked into the field and ate some of the sheep.

The son cried out to his father saying that all was lost and that they were now ruined! But the father simply picked up his tools and took his son to the fence to patch it up. Once the fence had been fixed, the father told his son that just because there was a weakness in the fence it does not mean that it cannot be fixed nor that it is impossible for them to keep raising sheep.

Your diet or exercise regime is like sheep, it is always at risk of violated or destroyed. The fence represents your will power and your circumstances. It might happen that you're too busy to go to the gym or go jogging every morning for a period of time. It might happen that you were forced to stop at a fast food joint on the side of the high way. It might happen that you cave in to eating some chips, some chocolate, or any one of your other cravings. But that doesn't mean you should give up and let your sheep continue to be eaten by wolves. After you've stuffed yourself with what you know to be unhealthy food: stop and think about it. It's not the end of the world.

If you go end up on a binge of food, you don't need to eat more bad food to "get it out of your system", to feel better or to make sure it never happens again. You will be faced with times where you want to eat something unhealthy, or you want to sleep in and skip your step class. No problem, but don't let that one incident ruin your motivation or your commitment to your diet or exercise regime. It happens to everyone, but if you're one of the people who is able to pick yourself up and fix the fence you'll be able to keep losing weight and get healthier.

I hope this story has helped you to understand that not all is lost if your resolve waivers for a day or a week, or what have you. You are the boss of yourself and you can chose to return to eating healthy foods and working out on a regular basis without any fear. Trust in yourself and make sure you keep your eyes focused on the goal since that's what keeps us all motivated.

Nathalie Lussier maintains the All Around Success Article Directory. She is also the owner of of a healthy weight loss web site and you can find out more about her at her weblog.

Fast Food : No Legal Recourse

2009-01-29T07:39:00.001-08:00

Do you eat fast food? You must. According to the House of Representatives, the fast food industry is a significant part of our national economy. It did not become that way be having few customers. Many independent researches have found that fast food is unhealthy and causes weight gain. This research suggests there is something "faulty" with fast food. Our nation is becoming more obese by the day and many obese people are attributing their weight gain to fast food consumption.

In the documentary Super Size Me, it was proved that eating fast food promotes poor health and weight gaineven without over eating. In response to this "faulty" product, some are turning to the legal system for justice. However, a cleverly devised bill was created called the "Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act of 2005." This bill was sent to the house (H.R. 554) and on October 21, 2005 is passed by a vote of 306 to 120. The bill is now in front of the Senate, where it is expected to pass.

The House of Representatives, in this case, found the following:

1. The food and beverage industries are a significant part of our national economy.

2. The activities of the manufacturers and sellers of food and beverages substantially affect interstate and foreign commerce.

3. A person's weight gain, obesity or a health condition associated with a person's weight gain or obesity is based on a multitude of factors, including genetic factors and the lifestyle and physical fitness decisions.

4. Fostering a culture of acceptance of personal responsibility is one of the most important ways to promote a healthier society, lawsuits seeking to blame individual food and beverage providers for a person's weight gain, obesity or health condition are legally frivolous and economically damaging.

5. The American food industry is the nation's leading private sector employer.

If you notice in the above findings, the basis of this soon-to-be law is economically motivated and not devised for the betterment of a healthier society. In their purpose and summary statement, the House of Representatives basically said that fast food establishments should not be held liable for the damage their products cause due to "over-consumption." What is interesting is that these fast food companies have never, to my knowledge, defined what "proper-consumption" is. How can you have over-consumption when you have not defined what proper-consumption is?

If a typical American simply eats his or her regular three meals a day at a food establishment and his or her health deteriorates as a result, shouldn't that establish be held responsible for serving a "faulty" product? H.R. 554 is an attempt to remove the liability of food providers and silence the legal resource by consumers. The next time you walk into a fast food establishment, see if you can located the "proper-consumption" documentation.

Jason A. Martin is a Journalism Major (Political Science minor) and future law school student. His blog deals with Politics, Media and the Law. You can view it at JasonAM

Oatmeal Has Great Benefits To Cholesterol Watchers And Weight Watchers.

2009-01-28T23:39:00.001-08:00

The Roll of Oatmeal (Porridge) in a Healthy Diet

Oatmeal, or porridge if you live outside the US or Canada, play a major role in our modern diet yet few seem to know the true health benefits it gives. Oatmeal provides two of the required three daily servings of whole grains required in a healthy and balanced diet and this alone should help convince you to use it. However there is an added bonus because oatmeal (porridge) is the only whole grain recognized by the US FDA to help reduce cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease.

Can't you imagine all the Scots jumping in the air, waving their Sporrans in glee telling the world: "We told you so!!!" (Sorry I can't type in a Scottish accent.)

There is also a school of thought that claims that by eating filling foods in the morning you actually suppress appetite later in the day and this makes oatmeal an ideal breakfast for weight-watchers. Research clearly indicates:

People who eat breakfast, like a bowl of oatmeal for instance, tend to weigh less than those who skip it.

Adults that eat cereals, cooked or cold, have a lower body mass index than those who eat a combinations of meat and eggs, or those who skip breakfast altogether.

On the subject of healthy eating and weight control - don't forget that you need seven daily servings minimum of fruit and vegetables to maintain health. Again this is also good advice to weight watchers.

The biggest problem you are likely to face if you are trying to lose weight is serving sizes. I've lost count of the number of weight watchers who have told me that they follow a strict diet regime but never seem to lose weight, then they serve themselves at least double recommended serving sizes. Hey it doesn't work that way. Serving sizes are the biggest problem that most weight watchers must contend with and when they come to terms with serving sizes they not only start losing weight they keep it off too.

Quaker has recently introduced Weight Control instant oatmeal, no doubt there are equivalents in all parts of the world and you can get some good tips at

You can also find a free weight control program at:

Sometimes all it takes is a change in your daily habits to regain health.

Fast Weight Loss

2009-01-28T15:39:00.001-08:00

There are many reasons why you may wish to lose body fat. Among the top are to simply look better and improve your overall health. Losing weight should always be regarded as a long term proposition. Quick weight loss plans can help you lose weight but will not give you the longer term results you crave and deserve.

I want "instant" not "fast"!

Fat will be lost in any diet where the calorific intake is lower than expenditure. However these "crash" diets and low-energy diets will result in a muscle loss in addition to the fat burned. It is estimated that the maximum fat a typical human body can burn in any one week is 2 pounds. This means that any weight loss over and above 2 lbs in a week will be mainly muscle or water.

Crash dieting slows down your metabolism . If you don't eat enough food your ancient survival instincts take over and the body enters "starvation mode". In this mode the metabolic rate slows to conserve energy and thus the speed at which weight is lost is reduced. Thus ultimately less fat is burned using "crash" methods.

In addition the body has lost muscle during this crash phase. Muscle burns calories and the more muscle, the more calories and burned. Crash dieting therefore delivers the double whammy of a drop in metabolic weight and a drop in calorie burning muscle tissue.

This is the reason why so many dieters who rely upon fad diets regain weight quickly after losing it. The only safe reliable and long term way to reduce weight is to do it over a period of time.

A gradual reduction in calories maintains muscle tissue, burns only fat and allows you to maintain a healthy lower weight in the future.

Resident experts at explore the issues surrounding Fast Weight Loss

Weight: The Thanksgiving Hangover

2009-01-28T07:39:00.001-08:00

The feasting is over. The turkey has disappeared: roasted and hot, microwaved leftovers, then cold sandwiches and eventually croquettes or thrown into soup.

You climb on the scale with trepidation and breathe a long sigh of relief when the dreaded poundage fails to appear. Before you relax and think you got away with it, remember that your sneaky little body is playing its usual tricks. Two or three days of Spartan eating will make you feel virtuous again -until you step on the scale and find you've gained 5 pounds. "Fraud" you shriek. "I've been so good!"

Remember the holiday feast? It has finally caught up with you as you knew, deep down, that it would.

What to do?

We all need brief periods of self-indulgence - it's part of the human condition. Expect a setback on your weight loss goals and let that knowledge mitigate your disappointment. Then continue on your diet with the assurance that a special occasion blip doesn't define your future. Enjoy the memories of a family gathering while carefully planning your next week's intake.

Appreciate what you have accomplished so far and avoid loading yourself down with guilt and self-reproach.

Get back on your program as quickly as possible because (sorry to bring this up now) Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat.

Virginia Bola is a licensed psychologist and an admitted diet fanatic. She specializes in therapeutic reframing and the effects of attitudes and motivation on individual goals. The author of The Wolf at the Door: An Unemployment Survival Manual, and a free ezine, The Worker's Edge, she recently published a psychologically-based weight control e-workbook, "Diet with an Attitude" which develops mental skills towards the goal of permanent weight control. She can be reached at She provides support and guidance in use of the workbook through her regular blog,

The Holidays: An Emotional Feast

2009-01-27T23:39:00.001-08:00

Every year, I swear that I will be thin enough to wear my smallest dress to the office party. And every year, I don't quite make it. Oh, I can usually get into it by the beginning of February after a diet-obsessed, guilt-ridden January, but it doesn't mean as much then.

Why are November and December so toxic to our weight control efforts? Certainly there is abundant food available during the month long celebration from Thanksgiving to New Year. It is the season for non-stop parties and gifts of food from colleagues, friends, family, and customers.

But more than just the food, there is a special atmosphere that descends on the Western World at the end of November. Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzai whatever the celebration involved evoke the onset of primitive emotions. We wax nostalgic over the holidays we recall from childhood. We turn towards family and traditions that have been absent from our thoughts for the rest of the year. We indulge ourselves in the joy of giving and receiving.

Cookies, and chocolates, and gift baskets bursting with preservatives, which we would politely refuse during any other time of the year, are now gratefully accepted in the spirit of the season. Food we would normally avoid creamed soups, fruit glazes, gravy, fruit breads, honeyed hams appear as comfort foods, warming and welcoming. Our sophisticated and world-weary veneer fades in the face of traditions that make us feel whole and contented again.

The goodwill we feel demands a context and a continuity that was established many years ago. Each December, we trot out the same old carols, enjoying the familiarity of tunes we learned to love sitting next to a glittering tree and a roaring fire. For a month, we emotionally step back in time to reconnect who we are with who we were. Despite its current crass commercialism, we need the holidays to remind us of our roots, our values, and our beginnings.

So this year, I am going to throw myself into the fray, eat whatever I want, and let the chips fall where they may. I can always wear something else to the office party and there will be innumerable occasions in the New Year when I can attain caloric virtue through deprivation and denial.

This year, I'm going to have guilt-free, unalloyed, and omnivorous fun.

Bon Appetit!

Weight: Give Us Something To Shoot For

2009-01-27T15:39:00.000-08:00

We have all seen the new Dove commercials that feature "real" women rather than the impossibly "ideal" models that are usually selected. While the Dove girls are universally attractive and fit, they also reflect different sizes and shapes, designed to represent the average American woman. Is that what we want?

Glorifying our diversity seems like a positive development which should lead to increased self-content and improved self-esteem. Comparing ourselves to the imperfect bodies displayed is supposed to lessen our self-criticism and sense of inadequacy.

Does it?

We are a race of strivers, constantly seeking to better ourselves. Self-improvement is the biggest marketing niche of the Twenty-first Century, from books and classes to online information products, magazines, and television. The gurus of our day, from Oprah, to Martha Stewart, to Dr. Phil, to Donald Trump, all entice us towards improving ourselves, our looks, our relationships, our finances, our surroundings our whole life. We are dissatisfied with ourselves as we are because we have caught a glimpse of what we can become.

To keep us motivated in that direction, we need a vision of perfection to work towards, even if we know we'll never quite get there.

When it comes to weight control, what will keep us riveted on our goal? To look as gorgeous as the cover models on Cosmopolitan or the chunky figures in the Dove Ads?

We don't want to be patronized by the marketing mavens. We don't want a subtle reminder that we need to set our sights lower or aspire to something less than excellence. We want a dream that soars, that inspires us to unbelievable heights. We want a vision to move towards, no matter how unlikely it is that we will reach that destination. So keep your condescending "Go ahead and settle for this" approach away, please.

Robert Browning suggested: "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"

Weight Loss: Tweaking Your Lifestyle

2009-01-27T07:39:00.001-08:00

Despite our national propensity to overeat, under-exercise, and grow steadily heavier and more out of shape, we all yearn to be slender, fit, and attractive. Our culture rewards the thin and the beautiful; look at how we devour celebrity gossip, mesmerized by the looks and energy of our current favorites.

Why the discrepancy between our aspirations and our reality? There are a plethora of reasons, most of which can be traced to the simple fact that life gets in the way.

"I'd love to cut back on my food intake," we think, "But I have to attend all these work functions and have little control over the meals that are served." "I would really like to get in shape," we complain, "But there's no free time and I can't afford a personal trainer like the movie stars I see." "I really want to take care of my skin and my body," we wail, "But I'm so busy that a quick shower and a slap of moisturizer is all I can fit into my schedule."

It would be so wonderful to have loads of free time: to plan our days; to cook low calorie, healthy meals; to exercise without time constraints; to be able to pamper ourselves without the pressure of deadlines. Unfortunately, our lives are too hectic for that to happen in the foreseeable future. We can throw up our hands in frustration and join the legions of the overweight and the unfit, or we can work out a personal plan that fits within our lifestyle, taking us where we want to go, albeit not quite as quickly or completely as we would prefer.

Your life, your time, the demands and responsibilities you face, vary on an individual basis. You will need to calculate what works for you, and what cannot be realistically accommodated. Here are some ideas to consider:

1. Diet

Eating on the run, at your desk, or on the rubber chicken circuit, wreaks havoc with even the best-laid diet plans. If you weigh even a pound more than you'd like, try to identify where you are going astray.

If fast food on your way to an appointment is your downfall, look at what you order. Almost all drive-thrus these days offer salads. The problems with those salads can be minimized by throwing away the little bag of croutons (fried) and omitting the packaged dressings (loaded with fat). Carry your own individual container of low calorie dressing, opt for (unsweetened) ice tea, black coffee, or a diet soda, and avoid those sugar-laden colas like the plagues they are.

If you lunch at your desk, ask yourself what are you eating? If it's takeout, by all means have a cheeseburger or a sandwich. Just discard the bread or bun and eat with a plastic knife and fork, cut into raisin-sized pieces that will fill you up fast. French fries and onion rings? You just don't want to go there.

Is your office always filled with snacks and treats (as most of them seem to be these days)? When the snacks come by, go to the bathroom or, better yet, take a brisk walk around the building to beef up your "won't" power and clear the vision of goodies from your head.

If business lunches, dinners, or those awful meeting banquets are your obstacles, plan ahead. Lunch is relatively easy: salad (with your own dressing, of course) or fish and cottage cheese are available almost anywhere. For dinner, try two low calorie appetizers instead of an entrée. Best of all is something that you have to work at crab legs, unpeeled shrimp, an artichoke (hold the hollandaise) it will take a lot of time and no one will notice how little you are actually eating.

Banquets are particularly difficult because a plate is plunked in front of you, filled with food you would never order by choice. Cut whatever protein and vegetables there are into little pieces and chew slowly. Spread the rest out over your plate and play with it to delay the onset of a syrupy dessert. Get a cup of black coffee and place it squarely in front of you to thwart that eager-beaver waiter who keeps trying to slide a plate of pie onto your table.

Entertaining in the home creates a different set of problems because usually you know the hostess and want to avoid creating any bad feelings. Fall back on allergies as no one wants to see you break out in hives in the middle of their party. Carry a club soda or mineral water with you and no one will notice that you're not drinking.

Over a period of time, these little changes can have a significant impact on your weight. If you're hungry when you get home, make sure that you have some liquid protein or a health shake available to complete your daily nutritional needs.

2. Exercise.

With the best of intentions, millions of us purchase gym memberships. If we all actually used them on a regular basis, as we promise ourselves we will, there would be waiting lines spilling into the streets. Health clubs can keep signing up more and more members because they know that the number of regulars will stay about the same as the new enrollees will show up in a burst of initial enthusiasm but within a few short weeks will gradually fade away.

Unless you have a job with very regular hours, something few of us enjoy these days, it's difficult to commit to going somewhere on a regular basis. We mean to go but then an important meeting comes up, our significant other asks us to do something, or the kids pester us to drive them somewhere.

Our high demand lives almost force us to obtain our exercise at home. Television is replete with home equipment that promises to flatten our abs, define our pects, and re-sculpt our entire bodies. Despite their assurances that the equipment easily folds away, we know our apartments can never accommodate a Bowflex or a Nordic Track. Where do those buyers live? In the suburbs, we suspect, where the expensive equipment is soon relegated to the basement or the garage to gather dust until some future yard sale comes along. Equipment, except for minimal contraptions such as elastic bands and hand weights, are just too much trouble, and setting them up takes too much time.

Slipping exercise into your schedule is most easily handled (and therefore more likely to be regularly repeated) by pursuing activities that can be initiated without any preparation time, special clothes, or long periods free of interruption. The old standbys of pushups, situps, stretches with weights, yoga, and calisthenics have stood the test of time for a reason. They can be inserted into your crowded schedule at odd moments of the day and require no preparation except a short warm-up. Some of the newer programs: callanetics, pilates (some), killer exercises, and video workouts also fit these requirements.

When you unexpectedly find a secret half hour free, take a walk and, if you can, magnify its benefits with an occasional bout of sprinting.

Such a plan may not make you into a Mr. or Ms. Universe but it will keep you limber and semi-fit while avoiding that energy-devouring guilt you develop when you set your sights too high and then fail to follow through.

3. Taking care of yourself.

We have all read the accounts of Cleopatra bathing in asses' milk to bleach and smooth her skin. But she was a Queen, for heaven's sake! She didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn to fight the traffic into the office. She didn't have to take care of a husband, a house, or a child. You'd have the time to leisurely bathe if it weren't for cleaning the house, washing the clothes, finishing that report for the office, helping the kids with their homework, cooking dinner, and picking up Aunt Mildred at the airport.

We know we need to take care of ourselves. We want to perform the routines that will stave off the signs of age that wait just around the corner. We would love to take a long daily bath or shower, polish our skin to perfection with a loofah and scrubbing powders, envelop ourselves in skin softeners and lotions, and pamper our face and hair with special cleansers, masques, and skin brighteners.

Again, our lives get in the way. We work out a minimal routine of makeup remover, toner, and moisturizer. We shampoo our hair when we can and occasionally find the time for a special oil treatment or facial. It is hard to be fully motivated when the signs of age are brief and fleeting. When I have more time, we tell ourselves, I'll work on it. Twenty years later, the wrinkles have set in, the jowls have puffed out, and our skin carries the scars of sun, wind, and gravity. Then we bemoan our lack of care through the years and try to minimize the ravages of time already indelibly imprinted on our looks.

By all means, stick to your rapid daily routine. Sure, you could get up earlier in the morning and have time for more self-care but you're already, like most working-age Americans, sleep-deprived.

One solution is to identify one period a week when you can steal a couple of hours for yourself. Women, especially, shortchange themselves, too busy taking care of everyone else and ignoring themselves. Stake out your claim to that two hour window as if your life depended on it. Use it only for you. Use it to take deep treatments for your face or your hair. Use it to practice relaxation, listen to music, or walk in the rain. Use it to pamper every part of your body and spirit. Use it to think about yourself, and your goals, and your dreams. Use it to appreciate yourself and the good things life has brought you. Use it to lay plans for future self-development and use it to become your own best friend and confidant.

Our lives are so filled up with what we have to do that our wants and internal needs are often unmet. In even the busiest and most demanding schedule, there are moments we can carve out for ourselves, but only if we absolutely insist on it. Right now is the time to become assertive about your own self. You too deserve a brief moment in the sun.

The Diet Bore.

2009-01-26T23:39:00.001-08:00

You probably know a diet bore: there's at least one in every office, every group, and at every get-together. It's almost always female - men lose weight too but don't seem to feel the same compulsion to convert the entire world. Blame it on our innate female need to change everyone else.

The diet bore is the one who knows the caloric count of every morsel you eat, and makes sure you know it too. She can expound, at length, on the relative merits of sugar, salt, protein and carbohydrates. She actually knows the difference (and explains it ad nauseum) between mono and unsaturated fats, transfats, and essential fats. She knows what's good for you and what terrible things will happen if you actually eat what's on your plate.

She's the one who makes you cringe in a restaurant as she meticulously quizzes the poor waitress about how everything is prepared and cooked. She demands special substitutions and omissions and then complains that her meal is bland. She carries salt and sugar substitutes in her tote along with her trusty food value books and a calculator to loudly total the calories and carbs she (and you) has consumed.

She causes more of us to fall of our diets than Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders combined because she makes the whole concept of losing weight so damned boring that we don't want anything to do with it.

As we happily pig out on our spaghetti and meat balls (with garlic toast), we can take comfort in noting that the diet bore, despite the breadth of her knowledge and her too public weight control efforts, is always a little heavier than she should be.

Maybe she bores herself too?

The Psychology Of Diet Preparation

2009-01-26T15:39:00.001-08:00

We decide to lose weight because of any number of reasons: we don't like the way we look, our clothes don't fit, our health is in danger, our significant other is wandering, our job is at risk, or our kids are embarrassed. We tend to think of weight loss as something that involves only our body; surely no one ever decided to lose weight because of a fat brain or a bloated mind.

Yet "we decide" is a mental function. When and why we make such a decision depends on our mind, not our body. We may make the decision when we are five pounds heavier than we would like, or after passing the two hundred pound mark and entering true medical obesity. The actual size of the body does not trigger the decision to lose weight, such a choice in made in the brain.

Since the start (and the continuation) of a diet program is a mental process, it would seem to be worthwhile to explore what factors might trigger such a decision.

1. Self-Image.

Each of us has a dual image: the face we turn to the world and our internal idea of how we appear. Although we dress and groom ourselves in an effort to be seen as attractive by others, we are far less influenced by others than by our satisfaction, or dissatisfaction, with ourselves.

Explore this concept by observing yourself and others over the course of the next week. You will notice that you often receive compliments on clothes you wear that, to you, don't feel "quite right." Wear a favorite outfit that fits perfectly, that you think looks outstanding, and that makes you feel especially dashing and no one notices! The same phenomenon occurs with a hairstyle. One morning, rushed for time, you can't get your hair to do anything so you angrily pull it back with clips and hope that no one important sees you looking so awful. Voila! Three people comment that they like what you've done with your hair.

There is the same disconnect when it comes to our weight. If we look good in our mind's eye, we don't feel fat, even if friends and coworkers are whispering about our steady weight gain. However, if we see ourselves as overweight, no amount of reassurance from those around us is going to make us feel less fat. Carried to the extreme, this mental picture of our body size can lead to the eating disorder anorexia nervosa in which painfully thin individuals continue to dangerously restrict their caloric intake because they consistently see themselves as too heavy.

We decide to go on a diet, therefore, in response to our internal self-image. Some of the benefits we envision that go along with being slim and fit do take others into account: I will be more attractive to the opposite sex; I'll be noticed at work when it's time for a promotion; my family and friends will be jealous and will have to re-evaluate me as a stronger person than they had thought. But the real payoff for getting in shape is what it does for us personally. It is the desire to feel great about ourselves that carries us through the pain and monotony of diet and exercise. It is the future vision of ourselves in our mind that spurs us toward our goal. Losing that vision, or concluding that we won't feel that much better about ourselves, are the reasons we give up and fall back into the relative comfort of settling for just "okay."

2. Body versus Mind dominance.

We all wage a lifelong internal battle between our body and our mind. Each is dominant at different stages of development. As infants, we are little more than a collection of sensations. We explore the exciting new world around us through touching everything within reach, tasting everything we can put into our mouths, watching the movements of everything around us, and listening to all the sounds we hear until we eventually learn to imitate them.

As we move into our early school years, we start to concentrate on our minds. We voraciously devour immense amounts of information. We learn to read and our world expands its boundaries by a thousand percent. We learn to use the Internet and a limitless universe is at our fingertips.

Then we move into puberty and, overnight, our appearance becomes the dominating factor in our everyday lives. We navigate the pitfalls and pleasures of adolescence where popularity and being cool are so much more vital than mere learning or mental development. We spend an inordinate amount of time on our bodies. We try new clothes, new hairstyles, and new makeup. We have body parts pierced and undergo the pain of a tattoo because it will make us stand out. We primp, and groom, and force ourselves into the styles our peers have judged as "in."

As we mature, we seek to balance our mental and physical selves. While our bodies reign supreme in the attract-a-mate environment, we need to exercise our minds to advance our careers and to develop deep relationships that move far beyond mere physical attraction.

It is when we settle down, and start to build the good life we want, that our efforts and energies turn towards things outside ourselves: children, significant others, friends, family, and work pursuits. We have so much happening around us and so much to do that we lose touch with both our bodies and our minds. We slip into our own comfort zone where so many of our needs are fulfilled by food. It eases our anxiety, relieves our frequent frustrations, and makes periodic bouts of the blues bearable. It oils our social interactions. It becomes a vital cog in how we demonstrate affection for those we love. We continue to see ourselves as we have always been and ignore the love handles and pockets of fat that attach themselves to parts of our body we resolutely ignore. Our bodies, and our internal image of our bodies, become more and more discordant.

3. Our sense of self-efficacy.

Self-efficacy is a term used in psychology to describe an individual's belief that any action they take will have an effect on the outcome. It is not self-confidence, nor a belief that one is competent to do something, although it may involve both. It reflects our inner expectation that what we do will effect the results we want.

If I lack this belief, then I fear that whatever I do will not bring about my desired goal. Bordering on helplessness, it leads to self-defeating thoughts:

"No matter how carefully I diet, I don't lose weight . . ." "I could work out every day but I'll never get rid of these thunder thighs . . ." "I try to eat healthier foods but my hips just keep on spreading . . ." "No matter what techniques I try, nothing is going to keep the wrinkles away . . ."

If I have a strong sense of self-efficacy, my belief system and thought patterns will sound like:

"All I have to do is get motivated and I can whip my body into shape in a few weeks . . ." "I just need to pick a date to start my diet and I'll be on my way . . ." "I may have neglected myself for a while but some hard work will bring me back . . ."

Whether or not we start a diet, decide to get in shape, or start taking better care of ourselves is, ultimately, a personal decision which may, or may not, be made as we have planned. The difference lies in the expectation of success and it is always easier to set out on a journey we anticipate will be successful than it is to drag ourselves toward a goal where failure is the most likely outcome.

How can we combine these concepts to work for us in our desire to become slim, fit, and attractive?

We begin by examining our self-image and how we appear to others. Merely asking others "Do you think I'm getting too heavy?" doesn't work unless you have a brutally honest friend or you ask someone who dislikes you. Most of us are culturally trained to spare others' feelings so responses to such a question are more likely to be polite than true.

Concentrating on specifics can produce better feedback. Tell everyone that you're completing a survey for a class you're taking. Hand out a brief one page questionnaire requiring that each friend or coworker list three adjectives to describe different aspects of your physical appearance. Complete one of the sheets yourself. Make sure that the answers are anonymous by requesting that no names be used and having someone else collect the completed sheets.

Once you have the responses back, compare them to your own answers and see where the descriptions diverge. You may find yourself becoming a little defensive: "My hips aren't that big . . . my clothes do too make me look slim." This isn't an exercise to make you feel bad about yourself nor for you to gloat over the unexpected complimentary remarks you received. It is an organized effort to help you identify where your self-image and your image-in-the-world move apart. Those areas of divergence are a place to start in the effort to make the two images overlap.

Once the areas where work is needed have been identified, it is time to call on the immeasurable strength of our wonderful mind to start imposing the structure and organization we are going to need to effect the desired changes. Our mind can only get us where we want to go if it is supported by a belief in our ability to bring about a successful conclusion. Now is the time to dismiss any expectations of failure. There may have been many unsuccessful dieting and fitness attempts in the past. Leave them in the past. We are not somehow doomed to continue unproductive behaviors forever. We possess that jewel of evolution, the human mind, which is capable of just about anything. If we set our mind to any task, it will accomplish it, if our doubts and misgivings don't get in its way.

We build up our positive expectations by exploring our memories to pile up a long list of prior successes. There may be major benchmarks such as bringing about a promotion we wanted, orchestrating a fantastic event, or working ourselves into an intensely satisfying relationship. However, the small personal triumphs count the most but are usually quickly forgotten or discounted as unimportant.

Studying hard and obtaining a good grade in a difficult class clearly demonstrates your ability to bring about the results you want. Go for quantity: the day you smiled at someone across a smoky room and ended up with a brief but lovely affair; the report you brought in on time which no one expected; the night you mastered a spin on ice skates. Keep going: making the drill team, shooting a stolen basket, making your own prom dress, dying your hair a wonderful color in your own bathroom, catching a fly ball, figuring out new software on your computer, burning your first CD. The list can be endless and will be, as you keep remembering snippets of the past that you had long buried under more important things.

Keep this list close by and read it regularly. It is your personal self-efficacy pep squad.

You now know the areas you are going to work on and are developing a belief in the effectiveness of your own efforts. Now you need to identify the internal rewards that successful weight loss will bring. Feeling good about yourself, enjoying stepping on a scale, and easily zipping up your clothes are easy starters. Unselfconsciously walking to the pool in a brief suit is a reinforcement to dream about. Making a sales presentation with the confidence that you are looking your absolute best is an image to relish as you fall asleep. Seeing someone you love watch you admiringly, or seeing your competitive coworker jealous, underscores your resolve and keeps you going through the discomfort of dieting and the demands of boring exercise routines.

You know where you're going, you know what it's going to take, and you know you're going to be successful. Your mind is fully prepared, simply awaiting your day of decision. You'll make that decision whenever you choose because you are now in control.

Weight Loss At Work: Non-Food Rewards

2009-01-26T07:39:00.001-08:00

The e-mail comes out at noon. "To celebrate your hard work this week, there is cake and ice cream in the big kitchen at 3 today. Be there!"

The universal reward for hard work always seems to be food: cake and ice cream, a catered lunch for in-service training sessions, pizza for the overtime crew, bagels and cream cheese to brighten up a bleak Monday morning.

Food seems to be the perennial favorite for any kind of work reward because it is universally accepted. Some of us (we hard core dieters) may pass on the sweet stuff but usually find something allowable. In a world where two thirds of us are overweight or obese, is there nothing else available as a gift that cuts across all individual interests?

Recently, we had a whole week at my company devoted to employee appreciation. The primary rewards were, of course, food but other things were added: a company baseball cap, a hiking water container, a lunch bag, and a handwritten note of thanks to every employee from their supervisor. The cap was a bust for those of us with any modicum of fashion sense; the insulated flask and bag were food related, and the handwritten notes were superfluous - good supervisors show their appreciation of hard work constantly while a handwritten note from a harsh supervisor, no matter the "thanks" stated, means diddly squat to a resentful employee.

The HAS to be something else, doesn't there? We human beings have few things totally in common and eating is the primary universal. Other common bodily activities such as urination and defecation are not easily translatable into some kind of reward system. We are all involved in physical activity, to some degree, but that is often more a chore than a delight.

When it comes to our other senses, we all differ so much that one person's pleasure is another person's pain: music, perfume, pictures, or massages are differential tastes rather than general givens.

Money is almost always acceptable but the small amounts that would be individually generated to replace a free dessert or snack would be so minimal that their reward value would be insignificant.

So what can those of us on a permanent diet, and alarmed about our coworkers' increased girth, suggest?

How about plants? Small individual pots or a larger department shrub would save our waistlines while adding to the health and esthetics of our environment. I calculate, just within my call center, that if a plant had been given to each department, instead of an edible goodie, for celebrations over the past 5 years, that I would now be working in a lush rain forest of exotic plants where the stale re-processed air conditioned air would be purer, more humid, and a thousand times fresher. Morale booster and health benefits in one fell swoop!

How about the gift of time? In our overly busy pressured lives, who would not be immensely grateful for a free hour here or there. Rotate it through each department, letting one or two people leave early on a Friday afternoon. That would means something and would carry no cost so upper management should be ecstatic.

Instead of a handwritten note, how about getting Supervisors to perform their subordinates work duties for an hour or so, once in a while? Can you imagine the morale boost for an employee to get off the telephone, or the machine, or the computer, and shoot the breeze with friends for an hour while their duties are performed by their supervisors? And if mistakes are made - so much the better. It creates a sense of equality and inter-relationship between workers and supervisors that is generally lacking in a corporate environment.

How about free "Get out of jail" cards for every line worker? Each person gets one free card and additional cards can be given by supervisors for outstanding work, ensuring that the better workers have more cards. The cards can then be used as excuses for small transgressions - coming in a little late, leaving early, making minor mistakes. With the use of the card, a worker avoids verbal coaching, warnings, or being put on report. And let employees use their cards for coworkers who may need them - think of the teambuilding that would accomplish!

Flexibility of hours, assignments, and days, is another area where workers will universally respond: not to money, or food, but to accommodation of individual needs. Give each employee a wish card and then allow them to use it to get something they need.

What does all of this accomplish? It allows for employee rewards without fats and carbohydrates. Now isn't that worthwhile?

P. S. I'm recommending this to my company. I'll let you know if they buy it!

Life Is One Damn Diet After Another

2009-01-25T23:39:00.001-08:00

A common expression is that we're "going on a diet." The phrase suggests that, like a vacation trip, there is a beginning and an end. We dream of the day we will reach our weight goal and how wonderful it will be when we don't have to lead a life of painful deprivation.

In the back of our minds, there is a comforting little tape playing, promising us that when our weight loss campaign is over, we'll be able to stop counting calories, carbohydrates, or fats. We long for the day when we no longer have to clench our teeth as we refuse a favorite dish that always causes us to salivate in our sleep. We reach for the carrot and celery sticks without anticipation or enthusiasm while torturing ourselves with visions of the special treats we'll enjoy when the diet is over.

Uh, hello?

Allowing ourselves to think of a diet as a delineated, restricted period within our total life span is a sure avenue back to tent city (that refers to what we wear, not where we live). To have any hope of attaining permanent weight control, we must approach it as a lifelong effort, watching our intake day after day, week after week, year after year.

You feel your heart sinking in your chest. You think "If I have to live like this all the time, it's just not worth it!" That little voice promises you that you are different. You can relax because now you know how to lose weight, you can do it anytime you want. Gain five pounds and you'll go back on your diet and be back to goal in no time at all.

But you won't! Think back over your chequered weight history. We all believe that once our weight is down, it will be so easy to go on a short diet if we gain back a few pounds. It doesn't work that way, though, does it? We start gaining a pound here and a pound there, but then there are some special events coming up and a diet would be so inconvenient. We don't go back "on" our diet until we've gained enough weight to develop the self-disgust that warrants a new period of serious deprivation. We have become a full-fledged member of the yo-yo club, that vast majority of dieters who cannot keep the weight off for more than a few weeks.

The reasons we go "on" and "off" diets are numerous: they are boring, depressing, and very uncomfortable. They set us apart from friends, family, and coworkers who continue to snack, to feast, and to celebrate. We resent how diets make us feel and how they impact our daily lives.

Let's look at the whole picture from a different perspective for a minute.

Instead of "a diet" envision a way of eating that involves living on a diet for the rest of your life. While the prospect may appall you, don't say you can't do it just yet.

First, consider another wide-spread concept many of us accept. To lose substantial weight in a relatively short time, we need to select the diet that seems to fit us and then stay with it, religiously, until we've reached our goal.

Let's now take these two concepts, squish them together, and then turn them upside down.

We are not "going on a diet." We are starting our diet-for-life. We then pick a diet, any diet at all, and make the commitment to stick with that diet for one week, and one week only. At the end of the week, we are going to pick an entirely different diet to which again we only commit for a one week period. This continues for virtually the rest of our lives with selected diets changing on a weekly basis.

What does this accomplish? A whole bunch of things:

By selecting a different diet each week, it removes those common misgivings that maybe we should have gone in a different direction. We worry that we're not getting the right nutrients or that we're going to get sick or develop a rare disease. We read the diet ratings and panic at the warnings posted for all the popular programs. With our new approach, you don't have to fret about if you made a good or bad choice because you'll be making a new choice in a week.

If there are particularly painful "No-Nos" in this week's diet, resolve to try something next week that allows a currently forbidden fruit. For example, a primarily protein regimen has been found successful for many participants who often lose five or ten pounds in a week. However, they miss the vegetables and salad they enjoy. The next week could then be a vegetables and salad only routine, also successful for rapid weight loss but a bit lean on the protein you body needs for self-repair.

You may then find yourself craving some good bread so you switch to the Subway diet for a week until your craving is satisfied. Move on to something completely different the cabbage soup diet or liquid shakes. Since there are literally thousands of diets, a few are bound to include the food you crave.

You are never more than a week away from having what you feel you absolutely must have in order to keep going. You can include spartan fad diets that move fat quickly and you can include calorie counting or Weight Watcher diets that allow almost anything so long as you adjust your intake to stay within the totals specified.

The frequent changes in your eating patterns keep your body off-balance. Give the body enough time and advance notice and it will adapt to anything, turning protein into carbohydrates and storing even low calorie carbohydrates as little pockets of fat. By totally changing what you eat on a regular basis, the body gives up trying to figure out how to thwart you and spends its time efficiently processing what you give it. You are effectively using your smart little mind to outmaneuver your smart not-so-little body.

The constant changes force you to buy food in smaller packages. It's pointless and wasteful to buy those family packs of anything. That will help you with overall portion reduction, a must for any serious dieter. Your shopping goal is only to purchase items that you can consume within a week. If you see something that you particularly want but is not on your allowed list, make a mental note to find a diet for next week that can accommodate it.

The need for a new diet each week requires that you read and research a lot of diets. The reading acts as reinforcement for your goals and will assure your continuing education on nutrition and fitness. When you see something that intrigues you or just makes a lot of sense, try it out. Perhaps one week will involve barely restricted eating but require a lot of exercise. Go for it it's only a week.

You are in the happy position of having wide choices available but also the needed structure of an organized plan to follow. The regimented eating is within each week's diet; the power of choice is operative when you decide what the next week's program will be.

Can you stay on a diet permanently? Yes, you can, because you're not restricting yourself from anything for life, just for a week at a time. Should you stay on a diet for the rest of your life? Yes, you probably should as long as you are getting a balance of foods from an intelligent mixing of alternative diet plans. If you like one diet more than another, or if one particular program works exceptionally well for you, by all means cycle that diet into your routine on a regular basis. Just make sure you don't use the same plan more than once a month or your body is going to be ready for it and Zap! you find it no longer works so well.

Can you over-diet? We have all seen (although they seem to be harder to find these days) overly thin, cadaverous dieters with sunken cheeks and loose skin. That can be avoided by making your selected diets very diverse so you are never without needed nutrients for very long. For example, many retirement homes and assisted living co-ops produce thin seniors with pallid skin and protruding abdomens. Replace their mushy, high starch meals with any of the myriad high protein and vegetable-fruit diets and their color will improve, their energy increase, and their tummies fade.

Can you ever be too thin? Visit an eating disorder facility and you will see the results of anorexia nervosa, not a pretty sight and highly dangerous from a medical standpoint. If you have a history of overweight, you may tell yourself that being too thin will never be in the cards for you. However, there are not infrequent cases of the perennial heavy who becomes anorexic through dieting too much with resulting anxiety about gaining back even an ounce of the flesh so painfully discarded. If you have a distorted body image, and reliable friends are concerned about your being too thin, get professional help.

10.

It all comes down to using your brain intelligently. When you are at your heaviest, with the most to lose, the logical choice is a rather spartan program that will get the fat moving quickly. As you lose, more moderate programs can be interspersed so that your skin and cheeks have a chance to adjust and fill in as your weight stores become redistributed. If a particular part of your body is resistant to reduction, exercise may become a more important part of your plan than simply a dietary approach. Once you are hovering at your ideal weight, simple calorie counting or support group involvement may be all you need.

The secret is to be rational about it all and use that wonderful mind of yours to set the program for your not-so-intelligent body with its insatiable appetite and poundage conservation cravings. Don't try to cheat unless you want to cheat yourself and then be honest and admit that, for whatever reason there is, you want to avoid further weight loss. When you want and need to lose fifty pounds, an ice cream and chocolate diet is not rational. When you are at ideal weight or below, a stringent fad diet makes no sense.

Will all this mixing of diets result in consistent weight loss? There is never consistency in weight loss because there are just too many factors involved: water retention, digestive inefficiencies, the amount of energy expended, and individual body quirks. Over time, you will lose steadily but there will always be some ups and downs along the way.

Once the concept of "going on a diet" has been discarded, a lifelong eating plan can be embraced, guaranteed to leave you in control of your weight for the rest of your long slender life.

Diet: Facing Lousy Choices

2009-01-25T15:39:00.001-08:00

It's 11:30 AM. You've been up since 5 o'clock and the hunger meter is on high. "What to eat?" you think to yourself.

You pore over the menu for the deli downstairs but nothing you can allow yourself looks that good. Sure, you could go out for fast food but there's a meeting coming up and you don't really want to move your car and then have to find a new parking spot when you return.

So you decide not to go out. That leaves eating in.

You look at your choices, wishing you'd had the foresight to bring something from home. There's the vending machine in the break room, filled with plastic-wrapped, rubber-textured sandwiches, bagels, muffins and Danish. Ugh, you keep spinning the carousels, hoping that by some miracle, there will be a vegetable snack plate or something half-way decent. You narrow down your choices to a cup of noodle soup or a chicken breast sandwich.

Now you have another choice: eat something to take the edge off or power through the minutes of temptation until you are sitting in your meeting and eating is out of the question. After an hour of dreary, repetitive discussions, your hunger may have calmed down.

How you handle it each day, depends on your mood. Often, if we can get through that one tempting half hour, we're set for the afternoon and can easily wait for our well-planned light dinner. On other days, you know in your heart that if you don't eat something, you won't be able to concentrate on your work because all you can think about is food while you try to conceal the embarrassment of a gurgling stomach.

On those days, take the chicken sandwich, remove the bun, and microwave the miniscule piece of chicken provided. Then cut it into tiny pieces and eat slowly with a plastic knife and fork. If you can make the pea-sized pieces last for 15 or 20 minutes, you'll feel like you've actually eaten an entire meal and be on your way to a pleasant non-food-focused afternoon on a very limited caloric intake.

If you truly want to control your weight, you can do it anywhere. The key is never to eat until you've had a lengthy internal dialog with yourself that forces you into a full awareness of your food intake and then select the lesser of all evils and consume it as slowly as you can manage.

Even trapped in the office with nothing more than a killer vending machine, you can turn bleak choices into a self-esteem building triumph.

Dieting: I Can't Afford To Lose Weight!

2009-01-25T07:39:00.001-08:00

We are so eager to lose weight that we swallow the promises of every diet guru on the planet and eagerly plunk down our hard earned cash, praying that this time it will work.

What are the costs of the popular diets? The initial cost is to buy the "Bible" for the diet or join the program. Those initial fees range from $20 or $30 for a book to several hundred dollars for a personal program.

Then there's the food. Studies have shown that the average cost of a week's food purchases, per individual, is slightly above $50. To start the South Beach Diet, tack on an additional $25 per week. For the Zone and Weight Watchers Diets, the additional cost is about $40, for Atkins $50, for NutriSystems almost $60 and for Jenny Craig about $85!

Wait a minute, you say. I'm losing weight by cutting back on eating. Shouldn't that SAVE me money?

Looking at it logically, you would certainly think so. But we don't try to lose weight logically, we approach the whole process through our emotions. It is our emotions that lead us to buy things on impulse, to sign up for programs we know we'll never complete, and to join projects we'll never actively pursue.

Our emotional thinking is our weakness and it has nothing to do with intelligence or education or social level. We all get suckered into scams at some point in our lives and we all occasionally suffer from buyer's remorse it's a part of the human experience.

The marketers and ad men know it well and spend their days devising tricks for which we all too often fall. How often have you eagerly dialed an 800 number during one of those brilliant infomercials only to receive something that doesn't work as it did on TV, is either shoddily made or just too complicated, and you stick it in the back of a cupboard where it gathers dust until you finally toss it?

When it comes to our weight, our emotions reign supreme. We so desperately want to be more attractive, more respected, and more desirable. We will even subject ourselves to painful and sometimes dangerous surgery to bring our reality closer to our ideal. And we will rob our piggy banks, deplete our bank accounts, and run up our credit cards for anything that promises us a slender future.

Do we get what we pay for? Sometimes. There are a few successful disciples in every program. It is their pictures and stories that are prominently displayed in promotional literature. It is the old "before" and "after" trick that sucks us in. Our logic (and a tiny footnote) tells us that the featured results are not typical.

The wary left side of our brain wonders if a little airbrushing might have been employed. Then the right side explodes, filled with desire, well-meaning intentions, and an overwhelming urge to believe. And we fall for it again.

Notice that we never hear or see about the failures, the hundreds of thousands who start a diet with such high hopes yet live the rest of their lives overweight. All the diets have their failures but never bother to mention exactly what their percentages are. They may caution that their program must be followed exactly if it is to work, but let's be realistic. How many of us can follow an unswerving routine for the weeks, months, or years it is going to take to reach our ideal weight? We may be creatures of habit but life seldom fits into one unsquishable box for very long. We adapt the routine to meet our immediate needs and everything falls apart.

Sadder, wiser, guilt-ridden and self-critical, we vow to start again until, eventually, we give up. Is there a better way?

We can start by realizing that it really doesn't matter what diet we choose. The secret is to address our emotions, that infatuation with food that has, nationally, reached crisis proportions. We have to break off our affair with what we eat and restore food to its rightful place something that keeps us alive and healthy, not our primary source of excitement and self-satisfaction.

Hoodia Gordonii - One Reason To Take It

2009-01-24T23:39:00.001-08:00

When Hoodia was discovered the very first animal trials to test it was with Rats. The rats that were fed with Hoodia stopped eating completely. Rats are well know as animals that will eat anything and everything. Can you believe that an animal who loves to eat anything simply switched off its desire to eat, even when foods that rats love were placed in front of them.

When the first clinical human trial was conducted with Hoodia, several morbidly obese people were placed in a unit which was a closed off area were all that they could do was to read, watch television, interact with each other, and of course eat. Half the people were given Hoodia Gordonii to take, and half were given a placebo. After fifteen days, the group that had been taking Hoodia Gordonii had reduced their calorie intake by 1000 calories a day - despite taking no exercise and not being on a diet

This is due to the active ingredient in Hoodia Gordonii, the molecule known as P57, as it imitates the effects that glucose has on your brain, signaling that you are full. Your brain has what is called a Hypothalamus. This part of your brain controls your appetite. When you eat, the glucose levels in your body rise. As these levels go up, the hypothalamus sends off a signal to your cells to stop eating. This is when you start to feel full. Hoodia Gordonii's molecule, P57, tells your brain the same exact thing, even if you haven't eaten a bite. By mimicking the effects of glucose on your brain, the hypothalamus starts to send messages to your cells which in turn, make you feel full

Hoodia is grown in the Kalahari Desert region of South Africa, Hoodia Gordonii is an all natural appetite suppressant, derived from a cactus like plant with prickly spikes. Scientists have been researching the Hoodia plant for almost a decade, and have found it to be completely free of harmful side effects.

Paul Callis is extremely knowledgeable in the field of sports and nutrition in the UK . You can visit Paul's web site, and read his recommendations and advice at Hoodia Gordonii

Detox To Lose Weight

2009-01-24T07:39:00.001-08:00

Detoxification programs have been promoted as the remedy to today's unhealthy lifestyles for years. Proponents of detoxification note that a good detox can help increase energy, slow the aging process, aid the digestive system and help relieve the symptoms of diabetes and asthma. One of the greatest benefits of a good detoxification program is weight loss.

Our bodies are equipped with several systems to help it naturally detox. However, today's stressful lifestyles and unhealthy eating habits often overburden our natural systems. As our body struggles to keep up with the toxic matter flowing through our systems it often falls behind. Toxic waste begins to back up and the balance of our body is disrupted.

A good detox will help restore the body's balance, eliminate the waste building up and make our systems run much more efficiently. During autopsies, coroners often find colons that are more than 75% clogged with waste matter. This causes the systems that clean our blood and intestinal tracts to back up. Nutrients can't be absorbed as efficiently and we gain weight, become tired and irritable. Health issues often follow.

Cleaning the colon and the liver often completely relieves these clogs and allows our bodies to return to optimum functioning. Nutrients are used efficiently and many find that the detox program has such great results that they simply don't crave sugar and fried foods after the detoxification. Many report feeling so good after detoxifying that they are motivated to eat more carefully.

With the toxins being flushed out of the body, many report a dramatic increase in energy level, encouraging many to exercise and further assist their detox in reducing weight.

Researchers have found that as the level of toxins in the body rises, more fat is manufactured to protect the body. Weight gain is a natural by-product of toxin buildup. Removing the toxins from the body allows the body to release the excess fat, resulting in a natural weight loss.

There are many detoxification programs on the market. Choose a gentle, well researched program that includes a parasite remover as well. You'll be pleasantly surprised at your increased energy and amount of weight loss!

Sandra Kim Leong publishes information on detoxification and cleansing. Her site includes information on colon cleansing, liver cleansing, kidney cleansing, detox diets and juice fasting. Please visit

Beware The Food Pyramid

2009-01-23T07:39:00.001-08:00

The food pyramid was issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the early 1990s as part of a program to encourage the growth of healthy eating habits from a young age. From the outset schools that were keen to introduce healthy eating habits from junior school level upwards embraced it. We all accepted that USDA had produced a new key to guide us in how to eat healthily and start the battle against obesity from a young age. Time has since taught us that the Food Pyramid was based upon some unsound scientific data and the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health has since corrected the base knowledge by using up to date scientific data that has now replaced the original Pyramid. On a personal note I think the original Food Pyramid was great and a definite step in the right direction. This new approach is based upon more accurate scientific data and is therefore better to use.

The Five Food Groups

Fruits: Eat a variety of fruits rather than fruit juices for most of your fruit needs. Apart from fresh fruit you can also use canned fruit, dried fruit or frozen fruit. But try to have at least one item of fresh fruit each day.

Vegetables: Dark green vegetables are especially good for you; spinach, broccoli and kale lead the way together with any other dark leaf greens. Orange vegetables should also form a major part of your diet: Carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkin and winter squash. Don't forget beans and peas such as kidney beans, pinto beans, black beans, split peas and lentils.

Calcium foods: You need at least three cups of fat free or low fat milk each day. You can substitute an equal amount of low-fat yoghurts or cheese. One and a half ounces (42.5 grams) of cheese equals a cup of milk.

Grains: Minimum three ounces (85 grams) of whole-grain cereal. This can be substituted by pasta or rice. 1/2 cup of pasta or rice equals 1 cup of whole-grain breakfast cereal. Harvard School of Public Health suggests that you should read the content labels to be sure that grains such as wheat, rice, oats and corn are referred to as "whole".

Proteins: Choose only lean meats and poultry and it is preferable to bake, broil or grill it. You can vary your protein intake with fish, beans, peas, nuts and seeds.

A healthy diet requires a daily intake from each of the five food groups listed above. It also requires that you eat in moderation and should never eat until you feel full. It takes around twenty minutes for your stomach to get the full message to your brain. It is this time lapse that is to blame for the majority of cases of obesity. Today many of the top dieticians are advocating that you eat more meals each day rather than less. For instance, if you eat six small meals each day with a controlled calorie intake you are less likely to eat too much at any meal. This is far more helpful to losing weight than taking 3 meals each day and being so hungry when you sit down that you eat until the brain gets the message that you are full because that is already too late and the damage will takes months to undo.

David McCarthy is webmaster of a site that is dedicated to freely sharing knowledge of all things connected to food and diet with recipes from diet to party food.

Health and fitness software, what should be in it? Part 2

2009-01-22T07:39:00.001-08:00

A good health and fitness program needs to focus on factors that prevent us from becoming unhealthy. One factor that has definitely a correlation with unhealthiness is obesity. The health consequences for being overweight or obese are vast and may include high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, sleep apnea and some cancers to name a few.

Losing weight and becoming healthy for obese and overweight people is imperative and well designed fitness software can support this. One way it can be helpful is to calculate a person's calorie balance and correlate these numbers to their body measurements and vital signs. It is very encouraging and motivating to see yourself lose weight and in the same instance your blood pressure and cholesterol levels go down.

Weight loss all boils down to your calorie balance. If your intake is higher then you spend, you gain weight. In part 1, we talked about the calorie intake side of the calorie balance equation. Part 2 describes the requirements for the calories spent module.

Let's start out with the assumption that the calories spent will significantly vary between people and can not be generalized between high, medium and low activity level. We need a more precise method than that. If we look just plainly at the factors that influence our energy spending, we can conclude the following:

Larger people will spend more energy than small people. It makes sense that when you move more weight it costs more energy. Younger people will spend more than older people. Males will spend more than females. Tall thin people will spend more energy than short stocky with the same weight. The tall thin person has more body surface and loses more heat. Lean muscled people spend more energy than the average or overweight person with the same weight. Muscles use more energy than fat cells. Active people will spend more energy than sedative people.

During a day we execute many activities all with a different length of time and intensity level. Between activities there can be huge differences in intensity level. For instance fishing is way less intense than rowing a boat. Also within the same activity different intensity levels exist. For instance 30 minutes running will cost more energy then 30 minutes jogging or walking. Executing an activity with a high intensity level will spend more energy per unit of time.

When calculating the calorie balance, the fitness software should take all the above factors into its formula and adjust the variables automatically. For instance if somebody loses weight, this should be immediately reflected in the outcome. Let's say I weigh in on Monday and the system calculates 2500 calories spent and two weeks later I weigh again and provided my daily activities were exactly the same but I lost two pounds, the system should automatically calculate the new calories burned taking the 2 pounds lost into account.

You should have the ability to create multiple activity plans in the system, individualized per person. Most people repeat their daily activities on a weekly basis, if today is Tuesday, next Tuesday my activities will be pretty much the same. From Monday till Friday the activities may be similar, but they can differ significantly from weekend to weekend.

In order to calculate the calories spent during the day precisely, you will need to record all activities, the length of time for each activity and the intensity level it was executed. Doing so could mean a lot of time behind the computer entering all this data. To circumvent this problem, the software should allow you to create a plan that is repeated on a weekly basis with default values. Now you need to only to copy this plan and update the differences from what actually occurred. The actual activities with their time length are noted on an activity worksheet that can be printed on a daily basis. This way your data can be recorded within 30 seconds.

Next we need to be able to compare our calories spent with our calorie intake. This can be done in the form of a chart that displays the calorie balance per person over time. See the following example: calorie analysis. This chart makes abundantly clear what your calorie balance is and consequently shows the reason why you lose weight or not lose weight.

In the next article I will talk about body measurement and vital sign readings and how they correlate to your work outs, supplement intake etcetera

About the author

© Erik Pijcke is founder and CEO of Pycke Inc. He is the architect and developer of Hythial Pro, an all-inclusive personal health and fitness software program. Part of this software program contains a comprehensive calorie counter module. You can download this program at

Hythial Pro - Health Diet Fitness Software + Free Online Recipe and Food Calorie Counter

The First Steps To Curing Obesity

2009-01-21T23:39:00.001-08:00

Obesity has become an epidemic, especially in The United States. An average of 300,000 Americans die each year and nearly $177 billion is spent on illnesses related to obesity.

Obesity can affect your legs and back. It can raise your blood pressure and even cause diabetes.

We are becoming fat and lazy, but before we can conquer the problem, we have to start accepting responsibility for our own actions. What you are about to read may offend some people, but it needs to be said.

Many people suffer from being overweight. It may result from a stocky build, slow metabolism, or some other physical reason, but it is a fact of life for many people. They will probably struggle with it their entire lives.

But obesity is different. A very miniscule percentage of obese people have medical reasons for their condition. The rest of them just cannot stop shoveling the food in long enough to see the consequences of their actions.

How many times have you been in a restaurant or at a party and watched an obviously obese person shoveling in the food and drinking a diet soda? Do they think the diet soda will make all that fat and calories go away? It doesn't work that way.

Please understand that the following suggestions are only the beginning of a very long and bumpy road to recovery. But even the longest journey begins with a single step.

1. PUT DOWN THAT TWINKIE! Someone, right this minute, is probably reading this article and eating something fattening. If not, it has probably been less that an hour since they have last eaten.

Before they can recover from their problem, they have to admit that they have one. And that Twinkie is the first sign.

If this is you and you feel that you absolutely must eat something, get some fresh fruit or vegetables. They not only contain the essential nutrients that your body needs for good health, but some will actually burn more calories that they replace.

2. See your doctor. If you are more than 50 pounds overweight, only a fool would recommend any diet plan until you are medically cleared by your physician.

Your doctor can also advise you on the best programs to help you get started.

This cannot be emphasized enough. Once you have eliminated the fattening foods, see your doctor before going one step farther.

3. Consider seeing a counselor. Is there a deep seated, subconscious reason for your obesity or are you just a pig? The answers may surprise you.

Once you discover the reasons for your self destructive behavior, you will be better equipped to handle them.

If you cannot afford counseling, talk to a trusted friend or, if you are a religious person, perhaps someone at your church.

They may not be able to diagnose your problem, but they can be there for you when you encounter those bumps in the road to recovery.

The bottom line is this. Curing your obesity and getting fit not only will increase the likelihood of a longer life, it will make that life much more pleasant.

Maybe it's time you stopped looking for sympathy and give yourself a swift kick in the pants.

Jill Miller, founder of the Fit4LifeClub, will give you a free copy of her weight loss and fitness guide. Sign up for her newsletter today at:

Give The Gift Of Fitness

2009-01-21T07:39:00.001-08:00

Well, it's that time of year again the holiday shopping season is in full force. Have you thought about what you are going to give those people on your "hard to shop for" list? Instead of another tie for your dad or music CD for your sister, why don't you give them a truly unique and invaluable gift? Give them the gift of improved health and fitness.

The gift of fitness is something that you can give to virtually everybody on your shopping list -- from your parents, to your spouse, a friend, your siblings, an employee or co-worker, even your children. And it's a gift that is invaluable. After all, who doesn't want to look better, feel better, and be healthier?

And, it's a gift that you can truly feel proud to give. When you give someone the gift of fitness, you are helping him open a door to better health (both physically and mentally). It's a gift that genuinely shows the recipient how much you care about their well-being. By giving the gift of fitness you are providing them with unlimited health benefits.

Of course, we all know that exercise can help people stay slim and fit. But, do you also know about all the other great benefits of exercising? Daily physical activity reduces stress and can help you sleep better. Fitness has been linked to reducing the risk of many diseases and to warding off depression. Researchers believe that strength training can help prevent osteoporosis. Not to mention that exercise also improves self-esteem and increases stamina.

Certainly many people on your shopping list would find these fitness benefits incredibly invaluable. If the people on your list are like most of us, they've probably even mentioned how they want to drop a few pounds or just get in better shape. In fact, experts say that about 62% of Americans are currently on a diet. By giving the gift of fitness you are helping provide them with extra motivation (which is one of the biggest obstacles in getting fit). They'll be more motivated to start an exercise program when given a gift that helps them immediately take action to kick start their workouts (personal training gift certificates and gym memberships are especially good for helping with motivation).

While fitness gifts are incredibly valuable, they don't have to be expensive. Gifts can cost as little as $5 or range into the $100s of dollars. Here are a few suggestions in the various price ranges:

Under $15:

Resistance Band/Tube (also makes a great stocking stuffer and is an especially valuable gift for a frequent traveler)

Dumbbells

Jump Rope (also makes a great stocking stuffer)

Exercise Mat

$15 - $35

Fitness Ball

Online Personal Training Program (custom designed for the gift recipient)

Home Exercise Video (also makes a great stocking stuffer)

Heart Rate Monitor

Pedometer

Over $35

Full dumbbell or barbell set

BOSU

Bicycle

Yoga Kit

Fitness clothing

A gift that supports health and wellness will be appreciated for years to come and may even turn someone's life around. The gift of fitness will make the recipient feel special they'll know that someone cared enough to give them the opportunity to improve their health. And, giving a gift that will help someone lead a healthier life is also one of the most rewarding gifts you can give. So why spend another holiday season searching for the perfect gift only to end up picking up another gift certificate or calendar? Surprise everyone this year and give the gift that comes from the heart and truly keeps on giving throughout the New Year and beyond. And don't forget yourself you deserve the gift of fitness too!

About the author: Lynn Bode is a certified personal trainer specializing in Internet-based fitness programs. She founded Workouts For You, which provides affordable online exercise programs that are custom designed for each individual. Visit: for a free sample workout. Fitness professionals take your business online, visit:

How To Avoid Holiday Weight Gain

2009-01-20T23:39:00.001-08:00

The holiday season is undoubtedly a time for rejoicing. Unfortunately, the average adult does a little too much celebrating during this time of year, which leads to extra baggage when the New Year rings in. Festivities that include indulging in extra helpings, snacking on seasonal treats, and little to no workout time all contribute to the increase in dieters in January.

So, this holiday season buck the trends and avoid the Seasonal Seven (the average weight most of us will gain between Thanksgiving and the New Year). That's one trend you don't want to participate in!

Even though this time of year may bring upon additional stresses and challenges, there are ways to find balance and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Though at times it may seem impossible to bypass the season's traditional foods, there are many ways to partake in the fun without increasing your pant size. The festivities don't have to be eliminated or avoided. You can have a fabulous time while also maintaining your weight and your fitness regimen.

Moderation is the word of the season. It's the secret to achieving a fun but also healthy holiday time. With a moderate approach both to what you eat (or don't eat) and how much exercise you do (or don't do), you can avoid packing on weight AND also partake in all the fun of this time of year. So this season, get a head start on the New Year instead of starting January with extra pounds to lose.

Here are some tips to help you during those hectic holiday weeks:

Create a plan ahead of time. Before the holidays sneak up on you, create a plan for incorporating fitness and good nutrition into your daily routine. Evaluate your holiday schedule and then determine how much time you will realistically have available to devote to working out.

If you work in an office setting be prepared for the deluge of guilty treats your co-workers and other business associates will graciously want to share. Stash your own healthy snacks in your desk so you won't be tempted to overindulge when your grumbling stomach demands a 3:00 snack time.

Don't put your fitness goals on hold until the New Year. If you can't exercise as often during this time period as you normally do, adjust appropriately. Don't use the excuse that since you don't have time for your full workout you just won't workout at all. Instead accept your limited availability and simply reduce the frequency and/or duration of your exercise. It's much better to cut your fitness time in half than to completely eliminate it.

When attending a holiday function, try to eat ahead of time to lessen your hunger. If the party is in the evening, eat breakfast, lunch and a snack before hand (just as you would on any other day). Since you have eaten meals earlier in the day, you'll be less tempted to go overboard and eat everything in sight. However, if you instead starve all day long attempting to "save up" all your calories for the party, you will be so famished by the time it begins that it will be difficult not to overeat.

Schedule your workouts. Mark them on the calendar and set-aside time to complete them. Consider them as important as any other appointment or event you have marked on your calendar.

At holiday dinners, skip the gravy, dressings, and high-calorie condiments.

On days that you really lack motivation or simply do not have time for your complete exercise routine, commit to do just 10 minutes of exercise. You'll probably end up doing more than that once you get started. Even if you only end up completing 10 minutes, that is still a lot better than zero minutes.

When at a party, scout out healthy food options rather than doing a grab and run on all the unhealthy selections. For example, vegetable sticks (without dip), fruit pieces, plain chicken pieces, etc. Then move on to some of the less healthy (but yummy) offerings. You will be less likely to overindulge on these foods if you have already filled-up on some of the healthier items. Yet, you will not feel deprived or unsatisfied.

Exercise at home. You'll be more inclined to follow-through on your exercise commitment if you don't have to drive somewhere to do your workout. Plus, you won't waste any time on driving, parking, the locker room or waiting to use equipment. Working out at home requires very little equipment (it even can be equipment-free) and is quite inexpensive.

Avoid wasting calories on alcoholic beverages. The average alcoholic drink contains 150-200 calories per glass. Indulge in just 2-3 drinks and you've drunk the equivalent calories of an entire meal. If you partake in these beverages, choose wisely. For example, instead of having a full glass of wine, try mixing half a glass of wine with sparkling water or with a diet soda. This will help cut your calories in half.

When running errands or shopping, be sure to pack some healthy snacks to have on-hand. Then after you work-up a big appetite, you won't be tempted to grab something at the mall food court or the fast food restaurant on the way home.

Don't linger at the buffet or in the kitchen. If you loiter in close proximity to all the guilty temptations, you'll struggle to keep from unconsciously shoveling food into your mouth.

Focus on socializing. Remember one of the great things about the holidays is spending time with friends and family. During get-togethers spend the majority of time sharing conversation instead of sharing desserts.

Hopefully these tips will help you find a balance between staying fit and also enjoying the fun of the season. Remember, moderation is the key. Have a great holiday season!

What Is A Healthy Diet?

2009-01-20T07:39:00.000-08:00

What is a healthy diet? It's not about counting calories, measuring portions or cutting carbs. You won't really find a healthy diet on the lite menu at your favorite restaurant and you certainly won't find it at the local fast food joint. A healthy diet is all about what you eat rather than how much you eat.

If you think the latest fad diet is your panacea to health, you are in for a big surprise. Losing weight, staying healthy and getting back into shape after many years of diet neglect is not about fads or eating in some radical new way for six to twelve weeks and then going back to the way you used to eat.

The best thing you can do to keep yourself healthy is to eat a healthy dietall the time, not just when you want to lose weight. Eating healthy is a long-term lifestyle choice, something you need to do for your entire lifetime.

But what is a healthy diet? Is it what we have been lead to believe milk for strong bones and teeth, protein in the form of lean beef or chicken and maybe a "healthy" microwave dinner if we are "on the go." Unfortunately this diet is what is identified as the Standard American Diet or the SAD.

And what's so wrong with the SAD?

Well, has it made us a healthier people? Are we better off as a nation because of it?

With all of the health studies, advanced health care, the war on cancer dating back to the 70's, and the most advanced technology available on the planet we have to ask ourselves why do we still need to spend $1.3 trillion a year on health care in the United States. Why aren't we getting any healthier?

Other pertinent questions about your health beg for answers such as, why after more than 30 years since the "War On Cancer" was declared, do we still have an increasing cancer rate. Yes, we have many more people surviving cancer but the rate at which people are getting cancer is increasing. We have come a long way in taking care of sick people, but we haven't made any progress as a nation in preventing those people from getting sick.

Why do more than 15 million people in the United States have diabetes? Why do we still have more heart problems today than we did 30 years ago? Why is more than 50% of our population on some kind of prescription drug?

We spend more per person on medical care than any other nation in the world. Why is this happening in a country that seems to be able to solve nearly any technological problem? Why can't we solve our medical problems? How would life be different for us if we were to be a nation of healthy individuals?

The secret to a healthy diet and a healthy life is living food fresh vegetables, fruit, juices and green leafy salads. The answer to a healthier you is summed up in three words, breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Living a healthy life and having a healthy family is all about eating a healthy diet, every day of our lives!

Alan LeStourgeon along with his wife Jean run the web site www.ezHealthyD where they explore what it means to eat a healthy diet, have a healthy home and live a healthier life.

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