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Weight Loss Surgery

Monday, October 17th, 2011 at 9:59 pm

When you are ready to leave the hospital, you may receive a visit from the hospital dietitian who will go over the required diet for Lap-Band patients. It’s important to fully understand the Lap-Band diet before you decide on this type of weight loss surgery. The first 3 to 4 days following Adjustable Gastric Lap-Band surgery patients must follow a clear liquid diet. Failure to follow the prescribed diet can cause complications such as band erosion or slippage that require additional surgery.

If you are a regular coffee, tea, or soda drinker you should be aware that no caffeine is permitted for the first three months after surgery. Carbonated beverages; both diet and regular may cause gas, bloating, and an increase in stomach size due to the carbonation and are not recommended at any time for Lap-Band patients.

The second phase of the Lap-Band diet consists of 5 to 6 weeks of a modified full liquid diet; the key component of this phase is consuming two ounces of a protein shake every hour for ten to twelve hours a day with two ounces of other liquids such as soup, baby food, or sugar-free gelatin three times a day.

During the second six weeks following Lap-Band surgery patients may eat food that is shredded in a food processor prior to eating. The basic foods on the Lap-Band diet include meats or other forms of protein, vegetables, and salads. The Lap-Band diet does not include most bread, potatoes and other starchy vegetables. The length of these phases may be altered according a patient’s personal weight and weight loss goals – my first phase is five weeks, followed by a two week second phase.

Protein is especially important following Lap-Band surgery. After Lap-Band surgery the stomach will never hold more than 4 to 6 ounces per meal, so making every bite count is essential for healthy and nutritionally rounded weight loss success.

Lap-Band patients are advised to consume fifty to sixty grams of protein daily to avoid protein deficiency. Protein deficiency causes hair loss, fatigue, edema, muscle weakness, and a delay in wound healing. A lack of adequate protein may also lead to depression, anxiety, irritability, apathy, and other mental health conditions, as well as cause a number of physical health issues from gallstones to colds, headaches, low blood pressure, anemia, irregular hear rates, and, in extreme cases, death. A lab can measure the amount of protein in your blood by performing a serum albumin blood test.

Eating after Adjustable Gastric Lap-Band surgery means taking tiny bites, and eating very slowly. You should think of your new stomach as a “baby” stomach. You’ll be drinking protein shakes and relearning eating skills much the same way as a new baby eats formula (or breast milk), and slowly adds new foods from blended baby foods to chunkier baby foods.

Certain foods may never be well tolerated by Lap-Band patients. These foods include:

Any medicine you take may need to be adjusted following Lap-Band surgery since you will not be able to swallow pills that are aspirin-size or larger, or capsules or irregular-shaped pills. For me this has meant breaking a blood pressure pill in half, changing my tri-estrogen capsules to a cream form, and taking liquid antibiotics and painkillers for an unrelated infection.

View the original article here

Tags: protein shakes, surgery patients, sugar-free gelatin, Lap-Band surgery, low blood pressure

Here’s How Juice Fasting Can Transform The Course of Your Life

Friday, October 29th, 2010 at 12:46 pm

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Why Juice Fasting?

In this article I continue to talk about juice fasting, especially in relation to the health benefits. To be sure, one of the primary purposes for which people fast is to detoxify the body and improve their health.

Others do it strictly for weight loss and many observe times of fasting as part of their religious beliefs. What is your reason for wanting to fast? Have you ever written these reasons on paper? If not, I recommend that you do. Putting your goals in writing gives them a certain type of power than they do not have just swimming up in your mind. Health, health, health is what this is all about.

Traditional medicine is wonderful and I am always amazed at just how much we have advanced in the last century. Surely new discoveries may one day overcome age-old human enemies as cancer.

Meanwhile, it is our duty to do everything within our power to take care of our bodies and maintain the best health possible. This task is not for your doctor, parents, spouse or children… it is FOR YOU! So, if you are overweight and toxic, this article the clarion call to WAKE UP AND START TO TAKE ACTION!

And juice fasting is a very effective tool that can help you lose weight and improve your health in a relatively short period of time. A juice fast can detoxify your body at the same time delivering a very nice shot of vitamins, minerals and enzymes. Juice fasting (and water fasting also) places the body in healing mode and allows it to rest from digestion and focus instead on deep cleansing, healing and fat burning.

Whenever you drink natural fruit and vegetable juices, you’re taking in some very powerful curative nutrients. You are drinking living enzymes, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and photochemical agents that help the body cleanse and rejuvenate. I mean, I could go on and on and on talking about the benefits of juice fasting.

But even the most accurate description will fall short. You just have to try it for yourself. And if you already are an experienced juice faster, then you STILL have universes to explore. No matter how many times you have fasted in the past, each fast – in my opinion – takes us to a different region in our minds, bodies and souls.

So even if I fast for 100 years, I would only be scratching the surface since the world of the spirit is infinite. I don’t know about you, but to me this is immensely exciting. What other practice on the phase of this earth gives the body the power to basically cannibalize disease? Truly amazing stuff!

How should we proceed with a juice fast?

To begin with, you have to know that fasting can be safe. Many do not realize that the human body can actually make it without eating for as long as 70 days or more, depending on your weight and fat percentage. The body actually has stores of vital nutrients in the liver and bone marrow. While fasting, it has the ability to tap into these resources to ensure your survival in every way possible. A lot of people do not know this and are therefore misinformed about fasting.

I recall vividly one gentleman staring at me shaken and wild-eyed: “Fasting… you mean not eating? You will die!!!” Here he was, with an enormous potbelly that hung almost down to his knees, ,but it was ME who was in danger of dying. Ugghh!

Perhaps you, too, have had some encounters with unbelieving loved ones and/or acquaintances. Let the results speak for themselves is what I always suggest. But, if you are new, the best thing you can do is to start slow and give yourself plenty of time to get used to the fasting process, particularly hunger pangs, detox symptoms and the emotional ups and downs.

Once you have successfully completed various one, two and three-day juice fasts, you can then venture and complete seven days. Do seven days every other week, for example. This is a very powerful form of intermittent fasting. Continue to move forward and then – eventually – give yourself the goal of doing three straight weeks of juice fasting.

A juice fast 21 to 30 days in length will likely have a profound impact on your mind, body and spirit. It could definitely change the entire course of your life. If you are able to handle 21 days, then you can probably make it to 30 days with relative ease. Everyone should have the awesome experience of completing thirty days of juice or water fasting. There is just nothing like it. Many go beyond thirty days. Last year I completed 100 days of juice fasting.

But this is really not necessary in most cases. I personally did it because of a lingering liver condition that requires me to cleanse regularly. I always had the goal of juicing for 100 days… so that was my personal goal. If you are more than 100 pounds overweight, you should not force yourself into a long fast is you have never done one before. I mean, everyone has their mission in life.

When I got sick and tired of living in obesity, depression and isolation, I launched a 40-day water fast within days. But that was me. If you feel that fasting is the way through which you want to lose all of your excess weight, then give yourself plenty of “trial and error” time. If you initially start with your sights on doing 14 days and then fall off on day five, don’t berate yourself or think it was a failure. Simply get up and try, try again. It may take a few tries before you settle into your fasting grove. Just keep getting up and do not ever give up.

Likewise, prior to beginning a juice fast, you must recognize that it likely won’t be a “piece of cake.” You might have moments of turmoil when you will have a very strong urge to quit due to hunger pangs, detox symptoms and/or emotional attacks. You may just say “screw it,” and start driving to the market to buy the biggest cake you can get your hands on! I have been there so many times it isn’t funny.

When all of these trials emerge (and they certainly will), realize that the symptoms will pass. Realize that, even though it may seem that time is crawling, this fast is a very small window of time in the grand scheme of things. And realize that, no matter how much discomfort you face initially, it will be NOTHING in comparison to the HUGE benefits that you will gain mentally, spiritually and physically.

If you are sick and tired of being sick and tired with your weight and health, you definitely should try a juice fast. You will not regret it. I pray and hope that all of your dreams come true, and that you receive the strength, wisdom and determination to overcome all obstacles that may stand in your way. Talk soon!

Tags: short period, best health, entire course, Juice fasting, vegetable juices

Some Key Pointers To Help You When Juice Fasting & Detox Cleansing

Friday, October 29th, 2010 at 8:36 am

Comments (7)

A real fast doesn’t normally include any kind of sustenance or beverages aside from just water. However, after many years of fasting and coaching others, I cannot deny just how immensely powerful it is to fast with fruit and vegetable juices. At first I opposed juice fasting because I considered myself a “purist.”

But, a little older now (and wiser I hope!), I see that nature has immense healing and restorative powers that cannot be denied, and juice fasting - in my opinion - is one of the most direct ways in which to harness this miracle. The juices provide nutrition which hasten the body’s excretion of toxins, as well as tissue repair. Indeed, fasting with fruit and veggie juices is very powerful and can help you to notably improve your health, as well as lose weight quickly.

Beyond weight loss, however, I always like to emphasize the power of body cleansing. Fasting causes the body to switch to “survival” mode, meaning that it starts to tap on stored fat in order to provide energy needs.

Since the worst of the toxins from the air we breathe, water we drink and food we eat are stored inside fat cells, this survival mode - known as ketosis – causes the toxins to be released into the blood stream. The result is what can be mild to severe detox symptoms. These last anywhere from nine to 21 days, depending on your body makeup and state of health. Juice fasting helps to facilitate this process because the abundant nutrients in raw fresh juices help the body to more effectively process and expel these poisons.

Fasting enables the digestive system get some rest and so the extra energy can be utilized to eliminate toxins. The body metabolises its tissue to supply the energy usually produced from solid foods.

However, and miraculously, the body will only consume the unhealthy, fragile cells, NOT the healthy ones. It is for this reason that fasting frequently for a week to 14 days (at least once annually), can help keep you healthy, clean and lean. This, of course, depends largely on what you eat when you aren’t fasting. You STILL must become willing to make PERMANENT eating-habit changes once the fast is over. Here are juice fasting pointers you should be aware of:

* Don’t use anything except raw organic produce to prevent any kind of chemical deposits which could remain. However, if organic is at present beyond your budget, or if you simply do not have access to it where you live, then it is imperative that you wash and scrub the fruits and vegetables throughly before juicing. I recommend that you purchase a hand scrubbing brush especially for this purpose.

* Utilize a non-centrifugal juicer so that you can protect the live nutrients in the juice. An entire argument could be presented both in favor and against this and that type of juicer. I honestly do not make a huge deal of it. In an optimum circumstance, purchase the non-centrifugal. If you cannot find one where you live, just get the very best that you can. It is better to start doing something right away than to continue to procrastinate, don’t you think?

Sidebar: What’s the big deal about juicers anyways? Well, non-centrifugal juicers generate less heat and therefore do not threaten the nutrients in the juice which can be destroyed by high temperatures. In addition, some schools of thought indicate that these life-giving nutrients actually are sucked into the bloodstream through the esophagus prior to reaching the digestive system. There is no proof to this argument, but it certainly is a very interesting supposition.

* Help your body out through the detox process and go out for regular walks or cycling… any type of low-impact exercise would be great. Spend plenty of time taking deep breaths and visualize clean air going in and black toxic stuff being eliminated as you exhale.

The more calories you burn each day, the faster the body can process and be rid of the toxins that cause all of the uncomfortable cravings and detox symptoms. But I said “low intensity.” Biking a few miles is fine… but NOT a twenty or thirty mile hike please! If you jog, do it slowly and stop the moment you start to feel light-headed. Low impact, low impact, low impact… oh, did I tell you: low impact!

* Consume the juice as quickly as possible after you prepare it. You can plausibly stretch a juice’s lifespan to as much as three – even four days if you agitate it frequently, keep it in an airtight jar and cover the jar or jug with aluminum foil to shield the juice from all light. Many times I have been juice fasting for long periods of time and simply do not have the time to be juicing every day. So I prepare up to one gallon of juice at a time and then protect it like a newborn baby!

* Raw fruit and veggie juices possess alkaline nutrients that help the body to more effectively counteract toxic/acid waste generated by the water we drink, air we breathe and food we eat – in addition to a variety of environmental toxins..

* Lots of poisons tend to be expelled via the pores and skin during detoxification. Spending at least ten minutes each day “brushing” your skin helps a lot to get those pores actively eliminating toxic residue. Just make sure that you do not use a brush that is too harsh and can break your skin.

The whole point is to “hel” your skin, NOT mangle it! Shower when you are finished. If you have access to a sauna, use it daily for ten to fifteen minutes to further stimulate the excretion of toxins through the skin.

* You can drink as many as 7 eight-ounce glasses of juice daily, but no more. Make sure to drink at least half a gallon of water also. When hunger and/or detox symptoms hit you, try drinking a seltzer/sparkling water or a cup of green tea for some added pep. I usually drink the seltzer water two or three times daily if I am struggling with hunger.

Green tea (preferably decaffeinated) usually helps a lot at those “hump” times of the day when you feel yourself dragging. You ought not, however, drink green tea at night as it may keep you up. If you drink anything in the evening, try chamomille tea instead. It is very soothing and will help you settle in for the night.

* You should always break the fast slowly. Spend various days re-introducing solid food to the digestive system. Anything raw is usually best and is most easily digested. A huge steak two days after fasting is not a good idea.

Neither is a cheeseburger or any of that other trash that got you sick and overweight in the first place. NOW is a perfect time for you to take stock of your eating habits and become willing to make some PERMANENT changes. Otherwise you will simply end up back where you started, eventually.

For those who have chronic conditions such as cancer and/or diabetes (among others) or are underweight or with child, I strongly encourage you to see your doctor and talk to him or her FIRST. Thanx for visiting Fitness Through Fasting. If I can be of service to you in any way, simply drop me a line!

Tags: immense healing, detox process, chemical deposits, Hospitality Recreation, life-giving nutrients

Study Finds Higher Suicide Risk in Teens Who See Themselves as Overweight

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010 at 9:16 am

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As if the many physical health concerns associated with the obesity epidemic weren’t worrisome enough, new research shines a light on an alarming mental health connection: Teenagers who are overweight are at higher risk of attempting suicide. Even teens who merely believe themselves overweight — but actually are not — are more predisposed to suicidal behavior, the researchers found.

The study, which appears online in the Journal of Adolescent Health, looked at more than 14,000 high school students to determine the relationship between a high body mass index (BMI) and suicide attempts, as well as the relationship between perceived overweight and suicide attempts, and found higher risk in both cases.

Contrary to what the researchers had originally expected, the association was as strong for boys as for girls, said lead study author Monica Swahn, PhD.

“This is a major concern since more and more children and youth are becoming overweight and obese,” said Swahn, associate professor in the Institute of Public Health at Georgia State University.

“The mental health issues and distress that some youth who are overweight may experience … appears to be a growing, but largely unaddressed, issue,” Swahn told Daily News Central. “We tend to overlook the need for mental healthcare and prevention and underestimate the scope and range of services needed.”

Reality vs. Perception

For the study, participants answered a survey question:”How do you describe your weight?” They could choose among five responses: very underweight, slightly underweight, about the right weight, slightly overweight or very overweight, Swahn said.

“In our analyses, we looked at those who said they were either slightly or very overweight to determine their potential increased risk for suicide attempts. Our study shows that those who felt that they were overweight were about 40 percent more likely to also report suicide attempt.”

Hatim Omar, MD, chief of the Division of Adolescent Medicine at the University of Kentucky, said his own experience has led him to believe that perceived obesity does increase both depression and suicide risk. “Teens are vulnerable because of their development,” he said, “and any actual or perceived changes in their lives, including weight issues, can potentially increase the risk of depression or suicide.”

Understanding these associations can help in the development of appropriate strategies for suicide prevention, according to the researchers.

“We cannot only focus prevention strategies on those who are overweight and who are concerned about their weight, but we also need to include youth who feel that they are overweight even though they may not be,” Swahn said.

Societal Pressures

“Youth feel very pressured to fit in and to fit certain limited ideals of beauty,” she added.

“Unfortunately, as a society, we are very focused on beauty and in particular weight,” she noted. “Weight gain and weight loss are pervasive issues that many of us struggle with. So, of course, these issues are linked to our well-being and our mental health.

The sad aspect of our findings is that it is not only those who actually are overweight that are at increased risk for suicide attempt, but also that those who perceive themselves as overweight, even if they’re not actually overweight, are at increased risk for suicide attempts.

This finding appears to reflect the very strong influence of social constructs related to body image and body ideals. It is also important to point out that in our study, the link between perceived overweight and suicide attempts was important for both boys and girls.”

Omar noted that “this study adds another wake-up call to providers, parents, teachers and society about the need for screening for depression and suicide risk in all teens, with special attention to teens with perceived or actual obesity.”

Signs of Depression

Swahn pointed to several common symptoms of depression that parents and caretakers can look for: persistent sad or irritable mood;loss of interest in activities once enjoyed;psychomotor agitation or retardation;feelings of worthlessness or inappropriate guilt; recurrent thoughts of death or suicide;difficulty concentrating;difficulty sleeping or oversleeping;loss of energy;significant change in appetite or body weight.

“If five or more of these symptoms are present for more than two weeks, it is very likely that the person can be diagnosed as depressed,” Swahn said.

What should be the role of parents, teachers, healthcare professionals and others in providing appropriate feedback to teens regarding weight and body image? Is there a conflict between nurturing health and fitness on the one hand, and self-esteem on the other?

“It is very important that we find a balance between supporting healthy eating and exercise to achieve well-being and pushing too hard for quick fixes, weight loss and unrealistic body ideals,” Swahn said. “All of us, as parents, caring adults, teachers and healthcare professionals, can have active roles in promoting healthy youth development that support healthy eating and frequent exercise.

External Influences

“However, it is important to recognize the many external influences that manipulate our eating,” she continued. “I just read Dr. [David] Kessler’s new book, The End of Overeating, which is a fascinating account of how the food industry, together with the advertising industry, have made it nearly impossible for some people to control their food intake.

Food has been manipulated, packaged and sold in a way to increase the proportions of sugar, salt and fat, which lead most of us wanting more and on a downward spiral to weight gain. Given this heavy influence, particularly among our children who are growing up with all these messages, it is clear that we need to serve as advocates for our children as well.”

The study authors recommend and encourage future research to examine issues pertaining to perceived and actual weight and their role in suicidal behavior.

“There is growing empirical evidence that there is a strong link between these,” said Swahn, “and that concerns about weight can contribute to distress and suicidal behavior. Ideally, future research should disentangle these associations … and also examine the factors that may alleviate the risk among those who perceive themselves to be overweight.”

View the original article here

Tags: body mass index, mental health issues, actual obesity, journal of adolescent health, body shape

Important Facts on Calorie Restriction Diet Plans, Liquid Diet Weight Loss

Thursday, September 23rd, 2010 at 2:14 pm

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Calorie restriction plan, liquid diet weight loss has a lot of benefits especially to older people. According to studies, having a calorie restriction diet plan, can help extend life’s expectancy. Furthermore, a calorie restriction diet plan can also prevent cancer and heart disease, increase performance and energy and can help in weight loss.

You can have a calorie restriction diet plan, liquid diet by following these steps:

1. Consume plenty of water in order to flush out the toxins from your body. These toxins can be harmful to your health and can cause serious problems. Furthermore, water helps you feel fuller so you do not feel the urge of eating more.

2. Calorie restriction diet plan, liquid weight loss also includes brushing your teeth after every meal. This is an effective weight loss technique because brushing your teeth help you diminish your desire to eat.

3. Try drinking green tea for your calorie restriction diet plan, liquid weight loss. Green tea is full of nutrients and vitamins that the body needs. It is recommended to switch to green tea instead of drinking soda and coffee.

4. Calorie restriction diet plan, liquid weight loss also involves taking time when eating. According to research, your body takes around twenty minutes before it feels full. This is the reason why eating smaller meals are recommended.

5. It is also recommended to try colon cleansing for calorie restriction diet plan, liquid weight loss. This method can help rinse the harmful toxins inside the body caused by unhealthy foods that you consume. It is also known to help increase the levels of energy.

6. During calorie restriction diet plan, all you need to do is count your calorie intake and eat less. This diet plan generally includes vegetables, fruits and foods that contain low-calorie proteins. This helps control the consumption of calories, hydrates the body and guarantees nutrition. Low-calorie proteins include chicken, turkey, beans, baked or steamed fish, water-packed tuna, egg whites, milk and low fat yogurt.

It may take you a while before getting familiar with the calorific content of the foods you eat but it is helpful to do so. This way, you will be able to turn down foods that are high in calorie a lot easier. In order to know the amount of calories you need, it is helpful to seek a calorie calculator and provide your age, gender, weight, activity level and height.

A liquid diet is an easy way to eliminate those unwanted fats. Though the result is faster, it is important to take note that infrequent intake and improper ingredients will ruin your weight loss efforts. The first thing you need to do is to decide on a self-sustaining liquid solution, which must contain antioxidants and essential nutrients found in fruits and vegetables.

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Tags: Health Medical Pharma, effective weight loss, egg whites, Meal Replacements, heart disease

Calorie Restriction and the Raw Food Diet

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010 at 11:28 am

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Calorie Restriction Diet? OR, EAT To Be LEAN!

I have realized since starting to eat a raw food diet that there are two major camps in the raw food movement, the eat less camp and the eat enough camp.

The eat less camp believe that a calorie restriction diet will be better for your health in the long term, as the body does more cleansing and repair work when it is not busy with digestion, and they argue that the calorie model is highly inaccurate and not based on solid science.

The eat enough camp believe that you will struggle to be successful on a raw diet unless you ENSURE that you are eating enough calories, and say that even IF the calorie model is inaccurate, it is at least something to work with so that we can objectively measure our intake.

Dr Douglas Graham, author of The 80/10/10 Diet, does not recommend a calorie restriction diet. He recommends that you eat ENOUGH on a high carbohydrate low fat diet to fulfill your caloric needs and do vigorous exercise at the same time.

When you are new to raw, and making such a major life change, it is very difficult to be successful AND try to eat a calorie restriction diet at the same time.

The ones who try to do this are far more likely to eat cooked food, to binge on fatty food, to obsess about food, and to suffer through many cravings and become more and more disordered in their eating habits.

When I first started on this path I had come from the calorie restriction diet mindset (1200 calories per day) and so at first I did NOT eat enough in terms of calories.

I was trying to follow a raw version of a standard calorie restriction diet. When I just ate as much as I pleased I had the niggling feeling that I was overeating.

The result was that I did have several returns to cooked foods, sometimes even eating cooked foods that I had stopped eating and hadn’t eaten for quite some time BEFORE I went raw, like highly processed vegan food! Did I lose weight? Heck no! I gained some!

A One-Way Street!

When you begin to eat a very clean diet your body becomes MORE sensitive, it becomes LESS forgiving. You suffer more when you go off your path than if you had never begun on your path in the first place. In that way it is a one way street. Sure you can turn around if you want but you’re going to run into some serious oncoming traffic.

When you eat an overly restrictive calorie restriction diet you’re far more likely to binge on fatty foods and/or unhealthy cooked foods and can then actually gain weight because of the excess of calories that any cooked food binge will result in.

Also, if your calories consumed are not enough to sustain your daily activity then you’re also not going to be inspired to exercise, and exercise combined with a high nutrient diet is the best way to reduce your body fat percentage.

Many of the folks who believe they should practice a calorie restriction diet on an ongoing basis do not do much exercise, and it is no surprise: when you don’t eat much, you don’t have energy to move much.

Put binges and disordered eating behind you for good!

When you eat enough calories from fruits and vegetables you DON’T have crazy cravings and disordered eating.

Just EAT!

When you are eating enough calories from fruits and vegetables it is very easy to be successful.

Every cell in the human body runs on glucose, if you cut your carbs, you increase your cravings. When you’re adequately carbed it is easy to forget about food, you’re free to focus on everything else in your life. You feel great.

Concerned that eating too much fruit will cause weight gain?

Eating too much of anything will cause weight gain. You should never have ‘too much’ of anything. You should eat enough, enough that you are satisfied and free of cravings, but not so much that you can’t move after your meal.

Of COURSE it’s possible to gain weight on a raw food diet. If it wasn’t, then all those folks who wanted to build up muscle would have to steer clear of the raw diet. And this is just not the case. You can easily gain muscle weight on a raw diet. All you have to do is strength train very hard, and your appetite will increase along with your growing muscles, which will naturally attract you to more food to fuel the bigger muscles.

If you consistently consume too many calories, you can also easily gain some fat. However, the good news is that there is no such thing as a long term 100% low fat raw vegan who is obese. There is just no such thing, no matter how much fruit they eat. This is because even if you had to overeat on fruit every single day of your life, you would NOT be able to get in enough calories to become obese. Fruits are extremely satiating, as well as not being calorie dense enough for this to happen.

It is certainly possible to carry a few extra pounds of fat, and not every raw foodist you meet is going to be in fitness model shape. It totally depends on your individual goals. If a super lean fitness model body is something that you want, and you have excess fat that is not budging, then counting calories is key so that you can get acquainted with what amounts you should be eating.

However, it is best to create the caloric deficit required to begin losing fat at a sensible rate, by vigorous daily exercise, rather than by restricting your intake to unhealthy levels.

Remember, it did not take a week to get your body into the shape it’s in, it won’t take a week to get out of it.

So whether it is succeeding on a raw food diet, or succeeding with weight loss, the advice is the same: eat enough food. Leave the fasting and the starving to the folks who like obsessing about food.

Alison Andrews is a raw food writer and coach. She is also a singer/songwriter, actress and author. To read this article on a calorie restriction diet see: http://www.loving-it-raw.com/calorie-restriction-diet.html

To find out more about the raw food diet, see Alison’s website: http://www.loving-it-raw.com

Tags: Douglas Graham, raw food diet, low fat diet, eating habits, singer /songwriter

Calorie Restriction Weight Loss & Anti Aging – Does Calorie Restriction Help You Live Longer?

Tuesday, September 21st, 2010 at 12:19 pm

Comments (19)

Calorie restriction is extremely beneficial for weight loss. You can adopt this process by restricting your diet to 1400-1600 calories per day. CR diet not only eliminates those extra pounds but also offer you various other health benefits. Most of the people try various methods for loosing weight and to reverse their aging process. They undergo extreme low calorie nutrition plans, surgeries and many non-surgical techniques for shedding weight. These artificial techniques are mostly temporary treatments. They can also harm your body without any doubt.

Live longer with Calorie Restriction Diet

* The process of calorie restriction is extremely simple to maintain. You should include lots of green colored vegetables and fruits in your diet chart. One should completely avoid the consumption of red meats and dairy products as they are high in calories.

* It is always advisable to drink lots of water and fruit juices for obtaining minerals and vitamins. CR diet is also beneficial for lowering your blood glucose level, cholesterol and body fat percentage. It enhances your overall health. According to many scientists and researchers, this nutrition plan also helps in anti-aging.

* You can combine calorie restriction diets and cardio workouts to live longer. It can create more metabolisms in your body, which would consequently lead to fat burning.

* Resveratrol is usually associated with anti aging. These substances are found mainly in red wine. In order to defy aging, we can easily include red wine in our calorie restriction nutrition.

* Calorie restriction through Acai berry diet would also help you in loosing weight naturally. This nutrition plan is extremely beneficial for engendering metabolism. Acai berry diet will keep you motivated throughout your weight loss process through its mood enhancing properties.

* Although calorie restriction helps you to live longer but it is always advisable to consult a doctor before taking up this diet plan.

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Tags: blood glucose level, Hospitality Recreation, cr diet, calories per day, nutrition plan

Fast Food and Calories

Sunday, August 22nd, 2010 at 1:03 am

Comments (42)

Here in the technology and information age, we have more knowledge and advancements than ever before in history. Sixty years ago, who would have ever thought that you could send an instant message over a phone, let alone take a picture with it? Sixty years ago, who would have thought we would be capable of sending a man to the moon, but fail the war on obesity and cancer?

Isn’t it oddly shocking that America is so well-advanced in everything except health and fitness? While the fitness industry tells us to count calories and exercise for fat loss, we grow fatter and fatter as a nation.

Running parallel to the fitness industry is the fast food chains, doing their best to keep on the top of “healthy eating” trend. It seems the fast-food industry can tailor to anyone’s dieting needs with “fat-free,” “low-calorie,” and “low-carb” menu items.

Today, fast food is considered a normal eating venture among the average person. People aren’t just eating out on special occasions or weekends anymore; they are eating out all the time. But is it the calories in fast food that’s so destructive to the body and waistline or does the problem lie deeper?

Fast Food and Obesity

Fast food is simply tasty, ready-cooked meals packed to go. Fast food has been around since the early 1900′s, but its popularity sparked and grew in the 1940′s with the birth of good ole’ Mickey D’s; quick food priced cheaply. Within a few years similar fast-food operations popped up everywhere in the blink of an eye.

With the compelling rise in fast-food restaurants since the 1940′s, oddly, too, started the rise in obesity and cancer during that same time period. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do the math and link fast food to the obesity and cancer crisis.

Fast Food and its Nutritional Value

To say fast food has a “nutritional value” is an oxymoron. There is absolutely nothing nutritional about fast food. Fast food simply feeds hunger and/or your immediate craving. Fast food does not feed your body in the form of usable lasting energy or building materials, the essence your body thrives on for life itself.

Fast food is highly processed with a wide array of additives. The concept of fast food is obviously, food ready-to-eat and served quickly. To ensure fast food’s low cost to the consumer, the fast food products are made with highly-processed ingredients to give it shelf-life, to hold consistency, and to enhance flavor. Fast food is altered from its original healthy form it was meant to nourish the body with, to a denatured form that lacks any nutritional value whatsoever.

According to Diana Schwarzbein, M.D., “The FDA Total Diet Study found that fast-food hamburgers, across the board, contained 113 different pesticide residues.” So my question is why does the FDA want to regulate the sale of vitamins, minerals, and herbs that are actually beneficial for the body when there’s a linking fast-food / cancer / obesity crisis on our hands?

Why Fast Food is Fattening and Dangerous

Wake up people. It’s not the calories in fast food that’s damaging to your health and waistline, it’s the chemical additives such as aspartame and MSG (monosodium glutamate). These chemical additives are approved by the FDA and studies show that they lead to weight and disease issues.

Synthetic chemicals added to processed food, including fast food, damage your body’s cells. Your body is made up of nutrients found in plants and animals you eat. Man-made food items loaded with pesticides, as well as aspartame, margarine, and other man-made chemicals do not nourish your body. If your body can’t use what you put into it you will gain fat and decrease health.

Since we can’t visually see what actually happens at the molecular level when we eat processed food, we discount it and rely on the FDA to do our thinking for us. After all, if its FDA approved, it MUST be okay to eat, right? Not at all.

Nutrients from the food we eat allow us to burn fat and be healthy. Your body cannot process synthetic chemicals. If a food item can’t be processed, it will end up lodged in areas of your body, primarily fatty areas and tissues, creating an acidic pH.

A simple fast-food chicken breast can contain everything from modified corn starch to hydrolyzed corn gluten. Hello? Chicken comprised of corn? A fast-food chicken nugget is nearly 60% corn, and corn is what farmers use to fatten up cattle.

Michael Pollan, author of, The Omnivore’s Dilemma says it perfectly – “How did we ever get to a point where we need investigative journalist to tell us where our food comes from?”

A good visual that Dr. Mark A. Gustafson found is that it takes fifty-one days to digest fast food chicken nuggets or French fries. FIFTY-ONE DAYS! Does that sound healthy? I could care less about the caloric, fat, or carbohydrate content. That’s not the problem, people. The problem with fast food is that it’s void of nutrients and loaded with chemicals not recognized by the body.

What’s even more devastating is the book The Fast Food Diet written by Stephan Sinatra, M.D. This is a sad state when a doctor promotes eating chemically-altered food with addictive chemicals and damaged fats that scars the artery walls and contribute to total metabolic damage.

Eating Good and Avoiding the Hidden Dangers

Granted, calories do count to an extent, but what counts more is the quality of the calorie. If you want to lose fat then you have to change your eating habits. This doesn’t mean opt for Healthy Choice® and Smart One’s® frozen meals because they appear to be healthy. Food manufacturers use deceptive marking tactics to create an illusion to make people buy their product.

To lose fat and keep it off you should choose foods in their natural state, such as fresh organic cuts of meat, fresh organic fruits and vegetables, essential fats, and plenty of filtered water. It’s vital that you go back to the basics.

Make eating fresh and organic food choices the bulk of your diet. If you do that, you will never have to count calories again. The quality of food outweighs the quantity every time.

References: Schwarbein, Diana M.D. The Schwarzbein Principle. 1999. 287 Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma. 2006. 1

Karen Sessions has been in the fitness industry since 1988. She is a nationally qualified bodybuilder and holds two personal training certifications. She has written 6 ebooks on fitness and has helped hundreds of clients transform their bodies. http://www.theelitephysique.com “Use of this article is authorized provided it is reproduced in full, and all web URLS are active hyperlinks directed to the author”

Tags: Weight loss, calories in fast food, addictive chemicals, Health Medical Pharma, fresh and organic food choices

Quit Being Fast Food Diet Stupid!

Friday, August 20th, 2010 at 8:19 pm

Comments (36)

What is this that I keep seeing about fast food diets? I do a ton of internet research day in and day out, and I keep seeing articles and web-sites containing information in regards to fast food diets that can still keep you thin and healthy. What can I say? I suppose that I can understand the point of view of the fast food industry to reflect this opinion; it’s in the interest of their self-preservation. However, I can only speculate as to why anyone else of any other affiliation would even think about justifying a fast food diet as being healthy.

The term fast food diet is an oxymoron! True, if you eat fast food regularly, you are in fact surviving on a diet that consists of fast food. However, you are not, in fact, on a fast food diet. A diet, in every sense of the modern meaning as it applies to weight loss or healthy eating, cannot come even close to being in the same family as fast food. We are not even talking about distant cousins, twice removed, re-instated through marriage… We are talking about the fact that there is no such thing as a fast food diet. Fast food can be utilized occasionally to replace healthy food because you are on the go and have no access to food that you have prepared yourself. It is a temporary fix for the problem of not having access to healthy food. However, it is not meant to be eaten solely in a “fast food diet”.

We as Americans have grown lazy and dependent upon the fast food industry. They know this, and prey upon us because of this. The concept or term “fast food diet”, I am sure, was even invented by one of the fast food conglomerates in order to try to gain leverage upon the health conscious Americans who have begun to educate themselves upon the dangers of eating fast food on a regular basis. You are smiling at my comment and thinking to yourself, “this guy is crazy”, or “that would be funny if it were true”. However, if it is true, is it truly funny? How else do you think that the fast food diet came to be? You come up with a better idea and let me know.

Business is business, and money is money. Fast food is a business and needs money to survive. If you were to suddenly decide not to eat fast food anymore because it was unhealthy for you to do so, then they have lost their business and they have lost their money. So, let’s create a term “fast food diet” and let Americans think that it means that they can lose weight, and eat our food while doing so! I swear, there was a moment of silence in my mind after writing that… because I know that a ton of us fell for it! The fast food diet caught on faster than a California brush fire during a drought!

Do not be suckered into thinking that counting calories and eating healthy is the same thing! Yes, they are listing fast food diets that you can partake in which list items off of the various fast food establishments’ menus in order to eat a less than two-thousand calorie “fast food diet” daily. This can give you some quick results in weight loss due to your body burning more calories in a day than you are taking into it with you shiny new fast food diet. However, while it is getting thinner, is it getting better? What attributes and vitamins and minerals is your body getting from these menu items? Are you truly getting healthier, or do you feel yourself drained of energy and getting sick more often?

The fact of the matter is that your body does not get anything healthy from these menu items which will enable you to maintain the weight loss that you accomplished from the fast food diet. Your fast food diet has forced your body to actually break down muscle tissue as well as fat in order to get the necessary proteins and vitamins that the food is lacking. So, why eat a fast food diet?

The best fast food diet is the one that refrains from eating any fast food at all. You can watch your calories, and still get all of the vitamins and minerals that your body needs. You can eat negative calorie items that are full of anti-oxidants and anti-carcinogens which will actually prolong your health and your life on this planet. The truth is that the fast food diet is simply a way to keep you coming back to get your fix from the fast food pushers. As I said, the fast food industry serves their purpose. However, do not let yourself be fooled into thinking that eating a fast food diet on a regular basis is going to lead to any long-term positive results.

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Tags: Fast food, Man-Made Disaster, point of view, food pushers, food diet

The Fastest Way to Lose Weight is by Doing a Fast

Friday, August 20th, 2010 at 3:41 am

Comments (39)

Fasting can dramatically reduce your weight and if done correctly will be very healthy and beneficial to your body.

Unfortunately some fasts are very hard to do because when we fast we are depriving our bodies of foods, proteins and complex carbohydrates. When this happens our bodies kind of go on strike, they give us pain like withdrawal symptoms.

Once our bodies realize they do not need so much food to sustain themselves then the pain stops and they get to work at revitalizing our bodies by taking away fats, toxins, bacteria, viruses and they start to repair anything which needs repairing.

So the fastest way to lose weight is with fasting because our bodies get right down to business with getting rid of our unwanted weight. We need to do the right kind of fast though otherwise we can do more harm than good.

We do not want to starve ourselves, this would not be good, but we do want to help our bodies use most of their energy and resources for losing weight and getting rid of toxins, so with this said here are some of the best fasts we can do.

The best fasts are the types which help our bodies use the most amount of energy to do their work and at the same time do not let us starve. These types of fasts are best because we still get to eat and give our bodies’ nutrients, vitamins and minerals they need.

One of the easiest fasts is a fruit fast because fruit is 80% water and 20% meat. This allows us to feel full when we eat fruit and at the same time it lets our bodies use most of our energy for other things besides digestion.

This fruit fast is a great one to try, it is called the melon fast because most of the fruit you eat are melons. The fast consists of eating cantaloupe, watermelon, papaya and lemon and honey water.

The melon fast helps us lose weight very quickly and also helps high blood pressure, kidney and bladder disorders, poor complexion and stomach and intestine disorders.

Another great fast is called the yogurt fast, or lassi fast, this fast is a little more intense at first, but it works very well for losing weight. When I did the lassi fast I blended up some yogurt, water and a bunch of hot spices to help with digestion, after that fast everything I ate tasted ten times better.

One more great fast for losing weight is called the grains fast, this is where we stop eating grains for a while, letting our bodies digest everything and clean themselves out. Grains can be very hard to digest at times.

Then there is the juice fast, which is a great fast for losing weight and gaining many needed vitamins and minerals. A juice fast is an easier fast to do because all you do is drink fruit and vegetable juices.

Make sure when you do a juice or fruit fast, or any fast for that matter that you use only the highest quality foods because we want our bodies to digest everything.

The fastest way to lose weight is with fasting because our bodies do not have anything else to do except lose weight, by fasting we get our bodies to focus on burning unwanted fat and we shed those pounds fast and easily.

The best part of this fasting is that we are doing it 100% naturally with our bodies, so when we lose weight and we go back to normal eating with high quality foods, we keep our weight down, we stay thin and healthy.

Doing exercise is one of the fastest way to lose weight, but fasting is something we can do which does not involve sweating and working hard to lose pounds. A good combination would be exercise on the days you are not fasting and then no exercise when you fast.

If you did exercise while you were fasting you would lose weight too quickly and would greatly suffer. We want this weight loss to be quick but healthy for us as well and the only way to do that is to support our bodies by helping them lose weight.

Acharya D Hargreaves, is a published author of two health books, Digest Alive Lose Weight and build a great body Naturally, Digest Alive The Natural Cure to Heartburn and the owner of http://www.natural-way-to-lose-weight-fast.com a website dedicated to helping overweight and obese people with their weight problems.

“Obesity and Overweight issues are signs that our bodies are unbalanced, to naturally Lose weight quickly and keep it off, we need to make our bodies feel the need to balance themselves out, when this happens we will lose weight fast and keep it off,” he says. In his spare time he likes to do 3D modeling and work with Art and writing, Acharya D Hargreaves lives on an Organic fruit orchard with his wonderful family.

Personal email sight800@yahoo.com

Tags: Hospitality Recreation, types of fasts, Health Medical Pharma, losing weight, Juice fasting

Fasting – 95% OF Dieters Fail – Fasting Will ENSURE You Beat The Odds!

Thursday, August 19th, 2010 at 7:10 pm

Comments (40)

If we control our appetite, our weight is automatically controlled and that’s exactly what fasting will teach you – How to control your appetite.

95% of people who start dieting give up and put on weight.

This is due to being unable to control appetite – Learn to control your appetite through fasting and you succeed in healthy weight control.

Let’s look how fasting can help you lose weight.

As we have said only 5% of people who go on a diet and lose weight keep the weight off for five years or more.

What happens to the other 95%? They remain fat or get fatter.

Is it that the diets don’t work? Yes and no.

The diets work, we don’t.

We lack the discipline to control our diets and eventually slip back to old habit patterns.

There was plenty of dieting in the Bible. It was called fasting.

Fasting is simply the restriction of our usual eating.

Whether a fruit fast or a water fast or a fast from meat, or beef or sweets, fasting is a restriction of our food, a diet.

People have had the same temptations and weaknesses throughout recorded history.

Food has always been one of those weaknesses and fasting is a way to overcome the weakness for food.

The benefit of fasting is not just in weight loss.

A water fast will result in an average of 1 to 2 pounds per day of weight loss. But that is not the benefit of fasting for weight loss.

“I think that will benefit me,” you may say, especially if you are overweight. But that is not the main reason for fasting.

Fasting can actually make you fatter.

The power of fasting is not in losing weight during the fast, but in gaining control of your appetite, which is the REAL problem to healthy weight control.

During a fast, the body burns its own fat.

As the body burns fat, it eliminates toxins and cleanses itself.

First, after several days, your metabolism slows down.

The body slows its metabolism approximately 20% after several days on a fast.

Medical science describes this as a survival mechanism. If the body is not getting food, then it slows down so that it needs less food.

This way, you can live much longer with no food if your body slows down.

Second, your digestive system is cleaner.

The villi in the intestines are cleaner, the stomach lining is cleaner, and the colon is cleaner.

If the lungs are clogged, the intestines coated with filth, the colon stopped up, the blood thick and sluggish, fat surrounding the heart and in the arteries, the body is running inefficiently.

A fast simply cleans up the body.

When you combine those two elements, a cleaner more efficient body with a slower metabolism, you need less food for the same level of activity.

Food is absorbed and utilized better in a clean digestive system.

Fasting will allow you to gain control of your appetite and you will gain the power of self-control after you have completed a long fast.

You may not get the self-control that you seek on your first fast.

But, do you master anything else on your first try?

Fasting on a periodic basis allows a person to gradually gain control over their appetite and this is the key to healthy weight control.

You will find that you are not hungry when you end your fast (after three days, hunger usually abates).

You are as not hungry and have control over what you eat and that is the main benefit of fasting.

You will no longer comfort eat or eat for the sake of eating. Your appetite will be controlled and you will eat less and not be hungry and gain control over your weight.

MORE FREE INFO

On all aspects of health and more on fasting for weight loss visit our website for a huge resource of articles, features and downloads and at http://www.net-planet.org/index.html

Tags: Weight loss, habit patterns, Food and drink, Hospitality Recreation, healthy weight control

Hoodia Gordonii

Sunday, August 15th, 2010 at 2:18 pm

Comments (54)

Latin Name: Hoodia gordonii
Other Names: hoodia, xhooba, !khoba, Ghaap, hoodia cactus, South African desert cactus

Hoodia (pronounced HOO-dee-ah) is a cactus-like plant that grows primarily in the semi-deserts of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, and Angola.

In the last few years, hoodia has been heavily marketed for weight loss and has become immensely popular.

Although there has always been a demand for diet pills, after the ban on the herb ephedra, the market was particularly ripe for the next new diet pill.

Much of hoodia’s popularity stems from claims that the San Bushmen of the Kalahari desert relied on hoodia for thousands of years to ward off hunger and thirst during long hunting trips. They were said to have cut off the stem and eat the bitter-tasting plant.

Hoodia gordonii grows in clumps of green upright stems. Although it is often called a cactus because it resembles one, hoodia is actually a succulent plant.

It takes about five years before hoodia gordonii’s pale purple flowers appear and the plant can be harvested.

There are over 13 types of hoodia. The only active ingredient identified so far is a steroidal glycoside that has been called “p57″. Currently, only hoodia gordonii is thought to contain p57.

In 1937, a Dutch anthropologist studying the San Bushmen noted that they used hoodia gordonii to suppress appetite. In 1963, scientists at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa’s national laboratory, began studying hoodia. They claimed that lab animals lost weight after they were given hoodia gordonii.

The South African scientists, working with a British company named Phytopharm, isolated what they believed to be an active ingredient in hoodia gordonii, a steroidal glycoside, which they named p57. After obtaining a patent in 1995, they licensed p57 to Phytopharm. Phytopharm has spent more than $20 million on hoodia research.

Eventually pharmaceutical giant Pfizer learned about hoodia and expressed interest in developing a hoodia drug. In 1998, Phytopharm sub-licensed the rights to develop p57 to Pfizer for $21 million. Pfizer returned the rights to hoodia to Phytopharm, who is now working with Unilever.

Much of the hype about hoodia started after 60 Minutes correspondent Leslie Stahl and crew traveled to Africa to try hoodia. They hired a local Bushman to go with them into the desert and track down some hoodia. Stahl ate it, describing it as “cucumbery in texture, but not bad.” She reported that she lost the desire to eat or drink the entire day. She also said she didn’t experience any immediate side effects, such as indigestion or heart palpitations.

Hoodia gordonii is sold in capsule, powder, liquid, or tea form in health food stores and on the Internet. Hoodia is also found in the popular diet pill Trimspa.

Despite its popularity, there are no published randomized controlled trials in humans to show hoodia is safe or effective in pill form.

One study published in the September 2004 issue of Brain Research found that injections of p57 into the appetite center of rat brains resulted in altered levels of ATP, an energy molecule that may affect hunger. The animals receiving the P57 injections also ate less than rats that received placebo injections. However, this was an animal study and injections in the brain are different from oral consumption, so it cannot be used to show that oral hoodia can suppress appetite in humans.

The manufacturer Phytopharm cites a clinical trial involving 18 human volunteers that found hoodia consumption reduced food intake by about 1000 calories per day compared to a placebo group. Although intriguing, the study wasn’t published or subjected to a peer-review process, so the quality of the study cannot be evaluated.

There are some potential side effects of hoodia that you should be aware of. What are Hoodia’s Side Effects and Safety Concerns?

There are widespread reports of counterfeit hoodia products. Mike Adams of News Target, estimates that 80% of hoodia products are contaminated or counterfeit. It’s impossible to know if a hoodia product contains pure hoodia and the active ingredient, unless it has been tested by an independent laboratory.

After looking at hoodia buyer’s guides, hoodia ratings, and hoodia comparisons on the Internet, my advice is that you be very cautious. Most of these sites have been secretly created by companies selling hoodia. They explain why the hoodia in other products is inferior, even though there are no published reports showing that one is more effective. Q&A: How Do I Know if it’s Pure Hoodia or a Fake?

More:

Tags: herb ephedra, South Africa, energy molecule, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, hoodia products

Hoodia Side Effects

Sunday, August 15th, 2010 at 9:34 am

Comments (50)

Q: What are the side effects of hoodia, if any? Most articles I’ve read about hoodia say it’s a gentle and safe and I can’t seem to find any information about side effects anywhere.

Hoodia gordonii is often touted as a herbal diet pill without side effects, although there’s a lack of published studies on the safety of hoodia in humans.

Hoodia marketers often claim that hoodia has no side effects because the San Bushmen in the Kalahari desert of Africa have been using hoodia for thousands of years. But hoodia simply hasn’t been around for long enough in North America and it hasn’t been subjected to safety testing to uncover any possible side effects, drug interactions, and safety concerns.

Jasjit S. Bindra, PhD, former researcher for hoodia at Pfizer (the pharmaceutical giant that licensed the rights to develop hoodia for $21 million but later returned the rights), stated in a letter to The New York Times that although hoodia did appear to suppress appetite, there were indications of unwanted effects on the liver caused by components other than the active ingredient p57 that could not easily be removed during processing.

Bindra added, “Clearly, hoodia has a long way to go before it can earn approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Until safer formulations are developed, dieters should be wary of using it”.

If hoodia does affect liver function, it may also interact with other medications a person is taking. The San Bushmen are a tribe of hunter-gatherers, and probably did not take same pills for blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, depression, and other diseases, that we do, another reason why unconfirmed reports of safe use by the San should not be relied on.

People with diabetes should be cautious about using hoodia. One of the theories about how hoodia works is that it tricks the brain into thinking that it has enough blood sugar. Without proper feedback regulation, it’s possible that a person’s blood sugar could drop dangerously low while taking hoodia. And with the regular hunger mechanism turned off, the normal warning signs may be suppressed, until it’s too late.

Hoodia is believed to suppress not only appetite but thirst. There have been unconfirmed reports of shepherds in Africa who took hoodia to take the edge off hunger pains, but died of dehydration because they didn’t feel thirsty.

And as a general precaution, because the safety in pregnant or nursing women, children, or people with liver or kidney disease hasn’t been established, these people in particular should avoid hoodia.

More: Sources
Bindra, Jasjit. “A Popular Pill’s Hidden Danger”. New York Times. 26 Apr 2005.

Morris, Joan. “Little research behind claims that hoodia is safe, effective for losing weight”. Seattle Times. 9 Mar 2006.

Tags: Health Medical Pharma, diet pill, safety concerns, kalahari desert, Jasjit S. Bindra

Practical Tips To Help You Lose Weight

Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 6:52 pm

Comments (66)

Practical Tips To Help You Start Losing Weight

Practical Tios To Help You Start Losing Weight

The obesity problem is reaching epidemic levels throughout the world, particularly in the US. This unfortunate trend threatens to cut short the lives of millions. But there are things one can start to do right away to drop those extra pounds. Here are 77 tips to help you get started:

* Weight Loss Tip #1: Eat in a small plate, this will allow you control the amount of food you eat.
*Weight Loss Tip #2: Eat less, more often. Not only will it increase you metabolism through the day, but it will also help you control your diet. I suggest the following pattern: 8 a.m. BREAKFAST, 11 a.m. SNACK, 1 p.m. LUNCH, 4 p.m. SNACK, 6 p.m. DINNER, 9 p.m. SNACK.
Weight Loss Tip #3: Before you for for seconds always wait for at least 10 minutes you might not actually need them.
Weight Loss Tip #4: Use vegetable oil instead of butter for cook and baking.
Weight Loss Tip #5: Set realistic goals. It’s okay if you plan to lose 2 pounds a week, but the main thing is you will accomplish it. If you accomplish your goals from the beginning you will be motivated to continue till the end.
Weight Loss Tip #6: Eat early and never miss a breakfast. Eating the majority of your daily caloric allotment early gives your body time to work those calories off, so it’s best so it’s best to have a healthy breakfast.
Weight Loss Tip #7: Take time to chew your food. Digestion begins with the mouth, when you chew your food it’s mixed with your saliva which contain digestion enzymes . You can keep your body healthy if you achieve thorough digestion, so chew your food properly and savor the food.
Weight Loss Tip #8: Avoid stress. Stress causes weight gain due to chemical reactions, listen to so calm music and take deep breathes before eating.
Weight Loss Tip #9: Try salad as a main lunch.
Weight Loss Tip #10: Change your lifestyle. Adapt a new healthy lifestyle. Occassional fad diets will lead you only to gain more weight rather than lose weight.

Weight Loss Tip #11: Tell your friends and family that you want to lose weight. It’s good to know that people around you are rooting for you and gives you a boost.
Weight Loss Tip #12: Focus elsewhere while exercise. When you workout make sure you have your iPOD or are listening to music. Divert your focus elsewhere. If you focus on your own body while working out, it will make the work out really boring.
Weight Loss Tip #13: If you want to really lose weight do it properly and join a good weight loss program. Here you can find the top weight loss programs.
Weight Loss Tip #14: Keep record of how much weight you lose, take pictures or keep a diary, to motivate yourself lose weight further.
Weight Loss Tip #15: Eat slowly. It tales time for the brain to send signals of fullness, so it may take some time before you know you’re full. It helps you control your diet and lose weight.
Weight Loss Tip #16: Concentrate on more burning calories than you consume, rather than low carb and low fat diets, to lose weight.
Weight Loss Tip #17: Cut out all the negativity. People will try to discourage you when you’re trying to lose weight, not necessarily because they don’t want you to succeed, but you need to succeed in the goals you set until you are satisfied.
Weight Loss Tip #18: It’s okay to compare yourself to others and use that positively, however, don’t do everything exactly the same way. Everyone is different and do the workouts that suit your body and keep your own goal in mind.
Weight Loss Tip #19: Women are naturally supposed to lose weight slower the men… ladies don’t feel that I’m prejudiced, but the matter of the fact is that biologically as women are the birthing sex therefore they have more fat on their bodies and lose wieght slower then men. Therefore, ladies separate your weight loss goals from that of men.
Weight Loss Tip #20: Avoid weight loss pills. Period. Why? Because it is dangerous both physically and psychologically. So if want to lose weight do it naturally.

Weight Loss Tip #21: Don’t go for weight loss surgeries either, because these too can have fatal side effects on the body.
Weight Loss Tip #22: Vitamins are good. Even though vitamin pills are good for you, never ever, use them without consulting a professional.
Weight Loss Tip #23: Have dessert! Don’t cut off dessert, your body needs fat. Being healthy means that your body gets all the nutrients it needs, so have dessert, but control at the same time.
Weight Loss Tip #24: Walk a lot. Try walking distances, if you want to go somewhere, try leaving the car home and walk, it makes a difference and helps in the process of weight loss.
Weight Loss Tip #25: There is no way to force weight to come off your stomach (or any other worrisome spots). The good news is cardio exercise is great for peeling off the pounds all over, whether your trouble spot is your tummy or your thighs!
Weight Loss Tip #26: Go for a walk after a meal. It helps in complete digestion.
Weight Loss Tip #27: Think before you eat. Am I really hungry?
Weight Loss Tip #28: Sugar is not good for your body. The more refined it is, the more damage it will do your body.
Weight Loss Tip #29: Don’t have white bread, research proves that people who eat white bread are more likely to have bigger bellies. Instead try having whole grain white bread, it will help you in your weight loss plans.
Weight Loss Tip #30: Pasta ain’t going to do you any favors if you want to lose weight either. Refined pasta prevents your body from weight loss. Instead of pasta you could try barilla, which is a good substitute which are high in fiber and protein.

Weight Loss Tip #31: Try having a burger with just lettuce, tomato and onion.
Weight Loss Tip #32: Drink LOTS of water. Some people think, not drinking water will help them lose weight. They could be further from the truth. If you don’t drink water, whatever little water you do drink the body will store that and you will gain weight. Drink more of water and you’ll lose excess weight and your system will cleaner.
Weight Loss Tip #33: If you go out one night with friends and break your healthy diet. Don’t grieve the next morning and start eating junk again. Get right back on track the next day. One night ain’t going to make all the difference.
Weight Loss Tip #34: Keep a balanced diet. I suggest the following diet during the day:
Almonds (and other nuts), beans (and other legumes), spinach (and other green vegetables)
dairy, instant oatmeal, eggs, turkey (and other lean meats), peanut butter, olive oil, whole grains (breads and cereals), extra-protein powder (whey), raspberries (and other berries).
Weight Loss Tip #35: Sleep your weight away! Sleeping will help you burn fat, I suggest at least 8 hours a day. It will help you in you weight loss process.
Weight Loss Tip #36: Workout in patterns. I don’t think many people can workout for 2 hours straight everyday. I would suggest that you would workout in sets every four or five days max a week.
Weight Loss Tip #37: Don’t overdo yourself working out. Start off doing as much as you can, then slowly increase the work out. If you can do only 10 reps of an exercise, do only 10 and then slowly increase. You can’t lose weight overnight.
Weight Loss Tip #38: Having more of fiber at breakfast will make you feel fuller through the day.
Weight Loss Tip #39: When your feeling down talk to a close friend rather than turning to food. It will cause weight gain. When you reach a even a small goal reward yourself and stay motivated.
Weight Loss Tip #40: If you know walking around in the kitchen is going to make you want to eat, then try avoiding staying in the kitchen or any other place where may feel like eating unnecessarily. Having an organized refrigerator or kitchen will help you make better decisions as to what eat.

Weight Loss Tip #41: Try making better decisions to breaking bad older habits.
Weight Loss Tip #42: Just because you’re getting something to eat for free doesn’t mean you have to eat it. It ain’t going to cost your wallet, but it’s going to cost your waist, so be careful.
Weight Loss Tip #43: Don’t wear oversized clothes cause they make you look heavier.
Weight Loss Tip #44: Try high fiber appetizers, it helps you prevent overeating and helps control diet.
Weight Loss Tip #45: Another reason not to skip breakfast is, because after eight hours of sleep, our bodies have consumed no food and in order to increase your metabolism and burn them calories, you need to have breakfast.
Weight Loss Tip #46: Talk to yourself positively, say ” I can lose weight!”. Motivate yourself. It will help 100%.
Weight Loss Tip #47: Instead of putting mayo in your sandwich try putting mustard, ketchup, horseradish, salsa or pickle relish in your sandwiches.
Weight Loss Tip #48: While baking and pouring milk use the powdered kind instead. It will help you put off calories and lose weight.
Weight Loss Tip #49: Make each meal a well balanced meal.
Weight Loss Tip #50: Make on day of the week vegetable day, not only will you decrease your fat intake and increase fiber intake, but you might also realize that you actually like vegetables.

Weight Loss Tip #51: Try to be more active in your everyday life. Try to walk unto people’s desks at work rather than e-mailing them.
Weight Loss Tip #52: Don’t avoid nuts as a snack, because they have fat, they also have protein and other nutrients. I suggest a pack of nuts, instead a pack of chips any day.
Weight Loss Tip #53: Sugar-free doesn’t mean calorie-free.
Weight Loss Tip #54: Instead of having a soda at the restaurant have normal water, it will save you around 1000 calories per meal.
Weight Loss Tip #55: Skipping meals will help you take off a few pounds at first, but after a while your body will start banking calories and after a while your body won’t lose any weight at all.
Weight Loss Tip #56: Always pack a snack with you to work, you don’t when you might feel hungry at the office. Rather than eating junk from outside, keep a healthy snack with you.
Weight Loss Tip #57: Whenever you don’t feel like working out, think about how good it feels after the work out, the feel of accomplishment and the energy flowing through your body.
Weight Loss Tip #58: Putting on your exercise clothes when you don’t feel like it helps motivate you and puts you in the mood for a workout.
Weight Loss Tip #59: If you’re feeling down before a working out, have a soda or coffee, caffeine will speed up your metabolism for a while.
Weight Loss Tip #60: If you walk a lot talk things up a notch, try walking faster, jogging or even adding ankle weights.

Weight Loss Tip #61: There comes a time when diet and exercise stops helping lose weight, in that case increase physical activity. Not only will that add muscle, but also help in fat burning.
Weight Loss Tip #62: Let there be at least a three hour gap between your sleep and workout.
Weight Loss Tip #63: Make sure the exercises your doing are not only popular, but you enjoy doing them as well. Here is a weight loss program with good cardio exercises, people seem to really enjoy doing them.
Weight Loss Tip #64: You can take some sort of strength training, provided the doctor gives the OK. Being stronger will help you lose weight sooner.
Weight Loss Tip #65: Sit-ups, push-ups and pull-ups are part of strength training. I usually like to do modified versions, like doing push-ups on my finger tips.
Weight Loss Tip #66: Aerobic exercise is recommended to be done five days a week, however strength training needs to be done only two or three times a week.
Weight Loss Tip #67: Take a day of rest between strength exercise because your muscles need rest.
Weight Loss Tip #68: Keep your goal realistic, but don’t keep the timeframe of the goal so far off that you may lose focus. For example you may plan to lose weight by the end of two years, after one year you may get tired and stop trying.
Weight Loss Tip #69: Make small changes to your daily routine and become more active. Small changes overtime will make a big difference in the future.
Weight Loss Tip #70: Checking your BMI (Body Mass Index) can help determine how close you are to reaching your goals.

Weight Loss Tip #71: Don’t make a drastic cut in your calorie intake. People make the mistake of doing so, however, it will only cause your weight to stall.
Weight Loss Tip #72: Research has shown that snacking on peanut butter is an effective way to control hunger without leading to weight gain.
Weight Loss Tip #73: You should ask yourself these questions as you begin: Why do you want to lose weight? Are you truly committed?
Weight Loss Tip #74: If you want to lose weight your BAWH must change:Behavior, Activity, What you eat, How you eat.
Weight Loss Tip #75: No matter which way you look at it, 3,500 calories is one pound lost. Whether you take in 500 fewer or burn 500 more calories a day, by the end of the week you’ll be one pound lighter!
Weight Loss Tip #76: Your weight will fluctuate from day to day. Resist the urge to weigh yourself on a daily basis, as doing so will discourage you. Weigh in the same time and day once a week.
Weight Loss Tip #77: Building muscle through strength training brings many benefits, including: increased endurance; flexibility; reduced risk for injury; increased energy; and boosted metabolism.

This compilation is an original from colleague Aneel “Rob” Samuel, the creator of RobReviews.com, where he reviews natural weight loss programs found online.

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Tags: Human Interest, change your lifestyle, Weight loss, realistic goals, body time

Do Acai Berry Weight Loss Products Really Work?

Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 2:02 pm

Comments (62)

Acai Berries Can Help Digestion and The Metabolism.

Acai berry weight loss products have been flooding the market lately. But can acai berries really help with weight loss? And, if it is not just a lot of hype, how do they do it?

The answer seems to be that the acai berry helps your body to function better, particularly with regard to digestion and metabolism. It does this because it contains a number of substances that work together to create a greater effect than any one on its own could.

Many people have weight problems because they are not able to digest their food well. They are not metabolizing optimally and not assimilating nutrients from their diet. Acai berries contain a combination of substances which work in tandem to improve the ability to process food. In fact, one of the traditional uses for this berry by the natives of Brazil where most acai berries come from is as a remedy for digestive problems.

One of these components is fiber. One way in which fiber helps is to keep blood sugar from rising too quickly. Most fruits have the opposite affect, as they have a higher proportion of fructose which, as a simple sugar, is often converted to fat in the body. Acai berries, on the other hand, have a much higher proportion of fiber than typical. Fiber also aids in waste elimination and in suppression of the appetite.

Healthy fatty acids, such as Omegas, are also present in large amounts in acai berries. These acids not only get the metabolism going, they also add to the suppression of the appetite.

The building blocks of proteins, amino acids, are also present in acai berries. These help the body to build muscle, which in turn helps to burn fat more effectively. More calories are burned while the body is resting and the metabolism works at a consistently higher rate.

Probably the most commonly discussed components in acai berries are the antioxidants. Not only are antioxidants believed to help protect the body against the effects of age and stress, they also boost levels of stamina and energy. People often feel sluggish as they begin to change their diets. However, the energy boost of this berry is considered to be so high, that many Brazilian athletes use it to improve their performance.

If you decide to give acai berry weight loss products a try, be sure to look at what other ingredients are added, if any. For example, there are sometimes additional substances in these products, such as caffeine, guarana and others that are known to speed up the metabolism. They can help with weight loss, however, there may be other side effects for some people that should be considered.

Undoubtedly, more research will continue to be done on the ability of acai berries to help in weight loss. In the meantime, there seem to be an infinite number of people stating that they have had incredible results from using acai berry weight loss products. And, at the very least, consuming acai berries is unlikely to have adverse effects.

Considering the above components of acai berries it seems that they may indeed be a good way to get a weight loss program started. Especially when you consider the great quantity of people who have claim to have used these weight loss products to good result. As with any weight loss supplement, the best and healthiest results will likely be had by including a balanced diet and exercise program.

Tags: fatty acids, acai berry, Blood sugar, Dietary supplements, energy boost

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