Posts Tagged ‘nutrition’

Busting The Rapid Weight Loss Myths

Monday, January 25th, 2010

There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to be slimmer just to have a sexier body. Many people have moulded their bodies to make them look more healthy and more desirable. However, there is no way to attain this new appearance in a day of two. The problem is that most people do not want to wait, they want it now.

This can lead to these people making rather rash and, it has top be said, rather silly decisions. They are not willing to wait and they are not willing to work for what they want. This is why so many people turn to rapid weight loss diets. Some ‘guru’ brings out a new fad diet and a good proportion of the ‘I want it now’ crowd jump on the band wagon. Only to be disappointed again within the year or less.

Speed diets or rapid weight loss diets tend to put out great advertising copy that is very hard to resist. However, all diets, no matter which one you choose, Weight Watchers, Atkins or fad diet, depend on overweight people making lifestyle changes in order for them to work permanently.

There is a very apposite saying: if you always do what you always did, then you will always get what you always got. That says it all. You can lose weight with all but the silliest of diets, but if you go back to your old ways when you hit your target weight, you MUST slowly, but gradually creep back to your old weight.

If you give your body more calories than it needs, it will store them for when it does need them. The problem is that that day never comes for too many people, because they never exert themselves. This is especially true of fad diets like the ‘cabbage water’ diet. Yes, you will lose weight on it, but you would lose weight by fasting whatever you did. For a while, and then you might get sick. For a diet to work, it has to be flexible and enjoyable enough for you to be able to stick with it for the rest of your life. Make no mistake, dieting is long-haul.

Many rapid weight loss programs actually only squeeze the water out of you. Just like a wet sponge. But a good dieter maintains his or her grip on that sponge, not letting it soak up water again. The problem with short term dieting, is that you let go of the sponge underwater.

This is why serial dieters first lose weight and are happy; then finish dieting, go back to their old weight and become depressed. In that state of depression they are suckers for the advertisers of the next latest craze diet. In other words, they are being manipulated and literally squeezed dry, but of their money too.

These silly rapid weight loss programs also include fat loss pills. They are not making you lose fat, well, maybe a tiny amount gets flushed out with all the excess water you are carrying. They are only diuretics under another name. How many pills would I sell if I called them diuretics? How many more would I sell if I called them miracle fat loss pills?

Type the word diuretic into a engine and find out more about them. They are all around you in mild healthy forms. A diuretic will essentially cause your body to lose more fluid than was in the diuretic. Tea is a diuretic, for example.

This list of these dopey dieting aids to rapid weight loss goes on and on, but someone must be buying them and you can bet your bottom dollar that it is the sad, depressed dieter who let go of the sponge.

Slimming soap! Slimming soap is being advertised as being a rare Eastern remedy for corpulence. Well, let me tell you, I live in the East and I have never seen it here. Asians are slim because they do a lot of physical work and do not come under the pressure to eat junk food that Westerners do, although that situation is changing rapidly too.

Magnetic weight loss earrings, I ask you! Even being drunk without a present for your wife ten minutes before Christmas Day is not a good enough excuse to fall for this one, surely? The advertisers say that the secret of this set of earrings is that they are magnetic.

Well, if you believe this, why not get a pair of $1 children’s toy magnets or even a couple of fridge magnets and put one in each hip pocket? Two? Well, after all, you would not want to lose weight from only one side, would you? You would be lop sided.

Just remember, when you are looking for a rapid weight loss diet: there ain’t one ( that will work for life). If you are putting on weight, then your lifestyle is wrong and it is up to you alone to change it.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with how to lose weight online. If you have an interest in losing weight too, please go over to our website now at Why Can’t I Lose Weight?

How To Keep Your New Year’s Resolution To Lose Weight.

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

Without a shadow of a doubt, the most frequent New Year’s resolution in the West is to lose weight. However, it is also the first New Year’s resolution most apt to be broken! Losing weight is not hard in theory, but practice is oh, so different. This is because it involves lifestyle changes.

Our bodies change as we get older and typically our level of activity decreases too. Maybe, we get an office job with a promotion, whereas we used to work ‘in the field’. But people in general, do not adjust their diet to match their variation in circumstances. We sit behind our desks or in retirement and think we can still eat and drink like we did twenty years ago. Big mistake!

Fortunately, there are dozens of diets available to help us attain our weight loss goals. There are the traditional calorie counting diets, as advocated by Weight Watchers; there are the ‘new era’ diets like Atkins, which have us counting carbohydrates and there are no end of fad diets which are frankly not worth wasting time discussing.

The choice of which diet you want to follow is all yours, of course, but it is well worth examining the main types of diet to see which one will agree with you. Then you must decide whether you will require the help and encouragement of a weekly visit to a club or not, or whether you can get that camaraderie from an online club of slimmers, where you talk to fellow slimmers in the club forum online.

It is also worth fixing in your mind, why you want to diet. Is it to look better? Or to feel more comfortable in yourself? Or is it for health reasons? Or all three? Have a think about your reasons and let them motivate you. Whenever, you feel like packing it all in, remember your motivation. Get a book and journal your progress, but first write your motivation in bold capitals on the front page or cover. Keep it in front of you and read it out loud to yourself every day.

Consult some of the slimming sites online and work out a few key metrics like the average weight people are for your height, sex and body type and your BMI or body mass index. Write these figures on the first page of your book too and use them as the ultimate goals.

You could produce a graph and plot your weekly weight to see how you are doing. Set realistic goals and targets. You can get heaps of free information from the Weight Watchers and Atkins websites or / and go to see your doctor for advice and leaflets.

Aim to lose something like 10-20 pounds in the first month and eight to ten per month after that. Go slowly and aim to go slowly, because then you will hit your targets and you won’t feel like giving up. When you get within five to ten pounds of your target weight, assuming that you have lost a lot of weight, rein back a little and allow yourself a little more freedom. Drop your target to one pound a week, so that you will get a feel for ‘eating normally’.

The dreaded exercise; you have to face it, you will have to do more exercise, but two times thirty minute walks a day is ordinarily enough. You could swim once a week too or get an exercise machine, if you are tied to the house by family.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with how to lose weight online. If you have an interest in losing weight too, please go over to our website now at Why Can’t I Lose Weight?

Free Weight Loss Programs

Friday, January 15th, 2010

The march to health and fitness is raging and a lot of people are getting in on the act. Some people do it in order to have a beautiful body, some people do it because they are embarrassed about their body as it is now, while others do it just to remain fit and healthy. Because of this, there are hundreds of fitness programs on the Internet, in gyms, spas and fitness centres all over the world. Some are too expensive – so expensive that you will lose weight quickly, just because you have to work hard to earn the money to pay for these fitness programs.

One may not have to go to the gym or the spa or any fitness center and spend much just to slim down and obtain that longed for beautiful body. There are many books available in the bookstores] offering weight loss programs which seem convenient and cheap. However, the books are not though. These weight loss programs, or diet plans are gaining immense popularity due to their publicity, testimonials and reviews and you may be confused as to exactly which one to follow. So before choosing which weight loss plan to follow, try reading the following precis of the most popular diet programs around today.

The Atkins’ New Diet Revolution by Dr. Atkins: This weight loss program promotes a high protein diet and less carbohydrates. You can feast on vegetables and meat but must not eat bread and pasta. You are not restricted on your fat consumption so it is OK to pour on the (correct) salad dressing and freely spread on the butter. However, during the diet, some people may find themselves short on fibre and high on fat and cholesterol. Grains and fruits are also severely limited.

The Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet by Drs. Heller. This diet programme also recommends a low carbohydrate diet. It recommends eating meat, vegetables and fruit, dairy and grain products. however, advises against taking in too many carbohydrates. So-called “Reward Meals” can be very high in fats and saturated fats.

Choose to Lose: by Dr. Goor. Restricts fat intake. You are given a “fat” budget and you are given free reign on how to use it. It does not pressure the individual to watch his carbohydrate intake. Eating meat and poultry as well as low-fat dairy and seafood is OK. You may also eat vegetables, fruits, cereals, bread and pasta. This weight loss plan is quite healthy, because it recommends correct amounts of fruits and vegetables and saturated fats. Watch your triglyceride levels though. If they are high, trim down on the carbohydrates and eat more unsaturated fats.

The DASH Diet. Advocates eating a fairly moderate amount of fat and protein but a great deal of carbohydrates. It was primarily created to reduce blood pressure. The diet plan follows the pyramid food guide and encourages a high consumption of whole wheat grains as well as fruit and vegetables and low-fat dairy. However, some dieters consider it advises too much consumption to produce a significant weight loss.

Eat More, Weigh Less: by Dr. Ornish. Primarily vegetarian food and strictly low-fat. Warns to watch out for low-fat dairy and egg whites. This diet plan is poor in calcium and limits the consumption of healthy foods like seafood and lean poultry.

Eat Right for Your Type: It is interesting because it is based on your blood type. For example, it recommends plenty of meat for people with the blood type O. Diet plans for some blood types are nutritionally imbalanced and too low in calories. Furthermore, for the record, there is no proof that blood type affects dietary requirements.

The Pritkin Principle: It focuses on cutting back on the number of calories by eating ‘watery’ foods that make you feel full. It recommends eating vegetables, fruits, oatmeal, pasta, soups, salads and low-fat dairy, which it says is fine, although it also restricts protein sources to lean meat, seafood and poultry. It is healthy since it allows low amounts of saturated fats and rather large amounts of vegetables and fruits. However, it is low on calcium and restricts lean protein sources.

Volumetrics: It recommends consuming fewer calories. It recommends about the same foodstuffs as Pritkin but limits fatty food and grain foodstuffs like popcorn, pretzels and crackers. This plan is fairly healthy given the high volume of fruit and vegetables. It also recommends eating fewer calories and saturated fats.

The Zone: It is moderately low on carbohydrates but fairly high on proteins. It advises low-fat protein foods such as fish and chicken and vegetables, fruits and grains. It is also a healthy diet but short on grains and calcium.

Weight Watchers: They advise high carbohydrate meals, yet are moderate on fats and proteins. A very healthy diet program and very flexible too. It allows the dieter to devise his own meals rather than offering recipes, although there are Weight Watchers’ TV dinners in the shops.

Are you interested in a rapid weight loss program? If you are, please visit our website entitled Quick Weight Loss

Get Hooked On Stand Up Paddle

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

I’ll never forget my first time on a Stand Up Paddle Board. My step father is Clay Feeter publisher of “Standup Journal”. He is a huge advocate of the sport as well as having the best magazine in the business! He is a super positive guy, fun to be around and will not let you have a bad time under any circumstance.

I remember going to visit my mom and him a few years ago and upon my arrival Clay was already primed up and ready to get me out on the lake for a stroll with the Stand Up Paddle Board. I always have to say yes to Clay because his positivity simply makes it impossible to give another answer.

We put the boards down in the water and Clay hopped on and started paddling with such ease and precision that I decided I could do the same thing. He made it look so easy, I guess it’s because he has been surfing the majority of his life.

I proceeded to get on my board and quickly learned that I needed some serious help in the balance department. I think I ended up off my board quicker than I got on it. I was craving a swim in the lake so it was O.K.

After a couple of quick tips from Clay I able to gain my balance on the board and quickly gained confidence. Clay gave a “Woo Hoot! You got it man!” In his usual fashion which always makes you feel like a kid who just got his first trophy. The feeling I got from Stand Up Paddling was absolutely amazing and one I will never forget. It is like you are walking on water. You paddle as fast or as slow as you want, the water is yours!

The great thing about it is you can Stand Up Paddle in any water. You can go down rivers, surf in the ocean, take a cruise on the lake or wherever else you want. It’s truly a fun and diverse sport which is gaining extreme popularity worldwide.

The people you meet while out on your stand up paddle board are amazing. Most of the time people are both curious about what you are doing and eager to try it for themselves. It’s a great sport to get hooked on because it is both adrenaline pumping, relaxing, and healthy all at the same time. I hope to see you out the soon!

Want to hear more awesome stories about the amazing sport of Stand Up Paddle, then visit Clay Feeters site at SandupJournal.com