RealWeightlossBlog.com

Archive for November, 2009

The more you understand about any subject, the more interesting it becomes. As you read this article you’ll find that the subject of Weight loss is certainly no exception.

Current statistics reveal that 75% of Americans are overweight and 40% are obese. For those who desire to lose weight and obtain optimal health, sometimes it can be overwhelming trying to figure out where to start. From the Atkins Diet to the South Beach Diet; from the low fat to low carb diets, there are numerous weight-loss plans to choose from. In addition, given conflicting information as to what works best, it can be difficult deciding what to do.

For those who have tried many diet plans with no success, it becomes more difficult and frustrating. Many people forget that a diet might work wonders for their friend but won’t work well for them…not because the diet is “bad”, but because each body reacts differently. However, there is a way to lose weight that is easy, fast, and doesn’t involve deprivation or calorie counting.

Before the weight loss tips are discussed, it’s important to address some background information about body genetics and why weight loss can be difficult.

Before anyone starts a diet, it is important to note that each person has a different body build. Some people are short and stout while others are tall and thin. Some have big hips and shoulders, and others are short and very muscular. Genetics can determine body shape and a person’s natural build just as it does eye color, hair color, skin color, and so on. The good news is that genetics do not determine whether or not one will be fat, but will determine one’s body shape. This means that not every woman can expect to be tall and thin like a Hollywood actress or supermodel such as Tyra Banks. Not every man can expect to be defined and muscular like The Rock. The goal, really, is to be at a comfortable weight for one’s body shape and to feel good about it.

So, why are people overweight? Here are 11 of the most common reasons:

Slow metabolism: People who are overweight have a hard time burning off food. As a result, the fat is stored.

Emotional eating: Those who struggle with weight often eat when stressed or when other emotional upheavals are happening in their life.

Hormonal imbalances.

Eating portions that are too large.

Eating lots of “diet food” (that is low fat,low carb, and “sugar free” foods). 6. Build up of toxins in the body.

Eating late: Late-night eating can cause food to convert to fat more easily.

High susceptibility to growth hormones: These hormones are given to animals to help them grow faster and larger, so meat and dairy have residual growth hormones. In humans, these hormones can result in increased fat storage.

Most of this information comes straight from the Weight loss pros. Careful reading to the end virtually guarantees that you’ll know what they know.

Not eating breakfast.

Numerous diets: Going from diet to diet has a negative impact on the metabolism and causes weight loss to be much more difficult.

Food ingredients: The reasons why are amazing and beyond the scope of this article. Readers are encouraged to read for themselves Kevin’s two books.

Simple Tips for Easy Weight Loss:

Now that there is a better understanding of body genetics and why people have a tendency to be overweight, here are the tips for fast, easy weight loss.

Tip #1: Drink water upon arising: First thing in the morning, drink eight ounces of distilled water, bottled water, or filtered water (not tap water).

Tip #2: Eat a big breakfast: This should be done 45 minutes after getting up in the morning. Suggested organic foods to choose from (they must be organic) are apples, bananas, rye bread with no sugar, plain yogurt, tuna, lamb, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, raw honey, wild smoked salmon, and so on.

Tip #3: Drink distilled water throughout the day: Eight glasses is recommended

Tip #4: Walk non-stop one hour each day: This doesn’t have to be power walking; just walk at your own pace. Walking outdoors is best.

Tip #5: Stop eating after 6:00 PM: This is hard for some people, but do the best you can.

Tip #6: Do a candida cleanse: Candida is yeast overgrowth in the colon that can cause all kinds of health problems. Check online for “Candida Cleanse” or go to your local health food store.

Tip #7: Do a colon cleanse: This cleanse cleans out the digestive system, which is clogged and sluggish in many overweight people. Once again, check online or go to your local health food store - like Boots Herbal Stores

Tip #8: Do try the herbal remedy Hoodia (for best results visit http://www.trim-spa.co.uk

More and more Americans are becoming overweight. Extra weight can result in many health issues and negatively impact one’s emotional state and self-esteem. However, for those struggling with this problem, there is hope. You can lose it and keep it off. Now that you have a understanding of body genetics and why you might be overweight, take action today! Commit to trying at least a few of the steps.

Don’t limit yourself by refusing to learn the details about Weight loss. The more you know about losing weight, the easier it will be to focus on what’s important.

It sounds so simple but yet it’s very hard to do if you don’t have the right tools. Sure someone telling you to eat right and exercise. Sounds easy but when you get on the scale and you see a slight change or don’t see anything at all, it gets frustrating.

Eating right is something that takes practice and time. If it wasn’t for this website I don’t know how else I would have learned. That’s why I want to pass along this information. Life gets so hectic and you reach for the easy way and it puts pounds on your body.

We all know the big do’s and don’t’s. Fast food is a big NO. Processed food is a big NO. Now what are you left with, vegetables and meat. Sounds simple but I found it was a little difficult until I learned from my mistakes.

Choosing your meat is very simple. Lean cuts of meat are the best. You can find them at any store or butcher. Chicken is your best choice and add in your weekly menu sirloin steak and pork. Stay away from ground meats unless you can get the 95% lean ones or mix ground turkey or pork with ground meat. It lowers the fat calories.

Now just portion the meat to about 3 oz or make a fist and that is the size the piece of meat should be. After you do this many times it gets easier. You can cook this anyway you would like except frying. I’ll give you an example.

A great way of making chicken tenders without all the fat, which is my families favorite. Take frozen then thawed or fresh chicken and cut into stripes. You want to bread them. So use egg white and a little water in one bowl and use dried parsley, pepper and oat bran in the next bowl. Take your chicken, coat in the egg and then the oat bran mix. Place on a cookie sheet and bake in the oven. They taste fantastic. They are my easy way to get my children to eat healthy.

Now vegetables should be very easy if you have a produce store by you. Try and always buy fresh vegetables. Canned are ok but watch the calories and salt. Take for example: green beans, only 20 calories but 380 mg in sodium. I’ve learned to look at the big picture of all the nutrition facts versus just the fat and calories. That is one mistake I was making.

Life does take over and you don’t have time to start from scratch. I have a few tips I’ve been doing. Go to your produce store on a day you have about 2 hours. Buy many different vegetables in large quantities. Make sure it’s things you can cook and freeze. Like onions, green/wax beans, carrots, you get the picture.

Keep in mind this is just one pot. Cut and boil the green/wax beans then place in a bowl full of ice and cold water. This keeps the green color and stops then from cooking anymore. When fully cooled, dry and place in a freezer bag. It takes a good hour or two to get everything cut up, cooked and bagged.

During the week for dinner take out veggies from freezer, pop in the microwave and add slivers of almonds. Now your fresh vegetables will be done in the same time it took to cook your meat without going to the store.

Another tip is just cut green/yellow/orange/red peppers or onions and place in a freezer bag. They are not good for a salad but they are great to add to your meal. I’ve used them in sauces or to top off a great piece of sirloin.

When in a pinch and you have no fresh vegetables, you can use canned. But rinse the vegetables before cooking and you can reduce some of the sodium.

Exercise. I’m still finding time to do this but get in a routine and it gets easier. Here are a few tips. I was under the assumption that you need to have a full hour to workout or exercise. If you are able to take 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there, before you know it you worked out an hour.

There are exercises you can do while you are working. Take heavy books in each hand and lift at your side in your chair. Suck in your tummy and then push it out. Use your 15 minute break to walk around the building or neighborhood. Park further away when working/shopping, keep in mind daylight savings time. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Now some of these depend on where you work. So keep this in mind when picking each 15 minute workout.

I hope you have found this article helpful. I hope I have been able to show you a different way of looking at healthy eating and exercise. Thank you for taking the time to read my article.

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In Daniel Reid’s great book The Tao of Health, Sex & Longevity, there’s a section on foods that ‘kill’ fat.

Reid lists the foods (and juices) to help obesity, which include Carrot juice (possibly the single most cleansing, nourishing of all the veggie juices); a combo of Carrot, beet and cucumber juice, which corrects acidosis by alkalinizing the system; Spinach, which cleanses the lower bowel; and Cabbage juice, which helps with digestion and elimination.

He also mentions “Foods to Avoid: all refined starch and sugar, especially white bread and sweet pastries, overcooked meats; fatty meats; chocolate; pasteurised milk; cooked eggs; alcohol.”

Well, just goes to show. I don’t think fat on meat is a bad thing: in fact I think it can sometimes be good for you. I don’t mind eggs either, since they’re protein, but I do agree that frying food is not as healthy as broiling and steaming.

But generally I think Reid’s suggestions are fantastic, and I recommend getting the book (and no, I don’t get commissions from anyone for punting their stuff

Reid also has a large section on Food Combining, which is – I believe – essential for weight loss and health in general.

But what is Food Combining it? I can’t go into exhaustive detail now, but in essence it’s the claim (and I have demonstrated the truth of it in my own life) that different food types should not be combined.

Don’t mix protein and starch, for example. If you follow this rule, you will find that, amongst others, your digestion will improve remarkably.

For a more detailed explanation, there’s a lot of info out there, but one book I found great was Harvey and Marilyn Diamond’s book Fit For Life. Check it out (and other books too) - and do your digestive system and figure a favor.

Not only will you have less gas and ‘bloat’, but I found you lose weight.

If you want to prove food combining works, try this experiment: eat a pure protein meal, or a pure starch meal. Do NOT mix the protein and starch. See how easily the meal is digested.

Then mix protein and starch in a meal, and note how long it takes to go through, and whether you have gas. I think you’ll conclude that it’s best not to mix!

Other food combining tips: eat fruit alone; eat different types of fruits separately; eat melon as a fruit separately (i.e. not mixed with any other kind of fruit); and drink (unpasteurised) milk by itself, alone.

Follow these tips and I believe you will be on your way to a slimmer, healthier you :-

NLP can be useful for people struggling to lose weight. In fact, wanting to lose weight is a fairly common reason for why people seek NLP, Herts. Whilst NLP is by no means a magic diet pill, it can be very useful in addressing the issues associated with over-eating such as confidence, self-esteem, motivation and negative coping strategies. This article discusses seven NLP tools, which can help you in being slim and healthy.
1. NLP Communication Model - This model underlies any change work in NLP and a good therapist will explain this model to you. It is very important as it tells us how people use language in specific patterns, during thinking. Depending on the nature of the way you talk to yourself when thinking, you could be undermining the efforts you make to eat healthily and be slim. The NLP communication model can help you to begin to be much more aware of the language you use during thinking, in order that you can develop positive thinking habits. Since how you think has a massive effect on how you feel, it also effects how you behave. Change your thinking patterns and you will get different behavioural results. In the case of weight loss, this can be a change in your eating or exercise habits.
2. NLP Presuppositions - These are a set of convenient beliefs which if you subscribe to them, can lead to you feeling much more empowered. For example, one of the presuppositions is that all behaviour has a positive intention. This does not mean that everything a person does it morally good or good for society. It means that each person, only always carry out behaviours that are positive for them in some way, i.e. meet some higher human need. So, if you feel frustrated at yourself for overeating when you feel you really shouldn’t, its time to begin to think about what needs you meet through food. Only, then can you acknowledge that you have been doing the best with the resources available to you at the time and begin to plan how to meet the need met by food in a more positive way.
3. NLP Frame - Cause is greater then effect. NLP frames are frames of reference that guide the individual towards taking responsibility for themselves, how they feel and what happens in their lives. During NLP therapy you will be encouraged to BE at CAUSE. This means that things happen in your life because of you, not too you. NLP does not claim this to always be the case, it asks you to try to live your life guided by the frames. Being at cause means you get the credit for all the great things you achieve, of course, it also means that you have to take responsibility for outcomes that your not so proud of. How does this relate to dieting? Well as a person who used to smoke and who tried to stop for several years before I was successful, I know that I felt much more comfortable about lighting up, if I had a reason (excuse). So, it was the fault of my stressful day, argument with boyfriend, because I’d had a glass of wine, because I needed to relax and not because I was choosing to smoke over other behavioural options. This can be the case, with bingeing or snacking. Once you begin to stop kidding yourself during thinking and actually begin to stop and say, actually I don’t have to eat this, I can act in a different way, I take responsibility, you have taken a big step towards the slimmer you.
4. NLP Formal Change Techniques - There are several formal change techniques, which are useful for helping with weight-loss. The most appropriate technique will depend on your unique problem. Here are a few: 1) The Swish Technique can be used if you wish to replace a highly contextualised problem behaviour with a more positive behaviour. It works to eliminate behaviours that occur in specific situations after specific triggers. 2) Parts Integration is very useful at uncovering the positive intention of your unhelpful eating habits and dealing with incongruent behaviour and feelings. If you’ve had the experience of thinking ‘how have I just eaten that, I’ve been doing so well’, this technique could help you! 3) Like To Dislike - This technique is based on information about how we code memories in our brain. We tend to code things we like in a different way to things we don’t like. So, if you have a particularly problematic food type, its possible to change the memory of the problematic food type into the memory of a food you can’t stand. This technique works really well if you have a food that you really hate! 4) Hypnosis with positive suggestion - many NLP therapists will have studied hypnotic techniques based on the Ericksonian model, during NLP training and will utilise these techniques during therapy sessions.
5. Getting Leverage - NLP therapists are skilled at getting leverage. This basically means helping the client to recognise and experience the impact of the problem behaviour, such as overeating, on themselves and those around them. It will help you find your motivation and will identify those who are not motivated.
6. Setting Well Formed Goals. NLP takes goals setting seriously and has developed criteria for goal setting that results in the goals being much more achievable and likely to be reached. Your therapist can support you in working towards your weight loss goals.
7. Developing Positive Coping Strategies. Acknowledge that your problematic eating has served a purpose in the past, in that it has likely been a method for coping. Now you want to develop positive coping strategies that serve you in the present and future. When would now be the right time to be good to yourself?
These are just a few of the ways that NLP can help you develop new options in thinking and behaviour. I have found these techniques effective during NLP, Herts at my NLP practice, Herts, when supporting clients in losing weight.