From Wellness.com: Want to Lose Weight? Eat Like the Japanese
Think it's time to make some healthy lifestyle adjustments? Dan Buettner, author of "The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who've Lived the Longest," is right behind you. Buettner is crossing Iowa in a bus, attempting to change American towns into healthier places. "More than 40 percent of Americans smoked in the '60s, and only 20 percent do now," he points out. "We can turn around our diet and lifestyle, too." [Shall we stop eating the way we stopped smoking? By being arrested or fined if we dared to do it outside or in the privacy of our own homes?]
One thing we Americans have going for us: We are always up for a challenge. So try these healthful ideas inspired by healthy women around the world.
1. Take 20 percent off
Blue zones—like areas in Italy, Japan, Greece, California, and Costa Rica where the people have traditionally stayed active to age 100 or older—are some of the healthiest in the world. "In every Blue Zone, they eat less than we do, by at least 20 percent," Buettner says.
One trick for slashing portions: "Instead of putting big platters of food at the center of the table, fill each plate at the counter," Buettner says.
2. Pile on the plants
Not only are plant-based diets rich in antioxidants and other good-for-you nutrients, they're also better for your waistline. "A plate of food in Okinawa has one-fifth the calorie density of a typical American meal," Buettner says. "You can chow down for a fraction of the calories."
Buettner suggests thinking of meat as a condiment rather than the main event, and subbing in more beans, legumes, and nuts.
3. Love the foods that love you back
A diet of berries and elk or tofu and sea vegetables might seem utterly foreign—but taste buds can be retrained. "Americans love fat, salt, and sugar because that's what we're used to," says David L. Katz, MD, founding director of the Yale Prevention Research Center. "But studies show that if you eat more wholesome foods, you can learn to prefer them."
An easy way to start: Search for stealth sugar, which Dr. Katz says is found in many packaged foods. "Once you get rid of that hidden sugar, you'll start to prefer less-sweet foods," he notes.
4. Sit down—and slow down.
It might be too much to cook every meal. But we can sit at a table to eat our takeout instead of scarfing it down in the car. Savor each bite as the French do; stretch your meals out for 20 whole minutes. You'll end up eating less and enjoying more.
5. Get up
"The longest-living people don't think of exercise as a chore," Buettner says. Instead, little bits of movement are a constant part of their everyday lives. Make like a French woman and take a short walk after dinner.
Shovel your own snow instead of paying the kid next door; make extra trips carrying laundry up and down the stairs.
6. Get out
Every Blue Zone is known for its strong social and family bonds. Besides spending quality time at home with family, surround yourself with healthy-living friends—good health habits are contagious, research shows.
Be sure to get involved in your community, too, whether it's at church, a gardening group, or a volunteer organization. These connections can add years to your life, Buettner says.
7. Take it easy
Even the world's healthiest people get stressed out sometimes. What they all have, Buettner says, are daily strategies to shed stress. Meditate, go for a run, make a dinner date with your best friend—and don't worry about your inability to be a French woman or a Greek farmer.
It's OK to enjoy the occasional cheeseburger. What matters is a cumulative lifestyle pattern of enjoying healthful food, staying connected to others, and keeping yourself moving
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/imag/Wellness/Want+to+Lose+Weight%3F+Eat+Like+the+Japanese?intcmp=obnetwork#ixzz1qX957BBa
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Weight-loss surgery can put Type 2 diabetes into remission: studies
Many people have liposuction to remove weight. Then of course they gain all that weight back.
The extremely overweight will try lap-band or other types of surgery, in an effort to reduce their appetite, so that they can lose weight. The problem with that is, even surgeries like this might have unintended consequences.
However, when weight-loss surgery can combine with putting Type 2 Diabetes into remission, it's something to think about. (Of course, the results below were only from 150 people, but still...)
From NY Daily News: Weight-loss surgery can put Type 2 diabetes into remission: studies
New research gives clear proof that weight-loss surgery can reverse and possibly cure diabetes, and doctors say it should be offered sooner to more people with the disease - not just as a last resort.
The two studies, released on Monday, are the first to compare stomach-reducing operations to medicines alone for "diabesity" - Type 2 diabetes brought on by obesity. Millions of Americans have this and can't make enough insulin or use what they do make to process sugar from food.
Both studies found that surgery helped far more patients achieve normal blood-sugar levels than medicines alone did.
The results were dramatic: Some people were able to stop taking insulin as soon as three days after their operations. Cholesterol and other heart risk factors also greatly improved.
Doctors don't like to say "cure" because they can't promise a disease will never come back. But in one study, most surgery patients were able to stop all diabetes drugs and have their disease stay in remission for at least two years. None of those treated with medicines alone could do that.
"It is a major advance," said Dr. John Buse of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a prominent diabetes expert who had no role in the studies. Buse said he often recommends surgery to patients who are obese and can't control their blood-sugar through medications, but many are leery of it. "This evidence will help convince them that this really is an important therapy to at least consider," he said.
The studies were published online by the New England Journal of Medicine, and the larger one was presented Monday at an American College of Cardiology conference in Chicago.
More than a third of American adults are obese, and more than 8 percent have diabetes, a major cause of heart disease and strokes. Between 5 million and 10 million are like the people in these studies, with both problems.
For a century, doctors have been treating diabetes with pills and insulin, and encouraging weight loss and exercise with limited success. Few very obese people can drop enough pounds without surgery, and many of the medicines used to treat diabetes can cause weight gain, making things worse.
Surgery offers hope for a long-term fix. It costs $15,000 to $25,000, and Medicare covers it for very obese people with diabetes. Gastric bypass is the most common type: Through "keyhole" surgery, doctors reduce the stomach to a small pouch and reconnect it to the small intestine.
One previous study tested stomach banding - a less drastic and reversible procedure for limiting the size of the stomach. This technique lowered blood sugar, but those patients had mild diabetes. The new studies tested permanent weight-loss surgery in people with longtime, severe diabetes.
At the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Philip Schauer studied 150 people given one of two types of surgery plus standard medicines or a third group given medicines alone. Their A1c levels - the key blood-sugar measure - were over 9 on average at the start. A healthy A1c is 6 or below.
One year after treatment began, only 12 percent of those treated with medicines alone were at that level, versus 42 percent and 37 percent of the two groups given surgery.
Use of medicines for high cholesterol and other heart risks dropped among those in the surgery groups but rose in the group on medicines alone.
"Every single one of the bypass patients who got to 6 or less got there without the need for any diabetes medicines. Almost half of them were on insulin at the start. That's pretty amazing," said a study co-leader, Dr. Steven Nissen, the Cleveland Clinic's cardiovascular chief.
An obesity surgery equipment company sponsored the study, and some of the researchers are paid consultants; the federal government also contributed grant support.
The second study was led by Dr. Geltrude Mingrone at the Catholic University in Rome and Dr. Francesco Rubino, diabetes surgery chief at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. It involved 60 patients given one of two types of surgery or medicines alone, and set a goal of an A1c of 6.5 - the definition of diabetes.
Two years later, 95 percent and 75 percent of the two surgery groups achieved and maintained the target blood-sugar levels without any diabetes drugs. None of those in the medicine-alone group did.
There were signs that the surgery itself - not just weight loss - helps reverse diabetes. Food makes the gut produce hormones to spur insulin, so trimming away part of it surgically may affect those hormones, doctors believe.
Weight-loss surgery "has proven to be a very appropriate and excellent treatment for diabetes," Rubino said. "The most proper name for the surgery would be diabetes surgery."
Dr. Alvin Powers, director of the Vanderbilt University diabetes center, said the results are very encouraging for people like those in these studies - very obese, with diabetes that can't be controlled through less drastic means.
"We still don't know the long-term outcomes of these surgeries" and whether benefits will last for more than a few years, he said.
Others were more positive.
The studies "are likely to have a major effect on future diabetes treatment," two diabetes experts from Australia, Dr. Paul Zimmet and George Alberti, wrote in an editorial in the medical journal. Surgery "should not be seen as a last resort" and should be considered earlier in treating obese people with diabetes, they wrote.
Jon Diat is a success story. Diat, 50, who works at Citigroup and lives in New York, had been piling on pounds and pills for cholesterol and high blood pressure. After he needed an artery-opening procedure he was diagnosed with diabetes, but medicines for that failed to keep his disease under control and worsened his obesity.
"I was maxed out on the medications. It was very grim," he said. Two years ago, he had weight-loss surgery from Rubino.
"They told me, `You're going to see rapid results,' but it was amazing. I literally lost 70 pounds in the first three months," he said. "I was off insulin within less than 72 hours of surgery. I am in complete, total remission of diabetes. My blood sugars are normal."
Now he eats right, plays tennis and hockey, walks the two miles home from work and takes 12 flights of stairs to his apartment.
"I look at this as a second chance at life," he said. "It's been liberating."
The extremely overweight will try lap-band or other types of surgery, in an effort to reduce their appetite, so that they can lose weight. The problem with that is, even surgeries like this might have unintended consequences.
However, when weight-loss surgery can combine with putting Type 2 Diabetes into remission, it's something to think about. (Of course, the results below were only from 150 people, but still...)
From NY Daily News: Weight-loss surgery can put Type 2 diabetes into remission: studies
New research gives clear proof that weight-loss surgery can reverse and possibly cure diabetes, and doctors say it should be offered sooner to more people with the disease - not just as a last resort.
The two studies, released on Monday, are the first to compare stomach-reducing operations to medicines alone for "diabesity" - Type 2 diabetes brought on by obesity. Millions of Americans have this and can't make enough insulin or use what they do make to process sugar from food.
Both studies found that surgery helped far more patients achieve normal blood-sugar levels than medicines alone did.
The results were dramatic: Some people were able to stop taking insulin as soon as three days after their operations. Cholesterol and other heart risk factors also greatly improved.
Doctors don't like to say "cure" because they can't promise a disease will never come back. But in one study, most surgery patients were able to stop all diabetes drugs and have their disease stay in remission for at least two years. None of those treated with medicines alone could do that.
"It is a major advance," said Dr. John Buse of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a prominent diabetes expert who had no role in the studies. Buse said he often recommends surgery to patients who are obese and can't control their blood-sugar through medications, but many are leery of it. "This evidence will help convince them that this really is an important therapy to at least consider," he said.
The studies were published online by the New England Journal of Medicine, and the larger one was presented Monday at an American College of Cardiology conference in Chicago.
More than a third of American adults are obese, and more than 8 percent have diabetes, a major cause of heart disease and strokes. Between 5 million and 10 million are like the people in these studies, with both problems.
For a century, doctors have been treating diabetes with pills and insulin, and encouraging weight loss and exercise with limited success. Few very obese people can drop enough pounds without surgery, and many of the medicines used to treat diabetes can cause weight gain, making things worse.
Surgery offers hope for a long-term fix. It costs $15,000 to $25,000, and Medicare covers it for very obese people with diabetes. Gastric bypass is the most common type: Through "keyhole" surgery, doctors reduce the stomach to a small pouch and reconnect it to the small intestine.
One previous study tested stomach banding - a less drastic and reversible procedure for limiting the size of the stomach. This technique lowered blood sugar, but those patients had mild diabetes. The new studies tested permanent weight-loss surgery in people with longtime, severe diabetes.
At the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Philip Schauer studied 150 people given one of two types of surgery plus standard medicines or a third group given medicines alone. Their A1c levels - the key blood-sugar measure - were over 9 on average at the start. A healthy A1c is 6 or below.
One year after treatment began, only 12 percent of those treated with medicines alone were at that level, versus 42 percent and 37 percent of the two groups given surgery.
Use of medicines for high cholesterol and other heart risks dropped among those in the surgery groups but rose in the group on medicines alone.
"Every single one of the bypass patients who got to 6 or less got there without the need for any diabetes medicines. Almost half of them were on insulin at the start. That's pretty amazing," said a study co-leader, Dr. Steven Nissen, the Cleveland Clinic's cardiovascular chief.
An obesity surgery equipment company sponsored the study, and some of the researchers are paid consultants; the federal government also contributed grant support.
The second study was led by Dr. Geltrude Mingrone at the Catholic University in Rome and Dr. Francesco Rubino, diabetes surgery chief at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. It involved 60 patients given one of two types of surgery or medicines alone, and set a goal of an A1c of 6.5 - the definition of diabetes.
Two years later, 95 percent and 75 percent of the two surgery groups achieved and maintained the target blood-sugar levels without any diabetes drugs. None of those in the medicine-alone group did.
There were signs that the surgery itself - not just weight loss - helps reverse diabetes. Food makes the gut produce hormones to spur insulin, so trimming away part of it surgically may affect those hormones, doctors believe.
Weight-loss surgery "has proven to be a very appropriate and excellent treatment for diabetes," Rubino said. "The most proper name for the surgery would be diabetes surgery."
Dr. Alvin Powers, director of the Vanderbilt University diabetes center, said the results are very encouraging for people like those in these studies - very obese, with diabetes that can't be controlled through less drastic means.
"We still don't know the long-term outcomes of these surgeries" and whether benefits will last for more than a few years, he said.
Others were more positive.
The studies "are likely to have a major effect on future diabetes treatment," two diabetes experts from Australia, Dr. Paul Zimmet and George Alberti, wrote in an editorial in the medical journal. Surgery "should not be seen as a last resort" and should be considered earlier in treating obese people with diabetes, they wrote.
Jon Diat is a success story. Diat, 50, who works at Citigroup and lives in New York, had been piling on pounds and pills for cholesterol and high blood pressure. After he needed an artery-opening procedure he was diagnosed with diabetes, but medicines for that failed to keep his disease under control and worsened his obesity.
"I was maxed out on the medications. It was very grim," he said. Two years ago, he had weight-loss surgery from Rubino.
"They told me, `You're going to see rapid results,' but it was amazing. I literally lost 70 pounds in the first three months," he said. "I was off insulin within less than 72 hours of surgery. I am in complete, total remission of diabetes. My blood sugars are normal."
Now he eats right, plays tennis and hockey, walks the two miles home from work and takes 12 flights of stairs to his apartment.
"I look at this as a second chance at life," he said. "It's been liberating."
Friday, March 23, 2012
No food after 8 pm
The easiest way to lose weight is simply not to eat anything after 8 pm. (Or, if you do eat, make it low calorie snacks like carrots.)
That's it - that's all you have to do. Eat your dinner at 6:30. Including dessert - bowl of ice cream or what have you.
Then no snacks - no sugary pop - until the next morning.
If you're on a normal schedule (i.e., work during the day, sleep at night) then your body is conditioned to be active during the day and wind down at night. If you eat or consume milk shakes or pop, those calories are going to get stored.
So the big question is - can you go 4 hours without eating anything except carrots?
It's those night hours that really make it hard on people trying to lose weight. They are at home, they can't get out and about in order to take their minds off food cravings. If they have no activities to occupy their minds - hobbies - then they're just sitting there, feeling bored...and when people are bored a lot of them eat.
Or they're alone and they're depressed because they're alone, so they eat.
Or they're not alone and wish they were....
It's those night hours before you go to bed that you have to learn how to control. These are the hours when people don't eat because they are hungry, necessarily, but just to fill the time until they go to bed.
Exchange the habit of snacking for the habit of drinking water. If you typically snack while you watch TV, change that habit. If you watch mindless TV shows, try watching something that engages your mind, like science documentaries. Or use the time to read a good book.
The night hours are the unforgiving hours- calorie-wise. Don't give in to them.
That's it - that's all you have to do. Eat your dinner at 6:30. Including dessert - bowl of ice cream or what have you.
Then no snacks - no sugary pop - until the next morning.
If you're on a normal schedule (i.e., work during the day, sleep at night) then your body is conditioned to be active during the day and wind down at night. If you eat or consume milk shakes or pop, those calories are going to get stored.
So the big question is - can you go 4 hours without eating anything except carrots?
It's those night hours that really make it hard on people trying to lose weight. They are at home, they can't get out and about in order to take their minds off food cravings. If they have no activities to occupy their minds - hobbies - then they're just sitting there, feeling bored...and when people are bored a lot of them eat.
Or they're alone and they're depressed because they're alone, so they eat.
Or they're not alone and wish they were....
It's those night hours before you go to bed that you have to learn how to control. These are the hours when people don't eat because they are hungry, necessarily, but just to fill the time until they go to bed.
Exchange the habit of snacking for the habit of drinking water. If you typically snack while you watch TV, change that habit. If you watch mindless TV shows, try watching something that engages your mind, like science documentaries. Or use the time to read a good book.
The night hours are the unforgiving hours- calorie-wise. Don't give in to them.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Fly, my beauty! Fly, fly!
Living as I do in one of the windiest states in the US, I decided to stop complaining about it and take advantage of it.
About a week ago, I bought a cheap ol' bald eagle kite from Hobby Lobby. Then, for a couple of days, the wind actually stopped blowing. Typical.
Then, for two days, I'd try my kite, it would rise up a few feet, then dive about left and right madly before crashing to the ground.
My dad told me I needed to add a 6-foot tail.
I balked at this. If the kite needed a tail, I would have been told so in the directions.
But after two days of failure to get the kite to stay up for more than a few seconds at a time before spinning madly to earth, I asked my dad to put a tail on it.
Went out today and for the first time, the kite rose into the sky and stayed there. A couple of times it did do the "dive to left and right" thing, but I merely tightened up on the string and it held steady again.
Why do I mention this in a weight loss blog?
Well - because it takes muscles to hold onto that kite in 10-15 mph wind! Muscles I've apparently never used before because I can feel them in the tendons of my neck, and slightly less in my under arms.
Between the fun of hula hooping (once you get the hang of it, and that can take a couple of weeks of steady trying) and kite flying (if you live in a steadily windy area) you've got your sports all set!
About a week ago, I bought a cheap ol' bald eagle kite from Hobby Lobby. Then, for a couple of days, the wind actually stopped blowing. Typical.
Then, for two days, I'd try my kite, it would rise up a few feet, then dive about left and right madly before crashing to the ground.
My dad told me I needed to add a 6-foot tail.
I balked at this. If the kite needed a tail, I would have been told so in the directions.
But after two days of failure to get the kite to stay up for more than a few seconds at a time before spinning madly to earth, I asked my dad to put a tail on it.
Went out today and for the first time, the kite rose into the sky and stayed there. A couple of times it did do the "dive to left and right" thing, but I merely tightened up on the string and it held steady again.
Why do I mention this in a weight loss blog?
Well - because it takes muscles to hold onto that kite in 10-15 mph wind! Muscles I've apparently never used before because I can feel them in the tendons of my neck, and slightly less in my under arms.
Between the fun of hula hooping (once you get the hang of it, and that can take a couple of weeks of steady trying) and kite flying (if you live in a steadily windy area) you've got your sports all set!
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Weight loss with a twist: How one woman lost 143lbs...by learning how to hula hoop
Swimming is actually the best all around exercise - tones your thighs, stomach, and arms, not to mention your breasts.... but if you don't have easy access to a pool, hula hooping sounds like a fun substitute!
(And while hula hooping certainly helped, note that she also changed her diet...)
From The Daily Mail: Weight loss with a twist: How one woman lost 143lbs...by learning how to hula hoop
Losing weight is always a question of mind over matter but for one morbidly obese wife and mother, getting healthy was easy and fun.
Jen Moore, 31, weighed 288 lbs when she took up hula hooping as an effort to slim down. Now, thanks to the childhood sport, she is a trim 145lbs and has become an instructor for the company that helped her shed the weight.
Mrs Moore, who measures 5ft 5in, credits the low-impact activity with toning her core right from the beginning when she found she had to keep bending over to pick up the fallen hoop from the ground.
Writing about her experience for the Huffington Post she explained how within three months of learning the skill, she had lost a whopping 40lbs and had begun to enjoy the twisting thanks to instructional DVD's from Hooopnotica.
Mrs Moore's fitness kick began in 2008 after she was asked to leave a fairground ride when the safety bar would not close over her stomach.
Addicted to eating, she and her husband, Keith, had to reexamine their approach to food and the way they mindlessly ate out of boredom, as well as their lazy lifestyle.
Recalling past attempts to lose weight the hula-hoop instructor said: 'We had both tried dieting in the past; I was the queen of yo-yo dieting. It just didn't work.'
But after the humiliation of the fairground incident, Mrs Moore was determined to lose weight and provide a better example for her then baby girl.
'That day, I pledged to return to the theme park with my child the following year,' she remembered. 'This time as the healthier, slimmer, hot mom!'
Mrs Moore started gently and privately, taking a hoop to the local basketball court and trying to familiarise herself with the movement.
'It took me over two weeks just to be able to keep the hoop spinning around my waist, but from day one, I felt a tremendous difference in my core strength, confidence and energy,' she gushed on the healthy living blog.
The reinvigorated exercise fan also changed her diet, splitting her Starbucks skinny Frappuccinos with her husband and reaching for grapes instead of chips when she was reading or watching television.
Explaining the difference in her routine she said: 'We eat healthy now and make sure our kids do, too. We are cultivating our kids' taste buds to like healthy foods. We don't want our kids to become obese and suffer like we did for so long. We are empowering our kids to make the right food choices.
Obesity runs in our family. We never say the words "we were fat." We make sure to use the right words around our kids. We were unhealthy. We couldn't do all the fun activities we wanted to do.'
Times certainly have changed for the svelte hula-hoop instructor. Recently she added cardio and strength conditioning to her hoop-spinning exercise regime and teaches regularly at Hoopnotica.
(And while hula hooping certainly helped, note that she also changed her diet...)
From The Daily Mail: Weight loss with a twist: How one woman lost 143lbs...by learning how to hula hoop
Losing weight is always a question of mind over matter but for one morbidly obese wife and mother, getting healthy was easy and fun.
Jen Moore, 31, weighed 288 lbs when she took up hula hooping as an effort to slim down. Now, thanks to the childhood sport, she is a trim 145lbs and has become an instructor for the company that helped her shed the weight.
Mrs Moore, who measures 5ft 5in, credits the low-impact activity with toning her core right from the beginning when she found she had to keep bending over to pick up the fallen hoop from the ground.
Writing about her experience for the Huffington Post she explained how within three months of learning the skill, she had lost a whopping 40lbs and had begun to enjoy the twisting thanks to instructional DVD's from Hooopnotica.
Mrs Moore's fitness kick began in 2008 after she was asked to leave a fairground ride when the safety bar would not close over her stomach.
Addicted to eating, she and her husband, Keith, had to reexamine their approach to food and the way they mindlessly ate out of boredom, as well as their lazy lifestyle.
Recalling past attempts to lose weight the hula-hoop instructor said: 'We had both tried dieting in the past; I was the queen of yo-yo dieting. It just didn't work.'
But after the humiliation of the fairground incident, Mrs Moore was determined to lose weight and provide a better example for her then baby girl.
'That day, I pledged to return to the theme park with my child the following year,' she remembered. 'This time as the healthier, slimmer, hot mom!'
Mrs Moore started gently and privately, taking a hoop to the local basketball court and trying to familiarise herself with the movement.
'It took me over two weeks just to be able to keep the hoop spinning around my waist, but from day one, I felt a tremendous difference in my core strength, confidence and energy,' she gushed on the healthy living blog.
The reinvigorated exercise fan also changed her diet, splitting her Starbucks skinny Frappuccinos with her husband and reaching for grapes instead of chips when she was reading or watching television.
Explaining the difference in her routine she said: 'We eat healthy now and make sure our kids do, too. We are cultivating our kids' taste buds to like healthy foods. We don't want our kids to become obese and suffer like we did for so long. We are empowering our kids to make the right food choices.
Obesity runs in our family. We never say the words "we were fat." We make sure to use the right words around our kids. We were unhealthy. We couldn't do all the fun activities we wanted to do.'
Times certainly have changed for the svelte hula-hoop instructor. Recently she added cardio and strength conditioning to her hoop-spinning exercise regime and teaches regularly at Hoopnotica.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Establish a routine
Many people don't like to establish a routine. They think of it as a straight-jacket that inhibits their creativity.
Sorry, but that's a big mistake.
The only way to accomplish a goal in a timely manner with the least amount of wasted time, money and effort is to establish a routine and stick to it. Your mind and body become used to this routine, and the longer you follow it, the easier it will be.
Now of course, there are good and bad routines. (Think of a routine as a habit.) If you have a routine of having a donut for breakfast, two donuts with lunch, and three donuts with dinner, that's a bad routine. You want to cut that down to no donut for breakfast, half a donut for lunch (along with normal food) and a full donut for dessert after dinner.
Think of kids going to school. They have five classes a day. For each individual hour, they concentrate on one individual thing. After an hour, they go to another class, and tackle another subject, which refreshes the brain. What would happen if kids went to school each day not knowing what classes they'd be attending - they'd have to carry all their books instead of just a few of them, they wouldn't know what to study each day... it would be a mess.
So it is with your life and your goal to manage your weight - to lose a certain number of pounds and then - most difficult of all - keep it off.
It is a lot easier to do if you have a routine that you go through every day.
Get up at the same time every day, eat the same foods every day (or at least, one of a limited number of foods - all those that you know the calorie amounts of), exercise at the same time, play sports at the same time, and so on.
This is not to say that your routine is a straight-jacket that cannot be changed. As you work through your routine, keep notes on it and if some portion of it isn't working for you, change it.
But if you do establish a routine - you will be surprised at how efficient your life becomes. Not only in your goal of weight loss and maintenance, but also any other goals in life you might have - to learn a language, write a book, learn a new subject - all become so much easier if you set them to a routine.
Sorry, but that's a big mistake.
The only way to accomplish a goal in a timely manner with the least amount of wasted time, money and effort is to establish a routine and stick to it. Your mind and body become used to this routine, and the longer you follow it, the easier it will be.
Now of course, there are good and bad routines. (Think of a routine as a habit.) If you have a routine of having a donut for breakfast, two donuts with lunch, and three donuts with dinner, that's a bad routine. You want to cut that down to no donut for breakfast, half a donut for lunch (along with normal food) and a full donut for dessert after dinner.
Think of kids going to school. They have five classes a day. For each individual hour, they concentrate on one individual thing. After an hour, they go to another class, and tackle another subject, which refreshes the brain. What would happen if kids went to school each day not knowing what classes they'd be attending - they'd have to carry all their books instead of just a few of them, they wouldn't know what to study each day... it would be a mess.
So it is with your life and your goal to manage your weight - to lose a certain number of pounds and then - most difficult of all - keep it off.
It is a lot easier to do if you have a routine that you go through every day.
Get up at the same time every day, eat the same foods every day (or at least, one of a limited number of foods - all those that you know the calorie amounts of), exercise at the same time, play sports at the same time, and so on.
This is not to say that your routine is a straight-jacket that cannot be changed. As you work through your routine, keep notes on it and if some portion of it isn't working for you, change it.
But if you do establish a routine - you will be surprised at how efficient your life becomes. Not only in your goal of weight loss and maintenance, but also any other goals in life you might have - to learn a language, write a book, learn a new subject - all become so much easier if you set them to a routine.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Cooking Light Magazine
Although I advocate eating whatever you want, and not bothering to substitute "fat free" or "salt free" or other un-tasty foods for what you like to eat, there are resources for those who want to do that.
One of them is Cooking Light Magazine. http://www.cookinglight.com/
My dad, who is 78 years old and looks 60, has recently been getting this magazine. In his fifties he was about 40 pounds overweight, then decided to lose weight and did so. He did it the old fashioned way - no snacking after meals, go to bed hungry. He also went for long walks. Currently he plays racquetball 3 times a week with my sister. (I would like to play raquetball but the echoing sound just grates on my nerves, so I can't do it. Golf in another month, however.)
Anyway, I'm a chicken eater, and there are lots of great chicken recipes in these mags.
So check it out - either at their website or at the store, and see what you think.
One of them is Cooking Light Magazine. http://www.cookinglight.com/
My dad, who is 78 years old and looks 60, has recently been getting this magazine. In his fifties he was about 40 pounds overweight, then decided to lose weight and did so. He did it the old fashioned way - no snacking after meals, go to bed hungry. He also went for long walks. Currently he plays racquetball 3 times a week with my sister. (I would like to play raquetball but the echoing sound just grates on my nerves, so I can't do it. Golf in another month, however.)
Anyway, I'm a chicken eater, and there are lots of great chicken recipes in these mags.
So check it out - either at their website or at the store, and see what you think.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Can Spring Possibly Be Here?
Starting a diet in the middle of winter is always a tough thing to do.
Starting a diet during Spring, when the sun is shining, it's finally warm out, and you can get out and run and play.... well, that's just icing on the cake.
In order to lose weight - and, more difficult - maintain that new weight - you need to do two things
1) Eat right
2) Exercise
By eat right, I mean eat whatever you want to eat, just in small portions. You will also need to alter any night-time bad habits. Ice cream is an after dinner dessert, not a dessert to be had at 11 pm just before you go to bed! If you're hungry at that time and want to take the edge off, some carrots will do.
Exercise consists of two portions - weight training 3 times a week to keep up your muscle strength in arms and legs, and a sport of some kind to improve your cardiovascular - whether it be jogging, walking, biking, playing tennis, golf or what have you.
Weight training does not have to take more than 15 minutes a day. You are not aiming to be a body builder (unless you want to be, of course) but rather maintain or build strength in your arms and legs. This can be done with some 10 pound dumbbells, a 50 pound barbell, and 50 pounds on a leg attachment for your weight bench. (Legs are always stronger than arms and you can "curl" and "extend" a lot more weight with your legs than you can with your arms.)
Spring is here - let's have fun out there!
Starting a diet during Spring, when the sun is shining, it's finally warm out, and you can get out and run and play.... well, that's just icing on the cake.
In order to lose weight - and, more difficult - maintain that new weight - you need to do two things
1) Eat right
2) Exercise
By eat right, I mean eat whatever you want to eat, just in small portions. You will also need to alter any night-time bad habits. Ice cream is an after dinner dessert, not a dessert to be had at 11 pm just before you go to bed! If you're hungry at that time and want to take the edge off, some carrots will do.
Exercise consists of two portions - weight training 3 times a week to keep up your muscle strength in arms and legs, and a sport of some kind to improve your cardiovascular - whether it be jogging, walking, biking, playing tennis, golf or what have you.
Weight training does not have to take more than 15 minutes a day. You are not aiming to be a body builder (unless you want to be, of course) but rather maintain or build strength in your arms and legs. This can be done with some 10 pound dumbbells, a 50 pound barbell, and 50 pounds on a leg attachment for your weight bench. (Legs are always stronger than arms and you can "curl" and "extend" a lot more weight with your legs than you can with your arms.)
Spring is here - let's have fun out there!
Friday, March 9, 2012
Have you found your sport yet?
I'm watching a gold tourney at Doral right now - I'd hoped to see Phil do well and Tiger stink, but unfortunately it's the other way around.
But as I've blogged frequently - every time I watch a golf tourney as a matter of fact - I can't help but notice the physiques of the golfers. Most of 'em - even Tiger Woods, have little pot bellies (and a handful have big pot bellies!).
But let a woman walk around with a pot belly - at least, one who is supposed to be an athlete or an actress - and all hell breaks loose.
And that of course will never change.
But to the point of this post.
Just as you need to bring your eating down to a healthy level - by using portion control - so you need to add a sport to your repertoire. That sport can be either bike riding, walking, jogging, or golfing.
Can't afford to go golfing on a regular basis? No problem - just go to a park and practice hitting shots there. The walking and the bending and so on will give you a good workout.
But as I've blogged frequently - every time I watch a golf tourney as a matter of fact - I can't help but notice the physiques of the golfers. Most of 'em - even Tiger Woods, have little pot bellies (and a handful have big pot bellies!).
But let a woman walk around with a pot belly - at least, one who is supposed to be an athlete or an actress - and all hell breaks loose.
And that of course will never change.
But to the point of this post.
Just as you need to bring your eating down to a healthy level - by using portion control - so you need to add a sport to your repertoire. That sport can be either bike riding, walking, jogging, or golfing.
Can't afford to go golfing on a regular basis? No problem - just go to a park and practice hitting shots there. The walking and the bending and so on will give you a good workout.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
3 square meals a day. No less. Maybe more.
A lot of people who grow frustrated with their weight go to desperate measures to lose it. They stop eating entirely.
For most people this fasting doesn’t last long. They get hungry and they eat…and give up on their diet altogether.
For some people – anorexics – they continue to starve themselves for months, even years, until they are skeletal and end up dying from multiple organ failure.
And it’s all so unnecessary.
If a person stops eating altogether, this doesn’t do any good in the short term, because the body thinks its in starvation conditions, and actually slows down its metabolism…so you don’t lose any weight at all! Then, when the body needs some nutrition, it starts taking energy from muscles first – not fat. Eventually, the body starts consuming itself.
So, don’t start fasting for long periods of times. (Sure, some people fast for a day to “cleanse themselves,” in some religions, which is okay, but don’t go without food for more than 24 hours.
There are two ways to eat. Eat three meals a day – breakfast, lunch and dinner. Typically in the US the dinner is the large meal. In other countries, the lunch is the meal of the day, and dinner is just something small to curb the appetite.
Or, you can try eating five small meals a day, and see how that handles your appetite (keeping track with your journal to see how this works for you.)
What you do not want to do is deprive yourself of the things you love. This always backfires. Instead of cutting out chocolate or sodapop altogether, simply cut back. (Although, truth to tell, if you can cut out sodapop altogether, you should do so. It’s nothing but liquid sugar, with no nutritional value whatsoever, and too much caffeine. Don’t replace it with diet pop, either, as that has chemicals in it that really isn’t healthy for you.)
However, I can personally state how hard it is to give up pop, after having drank it for 20 years! But when my metabolism changed in my 40s, I had to do so. I used to be able to drink 4 cans a day with relative impunity thanks to my active lifestyle. After I hit 40 my metabolism slowed down, as did my exercising, and I started gaining more weight, although I was eating the same portions of food and drink that I always had.
I bit the bullet and cut back to one Pepsi a day (buying those half cans so I could have one in the morning and one in the evening.) I was annoyed at having to do this – I cannot tell you how annoyed I was!, but it had to be done. And after cutting out those extra three cans of pop – and nothing else out of my diet, my weight returned to its easy-to-maintain self.
For most people this fasting doesn’t last long. They get hungry and they eat…and give up on their diet altogether.
For some people – anorexics – they continue to starve themselves for months, even years, until they are skeletal and end up dying from multiple organ failure.
And it’s all so unnecessary.
If a person stops eating altogether, this doesn’t do any good in the short term, because the body thinks its in starvation conditions, and actually slows down its metabolism…so you don’t lose any weight at all! Then, when the body needs some nutrition, it starts taking energy from muscles first – not fat. Eventually, the body starts consuming itself.
So, don’t start fasting for long periods of times. (Sure, some people fast for a day to “cleanse themselves,” in some religions, which is okay, but don’t go without food for more than 24 hours.
There are two ways to eat. Eat three meals a day – breakfast, lunch and dinner. Typically in the US the dinner is the large meal. In other countries, the lunch is the meal of the day, and dinner is just something small to curb the appetite.
Or, you can try eating five small meals a day, and see how that handles your appetite (keeping track with your journal to see how this works for you.)
What you do not want to do is deprive yourself of the things you love. This always backfires. Instead of cutting out chocolate or sodapop altogether, simply cut back. (Although, truth to tell, if you can cut out sodapop altogether, you should do so. It’s nothing but liquid sugar, with no nutritional value whatsoever, and too much caffeine. Don’t replace it with diet pop, either, as that has chemicals in it that really isn’t healthy for you.)
However, I can personally state how hard it is to give up pop, after having drank it for 20 years! But when my metabolism changed in my 40s, I had to do so. I used to be able to drink 4 cans a day with relative impunity thanks to my active lifestyle. After I hit 40 my metabolism slowed down, as did my exercising, and I started gaining more weight, although I was eating the same portions of food and drink that I always had.
I bit the bullet and cut back to one Pepsi a day (buying those half cans so I could have one in the morning and one in the evening.) I was annoyed at having to do this – I cannot tell you how annoyed I was!, but it had to be done. And after cutting out those extra three cans of pop – and nothing else out of my diet, my weight returned to its easy-to-maintain self.
Gradualness is your enemy - and your friend
Unless you're bound and determined to gain weight quickly (having 3 or 4 Blizzards a day in addition to breakfast, lunch and dinner), you probably have never gained more than a pound a day. If you've skipped walking or biking for a week, and not only not left off a portion of food from your dinner, but added an extra portion, you'll gradually put on weight. A half pound one day...a half pound the next, and so on. It's so gradual you don't even notice it until one day, a month later, you find out not only that your slacks are getting a bit tight, but now you can't even zipper them up.
Time to reverse the process - and do it gradually.
People who go on crash diets to lose weight actually mess with their metabolism, and by the time they are finished, they will be unable to eat the same amount of food that they used to eat, without gaining weight. That's because their metabolism has slowed down, to compensate for what the body believed was a starvation process.
When the body doesn't get enough to eat, that's what it does. It goes after muscle first, before fat - it tries to conserve the fat to keep you alive.
That is one of the reasons why so many people who successfully lose a hundred pounds or so...gain it all back within a year. They go back to their old eating routine...and even if they maintain the exercise routine they started while they were losing weight, they still gain back all the weight. Why - their metabolism has slown down. It's busy (I'm anthropomorphising here) trying to get back all that weight it lost, so it will start storing fat quicker than ever before.
That is why it is important to lose weight gradually, so you don't play havoc with your metabolism. Be satisfied with losing 1 pound a week. A goal like that is eminently doable, does not require you to starve yourself or feel hungry, and once you reach your desire weight, will be easy to maintain, as I explain in future entries in this blog.
Time to reverse the process - and do it gradually.
People who go on crash diets to lose weight actually mess with their metabolism, and by the time they are finished, they will be unable to eat the same amount of food that they used to eat, without gaining weight. That's because their metabolism has slowed down, to compensate for what the body believed was a starvation process.
When the body doesn't get enough to eat, that's what it does. It goes after muscle first, before fat - it tries to conserve the fat to keep you alive.
That is one of the reasons why so many people who successfully lose a hundred pounds or so...gain it all back within a year. They go back to their old eating routine...and even if they maintain the exercise routine they started while they were losing weight, they still gain back all the weight. Why - their metabolism has slown down. It's busy (I'm anthropomorphising here) trying to get back all that weight it lost, so it will start storing fat quicker than ever before.
That is why it is important to lose weight gradually, so you don't play havoc with your metabolism. Be satisfied with losing 1 pound a week. A goal like that is eminently doable, does not require you to starve yourself or feel hungry, and once you reach your desire weight, will be easy to maintain, as I explain in future entries in this blog.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Just lose the weight
Some loons are suing the Kardshian sisters because they advocated a weight loss product that didn't make them skinny.
Well, gee whiz whillikers.
Let me say this once and for all: Weight Watchers, SlimFast, Jenny Craig, and everything of that ilk - none of those work by magic.
My program doesn't work by magic.
There is no easy way to lose weight. (And yes, an advertising program that says "weight loss is easy" is lying and you may have grounds to sue them on that account, but please, it's just common sense that it would not be easy.)
The hardest thing to do is control your appetite. There's 24 hours in a day - how can you fill those hours without eating?
Some people can do it easily - they can eat whatever they want and the calories burn right off because they have fast metabolisms.
Women typically have slower metabolisms than men, and our bodies simply consist of more fat than guys - the wider hips, the wider thighs, our breasts, etc.
There is no need to pay the big bucks to Weight Watchers, etc. to lose weight. Just understand the common sense of the situation.
1. Gradually lower your appetite by gradually lowering the amount you eat. Switch snacking late at night from high-calorie snacks to carrots or something of that nature.
2. Don't cut out things you love like cookies with real chocolate, cake with real chocolate, ya da ya da. Just eat smaller portions.
3. Exercise. Weight train 3 days a week - not to become all bulky but to achieve and then maintain a strength that you'll need all your life. In addition, muscles burn calories faster than fat, so the more muscle you have, that's one more portion of food you can eat when you're maintaining your weight.
4. Jog, bike, play tennis. some kind of sport, also at least 3 times a week. Weight training is for getting muscle, jogging, tennis etc. is for cardio, which you also need.
So don't go around suing celebrities for endorsing weight loss products - that you shouldn't even be using to begin with.
Kardashian Sisters Sued over Endorsement of Weight-Loss Products
So here's at least 4 folks who don't want to have to exercise and want to keep stuffing themselves with food. They're just plain stupid - but than you have to be to be a fan of the Kardashians! Jeez!
Well, gee whiz whillikers.
Let me say this once and for all: Weight Watchers, SlimFast, Jenny Craig, and everything of that ilk - none of those work by magic.
My program doesn't work by magic.
There is no easy way to lose weight. (And yes, an advertising program that says "weight loss is easy" is lying and you may have grounds to sue them on that account, but please, it's just common sense that it would not be easy.)
The hardest thing to do is control your appetite. There's 24 hours in a day - how can you fill those hours without eating?
Some people can do it easily - they can eat whatever they want and the calories burn right off because they have fast metabolisms.
Women typically have slower metabolisms than men, and our bodies simply consist of more fat than guys - the wider hips, the wider thighs, our breasts, etc.
There is no need to pay the big bucks to Weight Watchers, etc. to lose weight. Just understand the common sense of the situation.
1. Gradually lower your appetite by gradually lowering the amount you eat. Switch snacking late at night from high-calorie snacks to carrots or something of that nature.
2. Don't cut out things you love like cookies with real chocolate, cake with real chocolate, ya da ya da. Just eat smaller portions.
3. Exercise. Weight train 3 days a week - not to become all bulky but to achieve and then maintain a strength that you'll need all your life. In addition, muscles burn calories faster than fat, so the more muscle you have, that's one more portion of food you can eat when you're maintaining your weight.
4. Jog, bike, play tennis. some kind of sport, also at least 3 times a week. Weight training is for getting muscle, jogging, tennis etc. is for cardio, which you also need.
So don't go around suing celebrities for endorsing weight loss products - that you shouldn't even be using to begin with.
Kardashian Sisters Sued over Endorsement of Weight-Loss Products
A New York-based law firm has followed through on a threat to file a class-action lawsuit against Kim, Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian over their endorsement of the weight-loss product QuickTrim.
According to E! Online, the firm of Bursor & Fisher has filed the five-million-dollar lawsuit in New York on behalf of four customers who allege they used Quicktrim and did not see the same results touted by the Kardashians. The customers believe the sisters’ weight loss cannot be solely attributed to Quicktrim.
Both Kim and Khloe have claimed they lost 15 pounds using QuickTrim, which is manufactured by the New Jersey-based company Windmill Health Products.
The firm hinted two weeks ago to the New York Post that a lawsuit against the Kardashians, among other defendants, was forthcoming.
So here's at least 4 folks who don't want to have to exercise and want to keep stuffing themselves with food. They're just plain stupid - but than you have to be to be a fan of the Kardashians! Jeez!
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Remember your water
One way to help control your food cravings, and appetite, is to drink plenty of water. Water fills up your stomach and keeps you full.
The article below illustrates this - well...it illustrates that when trying to lose weight, a relatively easy way to do it is to give up on Pepsi or Coke or whatever it is you drink. On the other hand, I can't really advocate diet drinks - the artificial sweeteners they use aren't particularly safe...
From UPI.com: Lose 4-5 lbs. by drinking water, not soda
CHAPEL HILL, N.C., March 2 (UPI) -- Substituting water or diet soft drinks for drinks with calories can help people lose 4 to 5 pounds in six months, U.S. researchers suggested.
Study author Deborah Tate, associate professor of nutrition and of health behavior and health education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Gillings School of Global Public Health, compared weight loss for 318 overweight or obese people drinking different beverages.
People were divided into three groups: those who switched from calorie-laden beverages to diet soft drinks; those who switched to water; and those who were not counseled to change beverages but received general information about healthy choices that could lead to weight loss.
All three groups attended monthly group sessions and had access to a group-specific Web site for six months.
"Substituting non-caloric beverages -- whether it's water, diet soft drinks or something else -- can be a clear and simple change for people who want to lose or maintain weight," Tate said in a statement. "If this were done on a large scale, it could significantly reduce the increasing public health problem of obesity."
All three groups experienced small reductions in weight and waist circumference during the six-month study.
However, people who switched to calorie-free beverages were twice as likely to lose 5 percent or more of their body weight than those who were not counseled to change beverages.
In addition, people in the group who drank mostly water had lower fasting glucose levels and better hydration levels than the control group, the study found.
The study was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
The article below illustrates this - well...it illustrates that when trying to lose weight, a relatively easy way to do it is to give up on Pepsi or Coke or whatever it is you drink. On the other hand, I can't really advocate diet drinks - the artificial sweeteners they use aren't particularly safe...
From UPI.com: Lose 4-5 lbs. by drinking water, not soda
CHAPEL HILL, N.C., March 2 (UPI) -- Substituting water or diet soft drinks for drinks with calories can help people lose 4 to 5 pounds in six months, U.S. researchers suggested.
Study author Deborah Tate, associate professor of nutrition and of health behavior and health education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Gillings School of Global Public Health, compared weight loss for 318 overweight or obese people drinking different beverages.
People were divided into three groups: those who switched from calorie-laden beverages to diet soft drinks; those who switched to water; and those who were not counseled to change beverages but received general information about healthy choices that could lead to weight loss.
All three groups attended monthly group sessions and had access to a group-specific Web site for six months.
"Substituting non-caloric beverages -- whether it's water, diet soft drinks or something else -- can be a clear and simple change for people who want to lose or maintain weight," Tate said in a statement. "If this were done on a large scale, it could significantly reduce the increasing public health problem of obesity."
All three groups experienced small reductions in weight and waist circumference during the six-month study.
However, people who switched to calorie-free beverages were twice as likely to lose 5 percent or more of their body weight than those who were not counseled to change beverages.
In addition, people in the group who drank mostly water had lower fasting glucose levels and better hydration levels than the control group, the study found.
The study was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
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