Friday 22 June 2012

How to Avoid A Yo-Yo Diet In Simple To Follow Steps

There are certain characteristics that differentiate healthy diets and unhealthy diets. The less effective diets are the usually the ones that promise rapid weight loss and only last for a month or so.

The healthier diet programs give more of a focus on losing weight over a longer period. These diet plans are tailored for the individual so are easier to stick to for a long time.

Something that is common with people looking for a weight loss solution is that they don’t have the right knowledge about what healthy eating really consists of. Many people are attracted to fad diets that promise them fast results.

These diets are usually temporary solutions. Many people have good success with such diets, but being as they don’t know what a healthy diet really consists of, they return to their old eating patterns soon after and start piling all that weight back on.

There is nothing wrong with trying out a fad diet, and they may well work. The problem is that many people don’t have a plan B for when the diet finishes. There’s no real use in eating healthily for 30 days and then returning to your usual unhealthy diet.



These diets are sometimes referred to as ‘yo-yo’ diets. Sometimes the dieter will regain twice as much weight as they lost after returning to their old eating habits. This is because of the effects that these eating changes have on their metabolism.

Here are some of the characteristics that fad diets often possess. If you spot things like this then you know that they are most likely not a diet with sustainable long term benefits:

  • They focus on just one or two nutrientsThere are several dieting plans around that focus on drastically reducing carbohydrates. These once popular diets have begun fading away, which hopefully reflects the new awareness people are gaining regarding long term healthy eating practices. For long term health benefits, your body needs a good variety of nutrients, including carbohydrates and fats. Balance is the key.

  • They promise fast weight loss resultsWhile they may make you lose weight quickly, they are just temporary diets. This means that when the diet is over there’s a good chance you’ll pile that weight back on. You could even put on more weight than you lost.

  • They focus on magic foodsA big trend with diets these days is claiming that a certain food like lemon, grapefruit, cinnamon, celery etc. will burn fat fast. While certain can foods can have a positive effect on the metabolism, they should not be considered the solution to long term weight loss.

  • They come in supplement formThere’s all sorts of magic diet pills and supplements doing the rounds. Remember, they are called a ‘supplement’ for a reason. They are intended to supplement an overall healthy eating plan. There’s nothing wrong with taking supplements, but they should not be solely relied on in order to lose weight.

  • There is no exercise involvedYes some fad diets even claim that no exercise is required and that the special diet alone will make you lose weight. Exercise is a vital practice regardless of your diet. If a dieting product attempts to sell you on the fact you don’t need to exercise, stay well away.

As you may have noticed after reading the above, fad diets are unbalanced and focus on miraculous and rapid changes. Truly healthy diet plans a like a reality check. The best way to be healthy and lose weight is to eat well consistently in the longer term.

There are many healthy diet programs out there that promote long term health in order to lose weight. While they don’t promise success in just a few weeks, they give the groundwork for eating healthily in the long term. Stick to a sustainable plan like this and you body will naturally form its optimum weight over time.

Because a true healthy diet is stuck to for the long term, there is no danger of sudden weight gain as the diet does not end. So the way to spot a healthy diet among all the unhealthy diets out there is to focus more on long term health, rather than overnight weight loss.

In addition, a healthy diet plan focuses on proper eating practices. This includes the frequency and size of meals, which is an important factor which many dieters overlook.

Here are the common features of a healthy diet plan:



Ensure You Consume Enough Calories

Many fad diets can contain a drastically low amount of calories. Starving your body of calories is not the best way to lose weight – you need to reduce calories gradually.

A healthy plan will be tailored the your current calorie intake. Seeing a nutritionist can be helpful to calculate your average weekly calorie intake. A major decrease in your average intake will not serve you well if trying to lose weight properly.

Allowing Snacking Between Meals
Rather than just eating your 3 main meals a day, it is better to have a slightly smaller breakfast, lunch and dinner, and then eat some small healthy snacks in between. This increases metabolism and fills your body with energy. It also settles your appetite and prevents overeating.

Contains a Wide Selection of Foods
You shouldn’t be confined to eating just one kind of food. A healthy diet plan will contain a good mixture of vegetables, fruits, nuts, beans and lean meat.

Sustainable & Flexible
A healthy diet is designed to last for a long time. This is why the best diet plans can be tailored to your own eating habits and your lifestyle.

An effective eating plan will include all your favourite foods to some extent – as long as you don’t overindulge. This makes the diet more effective as you will have more will-power to stick to it.

When you search for a healthy diet plan, evaluate the plans you see and try to identify the above elements. Doing this can help you separate the genuinely healthy diet plans for the fads.

Look for a sustainable diet plan that you know you will be able to stick to for a long time. Find a suitable plan and it will make achieving your health goals a lot easier. The Lunch Box Diet by Simon Lovell reached acclaim because it’s one of the few diets that causes yo-yo dieting as it’s more of a healthy lifestyle plan. Voted ‘the best diet’ by Elle Magazine they said it became ‘a way of life’ – very few diets offer that kind of benefit. Click here to find out more…

All the best for now

Daryl

Monday 18 June 2012

10 Tips For Losing Weight Fast

Getting rid of those extra kilograms around your waist can be a grueling task but if you follow these 10 Tips for losing weight fast, you should be well on your way to being slender and healthy.

There is a ton of information out there on the internet about what you should and what you shouldn’t do when it comes to weight loss but the problem is that some of it is simply to generic or isn’t really useful.

This is why I have tried to come up with a great list of tips for losing weight fast so that all the information you get from it is both useful and ready to be applied, with immediate results.

So, without further ado, I give you my personal list of 10 Tips for Losing Weight Fast and healthy.

1. Take the time to experiment with food

Everyone knows that eating healthy is the first prerequisite for a diet with enduring results. It is the only way that you will lose weight and kept the extra pounds off. This is why, you should try a lot of different healthy foods so that you will never get bored of your menu and start eating foods that will add to your waistline.

2. Have Smaller Meals

This is something that you will see mentioned in many diets and for good reasons. If you eat smaller meals you won’t put any strain on your stomach and you will also get used to eating less every time you sit down at the table. This is a sure fire way to cut down on your portions on the long run.

3. Drink Lots of Water

This is mandatory not only for losing weight but for living an overall healthy life. Water is the fuel that drives your metabolism so get a lot of it to make sure that you keep burning as many calories as possible throughout the day.

4. Avoid Alcohol

In case you didn’t know it, Alcohol comes with a significant sugar concentration so if you want to lose weight fast, remove it from the menu completely. If you are in a social situation where you absolutely must raise a glass, go for red wine because it gives you a nice metabolism boost and increases your blood flow.

5. Don’t eat after 6 pm

This is another golden rule in the Tips for losing weight fast book. The idea behind it is to avoid eating during the period of the day when your physical activity will be reduced significantly and you won’t burn as many calories.

6. Stay away from Junk Foods and Processed Foods

This should really go without saying but there are many people out there that manage to convince themselves that it’s ok to eat that McDonald’s Salad and completely forget about the fat-laden dressing that it comes with.

7. Run

Out of all the tips for losing weight fast, this is the simplest and most effective I can give you. Just go outside and run because there is no way you will get rid of the extra pounds fast, without any physical exercise.

8. Eat Raw Food

Include vegetables and fruits to your menu but don’t add them, use them to replace other cooked foods.

9. Don’t eat before you sleep

Try to always be active after a meal because it is the only way you will lose weight fast.

10. Never leave the table feeling full

If you want to shed off pounds fast, always leave the table feeling a little bit hungry.

There you have it; these are my 10 Tips for Losing Weight Fast. Follow all of them and you should see results sooner than you expect

All the best for now

Daryl

Sunday 10 June 2012

Fat Genes or Phat Jeans

Fat Genes or Phat Jeans

You've been genetically programmed to bear extra weight
By Karen Sessions NSCA-CPT
MsFit
Thorough studies and extensive research have determined that you may be overweight or obese due to heredity. Everyone from doctors to dietitians proclaim that you gain weight and/or get fat due to genetics.

Even though your parents, grandparents, and even great grandparents were healthy and at an ideal weight, you can inherit this "genetic fat gene". *enter sarcasm here* They reason, "it's not your fault", to make you feel better.
How does that strike you? This should down right anger you that they are spending millions of dollars to "prove" that you are genetically predisposed to be heavy with the inability to lose weight.

You've literally been brainwashed by leading officials in the "health care industry" that you gain weight due to a genetic disposition. On top of that, they want to create a drug to combat this "genetic fat gene".

This is along the same lines as, "if heart disease run in your family, there's a great chance you'll get it too". I'm sorry, but that's a load of crap. Families inherit eating traditions and unhealthy lifestyle habits.

If you follow an unhealthy eating pattern, you will suffer the same risk factors and consequences as your parents and grandparents. If you change your eating, you can change your health and well-being.
When the "health care industry" tells you that you have a "genetic fat gene", you will be more likely to tolerate weight issues and accept prescribed drugs to "balanced" the condition for the rest of your life. What a brilliant marketing plan. They take themselves and you out of the equation, and blame weight issues on something beyond your control.
My primary question is, if obesity began to increase at an alarming rate in the last 25 years, where was that fat gene then? Why did it all of a sudden become an issue? Is the fat gene contagious? Is there a fat gene epidemic?
When the pharmaceutical industry funds certain "studies" and "researches", drawing out conclusions that are beyond one's control without the aid of drugs, something is wrong.

There is a lack of true science involved in most researching, simply because they are focused on the result they want. By manipulating time, subjects, amounts, etc., ANY study can be created with any result they want.

Breaking the Silence
Granted, heredity can play a great role in weight issues, but it does not determine whether you will be skinny or fat. These factors can be broken down into body types and body shapes. What I can say is your diet and exercise can be based on these two factors to create the type of body you desire.
Some causes of weight gain can be contributed to overeating, carbohydrate abuse (past or present), eating too much processed food, lack of exercise, etc.

As you can see, these are learned or acquired behaviors. You don't pop out of the womb with these traits.
There is another side to the equation, such as medical issues, including metabolic challenges due to hypothyroidism, sluggish liver, improperly functioning pancreas, sluggish digestive track, medications, and so on. I will tap on a few of these later.

How to Battle the Bulge
Dietitians, physicians and other "experts" declare that to lose weight you must eat fewer calories and exercise more. Burn more calories than you eat. Of course, that sounds logical.
Another panel of "experts" suggests that to lose weight you have to reduce the amount of fat you eat, because we all know that fat makes you fat, right? This too sounds logical.
So there you have it. In order to lose weight you have to lower calories and fat, and exercise more. Now, if we lower calories and fat, we are left with eating only carbohydrates and protein.

 Pardon my sarcasm, but isn't the latest trend in the weight loss and fitness industry, that carbs make you fat?
Therefore, we are left with cutting calories, fat, and carbs, and doing a lot of exercise. That must be the secret to weight loss. I'm sure many of you have tried this method only to lose muscle and energy and ended up a smaller version of your previous fat self. Right?
After a quick scan of our top "expert's advice", we realize that they are all wrong.
Statistics show that what we are being taught about weight loss is not working. Rather than giving us true facts about how to master fat loss, we are being told that it's in our genes. How absurd is that?

Look at all the success stories of people who were over weight and even obese that ate right and exercised and lost fat. What happened to their fat gene?

Revealing the Truth
No matter what, the truth is usually the hardest thing to face. So, what's the truth about fat loss? Technically, it's your body's chemistry.

Your body chemistry determines how your body responds to food. The benefit to this is that you can alter your body chemistry and make it work in your favor. The detriment is that you can also alter your body chemistry and make it worse, causing weight gain.
This is where it's important to know how to play the weight loss game. The secret is in understanding how your body responds to certain macronutrients (protein, fat, and carbs) and using that information to manipulate the body into burning fat.

Undisclosed Facts
There are many factors affecting one's weight loss, and many of these issues have not even surfaced through the media or magazines.

Specifically engineered diet foods and other processed foods are one of the leading causes you may be overweight or have a difficult time losing weight, not a genetic fat gene. The majority of the population is consuming chemically altered substances called, food.

These man-made food imitations are loaded with various toxins, such as sugar, artificial sweetners, MSG, and many other chemicals that prevent the body from breaking them down to use or dispose of. These toxins literally clog your body's systems, alter your body's pH, and virtually pollute your body to the point where it can't lose fat or retain muscle.

 To make a bad story worse, these chemicals (additives) causes illness and diseases.
Today, people are eating diet foods by the truck loads for that extra weight loss advantage. These foods are labeled, "fat-free", "low-calorie", "cholesterol-free", "sugar-free", "“low-carb", "carb-free", etc. Why aren't people losing weight on this stuff?

 It is marketed to those interested in losing weight. These diet food products to lose weight and be healthy that couldn't even be manufactured 50 years ago.

The dirty little secret about these wonderful diet foods is that the food industry is putting ingredients in food products to make you hungry and make you addicted. Now, it's not just diet foods only.

  Anything processed contains chemicals to work against the body and cause adverse reactions.
Envision this. You are composed of 73 trillion cells that are engineered to be healthy. Cells perform all the fundamental functions of life.

These cells carry out daily tasks to keep you healthy and alive.

A healthy and clean diet rich in natural foods produced by Mother Nature will equal healthy cells that function optimally. On the other hand, a polluted diet composed of processed and commercial diet foods including deli cuts, anything boxed or canned, fast food, and such will yield polluted cells that don't function as they were engineered to.
Simply stated, your body is designed to breakdown and digest natural foods, those you can hunt, gather, fish, and pick. When you put a foreign food in your body (processed), your cells don't have the ability to break it down and digest it.

This foreign matter can't be used to rebuild the body's tissues, and these toxins just hang around in your body, clogging up your system and altering your pH. When your body can't rebuild itself with a toxic diet, it will turn on itself to feed its needs.

This literally means that your body will rob your bone and organs to get the enzymes it needs to survive.
Therefore, when you develop osteoporosis at a young age, look at your diet. Is your diet high in processed foods, which lack and rob calcium? Are you eating enough natural vegetables that are calcium rich? Osteoporosis is not genetic, it's acquired.

When you develop heart disease before the age of 40, take a good hard look at your diet. Your body doesn't care where it gets the enzymes, as long as it gets it.

If this means robbing Peter to pay Paul, it will do it! Before you go blaming your parents and grandparent's, take a look at your own eating habits first. It's not your fault. "Conventional-wisdom" has deceived you.

Failure to Inform
Why isn't this in the news? Why isn't our doctors' telling us this? With the cost of insurance and doctor visits, you would think they would enlighten us rather than telling us we have inherited a genetic fat gene.
Well, one reason your doctor doesn't tell you this is because they are taught very little, virtually two clock hours of nutrition in medical school.

 Doctors are taught how to write prescriptions and do surgical procedures in medical school. If our bodies survive on food, which is comprised of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, then why do they dismiss the very essentials that we are built on and our bodies thrive on? They simply don't know.
The United States is number 37 on the World Health Index and in the top 5 in technology. With all our technology, why are we so overweight, out of shape, sick and diseased? Why is our health at stake? A new drug is not the answer.

Obviously all their studies and research aren't doing much good. The public is being kept in the closet on fitness, nutrition, and health. The true scientific facts are being suppressed, at the cost of your waistline and health. Angry yet?

Metabolic Weight Loss Challenges
Earlier I mentioned certain conditions that could be hindering your weight loss endeavors, such as a poor functioning liver or pancreas and such. Not always, but generally your filtering and metabolic organs can become toxic and prevent them from functioning optimally.

Usually people go straight to their doctor to get the latest drug or surgery, but before you do, give detoxifying a try. Often times our bodies run under par due to the amount of toxins we receive from processed foods, personal hygiene, and/or polluted air and water. Toxins need to be flushed out because they get trapped and stored in fat cells.

They can bloat you, alter your pH, prevent fat loss, and cause a whole host of illnesses and diseases. A simple detoxifying program can purge all the impurities out of your body and allow it to operate as it was intended to do.

Bust out of Those Phat Genes
Now that you know that you are not genetically predisposed to be overweight, you can look into eating more natural foods and detoxifying your system to get your body to work with you, and not against you.
Fitfully Yours,
Karen Sessions NSCA-CPT
MsFit
P.S. Discover how to take weight off naturally and safely... and keep it off in How To Lose Weight; FOREVER!

Thanks for that Karen

All the best
Daryl