Weight Loss Tips

We live in a nation of growing obesity. Statistics indicate that obesity has doubled since 1980. A 2008 report showed that 1.5 billion adults were clinically obese and over 45 million children were obese. There are complications connected to being obese. Approximately 3 million people die yearly from disease brought on or made worse from obesity. These diseases include diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Practice Prevention: There are many things you can do to control your weight and prevent obesity. It is fundamentally a shift in how you think. You must realize that you have a great deal of power over your own health. Consider the fact that you in part, can control how you age and how you can maintain good health throughout your lifetime. Of course disease can occur to any of us. However you can greatly reduce your risks with a healthy lifestyle.

Physical Activity: Exercise is a very important part of any healthy lifestyle. Exercise will strengthen your body and you will begin to build muscle. Your metabolism will increase because muscle has a higher metabolic rate than fat. So add some strength training routines to your exercise program. You can incorporate 2-3 strength training routines weekly. Only 15-20 sessions can have a huge impact on your physical strength and health. You will begin burning fat and therefore lose weight.

Good Fats versus Bad Fats: There are healthy fats to add to your diet. These include omega fatty acids such as those found in fresh fish. Salmon is has one of the highest levels of good omega fatty acids. 2-3 servings weekly could be very healthy and helpful to your weight loss. Research has shown that monounsatured fats are very effective for weight loss. A good food to add to your diet is avocados. Although not the lowest in calories, avocadoes are extremely nutritious and high in monosaturated fats. Try adding some avocado to a salad or make a guacamole dip to eat with veggie sticks such as celery and carrots. Other healthy food choices for good fats include grass fed beef and extra virgin olive oil. Olive oil has numerous health benefits. It has been shown to increase the fat burning response in the body as well as lower inflammation levels.

Sugar: Sugar is something you definitely want to eliminate from your diet, particularly if you are trying to lose weight. When you consume too much sugar, this signals your body to use insulin to begin burning it off. As a result, your insulin will spike. Whatever isn't used will be converted by your body into fat. Try to limit your sugar intake to no more than 10 percent of your daily calorie intake. So for example if you consume 1500 calories daily, sugar should comprise only 150 of those calories. Always be on the lookout for hidden sources of sugar such as those found in soda and juices.

A Healthy Breakfast: When you are sleeping your metabolism goes into more of a resting state. This is referred to as "catabolism". In order to turn it on as efficiently as possible, you need to eat a good breakfast. Having a protein with breakfast is helpful along with whole grains. A good breakfast choice might be a veggie omelet with whole wheat bread. Or some oatmeal topped with fresh fruit and a protein bar. And remember to start the day with drinking some fresh pure water to hydrate your body.

Eating Styles: Eating smaller "mini meals" is a very effective way to help you lose weight. Eating your meals at consistent times is helpful. Eating every three hours during the day is a good way to keep your body consistently fueled with energy. This will also keep you from overeating. Many people overeat because they starve themselves all day and then they binge on a huge dinner. The whole key to keeping weight off is to keep your metabolic rate as high as you can. Skipping meals actually lowers your metabolism.

Reward System: Everyone once in a while you really need to just reward yourself. If you are too regimented in your eating habits and never allow yourself a little indulgence now and then, one of two things will happen. Either you will end up binging or you will quit and begin to go back to your old habits. It is well known that when you are too restrictive in your diet you will usually binge within a month and potentially gain even more weight.

Supportive Relationships: Being with like minded people who take care of themselves will really help you. If you are with peers who are overweight and have no motivation to get in shape you will probably do the same. We tend to mirror those we associate with. So if this is your situation, why not look to broaden your horizons and meet new and interesting people. You could join a gym, or a local meet up group that does walking, hiking, swimming, dance, etc. This will change your outlook on yourself. Before you know it, you will incorporate new and healthy habits into your own life and be on your way to successful weight loss.

Eliminate Junk Foods: Go through your kitchen and eliminate all of the unhealthy junk foods and processed foods you have around. You will benefit yourself and your family by doing so. If you have easy access to junk foods, the odds are you will eat it. Anytime you feel rushed or upset about something you will reach out to these types of foods. Focus instead on filling your pantry with healthy, wholesome foods. Keep snacks such as fresh fruit and no sugar yogurts in your home.

Water: Water is very important to your good health. You need to stay hydrated. If it is hard for you to drink water, add fresh lemon or lime. Try drinking 4 to 6 glasses per day of water. Drinking water is helpful to weight loss because it keeps you feeling full. An easy way to get your water intake is to bring a few bottles with you to work to have readily available to you. This will lessen the temptation to consume soda or fruit juices that are high in calories and filled with sugar. Remember, whenever beginning any dietary or lifestyle changes, always consult with a medical professional, particularly if you are taking prescription drugs or suffer from any disease or ailment.

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By Tina C. Loren

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What Is Your Weight Loss Plan?

Weight loss sounds like a very easy task to do. Just strive to start burning additional calories and the excess weight should really go down quickly, correct? But any person who's experimented with shedding unwanted pounds is aware that slimming down isn't just about as easy as it may sound. From busy daily activities to the toughest primary cause coming from all - very long and cold Canadian winter months which make us want to lay down on the sofa all evening hours with your beloved snacks and television shows - dropping some weight can often be difficult and it has never been effortless.

With all the variety of food readily available, a lot of it unhealthy and lacking in nutritional value, the battle to get back a proper body weight can appear too much to handle. It is actually difficult for many Canadians and Americans. Just taking into consideration the weeks or months of reducing calorie consumption and increasing physical exercise will take many individuals in to the bad mood and sometimes depression. It is very tempting to stop at the closest fast-food restaurant for a big meal.

Weight loss is really a process of calorie consumption and fat burning. Including physical exercise to your routine will make it possible for quicker weight reduction. I exercise and do my walking at least 5 times a week for at least 1 hour each time. In case you believe that it is impossible for you to invest just 60 minutes of your time to workout, ask yourself if slimming down is a goal for you.

Many men and women are searching for weight loss tips and guidelines and lots of websites and blogs want to post ideas to fulfill that need. Every expert has an opinion, but the problem is that we are all different. Every individual has a unique DNA, metabolism, body bio systems and eating habits. We all have good and bad habits.

I don't claim to be an expert, but I can share just my own experience.

Either it is weight loss or something else we need to start from within. Our mind is what we need to start working on first.

I made a decision. I simply set up my mind to change my eating habits. Ask yourself how bad you really want it. What is a level of your desire? Is it just a wish without any solid ground foundation? I asked myself many questions. I came to the point where I knew that I just need to start working on my weight loss. Decision was born.

Next thing is to set a clear goal. How much you want to lose? How long is going to take you? What exercises are you going to do? How often?

Last, but not least important is to write a plan. It is scientifically proven that those people who write down their goals and draw a plan succeed more often then individuals who don't do that.
Create a weight loss plan and stick to it.

I am Vitaliy Knysh, entrepreneur and Internet marketer. You will find valuable tips on how to maintain healthy lifestyle, informative articles on the variety of topics, and much more when you go to my blog http://www.Vitaliy-Knysh.com

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Acupuncture as an aid to Beauty

Most of us are used to the picture of someone receiving acupuncture treatment. We also know that acupuncture is widely used to eliminate pain. But not many people realise that acupuncture can also be a marvelous aid for a beauty routine.

Look at ourselves carefully before any makeup is applied. What would we like to get rid of? Are there too many fine lines, are the dark circles under the eyes attractive, and are large pores really gone? Maybe a small hint of a double chin, and maybe the complexion has age spots which can't be compared with a younger face! Things like this take a lot of makeup, and even perhaps a little plastic surgery.

Plastic surgery is much more drastic than a few needles from acupuncture treatment which is much easier to think about. Tiny needles inserted into areas of the face by an acupuncturist stimulate the production of collagen in the area. The skin becomes supported and nourished by the body instead of some external products. Collagen thus produced will firm the skin and stretch the skin removing fine lines.

Many women who undergo this procedure notice results with only one or perhaps a few treatments. The complexion becomes more clear and even, wrinkles become less noticeable, and a general glow to the face becomes apparent. The treatment simply brings back the natural energy of the face and so every woman looks more beautiful in a natural way. When our faces become more beautiful, we can then look at the rest of our bodies.

Acupuncture and Weight Loss
 
Many of us have tried to trim off the extra pounds, often with little or no success. When many of us see the wrinkles and dark circles already mentioned, any visit to a gym produces very little noticeable difference.

Any successful long term weight loss is often extremely difficult so that many of us do not achieve any worthwhile results. Many people have tried all sorts of diets, which just turned into a 'lose some and gain some' weight cycle. The achievement of permanent weight loss and maintaining a healthy and attractive appearance does not seem possible. Acupuncture holds out some promise for people with weight problems.

Yes, acupuncture weight loss treatment is also done by the use of needles but they are not inserted into the face. This time hair-thin needles are inserted into certain spots on the body which causes vital energy to be redirected to help the proper body function. Sometimes the acupuncturist may also suggest some herbs or even herbal tea. When each treatment session is over, most patients feel very good. Scientists in the Western world have discovered that one reason this treatment is successful is that endorphins are released. These constitute one body chemical that induces weight loss. Patients continue with a series of treatments, after which a maintenance treatment plan is scheduled. Healthy people would also benefit from a periodic visit to an acupuncturist to restore their energy to optimal levels. Such visits would not only keep us beautiful, but certainly healthy as well!

Do yourself a favour and find out more on how acupuncture can be of help to you. At [http://www.mikesvideosonline.com/Acupuncture] you can watch many videos on cases and results of people who have used acupuncture to improve their health.

This website also has videos on cancer and other subjects, the home page gives links to these other subjects and more are being added fairly often.

© Copyright 2008 - Mike F Gill

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Weight Loss and Beauty Through a Raw Food Diet

Raw diet promotes beauty. To begin with, one reaches his or her ideal weight more readily and maintains it with much less effort than on a cooked diet. Many people lose 15 pounds in a month or two with no feeling of deprivation whatsoever. Obese people lose much more than that while eating raw fats all they want, including raw "ice cream," avocados, nuts and olives. Raw fats (from avocados, olives, nuts, seeds, coconut butter et al.) are actually needed by the body to maintain youthful skin, hair and glands. They are rich in the essential fatty acids linolenic acid and linoleic acid that are denatured by heat.

Raw food pioneer Dr. Ann Wigmore wrote, "The effectiveness of live foods and fresh juices, especially wheatgrass juice, has bankrupted many complex theories about why we become fat and how to reduce quickly ... Among our guests at the [Hippocrates Health] Institute, the average weight loss per week is between four and fifteen pounds" (The Wheatgrass Book, p. 59).

Studies have shown that raw food is less fattening than the same food cooked. According to Dr. Edward Howell, raw fats are not fattening and seem to belong in "a special pigeonhole in nutritional speculations" (Enzyme Nutrition, p.109). While cooked fats accumulate in the body and become very detrimental to our health, raw fats contain lipase (deficient in many obese people), the enzyme involved in metabolizing fat properly.

The word "Eskimo" means "raw eater," as the Eskimos traditionally ate nothing cooked but subsisted chiefly on raw meat and blubber. Dr. V. E. Levine examined 3,000 primitive Eskimos during three trips to the Arctic and found only one person who was overweight.

Cooked starches are also very fattening. Farmers have even learned that it is necessary to feed their animals cooked food to fatten them up for maximal profit. Hogs do not get fat on raw potatoes, but cooking the potatoes makes them gain weight.

In addition to reaching your body's ideal weight, many other beauty factors blossom on a raw diet. Cellulite, which is thought to result from eating heated fats, gradually disappears with the consumption of freshly squeezed grapefruit juice. On a raw diet, elimination of cellular waste and increased lymphatic drainage helps remove cellulite.

As the body's old cells are replaced with new, healthy cells through proper nutrition that only a raw diet provides, your hair grows in thicker and at times wilder. It may even regain color after having been gray, as did Ann Wigmore's. Your skin may become as soft and smooth as it was in your youth. Your nails will be strong, clear and shiny. Facial lines may fade or disappear; the face's pasty, white complexion becomes ruddy or rosy. People may remark on how much younger you look. Your eyes will sparkle.

The Hippocrates Health Institute, one of the places where people have gone to learn about the raw food diet, was once described by Cosmopolitan magazine as the "well-kept secret" of beauty and rejuvenation of various famous Hollywood movie stars and celebrities. Now the news media are letting the secret out.

When Demi Moore appeared in a bikini in the Charlie's Angels movie Full Throttle and looked every bit as great as the women younger than her, the word went out that the secret was her raw food diet. Other celebrities who have caught the wave include Alicia Silverstone and Woody Harrelson.


Model Carol Alt wrote in her book Eating in the Raw that the raw diet helps her stay beautiful, slim and young-looking. She attributes her current youthfulness and stamina to having eaten primarily raw food for eight years. She explains that in her thirties she had to starve herself and exercise a lot to stay trim. But as a raw fooder she is able to eat anything she wants, as long as it's raw, and she maintains her weight effortlessly, without ever feeling excess hunger. In addition, she claims she has better abdominal definition without exercising than she did as a cooked fooder who exercised regularly. She also has fewer wrinkles.

Health and beauty are intertwined. Dr. Herbert Shelton wrote, "The woman who maintains her health and youthfulness will retain her attractiveness. If she permits her health to slip away from her, if she values indulgences and frivolities more than she does health and impairs her health in the pursuit of false pleasure, she will lose her BEAUTY; and no art of the cosmetician and dressmaker will be able to preserve it for her."

Researcher Arnold De Vries writes, "In the final analysis, we must regard beauty, health and youth as intimately related. To the extent that you preserve one in your physical being, you also preserve the others. The uncooked fruit and vegetable diet, pure water, sleep and rest, sunshine, strong relationships, exercise, fresh air, fasting if necessary, and abstinence from drugs, vaccines, serums and other toxins are the prime requirements in your attempt to preserve your youth, health and beauty as long as you can" (The Fountain of Youth).

The face becomes more beautiful with a raw diet. "Skin loses its slackness and puffiness and clings to the bones better," write Susannah and Leslie Kenton (Raw Energy, p. 90). "The true shape of the face emerges where once it was obscured by excess water retention and poor circulation. Lines become softer. Eyes take on the clarity and brightness one usually associates with children or with super-fit athletes."

Nutritionist Natalia Rose, author of The Raw Food Detox Diet, profoundly praises the raw food diet as being the key to permanent weight loss. It's a lifestyle in which a woman can even attain her perfect shape without formal exercise or counting calories or grams of fat or carbohydrates and regardless of having had several children. The skin tone improves as cells become healthier and tighter. One dares to go out without make-up.

Tonya Zavasta describes her lifelong obsession with attaining beauty, which she finally discovered in her 40s through a 100% raw food diet. In her book Your Right to Be Beautiful, she explains how each of us can fulfill our full beauty potential, which is robbed by the toxic accumulation of cooked foods, dairy, wheat, salt and drugs. "Beauty lies latent under cushions of retained fluids, deposits of fat and sick tissues. Your beauty is buried alive" (p. 134).

She goes on to explain that on a diet of uncooked foods, "The landscape of the body will change. Fat that has accumulated in pockets under the eyes and at the jaw will melt away. The lumpy potato look of one's face will give way to sleek and smooth contours. The surface of the skin will become soft and smooth but still firm and supple. Visible pores will diminish. A sallow skin with a yellow pallor will turn into a porcelain-like complexion" (p. 137).

She furthermore describes the radiance and glow produced internally when there is "an abundance of clear, pink, almost transparent cells that light up the face," which is produced by superior blood circulation. Even the most beautiful supermodel would be enhanced by a raw food diet. She notes that the modern-day version of beauty is more in harmony with health than perhaps ever before, hence "the quest for beauty, instead of a narcissistic preoccupation, becomes a noble pursuit."

Tonya came across many women who would not eat a raw diet for their health, preferring just to take medications. However, they would go raw for beauty, as there is no pill for beauty. In her book Beautiful on Raw, ten women contributed their own experiences of how raw diets added to their beauty.

Various observations were that hair grew out with color instead of gray, sometimes with natural waves or curls, and fingernails grew strong, long and shapely. Cellulite vanished effortlessly. Puffiness in the body and face disappeared, and the skin cleared up. These women often get complimented on the "glow" of their faces. They feel confident without make-up. Their inner beauty and confidence also radiate. They look younger than ever and have no fear whatsoever of getting old. One of the women is 64 and still gets checked out by "the young whippersnappers" when she is at the gym!

Interestingly, many of them, before eating raw, had never been called "beautiful" by anyone, even when they were much younger. One of the women wrote about suddenly becoming aware of the benefits of being attractive, benefits which one who had always been beautiful would take for granted. People were nicer to her, cops didn't give her tickets, and salespeople waited on her first.

The authors of Raw Food/Real World explain, "People who eat only raw, plant-based foods have an unmistakable shine, like a pregnant woman in her second trimester or someone newly in love. They have a radiant positive energy."

You haven't reached your beauty potential until you've tried a raw food diet.

Susan Schenck, LAc, MTOM, is a raw food coach, lecturer, and author of The Live Food Factor, The Comprehensive Guide to the Ultimate Diet for Body, Mind, Spirit & Planet, known as the encyclopedia of the raw food diet. Go to http://www.livefoodfactor.com to get a free chapter from her book.

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