6 Foods that Burn Fat

Posted by Virginia H. | Posted in Articles | Posted on 26-04-2010-05-2008

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Yes, fat keeps us warm, protected, and alive. But too much of a good thing can be, well, bad. If you’re trying to pare down your pot belly, nibble on these

Berries

You probably know that fiber is the magic bullet of weight loss. It keeps you satisfied throughout the day — and away from the fridge. But you may not know that berries are an excellent roughage source. Raspberries are the fiber queens with 8 grams per cup. Blackberries come in a close second with 7.4 grams, and blueberries have 3.5 grams.

Turkey

This clucker has the fewest calories per ounce of any animal protein. Like dairy, it contains the amino acid leucine, which may play a role in preserving muscle mass during weight loss, keeping metabolism running at full speed. Protein is also more satiating than fat or carbs — so you’re less likely to overeat.

Enova Oil

Enova — made from soy and canola oils — is made of diglycerides, a type of fat that’s metabolized differently from triglycerides (found in other oils — even olive) and so not stored as fat as easily. In a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, dieters who used Enova lost more weight than those who used other oils.

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Fill up For Fast Weight Loss

Posted by Virginia H. | Posted in Articles, Eating habits and diet | Posted on 23-04-2010-05-2008

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When you’re dieting, a growling tummy is like a wedding toast: The longer it lasts, the more dangerous it gets. But your hormones, not your gut, are really to blame for most binges. Ghrelin, which makes you hungry, and leptin, your primary appetite suppressor, are eternally battling it out. Preventing these hormones from going haywire is the key to reining in calories without always feeling ravenous. So dig in we’re giving you 50 ways to fill up and conquer the growling beast that is your stomach.

1. Pack a packet Instant oatmeal beats out All Bran and Muesli for fullness factor. We love Quaker’s Weight Control Maple and Brown Sugar it tastes heavenly and has more fiber, protein, and whole grains than the regular variety.

2. Find berry treasure Raspberries are one of the most fiber-filled fruits, packing 8 grams into a cupful a whopping 32 percent of your RDA. Add some to your cereal or yogurt.

3. Can the juice Whole fruit has a higher fiber content and makes you feel fuller than fruit juices, even those with pulp.

4. Make a dinner date A study found that women eat less than usual on dates (men tend to eat a lot more).

5. But don’t eat by candlelight Dim light can trigger binge eating. Read the rest of this entry »

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Healthy Eating Tips

Posted by Virginia H. | Posted in Articles, Eating habits and diet, General tips | Posted on 19-04-2010-05-2008

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Don’t sabotage your workout routines with unhealthy binge eating. Instead, find out what you need to do to stop the binging.

Eating so you’re full and satisfied, rather than giving in to emotional overeating to fill a void or simply because the food is there, takes some planning—and a few good strategies. Here they are:

Healthy eating tips # 1. Identify high-risk situations.

Few people overeat in every situation, so determine the circumstances that are likely to trigger a binge. Once you’ve identified which situations are most likely to spark emotional overeating, come up with a game plan for each one. For example, if eating at relatives’ always involves plentiful gooey desserts, plan to make or buy a low-fat dessert, and bring it with you for everyone to share. If you can’t go to the movies without snacking on something, sneak in your own bag of air-popped popcorn or some low-cal candy.

Healthy eating tips # 2. Keep a record of what you put in your mouth in a food diary.

In a study at the Center for Behavioral Medicine in Chicago, researchers asked 38 people who were trying to lose weight to keep a food diary; doing so not only helped them control their weight during high-risk holidays, but even helped them peel off unwanted pounds. Keep it simple—it doesn’t have to include total calories or fat grams—but don’t forget to jot down snacks or drinks, which can add up. You need to maintain a record at least 75 percent of the time for a food diary to be effective.

Healthy eating tips # 3. Explore food-free ways to socialize.

In social situations, everybody eats more if they see everybody else doing so. If this sounds familiar, get in the habit of bonding with friends over activities that don’t center around food: a walk at the park, an afternoon at a paint-your-own-pottery shop, a long bike ride or hike, or trying a new class at the gym.

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When You Don’t Feel Like Exercising

Posted by Virginia H. | Posted in Articles, Physical activity | Posted on 18-04-2010-05-2008

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You know the feeling – your alarm clock wakes you at 5:30 for your morning walk and sometimes you just don’t feel like doing it. So, what should you do? Well, sometimes, you should probably just go back to bed. However, that should be the exception rather than the rule.

Your best bet for working through this is to minimize the task ahead. Tell yourself that you only have to exercise for ten or fifteen minutes today – something you know you can do with minimal effort in a minimal amount of time.

If you finish your ten or fifteen minutes and still don’t feel like doing it, then don’t. You’ve still gotten some exercise in and you’ve energized yourself for the day. However, I think you’ll usually find that you want to continue. Getting started is the hard part. Once you’ve started, you’ve overcome the biggest obstacle to exercise.

Here are four more things you can do to stay motivated and exercise on a regular basis..

1. Create your personal “reasons list”. Keep a piece of paper and pen handy for a couple of days. Jot down EVERY reason you can think of that you want to get healthy / get fit / lose weight, through consistent exercise. This list is VERY powerful motivation when you don’t feel like exercising.

2. Know the benefits of exercise. We are more motivated to do things that we’ll benefit from. The more we benefit => the more motivated we are. For example, if I told you I’d give you a million dollars to take a 30 minute walk tomorrow morning, would you do it? You bet you would! The benefits of exercise aren’t quite that compelling, but they are pretty motivating. Do read my article on the benefits of exercise, send any email message to.. Top20@Landry.com

3. Keep records. Write down your exercise time (minutes) each day. Keep a running total for the month and year. Calculate your average exercise time per day. Set some lofty goals!

4. Make your exercise as enjoyable as possible. For example, if you’re a walker, you may want to get a good cassette or CD player to listen to music or books on tape, etc. If you’re exercising inside, set up a TV so that you can watch it while exercising. On the other hand, you may just prefer peace and quiet. Do whatever makes exercise most enjoyable for you. You are much more likely to exercise consistently if you enjoy it. Get movin’!

Author and exercise physiologist, Greg Landry, offers FREE weight loss success stories and his “Fast, Healthy Weight Loss” newsletter at his site: http://www.Landry.com

copyright 2003 by Greg Landry, M.S.

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Eat These Diet Foods to Get Abs

Posted by Virginia H. | Posted in Articles, Eating habits and diet | Posted on 17-04-2010-05-2008

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To get the number on the scale to go down, you have to chow down. Between 10 and 30 percent of the calories you use each day get burned by the simple act of digesting your food. Now that’s pretty cool — satisfying your food cravings actually fries calories! But not all foods are created equal. Your body uses more calories to digest protein (about 25 burned for every 100 consumed) than it does to digest fats and carbohydrates (10 to 15 burned for every 100 consumed).

That’s why the Abs Diet concentrates on adding lean, healthy proteins. Eat more of them, in a sensible way, and you’ll torch more calories. Protein is also the nutrient that builds muscle — and the more muscle you have, the higher your metabolism and the more calories you’ll burn throughout the day. When you lift and lower weights, you create microscopic tears in your muscles. To mend the tears, your body parachutes in new protein to assess the damage and repair the muscle. Proteins fortify the original cell structure by building new muscle fibers.

This wonder child of the nutrition world also makes you feel fuller faster. But the good news doesn’t stop there. Following an eating plan that emphasizes lean proteins will accelerate weight loss from your midsection first.

The Abs Diet plan is simple: Just stick to the six guidelines below and follow the Abs Diet Quickstart Workout for weight loss success. You can burn a serious hunk of fat — from your belly first — in just a few weeks.

Let the belly flattening begin!

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8 Things You Wanted to Know About Diets

Posted by Virginia H. | Posted in Articles, Eating habits and diet | Posted on 16-04-2010-05-2008

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Your cube mate advises against eating after 8 p.m., a girl from your yoga class swears by the grapefruit diet, and your best friend warns that mixing carbs and protein can pack on the pounds. Sure, you’ve been hearing diet tips like these from well-meaning people for years, but is there any truth to them? To set the record straight on the most oft-repeated advice, we consulted a team of nutrition experts. They revealed which strategies you should forget and which live up to their get-slim promise.

Q. Will chewing low-cal foods like sugar-free gum and celery help me burn calories?

A. It might, but hardly enough to trigger weight loss. Gum and certain veggies are often called “negative-calorie” foods because they supposedly take more energy for your body to chew or digest than they contain.

The negative-calorie myth was put to the test when researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, asked people to chew sugarless gum at a rate of 100 bites per minute. After calculating the energy expended (about 11 calories per hour), they concluded that a person who chomped on a piece every waking hour of the day for a month would lose less than a pound. As for celery? All that crunching does burn energy, but it amounts to less than the 6-calorie stalk contains. The bottom line: If you really want to shed pounds, give your jaw a rest and start moving your body.

Q. Can coffee really rev up my metabolism?

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4 Weight-Loss Rules to Bend

Posted by Virginia H. | Posted in Articles | Posted on 15-04-2010-05-2008

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If living with your parents taught you anything, it’s that the more rules there are, the more you want to break them. And losing weight can seem like nothing but rules. Fortunately, rebellion has its advantages: Disregarding strict food guidelines could be the secret to a successful slim-down.

A study published in the International Journal of Obesity found that people with a flexible approach to eating-one that allows for sweets and other perceived slip-ups-had a better record of maintaining weight loss than dieters with an “all or nothing” strategy. How can you do it without skidding into a diet danger zone? We got top nutrition pros to confess the supposedly vital weight-loss principles they violate. Employ their secrets to stay satisfied without gaining an ounce.

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Lose Weight Without Dieting

Posted by Virginia H. | Posted in Articles, Supplements | Posted on 14-04-2010-05-2008

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It may sound too good to be true, but you can trick yourself into eating less. Drop pounds effortlessly with these five stay-slim strategies.

1. FOOL YOUR APPETITE
“The amount of food on a plate – whether it’s one helping or four – is what most people consider a ‘normal’ serving,” says Jim Painter, Ph.D., R.D., a food psychologist at Eastern Illinois University. His recommendation: Downsize your dishes. “If you have a visual cue that tells you to stop before you get stuffed, you’ll eat less but feel just as satisfied.”

2. SAY NO TO CRIME
You may want to record the latest episode of CSI or 24 so you can watch it after you finish dinner. “TV shows that feature murders or medical emergencies tend to remind us of our own mortality,” says Dirk Smeesters, Ph.D., an associate professor of marketing at Erasmus University in the Netherlands. “On a subconscious level, this can make some people feel a little depressed or upset – which can then trigger them to eat more food than they normally would.”

3. GIVE YOUR FORK A REST
Chowing down like it’s an extreme sport can seriously up your calorie count, according to a new study Read the rest of this entry »

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5 Easy Ways to Lose Weight Fast

Posted by Virginia H. | Posted in Articles, General tips | Posted on 10-04-2010-05-2008

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Set yourself up for body-trimming success with these five lifestyle tweaks.

Call in a Support Crew

Obesity loves company: Your odds of packing on pounds rise when your friends, family, and even neighbors chunk up. The good news: The reverse also seems to be true. A study in the International Journal of Obesity found that the spouses of dieters enrolled in weight-loss programs also lost flab—without trying. The average loss by matrimony was five pounds in a year, higher in some cases (one woman lost 14 pounds to her husband’s 35). If no one you know is cutting calories, it’s easy to find a diet BFF using a free service like bluepont.com. Download the free software to your cell, enter your preferences and location, and you’ll be alerted when a match is found.

Eyball Ingredients

A 2008 USDA report found that consumers read labels less often today than they did 10 years ago. Other studies have shown that shoppers who do often end up confused—who wouldn’t be, when a tiny bottle of OJ turns out to be 2.5 servings? “Labels can lie,” says Tanya Zuckerbrot, M.S., R.D., author of The F-Factor Diet. Sign up at eBrandAid.com, which lists red-flag ingredients like artificial sweeteners and MSG (recently linked to an increased risk of being overweight). Easier: Swear off any packaged food whose first four ingredients you don’t recognize.

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Unexpected Gains of Weight

Posted by Virginia H. | Posted in Articles, General tips | Posted on 07-04-2010-05-2008

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Learn why your body weight fluctuates so much and what exactly is causing the weight gain

Feel like your weight seesaws more than your 4-year-old niece on a sunny day at the playground? Relax. Even if you’re doing everything perfectly, there are lots of reasons why the number on the scale could be up by a pound or two. According to Melina Jampolis, M.D., author of The No-Time-to-Lose Diet, these are some of the usual suspects.

You were thirsty! Downing 16 ounces of any fluid can cause an immediate “gain” of 1 pound.

You’re backed up. Constipation can tilt the scale by as much as 2 pounds if it’s been more than a couple of days since your bowels did their thing.

You’re going on vacation. To Thailand. The changes in air pressure can make you retain water on flights longer than 4 hours, which can show up as an extra 1 to 3 pounds on the scale.

You ate the Chicken Kung Pao. Have a salty dinner and you could wake up 2 to 3 pounds heavier  your body retains water to dilute all that sodium.

Aunt Flo’s on her way. Hormone fluctuations in the 3 days leading up to your period can make you retain up to 5 pounds of water.

(Article from http://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/balance-weight)

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