Tips how to lose weight fastMost effective weight loss tips and methods to lose weight fast and easy

Like spare change and catchy lyrics, bad eating habits are easy to pick up and nearly impossible to shake. Especially if you’ve practiced them at every meal since you were a kid. To help you overcome your table tics, we’ve rounded up expert advice on how to quit wolfing down your food and sidestep other diet pitfalls. Follow it, and you may end up with a new habit: buying all of your clothes in a smaller size.

New habit: Hitting the brakes. In a study, women who were asked to eat quickly consumed more food (and in less time)

than those who were told to eat slowly. The reason? When you pace yourself, your brain has more time to register fullness and tell you to stop eating.

Try this: Count your chews. The women in the study who were told to slow down chewed each bite 15 to 20 times and paused before taking the next bite.

New habit: Meditating on your meal. Researchers at the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University studied mealtime multitasking and found that most people underestimate how much they eat by 30 to 50 percent if they’re distracted.

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Fit back into your jeans faster: Trainer Jay Cardiello created this seven-day eating plan to help his celeb clients achieve their lean Hollywood looks. The idea is to switch up your carb intake throughout the week—alternating low-carb days with moderate days—to keep your metabolism humming and lose weight fast. Plus, you’ll always feel full and have energy to spare.

DAYS 1 and 2

Breakfast
Omelet with 4 egg whites, 1 whole egg, 1/4 c minced broccoli or asparagus, 1 tsp shredded low-fat cheese

1 c plain coffee or green tea

12 oz water

Snack
1/4 c plain nonfat yogurt and 6 cherries
OR
12 oz protein shake with 1 scoop protein powder (low-carb, low-sugar, less than 115 calories)

20 oz water Read the rest of this entry »

Your friends, your cold, your spending habits–science can blame just about everything for filling our jeans to overflowing. But how much extra poundage are these surprising factors really responsible for? We dug through the research to find out what’s stalling womens weight loss.

The risk: Your Flabby Friends – 2 lbs

Palling around with a tubby crowd could be worse than having Rosie O’Donnell as your diet coach. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine looked at the social networks of 12,067 people over 32 years and found that for every 10 pounds a person gained, close friends of the same height gained an average of one to two pounds.

Improve your odds Instead of making plans to go out for drinks and dinner, catch up with your buds as you sweat on side-by-side elliptical machines, play racquetball, or cruise town on your bikes. Don’t take no for an answer!

The risk: Credit Cards – 5 lbs

Your plastic may be affecting more than just your credit score. Visa conducted a study of 100,000 fast-food restaurant transactions and found that people who pay for their food with a credit card spend 30 percent more than those who pay with cash. Opt to swipe and you could end up with a double quarter-pounder with cheese and a large Coke instead of a quarter-pounder with cheese and medium drink. For the average woman, who visits a fast-food restaurant once a week, that adds an extra 17,160 calories, or 4.9 pounds, per year.

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Here’s how to reduce 8,101 (or more!) calories from your home cooked meal plan

The way nutritionists go on about restaurant diet crimes, you’d think the entrance to Bennigan’s would be blocked off by yellow police tape. But, breadbasket assaults aside, the riskiest place for your waistline is actually your own kitchen. That’s where you make daily decisions that affect your weight loss success: choosing between skim milk and whole, reaching for butter or olive oil, stocking up on Oreos or Triscuits. “Cutting calories when cooking at home is the first step to creating healthy eating habits that will last a lifetime,” says Lisa R. Young, R.D., author of The Portion Teller Plan. The following easy tips will help you crack down on fat and calories and serve and protect your figure.

Oil Be Damned

It’s healthier than butter, but it’s still fat. Here’s how to skip the slick stuff or make a little go a long way.

Make it a spritzer Oil in a spray can or mister (we like the Misto Gourmet Olive Oil Sprayer, $10, chefsresource.com) lets you fry foods with a fraction of the calories you’d get from a pour spout. A spritz works great on pasta and roasted vegetables, too. Calories cut: 112

Cook twice For crispy chicken or fish without all the fat of frying, use your oven, says dietician and nutritionist Molly Morgan. Coat a pan with a tablespoon of flavorless canola oil and fry the meat for 10 minutes per side. Blot up extra grease with paper towels, then transfer to the oven and bake on low heat (200 to 250 degrees) for 15 to 20 minutes. Calories cut: 2,767

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We don’t know who coined the phrase “Numbers don’t lie,” but we’ll bet they never counted one or a few 100 calories. And if you’ve ever tried using math to manage the digits on your bathroom scale, you know that most diet equations don’t add up. We wondered whether any of the roughly 338,000 Google hits for “weight loss formula” can actually help you look good in that black latex cat suit this Halloween. Here’s the lowdown on three basics:

Daily Caloric Requirement (DCR)

Translation The math is pretty simple: Eat 500 fewer calories a day than your body requires and you’ll drop a pound a week. But most online calculators (and even the pen-and-paper variety) are only 82 percent accurate (even less so if you’re obese, sick, or an ethnic minority), according to the American Dietetic Association. And, says Mary Hartley, a registered nutritionist for about.com, the results can be flawed because the equation isn’t tailored to the individual and because many people misjudge their fitness level. Plus, if you lose 10 pounds or more, you’ll have to do the math again.

Salvation Let sites like caloriecount.about.com, mayoclinic.com, or mypyramid.gov do the work for you. All factor in activity level and are backed by health pros.

Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR)

Translation While DCR calculates calorie input (how much you need to eat), the Resting Metabolic Rate tabulates calorie output (how much you burn doing absolutely nothing). Unfortunately, the ADA says the accuracy of these formulas is 45 to 80 percent (and again, they’re less accurate if you’re obese).

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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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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 »

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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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.

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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