WEIGHT LOSS: TIPS AND TRICKS
The "Secrets" of Weight Loss The first and most closely guarded secret is there is no secret formula for effective weight loss. If a safe and effective diet pill is what you’re waiting for, I’ve got some bad news for you. It doesn’t exist, and probably never will. If you’re overweight, you have just two options – either learn to accept the way you are or learn how to lose weight. "The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary." Vince Lombardi Yes, weight loss can be a lot of work. But the more you know about nutrition, foods and exercise and how your body reacts to them in the form of fat loss,and the easier your task becomes. The 2 Most Important Facts about Successful Weight Loss Before beginning any diet plan, it’s important that you understand these two important facts: 1. *Weightloss depends on energy balance*. To lose weight, your energy intake must be less than your energy expenditure. This will always be true. There are no foods, pills, or potions that will magically melt the pounds off. The only approach that works is eating less and/or exercising more. 2. *Permanent weight loss requires permanent change*. Don’t assume that you can spend six weeks on a diet and then return to your old eating habits. Short term diet plans only produce short term results. The only successful way to keep the weight off is to make small but permanent changes in your lifestyle. Coincidentally, this is also the best way to improve your health. The 6 Most Important Principles for Enabling Weight Loss Although many different weight loss techniques exist, nearly all are variations of just six basic principles. Study these principles, and make them part of your action plan: 1. *Maintain or improve your health*. If you don’t take care of your body, it won’t take care of you. So, as a first step, make sure that your diet supplies adequate amounts of vitamins and minerals, that you’re drinking plenty of water and getting enough sleep and fresh air, and aren’t under too much unhealthy stress. Everything that you do to improve your overall health will help make weight loss more likely to occur. 2. *Reduce your Caloric intake*. To achieve fat loss, you have to change your energy balance. (See Fact #1 above.) There are just two ways to do this – either consume less energy (Calories) or expend more energy (via exercise). The easiest way to reduce your consumption is simply to cut back on the size of your meals and/or the amount of high-Calorie foods that you consume. This doesn’t mean that you have to give up any particular food. In fact, completely avoiding a food can lead to strong cravings that derail your diet. A smarter approach is to just eat less of those high-Calorie foods. Also beware of foods containing "hidden" Calories. For example: *Watch what you drink*. What you drink during the day can have a major impact on the number of Calories that you consume. There is very little difference between the satiating effects of different drinks, so this is one of the easiest places to improve your diet. Water is always your best choice, but coffee, tea, and diet drinks can also help cut Calories. *Be smart about condiments and toppings*. Butter, mayonnaise, and a lot of the "special sauces" used by restaurants are very concentrated sources of Calories. If you want to add flavor to your food, try using lemon juice, soy sauce, salsa or different spices instead. 3. *Maintain or increase your metabolism.* One of the most common mistakes that dieters make is to get excited or impatient with their diet, and reduce their Caloric intake /too far/. If you do that, your body will respond by lowering your metabolism and slowing your weight loss. To prevent this downward adjustment of your metabolism, make smaller changes to your eating habits. Your patience will pay off in terms of more consistent weight loss, more energy, and fewer cravings. For the best results, add exercise to your plan. Regular exercise not only expends energy as you’re doing it, but can also lead to increases in your basic metabolic rate, so you’ll burn more calories even at rest. High-intensity exercises burn the most calories, but don’t select exercises solely on their fat-burning potential. Instead, pick exercises (i.e. sports activities) that you enjoy, and want to incorporate into your daily routine. 4.*Avoid hunger*.Hunger is one of your body’s strongest stimuli, and can be an evil challenger to your will power. Hunger is also relatively slow to subside, and can cause you to eat more than you intended. To break this unproductive hunger-overeating habit, always try to eat before you get hungry. This may seem counter intuitive to someone who’s trying to limit their Calories, but it’s a very effective concept. Two different techniques can help make this easier to accomplish: *Eat smaller, more frequent meals*. Instead of three meals per day, try eating five or six smaller meals. By eating more frequently, there will be less time between your meals, and less chance of you experiencing such intense hunger. As an extra benefit, there is some evidence that suggests that eating more frequently can also help raise your metabolism. *Include more slow-to-digest foods in your meals*. When it’s not possible to eat more frequently, make sure that your meals contain a mix of nutrients. In particular, fats and protein are much slower to digest than carbohydrates. While most carbohydrates leave your stomach within about two hours, protein takes approximately four hours to digest, and fat takes as long as six hours. But remember fat has four times the calories of other energy sources. *Note*: The slower digestion of fat is one of the primary reasons that people on low-carb diets (like Atkins™ and South Beach™)experience less hunger than those on low-fat diets. It’s not necessary to completely eliminate carbohydrates from your meals, though. Most people on balanced-nutrient plans (like the Zone Diet) also experience better hunger control. 5. *Correct bad eating habits.* We eat not only for nourishment, but also as part of our social interactions. However, many people develop unhealthy habits that encourage overeating. Here are a few examples of bad eating habits that you should try to avoid: *Mixing food and entertainment. *It’s easy to mindlessly eat a tub of popcorn, a whole bag of chips, or a carton of ice cream while you’re watching TV. Make eating a separate activity, and you’ll consume less. *Eating to relieve stress.* There’s nothing wrong with taking pleasure from eating, but try not to use food as your primary stress reliever. Find other ways to dissipate stress (such as exercising, listening to music, or meditating) before eating. *Eating on the run*. With the abundant availability of convenience foods, it’s easy to grab something from a vending machine and eat your meals in your car. But try not to make this a regular daily habit. Plan your schedule to include enough time to prepare and eat your meals in a quiet place, without the rush. No one eats perfectly. However, if you continuously have trouble controlling what you eat, realize that correction of your eating problems may be beyond your own abilities. Please consult a psychologist or weight loss professional for additional help. 6. *Make a record of everything you eat* When making changes to your diet, it's very easy to lapse back into your old eating habits. Keeping a food diary is a great way to help prevent that from happening. Buy an inexpensive spiral notebook, and simply write down everything that you eat during the day. If possible, keep your food diary with you, and make your entries soon after you've eaten. For maximum benefit, keep making entries for at least three weeks. Keeping a food diary forces you to give conscious thought to everything that you eat. It may be a tedious task at first, but it will help you more quickly develop better eating habits. Your food diary will also be a tremendous asset if you later consult a dietician or health care provider for assistance with your diet. When keeping a food diary, it's also a good idea to take the time to add up the total Calories and nutrients that you consume eachn day. For your diet to be successful, your total Calories will need to decrease from their original level, but your nutrient intake must at least meet your minimum needs.
POPULAR EXERCISES TO LOSING STOMACH FAT AND LOVE HANDLESPart 2 contains the other 5 popular exercises to lose stomach fat and love handles, as well as some valuable Power Tips on putting your
exercise into overdrive and gear up into high burning calorie mode. So, without further ado, here are the other 5 exercises:6)Dumbbell lunges: Stand up straight with feet together and a
dumbbell in each hand against your sides. Take a step forward and bend your front leg till your thigh is parallel to the floor. Return to the starting position, bringing your arms up to your chest. Do one
leg first and then repeat with your other leg.7)Dumbbell flyes: Stand with your legs shoulder-width apart and a dumbbell in each hand, palms facing into your sides. Slowly raise your arms out to the sides until it is parallel and level with your shoulders. Slowly return arms to your sides and repeat.8)Leg lifts: Attach ankle weights to both legs and assume a comfortable standing position. Lift one leg and try to touch your knee with the opposite elbow (almost like taking large steps with legs lifted up high). Interchange legs and elbows as one set and NOT as one leg at a time.9)Leg cycles: Lie flat on your back with hands behind your head (loosely!). Lift your legs into mid-air and bringing your knee up to your chest, try to touch your knee with the opposing elbow (feel it in your abs!). Interchange legs and elbows as one set.10)Cardio: Choosing either a
treadmill or an exercise bike (preferred), do a quick 5 minute stint. Starting at a moderate pace for 30 seconds, raise the intensity level every 30 seconds for up to 3 minutes (e.g. end at intensity level 8 after starting at level 3). Finish the last 2 minutes at the starting intensity level as a cool down.Power Tips:*During the whole
exercise routine do not take any breaks, rather just move right on into the next exercise to maintain a decent heart rate. You will notice that every other exercise targets a different muscle group, meaning you do not have to rest that
muscle before continuing.*Exercise with a large squirt bottle of ice cold water with ice blocks and take a sip in between exercise, especially during cardio sessions. Ice cold water will burn more calories, even more so during exercise!*Do the cardio as if you are participating in a race, do not just leisurely cycle at the different intensity settings. Look like you are in a hurry to get there! Try to cycle 3 miles in 5 minutes as a challenge, or even more if that is too easily attainable for you!*Exercise before breakfast if at all possible. This will kick start your
metabolism even more, enabling you to burn more calories during that whole day!
Diet Tips for Stomach (Belly) Fat Loss
In this article, I've posted the "diet tips for six pack abs" portion of our interview we recently did. Enjoy! Here it is...
CB: And finally Mike, 1 or 2 of your top secret nutrition tips for carving out those six pack abs. Open your vault of info!
MG: Well Craig, I think you'd agree that there has never been a more confusing time regarding proper nutrition for consumers. Every so called "expert" out there seems to disagree and contradict each other on what's the best way to eat for fat loss and overall good health.
One of the most important messages I try to teach my readers in this world of heavy confusion is that your diet doesn't need to conform to any of the fad diets... you don't need to go "low carb" or "low fat", or high or low anything for that matter to be successful in losing enough body fat to get lean enough to be able to see your abs. I like to try to simplify things for my readers. I think that balance is the key to success along with eating a diet that is made up of nutrient dense foods in their natural state (as unprocessed as possible).
In general, it is the heavy processing of foods that makes it wreak havoc inside our bodies. Most foods in their natural unprocessed state are inherently good for us. Of course there are always exceptions... a salad of poison ivy leaves is "natural and unprocessed" but certainly would not be good for us!
I'll leave your readers with a couple of the most important aspects of nutrition and diet that help to get you lean for life (and have any chance of getting those abs to show)...
1. Get enough quality protein in the daily diet - not only does it have a higher thermic effect than carbs and fat (so you burn more calories digesting it), but it also creates satiety so your hunger is satisfied longer. Plus it's a building block for maintaining and building lean muscle... And remember that the amount of lean muscle you carry is one of the main factors for controlling your metabolism.
2. Think fiber! When it comes to carbs, make sure that almost all of your carbohydrate intake is from higher fiber sources like vegetables, fruits, and high fiber unrefined grains. Try to avoid refined sugars and refined grains as that is one of the main reasons so many people struggle with body fat. I personally don't eat many grains as I prefer to get most of my carbs from veggies and fruits, but I am a bit of a fan of sprouted grains. I generally recommend looking for carbohydrate sources that have at least 2-3 grams of fiber per each 10 grams of total carbs. Remember that fiber helps fill you up and also slows down the glycemic response of the foods you eat, all beneficial for getting lean.
3. Don't be afraid to eat fat! Many people try to go way too low on their fat intake in their diet and this can negatively affect hormone levels in your body as well as causing more cravings. Try to eat enough healthy fats daily. Good sources are all nuts and seeds, nut butters, avocados, olive oil, organic meats and eggs, coconuts and virgin coconut oil. On that note, saturated fats from tropical oils are VERY misunderstood, even by many nutritionists and other health professionals. Yes they are composed highly of saturated fats, but are actually beneficial (but that's way beyond the scope of this article).
4. Avoid the two worst things in our food supply at ALL COSTS:
artificial trans fats from margarines, shortening, and hydrogenated oils that are in most processed foods
high fructose corn syrup, which is in almost all sweetened products on the market
Again, if you avoid processed foods, it becomes easy to avoid these two worst offenders in our food supply.
I always contend that once you get a handle on these 4 main points of your diet detailed above, the rest starts to take care of itself as you gain control over your appetite, blood sugar levels, hormone levels, etc. It all falls into place, and you eventually gain total control over how lean you want to get. Gain control of this part of your life, and those abs may be showing in no time!
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