6 lifestyle changes that will help you keep weight off if you diet

Whether you have successfully finished losing weight or you are thinking about going on a diet there are small changes you can make in your lifestyle that will make a difference. The truth is no one goes to sleep at night and wakes up 50 pounds heavier the next morning. The weight was added gradually, an extra soda or latte here, a dessert you didn't need to eat there.

Mass Medical Weight Loss

Changes don't have to be big in order to be effective, neither do they have to be painful.
Since the end of the 70’s we have been eating more and exercising less. As school systems throughout the country axed physical education programs and home economics for budgetary reasons, waistlines have expanded at an alarming rate. We have the worst possible combination of events; a growing population that knows very little about the food they eat or how it is grown and produced. The lack of understanding and ignorance about our bodies and the importance of exercise is tragically breathtaking.
So, what to do, what to do? Consider that if you go back to your old eating habits after losing weight you will most likely gain back those pounds. If you lost the weight, the diet worked. Making the necessary lifestyle changes a permanent commitment is the difference.
Here’s a list of simple changes you can make that will make a difference. Taken individually, they won’t do much, but remember we are looking for lifelong lifestyle changes. Taken together they will make a difference between pounds gained or lost at the end of a year.

1. Eat fresh fruit daily if possible, or a minimum of three times a week. Buy canned fruit packed in extra or very light syrup or juice, never heavy syrup where all the calories are.
2. Buy tuna packed in water, not oil. When making tuna salad, consider the number of calories in mayo and sour cream and consider that less is more. A mixture of both will lighten the calorie load.
3. Need a chocolate fix? Buy the miniature size dark chocolate candies and place them in the freezer. You don’t need to completely eliminate any food; that will only make you feel deprived. Instead, limit the number of miniature candies in a day to four or approximately 125 calories.
4. If you are heavy salt user try a product like Salt Sense. It is real salt, not a nasty tasting substitute. Start using more pepper. There are so any types of pepper. Best of all, pepper adds taste without adding calories.
5. Add olive oil and garlic to your regular diet, both are proven to be very beneficial in addition to adding flavor to foods. They are a big part of the Mediterranean diet which is once again gaining in popularity. CNN reported that recent studies show people eating this heart-healthy diet have healthier brains.
6. Skip the cheese and never super-size anything if you are eating fast food. An extra slice or two of cheese can add as much as 250 calories to an already calorie burger.
7. Always return your shopping cart. Why? Because this is a way to get you burn additional calories. While you are at it and if time and children permit, take an extra lap around the grocery store. There are multiple ways to add extra calorie burning activities to your lifestyle if you take the time to stop and think about it.

These are easy steps that can make a difference in your health. There are many more, but this is a good start to get you thinking about the kinds of changes you can make that can become a permanent part of your life.

by Sandra Prew

4 tips for choosing the best diet for you in 2016

ABC News reported there are 108 million dieters in this country. Dieters are spending upwards to $40 billion annually on diet books, diet supplements, diet foods, videos, weight-loss camps, and the like. There are volumes of information on dieting, some of it good and much of it not so much.
Do diets really work? In a word, yes, if the pounds came off the diet worked. The problem is people are looking for quick fixes. Far too many people return to their old eating habits once they go off their diets. Who can forget Oprah's loss of 67 pounds and her gain of 90 pounds when she went off her diet in the 1990s?
Too many dieters have experienced additional weight gain after reaching their goal because of their "once and done" attitude. We can blame the diet or we can approach weight loss from another perspective and with a new attitude.
While it is easy to the blame the diet, the truth is, choosing a fad diet or the wrong diet for your particular needs will almost certainly lead to frustration and failure. Starvation diets and quick weight loss diets can be unhealthy. Some diets lead to excessive water loss. Water loss and weight loss are not the same thing. Fad diets, crash diets, and celebrity diets not based in fact or science are not long term solutions.
Before making your final decision on the diet that best fits your personal needs you should do two things:.

• Track your food intake for 2 weeks before deciding on a diet. This is called knowing where you've been before deciding where you want to be. It is surprising how many people have little or no idea of the number of calories they consume every day.
• Set realistic weight loss goals. You didn’t put the weight on overnight and you won’t lose it overnight. A weight loss of 2 to 4 pounds a week should not negatively affect your overall health.You should be consuming between 1,200 and 1,500 calories on your diet for healthy weight loss.

If you want 2016 to be the year your diet succeeds consider the following as you review the data from U.S. News & World Reports:

1. Can you see yourself eating these foods for the rest of your life? Weight loss programs sending specially designed meals to your home are an easy way to start, but they can be very costly. More importantly, if you go back to your old eating habits consuming more calories than you burn once you leave the program, the pounds will return. Never forget you are looking to establish new eating habits for the rest of your life.
2. Choose a diet with foods that you like. It is important to learn the differences between protein, carbohydrates and fats. You will lose weight on a diet that is heavy in protein like Atkins, however, the question is are you better off transitioning to a more balanced Mediterranean style diet after reaching your goals.
3. Consider investing in a fitness watch like Fitbit so you can track your daily calories, exercise and physical activities. Our bodies were designed for work and physical activity. A lack of activity not only affects our bodies but our brains and our sense of well being. Exercise is important whether a person is dieting or not.
4. Use today’s technology to help you keep track of your weight loss goals, calories and exercise. There are multiple diet apps to help you succeed. Take advantage of them.

Once you've achieved your weight loss goal, you should be consuming no more than 1,700 to 2,000 calories a day. Remember less is more, and the older we get the fewer calories we need to live a healthy life.
One final point. Some of these diets were designed to address specific health issues that may not apply to you. You are an individual whose likes and dislikes will impact on your choice. As you review the rankings remember just because a diet is ranked high on the list, it doesn't mean it is right for you.

By Sandra Prew

Top 10 Holiday Diet Tips of All Time

Holidays bring family and friends together to celebrate traditions and spread good cheer. They also bring lots of opportunities for socializing, eating, and drinking. Even the most disciplined people struggle with temptation during the holiday season.

To navigate the party landmines with your healthy diet intact, you need a strategy. Experts agree: Having a plan in place will help you handle night after night of eating and drinking.

"Think of your appetite as an expense account, and figure out how much you want to spend on drinks, appetizers, entrees, and dessert," advises Michelle May, MD, author of Am I Hungry? What to Do When Diets Don't Work. She suggests giving yourself permission to enjoy your favorite foods -- in sensible portions.

To help you survive the seasonal parties without packing on the pounds, WebMD consulted diet gurus across the country for their best holiday diet tips. Here are their top 10 recommendations:

1. Trim back the trimmings. Go all out and deck the halls with boughs of holly, glitter, and lights, but when it comes to holiday food, accessorize with care. To shave calories, go easy when adding nuts, cheese, cream sauces, gravy, butter, and whipped cream -- additions that don't add much to the meal, but can add plenty to your waistline. Trim calories wherever you can so you leave the party feeling satisfied, but not stuffed, recommends Carolyn O'Neil, MS, RD, author of The Dish on Eating Healthy and Being Fabulous.

2. Wear snug clothes and keep one hand busy. When you wear snug-fitting attire, chances are you'll be too busy holding in your stomach to overeat. While you stand around looking posh in your holiday finery, hold a drink in your dominant hand so it won't be so easy to grab food, recommends obesity expert Cathy Nonas, MS, RD.

3. Chew gum. When you don't want to eat, pop a piece of sugarless gum into your mouth. This works well when you're cooking or when you're trying not to dive into the buffet, says Nonas.

4. Be a food snob. If you don't love it, don't eat it, says American Dietetic Association spokeswoman Melinda Johnson, MS, RD. Scan the buffet for foods you truly treasure and skip the everyday dishes that are available all year long. And don't think it's your responsibility to sample everything on the buffet. Go ahead and indulge in your personal holiday favorites, then find a seat and, slowly and mindfully, savor every mouthful.

5. No skipping meals. Always eat normally on the day of a party. "People who skip meals to save up calories tend to overeat everything in sight once they get there," says Katherine Tallmadge, MA, RD, author of Diet Simple. "Eating sensibly throughout the day will take the edge off the appetite and empower a bit of restraint." Start with a nourishing breakfast, have a light lunch, then a small snack or salad shortly before the event.

6. Check it out. First things first. When you arrive at the party, grab a sparkling water with a twist, and wait at least 30 minutes before eating. This will give you time to relax, get comfortable in your surroundings, and survey your food choices on the buffet before diving in, says Tallmadge. A buffet is an invitation to eat all you can, and unless you carefully scrutinize it and make wise choices, you're likely to overeat.

7. Add fun and games. Cynthia Sass, MPH, MA, RD, co-author of Your Diet Is Driving Me Crazy, proposes taking the focus off food and getting family and friends more active during holiday parties. Think horseshoes, badminton, sledding, ice skating, or building snowmen. Indoors, try a spirited game of charades, or rent an instructional dance video followed by a dance-off. "The best parties include dancing, so why not make dancing after eating a new holiday tradition for a great form of fun and recreation?" asks David Katz, MD, MPH, author of The Flavor Point Diet.

8. Alternate alcohol with nonalcoholic beverages.Alcoholic drinks are loaded with calories -- especially holiday favorites like eggnog. "Cut your alcohol calories in half by alternating water or seltzer between alcoholic beverages," Katz advises.

9. Skip the appetizers. "Eschew the appetizers rather than chewing on them," says Katz. If you need a little nibble before the meal, go for the veggies, fruit, salsa, or a small handful of nuts.

10. Limit the variety. Brian Wansink, PhD, author of Mindless Eating, suggests putting only two items on your plate when you go to the food table. Return as many times as you like, but only take two items each time. "Variety stimulates appetite, and if you limit your choices to just a few items and stick with these, it will be easier to control than eating a little bit of 20 different dishes," agrees Katz.

By Kathleen M. Zelman, MPH, RD, LD,

End of Summer Workouts!

Simple Healthy Fish Tacos for End of Summer Meals- video

Sage Advice to Live By!

Can You Really Get Incredible Abs By The End Of The Summer?

Can You Really Get Incredible Abs By The End Of The Summer?

Chris Powell's Last-Minute Summer Fitness Tips by Chris Hunt

The final weeks of summer are approaching and that means that guys are looking shed those last few pounds and get lean and, of course, get a six-pack for all those tank tops they bought just for summer. Even fitness expert and host of ABC’s Extreme Weight Loss is cutting a pounds. The celebrity trainer is six weeks away from competing in a weightlifting competition and has already knocked off six pounds from his already-lean frame.
The secret, he says, is that he switched his nutrition plan to focus on carb cycling, a method that includes alternating your diet between high and low-to-no carb days. The high carb days are partnered with low fat intake designed to boost metabolism and build or maintain muscle. The low carb/high fat days are meant to maximize fat loss.

“You’re basically turning your body into a fat-burning furnace,” Powell said.
Whether you chose to take on carb-cycling as a nutrition plan or not, Powell agreed that there are countless ways to trim fat, lose weight and build muscle. But he also claims that the simple answers for discovering the body you want have been staring you in the face for years. Whether he’s working with an extremely obese client on his show or giving advice to a frequent gym-goer looking to knock off the last few pounds, he provided us with the basic rules that work for everyone.

Live By The Rules of Integrity

Simply put, do what you say you’re going to do. If you promise yourself you’re going to workout tomorrow morning, do it. When you break commitments to yourself, the disappointment can snowball. Also, you’re the best person to hold yourself accountable. So if you don’t hold yourself to your word, no one else will.

Don’t Make Dumbass Promises

How often have your heard someone say they’re going to go from sitting on the couch watching television to working out everyday, seven days a week and twice on Sunday? Powell reminded that it makes little sense to make promises to yourself that you can’t keep and small failures ultimately result in bigger ones. Start with small goals. “Instead of saying I’m going to drink a gallon and a half of water every day, start by drinking an extra quart of water a day,” Powell said. After you’ve done that for a week or two, try drinking two extra quarts. Make your goals manageable.”
Instead of planning on eating six small meals per day, as many trainers might suggest, Powell advises to simply start by eating within the first 30 minutes after you wake up to start the process of getting your metabolism firing throughout the day.

Eat Protein With Every Meal

Our bodies crave things that are sweet and salty or crunchy which leads many of us to chomp into foods loaded with sugar and heavy on carbs. Powell recommends eating lean protein with every meal. But don’t just add protein to your plate, eat the protein first. Protein is immediately satiating, making you feel fuller faster and less likely to overeat.

Chris Powell's Low-Carb Chocolate Almond Smoothie
Ingredients

• 1 scoop chocolate protein powder
• 2 tablespoons almond butter
• 1 1/2 cups unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 1 cup ice

Directions Blend all ingredients until smooth. Pour and enjoy.

Chris Powell's Guilt-Free Banana Ice Cream
Ingredients

• 1 banana, sliced and frozen
• 1 1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 1 tablespoon almond butter (chocolate almond butter is a good option also)

Directions: Place all ingredients into a blender and puree, turning off the motor and stirring the mixture two or three times until smooth and creamy.

Tips to Conquer and Crunch the End of Summer Fitness Funk

Spans of oppressive heat and biting bugs can sometimes make spending summer outdoors an unpleasant undertaking. In June and July, many of us were compelled to remain indoors, grateful to find any place equipped with air-conditioning.
Now, suddenly it’s August, and hopefully we’ll be getting some relief from the worst of summer’s wrath – with plenty of time still left to still enjoy the outdoors.

The Best Post Summer Funk Fitness Tips

There is no shortage of healthy activities that can be packed into the last few weeks of summer to help make up for lost time, so do not get stuck in the post-summer fitness funk instead utilize some of these ideas to get the most out of it:
1. Up the intensity. Don’t just go for a leisurely jog on your usual neighborhood circuit; quicken your pace and feel the burn. If faster doesn’t seem possible, then add 10 minutes to your usual workout. Walking, jogging, hiking, inline skating and cycling are all great activities in which you can up the intensity at the end of summer.
2. Get out and explore. Discover park trails and open roads and take in some new scenery.
3. Hit up the water. If you live near the beach, get out and play volleyball, throw the Frisbee or football around, beachcomb, or play an energetic game of fetch with your dog. If you’re near a lake, try rowing for an unrivaled total-body workout and a change of pace. Late summer is a great time to do beach and water activities because these areas tend to be less crowded.
4. Think outside the box. Always wanted to stand-up paddleboard, take a whirl on a skateboard or ballroom dance? Ask any schoolchild – the beginning of the school year is a great time to try something new. Plus, you’ll likely discover muscles you didn’t you know had and you’ll see a new level of tone in your body.
5. Integrate exercise into your life. In addition to the obvious suggestions – like parking your car farther away from your destination and taking the stairs instead of elevators – here are a few that are less obvious: While at the kids’ soccer practice, instead of reading a book or visiting with another parent, why not walk around the outside of the field while they practice, or even warm up and cool down with the team? Schedule a ‘walking meeting’ instead of an in-office discussion. Swap the cart for your legs when golfing. You can also transform your commute by walking or biking to work, or taking a bus and hopping off a few stops early.
6. Playgrounds aren’t just for kids. Adults can rekindle their inner child and enjoy these outdoor play spaces, too – and get a great, affordable workout at the same time. Slides can be used for challenging push-ups or sit-ups, monkey bars can be used for pull-ups, and holding yourself stationary on a swing in plank position can provide an incredible core workout.
7. Plant a late-summer garden. If you’re looking to spice up your lawn or garden, August is a perfect time to plan a fall harvest. You can also keep your garden ablaze with color through the end of summer with a mix of fall-blooming annuals and perennials. The simple fact is that gardening is exercise, and done properly, can burn as many calories as more traditional exercises.
8. Farm your way fit. Find a local farm and volunteer to spend a day or more learning about farming, harvesting, picking and general farming chores. In return, you usually get fed locally produced, healthy meals!
9. Schedule breaks. I personally believe that an hour of sitting is too long, so make time to get up and stretch. Take a lap around the office or outside parking lot after each hour of sitting and stand while talking to a coworker. Use part of your lunch break to go for a stroll or pick up lunch at a place within walking distance. Just can’t get away? Take a call on your mobile phone and head outdoors – they’re called mobile phones for a reason!
10.  Practice yoga, Pilates or meditation outdoors. Put the tree back in tree pose and swap the mat for grass. The only thing more peaceful than a mind-body session is spending time in the beauty of nature.
As summer fades, we tend to return to a more sedentary routine. Challenge yourself to not let your fitness level fall with the end of summer.

This entry was posted in mitzinvines.com

 

Watch Video: Your Body is All You Need: The World’s Oldest Training Method (and a 1% Workout)

Is Something Wrong with Our Modern Diet? Part 2.

 Is Something Wrong with Our Modern Diet? part 2
      by Dr. Mercola

Besides the health hazards related to the trans fats, soybean oil is, in and of itself, NOT a healthy oil. Add to that the fact that the majority of soybeans grown in the US are genetically engineered, which may have additional health consequences. When taken together, partially hydrogenated GE soybean oil becomes one of the absolute worst types of oils you can consume. Unfortunately, as stated in the featured article:4

        "[M]ost people don't have a clue they're eating this much soybean oil. They're actually getting most of it from processed foods, which often have soybean oil added to them because it is cheap. The best way to avoid soybean oil (and other nasty ingredients) is to avoid processed foods."

Wheat - A Bane of the Modern Diet

    Modern wheat is not the same kind of wheat your grandparents ate. The nutritional content of this staple grain has been dramatically altered over the years and is now far less nutritious than the varieties of generations past. As Gunnars states:
    
   "Modern dwarf wheat was introduced around the year 1960, which contains 19-28 percent less of important minerals like Magnesium, Iron, Zinc, and Copper. There is also evidence that modern wheat is much more harmful to celiac patients and people with gluten sensitivity, compared to older breeds like Einkorn wheat. Whereas wheat may have been relatively healthy back in the day, the same is not true of modern dwarf wheat."

    Wheat lectin, or "wheat germ agglutinin" (WGA), is largely responsible for many of wheat's pervasive ill effects. WGA is highest in whole wheat, especially sprouted whole wheat, but wheat isn't the only grain with significant lectin. All seeds of the grass family (rice, wheat, spelt, rye, etc.) are high in lectins. WGA has the potential to damage your health by the following mechanisms (list is not all-inclusive):
    Pro-Inflammatory: WGA lectin stimulates the synthesis of pro-inflammatory chemical messengers, even at very small concentrations     Neurotoxic: WGA lectin can pass through your blood-brain barrier and attach to the protective coating on your nerves, known as the myelin sheath. It is also capable of inhibiting nerve growth factor, which is important for the growth, maintenance, and survival of certain neurons
    Immunotoxic: WGA lectin may bind to and activate white blood cells     Cardiotoxic: WGA lectin induces platelet aggregation and has a potent disruptive effect on tissue regeneration and removal of neutrophils from your blood vessels
    Cytotoxic (toxic to cells): WGA lectin may induce programmed cell death (apoptosis)     Research also shows that WGA may disrupt endocrine and gastrointestinal function, interfere with genetic expression, and share similarities with certain viruses

Flawed Assumptions About Eggs Have Worsened Health

    According to USDA data, Americans ate more than 375 eggs per person per year, on average, in 1950. Egg consumption dipped to just over 225 eggs per capita between 1995 and 2000, and as of 2007, it was just over 250 eggs per capita per year—a 33 percent decline since 1950.

    Like saturated fats, many naturally cholesterol-rich foods have also been wrongfully vilified. Eggs, which are actually among the most nutritious foods you can eat (provided they come from organically raised, pastured hens) have long been accused of causing heart disease simply because they're high in cholesterol. But dietary cholesterol has little to do with the cholesterol level in your body, and numerous studies have confirmed that eating eggs does NOT raise potentially adverse LDL cholesterol in your blood. Studies have also failed to find any evidence that eggs contribute to heart disease.

    Testing6 has confirmed that true free-range eggs are far more nutritious than commercially raised eggs. The dramatically superior nutrient levels are most likely the result of the differences in diet between free-ranging, pastured hens and commercially farmed hens. In a 2007 egg-testing project, Mother Earth News compared the official U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) nutrient data for commercial eggs with eggs from hens raised on pasture, and found that the latter typically contains:

        2/3 more vitamin A
        Two times more omega-3 fatty acids
        Three times more vitamin E
        Seven times more beta-carotene

    Barring organic certification, which is cost-prohibitive for many small farmers, you could just make sure the farmer raises his chickens according to organic, free-range standards, allowing his flock to forage freely for their natural diet, and aren't fed antibiotics, corn, and soy.

    You can tell the eggs are free range or pastured by the color of the egg yolk. Foraged hens produce eggs with bright orange yolks. Dull, pale yellow yolks are a sure sign you're getting eggs from caged hens that are not allowed to forage for their natural diet. Cornucopia.org offers a helpful organic egg scorecard that rates egg manufacturers based on 22 criteria that are important for organic consumers. According to Cornucopia, their report "showcases ethical family farms, and their brands, and exposes factory farm producers and brands in grocery store coolers that threaten to take over organic livestock agriculture."

People Eat More Processed Food Than Ever Before

    Overall, about 90 percent of the money Americans spend on food is spent on processed foods.7 This includes restaurant foods (i.e. food away from home) and processed grocery foods that require little or no preparation time before consuming at home.

    When looking at the ratio of money spent on store-bought groceries only, Americans spend nearly a fourth of their grocery money on processed foods and sweets—twice as much as they did in 1982—according to Department of Labor statistics.8 Pricing of meats, sugar, and flour has had a great influence our spending habits. These items have actually seen a decrease in price per pound, which has had an inverse effect on Americans' spending habits, in that cheaper prices encourage people to buy more.

    The result is obvious. Compared with shoppers 30 years ago, American adults today are twice as likely to be obese, and children and adolescent three times as likely to be overweight. Pediatric type 2 diabetes—which used to be very rare—has markedly increased along with the rise in early childhood obesity. According to previous research, early onset type 2 diabetes appears to be a more aggressive disease from a cardiovascular standpoint.9

Take Control of Your Health

    Research coming out of some of America's most respected institutions now confirms that sugar is a primary dietary factor driving chronic disease development. Sugar, and fructose in particular, has been implicated as a culprit in the development of both heart disease and cancer, and having this information puts you in the driver's seat when it comes to prevention. A diet that promotes health is high in healthful fats and very, very low in sugar and non-vegetable carbohydrates.

    Understand that excessive sugar/fructose consumption leads to insulin resistance, and insulin resistance appears to be the root of many if not most chronic disease. So far, scientific studies have linked excessive fructose consumption to about 78 different diseases and health problems,10 including heart disease and cancer. 

    Many also eat far too little healthy fat, and the combination of too much sugar and too little fat is driving disease rates through the roof. If you're still unsure about what constitutes a healthy diet, please review my free optimized nutrition plan, which starts at the beginner level and goes all the way up to advanced.

Is Something Wrong with Our Modern Diet? Part 1.

Is Something Wrong with Our Modern Diet?
  by  Dr. Mercola

 Three decades ago, the food available was mostly fresh and grown locally. Today, the majority of foods served, whether at home, in school or in restaurants, are highly processed foods, filled with sugars, harmful processed fats, and chemical additives.

    During that same time, obesity rates have skyrocketed, and one in five American deaths are now associated with obesity. Obesity-related deaths include those from type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, liver disease, cancer, dementia, and depression, as nearly all have metabolic dysfunction as a common underlying factor.

    The featured1 article contains 11 telling charts and graphs, illustrating how the modern diet has led to an avalanche of chronic disease. As its author, Kris Gunnars says:

        "The modern diet is the main reason why people all over the world are fatter and sicker than ever before. Everywhere modern processed foods go, chronic diseases like obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease soon follow."

Sugar Consumption, Especially Soda and Juices, Drives Disease Rates

    Of all the dietary culprits out there, refined sugar in general, and processed fructose in particular, win top billing as the greatest destroyers of health. The amount of refined sugar in the modern diet has ballooned, with the average American now getting about 350 calories a day (equivalent to about 22 teaspoons of sugar and 25 percent of their daily calories) from added sugar.

    This level of sugar consumption has definitive health consequences. One recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Internal Medicine,2 which examined the associations between added sugar consumption and cardiovascular disease (CVD) deaths, found that:

        Among American adults, the mean percentage of daily calories from added sugar was 14.9 percent in 2005-2010
        Most adults (just over 71 percent) get 10 percent or more of their daily calories from added sugar
        Approximately 10 percent of American adults got 25 percent or more of their daily calories from added sugar in 2005-2010
        The most common sources of added sugar are sugar-sweetened beverages, grain-based desserts, fruit drinks, dairy desserts, and candy

    According to this study, those who consume 21 percent or more of their daily calories in the form of sugar are TWICE as likely to die from heart disease compared to those who get seven percent or less or their daily calories from added sugar.

    Needless to say, with all this added sugar in the diet, average calorie consumption has skyrocketed as well, having increased by about 20 percent since 1970.

    A primary source of all this added sugar is soda, fruit juices, and other sweetened drinks. Multiple studies have confirmed that these kinds of beverages dramatically increase your risk of metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and mortality. Diet sodas or artificially sweetened foods and beverages are no better, as research reveals they appear to do even MORE harm than refined sugar or high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), including causing greater weight gain.

Abandoning Traditional Fats for Processed Vegetable Oils Has Led to Declining Health

    Fats help your body absorb important vitamins, including vitamins A, D, and E, and fats are especially important for infants and toddlers for proper growth and development. Moreover, when your body burns non-vegetable carbohydrates like grains and sugars, powerful adverse hormonal changes typically occur. These detrimental changes do not occur when you consume healthy fats or fibrous vegetables.

    As explained by Dr. Robert Lustig, fructose in particular is "isocaloric but not isometabolic," which means you can have the same amount of calories from fructose or glucose, fructose and protein, or fructose and fat, but the metabolic effect will be entirely different despite the identical calorie count. Furthermore, saturated fats, although supplying more calories, will NOT actually cause you to get fat, nor will it promote heart disease.

    Unfortunately, the healthiest fats, including animal fats and coconut oil, both of which are saturated, have been long portrayed as a heart attack waiting to happen. Meanwhile, harmful hydrogenated vegetable oils such as corn and canola oil have been touted as "healthful" alternatives. Ditto for margarine.

    Boy, did they get this wrong. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The hydrogenation process creates incredibly harmful trans fats, which the US Food and Drug Administration is now finally considering banning altogether. (I'll review the health hazards of trans fats in further detail below.) Clearly, switching from lard and grass-fed butter—which contains heart-protective nutrients—to margarine and other trans-fat rich hydrogenated oils was a public health experiment that has not ended well.

Low-Fat Fad Has Done Unfathomable Harm

    Conventional recommendations have also called for dramatically decreasing the overall amount of fat in your diet, and this fat aversion is yet another driving factor of metabolic disease and chronic ill health. As I and other nutritional experts have warned, most people (especially if you're insulin or leptin resistant, which encompasses about 80 percent of Americans) probably need upwards of 50-85 percent of daily calories from healthful fats. This is a FAR cry from the less than 10 percent of calories from saturated fats recommended by the US Department of Agriculture.3 As stated in the featured article:

        "The first dietary guidelines for Americans were published in the year 1977, almost at the exact same time the obesity epidemic started. Of course, this doesn't prove anything (correlation does not equal causation), but it makes sense that this could be more than just a mere coincidence.

        The anti-fat message essentially put the blame on saturated fat and cholesterol (harmless), while giving sugar and refined carbs (very unhealthy) a free pass. Since the guidelines were published, many massive studies have been conducted on the low-fat diet. It is no better at preventing heart disease, obesity or cancer than the standard Western diet, which is as unhealthy as a diet can get."

    There's no telling how many have been prematurely killed by following these flawed low-fat guidelines, yet despite mounting research refuting the value of cutting out fats, such recommendations are still being pushed.

Increased Vegetable Oil Consumption Has Altered Americans' Fatty Acid Composition

    The increased consumption of processed vegetable oils has also led to a severely lopsided fatty acid composition, as these oils provide high amounts of omega-6 fats. The ideal ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats is 1:1, but the typical Western diet is between 1:20 and 1:50. Eating too much damaged omega-6 fat and too little omega-3 sets the stage for the very health problems you seek to avoid, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, depression and Alzheimer's, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes, just to name a few. To correct this imbalance, you typically need to do two things:

        Significantly decrease omega-6 by avoiding processed foods and foods cooked at high temperatures using vegetable oils
        Increase your intake of heart-healthy animal-based omega-3 fats, such as krill oil

The Dangers of Hydrogenated Soybean Oil

    About 95 percent of soy is genetically engineered to have resistance to glyphosate and is loaded with this highly toxic herbicide. But even if you have organic soy, most of it is hydrogenated. Hydrogenated soybean oil has, like sugar, become a major source of calories in the US diet. Americans consume more than 28 billion pounds of edible oils annually, and soybean oil accounts for about 65 percent of it. About half of it is hydrogenated, as soybean oil is too unstable otherwise to be used in food manufacturing. In 1999, soybean oil accounted for seven percent of consumed daily calories in the US. 

    Part of the problem with partially hydrogenated soybean oil is the trans fat it contains. The other part relates to the health hazards of soy itself. An added hazard factor is the fact that the majority of soybeans are genetically engineered. The completely unnatural fats created through the partial hydrogenation process cause dysfunction and chaos in your body on a cellular level, and studies have linked trans-fats to:
    Cancer, by interfering with enzymes your body uses to fight cancer     Chronic health problems such as obesity, asthma, auto-immune disease, cancer, and bone degeneration
    Diabetes, by interfering with the insulin receptors in your cell membranes     Heart disease, by clogging your arteries (Among women with underlying coronary heart disease, eating trans-fats increased the risk of sudden cardiac arrest three-fold!)
    Decreased immune function, by reducing your immune response     Increase blood levels of low density lipoprotein (LDL), or "bad" cholesterol, while lowering levels of high density lipoprotein (HDL), or "good" cholesterol
    Reproductive problems, by interfering with enzymes needed to produce sex hormones     Interfering with your body's use of beneficial omega-3 fats.

***Continued in Part 2. 

8 Things You Should Never Eat if You're Trying to Lose Weight

Lots of experts say it's stupid to forbid yourself from eating certain foods – that denying yourself something you really want to eat can ultimately lead to binge eating and eventual weight gain. So dessert isn't on this list — it's OK to indulge sometimes! But some foods really do deserve the axe — especially if you are trying to lose weight. In which case, avoid these foods (when you can!) to fend off cravings and hunger, and support your efforts to slim down.

1. Any Snack That Only Contains Carbs

When you eat crackers, dry cereal, bread, or rice cakes alone, your body converts the carbs to simple sugars, and sends it directly into your blood stream. In response to the sugar rush, your body produces extra insulin, which helps your body absorb the sugar ASAP. The problem: You end up with low blood sugar and the same hunger pangs that led you to carb it up in the first place. You then may be inclined to reach for sugary foods with no nutritional value to satisfy your need for instant energy, says Dr. Charlie Seltzer, M.D., a weight-loss specialist based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.It's not that carbs are off-limits entirely. That'd be crazy — and it's no way to live! The point is that snacks containing a combination of carbs, healthy fats, and protein take longer to digest, and will, therefore, tide you over for longer. Another thing: When you treat snacks as balanced mini meals, they contribute to a balanced diet (instead of just holding you over between full balanced meals). Try a slice of bread with nut butter, or whole grain crackers with low-fat cheese, suggests Rachel Harvest, a registered dietitian affiliated with Tournesol Wellness in New York.

2. Frozen Meals

To make fresh ingredients last extra long in your freezer, food manufacturers often load frozen meals with sodium, a natural preservative, Harvest says. Sodium makes you retain water, which bloats you up – so you won't look and feel your best regardless of how much weight you want to lose.Also: When food manufacturers try to squeeze a meal's worth of calories into a teeny tiny box, every bite ends up containing lots of calories by design, Harvest adds. While large portions trick your brain into thinking your body is full, the measly portions found in freezer meals are inherently unsatisfying, even though they contain plenty of calories. So skip them if you can, and supersize your portions of lower-calorie foods.

3. High-Fiber Snack Bars

Yes, everyone needs fiber — it keeps your digestive system churning and keeps you feeling full, even when you're cutting back on calories. What you don't need: Nearly one day's worth of fiber (about 25 grams) in one snack bar, with a diet that's otherwise devoid of it, Harvest says. "Fiber intake has to be consistent throughout the day to stave off hunger, improve digestive health, and not cause stomach upset." So ditch the bars, and try to include some kind of naturally fiber-rich produce — any fruit or veggie will do— in every snack and meal.

4. "Low-Fat" Foods

Research suggests that people tend to eat upwards of 30 percent more when they know they're eating a food that's low fat. The problem (besides overeating, which can thwart your weight loss goals fast) is that when food makers remove fat from food, they inevitably remove some of the flavor. To compensate, they often add sugar, which makes the product even worse for you.

5. Juice

It takes several oranges to make one 6-ounce glass of OJ, but when you drink juice, you consume all the calories from those oranges without the natural fruit fibers that fill you up. It's why "even 100 percent juice is just empty calories and another blood sugar spike," Harvest says.Another thing: Fructose, the natural fruit sugar that makes fruit and fruit juice taste sweet, tricks your body into gaining weight by blunting your body's ability to recognize when it's full, says Melissa Rifkin, a registered dietitian at Montefiore Medical Center in New York and a Rise nutrition coach. This makes you eat more, and increases your risk of developing insulin resistance and diabetes.

6. Artificially Sweetened Drinks

Goodbye, diet soda, and every other sweet-tasting drink that mysteriously contains zero calories! "There are some people whose brains are wired in a way that artificial sweeteners induce or enhance cravings," says Dr. Seltzer. "If drinking a Diet Snapple leads you to the Ben & Jerry's, then you'd certainly be better off with water or water with lemon." Or sparkling water: It's calorie-free, but carbonated, which makes your stomach feel full so you end up eating less overall.

7. Cereal Sold in a Value-Size Box

The same goes for super-sized snack packages. People consume up to 22 percent more when they eat from larger packages, according to a study conducted by researchers at Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab. When people know there is more food available, they subconsciously let themselves eat more of it. The same goes for food you buy on sale: you're more likely to consume more when food costs less, according to another study. That's not to say you should spend more on food to eat less overall — it's unsustainable (and silly). If you're going to spring for a value pack of any packaged food, measure out your serving instead of eating out of the bag so you don't fall pray to your own mind's games.

8. Booze

It's almost impossible to find a weight loss expert who recommends alcohol for weight loss. (Believe me, I tried.) While some cocktails have fewer calories than others, alcohol just doesn't support weight loss. It contains empty calories that don't fill you up or provide any nutrients; softens your resolve so you're more likely to overeat; and impairs your judgement, regardless of your weight loss goals. (It's why you drunk-eat pizza, not salad.) But it gets worse: "When alcohol is present in your body, it's considered a toxin that your body wants to get rid of, and becomes you liver's top priority," says Dr. Caroline Cederquist, MD, creator of bistroMD. When your liver is in hardcore detox mode, it can't burn fat as efficiently. Because that's a major buzz kill, skip the buzz altogether if you're serious about losing weight. Or at least cut back on the booze, big time.

Source: Elizabeth Narin  3-12-15
        Cosmopolitan Magazine

The Best Workout for Weight Loss, Heart Health

Exercise is clearly a key to fitness. But what hasn’t been clear is whether the intensity of your workouts mattered.Researchers now think they have the answer: Exercising vigorously makes a positive difference.
According to a study published March 2 in the Annals of Internal Medicine, obese people who exercised briskly for 40 minutes per day, four days per week, significantly improved not only their cardiovascular health, but also lost weight and reduced their blood sugar levels. In comparison, those who exercised at lower intensity improved their health and lost weight, but didn’t reduce their blood sugar level.
“Improvement at the higher intensity — just walking briskly on a treadmill — was substantially better,“ says Robert Ross, PhD, lead author of the study and an exercise physiologist at the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. “Participants were surprised at how easy it was to get to the higher intensity,”
About one-third of U.S adults over the age of 20 are considered obese, putting them at a much higher risk for cardiovascular disease. Exercise reduces that risk. Adults are currently advised by the federal government to exercise at moderate intensity for 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) per week or high intensity for 75 minutes (1 hour and 15 minutes) for the best health outcomes.
Intensity is measured by how hard a particular physical activity makes the cardiovascular system work, and it differs from individual to individual based on their level of fitness. For someone who isn’t fit, a brisk walk is enough to raise the heart rate to the optimal level for improving cardiovascular health. For someone who is fit, it takes a jog to get them to the ideal level, Ross says.
“Exercising at any intensity is good, whether it be a slower walk or brisk walk, but this study shows that if you want to improve all three — your waistline, your fitness level, and your blood sugar — then high intensity is your ticket,” Ross says.

The randomized controlled study, conducted between 2009 and 2013, monitored the physical activity and diet of 300 abdominally obese non-diabetic adults for six months. About two-thirds of the participants were women and one-third men. All had normal blood pressure.
The study broke the adults into four groups. One, the control group, was sedentary. A second group exercised at low intensity, for an average of 31 minutes per session. Another exercised at low intensity, for an average of 58 minutes. Another exercised at high intensity for 40 minutes. All of those in the three groups who exercised lost weight and improved their fitness. Only those in the high intensity group reduced their two-hour glucose levels. During the study, all participants ate a healthful, balanced diet (meaning 50 percent of calories from carbohydrates, 30 percent from fat, and 20 percent from protein), Ross says. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research funded the study.
“It’s an interesting study,” says Michael Emery, MD, medical director of the sports cardiology program at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine's Heart and Vascular Institute of Cardiology in Greenville. “It shows that you’ll get the biggest bang for your buck, in terms of cardiovascular fitness, if you run a mile at a high intensity rate, rather than walk a mile at a leisurely stroll.”
Whether the reduction in blood sugar levels in the high intensity participants was meaningful in terms of treating diabetes, Dr. Emery is less certain.
“It would have been interesting to know if the effect would have been more pronounced if there were a higher number of participants with high blood pressure or diabetes,” says Emery, who is also co-chair of the American College of Cardiology’s Sports Council. “It’s something where there could be more research.”

c/o Everyday Health

Bara Vaida

How to Lose 5 Pounds in a Week Without Starving - Recipe #1

4 Reasons Why Diets Don't Work

It's not you, it's the diet. Learn from their mistakes and build a sustainable eating plan for you.

I hear it all the time: You have tried every diet out there, and absolutely nothing has worked. You're still overweight, have no energy and you’re pretty much ready to just give in to the idea that this is how your life is going to be forever. Or, maybe you finally lost the weight or you are healthy, but it’s a constant struggle. One tiny step in the wrong direction threatens to undo all of your hard work and sabotage everything you've accomplished so far. Why does this happen?
Diets don’t work.
It’s as simple as that. There’s a lot of hype out there surrounding dieting and what the perfect program is. But the fact of the matter is, what works for those people on TV or your best friend may not work for you at all. Thirty percent of Americans are trying to lose weight, while another 30 percent are just trying to maintain their weight. Nearly two-thirds of Americans who lose weight on diets gain it back within one year, and a whopping 98 percent of those people gain back their weight and more within two years.
With facts and studies like this, it’s easy to get really discouraged. However, it should also be very clear that the reason for these shocking statistics is that diets simply do not work. Why not? And what can you do to find what works for you? 

1. Diets tend to be all or nothing.
Any time a diet plan cuts out major food groups, or has you going from zero to 60 in one day, you’re bound to fail. A lot of the plans out there are incredibly restrictive. The more restrictive the diet – no matter how well-prepared you are – the higher your chances of ending that diet with a righteous binge that takes you off track permanently. Life happens, and most diets don’t account for any type of wiggle room.
It’s all about the willpower. Once your willpower is depleted, cravings can overpower you and give you that perfect excuse to trash your diet plan and "get back on track Monday".” To be effective, a plan needs to meet you where you are and not where you “should” be. As a fellow colleague of mine, Joni Jones, of Substainable Life and Health, says: “Create healthy habits, not restrictions.”

2. Most diets are not goal-oriented.
Sure, the goal may be to lose weight, but how much weight? In what amount of time? What’s the driving force behind wanting to lose weight or maintain your current weight? Lofty goals that only focus on the end result tend to feel unattainable. When the little triumphs happen along the way that weren’t the focus of your end goal, it’s easy to miss them and instead dwell on what you haven't accomplished yet. When was the last time your diet focused on S.M.A.R.T. goals? That is, goals that are specific, measureable, attainable, realistic and timely?

3. “Calories in versus calories out” is a very outdated way of thinking.
It is more about the quality, not the quantity, of calories that can make or break you. A 300-calorie plate of kale is very different from 300 calories of chips or cookies. Packaged and processed food – even the stuff in the 100-calorie packs or the “healthy” frozen food aisle at the grocery store – are keeping you from losing weight and reaching your goals. I hate to burst your bubble, but that stuff is not healthy and it’s not helping you.
When you eat food, your body digests it and pulls the nutrients from the food to feed the cells in your body. If your cells aren’t getting everything they need, they will keep sending signals to your brain to eat more food. You could spend years feeling physically full, but be nutritionally starved. In order to lose weight or maintain the weight you’ve worked so hard to get off, you have to be ready to make lasting lifestyle changes. If the foods you’re eating are keeping you inflamed, not meeting your nutritional needs or depriving you to the point where it’s all you can think about, you're setting yourself up for failure.

4. Support systems are integral to success.
Diet programs that don’t offer any one-on-one attention or a support system of readily accessible peers are basically just trying to sell you something that works only for the obsessively dedicated. Unless you have all the time and energy in the world to put toward your diet plan, you’re going to need some kind of support. Questions and concerns come up while following a diet program all the time. Who is going to answer those questions? Who is going to support you in putting down that pint of Ben and Jerry’s when you’ve had a bad day and help you focus on the reason you turn to junk when things are bad?
This is where health coaches, for one, have taken front and center. They pick up where doctors and diets leave off and offer support and one-on-one guidance to help you make changes that are sustainable for a lifetime. My health coaching practice, Whole Green You, for example, works with individuals – both one-on-one and in very supportive small groups – to help make life-long changes. In fact, you can listen to one of our group calls and download the handouts to get started on your road to success.
In the end, anything that deprives you, pushes too quickly, doesn’t focus on nutrition, or isn’t goal- and support-oriented isn’t going to work for the long haul. 

By Sarah Haskins

Get lean and eat clean in 2015!

With the January blues upon us, most of us need a push in the right direction to kick start our New Year fitness regimes.

The festive season of overindulgence is over and the team at British Military Fitness (BMF), have put together their top tips to make 2015 your year to get lean and eat clean!

1. Master the basics

Learn to master some fundamental exercises. Learning how to complete these exercises with great form and technique will ensure your workout is effective.

Spend time learning some of the following exercises: Squat, Lunge, Press up, Sit up, Pull up, Dips.

2. Train with intensity

Our lifestyles can be very demanding so when training, focus on the intensity. Lots of research suggests that High Intensity Training is one of the best ways to train and quickest ways to get results.

3. Use your own body weight

Body weight exercises can be very demanding and challenging but they have great benefits. They are free to do, you can do them anywhere and you can get a whole body workout in a very short time.

Start to build up your exercise regime with body weight exercises.

4. Eat breakfast

Breakfast should be one of your most important meals of the day. It is essential to get your metabolism started for the day so you continue to burn calories all day long.

Most people tend to either skip or rush breakfast. Yes, you may need to get up a little earlier but it will put you in a much better position to start your day and help you on the way to achieving those goals.

5. Ensure adequate hydration

Hydration is key for anyone looking to exercise. Make sure you are drinking a minimum of 2 litres of water a day.

Always turn up to sessions hydrated and make sure you rehydrate with at least 1.5 times the fluid that was lost during your training session.

6. Don't neglect cardio

Cardio work should be factored into your sessions. It is one of the greatest ways to get into shape and is necessary to keep your heart healthy and your body functioning the way it should.

7. Get outside

Exercising in the great outdoors has many benefits. It is much better for you to breathe in fresh air compared to air conditioning, especially if you are stuck in a gym with loads of germs floating around.

8. Carbs are not the devil

Carbohydrates seem to get a bad name. Those who are looking to drop weight tend to avoid any form of carbohydrates.

Lowering the amount you consume will help with losing weight but you shouldn't cut them out completely. They are important for energy production, recovery, muscle growth and fat loss.

Instead of removing them completely, just ensure that you are consuming carbohydrates that are not full of sugar.

9. Have variety

Variety is a key factor to the success of your training. Your body very quickly recognizes and adapts to any exercise or training session that you complete.

Therefore, in order to progress you must continually make the body guess and challenge it in different ways. Variety in a diet is also key to enjoying what you are eating as well as getting all the essential minerals and vitamins.

10. Train with others

Having a training partner or training in a group has some great benefits. They will help you stay motivated, it becomes a great social environment and you can have some great fun.