10 Steps to Weight Loss

When would that be? Surely not right before our cycle starts. Don’t we all know that it is the time for sugar and sweets, for food in abundance and for ice cream topped with chocolate sauce. Our sugar levels can go crazy right before our cycle starts, therefore many women experience a gain in weight around that time. For some, it is plain out impossible to lose weight at that time of month.

Why should we try then? I really don’t know. I think one should still strive to be healthy during this time so that ones sugar levels don’t go completely out of control, but I see no reason to do a weight loss program that can only lead to frustration during that time.

But when is the right time for a woman to start a weight loss program?

Right after her cycle started and the period wears down. At that point the woman should start feeling more active and will enjoy physical exercise. Also, hunger is not as much of a factor during that time. Of all times during the month, this is the best to lose a few pounds.

In order to get in tune with your own cycle as a woman and using it for your weight loss ambitions it is important to track what you weigh each day. Only if you do so, after a few month you will understand how your weight might stagnates just before your cycle is over and how your weight is easily moved right after your cycle begins again. It is a very helpful tool that every overweight woman should obtain.

Posted on May 21st, 2008 | Permalink | Trackback | Add Comment »
Categories: Time, women

When I was in high school I had a best friend. We really got along because both of us had these crazy ideas. We liked the outdoors, we liked animals and we could never get enough. So we came up with the great idea that when grown up, we could have our own farm. The plan was to have everything we needed to survive and thrive in life without having to go to the supermarket.

Now, after having grown up, and yes you guessed it, we haven’t built our farm yet, I am still hanging on to the idea. Where I once was motivated by the adventure of the whole, now I am interested in how to properly take care of my family and how to live healthy. I read a lot and I study a lot. I learn about nutrition and dig through cookbooks. But what I find again and again is that it seems impossible to buy the right nutritions.

Most the fresh products at the store are NOT organic. Meat at the super market is scary. Dairy is all processed that it has a shelf live for months and the list goes on.

This summer I am growing my first garden. I have no clue about gardening. I hope I get something out of it. So far I have only started with four things. Corn, tomatoes, carrots and pumpkin. I am thinking back of my grandma’s garden. It used to be huge. I wish I knew how to grow a garden that big.

I also got four chickens. I know eggs are not very expensive at the store, except when you attempt to buy organic ones. Again, organic food is so expensive. Sometime I wonder how the non-organic producers even survive with that low of prices they charge.

My conclusion.

The more I learn about nutrition and health, the more I am convinced that I need to have a garden and some livestock. It seems that it is close to impossible to become healthy when living from the food at the grocery store.

Posted on May 20th, 2008 | Permalink | Trackback | 2 Comments »
Categories: Food, Perspective

Let’s face it, we live in a time that food processing is as normal as watching TV. Tell people you don’t have a TV and they’ll look at you like you are some weird person. Tell them you don’t eat processed food and they wonder what in the world you are eating.

Processing has killed sugar. Sugar used to be a natural substance found in foods that contain lots of minerals and vitamins. Eating sweet things brought health and supported the immune system. How do we process sugar? Enough to leave zero nutrients. You might as well call the sugar we are eating today a chemical.

Processing has killed flour. Grains are very important for our bodies. They contain starches that turn sweet when they start to be digested by the enzymes in our mouths. Also, grains bring lots of nutrients. By processing and refining grains, the outer shell gets removed. That is the part that contains all the B Vitamins and other crucial nutrients. Now, instead of receiving nutrients our bodies have to take them out of our storage to actually be able to digest grains.

Processing has killed the oil. Vegetable oils are also highly processed. During that process they are exposed to oxygen and light, both factors that destroy vitamins in these foods. Extracting oil from seeds has not been done for a long time and people argue that it is actually Vegetable oil that causes all the health and heart problems, not saturated animal fat that is often blamed for it.

Posted on May 9th, 2008 | Permalink | Trackback | 2 Comments »
Categories: Food, Sugar, health

It was a very mind opening experience looking up “Standard American Diet” on Wikipedia. It made me believe that no one has really defined Standard American Diet on Wikipedia yet. They simply gave reasons why American’s eat worse and worse. Here are the main reasons they gave:

1. The increase in driving time due to people living in suburbs.
2. Cities are not made in a way that it is easy or save to ride bikes in them.
3. American’s have longer work weeks.
4. Little emphasis on meals

It boils down to the final statement that it is the American Lifestyle that causes the people to run of and eat fast food.

So, we still haven’t learned much about the Standard American Diet besides the fact that it includes Fast Food.

Posted on May 8th, 2008 | Permalink | Trackback | Add Comment »
Categories: Food, Perspective

Some people gain weight, because they always focus on other people first. Instead of taking care of their own needs, they tend to look for someone else’s needs to meet. One example is Alonzo Bland. He weighs 646 pounds and won a stay at a Weight Loss Clinic in China sponsored by China Connection for one year. Always focusing on other people’s needs was the biggest reason he gained weight, as he claims in the video.

How to focus on yourself when you need to lose weight?

One way to focus on yourself to achieve weight loss is by starting to write a weight loss journal. Some people like those more detailed journals with their daily weight and food intake included, other people like to focus more on their own emotions that lead them to overeat on a regular basis (Emotional Eaters). A great way to keep a journal online is by starting a blog and blogging about ones feelings and weight loss progress.

Another important step in focusing on yourself is taking “ME” time. This can be a long bath, a walk by yourself, basically anything that relaxes you and doesn’t put extra stress on you. Sometimes shopping can be “ME” time, or taking a nap is just what you needed. The important thing with “ME” time is that it leaves you more refreshed than how you were before you took some time.

A great way to focus on yourself and achieve changes in your eating patterns is to be very conscious when you eat. Focus on the way the food tastes, how it makes you feel, if it gives you energy and when exactly your body sends you a signal that it is full. For example, by doing this I found out that usually my body gives me a “full” signal for a while and then it just disappears when I keep eating. This is when I stuff myself. So, it really did make a difference once I learned my body does stop talking to me when I stop listening.

Posted on May 7th, 2008 | Permalink | Trackback | Add Comment »
Categories: Perspective

Here are the ultimate Gifts for you mom. Is you mom a health nut or really battles with her weight. Here are great ideas on what to get her.

• Gardening tools - Yes, gardening is exercise. If she likes to be outdoors, get her some cool tools, a new shovel, a planting kid (time is just right to get started), a gift certificate to a gardening store. I’m sure she’ll appreciate the flowers and the exercise she’ll get.
• A really pretty salad bowl - we know salad is good for weight loss. Eating salad is even more fun with a great looking salad bowl to serve it in.
• A Pedometer - My mom loves to walk. With a pedometer mom’s can make sure they walk throughout the day and get in enough exercise without having to go for a run or go to the gym.
• A BBQ Recipe book - To barbecue is a great way of cooking because it uses to extra fat. Or, at least you have the option of using less fat. Also, veggies taste wonderful this way. So, a nice healthy BBQ cook book would be just great with the nice weather coming.
• Nordic Walking Sticks - She will love them. Get her a little introduction class with the sticks, but really they are an easy work out. With using the sticks people walk faster and burn more calories because they get their arm involved in the walking as well.
• Yoga and Pilates Mat - Maybe your mom would be interested in taking some Yoga classes but just doesn’t have the right equipment. After having her own Yoga mat, there is really no more excuses.
• mp3 player - Now when she wants to do some working out she can listen to her favorite music. Or she can listen to an audio book while going on a walk.
• Rent an Apple Tree - Some towns have farmers that let you rent an apple tree. When the fruits are ripe they will call your mom and she can go out and harvest all the apples. This brings exercise and delicious fruit.
• Health Club day pass - maybe she’ll start liking it so much that she’ll want to come more often. See that mom takes a friend with her and they might start going together.
• Cooking Classes - if your mom loves to cook, she will love this gift. Find out first what kind of dishes they will learn. Watch out that it involves lots of vegetables and is not too heavy on the oil and sugar.
• Water Bottle - To take with her when she runs down to the gym or goes for a walk.
• Ger her a subscription to a light cooking magazine - So she’ll have something from your gift for weeks and month and can slowly revamp her cooking skills.

So, this is what I could come up with. If you got another great idea, please write it in the comment section.

Posted on May 6th, 2008 | Permalink | Trackback | 1 Comment »
Categories: Support

Growing up mom would always look out that we ate somewhat healthy. There was always fruit in the house, mom would cut it up and serve it mixed on a plate. Also she made sure that we would get home cooked meals and before going to the candy cabinet we always had to ask first. When looking at cereal packages she would try to explain something to us about “empty calories” which we really did not understand too much at that time. Long story short, I understood that sugar was bad for some reason even when I was a kid.

Now comes my story. One day mom was cooking in the kitchen and it happened that half a lemon was left over and laying on the counter. I wanted to have it cause a great idea came to my mind. With lemon’s you can make Lemonade. So I squeezed out that half lemon, poured it into a glass, poured water on top of it and tasted it. That was the most nasty lemonade I had ever tasted.

It dawned on me that this potion needed some serious sweetness. So I got the sugar jar out and poured one teaspoon of sugar into my lemonade. One teaspoon of sugar was a lot in my eyes back than, but still had only little effect on my lemonade. It took some courage to putt a second teaspoon in and I tried it again. Needless to say, it takes quite some teaspoons full of sugar to make lemonade sweet.

Read more on Sugar

Posted on May 5th, 2008 | Permalink | Trackback | Add Comment »
Categories: Sugar

Your metabolism is basically determined by how many calories you burn. If you burn a lot of calories in a day, your metabolism is high. When you only burn a few calories in a day, your metabolism is low.

I found this great news article by Stacy Whitman interviewing experts in the field of metabolism.

Here are some great points from the article:

The four main factors for Your Metabolism are:

1. Lean body mass
2. Total body mass
3. Genes
4. Hormones

Even though those four factors determine the basis of your metabolism other things do play into it. Those things could be stress, calorie intake, exercise and medication.

Many people wonder how to avoid the natural decline in metabolism that comes over time. According to the article, this decline in metabolism comes from the decline in muscle mass that most people over 30 experience. Best to avoid this happening is to continue working out doing weight training and ensuring the muscle mass is staying.

Another big debate is the decline of the metabolism due to very strict diets. Those diets can actually affect the metabolism by 5-10%  and this can take in affect about 48h into the diet. So, the best way of losing weight is to only reduce the calorie intake by reasonable measures.

Also, it has been a great argument about raising the metabolism with extra muscle mass. Fact is that each pound of muscle raises your daily calorie use by up to 15kcal . So, it does have an impact on the metabolism, but maybe not as much of an impact as some like to believe it has.

Lastly she went to give the facts about cardiovascular exercises. Cardiovascular exercise can actually raise the metabolism by 20-30% depending on intensity and will slowly decline again during the hours following the workout.

To bring everything to the point. According to the article the best way to lose weight efficiently is to reduce ones calories intake by 500kcal a day so that a deficiency of 3500kcal (500kcal*7days) is achieved in a week. This should be done by taking out 250kcal from the diet in a day and also doing exercises that burn an extra 250kcal a day.

Read more:
How Do I Eat Less - 33 Tips
Weight Loss and Health

Posted on May 2nd, 2008 | Permalink | Trackback | Add Comment »
Categories: Metabolism, Success

1. Is Sugar bad For You? by Health-Care-Articles
2. Is sugar bad for you? by Organic Nutrition
3. 146 Reasons Why Sugar Is Ruining Your Health by Nancy Appleton, Ph.D.
4. Sugar Blues by Natural Nutrition
5. Why Is Sugar Bad For Your Health by The Healthy Menu Mailer
6. sugar - killing you softly by urban sprout
7. Is sugar bad for you? by KidsDiabetes
8. Is sugar killing you? by Daily Mail (Lois Rogers)
9. WHY IS SUGAR SO BAD FOR YOU by healthenergies
10. Um… Why is Sugar Bad? by SugarFree PooBerry
11. Why is refined sugar bad for you? video by Tracee Brenner
12. How much sugar is in a can of soda? video by Marshall Brain
13. The Sugar Factor by Oprah health
14. Is White Sugar Really THAT Bad For Me? by FitSugar
15. becoming informed about refined sugars by Minti
16. Goblin Sweets by Vegetarian Organic Life
17. One More Reason White Sugar is Bad For You by Reno Alternative Medicine
18. White sugar is bad for you by Xoco
19. Sugar addiction by Wikipedia
20. Sugar’s effect on your health by Healing Daily
21. Are You Addicted To Sugar? by The Fit Shack
22. The Truth About Sugar by Dynamic Chiropractic (Julie Engebretson)
23. 7Reasons to Avoid Sugar by Yuki Shoji
24. Nutrition: What to Avoid SUGAR by Totally Stressed Out
25. Sugar Babies by Slate Magazine (Emily Bazelon)
26. Sugar Is Not Your Friend by Lake Shore Assisted Living
27. What Happens To Your Body When You Drink A Coke Right Now? by Health Bolt
28. Sugars: The Bad by Natural Medicine Suite101 (Victoria Anisman-Reiner)
29. Sugar coated by San Francisco Chronicle (Kim Severson)
30. The obesity epidemic by ABC Radio National (Robert Lustig)
31. The Murky World of Hight-Fructose Corn Syrup by The Weston A Price Foundation (Lindy Joyce Forristal, CCP, MTA)
32. Processed Sugar Can Cause Addiction and Depression by Annette Nay, MS
33. Too much fructose could leave dieters sugar shocked by EurekAlert! (April Frawley Birdwell, University of Florida)
34. Too much sugar turns off gene that controls the effects of sex steroids by EurekAlert! (Jennifer Kohm, Child & Family Research Institute)
35. UF scientists find that sugar may have a sour side by EurekAlert! (Melanie Fridl Ross, University of Florida)

Posted on May 1st, 2008 | Permalink | Trackback | 2 Comments »
Categories: Emotional Eating, Food, Sugar, health

The main reason why diets don’t work is because people gain the weight right back after they get off the diet. Basically, this means that for a long time an overweight person has been eating in a certain way. Somehow they mush have gotten to the overweight stage. Then they decide to diet and for a period of time change their diet completely. The result, the body adopts to the new eating and drops some weight. After the person has reached their goal weight they go back to the old way of eating. How insane, they go back to the old way of eating that got them big in the first place.

What comes now is a constant up and down of the scale. It usually ends in the person getting frustrated, thinking no diet works for them.

But the problem has never been with the diet. The diet worked just fine. The problem has always been with the regular eating. That eating that takes place when someone is not on a diet. Just because one doesn’t try to eat super healthy, does not mean they have to eat unhealthy. Many people do it though.

Many people don’t need a new diet. Most people need to learn how to eat healthy, ALL THE TIME. Only a healthy diet will ensure that you don’t regain weight or gain more weight. A healthy diet will even help lose weight, just not as fast as a weight loss diet.

Read more:
How to Handle Weight Loss Setbacks?
Losing Weight To Get Your Life Back Under Control

Posted on April 30th, 2008 | Permalink | Trackback | Add Comment »
Categories: Food, health