Sunday, November 28, 2021

This Coming Year, Think about Getting Healthier

Some of us get wrapped up in the wrong things in life and we don’t take care of ourselves. How does this happen you might ask. We think that we are multi-taskers but in reality, we aren’t very good at it. We try and do more than we can do and become overloaded. This can happen to anyone, but a lot of us don’t realize it’s happening to them.

You can easily analyze your own situation by stepping back for a minute and looking at your life from an outsider's point of view.

Are you skipping meals? Do you make time for exercise? How much did you weigh when you got out of High School? How much do you weigh now? Are you eating healthy foods? Are you sleeping 7 hours a night?

Often we can find out for ourselves if we have a health problem if we can be objective. Americans often rush through their day so fast just to get it over with and never slow down to see what they’re doing wrong.

We cause our own health problems by not paying attention to our bodies ' needs. We constantly ignore our health and we are ignoring the things in our life that are difficult to manage. We rush so fast through our day just to get the work over with so we can do things that we enjoy doing. We have become obsessed with finding more ways to entertain ourselves rather than concentrating on the things that matter.

It was never like this a couple generations ago. I see this problem that we have in our modern world is that technology has advanced so rapidly that we all have this thirst for knowledge and have become obsessed with having all the new gadgets. Thank God that this next generation is trying to pay more attention to their health and their physical condition. We’ll have to see what happens to them as they grow older.

If you are concerned at all with your health and have been reading my posts and other health blogs, you probably know that your body fat is the cause of most health problems. To avoid those problems you should lose body fat and how do you do that? Simply, change the foods you eat and increase your activity.

All of us sit too much. It’s not all your fault. Today most Americans work sitting down. Actually, that’s the reason most people are overweight. One hour at the gym every day can’t make up for 8 hours of sitting. Have you ever noticed that people who have to work standing up are thinner on average than people who work sitting down? For instance, most people who work in retail, as a cashier, on average are thinner than an office worker.

If you spend your workday sitting 90% of the time and going home and sitting more after dinner and then spending 8 hours in bed, how much stand and moving around are you really doing. This might surprise you but the average office worker only spends about 4 hours a day on their feet.

This is a major change from a few generations ago when our grandparents spent 12 hours a day minimum on their feet. So the results are that we are heavier and have poor circulation and several other health problems that have all sprung up recently because the population is growing fatter.

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone. Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight".

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

Friday, November 26, 2021

Post Thanksgiving

I know all about eating too much at those family gathering. In this case we are talking about Thanksgiving. Around my house or at anyone’s house that I know there is two parts to the big feast. First we eat a huge dinner, sometimes three kinds of meat, two different types of dressing, two types of cranberries, several types of potatoes, and several different vegetables. The idea is that no one, no matter how fuzzy, will go way hungry. There is always something for everyone in unlimited quantities.

Than comes the second part, which usually is about one hour later, “dessert”. This is what everyone has been waiting for. If it’s a big gathering like 10 or 12 or more the whole table will be filled with pies, cakes, chocolate candies, brownies, lemon squares, and other ethnic tricks that we only see once or twice a year. These are times that no one should miss, even if your on a diet.

The really bad part of the Holidays is that you might have to eat this meal more than once. We all have large families and you can’t say no to an invitation this time of the year, so what does a person do? You try and sample the things you like but do it in small amounts and remember that you don’t have to finish your plate. Another tip to help you from overindulging is to only eat half of each food on your plate.

Some other tips:

Don’t drink calories, save the calories for food.

Stick to low calorie desserts.

Eat before you go. Don’t go to a party without eating first. The food you eat out may be high in calories, but you’ll eat less if you eat something healthy before you go.

Try and walk after dinner.

The average holiday meal can add 5 pounds because you can easily consume 5000 calories when you include the drinks. Do you remember how long it took to lose 5 pounds? It’s easy to add 10 pounds over the Holidays and it can take months to lose it. You’ll be expected to eat and drinks so be careful you don’t hate yourself after the season is over.

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone. Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight".

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

Monday, November 22, 2021

Your Diet Is The Secret To Losing Weight

I wrote other posts about changing your life if you want to lose weight. You’ve heard about the French and that the French have a diet that would put weight on any American, but they’re thin. The men and women of all ages in France are thinner than Americans.

When medical science first looked at their diet they thought that the red wine they drank was the answer. These people eat out as much as we do, they don’t even know what low cal means. So how do they do it? First of all, they walk more. Urban people don’t use cars that much, They walk everywhere. Also, bike riding is more popular, you see gasoline has always been expensive in Europe and the people have learned to conserve.

Conserving on food is something that France has done since World War II when food was scarce. So today their meal portions are smaller than ours and combine this with the increased amount of walking the French do and it’s much easier for them to control their weight. Also, the French eat real food, fresh food. Fresh locally grown food with the emphasis on poultry and seafood. All the time I spent in France I didn’t see any processed foods. No Manufactured food. I’m sure the food scene is a little different today, but not that different. You still buy produce at a produce market, seafood from a fish market, meat from a butcher and bread from a bakery. And from what I remember, there was a lot of competition. The food was amazing, I gained 10 pounds that summer. I loved the food, I ate like I never ate food before. Then I came back to the states and back to reality.

When I was in France the exchange rate was 10 francs to 1 dollar, great for Americans, but expensive for the French. Food for the locals was expensive, maybe that’s why the portions were smaller than our portions.

We should take a lesson from France, they had the same kind of overweight problem and they beat it. Now it’s our turn as Americans to whip the overweight problem in this country. It’s our overweight problem that has caused Health Insurance to escalate to an unaffordable level, to the point where we now have a Health Insurance crisis.

Being overweight and bad eating habits are the cause of most of our health problems. This is something we can do something about if we try.

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone. Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight".

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

What's The Secret To Losing Weight?

I get this same question over and over again in my inbox. So I’m writing this post to give some answers to those who haven’t been successful.

So you’re finally ready to lose weight. Now the question is: How?

The standard advice — to eat less and move more — isn’t so helpful when it comes to the “how.” You probably know you need to cut calories, but how many? Are you better off getting those calories from low-fat or low-carb foods? And what’s going on with your metabolism, your personal energy-burning furnace? Is it programmed to keep you overweight? Is there any way to fan the flames so you can dream of one day eating a piece of pie without gaining a pound?

Even science is still stumped on many of the basic questions of weight loss.

“Amazingly, in this era of obesity, there are still many things that medicine really doesn’t know,” says Robin Callister, PhD, professor of human physiology at the University of Newcastle in Australia.

Here’s what we do know about some of the most persistent mysteries of weight loss.

Do You Have to Cut 3,500 Calories to Lose a Pound?

The idea that dieters need to cut this many calories — with diet, exercise or both — to lose 1 pound of weight comes from an influential scientific paper published in 1958. Max Wishnofsky, MD, a doctor who lived in Brooklyn, N.Y., tried to sum up everything we knew about how calories are stored by the body. He concluded that when the body is in a steady caloric state — meaning it isn’t fasting or starving — extra calories will be stored as fat, and it would take 3,500 extra calories to create a pound of fat. In that same steady state, he also said it would take a deficit of 3,500 calories to lose a pound of weight. For decades, the “Wishnofsky Rule” has been math that determined dieters live by.

The trouble is that it’s wrong.

The 3,500-calorie rule doesn’t work because the body adjusts to weight loss. It quickly decreases the number of calories it needs to maintain its new, lighter size, says Corby Martin, PhD, director of the Ingestive Behavior Laboratory at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, LA. That means weight loss slows down over time. People who expect to drop a pound for every 3,500 calories they cut will soon become frustrated when the scale doesn’t cooperate.

Let’s say a dieter knows they need to eat 2,500 calories a day to maintain their current weight. But they want to slim down. So they decide to shave 500 calories off their daily intake. According to the Wishnofsky Rule, after about a week of doing that, they should lose a pound.

“For the first week or two, the 3,500 calorie-per-pound rule kind of works, roughly, but after the first couple of weeks it doesn’t work,” Martin says.

Here’s why: In 3 or 4 weeks, you need less food to maintain that new, slimmer shape. I know you only lost a couple pounds and if you might only have to lose 10 pounds, you’re going to plateau several times. The problem with this formula is that we don’t have the same food today that we had in 1958. Believe me, I was there, I just started high school. In those days farmers did use pesticides to control bugs but we didn’t chemically engineer our food like we do today. It’s chemicaly engineered food that will cause food addiction and furthermore cause obesity.

Forget cutting back on the food your eating; you have to go back to eating fresh foods. When it comes to fruits and vegetables, it’s best to buy organic. Ration the red meat your eating; it’s marbled with fat and it’s causing you to increase your body fat. Seafood and chicken or turkey are a better choice. Never eat tube meat or any other processed or manufactured food. If you don’t eat foods that add to your body fat, your body will burn the stored fat you have.

Are All Calories Equal?

Fujioka counsels his patients to pay attention to how alcohol affects their eating.

“Some folks, when they drink alcohol, feel like they have license to eat whatever they want to, and they get into problems,” he says.

If a glass of wine weakens your will to resist that plate of cheese and crackers, it’s not doing your waistline any favors.

But if booze doesn’t affect your eating, then one or two drinks is probably OK, he says.

As for calories from fat, carbohydrates, and protein, this is where one size, or one eating plan, really doesn’t fit all.

There is good science to show that people who have high blood sugar levels — associated with conditions like type 2 diabetes, prediabetes, gestational diabetes, polycystic ovary syndrome, and fatty liver disease — benefit from diets that are lower in refined carbohydrates and higher in healthy fats and lean proteins. Examples of this kind of diet are South Beach, the Zone diet, the Mediterranean diet, and the low GI diet.

If insulin levels aren’t a concern, there’s little difference in the amount of weight people lose if they cut their calories from fat or from carbs, says Kevin Hall, PhD, a senior investigator and expert in metabolism at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in Bethesda, MD. But he says protein calories are a different story.

In the lab, researchers have shown that higher-protein diets tend to increase the number of calories a person burns, Hall says. “So in that sense, a protein calorie is not equivalent to a carbohydrate or a fat calorie,” he says.

Protein helps you burn more calories during the day and helps preserve muscle. When people lose weight, they don’t just lose fat — they also lose muscle. The more muscle you lose on a diet, the more your metabolism slows. That can make it tough to keep the weight off down the road. Protein also helps you feel satisfied for longer after your eat.

But people can eat only so much protein without changing their kidney function. U.S. dietary guidelines recommend that adults keep their protein in a range of 10% to 35% of total calories each day. Most diets fall into that range. Atkins, for example, one of the highest protein diets around, supplies 35% of daily calories from protein.

Weight loss is a mystery to some of us because we don’t know how we gain the excess body fat, so we don’t know what we have to do to lose the fat. Most of us think if we can just lose some weight the fat will disappear, but it doesn’t work that way and that’s why most of us give up trying.

Change the food your eating and you will lose weight. In other words, stop eating the foods and stop drinking anything with calories and try eating foods on the “food pyramid”.

There are three catagories with lots of choices so pick your foods and drinks from the food pyramid. The “Daily” section you can eat every day, the “weekly” means only once a week and the “monthly” means only once a month. No need to count calories on this diet just stick to the pyramid.

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone. Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight".

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

Thursday, November 18, 2021

Can You Play Catch-Up With Exercise

I found this post today and it’s worth reblogging. This is a question often asked. Even people in good physical condition are prone to miss workouts. Maybe because of your job or maybe your family or maybe we haven’t workout in years and want to start all over again. This author answers that question. Exercise at any age will improve your health. Once you start, stay with it and over time your vitals will improve and you will lose body fat.

By Brenda Goodman, MA
We’re are approaching the new year, and for many of us, that means our resolutions to eat better, get more sleep, and exercise are probably running headlong into real life.

Sure, it’s great to get to the gym every day, but sometimes a daily workout has to go if you’ve been up all night with a sick child or maybe you’re not ready to get back to the gym. Ditto for the idea of packing a healthy lunch and getting plenty of shut-eye.

But don’t give up. Science shows that even if you’ve been less than perfect, you can still reap big health benefits if you catch up.

Didn’t exercise enough last week? Being a weekend warrior has almost as many benefits as Monday-through-Friday workouts. Didn’t get enough shut-eye? Extra ZZZs for a couple of nights can help undo some of the physical harms of cheating your sleep. Ate too much? Studies show that you can make up for overindulging — and even lose some weight — by just being a part-time calorie counter. In fact, experts say, embracing imperfection can help you reach your health goals.

Weekend Warriors Still Win

Before you read on, I want you to know that I tried the hit and miss game when I was trying to lose weight. If you’re doing maintenance you can play that game of missing some workout or overindulging once in a while, but when you’re trying to lose pounds I found it hard to cheat without gaining the weight I lost. In other words, if I was on course to lose 2 pounds a week and I had been losing for several weeks, just one binge meal might cost me a week of progress. I would stop losing, and maybe in gain a pound, but if might take me two weeks before I’d start to lose again.

You’ve probably heard that you need to get about 150 minutes of moderate physical activity like brisk walking, or 75 minutes of vigorous activity like jogging, or some mix of the two, each week. But very few of us reach that goal, which is recommended by the CDC and World Health Organization.

In fact, most Americans get less than 10 minutes of moderate exercise every day, according to a 2015 study that used data collected on nearly 8,000 adults who wore activity monitors for a week. A tiny fraction of people in that study — about 3% — were barely active during the week, but they made up for it on weekends, averaging about an hour of moderate to vigorous physical activity on both Saturday and Sunday.

Now, a new study suggests these “weekend warriors” may be on to something. The study, which included data from more than 63,000 adults in the U.K., found that adults who reported meeting physical activity recommendations by squeezing all their exercise into just one or two sessions a week had a 30% lower risk of early death than people who got no exercise at all. They also had a lower chance of dying from cancer or heart disease than people who were sedentary.

Okay, I can see that something is better than nothing, but you can’t lose weight being a weekend warrior. If you are doing maintenance and are in fit condition, then a weekend warrior might be able to stay fit with two hours or so of extreme exercise on the weekends.

My secret is every day, even if it’s only for 10 minutes, I’ll run through all the exercise I can squeeze as fast as I can. If that’s 10 minutes, okay, tomorrow I’ll do more, but every day I do some exercise. And If I have time, I’ll do yoga after dinner. I’ve been doing this for a few years and have no trouble maintaining my weight strength.

The secret to good health is to lose your body fat and strengthen your muscles. By doing this you’ll increase your blood flow and become a healthier person. When your body is functioning properly, which doesn’t just mean that your feeling fine, it means that all your organs are doing what they should be doing, you will be a much healthier, happier person who doesn’t have to depend on their doctor for their quality of life.

I'll add one tip: Missing occasionally won't hurt your fitness plans, but those who miss too many times tend to ease off their plan and end up quitting so be careful.

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

If you really want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

Sunday, November 14, 2021

When You want to Lose Weight Fast

I don't advise trying to lose weight fast but several of my readers want to lose weight before the holiday parties start.

Working on weight loss? Then you probably want results — fast.

Let me save you some time: skip the fad diets. Their results don’t last. And you have healthier options you can start on — today!

You can safely lose 3 or more pounds a week at home with a healthy diet and lots of exercise, says weight loss counselor Katherine Tallmadge, RD.

I will warn you that this might not work for everyone. And I’ll add that if you're under a doctors care consult them first before changing your diet or doing lots of exercise. Not everyone can achieve weight loss, so if you are taking medications talk to your doctor about a diet that's right for you.

Personally, I have to watch how much dairy I eat and how much gluten I eat. I have trouble digesting both.

How to Lose Weight Fast

If you burn 500 more calories than you eat every day for a week, you should lose about 1-2 pounds

If you want to lose weight faster, you’ll need to eat less and exercise more.

For instance, if you take in 1,050 to 1,200 calories a day, and exercise for one hour per day, you could lose 3-5 pounds in the first week, or more if you weigh more than 250 pounds. It’s very important not to cut calories any further — that’s dangerous.

Limiting salt and starches may also mean losing more weight at first — but that’s mostly fluids, not fat.

“When you reduce sodium and cut starches, you reduce fluids and fluid retention, which can result in up to 5 pounds of fluid loss when you get started,” says Michael Dansinger, MD, of NBC’s The Biggest Loser show.

Diets for Fast Weight Loss

Dansinger recommends eating a diet that minimizes starches, added sugars, and animal fat from meat and dairy foods. For rapid weight loss, he recommends focusing on fruits, veggies, egg whites, soy products, skinless poultry breasts, fish, shellfish, nonfat dairy foods, and 95% lean meat.

Here are more tips from Dawn Jackson Blatner, RD, author of The Flexitarian Diet :

Eat vegetables to help you feel full.
Drink plenty of water.
Get tempting foods out of your home.
Stay busy — you don’t want to eat just because you’re bored.
Eat only from a plate, while seated at a table. No grazing in front of the ‘fridge.
Don’t skip meals.
Keeping a food journal — writing down everything you eat — can also help you stay on track.

“Even if you write it down on a napkin and end up throwing it away, the act of writing it down is about being accountable to yourself and is a very effective tool for weight loss,” says Bonnie Taub Dix, MA, RD, author of Read It Before You Eat It .

Besides jotting down what you ate, and when, you might also want to note how you were feeling right before you ate it. Were you angry, sad, or bored? We often focus so much on foods and calories, but our emotions are a huge part of our eating habits.

If you see a persistent pattern in your emotional eating, please consider talking to a counselor about it. They can be a big help in finding other ways to handle your feelings.

You have to take weight loss seriously if you’re going to make it work for you.

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

Friday, November 12, 2021

New Year's Resolutions You Can Keep All Year

I know it’s a little early to think about New Year’s resolutions but if you can avoid some of those holiday pounds it won’t be so hard losing weight next year.

The reason exercise resolutions rarely last is that they’re often unrealistic and unenjoyable. If you resolve to hit the gym every day, but you have a full-time job and hate working out in public, it’s probably not going to happen. So the answer is “to do the things you can do”.

10,000 Steps a Day

Walking a certain number of steps each day is more realistic and easy to fit in! You don’t need to take all the steps at the same time, you don’t need special equipment, and you don’t even need to leave your house!

Get yourself a fitness tracker or download a tracking app on your smartphone and make a game out of hitting those 10,000 steps per day. If you need to work up to it, start with 5,000 steps per day and add an extra 500 each week.

Walking is the easy exercise program for anyone who doesn’t have time for the gym and doesn’t want to buy exercise equipment. It’s the purest form of exercise and your doctor will love you. The best part is all you need is a pair of walking shoes.

Keep a Food Journal

If you want to lose weight, write down everything you eat. Recording every single bite is super helpful because it holds you accountable to yourself. You can resist all sorts of tempting but unnecessary foods if you know you’re gonna have to write them down, you think twice about picking them up.

Plus, looking back on a written record of your food choices can help you identify diet saboteurs. For example, maybe you didn’t realize that every time you skip breakfast you eat twice as much at dinnertime. If you have one heavy meal a day, it should be in the morning. You want to consume most of your calories in the morning. Afternoon calories should only be eaten in small quantities, like half a sandwich or an apple, a yogurt cup with honey or fruit. You get the idea, a snack of 150 calories twice in the afternoon, just eat healthy. Eating healthy is not about starving, it’s about eating nutritious foods that have little calories.

Buy Healthy

The grocery store should be your new best friend. If you really commit to hitting the supermarket at least twice a week to pick out good-for-you foods, eating healthy will be much easier. If all you have in your kitchen are nutritious, low-calorie snacks and ingredients, that’s what you’re going to eat. A little secret, when you buy fresh it only last 3 0r 4 days, after that you start to end up with more waste.

Drink More Water

Drinking water is one of the easiest things you can do to stay healthy. Water doesn’t have magical fat-burning properties, but it can definitely help with weight loss. In fact, several studies have found that among people who are dieting, those who drank the most water lost the most weight.

My take is that drinking water helps with weight loss for a few reasons. First, sipping H2O can help you feel full and eliminate hunger pains. Second, you save calories every time you drink water instead of a calorie-laden beverage.

This is the best tip I can past along to you: Don’t drink calories!! Half the calories we consume every day is from the drinks we consume.

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Tips For Permanent Weight Loss

Lasting weight loss may not be easy, but it certainly is possible. Weight control really is about calories in and calories out, and the balance between the two.

That’s a little more complicated than it might seem, however. For one thing, it’s absolutely true that two people can eat the same and exercise the same, and one gets fat while the other stays slim. Yes, I agree: That isn’t fair! No one ever promised that life would be.

The reason is simply that our bodies vary in fuel efficiency, just as cars do. Some cars can go far on a gallon of gas, some can’t. We understand some reasons for this, such as variations in genes; others we are just beginning to understand, such as variations in our microbiomes. Some other reasons are still mostly in the realm of theory, such as exposure to germs and environmental contaminants. People vary widely in fuel efficiency—some of us simply need fewer calories to maintain our weight, and so we need fewer to gain weight, too.

We can’t control our genes or metabolic rate directly, but we have considerable control over the calories we burn just the same. Having said that, each body will burn a different number of calories per day even if both people do the same identical things. And why is that, if you have a different size body you will burn a different amount of calories. If you have a different amount of body fat you will burn a different amount of calories. And these deafferents don’t have to be noticeable. They can be very slight. Also, your mood and temperament will make a difference in the calories you burn. Some people are very high strong, an A type personality and they will burn more calories because they tend to move more, they’re more excitable. So A type personalities can burn more calories.

For another, muscle helps burn calories, and by being active, we can build up a bit more of muscle—and actually burn a few more calories in our sleep every night as a result. And by taking good care of ourselves, in general, we help nurture a healthy microbiome, which in turn helps us handle calories in a manner that converts fewer of them to body fat. What that means is that a healthy, strong body will burn more calories naturally, so slim, trim, fit people usually stay that way unless they become ill.

But, of course, the most potent control we have over our weight is to control the calories we take in. That’s hard, especially when the food supply has been intentionally manipulated to maximize how much we eat. But, as stated at the start, it is certainly possible.

Here are my five top-level tips to help you get there from here.

1. Be the Boss

Amazingly, people routinely see food on display, and simply eat it with no thought about what it is, why it’s there, who put it there, whether or not it’s something they really want to eat, or even if they are at all hungry. We joke about this and call it the “See Food Diet”—I see food, and I eat it.

Approach food at least as thoughtfully as clothes, jewelry, or antiperspirant. Choose what’s right for you, and try not to let other people’s random choices influence you. To exert greater control over your choices, do what I do and load up an insulated snack pack with some wholesome snack choices—fresh fruit, nuts, yogurt, hummus, etc.—you keep handy all the time. There’s nothing wrong with eating when you’re hungry, but you want to eat healthy foods.

Actively control the foods you choose to put in your body.

2. Simplify

There are a lot of competing claims about the best foods to eat for health or weight control, but the truth is simple and your choices should be, too.

Whenever possible, eat minimally processed plant foods. One good rule of thumb is that the very best foods of all have an ingredient list just one word long: blueberries or carrots, for example. The more of your diet you construct out of simple, wholesome choices, the better your weight and health will be.

When you eat fresh foods, not canned or frozen, but all fresh and only the best cuts of meat in small quantities ( 3oz. a day) and the rest fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds, you’ll find that you won’t eat as much food. You might snack throughout the day but at the end of the day, you’ll have consumed less food and fewer calories. Eating this way, you’ll become healthier, happier, and have more energy and therefore burn more calories naturally.

3.Make Better Choices

In general, if your buying a box of something, the shorter the ingredient list the better. There are better options in almost every food category, from bread to breakfast cereal, salad dressing to pasta sauce.

One of the many reasons to choose better foods is that it helps us fill up on fewer calories. If you need help making better choices, I recommend checking out information from NuVal (a resource that scores food based on nutritional value) and Turn the Tide Foundation, an organization to empower people to achieve sustainable weight control and live healthier lives.

4. Call in the Cavalry

Involve your whole family in an effort to eat better—not just to lose weight, but to be healthier. There isn’t a better gift we can give the people we care about, or that they can give us, than better odds at a long, vital life. You can help one another get there by making the journey together. I want to comment on this last paragraph.

I want to comment on this last paragraph. It takes a total lifestyle change if you want to lose weight and some people aren’t willing to do that. Some people are still looking for the “Pill” that will make your fat magically disappear. You can’t force people to change; they have to want it. I found the best way to influence people is to lead by example. When your friends or family see how great you look they’ll want to be like you.

5. Move It to Lose It, and Gain Even More

Exercise is rarely the best way to lose weight, but it is an important element in weight maintenance and crucial to good health. Besides, by giving your body the motion for which it is adapted, you simply start feeling better—and that provides energy and motivation you can translate into better food choices. It’s a virtuous circle you can set in motion by setting yourself in motion every chance you get.

Remember the Effect of the World Around Us

The places around the world where people most consistently enjoy longevity, vitality, and a healthy, stable weight over a lifetime are the places where cultural norms help make it so. It’s much easier to be active when everybody walks everywhere. It’s easier to eat well when your “native” diet is an optimal diet. But no one of us has the power to snap our fingers and change our whole culture.

But we can, however, change ourselves. We can help our families change, and they can help us. And of course, when enough of us change, that adds up to culture change.

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

ray0369 1:40 pm on November 26, 2019

The Time Of The Year We Love And Hate

We love the Holidays. The shopping, the parties with our friends, the Holiday music and the movies, we love it all. But the part we hate is all the extra calories. And for most of us, we are so busy during the Holidays that we slack off on our workouts just to have more time for everything else.

If your anything like me, the holidays are guaranteed to add 10 pounds. It happens every year and it takes 3 months to lose it. Hopefully it doesn’t take you 3 months, but for me it’s a chore. The problem for me is that I get use to eating those foods I love but I gave up to lose weight. In stead of sampling, I was indulging and in January when I should give up those treats, I tricked myself into thinking I can eat those treats if I just cut back a little.

Cutting back never worked for me. I have to cut out those treats and get back to my weight loss diet. I have to eat all-natural foods, no dairy, an almost “gluten-free” diet if I can. This type of diet isn’t right for everyone but it works for me. I follow the “Mediterranean diet” and I get all the nutrition I need and by eating several small meals a day I’m never hungry.

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

ray0369 8:26 am on November 23, 2019

Obesity is 3X More Deadly for Men

Most Americans still think Obesity is for the seriously overweight, those people that are 400 pounds or more. It’s not true if your body mass is 30% fat you’re considered to be Obese. I found this post in a newsletter I received the other day.

(HealthDay News) — Obesity is nearly three times more deadly for men than it is for women, new research suggests.

In a study of nearly 4 million men and women around the globe, the risk of dying before the age of 70 was 19 percent for men and 11 percent for women of normal weight.

But that risk jumped to 30 percent and 15 percent, respectively, for obese men and women. That’s an absolute increased risk of 11 percent for men and 4 percent for women, the researchers reported.

“Obesity is second only to smoking as a cause of premature death in America,” said lead researcher Richard Peto of Oxford in England. So how do you tell if your obese. The easy way might be to ask your doctor, but if you want to now right now a good indicator is to measure your waist. The rule of thumb use to be “if your waist measures 40 inches. But so many people don’t measure their waist properly so it’s not very actuate. Than science came up with another way. If your waist measure more than half your height your overweight, but that still means that it depends on who is measuring. The right way to measure your waist is to start at the naval and measure around the body and back to the naval.

Every inch you can lose around your waist and you’ll become healthier. Your heart benefits the most, but you will lose weight and increase your energy level.

“If you could lose about 10 percent of your weight, a woman would knock 10 percent off the risk of dying before she was 70, and for a man it would knock about 20 percent off,” Peto said.

Why obese men are at greater risk for premature death than women isn’t clear.

“Our study was not able to address this question, but previous observations have suggested that obese men have greater insulin resistance, liver fat levels, and diabetes risk than women,” said study co-author Dr. Emanuele Di Angelantonio, a lecturer at the University of Cambridge in England.

The British and Canadians do a lot more research on your health in general than we do in the U.S. because both countries have National Healthcare and anything that drives up the cost of healthcare will increase their taxes.

One U.S. expert said more research is needed to explore the apparent link between obesity and mortality.

Avoiding obesity has clear advantages for both men and women, Graubard said. “In addition, we know from other studies that physical activity can reduce mortality risk,” he said.

In the new study, researchers collected data on 3.9 million adults, aged 20 to 90. The information came from 189 previous studies in Europe, North America and elsewhere. The investigators included data on all those who lived at least another five years. Over the time of the study, nearly 400,000 participants died. The study findings showed that underweight people were also at risk for premature death.

The World Health Organization estimates that 1.3 billion adults worldwide are overweight, and 600 million more are obese. And, obesity has been strongly linked in previous research to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer, the researchers said.

This study overcomes many of the limitations of earlier efforts and “renders a clear and emphatic verdict — obesity increases the risk of premature death around the globe,” Katz said.

This study also indicates that the risk extends across the full range of overweight and obesity — the more severe the obesity, the graver the danger of early death

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

ray0369 3:22 pm on November 21, 2019

Mediterranean Diet May Ease Chronic Pain From Obesity

This story first appeared on MedicineNet.com and explains a bit why overweight people suffer from pain. Yes, the extra weight you carry around will put stress on your joints, wearing out the cushion between bones and allowing them to rub, but that’s not your only problem. Your poor diet can also be causing pain. The Mediterranean style of eating, the way the Mediterranean people eat, can be a healthier diet and will give the foods you need to reduce your pain and help you lose weight. So what does this diet look like?

People who are overweight and plagued by chronic pain may find relief in a Mediterranean diet, new research suggests.

The study of 98 men and women between the ages of 20 and 78 builds on growing evidence that a diet heavy on fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and beans provide significant health benefits. It also sheds new light on why eating these foods might reduce the pain associated with obesity.

Because obese people with chronic pain usually also have a high degree of inflammation, lead researcher Charles Emery suspects the foods’ anti-inflammatory properties might explain the reduced pain levels.

“Although the relationship of body fat and pain has been well-documented in prior studies, the mechanism is not known,” said Emery, a professor of psychology at Ohio State University.

“One possibility is the stress of body weight on joints. A second possible mechanism is via inflammatory factors in the bloodstream, because both body fat and pain are known to be associated with elevated inflammation,” he said.

Slightly more than 70 percent of American adults are overweight, with 38 percent considered obese (at least 30 pounds overweight), according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study done found that no matter what you weighed, those who ate more fish and plant-based proteins such as nuts and beans had less pain.

While adjusting their findings to account for age-related pain among older participants, the researchers found that a Mediterranean diet benefited men and women of all ages.

“The next step is to conduct a study with blood markers of inflammation,” Emery said. “Then it would be ideal to conduct an intervention study to evaluate the change in body fat, inflammation, and pain.”

A nutrition expert who reviewed the study said it reinforces the health benefits of a diet centered on seafood and plant-based proteins.

“This study provides an early look at a possible role diet might play in offsetting pain, but more research is needed,” said Connie Diekman, director of university nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis.

“Studies are needed in healthy adults to see if inflammatory markers are the same with similar pain as they are in obese adults,” she said. “Studies are needed that look at diet over a longer period of time.”

It would be beneficial to know, for example, if following a Mediterranean diet while young affected a person’s pain as an adult.

Still, Diekman said the new findings help drive home the point that what you eat matters.

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

ray0369 1:06 pm on November 19, 2019

What’s Behind The Gluten-Free Trend?

Not that many years ago, the letters “GF” on a restaurant menu would likely have puzzled many people. No longer.

These days, a gluten-free lifestyle has become one of the most popular diet trends in the U.S. One in five people now reduce or eliminate gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley or rye, in their diet, according to a 2015 Gallup poll.

Avoiding gluten is crucial for people with celiac disease. That’s because, in them, gluten damages the small intestine and nutrients can’t be absorbed. Its symptoms include diarrhea, constipation, bloating, and pain.

But only about 1% of the population has celiac disease, and that number hasn’t changed in recent years, says Hyun-seok Kim, MD. In one study he looked at a national survey taken from 2009 to 2014. Although celiac disease numbers remained stable during that time, the number of people following a gluten-free diet tripled, from 0.5% of the population to nearly 2%.

The study’s researchers say that some who follow a gluten-free diet without a diagnosis of celiac disease may have non-celiac gluten sensitivity. People with non-celiac gluten sensitivity have similar symptoms but don’t have celiac disease. People with a wheat allergy may also follow the diet to prevent an allergic reaction.

But do others need to go gluten-free? Maybe not, but because it seems like all grain in flour is processed, these grains are not the grains that our grandparents could buy. You can buy some whole grain products, but read the labels carefully, some things labeled whole grain are not all whole grain, just partially. If a product has partial whole grain it can still put the words “whole grain” on the label. Be sure you can trust the product. Manufacturers today are using the labels for a selling tool.

Who Is Going Gluten-Free, and Why?

Nearly 100 million Americans say they ate gluten-free products in 2015, says William F. Balistreri, MD, a doctor at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Americans spent an estimated $4 billion on gluten-free products in 2015, he says.

Kim’s research has found that women are more likely than men to avoid gluten, and the diet is more popular among 20- to 39-year-olds. It’s also popular among world-class athletes. In another survey, 41% of 910 world-class athletes and Olympic medalists said they followed a gluten-free diet at least half the time, and most had self-diagnosed their gluten sensitivity. Among the many stars reportedly going gluten-free are Gwyneth Paltrow, Russell Crowe, and Kim Kardashiant.

If you thing for any reason that you’re easily bloated after a meal or if your bothered with gas after eating, it won’t hurt to try a gluten-free diet for a couple weeks and see if there’s any difference. It’s simple really, gluten-free products use rice flour instead of other grains. Anything you buy that is made with flour will have gluten unless it states on the package “gluten-free”.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

ray0369 8:52 am on November 16, 2019

About Weight Loss Posts

You can’t take to heart everything you read on the internet. First of all, I’m not an expert, a doctor, or dietitian. I took an interest in health and fitness about 30 years ago and read everything I could get my hands on. I still read about the newest trends in diets and exercise. It wasn’t until about 10 years ago that I got on the kick to lose fat.

Losing body fat is key to a slimmer, trimmer body. I learned the hard way that most of the “fad diets” do nothing to lose fat. They starve you and with additives that you get from the pills or foods they sell will empty out the digestive system which can be 10 or 20 pounds. Yes, water weight and the food in your colon will add up but this type of weight loss only gets rid of bloating, water weight and the food in your system at the moment. It does nothing to lose fat.

These type of diets are a waste of money and a waste of your time. I lost most of my body fat in a few months. I learned from reading newsletters, and posts on the internet that your body burns the foods you eat to create energy, that’s something we all know, but it needs to burn protein, carbs, and fat everyday. Here is the important part. The body is working on “real time” the different food groups provide different needs. Protein comes from meat and plants. About 20 percent of your daily intake should be protein. I prefer seafood and poultry for protein. Carbs should be about 50 percent of your intake and fats about 30 percent of your intake.

Carbs come from fruit, veggies, and grain. Fats come from plants like olive oil, avocados, and from meat. Now the important stuff. Your body will only process the amount of food it needs to create the amount of energy that you need for what ever you’re doing. In other words, if we are consuming about the same amount of food every day but are not active enough every day to burn that much food into energy, the excess will be stored in fat cells.

Now, the way I lost my fat was to stop eating animal fat. The body needs fat to keep your moving parts healthy and isn’t particular where it comes from. So because I wasn’t eating enough fats the body had to burn stored fats. I a few months I went from a 38 inch waist to a 34. My legs got thinner and overall I was losing fat. I’m 6 foot tall and weight 160 pounds today. I have new found energy and all those health problems I had disappeared.

I’m not going to presume that the method I used will work for everyone but everyone’s goal should be the same. Lose body fat however you can and become a thinner, healthier, and happier person with the energy you thought you lost. Just because there’s more candles on your birthday cake doesn’t mean that your body is getting older.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

ray0369 3:49 pm on November 12, 2019

Obesity is 3X More Deadly for Men

Most Americans still think Obesity is for the seriously overweight, those people that are 400 pounds or more. It’s not true, if your body mass is 30% fat you’re considered to be Obese. I found this post in a newsletter I received the other day.