Sugar is a slow acting killer

Too much sugar makes you gain weight and can harm your health. And you have to be especially careful about how much sugar you eat if you have diabetes.

One of my readers told me he stopped eating anything with sugar or sugar substitutes. After three months he felt like a different person. He will never eat anything with sugar again.

Too much sugar makes you gain weight and can harm your health. And you have to be especially careful about how much sugar you eat if you have diabetes.

Before you read on, I have a reader that told me he quit sugar. I know it's hard to believe a person can quit sugar. It is on every food label I pick up. And chemical additives like artificial sweeteners are even worse. So how did he do that?

The American Heart Association advises:

• Do not add table sugar, syrup, or honey to cereal, coffee, tea, or pancakes. If you must add sugar, add half the usual amount.
• Drinking more water and avoiding soda. Opt for sugar-free drinks.
• Eating canned fruit in water, instead of sugar-laden syrup.
• Reducing sugar in recipes by at least one-third. Or instead of sugar, use extracts such as lemon, almond, or vanilla.
• Use unsweetened applesauce in place of sugar.

When an adult adds weight to their body they’re adding fat. It’s so easy to add fat and you don’t even realize it. For instance, if you’re eating a well-balanced meal and then decide to drink a Coke with your dinner, the sugary drink will slow down your metabolism and you will only burn the carbs in your meal and will store more of the fat in the food you’re eating. You must help your body metabolize your food; drinking water or plain tea is the best way.

Follow me on X, the former Twitter, @ray0369 to get a link to my latest posts.

If you 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 first 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. 

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.

Can You spot reduce?

 This is a question that comes up frequently. Yes, I have concentrated on the waist, hips, and thighs. Certain exercises are for specific parts of the body. These exercises will work if you follow a weight-loss diet.

There is a catch, you will lose fat where you want but also in other areas, you didn't expect. In my case, I wanted to reduce my waist size. I found a few exercises on the internet that worked for me, but I did have to stop eating some of my favorite foods. I like some of the chair exercises for the lower body. Use the link below and try it yourself.

https://youtube.com/shorts/R5rs9CE1SVM?si=gcKR59eyy5HDtb1s

I'll make a suggestion, I know the exercises look simple and easy and they are, but if you want results, you have to work at it. Doing these exercises every morning might take a week or so before you can do them properly. Don't give up because you can't do them. I encourage you to hit the subscribe button, it's free, that way you will get new videos then he will send them out. 

One more thing, after you rest for a couple of minutes repeat the three exercises. You can do this in 10 minutes. To get quicker results, repeat the 10-minute workout in the afternoon. Don't do too much at one time. When you get tired, stop, you want to do the exercises properly to get results.

Follow me on X, the former Twitter, @ray0369 to get a link to my latest posts.

If you 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 first 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. 

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.

Losing Weight Will Be Automatic

 Many people don’t understand that losing weight will become automatic once you get on the right diet.  Healthy foods, not the lack of food or skipping meals but just eating the right foods will give you newfound energy that you forgot you had. The energy to get moving again and that extra activity will burn more calories and the body fat will begin to melt away.

This won’t happen overnight, but changing your diet and eating healthy foods will almost immediately impact the amount of energy you have every day. It only takes a couple of weeks, and you’ll feel the difference. A healthy diet has many more benefits like you won’t be getting sick anymore, and you won’t have to take vitamin supplements. You’ll sleep better and getting more sleep will help you lose weight. You can also save a lot of money by cutting out vitamin pills and other supplements and spending your money on fresh foods.

You can do a search “powerhouse fruit and vegetables” to get a complete list and more info but in short:

Watercress, Chinese cabbage, chard, and beet greens are among the most nutrient-dense “powerhouse” vegetables, packing a huge dose of vitamins and minerals into every calorie. That’s important if you’re trying to lose weight because you still have to count calories.

At the same time, don’t expect to receive huge amounts of nutrition from raspberries, tangerines, garlic or onions, the findings suggest.

National nutrition guidelines emphasize the consumption of powerhouse fruits and vegetables, which are strongly associated with reduced risk of chronic diseases like cancer.

But until now, the study author noted, the nutritional value of veggies hasn’t been ranked in a way that would show which best qualifies as nutrient-dense powerhouse foods.

Higher-ranking foods in this study provide more nutrients per calorie. The scores may help focus consumers on their daily energy needs, and how best to get the most nutrients from their foods. The rankings provide clarity on the nutrient quality of the different foods and may aid in the selection of more nutrient-dense items within the powerhouse group.

The study calculated the nutrition contained in 47 fruits and veggies, finding that all but six met the criteria as a powerhouse food.

Cruciferae and dark green leafy vegetables dominate the top 10. They are, in order, watercress, Chinese cabbage, chard, and beet greens, followed by spinach, chicory, leaf lettuce, parsley, romaine lettuce, and collard greens.

All the top vegetables contain high levels of B vitamins, vitamin C, vitamin K, iron, riboflavin, niacin, and folate — nutrients that help protect people against cancer and heart disease, the researcher noted.

These have a lot of the B-vitamins and a lot of fiber in the leaves.  If you think about plants, that’s where they store their nutrients. Those green leafy vegetables have a lot of minerals vitamins and fiber in those leaves, and very few calories. These make the perfect food for dieters.

People who chop off the leafy part of vegetables such as celery, carrots, or beets are actually cutting away some very good nutrients.

The six fruits and vegetables that didn’t make the list as powerhouse foods are raspberries, tangerines, cranberries, garlic, onions, and blueberries. While all contain vitamins and minerals, they are not densely packed with important nutrients, the study said.

The full list is published June 5 in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease or you can find the list online.

Folks will get good nutrition from the powerhouse veggies whether they eat them raw or cook them, as long as they don’t boil them.

Fresh, you have 100 percent of the vitamins and minerals. When you cook it, you might lose a small percentage, but it’s not significant.

Boiling, however, can drain veggies of B vitamins, vitamin C, and other nutrients. Cooks who choose to boil spinach or collard greens should save the nutrient-rich water, either including a little with each serving or re-using the water in sauces or soups.

Vegetables are carbs and grains are carbs and carbs should be the biggest part of your diet with protein only about 20 or 25 percent of your diet. Grains need to be whole grain like some breads or oatmeal but the other carbs should come from veggies. Carbs can be the biggest problem with your diet. The wrong carbs will turn to fat almost instantly. Think about what you're eating and how long it takes you to lose fat.

Follow me on X, the former Twitter, @ray0369 to get a link to my latest posts.

If you 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 first 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. 

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.

Why Does “Quick Weight Loss” Always Come Back

 

Quick weight loss doesn’t reduce body fat. In fact, your BMI is likely to increase. Why is that? BMI is the percentage of body fat compared to Total Body Mass. So quick weight loss is actually reducing body mass. So losing weight quickly, like your first 10 pounds, usually is just water weight and the food you have stored in your digestive system. Your GI tract will hold a lot of food. It normally takes 3 days for your food to pass through your system.

Think about everything you eat in 3 days. That first 10 pounds is your first diet stage for most of us.  After that, your body takes a break and you stop losing. This is normal. Losing now becomes more difficult. You changed your eating habits and the body has to get used to it. Anytime we change our diet the body starts to hoard food until it realizes that you're not depriving the body of nutrition.

Think about your diet this way. Your body will send you signals to consume more until it gets all the nutrition it needs or until it’s full and can’t hold anymore. It’s the latter that causes weight gain. The body retains the food it can’t break down and use. That food it retains is stored in fat cells and you gain weight in the form of body fat. Most of this fat will never be used and the older it gets the harder it gets and the more difficult it is to get rid of. It’s much better for your body if you don’t add excess fat as an adult. Having extra fat will use up your energy. All body mass takes energy to maintain and even body fat has to be kept alive and that uses a part of your energy. So when you are overweight you get tired quicker, you spend more time sitting, and you're less active which only causes you to gain more weight.

It’s a continuing habit that’s caused by not eating the right foods. If you want to lose body fat and get healthy, “stop dieting”, and change the foods you eat and your body will burn your body. Your body burns protein, carbohydrates, and fats to create the energy that you need to live.  You need energy just to think, for your heart to pump, for you to talk, and you get the energy from the foods you eat. But if your body is using all the energy you provide just to keep your body mass alive then you won’t have much for walking or thinking, or to keep your heart pumping.

Learn how to lose your fat and give your body more energy.

Follow me on X, the former Twitter, @ray0369 to get a link to my latest posts.

If you 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 first 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. 

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.