Have You Hears Of The "RAW FOOD DIET"

This was first published on WebMD and I'd like to add that some vegetables will actually release more antioxidants if they're cooked, like tomatoes.

The Promise

Your oven gets a rest on this diet. You'll mostly be eating raw fruits, vegetables, and grains.

There's been lots of talk lately about eating raw foods. I understand and that's why most recipes don't boil foods anymore. They claim all the nutrition ends up in the water you throw out. 

The idea is that heating food destroys its nutrients and natural enzymes, which is bad because enzymes boost digestion and fight chronic disease. In short: When you cook it, you kill it.

Some fans of raw food diets believe cooking makes food toxic. They claim that a raw food diet can clear up headaches and allergies, boost immunity and memory, and improve arthritis and diabetes. To take this one step further, Some believe that modern pots and pans cause a lot of our health problems. Example, cooking in Aluminum cook ware and cookware that has a coating inside.

What You Can Eat and What You Can't

Think uncooked, unprocessed, mostly organic foods. Your staples: raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and sprouted grains. Some eat unpasteurized dairy foods, raw eggs, meat, and fish. I will eat Sushi but I don't  know about raw meat. Meat contains chemicals like growth hormones that are feed to cattle. Your food can be cold or even a little bit warm, as long as it doesn’t go above 118 degrees.You can use blenders, food processors, and dehydrators to prepare foods.

Level of Effort: High

You may need to ramp up your kitchen skills. Eating out can be tricky, and if you go organic, you may need to go to specialty stores for a wider selection than your usual grocery store.

Cooking and shopping: Prep work can be extensive. Many raw food fans become experts at blending and dehydrating foods. Some germinate nuts and sprout seeds. I'm not that into it, but I do believe you can buy all you need in specialty stores. A raw food diet will give you a lot of fiber so You won't eat as much as you think. You want to buy foods in small amounts and shop more often. People on this diet will usually take supplements usually protein power along with others. This is for the organic crowd so you'll be drinking mostly water and maybe wine on occasion. 

Because some uncooked and unpasteurized foods are linked to food-borne illness, you’ll need to wash your food thoroughly and be extra careful with risky foods like sprouts, raspberries, unpasteurized juices, green onions, and lettuce.

Dy of us.ue to the risk of food poisoning, a raw foods diet isn't recommended for pregnant women, young children, seniors, people with weak immune systems, and those with chronic medical conditions like kidney disease.

My opinion is that there is merit to the idea that raw foods are healthier but If you have to buy food, it might be best if you cook it. If you grow your food that's different.  I was raised on a farm and we grew all our fruits and vegetables. We knew the cow next door personally and didn't worry about the milk. The point I'm trying to make is that we ate much of our food raw and it never was a health problem for any of us. But that was 50 years ago, today's different. Most of our fruit and vegetables come from other countries and we don't know what happens between picking and the grocery store.  It's a good idea not to take any chances with your food.

If you really want to lose the extra flab you can get help, I write 4 blogs and I’ve written two E-books. Read some of my other blog posts.
gettingtoahealthyweight.blog
idropped40pounds.wordpress.com
howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight.blogspot.com

blogonweight.blogspot.com

E-books are the easiest and cheapest way to learn about any subject without groping through hundreds of website looking for the material you want.

My first e-book is “HowBadDoYouWantToLoseWeight” and it sells for $2.99 on most online bookstores like Amazon.com, BN.com, iBook, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, and Gardner books in the U.K.

My second e-book is available in the same stores. And on smashwords.com. If you use the smashwords' promotional code You can get my second book for $1.99 (TL96R). Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.

Adult Obesity Rates Are Still On The Rise

Great post, read it closely, you don't want this in your future. This blog post was first on WebMD.com. Because Obesity is the source of most of our health problems, this is a most read.

Although obesity rates continued to climb among U.S. adults over the past decade, they stabilized for children and teens, federal health officials reported Thursday.

More than 36 percent of adults and 17 percent of America's kids were obese between 2011 and 2014, said researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These are the latest years for which national statistics are available.

Analyzing weight trends since 1999, researchers found the ranks of obese adults have swelled significantly in the last 10 years.

Adult obesity rates climbed from slightly over 32 percent in 2003-04 to almost 38 percent by 2013-14, said lead researcher Cynthia Ogden, an epidemiologist in the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

Among youths aged 2 to 19, she said, 17.2 percent of children were obese in 2014, compared with 17.1 percent in 2003. "There is basically no difference [in the obesity rate in this group]," she said.

Obesity is a major cause of chronic disease, including heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, dementia and arthritis, said Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center, in New Haven, Conn.

"Where there is a high prevalence of obesity, there are high rates of preventable chronic disease," Katz said.

Widespread efforts to encourage people to eat healthy and exercise may be having a positive effect, Katz said.

"But we will not really know if these are working until obesity rates and the rates of related diseases dip decisively," he said. "While there is some encouragement in these new data, clearly, we are not there yet."

• More women (about 38 percent) were obese than men (about 34 percent). No gender difference was observed among children and teens.
• Obesity was higher among middle-aged (about 40 percent) and older (37 percent) adults than younger adults (about 32 percent).
• More whites, blacks and Hispanics were obese than Asians.
• Nearly 9 percent of preschoolers were obese, versus more than 17 percent of kids aged 6 to 11. 
• Among teens, more than 20 percent were obese.Adult obesity was defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more. BMI is a calculation of body fat based on height and weight. For example, someone 5 feet 9 inches who weighs 203 pounds or more has a BMI of 30. Among youth, a BMI in the 95th percentile or higher for their age and sex was deemed obese, the CDC said.Katz, who is also president of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, wasn't overwhelmed youth obesity statistics. "Stable obesity rates over much of the past decade is the proverbial glass half-full or half-empty, depending on one's perspective," he said.The glass is half-full because stabilization is an improvement over obesity increases seen for decades, he said. "The glass is half-empty, because stable rates are not falling rates, and obesity prevalence remains alarmingly high," Katz said.What's unclear, Katz added, is whether stable rates mean the obesity epidemic is being treated effectively or that everyone who is vulnerable to obesity is already obese. "I suspect a bit of both [is true]," he said.
• WebMD News from HealthDay
  
  

  If you really want to lose the extra flab you can get help, I write 4 blogs and I’ve written two E-books. Read some of my other blog posts.
  gettingtoahealthyweight.blog
  idropped40pounds.wordpress.com
  howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight.blogspot.com

  blogonweight.blogspot.com

  
  

  E-books are the easiest and cheapest way to learn about any subject without groping through hundreds of website looking for the material you want.My first e-book is “HowBadDoYouWantToLoseWeight” and it sells for $2.99 on most online bookstores like Amazon.com, BN.com, iBook, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, and Gardner books in the U.K.
  My second e-book is available in the same stores. And on smashwords.com. If you use the Smashwords' promotional code You can get my second book for $1.99 (TL96R). Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.
  
  

Reviewing "The Flat Belly Diet"

What you eat matters! This is what they Promise you. I found this in my email today and wanted to write about it. This is really what everyone hopes for when they diet.

The Promise

Eat fat and lose weight. That's the promise of the Flat Belly Diet.

Now for the fine print: The kind of fat matters. The plan focuses on monounsaturated fats, which you get from olive oil, nuts, and other plant foods.

Authors Liz Vaccariello and Cynthia Sass, MPH, RD, claim that in 32 days, you can lose up to 15 pounds and drop belly fat by following their plan:

• Eat 400 calories per meal, four times per day (daily total: 1,600).
• Don’t go longer than 4 hours without eating.
• Eat monounsaturated fats at every meal.

What You Can Eat and What You Can't

First, you target bloating for four days, aiming at consuming 1,200 calories each day. During that time, you can't add salt to any food and you must avoid:

• Processed foods
• Foods that can make you gassy, like beans, broccoli, and onions
• Carbs like pasta, bananas, and bagels

You must also drink 2 liters of water mixed with ginger root, cucumber, lemon, and mint leaves, which the book calls "sassy water."

After that, you eat a Mediterranean-style diet for 4 weeks with 1,600 calories per day. The menu includes items like Greek Lemon Chicken and Pumpkin Maple Cheesecake.

Level of Effort: Medium

The diet loosens up a little after 4 days. You'll still need to eat often and include monounsaturated fats, and hit the calorie mark precisely every day.

Limitations: The first 4 days are very restrictive. After that, you must eat 400 calories every 4 hours and include monounsaturated fats with every meal. A busy or unpredictable schedule can make this challenging.

Cooking and shopping: The diet includes recipes, ideas for snacks, and tips for ordering fast food.

Packaged foods or meals? Certain brands of food are recommended but not required.

In-person meetings? No.

Exercise: It's not required. But the book includes a “flat belly workout” to support the diet.

Does It Allow for Dietary Restrictions or Preferences?

Vegetarians and vegans: The plan suggests substitutions that work for these diets.

Low-salt diet: You're not supposed to add salt to anything you cook. You still need to check the label on other foods to see how much sodium they have.

Low-fat diet: This is not a low-fat diet, but the type of fat is heart-healthy. You eat monounsaturated fats at every meal, and you need to watch your portion sizes so you don't get too many calories.

What Else You Should Know

Cost: None except your groceries. Olive oil, nuts, and avocados may add to your bill. You could save by cutting back on other foods that the diet doesn't emphasize.

Support: You do this diet on your own.

What Dr. Michael Smith Says:

Does It Work?

Chances are if you eat just 1,600 calories a day, you’re going to lose weight. But losing 15 pounds in 32 days is a huge stretch.

To do that and lose fat (not water weight), you’d have to cut about 1,600 calories out of your diet every day! You could do that by eating less and increasing your exercise, but that’s a lot to ask of anyone.

There’s also nothing magical about the diet that’s going to lead to a flat belly. Monounsaturated fats don’t have any special effect on belly fat. Any diet that cuts calories and leads to weight loss will slim your belly along with the rest of you.

The diet also recommends you cut back on high-fiber foods like beans and broccoli. Yes, they may cause gas -- maybe even a bit of temporary bloating if you’re not used to them. But these foods are great ways to lose weight and keep it off. Fiber helps you feel full, so you eat less.

If this diet ultimately gets you to follow the Mediterranean diet, then it’s a good thing. That’s a winning strategy and one that has been linked to weight loss in multiple medical studies.

Is It Good for Certain Conditions?

Removing saturated fat (the kind found most often in animal products like meat) and replacing it with monounsaturated fat in moderation is undoubtedly a good thing. It helps lower LDL “bad” cholesterol and the chance of heart attack and stroke. So it’s a good approach for anyone with diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or heart disease.

The aggressive weight loss the plan promises is concerning, and there isn't flexibility on calories. If you have diabetes, you should attempt this diet only under the care of your doctor. You’ll need to work closely together to monitor your blood sugar and adjust your meds, so your blood sugar doesn’t fall too low.

The Final Word

If you’re not ready for a huge change in your diet, look elsewhere for weight loss. The extreme cut in calories in this diet is more likely to leave you discouraged instead of thinner. If you think you have it in you, go for it. Just have a plan in place for sticking with a more moderate weight loss plan in the long run.

I'm going to add something to the Final Word. No one sticks to a restrictive diet for very long. And that's why restrictive diets have a very high failure rate, some as high as 90%. How do I get those numbers? Well, if you put the weight back before the end of the first year, then it's a failure.

So why do people buy into those plans? In the case of this plan, the author wrote a book and is hoping to sell a copy to you. There are people who lose weight and some do actually keep the weight off. But for the average working adult, it's very hard to stick to the plan and I don't think the author has offered any alternatives. In defense of the diet, It will work if you stick to it. Four meals a day, 400 calories in every meal, 4 hours a part and don't skip a meal. Oh, and don't forget to drink the water. I think that requires a lot of meal planning and preparation. If you have an office job, you have to pack two meals to take with you every day. Now they're only 400 calories each and they don't have to be hot meals. Just no processed foods.

I could do that, but I don't have an office job and I don't have to deal with the public, so it's easier for me. You should think about it and if you think you can stick with the diet, do it. Remember, you can't go back to the old diet.

If you really want to lose the extra flab you can get help, I write 4 blogs and I’ve written two E-books. Read some of my other blog post.

gettingtoahealthyweight.wordpress.com

idropped40pounds.wordpress.com

howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight.blogspot.com

blogonweight.blogspot.com

E-books are the easiest and cheapest way to learn about any subject without groping through hundreds of website looking for the material you want.

My first e-book is “HowBadDoYouWantToLoseWeight” and it sells for $2.99 on most online bookstores like Amazon.com, BN.com, iBook, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, and Gardner books in the U.K.

My second e-book is available in the same stores. And on smashwords.com. If you use the smashwords' promotional code You can get my second book for $1.99 (TL96R). Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.

Why Is Junk Food Popular?

By Shereen Lehman, MS, author for VeryWell.com 

This is a blog post from VeryWell.com and because I love this topic I had to write something about this piece. I have to admit that I love Pizza, cookies, ice cream, and a few other junk foods that I don't eat anymore. If you're trying to lose weight you can't even think about these things. If you're just trying to maintain, there are some healthy choices to some of the basic ones, like pizza, cookies, chips, and soft drinks. Even the healthy choices can sabotage a weight loss diet but I can buy a slice of pizza or eat one cookie without adding weight. 

How so, you might ask? Once you lose your body fat and have switched to a healthy diet, your body works better and burns more calories naturally just because muscle burns more calories than fat does. So now you know that if you lose your fat you can do a little cheating if you still eat healthy meals.

Dwight Eschliman/Getty Images

So if junk food is so bad for the body and bad quality overall, why is it so popular? You'd think no one would touch it.

First, let's back up and define "junk foods." It's the stuff you eat that has little to no nutritional value, usually combined with ingredients that are bad for you, or is high in calories when consumed in excess. So that means candy, chips, cookies, cake, sugary soft drinks, greasy burgers, hot dogs, French fries, ice cream, and most things that served at fast food restaurants qualify as junk foods.

So why do so many people eat junk food? Here are three possible reasons:

#1 It's Cheap

I think one big reason junk food is popular is because a lot of it is cheap to buy. I mean you can go to most any fast food restaurant and order something off a dollar menu of some sort. If you have a couple of bucks in your wallet, you can buy a full meal. But, statistics show that most fast food is bought by middle class working people.

Same story at the grocery store. Cheap snacks, inexpensive high-sodium and high-fat meals can be found on the shelves. Healthier foods—like fresh fruits and vegetables—tend to be more expensive. Those bags or cups of instant ramen noodles cost less than 50 cents, whereas an orange costs a dollar. 

Although a lot of junk food is cheap to buy up front, I think the argument can be made that cheap junk foods end up being more expensive in the long run due to their negative impact on health.

#2 It's Easy

This reason goes along with the being cheap part. Junk food is lurking in vending machines, convenience stores, and even stores that don't typically sell food items might have snacks and sodas near the cashiers. Yes, it might be cheaper to buy, but you can find fast foods everywhere you turn because it's a high-profit product. Stores and restaurants want to sell high-profit items to make more money but they know they can't over charge their customers. If you have a menu with $7 or $8 entries, it would not be good for business to raise the price to $9, so the thing to do is to serve entries that have a lower food cost. By doing that you cheapen the quality of the food and the nutritional value of the food goes down. 

You Are What You Eat. 

And if you eat healthy foods you’ll feel healthy. 

Those instant meals I already mentioned? They're easy to prepare, and you can store a bunch of them in your kitchen cabinets for a long time. 

Of course, fast foods live up to the name. You can order a fast food meal and then eat it a minute or two later. Or you can order your meal from your car and save time by wolfing it down while you drive away.

That drive-thru thing isn't good, though. Not only is the food bad for your health, but dropped fries can accumulate in your car, under the seat. And that gets kind of gross.

#3 It's Sweet, Fatty, or Salty (Or All 3)

Rarely do junk foods tempt you with delicate or complicated flavors. They pretty much hit you hard with sweet, fatty and salty flavors. I think those simple flavors might be preferred by people who are picky eaters—it could be the slightly bitter flavor of many vegetables turns some people off, especially kids. 

But it's more than flavor. Various combinations of sugar and fat make for textures people like. Fat makes foods feel smooth and creamy, like ice cream. Starchy potato and corn chips cooked in hot oil have a satisfying crunch. That's not to say that healthy foods don't have a nice texture, but sometimes the textures of fresh fruits and vegetables take a little getting used to.

Then It Becomes a Habit

Since junk foods are easy to find, easy to make, and a lot of them just flat out taste good, consuming them becomes a habit. That's the real problem. I mean eating a candy bar now and then or snarfing down a bag of fries once in awhile isn't all that big a deal. But when junk foods make up a big part of your daily diet, then you run the risk of becoming overweight and obese, plus you're not going to get enough of the nutrients and fiber your body needs for good health.

So, next time you find yourself standing in line at a burger joint or staring at a vending machine, think about how your choice could affect your health. Then walk away and find something better.

If you really want to lose the extra flab you can get help, I write 4 blogs and I’ve written two E-books. Read some of my other blog post.

gettingtoahealthyweight.blog

idropped40pounds.wordpress.com
howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight.blogspot.com

blogonweight.blogspot.com

E-books are the easiest and cheapest way to learn about any subject without groping through hundreds of website looking for the material you want.
My first e-book is “HowBadDoYouWantToLoseWeight” and it sells for $2.99 on most online bookstores like Amazon.com, BN.com, iBook, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, and Gardner books in the U.K.

My second e-book is available in the same stores. And on smashwords.com. If you use the smashwords' promotional code You can get my second book for $1.99 (TL96R). Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.

  

What's Zapping Your Energy?

Sure, we all get draggy from time to time. A sleepless night here and there, a stressful day at the office or one too many doughnuts can take their toll. But when you're constantly feeling drained, it might be time to look at what's bringing you down. Check out these energy zappers and see how many apply to you.

Sugar provides quick energy, but after picking you up, it drops you hard and leaves you looking for more.

One key to cutting back on sugar is having the right food with you so you don't head to the nearest vending machine. "The best intentions go out the window when you're not prepared," says Florida nutritionist Pamela Smith, RD, author of The Energy Edge. Smith tries to make sure she always has healthy snacks on hand, and she advises making sure they contain at least 1 to 2 ounces of protein to keep your blood sugar stable for several hours, combined with a complex carbohydrate to give you a quick boost of energy. Here are a few of her favorites:

• Whole grain crackers and low-fat cheese
• Fresh fruit or a small box of raisins and low-fat cheese
• Half a lean turkey or chicken sandwich
• Plain, nonfat yogurt blended with fruit or all-fruit jam
• Small pop-top can of water-packed tuna or chicken with whole grain crackers

2. Caffeine

Caffeine can also leave us "tired and wired," Silber says. "If we need sleep and we choose caffeine instead, we continue to throw off our natural sleep cycle. If you find that too much caffeine -- whether it comes in the form of coffee, tea, cola, or even chocolate -- is keeping you from getting a good night's sleep, switch to decaffeinated varieties of your favorite beverage.

I wanted to write about "lack of energy" because it happens to me occasionally. I chalk it off to overdoing it when I was working out or maybe I should have ate more calories this morning. Whatever happened to me seem to happen to most of us. But some of us who are overweight experience this lack of energy every day. It's not funny to them. I shrug it off and drink an extra protein shake or eat an extra energy bar, but I'm not worried about losing weight. 

Most of us feel this way in the afternoon. My go-to drink is coffee. I drink about 4 cups a day and now medical experts say if you have no health problems extra cups of tea or coffee won't hurt you and might even be good for you. This is something to take up with your doctor. People taking medications have to consult a physician about changing their diet.

If you really want to lose the extra flab you can get help, I write 4 blogs and I’ve written two E-books. Read some of my other blog post.

gettingtoahealthyweight.blog
idropped40pounds.wordpress.com
howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight.blogspot.com

blogonweight.blogspot.com

E-books are the easiest and cheapest way to learn about any subject without groping through hundreds of website looking for the material you want.
My first e-book is “HowBadDoYouWantToLoseWeight” and it sells for $2.99 on most online bookstores like Amazon.com, BN.com, iBook, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, and Gardner books in the U.K.

My second e-book is available in the same stores. And on smashwords.com. If you use the smashwords' promotional code You can get my second book for $1.99 (TL96R). Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.

Finding A Virtual Trainer

This blog post by Chis Anderson, a writer for WebMD, answers some important questions I get from my readers.

I think we all know that you have to exercise to stay in shape. But you can't just do what others do and expect the same results. We are all different and we respond differently to exercises. You have to find a routine that works for you. Even a simple thing like walking can help you or can do nothing for you.

We’re not all gym people. Some of us like to work out in the comfort of our own home, but finding the motivation to train at home can sometimes be a chore (the couch is right there). But hold up, there’s this thing called virtual training gaining steam in the fitness world. All you need is a broadband Internet connection, a webcam and some advice on where to start.

1. Do your research. Denise Posnak, owner and founder of MyBodWellness, says prospective trainees must make sure the trainer is experienced and educated. Posnak mainly trains in Pilates, but her advice is sound for any type of training, “You don’t want to be working with a teacher who got certified over the weekend. If a teacher has worked for 10 to 12 years, I’m going to go with them. Or if they’ve had a background in movement, like a professional athlete or a dancer, then that adds to their knowledge of the body.”

2. Make sure you’re comfortable. Posnak says to call (or Skype) and actually converse with your prospective virtual trainer. Get to know them. She recommends asking for a short session (30 minutes or less) if you’re trying virtual training for the first time, and if you’re feeling uncomfortable you can stop.
If you’re unable to have the first phone call, look at your first experience with the trainer as means of determining if it’s a long term fitness fit.

3. Be open and communicative. Only the trainee knows if a workout is too much or not enough. Leslie Silverglide, Co-Founder of Wello.com, says if a session is too hard, you just have to let your trainer know. If you feel you’re not being pushed hard enough, then likewise, let your trainer know during the session. Either way, Silverglide says clients need to be patient and ease into a training program.

4. Consider your safety. For Posnak, safety is a number one concern. “If you’re in Texas and your trainer is in California and you hurt yourself, there’s not much you can do [if the trainer doesn’t know where you live].” She says that the teacher needs to know where you are during the session. You want to be locatable in case something happens (think the splits gone awry).

Just imagine if you could find a trainer online that lived let's say within 30 minutes of you. Is that even possible? Yes, today it is. Your trainer can be right there with you in the same room working with you or working with a small group and you get the personal attention you need because they can watch you as you're moving through the poses. After all, it's not easy when you're a beginner. If the trainer can actually watch you, then the routine can be tailored to your experience level.

I started doing Yoga a couple years ago. I started going to a free class in the park. It was suppose to be for beginners but I felt like I didn't start at the beginning and that's true. You don't get any personal attention, you simply try and do what the others are doing. I was in reasonable good shape so it didn't take much time to catch on, but I could see others who were struggling. The problem with those classes is that they might be an entry level class but it's an ongoing class so the poses aren't difficult but most of the students have been in class for several weeks and you just started and that's okay but you feel out of place. They are already doing more advanced poses than you can do. A virtual trainer is a real live person who watches and sees what you're doing and gives you an easy routine until you can move up to more advanced poses. You can find a virtual trainer online and if you have a workout buddy you can share the expense.

If you really want to lose the extra flab you can get help, I write 4 blogs and I’ve written two E-books. Read some of my other blog post.

gettingtoahealthyweight.blog

idropped40pounds.wordpress.com

howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight.blogspot.com

blogonweight.blogspot.com

E-books are the easiest and cheapest way to learn about any subject without groping through hundreds of website looking for the material you want.

My first e-book is “HowBadDoYouWantToLoseWeight” and it sells for $2.99 on most online bookstores like Amazon.com, BN.com, iBook, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, and Gardner books in the U.K.

My second e-book is available in the same stores. And on smashwords.com. If you use the smashwords' promotional code You can get my second book for $1.99 (TL96R). Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.

Why Do We Gain Weight

This is a topic I could write a whole book on. But I want to give you a quick explanation in less than 1000 words. A Lot of the problem is your mental state. Most of us don't think constantly about our health. We have other things on our minds and, let's face it, life is complicated today. And if the truth be known, we were not raised to deal with the pressures in today's world. Most of us have difficulty coping with our lives. Some of this we bring on ourselves by trying to absorb too much information and trying to do more than we can possibly handle. But in today's society, we are all most forced to keep pace with others even if that's not possible.

If you're working like most of us, you have to keep the pace that your co-workers set. The theory behind that is, "if they can do it, I can do it" and that's what causes the pressure on us to perform better. For most of us to perform better, we usually have to put more stuff on the back burner. If this sounds like something you 've heard before, putting things on the back burner is the term most of us use instead of saying that I'll put that off till later and then never do it.

Taking care of your personal appearance is usually close to the top of the list. If you know someone who dresses like they're on their way to the gym, the way you might dress at 7 am, and it's after lunch, this might be someone who just wants to dress comfortably or someone who has too much on their to-do list.

The first commitment you have is to yourself and if you have to get up earlier, then do it. Anyone who is running all day like some crazy person, driving over the speed limit all day long is someone who isn't taking care of themselves and setting a bad example to others.

Taking care of yourself is about eating the right way, staying in shape, and setting a good example for others. You will have to work on that but this is all part of living a long happy life. Regular exercise like walking or jogging or maybe a yoga class a long with a good diet and you like before a happier, healthier person and you will slim down. All of this takes time but losing body fat is worth the effort.

If you really want to lose the extra flab you can get help, I write 4 blogs and I’ve written two E-books. E-books are the easiest and cheapest way to learn about any subject without groping through hundreds of website looking for the material you want.

My first e-book is “HowBadDoYouWantToLoseWeight” and it sells for $2.99 on most online bookstores like Amazon.com, BN.com, iBook, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, and Gardner books in the U.K.

My second e-book is available in the same stores. And on smashwords.com.  Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.