Is Exercise Important

I found this post on the internet and wanted reblog it. This author knows and understands how important exercise is to the health of your body. I've been writing about the very same thing for more than 10 years now.

Exercise is a preventative and also helps to give you more strength, mobility, balance, and better circulation. Exercise also helps your lungs put more oxygen in your blood which increase the healing power that your blood gives to the parts of your body.

Is Exercise Medicine?

Author Christian Worsten

Does exercise work as well as prescription drugs to treat certain health conditions?

Doctors have been telling patients for years exercise is important, however, the rates for obesity and obesity-related conditions continues to rise. What if preventing some of these diseases and conditions was as simple as getting regular exercise?

For some conditions, exercise works as well as — if not better than prescription drugs to reduce your risk.

What Exercise Can Prevent

Studies have shown regular physical activity (defined as the equivalent of walking at least 2-1/2 hours per week) can reduce your risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, dementia, osteoarthritis, obesity, and even cancer. Just 30 minutes of exercise a day, five times per week, can greatly improve your quality of life and help prevent premature death. While this is the bare minimum, it is a level most people can achieve no matter their condition.

One study found in a testing group of over one million people that regular physical activity helped reduce the risk of 13 different kinds of cancer, including breast, endometrial, colon, liver, and more.

Exercise As Medicine

Exercise was not a worry when people had to grow their own food and walk long distances, as we were made to move and our lives demanded it.

Nowadays, it is seen as something you do to lose weight or bulk up. With the sedentary jobs most people have these days, it is no wonder we as a group are continuing to gain weight and have weight-related issues.

We see exercise as just one more thing to add to our schedules, rather than a part of our lives. Exercise is medicine for your body. Exercise keeps your blood pressure down, your weight down, is a natural stress reducer, reduces inflammation, and can increase immunity. It helps keep your body working efficiently.

When you begin to think of exercise as something your body needs rather than just another thing you must do, you may have a bit of a mindset change. Only about 20% of Americans get regular aerobic and muscle-strengthening exercise regularly.

Without a change in our exercise mindset, we are only going to see health issues becoming more and more common at earlier ages of onset.

Where Do I Start?

Now that you see the benefits, you may be wondering where to go from here? Should you join a gym? An exercise class? How about just taking a walk?

Walking is easy to work into your day and it is also among the easiest workouts on your body. Start with just 30 minutes a day at a comfortable pace and work up from there. Do some light stretching before and after to keep your body flexible.

Once you get into a routine, begin to add more time or even consider adding weights to your program.

Eat right. No matter your age, you need to eat healthy foods and drink more water. Medicare has even started coveringnutritional counseling for older adults, which is amazing for those who need it, as they are even more prone to medical issues.

A nutritionist can help you find the right eating plan for you and guide you in seeing exactly what a portion size looks like. Our portion sizes today are large, and most people do not even know what a healthy portion size looks like anymore.

Exercise is medicine. If you want your body to work efficiently from head to toe, a regular exercise routine is a way to do it.

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.

Which Is The Best Diet

As new research comes out, the age-old debate over the best diet for weight loss keeps evolving. Is it a low-fat diet, a low-carb diet, the Military Diet, paleo, gluten-free, or something else? 

The answer really boils down to you. Ultimately, all of these diets are just fancy ways of cutting calories so that you eat less than you burn. That's the only way you'll lose weight. 

Before you decide, explore your choices. Make sure the diet you choose isn't bad for you, ask yourself these important questions, and talk to your doctor or another licensed health professional to help you make the right decision.

Many diet plans make promises that weight loss is easy, that you can eat anything that you want and that you'll see quick results. The claims can be both tempting and confusing. So, how do you sort through the plans to find the best diet plan for you? Ask yourself these questions before investing any time or money in a weight loss plan plan.

What is my budget? Before you begin shopping for the best weight loss plan, decide if you have money to invest. Then, based on that budget, investigate as many diet plans and products as possible. Be sure to evaluate all costs that might be involved. This includes the cost of the food, support services, reference materials and exercise classes. 

Keep in mind that the cost of a diet program is not necessarily a predictor of the plan's success. Just because you pay to lose weight doesn't mean that the weight will necessarily disappear. However, there is some evidence that suggests commercial weight loss plans are more successful than trying to lose weight on your own. Research in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that dieters who followed a structured commercial plan lost slightly more weight than those who followed a self-help plan.

But if you don't have money to spend on a commercial diet, don't worry. There are some great online weight loss programs that are cheap or even free.  These apps, online workouts and virtual coaching services are perfect if you are a do-it-yourself type who prefers to be independent and create your own weight loss program. The best program for you is the one you can stick to. This is more than a diet it's a life long meal plan you can stick to so be carefully. Don't give up because because you didn't pick well, most people don't. You'll gain knowledge and do better next time.

I chose the Mediterranean diet that the people of the Mediterranean region have had for centuries. You'll find it on the internet for free. I chose it because the food chooses are numerous, more than any other plan I looked at and it's a proven plan with thousands of years of proven results.

One of the reasons that many diets fail is that busy schedules get in the way of good eating-habits. It's hard to pass by a fast-food restaurant after working a 10-hour day. But if you know that a healthy meal is waiting at home, making a good choice might be easier.

If your serious about succeeding this time, you want to prepare your own meals. You can't trust pre-made food, you don't know what in it. You can't trust food labels. The pre-made diet meals are usually very small and the plan is to starve you and you'll lose weight. You can't lose weight by starving. This is the biggest mistake that even the commercial plans get wrong. All the designer plans want to cut your calories by giving less food. If you eat less, you'll lose weight. But the idea doesn't work very long because you can't keep restricting your food intake. That leading to bingeing and then you develop a more serious problem. 

The trick is to change the food your eating so you eat less calories, not less food. You don't want to be hungry. Eat fresh and eat clean and you can eat all you need to stay full. 

In the process of choosing the right diet for you, try to ignore the claims and advertisements. Focus on your own physical, emotional and lifestyle considerations to find a plan that helps you reach your weight loss goal.

Eating fresh means no packaged foods, no frozen foods, no processed foods, no frankenfood, You want food that gives you the most nutrition in every meal. Also eat more seafood. You can find websites like seafoodedf.org which will tell you which seafoods are low in mercury. Another tip is to drink more water and avoid drinks with calories. Also eat less red meat; Americans eat too much red meat and tube meat; it contain animal fat and it will add inches to your waist line.

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 $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, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Are Food Cravings Your Problem?

Food cravings are one big reason for being overweight. Everyone has food cravings and the food industry is making millions off us. I was in Walmart yesterday to pick up some bottled water and I really believe there was more shelf space devoted to snacks and drinks then groceries. Then you add the frozen processed foods and all the candy and is it any wonder that we have an overweight population.

O.K., we do need snacks, but what can I buy that's healthy? What if you had a go-to salty/crunchy food that you could turn to in these instances that was actually healthy for you and your waistline?  Well you do...Almonds!

Almonds are loaded with healthy fats and protein that will keep you feeling full for hours, making them a terrific fat-burning snack to scratch that salty/crunchy craving itch. But I go one step further and buy salted mixed nuts. All nuts have good properties. Different nuts are rich in different vitamins and minerals so you don't have to skip any. I like a hand full in the afternoon and that kills the cravings until dinner. Remember just one hand full, the amount that will fill your palm. Nuts have calories and you can kill your diet by eating too much. 

So if you want to lose weight you have to start by changing what you eat. Start to eat natural foods, eat fresh, no processed foods, processed foods are foods that are pre-made and ready to eat, like the foods in restaurants and the foods in the frozen food section of the supermarket, no added sugar or salt, salt in foods adds to water retention and will cause high blood pressure. No enriched flour, including enriched wheat, it's as bad for you as sugar. 

Until you get back to a healthy weight you should make your own meals and brown bag lunch. One more tip "if you want to lose weight don't skip breakfast". For those who don't eat breakfast, have a protein shake. You need the protein first thing in the morning, the first hour your up.And here's another tip (after all, two tips are better than one):  While almonds are great, it's easy to overeat almost any food when eating straight out of the container.  In fact, research shows that you will eat on average two to three times MORE of a food when eating out of the container, than if you pre-portion your food out into a bowl.


Done of this is difficult, there are hundreds of websites that can help you. You have to want to change.
The point is that you can have healthy snacks. Losing weight doesn't mean starving.  I just changed  what I eat. So we covered snacks and that's a big part of your calorie intake, but drinks also count for almost as many calories as snacks. People will often forget about the calories in snacks and drinks because they don't think those calories are enough to count. But the truth is that snacks and drinks throughout the day will add up to more calories then your meals. 

Nuts, fruit including dry fruit that has no sugar added, seeds or some veggies like baby carrot are all good snacks, avoid the dips. 

For almonds, a 2 ounces (the typical serving size) is the perfect amount to set aside for a great fat-burning snack that will satisfy your cravings while holding you over until your next main meal.

A person should only consume about 1500 to 1800 calories a day depending on your weight. Now if you switch to drinking soda, they're about 200 calories a can unless your drinking a diet drink with zero calories. If your drinking a zero calorie can of soda you have to deal with the chemicals. And you might say "so what", "chemical are in everything anyway". Your right, but if your trying to lose weight, chemicals will affect your metabolism which is the bodies way of burning fat and if you slow down your metabolism your not burning fat, your just storing fat from the food your eating. 

If you start your morning at the coffee shop where you might order a Latte and then add sugar, you might be drinking 300 calories or maybe 600 depending on the size. If you drink plain coffee at work and put cream and sugar you might be drinking 100 calories and if you grab one of those donuts in the break room you might be taking a "500 calorie coffee break". It's now about 10 am you had no breakfast, just the Latte and your coffee break and your already consumed more then half your calories for the day. 

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. 

Tips For Losing Excess Skin

If you’ve lost a lot of weight recently, then you may have noticed that you have a bit of loose skin hanging around. From extra skin under the arms to a hanging pouch around the stomach, loose skin can pose an embarrassing problem, especially if weight loss has been achieved rapidly.  I love this post because as we age we all have this problem and you see very few articles that talk about it.

In this article you’ll learn why skin gets lose, how to tighten loose skin after fat loss, and you’ll also find out which creams, medical procedures, nutrition tactics and exercises will successfully tighten loose skin.

Why Skin Gets Loose After Weight Loss

Since it has to stretch as we move, grow, and--as in the case of weight loss--shrink, skin is an incredibly elastic living organ. Yes, that’s right, skin is not just one big piece of rubber that covers the entire body, but is instead an organ, and just like all the other organs in your body, it is comprised of cells.

Different layers of your skin have different types of cells, and though the skin cells on the outer part of your skin (the epidermis) are constantly being lost and replaced with new cells, the skin cells under the epidermis are a bit more permanent. These layers of the skin, called the dermis and subdermis, are made up of elastic connective tissues, fibers, blood vessels and all sorts of components that can stretch or contract depending on how they’re treated.

What Happens to Your Skin When You Lose Weight?

When you lose weight, and especially when you lose weight very quickly, these elastic components of your skin not only lose the layers of fat that keep them stretched out over your body, but they also don’t have much time for their elasticity to adapt to your new shape.

In addition to weight loss, age, poor nutrition, dehydration, excessive sun exposure, and smoking can all affect the elasticity of the skin and give you that elephant-like appearance you probably don’t want.

As you lose fat and your loose skin begins to appear, the first rule is: don’t panic! Because it is a living organ, your skin will slowly return to a shape that fits your new body. But since that process can take up to two years, here are steps you can take to make your skin tighten more quickly:

Tip #1: Don’t Lose Weight Too Quickly

Crash diets and excessive amounts of time spent exercising can rapidly shed both muscle and fat, resulting in a double-whammy on your skin--the supportive underlying muscular structure that holds skin against your body is lost, as is the fat that keeps the skin stretched out.

Quick and dirty tip for not losing weight too quickly: Aim for 1-2 pounds of fat loss per week, and make sure your weight loss program includes weight lifting so that you do not lose lean muscle. 

Tip #2: Stay Hydrated

Attend to your hydration needs. Water is a crucial component of maintaining skin elasticity. From both food and drink, you should be taking in at least two liters of water each day. 

Tip #3: Eat Properly

Two necessary ingredients that keep skin plump and elastic are collagen and elastin. Protein-rich foods such as cottage cheese, milk, legumes, tofu, beans, seeds, nuts, and fish all contain collagen and elastin forming components, as well as oils to help maintain healthy skin.

Quick and dirty protein tip: For optimum absorption, squeeze 100-200 calories of these protein sources in immediately after your workout. 

Tip #4: Take Care of Your Skin

Nourish and care for your skin. Daily exfoliation can help to remove dead skin cells and increase skin circulation. A hot bath with sea salts and minerals can improve skin tone. Skin tightening creams with herbal formulas and ingredients such as aloe vera, hyaluronic acid, yeast extract, soy protein, vitamin C, vitamin E and vitamin A can help to hydrate and increase collagen and elastin formation in skin.

Stay away from harsh detergents, such a sulfates in soaps, shampoos and dishwashing liquids, limit your sun exposure and stay away from tanning booths, and limit your exposure to hot and chlorinated water—all of these things will decrease skin elasticity.

Quick and dirty tip: If you swim for fitness, use soap and shampoos that are specially designed to remove chlorine.

When to Consider Surgery for Loose Skin

Skin can only be stretched so far before it looses some of its ability to snap back. If you’ve had a 9-month pregnancy, then you’ll be able to tighten your loose skin. But if you’ve carried a hundred or more extra pounds for many years, you may be a candidate for plastic surgery to tighten and lift loose skin. This fix should only be used in extreme cases, and I should warn you: those who have undergone this operation have actually gained more fat afterwards while they were rehabilitating from surgery! Your body will store fat as a defense  against starvation so I would think storing up fat after a surgery maybe pretty common.

Bottom Line

As mentioned earlier, elasticity of your skin will naturally decrease with age. Though you can address issues such as not losing weight too quickly, staying properly hydrated, eating the right foods, and caring for your skin, you simply have no control over your age! Quick and dirty tip: Rather than letting age stress you out, you should focus on the things over which you have control—like exercising and eating right—and you’ll find that you always look good.

Whether you have a kangaroo pouch, an orangutan chin, or elephant legs, you can use the tips in this article to tighten loose skin or prevent loose skin in the first place.

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. 

Changing Your Life To Lose Your Fat

If you’ve already broken a New Year’s resolution or two, take heart. I can let you in on the ultimate secret for successfully making change in your life. If you want to be slim and trim and full of energy you'll have to change your life, there's no shortcut, no easy way. If the truth be known, anyone who loses weight fast has a much large risk of re-gaining the weight just as fast. Losing weight permanently is about losing body fat. Losing body fat will take a lifestyle change. No diets, just eating the right food and avoiding foods that add fat. Yes, you have to count calories at first until you learn what to eat and how much to eat.

A century’s worth of psychological research reveals an interesting paradox in who we are. On the one hand, once we reach adulthood our basic personalities remain unchanged for the rest of our lives. We keep doing the same things—and feeling the same ways—over and over. But, on the other hand, every day we change our behavior drastically in response to different environments. Most of us are one person at work, for example, and another person at home.

The implication of these findings for making (and keeping) New Year’s resolutions is clear:

It is easier to change our environment than to change ourselves. So, if you want to change yourself, change your environment.

Said differently:

Whenever possible, don’t try to fight temptations – avoid them!

The easiest way to make a change in your life is to modify the world around you in ways that will naturally drive you toward making, and maintaining, the change you want. There are many ways to change your environment, but let’s focus on 4 that have stood the test of time:

1. Nature hates a vacuum: In the context of changing your life, this means you can’t just get rid of something that is an important part of your life and leave a big emptiness in its place. This is one of the great secrets of Alcoholics Anonymous: you substitute the location of a bar and the company of fellow drinkers with an AA meeting in the company of people committed to sobriety. If you want to exercise instead of watch TV in the morning, put a treadmill in the spot where your TV once sat. If you eat too much at night because you are lonely and it briefly makes you feel better, do something in the evening where food is not available and eat earlier in the day so you don’t starve.

Did you notice the similarity to the Weight Watchers program. It’s a proven method that works.

2. Make it easy: It is hard enough to change habits or behaviors, so don’t make it any harder. Let’s take me as an example. I’ve been trying for several years to lose weight but always failed due to two problem behaviors: once I start eating a meal I can’t stop myself from eating more than I should; and, although I do pretty well during the day, in the evening I invariably break down and eat more than I should.

So how have I lost 10 pounds recently? By going with these weaknesses and modifying my environment in ways that allow me to succeed in spite of them. Because I can’t regulate what I eat very well once I start, I’ve limited how often I eat – which means fasting for a good portion of the day. Because it isn’t practical to fast at night given a family at home (and my weakness for eating at night), I fast during the day when the environment makes it easy. I’ve changed my environment so that I avoid restaurants at lunch and make sure I keep focused on work during the peak time of my midday hunger. A final note on this strategy: you have to accept a blow to your pride to find ways to work with your weaknesses instead of against them.

3. Skin in the game: Recent studies are suggesting that you can use monetary rewards and punishments to help change problematic behavior. In essence, these strategies require that you change your environment in ways that make it so painful to fail that you are motivated to stick with the change you are attempting. Let’s take dieting/weight loss as an example. Imagine that you’ve set up your environment such that you will have to pay money to something or someone if you fail to reach your goals (some people have found it especially effective for the money to go to a cause they hate). How much money would need to be on the line to motivate you to shed those extra 20 pounds? Would the threat of losing $ 10,000 keep you focused on succeeding?

It sounds like the author has a point, but I would do it differently. I think a better way to motivate would be to weight yourself on time a week, everytime you weight yourself do it on the same day at the same time and with the same amount of clothes. If you gain weight you owe your partner $20. When you get tired of paying $20 a week you’ll start losing weight.

4. Don’t do it alone: Change is infinitely easier if you are surrounded by a group of people who are working toward a similar goal and can understand your challenges. And the opposite is also true: change is much harder if you spend your time with people who encourage, or participate in, the very activities or behaviors you are trying to overcome, like going for ice cream in the afternoon.

The fact that it is easier to change your environment than to change yourself comes with a final bonus. It means that if you are struggling to make the change you want in your life, it is important not to blame yourself, or beat yourself up, but to recognize that you simply have not found the right strategy yet for leveraging the power of the world around you.

It boils down to the same answer everytime. Just because you haven’t had success, just means you haven’t found the way to succeed. Never give up, you will succeed if you keep trying.

I write several blogs, check out some of my other sites.

idropped40pounds.wordpress.com
howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight.blogspot.com
blogonweight.blogspot.com

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my Ebooks at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet.

There’s two ebooks.  “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 Ebook. 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 ebook is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

Compulsive Eating And How To Stop

This is a feature article on WebMD and is definitely worth a read. Compulsive eating and food addiction are a major cause of the overweight problem in this country. It will be worth your while it analyze your weight problem and how you got to where you are now. Failing to realize what caused your weight problem will only set you up for failure.

Compulsive Overeating and How to Stop 

By Jennifer Rainey Marquez

Reviewed by Joseph Goldberg, MD

Think back to the last time you ate so much you felt absolutely stuffed. Were you tearing into a huge cake to celebrate a friend’s birthday? Loading up on turkey and sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving? Or were you at home alone, maybe at the end of a tough day? How did you feel afterward -- simply annoyed that you gave yourself a stomachache? Or were you tormented by guilt or shame?

Eating too much every once in a while is normal. So is eating for emotional reasons. “From the moment we’re born, we’re nurtured with food, rewarded with food, and so emotional connections to food are normal,” says Michelle May, MD, author of Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat.

People who compulsively overeat, though, may use food as their only way of coping with negative emotions. As a result, they often feel that their eating is out of control. They think about food all the time and feel guilty, ashamed, or depressed after eating. “That’s very different from what someone feels after, say, eating a big Thanksgiving meal,” May says. “You might feel full, and you might regret having had that last slice of pie, but you’re not consumed with shame.”

Some people who overeat have a clinical disorder called binge eating disorder (BED). People with BED compulsively eat large amounts of food in a short amount of time and feel guilt or shame afterward. And they do so often: at least once a week over a period of at least 3 months.

Not everyone who overeats is a binger. You might eat a lot of food throughout the day, rather than all in one sitting. And you might not do it regularly, but only when you’re feeling stressed, lonely, or upset.

How does it start?

In some cases, people simply overeat out of mindless habit, like always sitting down with a bag of chips in front of the TV at night. But oftentimes, it’s the result of underlying emotional problems. Having a negative body image can play a big role. 

For many people, compulsive overeating is part of a cycle that starts with a restrictive diet. May calls it the “eat, repent, repeat” cycle. You might begin a diet because you feel bad about your weight or size but find that it’s too hard to stick to -- especially if you use food as a coping tool. Eventually, you hit a breaking point and binge on “forbidden” foods, and then the guilt and shame set in, and the restrictions begin again.

The cycle can be hard to break. “Even people who say they’re not on a diet often have ingrained ideas about ‘good’ or ‘bad’ foods,” says Marsha Hudnall, president of Green Mountain at Fox Run in Vermont, a center for women who struggle with overeating. “But when you have a substance that is naturally appealing and soothing and comforting, and you make it off-limits, it just becomes more attractive.”

Can people be “addicted” to food?

In recent years, food addiction has become a popular idea among some scientists. Those researchers say that certain foods high in fat, sugar, and salt are addictive, causing changes in the brain similar to those made by drugs. Studies in animals have shown that rats that binge on sugar, for example, can develop signs of dependency.

But the idea of food addiction is controversial. For one thing, the standard treatment for addiction is abstinence, and that’s not possible with food. Also, “dieting is a very strong component of the binge eating cycle,” May says. “From that standpoint, it’s counterproductive to label certain foods as negative.”

There’s no doubt that eating can stimulate the release of feel-good chemicals in the brain, Hudnall says. “But that doesn’t make food an addictive substance. There’s evidence that it’s actually the behavior -- the restrict/binge cycle -- that causes the signs of dependency, not the food itself,” she says. Some researchers have even stated that the term “eating addiction” is a more accurate term than “food addiction.”

How can I control compulsive eating?

Seek help. It can be hard to stop overeating on your own, particularly if there are deep-rooted emotional problems involved, says Robin B. Kanarek, professor of psychology at Tufts University. Working with a counselor can help you uncover the psychological triggers -- like a negative body image -- that may be driving your behavior.The cycle can be hard to break. “Even people who say they’re not on a diet often have ingrained ideas about ‘good’ or ‘bad’ foods,” says Marsha Hudnall, president of Green Mountain at Fox Run in Vermont, a center for women who struggle with overeating. “But when you have a substance that is naturally appealing and soothing and comforting, and you make it off-limits, it just becomes more attractive.”

“Understand that you’re not a bad person doing bad things,” May says. “Labeling yourself can become a self-fulfilling prophecy in terms of continuing the cycle.”

The same goes for labeling foods. “Food is food -- it’s not good or bad,” Kanarek says. “It can be hard to get over those deeply held beliefs, but research shows that if you eat what you deem a ‘bad’ food, you’re more likely to overeat afterward.”

Take a pause. When you feel like eating, pause for a moment and ask yourself: Am I hungry? “Sometimes people get so focused on what they want to eat that they don’t stop and ask themselves why they want to eat,” May says. If you use food as a coping tool, you may be out of touch with the cues that signal hunger or fullness, and it’s important to bring your awareness back to your body.

Change your environment. “A habit is very often simply a behavior that’s on autopilot,” Hudnall says. Making a tweak to your environment can return your focus to your behavior and give you a chance to make a more purposeful decision. For example, Hudnall says, “if you always sit in a certain chair to eat, move it to a different place in the room -- or sit somewhere else entirely.”

Give into cravings -- in moderation. Banning foods can cause you to overeat them later on. If you’re really craving something -- even if you’re not hungry -- give yourself permission to have a small amount. 

End restrictive diets . “Overeating and restrictive eating are often two sides of the same coin,” May says. “Deprivation can be a trigger for overeating just like stress, anger, or anxiety.”

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. 

Can't Do Yoga, Think Again

If you think you're not the yoga type, think again. Just about anyone can do it, and it's not about bending yourself into a pretzel.

For men and women of all shapes, sizes, ages, and abilities, Yoga builds strength and balance. It's also a great way to ease stress. Yoga is the second most popular form of exercise next to walking.

"In a gym, you're really pushing yourself to go further when you're working out. In yoga, it's the opposite. The poses encourage all the range of motion that the body is designed to do," says Megan Dunne Krouse, a yoga instructor in Chicago.

Doing Yoga When You're Overweight

When Megan Garcia signed up for yoga at Smith College, she felt intimidated because she was the only overweight person in the class. She stuck with it, though, and noticed she started gaining strength, plus feeling and sleeping better, too.

Now she is a plus-sized model and Kripalu-certified yoga instructor who teaches in New York and specializes in teaching yoga to people of all shapes and sizes.

Garcia found that yoga changed her in unexpected ways. "Before I started doing yoga, I really lived life from the neck up," she says. "After yoga, I began to really feel at home in my skin. If I didn't have yoga, I can't imagine feeling so good in my body. Yoga has made it comfortable for me to sit on the floor, to twist, to bend. It grounds me in my body."

RaeAnn Banker, who owns River Yoga in Lahaska, PA, started taking yoga classes on her 42nd birthday as a present to herself.

"I was overweight, and since my mother was morbidly obese, I knew I better do something or I was going to end up just like her," Banker says.

"It took several months of driving by the yoga center before I got up the courage to go in. But once I started, I loved the classes. I was the weakest student in the class, but I kept going," Banker says. "I ended up losing 35 pounds over the next 2 years and becoming a yoga teacher. Yoga literally changed my life."

I personally started yoga at the age of 70. They were offering free classes at the senior center so I thought I'd try. I felt a little out-of-place at first, but after a few weeks, I was getting the hang of it. The instructor was older than me and most of the students were my age. After a few months, I started to lose body fat and build strength. The senior center only offers a class twice a week, but I do Yoga at home on the other days. I'm always trying to do the poses better each time. I don't have to go to class anymore. I know most of the poses but I go anyway, the instructor always adds new poses when she has time to fit them in. 

Today I'm a happier person who has more confidence and strength. I don't care how old I am, it's about how old you feel and I feel 30 years younger. If you're interested in changing your life I wrote two books on the subject.

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.