Weight Loss For
Dummies
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Don't
Believe The Hype
The diet industry
in this country is a multibillion dollar
interest. Everything from quick fixes like
pills and fat absorbers to herbal agents
aimed at calming the effects of hunger.
And even health and medical officials
cannot agree on the best methods of weight
loss. Fad diets, radical exercise
programs, shear starvation, and even
dangerous medical procedures are the
decisions we are faced with today. And
then there's the matter of that expensive
exercise equipment in the basement or
family room that seldom gets used. With
all the despairing failures mounting and
you still can't seem to lose that fat
you're probably about to give up. But you
will soon come to discover that you are
not a victim of bad genes, or hopelessly
fat and doomed to a lifetime of
dissatisfaction with your appearance. With
a few changes in your daily eating habits
along with a bit of psychological
reprogramming you will not only be able to
ditch the extra baggage, but you will
alter your lifestyle in a positive way
that will lead to an invigorated and
prolonged life. You and your body are not
enemies, once you come to understand a few
metaphysical principles it will become
clear to you. And get this, no pills, no
starvation diets, and no endlessly pumping
iron. Only a few exercise programs that
demand simple workouts done twice daily.
You will not need to carb count or monitor
calorie intakes, just follow a few basic
principles. Don't buy into the
multibillion dollar diet industry in this
country. In terms of job security, it is
not in their interest that you actually
succeed using their product, remember
that!
Why Are
You Fat
First and
foremost it is imperative that you
recognize a few metaphysical traits that
the human body possesses. True to our
nature we are a species of hunter
gatherers from the time we emerged from
the primordial pool. As such our bodies
are designed to intake an ever changing
variety of protein enriched sources. It is
when the individual fails to meet the
nutritional needs of the body that fat
tissue actually begins to form. The body
does not know how many calories it needs
to meet tomorrows energy requirements,
tomorrow has not occured yet. And so it
calculates the caloric intake necessary to
meet the energy needs for tomorrows
activity based on what it used today. In
other words, if you used up 10,000
calories today your body assumes it will
need 10,000 calories tomorrow. The trouble
occurs when tomorrow comes and you do not
actually use that 10,000 calories. It is
at this point that the body begins to
produce fat tissue. Anything that the body
cannot use it stores as fat tissue, so
remember that if you tend to overeat at
one setting. Spread your meals out over
regular periods during the day. You must
understand that the body recognizes any
sudden drop in it's daily caloric intake
as a possible upcoming shortage of food,
like when you starve yourself or eat at
infrequent intervals. The production of
fat tissue is actually increased as the
body prepares itself by storing protien
for the perceived upcoming food shortage.
So that explains why simply not eating
doesn't work. Eating one meal per day is
possibly the very worst thing you can do.
This makes it necessary for the body to
extract all of it's caloric intake from
one meal. When this occurs the body begins
to store vast amounts of body fat in
preparation for the next days energy
requirements.
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Using
Food To Combat Fat 
It will be
difficult for you to believe this -- but
food is your problem, food is also your
cure. Just as it is food in the wrong
combinations at the wrong times that cause
your body to produce fat tissue, you can
use food in the proper combinations at the
right times to cause, even trick the body
into triggering this fatty tissue to be
burned as energy. I know that may be
somewhat difficult to comprehend, but it's
basically a bit of reverse-psychology for
the body's energy producing system. We
also need to establish that the body
perceives sudden drops in caloric intake
as a possible food shortage triggering the
production of body fat -- and going hungry
or starving is not a viable means of
losing weight, should never be practiced,
and is dangerous. What we must do here is
to trick the body into switching back and
forth between regulated cycles of burning
proteins, carbs, and stored body fat. It's
that simple. In order to do that it's
imperative that you constantly shift back
and forth between eating proteins and
carbohydrates. There are medical diet
plans, and plans that exist on the
Internet or in books to help you
accomplish this. Avoid any diet that is
misleading or tells you anything counter
to what you have just read. And as always,
consult with your family doc before
instituting any dieting or exercise
program.
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Water,
Water everywhere 
Put simply, the
body is mostly water. Consider a pond of
water that is stagnant. It has a blackish
tone to it and it stinks. Things live in
it and it has a ring of scum about it that
looks and smells disgusting. This is what
happens to sedentary water that does not
move and become regenerated. Now consider
the water in a fast running brook or
stream. It's constantly moving and being
replaced. The water is crisp and clear, no
smells of any kind elude from it. So it is
with the human body. Like water it must
move and constantly be replaced and
renewed. If it does not it becomes
stagnant and sedentary. Bacteria begin to
thrive due to the ideal environment being
provided for it's unchecked growth. Given
this analogy it immediately becomes clear
why one of the most important aspects of
any successful and healthy lifestyle is
the constant intake of pure water. Soda's
and juice do not provide for the bodies
daily requirements of water. In fact for
every 10 ounces of soda you need one
twelve ounce glass of water to make up for
it, especially if it has caffeine. The
ideal daily intake of water is ten to
twelve glasses per day. Especially if you
are a woman. Failure to provide the body
with adequate supplies of water can cause
bloating and puffiness, dizziness and
fainting, and even serious medical
conditions like dehydration. It is not
recommended that you drink tap water,
particularly if you live in a city or
metropolitan area. Spring water works
best, and avoid those flavored waters
entirely. The best way to gauge your
intake of water daily is to pay attention
to the color of your urine. Many people
think the color of urine is yellow, I'm
afraid it's not. Healthy urine is actually
a buff color and is translucent. If yours
is dark and malodorous you are being
signaled by your body that you are not
taking in enough water, I suggest you
listen.
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Good
Food, Bad Food 
As mentioned
earlier, food is not only the culprit --
when used correctly it can also be the
cure. First of all, it is important that
we recognize the different food types. I'm
not talking about the four basic food
groups that we learned in school, I'm
talking about carbohydrates and proteins.
Carbohydrates are found in breads, pasta
and cereals, and protein comes from meat,
fish, poultry, and cheese. In previous
years we were all taught that carbs are to
be avoided, then we were told that
proteins should be avoided. The confusion
came from a lack of understanding about
the way the body produces energy from the
foods we eat. Rather than to eliminate one
or the other, a simple understanding of
how the body uses these things will
actually allow you to eat both carbs and
protein without monitoring labels or
counting carbs and colories. Rather than
to draw a list of good foods on one side
and bad foods on the other -- it's much
simpler that you use your common sense.
The first rule is that any processed
packaged food is off your list. The
simpler that food is prepared, the better
(boiling versus frying) Anything that has
chocolate, caffeine, or one of the many
forms of sugar (fructose, dextrose, corn
syrup, etc) is out. And stop eating at
restaurants altogether. And also, non-diet
soda's and any kind of bread made with
flour is out. Use breads made from oat
bran only. It's that simple. There is no
secret plan, no special ingredients, and
no going hungry. Learn to eat until you
are just nearly full and stop. Never
overeat, and come to understand that just
one fatty meal can take three days to make
up for. Eat less, more often is the
general idea. Break your meals up into
four daily's rather than one or two
majors. Never force your body to take all
of it's daily requirements in one meal,
that leads to fat storing. Drink 10 - 12
glasses of water per day, and exercise
moderately. If you can somehow manage to
do these things, and follow a strict diet
plan as laid out in the article to come,
you will achieve success in your weight
loss attempts.
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Just
The Facts Ma'am
The methods
outlined in this article will not only
help to halt the production of fat tissue
in your body, it will actually force your
body to use the stored fat that you
already have. This process involves a
scientifically formulated diet plan that
switches the bodies intake of proteins and
carbs back and forth over a period of 11
days. I'm not going to go into the
particulars and this is not an infomercial
-- but put simply, the diet feeds you
nothing but proteins for one 11 day
period, then switches to nothing but carbs
for another 11 days. This actually fools
the body into using up fatty tissue at a
greatly increased rate causing you to lose
weight. This is no fad diet and it will
not only lead to your losing weight, it
will teach you how to live with your body
and keep that slender, healthy shape over
the duration of your life. I'm afraid that
like anything else, nothing is free and
there are several effective programs
available online that you can purchase and
use that will help you scientifically plan
your diet. The best one that I have
found comes from Diet Access.com They
actually have an online menu generator
that tells you what to eat and in the
right combinations. Please understand that
we are not affiliated with any of the
aforementioned services and do not make
any monetary or proprietary gains from
mentioning their companies. But
I have actually used the service
myself or I would not be recommending
it to you here had it been
otherwise.
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Diet
Facts Debunked
- MYTH:
Cutting carbohydrates helps you lose
weight.
- TRUTH:
Doing it the wrong way can also make
you feel rotten and unhealthy.
- Carbs are to
this decade what fats were to the last:
food demons. Truth is, though, you need
them for energy. And, like with fats,
some are better than others. Experts
suggest a minimum of 130 grams of carbs
a day -- a far cry from low-carb diets
that start with 20 grams or less.
Short-term effects of such diets
include fatigue, constipation and
irritability; long term, you could be
putting yourself at risk for heart
disease and colon cancer.
- Fad diets
aside, what may matter most is how
refined the carbohydrates are. The best
idea is to cut back on refined carbs
such as soda and foods made with white
flour, while loading up on healthier
carbs like whole grains, fruits, and
vegetables.
- MYTH:
Diet foods help you drop pounds.
- TRUTH:
They can actually do the opposite.
- You may be
doing yourself more harm than good by
scanning labels for the lowest calorie
and fat counts. Prepackaged diet foods
can have a lot of sugar and trans
fat.
- As with
carbs, it’s the quality of the
fat, not the amount, that makes the
difference. Monounsaturated fats (found
in nuts, olive oil, and avocados) and
the polyunsaturated variety (in corn,
soybean, and safflower oils) help your
cardiovascular system, improve weight
loss, and are crucial for absorbing
beta carotene from vegetables like
carrots. Trans fats and saturated fats,
on the other hand, have been linked
with heart disease and even
cancer.
- A recent
study found that replacing just 30
calories of carbs a day with the same
amount of trans fats nearly doubled the
risk of heart disease. Replacing the
same ratio of carbs with
monounsaturated or polyunsaturated
fats, on the other hand, lowered the
risk of heart disease by 30 to 40
percent. So consider boosting your good
fats by adding nuts to your morning
cereal or avocado to your salads. Just
watch your daily calories to keep them
in check.
- MYTH:
The more you cut calories, the more
weight you’ll lose.
- TRUTH:
That can actually hurt you.
- Cut your
calories too far—below 1,200 a
day—and you’ll end up with a
double whammy that quickly decreases
your metabolism and muscle mass. To get
the most out of the calories you do
eat, choose whole foods such as
produce, fresh meat and fish, and whole
grains that are as close to their
natural state as possible. They have a
higher “nutrient density”
than refined foods, because they pack
more vitamins and minerals into fewer
calories.
- MYTH:
Dairy makes you
fat.
- TRUTH:
Cutting dairy just shoots you in the
foot (and fat cells).
- Combined
with calorie control, a dairy-rich diet
can nearly double body-fat reduction
and weight loss and help prevent weight
gain. Part of the reason is the hormone
calcitriol, which helps conserve
calcium for stronger bones while
telling fat cells to convert less sugar
to fat and burn more body fat. The
result is leaner fat cells and a leaner
you. Stick to the government’s
latest dietary guidelines, which
recommend three servings of low- or
nonfat dairy a day.
- MYTH:
Brown equals whole-grain.
- TRUTH:
There are lots of whole-grain poseurs
out there.
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