Go Belly - Managing Your Weight Effectively

Vitamins: Under the Hood

noreply@blogger.com (Ashley Rodick) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 21:33:00 +0000

Walk into a pharmacy near you and you will come across an entire section dedicated to this money making industry. Shelves filled with vitamins ranging from the common ones and those you haven't heard about trying to sell themselves as the next new miracle cure. If you break down the hidden key words in the word vitamin, it turns out to be Vital Minerals. That's the foundation stone of your health. Vital minerals are minerals that your body cannot produce on it's own. Your body usually depends on sourcing these vital minerals from your food supply. If you're not eating healthy enough, you're not absorbing your recommended dietary allowance and that's where your body begins opening up to the world of diseases. Also, your immune system weakens and it becomes susceptible to a host of problems. Here are my observations.

1. The Environment

Farmers are increasingly pressured to meet high demand targets. Therefore, they are growing crops and harvesting them at a faster rate in the least amount of time. Also, crops are exposed to chemicals that were unaware of. Who knows how they affect us in the long term. As a result, fruits and vegetables lose quality coming out of the manufacturing process. This means you're not getting as much from your natural sources as you think you do.

2. The Multi Vitamin Facade

Ever seen an ad about vitamins on TV? They boast how their product contains all the vitamins from A to Z. While that is true and they may contain a variety of 30+ vitamins in their multi vitamin product, the dosage is so low that their is no benefit in taking them. The dosage is low because they can't fit the appropriate dosage of all 30 vitamins in one pill since you wouldn't be able to swallow it. Yes, It's better than nothing. If you eat junk food all the time then it has it's purpose. If you are eating well balanced meals, then it's a waste of your precious hard earned cash.People in the fitness industry call it vitamins for people that do nothing. This is why they created their own multi vitamin products which are 5 times more powerful then the one's found at the pharmacy. It comes in a plastic wrapper with 5 giant pills. Imagine!

3. Selecting your vitamins

Instead of buying a mega multi vitamin product that promises you everything but actually delivers nothing, select your vitamins individually.Get your money's worth. I would suggest to start off with Omega-3 Fish Oil supplements, Vitamin B complexes and Calcium supplements that include magnesium and vitamin D. If you can't afford it, stop right here and don't waste your money. I suggest you to eat a little more vegetables and fruits as you normally do and get yourself green tea which offers a powerful array of potent anti oxidants. Also, have an apple every morning. If you got the extra cash, acquire the basics to get you started.

How to Track your Weight Loss Progress

noreply@blogger.com (Ashley Rodick) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 18:08:00 +0000

Tracking your weight loss is an important element to feel out your current progress performance. It is an important indicator on how well your current weight loss methodologies are fairing and as well useful to monitor your progress as your reaching your goal. Keeping track of your weight loss goals allows you to see how well you are doing now and perhaps pave the path for self-suggestions in the future to gradually improve it's efficiency.

Periodical Charting

Pick a day in the week where you feel comfortable weighing yourself and every week at the same time go ahead and weigh yourself. Create a little journal and note your weight for that given week. Do not weigh yourself every single day. Once a week is sufficient for any worthwhile progress to take shape.

Evaluate your Progress

After accumulating at least 6 weeks worth of information on how your weight is evolving within your weight loss framework, reflect on it and ask yourself what little things you can integrate back into your weight loss program which can help you lose an additional one or two pounds a month. Look at your exercise and nutritional habits and see where you can increase or decrease the duration, frequency or intensity of any specific element whether it be junk food, thread mill or simply less TV time and more outdoor activities.

Improve your Progress

Tighten up and adjust your weekly weight loss routine to get the best out of it based on your personal weight loss tracking journal and continue the whole observation process every 6 weeks. I do not suggest to over burden yourself. I simply recommend you to see where little adjustments can take place and patch your weak spots to further elevate your personal weight loss efficiency level to meet higher fat burning targets every 6 weeks. Uh? If your burning off an average of 5 pounds every 6 weeks, add or adjust a few elements to turn that 5 pounds into 6 then into 7 and so forth.

Tracking your progress is the only way to understand where you're at and to begin being creative on how you can stretch your program to burn off more weight within the same time frame.

Burning Fat: The Ugly Truth

noreply@blogger.com (Ashley Rodick) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 02:12:00 +0000

Today's the day. You made a critical decision in your life. Your now determined to lose weight. You want to lose 5, 10, 20 or 50 pounds as soon as possible. You're looking around for a perfect solution that can achieve your goal without the least amount of effort. That's how most of us think and look, the weight loss industry is making billions of dollars as a result. You're talking about your physical human body here, we're not talking about a button you can turn on and flushes your fat out as if you were merely going to the bathroom.

Fat burning rhythm

1. You will be burning an average between a low 1 pound to a high 2 pounds a week. Half will be lean body mass and half will be pure yucky fat. That's the usual fat burning rhythm. If you want to burn 20 pounds of fat, give yourself an adequate time-frame to accomplish it. 4 months sounds reasonable. Don't push yourself too hard or else you will throw in the towels and it won't do you any good!

Dieting

2. Their is no miracle diet food or diet pills for that matter that will shrink you into a princess in a week, 2 weeks or even a month. Figure out your calorie maintenance level, the bare minimum amount of calories your body burns to survive, and start meeting your own calorie maintenance target throughout a range of healthy foods such as whole wheat bread, pasta, rice, chicken, turkey and your greens.

Don't Starve Yourself

3. Your physical body keeps track of your daily eating habits without you knowing consciously. You can't outsmart it. If you begin starving yourself for a couple of days, you body will detect this and it will make it increasingly difficult to lose the next pound. You will end up having a tremendous lack of energy and you will end up gaining everything back and beginning from point zero. Stick with your 3 meals a day, just realize how much and what to eat based on your caloric maintenance level and healthy foods.

Consistency is Key

4. Begin with a few changes in your usual eating habits. As you slowly transition onto a new healthy eating habit, you're body will easily self-accomodate and you will avoid the effect of relapses. If you're body is used to a predictable amount of junk food intake on a weekly basis, it will begin to crave it when time comes.Therefore, cutting out the weeds slowly will prevent you from pulling out your hair and keep you on top of your weight loss plan.

Think Sustainability

5. Start your weight loss plan with a few health improvements here, a few junk food cut backs there, a few minutes of cardio exercise here and there and build momentum. They will add up and your weight will begin to plummet. This way you can stay healthy and fit looking for the rest of your life. It's like a seed you plant in the ground. Don't expect it to bloom overnight. Water it and watch it grow.

If there is a specific health topic related to weight loss you would like me to cover, let me know. It will be my pleasure.

The Daily Grind - Squeezing Every Pound out of it

noreply@blogger.com (Ashley Rodick) — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 21:44:00 +0000

You don't need to be sweating in the gym or running on your threadmill watching TV at the same time to lose those extra pounds. Although, these 2 methods are fantastic ways to burn fat. Sometimes, we don't always have time for that and then we begin to lose our consistency. We stop losing weight. Here are a few ways we can continue losing our stubborn weight easily during our daily busy schedule.

1. If you drive your car to work, park your car a few blocks away from your home on your way back. In the morning, spend 10 minutes walking to your car. When you drive your car to work, park your car a few blocks away from your work place. If you take the public transportation to go to work, walk 2 bus stops past your usual bus stop.

2. When you get to work, walk a few floors before taking the elevator. Do the same on the way down.

3. After you eat lunch, walk around for 10 minutes to facilitate digestion before crumping down on a chair. If you eat out, pick a restaurant that provides healthier food selections such as subway or japanese food.

4. Whenever you find yourself on a long phone conversation and you have a wireless phone, walk in circles around your office. It beats sitting down.

5. Always drink water over coffee, soda and juice. If you don't like the taste of water, ocassionally cheat. Maybe have a coffee only on a monday or a friday and water for the rest.

10 Golden Rules of Nutrition to Weight Loss

noreply@blogger.com (Ashley Rodick) — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 04:35:00 +0000

1. When Cravings Hit you, the backup snack kicks in.

When you find yourself face to face with a craving, it may be hard to resist and may not always be easy. If it becomes irresistable, have your backup plan ready. The next time you go food shopping, buy a snack that contains a good balance between the health and the taste factor. When your next craving hits, give yourself a tasty and enjoyable snack that won't set you back a few pounds over time. If your new snack is 200 calories less than your older snack, you just saved 1 pound of fat after eating 18 snacks!

2. Water, Water, Water.

Water is your friend. Drink 1 glass of water before and after you're meal. When water hits your digestive tracks, it brews a little storm and enhances the fat burning mechanism. Water also helps cut out your appetite.

3. Adjust your Meals

You are what you eat and not only that, you became what you ate from your past eating habits.
Whenever you're eating a meal, realize that keeping the same eating habits will result in the same weight count. For example, if you're eating out, eat a quarter to a half less of the food presented to you. Just because theirs food, it does not mean you need to eat it all. Save it for another time!

4. Juices Baaaaad

We all thought that juice is good for your health and that we ought to have a glass of juice every morning. The juice that is usually sold at the supermarket is made from concentrate and contains 150 calories per glass. That's a lot of useless calories you're taking there. Yes, Health is important. Therefore, have a orange or apple. The real stuff without the added sugar.

5. Good Meats Bad Meats

You want to stick with meat that contains the least amount of unsaturated fat. That's the fat that is out to kill you and shed the way to ugly diseases. The healthiest and affordable meats to consider sticking with is chicken, salmon, tuna or turkey. They are healthy and high in proteins.
Avoid ham, bacon and sausages. If you can't live without them, then eat it occasionally.

6. Eating Before Sleeping

Most of us have a bad habit of eating an hour or two before going to sleep. We finish eating supper and around 9 o'clock in the midsts of an interesting TV show or likewise, we feel like eating a snack about an hour before we head to bed. The next time you find yourself in this type of situation, have a few fruits. They are delicious, will fill your craving and will keep you from gaining those extra needless pounds.

7. Stick with whole wheat

Whole wheat breads contain considerably less calories and are ten times healthier for you then the white bread counterpart. There are good tasting whole wheat brands out there, you just need to experiment a little. In the long run, you're going to truely benefit from the change. It will even improve your skin, hair and nails.

8. Eat your breakfast, lunch and supper.

Losing weight does not mean eat as little as possible. In fact, if you only eat 1 or 2 meals a day, you're going to hit a roadblock very shortly. Your human body does not understand what dieting means though it easily understands what starvation means. Your human body will detect danger and it will begin to store and burn up less fat and that's what you want to avoid. You want to store less and burn more fat. Therefore, Stick with 3 meals a day at least.

9. Meal Tampering

Have yourself a big breakfast, a medium-sized lunch and a small supper. Eat the most in the morning, that's when your body needs it and as the day goes on, eat less food. You're body will have what it needs and will be able to burn off most of the food at it's peak.

10. Greens are Good

Fill your meals up with more greens such as brocoli, spinach, green beans, carrots, celery or salad because at the end of the day, as much greens as you eat, you will stay slim and healthy looking.