You and I both know that with a little self-control, exercise and eating healthy we can experience a fifteen pound weight loss fairly quickly. The real challenge comes from keeping it off permanently and staying healthy in the process. We also know it’s easier to say it than it is to do it.

What you may not know is you may have some preconceived ideas about how to do it and the fact is those ideas are false. It’s not your fault you believe them, because they have been preached for so many years, by so many people. These legends have taken on a life of their own, when in fact they need to die and be buried forever. This article will give you the true way to shed the extra fat and keep it off.

1. Legend–Skip Breakfast to lose weight: Not a good idea!
In order for you to lose weight quickly and safely you must eat breakfast. This is what will kick your metabolism into high gear for the day after resting all night. Skipping it also means your body will draw the energy from lean muscle not the excess fat.

2. Legend: Low carbohydrate diets will make it easy to keep off the weight: Partly true, but because your body needs carbohydrates for your energy and the building of muscles you may cause more damage to your overall health. In other words you could negate the good you have done with the weight loss.

3. Legend: Eating what you want when you want it as long as you exercise: Not True! Just because youre exercising to burn the calories does not mean you can go carte blanch when you eat. It’s important for you to eat the right foods such as veggies, fruits and lean meats. When you practice the right diet you will keep the weight off naturally and safely.

4. Legend: Restrict your calories to keep weight loss down: Partly true again. You and I both know that true weight loss comes when we reduce the amount of calories we eat. Calories we won’t burn! But if you reduce your calorie intake way under what you need, for your body to function properly, you are asking for trouble. It’s important for you to know how many calories your body needs to stay healthy.

There are many more legends or myths that need to be buried, but its beyond the scope of this article. Losing weight the right and healthy way doesnt take an IQ of 160 to figure it out. Nor is it difficult once you set your mind to it.

Look, let’s face it! There is only one way to lose 15 pounds and keep it off permanently. You and I both know what it is. It is a combination of self-control, eating healthy and exercise. Weight loss is not a game, for some of us; it’s a matter of life and death. Which one is it going to be for you?

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Want Permanent weight loss results? Healthy Eating is the Key
Dr. Jamie Fettig

The confusion about eating healthy and dieting will now be cleared up, all in one easy sentence. Are you ready? Everyone is different.

What is healthy for one person is not going to be the best diet for everyone else. You are different than everyone else. What food is best for you is not necessarily going to be what is right for everyone else. Some people do well on meat, others dont. Some people are fine with lots of carbs, others not. What food is best for you is really dependent on you and your lifestyle.

I will make it really simple to help you figure out what is good. There are a couple of general rules of thumb that apply to everyone. They are really simple. Are you ready?

1.Fresh
2.Pure

It is that simple. All the food you eat, no matter what kind you eat, should be fresh and pure. It is that simple. Then, just listen to your inner knowing, and it will tell you what to eat that is fresh and pure.

If you are craving steak, eat steak. If you want veggies, eat veggies. If you want some fruit, eat fruit. If you want some nuts or seeds, eat nuts and seeds. When your choices of food are always from the fresh and pure categories, you will eat exactly what you need to eat without having to worry about your carbs, calories, fat, cholesterol, or anything. Its so simple.

So what does fresh mean? Fresh generally means not in a can or box. Most things that are put into cans and boxes are old and dead. The life force has been long gone from the food. It is no longer fresh. Now, stuff in a box or can may be fresh, but it usually isnt. Frozen stuff can go either way. Frozen stuff is usually fresher than boxed or canned stuff. It has to be, because it cannot last as long frozen as it can in a box or can.

What does Pure mean? This means nothing artificial and nothing added, including poisons, pesticides or, one of the biggest culprits, refined carbohydrates, commonly called sugar. Sugar is added to almost everything in a regular grocery store. Even many things in a supposed health food store have sugar added. Pure usually includes the food being organic.

It is my position that if a food product meets the categories of both fresh and pure, it is not inherently bad, ever. There is no one food that is right for everyone and there is no food that if fresh and pure, is wrong for everyone either.

Some people are better off not eating late at night, others are. Some people do well skipping breakfast, others dont. Some people do well with three big meals, others do better snacking all day long. Some do better with variety, some do better with the same thing over and over again. It is really different for everyone.

Choose foods that you want to eat, that sound good to you that are fresh and pure. Listen to your inner wisdom and what it is telling you to eat, and you will be just fine. And Coincidentally, eating healthy and resetting your weight-o-stat is the only permanent “weight loss” solution.

 

About the Author

Go to http://www.bazuji.com/ecourse to sign up for the free e-course. Do you want to be Sexy, Slim, Slender and Healthy for Life. Dr. Jamie wants to help give you this with his “non-diet.” He is also giving you dozens of valuable free gifts to “ethically bribe” you into helping him make his new book, “The Ultimate Non-Diet” a #1 best seller. For details go to: http://www.TheUltimateNonDiet.com/free

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Understanding Carbs to Stay Healthy
Barbara Morris

Low carb diets are popular. How good are they? How healthy are they? It all depends on what you know about the difference between different types of carbohydrates.

Common table sugar represents 20 to 25 percent of the daily caloric intake of Americans who live on the typical All American processed food diet. In the early 1800s average sugar consumption was about 12 pounds per person a year. In 1997, it was 152 pounds per person. Is that too much? You bet it is. Its making us old before we need to be.

Do we need carbohydrates? No, we dont. They are non-essential to the human diet. We do need water, fat, and protein. It is possible to survive for long periods without carbohydrates providing fat and protein needs are met. Fat and protein are broken down to make building blocks of carbohydrates as food and energy. This is something the carb-rich processed foods industry doesnt tell us.

Regardless of what is known about carbohydrate needs, we continue to consume massive quantities of carbohydrates. Therefore, its important to know which carbs are better than others. Its simple: All carbs are broken down into sugar in the body. The key is the rate and the amount that determines the level of sugar in the blood.

Complex carbs such as green leafy veggies, brown rice, potato, whole grain products, and fruits break down slowly. The result is a gradual rise and fall in blood sugar. It is generally understood that most complex carbs are good for you.

Refined, simple carbs such as cake, ice cream, cookies, breakfast bars, so-called cereals, and refined grains break down quickly in the body. This causes rapid elevation of blood sugar levels. These are not good for your health.

It should be understood that while refined carbs should be avoided because they are harmful, some complex carbs such as potatoes are not good because of their relatively fast breakdown.

How do you determine which carbs are really good, and what to avoid? Simple. Become familiar with something called the Glycemic Index of foods. When you look at a glycemic index for foods, bear in mind that the lower the rating, or number, the slower the digestion and absorption process and the better it is for your health.

As useful as the glycemic index is, you will need to learn which foods are good for you.. For example, a cup of low fat ice cream has a glycemic index of 50, which is lower than the glycemic index of a baked potato. Thats because the glycemic index rating of a refined sugar product is lower than that of a starchy food! So, learn to discern the difference between refined sugars and everything else. Just assume that if its made in a factory, its suspect!

Here are some glycemic index numbers for some popular food choices:
Baked Potato: 85; Cheerios: 74; Fanta soft drink: 68; Cheese pizza: 60; Banana: 54; Sweet potato: 54, Low fat ice cream: 50; Carrots: 49; Grapefruit juice: 48; All-bran: 42; Spaghetti: 41; Apple: 38; M&Ms (peanut): 32; Peanuts: 15; Yogurt, lot fat, artificially sweetened:14.

You can see from the above how misleading, yet useful the glycemic index can be.

The bottom is this: Do your homework. Dont rely on advertising or uninformed advice of well meaning friends to give you guidance about healthy eating. Making educated choices about what you put into your body puts you in the drivers seat and allows you to be in charge of how healthy you are, and how quickly or slowly you age.

About the Author

Barbara Morris, R.Ph., is a 76-year-old working pharmacist and recognized expert on unique anti-aging strategies. Author of Put Old on Hold, her message is for Boomers who want to feel and function as a healthy 40 or 50 year old for 25 or more years. She calls it Liberation Living a process she has discovered that bypasses infirmities and indignities of traditional old age. http://www.PutOldonHold.com

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Staying Healthy on a Low Carbohydrate Diet
Marjorie Geiser

It is estimated that about 32 million Americans are following some type of low carbohydrate diet. This is the result of fad diet authors claiming that carbohydrates are the cause for Americas rising obesity problems. The backlash against carbohydrates is a result of the low fat craze that started in the 80s.When consumers started cutting down their fat intake, manufacturers figured out that they could create low fat processed food products that the public would buy. Because these products claimed to be fat free, Americans didnt pay attention to the fact that they were not also calorie free, and as a result, the total amount of daily calories has slowly been increasing. In fact, although the total percentage of calories from fat has decreased, the actual amount of fat intake has increased by 10# per year since 1975! The increase of carbohydrate has also increased, at a rate of 20# per year, mostly as a result of highly processed foods.

It is estimated that 3800 calories are now produced for every American man, woman and child. We have evolved from a world of feast or famine, but were in a state of perpetual feast, although our bodies have not changed. We have no defenses against excess calories: Every year, 300,000 to 400,000 deaths in the US are attributed to obesity.

Meanwhile, Asian and Middle Eastern populations consume 50-75% of their calories from rice and have some of the lowest rates of obesity and heart disease in the world. People living in the Mediterranean also have fewer health conditions commonly seen in the US. This diet consists of whole grains, vegetables, legumes, nuts and fruits. Their diets are rich in fish and low in meats and poultry. Although their fat intake is about the same as in America, the type of fat is primarily monounsaturated fats, such as olive oil, where Americans eat primarily saturated animal fats.

Regardless of the actual advantage or disadvange to following a low carbohydrate diet, there are three recommendations for maintaining good health while following such a diet. The first is to choose healthy fats over the unhealthy, saturated fats, when considering fat intake. Examples of healthy fats would be plant fats that have not been hydrogenated, which makes the fat more solid at room temperature. It is believed that hydrogenation is actually more harmful to health than saturated fats found naturally in animal products. Plant fats would include nuts, avocados, and olives. Oils such as olive oil, canola oil and peanut oil are better choices than fats that come from animal sources, such as butter, lard or bacon grease. Multiple studies over the years have shown that excess animal fats lead to higher risks of cancer, heart disease and other inflammatory disorders. Saturated fats have been linked to increased cholesterol, LDL (the bad) cholesterol as well as to increased LDL cholesterol oxidation. In fact, in January 2004, an Atkins representative put out a press release advising the public to decrease their amounts of steak, eggs, and saturated fast to less than 20% of their total fat intake.

The next recommendation to ensure good health is to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables. Although fruits and most vegetables are restricted in the initial phase of some low carbohydrate diets, they are then allowed back in limited amounts. The phytonutrients that come from a diet rich in fruits and vegetables have been shown to decrease blood pressure, as well as protect against cancer, heart disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and obesity. Its easy to add more fruits and vegetables to your diet, once you get in the habit. Examples are; add some berries to breakfast, eat a tomato at lunch, include broccoli with dinner, drink some vegetable juice with snacks, and have a large salad with your meal.

The final tip to ensure good health is to eat a diet of whole foods, rather than fall back on the easy snack, convenience foods of today. If Americans had just cut down their amount of fat intake in the 80s, without finding new ways to snack, we may not be seeing the epidemic of obesity we see, today. When people started going on the low carbohydrate diets, they eliminated a large number of calories by eliminating snacking, especially at night, where common snacks are chips, crackers, and other high fat, high refined carbohydrate foods, such as ice cream. Today, though, much like in the 80s, manufacturers are now developing low carb and low net carb snack foods. We can now find low net carb chips, crackers, ice cream, popcorn, even low carb pizza! As Americans start to increase their intake of these foods, we will soon see a slowing of the weight loss many had seen initially. In order to call themselves a low net carb food, manufacturers subtract the fiber and sugar alcohols from the total carbohydrates in the product, rather than produce products without carbohydrate. There is no actual FDA standard for what a low net carb food is, yet, though, so right now its anything the manufacturer wants to say it is. These foods also are very high in fat and saturated fat, usually through hydrogenation. So, not only will calories be added back into the diet through resuming unhealthy snack habits, but they will be calories consisting of high amounts of the unhealthy fats.

So, while following a low carbohydrate diet, in order to ensure continued good health, follow these three recommendations: 1) Make most fats you eat the healthy, plant fats, rather than eating a diet high in animal or hydrogenated fats, 2) Eat plenty of nutrient rich fruits and vegetables, which are high in disease-fighting antioxidants, and 3) eat mostly whole, fresh foods and very little processed snack foods, even if they say low carb, in order to avoid hidden and unnecessary fat and calories.

Marjorie Geiser has been teaching health, fitness and nutrition since 1982. She is a nutritionist, registered dietitian, certified personal trainer and life coach. As the owner of MEG Fitness, Marjories goal for her clients is to help them incorporate healthy eating and fitness into their busy lives. To order her 30-Day Health & Fitness Challenge e-course and learn more about Marjorie, go to her website at www.megfit.com or email her at Margie@megfit.com

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