Weight-Loss and Diets - Articles - Zimbio

Fat Loss Day 2

Wed, 17 Jul 2008 14:36:35 GMT

posted by pg8595

Losing Weight is still a game on day 2!

Well here we are. The second day of our ‘walk’ together. I’ve been through this before, so I know that I should still be feeling motivated and excited. The drudgery of the day to day routine hasn’t kicked in yet. I am also somewhat obsessed (as I think many people are) with my weight, and body image, especially since I have started so publicly on my program. I go to sleep thinking about my fat, and wake up thinking about my fat. I am going to try to shift my thinking a bit. If I HAVE to think about it, I should go to bed thinking about my muscle! (more on that later!) I got a bit more of the website done yesterday and meant to get back to post what I did yesterday but didn’t get a chance. (TOO many things to do!) So I’ll just give you a run-down on how my first day went.

Food -I made a decision NOT to diet! Been there, got the T-shirt (it’s too small now I might add). So I am trying to make a conscious effort to change my food habits and also my eating habits. See I work in my office pretty much all day long. Often when I get hungry I grab something quick, and take it back to my office. I eat while I am working on the computer, talking on the phone or whatever. Meal times have no real meaning to me at all. So I’ve made a decision to eat ONLY at the kitchen table when I am home. I’ve also made a decision to try to make healthier food choices.
Exercise - OK, well as I mentioned I spend all day in my office. I am a total workaholic. I love pattering away at the computer, I love my office, and I do not have any idea what to do when the power goes out! So sedentary is a mild word for what my life has become. I have to MOVE every day. I am going to work up to 3 planned exercise periods a day. It sounds like a lot right now since I barely move all day, but I think it is reasonable. I am starting with baby steps.
Motivation - I need to do something to keep myself motivated daily, and I don’t want this to be as dry as a caesar salad crouton for those of you who are reading, so each day 4 or 5 days a week I am going to try to do some research on a method, product, exercise, or anything else that would be helpful, funny, or interesting and we’ll collect them here as well. If you have suggestions as to what you would like to learn more about, let me know here.
Support - I am very fortunate… I have a supportive spouse, and teenagers who don’t spend a lot of time at home, so there is no huge obstacle at home. Not everyone has that, so I am going to encourage you to join a support group, enlist the help of a friend, find an online forum or whatever you have to do to find a buddy to encourage you when you are down. I will have a forum here on the site eventually as our community grows.

So what exactly did my day look like yesterday?

Food- I didn’t do too badly. As I mentioned I am not dieting. I am just trying to make better choices overall, and become aware of the amount of calories I take in. I am going to be moving towards a mostly raw, live food diet, but right now I am about as "average North American" as I can get, so I think ’slow’ is the key. One of my biggest problems in the past has been that I tend to go full steam 100% and then crash because I can’t keep up the pace. The real secret is to gradually make changes and let them become a habit. All of the research I’ve done on diet indicates that we should be consuming an 80% raw diet made of mostly fruits and vegetables, so that is what my ultimate goal will be. The biggest problem I have now with that is that my blood sugar tends to crash if I eat just fruits and/or vegetables without protein. I suspect that by gradually introducing the new way of eating my body’s insulin response will adjust. Right now, it’s used to refined carbs (white sugar, white flour etc). I am going to be switching to protein shakes and I have ordered them. (I am not really into raw meat and eggs! haha) I’ll tell you which company I chose for the shakes and why in another article. So on to what I ate:

I started the day with a glass of water, then my coffee! Give up coffee??? HA no way! I don’t put sugar in my coffee, just a bit of 2% milk. Breakfast was an orange, 2 whole wheat toast with real butter and an egg (poached yummy!). I had a big fresh salad for lunch, and some hard cheddar cheese. Supper was another huge fresh salad and a small fresh cut of pork grilled on the barbecue. I also had a granny smith apple, 2 tangerines, and a chocolate frozen treat on a stick (like a fudge-sicle only the no name kind. hehe) Then I had a bowl of cheerios in the evening with milk. I am pretty fortunate that I mostly drink water all day anyway, and not a lot of anything else except my coffee (3 or 4 cups) in the morning. I am going to try to add green and herbal teas for health benefits, but summer in Canada is not a good time generally to want to drink hot beverages any time of the day besides morning.

Exercise - Man I am in SUCH bad shape. Just coming up one flight of stairs from the lower level of my house with a basket of laundry leaves me short of breath. I can hardly believe that I’ve allowed myself to get to this condition. This might be the time to confess that I quit smoking 4 months ago after smoking since my first cigarette at 12 years of age! So imagine my totally inert lifestyle, coupled with over 30 years of cigarettes and just imagine the shape of my body! I know I need to get moving, but again (for me anyway) the key is going to be slowly adding things that I can continue to do every day. I also don’t want to over-do it and pull a muscle or be so sore that I need 4 days to recover.

As soon as I got out of bed, and flipped on the coffee pot, I went to the livingroom and just did some body stretching. WOW I can’t believe how good that felt. After I felt ’stretched’ I did some simple marching in place while I moved my arms ‘jumping jack’ style. I did that for about 10 minutes. Then I did some stomach crunches with feet flat on floor. (I didn’t count how many… just did as many as I could…. a little less than 2 minutes) then I place ankle on knee of other leg and crunched across my body, then changed legs and did the other side. I then stretched out on my side, head propped, and did some lateral leg raises both sides. Later in the day I did 20 minutes on my exercise bike. I have a recumbent stationary bike from Sears a couple of years ago. I paid around $400 for it so it isn’t ‘top of the line’ but it works great. I also have some hand held weights in a variety of sizes for strengthening. You can pick them up quite readily just about anywhere.

So that was my day yesterday, and I feel pretty good about it. I am going to try to weigh myself just once a week or so. I may not even remember to weigh myself regularly, and I am not going to focus on it. An acquaintance of mine says (wisely I might add) that we should not be concerned with weight loss, rather our focus should be ‘fat loss’. This is a reminder that our goal is to gain muscle, which helps increase our metabolism and in turn burns even more fat. Muscle weighs more than fat , and it looks nicer too. You can see why we have dimples on our rear ends from this piture! HEHE

Now I am going to go do my exercises for today. I am also going to write my first article on "WATER" so watch for that later today!

Many Blessings,

Shelley

So, what's this all about?

Tue, 22 Oct 2008 13:35:00 GMT

posted by czuber

Welcome to the first informational blog entry of "I want you healthy". I congratulate you first of all for having the interest and taking the time to read this blog. I hope that you find the information both informative and inspiring. I will be sharing what I have learned over many years of striving to achieve optimal health both from a scientific point of view and a practical one. I don't make any claims concerning any health issues. These are my opinions based on my and other people's experiences and also based on information from the scientific community. I don't claim to cure or heal any person of any ailment. This is my disclosure. I'm not a doctor nor am I affiliated with the pharmaceutical industry, which by the way kills many people every year by means of misleading them to dangerous drug treatments which generally deal with symptoms and offer no long term solution. I am not against doctors or drugs. I believe that they both serve a very important role in the health care industry, however, our society has become so dependant upon them that we now yield our health to a man in a white coat who knows little about health and probably won't even himself live to the average life expectancy as a result of his/her lack of correct knowledge. With that said, I have discovered and am one-hundred percent convinced that each of us has the choice to have optimal health or to be sickly. But what is optimal health? I know a lot of people that consider themselves healthy although they regularly become ill or suffer from degenerative diseases. Many say that they are just getting old. And this is true, we do get old and our bodies eventually give way to the test of time. Cancer, arthritis, weight gain, fatigue, and visible signs of aging can strike all of us,...but is this normal? Is this acceptable? Is there a way to prevent this? or to at least put it off? I believe there is. Each one of us was born with a unique genetic code. Many people blame their genes for whatever they suffer from and it's true that because of our individual genes we can be prone to certain health problems, but it doesn't end there. We all have areas of weakness and areas of strength. With diet and exercise we can reduce the effects of the negative genes and fully exploit our positive genes.

Many times people have asked me to tell them what to do to lose weight or get into shape. Most people don't like my answer and this is sad because it's really not that difficult. It may take some time to develop healthy habits but remember, those unhealthy habits took time to create as well. None of us was born with a french fry addiction. As an infant we were nurtured by milk, either from our mother or from formula. Then we began to take in some solid foods. Generally these included oat and rice cereal and gerber foods. As we grew teeth our parents or caretakers began to test us with other foods. Depending on the health knowledge of these very influential people in our lives we may have begun to eat whole fruits, breads, cheeses, soft meats, french fries and other fast food items, donuts, cookies, candies or other sweets. This is where the stage is set often for the rest of our lives unless we interrupt this cycle somewhere along the way and this is the difference between being a victim of our genetic code and taking full responsibility for our lifestyle.

Have you ever observed people in line at the check out stand at the grocery store? I have. Next time you are shopping take notice of the physical appearance of the person or family in comparison to the items in their basket. I have been apalled at times to see heavily overweight individuals obviously under doctor's care with a cart full of frozen dinners, ice cream, cookies, white bread, soda and sugary cereals. It saddens me even more when I realize the denial or total lack of knowledge that some people have concerning their health. Sometimes a person honestly believes that he/she eats healthy when the reality is that their eating habits are very unhealthy. Some people believe that adding a salad each day automatically makes them a healthy eater. My goal is to educate. I want people to explore, learn, and apply what they learn so that they can experience the immense joy and freedom that come with a healthy lifestyle. I speak boldly and matter-of-fact. Forgive me if I seem insensitive at times. I'm very passionate about this subject. I realize that there is a media war taking place and we are all under attack in this war. We are constantly bombarded by ads and commercials promoting unhealthy convenience foods and pharmaceutical drugs to deal with the consequences our bodies suffer from the unhealthy lifestyles being sold to us. It's a nasty cycle that must be interrupted. Furthermore, it is my goal to educate people to take responsibility for their health in an effort to reduce the economic strain that our country suffers from an out of control, failing health care system, or lack of rather. Medicaid is bankrupt already and the situation is only getting worse. What about elderly care? Do you have enough in savings to pay to live in an elderly care center? or will that burden fall on your children? What can we do as a society to take care of ourselves? You see, this health thing is also economical. Getting healthy not only will make you feel better and have a more productive life but you will also avoid expensive doctor visits and medications plus you may be fortunate enough to not end up being a burden to your family. Now this may not be the case in your family but I've personally seen it time and time again in other families.

In future blog posts I will be expanding on these ideas and also sharing my own personal eating habits and excercise routines. Remember that everybody is unique and everybody will eat and excercise differently. The key is to find what works for you and also that you genuinely enjoy both the journey and the results. Give yourself time and never give up. You're body will thank you for it.

Oh pants...!

Mon, 27 May 2008 15:00:00 GMT

posted by Stephanella
Unwanted weight approaches slowly yet determined from afar, like debt or a pushy relative on Christmas Eve. It bursts into your life with that same SURPRISE factor and elicits the same eye-narrowing scepticism of the credit card bill and of the relative. But while you can scan transactions for fraud or you can try and slam the door in the face of the scrounger, resisting the surprise, the shock and the self-loathing that follow weight gain is a much harder, if not completely impossible, task to muster. I know that while I have successfully identified fraud and I have successfully refuted scroungers, I have also stood in front of the mirror, mouth aghast, forehead scrunched up, hands pulling hard against two wretched bits of fabric that would just not come together. I use one particular pair of trousers as my benchmark for fatness and perhaps this itself sets me up for failure.

As every woman knows, there is much more levee in a skirt than in a pair of pants, but this is exactly why success resounds so much louder when the zipper pulls up with ease on the drainpipes, rather than on the pencil. I can guarantee that within ten days my currently slightly tight narrow skirt will fit like it did a few months back. The silk trousers are an entirely different challenge. I bought these bits of fabulousness in early 2002, just before my first trip to New York. I can leaf through old pics and see myself wearing them everywhere. The Empire State Building, Fifth Avenue, the plane, the Waldorf. I inspect my face for signs of fat; it surely did look rounder then. Could it be that now I am approaching 30 I simply look haggard in the face and fat in the ass? Is that the difference between early and late twenties? I also recall wearing them on the way to work, standing on the Farringdon platform, denim jacket on top, huge fringed John Galliano wrap carefully thrown on my shoulders (there is no such thing as effortlessly done dahhhlin’, remember that). I recall wearing them for lunch with a friend in early 2006 and catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror. They were loose, loose like they had never been before. At the time I was returning to work on a part-time basis, which allowed for twenty hours of exercise to take place religiously, Monday to Friday, at my local fitness centre. I was trying to strengthen my back, what I got into the bargain was not a weight loss, as testified by the scales receipts that insist on reading the same over a period of three months, but a de-puffing and toning up that I have not experienced since. And fact is, I want it back.

Friends are currently doing liquid diets, the sort that deflate you before you go on holiday, and that move you back to the land of the fatties as soon as you stop the shakes and go back to solids. Much as I’d love to be a stick, I love solid food more. I cannot exercise twenty (or more) hours per week because I cannot fit so much into my schedule any longer. I am up early to go to the office, not to walk to David Lloyd for a workout. When I return in the evening, I am too hungry to contemplate a 3-hour sweat-out. In fact, the thought of it makes me queasy. And of course Merv having been off the radar for the past three weeks hasn’t helped either. One thing is to potter around him and quite another to go for a two-hour trotting hack. Even then, I recently noticed that I do not get as tired (read, as pumped up) any longer, probably because the work on the exercise bike with a view to increase my horsey stamina has started to pay off. And yes the exercise bike. I cannot think of anything more boring than a stationary bike (lie, I can, Gangs of New York), yet it has proved invaluable at a time when Merv was lame and I really wanted a proper sweat-out. However, I have the peculiar habit of pedalling with a Nigella or Jamie DVD playing in the Mac and I can tell you that if this helps the workout to fly by (or very nearly), it most certainly does not help its aftermath.

So I resolved to cut-back with a low-fat diet devoid of just about everything. I began last night by preparing a wrap with paprika flageolet beans and Philadelphia extra light. I also threw a low-fat, low-calorie soya dessert into the bag and already felt thinner just by placing it in the fridge ready to go this morning. Except I drove to work and left it at home. Since I was in extra early, and was so very angry for having forgotten the food, I had a grande (skinny) caramel macchiato at Starbee. Believe it or not, even a cup the size of a vase laced up with caramel sauce only has 120 calories provided you ask for skimmed milk. I am beginning to wonder whether Starbee at large may be part of the problem. Since I started work at this client, with a Starbee in the building, I seem to have gotten… well… fatter. I hate even typing that. I plead on here, right now, to stop the vicious circle. I will prepare my own food at home, I will remember to take it with me, I will stop the snacking at 3 pm and I will reduce the number of Starbees (to… maybe… just xx a day). And I will fit back into those bastard pants if that’s the last thing I do before my birthday in September.

Lose Weight Fast in Days!

Fri, 22 Mar 2008 20:56:11 GMT

posted by losefast

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Tips on How to Find Good Weight Loss Program

Fri, 10 May 2008 07:11:48 GMT

posted by platinumcash

Did you know that there isn’t a 100 percent guaranteed weight loss program available and there may never be; many good methods do exist but it will depend on the user as to how effective any of these will ultimately be. There is more harm caused to an overweight person than just pride as many serious medical conditions are as a result of obesity.

How difficult or easy your weight loss program is will depend on how much you apply yourself to shedding those extra pounds. Before you decide on how you intend to lose weight you need to decide if it is for your benefit; i.e. to remain healthy, or is it because someone else wants you to lose weight.

There are a number of things to consider which will help make your weight loss program easier including; the time of day you eat, how often, what you in fact eat and of course what physical activity you carry out. Some people are of the opinion that losing weight quickly is the best way but this often causes other medical problems like heartburn or even anemia and creates unrealistic targets.

To lose a realistic pound in weight each and every week all you need to do is reduce your food intake or exercise enough to loose 500 calories each day. The best diets are where you do not give up foods you enjoy, just cut back on the amount because as soon as you stop eating those foods, the likelihood of the diet continuing is reduced.

Emotions have a great deal to do with weight gain as many people (more likely women but not exclusively) eat more when they feel depressed, unwanted or unloved. Bad eating habits are a real issue that can cause diabetes, cancer, various heart problems and high blood pressure. Part of the reason for weight gain is psychological and therefore this must be addressed along with any easy weight loss diet that is being used.

One aspect that also needs to be included is how the person pursues the subject of their weight loss program as those who take a more relaxed approach are usually more successful. Being positive is one of the most important aspects in life as it can help us achieve things we did not believe possible. Losing weight is known to provide us with more energy and allows us to carry out tasks that those extra pounds do not permit, which can all lead to improved self confidence.

Easy weight loss programs are all about a person’s ability to adapt to some demanding living conditions and once you embark upon it, it usually gets easier and easier.

To discover more information on how you can successfully lose weight permanently and naturally as my secrets to losing 9 lbs in 11 days, click here.