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Weight Loss Success Techniques
The world is full of weight loss tips. Some are based on scientific data but perhaps the most interesting tips you can get come from the very core of the issue: the weight losers themselves. The School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh and Health Sciences Center, University of Colorado-Denver founded the National Weight Control Registry -- a project investigating the long-term successful weight loss maintenance. It is currently tracking over 5000 dieters who have lost more than 30 lb. and managed to keep it off for a year or more. Some of the finding can be summed up as tips that can be useful for other people's weight loss. Successful weight losers:
eat average 5 meals a day
keep diary for better self-control, stress reduction, and calorie counting
learn how to eat right
plan to stick with their way of eating for the rest of their life
do not go to extremes
do not eat while not being hungry
drink a glass of water before concluding that you are hungry
walk for at least one hour a day, most of the days
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Exercise To Lose Weight: Calorie Burning
To lose 18 pounds in 60 days, you'll obviously need to be losing about 0.3 lbs a day, which requires burning off of 1166 Cal., every day. Here are exercises you should be doing daily to insure fat burning if you manage maintaining your current calorie intake:
Swim, jog, ski, lift free weights, or do gardening (e.g., digging) for 2.3 hours, briskly
Do step aerobics or power walk, or cycle for 2 hours
Rope-jump, do stair steps, or run 6 mph for 1.5 hours
Bicycle 20 mph, run 10 mph, or in-line skate for 1 hour
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How To Get Thinner, Fast?
Unlike the true body fat loss, looking thinner can be an easier task. Here are a few tricks.
Stop slouching! Good posture improves your look.
Wear:
- clothing all in one color, black color is the best
- shoulder pads and wide necklines
- skirts that fall right at the knee
- long tunics with slim, but not tight pants
Avoid:
- too tight or too shapeless clothing
- horizontal patterns
"Remember after all your efforts in creating that perfect slimming look, walk tall, consider your posture, and beam with confidence," advises the uniquelywoman.co.uk
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Diet Coke, Fat Burning, and Exercise
Diet coke contains sweeteners and caffeine along with flavorings. The sweet taste raises glucose concentration in the blood before the food has a chance to be digested -- taking them from carb depots in liver and muscles. When the sweet taste is real, the real carbohydrates get into the blood shortly. And if they're not? Being fooled, your body reacts rather vindictively: it forces you to want more calories coming with any food during your next meal.
Now, what happens when you get your diet coke just before exercise? It can be that instead of waiting for your next meal to compensate the loss of carbohydrates from the carb depots, the body will take them from its fat depots and by doing this, it switches on the process of fat burning (lipolysis). Caffeine helps this process a lot. The tricky part is, you should watch how much you eat during your next meal.
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Weight Loss -- Water Loss Or Fat Loss?
Is there such thing as a fast and healthy weight loss program? Some dietitians will tell you there isn't. Why then so many people - maybe the majority of dieters want it this exact way? Usually, the reasons are:
Slimming by a certain date (getting married, going to the prom, attending class reunion, etc.)
Wrongly put new year resolutions
Weight loss being the only criterion of a new, healthy way of eating success
Of these reasons, only number one deserve some consideration. Really, what one can do to lose a certain amount of pounds by a certain date? Let's calculate. Times and again, let's remember that to lose one pound of body fat, one should create a negative calorie balance of 3,500 Cal. Example: To lose one pound a week, you have to either:
consume 500 Cal. less than you do now
exercise to burn 500 Cal. more than you do now
split it 50-50
If you succeed in doing just one of these, you'll lose 2 pounds in two weeks. This is what most of fitness professionals consider a healthy weight loss.
However, most dieters worry not about fat loss but about weight loss, which in the beginning of dieting is mostly water loss. In this case, it is possible to lose up to stunning 5 pounds in just a couple of days -- if you retained that much water and if your diet is able to promote water loss.
Is water loss healthy?
Depends on quantities. To get rid of excess water that makes you bloating is a good thing while getting in the dehydration state is very dangerous. Because of that, never use diuretics other than mild natural ones like parsley, cucumbers, water melon, etc.
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How to Lose 20 Pounds in a Month
To lose one pound of body fat, you need to create a 3,500 Calorie deficit so to lose 20 pounds you should burn 70,000 Cal. If you have only one month to do the job, you need to burn an extra 2300 Cal. every day. To get an idea of what it takes to spend those calories, here are calorie burning per hour for different exercises for a 150-lb person (the heaviere people need less time, the lighter ones need more time):
Aerobics: 405 Cal/hour or 5 hours to burn the 2300 Cal.
Please note that doing these exercising, you have to keep your calorie intake at your regular level. If you reduce your calorie intake by 500 Calories a day, the needed calorie deficit will be 2300 minus 500 = 1700 Calories, which are a little bit easier to burn.
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The Body-Mind Weight Loss Approach
As it comes to long term weight loss success, one of big mistakes is to choose a too mechanistic approach: eat this, don't eat that, calorie in - calorie out, etc.
Dieting education, motivation, and support are the three most important component that should be including in any weight loss plan.
Diet education
A study was conducted to determine whether diet education could be an effective supplement todiet counseling resulting in an article in the Diabets journal. Researchers concluded that education, especially computer-based techniques, can provide beter results.
Examples of topics every dieters should learn about are:
Nutrition basics
Stress control and sleep quality
Emotional eating
Body image
Diet motivation
We dieters all have our motives -- to improve health, get in shape for a friend's wedding or class reunion, etc. These motives might be enough to start a diet but how do one stick with his or her own new year resolutions? Here we come to the third component - support.
Diet support
There are tons of support out there. Most good online diets offer forums for their members. There are independent forums specialized in certain diets like the Low Carb Fiends or broad-themed like the Featherish. You can use the Diet.LifeTips.com to start a discussion an any topic. Just read any tip and leave your comment or question in the form provided on the bottom of every page.
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Firming Up Your Arms
Some people have shapely and firm arms without exercise and some exercise but fail to firm them up. Why?
There can be at least three reasons: excessive body weight, wrong diet, and wrong exercise.
No exercise can do any good if your toned muscles are hidden under the flab so there's the only solution: choose a diet that's right for you and lose weight.
If, however, your weight is normal and you do curls and pushups but are still not happy with your arm shape, change the exercise type. For instance, participate in arm-specific sports like rowing, racquetball, tennis, or boxing. These activities help creating "dryer-looking" arms.
Too prevent the skin from loosing, do a dry brush massage and take contrast cold/hot showers.
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Diet and exercise for flatter abdomen
Although fitness specialists claim that there's no exercises for reducing specific spots, the abdomen can be an exclusion. The matter is, this is the region of high sensitivity to insulin. If you have the insulin sensitivity problem, the best thing for you is a low carbohydrate diet. In this case, the abdominal fat really goes away first.
However, there ARE exercises to tone your upper abdomen so that when your fat layer disappears, the strengthened muscles will hold the shape.
To read more, I advise you to visit these pages (it's free):
For the diet part: http://bantadiet.com
For the exercise: http://dietandbody.com/Tips_For_Flat_Stomach.html
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Want to Lose Weight But Hate Exercising?
If you hate exercising, then you just didn't find the right one yet. The situation can create a vicious circle: you don't exercise because you hate it and you hate it because you don't exercise.
If you just start you are bound to first bear with it, then like it, then you can't do without. Exercising cause releasing of your body's own chemicals endorphins and you get on high! There's even a term "runner's high" that applies to any vigorous exercise. Before you know it, you can't stop.
Exercising can dramatically improve your looks even without any weight loss. Your posture improves, your movement become gracious, your eyes brighten - and your social life improves. Remember: the way other people perceive you first of all depends on how you perceive yourself.
So how can you start?
Ask yourself: why do I hate exercise? Is this because I don't know how to run or jog, or swim, or dance? If so, can I learn how to do one of those? Join a gym for a free trial (many would offer this option) and figure out what's at least acceptable for you. Or is it because I am too intimidated by the way I look to go to a gym? If so, can I learn how to exercise at home? Visit the betterbodz.com site for free information and strength training plan.
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Exercising before versus after a big meal
It is better to wait at least 2 hours after a big meal before you start strenuous exercise. However, it's OK and even good for you to walk leisurely instead of sitting idly or going to bed.
There are more than one reason for that. Firstly, it's mechanically challenging for your heart and lungs to work while having such a bulk of a stomach around. Secondly, your blood volume is not unlimited. A lot of blood will go to serve the digestion process leaving less of it to serve muscles, heart, and lungs.
Last but not least, if your meal has been a fatty one, your blood vessels can temporarily lose some of their elasticity thus making immediate exercise dangerous. Doctors know that the risks of stroke and heart attach are increased after rich meals.
Here's a tip to avoid this kind of trouble: exercise *before* meal. Studies showed that just 10 minutes of intensive exercise 30 minutes before fatty meal dramatically reduced the vessel-hardening effect of them.
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Make One Change At a Time
Perhaps the most common weight loss problem is the diet choice. Many people say they tried just about everything and failed. But how did they try? When being asked, they describe combinations of dieting approaches like calorie restriction plus aerobic exercise, then fat reduction plus strength training or complete fasts without any exercise. This way, it's impossible to tell what exactly failed.
If you are a seasoned dieter choosing your next program, make only one simple change at a time. For example, change only exercise routine - do less aerobics but more strength training - but don' change your eating style. If you fail again, change the way you eat but keep your exercise routine. If you limit carbohydrates, don't limit calorie or fat intake and otherwise.
Try to figure out what technique you haven't tried. Here's a sample checklist of possible changes that are worth trying.
- the number of meals a day
- the kind of fat (animal versuls oils)
- the kind of carbs (simple vesrus complex such as whole grains)
- meal timing (main meal in the morning or in the evening, skipping breakfasts or suppers)
- calorie balance (eating more and exercising more as opposite to eating less and exercising less)
- calorie density of foods (bulky foods, containing lots of fiber and water are better appetite controllers than concentrated, rich foods)
- quitting caffein
- quitting artificial sweeteners
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Make One Change At a Time
Perhaps the most common weight loss problem is the diet choice. Many people say they tried just about everything and failed. But how did they try? When being asked, they describe combinations of dieting approaches like calorie restriction plus aerobic exercise, then fat reduction plus strength training or complete fasts without any exercise. This way, it's impossible to tell what exactly failed.
If you are a seasoned dieter choosing your next program, make only one simple change at a time. For example, change only exercise routine - do less aerobics but more strength training - but don' change your eating style. If you fail again, change the way you eat but keep your exercise routine. If you limit carbohydrates, don't limit calorie or fat intake and otherwise.
Try to figure out what technique you haven't tried. Here's a sample checklist of possible changes that are worth trying.
- the number of meals a day
- the kind of fat (animal versuls oils)
- the kind of carbs (simple vesrus complex such as whole grains)
- meal timing (main meal in the morning or in the evening, skipping breakfasts or suppers)
- calorie balance (eating more and exercising more as opposite to eating less and exercising less)
- calorie density of foods (bulky foods, containing lots of fiber and water are better appetite controllers than concentrated, rich foods)
- quitting caffein
- quitting artificial sweeteners
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Weight Loss And Headaches
Many dieters experience headaches in the beginning of too restrictive weight loss programs or of plans that are too different from their habitual way of eating.
Reasons for this unpleasant complication are plentiful. For one t hing, migraine sufferers know that their headaches can be triggered by certain foods. sometimes they know these foods, sometimes they can be unaware of new food effects. Also, carbohydrate-rich foods can bring a short term relief but on a low carb diet, there is no carb-rich foods and no such relief.
On the other hand, this diet's long term effect is often a complete disappearance of migraine headaches.
Headaches can be also caused by hunger and cravings that are usual on initial stages of any restrictive diet. Other than limiting your carbohydrate intake, you can fight these type of headaches by eating bulkier foods. These foods, ounce for ounce, have less calories than energy-dense foods and since your body judge when it's time to stop eating by meal's volume rather than calories, you'll feel full on lower calorie intake resulting in dieting without hunger.
Take a look at bantadiet.com - a free online program with 92% success rate. Many dieters reported headache and mood swing disappearance.
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Developing a Fitness Plan
There are different ways to develop a fitness plan that is right for you. You can go the whole nine yards: hire a personal trainer, use an online service that can tailor a plan for you, or you can do something more casual – do some research in fitness magazines, check out some fitness Web sites, and talk to friends who are more active.
Any plan should start with a fitness test! Knowing your fitness level helps to exercise exactly in your intensity and duration target zone. Working our at too low intensities are less efficient, while exercising at too high for you intensities can be plainly dangerous.
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Fat Loss Without Becoming Bulky Or Bony
There are two different aspects to losing body weight: losing fat and losing fat AND gaining muscles. If you lose all unwanted fat while having not enough muscles, you inevitably become too bony. If however, you go on a good diet plus build muscles by doing strength exercises, your body will be but but strong and not too thin.
Tip: to avoid becoming too bulky, do more repetitions with lighter weights.
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Eating Too Little, Exercising Too much?
Sometimes, it's just too much of a good thing. Researchers warn that too negative calorie balance may play tricks with your metabolism. The 800 Cal. a day is categorized as VERY low calorie diet and normally, it has to be medically supervised to insure the proper supply of nutrient. For example, 40 grams a day of good carbohydrates can in fact be much less effective carbs (when you subtract the fiber grams) and doing strength exercising at a low carbohydrate level can put your muscles into economy mode.
Another example: too little calories are coupled with too low essential nutrient levels in your food. There's no way around this fact. As an inevitable consequence, your body sabotages your weight loss wanting you to get more nutrients with more food, resulting in hunger. When you feel hunger and don't satisfy it, your body cheat and does it expertly: a little lower skin temperature, a little lower physical efforts outside the gym, a little sleepier mood - and it shows on the scales.
The solution can be eat MORE not less and lose weight slowly - but lose it!
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Cellulite: Is There a Solution?
Cellulite is caused by the fat lumps under the skin creating the "orange peal" or "cottage cheese" look. It's a very common problem: 85% to 98% of women have it at some degree. It's unfair and it is rarely seen in men.
No matter what's common belief, cellulite is not related to being overweight. Thus, liposuction is not effective for cellulite reduction, neither are lotions unless they contain methylxanthines, one form of which is caffeine.
"That's because cellulite is not a fat problem, it's a skin problem. It has nothing to do with what you weigh," says Hollywood dermatologist Howard Murad, MD, author of The Cellulite Solution book.
A diet that "feeds" skin can help, claims Dr. Murad. Foods that are rich in lecithin, essential fatty acids, and antioxidants reduce fluids and increase circulation inside skin cells. To get these nutrients, it is advised to eat enough eggs, organ meats, Omega-3 oils like flaxseed or canola, fresh dark green leafy vegetables, tomatoes, berries of all kinds, and dark chocolate.
There is anecdotal evidence that the dry brush massage can help, too, and roughly for the same reason: it improve circulation and help removing excessive water from the under-skin tissues.
Finnish Dr. Paavo Airola recommended it for his patients 30 years ago and it's still popular in Europe. Here's how you do this.
Very important to choose a natural bristle brush and use it always on dry skin. Gently press the brush upon your skin and make circular movements starting with your feet and toward your heart for example, work on your neck and shoulders downward, and brush arms and legs upward.
Take a shower afterward. The best is so called contrast shower or blood vessel gymnastics - when you use alternatively very hot and very cold water. It tones the skin and train your immune system.
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Beginning Your Fitness Plan
The National Weight Loss Registry analyzed exercise practices of people who lost all excessive weight and came to the conclusion that walking was the exercise of choice of the most successful dieters. Start with the one-mile walking fitness test and depending on your results, choose your walking plan.
Don't be too ambitious when you begin, you don't want to injure yourself. Start with lower impact exercises like walking and cycling. After a while, you can adopt a more demanding fitness plan.
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Fat cells during and after exercise
When you start an exercise, your body runs on carbohydrates taking them from carb depots in liver and muscles. These depots are rather small - a human body can survive on the energy they contain only a day and a half.
As exercise continues, especially if it's a moderate intensity exercise, the fat release out of fat depots begins. After exercise stops, the fatty acids continue flowing from the depots for a while. It often results in decreased appetite up to 2 hours after exercise.
What happens after that depends on general energy and hormonal balance in the body. If you eat carbohydrate-rich foods, the body releases insulin and the excess fat is being directed into fat depots. If you eat nothing, the excess fat is being used for fuel. If you eat fatty food, the fate of the excess fat depends on the quantities of body fat versus food fat.
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Fat Burning Index
The Fat Burning Index, introduced by the BantaDiet.com, is calculated using the same formula of Ketogenic (K) to Anti-Ketogenic (A) Nutrient Ratio but it's reversed to make figures easier to use. For example, the ketogenic ratio of 1:4 corresponds to Fat Burning Index of 4. Here's the formula:
The numbers in front of nutrient names are coefficients that are calculated based on nutrient ability to cause ketosis or anti-ketosis.
From this formula, one can draw the conclusion that the absolute amounts of nutrients are not as important as their ratio. It is important that the totals of every meal for the Fat Burning Index diet should exceed 1.5, or approximately 4 grams, of fat for every single gram of both carbs and proteins. Most low carb diets don't pay attention to these peculiarities; this, perhaps, explains certain percentage of failure on any low carb diet. Read about Atkins diet loopholes here: http://www.diet.lifetips.com/tip/102464/diet-guide/atkins-diet-tips/atkins-diet-loopholes.html
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Maintenance program for ideal body weight
If you always have had or just reached an ideal body weight, what would be a good maintenance program for you?
Different diets have different ideas for eating and exercising plans for this stage. For example, Atkins diet maintenance plan is about sticking to your individual carbohydrate intake limits, Protein Power is about keeping your protein intake high enough, etc.
However, in any case this stage is not so much about not getting something OUT of your plate but about getting every good thing ON your plate.
Think what you should have on daily basis to get all essential nutrients - "good" fats, "good" complex (whole grains) carbohydrates, plenty (5 to 7 servings minimal) fresh dark green, orange, and red vegetables, fruits, and berries.
Concerning exercise, keep increasing your fitness: it's an endless process. Go for interval training to save time and train your heart and lungs, improve your flexibility and fine motor skills, walk faster and/or for longer time, etc. It is important to increase your endurance since this endurance training is shown to be the lost efficient fat burner.
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Exercise Type Can Influence Food Choices
It would be so good to be able to use techniques other than self-discipline to automatically influence our energy intake and food choices. But is is possible? The answer is yes and no.
The Appetite journal published results of a study showing that 30 minutes after strenuous athletic exercise, young men's appetite was increased by 25% and energy intake from protein was larger than without exercise. Carbohydrate intake was not changed. As opposite to this short-term effects, long term studies showed that exercise training led to greater fat intake and reduced carbohydrate intake - but only in females (International Journal of Obesity).
These two findings concerned nutrient preferences but how about calorie intake? Doctors Blundell and Kinga wrote in their article published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise that "Raising energy expenditure through physical activity can cause weight loss or prevent weight gain. A negative feature is that when people become sedentary after a period of high activity, food intake is not "down-regulated" to balance a reduced energy expenditure."
How can you use these facts? First, if you are a woman wanting to go on a low carb diet, improving your fitness by exercise training can help you better accept this diet. Second, if you are a young man wanting to lose weight by exercising, beware of calorie compensation your body will try to get after your session. Finally, if you are none of these, exercise will do you good but probably only in the sense of general health and well being. You'll need a diet that's right for you - along with exercise.
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Fitness per pound
Just how many calories you have to burn to lose one pound of body weight varies from person to person, usually depending on their metabolism. On average, you have to burn about 3,500 calories to lose one pound of body weight.
At first glance, 3,500 calories seems like a lot. After all, you'd have to walk about 50 miles to burn that many calories. However, if you shave off 500 calories a day, you can burn off that pound in a week.
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Pacing Your Fitness Plan
It is important to pace the intensity of your fitness plan. You should always reserve one day a week as a "rest day" - a day in which you will do no serious fitness activity.
The ideal goal is to be working on your fitness plan 5 days a week, for about 30 minutes each day. On your "off days" you should try and pursue some kind of light physical activity, such as going for a walk in the park.
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Sticking to a Fitness Plan
A fitness plan only works if you're willing to stick with it. Begin with activities that you can easily work into your schedule. This way, you won't be inclined to give them up.
Take the stairs to work or jog or go for a walk during your lunch break. Make sure that your exercise plan leaves little room for dodging. Once you become used to exercising, develop more ambitious goals and begin setting aside time for fitness.
Internet research revealed that using individualized online exercise program, demos, and logs help sticking with a program.
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Calorie Burning During Exercises
The simplest formula to calculate how many calories you burn during exercise is the following: (Body weight in kilograms*) x (MET, see explanation below) x (time spend exercising in hours).
MET (metabolic equivalent) is the ratio of the energy spent during exercise to the resting metabolic rate. For example, 1 MET corresponds to calories you burn while sitting quietly, MET=3.3 is for walking at a moderate speed.
From the formula, it is clear that the heavier the person the more calories is being burnt in otherwise equal conditions. However, this is a rough approximation because body composition influences the fat burning rate as well. Among persons having the same body weight, the higher fat%, the fewer calories can be burnt because fat is metabolically 'passive' while the muscles are very active so the higher muscle mass the higher the fat burning rate.
It is important to know that calories alone don't describe what exactly is being burnt. During strength training, every repetition and set burn significant amount of carbohydrates stored in muscles and liver. This is the basis of diet schedule in use by bodybuilders called Cyclical Ketogenic Diet.
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*1 kg = 2.2 lb.
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Foods for flexible body?
It takes more than just certain foods to keep your body flexible. A flexible spine and joint can need special care that's different from keeping your muscles and tendon elastic and stretchable.
Plus, flexibility that's not supported by strong muscles can be even dangerous leading to strains and sprains. This warning out of the way, let's talk about nutrition for flexibility.
Traditionally, any food containing gelatin is good for bone, tendon, joint, and muscle support. This natural substance can be found in soup meat parts containing big bones and cartilage. Check Jello labels to see how much gelatin they contain.
Vegetable equivalent, though less potent, is agar-agar made of seaweeds.
Vitamin C is essential for the synthesis of collagen and the reconstruction of connective tissues.
Best Vit. C sources - 50 mg or more per 1/2 cup serving:
Acerola
Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Chili peppers (red and green)
Guavas
Kiwi
Orange juice
Oranges
Papayas
Sweet peppers (red and green)
There also are three clinically tested supplements supporting ligaments and joints:
1) Glucosamine helps the body make joint lubricants.
2) Chondroitin supports the strength and flexibility of all connective tissues in the body.
3) Methylsulfonylmethane provides the body with the raw materials to manufacture connective tissues.
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Pedometer Tracking
Obviously, there are many kinds of equipment that you can use to get yourself in better shape. However, if you are just beginning a diet and fitness program the only equipment you need is a pedometer.
A pedometer is a simple, cheap device that measures the number of steps that you take each day. The average person takes about 4,000 steps each day. By increasing the number of steps you take to about 10,000 per day, you can achieve similar results to 30 minutes of daily exercise.
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Is taking muscle pills necessary for muscle building?
To build muscle mass and achieve good muscle definition, it is necessary to have good quality protein intake and make it sure that your diet includes all necessary nutrients - "good" fats, "good" complex carbohydrates in proper amounts, vitamins, minerals, microelements, etc.
As to using supplements designed specifically for weight (muscle) gain, consult the lifetips.com's sites:
http://vitamin.lifetips.com/
http://muscle.lifetips.com/
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What is a Healthy Weight Loss Method?
The healthiest weight loss method consists of refusing junk food, refined carbohydrates like sugar and white flour, reducing animal fats, starchy vegetables, and fried food while exercising more. For instance, the popular South Beach Diet is generally all about these simple changes in your life style. It is important to insure all essential nutrients in your diet and this is usually hard to do because to lose weight, you have to create a negative calorie balance: burn more calories than you ingest, which automatically mean less nutrients coming in.
There are basically two solutions: supplement your food with vitamins, minerals, and other vital chemicals - or better yet to eat nutrient-rich food AND exercise much more to burn all excess calories the nutrients are coupled with.
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Kelp and flax for thyroid and heart health
Kelp is a sea weed containing large amount of soluble fiber, as well as minerals, including iodine, potassium, magnesium, calcium, and iron. As a source of iodine kelp participates in producing thyroid hormones necessary for maintaining normal metabolism, but is potentially harmful to people with the specific thyroid problems when iodine is contraindicated.
Flax, a seed of the plant used for thousand years for and linen, is also a rich source of soluble fibers, but what's more important, it contains a potent antioxidant and heart protector, Omega-3 fatty acids, in high concentration. Hens fed on flax seeds lay eggs with increased Omega-3 content, you can find them as "Omega-3 eggs" in most groceries.
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Gaining Weight While Exercising: Fat or Muscles?
It often happens to people who started exercising daily: they hope for weight loss and it indeed started but after a while the lost pounds come back plus a few more. What's happening?
There can be several reasons and they all can be spotted.
1. The initial weight loss was water loss. If you do strength training, it now shows: you are gaining muscles. Measure your body fat % to make sure your body composition is improving.
2. You do wrong exercise. If you do too much of aerobics training, your body reacts by slowing down your metabolism at rest. Try replacing a halve of your workouts with weight or endurance training.
3. You consume too much calories with your otherwise healthy foods. Calculate your calorie intake, calories burnt by exercise, and figure out whether or not you created a negative calorie balance.
4. Since there's no food that us healthy for all and for all purposes, try changing your way of eating: if you ate little fats and too much carbs, switch to a lower carbohydrate, higher-fat diet -- or otherwise.
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"Oxycise!"
"Oxycise!" is a program based on an intensive breathing exercise system. You can find it now as a book and videos. Search for the title on Amazon:
Oxycise! - a book by Jill Johnson Level One Video Set Level Two - 15 Minute Workout and Body Positions Demonstration Level Three - 15 Minute Workout and Body Positions Demonstration
Says Jill Johnson: "I have written this book to help those who are sick and tired of struggling with their body shape and health, and who are angry at all the money and time they have wasted on pills,powdered drinks, and gadgets."
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Gaining Weight: Fat vs. Muscles?
Sometimes physically active people not having body weight much in excess of healthy weight still want to lose a few pounds but find themselves gaining them instead. What can be the matter?
1. The weight gain is due to muscle building. To avoid this kind of gain, do lighter weights, more reps, with faster pace.
2. The weight gain is due to fat accumulation because eating even healthy foods don't guarantee from eating too much - or you can be eating foods that are wrong for your current condition. For example, low fat diet during intensive strength training can lead to "overcompensative" eating.
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Fat burning timing
If you rely on aerobic exercises alone, the minimal time for a non-stop exercise is 12 minutes, according to aerobics classic Dr. Cooper, while the total minimal time per day is 30 minutes for running or about an hour for walking, depending on the pace.
However, it is now a well known fact that aerobics without strength training is not so effective from the fat burning standpoint because if one doesn't watch calories, the body compensates calories burnt by increase appetite.
Because of that, and to insure a better burning around the clock, it is advised to build more muscle by resistance exercises. This routine, too, can consist of two or even more bouts every day or every other day, without hurting the efficiency.
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Losing Weight - Fat or Muscles?
Active athletes are often heavier than their heights predict. This is because of their increased muscle mass, so their fat percentage is usually normal. From this standpoint, losing weight for them inevitably means losing muscles. It's difficult to imagine a medical reason for losing muscles but there sure can be a personal reason to change the way you look.
Generally, changing the type of exercise can help. Running long distances, for example, can make muscles less defined and "dry" and the whole body slimmer. Switching to mostly vegetarian diet with reduced protein content can also help. But beware of losing some strength!
The equation is simple: to lose 1 pound of fat, one should create a deficit of 3,500 calories - eat less or spend more, or both. Your 30 pounds will require the deficit of 105,000 calories in 3 months or 35,000/month or 1167 calories a day! To burn these calories by exercising you'd need, every day:
Rope jump or jog for 80 minutes, or play soccer or basketball, or ski (downhill) for 2 hours.
Of course, you can exercise less but then you'll need to cut down on calorie intake.
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Exercise for Weight Loss Without Body Ache
Body ache due to exercise can be a result of either muscle or joint overworking or of underlying conditions like arthritis, fibromyalgya, etc. To figure out how to manage the pain, it's important to identify the reason for the pain, but in any case, changing exercises, going slower, using OTC pain killers or topical creams, going to sauna, and taking relaxing hot tubs can help.
In any case, exercising in the water - swimming, water aerobics, resistance training in the water, is easier on the muscles and joints while being as effective as regular strength exercises.
If your condition isn't something that can be easily managed by the above-mentioned measures, treating the condition can ease the pain. For example, for fibromyalgia, the supplement 5-HTP is a proved way to relieve muscle pain and increase performance along with a better weight loss results.
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Walking and calorie restriction for weight loss
The National Weight Loss Register analyzed many thousands of successful weight loss cases and concluded that only those who walked for at least one hour every day achieved their weight loss goals and kept the lost weight off for at least one year. On the other hand, it's a well known fact that exercise alone and calorie restriction alone are less effective than exercise plus calorie watch.
But how much calories one must reduce? The rule of thumb is: one should not go below his or her resting metabolic rate (RMR). RMR is minimum energy needed to maintain all bodily functions in the resting state, without any physical or mental activity. Here's an important part: RMR's major goal is to serve lean body mass (mostly muscles). Going below this level means burning your muscles. Less muscles menas lower RMR and less efficient fat burning at rest.
For example, a 30-years old women, 5'3" and weighing 127 lbs. has 1348.44 Cal. RMR and should not go below this caloric intake but should increase her energy expenditure through exercise instead.
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It's Never Too Late To Reap the Exercise Benefits
Dementia doesn't have a strict medical meaning, it rather describes a condition occurring mostly in the elderly and including memory loss, confusion, and apathy. Lately, the Annals of Internal Medicine published an article showing that walking just two miles a day, every other day, reduced the risks of developing these symptoms by up to 40 % -- and it happened to people who started exercising after their 70s and up to the age of 93!
Nutrition can contribute to the beneficial effects of exercise on seniors because it can improve their appetite so more essential health-protecting nutrients are being consumed.
A study revealed that a variety of exercises is most beneficial because learning multiple activities exercises memory, brain control of motor skills, and decision making skins than just one form of exercise. The exercise types to consider are:
Strength training -- because it builds muscle, increases metabolism, and keeps blood sugar under control
Balance exercises -- to improve body posture and gait as well as to avoid injuries
Stretching -- to increase the range of motions and achieve relaxation that can be a problem in older ages
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Exercise Type Can Influence Food Choices
It would be so good to be able to use techniques other than self-discipline to automatically influence our energy intake and food choices. But is is possible? The answer is yes and no.
The Appetite journal published results of a study showing that 30 minutes after strenuous athletic exercise, young men's appetite was increased by 25% and energy intake from protein was larger than without exercise. Carbohydrate intake was not changed. As opposite to this short-term effects, long term studies showed that exercise training led to greater fat intake and reduced carbohydrate intake - but only in females (International Journal of Obesity).
These two findings concerned nutrient preferences but how about calorie intake? Doctors Blundell and Kinga wrote in their article published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise that "Raising energy expenditure through physical activity can cause weight loss or prevent weight gain. A negative feature is that when people become sedentary after a period of high activity, food intake is not "down-regulated" to balance a reduced energy expenditure."
How can you use these facts? First, if you are a woman wanting to go on a low carb diet, improving your fitness by exercise training can help you better accept this diet. Second, if you are a young man wanting to lose weight by exercising, beware of calorie compensation your body will try to get after your session. Finally, if you are none of these, exercise will do you good but probably only in the sense of general health and well being. You'll need a diet that's right for you - along with exercise.
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Weight Loss Without Exercise & Negative Calorie Balance
Though you know that the best weight loss strategy is combining diet and exercise, sometimes, people need a diet-only plan, for example after a surgery, which can limit their performance. Dr. Atkins stated that on his diet, there's no need to exercise at all. Can it be true?
For a long time, nutritionists warned us against such an approach. However, in Spring of 2005, the Journal of Nutrition and Biochemistry published an article titled "Beneficial effects of intermittent fasting and caloric restriction on the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular systems." The authors concluded that "...cellular and molecular effects of intermittent fasting and calorie restriction on the cardiovascular system and the brain are similar to those of regular physical exercise, suggesting shared mechanisms."
It is thought that one of the shared mechanisms can be that of negative energy balance. So what is this intermittent fasting? In fact, this is a reduced meal frequency diet -- an idea that also goes against the grain of mainstream nutrition. Meanwhile, a couple of health systems employing reduced meal frequency proved very successful over decades.
The bottom line is, you have better chances to be successful without exercise choosing a low carb diet and/or reduced meal frequency diet.
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Weight Loss Without Drugs
Unless your doctor prescribed you diet pills for your specific health condition, do your best to avoid over-the-counter weight loss drugs. It is possible and by choosing this drug-free way , you will avoid serious complications, sometimes even fatal. Side effects of such drugs may include fast heart beat, mood swings, sleeplessness, restlessness, high blood pressure, etc. Even the toughest weight losers like competing bodybuilders (if they are "natural" of course, and not on steroids) achieve very low body fat percentage by eating right and exercising a lot. Any diet can be right or wrong for you, the question is, which one to choose. Here are three things to consider.
If you are not an elite athlete or a heavy labor worker, a low fat diet is probably not your best choice. Research showed that low fat diets were inferior of low carb diets on both short term and long term plans.
The low carb group of diets attracts many dieters because it resulted in decreased general appetite and cravings while not touching the healthy hunger.
It is important that eating more (not less!) and exercising more result in greater weight loss than eating less and exercising just a little.
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Breathing, Nutrition, and Brain Functions
Breathing can deeply affect many bodily functions. Deep breathing, for one thing, when added to diet and exercise, is able to enhance fat burning - a technique used in the popular 'Negative Calorie Diet' and the 'Oxycise' weight loss program. However, deep breathing is not free from negative effects, many of them aiming blood vessels including those in the brain. From this standpoint, deep breathing doesn't seem to be a feasible method to improve learning and memory.
On the other hand, shallow slow breathing can help opening the vessels thus improving the blood flow to the brain. It also calms the nervous system and can helps to concentrate. Shallow breathing leads to a healthy concentration of carbon dioxide in the blood (hypercapnia) resulting in the increased concentration of endorphins in blood. Endorphins are natural brain chemicals that are very versatile - their effects include stress protection, emotional balance, and memory improvement.
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Weight Loss and Exercise, No Efforts?
Depending on your idea of efforts, weight loss can be or can not be effortless. For instance, some diet supplements promise that you lose weight while doing nothing but taking their pills. True or false? If you'll be happy with losing some retained water, it's true. If it's your body fat you are fighting with, it's false. But then there's so called thermogetics, which enhance the process of lipolysis (fat burning) by affecting your metabolism. One of the latest hits is
If counting calories is an effort, then going on a low carb diet is right for you. Low carbohydrate diets result in decreased appetite so you eat less automatically. Plus, being a higher-fat diet, low carb can make you "afford" up to 300 extra Cal. a day and still lose weight.
Alternatively, you can choose a low-calorie-density approach (like in the Negative Calorie diet) that will work for you practically with no 'extra' effort -- because your body, though it's anti-intuitively, decides when to stop eating during a meal not by assessing the calories but 'measuring' the food volume.
As to exercise choices, the rule of thumb is: combine aerobic, strength, and endurance training: each of them adds to different aspects of healthy body weight and overall health.
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Psychology and Your Fitness Plan
You want to structure your fitness plan so that there are no mental blocks to it. If you can't commit to a full 30 minutes of exercise, break your workout into two 15 minute sessions every day.
Set realistic goals for yourself. Track your progress in a fitness log. This way, you can measure your progress, and see how close you are to your goals. Give yourself small rewards for each goal that you reach.
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The Role of Fitness in Dieting
Dieting isn't just about cutting calories. Effective dieting takes place when you restructure your eating and fitness habits. Maintaining a fitness program while you diet will keep your metabolism from slowing down and your muscles from being burnt for fuel. Research showed that combining dieting and exercise works better than either approach alone.
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