Archive for May, 2010

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
~ Lao Tzu

Are you trying to scam your diet?

Now, be honest with yourself. Do you “forget” to stock diet friendly foods? What about absentmindedly ordering that Grande Mocha Malt Frappuccino at Starbucks last Monday morning? You know, the Monday you were going to start your diet - again?

Maybe you’re the type that figures once the morning diet is shot to hell, you may as well blow the rest of the day? Or, better yet, wait until next month?

What if you just needed a gentle reminder when you first wake up while your brain is still foggy? Try these two simple tricks: Run a piece of masking tape across your bedroom doorway - something you’ll run smack into first thing in the morning. Nothing like being caught in a spider web to enhance the memory! Now run another piece across the bathroom mirror where you shave or apply make-up - another instant reminder.

My last favorite “reminder” trick is just a plain ‘ol mind game. Hide everything! Trying to break the high calorie coffee habit? Stash the coffeemaker; ditch the mucho calorie Coffee-mate.

Wish you could pass on McDonald’s for lunch every day? It’s hard to buy anything if you leave your money at home. Yeah, you could hit up your coworkers, but then you need to ask yourself: “How badly do I want to be thin?”

Could it be that you’re afraid? Scared that you’ll fail again? You feel nervous that it will be too hard or complicated? Leery of not understanding all the “rules” for the newest diet you’re trying?

Well, clearly you’ve been trying the wrong ones! Why not give the Kimkins diet a try?

The basic diet is so simple you could write it on the back of your hand. It’s so easy your 2nd grader will have it down pat in 30 seconds. Complicated? Not even. The purpose of Kimkins is very simple - fast weight loss, no messing around, no coddling.

Our mental attitude and mindset is everything when it comes to mastering weight loss. If you’re not on board consciously, then your subconscious is going to play every trick in the book on you - and win. Don’t let that happen. Be the boss. Outsmart yourself!

Oh, and next time you’re going to “forget” to pass on your favorite Starbucks creation, try to “remember” that Grande Mocha Malt Frappuccino will set you back 600 calories and 95 curbs!

This article is written by Kimkins Diet founder, Kimmer, who struggled with morbid obesity for 25 years before losing 198 lbs in 1 year and developing her quick weight loss diet, Kimkins. The focus of the Kimkins plan is lean low carb, less fat than Atkins, less carbs than South Beach.

The simple answer to this question is NO! However that is probably not going to leave many readers satisfied with this article that is supposed to be about weight loss plans. So in the next few paragraphs I want to tell you more specifically why it is a good idea to lose weight number one, and then why it is essential that you have a strategy number two.

So why do we lose weight? Well actually much of the time it is because we don’t like how we look. The problem with that is it is such a fickle feeling and doesn’t provide enough incentive to buckle down to a weight loss plan and carry it out. We can get through life fairly unscathed socially when we are fat if we avoid certain situations namely anything having to do with a swimming suit or an athletic event. The major thing that allows us to do this is the fact that everyone else around us is fat and so we fit right in. We all, especially those in the northern climes that don’t benefit from good amounts of sun, use food to elevate our mood and the fact is that it works. What we are starting to understand is that our motivation should be our health rather than our looks, and if we truly new how dangerous obesity is it would scare us enough that we would take losing weight seriously.

The fact that obesity is a killer is plain. The big three killers for the obese would be art disease atherosclerotic disease, diabetes, and cancer. That obesity is a MAJOR risk factor for these killers is plain as day. Think with me for a minute about all the things that go wrong with an obese individual that send them spiraling toward and early death. First atherosclerosis from high fat and cholesterol diets combined with large floppy hearts, and hypertension that is caused by obesity. This just sets a person up for a major cardiac event that if it doesn’t kill them the first time will on subsequent tries unless they get their act together. Now think about diabetes mellitus type II which has is main etiology in the insulin insensitivity that comes with obesity. This contributes to heart disease as well as renal failure, blindness, and neuropathies that result in either unbearable pain or in amputations. Pretty bleak picture? Make you want to hear about the importance of having a weight loss plan?

This should be brief because it deals with life truths that are pretty obvious. You must plan carefully in life to succeed, learning in life from mistakes and capitalizing on opportunities. You must also plan to achieve discipline. These things are just not natural to humans who if left to their own devices become fat, lazy, and fail. So you must have a weight loss plan to: 1) lose weight properly, 2) lose enough weight to make a life prolonging change, and 3) to maintain your new lifestyle. Sounds easy right? No way! But worth it? For sure.

The South Beach Diet, created by cardiologist Dr. Arthur Agatston, is a safe and effective diet that differs from other diets in that it advocates not just a new way of eating but a new way of life.

The South Beach Diet puts an end to counting calories and it puts an end to portion control. The South Beach Diet also avoids putting people in a position where they feel like they’re depriving themselves from eating food that tastes good and satisfies them.

The focus of the South Beach Diet is on fats and carbohydrates, more specifically, the right fats and carbohydrates. With the South Beach Diet, you find that healthy carbohydrates and fats satisfy your hunger and feed you energy while eating the wrong carbohydrates and fats can actually make you feel hungrier than you were before eating them, causing you to eat even more and, as a result, gain weight.

The South Beach Diet works in 3 phases, dieters going through phases 1 and 2 sequentially, each for a particular period of time, then moving to phase 3 where they remain for the rest of their lives.

South Beach Diet Phase 1 – For two weeks certain forms of carbohydrates are restricted, based on their glycemic index (a measurement of their affect on a person’s blood sugar). Portion sizes for all other foods are normal. This two week period is the most intense and restrictive of the three phases. Foods emphasized in Phase 1 include chicken and turkey, fish and shellfish, vegetables with a low glycemic index (including salads with light dressing), low fat cheeses, eggs, and nuts. This is the period where drastic weight loss is usually noticed in a short time. This type of weight loss is not sustainable, however, which is why the South Beach Diet then promptly transitions you into Phase 2 where you can adjust your dietary patterns so as to achieve a more sustainable rate of weight loss without gaining back that initial poundage you just shed.

South Beach Diet Phase 2 – Here many of the carbohydrates that were forbidden in Phase 1 are incrementally introduced back into your diet. The desired effect of Phase 2 is to get yourself to a place where you lose between1 and 2 pounds each week, a rate of weight loss than you can easily sustain until you achieve your body’s individual “healthy weight” (generally best determined by your Body Mass Index and percentage body fat to muscle mass). Phase 2 lasts as long as it takes for you to reach your desired weight.

South Beach Diet Phase 3 – Now you begin to establish the balanced diet you aim to maintain for the rest of your life, so long as weight remains where it is. Should you start to gain weight again, you can simply go back to one or both of the earlier phases until you get back to where you need to be.

The South Beach Diet is not a starvation diet. In it, you eat 3 satisfying meals per day plus 2 snacks in-between meals. Your meal plans are not set in stone, so you can still enjoy variety and spontaneity in your diet.

Studies of the South Beach Diet have shown that it not only helps people lose weight, but it increases their “good cholesterol” (HDLs) and decreases their “bad cholesterol” (LDLs) levels, while also improving their levels of insulin.

Meals at home and with family do not have to be fat-laden affairs. Nor do they have to be boring, tasteless times of celery mashing around the table. A few subtle adjustments in your food choices will make a big difference on the scales.

Think Lean Meat
Don’t give up meat, just make smarter choices in buying it. Meat is much leaner today than it has been due to trimming efforts on the part of meatpackers. Beef labeled as “loin”, “round” and “extra lean” are your best choices.
According to The Wisconsin Beef Council, cuts like top round, tenderloin or sirloin qualify as lean, healthy selections.

Roasting, baking, grilling, braising and broiling are healthy meat-cooking methods. Use non-stick pans and choose cooking sprays over oil or butter during preparation. Another way to reduce fat is to strain cooked ground beef and rinse it with hot water. Drain it well before you continue the recipe.

Lean Chicken Choices
When we think lean we often look to chicken. Be smart. Many of us turn a potentially diet-friendly staple into something considerably less than healthy. Say no to fried patties,
chicken fingers, nuggets and franks. Switch to broiling, roasting, baking or steaming fresh chicken. Use a non-stick pan with cooking spray, broth or wine.

Keep in mind that poultry dark meat contains about twice as much fat as white meat. Also, the skin is full of fat. You can remove the skin before cooking or choose skinless varieties. Simply make a rule or take off the skin before you eat it.

Lean Turkey Is A Smart Choice
If you’re preparing a turkey, why not cook the stuffing separately? You will reduce its fat content by preventing the turkey fat from soaking into the dressing. Try to use less butter or margarine when preparing the stuffing. Don’t forget to skim the fat off of the gravy with a gravy separator or by
refrigerating it. Leave the drumsticks for the kids. As with chicken, choose light meat over dark and you’ll save quite a few calories.

Steam It Green
Serve steamed vegetables instead of heavy casseroles or cheese-based dishes. Steaming or microwaving veggies means you don’t have to add any fat during preparation; choose lemon juice, herbs, or vinegar over margarine. Use herbs and spices or imitation butter sprinkles as seasoning instead of butter, oil or cheese. If steamed vegetables don’t suit your taste buds, reduce the amount of oil you use if you sauté them. Broth or flavored vinegar makes a great substitute for oil.

Grains Are Great
Whenever you have the chance, choose whole grains as your bread choice. For example, you could choose whole grain breading for stuffing preparation, whole grain dinner rolls, whole wheat bread for sandwiches, and wild rice instead of white.

All types of white bread are high in refined sugar and pack in more calories than grains. These refined sugars are some of the “bad carbs” we hear so much about these days. If you still crave white bread occasionally, choose a “lite” or diet version, which will save you a few calories.

Have you ever heard of the truism “jokes are half meant”? If you have, do you believe in it? If you have not, then now, you have read of it and maybe if you read on, you’d be able to think of a joke of your own which could be half or full-meant.

I gathered some of the most popular jokes on health and fitness over the Internet and after laughing about them, I thought maybe I could tell something that would prove that these jokes were born out of the sometimes painful and bitter realities of life.

It would really be nice to have a slim and really fit body but not everybody is blessed with such. There are some people, no matter how much food they take, including calories, fats and all, who never gain weight or grow fat. But to those who are blessed with tons of excesses in fats and weight, trimming down is one of the most difficult tasks in the world. Especially if “exercise” and “dieting” are alien terms for them, this humorous analysis of how the human body was arranged is just right:

I don’t exercise at all. If God had wanted me to touch my toes He would have put them up higher on my body.

Sometimes, in the lowest point of your weight-loss campaign wherein only your weight doesn’t go down and the rest, most especially your ego, has dropped down beyond the base, you find ways to console your ultra-bruised and dying ego. And one is to consider that every shape is accepted in the society:

I’m in shape. Round is a shape.

And then there’s the matter of aging. To some, the question is: why change the course of time? A person’s age adds up and along with the increase of the age is the gradual decline of the body. It is just a normal process. Why put pressure on yourself and your failing body? Age, time and fats are ganging up on you, three to one:

The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight because by then, your body and your fat have become such inseparably good friends.

To choose whether to follow what you think or what you feel is another difficult task. It is an honorable and praiseworthy thought of working to get into shape. But, what would you do if the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak?

Every time I get the urge to exercise, I lie down till the feeling passes.

And then there are some people whose form of exercise is sharpening their wits. They could utter one-liner wisecracks that could make it to the funniest sitcom on TV:

The only exercise you get is jumping to conclusions.

And who said that only the adults are having a hard time being friendly with exercising? Take a trip to a school PE schedule and you might be surprised to hear some outrageous quips coming from the tots that you think are advocates of physical fitness:

My gym teacher told me to touch my toes. I said, “I don’t have that kind of relationship with my feet. Can I just wave?”
Excuses are the most popular forms of escape from the campaign towards getting fit and healthy. Here are some excuses that you may have sheepishly used once, twice or maybe more than thrice:
•    But it was my birthday, so I had to eat the whole cake.
•    I had to get the bitter taste out of my mouth from eating the so-called dish, so I had an ice cream.
•    If you eat something and no one sees you eat it, it has no calories.
•    If you drink a diet soda with a candy bar, the diet soda cancels out the calories in the candy bar.
•    If you fatten up everyone else around you, then you look thinner.
•    Only eat things that have been broken into pieces; that way, all the calories fall out.
•    Chocolate is a vegetable. How, you ask? Chocolate is derived from cacao beans. Bean = vegetable. Sugar is derived from either sugar CANE or sugar BEETS. Both are plants, which places them in the vegetable category. Thus, chocolate is a vegetable.
And there’s just the hardheaded approach, the I-really-don’t-care-whether-I’m-fat-or-slim attitude that you may pronounce as a hopeless case. It’s actually very easy to tell, once you hear this line, it’s it:
I’m not into working out. My philosophy is no pain, no pain.
Getting fit and staying healthy is not a laughable matter – or is it? One thing sure is that it isn’t an easy task. It involves determination, hard work and some light moments on the side. After all, laughing – for a long period – can help shake those excess fats off. And even the doctors agree it’s the world’s best medicine.

Why is our society so keyed in on fat loss? Have you ever thought about it? Well let’s do that in the next couple of paragraphs. Let’s try to break it down to reveal both the healthy and the not so healthy aspects of this fat phobic craze.

Fat is viewed in our society in a negative light and for many different reasons. Fat is looked down upon in the social arena as unattractive in both a sexual way and lack of athleticism. These are two of the most glorified things in our culture that is sex and sports. Case in point, you don’t find fat ladies in bikinis adorning the covers of all the big name magazines including what might be the best example the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. You don’t find fat actors though the people and events they are portraying are anything but thin and sexy. If you want to be sexy you have to experience fat loss.

Fat is also viewed as unproductive in the areas of work and health which often coexist. You obviously wouldn’t find fat people in physically demanding jobs for one because if they were in those jobs they wouldn’t be fat and for the other as fat people they won’t do as well as thin and in-shape people would. You don’t see fat soldiers, fat construction workers, fat cowboys, etc. The only way you can have success in these areas is fat loss!

Fat people are also not as productive, even in jobs that aren’t as physically demanding. They are typically more unhealthy and find themselves taking more sick days. Obese people die younger of things like cancer and heart disease and diabetes and stroke. This all adds up to less years of productivity. Fat people are also less mentally and emotionally healthy which is just as important in your career (no matter what it is) as your physical health. The fact is that people would rather be bossed by, work with, buy from, and be served by people who are at least healthier appealing. This gets at both the social perception as well as the actual productivity. Fat people are on the whole less fun to be around and less productive to be around too. So fat loss is also more productive in monetary terms too.

The sad part about all of this is that often it is less the fat person’s fault than us skinny people want to think. We want to think that we are thin and healthy appearing because we work harder and are addicted to food less than the obese. What scientists are finding is that this is far from the truth. Fact is that fat loss is harder for some than for others because of genes, not work-ethic, or mental health, or any of that. So fat people are victims of discrimination based on something they can’t help much like the color of skin for instance. So think about it and be more humble about this than you are right now ok?