Blog on weight, How to Lose Fat on the Cheap

Middle-aged people who do poorly on simple tests of physical ability may be at increased risk of early death, according to a new study. Another study found that light-intensity physical activity every day may reduce the chance of disability in adults with -- or at risk of developing -- knee arthritis. Both studies were published online April 29 in the journal bmj.com. In the first study, researchers looked at data from more than 5,000 people in Britain who at age 53 underwent tests of their grip strength, how fast they could stand from sitting in a chair and their balance while standing. The participants were followed up to age 66. During that time, 88 died from cancer, 47 from heart disease and 42 from other causes. Those who did worse on the tests of physical ability at age 53 had a higher risk of dying over the following 13 years, according to a journal news release. The researchers also found that people who could not complete any of the physical ability tests at age 53 w...

One of the key ways to lose weight and maintain a healthy weight is through portion control. Research has shown that Americans often underestimate how many calories they are consuming each day by as much as 25%. What Is a Serving Size? Use the list below to gain a perspective on how much food a recommended serving size really is; it may be much smaller than you realize. According to the USDA, one serving equals: one slice of whole-grain bread 1/2 cup of cooked rice or pasta 1/2 cup of mashed potatoes three to four small crackers one small pancake or waffle two medium-sized cookies 1/2 cup cooked vegetables 1 cup (four leaves) lettuce one small baked potato 3/4 cup vegetable juice one medium apple 1/2 grapefruit or mango 1/2 cup berries 1 cup yogurt or milk 1 1/2 ounces of cheddar cheese one small chicken breast one medium pork chop 1/4 pound hamburger patty A good guideline to help you understand portion sizes is to translate the abstract information represe...

Exercise is a big part of losing weight, but I don’t mean you have to sweat it off. You can lose weight without any exercise just by maintaining a proper diet. But if you don’t want to look like a pear, you need exercise, not any large quantity, but 30 minutes every other day is good. Losing weight is still 80% diet, 20% exercise. Without exercise you will lose your muscle tone along with some fat. Usually about 50% muscle and 50% fat. That's the reason professional trainers want you to eat a high-protein diet when your trying to lose weight. It helps you retain muscle, but you still need some exercise to keep your muscle tone. There are plenty of ways to be active in summer, fall and winter, even if the weather turns cold. You can stay in shape and have fun while you're at it. Here are some ideas: Indoors Go for walks at the mall with a friend. Local schools and churches may have indoor gyms where you can walk. You may want to buy a pedometer from a sporting goods store...

I'm not a big advocator of paying for diet programs, paying for gym memberships or having weight loss surgery, but I think this is worth talking about. I know that some people are just not up to creating a weight loss program that works for them. Hence, Weight Watchers might be the help you need. Read the below article and you decide, the plan has worked for a lot of people. The thing is that you can't quit until you know that you turned the corner and can live the lifestyle without any help. For all the people that have benefited there has been just as many or even more people that gained the weight back after they quit. The Promise Pasta, steak, cheese, even ice cream. You can eat what you want on Weight Watchers – provided you're willing to count the points. Each food is assigned a number of points, and foods that fill you up have fewer points than foods that are just empty calories. This isn’t so much a diet as a lifestyle change program designed to help you lear...

This is a great article, it confirms the same things I write about. Losing body fat is a big part of being healthy and doing exercise while you diet can speed up the weight loss and I've wrote about this before, exercise has a two fold purpose. Your speeding up your metabolism when you exercise and your increasing your muscle mass. Now increasing muscle mass does two things. First your body burns calories even if you do nothing. Muscle mass will burn more calories than fat. So by increasing your muscle weight and reducing the weight of your fat you actually will burn more calories just doing your normal routine. And as this article explains the more muscle and the less fat you have, the longer you'll live. HealthDay Reporter The more muscle older adults have, the lower their risk of death, according to a new study. Researchers analyzed data from more than 3,600 older adults who took part in the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 1988 and 1994. Th...

I found this article and it's one you should read. Sugar is an additive habit that hinders your ability to lose weight and is bad for your health even if your not losing weight. Learn how to break free of the constant cravings and finally take sweet control of your diet. By Maura Kelly So Long, Sweet Tooth I consider myself a pretty healthy eater. I chow down on a variety of fruits and veggies, lean protein and whole grains, and I do my best to keep my sweet tooth in check. So I never really worried about how much sugar I was getting -- that is, until I recently heard one doctor say that high doses of sugar were poison and another that he was eliminating the refined sweetener from his diet. Uh-oh. Was the sugar I sprinkled on my oatmeal and stirred into my coffee -- and okay, the occasional cookie or three -- hurting my health? If I'm eating too much of the sweet stuff, I may have reason to be concerned, doctors say. Sugar is made up of roughly equal parts glucose and ...

Dieting is hard. But avoiding "empty" calories helps you reach a healthy weight without feeling like you're dieting. If your trying to lose weight and you're trying to stick to 1600 or 1800 calories, make those calories count. Your body needs a certain amount of energy each day. Energy comes from food in the form of calories. Calories let you function and keep doing your daily activities. But after your body meets its needs, it stores extra calories as fat. Most of us get plenty of calories in our diet—often too many. Foods with empty calories have lots of calories but very few nutrients like vitamins and minerals. "Convenience foods," like packaged snacks, chips, and sodas, are common sources of empty calories. Nutrient-rich foods, on the other hand, have a lot more nutrients in relation to their calories. A few examples are vegetables, peanuts, fruit, and fish, chicken, and lean meat. It's true that you can get calories from anything you eat but i...

You can’t maintain your goal weight without exercise. I know I talked about exercise and diet working together to reach your goals. But both exercise and diet will have to be a part of your life forever. I’ll explain before I lose all my readers. At first a person will try too hard to lose weight. Cut out meals, over exercise and then is happy or not that he or she lost 5 pounds that week. If you’re truly going to be a thinner person for the rest of your life, then do things in moderation. Don’t do the 800 calorie diet and 2 hours in the gym every day, you’ll never stay with it. Instead do moderate exercise and a diet of good foods and keep this up every day. This is where your doctor will help. This is why you need a doctor. All of us have our own conditions. We are all a different age and in different stages of fitness. I am thin by most standards but I’d like to lose 2 or 3 inches in my waist. My doctor says not to lose weight, I’m thin enough. But when he says thin, he just doesn...

If you read my last post, I don't real agree with the doctors study on heavy air. I do agree with this article I found about carbs. This makes a lot of sense to me. Read below and see if you agree. We don’t all digest carbs or for that matter any food the same way the next person does. There are differences between the way people digest food, which might be the reason brothers or sisters eating the same food while growing up can have different size bodies. Overweight is a world wide problem and scientists from dozens of countries are trying to come up with a solution. So if you have trouble keeping the weight off, it's a good idea to read about the problems and the solutions that are being worked on. Science has caulked this off to different genes. But some doctors think it's not that simple. What if those genes that get all the blame, actually cause your body to digest carbs differently than other people. Read the following article I found in HealthDay News. Obesity or...