Blog on weight, How to Lose Fat on the Cheap

97/E+/Getty Images Processed foods have a bad reputation and many people think they'll ruin your health. In fact, you've probably heard that it's bad to eat processed foods. It's true that some of these foods deserve that bad rep, but not all of them. In fact, some processed foods are good for you. We will cover all this below.  What Are Processed Foods? Processed foods have been altered from their natural state, either for safety reasons or because it makes them easier to store or easier to use. We usually think of processed foods as being bad. In truth, many of them are, but some types of processed foods are beneficial.  The most frequent processing methods are canning, freezing, refrigeration, dehydration, and aseptic processing. It isn't really the method of processing that makes some processed foods so bad - it's the ingredients used in those products. So processed foods made with healthful ingredients are fine for your diet...

I write a lot about eating salads as a way of getting more vegetables into your diet. 60% of our daily food intake should be vegetables cooked or raw. Don't believe me; google Tom Brady (quarterback for the New England Patriots) and you'll see the type of diet him and his wife eat year around. He wants to eat quality foods for the maximum amount of energy for his workout. I writing this because most of us ruin our salads with croutons and creamy salad dressings. Be careful eating salads in restaurants. Salad as a meal should be between 300 and 400 calories, no more. But most restaurants only want your meal to taste good, so their salads can be 800 or more calories. Then if you add a few crackers or a piece of bread, you have the makings of a calorie nightmare. Salads are a wonderful way to increase your intake of whole vegetables and even fruits. And many who struggle with overweight and obesity turn to salads as a low-calorie meal or side option. But to keep them truly low ...

Can't Do Yoga? Think Again  I was 70 years old when I started doing Yoga.  If you think you're not the  yoga  type, think again. Just about anyone can do it, and it's not about bending yourself into a pretzel. For men and women of all shapes, sizes, and abilities, yoga builds strength and balance. It's also a great way to ease stress. "In a gym, you're really pushing yourself to go further when you're working out. In yoga, it's the opposite. The poses encourage all the range of motion that the body is designed to do," says Megan Dunne Krouse, a yoga instructor in Chicago. Doing Yoga When You're Overweight When Megan Garcia signed up for yoga at Smith College, she felt intimidated because she was the only overweight person in the class. She stuck with it, though, and noticed she started gaining strength, plus feeling and sleeping better, too. Now she is a plus-sized model and Kripalu-certified yoga instructor who teaches in New ...

We can't live with it and we can't seem to live without it. Comfort food is something we were born with, we grew up with comfort food and is it even possible to kick the habit? I tried to lose weight simply by cutting back on food, but starving only works for a short time and then you end up bingeing. I tried to substitute carrot sticks for chips and it works because carrots are sweet and you're not really adding calories, but after a while, you start to crave salt. I found that I don't need snack food to get salt. I can eat a hard boiled egg with salt and get protein and take care of the salt craving. The biggest attraction to comfort food is the high-fat content. It's the fat content that causes the weight gain. Losing weight for me came when I realized I had to give up fat. The low-fat diet is what worked for me. You can't totally give up fat because there is some fat in almost everything. But low-fat diets are basically fruit, vegetables, and a protein ...

We tend to adapt ourselves and take for granted our health problems. As an adult, we accept the fact that we will have health problems like our parents and grandparents and that modern medicine will fix what ever illness or disease we get. We become a custom to being sick because many of us grew up with childhood illnesses. Going to the doctor became routine. The thing is that children are still building an immune system to fight off illness and disease so childhood illness will always be a common occurrence. Doctors believe a child has to go thru this process of getting sick from germs and bacteria so the body can build the immune system and be able to fight off illness on its own. And yes, it works just like it was meant to. But as we get older we use up the good bacteria that the immune system needs to fight off diseases. Hence, the older we get the more we need to replace these good bacteria. 1 out of every 2 men will get Cancer in their lifetime and 1 out of 3 women. These s...

I started this post yesterday but only had time enough to write about the diet part of losing weight. Today I want to talk about Exercise. I did mention that walking is a great way to get into condition for even more or other types of exercise. I also recommended the 10,000 steps a day program. I also understand if that's too difficult for beginners. And if so, try brisk walking until you get into better condition. Some people prefer brisk walking 30 minutes to an hour rather than the 10,000 steps a day but it's your choice. Some people don't want to commit 30 minutes to an hour all at once, so they opt for the 10,000 steps because you have all day to complete the 10,000. The brisk walk is very popular and some people will do a brisk walk during lunch or some do it in the morning and some go out at night. It's all about what you can work into your schedule. Which exercise is best for keeping off weight? A long term study found that people who enjoyed a  30-minute br...

I'm not going to paint a rosy picture about how easy it's going to be to lose that fat, but losing that fat is essential. You don't have to worry that much about what the scale says, your goal should be to lose inches in the truck section of your body. The rest will take care of itself. The bad fat your doctor doesn't want you to have is the fat around your waist. When you measure your waist at the navel it should be half your height. I'm 72 inches tall, my waist should be a 36. I don't mean a 36 pant size, I mean 36 inches at the navel. So even if your weight is in the normal range, and you can check your range on several different websites, if your waist is too large you need to lose some of that fat. There are two ways fat can build-up, over the top of your muscles or under the muscle layer. Under the muscle layer is very dangerous. You may think that your stomach is solid muscle but if you have excess fat under that muscle then it's surrounding your o...

New studies show Artificial sweeteners are not any better for you than sugar. And maybe sugar is a better choice. But some of us can't have sugar, now what? There might still be an alternative. I use Cinnamon but use real Cinnamon. Buy the sticks and grade your own. I use it on cereal, coffee, and tea. If you can't have sugar you're already avoiding bakery goods and bread that contains sugar. Read this post from MedicineNet.com. Artificial sweeteners may be less helpful than many believe in helping people lose weight and avoid health problems associated with extra pounds, a new evidence review suggests. Aspartame ,  saccharin ,  sucralose  and other artificial sweeteners did not lead to any significant  weight loss  in more than 1,000 participants in seven  clinical trials , said lead researcher Meghan Azad. Clinical trials are considered the "gold standard" of medical research, added Azad, an assistant professor of pediatrics at th...

If you are struggling with overweight or obesity, or otherwise would like to maintain your weight or prevent obesity, you may be wondering if it would be beneficial to weigh yourself frequently, and, if so, how frequently. Recent research has finally shed some light on this question. This is what I tell my clients. If you are someone who will frequently order the wrong thing and then think later that you should have order something else, then yes, weight yourself every day as a reminder that you're trying to lose weight and should be making smart choices. But If you're the type of person who becomes discouraged easily then don't weigh-in every day. I don't care what diet plan you choose you're not going to see the scale go down every day and you are probably not the type of person who forgets that they are trying to lose weight.  Benefits of Daily Weights A recent study has shown that weighing yourself daily—and then plotting your daily weights on a chart e...

Another good blog post from the HungryGirl blog. I shorten the post a little but I still want you to give you tips to keep you from buying the wrong things in the store. I'm still one who believes if you buy it you'll eat it. Even if you buy a pie or cookies for someone else, you'll eat part of it and everytime you cheat on your diet or go off your food plan it undoes weeks of hard work and keeps your body from burn body fat. Women have a problem buying groceries because they usually buy for several people. Yes, this is a big problem. You're watching your weight, but you're the only one and you have to buy food for everyone. The answer is not to ration food for everyone, the answer is to buy healthy food and stop buying junk. Processed foods are not good for anyone's health yet you continue to bring home chips, soda, white bread, cookies, and cake. The other people in your family or your guests will get enough of that when they eat out. You don't have...