Blog on weight, How to Lose Fat on the Cheap

Forget the scale, if you want to lose weight and look better all you need is a tape measure. You lose a couple inches of belly fat and drop a couple pant sizes and your going to feel like a million. I don't often write about something that sounded to me to be an exercise program, but as I read more I realized the article was talking about the foods we ate and how some foods will actually reduce stomach fat. As a matter of fact, a lot of foods in the grocery store will actually add belly fat quickly. Let me explain, a lot of foods we buy are ready to mix then heat and serve. Or frozen food that you just pop in the microwave, put it on a plate and serve. These foods are a combination or ingredients that the manufacturer puts in the packet or box. If you have to add anything it's just milk or water. The manufacturer wants you to like the product but they have to make a profit so they'll substitute ingredients with chemicals that taste like the real thing and it's th...

Losing weight is a balancing act between the amount of calories you eat and the amount of calories you burn. For example, a women depending on height should stay in a range of 1500 to 2000 calories a day. A man depending on height can consume say 1800 to 2500 calories. Those estimates will depend on your age and activity levels ( how much you workout ). Weight loss comes down to burning more calories than you eat. This is important, you can’t exercise away a lot of calories. A normal workout, say a combination of running and walking for an hour, will only burn about 300 calories and that’s based on someone who is experienced at this type of workout. Someone new at this type of routine, you might only burn 100 calories.  If your counting your calorie intake and don’t forget the drinks, You can balance the "consumption to burn" ratio by cutting back on sugary beverages or maybe snacks.  Once you understand the equation, you’re ready to set your goals. Remember you don’t ...

The overweight problem is almost world-way, at least in all the developing countries. North American and some of the European countries have the highest percentage of overweight people and we are the ones who are said to have the best educational programs.  So what’s wrong? Why do we have more people in the worst physical condition. There’s a simple answer, public education doesn’t teach the “importance of fitness”. We don’t know how to care for our body and what happens if we don’t.  Public schools have cut back on many programs that I remember were taught a few decades ago. Gym class was mandatory back in the day and you had to swim before you could graduate. More about the importance of fitness. I know I belong to a different generation than most of my readers, and I realize that the world is more fast-paced than ever before, but there is a movement now in many age groups to lose weight and become healthier.  Just like people realize that smoking will ...

Despite all the noise about calories we hear these days, the reality is: yes, they count! But do you need to count them if you want to lose weight? Personally, I never counted calories. I believe that all calories are not equal. If you're overweight and have excess body fat it's because of the foods your eating, not necessarily the quantity. What I found is if I eat fresh, natural food and not processed or manufactured food, I wouldn't overeat. I eat seafood, chicken or turkey, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and drink lots of water. Flavored water is okay if it has zero calories. I stopped drinking calories. I eat about every three hours and never skip eating something. I never eat at night. After dinner, I stop eating. I try and eat more food early in the day and less later in the afternoon. I have always maintained that while the quantity of calories matters, it is the quality of foods you choose that matters most to weight and health alike. One of the many virtues ...

Dieting is hard. But avoiding "empty" calories helps you reach a healthy weight without feeling like you're dieting. So what are empty calories? All food has calories, healthy food has calories but you get nutrition with those calories. Food and drinks that don't have any nutritional value are full of empty calories. 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, peanut butter, bran cereal...

Losing body fat should be your goal. We are so worried about what the scale says that we don't pay attention to our waistline. Your waistline should measure half your height. For example, I'm 72 inches tall so my waistline (at the naval) should be no more than 36 inches. I know what some of you are thinking, "Is that even possible at my age?" It's possible at any age.  It's not unusual for an adult to have an extra 10 pounds of food in their digestive system. If you follow a good diet and do a little more exercise you'll see results in a couple of months. Don't expect results fast. The only weight that you can lose in a couple of days is the extra waste matter in your digestive system. After that disappears you will generally stop losing weight and that's when most people give-up. The first 10 pounds you lose isn't fat, it's just bloat. You want to lose fat for permanent weight lose.  The only way you lose fat is if your body burn ...

This is a topic I want to write about. There’s a thin line between the two and the doctors are being pushed into putting their patients into categories. Information that used to be between you and your doctor use to be confidential, but today the insurance companies want to know what the doctors know about you. The way insurance companies charge you for insurance is changing. Remember before you dismiss this article, more than half of adult Americans are overweight. Personally, I’m talking to each of my doctors to find out how much of my info they share with the government and insurance companies because I know your insurance company is sharing too. Read below and see if your in one of these categories. Then ask your doctor what your real weight should be, the charts are changing. Doctors usually define "overweight" as a condition in which a person's weight is 10%-20% higher than "normal," as defined by a standard height/weight chart, or as a body mass index (...

Only the last few weeks have I saw Beet Juice in the stores, but maybe I haven't paid attention.  Beet Juice seems to be a new drink that's caused a lot of stir in the natural juices community. I recently changed my grocery store. Now I frequent a smaller store with lots of "organic" produce, organic coffees and an endless supply of organic yogurt with brands I never heard of. I always thought milk was milk, except for Soy Milk, but now there are a dozen brands of milk and none of them come from a cow.  I have to admit that I drink the Almond Milk but I've been tempted to try the Coconut Milk. And like most everyone trying to lose weight, I eat Greek Yogurt. But getting back to juices, the store must have a hundred different kind of natural juices all in small bottles. Every kind of fruit or vegetable that you can possibly squeeze juice from. Beet Juice is the new health drink that's good for your blood pressure.  But will it help you lose weight? No, but i...

Have you ever wondered what happened to your energy? Clients would email me constantly about the lack of energy. I ask them about their diet, what they're eating and how often do they eat, and the most important question, how much extra weight do you have? In other words, how much weight have you gain since you were 21. You see, you lose energy because you're carrying around too much fat and you probably are not eating the right food to give you energy. So maybe you haven't been exercising but that's not your problem. You have to fix your diet. With the proper diet, you will gain some of that energy you lost. Your diet is "key" to a healthy life, but with the availability of manufactured foods and the convenience and price, many people are choosing to take the easiest way and buy manufactured foods that basically have no nutritional value or very little and contain high amounts of white enriched or processed flour, salt and sugar. Those are ingredients ...

I wrote other posts about changing your life if you want to lose weight. You've heard about the French and that the French have a diet that would put weight on any American, but they're thin. The men and women of all ages in France are thinner than Americans. When medical science first looked at their diet they thought that the red wine they drank was the answer. These people eat out as much as we do, they don't even know what low cal means. So how do they do it?  First of all, they walk more. Urban people don't use cars that much, They walk everywhere. Also, bike riding is more popular, you see gasoline has always been expensive in Europe and the people have learned to conserve. Conserving on food is something that France has done since World War II when food was scarce. So today their meal portions are smaller than ours and combine this with the increased amount of walking the French do and it's much easier for them to control their weight. Also, the French ea...

I’ve received an email lately from seniors that don’t seem to think they can lose weight anymore. We can all lose weight at any age. We can all exercise at any age. You just need to start moving. Change what your eating and start walking more. Seniors have a couple of problems losing weight. First, as you get older you lose some of the good bacteria in your digestive system which means that more of your food is not being digested. It’s being stored as fat. Cut down portions as you get older.  Second and more important, I think, as we age and gain weight over time, we lose the ambition to be active. We have a few more aches and pains and instead of working through them, we tend to pamper them. Some people take a pill for any minor problem when all you might need is exercise. I'm not talking about a high-intensity aerobics class, I'm talking about more walking around and less sitting. Maybe that means to start the day with a walk after breakfast and another walk after lunch a...

This article was first published in VeryWell.com. The author wants the consumer to know how dangerous processed foods can be. I'll add a few comments between paragraphs. By  Shereen Lehman, MS   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.  The author is right, all processed foods may not necessarily be bad for you and some might even have some nutritional value but many of these manufactured foods have the nutrition stripped out during the processing so if the haven't been fortified with some artificial form of nutrition then they have very little and are just something to fill you up. What Are Processed Foods? Processed foods have been altered from their natura...