Blog on weight, How to Lose Fat on the Cheap

Most of us want a flat stomach (I know I do), but when it comes to our collective dream of a flatter tummy, there’s good news and bad news. First the good: It's possible to get a flatter stomach without doing endless sit-ups or crunches. In fact, all of the tips I'm going to discuss are non-workout-related, meaning it's possible to flatten your belly by making changes to your lifestyle, not necessarily to your workout routine (though hitting the gym once in a while is never a bad idea). Now for the bad news: Carrying excess pounds in your midsection isn't good for your health, and I'm not even talking about the extra weight. "Storing fat in the belly (i.e., being apple-shaped) [is] associated with a higher risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke," says Tammy Lakatos Shames, RD, certified personal trainer. "Excess fat around the hips and thighs (i.e., being pear-shaped) isn’t as dangerous." Extra poundage around t

Great post from  VeryWell.com  tells us about the different fats in our body and which ones are dangerous to our health. Visceral fat is adipose tissue (fat tissue) that surrounds your vital organs. Visceral adipose tissue is located deep inside your body and is sometimes referred to as belly fat. If you have too much visceral fat, you may be at higher risk for certain health conditions and diseases. The Definition of Visceral Since visceral fat is often called belly fat, you might wonder why we use the term "visceral" to describe it. The reason is that there are two different kinds of fat in your belly and visceral fat is only one of them. In a health setting, the word visceral means in or near your vital organs (your viscera). These are the organs deep in your gut, like your stomach and your intestines. Visceral muscles are found in the walls of your visceral organs. Visceral fat surrounds those organs. Since your vital organs are located in your midsection, visc

Breakfast: Is It the Most Important Meal? Breakfast kick-starts your metabolism, helping you burn calories throughout the day. It also gives you the energy you need to get things done and helps you focus at work or at school. Those are just a few reasons why it’s the most important meal of the day. Many studies have linked eating breakfast to good health, including better memory and concentration, lower levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol, and lower chances of getting diabetes, heart disease, and being overweight. But this much is clear: Skipping the morning meal can throw off your body’s rhythm of fasting and eating. When you wake up, the blood sugar your body needs to make your muscles and brain work their best is usually low. Breakfast helps replenish it. If your body doesn’t get that fuel from food, you may feel zapped of energy -- and you'll be more likely to overeat later in the day.  Breakfast also gives you a chance to get in some vitamins and nutrients f

Some calorie calculators help you find out how many calories you need to maintain your current weight. But what if you want to slim down? Then, what you really want to know is how many calories to lose weight? It's an easy process to get the right number. Just follow three simple steps. Then, you'll know how many calories to eat each day and how many calories you need to burn for weight loss. Step 1: Use a Weight Loss Calculator To get the best weight loss numbers, you should use a calorie calculator or a simple weight loss calculator. My favorite is the weight loss calculator at "Calorie Count". It's simple and easy to use. Use the Calorie Count Calculator The calculator will ask you a few questions about your activity habits and your goal weight in order to calculate the most accurate number. Be honest about your exercise and realistic about your weight. If you fudge the numbers, you won't get an accurate result.  It sounds easy, right? The fi

This post from WebMd verifies the fact that excess body fat over several years increases a person's chances for Cancer. Now this post was written about women and the cancers that women are more likely to get. But overweight men that carry excess body fat for years are also at high-risk for those cancers that men commonly get later in life, like colon cancer and prostate cancer. The more years a person spends overweight, the higher their risk of several cancers. Is it any wonder, with two-thirds of our adult population overweight, that it seems like all of us know someone that has or had cancer. A study, which followed nearly 74,000 U.S. women, found that the longer a woman carried excess poundage, the greater her risk of breast, endometrial, colon and kidney cancers. "We've known for a long time that excess weight is important in cancer risk," said Susan Gapstur, vice president of epidemiology for the American Cancer Society. The cancer society says excess w

Yoga is more than just exercise. We talk about stress a lot of how stress can cause weight gain, and that's where Yoga can help.  Yoga will actually relax you. After you get accustom to doing Yoga, you will find that the poses that stretch your muscles will actually relieve built up stress in your muscles. When your muscles tighten up like when you get a stiff neck, that's a form of stress and many people do Yoga to relieve those tight muscles. Workout fads come and go, but virtually no other exercise program is as enduring as yoga. It's been around for more than 5,000 years. Yoga does more than burn calories and tone muscles. It's a total mind-body workout that combines strengthening and stretching poses with deep breathing and relaxation. Some forms of Yoga are for meditation but the trend today is using Yoga for exercise. There are more than 100 different forms of yoga. Some are fast-paced and intense. Others are gentle and relaxing. Examples of differ

Apps can be handy tools to help you lose weight and eat a healthier diet, but how do you get the most out of the app you use? For advice, we turned to registered dietitian nutritionist Angela Lemond, RDN, CSP, LD,  who practices in Plano, Texas. She’s a big proponent of apps. “We know that apps can help with accountability, and the research tells us that accountability is key when it comes to consistency and being able to make and maintain changes,” says Lemond. “And changes are not easy.” The Key Feature to Look For The most important feature of any app designed to help you lose weight and improve your diet, says Lemond, is its ability to track your eating patterns over time. Why? Because what’s important is not a single meal but what and how you’re eating over the long haul. “Look at your food patterns as much as your total calories,” she says. This means using the food diary function to track your meals, snacks, and beverages on a daily basis. Most people underestimat