3 Reasons Why A Low Fat Diet Is Better For You

It has become a fact that much of the population today is considered overweight. Some just accept this fact, however more and more people are deciding to take action to lower body fat. It is best to get your weight under control before it becomes a serious personal health issue. With so many different diets out there today, it can be difficult to decide which diet is right for you. Recent studies state that Low Fat diets are better for you in the long run.

Many people who have been successful in weight loss have done so by limiting fat rather than carbohydrates. Low fat, high carb diet plans work better at keeping weight down. Only a minority of successful weight losers consume low carbohydrate diets. Many who chose a low carb diet are successful at first but end up gaining back the weight over time.

More than half of Americans who have tried a low carb diet have given up. Even the American Institute for Cancer Research has urged dieters to "come back to common sense." It's best to eat a balanced diet with lots of fruits and vegetables. You should also reduce portion sizes and increase your physical activity.

Low fat cooking is a great idea for your daily meals. Yes, I agree that much of the flavor in the favorite foods we love comes from fat. Many feel it is difficult to get back that flavor that is lost, but it certainly isn't impossible. With a little guidance and experimentation you will discover the combination of seasonings that will make food enjoyable again. You can even lower the fat content just by using a different cooking method. Replace frying with baking and always use non-stick cookware.

We all want to be healthy. The best way to get on the right track is to start lowering your fat intake. A good low fat diet will help you lower weight and keep the weight off. At the same time, you will lower your risk of heart disease as well as other physical conditions. If you are not sure where to start, the internet can be a great resource for low fat cooking tips, recipes and other dieting support.
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The Best 15 Weight Loss Strategies

Reducing the amount of fat in your diet was the number 1 successful weight loss strategy. That makes perfect sense, because fat contains more than twice as many calories as carbohydrates or protein. Plus, fat is more readily stored in your body, while those other foods are more easily converted to and burned off as fuel. Here, are the strategies than you must know:

• Reduce fat intake
• Exercise regularly (any kind of exercise)
• Reduce total calories
• Drink more water
• Eat fewer sweets
• Keep problem foods out of the house
• Keep a food diary for yourself
• Increase high fiber food (eat more fruits)
• Walk for fitness
• Read food labels for fat and calories
• Eliminate or reduce snacks
• Eat low fat or non fat food
• East small but frequent meal
• Increase your self-esteem
• Plan what you'll eat

Eating low fat or nonfat food (number 12) is something you can do to substitute for your favorite decadent dessert, creamy salad dressings and spreads. Number 13 on the list is the most successful weight loss tactic is reducing your meal intake. Meal is one of the major sources of fat in American diets, especially saturated fat, which also ups your risk of heart disease.

Eating more high fiber foods (number 8) like cereals, vegetable, fruits and beans and filling up on starchy foods like whole grain breads, pasta and rice is likewise a diet smart rule to follow.

It's not surprise than being more active earned the (number 2) spot among weight loss strategies than work. So when walking for fitness (number 9), you've got a whole host of option. Use the stair instead using lift when you shop at the shopping mall. Wash your dinner dishes by hand or go a house cleaning binge. Combine these lifestyle workouts with your favorite fitness activity, whether it's swimming, cycling or walking. Try to accumulate about an hours of activity daily.



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Excess Weight and Body Fats? Laugh Them All Off

Have you ever heard of the truism ôjokes are half meantö? 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 ôexerciseö and ôdietingö 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:
ò But it was my birthday, so I had to eat the whole cake.
ò I had to get the bitter taste out of my mouth from eating the so-called dish, so I had an ice cream.
ò If you eat something and no one sees you eat it, it has no calories.
ò If you drink a diet soda with a candy bar, the diet soda cancels out the calories in the candy bar.
ò If you fatten up everyone else around you, then you look thinner.
ò Only eat things that have been broken into pieces; that way, all the calories fall out.
ò 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 û 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 û for a long period û can help shake those excess fats off. And even the doctors agree it’s the world’s best medicine.

Sun Slim Diet - Discover How To Easily Burn Off Those Unwanted Pounds While You Eat More

Lose weight by eating more instead of eating less really does not sound too convincing does it? Yet, that is exactly what the Sun Slim Diet advocates. And in fact that is what happens when you follow this diet. You really do lose weight.

It is not about how much food you put in your mouth or if it is high in fat or sugar, it is about the combination of foods that you put in your mouth. Let me try and explain. By eating different combinations of food you can actually burn fat or calories quite fast without exercising or eating low calorie options. This is because some foods work better together than others to stimulate your metabolism which fires up your fat-burners. These fat burners are what eat up the calories thus helping you lose weight.

Of course, many of you will say that you can just exercise and the same thing will happen. And of course you are right but not everyone can or wants to exercise to a large degree. And you do need to do it to a large degree if you want the same results. For those of us who love our food and do not want to cut back on our eating and fight the feeling of hunger will love this diet.

In fact after awhile you will not look at it as a diet at all because it fits in with normal every day life so well. With the sun slim diet you get to eat 4 - 5 meals a day so you never go hungry. You do not need to shop especially for yourself while buying different food for your family. All you need to do is learn how to combine the right food together to gain the benefits of weight loss. You do not have to count calories or weigh your portions and you can pig out on one day a week to reward yourself as well.

Lets face it obesity is really hitting society hard and it is the cause of so many illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes. Things really have to change so we can live the sort of lives that we deserve. So what we need to do is become healthy and the first thing on the healthy list is maintaining our weight to a healthy level. Now to do this you have options and one of the better options is the Sun Slim Diet.
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Must You Use Bodybuilding Supplements!

Since Dr. Atkins died in 2003, his company has released Dr. Atkins' New Diet Recommendations for those who want to follow the Atkins' diet. The company went bankrupt in 2005 and during restructuring of the company, the organization placed an emphasis on having people use its protein bars and other dietary items to support the traditional Atkins' diet.

Atkins' new diet recommendations haven't changed much from the original plan that came out in the 1970s. It still promotes meat, cheese and fat and disallows much in the way of carbohydrates. The diet still emphasizes protein over carbohydrates. What the diet now adds, however, are nutritional protein bars and protein shakes to a diet which is loaded in fried meats and eggs.

In some ways the Atkins' new diet recommendations aren't that much different from those recommendations given to weight trainers and others who want to bulk up. Since muscles are made of protein, the addition of protein to the diet is important. What isn't in the diet of weight trainers is the degree of fat allowed in the Atkins' diet. Most trainers who deal with weight training recommend a lower fat diet with the use of protein shakes or protein bars to supplement the diet.

The Atkins' new diet recommendations include a food pyramid which is quite a bit different from the usual food pyramid out there from nutritionists that has the meat and fat group quite a bit near the top of the pyramid. According to nutritionists, the general recommendations involve using a food pyramid in which the fat and meat group are the least types of foods that should be consumed in a normal, healthy diet.

The use of shakes and protein bars in the Atkins' new diet recommendations are a diversion away from the original recommendations that include food which is not processed very heavily and is cooked very little. The protein bars and the protein drinks are heavily processed, which doesn't make them very healthy on the whole. Plus a person can consume a great number of protein bars in a day, increasing the total caloric intake.

In the Atkins' new diet plan, sugars are to be avoided as much as possible, while eggs, cheese and meat products are the primary focus of the diet. Meals are usually three times a day but now the protein shakes or protein bars can be used as snacks or for people on the run, such as at work or in the car.

There has been a lot of criticism of the Atkins' new diet plan as there has been criticism of the entire program since Dr. Atkins' book came out in the 1970s. Most of the criticism has come from cardiologists who feel that the high fat, high protein intake promotes hyperlipidemia and heart attacks. Those who have high cholesterol or high triglycerides would potentially worsen their entire condition by consuming a diet so high in fat and in fatty meats.
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The Atkins Diet Pros And Cons - What The Experts Don't Tell You About The Atkins Diet!

No one would participate in any dieting plan without seeing the potential pros and cons of it. The Atkins diet is no exception to this and one should carefully research the Atkins diet pros and cons before proceeding with it. Atkins diet pros include rapid weight loss, improved health, reduced risk of disease and methods to maintain weight. But the most popular in the list of Atkins diet benefits is that of rapid initial weight loss, which mainly depends on a high-fat and high-protein diet that may lead to cons and may compromise a good cardiac and other organ health.

Atkins Diet Pros

Atkins diet pros are realized through the cutting down of the intake of bad carbohydrates into your body. By significantly reducing the bad carbohydrates that you introduce into your body, it will start to burn the stored fat triggered by a processed named Ketosis. In fact, initially, practically all carbohydrates will be removed from the diet--not just those found in junk food. You are basically consuming mostly fats and oils during the first phase. For most of us, eating high levels of fat is satisfying for us and causes us to lose weight faster. Don't just eat any type of fatty food however. Limit the intake of trans-fats such as what is found in margarine and shortening. Stick to the good fats such as real butter, oils in nuts, canola oil, flax seed, and olive oil. Try to also stay away from the polyunsaturated fats other then those containing omega-3 fatty acids (like what is in fish).

Another of the Atkins diet benefits is the plan within its program to maintain the weight levels achieved. The idea behind weight maintenance is that each individual has a particular level of carbohydrate intake in which they will neither lose nor gain weight. So after the initial phase of rapid weight loss, some carbohydrates are gradually introduced back into the body in order to determine what that level of balance is.

Another of the Atkins diet pros is the prevention of diseases such as Type 2 Diabetes. In simple terms, a high-protein and high-fat diet does not convert into sugar resulting in a stabilization of the blood sugar and insulin levels within the bloodstream. Patients who are pre-diabetic can possibly avoid having to take insulin shots in the future by losing weight through the Atkins diet now.

One of the most pleasant Atkins diet benefits is the fact that you start to look better and feel better not only in your self-esteem but physically as well. Patients who had chronic acid reflux and bloating from gas report that these symptoms begin to disappear once going on the Atkins diet. This is just because you are eating healthier and you weight is going down resulting in less pressure on your gastrointestinal system.

Atkins Diet Cons

The Atkins Diet is a popular and fast way to lose a lot of weight fast - there're many who give positive testimonials as to how much they did lose and how much better they feel. However one should be aware of the Atkins diet pros and cons before pursuing this diet. This is why knowing the Atkins Diet pros and cons are so important! Of the Atkins diet cons, the often asked about is the danger of a high-fat and high-protein diet in relation to good cardiac and other organ health.

Affecting the proper functioning of kidneys is one of the Atkins diet cons not too often discussed. A measure of good kidney function is the level of creatinine in the bloodstream. A high creatinine level means that the kidneys are not functioning as well. It has been determined that creatinine levels increase as a person is on the Atkins diet. Recommendations indicate that creatinine levels should be below 3.0. Any creatinine levels higher than that should be managed by a physician.

There is also the risk of calcium loss that is one of the Atkins diet cons. Calcium loss can result in the weakening of the bones or what is known as Osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is a loss of the healthy density in the bones and the bones become brittle and break easily. If the protein intake remains high as in the Atkins diet, the calcium intake will be low. Reductions in bone loss can also be attributed to the ratio of animal to vegetable protein intake.

Another of the Atkins diet cons is the effect it has on persons suffering from gout. Gout is a form of arthritis and it is triggered by elevated levels of uric acid in the blood. The condition in the Atkins diet known as ketosis is where the body starts burning stored fat. You want to go into ketosis or else the initial fast weight loss characteristic of the Atkins diet. As Ketones increase in your system, uric acid levels also increase and this is what complicates the gout.

Another common complaint from those on the Atkins diet is constipation. This is because there is a lack of fiber in this type of diet and fiber is what you need in order to give substance to a stool for passing. You might need to take some fiber supplements to help prevent this condition. There is also the increase of the risk of heart disease because of higher cholesterol and saturated fat intake.

The Atkins Diet pros and cons should be carefully considered before determining if this is the right diet for you. It can be a very effective diet but just make sure it will not put you at unnecessary risk.
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Do Fad Diets Help You To Lose Weight?

If you want to lose weight fast, you may be tempted to look for a weight loss miracle cure - a fast, easy diet that melts fat like snow off a roof top in the first days of spring.

A fad diet seems to be the answer. "Fad diets" are the popular diets that hit the newspapers and that every second celebrity seems to be on. They're fashionable while the trend lasts, often for a year or two. Then they fade away, when the next big fad diet hits.

Fad diets often focus on a single food - "The Hard-Boiled Egg Diet", or "The Watermelon Diet", or several foods, like "The Israeli Army Diet". The Israeli Army Diet was a classic, simple fad diet which lasted four days. The first day you ate apples, the second cheese, the third day you ate only chicken and the fourth day you ate only salad.

Other fad diets demonize certain food groups, like carbohydrates.

Yes, you'll lose weight fast with one of these diets, but they're dangerous and unhealthy. You can't keep them up forever. They also have a rebound effect - you always seem to put on more weight after a fad diet, so you end up with more weight to lose than you did before.

How Do You Know Whether Your Diet Is A Fad Diet?

Here are clues to look for:

* The diet bans certain foods or severely restricts them;

* There's a food list of foods that you must include in your diet;

* A diet suddenly seems hugely popular;

* The diet promises huge weight loss - "a pound a day";

* Newspaper articles are critical of the diet.

Your Doctor Knows Best

If you're looking for a way to lose weight fast, go to your doctor first, and have a complete checkup. There may be medical reasons you're overweight. Ask your doctor's advice on a healthy weight loss diet for you.

You can lose weight, but you want your weight loss to be enjoyable, and permanent. A good, healthy diet not only helps you to lose weight fast, but it also teaches you how to eat for health and vitality. Skip fad diets. You don't need them.
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Conquer your Obesity with Xenical

Is being obese making you a laughing stock at the mall, among relatives or even at school? Obesity can entice a lot of embarrassment, leading to loss of self-confidence and stress.

Health is one's everlasting treasure trove. Yet due to the velocity of life we tend to overlook the value of this wealth. Work stress and the quest to meet expectations and responsibilities often leads to compromise over eating habits and physical activities. Such a scenario forms the backdrop of various health hazards. Obesity, being one of these hazards. In fact, obesity itself opens a gateway to various diseases such as heart disease, blood pressure, diabetes just to mention a few.

Obesity has become a universal phenomenon. It has not even spared the youth. In essence, obesity is a condition denoting accumulation of excess of fats in the body.

You gain weight when you consume more calories than you can burn off. Various common reasons leading to obesity are:

òUrban lifestyle
òOver consumption of fatty foods
òLack of physical activities
òPsychological factors

The market is swamped with a lot of diet pills with promising offers. Among them Xenical has emerged to be an effective drug to help you to tackle obesity efficiently. Xenical is a brand name for Orlistat. Its primary role is to avoid the absorption of dietary fats, in this manner reducing caloric intake. Since its main consequence is to put a stop to dietary fat from being absorbed, the faeces may become oily or loose as fat is excreted unchanged.

Xenical is like a magic potion which eases your worries pertaining those extra pounds. It has proven to be more effective if consumed in conjunction with a low-calorie diet and regular physical activities. A prior consultation is recommended before you embark upon Xenical treatment.

It is said that it is easier to gain weight but a difficult task to loose it. But with Xenical you can achieve a healthy body that too with ease. It is one of the most readily available diet drugs tagged with a reasonable price range. You can also make an online purchase with the growing number of online pharmacies.

Indulge in an expedient approach towards a gorgeous you with Xenical.

Five Secrets To Weight Loss

Weight loss û such a ôbigö topic! Every month another book is out by another expert on weight loss. Everyone wants to know the secret to losing weight.

I certainly don’t have THE secret, but I do have some secrets, and I want to share them with you in the hope you find them helpful.

Weight used to be a major issue for me. Losing weight was never out of my thoughts, and I can’t tell you how many different diets, pills and programs I tried until I discovered some ôsecretsö that have worked for me for many years now.

So here they are. I hope they work as well for you as they have for me.

1. Change your focus from losing weight to achieving great health.

I grew up as a sickly child and I was a sickly young adult. I hated being sick and never having energy to do all the things I wanted to do. So I decided to learn about what creates great health.

First I read tons of books on nutrition and became convinced that I needed to switch to organic foods. That was quite a challenge in 1961! There was one coop health food store that I had to follow around Los Angeles because it kept moving locations. But it was worth it! My rule of thumb now is û if they didn’t eat it 100 years ago, then I won’t eat it now. This cuts out most packaged and processed foods and leaves natural, organic food.

2. Learn to read your body signals regarding what feels good to your body and what feels bad.

I no longer read about all the different diets because I’ve learned to tune into MY body so that I know exactly what my body needs for great health. Since my body needs different things than your body, no single food plan will work for everyone. Your job is to learn to tune into what gives you energy and what robs you of energy, and what foods create calmness and which ones create agitation. Once I learned what my body needs for great health, I lost weight and kept it off easily.

3. Find a form of exercise that you enjoy and that you can do at least 5 times a week.

I discovered that I love to walk in nature, so I take a fast half-hour walk every day. However, this can be a problem if you have physical limitations or chronic illness. Losing weight with chronic illness or physical limitations is not impossible, but it can be a much bigger challenge.

4. Learn to discern which part of you determines what and when you eat, as well as how much you eat.

We all have a wounded part of ourselves that uses various addictions as ways to deal with feelings of loneliness, aloneness, helplessness, anxiety, depression, fear and anger. Some people may use alcohol, drugs, spending, TV, gambling, sex, and so on to avoid their pain, while other use food. While food may work to pacify painful feelings for the moment, in the long run all addictions backfire and create the very pain you are trying to avoid. Yet our wounded self keeps choosing addictive behavior as a way of managing pain. As long as the wounded part of you is making your food choices, you may continue to have a weight problem.

The part of us that is capable of managing painful feelings in healthy ways and making healthy choices is the loving Adult. The loving Adult is the part of us that has a deep desire to learn about and take loving action in our own behalf. Developing a loving Adult is a major aspect in creating health and wellbeing, as well as in losing weight and maintaining a healthy weight.

5. Learn to connect with a spiritual source of wisdom, strength, love and guidance.

The loving Adult is that part of us that is connected with a spiritual source of guidance rather than being governed by the mind. The mind, bring programmed from childhood, is the home of the wounded self. You are being a loving Adult at those moments when you choose to be guided by a source of wisdom beyond your mind. This source will always guide you toward your highest good. You just need to learn to open and listen.

It is very likely that you will not only lose weight, but will also move into more physical and emotional health and wellbeing if you embrace these ôsecretsö into your life. We offer you a free course (see the resource box) to help you with developing your loving Adult. Once you have developed a powerful loving inner Adult, you will be able to lose weight. If you really want to lose weight, there is a way!

Are you Starving to Lose Weight?

It’s never too late to rethink on your diet plan and make fresh and realistic health resolutions. It is the right time to take stock of the situation. Ask yourself: Are we being fair to ourselves when we make these strict guidelines of diet and exercise? Most people recoil at the thought of dieting and exercising, especially on a cold winter morning. And for all those people who are fed up of diet dictums, the good news is that the best way to lose weight is not to diet or deprive yourself of all the good things in life. If this sounds too good to be true, wait till you try this:

Wellness - the latest buzzword to hit the health industry - is actually the best way forward. Most people who plan strict diets do it in the hope that after losing the extra kilos, they will look ravishing. But the truth is that lusterless sagging skin or loose abdominal muscles are not the result that people want. What we want is a happy, healthy, svelte figure munching an apple. But alas, that is not what we end up with very often. Therefore, after trying to lose weight for the nth time, it is now time to stop dieting forever and yet look slim.

Wellness is not only about losing weight, it is also about a positive mindset and transforming oneself into a holistically healthy person. This kind of a change in focus will not only result in weight loss but also give you great skin, good hair, a glowing persona and best of all, freedom from diets. Here is what the wellness and diet schedule entails:

o Understanding your food weaknesses and indulging in them two times a week.
o Maintaining a diet log book.
o Pick up a routine that you enjoy which is like an exercise: dancing, or walking the pet, floor exercises with music etc.
o Never deprive yourself. Always add new healthy habits to the current schedule, like having a yummy soup in the evening instead of tea and a scrumptious salad during lunch with olives, balsamic dressing and some greens and cheese cubes.
o Enjoy your meal. Many people who eat hurriedly always miss out on the flavors, do not feel satiated and end up compensating by overeating.
o And if all this does not convince you, count the number of times you have struggled through a diet program only to regain the weight with a few extra kilos.
o Looking at unhealthy habits and finding alternatives. For example, if you are prone to drinking too much of tea/coffee, substitute some for herbal teas which smell and taste good. If you eat too much of fried food, learn to make toasted snacks or baked snacks, and experiment with new roasted snacks.
o Do not starve or eat less. When we cut down on quantities, our emotional system retaliates, so the best option is to add healthy foods to the diet before cutting out on food suddenly.

Herbalife Shapeworks Diet Products - Giving you a Future

Choosing the right diet can be tricky, much of the decision should depend on your body type and the amount of weight you have to lose. There are other factors such as the areas that need slimming and how active you are each day of your life too. We all need something a little different from an effective diet system and that is what makes Herbalife Shapeworks so cool. It is easily customizable to anyone?s body and lifestyle. You can use the Shapeworks diet to simply add to the results that you would get from getting active and eating better. It is perfect for everyone no matter how much weight they want to take off.

The first thing that you need to do before you get down and dirty with any diet is to decide what you want to do. What are your goals? Do you want to stay healthy as you lose weight? How quickly do you want to take the fat off and how far are you willing to go to do it? These matter, as they will have a direct bearing on the diet plan that is right for you. The good news is that the Shapeworks diet is so flexible that it can work with you no matter what your answers to the above questions happen to be. If you just want to get back a little of your old waist line then go with Shapeworks and if you want to be eating healthy and improving more than just your weight then go with Shapeworks. There is no one that this diet cannot help.

The next thing that you need to do is find out what your body really needs to stay healthy. Most of us are not eating right as it is now and very, I mean, very few of us are getting the right amount of exercise each day. Yes, there are reasons for this and so one but the fact of the matter is that we need to keep our health up. It does not matter how busy we are or how much we love fried foods, we need to stay healthy and be good role models for our kids. That has nothing to do with being skinny, it should all be about health. If you are healthy and you eat right you will naturally find your own optimal weight.

So, what is your lean body mass? Do you have any idea? Don?t feel bad no one else knows either, except of course those on the Shapeworks diet. This diet will help you to finally get a firm handle on all of your weight loss issues. You will be able to effectively map out the amount of protein and the amount of calories that you need to be eating each and every day for good health. This is vital to the body?s ability to lose weight and then keep it off successfully.

Not only that but by eating the right amount of protein and having the right nutritional balance on your side you will be able to successfully control your hunger urges too. You will be able to cut out the need to snack between meals every day and that is going to have a massive affect on your weight loss goals and your ability to meet them. These are just some more reasons why the Shapeworks diet is such a good choice for all of us.

You can trust Herbalife and Shapeworks, people have been trusting them for years and years, decades even and they have not been disappointed, neither will you.

Get exercise and lose weight playing video games

I know what you’re probably saying right now. ôYea, rightö or ôwhat is this guy, some kind of a jokerö. Well, ordinarily you would be right on the mark with those comments, but there is a video game out there that not only can be a ton of fun, but can also give you a pretty good workout and make you lose weight in the process.

If you are a teenager or the parent of a teenager with a ôSony play station 2ö, then you likely already know what game I’m talking about. If not, the video game in question is called ôdance, dance revolutionö or DDR for short. This is a game that started out in video arcades, but now there is the home version you can buy. Let’s look at how this video game can become part of a weight loss and fitness program.

The game itself is played on a mat with four arrows pointing out in each direction, two out to the sides and one forward and one back. The corresponding arrows on your TV screen are your target arrows. When the moving arrows coming up from the bottom of your screen overlap the target arrows on the screen, you step on the appropriate arrows on the mat. All of this happens to your choice of upbeat music.

The nice part of DDR is that there are skill levels ranging from beginner all the way to advanced levels. As you complete one song or segment, you get a score for it. You can then try again and again to continue to beat your scores. The fact that it is competitive in nature makes it a lot of fun, plus as you are playing this game, you are moving your body the same as you would doing dance aerobics.

As with any aerobic exercise, it stands to reason that if you played DDR for 20 to 30 minutes per day, you would expend a lot of energy and burn fat. But as if logic alone wasn’t enough to confirm that this video game could give you a good workout and make you burn fat, there are people who use DDR making claims of losing anywhere from 5 to 95 pounds of fat! These claims are all coming from people who aren’t being paid to endorse DDR, but just people who are seeing these kinds of results from using it.

Since you probably already have a TV set, all you would need to get started doing this is a ôplay station 2ö and the game with the mat (the mat is the controller). If you already have a ôplay station 2ö, you can get the game and mat for around $60.00. If you don’t have the ôplay station 2ö, you can still get everything you need for under $300.00.

If you enjoy music and dancing, and you are getting bored with jogging or riding the exercise bike, then DDR is a great way to get in some exercise each day, plus you’ll have a lot of fun doing it once you get the hang of it. If you are having fun while you are exercising, you will not only be more likely to stick with it, you will probably look forward to doing it, and if you don’t believe DDR can give you a challenging workout, just ask any teenager how they feel after 20 to 30 minutes of doing it.

Why Dreams Can Cure A Mental Illness

Many people don't understand how absurd they are, and they don't understand that they cannot protect their mental stability based on their absurd assumptions. They need God's messages in their dreams in order to pay attention to all the details they disregard.

Mental illnesses are invincible diseases because they are generated by a powerful demon. They are not the result of a chemical imbalance in the brain. The absurd thoughts that generate mental disorders are sent by the person's anti-conscience to their conscience. These thoughts don't belong to their human conscience.

The anti-conscience is a dangerous enemy that causes a series of mental health problems, and cannot be controlled by our conscience. We depend on God's guidance in order to eliminate our satanic anti-conscience because Satan possesses negative energy and it is too powerful.

God depends on the obedience of our conscience to His guidance in order to tame the terrible demon existent in our brain. He cannot tame this powerful demon alone. This is why He created our conscience.

Our satanic anti-conscience is a monster that keeps trying to destroy our conscience through absurdity and despair. This is why we are affected by so many different mental disorders.

We have an enemy that is constantly bombarding our conscience with absurd thoughts that destroy our capacity to think logically. These thoughts generate obsessions, false impressions, illusions, and many other problems.

Our wild conscience makes us stop understanding what logical or illogical thinking is. It forces us to believe that there is something logical even in illogical thoughts, and it makes us try to justify our illogical behavior with absurd excuses.

The fact that we have inherited a huge anti-conscience explains why our population is so absurd. We don't even know how a mentally healthy person must be.

Through dream translation we follow a process of consciousness that helps us understand the mistakes we make when our behavior is controlled by our anti-conscience. We eliminate our wild conscience by obeying the divine guidance in our dreams instead of having the absurd reactions imposed by our primitive conscience.

Our wild conscience's impositions are imperceptible because it pretends to belong to our conscience. Initially its absurd ideas have a logical appearance. This is why we need many explanations in dreams.

Our neutral behavior before the horrors of the world reflects absurdity and evilness, but we believe that this behavior is normal. We don't think that we must be shocked with what happens in our world everyday, and we don't think that we must do something to change the incorrigible world.

We indifferently accept the absurdity of the world, the same way we accept the absurd thoughts sent by our satanic anti-conscience.

This is a tragic situation, but we can acquire sound mental health now that God's words can clearly be understood in our dreams, and now that we know how much we need His guidance.
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Get mentally fit for weight loss!

There are literally thousands of diets and weight loss systems throughout the world; pills, shakes, soups, fads, carbohydrates, calories, fats, sugars, you name it. They are all available to you in the interest of helping you lose weight, change your body shape or size or changing the way your body feels. What most people don’t realise that they all pretty much have one thing in common. You need to change your mental state before you can make any of them work!

Yes, you may find it a surprise but pretty much 99% of people looking to lose weight have actually subconsciously ôchosenö the state their body is in. At the end of the day, <i>YOU</i> alone are responsible for putting the fried chicken in your mouth, <i>YOU</i> are responsible for NOT going for a walk this morning and, most importantly, <i>YOU</i> are responsible and have control of your thoughts, emotions and motivation.

Changing your mental state will help you change your physical state, as the old saying goes <i>ôyou have to change what is on the inside to change what is on the outsideö</i>. Many people don’t actually give a lot of thought to what is going on inside, about how they are stopping themselves from doing things and how they can make changes (small or large) that will create a positive difference in their lifestyle.

Find out what pain you have to break through to create more pleasure within your body and your mind. Not physical pain, but mental pain. What is it you have to deal with in order to remove the excess baggage (weight) you carry around with you?

When you find out what is holding you back from making changes in your life, body and diet, you will find that dieting no longer becomes about food and exercise, it becomes a lifestyle. With the right mental changes you will find that you <i>CAN</i> drink wine, go out for dinner and eat cheese, ice-cream and chocolate, however you must also use balance and thought and consume only in the right moderation.

Everyone has the ability, motivation and power to make almost any change positive and successful. Tapping into your mental state, deciding to make a few changes and acting out these changes is what will make all the difference!

How to Beat Your Chocolate Cravings While Dieting

The history of chocolate is really quite amazing. The making of chocolate traces back to the Mayans and the Aztecs, who worshiped chocolate for its health and anti-fatigue benefits as far back as 2,600 years ago.

In fact, I think Cocoa roughly translates into "food of the gods".

Nowadays, chocolate is often thought of as a nutritional "evil". No matter how hard we try, most of us just can't resist chocolate. I know many people who have tried to quit cold turkey, and then ended up 'breaking down' and eating more chocolate then a kid on Halloween night.

It seems that no matter how hard we try, a good chocolate craving can derail even the best diet plan.

Unless of course you have learned the secret to beating your chocolate cravings...

The one way that I have discovered can help people beat their chocolate addiction is by becoming a chocolate snob.

You can have chocolate while dieting, in fact, you can have a little bit of chocolate everyday, it just has to be the good stuff.

By good stuff I mean real dark chocolate, or anything over 70% cocoa mass.

Did you now that when scientists refer to the health benefits of chocolate, they aren't talking about your grocery store check-out line variety of chocolates, they are talking about the good chocolate.

Chocolate is rich in antioxidants and polyphenols, rivaling red wine and green tea in these areas. Not only that, but chocolate also contains healthy fat. I bet you didn't know that much of the fat in chocolate is oleic acid, the same healthy fat that is in olive oil!

Problem is, these health benefits are highest in the good dark chocolate. When it comes to those check-out line chocolates, the more diluted the chocolate, the less antioxidants and polyphenols it contains.

Here's the trick with real dark chocolate, it's bitter. It takes a while to get used to how bitter it is. But, because its so bitter, it only takes a little bit to really conquer your chocolate craving, so you end up eating less.

Also, as an added bonus, once you've developed a taste for the good stuff, you learn to love the bitterness, and your typical check-out line variety simply tastes like chocolate flavored wax. They're just not appealing anymore.

So if you want to beat your chocolate cravings, start by eating a little bit of the good stuff. It will help you eat less chocolate, get all the health benefits, and keep you from going back to the check-out line varieties.

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The Miraculous Chicken Soup Diet

The Chicken Soup Diet is a calorie-reduction diet plan. It involves losing weight by sharply reducing the number of calories per day. This diet plan will involve eating much less food than usual, and eating a lot more soup than you usually would.

Summary of the Chicken Soup Diet

Small amount of weight loss or a long term calorie reduction can be achieved by utilizing the Chicken Soup Diet for a short-term (3-5 days). The severe reduction in calories will probably help drop some immediate weight, but staying on the diet past a few days is not advisable. The actual recipe for the chicken soup is quite simple and includes vegetables such as celery, carrots and broccoli. The other ingredients are quite common such as chicken and various types of seasonings.

Breakfasts Choices

On the chicken soup diet you are allowed one breakfast a day. Now you can try a different breakfast every day, and this is the best way because it will give you a good nutritional balance. Since there are only 5 different ones to choose from, for the last two days of the diet, repeat the ones you liked the best. The breakfast dishes are:

Breakfast 1:

o1 cup vanilla nonfat yogurt combined with 1/2 cup chopped fruit salad and sprinkled with wheat germ.

Breakfast 2:

o1 cup ricotta cheese combined with 1/2 teaspoon of sugar and a dash of cinnamon.

o2 pieces wheat-grain bread, toasted

o3 dried figs

Breakfast :

o1 1/2 cups Total cereal

o1/2 cup nonfat milk

o1/2 cup calcium enriched orange juice

Breakfast 4:

o1/2 cup prune juice

o1 small whole-wheat bagel, topped with 1 oz of fat-free cheddar cheese melted.

Breakfast 5:

o1 1/2 cups cooked Wheatena Cereal.

o1/2 cup nonfat milk

Remember, eat one of these breakfast dishes every day and as much of the chicken soup as you want.

Drawbacks of the Chicken Soup Diet

The drawbacks are sort of apparent. Although some people may truly love chicken soup, it's doubtful that they would want to erect their entire eating plans on it. The basic adaptation of the diet calls for you to eat a breakfast of your choice in the morning, and then to eat only chicken soup after noon.

Side effects

oBecause of non-consumption of carbohydrates, the glucose in the bloodstream becomes too low, causing hypoglycaemia.

oThis can cause a range of symptoms, such as headache, sweatiness, anxiety, irritability and drowsiness.

oHave a sandwich with whole-grain bread, a slice of low-fat cheese and a bit of ham but no butter or margarine. Vegetarians can try a low-fat cheese and tomato sandwich. But only have a maximum of one sandwich per day.

oIf these symptoms occur repeatedly consult your doctor.
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Get clean on the inside first for a safe weight loss:

I was driving past the gym the other day and I was actually impressed at how full the building was with people diligently getting their workout for the day in. Perhaps it’s because it is summer time here in Los Angeles and everyone wants to look good for this time of the year.

Well, as motivating as this may be, and as much as I honestly applaud their efforts, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of these obviously dedicated people were concerned with not just the external appearance of health but the inside as well.

It is documented that people spend loads of money on the new weight-loss pill or supplement guaranteed to 'make you eat less and increase your metabolism...' and in spite of whatever side effects the product may contain, the average Joe, still thinks this quick fix will be worth the risk.

What most people fail to realize is most fitness experts and bodybuilders who may use or endorse such products have a tendency to atrophy and wear down prematurely as sooner or later, these bodies, enhanced by unnatural substances have a tendency to pretty much degenerate.

Sure everyone wants to have the six-pack and the toned arms and all, and that is fine and of course worth striving for if one so desires, however, what should be of more importance is how clean the inside of the body is. This determines perhaps more than is realized just how one feels and speaking of a six-pack, if one’s colon and visceral organs are free of excess weight and debris, naturally a decent looking mid-section will be evident. (Just food for thought)

The average person is constantly carrying 10-15 pounds of un-eliminated feces in their bowels. This in itself has a toxic effect on the blood stream. Experts in autopsy have stated that in 60-70% of the colons examined, foreign matter such as worms and decades old feces-stones have been found still present within.

Now, it’s not my intention to gross you out with the fact in the previous paragraph, but it is to hopefully make you realize how much more important it is to ensure that our insides are clean as we go about seeking to lose weight, at least the healthy way.

Now, it is important to know that healing properties, not the calories, as most diet fads state, is the main factor for choosing a diet for a safe and effective weight loss.

Therefore, fruits, some roots and mostly raw green leaf vegetables, which serve as nutrient giving items and intestinal brooms, should form the basis of a healthy diet when seeking to lose weight.

These substances will serve to naturally combat chronic constipation which is the main indication of a clogged up system. Moreover, these are the items that provide one with the most natural sources of vitamins, minerals and fuel for day to living and borrowing from a cosmic law of nature, since ôyou are what you eatö, it goes without saying that if you want a safe and healthy weight loss, these items are of course your best bet.

Sure, it is a great feeling to be able to see the awesome cuts in your 'abs' and arms when you look in the mirror, but feeling good on the inside as well and knowing that you are thoroughly cleansed internally should be of just as much importance as 'getting ripped' or slim.

Remember, the cleaner you are on the inside and the freer you are of toxicity the quicker you can and will attain your goal of being in shape.

Here’s to health and happiness.

A Weight Loss Plan Which Is Fun To Implement

Now I am not sure about you, but I find it so hard to diet and to lose weight. The weight loss programs and diets that I have tried are just so boring. They are also very hard to implement as they are asking me to give up foods which I know that I will not be able to. What we need is a weight loss program which is actually fun to implement.

My name is Steve Hill. My own weight problems began when my parents decided to turn vegetarian. I was eleven years of age at the time and basically decided to give it a go as well. My mum cooked the meals you see.

This was twenty-one years ago, at this point there were not many different options of food for people who were vegetarians. I was not at all impressed with the food I was given and missed eating meat in a big way. I would normally be hungry after meals and would then start to eat snack type foods. I only gradually put on more weight and people did not really comment for a couple of years.

As soon as people did notice, it was like a vicious circle. They would taunt me at school, I would come home all depressed and would then comfort eat, to make myself feel better.

A few years ago I went about looking for ways to help me to lose weight. I tried many diets but without success. I have to say it was not that anything was wrong with the actual diet, it was that, that particular diet did not suit me.

I am the type of person who needs to enjoy something to keep my interest in it. This is why I found school a struggle. Well that is my excuse anyway.

The Fun Way To Lose Weight

On a Saturday night a few years ago, I went out for a few beers with a good friend of mine (Dave). We were having a good chat during which I told him about my mission to lose weight. I explained about how as yet, I had not found a suitable weight loss program.

Dave suggested that I should take up a sport, something competitive which I could get my teeth into. I thought about what he had said and agreed that this could be the way to go.

I asked him if he would like a game of tennis three or four times a week. Dave stated that this might be a bit much as he played six a side football twice a week.

He did not want to let me down however, and then asked if I would like to join his six a side team. I will give it a go, I replied.

I came home rather drunk, but also rather pleased with myself. I now had a weight loss plan which I was sure would work. There will be no quick fix, however this amount of exercise, over a sustained period of time, must have a positive affect on my weight, my fitness and my health.

With this program, I am also able to basically eat what I want, when I want.

It did take quite a while as I had predicted, to reach a weight I was happy with. This was not a problem however, as I was having fun on the way.

I continue to play not only tennis and football, but many sports. This is no longer to lose weight but because I enjoy it.

Dangers Of Diet Patches : Do not be fooled by glitzy infomercials and attractive...

Do not be fooled by glitzy infomercials and attractive ads saying that diet patches can effectively bump, block and flush fat from your body’s system in as little as three days. There is no such thing as instant weight loss, and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved any diet patch for weight loss.

Diet patches are particularly tricky. The manufacturers claim that they can suppress appetite and control metabolism when they are worn on the skin û a farfetched, if not ludicrous theory altogether. So ineffective and unsafe are diet patches that the FDA has already seized millions of these products from manufacturers and promoters.

Most diet patches claim to have no side effects because the chemicals used are all herbal. The FDA has banned more than a hundred ingredients once found in over-the-counter diet products û and some diet patches may very well still contain them.  Even if claims that diet patches use only natural herbal medicines, the question stills remains û do these herbal medicines work? There have been no clinical studies that have proven they do. Manufacturers could simply be stealing people’s money. This is why the Federal Trade Commission and some state attorney generals are continuously filing cases against marketers of diet pills claiming to absorb or help burn fat instantly.

The most dependable program for losing weight will always involve hard work û regular physical exercise, a healthy food intake, and a good night’s sleep. You can do these simple tricks without endangering your health or spending too much money. Find an honest-to-goodness exercise and diet program and religiously follow it. Don’t be impatient û it will usually take at least a month for results to show. Diet patches would simply rob you of your hard earned cash without yielding any satisfactory results. Diet patches are already being investigated and considered by the government as ’bogus.’ Keep your money and treat yourself to a healthy salad instead û you get to eat out, keep your weight down, and protect your health.

12-Point Regime To Create Dietary Freedom In 90 Days

This is what I call my "90 days to Dietary Freedom" Program:

Purpose... to smash a never-ending hole in the mystery of having self-control over food intake. 90 days to new habits... transitions are to be designed. 90 days comes to pass on 12 February 2014... or whatever date works for you:

Strict Don'ts:

1. No snacking - none absolutely none (food is fuel - food is not a hobby). Snacking and weight loss cannot coexist in the sane person's mind.

2. No junk - none absolutely none. If we are honest, we know what "junk" is. Honesty - the truth - will set us free! It's time, now, to be honest.

3. No eating after 7pm. The truth is none of us need food after our evening meal.

4. Nil starchy carbohydrate. We can supplement our energy needs through sleep; through catching up on sleep by spending the fifteen minutes we'd take to eat on a nap.

Diet Dos:

5. 3-litres of water per day. That is, a gallon of water on top of any diuretic drinks. So, if you have two coffees a day, drink a gallon of water, plus two cups. Water will give your gut the feeling that you're full when you're hungry.

6. Fasting 24-hours of Monday and Thursday (1 x coffee allowance). Two fasting days will help shift the fats from your cells and out of the body through your excretion systems.

7. Protein sources: tuna, red meat, chicken, plain yoghurt (2 x 100gms/ml). You don't need more protein than this for a 90-day diet.

8. As much leafy vegetables as I want (aim for 5 x cups/day). Good news - no limit here. Eat up!

9. Up to 2 pieces of fruit per day - standard sizing. For fibre needs and also for some essential brain-food (natural sugar) and for some essential vitamins and minerals.

10. One day per week where 2,000 calories is allowable - no junk!

Exercise:

11. Ride 100kms/week (3 x 12kms; 3 x 20kms).

12. 3 x weights workouts (30 minutes each).

Print this out and make copies. Put it on your refrigerator, in your locker, on your beside table... meditate over these guidelines... and you will have success. 30 days will break bad habits. 90 days will create new ones. Never again will you have a problem with "junking", snacking, laziness around exercise, etc.

Have faith that God can sustain you and he will.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

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Why Weight Loss On The Vegan Diet Is Inevitable

Just about everyone who chooses to adopt vegan living experiences weight loss - whether it was their original intention or not. So why are reports of losing weight on the vegan diet so prevalent? What is it that makes this particular lifestyle the ideal choice for weight loss? It's largely to do with the omission of certain foods. Let's see what these foods are.

No Fatty, High-Calorie Meats
The vegan diet excludes all sorts of meat, whether red, white or from the sea. Most meats contain a tonne of fat, and the average person is not very willing to cut off the fat and throw it out. There's the notorious fatty lamb chops, roast lamb and roast pork, which basically have the words "Warning: I will fatten you up" written all over them. Let's discuss lamb cutlets. These little chops are very small to look at, but in fact, are devils in disguise. Not sparing with the fat or calories, these little cutlets will make any meal a fatty feast.

What about fish? Many people feast on salmon for its health benefits but are unaware of the massively high fat content that this fish contains. Remember, the more fat, the more calories. The more calories, the more weight you will gain.

Therefore, when a person takes out all meat from their diet and replaces it with healthier lean vegan protein, weight loss is inevitable. Many vegans can attest to this. Vegan meals are mostly low-calorie since they are mainly plant-based.

No Fatty, High Calorie Dairy Products
The typical person consumes milk, cream, eggs and ice-cream on a daily basis. What does this do for their waistline? Well, these foods will certainly play no part in helping to slim down their waist. On the contrary, many folk who consume these foods on a regular basis wonder why they cannot lose their belly fat. Dairy foods are famous for being very high in calorie content. In fact, even the "low-fat" options are sabotaging our weight loss efforts. How could that be?

Humans Are Not Meant To Consume Dairy
Many people have heard this fact but still ignore it. Cow's milk is intended for the baby cow's consumption - not for human consumption. Humans do not have the right digestive system to consume dairy milk in a proper manner. Also, cows are routinely pumped with steroids and other hormones which can disrupt the natural hormones occurring in the human body. This can have a very bad effect on our health. And lastly, we should NOT be consuming dairy because of the dangerous antibiotics, genetically modified corn, pesticides, and other horrible foods that cows are routinely fed.

Omission of Animal Products Equals Healthy Body Function
Once all dairy and meat products are taken out of our diet, our body will begin to heal and function healthy again. Our digestive tract will also be restored to its optimal state. Our insides will no longer be stuffed up - struggling to digest these substances that our bodies can't really handle. Our bodies will no longer be in panic mode trying to discard these extra hormones, antibiotics, GM corn and pesticides. When our digestive tract is functioning in a healthy manner - our bodies will then focus on becoming healthy again. We will lose weight easily with vegan living. It's no rocket science - it's merely giving our bodies a chance to heal.

So you see, once you decide to cut out all meat and dairy products from your diet - weight loss will be super easy. Eating low-calorie vegan meals couldn't be any more motivating with the knowledge that you will lose weight and start looking great in your favourite clothes again. Vegan living means your body can give its attention to restoring your health and looking beautiful again.
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If You Don’t Sweat During Exercise, Is It A Waste Of Time?

You always hear the old adage, ôlets go exercise and work up a good sweatö like sweating is a sign that you’ve had a good, productive workout. But what if you exercise and you don’t really sweat during the workout? Was that workout a lost cause? Does it mean you just didn’t exercise long or hard enough for it to be a productive workout?
Well let’s examine the facts here and dispel the ever popular myth about just why you sweat and it’s relation to exercise.

Your body is like an engine that never stops running and like all engines, it produces heat. The more your muscles contract, the more heat is produced. If the body didn’t have ways of keeping you cool, you would overheat and collapse within 20 minutes.

The first method is radiation where heat radiates out of the skin if the air around you is cooler than your body. The second method is conduction which is the transfer of heat by direct contact such as swimming in a pool of cold water where the water absorbs your body heat. The third method is convection where moving air cools us down like when you stand in front of a fan or when the wind blows. The last method is evaporation where water from our blood absorbs the heat and rises to the surface of the skin through the sweat glands so it can evaporate creating a cooling effect.

In colder conditions, you will not need to sweat as much due to the body using radiation to keep cool. In hotter conditions, sweating is the primary method of keeping cool due to the air being hotter than your body but if there is humidity present, sweat cannot evaporate as well and that’s why you will see sweat dripping off you. Since in these conditions sweat doesn’t evaporate, radiation and convection (remember the moving air?) are used by your body to keep cool.

Everyone has a different sweating pattern. Gender, age, fitness level and environment contribute to how much you sweat. Women seem to sweat less and start to sweat at higher temperatures than men. People tend to sweat less as they grow old and thus cannot take the heat as well as a younger person but declining fitness levels may have something to do with that. In laboratory experiments where both young and old people were of similar fitness levels, there was no notable difference in their sweating process.

If you exercise in an air-conditioned room or outside when it’s a cooler time of year, you will not sweat as much because the cold air evaporates your sweat faster and also sets your body up to use more of the radiation method meaning your body can deal with the heat created by exercise more easily. It does not mean you are not burning as many calories because the intensity and length of time of your exercise is what determines caloric burn, not how much you sweat. You are sweating all the time but you just can’t see it because it is always evaporating.

If it were true that the more you sweat, the more calories you burn during exercise then it would also be true that you would be burning more calories simply sitting in a hot, humid room so as to build up a sweat but this is obviously not the case as the sweat you would be seeing is due only to the conditions of the room not allowing for evaporation for cooling the body.

Exercise produces heat, heat produces calorie expenditure, and you produce the same amount of heat whether exercising in a cold environment or a hot one so just because you don’t sweat as much in the colder environment does not mean your exercise session was less productive.

How To Speed-Up Your Weight Loss Results On The Vegan Diet - Vegan Weight Loss Advice

If you've been on the vegan diet for some time now, and your weight loss isn't happening as quickly as you would have hoped - this article has some practical pointers and advice to help speed up your success. It also will discuss some of the most common blunders which people make on the vegan diet which sabotage their weight loss efforts significantly.

Too much oil, nuts and avocado - these foods are extremely healthy and we need to eat them every day for optimal health. However, because these three foods consist primarily of fats, they are very high in calorie content. Don't avoid these foods completely, since we need these healthy mono-unsaturated and polyunsaturated fats to live. Just monitor your daily portions sizes. Stick with ½ an avocado and 1 or 2 small servings of nuts per day. Measure out your olive oil with a spoon rather than simply pouring it into your dish. Keeping a close eye on your portion sizes of these three foods will help you to lose weight more rapidly on the vegan diet.

Vegan Junk Food
Vegan junk food is notorious for being the biggest weight loss inhibitor on the vegan diet. This includes cookies, health bars, vegan chocolate bars, supermarket dips, crackers, pretzels, sweet and salty nut mixes, juices with added sugar, and the like. If you are eating these foods on a daily basis, it is unlikely for you to experience weight loss any time soon. It would be wise to limit your vegan junk food to 2 or 3 times per week, in small quantities, and only as a treat. You should also consider cooking your own vegan baking recipes as a healthy alternative. This way you can be in control of how much fat and calories you put into your cooking. Most vegan baking recipes can be frozen, so it's not a bad idea to make a large quantity of a recipe and freeze some for healthy on-the-go­ snacks, or for when you are craving something sweet.

You Are Not Moving
Any good weight loss regime must incorporate a decent amount of physical exercise each week. Getting the heart rate up a few times per week will always help your weight to come off ten times quicker than if you were to simply sit down all day long on your derriere. So get your walking shoes on and hit the streets, the treadmill, or the gym. Do this as often as you can and your weight loss will be much faster.

You Are Eating Too Much Food
One should never overeat. End of story. Regardless of what foods a person consumes, no matter how healthy they are - one should never overeat to the point where they are overly full or sick. This is bad for the body and will sabotage your body's ability to lose weight on the vegan diet. Many people overeat because of boredom, stress, anxiety or loneliness. It is important to be aware of what is causing you to overeat and to create an action plan to avoid continuing this harmful pattern. Pursue your hobbies more, meet up with friends, go to a movie, do some exercise, go for a walk - do whatever you need to do to help you to develop inner peace and to get out of the self-destructive habit of emotional eating.

Your weight loss can succeed on the vegan diet if you endeavour to incorporate some of the above tips in your daily life. Remember to limit your intake of nuts, avocado and oil, limit your vegan junk food, get your heart rate up more often, and avoid overeating. This will ensure that you will successfully lose weight on the vegan diet!
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Healthy Vegan Vs Unhealthy Vegan - Which One Are You?

Why did you choose to go vegan? Was it because of your health, to lose weight, to make your skin, hair and nails beautiful, to have more energy, or perhaps to help reduce your allergies? For many people, their decision to become a vegan falls into one of the reasons above - to feel better and look better. Some who become vegan achieve all they desired from this healthy lifestyle - and more. On the other hand, others who go vegan still suffer from low energy, bad skin and have not lost their excess weight. What are these two types of vegans doing differently?

The Healthy Vegan
The healthy vegan is conscious of eating plenty of fresh food. Their diet will consist largely of fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole-grains and legumes. They understand that preparing their own healthy vegan recipes beats buying quick and nasty vegan junk food any day. Even though there is a lot of pressure from the food companies to buy vegan packet food, they keep this indulgence to a minimaland only indulge in chips, vegan packet cookies, chocolate bars, pretzels and sweets on special occasions. The healthy vegan is aware of the consequences of eating these foods on a regular basis, and they want to ensure that their skin stays beautiful, their waistline stays small, and their energy levels remain high. At home, they have a collection of their favorite healthy vegan recipes, from which they derive great satisfaction from baking their own healthy home-made treats. Whether these vegan recipes are for brownies, carrot cake, chocolate cake or muffins - they know that the ingredients that they put in will be of the very best quality, and that they can monitor and reduce the amount of fat and calories that they put into these treats.

Often, when one is conscious of eating healthy they are likewise conscious of regular physical exercise. Most healthy persons on the vegan diet will engage in regular physical exercise to get their heart rate up and to keep their body in ship-shape condition. They know that getting their body moving regularly will help speed up weight loss and will keep their skin looking great.

The Unhealthy Vegan
The unhealthy vegan is often too lazy to make their own healthy vegan recipes on a regular basis. Many days they do not eat any fresh fruits and vegetables. Instead, their diet consists largely of store-bought foods. They know all of the vegan packet foods and brands in the supermarket, and the bulk of their diet consists of pre-made packet, boxed and tinned food. Whether it be popcorn, packet chips, hot chips, bread, 'health' bars and 'chocolate bars, soft drinks, juices that are high in sugar content, dips, crackers, sweet and salty nut mix - the unhealthy vegan will consume these foods daily, sometimes solely depending on them for their meals. They will also overeat quite often, unknowingly because the foods that they are eating have an addictive nature and they cannot stop eating until they've finished the whole packet.

Sometimes the unhealthy vegan knows that these foods are bad, but deceives themselves into thinking "I'm on the vegan diet - therefore I am eating healthy." Because they are in denial, they wonder why they have acne, have not lost any weight, and are constantly feeling low in energy. Other times however, the unhealthy vegan simply does not know very much about healthy foods, and has not bothered to do research or accumulate any healthy vegan recipes.

Most times when a person eats poorly, they also lack in the physical exercise department. Because they are always feeling sick and low in energy, they rarely go for walks or get their heart rate up on the treadmill.

The Difference is Obvious
Think back of why you decided to go vegan. Have you deceived yourself into thinking that you can eat all the chips and vegan chocolate bars that you want - simply because they are vegan? Many fall into this trap. If you want to become healthy and lose some weight - you need to take action and endeavour to follow the traits of the healthy vegan. You will feel much better about yourself if you do. Make sure that you collect some healthy vegan recipes and make these regularly. Get yourself out of the habit of eating large amounts of vegan junk food. And remember to work your body up in a good sweat a few times a week, or at the very least, go for regular walks to begin with. Your health, happiness, skin and waistline will thank you in the long run!
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Lose The Weight You Want Forever

Why is losing weight so difficult? The answer is relatively simple for those of us who have added some extra weightùwe need to eat less and exercise more. So, why do we continually find ourselves in the same place year after year with carrying around more weight than we want to?

The problem is that there are many nonconscious issues that often sabotage our best-laid plans. This article will help you understand some of what may be preventing you from making the forward progress that you want.

Preliminary Steps

One of the first things to look at is your need strength profile. This is a self-assessment that determines which of a person’s five basic needs drives the majority of that person’s behavior. All of us have the same five basic needs but freedom may be my highest need, while love & belonging may be yours and survival may be someone else’s. The other two needs are power and fun. These all play a huge role in why we do the things we do in the way we do them.

Next it is important to seriously consider all the things you want in your life, not just your weight loss goals but the whole of everything you want to do, have and experience in your life. Ask yourself the question, What do I want? If I could have anything, what would it be? What do I really, truly want?

After that, you want to narrow down what you want to a complete vision of how things will change for you after losing the weight you want to lose. What will you have that you don’t have now? What will you do differently? How will you be different? You must be able to clearly see the finished version of what you are attempting to accomplish with all its accompanying perks. This will become your own personal mental movie or daydream of how you want your life to be after accomplishing your weight loss goals. You will begin to visualize your success at least once a day.

The next step is to record all the things you do that both help or hinder your progress toward your weight loss plan. So, for example, if you were able to resist donuts for breakfast, write that down. If you ordered dessert after a meal at a restaurant, record that as well. In addition to the actual behaviors, you also must write down the thoughts and feelings you experience that either help or hinder your progress, too.

So, if you think to yourself, ôIt’s OK if I have this piece of chocolate. I was really good yesterdayöùwrite that down. Then, if you have the thought, ôNothing tastes as good as thin feelsöùwrite that down too. If you’re feeling bored and you grab a bag of potato chips, record the boredom feeling. If you feel elated when you skip a favorite dessert, write that down also. Keep track of everything you do, think and feel that either helps or impedes your progress toward your weight loss goals.

The next step is to critically evaluate the things you are doing, thinking and feeling and ask yourself the difficult questionùôIf I keep doing everything the way I’ve been doing it, will I end up with what I REALLY want? Will I accomplish the vision I have of my new life that I created in my mental movie?ö

If your answer is yes, then great! You probably don’t even need to continue reading this article. Just keep doing what you are doing and you will get there. However, if your answer is no, then read on.

If your answer is no, then hopefully you have been successful in creating some cognitive dissonance for yourself. This is an uncomfortable feeling that provides you with information that you need to make some changes. Without experiencing this cognitive dissonance, it’s easy to continue with the bad habits we have developed over time. People generally don’t implement changes in their lives unless they are in some serious pain.

If you’re not moving forward toward your goal, the first thing you need to examine is: Do you have a burning desire to accomplish your goal? Whatever your weight and fitness goal is, you must have a burning desire to accomplish it.

Another possibility is that up until now you haven’t had a very good plan about how to go about losing weight. Without a solid plan, there will easily be loopholes allowing you to sabotage your success. Willpower alone only takes us so far when we are fighting our brain’s conditioning.

A third possibility is that you want something else that is competing with your weight loss plan. There are many possibilities to consider but you will find some clues, either hidden or obvious, in the list of your behaviors, thought and emotions that you previously developed. What do you do, think and feel instead of the things that will ensure your success with your weight loss plan? An excellent question to ask yourself is: ôWhat would you have to give up to become successful with your weight loss goals?ö

Once you become conscious of the other things you want in addition to losing weight, you have some decisions to make. Is the thing you want something you want more than losing weight? If it is, then you can decide to give up on the idea of losing weight and simply be content doing, having or obtaining the other thing you want. You will then have a new goal toward which to work.

Another option is to consciously decide that you want to lose weight more than anything else. If that occurs, then you must specifically target your personal areas of temptation in your neural reconditioning program, which I will explain later.

Finally, the last option involves figuring out some kind of compromise so that you can have some of each of the things you want. For example, I just read in a magazine of a movie star who restricts her carbohydrate intake six days a week but then she allows herself as much pizza as she wants on Sundays. That’s a workable compromise.

The final question to ask yourself is: ôAm I willing to do the necessary work to make my plan come to fruition?ö

Developing your Plan

There are several things to take into account when making a plan. You must consider your most important needs and be sure to build in way to meet those needs while still losing weight. If your biggest need is love & belonging, then you may want a partner to work with you. If survival is your biggest need, then you will need to build in a way for you to feel safe.

If power is your highest need, then what you want to think about is perhaps making your weight loss a competition somehow. If your highest need is freedom, then you must begin to think about things, people, activities or places that allow you to feel free that won’t impede your weight loss progress and add them to your weight loss plan. If your highest need is fun, then you must find a way to make your weight loss fun for you.

The next step is to develop positive affirmations that support your weight loss goals. You must begin to reprogram the negative thoughts that are standing in the way of you accomplishing your goals. Oftentimes, these thoughts are even out of your conscious awareness but they prevent your success nonetheless.

Affirmations are positive, present, time sensitive statements affirming what you want to be true. Research shows that our brains do not know the difference between the truth and a lie. When you affirm a particular thought, value or belief in your mind frequently enough over a long enough period of time, your brain will begin to believe it. Consequently, the brain will mobilize its strong forces to do whatever it takes to manifest the thing you are claiming to be true in your life.

Write out as many affirmations as you want to support your goals. You may have affirmations about food, exercise, thoughts and anything else that will help you move in the direction of accomplishing your goals. There is no limit to how long your list of affirmations can be. You decide how much time you want to spend with them each day, with five minutes twice daily being the minimum. You should recite your affirmations once upon first waking up and then at the end of the day just before going to sleep.

It is helpful to look yourself in the eyes while saying your affirmation. You can do this, of course, with the use of a mirror. Look yourself in the eyes, as though daring the person in the mirror to dispute the truth of what you are saying. Repeat your affirmations with passion and conviction twice daily. If you can fit them in a third time around lunch, even better.

Next, you want to spend some time analyzing your food triggersùthose things that prompt you to eat the wrong foods and to eat when you are not hungry.

Many people have substituted food to meet their needs in an unhealthy way. We eat when we are depressed, excited, stressed, bored, angry, or scared. Different people for a variety of reasons use emotions as triggers to eat. And it’s not as if we are diving into the refrigerator to pull out an apple or some carrots! No! We are reaching for the chocolate or the potato chips. And no, these are not in the 5th food group!

Emotions are only one thing that we use for a food trigger. Sometimes we eat to be social. Sometimes we eat because the food is free. Sometimes we eat because we are experiencing a particular craving. Sometimes we eat for comfort. Sometimes we eat because the clock tells us it’s time to do so.

Other times, we will eat when we are not hungry because we paid for the meal. We were told we must clean our plate and not waste food. We tell ourselves we don’t like leftovers so we better eat it up or maybe there isn’t enough to save and we don’t want to throw good food away.

In order to be successful with your new weight loss agenda, you must begin to think of food differently. No longer is food your best friend or the thing you reach for to comfort you. Food is simply fuel for your body. The only time to eat is when your body signals you that it is hungry and then you must be conscious of the food for which you reach.

Get conscious about the things you are doing as they pertain to weight loss. Paying attention and noting the events and circumstances that trigger your eating will provide you with a lot of information about what to do to fix things.

After analyzing your food triggers, it is appropriate to again ask the question, ôWhat would you have to give up to accomplish the weight loss goals you’ve set?ö You may have uncovered new information to consider.

If you’ve come this far, it’s time to construct your plan. First of all, this plan must be written. You are going to write yourself a contract! The first two items are your plan will include daily visualization of your new life and the recitation of your affirmations.

Include ways to get your primary needs met that won’t sabotage your weight loss efforts. Include elements of past successes that will add to your likelihood of success. Include efforts to do something different when you experience your strong food triggers. Be proactive about what you will do instead. Don’t simply write, ôI will not eat when I am depressed.ö Write what you will do instead.

When you are satisfied with the potential success of your plan, sign and date it. Then follow the plan you've made with dogged determination.

Home Gyms Can Be Made More Effective

Are you excited? You’ve gotten a new home gyms system after looking online at various home gyms reviews and you’re looking forward to working out with it. You may all ready have been trying it out like a little kid on Christmas, that is after you figured out how to put it together first. This is great and you are on your way to becoming a fitter and healthier you.

One thing you may not have realized though is that home gyms can be made more effective if you make use of the right accessories to go with your home gym equipment. What sorts of accessories you wonder? Well certainly not a cool pair of glasses or a set of sparkly shoelaces on your tennis shoes. After all you’ll be working out at home where none will see you.

In terms of accessories you can buy a heart rate monitor to help you figure out whether you’ve achieved your target heart rate when exercising. Some pieces of home gym equipment all ready have this device as a part of their repertoire so it may not be necessary for you to buy one. But if you don’t you may want to get one. It will make it a heck of a lot easier than trying to take your pulse, keep exercising and counting heart beats while watching the clock.

Also if you have a treadmill you may want to pick up one of those pedometers. Some treadmills come with this simple measure to help you figure if you’ve run or walked the equivalent of a mile or not. If yours doesn’t you can get a pedometer to measure the number of footfalls you make while using the machine and it will help you to figure up your mileage. Depending on your stride you will have anywhere from 1600 to 2000 footsteps in a mile.

Alzheimer's Risk May Be Reduced By the Mediterranean Diet

Alzheimers has been a subject in many households over the last decade as more and more people become aware of its existence and the sadness it can bring to families and friends. A small breakthrough is always welcome in these areas and so it has seemingly been found within the Mediterranean diet. The following studies have been released to the media in many parts of the globe and although it may only represent the beginning of perhaps a larger breakthrough, it does address the importance of diet. In this case, the Mediterranean diet.

In a number of studies undertaken recently it was found that a Mediterranean diet and possibly fish oil supplements are potential ammunition in the fight against Alzheimer's disease. In addition, it seems omega-3 fatty acid supplements might slow cognitive decline in milder cases

One study, a Dr. Nikolaos Scarmeas and his colleagues at Columbia University Medical Center in New York found that eating a Mediterranean diet is associated with a lower risk for developing Alzheimer's disease, a form of dementia that can affect memory, language and behaviour.

The information apparently formulated from researchers who studied over 1,900 adults with an average age of 76. From all the participants, 194 already had Alzheimer's and 1,790 did not.

Over the previous year their diets were ranked from a low of zero to a high of nine for how closely they adhered to a Mediterranean-style diet, which includes large amounts of fruits, vegetables, legumes, cereals and fish, moderate amounts of alcohol, and reduced intake of red meat and dairy products. For each additional unit on the diet score, the risk for Alzheimer's disease decreased by 19 to 24 per cent.

Those participants who were in the top one-third of the diet scores had 68 per cent lower odds of having Alzheimer's disease than those in the bottom one-third, after researchers considered other factors such as age and weight. Equally interesting, Swedish researchers have found that omega-3 fatty acid supplements may slow mental decline in some people with very mild Alzheimer's disease.

It is also worth noting that the studies also indicated that eating fish, high in omega-3 fatty acids, might be protective against Alzheimer's disease, so Dr. Yvonne Freund-Levi from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm set out to see if supplements provide similar protection.

It was noted that this study was relatively small and short, only involving 174 people, lasting one year, but apparently it did produce encouraging results. It showed that Omega-3 fatty acids reduced cognitive decline compared with inactive supplements in those mildly affected by the disease, but importantly, not in those with more advanced Alzheimer's disease.
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Melting Away The Pounds With Carb Diets

In the last few decades, many of the longest lasting diet crazes have been carb diets. Atkins and South Beach diets are just a couple of the diets that have gained in popularity over the years. Many dieters still use these diets, even if they are not as popular as they once were.

Reducing a person's carb intake so that his or her body will have to resort to using proteins and burning stored fat for energy is the basic idea behind carb diets. People will be able to stop the cycle of storing carbs and sugars as body fat with the help of these types of diets.

However, if these diets are not done correctly, then they can be dangerous. You should talk to your doctor before you start any of the carb diets, or any diet for that matter. These diets may pose risks that you may not be aware of. Certain medical conditions may trigger harmful side effects which make it impossible for a person to follow one of the carb diets.

They advertised all the foods that can be consumed by dieters on their plan when I first heard of Atkins. Your diet will be limited to eggs, steak, and cheese. The problem is that many people dove into this diet with great delight, without bothering to read up on the particulars of the diet.

It is important to watch your fat intake when you are in a diet. You will only clog your arteries if you eat tons of greasy steaks, and foods that are fried in fat. You will be advised by carb diets to consume lean meats, watch the grease, and take in carbs in the form of veggies.

Carb diets will also urge you to take the natural approach of eating more protein and staying away from refined and processed foods. Nevertheless, you should still talk to your doctor about the particulars, and make sure you are healthy enough to follow the diet you have in mind.

It would also be smart to take some time to learn the difference between what are considered good carbs and bad carbs. Fruits, veggies, whole wheat breads and cereals have good carbs, while bad carbs are present in refined sugars and white breads
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Dieting By the Numbers: Lose Weight and Build Muscle to Transform Your Body

In order for a weight loss program to be successful, the end product should be a "transformed" physique; drastic decreases in body fat accompanied by visually lean, toned muscles. Unfortunately, most weight loss programs fail; the dieter either gives up, eating everything in site and gaining all the weight back or they starve themselves, shedding muscle mass and essentially ending up with a scaled down version of their old body. Ironically, the latter case also contributes to future weight gain, as the metabolism slows to a crawl and the body goes into "starvation mode". Under these conditions body fat is spared at the expense of metabolically expensive muscle tissue.

Our response to diets such as this is an artifact of the cave-man days. The reason the human race was able to make it through the ice-ages was that during times of famine we were able to shed energetically-costly muscle tissue while sparing vital fat stores for survival. During the infrequent times when food was available, body fat stores were loaded up in preparation for the next famine. Starvation primes our ability to store body fat.

While most people would not willingly starve themselves to lose weight, common practices of simply eliminating a meal (or two or three meals) a day puts the body into "starvation mode". Many people skip breakfast, only sometimes have lunch, and then eat a large dinner at the end of the day. Infrequent feeding drastically slows down the metabolism, and the body is essentially primed to store as much fat as possible at the end of the day. The metabolism slows down so much that body fat is preserved, muscle is lost, and weight loss comes to a screeching halt.

The remedy for this is to eat small, frequent meals throughout the day, at least three and as many as five meals; this will keep the metabolism humming along at a nice pace. It is not enough just to increase meal frequency however; we still need to reduce calories, but in the context of small, frequent meals. In order to begin such a diet we need a rough estimate of how many calories we need to maintain bodyweight; the BMR (basal metabolic rate). There are a number of ways to estimate your BMR. Let's assume for the sake of argument, however, that your maintenance calorie level is 2750 calories. For weight loss, we are going to reduce your daily calorie requirement by 250 calories per day to 2500. A pound of body fat contains 3500 calories, so theoretically, we will have a (250x7) = 1750 calorie/week deficit, allowing us to shed ½ pound of fat per week just from your diet. Let's also assume that you are working out, doing 3 cardio sessions and training with weights 2-3 times/week. The energy deficit from your diet, along with your workout program should be sufficient to lose 1-2 pounds of fat/week. If you are in a hurry, calories can be reduced more or activity level increased, just remember, however, that diets which cause weight loss to happen very quickly will also cause more muscle loss. Too much muscle tends to be lost when weight loss exceeds 2-3 pounds/week; remember, we do not want your body to think it is starving, we are tricking it into shedding fat while maintaining or gaining muscle.

Following my recommendations, you will be able to gain muscle while you are losing body fat. Keep in mind that muscle weighs more than fat so do not rely too heavily on the scale; often dieters lose body fat and gain muscle in close to a 1: ratio, sometimes resulting in no change at all according to the scale. If you take somebody that has gained ten pounds of muscle and lost ten pounds of fat however, you will see a drastically transformed physique. We will achieve this end by both manipulating the macronutrient ratio of your diet (i.e. carbs, fats, and proteins) while simultaneously cutting calories. Generally, if you have been following a typical low-fat diet you are most likely eating 50-60% carbohydrates with variable levels of protein and a low percentage of fat. We are going to reduce carbohydrate intake, while increasing fat intake and keeping protein intake an ideal level.

Protein

The typical dieter, if they follow USDA guidelines, does not get enough protein while most "muscle-heads" such as weightlifters or bodybuilders tend to eat way more than they need. (Too much protein just gets converted to fat- there are much more fun ways out there to gain body fat than overeating on protein!). We will use protein intake as the starting point to determine how many calories you need from fat and carbs. Once the protein requirement as a percent of calories is established, we will then move on to fat and carbs. My recommendation is to get 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of lean mass- lets assume you weigh 200lb with a lean mass of 160 lb- this would mean your protein requirement is 160-240g of protein. We will assume you are doing lots of cardio and intense weight training as part of your exercise program so we will go with 1.5g/lb of lean mass, or 240 g protein. Doing the math, 1 g of protein is approximately 4 kcal (I have referred to kcal-which is actually 1000 calories, simply as "calories" up to this point- for simplicity I will continue to use the term "calorie").

240g x 4kcal/g = 960 calories.

(960 calories of protein/ 2500 total calories) x 100 ~ 38% calories from protein.

Carbohydrates

With 26% protein in our diet program we now need to determine how much many carbs to eat. The important thing here is that we have an overall reduction in the % of calories form carbohydrate sources. A range of anywhere from 15-40% carbohydrate could be ideal- this is largely an individual matter. Some people do not need to decrease carbs quite as low while others will only do well on a lower carbohydrate diet. A good approach is to start on the lower end to jump start your diet into action and then to slowly increase carbohydrate as you become more insulin sensitive. (Consult a good personal trainer who is also an expert in nutrition a custom=designed approach). Again, as an example, we will assume that we want to eat 30% of our calories from carbs. If you have been following the typical low-fat diet this will be a significant reduction. Like protein, carbohydrates have 4 kcal/gram so we do a similar calculation:

30% calories from carbs = (0.30 x 2500)= 750 calories.

(750 calories)/ (4 kcal/gram) = ~ 188 g of carbs.

According to our calculations above, we need 188 g of (low glycemic) carbohydrates to satisfy our 30% carbohydrate requirement.

Fat:

Last but not least, we need to calculate how much dietary fat to eat. So far we have 38% of our calories coming from protein while 30% are from low glycemic carbohydrate sources. This leaves us with 32% of our calories coming from fat. Unlike proteins and carbs, fats have 9 kcal/gram:

(0.32 x 2500 calories) = 800 calories from fat.

(800 calories)/(9 kcal/gram) = ~ 89g of fat.

Most people who are used to eating the lowest amount of fat possible in their diet are shocked at this recommendation- no worries, your calories are controlled so you won't get fat-you will loose fat and build muscle. As far as fat sources, there are many choices but I personally like to use walnuts, salmon, flax seed oil, olive oil, and fish oil while keeping saturated fat as low as possible. As an example' 1/4 cup of walnuts has 20 g of fat. Most oils have roughly 14g/tablespoon. Many of my clients like to eat salads with fat free Italian dressing (get the stuff that also has low carbs). Add this with a tablespoon or two of olive oil and flax seed oil to your salad giving and additional 28 g of fat (use more/less oil depending on your individual requirements- I tend to use 2 tbs of olive oil to 1 tbs flax oil). A 7-ounce serving of broiled or baked salmon has around 6-9 g of fat. Fish oil tabs generally have around 1g of fat /tab ( I take 10-12 every night before bed). Don't forget to factor in the trace fats you are getting from certain carbohydrate sources and from animal proteins.

Manipulating your diet in this way described will allow you to maintain or even build muscle mass while on a reduced calorie diet. While calorie restriction is the fundamental law of weight loss, most people are too hungry and loose too much muscle on the typical low fat/low calorie diet. Reducing carbohydrate intake and increasing healthy fats can drastically improve the effectiveness of a diet allowing you to build muscle and lose fat, totally transforming your body.
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