Go natural and lose weight without trying!

Posted on February 21, 2013 by

After years of personal experimentation, research, and polling people on their day-to-day eating habits and weight gain, I have a new mantra: “Man made foods = Body fat and bad health!” It sounds extreme, but you’ll understand why I’ve adopted this mantra in a moment.

We’ve all heard that there are foods that are supposed to be “healthy” for us and are not as great as we’ve been let to believe they are. Take whole grain bread for instance. Yes, assuming you can see the whole grains, it is healthier than white bread or brown bread colored with molasses. (Oh, you mean you thought all brown bread was whole grain? Wrong! That’s a food manufacturers trick to make us believe that their bread is whole grain when it really isn’t. Sneaky, isn’t it!)

But even the organic sprouted wheat berry bread that you find in the finest natural food stores contains one of those ingredients that has been debated as to whether it is really healthy or even fit for human consumption: wheat. (Corn and Soy are two others.)

Now I’m not siding with anyone by saying that wheat is bad or not healthy for us. But like most foods that must be processed to be consumed, in my experience, it probably isn’t a good idea to eat too much of it, and it actually causes me to build up a stomach when I eat it regularly in moderation.

For years I suspected that wheat based products were keeping me from being as lean as I wanted to be. In 2009, I cut wheat out of my food choices completely in favor oats and I got as lean as ever. Last year in October when I was doing my Wolverine Workouts, I performed a conservative test on myself since I hadn’t eaten wheat in so long to see what would happen.

The results: after only one month of including minimally processed bran cereal and organic sprouted wheat berry bread in my daily routine—which does not contain the processed flour that we attribute to weight gain—I’d put on almost 5 pounds right in my belly in spite of only eating 2400 – 2700 calories per day.

Obviously, things didn’t go as I’d planned. Oh well, at least I figured it out fairly quickly and eliminated the culprit for good. And since I’m fairly lean anyways, I knew I’d blast the extra pounds off in no time.

Fast forward to this January, I’m back to eating sweet potatoes, brown rice, red potatoes (eaten cold for a lower glycemic index), and fruits and vegetables along with my chicken and lean beef. Funny thing, not only did I start getting leaner once I stopped consuming wheat based products (man made foods), but I was doing it while eating 3000 calories a day!

That’s right! I was eating more food and getting leaner. How can that be?

Simply stated: unprocessed foods are easier for the body to use for energy, while processed foods are typically harder on the body because they contain additives, preservatives and/or other ingredients (chemicals) that are foreign to the body.

Speaking of foreign ingredients, MSG is one of those additives that is considered to be a “natural flavoring” and in many cases is NOT listed on food labels or is hidden behind crafty names. Yet, scientists have used MSG to fatten up lab mice and make them obese.

Check out this link here if you want to read a study on it: The induction of obesity in rodents by means of monosodium glutamate.

In case you didn’t catch that, let me repeat it again: Scientists have used MSG to fatten up mice on purpose!

What’s the problem?

Granted, you and I are not lab mice. But if MSG induces obesity in them, in spite of NOT having any calories, what do you think it does to us? I don’t really think I need to say. And that’s just one problem with MSG.

Another issue with MSG is that it is classified as an excitotoxin*, which has been linked to brain cell death, migraines and other serious health issues. (Aspartame is also a very popular excitotoxin* and a common ingredient in many sweet, low calorie foods and beverages.)

I could go on and on about MSG, Aspartame and other additives and/or preservatives in many of the man made foods today and how they make us fat or ruin our bodies, but you get the idea: They’re not good for our health and we should avoid them whenever possible.

One more HUGE problem I want to touch on with man made foods is the nutrition labels food manufacturers provide us with. They’re supposed to be “transparent” and tell us what is in our food by law. Problem is, food manufacturers use so many chemicals, additives and preservatives that we can’t even pronounce that it almost doesn’t matter. Not to mention, the labels don’t really tell us the truth anyways.

Sugar Label

Take a look at the image of the food label on the right. The first ingredient is sugar, and different forms of sugar are listed in at least three other places if you look closely. (Dextrose, Invert Sugar and Corn Syrup)

Yet, the label tells us that it has 0 grams of sugar—in spite of it being the first ingredient, which is an indication that sugar is what the product contains the most of. (By law, the first ingredient on the list is supposed to be the most prominent in the food.)

Today, to really understand what is in our food, we either have to be a scientist or research each ingredient individually. Seriously? Like most busy people, I don’t have the time to conduct research to find out what they’re putting in food. I just want to eat!

That’s one of the main reasons why I like natural foods. Assuming we buy them organic and in their natural state, sweet potatoes have one ingredient: sweet potatoes. As do brown rice, red potatoes, chicken, beef and other natural foods.

See what I mean?

By eating natural, I’m NOT putting chemicals or other additives into my body and the wheat weight is disappearing. And long term, what we put in our body is one the determining factors in how long we live and how healthy we are. After all, the human body was made to process food—not food like products.

“Man made foods = Body fat and bad health!”

Any questions?

*If you want to know more about excitotoxins, and I highly recommend that you do get educated on them because they may be quietly destroying your family’s health, simply Google the word “excitotoxin” and you’ll come up with plenty of educational links. Here are a few to get you started:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excitotoxicity

http://americannutritionassociation.org/newsletter/review-excitotoxins-taste-kills

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7854587

UNEDITED AND UNCUT DISCLAIMER: Yes, I read this blog post over a few times. If there are errors, live with it!

Posted in Food, Weight Loss | Tagged

Do you think that’s food you’re eating?

Posted on February 12, 2013 by

Recently, I went to the grocery store and it occurred to me that the “real” food area of most grocery stores is getting smaller and smaller. By “real” food, I mean the area where you can find all of the fruits, vegetables and natural foods that are unprocessed and come from the earth in their natural state.Pop-Tarts

The rest of the store, as far as food is concerned, is filled with man made food like   products that are boxed, bagged, packaged or preserved in some other way: breads, bagels, snack foods, cereals, baked products, etc. (Many of which claim to be “healthy” for us!)

Although most of us believe that this is how food is supposed to be because we’ve grown up watching commercials that have told us what is cool to eat and drink since we were children, go back to the years before 1950 and you’ll discover that the world was a very different place—before mass production of food products became popular, and obesity, heart disease and diabetes began destroying the health, bodies and lives of the people we love.

Back then, when you went to the market (it was usually called a market instead of a grocery store), you would typically make a daily trip to get all of the fresh foods and ingredients you needed to make breakfast, lunch or dinner that day.

Sure there were canned foods, bread and a few baked products. But for the most part, almost everything at the market was fresh and unprocessed—the way nature intended it to be. And back then, before labs came up with ways to preserve food almost indefinitely, even bread had a shorter shelf life. But today, food products can last for weeks, months or even years without spoiling.

wafflesFoods are made to last for greater convenience, right? So what’s the problem?

First and foremost, regardless of what food marketers and manufacturers want us to believe, we are NOT eating real food. And if it has more than one ingredient, in most cases, it is NOT natural. Once something has been added or its natural state has been altered in some way, it becomes a processed food product.

In essence, in my opinion anyways, processed means man made foods. And natural, according to food manufacturers and marketers anyways, means minimally processed. Natural should mean natural, but the FDA allows them to get away with their slick marketing because of the economic benefits product sales create.

Sad, but true!

And although food manufacturers would never admit it, it is the processing and preserving of foods that is causing most of our health problems today. I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but if you’re still eating processed foods, you may not completely understand the health risks many of them pose.

I say this because I had heard it all too. I assumed because it was on the shelf and it was popular it must be safe and good for us to eat. The FDA (government) wouldn’t allow companies to sell us products that would be bad for us. They care about us and they’re looking out for our best interest, right?

Wrong!

Today, the words natural, whole grain and healthy are regularly abused. We would like to think that the FDA (government) is looking out for our health before the well being of our economy. Unfortunately, economics (money) comes before people these days—which is really stupid because we end up paying for it double time with health care expenses and loss of productive time at work.

Call me a health nut if you want, but since I was 14, when I started figuring out that it was the food that had made me obese, I’ve watched a lot of people become obese, get sick or even die because of illnesses and diseases that have been attributed to processed food products, additives and/or preservatives.

At the age of 13 I was almost 200 pounds at Fruit rollupsonly five feet tall—a cheeseburger away from a heart attack. And I’d probably be over 400 pounds and digging my own grave if I’d continued eating like most American’s into my adult years: hotdogs, pizza, burgers and fries, soda and plenty of snacks.

The truth is that we’re all busy and sometimes it seems like creating the time to prepare a meal isn’t possible. But what we need to realize is that we need to make the time because our health is everything. Without health, we can’t work, we can’t spend quality time with the people we love, we can’t do the things we enjoy and we can’t enjoy our life.

If that’s the case, what’s the point of living?

Next time you’re having a meal or a snack, take a good look at it and ask yourself if it is making you healthy. And if not, is it worth your life? A snack once in a while is okay, but in today’s society, food marketers and manufacturers want us to snack all of the time because it feeds their profits.

Asking yourself if every snack or meal contributes to your health may sound extreme, but in the end, that’s the price we pay if we spend our life eating unhealthy foods—even if we’ve been innocently led to believe that they are healthy.

Want to know what foods you should be eating or avoiding? Check out these articles:

Are carbs making you fat?

Sugar… the choice of a new generation

3 tips to start losing weight now

Can I eat whatever I want if I exercise?

Do low carbohydrate diets work?

UNEDITED AND UNCUT DISCLAIMER: Yes, I read this blog post over a few times. If there are errors, live with it!

Posted in Weight Loss | Tagged

Simple Weight Loss: How to eat the foods you should and avoid the foods you shouldn’t

Posted on January 23, 2013 by

Have you ever known someone who was a big story teller? And even though you and everyone else already knew that they were only telling a story (lying), they seemed to believe their story… regardless of how silly, ridiculous or unrealistic it was?

As funny as this usually is, chances are that that person really did believe their story for one reason more than any other: whatever we tell ourselves we begin to believe over time, and doing so can work for us, or, it can work against us.

Although this is an unusual example, this method is commonly called self-suggestion, or, if done intentionally for some type of self-improvement purpose, it can also be called a positive affirmation.

For the liar, self-suggestion obviously works against them and makes them look foolish. But for us, it can actually be very useful for changing our habits, replacing any non-supportive beliefs or consciously directing our thoughts.

If you’re having trouble losing weight because you can’t seem to give up some kind of food, drink or dessert, for instance, you can begin changing your belief about the item by telling yourself that it just doesn’t taste as good as it used to.

And whenever you talk to others about it, you can reinforce the self-suggestion even further by making subtle comments about how you don’t like it as much any more, or how you’re losing the taste for it.

Sound too simple to be effective?

Maybe, but I can assure you that it does work because this is exactly how I stopped indulging in my favorite desserts, chocolate, pizza and even French fries. I used to love these foods many years ago and I would eat them often. But today, I don’t eat them—and honestly don’t care to eat them—because I’ve told myself (through subtle self-suggestion) that I don’t really care for them for so long.

Coincidently, or not, I have a lot less body fat, I’m leaner than I’ve ever been, and avoiding weight gain is completely effortless because I’m no longer eating the foods that were causing me to gain weight or preventing me from losing it.

It’s very simple, but that’s the power of self-suggestion!

Now, this may not be so simple at first because your mind will probably reject your suggestions, especially if you know that you really do love chocolate. But, if you continue to repeat the suggestions, over time, they will eventually sink in and whatever you are suggesting to yourself WILL become true for you.

How long will it take for the suggestions to work?

For everyone the time frame is different, and depending on how much you like the food and how long you’ve been eating it, like forming a habit, it could take as little as 21 days. While there is no definite time frame for suggestions to start working, one factor that greatly influences how fast they work is our DESIRE to lose weight. With that stated, the real question here is:

How big is your desire to lose weight?

The bigger your desire, the faster the suggestions will begin to work. Either way, however long it takes, if you keep at it and you keep making the suggestions on a regular basis, they definitely will work.

Sample Suggestions:

(Insert name of food here) just doesn’t taste as good as it used to.

I don’t like (Insert name of food here) as much any more.

For some reason, I’m losing the taste for (Insert name of food here).

UNEDITED AND UNCUT DISCLAIMER: Yes, I read this blog post over a few times. If there are errors, live with it!

Posted in Food | Tagged

Simple Weight Loss: Are carbs making you fat?

Posted on January 8, 2013 by
Are carbs making you fat?

Are carbs making you fat?

Being an avid health and fitness guy, I’m always eager to read all of the latest weight loss studies that come out. It’s interesting to hear about what seems to be helping people lose weight, what myths have been debunked, and what the latest “breakthroughs” are.

While most people jump at the opportunity to try a new diet approach or product because it is said to have “helped” 100’s of people lose weight, over the years, I’ve learned the hard way that what applies to other people, doesn’t necessarily apply to me.

Take nutrition for example. According to most nutritionists, doctors and health “experts”, our daily food intake should consist of 50 – 65% carbohydrates. Considering the condition of our health as a country since this recommendation became popular about 20 years ago, I’d have to say they’re grossly mistaken.

Many experts argue that eating “good” carbohydrates is the answer to our weight and health problems. Yes, “good” carbs do provide nutrients we need and they do give us energy, but I disagree that they should make up such a large part of our daily food intake because my experience—as well the experiences of countless others—tells a different story.

I hate to say this because it sounds cynical, but I sincerely believe that the reason why we’ve been told to eat so many products made from wheat, corn and potatoes (high carbohydrate foods) is because they’re multibillion dollar industries in the U.S.

Simply stated, eating 50 – 65% carbohydrates is good for our nation’s economy… and not necessarily our weight and health!

Being a patriotic American, for a long time, “good” carbohydrates such as old fashioned oats, yams, sprouted wheat bread and fruit did compose the majority of my calories. And for a long time, I could never seem to get rid of the stomach I had.

It seemed like no matter what I did, how hard I dieted, or how much I worked out, it just wouldn’t go away. Then, out of frustration, I started reducing my carbohydrates little by little to see if it would help. As I did this, I noticed I wasn’t feeling puffy in my stomach anymore and I started to get leaner without feeling like I was starving myself.

What was the difference?

Instead of composing 60% of my daily calories, carbohydrates were now only 35% of my daily intake—almost half of what they were before! Once I discovered this, I changed my food portions from the all-American 60% carbohydrates, 20% protein and 20% fat, to 50% protein, 35% carbohydrates and 15% fat.

Now I know you’re probably thinking I’m some sort of low carb freak or that I follow a “caveman” diet (and I will say that there is a lot of validity to their philosophy), but I actually discovered that this is what works for me through years of trial and error—and not because it was trendy.

Am I saying that cutting back on carbohydrates will definitely work for you?

Not exactly, because I understand that we’re all different. What works for one person might not produce results for you. The only way you’ll ever know what works for you and YOUR body is to start testing to find out for yourself.

And that’s the point: other people’s “diets” and recommendations are a good starting point for testing, but not necessarily a solution for you.

Yes, I do understand that testing takes time and that most people want a “diet” plan that produces instant results. But the fact is, unless you have a significant amount of weight to lose, that testing is the fastest way to discover what works for YOUR body because nobody can tell you what is perfect for you.

So how do you test?

To keep it simple, start experimenting by substituting food portions. If carbohydrates are about 60% of daily food intake now, try reducing them to 50% and increasing your protein intake by 10% to see if it makes a difference. You can do this by excluding a slice of bread, eating less pasta, or having fewer potatoes, and adding a little more chicken, fish, lean beef, eggs or milk in their place at each meal.

If you’re okay with the change after a week or two and things are going good, try reducing your carbohydrates by another 10% while increasing your protein intake again and/or including more healthy fats. Some examples of healthy fats include: avocados, coconut oil, nuts, seeds and olive oil.

The key to testing is to do it slowly so your body has time to adapt to the changes. And the reason why I suggest you start by decreasing your carbohydrates is because it makes sense due to the fact that most people’s daily food intake is mostly carbohydrates.

Why not reduce your protein intake?

There are many arguments made by those who say that we should eat less meat for one reason or another, but consider this: just about every cell in our body is composed of protein. The natural cycle of the body is to break cells down and build them up. And if we’re not getting enough protein, we’re breaking cells down and not building them back up.

This is a daily process that almost never occurs to most of us because we don’t see it happening, but it’s something that I became aware of through personal experience with a few injuries. For almost a year, I had a shoulder injury that wouldn’t heal and a forearm muscle that would hurt whenever I gripped something.

After increasing my protein intake to 50% from 25%, they both healed up completely in less than a month. Coincidence? Many who are uninformed about how the human body regenerates would say yes, but I seriously doubt it since I purposely doubled my protein intake.

Another reason why raising your protein intake is a good idea when you’re trying to lose weight is because protein is thermogenic. This means that your body generates more heat and burns more calories in the process of digesting it.

Confused?

Here’s an example to illustrate what I mean. When you eat a chicken breast that has 200 calories, your body burns up about 20 – 25% of those calories in the digestion process, leaving you with about 150 to 160 “usable” calories.

If you eat two slices of wheat bread or some other carbohydrate food, on the other hand, your body only burns about 5 – 10% of those calories in the digestion process, leaving you with about 180 to 190 “usable” calories.

See the difference?

Now that may only be a 30 to 40 calorie difference for this example, but over time, it adds up—and so do the pounds we put on from eating too many calories or lose by burning more!

So the bottom line of finding what works for you is this: losing weight is really a number game and a process of testing. If you eat a typical American diet, experiment with the following combinations to see what works best for you.

−      40% Carbohydrates / 35% Protein / 25% Fat

−      40% Protein / 40% Carbohydrates / 20% Fat

−      50% Protein / 35% Carbohydrates / 15% Fat

To find out how many calories the foods you eat have, you can visit this website: http://nutritiondata.self.com/. Once you make changes in your food portions, stick with each test for at least two to three weeks to see how your body responds. And keep trying different combinations because you never know what will work best for YOUR body.

UNEDITED AND UNCUT DISCLAIMER: Yes, I read this blog post over a few times. If there are errors, live with it!

Posted in Weight Loss | Tagged ,

Simple weight loss: 3 tips to start losing weight now

Posted on October 24, 2012 by

There’s an easy way to do things and a hard way. I’ve found that most people choose the hard way because they lack knowledge and experience, they take bad advice from other people, or, they’re misled by what they read or hear about on TV. Following are three tips to help you start losing weight as quickly and easily as possible.

Tip # 1: Keep tabs on HOW MUCH you eat

There are a lot of weight loss experts out there who say that you don’t have to keep track of your calorie intake (energy from food) to lose weight. If you have 50 pounds or more to lose this may be true—to a point. But overall, considering that we must burn more calories than we consume to shed body fat, that’s like saying that we don’t need to keep track of how much money is flowing through our checking account.

That sounds silly, of course, but think about what would happen if you didn’t know how much money was going in and out of your checking account. It would create a disaster, right? You bet, and it’s the same with our calorie intake because we have to make sure that we’re burning more calories than we’re eating if we want to lose weight.

Now, I’m suggesting that you have to track every single calorie you consume every day. But if you’re serious about losing weight, you want to make sure you have an accurate estimate. You can get a good estimate by:

a) Reading the labels on the packages if you’re doing the cooking (See example)

b) Asking for a nutrition guide if you’re dining out

c) Going to a website like http://nutritiondata.self.com/

Tip # 2: Limit WHAT you eat

Here’s a simple rule of thumb: if you don’t eat sugary or fatty foods, you can’t store them as fat and you don’t have to burn them off. One of my guilty pleasures has always been carrot cake. (Yes, I do like desserts!) Until I realized that it went right to my fat cells whenever I ate it.

Not only that, but once I got a taste of it, I sometimes didn’t want to stop and would end up eating too much. Foods that make us feel this way are called binge foods. Leonardo Da Vinci once said that it is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end—I agree.

Today, I only have desserts once in a while. And when I do, I make sure that I have a small serving and I move away from the rest of the pie, cake or whatever it is to prevent myself from eating too much. If you have a tendency to overindulge in something, especially if it is high in fat and/or sugar, you have to be realistic and set yourself up to win. This is how I do it.

For regular meals, the idea is the same—limit the foods you eat. If you eat at home most of the time, it’s easier to control what you eat because you decide on the ingredients. If you eat out a lot, however, you really have to be careful because many foods contain hidden amounts of sugar and/or fat. If your meal includes any type of sauces, dressings or is breaded, chances are you may be getting more fat and/or sugar than you might be aware of. When in doubt, don’t be afraid to ask or simply order something else.

One more important thing is that you want to consume a moderate amount of carbohydrates when you’re striving to burn body fat. Experience has taught me that a high amount of carbohydrates leads to fat gain—even if I don’t go over my ideal number of calories. You don’t have to cut them all out, just go easy on the bread, pasta and potatoes, and eat more lean protein.

Tip # 3: Exercise enough

The old cliché is, “No pain no gain.” In my experience, this couldn’t be further from the truth. While burning body fat does require consistent effort, too much effort is actually counter productive and leads to burn out. (I’ve done this more times than I care to talk about!)

To lose weight quickly, safely and effectively, you do need to exercise, but you don’t need to run a marathon tomorrow. As a matter of fact, you don’t need to run a marathon at all. When I’m working on getting leaner, I hop on the bike for a medium paced cardio session or I walk on the treadmill at 4 miles per hour at an incline of 4.5 for about 30 minutes. (You can also just walk to burn calories if you’re just getting started.)

Sound too simple?

It isn’t when combined with an eating program that limits fat, sugar and includes a moderate amount of carbohydrates. Most of our weight problems are a result of the foods we eat. So by limiting the bad stuff and incorporating some sort of regular exercise, our body naturally burns the excess weight off.

UNEDITED AND UNCUT DISCLAIMER: Yes, I read this blog post over a few times. If there are errors, live with it!

Posted in Weight Loss | Tagged ,

Break your weight loss plateau NOW!

Posted on October 2, 2012 by

Contrary to what most people believe, we need to eat to lose weight instead of trying to starve ourselves. When we cut our food intake too much, we may lose weight for a short period of time, but ultimately, we usually end up hitting a plateau or gaining most, if not all, of the weight back.

Why is this so?

Simple: the human body is built for survival. When we go on diets that are too low in calories, after a period of time, our body begins to think it’s going to starve to death. Once this happens, it goes into storage mode to prevent starvation. Storage mode is exactly what it sounds like: serious body fat storage!

Sure, a very low calorie diet may work for a few weeks, in which case half of the weight lost will typically be from muscle and/or organ tissue. But after that, our metabolism slows down, our energy takes a dive, we begin to feel tired, and we notice that we’re not losing weight anymore. (Note: Your body can still be in survival mode even if you don’t experience low energy or tiredness if it is very efficient at breaking down muscle tissue for energy.)

This is what a lot of people call a weight loss “plateau”, but it is really their body telling them, “I’m scared you’re going to starve to death so I’m protecting you by storing energy (body fat) in case we need it later.”

Granted, you know that there’s no real threat and that you’re not going to die because you’re eating less, of course. Unfortunately, our body is primitive and reacts in a primitive way to protect us and sustain life. That’s its job and it does it very well, which explains why losing weight can be so difficult—especially when our body is in survival mode.

To illustrate how survival mode works more effectively, let’s pretend that we only had $1,000.00 this month and $975.00 in bills to pay. What would we do with the other $25.00? Assuming we’re responsible with our finances, we’d hold onto it as tight as we could just in case we needed it for something important or an emergency, right?

Well, this is exactly what our body is doing by storing body fat. Since it thinks there’s a shortage of food (energy), it feels that it needs to hold on to every thing we eat. In essence, just like we manage our money to ensure that we have enough to pay bills and support our lifestyle, our body manages our energy to ensure that we have enough to keep us alive.

So how do you break a weight loss plateau? You can start by doing one of two things, or both, depending on what you’re doing now:

1) If you’ve been dieting hard for more than a month, slowly begin raising your food intake (calories) until you’re eating enough to maintain your body weight. In Weight Loss Secrets of Superstars, I call this returning to your baseline calorie intake. It’s important to return to your baseline calorie intake to prevent a metabolic slowdown and that dreaded weight loss plateau.

2) If you’re exercising a lot (more than an hour a day), tone it down so you’re not burning so many calories. Burning too many calories through exercise can be just as bad as dieting hard because your body may have too few calories to use for vital processes. And just like low calorie diets, the end result is usually the same: survival mode, a metabolic slowdown, a weight loss plateau, and/or eventual weight gain.

One important caution is that you have to neutralize your calorie deficit slowly when your body is in survival mode or once you hit a plateau. If you raise your calories too quickly, your body may begin storing fat at an accelerated rate. (This is what you don’t want, trust me!)

To prevent rapid body fat storage, you want to do three things:

1) Reduce your exercise time by 15 minutes per workout first if you’re working out for longer than an hour day, seven days a week. (Taking a day off would probably be a good idea too if you’re really hard core and it’s been a while.)

2) Raise your calorie intake by 50 – 100 calories per week until you’re eating enough to maintain your weight. This will kick-start your metabolism. It’s a good idea to increase your protein intake first as protein isn’t stored as easily as fats or carbohydrates.

3) Once you’ve rebuilt your metabolism by eating enough food to meet your daily energy requirements or reducing your exercise for at least a week (two is better to give your body a break), you can begin making small 10-15% calorie cuts to lose weight again.

Yes, making small calorie cuts may seem like the long way, but in the end, it is really the short cut because you won’t waste time in survival mode or dealing with a frustrating weight loss plateaus as often.

UNEDITED AND UNCUT DISCLAIMER: Yes, I read this blog post over a few times. If there are errors, live with it!

Posted in Uncategorized

Sugar… the choice of a new generation

Posted on September 25, 2012 by

Over the years I’ve discovered an alarming trend that I hadn’t noticed before. Almost everything we buy today has some form of sugar in it. Bread has sugar, regular spaghetti sauce has sugar, and even certain brands of hot and spicy chips have sugar. Notice that these are all foods that are not sweet, yet for some reason contain loads of sugar.

Have you ever wondered why food manufacturers are doing this?

One reason they add so much sugar is to “enhance” the flavor of the foods they produce—and sell more of it in the process. If most people were to taste one brand of spaghetti sauce that did not have sugar and then taste another brand that did have sugar, which one do you think the majority would pick as a favorite? Of course, the one with the sugar.

Why?

Because as a society, we are accustomed to eating sugar, and if something we eat doesn’t have it, it doesn’t taste as good as another food product that does.

The second reason why [I believe] food manufacturers are adding more and more sugar, although I cannot prove it, is because they know we are becoming increasingly dependent on it. In some cases, I would almost go as far as to say that people are addicted to it.

If you think about it, sugar really is almost like a drug because it destroys our body from the inside out. Not only that, but the more sugar we have the more sugar we want. Isn’t that what drugs do? Get us hooked so we want more and more until we feel like we need or want it all the time? The definition of “addiction” according to dictionary.com is:

Compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance. (This is the American Heritage Dictionary definition)

Is it just a coincidence that we are in the “habit” of regularly eating processed foods that are full or sugar, or do you think that getting us hooked is part of the food manufacturers master plan to sell us more of their products to feed their bottom lines?

I think you know the answer to that question!

A large part of the reason why so many people are overweight today is because they refuse to eat less of the foods that are causing them to be overweight. They don’t realize that food manufacturers have added a lot of ingredients (like sugar and high fructose corn syrup) that our body can only handle so much of. They’ve been eating certain foods for so long, or they like it so much that they refuse to give it up even though it is ruining their health.

If that isn’t an addiction, I don’t know what is.

When I was overweight I didn’t want to give up certain foods, but I soon came to the realization that I would never lose weight or have the body I wanted if I didn’t. Then, one day I came to a fork in the road and I knew had to choose. I was either going to eat less of the foods that were causing me to have a stomach hanging over my belt, or I was going to have to live with being overweight forever.

Of course it wasn’t easy, but I learned to say no to sugar and foods that contain excess amounts. And just like I learned to say, you can too… if you really want to lose weight. All you have to do is make the decision and you’re well on your way.

UNEDITED AND UNCUT DISCLAIMER: Yes, I read this blog post over a few times. If there are errors, live with it!

Posted in Get Back on Track, Weight Loss | Tagged , , ,