Hypnosis in general is a very old method designed for speaking directly to our subconscious mind and thus modifying our behaviour. We know that hypnosis can have numerous other successful applications besides weight loss and the examples range from performance improvement for athletes and therapy for victims of abuse to curing diseases like ulcers, nausea, migraines, depression and anxieties, just to mention a few. But the question I’ll try to answer is; could lose weight hypnosis be an alternative for losing weight?

About 15 percent of the USA’s population have got the label ‘highly hypnotizable’, while 10 to 15 percent can’t be hypnotized at all. In between this measurement is where the majority of 70 to 75 percent might be eligible for hypnosis more or less. Just so that

you are aware that hypnosis doesn’t work for all of us.

The experts disagree regarding which extent hypnosis by itself can provide a sustainable weight loss. What most experts seem to agree upon however, is that hypnosis can make a contribution to weight loss for many people if it is combined with healthy diets and workout. Whether or not hypnosis can help you lose weight can only be answered if you try it, either by contacting an hypnosis therapist or trying out a good self hypnosis program that you can find online. There are some success stories about hypnosis and weight loss. A friend of mine, who had been overweight since he was a child and had entered all thinkable weight loss programs and remedies just to experience an endless weight roller-coster trip, lost – believe it or not – almost 100 pounds with hypnosis. And he was very skeptical initially. So it might be worth a trial for you as well.

Terje Brooks Ellingsen is a writer and internet publisher. He runs the website 1st-Self_Improvement.net. Terje is a Sociologist who enjoys contributing to the personal growth and happiness of others. He tries to accomplish this by writing about self help issues from his own experience and knowledge. For example, hypnosis and other self improvement methods as well as providing relationship resources online.

It was like he’d thrown me a lifeline and, like an idiot, I was just holding on to it without thinking about it. Acomplia can’t stop me smoking. I have to do that. Acomplia can’t make me eat less fatty food. I have to do that.

It’s like I’ve been walking around drunk and now I’m just sobering up. Molly says it’s how fear takes people a lot of the time. You don’t want to think about death so you think about something else instead. I was thinking about Acomplia like it was some kind of miracle. She says some people go back to God and start praying, but God only helps those who help themselves (with or without Acomplia as Plan B).

I’m using this nursing home to hide away from the truth. Instead of relying on myself, I’m leaving it to other people (and the thought of Acomplia) to do the work for me. All this useless self-pity, like I’ve gone back to being a child again. I can’t learn how to cook at

my time of life as if I don’t operate some complicated machinery at work. What kind of man, she asked me, can spent hours turning out widgets on lathes and milling machines, but can’t spread some cottage cheese on a piece of bread?

It’s funny because I’ve never actually eaten any cottage cheese. But she was at me again. There’s a lot of things I’ve never eaten before that I’m going to have to start learning to love if I want to keep on living. And that’s the big “if”, isn’t it. When you’re fixated on a magic talisman like Acomplia, you never think about the “if”. Life’s just going to go on as it has before. You take the Acomplia and somehow the job gets done. But that’s not how it works.

Am I worth saving? Look at my life. I’ve no interest in work except to earn the money to spend in the pub. My wife’s left me because my life never changed after we got married. Instead of her becoming the centre of my life, she was expected to come down the pub with me every night.

So, I’ve been thinking about taking Acomplia and not telling myself I can’t go down the pub every night.

What am I going to do with myself? I’ve never been one for sitting around watching the TV. I’m not a reader. Perhaps Molly’s right when she gave the the funeral director’s card. With or without Acomplia, I’ve got nothing to live for so I might as well plan for an early death.

What’s that skill?

The ability to cook!

If you can’t even boil an egg then you are stuck with eating unimaginative ready meals and TV dinners or greasy take-aways and fast food. And you will no doubt eat out in restaurants more than is good for you. With such a combination you are unlikely to get all the vitamins and minerals you need to stay healthy and you will be getting far too much food full of fat, salt and sugar and too many calories to lose weight.

With a rudimentary knowledge of cooking, however, you can whip up the most delicious low-calorie healthy meals, eat as much as you need (as long as you don’t stuff yourself) and enjoy everything you eat without doing any damage to your waistline.

Of course,

you need to know what to cook but there are any number of helpful low-calorie and low-fat cookery books out there as well as specialist magazines and websites. You can plan a whole raft of delicious meals each week for you and your family and they won’t even know they are eating healthily to keep you company!

If you really don’t have a clue where to start it’s worth joining a beginners class or buying a basic “Learn to cook” book to get the fundamental skills. After that the whole world of delicious cuisine is your oyster.

You may even find that your attempts to lose weight may result in you gaining a whole new exciting relationship with food rather than fearing it as the enemy.

Copyright 2005, Janice Elizabeth Small

Janice Elizabeth is a weight loss coach, slimming club owner and author of “The Diet Exit Plan”, an 8 week coaching program for automatic permanent weight loss. Request her FREE 15 page report “How to lose weight without dieting – 7 secrets the diet industry doesn’t want you to know” at http://www.SimplySlimming.com TODAY!

Suppressing your appetite can be done relatively easy if you follow certain guide lines. First you should never allow yourself to get so hungry that you lose control and devour all food in sight, this will throw your diet completely off track. Instead you should try to eat many small meals throughout the day, and drink a large glass of water before and after every meal this is important because it will trick your body into thinking it’s full.

Another tip for stopping cravings in their tracks is to eat what I call filler foods. These are foods that you can eat large amounts of, but they contain only a small amount calories. You can eat as much of these foods as you like and still lose weight. A few filler foods that I enjoy are cucumbers, plain

oatmeal, wild rice, lettuce, and cold cereal with skim milk. Most fruits and vegetables fall into this category, and most people find that these foods are very satisfying and do a good job of filling you up.

There is no easy way to lose weight, but in addition to diet and exercise there are supplements that can help give your diet a boost. Most notably Hoodia Gordonii which comes from a cactus grown in the Kalahari desert, and up until recently was unknown to the modern world. Hoodia is perhaps the most powerful appetite suppressant available today, and during a 60 minuets investigation even the reporter who tried Hoodia said that it did indeed eliminate his desire to eat.

With news of Hoodia’s effectiveness many diet pill manufactures are jumping on the bandwagon and coming out with products that they claim contain pure Hoodia Gordonii when in fact there are only a small handful of diet supplements that contain enough Hoodia to be effective.

Honest reviews of Hoodia products are hard to come by but one website that gives it to you straight is http://www.hoodia-gordonii-diet.com Where you’ll find honest Hoodia Reviews and no hidden agendas.

Alcohol Abuse information, tips, recovery and treatment.

This well known lady doctor has blown the lid off the best-kept secret in weight loss ever discovered — and this has turned the whole diet food and drug industries upside down and in nothing less than a torrential uproar.

Her name is Dr Suzanne Gudakunst, and she’s marching to the beat of a different drum that has shocked the weight loss industry to there knee.

And no, nothing about her “secret” is difficult — nor does it require that you do something completely out of the ordinary or anything unnatural.

Instead, this woman doctor boasts proudly “…this is something that I discovered and caught onto just before 2002 when there was so much research and exploration going on around concerning the human colon and digestive system working in

harmony with nutritional absorption, and I started doing independent research and studies just to test things at first … but which I later expanded on after seeing some fantastic results.”

This same woman medical practitioner went on to accurately determine a definitive correlation between harmful plague and parasitic infestations of the human bowel tract, and people suffering chronic obesity — and who despite intense diet and exercise appeared to be unable to lose any weight whatsoever.

Over the course of six years this doctor developed a number of natural treatments for the removal of these same harmful, even life-threatening plaques and rapidly reproducing digestive parasites — and when applied to even worse-case patients suffering extreme obesity (98 effectiveness and success rate.

She then borrowed from her research on the severely obese, and applied the same strategies on milder cases of overweight persons — only to find the same effectiveness and quality results as described above (although the individual weight loss per subject wasn’t nearly as much as those obese patients 100 lbs to 200 lbs or more overweight).

So powerful is her secret that she’s able to reverse diabetes, rid illness altogether in people suffering from cancer (linked directly to poor diet and overweight factors), as well as an elimination of an entire spectrum of serious and otherwise life-threatening diseases.

Nearly 100 of people labeled obese, and others worldwide.

But she’s not promising any of you for how long.

Some experts and sociologists suggest that in the bigger scheme of things, the world will never tolerate a discovery of such magnitude, any more than it would be realistic to expect a car that runs on water (even if very real) to ever become commercially available to the general public for day-to-day use.

One well-respected and famous diet & wellness author wrote years ago that if anyone ever “truly unlocked the keys to permanent fat loss, they may actually suffer the same fate as JFK.”

I can only say that it’s the best and true way to loose that fat you don’t want and make yourself look great, I have tried it and it works… what more is there to say the proof is in the use it and see.

You will never know until you try.

All the best.

If you are considering having abdominoplasty, here are some things to consider to determine if you are a good candidate for the procedure. Surgeons believe the best candidates are both men and women who are already in good shape but who can’t get rid of that fat deposit or loose skin through either exercising or dieting. If you have ever been pregnant or overweight and have lost those excess pounds but your

stomach skin has lost its elasticity, you are likely a good candidate as well. If you are considering getting a tummy tuck, make sure you have lost all the weight you want first. There are few advantages to the procedure if you still have weight to lose.

Because abdominoplasty is considered major surgery, there are risks you should be aware of before you make a decision to proceed. First, make sure to use a qualified plastic surgeon that has a great track record. Ask they have any people who would be willing to provide you with a testimonial. If there are post-operative complications, they are likely to be infections and blood clots. Although they are rare, they still do occur and need to be aware of their dangers. It is important that you get up and move around after the surgery is done to reduce the risk of blood clots. Having a tummy tuck will leave you swollen and in a bit of discomfort. However, there are pain medications to help you through the days following surgery.

Amy-Jo Strutt is a successful writer and regular contributor to cosmetic-surgery-laser.com – An online resource to help you find the very best information on all forms of cosmetic surgery. http://www.cosmetic-surgery-laser.com/tummy-tuck.html

When choosing from among the many diets available, keep in mind what your reason is for altering your eating and exercise habits.

Do you want to feel better and have some more energy?

Are you tired of not fitting into your clothes and that

has caused you to consider one of the weight loss diets?

Experts agree that it’s not good to try and loose excess weight in a quick manner. It’s better to take your time and incorporate a package of exercise, proper nutrition and, in general, balance.

As with all new diets, weight loss and exercise plans, it’s always best to consult with your physician and have a complete physical examination before starting.

There are many different diets products to choose from. Choose from only the best providers of coral calcium products that offer great prices. That way you’ll be guaranteed quality and they can even be shipped right to your door.

About The Author

Mike Yeager, Publisher

http://www.a1-weight-loss-4u.com/

mjy610@hotmail.com

Taming the See Food Eat Food Response

What happens when you’re just minding your business and suddenly someone walks by with a delicious looking cake, muffins, or some other goodie you weren’t expecting. You weren’t hungry a minute ago but now you are suddenly ravenous. So you jump up and rush to get yours before it’s all gone. After you get back to your desk and a few minutes go by, what happens? You suddenly realize you want more. Your stomach may be growling in fact. You can still see those muffins in your mind’s eye. You want them. A few minutes pass while you debate, “I want another, No, I shouldn’t, but, I really want one, they sure tasted good. If I don’t hurry they might all be gone, what about your diet, who cares? I’m getting one,” and off you go.

Frustrating, isn’t it? All you need is a plan for when the unexpected food suddenly drives you to eat. It’s not like this isn’t going to happen time and again, so having a way to deal with it, in that moment, is better than simply being swept up in the wave of wanting. The old pattern of see food, want food, eat food, get angry about eating food, eat more to get over feeling angry, get angrier, give up, eat more. This cycle generally ends when you either pass out or the food is gone. It doesn’t have to be this way.

TV commercials also induce this see food, want food response, which is why so many people overeat in the evening while watching their favorite shows.

Try this new approach using a technique caled EFT. It’s effective in that it forestalls the immediate pattern of jumping up and rushing to get a treat, and gives you a moment or two to think about what’s happening. Realizing you want a treat is fine, and deciding to have a treat is fine too, but simply eating out of a primal see food/eat food response is not okay. You can move past that immediate driven response to food cues by using this approach.

Step 1: The Desire to Eat Unexpected Food

Do a round of EFT the first moment you suddenly are struck by a desire to eat (when you weren’t hungry or thinking of food a moment before):

“Even though seeing those muffins made me hungry, I deeply and completely accept myself.”

“Even though I’m suddenly starving, I deeply and completely accept myself.”

“Even though I want some cake (or whatever it is), I deeply and completely accept myself.”

“Even though I know once I start, I’ll never stop eating all day, I deeply and completely accept myself.”

“Even though I’ll wreck my diet today, I deeply and completely accept myself.”

Now, these statements make not appear to make much sense, but if you’ve used EFT in the past, you’d know that a quick round of EFT on whatever it is that’s first and foremost in your mind (the thing you want, despite that you wish you did not), is what you want to address. That’s how EFT works. I don’t know anything about my car’s engine, but I can drive. You don’t have to understand every nuance of EFT or why it works to use it. Just do use it. (For info on learning EFT see resource box).

Step 2: Spending Your Calories Wisely

First check out the offerings by looking them over. Food, especially unexpected food, has to qualify before I’d even consider eating some. For me a food qualifies as special by how it looks, it’s texture, taste, and whether it truly is “special.” Does it appear good enough to spend my day’s calories on? I do pay attention, and I know I have a certain amount of calories on any given day and I don’t want to waste them. If the food is ordinary (something I could buy myself any day of the week), then more often than not I’ll choose to pass, saving my calorie expenditure on something I deem more worthy.

I think to myself, “I’d rather have cheesecake,” which means I decide whether I want this food, or whether I’d rather go get something better later. I can always stop by the bakery on my way home. There

are other things I like better which I could have instead. Think of your own favorite treat and use that when confronted with unexpected food that you may want, but it’s not fabulous, just ordinary.

By ordinary I mean doughnuts bought at the supermarket that are nothing special, or a bakery cake with icing you don’t like. I don’t like typical bakery shortening icing and always scrape it off because the cake’s still okay. Don’t eat parts of the food you don’t even like. Chips, pretzels, cookies, etc. Are they home made or store bought. You can buy the store bought brands any day, they aren’t special at all. Take a pass. Save your calories for something really special. I’d rather skip the morning treats and have a piece or two of excellent chocolate tonight.

If you take a bite and find the food is not as good as you expected, you don’t have to eat it. “Really? I don’t have to eat it?” That’s right, you can choose to not eat. There is simply no way I’m wasting calories on food I don’t even like. No one is going to notice you aren’t eating. Talk to those around you. Laugh, enjoy yourself. Set the plate down, walk away. No one will even notice. If someone says, “Aren’t you going to eat that?,” you can say, “In a minute,” and go on chattering. They’ll forget all about it. Their only making conversation, they really don’t care whether you eat, believe me.

If the idea of leaving food or throwing food away is more than you can tolerate, use EFT on that issue too:

“Even though I can’t stand to throw away food …”

“Even though I hate wasting food …”

“Even though there is no way I can throw away perfectly good food …”

“Even though my mother said you should never waste food …”

Being unable to “waste” food is usually a holdover from childhood. You can outgrow childhood conditioning, if you want to. If you hold on to those beliefs, fine. There are no rules here. Just go with whatever comes up, using EFT on anything and everything, and you’ll be amazed at the difference it can make.

Step 3: Ending Food Cravings Even When You Don’t Want To

Do a round of EFT on the desire to eat anyway. If you think you don’t really want the food, but yet you do. In other words, you can’t decide not to eat it, or you’re deciding not to do the EFT because you want to eat it anyway, then do the EFT first, have the food second. You’ll still get to eat the goodies. No one is taking anything away from you.

You may still want the food but find your desire has lessened. You’ll want it because you’re hungry for it, or you’ll want to take some and save it for later when you are hungrier. You can always save some for later. There is no food police to take it away if you don’t eat it right now. Nobody is going to scold you for not finishing your food. Maybe when you were 6-year sold, but not now.

If any memories pop up about eating, leaving food, your mother telling you what you should or should not do, wasting food, or about getting enough to eat, use EFT on those too. That’s the best way to use EFT, just go with the flow of your thoughts, ideas, memories. You’ll get where you want to go without needing to know the details in advance. Just use EFT on whatever thoughts pop up, and slowly those emotional issues and faulty beliefs will melt away like light snowfall in the afternoon sun.

If you take these three steps and still want to eat, go ahead and eat. You’ll feel okay about what you’re eating, and that’s the point. Doing what is best for you in the moment is what really taking care of yourself is all about.

~~ Kathryn Martyn, Master NLP Practitioner, EFT counselor, author of the free e-book: Changing Beliefs, Your First Step to Permanent Weight Loss, and owner of OneMoreBite-Weightloss.com

Get The Daily Bites: Inspirational Mini Lessons Using EFT and NLP for Ending the Struggle with Weight Loss.

#1 Big No-No: Not exercising on a daily

basis. Daily exercise sends your metabolism

through the roof! I have seen VERY FEW people

who are not very regular exercisers, lose

weight AND keep it off.

Losing weight and maintaining that loss

can be very difficult. However, both can

be made considerably easier with regular

exercise, preferably in the morning.

If you’re interested in losing fat, you’re

objective is to create a daily caloric

deficit. For example, If you’re consuming

1700 calories per day, and expending 2000

calories per day, your caloric deficit is

300 calories. Losing a pound of fat requires

a deficit of 3500 calories. So, to lose

two pounds per week would require a daily

deficit of 1000 calories.

So, if you’d like to increase your daily

caloric deficit, you have two options;

1. To decrease your caloric intake by eating

fewer calories, or..

2. To increase your caloric expenditure via

more activity / exercise.

However, you cannot decrease your daily

caloric intake much lower than 1200 to

1500 or so without potentially creating

health and metabolism problems.

In fact, many people’s metabolism (basal

metabolic rate) is so slow from years of

inactivity and dieting, that they are only

burning fewer than 1500 calories per day.

Without exercise, they would have to

decrease their daily caloric intake to

unhealthy levels to lose weight. And, a

caloric intake that’s too low only creates

more metabolism problems and a vicious

cycle of more weight gain.

So, the only remaining factor in the deficit

equation is caloric expenditure through

increased activity / exercise.

The good news is that you can substantially

increase your caloric expenditure. For

example, if you’re currently walking for

30 minutes two days per week, over a period of

several weeks you can increase your walking

to 60 minutes per day, six to seven days

per week and begin weight training for 30

minutes three days per week.

So, in this example, you would increase your

monthly exercise minutes from about 240 to

1530. Plus, in addition to the calories that

you’re expending during exercise, you would

also substantially increase the number of

calories you’re burning 24 hours-a-day, yes,

you’ll even burn more calories while you’re

sleeping because you’ve fired-up your basal

metabolic rate. You can’t beat that, can you?

Here’s another VERY important reason

to exercise while you’re restricting

calories and trying to lose weight. you tend

to lose muscle tissue from any muscle that

you’re not using while you’re restricting

calories. You’ve heard it – use it or lose it.

And, there are three main consequences to

losing muscle;

1. Your metabolism (basal metabolic rate)

decreases causing you to burn *fewer* calories

24 hours-a-day and causing the maintenance

of your weight loss to be very difficult.

2. Your muscles get flabby and mushy.

3. Your are weaker and become fatigued

more easily.

#2 Big No-No: Not deciding to make a drastic

change. I’ve seen this over and over again

with hundreds of people. Unless someone

decides that they are ready to get really

serious about losing weight and ready to

make drastic changes, their chances of losing

weight and keeping it off are not good.

Research continues to indicate that

Americans are becoming more sedentary..

and fatter every year. This move toward

inactivity and an increase in body fat

is even more pronounced in children, who

don’t get out and play anymore. Instead,

they sit in front of a TV or computer

(perhaps like their parents) for many of

their waking hours.

We know that there is a very direct,

inverse relationship between a person’s

level of activity and the percentage of

their weight that is fat. less activity

equals more fat, and more activity equals

lees fat.

I received an email message recently

that I’d like to share with you. It’s a

weight loss and fitness success story

that makes you want to start exercising

while you’re reading it.

It’s from a 48 year-old lady, Elizabeth,

who lives in Lexington, Kentucky. She

is living proof that less activity

equals more fat, and more activity

equals less fat. Here’s her letter:

“Greg, I’m writing to thank you for your

inspiring articles and to tell you about

my journey (a rough one) to fitness. I

was at a healthy weight in my early

twenties and had my first child at age

26. I remained about 30 pounds overweight

after she was born.”

“I managed to gain 15 more pounds during

the next four years, mostly because of

several diets I tried. After the birth

of my second child at age 31, I was 60

pounds overweight and very frustrated.

Over the next 15 years I tried numerous

diets (even eating just rice) that

ultimate led to me being 120 pounds

overweight.”

“I started reading your articles two years

ago and it finally began to sink in. I

finally realized that exercise wasn’t

just about the calories I was burning

during exercise. I finally

realized

that I would never lose the weight and

keep it off without some real exercise

in my life.”

“I reached a point in my life where my

weight was ruining my life. I got to the

point where everything was a struggle,

none of my fat clothes fit, I didn’t

want to see anyone because of the way I

looked, and even walking made me

breathless. I decided that I would either

make a drastic change at that point or

I would give up. I chose to make a drastic

change.”

“I knew that exercise needed to be a

priority and so I changed several things

in my daily schedule to make that happen.

I started with very little but I was very

consistent. I worked up to 45 minutes of

aerobic exercise in the morning and 30 to

45 minutes in the evening. On Saturdays,

I take a less intense, but longer walk

throughout my area of town enjoying all

the sights. I’m up to 8 to 10 miles on

my Saturday walk. I also weight train

three days a week. Please don’t get the

impression that this was easy. I went

through MANY difficult struggles but

it definitely got easier as I progressed.”

“I’m now 12 pounds from my goal weight. Greg,

I can’t begin to explain how my life has

changed. Everything is different. Even

the way people talk to me. It’s almost

like people didn’t even see the person

under all that fat. Probably best of all

is that I have energy to function now.

I’m not constantly tired like I used to

be.”

“Obviously, my perception of exercise has

changed now. I enjoy it and look forward

to it. I’m planning on doing a half

marathon (13.1 miles) walk in the fall.

Thanks again for your words of

encouragement.”

Elizabeth

Lexington, Kentucky

Wow! This lady is unstoppable. Notice that

she first realized the true benefits of

exercise and then decided to do *whatever*

she had to for exercise to become a

consistent part of her life.

Exercise radically changes how your body

handles fat! when you’re sedentary, all

the physiological signals tell your body

to hang on to the fat and dump the

metabolism boosting muscle. When you’re

exercising on a daily basis, all the

physiological signals tell your body to

dump the fat and increase the metabolism

boosting muscle. Which signals do you want?

#3 Big No-No: Not taking the time to plan

and prepare your eating. Healthy eating for

weight loss won’t just happen, you have to

spend time on it.

Not being prepared is a major factor that

leads to overeating and unhealthy eating.

Take time to plan your shopping and eating

for the week. Take time to prepare your

lunch to take to work, and your meal for

the evening, etc. Plan for healthy snacks

to have at home, in your car, at work, etc.

Our weight loss programs specifically

discuss how to set up an effective snacking

system.

4. Not including intervals in your aerobic

exercise. Intervals are brief periods (about one

minute) of more intense exercise mixed into your

regular aerobic exercise sessions. For

example, if you’re walking, you would do a

one minute interval of faster walking once

every five minutes throughout your exercise

session.

Here’s how it will look.. you’ll start with

your normal three to five minute warm-up and

then five minutes into your workout you do

your first interval, one minute of faster

walking (or perhaps jogging). At the end of

that minute you should be “winded” and ready

to slow down. You’ll slow down to your normal

exercising speed for the next four minutes

and then your fifth minute is another one

minute interval. This pattern continues

throughout your exercise session.

You’ll derive several benefits from intervals..

1. Intervals can help you to get past a

weight loss plateau.

2. Intervals increase your aerobic fitness

level by “pushing the envelope”. While doing

your interval you cross the anaerobic

threshold into anaerobic metabolism, forcing

your body to become conditioned to more

intense exercise.

3. Your increased level of fitness means that

a given level of exercise will feel easier

and that you will be able to exercise at a

higher intensity which “burns” more calories.

4. Your increased level of fitness also means

that you will be less fatigued from daily

activities and you’ll have more “energy”

throughout the day.

5. Intervals increase your basal metabolic

rate (BMR), causing you to burn more calories

24 hours-a-day.

6. Intervals cause you to “burn” more calories

during your exercise session and for several

hours afterwards.

7. Intervals will tone the involved muscles

to a greater degree than your regular aerobic

exercise would.

8. Intervals can make your exercise less

monotonous and help the time pass more

quickly.

9. Intervals will energize you!

If you’d like to put a little excitement into

your exercise, and you’re looking for better

results, give intervals a try.

Avoid these four “no-nos” and your weight loss

efforts are much more likely to be successful.

copyright 2004 by Greg Landry, M.S.

Fitness Tips – diet plan, exercises, weight loss and gain muscles latest information.

At first glance some of these diet tips may seem downright silly. You may find yourself thinking, “That’s couldn’t possibly make enough of a difference. Plus I’d feel silly doing it.” I have a response to those negative thoughts. First, the longest journey begins with a single step. And second, would you rather feel silly being overweight and unfit or doing something about it?

Diet Tip 1: Fidget

Every little movement burns calories. Twiddle your thumbs. Squeeze one of those little exercise balls while you watch TV to burn calories and tone your arms at the same time. Take that more distant parking spot. Walk wherever possible. Even if you have physical limitations, you can tailor a program to your needs. Move whatever you can, whenever and wherever you can. And just think – laughing is good exercise. It’s like jogging on the inside.

Diet Tip 2: Portions and Proportions

Pay attention to portion sizes according to the eating plan you choose. Use a normal size plate – don’t supersize it! One plan suggests that ¼ of the plate should contain protein and the rest should be fruits and vegetables. You can weigh your food, at least until you become attuned to proper portion sizes or use some of the simple guidelines like “3 oz. of protein is about the size of your palm or a deck of playing cards” or “one serving of rice is the size of a tennis ball”.

Diet Tip 3: Eat More Slowly

This allows your body the several minutes it takes to signal your brain that it is full.

Diet Tip 4: Substitute Low Calorie Density Foods for High

Choose foods with a low calorie density – foods that have fewer calories relative to their weight. “If you decrease the energy density of your diet,

caloric intake will decline”, says Barbara Rolls, professor of nutritional sciences at Pennsylvania State University and co-author along with Robert Barnett of The Volumetrics Eating Plan.

Think lower cal fruits, vegetables like salad greens and broths. What these foods have in common is the magic diet ingredient, water! Water has zero calories, so the more volume represented by water, the less room there is for calories. Water also creates a feeling

of fullness, helping one to eat less.

Fiber is another low calorie density food. In this category, we again find many fruits and vegetables, as well as whole grains, such as whole wheat bread or pasta, whole grain cereals and brown rice. A study at Tufts University in Boston found that increasing daily fiber intake by 14 grams resulted in a

10% decrease in total calorie intake and a weight loss averaging one pound a month. This is a very small diet change to make. Substitute about 28 calories of fiber for some high calorie density food you have been eating.

Diet Tip 5: Be Aware of What You Eat

Keep a food diary (and be brutally honest – no one else needs to see it). Don’t forget the spoon that you licked while putting away the leftovers or the sampling(s) you had while adjusting the seasoning. The purpose is not only to monitor your food intake but to identify what circumstances tempt you to overeat or eat unhealthily. Keep a food diary long enough and patterns will start to emerge.

Diet Tip 6: Try New Spices and Herbs in Place of Butter and Salt

Try some new spices and herbs and cut back on the butter and salt. You might be surprised to learn the antioxidant strength of some herbs – another reason to add more to your diet. When food tastes different or more flavorful, we tend to savor it more and eat more slowly.

Diet Tip 7: Add Variety

Along the same lines, The American Dietetic Association recommends increasing variety. Occasionally adding a single new food to your routine can end monotony and increase nutrition.

This year’s ADA “Get a Taste for Nutrition” campaign suggests adding a new fruit, vegetable or grain to your shopping list each week. Among its suggestions: kumquat, passion fruit and pomegranate for fruits; kohlrabi, bok choy, jicama and parsnip from the vegetable aisle; and quinoa, flaxseed, amaranth and bulgur for new grains.

This article is for informational purposes only. It does not purport to offer medical advice.

Jean Bowler is a life long fitness freak. She was a ballet dancer and teacher, a private fitness trainer and more. Visit her site, http://www.ageless-beauty.com for advice on diet and nutrition, skin care and more.

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