Common Sense Living

Archive for the ‘Lose Weight’ Category

By fitness and nutrition author Jon Benson

Another good article appeared recently in the fitness section of MSNBC.

Since you’re busy, I’ll do a quick summary of the article — the good stuff, the bad stuff, and what you need to do today to get started…

First, you need to know this…

And this will probably shock you…

Rarely, if EVER, do you need to suppress your appetite!

The real secret is to increase your metabolism… the rate at which your body uses food for fuel.

Then being hungry is a good thing… as long as you’re eating the right foods at the right time.

My “Favorite Foods” plan is a great way to do this…

My “Favorite Foods” Dietplan revealed < == click.

But let’s say you want to curb your appetite at night…. that’s the time most people really lose it on a dietplan. Even on a plan that ASKS you to eat frequently like mine, there are times where night-time cravings need to be put to sleep.

So use these tips from the article to ease the urge to eat at night:

1. Protein First

As I say in my dietplan, “Rise and shine with protein.” What does this have to do with night-time cravings you ask?

Everything.

Set the body up to use your own fat-stores for fuel by eating protein in the morning and your appetite FOR fatty foods goes way down during the day and the night. Protein is “thermogenic”, meaning it helps increase your metabolism. It also acts as a natural appetite regulator.

Notice I said “regulator” and not “suppressant.” That’s because you only need to regulate your appetite, no matter how much bodyfat you desire to drop.

I show you how here:

My “Favorite Foods” Dietplan revealed < == click.

Cool, right?

2. Go For The Grapefruit

In a study at the Nutrition and Metabolic Research Center at the Scripps Clinic in San Diego, people who ate half a grapefruit with each meal lost an average of 3.6 pounds in three months. That doesn’t sound like a lot (and it isn’t) but that’s ALL they changed.

It doesn’t matter for our purposes… we want to lower insulin at night. Why? Insulin is not only dangerous for your health in excess but it also can cause a LOT of fat storage if secreted too much at night. Enter the lowly grapefruit.

A great snack, especially if you have a few bites of lean protein with it.

3. Smell This!

This is a trick I didn’t know about until recently.

Smelling food can trick your brain into thinking you’ve eaten.

A recent study found that those who inhaled peppermint in scent form every 2 hours at (get this) 2700 calories LESS per week than they normally did.

Let me put that in perspective: That’s a fatloss of more than half a pound a week… from sniffing peppermint!

Vanilla also works. You can keep vanilla-scented drops or even candles around the office and take a wiff every few hours.

How easy is that?

The Bad Part

The MSNBC article goes on with advice like “eat potatoes” and “eat just a little bit of fat”, both of which are nonsense.

Potatoes may fill you up, but they are still starch – and starch should be consumed on your “off” days.

Potatoes are especially bad due to the higher-than-desired glycemic index of 85 (anything over 50 is too high.)

You also need dietary fat… and not just “a little.” You need a moderate amount to stay healthy and keep insulin regulated.

Olive oil and even coconut oil are excellent sources, as are naturally occurring fats in fresh fish, grass-fed beef, farm-raised chicken and whole eggs.

The rest of the article is common sense stuff: Workout, eat dense food that requires you to chew a lot (tire out the jaw muscles and you naturally eat less), etc.

The top 3 are the real winners.

  I was surfing some weight loss sites today to see what kind of information is being peddled out there today. I had to shake my head. A well known health publication was still blasting banners about cholesterol – even though current research indicates that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease. What’s up with that? Oh yeah – they’re advertiser supported. Duh! Big pharma runs a zillion ads in this publication. Another ad for a popular information site asks, which is lower in calories – and shows a glass of orange juice, and a glass of pop. Ounce for ounce, juice does have more calories. But your body doesn’t see it that way. This simple comparison does not account for nutrient value, or how your body responds to the chemical additives and unnatural sugars. That’s why calorie counting as a diet aid is usually misguided. It’s why people are guzzling gallons of zero calorie pop and not losing an ounce. But this very popular information provider gives you the impression that it’s better to drink the pop than the orange juice. From here, I was led to one of their weight loss blogs. This blog stated ‘weight loss since 2000′, but the picture of the author showed a definitely overweight woman. Should you be taking advice from someone who doesn’t know how to lose weight? From there, I clicked on a link that led to one of the bogus ‘how I lost weight using 2 free products’ sites. Sigh…. You’ve got to be tired of chasing your tail. Aren’t you? Listen. There is one proven way to lose weight and keep it off. It’s called a healthy diet, and exercise. That sounds like a death sentence, doesn’t it? Actually, it’s quite the opposite. It’s your ticket to living life. See, that same diet that will help you lose weight will also keep your blood pressure down, cut your risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and a whole slew of other chronic diseases, protects your vision, keeps you thinking clearly, keeps you looking and feeling younger longer, and in general will keep you out of the nursing home longer. OK, now do a search for healthy eating. Now that sounds like a death sentence! Vegetable juices, greens, seeds, tofu, soy, Special K. I especially love the raw foods people. Are you serious? I did actually find good articles here -  http://www.helpguide.org/life/healthy_eating_diet.htm and here – http://www.helpguide.org/life/healthy_weight_loss.htm Ellie Krieger’s Healthy Recipes on the Food Network look really good. I have to try that cherry vanilla oatmeal. I wish we could get rid of the big soyjoy commercial on that site – since you and I both know that soy has turned out to be a really bad thing. Have you noticed that I don’t run many ads here? You know why? I don’t want ads running here for something I do not believe in, and do not endorse. Do you know how ad servers work? My article might be about how bad soy is, but because the word soy is used – ads for soy products would show up. How confusing is that?  On one side I would be talking about how bad it is, and over to the right, there’s links to go buy soy products. In keeping with that same line of ethics, Rebel With a Fork is also not advertiser supported. Just pure information and great recipes. There is a small membership fee to help cover expenses, but you can try it for 10 days free. If you’re tired of buying all this stuff that doesn’t work and you’re ready to actually do what’s proven to help you maintain a great thin & healthy body – I hope you’ll at least give it a try and let me know what you think. I think its a breath of fresh air, but I’m a little biased Visit Rebel With a Fork >>>

I was surfing some weight loss sites today to see what kind of information is being peddled out there today.

I had to shake my head. A well known health publication was still blasting banners about cholesterol – even though current reasearch indicates that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease. What’s up with that? Oh yeah – they’re advertiser supported. Duh! Big pharma runs a zillion ads in this publication.

Another ad for a popular information site asks, which is lower in calories – and shows a glass of orange juice, and a glass of pop. Ounce for ounce, juice does have more calories. But your body doesn’t see it that way. This simple comparison does not account for nutrient value, or how your body responds to the chemical additives and unnatural sugars.

That’s why calorie counting as a diet aid is usually misguided. It’s why people are guzzling gallons of zero calorie pop and not losing an ounce. But this very popular information provider gives you the impression that it’s better to drink the pop than the orange juice.

From here, I was led to one of their weight loss blogs. This blog stated ‘weight loss since 2000′, but the picture of the author showed a definitely overweight woman. Should you be taking advice from someone who doesn’t know how to lose weight?

From there, I clicked on a link that led to one of the bogus ‘how I lost weight using 2 free products’ sites. Sigh….

You’ve got to be tired of chasing your tail. Aren’t you glad you found me? Listen. There is one proven way to lose weight and keep it off. It’s called a healthy diet, and exercise. That sounds like a death sentence, doesn’t it? Actually, it’s quite the opposite. It’s your ticket to living life.

See, that same diet that will help you lose weight will also keep your blood pressure down, cut your risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and a whole slew of other chronic diseases, protects your vision, keeps you thinking clearly, keeps you looking and feeling younger longer, and in general will keep you out of the nursing home longer.

OK, now do a search for healthy eating. Now that sounds like a death sentence! Vegetable juices, greens, seeds, tofu, soy, Special K. I especially love the raw foods people. Are you serious? I did actually find good articles here -  http://www.helpguide.org/life/healthy_eating_diet.htm and here – http://www.helpguide.org/life/healthy_weight_loss.htm

Ellie Krieger’s Healthy Recipes on the Food Network look really good. I have to try that cherry vanilla oatmeal. I wish we could get rid of the big soyjoy commercial – since you and I both know that soy has turned out to be a bad thing.

Have you noticed that I don’t run ads here? You know why? I don’t want ads running here for somethng I do not believe in, and do not endorse. My article might be about how bad soy is, but because the word soy is used – ads for soy products would show up. How confusing is that?  On one side I would be talking about how bad it is, and over to the right, there’s links to go buy soy products.

Oh, and you might notice that Ellie uses salt in every recipe. You might be shocked. The truth is, most people do get too much salt, but those of us who do not eat packaged foods may not be getting enough salt. Salt is actually one of the 4 electrolytes that our bodies need to function properly.

Low salt? Low carb? Soy? High protein? Raw foods? Vegan? No wonder everyone just gives up.

The real solution is simple. A balanced diet of real foods.

Of course to do that, you have to make your own food. But don’t get scared here. It’s really easy. Just hop on over to Rebel With a Fork, sign up for your 10 day free trial and try some of the brain dead simple recipes for yourself.

Tasting is believing.

The proof is in the pudding – so to speak…

I just watched a talk on nutrition and weight loss, and I’m banging my head against my desk…

Did you know that broccoli is less calorie dense than Oreos? Duh.

Did you know that people who eat the most fruits and vegetables have a lower calorie intake overall? Um, Duh…

Or how about the fact that people who eat the most fruits and vegetables have a lower incidence of obesity?

And they spend millions on these studies. You have to be kidding me.

How about the fact that much of the calorie dense processed foods weren’t available 30 years ago?

OK, a lot of people may not realize that we didn’t always eat this way. I still don’t. And that’s what I’m trying to teach you at Rebel With a Fork. How to eat the way we used to eat, only a lot faster and easier.

In a previous life, good food took all day to prepare. But who can do that now? And I think that most people think that’s what it takes. Believe me – it’s not that hard at all. You can make truly great tasting meals in no time.

Why don’t you make a promise to yourself to hop on over to Rebel With A Fork and try something new this week?

Every day I get emails about some NEW way to lose weight. The newest ones claim that you don’t have to give up the foods you love.

Now, if you happen to love Hamburger Helper, McDonalds Fries, Doritos, and pop (did I cover the biggest unhealthy favorites?) to say that you can eat these every other day is just ridiculous, don’t you think? But that’s the kinds of deceptions these ads feed you.

Now I agree that once in a while you can indulge and eat anything you want. I don’t think expecting someone to eat carrot sticks on Super bowl Sunday is realistic or humane. As a matter of fact, Rebel  With a Fork members will be getting great appetizer recipes, and the Ultimate Chicken Wings recipe collection to help make their parties a smashing success, no matter who wins

I also agree that you’re not going to last very long on any diet that requires you to eat food you don’t like. Even if you have the will power of a saint, you’re eventaully going to die of boredom!

But what if your diet was 90% healthy all of the time?

What if you could learn to make 90% choices that you actually like to eat?

Wouldn’t that make losing weight pretty easy? Wouldn’t you solve a great many of your health problems?

That’s why I’m a rebel. I don’t believe in diets, or cutting out any natural food groups, or any of the other nonsense hype. You don’t need a diet. You need a healthy living lifestyle that you will actually enjoy sticking with.

Is there anything you really need to cut out?

Sure – packaged and fast foods, and pop.

People seem to have this big fear of cooking thier own food. It’s not hard. It tastes better. It’s better for you.

I share my best secrets at Rebel With a Fork. You don’t even have to pay to check it out. You can explore for 10 days and try some of the recipes. Find foods that you and your family already like to eat. There’s a whole new world of food out there for you to experience.

And to make it even easier, the site is now mobile friendly. You can access the site and the recipes from your phone (if you have internet service) while you’re in the store.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. Right? The rest is up to you…

Healthy Eating make easy >>> Rebel With a Fork