Losing weight for good is a big topic. There will also not be much said about some fairly obvious health issues. If you smoke or have a problem with alcohol or drugs, you probably realize that this isn’t good for you. The same with overeating. Some of the methods here can help you with these issues, but I am not going to go into any detail about subjects that are so extensively covered all over the mainstream media and internet. The same with the advice to exercise. I do refer to exercise in the breathing chapter, but I don’t spell out “get x number of hours of exercise per week.” Exercise is important, but it should be tailored to you as an individual. I don’t want to imply that what I haven’t written about in detail is not important. It just isn’t the focus of this report.

What I am doing here is presenting a solid foundation upon which you can build. If you do have specific health challenges, need to lose a lot of weight, get into better shape, everything here will definitely be a good base upon which to add anything else you may need.

One final note about the focus of this report. I try, as much as possible, to give positive rather than negative advice. What I mean by that is, except where it is absolutely necessary (as with the chapter on junk foods!), I try to keep the focus on the positive –what is good for you rather than on what to avoid. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking to make a change and lose some weight? I have reviewed the top diet on the internet and you can go and read over 200 comments people have made about why this diet has worked well for them, as well as some of the problems.

Tags: allergy, animal products, antibiotics, athlete, Autism, Ayurvedic medicine, cancer, dairy products, depression, diabetes, energy, healthier products, healthy products, heart disease, high blood pressure, insomnia, meditation, nutritional product, obesity, Organic products, particular systems, reflexology, relaxation, restaurant food, Sleep deprivation, strenuous sports, sweet products, Swimming, vegetarian diet

Is a vegetarian diet a good idea if you want to lose weight? It depends on how you approach it. You can eat a healthy vegetarian diet that can help you to lose weight. However, simply giving up meat will not by itself make you lose weight. Some people, in fact, when they give up meat end up eating more carbohydrates, which can have the opposite effect.

Meat and animal products are generally high in protein and saturated fats. Saturated fats were, for a time, considered unhealthy and a cause of many diseases. They were also blamed for obesity. Now, however, they are gradually being recognized by many nutritionists as necessary, if derived from high quality sources (such as organic or natural animal products). Eating a diet with a moderate amount of saturated fats will not make you fat.

The worst things you can eat if you are trying to lose weight are foods that are high in sugar, low quality carbohydrates and trans fats. Low quality carbs are those made with processed white flour. When you buy or make foods like bread or pasta, look for whole grains, preferably organic. Avoid refined white sugar. Also avoid foods made with hydrogenated oils and trans fats. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: animal products, natural animal products, obesity, vegetarian diet

Are you trying to lose weight fast? The 5 tips that follow will help you. Keep in mind, however, that if you want to lose weight and keep it off that you have to change your lifestyle. That means following these tips consistently. It can be difficult to change life-long habits. Starting out is usually the hardest part. Once you develop healthier patterns, they too can become habits!

1. Eat Healthier Fats -the latest research shows that it’s not so much fat itself that is the problem when it comes to health and weight loss, but the kind of fat. In general, it’s a good idea to avoid trans fats, which are found in many junk foods, margarine, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and commercial sweets such as cakes, cookies and donuts (you can find healthier, organic versions of these products). Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: animal products, beverage consumption, energy, food, meditation, obesity, oil, relaxation, Sleep deprivation, Weston Price Foundation

There are many forms of low carb diet but probably the most famous of all is the Atkins diet, created by Dr. Robert Atkins and popularized in the last quarter of the 20th century. Fad diets come and go, but the Atkins gained enough celebrity and medical support that it developed its own momentum, and took off in a big way.

Low carb diets vary in what they suggest that you eat. The strictest form, such as the induction phase of the Atkins diet, can suggest that you cut out almost all carbohydrate foods. This includes potatoes, rice and other grains, bread, sugar and anything containing it, and many fruits. Even carrots may be considered a medium carb food and eliminated for this phase, although green vegetables are fine and should be eaten in large quantities. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: atkins diet, energy, ketosis, low carb diet, low carb diets, medium carb food, obesity, Robert Atkins

Serotonin is a very important brain chemical. One of the ways that we see serotonin in use is inour moods and especially in the way that we think. Think of serotonin in your brain as a funnel that just slowly drains goodness, if you have stress, don’t get our enough, get sick, then your serotonin production in your body will drop until that funnel has nothing to give your brain. This is bad. This is what causes depression in many people and there are ways to stop depression causing low serotonin levels.

Basiclally what you need to increase the creation of serotonin in your body is diet change, exercise, exposure to bright sunlight and if all else fails then SSRI antidepressent drugs.

The dietary supplement 5-hydroxy-L-tryptophan (5-HTP) is promoted as a treatment for insomnia, depression, migraine, obesity and attention deficit disorder in children. It is a derivative of the amino acid tryptophan and, in fact, the body makes it from the tryptophan present in foods such as beef, chicken, fish, dairy products and other high protein foods. I have found a lot of evidence that people swear by supplementing their diet with 5-HTP so this is something that you can try.

Exercise increases serotonin. We all know how important exercise is for improving our physical health and concentration as well as mood and it is the endorphin creation that fuels higher serotonin levels. Get exercise everyday. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Attention Deficit Disorder, dairy products, depression, Dietary Supplement, important brain chemical, insomnia, Lexapro, migraine, obesity, Prozac, seasonal affective disorder, treatment for insomnia

In recent years, diets with low carbohydrate allowances have found popularity and legitimacy. Low carb diets have a long history that does not begin, as many might suspect, with Dr. Atkins in the 1990s. The low carb diet actually had its humble inception in the 1860s, with a single doctor and a single patient.

The true creator of the low carb diet phenomenon is actually a man named William Harvey, who recommended the diet to a patient suffering from numerous obesity-related ailments. This patient, William Banting, was the first adherent to what would much later become a low carb dieting craze.

Banting was stunned by not only his weight loss, but the increase in his quality of life as his medical conditions improved and disappeared. Banting’s 50 pound weight loss was touted in a series of pamphlets he produced, encouraging others to take advantage of this revolutionary way of eating.

The original low carb diet required an extreme reduction in foods such as bread, milk, sugar, butter, potatoes, as well as beer, as such food items were believed to create fat due to their starch and saccharine content.

Almost 60 years later, in the 1920s, the Mayo Clinic and John Hopkins University began using a similar diet to William Harvey’s low carb diet to treat seizure disorders in children. The diet the children adhered to induced a condition called ketosis, which is the altered metabolic state that gives a low carb diet its weight loss success.

Finally, in the late 1960s, the low carb diet found widespread acclaim when it was introduced to the public by Dr. Irwin Maxwell Stillman in his book, The Doctor’s Quick Weight Loss Diet. Stillman’s book was a huge success, which paved the way for later incarnations of protein-rich low carbohydrate diets.

Of course, most of us have never heard of Dr. Irwin Maxwell Stillman or William Harvey. To the modern world, Dr. Robert Adkins is the creator of the low carb diet. While he did not create the idea, he can certainly be credited with raising the diet’s profile and popularity.

Adkins released his first book, Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution in 1972, after reading articles on low carb dieting in the late 60s and experiencing the success of the low carb diet philosophy himself. It was met with dismal success and other doctors produced works encouraging similar diets in the 80s and 90s.

At the time of its release, Atkins’ diet program was shunned by medical professionals and nutritionists as being unhealthy. Fortunately, controversy dissipated as more and more people discovered the incredible health and weight loss benefits a low carb diet could yield.

As the low carb movement began gathering more adherents, Adkins released Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution in the early 1990s and again in 1999. The popularity of low carb dieting continued to increase and many variations of the diet were introduced, including well-known diets like The Zone and South Beach.

Tags: atkins diet, Atkins Diet Revolution, food items, Irwin Maxwell Stillman, John Hopkins University, ketosis, low carb diet, low carb diets, low carbohydrate diets, Mayo Clinic, obesity, Robert Adkins, seizure disorders, south beach, William Banting, William Harvey

What do you do for exercise? Do you bike or walk? Why not do that on the way or at least part of the way to work.

Walking or biking to work, even part way, is linked with fitness, but very few Americans do it, according to a study of more than 2,000 middle-aged city dwellers.

In what may be the first large U.S. study of health and commuting, the researchers found only about 17 percent of workers walked or bicycled any portion of their commute.

The new study is based on tests and questionnaires from 2,364 workers who were part of a larger federally funded study on heart disease risk. The participants lived in Chicago, Minneapolis, Birmingham, Ala., and Oakland, Calif. They were asked in 2005-2006 about their commuting habits in the past 12 months. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Alabama, Archives of Internal Medicine, Birmingham, California, Chapel Hill, Chicago, heart disease, James Sallis, Minneapolis, North Carolina, Oakland, obesity, Oregon, Penny Gordon-Larsen, Portland, San Diego State University, United States, University of North Carolina

Spider vein removal is one of many things that we can do to help our bodies look and feel better, contributing to our general feeling of wellbeing. Spider veins are completely harmless and this is primarily a cosmetic treatment. Still, for some people whose faces or legs are affected, treatment can bring new confidence and help with depression and relationship problems.

Spider veins are the common name for telangiectasias which are small dilated blood vessels near the surface of the skin. They mainly form on the legs and face, and 80% of sufferers are women. They usually start to develop between the ages of 18 and 35, and peak in late middle age.

A tendency to telangiectasia is hereditary. Facial spider veins are sometimes caused by rosacea which is also often inherited and is associated with light skin. Obesity, pregnancy hormonal fluctuations and birth control pills, a sedentary lifestyle, a job that involves a lot of standing, and even high heeled shoes can contribute to the likelihood of developing spider veins on the legs. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: ache, birth control, classic spider web shape, depression, laser, laser therapy, Laser treatment, obesity, rosacea, Sclerotherapy, Spider vein, Spider veins, telangiectasia, telangiectasias, varicose veins

Every diet pill ad I’ve ever seen has marketed the product as being the revolutionary solution to all my dieting woes. Some diet pill ads even claim to cause you to lose weight in your sleep. I would love to just take a pill before bed and be able to slide easily into my “skinny jeans” in the morning, and I’ll bet you would too.

When I started looking into how diet pills work, I noticed that not only are there tons of them on the market, but so many of them work in different ways to effect weight loss. Some pills are meant to decrease appetite while others change the way the body processes food.

With the weight loss industry amassing several billion dollars a year in sales, it’s clear that most of us are searching for the winning edge to stay in shape and we’re willing to spend money to get it. In fact, the cost of a single bottle of diet pills in the U.S. Can be as much as 100 dollars.

One of the most common types of diet pills is the appetite suppressant. They work by increasing serotonin levels in the brain, which in turn affects appetite. There has been some controversy surrounding appetite suppressants and phenylpropanolamine and ephedrine were at one time banned from dietary supplements.

Appetite suppressants do seem to reduce appetite but there are sometimes negative side effects. One of the most common side effects is sensations like you might get from taking a stimulant drug. Pulmonary hypertension and heart valve damage have also been reported.

Such negative news makes finding a safe, effective diet pill seem like a scary venture. Those of us who are very overweight often have the option of seeking medical assistance in our weight loss journey.

If you have a BMI of 30 or higher, or if you have a BMI of 27 or higher and obesity-related health problems, your doctor may offer a prescription diet pill such as Meridia or Xenical. These two medications have been FDA approved for long term use to combat obesity.

Diet pills like Xenical are fat absorption blockers. Prescription strength fat blockers keep the body from absorbing about 30% of consumed fat. An over-the-counter version, called Alli, works at about half the strength of Xenical.

I am pleased to report that both of these products have proven to be successful in aiding weight loss. Unfortunately, users of fat absorption blockers can also expect some side effects. The most common side effect is gastro-intestinal problems, including involuntary stool leakage.

While many diet pills seem very promising, the truth is that most of them require diet modification and exercise from the user, and all of them have side effects. A lot of diet pill takers have gotten excellent results from appetite suppressants, fat blockers, metabolism boosters, or herbal supplements along with healthy eating and moderate exercise.

I’m still looking for that magic cure.

Tags: dietary supplements, fda, food, Meridia, obesity, Pulmonary hypertension, USD, Xenical

Weight is measured in terms of body mass index (BMI). For adults, a healthy weight is a BMI of between 18.5 and 24.9. Overweight is a BMI of 25 to 29.9. A BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese.

Health experts say roughly 66 percent of American adults are overweight. The Obesity Society reports, 25.6 percent of Americans are obese. The extra weight is hard on the body and increases the risk for many types of chronic health problems, like heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol levels, certain types of cancer, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, liver and gallbladder disease and respiratory problems.

Obesity in African Americans

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports rates of overweight and obesity are higher among African-Americans than whites. In a health survey conducted between 1999 and 2000, researchers found 69.6 percent of blacks and 62.3 percent of whites were overweight. There is a much higher disparity in rates of obesity, with 39.9 percent of blacks being obese versus 28.7 percent of whites. Among African-American women, four out of five are overweight or obese. Low-income African-American women have the highest risks of being overweight.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: cancer, center for disease control, diabetes, gallbladder disease, heart disease, high blood pressure, liver disease, nurse, obesity, Obesity Society, osteoarthritis, physician, sleep apnea, Stephanie Ward, stroke, Temple University School of Medicine