Kicking the habit – putting an end to fast food and snacks

Kicking the habit – putting an end to fast food and snacks
in your diet

It’s always easy to gain weight and damned hard to lose it.
Eating is one of the true pleasures in life and refraining
from food has huge physical and psychological implications
that cannot be easily discarded. Nobody likes to have to
give up a pleasure, which is why many people drift farther
and farther into fat without doing anything to stop the
process. Moreover, recent data showed that the body does not
respond to diets as doctors thought it should. The body has
to adapt to changes and diets are seen as lean periods that
should be offset by making fat harder to burn. While the
body is certainly the most complex instrument we posses in
our lives, it cannot discern between actual lean times and
diets.

Another problem for the body is the widespread use of fast
food, snacks and soft drinks. Fast food is highly powered
food that fools the stomach into calling for more, despite
the fact that one giant burger is the caloric equivalent of
an entire meal. The giant burger is not usually enough to
fill the stomach of an adult person, so most people eat more
than one and wash it down with soft drinks that are little
more than sugared water. This is an unfortunate way of
eating, since the body gets far more than it needs from
burgers and soft drinks. The largely sedentary lifestyles
led by most urban residents mean that the excess calories
will certainly be stored as fat.

Snacks are another threat to a healthy life by bringing in
too much calories and by being too readily available when
hunger strikes. The correct option for between meals snacks
is to buy fruit. Sure, it may not taste as good, especially
if one is used to chips or other types of snacks, but one or
two bananas or some apples are far better for one’s health.
A very important point is to remember that habits can be
kicked just as easily as they take root. By ignoring the
temptation of chips you will gradually lose interest in them
and get used to fruit. Once chips are no longer a staple of
your diet, you will find yourself wondering what was so good
about them anyway.

Exercise Can Really Improve Your Life

Exercise Can Really Improve Your Life


The Benefits of Regular Exercise

Everybody knows that keeping yourself fit and partaking in
regular exercise is good for you, but do you really know the
full benefits of regular exercise?

The 7 Most Common Benefits

There are plenty of benefits when it comes to partaking in
regular exercise but some of the most common ones include:

Various Serious Health Benefits

Regular exercise can really help to cut the risk of
developing serious illnesses such as Diabetes Type II and
Heart Disease.

Heart Disease can be brought on by lack of exercise due to
the extra strain that is placed on the heart by the extra
fat that is stored throughout the body.

The heart has to beat twice as hard as it would normally and
that puts a lot of pressure onto it and that is when Heart
Disease occurs.


Diabetes Type II is commonly brought on by obesity and most
people who have the condition

are overweight. So, by partaking in regular exercise, you
are lowering your chances of

developing serious conditions such as the ones mentioned.

It Keeps Weight Down

This is an obvious one but it is certainly the main one
which most people exercise for.

Regular exercise burns off excess calories and keeps the
body’s weight down to an ideal

target and that keeps the body healthy generally. It also
helps to keep the body looking a

lot better too by toning up the muscles and keeping the skin
firm.

It Helps With Stress

Most people are stressed these days but the good news is
that regular exercise can help.

Exercising releases feel good hormones and that really does
help to stop the body from

feeling stressed. It gives you something else to focus your
attention on which stops you

from thinking about whatever it was that got you stressed in
the first place therefore once

you have finished your mind is calm and relaxed.

It Helps You Sleep

If you are having problems sleeping, exercise may be the
answer. Yoga and Pilates are

especially good exercises for aiding sleep. The exercise
tires out the body and helps to

relax the mind which therefore helps when it comes to
bedtime. Most people who have

sleeping troubles are having them because they have not
tired their brain out enough or

switched off, but exercise will help them to do that.

It Helps You to Live Longer

Exercise helps you to live longer according to research. It
keeps the heart pumping

healthily and it prevents various health problems from
occurring. This means that you do

stay healthier for longer and you are more likely to outlive
somebody who does not partake

in any exercise whatsoever.

Keeps The Heart and Blood Healthier

Regular exercise helps to keep the heart and blood healthier
which therefore helps to keep

the circulatory system healthy. This can really help with
breathing and it will also help

to keep any toxins out of the body. Clean blood and a
healthy heart keep you healthier for

longer and it will also give you a lot of energy too.

Keeps Skin Healthy

Finally, exercise keeps the skin looking younger and
healthier for longer. It tones the

body and keeps the skin firmer which is what makes the skin
looking younger for longer. It

also gives you a glowing complexion and that will make you
happier all around.

So, as you can see there are plenty of benefits from regular
exercise which means that

there is no excuse not to take part in it!

The preceeding was an article from Weight Loss Research.

Visit the Site to get more information on
Weight Loss

5 Common Myths From The Weight Loss Crowd

5 Common Myths From The Weight Loss Crowd

Myth: You’ll be OK with a high protein/low carb diet!

Fact: This type of diet aims to secure most of the daily
required amount of calories from protein foods, such as
meat, dairy products and eggs, with a very small part taken
from foods containing a lot of carbs (bread, pasta, potatoes
and fruits).

The biggest problem with this diet is that many common and
popular foods are forbidden, which makes it easy for the
user to get bored or frustrated.

When boredom and frustration set in, quitting time is never
far off.

Another problem is the lack of nutrients that are usually
brought in by carbohydrate foods, while allowing the user to
eat bacon and cheese that raise cholesterol levels.

The bottom line is that high protein/low carb diets result
in fast weight loss in some users, but it’s not just fat
that goes away. People also lose some of their lean muscle
mass and a lot of water as the kidneys work harder to rid
the body of excess waste from protein and fat.

The added stress to your kidneys is not healthy at all and,
in the long run, will lead to dehydration, headaches,
feelings of nausea and dizziness. Before engaging in a
long-term diet, you would do well to discuss it with your
physician. And if you are really keen on dieting, try a
balanced diet first, because it will help you lose weight
without hurting your system.

Myth: Permanent weight loss can be achieved with fad diets.

Fact: This is yet another common myth among the weight loss
crowd. Like any other diet that tells you to cut this or
that food from your daily meals, fad diets are not healthy
for you.

The cornerstone of any diet is supplying the body with all
the calories, proteins and minerals it needs. Diets that cut
out foods without regard for the needs of your body cannot
be healthy for you.

Fad diets fail to deliver on the promise of permanent weight
loss because people will always crave the forbidden foods
and will always end up breaking the rules and ditching the
diet.

The key to making weight loss permanent is more exercise and
to avoid eating food that makes you fat without nourishing
your body. Our extensive studies confirmed the importance of
exercising and of a well-balanced diet.

Myth: Low-fat or no fat food is always a good choice.

Fact: The only low fat foods that are also low in calories
are fruits. The rest of the huge low-fat or non-fat group
are not a safe choice if you are dieting. These products may
have added sugar, starch or flour to make them taste better,
which means extra calories that do not belong into your
diet. So make sure you check the list of ingredients on
packages whenever you decide to buy low-fat.

Myth: Switching to vegetarian food will help you lose weight
and stay healthy.

Fact: I know this is a hard pill to swallow, but no food
plan will work for you unless you take charge of your eating
and make sure that everything that goes past your lips is
the right kind of food. The key here is to be absolutely
sure that the vegetarian diet will give your body all the
nutrients and calories it needs. Eating heaps of foods that
do nothing for you from the nutritional point of view,
outside maybe of filling your stomach, can bring you a lot
of trouble in the future.

Since plants tend to have a lower concentration of nutrients
than meat, you will have to eat more food than before to
make up for this difference.

Not to mention that a strictly vegetarian diet will not get
you enough vitamin B12, vitamin D, iron, calcium and zinc.

These substances are taken mostly from dairy products and
eggs in a regular diet, but true vegetarians can’t touch
those. You’ll have to rely on the few and uncommon
vegetables that can provide these substances.

Myth: Dairy products cause heart problems and make you fat.

Fact: Well, thanks to modern medicine everybody knows that
eating a lot of dairy products is a surefire path to high
blood pressure and stroke, although a large group of people
from France refuse to die despite the large quantities of
cheese and wine they consume.

Dairy products are the main source of calcium that keeps
your bones strong and healthy. It is absolutely essential
for children and can be in no way overlooked by adults.

Dairy products also contain vitamin D, which is crucial to
maintaining the normal levels of calcium and phosphorus in
your bloodstream.

If you don’t want to gain weight from dairy products, then
choose low-fat or non-fat brands. There are enough of those
around. If you are lactose-intolerant, drink soy or rice
milk. It does not taste exactly the same as true milk, but
it’s still good and nutritious.

Butter and margarine are the only products you should worry
about. They do contain big levels of fat. Still, if you
can’t do without them, at least eat butter. Margarine is an
over-processed fat that is not particularly good for you.
Butter may be a bit fatter, but it definitely is the
healthier of these two.

5 Common Myths From The Weight Loss Crowd

Obesity- A Dangerous Epidemic

Obesity- A Dangerous Epidemic

Most people think that obesity goes no deeper than a less
than fashionable look, but they are wrong. Obesity today is
an epidemic, a disease spreading fast across both the
industrialized world and emerging economies.

Obesity means having too much fat on your body. First and
foremost, obesity puts a strain on joints and bones that
have to sustain more weight than before, which leads to
arthritis in the long run. The weight also tends to make
people less active, which, in turn, means more weight is put
on.

The lack of activity and high cholesterol brought by eating
too much of the wrong kind of food impair the proper
functioning of your heart and blood vessels. This results in
high blood pressure, stroke and other blood and heart
conditions. Excess weight also leads to apnea, the cessation
of breathing during sleep.

However, obesity can be cured with patience and effort. As
this diseases spreads over the land, so do the efforts for
curing it increase. Talk to your physician if you are
interested in getting rid of obesity.

Recognizing obesity?

The textbook definition of obesity is a body mass index of
30 or above. The body mass index is a measure of a person’s
weight scaled according to height, as developed by Belgian
scientist Adolphe Quetelet in 1840. This index serves to
show the amount of fat stored on the body, and the higher
your BMI is, the worst is your exposure to certain diseases.

Physicians also warn that having a lot of fat stored around
your waist increases the risk of developing diseases. Going
beyond size 35 in women and size 40 in men means only
trouble in the future.

Obesity- A Dangerous Epidemic