Shed Pounds Easily. Apply Health-Wise Habits And A Little Good Science

Shed Pounds Easily. Apply Health-Wise Habits And A Little Good Science

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Conventional wisdom says adopting healthy lifestyle changes will help you lose weight.

The problem is, what works for someone else may not always work for you. There is no singular answer to weight loss, but some habits can set you back more than others, even when you have the best of intentions.

Here are wise alternatives strategies that might prevent you from losing as much weight as you could, and what you should do to shed pounds instead.

DOWNSIZING YOUR PORTIONS DRAMATICALLY

Sticking to proper portion sizes will help you lose weight, but if you cut them down too drastically too quickly, your hunger hormone ghrelin will spike, signaling to your brain that you’re not full. At the same time, your body won’t produce as much of the satiety hormone leptin.

The result? “You’ll end up in a perpetual state of ‘starvation mode,’ which often results in overeating followed by the subsequent feelings of guilt, shame, or failure because you did not follow your diet.

Instead: If you want to reduce your portion sizes the right way, you need a balanced ratio of protein, vegetables, and healthy fats to feel satisfied for the 3 to 5 hours in between your daily meals.

Aim for at least 25 grams of lean protein per meal, ideally at least 30 if muscle gain is your goal. If you need to eyeball it, protein should make up roughly a quarter of your plate, says Karen Ansel, M.S., R.D.N., author of Healing Superfoods for Anti-Aging. The other quarter of your plate should contain fiber-rich whole grains, while the rest — about half your plate — should be loaded with vegetables.

OPTING FOR LOW-FAT FOODS

Any time a food is listed as low-fat, the food manufacturers have replaced the fat with sugars or other potentially harmful chemicals and additives.

They will typically pack more empty calories than their full-fat counterparts. All fat is not bad. Your body needs healthy fats for a number of processes, including hormone production, brain function, and, yes, even fat loss. The healthiest fats are plant oils, including coconut and olive oil.

That’s because fat is a super satiating nutrient, so it will help you feel fuller, longer. It’s true, eating too much of it can contribute to weight gain (it clocks in at 9 calories per gram) — but going overboard on any food, including those heavy in carbs and protein, will pile on the pounds, too.

Instead: The only fat you should avoid is trans fats, which are found in processed foods containing partially hydrogenated oils, like chips, cookies, and crackers. The FDA does not recognize trans fats as safe, since they are associated with a higher risk of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes, according to the American Heart Association.

Should We Refrigerate Plan Oils To Extend Shelf Life? Add this discussion to the article. Otherwise, why hydrogenate oils?

Instead, focus on eating whole foods that contain healthy fats. This includes grass-fed meats, wild fish like salmon, whole eggs, raw nuts, avocados, and full-fat dairy products like raw cheese, plain Greek yogurt, kefir, and cottage cheese.

FUELING UP WITH ENERGY BARS AND SPORTS DRINKS

Energy bars and sports drinks may seem like a great go-to snack, but they’re really only necessary for exercise lasting 90 minutes or longer.

Most men typically spend 60 minutes or less training and burn, on average, 250 to 500 calories during that time depending on the mode of exercise chosen. Loading up on sports drinks and energy bars can negate all the calories burned during exercise which can halt your fat loss.

My suggestion is to stop counting calories. Cut out all the excess fats, white flour and sugar as you can. The old calorie theory is dead. Leave it buried.

Plus, most energy bars are just candy bars in disguise, packing in empty calories and added sugar. The same goes for sports drinks.

Instead: A better option is to consume water before, during, and after exercise and throughout the day,” he explains. A good rule of thumb? Pay attention to your thirst, and drink up when it hits.

If you’re working out, eat a pre-workout snack containing protein and carbs such as an apple and a handful of almonds. After your workout sit down for a decent meal including some potato, whole grain bread, vegetables and a little bit of chicken or fish.

DOING CARDIO

Cardio exercise alone does not build or maintain muscle. A study published in BMC Public Health found that overweight people who included both cardio and weight training during a 12-week exercise program lose more body fat than those who do just one or the other. What the armies have been teaching for years turns out to be some of the best exercise. Combine walking with running two to three days per week, and do some kind of strengthening exercises the other three days. My habit is to avoid heavy exercise on Saturdays. It works for me.

Strength training is crucially valuable because you tend to lose muscle as you drop pounds. Muscle is metabolically active tissue, meaning you will burn more calories at rest, helping you lose more weight — and keep it off — for the long haul.

Instead: “Perform high-intensity strength training three times each week and perform cardio on alternate days 1 to 3 times each week to get the most bang for your buck. You’ll have to experiment with how much you can do. Young men and women can do much more exercise than people age 55 and older – at least at first. Studies indicate older people, even older than age 65, can strengthen muscle and gain muscle if they exercise. We just have to adjust the pace to do less and work up more slowly to doing more.

I’m age 68 now. I was for nearly a year living where I had no opportunity to exercise as much as I wanted to, and when I returned to my “home” area I returned to exercise. I find that I required a bit more time to regain some of the fitness parameters I was seeking, but I’m getting there and even surpassing some. So, I’m saying if you will dedicate yourself to this, it can be successfully done.

You can do short bursts of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) if you really want to fry fat. If you need to sneak in cardio and resistance training on the same day, do your lifting session first, and tackle a quick HIIT circuit (like this one) afterward as a finisher.

“This way, you have plenty of strength to devote to your resistance training,” he says.

Some people will tell you to replace desserts. I prefer to just avoid sweet anything and I don’t feel deprived about it. For as long as humans and their hominid pre-human kind were wandering the world there was little to nothing sweet or deep friend. We imagine that we must have these modern foods. I argue that we must develop a little self-discipline. Develop a stronger mind and you’ll have a stronger body and a better life.

SUGAR SUBSTITUTES

Foods low in added sugar? Great idea. Foods packed with artificial sweeteners? You might want to skip them.

Switching to sugar-free foods with artificial sweeteners may save you some calories. Artificial sweeteners have been linked to long-term health effects, like a higher obesity risk, type 2 diabetes, and heart problems.

Some research also suggests that artificial sweeteners can ramp up your cravings for sweet foods in general.

“There’s conflicting research on artificial sweeteners and weight loss. The best answer is to avoid these products entirely because they also can break down, particularly when heated, to become nerve poisons. The best advice is to avoid them.

Instead: When you want something sweet, make it yourself with as little sugar as possible. Eat fresh fruit. These are ways by which you have some control over what goes into your food and you satisfy your sweet craving at the same time.

CHOOSING GLUTEN-FREE PACKAGED FOODS

Gluten-free diets have ballooned in popularity as a means to lose weight, but it isn’t worth the hype. Unless you have celiac disease, irritable bowel syndrome, or other GI issues that are exacerbated by gluten — a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley — you don’t really have to avoid it.

Gluten makes foods light and airy, so when food manufacturers remove it, they have to add other high calorie ingredients — like fat, sugar and starch — to help foods taste good.

Instead: If you have to go gluten-free, stick with minimally-processed foods, like brown rice, quinoa, and baked or sweet potatoes. They’re naturally filling without all the added fat, sugar, and starch you’d find in packaged gluten-free foods.

If you don’t need to avoid gluten, just swap out the types of carbs you’re eating. Replace refined carbohydrates — like white bread and sugary cereal — with whole grains to help you take in more gut filling fiber.

Basic Healthy Eating You Can Enjoy:

There are a few basic rules to fit into your eating lifestyle. Firstly, if you don’t enjoy what you’re eating and hate your exercise routine, you’re going to stop doing it and return to the habits that made you fat and sickly. So, if you’re making changes do a little at a time and get comfortable with these changes one or two at a time.

You don’t need a “diet.” You need an eating and exercise life-style change! When good food and healthy exercise become “normal” and “natural” for you, your body will normally and naturally reduce weight and become better looking and healthier. If you for any reason cannot or will not run, take up some sort of dancing. Zumba is popular for this reason. People gather together in a safe location, exercise together, enjoy talking and meeting, and get home safely. These days, I’m sorry to say, people fear going for a run because marauders might be lurking.

Secondly: If you want to go to vegetarianism, you can with good books guiding you. Many Westerners are moving in that direction successfully and they see huge health improvements. The China Study, a book produced a few years ago, proved that the healthiest Chinese people lived on farms and got 8/10^ths of 1% of their caloric intake from animal sources (probably eggs) and everything else was vegetables….and…. they work really hard in the physical labor of farming and fishing. Those people had no cancer. The people in the cities eating a lot of sugar, white flour, and all kinds of meats that we never touch in America, are getting fat and sickly. Farmers don’t kill a pig and eat it very often. They eat river fish, maybe chicken, but these livestock are valuable and the farmers prefer to sell them for money.

My Personal Recommendations: To burn down a lot of research, my suggestion which I’ve tested on myself for years with great success, is eat approximately 10% of your diet as eggs, fish, chicken and perhaps a little beef. I don’t eat pork, lamb, or shell fish. For me fish must have fins and scales.

I make a big vegetable stew, store it in several plastic containers in the fridge, and eat about 2 cups of it every day. I make my own flat bread which does not contain dairy products.

American dairy products are poisonous for me. Dairy from New Zealand, Australia and Thailand can be eaten without a problem. Probably also most European cheese would be alright for me. The American’s are doing something to their cows and the result of even a little whey in anything will cause me considerable chronic illness. Consequently I have taken to making a simple flat bread on a Teflon frying pan every day. That bread, and mashed potatoes (from potato flakes mixed with chicken bouillon, salt, and coconut oil) constitute most of the “starch” portion of my eating regimen.

I do some sort of floor exercise three days each week and dips and chin-ups and I go for a walk/run up a hill twice a week. I’m 68-years-old and some of this gives a mildly painful knee and hip a bit of discomfort in the first 5-minutes, but I know enough orthopedics to believe that the best thing I can do for those joints is keep them working so their synovial tissues will produce their own joint lubricant. Joints are designed to lubricate themselves.

I’m a little slow on the uptake some times. Years ago a man came into my Chiropractic clinic and said, “When you turn on a bolt you wear it out a little at a time.” I didn’t understand and I think he said it twice. I asked him what he was talking about. He thought bones and joints were dead and dry like steel. No! That’s wrong. I explained further….

Bones are alive. The inside matrix changes over weeks if you take up new exercises and change the stress on them. The outside “skin” (periosteum) changes and we can see it on x-ray. We can see the inside of the bone too. Bone can release minerals and uptake minerals.

By the way, in 99.9% of cases women do NOT fall down and break a hip. Their bones lose so much mineral and strengthening matrix that finally they are like bird bones. The bone cannot stand the weight bearing stress, it breaks, and the woman falls to the floor.

This brings me to one of my big personality flaws. I positively hate to argue with people so I say nothing and presume they’ll reason things out eventually. I presume they’ll take up the habit of ASKING QUESTIONS and looking up answers.

Of course I’m wrong.

In most cases that never happens.

I hope in your case you will be inclined to gather information and analyze it. That is the way you learn to be healthy and stay healthy.

In line with this; do not presume that every medical doctor will give you the best treatment. Most of their drugs cause dangerous side effects, often their diagnosis is wrong and they prescribe the wrong medication, and often they know nothing of natural healing which might have been less expensive, less risky, and more effective. Ask questions, gather information, analyze, and think it through. You can do it.

This article is a combination of material from Dr. Stephen Newdell and notes from here: https://www.menshealth.com/weight-loss/a19546961/habits-that-prevent-weight-loss/

Here are easy and delicious desserts you can make with protein powder . They are naturally sweet options.

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