Mayo Clinic debunks 6 weight loss myths

Top 10 Myths About Weight Loss

MYTH 1: SPOT REDUCTION WORKS

It is widely believed that if you focus your exercise and weight training on specific areas of your body that you will be able to reduce the amount of fat in that specific area or region. In reality, there is no such thing as spot reduction, and instead, as you begin to work out and exercise you will start to lose weight evenly throughout your entire body. Just the same, another common myth is that a high number of repetitions will burn more fat when in truth, fewer repetitions with heavier weight will actually cause you to burn more fat in a shorter amount of time than a higher number of reps with a lighter weight.

MYTH 2: DRINKING COLD BEVERAGES REDUCES FAT

This is a very common myth that actually is believable if you consider the reasoning behind it. The myth goes on to indicate that because your body needs to heat up the water, it automatically begins to burn calories whenever you drink cold water. This calorie-burning frenzy continues until your body has adjusted the water temperature to be that of your regular body's warmth. While drinking water (at any temperature) is an important part of any weight loss system, don't count on losing weight just from drinking alone. Water helps flush out your system keeping you healthy and free of toxins, but you cannot burn calories just by drinking it without a healthy diet.

MYTH 3: ELIMINATING FOOD GROUPS WILL CAUSE FAT LOSS

This myth is a bit confusing, so let's set the record straight. Eliminating (or at least minimizing) certain foods such as foods that are high in sugars) should be part of your transition into healthy eating. You always want to minimize the number of high fat (low energy) foods whenever possible. However, eliminating complete food groups from your diet and focusing on eating only one kind of food is not only very difficult to stick with, but in order to maintain a healthy diet, you need a well-rounded selection of wholesome foods from all of the food groups.

MYTH 4: LOW-CALORIE DIETS ARE THE ONLY WAY TO LOSE WEIGHT

Nearly every diet out there focuses on lowering your calorie intake and increasing your overall level of activity, and rightly so. The problem comes when dieters believe that by dramatically reducing their calorie intake they will shed the weight and keep it off. It's important to gradually reduce your calorie intake so that your body's natural system doesn't shift into 'starvation' mode, which triggers your system into believing that you need to store food for a possible period of famine (this has been part of our system since the beginning of man). You also need to watch out for a disruption in your body's natural metabolic pace, as dramatic reductions in calories can slow it down making it harder to shed those pounds.

MYTH 5: YOU MUST WORK OUT AT SPECIFIC TIMES

I've seen this myth circulate the weight loss communities many times over the years and while the "best time of day" always seems to change, the basic idea remains the same: You need to work out at specific times for maximum results. In reality, you really don't have to work out early in the morning, late at night, or anything in between as long as you are actually exercising. Focus more on maintaining a consistent schedule of activity and less on when you actually get it done. For busy moms to business owners, being able to set a specific schedule isn't always the easiest thing to achieve, so it's great news that the real facts are that regardless of when you actually exercise, your body will burn the same amount of calories for the same workout regardless of the time of day.

MYTH 6: YOU MUST WORK OUT FOR XX MINUTES BEFORE IT BEGINS TO WORK

I used to believe this myth myself. The idea behind it is that your body must "warm-up" for a period of time before it shifts into "fat-burning mode", and so anything before xx minutes simply doesn't count. This is complete nonsense! While you should always work towards incorporating a warm-up period (as well as a slow down process) during your workouts, you actually start burning fat from the moment you begin!

MYTH 7: EAT FAT BURNING FOODS TO LOSE WEIGHT

If you ever truly find a food group or item that will cause instant weight loss, please, let me know! Realistically, there are no foods that instantly burn fat, however, there are food types that can increase your metabolism (which will subsequently, help you lose weight).

MYTH 8: HIGH PROTEIN/LOW CARB DIETS ARE BEST

These diets are typically difficult to stick with because they are very limiting in what you are allowed to eat. Furthermore, the reality of the matter is that while you may lose weight quickly at first, your body will plateau and you will find it difficult to get past the "hump". Instead, focus on following a healthy eating plan that encompasses foods from the four food groups, ensuring that you not only are given added flexibility in your meal options but that you are receiving the minerals and vitamins that your body requires.

MYTH 9: EAT LESS AND BURN MORE

Did you know that there is such a thing as a "Sumo Diet"? It's thought that Sumo wrestlers eat just before retiring for the day, and rarely eat throughout the day itself as a way of packing on pounds. The reason for this isn't because eating after 7 pm actually causes major weight gain (the number of calories you have stored at the end of the day will still be transformed into fat regardless of when you ate), but instead, they do this because when you eat less your body ends up storing more fat, while decreasing your metabolism rate. It's important to eat regularly throughout the day, preferably 6-8 times (three meals and healthy snacks every two hours will keep you satisfied and trigger your body to stay in constant fat-burning mode).

MYTH 10: ELIMINATE ALL FAT FROM YOUR DIET

This myth is not only extremely difficult to do, but it actually can harm your system. We all need fat in our diets to survive and to feed our muscles and encourage growth.

While reducing your fat intake will help you lose weight, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to reduce it altogether.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10311901

How to Start Back in the Gym After a Layoff

Returning to the Gym after Lockdown

1. Take it Easy, gradually get back into working out again.

2. Make it Short, a 20min session after warmup.

3. Building Work Capacity, getting back into shape.

4. No Intensifiers, forget about the intense sessions for the first few weeks.

5. Make it Fun, do the exercises you enjoy & like to do.

6, Target Your Weaknesses

Dynamic Warm Up Keeps You Safer and More Prepared

Gone are the days of a static stretching before a workout. Whether you are out for a run, on the court for a pick up game of basketball, or cycling your butt off, you will need your body to be ready for whatever you throw at it. When you start with static stretching, tiny tears are created in the muscle fibers which can increase the risk of injury. If you are an elite athlete, you really do not want to be sidelined for any of your events. A small tear from static stretching for a sprinter in the hamstring can lead to that pulled hamstring during a race. The same holds true for that pick up game of basketball. Don't perform a static stretch on your calf as it may lead to something serious when you explosively take off from the ground for a rebound or lay-up. A mountain biker needs a lot of power to crank up steep inclines, so static stretching should be avoided prior to shredding the trails.

Before exercise, one should perform a dynamic warmup targeting areas of the body that will need to be ready for what ever exercise or activity you are going to perform. Even still, involving the full body will ensure the best warm up. A proper dynamic warm up increases blood flow to those areas of the body that need it as well as increases muscle fiber recruitment. In other words, it wakes things up so that they are ready for action. Getting more muscle fibers to join the party will increase your performance.

Let's look at a power lifter. Power lifting is a very explosive sport and it is highly important to have the body ready or the risk of injury if high. Pretend we are at a competition and we have two athletes. They are getting ready for their big all out lift on the bench. Assume the two athletes are the same size, with the same bench max, and wearing the same clothing. Let's take Power lifter A, who does nothing to get ready for the lift. He lays on the bench, he has not invited all the muscle fibers to the party, he does not have the blood flow to safely perform this ultra explosive move and fails. Power lifter B, warm ups on a stationary bike. He also does his normal lunges, twists, arm swings, and gets on a warm up bench to lift a light weight, and works his way up to a good weight for muscle fiber recruitment. He does not fail but succeeds and do to the adrenaline and mind-set actually is able to lift more than was expected.

Make sure that you are including a dynamic warm up in your routine, you can see how beneficial it can be. See the video linked here to walk through some great dynamic exercises so that you are ready for your next bout of exercise!

Robert Jay Martin is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) through the National Strength and Conditioning Association and TRX certified. Improve your level of fitness and/or level of cycling with his success, knowledge, experience, & 4 year degree. Visit his website https://martinrj26.wixsite.com/robmartin or his blog at https://urbikelife.com/news/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10289638

4 nutritionist tips to improve your portion control

Portion Control is Key to Loosing Weight.

Portion Distortion: Portions are now 2-5 times larger than 50 years ago...

This is now considered to be "Our Normal" Here Andrea Donsky show us exactly what this looks like.

Managing Your Dietary Habits

Managing your dietary pattern can have a significant effect in your overall well-being. It can prevent you from cardio-vascular diseases, hypertension, diabetes and many more. To eat healthier food, you may need to change some of your daily habits.

In order to eat a healthy diet, you need to make some changes which can lead to a better health. This refers to the food choices preferred by persons everyday. They differ from person to person. It helps an individual to stay fit and well throughout his life.This includes fruits, vegetables, cereals, water, low fat dairy products, etc.

The habitual decisions an individual makes when selecting what foods to eat differs. Each person holds some food preferences. This could be due to personal tastes or ethical reasons. Individual dietary choices may be more or less healthy. It plays a significant role in the quality of life, health and longevity.

Diets focusing on single nutrients can have negative consequences. The sad reality is that people choose to eat foods, not nutrients. Having identified healthy dietary patterns, knowledge on nutritional contents and food components will always be important.

Given the relative stability of caloric intake by each individual, changes in dietary habits are generally characterized by substitution effects, where high consumption of some foods is associated with lower intake of other foods. This makes inferences about individual foods particularly challenging.

On the other hand, food patterns can be defined as the quantities, proportions, variety, or combination of different foods and drinks in diets, and the frequency with which they are habitually consumed.

A healthy dietary pattern involves many choices. Among them is choosing a balanced diet. It helps you manage weight. Healthy eating is all about balance. You can enjoy your favorite foods even if they are high in calories, fat or added sugars; the key is eating them only once in a while, and balancing them out with healthier foods and more physical activity.

Making sudden, radical changes to your eating patterns such as eating nothing but soup, can lead to short-term weight loss. However, such radical changes are neither healthy nor a good idea, and won't be successful in the long run.

Habits take time to develop. It doesn't happen overnight. You need to be patient and determined. For example, if you may realize that you eat too fast when you eat alone, try to share a lunch with a colleague at work. Another strategy is to put your fork down between bites. Also, minimize distractions, such as watching the news while you eat. Such distractions keep you from paying attention to how quickly and how much you're eating.

Eat more slowly. If done too quickly, your hunger is not satisfied. So, you tend to eat more. Eat only when you're truly hungry instead of when you are tired, anxious, or feeling an emotion besides hunger.

Aim for fitness instead of just merely satiating your hunger. So, manage your eating habits now for long-term health and wellness!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10312321

Top 6 Beginner Workout Mistakes!

Pilates, Build A Firm Foundation

Don't build your house on sand

You wouldn't build your house on sand would you? An unstable surface that is unable to support any structure built upon it.Then why do some people insist on training their body hard when their foundation is weak?

Typically overweight and unfit people have:

• Little to no core strength
• Poor structural stability (Shoulder, Hip and Ankle)
• Poor posture
• Lack of flexibility
• Probably an unbalanced diet

Even 10 minutes on the treadmill is going to be to much for them to do safely so what chance do they have with the vast majority of exercise programs available?

The likelihood is they will injure themselves very early on in their training. If they are injured they can't train effectively and so can't get the results the desire.

Any training program you use must address this issue and ensure a firm foundation is built before high volume / impact exercises are introduced.

So how, practically, can you build a firm foundation?

• Control your diet by not dieting! Most health experts will agree that when it comes to weight loss, what you eat has the biggest influence on how much weight you lose. You need to eat small-ish portions of nourishing food regularly and ditch the junk. The closer you come to your ideal weight, the safer you are and the harder you can exercise.
• Strengthen core and structural stability, improve posture and flexibility by doing a specialised program designed to do just that, or easier still take Pilates classes. Pilates addresses all the above-mentioned points and then some!
• Ensure any exercise program you undertake whilst you are building your "firm foundation" has been designed to be both safe and effective and takes into account your own limitations.
• You should be able to sustain your exercise program over the long term (for ever!) It should therefore be designed with real people with real jobs and families in mind. We can't all find 4-6 hours a week to exercise!

As you can see it's not rocket science, but mainly just common sense. Build a firm foundation, and what you build should last forever.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/519124

Building or Rebuilding a Firm Foundation for Fitness

Laying the Foundations First - Plant Based or Not.

With the Gyms starting to re-open we may all need to re-visit the basics, start again or simply re-focus, wherever you are and at what ever stage, adopt good practice in every stage and stay safe.

Image courtesy of VeganHealthHub on Instagram

7 Foods You Should Eat as You Get Older - Dr Oz's Healthy Hacks

Dieting Is Not Always The Best Choice For Healthy Weight Loss

When people decide they want to lose weight, they almost invariably go to the weight loss standard - they diet. And while dieting may be the most common course of action, why then is yo-yo dieting so prevalent? Let's look at why so much lost weight is re-found quickly, and what other options exist for successful weight loss.

Before coaching someone in weight loss and healthy weight management, or striving to slim down yourself, it's important to discover the underlying reasons for the excess weight in the first place. After all, it only makes sense that if you don't remove these hurdles from your path, you'll end up right back where you started, or worse.

So whether you're somewhat overweight or truly obese, can you define the reasons for it? Don't use the old blanket excuse of 'more calories consumed than used' - what are the real reasons?

Are you an emotional eater? Do you seek out comfort foods when you're feeling hurt, feeling down or depressed? Is loneliness preying on your mind, causing you to look to the fridge for friendship? When you feel the urge to eat something but know you're not really hungry, try to identify where that urge is coming from. Teach yourself that you don't get satisfaction from unhealthy eating patterns and learn to direct that impulse into something more constructive, like going for a walk or calling a friend.

Is it a lack of exercise that's caused your weight issues? Our bodies have evolved over a million years and are still changing with each new generation, but what hasn't changed is the body's need for regular exercise. Your body has learned to store fat for times with no available nutrition, and to burn off muscle that isn't used regularly, as muscle burns up energy even at rest.

All of which helped earlier generations who fought, hunted and scrounged for their food, but does not fit in a world populated with supermarkets and fast-food drive-throughs. Start going for walks or riding a bike, small daily ways to get 30 minutes of exercise each day - when you see how much better you feel it'll be easy to stay motivated and move toward true fitness.

Another common hurdle is a lack of planning or forethought when you go shopping. Do you think about the meals you want to make and have or serve during the coming week? Do you make a list of the healthy ingredients you need to make those meals? And then, do you stick to buying just those items when you go to the grocery store? Almost no one can claim adherence to that last one, yet in most cases when suppertime rolls around we pick and choose from what's in the house, right? So if it doesn't come home from the store it's not going to end up in your digestive track. Choose wisely when you shop and follow the sage advice to never shop while hungry!

These are just a few of the underlying causes of people overeating and becoming overweight or obese - there are many more like cultural & family traditions, food habits learned as kids, even your own perceived target body image and what you feel it would take to achieve that body image. But the only reason or reasons that matter are the ones standing in YOUR way of maintaining a healthy bodyweight & lifestyle.

Yes, in the long run you'll need to come up with a workable nutrition solution that allows you to lose weight and get rid of unwanted bodyfat while maintaining your strength and energy, but find and fix the underlying issues first so your weight loss success isn't short-term. After all, don't you deserve a happy & healthy life with energy to spare?

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10316950

Energy for Life - Balancing Your Energy

WHY To - Balance our energy and our lives.

How Goals Nurture and Balance Our Energy

I was recently asked why I found having goals so important. My response was, "working towards a goal helps me monitor my self care".

Caring for oneself should be easy, innate and a priority when we are pursuing an ambition. However, this isn't always the case. We can find ourselves burned out or exhausted in various ways not always recognizing how it happened.

To live in congruence with our own life force energy it's important we see the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual capacities as actual sources of energy that we apply to achieving our life goals. We can then begin to see ways we can nurture and care for our energy and recognize when we cause exhaustion. Finding balance is much easier when we understand our own energy and begin monitoring where and how we use it.

I have broken down the capacities of energy and provided an example of how each capacity is used to implement self care when working towards a goal. I have chosen to use a goal in sport and my personal experience as an athlete.

Emotional Energy

Having a goal demands that I prioritize my time and energy to put me first. This is often not the case when I have no goals as it is in my nature to nurture. It's what I love to do and it feeds my soul to care for others. Although this is a great quality it can leave me last on my list as I pour my energy into others. The danger is I can end up feeling resentful that my investment is not reciprocated. Nurturing others can become a way to sabotage or hide my own needs, wants and desires. Having goals helps me create healthy boundaries where I can love the people in my life from afar, supporting their journey while investing in my own.

Physical Energy

Having a training program helps me follow a regime of self care that includes nutrition, rest and fitness. By setting specific and tangible fitness goals I prioritize fitness. Eating healthy food and getting the sleep my body needs helps me rejuvenate and recover between training sessions so I can maintain my fitness. Having fitness goals and a plan that implements them in a timely and progressive manner ensures I am caring for my physical energy by; excelling and improving, lovingly recovering from injury, or maintaining a level of fitness that keeps me healthy and strong.

Mental Energy 

My mental energy is the mindset I use to approach my goals. I have found that mindset is also a form of self care that gives me a sense of personal power or feeling in control. This sense of having control over our abilities and skills is critical to an athlete. Recognizing what we cannot control such as people, places, things and situations allows us to let go of things that take away our focus. By choosing what I think about and how I perceive situations I am able to control my mindset and the use of my mental energy. This mindset has been referred to as mental toughness or, a competitive mindset.

Spiritual Energy 

Evolution and self actualization is a value system of mine. I want to leave this existence knowing that I fulfilled my purpose and that I lived a life that meant something to me and to those I was in relationship with. I very much care that I had a positive impact in a few peoples lives and being an athlete has led me to teach others the valuable lessons of self care, self nurturing and self confidence I have learned through sport.

I believe we all make an impact and that sport or being an athlete is not the only way but it is one of the avenues where I have learned to use my innate skills and talent in ways that nurture me and serves my community.

I have created a workbook that uses the principles shared in this article as a step by step guide to master the use of your energy capacities and a proven method by Quantum Physics to achieve goals.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10248560