5 Surprising Foods To Help You Lose Weight

It may surprise you to know you don't have to nibble on celery sticks or carrots to get that metabolism going to burn calories to lose weight.  Many foods are thought to be fattening, when in fact they actually can help your body burn fat so you can slim down faster.  There are good reasons to re-think some of the “forbidden” foods when deciding what foods to choose for your diet.  Let's take a look at a few of these much aligned foods to set the record straight.

1. Almonds

Who would have thought that this small nut would have such a significant impact on weight loss? A Purdue University study showed that when compared to eating rice cakes, people who ate a handful of almonds felt fuller longer. Surprisingly, almonds are loaded with fat, but it's good fat. It's the kind of fat that your brain and body needs to function. Enjoy about 16 to 20 almonds every day to satisfy your hunger without overloading on calories. 

2. Olive Oil

A healthy intake of fats can help you lose weight. How? By controlling hunger. Fats make you feel full. Monounsaturated fats are a good choice because you will keep cholesterol under control while satisfying your cravings, and olive oil fits the bill. Eliminating fats from your diet to lose weight has been a dieting standard for many years, but certain fats are essential to a healthy diet.  This concept is surprising to many long-term dieters.  But, in these modern times, science has proven that oils, the right oil, provides nutrition that your body needs as well as weight loss benefits.

3. Peanut Butter

Who would have guessed that a kid-friendly food could be diet friendly, too? Peanut butter is packed with niacin, which keeps the digestive system on track and prevents belly bloat. Just keep an eye on portion size because peanut butter can have a lot of fat and even sugar.  Limit yourself to no more than two tablespoons a day and be sure to pick a natural peanut butter so you avoid the added sugars.

4. Parmigiano- Reggiano Cheese

Another on the list of unexpected foods to help slim you down is a particular favorite of most foodies. This low-calorie, calcium-rich treat activates the body's fat-burning hormones, say University of Wisconsin researchers. This cheese also has a higher protein content compared to other dairy products. Consider adding this powerhouse of flavor to roasted vegetables for that little extra boost.

5. Animal Fats

We've been told for so long that you have to eliminate animal fat from your diet to lose weight, that it's hard to wrap your head around this one, right?  But, new research has proven that animal fat provides some nutritional value you need and may be a better choice than other forms of fat in some cases.  Not only does fat in your food make you feel full, but certain animal fat may provide your body with some missing elements.  Even the much dreaded lard has been making a dietary come back.  Your body needs vitamin D to feel good and to function.  Interestingly, foods that provide vitamin D, all of which are animal foods, tend to be high in cholesterol.  What does this have to do with weight loss?  If you are not getting enough vitamin D, you will not be active.  Your bones and muscles are going to suffer, keeping you sedentary, which is a disaster when trying to lose weight.  So, animal fats in moderation should be on your weight loss radar.


Through the years, there have been diet gurus who have pitched some pretty far-fetched ideas about weight loss.  Usually, it comes down to moderation.  Avoiding certain foods entirely, even the foods that “sound” fattening, may not be the best way to lose weight and keep it off.  It's confusing, I know.  But, give it some thought and decide for yourself which weight loss theories make sense to you.

For more good advice you can go to How Can I Lose Fat 

 

The Truth About Mothers And Their Daughters Resemblance On BMI Charts

You may be wondering whether mothers and their daughters' resemblance on BMI is a sure thing?  It's easy to assume that a daughter might take after her mother's eating habits and have a similar BMI as her mother, for many reasons.  But they might not be the reasons you'd think.  But first, let's make it clear what BMI is.

BMI or body mass index is nothing more than the measure of a person's weight in relation to her height.  A person's weight in kilograms is divided by a person's height in meters, squared (which is simply a person's height times itself—if I'm 1.5 meters tall, I would take 1.5 times 1.5).  The resulting number is her BMI.  A normal BMI is anything from 18.5 to 24.5, and 25 to 29.9 is considered overweight, with anything above that considered obese.  A BMI below 18.5 is considered underweight.  BMI is a good general measurement for most people, although very muscular people usually measure as overweight or obese because BMI doesn't distinguish between muscle weight and fat weight.

So, back to mothers and their daughters' resemblance on BMI, does it guarantee that a daughter will be overweight if her mother has a high BMI?  Will a normal weight mother raise a normal weight daughter?  Will the daughter be underweight if the mother is too skinny?  While nothing is certain 100% of the time, there are some factors that push those answers more toward a yes than a no.

Genetics do play a part in a person's tendency toward staying thin or gaining weight.  Hereditary factors like body type are impossible to change.  Tendency toward a slow metabolism can be boosted by exercise, good nutrition and a healthy lifestyle, but genetics will help determine how easy or difficult keeping a high metabolism may be for a daughter. 

The environment is a huge factor.  When a mother is overweight, for example, and she generally cooks for the family, the family eat what she eats to a large degree.  So it's easy to see why mothers and their daughters' resemblance on BMI is often very similar.  Living with a person, especially someone with the influence a mother has on a daughter, also tends to shape a person's attitudes.  So if the mother is very active, eats healthy and stays physically fit, it's more likely than a child, especially a daughter, will do the same.  Conversely, a mother who is overweight, rarely gets exercise and doesn't seem overly concerned with weight loss or health is likely to bring up her daughter with the same outlook.  In both cases, it's no surprise that their BMIs might be similar.

So not only do the attitudes about food and fitness filter down from mothers to daughters, the type of food eaten, and even the amount of food eaten, can filter down, too. Mothers and their daughters' resemblance on BMI charts is no coincidence, and only shows the need for families to be aware of their health and fitness even when children are small.

Debunking The Myth Of Eating Less To Lose Weight

One of the biggest myths about losing weight is the idea that you need to eat less in order to shed pounds. New studies have shown that this is simply not the case. As a matter of fact, it's just the opposite. Let's take a look at why you need to eat if you want to lose weight.

The Scientific Benefits of Breakfast

People who eat breakfast on a daily basis tend to lose weight easier. The National Weight Control Registry performed a study that showed people who eat breakfast have a better chance of maintaining a 30 pound, or more, weight loss for at least a year. Studies in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association showed similar results.

Another research group analyzed government data on over 4,000 adults and found those who ate a regular breakfast tended to take in fewer calories during the day and had a lower fat intake. They also noted that regular breakfast eaters were more likely to engage in routine exercise.

Eating breakfast also jump-starts your metabolism, says Elisabetta Politi, RD, MPH, nutrition manager for the Duke Diet and Fitness Center at Duke University Medical School. She states; "When you don't eat breakfast, you're actually fasting for 15 to 20 hours, so you're not producing the enzymes needed to metabolize fat to lose weight." In fact, sumo wrestlers don't eat until late in the day for the sole purpose of gaining weight. If you don't eat breakfast, you are actually following the sumo wrestler diet. Now, that is a scary thought.

Keep Your Metabolism Going All Day

With the right mechanisms in place, your body will naturally burn fat. But, what are the right mechanisms? That's your job; to find your body's balance between energy consumed and energy burned. Metabolism is the name of the game. When you eat healthy small meals, starting early in the morning, your metabolism is set in full swing, mobilizing and converting fat stores into energy.

When you eat breakfast along with regular snacks and small meals throughout the day, your body gets the nutrition it needs and goes to work, breaking down your food into energy. If you wait until you're starving before you eat anything, that gnawing feeling in your stomach is telling you something. Your body will start by robbing your muscle tissue of anything it needs first, like protein, then it will store fat because it thinks it's in famine mode. By eating early and often, not only are you protecting the muscle that supports your frame and allows you to walk, sit, and stand, but you are also keeping your metabolism going so it works all day to give you energy.

Simple Weight Loss Tips to Get You Started:

1. Eat slowly.

It takes twenty minutes for your stomach to tell your brain you are full. Don't eat and run. You'll be looking for your next meal way before you need it.

2. Pick out foods you need to chew.

Try apples, whole grain hearty breads, celery, and other raw vegetables. These foods will slow down your eating and satisfy your chewing instinct. Raw nuts are another option. Just be sure to monitor the serving sizes as you snack.

3. Drink 6 to 8 glasses of cold water per day.

This helps to feel full and as your body works to raise the temperature of the water, you are burning calories. Keep bottles of water filled in the refrigerator and sip, sip, sip.

4. Eat your fruit

Eating oranges is much more satisfying than just drinking the juice. Keep this thought when choosing other fruits and vegetables. Whole is usually better.

5. Healthy snacks

Have a healthy snack before you start cooking dinner. This will help with overeating while preparing the meal, and after. Munching on celery is the perfect way to keep you satisfied while cooking.

6. Low fat sweet fix

If you need a sweet treat, just remember that frozen yogurt, angel food cake, and sherbet are all low fat. Low carb diets are low sugar diets, which often forbid fruit. In this case, one tiny piece of dark chocolate may be an option. This may leave you satisfied without all the sugar or carbs. You have to experiment to find the right treat for your sweet tooth that fits your diet.

7. Do not starve yourself

The less you eat, the more your body protects itself and begins to go into starvation mode, holding on to more food, storing it as fat and robbing your muscles of nutrients. Make sure you eat a good breakfast to start your day right. Then, keep your metabolism working throughout the day with small meals and healthy snacks.

Stop starving yourself so your body can relax and start to lose that weight. Adding foods instead of subtracting foods? It's so crazy it might just work.

Tips For You On A Diet For Lowering High Cholesterol And Losing Weight

If you have high cholesterol it is important to get yourself on a diet for lowering cholesterol and losing weight. Many Americans worry about their cholesterol levels, especially those who are over weight. In most cases the first step in resolving your high cholesterol and shedding those extra pounds; is changing your diet. You will discover some pretty convincing evidence, in this article, which will convince you, to improve your health by losing weight and lowering your cholesterol.

A recent study completed by The School of Medicine at Stanford University showed that with both diet and exercise, you can significantly reduce your cholesterol and get rid of the extra weight. The study was done with over 300 men and women with high cholesterol. In order to control the groups the first group was put on a low fat diet. Then the second was put on the same diet with an exercise program.

After a year the group with both diet and exercise had lower cholesterol. The group that didn’t incorporate exercise didn’t have a loss as significant as the first group.

Eating a low cholesterol diet has shown to lower cholesterol by 8% to 20%. There are a few low cholesterol diets that have proven to work well. These diets include; the Dash Diet, The South Beach Diet, The Ultra Metabolism Diet, and The Weight Watchers Diet. Every one of these diets has online programs or books to guide you through the diet with menu plans and instructions.

As an addition to your low cholesterol diet you should make sure to eat plenty of Vitamin C. Vitamin C is used to fix natural cracks and fractures in your arteries. If you don’t get enough Vitamin C your body will substitute it with cholesterol. If you make sure to get enough of the vitamin as part of your low cholesterol diet, your liver will not be forced to produce excess cholesterol.

In another study done, with sixty heart bypass surgery patients, it was shown that eating grapefruit everyday lowers your cholesterol. The study had the patients divided into three groups. One group was given red grapefruit. One group was given white grapefruit.

However the last group was not given any grapefruit and had no diet restrictions. The study showed that the groups that ate grapefruit regularly as part of a low cholesterol diet showed a significant drop in cholesterol. Whereas the group without restrictions, which didn’t eat any grapefruit, didn’t show any drop in cholesterol.

Additional studies have shown that women that have eaten five to six smaller meals had lower cholesterol and better weight control; than those that ate fewer larger meals. If you eat many small meals with a low cholesterol diet and fewer calories you will be able to lower your cholesterol by about 5% and drop your weight.

There is no question, having high cholesterol and being over weight, is very dangerous to your health. However, if you suffer from being over weight and high cholesterol there are some simple things you can do to lower both your weight and high cholesterol level.

As the above information indicated it doesn’t have to be complicated. Simply get yourself on a diet for lowering high cholesterol, combine it with a good exercise program and you are on your way to better health.

Eat Out To Lose Weight With A Restaurant Calorie Counter

A restaurant calorie counter can be a dieter’s best friend. Losing weight isn’t easy, so you need to take steps to make it as easy as possible on yourself. One way to do this is to not limit yourself to just bland home meals and a life where you never eat out for fear of not being able to maintain your diet the way you want to. With a restaurant calorie counter, you won’t have to.

There’s no doubt that losing weight is difficult. The rate of obesity is soaring and it’s not because people are trying to gain weight, sumo wrestlers excepted. In general, more than 95 percent of people who do manage to lose weight won’t be able to keep it off. Many people manage to gain and lose hundreds of pounds over their lifetime. When something is this difficult, you need to take every step you can to make it as easy as possible.

This includes eating out, or grabbing things on the fly, which is where a restaurant calorie counter comes in handy. We’d all like to be able to be able to do up our food at home, eat perfectly all day and come back to prepare a nutritionally flawless means for dinner, all with a smile on your face.

But in reality, this doesn’t happen. People sleep late, work late, and sometimes the boss wants you to have lunch with him. It’s a rare person who can get by without buying their food already prepared at some point. Unless your eating out is going to consist of glasses of water, you’re going to need a restaurant calorie counter.

A restaurant calorie counter is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It’s a guide to the calories and nutrient contents of things you find in restaurants. Generally, these will be available for all chain type restaurants, fast food and otherwise, but a very good restaurant calorie counter will also have very famous restaurants, and it is possible to get copies that have local information, as well.

The local restaurants are actually a flaw in using a restaurant calorie counter; even those that have restaurants are forced to estimate. This isn’t necessarily a huge problem, but bear in mind that if you’re eating at Uncle Joe’s Wings and Things you’re going to have to estimate.

A good way to do this, if you’re eating in a place where you’re going to be eating a lot but the place isn’t listed in your restaurant calorie counter, is to get your favorites as take out. Once you have them, measure them and then find something in the counter that’s pretty close and work out how many calories are in each one.

Either way, a restaurant calorie counter can be key to your weight loss success, regardless of the type of diet you’re on. If you’re using a controlled calorie plan, then you can easily look up the calorie count and adjust. Or you can choose dishes with the right amount of fat or carbs for your plan. Every diet is easier with a restaurant calorie counter.

The Truth About The Subway Diet

So you want to get rid of a few unsightly pounds. Maybe you’ve even tried some of the traditional diets out there and they just don’t work. Maybe it’s because you don’t have the time to cook your own healthy meals, let alone time to weigh and measure ingredients and count calories.

Maybe your weight gain is due to the fact that you eat most of your meals either at work or on the go. If this describes you, then you may want to consider a diet that is considered non-traditional but certainly has worked for many people, including the man who invented it. Maybe the Subway diet would be right for you.

Before getting into what the Subway diet is, it is best to understand more about the creator of this diet, Jared Fogle. Jared Fogle around 1997 decided that he needed to lose weight. He weighed approximately 430 pounds, and was consuming approximately 10,000 calories per day.

It was when his roommate in college a pre-med student correctly diagnosed Jared with sleep apnea and edema. Jared went to the hospital for some tests. His father, a physician, told Jared the sobering news that if he continued on like this, he would most probably not live past 35.

Jared decided he was going to go on the Subway diet. Subway was his favorite place to eat, so he figured he wouldn’t really be sacrificing a lot. Every day for lunch he would have a 6 inch turkey sandwich and every night he would eat a 12 inch veggie sub. Within the span of 3 months, Jared lost 100 pounds.

Spurred by this success, he then started to walk everywhere. Instead of taking an elevator he would take stairs. The exercise, combined with eating the low fat low calorie Subway sandwiches, helped Jared to eventually lose 240 pounds. Jared now weighs 190 pounds. Eventually, Subway found out about him, and paid him to be their spokesperson.

1. So why exactly does the Subway diet work?

The subway diet worked for Jared and anyone else who goes on it, because of two factors: Portion control and caloric intake. If you stick with the subs that are low fat and are low calorie and avoid mayo, cheese, and oils, you are limiting the amount of fats and calories that you consume.

By sticking with a 6 inch and a 12 inch sandwich you are controlling how much you eat. Jared also walked a lot. Therefore, he was not only limiting how much he ate, his fat and caloric intake, but was exercising on top of it.

2. Was it strictly the Subway food?

Yes and no. Subway offers many healthier types of foods than most other fast food restaurants. It wasn’t specifically the Subway food; it was as mentioned above, the fact that Jared was not consuming high calorie, high fat foods. He was exercising regularly.

You could do what Jared did with just about any fast food restaurant. You just have to pick foods that are low fat and low calorie. Most fast food restaurants have their nutrition information available upon request.

3. Is the Subway diet right for me?

You should always consult a doctor before you begin any type of weight loss or exercise plan. It is suggested that if you decide to do the Subway diet that you include more vegetables and fruits into your diet. Jared skipped breakfast. This was a mistake. He could have easily prepared a low fat, low calorie, breakfast which included fruits. For example, a low fat fruit smoothie is a good option.

If you do eat on the go or a lot of fast food and you talk about it with your doctor then the Subway diet may be right for you. Though Subway offers more healthy choices, you don’t have to stick strictly with Subway. You just have to find the low fat, low calorie foods in other fast food restaurants. Be sure to get plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables too.

It Is Important To Know How To Use Elliptical Machines Properly

Using elliptical machines, such as the2 in 1 Elliptical Cross Trainer & Exercise Bike, are very beneficial if you know how to use them. I know it is Often the easiest to just use the equipment rather than getting to know a little bit about them. Knowing how they work can help you use them properly and get the most out of your workout. By not knowing your elliptical machine you stand the danger of injuries and wasting your time.

Elliptical machines were designed to hit all of those target areas that so many people are struggling to keep in good enough shape, but because of the improper training and usage of these elliptical machines, many people simply give up too quickly with the resultant waste of money. Your training routine should not only consist of using the elliptical machines, you should also consider changing your diet, dramatically if you are living off of junk foods and fast food restaurants. You are the only one who can truly make a difference as to how you feel about your body weight, it is up to you, so decide to work harder from now on.

By working hard on making some changes within your life, to change the way that you look and feel, the benefits will definitely start happening, and once you begin seeing those first signs or results, you will be very satisfied with the results, there is for sure no doubt about that. The elliptical machines can be used as often as you like, but normally people who are beginners with any type of exercise program, would only need to do it for about 30-45 minutes, three or four days a week. That small amount of time out of your busy schedule can make all the difference in the world, when it comes to looking and feeling 100% better about yourself and your new and improved healthier lifestyle.

Aging is something that none of us can avoid, but did you know that eating healthy and exercising can help with slowing down the aging process? By doing healthier things within your life, you are adding healthier years to your life, as well as improving all other aspects of your overall health and wellness. By using the elliptical machines and keeping your heart rate up to its maximum during your workout, you are making unimaginable improvements that can lengthen your life tremendously.

Anything positive that you can do, whether it is training on elliptical machines or quitting smoking will help and it is never too late to start a new and improved lifestyle. These changes will last you a lifetime, believe me when I say that. All of the people who care about you, truly want you to be happier and healthier so that they can enjoy having you around for many years to come. So, it is never too late to choose a healthier lifestyle, but it does get more difficult as we grow older, so think about this while you are still young.