A New Year – A New You
Another Year
It’s January – again, and you make the resolution (again) to eat less, exercise more and lose that weight — once and for all. As in years past you start down that path to success, but another year ends and the weight never came off!
Take the heat off yourself and realize that the answer might not lie on your plate after all — it could all be in your brain. Many experts say weight loss is as much a psychological battle as it is a physical one. If a successful weight loss plan is your resolution this year, then it’s time to get your mind right.
Get with a program.
Maintaining weight loss can be as much of a challenge as losing the weight! In fact, one weight loss study showed that 80 percent of participants who lost weight gained it back within five years (and sometimes more).
A Yale School of Nursing study interviewed 18 women who had maintained weight loss for an average of seven years. The most common factor among them was joining a formal weight loss program. A formal weight loss plan might involve keeping track of your food intake, exercise recommendations or meetings with other dieters. It also has accountability built in!
Write it out
Keeping a daily diary helps you keep on track and check your honesty. If you’re not recording your food intake, it’s easy to fall into denial about how many calories you’ve actually consumed. A study by the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research showed dieters who kept a food journal lost twice as much weight as those who didn’t. The study included 1,700 overweight or obese participants from around the U.S. The key to their success was being able to visualize how much they were eating and identify problem patterns.
Keys to a Healthier Year.
- Be Accountable: In a study published in the research journal Obesity, researchers at Drexel University found that individuals who did not weigh themselves often were more likely to gain back weight they had lost. Those who weighed themselves regularly maintained their weight loss and reported lower BMIs.
- Set SMART Goals: Sometimes (well, really most times) making unrealistic weight loss goals is a dangerous road to failure. Goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-limited. According to the Mayo Clinic, an example of a SMART goal for weight loss is aiming to walk for 30 minutes a day, five days a week for the next three months, and logging your results.
- Listen to Your Inner You: Tune in to your body’s own cues of hunger as well as the specific taste or texture of food. For example, pay close attention to the crunchiness and sweetness of an apple as you chew it. Researchers found that individuals who focused on satisfying and pleasurable eating — not food restriction — were more likely to avoid emotional eating and psychological distress. And your body will love it, too!
It’s a New Year with a New You.
Live it!
Love It!
Do It!
Is A Gluten-Free Diet For You?
Diet Crazes?
The newest diet lately is Gluten-free diets. But, is this the best course of action to help you lose weight?
Let’s start by looking at what is gluten. Gluten is a protein found in grains such as wheat, barley and rye. Gluten can be found in many products one would not normally associate with this protein, such as toothpaste or hair gel, as well as many other products we use everyday.
For some people gluten can cause problems. Most notably, gluten causes inflammation of the intestines in those people with celiac, a genetic disease. People with celiac disease, gluten allergies or even gluten sensitivity can experience intestinal discomfort, diarrhea and unhealthy weight loss. The protein can even cause reactions in the skin, mouth and lungs of people with a gluten allergy. The best way to alleviate these symptoms is to simply avoid foods containing gluten.
Gluten-Free Risks
Most nutritionists do not recommend eliminating gluten from your diet unless you absolutely have to. This is because eliminating wheat and related grains can mean missing vital nutrients. Unless these vitamins and minerals are replaced through other foods or nutritional supplements, a gluten-free diet can be risky. These nutrients include:
• Calcium – necessary for bone density and prevention of osteoporosis.
• Folate – contributes to healthy blood glucose and blood pressure levels and helps the body ward of fatigue.
• Iron – necessary for many body functions such as oxygen transport and metabolism.
• Niacin – shown to help the body maintain healthy blood sugar and cholesterol levels.
• Riboflavin – necessary for normal cell function, growth and energy production as well as cognitive function.
• Thiamin – involved in numerous body functions, including nervous system and muscle functioning.
Additionally, most gluten-free foods are higher in calories, lower in fiber (needed for digestion and absorption), and have higher carbohydrates. This alone can make you gain weight, not lose.
Is It For You?
So, is a gluten-free diet really the right solution? In my opinion, you should only consider going gluten-free if you think gluten is making you gain weight. To find out, try knocking out gluten-containing products in a slow, controlled process. Many people have said a sudden change in diet has caused unexpected problems, as if the body was going through withdrawal. Check out this website for information getting started on a gluten-free diet.
Lastly, if you are considering a gluten-free diet, include a high-quality, gluten-free nutritional supplement in your daily routine.
Eating Healthy While Traveling
Sticking to a nutritious, well-balanced diet while traveling can be one of the more challenging aspects to weight loss. However, if you learn how to make smart choices, a healthy diet is really not that difficult. It’s probably not the best time in which to start a healthy diet, but if you are currently making healthy choices in your foods already, modifying your diet slightly when you travel, is not as difficult as it first may seem. And, if you’re like most people you’ll want to sample the areas’ cuisine!
If you are traveling by air, your diet may have to include airline food, which can be of poor nutritional value, depending on the selection. On short flights, however, your choices are limited. But you can carry on a sandwich, or something simple. When you book your flight, ask about your food options, ask if a vegetarian dish is available? Vegetarian dishes are sometimes more nutritional in this case, but it really depends on what they may be serving. If you can, eat a larger meal before your flight, so that you don’t have to eat the entire meal that is served, to feel satisfied. I have picked up a small meal in the kiosks or restaurants in the airport and carried that onto the plane.
If you’re traveling by car or taking a bus, you may be tempted to stop at fast food restaurants for a quick bite. As tempting as this sounds you should avoid those places whenever possible! Your best bet is to pack a cooler with sandwiches, crackers and cheese, or fruit for snacks. When you’re on vacation, you may wish to splurge a tiny bit, but having fast food more than once during a week can really be bad for your health. If you must, choose the healthiest options available, like chicken breasts and diet soda; or better yet choose salads and water or unsweetened iced tea. And if you’re driving, it’s always a good idea to eat lite to curb those upset stomachs that may occur with all of the bumps, moving and swaying while driving. Your best bet is to stop and sit down and eat, and enjoy the atmosphere.
Also, remember that you can take your own meals when traveling. Carrying a loaf of whole-wheat bread or pita wraps, some lean lunch meat, and low-fat cheese in a cooler is a great way to avoid high-fat and high-cholesterol junk food meals. These are much better choices and you’ll save a lot of money as well. Call ahead to ask if there will be a refrigerator in your hotel room.
Lastly, make smart choices when you eat out. If you choose salads or pasta get the dressing on the side and ask about low-carb options. In fact, many places print these dieting options directly in the menu for the health-conscious people. Control your portions by ordering lunch menu sizes or splitting the meal in half and getting a to-go bag, and you’ll be well on your way to healthy eating, even away from home.
Yes, eating healthy foods when you travel can be a challenge. However, your health is worth it. Eating meals high in nutrition will also assist in fighting illnesses that you are likely to encounter when traveling and you will find yourself more alert so that you can enjoy your trip.
Simple, Practical, Proven Ways to Lose Weight
In today’s marketplace, there are hundreds of weight loss gimmicks and deprivation diets that all scream for your attention; each promising lightning-fast weight loss. Unfortunately, most of these are unhealthy “programs” that may cause you to lose a few pounds quickly, but often result in even faster weight gain once you go back to your “normal” way of life.
So what’s the secret to healthy, safe and long-term weight loss? Well, there are actually some factors that are universally consistent and proven to work. The steps below are simple, common-sense, and tried-and-true ways that help you lose weight and keep it off. And you don’t need any expensive special equipment, exotic ingredients or a personal chef or trainer. Just set a goal, add a little determination and a lot of excitement and you’ll be well on your way to feeling better and looking great!
Cut Calories
Yes, we’ve all heard it a over and over. It seems like the first and simplest step, but we tend to underestimate just how many calories we actually consume each day. Here’s how to take control of calories:
- Get to know the right portion size. Was your morning cereal really just a 3/4-cup serving as listed on the box? Or was it actually double that? (And double the calories listed.) What’s a recommended serving size of meat? Just 3 to 4 ounces — about the size of a deck of cards. Yet a restaurant portion is usually at least twice that. At home, use your measuring cups for a while to “train” you on what different portion sizes look like.
- Shrink your plate. In the past 40 years, our dinner plate size has widened nearly 30 percent — along with our waistlines. We’ve been piling on more food to fill our bigger plates. The solution is simple: Use a smaller plate. It holds less food, yet it looks fuller. This little mind trick will satisfy your visual appetite while you’re eating fewer calories and shrinking your belly!
- Write it down. Grabbed a handful of M&Ms? Picked up a large latte? A nibble here and there racks up calories quickly, yet we often forget those indiscretions when we mentally tally what we ate for the day. Start a written daily diary of every morsel, every drop that passes your lips each day. Note the amount, time, and how you were feeling (Hungry? Bored? Anxious? Angry?) before you ate it. This habit will help you identify eating patterns in addition to showing you how much you really eat in a day and where you can cut back.
Move, Move, and Move Some More
OK, this is really the simplest step (pun intended) to take. Our bodies were designed to move. Sometimes the best exercise is what we were meant to do – WALK. How long, how often and how strenuous is up to how much your body can take. Remember, your body will actually tell you if you’ve done too much – through pain. So, don’t push it if this is not something you’ve done in the past.
- Frequency matters. While something is always better than nothing, if you’re trying to lose weight the tough-love advice is that you really need to get your heart-pumping every day. If up to now you’ve led a sedentary lifestyle then start with short walks of 30 minutes. Then increase the distance and time on a regular basis. Remember, if you experience pain back off, but don’t quit. The first time the mind says, “That’s it, I quit”, is when you go back to doing the old “One Day I’m Gonna” routine.
- Stretch the time. Ready for more boot-camp reality? While 30 minutes is a good starting point, your body launches into full-throttle fat-burning mode just after the 30-minute threshold. So push yourself to exercise for 45 to 60 minutes for maximum weight loss benefit. To meet your exercise quota, you may need to get up a half hour earlier each day. But the regular exercise will give you more energy to do that! It’s OK if you need to work up to a longer duration. Start with an amount you can handle (a doctor’s checkup first may be prudent) but be sure to challenge yourself by adding five to 10 minutes to your routine each week as you build your endurance.
- Intensify efforts. Truly don’t have the time to exercise for a full hour? Interval training, which includes short bursts of intense effort mixed in with moderate intensity, has been shown to burn fat and improve fitness even faster than longer exercise done at moderate pace. These short bursts of intense exercise can also be done in less time. To get the most from your efforts, alternate between pushing hard for one minute during walking, jogging, swimming or cycling and easing up for a minute. Do these intervals for 20 to 30 minutes.
- Stand up. Did you know that if you just stand for at least 10 minutes several times a day you can add hours to your life span? If you work at a desk, be sure to take breaks from sitting, even if just for a minute. Sitting puts your metabolism in park. A recent study shows those who take short breaks from sitting have smaller waistlines and better health. So stand up when you’re on the phone, deliver a message by “sneaker-net” rather than by e-mail, and visit the water cooler more often. Also, studies show people who take 11,000 daily steps (tallied by a pedometer) were more successful at maintaining weight loss than those who just took 5,000 steps a day.
- Add weight to your work out. When you’re working out with dumbbells, resistance tubes and your basic push-ups, crunches and squats, you’re burning calories as you build muscle. This one-two punch will help you look leaner faster — muscle takes up less space than fat. And muscle continues to burn more calories at rest. In addition, a 2006 study by the National Institutes of Health found that lifting weights just twice a week can prevent you from gaining intra-abdominal fat — the dangerous kind that envelops organs and constricts blood vessels.
Seek Support
In a study of more than 800 people on various diets, all participants lost weight by cutting calories. But participants who also regularly attended counseling sessions lost more than twice as much weight than those who didn’t attend counseling sessions. The take-home message: Peer support is essential for ongoing motivation and accountability. So find a weight-loss buddy who will cheer you on and go through the journey with you.
Join a team
To find a whole team of weight-loss support buddies, join the Team Reliv Fitness Club. You’ll be supported by hundreds of other Reliv Distributors and customers who are committed to exercise and are tracking their pounds and inches lost right alongside you. Sign up today!
Choose a partner
Another key support player is Reliv’s Slimplicity® Weight Loss System. The Slimplicity kit includes a delicious, calorie-controlled meal replacement shake, accelerator capsules to boost metabolism and burn fat, a food and exercise journal, a pedometer to track your steps, nutrition tips and online support. Slimplicity gives you a healthy advantage in your weight loss efforts. And it’s a great way to maintain your weight after you reach your goal.
XTreme Fat Loss Diet
Diets come and go. This is just a fact of life in our country. It’s also a fact that not all diets work for all people. Some diet “programs” promise fast weight loss and “easy-to-use” systems. But, when you need help (which we all do from time to time) there is not always the information that fits your circumstances.
Well, enter the Xtreme Fat Loss Diet. This is a complete dieting program designed to get you going in the right direction quickly, and help you maintain the weight loss over time.
Let’s face it: How many times have you gone on a crash diet, only to gain all of the weight back and more? The plain truth is your body rebels against this type of weight loss – and it should! And the more you try the more often the weight comes back – with a vengeance! So, what’s the solution?
The research and time that has gone into this program provides you with the ability to get those pounds off, and keep them off. OK, so how does it work, and why is this differet from other products out there? Simply put, this system merges:
- Strategic “Cheat Days”, when you indulge in your most intense cravings (we all have them);
- Strategically timed workouts when the body is primed to burn fat and then when it is extremely receptive to building muscle;
- Nutrient timing and nutrient manipulation to put your body in a “state” when YOU want it to be, for whatever YOU want to do, any time, any where.
The fact is the method to losing weight is the most direct avenue to success.
Look, this system works. And if it doesn’t – then just ask for your money back. But I’m betting you won’t.
