Weight Loss

Diet Competition is On!

My husband and I are sick and tired of not being able to fit properly in our summer clothes. We gained a little weight after a few weekends of family and friends and barbecues and such, and we really want to take off a little bit of weight.  I want to lose about 7 pounds – not too bad, I just want to be able to fit in my clothes again. It’s amazing what  huge different 7-8 pounds can make on me, I’m a woman with a small 5’4″ frame, and even 5 pounds can make a one size difference in my pants!

My husband wants to lose a little bit more weight than me. Perhaps about 15-20 pounds. He currently weighs about 200 pounds and stands at 6’3″ tall. Like me, he’s not necessarily ridiculously overweight, he’s just not in his comfort range and would like to feel better and fit in his clothes better.

It’s amazing the older you get, the less losing weight is about vanity and the more it is about things you can actually feel and that make your life a higher quality, like energy levels and better sleep.

Here is how we are going about this weight loss challenge. We’re making it fun. I have set up a pad of paper with a pencil in our master bathroom.  Every morning, we’ve agreed to write down our weight.  This will help us keep track of progress and see that weight in writing every morning as an extra boost of will power for eating and exercising throughout the day.

I have a few little “extras” that I will be practicing to help me in my first week or two so that I can shrink my stomach and get used to eating smaller portions, as well as control my cravings. I’m taking a weight loss quality hoodia natural appetite suppressant to help get me through.

This will give me power over my appetite and cravings without giving me any of the nervousness, heart palpitations or jitters that caffeinated and stimulant laced weight loss aids may cause.

I’m also going to be listening to my treasured weight loss hypnosis CD’s which will really help give me that subliminial, subconscious sort of boost to keep going on the right path toward weight loss and my goals of exercising more and doing the things I need to do in order to get back to my ideal weight.

Of course, a little friendly competition never hurts. We are competing in a way, but it’s more of a rah-rah we’re both cheering for eachother sort of thing, not a knock down drag out kind of competition.  We are both really on board with this endeavor, and it’s great to have a partner to go through a weight loss regimen with.

Is Low Quality of Sleep Linked to Weight Gain?

The human body has a necessity of sleep, quite logically, in order for it to function properly. You don’t want to ‘overheat’ the body’s mechanism by avoiding time required for rest with sleep included. During those approximate 7 hours of sleep there is a possibility of gaining weight, but not much and not overnight though.

A study in Finland that was made over 7.300 people among the age of 40 to 60 years showed that women are more likely to gain weight due to less sleeping time. The survey lasted 2 years and gave the results that women who had problems falling a sleep and then waking up just couple of hours later, gained about 11 pounds.

The situation is entirely different about men. They seem to not gain any weight at all if they have problems with sleeping.  This is probably due to the fact that the male body has a long history of physical strength and mobile capabilities. Since men, statistically, are more included in sports and activities, their body hardly waits for night to fall in order to get its proper rest.

It still stay unclear how could the male body stay unaffected by the sleeping problem. Probably because the number of men surveyed in the study is three times less than women (women 5.700 and men 1.300). But still, the number of men gaining weight in this group is almost zero.

However, many factors come in to play when it comes to weight loss or weight gain during sleep. The normal time of sleep is 7 hours in a 24 hour day. Many nutritionists recommend not eating before going to bed; in fact, not to eat after 7 PM. If you eat before sleep, the body must work to process the food. No quality sleep comes from a full stomach when the body is working and your eyes and brain try to sleep.

So sleeping under these circumstances can cause weight gain in time, but not overnight. The problem is that instead of waking up felling rested, you will wake up even more tired than when you went to bed.

Shifting the time of sleep, cutting the time of sleep, even continuing the time of sleep affects the metabolism and the appetite. Probably the worst combination is when you can’t fall a sleep on an empty stomach, which is very normal.

People in this situation must have a bite before going to bed, and then wake up the next morning feeling very tired. Even if they sleep for 9 hours they still need more time to sleep in order to have a fresh start.

Grapefruit with Each Meal and Drop Pounds?

I read something very interesting the other day. It was about a study that showed that people who ate a half of a grapefruit with every meal lost about 3.5 pounds in three months that were trying to lose weight. Now granted, the piece I read actually didn’t give specifics, like if these people were eating light all the way around, but I assume they were. I also made the assumption that the grapefruit sort of helped to satiate these people when eaten with every meal.

A sort of “built in dessert”, if you will, that helped them feel like they had all their essential fat, salt and sweets all in one meal, and therefore made them not crave any of the three major flavors after they were done. Grapefruit has almost always been considered a “diet fruit”.  It has long been speculated that grapefruits possess unique properties that help us to burn fat more readily and may also stabilize our blood sugar, which helps us to not eat as much food.

It helps us not eat as much food, or even crave it throughout the day because instead of eating more to stabilize our blood sugar, we can just have stable blood sugar by eating grapefruit with our meals.

Grapefruits apparently help you to burn fat and stabilize insulin levels because they lower your insulin levels after you consume a meal. Insulin spikes are known for causing cravings and increases in appetite, and are a major reason that people tend to over eat. That and a pesky little hormone called ghrelin, whose properties are just now being studied and better understood, are the major factors behind bingeing, over eating, and craving the worst kinds of food for weight management.

In other words, if someone could find the magic potion to kick ghrelin out of the picture, and minimize it’s effect on our bodies, would become instantly wealthy.  Who knows, maybe one of those new prescription weightloss meds that are going through the FDA in the next year or two for approval will fit that bill!

Eating 1,000 Calories or Less Can Make You Gain Weight!

Did you know that limiting your calories severely, such as 1,000 calories a day or less, can actually make your body put weight on?  It’s true! Although, there are of course cases where people do drop significant weight doing this, but in the short term, cutting your calories that significantly actually backfires on you if your goal is to lose body weight by doing it.  How could the be, I mean 1,000 calories a day is basically like eating for a bird, right!

Well, as you may or may not be aware, your body has many survival mechanisms against starvation, and when you suddenly limit your caloric intake that severely, your body reacts by trying to hang on to and store those calories and fat stores that you already have, all that much more voraciously.  This is because this is your body’s instinctual self preservation mode that kicks in and helps your body to maintain what it already has so that it can continue to live off of the same body fat for a longer period of time.

The body really is truly an amazing survival mechanism if you think about it!  We all know that 1,000 calories a day is extremely hard to maintain, and you cannot function on this little bit of calories, neither mentally or physically, without suffering consequences. This is why people who have severe eating disorders have a hard time concentrating and focusing, and often times have damaged organs – especially the heart. Your body was meant to have enough nourishment, or fuel, in the form of food and liquids, to sustain it to do all of the functions that it needs to in one day.

When you think of all the functions your body performs in just one day, it’s positively mind boggling at what a perfect machine it is, and it becomes more clear that we really must put the right kinds of “fuel” into our bodies if we are to have any hope of them running smoothly up until we end up exiting this world.  Kinda sounds like a car, eh?  It’s true though. If you want your body to run right, you really have to be willing to put the many times more expensive “high octane” stuff in that gives your body the extra kick that it needs to get you through the day, and to do it the right way.

An Apple a Day Takes on a New Meaning If You’re Dieting

I have to admit, I have a love/hate relationship with apples.  I usually have to be in a very specific mood to actually want to consume an apple.  When I am, they taste delicious, and nothing else but their taut, firm skin and juicy inside will do to suppress your hunger.  However, if I’m not in the mood, and more specifically, if the apple is nor organic and of a variety that I really like, then I pretty much have to force myself to gag the apple down, knowing that it’s one of the healthiest, most portable snacks I can possibly put in my body.

That’s why it’s so challenging to eat healthy all the time though. Our bodies naturally crave crap, to put it simply. And, when we’ve been on a crap bender, eating whatever we want for days or weeks at a time, and then have to get back in the habit of eating healthy snacks like apples instead of something like say, chips and dip, then our bodies naturally rebel. Quite simply, we have grown used to the chemicals, the fats and sugars in all the processed and fattening foods, and our bodies go through nothing other than what I can describe as withdrawal.

These are the times when it’s all the much more important to reaquaint yourself with the apple. Not only does it help cleanse out all the bad stuff you were eating, but it gradually gets your body used to the natural sugars again, and how wonderful they can taste once you’ve gotten all the processed cravings out of your system.

Apples contain so many good things for you body, but I will tell you that I only recommend the organic variety. Apples are sprayed with chemical pesticides a lot if they are not organic. They are also irradiated to preserve freshness longer. I can tell you that both of these processes not only rob the apple of some of it’s nutrients, but they also completely ruin it’s flavor, in my opinion. If you don’t believe me, try a fresh, organic apple as opposed to a regular old grocery store produce section non organic apple, and you tell me.  You should notice quite a difference in texture and flavor that will leave you appreciation the apples’ naturally light sweetness and delicate flavor much more fervently!

Apples contain tons of fiber. Wanna get regular?  Eat apples!  They contain a special fiber called pectin that has been thought to really help dieters even more because it is so filling and cleansing to the digestive tract.  Apples have actually been pegged as an excellent food to eat in the morning because they supposedly help you to wake up!  They are low calorie, with a larger apple clocking in at about 60 to 80 calories, every bit usable and beneficial to your body.

Apples also contain some powerful antioxidants that not only help to fight free radicals but also help in the anti aging fight by keeping cells healthy longer and tissues more supple and healthy.  They also contain flavanoids, which are excellent for the body.  I like them most because they are super filling. I can eat a half an apple after dinner and it totally makes me full for hours longer than if I had just eaten dinner with no apple “dessert”.  They are truly the dieters friend – and the person who watches their weight would be smart to add these to their repertoire.

In Dieting, It’s Better to Have a Partner

I’m writing this, thinking about how much easier it is for me, personally, to diet and lose weight, when my husband is 100% on board with me.  The reason is that I do a lot of the cooking in the house, but we both do the grocery shopping, and it’s awfully hard to keep the cupboards free of non weight friendly items like tons of processed, starchy, sugary and fatty foods, when your partner is not on the same wavelength as you, and you find yourself staring at the fruits of his shopping endeavors, drooling and tempted to take a cookie instead of an apple, or something like that.

I find that when we’re both on board, we foster almost a friendly competition as well, and although when he is laser focused on losing weight, since he’s a man, he tends to drop the weight a lot quicker than I do (damn him!), I find it really fun when we are comparing notes on what the scale said and whether or not we worked out that day, and having that little bit of friendly competition going on, especially when I’m winning – hey  didn’t say I was always the best sport, did I!?

At any rate, it’s so easy to fall prey to the group mentality. For example, if he says “oh screw it, let’s order pizza for dinner”, I’m apt to think the same way and dismiss it as “well, if he’s willing to not lose the weight as quickly, then it’s ok if I do the same”.  I mean, after all, we’re married, and I suppose that growing heavier or thinner together is ok, but that’s not really what my mind tells me, it tells me that we should both be healthy and live as long as we can for eachother.  However, as we all know, your belly’s cravings can often win out over your mind’s power of persuasion.

However, don’t let me fool you into thinking I’m always the angel. There are plenty of times where I just don’t feel like cooking, or maybe I’ve been PMS’ing and really want McDonalds and chocolate, and so I bring that home or suggest it. And he rarely refuses me either, so there we are both setting eachother back. But when we’re on a real weightloss jag, we spur eachother on, and we don’t let the other one go when they’ve screwed up, so it’s kind of an incentive to not screw up and to lose the weight quickly, otherwise, you are kind of embarrassed at getting reprimanded about messing up and eating the wrong thing or falling off the wagon. See, marriage is good for dieting – but you both have to be on the same page with the goals!

Can a “Cheat Day” Help You Attain Weight Loss Goals?

More and more diet plans and weight loss programs are calling for the infamous “one day cheat” allowance, which allows the dieter to have one single day where they can cheat and eat whatever they want. Many people choose to make this day a Saturday or Sunday, simply because that may have been their worst eating day to begin with.

I know that the Body for Life plan calls for a cheat day, and I’ve been hearing more and more of the diet plans that are out there allowing this as well, most notably in my recent diet book history being the Fat Smash Diet, where you eat a lot of whole grains and a little bit of protein during the week with lots of veggies and fiber, and then you get your one cheat day on the weekend.

I remember how much my then boyfriend, now husband, and I used to look forward to those once a week luxuries. We reveled in it actually. The funny thing is, you’d think we would stuff ourselves to the gills and sabotage our weight loss goals, but we really didn’t over do it, we just made sure we got to eat what we really felt like eating.

So say if I had a nasty craving for pizza with the works, or maybe for a big greasy cheeseburger and french fries or onion rings, I would make sure I had that on my one cheat day, and that made me feel like I could always go for one week – heck, what’s one week – before I got to eat what my heart’s desire was for that previous week. When you think about it that way, dieting feels less like deprivation and more like something that mere mortals are not only perfectly capable of, but that in the end, we actually may enjoy our bad food even more.

As long as you don’t totally go overboard and consume five thousand calories or something like that, and you make sure you don’t let the bad eating spill over into the next day, or that nex and the next and so on and so forth, then you are perfectly ok to do one cheat day a week when following a diet. I think it actually helps you stick to the diet more readily, and it definitely makes life a little more interesting on the weekends.

The really cool part is that you almost forget how good really tasty, fattening or sugar foods taste, and when you do finally taste them again, it’s like a flavor explosion in your mouth, it’s like tasting food for the first time again, and that gives you a whole new appreciation for good food.

Regrouping After Pig Outs

Man, is it hard to get back into the swing of things after you go on vacation, when considering your diet. My now husband and I typically eat a pretty healthy diet, but we also enjoy a little gluttony in fattening, salty and sugary foods that are a diet no no as well. Hey, what can I say?

We love food in general, and we find that eating a variety of foods is fun and makes life more interesting instead of always denying yourself the pleasure of indulgence. While that may not be the best attitude for our waistlines, and admittedly we do tend to fluctuate between certain weights a lot, it’s a simple fact of life for us.

As long as you can always reign it back in after you have a bad day or a bad couple of days is the key to maintaining a somewhat healthy weight and maintaining that weight. If you start going on multi-week or month pig out periods though, that’s when you know, you have some serious recalibrations to do when it comes to your mental state and also to the foods that you’ve become chemically accustomed too.

After all, it’s not just all psychological, when you pig out for a period of time, your body becomes accustomed to heavier tastes, and when you begin to eat healthy again, it can naturally rebel against what tastes like more bland food, craving things that have more flavor, and resulting in a misstep or two.

One of the ways I like to get back in the groove is listen to one of the self hypnosis cd’s for weightloss that I have. These can really dig into your subconscious mind and help you to overcome those cravings and desires for fattening and weight gaining foods. They attack the desires at a level where you don’t even necessarily understand what’s happening.

After I listen to these cd’s, I have a renewed commitment to myself and to my body, and it makes me understand again, on a deeper level, that eating badly is actually an act of contrition against my body, which is my “temple” so to speak. It really reinforces being kind to yourself and treating your body right on a deep, subconscious level that cannot be easily altered.

I also like to try to focus on things in my life other than food. I try to laser focus on my outside interests and my job, for instance, so that food takes a backseat to the truly more important things in life, and I actually find myself being more productive. You’d be amazed with what just taking the focus off food can do for your creativity and productivity, that alone is a huge incentive to get off the pigout wagon and get back on the track of eating right for your body and mind.

The Lean Cuisine Diet

I must say that I wasn’t really always a fan of promoting prepackaged meals, with what I felt was inferior nutrition, tiny microscopic portions, and high sodium. However, when you add some healthy sides to a Lean Cuisine, or other prepackaged frozen premade meal that is low in calories and fat, you have a perfectly potioned meal that is ideal if you are trying to lose weight.

My fiance and I have lost a lot of weight together eating this way when we’re dieting to actively lose weight, and you can too, but it does take discipline, as you are a bit hungry when you’re done, especially after dinner, when it’s most important that you don’t pig out, but this is also many times the time of day we choose to eat the most, and it’s hard to break that habit.

If you can break that habit, and eat a healthy breakfast of your choice, and just eat Lean Cuisines, Healthy Choice frozen entrees, or Smart Ones or some other comparable weight watching frozen meal, and add foods to it so that the meals total around 500 calories, you’d be surprised how fulfilling they can be. It’s especially nice because you can still eat foods that feel “naughty” like lasagna and eggrolls, just be aware that you need to pick the most filling foods for their nutrition and calorie content to be successful with this method of dieting so you stick to it without starving yourself.

When we follow this easy, somewhat inexpensive diet, we usually will steam some broccoli or asparagus to go with the meals for lunch and dinner. If you try to eat them without supplementing with yoru own steamed veggies, you won’t be full, I can almost guarantee that. My fiance also uses the trick of filling up more with a diet soda. I’m not crazy about the health aspect of diet soda, but the bubbles do fill you up more, so you could even try a seltzer water if you’re concerned with the artificial sweeteners.

Like I mentioned earlier, the key to success with this kind of diet is to supplement with plenty of fibrous veggies, to fill you up and add the much needed nutrition and vitamins and fiber that I feel most frozen meals are lacking. I always load up at breakfast and eat about a 450-500 calorie breakfast to prepare me for a day of eating low calorie meals, and that seems to set the stage well for eating a low-fuel diet all day.

This kind of diet is highly successful as long as you follow the rules and also don’t yield to the temptation of overeating at dinner. Fill up on water at dinner to help maintain satiety until you go to bed. You’ll feel pounds lighter in the morning, I can assure you! It’s easy, it’s quick, and minimum hassle, especially if you work two jobs like me!

High Fiber Diet Key to Permanent Weight Loss

Did you know that on average, most Americans are almost a full ten grams short of getting the recommended daily allowance of dietary fiber in their diet? That’s really alarming, considering that fiber is what fills us up and what makes foods whole and satisfying to eat. It’s also a huge key to regulating your blood sugar and making sure that you “stay regular”, which helps you to regulate your weight and keep the pounds off after you lose initial weight. I know I myself probably come up short during the day in my fiber intake, so if I do, I really try to make sure I make up for it with dinner by eating mostly vegetables, a little bit of meat, and a big salad with dark leaves, like spinach instead of iceberg lettuce.

Studies have actually proven that people with high fiber diets keep weight off longer and also lose more weight initially when they are going through the weight loss process. To the tune of 2 to 3 more pounds, which is nothing to sneeze at! I read once that we are actually subconsciously drawn to high fiber foods because nature has made them brightly colored, like fruits and veggies that are high in vitamins, antioxidants and fiber such as blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and grapes.

Also, whole grains are tasty, giving us that hankering we get for refined carbs, without all that refined sugar, and with a lot of dietary fiber to boot, which – you guessed it, fills the belly and helps regulate the blood sugar for a longer period of time than those foods without the fiber content. They also are easier for the body to get rid of the food – as in to not clog up the colon and the intestines, which can add pounds on and build up toxins in the body.

The reason that it’s called “roughage” or bulk is because it actually acts as a bulking agent for your waste (ie bowel movements), and makes it easier for the body to process and get rid of it. Foods that have zero fiber need to be counteracted by a lot of water and by eating other foods with a high fiber content in between so that your body can process and eliminate these foods, as well as digest them properly, which helps you to absorb nutrients and vitamins better and contributes to your overall health and well being.