Fat Kills You

Here’s what to do if you want to wear that slinky black dress, and stay sane:

1. Make sure that you’re not being neurotic and overly body conscious.

Meditate. Try to catch yourself naked unawares in a full length mirror. Find out your ideal height-weight ratio. Get some amateur photos taken of yourself in casual clothes. Try to be detached and objective.

Overweight is sometimes a state of mind instead of body. What trauma or childhood inadequacy causes you to see yourself as fat and undesirable, when medically you’re normal, or just a little full figured?

If you are definitely a fatty:

2. Meditate. Try to home in on the reason you are overweight.

Is it genetic; are your family ‘big-boned’? If not, what need are you trying to fill by stuffing yourself; are you anxious, insecure, do you have family or money or sexual troubles? If so deal with THEM and your need to eat will be easier to beat.

Eating is pleasurable; we get a rush of blood sugar which makes us temporarily feel good, and having a full stomach makes us feel sleepy and calmed down. Are you going for the effect rather than the nourishment?

Can’t seem to get the energy or motivation to exercise? Forget exercise - go play. For most of us exercise is a chore. So many people hate to exercise, or just can’t get motivated to start an exercise program. If you are one of those, forget about exercise, go play.

Make it a point to play everyday. Find a partner. Go golfing, swimming, shoot baskets, tennis, volleyball, play catch, any kind of sport that gets you moving. Every day. You may need a different partner each day - find one.

Get on your bicycles and go siteseeing. Get with a partner or group and go horseback riding. Go to the parks and explore the trails. Play volleyball, badminton, anything to become active. Remember to start slow and work your way up to playing an hour or two each day.

Set a schedule for each activity one day each week. Pre-arrange with a partner to play every day, make each one a weekly event. You will need anything from one to seven partners to keep active all week.

Anxiety sufferers are usually at a loose end after trying methods such as Cognitive Behavioral Techniques, Hypnosis, Sessions with psychologists, Meditation, Herbal Alternatives and probably the most popular of them all is Medications such as anti-depressants and Benzodiazepine’s.

Now I was no different to any other sufferer, I was pulling my hair out in the hopes of one of these alternatives would kick in and free me of this dreadful nightmare that I lived, day in and day out for years. Unable to leave my house in fear something dreadful was going to happen to me.

But after plenty of research I did eventually eliminate my anxiety and panic disorder. And it certainly wasn’t from taking medications, or hypnosis or CBT or any of the worlds most practiced techniques (which have always given a rather poor response in curing anxiety and panic attacks).

Two Steps to Begin the Healing Process

Step One…

Acceptance

Maybe you’ve heard about body dysmorphia ? it’s a mental image many victims of anorexia nervosa have that tells them they look fat, even when they are emaciated. Bariatric patients can suffer from body dysmorphia as well.

When we were morbidly obese our emotional coping mechanisms kicked in and many of us were able to convince ourselves we really weren’t that big. It is emotionally kinder to avoid body criticism, the whole issue seems hopeless. In fact, many morbidly obese patients will say they see themselves normal sized. That is until a rude moment reminds them they are not normal sized: a skinny chair, a turnstile, a bathroom stall, a flight of stairs, a photograph. This false perception is a subconscious coping strategy to protect us from the brutal truth, the truth about how big morbidly obese really is.

My sister and I were clothes shopping one day with our morbidly obese mother. She tried an outfit and complained to us, "but it makes me look fat." And gently we told her, "Mom, you are fat." Intellectually my mother knows she is morbidly obese, but the emotional issues run over reason and she doesn’t see herself fat. She is in serious denial that is preventing her from getting the help she needs ? bariatric surgery ? to save her life.

Do calories matter or do you simply need to eat certain foods and that will guarantee you’ll lose weight? Should you count calories or can you just count "portions?" Is it necessary to keep a food diary? Is it unrealistic to count calories for the rest of your life or is that just part of the price you pay for a better body?

You’re about to learn the answers to these questions and discover a simple solution for keeping track of your food intake without having to crunch numbers every day or become a fanatic about your food.

In many popular diet books, "Calories don’t count" is a frequently repeated theme. Other popular programs, such as Bill Phillip’s “Body For Life,” allude to the importance of energy intake versus energy output, but recommend that you count "portions" rather than calories?

Phillips wrote,

“There aren’t many people who can keep track of their calorie intake for an extended period of time. As an alternative, I recommend counting ‘portions.’ A portion of food is roughly equal to the size of your clenched fist or the palm of your hand. Each portion of protein or carbohydrate typically contains between 100 and 150 calories. For example, one chicken breast is approximately one portion of protein, and one medium-sized baked potato is approximately one portion of carbohydrate.”

The body is just mind-bogglingly amazing. I mean, when you think of all the complicated bio-physiological things it does by itself without your help?

So what’s up with all of that when you get sick? Why is it healthy one day and sick the next? Is your body trying to tell you it’s low on pharmaceutical drugs? Or it is saying, "Look what happens, when you’re feeding me nothing but junk food."

In my opinion, if a person incorporates a certain amount of a new type of supplement called "glyconutrients" into their diet, they can still eat junk food - well, every now and then - and still be healthier than most people.

Let me backtrack a little. You may not know it, but there’s a very fast growing, new area of science called glycobiology. The "glyco" part of the name means "sweet." In a nutshell, glycobiology has to do with how cells communicate with each other. Scientists have uncovered 8 highly specific sugar molecules or saccharides that are vital for correct, disease-free functioning of your cells.

Now, this is very cutting edge stuff, and most doctors in the U.S. don’t have any idea it’s even on the horizon. So right now, you probably know more about glyconutrition than your doctor does.

We know we need to eat a minimum of 5 servings of fruit and vegetables everyday. Actually now, to prevent cancer, 8 to 13 servings per day are recommended. A serving is one cup of raw fruits or vegetables, or ½ cup cooked. At a recent lecture I asked a lunch audience to raise their hand if they had at least one fruit or vegetable already that day. No one in that group raised their hand. This is not uncommon. Our processed and convenience foods contain very few fruits and vegetables.

To prevent chronic diseases, fruits and especially vegetables are very important. Vegetables especially have the antioxidants, minerals, and phytochemicals in the correct combination that help keep the blood sugar in balance, create better energy in the body, and along with fruits build up the immune system.

Each color found in fruits and vegetables focus on building the immune system in its own way. It is important to get a variety of colors, so that you will get a full range of phytochemicals (beneficial plant chemicals) in your daily diet. Research is finding that eating whole fruits and vegetables gives you many more nutrients than you could possible add to a vitamin and mineral supplement. There are over 12,000 phytochemicals, and I have yet to see a supplement, unless it has whole fruits and vegetables in it, have all of the 180 different vitamins or minerals that are required by our body to function daily.

Human Growth Hormone has often been referred to as the "fountain of youth hormone". So, have we stumbled upon the proverbial "fountain of youth" with these new HGH enhancement supplements that claim to reduce fat, relieve "aging symptoms" such as wrinkles, increase energy and sex drive, promote sounder and deeper sleep cycles, and rejuvenate the body? Well, there are several faithful users of products in this arena (and I’m one of them) that will swear that since they have started taking HGH enhancing products, they’ve experienced a wide range of pleasing and desirable benefits, and it’s not placebo.

If your goal is to proactively slow your body’s aging process and optimize your personal longevity and quality of life, a quality HGH supplement may be just the thing for you. So, let’s take a look at what these HGH products propose to do for you, and how they propose to offer such life-changing benefits to anyone who has the inclination to buy such products, and faithfully take the supplement as prescribed.

When most people begin a Weight Loss program or diet plan so that they can tone up and/or lose weight, the often forget about THE most important aspect of any exercise and diet program: Safety.

Although there are numerous ways in which exercising safely is beneficial to you, one of the most important and the least observed is concerning the spine and lower back.

There is nothing inherently wrong with spinal movement. However, problems tend to arise over time as a result of holding static positions such as sitting or standing with bad posture or not using proper body mechanics for lifting objects over a period of months and/or years.

Due to the above factors, a very large portion of the population eventually develops one form or another of complications with their lower spine and back.

Here are some ways that you can protect your lower back and spine area from injury and strain while exercising to tone up and lose weight:

As of the writing of this article, May 16, 2005, we are all almost 5 months into our New Year’s Resolutions.

Are you skinny yet?

Did you find your six-pack?

Does your butt look like you wanted it to in those jeans?

For a lot of you, the answers to these questions are going to be “No, No, and, I took the jeans back to the store”.

Why? You are a victim of the Fitness Wars, that’s why. Your Girth is winning out over your Resolution, and you are probably more frustrated now than you were when you started!

Is there some master conspiracy that is keeping you from getting in shape? Do the rules of energy in vs. energy out not apply to you? Are you in a fat-loss vacuum where the normal laws of weight loss don’t work?

Of course not. Yet, you still can’t lose the bodyfat, and it is likely because you are simply confused.

If you are like most people, you have gotten fitness advice from the radio, TV, friends, family members, magazines, maybe even a Personal Trainer. Who had the most to gain from giving you fitness advice?