Counting Calories Isn’t Important

This, my friends, is a load of pure bull. Calories in versus calories out (through exercise and daily movement) will give you the magic number that equals weight loss. If you aren’t counting calories, you will have no idea what type of deficit you are creating. If you aren’t creating a deficit, you will not lose weight. Period. End of statement. You do not need to make counting calories difficult. Simply tally up the calories in the portions of foods you eat regularly and you won’t have to make a huge show of it. It’ll be work in the beginning, but things will ease up later on.

Starches are Bad

The truth is that your body actually needs starches. The problem is that most of us don’t make the healthiest choices and, when we do, we top our starches (like yummy baked potatoes), with toppings that are high in fats and calories, blowing all the goodness out of the park. Let’s look at bread, pasta, and rice, for example. Sure, they’re not as good for you as other food sources, but if you replaced the white versions with whole grain bread, wheat pasta, and brown rice you’d have some flavorful alternatives. Try replacing white potatoes with sweet potatoes or yams. Top them with lower-calorie, low-fat toppings and you’ll get the good, complex carbohydrates your body actually needs.

Low Calorie Foods Burn Fat

Ugh. No food can actually “burn” fat. As a matter of fact, fat can’t be burnt. The only things you fat cells can do are shrink and expand. They never actually disappear. While lower-calorie foods like cabbage, celery and grapefruit are good for you, they help you to create thee aforementioned deficit because the low calorie content helps to create a deficit. It actually takes more calories to digest them than they contain. Bonus! But not fat-burning.

You Have to Avoid Fat

This is a horrible, horrible myth. Your body needs fat to survive. Your brain can’t function without fat, nor can other parts of your body. The trick is to get good fats, like Omega-3s, while avoiding saturated fats. Choose the right fats and you won’t gain weight. You’ll actually feel fuller for a longer period of time and you’ll make healthier food choices.

Exercise is All You Need

Remember that thing I said before about creating a deficit? Some people believe they can eat as much as they want (of whatever they want) as long as they exercise. This is so far from the truth it is scary. Here’s the real truth. Go out to a restaurant and have a slice of rich cheesecake. Did you know that in some cases that single slice can be worth approximately 1,000 calories? You’d have to walk at a moderate pace for 4 hours – that’s right, 4 – to burn off that slice of cheesecake. That’s not to mention the high-calorie dinner and beverages you likely had with it. Exercise and moderation in portion control and food choice is key.

Don’t Eat after 8pm

This is a partial myth, to be honest. The truth is that your metabolism is the culmination of all of the hormonal processes in your body. While you sleep, your body creates your growth hormone. If you eat cabs after 8pm, the digestive process will alter the secretion of your growth hormone, so your body can’t heal and repair itself. A lack of the right levels of growth hormone can lead to weight gain. You can eat, but make sure you are limiting your later meals to proteins and fibers.

Avoid the Scale

Who thought this one up? How can you track your progress if you never step on the scale? While there are varying theories as to how often you should weigh yourself, the truth is that you need to do it every once in a while. Just make sure you are always weighing yourself at the same time of day – preferably first thing in the morning (when you are at your truest) weight.

Don’t let unhealthy advice and myths keep you from reaching your weight loss goals. Keep plugging away and you’ll get the results you’re looking for – slowly but surely.

About the Author: Arthur Dancel loves writing about healthcare, weight loss, and nutrition. He also specializes in nursing employment opportunities and career training guides.

Brown fat is actually the informal term used to refer to brown adipose tissue. This type of fat is what babies, young children, and other young mammals use to keep warm. It works by burning calories in order to release heat, and the action is triggered by low temperatures. Now you can see how brown fat can be used to burn off those extra calories, can’t you?

The question is whether or not adults have brown fat, and the good news is YES, we do. In fact, the recent research points to this – adults have brown fat, which is used in temperature regulation. At the same time, this type of fat could also be playing a role in determining whether a person is lean or on the pudgy side.

The not-so-good news is that not all adults have brown fat. Even worse, it seems that those who are already overweight tend to have no brown fat stored in their bodies. On the other hand, people who are leaner and younger tend to have brown fat stored.

Given that, how can brown fat be used to combat weight problems? This is what researchers are working on right now. In the meantime, we are still urged to eat right and get a healthy amount of exercise.

Photo courtesy of http://www.trudicanavan.com/

Yoghurt or nuts
What do they have in common? These two snack items can actually help you de-stress. The article says:

Scientists in Slovakia gave people 3 grams each of two amino acids — lysine and arginine — or a placebo and asked them to deliver a speech. Blood measurements of stress hormones revealed that the amino acid–fortified public speakers were half as anxious during and after the speech as those who took the placebo. Yogurt is one of the best food sources of lysine; nuts pack tons of arginine.

Green Tea
This drink will help you increase your metabolism. In short, it just might help you lose weight. We all know that snacking (the wrong way) can make you put on those pounds easily. So instead of reaching for that can of soda, why not try green tea-based drinks?

Trail Mix
Instead of grabbing a can of energy drink or a cup of coffee, try Trail Mix to boost your energy. The reason for this:

Raisins provide potassium, which your body uses to convert sugar into energy. Nuts stock your body with magnesium, which boosts metabolism and improves nerve and muscle function. (When magnesium levels are low, your body produces more lactic acid — the same fatigue-byproduct that makes your muscles ache at the end of a workout.)

What do you say? Let’s try these suggestions for a change?

You’re probably thinking – now where did this come from? It’s just that the weekend has been a hectic one for me, in social terms. We started partying on Friday night and continued for the next two nights. Naturally, this morning has not been kind to me. It got me thinking about the various effects that alcohol can have on the body.

Anyway, I looked it up and found material wherein someone actually sent in a very similar question: Will wine make me fat?

So what was the columnist’s answer? Yes, it can make you fat. This is due to the simple reason that wine – and many alcoholic drinks – contain calories, lots of them to be exact. So imagine drinking 4 or 5 units of alcohol a night. If you do this several times a week, without really exercising and eating healthily, those calories can easily accumulate and make you gain weight.

As a matter of fact, fitness experts and nutritionists have gone as far as to say that if you consume large amounts of alcohol on a regular basis and then if you cut down to one or two units a week, you would most certainly see an effect on your weight! What this means to us is simple – watching your alcohol intake can make a difference to your weight loss program.

Myth No. 1: High protein intake is harmful to your kidneys
The origin: Back in 1983, researchers first discovered that eating more protein increases your “glomerular filtration rate,” or GFR. Think of GFR as the amount of blood your kidneys are filtering per minute. From this finding, many scientists made the leap that a higher GFR places your kidneys under greater stress.

What science really shows: Nearly two decades ago, Dutch researchers found that while a protein-rich meal did boost GFR, it didn’t have an adverse effect on overall kidney function. In fact, there’s zero published research showing that downing hefty amounts of protein—specifically, up to 1.27 grams per pound of body weight a day—damages healthy kidneys.

The bottom line: As a rule of thumb, shoot to eat your target body weight in grams of protein daily. For example, if you’re a chubby 200 pounds and want to be a lean 180, then have 180 grams of protein a day. Likewise if you’re a skinny 150 pounds but want to be a muscular 180.

I really believed this myth – until now. Then again, the bottom line is that you have moderate your protein intake. Still, you can load up on those steaks every now and then.

According to a story ran by The New York Times, the study was done on over 11,000 Canadian adults. The results showed that people who are a bit overweight, but not obese, are less likely to die than those who are not overweight (READ: NORMAL weight). The category of overweight covers people who have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 25 to 29.9. In addition to this, people who are underweight – those who have a Body Mass Index of less than 18.5 – are more likely to die than the people who weigh normally.

Obviously, this finding is going to be well-received by many. The common way of thinking, prior to this study, is that being overweight automatically means more health problems, higher chances of dying earlier than normal. I guess this study gives us something new to think about.

Of course, we also have to take into consideration our lifestyles. Just because you have a BMI of anywhere between 25 to 29.9, it doesn’t mean that you can automatically say that you are going to be fine and that you have a lower risk of dying early. Smoking, drinking, no exercise, and other similar factors should be considered as well.

At least, when you get picked on because of a little extra padding, tell them that it just might be your insurance!

The Telegraph reports about the findings:

Researchers asked over 40,000 people if they would prefer £45 in three days or £70 in three months. Those who wanted the smaller amount were also impulsive in other areas of their life.

They were more likely to want the immediate pleasure of a cake, an affair or a puff on a cigarette than consider the long-term effect on their health or relationship.

The study by University College London found people who are young, poorly educated and on a low income were the most financially impulsive.

It’s not all that bad, though. According to Dr. Stian Reimers, those who are impulsive can learn how to control their impulsive urges:

“Simple techniques can help reduce impulsivity, like imagining how you’d feel about your decision in a year’s time or trying to avoid making decisions in the heat of the moment.”

The next time I feel like indulging in more chocolate cake that I should eat, I will try this trick.

There is something that you should know about chewing gum, though. According to a recent study conducted jointly by the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, chewing gum may help people lose weight! The study had people chew gum and offered an eat all you can snack table. The snacks were categorized into simple sugars and sweetened food. The results showed that the intake of the people who chewed gum was considerably lower than those who didn’t chew gum.

So how can you use this piece of information? It is pretty obvious, isn’t it? If you are the kind who likes to munch on snacks, then you might want to consider an alternative – sugar free gum. Personally, I think that I will try this method starting tomorrow. I do have this propensity for snacks all throughout the day. Oftentimes, I feel hunger pangs. Sometimes, I just have a severe case of the munchies. If chewing gum is going to help me get rid of these cravings, I would rather chew some sugarless gum, wouldn’t you?