Month: March 2016

Our society has started carrying our smartphones everywhere with us. Even going so far as to feel “naked” when we don’t have it with us. Well use that to your advantage when working towards a healthy lifestyle and getting fit.

There are apps that will help you pick exercise routines, know what your heartbeat is, count your steps, find healthier food options, track your calories and record all of your information – like weight.

This can help you get more active and know what is working and what isn’t. Most are easy to use and they are always with you, so you don’t lose them.

Some Great Healthy Fitness Apps

Here are 3 apps you might want to consider downloading and using on your smartphone:

Fooducate

Just getting started with your healthy eating and you’re not sure what you can have? Fooducate helps you figure it out quickly.

Scan a bar code and it will give you a score based on calories, amount of sugar and the technique they used to process the food.

This is an app that will help beginners figure out what they can eat.

Lose It!

Helps you track the food you eat, connect with friends to motivate you and is personal. This app will customize a weight loss plan just for you.

This is one of the best features because you don’t want a generic plan that anyone can use. Your body is different. Your weight loss plan should be unique to you. This app will help with that.

Answer a few questions and you are ready to use the app. It will help you lose weight and maintain it once you get to the weight loss goal you want.

My Fitness Pal

This app has the largest food database, so when you record your food intake it will automatically bring up all the information. You won’t have to enter in calories, fat and other pertinent information when you are recording your food.

This makes the app quicker than most, plus it is free.

My Fitness Pal remembers your favorite foods and you can add multiple items at once. Plus if you cook a lot it has a recipe importer.

Fitbit App

This is a bit of a different app as it is linked to the Fitbit wearable monitor. Even though the app is free the monitor is going to cost you at least $100.

There are many Fitbit products, the one that I use is the Fitbit Charge HR

The great thing about the app is that you can challenge people to see who can do the most steps in a day which makes that walking a little more competitive and less lonely

Of course there are also lots of other features like 24 hr per day heart rate monitoring, counting the number of floors you climb, how much you sleep and how good it is, as well as even syncing your calories and exercise with My Fitness Pal

As you can see you can find an app for anything. Find a health app that works for you and start using it regularly. Some have a trial version and a premium version – so be careful what you sign up for if you don’t want a monthly cost.

Apps help you to stay on track with your goals. Look at all of the pros and cons and decide which one is best based on your needs. Consider cost because you don’t want to eliminate an option because of the monthly fee especially if it could actually save you money in the long run.

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Any busy mom that has successfully lost weight has discovered the ultimate secret weapon to shedding those unwanted pounds. Something that will keep you accountable. It will also show you patterns in how you eat, when you eat and the reason why you’re eating.

What is this magical thing busy moms have discovered?

A food journal. Wait before you roll your eyes and think you don’t have the time – find out why this one thing can help you. You’ll be able to shed that fat faster. Those unwanted pounds that you just can’t seem to lose no matter what.

Why Does a Food Journal Work?

Reason #1 – Exhibit More Self Control and Eat Less

A journal keeps track of what you’ve eaten. This helps in the middle of the day when you realize you haven’t eaten all day. Usually you’d eat a meal and add way more calories because you are now starving. But since you’ve been journaling you know this pattern and eat a breakfast in the morning. So, you don’t add those unwanted calories.

Reason #2 – Accountability

Being accountable for what you eat, will help motivate you to eat healthier.

Knowing you have to write down the calories for a cupcake or a soda is enough deterrent to not eat or drink those two options. You will eat less because you know you’ll have to record it later.

Reason #3 – Records Vital Information

With a food journal you don’t just record calories. You’ll record other information like the time you ate, why you ate, how hungry you were feeling and what your reactions to that food were afterwards.

You’ll learn if you eat more during certain times of the day. Or maybe you eat because you are watching TV. Being aware of when you eat and if you are actually hungry while you are eating will help you change the behavior. You’ll be able to find a hobby to do instead.

Recording how you feel after each meal is a great motivator. If you record that you had a huge energy boost after you eat an apple or protein bar you’ll be more encourage eating more of those foods.

Whereas if you eat a bag of chips and don’t feel like doing anything after or are irritable you are more likely to avoid junk food. Being aware of your reactions is half of the battle.

Busy moms gain weight for a variety of reason – you overeat from stress, you don’t eat in the morning and then eat too many calories when you do grab a bite. You don’t notice how much you eat during meals or snacks.

With a food journal you’ll be able to manage or eliminate all of these challenges. In fact recording all of this information will help you lose those unwanted pounds by figuring out how many calories you are eating in a day and where they are coming from. As you can see the food journal is your secret weapon if you are having problems shedding that extra weight.

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One of the most frustrating things you can probably experience is doing your best to lose weight, and not seeing the results that you want to see. This is not uncommon and a lot of people go through this infuriating episode in their lives on a regular basis. Why is it more difficult for some people to shed the pounds while others are just burning these off with the same amount of effort? Is something stopping you from succeeding in your goal to lose weight?

You might not be aware of this, but your weight loss efforts may be ineffective due to your hormones. Yes, an increase or decrease in the levels of certain hormones can hinder attempts to lose weight, and in order for you to succeed in attaining your fitness goals, you need to address these imbalances first. What hormonal imbalances may be reducing your weight loss chances? Here are some of them:

Hormones For Weight Loss

Leptin – this is a hormone that is released by body fat, and this tells your brain that you need to burn more calories and to eat less. There are times however when your body has too much fat that leptin is produced too much, which then results in what is called leptin resistance. This is when your brain becomes somewhat immune to the signals that come from such a hormone. You will need to remove the leptin resistance from your system before weight loss efforts can show any substantial results.

Cortisol – when you are stressed, cortisol is the hormone that is produced. This is what prepares you to either fight or flee. While this is all right in small doses, with how lives are being lived these days, people are constantly under a lot of stress, which means a body is bombarded by too much cortisol. This is not good. Too much of this hormone in your system makes you crave high-carb and high-sugar foods, which in turn results in a feeling of constant hunger, which then results in overeating. This also triggers the body to store more fat in your abdominal area, and this abdominal fat actually makes your body produce more cortisol when under stress.

Ghrelin – this is a hormone that tells your brain when you are hungry. When you try to reduce your caloric intake, there is an increase in this hormone and your body will feel that it is always hungry. It has been seen that even after you have returned to eating normally, your body will still feel hunger pangs from an elevated ghrelin level. The good news is you can counteract this increase in ghrelin with intense exercise. This is why dieting alone is not a good idea.

Adiponectin – this is a hormone that aids your body in losing more fat, and is produced by lean muscle. When you have very little lean muscle to begin with, and a lot of body fat, your body does not produce enough adiponectin. This is where problems may arise and why people lose hope when it comes to losing those love-handles. In order to make your weight loss efforts more effective, you need to create lean muscle and lose fat to increase your adiponectin levels, but since the lower levels of this hormone makes it difficult to do this, it feels like an impossible task.

In order for you to find out which hormones are wreaking havoc on your weight loss efforts, you need to visit your doctor. Tests can be done to find out what hormones are imbalanced, and what treatments need to be given to help you with these. Once you have your hormones on even keel, losing that excess weight won’t be the frustrating endeavor it used to be.

Sources:

http://www.shape.com/weight-loss/tips-plans/8-essential-fat-loss-hormones

http://www.saragottfriedmd.com/are-these-four-hormones-blocking-your-weight-loss-efforts/

http://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/hormone-diet

http://www.chatelaine.com/health/wellness/imbalances-halting-your-weight-loss/

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