Tag: Calories

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Weight Loss Exercise

Exercise To Lose Weight – The Best Exercise to Lose Weight

When people think of how to exercise to lose weight, they often assume that they will have to buy a gym membership and workout for hours every day. Not true! Not only is it not essential, the image of pumping iron in the gym for hour after hour is a complete red herring, and here’s why…

The basic facts of losing weight are that if you consume less calories, and/or burn more calories, you will lose weight. It really is that simple. So you have a choice. You can either focus on your diet and keep your exercise levels exactly what they are, or exercise a lot more but eat the same (be sure not to eat more!), or try to combine both in some way.

Best Exercise To Lose Weight

Exercise to lose weight is as easy as starting to do aerobic exercise. This means anything that works your heart and makes you breathe faster. Examples might be running, fast walking, cycling, swimming. Even slow walking can make a difference if you have a lot of weight to lose. Of course, you should increase gradually and check with your doctor that whatever you plan to do is suitable for you.

Exercise To Lose Weight The Best Exercise to Lose Weight

Exercise To Lose Weight

If you go to the gym and do a lot of weight lifting, you will burn fat and build muscle at the same time. This will tone your body shape, and the increased muscle will consume more calories, even in a resting state. Muscle can weigh a lot though, so your weight may stay the same or even increase even though your body shape improves. If you plan on doing this type of exercise, it is better to track your process by taking waist and other measurements, rather than relying on the bathroom scale.

If you don’t want to go down that route, you may think of running – but running can cause joint injury. In fact walking can have 75% of the impact that running has. You still need to walk at a pace which leaves you breathing slightly heavier than normal, but you shouldn’t be out of breath. If you do that for 30 minutes, 3 times a week, you will be burning a huge amount of calories compared to when you didn’t walk.

Exercise To Lose Weight at Home

Exercise to lose weight can even be done right there in your chair. Simple exercises can increase muscle usage and aerobic activity, and can be done while sitting in front of the TV. Obviously you should not have a bucket of popcorn on your lap at the same time!

So you can see that when you think of exercise to lose weight, even the simplest of activities can have a big effect, without leaving you in an exhausted heap after a grueling session at the gym.

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Weight Loss Exercise

Do artificial sweeteners make you fat?

Artificial sweeteners are everywhere. And I used to think a calorie is a calorie but maybe I was wrong. There is a good chance that your diet soda is making you fat.

Diet Blog has just posted the results of a study done on rats that shows that eating artificial sweeteners in the form of saccharin will actually make you gain weight faster then using the sugar itself.

Artificial sweeteners Research

I know that I have seen these kinds of results before and have always been confused by how it would work but essentially the thinking by the scientific community is that your brain notices the “sweetness” of the food and think that the artificial sweeteners it is sugar. and stores food as fat because the brain thinks that the body has more than enough fuel (calories) to keep it going.

I know that some people will say in seeing this that people are not rats but still physiologically this makes sense to me. Also, if you look at all the diet pop that is sold and people in North America just seem to be gettng bigger and bigger then maybe there is some merit in the conclusions of this research.

Do artificial sweeteners make you fat?

Does this jive with any other research? Well yes I remember that the University of Texas did a Diet soda study that showed that drinking one Diet Soda caused people to get fat and drinking two definitely caused weight gain. This was not a short study either, in fact the results were based on before and after 8 years. There would be a lot of other factors involved including the fact that people try to lose weight by replacing regular soda with diet for lower calories.

The conclusion of the artificial sweeteners study actually points this out as well

A common interpretation of the direct correlation between increased use of artificial sweeteners and increased incidence of obesity is that people have turned to calorie-free sweeteners as a means of reducing energy intake and controlling body weight.

However, our findings and theoretical framework are in closer agreement with the possibility that increased intake of no-calorie sugar substitutes could promote increased intake and body weight gain, which is consistent with recent data from prospective human clinical studies that have documented increased risk for obesity and metabolic syndrome in individuals consuming beverages sweetened with high-intensity sweeteners (e.g., Dhingra et al., 2007; Liebman et al., 2006). Although much research has been directed at selecting among these alternatives, a consensus opinion about the effectiveness of consuming artificially sweetened substances as means of weight control has yet to emerge

I have always been against diet soda anyway because they are usually sweetened with the artificial sweeteners Aspartame which as we all know is poisonous according to lots of studies, even in small doses.

So what can you take from this kind of study? Maybe that you should try to cut out all sodas or at the very least cut back and just drink regular sugar sweetened soda and take the calories for it instead. By all means look at artificial sweeteners as a problem and stick to non sweetened drinks or just water.

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General Weight Loss Tips

Brain Over Binge: Part 1

I never thought, in a million years, that words from any book would ever help me to stop overeating or binge eating for good.  I wanted to believe they would and it never stopped me from buying them. I read many thousands of words telling me that I was an emotional eater, a stress eater, an addict, disordered and diseased. I read many more thousands of words telling me that I had deep seated issues and until I resolved them I would never stop eating too much. And I read even more thousands of words telling me to cut out flour, sugar, salt, potatoes, honey, red meat, beans, to count calories, to cut carbs, to calculate points, or to cut the fat. I was told moderation and lifestyle change more times than I care to say. Two words that I never truly got.

And then Beth came along and left this comment:

Hello! First time commenter!

I’m not sure if anyone has suggested this book, or if you have read it. Brain over Binge by Kathryn Hansen.

I’ve been a binge eater most of my adult life, and after reading this book, I stopped. I’m not sure how or why, but I did. Dieting and restricting causes bingeing, that I know.

Take care good luck to you in the new year!

I was intrigued and went over to Amazon to read the reviews. Within five minutes I was already into the first chapter on my Kindle. I couldn’t wait to buy the book, the reviews peeked my interest and I was ready to dive in. The words used to describe the book mention bulimia, which I do not relate to in any sort of way. So I want to say first, that if you have struggled with any form of eating to the excess, please consider reading this book. Whatever you call it, overeating, binge eating, bulimia, etc., if you suffer for the urge to eat beyond being full, if you’ve had moments of autopilot eating, if yeou’ve eaten on numerous occasions to the point of being uncomfortably or painfully full, if you have moments of being able to consume large amounts of food- this book is for you.

Every journey is personal and individual, binge eating is not black and white. As I read Kathryn’s words, a women who has never been obese or even overweight I can honestly say I’ve never eaten to the excess that she describes in Brain Over Binge. I’ve also never exercised for hours on end to burn the calories I’ve consumed. This is her form of purging and why she calls herself bulimic.

But I am obese, and it’s not because of moderate or “normal” eating. It never has been. I’ve been thinking about my weight since I was eight years old and dieting for so long  that I’ve never really known what normal eating looks or feels like. I’ve never known what it wa

I’ve had glimmers of hope, mainly with intuitive eating, but my urges to eat more always took over. I’ve been saying tomorrow I’ll be better for so long, it’s become my default response when things became too much.

Since reading Brain Over Binge, I’ve debated how I’d approach presenting this information on my blog. And after much debate I decided that I could only best explain how I’ve changed as a result. The book is too in depth and I fear I would do Kathryn and her research much disservice to explain it in any other way. You can read more about her and purchase the book on her website here: Brain Over Binge.

I would love to discuss this book more in depth with those that have read the book or plan to read the book and would like to open my comments up for that.

I was in no way compensated for my opinion. I’ve linked directly to Kathryn’s site, not Amazon, for those interested in purchasing it. 

Thursday morning after reading the first few pages of Brain Over Binge I decided that I wanted to eat a biscuit while reading the book. I rarely eat fast food biscuits, but this morning all I wanted to do was eat while reading a book about eating. I can’t make this stuff up.

Normally, a day that starts with a 900 calories biscuit meal doesn’t end well. Because I wasn’t “perfect” at breakfast I would normally use that as an excuse to eat what I wanted for the rest of the day and start over tomorrow.

But something changed in those next three hours. I learned that I am not all of the horrible things I always believed I was because of my binge eating. I learned that I am not an emotional eater or addicted to sugar like I always thought. I learned that when I changed my career, hair, or bought something new, I was trying to change my life. I was trying to fulfill and fill ever corner of my life with events and stuff in a desperate attempt to recover.

I believed that somehow, changing any part of my life would make me complete so that I could stop overeating once and for all. I’ve searched in vain for over ten years for ways to make me whole. To fix me. To dull the desire to keep eating. I believed that I just hadn’t found the right program to tell me how to be better. The right experience, job, relationship, or outfit. I believed that I had to turn my life upside down to make real changes. That I’d have to give up ever food that I ever binged to be better, to stop slowly killing myself and to gain control once and for all. On some level, I already knew all of this, I just couldn’t believe it was that easy.

After those three hours of reading I said to Josh “I finally get it”. And then I started to sob, mostly because I felt like three thousand pounds had been lifted from my shoulders. All I could say was “There’s nothing wrong with me! Why didn’t anyone ever tell me?! I’m not crazy, lazy, stupid, diseased or suffering.”.

And Thursday, for the first time in my life I learned how to almost effortlessly calm myself and take control. In just a few hours my day had turned around. It wasn’t perfect, I hadn’t solved my life’s problems- I just ate and moved on and I felt normal. Instead of stuffing or fighting my urges to eat, I just sat with them and reminded myself that those thoughts are not me. I am not every thought or urge that I have.

Friday I played with fire. I made cookies. I ate two and put the rest away. And these weren’t just any cookie, I declared them my favorite cookie. They were amazing. I made a lovely dinner or salad and lentil soup. Nourishing and healthful food that I truly craved and then had two cookies and moved on. Even as I type this, there are a bowl of cookies on the counter and that all too familiar voice to eat all of them and start over tomorrow, is dull. It’s almost nonexistent. And for that, I am grateful.

I realize that this post is full of hyperbole, as is my fashion when I get excited about something, but I can honestly say to you that I will never binge again. I will never hide or sneak food. Eat in the car or give myself the promises of tomorrow. And as they say, the proof is in the pudding, I so look forward to sharing this journey with you.

 

 

 

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