Tag: Eating Habits

Categories
General Weight Loss Tips

Lap Band Surgery

The Lap Band system is an adjustable gastric banding system that restricts the amount of food your stomach can hold at one time. This means that you can lose wait gradually and keep that weight off. This system works without any stomach cutting or stapling and is easily adjustable. You will feel full sooner and stay full for a longer period of time, allowing you to become a healthy person and stay healthy for many years to come.

What is Lap Band Surgery?

Lap Band surgery is less invasive than others surgeries such as stomach cutting and stomach stapling, and it is 10 times safer than other gastric surgeries like gastric bypass and gastric sleeves. It also has fewer risks and the recovery time is generally faster than other surgeries associated with weight loss. In a typical Lap Band surgery, the patient is put under general anesthesia and the system is placed during a laparoscopic procedure. Long, thin instruments are used to put the system into place through a small amount of tiny incisions. The surgery generally takes about an hour to perform and is done often on an outpatient basis. The system in implanted around the top part of the stomach, very much like a belt. A small access port is placed underneath the skin on your abdomen, which is connected to the system by a tube. Adjustments are made through this access port, most frequently during the first year the system is in place, by adding or removing a saline solution to achieve optimal weight loss. After the surgery is complete, you can expect to recover and be back to your daily routine after about a week’s time.

Who is a Candidate For This Surgery?

Only your doctor or surgeon can give you a complete evaluation to determine if the Lap Band system is right for you, but there are some qualifications to determine if you may be a candidate for this surgery. If you are 18 years old or over and at least 100 pounds overweight, you may qualify. You must be prepared to make major changes to your lifestyle and eating habits, and you must not be pregnant or drink alcohol in excess. If you do become pregnant after having the procedure done, your Lap Band can be adjusted while you are pregnant and changed back afterwards. If you have been overweight for more than 5 years and your previous attempts at losing weight have only shown short-term success, you may also qualify for surgery. You must also currently be healthy enough to recover from minimally invasive surgery. There are some factors that may cause you to not be a candidate, such as ulcers, heart or lung disease, portal hypertension, cirrhosis of the liver, alcohol or drug addiction, or certain other factors that your doctor will determine.

Benefits and Risks of This Type of Surgery

The benefits for this surgery are great and for most cases outweigh the risks. You will be able to take control of your weight and increase your health, allowing you to perform all the functions of daily life. However, just like all major surgeries, there are certain risks involved that you need to be aware of. One of the risks that every candidate for this procedure needs to know about is death. Although there were no deaths recorded in the US study, it is possible and can occur during or after the surgery. A tear in the stomach can also occur during or after the procedure, which can lead to the need for additional surgery. This happened in 1 percent of the patients studied. Age and excess weight can increase the risks for complications of surgery. There are also risks associated with medications used in the procedure and negative body responses to foreign material. Patients may also experience complications after the procedure is completed, such as nausea and vomiting, regurgitation, and band slippage. Most of these complications are not serious but may require hospitalization or additional operations. Studies have shown, however, that this system contains fewer risks than other gastric surgeries to treat obesity.

Average Weight Loss to Expect

The amount of weight you will lose with this surgery varies from patient to patient. The amount lost depends on several factors, and you need to be dedicated to your new lifestyle. Weight should be lost gradually, and sometimes a loss of two to three pounds a week can be attained, although the usual results show a loss of 1 pound per week during the first year after having the procedure done. Losing weight too quickly can be dangerous and may lead to other health problems. Studies have shown that patients typically lose weight at a greater rate during the first year the implant is in place.

Studies Done on This Surgery

Three peer review studies were conducted in the United States showing the results and effectiveness of this procedure. All three studies have shown that the amount of weight lost with the system is generally equal to that of gastric bypass surgery while incurring less risks and complications. The amount of time needed for recovery was significantly less than that of gastric bypass surgery, and it is up to 10 times safer than other procedures used to treat obesity. This system is the least invasive surgical procedure available to treat obesity, and the duration of hospital stay is dramatically shorter than other options. It is the only adjustable and reversible procedure to treat obesity. One study of 99 patients showed that after one year, there was an average loss of 44.4 percent of excess body weight. After surgery, patients were able to return to their normal activities in approximately seven days.

A detailed description of the lap band procedure and how it works can be found at the free encyclopedia, Wikipedia, located here.

Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

How To Keep Making Muscle Gains

How To Keep Making Muscle Gains

Keep Making Muscle Gains

Keep making muscle gains, never stop gaining muscle. While there are literally hundreds and thousands of muscle-building strategies circulating on the Web at any given time, whether they are capable of producing reliable gains or results is another matter. Many, in fact, don’t and leave the aspiring body-builder/ trainee more disappointed and confused than anything. It’s also not uncommon for these strategies to be conflicting in nature, especially when they come from different sources.

So inevitably, the question arises as to what courses of action, workouts, diet plans, amount of recovery is capable of producing reliable muscle gains, and keep making muscle gains. The truth of the matter is that one can build a ripped, chiseled physique without so much as opening a modern-day muscle magazine, with its overpriced supplements and ever-changing ‘best workout for X or Y body part’ and so on. The following is a summary of the most effective and surprisingly overlooked principles needed to ensure reliable, fail-safe muscle-growth:

Keep Making Muscle Gains Tips

  1. Avoid Overtraining: That’s right and it (overtraining) occurs more frequently than most people would care to admit. Unless you’re in the final phase of training for a contest, say goodbye to the 1 hour-long gym sessions and the 6-day training regimen. ‘More’ is not necessarily better when it comes to reliably packing on pounds of muscle. Plus, as you’ll later learn, training less frequently, and for shorter periods will actually leave you in better position to do what actually needs to be done, i.e. training with intensity! This is the first and I think most important tip to keep making muscle gains
  2. Alter Your Eating Habits to Suit Your New Regimen: The old adage ‘you are what you eat’ is true on a number of levels when it comes to building muscle. For most of the skinny fellows out there, this will involve greatly increasing the amount of calories that they consume. In fact, people are often astounded at the increments they are told are needed in their calorie consumption, to reliably keep making muscle gains. The trick is to do it piecemeal. It’s naive to assume that one can make gains on a Spartan diet, but it’s equally foolish to assume that one can go from the average couch potatoe’s consumption-levels to that of an experienced body-builder, in one week. Equally, important as the quantity, is the quality of one’s calories. Needless to say, there is a huge difference between eating 3000 calories of donuts, and other highly processed junk food, and eating 3000 calories of high-quality fats, proteins and carbohydrates. One will promote muscle gain at a reliable rate and the other will simply lead to sluggishness, laziness and a useless build-up of ‘empty calories’.
  3. Train With Intensity: This is possibly the most valuable piece of advice that for anyone who wants to build muscle. Yet, it also remains the least implemented. The average gym-goer, nowadays, chooses to do the same exercise with roughly the same number of reps and sets, over and over again. After a while, he/ she simply grows tired of the fact that no more gains are being made (after the initial ones) and simply gives up on the idea altogether. High intensity training is what triggers muscle growth. It does this by signaling to the body that more muscle fibre is needed to cope with the body’s growing demands. While there are many ways to measure this intensity, one good rule of thumb is to ensure that you are lifting weights above 80% of your 1-rep Maximum. A carefully crafted, high intensity training regimen will keep the muscles adapting structurally and neurologically, and thereby ensuring you keep making muscle gains.
  4. Track Your Progress: Finally, one of the most overlooked, yet also one of the most useful strategies for ensuring reliable, sustained muscle growth. There is a tendency to lose track of the gains one has made because they all occur so gradually that they’re not immediately noticeable. This can often lead to decreased motivation as well as stagnancy in training regimes. Keeping a diary which tracks both muscle gains as well as strength gains, on the other hand, can help put a trainee’s progress into perspective and keep his/her motivation levels high. It can also be used as a tool to inform one about when and whether changes need to be made to the training or diet regimen. For instance, if the gains eventually slow down on one meal plan, we can conclude that it’s time to move on to the next one.

Overtraining Kills Muscle Gains

Adhering to these principles of avoiding overtraining, orienting one’s calorie intake to one’s activity levels, training with high intensity should greatly enhance the reliability with which ANYONE can keep making muscle gains.

Remember that overtraining will not only hurt you in the gym but also your rest and re

No one will deny that muscle building is often easier said than done. It’s also shown to be more complex than it really is. For a simple, yet comprehensive step-by-step muscle-building plan to follow, please visit http://reliablemusclebuilding.info/

So if you are having trouble to keep making muscle gains look often at the tips above

Categories
General Weight Loss Tips

Lose Weight Fast Following Four Steps

It would be an understatement to say that we are living in an era of fast foods take-outs, ready made meals and dishes filled with preservatives and additives. We are a nation always on the go and as a consequence our eating habits have been dramatically altered.

However, it doesn’t have to be this way.

You can escape becoming a part of the growing statistic of obese people, and offer your body a natural route to losing weight safely and in a healthy manner.

1. Make a list Successful weight loss involves more than changing your dietary habits. You need to find a balance in your mind, body and soul. So pause for a moment and make a list of everything that is preventing you from enjoying your life.

If you suffer from fatigue, memory loss or depression for example, this could be a sign that you are suffering from a vitamin B deficiency, which in turn could be hindering your weight loss.

2. What have you eaten? It is easy to be tempted by quick fix meals, but by eating natural, fresh foods every day you can prevent weight gain.

Give this routine a try and begin feeling the difference of natural weight loss, increased energy levels and the desire to exercise:

  • Drink 6-8 glasses of water every day
  • Swap sugary snacks for a piece of fruit
  • Eat smaller portions: 5 to 6 300 calorie meals a day
  • Chew slower
  • Use natural sweeteners instead of sugar
  • Ensure you receive plenty of sleep
  • Cleanse your body of toxins

3. Exercise One of the easiest ways to improve your quality of life and experience lasting weight loss is to exercise.

Yet it is important to remember that everyone is different. Just because your friend can walk 10 miles a day, does not mean you will be able to do so immediately. You need to exercise at your own fitness levels and gradually build up your routines at a pace that is right for you.

Try starting with a 10 minute walk every day, before slowly building up to 45 minutes. As you exercise more, you will be able to challenge your body further and increase your weight loss successes.

Other good methods include riding a bike, going swimming or doing cardio/strength building exercises. Just remember to make sure that you do routines that interest you. If you enjoy it, you will stay motivated towards doing them every day.

4. Diet Pills Whilst the market may be saturated with many synthetic slimming pills, you can offer your body slimming pills naturally formulated using organic ingredients.

Clinically proven to suppress your appetite, reduce your fat consumption by 20%+ and decrease food cravings, slimming pills can offer you the support you need to take your first step to weight loss. Talk to your family doctor and see if he/she can recommend a pill that will work for you.