Weight Loss Tips |

Picking up the right diet is half your job done in any weight loss program. Find a diet and Fat Burning Foods that is well suited to your body needs. The golden rule of weight loss program is to include more fruits vegetables and non fattening meat to churn out a magical formula that could make all the difference in the world to your body composition.

•Fruits

Have you ever tasted cantaloupe juice? If not I would say that you have missed out some thing really special. Truly sky is the limit as far as the choices of fruits and fruit juices are concerned. Try out strawberry juice mixed with pear, or apple and yam to explore this excitingly tasty world. I rate Blueberry juice as nothing short of an elixir. Cut out on coffee and instead try using a mixture of carrot, apple, tomato, lemon, beet or celery, which are treasure troves of vitamins, enzymes and minerals that would help you through the day. Broccoli, asparagus and strawberries are though to consume more calories in processing them than the actual calorie content present in them.

•Vegetables

The next best food that you should be eating would be vegetables as they are too good to ignore. Throw in lots of salads and vegetables into your diet as they have only very little calories but lots of vitamins and enzymes that would ensure a healthy and hearty body. Pick up the seasonal fruits and vegetables and try to eat it in raw form to get the maximum benefits. On cooking most of the enzymes and vitamins would be lost. Vegetables help you eat healthy and before grabbing the next grub try to reach out to a fruit as it will make you healthy without being obese. I would say that is indeed a food for thought!

•Meat

You should not completely cut out meat, which ensure the supply of the required protein, which ensures a healthy body and muscle tone. Proteins help to enhance the muscles and to retain the shape of the body. Bring in the wow factor into your frame by including the right amount and the right type of meat. Red meat like beef and pork could be curtailed; lean meat like skinned chicken would be a better option.

•Dairy products

Diary products like milk, cheese and yoghurt can act as fat burning bodies that facilitate the break down of fat in the fat cells of our body. So this means that you can afford splurge on milk and products to get a calcium rich diet that would do good for your bones and teeth without cutting the risk of being obese

•Food containing chilly

If you want me to put it simply, weight loss is consuming more calories than your intake. Red chillies and foods containing red chillies are considered as fat burning food items, which will burn out excess fat in your body.

•Garlic

Garlic is touted as one of the most useful fat burning foods. The compound allicin present in garlic helps to reduce cholesterol and other fats. It will also increase your immunity against diseases as it has anti bacterial effects.

You can do yourselves a lot of good by trying out these 6 types of fat burning foods that are great bets to burn calories and to help you lose weight.

Gastric bypass surgery, just like any other surgeries, has some risks associated with it. This surgery is one of the many Bariatric surgical procedures that can help people who are morbidly obese to lose some of the extra weight. This extra weight can range from a hundred pounds or more than their normal supposed body weight. Having morbid obesity has many risks of developing various life threatening diseases. The Gastric bypass surgery may prevent these diseases from developing once the patient has shed some of their weight but the journey after the procedure is probably the toughest part of the recovery stage. This is because of the risks associated with the Gastric bypass surgery.

One of the possible risks with Gastric bypass surgery is mortality or death. The statistics show that there is bound to be one death in about 200 to 300 surgeries. The death risk depends on age, the general health of the patient, and other medical conditions such as the degree of obesity, heart disease, obstructive sleep apnea, diabetes mellitus, and even the history of prior pulmonary embolism. Mortality can also be affected by the level of experience of the surgeon performing the procedure. If the surgeon has little experience or no experience, performing the surgery with laparoscopy increases the risk of the patient for mortality.

Another risk most commonly observed is blood clotting in the patient’s legs. They usually occur in very overweight people and these clotting of blood can be very dangerous. If they travel to the lungs and clog up the lung’s arteries, it will cause pulmonary embolism. This is a serious condition that can damage lung tissues and can even lead to death. Smoking increases the risk of blood clotting that’s why patients who happen to be smokers are strongly advised to quit smoking before Gastric bypass surgery is performed.

Gastric bypass surgery risks also involve a possible leaking at one of the staple lines placed in the stomach. This is a postoperative risk but it can be treated with antibiotics. Some cases may heal in time but in others having serious leaking problem will have the need for an emergency surgery.

Incision hernia is a weakness in the incision of the procedure. This is one of the risks that are most likely to occur in patients who had open procedure instead of laparoscopic procedure of the Gastric bypass surgery. This can be remedied by surgical repair depending on the severity of the symptoms and the extent of the hernia. The opening between the stomach and the small intestine may also narrow. This is often rare but it can be treated either by corrective surgery or by dilating the narrowed opening using a tube which is passed through the mouth.

Another risk associated with Gastric bypass surgery is the dumping syndrome, a condition where stomach contents move too quickly through the small intestine. This causes nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, and sweating. This is one reason why patients are advised to eat slowly and chew their food longer before swallowing. Other potential risks involved in the post operative procedure are malnutrition, dehydration, development of gallstones and kidney stones, bleeding stomach ulcer, intolerance to certain foods, and even hypoglycemia.

When a woman in the child bearing years undergoes gastric bypass surgery to lose weight one of the first things she will hear from the nay-sayers is that after surgery she cannot have a healthy pregnancy because of presumed nutritional deficiencies. The contrary is true. Morbid obesity results in a high rate of complicated pregnancies and a high rate of miscarriage. Women who become pregnant after achieving weight loss with gastric bypass generally have lower risk pregnancies than morbidly obese women.

The United States Surgeon General lists several reproductive complications associated with pregnancy in women who are obese. Complications include an increased risk of death in both the baby and the mother and increases the risk of maternal high blood pressure by 10 times. In addition to many other complications, women who are obese during pregnancy are more likely to have gestational diabetes and problems with labor and delivery.

The Surgeon General concludes that Infants born to women who are obese during pregnancy are more likely to be high birth weight and, therefore, may face a higher rate of Cesarean section delivery and low blood sugar (which can be associated with brain damage and seizures). Obesity during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of birth defects, particularly neural tube defects, such as spina bifida.

In a study by Dr. Alan C. Wittgrove, past president of the American Society of Bariatric Surgery and pioneer of the laparoscopic technique, post-gastric bypass pregnancy indicates fewer risks than commonly reported by women who are obese during pregnancy. His study was conducted with nurse-practitioner Leslie Jester who had a low-risk pregnancy and delivered a healthy baby after gastric bypass surgery.

The Wittgrove Center has an active patient list of over 2000 people. The patients are informed to contact the Center when they become pregnant. In the study 41 women in the patient population became pregnant. Using personal interview, questionnaire, and review of perinatal records, pregnancy-related risks and complications were studied.

The study found less risk of gestational diabetes, macrosomia, and cesarean section than associated with obesity. There were no patients with clinically significant anemia.

Dr. Wittgrove concluded, “Since the patients had an operation that restricts their food intake, some basic precautions should be taken when they become pregnant. With this in mind, our patients have done well with their pregnancies. The post-surgical group had fewer pregnancy-related complications than did an internally controlled group that were morbidly obese during their previous pregnancies.”

Obesity. Every year, millions of Americans are afflicted with this disease. We see it on the news and we read it on newspapers: a man that weighs hundreds of pounds has to be lifted out of his house using a forklift and rushed to a hospital because his weight is causing serious complications to his body. This poses the need for a serious weight loss plan that people have to take to achieve a healthy body. For morbidly obese individuals, a weight loss medication may help.

Influx of weight loss pills

Government officials are alarmed at the influx of weight loss pills being sold in the market today. Most weight loss pills are sold over-the-counter, which means that anyone can buy them without the need for a doctor’s prescription. These pills are untested and unverified and can pose serious threats to the body.

Before taking any weight loss medication, it is important to consult a doctor first. If you are suffering from morbid obesity, a prescription weight loss medication is the thing for you. Unlike over-the-counter products, a weight loss medication is given to patients who are at increased medical risk because of their weight.

For extreme cases

Prescription weight loss pills are not used the same way as “cosmetic” or over-the-counter weight loss pills. A prescription weight loss medication is approved by the US FDA and should be taken only by those with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 and above.

A prescription weight loss medication is used to avert possible health risks caused by being too much overweight, such as high blood pressure, dyslipidemia (abnormal amounts of fat in the blood), or type 2 diabetes.

Kinds of weight loss medications

The two kinds of weight loss medications approved by the FDA are:

Appetite suppressants – these promote weight loss by decreasing appetite or increasing the feeling of being full. These medications make you feel less hungry by increasing one or more brain chemicals that affect mood and appetite.

Lipase inhibitors – these reduce the body’s ability to absorb dietary fat by blocking the enzyme lipase, which is responsible for breaking down dietary fat.

Gastric bypass surgery is only recommended when a correction of morbid obesity is to be done. The most common type of this form of surgery is Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery. In this type of surgery, the food is allowed to bypass some part of the stomach and small intestine. This leaves some of the food undigested and reduces the caloric intake.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) have laid down specific criteria for carrying out this surgery. It is recommended only for patients having a body mass index (BMI) of 40 or more. Individuals having 35 or more BMI?s with related co morbid conditions are suggested to undergo this procedure. Hence, it is only suggested for individuals who are at least 100 pounds or 45 kg more than their ideal weight.

In the United States, it is the most frequently performed operation, carried out for weight loss and also quite popular. In the year 2005 itself, in the U.S, there were around 140,000 gastric bypass procedures carried out. The surgery has been performed for atleast 50 years now and hence, the surgeons are quite comfortable with the operation and are also aware of the risks invovled in the procedure.

In recent years, a technique called laproscopy has been used to gain entry to the abdomen. This technique is highly advantageous in comparison to the traditional methods. However, this technique requires lot of training and expertise to be able to perform the actual operation.

The operation involves the stomach to be cut into a small pouch. The rest of the stomach and first couple of feet of small intestine are bypassed. This reduces the size of the stomach.However, since the bypassed portion of the small intestine is adept at absorbing calcium and iron, the only complications associated with this procedure are anemia and osteoporosis. The patients have to take lifelong mineral supplementation for this.

The gastric bypass procedure (GBP) has been found to provide good long-term weight loss results and has also brought about definite improvements in the life of obese individuals.

According to a report I read at FoxNews.com (http://foxnews.webmd.com/content/article/102/106544.htm), researchers have come to some conclusions that are sure to create a firestorm of controversy. Researchers took ten obese patients into the most controlled of environments – an actual live-in study – where they closely monitored everything that they consumed, their weight gain or loss, water-weight gain or loss, and their blood glucose and cholesterol levels.

The premise of the study was to evaluate how an Atkins-like low carbohydrate diet actually works, or more specifically, why it works. The patients were to eat whatever they wished for the first seven days of the study. This period of time was used to determine their typical diet and caloric intake. Absent any guidelines, the patients consumed an average of 3,100 calories per day.

For the next two weeks, the patients were told to follow a low-carb diet. In this case, the patients were allowed to consume 20 grams per day of carbohydrate, but then they could consume as much protein and fat as they wished.

At the end of the two-week period, the patients lost an average of 3.6 pounds each and their blood levels normalized. But what about the low-carbohydrate diet caused them to lose weight? Interestingly, though they were not given calorie restrictions, the patients inadvertently cut their caloric intake by a whopping one-third. On average, the patients consumed only 2,100 calories per day while on the low-carbohydrate diet.

Researchers concluded that it’s not what you are eating, but how many calories you are consuming that determines whether you experience weight gain or weight loss. Hmmm… that makes sense.

This is exciting news for those of us fighting the battle of the bulge. The implications are that structure; almost any structure, can result in a reduction in calories, and hence, weight loss.

There is a downside, but the well-informed weight loss warrior can overcome this hurdle if he or she is armed with the power of knowledge. The problem is that people do not seem to stick with a program even though it is working for them.

Researchers surveyed people who participated in four of the top-rated diet plans. After one year, only half of the respondents were still on the Atkins and Ornish diets, while about two-thirds of the Weight Watcher and Zone Diet participants were still in compliance. Persistence loses out to boredom.

So, how can we benefit from this information? Two things are clear when analyzing this information. The first thing is that structure results in a reduced caloric intake. Whether it’s low-carb or low fat, when you watch what you eat, you tend to eat less and lose weight.

The second thing (and this is the key to long-term success) is that you should plan to switch, or switch your plans. The lack of variety may cause many participants to “fall off the wagon” … even though they may be experiencing success.

Map out a course that you can live with. Try to use a certain plan for six months and then another for the next six months. If that works well, repeat it again for a year. For others, it might be easier to follow a seasonal plan. Three-month stints on each of four different diets might add the variety that you need to stick with your plan.

However you map out your future, be encouraged by this study. Ten people began a study. Three weeks later, they emerged weighing less and having stabilized their blood levels. They reduced their caloric intake by nearly one-third, and didn’t miss anything. This is the kind of behavior from which we can all benefit.

Have you ever been guilty of feeling that the really fast way to lose weight is to eliminate as many calories you possible can? I mean, if your calorie intake is at 3,000 a day and you cut it in half to 1,500, then you should really see some weight loss, right? Well, let’s take a closer look. You may be very surprised at the answer.

How often have you or someone you know, start a new diet plan like this…

You wake up one day and have a really tough time trying to put those pants on. This gets you angry and you’ve had enough. So, you decide you will start dieting immediately and stick to it regardless.

Now you’re motivated and committed and you take action. So, what do you do? If you’re like most people you start on the starvation diet as a way to lose weight fast.

What happens next? Well, since you skipped breakfast as a way of letting your body know who’s in charge, your body starts letting you know how if feels. You begin getting a few hunger pangs. You quickly drink some water and go about your day.

Ok…lunchtime has arrived and you’re starving. But you made that commitment so you only have a piece of fruit or a yogurt.

This can go on for a while longer until you’re just about to go stark raving mad! Finally, you can’t take it anymore and you start eating everything in sight. I think we’ve all been there at some point.

Well, the starvation diet just doesn’t work. The weight you do lose is only water. Your body adjusts to the fact you are not giving it the calories to offset this. You hit what is known as the weight loss plateau.

It won’t matter if you eliminate 1,500 calories a day. Your body will simply adjust. The starvation diet may be good if you just want to lose a couple of pounds of water weight, but if long term weight loss is your goal, this is not the route to take. You need a diet plan that will give you the right calories at the right time of day.

Fasting to lose weight

This procedure is followed by many who are obese and anxious to lose weight. But it is proven not to work. The body cannot tolerate the low blood sugar levels that fasting incurs and so more food is consumed at meal times than normal. People who practice fasting to lose weight often gorge themselves at the first opportunity. But some diets do work.

Diet and High Protein

The CSIRO in Australia developed a diet focused on high protein, low saturated fat and only moderate amounts of carbohydrates. The daily intake of nutrients are more than that recommended and weight is lost through fat and not muscle tissue. The rate of loss is around 0.5kg per week so it is not a speedy result for effort.

Walking and weight loss.

Just about every diet program recommends walking as the best exercise to accompany a diet and achieve weight loss. Choice magazine recently listed exercise as the key to the hardest part of dieting and for maintaining weight loss. It claims that “keeping up the exercise is enough to stop gaining weight again.”

Weight management programs

There are hundreds of such programs available that rely on healthy eating and exercise to achieve weight loss goals. The problem for most people is that they usually cost a lot of money and tend to play on the gullibility of those desperate for help. Many such programs operate their own exercise equipment and may charge hundreds of dollars for subscriptions to their gyms. That is on top of the cost for food they provide.

Quick and easy weight loss

There really is no such thing for long term weight loss. Many who try to lose weight quickly will soon put it on again when the diet is over. That is because they revert to old habits and the body is starving for the necessary nutrients that have been denied it.

Losing weight naturally

This is the cheapest and, in the long term, probably the best way to lose weight. It involves a healthy diet free of fats, plenty of fruit and vegetables, and no sugary drinks. In fact people who are serious about weight loss will usually give up sugar in the first instance. Water is essential for health and less tea and coffee is also recommended.

Fast food loss weight

There is publicity regarding a guy who claims to have lost weight by eating a specific type of sandwich through a fast food outlet. But there may have been other factors involved that we are not told about. For instance, how much exercise he undertook at the time? The food may also have cost a lot of money as he needed to buy it three times a day. That could amount to some $30 or more a day or $210 a week at least. There are cheaper and better ways to achieve the goal and not everyone can stick to the same food three times a day seven days a week. It is also not healthy to do this..

Lose weight without dieting

This is the greatest form of weight loss and it comes mainly through exercise that builds up muscles and ensures fat loss. That’s why athletes are usually trim and muscular. They also adhere to a natural healthy diet and avoid large amounts of fat and sugar intake.

Lose weight by walking

Walking has been demonstrated to be the best form of exercise to lose weight. Done consistently and over a period of time it certainly works. It places the least amount of strain on the heart and is rather pleasant to undertake on a regular basis, such as an hour a day.

Quick healthy weight loss

This type of thing may not exist as the examples noted above show. Most successful weight loss programs are undertaken over a lengthy period of time for long term results.

Diet weight control

Certain types of healthy nutritious rich diets obviously work when taken in conjunction with exercise. They are supported by the medical profession and have long lasting results when the right amount of determination and focus exists.

Lose weight really fast

This is dangerous and not recommended. Some people, like jockeys and prize fighters for instance, must loose weight before their events. But they often do it by depriving the body of essential fluids as well as food to make the grade. Water and fruit juice are important ingredients when losing weight and the more one drinks of them the better.

Conclusion

Weight loss has to be taken seriously for it to be effective. That means determination and focus on the part of the one losing the weight. It also means ingesting the right nutrition and fluids. It has to be done with the proper balance and given a fair time frame for success. It is also done in conjunction with exercise and common sense. Unless the will to lose weight is present the chances of success are slim.

It all started when a doctor sparked on a topic within earshot of an ardent low-carb blogger. The doctor, an associate professor, Dr David Katz of Yale University was reported by Forbes to have claimed that the Atkins diet had resulted to the hospitalization of one of his patients. The blogger and also purveyor of low-carb diets Jimmy Moore of Livin La Vida Low-Carb Blog felt his feathers ruffled by this claim.

Moore, author of the weight loss book with a similar title to his blog, and the subtitle ‘My Journey from Flabby Fat to Sensationally Skinny in One Year’ claims to be living proof that low-carbs work. He says he has lost over 180 pound on a low-card diet in a year. In his blog on he posted an article titled ‘Health experts gang up on Atkins Diet’ where he criticized, first the media for a seemingly regular “orchestrated negative splash against low-carb diets”. The article in contention was one appearing in Forbes titled “Atkins diet not safe for everyone” where Dr. Katz was reported to have had a patient that developed serious ketoacidosis which he linked to the Atkins diet the unnamed patient was on.

Secondly, Moore turned on the doctors cited in the article starting with Kartz. Moore went to the extent of calling the co-authored diet book by Dr Katz Flavor Point Diet “one of the biggest fad diet books you’ll ever read”. Disdainfully, but seemingly aggrieved, the good doctor responded to the posting by email. Moore went on to dissect the email in his blog.

Dr. David L. Katz is a clinical professor, division of Health Policy and Administration, Epidemiology and Public Health of Yale University. Even Moore, though sarcastically, thinks of him as a nutritional genius with his string of titles.

Katz asserted that Moore has no academic ground to differ with him. And on the doctor’s bashing of the Atkins diet, Katz says he wasn’t starting on bashing the diet rather he’s “been beating up on Atkins for years, never wavered never will”.
He further criticized the diet as lacking in fundamentals of healthful eating and sustainable weight loss. Moore on the other hand defended it on grounds that he’s 180 pounds lighter.

Atkins diet is a low-carb ketogenic diet designed for weight loss using significant changes in your dietary macro-nutrients. It recommends you eat fat and more proteins to replace the highly restricted carbohydrates. This is unconventional as carbohydrates are considered to be the primary source of calories for the body. Often this drastic change of dietary requirement is viewed with great suspicion. But the underlying question and continued basis of feuds such as this is how do we explain outstanding results by people like Jimmy Moore?

Lyn Steffan of the University of Minnesota school of Public Health was reported in the contentious Forbes article as saying that low-carb diets are not diets for life. She went on to recommend a healthy diet that results to weight loss and that can be used for life. But the question still remains unanswered. How do Moore and others who swear by low-carbs mange to shed off pound of body fat, improve their cholesterol and claim to be healthy.

Steffan seems to think it’s not sustainable long-term. Then one wonders what she thinks of the massai diet that is low-carb, high fat and high protein like Atkins. Yet the East African massai, who are extremely lean, have lived with the diet for centuries.

So would this comparison vindicate Atkins diet?

It is best to view weight loss in the environment in which it occurs. A particular lifestyle is associated with obesity. Naturally, to deal conclusively with the menace one has to deal with the environment in which it occurs. Permanent weight loss is possible; it is also possible that it can be achieved relatively fast, safely as well as healthy. But this requires a holistic and long-term approach. Such a weight loss plan should deal with most of the reasons that result to weight gain.

Think of Something You Love Doing

If you want to find the best weight loss exercises program specifically for you, then think of something that you love doing. This type of physical exercise might be something that you would happily do for at least 30 minutes a day and which would make you sweat a little. This could be taking a brisk a walk, going for a bike ride or a sport that you could practice regularly. For instance, Jogging and playing with your children are good exercises since they actually fit a regular program as leisure activities. As a rule, weight loss exercises don’t have to be extremely difficult, you just have to consistently work at them every day, and in time the results will show. Remember, if you start practicing a particular type of sport, you won’t just lose weight, you will also improve your sate of health at the same time, thereby diminishing the risk of potentially developing some sort of heart disease in the future.

Do Some Research

There are a multitude of weight loss exercises programs that can be found in any magazine or from doing a bit of research on the Internet. The important factor is to start slowly and be patient with your results. You need to be realistic and wait for your body to adapt to the new activity program that you have chosen. This means taking things slowly and one step at a time, otherwise your body may not be able to cope with the extra strain and then the plan will probably fail. Also, you need to clearly understand the factors that will motivate you to do these exercises e.g. is your life in danger because of being overweight or do you just want to look better? Motivation is usually the deciding factor for success in any weight loss program.

Start Gently…Stretch

The easiest and fastest weight loss exercises program to begin with is simply practicing some kind of gentle body movement, for instance easy stretching, for at least 10 – 20 minutes every day, three or four times per week. Keep this model up for two months and then increase the number of minutes to twenty daily or forty minutes daily, four times a week. This way, you will be able to get your body to burn its extra supplies of fat and at the same time feel much, much better.

Walking is Good

If you love walking then you will find the next exercises program valuable. First of all do some warm up stretching for about five minutes and after that take a brisk walk of fifteen minutes. Alternate this with a similar period of slower walking. Before finishing your walk, make sure that you take a gentle body stretch, to warm-down. This helps your body to safely recover from the effort you have expended. The program can be repeated for several weeks before gently increasing the amount of exercises.

Common Mistakes

A common mistake many people make is that after finishing their exercises, they reduce the amount of activity they carry out, during that day, believing that if they practiced for 15 minutes, they can now relax for the rest of the day. Remember it is important to remain active as much as you can and to not spend time staying in bed or sitting on the sofa in front of TV drinking beer or eating chocolate!

And Finally

Finally, remember, before starting any kind of exercise program, always consult your doctor or physician to ensure that you are in a fit state to do so. They will always encourage their patients to do exercise, when they can, but it is far better to know that you have their blessing and will not do any harm to your body in any way.