Healthy Weight Loss Program: Your Personal Exercise Prescription …

May 6, 2010 by unikul  
Filed under exercise

A fat burning exercise prescription is a MUST for the long term success of any healthy weight loss program.

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Healthy Weight Loss Program: Your Personal Exercise Prescription …

Losing Fat Fast: Is it possible

December 29, 2009 by unikul  
Filed under weight loss

The first thing you need to know if you want to lose fat is that you need to BURN fat. Burning fat is all about using up more calories than you take in. If you eat more calories than your body uses throughout the day, these additional calories will be stored as body fat. To prevent a build up of body fat you need to either reduce your calorie intake or increase your daily activity levels – doing both will have the best effect on reducing body fat.

This simply means that the more fat you want to lose then the greater the amount of calories you have to burn off. To help you achieve and speed up your fat loss, here are few things that helps.

Speed up your metabolism—Exercise speeds up metabolism. The more active your lifestyle the more likely you are to have a quick metabolism and weight loss. Metabolism does control weight, this is true. What most people don’t know is that they do in fact have the ability to control and adjust their metabolisms and thereby control their weight. Exercise does speed the metabolism up. The more active your lifestyle the more likely you are to have a quick metabolism and lose weight. It may not be healthy for all of us to get into a highly active lifestyle all at once but it is possible to get there as quickly as you safely can as an individual.

Eat healthy balanced diet— Be sure to eat a variety of foods, including plenty of vegetables, fruits, and whole grain products. Also include low-fat dairy products, lean meats, poultry, fish, and legumes. Drink lots of water and go easy on the salt, sugar, alcohol, and saturated fat. A large part of the battle in fighting fat and a slow metabolic rate is the western world’s view of food as entertainment. In addition to taking on an active lifestyle you will need to stop looking at food consumption as a means of gratification. This is what causes us to be gluttons. Instead of stopping when our hunger is sated we continue on until we are stuffed to get more enjoyment out of it.

Get plenty of rest and sleep— Sleep and other lifestyle patterns can help or hinder the rate at which we metabolize foods. An active lifestyle should lead eventually to being able to exercise to exhaustion; this in turn should keep your metabolism quick and your fat content low. By extending oneself to ones limits you fully utilize the lungs, heart, and muscles and burn fat most efficiently.

Be strong mentally—Try not to be obsessed by your weight. Everyone has a bad day. Do not punish yourself. Try to lose any guilt feelings towards the mistakes you have done. Instead, just move on, start again and enjoy life as it comes.

Herbs for Obesity

December 29, 2009 by unikul  
Filed under weight loss

Obesity is one of the major health concerns that plague America today.

Approximately two-thirds of American adults are considered overweight; while one in three are seriously overweight or obese.

Obesity is defined as having an abnormal amount of body fat; being 20 to 30 percent over the ideal weight for age, sex and height.

Aside from being a major cosmetic concern, obesity is a great risk factor for serious medical conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney troubles, prostate enlargement, female infertility, uterine fibroids, pregnancy disorders, gallstones, cardiovascular diseases, stroke and cancer. Excessive body weight also puts great stress on joints increasing the chances of arthritis.

Everyone’s metabolism (the rate at which the body burns calories) is different and is influenced by many factors, including genetics. Regularly eating even a few more calories than your body needs can lead to weight gain. By consuming only 100 extra calories a day, for example, you’ll gain a pound in approximately a month (a pound of body fat equals 3,500 calories). Some experts think a sedentary lifestyle influences weight gain even more than eating too many calories. Exercise burns calories and builds muscle. And the more muscle mass you have, the greater number of calories your body burns at rest.

Aside from aggressive dieting and exercising, some herbal products may aid in raising metabolism or suppressing the appetite. But at the same time, you should also be wary of their side effects. Always check with your health care provider first.

• Aloe Vera, improves digestion and cleans the digestive tract • Astralgus, increases energy and improves nutrient absorption

• Bee pollen, stimulates metabolism and quickly satisfy craving for sweets • Bladderwrack, contains iodine which helps enhance thyroid function • Brewer’s yeast, reduces various cravings for food and drink

• Cayenne, reduces hunger after meals and increases calorie burning by the body • Chitosan, slows the absorption of fat in the intestine

• Chromium, helps the body use fat for energy and builds muscles

• Dandelion, flushes out kidneys, boosts metabolism, and off-sets cravings for sweets

• Ephedra, also known as ma huang, suppresses appetite

• Fennel, suppresses appetite and removes mucus and fat from the intestinal tract

• Garcinia cambogia, quells hunger pangs

• Green tea, increases energy expenditure and enhances the ability of the body to burn fat

• Guaranб, contains caffeine which curbs appetite, increases metabolic rates and has a mild diuretic effect

• Guggul, lowers cholesterol and promotes weight control • Kelp, boosts metabolism

• Licorice, sustains regulated blood sugar level and reduces cravings for sweets • Malabar tamarind, helps prevents the production of fat and suppresses appetite • Siberian ginseng, stabilizes blood sugar and reduces cravings for sweets • Yohimbine, raises metabolic rates, reduces appetite and increases fat burning These herbs are not recommended to replace regular diet. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is key.

How to measure BODY FAT: Your Fat Calculator

December 29, 2009 by unikul  
Filed under weight loss

When it all comes down to losing or gaining weight, most people turn to the scales to determine how much they should lose or gain to have the weight or the shape that they desire.

However, health experts said weight alone is not a clear indicator of good health because it does not distinguish between pounds that come from body fat and those that come from lean body mass or muscle.

Being over fat and overweight is not the same. Overweight simply means an excess of total body weight based on population averages for heights and body frame sizes. On the other hand, obesity is defined as an excess of body fat regardless of weight.

What we have to consider, experts said, in order to determine our fitness, is to know our body fat. Remember that body fat is a percentage of your total weight, so even slender people can have dangerously high levels of body fat. (See Here are three ways of measuring your body fat:

1. Home Body Fat Scales– Body fat scales claim to measure body fat quickly and conveniently. These body fat scales use the Bioelectrical Impedance method to measure your body fat percentage. A low-level electrical current is passed through your body and the “impedance”, or opposition to the flow of current, is measured.

2. Skin fold Calipers– Calipers are a tool that looks somewhat like a giant tweezers. These are used to grasp your skin folds at different points on your body and measure the thickness. These measurements are then compared to standard values for persons of your age and gender to give you your estimated body fat. 3. Hydrostatic Weighing—This is just a fancy term for underwater weighing. You sit on a scale inside a tank of water and blow out as much air as you can. You are dunked underwater, where you blow out even more air. Since fat is lighter than water, the more fat you have, the more you will float. The scale measures underwater weight to figure out body density. The margin of error is around 2-3%, but the accuracy depends on the amount of air you expel. You have to blow it ALL out or it will not be as accurate. This is a difficult way to measure body fat since it can be uncomfortable and even scary to be dunked underwater with no air in the old lungs.

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