Thursday, June 14, 2012

Taste Buds Can Be Changed

Taste buds and acquired tastes develop over the years. They are not formed at birth nor are they magically created. What the body is given, it will eventually crave and become used to. So the entire program is simple: get your body used to healthy stuff!

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Changing your tatse buds

The most ridiculous lie that dietitians will tell you is that everything is good in moderation. That is completely false. Some foods are just plain horrible and should almost always be avoided. The main problem in our society is that this list is growing. For someone trying to lose weight, the idea of moderating unhealthy food becomes both a mental and physical struggle. These foods that are high in fat and in sugar are created to be addictive and present little nutritional value at all. The moderation of foods like potato chips or cake simply does not work because they are addictive foods that have incredibly small serving sizes. A small ounce of cake can contain up to 200 calories depending on the cake and a small slice is usually about 350 or more calories. A single potato chip is also usually about ten calories or higher. So it becomes relatively impossible to have healthy portions of these foods. The trick is to change your taste buds.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

What Dieticians won't tell you!

The main lie that dieticians will tell the people trying to lose weight: "Everything is fine in moderation"

BULLSHIT! Okay, it is fine to have one dinner where you have some bad Chinese food instead of a nice home cooked meal. But to say that you should simply moderate your intake of crappy foods is way past stupid. First of all, moderation has to be defined more specifically rather than just as controlling intake. For example, is moderation having only one serving of potato chips? If so then be ready to starve because that would mean eating 12-14 chips and getting no nutritional value from them. And some foods are just plain horrible for a person trying to lose weight. A slice of cake or pie (surprisingly small) can be easily over 300 calories. Now here is the question every person trying to lose weight should be asking themselves: Is this worth the workout I will need to put in to burn it off? The answer is almost always NO!!!!! 300 calories would take an average person more than half an hour of cardio. So moderation doesn't work here. Also, the foods they tell you to "moderate" are designed to be addictive. They contain high levels of sugar and fat in order to draw you in to eat more and more and become hooked. So in general you can have a bad food once in a while but don't start eating crappy foods in small amounts and think that you are doing a good job for your diet. In fact, your simply creating a craving for more bad foods that will eventually explode into a binge that could erode your entire progress.

Friday, June 8, 2012

The paradox of weight loss

The most unfortunate thing about the task of weight loss is not the act of losing weight. Instead it is the task of keeping the weight off and maintaining a lower body weight than before.
The PARADOX of weight loss is as follows: if someone loses a significant amount of weight they will not be able to consume as many calories as another person who has been at their new weight for a longer period of time. This is why: The person who has just lost weight now has a more efficient body. Sounds like a good thing right? Well this means that the person now burns fewer calories when doing the same exercises as before. Although this may sounds strange it is completely proven and is scientific. The body will burn more energy when it is inefficient because it needs to. So the person who has just lost weight (let us give an example of 40 pounds lost and a new weight of 170 pounds) will NOT be able to eat as much per day as a person who has weighed 170 pounds for most of their life.
There is also the desire to eat which is greater in those who have just lost weight. There are certain hormones created by fat cells in the body which when at a lower level will send the body signals to eat. Because the person will have lost weight recently they will have decreased levels of production of these hormones and will feel more inclined to eat.
Another major and much more general trend for weight loss is that the people who experience a sudden rapid weight loss do so by an extreme program that does little to aid them in maintaining their new weight. Many short term diet programs that result in rapid weight loss include very little HABIT-FORMING TECHNIQUES which are essential for maintaining a healthy weight. They don't try to develop better eating habits or better exercise habits.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Example of a CORRECT DIET PLAN

Now, let's take our example person who over consumes by 300 calories per day and wants to lose weight. Let's say that the dietician makes the right call and suggests an overall weekly calorie burn from exercise of 2100 and to reduce the daily caloric intake by 300.
First, let us examine the 300 calories per day for the food intake. While this may seem scary, it really shouldn't be. There are millions of ways to cut out calories during the day. Eating a salad with grilled chicken for lunch with light or non-fat dressing for 250-300 calories instead of an unhealthy fast food lunch will most likely contribute 150 to that total. Now during dinner simply cut out the most carb-filled part of your meal. Either that or eat some low calorie ice cream instead of a fattening one. If you do all these three methods, you will probably have done the 300 cut that is necessary.
Now let us examine the exercise aspect. 2100 calories may seem like a big number but when divided up over the span of a week it really isn't. If one was to exercise everyday then that would require only 300 calories per day. On a decent cardio machine or with just pure running that should take no more than 30 minutes. This is also not including any muscle building exercises or abdominal exercises (which may burn more calories than you think). Now let us say that this person can only exercise 4 times a week. Even so, that means simply extending the time at the gym to an hour and on many cardio machines this may never even seem like a difference.

Exercise Dilemna (Danger of no exercise plans)

A lot of dieticians will sometimes recommend plans without exercise because they believe it puts added stress on an individual trying to lose weight. BIG MISTAKE! The individual will most likely be unable to alter their daily intake enough to meet the new goals. Let us take for example our past example of a person who consumes an excess of 300 calories per day. They wish to lose weight but this time the dietician suggests cutting out 600 calories per day out of their diet which probably would be around 2300 per day. This would result in a total caloric intake of 1700 per day. However, how is this reduction to come about? 100 per day is simple and 300 per day is still reasonable. But to reduce one's daily diet by 600 calories per day is a horrifying thought. It not only adds tremendous stress onto the person trying to lose weight but prompts them to avoid possibly healthier choices that may be slightly higher in calories (foods high in protein). It makes the obtaining of certain vitamins and minerals difficult and the person will most likely feel a significant drop in energy and increase in frustration. As a result, the metabolism slows down and the amount lost each day would actually decrease to a small extent.
The most likely result from this plan would be one of two possibilities. The first is that the person at first sticks to the diet but then begins to "max out" their calories they are allotted and in fact ends up going over the amount as no one can be 100% exact. The second is that the person eventually grows so upset and frustrated that they end up breaking the diet multiple times and eating incredibly unhealthy food. Either way, the result is not pleasant nor produces the desired weight loss.

The Diet Dilemna (Example One)

Often a person will go on a diet that will either focus solely on eating healthy or exercise. A good diet plan includes both. Take for example a person who eats 300 calories over their limit a day. They want to lose weight and so their dietician tells them that they need to burn 600 calories a day from exercise so that their caloric intake is -300 which would contribute to significant weight loss.
Unfortunately, this person would probably find it very difficult burning 600 calories a day by just exercise (roughly an hour on the treadmill). Most likely, the person would  either cut their workout short or would exercise less frequently. Now instead of burning 4200 calories a week the person only burnt 2000. The diet hasn't changed and so the total caloric intake for the week is -500 which would result in a loss of a pound after 7 weeks. Most likely, the person would give up the exercise plan long before that out of aggravation over not seeing improvement.