Let me tell you about my friend Omar. Omar owns the breakfast cart down the street from my office. He’s a very friendly guy, always greets me with a smile and knows my order – ham and eggs on a whole wheat bagel. Street food carts are part of the culture here in NY – even more than Austin, TX – and you can frequently get good, fresh food for better prices than you would in a local deli. Not to mention that Omar is on my way from the subway to my building – super convenient!
But I recently decided to tighten up a little, so I had to make a change. My schedule has led to me making some not-so-great food choices and my workouts have been less frequent, and I had gotten a little soft. I also have something motivating me to get my act together, but more on that later.
I knew Omar and I had to stop meeting each other like this – so I changed my route to get to work. Instead of the way I always walk to work, I immediately cross the street and avoid the lure of Omar altogether. He’ll survive without me, and for the short term, until I get back to where I want to be, I’ll live without him too. Sometimes something simple like changing your route to work will force you into a better decision and you’ll forego the temptations that convenience provides. So if you see Omar say hello for me – tell him I’ll stop by in the spring.
It doesn’t get much shorter or sweeter than this! 
Here’s an awesome recipe from my partners at Prograde Nutrition.
Just looking at the picture of the finished recipe is making my mouth water.
- Enjoy!
PS – If you enjoy that recipe, well, they’ve got 196 more of them here
In case you don’t follow baseball, Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees recently hit the 600th home run of his career which is a major milestone for him personally as well as historically – only six other players have reached that milestone in their careers. But, it took A-Rod (as he’s known in the sports world) 46 at bats to go from home run number 599 to home run number 600, almost 2 weeks worth of games.
Undoubtedly there was a lot of pressure from the attention – fans packed the stands and snapped lots of photos with every pitch and swing. But my guess is A-Rod suffered from overthinking paralysis – how else could you do something 599 other times in your career with relative ease and then, all of a sudden, not be able to do it? I think (and I’m not a pyschotherapist) that he was focused on everything but what he gets paid to do, and what he is best at – hitting the ball as hard and far as he could.
The same thing happened to me yesterday on the golf course. I got over the ball after looking at the hole layout, and was getting ready to do what I had done thousands of times – hit the ball as long and as hard as I could. But I started to think about my tempo, the distance to the far end of the fairway (it was a dogleg right), and I decided to reposition myself slightly and hit toward the trees that were lining the fairway, thinking I could cut the dogleg and pick up a stroke. What did I do? I caught the very top of the tree (a very strong branch, by the way) which forced the ball down and left me with an awful second shot. Result? I got a bogey when I thought I could cut the dogleg and go for birdie.
Alright, so what does all of this have to do with fat loss? Well it is pretty simple. I got emails from people asking “what is the best X for losing fat?” – you can replace X with exercise, protein, diet, cardio or a host of other words. We suffer from what I call the Consumer Reports culture – need to know the reviews, information, etc. before we act.
The problem is that most people never end up acting. Fat loss is really, really simple for most people:
- Eat less
- Move more
Unless you are a world class athlete, body builder, or someone who relies on their appearance for income, then this is all you really need to know. Don’t overthink it – it really is that simple.
Most people who I have worked with have kept a food diary at the very beginning to see exactly what they were eating. More often than not, it revealed that most people ate 1.5 – 2 times the number of calories that they needed per day to maintain their weight – said another way, they were eating twice the amount of food that they really needed.
A really simple way to get started? Cut your meals in half – eat half a muffin for breakfast, eat half a sandwich for lunch, and cut your dinner portions in half. Fill in the gaps with an apple or handful of broccoli, drink some more water and see if you miss the extra food. Monitor your scale weight before and after and see what happens in 14 short days. As you progress you will need to refine your program, but for most people, this is an easy way to get started without spending a ton of time or money.
How do you move more? For me, I strapped my golf bag to my back and walked 18 holes yesterday. Lugging 30 pounds for over 4 miles was a good workout, but it wasn’t a dedicated workout – it was a way to move more while doing something I loved. Take your kids or pets for a walk, swim some laps while lounging at the pool, play a little soccer in the backyard, skip the subway and walk to work. You don’t have to join a gym or buy an infomercial gadget – just stop watching TV and go do something!
I was riding home on the train today when I heard a woman in the seat in front of me utter the fateful words…”Oh well, diet day is Monday.” It instantly took me back to my childhood when my grandmother would always utter that phrase after a particularly large family meal. It took me until I was in my early 30s to realize how horribly wrong my grandmother really was.
Let’s be honest, going on a diet is not necessarily fun. It forces you to do things you don’t normally do, and people are very resistant to change by nature. Rather than focusing on the end goal you have a tendency to focus on the immediate “dread”, which forces you to put it off until the next most convenient time (in your eyes).
Now let’s say you sprained your ankle – not just a slight tweak but a really hard twist. Would you hobble around trying to walk it off, or go hit the gym hoping that the workout will do your ankle good? Or would you take action to address it before you did any more damage? To be successful with your weight loss efforts you should not wait until you do more damage.
Mondays are hard enough for most people. The weekend is over and it is back to the same weekday routine. People who wait until Monday to start making a positive change are more likely to abandon their program by midweek.
So when is the best time to start? At your next meal! Even if you string together four or five meals that are in line with the diet program you are following, and then slip, start right back up again at your next meal. Don’t focus on your failures of the past, make the commitment to change going forward. I am a strong advocate of the 90/10 rule, meaning that if you can adhere to your diet ninety percent of the time you eat that you will not be derailed by the ten percent of the time that you do not.
Want to know how I successfully lost 80 pounds and kept it off? Read about my unique approach to lose weight.
by Michael Roussell
A major issue with dieting is dealing with feeling hungry. Losing weight has a large mental component to it and dealing with hunger is a major road block for many people. The inability to deal with hunger while dieting can be one of the biggest reasons why many people fail on their diets. They can’t deal with the hunger and thus end up snacking and eating foods not on their plan. This leads to consuming too many calories and no weight loss.
Fortunately there are several things that you can do to help harness your hunger pangs so that you can stay in a caloric deficit and continue to lose weight. How do we do this? Just trick your body into thinking that it is full and that it is eating more food/calories than it really is.
The first thing you can do it eat more green leafy (spinach, kale, lettuce) and/or fibrous vegetables (broccoli, asparagus, brussels sprouts, etc). These kinds of vegetables have a lot of ‘bulk’ to them but not a lot of calories. A lot of the bulk is actually just extra water within the vegetables. This means you can eat a lot more food without consuming extra calories. You actually trick your body in two different ways. The first is visually. There is a big difference from a psychological perspective when you sit down to eat a plate overflowing with food vs. a plate that just has a few pieces scattered on it.
The second trick occurs in your stomach. Your stomach has stretch receptors that signal the brain, letting it know your stomach is full and that you should stop eating. These receptors don’t sense calories, they sense volume. Eating lots of green leafy and fibrous vegetables will activate these stretch receptors and you’ll feel full even on fewer calories.
The next ‘eat less feel full’ strategy is to eat protein with every meal. Protein does a couple different things to make your body feel fuller. First, eating protein does not cause a blood sugar roller coaster as with eating carbohydrates. Eating lots of carbohydrates will cause your blood sugar to rise and then fall. The fall in blood sugar will signal your brain that you need to eat – this especially occurs when eating white processed carbs.
Protein also stimulates the release of a compound called CCK (Cholecystokinin). CCK is a satiety peptide hormone that when released can interact with your nervous system to signal your brain that you have had enough to eat.
As you can see these two simple strategies – eat more green leafy vegetables and consume protein at every meal are very simple but they have complex biological and biochemical repercussions which signal your body that you have had enough to eat. Controlling hunger is key and these dietary ‘hacks’ will help you maximize satiety while dieting, control hunger, and lose weight.
Discover 4 ‘Hacks’ to Help you lose more weight faster (how does 20lbs in 30 days sound?) This Incredible Weight Loss System Has Helped Thousands of People Lose 10,15, and 20lbs of Nasty Fat In 28 Days Or Less. Click here To Lose 20 Pounds.
Mike Roussell is an author and nutrition doctoral student at Pennsylvania State University. Mike writings can be found in Men’s Health and Men’s Fitness and Ironman Magazines in addition to the internet’s largest bodybuilding and fitness website – T-Nation.com. Learn more at http://www.warpspeedfatloss.com/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Roussell
It took me a long time to learn to love chicken. I would always gag whenever I ate grilled chicken breast – it always was so dry to me. You should never truly dread a meal, and I was getting to that point with chicken. Then one day my wife made a chicken breast for me that did not suck! As I peppered her with questions about how she did, she just had this sly smile. Turns out she had read that if you soak the chicken breast in buttermilk that the breast would be tender and juicy…and it was! I am no scientist, but apparently there are some enzymes present in buttermilk that act as a meat tenderizer. She typically soaks the breasts for 2 hours or so, but has also soaked them overnight and they have turned out great!
Staying with the chicken theme, search your supermarket for ground chicken breast to use in any recipes where you may have used ground turkey. The ground chicken breast is much more moist than turkey and has a better taste (to me, at least). I know it depends on where we shop, as not every supermarket has it, but I know that Perdue is one of the brands. Alternatively, if you live near a quality butcher, they can easily grind fresh chicken breasts for you, and they may actually be a bit fresher.
Finally, my last chicken-related tip is to utilize rotisserie chickens. They are available at most supermarkets and even at the warehouse clubs. They are extremely versatile and most often generate multiple meals. One quick tip – DO NOT FEAR THE DARK MEAT!
Dark meat poultry catches a bad rap, but in fact, contains a tremendous amount of nutrients. The dark color comes from a chemical compound in the muscle called myoglobin, which plays a key role in oxygen transport. Dark meats must use myoglobins as they transfer oxygen more efficiently to the muscles than glycogen. Muscles used more frequently, get to be dark. This is why non-flying poultry drumsticks are dark meat, while breast meat is white. When dark meat is cooked it turns the myoglobins to metmyoglobins, which is brown/gray. Metmyoglobins are very high in iron.
Dark meats tend to contain more zinc, riboflavin, niacin, thiamin, vitamins B6 and B12, amino acids, iron than white meat. Chicken dark meat contain vitamins A, K, B6, B12, niacin, folate, pantothenic acid, minerals as selenium, phosphorus and zinc. Even the fats in most of the dark meats have healthy parts. They contain Omega-3, and Omega-6 fatty acids, and other “healthy‟ fats. To reduce the saturated fat content of dark chicken meat, simply remove the skin!
- Understand what “good” fats do. The body uses these substances for many functions, including creating energy, maintaining cells, transporting vitamins and creating hormone-like compounds that help regulate blood pressure and heart rate. Healthy fats also can help lower bad cholesterol levels.
- Go for monounsaturated fats … Good food sources include olive oil, fish oil, avocados and olives – yes, fruits can contain healthy fats – and most nuts.
- Polyunsaturated fats … Soybeans, whole-grain wheat and vegetable oils, including corn, saffron, sunflower and soy, contain these fats.
- … and omega-3 fatty acids. These types of polyunsaturated fats appear to lower the risk of coronary artery disease and may guard against irregular heartbeats and high blood pressure. Go for salmon, herring, flaxseeds, walnuts and leafy green vegetables.
- Limit trans and saturated fats. Trans fats are common in commercial baked goods such as crackers and cookies, as well as in fried foods like doughnuts. Saturated fats are most often found in animal products (full-fat dairy and red meat), partially-hydrogenated oils such as Crisco and coconut, palm and other tropical oils.
- Use moderation. All types of fat are high in calories, so keep portions small. A handful of nuts – roughly 25 almonds, for example – is all you need for a snack. If you’re cooking with olive oil, spray a small amount into a non-stick pan or lightly brush the oil onto meat, fish or vegetables before grilling.
- Eat well and exercise. Weight gain doesn’t come from fat (or carbohydrates) per se – it comes from too many calories overall and not enough activity.
Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa)
02-22-10
Munich (dpa) – Obese people lose weight at high altitudes and keep it off for at least four weeks, according to a team of German scientists.
Independent of any other change in lifestyle, high altitudes appear to increase metabolism, decrease appetite and lower diastolic blood pressure, the researchers report in the journal Obesity.
Understanding the mechanisms behind this weight loss could provide a basis for new treatments for obesity, they say.
Florian Lippl and colleagues at Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich studied the effect of living in high altitudes for one week on the body weight of 20 obese males, while no other change was made to their exercise routine or food availability.
At the end of the week, their body weight, food intake, and diastolic blood pressure had been significantly lowered, effects that were still present four weeks after returning from high altitude.
The low levels of oxygen present at high altitudes could be responsible for an observed increase in leptin, a hormone thought to suppress appetite, though the causes of this need to be further studied, the researchers say.
The lasting weight reduction seen at high altitudes is primarily due to an increased metabolism and decreased food intake, though the reasons behind these changes remain unclear and may be a temporary effect of the body acclimatizing to new surroundings.
An article in the journal Obesity reported the findings of Chinese scientists who noticed improvements in weight and body composition in men and women who consumed green tea that contained high amounts of catechins.
Researchers at Fudan University divided 182 moderately overweight Chinese men and women to receive beverages containing varying amounts of catechins for 90 days. By the end of the study, total body fat and body fat percentage were lower in the group that received the highest amount of catechins compared to the control group. In the highest catechin group, intra-abdominal fat area and weight were lower, and waist circumference averaged 1.9 centimeters less than those who received the control beverage.
“In this latest research, green tea providing significant catechin levels helped promote weight loss and positively affected body shape,” lead researcher Dr. Niels Boon concluded.
You can get my recommendation for green tea capsules here.
So on my commute to my real job I see a billboard for AmeriHealth insurance that says “Lose Weight, Get Paid $200!” Since there are several studies about incenting people to lose weight through a reward system, I did a little digging to find out exactly to what they were referring.
As part of AmeriHealth’s Healthy Lifestyles program, they will reimburse up to $150 of your fitness center fees and $200 of class fees for approved weight management programs. It’s a win-win: for you, as it eliminates one more barrier to getting healthy, and could lead to other financial benefits like fewer co-pays, lower food and clothing costs, and less gas used; for them, healthier subscribers means fewer insurance claims. The program also provides substantial discounts for alternative health (like acupuncture, massage therapy, and dietetics) as well as other programs for smoking cessation and healthy maternity.
Check with your health care provider to see if they offer similar programs – it could be just the kick-start you need to getting the weight off for good!
