Natural Health Alternative Blog

It never fails to amaze me what lengths educated adults will go to in order to lose weight quickly and easily.  Keep in mind that these same people I’m referring to are friends who in many other settings are certainly skeptical.

I’ve heard of everything from lemon juice, syrup and cayenne pepper to the “all coffee” diet.  Some of these diets involved taking unregulated supplements and one over the counter pill promised diarrhea if one ate too much fat in one serving.

Are any of my readers disgusted?  Maybe.  Are any of you surprised?  Probably not.  Right on par with “get rich quick” schemes, people are highly susceptible of “lose weight quick” promises.  I’m all for the easy route but denying the body vital fuel (food) simply isn’t the way.

So many diet claims are that you will lose weight quickly, some can guarantee 5-10 pounds per week.   Oftentimes, these same diets deliver on their promise, at least initially.  The first two weeks of any extreme diet usually involve several pounds of weight loss on the scale, depending on one’s starting weight.

This is for a couple of reasons.  First, radical diets generally involve extreme caloric restriction and sometimes even fasting.  This is misnomer; however, that one is actually losing weight in the form of fat.  Muscle tissue needs nutrients from food in order to stay healthy. 

To actually lose muscle weight is much more likely with an extreme diet because the body wants to go into “protection” mode.  Fat will try to remain behind to protect and insulate this suddenly compromised body.

Additionally, many of these same diets allow for only bland, unseasoned food, if it does indeed offer food.  For many who want to lose weight, their current diets, in addition to being high in fat, are also high in sodium.

Once the restrictive diet is started, fluids are shed but the fat remains.  This offers no long term weight loss solution.  In fact, many who start and stop extreme diets actually gain even more weight than before the diet.

In fact, while there are many diets which come and go, the food pyramid is, in the end, the most reliable way to safely lose and maintain a healthy weight.    7-8 servings of whole grains, 4-5 servings of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and dry beans is recommended.

Limit lean meats to 2-3 servings per week in addition to limiting sweets fats and oils.  As you guessed, this is a change to eating which should be a permanent change, not a diet.

In order for the body to function properly, it needs the proper amount of food to efficiently fuel it.  If you want to burn more calories than you are taking in, you need to make an impact on how that fuel is utilized. 

Daily exercise is of course one method.  I also highly recommend my Weight Loss Breeze program.  This is one occasion where a simple change can lead to a permanent weight loss solution.  My program is all natural and guaranteed!

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“Is this going to be enough to feed 10 people?” This is a question my wife asks me at the grocery store each time we host a family event at the holidays. My response (albeit, only in my head) is, “This will be enough to feed 30 people!”

While humorous, I doubt anyone reading this would be surprised by the above story. Thanksgiving seems to be the holiday in which we begin to overindulge. No end is generally in sight until after New Year’s Day.

Why do we overeat during the holidays? One reason is that the holidays, as enjoyable as they are, are also stressful for many. Fretting about all that is needed to be done to accommodate friends and family (time consuming, extra burden financially, appearing to enjoy ourselves every little minute, etc.) can lead to stress eating.

Even if things go seamlessly, the idea of watching one’s calories can just go out the door any time anyone introduces more than 3 courses to a meal. With all the food involved and the need, oftentimes, not to offend anyone, we ingest 3 or 4 times what we should.

Don’t underestimate the power of “group think.” If everyone else at the table is going back for seconds or even thirds, the one person who eats “normal” proportions is the oddball.

I actually had a relative half-jokingly say to me, “I don’t know if I want another helping or if I’m going to be sick.”

What can we do to avoid the temptation of overeating during the holidays? First, find out why you are overeating. Are you overeating because you don’t want to miss out on all of the great foods (many of which you don’t eat any other time of the year)?

If so, don’t feel that you can’t eat all of the foods you want. Just make sure to limit your portions. If there are 10 courses, don’t cram all the food you can onto one plate or go back for seconds because you missed out, just put a couple of bites of each on your plate.

While we’re on the topic, if it is within your control, eat off of a smaller plate and with a smaller fork. I know it may seem nonsensical but it does actually help a lot.

Additionally, limit the amount of food you take home with you. It’s a lot easier to not overeat when the food isn’t around. Keep in mind that yes, it’s wasteful to throw out food but is it worse than abusing your body by eating it?

If your motivation for overeating is fear of offending a loved one who is pushing food on you, politely decline extra portions. For those who are truly offended, they are the ones who have the problem – not you.

If you do happen to “fall off the wagon,” don’t wait for your New Year’s resolution to kick in (most of us don’t keep them). Take a walk after dinner or add a few minutes to your workout. If you don’t regularly exercise, start now.

If you are looking for a way to lose weight with an all natural program, I hope you will try my Weight Loss Breeze program. It’s easy to do and best of all, I guarantee results! Try it now before the holiday overeating madness starts – you’ll just be that much further ahead come New Year’s day!

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I have a few clients who tell me they hate to go clothes shopping – it simply gets them depressed. While they are mostly women, some men complain of this as well.

Upon deeper examination, one learns that it’s hard to tell where the depression starts. Am I depressed because I’ve gained weight and my clothes don’t fit or have I gained weight and my clothes don’t fit because I’m depressed.

As you probably already guessed, it’s a cycle involving both. One can’t just label depression as “one size fits all.” There are many components to depression and different severity levels. Just as diverse are the triggers which can set it off.

For example, there are those who feel “down” all the time, there seems to be no hope of anything better and to make things worse, there is no actual reason they can pinpoint. This is a chemical imbalance in the brain for which one needs to seek the advice of a professional.

For most, though, depression can be associated with actual events such as death of a loved one, stress at work, or the end of a relationship. The symptoms can still be quite serious and a bit of a paradox when describing them – insomnia, extreme tiredness, hopelessness, weight gain, weight loss, lack of an emotional response to stimuli and mood swings.

What’s the toll of prolonged depression? The toll on one’s health can be extreme. For today’s article, let’s focus on weight issues.

Oftentimes, when depressed, we have difficulty sleeping. In order for the body to replenish lost energy and oxygen from sleep, it will rely on whatever it can find. The body will tell the mind that it’s hungry to replace the energy somehow.

Additionally, continual stress can summon the release of cortisol in the brain which, in turn, increases one’s appetite.

Also compounding depression and keeping a healthy lifestyle is the fatigue oftentimes associated. One simply doesn’t have the energy to get out and exercise like he/she used to do.

Hence, weight gain, sometimes rapidly. This is not good for the heart and other major organs. Upon seeing the effect of weight gain on our body image, we can become even more depressed and so the cycle begins. Over time, conditions such as high blood pressure and/or diabetes can occur.

That’s when many will turn to extreme dieting to shed extra pounds. This will often involve some sort of fasting which is in essence starvation dieting. Taken to extremes one can develop certain life-threatening food disorders such as anorexia nervosa (deliberately starving the body) or bulimia (bingin on food then vomiting afterwards).

Even if these extreme disorders don’t occur, the body is not meant to gain and lose weight rapidly. Just as it’s not good to gain weight too quickly, rapid weight loss makes the body think it’s in essence, starving and it takes steps to slow down metabolism to compensate for the shortage in food.

Key ingredients to living a healthier lifestyle when subjected to depression triggers are to try to get plenty of rest, try to continue to eat healthy, get regular exercise and avoid stress when possible. When not possible, breathing and relaxation exercises can show amazing results in achieving a stress/depression-free life.

This is why my all natural programs have seen such amazing results. If weight loss is your concern, I highly encourage you to try my Weight Loss Breeze program. As mentioned before, the results are incredible!

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“I eat like a bird, yet I continue to gain weight!” That’s a comment a friend of mine would always make. I can attest to the fact that she tended to eat very little when we would go out for a meal but I’ll admit that I assumed she went home and ate the entire contents of her refrigerator later.

Of course later when she was diagnosed with a pituitary disorder, I no longer assumed she wasn’t being honest.

When my friend asked her doctor what could have caused this, she was told that in cases like hers, it is thought that a build up of toxins did the damage over time and this in turn, led to her weight gain.

Of course, one does not have to be afflicted with a pituitary disorder to suffer weight gain due to food toxins. Does it seem like a paradox to you that we are living in an age of “low fat,” “no fat,” and “low carb” yet over a third of our population is overweight?

It is a known fact that chickens are fed a chemical hormone in order to cause them to gain weight without eating nearly as much as they would naturally. What do we think happens to this chemical when the chicken is packaged and sold as meat?

Chemicals used as food preservatives while, intended to save the consumer money, also lead to a build up in the body.

The liver, which filters the toxins out of the body before they can do damage to other organs, becomes overloaded. Fat then accumulates in order to protect the body from damage by these toxins.

It’s not just toxin laden food that causes toxins to build up in our bodies. Pesticides, make up and other “beauty” products are also oftentimes riddled with toxins.

Add to that what we do to ourselves – smoking and drinking alcohol to excess promote even further toxic buildup in our bodies.

For my friend, just knowing that there was a reason for her weight gain helped her. She started looking for organic foods when she shopped.

While it’s true that her meats and vegetables didn’t stay fresh as long as the processed foods she was used to but it was a small sacrifice for a bigger reward.

She also tried my Weight Loss Breeze program and loved the results! She, like so many of my clients, found the all natural program to be easy to start and even easier to maintain. If weight loss is your goal, I encourage you to try it as well!

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