The CDC reports that today about 1/3 of all American adults are obese. But when you stack that statistic against the number of fast food chains, drive-thru drink shops and donut houses it becomes easier to understand how we’ve gotten there. There was a recent study that came out just a few days ago that looked at a pool of emergency room patients to analyze whether or not they believed their weight posed a threat to their general well-being; the results were astounding. But hold on to that thought.

A couple of months ago I signed myself up for a gym membership for the first time in months. I immediately made an appointment with one of the trainers there and after a quick conversation about my diet and exercise routine it was socks off and onto the scale. According to the personal trainer’s calculations I was obese. How he got that at 5’4” and a size six I wasn’t completely sure, but I took what he said as gospel. Surely this fitness professional wouldn’t lead me astray, right?

K, back to that article. Yahoo! Health’s article stated that out of 450 ER patients surveyed, only 36% of obese men and 50% of obese women said their doctors discussed their weight and the risks involved with it. My personal trainer was so quick to point out that I was obese and yet our own doctors and general practitioners let this kind of information go completely unmentioned?

I started to think about why that could be and of course the possibilities are endless. Perhaps those surveyed really had been told by clinicians that their weight posed a problem and lied to researchers. Perhaps their healthcare had run out and it had been a while since they had even seen their GP. Aside from these extenuating circumstances, the numbers don’t lie that there had to be a few who were telling the truth: are doctors just not broaching the subject?

I can’t say for sure one or another why this would be for a doctor; you can make you own conclusions. I did however have a chat with a friend of mine who does personal training at a competitive gym about my own experience. He noted that especially when personal trainers have so much to gain fiscally from their clients it is in their interest to slightly skew BMI and weight calculations towards a more extreme level. If someone thinks they are “obese” they are way more likely to sign up for personal training sessions to get fit. If they think they are already fit, well you get it.

So, the lesson to be learned? No matter where you fall on the weight scale you need to be knowledgeable for yourself. To rely so heavily on any one form of information whether it is your doctor, RD, personal trainer, or favorite website is a dangerous practice. We cannot assume that everyone has our best interest in mind, especially when it comes to our personal health. This is an age when we have so much information at our fingertips that there is not excuse to live in ignorance about anything. It is imperative that we be well informed, aware and unafraid to speak up for ourselves in the face of those who may be trying to sway us one way or another. The only thing you should accept is the healthiest you possible.

One of the things best things you can do for yourself is to not get in too much of a hurry. What? In this day and age, it seems like that may be the only way we can get anything done. But slowing down really can keep you calm and maybe healthy too. Stress is one of the causes of chronic illness in many people. When a person takes care to try to relieve stress by not getting in a hurry, they are on a road to wellness, not illness.

Editor, critic, editor, and Yale University Henry Seidel Canby said, “Live deep instead of fast.”

So how do we do that? Living “deep” may require some careful thought and slowing down in itself. Little things like eating breakfast, taking vitamins, exercising, getting the proper rest and drinking enough water for your body type are things that can help relieve stress and keep you on track to being healthy.

Find a way to make sure that you find joy in everything in your life. If it does not, see if you can discard it as if it were clutter. Clutter can take many forms as it invades our homes, our calendar, our minds and our way of life. Learning how to weed out the clutter in your time schedule so you do not feel so rushed is a great place to start.

As the clutter leaves our homes, we find clear spaces. As disorder and confusion leave our schedules, our minds become more free. These open areas help us to slow down and enjoy the calm. Less clutter equals more peace!

Most of us have a tendency to want everything all fixed now. The problem with wanting it now is that we become impatient. That usually means we are in a hurry. Hurry causes stress and stress produces more chaos instead of peace in our lives. Then we are back on that vicious cycle.

We need to learn how to let ourselves slow down and not be forced into getting into rush mode. It takes time to make changes, but if you take a few moments every day to breathe, to think, to plan, you can begin to make that healthy change for the better. For example, find a nice Bath Body Gift Basket and a good book and relax for a while. With your mind clear and your anxiety gone, you will be able to do so much more. It is amazing how something as simple as a Bath Body Product can make so much more productive.

Your new life starts with nurturing yourself; eventually it will become a way of life. You may find that you really enjoy it and when you take care of you, your home, your family, and your schedule will all respond in positive ways.

Edith Armstrong once said, “I keep the telephone of my mind open to peace, harmony, health, love and abundance. Then, whenever doubt, anxiety or fear try to call me, they keep getting a busy signal – and soon they’ll forget my number.”

All of us are under a lot of pressure, regardless of what type of pressure it is that we are facing. Relieve stress by managing your time. If we are having a difficult time at work, we may find that this simply carries over into the rest of our lives and that the stress we are feeling never really goes away at all. This is not unusual, and as a matter of fact more and more people are succumbing to problems that occur as a result of this stress, such as panic attacks and dangerous physical issues. In order for you to overcome the stress, you need to be able to manage your time properly but this is something that is difficult for many of us.

Are you a multitask-er? Many of us would call ourselves one but that does not necessarily mean that we are able to do more than one thing at a time. Our jobs may demand that we take care of several task at one time but the majority of us will not be able to do so effectively. As a matter of fact, if you are handling one task and then get interrupted to take care of another, it can take you up to 20 minutes to truly get back into the mindset that you were in whenever you are handling the first item. That is why it is important for you to manage your time, not as a multitask-er but as a singular tasker.

There is one thing that all of us have in common, no matter what it is that we do in life. We all have 24 hours in a day and we need to get all of our work done during those 24 hours. The easiest way for you to be able to do this and to avoid a lot of the stress that you may be feeling is to break your day up into manageable time periods. For example, instead of trying to work the entire day in order to get a big project done (or impress your boss), break up your time into one or two hour time periods and focus on that single project during that time. This is just one time management technique but it can really help you to get a lot more done and that will reduce the amount of stress that you are feeling in your life.

Stress kills. When it doesn’t – it smothers your life! If you read the article above you owe it to yourself to see one of the most successful forms of stress reduction. CLICK HERE.

Weight loss for women is a special challenge when you find yourself munching mindlessly throughout your day.

Women with children at home mindlessly lick the peanut butter off the knife when making a sandwich. They nibble at their child’s leftovers so it doesn’t go to waste. They find themselves taking a little taste as they make the dinner.

I hate to tell you but those calories do count and it all adds up. You’d be surprised at how many extra calories you consume when you really start counting.

For women that work at home, the munchies can be a form of procrastination. You don’t want to make that phone call; you’re stuck on a challenging problem. So what do you do? You wander down to the kitchen for a snack.

You may not even be paying attention to what’s going on around you as you reach for a snack. But as soon as you begin eating and you notice the textures, flavors and smells, you become very aware of the present moment. This is the same as in meditation. The problem is that once you realize how much you’ve eaten, you start feeling guilty and you start kicking yourself.

You might make the decision that the next time you are want a snack, you will do something else instead. You might even go so far as to make a list of other things you can do. Maybe you decide that you’ll go for a walk, read a book or choose celery instead. The problem is that when you are reaching for that snack, you forgot all about those choices. All your plans go out the window without even giving them a chance.

The trouble begins when the little voice in your head starts saying “I don’t want to!” That’s your subconscious mind which holds firmly to all the beliefs you have about food. It’s probably telling you that “You’ll feel better if you eat that cupcake.”

The key to changing your munching habit is to change the thoughts in your subconscious mind using a simple process of self hypnosis. When your subconscious mind believes “I only eat when I am hungry”, you won’t have to try to remember to try out one of your non-eating alternatives. Instead, you’ll just check in with your stomach to see if you are hungry. If you are, then you’ll choose to eat. If not, then you won’t.

Weight loss for women is really that simple.

Sherri Frost is a Certified Hypnotist, NLP Master Practitioner and Neuro-Linguistic Love-n-Life Coach who helps people overcome stress, habits and fear so you can enjoy all life has to offer. Do you want to learn more about self hypnosis weight loss? You’ll find videos and your free ebook here: http://www.hypnosis-self-help.com/weight-loss-with-hypnosis.html

In recent study results released by a British Medical Journal, it was found that alcohol is the more harmful drug – within a list of 20 drugs including crack cocaine and heroin.

The panel of experts from the study, weighed the physical, psychological, and social problems caused by each drug and it was found that alcohol scaled the highest as the more damaging overall drug.

Researchers agree that this study proves that there must be a more aggressive campaign in showing people just how harmful alcohol is to the individual and to the collective society.

One reason why alcohol is abused so badly globally is the fact that it has become an acceptable part of the everyday culture. It is not illegal nor is it something to be hidden or ashamed of.

The study was funded by the London-based Centre for Crime and Justice studies.

There are millions of dollars spent everyday on disease prevention, disease education, disease research, pharmaceutical drugs, etc. — but I bet if you would talk to your primary physician, he or she would stress the importance to you of managing the stress in your life.

While this is something that mental health professionals discuss in great deal with clients, this is something that perhaps you do not get to talk about too much in the doctor’s office because after all you are there either for your annual check-up or you are there to seek help for a problem. Either way, your doctor has limited amounts of time to discuss the stress levels in your life — but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t important. They are!

Stress is making millions of us sick. Disease, diabetes, cancers, respiratory problems, etc. are all direct results of stress. Chronic levels of stress wreak havoc on the systems in our body directly. Indirectly, human beings try to medicate and manage stress with many negative things that result in sickness such as: bad foods, alcohol, cigarette smoking, recreational drug use, and more.

With the recent world events: our crumbling world economy, highly charged political elections, more media coverage of “bad news” in our communities, a deterioration of many of our moral boundaries, weather related catastrophies (hurricanes, earthquakes) — it’s no wonder that our stress levels are up and we are getting sicker and sicker. Not to mention the real kicker — many of use do not have any or adequate health coverage to even combat these problems.

That’s why it is so important for us to take a preventative approach towards our mental health and resulting physical health.

1. Make time for you. Even if it is only 15 minutes today.

2. Do things that you enjoy. Do you remember what they are?

3. Take time for mental stimulation or exercise such as leisure reading, crossword puzzles, or suduko

4. Try meditation or yoga. Give it about 4 weeks and see how you feel.

5. Call someone you haven’t talked to in months or even years.

6. Perform an act of kindness. Pay for someone’s toll on the bridge. Write a nice letter to someone in our armed forces. Help your neighbor out with something in their yard. Run some errands for a disabled or elderly person.

7. Music has the ability to change moods. Throw on some tunes that you love to sing or dance to around the house. I love singing Aretha Franklin songs!

8. Take a walk in your neighborhood or in one where you can gain some ideas on how to add curb appeal to your own home. I call it dream walking!

9. Decide not to stress about things out of your control today. You may not be able to do that everyday with kids or at the job — but you can do it just one day. See how you feel afterward.

10. Write it out. When you are facing issues that can truly impact your life and the lives of your family — sometimes it’s best to write it all down. Journal it. You may just write the solution to one of your problems.

A wise woman once told me that I could create an energy and a flow in my life of positive things if I would just learn how to stop complaining about the things that seemed to be problems in my life.

It was a hard pill to swallow. I didn’t know anyone really noticed. But guess what? People do. Try to eliminate not only verbal complaints but internal complaints as well. Live one day consciously complaint free and take inventory at the end of the day.

1. Were you able to accomplish more today?
2. Did you feel lighter today?
3. Did you feel more hopeful today?
4. Was it hard to stop the internal complaining voice in your head?
5. Did you recognize a time when you could have complained but instead redirected yourself?

While learning how to stop complaining is not something that may happen overnight, a daily conscious effort in eliminating it from your everyday conversation is one small step towards living a more productive and satisfied life!

Eating is a part of life. Your body gets its nutrients from food. Sometimes we can go overboard with our eating habits and it can result in gaining weight. One issue with food is emotional eating.

The problem of emotional eating may end with the scale but it begins in the mind. Stress takes its toll on your life. When your defenses are compromised your health takes a hit and so do your emotions.

Everyone has good days and bad days. How we deal with the bad ones brings emotional eating into play. You look for comfort for your hurts. People who turn to food for comfort find a coping mechanism that wonít judge them, hurt them or tell them no. To complicate the issue, eating pleasurable foods can stimulate the release of endorphins just like exercise. So, after you eat, you feel better.

Emotional eaters use food to relieve stress. They hide behind the food instead of seeking solutions to the problems. This is not uncommon when the stressor is something horrible such as physical abuse or a death.

But, how do you know you are using food in this way? The first sign is obvious. You will gain weight if you eat too much. In light of the weight gain, examine other areas of your life:

* Have you been under stress lately at work or at home?
* Has anything traumatic happened in the last year?
* Are you dealing with a problem but havenít found a solution?

Answering yes to any of these questions could mean that you are an emotional eater. You eat but you are not necessarily hungry at the time. The foods that you choose are what we term comfort foods:

* High fat foods like French fries, fried foods
* High carb foods like macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes
* Sugary foods like ice cream, donuts, cookies, cake

There is help for emotional eaters. The first step is recognizing that you have a problem. You’ll experience feelings of helplessness and guilt. The guilt is over potentially ruining your health and the helplessness lies in the fact that you donít see a way out.

Secondly, seek counseling. There are many types of counselors out there that can meet your need. Emotional eating has nothing to do with dieting or changing your eating habits but gaining control over your emotions.

A counselor might suggest things like visualization, practicing problem solving skills, relaxation techniques and family support. Visualization helps you to see your problems in a realistic way and not blown out of proportion. You will also learn to see food as nutrition for the body and not an emotional crutch.

Thirdly, your family can learn your triggers for stress and be on the lookout for changes in your eating habits. They can help you be aware of the foods you are eating, assist you in making healthy food choices and exercise along with you. Proper diet and exercise increases immunity, blood flow and positive thinking. Yoga enhances the mind/body connection so you don’t eat when you aren’t hungry.

Finding new ways to solve your problems and deal with stress will push food out of the equation. You’ll feel good about finding solutions which will replace the dependence on food.

Recommendations:
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Weight Loss Hypnosis

Are you at risk?
Yo-yo dieting is particularly dangerous and ineffective, because it decreases the metabolism, leading to an immediate weight gain once the caloric restrictions are eased.

Many over-the-counter (OTC) and prescribed medications have been proven to be extremely hazardous to the health and consequently withdrawn from sale, so consumers need to be wary.While anyone can lose weight by fasting (temporarily stopping one’s food intake altogether), it is an extremely dangerous practice. When concentration camp survivors, who involuntarily suffered famine as a result of the horrendous living conditions, were examined by doctors, what little weight they had was mostly fat, with practically no muscle.

The reason for the muscle loss is due to the fact that the brain cannot rely on fat for fuel. The brain can only rely on glucose and, to an extent, ketones to fuel itself. Ketones can be made from fats. When carbohydrates are initially limited, the brain still relies heavily on glucose for fuel, but after roughly 2-3 weeks the brain will gradually change its fuel usage to ketones. However, the brain can never use ketones to fuel itself 100%; at least 15% of its fuel must come from glucose. Due to the fact that fasts, very low calorie diets, and low-carbohydrate diets restrict the intake of carbohydrates, glucose must be obtained from some other source. Therefore, the body creates glucose from the available amino acids. These, in turn, are derived from dietary protein or from muscle, if dietary protein is insufficient. For this reason, any low carbohydrate diet is potentially hazardous: if protein intake is not adequate, muscle loss will result. This conversion of amino acids to glucose is called gluconeogenesis.

A very low calorie diet that restricts all carbohydrates and non-essential fats, while providing just enough dietary protein to prevent muscle loss, is termed a protein sparing modified fast or PSMF. This is possible when dietary protein is sufficient to meet the body’s glucose needs via gluconeogenesis conversion, thus sparing muscle protein. After a good deal of experimentation, it was found that a protein intake of 1 – 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of ideal bodyweight prevented the loss of body protein. A somewhat “safer” (although higher calorie) intake of .8 to 1.2 grams of protein per pound of LBM is often recommended, with even greater requirements for active individuals. Thus, a PSMF allows for rapid fat loss due to the severe caloric deficit that is created when nearly all carbohydrates and fats are removed from the diet. As with any VLCD, the PSMF is an extreme dieting technique subject to the same potential hazards: hormonal changes, rapid metabolic slowdown, nutrient deficiencies, and other side effects, and should be used with extreme caution.

The “safest” method of weight loss, to avoid rapid metabolic slowdown and possible muscle loss, is to eat a sensible, healthy diet while moderately decreasing caloric intake, and to increase exercise gradually until weight loss results. A good guideline to follow would be to create a calorie deficit of roughly 20% of normal daily caloric intake (calculate your daily caloric intake). Half of the deficit should be created through diet and the other half through exercise. This should allow one to lose fat, and maintain muscle mass, therefore curbing the metabolic slowdown associated with a reduction in bodyweight. Weight lifting is also a good guideline to follow as it has been shown to cause a response in the body to maintain muscle stores, and even stimulate muscle growth in untrained individuals, while on a caloric deficit.

Side effects of dieting

prolonged hunger
depression
reduced sex drive
fatigue
irritability
preoccupation with food intake and exercise

Lisa Angelettie, M.S.W., is a psychotherapist, author, and life coach. She has been helping people make smarter life choices since 1998. Get more free tips like this when you subscribe to the GirlShrink newsletter .

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Dieting”. You are free to copy & use this article under the terms of the license. *Please note that a courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated.

Medical conditions often require the use of a special diet that either contains or lacks certain chemicals. For example, a person who has diabetes is often on a diet designed to carefully regulate their blood sugar level, sufferers of celiac disease must follow a gluten-free diet, the lactose-intolerant omit milk and dairy products, and people with kidney disease must follow a strict low-sodium diet to ease the strain on their kidneys.

Treatment for mild hypertension includes a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and fat-free dairy foods, and low in fat and sodium, to lower blood pressure.
Vegetarian diet

As noted above, while many vegetarians and vegans adopt their diet for religious or ethical reasons, there is a growing body of evidence that vegetarian diets can prevent obesity and lower disease risks.

According to the American Dietetic Association, “Vegetarians have been reported to have lower body mass indices than nonvegetarians, as well as lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease; vegetarians also show lower blood cholesterol levels; lower blood pressure; and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer.” (source: American Dietetic Association. 2003. Position paper on vegetarian diets. J Am Diet Assoc. 103:748-765.)

As for weight loss, vegans on average weigh 10% less than non-vegetarians (source: Davis, B. and Melina, V. 2000. Becoming Vegan. pg. 22), and in a year-long study comparing Dean Ornish’s vegetarian diet to Weight Watchers, The Zone Diet, and The Atkins Diet, Dean Ornish’s diet showed the most weight-loss. (source: Dansinger, M.L., Gleason, J. L., Griffith, J.L., et al., “One Year Effectiveness of the Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and Zone Diets in Decreasing Body Weight and Heart Disease Risk”, Presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions November 12, 2003 in Orlando, Florida.)

Very Low Calorie Diets
The Very Low Calorie Diet, or VLCD, is a special diet to be undertaken with medical supervision. It offers rapid fat loss but can be dangerous. It consists of the consumption of a special powder mixed in with 200-300 ml of water to be taken three times a day. The drink, similar to a milkshake, provides approximately 1914 kJ (456 Cal) of energy per day when consumed at breakfast, lunch and dinner. It contains all necessary vitamins and minerals, although there is a risk of overdosing on selenium if a person consumes more than they should (more than three times per day). VLCDs should only be used for dieting when a person’s body mass index exceeds 30. In addition, at least two liters of water must be consumed per day and a person should consider using dietary fiber supplements regularly. Without this, the person risks severe constipation.

VLCDs can be very successful, but only when used over a six- to 12-week period. Because the body is essentially starving, it is burning up its fat stores and lowering its metabolic rate. As soon as the diet ceases and normal food is consumed again, there is an immediate increase in weight. Short-term use of VLCDs (one to four weeks) will have little, if any, benefit for the dieter, as the increase in weight will negate the weight lost in the first place. Once the full course of the diet is finished, it is up to the successful dieter to maintain their current weight, via exercise and sensible eating, otherwise they will put on weight again. VLCDs put a great deal of strain on a person’s body, and should only be undertaken with medical consultation.

Recommended Resource: Strip That Fat!

Lisa Angelettie, M.S.W., is a psychotherapist, author, and life coach. She has been helping people make smarter life choices since 1998. Get more free tips like this when you subscribe to the GirlShrink newsletter .

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Dieting”. You are free to copy & use this article under the terms of the license. *Please note that a courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated.