Carbs Can Cause You Do Be Fat, Have Acne and Wrinkles!

Posted on July 30, 2013 by therapysoup

http://www.dailyglow.com/skin/are-carbs-bad-for-your-skin.html?pos=1&xid=nl_TodaysHighlightFromDailyGlow_20130729

According to dermatologist, Dr. Jessica Wu, carbohydrates are an important source of energy, but people eat too much of them and not enough protein. This can lead to high blood sugar and insulin levels, which then can make your body store fat and can affect the appearance of your skin.

Problem:

Besides making you gain weight or have trouble losing weight, carbs can cause acne and wrinkles!

Carbs (such as bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, muffins, and other baked goods) can aggravate acne breakouts.A high carb diet can cause an increase of androgens (“male” hormones that stimulate oil glands and cause acne) after just one week. Carbs are also broken down into glucose (blood sugar), which interacts with proteins in the skin, stimulating enzymes that break down collagen and elastic tissue and resulting in thinner skin that’s more likely to wrinkle.

The solution:

Avoid refined grains, such as white toast, pastries, white rice, and white pasta. Instead, choose whole-grain products, which are digested more slowly, thereby producing less dramatic blood sugar elevations. In fact, the most important key to keeping your blood sugar balanced is the composition of the carbs you eat. In other words, it’s good to add chicken to your pasta, or peanut butter to your toast, but it’s much more important that your pasta be made of whole wheat and that you choose brown instead of white rice, and whole-wheat bread instead of pastries or muffins. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, if you are going to eat grains, keep it at a minimum and count carbs because if you want to stay thin, then you should not be having more than 100g of carbs a day (50-100g).

I Was On Vacation, But I Experimented With Wheat and Made a Discovery…

Posted on July 22, 2013 by therapysoup

Sorry for my absence, Skinny-Rules readers. I took a week off for my first vacation in years. In fact, it was my first vacation since I lost weight and my bathing suits (which are customized to my old body) looked ridiculous on me. I wore them and went to Arizona, hoping that the lady who made them would be there (Customized Swimsuits in Scottsdale), and sure enough–she was on vacation the SAME week as me. So, I still never got measured for a new suit. I am bummed. Off the shelf ones just don’t do it for me because I like a suit to fit a certain way and the suits now just don’t do it for me. I may have to go back soon to get this done!

However, it was nice to look decent in a suit for a change!

So, how did I manage my DIET LIFESTYLE on vacation for 6 days in a place that has the best Italian restaurant!? I gave up wheat as a choice to limit carbohydrates and because I felt that wheat was causing me stomach bloat and big fat wheat belly. So, I decided to experiment in Scottsdale a little bit.

1. I exercised every day! (One hour of elliptical and about 20 minutes of weights and Pilates)

2. We utilized the room’s fridge, and I went to the local Trader Joes and stocked up on:

Lite String Cheese

small bags of almonds

Peanut Butter Power Crunch bars

strawberries

Lite Greek Yogurt

almond butter

turkey slices

diet soft drinks and water

3. We ate breakfast at the Hotel Spa (breakfast package) and twice at local breakfast places. I completely recommend eating at the Breakfast Club in Scottsdale. So fun, nice and the food is amazing.

At breakfast: I had veggies, eggs, bacon, sometimes a little bit of fruit with GOBS of coffee, where I discovered the French Press (will blog about that soon).

4. Drank water all day long out in the sun, and brought snacks up to the pool and kept some in my locker. At snack times, we ate things like the almonds, the protein bars, or I brought with us strawberries and yogurt.

5. For lunch, we went out for a salad in the fridge from the night before, and put some turkey slices and/or cheese in the salad. Again, had one of our snacks later too and then went out to dinner.

6. For dinner, we went to my favorite Italian place, Oreganos. I couldn’t resist. I had not had regular pasta (except the low carb kind) in almost two years. I love this restaurant and their salads are great too. So, we shared a large salad and we either split a small pizza with veggies on it or a Garlic Chicken Lasagna. I did not eat the delicious looking garlic toast that came with it. I would not be surprised to find out that the half of a small pizza or half of the lasagna was minimally about 50g of carbs for me. I was careful the rest of the day and I did exercise my face off earlier, but I just knew that I was flirting with either putting on a pound or two on this trip or leaving about the same…but I took the chance and did it three days in a row. I even had a Carbolite-type desert as a sixth protein some days and on my last night, our meal was a salad with chicken and then we had the Pizzookie, which is a large melted chocolate chip cookie in a deep dish pizza pan, with vanilla ice cream and chocolate chips on top. It is decadent and I had not had one in 7 years.

I did enjoy my slight intentional derailment, although I tried to manage it with exercise and eating right the rest of the entire day and drinking tons of water and coffee. But, I do think that I was right about how bad sugar and wheat is for my body (and everyone’s). I went into this trip with a flat belly. I do Pilates 4 days a week, I do yoga two times a week and I am on the elliptical around 4-5 hours a week. My BMI is 20, so this is what my belly looked like by night 3 (and I only gained one pound on this trip and lost it as soon as I cleansed the day after I got home)…..

this is what my belly swelled to and took 24 hours or more to go down, until it got wheat again….

this was what I looked like before I digested wheat products!

I am happy to say that I look more like picture number two now, but mostly because it was a temporary eating thing….but this is exactly why I am now staying away from wheat products until maybe I go to Arizona, once in a blue moon. If it makes my bowels distend like that, what else is it doing to my body? (Number two became very irregular, and that also was painful).

So, I am back to my new normal of 6 proteins a day, two salads a day, two servings of fruits a day, four servings of veggies a day. My body is thanking me and I have more energy too and the weight is stabilizing.

“I don’t have time to exercise!”

Posted on July 12, 2013 by therapysoup

How many times have I heard that excuse? I used to use it myself. But, at some point, i decided that i had to take care of my body. wherever i went, my body had to take me there. not finding the strength to fight fatigue and pain only made my health conditions worse, which led to a decay of my physical body, my spirit, my home and my relationships. putting out the energy helps your body to make more, better energy.

Also, if you wind up with the consequences of being heavy, that will make your life even more difficult, so exercise is a preventative measure. How do you think you would do with diabetes, heart failure, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, gastric heartburn, clogged arteries, a stroke, death? Fix yourself before you can’t? If only James Gandolfini (Sopranos) took his weight and being out of shape more seriously. RIP.

Starting is the hard part, so you need to start slow and easy. Don’t overdo it and then hate it. Just 15 minutes a day is a great start. it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. I started with light stretching and yoga once a week, then twice a week, then added in a little walking the dogs daily, then added in Pilates too and after a few years, I was walking on an elliptical and doing Pilates and yoga. Now, I try to walk an hour on the elliptical at least 4 days a week and I am writing my blog on the elliptical right now.

I had to schedule exercise in just like a J-O-B and make it a part of my daily tasks…because if you don’t, the reverberation effect of that is that you will start to feel like is crap (and l started to look like crap too).

I have seen men (visual creatures) not attracted to their wives anymore when they get too big (and vice versa on the genders), despite the fact that the woman usually got bigger taking eating junk shortcuts throughout the day, quick snacks and not exercising….and doing too much around the house and for the kids– FOR the man.

It doesn’t matter, no matter how you cut it, exercise is a natural need for humans and it is better for your psyche, mental health, physical health and your self-esteem to exercise and maintain a healthy weight. Diet is important, as I write about how to do it almost every blog.

But today, we will go over ways to find 10 ways to find time to exercise:

1. Log off of Facebook. Get in and out. Don’t spend all day in there and don’t play those addictive games. You need to move! Just 15 minutes of weight-bearing exercises, walking around the house or in the yard, or doing an exercise DVD–just 15 minutes a day adds up to 7 hours a month. Set a timer because the Internet can suck hours out of your day before you know it.

(I use my IPad on my elliptical and therefore, I get an hour of walking in and that is when I do all of my email and Facebook stuff!–even Words with Friends. I stop at that game though, no time. I choose real Pilates over Candy Crush.)

2. Learn to JUST SAY NO! Seriously, stop doing so much. Someone wants you to drive them somewhere or needs to bend your bear over their relationship that they have discussed with you over and over and over again–STOP wasting precious ME time on that. Schedule your exercise if you have to and tell everyone, don’t bug me between 7 and 7:15 or more because I am tied up at that time. Put yourself first, because no one else will do it! Some of the NICEST people I know are the biggest and most out of shape because they are TOO nice and hardly ever put themselves first!

3. Number 2 leads to –PLAN OUT your day. Make your plans of what you will do for the day and make exercise part of the daily time schedule. Maybe doing it early helps, or maybe late after the kids have gotten home and your spouse is there to help. If you like to socialize. Instead of meeting a friend for lunch, meet them for a walk. Whatever works for you. I have all exercise planned on my Google calendar. Put it down on a calendar and therefore, you will feel more compelled to do it.

4. Record TV shows and watch with the commercials zoomed out and save time. Also, condense…..if you are watching more TV than you have time for and you find you can’t exercise, you are not taking care of yourself. You are being sucked into the tube. Sometimes, I exercise in front of my shows–then I feel like I kill two birds with one stone.

5. Don’t waste time on hobbies and unimportant projects to distract you until your home chores, time with family and your exercise are done. Exercise first and if there is time left over, then organize your wrapping paper or whatever it is you think you have to do. Chances are that if you exercise first, you will have more energy later to organize things. Many people think that they will be too wiped out after a workout. That lasts a short time, but the endorphins actually rev you up. I get more done after I have worked out than without working out.

6. Don’t be a perfectionist. You don’t have to have your house perfect or your workout perfect to out in -15 minutes a day. Even 15 minutes of light vacuuming can burn 50 to 100 calories, so for heaven’s sake…move your body. Challenge yourself and get a pedometer for a few bucks, put it on you and try to get in around 12,000 steps a day. If you only get 8,000–that is fine, just get started.

Exercise is a journey, it is the experience of doing it, not the destination that you should focus on!

The first thing people ever see is you (YOUR PHYSICAL BODY). Most people will not even see the inside of your house, so what is the urgency to make IT look perfect and not have time for doing the same to your body!?

7. You have too much housekeeping to do because you are a working mom? I hear that all of the time, but if you have money to go out to eat or drink, or have new cars or toys, then you need to budget it out to have a cleaning service come to your house at least twice a month and remove that burden of deep cleaning. You will gain 2 weeks worth of 15 minutes of exercise a day for not having to clean your tubs, toilets or sinks!

If you are super broke, then you need to ask for help. Tell your husband or wife that you need to work out and you need their help. Give your kids chores. I see way too many kids not doing anything, which will then lead to their laziness and weight gain too. Tell everyone, let’s all clean 15 minutes a day together. More will get done fast and you can all burn calories and fat. Four people at 15 minutes of clean up after dinner a day, five days a week equals 5 hours of cleaning the house each week.

8. Be more organized and find a place for everything so you don’t waste precious exercise time constantly looking for things that are misplaced. This also feels better mentally too.

9. Get up 15 minutes earlier to exercise.

10. Set out your workout clothes the night before to be ready and give you motivation to workout.

And say what you will, but nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels…but also, if you show love to yourself, it shows on the outside and your partner also sees it in more than a physical level. It shows up mentally and spiritually too. There is nothing sexy about a clean house, dinner on the table and a wife who has let herself go for those things to look good. So do average on the home and take that time for yourself physically. Because no one cares what level you are at on Candy Crush or WWF(are you addicted?) But, you won’t like clothes shopping or bikini season, when the time comes.

You Might Be Fat Because of Label and Size Trickery

Posted on July 8, 2013 by therapysoup

I have written before about portion control. It is important to know that since the 1950s, people have been doubling in size, but that is because portions have doubled in size.

And the food industry does a great job of hiding facts and they have been tricking you into eating TOO MUCH FOOD!

I had a client come to my office with a 15 ounce large bottle of Green Machine Naked Juice (GMO fruits, company owned by Pepsi) and he attempted to drink the entire thing himself. The bottle had at least 5 or 6 small servings for a family at breakfast and because it was in a bottle, he thought he should drink it himself. You have to be careful reading labels. This is what the label says:

1 cup is almost 30g of sugar (almost 8 sugar cubes) and almost 35g of carbs. No wonder diabetes is on the rise.

Stick to cup-sized portions. Get out a measuring cup and get accustomed to the size of it.

HERE IS THE TRICKERY!

So, do you know how much is in a cup? Most people don’t. A cup is 8 ounces. How many ounces are in the bottle? 15 ounces!!!!!!!!!!!! (some of the other Naked Juice drinks are even worse!)

So, if you DOUBLE the amount of nutritional information if you DRINK THE WHOLE THING, then you will realize that you are actually drinking almost 60g of sugar (about 16 sugar cubes) and almost 70g of carbs–about as much as you want for the whole day if you don’t want to maintain or lose weight.

I have seen many people drink these whole bottles as one meal. You need to look at your labels! You could have had a whole plate of spaghetti and meatballs instead and liked it better!

The standard serving for soft drinks is one cup – 8 fluid ounces. But most cans sold in vending machines are 12 ounces. Bottles drinks often come in 20 ounce portions, all for consumption by a single person. That is just way too much in one go. We are eating too much, drinking too much.

At Starbucks, the portion sizes are not only skewed to large, the names are confusing as well: Tall (12 ounces), Grande (16), and Venti (24).

It gets even harder to order the smaller options when you do the financial calculation – the larger portion almost always is cheaper per ounce than the smaller one.

What to do when you’re eating out?

only eat 4 ounces of meat (a palm-sized amount), a cup of vegetables, small salad size.
Ask for a take-out container and put your food in there even before you start to eat so you won’t be tempted to keep eating.
ask your server / waiter what the portion size is for the dish you are ordering
order the smaller option (including kid sized portions, which are the right size for an adult in the first place)
share your dish with your dining partner
drink water – no serving size limit!
I don’t do pasta, but if you do, remember what a cup looks like! (and it is about 43g of carbs! That is a lot and it is just a cup!

What Would A Nutritionist NOT Eat?

Posted on June 7, 2013 by therapysoup

My information came from Shape Magazine.

http://www.shape.com/healthy-eating/diet-tips/7-foods-nutritionist-would-never-eat?utm_source=Taboola&utm_medium=cpc

Nutritionists would not eat:

1. Rice Cakes

Why? They are bad for weight loss with a glycemic index of 91 out of 100, the carb count is too high (I stay away from rice, not to mention that they have high arsenic levels in them) and the sugar high and low is really terrible For your diet and your mood.

2. Fat-free Salad Dressing

Don’t fear fat. It is the sugar and carbs to look out for in your food choices. Fat-free has to add sugar or corn syrup for flavor, so you were better off with the fat. Just watch out for the carb count and serving size.

3. Shark

High mercury levels salmon has the lowest mercury and in the meantime has Omega 3. That is good.

4. Refined and Re-fortified Grains

“Unfortunately this rules out a majority of the carbohydrates found on supermarket shelves. Refined and re-fortified grains are grain-based foods like certain breakfast cereals, pastas, and rice products that have been refined such that the naturally occurring fiber, vitamins, and minerals have been removed. Companies then replace the fiber and synthetic versions of the vitamins and minerals that were initially removed. Sometimes (and this is really sneaky) they put everything back in naturally occurring ratios so that they can still claim the food contains ‘whole grains’. My suggestion: Just eat the real unfortified stuff in the first place.”

5. Sugar-Sweetened Beverages

They have empty calories and carbs, they fatten you and you don’t get a full feeling from them. Also, simple sugars lowers your good cholesterol and increases your triglyceride levels (two risk factors for heart disease). Drinking sugary beverages also promotes disturbances in your body’s inflammatory balance, making it harder to recover from exercise and increasing your risk of numerous chronic illnesses. Instead opt for water or a calorie-free infused drink.

6. Grits

Another hyper-refined carbohydrate, grits are the small leftover pieces from corn processing. they lack significant amounts of vitamins or minerals. They contain a minute amount of fiber and no essential fats. Their flavor is lacking and thus butter or heavy cream is used to make them palatable, bringing together the artery clogging and waistline expanding simple carbohydrates and saturated fat.

My Advice to Someone Stuck in Non Weight Loss

Posted on May 23, 2013 by therapysoup

Someone I know called me wanting to know how to lose the weight, that the Lindora plan (low carb plan was not working for her). Here is what I wrote to her:

You have to be disciplined. I never eat wheat products anymore, except for exceptions that I will name in a few paragraphs.

This is not a diet, it is a lifestyle of being healthy and eating the right way. The wrong way got us fat. We have to retrain our brains. Sugar is highly addictive and we are addicts. We have to get through it by recognizing i.

I NEVER do rice or cereal or oatmeal. Never any potatoes. Not worth it. No yams or sweet potatoes either, I gain from it. Too many carbs, not worth it. And definitely no pasta. If I eat Italian– meat. veggies and salad only. There are delish recipes for cauliflower based pizzas and zucchini slices instead of pasta noodle lasagna on the Internet. I have experimented and love both. The pizza is delish. You could go out for pizza that is regular once in a while, but you can only eat half of a small and it has to be gluten-free with lite cheese–but only here and there.

No booze. Bad for a diet. When you lost weight, a mixed cocktail once in a while, but it is what you do for skinniness. The body does not burn fat when you have alcohol in you. I do not drink.

I have turned down onion rings, fries, fresh brownies, canolis and you can have a bite once in a while, but I don’t recommend cheating because it is a slippery slope. No chips either. Every tortilla chip, only ONE chip is a gram of carbs. Not worth it. I would rather have a protein bar than eat only 9 chips and eat the same amount of carbs, but way less protein. If it isn’t high in protein, I don’t bother.

Coffee, kills the need to eat. Water, etc. multi vit’s and potassium.

Example of what I do:

Eat about every 3-4 hours!
Breakfast.
I have either a hard-boiled egg or over-well egg with feta for breakfast. I sometimes add a chicken sausage. No carbs. If you go out, you have an egg or two, no toast. I ask for grilled tomatoes and grapefruit or a small cup of fruit. Once or twice a week, I will eat the Lindora oatmeal or pancakes because they are low-carb. You have to use lite syrup and start looking at labels on everything! Regular syrup is 50 g of carbs for two tablespoons, yet sugar-free Maple Grove Farms and Cary’s ..from Ralph’s. and other stores (you would have to look at labels) has about 10 to 12g per quarter cup. See the huge difference?

Before lunch.

Protein snack. Protein bar. Best one around is at Target and Costco. Nature Valley Protein Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate bar or at Power Crunch bars at Smart and Final and Trader Joes and even online at vitacost.com These are only about 9g net carb per bar and about 10g protein. More protein, less carb. Vitacost has Power Crunch bars that are made with Belgium chocolate too. Very low carb and decadent tasting. Kind makes some decent bars, but I prefer the others I mentioned.

Lunch

Always a salad with added chicken, turkey or any lean protein, even at a burger joint near me, the Counter,I have their smallest 1/3 lb burger in a salad bowl. No carbs in the burger and you watch what you put in the bowl. No fries. Ever. I go to a salad cafe a lot and I told them I wanted a cup of lettuce and two small veggies. So usually half a cup of tomatoes and 1/4 cup carrots. Carrots are the only root vegetable I touch (carbs) and rule of thumb, half of the amount of regular veggies.

Snack a few hours later after lunch

Any of the proteins, Protein bar, Dannon Greek Lite and Fit at 8g of carbs per cup and I put a cup of cut up strawberries in it. Eggs, low-fat cheese slices or baby bells or string cheese, a small bag of measured out nuts, a protein shake or hot chocolate by Lindora. Maybe the oatmeal, chicken sausage or low-fat hot dog. Maybe turkey burger. maybe low-fat chocolate pudding. Maybe an In and Out burger wrapped in lettuce, protein style (Carl’s does this too on their $6 burger). I always have protein snacks at work. Keep extra bag of sunflower seeds in my purse for emergencies. Can’t go for 6 hours without a protein hit. Bad for the metabolism. Lite string cheese or a couple of Lite Baby Bells are good too.

Dinner:

Same at lunch. I can even have split baby back and tri tip combo with john , with a small side salad. Tasty. Also, Lindora has a low-carb pasta they sell and it is delish. You can get their stuff at Lindora.com and don’t even have to be a member. I use only a little sauce, just like the cauliflower-based pizza. I make a good turkey meatloaf too and I have that on my blog.

I have rules and recipes on my blog, skinny-rules.com and If you scrolled back to September of last year and look at all of my posts, every rule and all recipes are on there over time.

A few hours after dinner

A protein that is like a dessert. Again any Lindora chocolate product, protein bar, and then I get every day if I can, a carbolite that is only 2g of carbs per ounce. Regular frozen yogurt is between 6g of carbs and more per ounce. I eat Carbolite, which has protein, low carb….lost weight with it. But, some markets like Ralph’s have Smart Carb ice cream, and that is low too.

I research every day. I write my blog a few times a week. I research, read labels, google ingredients on nutrition counter sites and work to learn the carb count and try to keep carbs at about 59 to 70g a day. I research and write about it on the blog. I cook and put it on the blog.

Wheat products I will do: Western Bagel’s perfect 10 bagel is only 10g net carbs. I never gain on that bagel. I eat it with lite cream cheese or an egg on it. Also, I make a great turkey or chicken burritos and I put the recipe on my blog. I use a low-carb tortilla from Costco or Trader Joes at less than 7g of carbs per burrito, BUT a regular burrito shell is about 40g. The less than 7g of carb shell tastes good, so why have a regular shell? Also, all of this is brown wheat as fiber. Fiber fills you up. A regular white dough bagel will not fill you up. This is how Gwyneth Paltrow feeds her kids. Low carb only. They are thin.

I go out to eat and i get fish or meat, I get veggies and salad, no rice or potatoes.

Netrition.com and carbessentials.net have things you can buy. There are some stores in some neighborhoods that are sugar-free or low carb stores. Look them up on the internet.

If you are not losing weight, then it sounds like you are not following the rules, reading labels, and picking the right food eat. You are likely not prepping for your meals and snacks throughout the day. Even fast food places like Chick Fil A and Jack in the Box and Trader Joes and other markets have salads with just chicken in them. I eat those at times. Even at restaurants, I have ordered a side of eggs with grilled tomatoes and fruit or brisket sandwich, took the bread off, ate half of the meat with mustard and had salad with it. Tasty, but you have to consider portion control.

Please read my blog from front to back and if you still have questions, then let me know. But, I could meet you, tell you all of this and you still won’t lose if you aren’t diligent like I have been. I went to Lindora, followed the rules and I look up info every week and I won’t eat it if I don’t know the carb count.

Don’t let friends or family sabotage you. Anyone trying to get me to eat out of my plan is no friend and I chew them out and refuse to eat with them if they don’t stop.

I like being thin way more than i like food, and once you give up potatoes and all of those things that convert to sugar, and you get over withdrawal, you won’t want it anymore. I only crave my chocolate and Carbolite. I also crave protein now, not carbs. This takes a few weeks. Drink coffee. Oh, Americanos are ok, no lattes or frappes . Too much sugar and carbs. I carried non-dairy creamer with me wherever I went. No milk in it. I use half and half, from time to time, but only a little.

Prepping and carrying stuff with you or having it at work, home and restaurants is key.

I do elliptical for an hour about 4 times a week and use my iPad at the same time. Makes the time fly. I do yoga 2 times a week and Pilates mat 3 times a week and 1 day a week, reformer. It takes time to build up this kind of routine, but it is easy as you see the weight fall off. I make exercise part of my day schedule and I only miss for illness and special events. If someone wants to go out for happy hour or dinner, they will have to go after my class or not at all. I will not cancel my one hour class for something so easily remedied.

Put yourself first. More important than shopping, clothes or coffee clotches. What is the point of expensive clothing, if you don’t like how you look in them. When thin, you can wear a burlap sack and look good. That is what keeps me motivated, that and feeling healthy.

AND TAKE YOUR VITAMINS and MINERALS. Getting B shots from your doctor can help lots too! Drink your non-sugary fluids. You are less likely to just eat mindlessly if you drink liquids and fill up with them.
Read the blog. I put a lot of work into it to share my success with others.

Your Big Belly Is a Product of Carb Consumption, Not Fat Consumption

Posted on March 18, 2013 by therapysoup

I used to get asked when my baby was due and I was never pregnant. I cut down my carbs and I lost “the baby” (my gut)! Carbs is the problem!

As Americans cut fats from their diet (an unknowingly–protein as well), they replaced them with bad carbohydrates (good carbs are in vegetables). This is partly a result of Americans’ reliance on unhealthy carbs — bagels, pasta, pretzels, rice, potatoes, etc. So, now a full two-thirds of the U.S. population is overweight or obese, and nearly one of out four Americans is overweight.

The idea that cutting carbs from your diet can lead to weight loss is beginning to catch on and even moderate reductions in your carb consumption can help you shed extra pounds. When I finally cut down my carbs to between 50-100g a day, I finally lost my long-held weight gain.

An important point is that a reduced-carb diet promotes the loss of deep belly fat, also known as “visceral fat,” even when no change in weight is apparent.

Visceral fat is strongly linked with type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and other chronic diseases. It is thought that visceral fat is related to the release of proteins and hormones that can cause inflammation, which in turn can damage arteries and enter your liver, affecting how your body breaks down sugars and fats.

While it’s often referred to as “belly fat” because it can cause a “beer belly” or an apple-shaped body, you can have visceral fat even if you’re thin. So even if you aren’t trying to lose weight, cutting unhealthy carbs in your diet could have a positive impact on your levels of visceral fat, and thereby potentially reduce your risk of chronic disease.

People on low-carb diets lose weight in part because they get less fructose that can be made into body fat quickly. Although fructose is naturally found in high levels in fruit, it is also added to many processed foods, especially in the form of high-fructose corn syrup. If your only source of fructose came from eating an apple or orange a day, keeping your total grams of fructose to below 25 per day, then it would not be an issue.

But what many completely fail to appreciate is that fructose is the NUMBER ONE source of calories in the United States and the typical person is consuming 75 grams of fructose each and every day. Because fructose is so cheap it is used in MOST processed foods. The average person is consuming 1/3 of a pound of sugar every day!

Evidence is mounting that excess sugar, and fructose in particular, is the primary factor in the obesity epidemic, so it’s definitely a food you want to avoid if you want to lose weight. This means you have to keep your fruit amounts down each day, but avoid added fructose in your food.

Many dieters snack on pretzels in lieu of potato chips and other salty snacks, believing them to be healthier alternatives. But eating pretzels is just as bad as dipping a spoon straight into a bowl of sugar.

Don’t be fooled by the fact that they’re “fat-free” – remember it’s the carbs that are the culprit.

Your body prefers the carbohydrates in vegetables rather than grains because it slows the conversion to simple sugars like glucose, and decreases your insulin level. Grain carbohydrates, like those in pretzels and bread, will increase your insulin resistance and interfere with your ability to burn fat — which is the last thing you want if you’re trying to lose weight.

Even cereals, whether high-fiber, whole-grain or not, are not a food you want to eat if you’re concerned about your weight. If they contain sugar, that will tend to increase your insulin levels even more, regardless if they are so-called “healthy” cereals or not.

WHAT SHOULD YOU EAT?

A “healthy diet” is qualified by the following key factors:

Unprocessed whole foods
Often raw or only lightly cooked
Organic or grass-fed meat/eggs, and free from additives and genetically modified ingredients
Come from high-quality, local sources
Carbohydrates primarily come from vegetables (except for corn or potatoes)

Weight Problems in Your Youth is Linked to Heart Problems Later in Life

Posted on March 10, 2013 by therapysoup

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/elements4health/mTrh/~3/Bwab0i3_9fE/weight-problems-in-youth-linked-to-heart-problems-later-in-life.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

An article came out on research showing that weight problems in your youth is linked to heart problems later in life.

Another solid reason to lose weight, get in shape. Take care of yourself to live and take care of yourself to teach your children to live. Whatever you do, you are role-modeling for your children. Do you want them to die young or suffer from health complications?

I saw this picture on Facebook and this is what is wrong in America right now. It was meant to be a joke, but this picture is real.

Is this your or your child’s future scooter?

Can a Plate Help You Lose Weight or Stay Skinny?

Posted on January 25, 2013 by therapysoup

You can gain weight eating healthy foods! Why is that? Because if you look at our mothers or grandmothers, their average calorific content a day was about 1800 calories a day on average. Today, woman are eating about 2200 calories a day. Since the 1950s, portion sizes have increased for women and men.

Portion size is key to staying slim.

Six things you can do to eat the right portion size.

1. Don’t use the regular sized meal plates. If you use a smaller one or use older ones from an antique store, you will fill your plates and subconsciously think that it is a lot because your (smaller) plate is full.

2. Use a plate that doesn’t match the color of your food. You are more likely to eat less asparagus (for example) on a white plate vs. a green plate.

3. Don’t go to buffets. Very dangerous and filling up those large plates again and again is going to make you gain weight.

4. When you fill your plate, the right way to do it for your diet, your body and your health and nutrients is to fill half of the plate up with vegetables, then the other half is divided into two parts–one part starchy vegetable and one part meat. And you can foresake the starchy vegetable because most of us get enough carbs in other foods, so just get more vegetables.

5. Don’t fill your plate with pasta or rice. If you must have those things (hopefully, not often), use the whole-wheat version (not white) and put it in the quarter where your starchy vegetable would go. But, a whole plate of pasta is not the right portion size and this is why you are having weight issues.

6. Eat slowly and chew well. Give your body time to get the signal to your brain that you are full.

Try these ideas and see how well it works for you!

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