Or Pay $9 for the same weight loss guide, if your prefer.

The short answer: Yes, There is a simpler way. It is a way that doesn’t make some companies a lot of money – but the way exists!

Have you found yourself wondering if there is a simpler way to lose weight? If you take a look at what’s available out there, everything seems so complicated.

People have written entire books on weight loss. There are complicated diet plans and pills that you can purchase. Worst of all, there are plenty of ‘clubs’ you can join where you pay an expensive membership to have a ‘personal’ coach who weighs you frequently and tells you that you are not doing very well.

I think that it is kind of repulsive when I consider all of the weight loss schemes designed to take our money but not provide lasting results. Before you purchase any type of weight loss guide, pill or complicated diet scheme consider whether it is really the best option for you.

Any book or information source that claims to teach you about weight loss should be able to do the following:

1. Tell you in less than 15 pages everything you need to know about losing weight.

2. In that fifteen pages or less, it should explain everything to you in a very simple and straight forward manner.

3. There should be no need to buy a product over and over again. This is what they call a ‘continuity’ program in marketing jargon. It’s great for enriching the product owner but if there was a magic pill that worked – everyone would know about it.

4. Your weight loss information source should be simple, simple and simple! It should be so easy that a sixth-grader could read it and follow the simple directions.

The sad fact is that perhaps one percent of one percent of all of the weight loss ‘help’ out there actually meets the above four criteria. Look for one that does. At the bottom of this article, in the author information box, you will find links that can lead you to something that will greatly improve the quality your achieving the goal of weight loss.

Grab your $9 simple weight loss guide. Or alternatively, get the same weight loss information for free! David Snape is the author of: Weight Loss: A Simple Plan for Losing Weight and Keeping it Off.

A news media feeding frenzy erupted recently when a new diet study broke in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). Almost all the reporters got it wrong, wrong WRONG! So did most of the gloating low carb forumites and bloggers. Come to think of it, almost everyone interpreted this study wrong. Some valuable insights came out of this study, but almost everyone missed them because they were too busy believing what the news said or defending their own cherished belief systems …

The new study, titled, “Weight Loss With a Low-Carbohydrate, Mediterranean, or Low-Fat Diet” was published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) in issue 359, number 3.

I quickly read the full text of the research paper the day it was published. Then, I shook my head in dismay as I scanned the news headlines.

I found it amusing that the media turned this into a three ring circus, putting a misleading “low carb versus high carb,” “Atkins vindicated” or “Diet wars” spin on the story. But that’s mainstream journalism for you, right? Gotta sell those papers!

Just look at some of these headlines:

“Study Tips Scales in Atkins Diets Favor: Low Carb Regimen Better Than Low Fat Diet For Weight And Cholesterol, Major Study Shows. “

“Low-Carb and Low-Fat Diets Face Off “

“The Never-Ending Diet Wars”

“Low Carb Beats Low Fat in Diet Duel.”

“Atkins Diet is Safe and Far More Effective Than a Low-Fat One, Study Says”

“Unrestricted Low-Carb Diet Wins Hands Down”

Some of these headlines are hilarious! I wonder if any of these reporters actually read the whole study. Geez. Is it too much trouble to read 13 pages before you write a story that will be read by millions of already confused people suffering the pain and frustration of obesity?

Here’s a quick look at the study design.

The low fat restricted calorie diet was based on American Heart Association guidelines. Calorie intake was set at 1500 for women, 1800 a day for men with 30% of calories from fat, and only 10% from saturated fat. Participants were instructed to eat low fat grains, vegetables, fruits and legumes and to limit their consumption of additional fats, sweets and high fat snacks.

The Mediterranean diet group was placed on a moderate fat, restricted calorie program rich in vegetables and low in red meat, with poultry and fish replacing beef and lamb. Energy intake was restricted to 1500 calories per day for women and 1800 calories per day for men with a goal of no more than 35% of calorie from fat. Added fat came mostly from nuts and olive oil.

The low carb diet was a non-restricted calorie plan aimed at providing 20 grams of carbs per day for the 2 month induction phase with a gradual increase to 120 grams per day to maintain the weight loss. Intakes of total calories, protein and fat were not limited. However, the participants were counseled to choose vegetarian sources of protein (more on that bizarre-twist shortly).

The study subjects were mostly male (86%), overweight (BMI 31) and middle age (mean age 52)

Here were the study results:

There were some health improvements in cholesterol, blood pressure and other parameters in the Mediterranean and low carb group that bested the high carb group. That was the focus of many articles and discussions that appeared on the net this week. However, I’d like to focus on the weight loss aspect as I’m not a medical doctor and fat loss is the primary subject matter of this website.

All three groups lost weight. The low carb group lost 5.5 kilos, the Mediterranean group lost 4.6 kilos and the low fat group lost 3.3 kilograms…. IN TWO YEARS! Whoopee!

My conclusion would be that the results were similar and that none of the diets worked very well over the long term!

Amanda Gardner of the US News and World Report Health Day was one of the few reporters who got it right:

“Diet plans produce similar results: Study finds Mediterranean and low-carb diets work just as well as low fat ones.”

Tara Parker-Pope of the New York Times also came close with her headline:

“Long term diet study suggests success is hard to come by: In a tightly controlled experiment, obese people lost an average of just 6 to 10 pounds over two years.”

Even this headline wasn’t 100% accurate. The study was HARDLY tightly controlled. Tightly controlled means metabolic ward studies where the researchers actually count and control the calorie intake.

The problem is, you can’t lock people in a hospital or research center ward for two years. So in this study, they used a food frequency questionnaire. Sure, like we believe what people report about their eating habits at restaurants and at home behind closed doors! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

“No! I swear Dr. Schwarzfuchs! I swear I didn’t eat those donuts over the weekend! I stayed on my Mediterranean diet. Honest!”

One of the most firmly established facts in dietetics research is that almost everyone underreports their food intake BADLY, sometimes by as much as 50%. I’m not saying everyone “lies,” they just forget or don’t know. In fact, this underreporting of calorie intake is such a huge problem that it makes obesity research very difficult to do and conclusions difficult to draw from free-living studies.

Another blunder in the news reports is that this study didn’t really follow Atkins diet parameters OR even the traditional low fat diet for that matter, so it’s not an “Atkin’s versus Ornish” showdown at all.

If you actually take the time to read the full text of the research paper it doesn’t say ANYTHING like, “Atkins is the best after all.” That’s the spin that some of the news media cooked up (and what the Atkins foundation was hoping for).

It says, “The diet was based on the Atkins diet.” However, the sentence right before that says, “The participants were counseled to choose vegetarian sources of fat and protein.” Vegetarian Atkins?

The chart on page 236 says the low carb diet provided 40% of calories from carbs at 6, 12 and 24 months. If I’m reading that data properly, then the only low carb period was a brief induction phase in the very beginning.

Does that sound like Atkins? 40% carb sounds more like the Zone diet or my own Burn The Fat program to me.

The Atkins Foundation, which partially supported this study, told reporters, “We feel vindicated.” HA! They should have paid the reporters and told the researchers they felt ripped off and they wanted a refund for misuse of their research grant!

After carefully reading the full text of this study, there are many interesting findings we could talk about, from the differences in results between men and women to the improvements in health markers. Here’s what the study really says that stood out to me. It’s what I would have talked about if the newspapers or TV stations had called me:

1. “Mediterranean and low carb diets may be effective alternatives to low-fat diets.”

I can agree completely with that statement. All three diets created a calorie deficit. All three groups lost weight. Low carb lost a little more, which is the usual finding because low carb diets often control appetite and calorie intake automatically (you eat less even if you don’t count calories). Also, if body composition is not indicated, there’s an initial water weight loss that makes low carb diets look more effective in the very early stages.

2. “Personal preferences and metabolic considerations might inform individualized tailoring of dietary interventions.”

Absolutely! Nutrition should be individualized based on goals, health status, body type, activity level and numerous other factors. Different people have different phenotypes. Some people are more predisposed to thrive on a low carb approach. Others feel like crap on low carbs and do better with more carbs or a middle of the road approach. Those who dogmatically follow and defend one type of diet or the other are only handcuffing themselves by limiting their options. Iris Shai, a researcher in the study said, “We can’t rely on one diet fits all.” Hmm, far cry from “Atkins wins hands down,” wouldn’t you say?

3. “The rate of adherence to a study diet was 95.4% at 1 year and 84.6% at 2 years.”

THIS was the part of most interest to me. When I read this, immediately I could have cared less about the silly low carb versus high carb wars that the news reporters were jumping on.

I wanted to know WHY the subjects were able to stick with it so well. Of course, that’s boring stuff to journalists… adherence? What does that word mean anyway? Yawn – not interesting enough for prime time, I guess.

But it was interesting to me, and I hope YOU pay attention to what I found. The authors of the study wrote:

“This trial suggests a model that might be applied more broadly in the workplace. Using the employer as a health coach could be an effective way to improve health. The model of group intervention with the use of dietary group sessions, spousal support, food labels, and monthly weighing in the workplace within the framework of a health promotion campaign might yield weight reduction and long term health benefits.”

Hmmmmm, lets see:

* Dietician coaching
* Group meetings
* Motivational phone calls
* Spousal support
* Workplace monitoring (corporate health program)
* Food labels – calorie monitoring
* Weigh-ins (required and monitored)

Wow, everything helpful to long term fat loss that sticks. Can you say, ACCOUNTABILITY? These factors help explain the better adherence.

By the way, the adherence rate for the low carb group was the lowest.

90.4% in low fat group
85.3% in the Mediterranean group
78% in the low carb group

Here’s the bottom line, the way I see it:

First, please, please, please learn how to find and read primary research and take the news media stories with a grain of salt. If you want to know who died, what burned down or what hurricane is coming, tune in to the news – they do a GREAT job at that. If you want to know how to lose weight or improve your health, look up the original research papers instead of taking second hand information at face value.

Second, those who prefer a low carb approach; more power to them. Most studies, this one included, show at the very least that low carb is an option and it’s not necessarily an unhealthy one if done intelligently. I also have no qualms with someone claiming that low carb diets are slightly more effective for weight loss, especially in the short term, free living situations. Is low carb superior for fat loss in the long haul? That’s STILL highly debatable. It’s probably superior for some people, but not for others.

Third, low carb people, listen up! Even if low carb is superior, that doesn’t mean calories don’t count. Deny this at your own peril. In fact, this study shows the reverse. The low carb group was in a larger negative energy balance than the high carb and Mediterranean group (according to the data published in this paper), which easily explains the greater weight loss. Posting the calories contained in foods in the cafeteria may have improved the results and helped with compliance in all groups.

When energy intake is matched calorie for calorie, the advantage of a low carb diet shrinks or disappears. For most people, low carb is a hunger management or calorie control weight loss advantage, not metabolic magic (sorry, no magic folks!)

Fourth, choose the nutrition program that’s most appropriate for your personal preferences, your current health condition, your genetics (or phenotype) and most important of all… the one you can stick with. Then tend your own garden instead of wasting time criticizing how the other guy is eating. Your results will speak for themselves in the end. Take your shirt off and show us.

If I were forced to choose only one approach (and thank god I’m not), I would recommend avoiding the extremes of very low carb or very low fat or very high fat or very high carbs. Balance makes the most sense to me, and the research suggests that this helps produce the highest compliance rate. That’s not rocket science either, it’s common sense. If you have a serious fat loss goal, as when I compete in bodybuilding, then a further reduction in carbs and increase in protein makes perfect sense to me as a peaking diet.

If an extremely low or extremely high carb diet worked for you, great. But generalizing your experience to the entire rest of the world makes no sense. Arguing from extremes is the weakest form of argument.

The reason I have THREE nutrition plans (three phases) in my own fat loss program is because programs with flexibility and room for individualization beat the others hands down in the long term. In fact, I wrote an entire chapter in my e-book about unique body types, how to determine yours and how to individualize your nutrition – it’s THAT important.

If you have more choices, you have more power. The people who are shackled by dogma and narrow thinking are stuck. They also risk missing what’s really important. Things like:

Personalization
Adherence
Long-term Maintenance
Accountability
Social Support

and…

CALORIES!

Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto CSCS, NSCA-CPT
Fat Loss Coach
www.tobeinformed.com/burnfat

PS. If you want to learn more about a balanced, flexible and proven approach, which teaches nutritional individuality and which can produce similar weight loss in one month, month after month, that the subjects of this study produced in TWO YEARS, (if you ADHERE to it!), then visit my fat loss website.

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified personal trainer and freelance fitness writer. Tom is the author of “Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using secrets of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: www.tobeinformed.com/burnfat

After carefully reading the full text of this study, there are many interesting findings we could talk about, from the differences in results between men and women to the improvements in health markers. Here’s what the study really says that stood out to me. It’s what I would have talked about if the newspapers or TV stations had called me:

1. “Mediterranean and low carb diets may be effective alternatives to low-fat diets.”

I can agree completely with that statement. All three diets created a calorie deficit. All three groups lost weight. Low carb lost a little more, which is the usual finding because low carb diets often control appetite and calorie intake automatically (you eat less even if you don’t count calories). Also, if body composition is not indicated, there’s an initial water weight loss that makes low carb diets look more effective in the very early stages.

2. “Personal preferences and metabolic considerations might inform individualized tailoring of dietary interventions.”

Absolutely! Nutrition should be individualized based on goals, health status, body type, activity level and numerous other factors. Different people have different phenotypes. Some people are more predisposed to thrive on a low carb approach. Others feel like crap on low carbs and do better with more carbs or a middle of the road approach. Those who dogmatically follow and defend one type of diet or the other are only handcuffing themselves by limiting their options. Iris Shai, a researcher in the study said, “We can’t rely on one diet fits all.” Hmm, far cry from “Atkins wins hands down,” wouldn’t you say?

3. “The rate of adherence to a study diet was 95.4% at 1 year and 84.6% at 2 years.”

THIS was the part of most interest to me. When I read this, immediately I could have cared less about the silly low carb versus high carb wars that the news reporters were jumping on.

I wanted to know WHY the subjects were able to stick with it so well. Of course, that’s boring stuff to journalists… adherence? What does that word mean anyway? Yawn – not interesting enough for prime time, I guess.

But it was interesting to me, and I hope YOU pay attention to what I found. The authors of the study wrote:

“This trial suggests a model that might be applied more broadly in the workplace. Using the employer as a health coach could be an effective way to improve health. The model of group intervention with the use of dietary group sessions, spousal support, food labels, and monthly weighing in the workplace within the framework of a health promotion campaign might yield weight reduction and long term health benefits.”

Hmmmmm, lets see:

* Dietician coaching
* Group meetings
* Motivational phone calls
* Spousal support
* Workplace monitoring (corporate health program)
* Food labels – calorie monitoring
* Weigh-ins (required and monitored)

Wow, everything helpful to long term fat loss that sticks. Can you say, ACCOUNTABILITY? These factors help explain the better adherence.

By the way, the adherence rate for the low carb group was the lowest.

90.4% in low fat group
85.3% in the Mediterranean group
78% in the low carb group

Here’s the bottom line, the way I see it:

First, please, please, please learn how to find and read primary research and take the news media stories with a grain of salt. If you want to know who died, what burned down or what hurricane is coming, tune in to the news – they do a GREAT job at that. If you want to know how to lose weight or improve your health, look up the original research papers instead of taking second hand information at face value.

Second, those who prefer a low carb approach; more power to them. Most studies, this one included, show at the very least that low carb is an option and it’s not necessarily an unhealthy one if done intelligently. I also have no qualms with someone claiming that low carb diets are slightly more effective for weight loss, especially in the short term, free living situations. Is low carb superior for fat loss in the long haul? That’s STILL highly debatable. It’s probably superior for some people, but not for others.

Third, low carb people, listen up! Even if low carb is superior, that doesn’t mean calories don’t count. Deny this at your own peril. In fact, this study shows the reverse. The low carb group was in a larger negative energy balance than the high carb and Mediterranean group (according to the data published in this paper), which easily explains the greater weight loss. Posting the calories contained in foods in the cafeteria may have improved the results and helped with compliance in all groups.

When energy intake is matched calorie for calorie, the advantage of a low carb diet shrinks or disappears. For most people, low carb is a hunger management or calorie control weight loss advantage, not metabolic magic (sorry, no magic folks!)

Fourth, choose the nutrition program that’s most appropriate for your personal preferences, your current health condition, your genetics (or phenotype) and most important of all… the one you can stick with. Then tend your own garden instead of wasting time criticizing how the other guy is eating. Your results will speak for themselves in the end. Take your shirt off and show us.

If I were forced to choose only one approach (and thank god I’m not), I would recommend avoiding the extremes of very low carb or very low fat or very high fat or very high carbs. Balance makes the most sense to me, and the research suggests that this helps produce the highest compliance rate. That’s not rocket science either, it’s common sense. If you have a serious fat loss goal, as when I compete in bodybuilding, then a further reduction in carbs and increase in protein makes perfect sense to me as a peaking diet.

If an extremely low or extremely high carb diet worked for you, great. But generalizing your experience to the entire rest of the world makes no sense. Arguing from extremes is the weakest form of argument.

The reason I have THREE nutrition plans (three phases) in my own fat loss program is because programs with flexibility and room for individualization beat the others hands down in the long term. In fact, I wrote an entire chapter in my e-book about unique body types, how to determine yours and how to individualize your nutrition – it’s THAT important.

If you have more choices, you have more power. The people who are shackled by dogma and narrow thinking are stuck. They also risk missing what’s really important. Things like:

Personalization
Adherence
Long-term Maintenance
Accountability
Social Support

and…

CALORIES!

Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto CSCS, NSCA-CPT
Fat Loss Coach
www.tobeinformed.com/burnfat

PS. If you want to learn more about a balanced, flexible and proven approach, which teaches nutritional individuality and which can produce similar weight loss in one month, month after month, that the subjects of this study produced in TWO YEARS, (if you ADHERE to it!), then visit my fat loss website.

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified personal trainer and freelance fitness writer. Tom is the author of “Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using secrets of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: www.tobeinformed.com/burnfat

Excessive carb intake causes us to gain weight and taxes our ability to handle sugar. If we want to remain healthy and well, being slim may prove to help us achieve just that, not to mention a longer life span.

What satisfied customers have said:

“My history is of being overweight since a child. This has been worse since I had my three children and nothing would help me. Native Remedies helped so much! First the Detox Diet for only 5 days which made a loss of 5 pounds. I carry on with EcoSlim Drops and Triple Complex Slimmer’s Assist and the weight continues to go! Also I have more energy and feel better about myself. Thank you for helping me – I know I will succeed now” Hilda.

“I have followed your Weight Loss program along with Ecoslim Drops and Slimmer’s Assist and have already lost 7 kg in the past month – even though I must admit I cheated a bit as well. I feel very motivated to carry on and firmly believe that your products have helped to correct an imbalance that has been causing me to put on weight even when I ate a healthy diet. I am also very grateful for all your help and support” Janine, CT

With the current fad of achieving Hollywood-style figures that has enveloped everyone, there is a strong tendency to jump into the first product or service that promises you a certain amount of targeted weight-loss. Not all of them are based on scientific research. Nor do they have any concrete evidence of the fact that their solutions work.

But these fly-by-night operators shall have you believe that they have a magic pill or a fantastic drink that can help you lose weight without really sweating it out. The weight-loss pills that some spin artists try to sell to the gullible public is just one example of the various kinds of gimmicks that are prevalent in the market today. Beware of them! There is no magic pill that reduces weight.

These con artists also use hard sell techniques that can be extremely misleading. The lure of the perfect figure is so high that even when you know that there are no short cuts to loosing weight, you tend to give into some of these. It is not uncommon to see women and men dressed up in a doctor’s garb of a lab coat trying to sell a magic weight-loss pill, concocted drink or unbelievable weight-loss equipment. They would have you believe that they are busy doctors who have just taken some time out to do some social service.

But excessive weight gain can happen as a result of certain ailments. There are also cases where certain drugs cause excessive weight gain. And for those who feel that they are putting on more weight than they should, ruling out these possibilities is a must before they start out on a diet, an exercise regime or self imposed restrictions.

Just to give an example, thyroid dysfunction can cause weight gain. The gain can be due to some thyroid boosters that you may have been prescribed as thyroid medications that may be leading to weight gain.

Thyroid dysfunction affects production of hormones, which indirectly slows the metabolic rate of your body. Metabolisms are organic processes necessary for life and the metabolic rate is the amount of energy expended in a given period. It is directly related to your food intake and any medical disorder in your body.

If you are under thyroid treatment for hypothyroidism, a condition of an under active thyroid gland, the dose of the thyroid booster depends upon your body weight. Consequently your medication has to be monitored with regular check ups. Any amateurish attempt to reduce weight on your own using these can have negative impacts. It can also reduce the efficacy of the treatment.

Genuine natural thyroid medication lays emphasis on a nutritional diet and proper diet management. It is an integral part of alternative thyroid treatments. And therefore it is easy to fall prey to dubious claims of herbs, drinks and pills that help in reducing weight.

Tags: thyroid, losing weight, weight reduction, slimming down, thyroid problems, thyroid medications, natural remedies

You may wonder about the science involved here. After all, many of those folks promoting the low carb diets are well educated, aren’t they? Being well educated doesn’t mean that you are infallible. Besides, the same science that supports the low carb diet also supports the high carb diet. They didn’t get it wrong, they just didn’t consider the whole story.

That might sound like a contradiction, but it isn’t. I’m going to explain why in just a moment. First, let me give you the science on this. You most likely are not a biochemist or a physiologist and neither am I. But I have studied the subjects a bit. Don’t focus on the technical jargon in the next paragraph,just try to grasp the overall point. You don’t need to be a scientist to use common sense and basic reasoning skills. Ready?

Consider this bit of biochemistry. Malonyl -CoA exists in high amounts when there is plenty of metabolic fuel present. Thus,carnitine acyltransferase is inhibited and this in turn prevents acyl-CoA from crossing into the cell’s mitochondria. Another enzyme is inhibited by the presence of NADH and Thiolase is also inhibited by the presence of Acetyl-COA. In short, when a lot of glucose is present, fatty acid metabolism is inhibited.

It is the last sentence that clues us in here. Basically, a cell will not convert fat into energy if there is glucose present. When the cell has carbs and sugar to work on, it will not convert the fat to energy, thus the fat gets stored.

This is why the low carb diets work, with little to zero carbohydrates and subsequently glucose to work on, the fat will be used for energy. This is exactly why the high carb diet works too. When no or little fat is present, it won’t be stored as fat.

In addition to this, it is important to realize that it costs the body quite a bit of energy to take carbs and store them as fat. This alone is actually a positive. There really needs to be some form of fat present to make it easier.

This should help you understand that whatever your diet consists of, if you want to remain or get thin, you need to avoid mixing fats and carbs together. A fat consists of a fatty acid head and a carbohydrate tail. This means when you mix your fats and carbs together you are asking for trouble, assuming you care about weight, that is.

So now it should be clear why so many people in North America have a weight problem as the NIH was happy to point out a few weeks ago. Think about the typical American diet. It generally consists of lots of combinations of fat and carbs.

As Dr. Neal Barnard points out in his book, “Foods That Cause You To Lose Weight”, It is fat that makes people fat.

Don’t want to be a vegetarian? I don’t blame you. Really, you don’t have to be one. Just quit mixing your proteins/fats and carbohydrates together.

Don’t overlook the obvious, there is ton of candy and desserts out there that are a mixture of fat and sugar. Meat and potatoes – perhaps this classic is a serious blunder in seperating fats and carbs. Armed with this knowledge,you can probably come up with dozens of examples of potentially fattening mixtures of food on your own.

This article is for information only. It is not intended to prescribe, treat, advise on or diagnose any health problem, including being overweight. Consult your physician before changing your diet or taking up a new form of exercise.

If you need additional infomation on weight loss, visit http://tobeinformed.com/burnfat.html [AFF]

or Join my free weight loss list

You can lose weight. I want to assure you of that fact.

There are certain things that are important to keep in mind.

When I was little, my father always used to tell me that ‘ you go where your head goes’.

He actually meant it literally when we were wrestling around.

But it is a beautiful metaphor for a truth. Your mind is a powerful guide to where you ared headed in life.

You are what you think. So losing weight has to start in the mind.

In his book, Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle Tom Venuto talks about setting goals first.

He doesn’t talk about setting them last. You start at goal setting and that is why he put it at the beginning of his book. He specifically says, “all the knowledge in the world is useless if you don’t know how to apply it”.

Tom goes on to spend quite a bit of time on how to get your mind set right on your goals.

Here are a few additional things that I have found useful for weight loss that people seem to miss.

- Drink lots of water. This is a big one. Water is essential to almost every body function. Your metabolism is slowed by a lack of water

- Eat lots of Essential Fat. This sounds counterintuitive, but it works.

- Pay attention to WHEN you exercise. To burn off fat, you have to deplete the bodies short term energy supply. If you don’t, you will never burn fat .

- You MUST do something to strengthen your muscles while losing weight. If you lose muscle mass you are hurting yourself in two ways.

1. You will be a flabby skinny person. Skinny without tone looks terrible.

2. You will slow your ability to burn calories. Resting muscle burns more calories than resting fat.

- Your body needs adequate protein. There are plenty of formulas on what adequate protein is.

Opinions vary, even among the experts in human nutrition. Here is one take: .8g per kg of your weight or .36g per pound of body weight.

You need a complete protein and enough of it, every 8 hours. If you don’t get it your body will burn your muscle tissue and for the reasons we already talked about you don’t want that to happen.

That ought to be helpful. See your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. (ToBeInformed – Copyright 2006 and beyond)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: weightloss, Tom Venuto, fitness, losing weight, lose weight, burn fat, burn the fat, feed the muscle, protein, drinking water, metabolism

Really appreciate your response. I knew it would be hard to evaluate my situation without knowing all details, but I suppose you have to have a starting point!

I have always worked my core muscles. I work my upper body using free weights on a Monday. Tuesdays is a session for stomach. Wednesdays is leg strengthening, ie squats, lunges
etc. Thursdays is stomach again. I do these in the morning or at lunchtime, as I run in the evening. Fridays, Sat & Sun I just do my normal training without these additional
sessions.

Perhaps I should shave a little bit off my meals? Here is example of my diet, being totally honest :

Breakfast – 1/4 bowl of porridge with tbl spoon all bran, few shredded wheat, topped with tbl fresh fruit – skimmed milk & tbl spoon of honey. Small glass fresh fruit juice.

Mid morning Рcaf̩ latte with skimmed milk and 1/4 tsp sugar.

Lunch : 1 x slice bread with low fat spread with cheese or lean chicken. Small tub natural yogurt with tbl spoon fresh chopped up fruit, sprinkled with sesame seeds. Handful of grapes.

2pm – apple or other fruit.

4pm РCaf̩ latte with skimmed milk & 1/4 tsp sugar + 2 x crispbread

On route to training – handful fruit gums.

Evening training 6pm

Cereal bar on way home after training.

Evening meal – Chilli con carne with brown rice

Small glass port or red wine + couple of handfuls of nuts (naught!)

During the day, I sip water, but I know I should drink more. On a good day I’ll get through 1 litre of water.

I have trained for lots of years and I’m wondering if my body has just adjusted to this. Need to know what to do to kick start my metabolism so to achieve my 5lb weight loss. I did think about eating my main meal at lunchtimes as I thought eating quite late may not be helping, but think I
might feel too sluggish during the day if I try this.

Appreciate your comments.

Thankyou & kind regards.

Linda

MY REPLY

Hi Linda,

Yes, those details are a little more helpful.

Right off the bat, I see two problems with your diet.

You are not drinking enough water. Most experts agree that drinking TWO liters a day is bare minimum.

And My biochemistry teacher in school was very adamant about drinking a full gallon a day.

sounds to me with the amount of working out you do, plus your consumption of alcohol, which dehydrates the body further + your latte (coffee also dehydrates the body) + only getting a liter a day is probably slowing your metabolism a bit.

In addition, that amount of water intake is probably causing your body to function less than optimal.

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One of the biggest factors that determine athletic
performance is lack of adequate water. This is serious
stuff.

Drinking adequate water can actually help you lose weight,
have more energy, look and feel better.

Since you are working out a lot plus the other factors that
I mentioned above, If I were you, I would drink at least
three liters of water per day.

It’s hard to drink water, I know. I’ve found that I drink
more water when I add some minerals to the water. I like to
use concentrace minerals which you can find at any health
food store. Two drops is plenty for an entire liter. You
will find it easier to drink the water.

The second problem that I see, is that you are not getting
enough essential fats in your diet.

Eudo Erasmus, an expert on essential fats talks about this
in one of his books. I don’t remember the exact figure and
I’m too lazy to look it up, but I think if you increase your
total caloric intake of essential fats, you will actually
help yourself lose weight. Again, it sounds
counterintuitive, but there you have it.

Maybe you could replace those nuts with Eudo’s formula for
essential fats – you can also find that in the health food
store.

I hope you find this reply helpful.

Once again, my disclaimer:

This email is for information and entertainment purposes
only. You are advised to NOT follow any of my advice and
instead you should consult with a doctor. That goes for if
you have any health conditions or think you might have, or
if you are changing you diet or exercise level.

All the best,

Dave

Tags: running, water, essential fats, eudo erasmus, water intake, exercise weightloss

 

 

 

David,

Thankyou for your e-mails.

Yes, they are motivating.

I am a competitive runner. Although I know quite a lot about keeping fit and nutrition etc, I am finding it difficult to lose 5lbs. I am not overweight, but feel that my running would improve a little if I lost a few 1lbs. I want to do this sensibly, as I don’t want to lose muscle mass.I train every day, two of the days being light recovery work. I eat little and often, and quite healthily. However, my weight just stays the same.

My only sin is I like a glass of wine most nights (only one, maybe 2 at weekends). Also, I have a thing for nuts, and unfortunately sometimes the salted variety. Other than that, not sure what else I can do.

Any suggestions??

Thankyou.

L

My Reply:

Weight Loss and Fat Loss can be two different things but they don’t have to be. For example if you lose water weight, that is the kind of weight loss that has nothing to do with fat loss.

So it is possible to lose weight without losing body fat. Unfortunately, what we want to lose is fat and not much else.

Water weight loss is temporary, it will come back. Fat weight loss is entirely different.

There are so many concepts that go along with fat loss that it would be hard to discuss them all here. You can sign up for my weight loss email list to learn more about fat loss.

One major concept to fat loss is that you want to be aware of your body’s short term energy supply. When it is full to the brim, there is little chance of burning off fat.

Therefore, you want to deplete that short term energy supply before working out. Once you have depleted it, the body will look to its fat reserves for energy. That is exactly where you want to be.

However, if you eat carbs before working out, your body will have plenty of short term energy reserves and will see not reason to tap into your fat storage supply.

Consistently tapping into the fat storage supply is one key to fat weight loss. Here are two simple ideas to help. After sleeping all night, your body has used much of its short term energy up, it will be easier to get it to burn fat at that time. The second idea is to walk for about 45 minutes before a workout. That will help burn through the short term energy supply.

No time for walking? How about getting out in the yard and raking leaves or something like that? There are plenty of alternatives. I think you get the idea.

There are many aspects to weight loss, this is just one of them. The more you learn, the better equipped you will be to succeed. It may not be enough to get a gym membership. If you have a burning drive to lose weight, just getting a membership may be enough. But, most of us need to know why we are doing something to get motivated in the first place. Once we know the why, we can do it from there. Spend time finding your why.

The reason I think you should join my fat loss / weight loss email list is that you will get a daily dose of fat loss / weight loss talk in your email. You can read a little every day. The key concepts will be hit upon day after day until you are able to burn them into your long term memory.

You can save the emails in a file and refer back to them for motivation or inspiration. You can also revisit your favorites that way. Once you go through the whole series you could resubscribe and go through the series again.

This is a good opportunity for you to get started. Best of all the cost to join the email list is FREE.

This article is for information purposes only. It is not intended to provide advice on weight loss. See your doctor for advice on weight loss and before you change your diet or take up any form of exercise.

David Snape – copyright 2006 all rights reserved (no copy)

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One reason to conserve muscle tissue is that it burns the most calories in the resting state. So if we are sitting around and have good muscle mass we will burn calories or energy off at a higher rate than someone with less muscle mass or tone.

The second reason is that weight loss causes a loss of muscle tissue, so we want to counteract that as much as possible by actually lifting weights or doing muscle taxing activities such as isometric resistance or something of that sort.

Again, we want avoid a lot of weight loss at the expense of muscle tone or tissue. If we want to lose weight, we also want to look great. So losing muscle tissue could cause us to look gaunt or under nourished and we don’t want THAT look, do we?

We need to pay attention to our muscles. There are two things that can help our muscles during weight loss.

One is the intake of enough protein or amino acids. The reason for this is that our bodies need a fresh source of amino acids (in combination they are called proteins) once every 8 hours or so. If the body does not have this amino acid supply once every 8 hours, it will start to take the protein straight out of our muscles, causing a loss of muscle mass.

The other consideration with this is that if we do take in a protein, it needs to be a complete protein. A complete protein is one in which all of the essential amino acids are present.

‘Essential’ in nutritional terms means that it is something our body cannot synthesize on its own. In the case of amino acids, a human body uses 22 amino acids, 13 of which it can produce on it’s own from other sources. The other 9 are essential, meaning they absolutely have to come into the body via eating. ( or intravenously, but we aren’t there, are we? ) If they aren’t in our food, our bodies will not be able to build new muscle proteins.

Technically speaking there are only 8 truly essential amino acids. One is semi-essential in adults. That means that there are only certain conditions when it becomes ‘essential’.

Anyway, you need a complete protein, one that has all of the essential amino acids in it. I mention this because we can’t just look at a food label and think we are getting what we need just because it says it has protein in it.

Animal meat and milk, including skim milk, have all of the essential amino acids in them. Soy milk does NOT have all of the essential amino acids. Keep that in mind. It is not a true replacement for cow’s milk for that reason.

If one is a vegetarian, he need not fear. There are food combinations that can help one get all of the essential amino acids at one meal. (I know some people don’t think they all need to be present at one meal, I disagree.) Anyway, as vegetarians, we ought to already know about food combining.

Weight bearing or strengthening exercises are necessary during weight loss to maintain muscle tone and mass. All of the essential amino acids must be present in our food approximately once every 8 hours. Eating should actually be more frequent than that for another reason.

Here are two additional sources for weight loss information aside from my free weight loss list:

Weight Loss E-Book         Weight Loss on Audio

This article is not meant to give advice. It reflects the author’s opinion only. Consult your physician if you need advice on weight loss or any other health issue.

David Snape writes for ToBeInformed.com. You can join his weight loss email list to have more weight loss articles sent to you.

Copyright 2006. All Rights Reserved (do not copy)

 

Tags: weight loss, weightloss, fat loss, complete protein, amino acids, essential, nutrition, muscle mass

Bill, not his real name, told me that when he left the military he weighed 210 pounds which wasn’t bad for his height and frame. The problem came in when his civilian work became a more of a ‘desk’ job. Working at a desk causes one to get less calorie burning exercise.

In a short period of time, Bill weighed over 300 lbs. Much like Morgan Spurlock’s experiment with eating nothing but fast food for a month, Bill’s ‘bad’ cholesterol level was through the roof. His doctor told him he needed to do something immediately. The doctor gave him a basic diet to follow. The diet was a common sense, low fat, nutritious diet.

Bill doesn’t remember everything that was on the list, but basically he learned to look at food labels and stay away from foods that were high in fat. He also ate a lot of lean meat like chicken as well as salads, fruits and vegetables. He was on a mission. He quickly dropped weight, so much in fact that his doctor told him he needed to eat an occasional piece of pizza.

Bill said that he got down to about 175 pounds eventually, which was too thin for his height and frame. At that point he began eating foods with a little more fat. But he also promised himself he would never get that bad again.

Today Bill is at a healthy weight with healthy cholesterol levels. Weight loss is not impossible, others have managed it. Let this story serve as a bit of motivation. It can be done!

Bill didn’t need a magic formula, he just got an ‘eat and do not eat’ list from his doctor and followed it. He said that he even continued to drink beer during that time.

One key component to this story is that Bill worked out like crazy. He didn’t do any traditional weight lifting but got lots of aerobic activity in. Bill was in three bands and he would play drums for 3 or 4 hours straight per night. That was his exercise. And it worked for him.

Exercise doesn’t have to be what you traditionally think of as exercise. Typically, people think that exercise has to be boring and tedious. Things such as weight lifting, running, treadmill, and exercise machines are what come to mind when I think about working out. As Bill’s example shows, exercise can be something you love to do, like playing drums. He just did more of what he already liked to do.

There is one thing that should be considered here. It is indeed great to engage in calorie burning exercise, but you will lose some muscle mass while losing weight and to counteract that it is a good idea to do some form of weight lifting or muscle working exercise. Doing something that is constructive to muscle growth is a really good idea anytime that you are losing weight.

See your doctor before taking up any form of exercise or attempting weight loss. This article is not intended to provide advice. Your doctor will provide that to you.

David writes about weight loss at ToBeInformed.com Sign up for his weight loss emails. You can also find more weight loss articles and information on his site. (do not copy)

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