I ran into a person at work who told me he lost 100 pounds in about 10 months. Since weight loss is something that interests me a great deal, I asked him to tell me his story.

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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They come from plants. Certainly, they are much, much closer to the original plant than some synthetic version of a plant chemical made in a lab, patented and sold as a prescription drug.

Herbal remedies have been with the human race since time immemorial. Do they work? I guess it depends on who you talk to. It seems that they wouldn’t be around if they didn’t work at all.

I know that when I drink Bilberry juice, my ability to see sharply at night is enhanced. I remember noticing the same effect after juicing carrots.

Personally, I believe there are chemicals in plants that are good for the human body. I feel comfortable saying that based on my personal experiences plus a little common sense.

There are indeed all kinds of herbal remedies available both in health food stores and at large retail chain stores, including the big chain with the name that starts with “W”. Clearly, there are a lot of people out there using herbal remedies or they wouldn’t be marketed so strongly.

In fact, there are entire books devoted to herbal remedies and what they can do for the health of the body. If you are interested in herbal remedies you could pick up a few books and get some ideas from them.

My sister told me a story about going to visit a Native American Indian. When they went to visit him, they noticed there was a horse out front in a fenced in yard. My nephew noticed that the horse’s leg was bleeding.

They told the man this after they knocked on his door. He went out to the yard, crushed a leaf from a plant that he picked from the yard and rubbed it onto the horse’s leg and the bleeding stopped. I do not know what plant he used.

Many people believe that Echinacea can help fight off invading bacteria by boosting the immune system. There are similar claims about Goldenseal and other plants.

As I mentioned above, many of today’s prescribed medicines are simply synthetic copies of chemicals found in plants. They do it that way partly to control the dosages of the chemical that comes in the pill. They standardize them for prescription purposes.

However, another reason is that plant chemicals cannot be patented because they occur in nature. One cannot patent something found in nature. Therefore, they create a synthetic copy in a laboratory somewhere that can be patented. Then they mass produce the drug and sell it in the marketplace.

One argument against this way of manufacturing drugs was very interesting to me when I heard it. The idea was that plant chemicals do not come in isolated, concentrated form in nature. The speculation was that a plant may heal due to a combination of chemicals inside it, rather than simply a single chemical. This may make it more effective at lower dosages and perhaps healthier to use, since you are not getting a high does of a single powerful chemical in a pill.

This article is for information purposes only. If you have or think you have a health problem, consult your doctor for proper diagnosis and treatment.

David Snape writes for ToBeInformed.com You can read more about herbal remedies here. You can also sign up for David’s Health Line email list . ToBeInformed.com is a site supportive of health, fitness and wellness.

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At some point in human history, it was considered a good thing to be overweight. It meant that you had access to food during times when others didn’t. Being overweight was a sign of affluence.

In today’s modern world, things are bit different. Doesn’t it almost seem like people judge you based on your weight in proportion to your height? Crazy, isn’t it?

Because most people have fairly easy access to food today, the judgment has changed from one of access to one of control. Being overweight seems to be viewed as a lack of control or concern by many people. This view may not be accurate at all.

I want to assure you that there is nothing wrong with having an overweight appearance. Don’t fall victim to modern society’s nonsense value judgments. We are just fine the way we are, thank you very much.

The only time weight should matter to a person is when that person believes himself to be facing an overweight condition. Still, it only matters if he wants to do something about it. That is when it matters, not when some distorted societal standard says so.

Losing weight is not always an easy task. Especially when you don’t have the right information to make it happen. Weight loss is also something that is very feasible, and the more you understand about it, the easier it gets.

In short, knowledge in the weight loss arena is about the same as knowledge in any other area of human awareness. Knowledge is power.
Empowering oneself to lose weight is largely the responsibility of each individual.

Perhaps the worst situation is to have the wish and desire to lose weight and not be able to. This is largely a battle that has to be fought and won in the confines of one’s own mind.

Our thoughts have the power to imprison us or liberate us. Even realizing that is something of a challenge. Failure to recognize truth in that statement means languishing in a prison of our own making.

What could be more cruel to ourselves than to stay chained up when the key is within our very grasp? Refusing to believe that key exists. Because if one did believe it existed under such circumstances, he would surely stretch out a hand to grasp that key and set himself free.

This requires faith. I mean having faith that it is possible to lose weight or possible to obtain any other goal you set your mind to. This is the biggest challenge any of us face, no matter what goal we choose to focus on.

The less we believe reaching a goal is possible, the lazier we get about obtaining that goal. We begin to rationalize. “I doubt this is going to work anyway, so why am I putting so much time into it? There are a thousand other more productive things I could be doing right now.”

This is exactly the time that we must seize control of our own brain. This is also the time that knowledge comes in handy. The more understanding you have about any topic, including weight loss, the easier it becomes to obtain it.

You no longer think that it is so difficult, at the very least, you believe it is possible. The second you reach that moment is when you make a giant leap forward from lack of faith to believing something is possible.

The moral behind all of this is that we all need more knowledge when it comes to whatever goal we seek, including weight loss. Then when we see it may be possible, it is easier to find the motivation to make it happen. Not believing it is possible, in a certain sense, makes it impossible.

Find the knowledge to form the belief that weight loss or any other goal is possible. Then obtainment of the goal may be within reach.

This article is for information purposes only and is not intended to provide advice. Consult your doctor before taking up any diet or starting any form of exercise.

David Snape writes for ToBeInformed.com. You can listen to weight loss knowledge in audio format. You can also receive Dave’s weight loss emails to provide yourself with information and motivation. ToBeInformed.com is a site supportive of health, fitness and wellness.

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