2012 Empty Calories Is Out, What’s In?

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The new year is a time when we place focus on eating right and losing weight. If calorie counting has not made a dent in attaining your goal weight, try these 3 easy tips in 2012 and it will forever make a difference in your life.

• Switch your fixation on counting calories to a focus on “foods that fuel”
• Read food labels to ensure you are buying foods that are not loaded with unwanted extras
• Exercise your “MOM” (Mind Over Mouth) before eating anything

Whether you want to lose weight or just want to make better food choices these three tips are “IN” for 2012. Counting calories is “OUT” because:

1. people use this as an excuse to eat low-calorie low nutrient foods in way too many portions

2. 100 calorie snack packs are 75 calories more than a serving of  non-starchy veggies like cherry tomatoes, celery or sliced cucumber

3. Eating your total calorie allowance in the form of junk food is not nourishing

Unprocessed “foods that fuel” contain health boosting energy to get you through the day and will give you the satisfaction that empty calorie foods (“fat- free” or “low-calorie” commercially prepared food) cannot provide.

Wanna list of “foods that fuel”? You got it! It’ll be waiting here for you next week.

 

Save Yourself From Dieting No No’s

Moving into February do not lose motivation with your healthy eating New Year’s resolutions. Here’s 50 quick tips to help keep you going,  http://ten-pounds-down.fitsugar.com/50-Ways-Stay-Motivated-Weight-Loss-13289463.  I’m sure you can find one or two that work for you.

 

When you peel away the bells and whistles of any diet program, you must ask yourself, ”What lifestyle is really going to work for me?”. Crazy diets do not work, http://fitbie.msn.com/lose-weight/tips/6-terrible-diet-strategies-skip/tip/3! I know these sound a little outrageous but I want you to keep these in mind when you’re watching T.V. and a commercial for a weight loss product appears. I will use Alli as an example for the millions of legal diet products on the market, that should NOT be sold. 

  

Taking Alli is not such a crazy consideration, or is it? It is convenient to pop a pill and expect that your fat will melt away but it does not come without a cost. 

  

When you take Alli, you block a natural job  (lipase, an enzyme, is blocked from doing its job of breaking down fat. It leaves the body undigested and absorbed, therefore reducing calories) that your body is supposed to do. This does not sound too bad but let me explain the consequence of tampering with mother nature.

 

Alli lowers the absorption of vitamins A, D, E and K and this is a  first step towards vitamin deficiency. Vitamins and minerals are vital to good health. Look at all the recent health benefits we now realize from vitamin D:

 

1. helps to promote strong bones by aiding the absorption of calcium

2.  it may help arm the immune system to defend against getting sick

3.  some research suggests it might play a role in assisting with weight loss. 

 

Here’s a list of more health benefits of vitamin D, that will be difficult to get if you choose to take any product that reduces the absorption of fat, http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/161618.php.

 

Add to that the embarrassment of uncontrollable gas, oily anal discharge, diarhhea…Disgusting  right, well not gross enough, it seems that over 40 million people ( I hope not together in the same general area.) have tried Alli. And yes there’s more side effects including more serious health consequences, http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/PostmarketDrugSafetyInformationforPatientsandProviders/ucm213038.htm. 

 but there is not enough cases that link Alli with liver failure (YET).

 

 

Top it off with the weight loss results estimated at 3-5 pounds over what naturally happens with diet alone.  WOW, all this for a few measly pounds-you got a winner!

 

So I know it’s hard to hear but there is NO MAGIC BULLET! Keep your New Years’ Resolution, eat well, get rest, exercise and do what it takes to turn bad choices into good lifelong habits.  Save yourself from any marketing gimmick that seems too good to be true!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Reservation With Your Doctor Can Get You A Clean Bill of Health

No matter what your New Years Resolution is, you have to be in good health to see it through. So start the year off right by taking care of yourself.

Dr. Oz. has a 41 page quiz, www.doctoroz.com/quiz/quiz-how-healthy-are-you, to assess your state of health. Take the quiz and if you have questions about your well-being print it out and make a reservation to see your doctor.

Your health often takes a back seat to wining and dining, doing things for others and anything else that might need your attention at the moment. This year put your well-being first and make a reservation with your doctor to serve up a clean bill of health.

If you are healthy, you can move forward with a clear mind. If you need a time-out to get your health in check do it! When managed early, many health issues are easy to handle. Otherwise poor health can creep up on you faster than you can blink an eye.

I made my reservation, have you made yours?