Advice on how to lose belly fat and weight
People who go on a diet do so for a few main reasons: to lose weight, to improve their overall well-being or both. Read the rest of this entry
First of all, you do not need to lose weight to have a great body, you only need to convert that body fat to muscle tissue and you would have a body that people would be envious of. Read the rest of this entry
There are a lot of people who would give a lot to increase their metabolism. Read the rest of this entry
It is now known that stress can actually stop you losing weight especially around your middle. Stress can cause your body to secrete high levels of cortisol hormone into your bloodstream, because of your body’s “flight or fight” response to stress. Stress can be either psychological (mental and emotional) or physical.
Cortisol is secreted by the adrenal glands and is actually important for the regulation of blood pressure, the immune system and many other functions. Cortisol can be good in small amounts but high levels can lead to an increase of abdominal fat, which can lead to heart attacks, strokes and can also increase your bad cholesterol levels and decrease your good cholesterol levels.
High levels of cortisol can also decrease your bone density, leading to osteoporosis and loss of muscle tissue, which will also slow down your metabolic rate, and it can also increase your blood pressure along with other problems.
Each of you will react differently to stress; some of you will produce more cortisol to a particular stress while others will produce less. It has been found that those of you that produce more cortisol will actually eat more food as well, in particular carbohydrates.
What you need to do to combat producing too much cortisol is to learn ways to relax and also to maybe change your lifestyle.
Relaxation can be achieved in a number of ways either by exercising, mediation, yoga or breathing to start with.
Maybe one of the easiest and simplest ways is breathing. This is done by gently breathing in through the nose, gently expanding your abdomen and then gently expelling the air through your nose pulling in your abdomen at the same time. Whilst breathing out the air you need to focus on that breath. After several breaths in and out you should start to feel yourself relax. You need to practice doing this exercise a few minutes a day to start with building up to five minutes in the end. You can also practice this when you are feeling stressed or when things are getting on top of you. Just a few minutes can slow your body down and help it to feel relax.
Life style changes can be like changing your eating habits for a healthier diet, getting enough sleep, or even organizing your time more efficiently so that you do not feel so stressed. Also looking after your body will help your body to cope with stresses that you come across during your day.
So if you are exercising frequently and eating properly but still not losing any weight especially from around the middle then maybe you are suffering from high levels of cortisol caused by stress. Look at ways to solve the problem and hopefully then you should see a difference in your weight and around your middle. Women’s Health and Fitness
Shannon Spoon has been a long time fitness and health promoter. Being someone who knows how to lose weight and keep it off. He enjoys article writing, social networking and is the proud dad of a 12 year old daughter.
http://quickweightlossonline.info
There are millions of people who would like to know how to lose weight fast. The desire to loss weight fast often is associated with a wedding or other special occasion where you want to look your best. This makes it hard to resist the fad diets and diet pills that claim rapid weight loss. The truth is to lose weight and keep it of requires hard work and the will power to stick with the program. Letâ??s face the facts. Most people are over weight because they donâ??t eat the right foods and seldom exercise. Eating the right foods means planning your meals and snacks so that you have a balanced and healthy diet. Exercise can be anything from a daily walk to climbing Mount Rushmore but you have to do something that requires physical activity over a prolonged period of time. All of this requires effort on your part. Unfortunately most people are looking for the easy way out. Take a pill and lose 10 pounds or the latest fad diet that starves their body into losing a quick 10 pounds. Sure they get an immediate weight loss but I would bet my annual salary that 9 out 10 people who do this will gain the weight back. These methods arenâ??t healthy or to be recommended. In fact, losing weight too rapidly can injure your internal organs, and most likely cause you to lose a lot of muscle tissue and water. Losing muscle tissue in particular is a bad thing to do, because muscle burns a lot more calories while resting than fat tissue. While losing weight fast is tempting, itâ??s far wiser to aim at losing weight slowly. Losing weight slowly means youâ??re far more likely to keep the weight off, and you wonâ??t slow your metabolism down. You see, losing weight quickly will usually cause your metabolism to slow down, too. This is your bodyâ??s protective measure against starvation. If your body detects that youâ??re losing weight too quickly, it will slow down your metabolism considerably â?? to prolong your chances of survival. After all, whatâ??s the point in losing weight quickly, if you will put all the weight back on in a few months? This is why the fastest way to permanent weight loss is to loss weight gradually, without losing muscle as well as fat.
Losing more than a pound or two a week is not healthy. Fast weight loss is bad for two main reasons.
Lose weight fast and you will lose muscle
Firstly, if you lose weight quickly you lose muscle along with fat. This is bad when it comes to weight loss.
Muscle burns more calories than fat. The more muscle you have the more calories you burn and this applies to when you’re not doing anything strenuous. Losing muscle is therefore not a good idea.
Lose weight fast and you slow your metabolism
Secondly, if you lose weight too quickly your body will slow down your metabolism.
When we skip meals or crash diet, our body is programmed to think it’s starving and slows down our metabolism to conserve energy.
What is conserved is our fat stores; our weight loss comes from water and muscle.
A Graphic example
For example, studies show that when dieting, the weight we lose is approximately 75 percent fat and 25 percent muscle.
In addition, a relatively high percentage of this weight loss is likely to be water.
Keep in mind, water accounts for about 70 percent of the total body weight of an average person, with muscle tissue containing approximately 75 percent water and body fat containing about 50 percent water.
Losing weight quickly is therefore very difficult as we are simply losing water in the sort term.
The dangers of crash dieting
Crash dieting refers is a method in which we lose weight simply by restricting the number of calories consumed.
This method of losing weight fast is considered unhealthy, and it is rare that people who do it keep weight off.
They cannot adjust to these new unhealthy eating habits and then put the weight straight back on.
Your goal should be long term weight loss
Consider this, if you only lost a pound a week that would be 52 pounds a year and that is a lot of weight.
If you lose weight slowly you will remain healthy and also stand a good chance of keeping it off.
The maximum amount of body fat a healthy person can lose is about 1 or 2 pounds per week.
The human body is simply not designed to lose weight quickly and this is a healthy amount of weight loss to aim for.
Reasons why losing weight fast is difficult and unhealthy
Our bodies are programmed to help us survive in times of starvation.
Our basic body reactions have been set since man first walked the earth and in those days food was not just a phone call, or short walk away.
In times gone by, famine was the biggest threat to mans survival and your body is programmed to protect you.
This is why it won’t ever lose excessive amounts of fat in a short period of time; your body is programmed to conserve fat.
If you drastically reduce your calorie intake, you slow down your metabolism, in order to conserve calories, as we discussed earlier.
This is one reason why we encounter a weight loss quickly is, so difficult as your body actively fights to conserve weight, it’s a survival reflex.
Side Effects of Losing Weight quickly
In addition losing weight quickly has serious side affects that can harm us
Appearance of Loose Skin
If you shed weight too quickly, your skin does not have time to shrink to your new body dimensions.
The only effective treatment for this is to fix the lose skin with surgery.
Gallstones
Studies have shown that people who lose weight quickly, have a greater risk of developing gallstones.
Lack of energy and illness
Depending on the diet there are a host of other complications including lack of energy and nausea for those who cut out carbs and a general feeling of ill health and lack of energy as you deprive your body of food.
Lose weight slowly
Don’t be taken in by quick fix weight loss, its not possible aim for longer term weight loss.
You will lose weight, keep it off and feel both healthier and happier.
