Our member of the month is Ian Williams.

Ian has done exceptionally well. Not only has he overcome his alcoholism and given up smoking but also lost weight and has become a great advert for fitness health and well being.

Please listen to the inspirational podcast below where I interview Ian about what you has achieved. Please make any comments below and I will pass them onto Ian.

Please check out my new video post called Positive Affirmation 

What precedes all behaviours, actions and performances?

 

The Power of Choice

 What turns dreams into reality?

The answer is decisions: your decisions. They determine what you think, how you feel, what you do and what you become.

Why are some people successful at becoming slimmer, fitter and healthier? Because they make better decisions. Because they make decisions full stop.

Most of us just hope, wish and, eventually, regret: ‘I’m not good enough…I’m too old…. I haven’t had the right opportunities……I’m jus a fat person…’

Successful slimmers give up hope and make a decision.  How can you tell a decision from a hope, a wish – or even a fear?

We’ve seen a lot of hopes and wishes and vague intentions cunningly disguised as decisions: decisions to take regular exercise, decisions to eat a healthy diet, decisions to change jobs… but there so-called decisions never lead anywhere.  So how do you know when you’ve go the real thing, when you’ve made a real decision?

Real decisions trigger instant action.  Hoping and wishing on the other hand are states of inactivity – almost paralysis.

When do you think a thought and it changes everything, that thought was a decision.

We can give you the information you need to reach your goal, but the missing ingredient that only you can supply is the crucial decision that puts you onto the road to change.

Of course, you are already taking action based on the last decision you made about your weight and it’s producing the results you’ve got now.  Eating to change the way you feel, constantly dieting and thinking about food, trying to stick to hard, damaging exercise routines are all actions which have produced results.  But they probably weren’t the results you wanted.

So why not make a new decision: one that will give you a happier, healthier lifestyle? The only discomfort you’ll feel is a moment’s anxiety about stepping outside your comfort zone.

 Take It Easy

Being overweight is a vicious circle because your body chemistry favours stability.  Overweight people tend to take less exercise than thin ones because it’s harder for them- they don’t build as much muscle as thin people do and it’s muscle that burns fat.  So when the muscle gives way to fat through inactivity, they burn less of the fat when they do exercise.

It takes far more calories to maintain a pound of muscle in your body than to maintain a pound of fat.  Even when muscles are inactive, they burn more calories than fat does.

Unfortunately, the sad truth is that dieting slows down the metabolism and, after dieting for two weeks, your metabolic rate can drop by 20 per cent.  So being fat makes you even fatter (because fat people don’t have enough muscle to burn the calories) and dieting makes it worse by slowing down your metabolism.

Fat people get exhausted and breathless when they exercise too hard because their bodies are trying to maintain status quo by saving fat and burning sugar (glucose).  The outcome is painful, disheartening and doesn’t result in fat reduction.  That’s why I’m telling you to take it very gently first. Forget the sweat lycra, and just do as much exercise as you enjoy.

As you become more active, your shape will begin to change, you’ll feel healthier – and you might start to wonder how you managed without those good feelings you get from gentle, steady regular exercise.

What do you think?

I have great pleasure in introducing  you to my latest pod cast with Health and Fitness Professional and Nutrition Expert, Ben Pratt, called Dispeling The Dieting Myths.

In this pod-cast we discuss some of the most common myths in dieting, including counting calories and eating little and often.

If you want to listen to the other inspirational pod-casts with Ben then click on the links below;

What is an Excpetional Diet

Is Stress Making You Fat

Are Carbohydrates Making You Fat

If you want to find more about Ben then please check out his web sites; Please make any comments you have about this pod-cast and if you have found it useful.

www.naturalfoodfinder.co.uk

A problem human beings share is a tendency to fall for the ‘see food’ diet.  Our primitive genetic coding sometimes tells us when food’s available, just incase there’s a shortage tomorrow – and if crispy, golden, succulent goodies confront us at every street corner, we don’t always stop to ask our stomach if we are genuinely hungry.

Of course this weakness has been fully exploited by the big diet companies and the supermarkets too.  The shops are full of products claiming to be low fat or low calorie, but they aren’t really the slimming solutions that they appear to be.

How do you define slimming food? An orange? An avocado? A chicken salad? Or is it a pre-packaged ready meal with low-fat written all over it that looks very much like high-fat, deep fried product we’d actually prefer to eat? Are we really going to change our eating habits permanently by drinking three imitation chocolate milkshakes everyday for a month? Or are our bodies going to be even more confused when we finally give up the pretend party food and start introducing weird stuff like fish and tomatoes and brown rice?

Another problem with special diet foods is that, in order to make them taste as good as real food, a lot of sugar or chemicals have to be added.  So a low-fat label often means high sugar.  A Sunday Times article in February 1999 by Steve Farrar and Tom Robbins revealed that many leading slimming products (including diet drinks) are simply loaded with sugar which can be addictive as well as harmful; according to the same article, refined sugar consumption could be responsible for the deaths of 3000 British women a year with heart disease.

And for chemicals, well, that’s a controversial subject and the jury is still out on a lot of them.  But in the meantime it’s safer to stick with the simplest and most natural basic ingredients instead of putting stuff in our bodies that we haven’t  learned to deal with.

So, weighing up the evidence, it seems that the best thing about diet meals is that they are much more expensive than real food so you probably can’t afford to buy as many of them.

So Why Do We Keep Doing It

The great thing about banging your head on a brick wall is that it’s so wonderful when you stop.  Of course, you may already have caused yourself a permanent injury…

People with problems are anxious and afraid that things will get worse – so the one thing they are reluctant to do is change, which, of course, is exactly what they most need to do.

In spite of the fact that dieting makes them miserable and doesn’t provide a permanent solution, it’s familiar territory.  It can also be expensive and difficult, and that gives them confidence.  Desperate people will believe anything – and if nothing’s worked in the past it’s reasonable to assume that they have to try harder and spend more money next time round.  Of course, this opens the door to a lot of bizarre and even fake diet plans, as well as the usual calorie cutters.

What do you think?

HIi everyone

Do you ever stop to think about how much sugar you eat on a daily basis?

You might not know this but our bodies need two teaspoons of sugar in the bloodstream at any one time in order to function properly but, again, this is just as easily obtained from digesting complex carbohydrates like brown rice or pasta, or even from protein and fat. We have a limited amount of sugar storage in the body and, when it’s full, the leftover sugar is easily converted to fat for longer term storage. Eating too much refined sugar is thought to be directly linked to diabetes, migraines, low immunity, skin disorders, yeast overgrowth (Candida), tooth decay – and, of course, obesity. Obesity may not be classified officially as an illness, but it is increasingly associated with heart disease, cancer and many other health problems. Although we put less sugar in our tea and on our cereal than we used to, food companies are making up for that by putting more into processed foods.

According to the Department of Health, sugar consumption in Britain has risen by 31 per cent since 1980 and the average person eats between a kilo of it every week. At least when we were spooning it on for ourselves we knew how much of the stuff we were getting. A lot of people nowadays have no idea how much sugar they are actually eating everyday.

Processed and refined foods are not only sweeter (and unusually higher in fat as well as lower in vitamins and minerals), they are also more easily absorbed. When you eat a complex carbohydrate like brown rice, for example, it takes quite a while for the various enzymes in your digestive system to break it down, so it’s absorbed quire slowly. Which is exactly the way it’s supposed to be. But because refined food has already been partly broken down before it even goes into your mouth, it get absorbed into the bloodstream faster than your system is able to deal with it. You get a short energy boost from Mars bar, but the brown rice will give you a much more sustained release of glucose into the bloodstream.

Have a look at this clip from a BBC3 programme, in which presenter Becca Wilcox looks at her daily sugar content.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH

 If you want to find out more about the dangers of sugar and how they can make you fat then have a listen to the great pod-cast called, "Are Carbohydrates Making You Fat with Ben Pratt".

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

What do you think? Please make a comment below.

Hi there 

The following article was published on the web site Medical News Today

According to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM), eating a meal quickly, as compared to slowly, curtails the release of hormones in the gut that induce feelings of being full. The decreased release of these hormones, can often lead to overeating. 

"Most of us have heard that eating fast can lead to food overconsumption and obesity, and in fact some observational studies have supported this notion," said Alexander Kokkinos, MD, PhD, of Laiko General Hospital in Athens Greece and lead author of the study. "Our study provides a possible explanation for the relationship between speed eating and overeating by showing that the rate at which someone eats may impact the release of gut hormones that signal the brain to stop eating." 

In the last few years, research regarding gut hormones, such as peptide YY (PYY) and glucagon-like peptide (GLP-1), has shown that their release after a meal acts on the brain and induces satiety and meal termination. Until now, concentrations of appetite-regulating hormones have not been examined in the context of different rates of eating. 

In this study, subjects consumed the same test meal, 300ml of ice-cream, at different rates. Researchers took blood samples for the measurement of glucose, insulin, plasma lipids and gut hormones before the meal and at 30 minute intervals after the beginning of eating, until the end of the session, 210 minutes later. Researchers found that subjects who took the full 30 minutes to finish the ice cream had higher concentrations of PYY and GLP-1 and also tended to have a higher fullness rating. 

"Our findings give some insight into an aspect of modern-day food overconsumption, namely the fact that many people, pressed by demanding working and living conditions, eat faster and in greater amounts than in the past," said Kokkinos. "The warning we were given as children that 'wolfing down your food will make you fat,' may in fact have a physiological explanation." 

Other researchers working on the study include Kleopatra Alexiadou, Nicholas Tentolouris, Despoina Kyriaki, Despoina Perrea and Nicholas Katsilambros of Athens University Medical School in Greece; and Carel le Roux, Royce Vincent, Mohammad Ghatei and Stephen Bloom of Imperial College in London, United Kingdom. 

What do you think?

Myths & Truths About Nutrition

Myth: Heart disease in is caused by consumption of cholesterol and saturated fat from animal products.

Truth: During the period of rapid increase in heart disease (1920-1960), Consumption of animal fats declined but consumption of hydrogenated and industrially processed vegetable fats increased dramatically.

Myth: Saturated fat clogs arteries.

Truth: The fatty acids found in artery clogs are mostly unsaturated (74%) of which 41% are polyunsaturated. 

Myth: Vegetarianism is healthy.

Truth: The annual all-cause death rate of vegetarian men is slightly more than that of non-vegetarian men (.93% vs .89%); the annual death rate of vegetarian women is significantly more than that of non-vegetarian women (.86% vs .54%) 

Myth: Vitamin B₁₂ can be obtained from certain plant sources such as blue-green algae and soy products.

Truth: Vitamin B₁₂ is not absorbed from plant sources. Modern soy products increase the body's need for B₁₂. 

Myth: For good health, serum cholesterol should be less than 180 mg/dl.

Truth: The all-cause death rate is higher in individuals with cholesterol levels lower than 180 mg/dl. 

Myth: Animal fats cause cancer and heart disease.

Truth: Animal fats contain many nutrients that protect against cancer and heart disease; elevated rates of cancer and heart disease are associated with consumption of large amounts of vegetable oils. 

Myth: Children benefit from a low-fat diet.

Truth: Children on low-fat diets suffer from growth problems, failure to thrive & learning disabilities. 

Myth: A low-fat diet will make you "feel better . . . and increase your joy of living."

Truth: Low-fat diets are associated with increased rates of depression, psychological problems, fatigue, violence and suicide. 

Myth: To avoid heart disease, we should use margarine instead of butter.

Truth: Margarine eaters have twice the rate of heart disease as butter eaters. 

Myth: We do not consume enough essential fatty acids.

Truth: We consume far too much of one kind of EFA (omega-6 EFAs found in most polyunsaturated vegetable oils) but not enough of another kind of EFA (omega-3 EFAs found in fish, fish oils, eggs from properly fed chickens, dark green vegetables and herbs, and oils from certain seeds such as flax and chia, nuts such as walnuts and in small amounts in all whole grains.) 

Myth: A vegetarian diet will protect you against atherosclerosis.

Truth: The International Atherosclerosis Project found that vegetarians had just as much atherosclerosis as meat eaters. 

Myth: Low-fat diets prevent breast cancer.

Truth: A recent study found that women on very low-fat diets (less than 20%) had the same rate of breast cancer as women who consumed large amounts of fat. 

Myth: The "cave man diet" was low in fat.

Truth: Throughout the world, primitive peoples sought out and consumed fat from fish and shellfish, water fowl, sea mammals, land birds, insects, reptiles, rodents, bears, dogs, pigs, cattle, sheep, goats, game, eggs, nuts and milk products. (Abrams, Food & Evolution 1987)

Myth: Coconut oil causes heart disease.

Truth: When coconut oil was fed as 7% of energy to patients recovering from heart attacks, the patients had greater improvement compared to untreated controls, and no difference compared to patents treated with corn or safflower oils. Populations that consume coconut oil have low rates of heart disease. Coconut oil may also be one of the most useful oils to prevent heart disease because of its antiviral and antimicrobial characteristics. 

Myth: Saturated fats inhibit production of anti-inflammatory prostaglandins.

Truth: Saturated fats actually improve the production of all prostaglandins by facilitating the conversion of essential fatty acids. 

Myth: Arachidonic acid in foods like liver, butter and egg yolks causes production of "bad" inflammatory prostaglandins.

Truth: Series 2 prostaglandins that the body makes from arachidonic acid both encourage and inhibit inflammation under appropriate circumstances. Arachidonic acid is vital for the function of the brain and nervous system. 

Myth: Beef causes colon cancer

Truth: Argentina, with higher beef consumption, has lower rates of colon cancer than the US. Mormons have lower rates of colon cancer than vegetarian Seventh Day Adventists 

HI everyone 

There can only be one member of the month for this month and that's Mandie. She is an inspiration and goes from strength to strength.

Mandie has done so well on the programme and has given her words of wisdom and support to so many people on our blog weightlossjournals.petecohen.tv/.

You can hear Mandie in her words by listening to a pod-cast I recored with her recently.

Please make any comments for Mandie below