Weight Loss Tips

Copyright (c) 2007 Jon M. Stout
Golden Moon Tea
http://www.GoldenMoonTea.com

Today, doctors are calling obesity our number one health concern
in the United States. Today, about 30% of the adult population in
this country is considered obese. In addition, 16% of children
between the ages of 6 and 19 are overweight. Though it has gained
a tremendous amount of attention in the past few years, the
problem is still on the rise.

One of this country's national health objectives is to reduce
the incidence of obesity to less than 15% of the adult population
by the year 2010. And, while there is a lot of talk about the
problem, many people don't seem to truly understand the steps
they need to take to get their weight under control.

Most of us understand that in order to lose weight you need to
burn more calories than you consume. However, many people attempt
to reach this goal by seriously restricting their calorie intake.
This type of dieting generally fails for two reasons.

First of all, when you begin to significantly reduce the number
of calories you consume, your body goes into starvation mode.
When in starvation mode, your body works very hard to hold onto
the fat that you have, decreasing the number of calories you're
burning. This means that your body is adjusting itself to the
reduced number of calories you're consuming.

Secondly, starvation diets are not realistic. We simply cannot
live on such restrictive plans for any significant length of
time. So, we begin to feel deprived, and before you know it,
we've given up on dieting.

Doctors believe that just after a starvation diet, our bodies
will quickly accumulate fat when we begin to eat again, as though
trying to make up for the famine it just endured. So, often, just
a few weeks after ending a diet, we find that we're fatter than
before. We feel defeated and as though losing weight is simply
not possible.

However, losing weight is possible if you approach the situation
correctly. There are two important pieces to the weight loss
puzzle. The first is adjusting your diet.

Adjusting your diet doesn't mean eating so little that you're
hungry nearly all the time. Adjusting your diet for permanent
weight loss means replacing your high fat, high calorie foods
with those that are healthier and contain fewer calories. By
eating the right foods, you can easily eat enough to feel
satisfied, but still lose weight. Avoiding hunger will help you
stick to your diet long enough to see serious results.

Take a look at the way you're eating. Get rid of the
hydrogenated fats like butter and replace them with healthy ones
like olive oil. Eat mostly chicken and fish - making red meats an
occasional meal rather than a regular one. Eat lots of fresh
fruits and vegetables, and make your breads and cereals only from
whole grains. Avoid processed foods. If you can make these
substitutions, you should lose weight automatically.

The second part of the weight loss equation is speeding up your
metabolism. You can make a significant difference in the number
of calories you burn each day, making weight loss and weight
maintenance far easier.

The fastest and easiest way to speed up your metabolism is to
exercise. Aim for 30 minutes of exercise most days of the week.
Walking is a great exercise that anyone can do. In addition, try
to make your life more active in general. Take the stairs instead
of the elevator and walk wherever you can.

Be sure to get in some resistance training, as well. Muscle, even
when resting, burns more calories than fat, so adding some
additional muscle is extremely beneficial. You don't need to aim
to be a body builder; just 20 minutes of strength training 3
times a week is enough to build some additional muscle. Strength
training will also help shape your body, making your weight loss
results more noticeable.

It is also beneficial to use foods to your advantage when it
comes to speeding up your metabolism. For example, eat those
foods that require lots of energy to digest, like raw fruits and
vegetables. Many raw vegetables actually require more calories to
digest than they contain!

In addition, try adding some tea to your diet. Tea has been shown
to speed up the metabolism and help oxidize fat. It may also have
the ability to inhibit the absorption of dietary fat into the
body.

One research study, conducted at Maastricht University in The
Netherlands, looked at tea's ability to increase thermogenesis,
burning fat and speeding up the metabolism. Many studies have
shown that caffeine helps speed weight loss, but tea seems to
have more potential than other beverages with caffeine.

Tea's catechins, a potent form of anti-oxidant, seem to work in
conjunction with the caffeine in tea to burn fat and speed up
metabolism. The study in the Netherlands came to this conclusion,
along with concluding that other substances often used to speed
metabolism, like caffeine with ephedra, simply are not safe
enough to be recommended as a weight loss supplement.

For those prone to being overweight, keeping the scale in check
is a lifelong project. But, armed with the right tools, including
a sensible diet, regular exercise and helpers like tea,
maintaining a normal weight for the long term is entirely
possible.

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Jon M. Stout is Chairman of the Golden Moon
Tea Company. For more information about tea,
(http://www.goldenmoontea.com/greentea)
green tea (http://www.goldenmoontea.com/blacktea)
and black tea go to http://www.goldenmoontea.com

What Are The Ten Dietary Guidelines For Australians?

Healthy eating and the general health of the population are
concerns for many governments around the world. The National
Health and Medical Research Council of Australia prescribes 10
dietary guidelines to help people design their usual diet so
that it will promote a healthy lifestyle and will present a
minimum risk for the development of diet related diseases.

These guidelines are:

1. Eat a wide variety of different foods.

A different variety of foods gives your body the necessary
vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that it needs to remain
healthy.

2. Eat lots of whole grain breads and cereals, vegetables, and
fruits.

Your body needs the fiber, vitamins, and minerals that can only
be obtained from these items in their natural state.

3. Ensure that your diet is low in saturated fat.

Saturated fat increases your cholesterol levels and could lead
to heart diseases and other ailments.

4. Balance food intake and physical activity to maintain a
healthy body weight.

Energy taken into your body in the form of food needs to be a
burnt off in the form of exercise, otherwise your body
transforms the food into fat.

5. Limit your intake if you drink alcohol.

Alcohol does not give your body any useful nutrients; it
suppresses your inhibitions and could lead to other
well-documented problems as well.

6. Consume only moderate amounts of sugars, including foods
that contain added sugar.

Sugar contains a large amount of calories that can be very
difficult to balance with physical activity, especially given
the amount of sugars that we find in our modern day foods and
candies.

7. Make low-salt foods your preference and use salt sparingly.

Salt is known to increase blood pressure, which could lead to
all kinds of cardiovascular and other diseases.

8. Encourage and support breast-feeding.

For the first six months of an infant's life natural breast
feeding can provide the child with all the natural nutrients
that it needs, provided that the mother is well-nourished.

9. Girls and women should eat more foods containing calcium.

Women suffer greater risk from osteoporosis and must therefore
increase their calcium intake to fight this terrible disease.

10. Girls, women, vegetarians, and athletes should eat more
foods containing iron.

The iron requirements of women and girls are almost doubled by
menstrual losses. Iron deficiency in the diets of vegetarians
and the increased demands put on the bodies of athletes also
require them to increase their iron intake.

Even though these 10 dietary guidelines were developed in
Australia for Australians they are equally applicable to
anybody else in any country of the world, and every single
person will benefit by following them.

About The Author: Tisha Diaz recommends the fat loss and weight
control program at http://www.losefatpro.com/ that will help you
get rid of those excess pounds and help you reach and maintain a
healthy body weight.

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Achieving Optimum Health! How?

This makes EFA's an important part of your diet. Other sources
of these fats are fish and nuts. Flax seed oils is the form in
which the oil was extracted from the seed. Omega-3 fatty acids
which contain the majority of flax seed health benefits are
very susceptible to heat.

You can either buy the seeds just like that, or you can buy the
flax supplements in pill form. Whatever you fell more
comfortable with.

The types of fats present in the brain influence its structure
and function. How well your mind works depends, in the long
run, on what you eat.

In one study men with prostate cancer who ate an ounce of
ground flaxseeds (almost three tablespoons) a day as part of a
very-low-fat diet were able to slow the progress of their
cancers between the time they were diagnosed and the time of
surgery.

Achieving Optimum Health

"Optimum health is not just the absence of disease but the
presence of wellness in mental, emotional, physical, spiritual
and social areas. Some would also include financial health."

Introduction

Optimum health is essential at all levels, from the individual
to the society we live in to the environment around us. We have
to start thinking of wealth not just in terms of possession of
money and properties but also the possession of mental,
emotional, physical, social and spiritual well-being.

Mental Health

The truth is mind is the forerunner of all states.

With a proper mindset, a poor man can still be happy.
Conversely, if the mindset is not right, no matter how much
material possessions you may have, you may still be a very
unhappy person. Thus, Gandhi said, "The world has enough for
everyone's needs, but not enough for even a single person's
greed." So a healthy mind is one that possesses a mindset that
can lead to happiness and contentment with self and the world
around us. It provides clarity of thoughts, good insight and
the ability to see things through an unbiased mind.

To be able to see things through an unbiased mind is no small
feat. It is extremely difficult to note or observe the
unfolding of events and phenomena without judging. We
habitually associate emotions or feelings to events, and allow
such emotions to direct our actions. Our likes for certain
things and dislikes for others are closely associated with our
emotions.

Emotional Health

It is our emotions that lead us to act impulsively at times.
Thus a high level of self-awareness in this area is extremely
useful. In fact, it is essential to our well-being. After all,
things and relationships that may take us years to build can be
destroyed in a moment of anger.

There are positive and negative emotions. Positive emotions
such as love, compassion and joy should be cultivated, while
negative emotions such as fear, anger and hate need to be
eradicated. When asked about this, a wise sage of India once
illustrated with a story: An old man said to his grandson,
"Boy, I have two tigers caged within me. One is love and
compassion. The other is fear and anger."

The young boy asked, "Which one will win, grandfather?"

The old man replied, "The one I feed."

At times, it may seem that we have no control over our
emotions. This is not true. The truth is how well we manage our
emotions depends on how aware we are of our emotions,
particularly on the arising of our emotions. The earlier we are
able to note the arising of our emotions, we better we can
manage them.

More and more researches are showing that our well-being is
closely linked to our emotional and mental health. Our body's
immune system is generally enhanced by positive mental outlook
and emotion. Conversely, it is depressed by negative mental and
emotional states. Thus, stress, worry, anger and fear are some
states that may lead to physical illnesses such as
hypertension, cardiac diseases, peptic ulcers, depression and a
host of other ailments.

Physical Health

To maintain an optimum physical well-being, therefore, requires
us to focus not only on our body but also our mind and emotions.


Flaxseed has recently gained attention in the area of
cardiovascular disease primarily because it is the richest
known source of both alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) and the
phytoestrogen, lignans, as well as being a good source of
soluble fiber. Diets high in lignans can lead to a lower chance
of getting colon, prostate, and breast cancer. Flax is 100 times
richer in lignan than most whole grains.

The lignan constituents of flaxseed (not flaxseed oil)
possesses in vitro anti-oxidant and possible estrogen receptor
agonist/antagonist properties, prompting theories of efficacy
for the treatment of breast cancer.

Flax seeds contain vitamin E and B. The seeds are also rich in
zinc, iron, copper, magnesium, nickel, calcium and many other
essential minerals.

But that should come as no big surprise, since any highly
unsaturated oil will do that, particularly if substituted for
saturated fats.

On a physical level, our body can be kept healthy through
adequate sleep and rest, proper nutrition, regular exercises
and a healthy environment that is free from pollution.

Spiritual Health

Throughout the ages, wise men have consistently informed and
taught us that we are essentially spiritual beings. Although
medical science has not been able to reveal to us our spiritual
nature, there are many indirect evidence that we would be
foolish to ignore. Stories from people who had gone through a
near death experience (NDE), or dying people with heightened
nearing death awareness, or simply a cure from an 'incurable'
disease all suggest that there is more to life than just the
physical state.

Major religions of the world all based their teachings on the
belief that we are essentially spiritual beings. According to
these teachings, our physical existence is secondary.

While it may be true that we should focus our life more on our
spiritual nature than our physical nature, it would be
difficult for the majority of people to do so, at least not
immediately. Things cannot change overnight. Mindset, however,
can, and that is perhaps the best place to start.

Financial Health

However, on a more mundane level, most people are still stuck
on how to survive from day to day, where to get the next cheque
to pay for the house installment, so on and so forth.
Practically, therefore, we need to look into ways to achieve a
financial state that would theoretically free us from the
constrain of 'forced' work. This is where the concept of
financial freedom is so attractive. According to this concept,
one should strive for a state where we have one or more than
one source of income that can be generated passively, that is,
even when we don't work.

This is what Robert Kiyosaki termed as 'passive income'.

According to him, passive income can only be achieved by
becoming an investor or a business owner, not a sole proprietor
or an employee. To become an investor or a business owner, you
must spend the time and money to acquire financial
intelligence. Unlike IQ or EQ, you can acquire financial
intelligence through self education.

To get a financial health check-up, consult an accountant, a
banker or a financial planner you can trust. Healthy
Relationship

"No man is an island, entire by itself."

As a medical doctor, I am in a unique position to confront and
comfort dying patients. One of the most important thing that I
have observed is that dying people do not ask about their money
or possessions. Instead, they focus their remaining energy and
strength on trying to heal wounded relationships. It is as
though there is an inherent need to get a proper closure to a
relationship.

Thus, forming and cultivating a healthy relationship is
important for our well-being. Unfortunately, this is something
we often ignored until it is too late. If there is any
forgiving to be done, or the need to be forgiven, leaving
things to the last minutes may end up with an unfulfilled
desire for a closure.

Knowing this now, shouldn't we spend more time and effort in
improving our relationship with our loved ones, especially with
our parents, spouse, children and siblings? Flaxseeds also
contain omega-6 fatty acids in the form of linoleic acid;
omega-6s are the same healthy fats found in vegetable oils.

Avoid or limit these oils. Omega-3, meanwhile, is typically
found in flaxseed oil, walnut oil, and fish. However, flax seed
oil is the best oil where Omega-3 and Omega-6 are balanced. Flax
Seed muffins pregents Cancer? Find Flax Seed Recipe today!
Omega-3 for health!

Essential fatty acids are further metabolized into hormone-like
substances in the cell known as prostaglandins. Prostaglandins
are involved in the regulation of many important physiological
functions.

Randomized clinical trials have shown that omega-3 fatty acid
supplements can reduce cardiovascular events (death, non-fatal
heart attacks, non-fatal strokes). They can also slow the
progression of atherosclerosis in coronary patients.

The seeds and oil of the flax plant contain substances which
promote good health.

About The Author: Why is Flaxseed called the Miracle Food? More
at http://www.flaxseedfitness.com

.

Are You Eating The Right Carbohydrates?

This is the technical meaning of "healthy fat." Your body needs
these fats to function properly, yet it doesn't produce it on
it's own. Flax seed oils is the form in which the oil was
extracted from the seed. Omega-3 fatty acids which contain the
majority of flax seed health benefits are very susceptible to
heat.

Flax seeds may come in different colors, but the colors don't
anything to do with the value of their nutrition. They are all
equally beneficial to you.

One way to influence brain health through diet is to consume
the right fats and oils.

Lignans and other flax seed components may also have
antioxidant properties, which means they may reduce the
activity of cell-damaging free radicals.

Are You Eating the Right Carbohydrates?

Whether you're trying to lose weight or just want to eat
healthier, you may be confused by the news you're hearing about
carbohydrates. With so much attention focused on protein diets,
there's been a consumer backlash against carbohydrates. As a
result, many people misunderstand the role that carbohydrates
play in a healthy diet.

Carbohydrates aren't all good or all bad. Some kinds promote
health while others, when eaten often and in large quantities,
may increase the risk for diabetes and coronary heart disease.

What are carbohydrates?

Carbohydrates come from a wide array of foods - bread, fruit,
vegetables, rice, beans, milk, popcorn, potatoes, cookies,
spaghetti, corn, and cherry pie. They also come in a variety of
forms. The most common and abundant ones are sugars, fibers, and
starches. The basic building blocks of all carbohydrates are
sugar molecules. The digestive system handles all carbohydrates
in much the same way - it breaks them down (or tries to break
them down) into single sugar molecules, since only these are
small enough to absorb into the bloodstream. It also converts
most digestible carbohydrates into glucose (also known as blood
sugar), because cells are designed to use this as a universal
energy source. This is why carbohydrates can make us feel
energetic. Carbohydrates fuel our body. Your body stores
glucose reserves in the muscles in the form of glycogen ready
to be used when we exert ourselves.

Carbohydrates are the highest octane - the most desirable fuel
source for your body's energy requirements. If you don't have
an adequate source of carbohydrate your body may scavenge from
dietary protein and fat to supply glucose. The problem is when
you've depleted your stores of glycogen (stored glucose in
muscle and lean tissue) your body turns to burning muscles or
organs (lean muscle tissue) and dietary protein or fat to
provide blood glucose to supply energy needs. When this
happens, your basal metabolic rate drops because you have less
lean muscle tissue burning calories and your body thinks its
starving and cuts back on energy requirements.

So you should continue to eat carbohydrates discriminately
selecting those which have the greatest health benefits.

Flaxseeds and their oil may also lower total blood cholesterol,
as well as LDL ("bad") cholesterol Human studies have shown that
flaxseed can modestly reduce serum total and low-density
lipoprotein cholesterol concentrations, reduce postprandial
glucose absorption, decrease some markers of inflammation, and
raise serum levels of the omega-3 fatty acids, ALA and
eicosapentaenoic acid.

Omega-3 fatty acids are long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids
(18-22 carbon atoms in chain length) with the first of many
double bonds beginning with the third carbon atom (when
counting from the methyl end of the fatty acid molecule). Read
on for more details on flax seed benefits. Like most vegetable
oils, flaxseed oil contains linoleic acid, an essential fatty
acid needed for survival. But unlike most oils, it also
contains significant amounts of another essential fatty acid,
alpha linolenic acid (ALA). There are many benefits to adding
flax seeds to your diet. Well for instance they can get rid of
your constipation problem.

The carbohydrates you consume should come from
carbohydrate-rich foods that are close to the form that occurs
in nature. The closer the carbohydrate food is as Mother Nature
intended, the greater the density of other vital nutrients. If
you are looking for health-enhancing sources of carbohydrates
you should choose from: Fruit: rich in fiber, vitamin A,
vitamin C, folate, potassium and often vitamin E.

Vegetables: fiber, protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, often vitamin
E, potassium and a wider variety of minerals than fruit. Whole
grains and grain foods: rich in fiber, protein, and some B
vitamins and are very rich in minerals.

Legumes: an excellent source of protein, fiber folate,
potassium, iron and several minerals.

Dairy foods: protein, vitamin D, calcium, phosphorus,
potassium, riboflavin, and vitamin B12. You can also source
carbohydrates from processed foods such as soda pop or soft
drinks, snacks such as cookies and chips, and alcohol. These
generally are considered to be a poor food choice and should be
consumed rarely. The carbohydrate source (sugar and flour) in
these food choices has been highly refined processed. A diet
rich in refined carbohydrates and processed foods has been
associated with heart disease and onset of type 2 diabetes.

Why are these sources of carbohydrates to be avoided?

1. They are calorie dense and contribute a large number of
calories in a small amount of food. For example a 7oz bag of
potato chips or corn chips have approximately 1000 calories.
Most women on a weight management program will be aiming for
1200 daily calorific intake. So, this is what we mean by
calorie dense and nutritionally scarce.

2. They offer little appetite-holding power because they have
no fiber or protein. As a result you end up searching for food
again soon after your first serve.

3. They contribute nothing to your nutritional profile except
calories. This means you have fewer calories left for foods
that your body requires for good health.

Whenever possible, replace highly processed grains, cereals,
and sugars with minimally processed whole-grain products and
ensure you have at least five serves of fruit and vegetables
daily.

Rather than cut out carbs completely for a very short-term gain
(usually weight loss), there are greater long-term health
benefits in learning how to distinguish good carbs over bad
carbs and incorporating healthy carbohydrates into your weight
loss program. Heart disease is by far the #1 killer in the U.
S., although 1/3 of those deaths could be prevented if people
exercised more and followed better diets, the American Heart
Association said in an annual report.

Also discussed will be the affects of our western diet on
omega-3 levels and the latest research on the cardiovascular,
heart, and the other health benefits of omega-3 compounds. Flax
seed oil is extracted from the seeds of the flax plant. Flax
seed oil and flax seed contain substances that promote good
health.

Flax Seed muffins pregents Cancer? Find Flax Seed Recipe today!
Omega-3 for health! Randomized clinical trials have shown that
omega-3 fatty acid supplements can reduce cardiovascular events
(death, non-fatal heart attacks, non-fatal strokes). They can
also slow the progression of atherosclerosis in coronary
patients. You can eat whole flax seeds but you need to chew
them good to break them up. Your stomach will not dissolve
whole flax seeds and many of them will come out in your stools.

About The Author: Why is Flaxseed called the Miracle Food? More
at http://www.flaxseedfitness.com Why is Flaxseed called the
Miracle Food? More at http://www.flaxseedfitness.com

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Tips For A Diet Healthy Pregnancy

During pregnancy it is crucial that your body has the necessary
chemical elements, strength, and stamina for you to stay
healthy. A diet healthy pregnancy means you will have fewer
problems during your pregnancy and give birth to a healthy
baby.

You'd be surprised to discover that a diet healthy pregnancy is
more likely to occur elsewhere then in affluent developed
societies where there are no mentors to guide you through
pregnancy and every kind of food imaginable is available. It's
a difficult road to know what you should eat,

The ideal diet healthy pregnancy is balance whole foods which
will provide you with all the critical nutrients that you need.
After all you aren't just feeding yourself you are growing a
baby and that requires a lot of energy especially in the very
early months when cell division is really intense. Legumes
such as beans, nuts, peas, and lentils, as well as whole grains
such as rice, rye, barley, buckwheat, oats, and wheat are all
foods that are needed to grow healthy baby's and keep mom
healthy.

Your ideal diet healthy pregnancy will have your lunch packed
with high protein foods because your body is much better at
digesting and processing protein earlier in the day and not at
night.

A diet healthy pregnancy that reaches those last months
requires calcium to be released from you bones to the baby so
it's a smart idea to increase your dairy, greens, soy, and
seaweed. If those don't seem appealing to you then you can
always take nutritional supplements. Raspberry leaf tea is
great for softening the cervix in the last few months in
preparation for the birth. It will also stimulate milk growth.


A dietary healthy pregnancy should also include some
nutritional supplements. At least that's what the experts say.
A balance food diet can go a long way to meeting nutritional
needs but eating correctly everyday only happens in a perfect
world. In fact most pregnant women would agree there are days
you just don't want to eat and there are days when you only
want certain foods and that's just part of being pregnant so a
supplement is just a wise idea.

So what type of supplements should a diet healthy pregnancy
include?
Iron is a must and best if it can be found in natural foods.
However you don' need large amounts of iron because it can
cause liver damage and separation of the placenta. Folic acid
aid in cell division in early pregnancy reducing the risk of
the fetus becoming damaged. Supplements are not necessary if a
proper diet is followed because there is ample folic acid in
nuts, dairy, and whole grains. A reduction in calcium can
cause muscles to cramp to ensure you are getting a proper
dosage of calcium to reduce the occurrence.

A diet healthy pregnancy means you and your baby will be less
stressed and a lot happier. It means you can relax knowing you
are doing everything possible to make sure your baby is healthy
and born with all the benefits of being healthy.

About The Author: Get all the latest information about Healthy
Diets, from the only true source at
http://www.1healthydietinformation.com. Be sure to check out
our Diet Healthy Pregnancy pages.

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