Category: Weight Loss

Sleep and Weight Loss

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Even if you’re eating right and exercising regularly, you may not be able to achieve weight loss just yet. Achieving weight loss isn’t easy. But it can be harder to achieve it if you have unhealthy sleeping patterns.

Recent studies reveal that there is a strong relationship between sleep deprivation and weight gain. However, it is still unknown why it actually occur. One of the things that have been found is that people who sleep less than six hours each night experience an increase in their BMI and in their weight than those people that get seven to eight hours of sleep per night. Getting enough sleep is crucial to your weight loss efforts.

Sleep vs. Weight Loss

Our bodies run on a 24-hour cycle, which is called a circadian rhythm. Our circadian rhythm regulates our temperature, hormone secretion, and brain chemistry production. When our circadian rhythm is out of whack, so are the hormones that regulate whether we feel full or hungry. All of our normal cues for eating are altered. When we are tired or extra fatigued, we don’t always make the healthiest food choices. We might decide to have a bowl of ice cream right before bed in order to relax. We might decide to have a candy bar in the middle of the day because we are feeling sleepy and want a quick snack to get a rush of energy. These unhealthy choices can really destroy our weight loss efforts.

Alleviate your stress!

We live in a very hectic world with many responsibilities. Trying to juggle work, family, chores, school and recreation, it’s no wonder that so many of us don’t make sleep a priority. There is always so much to do that we tend to put off sleeping to do other things. We also live in stressful times and often our mental stress prevents sleep, even when we do manage to set aside seven to eight hours. This can be detrimental to our weight loss efforts. Try doing yoga or other relaxation exercises to reduce your stress level. Exercise is an amazing stress reliever and if weight loss is your goal, you should be exercising regularly anyway.

Get more sleep.

Here are some steps you can take to help regain some control and minimize the likelihood that lack of sleep will sabotage your weight loss efforts. Try to set a regular sleep schedule. Aim for seven hours of sleep each night, and make sleep a priority. Eat regularly; at least three to four times each day. Instead of using food to wake you up when you’re feeling sleepy, take a power nap of about 20 minutes. If you feel like you need an energy boost, eat a piece of fresh fruit or half of a sandwich made with lean protein.

The Importance of Fiber In Weight Loss

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Fiber is commonly divided into two types,soluble and insoluble. Soluble fiber dissolves in water and is usually found in fruits, vegetables, wheat, and oats. Insoluble fiber tends to exit the body largely unchanged, and is found in foods like seeds, nuts, and celery. Consumption of both soluble and insoluble fiber is vital to a healthy diet. While you may have heard of the importance of a high fiber diet for colon health, there are many other health benefits.

For people with heart disease or elevated cholesterol, fiber can help reduce cholesterol levels and decrease the risk of possible cardiac events. In fact, a study from The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, noted that women consuming higher fiber diets have a decreased risk of heart attacks, and coronary artery disease, compared to similar women who consume less fiber.

Health Benefits of Fiber

Blood sugar control: Soluble fiber may help to slow your body’s breakdown of carbohydrates and the absorption of sugar, helping with blood sugar control. Heart health: An inverse association has been found between fiber intake and heart attack, and research shows that those eating a high-fiber diet have a 40 percent lower risk of heart disease. Stroke: Researchers have found that for every seven-grams more fiber you consume on a daily basis, your stroke risk is decreased by 7 percent. Weight loss and management: Fiber supplements have been shown to enhance weight loss among obese people, likely because fiber increases feelings of fullness. Skin health: Fiber, particularly psyllium husk, may help move yeast and fungus out of your body, preventing them from being excreted through your skin where they could trigger acne or rashes. Diverticulitis: Dietary fiber (especially insoluble) may reduce your risk of diverticulitis – an inflammation of polyps in your intestine – by 40 percent. Hemorrhoids: A high-fiber diet may lower your risk of hemorrhoids. Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS): Fiber may provide some relief from IBS. Gallstones and kidney stones: A high-fiber diet may reduce the risk of gallstones and kidney stones, likely because of its ability to help regulate blood sugar.

Aim to get fiber from whole foods, rather than processed foods that claim they have added fiber added. Try adding a few of the following foods and your body will thank you.

Brown rice, oatmeal

Berries

Chia and Flax Seeds

Apples, Pears, Mango

Black Beans, Red Beans, Garbanzo Beans

Edamame

Almonds

Weight Loss With Gastric Band Surgery or Naturally

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Weight loss happens in a similar way whether you risk the dangers of gastric band surgery or go it alone, losing weight naturally through adjusting to a healthier lifestyle, diet and exercise. After you have had gastric band surgery you still have to adjust the foods you eat and drastically reduce the portion sizes. So why not just do that, and lose weight naturally, instead of subjecting your body to the trauma of surgery?

A better question to ask yourself is what has stopped you from losing weight successfully? Or perhaps what changes when you undergo gastric band surgery? The answer of course boils down to the fact that once you have had this type of weight loss surgery you quite simply cannot eat more than small quantities of food; it becomes physically impossible.

And so even if you want to eat more, you cannot. In short, you do not have to have the will power to stick to a diet or pursue an exercise regime or to change your lifestyle when you have had this type of surgery. But the fact remains that your lifestyle does indeed change. You do alter the way in which you eat and the way in which you socialize. All this still has to happen, with or without the gastric band.

Weight loss surgery, like all surgery, does have risks and dangers attached. It is also expensive. If you are morbidly obese, however, you will be able to qualify for weight loss surgery through the NHS in the UK. A lot of overweight candidates perceive this as no cost/no risk. They turn a blind eye to the potentially unnecessary trauma to which they are subjecting their body. No cost definitely does not mean no risk in reference to going under the knife for weight loss surgery.

Some people are so keen to obtain this “quick fix” for weight loss at no cost that they will even go to great lengths to put on weight and become morbidly obese, thereby qualifying for free surgery. It is no wonder then that the figures released recently by the British Medical Journal reflect a tenfold increase in this type of weight loss surgery over the last ten years. It is also no wonder that the NHS is struggling as it attempts to deal with the extra weight of increasingly costly surgery.

The more people who undergo weight loss surgery, particularly celebrities, the more “normalized” it becomes in our minds. Instead of us thinking of weight loss surgery as a last resort, it becomes a more readily considered “every day” option. Unfortunately there are bound to be many side effects which we are as yet unaware of. Once these are properly highlighted, I wonder whether so many people will be as willing to go under the knife.

When you consider that you still have to eat less and you still have to change your lifestyle, why not search for other ways in which you can increase your commitment to losing weight naturally? Commitment or will-power really is the ingredient which is more frequently missing in the mind sets of people who want to lose weight. How often do you hear overweight people bemoaning the fact that they haven’t got the will power to say no, or that they just cannot change their lifestyle?

This site explains weight loss methods used in medical weight loss centers.

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An individual with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 is considered obese. Diets and exercises can fail to achieve the desired weight loss and it is therefore advisable to seek medical weight loss centers to assist in weight loss for such individuals as they are at a high risk of developing heart diseases and diabetes. Well, let us discuss the weight loss programs that these centers offer.

Very low calorie diets offered in medical weight loss centers are commercial formulas that provide an individual with no more than 800 calories per day and they completely replace an individuals normal food intake. Common side effects of using these formulas include dizziness, mood swings, headaches and confusion.

The use of obesity drugs is another method used in medical weight loss centers. Meridia and Xenical are FDA approved drugs and they help decrease the body weight by up to 10%. Meridia reduces hunger by altering the brain chemistry while Xenical stops fats absorption in the stomach and intestines. Common side effects of these drugs include headache, insomnia, frequent bowel movement and rapid heartbeat.

Gastric bypass surgery is another method widely used in medical weight loss centers. The medical procedure shrinks the stomach by creating a small stomach pouch on top of the main stomach. The small intestine is then attached to the small pouch and the procedure forces the food digestion and travel to happen only through the upper pouch and the small intestines thus limiting the amount of food an individual can take at a time. Weight loss through this method can achieve results of up to 68% within the first year.

Biliopancreatic diversion (BPD) is a procedure carried out in medical weight loss centers where part of the stomach is removed. The intact stomach is then attached to the small intestines. In this method theres rapid weight loss as most food travels too fast through the small intestines and there is therefore no absorption of most nutrients and calories. BPD causes more weight loss than gastric bypass however it has more severe side effects like nausea, sweating, dumping syndrome, diarrhea right after eating and anemia. With this method, an individual can lose up to 80%.

Ensure that you consult your doctor before choosing any of these methods; they are irreversible and require one to have a life-long commitment of lifestyle change.

Preferred Weight Loss Diet- HCG Diet

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Heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, gallbladder disease, gallstones, osteoarthritis, breathing problems, sleep problems and gout are but a few diseases and health conditions associated with obesity and overweight.

Overweight people can greatly improve their overall health by losing a few pounds off their body. Diet Doc HCG Diet and Weight Loss are making a huge effort to help people improve their health. For the residents of California, Diet Doc has launched a proprietary, medically, supervised weight loss program- HCG Diet California. Most individuals approaching us in order to lose weight are experiencing adverse health conditions or have been diagnosed with health conditions such as diabetes II even before they could realize it on their own. Losing weight is their number one priority at that point in their life, explains Julie Wright, president of Diet Doc HCG Weight Loss.

Losing even a small percentage of weight can greatly help in reducing these deadly health conditions. Diabetes II, which reduces the bodys ability to control blood sugar, is one of the major reasons of deaths occurring in the USA.

Diet Doc HCG Diet and Weight Loss is the only modern day version of the old 1950s Simeons HCG diet. The HCG Diet doctors work collaboratively to identify trends within their patient panel and continue to update and evolve their diet protocol.

Why should HCG Diet California be your preferred choice for weight loss?

Well, there are many reasons to quote but a few main points have been enlisted below.

1)The primary reason is that the weight loss diet is individually customized for every individual based on his/her medical history and current healthstats.Moreover,the consultation is free of charge.
2)It is the easiest ever diet that doesnt even tell you to go for a workout or exercise.
3)It helps you lose weight at a greater pace with effectiveness.
4)The HCG Protocol prescribed is safe and medically supervised over the entire duration of continuing with the diet. We even provide a Certificate of Authenticity.

“Our mission is to educate people on healthy food choices, while losing their maximum daily weight loss safely, without charging additional to speak to one of our nurses or weight loss coaches” states Julie Wright, president of Diet Doc HCG Weight Loss.