Posts Tagged With: Diet

To enjoy successful, long term weight loss you need to change your perspective on how to lose weight and consider how to modify your lifestyle rather than how to go on (another) diet. This can be easier said than done for many ‘dieters’ who have carried excess weight for years and tried varied approaches, including a calories loss food program. To regain their body shape and good health they need to modify their lives not just the food they eat and see their body as a friend that needs to well cared for.

There are long-term physical and emotional health benefits for developing a healthy body early in life and investing time in keeping it that way. Careful consideration of how you approach food and what you eat through a calories loss menu will be apparent when you begin to enjoy greater energy, more relaxed sleep and even an improved metabolism where the calories in your diet are better processed. It is essential to consider the type of food your body needs to stay healthy and in shape as part of your lifestyle changes.

The role of exercise in the development of a healthy, strong body should not be underestimated. Exercise to develop muscle assists with the burning of calories and additionally boosts your metabolic rate. You may enjoy swimming as a regular form of exercise rather than pumping weights but because either will benefit your body through muscle development choose the most appealing exercise that will challenge you over the long term.

You can start your new lifestyle now without requiring special meals by ordering a salad for your next lunch, or having a healthy glass of water instead of that soda. When you are at the grocery store, think about the best choice for eating healthily and creating a calories loss in meals across the next week. Instead of reaching for a frozen pizza, select a bag of frozen vegetables for dinner and cook up those vegetables with some white rice and a chicken breast instead of making macaroni and cheese.

Portion size is also an important and sometimes underrated part of a healthy lifestyle. Most people eat double the portion size they should have at each meal because it is more than your stomach should hold and as a result and not surprisingly they find it difficult to lose weight. Your stomach is about the size of your fist and this is an indication of the amount of food your stomach can best manage.

It is worth imagining the size of your stomach as you look at your closed fist. Recall the size of your most recent meal and imagine how your stomach managed to hold this. Its capacity to stretch means that it can accommodate quite large amounts of food without you realizing this.

When you sit down to eat your next meal, make a fist before you lift that fork and try not to eat more food than you could fit into that fist. Eating smaller meals that are no bigger than a fist 4-5 times a day is a much better way to lose weight than eating 3 larger meals per day. This means there is less reason to enlarge your stomach regularly and because of this less need to eat larger portions of food to fill it.

This small but essential aspect of a successful weight loss food program is important to understand and act upon. Although foods that bring about calories loss is a core aspect of long term weight loss, just knowing the size of your stomach and ensuring that it is not unnecessarily stretched and then refilled to the same extent will assist you determine not only what you eat but how much and how often. Smaller and more frequent meals are well worth factoring into your new and healthier lifestyle.

When you start a new diet it is always exciting and easy to ‘commit’ to a daily calories loss menu and regular exercise. You tell yourself that this time you are going to stick with it, this time will be different, this time you are really committed. But do you really stick with the diet or do you go back to your old eating habits and end up with no weight loss and sometimes even a weight gain?

The reality is that dieting is not like an indefinite honeymoon, it is more like a marriage where we should expect difficult times and some hurdles along the way. To reshape your body on a permanent basis and to get healthier and fitter you need to find or devise a weight loss program that is balanced as well as something that you can enjoy across the long term. Spend time selecting foods on your calories loss menu that you really like to eat then find exercise that can become a welcome part of your life and when you have done that make a public commitment to continuing this.

Committing to anything involves letting others in on your secret and using some kind of outward sign that you are serious. If this seems a little contrived to you, do not underestimate the power of an action like this and recall the significance of symbols like trophies, rings and pledges during special ceremonies on other important occasions. Politicians like Senator McCain or Senator Obama will be committing to our whole country in November. If you really are serious about sticking to a balanced calories loss diet and you really want to enjoy the benefits of and successful exercise program then be prepared to commit this to others in your life.

Making a commitment to lose weight and enjoy a healthy life is important and you can do this in a number of fun ways including a written contract where you agree to stick with your program for a minimum of six months and then review your progress and commitment then . Make sure that you specify the outcome of following your contact and breaking it. Add your signature and request a witness countersigns it so that it can be a sign and a reminder of your commitment that you keep in a public place.

Hire a personal trainer as extra incentive because once you spend the money for a personal trainer, that money is gone whether you use those personal training sessions or not. The same rule usually applies to a gym membership as well, so spending money on exercise this is a commitment to getting fit. And knowing that money is gone whether or not you use that gym membership or get those personal training sessions they are likely to motivate you to exercise more.

Start up a ‘Weight Watching’ club by finding friends and workmates who like the idea of sharing their commitment to a healthier body and life. Make meetings fun, focusing on each others’ weight loss success and include time to hear about what works best for individuals. Support groups like this are public opportunities for members to make initial and then ongoing commitment to themselves and each other and work very effectively for large weight loss organizations as well as smaller groups.

Let others know about your new eating plan, in particular those at home, in your workplace and any of your other usual contacts. Let them know about your weight loss and exercise goals and the program you plan to follow and notice how they ask you about your calories loss eating and the impact that this has on your weight loss. Because you have shared your plans with others, there is a strong possibility that you will remain committed even when things get tough and you are tempted to give up.

Have a clear mental ‘picture’ of how you plan to look when you have reached your goal weight. Find pictures in magazines of the new ‘look’ you are working towards and display them at home and in your workplace. This very public way of committing to a healthy weight loss for good through calories loss and exercise is very public commitment at the beginning of your diet and an effective motivator to keep you strong and resilient even when times get tough.

Very often we tend to ignore the information about the many treatments of cancer unless there comes a time when we have to pay attention to it. Unless we are fascinated with reading medical journals we hardly bother to know more about the problems or the solutions or the symptoms of cancer. This is what happened to one of my closest pals as well.

My friend is a clinical nurse who has specialization in geriatric nursing. She has an incredible knowledge of medical matters. Surprisingly however she was totally ignorant of any information about cancer or of the latest treatments of the disease. That was until she was reported to be suffering from invasive cervical adinocarcinoma. We were both in the dark about cancer and were aware of only the harmful side effects of chemotherapy and the radiation. Now we know much more than we knew at that point of time. I would give you here one of the treatments of cancer that she underwent.

Vaness was diagnosed in December of 2005. Immediately, they took her in for surgery: to remove the offending growths, which were malignant and threatening to spread to her lymph nodes, surgeons performed a radical hysterectomy. Next she went in for a PET scan. A PET scan is a Positron Emission Tomography test done to verify the diagnoses and to enable further consideration of treatment for cancer. The PET and other tests revealed the cancer was in her lymph nodes, reaching as far up as the lungs and extending down to her vaginal area. A reputable surgeon, knowing of her case, which is in the 1 to 10 percentile of cases, called Vaness, suggesting she blow off the standard treatment for cancer and get the affected lymph nodes removed. (We cannot have all of our lymph nodes removed, as they run our endocrine, secretion, and waste and other systems.) Though she was now getting opposing suggestions/recommendations, she opted for the latter: on Valentine’s Day, she had a second surgery.

After the surgery she went for consultations about the chemo and the radiation. The doctor explained to her in great detail the many pros and cons of the therapy and also showed with the help of statistics the possibility of a side effect occurring. In contrast to what we knew, we came to realize that you do not lose hair or bowel control as you expect to. The rates were very low in those regards. We were also made to realize that most of the symptoms were psychogenic. The patient, by his/her thinking brings them on to himself/herself. If you think you would vomit, very soon you would.

After about two months of her first diagnosis, Vaness who was then administered an IV that was used in one side of her body, went to have two more medications. She had to take Glutamine and Compazine. While Glutamine energizes the immune system, Compazine helps to prevent the nauseated feeling that is the result of the use of Amaphostine injection(s).

After a few days Vaness went for her very first treatment of the disease. She had to undergo chemo for a few days in a row and then on a weekly basis. The Palliative radiation therapy took care of the symptoms and also brought about an improvement in the quality of life but it however did not cure, there has never been a cure for cancer.

The two treatments together can be used for a total of ten weeks. After that it would not be used as these will not cure the cancer and instead might kill her. The irony is in the fact that while the treatment is strong enough to counter the disease, it is also strong enough to kill the patient. There is however a percentage who with the help of the doctors, their friends and their own mind have miraculous recoveries and they actually survive to tell the tale. What is heartening is that this percentage of survivors is growing with each passing year.