Shape Up! 4-Alternative Weight Loss Solutions

I am embarrassed to admit how many different commercial weight loss programs I’ve tried. I don’t know about you, but after a while I grow tired of talking heads touting empty promises. None of them helped me look the way I think I should and most of them left me agonizing over eating the same foods over and over.

What’s a body to do?

In this article I’ve outline a few different ideas that I’ve found to really work. Ideas I continue to come back to again and again. Whether you need to lose a few pounds or are looking for a healthy lifestyle change, these 4 solutions will help get you started.

Solution #1: Use Creative Visualization

Creative visualization a great way to bring about lifestyle change. “Seeing” yourself thinner is one of the most successful ways to decrease your body size and improve body image. Guided imagery works by training your mind to stimulate changes within your body.

This can be accomplished using a few of my favorite tools:

Affirmations: Using affirmations will train your mind by stating or affirming your intentions. It will retrain your thinking toward positive thoughts.

When I use affirmations, I like to use positive statements such as these:

MY BODY IS BEAUTIFUL! I LOVE MY BODY!

To increase their effectiveness, I write these messages to myself on an index card or piece of paper and carry them with me. I review them several times throughout the day.

Tapes: If you are an auditory person, you will love the guided imagery and weight loss tapes available from Health Journeys ( http://www.healthjourneys.com ). Their positive learning tapes will walk you through the thought process of building a stronger, leaner body.

Books: One of my favorite positive affirmation books is Love Your Body! By Louise L. Hay. Inside this book, Louise has created affirmations for you. If you read through them each day you are sure to reap the rewards of loving your body.

Solution #2 Try An Herbal Wrap
If you need to lose a few extra pounds, you may want to try an herbal wrap. Herbal wraps help the body lose water and inches. You can get a wrap from your favorite salon however, they tend to be expensive. It’s just as easy to give yourself a spa treatment at home. Herbal wrap products are everywhere. If you’d like to get a wrap but prefer the privacy of your own home, check out: http://www.slenderwrap.com

Some of the benefits of herbal wraps include:
Weight loss
Water loss
Decreased inches
Smoothness of Tissue

Solution #3 Stop When You Are Full

In her book Appetites, Geneen Roth gives us a simple outline to manage portion control. Her two major mantras are: take time to eat and stop when you are full. These are both shape-shifting ideas. To some people, including myself, food is a friend. Therefore the tendency to overeat stems out of emotion; food provides comfort and security. Others are in a hurry. Food and the need to eat are just obstacles that get in the way.

In effort to break free from these unhealthy behaviors, ask yourself several questions:
Am I enjoying what I am eating? Do I eat standing up or on the run? Do I continue to eat even after I know I am full?

Next, begin to carve out time to eat and enjoy food with friends or family. Or to take time to enjoy a nourishing meal even if you are alone. Eat to the point of being full, then stop. Most of the time, weight loss can be easily stimulated through portion control.

Solution #4 Keep a Food Journal

In addition to the aforementioned, it may be wise for you to keep a food journal. By tracking what you eat every day, you hold yourself accountable for everything you place in your mouth. It’s simple to start. Record everything you eat for a week and document your weight each week.
At the end of the week take inventory of yourself. Have you gained weight? Lost? Remained the same? If you are gaining weight, simply cut back on your refined sugars (sweets) and heavy carbs like white rice or white potatoes. For these, substitute brown rice or sweet potatoes instead. Track your habits for a second week.

When you’ve reached the point in your eating program where your weight remains the same, you will need only consume a few less calories (or burn a few extra during exercise) each week to lose weight. Keep in mind: in order to lose weight, your body needs to burn more calories than it consumes. First, find your melting point, then adjust your portion control and exercise program accordingly.

In Conclusion: With just a few adjustments and an enjoyment of food – recognizing its beauty for nourishing your body - you can shift your focus from frustration to enjoyment. Give these alternatives to weight loss a try. Your health and your waist line will thank you for it.

About The Author

Laura M. Turner is a Certified Personal Trainer and Sr. Editor of the The New Body News and Wellness Letter. Increase your healthy I.Q. Sign up for free: www.new-body-news.com VioletProsePubs@aol.com

Wight loss Hypnosis

Can Acupuncture Help Weight Loss?

There is a growing obesity epidemic in Western culture. In the United States, obesity is the second most frequent cause of preventable death - behind cigarette smoking. Not to mention the millions of people who suffer from weight related health problems and complications every year.

However, successful long term weight loss is incredibly difficult for most people to achieve. Many people have tried diets that may cause some weight loss and then they gain back the weight they lost plus some additional pounds.

This is why more and more, people are turning to alternative therapies such as acupuncture to try to handle their weight problem once and for all.

Acupuncture is a practice that is more than 5,000 years old, significantly older than Western medicinal therapies and practices.

It involves what most people think of when they think about acupuncture. Inserting fine needles into particular spots on the skin that are believed to help the body function properly, or to relieve pain.

In the case of overweight patients, the acupuncturist will first ask a variety of questions and perform an examination. The purpose is to understand the main causes of the person's excess weight. Perhaps it is merely behavioral, or there could be a physiological reason as well.
Once the root causes of the problem are identified, the acupuncturist will then insert needles into different areas of the body in order to help alter the body's functioning in a way that will promote weight loss.

For example, an acupuncturist who is seeking to encourage weight loss in a patient will probably use a multi-targeted approach. They may attempt to lower the body's weight by increasing the output of the pituitary gland.

They would also probably work on reducing cravings for certain foods or they would attempt to encourage a decrease in natural appetite. Certain needle placements are even thought to lower insulin levels or lipid levels in the blood.

A benefit of this type of weight loss treatment is that unlike certain medications or other therapies, there are potentially harmful side effects and no chance for addiction. It is a perfectly natural means of boosting the patient's weight loss efforts.

The treatment will need to be repeated on a rather regular basis in order to maintain the effects. However, the acupuncture specialist will instruct the patient that the treatment on its own is not likely to be enough to result in long term, permanent weight loss.

Annie Beal makes it easy for anyone to feel betternaturally with acupuncture and acupressure. Toreceive your free 7-part mini-course visit: www.acupuncturegold.com/tips.html

Can Acupuncture Help Weight Loss?

Drinking Coffee for Health and Weight Loss

Like many topics and issues in the health and weight loss industry I believe drinking coffee for health and weight loss has been left unsettled with a growing controversy every day. People having all kinds of views whether bias or unbiased, has really made this topic difficult to come to a conclusion. So from all my research, studying, and experimenting I believe I have been able to come up with the unbiased truth on the topic drinking coffee for health and weight loss.

I would like to start off and put to rest some myths you might of heard that just seem to be used against coffee that have been proven wrong. So let me just quickly clear up these myths.
First, the caffeine in coffee does not increase the risk of coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, liver injury, pancreatic cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, breast cancer incidence, or certain types of cancers. The truth is coffee actually decreases the risks or has absolutely no effect on these health conditions when coffee consumption is taken in moderation.

Second, the argument that declares coffee as a drug because of its drug like qualities like addiction, a stimulant, and mood altering. These things can become a problem without moderation a discipline but coffee being one of the healthiest beverages out there, I would rather have people drinking coffee than soda pops or sugar drinks.

Third, an excess of coffee increases urinary secretion of important minerals such as magnesium, potassium and sodium and uses up a fair amount of vitamin B1. These minerals and vitamins are very important to our body’s health but that is why I like to bring up several tests that have been conducted which should clarify a few things. These test proved that people that drink coffee consume an average of 8 to 14% more minerals and vitamins than people that don’t drink coffee. I don’t know if coffee drinkers eat healthier or what but there mineral and vitamin loss is made up by consumption of food and daily multi-vitamins.

These myths have had an impact on the questions and controversy against coffee being benefial or not for healthy living and weight loss. I must point out that anything in excess is bad for you so when people say coffee is unhealthy, I can most of the time point out ten unhealthier things they do instead of drinking coffee. Now that we are pasted that, let us focus on the advantages and disadvantages of coffee.

Advantages:
• Coffee is actually one of the healthiest beverages billions of people consume regularly.• Coffee containing with bitter orange, hydroxycitric acid, and chromium can encourage an increase up to 30% in metabolic rate.• Coffee with exercise when taking 300mg averages a 20% increase in energy and fatigue while burning fat increased 107% greater than without caffeine.• Caffeine in coffee keeps our brains alert and receptive of new information.• Regular consumption of coffee decreases the risk of type II diabetes and many other health risks.

Disadvantages:
• Coffee when consumed in excess can be addictive, stimulate, and a mood charger.• A large amount of coffee or caffeine consumed all at once can have a negative affect on blood sugar levels that influences fat burning that could change into storing fat.• Too much coffee over time can stain your teeth.

With so many benefits of coffee for health and weight loss it is hard to be worried about the few disadvantages when moderation can solve it all.

Step 1 – Coffee Clean Up

Coffee when consumed straight and by itself it perfect. Having zero calories, zero carbs, and zero fats one can see that it would not hinder weight loss. When adding all that extra sugars, sweeteners, syrups, alcohol and so on just make it a high calorie dessert.
Sticking with regular or straight shots of coffee with limiting extras like milk and sweeteners is necessary for achieving healthy living and weight loss.

Step 2 - Coffee in Moderation
Too much coffee at one time can affect blood sugar levels so the easy fix is reducing your in take at one time. Spacing out your coffee in take throughout the day would be something to consider and would benefit as an appetite suppressant while reducing chances of increasing blood sugar.
Reducing your coffee in take might be a struggle and can possibly cause headaches and constipation but in the end is worth it.

Step 3 – Limit Simple Carbs with Coffee
Avoiding or at least limiting simple carbs while drinking coffee would be wise as coffee can affect blood sugar negatively and adding simple carbs will just encourage an insulin spike.

Step 4 - Exercise
Exercise has so many benefits besides burning calories and suppressing your appetite. Exercise can also help regulate your body’s use of insulin to keep blood sugar down and making coffee have little affect on your body. So make sure you participate in aerobic activities, lift some weights, and keep drinking that coffee and you should achieve weight loss in no time.
Don’t let people tell you coffee is a bad drug and should be avoided at all costs. You know the truth that coffee actually has more benefits than negatives, so enjoy your coffee worry free about hindering for diet and weight loss goals.

Have a great day and God bless!
Jared Wash is an author with certifications by ACSM, NESTA, and ISSA in personal trainer, nutritionist, and online fitness coach. His mission with weight loss is to guide people away from false lies and myths in the fitness industry while focusing on true health and weight loss methods.

Drinking Coffee for Health and Weight Loss