posted July 06, 2011 01:48 AM            

There is nothing about portion control in this diet and professional body builders avoid fruit like the plague for a reason while cutting (taking off fat) unless it's for a pre or post workout. Also, losing 6 pounds in a week unless you are already very obese is exceedingly dangerous if you like the idea of easily maintaining your current weight let alone a lower weight. It's like having a drill instructor scream at your metabolism and tell it it might die if it doesn't get more efficient and start saving some more fat. It will remember. Never lose more than 2 pounds a week unless you're very obese.

If you want to lose weight, dieting and exercise works best. If you want to focus on dieting, I'll throw out a few really easy tips for weight loss..

1. Eat breakfast, and better yet eat protein for breakfast. I recommend egg starters or egg whites (the nutrional/caloric profile for it is amazing). Another great weight loss breakfast is protein powder and oatmeal, although if you're more conscious of what you eat, maybe do hemp protein. Having protein for breakfast has proven to decrease the consumption of calories throughout the day, and not only that improves cognitive function (bonus!). Having breakfast speeds up your metabolism. I don't care if it's something unhealthy.. eat something.

2. Keep a -STRICT- written calorie/fat journal for at least a few days. This is going to be the thing you will least want to do that will pay off the most. You'll hardly realize how many calories you ingest if you don't do this. If your saturated fat or fat is really high as is most American's intake, you will gain weight. When you have a better handle of how much you're eating, switch to one you do in your head. When my mom asked me how to lose weight, this is the thing she was most reticent to doing, but she did it at my strong prompting, decided it worked, and subsequently calorie counted for 3 years on her i-phone losing 80 pounds in her first year. Weight watchers is okay if this is the only way you can motivate yourself, but their system has some major drawbacks that most people realize in a few months when they start switching to calorie counting to lose weight more effectively. It's still a good program

3. Chew some low calorie or sugar free gum after every meal. So yeah, it's not healthy outside of weight loss, but it will convince your system you are still eating if you can do this ritual after every meal, and your metabolism will increase to compensate. I did it sometimes just to get through hunger pangs when dealing with hypothyroidism.

4. Fiber is your best friend. If your midsection is bloaty, who cares when you lose 5 lbs? Benefits of fiber extend to blood pressure among other benefits having to deal with lessening your appetite -and- benefiting metabolism.

5. Always make sure you eat at least 1,000 calories a day. Some dieticians will change this number to something higher, but a lot of people have very slowed metabolisms whether via hypothyroidism or something else.

6. Take a multi-vitamin (very easy weight loss ala b-6 b-12 and something apetite decreasing that I'm forgetting that is in every multi-vitamin)

7. Take 2-3 green tea extract a day (insanely easy and safe weight loss)

8. Try to eat 5-6 meals a day. It'll work your system more, and it makes the tantrically/spiritually aware side of me cry and say eat one, but if you're trying to lose weight it's best. Even if it's just some 100 calorie something you keep in your desk.. have it as a snack two hours after your breakfast/lunch.

If you were only going to do 3 off the list daily, I'd tell you to eat breakfast and take the multi-vitamin/green tea daily. The food journal you really should do once.

posted July 06, 2011 11:34 AM            

What are the benefits of grean tea? It would have to be in pill-form, because for some reason drinking any kind of hot tea makes my throat dry.

posted July 06, 2011 12:51 PM            

If you try to exercise to lose weight, high intensity interval training is amazing in conjunction with strength training (ideally free weights something like 10-12 reps of a single set to the point you can barely lift the last one with perfect form covering the major muscle groups starting with the largest ones and a 90 seconds between sets). That and always get some kind of recovery fruit so your cortisol levels don't sky-rocket and cause your body to want to store more weight, particularly in the midsection. Cortisol also kills off neurons and my memory is escaping me but I believe you set it off when you skip breakfast. For the same reason, don't work out more than an hour in duration. Cortisol goes crazy and you don't want that.