Tuesday, March 31, 2009

All You Wanted to Know About Hoodia Gordonii

If you're struggling to lose weight, you know it pretty well that you can't win the struggle against obesity unless you know how to control your hunger pangs. Your countless weight loss resolutions would come to nothing since every time you try to reduce your food intake for the aim of weight loss, hunger would force you to break your resolution and consume more of those 'forbidden foods'.

You've in all likelihood used over-the-counter diet pills with the hope of putting an end to this pain in the neck. Diet pills might suppress your appetite to an extent but they come with harmful side effects. Essentially, they would harm you more than help. The best appetite suppressant is one which is entirely herbal and natural. And Hoodia Gordonii is one such weight loss supplement!

Hoodia Gordonii is a plant cultivated along the Kalahari Desert of South Africa. Its effectiveness as an appetite suppressant is not a new breakthrough! In fact, the natives of the Kalahari Desert have been using it for 1000s of years in order to suppress their hunger. They did not do it for weight loss though; instead, they used it to keep hungriness at bay when on a hunting expedition, since it would be extremely inconvenient to burden themselves with food supplies at the time of hunting.

It's strange that man discovered its advantageous effects on weight loss as late as 1960's. The logic is that by suppressing your appetite, Hoodia rids you of those intolerable and painful hunger pangs which make weight loss so hard for you! Put differently, Hoodia makes it easier for you to lose weight!

The bad news is that the demand for Hoodia Gordonii far exceeds its short supply. One reason behind its short supply is that since it is native to the climate of Kalahari Desert, it would be hard to cultivate it in any other place. Secondly, the government of Republic of South Africa has imposed numerous limitations on the cultivation of Hoodia, thereby making it virtually impossible for non citizens to cultivate it in their native countries!

Thirdly, as soon as the beneficial effects of Hoodia on weight loss was discovered, a lot of dishonest people began to cut down and steal many Hoodia plants in order to make Hoodia products from them; this successively further dwindled its supply. If you ever thought why Hoodia is so pricey, it's because of its limited supply!

And taking full advantage of this situation is a group of dishonest profiteers who are more concerned in your wallet than your health. These marketers commonly use poor quality or premature Hoodia plants to develop Hoodia supplements, and then scam people by distributing them as 'authentic' Hoodia products! There are other people who would sell supplements made from other assortments of Hoodia; keep in mind that only the supplements made from Hoodia Gordonii can help suppress your appetite!

The best way to protect yourself from these scam artists is by buying Hoodia from reputed vendors, online or offline. I do not buy Hoodia from anyplace else except Amazon.com, and even there, I have to be extremely careful of what I buy since there several vendors selling different versions of Hoodia.

Cost is a good way to determine the genuineness of the supplement. If it's too cheap, you can conclude that is a fake product!


Monday, March 30, 2009

Do You Really Need A Calorie Counter For Fast Weight Loss?

Just like obesity, diabetes is also fast becoming a threatening disease with every passing year. And as strange as it might sound, you could actually get rid of both of them by using the same method! Obesity is caused by an excessive amount of calorie consumption, and the same holds true for diabetes as well!

In fact several recent studies have pointed out that diabetes is closely linked with obesity. Now if you want to lose your belly fat as well as those dreaded insulin injections, monitoring your daily calorie intake is the only way to kill the two birds with one stone!

Since most junk foods are high on calorie and sugar content, they tend to increase your blood sugar level apart from making you overweight! The recommended way to control your calorie intake is by counting your daily calorie consumption level using a calorie counter. So let's see how a calorie counter could offer you fast weight loss!

A calorie counter, as its name suggests, helps you count calories. But in reality, it does more than just that. Most decent calorie counters come in-built with a large database of food items along with stats about their respective calorie contents! This database would help you decide which foods are low on calorie and which aren't.

A calorie counter also acts as a food journal by monitoring your diet and activity level, thereby helping you stay on track! With its help, you would be able to decide whether the diet you are following or the level of your current daily activity is good enough for weight loss. Diabetes patients can too benefit from a calorie counter since it also offers stats about their blood sugar and insulin levels.

With the help of a calorie counter, keeping track of your weight loss progress and staying on track becomes easier. You can use it to set your own weight loss goals as well as check how much progress you have made and how much more is left to be done in order to reach your goal.

A good calorie counter can store up to a year's information in it, and since it is just a small electronic device, you can easily carry it in your pocket anywhere you want, be it to your office or the neighboring fast food restaurant!

Of course, using a calorie counter won't ensure that you would lose weight fast or keep your blood sugar levels under control. In order to derive the maximum benefit from it, you should also use your commonsense while planning your diet.

1. Try to include as many fruits and vegetables as you can in your meals; in fact, you should eat them even at snacking hours! Don't forget to include whole grains and soy too!

2. Try to focus on low-fat foods, since fatty foods are not good for the health of your heart.

3. Try to stay away from artificial sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners. while being low on sugar, come with other side effects, One common side effect you could suffer from is bloating and acidity.

If you wish to live a healthy and long life, it is best to forget about sugar or at least try to keep your sugar cravings under control!

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Common Disagreements And Bad Effects Of The Atkins Diet On People

There are many disagreements and bad effects of the Atkins diet that have been created and focused on since its original introduction to the world. Many feel the Atkins diet does not adequately provide the nutrients needed for what the body needs on a daily basis. Others feel that it is downright destructive to the body and will eventually destroy all semblance of good health the person has.

A common disagreement over the Atkins diet is whether it is actually good for someone. Those who believe in the Atkins diet say it is a great way to become healthy and lose weight. They claim they lose around 10lbs. the first week, which in turn slowly increases over time, especially if they take supplements and exercise the right way. Furthermore, they state that they are able to enjoy meat more often and other fatty foods.

Those who disagree with the Atkins diet state the aforementioned individuals are losing weight due to a combination of water, fat, and lean muscle loss. Lean muscle loss in any form is not good for an individual, as they only need to lose fat and not healthy lean muscle. They state the 10lbs. that were claimed was very damaging to the individual and was not the results that they believe. In addition, while the meat does help build lean muscle, it is the supplements and exercising that help the person lose weight, and not the diet itself.

Disagreements and bad effects of the Atkins diet will continue to be a hotly debated topic for as long as the Atkins diet is around. The bad effects continue to be debated for the damage it does to the human body, which goes beyond the loss of lean muscle. It is believed that if a person is unaware of having certain health conditions and begins the Atkins diet; by the end of the week, that person may fall into a coma and possibly even die. While this may be correlated only to extreme cases, almost all interviewed participants of the Atkins diet state that by day three or four they have begun to experience light headedness and dizziness, often followed by collapsing or passing out.

There is a consensus that the Atkins diet does work, but that the bad effects far outweigh any good effects that it can have. Still, there is evidence that the diet does work and there is proof of this. Disagreements will continue about the Atkins diet for as long as it continues to exist, despite new evidence that there may be some true pros to the diet. No matter how good something is, if it causes you harm people are not interested.

In the end, people will have to determine the pros and cons for themselves. If they choose the Atkins diet, there is sure to be more disagreements and bad news of the Atkins diet for many years in the future.

Monday, March 16, 2009

How to Get Rid of Flabby Arms in 2 Easy Steps!

If guys hate their love handles and fat bellies, women are equally desperate to get rid of their flabby arms as quickly as possible! Flabby arms not only look bad but also affect your health negatively! Few are aware of the fact that having flabby arms could afflict you with painful maladies such as heart problems, stroke as well as anxiety and behavioral disorders!

In fact even a little amount of extra flab on your arms could trouble your heart! Now you ladies have more than one reason to get rid of your flabby arms fast, and with the steps I've outlined in this article, you should have no problems in achieving your goal!

People usually blame the manifestation of flabby arms on poor lifestyle habits, the same habits which make your belly fat as well! However, flabby arms are not always caused as a result of following poor lifestyle habits; many a times they are hereditary!

In all cases, sitting down on your couch and hiding your flabby arms within jackets won't rid you of them! The only and only thing which can help you is exercise.

Step 1:

Not any ordinary exercise would do, mind you! There are special "arms exercises" which are designed in such a way that you cannot but get rid of the fat around your arms with their help! Lifting heavy weights is one of those workouts, but an even easier workout is moving your hands in circles; you simply need to hold out your hands above your head and then move them round and round in circular fashion.

This exercise is simple and doesn't require the help of any external equipment, and if you thought they are too simple to help you get rid of flabby arms, you are dead wrong! Often it happens that the simplest exercise offers the best results!

If you want to accelerate the process of burning arm fat, you should join a local gym. Weighted dips are usually one of the best equipments available for getting rid of flabby arms fast. With a weighted dip, your body is suspended mid-air and all you need to do is move your arms up and down while holding on to a machine. With this exercise, your arms would go up and down while the core body would remain in fixed position! This exercise not only burns arm fat but also makes them stronger and muscular.

Close grip push-ups and close grip bench presses are my other two favorite exercises when it comes to burning arm fat; doing some barbell French presses for your triceps is not a bad idea either!

Remember though that you shouldn't focus on any single workout; instead, alternate between a variety of workouts everyday as that would not only help keep the boredom out but also force your metabolic rate to remain at a sky-high level at all times!

Step 2:

As a final note, I should also mention that no matter how hard you workout, you are not going to get rid of flabby arms unless you resolve to cut down on your daily calorie intake! You should surely eat as much food as your body needs but no more than that!

A good way to cut down on calories is by removing junk and processed foods from your diet, since they have nothing except loads of empty and useless calories! Your diet should be especially high on protein and fat; as such a diet would help the body recover quickly from the strains of intense workouts!

Saturday, March 14, 2009

The Diet Which Helped Beyonce Knowles Lose Weight-Is It Healthy?

Beyonce Knowles-in modern times, days she became more famous for her sudden unforeseen weight loss than either her vocal cords or theatrical abilities! At one time she claimed on a television show to have lost nearly 20 pounds of fat applying a special diet program, everybody went looney over it. So what is this diet program and precisely how does it work, and more significantly, could Beyonce's results be replicated by other people? I'll answer all these questions in this article.

Beyonce claimed to have lost the weight while shooting for the movie Dream Girls, where she plays her real life role, that of a singer. Now anybody who's acquainted with the surroundings of motion picture sets would recognize that it's virtually impossible to maintain a strict diet out there. Now you perhaps are curious how she lost weight in spite of all the odds!

Well, her dietitian prescribed a particular detox beverage for her and during the following 2 weeks, she lived on nothing except that beverage! That's a little tough I concur; I for one can't even conceive of being on a liquid diet, that as well, for 2 weeks consecutive!

But that's what Beyonce did, and whenever she would suffer from intolerable pangs of hunger, she would douse it with this detox beverage. So that's how she lost weight! If you would like to follow this diet program, I'd propose that you do not use it beyond a week or 10 days at the most!

Luckily it does not take a lot of skill or expertise to prepare this beverage. All you need is to do is to get 8 oz.s of clean and pure sprint water, and then add the following ingredients to it:

a) two tablespoons each of lemon juice and maple syrup. Both the lemons and maples should be fresh and entirely organic, and the juice must be made at home. Do not buy high-calorie flavoured juices from your local store!

b) If you want you are able to as well add a little bit of cayenne pepper to the mixture for taste.

So that's it! I'd say that it would taste best if you cool it off in the icebox but naturally you can also drink it warm! Both lemon and maple cleanse all the toxins from your body and therefore help you lose unneeded weight!

However just like other liquid diets, this one also has many disadvantages, and Beyonce herself admitted to have followed it out of lack of alternative; she further admitted that given an option, she would rather a healthier diet plan to this one. If you actually want to follow this diet plan, make certain to fix an appointment with your local dietician just like Beyonce did, so as to make certain that your body is fit for this diet plan!

The one major drawback of this diet is that it virtually makes you starve, and that's not a good weight loss formula. When you starve, you'll lose weight for certain but that would be merely water weight! As soon as you come back to your normal food habits, you'd gain back all the 'lost' weight instantly! If you want to lose stomach fat or flabby arms, you need to lose FAT, something which this detox diet is unable to help you with!

Fatigue and weakness are a few of the side effects you might suffer from the use of this diet, so be careful if you choose to go for it!

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Can You Really Get Rid of Fat Belly with Resveratrol?

Recent studies have pointed out that drinking a little red wine keeps your heart healthy and fit. Over time, experts have also discovered that a certain substance called Resveratrol which is found in red wine may help one lose weight.

While Resveratrol indeed helps you lose belly fat by targeting a special protein which is responsible for maintaining the normal blood sugar levels in our body, it also can't be denied that raising your wine consumption in the hope of fast weight loss put up lead to major health complications!

A lcohol should not be used as a weight loss solution for a number of reasons. First of all, a high alcohol intake may damage your liver badly. Secondly, it's well known that people who drink alcohol regularly wind up adding a good deal more extra pounds to their body; so you are able to see, with this weight loss method you'd gain more fat than lose! So is there any other way out?

While you can't take Resveratrol in the form of red wine, you can certainly consume it in the form of supplements. Believe it or not, most weight loss supplements contain Resveratrol in some form or other, along with other fat burning ingredients!

Make certain that the supplement you're purchasing contains at least 20 mgs of Resveratrol, as that's the minimal amount of Resveratrol you need to eat in order to benefit from it.

In order to understand how Resveratrol helps us with weight loss, it's crucial to understand the role of blood sugar with regards to weight gain. If your blood sugar level is high, your insulin level would likewise go up in order to lower the blood sugar level. This in turn would make you hungrier. And if you consume fatty and sugary foods in order to fill your belly, you would soon become hungry as before!

Resveratrol essentially reduces our blood sugar level which in turn reduces the insulin level. When this takes place, our appetite is likewise reduced and we consume less than before. With reduced food intake, weight loss is inevitable!

When you take Resveratrol in the form of supplements as I suggested above, you not only keep the fat away but also protect yourself against harmful diseases such as cancer. Not many folks know that there are special supplements which contain both Resveratrol and turmeric as ingredients, and turmeric's job is to protect you from cancer and other harmful diseases!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Top 3 Simple Food Tips to Burn Fat Like Crazy!

Some people wrongly believe that food is the culprit behind their weight gain. To be honest, this is just another misconception. Just as a tool can be used both in right and wrong ways, the same can be said about food. Assuming that food is a 'tool', if you use it wrongly you would gain weight for sure, but it is possible to use that same 'tool' for the purpose of losing weight, provided that you learn to use it right! In this article I will tell you how to use food in order to lose stomach fat

1. Snacking ain't bad, but check your snacks closely: If you thought that snacking in between meals is not favorable for weight loss, you couldn't be further from the truth! In fact, experts actually recommend snacking in-between meals as it is a good way to keep yourself full at all times! If you are hungry, you are more likely to gorge on junk and fatty foods than otherwise.

However, you need to make sure that the snacks you are eating are not unhealthy. It is easy to see the difference between a carrot or an apple and a packet of chips; the former is healthy and the latter is not! While chips would add more unwanted pounds to your body, apple would help you burn those fat deposits! Now you know which snacks to go for and which ones to avoid, right?

2. Choose the right fats: Fat is not all bad, as some think. Cutting down drastically on your fat intake may affect your health negatively, while on the other hand consuming fat in the form of junk and fatty foods would make you overweight.

As a matter of fact, there are two types of fats out there: the saturated or 'bad' fat and the unsaturated or 'good' fat. Saturated fats are available in plenty in junk foods, and they do nothing except expanding your body in inches and pounds! On the other hand, unsaturated fats found in canola and olive oils keep your body healthy!

Needless to say, you should prefer unsaturated fats over the saturated ones; unsaturated fats can also be found in fishes such as salmon and tuna.

3. Choose protein over sugar: Do you eat sugary foods simply to become more energetic? Here is the real truth about sugar: while it provides you a sudden outburst of energy, that energy lasts only for a temporary period, after which you feel fatigued and hungry all over again. What follows next is gorging on more sugar-rich foods like a hungry wolf.

And the fun part is that the more sugary foods you eat, the hungrier you feel! And do you know what does sugar do once it gets inside your body? It immediately converts itself first into glucose and then fat!

Here is a better and healthier way to gain the same amount of energy: eat protein-rich foods. Protein would help you burn fat by building muscles, and the more fat you burn, the more energetic you become! Foods such as lean chicken meat and eggs are rich in protein; I usually have eggs for breakfast and chicken for dinner!

Friday, March 6, 2009

Exercising or Dieting-Which One Would Help You Achieve Fast Weight Loss?

When it pertains weight loss virtually all experts would unanimously concur that there's no better way to accomplish your goal than following a diet. However, they do not appear to be focusing much on the exercises! I'm sure you've heard of a lot of fad diets but do you ever get to hear the words 'fad workouts' or 'fad exercises'? I have not heard of one in the past 4 years I spent in researching weight loss!

Remember that while diet is important, building a strong athletic body is equally essential, something which diets can't offer you. In this article I will tell you how a strong body could assist you burn more fat than what you are burning now!

In fact, a strong body is one which is built upon strong lean muscles groups. I'm not sure if you already know about it, but the more muscles you have, the quicker you can burn fat and lose weight.In Addition muscles also make weight maintenance easy for you.

For instance, most of the conventional diet programs would restrict your carbohydrate consumption to a very low level. Without any carbs around, your body would burn your muscles for the propose of energy production. The more muscles you lose, the harder you would find it to keep the fat way. Sooner or later your metabolic rate would be so low that you will not be able to lose weight no matter how hard you diet!

Nevertheless, this problem will not happen if you've a muscular body. People with strong and well-built bodies generally find it easier to maintain their lost weight and keep the fat from coming back when they start consuming normally. This is since muscles help them burn fat even when they're not dieting! That's the advantage of building strong lean muscles. And only intense workouts could assist you acquire lean muscle mass inside a short time period!

The other day I was counseling an acquaintance on how to start the workout regimen on a step-by-step basis. Here is in essence what I told him:

1. Firstly, there are 2 types of workouts: one which helps you slim down by burning your fat deposits, and another which builds strong lean muscles for you! For optimum results, you'd prefer to accomplish both goals and in and of itself, you should not focus on any one type of workout!

For the aim of losing fat, you can begin lifting light weights but make certain that you do several repetitions of this workout day-after-day! The aim of this exercise program is to boost your body's metabolic process to such a high level that you would be burning fat like mad!

2. For the aim of building a strong muscular body, chin-ups, ab crunches, squats and dead-lifts are pretty good. The purpose of these workouts is to make your body so strong that you could lift almost four or five times the amount of weight you're presently lifting!

But on a easier level, the stronger your body is, the easier it would be for you to keep the pounds away! Plus you'd feel a good deal more energetic than before!

I'd strongly discourage you from doing long boring cardios as they do nothing except wasting your useful time and energy!

Note that having a good meal is as crucial as doing the proper workouts! I advocate a protein-rich diet. Protein is available in foods such as eggs, lean chicken meat, etc. You are able to even take protein supplements if you want!

Along with protein, your body also needs fat, which you could get from nuts, fish oil, etc. In order to eliminate hunger, you should include raw vegetables and fruits in your diet also because they're high on fiber and complex carbs.

At no point of time should you even think of consuming junk foods, as they'd ruin all your hard work!

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

3 Fast Weight Loss Secrets-Lose Weight Happily in Seven Days!

What? Can you really lose as much as five pounds of solid fat in just seven days? Sounds unbelievable I know, and that is because you have been taught over and over again by the so-called 'weight loss experts' that you cannot lose more than two pounds of fat week.

However there are certain underground weight loss tactics which, unknown to many, could accelerate the weight loss process to such a high level that you would find it difficult not to lose at least five pounds of fat in that same week, if not more. So how do you do it? Well that is what this article is all about! Read on to find out the weight loss secret.

Oh okay I probably forgot to mention that you can lose weight by drinking one of the most delicious drinks out there! If that doesn't sound exciting to you, I don't know what else will!

1. Green Matcha Tea: You have surely heard about the tremendous benefits of green tea with regards to weight loss. It is a known fact that green tea not only helps you lose weight by boosting your metabolism but also acts as a natural appetite suppressant. Now if you add a bit of matcha powder to it, the effect could only be mind blowing! Why? Just like the famous acai berry, matcha powder is also rich in antioxidant.

While it is true that green tea itself is rich in antioxidants, you could make the situation even more favorable for you by using the dual strength of green tea and matcha powder to make the Green Matcha Tea! Green Matcha Tea is obviously more powerful than plain Green Tea, in that it helps you burn fat unlike any other weight loss super drinks you might be familiar with! Try it, and I am sure you would not only like its fat burning capabilities but also the delicious taste!

2. PGX: Carb blockers serve a very important function: that of preventing carbs from getting deposited in your body as fat and making you overweight. Carb blockers do this by binding themselves with the carbs your body receives from your food. PGX is one such carb blocker. Even if you don't eat sugary foods at all, you still need this because even natural foods contain carbs in varying degrees. It is also a good remedy for those who are suffering from Type2 diabetes. All in all, it is an indispensable tool for your arsenal!

3. A diet that makes you burn fat and lose weight: In case you are curious, it is called the 'calorie shifting' diet. Calorie shifting is a technique which doesn't believe in focusing on any single food group; rather it burns fat by making you consume foods of different calorie contents. In effect, you are not limited to eating just 'low-calorie' or 'low-fat' foods all the time.

Studies have pointed out that when you vary your calorie consumption level instead of restricting it to one fixed percentage, your body has no way of knowing whether to keep your metabolic rate high or low, with the result that it would keep your metabolic rate high at all times just to be on the safe side!

Do I need to tell you that the higher your metabolic rate is, the faster you burn fat and lose weight? The famous diet program FatLoss4Idiots is based solely on this 'calorie shifting' method of dieting, and no wonder it has so many raving fans around the globe! If you haven't given it a try yet, I highly recommend you do!