Research in Denmark is showing promising results from eating seaweed as an appetite suppressor. People who regularly take a seaweed supplement, don’t naturally eat as much as those who don’t take the supplement. This is one of the key issues behind healthy eating for weight loss.

The research found that even though the study group taking the seaweed supplement were not limited to the amount of food they consumed, they didn’t eat as much as the control group who were not taking the supplement. In a further group study, those taking the seaweed supplement lost significant amounts of weight, while the control group did not.

I heartily dislike the term ‘appetite suppressor’ because it totally misses the point. People are overly hungry or naturally eat too much because they are not providing their bodies with nutritious food. If your body doesn’t have the right nutrients to function in a naturally healthy way, you will be constantly hungry.

Understand this simple fact and you are half way to having the weight you covet.

When you supply your body with all the necessary nutrients required for natural good health, your appetite will fall in line to what you need. By understanding that your body has wisdom and intelligence, you will not fall for these knee jerks phrases (that I have shamelessly used to hook you into my argument:)).

Seaweed is one of nature’s superfoods. It contains most of the macro minerals and trace elements required by the body. The important thing to remember here is that these nutrients are in natural balance - they support each other (unlike the common synthetic supplements on the market). Seaweed is high in fibre. It contains enzymes, that are missing in cooked food. It contains most of the required vitamins. It contains protein.

Seaweed also acts as an de-toxifier. It helps to remove fluoride, radioactive toxins and heavy metal toxins from your body. And everyone knows that seaweed is a great (and natural) source of iodine, which is essential for a properly functioning thyroid. Daily doses can improve your health as well as help your weight loss.

It is important to understand that the addition of seaweed alone in your diet will not necessarily improve your health or your weight to your desired levels. It has to be used in conjunction with other healthy options. It is not able to supply all your nutrients requirements.

Use seaweed as an appetite suppressor (or more accurately as a nutrient provider) as part of your healthy plan to vibrant health and a lean physique.

For more information on healthy eating for weight loss, click here.

The phrase ‘you are what you eat’ is common, but little understood. If it was better understood, people would be far more careful about what they do eat. Instead, most people are blase, they eat what they find convenient with little regard to their health or their figure. However, if you adopt a policy of healthy eating for weight loss, you will understand what this phrase means.

There are many myths ‘out there’ that have become so entrenched in peoples’ belief systems, that they no longer give it any thought. And, if pushed, are very reluctant to, pulling out old phrases such as ‘everyone does this’, ‘if it weren’t true it wouldn’t be so widespread’, ‘my doctor tells me so’. Just because everyone does something doesn’t mean it is true, effective or right.

As an example, it wasn’t that long ago that small children were used as slave labour in Europe. In fact, it still goes on in many Asian countries. That doesn’t give it any credence. Just because something is common, doesn’t make it right. There are countless examples of this.

But change is slow to happen. The huge wheel of humanity grinds exceedingly slowly. It’s like a heavy goods train - it’s takes time to slow down to change direction. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t make it happen for you and yours more quickly than it happens with the majority.

Humans like to pride themselves on having intelligence. Yet few people use this  outside study and work. In fact, even in these areas, their thoughts are directed by someone else. But it’s worth taking time to think about what you are doing. You can easily make time for this. Everyone is engaged in some pointless occupations that can be dropped in favour of thinking things through for themselves.

For example:

• you could have your lunch in a park
• you could let a television programme go
• you could get up half an hour earlier (which would probably mean going to bed half an hour earlier)
• you could let your thoughts go while waiting at traffic lights
• you could walk to work (or some of the way), allowing some free thinking time

So what should you be thinking about? Let’s look at an analogy. Everyone knows that if you put, say two stroke fuel mix into an unleaded car, it will not work efficiently. It will probably still work, but the exhaust will smoke and the performance will be affected. Ultimately, the engine may get clogged up and stop working altogether.

There was nothing wrong with the engine. The problem was, it was ‘fed’ the wrong fuel.

Now let’s look at you. Can you see any foods that you consume that are known to be unhealthy? What about the foods that are considered to be necessary for a balanced diet, but this is one of those myths? Do you know what the right ‘fuel’ is for good health? When you eat healthy foods (really healthy foods, not those that are necessarily considered healthy perpetrated by long standing myths), would you expect your body to perform better, be healthier?

Here’s a suggestion: ponder on the thought that milk is a good source of calcium.

The good news is that, unlike an engine, your body can recover from the clogging of the wrong diet, as long as you now eat healthy foods. Now, when you hear this phrase ‘you are what you eat’ you may understand it better. The side effect of eating healthy food is a slim, trim, lean, sexy body. You don’t have to make any effort. It just happens as a spin off. You reach your ideal weight for health.

For more information on healthy eating for weight loss, click here.

Low carbohydrate diets are attractive because they promise fast weight loss. In reality, they are very difficult to maintain. But worse, they can be dangerous. Healthy carbohydrates are essential to health and a stable, natural weight. By limiting them, you are heading for disaster. Instead, learn about healthy eating for weight loss.

Some of the low carbohydrate diets include the Atkins, Dukon, Paleo, Primal, South Beach, TNT, Blood Type and Zone. There are others, but these are the well known ones. These diets are high in animal proteins and fats and low in fresh fruit and vegetables.

Animal proteins and fats make our bodies acidic. It is only in an acidic environment that disease can occur. This belies the notion that high protein diets are the way to go, for both health and weight loss..

Many people try to force the idea on the world at large that humanity is primarily a fighter, a hunter. Nothing could be further from the truth. You only have to compare human teeth to those of a true carnivore, a cat, to see how erroneous that argument is.

Now compare human teeth to those of a horse, a known herbivore. You see a much greater similarity. There are many other ways you can prove that humans have evolved on a high carbohydrate diet, rather than high animal protein diets.

But the true test comes when you compare the health of those on a high animal protein diet to those on a high carbohydrate diet. Those on the former tend to be more over weight, have more illnesses such as diabetes, heart conditions and cancer than those on the high carbohydrate diet.

There are also many high carbohydrate diets which are unhealthy, because they promote processed carbohydrates rather than natural ones. One Mediterranean diet, for example, promotes the consumption of breakfast cereals such as coco pops. Obviously he has not looked into the way breakfast cereals are made or what the additives mean.

The majority of the diets on the market have only one mission – to make money. They are not healthy and don’t promote good, sound, natural health in keeping with how you evolved.

The better way to lose weight and improve your health AT THE SAME TIE, is to learn what the healthy foods are and what the unhealthy foods are, and why. Then you can, and should, eat an abundance of the healthy foods while limiting or eliminating the unhealthy foods.

Healthy eating for weight loss is not a diet. It is sensible, practical eating for health. Weight loss is a spin off. It happens automatically, if you are overweight. Conversely, if you are too skinny, you start to put weight on. Diseases disappear, energy balances – again if you have too much, it calms you down. If you don’t have enough, it improves. Eating the natural way balances you in every way.

Click here for more information.

A vitamin B12 deficiency is a serious health disorder. Fatigue, anaemia, anorexia, mental confusion, digestive disorders, lethargy, depression, delusions, paranoia, weight loss, fever, impotence are just some of the many disorders that you can suffer with a deficiency. These symptoms can be easily overlooked, as many are common to other health problems.

Alarming as this may appear, the amount you need is miniscule. The total amount of vitamin B12 you will need in your entire life amounts to just 40 milligrams.

The absorption of vitamin B12 taken into the body is dependent on an enzyme called Intrinsic Factor. This means that you can consume an abundance of the vitamin, but none will be absorbed if you have low levels of this enzyme.

This vitamin does not have to be consumed. It can be manufactured by the body. The stomach makes it, the intestines makes and absorbs it. However, to make it, cobalt and other nutrients must be present in the gut flora. This has given rise to its clinical name of cobalamin.

It is also present all over the internal body especially the mouth, the throat and the lungs. The absorption of it in these areas is not dependent on the enzyme Intrinsic Factor.

Vitamin B12 is an unusual nutrient in that it is excreted in the bile, being stored in the liver, and is constantly being reabsorbed. In other words, it is constantly being recycled. This is the reason that it can take many years, decades sometimes, before a deficiency is felt. However, a lack of absorption will show up much more quickly.

With the aid of modern technology, vitamin B12 has now been found to be present where ever there is a rich source of the B complex. Previously this was thought not to be the case.

This essential vitamin is a bacteria and it is produced by micro-organisms. The synthetic supplement is made by deeply fermenting bacteria.

A deficiency of vitamin B12 can occur with the use of antibiotics (both from the drugs themselves and at a second level from milk and meat in animals who are given antibiotics). Alcohol, which damages the liver, decreases the amount of this vitamin, as does smoking. Deficiencies also occur with the consumption of cooked food and from high stress levels. These actions upset the gut flora.

Once the intestinal flora is upset, no amount of supplements will alter the malabsorption and mal-assimilation of food. This is the real cause of a deficiency of every nutrient ingested, including vitamin B12. The digestion needs to be put back into balance.

Bioavailable vitamin B12 is present in raw foods such as nuts, seeds, fruits and vegetables. Research dating as far back as 1969 show that vegetarians and vegans are no more deficient in this vital nutrient than are meat eaters. Very highly acid or alkaline conditions will destroy vitamin B12. This means that the amount available in meat is likely to be destroyed by the highly acid conditions of meat eaters.

It is estimated that 90% of nutrients are yet to be discovered. This means it seems sensible to rely on our food (including supplements made from superfoods where necessary) rather than on supplements (isolated and synthetic) for all our health needs. The combination of nutrients is vital in their absorption and utilisation.

The cause of malabsortion is a gastrointestinal disorder. This leads to a deficiency. This imbalance can be restored with professional homeopathic treatment.

To learn more about good eating for health, click here.

Food associated with Valentine’s day is all about chocolate. And while chocaholics may go to any length to get their fix, the regular chocolate sold on the market is neither healthy nor helpful when trying to lose weight. There are many reasons for this. But thankfully, there is a healthy alternative in home made healthy desserts.

Regular chocolate is processed at high temperatures. This not only destroys the healthy enzymes that make chocolate so healthy, it also creates the chemical acrylamide. Acrylamide is a relatively newly discovered chemical, so there is little known about it. But many people believe it to be toxic. And when antioxidants are added to those foods which contain this chemical, the levels drop dramatically, which tend to confirm this idea.

Most commercial chocolate also contains more sugar than chocolate. In an effort to eat healthy food, as well as to drop some pounds, consuming sugar is counter-productive. It is probably one of the first foods you need to let go in your quest for a slimmer, healthier you.

But chocolate can be healthy. And it is delicious. The following recipe is not only delicious, it is also healthy. Naughty food is so much more exciting when it is also healthy.

Chocolate Mousse
serves two

Ingredients
2 ripe avocado preferably Haas
half cup raw cacao powder (more if desired!)
5 pitted and soaked dates (about half an hour) or raw honey to taste
1/4 cup nut milk (such as almond) or water
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a blender mix the ingredients until smooth. Check for taste.

Pour into serving glasses. Decorate with fresh fruit such as strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, whatever berry you have. You can also serve with a larger helping of berries for that extra health kick.

Enjoy!

First, you need to understand that although you want to lose weight fast, there are inherent dangers with this approach. This means that it is better to approach your weight loss goal with the idea of permanent weight loss rather than fast weight loss

This is far more healthy because if you want to lose weight, whatever you have done up until now has not served you. When you have lost the weight you aim to, the importance is then on how to keep it off – permanently. This means you will have to make permanent changes in your life, in your diet in particular. Otherwise you end up with a yo-yo effect of gaining and losing weight. This is not healthy.

The idea behind weight loss is to burn more calories than you eat. Everyone knows this, but how do you achieve it?

You can best achieve this by thinking of good health rather than weight loss. When you aim to eat for health, the pounds fall off without any effort. When you eat for health you don’t have to count the calories. You only have to know the groups of healthy foods, that you can (and should) eat in abundance. When you eat for health, your energy naturally returns making exercise both now easy and attractive to you. It is no longer an effort. More exercise means more calories used.

Another aspect of overweight people that many people do not know about is that they are nutritionally deficient. In other words, because they are not eating nutritious food, their body keeps them in a constant state of hunger, in the hope of getting some proper nutrition. When you eat for health, this hunger evaporates as it is no longer necessary.

Making permanent changes to your diet and to your life is not always easy to do quickly. Old habits have deep roots and you need to pull these out completely. This cannot be achieved overnight.

The better and healthier way is to make permanent changes that are relatively easy to make. Once these have become habits, then you can reward yourself and move on to the next item to change. By starting with the easiest to change, you are making sure you can make those permanent changes. As you move up  to the more deeply entrenched habits, you will find that it now becomes easier to change these, as you have already set things in motion.

Instead of asking “what is the best way to lose weight fast”, ask “what is the healthiest way to lose weight”?

For more information of healthy eating for weight loss, click here.

Folate is an essential B vitamin (B9) for everyone. It helps to produce and maintain new cells.This is especially important in pregnancy, lactation and in growing children. Folate is also required for the manufacture of red blood cells and for the maintenance of homocysteine, an amino acid.

A deficiency of folate can be indicated by some of the following symptoms:

• low growth rate in foetus and children
• low birth weight, premature baby, baby with neural tube defects (such as spina bifida)
• anaemia in children or adults
• digestive disorders such as weight loss, loss of appetite or diarrhoea
• weakness
• irritability
• forgetfulness
• heart palpitations
• sore tongue
• behavioural problems
• depression

Apart from pregnancy, lactation and a growing child, increased folate is also necessary when there is food malabsorption, with alcohol and medicine use and with health disorders, particularly kidney, liver and cardiovascular diseases.

There have been many studies done on folic acid, rather than on folate, and there are as many conflicting reports. Many studies show that the addition of folic acid in pregnancy reduces the risk of birth defects such as spina bifida by 19%. Good news, you may agree. But the studies go on to suggest that this comes at a price. That the incidence of cancer has increased dramatically as a result, up by 15,000 cancer deaths a year.

Man made supplement do odd, unpredictable things. They don’t work with the body’s normal biochemical pathways. Folic acid may not be metabolised by your body. It becomes oxidised and promotes free radical production. This instability can lead to disease including cancer. At an acute level, they can make you feel sick and generally unwell.

The synthetic manufacture of folic acid is chemically complicated (at least to this author), but seems to go through a three stage chemical process that involves the chlorination of acetone, nitrobenzoyl chloride, sodium sulfite, sodium borohydride and nickel chloride to mention only a few vaguely familiar chemicals. Hydrogenation also occurs.

Food is complex and still little understood. No single vitamin (or any other nutrient) can be utilised by the body in isolation. It needs the other supportive nutrients to be properly utilised. You cannot get nutritious food out of a laboratory.

Naturally occurring folate, in food, does not have the side effects or problems common with the synthetic folic acid. Your body has evolved over millenia to know what to do with the food based nutrients.

Folic acid is usually added to processed foods such as breakfast cereals, pastas (egg noodles, macaroni, rice, etc), bread, fruit juices, some canned food and so forth. Check the ingredients of all packaged foods you purchase.

High levels of natural folate can be found in dark green leafy vegetables, fresh fruit and vegetables especially the legumes and in liver. It is a water soluble vitamin so can easily be destroyed by cooking.

For other ways to increase your health naturally, click here.

Let’s look at the problems encountered with rapid weight loss, that is so coveted by many.

• Initially the loss can be purely water, as fat takes longer to begins to shed. This means you can become dehydrated without realising it.
• Rapid weight loss means that your fat will be shed too quickly. Toxins are the safest place for your body to store fat. If you lose fat cells too quickly, the toxins cannot be excreted fast enough. This results is they will free float in your bloodstream, making you feel pretty awful and fatigued.
• Rapid weight loss loses muscle tissue, making your skin sag and giving you an aged and gaunt appearance.
• Restricting your food intake, as opposed to restricting the consumption of unhealthy food, can lead to malnutrition. In turn this can lead to ill health and constant hunger.
• Quick weight loss can trigger the ‘famine mode’, meaning that your body can slow down its metabolic rate. This is a dire condition as your body feels under threat. This is a counter productive measure to weight loss.

It is a disturbing fact that the majority of weight loss programmes, especially those promoting rapid weight loss are nutritionally deficient. Worse, they encourage limited meals portions.

Inevitably, this means you will not be able to stick to the diet, so you are likely to swing between fasting and binging. This brings in a feeling of frustration and guilt. But the fault is not in you, the fault lies in the badly designed diets. Maybe you can take a portion of the blame in choosing the wrong diet.

So how do you choose a diet which encourages healthy weight loss at as fast a rate as it can safely go?

This can only come about by understanding which foods are unhealthy and why. And which foods are healthy and why.

Once you grasp these essential facts, you can eat as much as you like of the healthy foods. In turn this keeps your muscle mass in tact, sheds fat tissues at a rate that the toxins are excreted, keeps you nutritionally balanced, prevents hunger pangs and keeps you hydrated. And you don’t have to do anything complicated, simply understand which the healthy food group is.

It sounds simple, and it IS simple. There is nothing magical or mysterious about this. The simple things in life are normally the most effective. And often the most profound. And usually the most often missed.

For more information on healthy weight loss, click here.

There is a permanent and never ending stream of new diets that may have catchy names and strange dietary plans, that come and go. But few stand up to the test of time of not just helping people lose weight, but by increasing their health. Many can even be dangerous. And that includes those most respected.

For example, the typical heart associations and foundations you find in most countries, usually supported by dietitians and doctors have been useless in preventing heart disease. The typical advice you get from them is to eat less red meat and less fat. To replace this with chicken and fish instead. Yet, there is no change in the cardiac cases, and in some cases it is worsening. So this advice is clearly worthless.

Yet heart disease is easy to prevent. Those who have healthy lifestyles, including diet and exercise and not smoking or drinking excessively and maintaining an optimum weight have significantly lower risk of heart disease.

In fact, a Canadian global study involving 30,000 participants, discovered that 80% of heart attacks can be predicted. It cited several factors, that can be easily changed, that significantly contribute to heart attacks. In order of importance they include:

• cigarette smoking
• abnormal blood cholesterol ratios (note it is the ratios that are significant, not the HDL or LDL readings as cholesterol is a healthy and natural substance required by the body)
• high blood pressure
• diabetes
• abdominal obesity
• stress
• a nutrient deficient diet
• a lack of daily exercise

When people are overweight, the next common health issue they face is diabetes, escalating them towards the likelihood of heart disease. So start at the bottom. Start with a healthy diet, whether this is for health reasons or for weight loss or both. And make sure you get daily exercise. Even a 15 minute walk is better than nothing.

A healthy diet for weight loss and for reversing heart disease must be rich in nutrients. To discover the best sources of nutrient rich foods, click here.

This era is all about quick fixes. Quick fixes are attractive because the idea behind them is that you don’t have to make changes, you don’t have to face reality, you don’t have to take responsibility.

Think about it for a moment. If you carry too much weight, there is a good reason for this. It may have crept up on you slowly over the years. It may have started after you gave birth. It may have started after an operation. Maybe it started piling on after you past a certain age or stopped being as active as you once were. There are many reasons.

Most people are aware of when this started. So, intuitively you probably know why you are overweight. But to compound this by a rapid weight loss plan which can worsen your health is going to give you double trouble.

Rapid weight loss plans can make you lose muscle mass as well as fat tissue. They tend to make you feel terrible as the toxin release is too fast. They can seriously impact on your heart, bone and other organ health.

Whatever the reason for your weight loss, you have to make permanent changes in your life to shed the weight and better your health at the same time. Rapid weight loss plans are very hard to stick to as they are all about limiting what you eat. This means you will be hungry a lot of the time.

Inherently, they are short term, so as soon as they are over, even if you do manage to reach your target weight, what happens next? Most people go back to their old diet and so the weight piles back on.

It is far healthier to make permanent changes, as what you have done up until this time has clearly not worked for you. The saying that ”if you only ever do what you only ever did, you will only ever get what you have only ever got”. Make changes! Permanent changes.

The first thing to do is to understand what foods are healthy and what foods are unhealthy. You may not be able to abandon all the unhealthy foods in one go as some of them are bound to be favourites. But if you slowly substitute them, one at a time, for healthy options, you will find that you are making great progress.

Permanent weight loss over time can be achieved (safely) by thinking healthy eating for weight loss.

To find out more, click here.