Healthy Eating For Weight Loss – Don’t Be Obsessed With Scales

image by Clare Bloomfield

People trying to lose weight often become obsessed with scales and their readings. Daily, they get on the scales to measure their weight loss. Sometimes they are happy, other times discouraged by the readings. Not only is this habit unhelpful, it can be counter-productive. By far the better way is to adopt an option of healthy eating for weight loss which can guarantee loss of pounds without checking.

The thing is, loss of weight may be your long term goal, but this can’t be measured at frequent intervals. Why not? Because you might start out by losing a lot of water. This does not give you an accurate assessment of your fat loss.

If you feel compelled to check your weight regularly (more often than once a week), it means that you have become rather obsessed. It also means that you don’t quite trust the diet. And, more importantly, it can create in you a tension, that will slow down your weight loss.

Weight loss diets receive a lot of hype and media coverage, but they mostly don’t work, or work for long. What happens at the end, when you have reached your target weight? Do you go back to your former diet and undo all the good work? What about your health, while on these common weight loss programmes? Does it suffer?

A much healthier option is to adopt a healthy way of eating that becomes a permanent way of life. After all, your current way has got you to where you are at the moment – searching for a weight loss plan or a healthier diet.

A tried and tested permanent way to eat that improves your health and is guaranteed to shed the pounds, as long as you don’t deviate, seems to be both a more practical solution and a more realistic one.

Look for ways to change your life, not just your diet, that may not have the hype, but do offer better health, possibly better than you have ever had. Don’t be obsessed with scales. Instead look for healthy eating for weight loss options.

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Healthy Eating For Weight Loss – Using Seaweed As An Appetite Suppressor

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.

Healthy Eating For Weight Loss – You Are What You Eat

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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.

Healthy Eating For Weight Loss Means Ditching Low Carbohydrate Diets

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.

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The Vitamin B12 Issue

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.