Wednesday 30 January 2008

Lose Weight with Photoshop

Here is a funny clip

Monday 28 January 2008

Want Success Dieting? Plan to Fail

There are so many different diets on the market today that it’s very difficult to know which diet to choose. Your friend told you that she found the perfect diet but when you tried it, it didn’t work. Your sister-in-law sung the praises of another diet but you found no success with it. Your co-worker told you about a “fool-proof” diet that you somehow found a way to mess-up too.

Well, don’t worry. There are millions of people who are in the same boat as you. They’ve tried diet after diet and they just can’t seem to stick to one or make any of them work. The result is feeling bad that they can’t succeed and probably eating even more to try to get rid of their sadness. In some cases, the people just completely give-up and decide they will never be able to lose weight because they can’t stay on a diet.

Well, there’s good news. Diets do really work and there isn’t one person on this earth that can’t benefit from a diet.

So what is the key to dieting success? Believe it or not, the key to success is actually planning to fail.

That’s right! You need to plan to fail.

I know it sounds counter-productive but it’s what really works.

Think about it. What leads you to most often quit a diet? You are tempted to cheat on your diet, you do, and then you get frustrated and down on yourself and you figure there’s no point in continuing on with your diet. So you quit. And that’s exactly the reason you need to plan to fail.

To be more specific, you need to plan what you will do when you fail. Becoming even more specific, you need to figure exactly how you will ensure that you will get right back on the diet and continue fighting the good fight.

Of course dieting is more of a mental fight than a physical one. (If you think it’s a physical fight then stop believing that right now. You need to diet with your mind first and then your body will follow.)

So the first thing you have to do when you fail on a diet is to figure out why you failed. Where were you when you failed? How were you feeling? What were you thinking? What were you doing? Consider all these things. Be honest with yourself about what probably caused you to cheat on your diet.

The next thing you need to do is learn from your mistake. If you were doing something or went somewhere that just tempted you too much then you want to avoid that place or doing that thing. If you were feeling a certain way (stressed, depressed, etc.) then try to find other ways to cope with those feelings besides eating.

After you have figured out what caused you to fail, and after you’ve learned from it, the next thing you need to do is forgive yourself. Tell yourself you’ll do better next time and then move forward.

Work all of this out beforehand, before you even begin your diet. Know that you will learn from your mistake and then forgive yourself. Then plan to get right back on the diet and keep going.

Look, rarely is there a diet that is perfect for more than a few people. So stop looking for that “magic bullet”. You probably won’t find it. Instead, know that diets are hard work and that you won’t be perfect when you are dieting. But none of that matters. What does matter is that you know what you will do when you fail, and that you get right back on the dieting wagon so that you will finally achieve dieting success.

©Antonia Stuart-James 2008 from You Can Lose Weight Now and English Hypnotherapist in Belgium

Thursday 24 January 2008

Forget Calories and Hit Your Ideal Weight - part 2

...continued from part 1

Why should you eat more protein than your body is going to use? Because it throws the "metabolic switch" and changes the way your body decides to store and use the excess calories.

You see, your body has choices. It can use that energy in a nearly infinite number of ways. It could, for example, decide to use extra calories for something like building bone or repairing damaged tissues.

Doctors, nutritionists, and the media all miss this point. They still cling to the idea that your body always stores excess calories as fat. Surprisingly, this has rarely been considered in clinical research. Yet when studied, the results back me up. For instance, a study published in Obesity Research found that people could lose weight independent of calories consumed when the ratio of protein and carbohydrate changed.

The trick is to change your metabolism. By throwing your metabolic switch, you can accomplish these two important goals of sustained fat loss:
• Increase the calories you use for maintenance and repair.
• Decrease the calories you shunt toward fat deposition.

Tell Your Body to Invest in Fat Loss
Your body makes its decisions about its energy reserves for the sake of survival. It's an instinct that goes back to caveman days, when a drop in protein and calories signaled the body "These are bad times. So to survive this famine/plague/winter, we'd better store as much energy as possible." And when protein and calories were up, the signal was "Times are good, so we can burn that energy."

During good times, your body "invests" in procreation and fat loss. It uses the extra protein to boost levels of growth hormone and sex hormones and burn fat stores by lowering insulin. Having sex and babies requires lots of energy and your body makes these adjustments only when "times are good."

If your body senses that times are bad, it decides that this is not a good time to have children. So the production of growth hormone and sex hormones is suppressed. And to protect itself against the threat of starvation, it boosts insulin to promote fat gain.

In our modern environment, excessive stress and a nutrient-poor diet can cause your body to think times are bad. This puts your metabolism in a perpetual state of preparing for the worst. The result? You not only gain weight, you also feel sluggish and tired.

If you want to burn fat, you have to stop starving your body. Forget about tofu burgers and whole-grain breads. The good news is you can start eating the hearty foods you've been denying yourself - like steak and eggs. These are the foods we used to think were healthy. (My father said they would "put hair on your chest.")

Jumpstart Your Metabolism and Get Naturally Lean in 2008
These days, the best source of red meat is grass-fed animals. It's more expensive... but the benefits far outweigh the extra money. Grass-fed beef pumps up your muscles and wipes out body fat at the same time. Imagine eating a big, juicy steak to get thin! I can already hear the pundits screaming their protests. But just try it and you'll see.

With a little planning, you get naturally lean by eating the foods you enjoy. Start by eating at least one gram of protein per day for every pound of lean body mass. You can find your lean body mass by having your body composition measured. (Ask your doctor or the trainer at your gym for help with this.)

Here's an example: If you weigh 180 pounds and have 60 pounds of body fat, your lean body mass is 120 pounds. That means you should get at least 120 grams of protein a day. When you consider that an egg has about 6 grams of protein and a quarter-pound of T-bone steak has about 20 grams, 120 grams is far more than you get from the standard American diet.

To further shift your metabolism away from storing fat, cut your carbs. Your ancient ancestors never ate grains, and you should keep yours to a minimum. Take a scientific approach to this by using the glycemic index to determine how much insulin various foods will stimulate based on the carbs they contain.

Lastly, to maximize your fat loss and boost your lean body mass, exercise in ways that burn lots of energy fast. This is important because fat is a slow-burn fuel. So if you ask your body for higher energy output than it can get from fat, it will get the message to stop shunting calories to fat. Instead, it will store more energy as glycogen in the muscles.

The kind of exercises that burn lots of energy fast will feel like a short sprint and leave you panting after you finish. You can do this with calisthenics, weight training, or routines that focus on your legs, like running or biking uphill. (Start off easy and gradually increase the intensity of the exercise as you become conditioned.)

Dr. Sears, a practicing physician and the author of PACE: Rediscover Your Native Fitness, is a leading authority on longevity, physical fitness, nutrition, and heart health. Find Dr. Sears' practical solutions and get immediate access to more than 450 of his articles by visiting: www.alsearsmd.com or Dr Sears on Amazon.com

Tuesday 22 January 2008

Are Artificial Sweeteners the Answer?

Many people believe that using artificial sweeteners in tea and coffee or drinking "diet" or "lite" drinks is a good way to cut down on calories and therefore lose weight. True you reduce your calories but the health risks may not be worth it. There are 15 calories in one level 4g teaspoon of sugar or 25 in one cube.

Aspartame, a substance that can be found in artificial sweeteners, increases the risk of lymphoma cancer and leukaemia. It was originally discovered as a drug for ulcers, not a foodstuff. Another study also mentioned that the chemical actually damages DNA, increasing the risks of cancer and degenerative brain diseases in long-term use. It may help tumours to form which could lead to brain cancer. Aspartame causes an accumulation of formaldehyde in the brain which can damage your central nervous system and immune system.

Sweet is one of the four basic food tastes and we associate sweet foods with comfort:
"Eating sugar shoots our blood sugar levels up and triggers a spike in the hormone insulin, which is needed to prep our cells to absorb the sugar. If there are no other nutrients to sustain our blood sugar level, it crashes as quickly as it rises —and we crave another hit. This is how sugar addiction begins.

Moreover, sugar floods us with pleasure by stimulating the release of the neurotransmitter serotonin, and probably other mood-elevating substances. Scientists report that eating chocolate initiates a brain response similar to falling in love."


Sugar is cheap and adds bulk and texture. We become used to the sweet taste and prefer it to unsweetened foods. Sugar crops up in many disguises, simple carbohydrates with names only recognisable by anyone who has studied nutrition eg dextrose and maltodextrin. I found the latter in several "sugar-free" baby foods and drinks. Sugars fill us up, taking the place of real nutrients so we eat, gain weight and starve our cells of quality nutrition.

Remember that ingredients have to be listed in order of quantity within the product so best advice is to minimize or avoid products that have sugar, high-fructose corn syrup or corn syrup near the top of their ingredient list. Sugar can also be disguised as evaporated cane juice, cane sugar, beet sugar, glucose, sucrose, maltose, maltodextrin, dextrose, sorbitol, fructose, corn sugar, fruit juice concentrate, barley malt, caramel and carob syrup.

We are biologically made to consume sugars from natural sources such as fruits and not from developed sugars along the digestion chain. To digest them, our bodies have to produce sugar-dissolving enzymes and because so many people consume an excess quantity of sugars, often unknowingly from packaged and processed foods, our bodies can develop a sugar sensitivity and in time diabetes. Even some branded slimming foods contain artificial ingredients including sugar substitutes. Read all labels and be wary of food that contains aspartame, neotame, saccharin, acesulfame K or sucralose.

In one study the group found foods containing artificial sweeteners to be less satisfying than natural sugars so ate more. This has something to do with the brain’s perception of calories which can be confused when artificial ingredients are substituted for whole food.

The answer is to reduce our intake of sweet foods and drinks, full-stop and ensure that we eat as close to natural sources as possible. Easier said than done when pure foods cost more than processed.

If you must use sweeteners, look for products sweetened with polyalcohol sugars like sorbitol, xylitol, malitol, and mannitol. These are natural sweeteners that do not trigger an insulin reaction. They have half the calories of sugar and are not digested by the small intestine. However, while most polyalcohol sugars have no side effects, sorbitol is a natural laxative and can cause diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, bloating and flatulence.

The herb stevia (Stevia rebaudiana) may be the solution. Known in South America as the “sweet herb,” stevia has been used for over 400 years without ill effect. Stevia has been enormously popular in Japan, where it has been in use for more than 20 years, now rivaling Equal and Sweet’N Low. It’s 200–300 times sweeter than sugar, so just a small portion of stevia will sweeten even a strong cup of tea.

Another point to know is that regular consumption of fizzy drinks, especially the diet versions, has been linked to testicular cancer. Any young man, say 15-35, who drinks one litre or more per day on average is putting himself at risk. I knew a 35 year old man in England who drank 1.5l Coke every day and had a testicle removed. No one had ever told him of this risk. It has something to do with the phosphorous content I believe. A study in 1997 of 80,000 men and women by the Karolinska Institutet found that people who drank fizzy or syrup-based drinks twice a day or more had a 90% higher risk of developing pancreatic cancer than those who never drank them at all.

Read more:
Sweet poison: Informative article on aspartame
Splenda and sugar substitutes
Aspartame and Stevia
Calorie count in sugar
Fizzy Drinks and risk of pancreatic cancer
Fizzy drinks and pancreatic cancer
Calorie counter for 40,000+ foods

©Antonia Harrison 2008 from You Can Lose Weight Now and English Hypnotherapist in Belgium

Monday 21 January 2008

Forget Calories and Hit Your Ideal Weight - part 1

Kicking Off 2008 With ETR By Al Sears, MD

Most nutritionists would have you believe that counting calories is the best way to lose fat. Here's their theory, in a nutshell:
• Calories in vs. calories out determines your weight.
• Consume more calories than you burn and the rest turns to fat.
• To lose weight, you either consume fewer calories or burn more with aerobic exercise.

But have you ever noticed that the people who frantically count calories are forever overweight?

Here's the problem: Your body is not a simple machine. It's a living, sentient system with its own "intelligence." It decides how to use the calories you consume. In fact, over the long run, what your body decides to do with calories appears to be more consequential than how many you consume.

Of course, some people just eat way too much. But for people making a serious attempt to lose weight, excess calories is not their problem (although most are made to believe it is). Let me explain how I learned this from my patients.

Bad Advice Only Caused More Weight Gain...
When I first started my practice, a young woman came to my clinic wanting to lose weight. "HP" was 5 foot 2 and weighed 170 pounds. She had been trying to lose weight for two years, but no matter how little she ate, her weight kept going up. What's more, she exercised aerobically for about an hour five times a week and worked as a waitress.

I told her to cut her calories to 1,600 and see me every two weeks. She counted her calories diligently... and her weight went up by two pounds. I told her to lower her calories to 1,400 per day. The result? She gained four more pounds. I cut her to 1,200 and then 1,000 calories. Again, she gained fat. Now she lacked energy, couldn't make herself go to the gym, and was feeling depressed. She still wanted to lose weight, so I told her to cut her calories to 800 and see me in two weeks... but I never saw her again. I can't blame her. And if I could help her now, I would give her very different advice.

The Failed Strategy for Weight Loss
Conventional diets just don't work. Five out of six people who try to lose weight fail. And more than 90 percent of those who do succeed in losing weight gain all the weight back within two years.

When you consider the flawed strategy these diets use, this is no surprise. You can't achieve and maintain your ideal weight by starving yourself thin. Even if you could, it would be bad for your health.

Losing weight has been hard because you have the wrong tool for the job. If you drop your calories and go hungry - forcing your body to lose weight - your body will fight back.

This is your body's built in "intelligence." It reacts as if you are starving and will do everything it can to preserve your fat. And when you lose weight by starving yourself, you lose important muscle, bone, fluids, and even vital organ mass.
Your body has mechanisms for setting your weight where it wants it to be. It is similar to the way you set the temperature of your house with a thermostat. So the right tool for the job of losing weight is one that changes your body's set point. Said another way, you need to change your metabolism.

Changing your metabolism is the key to long-term weight-loss success - NOT counting calories.

The good news is that you can change your metabolism with food or exercise or both. But not with the kind of diet and exercise you're used to. It involves eating differently, not less - and exercising differently, not more. Let me illustrate what I mean with another patient's story.

5,000 Calories a Day and Still Losing Weight...
During the time I was seeing HP, I was becoming more and more perplexed by why my patients were not losing weight on a low-calorie diet. Then I encountered TS, a patient with the opposite problem: He wanted to gain weight.

TS weighed 170 pounds, and wanted to put on muscle. So his trainer told him to stop aerobic training and eat lots of protein. When that didn't work, he ate even more protein. By the time he came to see me, he was eating protein six times a day but couldn't gain a pound. When I looked at his food log, I could hardly believe it. He ate a dozen egg whites a day. He ate 24 ounces of steak at a time, sometimes twice a day. He drank a 40-ounce protein shake twice a day. And between meals, he would scarf down protein bars and cans of tuna as snacks. When I totaled his calories, he had eaten between 4,500 and 5,000 calories a day for the previous 12 weeks. And he'd lost 6 pounds.

TS had accidentally discovered the two most important principles of healthy fat loss: You must (1) over-consume protein and (2) train your body to store energy, not fat.

..to be continued

Dr. Sears, a practicing physician and the author of PACE: Rediscover Your Native Fitness, is a leading authority on longevity, physical fitness, nutrition, and heart health. Find Dr. Sears' practical solutions and get immediate access to more than 450 of his articles by visiting: www.alsearsmd.com or Dr Sears on Amazon.com

Friday 18 January 2008

Powerful Weight Loss with Hypnosis

I want to tell you about Steve G. Jones' Weight Loss Hypnosis program available to download immediately as a hypnosis Mp3 file.

Steve calls this program, "The Most Powerful Weight Loss Hypnosis Program Available Without A Prescription!"

He tells you about:
MISTAKE # 1
Thinking Weight Loss Begins With Dieting, Pills, Potions Or Lotions.
WIH THIS MISTAKE IN THINKING, YOU WERE SET UP TO FAIL RIGHT FROM THE START!


It's easier than you think. The mind is in charge of metabolism...change your mind, change your metabolism...it's really as easy as that. You'll see a new you and you'll feel great about it!!!

This video will give you an idea of a hypnosis session although bear in mind that this is a shorter version made for YouTube. A real hypnosis session may last 30-60 minutes allowing you time to fully relax both in your body and mind.

Steve G. Jones is a board certified Clinical Hypnotherapist. He is a member of the National Guild of Hypnotists, American Board of Hypnotherapy, president of the American Alliance of Hypnotists, on the board of directors of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Lung Association, and director of the California state registered Steve G. Jones School of Hypnotherapy. In order to keep up with the very latest in research, he regularly attends training conferences.

Click here to lose weight with hypnosis.

Here is what the University of Connecticut had to say:
"An analysis of five weight loss studies reported in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology in 1996 (Vol. 64, No. 3, pgs 517-519) showed that the " … weight loss reported in the five studies indicates that hypnosis can more than double the effects" of traditional weight loss approaches."


Click here for weight loss by hypnosis.

PS There is a special offer open until midnight on Sunday 20 January - Buy 2 recordings and get 4 Free + 4 NEW BOOKS. Visit the site.

Tuesday 15 January 2008

Lose Weight Now with Hypnosis

New year is upon us and resolutions are kicking in. One of the most common after the festive season is weight loss.

Weight loss for some can be eternal. Why? Each new diet or new recycled diet offers the same. If you look at the word diet, the first 3 letters are DIE.

Unfortunately all these diets work on the starvation principle of some sort and drastically reduced calories. Or by eating solid protein or living off a boring liquid diet. None of them address the relationship to food, which is a lifetime one.

Diets slow down the metabolism. After 4 days the body shuts down and goes into starvation mode protecting the very calories you are trying to lose. Metabolism slows right down. When you start eating again the weight piles back on and with an almost wrecked metabolism the pounds pile back on.

Anybody been there before?

Dieticians and so-called experts do not tell you that the body likes and needs good old fat. It serves a useful propose, it supplies us with a foodstore in times of starvation and keeps us warm. Unlike muscle, which is cosmetic, and burns off calories.

The subconscious mind still acts as if we were in the cave. Diets do not address this in any way shape or form. The key is to work with the body. The body will accept weight loss of 2lbs a week. Any more is fluid and muscle tissue. If the weight is lost slowly it will stay off. Therefore no more yo-yo effect. And another cycle of dieting with the latest wonder diet.

Working with the body is the key.

Everybody knows what he or she should and should not eat. The key is feeling good about doing it. Unfortunately we live in an age of easy and instant, with miracle diets offering absurd amounts of weight loss in a matter of days or weeks. I have helped clients to lose weight who have tried every diet under the sun. Always the same.

Hypnosis is a process whereby you can work with the body and feel good about doing the things that you know you should be doing. Once you are into a rhythm the weight comes off, slowly and naturally and safely and stays off. Psychologically you feel good, as long lost confidence in your ability to lose weight returns as you have finally found something that works.



The Hypnotic Tracks weight loss programme. Lose weight now with hypnosis Mp3.

Tuesday 8 January 2008

The Body You Deserve

Anthony Robbins has spent the last three decades studying the principles of vibrant physical health and applying them to his own life with extraordinary results. In fact, at the start of his career Tony used the very same strategies you will find in The Body You Deserve to lose 30 pounds and propel himself into a life of sustainable and vital health—and he has made it his life’s mission to help others do the same.

The Body You Deserve will guide you—step by step—through a conditioning process that will help you change your behaviors as you train your body to burn fat. With this 12-day program, Tony will show you how to apply his breakthrough Neuro-Associative Conditioning® technology for permanent and pleasurable weight management that works. See and feel immediate results in your physical and mental well-being as well as in your appearance!

Learn how to:
- Train your body to burn fat without starving yourself.
- Transform your mind and your emotions to support healthy weight loss.
- Condition your body for long-term success.
- Change the behaviors that have prevented you from achieving your health goals.
- Create a proven plan for achieving lasting weight loss.

"The Body You Deserve." Lose Weight With Anthony Robbins Today! Click Here!