Nutrition. Vitamins. You.
Jerry Hickey is a pharmacist and radio personality and fills the esteemed role of Scientific Director and President of Invite Health. He has spent his professional life analyzing nutritional information and medical studies with the aim of creating the highest quality and most natural nutraceuticals …
In honor of National Walking Day, InVite® Health is urging you to start walking! Whether you head to the park for a stroll or dust off that treadmill for a slow walk, any physical activity is better than no physical activity. To get you moving, …
If you have pledged that 2016 will be the year you lose weight and get healthy, we have some tips for you! Though it can be a difficult lifestyle change, losing weight does not have to be a stressful and dull time in your life. Here are some tips for those who want to lose weight, get healthy and stay motivated throughout the process.
Understand why you need/want to lose weight.
Many times, the only thing missing from wanting to lose weight is the motivation you need to back it up. If you have no motivation to start eating healthier, you are going to continue to reach for things you shouldn’t, which may cause you to gain weight. For those who are severely overweight or obese, understand that your weight plays a factor in more than just a low physical fitness level. There are conditions that can arise like Metabolic Syndrome and diabetes that you can actually avoid all together. Genetic conditions and diseases should also be something that factors into your motivation. If you are at risk of developing a condition or disease, you should find ways to motivate yourself to stay ahead of it every chance you have.
In an article entitled, Natural Metabolic Weight Loss by Richard Walker, MD, he explains, “Here are some other things which add to the metabolic mess. As we age, we produce less DHEA, which is known to precede the slowing of the thyroid gland. The thyroid gland controls the rate of metabolism meaning that here’s another trigger for even more fat storage. Our sex hormones also begin to decline starting at about the age of 35 for both men and women. Declining estrogens and testosterone contribute to the storage of fat in cells by reducing the type and amount of enzymes required for fat to burn. We begin to notice when we no longer loose the fat as easy as when we were younger.” Make a decision to better yourself today!
Set realistic goals.
Setting a goal such as losing 50 pounds in 30 days is pretty much setting yourself up for failure. There is no rule that says you cannot have both short term and long term goals. It’s very easy to start the New Year off by telling yourself you are going to lose a large amount of weight in a specific time period. But you may want to give yourself more time than you originally thought. Try to set a long term goal like, “I want to lose 20lbs. in 6 months.” Then you can have short term goals in between. Here are some ideas –
Walk for 10 minutes during your lunch break every day.
Eat at least one fruit and/or vegetable with every meal.
Drink at least eight glasses of water every day.
The list goes on and on. The secret to losing weight for those who have a hard time with motivation and keeping up with the lifestyle change is actually only changing your lifestyle in small amounts, increasing overtime. Some people do prefer to jump in at the deep end, however, which is fine if that’s what works for you. “The most important thing to remember is any weight loss is good,” says Louis Aronne, MD, the director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Center at Weill-Cornell Medical College. “Any weight loss will improve your cardiovascular function, reduce your risk for diabetes, and help your blood-pressure.” By the time you’re ready to increase the smaller goals, the primary goals that you achieved may already be habits.
Technology can help!
If you are like most of the world, you have your phone in your hand or somewhere around you about 90% of day. Take advantage of that! There are numerous apps that can help you monitor your weight loss.
My Fitness Pal is a calorie counter right in the palm of your hand. With an extensive database of brand name foods available in the program, just type in the name of the food you are eating for an estimate of its nutritional information. With some basic information like your current weight, height and weight loss goal, My Fitness Pal will suggest an amount of calories you should consume each day. You can also subtract the amount of calories you have burned with your exercise on your daily log in, too. Stop counting calories the old way, and start logging your food easily (and for free!).
Here is an app that is not only keeping you moving but giving back. For every mile of exercise you do, you can help earn money for different charities! Whether you like to run, bike or just walk, Charity Miles will donate 10 cents for every mile you biked and 25 cents for every mile you walked or ran. The more you exercise, the more money you could earn for a charity. Talk about fitness motivation!
For more health, wellness and fitness APP ideas, click here!
Get moving!
This is a part of the weight loss process that is probably the most difficult – exercising. The main excuse you’ve used if you tried to lose weight time and time again is that you just don’t have enough time. But start to make short term exercising goals – walk 10 minutes a day, start taking the stairs, make sure you are not sitting for the majority of your day. “Physical movement makes you feel better and boosts your confidence,” says Charles Platkin, PhD, MPH, Distinguished Lecturer at Hunter College and City University of New York School of Public Health. “Workouts increase the chances of reaching your weight loss goals and decrease the chances of slipping up.” These are small things you can do to keep yourself moving. Always remember: though small, any healthy changes and decisions you make now, are better than what you were doing yesterday.
There are other ways to keep the up with your New Year’s Resolution to lose weight – from finding a friend with the same goals as you for some moral support to reading every nutrition label you can get your hands on. But motivation is key! Keep moving and make small changes. By the time you realize it, you will have completed your goal.
Source: www.prevention.com
Phone applications have become a leading source of information and entertainment. But there are many apps that are for more than just gaming and listening to music. Nutrition, fitness and wellness applications (apps) have been developed to help keep you on a fast track to …
New research presented at the European Society of Cardiology congress suggests that regular exercise can delay the aging process up to seven years. Those experts suggest that one 25-minute walk per day, can halve the risk of heart attack heath and add seven years to …
Doctors are finding strong connections between obesity and the extremely dangerous heart arrhythmia known as atrial fibrillation. According to the American College of Cardiology, an estimated 5.6 million U.S. adults have atrial fibrillation (AF), an abnormal heart rhythm characterized by rapid, irregular beating of the upper chambers of the heart. It is a leading cause of stroke. Symptoms include weakness, shortness of breath, and palpitations. Obesity, another condition that plagues more than one-third of U.S. adults, is connected with an increased risk of AF. But there’s good news – a new study has found that obese patients with AF who lost at least 10 percent of their body weight were six times more likely to achieve long-term freedom from the disorder compared to those who did not lose weight.
Rajeev Pathak, MD, a cardiologist and electrophysiology associate at the University of Adelaide in Australia and the lead study author of this study stated, “Previous studies have shown that weight management can reduce atrial fibrillation symptoms in the short term and improve outcomes of ablation (a surgical treatment for atrial fibrillation). We sought to shed light on the long-term outcomes of sustained weight loss, the effects of the amount of weight lost and the impact of changes in weight over time.”
Need some help with losing weight and exercising? Read Jun Wang, MS’, “Dietary Approach to Weight Loss” here!
Three hundred and fifty-five participants, all obese with atrial fibrillation at the start of the study, were enrolled in a dedicated weight loss clinic by researchers that tracked their health annually for about four years. The study found a direct relationship between weight loss and the participants symptoms – the higher the weight loss, the higher the percentage of people who became free of their symptoms. Fourty-five percent of the patients who lost 10 percent or more of their body weight were free of atrial fibrillation symptoms, without medication or surgery. In the patients who lost from 3 to 9 percent of their body weight, 22 percent achieved freedom from the symptoms of atrial fibrillations. Only 13 percent of patients who lost less than 3 percent of their body weight were free of symptoms. Even with the use of surgery or medication, those who lost more weight were substantially more likely to achieve success and have freedom from atrial fibrillation symptoms, as well. This study is published online March 16, 2015 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Five months after the former study was published, a new study also performed at the University of Adelaide found that exercise appeared to strongly benefit the control of atrial fibrillation in obese people. Australian researchers found that “cardiorespiratory fitness” reduced the risk that this dangerous irregular heartbeat may return by as much as 84 percent. Cardiorespiratory fitness is defined as “the ability of the heart and lungs to supply oxygen to the body during sustained physical activity.” Lead researcher Dr. Prashanthan Sander, director of the Center for Heart Rhythm Disorders at the University of Adelaide in Australia, explains, “This study adds to a growing body of evidence that aggressive risk factor management with increased physical activity should be an integral component of management of atrial fibrillation.”
Researchers assigned the study’s 308 patients (all obese or overweight with atrial fibrillation) to one of three groups based on their level of fitness – low, adequate or high. After four years, 84 percent of patients in the high fitness group no longer had atrial fibrillation. Seventy-six percent of patients in the adequate level of fitness group no longer had atrial fibrillation and just 17 percent of patients in the low fitness level group no longer had atrial fibrillation. As measures of fitness improved, the incidence of atrial fibrillation declined. This study is published online August 24, 2015 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Need some help with losing weight and exercising? Read Jun Wang, MS’, “Dietary Approach to Weight Loss” here!