Nutrition. Vitamins. You.
Photo by Ursula Spaulding on Unsplash One of the world’s most popular health trends today is intermittent fasting. This is a eating pattern that cycles between periods of fasting and eating. But is it beneficial or actually harmful? The Idea Behind Intermittent Fasting According to …
Introducing the InVite® Master Class The InVite® Health Master Class is designed to give you the information necessary to make the best decisions for your health. Our goal is to dissect the extensive research and deliver it in a way that allows you to know …
If you’re like most people, a new year means a new resolution. You may want to tackle a bunch of things on a list, or have one main goal for the new year. But no matter the health challenge, a healthy new year’s resolution may be difficult to achieve for a number of reasons. Losing or maintaining weight is hard enough. Doing it on a timeline, is harder.
Though it can be a difficult lifestyle change, losing weight does not have to be a stressful, dull time in your life. Here are some tips for those who want to lose weight, get healthy and stay motivated throughout the process.
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.
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!
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 –
Fitness technology has become one of the leading methods for monitoring weight loss, heart rate, and exercise.
Wearable technology like Vivofit and Vivosmart watches help to monitor your progress 24/7, with features like pedometers, and heart rate and sleep monitors. Bluetooth-enabled scales provide you important metrics to track your progress and see results. They can also measure your body mass index, body fat/water percentage by connecting with your device and syncing wirelessly.
You may also want to turn your regular kitchen into a healthy home! Air fryer’s can fry, grill, bake or roast all of your favorite foods with no oil, and 80% less fat than traditional frying. Food steamers can help you prepare a variety of foods, only using steam and not heavy oils. Blenders can help breakdown fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices to make delicious, nutrient-filled juices and smoothies for you and your family.
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. Have a happy new year!
Photo by I Yunmai on Unsplash A new paper, published in the journal Frontiers in Endocrinology by researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago and Mahidol University in Thailand, set out to explore whether being a “night owl” (which includes evening activities or going …
Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash If you’re like the majority of the world, weight loss is difficult. You’re making sure to take the right vitamins, eat the best foods and stick to a workout regimen. But how does fitness actually help to maintain your …
A new, small study out of the University of Illinois at Chicago examines the effect of time-restricted eating on weight loss in obese individuals.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that more than one-third of adults in the U.S. have obesity, which greatly increases the risk of metabolic diseases such as coronary heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.
Researchers worked with 23 obese volunteers who had an average age of 45 and average body mass index, or BMI, of 35. Between the hours of 10am and 6pm, the dieters could eat any type and quantity of food they desired, but for the remaining 16 hours they could only drink water or calorie-free beverages. The study followed the participants for 12 weeks.
When compared to a control group (data used from a previous fasting, weight loss trial), the researchers found that those who followed the time-restricted eating diet consumed fewer calories, lost weight and had improvements in blood pressure. On average, participants consumed about 350 fewer calories, lost about 3% of their body weight and saw their systolic blood pressure decrease by about 7mm Hg.
Krista Varady, associate professor of kinesiology and nutrition in the UIC Collage of Applied Health Sciences and corresponding author on the study reported, “The take-home message from this study is that there are options for weight loss that do not include calorie counting or eliminating certain foods.”
Varady says that while the research indicates daily fasting works for weight loss, there have not yet been studies to determine if it works better than other diets. “These preliminary data offer promise for the use of time-restricted feeding as a weight loss technique in obese adults, but longer-term, large-scale randomized controlled trials [are required],” Varady and her colleagues write.