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Fasting: The “Fastest” Way to Lose Weight

Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Posted by Vkay!!

Fasting: The “Fastest” Way to Lose Weight

The author of the acclaimed “Mucusless Diet Healing System”, Prof Arnold Ehret once said “If one way is true...it is the way of Nature!” It will be an understatement to say he was and is so correct.

In this day and age when everyone desires to be slim or slimmer as the case may be, only very few people know that one sure-fire, all natural, method can lead to a slimmer and more importantly healthier person.

This method is as old as the mountains and is known as Fasting.

It is by far a greater cure of our ills-both physical and mental-than all of the drugs of the medical fraternity combined and when combined with an exclusive mucus-binding (alkaline forming) diet of mainly fruits, leafy and root vegetables (raw and cooked) and even basic exercises that involve the use of one’s own body weight for resistance such as Yoga, Calisthenics and Pilates, a well conducted fast can reap untold benefits for those seeking to lose weight.

There are several types of fasts that can be beneficial for weight loss.
1. The complete water fast: This, admittedly, should be conducted with extreme caution or in a specialized sanitarium if undertaken more than 3 days.
2. The Juice Fast: This is much easier for the general populace and can be undergone as long as you feel like it.
3. The Fruit Fast: This, well, is really not a fast per se…but when one lives exclusively on SEASONAL ORGANIC fruits for days on end…meaning mono meals (2 at the most ) of only one kind of fruit say Apples in Fall, Melons in summer for a week plus, you will be bound to see the benefits.
4. The Dry Fast: This is another camouflaged fast where one consumes ONLY dry fruits such as dates; figs etc for 3 days or thereabout and then breaks the fast with a laxative. Though highly praised in some quarters, it’s not so common.

The second and third choices are by far my personal recommendations for those seeking to lose weight. A friend of mine tried the second choice after months of badgering and was able to eventually see the awesome cuts in his abdominal cavities. You should have heard him exclaim on the phone to me: “Foras…I got a six-pack man…and I didn’t even do no sit-ups…!” Moreover, his supposed hereditary red-eyes cleared up after several eye-doctors had told him it was just a genetic trait…yeah, right!

Being radical in nature, it must be undertaken with care and although I have covered it in chapter 17 of my e-book “fitness: inside and out”, do feel free to do some research before undertaking a fast or a restricted fruit diet.

Here are a few tips:
1. Prepare yourself for a fast by gradually tapering off of acid-forming aka “junk foods and commence to consuming raw and cooked fruits and veggies to begin a milder cleansing process as these items are the best intestinal brooms for the colon.
2. Every now and again, 3 hours after supper and say an hour or so before retiring to sleep, drink an herbal tea laxative such as “Smooth Move Herbal Tea” during this preparatory stage.
3. Drink 1-2 quarts of unflavored lemonade in the mornings to balance the chemical reactions within the body and to restore it to an alkaline state.
4. Be mentally prepared for the task ahead of fasting.
5. Take things a little easier while fasting or on a mono-diet of fruit.
6. Avoid using microwaves at all costs. I touched on this subject in the free section on controlling acne in my site.

Though not a conclusive list of the dos and don’ts of fasting be well informed that when undertaken properly, you’d not only lose the undesired weight, but you’d be well on your way to a cleaner and better you in no time.

For weight loss, Fasting, my friends is the ‘fastest’ way to improved health!

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Can Lose Weight with Yoga?

Posted by Vkay!!


Yoga has abounding benefits. A approved affairs of yoga can advice accumulate your back supple, your amount strong, and advice you advance antithesis and poise. It aswell tones your muscles, helps strengthen your allowed system, and boosts your metabolism. However, yoga abandoned cannot advice you lose ample amounts of weight. It is, however, a acceptable abstraction to add it to any advantageous active plan.

Yoga will advice you feel bigger about yourself and is a abundant aplomb booster. Abounding acquisition yoga is an island of calm in an contrarily animated world. While not all yoga is aerobic, there are some types of yoga that can acting for aerobic activity. Using yoga to lose weight all depends on the blazon you do and how frequently you do it. You should opt to appoint in 90 account of aerobic appearance yoga three or added times per week, and if you add in accession appearance of yoga the actual canicule per anniversary you can accretion all the allowances of a lot of added types of concrete action such as weight or backbone training and flexibility.

In adjustment to lose weight and accumulate it off you charge to aftereffect abiding changes in your affairs permanently. Doing this requires accumulation 5 key elements into your lifestyle. These are able rest, bubbler abundant water, bistro a counterbalanced diet, able types of exercise, and caring for yourself emotionally. Yoga can advice with the exercise and affecting elements. So what is yoga?

Hatha Yoga: Exercise for the Apperception & Spirit

Yoga is based on eight attempt as a abstraction of all religions. It is not of itself a religion. One of the eight studies deals with concrete training and befitting the physique in acceptable alive order. When humans in the west anticipate about yoga, it is the annex of Hatha Yoga they accept in mind. Hatha Yoga itself has abounding branches or types of concrete training systems developed over abounding years that are all based on the aforementioned concrete postures or poses. Actuality are just a few:

• Hatha: while this is the yoga annex that deals with concrete yoga, actuality in the west a chic that is alleged Hatha about agency it will be apathetic and affable and appropriately accommodate a acceptable accession for beginners to apprentice the yoga poses.

• Vinyasa: this may aswell be alleged sun commendations or breath-synchronized movement. It is just hardly added active than Hatha. Some places use this as a balmy up afore added added active types of yoga begin.

• Ashtanga & Adeptness Yoga: Ashtanga agency eight limbs and is based on the accomplished aesthetics of yoga. It is a actual fast paced blazon of yoga that is consistently performed in the aforementioned order. It flows and confused after pauses. Adeptness yoga is usually based on Ashtanga, but not always, admitting it usually is the afflatus for adeptness yoga.

• Iyengar: this is based on the article of Yogi B.K.S. Iyengar which is based on an accent of physique alignment. Precise alignment is able to aerate allowances and abstain injury. In this blazon of exercise you usually authority anniversary affectation over continued periods of time rather than affective bound anatomy one to the next. You usually will use backdrop such as blankets, blocks, and straps.

• Kundalini: this emphasizes animation in affiliation with movement. Accumulation movement with controlled animation is meant to move and chargeless activity aural the chakras or physique systems. This blazon of yoga can be actual accessible to animate adjustment with the assimilation and adrenal systems.

• Bikram or Hot Yoga: be able to absorb time in a hot allowance that is usually about 95 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. This blazon of yoga is advantageous for detoxing admitting abounding afraid and alleviation bound muscles. The aboriginal Bikram was based on 26 poses. But not all classes chase this.

• Anusara: this almost new appearance of yoga founded in 1977 by a man called John Friend combines concrete alignment with absolute activity acquired from tantra. The aesthetics actuality is the advantage of all beings. Backdrop are aswell about acclimated in this chic which is about accessible to humans of all levels of exercise and abilities.

• Jivanukti: David activity and Sharon Gannon founded this appearance in New York at one of the a lot of aristocratic Yoga Studios. It is aggressive by Ashtanga and acerb emphasizes chanting, meditation, and spirituality. A lot of agents of yoga in the United States accept been accomplished by them.

• Forrest: Originated by Anna Forrest in California and is based on active Asana poses. It is advised to strengthen, purify, release, and alleviate the physique and advance healing anatomy aural both physically and emotionally. You can apprehend acute aerobic exercise that helps advance your amount and aggrandize your breath ability.

• Integral: based on the article of Yogi Sri Swami Sachinananda who came to the US in the 1960's. He founded abounding Institutes that use affable Hatha convenance forth with chanting and mediation. You can acquisition books aswell based on this such as Richard Hittlemans 28 day exercise plan which advice newbie's and beginners to accept best allowances and after-effects through circadian convenance in their aboriginal month.

Yoga is about based on 5 accepted attempt Able exercise, able breathing, able relaxation, able diet, and absolute thinking. By accumulation aerobic Yoga or added aerobic exercise for 90 account per affair 3 or added times per anniversary forth with yoga on a lot of added canicule per anniversary in to your exercise plan you can apprehend to see after-effects n your aboriginal 4 to 6 weeks. The ambush is to stick with it and accomplish a absolute accomplishment for consistency. Yoga forth with rest, water, sleep, and added affairs changes can advice you lose weight and accumulate it off. Just bethink to accomplish it circadian and chase forth with a book, video, or audio actual if you opt to do it at home, abnormally if you are a beginner.

Yoga works by aesthetic the adrenal systems and allowance to bright out your lymph and allowed arrangement of toxins. The absolution of pent up energy, the furnishings of the calmness yoga emphasizes, and by assuming both aerobic and stretching, Hatha blazon yoga, you can get you strength, flexibility, and aerobic exercise all jut by practicing the altered types of yoga styles. You will close and accent muscles, bake calories, and accession your allowed arrangement and metabolism. Added furnishings are continued lasting, such as calmness, poise, and balance. A lot of yogis apperceive that approved yoga produces a afterglow and active activity that tends to draw like absent humans to you. (Anyone who practices Yoga consistently is advised a yogi.)

If you accept anytime capital to lose weight you may accept begin the advanced arrangement of methods and ideologies confusing. You may accept wondered if you could lose it by dieting, pills, exercise, or added desperate admeasurement alone. The acknowledgment is no! Losing weight takes a bent effort, alertness and patience, and the action of aggravating and accumulation methods to accomplish what works best for you personally. In accession to affairs habits, comestible changes, and afterward the 5 key attempt of a acceptable lifestyle, yoga can advice you accomplish your goals.

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Avoid these five common weight loss mistakes

Sunday, July 6, 2008
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Avoid these five common weight loss mistakes
by: Hristo Hristov

Mistake #1: Not changing your calorie plan as you lose weight. The fallacy of the "1200 calorie diet" plans and the like.

Most people fix their calorie intake to a given number and expect to lose weight at the same constant rate over a period of weeks. Hence, dieters look for 1000 calorie or 1800 calorie diet plans on the internet. The fixed calorie diet plans don't work. If you burn 3000 calories a day at the start of a diet, after a week or two of losing some weight, you are no longer burning 3000 calories. Now you might be burning 2800 calories. If you fix your calorie intake in the face of a decreasing calorie expenditure, your weight loss will slow down more and more as you lose weight.

If you want to lose weight at a constant rate, you must repeatedly:

decrease your calorie intake to accommodate the calorie expenditure drop
increase your calorie output by exercising more
do both

I would like to note that you must set realistic slow weight loss goals. If you go for fast weight loss you would not be able to sustain it for a long period unless you go extreme in the calorie reduction and exercise a lot. For people who have to lose more than 20 pounds (10kgs), the goal should be a loss of no more than 2 pounds or 1 kg per week. People who need to lose just a bit of weight should go for weight loss of 1 pound or half a kilogram per week.

Why does my calorie expenditure drop as I lose weight? The most important factors are:

You weight less. A smaller body burns less calories both at rest and while active
You may involuntarily burn fewer calories. Dieters often lack energy and move less
Calorie restriction suppresses the metabolic rate
You have less body fat, which may further suppress your metabolic rate

These major factors contribute to an ever-decreasing energy expenditure as one loses weight. The more a dieter cuts calories, the bigger the calorie expenditure drop. The leaner the dieter, the greater the calorie expenditure drop.

Now you must understand that if you want to succeed in losing weight, you have to make changes in your nutrition plan. I recommend burning more calories, because being more active facilitates smaller calorie restriction and milder calorie expenditure drop.

It is very difficult to estimate the rate of the metabolic drop. Here is the general rule: the bigger you are, the smaller the rate of the metabolic drop. The more weight you lose, the more you have to cut calories or increase exercise. If you are overweight you might need to cut just 10 more calories for every lost pound, while if you are lean you might have to cut 60 calories for every pound lost. I picked these numbers just as an example.

Mistake #2: Overreporting the "extra" calorie expenditure of exercise

Most people count the calories they spend exercising as "extra" calories. There is a difference between calories burned while exercising and "extra" calories burned exercising. Here is an example: you burn 300 calories on the treadmill instead of your usual activity (watching TV at home); in reality, you have to subtract the calories you would have spent watching TV from these 300 calories to calculate how many additional calories you burned. Let's say that watching TV, you would have burned 80 calories. In this specific case, you have expended 300 calories while exercising, and 220 "extra" calories.

Calorie counters mindlessly add the calories burned exercising as "extra" and in some cases, this practice can significantly influence the calorie calculations. Hence, calorie software counts the part of your usual activities that overlaps with the extra activities twice.

How to estimate the "extra" calories burned exercising?

In order to make the calculations more accurate, I shall first introduce the concept of MET values. MET values are a convenient way to calculate the calorie cost of activities. MET values are multiples of the resting energy expenditure per time. In plain English, a MET = 3 means burning 3 times more calories than resting. A MET = 1 signifies how many calories you burn at rest (your Resting Metabolic Rate or Basal Metabolic Rate). Whatever you do, you burn calories at a rate of at least MET = 1 with the only exception being sleeping which has MET = 0.9. During the day, most activities include sitting and walking which have MET values between 1.2 and 3. Your total daily energy expenditure is calculated by multiplying your Resting Metabolic Rate by the average MET of all your activities. Is your head spinning?

Let's use a real world example. Consider a female person with a Resting Metabolic Rate of 1200 calories a day. One day has 1440 minutes. Our example lady is burning 1200/1440 = 0.84 calories per minute at rest, which signifies a MET = 1. Let's say our example woman just returned from an aerobics class, where she exercised for 30 minutes. General aerobic class training has a MET = 6. Our example lady has just burned 30 (minutes) x 6 (MET) * 0.84 (calories per minute) = 151 calories while exercising. Suppose our lady would have chatted on the internet instead of exercising (MET = 1.5). In this example, the woman substituted chatting on the internet with aerobic exercising. Remember, that every time you do something you substitute one activity for another. In order to get the extra calories, we have to subtract 1.5 (chatting) from 6 (exercising). Now let's calculate the extra calories: 30 (minutes) * (6 - 1.5) (MET value) * 0.84 = 113 calories.

Let's consider what a standard calorie counter would have done. First, it will assume an average calorie burn rate of 1 calorie per minute. Then the counter will find that exercising for 30 minutes will yield 30 (minutes) * 6 (MET) * 1 (calories per minute) = 180 calories. The calorie counter will add these 180 calories to your daily expenditure without considering that a part of these 180 calories is already accounted by your usual activities.

Do you now see the difference between 113 calories and 180 calories? If that woman spends 5 hours a week in that aerobics class, the standard calorie counters will overreport her calorie output by: (180-113) * 10 = 670 calories a week. The woman will be fooled that her metabolic rate has dropped while she just overestimated her calorie expenditure. Enter weight loss plateau, wasted time and efforts. Do you have the time for trial and error calorie estimations?

Remember these two rules:

Report only extra activities to your calorie counter. If your walk to your office every day, do not log "walking to office for 30 minutes" as an extra activity. Consider only unusual activities that contribute to extra expended calories! Always subtract the calories you would have burned instead of exercising. A general rule is to subtract from 1.2 to 1.5 from the MET values. In some cases, you need to subtract a greater MET. If you substitute 30 minutes of bodybuilding (MET = 6) for 30 minutes of slow jump rope (MET = 8) then the additional MET would be 8 - 6 = 2.

How to find the MET values of activities based on standard tables?

In order to make the above calculations, you need to know the MET values of activities. Standard tables give: name of activity, duration and calories. Standard tables assume an average calorie expenditure of one calorie per minute. To find the MET you just need to divide the calories by the duration.

Example: "Bicycling, stationary, general", "20 minutes", "140 calories"
MET of "Bicycling, stationary, general" = 140 / 20 = 7

I know these calculations are somewhat tedious and in many cases the standard calorie calculations are close to correct. However, in some cases they can significantly over or under-calculate the calorie expenditure of activities and compromise your weight loss plan with daily miscalculations.

Mistake #3: Training with light weights and lots of reps

I have seen countless number of ladies come to the gym, get the lightest possible dumbbells, crank out some hundreds of reps and go home. Most often, these women do not get the results they want. The problem with this type of training is that it does not burn many "extra" calories unless you spend a considerable amount of time in the gym. Hefting Ken and Barbie weights in the gym has a MET value of 3, which means that it burns 3 times more calories than resting in bed. Almost anything you do during the day has a MET value of 1.2 to 2. Browsing the internet on your computer has a MET value of 1.5. Realize that almost anything you do during the day (average MET = 1.5) has about 50% overlap in calorie expenditure with training with very light weights (MET = 3). If you pump super light dumbbells in the gym, only about half of the calories burned are "additional".

Of course, you can burn a considerable amount of extra calories training with light weights but you have to really extend the duration of this type of training. Curling 5 pound dumbbells for 4 sets of 20 reps and chit-chatting for 20 minutes in the gym is not going to burn many extra calories.

Remember the rule: the less intensive the activity (smaller MET), the greater the calorie expenditure overlap with casual activities; the less intensive the activity, the more time you have to spend doing it to expend a good deal of extra calories. Always subtract a MET of 1 to 1.5 to arrive at the additional expended calories.

Mistake #4: Using "average person" calorie estimations

You can find all kinds of tables showing the calorie cost of different physical activities on the internet. These tables don't show your calorie expenditure. They actually tell you the calorie expenditure of an "average person". These tables assume you are an average person that burns one calorie per minute at rest. Yes, we covered this in the first part of the article and it needs repeating. Most men burn more than one calorie per minute and most smaller women burn less than one calorie per minute at rest. In reality, these standard tables overestimate the calorie expenditure of smaller people and underestimate the calorie expenditure of bigger than average people. Combine this with the common mistake of counting all burned calories as "additional calories" and you have a wide range of possible miscalculations.

Mistake #5: Going on very low calorie diets (VLCD)

Research has shown little to no difference in the weight loss rate of 1200 calorie diets and 800 calorie diets. The 1200 calorie threshold is the point where further calorie restriction does not yield faster results. Diets in the range of 800 to 1200 calories a day suppress the resting metabolic rate from the very first day and after some weeks on these diets, the metabolic rate has dropped by up to 20%. This metabolic drop is just a consequence of the calorie restriction factor; other factors such as the level of leanness may further depress the calorie expenditure.

A big percentage of the quick initial weight loss on a VLCD is water. VLCDs create an illusion of fast fat loss, while in reality most of the weight loss is water. It is hard to continue a very low calorie diet for a prolonged time because the harsh calorie restriction makes you hungrier than ever. People on VLCDs often lack energy and move very little. When you stop the diet, you are prone to instant overeating. Eating a very low calorie diet is the ticket to yo-yo dieting.

Instead of using very low calorie diets, I recommend diets with a mild calorie restriction and an emphasis on exercise. Overweight people who know what they are doing can employ VLCDs for a limited time. It is important to get enough vitamins and minerals from supplements, because such low calorie diets are woefully inadequate in nutrients. Water intake should be high.

Bodybuilders, powerlifters and athletes must stay away from very low calorie diets because the large calorie restriction causes a greater proportion of the weight loss to be muscle loss.