Sunlight Burns Fat

If you spend time in the sun, it will help you burn fat. According to a study published in a Dermatology journal, spending time in the sun helps burn subcutaneous fat by increasing fat metabolism. Subcutaneous fat is near the skin, so this makes sense. However, visceral fat, or belly fat is what increases the risk of heart disease, and sunlight helps with that too because it increases vitamin D levels in your body, and low vitamin D deficiency is associated with visceral fat and obesity.

Click here to read the whole article. You can read about all of the other amazing things sunlight does for your body.

You should avoid artificial sweeteners for many reasons. First of all, when your body breaks them down, their toxins are released into your body and can affect nerve cells. Second, the sweetness of artificially flavored food causes your body to expect some calories with it, and since it isn’t getting any, causes your body to crave more food. You are much better off using honey to sweeten food since it is a whole food, not a processed one and includes several wonderful compounds in it such as macronutrients,  micronutrients, enzymes, probiotics and prebiotics.

Other natural sweeteners are Stevia and Agave Nectar.

Here is an informative video from Fox News on the dangers of Nutrasweet. It’s an “ignored epidemic” according to a doctor who has studied the side effects. In 1975, the approval process for allowing aspartame was put on hold because of the horrible health problems it caused and in 1980 the Public Board Of Inquiry ruled unanymously that it should NOT go on the market. With the next administration in the White House and a changing of the guard, bribes must have been offered so that it would be approved to be put in food. In our government, it’s not about our health, it’s about the MONEY. You could thank Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes for allowing millions of people to be poisoned by aspartame, except he died in 2010. The New York Times glosses over his impact on this issue.

References:

• Why You Should Ditch Sugar In Favor of Honey
• The dirty dozen – 12 foods/food additives to avoid and why

Most of the food we eat has residual amounts of pesticides in it. Did you know 99% of mother’s milk has DDT in it? This can’t be good for any of us! But pesticides have run off the farmland and has gotten into our water as well as the soil. Here are the key facts:

“And since our bodies cannot remove these chemicals, over time, they weaken our endocrine, reproductive, circulatory, immune, and central nervous systems. As a result, our likelihood of having heart disease, cancer, and allergies is greatly increased. Pesticide accumulation also undermines our ability to resist infectious organisms, may impair fertility, and contributes to miscarriages and birth defects.”

We should all be eating organic food, although that only reduces the pesticides in our bodies. Also, some fruits and vegetables either require small amounts of pesticide or no chemicals, and others are most likely to be chock full of pesticides. These two groups are called the “Clean Fifteen” and “Dirty Dozen.” The title of the article this information comes from is a play on Dirty Dozen. Here is a list of the produce in these two groups, from PBS:

The dirty dozen and clean 15 of produce.

The information in this post is from the article The dirty dozen – 12 foods/food additives to avoid and why.

The first obesity additive to discuss is GMO plants, because this is most harmful to our health. GMO means genetically modified organisms. Pesticide companies like Monsanto and Dow have modified/engineered the DNA in the seeds they sell to farmers, mostly large farming operations. The DNA has been altered so that the plant can make its own pesticide, built right in to the DNA. It’s hard to imagine people working as scientists doing this work think they are doing a good thing for the world. These plants are toxic to all animals, so the animals fed GMO corn are poisoned and we in turn eat that meat, plus we eat the GMO corn, soybeans and canola, compounding the toxicity. One of the effects of GMO plants on our bodies is causing “leaky gut”, which means the lining of  our intestines have been damaged and let poisons, which are normally passed right through our bodies, get into our bloodstream.

Our stupid (actually  they must be paid off to allow such atrocities) FDA says these products haven’t been proven to harm us, so they are approved for use. Most other countries in the world are smarter and have banned GMO seeds. I used to trust the FDA, but now I know it’s all about the $$$ being slipped into their pockets.

The information on this page is just the tip of the iceberg. GMO food can also increase food toxicity, allergy susceptibility, immune suppression, resistance to antibiotics, and the incidence of cancer. Do yourself a big favor and look for food that is nonGMO. California just tried to pass a bill requiring GMO food to be labeled as such, but Monsanto and other companies spent millions of dollars to defeat it and the bill didn’t pass.

Just remember GMO is in most products, the cereal you have in the morning to dessert after dinner.

Source: The dirty dozen – 12 foods/food additives to avoid and why

So much more research and information is available now about maintaining a proper weight, and preventing or eliminating body fat. We now know certain chemicals that are routinely added to food are called “obesity additives”.
Here is one list, called the dirty dozen:

1. Artificial sweeteners (all of them!)
2. Refined sugar
3. Monosodium Glutamate (MSG )
4. Artificial Colors
5. BHA and BHT to block oil from becoming rancid
6. Sodium Nitrate and Nitrite
7. Caffeine
8. Olestra (sucks all the fat-soluble vitamins out of your body)
9. Brominated vegetable oil (BVO)
10. Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil
11. Pesticides (there is a dirty dozen list for fruits and veggies most likely to the highest amounts of pesticides
12. Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

I am going to take these one at a time in my next posts to break the information down into more digestible sizes (pun intended!)

But if you want to read more about it, google “obesity additives” or read this article, where I got this list:
The dirty dozen – 12 foods/food additives to avoid and why

Dr. Oz says you can maximize your weight loss by making some changes in the time you do certain things. He says you should weigh yourself first thing in the morning. You are the lightest you will be when you first wake up and make sure you take a pee first. You can weigh up to 2 pounds less than any other time of day, so it is the most satisfying time to weigh in.

Second, Dr. Oz suggests you work out in the morning, before you eat breakfast because then you are burning fat instead of what you just ate for breakfast, lunch or dinner. That makes so much sense! Some trainers tell you that you need to have a little energy to help you work out, but if you do, make it something tiny, just to tide you over. You can get used to eating later once you get into the routine. It’s not that hard. And you should not be drinking energy drinks, they are just sugar, which means you have to burn more calories.

Small snacks – about 15 minutes before a meal, you should have an apple or other small high-fiber fruit. When you have this, you will have a tendency to eat fewer calories during that meal.

Also suggested are specific times to eat meals, 7:30 AM, noon and 6:30 PM. These are the times our bodies are naturally the most hungry.

Our naturally occurring levels of melatonin, the hormone that makes us feel sleepy are the highest at 10 PM, which means we should be falling asleep then to maximize our ability to fall asleep. In general, if you miss that time, you start craving the carbs!

He said a lot more, you can see the video here: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/HealthyLiving/video/lose-weight-around-the-clock-13155977

This is the worst idea I have ever heard of in dieting. HCG is a pregnancy/fertility hormone, and not a dieting aid. Our bodies and our hormones are designed so specifically and completely for certain functions, and dieting is not a function of HCG. Yet some highly unethical doctors are prescribing it for women. Besides being very expensive, where is the proof that it even works. On top of that, the women using these hormone injections are only taking in 500 calories per day. Wow, that sounds like almost total starvation to me. Have you ever tried limiting your calorie intake to 500 calories in one day. How could you fall asleep, you would be so hungry you wouldn’t be able to sleep. I have trouble holding calories down to 2000!

I am not a doctor, but some things you just know are wrong, and this is one of those things!

Click here for the article from the New York Times.

If you’re a coffee drinker, you probably enjoy the increased energy and concentration that follows your morning ritual. Well, some of these benefits are linked to a short-term increase in your metabolic rate. In one study, the caffeine in two cups of coffee prompted a 145-pound woman to burn 50 extra calories over the next four hours. Just be sure to drink it black. If you add cream, sugar, or flavored syrups, you’ll take in far more calories than you burn.

Here is a video that may help you diet through hypnosis:

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/paul-mckenna-hypnosis-supercharge-your-metabolism

My husband went to a clinic at our local hospital, three sessions to help people lose weight with hypnosis. He was sure he would not be able to be hypnotized, so of course he didn’t go under. But he got sent home with some helpful information. You CAN do self-hypnosis by talking to yourself. The clinic suggested picking a phrase and repeating it to yourself 10 times when you get in bed but before you fall asleep. Say something like “I will watch what I eat tomorrow and every day I will get better and better.” You will be surprised how you will be better about what you eat. It really works if you can get into it. Try it, you’ll like it!