Why Weight Loss On The Raw Food Diet Is Inevitable

More and more folks than ever are ditching modern fad diets for weight loss and are undergoing sustainable and sensible lifestyles. The healthier a person's lifestyle choices, the quicker a person's body will return to its optimal weight. I have never come across any diet that is healthier or more nutrient-dense than the raw food diet. In fact, I can safely say that weight loss will inevitably occur whilst following a raw superfood diet plan. 

Your weight loss will pretty much begin from day one of your raw food journey! Of course you won't magically leap from overweight to skinny overnight, but your results will be steady and constant. Let me discuss two primary reasons why this is the case.

The nutrient-density:
Nutrient-density relates to the ratio of the nutrient content to the energy content of food. Therefore, because living uncooked foods are nutrient-dense, the amount of vitamin and mineral content is high whilst the foods total energy content (calories) are low. How does this apply to weight loss? It means that because your body will be fed generous amounts of vitamins and minerals, your cravings will be kept to a minimal. Of course cravings are still going to occur sometimes, but not as much as they would on an unhealthy fad diet. You can be assured of proper nutrition whilst on the raw lifestyle. This is one reason why weight loss is so much easier on a raw food diet.

The low energy content:
I briefly mentioned in the previous paragraph that the raw food diet is low in energy content (ie, the calories are low). Let me expand on this a little bit more. Just imagine that you had two large platters on the table. The first platter was covered with greasy chips, a bacon and egg burger, a coleslaw (not lacking with mayonnaise), a sticky-date pudding and a couple of scoops of ice-cream. The other platter was filled with grape tomatoes, avocado slices, cucumber sticks, some watermelon, rock-melon, cherries, raw chocolate, walnuts, dates and pumpkin seeds. Which platter would have more calories on it? The first platter of course - you wouldn't have had to think twice about it! Why is that? This is because saturated fats, oils, meats, mayonnaise, refined sugars and dairy products are calorie-dense foods that makes weight loss nearly impossible! The second platter contained much fewer calories because raw foods are generally low in fat content, the sugar is natural and your body can digest raw foods much quicker than cooked foods. Living superfoods will fill you up easily but will also slim you down easily. This is another primary reason why weight loss will inevitably occur whilst eating large amounts of raw foods in your daily diet.

So to recap why slimming is guaranteed on a raw food diet: living superfoods will fill you up, offer you a low amount of calories, a high amount of nutrients, and will also ensure that your food cravings are kept to a minimal. Increasing your amounts of raw foods in your diet is clearly the way to go when weight loss is a goal. I am certain that you will be amazed at how fast your body will slim down if you decide to venture into the raw food lifestyle.

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Developing a Fitness Attitude - A Healthy Weight Loss Program Approach

Exercise is Not a Four Letter Word
It's obvious that the word 'exercise' has more than four letters, but many of us will agree it sounds like a four-letter word.

Indeed, many people feel so negatively about exercise, experts often advise using the term 'physical activity' instead. No matter what you call it, moving your body is critical to feeling and staying well. And to achieve and maintain healthy weights, it's key. The sticking point generally comes when we try to do it. (Regardless what Nike says, there's a bit more to it sometimes than just doing it.)
So here's Green Mountain's take on how to keep going when you just don't want to do it.

• Focus on feeling good. That may mean rethinking your goals. If they are to lose weight above all else, you might find yourself facing some serious motivational challenges as you pass through the normal peaks and valleys of everyday energy. To find more motivation, refocus your goals to feeling great, having energy to do the things you want, and staying healthy. You'll likely find your weight moving to a healthier place, too. Read about Green Mountain's top ten reasons to exercise. .
• Choose to move in ways you enjoy. It's really, really hard to do something we don't like doing. So when it comes to exercise, find things that are fun! Yes, they do exist. This may mean you need to change your definition of exercise. Or call it physical activity instead. See our list of Top Ten Reasons to Exercise.
• Forget doing it perfectly - just move. We're talking about those recommendations that say we need to get so many minutes a day at such and such intensity in order to get the full benefit. It's certainly good to have a goal, but remember: something is better than nothing. If you're squeezed for time, do something in the time you have.

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Magical Weight Loss Foods

When all is said and done there is still only one way to lose weight. You have to burn off more calories than you take in. Exercise is an important part of that equation, but we are going to take a look at some foods that can help you achieve your weight loss goals. As a general rule weight loss foods are those that make you feel fuller without adding all kinds of empty calories. Adding these foods to your diet on a regular basis will help you to lose weight faster. Here are some of the top contenders.

Beans are at the top of list for several reasons. They come in many varieties, meaning they're versatile and you don't have to get bored eating them every day. They are low in fat, but very satisfying. They are packed with protein. And they contain plenty of fiber, which not only adds to how full you feel, but also reduces your risk for several diseases. The only thing you have to watch out for are re fried beans that have extra fat added, and canned beans that are too high in sodium. But you'll be doing yourself a tasty favor by eating any variety of dried beans.

Whole grains. There's one change you can make in your diet that's very easy: stop eating refined grains. The "refining" process gets rid of most of the good stuff, making them so void of nutrition that they actually have to re-add nutrients to make the process complete. All of that so our bread and rice can be pure white. To be blunt, it's ridiculous. Start eating whole grains to get the full nutrition nature put there in the first place.

Olive oil (or any other oil high in monounsaturated fat). Surprised? Yes, it still has many calories as any other kind of fat (9 calories per gram) but fat adds to the feeling of fullness. It also adds a nice flavor to many different foods. Besides olive oil is one of the healthiest fats that you can. So, while it may seem to be a lot of calories up front, the amount of calories you eat later will actually go down because it's so satisfying.

Oatmeal is another one of the best weight loss foods out there. A few years ago it got some good press for being able to reduce cholesterol. It's true, it is. But did you know that it has about the same amount of soluble and insoluble fiber? 

Again, it makes you feel fuller and is good for your overall health. Plus, it's low in calories. Most people think of oatmeal as a breakfast food, but it has a flavor that works well with many different foods. Therefore, it can be incorporated into any number of dishes throughout the day. There are many more weight loss foods, no question about it. But the four mentioned above will give you a great start on losing weight. Keep trying to reduce the bad foods, and increase the good ones and your waistline and health will be the better for it

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The Best Workout For Weight Loss - Cardio or Weights?

You know exercise is good for you, and you want to have a fit body, but you only have so much time in your day and cannot do it all. 

What do you focus on, cardio or weight training? On the other hand, perhaps you want to buy some home fitness equipment, but are not sure about the best thing on which to spend your limited funds. Do you buy the treadmill or the weight set? 

Despite weight training's reputation as a "jock" thing for he-men who want to bulk up, the answer for most people is weights. 

While cardio exercise can help you to increase your heart health and stamina, and can burn some extra calories while you are engaged in it, weight training can help you get stronger, tone your muscles, improve your appearance, increase your metabolism to burn calories more efficiently all day long, and fight age-related muscle and bone loss. If you must choose between the two, weight training comes out the winner, easily.

Weight training is strength training, using a variety of weights for resistance. In the same way that cardio exercise strengthens your heart and lungs by providing stress on your breathing and circulation, weight training improves your overall body strength by providing enough stress to different muscle groups that they adapt and grow stronger. Weight training also helps with the following:

•Lose weight and maintain fat loss: Muscles are thirsty for calories, so the more lean muscle mass you have, the more efficient your body will be at converting that smoothie into the energy you need to keep going all day. For every 3 pounds of muscle you develop with weight training, your body will burn an extra 120 calories a day simply vegging out on the couch! That can mean about 10 pounds of fat lost per year, without even forsaking your favorite treat. Yes, please.

•Reduce the possibility of injury: Unlike the pounding action involved in many cardio exercises, correctly training with weights can actually protect your joints and spine. Strong muscles connected to joints helps to protect them from injury, and increased core muscle strength contributes to better balance and a stronger back.

•Develop bone density: Just as muscle mass naturally diminishes with age and inactivity, bones lose strength and density too. Strength training increases bone density, helping to prevent fractures due to brittle bones or osteoporosis.

•Boost your stamina: As you develop stronger and more efficient muscles in all parts of your body, fatigue will be outdated, and everyday activities will no longer make you want to lie down for a nap in the middle of your day.

Too often, people focus solely on the number of calories burned during their workout, or the number they see on the scale. Focusing on either of these is shortsighted when it comes to your health and fitness. Instead of watching the "calories burned" readout on the treadmill and being satisfied when you hit your magic number, consider how your body is expending calories outside the gym and after your workout. Weight training exercise, by developing calorie-thirsty muscle tissue, increases the number of calories you burn all day long, no matter what you are doing.

So, spend those limited funds on the weights, and the majority of your limited workout time on weight training to build your muscle strength. Your body will thank you, and your mirror will become your friend.

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Aerobics for Effective Weight Loss

According to a US study conducted recently, aerobics is the best solution for losing weight as it burns the excess calories. This is why aerobics remains one of the most popular ways to lose weight ever. Aerobic exercises not only help lose weight but also have long term health benefits. Also, aerobics can be fun and really enjoyable.
There are various kinds of aerobic routines, ranging from the step aerobics routine in which a raised platform is used to perform various exercises to the water aerobics in which movements are done in chest high warm water. Aerobics also include active sports like swimming, basketball, tennis, soccer etc.
Are you thinking of losing weight? Do you want to shed those extra pounds?
Here's why you should go for aerobics:

• Burning Calories and Losing Weight:

It is a known fact that aerobic or cardio exercises help you maintain your weight. The excess energy required to perform aerobic or cardiovascular exercises is obtained from the calories that you get from consuming food and beverages. As a result, your metabolic rate is increased and high amounts of calories are burnt. Losing weight without any medical procedure requires you to burn more calories than you can consume. Along with reducing body fat, aerobics also reduces blood pressure.

• Aerobics Help You Overcome The Sudden Cravings For Eating

Another reason why aerobics is such popular and effective in reducing weight is that it helps you overcome the erratic hunger pangs. This happens due to the increase in your leptin level which suppresses your desire to eat a lot. Leptin is a protein that balances appetite and metabolism thus regulating energy intake and expenditure.

Here are some statistics that would make the picture clear. An hour long low-impact routine can burn up to 545 calories and a more vigorous one can burn from 511 to 763 calories. Brisk walking for an hour can burn around 414 calories whereas running can help you burn up to 1,472 calories.
However, it must be kept in mind that if your aerobics exercise routine is not regular you might not be able to lose weight as desired. Also, if you consume enough extra calories to meet your increased energy needs you will fail to lose weight.

It is advisable to exercise at least three times a week for 20-30 minutes at a time in order to benefit from your aerobic exercises. Reduce intake of high fat food, sugary food and alcohol to avoid extra calorie intake.
Other benefits of aerobics are:

• Releases the natural pain killers of your body.
• Enhances immune system.
• Increases agility and is also considered to increase your IQ.
• Improves muscle strength.
• Improves balance and coordination.
• Reduces stress, thus resulting in better sleep patterns and no depression.

Aerobic exercises are certainly extremely beneficial not only for healthy weight loss but also for your overall well-being.

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Weight Loss For Women Weight Training

Weight Training Myth

Well here's a fact - the main hormone for increasing muscle mass when weight training is Testosterone, now this hormone is obviously in both men and women and it is this that creates the big muscles through weight training, however women only have about 7% of testosterone their male counterpart has, this means you can go to the gym or do your own home workouts and do the same training as the men but you will only ever make 7% of the muscle mass gains as the men. Because of this genetic make up no matter how hard you train you will not end up like Mr Universe.

Weight training will help you lose weight quicker than cardiovascular and aerobic workouts with the added benefits of increased strength, firmer and more toned muscles, stronger bone density and increased flexibility.

Women body builders who get very muscular use Anabolic Steroids (synthetic testosterone) plus other drugs to get that high degree of muscle mass definition.

Weight Training Increases Chest Size

Unfortunately weight training will not improve chest size, due to the fact that women's breasts are mainly fatty tissue and it is a physical impossibility for fat to turn into muscle, therefore weight training will not give you bigger breasts as weight training loses fat, if you go below 12% body fat your breast size will however decrease, weight training does however increase your back size, so when measuring this increased size probably gets mixed up with cup size.

Weight Training Makes You Stiff and Muscle Bound

We have already established the fact that as a woman your testosterone levels are only 7% that of a man so you are not going to generate lots of muscle mass, therefore we are not going to become muscle-bound.

Regarding making you stiff, the trick is, whatever exercise you are doing you need to take it through its full range of movement, for example, exercise like flyers, dead lifts, chin ups and presses stretch the muscle in its bottom range of movement, so by performing the exercises properly through their full range of movement your stretching abilities will be increased.

If You Stop Your Muscles Will Turn to Fat

This is like turning gold into silver. It is a physical impossibility for muscle tissue to turn into fat as they are two completely different types of tissue.

What happens is when you stop training completely you start to lose muscle through the lack of activity (as the old saying goes "use it or lose it") ideally when you get your ideal body rather than stop you should train at least once a week and do an overall body workout, this will put you in maintenance mode, stick to your good eating habits and this one workout a week will keep you in shape.

If you fall back into your old eating habits coupled with a slower metabolism due to inactivity it will make it look like your muscle is turning into fat, but actually you are losing muscle and gaining fat. Long term weight loss doesn't come easy but doing it the right way the benefits out way the hard work, the right information is essential to reach your goals quickly and safely and the right supplements will add a boost a long with the right nutrition. Get on the right track now lose your first 2kg within a week and carry on getting firmer, fitter, leaner and stronger start now.

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Try Some Healthy Weight Loss Drinks

Today, weight loss drinks have become the easiest route to a slim physique, However, lie peddlers and bogus products have hit the market with a vengeance. Hence, it is hard to find a product that is both healthy and effective. Nonetheless, this does not rule out the fact that there are some wonderful beverages in the market. If you intend to shed those accumulated body fats, you will need to be extra careful with what you buy.

Some products are not only a waste of your money but can also a danger to your health. This reality affects not only the weight loss drinks but also other weight loss products like processed low carbohydrate diets and weight watchers meals. The following are a few of the available weight loss drinks that will effectively help you burn fats safely.

Apple Cider Vinegar

The first drink is the apple cider vinegar. Though it does not taste very nice, this beverage is extremely effective in triggering fat loss and in improving general body health. It incorporates numerous healthy nutrients and vital vitamins as part of the ingredients. The active agent in the drink is vinegar, which helps to remove all undigested foods from your body. These undigested foods usually accumulate as solid deposits in the body and thus increases the body weight. By getting rid of solid deposits, it effectively cleanses the system and improves the efficiency of the metabolic process. A single teaspoon of the drink, taken three times a day is the recommended dosage.

Water

Water is the next to be considered, due to its importance and availability. No low-calorie or low carbohydrate drinks can ever compare to plain water when it comes to weight loss strategy. Water cleanses the body, amplifies blood circulation and helps in the excretion of body wastes. In the end, metabolism is improved, both in terms of speed and efficiency, such that all ingested foods are digested without solid fats being stored. Given that 70% of our body is water, clean, natural water is the basic requirement of our body. The recommended amount of water intake is eight glasses a day. Water is the most readily available and is unique to all weight loss drinks, and you can never have too much of it. As a result, if you feel like taking more than eight glasses of water, just do it.

Cranberry Juice

The third is natural cranberry juice, which is ranked by dietitians to be among the most potent of weight loss drinks existing in the market today. It works efficiently and naturally as water in triggering high metabolism. If you do not quite like drinking plain water, you can mix the two together. With water and cranberry juice being your main drinks, you should stay away from other processed drinks and soon you will see great improvements in your health.

In all these weight loss drinks, the key lies in their ability to improve metabolism. Fast and efficient metabolism process ensures that all foods are digested and not stored as solid fat deposits, particularly when aided by exercises. The efficient and fast metabolism breaks down all stored fats in the body to energy, leading to weight loss.

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Weight Loss and Mental Attitude

If we talk about diets, in these days we have at our disposal a wealth of content and information about low-calorie foods, lifestyle, nutrition methods, fitness, and natural products. But for some reason we tend to forget that our mind is the cause of all the circumstances of our lives, and our body is often a mirror of our thoughts and mental attitudes.

When we are overweight we tend to blame external factors such as glandular imbalances, inheritance, a demanding work schedule, lack of time to exercise, and much more. The list is really endless, because when we do not take care of our weaknesses, we tend to be very efficient inventing excuses.

There are out there unscrupulous people writing about that we do not have to put willpower to lose weight and maintain it, but they are simply cheating naïve persons. For anything that we want to achieve in our life we have to pay the price. It has been rightly said that there is no way to get something for nothing and this applies to maintain our ideal weight.

There are three things that can help you to achieve the right mental attitude and lose weight.

The first is the large amount of information available to all people who sincerely want to lose weight. In magazines, TV, Radio, and Internet, every week we can read articles from people who specialize in nutrition, recommending the most appropriate food to lose weight in a natural way. Take note that by simply taking foods free of fat and cholesterol, this inevitably will help you to lose weight. Also we may find recommendations about physical exercise, and we have on the internet free fitness videos.

The second thing is to learn about how to achieve self-discipline. All successful people in any activity have based their careers on a strong will and a right mental attitude to achieve specific objectives. The good news is that there are a lot of free online methods that can help you to develop this willpower. If you make a search on the internet, you will find many free online books of classical authors that have helped many people.

The third is to choose an alternative activity such as yoga, meditation, or tai chi. All these disciplines have demonstrated over many centuries to be very effective to rearrange the subconscious mind and achieve positive levels of mental calm. This is very important to control cravings, or the temptation to eat foods that often we don't need.

Again it is not possible to get something for nothing, and like everything in life you have to use your inner strength. If you take advantage of the above methods you will control your weight more easily.

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