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It Is About Why You Eat, Not What You Eat

Your weight and food issues aren’t about what you eat. It is about why you eat. It isn’t about if you are hungry physically but your emotional eating. One of the problems with weight loss surgery and diet programs is our belief that they hold the answer. If only we can follow them, they will work for us. Unfortunately for many of us, we didn’t experience long-term weight loss success. Did we fail? No. Absolutely not! The diets failed because they are not the answer. As effective of a tool as weight loss surgery and diet programs can be, they aren’t the answer. What?? I’m a weight loss and weight loss surgery coach, and a weight loss surgery post-op of seven years and I’m telling you that surgery and diet programs aren’t the answer? How can that be?

Actually, I am a weight loss and weight loss surgery coach because you need to develop your own program that is special and customized for you. The answer is inside of you. Organized diet programs and plans make us the same and apply their cooker cutter approach to dieting. We are all different and unique. Rather than a diet plan telling you what is best for you. You need your OWN program that is custom just for you and your needs. You can develop coping strategies to combat emotional eating, food triggers, compulsive overeating, and head hunger that are the answer that is yours.

Food and weight issues aren’t about the food. Food is the symptom, not the problem. The key to weight loss success is to discover for yourself why you overeat. If you do that personal work, food will become a non-issue. Food will be food – nothing more or less, and not a way to soothe, calm ourselves or self-medicate numb ourselves out. It isn’t enough to find the right combination of foods, a certain food or other sort of limiting way to eat. Aside from true physical hunger, it is about becoming aware of what drives you to eat. You may think it is because you are hungry. In your head, you might be. Some of the feelings and emotions that drive us to eat emotionally are anger, lonely, tired, boredom, sadness or other emotions and situations that cause us to feel we aren’t in control. Head hunger can be so strong that it masquerades as physical hunger.

Food doesn’t hold the answer for your food triggers-you do. Food is food. It is nothing more than a source of nutrition and replenishment for your body and energy. We make it an emotional issue of what to eat, what not to eat, when to eat, when not to eat, and the accompanying negative emotions. There isn’t any power or magic component in food.

Pay attention to the emotions and situations that cause cravings, drive you to emotionally overeat and are food triggers. By dealing with the emotions, you put food into its proper perspective. It puts you in the driver’s seat of your diet to move full speed to achieve your weight loss goal.

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3 Weight Loss Myths You Never Knew About

Whenever you browse health publications regularly, you are sure to find numerous tips relating to fat loss. Some of these strategies really work, and others really don’t. Those that generally aren’t effective are the ones that advocate fad diets and slimming drugs. The techniques that actually succeed for everybody will always be simple: nutritious diet as well as the appropriate exercise routine. Unfortunately, the diet publication rack is full of myths together with mistaken guidance, and some people have a tendency to twist the reality, possibly out of ignorance or simply because they intend to turn a profit out of misleading others. In this article I will focus on 3 such dieting myths.

Myth #1: Spot reduction of excess fat is possible. Nope, it’s not. Weight reduction experts concur with this fact, unanimously. You can’t force your body to get rid of excess fat from targeted areas under any conditions, regardless of what kind of workout routines you do or devices you utilize. If you do only sit ups and leg lifts repeatedly, in the hope of reducing abdominal fat, you will be discouraged when you see that rather than trimming your stomach fat, you are likely to shrink the muscle that exists in the abdomen. This is why, your emphasis shouldn’t be on crunches and leg lifts on their own. It’s also sensible to follow a healthy eating plan that would accelerate your metabolic process and also enable you to shed extra pounds rapidly.

Myth #2: An enormous cut in the quantity you eat will reduce extra fat. Here is the most hazardous of the 3 myths. It has literally encouraged a number of people to go to the risk associated with crash dieting. People choose to use crash dieting with the hope of getting rid of excess weight as soon as possible, but they don’t realize the fact that crash dieting harms their bodies rather than enhancing their fitness. As a matter of fact, whenever you starve or fast, your body reacts by means of starting starvation mode. It holds back your metabolic rate and even uses up your lean muscle instead of excess fat to meet your energy requirements. This is the reverse of what you’re looking for. You don’t get rid of a lot of body fat in the least, but you will lose your vital muscles. This also lowers your resting metabolism even more, making sure that once you return to your previous eating plan, it will be even easier for you to gain more weight all over again. This is the process behind yo-yo dieting, to which a lot of people are susceptible. It’s not healthy for you, not in the short term or the long run.

Myth #3: Nothing but aerobic workouts can help you get rid of fat. Not on your life, and they may not even be the number one choice. While it’s unmistakable that cardio workouts can certainly help you shed fat, it is far from correct that this is the only form of slimming exercise available or even the most effective. Believe it or not, lifting weights is better than either cardio or aerobics. Lifting weights not only helps you shed fat for the duration of your exercise routine, but it also grows your muscles, which then burns even more energy even when you’re resting.

I truly hope that this article has demolished these untrue weight loss myths and made it easier for you to be aware of the truth.

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What is Dukan Diet and its side-effects?

This article gives pertinent information about Dukan Diet and its side-effects

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Pierre Dukan, a French doctor and nutritionist, challenged with the case of obesity started to look for alternative ways in curing the illness. After 20 years of thorough research he published in the year 2000, a book called, “Je ne sais pas maigrir” or translated as, “I don’t know how to get slimmer.” It gained the best-seller in France after a year it has been published.
It was made a hit in UK when Kate Middleton, now the duchess of Cambridge, tried the Dukan Diet before her marriage to the beloved Prince William, she reportedly claimed a loss of two dress sizes. It also allegedly claimed to help five million French. The book is also gaining fame in the US in the year 2011 when actress/singer, Jennifer Lopez, lost pounds after her pregnancy by following this diet.
Dukan Diet: What is it? How does this work?
Dukan Diet is similar to the famous Atkins diet. Atkins and Dukan are much alike in terms of non-intake of carbs initially and do not require portion control or counting calorie consumptions. In Atkins, it requires net carbohydrate intakes and unlike Dukan, it suggests a daily intake of oats, increase water consumption and 20 minutes of everyday brisk walking. Dukan Diet adopts four phases namely: Attack, Cruise, Consolidation and Stabilization.
Four Phases of the Dukan Diet
Attack: In this starter phase, the dieter is only allowed take protein rich foods that are exquisitely low in fat. Dr. Dukan provided 72-item list of foods to be eaten, it excludes pork, lamb, poultry products and cheeses. Food should always be cooked but without adding any fat to it, it best to cook in grilling or roasting. It also requires you to eat 1 ½ tbsp. oat bran & 1.5 liters of water per day. This phase should be followed around 2-7 days or more. Results from this initial phase within 5 days may result in 4-7 lbs. loss. This phase promotes quick loss of weight since it is strictly based on a protein-only diet.
Cruise: Cruise, the second to the fourth phase of the Dukan diet scheme. During this phase dieters who were only allowed to eat protein-only foods can now alternate a 28-items of non-starchy vegetables. They may take attack phase diet for today and take non-starchy veggie diet for tomorrow, and so this phase must go on by alternating these two types of diet each day. This phase may last long enough as much as you want by reaching your desired weight and assuring 2 pounds per week loss.
Consolidation: As one achieves the desired weight, one has to go the next phase called Consolidation, this is the maintenance phase of this diet scheme where you have to prevent putting back excess pounds. The plan in this phase is less strict compared to the first two phases. During this phase you are permitted to eat protein-only and veggie diet along with a piece of low-sugar fruit, 2 slices of whole grain bread and a portion of hard cheese. In this phase you are allowed to have 1-2 serving of starchy foods and one celebration meal per week. The phase of consolidation does not expect to loss off pounds but rather it is steadily the maintenance process.
Stabilization: Stabilization is the final phase and a life-long phase of the diet scheme. In here maintenance of the life-changing diet may be a challenging and tempting. During this portion of the scheme, one is already permitted to allow any food intake that a person wants and by also sticking to the diet rule in the consolidation phase. As Pierre Dukan suggest, that staying on the phase 1 rule once a week and eat whatever you like for the rest of the week lowers the chances of regaining weight.
Pros and Cons of Dukan Diet
Pros: The fast results of this diet scheme is beneficially rewarding and motivating. It allows you to have protein and veggie meal plan diets and does not require you to count off your calorie intakes.
Cons: It is highly restrictive and can exclude healthy foods. Dieters can experience side-effects such as symptoms of headaches, nausea, lethargy, irritable and loss of concentration. Dieters may acquire halitosis (bad breath), metallic tasting mouth and strong smell in their urines. For those people who have problems with their kidneys and liver are not advised to follow this diet plan. It is not also recommended for pregnant and nursing mothers.

Views and Opinions by Health Experts on the Dukan Diet
There are lots of critics in this diet plan. Due to the restrictive type scheme of this diet, some fruits, grains and nuts which are healthy and have high amounts of vitamins and minerals that are vital to the nutrition of the body are eliminated. Keri Gans of American Dietetic Association, said that the lost amount of multivitamins that should be acquired from those restricted foods are not compensated in the Dukan diet. Experts have also criticized that experiencing such side-effects may not be healthy at all.

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