Natural Supplements3 Secrets Your Diet Book Won't Tell You
Are you wondering why youre not losing weight? If youre like me, youve tried every fad diet imaginable, and nothing seems to work at least not long-term. Ive personally tried Weight Watchers (which worked great until my schedule changed and I was no longer able to attend meetings), Atkins (not easy to follow for someone who travels a lot and loves to dine out), and crazy fad diets like the cabbage soup diet, the grapefruit diet, juice fasts, and countless others. I was hungry all the time, and I wasnt able to sustain any substantial weight loss because there are three secrets that NONE of those diets told me.
Are you wondering why youre not losing weight? If youre like me, youve tried every fad diet imaginable, and nothing seems to work at least not long-term. Ive personally tried Weight Watchers (which worked great until my schedule changed and I was no longer able to attend meetings), Atkins (not easy to follow for someone who travels a lot and loves to dine out), and crazy fad diets like the cabbage soup diet, the grapefruit diet, juice fasts, and countless others. I was hungry all the time, and I wasnt able to sustain any substantial weight loss because there are three secrets that NONE of those diets told me.
First, diets dont work, PERIOD. Any plan thats highly restrictive, structured or specialized is unrealistic for long-term maintenance. Plus, any diet that requires you to totally eliminate foods from your diet is a recipe for disaster. Personally, I dont care for chocolate. However, when someone tells me I cant or shouldnt have chocolate, its amazing how I suddenly crave it! When someone takes away a choice, the average person wants that choice back even if it didnt mean much when the option was available in the first place. Additionally, most diets dont work for everyone, and you wont know if a diet works unless you try it. Trying many diets without seeing results can lead to dieters frustration which, in many cases, just packs on more pounds.
The second point that most diets fail to mention is that you must eat frequently to regulate your metabolism and burn fat. Extreme low-calorie and tiny portion-control diets put your body into starvation mode, which means your body clings to food because it doesnt know when its next meal is coming. This explains how you can actually eat less food and consume less calories, and still not lose any weight. If your diet makes you feel hungry all the time, thats definitely not a good sign. The best nutrition plans require that you eat five or six small meals per day, no more than four hours apart.
Finally, diets are lying to you when they say you must be patient and expect to lose only one to two pounds per week. For someone like me, who had fifty pounds to lose, this information was devastating. If you have a lot of weight to lose (50 pounds or more), it is not unhealthy to drop three to five pounds per week, particularly in the beginning. In my experience, the greatest motivator is early results. When you can see the fruit of your efforts, you are much more likely to press onward when the going gets tough. Early results can help you maintain focus and keep your determination alive. An excellent all-natural supplement such as NiteTrim (www.NiteTrimDirect.com) can jump-start your results from other weight-loss efforts. Supplements such as NiteTrim can also help you break through the dreaded "plateaus."
Once I discovered these three secrets, I realized that the best way to get in shape and maintain a healthy body is through proper nutrition, regular exercise and appropriate supplementation. By far the best program Ive found is a combination of Bill Phillips Body for LIFE (www.BodyForLife.com) and NiteTrim (www.NiteTrimDirect.com). Bill Phillips has truly made nutrition simple, effective, and easy to follow. Additionally, the Body for LIFE book provides step-by-step exercise and fitness guidance suitable for anyone, regardless of experience or current fitness level. NiteTrim is an all-natural supplement that effectively burns fat, and the company offers a 30-day free trial supply, as well as a money-back guarantee at www.NiteTrimDirect.com
Drinking Green Tea May Help You Lose WeightMichael Lewis
Green tea, which has been reported to have anticancer properties and to raise levels of antioxidants in the blood that may ward off heart disease, now appears to have the potential to promote weight loss. A new study in the March issue of the International Journal of Obesity concludes that green tea extract increases the burning of calories and fat needed to lose weight.
Green Tea In Liquid Or Capsule May Aid In Weight Loss
Previous animal studies showed that green tea extract increased thermogenesis, which is the generation of body heat that occurs as a result of normal digestion, absorption, and metabolization of food. In previous human studies, the authors showed that consumption of green tea increased thermogenesis as well as energy expenditure and fat loss in healthy men, suggesting that green tea in liquid or capsule form may be an effective way to aid weight loss.
In the new study, conducted by Abdul Dulloo, from the Institute of Physiology at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, researchers exposed a particular type of fatty tissue from rats to caffeine and to green tea extract containing small concentrations of caffeine.
Green Tea Containing Caffeine Can Raise Metabolism
Green tea containing caffeine significantly increased thermogenesis by 28% to 77%, depending on dose, whereas caffeine alone resulted in no significant increase. When the stimulant ephedrine was added to green tea with caffeine, the increase was even more significant compared with caffeine alone and ephedrine alone. Caffeine and ephedrine are used together in some herbal weight loss preparations, but there are many safety concerns regarding ephedrine because it raises heart rate and blood pressure.
Dulloo and colleagues also tested the plant compound EGCG found in green tea. They found that the stimulant ephedrine alone had no effect on thermogenesis, but that caffeine plus ephedrine resulted in an 84% increase. However, adding EGCG to the caffeine plus ephedrine mix increased thermogenesis even further.
"Our studies ... raise the possibility that the therapeutic potential of the green tea extract, or indeed a combination of EGCG and caffeine, may be extended to the management of obesity," Dulloo and co-authors write.
A researcher who reviewed the study for WebMD says that while the work is interesting and extends this group's previous findings by showing that compounds in green tea other than caffeine are involved in thermogenesis, caution should be used in interpreting animal data and applying it to humans.
"They used [a particular type of fatty tissue] from rats and we don't really know how significant that tissue is in humans or if it is different in obese vs. non-obese people," says Sheri Zidenberg-Cherr, PhD. "It doesn't rule out the significance of the findings, and it is a good model to use to look at the effects of caffeine and the combination of caffeine and the [plant] compounds that are present in green tea, but until better clinical trials are done in humans, it's hard to say what the physiological significance of this actually may be."
Zidenberg-Cherr, who is an associate professor of nutrition at the University of California, Davis, also points out that thermogenesis plays only a very small role in energy expenditure in adults. Most of the energy expended is used to maintain basic body functions such as breathing and the flow of blood throughout the body.
She says green tea may have many health benefits due to its plant compounds, but cautions that it is not the answer to weight-loss woes. "Green tea can't be used, and it shouldn't be used, as a 'magic bullet' for weight loss," she tells WebMD. "You've got to combine it with other changes, including increasing physical activity and reducing a high-calorie diet."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Lewis has been collecting articles and information on Weight Loss and HGH (Human Growth Hormone and related health benefits. He has created and edits numerous web sites about this subject. Michael is a staff writer for
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