Jelly Belly Be Gone

Whether your goal is to look like an iron man or simply (and more realistically) to shape up, get a flat stomach and improve your overall health, there are a lot of myths and misconceptions that can get in your way. It’s time to separate fact from fiction to help get the best results.

Myth: Crunches will get rid of my jelly-belly.

Reality: Everyone stores extra weight differently, but the gut is one of the most common problem areas for men. Even if you do a gazillion stomach crunches and sit-ups, you won’t burn enough calories to lose the fat around your middle and see the muscles you’ve built up underneath. To get flatter, more defined abs, you need to cut calories and add more overall exercise. Stick to a low-fat diet of lean protein and healthy carbs while doing a combination of cardio and strength-training. But keep in mind that you still need to do some stomach exercises.

Doesn’t it seem like cravings and emotionally driven eating are ramped up when you’re on a diet? The good news is that there are many tried-and-true methods to help keep you on track in getting that flat stomach. Here are just a few to consider.

Fill up on fiber:- Fiber slows mealtime digestion and absorbs water, which expands your stomach and creates a feeling of fullness. Lentils and starchy beans naturally combine protein and fiber in very impressive amounts, so consider eating them in soups and salads or as a side dish instead of rice or pasta.

Don’t miss out on sleep:- When you don’t get enough shut-eye, your body produces a hormone that makes you hungry, and another that increases satiety. Discipline might enable you to resist, but why not give your body a well-deserved rest?

Downsize:- Researchers found that students serving themselves from a large bowl took 53 percent more and ate 56 percent more food (the equivalent of 142 calories) than those who served themselves from smaller serving bowls. If 142 calories doesn’t seem like much, try multiplying it by three meals a day for 365 days.

Try veggies:- Non-starchy vegetables are “filler foods” in the best sense of the term. Low in calories and packed with water and fiber, vegetables fill you up without filling you out. Enjoy them in the form of stir-fries and soups, and munch on baby carrots, celery sticks, green beans, or cauliflower between meals.

Don’t eat standing up:- Back when people ate most of their meals while seated at their kitchen or dining-room tables, rates of obesity were far lower. When eating is limited to a particular place, your brain doesn’t associate other places with food, and the cascade of bodily signals that stimulate appetite is activated less frequently.

Don’t eat in the dark:- Eating in a dimly lit room tends to make people consume more calories. Simply put, in the light you’re more self-conscious of others watching what you eat. Also, in low lighting, you can’t see your food as well, which may cause you to lose track of how much you’re eating.

If we keep cutting calories every opportunity we have, the rewards will no doubt be in our favor. As discussed in the past, our weight loss program must not only be restricted to exercises. The least calories consumed means less work to burn it off. Here are a couple of tips.

Cut 100 calories … on your snack break

* Drink sparkling water instead of soda.
* Move your stash of Hershey’s Kisses at least 6 feet away from your desk—you’ll dip in half as often.
* Drain the heavy syrup from your can of fruit cocktail and then rinse the fruit with water before digging in.
* Have 1/2 cup of fresh grapes instead of that little snack box of raisins.
* Lay off the Lay’s Classic potato chips and have a handful of Rold Gold pretzels.
* Munch on a bag of Orville Redenbacher’s Smart Pop Kettle Korn, not Movie Theater Butter flavor.
* Chase down the ice-cream truck for a Good Humor vanilla sandwich, not a King Cone.
* Satisfy a crunch craving with baby carrots, not potato chips.

Cut 100 calories … when you’re not cooking

* Request the lemon chicken with white rice, not fried.
* Skip the crunchy noodles with your bowl of wonton soup.
* Ask for an order of Szechuan Shrimp instead of your usual General Tso’s.
* Choose the pasta with 1/2 cup of marinara instead of 1/2 cup of Alfredo sauce.
* Indulge your inner carnivore with beef stroganoff, not meat lasagna.
* Go with the baked potato (butter only), not the mashed, as your side of choice.
* Dip your dinner roll in marinara sauce instead of olive oil.
* Avoid anything breaded. Flour and bread crumbs not only add calories but also absorb more cooking oil.
* Pop 12 pieces of sashimi and 1/3 cup of edamame, not 12 pieces of spicy tuna roll.

Sources:- Sanford Siegel, D.O., founder, the Cookie Diet; Heidi Skolnik, M.S., co-author, The Reverse Diet; Allan Borushek, R.D., author, CalorieKing’s 2009 Calorie, Fat & Carbohydrate Counter (Family Health Publications, 2008); Jeff Halevy, fitness coach and personal trainer, New York City

For many people, weight loss and dieting is a life-long struggle. More often than not, people who go on crash diets end up gaining the weight back when they stop dieting. Research has shown that there are several invaluable strategies that can aid in long-term weight loss. Here are some tips to lose that fat stomach for good:

1.) Exercise: this is the most important predictor of whether you will be able to lose weight and reach goals. Experts recommend at least five 30-minute exercise sessions per week. If you find a physical activity that you enjoy, you’re more likely to stick to it.
2.) Weight training: the more muscle tissue you have, the faster your metabolism will be. Increasing your metabolism is the best way to stay at your target weight.
3.) Keep a food diary: take some time each day to record what you have eaten and how much as well as any emotions or feelings present at the time. These diaries can provide self-awareness in terms of what triggers you to overeat.
4.) Eat slowly: the brain takes 20 minutes to signal the body that it has eaten enough. People who eat fast often eat beyond their true level of fullness within the first 20 minutes, taking in many more calories than they would have if they ate slower.

As we work towards achieving our goals of losing unwanted belly fat, we target to obvious methods - Diets and Exercises. Little attention is sometimes paid to one of the most basic actions we can take - Reduce Our Calorie Consumption.

Cut 100 Calories In The Kitchen:-

* Substitute nonfat Greek yogurt for a serving of sour cream.

* Use chicken broth (low-sodium is best) instead of oil to sauté meat and veggies.

* Making homemade mac ‘n cheese? Cut 2 tablespoons of butter from the recipe.

* Replace the oil or butter in cakes with Sunsweet Lighter Bake prune-and-apple mixture or any brand of unsweetened applesauce.

* Next time you make meatballs, meatloaf, or burgers, go half-and-half with ground beef and turkey.

* When preparing packaged foods that call for butter or oil, like rice and stuffing, use a broth instead.

* Swap low-fat cottage cheese for whole-milk ricotta when you make lasagna or stuffed shells.

* Use tuna packed in water, not oil.

Cut 100 Calories At the drive-thru:-

* Pass up a baked potato with sour cream and chives and chow down on value fries instead. Amazing but true.

* Have a McDonald’s cheeseburger instead of a Quarter Pounder with cheese.

* Downsize your drink: Trade a large fountain soda (with ice) for a medium.

* Go for grill marks. Order a flame-broiled chicken sandwich rather than one that’s breaded (and usually fried in oil).

* Treat yourself to an ice-cream cone at McDonald’s instead of Dairy Queen.

* Slurp a cup of Panera Bread’s low-fat chicken noodle soup instead of the cream of chicken with wild rice.

* Make your daily pick-me-up at Starbucks a skinny vanilla latté, not a regular.

* Skip the two packets of BBQ sauce—eat your burger and fries plain.

Making these slight adjustments will go a long way towards reaching your goal.

Sources: Shauna Reid, author, The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl (Avon, 2008); Kristina Sargent, D.C., CEO, Restor Healing Centre; Barry Sears, Ph.D., creator, the Zone Diet.

Our intestines function as our body’s own waste disposal system. Food in liquid form moves from the small intestine into the colon for final processing. Here most of the water and minerals are re-absorbed, leaving the semi-solid waste which is evacuated through the rectum. Any breakdown in the intestine’s natural cleansing process is accompanied by risks of poor food assimilation and toxicity build-up. Highly refined foods, including sugar and white flour, make us susceptible to intestinal problems such as colitis, constipation, diverticulitis, hemorrhoids, irritable bowel (IBS) and Crohn’s disease. These types of disorders are rare in parts of the world where native foods provide many times more fiber than the modern highly processed diet we have here in the U.S.

As a result some revert to having a Colon Cleanse, while others try consuming more fiber as part of their daily diet; which provides them with the additional ammunition needed to fight both the backlog of toxins you have now and also deter the potential toxins caused by the day-to-day habits we have incorporated.

An important step in counting calories is to learn how to read a food label to identify the caloric content of foods and beverages, or to find the calorie count for the item using another method, such as using your computer.

The products you purchase at the store have a label on them called the Nutrition Facts label. Here you will find a great deal of information about the food’s nutritional content, including total number of calories per serving. The calories are located just below the thick black line and the words “Amount per serving”. It is important that you also note the serving size listing on the label, which is located at the top, just below the “Nutrition Facts” heading.

Additionally, food manufacturers, fast food restaurants, and other restaurant chains often provide the calorie information for their foods posted in the dining room, in a brochure, or on their Web site. Paying attention to these minor facts can be the determining factor in how fast you get rid of unwanted pounds.

Portion control is the most important step of calorie counting. You must begin measuring your food based on serving sizes in order to successfully count calories. For example, if a potato chip brand has 120 calories per serving, but you eat straight from the bag, how can you possibly know how many calories you have consumed? Adhering to the listed serving size is the key to tracking your caloric intake.

The simplest way to begin to track your portions in order to effectively lose unwanted fat, is to buy and use a simple measuring cup. Many foods such as cereal and pasta are measured by the 1/2 cup or cup. Fluid ounces, such as in beverages, can also be measured with a measuring cup. Some foods such as peanut butter, pancake syrup, or jam are measured by the tablespoon. A few foods, such as stick margarine, can be difficult to measure with a spoon; a serving of margarine, for example, can be measured by using the “ruler” provided on the product’s packaging.

Other foods will list a serving as “x number of slices” or “x pieces” such a deli meat or candy, where you can simply count out the number of pieces that make a serving.

Some foods list a weight, such as an ounce, as a serving, which requires the use of a kitchen scale. However, if you search for that same food on a caloric database, you may find an alternative form of measurement is provided, such as cups or “portion of package.”

Lastly, many foods are available in “single serving” size packages. This means that you can eat all of the food in the package for the listed number of calories. It’s important that you don’t assume a package is a single serving. Look on the package’s nutrition label and find the “servings per package” or “servings per container” section. If it says “1″ then you do not need to measure or count the food to know your caloric intake.

Everyone knows the formula for weight loss: Burn more calories than you take in. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, with that in mind, it seems like one of the simplest ways to lose unwanted fat would be to cut calories. After trying it for a couple of days, many people realize that it is easier said than done. At least that’s the case before the true facts are revealed to them. First off, understanding Calories can be key to finding out how you can make cutting calories as easy as cutting a piece of bread.

The first step to losing weight by counting calories is to understand what a calorie is and how it applies to your weight. A calorie is a unit of measurement that measures the amount of energy contained in a food or beverage.

Your body uses caloric energy to perform everything from basic biological functions to typing on your keyboard or jogging around the block. We all have a certain caloric requirement needed to maintain our current weight; if you eat fewer — or burn more — calories than that, you will eventually lose weight. This is called a caloric deficit. A good rule of thumb is that a caloric deficit of 3,500 calories leads to a weight loss of approximately one pound.

Over the years a major concern for parents has been weight gain and the developing of that Jelly-belly. Most people get fatter as they get older. It doesn’t have to be this way.

The reasons for gaining weight with age, are reduced physical activity levels and lower metabolic rate caused by a loss of lean body mass (muscle). You can reverse this process with simple exercises. When we get older our metabolism slows and our body burns less calories during normal activity. This means that we naturally would have to exercise more in order to burn more calories.

It’s also important to note that the loss of muscle can be reversible by simply exercising as little as 30 minutes a day three times a week. The results will be amazing.