Weight Loss Fast and Safe

Diet Tracker - The Missing Piece To Your Weight Loss Puzzle?

Author: Barb Dearing

A good diet tracker can easily make all of the difference in your weight loss program. Let's check in with Jade and Kathy, two friends who both decide to start a diet on the same day. One chooses to use a diet tracking system and one doesn't.

Jade, who is getting married next month, wants to lose ten pounds before her wedding. She decides to follow a low-carb, calorie reduced diet to reach her goal. Her best friend, Kathy, who will be the maid of honor, also wants to lose ten pounds before the wedding. Kathy, wanting to support her best friend, agrees to follow the same diet as Jade.

Both girls have the same weight loss goals and are following the same diet, but Jade, who is busy with wedding plans and last minute details, decides to "guess-ti-mate" her daily calorie intake. After all, she has dieted before and she has a pretty good idea how much she can eat and still lose weight. She also has a fundamental understanding of the nutritional content of most foods. So Jade makes her eating decisions on the fly, trying to mentally follow her diet throughout the course of her busy days.

Kathy, on the other hand, knows that she cannot trust her own instincts when it comes to dieting. She has learned through dismal experience that she often eats larger portions than she is willing to admit, and frequently discounts the true calorie content of most foods.

Because she so desperately wants to look good for Jade's wedding, Kathy decides to add a safety net to her diet. Knowing she isn't always honest with herself, Kathy starts keeping a diet journal. She weighs and measures everything she eats, making sure she is eating the correct portion amounts. Using a pocket calorie guide, Kathy also researches the caloric values of her food, and records the total calorie count of each meal in her diet journal. 

When tempted at work by the open bag of Oreos, Kathy turns away and gets back to work. She knows that if she eats one, she will have to record it in her journal and she doesn't want to blow the day's calorie count with a cookie. She no longer eats "just a bite" of her boyfriend's dessert, or nibbles on chips while opening the mail. Her conscience just won't let her get away with dismissing these calories.

A short month later, Jade's wedding day arrives and Jade, while certainly a beautiful bride, is disappointed that her dress had to be let out at the last minute. Jade was stunned to learn that she had actually gained three pounds during her month of dieting.

Kathy, on the other hand, is the belle of the ball. Having followed her diet to a T, she exceeded her original weight loss goal and lost a total of twelve pounds while dieting. Having learned the secret to successful dieting, Kathy is determined to continue tracking her portions and calories, but decides she needs an easier way to do it. After doing a little investigation, Kathy chooses a diet tracker software program and uses it to maintain her newfound figure. She finds it easier than researching the calorie content of her foods, and is pleased that the software also helps her track her daily nutritional requirements.

The happy ending? A few months later, still at her target weight, Kathy gets engaged and invites Jade to be her maid-of-honor. Still wanting to lose ten pounds, Jade decides to follow her friend's suggestion and uses a diet tracker to reach her weight loss goal before the wedding!

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/diet-tracker-the-missing-piece-to-your-weight-loss-puzzle-980525.html

About the Author

Barb Dearing frequently writes on the topics of health and weight loss. For this article, she researched diet tracker software at the DietPower web site.

Dealing With Obese Emotions - Teen Weight Loss Camps

Author: Joe Busch

Fat camps got quite a bad name for themselves in the past, they have now rebranded themselves as weight loss camps to try and distance themselves from the stressful camps of the past. These camps are designed as a way to not only reduce the weight of a child, but also to help them learn how to exercise and eat a structured and balanced diet. There is a lot of emphasis put on maintaining a healthy diet and showing children why it is so important to get regular exercise.

If you are the fat kid at school then you often get teased. This can make you feel much more self conscious when exercising which can in turn put you off the idea of doing any exercise. Booking up for a weight loss camp though is great because you don't have to worry about being teased. Everyone else is a similar weight to you and knows what you are going through.

Children, especially teenagers are very good at getting out of things by giving excuses. Many will tell people that they don't care about their weight and that they can't do anything to lose any weight. If they have overweight parents then this means that they will pick up even more excuses. They try to tell themselves that they can't do anything to lose any weight. Quite often though they are unhappy and want to change their life even though they are telling themselves that there's nothing they can do.

Spending time in a weight loss camp will allow these children to get to know their emotions and understand what is really causing it. In order to lose weight you need to admit that you have a problem and be open with yourself. Everyone at the camp is in the same boat as yourself and this means that you can't use these excuses.

Being overweight is something that is very uncomfortable especially as teenagers. Teenagers are always very conscious about their appearance and being overweight can cause nothing but problems. These excuses that people use are just a way of removing the blame from yourself. Many teens will try and say that they are big boned and that obesity runs in their family. They try to convince themselves that low metabolism is the reason that they are unable to lose weight so that they feel better. They don't believe the excuses but are looking for a way to prevent people challenging them.

Weight loss camps are a great way for kids to finally change their lifestyle. If you try and say that obesity runs in your family then they will question this, they will question any argument that you try to give them. Say you have low metabolism and they will suggest using exercises to increase your metabolism. Quite simply there are lots of things that you can do to lose weight. When you are surrounded by teens which face a similar issue it should give you plenty of motivation and will also get rid of all these silly excuses.

When you are surrounded by other overweight people you no longer need to keep your guard up. You can relax and get support from these new friends. You don't need to worry about how you look to other people and you can be yourself.

Teens are fully aware that being overweight can affect their health and cause damage to it, however many fail to understand the emotional problems that they are causing to their body. Discussing your problem somewhere you can trust people is the first step on the road to getting better.

Weight loss camps are perfect ways to teach obese teens how to honestly think about their feelings and deal with them. It can also help them to understand why they need to start eating healthily for the rest of their life.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/dealing-with-obese-emotions-teen-weight-loss-camps-1499955.html

About the Author
Joe Busch specializes in writing articles related to healthy weight loss for kids. He focuses on proper diets, exercise, and weight loss camp. Parents with children that struggle with their weight should consider what used to be called a "fat camp" to jump start the process.

Weight Loss Grocery Shopping Can Be Misleading

Author: James Wong

I was at the grocery store today and had to laugh at all of the clever and deceptive food labeling on several products. As I walked down each aisle counting the "health food" claims, I was astonished. This is food marketing deception at its best!

I mean, think about it, if these foods were healthy wouldn't people be getting thinner by eating them rather than fatter? You bet they would! But instead people around the world are getting fatter and fatter by the day.

Some of the deceptive foods I noticed were claiming to be much healthier than the versions that actually were healthy! You can just imagine what these foods companies must pay their marketers to come up with these "legal lies".

Amazingly, millions of people around the world fall for these deceptive food labels and are conned into buying foods that will make them gain fat faster than anything else! Here are some examples of what I mean:

Example #1: A Hydrogenated-Oil grease bucket claiming to be "Better than peanut butter". Not that peanut butter is the model of a healthy fat source...but it's MUCH better than snacking on other things.

This product is downright evil. Besides being the major cause of arteriosclerosis, hydrogenated-oil turns your body into a fat storing station!

Natural organic peanut butter consists of two ingredients... peanuts and salt. Just take a look at the ingredients listed on this fattening toxic formula:

"Ingredients: Made from Roasted Peanuts and sugar. Contains 2 percent or less of: Molasses, Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (Soybean), Fully Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils (Rapeseed AND Soybean), Mono- and diglycerides and salt."

Even though only 2% of the product has the bad stuff in it, this sludge peanut butter which claimed it was "better than peanut butter" (trying to seem healthier than natural peanut butter based on its label claims) has a list of ingredients that will cause you to need open heart surgery within a decade of steady consumption.

Listen to how they make this garbage. First of all, they process and eliminate all of the natural healthy fats out of the peanuts to make it a "low fat" product.

This means they take away one of the healthiest parts of the peanut butter... the unprocessed hunger satisfying healthy fats that you need to control your appetite and help burn more fat! Thanks for being choosy mom!

To make things worse, the healthy fats were replaced with 2 different types of sugar; molasses and table sugar! This peanut butter sludge has taken something as simple and natural as peanut butter, and turned it into a fat storing, disease causing cocktail.

Yet, they still claim that it is healthier for you than natural organic peanut butter. I don't know how they get away with it!

Example #2: Processed protein goop claiming to be "better than eggs". It's such a laughable claim and yet this company grosses hundreds of millions every year because of their big deception.

Basically, this product is just egg whites with a bunch of processed garbage added to it. Look at the ingredients in this:

"INGREDIENTS: Egg whites (99%), less than 1%: Natural flavor, color (includes beta carotene), spices, salt, onion powder, vegetable gums (xanthan gum, guar gum).

Vitamins and Minerals: Calcium sulfate, iron (ferric phosphate), vitamin E (alpha tocopherol acetate), zinc sulfate, calcium pantothenate, vitamin B12, vitami nB2 (riboflavin), vitamin B1 (thiamine mononitrate), vitamin B6 (pyridoxine hydrochloride), folic acid, biotin, vitamin D3."

Doesn't look to bad at first glance but guess what? This product has ruined one of natures most perfect foods by removing the healthiest component... the YOLKS! And yes, the yolks ARE the healthiest part of the egg.

Anybody that tells you different does not understand the biochemistry of nutrition. The important thing to look for in quality whole eggs are that they are cage-free and organic.

Did you know that almost all of the nutrition of an egg is found in the creamy yolks? It's true almost all of the vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and trace nutrients are found in the yolks. Even the protein in the whites isn't as digestible without the amino acid profile of the yolk that enables it to offer more nutrition.

And no, the cholesterol in eggs is not bad for you... it actually raises your (HDL) good cholesterol more than (LDL) bad cholesterol improving your overall profile. Dietary cholesterol intake will not affect your cholesterol levels negatively unless the cholesterol you eat is oxidized.

Besides that, all the fats in whole eggs are balanced and healthy for you as well. Whole eggs are hands down healthier for you than egg whites alone.

Example #3: A product claiming to be "better than butter". Here is a perfect example of how food industry profits and fat burning foods tend to be at opposite sides of the spectrum.

This was essentially a cardiac arrest guarantee called margarine which is loaded with highly processed and deadly trans fats, yet their marketing panel decided to call it "better than butter".

Don't fall for the marketing! Be very suspicious anytime you see a claim on a label stating that a product is "low-fat", "no-fat", "low-sugar", or "no-sugar". These products tend to be the worst!

Instead, go with organic butter. If you can find butter from grass-fed cows, then that would be your best bet. Grass-fed butter is higher in essential fatty acids and especially the natural form of beneficial conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). In fact, adding a little butter to your steamed vegetables will help your body absorb more of the vitamins and minerals in your veggies.

Also, due to the content of stable saturated fats in butter, this makes butter one of the best oils to cook with. The only oil better to cook with would be coconut oil.

Oils that are high in polyunsaturated fats such as soy (high GMO), corn (high GMO), safflower (and even flax) are the worst to cook with due to the nature of their chemistry. These fats easily become oxidized when heated and turn partially-hydrogenated.

Knowing how to avoid the deceptive food companies can be the decisive factor in making you lose weight. Heck, it could even be the thing that SAVES YOUR LIFE!

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/nutrition-articles/weight-loss-grocery-shopping-can-be-misleading-395365.html

About the Author

James Wong lost over 40lbs. just by using The Secret 2 Fat Loss. You too could lose weight as easily as he did. Find out how to burn fat and lose weight at www.TheSecret2FatLoss.com