Awesome Tips For Losing Weight Quickly

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

3 Simple Steps to Mindful Eating (And Why You Should Try It)

Mindfulness is a major buzzword right now—and rightly so. In my experience, becoming more mindful is life-changing. It can help you react more calmly and thoughtfully in any situation, whether you’re stuck in traffic, dealing with a difficult boss, or making food choices. And mindfulness isn’t just a new age theory; its benefits are backed by plenty of research. Studies have found it may help reduce inflammation (a known trigger of premature aging and disease), lower stress hormone levels, boost happiness, shrink belly fat, improve sleep, and curb appetite.

Mindfulness can also be pretty powerful when it comes to your eating habits. With my clients, I've observed how mindful eating can totally transform a person's relationship to food. (That's why I devoted an entire chapter to it in my book Slim Down Now.) Mindfulness can help you eat less and enjoy your food more. Plus, feeling relaxed while you nosh helps improve digestion and reduce bloating. And while becoming mindful doesn't happen overnight, the process is actually pretty simple. Here are three steps you can take today.

Practice slowing down

If you find yourself eating too fast, or making spontaneous food decisions often (like grabbing a handful of M&Ms from the office candy jar), start by slowing the pace of your day. One way to do so: Pop in your earbuds and listen to a five-minute guided mindfulness meditation. You’ll find many options on YouTube, and through apps like Headspace, Meditation Studio, and Calm.

At meal times, try putting your fork down in between bites. You can also try an app like Eat Slower which allows you to set an interval (anywhere between 20 seconds and 3 minutes) between bites; a bell lets you know when it's time to lift your fork again. Even if you don’t do this at every meal, regularly practicing slow eating will help you become accustomed to unhurried noshing.

Take smaller bites and sips

When clients really struggle to quit a speed eating habit, I often recommend that they cut their food into smaller pieces. I also advise choosing “loose” foods. For example, it's helpful to eat popped popcorn kernels or nuts one at a time, and chew each well before grabbing another. Grapes, berries, and grape tomatoes can also work well for slowing the pace.

Eat without distractions

As efficient as multitasking may be, it’s not a great idea for meal or snack time, since it’s extremely difficult (if not impossible) to really pay attention to more than one thing at a time. So step away from your computer, TV, phone, and even books during meal time. By removing distractions, you can really pay attention to the flavors, textures, and aromas of your food, and better tune into your hunger and fullness levels. You’ll also be more mindful of how quickly you’re eating, and likely realize that gobbling down food at lightening speed doesn’t actually feel good. If you can’t do this at every meal, commit to undistracted eating at least once a day.

Ready to give it a go? In my experience, this trio of steps can lay the foundation for balance, and help remedy chaotic or erratic eating. So rather than thinking about calories or carbs, shift your focus inward, take a deep breath, and start to adopt a new type of healthy eating pattern.

Do you have a question about nutrition? Chat with us on Twitter by mentioning @goodhealth and @CynthiaSass.

Cynthia Sass is a nutritionist and registered dietitian with master’s degrees in both nutrition science and public health. Frequently seen on national TV, she’s Health’s contributing nutrition editor, and privately counsels clients in New York, Los Angeles, and long distance. Cynthia is currently the sports nutrition consultant to the New York Yankees, previously consulted for three other professional sports teams, and is board certified as a specialist in sports dietetics. Sass is a three-time New York Times best-selling author, and her newest book is Slim Down Now: Shed Pounds and Inches with Real Food, Real Fast. Connect with her on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

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Monday, July 4, 2016

6 Ways to Burn More Calories During the Day

If you're looking to burn more calories during the day, there are so many more options than fidgeting or working out at your desk. Watch this video for a few small tweaks that you can make that will give your calorie burn a step-up throughout the day and help the pounds melt off. Get creative by using your phone to remind you to move or make your bedroom cooler—your waistline will thank you.

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Friday, June 24, 2016

Why Your Random Eating Schedule Is Risky for Your Health

Do you ever postpone dinner because you’re in the middle of a project? Or skip breakfast because you overslept? As long as you avoid binging later on, it’s no big deal, right?

Well, maybe not.

Two new papers published in the Proceedings of the Nutrition Society suggest that it’s not just what you eat, but when you eat that affects your health. Having irregular meals may set you up for obesity, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes—regardless of how many total calories you’re consuming.

One of the reviews examined international eating patterns and found a possible link between obesity and eating more calories in the evening. The other paper concluded that people who consistently ate six meals a day had better cholesterol and insulin levels than those who ate meals with variable frequency—in this case, anywhere from three to nine meals a day.

“We found that adults consuming calories during regular meals—at similar times from one day to [the] next—were less obese than people who have irregular meals, despite consuming more calories overall,” says Gerda Pot, PhD, a visiting lecturer in the Diabetes and Nutritional Sciences Division at King’s College London who worked on both papers.

Really? While it doesn't seem to make sense that meal timing could affect your health that much, the studies are part of an emerging field called chrononutrition, in which researchers are exploring the link between metabolism and circadian rhythms.

Many metabolic processes in the body—such as appetite, digestion, and the metabolism of fat, cholesterol, and glucose—follow patterns that repeat every 24 hours, explains Pot. “Eating inconsistently may affect our internal body clock,” she says. And that disruption might lead to weight gain and other health risks.

But just how significant is the effect of varying your meal times?

“This is a really important and valid question which we unfortunately cannot answer yet,” says Pot. “It would be of great interest to fully understand how much impact disruptions in our circadian rhythms could have on [our] obesity risk.”

So for now, it seems like a good idea to eat at the same times every day if you can. But if you can't, there are plenty of other ways to stay healthy, too.

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This Weight Loss Device to Treat Obesity Looks Insane—But Is It, Really?

Unless you’ve been avoiding cable news and Twitter lately (in which case we're jealous), you’ve probably heard about AspireAssist, the controversial new obesity treatment that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration last week.

Basically, it’s a tube that’s surgically inserted into a person’s stomach, and allows them to drain some of the food they’ve just eaten through a port valve and into a toilet. Approved for folks with a BMI between 35 and 55 (a BMI over 30 is classified as obese), the AspireAssist can prevent the body from absorbing nearly a third of a meal’s calories. (Here’s a video that shows how it works.)

Now, before we go any further, let’s just admit that our knee-jerk reaction was that this device this sounds totally bonkers. We weren’t alone, either. The media dubbed it a "bulimia machine." Stephen Colbert explained it as "machine-assisted abdominal vomiting."

But is this opinion fair? Probably not.

“It’s not society’s job to judge [the AspireAssist] based on whether they think it’s morally okay or not,” says Yoni Freedhoff, MD, author of The Diet Fix and the director of the Bariatric Medical Institute in Ottawa, Canada. (For the record, he’s unaffiliated with the device.) “Our opinions should be based on evidence and results.”

And, he says, the data behind the AspireAssist is actually pretty good. A year-long trial followed 111 people who used the AspireAssist and compared them to 60 people who didn’t have the device. Both groups received dietary and lifestyle advice along the way. After 52 weeks, those who were using the AspireAssist lost 12.1% of their body weight, while the other group lost only 3.6%.

As for the criticism that the device mimics bulimia, it’s not approved for people with that very serious eating disorder. It’s not approved for anyone with binge eating disorder or nighttime eating disorder either.

There has also been concern that the device will encourage gluttony, or that people who opt for the AspireAssist will eat whatever they want, with a 30% discount on calories. (It almost sounds unfair, right?)

Only, that’s not what happened in the study, says Louis Aronne, MD, director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Center at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York-Presbyterian, and a researcher who was involved in the clinical trials of the device. “People didn’t keep eating,” he says. “They felt full.”

“People assume that [obesity] is under a person’s control,” says Dr. Arrone. “They think, ‘[That person] should stop eating as much.” But in fact, it’s more complicated than willpower alone.

When we eat, our brains produce hormones that eventually tell us we’re full, he says. But as time goes on and we gain weight, that “you’re full” signal may become blunted. He suspects that may explain why the AspireAssist can help people: They get the food they need to stay full, minus about one-third of the calories.

If it still seems like a quick-fix solution, keep in mind that the device needs to be surgically implanted, and you have to spend about 5 to 10 minutes after every meal draining your stomach. “[The AspireAssist] doesn’t sound like the easy way out,” says Dr. Freedhoff. “It sounds incredibly involved.”

Dr. Freedhoff said he was personally shocked by how many people have reached out to him and expressed negative reactions to the device. “I’ve never seen something more raked over the coals,” he says.

It might be because we tend to think people who can’t lose weight are “lazy, slothful, and gluttonous,” he says. Never mind the fact that obesity is a complicated mix of genetics and our environment—or that weight loss is pretty freaking hard for plenty of people.

“We only moralize about obesity, which is always fair-game in our society—from Saturday morning cartoons to late-night comedy shows,” says Dr. Freedhoff.

Regardless of how people feel about this particular device, it’s time for all that to change, he says.

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A Standing Desk Won’t Help You Slim Down—But Doing This Will

If you think standing at your desk will keep your waistline trimmer than sitting at your desk, think again. According to research appearing in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health, standing only burns another 2 or 3 calories than sitting over the course of 15 minutes, "not a very significant increase," points out study lead author Seth Creasy.

Walking, on the other hand, burned up almost three times that much, even at a leisurely pace of only 2.5 or 3 miles per hour. And that may be your ticket to a trimmer you.

Some research has suggested that standing burns more calories than sitting, which may explain why you've seen more standing desks around your office. Most of that research looked at each activity (sitting and standing) in isolation. The current research team reasoned that most people are doing a combination of activities, or the activities in different orders and decided that merited a look.

To that end, they recruited 74 young, healthy volunteers to participate in a series of carefully choreographed experiments. The participants were divided into four groups and directed to sit, stand, or walk in different sequences.

The first group sat at a computer and typed for 15 minutes, then stood. The second sat while watching TV for 15 minutes, then walked on treadmills. The third group stood then sat, while the fourth group walked before sitting. Each activity was separated by a 3-minute "transition" period during which the person was "seated at rest, not fidgeting, just relaxing," explains Creasy.

Participants burned about 20 calories during a quarter hour of sitting, regardless of whether it was at a computer or a television. Standing ate up another two calories.

"From strictly an energy expenditure point of view, standing and sitting would be pretty much the same," says Creasy, who is a doctoral candidate in the department of health and physical activity of the Physical Activity and Weight Management Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh. "It makes sense. You're not really exerting yourself if you're standing."

Walking, though, used up almost three times as many calories which, over the course of an hour, could add up to as many as 130 calories. On a daily basis, that could be enough to stave off the dreaded middle-aged spread, which seems to be creeping up earlier and earlier.

If you want to avoid aches and pains, standing may still be better than crunched down in your seat, fingers hammering away at a keyboard. But if you want to lose—or maintain—weight, walk as often as you can, up and down stairs, to the water cooler, from the far reaches of the parking lot.

RELATED: 10 Ways to Walk Off Fat Faster

"Incorporating walking breaks (say for 5-10 minutes every hour) adds up and will help individuals increase their energy expenditure compared to just sitting," says Kelly Pritchett, PhD, RD, a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and assistant professor of nutrition and exercise science at Central Washington University in Ellensburg.

"We know that 150 minutes a week or more of moderate intensity exercise . . . is necessary for health benefits. So , if you are someone who has a hard time meeting these recommendations, short walking breaks may be helpful for meeting these goals," she adds.

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Wednesday, June 22, 2016

8 Sneaky Reasons You're Always Hungry

Do you find yourself constantly heading to the fridge for a snack? If you don't have an obvious reason for the increased hunger, such as pregnancy or tougher workouts, you might want to see if your insatiable appetite is due to a sneakier cause. Your stress levels, quality of sleep, and diet may be to blame. Watch the video for more.

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Friday, June 17, 2016

‘Traffic Light’ Calorie Labels Help People Make Smarter Menu Choices

Would you still order the turkey club with chips if the menu revealed it was packed with 900 calories? What about if there was a stoplight printed next to it? A new study shows that labels like these help people make better food choices.

The research, published in the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, analyzed the lunch habits of 450 employees at a health care company. Some people ordered off a menu with calorie counts. Others had a menu with traffic light labels: green lights (indicating meals with 140-400 calories), yellow lights (400-550 calories), and red lights (550-950 calories). A third group saw both numeric counts and traffic lights. And a control group had menus with no calorie labels.

It turned out the numeric counts, traffic lights, and the combo of the two were all equally effective at helping people order smarter. When labels were present, the employees ordered meals with about 10% fewer calories. "These findings suggest that consumers may benefit most from help in identifying relatively healthier choices but rely little on information about the exact caloric content of items," the study authors write.

The study didn't explore why menu annotations impact us so. But lead author Eric M. VanEpps, PhD, has some theories: “Research shows we’re not very good at knowing the calories in items, and we often underestimate," he explains. "Labels may serve as a reminder to consider your health [when ordering], and they also help you better compare items."

Already chain restaurants with more than 20 locations are required by the FDA to list calorie counts on their menus. If there’s good data to show that these counts influence how people order, it may compel the chains to serve up healthier fare, says VanEpps: "If they [become] uncomfortable with the fact that they have meals with 2,000 calories, they may change what they offer." (In other words, it could mean the end of these nine famously outrageous calorie bombs.)

As for non-chain eateries, whether we see calorie labels pop up on menus is TBD. But in the meantime, you may be able to take matters into your own hands. Some restaurants post nutrition information on their websites. In the past, VanEpps points out, you’d have to ask for that info if you wanted it, and a manager might hand you a paper binder to page through. So helpful.

“As technology continues to advance, we have the ability to access calorie information in easier and quicker ways,” says VanEpps.

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