About 62% of people believe that when it comes to eating, the quality of food matters more than the quantity one eats, when one is on a diet. A new research on portion control proves that wrong. A recent study conducted by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition brought forth the fact that by shrinking the portions by 25% there is a loss of 250 calories per day in the women. Women who took up the experiment lost weight by half a pound every week. An interesting fact, found at the research was that the women still felt full after their meals. If you are ready for the challenge, you can get started with a few simple changes in your lifestyle.

Mostly people tend to overeat the food of their liking such as meats, breads, sweets, pastas and snacks. It may be the taste of the food, gorging while watching television or simply an old childhood habit that leads to overeating. What one can do is to strictly stick to the serving sizes recommended by your favorite food. For instance, you can reduce the amount of butter you apply to your bread to the size of a postage stamp and make your potato serving occupy as much space as occupied by the mouse of a computer.

If these quantities sound frustrating, you can choose to start slowly. When eating pasta or rice, leave out a few spoonfuls. While eating a sandwich just eat half of it rather than the whole thing. These minor changes will help you to cut calories while you enjoy eating almost anything you like, even chocolate cookies!

If you are exposed to quantity of food that is larger that what you eat, you tend to eat more the trick is to see less in order to eat less. Keep away the rest of the food immediately after serving which will help you skip second helpings. Also, you can try eating your dinner on a small plate if you want to eat less. You can use a salad plate for this purpose. Creating after-meal rituals can also help. You can either chew a sugarless gum or sip hot drinks like tea or coffee. This will fight the impulse to take a second helping or desserts.

Finally if you cannot stop over eating consider the chances of it being a psychological problem for which you can seek medical help.

You have to lose weight and you are not sure of the next step, but you have really been thinking about trying some kind of diet pills. If this is you, you’re not alone. According to a recent study almost 50% of adults (mostly women) consider diet pills for their weight loss solutions. Over 25% of teenage girls are using diet pills to lose weight.

So, do diet pills work?

If you have this idea that diet pills are going to be the quick fix for weight loss, then I have some REALLY bad news for you – not only are diet pills ineffective in losing weight permanently they can also KILL you! It’s important to remember that healthy lifestyle changes are the only safe and proven methods for weight loss.

In case you haven’t really noticed, Americans are getting more and more over weight. Recent statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that about one-third of the population is overweight.

But, do diet pills work?

So if you are determined to lose some weight, then don’t turn to diet pills. Ignore all the hype that you might see on tv and read in magazines that are plastered with biased articles promoting diets pills. Stop reading magazines…..this is a topic for another time.

You will not feel very good when taking these diet pills and some of the side effects are nothing short of scary and in some cases life threatening.

The Scary Side Effects of most diet pills!

Heart Palpitations

High Blood Pressure

Dizziness

Blurred Vision

Headaches

Insomnia

Anxiety

Depression

DEATH

So, you think that you want to take these diet pills to look more attractive? If you want to take diet pills to look more attractive you better forget it! Dietary fat blockers found in many of these pills can cause gas, diarrhea and uncontrollable bowels. Diet pills can also cause dry skin and hair loss from the vitamin deficiencies. So attractive right????

Hello……Do diet pills work though?

Does it really matter? The truth is that there is many conflicting studies as to whether or not these actually work. That’s a topic for another time. My question to you is, are you willing to put your health at risk for something that at best will make you feel like crap?

So the answer to “do diet pills work”? Who cares!

*********Pat King is Challenged Yet Again! Read The Article, Watch the video**************

I’ve been land blasted many times for saying this. When I say that diets don’t work, I am usually referring to weight loss diets and that they “don’t work” for a long term solution for people struggling with shedding some pounds!

In my experience most weight loss diets don’t work and are really hard for people to stick to. Is that to say that they don’t work ever…..of course not! There is plenty of evidence showing that diets do work if you stick to them, but who in the H** wants to be on a diet for the rest of their life and what happens when you go off? Do I need to tell you?

Surely you have read some of my other posts and maybe have even read my book or other articles of mine where I suggest making lifestyle changes for a weight loss that works. Gradual lifestyle changes are easier in the beginning and will yield lasting results in the end. Surely someone will challenge me on this!

On to my point here……I absolutely love when new studies are done that support my findings!

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, examining 31 weight-loss studies found that long-term dieting doesn’t keep the pounds off. While people can lose weight initially, many relapse and regain the weight they shed. The findings confirm what many scientists have been saying all along: Losing weight is easy. Keeping it off is another story.

“If dieting worked, there would be a bunch of skinny people walking around,” said obesity researcher Dr. David Katz, head of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center. Since the 1970s, the ranks of overweight and obese Americans have risen with two-thirds of adults in that category. Obesity raises the risk of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers.

So there it is, the facts that support what I been saying!

A suggestion if I may…….take all the money that you are throwing away on different fad diets, weight loss pills and god only knows what other gimmicks that you may see on a late night infomercial and put it towards a good health coach. Wether it’s me or someone else, health coaching has proven to be most rewarding over diets as recent Yale articles have shown.

It’s much easier to make lifestyle changes and learn a new way to live gradually than to jump in to a diet full force that is only torturing you and giving you some short term results at best!

That’s just my take!

Who is Saphrym you ask?

Well, this is photo of Saphrym on a bad hair day. Normally he’s much more photogenic..:)

Seriously though, Saphrym’s real name is Michael. I met Michael on Entrecard and we have become virtual friends. I stumbled across his blog when I was dropping cards my first week or so after joining Entrecard and honestly his blog was the first one that I actually read :). He inspired me to really start to read other blogs.

This has inspired me to make more of an effort to reach more people to help them live a healthier, conscious and purposeful life. Thank you Saphrym for rekindling my inspiration and motivation!

Since this is not about me…..let’s get on with the man of the hour and his story shall we…..

How I Lost 72 Pounds

My name is Michael. In August of 2007 I weighed 355 pounds. It is now March 2008 and I weigh 283 pounds. I’ve been asked how I did it, and I promise you, there are no pills, fad diets, or anything like that involved. I just made an effort to change my eating habits.

Before that August, I used to sit and watch television or work on my computer and while doing so I could eat an entire package of chocolate chip cookies with a 32 ounce glass of milk. Today, just the thought of eating that much food makes me sick. So, how did I change? It started with a doctor’s visit. I was having some medical problems and from research I knew that if I had diabetes, which I was showing symptoms of, those problems wouldn’t go away. So I finally went to the doctor. I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes. The doctor told me that the fat content of my body was making my insulin work incorrectly and that if I continued the way I was, I would lose my legs and possibly my life. My first thought was of my family.

The doctor put me on a low carb diet. I was to eat 3 meals a day and 2 snacks. This confused me because I only ate about 2 times a day before that. The catch was I could only have 60 grams of carbs per meal and 45 grams of carbs per snack. I started reading the packages of the cookies and such that I ate. 9 cookies equaled 45 grams of carbs. 9 cookies. I had eaten the entire package in one sitting before and this woman wanted me to only eat 9 cookies! The nerve. My wife and I worked together to find snacks that I could eat that would make me feel full but stay in my carb limits. Cheese puffs are a wonderful snack for this purpose. Soft drinks were out. They were 90-100 grams of carbs per can. I wasn’t going to drink my snack. I switched to water and did some research to find out how much I should drink every day. I now drink 5 glasses of water a day. I know, most people know it as 8 glasses. Depends on the glass. The 8 glasses is when it’s an 8 ounce glass. I drink 16 ounces. So I drink 80 ounces of water a day. Helps me feel full.

As for my meals, I started eating plenty of meat and eggs as they didn’t count against my carb limits. I didn’t have high cholesterol, so this didn’t hurt me much. After a while, my stomach couldn’t take as much food. It was slowly getting smaller just like my body was. I started having oatmeal for two of my meals and adding some protein supplement to it. I didn’t want my cholesterol to go high, and oatmeal is great for keeping it under control. I also added cinnamon to the oatmeal because it helps with blood sugar. As for snacks, I switched to diet bars because I read the packages and found that they offered tons of nutrients, low carbs, high protein, etc. They also tasted good to me at this point (I haven’t had much sugar) and kept me feeling full.

Notice there’s no mention of exercise. I do some every once in a while, but not nearly as often as I feel I should. I do move around more. I stay out of chairs unless I’m doing work at a computer or watching television. My next step to lose the rest of the weight I want to lose is to find a fun way of getting exercise. For it to work for me, it has to be fun. I get bored easily. I figure that’s how I’ll get rid of the next 72 pounds, although I still drop just on the diet alone.

So, to sum all of this up, here’s a few things you can do to start losing weight if you’re obese:

1. Drink water instead of sugary drinks. If you need flavor try unsweetened tea or no-sodium soft drinks, but make sure you still get plenty of water.
2. Limit something. Go to the doctor and find out what that something should be. Fat? Carbs? Whatever it is, ask your doctor to give you a recommended diet for it. Follow the diet and fill it in with the things you are not limited by.
3. Eat at least 5 times a day. Sometimes I eat a third snack if I’ve been up for a long time. I still lose weight because my body burns it off quickly. When you eat that often every day, your body’s metabolism skyrockets.

Those should get you started. They got me started. The most important thing to remember is that if you’re obese, you’re going to die an early death. That’s just the facts. There’s no way around it. You have to lose the weight. Dropping the weight I have so far has added 15 years to my life according to my doctor. 15 years of being with my family is a tough price to pay for a bag of Oreos.

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Perhaps you are now inspired to do something about your health? And before you say anything like “I’m in pretty good shape, I don’t need to do anything” or something negative like that……You are allowing yourself to live a small and mediocre life. We all have room for improvement, like it or not! Playing small in this world is not serving anyone, certainly not you and the ones close to you!

I recommend putting Saphrym.com/blog on your daily reader or RSS feed! It’s a great read even beyond Michaels truly inspirational story!

Til then…..be well my friends!

Weight loss and green tea seem to go together, hand in hand. Green tea has long been consumed in India and China due to its numerous benefits. In recent years western society has discovered its advantages. Few people believe that two glasses of green tea in a day are sufficient for good health, whereas others say that up to ten cups may be required. I would say that any amount between these two is enough.

The only known side effect of green tea is insomnia, due to the caffeine in it. However, it is very effective in weight loss. Thus, I recommend you to reduce the amount of coffee that you have during a day and replace it with green tea.

How is green tea useful to you?

Green tea is often used solely to help people lose weight. However, it is particularly effective when used in conjunction with other weight loss regimes. If you are in search of the best and the most effective method for reducing weight as well as maintaining it for life, you should add green tea to your daily diet as well as to your lifestyle. It will not only help you lose weight, but will also aid in keeping you fit when combined with other healthy lifestyle choices.

Well, first, through its components, it reduces the risk of cancer by being a very powerful anti-oxidant. Cancer rates tend to be low in countries that consume large quantities of green tea, such as Japan. Green tea prevents bladder cancer, breast cancer, esophageal cancer, colorectal and lung cancer, pancreatic, skin, and prostate cancer, and stomach cancer.

A number of studies conducted in the past have proved that intake of green tea is extremely beneficial when it comes to weight loss. Green tea boosts up your metabolism, thus stimulating your body to burn the calories quicker. A particular study conducted by American Journal of Clinical Nutrition proved that all people who had regular intake of green tea and caffeine were burning calories at a much quicker pace in comparison to those who did not have them.

Not only this, green tea also has a number of other benefits. It helps in improving your digestion and bowel movements. It also protects your liver against various toxic substances such as alcohol and thus prevents liver cancer. It also helps in reducing your cholesterol level as well as help in prevention of a number of diseases like cardiovascular diseases and atherosclerosis. It is also believed to boost immunity and fight against infections, as well as improve the mental processes.

Green tea is also effective in controlling your blood sugar level. You must be aware that high blood sugar level is responsible for making us feel hungry and as a result, you end up eating more. Thus, maintaining your blood sugar level with green tea would also help you to lose weight.

So friends, what are you waiting for? Go to the market and get green tea for yourself today. Remember not to add sugar when you brew it. Though, it does not directly rid you of cellulite, it is indirectly effective as it eliminated toxins from our body and helps reduce weight.