Watch What You Eat

I decided to follow that advice and watch what I eat.

The first problem I had was that my eyes would cross just about the time the fork got to my mouth. I tried closing one eye and that helped.

Next problem, once the food entered my mouth I could not see it anymore.

The next time I could see a trace of that food -- it was on the outside of my stomach - it was the dreaded fat belly. There must be a better way.

Maybe we need to revise that phrase, maybe it should be look at the food and evaluate where it is going to be used. Honestly accept will it be used or stored. If the choice is between chips and a piece of fruit - you don't have to watch what you eat, you need to choose healthy.

You know that you must eat to keep your metabolism working hard. So eat low calorie - that forces your body to give up the stored energy - stored fat. You don't want to lose what muscle mass you have, so you need protein and exercise. You don't have to run for miles but you do need to do some weight training - not gain weight training---- you know how to do that. You need the weight training that improves muscles strength and mass.

Can you lose belly fat by watching what you eat? You lose belly fat by choosing what you eat.

until next time - eat healthy
Sharon
AnswersForYourHealth.com

Food Journals on the Rise

Do you keep a food journal? How about an exercise journal? How about one journal for both?

Any little spiral notebook can serve the purpose. You can draw a line down the middle and list food on one side and exercise on the other.

The benefit of a food journal is to keep you honest and your memory accurate. If you don't write it down, it still piles on the calories.

If you are still trying to lose weight by not eating - then a food journal points out how many hours you went with a slow metabolism caused by not putting some food in your stomach.

If you did only 3 crunches then at the end of the day yes you can say that you exercised - but you need to work on adding one more crunch tomorrow.

The empty pages in your journal point out in black and white just how many days you put off taking a walk.

It was a little excesses that put on the weight.

Putting off until tomorrow eventually leads to no tomorrow.

until next time - smile - it is exercise for your face.
Sharon
Answers for Your Health/Shrink Belly Fat

Belly Fat and Toxins

You read a lot about body shape - apple or pear - or do you carry your excess weight in your midsection or your butt and thighs. You are supposed to adjust your diet to your body type and metabolism rate and what sex you are.

I think those things are important to consider, but first why do you have the excess fat build up.

Not too long ago we had to remove the tomatoes from the produce section at the store - they had a possible contamination. Everything is back to normal now and tomatoes abound. But think about it - are they still a source of toxins. They are generally covered with pesticides and do you wash all your fruits and vegetables.

Now think about something else. Almost all the fresh produce you buy has been handled by multiple people who did not have freshly washed hands. Where have those hands been and what have they touched.

Your body has the ability to try and protect itself by encasing toxins in fat and storing them away. It takes all those little microbes and shunts them off to the belly fat file. All that excess sugar is stored in the same area. All those harmful preservatives and additives are shoved in the same area. This is your own personal toxic waste dump.

Now what happens when you start to lose weight and call on that fat reserve to fuel your muscles that you are building. You release toxins as well. You exercise and you end up not feeling very well maybe even getting a cold or flu or just achy. You blow it off as what do you expect using muscles not used very often.

When you release those toxins back into your system you set up an inflammation situation so it just makes sense to take a supplement that fights inflammation and helps to rid your body of toxins.

Try daily supplements of Turmeric and Cinnamon. Both fight inflammation and the Cinnamon has the added bonus of helping to regulate your blood sugars.

Now you have two more things to help flatten that belly bulge and fight the inflammation that leads to too many diseases to list here.

Logistics of Losing Weight

Timing is everything. You need to go to the grocery store. You know that it takes 10 minutes to get there. Depending on the time of day and the day of the week, you can estimate how long you will be in the store. Busy time --- you might be there for an hour to buy only 12 things.

Your digestion works the same way. When you eat has as much impact as what you eat. If you eat right before you go to bed, you can rest assured that what you ate will sit there and convert to stored fat.

How about how you start your day? Do you get up and get that hour of exercise out of the way and then rush to get to work and the first meal is lunch...a big lunch.

Do you still wonder why you have that belly fat? Well, I will tell you.

You have to have awake walking around time to get the most benefit from what you ate. You need your digestion to be working that food. You need to be using up the fat you already ate earlier. That fat goes for energy to fuel muscles. Not using muscles, stored fat.

The way you start your day sets the plan for the rest of the day. It is called breakfast because you break the fast of sleeping for 8 hours.

Can you exercise or run a mile on a full stomach -- not likely and not good for your heart. In the first place, digestion would come to a screeching halt when you started the exercise. Food would sit like a lump in your stomach.

In stead, how about a 20 minute work out, a shower and then a good healthy breakfast. Same hour but a whole lot healthier. You need to take in food to boost that metabolism and get started burning fat. If breakfast is a low fat meal, you are way ahead.

If you still want to run a couple of miles, do it in the evening before that meal. You rev up your metabolism with the run. Again a low fat meal will help burn off the stored fat. That evening meal should be small portions so that digestion is well on its way before you hit the bed.

The more fat you have in your evening meal, the more hours you need before going to sleep. A good rule is no eating 4 hours before bed. I heard that groan.

Your schedule just won't allow that timing. You don't get off work in time to eat, exercise and still have 4 hours before bed. In fact, you don't even get home until 10:00 at night. If you must skip a meal, make it supper. You can get more benefit from breakfast than you will ever get from supper.

Can you sleep with a growling hungry stomach---not likely and certainly not well. How about a small bowl of cereal with milk. That milk will help set the stage for sleep. Or maybe a bowl of soup. Just stay away from fried. That means no chips, no fries, no hamburger, no tacos. You only want to put enough food in your stomach to stop the growling. Remember, that food will not be digested if you go right to bed.

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Fat Belly Wishes

"The most important thing in life is to stop saying 'I wish' and start saying 'I will.' Consider nothing impossible, then treat possibilities as probabilities."

David Copperfield
Magician

If I had a penny for every time I said I wish I could lose weight, I would be a millionaire. So would you I imagine. I can look back over 50 years and see all the times I called myself fat when I was not. I tried like everyone else to look like a model.

I was a chubby child. I was a size 10-12 teenager. It seemed to me that everyone was thinner than I was. My mantra was I am fat.

In truth I was out of shape. I did no exercise. I knew nothing about weight training or aerobics. As a child I did the normal ride a bike but only on weekends. My family went snow skiing once a year and that is when I tore up my knee doing stunts. At that time, no one knew you were supposed to work at staying in shape before doing strenuous activities.

When I did starve myself into a size 8 pair of pants, I still could not wear the top. I have very big bones and broad shoulders and those little shirts just will not stretch across my back. But I can remember that my hip bones and rib bones stuck out more than anything else. Healthy - not even.

How much of my life did I waste in feeling fat? How much of my weight gain can be attributed to the constant telling my mind I was fat?

Be sensible in your evaluation of yourself. Is the fat belly really fat or is it just a lack of muscle? Is the fat every where? Are you basing your self esteem on a lack of being able to wear a size 4?

Turn the wish into a reality. Eat a better healthy diet. Exercise every day. It took some time to get where you are today. It will take some time to turn it around and live a life style that ensures a flat belly and a healthy body.

Starting today, find something about your body that you like. Focus on that not the fat. Use I will not I wish to make yourself do the right things to give you more to like about your unique body.

until next time
Sharon
(c) Shrink Belly Fat

When Fat is a good thing

It struck me this morning that fat is not always a bad thing.

We use that word when we describe a good thing such as a wallet or bank account. Since money is a driving force in most lives, the brain is associating being fat with money. I have even seen a rather stupid commercial on TV with the fat wallet. Can anyone deny that having a fat wallet would make them extremely happy?

Word associations play a big role in the mind of the subconscious.

If a woman is pregnant, we might say she has a fat belly or big belly and that would be a good thing, a compliment. Sorry guys, but I can't think of a single instance when a man with a big belly is a good thing. Men get the beer belly label.

Of course prevention is the best answer. By the time we finally notice that we have a belly bulge, it is too late. Just the same as the fat wallet, when we have an emergency and need cash, a large amount of cash, the wallet is flat.

It requires sacrifice on our part to maintain the fat wallet and the flat belly. By indulging our immediate gratification syndrome we deflate the wallet and inflate the belly.

According to EFT practitioners, money and fat go together. If we stress over the lack of money, we tell our brains there is not enough - and that triggers the starvation mode action plan in the body. That tells our brain - save fat.

Try telling your brain this -- I am saving money for my retirement, my vacation trip, my children's college education, my peace of mind. If the thought comes in that you are saving for the possible emergency, you make this a desperate condition. Just look at the thought, realize that it is a negative thought and reaffirm the positive thoughts.

Release the need to store fat by telling your brain you have enough stored fat and that you would like to build muscle. Remove the word fat from your mental and verbal vocabulary. Lets not confuse the issue by using one word that means something both good and bad.

And did I say it is too late. I'm sorry. It is never to late to return your body to a natural state of health. As long as you have breath and the ability to move, you can improve your physical state.

Today, pick one thing that can help return your body to a natural state of health. Maybe it will be using your muscles to maintain a proper posture which includes holding in your stomach. Maybe it will be substituting an apple for a piece of cake. Maybe it will be giving up one cola for a bottle of water.

You may be tempted to say why bother - those are too small to make any difference. Do you save your change in a can or bottle or fancy piggy bank? It is just a couple of cents a day but at the end of the year, that change can be enough to buy Christmas presents or add an extra fancy meal during vacation.

Your health is a literal life long fact. Don't be lured by the immediate gratification syndrome. Everything you do today is returned to you tomorrow.

Fat wallet and flat belly - maybe they do go together.

Stay Strong
Sharon
(c) Answers For Your Health.com/Shrink Belly Fat

Losing Belly Fat and the Plateau

I have been corresponding with one of my readers on his problems with losing weight. I thought this reply to his current email might be helpful to others.


Don't worry that you do not continue to lose weight at such a fast pace.
Everyone hits what is called a plateau. That is just a time when your body
and mind is doing a rearrange to see what is going to happen next. Your
mind is wondering if a starvation time is coming so it does not want to
release any more stored fat.

This is the time to just keep on doing the exercise and following a good
diet. During a plateau period I find it helps to eat 6 small meals a day.
That will convince your mind that no starvation in sight. Do not exceed
your normal calorie intake. Make one of those meals just raw vegetables.

Also remember that muscle weighs more than fat as well as burning more
calories than fat. So look at how you look and how you feel. If that belly
is not going down in relation to the pounds lost, now would be the time to
start working on some core exercises. Those are the ones that build the
torso muscle group.

You made the remark that this was getting boring. You must accept the fact
that this life style of eating and exercise is a life-long life style. You
don't get to quit doing the good things just because you lost the weight.
That is an open invitation to gain even more weight.

If your exercise routine is boring change it up. Start riding a bike
instead of walking or walk in a different place. Learn tennis or even ping
pong. Exercise does not have to be work, it can be fun.

Check out the article Beating Belly Fat
There are a couple of simple exercises you can add to your routine to
continue to flatten your belly.

***
In case you were wondering John has added green tea to his diet and stopped all soft drinks. He is also taking CLA tonalin and 5-HTP. His exercise is walking and lifting weights. He is doing well and seeing visible results.

Until next time
Sharon