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Maybe this scene will look familiar to you. You’ve decided you need to lose some weight. This time it’s for real. You read about a new diet, one that you really think you can follow. You bought your new jogging shoes or joined a gym and you you’re going to commit to 30 minutes a day of exercise. Everything looks good.

Two months later you’re back at your starting weight.

If this has happened to you, you’re not alone. People often don’t know what kind of goals to set when they start a weight-loss program. If you don’t know what a reasonable expectation is, it’s hard to set realistic goals and easy to backslide into bad habits.

So how do you choose weight-loss goals that will work? Here are some of our best tips.

• Remember the curve: Weight loss starts off fast, then slows down. This is because as your body weight drops, the number of calories you burn per day drops with it. If you look at early weight loss as a benchmark for long-term results, you will be disappointed and miss your goal.
• Long term and short term: Losing “two pounds per week” is a hard goal to keep, because it will fluctuate widely from week to week. But “30 pounds by June” can be too vague – if you lose 5 pounds in the first month, are you on track or falling behind? It’s best to have a long-term (six months or one year) goal as well as monthly or weekly averages to aim for.
• Go slowly: Aggressive short-term weight-loss goals are a bad idea. While some diets may offer fast weight loss, chances are it’s either unhealthy (losing water weight or muscle) or involved unsustainable changes (for example, less than 1,200 calories per day). Slow weight loss is healthy weight loss, and is also easier to maintain long-term. Look for plans that involve dropping only 1-3 pounds per week or, at most, 10 pounds per month. Even that can be aggressive in many cases.
• Record everything: If you set a three-month weight goal and miss it, it’s easy to walk away discouraged. But if you tracked your calories, exercise routines, and weekly weight, you have a powerful tool to see what worked and what didn’t. Adjust future goals and continue on. 

If you want to make your weight-loss goals even easier, consider supplementing your diet and exercise with Prograde Genesis.

To get your all-time best body in just 12 weeks it is going to require that you do the little things that over time make a BIG difference. It is these small daily actions that when performed over time transform your body and your life.

Here is a daily checklist that leads to body transformation. How do I know?  Because I went through 583 client files and identified the traits of those who creating lasting physical change.

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Every New Year millions of people swear they’ll lose weight and get in shape. Gym membership sales soar. But as every trainer knows, the gyms will look empty again long before Valentine’s Day. Most of the people who start a membership never end up making good on their pledge.

It’s easy to chalk this up to a lack of willpower or motivation, but that’s not the only factor at play. It’s worth asking: Does joining a gym really help support your plan for fitness and weight loss?

As with anything relating to the body, there is no one answer that’s true for everyone. But when you consider joining a gym, you should know what benefits it offers and whether it will support your personal needs.

The Ups

For a casual exerciser, gym memberships have both pros and cons. One of the pros is obvious: you have every piece of exercise equipment at your disposal, all in one place. At a good gym, you’ll have access to weights and machines, basic instruction in how to use them, and related amenities like mats, showers, and maybe even a sauna. These perks are hard to beat.

The other big advantage is that a gym offers a sense of discipline and routine. It’s easy to make a plan to hit the gym at a certain time every day, and you know exactly why you’re there. Since you’re paying for the membership you have an incentive to use it.

The Downs

Still, not everyone thrives from this setup. While gym equipment is helpful, it’s possible to get a great workout without equipment – for example, aerobics and isometric exercise routines. Some very popular workouts, such as yoga, can be done in virtually any setting.

Going to a gym can also present mental barriers. Do you want to be indoors while you work out? And will the time it takes to drive, bike or walk there act as a barrier to going at all? Exercising regularly takes commitment, and anything that makes the commitment harder can derail it.

Getting the Most

If you decide a gym is right for you, there are several things you can do to maximize what you get out of it. We recommend choosing a gym that’s very near your home or workplace, so it’s easy to go. And most gyms offer a personal trainer. Even if it costs extra, this is a great way to make sure you don’t give up after a few weeks. Your trainer will help encourage you and hold you accountable, making it all the more likely you’ll reach your fitness goals.

Make your workouts easier and increase your endurance with a new weight-loss formula in our Prograde Metabolism product!

Whether you’re a professional bodybuilder or you just want to lose a few pounds before swimsuit season, chances are there are parts of your body that seem workout-resistant. Everyone’s body is different, and not everybody will find stubborn flab in the same places. But most of us will have at least one or two spots that just don’t seem to shrink – or firm up – as the rest of the body does. So what do you do about it?

The first thing is to realize that this is normal. Your body stores fat as a precaution in case of later starvation. It’s an evolved response. But of course it has to put that fat somewhere, and most of us don’t need it. For women, the hips, abdomen and butt can be particularly workout-resistant. For men, it’s often the stomach and torso. This has led to all sorts of targeted workout plans designed to tone those hard-to-tame tummies and hips.

But do they work?

The answer is yes and no. There is no such thing as “targeted” weight loss. Successful exercise means a net result of burning more calories than you take in from food. Your body doesn’t really care whether you burn those calories by doing crunches, pull-ups, or jogging. If you’re successfully burning calories, you will lose fat – but you can’t control where it comes from.

This can be a hard truth to accept, because it’s not intuitive. Surely focusing your workout on your abs will mean a smaller belly, right?

Well, that’s where the other side of the answer comes in. What you can target is building muscle. Doing curls will build up your arm muscles and won’t affect your legs; and doing crunches and leg-lifts will, indeed, build up ab and butt muscles respectively.

As you build muscles, those “flabby” areas will feel firmer even if they’re slow to lose fat. And of course, having more muscle mass means you use more calories, so over the long haul you will lose flab – eventually, even from the most challenging areas.

There’s no way to target weight loss, but a targeted workout can improve the look and feel of your trouble areas and help with weight loss overall.

Want to speed up the process? Prograde’s new green drink, Genesis, is designed to support both weight loss and fitness goals – as well as overall health. Check out how Genesis can help you with your weight goals.

Fiber itself will not help you lose weight fast and control your appetite.  But fiber, in combination with a healthy diet and plenty of exercise can lead you to a trimmer waistline and help you fight some common diseases associated with being overweight.

Fiber occurs in two forms, soluble and insoluble fiber.  Both are important nutrients to include in your diet.  Soluble fiber is quickly broken down by water, while insoluble fiber is not and travels through your system “cleaning” it out.  One reason why fiber is so effective in weight loss is because it takes longer to digest and leaves you feeling full.  Fiber rich foods are low in calories and contain plenty of water leading you once again to feeling full.

So chewing on a carrot or piece of celery will help me lose weight?  Yes!

Fiber rich foods like vegetables take longer to chew therefore giving allowing our bodies to catch up and reach a feeling of fullness.  Due to the water content found in fiber rich foods, we have more fluid in our stomachs making us feel fuller for longer periods of time.   This is a good thing because we will not have the desire to eat more after consuming a snack or meal with plenty of fiber.

Here is a list of some high fiber foods you can enjoy:

Fruits

Raspberries- a one cup serving has 8.0 grams of fiber
Pear (with skin)- 1 medium pear provides 5.5 grams of fiber
Medium Apple with skin- 1 medium apple provide you with 4.4 grams of fiber
Banana and orange- 1 medium banana or orange gives you 3.1 grams of fiber

Vegetables/Beans

Peas (cooked)- 1 cup of cooked peas gives you a whopping 8.8 grams of fiber
Broccoli- 1 cup of boiled broccoli gives you 5.1 grams of fiber
Sweet corn (cooked)- 1 cup of cooked sweet corn gives you 4.2 grams of fiber
Potato with skin (baked)- 1 medium potato baked with the skin gives you 2.9 grams of fiber
Lentils (cooked)- 1/2 cup cooked lentils gives you 6.6 grams of fiber
Navy Beans (cooked)- 1/2 cup cooked navy beans gives you 9.5 grams of fiber

Other foods

Bran Flakes- ¾ of a cup gives you 5.3 grams of fiber
Oatmeal (cooked)- 1 cup gives you 4.0 grams of fiber
Black Beans (cooked)- 1 cup of black beans gives you 15.0 grams of fiber
Almonds- 1 ounce of almonds gives you 3.5 grams of fiber

So next time you are reaching for a snack pick a fruit ,vegetable or other high fiber food to help curb your appetite.     This will help you lose weight fast and maintain that weight loss for years to come. 

A question heard over and over again is: can I really lose weight with Green Tea?  To answer some of those questions, here is a great article on the benefits of green tea on weight loss! 

Green tea has been used for centuries in China and the Far East as a herbal alternative for health and vitality.  Some people have also found that Green Tea can be useful In Cancer prevention, heart health and now in weight loss.   What secrets do these ancient people know that we do not?

Green tea has plenty of power packed antioxidants, the most noteworthy one being EGCG, which helps fire our metabolism for optimal fat burning potential.     The polyphenols in green tea can also be linked to the reduction in blood pressure and also for positive cholesterol reduction.

To gain the benefits from green tea, it has been shown that drinking 5 to 8 cups per day can significantly lead to reduction in blood pressure and also aid in weight management.    Green tea also contains caffeine which has also been shown to increase metabolism which can lead to extra calories burned throughout the day.

Drinking 5 to 8 cups a day seems like a lot of tea to me.  Wouldn’t it be easier to just take a supplement that provide a full day supply of green tea extract and other power packed anti-aging nutrients that will help with weight management.      So by drinking green tea, there is a higher chance that you will lose weight fast, than with diet alone.

 

There is always research taking place looking at low fat diets, low carb diets, high protein diets, etc.  One aspect of eating to look at is low glycemic foods and high glycemic foods. 

Now both could be considered healthy by the general public, but a published study shows that they may have two different responses in regards to how your body uses those calories from each type of food. 

What this study looked at was how high glycemic index foods and low glycemic index foods affected hormonal and metabolic adaptations to energy restriction. 

This was a small study with only 10 people and they were told to eat a low glycemic index diet for a certain amount of days and then switch to a high glycemic diet for the same amount of days. 

The high glycemic index diet as 67% carbs, 15% protein and 18% fat and the low glycemic diet was 43% carbs, 27% protein, and 30% fat.  Both diets were similar in total calories and fiber so the only difference was what type of calorie they were consuming. 

What the scientists found was that the participants energy expenditure (their metabolic rate) declined by 10.5% with the high glycemic diet, but only decreased by 4.6% with the low glycemic diet. 

What it shows is that two different diets that have the same caloric intake may have completely different effects on leptin concentrations, calories burned and nitrogen balance. 

As other research studies have shown we can modify physiologic adaptations through dietary manipulation. 

What Type Of Glycemic Diet Do You Follow?

Post Your Entry Below To Have A Chance To Win 3 Products Of Your Choice.  One Random Person Will Be Chosen.  The Contest Ends On Friday January 21st at 11:59pm EST.

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References:

Dietary composition and physiologic adaptations to energy restriction
Michael SD Agus, Janis F Swain, Courtney L Larson, Elizabeth A Eckert and David S Ludwig.  American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 71, No. 4, 901-907, April 2000

 

The National Institute of Health and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says I am overweight.  Yep, me Registered Dietitian Jayson Hunter according to the BMI chart that for some reason they are still using says I am overweight. 

Don’t believe me?  Check out the screen shot below.

Now before we go any further I am actually 9% bodyfat at a weight of 178 pounds.  So why didn’t the calculator ask me that.  The Body Mass Index (BMI) chart has been around since like the 70s and was used for health insurance premiums. 

Even though we have known this chart to be flawed for like the last 20 years the government and many doctors still continue to use it for some reason.

They use it to determine if you are overweight, underweight, normal or obese.  Here is the major flaw as to why you should never use this chart to determine your healthy bodyweight. 

It doesn’t separate out the muscle and fat that you have.  It lumps both together into one calculation.  Obviously at 9% bodyfat I do not carry very much fat at all, but I have a good amount of muscle. 

The only reliable way to find out if you are at a natural or healthy weight is to measure your body composition.  This test separates the muscle weight from the fat weight for a more accurate result. 

Below is a chart that shows acceptable ranges of body composition for men and women. 

For those that do use the BMI and think they are in the healthy range could still be wrong for one simple reason.  You may still carry a lot of fat particularly the dangerous visceral fat and you could have poor muscle tone.  Just because your BMI number falls within the normal range doesn’t mean you are healthier than the overweight person. 

Both of you may have the same amount of visceral fat which means you have the same risk factors. 

To accurately measure your healthy weight you should do two things. 

1.  Use what is called skinfold calipers and measure your bodyfat using the Jackson-Pollock method or another skinfold method of measuring bodyfat. 
2.  A simpler way to measure your visceral fat is to measure your waist circumference.  For men if your waist measurement is larger than 39 inches and for women larger than 35 inches means you are at a higher risk of disease because you are carrying too much dangerous visceral fat. 

If any medical professional tries to use the BMI chart with you tell them immediately that this chart is not accurate at all and that you want a skinfold measurement done.  If they try to tell you otherwise then you might want to find a different medical professional.

Leave your comments below and let me know if you have ever used the BMI chart or if a medical professional has used it with you.  Also, let me know what you currently use to measure and analyze your weight bodyweight.

 

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Weight loss tips about the plateau effect teach you how to overcome it or just avoid it altogether.  These tips are important because a plateau is common in healthy diets and people need to realize that it probably has more to do with your exercise than your food.

Your muscles like to take the path of least resistance.  If you make them do the same exercises every other day, theywill adapt so that those specific exercises are easier.  This means you will stop producing new muscle and working hard.

The tip is simple: vary your workouts.  Either change into a new routine every few weeks or make every single workout different.

Your body will keep working hard and you will keep losing weight.

 

 

 

You may be eating right and making healthy choices in every area except for one of the most important ones.  Sleep.

If you experience chronic fatigue you are more likely to have a higher risk of obesity, illnesses, diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease.

Lack of sleep is a very common problem for Americans.  You might be thinking about one or more of these conditions that you currently struggle with.  Could it be because you don’t concentrate on getting enough sleep?

Leave a comment here if you are eating right but still experiencing one or more of these health concerns.