Exercise alone won’t cause weight loss

I hate to break it to you but in case you thought signing up for that fitness subscription was the missing link in your weight loss efforts a new study seriously undermines that concept:
Exercise alone is not enough to lose weight because our bodies reach a plateau where working out more does not necessarily burn extra calories, researchers have found.

The team are the latest to challenge obesity prevention strategies that recommend increasing daily physical activity as a way to shed the pounds.

In a study, published in Current Biology on Thursday, they suggest that there might be a physical activity “sweet spot”, whereby too little can make one unhealthy but too much drives the body to make big adjustments to adapt, thus constraining total energy expenditure.
Exercise is good … but it won’t help you lose weight, say doctors

If true, it would go some way to explaining an apparent contradiction between two types of study carried out by researchers. On the one hand, there are studies which show that increasing exercise levels tends to lead to people expending more energy and on the other, there are ecological studies in humans and animals showing that more active populations (for example hunter-gatherers in Africa) do not have higher total energy expenditure.

Prof Herman Pontzer of City University of New York (CUNY), one of the new study’s authors, said: “Exercise is really important for your health. That’s the first thing I mention to anyone asking about the implications of this work for exercise. There is tons of evidence that exercise is important for keeping our bodies and minds healthy, and this work does nothing to change that message. What our work adds is that we also need to focus on diet, particularly when it comes to managing our weight and preventing or reversing unhealthy weight gain.”

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30 Tips When Walking for Weight Loss

If you’re walking to lose weight than you should definitely have a look at this great article that was recently published in the Yahoo Health section:

 Walking on two legs. We hominids have been doing it for the past few million years. Consequently, it’s one of the things our species is best known for. For most of human history, walking and running were the only means of getting from A to B. These days, that’s no longer the case for most of us. That’s too bad because walking—particularly at a brisk pace—is an innate way in which we can burn calories and torch belly fat. It requires little in the way of equipment, it can be done more or less anywhere and it’s less likely to stress the joints in the way that running can. And sure, we’d all like to look like Mark Langowski and be on the cover of Eat This, Not That! For Abs with a shredded six-pack, but just getting off our butts and using our two feet is a solid start.

But just because walking upright is an easy, natural way for humans to expend energy from the food we eat, it doesn’t mean that we can’t learn to do it better—and increase the belly burn. By following the tips below, you could do just that. And for more zero belly ideas, check out these 14 Ways to Lose Your Belly in 14 Days!

1. Choose the right shoes

The only “equipment” necessary for walking (unless it’s on the beach) are shoes and chances are you have a pair suitable for the job already. “Walking shoes” have flexible soles and stiff heel counters to prevent side-to-side motion. Normal flat surfaces only require low-heeled shoes that are comfortable, cushioned and lightweight.

2. Devise a great walking playlist

Before you even think about lacing up your sneakers, think of the songs you want to hear as you make strides towards a fitter you. Having a great soundtrack to your walk will motivate you to push harder and go farther and the best part is that you probably won’t even notice the extra effort that you end up putting in. Look for songs that are between 75 to 130 BPM—these tempos will help you synchronize your strut to the beat. You’ll be so in the groove that you’ll be ready to try out these 55 Best-Ever Ways to Boost Your Metabolism!

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5 Must Have Power Foods for Slimming Smoothies

If you are serious about losing weight, you will find some scrumptious ideas and ingredients through this article. In fact, they are so tasty you can’t imagine they are so healthy. Isn’t it wonderful to think that something tastes this good and is giving you a lot of health benefits? They say variety is key, and this certainly applies in the case of healthy smoothies for weight loss. Any part of a proper diet is to make sure you have a combination of textures and colors and plenty of fresh, raw and healthy snacks.

Power foods for slimming smoothies can have a rich and creamy texture – so delicious and sweet-tooth quenching that it is hard to believe the health benefits and how it can speed up your metabolism. Particularly if you use scrumptious frozen berries in your healthy smoothie, just blend your ingredients, and you’re good to go – weight loss an added advantage!

Best Foods For Slimming Smoothies

Berries

Berries are the best sources of fiber. Not only does it promote weight loss, but also helps with food processing. Raspberries have a high content of fiber – approximately 8 grams per cup. It also contains ellagic acid, an anti-cancer property. Blueberries contain 4 grams per cup and helps you keep a good memory. Strawberries, which is a favorite fruit for the smoothies contains 4 grams of fiber.

Nuts

This is something that you didn’t think of putting in your smoothie. Besides the oily and earthy flavor, they are rich sources of unsaturated fats necessary for the heart’s health. According to a recent study, it shows that eating nuts can add daily nutrient, and of course, add another two and a half years of living. The best choice for smoothies are the walnuts as it contains the highest levels of alpha-linolenic acid. The ALA is a healthy omega-3 fatty acid that is vital to heart health. They also have a high content of mono and polyunsaturated fats. These fats can reduce the levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol while stabilizing the “good” HDL cholesterol levels. Make sure to add walnuts to your smoothie.

Oranges

It is a fact that oranges are the best source of vitamin C. Therefore, one single orange or a huge glass of orange juice embraces a high daily dose. It is already a pretty common knowledge that Vitamin C plays a huge role in fighting off infections, but they don’t know why. Vitamin C produces antibodies and white blood cells that fight off infections. As a powerful smoothie flavor, oranges have great citrus taste and has a natural sweetness.

Yogurt

This has always been an essential ingredient. In fact, it is vital in smoothies. Yogurt has always been a “good bacteria” to maintain digestive tract and gut health, which diminishes or reduces intestinal illnesses as a result of aging.

Kiwi

This is one of the tastiest flavors that works well with smoothies. Kiwi contains high levels of Vitamin C. The black seeds dramatically adds a fashion and flair to the smoothie drink. It weighs about 4 ounces and are 3 inches long.

Power foods for slimming smoothies encourage weight loss. Since they are low in calories and are high in energy, they are great in providing great nutritional support.

Can Smoothies Help With Weight Loss?

When it comes to losing weight, your goals should be to shed off pounds, remain healthy, and optimize nutrition while reducing caloric intake. While this is simple in principle, it is not always an easy guideline to follow.

In our busy lifestyles and hectic paced lives, it is sometimes difficult to find nutritionally sound meal ideas that truly support both weight loss and health. This often leads to skipped meals that can hinder a person’s metabolic rate and slow the weight loss process. This is where using smoothies as part of your weight loss tools can come in. Smoothies are easy to make, delicious to drink and packed with vitamins, minerals and nutrients if prepared in the right manner.

Healthy green celery, apple and lime juice

Smoothies: What You Need To Know

Healthy smoothies encourage weight loss through the natural inclusion of numerous fruit and vegetables. This is great as they are low in calories, high in energy, providing excellent nutritional support and also very fulfilling. When considering smoothies as part of your weight loss goals, it is important to keep it nutrient balanced. This means lots of fruits and vegetables, as well as an excellent source of protein. Also, including some nutrient dense supplements, such as flax seed, aloe vera juice or chia seeds can help to make the drinks very nutritious, filling and enjoyable to drink.

What Are The Options?

Some vegetable options that work great in smoothies include greens such as spinach or kale, as well as avocados. Leafy green vegetables do not alter the taste of a smoothie, but they do add essential vitamins and minerals, such as iron, vitamin A, and vitamin C. Avocados are a healthy source of fat, and they can be beneficial not only for weight loss but the overall health of the body. Add these beautiful vegetables generously to any smoothie to increase fiber and reach your weight loss goals with ease.

There are also a variety fruits to choose from when deciding on your smoothie recipe. Some of the best fruits to add to your healthy cocktail include bananas, berries, pineapples, and mangoes. The key is to use your imagination when mixing your fruits, and also to keep your blender colorful. Not only will a good variety of fruits help to enhance the nutritional value of your smoothie, but they will also expose you to new taste sensations, keeping your beverages interesting and fun.

Finally, it is important to incorporate a high-quality protein source into your smoothies. Protein sources that work well in these beverages include milk, almond milk, soy milk, protein powders and yogurt. Each will add a unique consistency and flavor to your drink, so try a few and find the one that works best for you. Also, it is possible to incorporate protein filled nut butter, such as peanut butter or almond butter, into any healthy smoothie blend.

Losing weight can be a challenge on its own, and that’s why having the option of an appetizing and nutritious smoothie that is easy to drink and fun to make gives you something to look forward to. So the next time you are running out the door without a meal, remembers that skipping a meal when trying to lose weight is not a bright idea. Grab your blender and mix a delicious smoothie instead you will soon see the results on your scale. Smoothies can help you lose weight.

Eating Allows You to Avoid Other Things

You might realize that you have a relationship with food that’s not quite healthy. You might know that you overeat and that you use food to soothe emotions. What you might not know is that eating can be used as an avoidance coping skill.

Eating is more fun than doing many other tasks – and it satisfies you emotionally, while having to tackle things you’d rather not deal with stresses you out. It’s not a hard choice to make.

How Eating Becomes Avoidance Coping

Eating becomes avoidance coping when you use it to procrastinate. You might scoff at that thinking that eating only takes up your time when you have meals or snacks.

But there’s more to eating that the physical act of ingesting the food that leads to avoidance. Before you can get the food, you have to decide what it is that you’re going to eat.

So you spend time deciding on menus, pouring over cookbooks, scouring the web for new recipes to try out and don’t recognize that you could be using this to escape from doing what you don’t want to do.

Plus, you could also be using going to get the food items as an avoidance technique. It takes time to get to the grocery store and actually pick up the ingredients for the meals you’ve planned.

You might even convince yourself that you have to go to three or four different stores to get the “right” label or the perfect item. Then once you get the food, you spend time getting it ready to make.

Some food dishes call for more detailed steps than others so you could end up spending hours on food prep. Once you’ve prepared it, then it’s time to cook the food.

After it’s all ready, then you spend time eating the food. Since you can’t leave the kitchen a mess after preparing a meal, you’ll want to clean up the kitchen. You might decide that the pantry needs to be cleaned out as you put items away.

The stove needs to self-clean so you should handle it. Then while you’re at it, you check the refrigerator and see the food that you really should go ahead and throw out.

So you clean out the pantry, you clean the stove, you clear out the refrigerator. Then you decide that you need to sweep and after that, since you swept, why not go ahead and clean the floors so the kitchen will be completely clean.

By the time you get all those things done, the dishwasher cycle has finished and since you hate leaving the dishes in there, you might as well stay in the kitchen long enough to put them away.

By this time, you’ve turned the simple act of getting the food and making it into a full time job. After you’re done, you’re too tired to really concentrate so it’s time for a little relaxing television and then off to bed.

Keeping busy dealing with food related stuff has enabled you to push aside what you should deal with. Some people go through this same cycle every day. The only thing that changes are the chores that they use to keep themselves busy with.

Using Food Allows You to Avoid Decisions

Life is full of decisions and some of these decisions are difficult ones. They can make you feel torn up inside and that hurts. No one enjoys pain – whether it’s physical or emotional.

So if you can put it off, then that’s what you’re going to do and grabbing something to eat will occupy your hands and your mind. You won’t have to think about the decisions you need to make then.

People often avoid making hard decisions because they feel overwhelmed and unable to cope. You might recognize that making the decision you have to make will cause someone else to become upset and rather than deal with the drama, you’ll turn to food to help make yourself feel better.

You might be using food to avoid making a decision because you’re afraid of making the wrong decision. This can be especially true if the decision is going to change your life drastically.

Some examples of decisions like that could be ending a relationship. Quitting a job to take a new one. Or making the choice to uproot your life to move to another state and leave family and friends behind.

Fear of making the wrong decision can lead you to food and you’ll end up putting off making the decision. Some people use food to procrastinate themselves right out of making any decisions until the time to make the decision has passed and it’s too late to change anything.

Some people use food to avoid making a decision that could actually be a successful one. It’s common that people avoid decision making out of fear of making the wrong one but it’s equally as common to do the same out of fear of success.

Most people use eating to avoid making decisions that might lead to success because they fear change. It doesn’t matter if that change could be positive and give them a better life.

It’s going through having to leave their comfort zone, having to break out of their routine that trips people up. Eating doesn’t cause that same turmoil. So if you can just eat something, then all the turmoil will go away.

If you have to make a hard decision in your life and you find yourself wanting to eat to self-soothe what you’re feeling, that’s a good sign that you’re using food as an avoidance coping technique.

Eating Lets You Avoid Dealing with Work

There is a downside to every single career you can think of because there’s no such thing as the perfect job. Even if you’re in a job that you love and you’re good at your job, there can be issues that crop up that have you turning to food so that you don’t have to deal with whatever is going on.

Usually these issues can be found in three categories. Responsibilities, colleagues and promotions. You might be able to handle all the responsibilities that you have.

But the fact that you need to get them done within a certain time frame can cause the pressure to mount. So you turn to eating so that you don’t have to deal with the feelings of being overwhelmed.

When responsibilities pile up to the point that you can’t possibly get everything done without putting in overtime or having to stay late, this can cause people to turn to eating.

They use food to avoid dealing with the load of work and with the resentment that they feel from having to work so hard. Colleagues who are lazy and put the lion’s share of work on your shoulder for a project can cause you to feel angry.

But since you want to keep a good working relationship, you might not want to speak up. So you just do the work of two people and then you eat to avoid having to deal with the situation with your coworker.

The eating works as a way to de-stress you from the coworker’s actions. It puts a temporary fix on a situation that needs a solution. And as long as you don’t deal with the situation, you’ll continue to use food to avoid it.

You would think that being in line for a promotion would be so exciting it wouldn’t want to be something you would avoid dealing with. But the stress of worrying what will happen if you don’t get it can be taxing.

So can the stress of worrying what will happen if you do get it. A promotion often means you end up with added responsibilities and longer hours. You might end up getting the promotion without realizing what you were getting yourself into.

Because it’s something you really wanted and you could use the extra money that came along with the promotion, you don’t say anything if you feel overwhelmed by it.

Instead, you turn to food. When you eat, you don’t have to think about all the what-ifs. What if you can’t get everything done? What if you can’t motivate the people you’re now in charge of?

The stress of what could be as well as the stress of what is when it comes to work can make you seek food. When you eat, those brain chemicals are released that make you feel better.

Once you’re soothed, you feel okay about the promotion or whatever is going on at work until the feeling wears away and you’re back at square one.

Eating So You Don’t Have to Exercise or Clean

If there are two things in the world that most people would rather not do, it’s exercise or clean.  Neither one of those are particularly fun even if they are a necessary part of life.

There are hundreds of other things that are more fun you could choose to do. Getting ready to exercise takes the time to get into workout clothes, to head out of the house to walk or run or get to the gym.

If you exercise in the house, it takes to workout with the equipment or set up the exercise video. Then you have to take a shower and finish up the rest of the day. Sometimes, people can subconsciously resent the time it takes to exercise.

Knowing they should exercise, especially if they have any health problems can often drive people to eat.  This way, they can not only avoid the activity of exercise but can soothe the feelings such as guilt that come along with not doing what you feel you should be doing.

One way that you can change eating so you don’t have to exercise is to change how you look at exercise. If you hate doing it, if exercising is something you absolutely dread even the thought of, then it’s time to change what kind of exercise you’ve been doing in the past.

You replace exercise with eating because it taps into the reward center in the brain. You eat and get a release of the feel good chemicals so you feel better. By changing the kind of exercise you do and make it something you really enjoy, you can gain the release of the same chemicals and reach that same endorphin high you get from eating.

This same method will work when it comes to cleaning. If you hate cleaning, it’s easier to grab some food and turn on the television to catch up on your favorite show.

You feel satisfied when you do that. But the problem is that when you look around afterward the cleaning still has to be done, so you didn’t accomplish anything.

Avoiding things like cleaning and turning to eating instead can keep you trapped in a cycle of avoidance coping. Because once you’ve procrastinated with the food, you’ll go about your day and try to ignore what you didn’t get done.

The uncompleted cleaning chores, however, will be at the back of your mind, nagging you. Unfinished business has a way of causing stress to build up until it’s taken care of. You’re better off just getting whatever you hate to do over with first thing.

Eating to Avoid Dealing with Relationships

Relationships are tricky because emotions are involved. Interacting with people leaves room for misunderstandings, for hurt feelings and for the build up of stress.

But they also can bring plenty of happiness. Regardless of the emotion associated with your relationships, they can be triggers that push you to eat. Eating allows you to avoid having to deal with whatever is going on in a relationship.

You’re using food to try and drown out the hurt, the stress when a relationship is having difficulties. The act of eating offers you comfort and because you feel better, you see the food as a friend you can turn to when you can’t resolve or make sense of a relationship problem.

When you use food to cope with relationships, it never helps. All is does is give you a temporary feel good delay before the same emotions are going to rise up within you.

When you eat to avoid dealing with relationships what’s really going on inside of you is that you’re seeking help to deal with the stress that the emotions brought on.

It’s often much easier to reach for food than it is to deal with a relationship that makes you feel inside out. Discussing difficult issues in a relationships and often being called on to make a hard decision about it is the way to stop running to food.

You might even know the solution and how to solve what’s going on in the relationship that’s stressing you out. But the problem is that other people are the variable.

You don’t know how they’re going to react. That’s what keeps people from dealing with relationship issues. They’re not afraid of the truth or of speaking the truth.

They’re afraid of the other person’s reaction – of their anger, their hurt, or their silent treatment. Eating will temporarily solve whatever is going on but it never solves anything.

Using food to tamp down emotions only teaches you not to feel – to numb yourself – and this can open the door for the development of food related issues like binge eating.

Instead of turning to food, it’s always better to give any relationship and the issue with it a breather. When you have yourself under control and you have calm, then approach the issue to deal with it.

Food Has Become Your Closest Friend

You have to eat to survive. Food is fuel for the body and everyone knows that. However, food becomes much more than that when it’s used to try and silence emotions.

When we use food to silence emotions, this is called emotional eating. When it comes to eating this way, you might not even be aware that you’re using food as way to soothe.

Some people aren’t. They only know that when they eat, they feel better so they eat more. For those who are aware that they’re using food as an emotional crutch, they often find themselves in a cycle of deciding to stop using food that way and being unable to do it.

That’s because ending your habit of using food as a crutch isn’t simple an exercise in willpower. You have to first recognize what’s going on emotionally before you can fix what’s going on and put food use in its proper place.

What Is Emotional Eating?

When you’re an emotional eater, you’ll eat regardless of whether or not you’re hungry. Instead of letting your body’s signals guide you as to when you need food, you let your emotions decide when you want something to eat.

One of the key culprits behind emotional eating is having a lot of stress in your life. This is because stress is the umbrella under which a lot of emotions are found. Stress can lead to you feeling angry or grief.

It can make you feel irritated or anxious and cause you to reach for food to make those emotions feel better. When you engage in emotional eating, it means that the way you view food is out of its proper place.

You don’t see food as fuel, something that’s necessary for you to be able to live. Instead, you see it as a friend. It’s there to offer you comfort and it never lets you down. It’s always available and always takes your side.

This type of eating often lays the groundwork for eating disorders such as binge eating to develop. When your body gives off a true hunger signal and you eat, the hunger signal is appeased.

But that’s not the case with emotional eating. When you’re eating because you’re appeasing an emotion, you can end up having to eat bigger portions in order to pacify what you feel.

Then what happens is that the emotional eating leads to compulsive eating and it becomes almost like a drug habit. You have to eat more to be able to get the same satisfaction – the same pleasure that you got in the beginning of the emotional eating journey.

When emotional eating leads to compulsive eating, you can begin to experience health problems related to gaining weight. When you put on weight to the point that you hate the way that you look, this can make you feel worse about yourself. So then you eat even more.

Warning Signs That You’re an Emotional Eater

There are warning signs that can tell you if you’re an emotional eater or not. One of the first signs is that when things pile up on you at home or at work, in response to the accompanying stress, you want food to make you feel better.

Instead of thinking about going for a walk or doing something else to de-stress, you think of what you can eat. Stress causes a variety of emotions and if you crave food when you’re mad or hurt, when you’re feeling lonely or tired – that’s a sign that you’re an emotional eater.

The reason that emotional eating is so prevalent is because it’s not something that you plan to do. Emotional eaters have a subconscious drive to seek food when their emotions kick into high gear.

Food is the release from the emotions. Just like some people reach for alcohol, cigarettes or drugs to calm themselves, emotional eaters reach for food, especially food that’s not good for them.

Eating things like a piece of cake or a handful of cookies brings solace and after eating them, you feel better, even happy. But the problem is that the comfort the emotional eating gives you will not last.

Another warning sign that you’ve used emotional eating to the point where food has become your friend is when you are incapable of giving up food. The thought of not eating, of restricting yourself, makes you feel upset.

If you’re overweight, the thought of cutting back on food or eliminating certain ones is an impossible thought to entertain for long. You find yourself thinking about food even when you’ve just finished a meal or a snack.

Eating when you know you’re not hungry is a warning sign that the way you see food isn’t healthy. So is eating when you’re so full that your stomach is hurting yet you can’t walk away without eating the last bite.

You think about food to the point that if you have to, you’ll make an extra trip to the grocery store to get something. You begin to develop a close relationship to food. Relying on it to make you happy.

To comfort you when you feel down. To love you when you feel lonely. It’s also a warning sign if you associate food with positive emotions. Emotional eating isn’t just about the negative emotions such as eating when you feel down.

You can crave food when you’re feeling good, when you’re happy as well. Because you feel happy, you want to celebrate with food because it has become a friend to you. Obsessing about food is a warning sign of emotional eating.

You might have just finished having a big meal but you’re already looking forward to what you’re having next. You can’t wait until a certain time of the day or night if you spend that time with food.

For example, some people de-stress by watching TV in the evening. Along with watching TV, they eat. They associate eating the food with helping them to relax. Instead of dealing with whatever emotions make them feel, they bury those emotions under food.

How Does Food Become a Friend?

Food becomes a friend when we practice emotional eating to the point that it takes the place of the normal ways to deal with emotions. When you feel emotions that you want to shy away from, emotional eating shoulders that burden for you.

It steps in as a friend that you could talk to only there’s silent communication. The first step in food becoming a friend occurs when you decide to numb the emotions rather than experience them.

Some emotions can be overwhelming – especially if you’re dealing with a situation that’s difficult. Food becomes a friend when you turn your back on whatever emotion is going on. Instead of dealing with the emotion, you shut it down with food.

Because we’ve been taught that negative emotions are bad, it can be easy to want to hide from anger or sadness. It can be hard to open yourself up and let yourself feel emotions that you may have deliberately buried because it’s too painful to free them.

Food takes away the sharp edges of emotion and pushes them away. You end up feeling food is protecting you from emotional pain. So therefore, food is a kind, reliable friend that you can always count on.

When you don’t deal with emotions, when you oppress them instead, food is available to make sure that you don’t have to hurt that way. You don’t have to grieve. You don’t have to think.

Food can also become a friend when you see it as a reward, as something that you get to have. You completed something that was difficult to undertake so you reward yourself with food that’s high in sugar.

When you eat certain foods, chemicals are released in the brain. For example, if you eat chocolate for comfort, it releases endorphins and you feel happy. It takes away the stress and the negative emotions. Other foods have that ability, too.

So you learn to crave these foods like you would a drug. Because you feel so much better after eating, you think of food these foods in the same manner you would if it were a person helping you. You begin to associate feelings of friendship with food.

What Voids Does Food Fill?

Food is used to fill physical and emotional voids. These are places inside of us that are lacking. These voids are often created in childhood but because they’re not identified and dealt with, they remain with us, following us into adulthood.

We use food to fill a physical void that was caused by scarcity. If you grew up in a home where there was food scarcity, then you learned at a young age that stress was associated with not having enough food.

People who grew up in homes where there wasn’t always enough food, can develop an unhealthy relationship with it. The reason for this is because as kids, they picked up on the stress when their caretakers didn’t have the means to provide.

They might have witnessed the anxiety and felt the fear of the adults and they learned to internalize those emotions. Then when there was food in the home, they sensed the relief and the happiness their caregiver had.

Things became more pleasant. There was happiness because there was food. You witnessed that it could take away stress and bring happiness. So if you grew up without always knowing there would be food, it can be easy to think of food and not realize that you have a void associated with eating.

Subconsciously, you use food in the exact same way in your own life without even realizing that’s what you’re doing. You eat and the stress goes away and happiness is left in the wake.

Food can also be used to fill voids that are associated with a lack of emotions. If you grew up in a home where love wasn’t common place, it can create a void within you that wants to be filled.

Because we’re made to need love, we want to fill that void with something else. This can be something you do subconsciously. That’s why some people turn to avenues such as becoming a workaholic, becoming an alcoholic, using escapism and overeating food. They’re looking for whatever it takes to fill up that void.

Another void that food is often used to feel is the void of unconditional acceptance. When we don’t have that acceptance, it can lead to low self-esteem, a severe internal critic and depression.

Food fills that void because it never speaks harsh words to us. It brings comfort instead. It reinforces happiness. Instead of pointing out flaws or judging, food accepts us “as is” and we learn that no one else offers that complete emotional filling.

Why You Shouldn’t Let Food Be Your Closest Friend

It might seem like there’s no reason to change your relationship with food. You eat and you feel better. As long as you feel better, there’s nothing wrong, right? The problem is that this is creating a fake happiness. It’s not reality.

Food shouldn’t become a friend because when you use food to mask emotions, whatever it is that you’re really bothered by remains pushed inward. Suppressed emotions can cause you to carry stress around and this is bad for your health. Choosing food over dealing with your emotions keeps you from having to deal with whatever it is that’s going on.

This is a way of masking problems rather than exposing them. Masked problems can often cause bigger issues down the road because you’ll continue to eat to feel better but you’ll only feel better temporarily.

When you treat food like a friend, you get caught up in a cycle of eating to soothe emotions. Then you feel better. However, that feeling doesn’t last. As soon as the same emotions or the same problem arises, you eat to soothe again. You end up trapped in a cycle that will never break unless you address the real reason you use food as a friend to start with.

People were meant to emotionally interact and connect with one another, for positive relationships. Not with food. When food is used as a friend, you start to count on it to make you feel better. You look to it for happiness and comfort rather than turning to a real life friend.

When you treat food like a friend, you’re emotionally eating and you’re training your body to connect joy with food. What this does is to create feelings that are not authentic. Your true self is going through the motions of an authentic life but you’re not living it because you’re not experiencing it emotionally.

When food is your closest friend, you open your body up to unnecessary complications. An unhealthy relationship with food almost always leads to weight gain, which can be significant.

This type of gain can lead to obesity. Then you’ll have to deal with physical and emotional complications. You can end up with high blood pressure, heart problems and diabetes because of how a friendship with food will impact you physically.

Emotionally, you can end up with low self-esteem or body hate. Food is meant to be enjoyed and to be used as fuel for you to be able to live a happy, fulfilling life. It was never meant to become something you lean on as you would a friend.

Dieting Has Become Part of Who You Are

Everywhere you turn, you’ll see advice on how to lose weight. You’ll see tried and true diets touted from the front covers of magazines. Fad diets will also be heralded as the next new weight loss technique.

You see these things because we live in a diet culture. If you put twenty people together in a room, the majority of them will have been on a diet or are currently on a diet. Dieting has become the new normal and as a result, it has become part of who you are.

Chronic Dieting

Most people don’t realize how narrow their world has become when it comes to dieting. They don’t understand that they’re simply on yet another diet because they haven’t taken a step back and looked at the big picture.

If you’re someone who is a chronic dieter, it means that you have spent untold years on a diet. You might think that it’s no big deal to live the kind of life where you focus on dieting.

But what you don’t realize is that your life can be overtaken by one diet after another. You can become so focused on counting the calories, obsessing over food that it restricts your life.

You can focus on chronic dieting to the point that foods are identified as good or bad. That creates a mindset of food restriction which is one of the underlying causes of failure to lose weight.

People who are chronically dieting will often fail to see that their weight loss goals aren’t normal. Instead, when they decide to lose weight, they have a magical number in mind that they want to reach.

It doesn’t matter to them if that number is wrong for their bone structure or if that weight isn’t realistic for them. They are linking their self worth, their happiness to that number and they can’t see anything but reaching that goal.

This will cause you to fail at one diet and turn right around and start another. It will also cause you to consider and in some cases, get involved in fad diets that can damage your health.

When it comes to chronic dieting, some people mistakenly believe that if they “fall off the wagon” then they’re technically not dieting. During this time where they don’t see themselves as dieting, the past food deprivation feelings kick in and they will often binge eat what they didn’t allow themselves to have before.

If you’re someone who engages in chronic dieting, it means that your diets are open ended. You don’t set your focus on an end goal. You just keep dieting hoping to reach a number that will give you inner happiness.

Recognizing How Your Dieting Is Affecting You

When dieting becomes part of who you are, you’ll find yourself caught up in yo yo dieting. Some people think yo yo dieting is what happens when someone loses a lot of weight, gains it back and then loses it again.

But yo yo dieting is actually repeatedly losing weight regardless of the amount. If you lose five pounds, gain it back, then lose it again, that’s yo yo dieting. Any amount that’s lost and regained repeatedly qualifies as yo yo dieting.

You might think that the benefits of losing weight are what count regardless of whether or not you gain it back. But you would be mistaken. Yo yo dieting takes a toll on the body.

When you engage in this kind of dieting behavior, your body will start to fight back. It does this as part of a survival mechanism. When you lose and regain repeatedly, your body gets the wrong signals and tries to fight against starvation.

It holds on tight and makes it tougher for you to be able to lose any weight. So in the future, you might start losing less every time you try to diet because your body is working against you.

This can start to rack up the extra pounds and cause you to become heavier than you were before you ever started the diet. Most people who end up obese do so because they engage in state of constant dieting where they deprive themselves and then overeat.

Yo yo dieting can lower the amount of good cholesterol you have in your body and raise your risk of having a heart attack or heart related disease. When you focus your life around diets that have a yo yo effect, it can take a toll on your emotions.

You’ll feel happy and excited every time you lose the weight but then sad every time you see a weight gain. This can end up leading you to experience depression especially if you’re around other people who have dieted and successfully kept the weight off long term.

Yo yo diets take such a toll on your health that they can actually shave years off your life span. You can break the cycle of yo yo dieting so that it stops being part of who you are.

When you want to lose weight, don’t think you need a quick or big change. Instead, make small changes that you can incorporate into your life.
When we make huge changes in our eating patterns, we can rebel mentally especially if we have an emotional attachment to food.

Understand that you will have days when you’ll feel like you blew it with the way that you eat. Just remember that if you eat healthy and you exercise, you will lose weight without having to rely on one diet after another.

Societal Pressure Is Running Your Life

When everyone around you is doing the same thing, it can be hard to stand apart from the crowd. It’s more normal to be on a diet these days than it isn’t. You want to be accepted.

That’s normal. If being the person who isn’t on a diet threatens that acceptance, most people will change to fit in. Society has a picture of what the perfect weight is and it will tell you exactly what that perfect weight is.

It’s not you. You’ll see what society thinks about your weight in the magazine articles that tell women who wear a size ten how they can “shed those unwanted pounds.”

The average person wears a size between twelve and fourteen. Yet society tells us that if your weight is higher than what could qualify as a fever on a thermometer, you’re fat.

We buy into this pressure and it sends us into a frenzy of having to lose weight in order to fit in. What’s so sad is that the people who are making these claims aren’t people who have a perfect weight.

They’re just as caught up in what they think everyone should like as you are. So you give in. You cave to what society tells you that your body is supposed to look like.

Your last diet didn’t really work for you, so you start yet again determined this time to do whatever it takes to get the weight off. Before you know it, the diet has taken over your life.

It’s what you think about you, it’s what you dwell on, it’s what you and your friends talk about. You continue to chase the elusive vision of perfection because you believe that others must know something you don’t.

If they can diet and have a perfect weight, then surely it’s obtainable to you, too. With this kind of mindset, it becomes your new norm to be in the cycle of dieting and then off of it.

You see it as normal that you gain weight during one of the off cycles. When that happens, you hop into the on cycle and the process starts all over again. You need to take a long look at your life.

See how many years you’ve spent chasing a diet, chasing a perfect weight, trying desperately to fit in to what society says looks beautiful or looks healthy.
Those beautiful women in magazines have had every bulge airbrushed to perfection. It’s not reality. It’s time to say no to societal pressure and to allowing dieting to control your life.

The Diet Identity Crisis

You can tie your identity up in dieting and not even realize that’s what you’ve done. Every time you announce to your friends and family that you’re starting a new diet, you lose your identity.

Your life revolves around the diet announcement. The seeking of approval that you’re going to lose weight, strive for that perfect number. But what you don’t realize is that when you continue to make diet announcements every time you start a new diet, you’re setting the stage for failure.

When others know you’re dieting, you can experience some negativity. You’ll have people questioning you about the foods that you eat. You can end up feeling resentful or guilty, both emotions which can cause problems for you when you’re trying to lose weight.

Despite how well meaning others are, when you announce a diet, most people see that as deprivation. As a result, they’ll often put temptation in your way. “Oh come on. One bite won’t hurt.”

You might think that by announcing that you’re starting a new diet that it’s a good thing that you shared it with others. You could subconsciously be seeking approval.

But studies have shown that by not telling people you’re starting a diet, you can end up having more willpower than if you did. Plus, when you want to make positive changes in your life, if you’re among people who don’t have the same mindset, sometimes, they’ll resent the changes you want to make.

They’ll subconsciously work to get you to stay the same. Whether we like it or not, how people react to what we tell them can impact us and cause us to change directions.

Some people can end up with their lives revolving around diet announcements because they have a diet addiction. This is what happens when wanting to lose weight crosses the line into something that consumes their life and as a result, overtakes their identity.

Dieting and wanting to announce the news every time you start a new one can be a form of trying to bolster your self-esteem. You need the approval of others. When dieting causes you to lose your identity, it means that there are no gray areas with food.

You see what you eat as bad or good, therefore what you eat makes you bad or good. If you decide that you’re going to start a new diet, don’t announce it to anyone who doesn’t have the power to help you along the journey.

Of the people who need to know a diet announcement are your doctor, your weight loss trainer or a dietician. This can be a better support team for you than others can be.

What Happens When Dieting Becomes Part of Who You Are

The way that you think about food is altered. You won’t see food choices as healthy or not so healthy. Instead, you’ll food as either or. You can have it or you can’t.

There’s no middle ground. When you think this way, it can be easier to create a food obsession. This all or nothing mentality is at the basis of many eating disorders.

Instead of creating labels for what you eat and shoving them into one category of the other, eat what you want within reason. Practice eating healthy portions and stopping when you’re full.

Sometimes we get caught up in dieting because we have behaviors associated with food. One of these can be the mindset that if you don’t eat this particular food, it will go out of date and you’ll have wasted the money you spent on it.

Learn to let go of food and know that while it’s not the best thing in the world to waste, it’s not the worst thing in the world either. It’s better to throw food out than throw on the pounds that will trap you in a cycle of dieting.

When you get caught up in a cycle of dieting, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that eating was meant to be a pleasurable experience, not one we dread. When you label food as good and bad, you can create guilt and stress feelings in your body every time you eat that food.

So you learn to deprive yourself. You have to reach the point where you realize that it’s okay to enjoy food when it’s consumed in a healthy manner. Negative feelings with food can create food issues that cause people to diet and binge and repeat the behavior.

Learn to accept food as simply fuel and only eat what you need to get through your day. When dieting becomes part of who you are, it can make you limit your world to the point that everything must be rigidly controlled when it comes to food.

You’ll start to focus so much on your dieting that you cut yourself off from experiences. You won’t go out with friends to some events because you know there will be food there you might have a hard time not eating.

Or you start to spend so much time looking up the nutrition on every bit of food that you eat that there’s no longer any joy at all in eating. People who let dieting become part of who they are can feel threatened emotionally when something happens to disrupt their diet. They can become diet perfectionists and their happiness revolves around the diet.

You’ve Given Up and Given In to Hopelessness

When it comes to losing weight, there isn’t a magic fix. When you want to shed unwanted pounds, it’s going to take some work, determination and making changes in your lifestyle. But it can be done.

The problem is that many people give up. They give up because they see some results but then gain the weight back. Or they struggle for a couple of weeks, get on the scale, see minimal weight loss, and they get discouraged and quit.

There are five common thoughts people have that cause them to give up and give in to hopelessness when it comes to weight loss. These thoughts can become mental blocks that can prevent you from changing your life.

This Is Who I Am

You can reach a point in life where you’ve carried extra weight around for so long that you associated with your identity. You might not say it out loud, but you think it to yourself.

Instead of thinking of yourself as Jane Doe, you think of yourself as Jane Doe, heavy girl. Or John Doe, heavy guy. You can start to take on the persona of what you silently tell yourself you are.

What that means is that your thoughts become your acceptance. You think, “This is who I am” and your thinking will sabotage any weight loss changes that you ever attempt to make unless you change the way that you think.

The reason why this thought trips you up and keeps you trapped in the cycle of feeling hopeless about losing weight is because it’s an unfinished thought. The truth is that when you think that, you’re not really accepting yourself “as is.”

What you’re doing is raising the mental flag of surrender because you feel hopeless. The phrase isn’t finished. There needs to be a “because” at the end of it.

So instead of ending your hopeless thought with “This is who I am” you need to change it to “This is who I am because.” When you add the word because it becomes the link to the identifier.

This lets you discover the real reason why you’re thinking the way that you are. You can figure out why you feel the way that you do and why you struggle with weight or dieting once you know the reason.

So you might think, “This is who I am because diets never work for me.” Once you know that, you can take it to the second step and realize that diets never worked for you because and you can uncover why that diet didn’t work.

Then once you know why the diet never worked for you, you’ll be able to identify the problem and find the solution.

Guess I’ll Be Fat Forever

This phrase is covered in hopelessness. It reeks of disappointment. You’re disappointed in the efforts, in the diet, in the exercise, and in all of the hard work that you put into it.

But you’re also disappointed in yourself. When you say that phrase, it sounds like that’s what you mean but what’s silently being said is that you don’t want this. You want to make change and you wish that you knew how to make the changes

There are reasons that people reach this mindset. It usually starts because whatever weight loss effort they’ve made has simply not happened fast enough for their liking.

The progress is moving at a snail’s pace and when they don’t see results, they give up and settle back in hopelessness. The way to combat this line of thinking is to realize that when progress takes longer, that’s a good thing.

Studies have shown that slow, steady weight loss is much better and safer than fast weight loss. When you lose weight slowly, even though it seems to be taking forever, you end up keeping the weight off long term.

The key is being able to accept that it’s going to take time. Once you settle on that from the start, it will be easy to avoid the, “I’m going to be fat forever” way of thinking.

Something else that can trigger this line of thinking is a diet that’s too restrictive. When you plan a diet that’s very strict, you’re setting yourself up for failure. No one wants to be hungry.

It’s not fun and it’s actually detrimental to weight loss because it can lead you to feelings of helplessness. When it comes to meal planning, if you choose foods that keep you feeling fuller longer, you’ll be able to combat feeling hungry, which in turn will eliminate frustration and feelings of helplessness.

Another reason that you can fall into the trap of giving in to helplessness or giving up happens when you decide that you have to eliminate all the foods you like from your diet.

This always backfires because diets that take all the fun out of eating will push you to give up. The best way to avoid experiencing the “guess I’ll be fat forever” mindset is to focus on eating the majority of your meals and snacks based on healthy choices.

Choose lean meats and fruits and vegetables as your mainstay. And vary your choices so boredom doesn’t set in. But whatever you do, don’t completely eliminate everything that’s high calorie and considered junk food.

If you do that, you’ll pave the way to give up. The best way to take off the pounds you want to lose is to eat healthy and leave room in your eating plan for your favorite foods.

It’s My Genes

It’s a scientific fact that what your ancestors passed down through your family tree can affect your life today. Depending on the genes in your family, you can end up having certain health issues that can impact your weight.

Some people are predisposed to developing diabetes. Because of autoimmune conditions, their bodies are more insulin resistant. Or, you can have family genes that cause problems with the thyroid or other glands that can impede weight loss and make it more difficult regardless of your efforts.

However, that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to lose weight. It only means that you have to try a little harder. Sometimes, there can be a genetic reason that can lead to obesity.

But genetic causes of obesity are rarer than they are the norm. The number one cause of obesity is consuming more calories than is expended. If you struggle to lose weight, trying harder will bring you success.

One of the best ways to try harder when it’s in your genes does not depend on the type of eating plan you choose. It also doesn’t depend on your exercise routine.

What it does depend on is your determination. Having the mindset of not quitting until you get the results that you want is the key factor in losing weight when it comes to having family genes that make it more difficult to take off weight.

There’s no doubt that when your genes work against you, that you’re right when you say “It’s in my genes.” However, if you add, “so I can’t lose weight” to the end of that, then you’re not being honest with yourself.

Regardless of what you have going on in your family health history, you don’t want to use that as an excuse. When you do that, you’re actually seeking approval and a reason to let yourself down and to feel better for giving up.

Losing weight is hard even without having genes that won’t work with you. But you can do it if you decide that you want to do it. That’s why you see all kinds of weight loss success stories from people who have major struggles.

They struggle with their genes and still manage to lose weight. So even if you do come from a family that has genes that tend to keep the weight on, you can still have your own success story.

Success means that you’re going to strive to be healthy regardless of what shows up on the scale. It means that you don’t surrender to the mindset that you have no choice but to keep on the extra pounds.

I’m Tired of Dieting

There are hundreds of diets. Each of them will tell you exactly what you need to do or to buy to hit that magical number you’ve been searching for. Weeks. Months. Years. Decades.

Dieting keeps you in a time capsule of always searching for the next diet that’s going to help you lose all the weight you want to lose and keep it off forever and ever.

But as most of us have learned, the majority of diets promise much and deliver little. The reason why is because they create an obsession with food. Let’s look at the calories, the carbs, and the labels.

Let’s count, let’s measure, and let’s deprive. If you’ve reached the point where you’ve thought or said, “I’m tired of dieting,” then you’re in good company. Every single person who has ever been on a diet has reached the point where they’ve had enough.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with saying you’re tired of dieting. What’s wrong though, is when you say or think that and couple it with an, “I don’t care” attitude and you eat and eat and eat.

Because you’re upset. You’re mad and hurt and grieving that once again, dieting has failed you and you feel like you’ve failed you. The truth is that you haven’t failed until you give up and park yourself firmly in hopelessness.

And by its definition, hopelessness means without hope. Without having hope, you won’t try and the only one who suffers there is you. If you’re tired of dieting, the best piece of advice that you’ll hear is this: then don’t.

Sounds kind of contrary to think when you’re someone who wants to lose weight. But it’s true. If you reach the point where you’re sick and tired of dieting, then give up.

Give up dieting, but don’t give up trying.

Success is not found in adhering to a rigid set of eating plans. It’s not found in carefully measuring out foods. Or depriving yourself of anything that doesn’t take like blades of grass.

Success is found when you change your focus. Instead of focusing on weight loss and how much food you need to give up to reach your goals, change your relationship with food.

Food is not your enemy. It’s there to provide your body with everything it needs to run on. It’s there to give your body nutrients, to give you energy, to boost your immune system, to keep you alive. Look at it as something you can have when you need it and something you pass on when you don’t need it.

I’m Happy Being Fat

“I’m happy being fat” is a common thought in people who are overweight. Sometimes when this thought is present, it’s coming from a place of self-acceptance and truth in that person.

But other times, when this thought is present, it’s coming from a place of defeatism. When you reach that point, it means that you’re tired of fighting, that you’re giving up and you view the weight loss as hopeless.

If you have thought you were happier being fat, you need to do an emotional self-exam and ask yourself if you really do feel that way or if you’re just tired of trying. Because being tired of trying isn’t the same thing as being happy about it.

If you’re not truly satisfied with your weight and tell yourself that you’re happy being fat, what you’re doing by telling yourself that you are is a form of mental weight loss sabotage.

When you have thoughts like that, ones that can lead you to giving up and giving in to hopelessness, what you have to do is to start to challenge the thoughts. You have to look at what you’re silently saying to yourself and evaluate it.

What you tell yourself, whether it’s an actual truth or not, will affect your emotions and actions because it’ll feel like you’re giving yourself a truth. Regardless of whether what you’re thinking isn’t true, the mind doesn’t differentiate between the lies we tell ourselves and the truths.

The mind simple processes what you think as being factual. So what you think in turn leads to the emotional let down of giving up. Don’t take your thoughts at face value.

Question them. Challenge them. Dig deeper to see if you’re attaching emotion to what you’re thinking. If because you’re discouraged about the weight loss, you’re saying you’re happier being fat.

You can challenge your thinking about how you feel concerning weight loss by asking yourself some questions. The number one question to ask yourself is, “Where is the proof?”

When you tell yourself anything negative about weight loss, such as “I’m happy being fat” then turn around ask yourself for the proof. Too many of accept the way that we think and feel about weight loss because we automatically assume we’re telling ourselves the truth. It’s not that we deliberately lie, but emotions are not always indicative of what’s really going on logically.

10 Steps to Beating Belly Fat

Belly fat always ranks high on the list of weight loss targets for men and women of all ages. Many times, it seems to stubbornly refuse your best efforts at banishing it. Even if you have failed in your belly fat battle in the past, the following 10 tips will have you furnacing the flab, losing the love handles and discovering that beach body, six pack abs look that is hiding just beneath your belly fat right now.

1 – Fiber fuels belly fat burning. A high fiber diet regulates a healthy digestive system. This means you process fat instead of storing it. Eat nuts, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, seeds and fruits, aiming for 25 grams (g) of fiber per day for women, 38 for men.

2 – Drink lots of water. A properly hydrated body keeps all of your internal systems working efficiently. This means a lower chance of you storing fat, a healthy metabolism that burns fat and calories properly, and very little belly fat that results from an unhealthy digestive system. Most health professionals and fitness experts agree 6 to 8 glasses of water a day is sufficient for proper hydration.

3 – Sleep 6 to 8 hours each and every night. When you start the day tired you fill your coffee with sugar. You grab sweet, sugary, energy-boosting snacks and drinks throughout the day. That sugar gets stored as fat. Studies have shown that there is no “catching up” when you miss sleep either. So make sure you get plenty of rest nightly.

4 – Increase your protein levels at meals. Getting 20 to 25 g of protein each meal is a good idea to keep belly fat at bay. Shoot for 10 to 20 g of protein per snack as well. Those are good numbers for women, and men may want to add 5 or 10 g of protein to those recommendations. Constant protein doses throughout the day keep your blood sugar balanced and insulin levels low, meaning that your body handles appetite control and fat loss properly.

5 – Just say no to stress. Sometimes you cannot control the stress you encounter. In many cases however, you create your own stress. The cortisol which is released as a stress response can cause you to overeat, and even decreases your ability to lose fat in your belly and elsewhere on your body.

6 – Remember this weekly exercise rule – 3 to 5 times for 20 minutes. That is all you need to burn calories and fat, crank up your metabolism and begin building lean muscle mass. Muscle burns fat and calories quicker than fat does. Don’t worry, you do not need to develop a muscled bodybuilder physique to benefit from this belly fat busting tip. Just make sure that strength and aerobic training at a moderate to intense level become a part of your weekly exercise regimen.

7 – Cut back on the salt. Limiting your sodium intake delivers a lot of health benefits. It can cut down on your risk of contracting heart disease, strokes and cancer. It also causes you to bloat, and is often in extremely high concentrations in processed, fatty food. Try not to eat more than 500 mg of sodium per meal, aiming for no more than 1,600 to 2,200 mg of sodium daily.

8 – Don’t believe the sugar-free weight loss fallacy. Sugar-free foods and drinks typically contain artificial sweeteners that are not processed properly by your body. These chemical fats go straight to your belly, and can lead to a long list of cardiovascular and digestive problems. Avoid the misleading phrases sugar-free and fat-free, especially in highly processed foods (any food with a wrapper).

9 – Eat more often. Seriously, the old “3 big meals a day” nutrition guidelines are a fat booster. You burn more belly fat, and fat all over your body, when your metabolism is cranked up. This happens every time you eat. Accompany 3 main meals with sensible portions with 2 or 3 snacks every day. Just do not overeat. Make sure that those 5 or 6 daily meals/snacks hit your target caloric intake, and your metabolism will be crunching calories and burning fat all day long.

10 – Cut back on the beer and alcohol. The term “beer belly” is not really accurate. It makes you think that drinking beer causes belly fat. That is just not the case. A glass of wine, an alcoholic beverage or a couple of beers 2 or 3 times a week will not promote weight gain. The problem is when several alcoholic drinks or beers are consumed in one sitting. Just like any other calories, beer calories add up quickly if you are not careful. A single beer has between 130 and 180 calories, so you can enjoy one now and then, but don’t overdo it.

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Solid tips to get a jump on your weight-loss resolution

It’s the season for drawing up your resolutions and I bet doing something about your weight is going to on that list once again. Here’s an article that has some great tips for sticking to those resolutions so go ahead and read it now:

We’re betting you’ve already “treated yourself” a little too much this holiday season — hey, who can resist that extra reindeer cookie?

Pretty much no one.

But here’s some good news. You can get a jump on your resolution to drop a few pounds in 2016 — and it won’t be hard at all. New research shows that easy lifestyle moves can reap significant weight-loss benefits.

Five tips to consider:

1. Eat more often. Researchers at Occidental College here in Los Angeles recently found that consuming six healthy, portion-controlled meals per day instead of three slightly larger meals helped slash hunger pangs and produced a leaner physique during weight loss. (Note the two important words: “portion-controlled.”) The study compared participants who ate twice a day, about six to seven hours apart, and subjects who ate smaller meals every two to three hours The conclusion? “Increased [meal frequency] may lead to reduced consumption at subsequent meals and/or overall daily caloric intake,” according to the study.
See the most-read stories in Life & Style this hour >>

2. Drink a glass of water (or two). Drinking a little more than two cups of water (or 500 milliliters) before each meal can help spur considerable weight loss. Researchers at the University of Birmingham in Britain, led by Dr. Helen M. Parretti asked overweight study subjects to drink up, then imagine themselves with a full stomach before starting to eat a normal-sized meal. The result of this creative visualization? On average, subjects lost 9 1/2 pounds each over a 12-week period.

3. Reach for the chile pepper. Researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia found that capsaicin, a compound found in chile peppers, sends messages to the nerve network in your stomach, which then tells your brain you’re no longer hungry. “One of the reasons obese people eat more food is probably due to disruption of this hot chile receptor in nerves in the stomach,” says Amanda J. Page, assistant professor and senior research fellow at the university’s School of Medicine. “If we can discover how this channel is disrupted then we can develop a drug therapy for the treatment of obesity that will not only help you lose weight but also keep the weight off. It’s a ‘watch this space’ situation. Scientists are working on the problem, and eventually there will be a successful therapy.” In the meantime, if you enjoy spicy food, try a half teaspoon daily half-teaspoon of red pepper sprinkled over one meal each day: Previous research by Purdue University found that doing so increased study subjects’ core body temperature, caused them to burn more calories and curbed hunger…

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