Raise Awareness for Diabetes
In a country with over 300 million people, over 25 million in the US have diabetes. Last year alone, there were almost 2 million new cases, and that’s not counting children or adults age 19 and under. Unfortunately, the rate at which people are diagnosed is increasing so there will be even more diagnoses this year.
What is diabetes
Diabetes is a chronic disease whereby someone’s blood sugar level is far too high. There are two main types of diabetes and they are caused by one of two things:
Autoimmune disorder
Type 1 diabetes results from the T-cells in someone’s pancreas attacking their insulin-producing cells. The result is that they can’t make any more insulin, so they always have to take shots every single day. Over time, both type 1 and type 2 diabetes can lead to a variety of complications including blindness, kidney failure, nerve damage, even death, especially when untreated.
Lifestyle and genetics
Type 2 diabetes is a consequence of what somebody eats and how they live their lives, as well as genetic factors. You can get an idea if you are at risk for being predisposed to diabetes by asking family members if anybody has had diabetes. However, people with no family history of diabetes can get it by eating too much sugar, since this makes their insulin receptors unable to take up insulin. That’s one reason why drinking soda isn’t very good for you!
Make a difference
November is American Diabetes Month, so we would like your help in promoting DiabetesResourcePage.com. Diabetes Resource Page is a place where people with diabetes, their family members, and concerned people can post their stories, learn about diabetes, and learn diabetes prevention. Help promote Diabetes Resource Page and American Diabetes Month to save lives all across the country!
Guest post by Murray Newlands, the founder and CEO of Influence People, a San Francisco firm that does blogger relations and other online marketing strategies for a variety of clients, including Diabetes Resource Page.
Week 1 Challenge: Give Up Dessert
Okay, we know it’s hard especially for people who have a sweet tooth but the only way for you to get fit and slimmer is to give up eating food with too much sugar! And yes, you can start by giving up desserts and eating right.
Desserts are basically processed foods that are loaded with sugar and some preservatives and as you know, sugar equates to calories. Sugar is also addictive which is why you only find yourself coming back for more chocolates or candy bars you’re having for that matter.
And what’s eating right? Glad you asked. That’s done by eating real food– a true, balanced meal, as well as eating on time. If you eat junk food all the time and don’t include protein, carbohydrates, vitamins and fiber in your diet then you are sure to feel cravings for sweets and other stuff. You’ll also feel full right away when you eat right, thus, eliminating room for desserts. You can also do substitution, that is by eating fruits instead of having a full-on icing cake for dessert.
The trick also is to eat on time. Meals are supposed to be six hours apart and snacks should be taken in between them. Portion-control could also work so eat what you think is enough. Remember that the stomach is the combined size of your (cupped) hands so don’t eat beyond that as you’ll only have a bigger appetite the next time you eat.
Check out this video we found on YouTube which could serve as an example of how you can suppress your cravings for sweets. This is quite a holistic approach though:
New Week, New Challenge
There’s this fad that’s taking almost every health and wellness community blogs on the map (like iVillage) by storm and these are diets and exercise challenges. We realize that we may teach you all the ABC’s or 101s of dieting or whathaveyou’s but then you’re most likely to just talk on and on about doing it, maybe excitedly share them with your friends, then eventually forget them during the course of your procrastination. Well, we’re not generalizing or undermining your will power– we’re just saying.
So what now? Well, we reckon that these diet/workout community blogs are not so bad after all and decided to take after them by proposing weekly challenges for you every Monday. So, starting next week, we’ll be posting challenges, diet challenges for starters to help you identify your food weaknesses and help you curb your hunger and cravings for those kind of foods. The goal here is to give those bad food items or eating habits and replace them with a healthier one, so hope you’ll be with WeightLoss4Idiots on that. Maybe with a scheduled, and much practical application, we could make new progress with your weight loss regimen.
Weight loss is all in the mind, and that’s what a recent US study has proven. It’s a conscious effort of both body and mind to control your urges. According to the author of the study, Jeanne McCaffery, MRI scans of the successful weight loss participants’ brain show that the part of their brain responsible for inhibition and processing complicated tasks exhibit more activity when showed various kinds (and presumably deletable) foods. Overweight participants did poor on the experiment, however.
We don’t know what other ridiculously-sounding techniques of losing weight, but just in case you don’t know, some would even go for hypnosis sessions to help themselves lose weight in their waking state. This process may prove true for some, but if you think about it, you can accomplish weight loss on your own, wide awake, and without paying someone probably thousands of bucks to hypnotize you. You can actually lose weight, as long as you will it.
Weight Loss Essential #1: Eating Healthy Foods
Do you ever find yourself munching on some chips only to find out that you’ve consumed the whole pack (“once you pop, you can’t stop”)?
Chips are okay to eat sometimes (though rich in sodium and calories) but it’s not the case when you’ve eaten a bag of it within a day. Eating a calorie-filled food is bad enough but eating a whole lot of it is certainly not healthy. If you really want to lose weight then you must be able to commit to a lifestyle change, particularly with regards to your eating habits.
Changing your eating habits to a healthy one doesn’t mean though that you’re giving up your freedom and yielding only to “safe” or “popular” weight loss foods. It is rather embracing your freedom to eat healthy and thinking that you deserve to treat yourself with healthy foods. It essentially means having the choice to eat healthy, and expanding that choice to various food groups, and not limit yourself to the “weight loss” or “slimming” ones.
The trick here is to simply keep track of what you eat, and evaluate yourself to be able to determine your weaknesses (like munching on one to many chips on movie night, etc.). Realize that you don’t have to feel stuffed just to feel that you’ve made most of your breakfast or lunch or dinner. Remember that your primary goal is to simply be aware of the food you eat, and not be obsessed about what you should or shouldn’t eat.
So that’s about it. Add some variety to your meals as well as balance, and take them in moderation. There’s really no drastic measures nor scientific calculations to be done here, all you have to do is to mix up plenty of vegetables , fruits, lean meats and dairy products plus plenty of water during your meals, and you’ll be off to a great start with a healthier lifestyle.
Weight Loss Essential #2: More Physical Movements
The body’s metabolism is the pace at which our bodies convert the calories we take into energy, whether we are active or stationary. It stays the way it is until we reach the age of 20, which is usually the time it starts to slow down, and by the time we hit thirty, it has started to slow down by 2% and 2% more a decade after that. While the rate of metabolism varies depending on one’s height or weight (taller and leaner people have faster metabolism than those with average built and height), it is important to note that people are not stuck with the metabolism that they are born with. What hundreds of weight loss coaches and trainers were saying were true: you can change your metabolism, and you can speed it up to experience a new you.
Weight loss is a result of a faster metabolism, which is then a result of working out and engaging in more physical movements. You have to understand that the body has a certain caloric need (calories to be burned) in order to perform its basic functions. Now if you eat more calories than what you burn, then your calorie level won’t be offset or balanced. If you want to lose weight though, you have to burn more of the calories you have in your body. An option is to eat less calories, but then you might face the risk of your body going into starvation mode, which only means that it’s going to hoard more fat for future consumption. The most ideal way left for you to burn more calories is by moving more and exercising.
When we get stressed out, our primary coping mechanism is either to sleep or rest more, or eat more. We then become sluggish or feel blue. That’s because stress has taken a toll on our metabolic rate. Exercising and engaging in physical movements help release “happy hormones” or endorphins, which improves our mood and reduces the appetite. A short morning walk or jog or stretching exercise can really do the trick in eliminating stress and keeping your metabolism in check.
Weight Loss Review: The Truth About Supplements
The Truth About Supplements is the brainchild of Australian model and celebrity fitness trainer Matt Ottobre, and was released some time last year. At fairly cheap price of $57.00, health and fitness afficionados are promised to get the weight and body shape that they want by following Ottobre’s compiled wisdom on getting the right supplements. Is it possible? We certainly believe so.
Ottobre’s landing page, where you could watch a four-minute slideshow containing a brief overview of his e-book, appears like the formulaic, affiliate product landing page. Watching his slide show would further pull you down to that abyss of fluff advice and promises– but we certainly were impressed when we got to read his e-book’s table of contents (the book is up to chapter 10). Here’s chapter 1-3:
Chapter 1: Supplements Laid Bare…
How to know which supplements are best for your goals? Discover the exact questions to ask p.18
How to make sure your supplements are safe and won’t damage your body…p.20-21
The 3 Most Important Supplements for Rapid Muscle Gain, Fat burning and Optimum Health p.37
Why are vitamins so important for muscle growth and which work best? See p.47 to see a full vitamin rating scoresheet (top 25 listed).Chapter 2: Supplements – Behind the Mask- Insider Info
Don’t Fall Prey to These Supplement Company Lies Discover the legal loop holes supplement companies use to make false claims in their ads. (Covers U.S and Australian law)…p.26
What Are The “Gold Standard” in Supplements? Discover where to find out the strength quality and purity of your supplements and whether or not they have been packaged appropriately (otherwise they can lose their effectiveness)… p.31
Where to find reliable scientific studies of supplements so you know what you’re putting in your body will power-charge your results…p.34Chapter 3: The Essential Supplements – You Need to Take These…
Toxicity Danger: How much is too much vitamins? Read p.45 carefully…
Essential Fatty Acids- The Miracle Food! E.F.A’s are proven to promote muscle growth, decrease stress, increase your metabolism, promote healthy joints, burn fat, reduce inflammation and heart disease, and give you abundant energy. Discover the purest form to take them in and how much to take on p.50….
Protein Powder Myths Destroyed! – Discover who to believe about protein requirement? The World Health Organisation recommended daily intake (RDI) is 75 to 84 grams of protein per kg per day. Should you follow their advice? p.56…
Will your hard earned muscle disappear if you stop taking protein powder? True or False? Find out on p.182…
Discover the Best Way to Take Protein to Burn Fat (And the Big Lie about weight loss through protein powders) …p.57
Which Protein Powder Is Best? Whey protein concentrate, whey protein isolate, hydrolysed protein or blends? Find out on p.65
What to mix your protein powder with for best results? If you want to build muscle and burn fat fast…p.65.
Gold Standard Brands: Which supplement brands you can’t you go wrong with...p.65
You know your mother was right when she said to eat your Veggies… But now you can find out how to cheat when don’t have time to cook or prepare veggies. This tip alone will get you healthy…P.67
Ottobre was right on in debunking myths and the popular beliefs surrounding supplements, and as promised, the e-book isn’t filled with obsolete advice like taking soya for weight loss (which we’ll be discussing in the next blog posts). What was also good about the e-book was its legitimacy as Ottobre was smart enough to ask for — and rather, attribute as well– the advice of world renowned speaker and nutritionist, Dr. Johnny Bowden. In a nutshell, the book was a comprehensive guide on what to buy and what not to buy in the world of nutritional and hormonal supplements. If you’re going to ask us if we’re going to avail this e-book, then we certainly will.
Weight Loss Essential #3: Nutritional and Hormonal Balance
The adrenaline glands and thyroid work hand in hand in regulating our body’s production of all sorts of hormones. When the adrenaline glands are overworked, the thyroid slows down the body’s metabolism as a signal for the adrenals to take it easy. This reduced metabolic pace then results to weight gain.
Is there a way to turn this process around? Yes, by eating healthier and drinking multivitamins and supplements to reverse it and prevent the adrenals from getting stressed out. It is highly recommended for everyone to take a multi-vitamins (e.g. Centrum which has everything from A-Zinc) that has broad spectrum of vitamins and minerals. Everyone could also use a protein supplement high in protein and vitamins but happens to be low in sugar.
Another great thing that could contribute to a healthy and balanced nutritional and hormonal system is taking an EPA/DHA supplement which boosts the omega-3 level in the body. Omega-3 is known for a lot of great benefits that includes balancing the body’s triglyceride level, as well as strengthening the nervous, immune and cardiovascular system.
Avoiding processed and saturated foods too like junk food could also keep our adrenal system from getting stressed.
Some people neglect drinking multi-vitamins thinking their bodies can do without them and if you’re one of those people, hope you’ve learned a thing or two on why you should. Stay tuned for our weight loss product review tomorrow and more of the weight loss essentials series next week.
Weight Loss Essential #4: Adequate Sleep
Ever notice yourself irritable, sluggish, or weak when you barely had sleep the previous night? Well that’s because your immune system is taking a beating when you don’t have adequate sleep. While some of people can handle working long hours, they won’t be able to do that and carry on for sure when they don’t get curative sleep and relaxation.
Sleep is defined, according to our friendly Wikipedia, as “a naturally recurring state characterized by reduced or absent consciousness, relatively suspended sensory activity, and inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles.” Contrary to popular belief though, sleep is not necessarily a time of inactivity– in terms of physical, yes– but internally, there’s actually a lot going on inside the body. The body actually goes through a self-healing process during sleep when it produces high levels of HGH or human growth hormones. HGH repairs the cells in the body’s tissues and facilitates the formation of lean muscle tissues.
Now how well people sleep has an effect on their weight management. People who sleep poorly will find it hard to move around and do much physical activity than those who are well-rested. Also, people who don’t get enough sleep will have to spend more time sleeping to compensate for the time they stayed up, which is actually a time of reduced calorie burning. In other words, their metabolism slows down to use little of the fat stored in the body to keep it running.
Check out the video below to find out more:
Weight Loss Essential #5: Good Hydration
It’s not something you’ve learned yesterday: drink water to stay healthy. Since we’re kids, we’ve been taught of the importance of drinking at least 6-8 glasses (two quartz) of water everyday. It’s may seem a bit corny and seems like a stretch for tying this idea to the current topic too, but as they say, “water is life.” And it’s probably one thing that Hollywood and Science agree upon.
It may definitely seem like two quartz of water is too much to drink for someone, especially with a stomach that doesn’t seem to big to hold that amount of water, but you drink the lot throughout the day and you’re going to excrete it anyway, so no need to put too much thought into that. Now why do you have to drink water that much? That’s because we tend to keep ourselves active by drinking beverages such as sodas, tea and coffee, which actually robs our body of water. Scientifically speaking, these beverages act as a diuretic– though not essentially like a laxative, but still absorbs the body’s water (which explains why your stool is a bit softer when you drink a lot of coffee or tea). To replenish the lost fluids, we need to actually drink twice as much of the amount of those artificial beverages. Not having enough water on the system will slow down our metabolism, and make it hard for our body to rid our body of toxins from everything we take in our body. Slower metabolism also means potential weight gain since our body isn’t working hard enough to burn calories in the system. Water pretty much fits the equation of losing weight and balancing our body’s function.
The 5 Essentials for Weight Loss
It goes without saying that a person’s weight and health are related. With more processed food coming out in the market, obesity has become more of a worldwide epidemic that has been taking the lives of thousands of people. Professional doctor John McDougall says that it’s actually ironic that “more people are dying from too much food than from too little.” He once did a study between 1991 and 1998 where the participants didn’t change much of their weight because their eating habits and daily activity haven’t changed a bit. What has changed in the past decade as he observes though was that junk foods have become more rampant and readily available and that more and more people are resorting to them instead of eating healthily because of their fast-paced, modern lifestyle. Processed or junk foods are also way cheaper than the “conventionally prepared” food people eat at home which is why people prefer eating them during their work breaks.
Ironically, some people who are slim resort to the same habits too by eating chips instead of healthy meals, and are relying on slimming pills or fat burners to trim their weight down. Having a slim physique doesn’t mean you have to practice an unhealthy lifestyle or eating habit too, so we’ve compiled a list of the five essentials for weight loss based on the testimonies of people who’ve successfully maintained their weight in natural and organic ways. These five components are choosing healthy foods as a part of the diet, more physical movements, nutrition and hormonal balance, adequate sleep, and good hydration. Make sure to check on our blog regularly as we will be breaking down these things for you in the course of the week.
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