Tag Archives: weight gain

Choose One of Six Habit Changes to Lose Body Fat

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Below there are 6 healthy habit changes anyone can apply to begin losing excess body fat weight. Once aware of the unhealthy habits causing the excess body weight…, to reverse the course requires acknowledgement of the unhealthy habit and changing it. Thereafter the unhealthy body fat will come off naturally without increasing health risk.

Identify the Unhealthy Habit Keeping You Overweight and Unfit and then make change.

Last Year’s Resolution to Lose Weight Failed You know why you failed your weight loss program. You did not resolve or change the habit(s) and behavior(s) keeping you overweight. Consuming more than one needs is often caused by daily stress at work and/or within the home environment, and/or unhealthy relationship(s), and/or sedentary habits. Also caused by bad behavioral and addictive food selection. Once you target the cause of your stress, anxiety, addiction, obsession and/or depression… remove yourself from the unhealthy environment, or relationship, or situation or obsession.

Thereafter, personal goals like weight loss and healthy fitness levels become easier to achieve and sustain long-term.

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Pain Factor All pain is causally related to mental and physical illness, disease and/or injury. And with pain comes more sedentary activities and often increased food consumption and associated weight gain. It is for this reason, if you can not manage the pain, it is advised to see a pain specialist.

Request a referral to see a physiatrist [pain management specialist]. A physiatrist specializes in all pain modalities and treats the patient holistically. Don not let pain keep you in a sedentary and out-of-control weight gain hurt locker.

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Party on Some carry the end of year festivities into the New Year. This behavior can last for months, or the entire year. This perpetual party habit will not help you lose weight. First and foremost, you must understand this is occurring and break the habit. A referral to see a behavioral therapist can help target the cause of unhealthy eating and drinking habit or bad behavior(s) and help you change it if you do not have the will power to do it on your own.

Fast foods after the Holidays – Too many Americans consume fast foods especially during the Holidays and End of Sports Season. Here lies the crux for much of Americas diabetes and obesity problems. Processed foods, especially those you find in colorful and attractive packaging almost always contain chemical substances known to cause unhealthy weight gain. When looking at labels, it is those food ingredients you can not pronounce or recognize… they are food chemical additives, preservatives and taste intensifiers that are also known to cause illness and disease and out-of-control weight gain. Choose more whole foods and avoid processed foods as much as possible.

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Learn how to differentiate between healthy and processed foods through food label ingredient awareness. Organic, or mostly organic products on the other hand such as meat from the butcher, fruits and vegetables and desserts from a store baker who displays those consumables ready to eat within days is often a better food selection. This is not to say, those products are not free of unhealthy weight gaining food ingredients and chemicals. But one thing is almost sure, those foods have not been chemically processed to sit on a shelf for 6-12 months. Buy fresh whole foods as often as possible and stay away from highly processed foods to reduce total body fat weight and sustain good health.

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Love of Baking I know the kids love your homemade cookies, cakes and pies. Remember moderation with deserts. Too much sugar, fat and salt is not good for anyone, even children with fast metabolisms. Try serving healthier desserts, i.e., fresh fruits, jello, pudding and peanut, oatmeal and pumpkin treats, etc.

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Empty Nester’s Bake for an Army – Regardless of season, there are many who continue to cook for an entire family after the children have left home. Modify home recipes for one or two to reduce leftovers and temptation to eat more than an average serving size.

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Once you make healthier lifestyle choices – your fitness levels and health and well-being will also improve as you achieve ideal body weight. Learn how author Marc Woodard’s Ageless MirrorAthlete book, “Overweight and Unfit No More” and how it can help you achieve your weight loss goals naturally and live the lifestyle you need, want and deserve now!

Learn how to live the lifestyle you need, want and deserve now!

Good health to you and your family!

Author: Marc T. Woodard, MBA, BS Exercise Science, ARNG, CPT, RET.  2019-21 Copyright.  All rights reserved, Mirror Athlete Publishing @: www.mirrorathlete.org,  Sign up for your Free eNewsletter.

How Exercise and Weight Gain are Connected

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Updated:  2/28/2020, Marc Woodard

Although your favorite fitness guru or celebrity may be the picture of health and you want to look just like them…  Keep this in mind, they make a lot of money selling fitness products and services they don’t necessarily use; and may actually cause you to gain weight rather than lose it. Which may be just the opposite of a desired result you hope to achieve.

Aerobic workouts good for the cardio Muscular endurance
Improve cardio Muscular endurance and fat burning results.

Regardless of exercise equipment and dietary products that guarantees weight loss by these professionals – The odds are not in your favor these programs will work long term for you. Why? Unless you have a customized fitness program relevant and specifically designed for your weight loss expectations, weight gain may be the result.

Relevant fitness programming should include individual lifestyle and cultural assessments that include: behavioral habits, medical condition/history, genetics, body type… fitness goals and expectation. For example, do you want to be body fat lean, increase muscle mass, or strength; improve cardio and/or muscular endurance and flexibility? The aforementioned assessments will help define, relate and apply a fitness program that’s right and will work for you.

For those whose fitness goal is to lose body fat – science shows us how exercise can add on pounds if other lifestyle factors are not considered within the programming process especially as we age. But for this exercise we’ll specifically focus on exercise and fuel source to burn more body fat weight.

It is interesting to note, regardless of the billions of dollars invested within the fitness industry our nations population is becoming fatter. So we are either becoming more sedentary, sick with disease, exercising incorrectly and/or our dietary and addictive habits – which also influence bad behavior.

Which is it? I say a combination of all the above. And this reality has a lot to do with not understanding the human anatomy and physiology and marketplace fitness and diet gimmicks that promise to fix us. In my opinion these health illiteracy issues should be addressed within our K-12 education system. If this occurred, future generations would learn to value a healthier lifestyle – which would help reduce the obesity and connected disease problems now plaguing the nation.

With that being said consider the following statistics.

45 million Americans now belong to health clubs, up from 23 million in 1993. We spend some $19 billion a year on gym memberships. One major study illustrates – The Minnesota Heart Survey found more of us say we exercise. From 1980 to 2000, 47% of respondents exercised regularly and then these figures increased to 57%, ending the 20 year survey. Even with 45 million people today using fitness centers obesity figures increased during this period. The Federal government’s definition of obesity classifies 1/3 of all Americans as obese. Those that participated in the survey admitted after they exercise, their hungrier and eat more. This is not to discount the notion that those who may not participate in gym activities may weigh more otherwise.

Let’s look at a significant study that specifically addresses the compensation effect on body after exercise and what this really means for your weight management program.

In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless, says Eric Ravussin, chair in diabetes and metabolism at Louisiana State University, a prominent exercise researcher. Although exercise does burn calories, it also makes us hungrier. Exercise, in other words, isn’t necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it harder.

The compensation Problem “ The PLoS (Public Library of Science) published a remarkable study supervised by a colleague of Ravussin’s Dr. Timothy Church. Four groups totaling 464 overweight women who didn’t regularly exercise were selected for this study. Women in 3 of the groups worked with a personal trainer for 6 months; Group 1 exercised – 72 minutes/wk, Group 2 exercised- 136 minutes/wk and Group 3 exercised – 194 minutes/week. Although the study did not specify the exercise routines, one gets the notion exercises were balanced between aerobic and anaerobic activity with a personal assigned trainer.

The women in the 4th cluster did not change their lifestyle activities, but did fill out a monthly health questionnaire. The results were surprising. All groups of women lost weight, even the control group. It is most likely the control group through the use of monthly questionnaires learned more about their health and thereby modified their diets by eating fewer donuts, muffins, Starbucks coffee, for example. Some of the women in each group actually gained weight, some up to 10 pounds. Church calls this the compensation effect. Whether exercise made them hungry, or they wanted to reward themselves. Most of the women who exercised ate more than they did before they started the experiment!

Church states, we all need to move toward proper weight control, but stressing and depleting the body’s muscles in short bursts using stressful exercise is not necessarily the best way to loss body weight. Also the brain may feel greater entitlement to eat fast foods after we’ve exerted most of our high intensity energy at the gym. Instead, energy would have been better served by increasing daily activities like walking, healthy food shopping, preparing wholesome meals, gardening, a balanced mix using gym activities, walking, biking, etc.

[Quote excerpts posted above, Published by Time Magazine, August 17, 2009, Why Exercise Won’t Make you Thin, by John Cloud]

Exercise Science shows us anaerobic activity during weight lifting activities increases muscle mass with less stimulation of the fat burning metabolism. Muscle mass increases do occur when muscle bulking exercise out-paces aerobic fat burning exercise. The goal of burning more body fat weight requires a greater commitment to daily aerobic exercise activity within the low-medium intensity effort. So on a scale of 1-10 effort, if you exercise within a perceived physical exertion of ~4-7, you burn more body fat during aerobic exercise.

Optimizing weight loss results while toning the body requires a relevant fitness training program that will work for you. For example, if you find an aerobic exercise program you enjoy participating in daily, the odds are you’ll experience sustainable weight loss success.

Walk Daily with a Buddy

For nearly anyone who wants to lose more body fat weight without experiencing extreme hunger spikes, a low-medium intensity aerobic activity such as daily walking, jogging or biking and hiking will help achieve the objective. This is because our aerobic metabolism prefers burning fat fuel during low-intensity, long duration exercise. During high-intensity exercise, the body prefers burning carbohydrates. The carbohydrates present a limited fuel storage source compared to stored body fat. Once carbohydrate fuel is spent through high-intensity exercise – the body feels hungry.

Regardless of exercise program chosen,

Having a balanced and nutritious diet in place prior to starting an exercise program is important to achieve the weight loss results you desire.

 If your not sure how to custom design a fitness and nutrition program to achieve a natural weight loss objective  – might I suggest investing in a professional fitness trainer or fit healthy lifestyle consultant with a degree in Exercise Science/physiology.

Once the encompassing being [mind, body and spirit] achieves a sustainable fit healthy lifestyle balance of diet and daily exercise… achieving any fitness goal is possible. Including loss of unhealthy body weight that has a direct connection with illness and disease.

Author: Marc T. Woodard, MBA, BS Exercise Science, ARNG, CPT, RET. 2018 Copyright. All rights reserved, Mirror Athlete Inc., www.mirrorathlete.org, Sign up for your Free eNewsletter.

“FDA Bans Hydrogenated Trans Fats”

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Updated: 14 Nov 2018, Marc Woodard

In order to understand how unhealthy Trans Fats are it is necessary to first define and relate to them and how this unhealthy fat got into our food in the first place. And why the FDA agrees it’s not fit for human consumption.

Hydrogenated Trans fats were invented in the 1890s. What took the FDA so long to put a ban on the hydrogenation of vegetable oils?And even with a ban does this keep Trans Fats out of our diet?

Much of the hydrogenated Trans Fat story has to do with low product cost and hyper palatable fat that addict consumers to purchase those products repeatedly. Which in turn generates huge profits for the food processing companies. These basic facts explain the longevity of Trans Fats in the marketplace.

The FDA ban of trans fats occurred after decades of studying the effects of it on human health.

“Although saturated fat is the main dietary culprit that raises LDL (Low Density LipoProtein), added Trans Fat and dietary cholesterol also contribute significantly to increased LDL’s [which represent unhealthy blood chemistry and related cause to cardiovascular disease]. Trans fat can often be found in processed foods made with partially hydrogenated vegetable oils such as vegetable shortenings, some margarines (especially margarines that are harder), crackers, candies, cookies, snack foods, fried foods, and baked goods (FDA 2017).”

In the past consumers sought low cost, tasty and convenient processed foods and praised the hydrogenation process because of cost and exceptional flavor. But now the FDA agrees with consumer safety advocates – banning this fat completely over the next few years would be best for consumer health and health care industry.

To learn why the FDA is now taking action it is necessary to define Trans Fats, hydrogenation, poly hydrogenated oil and how this man made fat causes disease.

Adding more hydrogen to oil is simply the process of man infusing more hydrogen atoms (hydrogenation) to a vegetable oil(s) mono-poly unsaturated fatty carbon molecule chain. The vegetable oil than becomes a partial or fully hydrogenated (fat saturated) Trans Fat, i.e., Listed on food labels as Partial hydrogenated and/or Trans Fats are the same thing of varying atomic degree. 

But not obvious to most consumers…  through hydrogenation the oil becomes a more solid Trans hard fat that’s very unhealthy for us. That is vegetable oils are artificially hardened to achieve firm convenience soft spreads with long shelf life e.g., margarine, cooking oils and shortening.

To identify Trans Fats in food products, manufacturers list these values on ingredient labels. Note the words Partially Hydrogenated soybean Oil (PHO) on margarine and butter labels below. This is code for Trans Fats. You can find PHO listed as an ingredient in many snack, dessert foods, vegetable oils and even health supplemental products, etc. And when you see 0g Trans Fats on the label, food manufacturers are allowed up to .5grams Trans Fats per serving and can list this value as zero while simultaneously displaying PHO.

The good news for consumers as previously stated, the FDA now requires food manufactures to follow more stringent Trans Fat label laws. For instance if a food product has .5g Trans Fats or more, that value has to be listed on the label (FDA 2017).

This means all Trans Fats in foods must be identified. Even if the words Trans Fat equals 0 grams, the food product is allowed up to .499grams per serving when PHO is listed. Many don’t know Trans Fats are also in organic wholefoods. Ever wonder how they get into animal and vegetable products?

Live stock graze on vegetation which contain a certain amount of poly unsaturated oil in them. Through animal grazing PHO’s (Poly Unsaturated Oil) are digested and some of this oil is stored in saturated fat cells. Hence all products have varying amounts of naturally stored PHO or Trans Fats in them. Just like humans.

Unlike organic dietary fats, hydrogenated Trans fats are not essential to the diet and significantly increase health risk when consuming too many of them.

I know conscientious consumers remove animal fat before eating a steak, or  ladle the fat from broth to reduce fat intake calories. This is easy to do because it is easily seen. However Tran’s fats blend into processed baked and convenience foods and can’t be seen or removed. This is why it’s important to understand where Trans Fats come from and how to identify them in the foods eaten daily. This knowledge becomes even more important if you now suffer from obesity, diabetes or heart disease.

Over consumption of fatty foods in general is bad. But far worse when too many deceptive Trans-fats are mixed into baked goods.

In the past hydrogenation of cooking oils was used excessively by food industries until it was determined Trans fats were worse for you than natural occurring organic fats. Early 2006, companies began removing the Trans fat hydrogenation processes from foods and labeling amounts of Trans Fats as required by the FDA. But as you now know “0” does not mean “0 Trans Fats and theres a connection to organic food PHO chemistry.

In 2015 the “U.S. Food and Drug Administration finalized its determination that partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs), the primary dietary source of artificial trans fat in processed foods, are not generally recognized as safe or GRAS for use in human food. Food manufacturers will have three years to remove PHOs from products (FDA 2015).”

Even though the FDA recently determined Trans Fats are not safe for humans the end to man-made Trans Fats won’t end until 2017-18… this will not ban all Trans Fats from all foods because of the natural occurring PHO found in livestock and plants. But food manufacturers will be required to continue listing Trans Fats, mono-poly and saturated fat values.

Is this a win for everyone? I guess it depends on individual and company perspective.

For the health conscious consumer and those suffering from obesity, diabetes and other related illness and disease these changes could be of great dietary health benefit. For those on fixed and low incomes it may cost more and limit choice of healthy foods in the marketplace.  For a manufacturer it may increase the cost of doing business. Unfortunately his increase in cost is usually passed onto the consumer.

There will be winners and losers no matter how you look at this thing.

Reference

US Department of Health and Human Resources. FDA Food and Drug Administration (FDA 2015-2017).

Author:  Marc T. Woodard, MBA, BS Exercise Science, USA Medical Services Officer, CPT, RET. 2018 Copyright. All rights reserved, Mirror Athlete Publishing @: www.mirrorathlete.org, Sign up for your Free eNewsletter.