Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Lose weight quick with acai berries
You're not alone. Almost everyone has packed on extra pounds. People today have a higher rate of obesity than any previous generations. Even our children are heavier and more prone to weight gain than ever before. Our lives have slowed down and become more sedentary. We work in an office instead of manual labor. We take the elevator instead of the stairs, even if it's just a flight or two. We talk about getting in shape but don't do much about it.
Evolutionarily speaking, the human body was engineered for a diet low in fat, high in fiber, with lots of fresh vegetables and fruits with occasional protein from meat. But these days, our diets are the opposite. Our meat and fat consumption has increased while vegetables and fruits in our diet have decreased significantly and people as a whole receive a lot less exercise. It should come as no surprise that energy levels have decreased as our weight has increased.
However, there may be a solution to these two problems. It's Acai Berries.
These berries are small and grow on acai palm trees in South America. The taste is similar to chocolate blueberries. Some nutritionists consider it a super food. The pulp of these berries contains natural energy boosters that have the added bonus of enabling weight loss quickly and naturally. Acai berries have been accepted by many as an essential for improving your energy levels and health.
Lose weight fast
Unfortunately, there are some downsides. The berries don't last long after harvesting, as they're very perishable. Fresh berries won't be found at the supermarket. Fortunately, processed berries keep their beneficial qualities even if they're preserved, made into a juice, or even a powder supplement.
Acai berries don't affect your eating habits, they increase your metabolism. These berries can boost the rate that calories are burned from your body when you're engaged in daily activities. The increased burn rate means an increase in metabolism. Even when you're asleep your body will use up more calories, and that translates into weight loss.
Acai berries also have an extremely high amount of antioxidants, more than 10 and 12 times the content of grapes and blueberries, respectively. Not to mention the fact that these berries are also a fantastic source of Amino Acids, Anthocyanins, Fiber, Healthy Fats, Minerals, Plant Sterols, and Vitamins. These are all essential to any weight loss plan, making acai berries an even better weapon for fighting fat.
While acai berry supplements can do you lots of good, they can't make you lose weight if you continue to overeat and keep a sedentary lifestyle. Combine acai berries with a regular exercise program and healthy eating and the pounds will just melt away.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Which Acai Berry Pills Are Safe to Use? Know This Information Before You Buy Your Acai Supplement
These days many physicians favor natural supplements rather than those manufactured synthetically. Since Acai berry grows naturally, it is basically a naturally occurring fruit. It does not contain any toxins and doesn't have any known side effects. The fruit can be taken in the form of fruit preserves or in the form of tablets as food supplements. Unfortunately fresh Acai berries are only found in South America. They can't be exported because they have a very short shelf life and start rotting soon after being harvested.
The next question is which acai berry pills are safe to use?
a.) Start by looking at the label. Most of the companies selling the Acai pills don't easily reveal how much Acai berriy was used in their products on their websites. Maintain caution before buying acai pills from such places. In some cases, these kinds of pills contain added products which might not suit everyone or which are not advisable to be consumed every day.
b.) Most of the acai berry pill companies add some additives in the capsules they make. You must be well aware about what these additives are. There are different additives for different situations thus these additives may not be good for your particular condition. For instance, in some of the pills caffeine is given a high percentage which is certainly not recommended for pregnant women or lactating mothers. Green tea is often a component. Some supplements have a laxative added to clean out the colon. Any of these additives are safe but you should know what's I the pills you're taking.
c.) It is a good option to look for products which show the percentage of acai berries in the total product. The higher the percentage the better.
Acai berry pills are quite safe to use if you take care and carefully consider the facts well before buying your supplements. Since acai products have different standards in the market, it is important for you to buy the products from a reputed company produces high quality products.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
3 Foods to Cut Fat and Cholesterol
Eat an apple a day. It's not just an old wife's tale that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Consuming a 5 ounce apple means you're adding 3 grams of pectin to your diet. Pectin is a soluble fiber that binds to bad-for-you fats cleaning them out of your system. Apples have flavonoids which are compounds that prevent holesterol's ability to cling to the inner walls of your arteries by as much as
38%. That's good news because it decreases your risk of a heart attack.
D-glucaric acid is a substance that decreases the body's ability to form LDL cholesterol, the bad cholesterol, in the liver by 35%. As an added bonus pectin also adds a feeling of fullness which means you can less than you usually do, lose weight, but still feel full. It's best to eat the apples raw to get all their benefits. Apple slices spread with peanut butter is a good way to start your day at breakfast.
Another fat fighter and food that lowers cholesterol are nuts. Only 2 ounces a day reduces the liver's production of LDL cholesterol by 33% and increases the good HDL cholesterol by 11%.
Nuts are rich in monounsaturated fats. Not only do monounsaturated fats cut cholesterol they also act as an appetite suppressant. Any kind of nut will do but almonds and walnuts are especially beneficial.
Nuts make a terrific snack by themselves. 2 ounces is what would fit in your cupped palm or about 2 tablespoons. Nuts can be added to salads, fruit smoothies, breakfast cereals and cooked vegetables. One red grapefruit daily decreases LDL cholesterol up to 20% and is twice as effective as white or pink grapefruit. The reason is red
grapefruit is richer in antioxidants which curb the liver's tendency to produce cholesterol.
As an added bonus one study showed that women who ate any color grapefruit daily lost 20 pounds in three months without any other change in their habits. Eat the whole fruit rather than just drinking the juice to take advantage of all the fiber.
Adding these three foods to your daily diet can help lower your bad cholesterol levels, increase your good cholesterol and as an added bonus help you lose weight.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Lose Weight Fast With Fruits
In order to lose fat fast by using a fruit-based diet, be careful about the type of fruit you choose. Choose the ones that have high water content and lower sugar content. You can go for citrus fruit, cantaloupes, and berries. Stay away from the super sweet ones unless they have a very high water content like watermelon. Sweet translates into a high sugar content and that can cause blood sugar spikes. A blood sugar spike causes your body to release too much insulin which then leads to a feeling of hunger. Also stay away from fruit that has been canned or processed in any way, the whole point of eating fruit is to obtain the maximum amount of vitamin and antioxidants with a minimal intake of fat and sugar.
Eating the whole unprocessed fruit is better than drinking the juice. The fiber in the whole fruit will keep you fuller longer. The fiber also slows down the digestive process so you won't get a sugar spike. It's better for you and your weight loss program to eat the whole unprocessed fruit rather than just drinking the juice.
Even though a fruit-rich diet might seem easy to pull off at first, a few days into it, you may be craving something else. The trick is to squeeze fruit into your daily eating habits, by replacing some of the major calorie providers in your daily diet with fruit. Make sure you always keep fruit handy, so that when you are itching for a snack, they will be the first thing you will set eyes on.
One study showed that women who ate a small apple before every meal lost more weight than woman who didn't eat the apple. It seems the pectin in the apple and fiber worked to help the women feel fuller longer. Apples contain a substance that binds to fat and helps it move through the body without being absorbed.
Fruit can help you lose weight in a delicious and healthy way, all you need to do is incorporate them into your daily eating habits.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Calorie Negative Foods: Fact or Fiction to Help You Lose Weight Fast
Negative calorie foods are foods that require your body to burn more calories for their digestion than the digested product will give back to your body in terms of energy. That means that not only will said type of food not provide you any calories, it will make your body burn some as well. Even though it sounds too good to be true, there are certain foods that will do just that, you just have to know how to use them.
Most of these foods should be eaten raw in order for them to have a maximum effect. After all, by cooking them you make it easier for the body to digest them in most cases, and as such, you're cheating yourself. The negative calorie foods belong to the fruit and vegetables food categories, and some examples of negative calorie foods are as follows: cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, celery, lettuce, radish, cucumber, lemon/lime, grapefruit and others.
Negative calorie foods are most effective when used on their own, or in combination with each other but certainly not in combination with calorie-rich foods, something that would render the use of negative calorie foods useless. In other words don't put cheese sauce on your broccoli or dip your celery sticks in peanut butter. Combine raw shredded cabbage, lettuce, cucumber, celery, and radishes for a crunchy salad for lunch. Add raw cauliflower and broccoli spears to your dinner. Have an entire grapefruit with your breakfast.
Negative calorie foods are not miracle foods that will make you lose weight in no time without any effort on your part. Rather, they can help you in your efforts to lose weight, complementing the effects of a balanced, low fat diet and exercise program. While these foods will not spare you the effort it usually takes to achieve positive results in weight-loss, they will help you get there faster.
Try consuming two servings of a negative calorie food with every meal. You'll get more vitamins, fiber, and burn more calories. One of the best negative calorie foods isn't really a food at all. It's ice water. Yes, an 8 ounce glass of ice water requires your body to burn up 25 calories in order to raise its temperature back to normal after consuming the water.
Lose weight fast by adding negative calorie foods to your diet.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Lose Weight in Two Weeks with a Low Calorie Program.
A pound of fat requires that 3500 calories either be burned or not consumed. A calorie is the amount of energy in food. 500 calories would have to be cut from the average person's daily diet to lose one pound of fat per week. A restricted low calorie program is usually between 1200 to 1500 calories per day. A medium apple has 70 calories, an 8 oz. steak about 425. One tablespoon of fat, oil, or butter has 120 calories. As a general rule fat and oil has more calories than any other type of food. Vegetables and fruits have the least amount of calories.
Increasing the amount of exercise per day can result in weight loss. If you walk for 30 minutes daily you'll burn off 250 calories. The good news is that exercising at a brisk pace, say walking, for 20 minutes will increase your metabolism from 10 to 15% for two to four hours afterward. A brisk pace means that you can still talk while walking. If you can whistle or sing, you're going too slow and if you can't catch your breath enough to hold up your end of the conversation, you're going too fast.
Combining a low calorie program with an exercise program will allow you to burn off the fat faster.
The advantages of a low calorie program is that you can eat a wide variety of food. There are no restrictions on what you can eat, just how much you can eat. If you absolutely have to have a piece of cheesecake you can eat it as long as you include it in your daily calorie consumption.
The disadvantages include sometimes being hungry but you can lose weight in two weeks on a low calorie program.
Severely cutting back calories doesn't accelerate weight loss, in fact it has the opposite effect. Your body is conditioned to react to starvation, which is what you're doing when you decrease calories below 1000 per day, by lowering your metabolism. So you can cut back and your body will just compensate. The bad news is if you go back to a normal diet it takes your body a while to realize you're not starving and increase your metabolism back to normal levels.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Plan for your snacks
Thursday, January 22, 2009
If you work outside the home, brown bag your lunch
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Lose That Weight with Acai Berries
Wouldn't it be wonderful to find a food that was not only good for you but helped you lose weight and tasted good? How about a raspberry chocolate flavored juice? There is such a thing: the Acai berry. It's high in antioxidants, amino acids, and essential fatty acids. It helps you lose weight because the Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids it contains help increase your metabolism. The fiber fills you up and because it takes longer to digest, it keeps you full so you don't get hungry as soon.
Acai berries are not some brand new scientifically molded super food. It's been around for ages and has been consumed by native South Americans as a regular part of their diet. The Acai palm tree produces two crops a year. Are you now wondering why this wonder fruit doesn't show up in the produce section of your local supermarket or at least health food store? It's simply because the berries are extremely perishable once they've been harvested. Within 24 hours of being removed from the palm tree the berry starts to rot. That and the fact that the berry is a small sized fruit about the size of a grape with a rather large seed there isn't a lot that's edible.
The good news is that Acai berries products are available in the United States and other parts of the world besides South America. There's Acai berry juice, pulp, powders, extracts, and supplements.
Like any good for you food the challenge is to incorporate the food into your diet on a daily and regular basis. Here are a couple of ways to get Acai berries into your diet and boost your weight loss program. Here are a few more ideas.
Fruit smoothie - Mix 1/2 cup of juice with 1/2 cup of yogurt, whirl in a blender with a handful of chopped fresh fruit.
Mix the pulp with equal portions of applesauce
Mix half juice and half green tea
Mix half juice with half sparkling water
The amount you should use of the powders, extracts and supplements depend on the quality of the product and how the acai berry was processed. While there haven't been any side effects confirmed from Acai berries eating too much of anything isn't good for you.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Have breakfast
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Can You Lose Weight Fast And Easy Or Are You Your Own Worst Enemy?
You've been lugging the same 15 pounds, or maybe it's 25 or 50 pounds, around for what seems like forever. You've tried every diet known from cabbage soup to no carb to bananas and peanuts. You lose a little weight and then it comes right back on. Are you your own worst enemy when you try to lose weight fast and easy?
The key word is "try." When you think about it there's really no such thing as "try." You either accomplish your goal or you don't. And that may be why you've had such a difficult time "trying" to lose weight, you didn't think you actually could.
How you think determines how successful you'll be. Trying implies a half hearted effort that may work for a little while but is full of doubts to whether you'll achieve your goal. So change your way of thinking as much as your way of eating to lose weight.
Picture yourself healthy and at the weight you want to be. If you have photos of the thinner you put them up on the bathroom mirror. When you look at the photos picture yourself looking like that now. If you don't have photos choose a picture of someone you'd like to look like.
The idea is to fill your mind with the positive image. When a cookie beckons or you're dying for a double mocha latte in the afternoon, replace the craving with the positive image of you.
Change the way you think about food. Fresh fruits, vegetables, and juices are filled with energy and that's what the new you wants: lots of energy. Sugary cookies, breads, candies, sauces, and rich foods are filled with sludgy, draining, weigh you down calories, and that's what you do not want.
Enjoy the crunch of a fresh apple and the sweetness of the juice. Thank about the vitamins and antioxidants you're giving your body. Apples have another benefit. It's been shown that eating a small apple before every meal leads to weight loss. That's because apples contain a substance called pectin which makes you feel fuller so you eat less.
Now compare the apple with a frozen entrée, over salted, laden with chemical preservatives, and added fat to replace any flavors the natural ingredients may have had. The entrée just sits in your stomach like a lump and then slowly slugs through your digestive system.
Which would you rather have?
Change your thinking from trying to doing and you'll lose weight fast.
Visit Dee Power's Lose Weight Fast for more weight loss tips.