Factors That Effect Energy Intake and Body Weight…

chfintess5No matter what you’ve read or been told about your body weight the truth is, your body weight will always be determined for the most part by…”energy in versus energy out.”

Although certain factors can influence the type of weight gained, bottom line is your calorie intake and expenditure dictates the direction the weight scale goes.

However, and this is important, you are not just after reducing that scale weight what you are really after is loss of fat. Losing fat means you are moving in the right direction…losing muscle mass means you are not. [Read more…]

Switch Your Focus from Calories to Nutrients…

getting healthyIf your goal is to lose weight permanently and enjoy amazing health and super energy you must shift from your eating habits from nutrient-poor to nutrient-dense.

All those processed, highly refined convenience foods must be replaced by fresh fruits and vegetables, healthy fats, healthy proteins and healthy fiber.

For the most part, we’ve been a bit mislead by the “diet” industry that pushes macro-nutrients: carbohydrates, proteins and fats in our diets in some crazy specific ratio; more of this and less of that, include this but exclude that.

Although there is a bit of truth in these formulas, these calorie containing nutrients are not the basis of healthy eating. [Read more…]

Workouts and Rest are Equally Important

CHFitnessMore is not better. Balance is better.

Over-training while getting little rest in between is a bad situation.

Everyone knows about the “active” part of the equation when getting fit. However, there is also another side that is equally important to getting fit and keeping weight off and that’s rest.

Without a doubt, most of the focus, energy and instruction falls into the “doing” part of fitness and very little is mentioned about the “passive” part.

But they are both equally important and if you are not allowing your body to get enough rest in between your workouts you and your weight will suffer.

Rest is vital to success…but it’s the one element that’s often overlooked as people go about performing their workouts. [Read more…]

Accountability is Key to Success in Health and Fitness

accountabilityHow many times have you attempted to diet or stick to a workout routine or achieve a fitness goal and failed? You are not alone. It’s a rare person who has not tried and failed at one of these if not all.

Maybe it’s time to do a bit of personal “inner reflection” and discover why success seems to allude you. It likely something as basic as accountability.

Personal accountability is the key to success in any endeavor. Diet and fitness included. [Read more…]

Toxins are Making You Fat

detoxToxins, those terrible toxins. Truth is, they are terrible and they do terrible things to your body.

Circulating toxins in your blood is both dangerous and damaging to your body so your body attempts to rid itself of them.

Guess where they hide out? The only place there’s room…in your fat cells. Fat cells are your body’s storage tanks and the first place your body looks when it needs to dump damaging toxins. [Read more…]

Is Your Body on Toxic Overload?

feature_lovehandleToday, 80,000 plus chemicals are in active production and our exposure to these poisonous chemicals is greater than at any other time.

We are consistently subjected to very poor air quality, pesticides, heavy metals paint fumes and household cleaners and contamination in our food and water supplies as more than 10,000 chemicals in the form of solvents, emulsifiers and preservatives find their way into food processing and storage and 3,000 plus chemicals are added to our food supply.

When these poisonous chemicals find their way into our bodies they remain there causing damage that alters our metabolism (the body’s engine). This creates hormonal imbalances and increases our risk of chronic disease as it lowers our resistance. [Read more…]

Sleep…It Does a Diet Good

sleep1Without a doubt, the number one resolution every New Year centers on the goal of losing weight. Unfortunately nearly 90% of those who start a program of weight loss (even though their hearts are in it) will suffer defeat and in the end just give up. Some even experience weight gain. It’s no wonder, after putting heart and soul into their goals and experiencing weight gain that they just give up. Gaining weight when you are trying to lose is a definite motivation killer.

So, what’s going on? It seems no matter how hard you work at it you simply cannot lose the weight you want or achieve the body you dream about.  [Read more…]

5 Principles that Help Cure Weight-Loss Resistance

metabolic rateLong term success at anything requires you first have the right approach and it’s no different when managing your weight. If you are having trouble keeping weight off after you’ve worked diligently to take it off then most likely you are not adhering to the basic principles that help you to shed fat and keep it off forever.

There are 5 basic principles that work with you to keep you in shape and stop you from gaining your weight back and these principles are:

Metabolism – You need to be aware that your metabolic rate shifts and changes…it is not cast in stone. Just by taking the appropriate actions you can elevate your metabolism and increase the rate at which you burn fat. [Read more…]

You Can’t Out-Exercise a Bad Diet

How-To-Eat-With-AbandonThe study of how nutrients interact with our human genes is called Nutrigenonmics and is a blossoming new field. It studies the genes associated with health and disease as well as obesity. We already know that certain foods contain information and instructions for cells and hormones along with nutrients and calories. The are not trying to find out how this information can turn on or off the expression of certain genes.

One of the side effects of this is that it turns up the dial on your hunger thermostat which reprograms you level of hunger upwards. You’ll also experience increased cravings as well as increased hunger. [Read more…]

Is Your Hunger Disguised or is it Real?

hungry3Hunger is a far more complex physiological state than we give it credit for.

We all recognize the familiar pangs of hunger when we have not eaten for an extended period of time. It presents itself as a low-grade discomfort in the stomach that is just strong enough for us to notice.

For most of us, the first irritating feelings of discomfort caused from hunger are easy to ignore, they can be put aside for a short while. But, eventually those feelings become more intense as the body tries to grab out attention. The brain sends signals for the release of acid in the stomach in preparation for the intake and digestion of food. This is what we feel as emptiness, or the uncomfortable feeling in our stomach. [Read more…]