Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Leptin- I will balance you

My best friend is a personal trainer and massage therapist. She looks great, so she has to have the answers. I've been complaining about my overeating and general malaise and she told me about this book. Here's a tidbit about Leptin:

The Five Rules of Mastering Leptin

1. Never eat after dinner. Never go to bed on a full stomach. Leave a gap of 11-12 hours between dinner and breakfast as the best fat burn zone occurs 8 and 12 hours after eating. If you snack before bedtime, the leptin tells your brain that no energy is required and therefore no fat burning will occur during the night.

2. Eat 3 meals per day. Allow 5-6 hours between meals with no snacks inbetween. Snacks would only stimulate the relase of insulin and while that happens, the body is not burning fat. If you find it difficult to eat only 3 meals per day, start with 4 per day. In time, with regular exercise, it will be easier and easier for you to leave 5 hours between meals.

3. Do not eat large meals. If you provide your body with more fuel than it needs, leptin and insulin resistance can result. You can learn to reduce meal sizes by eating slowly and chewing properly, also by putting the fork down from time to time. This will give your appetite the chance to catch up with your food intake.

4. Eat a high-protein breakfast. This supports blood sugar levels throughout the day and will minimize afternoon energy crashes. These energy crashes in the afternoon are often due to eating a breakfast with too many carbohydrates and too little protein. People who eat a high carbohydrate breakfast and who are leptin resistant are more likely to overeat.

5. Reduce the amount and glycemic index of carbohydrates eaten. This doesn’t mean that you can only eat very low or very restricted carbohydrates, but that you should match the amount of starchy carbohydrates with the same portion of proteins. You may eat fibrous vegetables in abundance. There’s an easy way to find out if you are eating too many carbohydrates. Weigh yourself in the morning and at bedtime. If your bedtime weight is more than 2 pounds over your morning weight and if you followed rules 1-4 during the day, then you consumed too many carbohydrates that day.

The authors developed these five rules after making an in-depth stuy of all the leptin research studies so far (approximately 9000) and combined this with experiences with clients. The aim of these rules is to restore the body’s sensitivity to leptin and by that re-establish the body’s ability to efficiently produce energy from food which will lead to weight loss and better health.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

I feel like I'm always wearing a fat suit

I get emails from ediets about tips and tricks to rev my metabolism I found these particularly interesting.

8. Boost your metabolism by reading instead of watching TV: Researchers at Memphis State University monitored 32 girls as they watched a half-hour television program. They found the metabolic rates dropped as much as 16-percent below resting metabolic rate. In other words, they burned fewer calories watching TV than they did just by reading!

9. Drink green tea: Green tea is a popular tea from Japan that has numerous health benefits, including weight loss. It's not 100 percent certain how green tea helps one to lose fat, but it appears to increase the amount of calories the body burns -- not necessarily because of the small amounts of caffeine it contains, but due to a compound abbreviated as EGCG. When purchasing green tea make sure the label states that the green tea used is standardized for caffeine and EGCG.

10. Practice hydrotherapy: This could have been placed in the "drink lots of water" section but deserves its own section due to its efficiency. First thing in the morning, drink 32 ounces of very cold water on an empty stomach. Don't eat breakfast for at least 30 minutes. The cold water will force your body to raise its core temperature, thereby stimulating your metabolism and excreting any excess water. You may find that you lose two pounds the first month you try this. If you want to take it a step further, do the same thing at lunch. Just make sure to wait the 30 minutes prior to eating. Remember though, if you're consuming excess calories each day, this tip won't work.

Here is the link to the whole article.

Friday, August 1, 2008

Finally! Exercise in a Pill!


They still haven't mastered a whole meal in a pill like in "Charlie & The Chocolate Factory" but we are closer to not having to exercise anymore. There will be pills that trick the muscles into thinking they have been working out, when all you've been doing is sitting at your desk. Take a read, and maybe you won't have to go the gym tomorrow. Link

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

That's it! I'm moving to the U.K.

I was thinking about skipping the gym tonight, and perhaps I will. I'm a size 8, which is relative depending on what brand I try on, and perhaps I don't look so bad after all. Here is the article:
fabulous mag.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Waging the Blubber War!

I started calorie counting yesterday. I've done it before and had success with it. It keeps me from stuffing my face and gives me something to obsess about. I signed up for an account at www.fitday.com. The site is a little hard to navigate, but hey, it's free. I set my goal for a daily intake of 1550 calories. That's what is recommended for my size gal to lose weight.

I have been going to the gym on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week but I have been eating whatever I want in any portion.
On Tuesday and Thursday, I use the Wii Fit. What a great combination of something I hate (exercise) and something I do everyday (video games). I only have minor complaints about the wii fit. My boyfriend and I can't play the exercise games together. We can't both be logged in and compete with each other. The game shows me when he played by himself and has gotten a higher score on something, which infuriates me. I really like the balance games & yoga in the game. The strength training is good too, except I HATE push-ups and everything similar. Such a wuss. Running in place seems to wear on my joints, but the cool part is you can change the channel and watch real television.