Category: Eating For Weight Loss

Why is losing weight so hard?  The answer lies in the angry hormone triad.  The hormones leptin, insulin and cortisol dictate whether you lose or gain weight.  Get the angry hormone triad under control and you can lose weight.

Leptin is a hormone that’s designed to manage metabolism.  When leptin is functioning normal your metabolism roars on like a well tuned engine burning up the pizza you had last night.  In addition, it curves your appetite making you feel less hungry.  However, when leptin is out of balance your subconscious mind takes over because leptin takes over your brain.  Even though you are 50 lbs overweight leptin tells your brain you are hungry and need to eat.  At the same time your metabolism is grinding to a halt and stalling causing all that food your brain is telling you to eat to be stored as more fat.  This leads us to insulin.

Insulin is a master hormone and allows nutrients like sugar to enter and exit muscle and liver cells.  It does the same to fat cells.  If insulin levels are normal a person can store food in the form of glycogen and fat, but it can also allow you to release glycogen and fat from cells and burn it up as energy.  However, if insulin levels rise too much which is the case in many overweight people the body becomes wrecked with inflammation (which make you sick) and fat cells lose the ability to release fat.  When insulin levels are too high the body loses the ability to lose fat.

Cortisol is the last hormone in the angry hormone triad.  Cortisol is one bad mother.  This hormone stores unwanted fat at high rate’s, causes muscle to waste away, increases insulin and glucose levels, and slows metabolism.  Cortisol is controlled by a myriad of things.  Sleep, stress, exercise and food all play a role.  Allow this hormone to get angry and weight loss is a no go.

So how do you fix the angry hormone triad?  It’s easier than you think.

Number one is diet.  You must eliminate food that has no nutrients and is high in fructose.  You must add in nutrient dense food (vegetables, fruit, eggs and nuts), anti-inflammatory foods (broccoli, blue berries, and turmeric to name a few) and foods that restore normal gut flora (kim chi, sauerkraut, and greek yogurt).  (E-mail me and I will send you a free E-book loaded with this type of food).

Number two is exercise.  You must get fit.  Not walking fit but truly fit.  Increase muscle and strength with resistance training.  Keep exercise sessions short but intense.  Anaerobic exercise is essential to great health and weight loss.  Some think due to health and joint problems that there is no hope.  You’re wrong!  Everything can be modified as you strengthen the body and gain a level of fitness you once thought impossible.

Number three is sleep.  You must learn to improve the quality of your sleep.  Doing things like turning off most the lights two hours prior to bedtime and sleeping in complete darkness.  (Visit our Facebook page by searching Expect Results Fitness and look for the post 9 Things You Can Do To Get Better Sleep).

Number four is lowering stress.  Easier said than done, but you must determine the source of your stress and develop a plan that will allow you to eliminate it.  It may be developing a budget with Dave Ramsey or seeking parenting help from a counselor.  Stress must be made the servant not the master.

I would love to help you achieve your health and weight loss goals.  Contact me at 501-607-4974 and try Fitness Boot Camp for FREE!

Hey,

If you’re trying to lose fat it begins with the food you choose.  Eliminate these 7 foods from your diet and watch your waist and hips disappear and your health improve.

1.  Ditch the cereal for breakfast.  Cereal is killing your fat loss potential.  It doesn’t matter what type of so called healthy cereal you’re eating, as soon as you eat it you store it as fat.  Cereal makes your blood sugar spike which causes insulin to increase moving glycogen into muscles and the liver and storing the rest in fat cells.  Instead eat eggs with diced tomato and sweet peppers.  Add some sausage or ham for extra flavor.

2.  Forget about bread.  Bread is just like cereal and does the same thing.  Eat too much and insulin level increase and stay up.  Too much insulin blocks the body’s ability to release fat to be burned.  Begin using lettuce as your new bun or wrap.  Lettuce is primarily water and fiber and does nothing to your blood sugar but improve its management.

3.  Say good bye to pasta and noodles.  Too many of these refined carbohydrates will quickly put you in blood sugar overload.  Ever wonder why you get sleepy after huge dish of pasta?  It’s your blood sugar crashing due to all those simple carbs.  In addition, you feel hungry within 2-3 hours of eating.  Once the pasta is converted to fat everything in the stomach disappears fast and you feel like you need to eat again.  Instead of pasta use a spiral shredder and make veggie noodles out of zucchini and squash.  They are better for you and barely move the blood sugar needle.

4.  Stop eating rice.  I know you think I am the grain police, but too many grains will make you fat plain and simple.  Rice is another food that’s quickly converted to sugar and stored as fat and raises insulin levels making it impossible to burn fat.  I hope this is sinking in.  Instead shred cauliflower and flavor it with your favorite spices like turmeric, black pepper and a little olive oil.  This is a great food for men and their prostate gland and it contains very few calories.

5.  Get rid of the SODA!  In my opinion you are drinking liquid fat, because at the end of the day that’s what it’s converted to.  Loaded with high fructose corn syrup, it’s a major contributor to many chronic diseases and a leading cause of obesity.  Begin drinking water or tea without the sugar of course.  If you need sweetener in your tea apply the next food on the list.

6.  Throw your sugar and artificial sweetener away.  Pure sugar plays havoc on your blood sugar and insulin levels and by now we know high insulin levels are bad when it comes to fat loss.  As for artificial sweeteners we don’t know the long term effects on the body, however preliminary data tells us it might not be good.  I’ll leave it at that and let you do your own research.  Replace sugar and artificial sweeteners with coconut sugar, raw honey or pure maple syrup.  These sweeteners come from real food and can be beneficial to you.

7.  News Flash….Little Debbie Wants To Make You FAT.  Stop eating baked goods that spike your blood sugar and contain absolutely no nutrients.  If this is your snack of choice you will never lose fat.  Witch to whole food snacks.  Mix almonds, walnuts, raisins and dark chocolate chips and use it as a trail mix snack.  Blend yogurt with peaches or strawberries for a protein rich snack complete with probiotics and antioxidant.

Eliminate these things from your diet and watch the fat melt away easier than you ever thought possible.

Helping You Make Better Choices,

Jeff

Hey,
I’ve had several people ask me how to get rid of fat from stubborn areas on the body.  I wish I could tell you to do this exercise and it would magically vanish but there’s no such exercise.  Stubborn belly or hip fat boils down to diet.  So, instead of providing exercises that won’t work I’ve come up with 5 diet objectives to focus on.  Focus your energy on accomplishing these 5 things daily for 30 days and see improvement.  Do it for 4-6 months and you might see abs or other things you haven’t seen in years.

Objective 1:  Eliminate bread, pasta and white rice from your diet.  You’ve probably heard me say this 1000 times but it’s the honest truth when it comes to fat loss.  Losing fat ultimately boils down to pushing insulin levels as low as possible.  High insulin/blood sugar levels block fat cells from releasing fat.  This is the toughest thing for most people to do, but it works if you have the fortitude to do it.

Objective 2:  Eat at least 4 cups of vegetables per day.  Vegetables are loaded with vitamins, minerals and fiber and are something your body craves.  Vegetables are nutrient dense food that satisfy the body like nothing else due to the vitamins and minerals in them. Focus on getting 4 servings per day and you will find yourself wanting fewer bad foods.

Objective 3:  Take a multivitamin every day!  Research tells us the reason we over eat processed foods are due to the lack of useable vitamins and minerals in the food.   If you are lacking vitamins and minerals that your body needs, it will continuously seek food attempting to get the vitamin and minerals we need.  There are not a lot of vitamins in a honey bun so you will have to eat a truckload to satisfy the bodies demand.  Make sure you use a gummy or liquid vitamin to get the most out of a multivitamin.  Other vitamins tend to go straight through you without providing benefits.  However, you will be amazed at how this alone will curb hunger.

Objective 4:  Eat 3-4 whole eggs per day!   Eggs are the best source of protein you can find and is very low in calories.  In addition, the yolk contains tons of B vitamins that your body craves.  Eggs are a good source of D aspartic acid which is a precursor to testosterone.  This is important for both men and women wanting lose fat.  Increased T levels in men dramatically improve their ability to lose fat quickly.  This is a major reason men tend to lose fat faster than women.  However, women need testosterone as well just in lower doses.  As women age estrogen increases which causes testosterone to decrease as a result women lose muscle mass, bone density and increase fat.  A loss in muscle the primary burner of fat will automatically result in more weight gain.  Eat more broccoli to lower excess estrogen levels and eat more eggs and strength train to increase T levels to lower fat in both sexes.

Objective 5:  Eliminate soda/fruit juice/Gatorade, diet soda and alcohol from your diet.  Soda is a no brainer; everyone knows all that sugar will lead to increased fat.  Diet soda is supposed to be no calories and better for you when losing weight, right.  Wrong, diet soda will increase your craving for sweet meaning you will ultimately eat more sugar as a result.  Not to mention we don’t know the long term effects of artificial sweeteners on the body.  Alcohol is another drink that leads to fat gains.  Alcohol of any kind comes from grains or fruit and is loaded with simple carbs which act much like soda.  However, unlike soda alcohol itself contains additional usable calories which is a double whammy not to mention the loss of inhibition which can lead to binging on certain foods you wouldn’t ordinarily eat.

Sometimes it’s easier to implement change a little at a time.  You may want to implement one objective every two weeks until all 5 are a habit.  Apply these 5 objectives to your daily routine and watch your body fat disappear.  You can’t out exercise a poor diet, make small changes that add up over time.

Providing Simple Steps to Help You Look and Feel Better,
Jeff