I am such a SLACKER!

I am so sorry I haven't been able to post. This week has been so crazy! On a happy note, I am so proud of all of you! The first week of The Biggest Loser contest has been GREAT! This week was so amazing that we had a three way tie. The winners were Jaimie Willis, Megan Vaughn, and Jocelyn Singleton, all with 1.03 weight loss! I will be contacting each of you to get your prizes to you! You guys are so amazing! Keep up the good work!

Tip for April 12th- Some more Soda statistics

Drinking 2 soft drinks per week- Increases risk of pancreatic cancer by 87%. Drinking 1 soft drink per day- Increases a child's risk of being obese by 60%. Drinking 2 soft drinks per day- Increases risk of gout by 85%. Tragically, high fructose corn syrup, in the form of soda, has become the number one source of calories in the United States, and it is very clear that it is the primary cause of the obesity epidemic. Next to smoking, I believe that it is one of the worst things you can take into your body!

Tip for April 10th

It is essential to a good, healthy diet for you to READ THE LABELS ON YOUR FOOD!
Cut high fructose corn syrup out of your diet completely. Yes it is made from corn but you won't find HFCS in nature and it's bad, bad, bad. It contributes to obesity, diabetes, hypertension, suppresses the chemical in our bodies that tell us we are full and more. Besides soda (which we have already talked about), it is found in many otherwise healthy foods like yogurt, whole wheat bread, food bars, vitamin water drinks and sports drinks. Condiments such as ketchup, BBQ sauce, pickle relish and most salad dressings. It is also in candy, and other "snack" foods, especially food marketed to children. Your body has a "cap" so to speak, for the amount of sucrose that it can take. The worst thing about HFCS, however, is that your body doesn't recognize it, so therefore it does not have that natural cap. That is why maybe one candy bar is enough, but you can have 5 sodas in a day.
Here are some other bad bad things to avoid. Hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils. Trans fat. Think shortening. Now imagine a big scoop of that in your children's peanut butter, a Costco muffin or chicken McNuggets (which we have also talked about. YUCK!). The food industry is doing better with this one, but check your chips, cookies anything fried, and of course, your peanut butter.

Tip for April 9th- Portion Control #2

Here is a great site that goes step by step through portion control!
http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/slideshow.asp?show=40

Tip for April 8th

One of the things that is the very hardest for me is portion control. When you are on a diet and you feel like you are starving, how do you not sit down and eat an entire bag of Doritos? First tip I have found is "Eat Six Small Meals a Day". Space them 3 hours apart. This means that every 3 hours, your body finishes digesting the last meal. Then you immediately throw more food for it to digest. Your body is constantly digesting, so it's constantly operating at an elevated metabolism. Rather than wasting 15 hours a day, you are wasting perhaps 6 hours a day (sleeping). Your time wasted per day has dropped to 25%. A much lower number. Here is an alternate eating schedule: 7AM - eat breakfast, 10AM - eat mid-morning snack, 12PM - eat Lunch, 3PM - eat afternoon snack, 6PM - eat dinner, 9PM - eat evening snack. Now don't think that by eating 6 meals a day you are going to be doubling the food you eat in a day. In fact you will eat the same amount of food you normally eat, the difference is you've spread it out over twice the meals. This essentially means you are eating half the food you normally eat at each meal. Now, these 6 meals will be 6 small meals. In correlation with eating 6 small meals a day, you must learn the concept of portion control. See Portion Control #2 for the second half of this blog!

Daily Tip for April 7

TIP FOR TODAY:
Avoid fast food. First of all it is fast. If we actually had to make that meal we might find we just aren't that hungry. Worse is what is in it. The food is manipulated and filled with chemicals from farm and ranch to the time it is placed it that (hopefully) recycled bag. Consider the McNugget. It has 38 ingredients including several that are completely synthetic, butane and at least one known carcinogen.
The ingredients are listed here: Chicken (45%), Coating [Vegetable Oil (Rapeseed, Sunflower), Wheat Flour, Water (8%), Maize Flour, Modified Starch, Raising Agents (Disodium Diphosphate, Sodium Bicarbonate), Whey Powder (from Milk), Flavour Enhancer (Potassium Chloride), Egg Albumen (Free Range Egg), Ground Pepper, Breadcrumb (Wheat Flour, Salt), Salt, Dextrose, Ground Celery], Water (7%), Potato Starch, Vegetable Oil (Rapeseed, Sunflower), Natural Flavouring (from Free Range Egg), Flavour Enhancer (Potassium Chloride). Prepared in the restaurants using a non-hydrogenated vegetable oil.
Let's be honest, do you really think you should be eating it if your can't pronounce it or don't know what it is? A better question is, Do you really think that your kids should be eating it?

Tip for April 06

I am going to let you in on a little secret that I have learned recently. The greatest way to lose weight fast, is by doing cardio intervals. It has actually been proven to help you lose more weight than jogging for an hour or more. The fat burning affects can last up to 48 hours, whereas the benefits of an hour on the treadmill essentially ends when you step off. Here is an example of a twenty minute interval work out.
5 minutes warm up
1 minute sprint. *
2 minutes active rest **
1 minute sprint
2 minutes active rest
1 minute sprint
2 minutes active rest
1 minute sprint
2 minutes active rest
1 minute sprint
2 minutes active rest***
*This is full sprint but not so fast you can’t finish the minute. I like to say on a scale of 1 -10, 10 feeling like a heart attack, work at a 9.
**An active rest is comparable to your warm up pace.
*** This routine is a sample. To get maximum benefits mix it up to keep your body not knowing what to expect next.