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It’s True… You Can Eat Cake For Breakfast And Still Lose Weight

I think researchers have the best job in the world. It seems all they have to do is dream up some crazy idea, find a bunch of people willing to try it out, and then publish the results. Cake for breakfast is one of those ideas – but it seems that this time it’s not such a crazy one.

The people at Tel Aviv University managed to find 193 obese volunteers who were willing to take part in a 32 week trial. Half of them had a 300 calorie breakfast, the other half had a 600 calorie breakfast that included dessert.

By the 16 week mark both groups had lost an average of around 33lbs. But the really interesting stuff happened in the second half of the study. During the remaining 16 weeks the tiny breakfast group had regained around 22lbs, but the Big Breakfast bunch had lost another 15lbs each.

The daily calorie intake of both groups was designed to be the same, so those with the smaller breakfast made up for it later on in the day. But those same participants were the ones who felt hunger and cravings and frequently gave in to the urges to ‘cheat’.

The reasoning behind this finding is that your metabolism is at its most active in the morning and its power to burn off excess energy drops throughout the day. So, by eating those extra calories in the morning, you not only have all day to burn them off, but you also shut down production of the hunger hormone ghrelin. This is the reason those participants in the cake-for-breakfast group experienced little in the way of cravings for sweet foods later on in the day even though they were following a calorie restricted diet

But the most interesting thing appears to be it took 16 weeks before any difference was measured between the two groups. However, this was just the way the experiment was designed. Participants had to follow the diet strictly for 16 weeks. After this time they were permitted to eat extra food if they felt hungry. So I suspect that the differences in the two regimes would have shown up much sooner without this restriction.

There is a problem with this research, and it is highlighted by this fact that both groups experienced the same weight loss when they stuck to the diet. So cake for breakfast makes absolutely no difference when you stick rigidly to a calorie-restricted diet. The cake only made a difference once hunger and cravings were allowed to be satisfied. So what it seems the cake does is to remove this problem. So if you are on a calorie restricted diet and you need some respite from the craving then schedule in some cake for breakfast. But if you want to lose weight the easy way then just check out my easy weight loss book.

Of course another one of the problems with research is that you tend to have highly motivated individuals and there is a world of difference between doing something uncomfortable for 16 weeks and doing it forever.

The results of this research are entirely consistent with my own experience with my weight loss clients. Those who have the most difficulty losing weight are the ones who habitually skip breakfast. I go into the problems this causes in my book How to Lose Weight Easily and Free Yourself from Diets Forever, so I’m not going to repeat that here, but I’m pleased that this research supports the ideas that I have been promoting with my weight loss clients for many years now.

Michael

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Worrying Women Worry More Than Men Who Don’t Worry Enough

Researchers at Michigan State University have evidence that suggests that women who worry, worry more than anyone else. Women who don’t worry are ok. Men who worry don’t worry as much. It seems that when worrying women engage in tasks a part of their mind is constantly assessing how well they are performing and whenever a mistake is made or something isn’t quite good enough then the worrying kicks in.

This anxiety interferes with task performance and uses up energy causing tiredness and exhaustion which again interferes with task performance. So if you are a worrier, doing anything is much, much harder for you than for anyone else, but if you are a female worrier – then life is really tough. It’s as if you have a super-critical overseer constantly looking over your shoulder.

Worry, anxiety, stress – whatever you want to call it is a huge problem in our society. 60 million people in the US receive tranquillisers each year. That figure is 12 million in the UK. That’s 20% (1 in every 5) of the population in each country. And the interesting thing is, that despite the popularity of medicating it – medication does nothing to change the situation. All it does is ease the symptoms.

That isn’t a solution.

The only lasting solution that I’ve found is to deal with the problem where it is. Where it is is the mind. Notice that I say mind and not brain. The problem is the thoughts you think, the reasons you think them, and your identification with those thoughts.

Because thoughts tend to appear within our own minds, and they tend to make sense to us, (and there are so many of them we don’t have time to question them) we go along with whatever they are saying. We might not act on them, but we do tend to agree with them.

“So and so’s a right b****, just look at what she did.” The thought is there, and we are in total agreement with it, as we smile sweetly when so and so walks past and says ‘hi’. We might not act on them, but we are in agreement.

So when we are engaged in a task, and we make a small mistake, thoughts like: stupid, careless, idiot, and worse may pop spontaneously into our thought space. Because they appear of their own volition and what they are saying fits with our reality – we believe them.

But we don’t like them.

So we become more vigilant. This takes more energy, so the task becomes more difficult and possibly slower (another cause for critical thoughts) and so starts a vicious cycle of self-defeating, energy-sapping thought activity.

There is a solution. There is a way out. It isn’t medication.

Michael

Thanks to:

http://sl.farmonline.com.au/news/metro/national/general/worrying-impairs-female-brains-study/2612897.aspx

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What To Do When The Past Gets In The Way Of Peace And Happiness

Something happens, it doesn’t really matter what it is – it could be an argument, betrayal, disappointment, rejection, something you did that you shouldn’t, something you didn’t do that you should… but it generated negative emotion within you and continues to play on your mind.

The problem lies, not in the happening, but in the continual mental replay, and the constant analysis. This is where you attempt to figure out what you should have done differently. In other words, you want the past to be different from the way it was and if you could only figure out how to make that happen, then you’d be okay. If you can’t figure out how to make that happen then your life is effectively over. Yes, I know I’m exaggerating a little, but that is frequently how it feels while the intensity of the ThoughtStorm is still being played out in your mind.

So you are looking for a solution to make everything ok. What you really want (change the past) is impossible – so would you accept a solution that simply makes the past irrelevant?

You see what most people really want is peace and/or happiness. But they always want these things from a place where they have neither and so have a tendency to place conditions upon them. When you actually arrive at an experience of peace or happiness what you realise is that nothing matters. Nothing matters because you realise that peace and happiness arise from within. They are a state of mind, not a state of circumstances.

The first step you need to take is one of looking at what is actually going on. What is going on is that your mind is filled with an unpleasant memory and that memory is surrounded by, and fuels, a barrage of thoughts… and analyses… and what ifs… and should’ves… and shouldn’ts… and maybes.

A memory is itself just thoughts about something that happened and when you access those thoughts you have associated pictures, feelings and sounds. The thoughts themselves are sounds. Just as if someone was taking to you. So the Hell you are experiencing is just pictures, feelings and sounds. All of which are going on in your present.

If you could find a way to stop these feelings, pictures, and sounds then you wouldn’t have a problem. It wouldn’t matter what had happened, you just wouldn’t have a problem.

A clock ticking is just a sound in your mind.

How much importance do you give to that sound?

A bird singing is just a sound in your mind.

Do you let a bird run your life?

Your mind is filled with sounds from your external world, yet very little of it is remembered or even noticed.

When you get caught in a ThoughtStorm remind yourself that it is just sounds and sensations.

Become aware of the activities that engage you fully: a hobby, or a book, or a videogame, or craftwork, a puzzle…

Then use your favourite activity to distract you. In time you will train yourself to shift your attention away from that memory.

The problem of course is when you are convinced that what happened shouldn’t have happened, or that life has been really unfair to you – but that’s another story.

 

Michael

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Peer Pressure And How To Make Choices

Choice is one of my favourite topics because it pulls in all sorts of ideas – like free will, and destiny, but there is another side that is also of importance and that is how to make a choice when there is pressure to choose.

We all know how difficult it is to be the lone voice in the crowd. But I also think that that lone voice is potentially the one most worth listening to.

There is a well-known experiment, by psychologist Solomon Asch, that took place in the 1950’s to test the effects of peer pressure. In this experiment one test subject was placed in a room with seven ‘fake’ participants. The test subject thought everyone was being tested. The experiment demonstrated a couple of things.

  1.  That it is very difficult to voice a difference of opinion when everyone else is in agreement.
  2. That it only takes one person to disagree with the ‘crowd’ in order for you to feel safer expressing your own opinion.

What the experiment showed was that when everyone else agrees it can either distort your perception of reality or it can cause you not to voice a difference of opinion even though you know everyone else is wrong.

It also demonstrated that if only one or two speak up against a majority who are wrong, this then provides sufficient authority for you to also speak up – assuming that there are no negative consequences for doing so.

In other words, being a lone voice crying in the wilderness is really difficult.

Isn’t it so much easier to go along with the crowd?

Sociologists observe this in mob behaviour when individuals find themselves behaving in socially unacceptable ways because the ‘mob’ behaves as a single organism and it seems to override individual morality.

Now you know as well as I do that when you are pressured to agree to do something you don’t want to do – that you quite often agree. If all your friends are arranging a day out at a theme park, but you’d rather visit a museum, or walk along a picturesque river valley, you probably find yourself at the theme park because the alternative would have been to be on your own – or worse be seen as boring, no fun, a wet blanket…

People who have difficulty saying ‘no’ also have this problem. They are controlled by others. If you always have to say ‘yes’ when someone asks you to do something for them, then you have no freedom. You live at the whim of others. Many people who suffer anxiety and stress problems have a problem saying ‘no’. The freedom that learning to say ‘no’ brings with it is a great stress release.

If you want to enjoy freedom in life then you have to live it on your terms. You have to make your choices based on your own needs and desires. Of course, that creates conflict if one of your needs or desires is to be liked and have friends and the other is to spend time in nature, because the theme park gives you one of those and the river gives you the other. In such cases the solution is simple. Just ask yourself the question “what would please me most, right now?” and then go with that. That way, on some days you’ll find yourself at the theme park and on others out in nature. This is not a compromise. Compromise is always a lose-lose situation. When you always go with what would please you most right now – you always win.

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Meditation – Is This The Key To Anxiety Control?

I don’t know about you but when I hear the word meditation I get pictures in my mind of Buddhist monks, monasteries, and very uncomfortable crossed-legs. I get those pictures and I’ve been a regular meditator for nearly two decades. I’m neither a monk nor capable of sitting in the lotus position.

I started meditating because I suffered from chronic anxiety. The meditation was a significant factor in healing that problem. I do it nowadays because of the benefits it continues to bring.

You see meditation is quite amazing in how, over time, it brings about powerful beneficial changes to physical and mental health. The problem with meditation is that you can’t get it in a bottle or a blister pack. Unfortunately, in order to obtain the benefits, you actually have to do something that takes up some of your valuable time. You need to set aside some me time when you are left alone and refuse to respond to interruptions.

Then you have to do something really boring like focusing on your breathing, or repeating a word or phrase (mantra) over and over again. It’s so dull that much more interesting thoughts keep on wandering across your mind to try to liven up the proceedings. So it can seem really difficult – at least when you first start. But this isn’t a how to meditate so I won’t go into that. This is more about a why to meditate.

So let’s look at some of the benefits.

  • Blood pressure reduction (without medication)
  • Reduces pre-menstrual symptoms
  • Helps you lose weight
  • Slows down aging
  • Boosts serotonin (so no need for prozac or other SSRIs)
  • Boosts sense of intimacy
  • Improves tolerance
  • Reduces stress
  • Boosts immune system function
  • Harmonises mind body and spirit

It also has no negative side effects, unlike many of the drugs that only help with some of these problems.

So if you want to get started then all you need to do is to decide that you are going to meditate regularly and decide on the time. One of the easiest ways to get started, which removes a lot of the difficulties encountered by beginners, is to actually use a Guided Meditation. With a guided meditation you listen to a recording and are guided as to what to focus your mind on. I find that when I listen to a guided meditation I can relax to a much deeper level because someone else is in charge. It’s a bit like going on a coach tour. Someone else has done all the work and found the best places to visit. Someone else does the driving – all you have to do is sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. Then, at the end you feel so much better.

There are loads of guided meditations available. I’ve got one that takes you through your chakra energy centres, and I’m in the process of creating another that has a more spiritual than physical focus. I’m not suggesting that my guided chakra meditation is better than anyone else’s. The best advice I can give is to choose one that appeals to you.

I’ve had some really positive feedback about the benefits of my chakra mediation. Here’s one email I received:

“Michael

I have a very close relative who is very ill. This CD has been a like a gift from heaven. Thank you so much for creating it.

I love the Chakra Meditation CD! Listened to it five times and always drifted off into a hazy dream-like state within the first few minutes. I woke up relaxed, refreshed and hopeful each time. Today, I was determined to hear the content of the CD in full. I managed to stay awake and found myself tearing up (crying actually) during all three chakras above Anahata. The CD is both rejuvenating and relaxing. The message on the CD resonated more strongly each time I listened to it. I will continue to listen to it daily. I am very happy to have found your remarkable CD. It has been a wonderful meditation experience..”

Alex Dubrovsky

 

Becky enjoyed it too:

“…it’s really good. I was listening closely and then all of a sudden I was waking up as the music finished at the end. I felt really relaxed and positive. I was also wide awake which considering I’d just played rugby and was practically nodding off just before I listened was amazing.”

Becky Hindley

 

I strongly encourage you to try this out, and don’t forget to let me know how you get on.

If you go to my Chakra Meditation web page you can purchase the CD or imediately download the MP3 version and enjoy the benefits for yourself – it’s as close as you can get to meditation in a blister pack.

Check it out.

Michael

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Should I Give To Shelter… Or Do Something More Interesting Instead

I was walking through St Helens town centre yesterday afternoon, on my way to meet a friend for a coffee and a chat. My arrival at the meeting place, only a minute late, was simultaneous with being accosted by a very attractive young lady wearing a red top with a Shelter logo on it. She also had around her neck one of those plastic wallet id card thingies on a ribbon – and we all know that wearing one of those in a shopping centre makes you official and, therefore, important.

She started off in typical salesman, or should I be politically correct and say salesperson, fashion, being very nice asking about me and setting a pleasant tone to an encounter with a total stranger who was clearly after my money. My usual response to this kind of situation is to cut to the chase so I asked her what she was selling. I was reassured that nothing was being sold (this is always a lie, because if they didn’t want something from you they wouldn’t be talking to total strangers). I explained that I was meeting someone and already late. A promise to get to the point was made and immediately broken.

After being asked if I had heard of Shelter (a well-known organisation that helps the homeless), which I had, she asked me if I agreed that every child needs a home.

An innocuous no-brainer, it seems.

But, unfortunately for her, not to me.

You see I immediately had a couple of problems even before I attempted to answer. I don’t like loaded questions. When someone asks me what I consider to be a serious question, for which they are genuinely seeking my opinion, I like to think deeply about it to ensure that I don’t provide a valueless knee-jerk response. Because of my prior appointment, my attention was split because part of me was thinking about the meeting that I was getting later for, and part of me wanted to respond.

But back to the loaded question for a minute. There is a sales technique, promoted in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) called the Yes Set. It works on the basis that the more you do something the more likely you are to do it again. So when a salesman (I’ve decided I don’t care about being politically correct) starts talking to a prospect, a prospect that he has found some information about, he will ask a series of questions to which the only answer is yes. This is usually after a little bit of rapport-building chit chat enquiring about health, enjoying the weather, what are you up to, sort of stuff. Once the prospect starts giving signals of comfort the salesman moves on to the ‘Yes Set’. Your name is Fred… waits for a yes, you live at this address… waits for a yes, your date of birth is… waits for yes, and whatever other appropriate questions that the answer has to be a ‘yes’ to.

The theory is that at the end of this series of yeses comes “and would you like to put your signature here” for this thing you don’t want and don’t need but I get lots of commission for. If this is done skilfully most people sign without even realising what they’ve done. And that’s because they were unconscious for most of the process. By unconscious I mean not fully aware and not fully present in the moment.

Loaded questions are questions for which there is only one answer and the questioner already knows what the answer is. Closed questions are questions for which the answer is yes or no. I was being asked a loaded closed question. I don’t like being asked loaded questions under the guise of friendliness and curiosity. I do like being asked questions for which the questioner genuinely would like either an answer, or at least to hear my opinion.

So, with the time pressure that I was applying to myself, I didn’t allow myself time to search for a reasoned answer and simply responded honestly that I didn’t know the answer to that question.

This was not the correct response.

When you fail to give the correct response to a loaded question you disrupt the sales flow, because then, rather than following a mental or written script, the seller has to actually think on their feet and respond from their genuine self. This is something most of them, in my experience, fail at miserably.

At this point my friend walked up to us, the two of them exchanged compliments about hair colour and eye make up and my friend started to walk off with me as though the ShelterLady didn’t exist. At this point she had visions of losing the Prospect she had carefully cultivated and this time really did get straight to the point. The point was effectively give me access to your bank account on a monthly basis forever.

I said no sorry I can’t help and walked away with my friend.

But I’d been asked a question that I hadn’t satisfactorily answered and I couldn’t let it go. I mean it’s such a good loaded question – do you agree that every child needs a home? Apart from my natural resistance to people who just want me to give them money – without my having the opportunity to do some research and find out if the work they are doing is something I feel comfortable about supporting – I felt there was something important here.

I mean I like me. I think I’m a decent guy. My work is helping people and freeing them up so they can live satisfying and peaceful lives. So why couldn’t I just agree with something so obvious. I’m a great fan of ‘Know Thyself’ so it was important for me to find out.

Once we were sitting comfortably, and supplied with coffee and cake, I started to explain what was going on to my friend when she arrived at the meeting place. I find that sometimes, when I’m looking for something elusive, if I start talking it frees up a part of my mind and the answers just come. So I did. And they did.

I was looking at the question from the wrong end. I was provided with an answer, not a question. Every child needs a home is a solution. The question is ‘what does every child need?’ I could answer that one easily. Every child needs support, encouragement, physical safety & security, to be challenged appropriately, and to feel loved. So the real question becomes ‘is a home the only place a child can receive those things?’

In my work I’ve met many people who were coming to me for help because their home did not provide those things. When a home doesn’t provide those things then we usually end up with various degrees of psychological problems – anything from feeling a little insecure to schizophrenia. In the majority of cases it doesn’t seriously screw up our lives, but it does make it less than it could be; and in some instances it seriously screws people up.

The use of the word home in the question was I believe, deliberately emotive. A home is not a house.  A home is not even a roof. But home has implications and associations like family and love. I don’t even believe that a home is just a place where you live. But that’s what home means to me. It may not mean that to you. So the question itself becomes unanswerable without a definition of the word home.

I live on my own. My house is most definitely my home. It’s also my place of work. The only love in it is the love that I bring to it, or the love that arrives when family and friends visit. It’s the same for the support and encouragement. A home does not provide those – people do.

What a child needs is people around him, or her, who love, support, encourage, guide, teach lovingly, challenge safely, and provide a place of security to retreat to in times of need.

I don’t know about you, but I know quite a few homes that aren’t that.

Don’t forget to share your thoughts below.

Michael

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How To Stay Motivated When Nothing Is Happening

I’m sure you’ve experienced that moment when it seemed you had some amazing insight into another version of reality and became really excited about an idea you had and, for a few moments, or a few days, you fully believed you could change your world. This could be anything from losing a little weight, maybe after seeing a beautiful dress in a shop window; to starting a new business based on your inspirational idea about some new product or service that the world really needed.

You get all excited for a while, maybe buy a few diet books, or books about being self-employed; time passes, the enthusiasm wanes, insurmountable problems appear and in the end you decide it just wasn’t for you and you’d better get used to being fat or working from 9 to 5 in a job you hate for the rest of your life.

Until the next idea pops up and you go through the whole process again.

There is only one problem with this. It’s a method of living that teaches you, at a very profound level, that you are a failure and that success in life is for others – not you.

“Greatness exists in all of us”

Actor Will Smith

The problem, you may be surprised to learn, is not with you, it’s just with the approach you take.

Motivation is a skill and without it, all is lost. The only thing that stops you from being successful is the loss of that excitement you first felt about the project – before the real world got in the way and you found you still had to wash the dishes, cook meals for people who like to be fat, and still generate income.

Here are four steps you can think about that are all it takes to keep you on the track to your dreams and desires.

  1. Begin with that first inspirational moment when you had your desire or your wish. Go back to it frequently. Recall all the good feelings you felt along with it. It will have been the good feelings that made you think it was a good idea at the time, so feel those feelings and allow them to grow. When you cultivate this and forge it into a strong memory, every time you bring it to mind, those good feelings will return and those good feelings will reawaken your desire for success. So after this step, at any time in the future when you are filled with doubt and want to give up, just bring this memory to the forefront of your mind. Re-feel all the good feelings and know that you will succeed.
  2. Use the power of your mind. When you hold the vision of the end result in your mind every morning and every evening you will re-program your subconscious to assist you in creating your vision. But when you do this don’t see the end result as some future event – see it as if it were all around you right now. Think about how your life is different. See the places you are going in your new, slimmer outfits. Notice the admiring glances you are receiving and people asking you how you managed it. See yourself in new places and feel the sense of pride and confidence. Keep your vision alive, real, and as if it already exists, every single day.
  3. Offer no resistance to the process. As you move closer and closer to a total belief within yourself that this will happen; as you move closer and closer to realising that the end result is inevitable, the world around you will shift – doors will open, magical things will happen to assist you. This is the point at which many people get scared and back off. Just go with the flow. When a door opens, step through it. If you don’t like it you can always back out afterwards. But be curious and see where it leads. When the magic happens, give thanks and appreciation for the amazing universe we live in.
  4. Believe in yourself totally. If you thought about it; if it moved you; if you were inspired, excited, or pleased then this is a possibility for you. If the doubts creep in then just remember where you are going and why you want it. Know that you deserve it. Banish any doubt from your mind that you always fail because you don’t deserve enough; because you aren’t good enough, because you aren’t clever enough. Some of the richest people in the world have no academic qualifications. They left school and just started making money. No one told them they couldn’t, so they didn’t know that what they were achieving was impossible. Just give yourself a break this time and let yourself have what you want.

It’s as easy as that.

You can use this for anything you want from something small to something big. It may be an idea to try it out on something small first because there is usually less resistance to small desires. Once you have some successes under your belt move on to bigger things.

Don’t forget if you have any comments or questions post them below.

Good luck

Michael

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Lose Weight, Stay Fit And Healthy – All You Need Is An App.

It seems there is an app for everything these days. Samsung have just released a new health app for their Galaxy S III. Samsung say “S Health collects health data to help maintain a healthier lifestyle.” All you have to do is buy the appropriate sensors, (blood glucose meter, blood pressure sensor, and body composition scales), plug one end into the phone and take a reading. The app stores the details so you can track changes over time.

“S Health collects health data and creates graphs or tables for the results to provide a full picture of health information in a digestible, easy-to-understand format.”

Sounds good doesn’t it?

Here’s an easy way to keep track of your weight, your blood pressure, and other stuff. When you want to see how well you are doing it is all presented to you in attractive tables and graphs. With weight loss, trends are much more important than how much you lost this week. If the general trend is downward and you can see that displayed as a graph then you don’t need to be despondent about your efforts for a particular week when you had a hiccup and your weight went up a couple of pounds. Seeing it in this way might make the difference between some comfort eating and realising that you are doing really well.

Samsung’s news interested me so I turned on my iPad and typed ‘health’ in the app search. It came up with 9818 results. So there’s lots of stuff that gives advice on staying healthy, as well as apps that provide health monitoring – where you have to plug things in like blood pressure cuffs. Loads of free stuff, in fact if you downloaded all the free health apps, you’d very quickly become a health expert by the looks of things. There’s even one that measures your pulse rate by listening for your heart beat with the iDevice’s microphone. But most of these apps require you to take the measurement yourself and then manually enter the data in order to keep track of it.

I used to use a Polar heart rate monitor when I was exercising. This device uses a detector strapped around your chest that sends a wireless signal to a wrist device that keeps your current heart rate on display. It also calculated how many calories I’d burned, beeped at me when I went out of the zone – area of maximum cardio-vascular benefit – and kept a log of all this. I found it very useful because it was helping me to monitor my effort in real time. I only stopped using it when the battery in the chest strap packed up and I discovered that that meant throwing the chest strap away and buying a new one (direct from Polar) for nearly the same price as the whole original unit. Seemed to be a rip off to me so Polar was crossed off my shopping list – I mean how difficult is it to make batteries user replaceable in a £90 bit of kit?

But I have a problem with tracking and logging and it’s a problem of psychology. We all like a new toy, and we get excited about it and make use of it, but after a few weeks that excitement wanes and having to remember to take the measurements becomes a chore. If, say, the dieting is a real struggle and the weight loss graph is refusing to drop down, or the blood pressure is refusing to drop despite all our efforts, then the whole thing itself becomes a reminder of how useless we are and how nothing ever works for us. The disappointment can be a real de-motivator and trigger a giving up. This is where the powerful visual stimulus of the graph or chart has the opposite effect to that intended.

I remember a few weeks ago I started using Wii Fit. This was great fun. It monitors my weight loss, and gives me motivational bonuses. I especially love the jogging, where you get to exercise on the spot and I’ve found I can do it without my feet ever leaving the floor. But it tells me off if I miss a few days. That puts me off a little. But what the Wii Fit also does is give you a fitness age. The first time I measured this (before I had done any of the exercises) it came up as 39yrs. I measured it again after three days of exercising – it was 52yrs. After a week of Wii Fit guided exercises it measured my fitness age as 65yrs – which is older than I actually am. Talk about de-motivation. I haven’t been back on it since then. I will return, because it is such a fun way to exercise (the steps thing is brilliant) – especially when it’s raining.

When I walk for exercise, and this is something that I do regularly irrespective of what the Wii Fit thinks about it, there is nothing being measured, I sort of feel my body and its comfort levels, push it a bit, and I feel good when I’ve finished. It’s simple, free, and it works. But it works for me because it has become a habit, and when a behaviour becomes a habit it takes more effort not to do it than to do it.

So while I love the technological help that these apps offer, and I love colourful graphs, and tables showing how well things are progressing, I know that the novelty would soon wear off, so I’m sticking with what works for me.

Michael

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Ten Ways To Boost Testosterone Levels Safely

Testosterone affects everything in the male body, so lowered male-hormone levels can be the source of all sorts of problems. The most obvious symptoms are lowered sex drive and erectile strength – impotence being the extreme of this. However, lowered testosterone also causes depression, concentration difficulties, anxiety, muscle loss, less facial hair and a general malaise – a sense of not really being bothered about anything any more. You can also experience less pleasure, desire, and fun in everything in your life. Your relationships will suffer too. This problem can even adversely affect your career.

Low testosterone is also associated with, poor quality sleep, heart disease, memory function, depression, diabetes, cognitive disorders and osteoporosis.

A blood test will let you know the score. But if you have any symptoms you’ll want to know that there are easy, non-drug solutions that you can use.

Here are ten simple things you can do to boost your testosterone levels.

  1. Lose weight. If you can get hold of any of you around your belly – then get rid of it. Being overweight is one of the main causes of lowered testosterone. So cut out on those snacks and burgers. Don’t go overboard though, because that will be difficult to sustain, just plan to eat a little more healthily. Small regular changes are sustainable. Make a small dietary change, get used to it. Make another one.
  2. Exercise more. If you are very unfit then stick with simple exercises like walking or cycling. Just push yourself enough to raise your heart rate slightly for around 20 minutes a day. When you are fitter then consider a gym or a class so that you get a proper muscle-building workout. If you watch tv for more than 5 hours a day then you need to take action now.
  3. Eat less red meat. Too much protein interferes with testosterone production, so cut down on the meat and eat more veg.
  4. Go nuts. Mono-unsaturated fats boost testosterone levels. Nuts are an easy way to get these. You could even use peanut butter – though it would have to be an unsweetened version.
  5. Snooze. Get enough quality sleep. If you aren’t getting seven or eight hours of quality sleep each night then you need to do something about it. You can exercise more. Have a relaxing bath before bedtime. Stop doing brain work (and that includes worrying) at least an hour before bedtime. Instead wind down with some relaxing music, read a boring book, or play a fun game (not competitive) on your computer.
  6. Drink less. Cut down on alcohol. It’ll probably help with the belly fat too.
  7. Relax. Reduce stress in your life. Stress increases cortisol. Cortisol eats testosterone. Make stress reduction a priority in your life.
  8. Eat happy animals. Eat organic foods as much as you can – especially meat & dairy produce. Dioxin adversely affects testosterone levels and dioxin is mostly ingested from animals and animal products produced with intensive farming methods. The animals are not only given feedstuffs that have been treated with herbicides & pesticides, but also injected with antibiotics and other fat-building drugs. These chemicals are the source of the majority of dioxins in your diet.
  9. You’re sweet enough. Eat less sweet stuff. Just 75gm of sugar drops a healthy man’s testosterone levels by 25%. That’s 13 level teaspoons, or roughly the same amount of sugar that you get in two cans of non-diet soft drink.
  10. Sunbathe. Vitamin D, which you get from being in the sun, boosts testosterone levels. So get more sun, but be sensible, don’t get burned and don’t get skin cancer.

 There you have ten easy things you can start doing straight away to boost your male-hormone levels. This will not only give you a boost in bed but will also positively impact many other areas of your life too. You will feel fitter, healthier and happier, but if you have any health concerns make sure you check with your doctor before taking any action.

Michael

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The Low Gi Diet Increases Metabolic Burn – the Scientists Said So, So it Must Be True.

I’m not a fan of diets and I don’t encourage dieting with my weight loss patients. But I’m happy to share information that I think may benefit you if you want to lose weight. So here’s some diet advice for all you diet lovers out there.

You know what the best bit is – it seems to me it’s more like nutritional advice, and I’m ok with that. I mean no matter what else you do, controlling your weight is so much easier when you make healthy food choices.

I was in my local bookstore a few weeks back, truthfully I was looking for ideas for book covers, but I was in the weight loss section and I noticed lots of books about something called the GI Diet. I hadn’t a clue what GI was and they didn’t say, but from the number of books on the shelf it seemed like everyone else must know about it. Either that or it’s the latest fad diet that will shortly die a slow death.

I got onto Google as soon as I got home and discovered GI means glycaemic index.  Great, I thought, that’s that problem solved. The glycaemic index is a measure of the amount of sugar in your blood.

But then someone did a bit of research about this and found out something interesting and it relates to metabolism. Now, if you’ve read my Weight Loss book, you’ll know I am a fan of metabolism, and in my book I attempt to set the record a little straighter with regard to the myths surrounding metabolism and weight loss. This information that follows is in addition to what I wrote about in my book.

The research compared three diets: low-fat, low-carb, and low-glycaemic. The focus of the research was to see whether or not any particular types of food were better than others at kick-starting the metabolism engine and getting a ‘free’ burn off of excess calories.

The low-glycaemic diet burned off 125 calories more per day than the low-fat diet. So this was good news. By the way, 125 calories equates to around half an ounce in additional lost body weight over the low-fat diet. But the low-carb diet was even better. Unfortunately the low-carb diet increased levels of cortisol and inflammation – so a low-carb diet carries with it an increased risk of diabetes and heart disease. The low-glycaemic diet was the winner. It burns off a little more fat and is good for your heart.

High-glycaemic foods are: things baked with white flour, sugar, white rice and potatoes. These foods are easily digested and so the carbs in these foods are turned into sugar quickly and blood sugar goes up. So don’t eat those. The trick seems to be to make your body work for the sugar by eating things like: pulses (peas, beans, lentils…) and non-starch based vegetables, in other words – green things. Add to that whole grains, low fat meat, fish, nuts and all that health-food stuff.

The cause for concern is that the low-carb diet seemed to show a tendency towards creating heart health problems for the future. The tricky bit is separating out carbs that give a quick sugar hit, and carbs that hold on to the sugar and make you work to release it.

Michael

More info:

http://todayhealth.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/29/12478728-low-fat-low-carb-or-low-glycemic-study-shows-which-is-best-to-keep-weight-off?lite

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1199154