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That Cream Cake Might Kill You After All

I’ve spent a lot of time over the years working with smokers and helping them to break their habit. You might expect that fear of lung cancer is what drives smokers to seek help to quit, but that isn’t always the case. In fact concerns about ill-health only drive smokers who are already experiencing health problems to quit. The majority don’t like the anti-social aspects of being a smoker or the smells.

Part of the problem is that people only seek to take action to maintain good health when their health is already beginning to fail. While individuals have no adverse symptoms there is nothing to drive the motivation for change. This is why the graphic anti-smoking advertising campaigns have little effect on smoking numbers.

Because of this belief in immortality and permanent good health, individuals tend to continue to do what they do. So if you live a healthy lifestyle with lots of nourishing food and exercise then you will continue. But if you live an unhealthy lifestyle with an unhealthy diet then you will also continue. The reason for this is that although, when we worry, we worry about the past and the future. When we eat or exercise we do it now. So unless you have developed the habit of exercise in the same way that smokers develop the habit of smoking, you will choose to eat rather than to walk, run, jog, or cycle.

That is why change is so difficult for most of us. We did what we did yesterday and nothing bad happened so we can probably do it again today and nothing bad will happen – and that’s good – right?

When the bad is small, we do not notice it. But when the small bad happens every day, then one morning we wake up and we’ve got a big bad that seems to have appeared out of nowhere.

I was reading today about how obesity is now being linked to several cancers:

Breast – 33,000 cases a year caused by obesity.

Endometrial – 13,900 cases.

Kidney – 13,900.

Colorectal – 13,200.

Pancreas – 11,900

Oesophagus – 5,800.

Gallbladder – 2,000.

These are US figures for incidence of cancers directly related to obesity.

With breast cancer the problem is increased oestrogen in the bloodstream after the menopause. The oestrogen levels are directly linked to excess fat. The slimmer you are the less oestrogen you produce and the less likely you are to have to suffer the radical treatment offered for breast cancer.

“To lower your risk for cancer: Lose weight, increase physical activity and eat healthier”, says Anne McTiernan, director of the Prevention Center at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

The trouble is we worry about things that we think are definitely going to happen, like an interview next week, or a dental appointment next month; and we worry about things that we convince ourselves will happen, even though they don’t – like the plane crashing, or that person we like rejecting us. What we don’t worry about are the things our body might experience until it is.

The problem is motivation. We do anything – even eating less and exercising more – if we are sufficiently motivated. But when we are physically comfortable in our armchair watching mind-numbing dross on TV and enjoying our snacks the world seems a cosy place where nothing bad will happen if we stay just where we are. It’s not true, but we believe the illusion we have created and continue to do nothing to love and cherish our bodies by moving them and using them and caring about what we put inside them.

It’s up to you.

 

If you want some help check out my book How to Lose Weight and Free Yourself from Diets Forever.

 

Inspired by:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/02/04/weight-loss-breast-cancer/5201621/

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/weightloss/2009-11-05-obesity_N.htm

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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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Weight Loss – How Much Easier Can It Get?

There is an obesity epidemic. It is at its worst in the US, but Western Europe is close behind. The overweight epidemic is even worse. Obesity is the top end of the overweight scale. The massive quantity of excess weight, along with the social pressure to be slim, is spawning a rash of ‘celebrity’ diets, ‘fat clubs’, surgery, magic herbal – and magic pharmaceutical – tablets. However, there is an easy and often overlooked solution to the weight loss problem.

But the biggest part of the problem is the lack of willingness to take personal responsibility for how we treat our bodies. This is evidenced by the fact that we want ‘magical’ solutions in much the same way that we turn on the tv and are provided with instant mind-numbing ‘entertainment’.

Working towards a goal and experiencing a wonderful sense of achievement for having accomplished something quite challenging no longer seems important.

I’m not suggesting for a minute that it is easy to take personal responsibility. I’m not suggesting for a minute that life hasn’t conspired to train you into bad habits with food. Neither am I suggesting that you shouldn’t watch tv if you enjoy it. What I am suggesting is that taking responsibility doesn’t mean that losing weight has to be difficult. It does mean getting real and stopping looking for magical solutions that do you more harm than the excess food you eat.

Losing weight is simple. Eat less… exercise more…

That’s all you have to do.

Notice that I’m not suggesting you eat very little and spend all day on the treadmill.

You eat a little less and you exercise a little more and you weigh yourself once a week.

At some point you’ll notice that your weight stabilises. When that happens you’ve found the balance between the fuel you eat and the energy you use up during the day. From this point if you eat a little less and exercise a little more you will start to lose weight. When you cut down food intake and increase exercise a little bit at a time it’s no big deal and you quickly get used to eating less and being more active. Once you’re used to that you can eat a little less and exercise a little more again and it will be no more difficult than the first time.

When you make small changes and wait until you get used to that change – that is the change becomes normal for you, then no change you make is ever harder than the first small change you make. It is only when you contemplate the total shift you need to make (all those small changes added together) that it becomes overwhelming and self-sabotage sets in because the task seems too big.

Now pretty much all the exercise I get is walking at a pace that’s comfortable for me and gets my heart rate up a little. I manage to walk between 5 and 10 miles a week, sometimes a little more. When I keep up the exercise my weight drops slowly, and my fitness increases. When I allow life, or the weather, get in the way of my exercise routine my weight increases and my fitness drops.

Loretta Moore dropped 69lbs in 24 months by walking and making some changes to her eating patterns. She also no longer has a blood pressure problem for which she was receiving medication.

Jodi Davies lost 162lbs in 16 months. She walked for exercise and made some changes to her eating habits.

I know that the bigger the weight problem the harder it is to exercise. But exercising is something that gets a little easier every time you do it. The biggest problem is overcoming the resistance to getting up out of the chair. This is why it’s really important to get into a routine. When you do something at the same time each day, even walking the same route, it becomes a habit and once it becomes a habit it’s easier to do than not do.

So make that commitment to yourself now that you will eat a little less and exercise a little more. In fact why not get up now and take a few steps.

It’s a start.

My thanks to:

The Detroit Free Press for the examples.

MIchael

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Now in paperback on this side of the Atlantic

Great news… I’m now able to make How to Lose Weight Easily – and Free Yourself from Diets Forever available in a paperback edition on Amazon’s European sites.

So now you can take advantage of Amazon’s free delivery to get hold of a physical copy at an almost give-away price. This book is choc full of useful hints and tips about how to lose weight easily without having to endure diets and all the suffering and struggle they entail.

So why not end the suffering and find out not only how you can do it differently, but also why it works, and be the shape and size you know you are on the inside.

So just click on the image below and check it out.

Michael

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Is Soda Pop at the Heart of the American Obesity Epidemic?

I don’t know what the attraction is. I find the ‘natural’ sugar ones too sweet, and the artificial sugar ones just unpleasant. In fact the only time I drink any of it is when I mix it with beer – which is about six times a year, and even then I only use organic lemonade sweetened with agave syrup and without any other chemical additives.

But this isn’t a plug for organic lemonade. There is an epidemic of sweetened beverage drinking that some are suggesting is seriously damaging to your health – particularly if you are an American. But that’s largely because the obesity problem seems to be worse in the US than anywhere else in the world.

10,400,000,000 gallons of sugar-filled soda pop are manufactured every year in the US.

Each can contains the equivalent of 10 teaspoons of ordinary sugar. Can you imagine putting ten spoons of sugar into every cup of tea or coffee that you drink? It would be unpalatable. The only reason you can tolerate that amount of sugar in a can of soda is that the soda is acidic and the acidity counter-acts the excessive sweetness. In fact cola drinks are about as acid as vinegar. Would you drink a can of vinegar? Would you drink a can of vinegar with 10 added teaspoons of sugar? That’s effectively what you are doing when you drink cola.

But what exactly is the problem here – apart from the damage the acid does to teeth and stomach, and the damage the sugar does to teeth and the waistline?

The body, as I’m sure you’ll agree, is an interesting thing – especially when it experiences pleasure. But one of the really handy things that the body does is to keep you alive. It does this with loads of feedback mechanisms that allow corrections to be made when the chemical/hormone balance starts to shift away from optimum.

Food is satisfying. It creates a full feeling. As digestion proceeds it allows vitamins, minerals, fats, sugars and other stuff to seep into the system. The body also knows when it’s eaten because of this feedback system. So it knows if it is still in the process of digesting. Consequently, if you eat a big meal, you probably don’t want to eat another big meal shortly afterwards. The body is satisfied.

Sweet drinks don’t have that effect and the body fails to identify the calories as food. So the calories in these drinks are added to your calorie intake without any apparent bodily awareness of them. This is one of the reasons they lead to weight gain. There is also a suspicion that these drinks may stimulate desire for sweet high-carbohydrate foods. In other words they trick you that you are feeling hungry and needing something sweet when you don’t.

“The public now firmly believes that foods containing saccharin are effective in weight control, and has been persuaded by the soft drink industry (through the Calorie Control Council) that these benefits outweigh any possible health risks.”
Samuel S. Epstein MD

You can’t get out of it by drinking Diet versions of these drinks either. Rats who were fed saccharin ended up much fatter than rats who were fed sugary foods. There is a lot of uncertainty about the impact of artificial sweeteners so although they help you cut down the calorie intake from the soda, they may well be stimulating you to eat more unhealthily later on.

That’s not the only bad news.

A study of 90,000 women who regularly drank at least one soft drink a day suggested that they were 40% more likely to develop type II diabetes than women who didn’t drink this much soda.

Colas are high in phosphate. Now the body needs phosphate for bone building and health, but it needs phosphate in balance with calcium. When this balance is upset, perhaps with daily cola intake, the possibility of severe skeletal problems developing is very real.

“It appears that increased soft drink consumption is a major factor that contributes to osteoporosis.”
Michael Murray ND and Joseph Pizzorno ND

A recent Harvard study found that daily consumption of sugary drinks increased the risk of heart disease in men. Drinking two 12oz sugary drinks correlates with a 42% increase in the risk of heart disease. That risk rockets to 69% if you drink three cans per day. The American Beverage Association, as you would expect, issued a statement in response: “Drinking sweetened beverages does not cause an increased risk of heart disease – not based on this study or any other study in the available science.”

I think denial falls more into the territory of psychology than scientific research. Mind you denial is pretty much what you’d expect as the response to any threat to a $40,000,000,000 per year industry.

So there you have it. There is a considerable body of evidence to suggest that sugar-filled soda is seriously bad for your health if you drink it regularly. There is also considerable support for the idea that diet soda may well cause you to endure cravings for sweet sugary foods and so, in the long-run, make losing weight much more difficult than if you drank fruit juices, water, or coffee and tea – without sugar naturally. But if you go down the route of fruit juices as an alternative be aware of the differences. A fruit drink has added sugar and frequently artificial sweetener too. Fruit juice is just juice. If in doubt check the ingredients list.

So the next time you fancy a cola, ask yourself if you really do long for 12oz of vinegar mixed with 10 teaspoons of sugar?

Found this interesting? Please feel free to add your thoughts on this subject below.

Michael

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Calories are not Created Equal

Got a news update from WDDTY, earlier today (which I’ll get on to shortly) that intrigued me because it suggested evidence for what I’ve suspected for a very long time – that it’s what you eat that matters, not how much of it. But as I was tracking down more details I came across something quite amazing – there is a place (I’m tempted to call it a restaurant, but I think that might be a little extravagant) in Las Vegas called the Heart Attack Grill. Now I know this shouldn’t surprise me, but I’m English, so it does.

I know it’s fun, but obesity is also Life & Death and this place seems to be taking over-eating to ridiculous heights. Mind you there are two hospitals just a short distance away!

If you weigh over 350lbs you get to eat free here.

They sell a 2lb, 8000 calorie Quadruple byPass Burger (4 burgers & Cheese on a bun with an optional extra 20 slices of bacon).


The 8,000 Calorie Quadruple byPass Burger

Their menu makes a sales point of the fact that the ‘flatliner fries’ are ‘deep fried in Pure Lard’ and their commercial tells you the side affects from eating there. These ‘may include sudden weight gain, repeated increase of wardrobe size, back pain, male breast growth, loss of sexual partners, lung cancer, tooth decay and liver sclerosis stroke. In some cases mild death may occur.’

But what got this place into the news was that a man had a heart attack while eating a 6000 calorie Triple byPass Burger. Mind you it got them a ton of free publicity and that’s never bad for business.

Anyway, that was a little digression – back to the calories that are different sizes.

What I started exploring was the research into the obesity states of Americanised Mexicans. It seems that the University of South Carolina has been looking at Mexicans in America. Apparently first generation Mexicans living in the US tend to stick to their traditional diet which consists of corn, beans, pork, fish, and a variety of fruits & vegetables such as pineapple, papaya, squash and avocado. Their children, however, consume diets high in saturated fats and sodium as well as large quantities of sweetened beverages.

It seems that second generation Mexican-Americans are two and a half times more likely to become obese than first generation Mexican-American relatives. There is no suggestion that more food is being consumed – just that what the diet consists of is fat and salt loaded fast food, rather than fresh meat, fruit and vegetables.

I can certainly confirm from my own experiences of losing weight that I don’t really eat less. I just eat different and the weight slowly and steadily drops away for as long as I maintain a healthy diet. So if you are struggling to lose weight, try making some changes in the quality of what you eat and forget about the quantities.

If you found this interesting then please comment below.

Michael

Ref: http://jn.nutrition.org/content/142/2/298

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How Failing to Keep Weight Off Makes You a Weight-Loss Expert

I was checking out how my book was doing on Amazon the other day. While I was there I had a browse through the competition. There’s a lot of junk out there – and there’s a lot of good stuff too. The cover of one book caught my eye – the pose of the author on the cover seemed a little contrived. I do a little photography when I’m not writing or hypnotising people, so I’m always looking for ideas about what looks good and what doesn’t. This particular pose looked like it might have been designed to make the author look slimmer than she actually was. I don’t want to mention the author’s name or the book title, because I’m not attacking either of them. It’s just that this caught my eye. I’m guessing the author is some sort of celebrity, because despite her attractiveness, she doesn’t have model looks – and you only get on the cover as a model or author.

I had to put a picture of a sexy model on the cover of my book because no one knows me.

Anyway, I’ve got a bit of a thing about celebrity weight-loss ‘experts’. They really do irritate me. Just because you lose a few pounds doesn’t make you an expert. But I guess having your picture on a book cover keeps you in the public eye and even if you are spouting weight loss nonsense, you are quite likely to end up with a popular book on your hands.

So, dodgy pose, ‘celebrity’ diet book, and Amazon’s ‘Look Inside’ around the picture. I couldn’t resist.

By the way, the author’s claim to her right to write a book about losing weight – “But I AM an expert dieter” (her capitals).

You only become an ‘expert dieter’ by trying lots of different diets. You only need to try lots of different diets if you keep putting the weight back on. By claiming to be an expert dieter what you are really saying is I haven’t found a way to keep the weight off, but every time I get fat I’m a dab hand at getting rid of it quickly.

Even that didn’t trouble me too much.

But then I got to chapter one.

Chapter one is called The Rules. This interested me, because I hate rules, so I just had to scroll down to find out what The Rules are. After all my weight loss book is all about how to lose weight without any rules.

The author’s Rules are:
1. No Wheat
2. No Dairy
3. No Sugar
4. No Carbs (after 6pm)
5. No Alcohol
(6) If you can’t manage this for just 14 days then you’re NOT ready to diet.

The aim of this ‘diet’ is to drop a dress size in two weeks.

Rule number 6 is just patronising twaddle.

I was half-expecting Rule 7 to say No Food.

I must admit that I smiled when I read it. And not because it isn’t good advice for a healthy diet (except it doesn’t mention fat and there’s lots of non-dairy fat in what most overweight people eat).

I’m not saying it won’t work, either.

If you starve yourself you will undoubtedly lose weight. Nor is this personal. This book is beautifully and sensitively written, it’s well laid out with loads of high quality colour pictures. The reviews imply it’s full of tasty recipes too and I guess you’d need that when you follow the Rules.

In a contest of visual appeal it beats my weight loss book hands down.

But the problem with advice like this is that it doesn’t deal with the psychological aspects of over-eating. For someone who, on a daily basis, consumes far more calories than their body needs, this diet would be a huge shock to the system. A huge shock because that list covers most of what is being consumed.

Its selling point is that you only need to do this for a fortnight. The trouble is that fortnight will, most likely, be spent craving the end of the two weeks when you can return to eating all of that unhealthy stuff. Because that’s what a deadline implies – a return to normal eating. And that’s another one of the big reasons that diets don’t work.

Diets are not designed for forever.

Diets are designed to get the weight off fast and screw you and what it does to your body.

I can’t say it any more gently – this is really bad advice.

What works is small changes that are sustainable.

What works is getting back in touch with your body and listening to its needs.

What works is realising that food does not cure emotional problems. All it does is distract you while you eat it and distract you when you feel bloated afterwards and you are beating yourself up (again) for giving in to temptation.

What works is coming at this whole weight problem from a different direction.

The real problem is that we’ve been trained to focus on calories and to treat our bodies like a machine. Like if, every day, you filled your car’s petrol tank to the brim. Then every evening whatever fuel was left congealed and was pumped into all the hollow spaces in the car to make space for the next day’s fill-up. If you are someone who empties the tank every day, no problem. But if you only drive to the shops and back your bodywork is soon going to be bulging as that excess fuel is pumped into the hollow doors and anywhere else there’s space.

So we are told in order to reduce the bulging we need to either put less fuel in the tank, or use the car more.

And the interesting thing is that if you cut down enough you do lose weight. Eat less, weigh less. It seems to work so everyone says here’s how to eat less and you will lose weight. And that’s exactly what this book is saying with all its attractive and tasty recipes.

But it’s still missing the point.

All of these calorie reduction systems work from the outside in. They externalise the problem. They turn food into the bad guy – the enemy. When you have an enemy who is threatening your well-being you think about him all the time. This causes stress and anxiety. Stress and anxiety cause the body to want to consume calories.

The problem needs to be solved on the inside.

Yes, eating less is required.

Yes exercising more is required.

But you can make it so easy by looking into the drives to eat and recognising that an awful lot of it is just habit. An awful lot of it is the mistaken belief that food magically changes your unpleasant emotional experiences.

Food is never more than a temporary distraction from the pain of life. There are much better ways of dealing with emotional problems than eating.

When you make food your enemy, you have to keep thinking about it. People who are at their ideal body weight are not people who think constantly about food.

When you make your body your enemy you have to eat in order to maintain your hatred of the way it is. Love and appreciate your body just the way it is. After all it’s where you live. From this place of appreciation of the things you do like about yourself you will find that you can cut down on calories naturally and gently and lose weight the same way.

If you enjoyed this article or have any questions about weight loss then please comment below.

Michael

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Does Losing Weight Have to be a Battle?

One phrase that springs to mind when I think about weight loss is ‘fight the flab’. This phrase was coined by DJ Terry Wogan many years ago when he used to have a slot on his Radio 2 show about Fighting the Flab. I never used to take a great deal of notice of the content because my weight was under control – but the phrase has stayed with me. It’s interesting that it does highlight one hugely important aspect of weight loss. It focuses on how many people regard their overweight bodies as some sort of enemy that needs defeating.

It’s almost as if we think that our bodies have somehow betrayed us by accumulating so much weight, especially when everyone else is so slim. That’s when the battle begins, and I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – it’s a battle you can’t win. The reason it’s a battle you can’t win is quite simple and it is down to the way minds work. Anything you push against you create more of.

What you resist persists.

So the very act of deciding to push against your fat ensures that it will remain.

Now, I realise that sounds like a recipe for doing nothing, but we both know that that doesn’t work either. So how do you make some changes and reap the reward of a slimmer more attractive body without hating the way it is now? This is tricky territory, because it is the dislike of what is that is the motivational force that gets you to take action. It might be when you can no longer get into your already oversize clothes and you refuse to move up another size; it might be when you look in the mirror one day and see what’s really there; or it might be that you’ve been to the doctor and the choice is lose weight or lose life. But it is something that moves you from the place of tolerating your excess weight to not tolerating it that causes you to choose to make some changes. Without that dislike of what is, where would the motivation come from? Without that, why would you even bother? If you liked yourself the way you are, then surely you would just leave things as they are and continue to enjoy your unhealthy lifestyle?

The solution of course is to love yourself.

When you love yourself you don’t stuff your body full of fattening and unhealthy foods in the way we might stuff a turkey just before we pop it in the oven. When you love yourself you recognise that, like it or not, a body is designed to move – lots. So that means making exercise a top priority, for without exercise, weight loss is just a huge uphill struggle. When you exercise out of love for yourself and your amazing body, what you will find is that the exercise itself becomes a pleasurable, and eagerly anticipated, activity. I walk between two and three miles a day, except when the weather is unkind. Those days when I can’t get out I can feel my legs ‘complaining’ about the lack of activity.

Now exercise itself doesn’t shift a huge amount of weight, but it does shift some. For instance an hour’s walking at a reasonable pace can burn around 500 Calories. Do that every day and you’ve burned off the equivalent of 1lb of excess fat in a week. But that isn’t the only reason I encourage exercise – exercise does so much more for you than burning calories, but that’s a little off the subject here. If you want to find out more about the hidden benefits of exercise then download a copy of my book How to Lose Weight Easily and Free Yourself from Diets Forever

So by making exercise a daily priority; by choosing an exercise form that you enjoy; by engaging in a daily exercise routine long enough for it to become a habit; you side-step the battleground and you totally avoid the should I/shouldn’t I debate that always ends up by turning the TV on and grabbing a snack from the kitchen – because all of that thinking about exercise has made you hungry.

But it isn’t just exercise that’s going to make a significant difference to your weight. There’s something else that I’ve discovered in my many years of working in the weight loss industry. Clients who are overweight rarely love themselves. Most of them don’t even like themselves very much.

If you like yourself, start working on changing that to loving. If you don’t like yourself, then make that your first target.

So how do you do that?

You can start by recognising a Truth. The truth is that right now you are the weight you are and right now nothing in the world is going to change that – in this instant. You can recognise in this instant that you’d like to change your weight, but it won’t change instantly. If you can recognise that Truth and recognise that you are the way you are right now, and you can do that without feeling any negative emotion, then you have moved into a state of acceptance. Acceptance is the place from which you can make changes with very little effort.

I need to stress that acceptance is very different from resignation. Resignation is a giving up; it is a sense of powerlessness over your own destiny. Acceptance is an understanding that all change starts here. Acceptance allows you to move in any direction you wish to move and make any change you wish to make.

Start to appreciate the things you do. Choose to see that every single thing you do is worthy of appreciation by you.

Just in case you think I’m sending you on an ego-trip – I’m not. I’m not suggesting that you think you are in any way different from anyone else. I’m not suggesting you brag about what you do or demand that others appreciate what you do. I’m just asking you to notice what you are failing to notice. What you are failing to notice is your loveliness. Your loveliness is expressed in everything you do and the more lovingly you do it, the more lovely it is.

Loving yourself is being kind, being generous, being supportive, being gentle. When a child makes a mistake a loving parent does not berate the child. A loving parent simply demonstrates how to do it appropriately. It is a sharing of knowledge and wisdom. When a child falls over a loving parent just helps it up and gives encouragement for success. A loving parent never encourages a child to give up. A loving parent never sees failure – just learning.

So end the battle now. Eat appropriately, exercise more and support yourself in your goal to lose weight by appreciating the love you are expressing for yourself by taking action to move in the direction of a healthy weight for you.

If you enjoyed this article, or have any questions for me about losing weight, then please comment below.

Michael

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weight control

Lose Weight Respectfully – and Regain Control of Your Life

It’s all over now, so roll out the diet plans. I hope you enjoyed your mid-winter festival of feasting and gift giving. Whatever reason you have for doing it, its origins lie in the celebration of the return of light, lengthening days, and a new season of growth, fresh food, and a new harvest. But, whatever its causes, I’ve already noticed on the social media the comments beginning about losing weight and dieting. It’s almost as if people want to punish themselves for having fun and enjoyment. ‘I’ve over-indulged, so now I have to pay for it by going on a diet’ – seems to be the rationale behind this.

But New Year is traditionally a time of renewal and a time for recognising that life isn’t quite working out the way you planned and it’s time to do something about it. Unfortunately, New Year’s resolutions rarely make it to February – so why bother?

We bother because we want to feel like we are taking control of our lives. We bother because we hate feeling helpless and in the power of others. In the current climate, with this financial meltdown and Governments making ridiculous decision after ridiculous decision just to desperately maintain the status quo of the power brokers – we feel more powerless than ever, so we look round at this time for pretty much the only thing we still appear to have control over – our bodies. And then we take all our frustrations out on them.

A diet is a horrible thing to do to a body. There is no need to suffer because you had fun over the holiday. Yes you are carrying too much weight – so what. Yes you probably did add several pounds in the space of a week – so what. You were probably already overweight. The problem is not what you did over the Holiday, it’s what you’ve been doing for the past decade or two. So given that this is not a new problem that suddenly needs fixing, allow yourself a little time to solve it.

The minute you give yourself a little time to solve your weight problem, you can be gentle and loving with your body and allow the weight to disappear gently and slowly. You do this not by starving yourself, but by being gentle with you and exploring the small changes you can make that are sustainable.

Did you know that 20% of dieters barely last two months and about half never make it to the end of the year. Almost all of them end up heavier than they were before they started the diet. There’s loads more information about why diets are seriously bad for your health, and how you can lose weight permanently by following just 10 simple steps in my book How to Lose Weight Easily and Free Yourself from Diets Forever – available from Amazon.

So before you go rushing out to look for the latest fad diet, or hand over your sign-up fee to Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Slimming World or any other weight loss organisation,check out my book – it’ll cost you a lot less than one week’s attendance fee and has the power to free you from diets… …forever.

You see, when you lose weight with respect for your body (which is what my book teaches you how to do), that respect overflows into other areas of your life. When you are gentler with you, you are effortlessly gentler with everyone else. Because you are gentler with everyone else, people treat you with greater kindness and appreciation. In other words, the World feeds back to you how you are with you. So by making a simple choice to lose weight naturally you regain that control you felt you had lost and as you regain control over your body shape you will find, almost magically, that you will begin to experience much greater control in other areas of your life too. Things will start to work for you, and you will begin to experience a greater happiness than you have known in a long time. You cannot be happy when you are fighting your body, any more than you can be happy when you are fighting unruly, misbehaving children.

So check out my book about diet-free weight loss and discover that new you that you were looking for.

Whatever you decide – I wish you luck, and the body you desire.

Michael

Categories
health Personal Development self-help weight control

Lose Weight Without Dieting

I’ve just finished writing my Lose Weight Without Dieting eBook.

It’s free, so there’s no sales pitch here. Just click on the link above, leave me your email address, and I’ll send you the download details so you can read it at your leisure. The whole process doesn’t take very long.

weight loss book cover2 graphic

Now, if you’re like me, you’ve probably downloaded a few ebooks. Most of them, in my experience, promise the earth and then tell you that if you actually want the earth you’ve got to click on this link to get it. Then when you click on the link, what was promised as free information actually costs you $297 – but you get about $5,000,000 worth of useless and unwanted bonuses with it.

I’m not doing that.

Yes I have a got a great product for sale, but the book isn’t it. The book is just so you can get to know me and my style and by the time you’ve finished reading my Lose Weight Without Dieting eBook, you’ll realise that I know a lot about weight loss – even though you’ve never heard of me.

And if you’re wondering why you’ve never heard of me it’s because, up until now, I’ve just been helping people on a one to one basis. But there’s a limit to how many lives I can change like that, so I’m exploring ways to help more people live the life they want to live. This is my first foray into that arena so I could really use your help – if you enjoy the book send the details to anyone you know who you think might benefit from it too. That way you can enjoy the buzz of making a positive difference to someone’s life.

Now if you’ve ever tried to lose weight using a traditional or ‘designer’ diet, or you currently have a weight problem, then this book has information for you that you truly need to be aware of.

My Lose Weight Without Dieting eBook demonstrates simply and clearly how you have been misled and mis-sold by the diet ‘gurus’ and led along a garden path that will always take you back to where you started rather than where you want to go.

It even contains one or two hints and tips that you may find helpful in losing weight without buying anything from me, but my intention mainly is to make you aware of a truth that has been withheld from you. When you read this book you will discover why diets make you fat and clears up all the nonsense about your metabolism. Though if you like to use low metabolism as an excuse not to bother losing weight, then you might not like what I have to say – but if you read it you’ll find out that you can change it if you want to.

Check it out. It’s FREE. And if you enjoy it and recognise, from the insights that I share with you, that I actually know a great deal about helping people to lose weight – then you might just want to check out the link at the very end of the book. If you do you’ll find out that I have something that may very well help you to lose those excess pounds easily and effortlessly.

But read my Lose Weight Without Dieting eBook first. I don’t like being ripped off, and I don’t like seeing other people being ripped off – so I’m making this information available for free.

If you enjoy it, come back and leave a comment below.

Michael