5 Diet Lies You Need to Know

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Deceptive diet myths that could be sabotaging your weight loss plan.

Tried every diet plan from counting calories, shunning carbs to drinking bizarre weight-loss shakes but nothing works?
Mark Hyman, M.D., author of the breakout diet book Ultrametabolism, shares his expert insight on the common diet myths that could be thwarting your efforts to lose weight.

Diet Myth #1: Eat Less + Exercise More = Weight Loss.

Restricting calories turns on ancient mechanisms that prevent starvation. "These slow your metabolism to conserve energy and trigger a cascade of molecules in the blood so you receive hunger signals that are too strong to ignore – all leading to weight gain," says Dr. Hyman.

Diet Myth #2: You can control weight by counting calories.

All calories are not created equal. Food that enters your blood stream quickly promotes weight gain; food that enters slowly promotes weight loss. For example, sugar from soda enters your blood very rapidly; the calories you aren't using is stored as fat. The same amount of sugar from kidney beans enters your blood slowly. "Because your body has a greater chance to make use of the calories over time, more is burned and less stored," explains Dr. Hyman.

Diet Myth #3: Eating Fat Makes You Fat.

We have been brainwashed to believe that if we eat fat, we will get fat. There's one problem: Science does not support this myth. "In the last 40 years, our national fat consumption has decreased from 43 to 34 percent of our total calories," Dr. Hyman points out. Eating less fat than ever, we are growing fatter. The reason? Low-fat diets are often rich in starchy or sugary carbohydrates, which raise insulin levels and promote weight gain.

Diet Myth #4: Eating No-Carb or Low-Carb Will Make You Thin.

"Carbohydrates are actually the single most important food in your diet for long-term health," says Dr. Hyman. As with calories and fats, there are different types of carbs that interact with your genes leading to remarkably different effects. Human beings have not evolved to metabolize the highly processed and refined carbohydrates we eat that contribute to the major diseases diabetes, heart disease, dementia and cancer. So opt for the good carbs such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains and beans instead, advises Dr. Hyman.

Diet Myth #5: Skipping Meals Helps You Lose Weight.

"One of the reasons that Americans are getting to be as big as Sumo wrestlers is because we actually eat like them," notes Dr. Hyman. "The Sumo diet causes ordinary people to gain extraordinary amounts of weight. They skip breakfast, train for five hours (working up an appetite), eat a huge meal, nap for several hours, eat dinner and go to sleep." Check your eating habits: Do you skip breakfast and eat a large meal just before sleep? Contrary to popular belief, skipping meals is a recipe for diet disaster, so make sure you're eating at regular intervals.

10 Scientific Facts for A Slimmer You

Source: http://www.shoppinglifestyle.com/beauty/landing.asp?id=252

Can't seem to shake off those excess flabs? Check out these diet facts and research findings on weight loss:

1. Read Food Labels
Low-fat labels don't always mean a healthy choice, so check out the food labels on the back of food products before making a purchase.
Singapore Health Promotion Board recommends reducing your total fat intake to no more than 30% of total calories, while your saturated fat intake should not exceed more than 10%.

2. Eat Your Carbs
In order to slim down, some people cut out all carbs. But it's not healthy to avoid an entire food group altogether - studies show that a high-protein, high-fat diet may be harmful for the kidneys. Complex carbs, like vegetables and wholegrains actually help you feel full faster, so you eat less overall.

3. Eat Your Breakfast
Several research findings have established that skipping breakfast is a risk factor for being overweight. Eating a hearty low-fat, high-fiber breakfast can actually help one lose weight. Breakfast is important for peak work performance in the mornings too.

4. Get A Body-Shaping Product
Buy a body-shaping cream and slather on, especially during PMS, to beat water retention - a carefully maintained figure helps make you stay motivated psychologically so slipping is less likely.

5. Gym-Free Cardio Workouts
You don't have to go to a gym for your cardio workout - housework, walking, using the overhead bridge instead of jay-walking - all these count as moderate cardio activities and help burn fat.

6. Forget About Strange, Fad Diets
Fad diets almost always overemphasize on a particular type of food, and include an impossible list of "good food" and "bad food" you must rigidly adhere to for rapid weight loss. But this sort of selective eating is nutritionally imbalanced and unhealthy. If you can't imagine yourself eating that way for the rest of your life, don't even waste your time or health on it.

7. Say No to Empty Calories
Avoid junk food such as candy bars, chips, alcohol and fizzy sodas. These are high in calories but zero in nutritional value. If you are hungry, eat a proper but smaller-portion meal like sandwiches or salads instead.

8. Build Your Muscles
Start to strength train twice a week. Muscle requires a lot of energy to maintain itself and burns more calories than fat tissues.
In fact, every kilogram of new muscle you build will burn off around 130 kcals per day.
This ups your basal metabolic rate in order to supply the extra energy every hour, every minute. Building muscle also forces the body to use fat, not muscle, when you're on a diet.

9. More Spices, Less Dressings
Go easy on fatty dressings like mayonnaise and thousand island sauces. Instead, flavor up your salads and dishes with low-fat seasonings and local spices such as blachan chilli, black pepper sauce, garlic etc.
Spices are found to have thermogenic (heating) properties that increase fat burning too!

10. Keep A Food Journal
Keep a food diary about your food choices, indicating how hungry you are each time you eat. Pay particular attention to your level of hunger when you snack.
Generally, food diaries are meant to be used for a whole week, but studies have shown that even keeping track of what you eat for 1 day can help you make changes in your diet.

5 Reasons Why Yo-Yo Diets Don't Work

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Still battling weight problems with yo-yo diets? Here are 5 reasons why you should really put an end to all those miserable cycles of weight loss and regain.

What Are Yo-Yo Diets?
Yo-yo dieting (or weight cycling) is the repeated pattern of losing body weight then gaining it back through episodes of diets. Each cycle, the weight loss or gain can be anywhere ranging from 2kg to 20kg or more.

Any diet that includes bouts of starvation, missing meals, cutting out certain food groups entirely, or very low calories produces the yo-yo effect (losing weight and putting it back on).

Reason #1: Yo-yo weight loss induces muscle loss.
Very low-calorie fad diets or crash diets cause hunger to set in, triggering the body to break down lean muscle to access the nutrients the body needs.

In other words, the amount of weight you have lost does not all come from body fat loss. In fact, the drop in weight is mainly due to water and muscle loss.

Reason #2: Yo-yo diets wreck your metabolism.
While the initial drastic weight loss may seem like the diet is working, yo-yo dieters will soon experience a 'plateau', meaning the rapid weight loss that was initially achieved begins to slow down or stop.

This plateau is the result of the adaptation of your body: With less calories coming in and less muscle mass in the body, the body reacts by going into starvation mode and starts to conserve energy. Less energy is burnt and the metabolic rate slows down, making it much more difficult to maintain your new figure.

Those struggling to maintain the diet will inevitably find their weight piling back on, sometimes more than what they started out with.

Reason #3: Yo-yo diets make you put on more weight in the long run.
Yo-yo dieters tend to regain all the weight lost, and then some. The mechanisms behind this involve complex physiological and psychological factors: changes in fatty acid synthesis, increased fat storage, and reduction in energy efficiency all contribute to the yo-yo effect.

Simply put, the resulting effect is exactly the opposite of what the dieter intended to achieve.

When normal eating habits resume, and the body has reduced capacity to burn the excess calories, weight is rapidly regained. What's worse, your new body profile will have a higher proportion of fat, even in cases where the weight has remained the same.

Reason #4: If you regain the lost weight, it'll be even harder to lose it.
A person who repeatedly loses weight only to put it back on can have a cumulative gain in body fat percentage - each time you diet, your body's metabolism slows down in order to store fat.

Hence with each dieting episode, the body's metabolism becomes less efficient, and the severe calorie restriction further causes loss of muscle tone, which again means a slower metabolism.

Together with less muscle mass and a retarded metabolic rate, each successive attempt to shed off those extra kilos becomes more difficult, if not impossible.

Reason #5: Repetitive weight loss and regain has unhealthy side effects.
Yo-yo dieters often feel lethargic, have a weak immune system and a higher percentage of body fat, and tend to be in poor health. Due to multiple unsuccessful crash diets, they may also experience frustration, loss of concentration, depression and irritability.

In fact, each time you lose weight and regain it, fat in your body actually redistributes. It migrates from the thighs and butt to the belly (where studies have found a link between tummy fat and diseases like diabetes, heart disease, cancer and high cholesterol).

To make matters worse, some studies also suggest that those who chronically lose and regain weight have increased risk for certain health problems, including heart disease, hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes and gallbladder disease.

Is there an exercis that will reduce the amount of time I need to spend training my legs?

Try the Bulgarian split deadlift. It develops all the major muscles of your lower body - so you don;t need to bother with a clutter of leg exercises. The Instability of the exercise (because it's done while standing on one leg) calls more muscle into play as you try to stay balanced. Perform two or three sets of three to five repetitions to gain strength; do two sets of eight to 12 reps to build muscle.

Place a loaded barbell on the floor one to one-and-a-half metres in front of a bench. Facing away from the bench, place one foot on the floor so your shin touches the barbell, and rest the in-step of your other foot on the bench. Keeping most of your weight on your front leg, bend your front knee and lean forward to grab the bar with an overhand grip (palms down). This is the starting position. Lift the bar as you return to an upright stance, while keeping the other foot on the bench, then return to the starting position. Compltet your reps, then switch legs and repeat.

正确认识脂肪

脂肪是食物其中一种营养素，如果摄取得当，那脂肪对于人体有益无害，摄取不当则会危害健康。

　　近年来，医学界不断提醒人们尽量少吃一种称为“反式脂肪”的油脂，反式脂肪与“单一不饱和脂肪”究竟有什么分别？它们各存在于哪些食物中？

　　误区　1

　　对饱和与不饱和脂肪认识不清

　　要预防血管硬化及一切有关心血管的疾病，除了避免高胆固醇食物的摄取之外，脂肪也不能掉以轻心，这是因为，脂肪也是促使体内胆固醇高的原因。

　　各种食物都含有不同种类的脂肪，因此必须知道哪一种食物的饱和脂肪含量最高。正确认识脂肪，有正确的“脂肪观”是必须的。

　　脂肪是食物中其中一种营养素，如果摄取得当，那脂肪对于人体有益无害，但摄取不当则会危害健康。

　　脂肪可分为饱和脂肪及不饱和脂肪两大类，不饱和脂肪又分为多元不饱和及单元不饱和脂肪两种。

　　饱和脂肪也称固体脂肪

　　动物油多数是饱和脂肪，它在常温下呈固体状，所以，饱和脂肪也称固体脂肪。

　　不饱和脂肪在常温下呈液体状，所以不饱和脂肪也称液体脂肪。不饱和脂肪主要源自植物，如玉米油。

　　多元不饱和脂肪在正常室温下呈液体状，较常在鱼类例如鲑鱼、沙丁鱼及鲔鱼中，另外还包括玉米油、葵花油、花生油、菜籽油、大豆油、葵花油、芝麻油、亚麻籽油、核桃油、茶油等，以及存在坚果及种子中。

　　最健康的脂肪首推“单一不饱和脂肪”。单一不饱和脂肪在正常室温下，也呈液体状，一般常见食用油有橄榄油、花生油等。

　　要预防疾病，应尽量避免进食饱和脂肪而改用多元或单元不饱和脂肪。不饱和脂肪酸是构成体内脂肪的一种脂肪酸，也即是人体必需的脂肪酸。适量进食多元或单元不饱和脂肪，有助于减低体内胆固醇的浓度。

　　“地中海型”饮食由于以橄榄、橄榄油、酪梨等食物为主，因此被认为是最健康的饮食方式，原因就在于这种饮食富含高量的“单一不饱和脂肪”。

　　误区　2

　　忽视反式脂肪的危害

　　除了要对饱和脂肪敬而远之，近年来，医学界不断提醒人们尽量少吃一种称为“反式脂肪”的油脂，但目前许多人对反式脂肪仍欠缺清楚认识。

　　反式脂肪（trans fat）又名“反式脂肪酸”（transfatty acid），一般上它是经由植物油“氢化”技术处理后产生。因此又称氢化植物油（或部分氢化植物油）。换言之，反式脂肪酸大多是人为加工后的产品。

　　医学研究证实，氢化后的油脂，会产生反式脂肪酸，它的坏处与饱和脂肪酸相较，其实不相上下。

　　摄入过多的反式脂肪酸，会增加心血管疾病、中风和糖尿病的风险，因为反式脂肪酸有增加人体血液的黏稠度和凝聚力的作用，更容易导致血栓的形成。

　　氢化脂肪一度很受食品业者的欢迎，因为在食品中添加氢化脂肪后，会增加食品的口感，让一些食物变得更松脆美味，被认为是牛油、猪油，以及椰油等天然植物油最佳替代品。

　　反式脂肪常见于人造黄油（margarine），以及各种奶油蛋糕、烘烤食物、煎炸食品、饼干、色拉酱、马铃薯片、炸薯条、炸鸡块、甜甜圈等食物中。

　　市面上销售的黄油、奶油制造品，一般不会标示“人造”的字眼。但如果在食物成分表中看见“氢化脂肪”、“人造黄油”、“部分氢化脂肪”等字眼，则意味着食物中含有反式脂肪。

Your 24-7 Eating Plan

Your Ultimate Fat-Loss Plan

The Muscles That Burn Fat

Here's a fact: Muscle is the primary far burner in the human body. So the more of it you work, the faster you'll lose your gut. The surest way: Spend time on exercises that hit your back, chest, gluteals, quadriceps and hamstrings - the largest muscles you have. By training these major players, you'll also recruit the smaller muscles of your shoulders, arms, abs and calves. The result: A total-body, fat-burning workout.

GOAL 1: Faster WORKOUTS!
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Most men spend too much time sitting between sets, which leave little time for cardiovascular exercise. By replacing rest periods with short bursts of aerobic activity, you'll finish faster burn more calories.

GOAL 2: A Stronger HEART!
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Performing exercises in a circuit - one after another without rest - adds an endurance component to strength training. This helps your heart to better circulate oxygen to your muscles, which is associated with a lower risk of heart disease.

GOAL 3: Overall STRENGTH!
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Using a full-body circuit routine of compound exercises - moves such as the squat or row that forces you to move more than one joint - works more muscle in a single workout than you ever could if your were just focusing on isolation exercises, such as curls and extensions.

GOAL 4: A leaner BODY!
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Research shows that lifting weights increases the rate at which your body burns fat for up to 48 hours after your workout And by eliminating the downtime between sets, you'll keep your muscles working to burn more calories every session.

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