Basal Metabolic Rate is not usually the first thing that comes to mind when you think about weight loss. We usually think about dieting and exercise programs. But, BMR is a large factor in how our bodies gain or lose weight.

Counting the calories consumed in foods or used in exercise needs to have some base line to measure against. Part of this measurement is based on the basal metabolic rate or BMR. The BMR is the base rate for the body’s calorie consumption for the basic functions of the body like pumping blood, maintaining body temperature and repairing blood cells.

The food calories consumed and the exercise calories expended are both important to success in weight loss. The number of calories taken in less the number of calories used equals the calories that are left to be stored as fat in adipose tissues. That amount is approximately 70 calories per hour; a little more when we are awake and a little less when we are sleeping. Everyone has a slightly different BMR depending partially on their genetics and partially on their body types.

Other factors that affect the basal metabolic rate are your body temperature (for instance, if you have a fever) and some medications (such as antidepressants). A fever can cause weight loss and antidepressants can cause weight gain. Talk to your health care professional about how the medications you take can affect your body and whether you would need to take additional steps to prevent excessive weight gain.

Your body must have some fat in order to function. Essential fatty acids (EFAs) are used for electrical functions by the heart, brain and muscles. They are also used by the body for regulating hormones.

BMR can also be changed when you are injured. This is a temporary change while your body is using essential fatty acids and proteins to rebuild damaged tissues. Some weight can be lost when recovering from an injury, depending on its severity. Of course, you wouldn’t want to go out and break a leg just to lose a few pounds.

Foods that are high in fat and refined sugars can reduce the basal metabolic rate because they are low in fiber and bulk. This slows down the activity in the intestines and causes the body to absorb more calories from them. Proper nutrition and getting enough vitamins and minerals can help regulate the BMR.

BMR is generally determined by family genetics. To prevent the poor BMR levels that are handed down from the generations before you, it is important to eat a proper diet and exercise according to your age and body’s fitness level.

Here is something that you never hear anyone talk about when it comes to weight loss. That is, how our emotions come into play when we attempt to lose weight, or to achieve any goal for that matter.

For the longest period of time I thought that guilt way a nonproductive emotion. Just recently I came to realize how wrong I was. Guilt is much more than non productive, it is counter productive. So much so that it prevents us from obtaining our goals, in this case, losing weight.

Naturally, you ask yourself how this works. It is quite simple really. Guilt is the mechanism that allows us to bind together two contradictory thoughts, beliefs, desires or actions.

Here is a simple example, one pertaining to your weight loss program. Let us assume for a moment that you are overweight. It is on your mind a great deal of the time. You are unhappy with this condition. As a matter of fact, it plagues you. It is on your mind constantly and you absolutely plan to do something about it. Maybe you are even in the process of dieting and exercising right now. Okay. So you have had a long, frustrating day. There is a pint of chocolate ice cream with your name on it in the freezer. You know in your heart that eating it will be counter productive. Jeez, it is worse than that. No only will it delay your weight loss, it will actually put weight on your thighs. What do you do? You guessed it. You eat the pint of ice cream.

What is the mechanism that allows this to happen? What is it that allows you to know for certain that what you are doing is against your own best interests and you do it anyway? Duh, it is guilt. Guilt is the means that allows us to bind these absolutely, contradictory actions together. We are dieting (or plan on dieting) and eating ice cream at the same time. Not to beat a dead horse, but what makes this alright in our minds and emotions. Guilt.

By this time you are saying to yourself, do not be silly. This is the most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard. Well, stop and think about this for a few minutes. Find other examples in your life where this can apply. You will discover that it is no so silly after all.

When you come to the realization that this may in fact be true, you should be asking yourself what can be done about it. The easy answer, on the face of it, is to just stop feeling guilty. Easier said than done!

You see, guilt has a small army of allies. This army of allies only strengthens the power of guilt. These allies include, but are not limited to, low self esteem, self pity and a general negative outlook on life.

By now, the picture is beginning to look hopeless. Not so. The fact of the matter is that there are a number of people who lose weight every single day. What is it that they do to successfully lose weight? What is it that I can do to duplicate their success?

1. Make a decision

First of all in order to lose weight, you need to first make that decision. If you’re overweight, you simply haven’t made the decision to lose weight. I see this all the time in my practice, where people are given the best personalized programs but they never do anything with them. Why? Because they have not decided that they want to lose weight.

Right here, right now I want you to make a decision that you will lose weight. Have you done it yet…What are you waiting for? Well now that you have decided to lose weight you might need to know how to go about it now…Read on!

2. You make more excuses than you think

Excuses get the best of us. Even top athletes have used the occasional excuse to miss a practice or two. What does an excuse sound like? Here let me spell them out for you. I’m too tired, I will do it tomorrow, I don’t have any time, I’ll never be able to do that, I’m not good enough, and on and on and on…These are but a few, but I’m sure you know what I am talking about. Hey, I have made my fair share too. But nothing great ever happens when excuses rule your world. Stop making excuses, and start making progress.

3. You treat food like it’s the enemy!

You think not eating, is what will have you losing weight faster. You think skipping breakfast is a smart thing to do. While at lunch time you decide to join your colleagues for a feast at the closest fast food joint. The fact is that eating isn’t the enemy. It’s the types of foods we eat and when we eat them. Never skip breakfast. This is the most important meal of the day, and not because the cereal commercials tell you that. It’s because this meal known as breakfast will start up your metabolism. This is a good thing, trust me. Not eating in the morning and through out the day will have your metabolism screeching to a halt. Eat clean foods and frequently. The definition of eating clean seems to be different from person to person, but I will eliminate that confusion in an upcoming article.

4. You eat 5-6 times in a week

Many people eat once a day, and usually in he evening right before bed. This isn’t good, a) because you consumed a high calorie dense meal that will most likely end up getting stored as fat and b) your metabolism becomes very slow when you sleep making the food easily stored as fat, rather than being used as energy. The objective is to eat frequently throughout the whole day, eating anywhere from 5-6 portions. This will help you keep your metabolism from shutting down. When I say portions I mean portions, not full servings. You can schedule 3 portions and 2 snacks if this is easier for you. You can have a portion at breakfast, lunch & dinner and 2 snacks between your meals. What is a portion? A portion is the size of a closed fist. Picture you were going to eat a piece of chicken, a sweet potato, and some salad. The chicken breast would be the size of your closed fist, and so would the potato. This is considered a portion. I would eat an unlimited amount of salad, and I would include a home made dressing, such as olive oil with herbs.

5. You try to lose weight that you’ve had for years in a few weeks

Losing to weight to fast can be unhealthy, and will leave your skin very loose. The objective is to do it gradually. Shoot for 1-2 maybe 3 lbs a week of weight loss. You may lose a bit more especially in the beginning and depending on your size. By losing weight slowly your metabolism can adjust and so can your skin. It will be able to adapt to the gradual weight loss. Take your time, after all it probably took you some time to accumulate the weight, so what’s the rush to get rid of it.

6. You go on “fad” diets like it’s going out of style

Fad diets have confused all of us, especially those whom want to lose weight. The fact that it’s a diet alone should warn you. You have to understand these diets are made to capitalize on this ever growing weight loss market. If you decide to follow a fad diet you’ll notice you gain the weight back once you come of it. These diets are quick fixes, but the real fix is long term healthy habits and the right knowledge and application.

7. You don’t have the right information in the right order.

Sports Nutrition Weight Loss may sound odd to a lot of people. Athletes are known to spend hours and hours, each day, working on their bodies by participating in workouts, trying to get their bodies into the best shape possible.
So why would they be interested in Weight Loss?

Fat loss for Athletes is critical. An Athlete must be in the best shape of their lives, year in and year out. While most struggle to get to, or keep at, a certain weight, very few find it easy. Building Muscle is one of the most important aspects of an athlete, as they need to become more powerful, faster, and quicker and build more stamina. Fat loss plays an important role in this.
“OK, OK… so how can an Athlete do all of this?” you might ask.

Proper Nutrition, Good eating habits, Timing, They can all play key roles in fat loss… more so than lifting weights, in most cases. Have you ever seen someone who works out all of the time and still has a “pudgy” body?
This is because of their bad eating habits. Some may think that they’re actually eating good…but they’re probably not.

If you’re spending money at your local GNC or other Nutritional Supplement store, you may be wasting money. There are far too many promises and claims being made on good looking packaging with guys and girls in great shape. These are usually fitness models. Guess what these guys and girls have in common? Think they built those bodies by using those supplements? No… They all eat the right foods at the right times.
While some of these Fitness Models may be sponsored and have enough money to hire a nutritionist or the ability to consult with a nutritionist, you, more than likely, cannot afford this.

But there are a few solutions out there. The problem is: who can you trust? Where won’t you be taken for a ride by a Marketing company who has created great looking packages and benefits written out on those packages?

The Daniel diet for fasting is based on the book Fasting For Spiritual Break- Through: A guide to Nine Bible fasts by Elmer L. Towns. Its premise is that our bodies are a temple of God so it is our responsibility to take care of it. Followers of this diet believe they will achieve spiritual enlightenment though the following of this fast, which is similar to the diet followed by Daniel when he was held captive by the King of Babylon.

Seven Steps of the Daniel Diet for Fasting

This diet is based on seven steps that, when carefully followed, are believed to assist the body in healing itself as well as preventing diseases through nutrition and exercise. Following these steps, along with knowing the food to eat on a Daniel diet fast, is believed to bring you to improved physical and spiritual health.

Step One: Be Specific

This step is important because Daniel was specific in his reasons for rejecting the King’s diet. The King wanted his captives to eat what he felt was a good diet to make them strong. Daniel and his friends rejected this diet because:

• Many of the king’s foods were against Jewish law to partake.
• They had vowed not to drink wine.
• The food presented to them had been offered to idols.

Step Two: Make a Spiritual Commitment

Daniel was committed to following the laws that God had given and refused to defile himself. Those who follow the Daniel diet for fasting are expected to also make a spiritual commitment to God.

Step Three: Your Inner Desire Should be Reflected by Outer Discipline

Daniel wasn’t shy about why he was rejecting the foods common to the Babylonians. He had faith that God would allow him to thrive while consuming not much more than vegetables, grains, legumes and water.

The Daniel diet states that your own health is linked to, not only the choices you make in foods, but also your spiritual commitment and prayer, your time committed to the diet and your commitment to showing your faith through this fast.

Step Four: Prayer

This fast includes praying that you can gain understanding of the role of sin in the health of your body. It also claims that poor health can be a result of the sins you have committed.

Step Five: A Statement of Faith

Those who follow the Daniel diet do so as a statement of their faith, just as Daniel made it clear what his reasoning was for rejecting certain foods. The Babylonians were surprised at how healthy Daniel and his friends were—even healthier than those who were enjoying the King’s rich foods.

Step Six: Learn the Effects of Foods

Perhaps the best advice of this diet is to understand the effects that certain foods have on your body. Understanding this will help you to make better choices in what foods you will allow into your body.

Step Seven: Put the Results in God’s Hands

The Daniel diet for fasting claims to lead to spiritual enlightenment after following it for ten days.

Exercise is an important part of getting control of Diabetes-the goal of everyone with the disease. Exercise while important for everyone, doesn’t have the same impact on type one diabetics as it does on type 2 diabetics. 20 minutes a day can do wonders-30 minutes is better. Over 90% of the 21 million Americans who have diabetes have type 2 Diabetes.

Type 2 Diabetes is characterized by the pancreas not producing enough insulin to control glucose levels. When a cell doesn’t respond to insulin it is insulin resistance. When a patient is diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, weight loss and diet are the usual ways to gain control of the problem. If that fails, medication is usually prescribed.

Inactivity, being over weight or obese, hypertension, high cholesterol, and coronary artery disease are all markers pointing to diabetes. Inactivity as you may well imagine leads to being overweight. The image of a couch potato comes to mind. 20 minutes a day can do wonders-30 is better.

Exercise impacts diabetes in several ways. First, strenuous exercise leads to weight loss given all other things being equal. Exercise causes the body to process glucose faster which lowers blood sugars. Exercise helps build muscle tissue which burns calories even when you sleep. 20 minutes a day can do wonders-30 minutes a day is better.

Exercise helps keep you limber which is very important as you grow older. Exercise helps lowering stress and increasing blood flow. Exercise will lower your cholesterol and blood pressure too. 20 minutes a day can do wonders-30 minutes is better.

For anyone who doubts this try a good little workout in the morning and tell me how you feel. Weight training for me actually works best followed by a nice twenty minute walk.

But it doesn’t have to be in a gym. Housework, yard work, playing with your kids, washing the car, anything that gets your heart rate up will work just fine. And it doesn’t even have to be in one stretch, break it up into two ten minute sets. 20 minutes a day can do wonders-30 minutes is better.

Everyone should check with their physician prior to an exercise program.

If you’re trying to lose weight, a combination of physical activity and wise food choices can help you reach your target weight and maintain it. All of these benefits can be yours even if you haven’t been very active before. 20 minutes a day can do wonders-but 30 is better.

People having fatty food and unsystematic life style are always having chances to get overweight or obesity and other health problems. The odd shape of the body and uncomfortable body movements, restlessness and lethargy due to over weight make people frustrated and depressed and they desperately try to get out from the problem of obesity. They go to one clinic to another and try different medicines to overcome overweight. People always hope for instance result and they go for different kinds of medication without prior knowledge about the medicines and side effects.

Medicine companies come out with numbers of weight loss pills every now and then, claiming that there products are best to be used for losing weight. But these pills are found to be very ineffective having negative impact on human body.

There are some natural medicines that can be tried because there may not be any side effects.
These days hoodia weight loss pills are tried prevalently in different part of the world.

Hoodia belongs to Apocynacease of flowering plant family. It is mostly found in African countries such as Southern Angola and Namibia, especially in rocky areas. The only place in the planet Hoodia is found in the wild region of Kalahari Desert in southern Africa. Hooda has been eaten for long time by the Kalahari Bushmen living in that surroundings to prevent and cease hunger during long journeys.

Traditionally, this plant is used as appetitive suppressant and for treating indigestion and small infections. The desert plant Hoodia gordonii was used by Kalahari bushmen as hunger suppressant and that has initiate attention of many that hooda plant can be an aid for weight loss.
In South Africa studies and experiments were done on Hooda plants and a molecule is identified hooda plant as P57 that suppress appetite and hunger for long time.

But there are lot of speculations ambiguities and doubts about the Hoodia as best for weight loss. In Morrisville one of the doctors found hoodia to be very effective to combat obesity. He experimented by using hoodia on seven people ranging their weight from 193 to 345 pounds and he observed that all tof then lost 3.3% of their weight. However this experimental report was not published in any authentic medical journal.

The BBC also aired a program and report on the hoodia gordonii and asserted that the use of this plant is effective and it is a natural suppressant.

During March 2006, the consumer reports appeals that the hoodia has no clinical evidence that it can be used as weight loss pills.

Lack of clinical and scientific evidences or regulatory approval of hooda plant has discouraged many dietary supplements companies from marketing hooda based products. The people using the hooda based products have found that it lowers blood pressure and reduces the appetite to great extend. Hoodia plant has to go long way before it gets approval by the FDA that it can be safer formulation and medication to be used in obesity and overweight.

Is it true that you can use essential oils for burning fat? While using essential oils is not as effective as diet and exercise, some people have reported success using these fragrant oils to aid in weight loss.

What Are Essential Oils?

Essential oils are basically the essence of plants. If you think about the smell and taste you get from adding citrus zest to food; that smell is because of the essential oils that are in the skin of the fruit.

All sorts of plants and fruits have essential oils inside them, which can be extracted and used for medicinal and other purposes. Some oils can be ingested, while others are more effective simply from smelling them or mixing them with olive oil or a lotion base to rub on the skin.

Types of Essential Oils for Burning Fat

While there are no specific essential oils for burning fat, there are oils that can be used to give your metabolism a boost. This can help you lose weight and cut the fat deposits in your body.

Energizing Oils

Essential oils that give you an energy and metabolism boost are the ones most often suggested for aiding weight loss. Some of those essential oils include:

• Orange
• Lemon
• Grapefruit
• Rosemary
• Peppermint
• Ginger
• Basil

Essential oils can be mixed and used in different ways, but one easy energizing recipe is to use about nine drops of grapefruit oil and six drops of ginger oil. Mix them together with two ounces of a carrier oil, such as olive oil or sweet almond oil. Add a small amount to your bath water and soak.

Oils for Other Purposes

Essential oils can also be helpful when you are trying to lose weight for other reasons. If you understand the cause of your overeating, you can use essential oils to help ease the feeling of whatever else was going on in your life that caused you to overeat.

For example, stress, depression and anxiety are all common causes for eating too much, and also can be reactions to dieting. Essential oils can help reduce these feelings and make you feel better about dieting.

• For stress relief:
  • Lemon
  • Lavender
  • Roman chamomile
  • Geranium
  • Grapefruit
  • Jasmine
  • Ylang-ylang
• To combat depression:
  • Rose
  • Sandalwood
  • Orange
  • Lavender
  • Grapefruit
  • Jasmine
• To ease anxiety
  • Bergamot
  • Frankincense
  • Sandalwood
  • Rose
  • Lavender
  • Clary sage

  Targeting Fat with Essential Oils

  If you shop around on the Internet, you will find products that claim to be essential oils for burning fat. These products usually include grapefruit oil, as well as other essential oils such as coconut, cypress, cedar, juniper and clary sage, as well as some carrier oil and usually vitamin E, which is said to be good for the skin.

  While these products may help if you are already on a weight loss program (for the calming and energizing reasons mentioned above) they can’t really do anything to help you burn fat or reduce cellulite. Like other topical products, they may hydrate the skin, making it temporarily look firmer and less dimpled, but it’s not a permanent solution.

  The better idea is to do some research on aromatherapy yourself, buy a few bottles of oil from your natural foods store. Try some recipes as you also eat a better diet and exercise more.

  Using essential oils can be a real help to get you through the emotions associated with dieting and weight loss, whether you’re feeling a lack of confidence or excess tiredness.

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Obesity is one of the biggest health concerns in the UK today with nearly one fifth of the adult population reportedly obese. A person is said to be obese if their BMI is 30 or above. Figures today show that 17% of men, and 21% of women in the UK are obese. A person with a BMI of 25 to 29.9 is said to be overweight, with 46% of men, and 32% of women in the UK falling into this category. In 1996, approximately 13% of 8 year olds and 17% of 15 year olds were obese. This increases the chance of adult obesity. These are alarming figures.