Many people ask if I know of a good way to detox your body and lose some quick weight to jump start a healthy diet. Well, I gave you a few ways in my previous blogs, but here's one I just discovered using some other materials.
I bought some Odwalla Superfood (which is good itself) and Naked Blue Machine and Mango purees. I usually take a few drinks of these by themselves, but I had an idea. I also bought a large bag of spinach at Costco and decided to mix the three.
Use this for your breakfast and snacks (yeah, I know it's not a snack, but trust me it works). Use the following ingredients:
1. 3 cups spinach
2. 1/2 bottle Odwalla Superfood
3. Any amount of Naked juice (use multiple juices for more flavor)
4. Any other fruit you would like (I recommend bananas and pineapple to add more flavor)
5. Optional: Add a low sugar protein powder to thicken up the shake. I use the P90X recovery drink to add a bit of taste.
Blend the ingredients together and you should get about 6 cups of puree that you can drink throughout the day. For a major detox drink only this for a week (make it a few times a day so your body feels it's getting enough healthy calories each day). After a week ease back into food and only drink this once a day.
In addition to drinking lots of fluids and only eating healthy options, I used this once a day for a week and lost 15 pounds and 5% body fat. This is much faster weight loss and body fat loss than healthy eating and exercise alone.
Beware this is only a short detox and you should not use this as a pure diet all the time.
One question I've received is, "So I cut out sugar and started eating more grains, but I'm not feeling any better, why is that?" When I ask what type of grains are being eaten I discover it's white flour products.
Let's get something straight, white flour is not a grain whatsoever. White flour is a simple carbohydrate, meaning your body can break it down quickly for energy. Some might think, "Wow, quick digestion and quick energy, what's wrong with that." Well, with quick breakdown comes quick usage of the energy, meaning it doesn't last long. The other problem with white flour is it is stored as fat much faster than other types of actual grains.
White flour isn't only in white bread, it's in almost any type of processed food you can buy at the grocery store. Look at the labels of the food you eat; if the food label has anything with "bleached" and "flour" together, it's the same thing. Condensed soups, pastas, meal mixes, etc. all contain this ingredient. Ditch the white flour for real grains and watch out for the processed foods.
Have you seen those commercials sponsored by the corn companies that try and convince you that high fructose corn syrup is nothing worse than sugar? Well, if you haven't check out one right now. At the end of the video is a little rant by the guy who owns the video on youtube and makes a good point.
First I have to say this, we eat too much sugar as a nation period! Whether it's corn sugar or regular table sugar everyone is used to, we consume too much sugar and need to cut down on all different types. However, watch the commercial again and think this the whole time, "It's healthy to eat corn sugar because it's just like regular sugar." Although you might be able to say, "That's retarded, no sugar is healthy." it is pretty simple for many Americans to justify to themselves they are ok to eat corn sugar and other processed foods because these sugars aren't anymore unhealthy than the sugar we've been consuming for years.
According to many sources you can find online, high fructose corn syrup (also called corn sugar now by the corn industry) doesn't do anything different than cane sugar. But what are they saying exactly? From all the sources I've read there are two things consistent between refined white sugar and corn sugar:
1 - Same amount of calories
2 - Both sugars cause the same reaction in the blood stream, meaning you will produce the same amount of insulin no matter what type you eat
Well a study at Princeton University says different when it comes to over-all health of corn sugar VS regular sugar. According to a research study in March of 2010, corn sugar is a high factor of obesity in our nation today. There were two main control groups of rats in one study. One group was fed regular rat chow (whatever that is) and water sweetened with corn sugar. The other group was fed regular rat chow and water sweetened with regular table sugar (I'm assuming that's refined white sugar that you used to pour on your cereal every morning). The control group being fed the corn sugar gained a significant amount of weight compared to the other group.
In another study with animals, all animals that were fed corn sugar gained more weight and had obesity related diseases that many people are dealing with today. For more information you can see this study at http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07/and see for yourself.
Now that doesn't mean go eat all other sugars instead of corn sugar and you'll be fine. Cut back on the sugar! According to researcher Nancy Appleton, PhD there are approximately 146 reasons to avoid all sugars. Some reasons are (this is a copy and paste from http://www.naturalnews.com/022692.html and is not my own material):
* Sugar feeds cancer
* Sugar increases cholesterol
* Sugar can weaken eyesight
* Sugar can cause drowsiness and decreased activity in children
* Sugar can interfere with the absorption of protein
* Sugar causes food allergies
* Sugar contributes to diabetes
* Sugar can contribute to eczema in children
* Sugar can cause cardiovascular disease
* Sugar can impair the structure of DNA
* Sugar can cause hyperactivity, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and crankiness in children
* Sugar contributes to the reduction in defense against bacterial infection (infectious diseases)
* Sugar greatly assists the uncontrolled growth of Candida Albicans (yeast infections)
* Sugar contributes to osteoporosis
According to this same website (again it's http://www.naturalnews.com/022692.html and not my own information) Stevia is the best alternative to sugar when it comes to health. Don't overload of course, but look at the facts. When finding a sugar alternative be careful.
In my opinion avoid as much sugar as possible, mainly soda pop and processed foods. However, today it's very hard to avoid these foods and prepare a healthy meal everyday. Use your best judgement and try to stay healthy and avoid the sweets as much as possible.
Diet professionals constantly tell me to "Eat less calories than you expel in energy and you'll lose weight! It's really that easy." Well great but what kind of foods am I supposed to eat? "Anything low in calories." was always the answer. However the calorie count on packages is an estimated count, and technology that I use to track my calorie usage during excercise are also estimated. What about all the other ingredients in food (salt, potassium, fat, cholesterol, vitamins, minerals, etc.). How do those not help in losing weight?
Counting calories can be an effective start to losing weight, but it's not going to get you farther than most other diets that are easy to follow. Take into consideration that other things, such as salt, can cause a fluctuation in weight daily (fun fact: weight can actually fluctuate anywhere from 3 to 12 pounds per day on average...so if you weigh yourself at 190 lbs you could be as high as 202 or as low as 178!). When you consume excess amounts of salt your body retains more water than normal, adding water weight to your daily scale checks.
How about vitamins and minerals? Well, you could eat whatever you wanted that was low in calories and lose some weight, but will you be healthy? According to http://www.livestrong.com you can develop the following problems due to a low amount of daily vitamins:
- Low Immunity
- Brittle Bones
- Bad Oral Health
- Joint Pain
The last thing I want to consider is the amount of fat in food. Calories and fat are not the same thing and your body does not absorb/digest/store fat and calories the same. This is why food labels have the tiny little section saying "Fat from Calories" to show the difference. Something low in calories can be high in fat. Fat is the hardest energy source to break down by the body, so the body stores it for future use and uses other components that can be broken down easily (carbohydrates as an example).
Don't believe the hype that you're healthy just by focusing on calories; focus on a multitude of factors such as fat, cholesterol, simple and complex carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals, etc. All in all, eat a healthy diet consisting of a variety of foods without the refined sugars and processed procedures and exercise consistently. Losing weight and feeling great has an easy answer but a difficult process to constantly follow on a day to day basis.
Just watch this video, I love this guy and what he does. This has been around for a long time so you've probably seen it, but it's amazing what you can do with a little creativity to show how supplement/exercise commercials can trick you into thinking results are fabulous!
If you haven't seen the full bar commercial, check it out above. This commercial actually isn't too bad and makes you believe it could replace surgery some day
Here's my problem with Full Bar. You drink a large glass of water, eat the bar that looks like an oversized Rice Krispy Treat (I love those treats, so I'd be happy to make that my diet), then wait a little while before eating your meal. The full bar will fill up your stomach so you feel full after eating less food. No offense to the creator of Full Bar, but if you drink a large glass of water and eat a large rice krispie like substance before any meal you'll obviously feel more full before a meal! You don't have to necessarily by the full bar.
This contradicts what many diet experts claim about eating a certain number of calories a day to keep your metabolism up without your body storing excess fat due to the theory of starvation (explanation: starvation mode happens when your body doesn't consume enough calories/fat/food overall a day, meaning your body stores fat thinking it's not getting enough food each day or you're under high stress). You still have to consume enough nutrients and minerals each day to stay healthy.
Here's an experiment for you that I've already posted earlier: drink a large glass of water before a meal, wait 20 minutes then eat. Halfway through your meal drink another glass of water and finish eating. You'll feel more full plus increase your water intake which will help you in losing weight anyway.
Positives: Full Bar could be used as a diet starter plan to mentally trick yourself into thinking you have to eat less by visually seeing less food on your plate after consuming the Full Bar. Afterwards you could cut the Full Bar and eat the same amount of food. If your body feels full you've successfully tricked your brain into eating less and feeling more full without the Full Bar. Otherwise, no other positives.
Negatives: Expensive, uses common sense to lose weight, doesn't necessarily provide you with the nutrition you might be missing with eating less food. Remember, it's not necessarily eating less it's eating more healthy food and eating less junk/crap food. Eating a large amount of vegetables won't kill you, and the full bar doesn't have the nutritional value of vegetables.
In my opinion the Full Bar is just a guy saying you should eat his food to expand in your stomach and eat less. It makes sense, but doesn't do much for you. The diet has you incorporate healthy food and extra water which will help you lose weight without the Full Bar.
There are multiple supplements out there claiming to block fat so you can eat all you want and lose weight while doing it. Lifestyle changes are not necessary with these miracle pills so they are tempting to the public because people want to lose weight with minimal effort. These don't work!
Alli is different however. Alli claims their product blocks fat as usual, but it's not an easy process. You must still improve your diet with a diet plan provided, increase your water intake, improve your exercise and the weight will come off but not rapidly. Alli claims you'll lose 1.5 pounds for every 1 pound you'd lose for regular exercise.
Positives: Alli does help you lose weight and there are not side effects that have been discovered. Many people have seen success through Alli at a safe pace.
Negatives: Alli is expensive and does cause excess bowel movements consisting of "blubber" as described by some. This is the excess fat being blocked and discarded by Alli.
So if you read my post on Bowflex Select-Tech Dumbbells you'll know I hated them. I purchased a pair of Powerblock Dumbbells a while back and see the opposite, I love them! Very durable, very strong, a great weight up to what I need (70 lbs) for a home workout using P90X or any other type of workout. If you're looking for some dumbbells that aren't too expensive, bulky and space wasters and will last a long time consider Powerblock Dumbbells in your research.
So I had a pair of Bowflex Select-Tech Dumbbells and you should believe that I am completely disappointed. After only a few months the dumbbells starting falling apart. When I would select a higher weight, the smaller weights would fall out. I almost broke a few toes with these things. Not recommended at all! There has been a recall on the dumbbells, so if you have had the same problem contact Bowflex so you can get your money back or a pair that won't break your foot while you lift.
Many people think they need to buy weights in order to bulk up and gain a great deal of muscle mass. However, resistance bands can do almost just as much as weights can in the home, and resistance bands cost much less and are easier to store.
Weight sets can cost anywhere from around $50 - $500 depending on the quality and condition (used VS new). If you want to bulk up tremendously and look like a body builder lacking a neck, I'd have to say buy the weights and take lots of steroids! For those that want to tone muscles and build a good deal of muscle mass without a major bulk crisis, buy some resistance bands and use them in your everyday exercises.
Resistance bands can cost up to $80 depending on which brand and set you purchase. I found some Gold's Gym set of 3 resistance bands for $10 at Wal-Mart. I know I know, shouldn't shop at Wal-Mart but lets get real, everyone complains about them then ends up shopping there anyway because they know they save money. These resistance bands have been great for the last 3 years, I have no complaints whatsoever.
Research and find some resistance bands that work for you and your goals.
If you haven't seen the documentary "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" you should; the documentary follows Joe, an overweight and sick Australian man determined to lose weight. In order to do so he follows a strict diet consisting of only juice from fruit and vegetables he juices himself for two straight months. Joe's courage and strength show us that we can lose weight with a healthy diet, and keep the weight off with a consistent healthy diet and exercise.
I have shared this documentary with hundreds of people who buy juicers or decide they want to juice and have incredible results. However, is juicing the best thing to do? Well, I went to http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com to see what they would recommend for me. My goal was to lose 20 pounds, and my recommendations were one juice a day for only a week, then go from there. Well, juicing isn't for everybody to follow like Joe.
After doing a little research on juicing, I realized it wasn't the best way to get vitamins and nutrients from multiple fruits and vegetables a day. Although juicing is very healthy, one thing is better...puree. The difference? Juicing extracts juice from the fruit leaving behind pulp full of vital nutrients and fiber. Puree...place all the fruits and vegetables in a blender and go at it; nothing wasted and nothing lost. Less fruit and vegetables are needed to puree than to juice, saving money and still filling you up with the nutrients you need each day. Puree is an easier cleanup while juicing consists of many parts to clean and wipe down.
Juicing, however, is easier to drink down. Puree his much thicker and harder to down quickly if you're in a hurry. Puree is also harder to make great tasting combinations between fruits and vegetables that are great tasting like juice.
In my opinion, juicing is great but puree is much healthier and easier to maintain and clean. In addition, save money by using up to half the fruit needed to juice in a large puree.
Please note that taking supplements can help you achieve fitness and health goals, but are not always necessary. The supplements you want to avoid are supplements that offer extremely fast and easy results with minimal work. Workout supplements are usually the culprits in this case.
Many vitamins and minerals are an advantage to your health because they provide you important vitamins and minerals you might be lacking in your everyday diet.
Also note that supplements are not 100% regulated by the FDA. Thanks to Utah's Senator Orin Hatch's proposal, a bill was passed restricting the FDA from regulating supplements like they do many foods. This means that a company can sell you sugar and nothing else, but put other ingredients on the package and list benefits that 100% will not happen. Find reviews on different websites about supplements you are considering and see how reliable the company producing the supplements can be. For example, NSI is my favorite supplement company. I have seen many results from there products in my general health.
Pros: Protein helps rebuild muscle after stress (working out of any sort).
Cons: If too much protein is taken it can effect your kidneys, and most excess protein is wasted.
Myths: Protein will make me bigger! Protein is the major building block of life. My college biology professor used to tell us, "If you want to rule the world, control protein and it's all yours." Protein is made up of various amino acids that do many things such as provide a little extra energy, rebuild, reboot your body, etc.
When looking for proteins you want to be careful what kind of brand you buy, what it says it does, and if the ingredients are actually in there (read my caution blog). Some tips to purchasing protein:
1 - Find protein with a variety of amino acids and maybe some added vitamins. The more healthy ingredients the more benefits up to a point.
2 - Avoid high sugar proteins.
3 - Find one that mixes well and tastes good. I know it's all about the ingredients, but if you can't even choke down the stuff then you won't take it often and you'll waste your money.
4 - Liquids are more easily absorbed, so shakes and mixed powders have more benefits than bars and pills.
5 - Use a reputable company's protein.
6 - If you ever have questions about it, ask a physician or even a chemist. Both can tell you if the mumbo-jumbo claims on the packaging even make physiological sense or if a bunch of fancy words are thrown into the mix.
Many people eat enough protein in foods to where they don't need excess protein. However, if you do decide to take a protein supplement, I'd recommend starting off with less than up to half the recommended daily amount. See how you feel, then work up to however much you feel you need. Remember, protein DOES NOT make you bigger, it helps you rebuild muscle.
Nutrisystem is effective at helping people lose weight because you eat their food and only their food like Jenny Craig. Nutrisystem focuses on the same idea of the hypoglycemic diets and they prepare the food for you. People do lose weight off the low calorie food provided. However, Nutrisystem does nothing to help you learn what foods to eat afterwards and doesn’t provide you with an exercise program or any type of diet program once you are done with their program. Personally I have seen amazing results from Nutrisystem go down the toilet when my friends and acquaintances go through the program; almost all of them gained more weight after the program than they had before they started Nutrisystem. If you decide to do Nutrisystem, my recommendations would be to plan out your diet by choosing an effective program to eat healthy, not to lose weight, but to maintain your weight. Visit http://www.nutrisystem.com for more information.
Jenny Craig sends you food, you eat it and nothing else (well, I’ve heard different things, some people say you can eat a little but not much outside of their food). It’s very simple to follow, they have counselors and nutritionists there waiting to help you when you need it. I have never had the food, but I heard it is not the best tasting food out there. The cons to Jenny Craig are the price and the lack of nutritional help afterwards. I understand they are implementing programs to help people keep the weight off, which if true would increase my rating, but I have not seen anything as of yet to prove they do it effectively. Jenny Craig is good for someone that doesn’t have time to shop or cook for certain foods, and has the money to do it. Visit http://www.jennycraig.com/ for more information.
These diets focus solely on “good foods VS bad foods” and your blood glucose levels. The diet is very effective as it does teach and consult which foods are good and which are bad, and it has stages to detoxify your body and return to a normal state. However, the only con to the diet is the very difficult system to fit. Some of these diets want you to eat certain foods at certain times of the day, in a certain order at a single meal and are very complex in what you can and can’t eat. It is effective and should be used by someone looking to lose 30 pounds or so. Use a search engine to find all the information you can about these diets as there are many to choose from.
The Fat Smash diet gives you a list of allowable foods and tells you what to eat and what not to eat. There is a very effective plan to detox the body and rebuild it within 90 days. This diet does teach you how to eat and change your lifestyle, while increasing energy levels and health levels. However, this is a very strict and restrictive diet and should only be done by those with will power to avoid certain foods. If not followed 100% this diet is not effective. Go to http://www.fatsmashdiet.com/ for more information.
Fat Flush Diet – 1.5 Stars – Medium $$$
The Fat Flush diet basically starts you off at a low calorie diet with lean proteins, then slowly adds on more calories each week until you reach your maximum account. The book does teach you about foods that are good for you and how to prepare them. However, it’s just another low calorie diet that can be potentially harmful if not done correctly or if you do not consult your doctor. Again in my opinion, not recommended.
To starve yourself it’s not very expensive. However, this diet can be very harmful to your health. Of course you will lose weight because of the decrease in calories, but this diet does not teach someone how to change their lifestyle, can only be done for seven days, and who likes cabbage soup that much? Ewwww! Once you finish the diet you must wait approximately one month to do it again. In that month you can gain weight the weight back because you’re increasing your calorie intake again. This is a very unsafe diet and I would not recommend it personally.
Clean Food Diet – 4.5 Stars – Medium $$$
The Clean Food Diet is like Dr. Furhman’s diet in a way, however, it does allow more meat and animal products to be consumed daily. Eat fruits and vegetables (raw state is better) and exercise daily to get the body you want. If you eat healthy your body detoxifies itself and the craving for sugar and other process foods is decreased. Like many of the other diets, eat every 2-3 hours to make sure your body is not starving and your metabolism is increasing. Visit http://www.eatcleandiet.com/ for more information.
Many people take the Atkins diet to a whole level it is not: avoid all carbohydrates and eat lots of meat! I have never seen this information in an Atkins book. Atkins focuses on getting rid of bad carbs (simple carbs) and eating good carbs (complex carbs). However, keeping carbs consumption low is the key to this diet. The theory is that your body uses the easiest form of fuel to break down first before other forms. Fat is the hardest form of fuel for the body to break down so it is usually last. By limiting carbohydrates and increasing protein your body will break down more fat because other forms of fuel are limited. Beware that too much protein can cause problems with the kidneys and the digestive system, so if you choose Atkins do not go overboard on the meat. Go to http://www.atkins.com to learn more.
3 Hour Diet, Abs Diet, 8 Minutes diet – 3.5 Stars – Low $$$ (except for the books)
These diets claim the same thing that many other dieticians and books claim: eat healthy food every three hours so your body doesn’t feel like it is starving and your metabolism (the ability of your body to use energy) will increase to burn more calories and fat. Eat protein to build muscle so you use more energy with the increase in muscle mass (read my post about muscle burning fat to see how this works). In my opinion this physiologically makes sense, but you don’t have to buy a book to know this. Also, the food suggestions are common knowledge, not necessarily anything your mother didn't tell you to eat. The diet idea itself is, however, very effective.
Weight Watchers is one of the most popular dieting programs available today, and for good reason. You sign up, they have meetings for you, support groups, an online software program that helps you track your progress, dieticians that help you meet personal goals and setup personal plans for you and your body and they have a system that seems to work wonderful so that you aren’t sacrificing good food for gross plastic tasting food.
The main idea behind Weight Watchers is a point system. You buy a book with a finished equation using your age, weight and gender to setup a plan on how much food you should eat to lose weight. The book also contains a very large library of foods and their point values so you don’t have to count calories and fat and other things that are tedious. As you lose weight you modify the amount of points you eat each day. Simple right!
The only con I see with Weight Watchers is that it doesn’t teach you the nutritional value of food (vitamins, calories, fat contents) for a lifetime. However, if you follow the Weight Watchers plan for as long as you live and you commit to it without fail, you will keep a constant healthy weight with the correct exercise program. For more information visit http://www.weightwatchers.com/index.aspx to see if this program is right for you.
Dr. Furhman’s diet plan consists of consuming fruits and vegetables as your main source of food each day and limiting animal products. The theory is that fruits and vegetables are full of micro-nutrients that help strengthen and maintain cells throughout your body, meaning you can reverse diseases and stay healthy without the need of excessive measures (prescription drugs and surgeries). Many animal products have macro-nutrients which do not benefit the body as much as micro-nutrients. He doesn’t say to avoid consuming animal products, he just says to decrease your dependency on animal products.
Dr. Furhman has his own food pyramid and nutrition charts that you can see at the link below that explains what foods are nutritionally valuable to your body. This is also a lifestyle change that must be followed forever (as any diet is)! He does offer foods and a membership just like other programs listed below, however, if you follow his basics you can see a very successful weight and fat loss routine take over your life to feel much happier and healthier. For more information go to http://www.drfuhrman.com/ and see if this diet plan works for you.
Weight is your gravitational pull from the earth, and fat is
what is in your body! Yay, you understand it now. It’s that simple. However,
people use both words as a synonym of one another all too often. To burn fat
effectively and lost weight you must change your diet and exercise program. To
just lose weight you can follow my drinking water examples in other posts, and
you’ll lose weight! You won’t lose much fat, but the weight will shed right
off.
Our goals should be to decrease our fat intake and burn more
fat. This can be done through diet and exercise programs mentioned on this site
to help you get the goal you need.
I have researched, joined and participated in many diet fad
programs. Following is a list of programs I or one of my family members have done
and my reviews on them. Remember that I am not associated with any of these
programs, and these are my opinions and they do not reflect the effectiveness
of the diet to your body specifically. If you are looking for a specific diet
to review you can search the page, these are not in any particular order.
Diet fads are becoming increasingly popular with the obesity epidemic taking a strong hand in our society. Fad diets can help you lose weight, however, they can be harmful at the same time. Before you ever join a diet program consult a physician to confirm you are able to do so (this includes any exercise programs also).
I am sick of constantly seeing all these weight loss
products on the market trying to sell their “easy” systems to unsuspecting
people. “Miracle” weight loss products only go so far (if you have a question
about a product and its effectiveness, check out my reviews sections for the
ones I’ve used and see how it worked for me). Too many pills, powders and
surgeries that promise results without minimal work on your part. Don’t get me
wrong, many of them do help you get to a certain point with hard work and a
diet change (yeah, the same thing you can do without the pill!), but after you
stop consuming “miracle” drugs the effects are worse. Read my other posts to
read what can happen.
Here’s a list of things you can do right away to start
losing weight and fat without buying potentially harmful drugs and supplements
(read “Weight VS Fat” to understand the difference):
1. Cut down on the soda. Substitute soda pop with water
slowly until you are no longer drinking the soda
2. If you crave a snack, grab a handful of your favorite
fruit, vegetable or nut products. With the snack drink a glass or two of water,
the water will help suppress your hunger making you feel full while cutting
down on calories and fat intake.
3. Drink water before meals. Water is the only 100% safe and
natural appetite suppressant and it’s completely free. Before each meal or
snack drink a few glasses of water and your cravings will drop quite a bit. You
will still have that craving to snack, which is ok because it’s ok to eat food
throughout the day. Choose a healthy snack as stated above.
4. Volumize your meals. What is volumizing? Do this, take a
lettuce that you like (iceberg, green leaf, red leaf, kale, romaine, etc.), eat
your lunch or dinner with only half (that’s right, I said half) of what you
typically eat each day. Wash and prepare the head of lettuce and mix half to a
full head in that meal. You still get the same volume of food, making your
stomach full and your brain telling you to stop eating, however you’re adding a
whole bunch of nutrients and decreasing a whole bunch of fat while feeling
satisfied at the end of the meal. This can be done with any vegetable at the
same time, but in my experience lettuce tastes better and is more versatile in
the meals I eat.
5. If you already drink water, drink more water! Any
dietician will tell you to increase your water levels to be more healthy, but
have they ever told you why? Whenever I ask someone how much water they should
drink they give me the same canned answer, “Eight 8 oz glasses of water a day.”
Who came up with that? If I drink only eight glasses a day I’m still
dehydrated. From what I understand through countless articles I’ve read
regarding this theory, this is for people that are not active, eating under
1500 calories a day and consume less than 50% of the daily value of salt in
their diet. If you exercise you need much more water each day.
Don’t fill up a gallon of water and chug it down, no! Start
out drinking one glass of water every hour. If you exercise drink a few more
glasses of water afterwards. Water is used for so many different things your
body just craves it! Physiologically your body will store water when it feels
low or depleted, and this is where water weight comes from. If you drink a high
volume of water each day your body then tells itself, “I’m getting a sufficient
amount of water, I don’t need to store it anymore.” Your body then releases the
stored water and incoming water at a level pace while staying hydrated at a
healthy level.
I have seen people lose up to 25 pounds in two weeks just by
drinking a high volume of one to one and a half gallons of water per day.
However, beware that if you stop drinking water consistently you will gain the
weight back because your body will be starving for it once again, causing it to
store water instead of continually process and use it.
Do any or all of these with your daily diet plans and
exercise plans (if you’re not exercising start!) and you will see more weight
and fat shed from your body.
Water does many things: provide oxygen to the body, clean
cells, transport nutrients, transport waste away, provides a pH balance in the
body, regulates the salt/potassium levels, etc. Water is free from calories and
fat, is used all throughout the body, and is FREE! Best of all, many people go
out there and try to purchase different pills and powders that suppress their
appetites, only to eat more after they are done with the pills and powders.
Water is the only 100% safe and natural appetite suppressant you can find! Yay!
Water is a resource that we have that we do not take
advantage of enough. Too many people consume soda pop as their main intake of
fluids. A 16 oz soda has approximately 12 tablespoons of sugar! Imagine taking
12 tablespoons of sugar and eating it plain…that’s what you just drank. To put
it in perspective, many people drink one to three 64 oz drinks a day. One 64 oz
drink is approximately one half of a gallon of liquid, consisting of
approximately 48 tabelspoons (or in another measurement, three cups of sugar).
That means someone is consuming nine full cups of sugar each day they drink
three 64 oz soda pops! Insane!
As I mentioned in the “Start Losing Weight” post, drop the
pop and start drinking water. You don’t have to stop drinking pop completely
right away, take it slow. Here are some steps on decreasing the amount of pop
you drink each day:
1. Reduce the size of the drink (64 oz to 44 oz) and
decrease that size every two weeks.
2. Reduce the number of refills you drink, and reduce this
every three days. Substitute the amount of soda you decreased with water.
3. When you wake up drink two glasses of water before
breakfast, before you go to buy a soda pop, and before you go to bed. Drinking
the water decreases your desire to continually pump food/beverages into your
body.
Take these ideas one at a time and slowly drop the soda pop
addiction and fill your body with a liquid that it desires: water. Doing this
will help you in so many ways including a lower blood pressure, fat burning,
energy increase, a spike in hydration levels, and a clear mind. Read my other
articles about sugar to know the effects on your body and how it is stored as
fat quickly.
Pros: Increased boost of energy. Quick weight loss.
Cons: Headaches from excess caffeine. Heart rate speeds up too much. Dehydration.
Summary: Hydroxicut and Xenadrine are both full of caffeine, the main ingredient to provide you with the energy you need to continually move and burn calories/fat. However, the caffeine led to an increased heart rate too fast for me, extreme headaches when the caffeine consumption was lowered, and severe dehydration if I wasn’t drinking at least a gallon of water per day. Overall, not recommended.
We’ve all seen the P90X commercials on TV, eating our ice cream and twinkies wondering if the program really works as they say they do. P90X follows the theory of muscle confusion. After a period of time our muscles adapt to commonly performed exercises and the benefits of these exercises are not as prevalent as when we begin. Muscle confusion is the act of changing exercise routines on a regular basis (can be weekly or monthly) in order for our muscles to continually improve strength and endurance. But does P90X actually work in every way advertised by Beachbody?
The claims by P90X are extreme cardiovascular endurance, low body fat percentage, muscle building and a lower resting heart rate (checkout beachbody’s website for the claims). This can all be accomplished within 90 days of hardcore exercises provided by world known trainer, Tony Horton. The program also provides a diet plan to help get the body “shredded” as seen by those on the infomercials on TV.
Cardiovascular Endurance – 3/5 Stars
P90X offers two exercise DVD’s focusing on cardiovascular fitness: Plyometrics and Kenpo X. Plyometrics has to be one of the hardest workouts I’ve ever encountered. The word plyometrics refers to jump training, in other words, jumping and a variety of ways to increase cardiovascular fitness and other multiple skill related fitness types (agility, power, speed, etc.).
Kenpo X on the other hand is less intense and really depends on the individual’s own motivation to work hard. The exercise program can be intense and a great workout, or it can be a fail and a “Debbie downer” to the end of the week program.
Muscle Building – 5/5 Stars
Other workouts are dedicated to weight training and muscle building. All the workouts, if performed properly, are great workouts that promote muscle building all over the body. The muscle confusion theory can be seen by following the workouts to a “T.” Form is extremely important during these exercises. There are also a variety of options to use for resistance such as weights, resistance bands and one’s own body weight. If followed the muscle building programs are very beneficial to developing a “shredded” body.
Flexibility – 3/5 Stars
Flexibility is considered a health-related fitness, meaning it’s not something easily changed. Before each workout you will be guided in a series of stretches and warm-up routines before beginning the intense training. These stretches are more aimed at helping the body prepare rather than increase flexibility.
However, there are two DVD’s dedicated to flexibility and balance: Yoga X and Stretch X. Yoga X for beginners is intense and can be too much. The exercises in this DVD are great exercises, however, can cause injury if done improperly and without proper guidance. You should be cautioned to only do what you can during this video.
Stretch X is an optional workout using basic stretching and yoga exercises. Since it is optional many people do not follow Stretch X during the workout routines. If Stretch X is used during the entire 90 days your flexibility can improve. However, it depends on the individual for the results as with all other aspects.
Overall – Pros
If done right P90X is a great workout that can get you a “shredded” body as the commercials claim. The exercise program can help improve many aspects of a healthy body and lifestyle if continually done.
Overall- Cons
It is not a quick fix workout routine that is a one-and-done type of thing. This is a full lifestyle change if you want the results to last. Extreme results are typical for those that follow both the exercise and diet routines exactly. If not followed you can still develop a healthy lifestyle, but you won’t see the results in yourself like those on TV. The exercises also require equipment you must purchase in addition to the DVD’s.
Tips on Making it Easier
The workouts are extreme and you will be sore up to the first two weeks starting P90X. Instead of starting right off into the workout you can take three weeks to prepare your body. Watch the DVD’s before beginning the program. Write down half the exercises performed and make sure you understand them. Split the exercises you wrote down in half and perform one half one day, then the other half the next day. Do this everyday for one week. For the second and third weeks increase resistance or number of repetitions. When you start the workout you will still be sore due to the other exercises you didn’t perform. However, your body will be better prepared as you begin the exercises instead of starting cold.
