Monday, December 26, 2011

January 1 - Time to Start Your Weight Loss Plan is Coming Up!

But, are you ready?   Do you have everything you need to make certain that you will finally achieve lasting weight loss in the New Year?  
You see it is a pattern in the majority of people’s lives to include in their New Year’s Resolutions, the goal of becoming a leaner, healthier version of themselves.  But unfortunately, research does show us that 88% of all people who join the gym at the beginning of the New Year will never actually set foot in the gym.  The other statistic that doesn’t create a lot of optimism is the fact that 95% of all people who are trying to permanently lose weight, will fail.
So what do you need to make sure that you don’t become an ugly statistic?
Come January 1, you are going to want to hit the ground running, to have all your ducks in a row, so that you immediately start the process of improving your health and transforming your body.  But, the question that you should be asking yourself is “what do I need in place to make sure that my goals come true?”
The following is a list, that when followed, will make certain that you are one of the 5% that is successful in creating permanent changes in both health and how you look!
1.     You will achieve lasting success when you create a daily schedule that lets you do and take all the steps you must for your new healthy lifestyle…
·        A time put aside to prepare meals.
·        A time put aside for exercise.
·        A time put aside to focus on your health.
2.     You will be successful when you follow a nutrition and diet plan that works for you.
·        The diet should focus on health first.
·        The diet should promote healthy metabolism and weight loss.
·        The diet should increase lean muscle mass.
·        The diet should have wiggle room and forgiveness built into it for social situations.
·        The diet should not make you count calories or points, since that is not congruent with long term change.
3.       You will be successful when you take charge of your mind and the influences it has on - when and what you eat!
·        90% of why we eat is because of our feelings and emotions.
·        These feelings and emotions trigger unhealthy habits that include emotional eating, boredom eating and binge eating.
·        Overcoming these negative relationships with food is achieved by putting strategies and reminders in place daily, so that you take charge of your thoughts and feelings.
4.      You will be successful when you spend your free time discussing and reading things that keep you motivated on health!
·        If you focus on negative things like gossip and the bad economy, you will attract more of that to you.  On the other hand if you focus on health through conversations or what you read, you will attract more of that to you.
·        Find health and motivational material and engage in it, daily.
·        Stay away from situations that destroy motivation or that create emotional triggers.  For example; reading the news or gossip magazines that fill you with stress, going on the scale everyday is another example of a motivational killer.
5.      You will be successful when you embrace that even one small step is a step in the right direction.
·        Every day you have a choice to add one more opportunity to exercise, be active or move.  Choose to move…take the stairs not the elevator, walk to the grocery shop-not drive, etc.
·        Every day take one unhealthy item out of your diet and add one new healthy item to it! 
·        Reward yourself for every baby step you take, not with food but with self praise and positive self-talk! Reward should not come from the outside but should make you blossom from the inside-out.

About:  Michael Mountain is a transformational author on health, weight loss & personal growth and is featured on Amazon.com. He is the author of the Ultimate Fat Loss Solution Diet which is available presently free of charge at http://www.michael-mountain.com/.   He is also the author of Mindset for Weight Loss transformational program - a revolutionary step-by-step program designed to provide the “inner-strength strategies” to take any diet and make it effective for permanent weight loss.  This program allowed him to end his own personal 20 year struggle with weight and poor health!  You can sign up to receive his blog updates on weight loss and motivation at http://www.michael-mountain.com/
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Sunday, December 25, 2011

How We Gain Weight – Looking at Lifestyle Patterns!

Waking up one morning and facing the harsh reality, that at some point in time you lost control of things and are now unhealthy and overweight, is tough to take! Immediately, feelings of frustration, sadness and insecurities can start rushing in.  You are not the woman or man you wish to be and you stand there wondering, “how did I get here, OMG, I am fat!”  Of course, both your decreased activity level and slowing metabolism contributed to your weight gain, but much of your problem is also behavioral.

Losing track of your health and weight; because you didn’t give it any thought, or it was not a priority, or you didn’t give it the time or attention it needed, and you got caught up in just living life day to day, is very common.  It happens in other areas of our lives as well. Have you ever been driving somewhere, begin to daydream, and arrive at your destination not knowing how you got there.  It is the same thing, it is just that weight gain takes a longer period of time, we don’t realize that it is happening until the dreaded day that we see the changes in the mirror or on the scale. 

Here is how it works when it occurs while we are driving…..

……as your conscious mind is day dreaming or busy thinking about something else,  your subconscious mind takes over and starts operating on auto-pilot.  In essence, you might think of your sub-conscious mind as a vault filled with tape recordings.  Those recordings are your past habits, and certain triggers will play certain recordings.

That is the way we are designed, our conscious mind is left free to imagine, create and problem solve, while the sub-conscious mind plays the appropriate recording for handling the simple tasks of daily living.
That’s why when you are driving and you start to daydream, your recording for driving will start to play.  Have you ever arrived home, realized that you hadn’t given driving any thought and wondered how you didn’t crash?  Thank your sub-conscious mind for that.

How does this apply to gaining weight?  You might think that you are making choices about what you are going to eat every day but, in reality, you don’t.  You have learned recordings or habits that actually are directing your choices.  As you run through the process of your busy day and realize you need food, your sub-conscious recording for food will start to play. What ever is your learned habit will just be repeated.  All of the choices that you make concerning food; from eating something out of convenience, to what you are going to eat, from what places you will entertain to get food from, to how much food you end up eating is all being influenced and directed by your sub-conscious recordings. 

Your bad habits are the foundation for failed diets as well as yo-yo weight loss and rebound weight gain. 
Your sub-conscious mind is like an auto-pilot.  If a plane is headed to a destination and the captain puts the plane on auto-pilot, then we know that the plane will continue to head in that same direction.  Even if someone was to turn the plane all the way around and head in the opposite direction, the auto-pilot would eventually get that plane back on the original course, wouldn’t it? If you want the plane to go in a different direction then the only successful way to do that is to turn off the auto-pilot, change the direction or heading, and turn the auto-pilot back on.  Now the auto-pilot has a completely new heading and direction it is traveling.

If you are trying to lose weight and you only go on a diet or exercise program, then what you will find is that just like our plane with the auto-pilot engaged, you will always return to your negative habits or sub-conscious patterns.  You might be able to circumvent your habits temporarily with your mind and will power but at some point in time you will relax, become distracted or day dream and your original auto-pilot or recording will start playing again.  Returning you back to the same old bad eating habits That is why you continually hear about celebrities who lose weight and then gain it back.  If you want freedom from the struggles associated with losing weight, then changing your auto-pilot for food, eating and exercise must be apart of your effort.

These tape recordings that make up your auto-pilot for food can include; emotional eating, binge eating, over-eating, unhealthy eating and food addictions. The Weight Loss Success formula involves changing the following; your poor eating habits or sub-conscious tape recordings, and diet and exercise.


About:  Michael Mountain is a transformational author on health, weight loss & personal growth and is featured on Amazon.com. He is the author of the Ultimate Fat Loss Solution Diet which is available presently free of charge at http://www.michael-mountain.com/.   He is also the author of Mindset for Weight Loss transformational program - a revolutionary step-by-step program designed to provide the “inner-strength strategies” to take any diet and make it effective for permanent weight loss.  This program allowed him to end his own personal 20 year struggle with weight and poor health! 


Saturday, December 24, 2011

Want Motivation While on Your Diet - Throw Out The Scale!

People who are on a diet continually look for ways to stay motivated.  One of the most common and self–destructive ways that is used both for accountability and motivation is to get on the scale daily or every other day.  Although it seems like a good way to measure progress, it couldn’t be farther from the truth, this is what this article will be focusing on.  But, first here is a leading question.

Do you want to be successful?

 Do you want to have a stress free experience with weight loss or are you into frustration and obsessing over every fluctuation in your weight? Your weight can change day to day based upon many variables, the smallest of which being your weight. The scale literally creates the opportunity for you to become demoralized and sabotage your weight loss efforts each and every day. Each and every day you step on a scale you create the anxiety surrounding success or failure based upon the numbers. Just so you know, stress creates cortisol and cortisol is a hormone that increases the amount of fat in your belly…so how does getting stressed every time you approach the scale help? It doesn't, it helps you gain weight!

The scale also has you evaluating your health, self-image, how you look and feel, based solely on what the scale says. In the blink of an eye you can go from looking at yourself in the mirror, thinking “wow, I am really looking leaner, I am wearing clothes that I have not been able to get into for years. I feel good and even a little sexy….let’s go see what that scale says” POW you're two pounds heavier and now you feel like crap!  In a second your thoughts shift to, "What’s the point, I give up?"  Where is your motivation now?
Here is another example of how the scale doesn’t create a clear picture of your body composition.  Do you know that every year as you get older you lose 1 pound of muscle and gain 1 pound of fat?

As a result, many people look at the scale each year and inaccurately feel that because their weight has not changed, that their health and body has not changed either.  Yet they are weaker and fatter every year.
The scale is toxic for people who are trying to lose weight if you obsess on the daily fluctuations that the scale tells you. The problem is that the scale doesn’t take into consideration muscle increases, water retention, menstrual cycles, body fat changes, etc.   A simple evening meal that has more salt in it could change the scale 2-3 pounds the following morning due to water weight and destroy your motivation in the process.  Weighing yourself first thing in the morning can be off as much as 5-7 pounds compared to the rest of the day.

The Scale is NOT your friend!

You love it when it tells you what you want to hear and hate it when it tells you otherwise.  A number should not dictate your self-esteem or effect your motivation. If you are to be successful in weight loss, you must remove things that would create a negative emotional response that could lead to binge eating or self-sabotage! How you look, how you feel, your diminishing waistline, your level of cardiovascular fitness, your body fat measurement, your resting heart rate, blood pressure, a full blood panel and how your clothes fit; these are indicators for health and weight loss..   The scale should only be used in conjunction with evaluating all these other indicators.

So, throw out your scale or at least put it away! Do yourself a favor, if you must weigh yourself do it only once or twice a month.   You have a better chance for success, if you always create a weight loss environment that promotes positive feedback and makes it easy to stay motivated.

About:  Michael Mountain is a transformational author on health, weight loss & personal growth and is featured on Amazon.com. He is the author of the Ultimate Fat Loss Solution Diet which is available presently free of charge at http://www.michael-mountain.com/.   He is also the author of Mindset for Weight Loss transformational program - a revolutionary step-by-step program designed to provide the “inner-strength strategies” to take any diet and make it effective for

Friday, December 23, 2011

Diet and Weight Loss – Confused Yet!?

Don’t you get tired of all of the conflicting information out there about diet and weight loss? 

Some people recommend a low fat diet, some recommend low carb, some high protein, some high fiber, some cabbage soup and the folks that like to make things easy - boil it down to a simple formula; calories in vs. calories out i.e. eating less than your body burns each day.  Then, there is the question of when to eat; eat every 2-3 hours, eat the normal 3 times a day, fast during the day and eat one big dinner….I mean there are a never ending number of options.  Then there are the quick fix solutions like all the diet pills that are available or the option of lap bands, liposuction and other surgical procedures. 

It would appear that it would be easy for someone to get caught up in over- analysis paralysis…..or said differently, getting so confused with conflicting information that you end up doing nothing.  But, here is the reality from a different perspective: they are all right and they are all wrong. You can lose weight on any of these approaches and of course some are healthier than others, but what should also be pointed out is that they are all missing very important information.  None of these options address the entire problem and are therefore an incomplete solution.

Wouldn’t you agree that the problem is in part, knowing what food is healthy for your body, and the other part is knowing how to make and follow through with the healthy choice!
The problem in reality, is our own internal struggle with sticking with and following through with healthy choices, eating the right foods in the right amounts, for life.  We struggle with our own feelings, habits, desires, motivations and will power to not stray from the healthy food choices each and every time! 
The weight and health you have now is a result of all those struggles. If you don’t like what you see and you truly want to lose the weight permanently then you need more information, you must make some internal changes.

Unfortunately, all of the options listed above only address an option for physical change – diet, pills or surgery.  They might change how you look and feel temporarily but, none of these options will change you!
This is the number one reason that 95% of all people on a diet, taking a pill or after surgery fail to keep the weight off!  You haven’t changed on the inside. 

The only way for a fat loss and diet solution to truly be just that…a solution, is for that program to address all aspects.  Diet, nutrition and exercise information is the beginning, but most importantly that information must include; how to stay motivated, committed and focused on achieving your goal.   A true solution must show you how to break free of your negative beliefs, emotional relationships and unhealthy habits surrounding food!

A complete weight loss solution will self-empower you by providing not just the nutritional and dietary information you need but also the inner-strength strategies that lead to certain permanent weight loss! 

About:  Michael Mountain is a transformational author on health, weight loss & personal growth and is featured on Amazon.com. He is the author of the Ultimate Fat Loss Solution Diet which is available presently free of charge at http://www.michael-mountain.com/.   He is also the author of Mindset for Weight Loss transformational program - a revolutionary step-by-step program designed to provide the “inner-strength strategies” to take any diet and make it effective for permanent weight loss.  This program allowed him to end his own personal 20 year struggle with weight and poor health! 

Thursday, December 22, 2011

What You Must Know before You Switch to Veganism - as seen on Oprah!


I watched the Oprah Show some time back.  The guest was the wife of a personal friend of Oprahs’ who was preaching the benefits of a vegan lifestyle.  I say preaching because vegans certainly do take a hard lined, almost evangelical stance to their diet.  I knew that I needed to comment because people commonly don’t question or judge the message; they only judge the messenger.

When Oprah endorses anything, it carries some serious weight; the fact that the guest was a thin “Barbie” blonde would only add fuel to the fire.  People would inaccurately think that if they eat like her then they will look like her, people would think that this is the next dietary breakthrough.  

This guest says that she chose this lifestyle because she feels that it is healthier for her body and that it is a personal choice, she feels that it is inhumane to kill and eat animals.  

They had a representative of the meat industry there to show that the production of animal based protein is being carried out in it’s most humane way.  This representative was from Cargill one of the biggest manufacturers of meat and hamburgers in the United States.   All other meat manufacturers declined to be on the show, obvious to the fact that it would be bad for business and that they would be racked over the coals.

The video inside Cargill’s plant, showed livestock being fed high amounts of slop made up of corn, protein, fillers and anti-biotics to fatten them up..while they stand fairly stationary on a pile of dirt and manure.  It appeared not very healthy and certainly not very appetizing.  Whether you think that it is humane or not will be a personal choice for you. 

This is a good reason to try to buy your meat from organic grass-fed livestock from small farms.  

The question is really, is eating a vegan lifestyle a healthier choice.

The guest recommended that we should eat a diet of cereal and whole grains, legumes, vegetables, fruits and getting the majority of your protein from soy based products.  That’s right all protein sources were soy protein sources…things like; tofu, soy sausages, soy hamburgers, soy yogurt, soy everything.   That brings me to my 3 points.

  1. A recent study looked at the effects of eating soy products on the fertility in men.  Here is what they found.  Eating just ½ a serving of soy products in a day decreases a man’s sperm count up to 50%!  That’s only eating ½ serving.  This gal wants you to eat much more than that.  If any of your children are boys or if you are a man and are planning on having kids, or if you are planning on having kids with your husband – stay away from the soy! 

  1. Another recent review study looked back at 18 previous studies to look at the connection between soy products, increased estrogen and breast cancer.  13 were conclusive that dietary soy products increase estrogen and the risk of developing breast cancer.  5 tried to prove that eating soy products actually prevented breast cancer.  3 of those failed to prove their hypothesis and the other 2 showed that Asian woman who began eating high amounts of soy product in their adolescents did seem to prevent incidence of breast cancer.  But this was seen only in Asian women.  The overwhelming majority of research proves that high intake of soy products is not healthy.  Ladies, it is important to realize that anything that increases your estrogen can make you estrogen dominant.  This can mess up your progesterone levels, it can affect your mood, energy, sex drive, cycle and even heart rhythm.  

Side Note:  I have met many women whose health and cycle were in a bad way due to a vegan lifestyle.  The second we took them off of the soy products and back onto animal based protein, their cycle became regular and their health returned.

  1. Animal based sources of protein are our very best or only source for a huge number of vital nutrients; including creatine, carnitine, B-vitamines especially B12, Zinc.  Animal proteins are our only source of extremely important amino-acids including Taurine, and our only source for Omega-2 fish oils of which DHA and EPA are crucial to our health.

Side note: This was a pro-vegan diet show…why was Cargill there…just to be abused.  The representative stayed positive and took a stance that we are doing our job the best and most humane way possible.  But, still I couldn’t help but scratch my head…why did this company not do what all the other meat companies that were contacted had done and just be unavailable.  To bring a camera into a slaughter house/meat packing company was asking to lose business.  But, my skepticism was rewarded…Cargill is also the biggest manufacturer of soy products in our nation.   They are also notorious for putting more fillers and junk into their products than almost all the other companies.

So, there you have it just a few things to consider before you jump into the vegan lifestyle.  Remember we have evolved eating meat over the last 2.4 million years…it is what our physiology responds best too and when mixed with vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, a small amount of tubors and whole grains represents our ideal diet.  Not some fake, created meat like substitute that messes up our bodies and robs us of our health.

About:  Michael Mountain is a transformational author on health, weight loss & personal growth and is featured on Amazon.com. He is the author of the Ultimate Fat Loss Solution Diet which is available presently free of charge at http://www.michael-mountain.com/.   He is also the author of Mindset for Weight Loss transformational program - a revolutionary step-by-step program designed to provide the “inner-strength strategies” to take any diet and make it effective for permanent weight loss.  This program allowed him to end his own personal 20 year struggle with weight and poor health! 

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Fats and Carbs: The Good? The Bad? The Confusing?

There is a lot of confusion out there when it comes to understanding good fats vs. bad fats as well as good carbohydrates vs. bad carbohydrates.  Really, what is the truth and what do you really need to know in order to have great health?   Are all fats bad or just the saturated fats like steak and eggs?  Are all carbohydrates bad or just the simple carbohydrates like sugar and high fructose corn syrup, or products like bread, pasta, rice, cookies and cakes?
Do we really need to memorize all of the different types of food groups and which foods fall into the “good” category, or is there an easier way to make choices that will serve our purpose.
Well if you believe the no-fat, low-fat supporters then all fat is bad and just about all carbs are good. That certainly makes it easy, and you can lose weight that way if you limit your calories.   But, history has shown us that eating very low levels of fat is very detrimental to our health.  It leads to decreases in brain and nervous system function, decreased sex hormones and libido,  decreases in lean muscle mass, and increases in diabetes, dry skin and brittle hair, just to name a few.
 On the other hand if you believe the no-carb, low carb groups and supporters, then all fats are good and all carbs are bad.  The research shows that there are some positives found in this claim like weight loss, decreases in cholesterol at least short term, as well as increased feelings satiety and more controlled blood sugars.   But, long term over exposure to only fat and protein is questionable for health, especially for the heart and has been shown to increase inflammation in the entire body.   Beyond that it is important to realize that the brain needs a minimum of 70 grams of carbohydrates a day to function properly, and your muscle and liver glycogen needs to be replaced each day or at least every other day if you want to keep your energy up.   Case in point; there is less than a hand full of athletes, especially professional and elite athletes who eat very low carbs.  The reason is because their bodies need energy from carbohydrates and so does yours to work well!
You might be able to get away with eating almost no carbs for a while but if you want;  unlimited energy, a high functioning brain and the ability to exercise, and at the same time don’t want to invite heart disease or chronic inflammation into your life then low carb is not the way to go.
So instead of looking at the extremes let’s look at the reality; humans need energy to function, energy is created out of both fat and carbohydrates.  Your heart prefers fat as its major energy source but your brain prefers glucose or carbohydrates.   Your muscles can operate satisfactorily off of either source of energy but prefers one over the other for optimum performance dependent upon the situation.     This means that we need to eat both.  But how do we do that if we are trying to be healthy and trying to lose weight?
Knowing the good fats over the bad fats can have value, just as the same applies to carbohydrates.  You can find the complete breakdown of this list in my free diet available at Michael-mountain.com.  Here is a simpler and more important point, we use both sources for energy but utilizing one source at any given time is easier on the body and more efficient for creating energy.  In fact, if you eat fat and carbs at the same time, it will usually result in fat storage.   So, start to realize the most important rule is not what is good or bad, but to try to separate the two sources at any given meal. 
We need energy but we don’t need a ton of it!  Eating fat and carbohydrates together nine times out of ten provides too much energy for the body to burn so it stores the surplus as fat.  The typical western diet and its ill effects is a perfect example of these fat-carbohydrate combinations that make us obese and destroy our health.  Pizza, hamburgers, French fries, meat pies, steak and potatoes…the list is endless.  To maximize weight loss, simply limit each meal to one source of energy.    It is a perfect beginning to know how to choose certain foods in healthy combinations.
Research has proven that the winning combination of foods for health and weight loss is lean sources of protein and high fiber, nutrient rich vegetables.  That is where you start.  To that you can add either a fat source or a carbohydrate source but not both together at a meal.  Here is an example using breakfast; you might begin with a vegetable, egg-white omelet (protein and vegetables) and to it you might add fat such as the egg yolk or avocado to the omelet and cream to your coffee.  On the other hand you might add a carbohydrate such as a bowl of oatmeal or a slice of whole grain toast, such as Ezekiel bread.  At each meal, just make a choice as to which energy source, fat or carbohydrates, you will be adding. 
   It becomes quite easy as a way to make healthy food choices.  Separating your energy sources will not only trim down your waist-line it will also increase your health because you will be giving your body both the energy sources it needs to function optimally!   Special tip: the best time to add carbohydrates to your protein and vegetable meal is right after your work-out!

Monday, December 19, 2011

Learning to Re-Condition

You can re-condition your beliefs and habits by accessing your sub-conscious mind
We are self-reflective. We can actually choose what we put into our brain and what habits we would like to have. So you see, you really are the driver of your destiny. You can change any belief or create any habit you want and make it a part of your sub-conscious... If you know how.

How long does it take to change a bad-eating habit and replace it with a good one?


NASA conducted an experiment on its astronaut trainees. It took the astronauts and fitted them with glasses that flipped their field of vision 180 degrees, quite literally everything was upside down. They had to wear the glasses 24hrs a day, 7 days a week. The trainees struggled along seeing things flipped and feeling disoriented. On the 26th day one of the trainees found himself able to see normally again and the others also found that they were seeing normal by the 30th day. Their brains had corrected for the changed external environment (glasses) by re-wiring some of the nerves or neural pathways. We call the development of new neural tissue or networks - neuroplasticity.


That tells us that it will take approximately 30 days to create new habits! Not by just eating differently but by an actual daily process that deals with your mindset. It is not as simple as replacing one for another, you need to actively condition the mind to change the programs that are creating your habits. As you recall, your eating habits are a product of a lot of different learned "bad" programs. It is these programs that the re-conditioning process will change by creating new programs and strengthening them through neuroplasticity.

You will re-condition to the point that anytime you are hungry or whenever you are going to exercise, your new programs will run or play and make the choice of going to the gym or eating healthy completely effortless. No need for willpower and no presence of an internal battle. Can you see how this is VERY different from just forcing yourself to follow a diet or exercise program?!?!

The above is an excerpt from Michael Mountain's book Mindset for Weight Loss which is currently available on Amazon.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Do You Crash or Have Low Energy Right After Lunch?

When you think of the period of time ½ hour to 2 hours after lunch what comes to mind?  Is it a time of energetic productivity or do you find that your energy takes a dive right after lunch?  Does the thought of a nap, a half hour after lunch sound like the best thing in the world?  If you do, then you most likely need to change what you are eating.
Scientists have now proven that we have certain cells in our brains, in an area called the hypothalamus, that wake up the brain or put it to sleep.  These cells called orexins and they actually communicate with a network of command nerve cells called hypocretins. 
These cells can be stimulated to be turned off or turned on depending on what you eat.  When they are turned off, you feel sluggish, sleepy and just want to lay down.   They even slow down your metabolism, so that it is negatively affects your weight and body composition.  The foods that turn these specialized cells off are carbohydrates!
When these cells are turned on then you have tons of energy, are motivated and driven to be productive.  It will also increase your metabolism so that you will burn fat and positively impact any weight changes you are working on.  The type of foods that turns these specialized cells on are proteins!  This can make a world of difference between a productive afternoon and an afternoon of dread and dreaming of a siesta!
So what this means is that if you want to keep your energy consistent then protein must be included in your lunch.  If you find that even when you combine carbohydrates and protein, such as a roast beef sandwich, that you still feel that you are sluggish, it means that you are extra sensitive.  You would do better to have a lunch that is predominantly protein and fibrous vegetables…it is superior for energy at that time and for weight loss!  Kicking the morning off on the right foot is always a great way to start, this is why I recommend protein with breakfast because it’s benefits to health, energy and body composition.
Some people can get away with the combination of protein and carbohydrates at lunch and still be energetic, others will have to look for combinations that include limited to no carbohydrates.  This recommendation of carbohydrate restriction does not include vegetables.  For many people carbohydrates are best eaten at dinner time right after your workout!
 About:  Michael Mountain is a transformational author on health, weight loss & personal growth and is featured on Amazon.com. He is the author of the Ultimate Fat Loss Solution Diet which is available presently free of charge at www.michael-mountain.com.   He is also the author of Mindset for Weight Loss transformational program - a revolutionary step-by-step program designed to provide the “inner-strength strategies” to take any diet and make it effective for permanent weight loss.  This program allowed him to end his own personal 20 year struggle with weight and poor health!  You can sign up to receive his blog updates on weight loss and motivation at www.michael-mountain.com

Friday, December 16, 2011

The Power of Directing Your Feelings

Your thoughts along with your feelings create your actions. Your attitude can direct your thoughts and your feelings, just like your thoughts and feelings can create your attitude. So therefore it could be fair to say that your attitude is the key to creating your actions. But before we discuss that, we need to realize the relationship between actions and feelings. When I started evaluating myself and why I just couldn’t lose the weight, let alone have a 6-pack stomach... I looked at what it was that made me eat. Hunger, sure… but looking deeper than that, things became interesting.

I realized that I was like so many others. I linked food with emotions and feelings.
Much to my dismay and attempts at denying it, I had to admit to myself that I mostly ate for the wrong reasons. I ate when I was stressed, frustrated or unhappy. I even ate to deal with nervous energy or boredom.

If I was home frustrated and trying to escape my feelings by watching senseless, negative television… watch out! 2,000 to 3,000 calories of junk food could go down my throat in less than an hour's time!
I realize now that I had a food addiction. Something quite recently that Oprah admitted to suffering with herself.

In fact that is really the definition of addiction, isn’t it? Doing something -- drinking alcohol, smoking, taking drugs or eating -- in order to change an emotional state, to escape from a feeling, and/or life’s daily stressors. I was using food as a coping mechanism to feel better.

Do you ever do that?

This negative emotional connection with food, this powerful impulse to reach for unhealthy food, was a conditioned response and had to change, if I was ever going to release the shackles that bound me and reach my dream health or an overall better version of myself.

I also realized that these responses were conditioned responses, a reflexive response to stress or negative emotions. Emotions are normal and healthy, so I didn’t want to deny these feelings; but rather I could do things to prevent my disempowering responses, or in fact, change my responses. I could also start to exercise my "emotional muscle" and take control of the situations causing the stress.
So, I began to do things to change my negative relationships with food.


This is an excerpt from my book Mindset for Weight Loss which is available on Amazon.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Pleasure and Pain

Your desire to seek or experience PLEASURE and…
Your need to avoid or not experience PAIN.

These are things that bring us pleasure we are attracted to --- and things that cause us pain we try to avoid. Plain and simple. And almost all our daily decisions are based on these two simple needs. But, let’s clarify some important points beyond your initial thought that chocolate, pizza and ice cream give you pleasure….and… Exercise, lean chicken and broccoli give you pain. (LOL)

You see, it goes much deeper than that... In fact, YOU really didn't create your own likes and dislikes.
Mostly during childhood; your culture, family, friends, personal experiences, the media and advertisements directed what we have linked to pleasure.
And for clarity…
There is Short Term Pleasure and Long Term Pleasure
There is Short Term Pain and Long Term Pain
Pain is not always bad… for example, the pain of being overweight, unhealthy and wanting more has driven you to The Mindset for Weight Loss program and to finally losing the weight for good. So, that's good.
People who get healthy and stay healthy for a lifetime have associated pain with being OUT of shape. They have also linked pleasure with respecting their bodies, feeding it health, and exercising daily.
So that being said, we can, by choice, learn from others and change our behavior by changing what we LINK to pain and pleasure.
Here is an example using ice cream… Have you ever eaten a bowl of ice cream that brought you pleasure at the time, but as soon as you were finished, you felt Pain? Let me elaborate… Let's say that you ate the ice cream because of the immediate pleasure it gave you; not only did it taste good, but you had always been given ice cream as a reward or treat by your parents and you linked that feeling of reward, connection and love to ice cream anytime you ate it. Also, it lit up the taste buds in your mouth just like the advertisement said it would.
But after, it caused you pain because you knew that it would make you fat, you would feel bloated which in turn would make you feel unattractive… ultimately you had let yourself down. Now as a second option, have you ever chosen not to eat the ice cream?… which caused you some pain because you were denying yourself that immediate pleasure - But after the pangs for the ice cream go away, you feel great about yourself; you realize that you have taken one more step towards your goal, you feel more attractive and confident in yourself and are empowered because of your own self-discipline! Two similar scenarios with dramatically different actions and interpretations, right?

The above is an excerpt from my book Mindset for Weight Loss.  You can purchase the full book at http://tinyurl.com/7vbxkjo

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Fast Food And Why We Are Becoming Fatter And Fatter!

The Fast Food industry is smart. They are killing it in regards to profit and they are killing us in the process!
Never before has more unhealthy, nutrient poor food, laden with combinations of fat, sugar and salt been served up in such huge quantities. It seems that even Starbucks has decided to join the long list of food retailers that provides no inherent restraint to portion size or calorie control. They have begun introducing their new line of “supersized” coffee drinks beginning with the frozen blended drinks. Guess who the large consumers of those drinks are? Kids between the ages of 12-25!

These "trentas", as they are being called, hold 31 ounces of your favorite blended drink. What is interesting to note is that the calorie intake of one of these drinks could be as much as 1200 calories plus! Way over half of the calories that people that age should be eating for the whole day!

Why did they do this? It would appear that McDonalds has been giving them a run for their money, or said differently McDonalds has been stealing away customers from Starbucks because McDonalds has been offering supersized blended coffee drinks.

We all know that McDonalds and most the other fast food chains out there do not consider the public’s health a priority when creating it’s products, but instead looks at the scientific research of what ratios of high fat, high sugar and high salt creates the strongest cravings for people to go back for more and more! It would appear now, that the all mighty dollar has motivated Starbucks to likewise forgo any thought as to what is O.K. for its consumer’s health... 31 ounce drinks filled with sugar and fat! That is insane!

When is enough... enough? Many years ago, before this huge obesity epidemic, it used to be that getting a 10-12 ounce soda (140 calories) was a real treat and more than enough… Even though my family's eating habits weren't necessarily in the "healthy" category, I remember as kids, we were lucky to get a soda more than once a month!

What has happened? As much as we would like to blame the fast food companies who are motivated only by money, ultimately blame must go on the consumer because WE are buying this crap!

But…why? Why do people feed their faces to such excess? Even in the presence of increased rates of; obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure and Diabetes?

Some would suggest that it is because of our evolutionary experience. That, in Paleolithic times, we ate in a feast or famine way. We did not get fat then because the availability of the food was limited and sporadic. We also didn’t get fat because the type of food that made up our diet was mostly lean meats, nuts, seeds, vegetables and some fruit.

It is suggested that we continue to eat in a feasting pattern based on that preserved behavior, the only problem now is: there is food available everywhere and at any time. Others would blame the agricultural age and the increase in production of grain, flour and cereal consumption as well as the more contemporary addition to our diets of preservatives, increases in sugars, salt, and manufactured syrups and fat. It is very true that these types of food create chemical and hormonal changes that lead to powerful cravings to want to eat more of the same. And certainly much of that has lead to poor health and disease, but is that REALLY why we are driven to consume outrageous amounts of food?

The answer is that all those things together have contributed to this time in history… a time where obesity, Diabetes and heart disease run rampant. But… they are not the biggest reason.The truth is that for the majority of people, they eat without much thought. So yes, we can consider as part of the problem our learned feasting patterns, exposure to unhealthy, nutrient poor foods and effects of bad, even toxic food that trigger cravings in the body. But all of that pales in comparison to the one truth... eating for us is a habit. We have learned to eat a certain way, eat certain types of food and consume a certain amount of food. It occurs over time and is handed down from the previous generation to generation. Each generation is teaching the younger generation that there is no such thing as too much of a good thing!

Have you ever been told…”finish what is on your plate.” Even better, that learned habit is reinforced with even more food. “If you finish what is on your plate, then you can have dessert!” This bad habit is accentuated by the fact that the general serving size has been getting bigger and bigger. Regardless of how much you give us, we keep “finishing what is on our plate”. This is just one example of how poor eating habits are learned. We learn them from seeing, doing, participating and modeling from sources like parents, family, friends, culture, television etc.

Unfortunately, with each subsequent generation the bad habits, the negative patterns, the shear amount of consumption increases! We have been trained to think that bigger is better and more is better, like we are “getting our money’s worth”, and it is killing us.

McDonalds and now Starbucks is simply added fuel to the fire of an out of control flame of over consumption built on bad habits and poor diet choices. If we are ever to stop the insanity we are going to have to do two things….
  1. Change our eating habits and stop handing bad habits down to our children.
  2. Learn what foods in what amounts our body truly needs to thrive and be healthy.
  3. Ignore the insanity that is seen in advertising and make smarter choices in restaurants and fast-food establishments.
Most importantly we must realize that the beneficiary of over consumption is the bank accounts of the fast food companies and they are not going to grow a conscience. You will be dead long before they start serving healthy, balanced food products served up in reasonable amounts… So, it is up to us to stop the insanity!



 

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Calling All People who Want to Lose Weight

Calling All People Trying To Lose Weight!


Finally, a Way to Elevate Your Self Esteem, End the Guilt and Lose the Weight!
Guilt, self esteem and being overweight are intimately linked, there is no denying it.
The fact that this is established and well understood should be the foundation for a complete solution that ultimately addresses all these factors.
Unfortunately, Diet books and “Gurus” only ever talk about nutrition, diet and exercise.
As a result the documented success rate for people on a diet is about 5%. Well there is no doubt that that is a pathetic statistic. What it really helps us identify is the fact that diet and exercise alone are an incomplete solution. It proves that you can’t ignore all the things that are going on inside your head and hope that it will all change because you are forcing yourself to eat healthy.
Here is why.
The choices you have made about food and exercise in the past have created the health and weight you have now. These choices are ingrained within you….that is why you have struggled to break the pattern. You literally eat based upon learned patterns of emotional behavior and bad habits. They can include daily fast food, boredom eating, emotional eating, weekend binge eating, etc. In essence, prior to going on a diet, you had a pattern of eating behaviors that created what we can call your food and health “Autopilot”.
This autopilot or negative patterns of eating and dis-empowering relationships with food are very powerful. It is the reason that people struggle with weight, binge eat, cheat on their diet and why the majority of folks fail to ever reach their dream weight. This struggle of course wreaks havoc on your self esteem as does the fact that you are not happy with your appearance.
It is no wonder that substantially overweight people or the obese feel like they weigh much more than even the scale tells them… all that guilt and negative self image must feel like the weight of the world on their shoulders. So what do we need to understand?
Think of it this way, a plane can be set on autopilot so that it is set for a certain direction.
That setting can be circumvented by someone steering the plane off course, but the second that that person releases the controls then the plane will eventually return to it’s original heading because of the autopilot.
That is how it is for you. You ate a certain way with certain patterns, associations and emotional relationships that created your negative autopilot for food and health. Your autopilot has given you the weight and health you have today.
By going on a diet, it is like you steered your plane off course, the autopilot is still on and it will take you back to it’s original heading whenever it can. That is why people who have lost tons of weight regain it back. They have been eating healthy for months, even years and yet that did not create new habits or change their autopilot because changing what you eat is not enough.
In order to lift the weight of the world off of your shoulders, raise your self-esteem, end the guilt and finally lose the weight forever you must reset your autopilot for a whole new course or direction.
Only changing what you eat will not change your autopilot…but, just like a plane, if you turn off the autopilot, turn the plane in the NEW desired direction and then turn the autopilot back on then you will reach your destination with ease. The same thing will happen to you when you change your present negative food and health autopilot to a positive, empowering food and health autopilot.
Your self-esteem will soar and you will reach your weight loss goal with ease!
Yours in health, weight loss, and plain old happiness!

Monday, December 12, 2011

Is There Such a Thing as Good Calories and Bad Calories?

There is a common question that I hear and that is, “is there such a thing as good calories and bad calories?  Well the answer would be yes and no. 
You see, a calorie is defined as the approximate energy needed to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius.  Oh geez, that doesn’t make it any clearer either, does it?
Now that you are totally confused, let’s cut to the chase and let me try to make it clear.
A calorie is a calorie, as long as you ignore the overall benefits or ill-effects the calorie has on health and metabolism.  Said differently, and this was tested quite recently by a man who lost approximately 25 lbs eating nothing but Twinkies, that a calorie equals a calorie regardless of what the calorie is made of.  This is why, simply from a calorie breakdown perspective the answer is that there are no good calories and bad calories.
Many people preach that weight loss is simply nothing more than a calorie deficit, energy in has to be less than energy out or expended.  In essence, as long as you eat less than your body needs – it will burn calories stored as fat, the type or quality of the calories being irrelevant.   And this is true if you don’t care about; health, energy, body composition, and stagnant weight loss!   That is why that man could lose weight on a Twinkie diet, and the same can happen eating nothing but cookies, cabbage soup, subway sandwiches, cardboard, etc.   As long as you eat less than your body needs, you will lose some weight.
The problem lies in that the type and quality of the calories have an effect upon the body;  those effects lead to increases or decreases in energy and health as well as facilitate weight loss or inhibit weight loss.  That is why I said that indeed there is such a thing as good calories and bad calories!
So, we could say that Good Calories are nutrient dense calories that promote a health and weight loss advantage, whereas bad calories are nutrient poor calories that diminish health and create a weight loss disadvantage.
Good Calories accomplish the following that Bad Calories do not…
  •     Increases the health and function of the liver – the liver is the major organ for burning fat in the body, when it works better you accelerate fat burning and weight loss!  Bad Calories decrease the function of the liver.
  •     Decreases inflammation in the body – the number one problem of fat in the body is the production of inflammatory chemicals that lead to heart disease, thickening of the arteries, chronic pain and a whole slew of other stuff you do not want. You can lose weight eating crap but your body will continue to suffer with ill-health and disease due to inflammation.
  •     Burns mostly fat – Good calories burn the largest percentage of fat compared to muscle, bad calories do the opposite!
  •     Maintains and Increases the formation of new lean muscle – lean muscle burns more fat, so that your new muscle very quickly starts to accelerate fat loss.  Dieting while eating only Bad Calories will have you losing as much muscle as you do fat, the scale might say that you lost weight but your body will be weaker than ever! 
  •     Increases your energy and the health of your entire body – By increasing the health of your body by giving it the vitamins, minerals and nutrients it needs to function better, it will affect all aspects of your body!  Dieting while eating only Bad Calories will have you feeling terrible regardless of any weight change!
  •     You don’t have to be obsessed with counting calories when you eat good calories – They all increase health and increased health accelerates fat loss.  Dieting while eating bad calories means you have to be obsessed with every bite.  One too many French fries can tip the balance and screw up a day’s dieting efforts!  Do you really want to bring a calculator to every meal?   
Please review the Ultimate Fat Loss Solution Diet for a list of Good Calories vs. Bad Calories at www.UltimateFatLossSolution.com.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

4 Keys You Must Know to Prevent Weight Loss Plateaus

It is very common for people who are trying to lose weight to experience a stall in their progress.  This weight loss plateau can be what stops people from continuing on with their diets, they become emotionally frustrated and lose their will to continue.

Surely there must be something that can be done?

Unfortunately, the usual responses to these plateaus are to eat fewer calories in hopes of shocking the body into burning fat.  This is on top of an already calorie restricted diet.   The other way is to change or increase your exercise program.   But, are these smart changes and for that matter….is a plateau an inevitable part of losing weight or can they be avoided all together?

Let’s look at why this happens and the 4 Keys you must know to prevent a weight loss plateau.

When someone goes on a diet and they begin to eat less than they were, then of course weight begins to fall off.  Depending on what you are eating and how much, you will be losing a percentage of weight from; water, fat and muscle.  The capacity to lose almost all fat and preserve lean muscle mass is hugely important and is discussed in a different article.  For now let’s focus on plateaus.

Likewise, if someone begins to exercise or increases their exercise or energy expenditure then again they begin to burn calories.

So, we know in a simplistic way that calories in/eaten – calories out/energy used = calorie deficiency and weight loss. …..if you are eating less than you are burning.

But, what we also see in the human body is a continual and perpetual attempt to minimize body functions and activities.  Said a different way, your body is inherently lazy, it tries to be as efficient as it can so it can use the least amount of energy possible in it’s functions.

When you start eating less you put yourself into an energy deficit.  Your body needs more energy than you are supplying it with (eating), so your body starts to metabolize fat and release energy from your bodies storage shed (fat cells).

So what happens with plateaus?

Your body, being efficient (or lazy depending on how you want to look at it) starts decreasing it’s metabolism to meet the new amount of food or energy being supplied.  It is trying to become efficient in energy needs to the point where it no longer needs extra from the storage shed.

Unfortunately when you go on a diet, you of course want your metabolism to speed up but your body is trying to slow it down so it can hold onto it’s storage (fat) shed and learn to be comfortable using only the calories that you are supplying it with.   So your weight loss slows and stalls.

Here are some things that you should avoid because it is an easy way to reach a plateau, really fast.
  • Eating too few calories.  More of a deficit is not better.
  • Not exercising.
  • Not eating often enough.
  • Only doing cardio for exercise.
  • Not eating enough protein in your diet.
Since nobody wants to experience a plateau in their weight loss, here are the four Keys you must know to prevent them.
Key #1) Diet Habituation: Is the process of eating a diet with a designed calorie deficit and reaping diminishing returns from that deficit.  Said another way….eating less than your body requires consistently but seeing the benefits from that calorie restriction become less and less until finally it plateaus.
Here are some solutions….
  • Eat enough calories to keep your metabolism turned on.  More on this in a minute in Key #2.
  • Exercise – get your body and metabolism moving
  • Eat an ample amount of protein – it speeds up your metabolism and preserves and makes lean muscle.
  • And most importantly….Key #2
Key #2)  Calorie Confusion: Eating different amount of calories from day to day will prevent Diet Habituation from occurring!  Because your body is always trying to efficiently minimize its output and metabolism.  You must mess with it, so it doesn’t know what is happening.  If you change your caloric intake from day to day then your metabolism will stay on high!

Here is how not to do it…

…a cheat day.  You hear of diets that recommend a day off, eating what ever you want.  One day a week of unlimited calories, it’s not healthy and if you have read our other articles you know why it is completely counterintuitive to making health and a lean, fit body…a lifestyle.

Key #3) Exercise habituation – is the process in humans where there is a decrease in response to exercise after repeated exposure to that same exercise over a duration of time.

Let me give you an example; if you walk 3 miles a day and that is a struggle for you.  Then you will benefit from the exercise at first, but when you get to a certain level of fitness, then your body will start to minimize its effort to walk that distance.  It will become so efficient that your benefits will practically disappear.   Your body will stop improving and that applies both for weight loss and cardiovascular health.

Why?  Well, that leads us into the last key.

Key #4) Muscle confusion – is the process of continually changing the stress (exercise) to the muscular system to maximize gains, cardiovascular health and lean muscle growth.

You have got to challenge your body and change up your Exercise routines every 4-6 weeks!

Have you ever heard the definition of insanity…”doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”  It doesn’t happen!

Apply these simple changes and remember the 4 keys to avoid the dreaded Plateaus of weight loss.

Yours in health and weight loss,
Michael Mountain

Friday, December 9, 2011

Watching TV can make you Fat

Watching TV can definitely make anyone fat.  No, not just because it is a sedentary activity, but because the information most commercials are giving is extremely misleading and really confusing, to say the least.
Most people who know me, know I am not a TV watcher. Actually, I don’t even have cable at home (A rare thing these days, I know.) Very often, I have no idea which show is the “latest craze” and which commercials are all the rave.

Last week the TV did catch my attention. I was at my parent’s house and my mom had the TV on in the background. I was helping her cook and I nearly chopped my fingers off because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing!

“Eat Cheerios to lower your cholesterol.” “Three or more glasses of skim milk a day are a great way to lose weight”. Then it got ugly “Splenda is just like sugar and is great for kids”.

The worst of them all (the one where my mother had to nearly restrain me from attacking the TV “There is nothing wrong with High Fructose Corn Syrup. It comes from corn and can actually be good for you.” I nearly passed out.

I can see why people are totally confused about healthy eating. I can also see why obesity, heart disease and Type 2 diabetes are at an all time high in this country and in many others as well.

After I was done hyperventilating, I decided to first turn the TV off (because my heart just couldn’t take anymore) and then write this newsletter to clear up a few misconceptions.

1. Cheerios biggest claim to fame is that eating them will help you lower your cholesterol. I am here to tell you that eating processed grains, especially in the form of cereal can actually make your cholesterol go up! The cholesterol study done showed how soluble fiber can help the body eliminate bad cholesterol from the body. Cheerios has 1 gram of soluble fiber per serving. Woop-dee-doo. Big deal. I can get 2 grams of soluble fiber from an apple, 3 grams from broccoli and carrots, and more than 4 grams from kidney beans. (Beat that Cheerio Man). Honestly, I don’t think there are many foods in a box that are healthy at all. They have to be highly processed to stay shelf stable, many times loading them up with chemicals and fillers that are making us gain weight. My recommendation is ditch the cereal and pick up some wholesome natural foods like fruits and veggies. Natural grains like brown rice, millet and quinoa are 10x’s better than any boxed cereal.

2. Milk does a body bad! That’s really what the commercial should say. Ok, that is not entirely true. Conventional milk does a body bad. If you have read the Dairy chapter in The Diet Solution Program, you know my stance on milk: Organic is a must and Raw Milk is even better. If you didn’t read my article on milk, you can read it here: http://www.thedietsolutionprogram.com/articles.aspx?article=Is-Milk-really-Healthy?

But don’t go yet until you read #3.

3. Give Splenda to my children? Never! Splenda has not been out on the market long enough to show whether it is actually safe or not. Until then it is a public health experiment (No thanks, I don’t’ want to be your guinea pig). Being the organic chemistry nerd that I am, I know exactly how sugar is converted to Splenda. I will spare you the chem lesson but tell you that Splenda (or sucralose) is a synthetic compound stumbled upon in 1976 by scientists in Britain seeking a new pesticide formulation. Huh? Did you say pesticide? Yup. Many chemists believe this molecule resembles a pesticide much more than it resembles natural sugar. If this is still in debate, I will not be a test subject. I highly recommend you take yourself and your children out of this experiment as well. My tip: Stick to natural sweeteners like whole fruits, stevia and agave syrup and stay away from artificial sweeteners like Splenda, Equal and Sweet & Low.

I could probably go on and on. If I watched TV long enough (or if I actually purchased cable) I could probably find 10, 20, 100 more commercials that are giving us false info, all in the name of selling products.
Now, go shut the TV off will ya?

Read the Real Truth about Healthy Eating and Weight Loss and get started on your own fat loss and health goals right away.