Wednesday, November 30, 2011

I Can’t Stop? Understanding Binge Eating

Trying to prevent binge eating is a major struggle for many people trying to lose weight. There is nothing more self-esteem destroying and guilt creating than to eat healthy for a short period of time and then flip a switch in your brain and go crazy eating everything in sight.  For some the binge can be over in a single meal, but for others it can last for days!
 
What causes this unknown power that drives people to binge and sabotage their own weight loss efforts?
Well, there are physical reasons that cause people to binge as well as mental/emotional reasons….let’s discuss them both.
 
The number one contributor to binge eating from a physical stand point is hunger.  When you go on a diet you are eating less than your body is use to or wants. If the diet plan is poorly designed then you may be very hungry at times.   So in moments of weakness you finally relent to the hunger pangs.  But, before you beat yourself up for being weak, keep reading, because it gets a little more complicated than that.

People who have been overweight for a long period of time develop something called Leptin Resistance.  Leptin is a hormone in your fat cells that is released to tell your brain that you have eaten enough.  High sugar/carb diets or being chronically overweight create resistance to leptin so that no matter how much you eat….you still feel hungry.

Mental/emotional reasons for binge eating require that we understand ourselves at a deeper level.
Throughout the world an abundance of food is readily available. We can go to the cupboard or refrigerator (ice box) and grab something whenever we want it.  Likewise we can reach a drive thru, convenience store or fast food joint in very little time and eat for very little money.  Yet, this in of itself is not the problem because lean, fit people don’t binge eat.  So what is the problem?
 
Unfortunately, it is our own baggage…..or said differently it is our own emotional connection with food, our negative patterns of eating behavior and learned bad eating habits.  Now, that is a mouth full so let me explain.
 
We eat based upon patterns of behavior.  Through modeling (from parents, friends, and cultures), observing (patterning ourselves after others) and participating as well as linking food to stress, love and emotional comfort, we have created our own eating patterns or habits.
 
The problem is that in most cases these are bad eating habits.
 
Binge eating is a knee jerk response to either an emotional stressor or a trigger that initiated one of your negative patterns or bad habit.
 
You see these behaviors and patterns function like a bad recording that just keeps replaying itself over and over again.  Any emotional stressor, feeling or incident can trigger the recording to play or run and you will binge.
 
So, what can be done about it?
 
Two things:
 
1.  Eat foods that create a sense of fullness, that control changes in blood sugar and that repair leptin resistance and function!
2.  Learn how to replace negative eating patterns, emotional triggers and bad habits with empowering ones!
 
 
Yours in health and weight loss,
Michael Mountain

Monday, November 28, 2011

Calorie Counting – The Pitfalls of Micro-Managing Your Daily Meals!

Calorie Counting every meal absolutely sucks. So, what if there was a better way? 

We are bombarded with the idea that we have to eat less than our body needs in order to lose weight, to create a calorie deficit. We then are lead to believe that the only way to achieve this daily deficit is to account for and mathematically analyze each and every ounce or calorie of food we eat.

This left-brained approach to eating is supposed to be the way that we will successfully lose weight – and not only lose it, but hopefully lose it permanently.

That, in and of itself, is the inherent problem with calorie counting: it is a left-brained activity.  The problem lies in the fact that we as human beings eat predominantly because of emotions and feelings.  We eat sometimes because we are hungry,  but we eat most of the time because of the way it makes us feel, mostly a right brain phenomenon.

We eat because we are bored, and often because we are sad or depressed; to deal with stress… we eat to feel better.  In essence, we eat largely for emotional reasons.

Counting calories is so polar opposite to the very reason we are eating, that it is only a matter of time before our brain rebels against this dichotomy and sabotages our diet plans.  You will take all of the joy out of eating and because of that your brain will say, forget this…this sucks!  And you will sabotage your diet! Here is the proof!

How successful do you think calorie counting is?  This approach will lead to permanent weight loss in about 3% of all those who are using it to lose weight!  The statistics prove that this method doesn’t work; a 97% failure rate is not exactly inspiring, is it?

So what do we do when it is important to be able to evaluate whether or not we have eaten an appropriate amount of calories at a meal?  How do we make that assessment easily, in a split second – to know that we are on track with what we are eating?

Firstly, because we are eating largely to enjoy the experience, we should not destroy that enjoyment by counting calories or points.  That way we don’t create more stress and turmoil in our brain that may lead to self-sabotage.

Secondly, a smart diet is one that creates a calorie deficit by design not by counting.    Through easy to use eyeball assessments and combining the best of health restoring and fat burning food combinations you should never have to count.

On the flip side if trying to eat less of high fat, high sugar, processed foods in the amounts that will let you lose weight is your way of getting healthy, then count away!  Try to figure out whether or not you should eat 3 French fries or 4… two or two and a half bites of your Big Mac… that is when you have to count calories.

And that is a lesson in frustration and leads to certain failure!

I suggest you embrace both your mind and your health by finding a smart diet plan that throws out the calorie counting all together.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Weight Loss Camps for Adults

Weight loss camps for adults exist because diets are an incomplete solution for addressing the problems that people who are overweight face.

In America, the National Institute of Health tells us that the failure rates for people who are trying to permanently lose weight is 95%.  Only one out of every twenty people will be successful at changing their health and weight permanently by taking weight loss pills, going on a diet, etc. 

The reason being is that a diet only changes what you eat; It does not change WHY you eat. 

If the why is not addressed then permanent weight loss can never be achieved.  We are not like animals, eating only because we are hungry.   Human beings eat for a multitude of reasons of which hunger is only the start;  we eat for pleasure,  we eat to connect with others, we eat to push others away, we eat out of boredom, we eat out of habit, we eat to cope with stress, we eat because we feel good, we eat because we feel bad, we eat to protect ourselves and we eat because it (food) is there!

When you look at that long list of why people eat, the predominant reason why we eat has nothing to do with hunger and more to do with our feelings.  Going on a diet does nothing to address this relationship we all have between food and our emotions or feelings.  That is why the failure rate of only going on a diet is so high!
Weight loss camps for adults are a way to attempt to address these relationships.  Unfortunately these camps become nothing more than mini-vacations focusing on short-term accountability and motivation.  When you consider the cost of such a short term effort (often $3000 – $20,000) and the fact that lasting change comes from the inside out and requires more than the average length of time of these camps, we must conclude that weight loss camps seem to be an ineffective solution for the growing obesity epidemic that the western world is facing. 

Obesity is the number one contributor to health related deaths in the world!

There is no doubt that a successful solution must be comprehensive. It must address the why – issues that include bad eating habits, limiting beliefs, and negative relationships with food and replace them with behaviors that lead to a healthy expression of emotion and greater sense self.   Love and acceptance must be the foundation that these changes are built upon.

A successful solution also must address the what by helping people make healthy food choices and give them the understanding of the importance of daily exercise. Personal responsibility for health must be the foundation that diet, nutrition and exercise is built upon.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

How To Want To Lose Weight

Are you asking yourself, “How can I want to lose weight? I know I want to, but I don’t know how to make myself REALLY want it.”

The question that the above thoughts are truly covering up for you is this: How can you elevate your motivation and commitment level towards a goal of self improvement, in this case for your body and health, so that you take the actions required to get you to your end goal?

Well, if you have a lukewarm attitude towards losing weight it means that you feel that there is more to lose by going on a diet, than there is to be gained by going on one and losing the weight.  You might have to do some self-reflecting and ask yourself…

1)  What are you afraid of losing if you lose the weight or said differently, what is to be gained by not losing the weight? 

Do you use weight as a way to protect yourself, as a way to push people or someone away?  Is it a way for you to protect yourself from potential rejection or putting yourself in a vulnerable situation?  Do you feel that you could be rejected by loved ones if you change?  Do you use food as a coping mechanism for stress, sadness or depression and fear losing your crutch?  Is food so important that energy, health and living life fully is less of a priority?

We eat predominantly due to feelings or emotions; if you want increase how much you want to lose weight you are going to have to learn to love and appreciate yourself for more than what you eat.  You should try to embrace the fact that if you live to eat, food has taken on an unhealthy level of importance in your life.  There is opportunity to end these dis-empowering relationships with food.

2)  What could be lost if you don’t lose the weight or what can be gained by losing the weight?

Take a moment and approach this question by looking at what you have missed out on in the past because of your weight or your lack of energy.  What has it cost you? Missed opportunities to live fully, love fully or to participate fully?

What will not changing your weight cost in the present?  What is it costing your right now?  How does your weight affect your life and your self esteem?

What will it cost you in the future – your health?  Obesity is the number one reason for health related deaths in the western world!  If you die an early death, what could you potentially miss out on?

If you want to raise your level of motivation and commitment, you must get leverage on yourself and use it to raise the huge importance for health.   When you realize what it has cost you and realize that you are holding onto your weight for unhealthy reasons, you will begin to increase your “want”, and  to develop the commitment that leads to permanent weight loss.

This is the key to knowing how to want to lose weight.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

The Best Belly Fat Burners

Belly fat, also known as “visceral fat”, is associated with increased risks of heart disease.  It presents us with abdominal distention that is commonly referred to as a Beer belly, even if the affected person doesn’t drink beer.

To understand how to get rid of it quickly requires a little bit of understanding about what is happening below the surface of your tummy.  What you should know is that not all of a big belly is fat! A lot of it is fluid retention, that is why it gushes around.

Let’s get right into it, so it all makes sense and then I will give you a list of how to burn the belly fat as fast as possible.

When you are gaining weight, the first place that the fat goes is of course into your fat cells all over the body.  As the fat cells begin to expand with fat and toxins (there are toxins in most fat) then the amount of inflammation in the fat cells starts to increase.  It will increase until the fat cell is so engorged that the inflammation will start to spill out into the circulation, raising the overall inflammation in the body.
This inflammation can lead to other health problems, but it will also raise the amount of cortisol (a hormone) in your body and start increasing the accumulation of fat specifically in the belly.   As cortisol elevates it shuts off your HES1 protein in the liver, that turns off the liver from being able to process fat and leads to fat accumulating in the liver.

The struggling fat cells will send the fat storage problem back to the liver, the liver then begins to become further congested with fat and toxins and stops functioning properly.   As a result you start to spill triglycerides or fat into the digestive track and you begin to retain fluid in the abdomen and produce more inflammation in the gut.  This situation is made worse by eating high carbohydrate meals.

The fat cells have something called leptin and as it rises, the amount of Adiponectin inversely decreases.  A low level of Adiponectin causes insulin resistance in your liver!

Now your blood sugars start to rise, raising the release of insulin… unfortunately, practically all carbohydrates that you eat will be converted into belly fat.  A fatty liver raises your chance for type 2 diabetes by 500%.

If you have ever had a weekend when you drank too much alcohol and ate a lot of unhealthy carbohydrates, you have experienced this at least temporarily.  The alcohol shuts down the liver, you start retaining water and it is made worse because likewise carbohydrates makes you retain water and you can’t process the carbohydrates properly.

So what do we do about all of this?

The following are some simple steps to reverse this process quickly.
  • Decrease your carbohydrate intake dramatically until the liver is de-greased.  Eat nothing white or processed.
  • Eat smaller meals to decrease the effort on the liver.
  • Limit your calorie intake.
  • Increase your intake of lean healthy proteins; it will accelerate the healing within the liver.
  • Increase your intake of nutrient-rich fibrous vegetables.  Fiber will absorb excess fat, toxins and cholesterol out of the body at a faster rate; vitamins and minerals will promote healing.
  • Stay away from high fat diets so that the liver can detoxify and de-grease!
  • Exercise at least 30 minutes a day.  Burst training or high intensity interval training are shown to be best for belly fat.  Hot-box yoga is great for dumping toxins as well.
  • Take at least 500mg of green tea extract – decreases belly fat.
  • Take 900-1200mg of DHA – it de-greases the liver.
  • Take 200mg Resveratrol and 200mg Turmeric – as anti-oxidants to combat the inflammation.
  • Take a Probiotic 8-12 billion active cultures – heals inflammatory effects on the gut.
I recommend doing much of the above as a lifestyle, but especially at the very beginning of a belly fat burning program – because it will virtually guarantee that you will lose the belly fat, very quickly.

Friday, November 18, 2011

5 Tips on How NOT to Gain Weight This Holiday Season!

Through all of the many holiday seasons that I experienced during the years I spent struggling with my weight, there was always something that I could count on. Gaining between 20-30 pounds by the time New Years Eve rolled around!

I got just as sick and tired of gaining weight throughout the holidays as I am imagining you are. So when I figured out how to not let that happen and how to continue to enjoy the holidays I felt it was something that I should share.
Holidays don’t need to be a time of weight gain and they don’t need to be a time of not enjoying the cheer that goes with it in the form of eating and drinking. You just have to set up some rules or tips…so you can negotiate your way through it without any damage!

Here are some tips for the holidays so you can still lose weight and enjoy holiday food  in moderation:
  1. Plan for which meals you will go off diet to enjoy some of the holiday fair.  Limit the number to 10% of your week’s meals.  If you eat 5 small meals a day, then your weeks total is 35, plan to enjoy between 3-4 meals without guilt throughout the week!   If you eat 3 times a day then 2-3 meals for the week.  This is your master plan.
  2. Prepare and snack on veggies and a large glass of water ½ hour before every meal where there will be holiday food in your master plan.  By going into those situations already with a semi-full stomach you will be able to control  how much of the goodies you eat!
  3. Increase your activity and exercise on the days you are going to go off diet in the master plan.  By burning more calories, it will give you a little more wiggle room to eat holiday treats in moderation.  It will also free you of any guilt!
  4. Don’t write off the entire day because of one meal or act of indiscretion.  It is common for people who are trying to lose weight to want to write off the entire day when they have eaten something that is not on their diet.   “I already blew my diet when I ate (X)  at the office, I might as well enjoy the rest of the day, and start again on my diet tomorrow.”   If you act impulsively and eat something outside of your master plan, immediately get back on track, do not give up on the day…every meal counts!
  5. The holidays are filled with more temptations, more stress and more opportunities for emotional eating!  You must have in place; simple strategies and reminders to keep you motivated and focused on the big picture…you achieving your weight loss goals!
If you’re interested in putting simple strategies and reminders in place so that you don’t go overboard this Holiday season – click here for instant access to a great tool that many people are using for just that.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Welcome

Hey there! Let me introduce myself! My name is Michael Mountain and I want to provide you with all the knowledge, support, love and inspiration you need to permanently achieve a lean, fit body and to live a life full of health, energy, vitality and passion! I will be posting great information that will help us on our journey to your ultimate goals.  I am so glad you have joined me! Please feel free to ask any questions you may have or share your stories.  I hope we can create a wonderful and supportive environment here to help us all achieve our goals and create the life you dream of! Welcome!