Protein Benefits: Real or Hype?

Protein has been shown to benefit people in a number of different ways, from increasing metabolism (thermogenic effects) to de-greasing and repairing a fatty liver.  One of the important benefits that increasing your dietary protein seems to deliver is the benefit of increasing lean muscle mass.  Even in a calorie deficit, it has been suggested that increasing your protein will preserve your lean muscle so that the majority of weight will be lost from fat.    You see when you go on a diet, eating less than your body needs, then “what” you are eating will result in you losing certain amount of muscle and a certain amount of fat.

An ideal diet, has you burning the greatest amount of fat, but preserves as much lean muscle as possible.  Many people go on diets eating anything that they want (including junk food) but just less of it.  What they do not understand is that they could be losing as much if not more muscle than fat, a fact that they will not be aware of simply by looking at the scale.  Do you think that that would make a difference in your body composition and how you looked? Imagine if you were to lose 50 pounds of weight, but in one scenario you lost 50 pounds of fat compared to another scenario where you lost 25 pounds of fat and 25 pounds of muscle?  Which scenario would you prefer?

A study that was just conducted this year, looked at the effects of dietary protein content on weight gain, energy expenditure and body composition during overeating. This was an excellent study because it was all performed in a controlled setting.  This means that all the participants were observed, monitored and fed under the control of the researchers.  Basically they were under house arrest for the duration of the study so all food eating was accurately recorded.

The results were interesting.  This was an overfeeding study so all subjects, who were between the ages of 18 and 35, were fed more than their daily energy needs. One group was fed a calorie surplus that had 5% protein (low group), another had 15% protein (normal group) and the last group was fed a diet that had 25% of its calories coming from protein (high protein group).  All groups were overfed an average of a thousand calories over their daily requirements.

The results proved that you can gain weight regardless of the macronutrient profile, of course.  But it also proved that the higher the protein intake the greater the acceleration of fat burning and the increase in lean muscle mass. The low protein group gained the least amount of weight, the normal protein group gained more weight, and the high protein group gained the most. But, the interesting thing is that all 3 groups had gained the same amount of fat.

• The low protein group experienced no increase in energy expenditure (thermogenesis) and no increases in lean muscle mass.
• The normal group had an increase both in lean muscle mass and energy expenditure.
• The high group had even a greater increase in both!  

The bottom line just looking at calories is that eating more than your body needs will increase your weight.
But, more importantly, this study proves the benefit of protein as it relates to thermogenic properties and retaining or increasing lean muscle even in a calorie deficit diet!  Said differently if you want to have the body of your dreams it involves losing fat and retaining or increasing your lean muscle.  To do that protein in the right amounts are key.

1)Bray, GA.  Effect of dietary protein content on weight gain, energy expenditure, and body composition during overeating: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA 2012

Think And Get Lean

Initially the title of this article might strike you as a bit ludicrous, “in order to lose weight you just have to think”?  You might be asking yourself; what about diet and exercise,  and if you watch the Biggest Loser or use a personal trainer, somebody potentially yelling at you? But, indeed the key to long term weight loss can be found more in your thoughts than in any amount of information on diet and exercise.   The title of this article should of also rang a bell for some of you and its similarity to the title of another famous book, a book that has helped more people become wealthy than any other book ever written!

So let me help you to understand, how by thinking differently you can in fact completely change your health and your weight. Think and Grow Rich continues to be the quintessential book on wealth creation ever written.  Did you know that within its pages the author, Napoleon Hill, never once discussed investment opportunities or the mechanics of making money?  There is not page upon page of information as it relates to savings, stocks, real estate, passive streams of income, etc. 

The success that people have experienced after reading the book had nothing to do with the mechanics of savings or investing, but had everything to do with getting the reader to think differently.  It explained in detail how to develop a wealth consciousness, how to set and move towards the accumulation of wealth by taking action, and how to attract wealth into your life through a positive mental attitude and an enthusiastic approach to serving others.   

Napoleon Hill provided the inner strength strategies necessary to succeed in increasing the reader’s wealth.

How does this relate to weight loss?  Knowing what to eat or the best way to exercise, basically diet and exercise, is merely the mechanics to losing weight; just like job advancement, stocks or real estate is the mechanics of increasing your wealth.

The real key to losing weight can be found within yourself.  Not by thinking but in fact by thinking differently, you can achieve your goal of increased health and having your dream body by making that small mental shift. You must realize that changing anything begins with changing yourself.  Your thoughts, feelings and actions of the past have created the level of health and weight that you now enjoy.  If you are not happy with your weight and want to change it completely, start by realizing that lasting change will come from thinking differently and changing your relationships with food.

This simple change will lead to a health consciousness; it will develop the inner strength and drive to take action towards your goal.  Through that small mental shift you will literally magnetize your new body and health to you!   It will also help you to develop the self-motivation and positive mental attitude that will empower you to take the action necessary to attain your dream body!

Think and Get Lean!

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

WHY You Eat is the Key To Permanent Weight Loss

Hunger, social situations and the myriad of reasons one eats is not the topic of this article. The larger, broader picture of what leads us to gaining weight is, because within its understanding lies the solution to permanent weight loss. An important part to realize in the broader picture of things is that what we eat and how much we eat is an action, as is whether or not we exercise. These actions have lead to the level of health you know have. Your past actions (food choices) or lack of action (exercise) have created the results, your weight, you presently enjoy. If you want to change your results than all you should have to do is change your actions.

Since going on a diet is a change in action, it would make sense if the results were to follow and success was easy to achieve. We can summarize it in the following way…

Unhealthy Actions => unhealthy results/being overweight

Change the action or go on a diet/start to exercise…

New Healthy Actions => New Results/Weight Loss

That is what a diet in fact is supposed to do, it gives you the information necessary to hopefully carry out new actions. But, here is the problem and why 95-97% of all people fail to lose weight and keep it off when they simply follow a diet. All actions that human beings perform are initiated by their thoughts and their feelings. Unfortunately, your thoughts and feelings are linked to old patterns. These learned patterns or habits are associated with unhealthy actions (unhealthy food and no exercise). Picking a diet book up off the shelf reading it and then following its recommendations for diet and perhaps exercise, does nothing to change your thoughts and emotions; the very thoughts and emotions that drive you towards your unhealthy patterns of eating and not exercising.

Here is an analogy, you can think of going on a diet just like taking an aspirin for pain, it does not treat the underlying condition or cause of your pain, it just masks it. Similarly while on a diet, you have not broken the cycle by treating the cause of your weight gain, as a result you will inevitably gain the weight back or sabotage your own weight loss efforts.

We can summarize things further in the following way…

Thoughts/feelings => unhealthy actions=> unhealthy results

It should be obvious by looking at that line above that real, lasting change will come from having strategies in place that direct your thoughts and feelings. By creating a simple and slight shift in your mindset towards food and exercise, you will engage the most powerful ally you could ever have in your goal to lose weight… YOU!

New thoughts/feelings =>New healthy actions=> New Results!

New thoughts and emotional connections with food will treat the cause of your problem and free you to achieve your dream results. Knowledge on what is healthy, nutritious food and why exercise is vital to your health is going to give your new mindset the opportunity to make new associations with that information. When your mind and your new actions are congruent and “on the same page” towards achieving your goal, then permanent weight loss becomes effortless. But, if you ignore the power of your mind, it will fight you all the way. That is why people struggle with will power and why up to 97% of all people don’t achieve lasting results. If you want to end your struggle and want to feel a sense of incredible self-empowerment, then know the following… When you change your mind then you will change your results, because changing your mind is the key to following through with new action!

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

Is The Cost of Eating Healthy Foods a Legitimate Excuse?

One of the common excuses I hear from people who say they want to lose weight but can’t because of “blah-blah-blah” is because of the cost of eating healthy.

Commonly, this is stated by people who buy their Starbucks every morning,  and eat out breakfast, lunch and dinner at fast food joints.  There is no way that these people are spending less than I spend on an average day to eat 5 very nutritious meals a day.  My average daily expenditure is well under $10 dollars for all my meals total. 

Even on a cheap, fast food diet – it would be very difficult to eat 3 meals, let alone 5 meals for under $15.00.  The truth is that eating healthy, especially if you prepare your meals at home and take them with you, is very inexpensive.  My wife and I figured it out;  when we began to eat healthy we were saving $200-400 dollars a month by not eating fast food or low end eating out- we still have occasional date nights at nice restaurants.

 The reality is that the cost of eating healthy is just an untrue excuse. Similarly, all excuses like cost of food, no time, bad influences or no-support are just that, excuses. 

Excuses and blame are cut from the same mold.  Neither one can exist if you are to be successful losing weight.  Excuses and blame create a prison within the mind of the person using them.  By pointing your finger at things outside of yourself as to why you just can’t lose weight, you are robbing yourself of power you possess.  This power - your personal power is the very key to personal freedom and permanent weight loss. 

Even when you lose weight on a diet and then gain the weight back; if you blame that diet for your lost result, then you are positioning yourself in your prison as a victim. In my past, I lost and gained weight back on seven different diets, so I know how easy it is to play the blame game.
So how did I begin the process of changing my result? I took responsibility!

Permanent weight loss will never be achieved until you take responsibility for your life and your health.

The second you start to tell yourself that you and you alone are responsible for your health and the weight your presently have, you will get your power back.  By taking responsibility for your present state of health, you place the responsibility for action likewise upon yourself and will start actively finding a way to move boldly towards your goal! 

When you blame, make excuses or justify – you accomplish the other, weakening your position and shutting down appropriate action!

Taking responsibility for your health and your results are one of the keys to permanent change and successful weight loss!

Here is something that you should begin to say to yourself with emotion everyday!

“ I am responsible for my health, I am responsible for my feelings, I am responsible for my weight loss results!” 

Try repeating that 5-10 times each day and see if your life doesn’t change dramatically!

Your Past Does Not Equal Your Future!

The key is to…..

….change your perspective, start looking at the past and the present as a reference for guided improvement, look at the future as something that you create.  You have a choice to do and become anything you choose when you start realizing that you can create your life!  

Nelson Mandela after being wrongly incarcerated for over 25 years could of come out of prison an angry man, hell bent on exacting revenge upon his captors.  But instead he chose to create his future and to find good in all human beings, even the ones who put him in prison.  Of course when you can foster a philosophy like that in such a situation, you are destined for greatness.   Upon his release form prison, he became the president of South Africa and an inspirational leader for all humanity.  To guide his thoughts and vision towards creating his dream future, he often read a poem entitled Invictus, the last two lines of that poem read….  “ I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”  He chose his beliefs and created his future!

Achieving permanent weight loss begins with changing your beliefs.  Adopt beliefs that provide you with the opportunity for success.  Believe that “Your Past does not Equal your Future.”
The answers that came from that question; the direction of study and learning that blossomed from asking the right question, created the Mindset for Weight Loss Transformational program, a solution that you can model to create your own permanent lifestyle change! 
I realized that asking myself “why can’t I lose the weight,” was not going to give me the answers.  So instead I asked myself “what has to happen, what do I need to change in order to reach my goal of permanent weight loss?.
The next step in finding the solution was to ask myself the right question.
As for myself, I failed seven times to change my weight and my health permanently over a 20-year period!  I had gotten to the point of giving up, but then I decided to choose this belief that my past does not equal my future, and as a result I was able to take the first step in finding a solution. 
Thomas Edison failed 9,999 times before he figured out how to make the light bulb work.  If he had stopped trying because he believed the past equaled the future and any future attempt would end in yet another failure, you and I would still be using candles.  He had empowering beliefs!
I recommend adopting the belief that “the past does not equal the future” as a great place to start!
While it is good to look at the past as an opportunity to learn from your previous experiences, in fact I have come to believe that all of my past weight loss failures and frustrations were actually laying the foundation for the understanding that has created the new level of love, health and fitness, I now enjoy, it should not get turned into a predictor of failure for any weight loss attempt on-going or in the future.
Many people who are trying to lose weight and create a new and healthy future for themselves struggle with dis-empowering beliefs.  One of these beliefs as it relates to dieting and weight loss is that “I have not been able to do it in the past, so why will this time be any different?” 

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

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! 

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!

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.

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

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.

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!

How to Stop Emotional Eating

Human beings are always creating coping mechanisms, ways to deal with stress and emotions.  We create these patterns of coping to give us a temporary reprieve from the stress or negative emotion we are experiencing.

Some coping patterns are healthy, release the stress and help us to think clearly… to find a positive direction towards that which stressed us out or affected us emotionally.

Responding to a emotional trigger or stressful situation with some exercise is a healthy coping mechanism that will help foster a positive outcome.  It will….

• Release bottled up stress and anxiety.
• Relax you and calm you down.
• Make you feel good about yourself…this will help you to approach the situation with a positive outlook.
• Create a positive self-image that allows you to move forward.

On the other hand some ways to cope do not give us a clearer perspective but make us feel better at least for a very short period of time, some of these actually do more damage than good.

Emotional eating is an example of a coping mechanism that doesn’t serve us, in fact it falls into the same category of coping with drugs and alcohol. When you realize that, it might help you to recognize the importance of changing.

To take a stressful situation or negative emotion and start eating junk food to deal or cope  will do the following…

• Give you a momentary break from stress and anxiety, but does not get rid of it or release in anyway.
• It will make you fat and unhealthy.
• When you are done eating…all of the feelings return plus now you feel guilty for the food you just needlessly ate.  In essence, you have added to your stress!
• You now feel bad about yourself….this does not foster a positive approach to finding a solution to the trigger or stressful situation.
• This creates a negative self image and magnifies the problem so that it grows in your own mind.

There you have two different coping mechanisms with dramatically different impacts upon your psyche, self image and your ability to respond to the situation.

To understand how to use positive coping mechanisms in our lives instead of negative ones like emotional eating we need to discuss one more aspect to this powerful human response.

We live most moments in our lives habitually, meaning we do most things as a habit.   We have patterns of eating that are learned and become habits, this is true likewise for exercise.

Lean, fit people have a habit of eating healthy foods in reasonable amounts most of the time.  They prioritize exercise and fit it in whenever possible, habitually.

Overweight people do not. 

Likewise, any particular coping mechanism is a learned response that you go to habitually to deal with emotional stress or triggers.

In order to change your coping mechanism you need to first change your eating and exercise habits.  It is much more probable that someone who eats healthy and exercises daily will respond to a stressful or emotional situation with exercise.

But, even more than that….the methods that are used to change unhealthy, bad eating and exercise habits can then be used to change deeply ingrained coping mechanisms. 

So what really needs to happen to end emotional eating; is that someone who responds in this way needs to understand healthy foods and eating, best ways to exercise, be motivated to eat healthy and exercise, turn these into powerful learned habits and then use the same methods to retrain themselves to cope with emotional triggers in a positive way.

All this is very possible and in fact is easy once you know how. 

The Ultimate Fat Loss Solution (www.ultimatefatlosssolution.com/download) is your resource for learning the very best in healthy eating, accelerated weight loss, efficient exercise approaches, as well as habit and behavioral re-conditioning.  

Yours in health and weight loss,

Michael Mountain

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