People are always talking about foods that burn fat and how you need to eat certain foods to lose weight. Let’s talk about the other side of the coin: Beverages. Drinking these 3 beverages will pack on more weight than alot of the foods that you eat.

1. Alcohol
When you want to lose weight, you should not drink alcohol because it inhibits your body’s ability to burn fat.
When you drink alcohol, your liver has to detoxify it right off the bat.
The liver deals with the alcohol first before working on carbohydrates, fats and proteins.
Since fat is the hardest to metabolize and break down, it gets pushed down the chain.

People often eat while they drink alcohol so they tend to add a bunch of unecessary calories which… turn to fat. Alcohol has the second highest calorie content next to fat, with seven calories per gram vs. to nine calories per gram, respectively.
Your body transforms most of the foods you take in as fat when you are under the influence of alcohol  

2. Soda
Pop is a major contributor to obesity in this country.
According to research, those who drink soda are most likely to have diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis, tooth decay, caffeine dependency, and nutritional deficiencies.
Studies also show that people who drink sodas do not cut back on the regular foods they eat.
This adds at least 200 calories a day, or 1,400 calories per week, to their intake!

The components of soda are:

Phosphoric Acid: Combines with the hydrochloric acid of the stomach and disrupts digestion.
It’s also known to take minerals out of the bones.

Sugar and High Fructose Corn Syrup: Sugar in liquid form is dangerous, because so much can be consumed in so little time, sending the body into a blood sugar frenzy.
The capacity to burn fat drops when your insulin levels rise. This leads to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, premature aging, heart disease, and, of course, weight gain.
A good holistic weight loss and diet plan will help you to find healthy, natural alternatives to sugar and HFCS.

3. Tap Water: Tap Water: composed of chemicals including chlorine, trihalomethanes, lead, and cadmium, which are hazardous to your health and get stored in fat cells.

4. Diet Soda, Diet Beverages
Diet drinks give you all of the dandy benefits of drinking pop, plus artificial sweeteners that have been shown to alter brain chemistry, increase cravings, and cause cancer.
The main artificial sweetener used is aspartame.
Studies show there are over 92 health-related effects including:

• Brain tumors
• Birth defects
• Diabetes
• Emotional disorders
• Epilepsy/Seizures

If you ask me, anything that has this many life altering side effects is worth staying away from.
The bad effects of aspartame are written about in journals, books and articles on a regular basis.
If you go to Medline.com on the internet, you can find hundreds of research articles on this subject.
In the end, drinking diet pop will slowly cause your body to build up toxins and you still will not lose weight.

In order to lose fat naturally and live a long and healthy life, these 4 “dangerous” drinks must be avoided.

Water is one of the most overlooked tools for weight loss that we haveWater will actually keep your appetite down and will move fat stores out of your body.

Studies have shown that a decrease in water intake will cause fat deposits to increase. Why does this happen? Because if your kidneys aren’t functioning properly due to dehydration then their workload gets shifted to the liver. Your liver is responsible for metabolizing your stored fat.

If your liver has to do some of the kidney’s work, it can’t operate at full throttle. As a result. it metabolizes less fat and more fat remains stored in the body stopping your body’s ability to lose fat naturally.

As for water weight gain, drinking enough water is the best treatment to get rid of excess fluid in your body. Your body has a built in survival mechanism: if you start to dehydrate, it will adapt and start storing water.

The body stores water outside of your cells causing your feet, ankles, legs and hands to appear swollen. When you take a diuretic, this is only taking care of the symptom temporarily, not fixing the problem permanently. Diuretics force out stored water along with some essential nutrients. Again, the body perceives  this as a threat and will replace the water at the first opportunity.

The best way to overcome the problem of water retention is to give your body what it needs-plenty of water. Only then will stored water be released. Any good weight loss program to get rid of belly fat or any other problem areas will address this issue.

People who are obese need to drink more H2O because they have larger metabolic loads on average than a “normal” sized person.

What’s the optimal amount of water to drink for weight loss? The average sized person should take in about 8 glasses a day. If you are obese then drink around 10-12 glasses. If you are extremely overweight, then drink mofe than the 12 glasses. Remember… these are general rules of thumb.

As you can see, drinking water is a foundational aspect to any program designed to flush fat out of the body.

The best way to get rid of belly fat is to eat frequent meals.People who eat often are called grazers. People who eat 3 or less meals a day are referred to as gorgers.A standard rule among the majority of diet plans is to “graze”. In otherwords, eat five to six small meals/snacks a day.

There are three reasons why eating 5-6 times a day is so important:

1. We are eating how our ancestors ate, which means we are agreeing with out genetic makeup.Being foragers/hunters, we were forced to eat frequently and not 3 square calorie filled meals.Our ancestors food supply was full of nutrient without being packed to the brim with calories.

2. Your body turns into a fat burning machine because your metabolism is constantly running to break down the food. (Grazing raises your metabolism and a higher metabolism means you can lose fat naturally) Your digestive system cannot handle large amounts of food and causes loss of energy and fat storage.

3. Grazing suppresses your appetite. This helps you to avoid the intense hunger signals you get from being on a “diet”.

The second part of this rule is to always stay full. If your hunger signals reach a high enough level, it will be impossible for you to make wise food choices. The most satisfying and most often available are those heavily refined, fast or fried foods full of bad fats and lots of carbs.

Due to the fact that our lives are filled with very high stress situations, we tend to crave fats and sugars so that we can make more stress hormones out of them. In “fight or flight” mode, our bodies are better able to deal with stressful situations.

Fats and sugars provide the necessary building blocks for your body to produce stress hormones such as adrenaline.

The bad news is that if your body stays in “fight or flight” mode, then it will literally start to break down. Our bodies were not meant to sustain long periods of stress.

If you are looking for a permanent way to lose fat naturally, then start eating 5-6 smaller meals per day and watch your figure change.

Putting this rule into practice will ensure that you can build a foundation for you and your family for future success in weight loss.

Let’s talk about fabulous fiber. Research shows that increasing your daily intake of fiber, will cause you to lose weight with changing anything else in your diet!

We will go over exactly why fiber is king over the next few paragraphs.

Currently, health care practitioners and dietians recommend 30 grams a fiber a day is what is currently recommended by health professionals. If you want to lose weight fast with fiber, increase the amount to 40 grams per day.

You can also do a holistic cleanse. A majority of these cleanses contain high fiber amounts to clean your colon which can aid in losing weight.

Eating high fiber food will satisfy your hunger and fill you up. This is due to fiber expanding in your belly and making you feel full.

So why is fiber so good for you? Check out the list below:

There are 2 types of fiber: insoluble and soluble.

Insoluble fiber means that it doesn’t dissolve in water. This type of fiber adds bulk to your bowel movements and cleans the walls of your intestine

Fiber that breaks down in water is called soluble fiber.This fiber turns into a gooey gel-like substance and is responsible for regulating the flow of your bowels.

Functions of Insoluble Fiber

• adds mass to your bowel movements
• regulates the pH in your colon

Why insoluble fiber is good for you:

• encourages daily bowel movements and keeps constipation from occuring
• purges body of toxins through the bowels
• Decreases chances of getting colon cancer by balance the bodie’s pH

Food Sources of Insoluble Fiber

• Vegetables such as green beans and dark green leafy vegetables
• Veggie and fruit peelings
• Whole-wheat products
• Oats
• Corn bran
• Seeds & Nuts

Purpose of Soluble Fiber

• attaches to fats in the body
• prolong stomach emptying time so that sugar is released and absorbed more slowly

Benefits of Soluble Fiber

• lower total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol (the Bad cholesterol) therefore reducing the risk of heart disease
• helps diabetic people to control their blood sugar levels.

Food Sources of Soluble Fiber

• Oat/Oat bran
• Dried beans and peas
• Nuts
• Barley
• Flax seed
• Fruits such as oranges & raspberries
• Vegetables such as carrots and celery
• Psyllium husk

Most foods will have a little of both, insoluble and soluble. It is always a good idea to eat a variety of foods so that you can obtain the best nutrition possible for your health.Eating fiber is a key concept to lose fat naturally.

 

 

Most people suffer from emotional eating. Their mind controls their eating habits and they eat too much. If this sounds familiar, then this principle will help break the worst of your habits. I call it the addition rule.

The principle behind this rule is very powerful.To get rid of a bad habit, you need to add something positive in its place to fill in what was there before. Nature abhors a vacuum and will fill up the empty space.

Adding healthy food to your diet can help you to flush body fat naturally. To understand what I mean, check this out: if you are trying to give up chocolate, then replace the chocolate with dark chocolate (a much healthier choice because dark chocolate has antioxidants in it).

After you have done this for a period of time, start adding some more raw fruits and vegetables to your diet.

There are four powerful reasons why you want to add these:

• Eating these raw, give you much needed digestive enzymes that are needed to break down your food. Processed foods do not give you this.
• Vegetables and fruits contain high amounts of fiber which grows in your stomach, causing you to fill up and feel fuller faster.
• It helps to push food through your digestive tract.
• These give your body antioxidants and trace minerals that are essential not only for weight loss, but for your body to stay healthy.

The second part of the rule is to “eat my fiber first.”

Eating fiber first (salad) clears your digestive tract and prepares it for your meal.

When eaten with other food, fresh fruits and vegetables literally clear a place for the rest of your food and detoxifies your large intestine. This in itself will help you lose fat naturally.

For instance, when you eat pasta, make sure that you eat your salad (minus all the heavy dressing) before you eat anything else. If you choose to have a sundae, make sure that you top it with lots of fresh berries.

Adding the fruits and veggies fills you up faster and you won’t eat as much. Plus, you will be getting a good dose of anti-oxidants!

Go ahead and start this immediately. It’s not unusual for people to lose 5-10 pounds off of just this little tip!

Dr Livingston is a chiropractic physician who has thousands of hours studying and researching cleansing the body, fat loss and advanced nutritional testing. He is also the author and creator of http://www.greenlifeweightloss.com which teaches healthy “green” principles for shedding weight fast and naturally with no drugs or surgery.

Ever heard people say “you are what you eat”?Someone only told you half of the story.] The second part of that story is: you are when you eat! If you plan your meals from smallest to biggest, this is exactly how your figure will look. This principle is a key component in any holistic nutrition program.

I bet you are slightly confused right now… Let me explain.

Can you tell me what food is really?It is energy for the body.If food gives us energy, then what part of the day requires the most?The best meal to eat the most calories is breakfast.

When should we eat our biggest meal based on energy requirements? Breakfast. Then lunch, then dinner.

Going through a normal day, let’s take a look at a typical modern US diet. Captain Crunch for breakfast, pizza for lunch, and fried chicken, mashed potatoes, butter soaked corn, and a piece of apple pie for dessert.

You ideally want your daily meal plan to be an upside down triangle, filtering the least amount of calories to the end of the day, and giving the body the most at the beginning of the day so that it has all day to burn your calories off.

 

For Example:

Have oatmeal, eggs and some fresh fruit for breakfast.

A chicken ceasar wrap for lunch with a side of raw carrots

Kabobs for supper with a tossed salad.

The meal size gradually became smaller, but still has plenty of nutrition stuffed inside it.You always want to eat the least amount of calories before you go to sleep.Since you are not expending energy moving around, your body will take the food and store it in your fat cells for a rainy day. A good natural weight loss and detox program makes sure that you keep a healthy weight by using foundational principles like the pyramid principle.

The second part of this rule is to make sure that you don’t eat past 7pm. Your body is starting to wind down into the rest and repair mode, and you are more likely to store your food as fat.

Remember: Breakfast like a king, lunch like a queen and dinner like a pauper and you should increase your weight loss by 100%

Dr Livingston is a chiropractic physician who has thousands of hours studying and researching cleansing the body, fat loss and advanced nutritional testing. He is also the author and creator of http://www.greenlifeweightloss.com which teaches healthy “green” principles for shedding weight fast and naturally.

 

 

 

Do you need a holiday? Would you love a holiday?Now, I’m not talking about a vacation at the beach we should all have one of those every once in a while)I’m referring to a vacation from a calorie restriction diet.

It is not good for you to deprive yourself of things that you love.This is by for the best way to destroy your fat loss efforts and emotionally disturb yourself.

When you crave something bad enough, it actually raises your stress levels, which raises your cortisol levels.A little hormone known as Cortisol causes stress levels to rise and your body to put on excess pounds of fat.Notice all the new, hot supplements on the market which try to block this from happening.What a joke.

What does this tell you? It means that skipping out on junk foods such as chocolate dunkin doughnuts can be bad for your metabolism.Now hold on, I’m not giving you permission to scarf down the whole thousand calorie item. The beauty of a natural detox and weight loss program is that there is room for errors when you add this free day.

Current Research shows that a huge calorie surge keeps your metabolism from slowing down to a snails pace.

A good way to implement this into your lifestyle is to:Give yourself 1 free day a week where you can eat whatever you would like to eat and as much of it as you would like to stuff your face withOr, you can let yourself have 3 different meals spread out across the week to gorge yourself on your favorite goodies.

The best vacations are planned. You know when you are taking them. For example, If you like ice cream, make Wednesday and Sunday your ice cream days. The other alternative is to have 3 meals a week that you can use on any day.

SIDE NOTEDo you understand what this means? I have just given you permission to eat whatever you want in as much as you want.Ice cream, doughnuts, frenchfries, and lots of cheesy items make the list.Believe it or not, a holistic nutrition program is not just about strict dieting. As you can see, it is possible to have your cake and eat it too.

Free days are designed to keep you from going crazy emotionally and to give a quick boost your metabolism.

Another reason to take a free day is to gauge how you feel after eating unhealthy fats and white sugars.You will feel sleepy an hour after your meal, and you just won’t have the energy you have while eating healthy.

Dr Charles Livingston is a structure/function doctor who specializes in advanced nutrition, detoxification and weight loss. He is also the author and creator of http://www.greenlifeweightloss.com which teaches healthy “green” principles for shedding weight fast and naturally.

Have you heard mom say to eat your vegetables? Well, there is good reason for this.Research has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that fruits and veggies are a foundational component to everyone’s diet.They provide your body with fiber, digestive enzymes and antioxidants,minerals,vitamins, probiotics, etc.

Whole foods such as vegetables and fruits are foundational for any holistic nutrition program.

Currently, we have started to run into some serious problems.Unfortunately,fruits and veggies are highly sprayed with cancer causing pesticides and herbicides.These chemicals are so toxic that they will literally destroy your body from the inside.

What really happens is that your body starts to accumulate these toxins over time making you a ticking time-bomb of problems.This is why it is of extreme importance that you start to become pro-active instead of re-active. Nowadays it is really smart to go through a natural weight loss and detox program. These types of programs not only restore your health and purge your body of toxins, but it will also shed fat rapidly.

Here is a list of foods that are highly sprayed cash crops. A good rule of thumb: Any fruit, vegetable, nut or seed that is really popular and common is highly sprayed due to mass production so avoid them like the plague and buy organic.Buying organic produce that is fresh from local coops or farms is a great way to go. If buying fresh fruits and vegetables is too expensive, then either avoid the items listed below, or only buy these items organic and the rest of your fruits and vegetables scrub with a fruit and vegetable wash that is sold in stores. The items listed below have the highest amount of chemical residue

1. Strawberries
2. Bell peppers (green and red)
3. Spinach (tied with number 2)
4. Cherries (grown in the United States)
5. Peaches (grown in Chile)
6. Cantaloupe (grown in Mexico)
7. Celery
8. Apples
9. Apricots
10. Green beans
11. Grapes
12. Cucumbers

Other items that are highly sprayed with chemicals are: almonds cashews peanuts coffee beans tea leaves sunflower seeds

It’s sobering to think that even foods that are considered to be healthy in fact can be cancer causing!

If you choose to eat conventional, non-organic produce, there are things that can help protect you from the chemicals.Washing and peeling can significantly reduce pesticide levels.Buying locally grown and in-season also helps as produce is often treated (with fungicides) to increase shelf-life and for long-distance distribution.

Dr Charles Livingston is a structure/function doctor who specializes in advanced nutrition, detoxification and weight loss. He is also the author and creator of http://www.greenlifeweightloss.com which teaches healthy “green” principles for shedding weight fast and naturally.

There is a huge variety of fruits and vegetables to choose from.Which ones are the best?It’s actually not that complicated.I’ve come up with 3 easy to follow steps to ensure that the best fruit or vegetable has been picked.Side note: people have a tendency to eat 2 or 3 different vegetables and fruits all the time. Make sure that you are always eating a variety and trying new things.This will ensure that you can obtain the widest variety of vitamins and minerals. Eating raw fruits and vegetables are a core foundation for holistic weight loss and living a healthy lifestyle. When choosing your fruit or vegetable look for these three things:

1.Vine ripened50% of the vitamins and minerals go into the fruit or vegetable when it ripens on the vine or tree.Fruits and Vegetables are picked early when they are still green. They then get sprayed with chemicals so that they will ripen as they are shipped.
2. Organic:Research shows that organic fruits and vegetables have thirteen times more vitamins and minerals than conventional produce.In addition, organic produce isn’t sprayed with dangerous insecticides and herbicides. Studies actually show that these chemicals leach into the skin and flesh of conventional fruits and vegetables.
3. Local:Produce that is local to your region will have an amazing benefit on your body.Local produce contain nutrition, bacteria and minerals local to your region that your body needs to have tolerance to.If you go to Mexico and wind up with “Montezuma’s revenge” then you understand what I’m talking about. Your body isn’t used to the local bacteria.

By understanding these three key points, you can get the most nutrition out of your produce which directly helps you in your anti-aging process and indirectly helps with your holistic weight loss efforts.

Dr Charles Livingston is a structure/function doctor who specializes in advanced nutrition and weight loss. He is also the author and creator of http://www.greenlifeweightloss.com which teaches healthy “green” principles for shedding weight fast naturally.