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.

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.