Fatty Liver Disease and Weight Loss

This is about weight loss, for those who can’t seem to lose weight this might be one of the causes. So what does the liver have to do with my weight, you might ask. Your liver processes the fat in your food before it can enter the blood stream and also determines what needs to be disposed of. But, it can only process a few grams at one time. So what does that mean?

For example, if you’re eating out and buy a hamburger with fries, say a quarter pound, it might contain more grams of fat than the liver can process so the excess is stored in fat cell and you gain fat. The Liver is like a sponge and can become saturated with fat which occurs when 30% or more of the weight of your Liver is fat. After saturation occurs the liver slows down all it’s function and you keep adding more body fat at every meal.

I don’t often write about diseases but when you have a fatty Liver the Liver will not function properly and you will continue to add fat. It’s important that if you want to lose body fat, you have to understand how your Liver works. You can have a fatty Liver and not know it. If your Liver doesn’t function properly you’ll add fat at every meal. Read these statistics.

Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, or NAFLD, is on the rise in the United States thanks to a huge increase in obesity rates over the last three decades. In industrialized countries, 20 to 40 percent of the general population has some form of fatty liver disease and the chances of its progressing increases with age.

Officially recognized as a disease in the early 1980s, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease perplexed the medical community.

Obese and diabetic patients had elevated liver enzymes and enlarged livers virtually identical to those typically seen in alcoholics, but most of them insisted they were not drinking excessively.

Liver Function Basics

The liver is your largest internal organ. It performs hundreds of functions including:

processing everything you eat and drink
pulling toxins from your blood
fighting off infection
controlling blood sugar levels
helping to manufacture hormones and proteins
Too Much Fat Causes Serious Problems

The liver normally weighs about three pounds. When more than 5 to 10 percent of your liver’s weight is fat, you have a “fatty liver.” While excess liver fat, or steatosis, causes no problems for some, it can cause symptoms of impaired liver function, including:

fatigue
nausea
abdominal pain
yellowing skin or eyes (as in jaundice)
Inflammation that causes scarring is a hallmark symptom of liver injury in advanced non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which can lead to cirrhosis.

Once you damage your liver, your body lays down collagen to repair it. Fibrosis or thickening of the liver tissue then ensues.

As the non-alcoholic fatty liver disease progresses, about 10 percent of cases will develop over the next ten years into the much more serious NASH, or nonalcoholic steatohepatitis.

NASH can lead to:

cirrhosis or hardening of the liver
liver failure
liver cancer
death
Diagnosis of Fatty Liver Disease

An accurate diagnosis of non-alcoholic liver disease is the first step towards treating this, sometimes, serious health condition. Your physician will usually diagnose fatty liver disease by:

administering tests to detect elevated liver enzymes
ordering an ultrasound to determine if you have an enlarged liver
performing a liver biopsy to determine whether you have NASH or simple fatty liver
Common Characteristics of NAFLD Patients

Though the exact causes of NAFLD are not known, patients have some pre-existing conditions in common, including:

obesity
type 2 diabetes
have metabolic syndrome diagnosis
What’s more, the severity of NAFLD increases with the degree of obesity, and abdominal or belly fat seems to increase the risk of dangerous NASH, even in patients with a body mass index (BMI) in a normal range.

What you eat and the nutrition it provides contributes to the onset, progression, and treatment of NAFLD.

Dietary factors that increase your risk include consuming:

a high-calorie diet
a diet rich in hydrogenated oil (trans fats)
too much protein from animal sources, resulting in a high intake of saturated fat and cholesterol
too many beverages sweetened with high fructose corn syrup

The good news is that a Fatty Liver can be fixed, stop eating fatty foods and the Liver will fix itself.

Dietary factors that reduce your risk of NAFLD include:

consuming fewer calories
eating protein from whey or vegetable sources, instead of from meat and cheese
losing 3 to 10 percent of your bodyweight
adding fiber, green tea, and coffee to your diet.

Follow me on X, the former Twitter, @ray0369 to get a link to my latest posts.
If you want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans.
Look for my first book at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.
My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.
Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

Fat Free Foods List For Weight Loss

Fat-Free Canned Foods.  Canned foods can be good for dieters on a budget. Foods that are canned generally last longer and can be reheated quickly and conveniently.

If you are watching your sodium intake, check the Nutrition Facts label before you buy. Some fat-free canned foods like beans and soups many contain a lot of salt.

• White beans
• Black beans
• Garbanzo beans
• Canned tomatoes
• Canned corn
• Other canned vegetables
• Canned fruit with no added syrup
• Tuna (canned in water, not oil) 

• Fat-free refried beans
• Canned soups with a clear base (avoid cream soups)

Fat-Free Dairy Foods.  Not all fat-free dairy products taste good. So it’s important to consider flavor when making your choice. Sometimes buying a low-fat version is better because you’ll be satisfied eating less of it and consuming fewer calories overall.

• Fat-free Greek yogurt
• Fat-free traditional yogurt
• Fat-free or low-fat cream cheese
• Skim milk
• Low-fat cheese like part skim mozzarella
• Reduced-fat or fat-free sour cream

Fat-Free Condiments. If you can live without sauces and spreads, you might be able to lose weight faster. Many times condiments add calories without adding too much flavor. But if you prefer to add condiments to your meal, choose these fat-free varieties. I’m not a fan of condiments. Read the labels and be sure you know what you’re buying.

• Reduced-fat or fat-free salad dressing
• Light mayo
• Salsa
• Butter buds
• Vinegar
• Cocktail sauce
• Reduced-sugar fruit spread or jam
• Soy sauce
• Tomato sauce

Low-Fat or Lean Protein. Lean protein should top your list of diet-friendly foods. They contain some fat, but provide a powerful nutritional boost.

• Lean ground turkey (make sure you choose the best varieties)
• Skinless chicken and turkey breasts
• Lean cold cuts like sliced boiled ham
• Frozen or refrigerated grilled chicken pieces

• Fresh or frozen fish and seafood
• Eggs, egg substitute, or egg whites
• Almonds

Fat-free Treats.  In a perfect world, dieters wouldn’t need treats. But we all need a sweet treat now and then. These are the best diet-friendly choices. Some contain a little bit of fat, but many are fat-free. This is something else I try and avoid. Remember that fat-free does not mean sugar free.

• Hard candies
• Gum
• Tootsie Rolls
• Lollipops
• Fat-free Jello cups
• Low-fat granola bars
• Low-fat ice cream bars 
• Push-Ups
• Sorbet
• Sherbet
• Fudgesicles

Fat-Free Bread and Grain Products. Try to choose high fiber breads and grains, even if they provide a little bit of fat. But try to keep your choices low in calories.

• Whole-grain, reduced-sugar, and bran cereals 

• Whole-grain bread
• Brown rice
• Whole-wheat pita
• Oatmeal (avoid high-sugar packets)
• Whole-grain pasta

By having all of this list of fat-free foods and foods that are diet-friendly, you’ll be ready to handle last-moment meal preparation and any cravings that come your way.

Follow me on Twitter or X @ray0369
Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want to Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.
If you really want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.
There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want to Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.
My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

All this talk about Healthcare

HOW BAD DO YOU WANT TO LOSE WEIGHT

I normally  write about losing weight and why it’s good for you to weigh less, but today I think I should discuss the Healthcare problems that we all face in this country.

It’s almost scary to think about the problems we have in the healthcare system and all the different theories out there about healthcare. The one I think is the scariest is the one I heard on the radio last week. The commentator was talking about the Constitution and that people are not guaranteed healthcare, that healthcare is not a right that is guaranteed by the Constitution. In other words he claimed that 80% of people are happy with the status quote and why should the government be spending taxpayer’s money to try and rebuild a system that most people are happy with.

Talk about living in denial, taxpayers today are spending 26% of their income on health care…

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Can You Be Kind Of Be Fat And Still Fit?

The short answer is NO!! It not possible to be both. Yes, younger adults will feel fine even if they’re overweight, but if they don’t exert themselves, they don’t use much energy so they feel fine. In their minds, they don’t see what’s wrong with being overweight. Young people all have that attitude that they will deal with it if it happens.  As a person ages, the extra weight caused by the extra fat you are carrying will cause health problems. This blog post will give you the details.

Extra weight linked to extra risk, even if blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol all normal

By Randy Dotinga

HealthDay Reporter

No amount of extra weight is good for your heart, no matter how fit you are by other measures, new British research shows.

“Our findings suggest that if a patient is overweight or obese, all efforts should be made to help them get back to a healthy weight, regardless of other factors,” said study co-author Camille Lassale, from Imperial College London’s School of Public Health.

“Even if their blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol appear within the normal range, excess weight is still a risk factor,” Lassale said in a university news release. In fact, the increased risk of developing heart disease was more than 25 percent, the study found.

The study used statistics about the health of people in 10 European countries. Researchers focused on weight and signs of heart disease, when blood vessels become clogged.

The authors looked at more than 7,600 people who had cardiovascular events such as death from heart attack, and compared them to 10,000 people who didn’t have heart problems.

After adjusting their figures so they wouldn’t be thrown off by other lifestyle factors, the researchers found that people with three or more heart risk factors like high blood pressure, high cholesterol or large waist sizes (more than 37 inches for men and 31 inches for women) were more than twice as likely to have heart disease, regardless of whether their weight was normal or above normal.

But those who were considered overweight yet healthy were still 26 percent more likely to develop heart disease than their normal-weight peers. Those considered healthy but obese had a 28 percent higher risk, the study found.

The findings, which don’t prove that extra weight causes heart risks to rise, were published Aug. 14 in the European Heart Journal.

“I think there is no longer this concept of healthy obese,” said study co-author Ioanna Tzoulaki, a senior lecturer in epidemiology at the university.

“If anything, our study shows that people with excess weight who might be classed as ‘healthy’ haven’t yet developed an unhealthy metabolic profile. That comes later in the timeline, then they have an event, such as a heart attack,” she said.WebMD News from HealthDay

If you really want to lose the extra flab you can get help, I write 4 blogs and I’ve written two E-books. Read some of my other blog posts.

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

If you really want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

How Do I Become A Healthier Person?

This is the most frequently ask question in my Inbox. The answer is that it all starts with your diet. You can go to the gym everyday but “you can’t exercise away a bad diet”.

The problem that most of us have is that we think we have a good diet. If you have added weight to your body over the last 10 years, your diet is the problem. Most of us think that we can fix our diet just by eating less food. Not really. The problem is the food we are eating and not so much the quantity. When you eat fresh food the urge to keep eating will disappear.

So what does eating fresh mean? 

I found this food pyramid on the internet. This is a good example of eating fresh. This pyramid explains what you can eat every day, What you should only eat weekly and what you should only eat once a month. You should drink water or other drinks that have no calories. The only exception is one glass of wine either before or after dinner.

I live by this pyramid every day. You can eat all you want, as long as it’s on the pyramid. You don’t have to count calories as long as you don’t cheat. Everything you see on the pyramid is healthy and will give your body nutrition. You may over eat at first, but after a few weeks your body will become accustom to the foods and you’ll start to lose body fat.

If you notice, there is nothing processed on the pyramid. You can eat in restaurants, just stick to the pyramid. Another big difference in the foods is less meat and more fish and white meat poultry. You might think this way of eating will be expensive but after a couple of months you’ll be saving money.

Processed foods and soft drinks  and other forms of alcohol are expensive and your not buying any of that. You don’t eat fish or poultry every day and meat only once a month. These are all expensive food items. Cheese and yogurt are every day items so that’s where most of your protein comes from. Fruits and vegetable are 2/3 of your diet and grains are the other 3rd.

Americans are over-dosing on meat, for some unknown reason we think we have to eat meat every day, so we can take pills later in life to combat the cholesterol in our blood vessels. The high levels of cholesterol are caused from meat. Our ancestors ate mostly fish until the human population started to move inland where they couldn’t fish and had to kill animals for meat. Today we know that those people on a fish diet lived a healthier life.

The food pyramid was developed after studying the Mediterranean people and their diet. For centuries these people fished the ocean for meat and even oil to burn in lamps. Wale oil and olive oil were the first oils used man. In the far east fishing was another source of meat and they still depend on fishing for their diet. Both these people were healthier because of there diet and lifestyle. Americans can learn from our ancestors. It’s our diet and lifestyle that cause our health problems and only we can do something about it.

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

If you really want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Move Away From Dieting To A Better Way Of Eating

You’ve heard it before: “You have to make your new way of eating part of your life.” “It can’t be a ‘diet,’ or you’ll go off it.” “The reason people regain weight is that they go back to their old way of eating.”

All true. But much easier said than done! How can you transition from a “diet” to a “new way of eating?” Here are five tips to help you on this path.

1) Find the Right Amount of Carbohydrate for You

The idea of carb reduction is that eventually, you will figure out what carb level keeps you at your best—high energy, low hunger, lowest sustainable weight, and stable blood glucose.

Ideally, the amount of carbohydrate you eat will be low enough not to be flirting with the side effects of high-carb eating too often, but this is different for every person.

Once you find your carb level and experience how good you feel when eating the correct amount of carbohydrate for your body (and how you don’t feel so good when you are eating too much carbohydrate), you will be on the path to seeing low carb eating as “the way you eat” rather than a “diet.”

2) Make It About Health

If you were allergic to wheat, you would learn to get along without it. In restaurants, you would get used to ignoring the bread basket, asking for no croutons, not ordering pasta, etc. Sure, it would be hard at first, but eventually, it would just be “the way you eat.” You would know that this is just the way your body is. There are many medical conditions that force people to adjust their way of eating—permanently.

Some people are more likely to be on the road to diabetes, if you aren’t already there. If you have insulin resistance, you could have blood glucose that isn’t stable, that jumps around, causing you to feel less than your best. What you eat will effect your mood and your energy level. The problem is that your blood type makes a big difference in the food that you should be eating. I know this sound difficult or even impossible to figure out but you don’t want to give up. What you eat has everything to do with your health, the way you feel, the way you look, and how long you’ll live.

There is no doubt that this is a bummer. It is no fun to find out that your body needs extra attention to be at its best. Your ancestors never had to worry about staying fit because of the labor intensive life they lead. Even 100 years ago very few people had cars. Many people lived without hot water in their homes. Many still washed clothes by hand and had to bathtub.

Today we live with conveniences that you can’t imagine living without like a clothes dryer. When I grew up no one a clothes dryer or a car. So because we have all the modern conveniences and do much less physical work, we need to spend more attention to maintaining our bodies.

The positive side is that once you accept that your body has “special needs,” you can do something about it—something that costs very little money, doesn’t involve surgery or medication, and has no painful procedures involved. Simply eat fresh food and stop eating processed foods. If your not sure what that means I have written several posts about processed foods, you can just search this website.

3) De-Carb Your Comfort Foods

If eating low carb seems austere to you, it’s time to go about finding low-carb, healthy substitutes for at least some of your favorite foods.

4) Find a Few Simple Rules to Follow

Simple rules can speed our way to developing a new eating identity. Here are some ideas for low-carb food rules, or make your own.

5) Learn Simple Cooking Techniques

If your idea of cooking is “slaving in front of a stove,” let’s change that right now. So many delicious, healthy meals can be made in minutes if you have a few easy-to-learn cooking skills. Any chef will tell you that simple is often best. Learn how to make one food you really like, and get good at it.

Then, add another, and another. Amaze your friends! Cooking can actually be a relaxing, creative activity if you get into the mood.

6) Banish the Terms ‘Cheating’ and ‘Falling Off the Wagon’

This may be the most important of all. When low carb becomes “just the way you eat,” any particular high carb food which you may choose to eat from time to time is still within the context of a low carb way of eating. For example, most of the time, I eat delicious low carb foods. I use vegetables instead of pasta. I bake with nut flours and flax seed meal. I focus on protein and vegetables in my meals, whether at home or out. But when I go out for sushi with a group of friends, I’ll have some, and I’m not going to pick all the rice out of the rolls (it’s easy enough to lift the fish off the rice with nigiri, though). If my husband and I go out for a special meal and there’s creme brulee on the menu, I’ll have some if I’m not too full. Does this mean I’m “off the wagon” or “cheating”? No! Low carb is still, after all these years, “just the way I eat.” But there has to be room for flexibility in any diet. Life takes us in many directions, and food is an important part of life.

Of course, it’s possible to get too flexible—then, we will find ourselves with carb cravings, weight gain, or “carb hangovers.” When this happens, there’s no need for hysterics, self-blame, or criticism. We’ve just wandered off exploring a side path, and we need to wander right back!. But that needn’t be a struggle— after all, we now know what way of eating is best for us, and there are lots of people to help us get over the inevitable bumps in the road.

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

If you really want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Why Exercise?

The big reason people want to exercise is because they want to lose weight and they feel like the answer is to burn more calories. That would be the answer if it was that simple. It’s not really that simple, but exercise has lots of benefits besides just burning calories.

I’ll explain; If your not using some of your muscles they shrink, they lose their strength, they get flabby and when you want to lose weight that flabby muscle tissue is the bodies tissue of choice and the oldest fat that you have will be used last by the body. So in most cases you can lose weight but only lose a very small amount of fat.

I want to emphasis that without a proper amount of exercise your body will not maintain all of it’s functions. In short, without enough activity or body movement, parts of your body will slowly lose the ability to function properly. Humans are built to move around constantly until dark when the body starts to go into a hibernation mode, to restore the body to rejuvenated state so it’s ready for the next day. And this worked successfully for millions of years until we became automated. Humans now have machines that do our manual labor for us.

And here lies the problem we have with our health. Over the past one hundred years, we have become so automated, even jobs that use to require extreme amounts of manual labor only require a small amount to labor. You can see that with the amount of robotics in factories today and the heavy equipment used in the construction industry. Soon robots will do all the manual labor. That’s how you’ll see factory jobs come back to America. In America, we can automate factories better than they can in Asia.

But getting back to exercise and the need to exercise. In today’s world, even in the kitchen, we do only a fraction of the manual labor that a person had to do in the 1950’s. A case in point, how many people cut their own grass anymore? How many more office workers do we have compared to the 1950’s?Think about that for a few minutes.

So it’s only been recently, about 30 years now, that humans realize the need to increase activity. The weight loss industry started this push in the 1980’s and saw the population’s waistline growing year after year and found a way to make money. Diets and exercise programs became the rage. Jane Fonda had a new career with her exercise tapes. Now you can see how exercise went together with weight loss. And that was the image put forth to Americans in advertising. But most of us never had the time to worry about physical fitness.

The real story about weight loss is first being told recently. Eighty percent of weight loss is diet and only 20% is exercise. But telling you the story about how to diet isn’t going to make anyone any money, so you don’t hear much about it. Big business would rather sell you something and make money than give you information free.

Now we come back to the question, “Why exercise”? As I said before, we have to keep our bodies active to keep the body working properly and we don’t have enough activity in our lives because humans have automated so much of our lives today that we barely do half the manual labor we did in the 1950’s or for that matter around 1900 when most people didn’t have cars.

I’m not blaming big business for all our health problems, after all, we still buy the products they sell us. As long as people buy the pills or food and they don’t die right away, companies will continue to make things that people want to buy, whether it’s healthy or not.

Exercise can make a big difference in your health. If you have a lot of activity in your life, the body is very forgiving and can fix a lot of the mistakes we make. For instance, you might have an alcoholic beverage once in a while and it won’t do you any harm. When you are very active your blood circulates faster and can do a better job of repairing the body. When your blood circulation is faster your brain functions are better.

When I lost the more recent extra fat, all my vitals improved and I don’t have the joint pain I had when I was 15 pounds heavier. I know 15 pounds doesn’t sound like much when you weigh 175, but for me, 160 pounds seems to be my perfect weight.

So do I exercise now that I lost the weight? Of course, I want to stay strong and I want my joints to keep working properly. So like millions of other Americans, I started to do Yoga. And on alternate days I weight train using dumbells. Because I’m more active and I found a good weight and lost my body fat, I can pretty much eat anything I want in moderation. I try and stick to a healthy diet of fresh foods but you can’t eat at home every day. And you have to eat some of the food that your friends and family put on the table, but by being active and exercising I have no trouble maintaining my weight and staying trim and fit.

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

If you really want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Good Diet Apps

I’ve written about “fitness apps” before. It’s a great way to help you organize your fitness program. Many of us have little time to spend trying to stay fit. We workout and watch our diet, but we never seem to accomplish our goal. We blame it on not working enough. “If I only had more time to workout I know I could be slim and trim like my friends.” Maybe it’s not a shortage of time that’s your problem, maybe you just need to organize your time better and eat better. Getting fit is 80% diet and only 20% exercise. If you’re walking, a brisk walk every day along with a good diet, you too can be slim and trim. You don’t really have to eat less to lose weight. You just have to eat better.

I made a complete change in my diet. I donated all the food in my house and started over with only fresh food. Nothing frozen. I would buy beans and rice from the “bulk food section” along with my breakfast cereal. Fresh produce and fresh seafood, very little red meat. For several months all the meat I bought was chicken breasts and seafood. Surprisingly, frozen seafood is ok, nothing is added. Even can tuna is good quality and straight from the ocean. You can buy most any fish vaccum packed and frozen in the supermarket. I don’t buy the farm raised, it has to say “Farm Raised” on the label but most of what I see is wild.

Apps can be a handy tool to help you lose weight and eat a healthier diet, but how do you get the most out of the app you use? For advice, we turned to registered dietitian nutritionist Angela Lemond, who practices in Plano, Texas. She’s a big proponent of apps.

“We know that apps can help with accountability, and the research tells us that accountability is key when it comes to consistency and being able to make and maintain changes,” says Lemond. “And changes are not easy.”

The Key Feature to Look For

The most important feature of any app designed to help you lose weight and improve your diet, says Lemond, is its ability to track your eating patterns over time. Why? Because what’s important is not a single meal but what and how you’re eating over the long haul. “Look at your food patterns as much as your total calories,” she says. This means using the food diary function to track your meals, snacks, and beverages on a daily basis.

Most people underestimate how much they eat, so the diary will help bring you back to reality. It will also show you where you need to improve your eating habits. “For example, I see that many people don’t eat enough in the first parts of the day and so they have a tendency to overeat at the end of the day,” says Lemond. “You need to get enough food throughout the day rather than worrying about meeting that one calorie goal.”

But she says the diary can also tell you when you eat too little. Lemond sees this often with people who follow a good exercise routine. They don’t support their workouts with enough food and the proper nutrition. Once your app shows you the pattern, you can correct it.

It’s Up to You

Apps may be a big help, but you have to do most of the work. After all, to gain insight into your eating habits, you must track EVERYTHING, says Lemond. Here’s what she tells her clients: “If you’re only going to log occasionally, you may as well not do it at all. I have to see the patterns. If you are not losing weight, I can’t tell you why that is if I don’t have that data.”

Fortunately, many apps have large databases that include nutrition information for both common and not-so-common foods. Some allow you to simply scan the barcode on the package of whatever you grab from the fridge. All you have to do is enter the portion size, and the app calculates its calories and other info and automatically adds it to your diary.

Lemond has a few favorite apps that she recommends to her clients:

MyFitnessPal (Android, iOS and Windows)
Lose It! (Android and iOS)
Sage (website)

The first two, which have both been around a while, offer vast food databases and plenty of helpful features in the free versions. Lemond recommends you try those first before you commit to a monthly subscription fee, which opens up features such as community challenges and more in-depth food analysis.

Sage is a more recent entry to the weight loss app lineup. It’s web-based, and while its database is not as large as that of the other two, it provides a lot of interesting information. For example, find a food in its database, and the app will tell you how long you’ll have to bike to burn off the calories consumed. “It is doing things with food that other apps have not done,” says Lemond.

Yes, apps can be labor-intensive, some more, some less, but that’s a good thing. I like apps because it keeps you focused on your goal. People who fail at weight loss, tell me the same thing over and over. I went to lunch with friends and I forgot about the diet and ordered the same burger the others got. This happens to most people. When your home you look in the frig and remember what you should be eating because that the only thing in the frig, but at work, you go along with your friends and you eat what they’re eating.

The newest and very popular on is “NOOM”. I always like to try the popular apps to see what all the hype is about. Remember that diets today are not about starving yourself but about healthy eating.

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

If you really want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

A Wearable Device That Counts Calories For You

It’s almost too hard to believe, a device to straps on your wrist and monitors your food intake for you and it does it by monitoring your glucose levels. This could be great for anyone that’s overweight or has diabetes. Go to their website and see everything this will do automatically.

You wear this device on your wrist like you would a watch but it has no screen, it’s a monitor. This device monitors your glucose levels automatically to tell exactly how many calories you’re consuming in a 24 hour period. The cell phone app is included and will give you a report about not only your calories but the amount of protein, carbs, and fats you’re eating. It’s an impressive report and you can find out more by going to their website. “healbe.com” The device is called a “GoBe”.

If your weight is causing some serious health problems or soon will, this device might be what you need to monitor your life. Do some research and decide for yourself. It cost about the same as an iWatch or the Samsung Watch.
Monitoring your intake of food and drink and actually reading the reports and then making the changes you have to make to stay healthy can really help those of us how have trouble staying on track.

If you’re overweight, your biggest problem is eating the right food. Eating the food and drinks that will help you lose your extra body fat. 95% of overweight people have given up trying because it’s very difficult to track your calories. To know how many calories to eat and what foods you should eat to lose weight.

Some of my clients will tell me that they don’t have time for classes or meetings. “Maybe Weight Watchers does work but I have a job and a family”. I don’t know how many people pay attention to statistics, but most thin, fit people are single. If you’re married with children it’s extremely hard to find any free time. I understand that.

What you have to decide is “what’s more important”, your health or watching TV. The extra body fat you carry around will cause serious health problems as you age. Waiting until you have health problems like high blood pressure or high cholesterol only makes your health problems harder to fix. Taking pills doesn’t fix anything, it only keeps your vitals in check so you don’t die. Pills are a temporary fix, the only permanent fix is to lose the extra fat.

Being healthy means no more lazy days, you will have an unbelievable amount of energy every day just by changing your diet. Eating too much animal fat in your diet can actually put you in a brain fog. Body fat will slow down body functions and cause the body to go into a hybernation mode and also totally stop burning calories. Eating less calories doesn’t mean “eating less food”. It means eating healthy food like fresh vegetables and fresh fruit, low fat dairy, seafood and whole grains.

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

If you really want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Can You Play “Catch-Up” with Exercise?

I found this post today and it’s worth reblogging. This is a question often asked. Even people in good physical condition are prone to miss workouts. Maybe because of your job or maybe your family or maybe we haven’t workout in years and want to start all over again. This author answers that question. Exercise at any age will improve your health. Once you start, stay with it and over time your vitals will improve and you will lose body fat.

By Brenda Goodman, MA
We’re about a week into the new year, and for many of us, that means our resolutions to eat better, get more sleep, and exercise are probably running headlong into real life.

Sure, it’s great to get to the gym every day, but sometimes a daily workout has to go if you’ve been up all night with a sick child or you’ve got a pressing project that needs attention at work. Ditto for the idea of packing a healthy lunch and getting plenty of shut-eye.

But don’t give up. Science shows that even if you’ve been less than perfect, you can still reap big health benefits if you catch up.

Didn’t exercise enough last week? Being a weekend warrior has almost as many benefits as Monday-through-Friday workouts. Didn’t get enough shut-eye? Extra ZZZs for a couple of nights can help undo some of the physical harms of cheating your sleep. Ate too much? Studies show that you can make up for overindulging — and even lose some weight — by just being a part-time calorie counter. In fact, experts say, embracing imperfection can help you reach your health goals.

Weekend Warriors Still Win

Before you read on, I want you to know that I tried the hit and miss game when I was trying to lose weight. If you’re doing maintenance you can play that game of missing some workout or overindulging once in a while, but when you’re trying to lose pounds I found it hard to cheat without gaining the weight I lost. In other words, if I was on course to lose 2 pounds a week and I had been losing for several weeks, just one binge meal might cost me a week of progress. I would stop losing, and maybe in gain a pound, but if might take me two weeks before I’d start to lose again.

You’ve probably heard that you need to get about 150 minutes of moderate physical activity like brisk walking, or 75 minutes of vigorous activity like jogging, or some mix of the two, each week. But very few of us reach that goal, which is recommended by the CDC and World Health Organization.

In fact, most Americans get less than 10 minutes of moderate exercise every day, according to a 2015 study that used data collected on nearly 8,000 adults who wore activity monitors for a week. A tiny fraction of people in that study — about 3% — were barely active during the week, but they made up for it on weekends, averaging about an hour of moderate to vigorous physical activity on both Saturday and Sunday.

Now, a new study suggests these “weekend warriors” may be on to something. The study, which included data from more than 63,000 adults in the U.K., found that adults who reported meeting physical activity recommendations by squeezing all their exercise into just one or two sessions a week had a 30% lower risk of early death than people who got no exercise at all. They also had a lower chance of dying from cancer or heart disease than people who were sedentary.

Okay, I can see that something is better than nothing, but you can’t lose weight being a weekend warrior. If you are doing maintenance and are in fit condition, then a weekend warrior might be able to stay fit with two hours or so of extreme exercise on the weekends.

My secret is to workout every day, even if it’s only for 10 minutes. I’ll run through all the exercise I can squeeze in as fast as I can. If that’s 10 minutes, okay, tomorrow I’ll do more, but every day I do some exercise. And If I have time, I’ll do yoga after dinner. I’ve been doing this for a few years and have no trouble maintaining my weight strength.

The secret to good health is to lose your body fat and strengthen your muscles. By doing this you’ll increase your blood flow and become a healthier person. When your body is functioning properly, which doesn’t just mean that your feeling fine, it means that all your organs are doing what they should be doing, you will be a much healthier, happier person who doesn’t have to depend on their doctor for their quality of life.

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

If you really want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.