Herculean Weight Loss

Herculean Weight Loss

 

As a young boy I had a strong fascination for Greek mythology…  Ancient history was one of my favorite subjects in school…  Of all the legends or myths, the one I most identified with were the adventures of Hercules…  Those of you who know Greek mythology are aware; Hercules was the son of Zeus and was half man, half god…  I must have watched every one of Hollywood’s reenactments of Hercules staring Steve Reeves more times than I can even remember…

 

This strong interest in Hercules, would place my feet on the journey of developing my strong physical body, but more importantly my knowledge of how the human body responds to nutrition and exercise…  The passion for this knowledge would have me spending countless hours of research and endless hours in the gym, long after every-one else had left…

 

Though the history of what I accomplished with my body is not ancient, the basement full of trophies and titles are a distant memory and the dust they collect make them appear as if they were a part of the Greek ruins…  However the passion for the knowledge and more importantly desire to share the knowledge burns brighter than ever…

 

Throughout my life I have had several wonderful dog companions… I usually gave them Greek names; one was called Thea and of course another called Hercules…  During the trials and tribulations of life I never heard from Zeus and Hercules never showed up in my time of need…  Why, because they never really existed, which is why we call them myths…  However the real creator God would speak to me, and his son Jesus showed up every time I called upon his name…

 

On one occasion my dog Hercules had lost his life through circumstances outside of my control…  I was very sad and as I spoke to God I expressed my sadness saying, “I miss my Hercules”…  God’s response back would change my life…  He said, “Hercules was not your dog”…  I was puzzled, I responded, “Whose dog was he”…  He answered, “ Hercules was mine, I allowed you to have him”…  Now came the life changing part, God asked did you take care of Hercules like he belonged to you or me”?  Well my answer quickly changed my focus…  I now have two dogs and they no longer receive Greek names, they have biblical names Shiloh and Cyrus…  Why? They do not belong to me, but to God and he allows me the privilege to take care of them for him…  I have never loved dogs more or enjoyed their companionship more…

 

So what does my story of Hercules have to do with helping clients lose weight?  To better explain the fire, which burns so brightly inside me and seems as I age to burn even hotter…  The words I shared with you were not audible and Hollywood will never

create them into an epic movie… It’s the voice within my spirit, because that is where I believe the Spirit of God dwells…  If Hercules did not belong to me, then the body I live in does not as well, it belongs to God…  He has allowed me to enjoy decades of wonderful health and I intend to take care of this body as if the king owned it…

 

Now I ask you this question?  Have you been taking care of your weight and health like it belongs to you or God…  Get really quiet and still when you ask, and I believe you will hear something as well…

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Apple A Day Weight Loss

Apple A Day Weight Loss

Growing up my old world Italian mom would say, “ A apple a day keeps the doctor away”…  Your mom maybe was saying it too…  Well my mom was right throughout my life there have been very few doctor visits, and I have eaten what seems like an orchard of apples…  So what did our mom’s know about the health benefits of apples, especially when losing weight?

When meeting new clients, I always emphasize the big picture of healthy lifestyle instead of dieting to lose the un-wanted fat and keep it off…  Apples should be a major player as you focus in your picture of ideal health and weight…

I’ll take you on a journey of the apple’s role in your body on route being leaner and healthier…  First, lets start in the stomach apples, along with other fruits and vegetables are alkaline foods and help balance our PH, or acid, alkaline balance…  Many who are over-weight have dietary habits too high in acid foods coming from animal protein and processed grains…  Over time this leads to acid stomach conditions, like reflux and certain cancers, which thrive in acid environments…

As the partially digested apple moves into the small intestine pectin a soluble fiber in apples becomes a healthy sponge absorbing digestive bile, which will result in the lowering of cholesterol levels and help maintain a healthy gallbladder…  As it moves into the large intestine it assists in forming a healthy stool, preventing conditions like diverticulosis or pockets in the intestines, which can become infected leading to a more serious condition of diverticulitis…

As the nutrients from the apple enter the blood system they provide a beneficial role in the pancreas function…  First the glucose from the apple being low glycemic causes a slow gradual rise in blood sugar, which triggers the beta cells in the pancreas to produce insulin sending glucose to muscle, liver, brain and providing stable cellular energy…  This stable insulin response, prevents fat storage and keeps cell membranes from becoming insulin resistance, which leads to type II diabetes…  Second, apples are packed with antioxidant, photo-nutrients called flavonoids, which keep free radical destruction of cells, leading to cancer…  Pancreatic cancer is still one of the least treatable forms of cancer, so lifestyle, which prevents, is far better than treatments, which repair…

Lastly apples play a role in healthy heart and brain function…  Pectin the soluble fiber in apples improves blood flow by reducing cholesterol which reduces plaque buildup and inflammation in artery walls …   This can greatly reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke… Quercetin a flavonoid found in apples prevent free radicals from damaging the outer lining of brain cells, which leads to cognitive decline as in Alzheimer’s disease…

Will eating an apple a day by itself solve your overweight-condition? Are apples the sole solution in maintaining good health?  It would be foolish to think it would…  However as part of a healthy lifestyle incorporating frequency of meals, portioned amounts and quality of foods, nothing is more foundational than an apple to manage blood sugar and hormonal responses leading to a leaner healthier body…  So my mom was right, an apple a day has kept the doctor and added weight away…  

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Man Or A Mouse Weight Loss

Man Or A Mouse Weight Loss

 

Its Saturday morning early March in the year 1975, and Old Dominion University and Virginia Tech University are preparing to do battle on the baseball diamond…  As a nineteen-year old freshman pitcher for Old Dominion, I expected to spend the day trying to stay warm in the dugout, when all of a sudden it started to very lightly snow…  Being from Massachusetts, I was the only player on the team north of the Mason Dixon line…  Then I heard coach Methaney a former Yankee call out my name, Remington go warm up your our starting pitcher today…  Who me coach, I replied, then he took me aside where no one else could hear and said, ‘are you a man or a mouse”?  The coached figured in this cold weather, I was the right man for the job…  Well the coach was right, that day in March thirty seven years ago my name went into the record books, because I threw a no-hitter against the guys from Tech…  It would be the only no-hitter I would pitch in my college career…  I still remember today those words, are you a man or a mouse…

 

Later that summer of the same year, I would work at Mason Research Center in Worcester MA, where they conducted mainly cancer research and other scientific studies on mice, rabbits and monkeys….  So for over thirty years I have witnessed and followed the scientific breakthroughs discovered in clinical trials working especially with mice…  I both applaud and support their findings in many ground breaking advances in science…

 

 In a recent counseling session I was asked this question…  Coach when you measure my body fat, can you determine how much of it is white fat or brown fat?  I was surprised because it had never been asked before, even after thousands of counseling visits… I replied, “why do you ask”?  The over-weight client said he just finished reading a study about a clinical finding turning white fat into brown fat in mice…  Now you now where I’m going, out of my mouth comes, “ are you a man or a mouse”…

 

So what’s the skinny on white fat and brown fat?  Humans and mice have both white and brown fat…  In the simplest of terms, white fat stores unused energy and has little metabolic activity…  Brown fat is metabolically active and releases energy to keep us warm…  If you are over-weight you have too much white fat and located primarily in middle third of your body…  Brown fat is located in upper back, neck and very little brown fat is found in adults, hence the theory of turning white fat, which is energy storing into brown fat energy burning…

 

White fat can be "browned" with a class of drugs called thiazolidazines (TZDs), which increase the body's sensitivity to insulin. However, TZDs have many adverse effects -- including liver toxicity, bone loss, and, ironically, weight gain -- which have limited the use of these drugs…  I can see the commercials now ten seconds of benefits and twenty seconds of side effects

 

 

The theory behind this discovery is irisin; a hormone found in both mice and human has been able to be manipulated to turn white fat into brown fat in mice…  Now here’s the theory, if the hormone is also in humans, maybe it can alter white fat into brown fat…

 

Now here’s the reason for my comment, “are you a man or mouse”…  The way this type of news is reported is not helping in the battle of the bulge…  So what do we do brake out the ice breakers and head to the north-pole and shiver our way to a leaner body…  This discovery though news worthy is not what some scientists call the “holy grail” to solving our battle losing unwanted fat…

 

So what does work, and has worked for decades at losing fat and more importantly keeping it off…  Here is The Fat Loss Coach prescription for getting to your ideal weight and staying there…  It’s a discovery I made, not working with mice, but with thousands of men and women…  I did not discover it in the lab, but on the front lines of the battle- field helping fifteen patients each day for twenty plus years…  The foundation of this breakthrough is a lifestyle forged with the right balance of quality foods, portioned amounts, frequency of meals, duration and type of exercise, good hydration and proper rest, combined with the right dose of behavior modification…  This discovery manages both hormonal and metabolic activity and has stood the test of time…  The commercial for this discovery thirty seconds of benefits and zero for side effects, because there are none…  I can see that old Yankee smiling down on me today and hear those words, “are you a man or a mouse”…

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Weight Loss Battle In The Mind

Weight Loss Battle In The Mind

Losing weight and keeping it off is more than something you do, but someone you become…  My first question when meeting a new client is what would you like me to help you do?  Many times I receive a surprised look, and what seems obvious response of help me to lose weight…  When it comes to solving this problem what seems obvious on the surface is a reflection of a deep-rooted identity supporting the over-weight condition…  To shed the un-wanted fat, we must also remove the thoughts, which created the over-weight character…  So to win this battle of the bulge it starts in the mind…

So how was this character or identity of being over-weight formed?  The same way it will leave you though your thoughts…  Here is The Fat Loss Coach formula for thinking your way to your ideal weight…

Be careful what you think for your thoughts turn into words…  Watch over what you speak for your words turn into action…  Be mindful of your actions, because they become physical habits…  Guard over your habits for they form your character…  Your character will determine your destiny…

Now we take our knowledge of right foods, right amounts and four hours apart and think right, speak right, act right, repeat right and become right…  I have seen this battle won thousands of times…  Your victory is as close as your next thought…

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Cowboy or Shepherd Approach To Succeed Losing Weight

Cowboy or Shepherd Approach To Succeed Losing Weight

During one of my counseling sessions recently a tremendous revelation occurred when I asked a client this question…  What is the difference between a cowboy and a shepherd? I received a blank stare, because they both seem to perform the same job…  They both bring a herd from one location to another…  So where is the epiphany here, they both seem to do the same task?  It is how they go about their task, the shepherd leads their flock and the cowboy drives their herd…

The shepherd is in front and the sheep’s will is to follow…  The cowboy is behind the cattle driving them against their will…  This is where the light turned on inside my client…  Was her will to succeed losing fat leading her, or her desire to still resist preventing what she desired to accomplish from manifesting?

When I meet a potential new client its is customary for me to say I can teach all the techniques to develop a healthy new lifestyle…  When these skills are customized to the client based on body composition, activity level, exercise schedule, food preferences and medical conditions, it will produce dramatic results…  They will experience stable fat loss, without the negative physical responses of dieting..

The client’s role will be to learn the new eating behavior and develop a will to be lead by their new understanding…  The challenge is to keep old behavior from returning…  There are two simple words which reflect is our heart willing or resisting and they are want to and have to…  So simple in fact, many times when we say these two different words, it seems like they have the same meaning…  However want to reflects the hearts desire to be lead and have to its reluctance and be driven…

You can be at your ideal weight…  I have seen it happen thousands of times…  The journey will consist of the footsteps of right foods, right amounts at least four times per day…  When led by your will to follow what you believe, your will always finds a way…  When pushed by feelings of have to eventually you will find an excuse…

The question is the journey determined by the shepherd, cowboy or you?  The shepherd would say, keep your heart pure, mind clear and body willing…

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Gateway to Weight Loss

Gateway to Weight Loss

Most would think a nutritionist would spend all their efforts teaching clients nutrition principles for what goes in their mouth… Well you would be right… Your mouth is the gateway to weight loss and much of my time initially is spent on how calories, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals, photo-nutrients manage our hormone and metabolic responses…

Once these principles have been customized to the individual based on percent of body fat, activity level, exercise schedule, food preferences and medical conditions, dramatic changes take place… Most clients experience impressive fat loss, without losing muscle, some even gain lean tissue as the unwanted fat leaves… 

The key to my opening statement is initial work… Once you take all the guesswork out of what going in their mouth, some of my time is managing what is coming out of their mouth… The sobering truth is a gate swings in both directions both in and out…

I believe long term success losing fat and keeping it off should be holistic… Holistic weight loss, is more than changing eating habits… It is changing your belief and attitude towards your change in quality and quantity of foods consumed…

So the words coming out of our mouth are as important as the foods going into it… Why is this so important, because our words reflect the condition of our belief… It is important to spend time feeding your spirit as well as your body… Your spirit does not need food, but it requires a steady diet of words… What kind of words? Words, which bring life to your belief, and not words, which can destroy it…

I quote the bible a lot in my counseling… A client once said, why do you quote the bible? My response was, would you rather me quote Popular Mechanics… The bible says our tongue has the power of life or death… So for our belief to grow, it is important for words of life to come out of our mouth… Yes, you can be at your ideal weight and when we manage what is going in and out of the gate, nothing can keep it from happening…

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Sound Bites for Weight Loss

Sound Bites for Weight Loss

Each day we are presented some type of nutrition information, which gets are attention to improving some aspect of our health… As a nutritionist, I’m all for educating my clients about their biology, and the role nutrition plays managing it… The challenge is how to implement the information in a way to accomplish our goals…

The media is quick to offer sound bites or key phrases, which at times is somewhat miss leading and at times puzzling… My role with my clients is to help take this knowledge and fit the pieces of the puzzle to each individual…  An example recently Dr Oz reported the fat burning effect of coconut oil… I would be willing to wager coconuts were flying off the trees and inventory of coconut oil quickly depleted… However will it have a major impact on the obesity epidemic in our country?

So lets start with how does coconut oil improve ability to shed unwanted body fat… Yes eating certain dietary fats helps reduce body fat, when kept in balance with other macronutrients… The key understanding is when balanced nutrition is practiced…  So why is coconut oil, making news as a partner in the battle of the bulge? Nutritionist’s have know about its positive benefits for quite some time…

Coconut oil is from a group of fats, which sound bite mentally painted as bad… Coconut oil is a saturated fat, and saturated fats are known being bad for heart and circulatory conditions… Well not all saturated fat is bad and eliminating it totally from your diet is a mistake…

Over the last 30 years, I have seen so many shifts in our perceptions of carbohydrates and fats re-guarding weight management, and it a mistake to say they are either good or bad, because they are both… Why such a focus on carbohydrates, and fats, because they brake down faster than proteins…  Poor management of carbohydrates and fats quality and quantity will have a negative effect on our weight and many conditions related to our health…

Carbohydrates were once thought of as either simple or complex, then a shift to high or low glycemic drastically changed are view and use in our daily routines… Fats were placed into saturated or unsaturated, but now term like short, medium and long chain triglycerides are a much better ways to distinguish good or bad fat…

Coconut oil is a medium chain triglyceride, unlike processed vegetable oils and other hydrogenated fats, which are long chain triglycerides...  In simple terms medium chain triglycerides are utilized more efficiently by are bodies and less likely to be stored as fat, or negatively impacting blood vessels, which lead to cardiovascular or circulatory problems…

The weight loss benefit of coconut oil occurs from increase in metabolism...  This is due to its healthy effect on thyroid which is important especially when calorie are reduced during periods of weight loss…

 So if using coconut oil as your major weapon in your weight loss fight you will probably be discouraged in the outcome…  However as part of a balanced approach where calories, portion and quality of protein, carbohydrate and fat, hydration and exercise, it can be part of a winning combination…  http://www.thefatlosscoach.com