The weight loss industry is a multi-billion dollar industry (a 35 billion dollar industry to be exact). If these products all work, why is obesity on the rise in America? Why are people and children especially, gaining more weight and being considered obese or overweight based upon the body mass index (BMI)? Weight loss isn't rocket science and you do not need a special blend of herbs, lotion or potion to make it happen. Just this past June, I used these simple tips for one month to see how effective they could be. I weighed myself and had my fat body percentage taken. Within 29 days, I lost 20 lbs and dropped 4.5 % in fat body percentage. These simple steps I used can help you lose weight and make you feel great!

EAT! We believe that if we eat less, we will lose more weight. In one reality that is true, in another it isn't. Let me explain: If you continue to eat 3 to 4 small meals a day with two snacks in between the meals, you will be putting more coal into the fire. As you constantly give your body something to burn up, the body will increase its basal metabolic rate (BMR), which is the minimum of calories your body uses up. As this rate continues to climb, it will take less and less of yourself to burn up calories to lose weight. Eating little or hardly anything at all, will make your body put on fat. When you starve the body or not give it enough nutrients that it needs, when you finally sit down to have a meal, the body will absorb every calorie, carbohydrate, fat and protein consumed because it believes it is in starvation mode. 

Q: How do you know how much you need to eat?

A: Calculate your BMI and BMR—After you know your BMR, you know how many calories you can eat a day without storing any of them as fat. 

DRINK WATER! Water is one of the main essentials to losing weight. Who wouldn't think that water is beneficial to the body if it makes up 70% of our body? The less water you consume, the more toxic you are. The more toxic you are, the more fat cells your body will produce regardless of what or how you eat. Toxins that are stored into the body get put into fat cells. See, the body has an amazing intelligence—it knows when something is harmful to the body, it either sends it out of the body or if that isn't an option, the body will put it on the outside part of the body so it doesn't damage any organ tissues. (This is why when someone does a detox, they feel dizzy, want to throw up, diarrhea, headaches, etc.) As you continue to drink water, your cells become more able to exchange nutrients and wastes in and out.

Q: How do you know you are drinking enough water? 

A: Here is a simple equation that can help you know exactly how much water you need to consume: Take your body weight, divide it by two and the answer is the amount of water you would need to consume per day in ounces. For example, I weight 210 lbs so the minimum water consumption I would need is 105 oz of water per day, or just a little over 3 liters. 

DETOX! Detoxing is essential in weight loss. I had many people come to me and tell me they have tried everything and as soon as I put them on a detox program, they lost the desired weight and continue to lose the weight they want.  As I stated before in the "water" tip, toxins are stored in fat cells. The more toxic a body is, the harder it will be to lose weight. Our body has amazing detox systems and one of the best ones besides urination is sweating. Sweating expels many toxins out of the body. But, to maximize the detoxing factors in the body, you need to do it through proper nutrition. And research has shown the best way to detox your body is through whole food supplements. Whole food supplements are vitamins that come directly from food. There are many different types of detox programs available. If you want a guidance for which detox may work for you, just email me and I will be glad to help you.

REDUCE SUGAR! Sugar is the biggest killer for weight gain. Americans on average consume 150 lbs of sugar per year.  Sugar is the cause for many different illnesses and diseases, but since we are talking about weight-loss, I will keep the focus on this. One type of sugar Americans over-consume and is in many products you will find at a local grocery store is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).  Europe banned HFCS due to its negative effects on the body.  HFCS does not let a hormone in the body called Leptin be produced and if this hormone isn't produced, the body doesn't know how much fat to produce that the body needs. Too much sugar consumption results in fat production and insulin. If we have a meal, most carbohydrates are broken down into glucose, which is a source of energy the body uses. But, if you have fructose in your meal, your body will stop breaking down glucose and start breaking down fructose. Fructose goes directly to the liver and then right into the blood stream and all the glucose that is waiting to be broken down now gets stored as fat. So, when you consume fruit, always make sure it is in the beginning of your meal, not at the end. And stay away from refined sugars, agave syrup and use a healthy alternative like Stevia.  Make sure that the stevia is not heavily processed and it is the entire leaf involved. 

EXERCISE! We all know exercise had to be a part of these tips. The rule of thumb is, after knowing your BMR, you want to consume about the amount of calories you burn but make sure that if you add exercise in, you are burning more calories than what is being consumed. For example, if your body burns 1000 calories all by itself, and you consume 1250 calories in a day, that means you need to burn off over 250 calories from working out in order to not gain fat. Now, exercise has many benefits such as increasing metabolism, cardio health, brain health and memory, osteoporosis and osteopenia, etc. Make sure you get your heart rate above 80% so you can really get a good workout and burn off those extra calories that keep you away from your weight loss goals!

CONSUME FRUITS & VEGGIES! Eating two times the amount of vegetables as fruits will help you in your weight-loss goals. Eating dark, leafy vegetables like kale, spinach, green chard, dandelion, Brussel sprouts, romaine lettuce, etc. Consuming  more vegetables helps regulate and keep sugar down plus helps increase the detoxifying factors in the body. You want to keep your fruit to a minimum due to the sugar load. Just because fruit has natural sugar, doesn't mean you cannot gain weight from eating too much sugar.

CHOOSE LEAN PROTEIN! The more protein consumption you have, the more your body will burn fat since protein needs a lot of energy to break it down to be digested. There are many different theories about how much protein the body needs. The easiest way to have you understand how much protein you want to consume in a day is basically by taking your body weight and dividing by half. That is the maximum amount of protein you want to consume in one day. Remember, it is the quality of protein that matters rather than the quantity. A lot of protein shakes contain fillers, additives and other things that create havoc on our bodies. Protein supplements I recommend and take are these two types: non-GMO, Organic split pea, yellow split pea or green pea protein. You have to make sure it is non-GMO and organic since peas are known to be mainly GMO. The other protein I recommend is grass-fed whey protein. There are a few companies out there that offer this. The reason being is because regular milk has hormones, anti-biotics and fed grains that aren't natural to a cow's diet. Just imagine eating a cow that has created a lot of toxins from what it is fed, what do you think it does to our body?

DO A LOW GRAIN DIET!  You want to consume a diet low in grains. The grains biggest that do not help in weight-loss nor our health systems are corn and wheat.  These two grains increase inflammation and effect us just like they do cows: When cows consume a grain diet (usually corn), their muscles are marbleized (fat within the muscle).  Grains are what turns into glucose and over consumption of glucose will lead to building of fat within the body. The grain I consume is brown rice. Brown rice is a complex carbohydrate that adds a lot of vitamins and nutrients to the body. The less carbohydrates you consume, the better you are at losing weight. You still need carbohydrates in your diet but I wouldn't recommend too much—maybe 40% of your diet.

FOCUS ON EMOTIONAL HEALTH! Stress is one key factor that throws off the harmony in the body. When we have disharmony in the body, it can lead to a lot of effects—one of them is producing fat. When we are stressed out, our body will overwork itself to a point where it will break down too much fat. The problem with this is, we will still feel hungry—for bad carbs. We look for pizza, fried foods, cakes, sweets, and so forth instead of eating lean. When we continue to do this over a period of time, we will realize that it will add on pounds over time. I have done meditations during one month to prove to myself that I could lose 10 to 15 lbs in one month without changing anything else (I worked out 3 times a week) and I lost the extra 15 lbs. Keep your stress levels down through meditation, chiropractic care, yoga, Tai chi, etc.

REST!  When we do not get enough sleep, it puts the body out of sync and through this, many things can happen. But the main importance about rest besides all the health benefits it provides is, in order to get in great shape, you need rest. Your body, mind and muscles need to rest, repair and regenerate. Also through rest, your body goes through a heavy detox where your organs dump out toxins between certain given times. For example, your liver dumps toxins into the blood around 1 a.m. to 3 a.m.  Make sure you get at least 7 to 9 hours of sleep. To maximize your sleep, if you go to bed at 10 p.m. and wake up at 4 a.m., you receive 8 hours of sleep even though only 6 hours went by. Every hour you go to sleep before midnight counts as 2 hours. So, you can do the math to see how you can fit sleeping into your schedule that will work for you

I know if you apply these 10 tips into your life, it will help you as much as it helped me.  Enjoy, and if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me.