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You have probably heard that if you use a smaller number of calories than your body needs for fuel through a calories loss eating program and if you exercise then you will lose weight. It is true, and this is the only way that you will ever successfully enjoy a healthy weight loss and keep this weight off.

Let us say you normally eat about 2,000 calories per day, which is the recommended amount of calories for an average weight adult. If you create a calories loss and cut your daily calories back to 1,500 then your body needs to get that additional 500 calories of energy from somewhere. It will get that additional energy by burning energy from the fat stored in your body.

That will make you lose weight. There are roughly 3,500 calories in a pound of fat so in order to lose five pounds you will need to burn an additional 17,500 calories. That is why it is impossible for those fad diets and trendy diet pills to work like they say they do and why a gradual calories loss through eating a healthy diet is the only way to go.

No pill can ever cause your body to burn that many additional calories. Only restricting your calories in a calories loss menu and forcing your body to burn fat for energy can cause real weight loss. Dieting is about more than just calories though and you need to maintain a sense of balance in your eating program to lose weight and remain healthy.

If you only eat a salad and drink diet sodas for calories, you still won’t lose weight because you are not giving your body what it needs to function. Your diet should not be something that you use to punish yourself or to punish your body. Your body needs food for fuel.

There is no getting around that fact, so you need to change what you give your body for fuel and that is where the common sense part comes in. It is common sense to know that your body needs whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats. Most of us would agree that some of these foods are OK but how do we include them in our diet on a regular basis instead of those high calorie foods we enjoy the most?

It is not always easy to only give your body what it needs when you are craving a juicy, cheesy, greasy burger, but if you want to be healthy, you will choose to skip that burger and replace it with a turkey and salad wholemeal roll. Changes like this are not really about going ‘on’ a diet in the traditional sense. They are about a lifestyle change and creating a calories and this is just a tool to help lose unwanted weight and keep it off.  

Choose to make your health a priority, watching your calorie intake as a guide and instead of punishing your body for being overweight, celebrate your body and feed it so that your body gets strong and healthy. A diet that is rich in whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, hormone free lean meat, and other ingredients combined with regular exercise is the best way, and the only way, to get truly fit and to get your body to the ideal weight.

When you first start a new healthier eating program it can feel awkward, but after you stick with it for a time, it will begin to feel NORMAL. The trick is getting through that period of calories loss ‘change’. Once you accept the change, accept the new routine and start to notice your weight loss it will feel great…like, how did I ever NOT do this before? 

Warm regards

Rowena French

For the Team

mightydigitaldownloads.com

Rowena French knows that the way to good health is through weight loss and exercise. Want to reclaim your body and enjoy long term weight loss watch my video?  Subscribe to my magazine and free report on common sense weight loss. Read my blog to learn more about losing weight permanently and staying healthy through calories loss.

High-carbohydrate diets of the 1970’s reflected no understanding of portion control as the way to long term weight loss.  Instead, they encouraged the increased consumption of carbohydrates and decreased the amount of meat and protein portion in a diet. Potatoes flew off the shelves and bread-lovers dove head-first into the crusty, white loaves in the bakery section of supermarkets. Whole-wheat was not even on the radar screen at the time!

But the focus on carbohydrates and reduction of protein was not a long-term answer to weight loss either. Before the craze ended, it was clear that a diet heavy with carbohydrates was not the answer for sustained weight loss, and the focus moved to meats and protein. These became low-carbohydrate diets and they rocked the dieting world again by putting the brakes on carbs!

Diets like this literally reversed the fads of yester-year’s high-carbohydrate diets by saying that bread and pasta and anything white were bad for you and should be eliminated. Once again, the public jumped aboard a new diet fad and lost the critical nutritional value of many carbohydrate foods. They failed to understand that the key to healthy weight loss over the long term is by following a healthy eating plan not a restrictive one through portion control.

The Atkins Diet glamorized the high-fat, high-protein diet and ‘ketosis’ became a household word as millions of people jumped on the dieting roller coaster again! According to Wikepedia, ketosis is ‘a stage in metabolism occurring when the liver converts fat into fatty acids and ketone bodies which can be used by the body for energy.’ Unfortunately, many medical resources consider this a physiological state that is associated with chronic starvation! Scientists and physicians scratched their heads with concern about how this diet would impact the heart’s health in years to come.

There are many ways to lose weight but the key to success is being able to keep it off and maintain a healthy weight. Limiting food types, minimizing calories, and eliminating food groups can help you lose weight quickly. But when you resume your old eating habits, you’ll regain the weight even when you’re just introducing healthy foods back into your meal plans! The secret to losing weight and avoiding weight gain after this is by reducing the amount of food you eat through portion control rather than eliminating them completely.

That’s why you should not deprive yourself of foods you enjoy. You need to learn to manage portion control and know more about what your body needs to stay healthy. It’s clear from history that fad diets are exactly that – FADS! Diets are short-term fixes to a lifelong problem and they often have hazardous health effects in the long-term.

We now know that healthy proportions of carbohydrates, fats, and oils are needed in the diet for healthy weight management. Understanding the value and importance of all types of food groups, vitamins, and nutrients is essential to better managing your health and your weight. Eating all of these in a balanced way through portion control allows your body to react as it should and provides a long term answer to weight loss and maintenance

Don’t think about ‘dieting’. Think instead about eating a healthy portion of foods from each food group. Listen to your hunger signals, and enjoy your food. This is the basis of portion control, the weight loss and weight management secret we can learn from our European neighbors who keep trim without eliminating foods that they enjoy.

Warm regards

Rowena French

For the Team@mightydigitaldownloads.com

Rowena French uses responsible portion control to successfully manage her own weight and her family’s health. Tired of dieting without success? Sign up to my magazine to learn more about how to use portion control for healthy, permanent weight loss. If you haven’t already subscribed to my free product sample, watch my preview video for more information about the whole portion control package.

I write lots of articles about stress, especially workplace stress but as it is Valentine's Day, an important time in the annual calendar for expressions of love, an article on romance and stress seems relevant. On Valentine's Day, the romantics among us send cards, give flowers and chocolates, and take time out for romantic dinners and outings. The two Valentine symbols are Cupid and the heart. No doubt, Valentine's Day is as much about commerce as romance, with men spending twice as much as women, and over one billion cards being sent across the world. But how does romance flourish during tough economic times and what is the impact on personal and workplace stress?

Here is a simple conclusion: when times are tough people spend to make themselves feel better. They want to do things which are memorable, even extravagant. They want to feel valued and secure. They want to reduce their stress and they can do this through pleasant events, romantic interludes, and physical expression of love.

We are in the middle of one of the gloomiest financial times since the stock market crash of 1987. So how does this affect our feelings about romance and sex?

There are conflicting theories and research about the effect of sexual interest and activity during a recession. But is there a chemical basis to the sexual interest?  There are three main neurophysiological chemicals that affect our behavior: dopamine, epinephrine (adrenaline), and norepinephrine. These three chemicals are involved in arousal and stress although the main chemical seen in stress situations is cortisol. One of the earliest stages of human sexual response is called libido and we talk about people having high and low libidos in terms of the level of their sexual interest. Testosterone and estrogen are two chemicals implicated in libido but a major one is dopamine.

There are two different and conflicting points of view from the research about the relationship between sexual interest and difficult financial times as in a recession. One view is that stress causes an increase in dopamine levels and, as I mentioned above, elevated levels of dopamine increase libido. An increase in libido means an increased interest in physical and romantic relationships. So, one research conclusion suggests that Valentine's Day, recessions, and romantic and sexual interest would interact and probably reduce personal and workplace stress.

There have been reports recently of very large increases in people subscribing to websites like eHarmony, Manhunt and Match, Internet dating sites. As well, there are reports of increases in sales of sex toys around the world. From a psychological point of view, though, increased stress levels typically dampen arousal and desire. If people feel uncertain, insecure, stressed, and anxious libido is negatively affected. All of these negative feelings lower one’s feelings of self-efficacy and self-confidence. Both of these emotional states are important in terms of reducing performance anxiety and increasing pleasurable anticipation.

It is difficult to draw out the lesson from these two conflicting points of view but one of the constants in this analysis is the concept of stress. The events which surround us at home or in the workplace or in the larger society all affect our levels of stress. Stress makes us feel anxious, worried, distracted, and even tired. Stress affects our personal and our workplace relationships. Stress is manageable and requires us to work diligently to control and reduce our levels of stress. I would like to think in this time of Valentine's Day that enjoying each other romantically and physically is a great way to reduce personal and workplace stress and see the real value in our lives.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Dr Jeff

For the team at mightydigitaldownloads.com 

Dr Jeff, a psychologist, writes about workplace stress, personal stress, interpersonal stress, and how to manage stress. On his blog,http://www.drjeffbailey.com, he answers questions from readers. He works hard to make his articles practical and helpful and all of his articles are based on sound research evidence and extensive clinical experience. Please go to his Dr Jeff blog to get your free report on stress.