Sometimes it is inspirational to just see how an every day non-celebrity has succeeded at losing weight. Take a look at this weight loss video to see what I mean.
I show my transition from 170lbs to 130lbs. kiannaluv.com Weight Loss Basics kiannaluv.com Do you have a WEIGHT LOSS QUESTION FOR ME? Post it here! tinyurl.com And it will be answered in a post like the ones below YOUR Weight loss questions answered …
New research points to some old advice on the importance of calcium for weight management. Research at North Carolina State University shows that cells that are supposed to become bone cells will instead become fat cells when calcium levels are deficient.
Very interesting. And it confirms the role of getting plenty of effective calcium into your system for proper metabolism of all kinds, not just for bones.
The easiest way to lose fat naturally has nothing to do with diet or exercise. It is a lot simpler than that. It is so simple that it is silly. In fact, you do not even have to buy anything to do it. Here is the surprise.
This photo says it all. Read on to see what I mean.
Key Enzyme For How To Lose Stomach Fat
When you want to know how to lose stomach fat, your best friend (or maybe your worst enemy) is an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase (LPL). Its role is to cleave fats from lipoproteins (i.e., proteins that have fat attached to them) known as LDL cholesterol and VLDL cholesterol.
One form of LPL works in fat cells and is activated by insulin. Another form of LPL works in muscle cells and is not activated by insulin. What this means is that when you are well-fed (we all are) and sedentary, more fat will go into your fat cells than into your muscle cells because of where your LPL is working (fat cells) and not working (muscle cells). This explains why eating plenty of food and being inactive makes you fat. No surprise there.
The key, then, is to activate LPL in muscle cells. The good news is that you can do this without exercise. Indeed, for most people, exercise will not be as effective as doing one simple thing: stand up more often.
The Missing Fat Loss Secret Is Simply To Stand Up
Yes, muscle building exercise will raise the levels of LPL and enable muscle cells to take in and burn more fat for energy. However, no amount of exercise will overcome the side effects what most people do, that is, sitting down all day. Only standing up more often will overcome the side effects of sitting down too much.
The important point to grasp here is that being inactive does not have the same effect as sitting down all day. Sitting down too long is much worse.
Likewise, exercise does not have the same effect as standing up. Standing up specifically directs the activation of LPL in muscles that we use for supporting our posture when we are standing up. We do not use them while sitting down, and we do not exercise them when we work out.
Some of the research behind this explanation is astounding. For example, when you sit, the activity of LPL drops more than 90 percent in the muscles that help us stand up. Within 2 hours this shows up as a 20 percent decrease in healthy HDL cholesterol.
Surprising Health Benefits Of Standing
Lean people stand up, on average, for about 2 hours longer than their counterparts. The sitting crowd, on the other hand, has more obesity, more hypertension, higher blood triglycerides, lower blood HDL cholesterol, and higher blood pressure. Finally, older people who move around instead of sitting have half the death rate of their sitting peers.
How else can you benefit from standing more often? Is it not enough to be leaner, have lower triglyceride levels, better blood HDL cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and a longer life? In the immortal words of every late night infomercial, Wait, there’s more!
No more ‘long-distance flight fat ankle’ syndrome. If you sit all day and your ankles swell up, you can retain so much fluid that you can gain 4-5 pounds in one day. Seriously. If you see a puzzling weight gain from one all day sit-down to the next, even if your ankles do not swell up, you are retaining too much fluid.
The explanation for this is that you need enough fluid to keep blood flow going. When everything slows down due to too much sitting, any food you eat will just add to the sludge. Your blood flow becomes more like ketchup than freely flowing blood. Your body’s only defense is to hang onto water to keep things moving.
Good New, Bad News
After reading all the above, the good news and bad news is that you have to stand more. This is good news because it is easy to do, and theoretically you should not have to buy any special equipment to do so. (Maybe you will need a stand-up desk, like I do.) The bad news is that you really must do something out of your normal daily activities. And it may seem strenuous at first.
Fortunately, humans to be upright. This means that the muscles that you have for standing up are already there for you. All you have to do to get them in order is stand up more. In fact, once you get them working the way they are supposed to, it won’t be so difficult to stand up more every day.
Now go do it, and you will be pleasantly surprised how another daily (standing) activity gets better … i.e., the one where you stand on the bathroom scale. The number will start to go down.
Fat loss seems to go hand in hand with salads. This may or may not be true. It depends on what you put into your salad, and what dressing you put on top. Here are some good, tried and true ideas to make sure you do the right thing for fat loss salads.
Salads not only make the best summer weight loss recipes but also top the list of fat loss recipes for women. As modern day women are always busy going to office, managing the kids and taking care of their hubbies, they hardly get time …
Join Natasha on her raw food weight loss journey! Today Natasha shows you how to make her favorite raw food recipe– a low-fat simple, easy, fast, and delicious salad recipe www.rawradianthealth.com
And, as always, Twitter Universe has a few notes, too:
Vegetable Salad Recipes * Easy Healthy Recipes * Garden Salad …: Raw Food Weight Loss * Raw Food Diet Menu * Fat… http://bit.ly/dy3JQr
It is pretty amazing what great information is at your fingertips. All this posting about food makes me hungry for something cool, crunchy, and delicious!
The market for FDA weight loss drugs is expected to reach 2 billion dollars by the end of 2010. That is nothing compared with the target of the FDA, which is the entire 55 billion dollar per year industry for weight loss products and services. Regulating the weight loss industry is all about money and little to do with weight loss or even good health.
Numerous prescription drugs, surgical procedures, and medical devices are on the FDA weight loss approved list. The pharmaceutical industry and mainstream medicine control them through patents and regulations by the FDA. It is a small portion of a huge industry.
Unfortunately for Big Pharma, 70 percent of the efforts by Americans to lose weight are through self help diets, supplements, physical training, etc. This is an untapped market that far exceeds the estimated 2 billion dollars that are expected for prescription weight loss drugs by the end of 2010.
Why Drugs And Surgery Are Poor Choices
The main premise behind many approved weight loss drugs and procedures is to limit either total calories or calories from fats. This approach proceeds in complete ignorance of more than a century of scientific research that shows why excess calories, including those from fat, are not the cause of overweight.
Surgical procedures that cut out or limit the amount of the stomach that can absorb food merely serve to reduce the amount of incoming calories. Such procedures are not a permanent solution to overweight. However, they are expensive and highly profitable.
Myth Of The Human Calorie Furnace
Calories in, calories out. That is the dogma of weight loss. Keep them balanced and you will stay the same weight. Take in too many calories and you will gain weight. Reduce calorie consumption or increase exercise to use more calories and you will lose weight. All of these invoke the concept of the human body as a furnace.
This concept is dead wrong. This means that weight loss drugs and surgery, or any other approach to weight loss that rests on this concept, will fail. Rebound weight gain and general poor health are the result.
Where To Find Truths Based On Science
Overweight is a complicated issue that entails much more than calories. People who are truly serious about maintaining healthy weight, along with all other indicators of good health, must become acquainted with the really good scientific research on this topic. Unfortunately, not all published scientific research is good. Indeed, some is downright lousy.
Fortunately, researchers sometimes compile the best information on a topic and put it into the form of a book. In the subject of weight management and health, right now the two best books on the market are the following:
Both of these books are serious research summaries, not for the faint of heart. Both of them have already suffered their naysayers from mainstream medicine, some of whom have been downright nasty. This is only logical, because these two books represent serious threats to the money stream to Big Pharma. Moreover, they both expose the FDA weight loss hypocrisy for what it really is.
If people took to heart the advice in these books and changed their lifestyles accordingly, two consequences would arise: 1) people would be healthier than ever; 2) it would undermine several industries that make money by marketing unnecessary drugs and surgical procedures and the most unhealthful processed food in human history.
Reading and understanding the messages in these two books may be bad for the economy. However, they are clearly the best for your health. It is your choice.
Irvingia extract reduces fat by influencing key enzymes, genes, inflammation, and hormones. Research shows an average weight loss of 28 pounds within 10 weeks. Side effects are minimal, although not nonexistent. Here is the view of a research scientist on what you need to know about the science behind Irvingia weight loss.
Components Of Irvingia Weight Loss
Irvingia supplement influences at least five key components of fat metabolism. The research details on the impact of Irvingia on weight loss may seem a little technical here. However, they show how unique this herb is in the number of ways that it directs weight loss. This list makes Irvingia unlike any other weight loss supplement. The key effects are as follows.
1) Adiponection is a hormone that is secreted by large fat cells to help support insulin sensitivity and cardiovascular health. Irvingia causes a significant increase in adiponectin levelsin overweight people.
2) Glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase is an enzyme that converts glucose into triglycerides that then go into storage in fat cells. The result is to make fat cells fatter. Irvingia inhibits the activity of this enzyme, thereby slowing down the growth of fat cells.
3) C-reactive protein blocks the activity of leptin, the master fat hormone, which leads to leptin resistance. Leptin resistance causes fat gain. Overweight people taking Irvingia extract have lower levels of CRP, thereby restoring normal leptin activity and proper fat metabolism.
4) Amylase is an enzyme that breaks down starch to release glucose. Glucose is then absorbed in the digestive tract and taken up as blood sugar. Irvingia inhibits the action of amylase, thereby reducing the number of calories that can be absorbed from eating starch.
5) PPAR-gamma is a key enzyme that regulates the formation of new fat cells and insulin sensitivity. Irvingia inhibits the formation of new fat cells by it influence on PPAR-gamma.
Irvingia Research
The U.S. National Institutes of Health medical database (PubMed) lists 28 research articles that were published on Irvingia since 1980. They involve a wide range of studies on the role of Irvingia in reducing blood sugar in diabetics, relieving pain relief, preventing malaria, in treating bacterial and fungal infections, and even in making Irvingia wine. This variety of effects comes from more than one species of Irvingia and more than one plant part.
The research relevant to the development of this herb as a weight loss supplement concerns an extract of the seeds of one species, Irvingia gabonensis.
Clinical Research On Irvingia Gabonensis Seed Extract
Recent human studies on supplementation using the seed extract of Irvingia gabonensis show significant positive changes after 10 weeks in the following tests: total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, blood glucose, C-reactive protein, adiponectin, and leptin. These results were based the twice-daily, 150 mg dose, of a proprietary Irvingia gabonensis seed extract.
In addition to the metabolic measurements above, the Irvingia-treated group in this study also lost an average of 12.8 kg (28 lbs) and 6.3 percent body fat. Furthermore, mean waist size in the treatment group dropped just over 16 cm (more than 6 inches) during the study period.
This and other studies shows a remarkably diverse set of physiological effects from Irvingia. Other studies also show its effects on regulating genes that influence the production of hormones and enzymes that control fat metabolism.
Irvingia Side Effects
The main side effect in research studies, and from individual testimonies by people who take Irvingia, is a decrease in appetite. This probably has to do with how the herb reinvigorates leptin activity. Poor leptin activity is associated with hunger and a greater appetite.
Irvingia is also less effective if people eat too much. In other words, it is not a license to overeat.
This herb also seems to have different effects on people who eat a low carb diet. Since the actions of Irvingia are directed at carbohydrate metabolism as it relates to fat cells, complex carbs seem to be important when using this supplement.
Researchers in Cameroon, where Irvingia is a native food source, noticed that long-term consumption of the seeds of this plant is associated with two main side effects: 1) resistance to diabetes; and, 2) resistance to obesity. These observations are what attracted the attention of medical researchers in the first place. Seeds of Irvingia have been used by indigenous populations as a soup thickener for centuries. People have not suffered any apparent negative side effects from Irvingia even though they typically eat it almost every day of their lives.
Where To Get Irvingia Supplement
Research to develop an Irvingia supplement and get it approved for manufacture in the U.S. has been conducted by only one company so far. This is the Life Extension Foundation. In fact, at the moment, Life Extension Integra Lean is the only product that offers this herb in clinically relevant doses.
Furthermore, Life Extension has, in their typical fashion, continued to fund ongoing research and development of Irvingia. This means that expansion of the science behind this herb for weight loss will be able to explain more of how this herb works and what we can expect from it for healthy hormone and enzyme regulation.
As I a scientist with an extensive background in plant biochemistry and human health, I think that is just peachy. (Pardon the botanical pun!)
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