Brutal HIIT Ladder Workout - 20 Minute HIIT Workout at Home

Feels so good to break the sweat!

10 Simple Tricks to Lose Weight Fast

Looking to ditch those pounds fast? Watch this video for 10 tricks to lose weight painlessly.

Source

7 Holistic Techniques for Losing Weight

Holistic medicine approaches a person as a whole being, addressing the root causes of a problem rather than merely treating the symptoms. As a result, a holistic approach can help you achieve meaningful, long-term weight loss. Where other weight-loss efforts fail, a holistic weight-loss program can help you shed extra pounds while understanding the comprehensive causes and effects of weight gain and loss.

Why Holistic Weight Loss?

While weight gain is not itself a “disease,” overeating and obesity can contribute to a number of serious health problems, including type II diabetes, stroke, various kinds of cancer, and heart disease. Maintaining your weight close to its ideal, then, is a key component of overall health. Not only will a healthy weight help prevent debilitating diseases, but it will also result in a higher quality of life. Weight is largely a function of two components: diet and exercise. 

A holistic weight-loss program helps you work with the underlying causes of a weight problem on both sides of that equation. Why do you eat more than you should? How can you eat in a healthier way? Why do you not exercise enough? How can you improve your exercise regimen? What factors—physical, psychological, social—are contributing to your diet and exercise decisions? Discovering the answers to these questions can help you avoid undesirable patterns that prevent you from achieving an optimal weight. This is the key to long-term weight loss, and this is the core of the holistic approach.

Holistic Weight Loss

There are a number of methods by which you can apply holistic techniques to your weight-loss program:

1. Positive Messages

It is tempting to turn food, and your relationship to it, into an enemy. Many of us (often as a result of childhood and environment) punish ourselves for our food choices, or use food as a means of self-control. 

Oftentimes, this only reinforces a weight problem, making it even more difficult and intractable. People whose parents used food as a means of control—to instill a certain discipline, for example, or redirect a child’s behavior—are more likely to be obese as adults. One way to break this pattern is to engage in positive messages. Phrases such as “I can control my eating” or “My desire for a snack will soon pass” can help reinforce positive behavior. Similarly, positive thoughts such as “I love being healthy” or “I’m proud that I ate responsibly today” can help to reframe your relationship with food.

2. Meditation

Meditation is a helpful holistic technique across the board. It helps practitioners to acquire a greater mindfulness of their feelings and thoughts, becoming cognizant of emotions they never noticed before. 

Meditation can, for example, help binge eaters become aware of how they use food to deal with problematic emotions. It can also help them notice when they’re actually hungry and when they’re full. Both of these work together to address the underlying causes of overeating.

3. Psychotherapy

This therapeutic discipline helps problem eaters modify their behavior. Less concerned with finding underlying causes for behavior, cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) is about learning how to alter one’s behavior to achieve a specific goal—such as weight loss. When a person seeks the help of a cognitive-behavior therapist, he or she will learn to replace long-established patterns with productive behaviors. A therapist might explore problematic thought patterns—beliefs such as “If I am upset, I deserve to eat,” for example—that drive you to binge. CBT can also help reframe an obsession with body image, allowing you to lose weight because it’s healthy, and not because you dislike your appearance. Such techniques can prove powerful in weight loss.

4. Self-Monitoring

Keeping a journal and engaging in other self-monitoring techniques help make you more aware of what you’re eating—and why. Sometimes merely seeing a list of everything you consume throughout the course of a day can help you to avoid trips to the kitchen. More fundamentally, reflecting on the emotions, drives and outcomes associated with your diet and exercise can help shed light on an otherwise visceral, and often unmanageable, struggle. There is a rich and mutually reinforcing relationship between self-monitoring and other techniques, such as CBT, meditation, and positive messages.

5. Visualization

No one loses weight just by sitting around and thinking about it, but visualization can make it easier to keep your eye on the prize. Time spent visualizing what you will look like and how you will feel with less weight can help remind you why you are doing this in the first place. It can also help you imagine the behavior and lifestyle choices necessary for successful weight loss.

6. Exercise

Physical activity in conjunction with a sound diet is a core component of holistic weight loss. Exercise does more than just burn calories: It changes your chemistry, releases powerful neurotransmitters, strengthens and revitalizes muscles, increases energy and contributes to happiness, tranquility and a sense of well being. 

Any attempt at weight loss would be incomplete without it. In developing your workout regimen, find a routine that addresses your unique needs, that challenges you appropriately, and—most importantly—that you truly enjoy. Finding the joy in taking care of yourself is a cornerstone of holistic medicine and the key to a long-lasting exercise ritual.

7. Tailoring and Connecting

Finally, in the spirit of the holistic tradition, choose the techniques, principles, and approaches you need to achieve your unique objectives. No two people are alike, and no one method is a panacea. When you visualize, visualize the behaviors and results that resonate uniquely with you. When you exercise, choose effective routines that you yourself enjoy. If you decide to incorporate psychotherapy into your weight loss program, be fully present in the process and place yourself squarely at the center of your treatment. And when you engage in these activities, find the connections among them: Meditate after you work out, reflect on your day after therapy, engage in positive messages as you go about your routine. Across the board, embrace yourself as the owner and the subject of your weight loss routine, and make sound decisions accordingly. That will make all the difference in a successful weight loss strategy. Remember that the above techniques should always be used in conjunction with a healthy and responsible diet and exercise plan. They must also be tailored to your unique goals, challenges and patterns, in the spirit of holistic medicine. Always consult your doctor before engaging in any weight-loss regimen. 

Picture Sources 

Source

Weight Gain Throughout Life May Raise Risk of Esophageal, Stomach Cancers

New research further supports the link between excess weight and cancer, after finding that gradually gaining weight from the age of 20 to the point of obesity may triple the risk of developing esophageal and stomach cancers in later life.

The study - led by Dr. Jessica Petrick of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD - was recently published in the British Journal of Cancer.

Overweight and obesity have become major health concerns in the United States. More than 2 in 3 adults and around a third of children and adolescents are considered to be overweight or obese, raising their risk of type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, and some types of cancer.

Some studies have associated excess weight with increased risk of esophageal and stomach cancers.

However, Dr. Petrick and colleagues note that it has been unclear how weight gain throughout a lifetime might influence this risk. The researchers note that because obesity rates are expected to rise, it is important to understand this association.

"This may provide mechanistic insight and inform the time window of when interventions may be successfully implemented to reduce the incidence of these highly lethal cancers," they add.

More than three times greater cancer risk with lifetime weight gain

To investigate the link between lifetime weight gain and esophageal and stomach cancers, the team analyzed the data of 409,796 individuals aged between 50 and 71 who were a part of two studies: the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study and the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial.

At the baseline of each study, the participants reported their current weight and height, as well as their weight and height at the ages of 20 and 50.

During follow-up, 633 participants developed esophageal cancer and 415 developed cancer of the upper stomach.

Compared with subjects who maintained a healthy weight throughout their lifetime, individuals who reported being overweight at the age of 20 were found to be at a 60-80 percent greater risk of developing esophageal and upper stomach cancer in later life.

Furthermore, the team found that participants who gained at least 15-20 kilograms throughout adulthood and were obese by the age of 50 were around three times more likely to develop esophageal and upper stomach cancers.

"This study highlights how weight gain over the course of our lives can increase the risk of developing these two cancer types, both of which have extremely poor survival," says Dr. Petrick.

Study 'highlights the importance of a healthy weight throughout life'

The researchers suggest a number of possible mechanisms by which weight gain may raise the risk of esophageal and stomach cancers. For example, Dr. Petrick notes that excess weight may prompt long-term reflex problems and heartburn, which can fuel cancer.

"It can also change the levels of sex hormones, such as estrogen and testosterone, cause levels of insulin to rise, and lead to inflammation, all of which are factors that have been associated with increased cancer risk," she adds.

While additional studies are needed to confirm their findings, the researchers believe that their research further demonstrates the harms of lifetime weight gain.

Article Source

Picture Sources: 1 and 2.