We all know that sleep deprivation is an increasing disturbing phenomenon in the US and the affect lack of sleep can have on the performances of the sleep deprived out there!

One of the most common complaints that health professional now hear from their patient is that they are tired.  As a result of this, we do not perform our jobs as well as we could, and as a result, when job performance diminishes, so do production outputs.  The economy as a whole then suffers the consequences.

But it is not just the economy that is a victim of our lack of sleep.  Indeed, new evidence indicated that millions of chronically sleep-deprived Americans put their very own health at risk.   There is a definite link between sleep and health, bad sleep and disease.  High Blood pressure for example, a major factor in heart attack risks increases with lack of sleep.  After all blood pressure and heart rate are at their lowest during sleep and so people who sleep less are more likely to see an increase in their hypertension.  This link can also explain other findings putting lack of sleep with an increased risk of diabetes, weight gain and other problems.

Yes! Weight Gain!  And if this correlation between weight and sleep surprises you, let me remind you that as the duration of our sleep has diminished over time, this trend has also coincided with an increase in obesity.  In fact, recent research indicates that people who do sleep enough are more like to gain weight.  There is simple and powerful evidence behind this to suggest that sleep depravation causes a reduction in metabolism and at the same time an increase in appetite. How about that then for all of us doing our best to achieve weight loss!

Indeed, inadequate sleep duration increases the levels of grehlin, a hormone responsible for making us hungry and decreases the levels of leptin, the hormone responsible for making us feel full!  Sleep depravation is also a factor in our choice of food making us crave for food that is high in carbohydrate and sugar.  This is caused from the fact that sleep loss decreases insulin sensitivity increasing our risks of developing type 2 diabetes. It seems that if you want to lose weight and lose fat, start by making sure you have a good night sleep!

We have all heard this before. As teenagers from our school coaches who would constantly belt out the proverbial “no pain, no gain” concept, this ridiculous idea that unless we exercised like crazy people, we would not likely see the benefits of our effort, and then from family and friends commenting on our lack of success in weight loss. “If there is a will, there is a way” we were told, or in other words, the reason we were overweight was simply because we just didn’t really want to lose weight.

Yes, we have heard this before. Statements such as: "You willpower is the ideal fat burner!". And with the passing of the years, these ideas have reinforced themselves into our subconscious mind, making it increasingly difficult to get thinner, fitter, and healthier.

Talk to any weight loss doctors who were once overweight and successfully lost their excess weight and fat, and chances are you’ll be told that food cravings and weight gain are not always the result of a lack of willpower.

How about that for an eye opener! Most of us who are chronic dieters have one thing in common then. We are not short of willpower (feels good just writing this again!) and likely suffer from a metabolism that produced too much insulin due to an addiction to carbohydrate.

You are a carbohydrate addict if:

1. You are hungrier after breakfast and before lunch time then if you had skipped breakfast all together.
2. You are tired and sluggish after a large meal (particularly in the afternoon)
3. You have been on diet after diet and have as much weight to lose (or even more) as when you started.
4. You want to eat when you are bored or tired
5. You feel that you are not satisfied, even after a meal
6. You find it harder to lose weight then when you were younger.

If you answered “yes” to any two of the above six question then you are mildly carbohydrate addicted. You are moderately addicted if you have answer “yes to three to four questions, and you have a severe carbohydrate addiction if you said “yes” to five or all of the above questions.

So what do you do if you need to reduce your insulin level? Limit your carbohydrate intake to one meal a day.

Remember: Carbohydrate rich food include breads, grains, cereals, ice cream, milk, yogurt, fruit and juices, luncheon meats, pasta, noodles, rice, snack foods, sweets and starchy vegetables such as beets, squash, carrots, zucchini, corn, tomatoes, peas and potatoes.

Craving reducing foods include red meat, poultry, cheese, tofu, oils, fats, dressings, non starchy vegetables such as Brussels sprouts, greens, peppers, lettuce, asparagus, broccoli and mushrooms.

Of course it doesn’t hurt if you take a fat burner supplement.

As part of my job, I am in daily contact with health professional, doctors, dieticians etc...  The other day, I found myself in the presence of doctors and their nurses during a dinner organized by a pharmaceutical company.  As all these even are, this particular one was equally as boring and I couldn’t wait for it to end.  As the caterers started to serve the deserts, I could not help commenting that a cheese cake was not the most nutrition food served at a doctor’s table during a health related function.

Here is the advice these doctors as a whole were following for themselves:

They were all in agreement when saying that they consume moderate amounts of protein and fat, as well as being selective about the carbohydrate they eat.  Protein is the most essential food that our body requires and so they ate at least 10 to 20 ounces of protein per day.  They found their protein in lean red meat, fish, poultry, low-fat cheese, eggs and tofu.

They kept their carbohydrate intake to a minimum, 60 to 80 grams daily so as not to have an adverse impact on insulin levels. They found these carbohydrates in a wide variety of fruits and vegetable

They take multivitamin to ensure they get all of the nutrients they daily food might miss.

And of course, they exercise regularly, by way of high impact aerobic and resistance training, four times a week for one hour.

As a side note, I was struck that 3 of the doctors had complete different views on the amount of carbohydrate they themselves felt they needed, with one doctor saying that he had mostly carbohydrate, consisting mostly of whole grains, root vegetable and green and yellow vegetable, whilst he limited the consumption of fruits because of their high sugar content.

At the end of the conversation, I could not help asking them what they thought about Phentermine.  This question had some interesting and juicy responses.  A couple of doctors recalled the days of the fen-phen diets when they made quite a living prescribing the then “ultimate” diet pill.  One of them didn’t even know that Phentermine was FDA approved whilst another admitted that she had taken phentermine herself as diet supplement pill in order to help lose weight and that she would gladly do it again.

So here you have it..  When it comes to diets,  phentermine might be the catalyst you need in your own battle to lose weight.

The path to Weight loss with phentermine and phentremine !

Have you ever glanced at yourself in a mirror or on a shop window, I mean the sort of inadvertent glances one gives when one’s mind is absent?  Well, I did the other day.  I was walking in Miami, passing by one fashion shop after the other when all of a sudden I saw a reflection of myself which shocked me.  Have you ever experienced this?  Sure you have.

Funny how the mind works though. Tucked away behind the many recesses of the unconscious mind are memories, thoughts even realities that we don’t even know we have until all of sudden, something somewhere triggers one of them and they come to the surface, like an old log that finally pops up after being submerged for a long time.   It’s like a photo album that we keep closed all the time and which quite unexpectedly opens itself on an old photo that we recognize immediately as if it had been for ever present in our mind even though we didn’t consciously know it existed a short few seconds ago.

You may say, that well, at the age of 50, a few extra pounds around the belly is a sign of wisdom, after all, Buddha himself is not known of his 6 packs but still, 50 is young enough to think of as relatively young, both in mind and in body.  And the man that I was looking at in the window had seemingly aged beyond his years and oh boy, that man was me!

If you were planning to come to Miami for a spot of sun catching, now is not the time, unless you are a duck of course, or some other amphibian creature. You see, it’s been raining solidly in Miami for what it has felt like weeks. 

Have you ever wondered why is it so difficult to lose weight! Dieters spend a lifetime dieting and if you added all pounds lost per dieter chances are it would come up to be more than the current body weight of those dieters. How about that! To hop from one diet to another over years of efforts trying to lose weight and what is the result? When all is said and done, most might as well have not even tried!

So should the right question really not be about losing weight, but rather: Why is it so difficult to keep the weight we have lost of?

One positive aspect of this trend is that as a whole, dieters are successful in their endeavor. They can and do lose the weight, only to put it right back overtime, and sometimes with a vengeance!

Truth is, as we all know, diet don't work if they do not go hand in hand with lifestyle changes both in terms of nutrition but also in terms of exercises.

But if diets as we know them don't work, what is there left to do? Ask any doctor that question and you'll more probably be fed with the regular party line! “Eat healthy and exercise!”

It doesn't matter if you have genuinely stayed away from hamburger, don’t even remember what pizzas taste like, have banned chocolate and sweets from making it to you home, or if exercise regularly, if you have managed to keep the weight of so far, what can you do now to change this trend.

It is fair to say that we, as a society are quite knowledgeable when it comes to nutrition, supplements, vitamins and the like and yet as a society, we are indeed getting fatter.

Let's recap so far. We know how to lose weight (most of the time) with diet and exercise and yet don't know how to keep the weight off. If there is a lesson to be learned here, it is that the knowledge we have is not complete, or even flawed.

This is precisely what I discovered after purchasing a book called: “Burn the fat, feed the muscle”. Written by a bodybuilder, this book is more than a how to lose fat and lose weight manual. It is the recipe for a life style worth of changes which guides its readers safely on the right path to knowledge about nutrition, weight loss and fat loss. After all, who better than a bodybuilder to tell you what works and what doesn't’t?

As books go, this one is written with the layman in mind. You'll not find scientific explanation about the workings of our body, metabolism and muscle, although it is clear that the author knows more than his fair share of the subject. So no pompous terminology, things are called by their names, quite simply, and the reader is taken on a breathtaking journey of knowledge and experiences gathered during a lifetime of body building by this very engaging writer.

If you didn't know how to lose fat and stay trim, by the time you are through with this book, you will know exactly what to do. Provided you actually endorse your newly acquire knowledge by deeds, you will be successful.

And a final note of encouragement. Dieting and exercise (that is the right way to diet and exercise) is a state of mind. It requires a state of readiness, the optimal psychological platform from which to launch your efforts and what better platform than one of the most efficient diet pill available in the market today.

So here I am at the beginning of my new life and to help me further in quest to become health again, I have also started to take a new, “all natural” weight loss pill called Phentermine-Hoodia. Do you remember the fen-phen phenomena of a few years ago when finally a miracle weight loss cure was introduced into the market only to be withdrawn because of some nasty side effects which involved heart failures?

Well, Phentermine is the phen of the fen-phen so to speak and it turns out that taken separately it is still quite a potent weight loss formula without the heart attacks.

The one I am taking has been further improved with the addition of Hoodia Gordoni, a known appetite suppressant and so far things look good.

Of course, as usual before embarking on any weight loss program, you should really consult with a doctor. Don’t take Phentermine if you are trying to get pregnant or you are pregnant. Stay away from it if you are lactating and keep it safe from kids under the age of 18!

Foods that fight fat

We've all been there..  Once upon a time, we could eat anything and not put on weight.  It didn't matter what we ate, we would not gain an ounce!  Those were happy days, the days of our youth, and those days, seemingly have gone.  I don't know about you, but there is an object in my bathroom that I have come to hate.  I am sure you have one.  Some call it a scale, I call it the bearer of bad news..

For most us, as we leave youth behind and get caught in the aging process, so does our body's ability to process all these fatty food that we over consumed as effectively as it did before.  And we put on weight. 

This just in . . . Want some smart advice? Eat blueberries. That’s what researchers told the National Institute on Aging's Gerontology Research Center in Baltimore, Maryland. According to their findings, a blueberry-enriched diet prevents an age-related increase in a protein (NF-kappaB) that responds to oxidative stress, a probable cause of brain aging. A second study presented at the same conference found that blueberries can help lessen some of the functional damage caused by brain injury. In the second study, researchers fed one group of young rats a diet supplemented with a 2 percent blueberry extract; another group was fed the same diet, but without the extract. After three months, all the animals received chemically-induced lesions in their hippocampus, a region deep within the brain that plays an essential role in learning and memory. Damage to the hippocampus results in an inability to remember recent events. The researchers then tested the animals' ability to learn a complicated maze task. The rats that had been fed the blueberry extract were significantly less impaired at performing the task than those that did not receive the extract. To boost your blueberry intake, add them to smoothies and blended juices. Or try them for a low-cal, antioxidant-rich dessert. Just place a mixture of blackberries, blueberries and raspberries in a goblet. Cover the berries with sparkling water and serve. It’s a simple, yet elegant dessert that’s healthy as well as delicious.

And thus start the process of yoyo dieting, the obsession to embark on the brand new diet craze, good intentions coupled with our desire to start an exercise program that'll take us right back to where we were when we were 20!

With my advancing years, there is one thing I have come to realize when it comes to dieting:  Diets don't work!  Oh yes, I know, I am not the one who pinned that phrase but hey!  It's true and I'll stick with it.  And now that I am wiser what lessons have I learned?

Instead of relying on a trendy deprivation diet, and obsessing on this and that trend, the quality of the food that I eat is indeed the element that impacts my weight and my general well being the most.  That and of course, how much of it I put on my plate.

We all know that foods high in sugar and fat not only undermine your health – they can quickly put on the pounds. But the following foods can fill you up, boost your nutrient status and help us trim down.

More information on food that fight fat

Great grains:  Packed with fiber they are a great tool in our fight against expa pounds.  For starters they make us feel less hungry and thus less likely to over eat, and in addition, they have been found to be highly efficient as a method to stop the weight gaining process.

Vegetable:  If ever there is something that constantly repeated at the dining table is the phrase:  "Eat your vegetables, they are good for you!"

One last thing . . . Substituting these fat-fighting foods for high calorie junk foods can help fat melt away. But, when it comes to taking off – and keeping off – those excess pounds, diet isn’t everything. Exercise is vital to keep you both healthy and trim. Indulge in at least 60 minutes of exercise every day. The best workout combines 30 minutes of weight lifting and 30 minutes of aerobic exercise. Not only will this routine keep your weight down, your bones strong and your muscles toned, it can reduce the effects of free radical damage by increasing your circulating antioxidant levels.

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Yours in health and happiness

Another report prepared by the folks at Computer World, quietly helping companies, improve their Internet Business, one website at the time