Constipation and Weight Loss

If you are overweight there is a good chance you may also be constipated.

The best natural remedies for constipation also happen to be the most natural ways to lose weight. They involve drinking more water, substituting more high-fiber foods into your diet and getting some exercise (walking is great!).

Constipation can make you feel depressed, lethargic and irritable. If you think you may be constipated, see more on the natural cures for constipation.

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The above fine art print is 'Dog Tired (Yellow Lab)' by Barbara Shipman.

Magazines about Weight Loss Surgery

I was surprised to find out there is a magazine market devoted just to weight loss surgery. I didn't think there would be enough readers interested in this drastic option for weight loss.

There are at least two magazines that I've seen on Amazon. One is WLS Lifestyles (short for Weight Loss Surgery Lifestyles) and the other is called ObesityHelp. They claim to give unbiased facts about surgery for losing weight. For example, the publisher blurb about WLS says;

Dedicated to the pre- & post-operative bariatric surgery community. Our goal is to provide unbiased, medial-fact based information to those who are considering and/or have decided to change their lives with gastric bypass, lap band, duedonal switch or any other form of weight loss surgery.

I personally can't see how these magazines could portray an objective view of the risks associated with this surgery. They make their money from advertisements in the magazine, and I would assume it is mostly surgeons and weight loss surgery clinics that advertise there. How could they write detailed articles about the dangers involved and still maintain their advertising client base? Would you ever see a bad-news story about surgery gone wrong in one of these issues?

I haven't read either of these magazines but would appreciate any feedback people have about this.

How Does Adriana Lima Stay in Shape?

Adriana Lima is possibly the world's hottest model at the moment. What is her secret to staying slim and fit?

Her favorite form of exercise is Capoeira. This is a Brazilian martial art combining dance, music acrobatics and choreographed play-fighting. Her favorite food is Brazilian food. She also says the secret to her beautiful complexion is to drink a lot of water and get lots of rest.

Adriana Lima was born June 12, 1982. She was discovered at the age of 13 by a model scout in a shopping mall in her hometown in Brazil. She moved to New York at 15. She grew up without any siblings as an only child and she's helped a lot of orphaned children in Brazil since becoming a super model.

Adriana Lima is featured in the April 2006 issue of GQ.

In the other picture here, she is second from the left, together with four other supermodels (including Heidi Klum, Tyra Banks and Gisele Bundchen).

Drinking Water to Lose Weight

What if someone told you you could lose weight with no effort on your part? What if there was a secret to losing weight that didn't involve increased exercise or decreased calorie consumption? And what if this method was free and easily available to you? Would you jump at the chance to do it?

The secret to some fast weight loss without exercise or diet changes is to drink more water!

Here's where I know there must be some kind of self-sabotage involved in my battle to lose the last ten pounds. I know I should be drinking more water, and it is the easiest thing in the world to do. It doesn't involve willpower, it doesn't involve dragging myself out to exercise, and it doesn't involve cutting back on calories. So why aren't I doing it?

It's not just me. Most North Americans are dehydrated. In fact, chronic dehydration is probably the most common cause of a lot of our health ailments. There are two main reasons so many people are dehydrated these days. We eat less vegetables and fruits (which are water-dense) and more processed foods than we should. And we drink lots of caffeinated beverages instead of water. Caffeinated beverages and alcohol are diuretics. They force more water out of our bodies.
If a person is dehydrated their body compensates by retaining excess water as a protective measure. This alone is responsible for some excess weight. As well, a dehydrated person's metabolism is significantly lower than a normally hydrated person.

Dehydration is responsible for many people's feelings of fatigue. Many people have lost their sense of thirst and mistake it for hunger. Drinking a glass of water will usually greatly reduce any false hunger pangs.

So the solution to losing at least a few extra pounds sounds easy. Start with two glasses of room temperature water first thing in the morning. That's before you drink coffee or eat your breakfast. Try to drink some water regularly during the day. And eat more water dense foods such as vegetables, fruits and even legumes.

I'll get right on it. And I'd be keen to hear any feedback from people who've recently tried this for losing weight.

(See more about breaking the soft drink habit here).

Hypnosis and Weight Loss

Is hypnosis effective for weight loss? I'm hoping to get some feedback from any people who have tried hypnosis for losing weight.

As one example of the various hypnosis products being sold today for weight loss, there is a guy out there named Alfonso De Rose who is selling a hypnosis CD and claims that this is a revolutionary new way to lose weight by eradicating overweight issues in the subconscious mind. De Rose calls himself a 'master of human behavior'. He says "obesity has its roots inside your mind. It's not what you eat but what you think."
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The above art print is The Queen Was In The Parlour Eating Bread and Honey by Valentine Cameron Pinsep

Do 'Fat Burners' Help You Lose Weight?

Do Fat Burners work? I found this helpful response at Ask Alice:

As you probably know, if you walk into any pharmacy or supplement shop, you will see dozens of products promising to make excess body fat melt away. Although manufacturers are not permitted to make these claims on the bottle, they run alluring ads in magazines and on TV. So, how are you to know whether or not the ingredients are safe and effective?

Weight loss supplements may work in three ways: one is by helping the body to break down body fat. This involves releasing it from fat cells, where it enters the bloodstream as free fatty acids that are then transported to muscle cells where they may be burned. The second action of weight loss supplements is to suppress appetite, which is a complex process. Many hormones and neurotransmitters are involved. We don't have all the answers in this area, but research continues. The human body's instinct is to survive, and once appetite suppressants are stopped, people become hungry. The third way weight loss supplements may work is by inhibiting the body from absorbing fat during digestion. Fat blockers don't work if a person isn't eating fat in his or her diet. They also won't prevent weight gain if a person is overeating protein or carbohydrates. The negative side effects of these supplements include stomach discomfort, diarrhea, and inability to absorb many important fat-soluble vitamins and other nutrients. In addition, they may interfere with the effectiveness of certain medications, especially birth control pills and estrogen.

Often, weight loss supplements contain more than one substance to generate weight loss from more than one angle. The ingredients are available alone, or with other substances. The following is a partial listing of some of the weight loss supplements you may see:

Carnitine
Promoted as a fat burner, carnitine naturally occurs in the body, and people can obtain it through eating meat, fish, poultry, and some dairy foods. Carnitine helps transport fatty acids to the muscle. In theory, it makes sense that more of it would help people get more fatty acids into the muscles, burning additional fat. Unfortunately, it doesn't live up to expectations, because taking its supplemental form doesn't result in increased fat burning.

Chromium Picolinate
Although this mineral helps metabolize carbohydrates and fats, it has not lived up to claims of increasing lean body mass and decreasing fat. As a matter of fact, the majority of the research done on this supplement shows it is not effective as a weight loss supplement. Some research showed damage to DNA with excess chromium picolinate that is exacerbated with Vitamin C. Taking in more than the body requires can actually reduce the binding capacity of iron in the blood, potentially resulting in iron deficiency and decreased ability to carry oxygen in the blood. This could negatively impact one's ability to exercise and expend calories.

Ephedrine
This is probably the most popular substance in fat-burners on the market today. It acts like a hormone the body makes — norepinephrine. The action of this substance is associated with increased fat release from adipose (or fat) tissue, increasing free fatty acids in the bloodstream. Also increased are heart rate, heart contractility, body heat production, and metabolic rate. Ephedrine may also be able to suppress hunger. Studies have demonstrated that dieters were able to lose slightly more weight when taking ephedrine vs. placebos — but not nearly the amounts referenced in TV and magazine ads. It has been shown that ephedrine is even more effective when combined with caffeine — but so are the side effects, including tremors, dizziness, insomnia, heart arrhythmias, headaches, and increased blood pressure. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has reported numerous adverse incidents and a number of deaths from taking supplements containing ephedrine or its precursors, ephedra or ma huang. Anyone with high blood pressure, heart disease, or diabetes, and pregnant women need to avoid this supplement. The National Football League (NFL) has listed it as a banned substance, and Canada prohibits its sale. Although ephedrine may help some people lose an extra few pounds, it doesn't seem worth the risk.

When a supplement touts "proven in clinical trials," you need to dig deeper. If the manufacturers are citing animal studies, it may have no merit in terms of human outcomes. For one reason, fat metabolism in rats is different than in people. Often, preliminary research is done on these animals, but the same results often don't pan out in humans. We are learning that fat burning and some hormonal responses are not the same between the two species. Some supplement manufacturers jump the gun before substances can be proven in humans, often in the name of big bucks. Another caveat is that when research is done, sometimes amounts of the ingredients or the ingredients themselves that the scientists use are not available to the public. Scientists may use substances in large amounts when studying them — not what is generally available at your local health food store. The supplement you find may contain additional components that alter the effect of the main ingredient. In addition, there is no guarantee that the supplement you buy has exactly what the label indicates.

Once again, there is really no safe short cut or quick fix to losing weight, no matter how slick the ads! And fat burners, despite the hype, do not work as advertised.

Alice

How Much Does Michael Moore Weigh?

How much does Michael Moore weigh? And how tall is he?

I'm a real fan of Michael Moore. And I've spent two hours digging around the web trying to find out about his weight and height and his latest weight loss plans. I've come up with zero information. But I now know there are a lot of Michael Moore haters out there. And even more so, there are a lot of people spamming his name.

I do know that he wants to lose weight and signed himself into a weight loss clinic last summer. It's an expensive program, 'Pritikin' costing $3,800 per week.

I've seen speculations that he weighs over 300 pounds these days.

If anyone knows any info about Michael Moore's weight loss efforts and data, please contact me.

eDiets: The future of online dieting?

eDiets.com offers 22 different diet plans to their members. Their most recent additions are the G.I. Diet (glycemic diet), the Mediterranean Diet and the Mayo Clinic Diet.

Their other popular diet plans include Atkins, Slim-Fast, The Blood Type Diet, Perricone and Trim Kids.

They just released their latest financials and revenues were $12 million for the quarter ending December 31st 2005. They averaged 220,000 paying members throughout the year. Revenue growth over the previous year was 18 percent. Their average weekly fees per subscriber are about $3.95.

They are planning a direct-to-consumer food product to match people's current diet choices. The "Fresh Cuisine" high-end meals will on average cost about $25 per day not including shipping. You'll be seeing an infomercial ad campaign about it soon.

How to Cut Down on Junk Food

What's one way to cut down on your junk food habit?

A lot of people would vouch for the effectiveness of watching the Super Size Me video. Consider it a cheap two hour weight-loss therapy and motivational session. It could turn anyone off junk food. It's a scary portrayal of what can happen to your body and your mood if you subsist solely on junk food for thirty days.

Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock put himself through this test on film and ate three McDonald's meals a day. In less than a week he was already experiencing some serious negative effects including a lot of weight gain.

The documentary has won many prestigious awards and was nominated for an Oscar.

The DVD was released a year and a half ago and has great reviews at Amazon. It costs $18 but there are several used copies available there as well for $7.99.