All about Weightlifting and Weight Loss

Did you think about the benefits of using herbs and spices to speed up your weight loss efforts?

We all know that herbs and spices are used with cooking to varying degrees, and of course the primary reason for doing so is to make food much more tasty and interesting.

I suspect however that you might be surprised at the considerable benefits for losing weight that you can gain by using some of them. In saying this I am referring to those everyday items that can be found in most larders, and not necessarily those exotic and probably not so well known varieties.

I happened to discover the many benefits of herbs and spices and the fact that they can be most beneficial to a weight loss program, when I was doing extremely detailed research for my latest book. Here I just want to describe you a few selected items which you could easily find from any good herbal supplier:

Garcinia: (Garcinia cambogia) is a herb which is primarily for enhancing weight loss and boosting the growth of lean muscle. It is also better known as hila or brindell berry.

One of the major benfits of Garcinia is that it acts as an appetite suppressant and stops the body from storing fat.

Pysillium: (Plantago spp.) This cheeky little herb has quite a few health benefits. Physillium is known to help lower cholesterol, and another major benefit is that it also helps to prevent constipation. However, please drink plenty of water - it is specially important with this herb - to get the most benefits out of it.

If you use it as part of your weight loss program, it can help you to eat less calories and yet still feel really full. This is because of the amount of fibers that it contains.

Siberian Gingsing: (Eleutherococcus senticosus) If you are going to start regular exercise or weightlifting as part of your health and weight loss routine, which is normally to be highly recommended, then this is a really useful herb.

It can help your body adapt to the stress of unaccustomed changes, and it will help to make you feel less tired even when you are not used to doing even simple exercises like walking for example. So, you are more likely to stick to your exercise routine.

Cayenne: (also known as Capsicum, hot pepper, chilli pepper, tabasco pepper). The majority of us have cayenne in our larders, and it is very commonly used in many food dishes. Cayenne can be found in many forms such as ground spices, teas, and would you believe it, in topical creams.

It is well known for its antitoxidant action, and greatly helps with osteoathritis and rhumatoid athritis, shingles, and diabetic neuropathy.

Cayenne is known since ages as an accelerator for digestion and helps to burn fat, specially when you take it in dishes with high protein values and low carbo and low fat ingredients. A word of caution however: Cayenne may also irritate the intestinal tract, if used excessively.

Fennel: This herb (also spice and vegetable) is native to the Mediterranean and widely utilized throughout the world. You can find it in teas, capsules, tinctures and lozenges.

Fennel can be used to help with bloating, flatulence, mild digestive spasms, catarrh, and coughs. It also has antimicrobal, antispasmodic, and anti inflammatory properties.

It lowers appetite and it takes a longer time to get the feeling hunger. Not everyone likes the taste, but you can actually use little quantities in every kind of dishes with vegetable, fish or meat. I like it specially in soups.

Garlic: Whether you get this fresh or dried, the downside of garlic is the odour which it leaves on your breath, but chewing some parsley after eating will soon sort out that problem. Another trick: Use only the juice - the odour will hardly be recognized even when taken raw.

Garlic is also known to help stimulate the immune system, and to help in fighting cancer. Well documented health benefits include lowering cholesterol, fighting infections, and reducing blood pressure.

These are just a few of the herbs and spices you can use in cooking, but remember that there are many many more, and the benefits in using them frequently can be quite remarkable.

Of course you will realize to use them sparingly as part of any dish, as when you add too much, it would just spoil the meal. As with everything in life one should try and strike a balance, you know the saying: “all things in moderation”.

Hope to inspire you to make frequent use of those natural helpers.

Do you have something that was helpful to you? Don’t hesitate to share it with us.

Juergen

What do you think about the word “Diet”?

Is it aesthetic, desirable, attractive or is it irritating, confusing, dirty?

By: Marc David
www.Beginning-Bodybuilding.com

Lose the word “diet” from your vocabulary!

According to Miller Jones, a professor of nutrition and food science at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota…

4th graders are aware of the word diet, especially the girls.

One of the world’s largest study of weight loss has shown that diets do not work for the vast majority of slimmers and may even put lives at risk.

This type of yo-yo behavior is linked to many health problems. Because of the strain on the body of repeated weight loss and weight gain, the researchers found that the dieters would have been better off not dieting at all.

Research has shown the repeated rapid weight gain and loss associated with dieting can double the risk of death from heart disease, including heart attacks, and the risk of premature death in general.

For starters…

When you think ‘diet’ you are actively engaging in short term thinking. When you start to think of it as something you go on and then off again, that’s the wrong direction.

Some of the BEST resources on nutrition are not diets. They are eating plans. They are how to eat healthy for life programs. They teach you how to eat correctly for everyday living. There’s nothing short term about them.

“The benefits of dieting are simply too small and the potential harms of dieting are too large for it to be recommended as a safe and effective treatment for obesity.” -Dr Traci Mann

A quick test is to simply look at any given plan and immediately ask yourself…

Is this something I can do for life?

Frankly…

If you are overweight, then thinking in the short term is exactly why you could be doomed to fail! As you bounce from one plan to the next, you become more and more frustrated.

FACT: Many diets that use a severe calorie restriction just makes it harder to lose the weight the next time.

FACT: Some studies show that repeated weight loss and regain actually increase the changes you’ll gain even more weight the next time.

FACT: Studies consistently find that people who report the most exercise also have the most weight loss.

Now with all this in mind…

No matter what eating plan you choose or what your goals, just drop the word ‘diet’ from your vocabulary and pick a plan you can stick with for life. That encourages slow weight loss or weight gain. That doesn’t “demonize” foods but helps you pick and choose from healthy alternatives and explains the reasons why.

If you are always changing your eating habits for special events or every 8 weeks, you might be dieting. That’s the time to take a step back and learn all you can about nutrition. Learning how to eat correctly is something you can stick with for life and avoid the common frustrations.

About the Author

Marc David is an innovative fitness enthusiast and the creator of the “The Beginner’s Guide to Fitness And Bodybuilding.” method on www.Beginning-Bodybuilding.com

He can show you how to reduce your body fat thru diet, how to gain weight or create more muscle thru an abundance of workout tips by training LESS, not more!

Once a self-confessed skinny, “135-pound weakling.” Today Marc is a 200 pound bodybuilder who teaches thousands of people to gain weight, build muscle and reduce body fat with a workout and nutrition system so simple that even a complete beginner can understand it!

Marc dispels many “bodybuilding myths”, tells you what most people never realize about nutrition, and what the drug companies DON’T WANT YOU to know. visit www.Beginning-Bodybuilding.com

We all know that in order to lose weight in a natural and healthy way we have to consider not only the quantities we eat, but first of all the quality of foods. But today we have a subject which is often overlooked - that is how we consume our foods. It makes a difference i.e. we eat an apple with or without skin, eat a carot raw or boiled (with carots it also makes a difference in combination with oil) and there are lots to it in regards to vitamins, minerals, balasts, acids, fats and how our bodies can digest and utilise those properties. Thats a science for itself, but let’s keep it simple here. There are real words of wisdom in the following video in which Obaid Karki talks about the way to lose weight along the laws of nature… I got a gift for you (just sign up for my free newsletter which will bring you more tips along) - not too much scientific, but very practical inspirations for natural weight loss. I hope this special report may help you to get started and stay on the right track to lose weight with easy to follow tips for everyday life: Lose Weight The Natural Way. If this is your subject, do come back here frequently as I’ll share here more not so commonly known tips. My plan is to write a book about this subject in the next few weeks. Please leave your comment and tell me which topic I should explore in details - tell me your questions, tell me what’s burning … Talk you soon, Juergen