Posts Tagged ‘weight control’

Nature’s Way To Suppress Appetite

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

Losing weight painlessly and easily is something every over weight person dreams of. People are on the look out for any natural products that can suppress appetite or simply burn away excess fat. Hoodia gordonii has become popular worldwide as a weight lose herb. It is considered as an appetite suppressant dietary supplement.

The cultural and religious life of the African people abounds in traditional remedies. For instance, over 156 medicinal plant species are reported to be used in gynecological complaints. When corporations or other commercial initiatives takes freely the traditional knowledge without the consent of the owners of the knowledge and commercializes them into a product, it is called ‘biopiracy’. The South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) developed and subsequently patented Hoodia. CSIR sold the exclusive right to a British Company. After the issue of biopiracy was raised, a small percentage of the royalties was transferred to the trust on behalf of the San people. There is a proliferation of Hoodia products in the market such as Hoodia Pure, Dex L10 Hoodia , HoodiThin Liquid and many more.

The indigenous peoples inhabit a habitat for generations and centuries interacting intensely with nature. They depend on nature for their livelihood as well for survival that they revere nature as the provider of life. From these interactions and observations, they learn about the characteristics of various species and possible uses. These are then verified through repeated experimentation or from repeated similar experiences. This knowledge is then transmitted onward to the next generation. The knowledge covers all aspects of life and living including crops, food, human and animal health and even beauty care.

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Over Weight Is A Lifestyle Problem

Monday, July 27th, 2009

All sections in the affluent nations and the affluent sections in the poorer countries have a major health problem of obesity and overweight. This is now recognized as a lifestyle problem with the sedentary nature of work and life as well as the change in the kind of food that are consumed. Processed food has been systematically replacing fresh food in the departmental stores and the supermarkets. It is of course easier to prepare processed food and suits very well the hectic life in the cities.

The major cause of overweight is the consumption of beverages and fast food or junk food as they are called. This is now a well recognized fact. Alongside, the weight loss market is flourishing. A number of solutions have been propounded such as diet food, diet restructuring, medication, herbal appetite suppressant and surgeries. There are many publications and e-books on reducing belly fat and burn away the fat quickly replacing with muscles.

Modern technologies and techniques are used by the processing industry to process the fresh food so that they remain fresh for a longer time and the shelf life is increased. Bacterial infection of the food is also minimized. The techniques commonly used include separation of various components, pasteurization, salting, autoclaving, cooling and drying. These are made available on the shelves in the stores and they require hardly any further preparation or are easy to prepare before they are consumed.

Separation techniques such as centrifugation, pressing and milling are used to extract juices, flour, oils etc as well as minerals, amino acids, fatty acids and vitamins. These processes modify the nutrient content of the food. Phytochemicals, vitamins and other substances are often lost when food is heated. The nutritional value of the food is modified and lowered. The need to enrich the processed food with additional important nutrient arises as a result. The processed food is inferior in terms of nutrient value when compared to the fresh wholesome food. Fresh foods have more sodium, GI starches, fiber, potassium, unoxidized essential fatty acids and vitamins. Harmful substances such as oxidized fats and trans fatty acids are often found in processed food.

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Back To Traditions And The Roots

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

The people of Africa are largely dependent on the traditional knowledge on medicinal plants for the health care needs. They are based on the traditional knowledge accumulated over centuries and conveyed from generation to generation. An estimated 10 percent of the plant species in the world are found in southern Africa. The local uses of these plants are increasingly being documented. But only a few have been subjected to scientific investigation, and fewer still are commercialized. But more scientific investigations and publications are emerging. The filing of patents too has been on the increase.

The local markets sell these medicinal plants to the local inhabitants for their use in health care. These markets are part of the informal economy. However, with increasing demand from industries locally and for exports, the plants are getting commercialized becoming part of the formal economy. The products too are marketed professionally. There is an increase in their demand. Exports of select medicinal plants are increasing along with the popularity that natural remedies are attaining worldwide. Some of these medicinal plants are the main raw materials for production of various products in the pharmaceutical, cosmeceutical and nutraceutical industries. Quite often the products are based on the use or application of the traditional folk knowledge from the African countries. This knowledge are increasingly getting documented and subjected to scientific research. The tribes of Africa are considered to be the main repository of the knowledge which is referred to as traditional knowledge or indigenous knowledge or folklore medicines.

Many of these products are based on the traditional knowledge of the people of southern Africa. With increasing realization of the value and reliability of this knowledge, documentation and research have increased. In fact, there is a global rush to document this knowledge. The market for these ethno-botanicals has increased. Hoodia gordonii originating from the Kalahari Desert has captured global attention in recent times. These are sold in different forms as an appetite suppressant. You can Hoodithin liquid in the global market as also in the form of capsules, pills and shakes. The liquid form is considered to be more powerful than the other forms.

The global market for such products present rising opportunities for these African countries that could raise the income levels of these impoverished peoples. At the same time there is a threat of exhaustion of these plants from its natural habitat as a result of uncontrolled collection. Scientific conservation management practices are required to ensure that the extraction of these herbs is sustainable.

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Walk Your Way To Better Health

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

The overweight and the obese will benefit a great deal combining a diet program with exercises. No doubt both the diet program as well as the exercises comes with their own set of problems. When it comes to exercises, the first thing that comes to mind is those dreadful weight loss equipments. These weight loss equipments scare you because it looks so difficult to use them. If only the exercises using these equipments were simple enough. But they are not. But then there is the simple walking that one can do. It really does a lot to your lungs and to your heart. Their capacities increase. Oxygen intake is increased. Your muscles get toughened. All you need is a light weight walking shoes to make your walking pleasant and comfortable. You can either allot a specific time for walking every day. Or you can just grab all the opportunities you get to walk.

It is easy to assimilate walking into your day to day life. Just grab the opportunity wherever and whenever you can. You can walk it down the stairs and skip the lift. You can just about always find that there are a lot of walking you can actually do if you put your mind to it. may be you walk for a few minutes at a time. Increase the number of walks. You can take a long walk with your friends when you can. You can make your walking interesting by changing your route. Try to cover a mile in just 12 minutes. When walking keep your arms at right angles to the body.

But then it is not as though that all the weight loss workouts look menacing. There are all kinds of workouts from swimming to wrestling, and gymnastics to meditation. You have to choose what you need and what suits you best. Information on these is available in plenty. There are Internet websites which provide you details. The WorkoutPass is a site the offers a collection of more than 40 different workout and sports related sites.

A diet that you can manage life long and workouts that is both fun to do and useful to you go together to lose weight and maintain weight loss. You can be sure that you will not only lose weight, but keep fit, maintain a good body shape, feel energetic and healthy.

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Better Small Weight Loss Than No Loss At All

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

Over weight and obesity has come to occupy a top slot amongst major threats to health. On the other hand, standard of living has gone up. The Physical Quality of Life Index too is on the upward march. Technological and scientific advancement and their application in our daily lives have contributed to these changes. Quite paradoxically, obesity and overweight have come along with it to occupy our fears. We are threatened with diseases caused due to overweight. They are also life threatening. As a result there is a booming market for weight loss products. Obesity and weight loss has become a specific field of expertise. For most, the well shaped models and bodybuilders become the ideal that are sought after. They become the ideal figure that one seeks out to be. there is a strong urge to find ways of achieving this ideal.

Many have tried out many of these weight loss programs. It is disappointing for them when they notice that they have managed to lose only a little of their excess fat. They have not been able to lose weight significantly. This is a cause of worry for them. But rather than be a cause of worry, they should actually be celebrating. It is now proved that small weight loss is indeed good for significant improvement in health. It is estimated that even a 10 percent loss of weight over a period of a year contributes to significant improvement in health. The task is to ensure that this small weight loss continues for many more years if not the whole life time. This is not a difficult task. Just stick to low calorie and low fat food. Exercise a lot and keep monitoring weight loss.

There are a number of weight loss programs in the market which combines physical exercise with low calorie diet. You will be able to get to know what Brad Pilon, an expert on weight loss has to say in the Eat Stop Eat review. His program promises losing fat and building muscles.

Maintaining long-term weight loss is possible and desirable. There are enough evidence to show that long term weight loss maintenance contributes to better health and lower risk. The point is to maintain weight loss for about two to five years and then you are likely to make it through for a longer time maintaining the same weight. All you need to do then is to continue to adhere to the diet and exercise, along with low levels of stress.

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Slow Weight Loss And Steady Muscle Build Up, The Right Regime

Monday, July 20th, 2009

Losing weight by a combination of healthy diet and weight loss workouts that are easy to do is just the right thing for the overweight and the obese. Overweight and weight loss are subjects that are popular with the well known magazines. A beautiful model or a muscular actor reminisces through these pages how she or he has become what they are with the use of some weight loss workouts or some diet program. Their well groomed shapely bodies are but the result of these great diet recipes and weight loss programs. There are regular features and updates on obesity and weight loss programs. The magazines feature health drinks, weight loss pills, capsules, syrups, weight loss supplements, shakes and many other recipes. Their contribution to weight loss is explained. Websites explain these programs. It is no wonder that these subjects take up so much space. After all obesity has become an epidemic

You may think that weight loss is best achieved by going on a starvation diet. You cannot be more wrong. When you drastically reduce your food intake, the natural survival mechanism of the body begins to operate. Rather than burn away your excess fat, the metabolic rate falls down instead. A calorie intake of 1800 calories is required for the body. If it goes below 1200 calories, then the body reacts negatively. It is better to maintain the normal calorie level, but go for more balanced diets combined with exercise.

Many wonder recipes are touted as the ideal for reducing weight fast. Claims that are difficult to believe about the efficacy of various recipes are made in the market. Fat loss supplements are having good business in the weight loss market. You will first have to check whether the claims are true. You should also check whether there are any side effects that may be harmful. Fat Loss Revealed will give detailed account on these exaggerated and often false claims.

You will be enticed by many health fads and assured quick fat loss programs in the market. The claims can be impressive. It may seem to be just the perfect one that you have been waiting for all along. Do not get carried away by them. Any weight loss program that assures you instant weight loss is anyway not the right choice. Such dramatic weight loss can be harmful. A weight loss program that offers you a slow and steady weight loss which you will be able to maintain life long offer you better prospects for a healthy life.

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The Key To Perfect Health – The Food We Eat

Monday, July 20th, 2009

Ever checked out why obesity has become a leading global health concern? All you need to do is to have a reality check on the life around you. No longer is food cultivated in your locality. You choose from what you find in the shelf in the store. They already are ready to eat food or semi processed. This suit you very well as you are hard up for time. Most of the work at home such as food preparation, cooking, laundry, washing and cleaning are automated or use various gadgets. You prefer to go up or down the stairs using the lift rather than walk it up. You depend on a transport even for traveling short distances. There is hardly any walking in your life.

The food that we take converts itself into fat and accumulates in our body. There is hardly any physical activity all through the day. No wonder that fat keeps on accumulating even when we take to moderate eating. But then we also get easily tired and sick. No wonder we have to find our self some time for physical workout. Often we have to rely on fitness centers. We are also afraid whether the fat that has accumulated will make us prone to various kinds of diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. We worry a lot and add to the stress.

It is a relief to know that there are many Ways to lose weight. Warp Speed Fat Loss system is a diet that promises to reduce weight. There are many more weight loss programs. These can be looked into in the Internet.

Check your food habits. Are you taking what ought to be taken? Are you taking what should not be taken? The metabolic rates are not the same for all of us. The work we do, the way we live and the surroundings in which we live will vary from one person to another. Our body requirements may vary. So too what we consume also varies. It is better that each person analyze all these as you are the best judge to decide what is best for you. It is said that a starvation diet could do a lot. You may even lose weight. But this could lead to other problems. Or your weight begins to increase later. Physical exercise and physical fitness programs too are varied. You will have to decide what you need.

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Have Food And Build Muscles

Monday, July 20th, 2009

Ever wondered why people in villages are not putting on weight like those in the cities? They are up early morning. There are many things that have got to be done around the house such as going to the fields and tending to the crops, taking care of the cattle, carrying farm equipments, doing bits of maintenance work of the field and house. All through the day there are a variety of job to be done. It requires a lot of physical movements, carrying weights, bending, stretching and exerting strength. All through the day the calories are burnt. Then there is the quiet rest to recoup. Food is from the home grown vegetable garden or from the local market. Life is indeed a variety of mental and physical activities.

The people in the cities too lead a hectic life. They are up early in the morning. Numerous home appliances take care of the work related to preparation of food to cooking to household chores, which otherwise were to be done manually. Movement are assisted mechanically, be it a lift or vehicle. There is hardly any walking to be done. All around us there are innumerable devices that reduce, if not eliminates, manual or physical labor. But yet life is stressed. Quite often one has to be satisfied with the junk food. There is hardly any time to do any physical exercise. Our diet is also not as healthy as it should be.

There are many diet programs that experts have formulated to make it easy for us to stay fit despite our chaotic and unhealthy lifestyle. Some prescribe what we should eat, how much and when. But then these are hard to follow every day. There are some diets that do not insist on strict diet. Jon Benson’s Every Other Day Diet is one such where we have to eat healthy food one day and the next day eats anything we like and yet stay healthy and lose weight.

We still carry on with life the way we are used to in the way we are. But a modification that can be incorporated effortlessly is just simply too good especially when we still get to lose weight and stay healthy.

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Work Out At Home And Lose Weight

Monday, July 20th, 2009

Overweight and obesity is a condition caused by life style including food habits and sedentary work. Overweight and obesity have become widespread and a major health concern. A number of diseases which are life threatening are also associated with the condition. There are a number of weight loss programs that have come to be suggested and practiced. The most popular amongst them is the combination of diet and exercises. There are a number of dietary supplements too in the market. Various workout programs are also propagated. There are also medications in the form of capsules and pills. Surgery is also resorted to in rare cases. Natural medications including herbals are popular in the market.

Various explanations are given and concepts developed to address the problem of overweight and obesity. Diet combined with different workouts or exercises are acknowledged as the best of the lot. There are a variety of exercises such as aerobic exercises, anaerobic exercises, and flexibility exercises. Various types of machines, cardiac equipment and marathon workouts too are practiced. Weight loss equipments are used predominantly in gyms, fitness centers and bodybuilding centers. Weight loss training programs too have been developed by experts. Turbulence training program is a specific weight loss training program. The program adopts a combination of strength or resistance training with interval training as its approach. The metabolic rate increases resulting in faster burning up of fat. There are a variety of techniques that are used in turbulence training. This includes dumbbell exercises and bodyweight exercises too. Bodyweight exercises do not make use of any equipment, but rely instead on the weight of the body of the person who is doing the exercise. The exercise includes push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups and stretching. You can do the interval training at home.

Turbulence training program consists of an introductory course followed by intermediate program. Later it progresses to the advanced training program. There is also the special turbulence training for women too. The training suits busy women and men.

Turbulence training is not intended to make you into a bodybuilder but for burning fat and toning up of the muscles. The turbulence training program has been developed by Craig Ballantyne. The training program is available as download as an e-book. This can be purchased on line.

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Have Hoodia Lose Weight

Monday, July 20th, 2009

Hoodia Gordonii, one of the hoodia species, has been reported to be traditionally used by the San Bushmen. They use the plant, amongst other things, to suppress hunger. The San Bushmen consume Hoodia when they are on long hunting trips that takes them into the Kalahari desert where food is sparse. The South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) isolated the active ingredient and gave it a name, P57. CSIR patented P57 in 1996. With CSIR officially recognizing the San people as the source of this knowledge in 2002, the San Bushmen have become eligible to get a share in the profit from the marketing of Hoodia.

Obesity is a modern day problem. It was almost unknown in ancient times. It is estimated by World Health Organization (WHO) that there are some 400 million adults who are afflicted with obesity. Obesity has become a major public health issue that WHO declared it to be a global epidemic. A sedentary life and bad food habits mostly cause obesity though it is simply preventable in most cases. However, mental illness and often genetic cause too can lead to obesity.  Obesity can be checked in many ways. There is the weight loss program that one takes up to lose excess weight. Diet supplement and medication too are available in the market. There is also a surgical procedure for obesity.

Hoodia Gordonii grows 1 meter high. It is a flowering plant. Khoba, Xhooba and Ghaap are the local names given to it. Hoodia is found to grow naturally in Angola, Namibia, South Africa and Botswana. Hoodia is available in the form of capsules, tablets, syrup and drinks. There are a number of hoodia drinks such as the Hoodia Gordonii Shake Mix which contains 16 vitamins and minerals besides protein and fat. This is to be taken with milk or water.

The increasing market for Hoodia Gordonii led to its being indiscriminately collected and traded. This led to a situation where the plant might have to be listed as an endangered species if its collection and trade are not strictly regulated and controlled. As required under such a situation, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) listed the plant in its list. All export of Hoodia Gordonii from Africa requires CITES certification. It also means that all certified exports are genuine Hoodia Gordonii.

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