Back To Basics Egg & Muffin Toaster Review

Another Christmas present I got this year was a Back to Basics Egg and Muffin Toaster. This thing is great! You put in your toast or English muffin and an egg, and it cooks both so that they are done at the exact same time. You can also add pre-cooked ham, sausage, or bacon to a tray above the egg and it will heat it for you.

How the Egg and Muffin Toaster Works:

When I first saw it, I was confused about how it worked, but it is really simple. You drop in your toast, add water to the egg cooker for steam, spray non-stick cooking spray in the egg dish, crack an egg and drop it in, push a button, and wait. It takes about 4 minutes to cook the egg and it delays the heat in the toaster so your toast is done at the exact same time. Like any other toaster, you can choose your darkness setting on the toaster.

The best part of all is that it makes a pretty healthy breakfast sandwich (as long as you don't add bad stuff to it). It poaches the egg, which is one of the healthiest ways to eat a whole egg, and I like to add ham or Canadian bacon which is very low in fat. You can use butter substitute, low or non fat mayonnaise, or even ketchup if you want, but I like mine dry.

I've used this thing every day this week, except for one, and I'm loving it! Today, however, I found out the one and probably only negative about the B2B Egg and Muffin Toaster. We tried making sandwiches for the whole family. At 4 minutes per sandwich, and only being able to make one at a time- we gave up after 2 and just cooked some eggs on the stove.

One bonus feature on the Egg and Muffin Toaster is that it can boil up to 4 eggs at a time which will be nice for egg salad sandwiches =)

If you want to see where to get it or learn more about it, check out the Back to Basics Egg & Muffin Toaster Website.

Next I will review the Magic Bullet Blender!

Apple Nike+ iPod Sport Kit- QUICK TIP

One thing I've found I've been doing a lot with my Nike+ iPod Sport Kit is taking my headphones off my iPod and throwing it in my pocket when I walk the dog or even go to the mall. I put it on the basic workout setting just to track my distance and see how many calories I burn doing things that aren't even a part of my workout. This has made me be more active in doing some things simply because I now realize how many extra calories I can burn. Some examples are parking farther from the store and not cutting across the grass to get somewhere faster.

Apple Nike + iPod Sport Kit Review

Tune your run. Transform your iPod Nano into a personal workout coach with the Nike + iPod Sport Kit. Only $29.00.

This Christmas I got a pair of Nike+ shoes and the Nike+ iPod Sport Kit from Apple. For those of you who haven't heard about the Nike+ iPod Sport Kit, it is basically a pedometer that you put in your shoe and it transmits a plethora of data about your walks or runs wirelessly to your iPod. It's an awesome piece equipment for only $29.00, but that's where the Nike+ shoes come in!

When I first looked into the Nike+ iPod Sport Kit, I thought the reason it was only $29.00 was because Apple already got you for the $200.00+ dollars you spent on your iPod Nano. I was wrong, and I should have realized it much sooner because accessories for iPods are rarely cheap! The reason they are able to sell this product for so little is because it can't be used with just any shoe. You have to buy the new Nike+ Shoes with a special pocket for the sensor. These will set you back at least $100.00.

This was a pretty clever collaboration on the part of Nike and Apple. In order to use the $29.00 product, you will have already had to spend about $350.00 for an iPod Nano and Nike+ running shoes. I already had an iPod Nano, and I needed new running shoes, so things worked out pretty well for me. If you don't like Nike shoes, or don't want to buy new running shoes, there is an alternative- I think. The following is a link to one blogger's post about how to use the Nike+ iPod Sport Kit without having to buy the Nike+ shoes (I haven't tried it, so I can't tell you how well it works):

http://podophile.com/2006/07/14/shoe-hacker-nikeipod-sport-kit-shoe-mod/

Once I had my iPod Nano, Nike+ running shoes, and the Nike+ iPod Sport Kit together, it was finally time to test it out! I opened the box expecting to find a software CD for the kit, but there is no such thing. When you plug your iPod into your computer, it checks for updates. The most recent update gives your iPod the capability to run the Nike+ Sport Kit. Once I realized that, I put the transmitter into the special pocket in my shoe, plugged the receiver into my iPod and I was ready to go.

Once the transmitter has been plugged into the iPod, you get a Nike+ iPod option on the menu. You click this and at first it asks you some questions about your weight, etc. so it can calculate calories burned. Once that information is entered, it remembers it, but you can always change it in the settings. Now, it gives you three options:

• Basic- it records time, distance, calories burned, & pace.
• Time- you choose how long you want to run and it tells you when you're done
• Distance- same as time, but with a distance goal
• Calories- same as the other two but a specific amount of burned calories is your goal

Once you choose an option, you push a button to start your workout and you're on your way. You control your music and your iPod just as you would normally, but along the way, a male or female voice (you choose in options) gives you verbal updates of your status when you reach different milestones. At any time, if you want to hear your current progress, all you have to do is push a button. That is one of the features I really love. Once you have reached your goal, it lets you know- but it keeps recording data in case you want to keep going. If you want it to stop recording, all you have to do is hit a button.

Another thing I love about this product is the history feature. It stores all the data from your runs or walks so you can see increases or decreases in your times, distances, etc. It also gives your best times and distances and total times and distances from all your runs or walks. As if this isn't enough, once you plug your iPod into your computer, it is able to automatically transmit all of your data to your free Nike+ account where you can look at the data in several different ways. This site also allows you to set several different variations of goals and interact with and challenge other runners from around the world to races.

I have been playing with this thing for almost a week now and I haven't been able to find anything negative about it besides the cost of acquiring the three components to make it work (iPod Nano, Nike+ Shoes, and the sensor itself). One thing I was really worried about was the accuracy of the sensor when it comes to distance. I did some investigating and found that this problem is easily solved by going into the settings and selecting "sensor" then "calibrate". This feature allows you to calibrate both your walking and running pace separately by running or walking a known distance. Once I calibrated it, I checked it's accuracy by walking and running on a few different treadmills at the gym and it turned out to be pretty darn accurate.

The last thing I will leave you with is another article about this product. This article talks about security flaws in the Nike+ iPod Sport Kit that allow stalkers to plot your footsteps from up to 60 feet away, but after reading the article, I'm not really worried. I run in the park or on a treadmill. If someone wants to plot my steps, they're more than welcome to. If they're following me, they can see where I'm running without plotting my steps and if they have hidden their recording device, I will be more than 60 feet away from it for 95% of my run (unless I'm running on the treadmill, but it's pretty obvious what good plotting my steps on the treadmill will do them). Here's the link to the article so you can read it if you care:

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72202-0.html?tw=rss.index

All in all, I would highly recommend the Apple Nike+ iPod Sport Kit if you already have an iPod Nano, or are looking into getting one.

One Key to Weight Loss Success

Losing weight requires habits and repetition. Think about a person who is in perfect shape. Eating one ridiculously unhealthy meal may make them bloated for awhile, but once it is digested, there will be no noticeable gains. Now if they make a consistent habit of eating these unhealthy meals and not burning off the calories, within a few months, there will be highly noticeable results. Now turn this around. If you're in bad shape, and you eat healthy and exercise for a day, you may feel better, but you will not see physical results. Make these healthy activities habits, and trust me, you will thank yourself!

I think patience is one key to losing weight successfully. Fortunately, for people without patience, it still can be done easily. I am not very patient and I did it! Here's how: Let's say you were really excited for something that was happening at 6:00 and the current time was 5:00. If you sat in front of a clock and watched the hands move, it would seem like it was never going to be 6:00! Now let's say you didn't occupy yourself with the literal measure of time and instead you went and watched something interesting on TV. Before you knew it, it would be 6:00! Time would pass either way and it would pass at the same rate, but the second option would require a lot less patience and 6:00 would seem to come a lot faster!

Apply this to weight loss now. We are creatures of habit! Bad eating is a habit, so replace it with a habit of good eating. How to form a habit? Repetition! In the beginning, you will have think about it, but eventually it will become a habit. Once you have your habits of good eating and increased physical activity in place, the hard part is over. Your weight or fat percentage is the clock. If you constantly obsess over it, and you're not patient, you will not see results quick enough and will give up easily. If you just forget about it, continue with your habits, and occupy your time with something more interesting, within a short period of time, you will realize you've dropped a pant size! By this time, you will know what is possible and you will have the momentum to continue your healthy habits!

Specific information about weight loss processes...

I have had my blog up for just a few weeks now and I've gotten a lot of good feedback. When I was losing my weight, I did a lot of research, but I did not write a lot about specific processes in my book and my previous posts.

Now that everything is up and running smoothly, I will be doing a lot more research and begin posting accurate simple explanations about a lot of the body's processes as they pertain to burning fat and building muscle. My girlfriend is a Biology major at the university and she knows quite a bit more than me about this stuff. She's promised to help me write clear and accurate explanations of these processes and also add more female specific exercise and eating posts. I'm pretty excited to have her on board! Look for these new posts this week!

Thanks for all your support!

My Weight Loss Book is available for free download...

I have finally got around to making a separate download page for my weight loss book in e-book format. You can download it by clicking the picture above or the link in the links menu. Once you download it, you can read it right in your screen. It sure beats the hassle of going through my archived posts to read the different sections. Feel free to ask any questions you may have or leave comments. Thanks for reading!

How Fiber Burns Calories

When losing my weight, I focused a lot on common sense and things that naturally made sense to me. I picked up some tips and tricks along the way, but since starting this blog, I've been learning a lot more than I ever have about getting and staying in shape! My main purpose for this blog is to sort through all the crazy ideas out there, find the ones that work for me, then post them here. In changing my eating habits, I began to eat a lot of fiber rich foods, but I never really knew the main benefits of fiber. This article does a good job of explaining the importance of fiber as it pertains to weight loss and how it will aid tremendously in obtaining and maintaining optimum health.

Fight Fat with Fiber
By Chris Chenoweth

Fiber is one of the most effective natural tools for losing weight. Following a high-fiber eating plan can be a very successful way of avoiding the diet roller coaster for good. You do not have to eliminate any foods from your diet. You simply add foods that are fiber-rich or make substitutions (whole wheat bread instead of white bread).

Following a high-fiber diet will force your body to lose weight, make it easy to keep it off, and give you more energy. Cutting back on fat and increasing fiber content decreases the risk for many diseases including heart disease, high cholesterol and some types of cancer.

What is the secret of fiber? Fiber acts like a sponge in the body’s digestive tract, absorbing substances containing sugars, fats, carbohydrates, and the calories associated with them. This prevents those calories from staying in your body and adding fat to it.

Fiber also adds bulk to foods, causing your body to feel full sooner and longer. This results in eating less throughout the day; eating less results in losing weight.

Another plus for eating fiber is the increase in energy you will experience. Like protein, fiber also slows down the digestion process in your body, guaranteeing a perfectly balanced energy level throughout the day.

HOW TO INCREASE FIBER

*AVOID SUGAR. There is no fiber in sugar or sugar-laden foods.

*EAT WHOLE GRAINS. Avoid white bread and white rice as they have had the fiber processed out of them. Use only food made with whole grains such as whole grain breads, cereals, wheat germ, barley and brown rice. Always check food labels.

*EAT WHOLE FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. Avoid fruit juices (except fresh fruit juices made in a juicer), as they can be high in sugar content. The skins are the richest source of fiber.

*EAT BEANS. Most varieties of beans are a rich source of fiber, especially kidney beans and garbanzo beans.

*DRINK SMOOTHIES. Throw a bunch of fresh fruit, yogurt, and ground flaxseed in the blender for a tasty, high fiber treat.

*REDUCE MEAT AND DAIRY. If you eat too much meat and dairy products you will not get enough fiber in your diet. You either need to reduce the amounts you eat or increase the amount of fiber you eat.

*DRINK LOTS OF WATER. You must drink plenty of water throughout the day to help push the fiber through your body. Water also eliminates toxins and speeds up the metabolism. Drink at least 8 glasses a day.

BEST FIBER SOURCES

*All-Bran cereal and other high fiber cereals

*Psyllium husks

*Flax meal

*Kidney, garbanzo, and navy beans

*Apple with skin

*Dried figs

*Prunes

*Barley

*Corn

*Whole grain spaghetti

*Banana

*Blueberries

*Sweet potato

*Broccoli

Getting enough fiber in your diet is one of the most important things you can do for your body and your health. Eating fresh fruit, vegetables and grains, along with drinking plenty of water, will ensure that you get enough fiber in your diet. Make sure you reduce your intake of white foods, including sugar, processed foods, and dairy products.

Chris Chenoweth, author of the DO-IT-YOURSELF HOME, HEALTH & MONEY GUIDE, writes articles pertaining to diet, exercise, health, and business.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chris_Chenoweth

Dieting During the Holidays

With Christmas just a few days away, my mom showed me the whole day's menu. Let's just say it's more food than the old me could have eaten in one day. When it comes to November and December there are a lot of eating holidays for most people. This may not be encouragement to some of you, but during these times, I celebrate with a feast!

I eat well all year long, so on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and during all the other holiday get-togethers, I eat to celebrate! There are so many traditions and things to enjoy during the holidays and I'm not going to sit in the corner with my Garden Burger while everyone else is eating Prime Rib! This, to me, is a reward for all my hard work and self control throughout the year.

So what if I put on 2-5 pounds during the holidays. It makes for a good New Year's Resolution, and it's still 4 or 5 months before I will have to put on my summer clothes! Now, this is not an excuse to eat bad all winter. I try to counter the effects of the few large unhealthy meals by eating less around those meals and increasing my activity and exercise during the winter. I also stick to a few basic rules and use healthy alternative dressings, spreads, drinks, etc.. Just because you're on a diet, it doesn't mean you can't have yummy holiday meals (and desserts)! Most people will cheat during the holidays anyways, so you might as well expect it, enjoy it, and not feel bad about it. Just remember that once it's over, it's back to eating healthy again!

A complete full body workout you can do anywhere!

Back when I worked Monday through Friday, from 8 to 5, I could usually always find a solid hour to go to the gym after work. More recently, my schedule has become so varied that it is hard to plan lengthy weight lifting workouts in advance. This has also become difficult because I am not always near a gym.

Recently, while figuring out how I was going to heavily modify my workout while still being able to build muscle, I remembered an article I once read in Men's Health Magazine about how prisoners maintain their bodies now that most prisons do not allow them to lift weights. Within the confines of their cell, with no equipment whatsoever, prisoners are still able to maintain lean muscular bodies by doing one simple exercise. The exercise is called a burpee. As Wikipedia puts it:

The burpee is a calisthenic exercise performed to increase strength and explosiveness. Performed in repetitions it also improves cardio-vascular fitness.

This one exercise works out just about every muscle group in your body using your own weight for resistance. To do a burpee, you only need a space that is a little longer than your body and a little less wide than your wingspan. There are a few variations of this workout used for different sports, but to get the most complete full body workout, I suggest the following version:

(The animation is not exact, but it gives you an idea of the motions. *This is not me.)

• Begin by standing straight up with your hands reaching high above your head.
• Drop down as if you are doing a squat, while bringing your hands to the floor. Place your hands firmly on the floor in front of you.
• Kick your legs out behind you so that your body is fully extended, with your hands holding your upper body above the floor, in the push up position.
• Complete one full push up.
• While keeping your hands on the floor, pull your legs back into your body as you move back in to the squat position.
• Use your legs to lift yourself back up as if you are coming up from a squat, while extending your hands back up over your head
• Repeat without pause.

This workout can be modified several ways to accommodate different exercise goals.

• For beginners, it can be done using a modified push up with your knees on the ground during that portion of the exercise.
  
• To increase intensity and muscle endurance, it can be done in slow motion to make the muscles work harder.
• To add more explosiveness to your leg muscles, you can explode up from the squat position and jump as high as you can off the ground before returning to the starting position.
• For a more intense cardio workout, you can do this exercise rapidly without taking rest between sets.
• To focus on different muscles, you can rotate hand and foot position, such as using a wider hand position on the push ups to focus on your outer chest muscles.
  

For the past few weeks, this has been the only strength training exercise I have done. Prior to that, I had taken several months off from strength training due to my schedule. I can honestly say that I am impressed with the results considering the short time it takes to complete several sets of burpees. It's not going to make you look like a body builder, but it is very effective and efficient for building a healthy amount of lean muscle in all the right places, while exercising your heart and lungs, and working to increase your metabolism. It seemed like every muscle in my body was sore after the first day.

As far as the amount of sets and reps go, it all depends on what you can do. I've read that prisoners do descending sets, which means a set of 10, a set of 9, a set of 8, and so on, with their last set being 1 repetition. When I started a couple weeks ago, I could barely do descending sets starting from 5. Now I can successfully complete descending sets from 10 and I'm increasing that every few workouts.

Frequency? Because this exercise relies heavily on a lot of your larger muscles, it should not be done every single day. I usually do it every other day and take weekends off. When I started, I was resting about 2-3 days in between (until my muscle soreness went away).

This exercise isn't for everyone (knee problems, hip problems, etc.), but it has been helping me a lot, so I thought I would share my experience.

Before and After Weight Loss Pictures

This post is in response to a comment I received over the weekend.

COMMENT:

"Why is it that you choose not to place a before and after picture?"- Anonymous

RESPONSE:

You can see my current picture in my profile. There is a before picture in the intro to my book. Click on the December 2006 Archive link on the home page and scroll almost to the bottom and you will see it.

My weight loss came from a lifestyle change and was not measured on a day to day basis, so I don't have any kind of side by side comparison (in my underwear) before and after picture. In fact, I wouldn't be caught shirtless when I was fat.

This is a blog and I'm not trying to sell anything, so I don't have a special section set aside to try and make you believe what I'm saying. I've been asked by so many people how I lost the weight, so I put it in writing so anyone can read it and maybe learn something; or better yet, get motivated.

I update the site because it is starting to become a hobby and it keeps me actively learning about maintaining good health. It also has taught me a lot about blogging.

Like many other bloggers, I put up a few ads to help pay for my monthly hosting, but trust me, the 10 cents (or less) a day I make comes nowhere near covering the hosting bill.

My posts are original and a lot of what I explain is common sense, so you can choose to believe me or not, but I have nothing to gain or lose either way.

Fitness Calculators

I was on a forum tonight and came across this link. It has useful and fun calculators to help measure a lot of diet and fitness related aspects. I've seen plenty of fitness calculator sites before, but this one seems to cover the most ground on one site.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/calculators.htm

Tips to Eat Less/ Portion Control

As everyone knows, eat less and you will lose more weight. One of my biggest problems while I was losing weight was portion control. I'd always heard a lot about portion control, but I never really knew how to control my portions and not still be hungry once I was finished eating. Over time, I slowly changed my eating habits and began to realize I was really in control of my portions. Recently I had been slipping and eating a little too much, so I thought I would share some things I do to control my portions and eat only what I need to satisfy my hunger. This will help me make these practices more a part of my life again and hopefully help anyone who reads them learn a thing or two.

Order with your brain, not with your hunger...

This goes for eating out and when making a meal or snack at home. A lot of the time you hear people order or make too much food and say "I guess my eyes were bigger than my stomach!" For many of these people, that's where it ends. They stop eating when they're full and that's that. For someone who is loves food as much as I do, when I run into this problem, I usually eat until the plate is clear, or I physically can't eat another bite. This happens to me whether I'm on a diet or not. Like most people, I love the taste of food and it's hard for me to know exactly when I'm full until about 10 minutes after I'm finished stuffing my face.

I found that by putting hunger aside and ordering or planning my meal with my brain rather than my taste buds and growling belly, this becomes easy to control. When doing this, it's always better to order or make less than it is to order or make more. If I think I want two sandwiches, and I only make one, by the time I finish that sandwich and get up to make another one, I will know whether I'm full or not. If there are two sandwiches in front of me, I'm going to knock them both out before my fullness even catches up with my brain.

Exercise before, not after...

With the exception of breakfast, you should always do your exercises before a meal as opposed to after. I don't know the science behind this, but all I know is when I'm done exercising, I feel this sense of progress and I don't want to mess it up by eating too much or having a bad meal. Besides that, my body also craves certain nutrients and it physically feels good to consume healthier foods. One other thing that I notice is that my stomach feels somewhat full after exercising, but this could be in my head.

One of the motivators that can help your eating habits right after an exercise is momentum. When I was losing weight, the more progress I made, the more I felt I had to stay with my plan because the gap was closing between my current health and my goal. If you break this down, you can use this momentum after a workout. You just did one healthy activity, now you are in the position to either double the impact by eating healthy, or cancel it out by eating poorly. Exercising then avoiding guilt by eating healthy is a lot better than eating poorly then feeling guilty and exercising.

The last benefit, of course is that by working out on an empty stomach, your body will be stuck burning stored fat for energy. **Don't skip breakfast though! I covered the reason for that in my book, so read the eating section if you need more info.

Drink a lot of 0 calorie beverage with your meal...

I prefer diet coke, but I've had people go crazy on me about the effects of artificial sweeteners. I'm not going to tell you what to drink here, but unsweetened iced tea and water work great for this.

When I'm eating a meal, I've trained myself to drink a lot of calorie free liquid so I become full faster. You don't have to drown yourself, but any space you fill in your belly helps to ease your hunger (at least temporarily, until you can get away from the food).

Eat slower, if you can...

This honestly does not work for me all of the time. Sometimes if I'm not to hungry I can do this, but sometimes I can't control how fast I eat because the food is so good =) If you can do this, it definitely works to allow your body to alert you as soon as you've become full. Give it a shot.

Eat your meals on time...

I don't eat several small meals throughout the day because I don't want to obsess over an eating schedule. This has been proven to speed up metabolism and help your digestive system be more productive, but it's not something I personally do. If you do it, great. If you want an extra push in your diet, have the time, and can plan 6 small meals a day, great!

I find that when it comes to an eating schedule, the most important thing is to eat on time. What time? Well this varies depending on your schedule and when you're active. What I do is eat my breakfast when I first wake up, this way I'm hungry for lunch at a reasonable time. I make sure to not eat lunch too late or too early. Then I am hungry for dinner at a reasonable time. I snack sometimes in between meals to make it to the next meal.

The consequences of not eating on time usually catch up with you at dinner. If you eat lunch too late, you won't be hungry for dinner until later in the evening. The More time you have to digest your food before you go to bed, the better, but eating too early can also be bad. If you eat lunch too early and end up having an early dinner, it makes it really easy to want to snack later in the evening, even right before bed.

These are just a few of the tricks that have worked to control my eating in one way or another. If you have any other useful tips, feel free to share them in the comments. I would love to hear!

Healthy choices are plentiful...

Although my mom and I have closed our bakery, I still get quite a bit of industry publications mailed or e mailed to me. Today, I received an e mail about a healthy baking seminar coming up and it looks like the food industry is being encouraged to create and promote healthy choices now more than ever before! And by the looks of the contents of the e mail, it must be working:

"As someone involved in the baking industry, you know better than anyone that 2006 has seen healthful foods continue to grow in popularity and acceptance in the United States as evidenced by sales figures and media coverage. In a very short period of time, the commercial bread aisle changed dramatically to include countless whole grain varieties, English Muffins, bagels, and other new products. In the cookie aisles, whole grains also have made great strides. And, it’s not just whole grains. Functional ingredients and nutraceuticals continue to grow in popularity and are finding their ways into more and more bakery foods.

"Healthful bakery foods are stronger than ever, from in-store bakeries to the commercial bread aisles, and from retail bakeries to commercial and non-commercial foodservice establishments."

This is good news for a lot of unhealthy people. Americans as a whole are finally starting to understand the undeniable consequences of all of the terrible things we eat. This is forcing the food industry (including fast food) to begin to diversify their offerings if they want to keep a lot of their customers. The movement that we are currently a part of will eventually make it a lot easier to become and stay healthy! I'm definitely looking forward to seeing where it takes us.

Low Fat Granola Bars

I don't know about anyone else, but chocolate chip/ chunk granola bars are like potato chips for me. For some reason, I can't eat just one! I tried to keep them out of the house for awhile, but the other day at the grocery store, I noticed Quaker Chewy LOW FAT chocolate chunk granola bars!

With just 2 grams of fat, 90 calories, and 90% of the deliciousness of the regular ones, they are definitely worth snacking on. I also found that the trick to not eating more than one is to have your water or milk ready to go and drink it as soon as your done. This will wash the addicting taste out of your mouth!

They also come in a low calorie version with less sugar if that's all you're worried about.

Too old to lose weight or get in shape?

I've been surfing a lot of weight loss related discussions over the past few days, trying to see what other people are doing to stay in shape, and I keep coming across something that I've been hearing for too long now! In the past, I have probably made just about every excuse possible to not be more active or change my eating habits. Finally, when I ran out of excuses and did something about my weight problem, I looked back and felt bad about all the lies I told my self.

Why is it that middle aged and older people often tell themselves that they cannot get back to the shape they were in when they were 20? Most of the time an older body= bad knees, bad hearts, bad lungs, slower metabolism, etc.. I won't deny that, but if you lived 5 miles further from work than your younger co-worker, would you stop going? Probably not. It would just take you a little longer to get there. The same thing is true with your health. It may take you a little longer to get back in shape, but once you're there, the benefits (or pay when it comes to work) are just as good, if not better because the older you are, the more important your health becomes.

"Yeah, but I will never be in the shape I was in when I was (insert ideal young age here)!" I have to disagree with that. I come from a busy family. Throughout my childhood, it was pretty much fast food for 3/4 of our meals and restaurants for the rest. Breakfast consisted of Hostess cupcakes and Pop Tarts. Before I lost my weight, my whole family was in terrible shape.

One weekend while on vacation, my 43 year old dad suffered a terrible pain in his chest and became very ill. A trip to the emergency room and some tests revealed that one of the arteries in his heart was 99% blocked. After his medical procedures were over, he knew he had to get in shape or he wasn't going to live very long. Needless to say, he learned how to eat right, and with regular low impact cardio exercise, he lost over 40 pounds in just a few short months. This brought him down to the weight he was at when he got out of the Navy at age 21, and he's kept it off since. He did all of this with a bad heart, asthma, and a rusty old body that hadn't seen a workout in many years.

Smart Balance Peanut Butter

I had seen the commercial for Smart Balance Omega Peanut Butter several times over the past few weeks, and had been wanting to try it, so the other night I picked some up. This stuff is pretty expensive. $3.99 for a small jar. I figured it's not really possible to mess up the taste of peanut butter, so it had to be good.

I was wrong. The Omega-3's come from flaxseed and palm fruit oil added to the peanut butter. This isn't so bad taken in pill form, but in peanut butter? Seriouly, why mix the two? For convenience? I don't know about you, but I can find 4 seconds during my day to swallow a couple pills. The peanut butter tastes OK until you swallow it. Then all you can taste is the funky oil taste. There's a reason these oils come in pill form- because they aren't very tasty.

I think it would be a lot cheaper and a hell of a lot better tasting to stick with peanuts and salt natural peanut butter and take your omega-3's in pill form! Some things just shouldn't be mixed.

Technorati Weight Loss Blog

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My weight loss book is now posted- what's next

I have now posted my weight loss e book in it's entirety. You can read it totally free without having to worry about me trying to sell you something. I won't. I am just excited to find out how many people can be helped in some way from reading my experience!

To read the book- simply follow my posts in date order. It's a bit tricky because it's backwards, but click on the December 2006 link in the archives column on the right hand side of the page then start reading from the bottom post up.

I also have to throw together a download page so you can download the book file and read it in a better format. I should have this done in a few days.

What's next? I have stayed healthy for over a year now and recently I had begun changing some of my healthy habits. I re-read my book and it put me right back on track. It also motivated me to keep sharing my story! I will be maintaining this blog and actively making posts about anything and everything I come across or experience that is valuable to my health and may also help someone else.

If you think my book/ blog is valuable in any way, please share it with anyone you think might need it. Let's all become and STAY healthy forever!

Weight Loss Boook Conclusion

Now, I don't know if you have a weight loss goal or not, but I will make one for you. If you had a magic wand, and could remove any amount of fat from your body, how would you look when you were done? Figure out how much weight you would need to lose to look like that and that is your approximate target.

To be completely honest with you, it's hard to precisely target your ideal weight until you get there. People have different frames. I have huge shoulders and a large chest and rib-cage. If I got down to the weight of my best friend, who is the same height as me, I would probably die of malnutrition. I don't want to have my ribs poking out. The farther you are from your target weight, the more you might be off. You may need to lose more or less, but it is good to set up milestones, with the ultimate goal being a lifetime of good health.

Once you get going, if you have questions about something, simply get on the Internet and look it up. The Internet is a great free tool you can easily use to learn anything. For example, I was told recently that sodium makes you store fat. I didn't think it was true, but I drank so many diet sodas that I had to find out. I went online, and in less than a minute, I found out that sodium simply makes you retain water so your body can keep a proper balance. If you are a wrestler who is trying to lose a few pounds overnight for a match, cutting sodium from your diet may be beneficial. For a long term weight loss plan, you don't have to cut out sodium because those extra couple pounds of water weight can be processed out of your body within a day or two. Anything you have questions about can easily be answered, just check the Internet. * Update: As I am posting this on my blog, should you have any questions, feel free to comment my posts or e mail me.

I really don't want to waste anymore of your time by giving you more to read, so I am going to let you get out there and start being active now! Reading exercises your brain, but right now, you need to get your body in shape. I wish everyone the best of luck, and I am very excited to see how many people I can help through my experience.

Weight Loss Motivation

Now that I have explained all of the eating and exercise techniques and strategies, I used to easily become healthy, I will discuss the one thing that is a spark plug in all of this. That is motivation. Without that tiny spark, your body wont start moving in a healthy direction. Now you don't have to motivate yourself to lose 30, or 60, or 100 pounds. That is a huge task!

You just need to motivate yourself to get started. Once you are giving your body what it needs, it will return that favor ten-fold. I'm not saying that you can get started, then sit back and do nothing; but as you go along, your body will begin to give you all the motivation you need. You just have to act on that motivation. It's all mental.

One of the biggest things you can do to increase your body's natural motivation is to not neglect your sleep requirements. By sleeping on a regular schedule and allowing yourself to get enough sleep, your body will feel more energized throughout the day, encouraging activity and making that activity easier to do. Sometimes, overweight people have problems with not being able to sleep, or sleeping too much. Don't worry about that. Do what you can to sleep when your body requires it. Get on a regular schedule and as your body becomes healthier, you will sleep better and wake up energized.

Another thing that can become a problem is discouragement. Just like losing the unnecessary fat before you can be fully healthy, you must overcome discouragement before you can be fully motivated. There are many things that can discourage you. If you can focus on the goal, most of these things will not be able to get close enough to affect you.

One discouragement that began to have an affect on me was the following: The more weight I had to lose, the faster I lost it. As you get closer to your target weight range, the weight begins to come off slower. This is because, when you have more weight on you, your body has to burn more fuel to move all that weight through all of it's daily activities. As you begin to lose those extra pounds, your body can operate on less fuel. It's kind of like buying a smaller car. Your old SUV is going to burn a lot more fuel, driving the same speed and distance, than your new hatchback.

After seeing such rapid results in the beginning, this can become frustrating, but if you stay patient, eventually you will get to where you want to be. If you do become impatient, you will need to start burning more calories. That is where the flexibility of exercise comes in handy. Because you only need to exercise four to five times per week, for around 15 minutes, increasing your exercise can really speed up your weight loss. When this began to happen to me, I added a weight routine to my workout. Another thing you can so is add a weight vest or ankle weights to your cardio workout. The more energy your body has to use, the more fuel it will burn.

Another thing that can be discouraging is a scale. I actually decided to be healthy because I wanted to feel healthy, not to lose weight. I thought I would always be a really big guy, I just wanted to feel better. As I started to become more healthy, I knew I was starting to look better, but did not know I had actually lost a lot of weight. One day, I went to the doctor and she told me I was 30 pounds lighter than my last visit.

This got me excited and I bought a scale. I checked it 3 of 4 times a day, and my weight fluctuated with every meal. Overall, I was losing about 4 pounds a week, but once it began to slow down, I started to get discouraged.

Scales can be good, but they are mostly bad. If you check them every week or so (at the same time of the day), they can encourage you to continue what you're doing. If you check them daily, the weight loss really starts to not seem as significant. Also, if you hop on a scale and you're a couple pounds lighter, it may encourage you to treat yourself to an unhealthy meal. If you're the same weight, you get discouraged because you aren't losing any. If you are a couple pounds heavier, you are sometimes encouraged to starve yourself. All of these actions are negative to your health.

Other than that, it is up to you to find out what motivates you the best. I like to take other people's discouraging words toward me and prove them wrong. I also like to look at my fellow Americans and realize that just about everyone of them is overweight. What happened to us? This motivates me because I know that I can do something easy to be healthier than the majority of people these days. There are a million things you can do to get motivated. You just need to find out what works for you and thrive on it.

*Follow my posts in order to read the rest of the book. I should have the book posted in it's entirety within the next few days so stay tuned!

Exercise and Metabolism/ Burning Fat

Your body is a machine. Everything it does requires the cooperation of several different systems. In order to be as healthy as possible, all of your systems must be working together as efficiently as possible. You are the CEO of your body. You run your body's business. Of course there are several middle and lower level managers that take care of all the details, without much effort from you, but you need to make the big decisions. You must manage what you eat, when you eat it, and how you're going to use the energy the food provides.

It is difficult to cover exercise separate from eating because of their close relationship. Metabolism is what connects those two subjects so closely. Metabolism is the rate at which your body burns fresh fuel and stored fat. Several food and exercise factors affect that rate. By eating the right fuels at the right times, as explained in the last section, you can really utilize the periods when your metabolism is working its hardest. When you sleep, your metabolism rests. That is why it is not good to eat late at night.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, when you exercise, your metabolism speeds up to burn the fuel that keeps your motor running. It's like putting the pedal to the metal in your car. The throttle opens up and your body starts burning more calories (like a car eats up more gas). The difference between a car and your body, however, is that your body doesn't have any brakes. Once your metabolism speeds up, it takes awhile to slow down. This is why getting your heart pumping rapidly for only 15 minutes, 4-5 times per week, can really speed up your weight loss.

It still remains a fact that when you're working out and your heart rate is its highest, your metabolism is working its hardest to keep up with your body's needs. This is where good timing becomes involved again. A trick for burning more fat during your workouts is to not consume carbs or fats for a couple hours before you workout. By doing this, you force your body to go to its reserves and begin to burn your stored fat to use as fuel. Immediately after you finish your workout, it is essential that you put carbs back in your body as soon as possible. Most, if not all, of these carbs will be used as fuel to rebuild your muscles and get your body back to 100%. This technique is very effective because any carbs you have leftover after rebuilding are still easily burned fuel that your body has a chance to use before it turns to fat. It's like delaying your pay check, then going on a shopping spree. Your body must tap into its fat savings because it has no cash. Once you're finished working out and pay your body, it is still burning fuel at a high rate and it will burn right through the new carbs.

Your body is like an automobile. When your body is at idle, your metabolism is also at idle. Your body is on at all times but only uses the energy needed to keep itself running. Although it is working all day, in order to burn the most calories, you need to give it a push. When you eat or engage in light activity, your metabolism revs up and uses a little more gas than usual. To put it into gear and really get it rolling, you have to give it a hard push.

This push comes from a good cardio workout. By getting yourheart rate up, and sustaining that rate for as long as possible, you give your metabolism a hard push. By giving it this hard push, it will continue to roll, until eventually it slows back down to an idle. The concept here is simple. The harder you push, and the more you push, the faster and farther your metabolism will travel. The farther it travels, the more fuel it will burn.

Now the great thing about pushing your metabolism is that you have a lot more strength than you think. By doing a 12-15 minute cardio workout, you can keep your metabolism rolling along for a day or two. The other great thing about it is that you can always catch right back up to your metabolism and give it another push, even when it's already rolling. The more often you do your cardio workout, the faster it will roll; and the longer you keep it up, the farther it will continue to roll each time you push it.

Before I started to become healthy, I could not run 1/16 of a mile without choking and coughing up all kinds of nasty phlegm. I couldn't even walk up a flight of stairs without getting out of breath. I don't smoke or anything, my heart and lungs just couldn't handle moving 310 pounds around too quickly. One thing that I never did in any of my previous attempts to lose weight, was maintain a regular sustained cardio workout. I knew that this time, I had to do it. Once I got started, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

I didn't set up specified days or times, but I did not want to workout on the weekends. I just began one day by walking down to the park after the sun went down. Once I got to the park, I just looked up and took off running. I used the time to think and work things out in my head. The next thing I knew, I had run a lap, and I was choking and coughing, and couldn't run anymore. I told myself that I had already made it this far, and it wouldn't kill me to just go a little bit farther, so I did. I ended up stopping part way into the second lap and started walking. Well I shouldn't say walking, because I could barely stand up, but I kept moving forward.

By the time I got to the start of the third lap, I thought to myself: "I know I can run one lap without stopping, and if I ran this one, it wouldn't really be running two laps in a row because I have rested since the last one." So I went for it! Again, I blocked everything out until my body forced me to consciously feel the burn. I told myself I could keep going just a little bit farther, and I did. I then walked another lap and went home.

I didn't want to lose my progress, so I kept this up, 5 days a week, for the next couple of weeks. Every day I increased the amount I ran. Finally, one day, I ran two whole laps and I knew I had it in me to somehow run just one more! By the time I finished the third lap, I got a second wind. I was still struggling, but it seemed easier than the laps before. I was motivated because I knew I was so close to finally being able to run a whole mile. I did it!

I used everything I had left in me to put my hands up in the air and jump up and down. I was so excited. I felt like turning around and running some more! I went home and felt like this all the way through the next day. I wanted to go out and see if I could do it again. I did, and this time it was a little easier. With each run, I noticed improvements. I knew I had to keep going!

Eventually, my body started wanting its regular cardio workouts. I kept this one mile run up for 4-5 days a week until finally one day, I decided to keep going. Gradually, I had been sub-consciously increasing my speed, but I had to decide for myself to increase the distance. I left the park running and added another leg to my usual run. I set myself a goal to run all the way home, and I did. Each day, my run got easier and easier, and never took up more than 15 minutes of my time.

As I saw results, I continued a regular routine of running 4-5 days per week. Each time, I kept my heart rate up for about the same amount of time, but the distances kept getting longer. Within a very short period of time, I was a running machine. I would now even consider running one of my past times.

Not only does a good cardio workout boost your metabolism, it gives you a full load of energy throughout each day. When your metabolism is working at top speed, it seems to give your body more horsepower, and you don't have to work as hard to complete everyday tasks. You become more active and find yourself looking for active things to do. A high-quality, regular cardio workout can even be the cure for laziness. The best part about it is, if you give your metabolism the push it needs, it will work for you, giving you the energy to do everything else in your life more easily.

Running was my cardio exercise of choice, but there are several other options. There is biking, step aerobics, and swimming, to name a few. The one goal of your cardio workout is to sustain a high heart rate for a period of at least 15 minutes. I know that 15 minutes is probably more than most people can do now, but before long 15 minutes will become your minimum.

A lot of people think that walking is going to help them lose weight. The truth is that walking a mile and running a mile will take about the same amount of energy. It will probably even burn just as many calories. The problem with walking is it doesn't get your heart rate up enough, therefore it doesn't give your metabolism a strong enough push.

If you want to take an hour or two and walk 5 or 10 miles, because that is something you enjoy, that would definitely be a pretty healthy thing to do. But, if your goal is to exercise the most efficient way, you need to get your heart rate up. A good comparison here, once again, is an automobile. If you were to sustain a speed of 80 mph for a short distance, then put your car in neutral and let it coast, your car would continue to roll at a high rate of speed, gradually slowing down, and travel for quite a distance before stopping. If you were to sustain a speed of 10 mph for that same distance, it would take a much longer time to travel, and once you let off the gas, your car would come to a stop pretty quickly. The same concepts apply to your cardio workout.

Besides the benefits to your metabolism, a good cardio workout is also essential to other parts of your health. This book is geared toward burning fat, but there are plenty of good side affects to a high-quality, regular cardio workout. One that you probably already know of is the effects on your heart. Your heart is a muscle. The way to exercise your heart muscle is to use it. When you get your heart rate up, your heart is pumping blood harder than usual, becoming stronger and healthier.

Throughout the process of becoming healthy, I focused mainly on cardio. It was quick and easy to do, and gave me the most bang for my buck. While weight training has many health benefits, I was looking to burn fat, and I focused on the best way to do it. I also didn't want to be discouraged by looking bigger due to my muscles growing underneath my fat.

When I finally got down to a weight I was comfortable with, I began a weight training program. A weight training workout can be very effective at burning calories, but muscles themselves do not burn fat on their own. When you hear about building muscles to burn more fat, the concepts that apply are quite simple. When you are lifting weights, you exert quite a bit of energy, requiring your body to burn fuel to keep you going. The stronger your muscles, the heavier weights you can lift, and the more energy (fuel) your body will have to burn to move that weight.

The other concept that applies here is muscle rebuilding. When you use your muscles, they are broken down and then rebuilt stronger. This is why you need a few days rest in between exercising specific body parts. During this rebuilding process, you're body is burning carbs as fuel, and protein as materials, to rebuild your muscles. You burn the most calories from this process right after a workout, but the complete cycle takes a few days.

Weight training workouts take a lot longer than a cardio workout, but once you get to a certain point in your weight loss, you begin looking for something active to do because your body craves activity. When I started my weight training program, I first bought an old ab workout DVD and used it daily. It only took 8 minutes each day and really began to tighten up my mid section. The next thing I did was add a free-weight workout. This actually takes me about 45 minutes 2-3 times a week, but it's really shaping my body the way I want it. One of the not-so-obvious visual benefits of a weight workout, is that it tends to fill your body out in the right places, lifting more fatty areas, and making you look leaner.

Using these strategies, combined with the healthy eating habits, I have lost every pound I set out to lose, and then some. Once I figured out the tools to use, I put them in action and couldn't believe how easy it was. I now have the energy to wake up at 5:30 a.m. and go to the gym to get my workout out of the way before work. I haven't lost any time by working out because I have so much energy now that my body requires less rest throughout the day. I feel great, and so can you!

*Follow my posts in order to read the rest of the book. I should have the book posted in it's entirety within the next few days so stay tuned!

How To Eat To Lose Weight

OK! So here's where you have the most control of your results. There is one fact that will never change. The amount of fat our bodies store is directly related to the amount of calories we take in, minus the calories we burn off. There are only three things in food that consist of calories. These are carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Within a couple days of intake, if any of these food types are not burned off, they become stored fat. In order to make your body burn off the maximum amount of stored fat, you must be in control of the quantity and timing of which you intake each of these food types.

By eating the right foods, in the right amounts, at the right times, you can really control the rate that your body burns off stored fat. Not only that, if you pay close attention to the nutritional information of the things you eat, you can find simple ways to cut loads of calories, without affecting the volume of food you're eating. This way, you never go hungry!

Nowadays, there are several healthy alternatives to the things we eat. I would be willing to bet that 99% of all foods have healthy alternatives. Many are artificial, but there is a new, rapidly growing market for all-natural healthy alternatives. A lot of these taste just as good, if not better than the actual thing. Most others- you adapt to quickly. For example: fat free American cheese tastes exactly like regular American cheese; but diet soda tastes much different than regular soda. I could not stand diet soda when I was fat. I thought it was unsweet, and watered down. However, within a week of regularly drinking it, it began to taste crisp and refreshing. Now the roles are reversed, and regular soda is much too sweet for me.

By eating the right way now, once you have your stored body-fat to a minimum, you can continue the same diet to maintain your healthy body. This is possible because, when you don't have to carry around all that extra body-fat, your body will require less fuel. By continuing the healthy eating you had been practicing, you will give your body everything it needs (and nothing more), and in turn, it will run efficiently- like a well maintained machine.

This concept is not found in most diets. Usually you are required to starve at least part of your body's requirements. Once you are at your goal weight, you either keep going and become underweight, or you go back to your old eating habits and become overweight again. As a part of the diet, you were never taught to eat healthy. You were never taught to maintain a healthy weig