3 reasons why little sleep makes you fat

A lot of people don't know this, but a lack of sleep could be the big missing link in their fat loss efforts!

How does sleep (or sleep deprivation) affect your weight loss efforts?

Here are just a few reasons why sleeping may be the missing link to your weight loss efforts:

1. When you’re tired, it is so much harder to make healthy choices. We have all had this feeling... When we wake up and feel like we don't want to be anywhere else BUT our bed, it is very unlikely that we will make good choices such as going to the gym or eating right! I know this because I am guilty of it from time to time! When I have very little sleep, I find that I actually LOOK for excuses to not go to the gym.

2. Researchers from several separate studies have found a link between sleep and the hormones that influence our eating behavior Two specific hormones are involved. Ghrelin is responsible for feelings of hunger. Leptin tells the brain when it’s time to stop. When you’re sleep deprived, your ghrelin levels increase at the same time that your leptin levels decrease. The result is our WORST NIGHTMARE. What could possibly be worse than our body telling us "Lets eat! And not stop!!!"

3. Your body adjusts itself based on your circadian rhythms and the amount of sunlight outside Without getting too deep into the science, these rhythms and light tell your body to physically recover approximately between the hours of 10pm-2am and to mentally recover approximately between 2am-6am. If you aren’t getting to bed until 12am, you are missing out on 2 crucial hours of physical repair. This can result in all sorts of aches and pains that do not get better, no matter what you try. I have seen people relieve bad backs and aching joints by just getting to bed by 10pm. So set up a certain time that your going to sleep AND wake up...

How are you going to get a good night’s sleep to ensure you are not sabotaging your weight loss efforts?

Utilize these few tips:

1. Don’t watch TV before bed - You may not realize how fired up the news or your favorite TV show gets you before bed time. Instead grab a book or your favorite magazine and read in bed. This works wonders, especially a good fiction book that will help you forget the day’s events.

2. Cut your caffeine intake early in the day - An afternoon coffee or tea can still be racing through your blood stream at 10pm. Cut out your last caffeinated beverage by noon. This includes all coffee and teas (except herbal teas). Once you catch up on your sleep, you won’t be so dependent on your afternoon java kick.

3. Avoid Sugar before bed - (You were avoiding sugar anyway right?) Consuming sugar right before bed leads to a blood sugar roller coaster ride, potentially waking you up in the middle of the night due to a blood sugar low.

4. Put your work away before bed - There is nothing worse than a racing mind before bed. Crunching numbers and reading work documents right before bed may lead to dreams about work (or nightmares). End all work at least 2 hours before bed. If this is not possible for you, you may need to reassess your work schedule a bit.

So those few things should help you out a bunch! Make sure to really take this in and use it so that you can start burning a lot of fat and so you can get ready for summer :-)

-Clayton

5 Fun Fitness Facts Friday 4/9/10

Hey Im here with another addition of 5 Fun Fitness Facts Friday!

*You can bench 12% more weight if you psych yourself up before lifting.

*If you drink often, you can lose up to 30% of your muscle.

*1.5 million visits are made to the doctor every year because of shoulder injuries (take care of your shoulders!)

*You would need to lose 10% fat if you want to instantly double the amount of pullups that you can do.

*You need to be able to do at least 6 pull-ups to enter into the Navy Seals.

Turbo-charge your fat loss with 3 easy tips

Fat loss IS NOT difficult, especially if you have a few tricks up your sleeve. By this I don't mean I would ever want you to take a dangerous, radical approach to your fat loss but only one that would be healthy and prove great results at the same time.

Below I will give you just a few quick tips that will greatly increase your fat loss. And these 3 tips are not hard to follow!

Here are my 3 Simple and Easy Fat Loss Rules:

1.Don’t eat anything that is white. Name every single food that is white and chances are you shouldn’t be eating it: bread, pasta, crackers, most cereals, flour based products, white potatoes, white rice, and pasteurized dairy and cheese are all no-no's during this time. (Healthy foods like cauliflower, chicken, turkey, fish, white pork are all exceptions to this rule).

2. Only drink water, NOTHING else! How about coffee? Just to keep any possible withdrawal headaches at bay, one small cup of organic black coffee. Can you add half and half?…Well is it white? Coffee, as talked about in my earlier post, is OK, but not if you drink too much. Again, this post is mostly for QUICK fat loss.

Drink a minimum of 1/2 of your bodyweight in ounces of water each day (ex. If you weigh 200 lbs, you need to drink 100 ounces) to really see the fat fall off.

3. Don’t eat anything with the word wheat in the ingredients list. YES you heard me right... WHEAT. What if it’s whole wheat? Look, if the word starts with W and ends in T and has the letters h e a in between, you can’t eat it. This includes bread, pasta, crackers and cereal. Many packaged snack foods also contain wheat so be sure to read the ingredients list carefully. Focus more on WHOLE GRAINS, and things like Quinoa.

Are you up for it? Just try using these three basic tips and I know you will be losing fat within no time!

Talk to you later :-)

Is Coffee good or bad for your health?

Is your morning coffee an ok option on your healthy eating plan? If coffee really bad for you or is it actually good? I get these questions about coffee and health all the time and as a coffee drinker myself, it is smart to take a look at both the good and the bad.

Now, I’m not here to tell you that coffee is good for you. If I did, I would be telling only the good side of the story and I’m no politician. I am here to give you the good and the bad and tell you how you can incorporate your favorite coffee or tea into your healthy meal plan.

There is an ugly side to caffeine

Most coffee and tea contains a lot of caffeine. This is usually the primary reason people make coffee their drink of choice in the morning. Caffeine is a drug like any other and comes with a long list of side effects. Have you ever tried not having your coffee in the morning? Yeah, pass the Excedrin, right? The headache that comes on when you try and kick this habit can be brutal (just like with other drugs) and creating a dependency and addiction like this is harmful to the body.

Second, coffee is extremely acidic. Our bodies function at optimum levels when they are slightly more alkaline (the opposite of acidic). It is best for us to greatly reduce any foods that will drive our body’s pH to be more acidic and eat more foods that are alkaline (like fruits and veggies). An acidic body pH is like a magnet for all kinds of illnesses. Also, an alkaline body has a much stronger immune system, making illness much less likely.

Last but not least, the caffeine in coffee and tea is abuse to your adrenal glands. Your adrenals release your “fight or flight” hormones basically giving you a nice “boost” when needed. Unfortunately, people who drink coffee all day long are consistently beating on their adrenals. This is the equivalent of whipping a tired horse even when he is exhausted. Eventually he will not move at all.

The Pretty Side of Caffeine

Coffee tastes awesome first thing in the morning! (What? Is that not a good enough reason to drink it?)

Many studies have shown that coffee can help in the prevention and treatment of diseases and illnesses as varied as Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, liver disease, skin cancer, Parkinsons’s disease and more. Although, I don’t believe coffee would be the cure all to any of these diseases, many ancient cultures did rely on the coffee bean to cure a long list of ailments. Not to mention, small doses of caffeine can increase performance and mental focus.

Green tea is also a great drink to include with a long list of benefits. If nothing else, green tea is a wonderful source of antioxidants which are important in cancer prevention. Green tea has even been found to raise metabolism and aid in fat burning. Before you go take a green tea bath, its effects are really minor when compared to the effects of sound nutrition and exercise plans. Now that I’ve said that, don’t think you can eat junk food and just wash it down with green tea!

What is a coffee and tea drinker to do?

1. Limit your coffee and tea intake to 2 - 8 oz cups per day. No, not 2 of each, 2 total. Any more than that is considered as a heavy addict. (I know. I’ve been there).

2. If you are currently dependent on a lot of caffeine each day, replace 1 or 2 cups of coffee with green tea instead. Green tea has much less caffeine than coffee and will help combat the ugly detox symptoms.

3. Do not jack up your coffee with sugar, milk, syrup and whip cream (So I guess that means no Starbucks, huh?). Use stevia or xylitol to sweeten and avoid all the empty, harmful calories. A teaspoon of half and half won’t hurt either. Please oh please, do not use any of those flavored creamers. They are closer to someone’s chemistry experiment than they are to real food.

4. Make sure to make your food choices healthy. Avoiding other acidic foods like sugar, artificial sweeteners and processed foods will lighten the acid load on the body.

5. Make sure the coffee you drink is organic. Conventional coffee is filled with pesticides and chemicals and should be avoided at all costs.

There is no need to give up your morning coffee but it is important to drink the right types of coffee, without the added unhealthy extras and, as with most things, in moderation. So take it into consideration! We all love coffee, but be considerate to your health :-)

Butter: Good fat or bad fat?

A lot of people think that butter is BAD and will only make you fat. But what's the real truth? Its actually a good fat and can actually HELP you lose weight!

Unfortunately, people thinking butter is unhealthy is a very common misconception. People still think that butter and saturated fats are the reason heart disease is one of the top killers in this country (and now in many other countries as well). The truth is that it’s not the natural fats that are causing this epidemic, its the sugar, processed and packaged foods and overconsumption of refined oils that are causing so much disease (and you can add Diabetes, High Cholesterol and High Blood Pressure to this list as well).

There is a lot more information on this topic in "The Diet Solution" program, which you can try for $1 in the right corner of this page, but here are some of the things that they talk about:

1. Did you know that during the 60 year period from 1910-1970, the proportion of traditional animal fat in the American diet declined from 83% to 62%?

2. During this same time butter consumption plummeted from 18 pounds per person each year to 4 pounds per person each year.

3. During the past 80 years, the consumption of dietary cholesterol intake has increased only one percent.

So where is the problem? Why all the heart disease?

1. During the same period, the average intake of dietary vegetable oils (margarine, shortening, and refined oils) increased by about 400%.

2. During the same period, the consumption of sugar and processed foods increased by about 60%

Those are the facts, but there’s never better proof than seeing the results of actual PEOPLE. When people finally stop eating margarine, refined oils, “fake” butters, sugar and processed foods, their health sky rockets! (and by sky rockets I mean, gets better, greatly improves, elevates to whole new levels). Not to mention all the body fat they lose off their body (now isn’t that just an awful side effect?)

It’s important to mention that the best butter to use is organic and grass fed. It has this beautiful deep yellow color and is not white like most conventional butters. It has gone through minimal processing and has no added growth hormones and antibiotics. I get all my butter from www.grasslandmeats.com

Now that I told you butter is ok to eat, here is a delicious chicken recipe you can enjoy:

(Please note that sometimes I don't mention exact amounts :).)

Chicken with “I’m not afraid of butter” dressing

Ingredients:

2 large chicken breasts (approximately 1 lb of chicken)
6 Tbsp of melted butter
lemon juice from 1/2 large lemon
1/4 cup olive oil
salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste

Directions:

Melt 1 tbsp of butter in a large pan. Season chicken breasts with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Cook chicken breasts in butter covered on very low heat. Do not let the butter get brown. Pour lemon juice in a seperate bowl. Slowly stir in the remaining melted butter as you stir mixture. Then slowly add the olive oil as you stir mixture. Season with salt, pepper and garlic powder.

Once the chicken is cooked through, served on a plate and pour the “dressing mixture” over your cooked chicken breasts.

Don’t be surprised if you are tempted to pour this dressing on your veggies and just about every other food item you can think of. It’s delicious!

There is a lot more information on all of this in the actual "The Diet Solution" program that you can try for $1! Either click the banner on the right of my blog to check it out or click HERE

Some nutritional facts about Subway's 9 grain bread with Omega-3

On Monday I posted about Subway's new bread, but I didn't have too much information about it..

Well since then I have gotten the bread again and I have found out some awesome nutritional facts about it! This honestly is a super healthy bread that you should be eating at least once a week ...

Subway's New 9 grain bread with Omega-3's

Per 12 inch sandwich, this bread contains:

- 60% Daily Value of Calcium

- 1000mg of Omega-3's

- 8g of Fiber

- 20% Daily Value of Vitamin D.

So if this doesn't give you motive enough to start incorporating it into your diet, I don't know what will!

Tomorrow I'll be posting 5 more fun fitness facts!

God bless!

Best Sauces and Condiments

Hey guys.. Every week Im going to be posting a "best" series of some household items that are the best in their category... The purpose of this is so that you can stack your cupboards with the best stuff!

Bests! 3/30

Best Ketchup Heniz Organic

Best Steak Sauce Peter Luger



Best Mustard Gulden's Spicy



Best Bottled Marinade Walkerswood Jerk