Lose 10 Pounds And Tone Your Body

Fat-burners are supplements intended to help you lose body fat faster. Manufacturers can put almost anything remotely connected with weight loss or metabolism into a pill and call it a ‘fat burner’ product. Here are some of the ingredients used, and the reasons for adding them.

• 7-keto DHEA: boosts enzymes which drive the liver cells to burn fatty acids for energy.
• Acacia rigidula: a source of phenylethylamine.
• Acai: antioxidant berry
• Bauhinia purpurea and Bacopa monnieri: thought to have a thyroid-stimulating effect.
• Bioperine: increases the absorption of some nutrients
• Bitter orange extract: a source of synephrine
• Bladderwrack: a source of iodine
• Caffeine: stimulates the nervous system, causing a sensation of increased energy.
• Carnitine: helps the body turn fat into energy
• Cayenne, ginger: help to stimulate the circulation
• Chromium: helps to control insulin, a hormone which blocks fat-burning.
• Clary sage: may increase cAMP
• Eleuthero (Siberian ginseng): helps the body recover from hard physical exercise
• Gotu Kola: helps to balance blood sugar
• Green tea extract: contains catechins which in research studies have been shown to aid weight loss when combined with exercise
• Guggul: helps reduce blood fats. Has been suggested to support metabolism by increasing overall thyroid hormone activity.
• Hoodia gordonii: helps control appetite
• Hordenine: an alkaloid from grains and grasses which is thought to be able to liberate norepinephrine stored in your body.
• Iodine: a thyroid support nutrient
• Lecithin, choline and inositol: help to break down fats
• Licorice: in clinical trials has helped reduce visceral fat.
• L-Tyrosine: thyroid-support nutrient
• Phenylethylamine: thought to stimulate the central nervous system without causing the jitters or nervousness, and to provide a thermogenic effect and increase the metabolic rate by stimulating the thyroid gland.
• Rauwolfia: an alpha-2 adrenergic receptor blocker that is thought to spare alpha-1 receptors.
• Synephrine: thought to help expend energy at the expense of body fat by boosting norepinephrine. Also helps to suppress appetite.
• Tyramine: a norepinephrine-releasing agent
• Vinpocetine: thought to enhance glucose metabolismin the brain
• Yerba maté: a source of caffeine
• Yohimbine: helps to block mechanisms that prevent the release of NE. May help maintain blood flow in adipose tissue, which in turn helps to prevent fat from being retained there.

While many of the above ingredients have undergone some degree of research, claims made for product formulations sold as dietary supplements have not usually been evaluated by official government bodies. For this reason we recommend checking reliable reviews of fat-burner products before buying.

Beginners

The beginner should experiment with a few different exercise DVDs and find one that he or she likes most (or dislikes least!) Routines set to music, or even dance routines, often work well.

Fitness classes are also a good option for the beginner. It can be more fun to combine your exercise with the social aspect of attending a class. If your abs are your main concern, opt for Pilates classes, which are the quickest way to tone up that part of your body.

Don’t forget sports like tennis, badminton and squash. Anything that gets you out of breath is good for fitness. As explained in The 4-Hour Body, getting sporadically out of breath (as in games like these) can often be more effective to get in shape than running or jogging.

Fitness Enthusiasts

‘Muscle burns fat’ is the Beachbody mantra. People with desk jobs lose muscle as they age, and this is why they gain more fat. Programs like Beachbody can help to reverse this process. If you’re into fitness, check out some of the strength-building programs. Combined with aerobic training they can help you get better, faster results.

Food cravings are the main cause of overweight, and the most difficult cause to deal with. Cravings can be both physical and psychological, and sometimes it’s difficult to know which is which.

If your cravings seemed to start after a traumatic event in your life, then you may need to get therapy to deal with the after-effects of that trauma.

But cravings which start off as psychological can quickly become physical, as some foods – sugary foods and drinks in particular – can be very addictive.

In the Chinese medicine system of Yin and Yang, sugar is balanced with salt, so the more sugary foods you consume, the more salty ones you will also crave, and vice versa.

In the column on the right-hand side, try doing a search for books on GI diets. These diets help to balance blood sugar, and so can reduce physical cravings.

Also check out our video at the top-right-hand-side: Beating A Chocolate Addiction. You can apply this technique to any kind of addiction.

‘Until you reach your target shape’ seems the obvious answer. But beware of this. Apart from the once-a-week recommended ‘slap-up meal’ to keep up your metabolic rate, you actually need to diet (and exercise) for life. If you don’t, the weight WILL come back again.

Once you reach your target shape, you can relax just enough to stop the scales creeping upwards again. If your weight does creep upwards, you are relaxing too much.

Think of your diet in two phases. Phase I is to reach your target weight, and Phase II is to keep it there.

The food ingredient to control above and beyond anything else is SUGAR. There is sugar in chocolate, desserts and sodas. Always check the labels. The worst form of sugar is corn syrup. Honey and other syrups are also mostly sugar.

Everyone Needs To Keep This Mantra In Mind…

Your weight will always match your current eating and exercise habits. If you like these habits too much to control them permanently, then you must put up with the body shape that goes with them…

If you are one of those people who is still overweight despite eating next to nothing for months or years, and exercising till you drop every day, you are not alone.

The Chinese blame this problem on water retention and a slow metabolism, both of which problems often seem to go together.

Water retention slows down the metabolism and is a widespread problem these days. But beware of taking pills for this problem. There’s a lot of information around now which warns that taking diuretics (water pills) can in some cases aggravate rather than help water retention.

If your body has high insulin levels this may also prevent fat loss. High insulin is often a sign that your insulin is weak and isn’t working properly. So your body keeps pumping out more of it, trying to get some effect. Try doing a book search (see right-hand column) on GI diets, which are all about controlling insulin.

When a person stops eating, he or she loses water, lean tissue and body fat all at the same time. If you weigh yourself at the end of 3 days fasting, you might think you’ve lost about 4 lbs, but most of that will come straight back again when you resume eating.

So don’t think ‘how quickly can I lose weight?’, think ‘how quickly can I lose fat?’ Fat is the only thing that counts.

The general rule of thumb is that if you do everything right, you will lose about 2 lbs of fat a week.

The good news is we now know that going out for a slap-up meal once a week can actually help the weight loss process by keeping up your metabolic rate. So give yourself something to look forward to once a week, and stay on the low-calorie sugar-free straight and narrow the rest of the time.

By the way if salads just make you feel hungry, try dieting on home-made hot soup with ginger, lentils and vegetables.

Yes, it is actually true that herbal products based on Hoodia gordonii have an appetite-suppressant effect. There’s lots of research to back this up, and African tribespeople have used this herb for centuries to quell hunger.

If you have a serious over-eating problem, don’t rely on herbal products alone to help you. For some people, certain foods can be just as addictive as hard drugs. Most addictions are due to deep underlying emotional issues, so joining an organization like Overeaters Anonymous might be the best way to start to overcome this problem.

Some recommended Hoodia products

Acai and Maqui

People swear by these Rainforest berries as a great aid to losing weight, but our nutritionists haven’t yet seen any formal research. If you have a personal account of weight loss aided by these products, we would love to know more, so please do consider leaving a post on our Forum. (No spam, only real stories please!)