Diet pills, supplements and surgery

Diet pills and surgery can help with weight loss — when combined with a healthy diet and physical activity. But diet pills aren't for everyone. Neither is surgery. In fact, many doctors consider them only if you have weight-related health problems.

If you're in that group, you and your doctor need to carefully evaluate the potential benefits of diet pills or surgery and weigh them against the possible long-term risks. Your doctor will also counsel you about the lifestyle changes you'll need to make to be successful over the long term.

A word of caution: Although you can find diet pills and supplements at your local drugstore, supermarket or health food store and online, most haven't been proved safe and effective. And some are downright dangerous. Talk with your doctor before taking any diet pills or supplements

The Harvard Medical School Guide to Lowering Your Cholesterol

From the experts at one of the world’s most respected medical schools–your complete guide to managing cholesterol and staying healthy for life

Everybody knows that high cholesterol is something to be concerned about. But what does it really mean when your doctor tells you that your cholesterol levels are high, and what should you do about it? If you’re worried about your cholesterol, here’s your chance to get the answers you need from a top expert at the Harvard Medical School.

As founder and chief of the prestigious Lipid Metabolism Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Mason W. Freeman treats hundreds of patients each year and oversees breakthrough cholesterol research.

In The Harvard Medical School Guide to Lowering Your Cholesterol he explains:

* What cholesterol is and the difference between “good” and “bad” cholesterol

* How to assess your risk for high cholesterol

* How to work with your doctor to develop the best treatment plan for you

* Cholesterol-lowering drugs–who should take them, what to look out for, and how to be sure your doctor is monitoring you properly

* How to manage your cholesterol through diet and exercise

* The latest scientific findings on alternative therapies

About the Harvard Medical School health guide series

Each book from Harvard Medical School gives you the knowledge you need to understand and take control of your health. In every book, a world-renowned expert from Harvard Medical School provides you with the latest information on diagnosis, traditional and alternative treatments, home remedies, and lifestyle changes that can make a powerful difference in your health.

Breakfast and Weight Control

Why does eating breakfast help control weight?

Here are some of the ways regularly eating a healthy breakfast may help you lose excess weight and maintain your weight loss:

* Eating breakfast reduces your hunger later in the day, making it easier to avoid overeating. When you skip breakfast, you may feel ravenous later and be tempted to reach for a quick fix, such as candy from the vending machine. In addition, prolonged fasting — which occurs when you skip breakfast — can increase your body's insulin response, which in turn increases fat storage and weight gain. In fact, skipping breakfast actually increases your risk of obesity.
* Eating breakfast gets you on track to make healthy choices all day. People who eat breakfast regularly tend to eat a healthier diet — one that is more nutritious and lower in fat. When you skip breakfast, you're more likely to skip fruits and vegetables the rest of the day too.
* Eating breakfast gives you energy, increasing your physical activity during the day. A healthy breakfast refuels your body and replenishes the glycogen stores that supply blood sugar (glucose). Skipping breakfast is associated with decreased physical activity.

Unfortunately, more Americans are skipping breakfast. If you're one of them — whether you're trying to save time or cut calories — you may want to reconsider, especially if you're trying to control your weight.

Water Liposuction - The Futuristic Technology is here

Water Liposuction or Water Assisted Liposuction with Body-Jet is the newest FDA approved liposuction. Unlike laser or other liposuction methods, the new technique uses water which is the most natural substance to our delicate body to loosen up fat from the connective tissue for easy removal. It is ultra safe and highly effective. People see results instantly and recover even faster.

3 Exercises to lose weight fast

It is not difficult to lose your weight when you have the right information, at the right time, and the right tools to put it to use. If you will do these 3 best popular exercises on a consistent basis, week in and week out, then combined with a good diet, you will lose weight fast.


1. Interval running: Running has the potential to burn more calories per amount of time worked than any other exercise there is. No, I don’t mean jogging. Although you can use walking, then jogging as a way to prepare yourself to be able to run in the future. Interval running is just running with short breaks in between. For example: run for 30 seconds, then take a 30 second break then repeat.

2. Rowing: ..wow I love it, Rowing is a complete body workout and can be done outside on a lake, in the comfort of your own home, or at a gym. It burns a lot of calories and builds lean muscle.

3. Squat Presses: This exercise is well known to trainers and athletes alike, but not to the mainstream. It is simply taking a dumbbell or a barbell, then doing a squat. As you come to the top of your squat, you press the dumbbells (or barbell) above your head and then bring it back down and repeat. This exercise works every large muscle in the body and if done with short rest periods can be a good cardio workout (gets the heart rate up).

If you really want to lose weight, and want to do it fast, then you will have to use exercise. If you do these exercises 3-5 times per week (and be sure to mix it up), then you will reach your weight loss goals.

7 Nutrition Fundamentals for Losing Fat

Dr Clay shares 7 fundamental nutrition tips that serve as the foundation of any good diet.

Diets to Lose 5 Pounds

Sometimes you want to look your best for friends and family, colleagues or job interviewers. Even if you are not obese, when a favorite pair of jeans or a shirt fits tight, it affects your morale. The diet industry has many quick weight loss programs that work for a disciplined or motivated individual. Follow the rules and five pounds will disappear but remember that quick weight loss is often temporary without permanent lifestyle changes. Like any dieting plan, talk to a doctor before starting, especially if you have preexisting conditions.

5-Day Miracle Diet
The 5-Day Miracle diet limits the amount of calories and carbohydrates that you eat and focuses on portion control. The goal is to reduce food cravings and stabilize blood sugar levels. Breakfast is an egg with a slice of toast 30 minutes after awakening. Snacks include a nectarine, half cup of grapefruit, raw carrots or cauliflower eaten two hours later. Lunch is at 1 p.m. with a protein, fresh vegetables and fruit, followed by another snack three hours later. Dinner is vegetables, any protein (2 to 4 ounces) and bread. Men can eat three starchy foods every day but women can only eat starch every other day. The diet advises you to drink lots of water.

Cabbage Soup Diet
The cabbage soup diet requires you to eat nothing but cabbage soup for seven days. It is not for pregnant women, children, the elderly or anyone with gastrointestinal disorders. The diet is simple and easy to remember, with a focus on one main food--cabbage soup at lunch, dinner, and for a snack. It is a low-fat, high-fiber diet plan that works for temporary quick weight loss.

Grapefruit Diet
The Grapefruit diet is for people in good health who want to lose weight fast. It is a fad diet that has been around since the 1930s when Hollywood made it popular. The diet is a low-calorie plan that is easy to understand with three meals per day and a daily snack. With each meal, the dieter eats half a grapefruit or half a cup of unsweetened grapefruit juice. This is a strict diet for successful weight loss but there is no behavior modification so some people regain the weight they lost.

Counting Calories & Weight Loss

Many people fret upon the idea of having to count calories in their daily diet, with reasonable justification. The one problem is is that there is a lot of hype regarding the process of counting calories, and another problem is that most people don't even know how to put that caloric information to work. It's all a very simple concept, and a simple process once you understand the basics.

First of all, let us get the facts down about calories themselves and what they are. A calorie is essentially a unit of energy. When a calorie is used, it's burned as energy. Macronutrients are all made up of calories. There are three primary macronutrients, and we've all heard about them. Protein, Carbohydrates and Fat. One gram of protein and carbohydrates contain 4 calories, and one gram of fat contain 9 calories (thus you can see why fat is a major culprit.)

Now how do macronutrients and their calories all correlate to weight loss? It's a simple principle that professionals in the fitness industry refer to as "Calories in vs. Calories out".

The "Calories In" portion represents the amount of food you're consuming on a daily basis. Remember, all of the food you eat comes equipped with food labels, which all contain macronutrients, which contain calories. All of us generally follow a "diet plan" even if we don't follow one intentionally. We all have certain foods we eat at certain times, and we can average that information out. What you need to do is spend some time figuring out how many calories all of those foods amount to, in an average day. Once you have this number, you will know how many calories you're taking in per day.

The "Calories Out" portion represents the amount of calories your body burns on a daily basis. You burn calories through two ways. One way is through involuntary means, which is referred to as your Basal Metabolic Rate. The many functions your body performs like your beating heart, brain functions, lungs, digestive system, etc... all require energy (calories) to function and they burn a lot of calories throughout the day. The second way to burn calories is through physical activity (voluntary action). You can visit the weight loss programs website to take a free fitness profile which will help you determine how many calories your burning on a daily basis.

Now here is where we bring it together. If the amount of calories your burning is fewer than the amount of calories you're taking in per day, you will gain weight. If they're equal to each other, you won't lose or gain weight. And if you're burning more calories than what you're taking in, you will obviously begin to lose weight. From there, it's only a matter of determining an approach in which you can control your diet by cutting back calories, and reinforcing your weight loss efforts by burning more calories through exercise.

18% tax on pizza and soda can decrease U.S adult`s weight by 5 bounds(2 kg)/year

From Reuters:

With two-thirds of Americans either overweight or obese, policymakers are increasingly looking at taxing as a way to address obesity on a population level.

"Sadly, we are currently subsidizing the wrong things including the product of corn, which makes the corn syrup in sweetened beverages so inexpensive."

Instead, the agricultural subsidies should be used to make healthful foods such as locally grown vegetables, fruits and whole grains less expensive.

Lemon for Weight Loss

Lemon is a useful tool in any weight loss arsenal. With just 12 calories each, the lemon adds flavor instead of fat to recipes. It also adds vitamin C to your diet and even may aid in digestion. Experts at Shapefit.com report that just 1/4 cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice provides 45 percent of the daily recommendation of vitamin C. Some people have tried a lemon juice diet to jump-start weight loss with Stanley Burroughs' "Lemonade Diet." Even in much smaller quantities, lemons can help you lose weight.


Step 1
Use both the juice and the pulp from the lemon when preparing drinks and foods. Freshly squeezed lemon juice is best because it provides a little extra fiber along with the other health benefits of lemon.

Step 2
Spritz lemon juice on vegetables rather than of butter. Fats such as butter and oil make food taste better because it helps to transfer the flavor of the food onto the tongue. Lemon juice helps in this, too, and it also brings out the flavor of vegetables. Try cutting the amount of butter you put on your vegetables in half and adding a squeeze of lemon--a wedge has only 1 calorie--and see how your food tastes. Gradually cut the butter out entirely until you're using only lemon juice.

Step 3
Prepare a lemonade drink to sip throughout the day. Water is an appetite suppressant, according to the experts at the Because You Value Your Body website, and that effect is enhanced by adding lemon to the water. Take the juice of one lemon and add it to a half-gallon of icy water. Sip it throughout the day to stave off hunger. Sweeten with some no-calorie Splenda if the drink is a little tart.

Step 4
Start your day with a hot lemon drink. The ShapeFit website suggests tapping into lemon's liver-boosting properties by adding lemon to hot water and consuming the drink on an empty stomach. ShapeFit reports the lemony beverage may aid in digestion, act as a diuretic and help ease constipation.

Grapefruit Health Diet

The Grapefruit Health Diet is an eating plan that involves eating grapefruit and consuming grapefruit juice as a way to lose weight. This is based around the premise that the grapefruit has fat burning capabilities. It is considered a fad diet and may not help you achieve permanent weight loss. If you wish to try the Grapefruit Health Diet, you should first consult with your doctor.

Step 1
Start your day off with ½ grapefruit and ½ glass of grapefruit juice for breakfast. You can also have two eggs and two slices of bacon in the morning.

Step 2
Consume another ½ piece of grapefruit and ½ glass of grapefruit juice. You can also have any kind of meat and any kind of salad with dressing for lunch.

Step 3
Include ½ grapefruit and ½ glass of grapefruit juice for dinner as well. You will eat meat and vegetables as your main course. Again, any style and any amount of meat are permitted. Green, yellow or red vegetables cooked in butter is recommended. Celery, onions and white potatoes should be avoided on the Grapefruit Health Diet.

Step 4
Have a snack such as a glass of tomato juice or skim milk before bedtime. No other snacks over the course of the day are permitted and cakes, cookies and candies are to be avoided.

Step 5
Limit the amount of caffeine that you consume on a daily basis. You should have only cup of a caffeinated beverage per day.

Step 6
Follow the Grapefruit Health Diet for twelve days. You are then instructed to take a two day break before resuming the diet.

Why do doctors recommend a slow rate of weight loss?

What's wrong with fast weight loss?

The concern with fast weight loss is that it usually takes extraordinary efforts in diet and exercise — efforts that often aren't sustainable over the long term. Successful weight loss requires making permanent changes in your eating and exercise habits.

A slow and steady approach is easier to maintain and usually beats out fast weight loss for the long term. A weight loss of 1 to 2 pounds a week is the typical recommendation. Although it may seem slow, it's a pace that's more likely to help you maintain your weight loss. Remember that 1 pound (0.45 kilogram) of fat contains 3,500 calories. So you need to burn 500 more calories than you eat each day to lose 1 pound a week (500 calories x 7 days = 3,500 calories). If you lose a lot of weight very quickly, it may not be fat that you're losing. It's might be water weight or even lean tissue, since it's hard to burn that many fat calories in a short period.

In some situations, however, faster weight loss can be safe if it's done the right way. For example, doctors prescribe very low calorie diets for more rapid weight loss in obese individuals. This type of diet requires medical supervision. In addition, some diets include an initiation phase to help you jump start your weight loss. For example, The Mayo Clinic Diet has a quick-start phase in which you might lose 6 to 10 pounds in the first two weeks. You may lose weight quickly with an approach like this because it combines many healthy and safe strategies at once — no gimmicks or extreme dieting. After the initial two-week period, you transition into the recommended weight loss of 1 or 2 pounds a week, which is not only safe but also realistic and sustainable for the long term.

Is hypnosis effective for weight loss?

Hypnosis may help you shed a few extra pounds when it's used along with other weight-loss methods, such as diet and exercise. But there isn't enough solid scientific evidence about weight-loss hypnosis to recommend for or against it.

Hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness, usually achieved with the help of a hypnotherapist using verbal repetition and mental images. When you're under hypnosis, your attention is highly focused and you're more responsive to suggestions, including behavior changes that can help you lose weight. After proper instruction, you can also try self-hypnosis for weight loss. Weight-loss hypnosis is often combined with cognitive behavioral therapy.

Through the years , numerous studies have evaluated the use of weight-loss hypnosis. Most found positive but modest weight-loss results, with an average weight loss of about 6 pounds (2.72 kilograms). But the quality of some of these studies has been questioned, making it hard to determine the effectiveness of weight-loss hypnosis.

If you've tried diet and exercise but are still struggling to meet your weight-loss goal, you may want to try weight-loss hypnosis. Just remember that there are no guaranteed results.

Diet and exercise

How can you lose weight? With diet and exercise. The key to success is developing healthy diet and exercise habits. You may be thinking that you don't like those words — diet and exercise. Don't get hung up on the words. Diet just means eating healthy, lower calorie meals. Exercise means being more active.

Although people often focus on diet when they're trying to lose weight, being active also is an essential component of a weight-loss program. When you're active, your body uses energy (calories) to work, helping to burn the calories you take in with food you eat.

Cleaning the house, making the bed, shopping, mowing and gardening are all forms of physical activity. Exercise, on the other hand, is a structured and repetitive form of physical activity that you do on a regular basis.

Whatever activity you choose, do it regularly. Aim for 30 to 60 minutes of moderately intense physical activity most days of the week.

Diet plans

When it comes to weight loss, there's no shortage of diet plans. Check any magazine rack, and you're bound to see the latest and greatest diet plans. But how do you know if a diet plan fits your needs and lifestyle? Ask yourself these questions about any diet plan you're considering. Does it:

* Include various foods from the major food groups: fruits, vegetables, grains, low-fat dairy products, lean protein sources, nuts and seeds?
* Include foods you like and that you would enjoy eating for a lifetime — not just for several weeks or months?
* Feature foods you can easily find in your local grocery store?
* Allow you to eat your favorite foods, or better yet, all foods?
* Fit your lifestyle and budget?
* Include proper amounts of nutrients and calories to help you lose weight safely and effectively?
* Encourage regular physical activity?

If you answer no to any of these questions, keep looking. There are better diet plans out there for you.

Weight loss basics

Your weight is a balancing act, and calories are part of that equation. Fad diets may promise you that counting carbs or eating a mountain of grapefruit will make the pounds drop off. But when it comes to weight loss, it's calories that count. Weight loss comes down to burning more calories that you take in. You can do that by reducing extra calories from food and beverages and increasing calories burned through physical activity.

Once you understand that equation, you're ready to set your weight-loss goals and make a plan for reaching them. Remember, you don't have to do it alone. Talk to your doctor, family and friends for support. Also, plan smart: Anticipate how you'll handle situations that challenge your resolve and the inevitable minor setbacks.

If you have serious health problems because of your weight, your doctor may suggest weight-loss surgery or medications for you. In this case, you and your doctor will need to thoroughly discuss the potential benefits and the possible risks.

But don't forget the bottom line: The key to successful weight loss is a commitment to making permanent changes in your diet and exercise habits.