The Holistic Health Warrior

Archive for the ‘Weightloss’ Category

If your like me, you struggle with keeping weight off, let alone getting it off in the first place. It seems it doesn’t matter what diet, diet pill or exercise plan I try nothing ever works in the long run and I end up stuck or gaining weight back just by thinking about it. Seriously, it feels that way. Believe it or not I can gain weight just by fasting for a few days.

If this sounds like you as well, you might want to find out if you have Adrenal Fatigue like I do and how it WILL hinder weightloss until it is fixed.

Every other “weight loss expert” says all ya gotta do is “Eat Less and Work Out More”. Well, I ‘ve tried that. For years actually. And the fact of the matter is, that is just “THE OPPOSITE” of what you should do for Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome.

Dr. Berg does an amazing job explaining it in his video so I won’t blabber on here.  I think you will be amazed when you  Watch his video. For tons of more information and videos you can visit his site as well at his site. Dr. Berg’s Site.

 

 

 

 

More Thoughts from Mellisa McJunkin – Health and Wellness Advocate

Question: What are you without an immune system?
Answer: You are dead.

As morbid as it may sound, it’s true. When your immune system is weak you will get sick. When your immune system completely fails you will die.

If I could show you a way to boost your Natural Killer Cells by up to 437%, would you be interested in hearing more? Of course you would.

Get Healthy and Wise with  Extreme Health 4Life

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To Your Great Health!

[ Note: This article was written by fitness and nutrition expert and author Jon Benson. I have his permission to share it with you. ]

It was the weirdest thing …

I mean, I’ve been around you know? I’ve had just about every body and fatloss experience you can think of… the good, the bad, the ugly…

… and now the really bizarre.

Here’s the story:

I took off on an 8-day cruise to the Caribbean. This was a “business” cruise (yeah, right)… and I knew there was no way to eat the way I prefer to eat. At least not ideally. After that I had to speak in Tampa Florida at a fitness summit, then off to Las Vegas for yet another summit meeting.

All-in-all I was gone for almost three weeks.

First thing that I knew had to go was my “ideal” dietplan.

That’s my “Extreme” Plan on the Every Other Day Dietplan…

Every Other Day Dietplan

There are three plans in EODD:  The Primer Plan, which is literally “every other day”. You get to eat your favorite foods within reason every other day or so on this Plan. It’s perfect for folks who ‘hate’ dieting because, let’s face it, anyone can diet-for a day, right? Right.

Then there’s the Lifestyle Plans. These are two days of “burn eating” followed by a day of eating favorite foods. Most people use this because it too is so simple to use.

Then for we athletes and fitness pros there’s the Extreme Plan. This is for ultimate bodyfat loss and muscle-shaping. I love this plan.

But hey… it’s a vacation. And so I decided to eat on the Primer Plan… remember, that’s every other day. So every other day on the cruise I had a small dessert (sometimes two), pizza, or pasta… whatever I wanted within reason. The days before I did perfectly, substituting my morning shake for egg white omelets with a bit of cheese and a lot of veggies. Yum!

Within three days I had LOST more than 4 lbs… or about 2 kg. Pure fat… well, a bit of water I suppose, but mostly that stubborn bodyfat around my middle that’s the last to go.

What the heck was going on?

Wait… the story gets better…

I move on to Tampa, and then Vegas, and now I’m 11 lbs (about 5 kg) down. My jeans ALL require a belt, only this time it’s not a fashion statement.

Frankly, I’m as surprised as you may be.

But I figured out why this happened. And I want to share it with you so you can use EODD (or another plan if you want… but mine is the best… : ) when you go on vacation or take a break.

Here’s why I dropped the last bit of my bodyfat:

First, I was on a VERY large cruise ship. I knew my weight training would not be as intense (the weights were not that heavy) but I also knew I could just make it work… train a bit more and go for the “pump”… just a good, quick workout. I ended up training 5 days on the cruise without a problem (and only ONE day of cardio for 20 minutes… you see, you do NOT need cardio to dump bodyfat!)

But the difference was in the WALKING. The ship was the largest ever built… the size of 2.5 football fields. And I walked everywhere… on the islands, on the boat, even to every meal. Just walking burned off FAR more calories than my normal lifestyle, which like most of you has a lot of sitting down to it. ; )

Walking… my favorite “Cardio” to this very day.

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My Supplement Tricks

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Second, I took extra potassium, along with all of my Radical Fatloss Blueprint Supplements. I carried them all on board.

You can read more about the supplements I take for “radical” fatloss here:

www.radicalfatlossblueprint.com

The two that really did the trick for me was the Aqualize (also known as Acquacil), only 1-2 a day, along with the amino acids.

Finally, I realized that I need MORE food than I’m eating now in order to increase my metabolic rate. Just a bit… about 400 calories a day more than I have been eating. Doing just that rebooted my metabolic rate and presto… 11 lbs of bodyfat and useless water is history. My abs have never looked better.

I hope this gives you some encouragement when it comes to being on the road or on vacation. With the right plan (like EODD and Radical Fatloss) you can actually improve your body…

… and best of all, I enjoyed every minute of my vacation!

P.S.  An important note was that I made a decision not to drink on the cruise or elsewhere. I had one small glass of wine last night to celebrate with my largest affiliate and business comrade. He flew in from Israel just for this meeting, and it was the least i could do. Roei and I had a blast all day.

The reason drinking is a problem is that alcohol shuts down fat-burning for several hours… sometimes longer. But a glass of wine or two a week is not going to hurt you. I just made that one small “sacrifice” so I could enjoy ice cream, pizza (I ate four slices one night at 3:00am and woke up leaner!) and all the yummy food the boat had to offer.

So, my final tip:  Make a decision to cut out just ONE thing when you’re on the road. Alcohol was easy for me as I do not drink that much as it is.

Read more about my personal dietplan and my supplement plan here….

Every Other Day Dietplan

A Bitingly Sarcastic Look at Useless Supplements and Worthless Training Equipment

By Nick Nilsson

Read hilarious and brutally honest reviews of some of the
worst supplements and exercise equipment on the market today.

Infomercials, stupid ads, terrible products and useless supplements are here to stay. Just because they’re there doesn’t mean we have to buy them. But it does mean we can (and should) have a laugh at their expense…

Please keep in mind, these are my own opinions, with which you might agree or disagree. I may change my mind about these things in the future but I will still be right.

1. Cortisol-Reducing Fat Loss Supplements

Ads for cortisol-reducing pills are all over the place these days. Cortislim, Relacore, CortAid, Cortisyn, Cortless in Seattle, I Can’t Believe I’m Not Cortisolless, etc.

I have nothing but “respect” for a company that shamelessly shames people into buying their product by telling them they’re a “member of the unhappiest club on Earth – the overweight club.” I think it’s wonderful how the cure to stress-related fat gain can be found in a glorified Vitamin C pill. The people peddling this stuff like that need to be knocked on the head WITH an overweight club.

Relacore’s strategy? Herbal relaxants make you less reactive to stress so you don’t secrete as much cortisol and therefore lose weight. Great theory! At least unlike other substances that make you “herbally relaxed,” it doesn’t give you the munchies.

I don’t know about you, but I’m just plain sick and tired of products that say “Let’s treat the symptoms and not the root cause! That way, people will have to stay on this stuff forever or all the weight will come back on because NOTHING ELSE HAS CHANGED IN THEIR LIFE.” What a genius of a marketing technique. It’s like putting a band-aid over your nose when you have a head cold. Sure, it stops your nose from running, but when the band-aid comes off, you’re going to be up to your elbows in it.

2. The Ab Lounge

This is a “fabulous” new ab exerciser that’s making the infomercial rounds. It claims to allow you to develop six-pack abs while lying in a reclined position. Just fold yourself up like a human omelette – it’s just that easy! It’s basically a Craftmatic adjustable bed without the mattress or the motor.

Unfortunately, the function of the rectus abdominus (the six-pack area of the abs) is spinal flexion (curling the spine forward) not hip flexion (bending at the waist like this machine forces you to do). Sit-ups work the abs isometrically (without movement) through hip flexion like this as well.

Don’t waste your money on this unless you want to have somebody you don’t like sit in it and be folded in half as a practical joke. They should have designed this thing with a clothes hanger built in to save everybody the time.

3. Carbohydrate or Fat Blocking Pills

Here’s a newsflash – if you have to block your body from digesting something, maybe you shouldn’t have put it down your gullet in the first place. And besides, what do you think happens to undigested, unused stuff like that as it makes its way through your digestive system? Bingo. Your body puts it out the back door in a “green apple quickstep” hurry.

If the focus of your diet is on getting away with as much as possible, you’re simply not going to succeed in the long run. But on the bright side, at least you’ll be able to catch up on some reading by spending half your day in the bathroom.

4. Electric Ab Belts

If you don’t already know how useless these things are, let me be the first to tell you how useless these things are. They won’t even keep your pants UP (at least a regular belt will do that much) much less help you make them looser.

You can’t see your abs unless you burn fat. You don’t burn fat by making muscles twith for a few minutes. If you really want to lose weight using this thing, hook up the electrodes to a metal knife and fork and try and eat with them.

5. Fat-Loss Creams

A topical fat-loss cream that actually worked would be a dream come true for so many people. Too bad they stink and I’m not just talking about the smell.

What would it take to convince me that one of these worked? Have a test subject use it on only HALF of their body. If they look like a stitched-together “before and after” picture, I’d believe something was happening there (heck, that’s a good enough idea that I might just try it on myself someday!).

You want a fat-loss cream that works? Smear some fresh Wasabe (Japanese hot sauce – kind of like biting down a hot chili pepper) on EVERYTHING you eat. I can guarantee you’ll lose fat because soon you’ll hardly be able to eat anything!

6. Massive Weight Gain Formulas

It’s always struck me as ironic that all the “massive weight gain” formulas show pictures of big, LEAN bodybuilders on the front. I guess the big, fat, bloated reality of it just wouldn’t sell. Do we really need 3000 calories in a serving of anything?

If a supplement comes in a 40 pound bag and, if it was taken according to directions, this bag would last you only 2 weeks, it’s no longer a supplement…it’s an alternative source of natural gas (if you or anyone you know has tried these supplements, you’ll know EXACTLY what I mean!).

A number of years ago, the “Weider” supplement company did a research study on its “Mega Mass” weight gainer and saw an impressive increase in bodyweight. What they didn’t include in their big glossy ads (for obvious reasons) was that people who took an equal number of calories in the form of TABLE SUGAR gained exactly the same amount of weight and muscle mass!

I’ll let you draw your own conclusions but at least Hardee’s restaurant, with their new 1500 calorie fat-burger bomb, isn’t trying to fool people into thinking it’s good for them. I can respect that honesty. If you bite into that hamburger thinking it’s going to do you any good in any way, shape or form, then push the meat back in as it slides out the back of the sandwich and go buy your cardiologist a nice Christmas present.

7. Ready-To-Drink Protein Shakes

I want to shake the hand of whoever it was that first came to the realization that people will gladly pay FOUR TIMES AS MUCH for the exact same protein powder if you just add the water for them. He or she is a marketing genius.

8. “Proprietary” Supplement Formulas

“Proprietary” can be a very “clean” way of saying “we don’t want to tell you how LITTLE there is of anything useful in this product so we’ll call it a ‘secret’ and not tell you.”

Granted not all proprietary formulas are like this – some are legitimate and useful. But if a product comes in a small 1000 mg capsule, and has 18 ingredients in it, I suggest you find out the effective doses of each of those ingredients. They may be included and listed just to make the product look good.

For example, Phosphatidylserine is an excellent (and scientifically-proven) cortisol-reducing supplement. It’s included in many cortisol-blocking formulas. But consider this: an effective dose is 800 mg. If you can explain how they can possibly fit an 800 mg dose in a 1000 mg pill that has 17 other ingredients in it, I want you doing my taxes next year. On second thought, maybe not…

9. The Majority of Informercially-Sold Exercise Equipment

Normally, I don’t like to make blanket statements about entire classes of exercise equipment but then again, sometimes I do. Bottom line, much of the stuff sold on TV and infomercials is just simply plastic-and-elastic junk pedalled to desperate people looking for a quick fix.

I’m sure this does not really come as a terribly mind-blowing, earth-shattering shock to you.

Until I watched these commercials a few times, I really never realized how much of an awful hardship it was to lie down on the floor and do a regular crunch. What a fool I was. Wouldn’t our hunting and gathering ancestors be proud.

And judging by the demonstrators on TV, some people can’t apparently even do a crunch without wrenching on their neck like they’re trying to pull their head out of something (or someplace – I’ll let you figure out where that might be).

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Conclusion:

The world will never be without terrible supplements or lousy exercise equipment. As long as there’s a buck to be made off of people’s laziness and insecurity, those things will exist. Your best defense is knowledge, a willingness to do what’s necessary, and a good sense of humor when these things get just too stupid to believe!

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Nick Nilsson has a degree in Physical Education and Psychology and has been innovating new training techniques for more than 18 years. Nick is the author of a number of bodybuilding books including “Muscle Explosion! 28 Days To Maximum Mass”, “Metabolic Surge – Rapid Fat Loss,” “The Best Exercises You’ve Never Heard Of,” “Gluteus to the Maximus – Build a Bigger Butt NOW!” and “The Best Abdominal Exercises You’ve Never Heard Of”, all designed to maximize the results you get for the hard work you put into your training.

Be sure to grab your FREE copy of Nick’s 30-day “Dirty Little Secret Program for Building Muscle and Burning Fat FAST,” available HERE!

More Thoughts from Mellisa McJunkin – Health and Wellness Advocate

Question: What are you without an immune system?
Answer: You are dead.

As morbid as it may sound, it’s true. When your immune system is weak you will get sick. When your immune system completely fails you will die.

If I could show you a way to boost your Natural Killer Cells by up to 437%, would you be interested in hearing more? Of course you would.

Get Healthy and Wise with  Extreme Health 4Life