Find Your Happy Place!!

Think Wonderful Thoughts!!

Get happy and enhance your weight loss journey!! Positive thoughts

are not just nice; they can also reprogram the automatic negative

weight loss messages your brain gives you. Don't wait until you succeed

before you find happiness...find ways to make yourself happy first and then discover real weight loss success!!

You can be happy, healthy, and physically fit. You can live the life you want in the body you desire!!!

You are in charge of getting yourself happy and healthy! You can sleep soundly at

night; you can let yourself succeed...You can manifest your goals, your dreams, and your aspirations. Through simple changes in your thinking and behavior, you can completely

change your life and body starting right now, here, today with these small daily

bliss boosters!!

*Exercise! Treat yourself to daily exercise and experience the good for you endorphins

leaving you with feelings of being healthy, happy and strong!!

       *Choose Happy Thoughts! Instead of constantly dwelling on what is not right in your life, give yourself  a time limit of 2 minutes for negative thoughts and then immediately

replace those thoughts with 2 minutes of what is wonderfully right in your life!!

*Fake It Till You Make It! By just putting a smile on your face you can "trick yourself"

into feeling happy. A study conducted by Psychophysiolgy showed that people

who accurately made happy, angry or surprised expressions experienced those feelings 

2 out of 3 times.

*Book A Date For Fun! Put a fun activity on your calendar and give yourself something 

pleasurable to look forward to. Looking forward to a future happiness can give you pleasure now.

*Reward Difficulty With Pleasure! We all have to do things that we would rather not-

like attending an unpleasant meeting, weighing in after a difficult week...or facing a day's work that seems endless. We may not be able to avoid such tasks, but we can reward ourselves when we accomplish them. Simple orchestrate your own happy ending with a reward for yourself like a manicure or a massage!

Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see or touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves.

Helen Keller

All seasons are beautiful for the person that carries happiness

within.

Horace Friess

Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.

Jim Rohn

News Flash!!

Together we have lost over 1000 pounds!!!!

Great Job to all our clients who are still working hard and to those who have reached their goal and continue to maintain!!

To Z.C. you have lost over 70 pounds!!

You are a shining star!! 

To L.T. for reaching your goal of losing over 30 pounds and maintaining for the last 5 months!!

To M.H. you have lost 11 pounds as you have begun

to make great changes in your life! You have taken charge!!

To M.L.(-36 pounds) and T.L.(-46 pounds) for 

working hard together and taking control!! For being my first clients and letting me learn with you!!

To T.D. you have lost nearly 35 pounds and I have watched your self confidence soar!!

To M.K. despite temptations on every side having lost 

11.8 pounds!

To E.A. who is only 2 pounds from goal!!

To C.J.(-22 pounds) and D.J.(-41 pounds)

never missing an appointment and not giving up!!

To K.C. reaching your goal losing more than 

30 pounds!!

To T.O. your commitment is amazing as you have been perfect and have lost 32 pounds!!

To B.P. you are a fighter and have such a positive outlook despite many challenges. Congrats on your 22 pound loss!!

To M.S. 83 years young and 26 pounds lighter!!

To J.K. having lost 36 pounds and are achieving new 

heights in your physical activities!!

There are many more wonderful and inspiring people I am working and have worked with. To watch their joy as they take control of not only their lives but their health is a fantastic experience!!

Thank you for the opportunity to rub shoulders with you!! You have not only changed you , but have changed me for the better also!!

Let's keep it up!!

How Are You Sleeping?

This is a report that was in the Deseret News on Thursday 4/11/2012

April 11 (Bloomberg) -- Lack of sleep or erratic slumber from working late-night shifts or travel may lead to diabetes and obesity, according to a Harvard study that is the first to tie abnormal sleep patterns to disease.

In a trial of 21 men and women observed in a sleep laboratory, those allowed only 5.6 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period over three weeks had a slowdown in their metabolism and a reduction in insulin production. Those changes can lead to weight gain and increased blood sugar, according to research published today in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Sleeping, eating and being active at times that are at odds with the body's internal clock, called circadian disruption, may raise the risk of diabetes and obesity as metabolic changes occur, said Orfeu Buxton, the lead study author. More research is needed to understand the results, he said.

"We disrupted not just the timing of sleep but the timing of meals, so it seems that eating meals at an unusual time may also play a role," said Buxton, as assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and an associate neuroscientist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, in an April 9 telephone interview. "If you're going to work at night, you might want your biological clock to join you on shift and have your biological daytime be during that night shift."

About 15 percent of full-time wage and salary workers in the U.S. work an alternative shift, 4.7 percent work evenings, 3.2 percent work nights and 2.5 percent work rotating shifts, according to 2004 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the latest year for which data is available. Allowing workers to stay in the same shifts for longer periods rather than changing every few days may help them stave off health problems, Buxton said.

Controlled Sleep

Researchers in the study followed healthy men and women who were kept in a controlled environment. The amount of sleep, when the sleep occurred, activities and diet were regulated. For three weeks they were only allowed to sleep for 5.6 hours in any 24-hour period. The sleep occurred at all times of the day and night to help copy the schedule of rotating shift workers.

Chronic sleep restriction and disruption to the body's internal clock caused about a one-third decrease in insulin secretion after a standard meal, the researchers found. Too little insulin raises glucose levels in the body for longer periods of time, and may increase the risk of diabetes, Buxton said.

He speculated that the clock in the pancreas, which regulates insulin, similar to the circadian clock in the brain, might also be disrupted making it not ready to secrete enough insulin to the body at the new time, he said.

Change in Metabolism

Participants also experienced an 8 percent drop in resting metabolism, the amount of calories burned by the body's muscle excluding exercise. The slowed metabolism could contribute to a 12.5-pound increase in weight over a year if there were no changes in exercise levels or food intake. That weight gain may lead to obesity and elevate diabetes risk, the authors said.

Buxton said changes in the body's clock and lack of sleep may cause the body to conserve energy when it isn't necessary. Those who don't get enough sleep also don't exercise, eat more and eat more inappropriate foods, he said.

The effects were reversible after nine days of recovery sleep and the readjustment of the body's internal clock, the study showed.

Part III

Other Influences

As has been suggested by previous smaller studies, how long people slept each night

influenced their weight changes. In general, people who slept less than six hours or more than eight hours a night tended to gain the most. Among possible explanations are effects of short nights on satiety hormones, as well as an opportunity to eat more while awake, Dr. Hu said.

He was not surprised by the finding that the more television people watched, the more weight they gained, most likely because they are influenced by a barrage of food ads and snacking in front of the TV.

Alcohol intake had an interesting relationship to weight changes. No significant effect was found among those who increased their intake to one glass of wine a day, but increases in

other forms of alcohol were likely to bring added pounds.

As expected, changes in smoking habits also influenced weight changes. Compared with people who never smoked, those who had quit smoking within four previous years gained

an average of 5.17 pounds. Subsequent weight gain was minimal--0.14 pound for each four year period.

Those who continued smoking lost 0.7 pound in each four year period, which the researchers

surmised may have resulted from undiagnosed underlying disease, especially since those who took up smoking experience no change in weight.

-----------

My take:

After reading this article I was more convinced of the validity of the Ideal Protein Protocol.

The article may help you understand what may be influencing your weight changes.

Anyway, food for thought!!

Part II

Little Things Mean a Lot

People don't become overweight overnight.

Rather, the pounds creep up slowly, often unnoticed, until one day nothing in the closet fits

the way it used to.

Even more important than it's effect on looks and wardrobe, this gradual weight gain harms health.

At least six prior studies have found that rising weight increases the risk in women of heart disease,

diabetes, stroke, and breast cancer, and the risk in men of heart disease, diabetes and colon cancer.

The beauty of the new study is it's ability to show, based on real-life experience, how small changes

in eating, exercise, and other habits can result in large changes in body weight over the years.

On average, study participants gained a pound a year, which added up to 20 pounds in 20 years.

Some gained much more, about four pounds a year, while few managed to stay the same or even lose weight.

Participants who were overweight at the study's start tended to gain the most weight, which seriously

raised their risk of obesity related diseases, Dr. Hu said. "People who are already overweight have to be particularly careful about what they eat," he said.

The foods that contributed to the greatest weight gain were not surprising. French fries led the list: and 

increased consumption of this food alone was linked to an average weight gain of 3.4 pounds in each four year period. Other important contributors were potato chips (1.7 pounds), sugar sweetened drinks 

(1pound), red meats and processed meats (0.95 and 0.93 pound, respectively), other forms of potatoes

(0.57 pound), sweets and desserts (0.41 pound), refined grains (0.39 pound), other fried foods

(0.32 pound), 100-percent fruit juice (0.31 pound), and butter (0.30 pound).

Also not too surprising were most of the foods that resulted in weight loss or no gain when consumed

in greater amounts during the study: fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Compared to those who gained the most weight, participants's in the Nurses Health Study who lost weight consumed 3.1 servings of vegetables each day.

But contrary to what many people believe, an increased intake of dairy products, whether low-fat 

(milk) or full-fat (milk and cheese), had a neutral effect on weight.

And despite conventional advice to eat less fat, weight loss was greatest among people who ate more yogurt and nuts, including peanut butter, over each four year period.

Nuts are high in vegetable fat, and previously small studies have shown eating peanut butter can help people lose weight and keep it off, probably because it slows the return of hunger.

That yogurt, among all foods, was most strongly linked to weight loss was the study's most surprising dietary finding, the researchers said. Participants who ate more yogurt lost an average of 0.82 pound per year.

Yogurt contains healthful bacteria that in animal studies increase the production of intestinal hormones that enhance satiety and decrease hunger, Dr. Hu said. The bacteria may also raise the body's metabolic rate, making weight control easier.

But, consistent with the study's findings, metabolism takes a hit from refined carbohydrates-suagrs and starches stripped of their fiber, like white flour. When Dr. david Ludwig of Children's Hospital Boston

compared the effects of whole grains in both animals and people, he found that metabolism, which determines how many calories are used at rest, slowed with the consumption of refined grains but stayed the same after consumption of whole grains.

(stay tuned)

Still Counting Calories?

Part I

This is a copy of New York Times Article

Dated July 18, 2011

By Jane E. Brody

It's no secret that Americans are fatter today than ever before, and not just those unlucky people who are genetically inclined to gain weight or have been overweight all their lives. Many who are lean as young adults have put on lots 

of unhealthy pounds as they pass through middle age and beyond.

It's no secret that the long-reommended advice to eat less and exercise more has done little to curb the inexorable

rise in weight. No one likes to feel deprived or leave the table hungry, and the notion that one generally must eat less to control body weight really doesn't cut it for the typical American.

So the newest findings on what specific foods people should eat less often---and more importantly, more often--to 

keep from gaining pounds as they age should be of great interest to tens of millions of Americans.

The new research, by five nutrition and public health experts at Harvard University, is by far the most detailed long-term 

analysis of the factors that influence weight gain, involving 120,877 well-educated men and women who were healthy

and not obese at the start of the study. In addition to diet, it has important things to say about exercise, sleep, watching television, smoking and alcohol intake.

The study participants--nurses, doctors, dentists and veterinarians in the Nurses' Health Study, Nurses Health Study II

and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study--were followed for 12 to 20 years. Every two years, they completed very detailed questionnaires about there eating habits and current weight. The fascinating results were published in June in

The New England Journal of Medicine.

The analysis examined how an array of factors influenced weight gain or loss during each four-year period of the study.

The average participant gained 3.35 pounds every four years, for a total weight gain of 16.8 pounds in 20 years.

"This study shows that conventional wisdom--eat everything in moderation,  eat fewer calories and avoid fatty foods--

isn't the best approach," Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health and lead author of the study, said in an interview.  "What you eat makes quite a difference. Just counting calories won't matter much unless you look at the kinds of calories you're eating. 

Dr. Frank B. Hu, a nutrition expert at the Harvard School of Public Health and co author of the new analysis, said: "In

the past, too much emphasis has been put on single factors in the diet. But looking a magic bullet hasn't solved the problem of obesity."

Also untrue, Dr. Mozzaffarian said, is the food industry's claim that there's no such thing as a bad food.

"There are good foods and bad foods, and advice should be to eat the foods more and bad foods less," he said.

"The notion that it's O.K. to eat everything in moderation is just an excuse to eat whatever you want."

The study showed physical activity had the benefits for weight control. Those who exercised less over the course of the study tended to gain weight, while those who increased their activity didn't. Those with the greatest increase in physical

activity gained 1.76 fewer pounds than the rest of the participants within each four year period.

But the researchers found that the kinds of food people ate had a larger effect over all than changes in physical activity.

"Both physical activity and diet are important to weight control, but are fairly active and ignore diet, you can still gain weight," said Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the nutrition department of the Harvard School of Public Health and co-author of the study.

As Dr. Mozzaffarian observed, "Physical Activity in the United States is poor, but diet is even worse."