 |
What's Sinking Your Diet?
Posted on 7/30/2009 at 6:31 PM - Post Comment
By Allison Winn Scotch, Women's Health Nobody's the innocent victim of a drive-thru feeding. But you're not entirely to blame for the extra pie in your thighs, either. Your replica watches shape-up strategy may be secretly under attack from your friends, your family, even the chemicals in your brain. Identify the saboteurs behind your diet's demise, and then learn how to sabotage them. The Saboteur: Your Stress In stressful situations, levels of the hormone cortisol spike, and that tells your body to go into fat-storing mode. Eat fatty food, and watch the damage multiply. A recent Penn State study found that women are prone to snarfing down chocolate, chips, and cheese even after the stress has stopped. Fix your head Identify the type of stress you're under, says Jim Karas, author of The Business Plan for the Body. "Is it temporary, like a bar exam, or more permanent, like your job?" Short-term stress will Cartier watches pass. Long-term stress may require a more permanent solution, such as a new job. Fix your routine Make healthy eating effortless. If you don't buy pints of ice cream, they won't be lurking in your freezer, sending siren calls in the middle of the night. Eat one serving of protein-rich almonds (about 24), which can help level off the highs and lows associated with stress. Or pick up a container of plain oats; a half-cup serving contains 4 grams of fiber along with some melatonin, a calming hormone that's related to sleep. Plan B: Take a short, but fast, run around the block, or hit an afternoon kickboxing class. High-intensity workouts help relieve tension, but they also provide a much greater calorie afterburn than low-intensity exercise like walking or slow jogging, Karas says. The Saboteur: Your Man Though it's tempting, don't blame your beloved for your belly. This would be (a) wrong and (b) reasonable defense at his trial. But know this: Researchers at the University of Minnesota found that men and women Chopard watches usually gain 6 to 8 pounds in the first 2 years of marriage. "Once you're married, that need to impress is gone," says Edward Abramson, Ph.D., author of Marriage Made Me Fat! "You may go to the gym less often, go out for meals or to parties more frequently, and develop new rituals, such as sitting on the couch together snacking." Fix your head Regain a little bit of that need to impress. What would your single self say the one whose good looks and moxie helped convince him to marry you? As for that shared bowl of extra-butter popcorn, Dr. Abramson says, ask yourself, "Why am I eating?" Boredom? Habit? Better yet, don't even bring those binge foods into the house. Fix your routine Get off the couch, get out of your rut, and lose the remote. Instead of Access Hollywood after dinner, keep your mind occupied and your hands busy: Read a book, learn to knit, or organize a family card game. Or, surprise him with a round of everyone's favorite indoor sport (which burns an Bvlgari watches average of about 1.5 calories per minute you do the math). Check out Caloriesperhour.com for a wide variety of activities and their associated caloric burn. And when you're ready to cool down, try an Italian ice (120 calories per cup) instead of ice cream (290 calories per cup). The Saboteur: Your Kids Having adorable offspring in the house sharply increases the likelihood of Combos in the cupboard some of which inevitably end up in your mouth. In putting their kids first, moms tend to skip breakfast, grab unhealthy snacks, and overlook exercise, says Melinda Johnson, R.D., spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. Fix your head See the future. That sugary snack that your kids burn off in an hour will only haunt you as a fat deposit. Fix your routine Plan every day's meals including snacks so that you're always eating healthy foods, like berries Jaeger LeCoultre watches, yogurt, whole-wheat toast with peanut butter, and nuts. "A healthy diet never happens by accident," Johnson says. You can still make junk food a once-a-week thing. Designate Friday as Fruity Pebbles day, for example. The Saboteur Late-Night TV Not getting enough deep sleep inhibits production of growth hormones, which could lead to premature symptoms of middle age, such as abdominal obesity, reduced muscle mass and strength, and diminished exercise capacity. In short: You become your grandmother overnight. Fix your head Don't plot a staffing reorganization before bed. Establish a ritual that signals your body that the day is over 30 minutes before you're ready to hit the sack turn off the computer, read, stretch, or set the TV volume low, Karas says. Fix your routine Exercise in the Tissot watches morning or afternoon, says Eric Nofzinger, M.D., an expert in sleep disorders at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Evening workouts may leave you too stimulated to sleep, so instead, develop a clear end-of-day habit. Snuggle with your guy while he's watching the NBA game. Put your head on his shoulder, and then let Shaq and the boys put you to sleep in seconds. Trust us. The Saboteur: Your Prescriptions Prozac may cure your mental woes, but it can also doom your diet. "Antidepressants affect weight by regulating serotonin, which is involved in both mood and appetite," says Scott Isaacs, Ph.D., of the Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta and author of Hormonal Balance. Top culprits include Zoloft, Paxil, and nonmood-altering drugs, such as Benadryl and most diabetes medications. (Contrary to popular belief, most birth control pills won't lead to waistline expansion.) Fix your head Consider having it shrunk. "Too many people take antidepressant medications instead of addressing the issues in their lives that are contributing to the depression," Dr. Isaacs says. Talking may Audemars Piguet watches prove more effective than pill popping, and there are definitely no side effects. Fix your routine Ask your doctor about switching your medications. Alternative meds may better suit your chemical makeup without the puffy side effects. "Also, by being aware of the increases in appetite associated with antidepressant medications, you can eat lower-calorie foods to satisfy your appetite and not gain weight," Dr. Isaacs says. Try fat-free popcorn in the afternoon, or foods high in fiber (like fruits and vegetables) or protein (nuts and milk) to help keep you full. The Saboteur: Your Friends Gal pals can make or break a weight-loss plan. Sometimes it's innocent enough maybe your best friend suggests ditching the gym for a girls' night out. Or maybe a not-so-good friend deliberately tries to sabotage your Mont Blanc watches diet: "Oh come on, let's order the cheese fries with this pitcher." An occasional stumble won't cause any harm, but giving in all the time will. Fix your head Ask for help. "Let people know how to help you, and many will," says Beth Kitchin, an assistant professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Friends who unwittingly lead you into temptation will stop. And you'll undermine the efforts of those false friends, too. Fix your routine Eat a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats with low-fat milk before you go out. The fiber will keep you feeling full, the sugar will satisfy your craving for mudslides, and the calcium will help you burn fat even while you're sitting at the bar. The Greatest Workout Known To Man By introduction to the best-kept secret in fitness begins with a video that both inspires and intimidates me. I'm watching Pyrros Dimas, a three-time Olympic gold medalist from Greece, prepare for an wholesale watches Olympic weight-lifting competition. Pound for ripped pound, he's one of the strongest men on the planet. Dimas is hoisting a bar so loaded with plates it looks like a truck axle with the tires attached. Again and again, he tosses the weight from the floor over his head in one quick, graceful motion, almost casually. And that's just his warmup. In competition, Dimas once lifted 474 pounds over his head—considerably more than twice his body weight of 187. "That move's called a Cartier watches snatch," says my trainer, Shane Miller, as he rewinds the video. Miller is the head trainer at Carl and Sandra's Physical Conditioning Center, a gym in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I've come for a 2-hour beginner lesson in Olympic-style weight lifting. It's not that I have any Olympian aspirations; I'm here because the Olympic lifts, as they're called, have no equal for developing speed, flexibility, and coordinated, total-body strength and muscle. Interestingly, there are only two official Olympic lifts: the aforementioned snatch and the clean and jerk. For a visual, think of the snatch as a deadlift, barbell shrug, jump squat, and overhead squat performed consecutively in one fluid motion. The clean and jerk? A combination Chopard watches deadlift, upright row, front squat, and push press. To underscore the effectiveness of these movements, consider that in the most basic measure of raw athletic ability—the vertical jump—Olympic weight lifters excel above all others. "When I worked at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, we measured vertical jumps of athletes in nearly every sport," says Michael Stone, Ph.D., a professor of exercise science at Eastern Tennessee State University. "And Olympic weight lifters had higher average jumps than all other groups—basketball Bvlgari watches players, gymnasts, sprinters, everybody." Even the bulkiest Olympic heavyweights make astonishing leaps. Shane Hamman, the top American lifter in the history of the sport, weighs in at 350 pounds but boasts a vertical jump of 36 inches. Most NBA players top out at 34 inches. Not only can Ham-man dunk (he's 5'9"), he can also drive a golf ball 350 yards. Then there's the pure vanity aspect. The Olympic lifters who aren't heavyweights are among the leanest—they're certainly the strongest—athletes in the world. One study of elite athletes found that Olympic Jaeger LeCoultre watches weight lifters burn almost as many calories per day as marathoners do, and another reported that, on average, the lifters have as little as 5 percent body fat. Granted, these men are moving more than 175,000 pounds in a typical training week, but they also eat 6,000 to 8,000 calories a day. So what is it about the Olympic lifts that works such magic on the human body? Most simply, they engage nearly all of your muscles to move weights farther and faster than conventional exercises. In fact, each repetition takes only a second or two from start to finish, which allows you to target your fast-twitch muscle fibers. These are the muscles with the greatest potential for size and strength, and the Tissot watches ones that are typically ignored in most men's weight workouts. At this point, you might be wondering why, if these Olympic lifts are so great, you seldom see them practiced in gyms. The main reason is that they're technically difficult to perform, says Miller. Unlike a biceps curl, which requires little or no instruction to perform safely, these maneuvers call for a qualified instructor to teach you the nuances of each movement. Otherwise, you'll put yourself at risk of injury or, at the very least, perform them incorrectly. Which is, of course, why I've come to Miller's gym in the first place. But while anyone can find an instructor at the USA Weight lifting Web site (www.usa weightlifting.org), it turns out there's also a shortcut to experiencing the Olympic advantage. You see, the unique aspects of the Olympic lifts consist of two distinct parts: the "pull" phase and the "catch" phase. During the Audemars Piguet watches pull, you explode upward, yanking the barbell off the floor and in front of your thighs, as if you were trying to jump out of the gym. In the catch, you quickly move your body under the bar and catch the weight on your shoulders or above your head. "In my experience, 95 percent of the benefits of Olympic lifts come from the pull phase, which is the simplest part of the movement," says Alwyn Cosgrove, C.S.C.S., a certified USA Weightlifting coach in Santa Clarita, California. "And almost all of the technical difficulties occur during the catch phase." That's why Cosgrove has eliminated the catch portion of the movement from nearly all of his programs, and why you can forget about it, too. "Most men need to worry about the catch only if they're interested in competing in the sport," he says. To enable lifters at any level to Mont Blanc watches benefit from these exercises, Cosgrove has broken down the Olympic lifts into their four most effective movements. (See "The Olympic workout," on the below.) Incorporate them into your routine and you'll build muscle and strength, burn fat, and boost sports performance faster than ever before. In fact, consider whatever you've been doing up till now preparation for your real workout. The Olympic Workout Twice a week, insert these two mini-routines into your current workout, performing them before you do any other exercises. Alternate between Routine 1 and Routine 2 so that you do only two of the modified Olympic lifts each session. A couple of pointers: The high pull and the jump shrug are speed exercises, so use a weight that requires a strong effort to lift it quickly, but isn't so heavy that you can't control the bar. For the front squat and push press, use the heaviest weight that allows you to do all the prescribed reps.
? Last Page :: Next Page ?
|
|