Diet Supplements Expert's Blog » weight loss

Ephedra Weight Loss

mikkel — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:01:09 +0000

Ephedra has long been one of the most popular weight loss ingredients on the market. Ephedra was first introduced in the early 90’s, and quite frankly speaking, ever since then it has been a revolution in weight loss, burning off more fat than anybody could have imagined and breeding hundreds of successful weight loss products.

Of course this is not the whole story. It’s definitely not the whole story. The truth is that after a while, they banned ephedra, because suddenly all of these reports were emerging of side effects, serious problems, deaths even. People got scared for understandable reasons and it was banned as it should have been quite frankly.

Now they brought ephedra back, and some have tried to use it again, saying that it’s an extremely effective fat burner and otherwise. This being said, they are only allowed to use a maximum of 25-30mg. Now they do generally use this. Unfortunately, that amount is actually not enough to promote weight loss or fat burning at all. So ephedra weight loss at this particular point is actually quite dead. They have fought it before and since, but it’s dead.

There have been hundreds of products that had to recover from the ephedra ban in the first place. It shocks me to some degree that they even actually use it at all in any products. The truth is that most ephedra weight loss products have not recovered since, and it’s really no surprise. But this being said, you really shouldn’t use ephedra weight loss products.

Personalized Diets

mikkel — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:36:38 +0000

They call it the blood type diet, or for that matter you could follow the astrology diet. Both of these base their assessments on the idea that if this abstract element is this way, then you should eat this particular diet and it will better improve your health and help you to better lose or even maintain weight. Frankly speaking, I’m a Pisces and every diet recommendation I’ve seen says I should eat more fats and more meats. I should eat more fats to get my cholesterol up. But the truth is, I shouldn’t eat more meats, because my body has never responded well to any kind of meat in any amounts. It reacts horribly to some enzyme found in even white meats actually. So this isn’t a good thing at all. This being said, as off the wall as that seems anyway, the blood type diet is the same way. Yes, they can test your blood type, and you can send it in for your personalized assessment. But basically speaking, a registered dietician at the Mayo Clinic, Katherine Zeratsky has basically said that frankly speaking you are often sacrificing good nutritional habits and many of the foods your body needs when you follow the diets they set down. It turns into a fad diet you could find somewhere else, and therefore you really can’t benefit from it.

Laziness

mikkel — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:53:10 +0000

Now the ultimate thing of obesity I’ve seen is laziness. I mean it. We are, as a country, getting lazier every day. It’s not just about diet, it’s about the lack of exercise. I’ll admit I’ve gotten lazier since getting a desk job. When I was in a waitressing position, I was always on my feet and I was skinny. I don’t go to certain extremes, but it’s resulted in about 10 pounds weight gain, which makes a big difference! This being said, there are some people who go to greater levels than me, and then you see why they tend to be overweight as opposed to their neighbors who do not. For example, I’ve seen people who take the escalator to the gym. The whole point of going to the gym is to exercise! So what exactly are you doing. Moreover, there have been people I’ve lived by who literally speaking would get in their car and drive to go next door. I mean if you live in an extremely dangerous neighborhood where getting in and out only in garages is necessary, I can see this. I can definitely see this. But the chances of you living in this kind of neighborhood are slim to none. I know I haven’t. But seriously, it’s this kind of laziness, like freaking out when you don’t have the remote because you actually have to get up to change the channel that is leading in part to even greater levels of national obesity.

Overweight Means Nothing

mikkel — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:53:49 +0000

Frankly, being overweight and obese are defined differently, and though of course being overweight is serious, I don’t take it quite as seriously depending on the situation, because they only depend on the weight in comparison to the height. I’ve actually had some friends measured, and when they actually considered body fat percentage, muscle mass, bone mass and density, and other things, it was far different than they may have previously expected. I mean there were some people who would have been overweight in terms of the BMI, and all things considered for their bone mass alone, they were either underweight or a healthy weight. That doesn’t even account for muscle mass in other individuals. For all those reasons, I don’t see overweight as such a big deal depending on the individual. But obese not only takes into account the weight. It also takes into account the total body fat percentages and makeup of the total individual including bone mass, muscle mass, and otherwise. They take into account risk factors and diseases. So frankly, if you are defined as obese, I would be far more worried if I were you than just overweight.

The Best Shape Of Your Life

mikkel — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:47:34 +0000

No matter your age, programs like P90X have shown that you can still be in the best possible shape of your life. They have shown people who were 50, 60, and so on who were in better shape than they were in when they were 20. So it obviously is a big deal, it obviously presents big issues in general, and you can definitely achieve better results. Now it’s harder as you get older for obvious reasons. Your metabolism just doesn’t work like it used to, and quite frankly speaking, your body in general just doesn’t work like it used to. This means you will have to work a little harder, run a little farther and faster, and otherwise lift a little more. But it also means that these things are far more important to your health and wellbeing. As you get older, things like bone mass break down over time, and this leads to greater issues as a whole. So when you build muscle, you protect these vital elements, and therefore you are actually able to keep your body from breaking down, prevent injury, and otherwise. So if you find options to really be in the best shape of your life at an older age, I would definitely take it.

How To Avoid Stretch Marks

mikkel — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:16:13 +0000

I sometimes wonder what the best way to treat your stretch marks is. I mean this. I mean realistically speaking, so many people get stretch marks, some more than others, and it ultimately means that you have lost some degree of elasticity in your skin and otherwise. But this being said, when a 20 something year old has stretch marks, it’s a strange occurrence to say the least. And it depends on the person. For example, one of my little girls that I still picture at the age of probably 8 has now had a kid, and she’s now 21 realistically, but it’s weird. Anyway, she had a baby, and now you see her in pictures and she has a better stomach than any of us who have never had kids. And she has no stretch marks whatsoever. On the other hand, a guy I know who is her same age was just a chubby kid, and he has since lost about 50 pounds, which is ridiculous. But he has stretch marks literally covering his entire stomach, it’s pretty bad. So I wonder if there’s something you can do whether getting fat or pregnant to avoid those stretch marks. I mean most of the time there’s not enough skin to have them surgically cut out, and even then that leaves scars. But obviously, somebody has figured out the secret, because there are people who really should have stretch marks and don’t at this point in time.

Is The Gay Community Skinnier?

mikkel — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:29:42 +0000

I will admit, being skinny is highly appealing, and frankly there are people who say that it’s not realistic, because the majority of Americans are obese or overweight. But realistically speaking, shouldn’t it be more realistic I guess? I mean obviously, the people who are skinny still aren’t all magically so gifted that they stay skinny. There are healthy foods available. Most of us just don’t choose them. It’s a matter of caring. I mean I went to a gay bar the other night, and I had no idea what to expect. My friend has been insisting I do it for a while, because it’s basically a bunch of gay boys and a few girls that they bring along. This being said, I think I saw 5 total people I would even consider to be overweight in there. Maybe gay guys care more about what they look like, well I take that back, gay guys definitely as a general rule care more what they look like than the average guy. Whether this means covering zits with a good concealer because they don’t have to be “manly” or dressing well or actually working out even if they’re already dating someone, which most strait guys don’t do. They let themselves go, because they’re already covered anyway. And frankly, I’ve seen some of my friends’ families and some of them don’t come from a great weight gene pool, and yet again I’ve rarely seen gay men for some reason that are even slightly overweight. They have the benefit of male bodies that naturally have better fat burning mechanisms, and they put in the work.

Can We Really Keep Sabotaging Ourselves More?

mikkel — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 20:06:51 +0000

I found out the other day, and this is ridiculous to me, that food stamps cover fast food. Are you kidding me? I mean obviously if they only buy prepackaged foods in the store, you can’t really help that. But they are giving more than enough money in food stamps for people to buy plenty of healthy foods, I think a few hundred bucks whereas in college I survived on $50 groceries per month. This because I wasn’t bothering with the prepackaged crap. But this being said, we have a nationwide obesity epidemic, it’s that simple. We also have a lot of national debt. So when a single person is getting several hundred dollars a month in food stamps, no one person needs to eat that much. And moreover, when it can be applied to fast food, how much more obvious can you get! It’s frustrating for me, because while some people need more fat and realize it, most of us definitely and obviously don’t. Most of us could do with much healthier foods, and if they could control the types of food you buy in the grocery store, that wouldn’t be a bad thing. But it’s frustrating, because my tax dollars are already paying for more healthcare, which is ironically more prevalent in homeless and otherwise poor populations. But now you see why!

Marilyn Monroe

mikkel — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:14:20 +0000

Sometimes I wonder if Marilyn Monroe ever used diet pills. Obviously, she was a rather curvy woman, and they admired that at that point in time. This being said, many now compare themselves to Marilyn Monroe, because they talk about her being the sex goddess of the 50’s at a size 14. We should really be clear, she was a size 6 for most of her life being a size 14 only in small intervals. This being said, just about every woman has her own issues with her body shape and size among other things. There are skinny women who wish they had more curves, curvier women who wish they were skinnier, most of us are never exactly happy with our looks, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she was one of those women, just like the rest of us. But like I said, she peaked at the size 14, that was not a weight she was at for most of her life or for that matter extended periods of time, and I might suspect that she might have used diet pills to get back down just as other famous starlets since her have supposedly done, such as for example Anna Nicole Smith.

The Whole Picture

mikkel — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:59:19 +0000

For the most part, I am a pretty laid back person, I would call myself accepting. Unless it directly affects me, I don’t care what you do. Let me correct that, I do care what you do. But as long as you think that’s what’s going to make you happy, I will support it or at least not say anything, it’s the way things go, and I find trying to change people too much when they don’t want to change only creates unnecessary problems. Plus I think caring about someone means taking them and hoping you can help them improve, but only as they are ready. This being said, I have found that in large part, those family members and friends who are obese affect me. When they have health problems, when I’m the one cleaning up the pieces because something happened that hurt their feelings in relation to their obesity, when they’re sitting their complaining about how they want to lose weight, that directly affects me, and it drives me a little bit nuts. Now the whole health complications, that affects everybody. It’s not just those suffering from it, but family members. I’m starting to sound like a cigarette commercial. But in so many ways, while many people I know of want to say this is my life and all that, and it is, it isn’t just your life. So in many ways, shape up, suck it up, and think about the whole picture.