I hope you’ll want to learn more and let me help you to get into the best shape of your life.

Here are just a few of the tips and tricks you will learn in my audio cd’s ‘The not so secret, secrets of weight loss’

Physical effort is considered by some people to be hard work, a nuisance, a burden and something to be avoided at all costs. Start thinking of it the other way. Look at each movement not as being a burden or a waste of time but instead an opportunity to control your weight, protect your health and improve your well-being. If a neighbor is struggling with carrying a bag or a suitcase, run to their rescue instead of looking away. Use your body for what it was made for and get its 723 muscles working. If something falls on the ground, be the first to pick it up.  If your elevator has broken down, don’t moan and groan, walk up the stairs and note that some people pay good money for step classes at the gym. There is one thing you must remember; exerciseis great for your health, so get moving!
Work hard at developing your muscles and create a whole group of fat burning muscles!

Your muscles and your brain are the two organs you can use to purposely lose weight.  The only ones used to burn calories.

A muscle that works against maximum resistance uses up an enormous amount of energy and when it stops working, it continues to burn calories. Less than when exercising but even throughout the day and then while you are sleeping your body is still burning calories from that workout. This activity goes on for 60 hours (i.e. two and a half days). Then it comes to a halt and nothing more happens. If you don’t want it to come to a halt, exercise for 10 minutes, just 3 times a week but make it intense. Get as many muscles and muscle groups involved as possible, by encouraging those muscles that never do any work to become part of your arsenal of calorie burners. Shoulders, arms, legs, glutes, abdominals, back muscles, calves and the vertebrae extensor muscles that make you tall. You only need a minute per muscle but with maximum intensity so that you get them working for another 60 hours. So get exercising!

You want to lose weight?

Love what you hate and seek what you are avoiding!

Try this experiment.  Radically change your mental attitude. Instead of viewing a trip, work or physical exercise as a chore or punishment, look at them as blessings and genuine gifts that life is sending your way. Change your perspective. Doing is living! This mental reversal changes the situation radically. Look for any opportunity of doingwith your body. Don’t let technologies deprive you of any opportunity to be active. By giving over a major part of what you do to technology, you are essentially handing over a part of your life which renders you less active, and increases your weight!
Stop wasting time and lose weight!

Not enough time?  Does exercise bore you, or make you feel tired but you would still like to lose weight?

You are just going to love this secret! Instead of wasting time by rushing to the gym, put in the same amount of physical exercise at any point in your day when you’ve got time to kill. Or better yet, add it to chores or activities that you must do. Here are some examples: you have to brush your teeth.  You’d like to brush them thoroughly but you are in a rush and not that keen on brushing.  While you are brushing them, and this can easily take three minutes, get your legs to bend slightly as you stand in front of the mirror. Instead of waiting for the elevator, walk down the stairs quickly! If you are waiting for the bus, pace up and down. In the subway, stand up straight without putting your weight on one hip. Have dishes to wash? Wash them yourself. You won’t have to pre-rinse, put them in the dishwasher and then get them out. You need to pick up something from the floor? Don’t bend over by bending your trunk forward, bend your knees. This will use your lower body and will help you slim down for life.

Get moving!

Does  your body’s  existence involves going from your bed to the chair, then from the elevator to your car, from your office chair to a chair in a restaurant,… then in the evening back to the dining room table, then the sofa with a TV tray and remote control? If this classic scenario is at all familiar to you, then you are truly a sedentary person!  Don’t tell yourself “I’m as normal as all my friends, neighbors and colleagues and they live like me”.   Try not to be a sedentary person who is living below their full potential.  For physical, metabolic and psychological reasons, being so sedentary is toxic and as dangerous and harmful to your health as smoking 10 cigarettes a day. To get out of this state and its risks, all you have to do is stand up for one hour per day or walk for 20 minutes or run for 10 minutes.  Follow my advice and you will become human again!

You want to lose weight? Carry your grocery bags!

Tell yourself “I am taking responsibility for my body.  I am making use of it again and giving it a reason to live.”  Don’t forget that your body is a part of you.  The part which experiences, feels, suffers or finds fulfillment. Don’t expect to find total happiness until you achieve a healthy body and a stable weight. So don’t give up and rely on technology to take over! Technology is there to make your life appear easier,  when in reality it makes you lazy and dependent on gadgets that don’t give you anything back but which you completely depend on. It’s not about going back to the Stone Age but about being aware of all these ways that technology makes you less active. Be happy and carry your grocery bags with a cheerful smile!

Your home is a magical place for losing weight!

If you are the one in charge of taking care of your home, don’t be persuaded by the modern-day thinking that depreciates house chores. If your intention is to lose weight and slim down, this is a fantastic opportunity by combining both of what is useful and efficient. Pick up a broom and sweep your home (dancing along to music, of course!). Clean your windows with a wet cloth, clean your walls, dust your belongings, and vacuum your carpets. Wash dishes by hand, instead of just placing them in the dishwasher.  I am sure that the majority think this recommendation sounds trivial. But, would you prefer lifting weights in front of a mirror at a gym that may be miles from your home, or pedal on a stationary bicycle that doesn’t go anywhere?  If you enjoy cooking, try preparing foods from scratch, and if you have a garden, you can be sure to lose weight by spending time giving life to a garden of flowers, plants, and vegetables.

Frail and the very opposite of sporty, the French author François Mauriac got into the habit of jumping up and down in front of his full-length mirror. He jumped up and down starting off with small, gentle knee bends to warm up, gradually jumping higher and higher. I thought this was a fantastic idea and so I adopted it. As he recommended, I started jumping up and down.  This stimulated my body’s strength and energy and produced a satisfying feeling of being alive which is joy. Finally, I realized that, even though temporary by definition, my joy was ongoing with this physical exercise. Then, I tried to test this sort of jumping in isolation without associating it with joy. I realized that jumping up and down made me feel joyful. Is this conditioning or mental association? I don’t know but since then, I have been creating little moments of joy and I maintain this two-way association.  At the same time, I work on my quadriceps muscle, the biggest calorie burner so I am controlling my weight. Try it out. You have nothing to lose (except some ounces)!

There is a world of difference between a little exercise and none at all.

Recent studies have proved that among those people who are very inactive, there was a fundamental difference between carrying out simple normal and useful activities and being totally sedentary. Walking to get to the nearest bus stop or subway, doing some shopping by walking to the local shops, taking your kids for a walk, bringing them back home from school, doing a little house work is enough to prevent muscular function from dying out. It’s like the difference between a car that has stopped with its engine still ticking and another car whose engine has been switched off.  The difference is even more marked when you are dieting because your body starts to operate in economy mode and in this case if you are totally sedentary you will be burning up practically nothing.  For those who are very sedentary, twenty minutes of walking per day is enough to rev up your metabolism and get you ready to lose weight!

A study of young overweight women that was carried out recently has shown that those who scheduled exercise into their daily lives lost more weight.

They lose more easily and permanently than those women who do all their physical exercise at one given time. Four short separate seven minute sessions are better than 30 minutes in one stretch. It is easier to fit short exercises into a working day than a session at the gym, especially if the day involves some travelling. Also, by spreading your exercises out over the day this allows you to vary and keep track of them and still have desire to exercise.  Start when you wake up with 1.5 minutes of work on your abdominals and 1.5 minutes on your glutes muscle.  Do this while still in bed and then the same when you go to bed and it adds up to 6 minutes.  Three minutes’ walk to get the bus, go to the station or take the subway and another 3 minutes to go home and that’s 6 more minutes. When it’s lunch time, take a walk in whatever direction for 4 minutes and come back. There’s another 8 minutes you can definitely add on. You end up with 20 minutes of exercise added into your day without any effort. But this was just an example. Let your imagination get to work and try brushing your teeth while you walk around or stand up when you are on the bus, go up your stairs 4 times a day, or make up little exercise segments. Spread your exercises throughout the day and you’ll be done exercising before you know it!

Stress effects weight in two ways: by triggering cortisol secretion which causes water retention and increases visceral fat and also by encouraging you to eat fatty, sugary comfort foods to reduce the unpleasantness of stress.

When you start to feel stress, I can suggest a technique to neutralize the negative effects before they develop. This technique which involves a stretching-breathing combination combines two simple actions which reinforce each other.  Stretching: this involves the trapezius muscles, the two muscles which are the most prone to stress and whose tension echoes in your mind. The trapezius muscles are the two muscles that connect the neck to the shoulders and extend down to the lower back. To stretch them, all you have to do is to push the top of your head up towards the ceiling while at the same time dropping your shoulders down as far as you can. Extending the trapezius muscles relaxes them and their relaxation in turn relaxes your mind. Breathing: at the same time breathe in slowly until your lungs are completely full and then stop breathing in for a maximum of three seconds. Then breathe out slowly until your lungs are emptied. With five breathes in and out, you will have completely replenished the air in your lungs, released your intercostal muscles and your diaphragm and completely relaxed your trapezius muscles. This takes 75 seconds, hardly more than a minute.  You are now safe from stress and its after-effects!

There are many people who think that to lose weight the best way of exercising is to do sports. This isn’t true. Walking is the best way. 10 minutes of walking every day may not seem much to you, but it’s definitely achievable and is much more effective than a session at the gym. Twenty minutes is more effective than 2 sessions and 30 minutes more so than 3 sessions. What’s more, you don’t have to do all your walking in one go. You can divide it up and spread it throughout your day. Five minutes here, three minutes there and you won’t even notice them go by. Once you’ve gotten into the habit, you’ll stick to it.

Walking is by far the simplest, most natural, least tiring, least dangerous and the least expensive form of exercise. Walking requires you to use large muscle groups such as the quadriceps and gluteus muscles. These muscle groups are great calorie burners.  Walk for 30 minutes per day and I can guarantee that this will help you lose weight. But above all else, these 30 minutes are one of the foundations for stabilizing your weight permanently. You’ll never imagine all the positive changes that walking can offer you. If you walk immediately after your meal (lunchtime and evening), you increase your calorie consumption by 20 to 30%. If you don’t have time, try the treadmill, you don’t even have to go out or get dressed in your workout gear. Finally, walking is as healthy as eating right. It keeps your heart healthy, and your mood cheerful, it helps your mind and memory function.  It encourages your imagination and reinforces what you’ve learned. To lose weight correctly and permanently, believe me when I say: GET WALKING!

Some people take their car to the car wash but this takes time or they forget to or can’t be bothered. If you are trying to lose weight, wash your car yourself. It’s nothing to be ashamed of and I can assure you it will help you to burn some calories. Try to make the job more involved. Wash your car using lots of water, use soap, rinse it off, dry it and then make your car shine by putting on some polish. Keep yourself upright on both feet without putting your weight on only one hip. This activity lasts 30 minutes, the time it takes to do a session at the gym but here at least you have a goal, you are doing something useful with a purpose that involves you. Also, if you really apply yourself, you will have burned between 350 and 400 calories!

Several studies done in four continents suggest apple cider vinegar helps with weight loss. The recommended amount is 2 tablespoons. Taken at the start of a meal, vinegar helps break down proteins and fats. The acidity can sometimes limit how much a person can take.  Those with a sensitive stomach or past history of ulcers should not use it at all.  Vinegar is in fashion.  They range from white, raspberry to sherry and balsamic vinegar.

Apple cider vinegar is virtually a medicinal liquid and many studies and experiments have proved its breakdown action on proteins and its cleansing effect on fats. But balsamic vinegar has another quite exclusive advantage for weight control. It enables you to make sauces almost without any oil at all, by being slightly caramelized and a little more viscous and thicker than other vinegars. Did you know that as far as weight is concerned, oil is the most dangerous food? It is by far, the richest food created, 9 calories for just one single gram. One tablespoon of oil contains roughly 120 calories. If a salad needs two tablespoons, this amounts to 240 calories. You end up eating almost as much fat as a brownie with this innocent salad without even realizing it. With balsamic vinegar, there’s no such problem. I make up my vinaigrette with five tablespoons of this vinegar, one tablespoon of mild mustard, one tablespoonful of water and one teaspoon of olive or walnut oil. I add eight basil leaves and a clove of garlic. The end product is fit for a king and nearly 20 times less rich than traditional vinaigrette. What’s more, balsamic vinegar is tasty and you can include it in your cooking. Just try it once when you de-glaze your chicken breasts. You won’t be able to do without it anymore!

Here are two great slimming allies with exceptional taste.

It is difficult to live without coriander after you have learned how to use it. For a Westerner, cardamom offers a taste and a smell from somewhere else, from another fascinating and magical place. If you just take the time to close your eyes, to put aside for just a moment our modern western pace and enjoy its taste, even if it is only in a modest cup of cardamom flavored tea. But this isn’t the heart of the secret. When you are losing weight there are two small inconveniences that may bother you: bad breath and constipation, along with its twin sister abdominal bloating. If your breath becomes a problem and embarrassing for you, think of cardamom.  The simplest thing to do is to infuse it in some green tea. For your abdominal bloating, it’s coriander that you need. Use it in everything,  in your vinaigrette dressings, in your soups (1 pinch per bowl) and on all your white meat.    A secret within the secret: if you are really worried about your breath, peel and crush together some cardamom and coriander and add this mixture to your normal toothpaste and use it to brush your teeth and tongue.

If you have a passion for chocolate, it’s because you love the richness and smoothness that defines cocoa. It’s in cocoa’s powder where its stimulating effects are concentrated. Cocoa has anti-depressant properties and contains phenylethylamine, a feel good substance. Cocoa’s magnesium provides a soothing and tranquilizing effect.  Theobromine and caffeine are compounds in cocoa responsible for the strongest sensory and emotional charge of all the foods in the world. The rest of the cocoa is made up of cocoa butter and sugar. This adds calories and cholesterol. When dieting, buy some low fat cocoa from a health food store and start adding it to yogurt, skim milk and your fat free cream cheese. Treat yourself and lose weight at the same time!

When you are on a diet or watching your weight and its hor d’oeuvres time, there is a moment of temptation which is likely to upset your good intentions.

Here is a selection of alternatives which can easily be combined together:

1. Cherry tomatoes: they’re good, appealing, and crunchy. They explode in your mouth. They are one of the least caloric vegetables on earth and have such a strong taste that they don’t need any dip.
2. Cottage cheese and cherry tomatoes: halve some cherry tomatoes, scoop out the flesh then fill with fat free cottage cheese. A real treat!
3. Slices of chicken sausage: dense and satiating, select the most highly-seasoned.
4. Shrimp: another tiny, extremely low-fat, slow food.
5. Raw cauliflower: a winner for hor d’oeuvres.
6. Cubes of raw carrots: cut a carrot in 4 strips, then into slices to make pretty orange cubes.
7. Crab sticks: essential slimming food from the sea, healthy, low-fat and very rich in proteins.
8. Botargo: a Mediterranean delicacy of cured mullet roe dried in the sun and coated in beeswax for protection. It’s a great appetite suppressant, a little expensive, but very effective.
9.  A small dish of Tzaziki based on 2 star ingredients in the fight against fat — cucumber and fat free yogurt.

Eggplant, the slimming plant

A little slimming secret that is effective and tasty.

Eggplants contain an extremely important substance: pectin.  This is also what gives apples their nutritional value. When pectin reaches your digestive tract, it forms a gel which is very similar to the jelly in apple jam. This gel has the capacity to stick to everything around it and traps sugars, fats and even proteins in your intestinal tract (i.e. it traps calories). These calories that stick to the pectin leave your body in your stools. Apple pectin is therefore valuable but it can’t be separated from its sugar whereas eggplants only have 22 calories per 100 grams. Would you like another secret within the secret? Take a large eggplant, insert 4 or 5 garlic cloves and bake it in the oven until its skin starts to turn red. Take it out and cut it in half like an avocado and with a small spoon scoop out the flesh and enjoy!

The eggplant appetite suppressant!

You’re hungry, you’re a big eater, and you like to feel full after a meal. If you are drawn toward foods that are delicious and help you lose weight,  then I’ve got what you need!  Take a lovely eggplant and using a pointed knife, prick it 3 times on each side to a depth of 0.5 inches. Push a clove of garlic into each slit. Then put the eggplant in the oven at 450F. When you can hear the skin crackle and you see it’s starting to peel away with the crackling, take the eggplant out and put it on a plate. Then cut it in half lengthwise as you would an avocado. Take one half,  add salt and pepper and using a teaspoon eat the flesh. When you’ve finished, try sitting down to eat. The feeling of having eaten will trigger satiety in the brain. You’ll be able to tackle your lunch or dinner more calmly and the eggplant’s pectin will pass through your body taking some calories with it. Life is sweet with eggplants!

At a recent conference I was asked why the French are not as fat as Americans.

I hadn’t meant it seriously but in fact, it does appear true and well documented. For years now I have been campaigning for proteins including non- fat dairy products that are also made solely of very high quality proteins. They are so important for losing weight that without consuming dairy products it seems like an impossible challenge. Choose from the large variety of virtually fat-free yogurts and experiment with fat free cottage cheese, fat free ricotta cheese, fat free cream cheese and fat free sour cream. These products are easy to carry around, they don’t smell, they are cheap, very low in calories, satiating, flavorsome, and can be sweetened with artificial sweetener. They are a real godsend. Try not to listen to all the talk about lactose intolerance. It does exist, but isn’t very common.

In grocery stores, I have counted about 45 common fruits, which mean that there is a wide variety of fruits that come from all over the world.

Of these 45 fruits, try to avoid four of them: 1. Bananas, which are both high insugar and a poor source of vitamins and micronutrients. 2. Grapes which are super sugary. 3. Cherries, almost as sugary and which we eat quickly like grapes as they don’t require much effort to chew. 4. Figs, once hard to find in a grocery store but they are now produced in Turkey and exported. Obviously, these 4 fruits are not prohibited for life but be aware that if you are trying to control your weight there are many other fruits far more suitable.

Fish is not as filling as meat. The texture of most fish is less dense and their flesh less firm, so it breaks down more easily as you chew it. We digest it quicker and feel less satiated so hunger returns sooner. Compared with meats that have a very tough texture, fish doesn’t measure up. For those that think this way, they can compensate by increasing the size of their fish portions. You can also choose from “meaty-like” fish and there are four of them:  1. Tuna, which when it hasn’t been cooked too long is remarkably like meat, especially grilled Ahi tuna. 2. Monkfish which is extremely firm, even elastic if cooked for a long time. Try marinating it in lemon juice. 3. Swordfish which is both firm and fatty around the outside and if it wasn’t for its expensive price tag, it would be one of the number one foods for slimming.  4. Grouper, this is the king of fish, and can be grilled on a BBQ.

Do you know how a gastric band works? It reduces the stomach’s volume radically. As soon as the stomach is full, everything makes you feel nauseous and you lose weight as your stomach is smaller and has less space for incoming food. Well, vegetables have the same effect. A stomach of a good size rarely contains more than 4 pounds of food with a hearty eater. If you eat a couple pounds of vegetables,  2 zucchinis + 2 tomatoes + 1 cucumber,  you’ll have filled up half of your stomach which is exactly what a gastric band manages to do.  Don’t think twice and buy some vegetables!

What is gazpacho? It is a cold soup originating in Andalucía and contains tomatoes, cucumber, garlic, celery, carrots, herbs and a very tiny amount of olive oil.

When you eat a bowl of Gazpacho soup, you are stuffing yourself with vitamins, fiber and flavors.  You can now buy it in all the supermarkets.  A bowl of Gazpacho at the start of a meal is one of the best ways of losing weight sensibly when you have a “Protein-Vegetable” day.

Did you know that the first modern men, the Homo sapiens from the Dordogne region who lived around 40,000 years BC had the same genetic programming as us?

So, a Neanderthal baby adopted today by a Western family would become a perfect Westerner. When the Homo sapiens lived, the men hunted and the women gathered. In groups, the men hunted animals for their protein. Women gathered whatever they could find, green vegetables, some fruit and any wild seeds that the birds had overlooked.  Proteins and vegetables which are the components of a slimming diet are not a nutritional or emotional punishment. They are the very foods that we are most familiar with, both as far as our metabolism is concerned (proteins being the only vital nutrient) as well as emotionally. It should also be noted that all the vitamins present in fruit are also found in vegetables. But the real similarity is to be found in the statement accompanying the foods you are allowed to eat: YOU CAN HAVE UNLIMITED AMOUNTS. Primitive man was only restricted by external necessity or satiety, but never put any limit on what he ate. Therefore each day you diet, when you are eating some fish, meat or poultry, see yourself as a hunter who has caught his prey and especially if you are a woman as a gatherer exchanging her vegetables for this meat

Equipped with your knife, get into the habit of slicing your meat as thinly as possible. Aim to cut down the thickness of your slices so that this work takes some time and doesn’t leave you inactive. Lots of people eat because they are bored and aren’t able to sit at the table without doing something. Moreover, the thinner your meat is sliced, the more the flavors will develop, the more it will absorb your saliva, and the more it will release taste sensations in your mouth. The pleasure of eating is produced and captured from contact with your tongue and the rear of the palate. This secret is all the more valuable if the food is firm and not easily broken down. What holds for beef or steak is equally true for tuna, monkfish and other firm fish. The same is true for raw vegetables. Actually you can slice anything that your teeth have to really work on.  To do this you’ll need a knife with a sharp cutting edge. This knife needs to be yours and yours only. This is why you have to mark it as you must be able to recognize it!

Spain may have invented paella at a time of food shortages, when rice was easy to come by and olive oil free flowing.  But fortunately for its overweight population, it has also invented the Plancha (Cast iron grill)! This is used for cooking directly on a cast-iron hot plate whose features create great cooking conditions. The Plancha sears meats like no other method does. It seals in the meat’s juices, ensuring it is safe and properly cooked through to the center without letting any of this juice escape. A “Churrasco à la Plancha”, a sort of thick and relatively lean sirloin steak is a dish that is fit for a king. It’s the same for round eye steaks. As for fish it gets even better. Royal Dorade à la Plancha is the signature dish of Spanish summertime cooking. Make firm diagonal cuts on both sides of this fat-free fish and without adding anything to it besides a tiny bit of salt it turns this fish into a gastronomic master piece. But even better than meat and fish are vegetables cooked à la Plancha which are the real secret. Wipe on a few drops of olive oil with a paper towel. Try placing side by side lovely large slices of eggplant, some large tomatoes and mild onions. Cut some zucchini in two and why not try some endives too, and just let the Plancha do the rest. Check on the internet where can you buy a Plancha?  Choose a Plancha that is wide enough, as you’ll find you need the width to fit in your vegetables. What’s more, the Plancha has the advantage of being one of the quickest ways of cooking.

You are on a diet and would like to speed up you weight loss. You’ve reached a bit of a plateau and your motivation isn’t quite as high. Try this solution, tabouleh is often prepared as a cold couscous with a few vegetables and lots of olive oil. Real tabouleh, Lebanese tabouleh, has very little bulgur wheat but loads of parsley. This is what I am suggesting you try: finely chop a bunch of parsley, half a bunch of cilantro and half a bunch of mint. Dice one small onion and one tomato and add the juice of one lemon. Mix it all together in a large bowl and keep this in the fridge. When you are about to serve the tabouleh add two table spoons of oat bran. Try it at lunchtime 2 to 3 days per week and you’ll discover why parsley is the most sought after plant, full of carotene and natural vitamin C.

Here’s a simple secret which could benefit you, especially if you are a big eater or eat quickly.

Open your mouth wide and with the tip of your forefinger touch the inside surface of your upper incisors and go up towards the base of these two teeth: there you are, at the edge of your palate.  Its concave side starts here and finishes right at the back with the uvula. The first front third of your palate is turned on by a nerve that has no tasting function. In this area, you make contact with the food and feel its texture but not its flavor.  At the end of this area, the back part starts whose function is to echo the tongue and produce taste sensations. To be clear, it is important for any food in your mouth to stay on this back part of the palate. However, when the food gets here, it is naturally sucked away by the pharynx then passes into your esophagus. Conclusion… it passes through too quickly to provide you with what you are looking for from food, namely pleasure. Here’s the secret… when you are eating, as soon as the food has been sufficiently chewed and soaked with saliva and starts to give out taste and flavor, use your tongue to pass it back onto the back of your palate while trying to make this contact time last as long as possible. This balancing exercise can be learned and followed. When you feel that the food is going to disappear, bring it back towards the front and enjoy a second passage. This way you’ll increase your sensory satisfaction. If you are not sure what I’m telling you, try the following experiment: swallow a coffee bean just as it is.. zero sensation.  Now chew it up finely… total sensation.  It’s the same for any food.  So don’t forget: become the master of your palate!

I know from experience that a dieter gives in and finds in a bowl of pasta the gratification they need to make a fresh start. In both cases, this secret of how to use pasta will be useful to you. If possible choose whole grain pasta. It’s denser, tastier and has more flavor. Leave the pasta to soak in some skim milk for three minutes. It will absorb the milk and you’ll have denser, more satiating pasta. The pasta’s slow sugars will be rebalanced by the protein content. Then you can mix in some tomatoes and a light sprinkling of parmesan.

Now the moment has come for you to discover purslane. Purslane is a perennial plant, considered for a long time to be a weed that would grow anywhere. Until the day when it was discovered that it was one of the key, indispensable foods in the diet of the people of Crete, a civilization with the lowest death rate due to heart disease (lower even than the Japanese). As far as I am concerned, and I’ll say this quite openly, purslane is a phenomenal food. Not only do I suggest that you eat it but that you grow it too. Buy a few seeds from a local nursery and off you go. Very soon you’ll have enough to make a salad. You just have to keep cutting it and it’ll grow back. You can also try it in soups like watercress. Purslane contains soluble fibers just like oat bran and apple pectin and can therefore help your body absorb excess calories. It’s very rich in omega 3, excellent for fighting stress and promoting good sleep and because of this it cuts down on emotional eating due to stress. If from today on, you get into the habit of eating it regularly, you can expect to reach a slimmer figure!

If you put a natural mineral water bottle in the fridge and drink 2 liters from it thiswater will be at a temperature of 39.2°F. When you eliminate it, it has to be at 96.8°F. This means that your body will have heated the water and raised its temperature, which means expending 60 calories. If you want to prove this to yourself with a specific example and you have an electric stove, put this amount of cold water into a pan on top of your stove and switch on the heat. With a kitchen thermometer check the temperature of the water as it rises. Note how long it takes to reach 98.6°F and the electricity consumed.  To understand how much energy 2 liters makes you burn up, all you need do is multiply the energy output of your electrical resistance (written in watts on the stove top) by the number of minutes required. Check this out once and you’ll be convinced for life. For those of you with a gas stove the experiment is a little trickier.

I don’t know of anyone who has lost 20 pounds without having experienced at least one plateau lasting over 6 days. I call this a “pause”.  In this situation there are lots of things you can do. Make sure that you haven’t made a mistake, that it’s not do to water retention because of pre-menopause or because a period is due.  The idea I like to suggest is green tea.  For three days, don’t drink any more water, only drink green tea throughout the morning, at lunch, at tea-time, in the evening and even during the night if you are getting up to go to the toilet. Cold, hot, with ice, however you like it just as long as it’s nonstop green tea and if you keep up with the diet (as well as minimum physical exercise) you stand every chance of breaking through this plateau.

Every day between 5pm and 7pm is the hunger trap, the time when those little hunger pangs nag away at you. I have a solution for you. Find a nice air-tight box in metal, glass or plastic. Place 6 decent sized cloves, 6 crushed coffee beans, a stick of crushed vanilla, a pinch of cinnamon and 2 drops of rum extract. Then allow a day for the different ingredients to blend together and produce a fusion. Each time you feel an urge to nibble something open up your box and smell the fragrance that escapes from it. Inhale several times. Get your fill of these smells and let temptation fade away.

After the age of 40, losing weight, more than 10 pounds, carries the risk of reducing the thickness of the subcutaneous support structure which supports the face’s skin. This skin that lies over a base of bone and muscle is held in place by tiny, thin bonds that cross the intermediary layer of fat. Losing weight may empty these areas of padding and take away the smoothness of the face. As a result, the lower part of the face is more subject to the effects of gravity and it loosens. To counteract this, I have devised a lifting movement through tensing the mouth and cheek muscles that you should practice as often as possible. Place your lips in a “pout” and keep this posture. Then contract your cheeks muscles so that your lips are drawn backwards creating tension between the muscles in your mouth and those in your cheeks as they are each pulling in their direction. This tension between the muscles lifts the cheeks upwards mechanically to form really round cheekbones, drawing the whole of the lower face up towards them. Maintain this position until you feel your muscles grow tired. Keep practicing this often.

If you are among women who have trouble putting on and taking off their rings, whose legs are heavy in the evenings and whose face feels puffy in the mornings, then you have water retention!

Interestingly, water retention prevents you from losing weight easily. However, water doesn’t contain any calories. Losing weight is about burning calories and getting rid of your body’s waste. If you have water retention, you don’t eliminate waste properly and it will slow down your weight loss. Try blocking a car’s exhaust pipe when its engine is running,  very shortly, it will stop. If this is a problem you have, there are a few solutions you can act upon. Drinking more sometimes means more retention. So called detox food supplements only help you eliminate a little and only if you keep using them. There are also diuretics which you need to see your doctor about.  My secret is quite simple: when you feel swollen, don’t hesitate to try some support stockings. Not the old fashioned ones that your grandmother used to wear, but the very latest models, from the most fashionable tights and panty hose. Legs that are properly supported with firm and elastic support improve circulation which then gets back to the heart sooner and passes quicker and more often through the kidneys filter. If your circulation is bad, the benefit will be twofold. You’ll see the results on your scale and in your legs which will be the first to slim down. Try it and go walking.

Pay Attention: The following is a secret outside the norm; it is on the verge of magical…

I have to share something with you. It is about EMDR (neuro-emotional integration by means of eye movement). In other words: Traumatic events can leave scars in your mind and EMDR has the capacity to seep in and naturally heal your brain. It seems that the cerebrum can accelerate the recovery by imitating the reflection movement that the eyes produce when one sleeps. The technique generally used for severe trauma, has been adapted for patients that suffer a traumatic relationship with food. It is very simple: you only have to focus on the following technique when you are suffering and try to resist temptation. Raise your dominant index finger, depending on whether you are right or left handed, placing it in front of you some 12 inches from your eyes. Fix your stare on your finger and move it slowly to your right, following it with your eyes. When your gaze reaches the lateral end, move it towards your left, to the other lateral end of your gaze. Repeat the eye scan exercise from one point to the other without stopping for two minutes. The rhythm is simple: more or less 3 seconds for each end, or 6 seconds per set, and 20 sets for the duration of two minutes. While you are completing the exercise concentrate on temptation and find the capacity to liberate yourself from it. I have suggested this technique to many who suffer a negative relationship with their own weight, bodies, self-image, and their dependency to food, especially in this stage when temptation is most intense when one is at the point of losing control. I have obtained excellent and surprising results. It is unknown how much of the results are due to the technique or the suggestion, but the only important thing is the end result. Also in my book and other articles I discuss Mind power.

Your body needs oxygen to increase the volume of your respiratory exchange. To do this, try the following breathing technique: 1. Place your hands with your palms open both on your thorax and on the sternum, your middle fingers touching the center line. 2. Breathe in deeply to fill your lungs up with air. Your chest will expand, your ribs will rise up and your hands will move slightly apart from each other. Then breathe out until you have expelled all the air from your lungs. Your ribs will move down and your hands will come back together until your fingers touch again. 3. Do this 10 more times and then twice a day for as long as you are dieting, you’ll lose weight more freely and a little more easily. After a certain time, about two weeks or so, you’ll see the benefits of a greater breathing capacity. If you continue doing this periodically (for a couple of weeks, every 3 to 4 months) it will become a habit that will be with you until you go to sleep. I discuss more breathing and weight loss techniques in my books.

Over 25 million children and adults have diabetes in the United States and 79 million people are pre-diabetic. Type 2 diabetes accounts for 90-95% of all diagnoseddiabetes.

People with prediabetes have an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

Studies have shown that people with prediabetes who lose weight and increase their physical activity can prevent or delay type 2 diabetes and in some cases return their blood glucose levels to normal.

A low-carb diet is most often recommended to help manage diabetes and stop the progression of prediabetes and insulin resistance.   You should be careful of eating fruit while losing weight as it is the only natural food that contains rapid assimilation sugars which hinder weight loss.

A low fat diet is important because diabetes increases your risk of developing heart disease.  Eating foods low in fat, and especially saturated fat, will lower your risk.  You eat non-fat dairy products, eggs, lean meats, poultry and seafood as well as non-starchy vegetables for a healthy heart.

Cutting back on sodium is essential because diabetes increases your risk for high blood pressure.  High levels of sodium in your diet can also increase that risk.

Exercise is important in managing blood sugar, lowering blood pressure, increasing good cholesterol, decreasing insulin resistance.  Building muscle and reducing fat can improve insulin sensitivity.  For those who are overweight and obese, walking is the only risk-free exercise.   It produces serotonin and endorphins for a feeling of well-being and relieves stress, while being an activity you can do for the long term.

This information is not meant to treat or diagnose. It is meant to educate readers and be used as a resource when talking to your healthcare provider

I know you want to get in shape and look great.  Whatever your fitness goal…to slim down…gain muscle…tone your arms or flatten your tummy…I’m here to help you accomplish your goals and to improve your fitness level. If you have enjoyed this article and the many other free features on my site, and would like some more comprehensive information such as fitness books and CD’s to aid you in achieving your health and fitness goals, please visit myONLINE STORE where you will find innovative natural health and beauty products to help you become the BEST YOU CAN BE !