Why Alcohol is Really Poison and Sabotages Weight Loss

I know we are all on the battle of the bulge. I know it's a constant battle for me. I wanted you guys to read this article. It really explains the role of alcohol in our weight loss efforts. One fact  I didn't realize. It reduces testosterone in men up to 23%, and increases estrogen.  The estrogen increase is well publicized because of the breast cancer increase in women caused by alcohol consumption. I believe it increases the incidence of breast cancer by 50% in women drinking more than 3 -5oz  glasses of wine per week, or 3 servings of 1.5oz of liquor, or 3 beers.  Men can get away with a little more but it all boils down to the same thing alcohol is seen by the body as a poison. 

I hope that doing all this research is going to get me to stop completely one day. No promises but I am working towards this goal. Go CARLY for stoping for 1 year

Here is the article: http://www.builtlean.com/2012/11/26/alcohol-weight-loss/

Women, alcohol, and breast cancer:    http://community.breastcancer.org/livegreen/alcohol-and-cancer-you-cant-drink-to-your-health/

Take The First Step to......

Really want to get healthy? I mean really??? Are you sure? How determined are you? Do talk to yourself about getting started on a healthy lifestyle and maybe losing weight but never really pick up the ball and run with it? Do know how to start?  What is motivating you?  Do you have a family history of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure or some other debilitating disease that is motivating you to attack  your weight or lifestyle??   Are you realizing that somewhere down the line your lifestyle habits will affect the quality of your life when you are older??  Do want to set a good example for your children, see them grow up, watch your grandchildren graduate from high school....etc???? Honestly answer these questions to yourself!! America is getting fatter and fatter and fatter, so......
Here are a couple of things to watch:

Fat Sick and Nearly Dead
Super Size It
The Weight of the Nation  This one especially!

Everyone should watch "The Weight of the Nation." This film is really educates about how we as a nation got where we are today and how it will affect the next generation. If you have all ready seen any of these documentaries, please comment!

Health in America....the obesity epidemic is just devastating us as a race! Although it started rather innocently....it started.

Still Hungry?

This sun has nothing to do with leptin,
I just like the pic!

Do you know anyone that can eat a whole pizza, chase with beer, and still be hungry for ice cream? If that person is overweight it may be because their leptin receptors are down. The more fat we have on our bodies the more leptin we are supposed to secrete. Leptin is the hormone that signals our hypothalamus that we are full and to stop eating and start burning fuel. This would make you think the more fat, the more leptin, the better! But, what really happens is similiar to diabetes. Just like insulin receptors, the leptin recepters function less efficiently when there is too much leptin. The process is very similiar to how insulin receptors do not let insulin communicate with our cells to use the sugar in our food for fuel, instead the receptors are bombarded and so they shut down. As a result an overweight person's body(hypothalamus regulates hunger and metablolism) is not telling him/her to stop eating. Like Type 2 diabetes losing weight, eating right, and exercising can reduce fat cells, therefore reduce the amount of leptin produced to a normal amount, therfore reversing leptin resistance.

INSANITY - A 60 DAY TOTAL-BODY CONDITIONING PROGRAM put on DVD - click here

Red Rasberry Ketones

If you watched Dr. Oz yesterday(2/6/2012) you probably heard about "Red Rasberry Ketones." The RRK supplement is supposed to make your body "think thin." Here is a video that explains the science, seems the whole red rasberry ketone trick has been around for awhile!

Are all Calories Created Equal?

So, what is a calorie? Are fat calories equal to carbohydrate calories? Nope, not the same!


A calorie by definition is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree celsius from an initial temperature(just leave it at that, it gets complicated), at 1 atmosphere pressure. Here is a link if you want more splaining! http://www.answers.com/topic/calorie


Ok so that's the science of it. Bottom line, that heat is expended in energy by our body at a certain rate ... sometimes fast...sometimes slow, but generally the faster the better.  To burn calories faster we have to move! Thats a blog for another day.

Today I just want to talk about fat calories vs. carbohydrate and protein calories. Many of todays diets are based on how many grams of fat we should have daily(about 30%) and how many grams of carbohydrate and protein we should consume daily .  For instance a gram of fat has 9 calories, whereas a gram of protein or carbohydrate only has 4 calories. In case your interested alcohol has 7 calories per gram. So, if you are reading a label on the back of a packaged food, it really helps to know how to calculate how much of that food's calorie make up comes from fat, that is if you are watching your fat grams, which I believe we all should. When you are looking at a label just multiply the number of fat grams by 9 and you will know how many calories are from fat.. On this label it comes out to 108 which is not what is stated on the label....hmmmm. Why is that you ask? Because according to the FDA they don't have to be exact on the labeling, they are allowed to "round it off." So when something  says O grams of fat, it's not necessarily so. If you want to know the exact rules you can go to the FDA website here.  Happy label reading!

Bison? Tastes just like chicken!

Ok so it doesn't take like chicken....It tastes a lot like beef,
 has more iron than beef, and less fat and cholesterol than chicken..
Those Chik-fil-A cows should be saying "EAT MORE BISON."
 Bison, by nature beats out pork and salmon as well when it comes to fat, calories,
and cholesterol. Bison is a wild animal and feeds on wild grains and grass, 
so it's  never given antibiotics or growth hormones.


Contrary to popular belief a bison is not a buffalo. The main bison population exists primarly in North America. Whereas the two main Buffalo species reside in  Africa and Asia, they are the African cape buffalo and the Asian water buffalo.
Bison are called "buffalo" casually  because they resemble one another and are from the same family, but there are distinct differences as you can see in the pictures. The National Bison Association encourages the term "bison" to differentiate between what is considered the American Buffalo(bison) and the true Buffalo. For more information about bison in America, how it is manufactured, nutrition, and how to prepare click on this link.



Bison







Buffalo









The Case For Pie.........

"When the moon hits your eye
like a big pizza pie, that's amore
When the world starts to shine like you've had too much wine,
that's amore"........Lyrics by Harry Warren and Jack Brooks

So, last night we were so bad! We had pizza, typically associated with cheese, pepperoni, and hand tossed tomatoey crust. Here is a picture of the pretty pie. It was delicious and well worth the extra gym time! We tried to order healthy by getting thin and crispy crust which cut calories by about 150 calories per serving equaling about 1/4 of the pie. For toppings we opted for grilled chicken, jalepeno slices, red peppers, and spinach only on one side for my non-spinach eaters. The total calories for one serving came out to about 295 if you stick to 1/4 of the pie, which of course I did not(never, not happening). Of course there was mozzerella cheese and grilled chicken so 15 grams of fat, or 125 calories is about right. Carbohydrates were not as bad as I thought, about 29 grams or 116 calories altogether.  Protein came up dead  last with 15 grams, or 52 calories. Of course I had to entertain the thought, where do they get their chicken?  Is it organic? To calculate nutritional info on your Domino's pizza click on How bad did I destroy my diet last night? 

You can also check out ingredients in the crust and I have to tell you folks it comes under the processed food category. The crust has hydrogenated oils, soy( not all soy is created equal, its complicated), and dextrose(aww sugar, sugar).


All in all I have to commend Domino's for being up front and providing the means to calculate the nutritional value of their food.  Thank you Domino's for yummy pizza and a your calorie calculator!