The Slim Habit Blog

If you want to be successful at losing weight, you need to know about fats.

So much of our food today is processed in some way or other. Much of it is tasty and ‘moreish’. Food manufacturers have been very clever at putting temptation in our way, but this abundance has not gone hand in hand with health. A lot of the processed food we eat is detrimental to our health. Much of this is due to the ingredients added in the manufacturing process. One of the additives you should be most aware of is fats. Consume too many of the wrong fats, and weight loss will be impossible. You’ll also run the risk of raising your cholesterol and developing heart disease. 

Your body needs fat, but not a lot. Fats are essential for energy and promote cell growth. They also help your body absorb some nutrients and produce important hormones. But there are ‘good fats’ and ‘bad fats’. You need to be aware of two ‘bad fats’: saturated fat and trans fat. These are fats which are most commonly included in the processed foods we eat. Saturated fats are found mainly in margarines, cooking fats, sweets, chocolate, biscuits, ready meals, animal produce and dairy produce. Your diet needs to contain no more than 7% saturated fat.

Trans fats are produced when vegetable and fish oils are ‘hydrogenated’. These fats commonly appear in margarine and shortening. Trans fats are ‘bad’ fats and your diet should include only 1% of them because your body can’t digest them properly.

As your food awareness grows, look out for the fats on the labels of the food you buy, and avoid saturated and trans fat products as much as possible.

‘Low fat’ products are fine, but just be careful that extra sugar hasn’t been substituted for fat.

If you want to lose weight permanently here is a useful weight loss tip: know your fats. Permanent weight loss means that you must always be on guard when it come s to fats. Too much of the wrong type of fat and your weight loss program will not be successful.

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When was the last time you had a really good laugh? Do you have fun? Have you really laughed – laughed out loud – this week? When was the last time you laughed until it hurt? Having fun and enjoying yourself is really important. You’ve got to have time in your life when you can ‘let go’ and have a good time. Life is far too serious for most of us and we have to find a way of ‘letting go’ occasionally.

Did you know that moods are infectious? That laughter and cheerfulness spread like wildfire – everybody wants to be a part of it.  It’s been said that “laughter is the shortest distance between two people”, and it’s true. It locks our emotional brains together. Laughter signals friendliness rather than aggression, trust rather than hostility. This is picked by our emotional brain – our limbic system – which recognizes there’s a relaxation in the emotional temperature, and an opportunity for the engagement of both heart and mind.

People who are trying to lose weight can be grumpy and grim. They’re not usually a bundle of laughs. There’s no need for you to be the same. Take time to go out and really enjoy yourself. Go and have fun. Laugh a lot.  It’ll do you good.

Far too many diets have a restrictive calorie regime and this has the effect of making us depressed and miserable. We are not nice to be around when we are losing weight. However, it needn’t be that way. The best way to lose weight is not to go on a diet. Does that sound crazy? Well, it’s not. Sure, if you want to lose weight and you don’t mind the weight coming back again, then a diet is fine because ‘weight rebound’ is what happens when you go on a diet.

If you want to keep the smile on your face and lose weight permanently, you have to learn new habits, slim habits. Only by changing your brhavior will permanent weight loss become a reality.

If you’re trying to lose weight permanently then you have to keep your morale up. Try visualizing a positive outcome when you’ve lost weight and you are able to enjoy a slim, healthy life. It can be a great motivator

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Getting a good night’s sleep is very important. As your eating habits improve and you continue to work through your exercise program, you may find the thought of an early night increasingly attractive. After a good night’s sleep you’ll feel more alert, better able to deal with the things the coming day will throw at you. Most important of all, it’ll help you in your efforts to lose weight.

How good a sleep do you have? Do you sleep all the way through the night, or do you have an interrupted sleep? It’s important you get a good uninterrupted sleep. Why? Because of the way we sleep. When we go to sleep, we experience five different stages of sleep in what is called a sleep cycle. Each cycle lasts for approximately 1½ hours. In a normal night we will probably go through five cycles. You get most benefit when you can complete five full, uninterrupted cycles. Interrupting a cycle significantly reduces the benefit you get.

Here are some tips to help you have a better sleep.

·        Eat early, not late.

·        Make your evening meal a small one

·        Keep your alcohol consumption low. Alcohol is a stimulant. You might fall asleep easily, but you’ll be wide awake in no time.

·        Don’t have anything to drink that contains caffeine. Caffeine blocks the production of an enzyme that helps to produce the hormone melatonin. Melatonin helps to bring on sleep, and has a positive effect on sleep patterns.

·        Give your brain a rest. Let it stop buzzing before you turn in.  Don’t go straight from the computer screen to the pillow.

·        Try some stretching exercises before you get into bed.

If you want to lose weight permanently and say goodbye to diets, the sleep habit is a very important slim habit to learn. It will help make permanent weight loss a reality.

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When you decide to lose weight there are many other topics that come to mind. You need to think about your behavior and the behaviors that helped you to become overweight in the first place. You need to become aware of all your bad habits and the effect they have on you and those around you.

When you live your life on autopilot, you get out of the habit of noticing. Life passes you by in a blur, and one week fades seamlessly into another. When you stop paying attention to yourself, you put on weight ounce by ounce, pound by pound, until one day you realize your weight is starting to seriously affect your life. By not being aware, you’re unconsciously building up a mass of bad habits. Try to notice your bad habits – particularly in relation to what you eat and your general health. Over the next few days, start to make a ‘bad habit’ list, and take time to study it.

Underline those that you’d most like to do something about.

Learning new habits is all about repetition and practice. You can learn a new habit very easily indeed. It will be of enormous help is you are trying to lose weight permanently

Remember: if you practice your new habit for 10 minutes each day for 21 days, you’ll have completed 3½ hours’ worth of practice! Before you know it, your new habits will become automatic.

Learn new habits that will transform your life and you can say goodbye to diets forever.

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It’s all happening! Not all of it is what we would have all wished for, but life’s certainly interesting! It may not seem like it to you right now, but this is a time of amazing opportunity. The New Year will undoubtedly have some surprises for us, but if we have the right mind-set we can achieve great things.

If you want a lead when things are difficult, it’s good to look for a good example. You need to find somebody who has persevered, somebody who has succeeded against all the odds.  Such a person is the 44^th President of the United States, Barak Obama.

The world has been given an example that can be an inspiration to us all. He has demonstrated self-discipline, determination and self-belief. These are such important qualities. Set out to apply these qualities in your life in the New Year, and a whole new world of opportunities will be open to you.

This is also a period of great change. Change is sometimes spoken about as if it was something unusual or something to be feared. Life is about change and we all need to embrace change and manage it to our advantage.

If you are overweight maybe you’ve been contemplating going on a diet in the New Year? It’s certainly a good thing to do something about losing weight, but perhaps going on a diet is not the best idea. You’ll probably know from past experience that after losing weight, the weight will come back again. Your lack of enthusiasm for your ‘trial by ordeal’ or ‘trial by diet’, in the New Year is understandable.

This New Year why not try something different? If you want to lose weight permanently then you need to make change. Carrying on with the same behaviors that made you overweight in the first place will mean that you will never make change and you’ll continue to be overweight.

To lose weight permanently, you need to change your behavior . You do this by learning new habits – slim habits. Show the same qualities as the new President and you can achieve great things. Choose the Slim Habit program and success is assured.

Make Change!  A New Year can mean a ‘new you’. It’s a great thought – all you have to do is to make a decision to make it happen.

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Here’s an alarming fact. We lose between 0.5 and 2% of our muscle mass every year over the age of 40. That means by the time we are 70 we could have lost anything between 15 and 60% of our muscle mass. It’s a pretty amazing statistic.

Can you imagine yourself having lost 60% of your muscle mass? It’s frightening to think how it would be possible to cope with everyday life. Unfortunately, this is what happens to millions of people.

There’s a further problem. Your vanishing muscle mass reduces the effectiveness of your metabolism. Why? Because muscles are very effective at burning calories. Lose muscle and the consequence is weight gain. Couple increased weight with a low muscle mass and you have a recipe for disaster.

Old age for hundreds of millions of people across the world is blighted by being unable to perform some very basic functions without great difficulty. It leads to great unhappiness and puts an enormous strain on health care services. But it needn’t be the case.

Until recently it was thought that it was impossible to reverse the process of age related muscle loss, but recent trials have found that this is not the case. By doing regular resistance exercises you can significantly reduce muscle loss.

There is also an added bonus because it has also been found that having healthy muscles helps to strengthen you bones too. There’s another plus. Healthy, well exercised muscles will keep your metabolism functioning properly and you’ll be able to keep any weight gain in check.

Does this just apply to ‘old’ people? Certainly not, it applies to everybody. It’s essential that we keep our muscles in trim if we are to ‘fire on all six cylinders’, be able to operate to our optimum efficiency look forward to a fun, healthy old age. It’s not difficult, it just takes effort.

If you’re overweight it’s a good idea to tackle this as early as possible. If you carry too much weight with you as you get older, you’ll find it more and more difficult to get rid of it, but get rid of it you must. To lose weight permanently you need to make personal change. The best way to do this is to find a program that will help you to make change by learning new habits – slim habits. Ideally it should also include a personal exercise plan. If you think you need to take action, don’t delay. Look after that body of yours, it’s the only one you’ll ever have!

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What’s your story, a bit chubby round the middle or even a bit of a belly?  If you’re looking down at your tummy right now or you’ve just tried to suck your tummy in, you probably fall into the latter category. You’ve been found out!

Should you be worried about your tummy? You probably know that you need to lose a few pounds, but is it something that you should lie awake at night and worry about? Unfortunately, the answer is ‘yes’!

Did you know that the size of your waist is a very good indicator of your state of health? Putting it a little more bluntly, if you’re carrying a lot of extra weight round your middle, you could double your risk of an early death. It’s a scary thought, isn’t it?

The fat you accumulate round your middle is different to the fat on other parts of your body. It is called ‘toxic fat’. Toxic because it secretes what are called ‘inflammatory proteins’. These proteins contribute to a build up of atherosclerotic plaque in your arteries – in other words they cause them to clog up.  The result is cardiovascular disease and a possible early demise.

You don’t have to be ‘fat’ to have a belly. Some people with a normal BMI (Body Mass Index) sometimes have a belly, and they too are equally at risk from heart disease.

So what waist measurements should you be looking at? Ideally men should have a waist that does not exceed 37 inches (94cm) and women, 32 inches (81.3cm). Anything over that would signal an increased risk of diabetes and heart disease.

It’s a sad reality that there is always a price to be paid for excess and lack of physical activity. On a more positive note, it’s never too late to do something about it. You ignore the warning signs at your peril.

Large bellies don’t suddenly appear. They are the result of many years of ‘development’. They won’t disappear overnight, but disappear they must and they must not reappear. Permanent weight loss can be achieved most successfully by changing your behaviour. If you then learn new habits – slim habits, you will be able to achieve permanent weight loss and say goodbye to your belly. You need a weight loss program – not a diet – that will help you to make the essential changes that could save your life. Time for change.

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What do you imagine Barak Obama’s greatest problem might be when he sits down in the Oval office? Is it going to be the worst financial crisis in 100 years, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Israel/Palestine, Iran, recession….? The list is long and very, very daunting. It’s difficult to know why he ever wanted the job – he’ll probably ask himself the same question frequently over the next four years.

One of his greatest problems probably won’t even feature on his list, and yet it is one of the most pressing problems the nation faces. It is the obesity crisis. Whether he is aware of it or not he has the weight of the nation on his shoulders.

Why should it be such a problem? Why does he need to give it any attention? Surely personal weight is very much a personal thing? Well, it is and it isn’t. The facts though are scary. With over 64% of the population overweight and a third obese, it is shaping up to be the one thing that is going to literally bring the nation to its knees.

A nation that is overweight and unfit is never going to be able to operate at its optimum and in the coming years we’re going to have to step up to the mark as never before. Are we going to be able to do so? It’s questionable.

The tsunami that is going to hit the health care system in the next few years because of  obesity related diseases hitting unprecedented levels, is going to be devastating for the country. It is going to struggle to cope. The misery that this will cause will be enormous and be a huge sap on the morale of the nation.

What can Barak Obama do about it? Well, while he has the nation’s attention he needs to be brave and say a few things that some folks don’t want to hear. He needs to shock the nation into adopting healthier lifestyles. He needs to talk change in personal behavior.

The real way to cure the obesity problem is for people to change. Permanent weight loss can only be achieved by making personal change. New behaviors can be learnt by adopting new habits – slim habits. It’s not about diets, it’s what Barak Obama fought the election on – it’s about change.

Let’s hope the new President can persuade the nation to change its ways!

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We live in exciting times! Barak Obama’s victory signals that we’re entering a period of change. Actually, people are hungry for change. Don’t all those people standing in line to vote say something? They sure do!

He stood for change and that is probably what he’s going to deliver. Some of the change won’t be particularly pleasant, but let’s hope for the first time we have a president who doesn’t care if he doesn’t get re-elected. Let’s hope he just does what has to be done.

But what about change: have any of us really sat down and thought what it really means? A lot of people are afraid of change. Why? Primarily because they are afraid of the unknown.

Change is not something to be afraid of, it is to be embraced! If you remember that change is just another word for learning it should dispel any fear that you might have.

A world without change is a world where there is no progress. All of us have been stuck in a time-warp, happy to protect the status quo. It’s done us a whole lot of no good too!

When Barak Obama talks about change, he also wants you to change. He doesn’t want to be the only catalyst, he’s expecting you to play your part too.

If change is just another word for learning, shouldn’t we be taking a leaf from his book? If we were to exercise the same amount of self-discipline, determination and effort in our personal lives as he has demonstrated in his bid for the White House, what a huge difference that would make.

Let’s take one part of our lives that far too many of us have seriously neglected: our health, and in particular our weight. If we really made an effort to lose weight – permanently, we would need to change, change our behaviour and learn new habits – new slim habits. What a difference we could make to our lives – and to the health and well-being of the nation. Isn’t this the spirit of what Barak Obama wants us to do? Let’s go for it!

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To be healthy, wealthy and wise must be everybody’s dream. What is the most valuable? It has got to be health. Health is something you can’t buy. Sometimes, though we don’t give as much thought to our health as we should.

When we are growing up, most of us don’t give our health any thought whatsoever. When something goes wrong though, we soon sit up and take notice, but by that time it may be too late.

 Diet is somebody else’s concern when we are young, we don’t worry ourselves about it. All we are interested in is getting more of what we like – which is usually candy, cake and cookies washed down with copious quantities of cola. 

When we become teenagers we begin to notice others and make comparisons. This is the first time we become aware of how we look. It’s the first time it becomes an important issue in our lives.

Eating the right food when we are children is vitally important. We don’t normally have too much say in what we eat, but children do try and intimidate their parents into giving them things they want. Sometimes this can result in a very distorted diet – a bad diet.

To be overweight in your early twenties is not a good thing to be. You are probably not aware of what made you overweight and you have very little idea of how you are going to change matters.

The most important thing is to break bad habits and that requires developing an awareness of what they are. Many of the bad habits will have been endorsed by upbringing. To go against this can be a challenge. What has been accepted as a family culture in terms of diet and exercise takes real resolve and determination to change.

To make a real and lasting difference it’s not diets that are needed, but a more fundamental change in behaviour. The only really successful way to do this is to learn new habits, slim habits, that will enable lasting change to take place.

To be able to say goodbye to diets forever is something all dieters thinkof. The Slim Habit makes it all possible.

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