5 SURPRISING HEALTH BENEFITS OF YOGA

There was a great interview on NPR’s “Fresh Air” recently about the surprising health benefits of yoga. Western science/medicine is learning more about the health benefits of this ancient spiritual practice. Yoga is not just about flexibility and meditation, it can also lower your blood pressure, improve cardiovascular function and lower the risk of various diseases.

Eli Broad, a science writer for the New York Times, has written a new book called The Science of Yoga, which explores the history, risks and rewards of yoga. There is much more to yoga than most people might expect.

Here are a few of the ways that yoga can improve your health:

 SURPRISING HEALTH BENEFITS OF YOGA

1. Cardiovascular health: Most exercise is about boosting your heart rate – getting your blood pumping. Yoga has the opposite effect – it tends to lower the heart rate and reduce blood pressure. But this can be hugely beneficial to your health because yoga relaxes you, lowers your blood pressure, and relaxes your heart. Yoga has also been linked with lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
2. Emotional health: Many people suffer from stress, depression and anxiety. These mental illnesses can also have physical repercussions, as people try to relieve their emotional symptoms by eating too much, drinking too much, or not taking care of their bodies because their minds are unwell. Yoga can help relieve emotional distress by helping people feel calmer, more relaxed, more at peace. Yoga can increase feelings of pleasure and well-being, making it easier to take on the challenges of daily life.
3. Flexibility: Yoga increases the flexibility of the spine and other bones and muscles throughout the body. By holding various yoga poses, you strengthen your core and other muscles that you probably don’t get to use very often. It’s a full body workout! In one study, people gained a 35% increase in flexibility in just 8 weeks of practicing yoga.
4. Posture: If you tend to slouch or suffer from back pain, neck strain or soreness in your shoulders, yoga can help you sit and stand straighter. The reason is that yoga develops the deep core muscles like the abdominals. Yoga also makes you more aware of your body so you can correct your posture and prevent slouching.
5. Breathing: Yoga can increase lung capacity by deepening and lengthening your breathing.

One of the interesting ideas from the NPR interview with “Science of Yoga” author William Broad is that in the not-too-distant future, yoga might be prescribed by Western doctors as a way to treat chronic health conditions. Just as dentists recommend that people brush their teeth each day, doctors might soon recommend that people practice yoga each day as a way to maintain good health, lower their heart rate and reduce their emotional stress.
Medical science is still learning a lot of fascinating new information about how the ancient practice of yoga can benefit people’s health. Even though yoga has been practiced (starting in India) for 5,000 years, perhaps it will become “new” again not only as a popular fitness activity, but as a therapeutic way to improve people’s health.

Lose Weight Immediately 2014

Other than physical appearance weight affects a person in many ways. This could be the overall quality of life, self-esteem, depression, health risks, and physical incapabilities. There are a lot of positive changes once a person experience weight loss.  It is for this reason why a lot of people are searching for a weight loss technique that will surely trim down those fats and get a super slim head turner body.

The first thing that an over-weight should do is seek a doctor to recommend the best weight loss regimen. This will be done after a full physical examination, which leads to the determination of proper weight loss technique. And to lose weight fast and effectively four aspects of life should be changed: what to eat, how to eat, behavior and activity level.

Here are fast tips that can change an over-weight's life:

First: Fast weight loss composes of a multi-faceted technique that consists mindset, exercise, and in other cases, diet supplements.  Begin by learning a diet food plan that can easily be accustomed with.  Incorporate an exercise plan that allows even at least fifteen minutes a day like brisk walking, running, swimming, and dancing.

Second: Set realistic approaches.  The ability to focus and have proper mindset enables someone on a diet to quickly lose those extra pounds. With discipline and proper mind set, a dieter will never be discouraged and lose focus.

Third: Listen as the body speaks.  Each and everyone's body metabolism reacts differently to different fast weight loss programs and plans.  Try substituting one program for another to compensate the body's reaction.  Exercise program must be suitable to one's body, as others are not able to exercise as rigorously as others can.  If walking is all that can be done, then walk for this is proven the best exercise.  Muscles burn more calories than fats so it's also best to put on a little muscle and looking good too.

Fourth: Eat more fibers for it makes a person full sooner and stays in the tummy longer, slowing down the rate of digestion.  A single serving of whole grain bread moves fat through the digestive system faster.  Grains turn into blood sugar that spikes the body's insulin level.  Thus, making the body more energized and ready to tell the body when it should stop burning fats or start storing.

Fifth: Keep away from fried foods especially deep-fried as this contains a great amount of fat.  Although fish and chicken appear leaner than beef, this white meat can contain more fat than when a beef is fried.  It is recommended for those on strict diet to opt for grilled food as this does not have or contain less amount of fat after the food is cooked.

Sixth: Takes lots of fluid.  Drinking at least six to eight glasses of water a day keeps the body refreshed.  Since weight loss depends on how the body eliminates body wastes, the body must stay hydrated.

All in all, discipline and consistency is still the best practice and the key to a rapid weight loss success.  Light dieting, workout, and right amount of supplementation applied in a regular way everyday will result in faster weight loss than having a massive action only to be followed a return to old habits as this would only lead to gaining more weight than when the weight loss plan has started.

Top 10 Ways to Reduce Weight Naturally

Go for Blue

A bit weird it might sound, but studies have suggested that blue color acts as an appetite suppressant. Setting your dining table in blue can help cut down some intake!

Eat at Right Time

If you want to be slim (or at least want a stable body weight), you ought to have a set time for your eating. Stick to a time-table and try not to deviate. It will surely help you reduce some weight in longer run!

Consume Super-foods

Super-foods are the ones that help you lose weight naturally. Some of these include green tea, broccoli, nuts, garlic, avocado, soya, etc. Including these foods in your regular diet helps reduce body weight.

Cut Down on Glucose

To bring your weight down, you ought to cut down on your glucose intake, or more clearly saying, reduce sweet foods. Having a sweet tooth is good, but these foods harm your body and help you gain weight. So, cut down on glucose in order to lose weight naturally.

Consume Water-Rich Foods

Consuming water-rich foods on a regular basis can also help you shed some extra weight. These foods include watermelon, kiwi, salads, whole-grain foods, etc.

Never Skip Breakfast

It’s a myth that skipping breakfast will help you lose weight. Instead, you end up eating more in the later part of the day. Have light and healthy breakfast; bran, oats, fiber-rich food, and cereals would help a lot!

Divide Meals in Six

Instead of having 3 meals in one day, divide your meals into smaller, but six parts. Consume these on equal intervals. This would make you feel neither hungry nor full!

Exercise

One of the most important things to lose weight is to exercise. The more you do it, the better it would be for you. Make it a habit to exercise!

Stick to Protein-Rich Foods

Increase intake of protein-rich food in your diet. Having pulses, eggs, and other foods that are rich in protein will help you shed weight quickly.

Consume Plenty of Water

We often underestimate the goodness of water, but it helps far more than we can anticipate. Surprisingly, it also helps you in your weight loss regime. Consume around 15 glasses per day and see how wonderful you’ll feel!

10 Benefits of Green Tea

Helps Lose Weight

Green tea increases the metabolism. The polyphenol found in green tea works to intensify levels of fat oxidation and the rate at which your body turns food into calories.

Prevents Diabetes

Green tea apparently helps regulate glucose levels slowing the rise of blood sugar after eating. This can prevent high insulin spikes and resulting fat storage.

Reduces Chances of Heart Disease

Scientists think, green tea works on the lining of blood vessels, helping keep them stay relaxed and better able to withstand changes in blood pressure. It may also protect against the formation of clots, which are the primary cause of heart attacks.

Helps Prevent Esophageal Cancer

It can reduce the risk of esophageal cancer, but it is also widely thought to kill cancer cells in general without damaging the healthy tissue around them.

Reduces Cholesterol

Green tea reduces bad cholesterol in the blood and improves the ratio of good cholesterol to bad cholesterol.

Prevents Tooth Decay

Studies suggests that the chemical antioxidant “catechin” in tea can destroy bacteria and viruses that cause throat infections, dental caries and other dental conditions.

Helps Lower Blood Pressure

Regular consumption of green tea is thought to reduce the risk of high blood pressure.

Helps Relax

Theanine is an amino acid naturally found in tea leaves. It is this substance that is thought to provide a relaxing and tranquilizing effect and be a great benefit to tea drinkers.

Has Anti-viral and Anti-bacterial Properties

Tea catechins are strong antibacterial and antiviral agents which make them effective for treating everything from influenza to cancer. In some studies green tea has been shown to inhibit the spread of many diseases.

Improves Skin Quality

Green tea can apparently also help with wrinkles and the signs of aging, This is because of their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. Both animal and human studies have demonstrated that green tea applied topically can reduce sun damage.

A Closer Look at Fast Weight Loss Diets

When it comes to weight loss diets, many people are looking for those ways to help them lose those pounds in a fast way. In fact, many products are promoted as fast ways to lose weight but they will never say anything about the results one will get once they are off those products.

It s important to realize that with a fast weight loss diet you will lose mainly water, a little bit of fat, and also muscle. But what is the most important here: you will lose your health as well, this making a fast diet a dangerous method to approach for weight loss goal. People looking for this methods will usually look for a quick fix, but things must not be approached in this manner.

There are also those fad diets where you have to focus only on a single food group, such as the carbs diet claiming to help losing many pounds over a short period of time. But again this diet fails to bring the good results when practiced for a longer period of time.

People are looking towards fast weight loss diets with a lot of consideration because they can bring them what they want: lose weight as quickly as possible. These people do not understand that these diets are only a temporary solution and not a permanent one. They let themselves tricked about the quick results without realizing that soon enough they will be back where they have been prior to approaching that diet.

For all these people, I only recommend to stop for a while and take a closer look at the consequences described above. It is no use to go for a fast weight loss diet that brings in temporary results. Instead go for the solution that keeps your body healthy by including a balanced diet (rich in nutrients) combined with exercising routine. Work out your body into losing weight gradually and healthy because this is the only way to achieve good and permanent results. Stop looking for fast methods that can only make your body weak, but rather go for solutions that improve your health and build muscles in the long run.

Weight Loss – Setting Your Goals

There are many reasons why people approach weight loss, but regardless of the reasons, you need to make sure that this process takes place in a healthy manner. It is pointless to set the goal of losing weight only for the sake of losing those extra pounds while your body system gets weaker and more vulnerable to diseases. For this reason, setting the goal for a healthy weight loss plan is the best way you can achieve the best results.

Don’t Miss: How Can Water Help with Your Weight Loss Plan?

 

Another way to help you set the goals in an appropriate manner is to be realistic and sensible. The goals that are reasonable have better chances of success than the ones that are irrational. Now let’s see how you can set the goals into achieving a weight loss in a healthy manner:

• Consider setting a goal of losing weight in a gradual way. Keep in mind that your body has got used to this new weight for some time and since the weight gain didn’t occur overnight, then you shouldn’t expect it to be lost overnight, too. So, the best goal here is to lose around 2 pounds per week.
• Consider setting a goal into changing the food you used to eat. Fattening foods are a main factor into gaining weight, so your goal should be to eliminate these ones while including as well an exercising routine in your daily program.
• Another way to set pertinent weight loss goals is to avoid those products that claim to help you lose weight faster. As mentioned above, this is not your goal, not to mention that these products can come as well with their side effects. So, make a goal in avoiding these weight loss fast-result products.
• Set as a goal your need to combine healthy and balanced diets with physical exercises. When it comes to the latter ones, you should start with easy physical activities and gradually increase their level of difficulty. As to the balanced diet, you need to set goals into eating more veggies and fruits, lean meat, more whole grains, and low fat dairy products. In this way you will eliminate junk foods and your body system will be much healthier and away from the risks of getting sick.

More Info on Weight Loss Foods

If you are looking for a healthy way to achieve your weight loss goal, then you should know that starving is not an option. I have a few friends who have managed to lose those uncomfortable extra pounds skipping meals, but later on they have confronted with serious health problems.

Do you know why? Because in their need to achieve weight loss they haven’t paid attention to the body needs for nutrients and as a result they have indeed lost weight, but ended up with a weak body system more vulnerable to diseases. So, if you want to lose weight you should do this in a healthy way keeping track of those foods that are nutritional but are low in calories.

As you must know by now, weight loss is achieved when the calorie intake is less than the amount of calories that your body burns. For this reason you need to turn your attention towards consuming foods that contain few calories and stay away from depositing more fat within your body system. You will find many foods that are low in calorie intake and are for this reason recommended in your weight loss diet.

Other category of foods that are recommended for your weight loss plan are the ones that contain fibers. With fiber rich foods, your body will feel full for a longer period of time so that you won’t have the urge to eat so much in order to feel saturated. This is also another reason why people put on so much weight: they eat too much, most of the times, they are tempted to eat far beyond the level of satiety simply because they love that specific dish. A rule of thumb here: always serve the amount of food that is about to reach saturation and never eat until you get saturated or over this level.

According to studies, it has been found that drinking two liters of water per day can help with your weight loss goal. This is because water can take out the wastes not letting them accumulate inside the body as fat deposits. But what if you can not drink too much water? In this case, you shouldn’t be very concerned because there are many foods that have mostly water, so you can successfully consume this to complete the necessary amount of water per day. Other foods that help with weight loss should be in the form of fresh fruits and veggies, whole grains and fish.

How to Cut Fat But Keep Taste in Your Favorite Recipes

Higher calories often force people to let go of their favorite foods however there is no need for people to let go of their favorite foods with the fear of adding extra pounds to the body instead it can be made healthy by alternating certain ingredients in these specially cooked dishes. Like a saying huge results can be acquired by taking smaller steps which when taken continuously will make it easy to handle any huge changes which can be quite disturbing at times.

First change should start with healthy shopping at the grocery store where things are to be purchased to make a healthy diet till which it has to be preserved properly making certain changes which help in preparing healthy food items.

Steps for food makeover

• Go to foods are rights think to start the concept of makeover in foods, this choice is good since they are known to be prepared again and again, also any changes which are made to the dishes that are frequently eaten it is said to have better effect on the calories being taken in on daily basis.
• First step in makeover is to have good look at the materials which are needed to see if there are any healthy alternatives available to see if there is any chance to lessen fat and calorie intake for the body adding nutritional values. Would it be sufficient to use low fat curd instead of cream or is there any possibility to exchange brown rice for white one to include more fiber in food. These substitutes should be enough to provide nearly exact taste to the dish at the same time lessening the calorie count for the body.
• Now look at the amount of these ingredients which has to be changed in order to make the dish much healthier than its original part. If there is a choice to sauté or stir fry instead of pure frying in order to lessen the fat content, certain things like using lesser sugar or salt should have great effect on the calorie intake of body.

Do not think that using low calorie ingredients will mean that it will only end up to be a recipe that has lesser calories, since there are times when these ingredients are fried instead of grilling. If there are certain low calories food like fish and veggies there are changes that they will be sauced up instead of steaming and by the time the recipe comes out it seems quite similar to any burger filled with cheese.

 

Tips for healthy dishes:

Here we are providing the ways in which fat and calories can be cut down from the dishes also making them much healthier by increased use of whole grains, fresh vegetables and fruits in them:

• Calories can be reduced and nutrition can be boosted by adding diced veggies to soups and while cooking any other type of recipes which include meat, casseroles, salads or even pasta.
• Seasoning which is used for steamed vegetables should consist of garlic, onion, spices or herbs instead of regular butter and sauces which are often chosen by many.
• Try fruits for salad instead of routine vegetable like orange, tangerine, kiwi and apples, also it is suggested to alternate iceberg lettuce with deep green colored leafy vegetables.
• Frozen vegetables have enough nutrition like those of fresh ones; also they are good due to their availability throughout the year also being less costly than those of fresh ones.
• There is no need of cream, butter and flour to add thickness to the soups instead vegetables can be put in a blender and added to the soup. There is an alternative to also prepare cream for soups with vegetables and garlic puree with milk.
• Increase the quantity of dishes if they stay good even after freezing which makes best choice for people who do not have much time to prepare food or are easily tired with things can pull up these frozen dishes instead of choosing junk food.
• There are several alternatives available some of which are given below:
  1. Ground beef can be substituted with ground chicken, turkey or ground soy.
  2. Apple sauce, prunes, carrots, mashed avocados or bananas also make best alternative for butter or margarine.
  3. Pan spray, wine, vegetable juice and broth are known to be best choice to sauté vegetables instead of butter.
  4. Reduced fat cheese is best choice when compared to cheese.
  5. Egg whites can be used in place of the eggs which are used for baking.
  6. Mayonnaise with lesser fat is known to be best choice instead of Mayonnaise.

How Can Water Help with Your Weight Loss Plan?

If you wonder in what way water can help with your weight loss goals, then you have come to the right place. This article will explain how you can get help through drinking water while losing those extra pounds. It is not a scientific explanation, but the lines from below are mostly narrated in a way that can be on everybody’s level of perception.

I have seen many articles written with the intention of explaining a topic to the large audience, but with too much terminology included it is hard to get to the mind of ordinary people who have no training whatsoever on that particular topic. So this article will explain plain and in simple English how you can still achieve weight loss goals by drinking water.

Now when I say ‘drinking water‘ this doesn’t mean that you should have one or two glasses of water per day, but eight glasses is the right amount. I have met people whom I haven’t seen them in a while and was surprised to find out how much weight they have put on.

In the meanwhile, I found out they do not have more than 2 glasses of water per day, while others don’t drink at all. Instead they prefer drinking beer, sodas, and others alike. When I asked them why they didn’t drink water, they said that there is no more room for it. “And besides, aren’t the other beverages made of water, too, so what’s the use of adding plain water to all these?”

Well, the thing is that our body needs plain water to drink regardless how many other beverages you drink per day. Water helps with flushing out the waste from within the body. If you fail to do this, they can accumulate inside and you can not achieve the desired weight loss if these wastes are still in there. You have to understand that you need to reach the goal of weight loss from inside out allowing as such your body to clean itself prior to having it repaired.

Another good thing to do when you want to achieve weight loss is to drink one glass of water before your meal and one glass afterwards. It is also recommended to drink between the main meals to avoid snacking. In this way, your body will be full and won’t have any urge for eating those snacks that you used to have before engaging in a weight loss program.

Top 10 Yoga Poses that Increase Metabolism

Are you looking to cope up the metabolism in your body, the best practice is performing yoga for minimum of three times a week. Yoga is a method that helps you stay away from stress, keeps you fit and healthy, increases the metabolism in your body, and keeps you active and energized.

 

The following are the top yoga poses to be performed to reduce stress and increase metabolism in your body:

1. Twisted Chair Pose

Increase in the circulation can be gained by twisting every muscle in the body, which can be seen in Twisted Chair pose, resulting in good digestion and wakes up the internal organs.

Steps to perform:

Legs and feet are kept together. Make an action as you are sitting in a chair far behind by bending your knees and sinking your hips down at a time. Palms should be placed in front of chest. Your right elbow is moved until it reaches your left knee by rotating the spine simultaneously. Chest should remain lifted all the time. You should be able to hold it for 30-45 seconds and try the same on the other side.

2. Locust Pose

Locust pose helps you increase your metabolism and boosts your energy, similar to all other poses. While elongating your spinal column and opening up your chest, your leg muscles and lower back are strengthened.

Steps to perform:

Your stomach should be touching the ground while lying on the floor with your arms alongside of your body facing your palms up. Your head, upper part of the body, legs and arms are to be lifted maintaining equal distance from the floor. Legs and arms must be kept active and you should look slightly up or forward depending on the flexibility of the body. This should be performed for 45 seconds, before releasing your arms and other parts to the floor, your head should be turned to one side. The same is repeated for three times.

3. Bow Pose

It is almost similar to the Locust pose, where the energy gets boosted up and metabolism revs up. It strengthens the back muscles and stretches the front part of your body. Your body resembles the shape of bow.

Steps to perform:

Lie on your stomach stretching your arms alongside of the body, with palms facing upwards. Your ankles should be grabbed with your hands by bending the knees remaining in same position. Now lift your heels up and away from your body, keeping your legs hip-distance apart, which pulls your chest up off the floor. Shoulder blades should be kept down away from the ears all the time. You should hold this for 30-45 seconds, while releasing head should be turned to one side. Repeating this for two or three times shows best results.

4. Eagle Pose

Entire body gets energized and digestion is carried out well performing this pose. It also helps in building lean and strong muscles.

Steps to perform:

Bend your knees slightly from your standing position. Start in a standing position and bend your knees slightly. Right leg is lifted up and hooked around the standing leg at the foot and ankle behind left calf. Hips are brought down and back making a position as you are sitting in a chair. Arms are crossed at elbow position and wrists bringing them before your chest. After holding it for around 1 minute you can release it shaking the legs and continue by switching sides.

5. Crescent Lunge Pose

This position helps in stretching your hips and strengthening your legs. It also helps in the increase of the metabolism. Crescent lunge position maintains your heart beat rate.

Steps to perform:

Initiate with downward dog pose. Your right foot is stepped in between both the hands. Hips are lowered in lunge position and weight should be shifted on the ball of your back foot by lifting up the body as standing straight. Hips should remain squared all the time. Arms should be raised as to reach ceiling by keeping both the palms facing each other. Stay in the position for 1 minute and then sides are changed.

6. Bridge Pose

In this pose the chest portion is lifted up to reach the chin, by which the thyroid gland is massaged, resulting in the hormone regulation helping in maintaining the metabolism. It works with the gravity to open your chest and shoulder areas.

Steps to perform:

Keep your knees bent and flat on the floor with a feet distance apart by lying on your back. Slowly see if you can feel your heels by reaching down your fingertips.
Bring your knees a little closer if you do not feel so. Lift your hips towards the ceiling by pressing the weight on your feet by keeping your thighs parallel. Both arms are clasped with each other bringing them underneath your body. Shoulders blades are rolled towards each other and stay for 45 seconds to 60 seconds. Release by rolling back slowly and is repeated for two times.

7. Plow Pose

Plow pose helps in balancing your metabolic system and helps you for the flow of feel good hormones and endorphins throughout your body. This also helps in the good circulation of adrenal, thyroid and pituitary glands.

Steps to perform:

Bring you legs straight up in the air towards the ceiling by lying back. Arms are brought alongside your body with your palms down. Press your weight into the arms and lift your legs right over your head and try to touch the ground behind you, if it is difficult for you to do so clasp your arms as in the bridge pose for support and shoulders rolling towards each other.

8.Shoulder Stand

Shoulder stand gives great stretch to your upper back and neck. It is having similar benefits as plow pose.

Steps to perform:

Put you arms alongside your body with your palms down by lying back. Follow same procedure as plow pose by bringing your legs in the air towards ceiling over the head by pressing weight into the hands. Hands are clasped and shoulders are rolled towards each other and bringing hands to lower neck spreading your fingers wide. Now one leg at a time is lifted to the ceiling getting it as straight as possible and hold it for 1 to 3 minutes.

9. Fish Pose

The counter pose to the shoulder stand is nothing but the fish pose. It helps in stretching front of neck, causing calming effect to your body. Most of us suffer from lot of stress in our shoulders and neck.

 

Steps to perform:

Your hands along with the palms are kept beneath your hips by lying back. Elbows are bent and by pressing weight into them you should lean on them. Your back should be arched as you lift your chest up towards the ceiling. As in the bridge stand, elbows are brought towards each other dropping the head back behind your body.

10. Easy Spinal Twist

Spinal twist pose helps you in the weight loss process and take care of the digestive system of your body.

Steps to perform:

Both of your knees are brought towards your chest by lying on your back. Your left knee must be held into the chest leaving the right knee straightened onto the floor. The bent knee should be brought all over the body without changing the shape of your shoulder. To complete the twist head should be turned to look over the left shoulder. Keeping the pose for 45 seconds to 1 minute, both the knees are brought into the chest and other knee should be practiced. Lie on your back and bring both knees in toward your chest.

Crazy Weight Loss Methods

Just when I think I’ve seen it all, another quick fix weight-loss method pops up. Over the years I’ve heard about weight-loss lollipops, diet chopsticks, even slimming sunglasses (designed to change the color of food and make it unappetizing). There will always be silly and trendy get-slim-quick tricks, but what really worries me are approaches that are invasive, extreme, and downright dangerous. Here are seven I hope you’ll never, ever try:

Plastic tongue patch

Created by a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, this yet-to-be FDA-approved patch is sewn onto the tongue with six stitches in about 10 minutes, at a cost of roughly $2,000. The device and sutures make eating solid food so excruciatingly painful, patch wearers are forced to adhere to a liquid-only diet, which supplies about 800 calories a day.

Tube feeding

When I first heard about this trend, I was speechless. To lose weight quickly, women, including many brides-to-be, are opting to have a feeding tube inserted through their noses, which travels through the esophagus into the stomach, remaining in place 24 hours a day. For 10 days, eating is avoided completely, and a high protein, low carb formula is fed through the tube, delivering roughly 800 daily calories. The medical procedure, which costs about $1,500, is normally used to nourish people who cannot eat due to illness or injury.

Drunkorexia

Drunkorexia is a relatively new term for the overlap of binge drinking and disordered eating. The pattern can involve behaviors like: restricting calories to “save them up” for alcohol; drinking excessively to the point of throwing up as a way to purge; overexercising before drinking or the following day; or starving the day after a night of binge drinking. The potential side effects of combining alcohol with undereating and/or purging are serious, including trouble concentrating, and difficulty making decisions, in addition to a weakened immune system, and a greater risk of injuries and acute alcohol poisoning. This is a trend I’ve noticed not just in college students, but also among women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.

Tapeworms

While possessing tapeworms is illegal in the U.S., I regularly hear about people seeking them out for weight loss. The sad reality is that many people who unintentionally become infected with tapeworms in the United States suffer from serious dangers, including digestive blockages, organ function disruption, brain and nervous system damage, and even death.

Starvation

Your body is like an engine that’s always turned on – from head to toe, every cell needs a constant source of fuel to perform its job. In addition, your structure is in a continual state of repair, healing, and regeneration, so your cells needs a steady supply of “building blocks,” including protein and healthy fats, to maintain your tissues. When needed fuel and essential raw materials don’t show up for work, or you consume less than your body requires to support a healthy weight, the deficits trigger a cascade of side effects. Even semi-starvation (less than about 1,000-1,200 calories per day for most women, depending on height and frame size, or more if you’re active) can lead to fatigue, depression, the breakdown of muscle, organ and bone tissue, suppressed immunity, hair loss, hormone imbalances, sleep disturbances, and an increased injury risk.

Smoking

I wish this wasn’t the case, but I have had clients tell me they took up smoking specifically to lose weight, fully knowing the unhealthy consequences. It is true that smoking dulls taste buds, suppresses appetite, and slightly increases metabolism. But the health risks are so great that experts estimate they’re equal to gaining 100 pounds (not to mention the impact on aging your skin).

Stimulants

Throughout my years specializing in weight loss and disordered eating, I’ve seen many women and men fall into the trap of using stimulant drugs to lose weight, then becoming addicted, and ending up in rehab, or worse. And even without dependence, over-the-counter, prescription, or illegal stimulants are risky, with potential side effects ranging from poor judgment, impulsivity and mood swings, to dangerously high blood pressure, seizures, and stroke.
Bottom line: in our weight-obsessed culture, it’s easy to understand the temptation to gamble on a quick fix, but no loss of inches and pounds is worth risking your health. And while it may take a little more time and patience, clean eating and exercise do work – while also keeping you safe and healthy. Remember, YOU are more important than the number on a scale.