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A year and a half ago I started a blog where I talk about chocolate in all its various forms. At the same time I made some important life changes to help my health. The result was that I'm eating more chocolate than ever but I've still lost over 30 pounds of unwanted weight, improved my cholesterol levels, evened out my blood pressure, and found more balance in my emotional life. I want to share with you how chocolate factored into all of this. Here's the blunt truth: Consuming more calories than you burn is what causes weight gain. It really does not matter where the calories come from in terms of your body burning them or storing them as fat. If you ate more calories than you burn off in the form of carrots, you'd gain weight. However the type of food you eat can have a huge impact on how much of that food you eat. Yes you can eat too many calories in the form of chocolate but the odds are that that is reflection of other things going on in your life as well as...

Can I eat chocolate and still lose weight? For years, the myth has been spread that chocolate is a diet buster and absolutely has to be removed from your diet to lose weight. Whether you’re a chocoholic or just indulge from time to time, you should know that today’s research into chocolate is now connecting its consumption to lower weight. While moderation is still key, eating dark chocolate on a daily basis is more likely to result in weight loss than weight gain. Those conducting the studies still don’t have conclusive answers for “why” chocolate helps, but here are three theories that might explain. People Have a Sweet Tooth People tend to crave sugar, especially when they are used to eating it. Sugar is empty calories. It has no nutritional value, but does supply your body with energy. The human body will crave sugar beyond its energy needs and begin to store the excess calories as fat. It has been theorized that dark chocolate can satisfy the body’s desire for sweets witho...

It doesn’t take much to fall back into bad old eating habits when you’ve spent years of your life eating large quantities of the wrong kinds of food. If you’ve eaten a poor diet since you were a youngster this is what becomes familiar to you and when you’re feeling upset or anxious eating junk food can be rather comforting. However, comfort eating doesn’t exactly make it easy for you to maintain a healthy weight. You may have believed that you’d got rid of all your food demons, but they can soon creep up on you again. That is one of the problems with losing weight – just because you’ve shifted a few pounds doesn’t mean you can forget about counting calories or doing exercise. Unfortunately, if you slide into complacency you’re likely to regain any weight you’ve lost because your natural inclination is to eat too much food, particularly food that is calorific and crammed full of sugar, salt and fat. If you managed to lose weight quickly it can be even more difficult to keep the weight ...

Obesity is an epidemic in America and also in a lot of Europe as well. Nearly every research scientist claims we are simply just eating too much, but the truth is our foods are laced with sugar. Sugar, in excess, disrupts our insulin as well as other hormones, which triggers our bodies to store fat at EVERY given opportunity. So, even if you normally eat rabbit food all day, just one snack overindulgence in the evening containing High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), can be setting you up for disaster. The question we are all asking ourselves is how can we navigate the confusing product labels full of hidden sugars. First, commit to memory the different names sugar goes by. Avoid HFCS at all cost! Do not only look at the ingredients list on your food, but also pay attention to how many grams of sugar are in a serving. And make sure you account for foods in which you may want more than a single serving- we all do this! A great low sugar breakfast to start your day is one whole egg and...

In most countries obesity rates are higher amongst women than they are for men, and there are a myriad of diet plans, pills, shakes, meals and slimming clubs on the market which appear to specifically target women. At the very same time as people are getting larger in the West, the pressure on individuals, especially women, to be ultra thin has intensified, so that women often end up obsessing about how fat they are, even if they aren't, and thus will try anything in order to lose weight. Although there is also a certain amount of pressure on men to be a healthy weight, the emphasis generally isn't on how skinny they can become, but rather on their ability to maintain a well-proportioned, muscular physique. It would seem that whilst women use the scales to determine whether they have reached their ideal body, men use the mirror and how fit and healthy they feel as a guide. Women have always felt pressurised to look good, and society clearly has a significant influence on how t...

It seems that no matter how slim a woman is she always believes she can be skinnier, which is why she will spend most of her life on a diet and regularly weigh herself to see the results of her efforts. The scales become both her friend and enemy, so that when she loses a pound or two she feels elated, but if the needle moves in the wrong direction and shows that she's gained a bit of weight she might feel dejected and believe that she'll never get down to her ideal size. However, women who claim to constantly be on a diet really mean that they spend half their time not eating enough and depriving themselves, and the rest of the time eating whatever they want. Instead of learning to control their weight, their weight just fluctuates endlessly. Therefore, even when women are at their slimmest they tell themselves that they will just put on all the weight they lost before long, and instead of trying to curb their instinct to overeat, they just give into it. They might be feeling...

Mindful eating is the practice of becoming more aware of what you're eating. It has its roots in Buddhism, in which mindfulness is an important component. Mindful eating can help you lose weight easily, without dieting. By making your meals into a meditation, you can reduce the tendency to binge or overeat. You can also make more intelligent choices about what, when and how much you eat. With mindful eating, you can lose weight without giving up your favorite foods. Prepare your meals more slowly. Be very conscious of which foods you choose and how you prepare them. Don't reject foods simply because they seem unhealthy. Instead, consciously combine the foods that you love with foods that are good for your body. The TV and the computer tend to promote mindlessness during meals and snacks. People lose track of how much they've eaten because their minds are somewhere else. Sitting down at the table whenever you eat can help. So turn off the television and step away from the c...

Weight appears to be a bit of an obsession for some women, as they spend most of their lives on a diet, continually trying, and often failing, to watch what they eat and lose a bit of weight so that they can finally fit into a smaller dress size. In the past women may have aimed to reach a UK size 10 (US size 6), but at the very time that more people are being classed as obese so has the ideal female figure become smaller. Nowadays, size 10 isn't regarded as small enough so that more and more women are pressuring themselves to get down to a skeletal size 4 (US size 0). Being able to fit into size 4 clothing might not be that shocking for teenagers and women who are shorter and who have a naturally petite frame, but seeing six foot models walking down the runway and actually being able to fit into the sample sizes, which are usually extremely small, can come as rather a shock. Although representatives of the modelling industry are keen to assert that models tend to be naturally tal...

Owning a treadmill won't automatically help you to lose weight, particularly if it never gets used. It is not unusual for people to decide in the New Year or when summer is just around the corner that they want to lose a bit of weight and get fitter, and so immediately go out and buy a piece of exercise equipment in the belief that if they own a treadmill or exercise bike they are more likely to use it. Of course, it rarely works out that way, since many people aren't prepared to set aside the time to exercise regularly. They might enthusiastically use their treadmill for a couple of weeks to convince themselves that they haven't wasted their money, but in most cases the treadmill will soon end up gathering dust. Exercise is obviously crucial for enabling people to achieve their weight-loss goals, but it is only one side of the coin, as diet is also key. Losing weight requires you to get the balance right between the number of calories that go into your body and the number...

How long to leave green tea bag in water? How long to steep green tea for health benefits? The benefits of green tea are manifold, but its fat burning properties have been a hot topic for some time; with many people using green tea as an important component of a weight loss program. Even body builders are extolling the virtues of green tea extract as a herbal supplement towards getting that "shredded" body look. Green tea comes from the plant Camelia Sinesis, but unlike oonlong or black, is made without going through a fermentaion process, therefore its active ingredients remain intact and potent. These are the properties of green tea which makes it such a phenomenal supplement in fat burning. How long to steep green tea for health benefits? Green tea should steep for 8-10 minutes. If a green tea brews for less than 5 minutes, only 20% of the catechins are released compared to the brewing time of 10 minutes. What are the health benefits of green tea? Caffeine: Caffeine is ...