About Carbohydrates

When eaten alone, carbs are quickly and rapidly digested and in turn dump sugar into your blood by the truckload.  As a result, your insulin levels spike, fat-storage initiates, and fat-burning all but stops. Always pair carbs with protein.  This works because "mixed" meals slow gastric emptying which in turn lowers the speed at which sugar is released into your blood.  Not only that, but protein consumption causes the release of the hormone glucagon, a fat-fighting hormone that actually works in opposition to insulin to lessen it's negative effects.

5 Reasons Why Sleep Is Important For Weight Loss

A shocking new study from the Annals of Internal Medicine shows a common mistake nearly EVERYONE makes in the bedroom is absolutely killing their metabolism.  Not only does this mistake BLOCK your ability to reduce fat, it also gums up your hormones, drives up hunger, ages you rapidly, saps you of energy and damages your mental functioning.

What's worse, this mistake can force an otherwise "healthy" person to show the same type of insulin resistance and blood sugar problems as a full-on type 2 diabetic!  Unfortunately, most people don't even KNOW they are making this mistake... and what's worse, the solution that fixes it in only 15 minutes a week isn't widely publicized. More on that in a bit.

The mistake I am talking about is impaired sleep.

Reason #1

Not getting enough sleep makes you RAVENOUSLY hungry and skyrockets your cravings for the worst food possible.  How?  Another study published in the Public Library of Science shows why.

First, impaired sleep causes leptin, your "I'm full" hormone to go DOWN by 15.5%.

Second, it causes your "I'm hungry" hormone to go UP by 14.9%.

Reason #2

Leptin, the "I'm full" hormone, also controls your metabolism by influencing your thyroid hormone.  So when you don't get enough shut-eye and leptin goes down, your thyroid also goes down, which causes your metabolic rate (how many calories you burn at rest) to absolutely PLUNGE!

The result? More of the food you eat gets parked on your belly and thighs instead of being turned into energy to power you through the day.

It gets worse... most people don't know that the majority of the "fat burning" process actually happens WHEN they sleep!  During sleep, leptin triggers specialized calorie-burning fat cells to burn up excess calories that you don't need and to release that energy as heat.

So when you miss out on that deep slumber, you deprive yourself of the PRIME fat burning window where the inches start to disappear.

Reason #3

Sleep deprivation also depresses how sensitive your cells are to insulin.  If you are LESS insulin sensitive, you need to crank out MORE insulin to clear any excess blood sugar that may be floating around.

And more insulin causes a double fat-making whammy by telling your liver to turn the food you eat into fat AND by locking fat in your fat cells so it can't be released to be burned.  Adding insult to injury, your body perceives lack of sleep to be a threat to its existence, so it fires up your stress hormone cortisol, which has been directly linked to excess belly fat.

Reason #4

Impaired sleep also damages your brain, cognitive abilities and mood.

Dr. Maiken Nedergaard, professor of neurosurgery at the University of Rochester, completed a study showing that when we sleep, our brain flushes out potent neurotoxins that are normal by-products of our waking activity.  But if you let those by-products accumulate without taking out the garbage, VERY bad things happen -- like brain fog, impaired memory, wild mood swings and trouble focusing.

Inflammation and oxidative stress also run rampant, causing even further damage to your brain and putting you at risk of developing age-related diseases such Alzheimer's.

Reason #5

You ever see someone who hasn't gotten a good night's sleep in a few days? They look totally ragged, wasted...and strangely...OLDER.  That's because lack of good sleep ages you rapidly by robbing you of the small window of opportunity during which your primary "youth" hormone works its magic.

I am talking about growth hormone -- your master rejuvenation hormone that mostly only comes out at night, helping you re-build and repair and keeping you young.

Aside from making your skin ragged, wrinkly and dry, lack of growth hormone also dramatically alters your body composition, shifting it to be MORE fat and less muscle -- NOT what you want!

4-step formula to getting more sleep and cranking up your metabolic engine:

• Step 1: Go to bed 15 minutes earlier each week until you get to 7-9 hours of sleep each and every night.
• Step 2: Make your bedroom completely dark, which maximizes your hormonal response.
• Step 3: Calm down your brain several hours before bed -- limit TV, turn off your email and other devices, and avoid exercise for at least 3 hours before bed.  Relax and wind down, clearing your mind of your daily stresses and worries.
• Step 4: Don't eat within the last 3 hours before bed time in order to maximize growth hormone production during sleep.

Foods That Purge Toxins

1. Turmeric (clean your fat burning filter)

Turmeric is now being touted in the innovative medical community as the “fountain of youth” super spice. Used predominantly in Indian cuisine, the root of this spice is used for dozens of health benefits, including acting as a powerful, all-natural anti-inflammatory agent.

Often considered the forgotten spice, turmeric can assist your liver’s enzymes in flushing out carcinogens from your body. This is critically important for optimal health and efficient fat loss because your liver acts as a natural detoxifier. It’s your body’s fat burning filter and turmeric will help you keep it healthy.

A poor functioning liver will ZAP you of your energy and make it nearly impossible to shed unwanted body fat because it’s responsible for the elimination of drugs, pesticides, and environmental chemicals from your body.

Turmeric not only helps you maintain a healthy functioning liver, research indicates curcumin, a chemical found in turmeric, may help reduce joint pain caused from inflammation and lower your blood sugar to eliminate cravings...all of which will keep your body in a “fat burning environment”.
As you can clearly see, this spice is definitely one you want to be making good use of. It will help you flush out more “trapped” fat and it just so happens to work perfectly with food #2 below.

2. Lemon Juice (purge toxins from your blood)

The all-natural alkalizing effect of fresh squeezed juice, has a very powerful detoxifying effect that can purge toxins from the blood and help assist in removing harmful compounds from your body.

Almost everybody has been misled to believe lemons are acidic, but inside your body lemons are an incredibly alkaline food that can help balance your body’s pH, which means better health and higher energy levels.

Lemon juice has also been shown to improve your digestive function, acts as a mild diuretic and is loaded with healthy ingredients (citric acid, vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, bioflavonoids, pectin) that helps boost your immune function.

Combine all these benefits together and you have the PERFECT environment for faster fat loss. All you need to do to get all these healthy fat fighting benefits is squeeze a medium sized lemon (use organic to avoid residual pesticides) into a small glass of water every morning on an empty stomach.

3. Cruciferous Vegetables (destroy fat storing estrogen)

Cruciferous vegetables contain a naturally occurring ingredient called 3,3′-Diindolylmethane or DIM for short. DIM is strongly anti-estrogenic, so it helps block xenoestrogens (sometimes called obsesogens)… otherwise known as BAD estrogen that accumulates inside your body from constant exposure to environmental toxins.

This hormone is the reason why women are storing more and more belly fat in today’s day and age – and it’s also responsible for chronically low testosterone levels in men. This causes all kinds of nasty side effects like facial hair in women and “man boobs” in men. Not to mention it makes it VERY difficult to lose weight.

DIM not only wards of off bad estrogen, it also acts as an immunostimulant, which means it can naturally “boost” your immune system and Wikipedia even touts this ingredient to have various potent anticancer properties. So including these foods in your diet could go a long way.

Obvious choices to add to your daily nutrition plan are broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, and cabbage. Some other, lesser-known, super veggies include swiss chard, arugula, collard greens, bok choy, kale, and watercress.

IMPORTANT TIP: Since DIM is oil soluble, it’s best to consume these veggies with other healthy oils and friendly fats like grass fed butter. This will greatly enhance the absorption of these powerful fat-fighting nutrients.

4. Tart Cherries (recover FASTER and stop inflammation)

Over 111 million prescriptions are issued yearly for anti-inflammatory drugs. These meds have been shown to wreak havoc on your digestive system, while causing damage to your heart, your liver, and your kidneys.

The anthocyanins and phenols found in tart cherries have been shown to provide STRONGER protection against muscle injury and damage than these dangerous drugs. In other words, this tiny fruit has been proven BETTER than things like Ibuprofen for reducing inflammation and muscle soreness.  In fact, over 74 published studies indicate tart cherries deliver a high level of protection against cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, and can even fight against Alzheimer’s. Many of them also validate tart cherries and tart cherry beverages speed up recovery time from exercise and reduce inflammatory markers significantly.

Tart cherries also contain a hefty dose of naturally occurring melatonin (improves sleep) and they have one of the highest anti-oxidant scores of all fruits and they score amazingly low on the glycemic index (~20). So they’re one the best fruits to eat for fat loss. So by eating a hefty dose of tart cherries (or organic, flash pasteurized tart cherry juice) you can help your body recover faster, reduce joint pain through the anti-inflammatory response, sleep better, and fight inflammation to "flush out" more trapped fat from your body.