The Weight-Loss Secret You’ve Never Heard

Learn the trick to finally lose that stubborn fat and boost your energy to boot

By Valerie Berkowitz, R.D.

If you seem to have more than an inch to pinch on your waist no matter what you eat or whether you focus on intervals or weight training, the problem may not be your stomach but another organ.

You probably don’t give much thought to your liver (except maybe when you contemplate that third vodka soda), but its health is key to your overall health and weight. Your liver is the ultimate multitasker: It acts as a filter to remove toxins (like medications and alcohol) and nutrient byproducts such as ammonia from the blood; it aids in digestion by producing bile to help break down fat and absorb fat- and water-soluble vitamins and minerals; and it plays a part in regulating glucose, blood pressure, blood sugar, insulin, estrogen, testosterone, immunity, and blood cholesterol production and removal. And you thought you had a long to-do list!

Because of all of this activity, your liver may be in need of a little TLC. When it’s overworked, toxic residues can build up, causing inflammation that is associated with obesity. A stressed out liver can also cause fat to build up, especially around the belly. Added together, this can mean that no matter how much you restrict calories, weight loss is near impossible—unless you detox your liver.

RELATED: Learn the five things you don’t know about body fat so you can pick the smartest strategies for losing it.

Before you jump to start a crazy cleanse, check if you have other symptoms of liver problems, such as fatigue, insomnia, brain fog, rashes or acne, digestive troubles (constipation, acid reflux, indigestion, bloating), high cholesterol, and blood sugar and insulin imbalances, which can lead to low energy, cravings, and excessive thirst and urination.

If you think your liver may be amiss, ask your doctor for a liver function test, aspartate aminotransferase (AST) test, or alanine aminotransferase (ALT) test, or request CAT or MRI scan to get a picture of your liver.

Once you have the results, you can make the following lifestyle changes to help remedy and even reverse the problem.

1. If you smoke, stop.

2. Use medications only when necessary, as even taking a Tylenol can have severe consequences on the liver.

3. Do not drink alcohol.

4. Eat and drink clean. Skip foods and beverages that contain high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, additives, hormones, preservatives, or artificial colors, and eat free-range or organic whenever possible. Your liver has to work harder to filter all this gunk.

RELATED: Jump-start your healthy diet and healthier body with a seven-day clean eating plan.

5. Consume cruciferous vegetables such as Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, collards, and cabbage. These contain sulphur compounds called glucosinolates that bind and eliminate toxins.

6. Ditch the salt, which can contribute to fluid retention and further strain the liver, and flavor foods with garlic, rosemary, dandelion, or chicory, which appear to support liver function.

7. Exercise the same way you take your prescription medicine: consistently and every day. Aim for at least a half hour, though more can be better, and be sure you’re doing intervals, which will help melt fat. A review published in theJournal of Hepatology found that a combination of diet and exercise was best to reduce body weight and therefore improve liver health.

http://www.shape.com/weight-loss/weight-loss-strategies/weight-loss-secret-you%E2%80%99ve-never-heard

5 Ways to Jump Start Your Weight Loss

In the 12+ years I have been working as a personal trainer, I have met a lot of very smart, very successful people with a broad knowledge of weight loss tips, tricks & secrets….and yet most of them weren’t able to get the results they wanted.

And sometimes, the answer to their weight-loss problems was as simple as one little tweak.

Here are some of my favorite “little weight-loss tweaks”

Cleansing

Most people think that cleansing is all about…

• starving yourself, and/or
• drinking a mixture of lemon juice, maple syrup & hot sauce, and/or
• shoving a colonic tube up your butt

WRONG.

In it’s essence, cleansing is all about…

1. ignoring our taste buds for a SHORT period of time, and
2. putting our Gastro-Intestinal track in the spotlight for a SHORT period of time

And as un-fun as that sounds, your guts will thank you.

Without getting all alternative-health-y on you, just about every client of mine has seen health & weight-loss improvements via the occasional use of cleansing protocols.

HIIT

The beauty of HIIT training is that you don’t need to mess with your usual routine to reap the benefits.

For example, I worked with a cyclist a couple of years ago who was interested in increasing his power. Unfortunately, he and his coach weren’t willing to cut back on his high-volume cycling regimen. So, I integrated a series of HIIT sprints into his cycling program.

And while we weren’t able to test his strength improvements in the gym as I usually do, he did see a vast improvement in performance and a perceived improvement in power when race season began.

Nutrient Cycling

There are many different ways to cycle nutrients to maximize recovery from exercise and encourage fat loss. This is my favorite method:

1. Simple carbs during workouts – Gatorade, Fruit Juice, etc.
2. “Fill you up” carbs post workout – starchy veg, grains, etc.
3. Crunchy carbs & greens the rest of the day – spinach, broccoli, etc.

The idea behind this plan is to manipulate insulin secretion to minimize fat storage and maximize muscle recovery via the re-filling of muscle cells with blood sugar & micronutrients.

Eat Dinner Like A King

This sounds counter-intuitive to common sense…and it is..sort of.

Normally, I advise clients against eating a big dinner because their day is winding down and that big blob of dinner calories is going to get stored as fat while they watch tv and drift off to sleep.

However, with this dietary tweak…

• I ask them to have a medium sized breakfast made up of protein & fat foods with next to no carbs (ex scrambled eggs & peppers)
• I ask them to have a small lunch consisting of protein & fat foods with next to no carbs (ex Greek salad with 1/2 chicken breast)

This plans works best with people who are busy throughout the day. We’re trying to take advantage of the appetite killing effect of a busy work-day.

At the end of their work-day and before they eat dinner, I ask them to exercise. It might be a trip to the weight room or a group exercise class or 20 minutes of swimming or even a 10 min session of HIIT bike sprints.

After the workout, they get to eat a nice big satisfying dinner consisting of whatever foods they want. This big meal results in a ton of pleasurable brain chemicals and related hormones being dumped into the body…resulting in emotional pleasure and no sense of dietary deprivation.

An Open Mind

There is a Chinese proverb that states “a closed mind is like a closed book; just a block of wood”.

And when I look at the mainstream approaches to weight loss, I see a whole lot of closed minds recycling the same old inefficient weight loss techniques year after year after year… with little real-world success.

What I want you to do is come at your weight-loss with an open mind.

• Think of yourself as a really small-scale science experiment.
• Stop repeating the same old weight-loss techniques that have failed you in the past.
• Try something new for a month or two
• Evaluate it
• If it’s not working…dump it
• Try something else…until you find something that works.

And if you still can’t find something that works, come back to Health Habits. I have lots more weight-loss tips & tricks in my back pocket.

http://www.healthhabits.ca/2012/11/09/5-ways-to-jump-start-your-weight-loss/