Many people have asked me If the Subway diet works. My answer to that is Yes. Why? Well, Its simple, the subs are very low in fat and have few calories. If you do that diet right you should be consuming around 1,200 to 1,500 calories per day, which is superb for any type of diet program. The subway diet goes like this, eat one apple for breakfast then eat a small sub for lunch and do the same for dinner.

Of course If you add some type of exercise to that diet program you will see much faster results, not to mention that you are going to build muscle mass. I’m sure you may have heard of Jared Fogle who has lost more then 245 pounds with the subway diet.  He appears in commercials all the time.

Another person who has been very successful with the subway diet is Jennifer Cooper. She claims that she lost over 110 pounds.

So now you know that the subway diet is indeed effective. The downside to this is that it is very expensive. To be on the subway diet it would cost about $8 a day. If you multiply that by one month that’s a total cost of $240. Its not the cheapest diet program, but hey, it works.

Trust me, If Jared Fogle and Jennifer Cooper reached there weight loss goal, you can too.

OK, by now I’m sure you have seen all over the news that diet soda can increase the risk of heart disease. Why do i hate this news? Well for one, i like diet soda very much, also it helps me cut hundreds of calories per week.

I may have to find an alternative to diet soda. One drink i have found to be good is Diet Ice Tea. It has only 5 calories and 0 sugar, so maybe this will be my substitute.

So how did they find out about this?

Many researchers had some idea that diet soda was bad for you, they had done some small test, but this time they went all out.

They took more then 6,000 participants who were free of any metabolic syndrome, and told them to drink diet soda for a period of time. What they found was that consumption of one or more soft drinks a day was associated with almost a 45 percent higher risk of developing metabolic syndrome during a follow-up period of 4 years.

So i guess people are now going to find other alternatives like me. Let me know what diet drinks you like.

McDonald’s has long been trying to get healthy foods on its menu. Like many of us know, the real money is on the fries, sodas and most importantly the burgers. Now MacDonald’s is releasing a new drink called Hugo, the 42 ounce (1.24 liters) and almost 500 calories.

But wait, didn’t they stop the super size products a while back?

Well, it looks like all they are going to do is replace the name super size with Hugo. So in other words, MacDonald’s doesn’t think this is a super size item.

In my opinion they are just lame, how in the world can they say its not a super size product. I mean common, were talking about almost 500 calories in 1 drink alone, why in earth would someone need 42 ounces of soda, i hope this product gets banned in the future.

This is not even the worse part, by the looks of it, the drink only cost about 90 cents in most outlets, what does this mean? It means that the Hugo item is going to appeal to many young folks.

What is your opinion about this Hugo product?

A modern variation of the “laying on of hands,” therapeutic touch is one of the most controversial forms of alternative therapy. Practitioners say that it heals by correcting imbalances in the energy field that emanates from the body, while mainstream critics respond that there’s no evidence that such a field exists, or that it would have anything to do with health if it did.

In any event, proponents say therapeutic touch can heal wounds, relieve tension headaches, and reduce stress. According to Nurse Healers, the therapy’s leading advocacy group, it also reduces pain and anxiety, promotes relaxation, and facilitates “the body’s natural restorative processes.”

Therapeutic touch is usually employed as a supplement to, rather than a replacement for, standard medical therapies. For example, it is sometimes used to relieve discomfort between scheduled doses of pain medication for hospitalized patients. It is also employed by hospice nurses to relieve pain in terminally ill patients, and to help the family accept the impending death of their loved one.
How the Treatments Are Done

Despite its name, therapeutic touch rarely involves physical contact between practitioner and patient. Instead, the therapist will move his or her hands just above your body.

You’ll be asked to sit or lie down before the procedure begins. No disrobing is necessary. The session is conducted in four steps:

Centering. The practitioner begins by “centering” himself –attaining a quiet, meditative state in which he’s focused on and attuned to the patient’s needs. Experienced practitioners can usually complete this process within a few minutes.

Assessment. The practitioner will then move his hands from head to foot along your body, holding them 2 to 4 inches away. This is done to assess the condition of the energy field that is thought to surround the body. Clues to the status of the field include feelings in the palms of the hands and “other intuitive or sensory cues” that signal areas of “congestion” or “blockage.”

Treatment. Once he discovers a “blocked” area, the practitioner will move his hands in a flowing motion from the top of the location down and away from your body. This action is repeated until the practitioner no longer feels the blockage, or until you feel relief.

Evaluation. After you’ve had a chance to rest, the practitioner will ask you about your response to therapy and reassess your “energy field” to make sure that no blockages remain evident.

Some practitioners add another step to the treatment. Called energy transfer, it calls for the therapist to place one hand on your back, in the kidney area, and hold the other hand 2 to 3 inches from the corresponding location on your abdomen. He then visualizes energy passing from the hand on your back to the one held above you.

Treatment Time: Most sessions take 10 to 20 minutes; few exceed 30 minutes. Treatment stops when the practitioner no longer senses problems in the energy field, or feels you’ve had enough.

Treatment Frequency: The number of treatments needed varies according to the problem and the patient. A headache in an otherwise healthy person may require only one session; a person with a chronic illness may require multiple sessions. For frail, sick, and very young or very old patients, proponents recommend keeping the sessions short and conducting them more frequently.

What Treatment Hopes to Accomplish

Therapeutic touch was developed in the early 1970s by Dolores Krieger, PhD, RN, a professor of nursing at New York University, and Dora Kunz, a “natural healer.” Krieger and Kunz first taught the technique to Krieger’s graduate nursing students, and it remains primarily a nursing intervention today. It has been taught at more than 100 colleges and universities since the 1970s, and is currently offered in about 70 health care facilities nationwide. All told, Krieger says she has taught the technique to more than 43,000 health care professionals and several thousand lay persons.

Controversy over therapeutic touch focuses on the “energy field” that its practitioners seek to balance. Krieger claims that the field can be sensed through “hand chakras,” centers of consciousness posited in Indian mystical writings. As proof of the field’s existence, other proponents cite images of an energy aura taken with Kirilian photography, a technique in which the hands are placed on film and a low-amp electrical current produces the picture.

Critics dismiss the entire energy theory as mystical, and ascribe any benefits of the technique to a positive psychological response to the care and attention provided by the practitioner. They argue that Kirilian images of the energy field are nothing more than the result of increased pressure or moisture. They also cite a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in which 21 self-described practitioners of therapeutic touch failed to detect energy from the nearby hand of an investigator when their view of the hand was blocked.

Advocates of therapeutic touch charge that the study was seriously flawed. They point out that the participants’ credentials were never checked, that the number of participants was inadequate, and that one of the authors (a coordinator of the National Council Against Health Fraud’s Task Force on Questionable Nursing Practices) was hopelessly biased. They add that therapeutic touch is not simply a mechanical manipulation of energy fields, but an act of compassion that requires personal interaction between patient and therapist.

Some proponents of therapeutic touch now speculate that mechanisms other than an energy field may be at work. In fact, Krieger herself states that the procedure conveys a “sense of deep peace that presages a rapid (two-to-four minute) relaxation response,” thus laying the groundwork for positive changes in the patient’s immune system.

Whatever the explanation may be, a number of studies have detected genuine improvements following administration of therapeutic touch. In one trial, in which the patients didn’t know whether or not they were being given the therapy, skin wounds healed significantly faster in those who received it. Another trial found that therapeutic touch effectively reduced headache pain, and a third investigation found that it reduced the time needed to calm hospitalized infants and toddlers after stressful experiences such as examinations and surgery.

Nevertheless, other studies have failed to show conclusive results. In one trial for postoperative pain, therapeutic touch reduced discomfort by only 13 percent, versus a 42 percent reduction afforded by standard pain medication. Researchers were forced to conclude that although the technique might reduce the need for drugs, it cannot be used to replace them. Likewise, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association has admonished patients to “refuse to pay for this procedure until or unless additional honest experimentation demonstrates an actual effect.”

Who Should Avoid This Therapy?

There are no medical conditions that preclude treatment with therapeutic touch. However, some people seem more susceptible to it than others. Among those best suited to it are pregnant women, newborns, children, older adults, and people with psychiatric disorders. Mainstream critics of the procedure warn everyone to avoid it, saying that there’s no reason to believe that it will have any effect.

What Side Effects May Occur?

There have been reports of nausea and dizziness following the procedure, although it’s unlikely that therapeutic touch was the cause. In addition, one expert warns that directing too much energy into a person’s energy field can cause “discomfort and irritability.”
How to Choose a Therapist

Look for a practitioner who has completed a workshop in therapeutic touch and has used the technique consistently for at least 1 year under the guidance of a mentor. Some practitioners hold continuing education credits granted by a state nursing association. Others have taken an invitational workshop offered by the procedure’s developers, Krieger and Kunz. There is no formal certification program.

Nurse Healers, the procedure’s leading advocacy group, offers a list of its roughly 1,500 members, but recommends checking the individual practitioner’s background. If you are offered therapeutic touch at a health care facility, you might want to ask whether the organization follows Nurse Healers’ policies and procedures.

When Should Treatment Stop?

Treatments can continue as long as your symptoms persist. However, if the therapy provides no relief, don’t hesitate to seek an alternative.

A huge stumbling block in any weight loss program is hunger. While that may sound a bit hinky, consider that when you are hungry - your concentration is reduced and distractions are increased. When you are hungry, you begin to think about food - I daresay obsess about it. Hunger leads to mistakes like picking up junk food when you have to run in and pick up a gallon of milk.Grocery stores don’t help in this equation because most of them feature candies, chips and other sugar heavy foods at the checkout stands. They are there because grocery stores understand the power of the impulse buy. While you may not normally grab that bag of extra cheesy Doritos, hunger is a powerful motivator and it can be very hard to ignore the cravings when you’re starving.

Don’t Go Hungry

Some of the best diet advice comes in the form of not letting yourself get hungry. Nutritionists and other health experts recommend eating six small meals a day - ideally by eating frequently - you don’t allow your blood sugar to drop to lows that demand violent hunger pangs. This is also in total opposition to the idea that food is the enemy of a diet. Too often when we struggle with weight loss, we begin to actively dislike or fear food.

Food is sustenance and provides us with fuel for daily living. As has been discussed here in the weight loss blog before, eating less food is not the answer. Eating differently is. Here are a few tips that may help you make better choices when it comes to your daily eating habits:

• 1 oz of butter contains more calories than 10 oz of potatoes
• 1 pound of apples contains the same number of calories as two candies.
• 1 can of soda has more calories than a gallon of water

Do you see a trend here?

You don’t need to starve yourself; you need to cut back on the high-calorie foods. Hunger slays diets, it doesn’t support them. Eat a little - a lot. Eat healthy portions - measure them by the size of your fist. If you already eat fist-sized portions - cut them down by ¼. You will find that by eating regular, small meals you are far less hungry, far less prone to choosing high calorie, high sugar junk foods and sticking to your diet is a lot easier.

And frankly - who wants to be hungry? When you’re hungry, you can be short-tempered, depressed or just plain unpleasant. This affects you and the people around you. So if you haven’t had breakfast this morning? Consider grabbing an apple or a bowl of Raisin Bran before you dive into your day - your diet and your stomach will both appreciate you.

Research continues into the connection between obesity and breast cancer. Upper body and abdominal obesity are areas of the greatest concern. Statistics show that half of breast cancer cases have occurred in women who were obese. Studies also indicate that breast tumors that are cancerous are very difficult to locate in women that have an excess of 20% body fat. The link between the two conditions is entirely statistical and while scientists and research physicians are still trying to explore what links the two - the fact is they do seem to be linked.While I am not going to go into all of the research information or speculation at this point; it’s important to understand that for women - maintaining control over your weight is very important especially when entering menopause. Many post-menopausal women who are overweight are at even a greater risk for developing breast cancer because they will have higher levels of testosterone and estrogen.

Weight Loss Programs More Important Than Before

For women, losing weight may not be a matter of vanity but an important safety and health issue. A study published by the Nurses’ Health Study in Boston indicated that women who were 44 pounds overweight were doubling their risk of breast cancer. There are other studies that have found similar results. The study identified that post-menopause, fat is not the primary source of estrogen in the body.

Other studies, including one done at Yale found that women who were obese detected dangerous tumors much later because body fat could mask where they were. Late detection can reduce treatment options and survivability rates especially if the cancer is advanced. So while being overweight may not increase your development chances, it could reduce your treatment and identification chances.

Either way - breast cancer is breast cancer and your options to reduce it should not be overlooked.

When it comes to schools, kids and obesity - there is a threat to getting overweight children more active in sports and PE because of the bullies who will taunt and tease. As we all know, children can be horribly cruel. It’s not just the bullies, but the other children that will jump in to make the statements because they see the reaction the others get as well.

An overweight child who wants to get involved needs to have their confidence and self-esteem built; peer victimization destroys self-confidence and esteem. In fact, the more a kid is teased whether they are overweight or not, the more likely they are to not get involved in physical activity. They would rather avoid the teasing and the taunts and the bullies and if that means getting away from the physical activity that is the choice they will make.

It’s important that parents and teachers are aware of this. A good physical fitness program to get our kids active and to keep them active needs to address the idea of other kids picking on them or targeting them as the butt of the joke. If you notice that your child’s performance in P.E. is falling off, find out why. Look into building up their confidence in controlled situations.

I can speak honestly from my own history in school on this topic. I was one of those early bloomers and as such, I put on a lot of weight between the ages of 9 and 13. I was fatter than most of the other kids. I was bigger than them too. I got a lot of heat from the prissier girls and athletic boys. I was picked last more often than not for team sports.

The more heat I got from the other kids, the more competitive I got. It helped me to perform better in my physical education class and it helped me to avoid worse choices. Not every kid is like me though and I knew plenty that were so miserable, they would literally make themselves throw up to get away from having to deal with the taunting in the class.

I’ve met adults whose issues with being overweight and low self-confidence stems back to the days when they were victimized in school. I’ve comforted my five year-old daughter who has come home from school asking if she was fat. When I asked her why, she said one of the bigger kids in her class was getting called bad names by the other kids. She didn’t ever want to be that fat kid.

Understanding that weight loss requires physical activity and a good diet is only part of the equation. Understanding that you need the confidence and the positive self-esteem to reach your goals applies to your children every bit as much as you do. Work with your kids and their self-esteem. Find activities that they can engage in and keep your finger on the pulse of what is happening at the school. Talk to the teachers and the physical education instructors - chances are they are already aware of the bullying - they can set the tone for how that is dealt with in their classroom.

As many of you might wonder, what’s a typical day like (food wise) as a Weight Watcher’s dieter? People always ask me how I calculate my points, if I’m hungry, and what exactly do I do if I go over my points allotment for the day.The Scoop

Points calculations are fairly easy-every product in the grocery store has Nutrition Labels and most restaurants and fast food joints have their info posted or available on-line. The points are a combination of Calories, Total Fat and Dietary Fiber. So if something has 220 calories, 3 grams of fat, and dietary fiber of 2 grams, the total points value is 4. It’s that simple.

Right now, I’m eating about 20 points per day, along with my 36 allotted bonus points, which I usually eat about half of in a week. And to answer your questions, yes, some days I get really hungry, but I try to make good choices and get the most bang for my points, if you will.

A Typical Day of a Weight Watcher:

Many people ask me what exactly I eat on a daily basis, which my response is “Anything I want”…but I should add, “within reason”. On Weight Watchers, you CAN eat anything you want, but if you decide to have Taco Bell for breakfast, you will have probably used up the majority of your points for the day.

On the Menu for Today:

Breakfast: ½ cup Egg Beaters Cheese and Chive Egg Substitute: 2 pts 1 slice of high-fiber whole-grain toast with 1 Tbsp of creamy peanut butter 3 pts

Lunch: Lean Cuisine Spinach and Mushroom Pizza 6 pts

Dinner: 4 oz. of grilled chicken 4 pts 2 cups steamed broccoli 0 pts 2 cups of bag salad with 1 tsp of 1 Tbsp fat- free vinaigrette dressing 0 points ½ cup packaged instant Mashed Potatoes 3 points 4 oz glass of Chardonnay 2 points

Snacks: 1 c. seedless grapes 1 pt Weight Watchers Chocolate Dessert Bar 1 pt.

Total Daily Points: 22

So that’s 20 reg. points and 2 bonus points, which is perfect and keeps your metabolism going. It really is that easy.

The weight growing was a problem by by which many individuals pass and because of that they suffer by a whole choice from the diseases and problems. With much from questions to the spirit concerning the various programmes of mode and modes of exercise, there also a question as for emerges what the surgery of loss of weight can do for them in order to reduce the weight. Surgery of loss of weight gaining the identification At these day and age, the consulting-rooms of loss of weight gain the identification because of the greatest number of people being excessive weight and trying to reduce the weight to help them with the increased medical problems which they suffer from because of him.

The experts as regards health generally advise the people who have the excessive weight or have the lower metabolism to undergo the surgical options to reduce the weight. The current standards of the surgery In this era, the diagnosis of the process of the disease reached a new whole dimension with the development of the technology which helps the doctors to sort the various medical conditions by x-rays, tests laboratory, markers specific, pathological results, microbial evaluations and the identification, with a great selection of the current technological instruments nowadays. With the assistance of current technology, one returns to him possible that the doctors can now make the diagnosis with certainty rather than were made before with the assistance only clinical examinations.

Consequently, the people which suffers by problems and now wish to undergo the surgery can not pass by them without aucunes hesitations or doubt. Opinion of the experts as regards health in surgery of loss of weight the experts as regards health regard the surgery of loss of weight as important surgery and one of the most common reasons for which the people elect the surgery of loss of weight is because they want débarasser excessive weight and to take care of the problems which they intervene because of their increased weight, as well as to improve their physical prospects. The experts believe that the obese people of assistances of surgery of loss of weight live a better life and help them to live longer, healthier and better.

Importance of analysis of situation It is really important that the individual who wants to undergo the surgery must analyze their situation and makes research about the surgical options of loss different of weights which are available and what would be the best option for them and why they needs that initially. Discussion with an Indépendamment doctor to collect information on your clean, it is really important that the individual must consult the various aspects of various surgical options with the doctors so that they can learn from the things in a better detail, because the expert surgeon will help them to determine as for what is the best choice for them and with why and what are the risks and the advantages so that they undergo these consulting-rooms and what would be the results and the postoperative strategies of followup and how they will pass by the process of loss of weight.

Consultation with the psychiatrist and the dietician It is really important that you must consult the experts as regards health such as the psychiatrists and the dietician so that you can better include/understand as for which aspects of which you have need to take the care concerning the psychological needs and concern after the effective process which will come by the manner and what should be your plans of mode that you can place consequently, that you can discuss with your dietician. Which surgical procedures are regarded as succeeded? The surgical procedures whose patients can lose approximately 50% of the additional body weight would be successful and the patients will be able to maintain the loss of weight for the five years following period.

Walking, skating, jogging — and eating delicious foods that fill you up — keep your metabolism chugging along at a good rate so you can take off pounds. But for maximum fat burning, here are four ways to turn up the heat.

1. Maximize your muscles. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn even while lying poolside. But as we age, many of us lose more muscle than we gain, says Michael J. Hewitt, Ph.D., director of exercise physiology at Canyon Ranch in Tucson. The result: we burn fewer calories. The solution: strength training. Lifting weights curbs muscle loss and builds more muscle — along with a sleeker, firmer body. Two or three sessions each week (in addition to aerobic workouts) will do the trick. (For more information, see Weight Training Made Easy).

2. Vary your routine to burn more calories. “If you like cycling, walking, and swimming, do all three,” says Shawn C. Franckowiak, a consultant in exercise science at Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center in Baltimore. Different forms of exercise build and strengthen muscles in more parts of the body. Other advantages: “You’re less likely to become bored with exercise,” says Franckowiak. And your chances of getting injured are lower.