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Can You Think Yourself Thin?

Thinking Yourself Slim - does it really work?

It’s been said that with the power of your mind, you can achieve any goal in life. Is your mind powerful enough to help you lose weight? If you follow these tips below, you may find yourself slimming down with ease.

If you tell yourself something enough times, your subconscious mind will start to believe what you are saying, and it will work to make it true. Such as, if you say you’re a magnet for dating losers, then after time, you’ll find that’s all you attract are people that aren’t up to your dating standards. If you want to change something about yourself, you need to tell yourself positive statements of how you want things to be.

A simple way to do this would be to look in the mirror everyday and tell yourself in the present tense that you’re so happy you’re at your goal weight. You may feel silly doing this at first since it’s not a true statement yet, but if you can eventually say the words and feel the happiness that you would feel if it were true, then you can begin to use the power of your subconscious mind to make it happen.

Another great technique for reprogramming your subconscious mind is through visualization. Every night before you fall asleep, visualize a scenario in your head.

It can be whatever makes you happiest, but make sure you are visualizing yourself at your goal weight, wearing the clothes you expect to be wearing, and feeling like you would as if you were at the weight you wanted to be. You can really expand this scenario by imagining how you would want people to react to the new you.
This is the technique that many hypnotists use on their clients to help assist in weight loss.

On a daily basis, we all do things based on what our subconscious mind tells us to do. When you work on changing what your mind believes everyday, you can gain a powerful tool to help you reach your weight loss goals. In order for this to work, you need to be consistent in your efforts, and you need to believe in what you are telling yourself.
weight loss visualization
So does thinking yourself slim really work? Many of my counterparts do say that this technique does work on a good portion of the population, but like all diets and programs it may not help with everyone.

My thoughts are that positive thinking is always good so even if it doesn’t help you to lose weight right away, it doesn’t mean that you are not seeding your mind with “skinny thoughts”.

For the few minutes a day that it takes and at zero cost - I believe it’s worth it.

The Importance of Vitamin D

Although we often bathe more often during summer (sometimes 2-3 times a day on a hot steamy days) the use of soap each time can remove sterols which help sunlight turn to vitamin D.

It is true, however, that oily substances in the skin are removed by soap scrubbings, and that these are the very materials which are changed into Vitamin D by the action of the sunlight.

You can have a coat of tan that speaks of hours lying in the sun, yet the vitamin benefits of the sunshine may have been largely lost if you conscientiously bathed yourself before exposure. Too, the deeper your tan, the less sunshine vitamin you get, for the pigment shuts the vitamin-producing rays out from the skin.

For that matter, the benefit of sunbathing in city regions is probably overrated, from the vitamin point of view. Dust, smoke, and invisible urban effluvia may effectively curtain off the ultra-violet wavelengths of sunlight, which are the only ones that help your skin manufacture Vitamin D.

Practically, therefore, you will do well to get Vitamin D by other sources than suntan, although as an adult your needs for the vitamin are considerably less than the requirements of children. The particular virtue of Vitamin D is its masterly control over the distribution of calcium and phosphorus in the body—minerals which not only are the major building-blocks of bones and teeth, but which also play vital chemical roles in the body’s functions.

Strangely enough, a relationship of Vitamin D to myopia (nearsightedness) has recently been demonstrated in animals. Lack of the vitamin and therefore of proper calcium and phosphorus metabolism has, in animals, weakened the outer coats of the eye and changed its refractive properties. The experimental animals were puppies, but a human application is not improbable.

It is babies, however, who are most seriously affected by Vitamin D shortages. They develop rickets, a disease in which deformed bones are exhibited as bowlegs, knock-knees, swollen joints, distorted pelvis, chest and spine. So important is this vitamin to infants that their diets always include cod liver oil or other concentrate, and the doctor’s orders should be faithfully followed.

You can get a good deal of Vitamin D from ordinary foods, but the chances are you don’t. Peanut butter, milk, graham crackers, cereals, and a vast number of other foods commonly used by children, are now available with Vitamin D artificially added. These are usually good investments. Oily fishes—tuna, salmon, herring, sardines—are the best sources among common unfortified foodstuffs. Eggs and butter also contribute small amounts.

The easiest way of securing Vitamin D is to use fortified milk, many varieties of which contribute a full day’s vitamin quota per quart. Concentrates such as viosterol are potent and relatively inexpensive. Any surplus that you build up during exposure to summer sunshine is stored for doling out through the winter.

And if you need to shower or bathe a few times a day only use soap for one of the showers. This way you’ll still cool off but won’t remove the necessary sterols.

Why Activity is Important While Dieting

We have all heard about weight trainers eating 10,000 + calories a day in order to build muscle and many have argued that it’s the act of muscle building and having large muscles that burns all these calories.

Now you have a good example of someone who doesn’t have huge muscles but burns 12,000 or so calories a day because he burns it off during physical activity.

The key to keeping weight off and losing weight has always been the same - it’s not the amount of calories that you take in BUT the amount of calories that you will burn.

As long as you burn more calories than you take in you’ll lose the weight. Take in more calories than you burn and you gain weight.

The diet itself in terms of calories is not as important than your activity level.

So don’t be so concerned which diet you go on or if you have cheated and had a cookie - just up your activity level to match the calories that you took in.

So start planning on increasing your physical activity and you won’t
clipped from sports.yahoo.com
Michael Phelps eats 12,000 calories per day

After he retires from swimming, Michael Phelps might want to try his hand at competitive eating. The Olympic star recently said he consumes 12,000 calories per day, or 9,500 more than the FDA recommends for an active, young male. 

Phelps has to keep his intake up in order to compensate for all the calories he burns during the 30-hours per week he spends in training. He told NBC that an average day might have the following menu:

Breakfast: 3 fried egg sandwiches, 2 cups coffee, 5-egg omlette, bowl of grits, 3 pieces of french toast, 3 chocolate chip pancakes

Lunch: 1 pound pasta, 2 ham and cheese sandwiches, energy drink (1,000 calorie)

Dinner: 1 pound pasta, 1 large pizza, energy drink (1,000 calorie)

Three years ago, Phelps told an interviewer:

I eat pretty much
whatever I want. I don’t have a strict diet. It’s all about cramming in
as many calories into my system as I possibly can
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Bra Bulge - Don’t You Just Hate it?

You could have a nice thin body and still have that ugly bra bulge.
It’s nice to finally see exercises that target this area. Also, as I was reading the rest of the article it refers to another web site that has a bra made by Spanx that gets rid of the bulge. I’m on my way to get one now!
clipped from ezinearticles.com
How To Lose Bra Bulge

Bra bulge is a problem among many women but unfortunately it is one of the hardest places to target. However there are some exercises you can do to which will tone your back and the muscles surrounding it, which will tighten the skin around this area.

If you have access to a pool one of the easiest and most effective ways to target this area and lose the bra bulge is by swimming breast stroke. This exercise targets the abdomen, pectorals, and back muscles. You should do between 20 and 30 laps of breast stroke at least 3 times a week. Use a broad range of motion to target the most muscle groups. If you don’t have access to a pool you can mimic this movement by getting in a squat position and doing the same arm movements. Since water adds resistance try adding 1 or 5 pound weights to achieve maximum results.

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Flat Belly Diets

Very interesting article on Yahoo buzz talking about several of the top searched diets including the flat belly diet.
If you looking for a diet plan you can get a quick overview of many of the top diets all off of the same site.
clipped from buzz.yahoo.com

Flat Belly Buzz


by Molly McCall




August 4, 2008 04:03:54 PM



Dieters, step right up to meet the latest and the leanest. From Prevention magazine comes the “Flat Belly Diet,” a new weight-loss regime emphasizing foods that “whittle away” fat in the stomach.

Never ones to play couch potatoes, the Prevention editors behind the diet have already logged miles on the promotions circuit. A web site, TV appearances from the diet’s co-creators, and the publication of a “mini-mag” have all contributed to a growing chorus of belly buzz.


Searches for “flat belly diet” spiked 174% yesterday, boosting the weight-loss plan into our top 300 fastest moving searches. And though not all the buzz is positive—one diet blog called the program “a gimmick“—other sites have gone so far as to murmur the word “impressive.”


Which opinion takes hold with the public remains to be seen, but in the meantime, Flat Belly can enjoy its rising profile online. The program cracked the top 10 most

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