Stop Gaining Fat by Zero Carb Cravings

Do you ever find that you're feeling really hungry and craving sugary food? If there's anything sweet in sight, you just can't control yourself. That piece of cake just looks so good. It's because of feelings like these that some people think that carbohydrates aren't good for them. They think that the key to losing weight is to avoid carbs. But actually, Americans have gotten fatter since low carb diets came on the scene. Today, over 60% of Americans are overweight or obese.

If you find yourself craving carbs it doesn't mean that carbs are bad for you. Cravings are our body's way of telling us that it's missing something. In Americans, the cravings are often associated with one of two things: the American custom of eating three meals a day, or low calorie diets.

If you eat three large meals a day, you're probably eating more at each meal than your body can handle. Even if you're eating nutritious foods like fresh fruit and vegetables, cereals or lean meat, if you give your body more calories than it can use at the time they will be stored as fat.

When you eat, your body releases insulin to process the sugars in your bloodstream. Any sugar that isn't required at the time is stored in your fat cells. Once the insulin is released, it keeps on doing its job until all the sugar has been processed. At this stage, the levels of both sugar and insulin in your blood will be very low. If this happens, you can be left feeling tired and irritable. This is why, if you have a large lunch and then don't have another meal until that night, you start feeling hungry around mid-afternoon.

This mid-afternoon hunger and tiredness is your body telling you that it needs more fuel to keep it functioning. Remember, there's no sugar in your bloodstream at this stage because the insulin has already processed it all and sent it to your fat cells. So you start to crave foods with lots of sugar because this is what your body desperately needs. If you give in to your cravings, your body then releases lots of insulin again to process the sugars and the cycle of highs and lows of blood sugar continues.

Maybe you managed not to give in to your cravings and didn't have anything to eat between lunch and dinner. Your body still needed energy so where did it come from? If there's no other source, your body will convert muscle tissue to sugar to use as energy. The end result of this is that your metabolism will become slower. Your body will become accustomed to burning fewer calories and you will build up more fat. This is what happens if you are on a low calorie diet.

So back to the two reasons you crave carbs that were mentioned earlier. If you're eating just three meals a day you are constantly putting your body through a series of sugar and insulin peaks and troughs and not providing it with a constant supply of fuel to convert to energy. And if you're on a low calorie diet, you're forcing it to find fuel from your muscles and slowing your metabolism.

So what's the solution? If you eat more regularly and have five small, nutritious meals throughout the day, you will keep up the fuel supply to your body. You won't go through periods of hypoglycaemia (which is when you have used all the sugar in your bloodstream) and you won't need to draw on your muscles to provide the sugar you need. Once you get into the habit of eating this way, you'll find that your cravings for carbs are a thing of the past.

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Three Big Rules for Eating and Reaching Your Fitness Goals

Whether your fitness goal is weight loss, athletic performance, more energy, better health, or just simply toning up, it is vital that you pay attention to your nutrition and food intake to reach this goal. In my experience as a personal trainer, working with thousands of clients over a period of 16 years, I observed that the role that food intake plays in a person reaching his or her fitness goal is paramount. In fact, it makes up for more than 75% of the influence of whether or not a person is successful. The challenge for me was that people who would be working very hard in the gym expected to see results and couldn't understand why they weren't getting them, even after all that work. I would always say to my clients and anyone in the gym that would listen, "You can work out ‘till the cows come home, but if you're not eating well, your body won't change, at least not cosmetically, period." Frequently, that statement would be met with some confusion and the response that they had been eating well, and things just weren't working anyway. Well, upon further review of the actual diet and food intake the clients actually had, it usually wasn't difficult to see what could be improved with them so they could start seeing the results (typically weight loss) that they desired.

What I found was that people who want to lose weight believe that the only way that is going to happen is if they eat less food, which in many cases is actually counter to what the person actually needs. They have been eating a certain way for awhile and they are dissatisfied with their appearance, so they take the food intake they have been eating and they reduce the calories while they come to the gym and work with a personal trainer. They get sore and maybe see some change in the beginning of their program, but it isn't long before they are at a plateau and frustrated, because this plateau certainly isn't the result of a lack of effort.

Here is where a basic knowledge of the way that food intake actually influences weight loss is a tremendous help. It takes some of the mystery out of the equation and allows a person to make some intelligent choices that will help them reach their fitness goals. There are three big concepts that I find have really helped people get a grasp of the basics.

The first is to EAT ENOUGH! As I said before, the tendency is for people to really restrict their food intake in an effort to lose weight. If a person comes into beginning a fitness program having truly been an overeater, then a reduction in calories is appropriate. However, the culprit with most people who are overweight or overfat is not that they eat too much, it's that their metabolism is shot from a lack of exercise and bad eating habits. So, ironically, one of the things that has to happen with a person who wants to lose weight is that they frequently have to increase their overall intake of food somewhat to keep up with the demands of the new exercise and keep from starving, allowing the metabolism to rise naturally.

The second is to EAT OFTEN. Rule #1 doesn't do any good if all the calories you might be taking in come at dinner after starving yourself all day. This is the biggest single reason people have trouble with their physiques, this lack of regular eating. Regular eating throughout the day never lets the body get too hungry or too full, and the body responds by raising the metabolism and burning more fat. The ideal number of meals and snacks combined throughout the day is from 4-6, spaced evenly starting with breakfast as soon as you get up in the morning.

The last rule is to EAT BALANCED! I once had a client who said that she was eating 5 times a day like I had suggested, yet upon further examination I found that she was eating a handful of Cheerios for three of those meals. The result was that she wasn't eating enough food overall to fuel her body, and she was missing some key necessities in her diet, like adequate amounts of protein, that kept her from reaching her fitness goals. Eating balanced means getting adequate amounts of protein, carbohydrates, fats, fruits and vegetables spaced evenly throughout the day with each meal, if possible. This controls appetite and keeps the body feeling well fueled throughout the day, contributing to fat loss.

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Do You have Symptoms of Fatigue, Shortness of Breath, or a Rapid Heart Beat?

Let me know if this sounds like you? You experience frequent bouts of quick onset of sweating, a sudden rapid heart rate, or all of a sudden a shortness of breath. You may think that you are having a heart attack, though the real cause may be something you didn't expect.

If this sounds like you do you skip breakfast often? Thus once you skip breakfast your day goes by with off on bouts of fatigue and sluggishness that you fix with either trips to Starbucks or the vending machine. Quickly after eating the high sugar of gourmet coffees or snacks in vending machines you feel better though it doesn't last and a few hours later you are crashing again.

What is happening is a lack of small meals during the day is throwing your hormones out of balance. Too much insulin in your blood stream from constant bouts of low and then high blood sugar is causing your symptoms mentioned earlier. This process starts many Americans on the path to diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and high blood pressure. Who would have though it was all causes when you skipped breakfast?

Most Americans from not poor diet choices, but poor diet habits are living everyday with their hormones out of balance. What I mean by poor diet habits instead of poor diet choices is that most people may think they eat too much fast food or not enough vegetables, though it is the simple act not eating small meals throughout the day that causes the hormonal imbalances.

Your endocrine system (hormones) and your nervous system control your body's rhythm which allows you to prevent disease and live healthy. Most pharmaceutical drugs mast the symptoms people feel like depression or fatigue though the only way to make a cure is to get your hormones back into balance from your diet.

The key understanding how your hormone insulin works and what you can to get in back into balance.

1. Insulin is the key hormone that controls how much fat you store.

2. High insulin levels triggers your brain to crave high sugar foods.

3. Insulin puts stress on the brain which leads to type 3 diabetes or Alzheimer's.

4. Your body becomes resistant to the effects of insulin and that process is the cause of over half the cases of high blood pressure.

5. Insulin enhances the chance of cancer cells forming.

6. High levels of insulin have been linked to depression, panic attacks, anxiety, ADHD, and insomnia.

7. Insulin makes your blood clot faster which increases risk of heart attacks and strokes.

8. Insulin can lead to lower testosterone which causes infertility, acne, hair loss for both men and women, and sexual performance issues.

Top 10 Tips to Re balance Your Insulin

1. Eat a higher amount of whole foods that have not been processed like fruits, vegetables, beans, fish, chicken, and eggs.

2. Remove trans fats from your diet. There is no health benefit to any trans fats in your diet.

3. Eat more organic foods which don't use pesticides, antibiotics, and hormones.

4. Avoid high sugar foods.

5. Eat breakfast. If you are not in the habit; start with something. Just drinking coffee doesn't count for eating breakfast.

6. Eat 5 small meals during the day or every 2-3 hours.

7. Don't eat a large meal than go to bed. This is also solved by eating 5 small meals as you loose the ability to overeat.

8. Get 7-8 hours of sleep a night. Lack of sleep will limit the affects of any amount of health eating that you will do. You are not able to catch up on the weekends.

9. Get at least 3 bouts of exercise in during the week. Cardiovascular exercise has been shown to support stabilizing your blood sugar.

10. Ten a few minutes to relax every day. High stress releases cortisol into your blood stream which amplifies the effects of insulin.

When you embark on balancing your hormones remember it is a lifestyle not a 90 day plan. The goal is that every action you take is an action that you can add to your life that you can continue. Any solution that is short term typically only causes more problems or at least different problems.

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