I used to be overweight, and depressed about it all the time. I tried diet after diet, but I would always lose my "willpower" and give up. But now it's been years since I lost the weight...

#1 Count Chemicals, Not Calories

Are you confused about what foods you should eat? What foods are healthy? What foods make you gain weight? What foods burn fat?

When all the labels say "healthy" and "lite" and "low-carb"... and the scientists keep changing their minds about whether it's the fats, the carbs, or now the good fats and bad fats and good carbs and bad carbs...

Let's make this simple. Here's what foods you should ACTUALLY eat if you want to lose weight...

If you follow all the old-fashioned methods of dieting, they'll tell you to count all the calories in the food and then subtract that from the total number of calories you're supposed to be eating for your weight loss diet plan. (The old-fashioned: "All you have to do is eat fewer calories than you burn" advice).

Well, I followed that dieting advice for years and it NEVER worked... in fact, while I was dieting, I kept gaining weight!

It turns out the body is more complex than this simple formula allows for and your metabolism adjusts to calorie reductions quite easily.

Here's a tip that DOES work...

I call it The 3-C Rule: "Count Chemicals, Not Calories"

I explain all the science of why this works in my healthy weight loss plan, but for now, all you really need to know is this-- The labels and brand names they put on the front of a box of food are all ADVERTISING. You're going to need to look at the back of the box, at the ingredients, to know what you are really eating.

Words like "healthy", "lite", "natural", "Earth", "country", "wholesome", "diet", etc., don't mean ANYTHING.

And because your body needs real fuel and nutrients to be healthy and strong, you can't just look at numbers like calories or grams of carbohydrates or fats.

The single most effective way to choose food in the grocery store is to buy foods with the absolute minimum number of CHEMICALS and of heavily PROCESSED foods (like enriched white flour and high-fructose corn syrup).

This one tip completely turned my weight loss journey around, and you will be amazed at what it will do for you.

Returning to a natural diet of natural foods will give your body all the nutrients, vitamins, minerals and LIFE ENERGY you need for a healthy, fat-free body.

Do you have a favorite food that you HAVE to have every day? And do you have intense cravings for this food when you don't have it? Do you feel tired, bloated and drained ALL the time?

These may be signs of a food addiction.

And if you're thinking, "Okay, so what's the big deal?" Then you have to know that it takes only ONE food to completely destroy your chances of losing weight for good.

See, many times the foods that we think we LOVE the most are actually the foods that our bodies are allergic too and are keeping us fat, tired and depressed.

Crazy huh?!

The good news, is that if you can identify your food addictions and allergies, then that is a good sign that you can also take your life back into your control.

Food allergies are much more common than most people realize. Millions of adults and children suffer from allergic reactions to food and do not know it because the symptoms can be hard to diagnose.

It's easy to know if you have a peanut or shellfish allergy that sends you to the emergency room everytime you eat it... your body is clearly telling you that you should NOT eat these foods.

But more common allergies, sometimes called "food sensitivities", have symptoms like bloating, poor digestion, headaches, lethargy, depression, and WEIGHT GAIN.

Most people with these food sensitivies don't know these symptoms they've lived with for years are caused by the food they've been eating for their entire lives... they just think, "There must be something wrong with me." So they blame it on their slow metabolism or their bad genetics and they just live with it.

But I speak from experience, that if you can recognize the foods that you are allergic to and eliminate them from your diet, then you will feel SO much better and you just might discover that you'll be able to lose weight effortlessly. (I have one friend that lost over 80 pounds without exercising just by cutting out wheat alone!)

The most common allergies are wheat, dairy, and more and more frequently, one of the thousands of chemicals that they put in processed foods (another reason why eating NATURAL foods is so much better for you).

Here's the really scary part:

Food addictions are often a symptom "masking" something your body is trying to protect itself from. And because the withdrawel effects are so uncomfortable, we crave the food that is causing the sickness!

It's just like when an alcoholic goes out drinking in order to avoid the hangover symptoms. We keep eating the foods that are making us sick because the "come-down", the withdrawel is hard to go through. But once your system is cleaned out and you haven't eaten the food for a while (usually it takes 2 weeks), then you will notice how much better you feel because the bloating is gone, and you'll have much more energy, and your thoughts will be positive and clear.

The best way to find out if YOU have one of these food sensitivies is to cut one of them out for 2 weeks and see what happens. If you think this could be you, here's a lot more information on food addiction.

Yoga is an aerobic exercise system that raises your heartbeat, heats up your body so you sweat out lots of toxins, and uses your own body weight as resistance for building and strengthening muscle.

Now all of that is great for losing weight, burning calories, and toning up your body... but yoga goes BEYOND traditional weight loss methods, and completely TRANSFORMS your body from the inside-out. Here's how...

The very first thing you do before you begin any yoga practice, is you connect to your breath. Just this act of connecting to your breath causes you to breathe deeper, and every breath becomes longer. This expansion in your lungs allows more oxygen to rush in and more toxins to be pulled out.

In every posture throughout your yoga practice you are always returning your awareness to your breath. This brings you into the present moment and immediately calms and quiets your mind. And when your mind is quiet and calm all sorts of wonderful things happen.

Stress is one of the biggest cause of disease in our culture. When your mind is stressed out ALL THE TIME, your body releases all kinds of harmful stress hormones like cortisol (and cortisol is a hormone that causes your body to store fat). By practicing yoga, and by bringing your mind into the present moment, you send signals to your body and mind that there is no stress here right now... your body is able to stop making those stress hormones and return to it's natural state of health.

The yoga postures twist and open your entire body allowing fresh oxygen to rush in and heal you and remove all the toxins and toxic energy that is causing your body to store fat. The twisting action also squeezes out your lymph nodes, your internal organs, and your glands leaving them fresh and clean - like wringing out an old, dirty sponge.

Here's a crazy, counter-intuitive diet tip...

Eat more often.

When you eat less frequently, your blood sugar level goes way up and way down. And from an evolutionary point of view, it suggests to your body systems that food is hard to come by, and so, when you DO get to eat, it ought to store just as much as it can as fat, just in case the next meal won't be coming for a while.

From an energy and mood point of view, the drops in blood sugar make you cranky and stressed out and that produces more of the hormones that cause fat and more of the moods that might send you seeking comfort from food. Plus, that low energy is going to make you less likely to exercise and to use your brain effectively (and did you know that using your brain burns even MORE calories than using your muscles?).

When you finally get a meal and you're HUNGRY, you tend to eat fast (to get rid of that hunger pain) and eat too much. Your blood sugar spikes, insulin rushes in, fat gets stored!

The 3-meal-a-day system was invented by some employer who wanted more work time out of his workers. And if you're SKIPPING meals on top of that, you are in TROUBLE.

Instead, start eating 6 meals a day.

-->Easy Tip: When you sit down at a "normal meal", cut it in half before you begin, eat half now and half in 2 hours

If you do this right, you'll never be quite full and you'll never be quite hungry either. You'll just be SATISFIED.

And because your blood sugar remains constant and optimum, you'll have tons of energy and your mood will be incredibly stable. You'll have this great sense of well-being.

And you'll be telling the survival systems of your body: "Hey guys, don't worry, there's plenty of food around. Quit storing fat and let's start using those reserves for energy, physical and mental activity, and fun instead!"

All of these tips work TOGETHER.

Any one of them is going to improve your life and your health. But do them together and EVERYTHING will turn around for you.

But this last one is the one that can kill all of the others if you don't get it right.

Unfortunately, there is something wired into human nature that makes the people who love us most very resistant to change... even when it's a healthy change for the better.

And here is the awful fact: If your best friend has an unhealthy diet, you are 5 TIMES more likely to have an unhealthy diet yourself.

It is HARD to make changes in your life... but when nobody around you is making those changes too... it's practically impossible.

The great news is, if your best friend DOES eat healthy foods, then you are 5 times more likely to eat healthy too.

But here's the big "Ah-ha"...

That means that if YOU eat healthy foods, your best friend is 5 times more likely to eat healthy... in other words, you can be a positive role model and positive influence on the peope you love.

You can help your friends get healthy, fit, and off those crazy chemicals in their food... and I'm going to help you.

Because I believe this is such an important process, I actually wrote a short eBook to help my clients talk to their friends and family about getting involved, plus it's loaded with tips and techniques you can use today to jump start your new life of health.

Most of my clients found the information in this report extremely helpful in their health and weight loss journey, so I'm making it available for FREE, exclusively to the Hubpages Community.

Get your FREE copy here:

Weight Loss Tips FREE Special Report

I know it can help you follow these 5 tips... and most importantly, achieve your goals for losing weight. Let's change your body and your life!

I believe in you.

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