temimi

You know you are overweight, and you are ready to do something about it. You diet and diet and you stop gaining weight. That is a step in the right direction. You will start losing weight soon, right? Not necessarily. A few weeks go by, and you still haven’t lost any weight, just remaining steady. Frustration sets in, and you start looking for answers.

Why It’s Challenging-2 Things

Jump starting weight loss after a long period of inactivity and/or poor diet can be somewhat difficult and challenging. It may seem like no matter how hard you try, or how little you cheat, you just can’t seem to lose weight. For most people, this is a result of one important factor-a lack of exercise.

A lack of exercise will keep you from losing weight. In order to lose weight, you have to be able to burn more calories than you are taking in. This means that if you lower your caloric intake, but don’t increase exercise, you will simply maintain your current weight and not get any healthier or thinner.

You may have thought that by adding a morning walk or an evening run to your daily routine that you were getting enough exercise. After all, it is more exercise than you have gotten in a long time, if ever. However, often this simple walk or run is just not enough. You have to step up your exercise if you want to lose weight and get healthy.

You Have to Get Into a Routine

This is the most important part of a plan or program to get healthier and lose weight. You have to first get yourself into a routine that you can stick to no matter what. This routine includes diet and exercise, as well as mental health activities. This is required for you to improve your whole health lifestyle.

Set up a time when you will exercise every day on your own. This could be that morning walk or evening run. However, you also need to set up exercise that you will do at least three times per week with other people. Getting involved in an aerobics class is a great way to do this. You can also join a gym and get a personal trainer. Whichever route you go, the goal is simple. You want to have a place that you have to go at a specific time where you will be held accountable if you do not show up and do your work out.

3 Things to Do to Improve Your Health

In addition to your diet and exercise plan there are three things you should do to improve your health, which will in turn help you lose weight. First, you have to take time out for you that is not for exercise, but for relaxation. Even just thirty minutes a day to meditate, read a good leisurely book, or veg out in front of the television is all you need for good mental health and to keep your spirits high.

In addition, you need to get enough sleep every night. This means getting at least seven to nine hours of sleep every single night, within decent time frames. This way you will be able to feel your best, which will in turn relate to you losing weight. Finally, you have to stay motivated. Motivation can come in many forms, but when you find what motivates you, make sure you stick with it.

For more information please visit our Prevention of Falls Training and Patient and Family Education Training web pages.

So many people ask what is the best and safest way to lose weight fast, and the answer is generally a simple one. Try a low fat healthy diet and start exercising regularly. Turning to diet pills and trendy exercise gadgets that you see on midnight infomercials will only take your money and leave you without results. Losing weight the healthy way is the only real way to get the body you want. The most important step to take is to get the right mindset, and create a plan for yourself. You need to have determination and a purpose to reach your weight loss goals.

Getting a plan together and making the commitment to yourself to actually change your bad habits and get the shape you want is critical to your success. If you don’t like the shape your in, you can change it. Real world weight loss is possible, and it is a choice. Start where you are, and find daily motivations to get healthy and lean.

A low fat healthy diet should be your first step in creating a plan to take off the weight. Low fat diets are excellent for reducing heart disease, and you may also want to consider eating less calories for maximum results. Your goal will be to burn more calories than you eat, and this can be achieved by exercising more and eating less calories and fat. Foods high in fat include junk food like french fries, potato chips, and bacon. Try substituting foods that are high in nutritional value and low in calories like fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and lean protein like grilled turkey or tofu. Try replacing unhealthy fats for healthy ones. Nuts, seeds, and olive oil have healthy fats, and can actually aid in weight loss.

Exercise is another important factor in getting lean fast. You might wonder what kinds of exercises are best, and how long should you workout. The answer would be an exercise that you would enjoy doing, and do regularly. Many times people give up their weight loss goals because they get bored with exercise, or they get hurt doing an exercise that is unsuitable for them. As a rule, you want to burn more calories with your workout than you will take in. Find some kind of cardio like walking, running, or biking. You can also try swimming, or aerobics. Workout for at least 20 minutes, three or more times a week to get those calories burning.

You can use these common sense methods to achieve the best and safest way to lose weight fast. Once you create a plan and get motivated, you will be amazed with the success you can achieve.

Learn more tips on how to stop overeating, and fat burning foods that can accelerate your weight loss.

Claim Your “Must Have” Starter Kit to Permanent Weight Loss & Vibrant Health A 7 Day E-Course: http://get-rid-of-muffin-top.blogspot.com/

Having become more health-conscious nowadays, many people have bypassed traditional medicine and have gone the natural route. What this means is that instead of just taking drugs that only treat symptoms, people are utilizing diet, vitamins and minerals, and herbs to treat the body as a whole in hopes to obtain better health. One of the easiest changes that you can make to obtain better health is to switch to drinking green tea instead of coffee or soda. Here are ten health benefits of green tea and their effect on chronic disease. It can:

• Act as an antioxidant which may help treat and/or prevent cancer — Free radicals in the body have been proven to cause cancer as well as other chronic diseases. It can help your body fight the free radicals because it contains large amounts of antioxidants and other beneficial substances like EGCG, catechins, carotenoids, tocopherols, as well as regular old Vitamin C.
• Help you to lose weight and may help you live longer — By regulating blood sugar levels, reducing food cravings, helping the body absorb less dietary fat, blocking the conversion of excess calories into fat, and increasing your metabolism, green tea can help your body burn fat and help you lose weight. It is also a great way to re-hydrate the body, maybe even better than water, which is vital as dehydration has been proven to be one of the major causes of chronic diseases.
• Reduce stress and boost the body’s immune system — Green tea has the ability to calm the body and elevate your awareness which gives your body the ability to reduce its stress level. It does this with the help of a chemical called theanine, which can also help to boos your body’s immune system, according to scientific studies.
• Protect the body from heart attack and stroke — With an amazing ability (that is still not completely understood by scientists) to speed up the recovery process in heart attack and stroke patients, green tea can also prevent future relapses.
• Improve heart health and may help to reduce high blood pressure — By reducing the hardening inside of the arteries, green tea has been proven to lower high blood pressure, lower cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood clots which can greatly improve your heart health.
• Treat and/or prevent diabetes — A known anti-diabetic, green tea can treat and/or prevent diabetes by regulating the blood sugar levels in the body. It does this with the help of theaflavines and EGCG, which also promote glucose metabolism, increase insulin activities, and block glucose absorption.
• Treat inflammation and rheumatoid arthritis — It has been shown to have great anti-inflammatory properties, which can help to reduce the effects of several different chronic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, acne, and colitis.
• Protect lungs from smoking and liver from alcohol — Green tea has been shown to reduce cellular damage in a smoker’s lungs and also to reduce liver damage caused by alcohol and other toxins. While not supporting either of these activities, this may very well explain why Japanese people tend to have a lower rate of lung cancer.
• Prevent tooth decay and bad breath — Green tea helps to fight the germs and mouth viruses that cause bad breath, and is not erosive to the teeth like soda which helps to prevent tooth decay.
• Reduce the risk of osteoporosis — With the help of a high phytoestrogen, flavonoid, and fluoride content, green tea helps to build bone and preserve bone density, thus reducing the risk of osteoporosis.

Here we have evidence on the health benefits of green tea and their effect on chronic disease. The green tea benefits far outweigh the detriments and it can be a healthier replacement to drinking coffee or soda. Many people are becoming more health-conscious and going the naturopathic route of treating the body as a whole with the use of diet, vitamins and minerals, and herbs. Visit www.earthwayhealth.com for all of your vitamin needs. Drinking green tea is one of the easiest things that you can do to better your health. Take action now!

*This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

All of the statements made here have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Yes, this may sound somewhat ironic. After all, the reason most of us bother with taking multivitamin supplements to begin with is that they are supposedly able to guard against the onset of serious diseases, and otherwise protect our health over the long-term, by providing us the nutrients which we know we are missing in our American diets. Unfortunately, scientific evidence relating to the long-term effects of multivitamin supplements is beginning to stack up, and the consensus is clear: multivitamins don’t prevent disease. In fact, they might actually help cause it. Our advice would be to consider seaweed nutrition.

One 2008 study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, sought to determine the long-term effects of daily multivitamin use on women. The study found, contrary to expectations, that women who took a multivitamin were more likely than women who didn’t take a multivitamin to develop dense breast tissue, which is considered a precursor to breast cancer.

The problems with multivitamins are manifold. First of all, they contain lots of different kinds of inert powders and dyes, intended to help give them their characteristic shapes and appearances. This is good for marketing and profit margins, but bad for your body, because it means you’re forced to ingest a lot of “miscellaneous” binder and filler matter, that has no nutritional value and may be harmful in the long term. In fact, every major degenerative disease increased in the population taking these supplements over the past 70 years, and now over 65 different studies are confirming why this has happened.

The major problem with the average multivitamin supplement is that the nutrients it contains are entirely artificial. By this we mean, consisting of 95-100% synthetic, man-made compounds, with zero food value, and extremely acidic with a pH of approximately 2.0. These compounds are found in over 350 different brands of so-called vitamins, and 85% of these dead compounds are manufactured by 8 drug companies. It’s always better to get the majority of one’s nutrients from actual food, rather than from lab-refined chemicals. It’s little wonder that multivitamin supplements are causing problems for people who take them on a regular basis. They have almost no similarity to anything one would ingest in the normal course of life. The truth is that they are closer to plastic, than to organic nutrition. We are NOT missing these compounds in our diet AND our bodies CAN tell the difference, as the numerous studies have now proven.

Seaweed is an ideal replacement for any standard multivitamin. It’s rich in hundreds of different phyto-nutrients, including all 28 known vitamins, and over 72 trace and colloidal minerals. Seaweed is an excellent source of naturally occurring vitamins D and B12. It’s also one of the only plentiful vegetable sources of all-natural iodine.

The Japanese population eats 7 grams of sea plants each day, and they have the healthiest and longest living population in the world today. If you’re taking a daily multivitamin, consider taking seaweed daily, instead.

Scott Kennedy is a health and nutrition guru. In collaboration with Stephan Kraan PhD Marine Botany, created Sea Veg® and the FarmaSea® Health Blend of Sea Plants.

Sea Veg ® is up to 60 times more potent than any land plant salad and contains hundreds of organic plant compounds known as phyto (plant) chemicals. These organic compounds are extremely necessary for proper cell health, but many are missing from our processed food supply.
http://www.superseaveg.com

“Super Sea Veg® is the only dietary FOOD supplement that consists of a blend of twelve organic edible sea plants, chosen from over 10,000 species and harvested from pristine ocean waters around the world. Super Sea Veg® contains every element and nutrient known to man and MORE, in concentrated and balanced amounts, in 100% vegetable capsules, which by taking every day, will move your cells, blood and body toward superior biological health and homeostasis”

If you have been overweight for some time, you’ve probably tried many diets and are unclear as to how to lose the weight and keep it off without feeling hungry or deprived. There seems to always be debate and controversy surrounding the issue of diet. Which is the correct eating plan? Should you follow a high protein or low to moderate protein eating plan? Are carbohydrates okay to eat or should you restrict them? How much fat should you eat and what types? Is it okay to eat animal products, including dairy and eggs or should you cut them out and follow a vegetarian eating plan? What information can you trust since it seems to be constantly changing? Decades of cultural diet mentality and the over-consumption of calorie-rich animal and man-made processed foods have disconnected many of us from our intuitive body wisdom.

There is one thing that most of the experts agree upon: our modern diet is a far cry from the more whole-foods diet of our ancestors. Over time, our diet has been slowly increasing in high-fat animal foods (sausage, bacon, franks and ribs), highly refined processed carbohydrates (cakes, chips, pastries, cookies and candy) and foods artificially concentrated in proteins, fats and sugars and deficient in plant fiber (many meats and “mock meats”, dairy products, protein bars, etc.)

We are consuming less plant food than ever before in our history. Our nomadic ancestors were constantly on the move and they ate a lot of wild plant food full of fiber. Plant foods provide our bodies with all the essential nutrients needed-amino acids, essential fatty acids, carbohydrates, phytochemicals, vitamins and minerals. We can maintain our best health and optimum weight by consuming at least 30 grams of fiber each day. Fiber helps to fill you up and turn off your appetite. Did you know that plant-eating animals our size in nature eat 30 to 90 grams or more of fiber per day?

Our body chemistry and body signals (like hunger, cravings and fullness) get thrown off when we consume a low-fiber diet filled with unnatural high-fat animal foods and processed man-made foods. Our modern diet and convenience-focused lifestyle has come with a high price: food addiction and degenerative diseases which include heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, gall and kidney stones, osteoporosis, cancer and obesity.

So what’s the best eating plan? One that includes natural whole fiber-filled foods like fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, whole grains, legumes (beans and lentils), potatoes, nuts and seeds. On a whole foods eating plan you don’t have to concern yourself with the amount of protein or carbohydrate. Because you eat foods raw, in their natural state, or lightly cooked (without added oils, which are not natural at all, despite what you’ve been told) there is no need to count calories or grams or weigh and measure food. When you eat whole foods, you work with your body as opposed to against it. You can trust your intuitive body wisdom to guide you to eat, select the right foods and stop eating when you’ve had enough. You can eat as much as you like and still lose weight effortlessly, without feeling hungry. The only area you may have to watch is your intake of high-fat wholesome foods like nuts, avocados and olives-in nature, you wouldn’t have these foods in quantity and you’d have to work hard to obtain them.

It’s not always easy to change habits many years in the making, especially if many of your favorite comfort foods are high-fat animal foods and refined, processed man-made foods. When you’re used to eating foods high in fat, sugar and salt, natural foods can seem plain and boring. But as you slowly add more natural whole foods to your diet, these foods will shift your palate and chemistry. Changing your diet and releasing foods that no longer serve your body then becomes easy and effortless.

You can make the transition to a natural whole foods eating plan in just five easy steps:

Step 1: Increase your intake of fresh fruits and vegetables. Choose whole raw fruit over fruit juices and be sure to include calcium-rich dark green vegetables like broccoli and kale as well as starchy vegetables like carrots, squashes, corn, potatoes and pumpkin.

Step 2: Increase your intake of legumes, such as beans, peas and lentils. This group also includes soybeans and chick-peas. You can add these to soups and salads.

Step 3: Increase your intake of whole, unprocessed grains while you reduce your intake of refined, processed grain products. Whole grains such as brown rice, oat groats, barley, bulgur and quinoa are rich in fiber, protein, B vitamins and zinc. As you add more whole grains to your diet, it becomes easier to “let go” of the refined flour products like crackers, bagels, cereals, cookies, cakes and muffins.

Step 4: Reduce or eliminate red meat, poultry and fish. Animal foods contain cholesterol, have no fiber and many are high in fat and saturated fat. Meat, poultry and dairy products are often full of antibiotics and hormones and many fish are full of mercury and other toxic chemicals.

Step 5: Reduce or eliminate your intake of dairy products, artificial fats and cooking oils. Try substituting with non-dairy alternatives like soy, rice, almond and oat milks. Fat-free dressings, salsa and oil-free hummus are good alternatives. Try cooking with seasoned broth rather than oils.

Many of the foods you already enjoy are natural whole foods. Try adding one new food per week, or a few vegetarian meals per week. There are many wonderful cookbooks available in bookstores and whole food stores. There are also many vegan and vegetarian restaurants to try.

Go at your own pace as you add wholesome foods to your diet. There is no rush in transitioning to a whole foods eating plan. Keep in mind that the best eating plan for you is a plan that you can stick with. Bon appetite!

Julie M. Simon, MA, MBA, MFT is a Licensed Psychotherapist and Life Coach with a full-time private practice specializing in the treatment of overeating and associated mood disorders. In addition to her education and twenty years experience as a psychotherapist, she is a Certified Personal Trainer with twenty-five years of experience designing personalized exercise and nutrition programs for various populations. Julie is the creator of The Twelve-Week Emotional Eating Recovery Program, an alternative to dieting that addresses the mind, body and spirit imbalances that underlie overeating. Julie offers individual, couple, family and group psychotherapy as well as classes and seminars. In addition to overeating, Julie offers psychotherapy and coaching for the following issues: relationship challenges, including marriage and couples, career development and transitions, work related stress, self-esteem, childhood dysfunction and trauma, grief and loss, co-dependency, self-care skills, and assertiveness training. Visit her website at http://www.overeatingrecovery.com.

For dieters and weight watchers, the word “carbohydrates” do not get many votes of approval. In fact, carbs are often avoided in meals, as they have the reputation of causing weight gain for some people. With the bad reputation carbs have, what is the truth behind all of it? Are there any good carbs at all? Actually there are.

Carbohydrates are further classified into two kinds:

1. Simple carbohydrates, and
2. Complex carbohydrates.

Simple carbohydrates are also called simple sugars. These carbs provide quick energy for the body, and are easily digestible. However these carbs provide very little or no health value nor nutrients. These are easily digested by the body and are readily converted to fat. These simple carbs can be found in candies, table sugar, carbonated sodas, and other sweet desserts. In the literal sense, these give you a “sugar rush” that does very little good for your health.

Healthy “good” carbs on the other hand are the complex carbohydrates. These are slower to digest and are rich in fiber. Food that are high in fiber are important in maintaining a healthy blood sugar level as it slows down the absorption of nutrients that prevents the creation of fat that converts into sugar in the blood. Fiber also gives the body the extra energy it needs and at the same time lowers cholesterol and sweeps the toxins from the digestive system. Complex carbohydrates also create the feeling of being full easily, so for those on a diet, these are good food choices. Complex carbohydrates are found in whole grains and oats, beans, fresh fruits and vegetables.

A very simple way to incorporate complex carbohydrates in to your diet is simply swapping “white” grains with “brown” whole grains. White rice can be substituted to brown rice and white bread can be replaced by whole wheat or sprouted grain bread. Another way of getting those healthy complex carbohydrates into the food you eat is consuming plenty of fruits and vegetables. Now you have to remember that to get the most fiber from the fruits you eat, you have eat the real fruit itself. Instead of processing any of your fruits and vegetables, it is much better to eat them raw. Adding assorted beans to your diet also helps you to get more fiber into your meals.

Carbohydrates need not be feared if you are trying to watch your weight or if you are just trying to remain healthy. It is all up to you which carbohydrate you eat, the simple carbohydrates or the complex carbohydrates. If you are the type that cannot seem to let go of carbs from your diet, there is hope for you! Complex carbohydrates are your new best friends, full of health value and nutrients!

What kind of foods should you be eating to be healthy? For tips and other helpful information, you can visit my website http://jamesdowniewellness.com/. There you can get to know about my work as a health and wellness trainer and coach that will be most helpful in your journey to better health.

As a Seattle EFT and hypnosis practitioner, who helps people lose weight, my first advice is to quit dieting!

Yes, you can learn to eat to live, and the freedom is life-changing.

EFT and Hypnosis are great tools to help you permanently change your relationship with food.

1. If you have been thinking you need to go on a diet and just haven’t mustered up the courage, maybe it is because diet, has the word DIE in it! umm

2. Going on a diet heavily suggests that there is something wrong with you. You either feel fat, or actually may be a little fat. Either way, you may feel ashamed of how you look. Have you managed to get your dog, your kids, your staff, or significant other to consistently cooperate by using shame? “Shame is the lie someone told you about yourself.”
- Anaïs Nin and it is not a proven motivator for lasting change.

3. Numerous experiments have shown that if you starve a rat (put a rat on a diet) he will, given the opportunity, eat more than before, especially sugar. Think about that for a moment.

4. Diet foods suck. Fake sugars are shown to make you fatter. Your brain thinks it got something your body can use, but where the heck is it? and so it keeps looking? not to mention, diarrhea, gas, and neurological difficulties Well sugar really is a problem, but fake sugar is not the answer.

5. Dieting ultimately teaches you to focus upon the wrong numbers. The number that counts is how often you manage to feed yourself with love, kindness, and consideration.

6. Dieting is a disconnect. Your yangy left-brain with all its logic is put in charge. Your right brain with instinctual, feminine tendencies has been dismissed.

7. Dieting is often an event that begins and ends with a Food Bender. Weight Watchers participants go out to dinner after weigh in. Eating disorders are set into motion.

8. Dieting is live, sexy, juicy bait for your Inner Rebel. Many people just ll not stay on a diet. Their inner rebel insists on doing whatever he or she wants, even when it is destructive.

9. How much you eat, why you eat, overeat, forget to eat, and insist on eating the wrong foods for you, has never been sustainably resolved with a diet. In fact, dieting disconnects your spirit from your body when in fact both your body and your spirit want your love and attention.

Lisa Crunick, Seattle practitioner using EFT, Hypnosis, and laughter to help you get to the heart of it, and change your mind. http://www.lisacrunick.com/

Don’t you think cookies, chocolates, and cakes are just some of life’s loveliest offerings to enjoy? I know, I love them dearly also. But, those sweet tasting goodies are known to help to increase our sugar and food cravings. And that leads to weight gain and possible adult onset diabetes later in life.

If you follow these simple tips, they will help you to stop your sugar and food cravings before they start.

1. Make more nutritious foods at home.

There is no secret in your fast and crazy paced world that it’s very easy and handy to get food on the run. And most of the time that fast food is filled with sugar and fat. Did you ever wonder why you crave sugar after you ate a “healthy” meal? There are no nutrients in that fast food you are eating…your body is still crying out for some vitamins and minerals to keep its functions running smoothly.

And you get to know that less chemicals and preservatives are going in your mouth. And that is a good thing.

2. Follow a healthy regiment.

By establishing healthy habits on a daily basis, your body will build up a nice reservoir of needed nutrition, so even if you have an off day or weekend, it will not throw you into a crazy sugar craving spiral.

3. Stop eating bland food.

When you keep sacrificing taste for bland food for a long time, you will set yourself up to go on a sugar craving binge. You can use herbs and spices to put a zip in your food. I recently have “discovered” using flavored oils to finish off a dish and the taste is excellent. Plus, you get some essential oils that your body needs too stay lubricated and all joints working without creaking.

4. Substitute exercise for food.

Why not? Everything you think you are craving a piece of chocolate, make your self earn it. Do 20 minutes of exercise before you allow your self to indulge. It’s funny how most of the time you will forget about having that sweet. I dare you to try it. Let me know.

The exercise will release endorphins in your brain and you will feel good and not want that sweet. It will no longer be necessary. Because, let’s face it. Most of the time you are eating because you are bored or you have nothing else to do..and tricking our mind that you need a sneaky snack to satisfy your cravings.

Most of the time it is hard to stop sugar and food cravings. It does take a concerted effort. But it’s worth it for your health in the long run. You don’t want to sacrifice what you want most for what you may want at that moment.

Your body will get use to it…It’s your mind you have to keep working on.

If you are ready to start your journey towards better health, I invite you to Download your Special Report on “Sugar Solutions That Work” by visiting Crush Sugar Cravings where you can learn how foods are affecting your appetite and health.

If you have been following healthy eating guidelines to lose weight and get healthy, you may have noticed that many fats are being eliminated from your diet. We all know that the fat we cook with and eat lends a lot of flavor to our diets. Worried that your healthy eating guidelines make everything too bland? No need to fret. Following healthy eating guidelines doesn’t have to take away flavor from your recipes. There are a lot of different choices for you when it comes to preparing and eating food. Just because the fat is gone, doesn’t mean you cannot substitute for other flavors. Let’s look at some “good fats” that you are allowed, even encouraged to prepare food with when following the guidelines.

Healthy eating guidelines call for only 20 to 25% of the calories you eat to be from fat. That is a pretty low percentage, so you want to make them count. Fats are hidden in a lot of places, and we have to be very diligent to identify those “bad fats” and cut them out. Salad dressings and many prepackaged or prepared foods found in your market contain bad fats called trans fats. These are some of the worst types of polyunsaturated fats you can consume. These guidelines eliminate trans fats, and as a diligent label reader, you should be able to identify those and avoid them. Every other kind of animal fat is also to be avoided whether it be lard, butter, cream or bacon fat. Dairy is allowed, but only if it is low fat or nonfat. There are many of these healthy products available to you in a variety of forms such as yogurt, cottage cheese, low or nonfat milk and there are non-dairy options such as soy or rice milk also available.

The good fats you are looking to replace the bad ones are monounsaturated fats. Look for cold-pressed oils such as olive, sunflower, corn and canola oil. These oils are also to be used sparingly and calculated into the 20-25% of your daily calories from fat. Soy and Canola also contain amino acids that make them healthy oils to consume. Of all of the healthy oils, olive oil is considered to be the best, as it will not break down over heat as easily as some of the others mentioned.

Enjoy your low fat options and stick to your healthy eating guidelines. There is no need to sacrifice taste when you eliminate the fat.

Kate Trillin is a freelance writer who specializes in proper nutrition, healthy eating guidelines, and healthy living. She has been an avid health enthusiast for the past 5 years, and has recently ventured into the world of online publishing in an effort to reach a wider audience. Her writing focuses on providing tips and useful information on the importance of healthy eating guidelines.

Despite what you’ve been told, the effects of too much salt might not be so bad for your heart. Cutting the salt from your diet brings down blood pressure a bit to be sure, but the evidence just isn’t there for less salt being able to prevent heart disease or dying as a result of it.

Naturally this isn’t a call to load up on salt warns experts, but rather to be aware of the latest news.

The review looked seven studies that included 6,500 subjects. Initially (up to 2 years) there was a trend toward lower deaths. But at the ten-year mark, the benefit disappeared, and it may well be because the subjects weren’t able to maintain the lowered salt intake over time.

Cutting salt was associated with a mild drop in blood pressure. The top (Systolic)numbers went down by between 1 and 4 points. The strange thing is that the researchers saw that salt restriction upped the chances of death in those who had been diagnosed with heart failure. But there isn’t sufficient evidence to say anything for sure. The researchers believe the reason they saw no strong evidence on salt benefits to heart disease is down to the small numbers studied.

It may also be that telling people to cut salt isn’t enough on it’s own.

As you might expect, the Salt Institute regards the findings in a different light. The group is calling for government to stop trying to convince people to cut salt, until a clear benefit for doing so can be proven. They suggest a large clinical trial that examines the impact of cutting salt from the diet on health be undertaken, reminding everyone that policy should be made based on evidence, that until now, they claim, has been widely ignored by public health agencies.

The AHA (American Heart Association) also points out some problems with the study. The work was made up of a majority of middle aged, Caucasian or Asian subjects, not groups where increased blood pressure is common. And the length of the follow up period may be insufficient since heart disease and risk of stroke build slowly, silently over many years.

The AHA stands by the sodium advisory they issued early in 2011, and continues to urge consumers, the government as well as the food industry itself to keep working to limit the quantity of salt we are taking in on a regular basis. A maximum daily intake of sodium is 1,500 milligrams.

Americans consume more than double that amount. As a point of reference, a double cheeseburger from a fast food outlet can have over 1,000 milligrams of sodium.

The USDA calls for limiting sodium intake to under 2,300mgs for most people, under 1,500mgs for those over 50 and if you’re either African American, have high blood pressure, suffer with diabetes or longterm kidney troubles. Keeping as close to these numbers as you can is a smart move to avoid the effects of too much salt, especially if you’re trying to eat a balanced diet as part of your overall healthy lifestyle.

FREE Bonus Secret Health Reports – For a limited time you can grab 5 FREE essential health reports from the Daily Health Bulletin. Click through now to discover more about the implications from the effects of too much salt on your heart and overall health.