Tag Archives: fat

So You Want to Burn Fat?

For the past few days I’ve been detailing exercises that burn serious calories. After all, if you are going to drag yourself out of bed at the crack of dawn to workout you might as well get the most from your efforts. The vast majority of us exercise to lose weight, which is done by burning calories, but what about the unwanted fat we want to shed? To answer that question we must differentiate between “aerobic” activity and “anaerobic” activity. “Aerobic” means “with oxygen.” When you are partaking in low-intensity exercises your breathing rate and oxygen use can keep up … Continue reading →

Is Fat a Four Letter Word?

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Your body requires moderation in all forms, this includes the fact that your body does need fat – healthy fat. Your heart needs healthy fats. Your brain needs healthy fats. Your joints need healthy fats. This is a month where a lot of people cut out their bad habits and strive to fight for their New Year’s resolutions. One of the biggest mistakes they make though is going cold turkey across the board. Cutting Out Fat Totally Cutting the fat out totally sounds like a great option and there are a lot of low-fat and no fat products out there. … Continue reading →

BEWARE: There is No Magic Pill – or Magic Injection

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If you’ve been trying to lose weight for a while, chances are you’ve heard of LipoDissolve treatments. Supposedly, you can go see a doctor and he’ll inject a chemical into your fattiest fat places that will simply melt the fat away. Yep, just melt it away. Don’t be a sucker. One company that promised this magic fat meltaway injection is Go Fig Inc. This is a very interesting choice in names when you consider what has happened to some of its patients. But first, let’s use a little bit of logic to examine the promise of lipodissolve treatments. The injection … Continue reading →

Not the Fat but the Carbs!

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Gary Taubes has written a new book entitled Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease . He does indeed challenge the conventional wisdom. He contends that it isn’t fat making Americans fat and causing cancer, heart disease and other terminal ailments but it is refined carbohydrates. I am inclined to agree with him. Ever since American started eating fat-free foods (which happen to have even more carbs than the fat containing versions), they’ve been gaining even more weight! Needless to say, Taubes’ position is pretty controversial. Unlike the doctors, dietitians and nutritionists of … Continue reading →

The Different Kinds of Fat

It used to be that fat was the enemy. But the more we learn, the more we realize that there are some kinds of fat that our bodies do need! More important than the quantity of fat in your diet is the quality of the fat you consume. Experts suggest that between twenty and thirty-five percent of your daily calories should come from fat. But what type of fat is the best? Trans fat: probably the worst kind of fat out there. It raises your LDL (bad cholesterol) and lowers your HDL (good cholesterol), raising your risk of heart disease … Continue reading →

Dear Heather … Can you really be fit and fat?

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Dear Heather, I enjoy reading your blog regularly and I have been tempted to send you a question in the past, but I always refrained. Now I’m biting the bullet and I’m sending you a question that I’m really curious about. I am basically in good health. I exercise regularly – 4 to 5 times a week. I enjoy riding my bike and walk every chance that I get. I play sports with my boys (they are 14 and 17) and I have low blood pressure and low cholesterol. The problem is I am 5’4 and I weigh about 220 … Continue reading →

Kentucky Fried Chicken Going Healthy?

Stop the presses… I just heard that KFC is going healthy. Well, healthier anyway. No, they aren’t introducing chicken shaped tofu and ditching the macaroni-and-cheese for grilled asparagus; rather the company announced today it is phasing out trans fats in cooking its Original Recipe and Extra Crispy fried chicken, Potato Wedges and other menu items, though it admits it hasn’t found a good alternative yet for their yummy biscuits. At today’s news conference the restaurant chain said it would start using zero trans fat soybean oil system wide in the United States. The switch is estimated to be complete by … Continue reading →

Fat Cells May Prevent Cancer Fighting Mechanism

We have known for a long time now that obesity increases our cancer risk. New studies have found though that fatty tissue actually decreases the body’s ability to fight cancer. This study was performed in mice, and by decreasing their percentage body fat (with surgery or by running three to five km a day on training wheels) made them more able to fight skin cancer. Researchers at Rutgers University performing this study on mice suggest that fat cells could potentially be secreting compounds that counteract the body’s main anti-tumour defense systems. This system is called apoptosis and is pretty much … Continue reading →

Let the Guilt Go!

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I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been the kind of person to beat myself up if I slip off the diet wagon. I used to get so wound up about diet slips that I’d totally defeat myself by beating my self-esteem to a pulp and then completely giving up. I was amazingly efficient at it too. One bowl of ice cream or potato chips and I’d start hammering away at my psyche with all sorts of negative self talk like: “You are such a loser! No wonder you can’t lose weight, you just keep going back to all … Continue reading →

Do You Act Fat?

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I had the weirdest conversation with someone the other day. I was standing outside my daughter’s dance school and I was chatting with a couple of the other mothers. To put it into perspective, one of the women was a size 6 or 7 and the other I would hazard was somewhere around a 14 or 16. She wore my size. Both women look good and while I would hazard that the woman who wore my size was a little on the overweight side, she didn’t appear fat as we define it in our culture. Now, bear in mind, I … Continue reading →