I’ve seen the commercials a million times, they are plastered all over the television - advertisements for various drugs that promise to make you lose “belly fat” by reducing the hormone cortisol. The commercials state that stress produces excess cortisol, which in turn promotes weight gain particularly in the stomach region.

I was pretty suspicious about the validity of these products, but didn’t give it too much thought because I really don’t put a whole lot of stock into any diet drug, but after seeing a commercial for this “magic” pill three times this morning I decided to due a bit of research. I came upon a fascinating article online that was originally published in the spring of 2006, detailing and dispelling a few diet myths.

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The Holiday time is still upon us, and though Christmas and Hanukkah have passed - New Years Eve is still to come, another big night of festivities but also the one night of the year many of us make a promise to better ourselves in one way or another.

A quick search of the Internet will give you many places to see the most popular resolutions of Americans, for a few examples check here and here. You’ll see that weight loss and better fitness rank very high on the lists, so you’re in the right place if you are among that group, but no matter what your resolution may be, here’s a three hints on how to make it stick this year:

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No, no, I’m not going to tell you that you don’t have to eat them anymore.

There’s no study saying greens will harm your small intestine - but, there is one saying that the key to enjoying your veggies is within grasp.

Where we previously thought people were genetically disposed to tasting the bitterness of veggies (or not), it turns out that those unpleasant tastes may be the byproduct of not having enough zinc in your system.

The study, conducted by the University of Ulster in England kept its participants on seven milligrams of zinc daily to maintain happy-intake results with greens.

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We all know someone who could be considered yo-yo dieter, you know the guy or gal who’s constantly looking for a quick fix to drop pounds, the one who’s body is different every time you see them. If you happen to be the one who’s constantly gaining and losing weight you may be doing more damage to yourself than you know.

People adopt all sorts of crazy, unproven, and unhealthy methods for losing weight - fasting for instance, or all liquid diets. Now there is not doubt that not eating solid food will make you lose weight, but there is also now doubt that it is incredibly unhealthy and once you resume your normal eating habits you will most likely gain back whatever weight you lost, perhaps even a bit more.

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I know that, even though I’ve illustrated workouts in previous posts that can be completed in very little time, some of you are still using time as an excuse on occasion as a free pass to get out of a workout.

I also know that some days are busier than others, you’ve got work, school, kids and animals to take care of - not to mention that Christmas is only a week away and you haven’t even started shopping yet.

So on the days where you absolutely, positively can’t find a measly fifteen minutes of consecutive time to get your blood pumping - adopt this method to still get a workout in…

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This one is a little scary, but according to a study I’ve recently stumbled across, those of us congratulating ourselves for making healthy decisions at lunchtime may just be more likely to consume unnecessary calories later in the day.

The study went like this: Brian Wansink, Ph.D. a Cornell University food psychaitrist, and author of the book Mindless Eating rounded up some test subjects, and gave them all the same 600 calorie sandwich (roast beef and cheese) for lunch. However, one test group got the sandwich in packaging from a health-conscious deli, and the other got packaging from a local fast food chain.

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An important part of being able to stick to a workout regime involves keeping yourself from getting bored.

It’s pretty easy to get tired of even the most equipped fitness center, take a look around next time you walk into your gym at the glazed over looks on the faces of the line of people plodding away on their treadmills - odds are you won’t see many looks of excitement or a whole heck of a lot of enthusiasm.

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Most people are aware that being overweight brings with it some health risks, but few people are aware of how dangerous it is to be among the nearly thirty percent of the population that is considered obese.

I mentioned some of the serious risk associated with obesity in an earlier post, but let’s reiterate the most common(and most severe) ones: heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, gallstones, osteoarthritis, gout, sleep apnea and asthma.

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The majority, an estimated seventy-five percent in fact, of over eating is what is referred to as emotional over eating. Some feeling in us triggers a response to consume food in order to combat that feeling, whether it be boredom, anger, depression, disappointment… the list goes on and on.

What’s even worse is that the foods we turn to in these situations are often high calorie low nutritional value foods like cookies, ice cream or fried foods.

A great way to combat this dieting pitfall is to replace the association of eating in response to your emotions with an activity.

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It’s plain to see with your own eyes how obesity is affecting our society, you can tell just by looking around a supermarket, a crowded street or a mall - there are more overweight people today than there were a decade ago.

What a lot of people don’t realize is the sheer magnitude of the progression of obesity. 

The Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a running graph of the prevalence of obesity since 1985, and the increase over that course of time is astounding.

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