Tag Archives: Health

Featured Articles Monica Cardone

Coffee

Drinking two cups of coffee each day means buying about 18 pounds of beans each year—the total annual yield of 12 coffee trees. To keep those trees productive, coffee farmers apply 12 pounds of fertilizers and pesticides every year. Even though your program is going to recommend not drinking coffee, during the transition period try organic coffee. Coffee also contains caffeine and is damaging to your adrenal glands, a factor that can keep you from burning fat…(nice little side note) Keep in mind that Organic means without the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, herbicides and insecticides, so when you read labels, you want to make sure they say Organic, not “natural”. Essentially all food products may be called “natural” – it really doesn’t do anything for you. These are not the same.

Natural, in legal terminology, only means that those foods are not treated with chemicals during processing. Natural can mean many different things but it doesn’t mean without pesticides or insecticides. If you try to eat at least 50 percent organic foods, you will notice a big difference and you are really doing your body a favor, by being kind to your organs – especially your liver.

Monica Cardone Weight Loss Tips

Weight Loss Tip #17: Identify Your Ideal Weight and Stick to It

If you’re 5′7″ with a certain build, there’s an ideal weight that matches your body type. One person’s ideal body weight may be completely different from another’s. Find yours– and make that your goal. If you don’t know what your ideal weight or goal might be, try findyourbodytype.com BMI calculator. Set this goal as a screen saver or background image in your pc that really helps you courage and remind your goal.

Body Types Featured Articles Monica Cardone Weight Loss Tips

Weight Loss Tip #17: Remove Toxins from Your Body Naturally

In order to lose weight, it takes a two step process. First, you must remove the toxins blocking your fat burning hormones controlled by your body’s organs, and then you must feed your body the right nutrients it needs to activate these hormones (naturally). You need to eat properly to activate hormones. If you’re too busy to cook and don’t like the vegetables you need to consume in your diet program or you want to super charge your results; I would highly recommend you supplement your diet with your body type supplement.

There are four types, custom made to support whatever body type you have. All the products are all natural, pharmaceutical grade, made with organic, and food-based!

FYI – this is what your body type kit will help with (the price is about $150 for the complete 8 week program…Detox kit and Fat Burning kit):

· Works naturally as a Total Body Cleanse…helps purify the liver, organs and blood.

· Helps restore absorption and helps balance the fat burning hormones

· Replenishes the body with nutrients that can help activate the body to shed fat cells

· Increases overall health

· Increases energy, naturally

· Reduces cravings of sugar, fried foods and carbohydrates (even chocolate!)

Body Types Featured Articles Monica Cardone Weight Loss Tips

Weight Loss Tip #14: Stop Comparing and Know Your Own Triggers

Don’t compare yourself to others. Everybody is different, and every ” body” is different! Everybody loses weight differently as well. This is the reason why I always support 4 different body types. I’m sure you have found that even if you follow the same diet and program as someone else followed, who did lose the weight they wanted to - doesn’t translate to success where YOU are concerned.

The key is in knowing your body, and finding out what works for your body.  The body type philosophy is based on hormones, which control metabolism and can either trigger fat burning, or fat storage. Hormones are triggered or blocked; by foods, exercise and other activities. The best way I know of, to learn about your body’s triggers, is to find out what body type you have (knowledge is power!).  Then, keep your goal in sight, and do whatever you have to do to meet that goal. When you start looking at someone else’s weight, you’re losing focus on what the real goal is…get yourself to a healthier, happier stage…and don’t worry, the weight loss will follow.  After all, its physically impossible to be anybody but yourself!

Weight Loss Tips

Weight Loss Tips

As you know I lost 30 pounds in three months. If you wanted to know, then these weight loss tips are for you. I’m not an expert, but I tried up to 60 different diets so fat. If these tips help you achieve your own weight loss goals, then I’m happy to have helped. Most of this, I learned on my own or through close friends and family members. Feel free to add your own tips to this list, too

Tip #1 Buy a scale

Concept of weight tracking is very helpful tool to lose weight. All you need to do is watch what your weight, sometimes we feel lighter than you think or the opposite. When you lose weight, you could be losing water or even muscle. It’s impossible to know if you’re seeing real results or just the product of your daily habits, hormonal shifts and changing hydration levels. Therefore, the best thing is keep tracking your weight.

Diet Diary

Day 92: Do Children have internal Radars?

Am I just lucky, or are all children born with a radar system that tells them when Mommy is not available? Mia and I had just finished our workout this morning, Alexandra was down for a nap & Mia was happily looking at her books when I decided I’d try to get a little work done. I’m not even kidding – the MINUTE I picked up the phone Mia decided that she needed something to eat or she was just going to DIE! So, I got her a few apple slices and a drink, got her situated & sat back down to work. I had no sooner gotten on the phone with the office when Alexandra starts crying, and I’m not talking about the little whimper that says “I’m awake Mom” – I’m talking full-blown someone-poked-me-with-a-pin hysteria. Of course, I told the person on the phone that I would call back later & ran upstairs to find Alexandra lying in her bed pulling her own hair & screaming hysterically. As soon as I got her fingers untangled from her tender little baby hair she quit crying & after a few minutes I managed to get her back to sleep. PHEW!! “Okay” I thought, “NOW I’ll get downstairs & get some things done.” Riiiiight.

I sat down at the computer, had just gotten “in the groove” writing an article which was already very late, when I heard these little feet sneaking up behind me. I ignored them and kept on writing – I mean, I just HAD to get this done!! Pretty soon, I felt little hands pulling a three-year-old body up on my lap. “Fine,” I thought, “I can type with Mia on my lap – no big deal, I’ve just got to finish this page.” But of course, Mia has to sit with her head right in front of mine, effectively blocking my view of the keyboard, the bottom of the screen, or anything really useful for that matter. After trying repeatedly to resituate her so that I could actually see what I was doing I totally lost my cool when she started “typing” with me. All of a sudden little aowihehaej a;lk  iht words started appearing in my perfectly crafted article. “MIA!” I shouted, “What are you DOING?! Why can’t you go play for five minutes?!”

Denim blue eyes framed with long black lashes looked back at me with a mixture of shock, fear and hurt. “Mommy, I just want to be like you.” Ouch.

The article can wait. Today we’re blowing bubbles.

Diet Diary

Day 91: Glycemic Bla Bla…the story unfolds…

Sugar closeup
Image via Wikipedia

The plot thickens (just from yesterday!).

So I woke up this morning determined to come to terms with this whole glycemic indexing thing. I mean, it can’t be THAT complicated can it? Actually, yes. It can. And it is. I am determined to find a way to duplicate this theory into a simple to understand process! To start off with, there are several components to this equation. First, not only do you have to consider the glycemic index (GI) (remember the espresso?) but you also have to take into account the “glycemic load” (GL). So, just to recap – the glycemic index of a food is just a number that tells you how it will affect your blood sugar – big number, big spike, low number, low rise. Bigger is not better here.

Glycemic load is another number (like glycemic index) but this number measures how much of the sugar accounted for in the GI is in an average serving of that particular food. The example I read used watermelon to illustrate this point. Watermelon has a GI of 76 (quite high) that made me think “YIKES!!” but the sugar that causes the high GI number is very diluted in the watermelon – it has a very low glycemic load (like, 4) so you can eat quite a lot of watermelon without having the effect of the blood sugar spike you might anticipate with the high GI.

Also, the GI & GL of one food can be offset by the GI & GL of other foods you’re eating at the same time. And I thought counting calories was tricky!! Overall, I ended up realizing that the food I’m eating for my body type is right in line with all this GI/GL stuff. I’m really glad that at least now I know what these terms mean, but I’m even more grateful that I don’t have to spend my day (and my sanity) trying to keep track of what GI level this is in comparison with the GL level of that relative to the portion size and whether or not the moon is in Virgo. I have enough to keep track of. Where are my car keys?

Diet Diary

Day 90: Dogs, Fire Hydrants and Glycemic Index

Have you ever seen a dog try to take a drink from an open fire hydrant? If not, just imagine a 20 pound animal trying to swallow a 4-inch jet of water traveling while it’s blasting his little body across the street. That’s kind of how my brain feels today. So, here’s what I’ve learned…more stuff to come:

1) The glycemic index is based on one of two standards. The first standard (and the one I’m going to stick with for this posting – otherwise it’ll just get way too complicated) is based on white bread. White bread was arbitrarily given an index number of 100 and all other foods have been given numbers based on how they affect blood sugar levels in relation to how these levels are affected by white bread. This was really confusing to me at first, so I put it in terms of “java” (something I definitely understand – coffee, espresso, etc.). Think of white bread as your average, nothing diluted, no cream, nothing fancy – we’re talking a shot of 100% pure espresso (coffee in its best form :) ). Now, let’s say you wanted to assign a number (a rating system). For simplification, let’s assign it the number, oh I don’t know, how about 100?  So, if espresso is 100, a regular cup of coffee would be, like, 20 and a coffee flavored latte (dilluted coffee drink with milk), would be less than 20..so water would probably be like 1, right? This rating system of drinks would show how well each drink hydrated your body – 100 being the worst for espresso (since we all know that caffeinated drinks are not the best source of hydration!). Well, the glycemic index works the same way – we’re measuring something (food-induced blood sugar elevation, instead of hydration) using something else (different foods compared to white bread, instead of espresso) in comparison. Make sense?

2) It is generally accepted that any food with a glycemic index over 70 is considered high, 56-69 is medium and 55 or less is low.

3) Most research I have found recommends that you try to keep your food selections to those with a low glycemic index. So what does this mean for you (and me)? Well, I looked up what was cited in several places as “THE” glycemic index list (something like 700+ foods! www.mendosa.com if you’re interested) and spent several minutes just looking at how many foods fell into that “high” or “medium” category. . . After looking at the list for just 10 minutes I felt so deprived that I went straight to the kitchen & downed 5 handfuls of my daughters little fish crackers before I regained my senses. Obviously this was not an inspiring bit of education. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Diet Diary

Day 89: Glycemic Index (in simple terms!)

At a recent meeting with big-wig health/nutrition types this woman came up to me and began excitedly jabbering about how wonderful this body type diet is – Of course, I agreed with her and was really enjoying the conversation . . . then it began . . . she started throwing out all kinds of terms like “glycemic index”, “glycemic load” and other equally baffling phrases. Now, normally when this happens I do one of two things – I either nod enthusiastically or say things like “Absolutely!” and “I know, isn’t it great?!” – Bluffing my way through the conversation – OR I feign shock at seeing someone I simply MUST catch before they disappear and politely, but quickly, extricate myself from the conversation. On this day, however, I opted for a third, altogether different option – I stopped her midsentence (I know, so very rude – my grandma would be turning in her grave) and said something like, “You know, I’m not familiar with that term, can you explain it to me?”

WOW. You would have thought I had just announced that she had won the lottery. As it turns out this woman is a Diabetic Educator (not that she HAS diabetes, she just educates the people who DO about the disease & what they can do to manage/control the symptoms). Jackpot. I just happened to be talking to the one person in the room who teaches this stuff for a living. So she started talking (very excitedly – I mean, this woman LOVES her job) about how the glycemic index is really just a way of estimating how much different foods will affect blood sugar levels (love it simple). Some foods are easily and quickly “burned”, resulting in quick bursts of energy (think soda pop) while others burn more slowly resulting in less of a burst, or spike, but a much longer lasting burn. The quicker the burn, the faster (and usually higher) the spike in your blood sugar.
The more spikey your blood sugar (yes, I know “spikey” is not a real word – stick with me here), the more erratic your mood, energy level, hormones and other bodily functions. In short, eating foods that have a high glycemic index is generally bad. I’m not totally clear on just how or why or to what degree it is “bad” though, my conversation ended before we could really cover that thoroughly. I did however get some “great resources” to look up so I’ll have to do a little digging & let you know what I find out.

Body Types Diet Diary

Day 88: How to Know If Your Doctor Is Feeding You Bull****?

Along my own personal quest to find solutions that (actually) worked (simple and easy to understand), I learned that I first needed to decipher what was a “hidden sales pitch” from “Doctor data overload!”

Discussions with doctors on the topic of weight loss can quickly lead anyone struggling to lose weight, into brain overload, or worse yet – utter confusion.  Unfamiliar terms, conflicting information and opinions backed with reason that simply makes no sense.  Most of us who reach this level of desperation, after years of failing to get permanent results on our own, quickly find ourselves nodding along – pretending like we understand every word.  I have recently lost 30 lbs in 9 weeks.  I made the common sense decision after being baffled by you know what, from one too many doctors…and at the end, I had just one question really:  “can you explain this to me in 30 seconds or less, and in terms that even a five year old could understand?”

If the answer was no – I discovered it was for one of two reasons.  One, the “professional” was intentionally “confusing” because a puny lil’woman consumer could never understand something so profound. I mean, if she did it would somehow hinder their success, which had been built on the “only the doctor knows all” mantra.  Or, the second; the doctor was so entrenched in the details that he couldn’t actually decipher which ones had the most relevance…ie. They were ALL equally relevant – there is no possible way for him to make even a 30 minute response.

The fact is, when it comes to common sense weight loss, this industry is seriously lacking a modern woman’s perspective.  There are either hokey figures that link fat loss to emotional horoscope stuff, or tests that are so confusing even the professionals can’t agree on what they mean! One of these ultra-confusing tests gives you readout with the percentage of fat you have in each body type.  How does that help? One compelling philosophy is that of four distinct body types – based on hormone imbalances.  But while the theory seems to make sense, the end result is lacking resolution…there are no answers to the question, “How can it be that I have a combination of all four types?”

Turns out this theory is about as well refined for women as most of the weight loss magic pill or burn-fat devices that I used to devise campaigns for…they have nothing to do with you, the consumer, it’s all about the latest gimmick, hype or technology – doesn’t matter if it works or not, they know that we, as women, will try – and pay – literally anything (and I am living proof of this) to lose a little weight.

Being a woman myself, we want something simple, straight forward, and easy that makes sense and gets results that last!  Well, I hate to have to admit that it has taken me over ten years to actually become one of “those women” – confused with what works, what doesn’t work, and ready and willing to try anything to lose weight(even it made no sense whatsoever).  I found myself middle aged, somewhere between fatness and fitness and utterly confused with all of the sales gimmicks and promises.

In just 8 weeks, I tried no less than 5 entirely different ways to get “results.”  And I am not someone who is gullible in this industry…I have spent the greater part of my life working with weight loss “experts”…I know how these programs work, or how they’re supposed to work, and yet I found myself floundering, losing traction & totally frustrated with the level of understanding & application of principles that was so sorely lacking both in myself & in the lives of the men & women around me who are trying desperately to lose weight but just not making it.

I met up with Dr. Eric Berg and convinced him to formulate a supplement for each type of hormone imbalance; complete with a detox phase and then the fat burning phase (i.e. the 4 basic body types).  This had always been something missing from the industry, and frankly, completely missing from his discoveries (published anyway).  Dr. Berg has done a tremendous amount of research on the four body types and has trained over 2000 weight loss doctors to use his same theories (most of them however, I wouldn’t trust to duplicate the same methods – it is a long shot!).  The missing link with Dr. Berg, is that his solution for all women was to follow a very rigid, (and taste bud-less, might I add) difficult (to say the least) diet plan.  It would have been difficult enough to follow the diet if you had your own chef and the finances to surgically remove your taste buds; but truthfully, and according to his own research – the diet couldn’t be easily successful from a nutrition stance due to the falling nutritional values of our current food supply.  In laymans terms – figure ten apples today amount to the same nutritional value as one apple in 1965.  This is due to depletion of minerals in the soil, environmental issues, genetic engineering of the plants, shipping issues, ozone stuff and all of the doom and gloom we can get overdosed with at our leisure by simply tuning into to CNN or any of your favorite “breaking news channels”.

Well, I partnered with him to build out a nutritional line pretty much just for us women who wanted our cake and to eat it too (literally).  The thing with nutrition that I learned through the years, and most impacting – through my own weight loss battle – is that if your body is starved for nutrition (like minerals, vitamins, etc.), you will have these pesky constant cravings (and I am not talking about the kind from KD Lang…in my experience – “those kind” begin to diminish and the “others” come into closer proximity).

Take a test that’s simple – mark the symptoms you have and…”find your body type.”

You’ll find I simplified the test a bit so it is easier to follow (with his agreement of course).

Now, you can start to get educated about your type.  Instead of adding the 400 pages of body type information written on the topic (about 150 pages to read on each type), I figured that most of you would really only be interested in reading about your test results and what you need to do now.

So..the book for each body type is available for a download right after you finish your test.

This guide will provide you with your long term plan.  A plan you are actually starting the day you decide to lose weight – but one with a strategy that is different from just quick weight loss…on this we’re talking long term health.  Once again it is simple and easy to follow – at the end of the day, it is all common sense…easy and simple enough for a five year old to understand!

So, if you are confused about why you have not been able to lose weight and keep it off; continue to hear conflicting information from so-called “weight loss experts” and feel lost in this sea of confusion…I hope that you find some comfort in discovering a simple, easy to understand road to get results.  These were the steps I took, and what I have used to repeat success over and over again.

  1. First, decide that you can understand why you have failed in the past…
  2. Second, learn about your body and get the simple facts (you only need yourself!)
  3. Find your body type, and start now! (trust me, there is not a reason good enough to wait till tomorrow, or next Monday, or the first of next month…do it right now)

Ironically, the last thing I tried was actually the only thing that made enough real sense to actually work. The trick is approaching it consciously with a simple, common sense plan that targets.