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Sunday, September 30, 2012

Weight loss diet plan Tips

A balanced and healthy diet meal plan that a great variety and good nutrition are an important part of a diet and exercise regimen. To help you in your weight loss and fitness goals this week, the samples are based nutritional meal plans for different calorie levels on your recommended daily calorie intake to lose weight. See what your calorie intake to lose weight.

The low calorie diet plans seven days to serve as a guide only. Foods in the daily diet plans are set free can be substituted for other foods with the same nutritional value. Can be substituted for an orange, an apple or an ounce of fish for one ounce of chicken, soy milk or skim milk: For example. Caffeine intake to two cups of tea or coffee a day are limited. You want as much caffeine and calorie beverages like you, at least 8 glasses of water a day including drinks. Consult your doctor before taking this or any other weight-loss Program.doctor before this or any other weight loss program.

Quick Weight Loss - Lose 20 lbs of Fat in 30 Days With the Slow Carb Diet


Fat Loss via Better Science and Simplicity

It is possible to lose 20 lbs. of bodyfat in 30 days by optimizing any of three factors: exercise, diet, or drug/supplement regimen. I’ve seen the elite implementation of all three in working with professional athletes. In this post, we’ll explore what I refer to as the “slow-carb diet”.

In the last six weeks, I have cut from about 180 lbs. to 165 lbs., while adding about 10 lbs. of muscle, which means I’ve lost about 25 lbs. of fat. This is the only diet besides the rather extreme Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (CKD) that has produced veins across my abdomen, which is the last place I lose fat (damn you, Scandinavian genetics). Here are the four simple rules I followed…

Rule #1: Avoid “white” carbohydrates
Avoid any carbohydrate that is — or can be — white. The following foods are thus prohibited, except for within 1.5 hours of finishing a resistance-training workout of at least 20 minutes in length: bread, rice, cereal, potatoes, pasta, and fried food with breading. If you avoid eating anything white, you’ll be safe.

Rule #2: Eat the same few meals over and over again
The most successful dieters, regardless of whether their goal is muscle gain or fat loss, eat the same few meals over and over again. Mix and match, constructing each meal with one from each of the three following groups:

Proteins:
Egg whites with one whole egg for flavor
Chicken breast or thigh
Grass-fed organic beef
Pork

Legumes:
Lentils
Black beans
Pinto beans

Vegetables:
Spinach
Asparagus
Peas
Mixed vegetables

Eat as much as you like of the above food items. Just remember: keep it simple. Pick three or four meals and repeat them. Almost all restaurants can give you a salad or vegetables in place of french fries or potatoes. Surprisingly, I have found Mexican food, swapping out rice for vegetables, to be one of the cuisines most conducive to the “slow carb” diet.

Most people who go on “low” carbohydrate diets complain of low energy and quit, not because such diets can’t work, but because they consume insufficient calories. A 1/2 cup of rice is 300 calories, whereas a 1/2 cup of spinach is 15 calories! Vegetables are not calorically dense, so it is critical that you add legumes for caloric load.

Some athletes eat 6-8x per day to break up caloric load and avoid fat gain. I think this is ridiculously inconvenient. I eat 4x per day:

10am – breakfast
1pm – lunch
5pm – smaller second lunch
7:30-9pm – sports training
10pm – dinner
12am – glass of wine and Discovery Channel before bed

Here are some of my meals that recur again and again:


Scrambled Eggology pourable egg whites with one whole egg, black beans, and microwaved mixed vegetables

Grass-fed organic beef, pinto beans, mixed vegetables, and extra guacamole (Mexican restaurant)

Grass-fed organic beef (from Trader Joe’s), lentils, and mixed vegetables

Post-workout pizza with extra chicken, cilantro, pineapple, garlic, sundried tomotoes, bell peppers, and red onions

Rule #3: Don’t drink calories
Drink massive quantities of water and as much unsweetened iced tea, tea, diet sodas, coffee (without white cream), or other no-calorie/low-calorie beverages as you like. Do not drink milk, normal soft drinks, or fruit juice. I’m a wine fanatic and have at least one glass of wine each evening, which I believe actually aids sports recovery and fat-loss. Recent research into resveratrol supports this.

Rule #4: Take one day off per week
I recommend Saturdays as your “Dieters Gone Wild” day. I am allowed to eat whatever I want on Saturdays, and I go out of my way to eat ice cream, Snickers, Take 5, and all of my other vices in excess. I make myself a little sick and don’t want to look at any of it for the rest of the week. Paradoxically, dramatically spiking caloric intake in this way once per week increases fat loss by ensuring that your metabolic rate (thyroid function, etc.) doesn’t downregulate from extended caloric restriction. That’s right: eating pure crap can help you lose fat.


Quick Weight Loss - Lose 20 lbs of Fat in 30 Days With the Slow Carb Diet


Fat Loss via Better Science and Simplicity

It is possible to lose 20 lbs. of bodyfat in 30 days by optimizing any of three factors: exercise, diet, or drug/supplement regimen. I’ve seen the elite implementation of all three in working with professional athletes. In this post, we’ll explore what I refer to as the “slow-carb diet”.
In the last six weeks, I have cut from about 180 lbs. to 165 lbs., while adding about 10 lbs. of muscle, which means I’ve lost about 25 lbs. of fat. This is the only diet besides the rather extreme Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (CKD) that has produced veins across my abdomen, which is the last place I lose fat (damn you, Scandinavian genetics). Here are the four simple rules I followed…
Rule #1: Avoid “white” carbohydrates
Avoid any carbohydrate that is — or can be — white. The following foods are thus prohibited, except for within 1.5 hours of finishing a resistance-training workout of at least 20 minutes in length: bread, rice, cereal, potatoes, pasta, and fried food with breading. If you avoid eating anything white, you’ll be safe.
Rule #2: Eat the same few meals over and over again
The most successful dieters, regardless of whether their goal is muscle gain or fat loss, eat the same few meals over and over again. Mix and match, constructing each meal with one from each of the three following groups:
Proteins:
Egg whites with one whole egg for flavor
Chicken breast or thigh
Grass-fed organic beef
Pork
Legumes:
Lentils
Black beans
Pinto beans
Vegetables:
Spinach
Asparagus
Peas
Mixed vegetables
Eat as much as you like of the above food items. Just remember: keep it simple. Pick three or four meals and repeat them. Almost all restaurants can give you a salad or vegetables in place of french fries or potatoes. Surprisingly, I have found Mexican food, swapping out rice for vegetables, to be one of the cuisines most conducive to the “slow carb” diet.
Most people who go on “low” carbohydrate diets complain of low energy and quit, not because such diets can’t work, but because they consume insufficient calories. A 1/2 cup of rice is 300 calories, whereas a 1/2 cup of spinach is 15 calories! Vegetables are not calorically dense, so it is critical that you add legumes for caloric load.
Some athletes eat 6-8x per day to break up caloric load and avoid fat gain. I think this is ridiculously inconvenient. I eat 4x per day:
10am – breakfast
1pm – lunch
5pm – smaller second lunch
7:30-9pm – sports training
10pm – dinner
12am – glass of wine and Discovery Channel before bed
Here are some of my meals that recur again and again:
breakfast-wince.jpg
Scrambled Eggology pourable egg whites with one whole egg, black beans, and microwaved mixed vegetables
lunch-wince.jpg
Grass-fed organic beef, pinto beans, mixed vegetables, and extra guacamole (Mexican restaurant)
dinner-wince.jpg
Grass-fed organic beef (from Trader Joe’s), lentils, and mixed vegetables
pizza-wince.jpg
Post-workout pizza with extra chicken, cilantro, pineapple, garlic, sundried tomotoes, bell peppers, and red onions
Rule #3: Don’t drink calories
Drink massive quantities of water and as much unsweetened iced tea, tea, diet sodas, coffee (without white cream), or other no-calorie/low-calorie beverages as you like. Do not drink milk, normal soft drinks, or fruit juice. I’m a wine fanatic and have at least one glass of wine each evening, which I believe actually aids sports recovery and fat-loss. Recent research into resveratrol supports this.
Rule #4: Take one day off per week
I recommend Saturdays as your “Dieters Gone Wild” day. I am allowed to eat whatever I want on Saturdays, and I go out of my way to eat ice cream, Snickers, Take 5, and all of my other vices in excess. I make myself a little sick and don’t want to look at any of it for the rest of the week. Paradoxically, dramatically spiking caloric intake in this way once per week increases fat loss by ensuring that your metabolic rate (thyroid function, etc.) doesn’t downregulate from extended caloric restriction. That’s right: eating pure crap can help you lose fat.

EVEN TEMPORARY WEIGHT LOSS CUTS RISK


If you’re overweight, losing 10 percent of your weight (20 pounds if you weigh in at 200) may cut your risk of developing type 2 diabetes, even if you regain the pounds you shed within a decade. This finding comes from a national study that included 3,000 overweight people with impaired glucose tolerance, a metabolic condition that increases the risk of type 2 diabetes. Results showed that losing an average of only 14 pounds reduced the risk of developing diabetes by 58 percent. During the weight-loss phase of the study, participants tracked what they ate daily as part of the behavioral changes they were taught. They also limited the amount of unhealthy foods they kept at home and increased their physical activity. Study leader Rena Wing, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the Brown University Medical School, reported that in addition to reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes, weight loss can lead to reductions in sleep apnea and normalizing blood pressure, as well as improving participants’ quality of life and slowing the decline of mobility with age. The study data and conclusions were presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association in August 2012.
My take? Considering that so many people who succeed at losing weight regain it within a few years, the extended health benefits of weight loss suggested in this study are welcome news. Not everyone can be slim. Your weight and tendency to gain weight are partly determined by your genes, but no matter what you weigh, it's in your best interest to remain physically fit and active. Committing to living a healthful lifestyle will minimize the chance that being heavy will shorten your life, and can help reduce your risks of chronic disease.

Friday, September 28, 2012

How Hypnosis Works

How It Works...

To make this as easy as possible to understand, remove the word hypnosis. It’s just a word… and Hollywood and books of fiction have totally misguided the understanding of what it is and how it works. Think of this is goal based meditation… a process that can get you to achieve your goals without the struggle and force of conscious thought and will power.The word “hypnosis” is the only thing that gets in the way of people understanding what this process is and how it works. If you ever daydreamed, dreamed or used your imagination to create something in your mind that you once did before or never did then you were engaged in self hypnosis… directing your mind to a certain behavior or outcome by using your imagination.
Everyone knows there have been things we either wanted to do and couldn't or didn't want to do but did anyway. That's because our desires are conscious thoughts while our behaviors are created and motivated at a subconscious level. The simple process of hypnosis is the natural, safe and expedient way for behavior modification.

What is Hypnosis?

Understand that the process of hypnosis is the same as guided imagery or visualization, the same techniques athletes and successful achievers use in many areas of life.
    We have all been in a hypnotic state; in fact most of us visit this state every day.
  • Have you ever been driving and all of a sudden your exit is right there?
  • So focused on a movie or a television program that you didn't hear someone calling your name?
  • Have you ever been so deep in thought that you almost had to be shaken out of it?
  • Or have you ever daydreamed?
Of course, we all do things like this on a daily basis. This is what it is like being hypnotized. When in hypnosis, you can hear everything going on around you, you can hear all of the suggestions you're being given and most times people say to me, " I don't think I was hypnotized." When asked why, the reply is usually, "Because I heard everything you said." This is one of the misconceptions of hypnosis!

The subconscious mind then accepts these suggestions and creates the behavior changes or body changes in order to achieve the given suggestions. When in hypnotic trance, the subconscious mind is 88% more alert than in a conscious state.

When in hypnosis, you can bring yourself out whenever you truly desire too. People have asked, " What happens if the hypnotists/hypnotist walks away or something happens to him or her and I'm in hypnosis"? Don't worry....you will either gradually go deeper and then wake up or simply begin to rise out of the hypnotic state to a fully conscious state. There are various definitions for hypnosis though they all mean the same thing. Simply put, hypnosis can be explained this way. When a person is in a relaxed state, the conscious mind is able to be bypassed in order to directly make suggestions to the subconscious mind. That's basically it. That's all you need to understand in order to grasp the idea. The subconscious mind then accepts these suggestions and creates the behavior changes or body changes in order to achieve the given suggestions. When in hypnotic trance, the subconscious mind is 88% more alert than in a conscious state.

Can Anyone Be Hypnotized

The question alone is yet another example of the misunderstanding of what hypnosis is or how hypnosis works. I wonder how silly it may seem if asked, "Can you breathe?" or "Can you sleep?" or anything else that is done naturally without any thought or strategy. Well, hypnosis or being in what is a hypnotic state is just as natural. You may even be there as you are reading this.

Any time we are in what is called the zone or spaced out, daydreaming or having your head in the clouds we are referring to the same thing, being out of the state of conscious, analytical thinking and entering what is exactly what is a light hypnotic state. We drift in and out of this state all day, every day. Dare I say it… a light trance.
When gauging brain wave activity, there are four levels, Beta, Alpha, Theta and Delta. Once we leave total awareness, conscious, analytical state of mind (Beta) we then drift into the Alpha state, which I described previously with a variety of terms. This is considered a light level hypnotic state though a lot of change can be directed in this state. This is why so many hypnosis clients think they were not hypnotized, because it was a lighter level and not what they expected hypnosis to be. Though these same people welcome the positive changes they achieve from this process and learn hypnosis is usually not what most people expect it to be. Theta is the state of mind when we are dreaming when asleep, though still conscious as we are aware of many of our dreams and then Beta, which is to be unconscious.

With this simple understanding it may seem that all people can be hypnotized. Well, not quite. Though the number varies a bit, it is reported that people with an IQ below 70 will not respond to hypnosis and anyone who is too drunk would not be a good candidate either. Therefore it is safe to say that almost all people, especially anyone who comes to a hypnosis session on their own is capable of being hypnotized. Be fore warned of one factor to prevent the hypnotic process from happening… you. If you do not want to be hypnotized, then you won't.

Belief ! Desire ! Expectancy

The most important factor regarding the application of hypnosis is a combination of three things. Belief, Desire and Expectancy. You must Believe it will work...have a genuine Desire for it to work and...Expect that it will work. If these three factors are in place, then you are willing and open to suggestion.

Some changes require a different approach, understanding and strategy but can all be achieved through hypnosis.

We are all victims of habit. Most of us hardly ever recognize our positive habits, like exercise or a healthy diet, for we look at those as expected. We do however focus on all of our negative habits, like over eating and smoking. There are two things to understand, habits are a conditioned response in the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind does not know the difference between a "good" habit or a "bad" habit. The subconscious mind does not know the difference between reality or imagination.


If you do something enough times, the subconscious mind begins to believe that this behavior pattern is what you want and therefore stores it for you and makes it part of your natural behavior.

Then, no matter how much you try to consciously change that behavior pattern ( using what we know as "will power") your subconscious mind wins the mental tug of war and you return to that "stored" behavior pattern. This is why I refer to "will power" as a downfall for it will not work for the vast majority of people in a permanent or even sometimes short term period. The only way to effectively and permanently make a true change in your behavior pattern is to change the remembered pattern in the subconscious mind.

There are four levels of brain wave activity, Beta, Alpha, Theta and Delta. The top level, Beta, is complete consciousness and the deepest level, Delta, is deep unconscious sleep. The middle two levels, Alpha and Theta are simply more relaxed states than total consciousness but above deep sleep. This is what is referred to as the hypnotic state of mind, simply being relaxed.

Alpha is a daydream or when you drive up the highway and drift off a bit and Theta is when you are in a dream state, above deep sleep. The light relaxed state of Alpha is all that is necessary to achieve in order to make behavior changes. This is why most people do not think they are "hypnotized" because we have all been misled as to what hypnosis really is.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

As Children’s Freedom Has Declined, So Has Their Creativity

If anything makes Americans stand tall internationally it is creativity.  “American ingenuity” is admired everywhere. We are not the richest country (at least not as measured by smallest percentage in poverty), nor the healthiest (far from it), nor the country whose kids score highest on standardized tests (despite our politicians’ misguided intentions to get us there), but we are the most inventive country.  We are the great innovators, specialists in figuring out new ways of doing things and new things to do. Perhaps this derives from our frontier beginnings, or from our unique form of democracy with its emphasis on individual freedom and respect for nonconformity.  In the business world as well as in academia and the arts and elsewhere, creativity is our number one asset.  In a recent IBM poll, 1,500 CEOs acknowledged this when they identified creativity as the best predictor of future success.


It is sobering, therefore, to read Kyung Hee Kim’s recent research report documenting a continuous decline in creativity among American schoolchildren over the last two or three decades.[2]
Kim, who is a professor of education at the College of William and Mary, analyzed scores on a battery of measures of creativity—called the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT)—collected from normative samples of schoolchildren in kindergarten through twelfth grade over several decades.  According to Kim’s analyses, the scores on these tests at all grade levels began to decline somewhere between 1984 and 1990 and have continued to decline ever since. The drops in scores are highly significant statistically and in some cases very large.  In Kim’s words, the data indicate that “children have become less emotionally expressive, less energetic, less talkative and verbally expressive, less humorous, less imaginative, less unconventional, less lively and passionate, less perceptive, less apt to connect seemingly irrelevant things, less synthesizing, and less likely to see things from a different angle.”

According to Kim’s research, all aspects of creativity have declined, but the biggest decline is in the measure called Creative Elaboration, which assesses the ability to take a particular idea and expand on it in an interesting and novel way. Between 1984 and 2008, the average Elaboration score on the TTCT, for every age group from kindergarten through 12th grade, fell by more than 1 standard deviation. Stated differently, this means that more than 85% of children in 2008 scored lower on this measure than did the average child in 1984.  Yikes.

You might wonder how creativity can be assessed.  By definition, any test with questions that have just one right answer or one correct pathway to solution is not a test of creativity.  The Torrance Tests were developed by E. Paul Torrance in the late 1950s, when he was an education professor at the University of Minnesota.  During the immediate post-Sputnik period, the U.S. government was concerned with identifying and fostering giftedness among American schoolchildren, so as to catch up with the Russians (whom we mistakenly thought were ahead of us in scientific innovation). 

While most of Torrance’s colleagues focused on standard measures ofintelligence as a path toward doing this, Torrance chose to focus on creativity.  His prior work with fighter pilots in the Air Force had convinced him that creativity is the central variable underlying personal achievement and ability to adapt to unusual conditions.[3]  He set about developing a test in which people are presented with various kinds of stimuli and are asked to do something with them that is interesting and novel—that is, creative.  The eventual result was the set of tests that now bear his name.  In the most often used of these tests, the stimuli are marks on paper--such as a squiggly line or a set of parallel lines and circles—and the task is to make drawings that incorporate and expand on those stimuli. The drawings are scored according to the degree to which they include such qualities as originality, meaningfulness, and humor.

The best evidence that the Torrance Tests really do measure creative potential come from longitudinal research showing strong, statistically significant correlations between childhood scores on the TTCT and subsequent real-world achievements.[4]  As the authors of one article commenting on these results put it, high scorers “tallied more books, dances, radio shows, art exhibits, software programs, advertisingcampaigns, hardware innovations, music compositions, public policies (written or implemented), leadership positions, invited lectures, and buildings designed” than did those who scored lower.[5]

Indeed, the TTCT seems to be the best predictor of lifetime achievement that has yet been invented. It is a better predictor than IQ, high-school grades, or peer judgments of who will achieve the most.[6]  The correlation coefficients found between childhood TTCT scores and real-world adult creative achievements have ranged from a low of about .25 to a high of about .60, depending on which tests are included and how adult creative achievements are assessed.[6]

So, the decline in TTCT scores among school-aged children indeed does appear to be cause for concern.  Kim herself calls it the “creativity crisis,” and that term has been picked up in a number of articles in popular magazines.

Well, surprise, surprise.  For several decades we as a society have been suppressing children’s freedom to ever-greater extents, and now we find that their creativity is declining.

Creativity is nurtured by freedom and stifled by the continuous monitoring, evaluation, adult-direction, and pressure to conform that restrict children’s lives today.  In the real world few questions have one right answer, few problems have one right solution; that’s why creativity is crucial to success in the real world.  But more and more we are subjecting children to an educational system that assumes one right answer to every question and one correct solution to every problem, a system that punishes children (and their teachers too) for daring to try different routes.  We are also, as I documented in a previous essay, increasingly depriving children of free time outside of school to play, explore, be bored, overcome boredom, fail, overcome failure—that is, to do all that they must do in order to develop their full creative potential.

In the next essay in this series, I will present research evidence that creativity really does bloom in the soil of freedom and die in the hands of overdirective, overprotective, overjudgmental teachers and parents.
----------
And now, what are your thoughts on all this?  In your experience, what fosters or inhibits creativity?  Have you seen evidence that either corroborates or counters Kyung Kim’s findings of a decline in creativity or the suggestion that current schooling practices and other restrictions on children’s freedom inhibit children’s creative development?

As always, I prefer if you post your comments and questions here rather than send them to me by private email. By putting them here, you share with other readers, not just with me. I read all comments and try to respond to all serious questions.  Often, other readers whose answers are better than mine respond to posted questions. Of course, if you have something to say that truly applies only to you and me, then send me an email.
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References
[1] IBM 2010 Global CEO Study: Creativity Selected as Most Crucial Factor for Future Success. http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/31670.wss.
[2] Kyung Hee Kim (2011). The creativity crisis: The decrease in creative thinking scores on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Creativity Research Journal, 23, 285-295.
[3]  Garnett Millar, Christine Dahl, and John Kauffman (2011). Testing the whole Mind—educating the whole child.” Illinois Association for Gifted Children Journal, Spring, 2011 issue.
[4] Mark A. Runco, Garnet Millar, Selcuk Acar, & Bonnie Cramond (2010) Torrance tests of creative thinking as predictors of personal and public achievement: A fifty-year follow-up.  Creativity Research Journal, 22, 361-368.

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