June 20, 2006 16:08 - Spotlight Supplement

I was just looking at this product on the e-vitamins site recently.

If you look at the ingredients included in it - you'll see that it not only has green tea in it, but also Advantra Z. Advantra Z is the commercially patented name for Bitter Orange. Now while green tea may not have significant effects on real weight loss, there have been several industry funded studies finding that bitter orange can have a beneficial effect on weight loss (but only when taken under the supervision of a health practitioner and within a sensible diet and exercise regime). In several other studies it has been found that bitter orange can have similar effects to ephedrine but without the adverse side effects.

It should be noted though that this product does also contain natural caffeine probably from the yerba mate included.

These supplements can be helpful if diet and exercise alone are not helping you to lose weight, and they are best used under the direction of a doctor.

The site lists several customers who've given positive feedback about this product and said that it gave them an increase in energy levels and they felt that it was helping them to lose weight. The feedback was all positive, so not sure if they only publish positive feedback or not.

If you have feedback of any kind about this product, be sure and let me know, I'll post it at the blog.

If you'd like to purchase this product, you can use the coupon here, but please be sure to consult your doctor before hand about it's suitability for your medical history and needs.

June 20, 2006 13:14 - Nestle Buys Jenny Craig

In the news, the food giant Nestle has released a statement to the press stating that it will buy Jenny Craig for $600 million dollars. More information on this story can be seen at http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2006/06/19/daily3.html

June 20, 2006 12:32 - Activity at all stages of lifespan

Part of the reason that I think that obesity has become such a problem is that things have become too easy. At every stage of our lives, we've tried to make things too easy. From the moment that we get up to the moment we lie down and sleep for the night, labor saving / time saving devices are all around us. Something as simple as exercise has become unnecessary and although we still need to do some things for ourselves, most of the physical labor of obtaining food and preparing food are done for us.

This even extends to some commercial diet programs where food is already prepared and delivered to customer's door. On a side note, I recently saw an advertisement on the TV where the "dieter" confessed that she couldn't be bothered trying to learn about how much food she should be eating, she just wanted someone else to do it - she wanted it to be done for her. That to me, is a tell tale sign that the person who identifies with this logic is on a one way road to a lifetime of weight loss - weight gain. Once they've lost the weight and no longer feel the need to pay for this "expensive" frozen food - they then go back to their old eating habits and start to gain weight again.

Even the exercise of preparing food, can be counted as incidental exercise. Standing up preparing vegetables and cooking meat for an hour will obviously burn more calories than sticking a frozen meal into the microwave oven for 5 minutes.

But apart from the obvious effect of exercise to burn calories, exercise has so much more benefits. A recent review found that exercise has many benefits for the brain. It found that exercise promotes neuronal repair and enhances memory and learning. They also found that exercise could fight the effects of aging.[1]

Exercise whether as a child or as an elderly person is absolutely necessary for the proper functioning of our bodies. So when you decide to go on a diet and lose some weight, and incorporate exercise into the diet schedule, the exercise routine shouldn't be thought of on a short-term basis. It needs to be something you enjoy. Perhaps a sport you used to like in high school or on an individual basis, an activity that can challenge you without being totally out of your reach.

Getting these things right, will make it more likely that you continue to exercise throughout your life without making yourself feel guilty if you miss a gym session or tied to the treadmill when you don't want to be.

[1]  Vaynman S, Gomez-Pinilla F.  License to run: exercise impacts functional plasticity in the intact and injured central nervous system by using neurotrophins.  Neurorehabil Neural Repair. 2005 Dec;19(4):283-95.  Full Text