In the simplest of terms, weight loss is nothing but a function of how many calories you burn versus how much you take in. Eating usually means you get calories, and day-to-day activities and exercise burns the. To make things very simple, you’re not losing any weight if you take in more than you burn off.

Conceptually, nothing could be more simple. However there are several factors to consider. These can include genetics, economics, culture, access to nutritious food, and access to decent amounts of exercise. The type of activities you engage in and your psychological makeup also contribute immensely to how well you lose weight- and keep it off.

Olympic level athletes often burn through astounding amounts of calories and consequently need to replenish them in enormous quantities. Swimmer Michael Phelps for instance, famously consumed 12,000 calories a day for his training regimen- up to 6 times the recommended daily allowance for an average person his age at the time. Of course, while most of us never get the amount of exercise someone like Michael Phelps would, most people in the industrialized world regularly exceed the 2000 recommended calories a day without even trying.

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Congratulations on your new bundle of joy! It’s no doubt that you’ll be enjoying all the wonders and surprises that come with your new baby. But it’s probably crossed your mind that you want to leave the baby weight behind and start reshaping your body to your pre-baby girth. You probably want to shed your maternity clothes and start fitting into your jeans, right?

Well, don’t worry, an article at Self.com by Bari Lieberman entitled “Lose the Baby Weight: The Fastest Way To Get Your Pre-baby Bod Back” knows exactly what you need to safely shed the pounds you might have put on during the maternity period. Read more…

So here I am in beautiful Goa on an adventure to discover how the East approaches health and wellbeing, in particular, how they manage stress and stay so calm and happy.

I must admit that, although I am fairly fit and healthy in many ways, a peaceful mind has still eluded me. Recently, I became exhausted, adrenal fatigue they told me, which would also explain why I gained a stone in weight when i had changed nothing.

My diet was healthy, and I did more exercise in a day than most people did in a week. It just didn’t seem to make sense. Ok, I knew a little about the cortisol connection to weight gain, however, it is something hadn’t experienced first hand.

As I started to study more about this stress response, and research the people who had come on Fit Farms, it became more and more evident that the body’s biochemical reactions to our lifestyles was a huge factor in many weight problems.

Most of the men and women I speak to with weight issues, it’s not as simple as that they just started eating more, or stopped exercising. It’s a much more complex issue, and the weight is just a symptom of something being out of balance. This may be a lifestyle factor, a demanding job, or one the road all the time. It may be an emotional issue, we are dissatisfied with our lives, and as we have been brought up to reward with food, we are using food to give us pleasure. It may be the type of food itself that is causing the problem, as so many people rely on stimulants, most notably sugar to get them through the day.

Stress and other factors throw the body out of balance. This now seems to have reached epidemic proportions in Westrn society.

Through my own experiences, being let down and disillusioned by Western medicine, I have over the years looked outside of the norm for the answers. I healed my fractured spine with The Alexander Technique, and I believe that our health is in our own hands.

This time I wanted to find a cure, an antidote for stress, and what better way to learn that discovering it for yourself.

I had a feeling that yoga and meditation are a crucial element of this, and where better to learn than in India. So here I am, taking this journey, ironically after one of the most stressful weeks I have had at work in a long time.

By keeping this diary, and just sharing my experiences, I hope that my learning will help others take responsibility for their stress, and their health, and do something about it.

Without our health, we have nothing.

Ever find yourself promising to have a salad but ending up with a packet of french fries? Or committing to the idea of just watching the movie without any snacks but finding yourself unable to say no to a tub of buttery popcorn? We all have, and believe it or not this may have a lot to do with where we eat , if Time.com’s article “Nobody Orders Fast Food Salads But That’s Not the Real Problem” or MSN.com’s “People will Wolf Down Stale Popcorn Out of Habit, Study Shows,” is to believed.

According to both articles, if we’re already hardwired to scarf down burgers at fast food joints or buy popcorn at movie houses, we’re likely to do that whenever we’re at a burger place or sitting to down to see the latest blockbuster. Still, that doesn’t mean that we can’t overcome our programming. Fitsugar, a popular blog on fitness tips, offers a few ideas on how to “Break Bad Snacking Habits”. Read more…

The holidays are upon us and for most of us, it’s time to break out the eatin’ pants. After all, once it starts with the candy frenzy that is Halloween and runs on through Turkey-and-Stuffing Day (aka, Thanksgiving Day) and then of course, the traditional food fest that is the Christmas season, we’re probably going to have several big and delicious meals and we’ll need to jeans to accommodate them. Read more…

By FitFarms Editorial

Aging is a natural process of human development. However, leading researches show that diseases and health problems are denser in older age brackets. It becomes imperative to ask, is aging really a part of human development?

Fitness is commonly defined as the holistic summation of the overall health of individuals. This naming convention ties up with the common connotation of how to become fit such as doing regular exercise, enrolling in boot camp, religiously following a diet plan and even on scoring pounds of weight loss.

Typically, scientific researches especially on medicine and demographics put emphasis on the physical health of individuals. However, the birth of more comprehensive approaches in scientific research gives the same weight on other non-physical aspects of health such as psychological, emotional and even sociological health studies. The new comprehensive aspect of scientific research on health gave birth to the common definition of fitness. Read more…

At some point in our lives we’ve all encountered the familiar saying “we always hurt the ones we love?” We don’t always mean to hurt them hence love, but we end up doing so anyway. Case in point? Many of our kids are becoming obese.

Despite our best efforts to keep our children healthy and nourished, statistics say that there’s now an alarming rise in the number of obese children in the country. In fact, Sahar Aker’s Fat Fighter TV asks the question “should parents lose custody of extremely obese children?” According to Ms. Aker, an opinion article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association says “yes”. Read more…

By FitFarms Health and Fitness Editorial

Planning to lose weight? You’re not the only one. Weight loss is simple enough, conceptually. After all, it’s simply a function of burning more calories than you take in. It should be as simple as having a proper diet and getting enough exercise. However, as we all know, it’s usually never as simple as these sounds. Most fitness programs fail well before target weights are reached. Those who succeed also typically eventually gain back the weight they’ve lost. Keeping it off may even be harder than losing it!

Many attempts at weight loss are often met with cynicism precisely because most fail to stick to their planned regimen. It often takes an enormous amount of willpower to be able to carry through with a fitness plan. This isn’t usually because dieting and exercise are physically difficult- most do not necessarily have a problem with the physical aspects of exercise. Rather, it is often the mental aspect that stymies most fitness programs.

Knowing this, it’s important to know that eating the right food and doing the right amount of exercise aren’t the only things to consider when you’re planning to lose weight. You will need to have some sort of strategy to cope with the psychological aspects of your diet plan. Fortunately, there are many ways to do this without relying purely on your innate willpower.

An Easy Way

Perhaps the easiest way to do this is to join a fit camp. It’s been proven that weight loss programs tend to be more effective when done in groups. The spirit of competition often gives participants the motivation they need to keep working towards their goals and to maintaining their target weights afterward. A fitness or weight loss camp takes this concept to a whole different level by pushing the concepts of fitness camp into higher gear. Read more…

It’s not unusual for doctors to prescribe diets that have us cutting back on salt, especially if we’re prone to having heart ailments. Low sodium diets, which mean that you can only consume about 1,500 to 2,400 mgs of sodium a day, are frequently pushed on those with vigorous lifestyles and those with health problems. This is because studies have shown that the average American eats about five or so teaspoons of salt every day -way more than the body’s requirement of one-quarter of a teaspoon each day!

Still, an article from Time Magazine’s website questions the practice of cutting back on salt for health reasons. Aptly entitled “Does Cutting Salt Really Improve Heart Health,” Meredith Melnick reports about a study published in the Cochrane Library (an organization that helps healthcare providers keep informed) that claims that there are no clear benefits from cutting down on salt in as far as lessening the risk of cardiovascular ailments or death. Read more…

Some common reasons people aren’t able to exercise are a) they’re too tired from work or school or b) they’re too sad to get up and do aerobics, Zumba or just a few rounds of shadow boxing. But some people believe that those excuses just don’t hold up because, apparently, exercise improves your mood. Read more…