When speaking of weight loss or weight management, we inevitably refer to diet and exercise. Eating healthy will supply the body with every nutrient it requires for proper functioning, while a drastic diet or fasting would deprive it, causing hunger signals aiming at obtaining the vitamins, minerals or proteins it lacks.

Many nutrients are essential to the proper functions of our body and to the maintenance of a healthy weight: proteins, carbohydrates, good fats, vitamins and minerals. Every day, you must supply your body with all these nutrients so it can maintain its functions, even when you are dieting and trying to reduce your food consumption.

Simple advice : To ensure you are obtaining enough of each vitamins and minerals despite your reduced-calorie diet, we suggest you take a multivitamin from Adrien Gagnon . Studies have shown that people on diet who took a multivitamins were less hungry and would lose more weight than people not taking any.

In order for your weight loss to be healthy, and mostly to avoid gaining all the lost weight back in the following few months, do not diet. No! The secret is to correct your dietary habits. This way, you will not feel like you are deprived of some foods, because no food will be prohibited. Simply eat smaller servings of each dietary food group.

Simple advice : To reduce your servings, prepare your plate as usual. Then, just when you are ready to eat, take off one third of each food. You have less calories without banning any food.

Some foods can also help you lose weight through helping burning calories:

• cinnamon;
• ginger;
• Cayenne;
• green tea;
• fibres.

You will therefore benefit from including those spices in your meals and replacing your coffee with green tea.

What you should avoid to success in you weight loss program

• Paranoing on calories;
• Being on a diet. Instead, think of it as changing your dietary habits;
• Skipping meals: you will be so hungry at the next meal that you will likely overeat;
• Banning snacks. Healthy snacks help eat less at the following meal;

• Diet foods: they may be lower in fats, but are often rich in sugars;
• Saturated and trans fats: butter, margarine, cream, sauces, ice cream, mayonnaise (unless homemade with olive oil), high fat dairy product;
• Refined foods;
• Carbonated drinks, high fat and sugar desserts, candies, sugar, alochol;
• Restaurants (especially fast-food types);

• Chewing gum. Which activates gastric secretion and increases appetite;
• Drastic weight loss in a short period;
• Very restrictive diets.

Some Adrien Gagnon products to help you

Now that you know how to recover healthy eating habits, here are a few products to support you and that can help accelerate weight loss.

Nutriforme Bars

These bars are meal replacements, meaning that their purpose is to replace a complete meal. Their vitamin, mineral, carbohydrate, protein and fat content is balanced to correspond to what a complete and balanced meal should provide, while remaining lower in calories. Each Nutriforme box contains a menu with suggested meals and snacks to reduce your calories and eat healthy in accordance with the Canadian Food Guide.

Green Tea

Green tea is a powerful antioxidant with many benefits when on a diet. But if you cannot go on without your coffee or if you do not like the taste of green tea, this capsule product is the perfect alternative for you. This concentrated green tea extract is recognized by Health Canada to help with weight loss by increasing the burning of calories.

Nutriforme Eat Less

Many of us have to deal with hunger between meals. Nutriforme Eat Less is a cactus extract that has show nits effectiveness at reducing appetite in two clinical studies. This product helps eating less food during meals and reducing cravings between meals.

Eliminex SLIM

This herbal tea possesses a diuretic action. In other words, it help eliminate excess water. Moreover, this herbal tea contains green tea leaves, which is a recognized thermogen. Hence, Eliminex SLIM has the ability to help the body burn more calories.

Eliminex

As a herbal tea or in capsules , this product helps eliminate accumulated wastes. They include intestinal wastes, which may cause bloating, gas and inflated belly, as well as excess water, which contributes to swelling.

Physical exercise: Where to start?

Before thinking about adding exercise to your lifestyle, you must know which exercise program you physical condition allows you to undertake. Professional trainers can help you. Consult with your physician before beginning intense training, especially if you have heart diseases, diabetes or if you are a man above 45 years of age or a woman above 55.

Simple Advice : Identify an activity that will be easy to integrate to your schedule and that you will enjoy. The aim is for it to become a habit, so put all the odds in your favour for it to last. Find friends to go with you if you wish.

Some people need to be accompanied, one may turn to group activities or to the gym with a personal trainer. Others will prefer freedom, such as the great outdoors and hiking.

An outdoor walk can be the main exercise in your program, since it is easy to fit our schedule. Remember that the important is to exercise regularly.

Organise the exercise periods around your schedule. Short periods of 10-15 minutes (during breaks at the office, for example), will be more frequent (3 times daily), while periods of one hour to one and a half hour will be repeated 3-7 times weekly.

Health benefits of exercise training

Physical activity is essential to the maintenance of good health, just as much as eating or sleeping. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, physical inactivity is as deleterious on health as smoking!

In conclusion, we must remind ourselves that we change our habits one step at a time and that we are adopting a new dietary philosophy for life. But if you really can't resist anymore, allow yourself to eat a reasonable serving of potato chips or chocolate bar, eating it slowly and enjoying every bite.

References

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Kieffer Daniel, Naturopathie, Gérez votre santé par une bonne hygiène de vie, Marabout.

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Li Y, Wang C, Zhu K, Feng RN and Sun CH. Effects of multivitamin and mineral supplementation on adiposity, energy expenditure and lipid profiles in obese Chinese women. International Journal of Obesity, advance online publication 9 February 2010.

MacLean PS, Higgins JA, Wyatt HR, et al, Regular exercises attenuates the metabolic drive to regain weight after long-term weight loss, Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol; 2009, vol. 297, no 3, R793-802.

Major GC, Doucet E, Jacqmain M, St-Onge M, Bouchard C, Tremblay A. Multivitamin and dietary supplements, body weight and appetite: results from a cross-sectional and a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled study. Br J Nutr. 2008 May;99(5):1157-67.

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Passeport Santé, Fiche Renforcer son système immunitaire, http://www.passeportsante.net/fr/Maux/Problemes/Fiche.aspx?doc=renforcer_systeme_immunitaire_pm . Consultée le 23 déc 2009.

Passeport Santé, Actualités : Ne pas reprendre le poids perdu.

http://www.passeportsante.net/fr/Actualites/Nouvelles/Fiche.aspx?doc=2009091001_maigrir-faire-de-l-exercice-permettrait-de-ne-pas-reprendre-le-poids-perdu-et-voici-comment . Consultée le 11 déc 2009.