6 Super Simple Ways to Clean up Your Diet or Lose Weight Right Now

Losing weight or cleaning up your diet really isn't rocket surgery. It's more about knowing where to start sometimes and realizing it doesn't have to be a painful experience. Sometimes starting with the lowest hanging fruit so to speak is the way to succeed with any change.

So here are my top six tips:

1) No more liquid calories (with the exception of a glass of red wine a day)

2) No starchy carbohydrates after lunch (corn, rice, pasta, bread, potatoes, cous cous, quinoa)

3) Fill half your plate with veggies always.

4) If you don't understand the ingredients listed on a package, don't eat it.

5) Try to choose food your great grandparents would have eaten.

6) Avoid white stuff.

Sounds way too simple right? Well it kind of is. But the hard part is really putting new habits into practice. Ongoing consistent moderation is what's it's all about.

The truth about children's health in the big smoke (For Doug Holyday)

Doug Holyday is just plain ignorant about the suburbs being a healthier place for kids.

He said, “Where will these children play? On King St.?” Holyday said in reaction to a push to have a condo developer include family-friendly, three-bedroom units in a proposed 47-storey tower at King and John Sts. “I mean, I could just see now: ‘Where’s little Ginny?’ ‘Well, she’s downstairs playing in the traffic on her way to the park!’ ”

Well guess what Doug? There's research that shows kids raised in the burbs are more likely to be overweight.

Taken from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada Position Statement
Built Environment, physical activity, heart disease and strokeCOMMUNITY DESIGN, PHYSICAL ACTIVITY, HEART DISEASE AND STROKE:

1) The risk of obesity has been shown to decline by 4.8% for each additional kilometre walked per day and can increase by 6% for each hour spent in a car per day.

2) A recent study compared rates of active transportation with obesity in Europe, North America and Australia and found that generally, the countries with higher rates of active transportation had lower levels of obesity.

3) Across Canada, only about 12% of trips to the grocery store, work, the library or school are made on foot or by bicycle. While this is higher than the 7% rate in the United States, it is much lower than in the Netherlands (46%) and Denmark (41%)

4) In major urban centres, 34% of residents report walking, biking, or taking public transit to get to work, while in smaller Canadian communities, this figure is 18%.7

5) In urban areas, neighbourhoods that have good street lighting, availability of continuous sidewalks, and a greater density and variety of shops, services, parks, schools and workplaces within walking distance of homes are often called “walkable” neighbourhoods. Canadian studies have shown that adolescents are more likely to walk or bike to school if the journey is short and takes place in a walkable environment with a variety of land uses and a high density of street trees.

6) A number of studies in the United States and Canada have shown that people who live in moderate to high density areas and in more walkable neighbourhoods make more trips on foot or by bicycle, spend less time driving, and are more likely to meet recommended levels of physical activity. 9,,10 People living in more walkable neighbourhoods are less likely to be overweight or obese than those living in rural areas or low density areas with a lack of shops, services and other amenities close by.

7) Users of public transit tend to have higher levels of physical activity.


Plus, even wikipedia states that:

The study found people that live in cities (Census Metropolitan Areas) had significantly lower obesity rates in Nova Scotia, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia.

THE ONTARIO COLLEGE OF FAMILY PHYSICIANS, in their position paper "The Health Impacts of Urban Sprawl, Volume III" state the following

Spread-out suburban communities make car travel the fastest, most convenient, and sometimes the only, way to get around. The design of most sprawling communities makes it difficult for residents to walk or ride their bikes to carry out even the most basic errands, such as buying milk at a local store. The lack of daily physical activity is a factor in the growing rate of obesity among adults, teenagers and children across Canada. Obesity has been linked to serious health problems, including:

• diabetes
• high blood pressure
• heart disease
• some cancers
• osteoarthritis

Obesity is a growing public health crisis, so much so that it is often referred to as the “new tobacco”. The number of deaths in Canada related to obesity has almost doubled over the past 15 years, from 2,514 in 1985 to 4,321 in 2000.

I could spend the next few hours getting more statements or statistics from respectable organizations. But I won't. That's all the time in my life Doug Holyday deserves.

Top 5 workout mistakes

Ever wonder why you've been putting in all this time at the gym, pounding the pavement in your sneaks, or spinning away on a bike, lifting weights and you're not seeing results? Chances are you're not choosing the right type of exercise or you're choosing the right type of exercise but just doing it wrong.

I'd say these are the top five mistakes I see people making when trying to shed pounds, change their body composition or generally just improve their fitness level.

1) People don't change their diet and think exercise will change their body alone. In fact, some people use exercise as a way to increase caloric intake. It's largely a numbers game in terms of weight loss.

2) People think too much about how much time they spend exercising instead of to what intensity. The classic example of this is the old school cardio equipment fanatic reading a magazine. If you're only working out a few times a week, make it count.

Clocking time at a gym has no correlation with results. Effort in = results out.

3) People don't know how to strength train and try to go it alone. If you finish a set and still can do more, you WILL NOT see results. If you think you can spot reduce a problem area, you're in denial. Our bodies only adapt if we force them to. Doing the same strength exercises over and over again without working to fatigue (not being able to do one more repetition with proper form) will mean you stay the same. Plus if you're reconditioned, don't let me see you doing bicep curls! Work with compound movements that hit several large muscle groups at a time.

4) People do too many repetitions. The best rep range for strength training is around 10 -12 reps. Consistently doing high reps as a way to avoid getting big is just foolishness. You aren't going to get big unless you eat a lot more and change your hormone levels too!

5) People give up too easily. It takes about 3-4 weeks to start feeling different and 3 months for other people to really see a difference. If you're constantly stopping and starting an exercise program, you will not see results. It's better to consistently do 2 full body strength workouts a week and watch what you eat without being to insane then it is to do short spurts of bootcamp like workouts and crash diets. You're just cruising for a crash in eating and likely an injury. Slow and steady always wins!