Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Friday while I was getting ready to head to Tulsa I had the television on in the background. One of the things that came on was Dr. Oz and the topic of the day was shortcuts. The first list that he presented was entitled "Dr. Oz's 6 Shortcuts to Losing Weight" and they are as follows:

1.) Eat an apple 15 minutes before you eat lunch. It will actually cut down on how many calories you consume at lunch because the fiber in the apple will keep you full. By doing this you can cut five pounds off your body in a year.

2.) Refrigerate your cans. If they have saturated fats in them the fat will rise to the top and you will be able to scrape it off. In a year you will lose up to six pounds.

3.) Dilute your juice. You cut the calories in half. If you drink two glasses of juice a day and are not diluting it in a year you will have consumed over 40 pounds of sugar. By diluting the juice by equal parts juice and equal parts water you can lose up to 13 pounds in a year.

4.) Fake a Carbohydrate! If you mash squash instead of potatoes you can lose up to 12 pounds in a year.

5.) Replace oil with applesauce. You replace 50 percent w/applesauce (when baking cakes or brownies for example) and you could save six pounds in a year.

6.) Swap gym bags with a friend. What is meant by this is have a workout buddy. We are use to disappointing ourselves, but we don't want to let our friends down. If you and your friend exchange something like tennis shoes then you will have to go with them because it will be your fault that you kept your friend from being able to do his/her workout. Accountability is what we are talking about. If you work out three times a week for 30 minutes a day you can lose up to 13 pounds.

The next segment was entitled "Dangerous Shortcuts that Dr. Oz Would Never Take":

1.) Diet never to use would be the hormone diet. Many people say that it works, but it can have a damaging effect on your metabolism. This diet is also known as HCG (human chorionic gondatropin) Diet. HCG is the hormone produced in the body when a woman is pregnant to ensure that the pregnant woman is burning the right kind of fat when burning calories. The HCG diet pills consist of small doses of HCG that tap into stored fat and burn it off. It also suppresses the appetite so that people are consuming as few as 500 calories a day. You can rapidly drop weight, but ultimately you are starving yourself, thus destroying your metabolism. Another negative effect is the loss of muscle mass in the body and as a result of this you will no longer be able to effectively burn calories. To naturally suppress your appetite Dr. Oz suggests the Four F's: fiber, fish, fowl and (good) fats like walnuts and flaxseed.

2.) Shortcut snack never to buy would be the 100 calorie snack packs. They normally aren't very healthy (containing things like trans fats) and make you more hungry. Dr. Oz suggests making your own snack packs so that you can watch your own calorie intake.

3.) Never take the elevator at work. If where you work is less than three flights of stairs Dr. Oz says you should always take the stairs as it helps build muscle mass (looks like I was on to something huh! ).

4.) Dr. Oz says we should never borrow an antiobiotic from a friend. First of all the friend should have finished their entire antibiotic. This may lead to a worse infection and even antibiotic resistance.

I hope all of this information has been informative to you. I am currently at work with my grapefruit breakfast to go...lol. I should also work on finishing my big paper that is soon due. Tonight I'm going to see Dane Cook and that should be healthy because laughing helps burn calories and that guy cracks me up. I'll let you know all about it tomorrow. I weighed myself this morning and it looks like I've lost two pounds since last week.