Fat Fighter TV » weight loss

News Nugget: Can podcasts help you lose weight?

FatFighter — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:25:06 +0000

The answer, from a new study – it depends. Researchers stress not all weight-loss podcasts are equal, and caution that the programs should be engaging and offer sound diet and exercise advice or they won’t have much benefit. More on the most effective types of podcasts for weight loss here.

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Fun Friday: Exorcising the ghosts of diets past

FatFighter — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:00:14 +0000

Do you let the ghosts of diets past haunt you as you try to get healthy? Never fear. Since Halloween is just around the corner, it’s time to exorcise those ghosts with the help of Does This Blog Make Us Look Fat? Be gone evil diet spirits!

Get your FREE copy of "Recipes and Tips for Healthy, Thrifty Meals" Download e-book here.

Top 5 FREE health & fitness apps

FatFighter — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:05:53 +0000

(Lose It! app, Photo Credit: Apple)

Health and fitness applications for Blackberries, iPhones, and other mobile phones keep popping up, but I have yet to use one. I’m pretty boring with my apps, still fascinated by the ones that let me know the weather and time in different cities and countries! But after seeing Apple’s list of its top FREE health and fitness apps, I think I’m ready to take my apps to the next level.

1. Lose It!
Set diet and exercise goals and stay on track by recording your food and workouts easily using a searchable database. You can also quickly re-enter foods you’ve had in the past.

2. SixPack App
Features more than 100 exercises with detailed explanations of not just how to do them, but why. Comes with pictures showing proper technique and illustrations of which muscle groups you use in each exercise.

3. WebMD Mobile
Trusted medical information on the go. You can look up symptoms, find drug or treatment information, and answers to your every day health questions.

4. Weight Watchers Mobile
Track your food and activity from anywhere, plus search more than 31,000 food options and calculate POINTS values anytime.

5. Restaurant Nutrition
View nutrition information about restaurant menus and track what you eat. More menu information will be added to the database over time.

All five of these apps can be used with both the iPhone and the iPod touch. And check out That’s Fit’s list of these FREE fitness apps.

Since a cell phone is something many of us have with us at all times, it seems like the perfect tool to track our food and exercise, and get health info on the go, doesn’t it? I’m going to start with the WebMD Mobile and Restaurant Nutrition apps.

Do you use any health and fitness apps? Which ones do you like?

Get your FREE copy of "Recipes and Tips for Healthy, Thrifty Meals" Download e-book here.

Weight Loss WooHoo! to Lori (Finding Radiance)

FatFighter — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:04:05 +0000

Meet: Lori (Finding Radiance)

Age: 41

Occupation: Medical Transcriptionist

Where she lives: Upstate New York

Height: 5′2″

Weight: 145 pounds

Pounds Lost: 105 pounds

How long it took to lose the weight: About 4 years

How long she has kept it off: 1 year 3 months

This is one person who not only lost a lot of weight and kept it off for over a year, but along the way found out she could eat things and do things she had never imagined. Her blog, Finding Radiance, is a must read for inspiration, healthy recipes, and oh yes, The Great Veggie Experiment. I am so proud of your accomplishments, Lori! Here’s your Weight Loss WooHoo! – Just FatFighterTV’s fun way of celebrating healthy weight.

How Lori gained the weight:
“I was pretty much overweight most of my childhood. And in college, it was very easy to gain weight. I would kind of lose some over the summer, and then I would gain more. I just liked to eat. My weight just kept creeping up and creeping up.

“When I got married 13 years ago, I’d hit 220 and I was very upset about that. I decided to get down to about 180, but I never really had a handle on what was the proper way of eating. It was always restrict calories or follow a program.”

Turning point:
“I hit 250 and that was a shocker for me. I thought, that’s halfway to 500 pounds. I don’t know why it was 2-5-0 that did it. I didn’t know what to do at that point. I knew it couldn’t continue, but I didn’t really know why I couldn’t lose weight and keep it off.”

How she shed the pounds:
“I was really trying to move towards getting rid of all the sugary stuff and the processed foods. I had started gradually weeding the sugar out of the diet, moving to whole grains, and trying to eat more vegetables, which is difficult when you’re not a veggie lover. I’m getting better. I’ve learned to like some vegetables that I never thought I would like. That’s been a big change for me because I do eat vegetables every day, whereas before, it would probably be once a week maybe, and it would be iceberg lettuce! Growing up, I ate broccoli and carrots and potatoes, and that was it.

“I started really paying attention to what I eat – making sure that my meals are balanced, that I’m getting good carbs, protein, and fat with all my meals and my snacks. That’s just been the last year and a half that I’ve been grinding it out – playing with food, making sure my meals are balanced, and trying new foods and cooking new recipes or trying to lighten up the other ones we’ve always liked to make them better, but still taste good. It’s very important for me that the food taste good because I like food.

“[For exercise,] I was doing a lot of things like Walk Away the Pounds tapes, biking, and The Firm. Then I stepped it up to the next level with real strength training. I loved it. I love feeling strong.”

Weekly workouts:
“I do strength training three times a week for about a half hour or so – three full-body workouts a week – and I run on the alternating days of that. I just started increasing my mileage. I used to run about 10 miles a week and now I’m averaging about 15. My big love is biking. My husband and I bike together, which is nice. Saturdays are usually our biking days where we try to plan to go somewhere further that’s maybe 20 or 30 miles away.”

Diet Philosophy:
“Eat good food and don’t feel guilty about it. The association of guilt with food causes a lot of problems. The thing is to make everything that you put in your mouth something that you want to eat. I decided no more guilt with food.”

Daily challenge:
“I have to be careful with portions. I like dark chocolate, but that’s one of those foods that I have trouble portioning. There are things like that that my husband has to keep out of reach for me because I work from home. That’s the big challenge because the fridge is 20 feet away all day long. He’ll put things really high up on top of the cupboards if I’m having trouble with it so I don’t snack on it, and that’s really helpful for me.”

Tips from Lori:
“I think writing down what you eat is very important, and everything, too. There are a lot of things that go by the wayside if you don’t record your food – let’s say when you grab two or three chips, but if you do that five or six times, it’s a whole serving and you haven’t counted it. It’s surprising when you really write down everything you eat.”

Favorite healthy recipe: Pumpkin Cranberry Oat Bars

Lori’s Weight Loss WooHoo!:
“I think it was when I did a triathlon this summer. It was something I never thought I would ever want to do, or let alone, be able to do. For whatever reason, to me, it was a big pinnacle moment. I had real difficulty at the end of the course because I was crying. I was trying to hold it together. I felt so emotionally overwhelmed. I thought, I can’t believe I’m doing this. Here I am at the end, I’ve lost 100 pounds, I’m doing a triathlon, I’m 40 – Who would have ever thought? There’s no way I would have ever thought I could do this. They were tears of joy. I was so moved by it. I can’t believe all my weight loss sort of culminated with the finishing of that. It was a big personal challenge.

###

What an emotional and awesome finish – congrats, Lori! I hear you have a duathlon coming up in October. Go Lori, go!

Want to see who else got a Weight Loss WooHoo!? Check out the Wall of Fame!

If you know of someone who deserves this honor, just let me know – send me an email at sahar [at] fatfightertv [dot] com

Get your FREE copy of "Recipes and Tips for Healthy, Thrifty Meals" Download e-book here.

Fun Friday: Could Bonnie Hunt be your weight loss solution?

FatFighter — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:04:03 +0000

Could watching TV help you shed a few pounds? Check out how The Bonnie Hunt Show may help you with your weight loss journey, from our friends over at Does This Blog Make Us Look Fat?

Get your FREE copy of "Recipes and Tips for Healthy, Thrifty Meals" Download e-book here.

High-Tech Grocery Glasses Aid in Weight Loss

FatFighter — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:05:14 +0000

I’m taking a little time off this week to recover from surgery. While I’m away, some of my fellow bloggers are helping me keep things going over here. (Thank you!)

Today’s post comes from the wacky Josie at Yum Yucky. Her blog is a must read for some good info about popular foods and how they rate… and it’s always a good laugh.

It’s all the rage in Europe and beginning to pick up steam in the States. Shademaker 3000, a new high-tech innovation from FatSo Inc., provides a multi-faceted function as three glasses in one.

1. Enhance your style (Sexy Glasses).
2. Guard against UV rays (Sunglasses).
3. Blind yourself from fattening foods in the grocery aisle (Grocery Glasses).

Shademaker 3000’s patented design works by scanning the calorie and fat content in packaged foods as you stroll the grocery aisles. The lenses receive a signal to “shade out” visibility of fattening products, thus preventing purchase, consumption, and weight gain by the wearer.

Arm yourself with a pair of Shademaker 3000’s and never go fatty again.

Here’s How to Order

* Send $1,995 (cash only) to FatSo Inc.
* Allow 4-6 years for shipment.
* FatSo Inc. is not responsible for shipments lost in transit.
* No refunds or exchanges allowed.
* Limited time offer. Act now!

Shademaker 3000 is fully endorsed by Josie at Yum Yucky, the author of this (fake) advertisement, so shop with confidence. You have nothing to lose but the fat…and the shirt off your back.

[Photo credit: theotherway]

Get your FREE copy of "Recipes and Tips for Healthy, Thrifty Meals" Download e-book here.

News Nugget: Could a new weight loss pill be on the way?

FatFighter — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:00:20 +0000

An experimental drug for weight loss looks promising so far. Orexigen Therapeutics Inc. says research shows its obesity drug, Contrave, helps patients lose weight, lowers the fat around the waist, and improves levels of “good” HDL cholesterol. Orexigen says Contrave also reduces food cravings and lets patients have better control of their eating. The company will ask the FDA to approve the drug in early 2010.

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Weight Loss WooHoo! to Tony (The Anti-Jared)

FatFighter — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:00:23 +0000

Meet: Tony (The Anti-Jared)

Age: 33

Occupation: Managing Partner for a restaurant

Where he lives: Florida

Height: 5′6″

Weight: 208

Pounds Lost: 212

How long it took to lose the weight: 1 year

How long he has kept it off: almost 6 months

Here’s someone who failed at weight loss over and over, but came back for one more round and won! Tony told me he couldn’t lose the weight for good until he really got to know himself. And apparently, he got to know himself pretty darn well, because he lost more than 200 pounds! Stop by his blog – The Anti-Jared – he’ll motivate you, challenge you, and amuse you. Tony – here’s your Weight Loss WooHoo! - Just FatFighterTV’s fun way of celebrating healthy weight.

How Tony gained the weight:
“I’ve always been an over-eater. I’ve never been able to really control exactly how I eat. Some people would say, ‘Oh my God, I just had a Quarter Pounder!’ I would eat five or six of them. I never ate in front of other people. I always ate by myself. I would spend $30 at Taco Bell, I would spend $35 at McDonald’s, and I just got to the point where I was 420 pounds.”

I’ve had a problem with weight my whole life. I’ve done diets my whole life, as well. This has just been an ongoing struggle.

“I lost a little bit of weight in high school, so I was down to 175, then I would go up to 240… then down to 215, up to 275… down to 255, up to 315… down to 230, then I just ballooned up to 420. I guess my biggest fear was if I would have failed one more time, I’d be over 500 pounds.”

Wake-up Call:
“Last January, I started coughing up blood and I would get numbness in my arms when I was laying down. I would basically look up and say, ‘When am I going to die? When is it time?’ I went to the doctor and he did a physical. My cholesterol was over 300. My blood pressure was 220/180. He had to give me medication at the office just so I wouldn’t leave with that kind of blood pressure.

“At 420 pounds, it just was really hard to live – I couldn’t go to the bathroom properly, I couldn’t put on a seat belt, I couldn’t fit in a lot of cars. The hardest thing was that I couldn’t do a whole lot of things for my wife, like she would need me to do some chores around the house and I just never had the energy to do them. I just got to the point where I was tired of being selfish. I was tired of eating so much and not caring about anyone else around me.”

How he shed the pounds:
“I decided I had to make a change because I can’t just get a picket sign and say, ‘Close down all McDonald’s’ and ‘No more processed foods.’ I can’t expect the world to change around me.

“I made a choice to change the way I eat for the rest of my life. I switched to fruits, vegetables, beans – they were foods I’d actually never eaten before! I’d never eaten a fresh apple – I would eat apple pie, I would eat apple fritters, but I never really just sat down and ate a fresh apple. It was really new to me and it was kind of exciting and I enjoyed it! I realized I’m not going to gain 200 pounds by eating three heads of cauliflower, so I could eat that kind of stuff. Something clicked in me – if I change the way I eat, I can do this for the rest of my life.

“I had never exercised before this. When I first went to the gym, I went on the treadmill for like a minute and I couldn’t do any more. But the next day, I came back and I did two minutes… then four minutes… Eventually, I would workout twice a day for an hour at a time.”

Weekly workouts:
“I workout 6-7 days a week. I do weight training 3 days and cardio 3 days. I like the elliptical machine – I usually do that for 60 minutes then a little bit of calisthenics, like jumping jacks, for 10 minutes after that.”

Diet Philosophy:
“Diets are like snowflakes. No two are going to be alike. Until you find something that works for you, you’re never going to be successful with it.”

Tips from Tony:
“Don’t fool yourself. Just because on the box it says ‘full of fiber’ or ‘lowers cholesterol’ doesn’t mean it might be healthy. You really need to do your research on your products.”

Tony’s Weight Loss WooHoo!:
“There are so many great things – I’m able to be normal, I’m able to put on a seat belt. When my wife asks me to do something, I’m able to do it and not be tired. At work, I’m able to run around. I never lost weight to be in a size 34 pants and I never lost weight to wear a Large shirt. I always did it so I could do normal things. That’s the most important thing to me – when I realized I could do things normal people could do, I said WooHoo!

###

“Diets are like snowflakes” – I love that! It’s so true. I’m glad you found your snowflake, Tony!

Want to see who else got a Weight Loss WooHoo!? Check out the Wall of Fame!

If you know of someone who deserves this honor, just let me know – send me an email at sahar [at] fatfightertv [dot] com

Get your FREE copy of "Recipes and Tips for Healthy, Thrifty Meals" Download e-book here.

Fun Friday: Bikini ready!

FatFighter — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:06:04 +0000

She did it! Robin from Does This Blog Make Us Look Fat? dropped some pounds and is showing off her new bikini bod in a new picture! Well, sort of… Check it out!

Get your FREE copy of "Recipes and Tips for Healthy, Thrifty Meals" Download e-book here.

News Nugget: Weight-loss surgery cuts women’s risk of cancer

FatFighter — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 04:36:07 +0000

Having weight-loss surgery may help obese women lower their risk of developing cancer. Swedish researchers found women who had bariatric surgery were 42 percent less likely to develop cancer, but men in the study did not benefit. Researchers say that may be because many cancers are driven by female hormones like estrogen, or simply because fewer men have weight-loss surgery.

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Fat Fighter TV » weight loss

News Nugget: Can podcasts help you lose weight?

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Fun Friday: Exorcising the ghosts of diets past

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Weight Loss WooHoo! to Lori (Finding Radiance)

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Fun Friday: Could Bonnie Hunt be your weight loss solution?

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High-Tech Grocery Glasses Aid in Weight Loss

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Weight Loss WooHoo! to Tony (The Anti-Jared)

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