Diabetes News

With summer fast approaching, many of you want to shed some pounds. I invited renowned, knowledgeable weight-loss coach Jonny Bowden, C.N.S., Ph.D. to offer some pointers to help you shed weight. Here are 5 quick suggestions from this acclaimed nutritionist:

1. Eat without distractions.

Many people don't realize that the way you eat --- your consciousness and mindfulness -- is actually as important as what you eat when it comes to losing weight, because most of us unconsciously eat most of our calories. So if you learn techniques to increase your consciousness, you'll consume fewer calories naturally and also digest and absorb them more effectively.

2. Recognize your cortisol triggers.

Cortisol, as you may already know, is the stress hormone that can cause weight gain, especially around the middle. One major cortisol trigger, especially for women, is over-caring for others and under-caring for you. (Sound familiar, ladies?)

3. Learn to manage your cravings.

This isn't as hard as it sounds, because most cravings - even really strong ones - will pass in about 15 minutes. You can program yourself to do something other than eat when you feel a craving. One technique that works well is to take a short, fast walk. Tell yourself that you can have the food you crave after you return, but you'll probably be amazed, because most of the time when you finish your walk, you won't want that food any more.

4. Use the scale in an empowering way.

One of the four most powerful habits of people who have lost at least 30 pounds and kept it off for at least a year is that they weigh themselves daily. Learn to make friends with your scale. Don't let it terrorize you - instead use it as a reality check to keep you on track.

5. Eat protein at every meal.

Protein not only stimulates metabolism, but it produces a greater feeling of fullness and keeps your energy even for a longer period of time. It's one of the greatest secrets of a successful weight loss program.

Jonny - as I discovered from interviewing him several times for my book SUGAR SHOCK! - has a wealth of information at his disposal.

And those weight-loss pointers are just a few of many that he can offer. (Of course, he can expound on all of the above tips.)

...Stay tuned, because shortly I'll tell you about a special gift Jonny is offering just for the thousands of readers of this SUGAR SHOCK! Blog. (Cool, eh?)

Get more helpful, juicy info now from Jonny by checking out his exciting CD set, "The 9 Essential Steps to Weight Loss."

"The 9 Essential Stops of Weight Loss" is full of humor, wisdom, and, of course, Jonny's exhaustive knowledge. In the program, he explains how certain basic ideas can be incorporated into any (low-sugar) dietary program to virtually guarantee not only results, but lasting change in your weight and in your life.

In Jonny's "9 Essential Steps to Weight Loss," you'll learn more about:

• The role of cortisol, the stress hormone that can pack pounds around the middle.
• How to use the scale in a constructive, empowering way.
• The truth about calories - that they do count but that they're far from the whole picture. The number of calories you actually will lose weight on may surprise you!
• How all carbs just don't make you fat.
• Which carbs to eat to turbo charge your weight loss program.
• The value of eating without distractions.

FREE GIFT FOR YOU: Because Jonny and I are buddies, he's offering a special gift for you if you order his set by Thursday at 12 a.m. Jonny's gift to you is a special report, "29 Tips for a Healthy Life" and five of his personal favorite recipes. Sign up now to get Jonny's "The 9 Essential Steps to Weight Loss."

Make sure to tell Jonny that Connie sent you.

He even cites an alarming study that documents numerous similar episodes of people "going berserk" (as he puts it) after taking SSRI drugs.

In his alarming article, Mike asks the compelling question: "What is it about antidepressant drugs that provokes young men to pick up pistols, rifles and shotguns, then violently assault their classmates?"

He wonders: "Could the drugs be "imbalancing" their minds, priming them for violence? The answer is a very sobering, "Yes, they could be," he contends.

"Wherever we see school violence, antidepressant drugs seem to found at the scene of the crime. The correlation is not coincidence," Mike maintains. "There is a causal link between the two." You can read Mike's column on NewsTarget.com here now.

Today and tomorrow are big days for me. Just look for me all over the Internet!

You see, I'm doing the SUGAR SHOCK! Blog Tour. Look for my very different postings on the following blogs:

• www.Diet-Blog.com
• www.HealthBolt.net
• www.ScienceBlog.com
• www.DiabetesNotes.com
• www.carbwire.com
• www.LivinLaVidaLoCarb.blogspot.com

I'm off to these other blogs. Check back later for more exciting news!

I'm greatly indebted to Jennifer Moore's compelling entry. I sure needed the blog help during my hectic week of getting ready for my first book signing and other book promotional stuff.

Here's Jennifer's blog entry:

As mother to an impressionable 4-year-old girl, I’m pretty vigilant about what she sees on TV. The rule in our house is no more than an hour of screen time a day, and no commercial TV shows, so she won’t be bombarded with ads for sugary cereals, fast food, and other tempting junk. That means that “Sesame Street” is the only TV show my little girl watches, as she was one morning this week while I was combing her hair to get her off to preschool.

This episode included a scene involving a little boy and a little girl who were going to have a snack before going outside to play.  The boy chose a banana, while the girl decided to chow down on a cupcake. 

So what happened? The little boy had a great time and had lots of energy for running around.

The cupcake-eating girl, by contrast, started to lose steam after a while, because, a voice-over explained, she didn’t have a good, healthy, energy-boosting snack before heading outside.

I knew there was a reason I like “Sesame Street”! First, Cookie Monster reins in his cookie-gobbling habit, as Chelsea J. Carter of the Associated Press reported back in April 2005, and Connie wrote about on her blog here.

Now, the show show tells tiny tots why it’s good to eat fruit and stay away from unhealthy sweets.  Now, if we could just wean the show from its McDonald’s sponsorship….

Note from Connie: Again, thanks to Jennifer for today's contribution.

Earlier this month, Santa Claus went public with his diagnosis of type-2 diabetes and asked for the help of nutritionists and experts to teach him how to overcome the blood sugar disorder before Christmas. NewsTarget.com is now coordinating an effort to help Santa use a course of nutritional therapy designed to reverse his diabetic condition. I am committed to regaining my health in a safe, natural way that does not make me dependent on prescription medications, Santa told NewsTarget. I am now working with a team of top nutritionists to get rid of all the diabetes-promoting foods in my pantry....

This story from the state of Virginia is so downright ridiculous that all I can do is shake my head in confusion and befuddlement. The George Mason Elementary School in Alexandria, Virginia outlawed cupcakes in school to comply with federal guidelines for “wellness policies.” They announced their decision at a PTA meeting. With me so far? Sounds like a good idea, right? Well, apparently this move to watch the health and waistlines of Virginia students was downright offensive to some parents, reports the Washington Post's Brigid Schulte, in a tantalizing article dubbed, Once Just a Sweet Birthday Treat, the Cupcake...

Any reasonable parent knows that selling soda to kids at school isn’t the greatest idea. But public schools are strapped for cash, and soda contracts provide essential money for our kids' education, so we should hold our noses and sign on the dotted line, right? Wrong. The Center for Science in the Public Interest just reviewed more than 120 soda contracts from schools in 16 states and found that most of these deals (67 percent) with soda companies yield, on average, a paltry $18 per student per year, the Atlanta Journal Constitution's Elizabeth Lee reports. Put another way, that $18...

A few weeks ago, my online colleague Mike Adams, editor of the innovative NewsTarget.com, told me about a terribly innovative idea he'd developed. He thought it would be eye-opening to Americans to concoct a fabulous, fictional scenario where Santa has to face the same health dilemma now troubling millions of Americans: Type 2 diabetes. So, lately, we've been e-mailing back and forth ideas and rewrites, etc. Anyhow, here's the press release that Mike--the Health Ranger--wrote and that we both have now posted on our respective sites. As you'll note, I'm one of the experts now helping out poor Santa. Here's...