7 secrets the weight-loss industry doesn't want you to know

Lose weight without high-priced diets, personal trainers and expensive gym memberships. Here are the secrets to weight-loss success.

Exercise, by itself, is an ineffective weight-loss tool

If any trainer tells you his gadget or workout routine will burn off all the weight you need, you should burn some calories by running away from him. To lose weight and keep it off, you have to pair exercise with a diet plan. In fact, exercise alone leads to a very modest decrease in total body weight: less than 3 percent. What’s worse: For some, exercise alone as a weight loss plan induces more hunger, which can offset what improvements you’ve made.

Fat is an essential part of a weight-loss eating plan

The trick is eating the right kind of fat. Sure, saturated fat in highly processed meats and trans fat in desserts are bad for your health and waistline. But good fats, such as monounsaturated fatty acids can actually help you lose weight. Eating foods such as olive oil, nuts, avocados, and fatty fish including salmon is an easy way to add these fats to your diet. These fats can help increase how many calories your body burns and help you feel fuller longer. A handful of nuts or some peanut butter on whole wheat crackers makes a terrific snack.

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17 unusual weight-loss tips

Every culture has its secrets for helping people stay slim. Here are 17 unusual weight-loss tips from around the world.

Losing weight around the world

Just about every culture has some custom that can help people lose weight. For example, if you dine out in Europe, a waiter generally sets a bottle of mineral water on your table. But at restaurants here in Canada, you often have to request water and, as a result, you may end up having pop or other drinks high in calories instead. Or you might have one more glass of wine or beer than you would if you were alternating sips with water. Here’s our collection of clever tips from 17 countries—call it an international healthy eating plan that can help us all.

Thailand: Eat spicy food

Thai food is among the spiciest in the world. Hot peppers raise your metabolism, but the real benefit of food with a little zing is that spicy food slows your eating. When you eat too fast, as many North Americans do, by the time your body signals it’s full, you’ve overeaten. Eating more slowly is a good weight-loss strategy, and making food spicier is an easy way to do it.

Poland: Eat at home more often

Poles typically spend only five percent of their family budget on eating out. On the other hand, the average Canadian family 
now spends almost 30 percent of total food dollars at restaurants and fast-food joints, according to Statistics Canada. To save money and pounds, start tracking how often you eat out and how much you spend on those meals each month, then gradually cut back."People who eat out a lot tend to eat less-healthy food and to be heavier," says Melodie Yong, dietitian for the Heart and Lung Institute of St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. In fact, the decline of cooking at home, linked in part to the increasing number of women in the workforce, tracks very closely with the rise in obesity over the past 30 years, she notes.

Brazil: Have rice and beans

All that shaking at Carnaval isn’t the only body-friendly habit in Rio; Brazilians stay slim by enjoying this traditional dish with just about every meal. A study in the journal Obesity Research found that a diet consisting primarily of rice and beans lowers the risk 
of becoming overweight by about 14 percent when compared with the typical Western fare. That’s because it’s lower in fat and higher in fibre, which is thought to stabilize blood sugar levels. It may be counterintuitive, but a diet full of beans equals a beach-ready body.

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Meet the small yellow worm that can REGROW its own head - and its old memories

Scientists have discovered that not only can the planarian worm regrow its head if its cut off, the regenerated brain contains the same memories that were stored in the decapitated one.

Researchers from Tufts University in Boston tested the memory of the planarian worms by measuring how long it took them to reach food in a lab environment.

The small yellow worms had been trained to ignore the bright lights in the lab so they could find their meals without being distracted and the scientists found that even after decapitation worms remembered this training. 

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Get Rid of Ants Cheaply and Naturally

Search online for "ways to get rid of ants", and you're likely to turn up page after page of results, but which ones work and which ones don't? It's not so easy to decide. Save yourself the hassle of sifting through the lore, and give these cheap, natural and science-based ant remedies a try:

Vinegar

Wipe down your countertops, cupboards and any other places where you've spotted ants with a 50-50 mixture of white vinegar and water. Repeat throughout the day to maintain the efficacy.

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Top 10 Ways to Make Yourself Look (and Be) Smarter

Whether you're trying to survive an intensive college schedule or just want to seem smarter in front of your friends, you can do a lot of things to both look and be smarter. Here are ten simple tricks for boosting your real (and perceived) brain power.

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Keep Computer and Smartphone Screens from Destroying Your Eyes

Staring at a screen all day can cause eye strain and other vision problems. Keep your eyes healthy and prevent other issues like neck and shoulder pain by practicing good "eye-gonomics."

The Vision Council has published a helpful 16-page guide to avoiding digital eye strain. The first step is to identify symptoms of digital eye strain: red or dry eyes, blurred vision, general fatigue, or headaches. Back and neck pain can also be caused by poor workspace ergonomics.

Remembering to blink and using the 20-20-20 rule (take a 20-second break every 20 minutes and look at something 20 feet away) are among the many tips The Vision Council offers to combat eye strain.

One of the more interesting tips is to make sure your computer screen is far enough away from your eyes using the "high five test": If you can't give your display a proper high five, you're sitting too close. You should be sitting like so:

 And holding your smartphone this way:

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10 Ways to Lose Calories without Exercising

Infomercials bombard us every day with techniques to lose weight fast . But many of us actually shun the idea of losing weight without much effort. However there are ways of losing weight without being a total gym bunny. All you have to do is make a few changes in your lifestyle.

Read these types and make a few small alterations and you will be on your way to slimville in no time, Just remember patience is the name of the game.

10. Talking on the phone

You lose 46 calories while talking on the phone for an hour. So spend an hour talking on the phone with your best friend. Those long hours of talking with her are more valuable than you think.

9. Shopping

Girls this is a dream come true you burn 450 calories in a two hour shopping session. So those long hours spent on the phone with your best friend are not a waste of time after all.

8. Spicy Food

Adding 5g of Tabasco sauce to any meal can raise your metabolism by 12-20 percent for up to two hours after you’re done.This is caused by capsaicin – the nutrient that makes chili peppers hot.

7. Shivering

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10 Weird and Strange Syndromes

When we get ill, majority of us think this is the worst illness we’re going through RIGHT? I used to think this way too before finding about many of the weird syndromes that have to live with throughout their lives. And the sad part is that most of the syndromes have NO CURE AT ALL!

Here is a list of 10 weird and strange syndromes. I’m sure you’d be shocked and surprised after reading about them.

Sexsomnia Syndrome

It is a sleep disorder in which the sufferer engages in sexual acts while sound asleep. Similar to sleep walking and talking. It was introduced officially in 2003 and has been accepted as defense against rape cases.

Exploding Head Syndrome

A disorder in which the sufferer hears loud, noisy, exploding-like sounds. Occurs after falling asleep. They don’t feel any kind of pain but it scares the hell out of them. Nobody knows why this happens.

Fatal Familial Insomnia

Genetic sleep order which causes sleeplessness. Starts at the age of 50 normally. Causesmental illness, panic attacks due to less and less sleep.

Walking Corpse Syndrome

Sufferers believe that they are dead or have lost some body parts or internal organs. Some of them believe that they do not even exist. Occurs due to mental illness or brain damage.

Busy Life Syndrome

Majority of the people are having this syndrome now a days. Sufferers forget things due to busy life and load of work. It is believed that the information overloads in your brain thus you forget things.

Moebius Syndrome

The most weird syndrome. People suffering from this syndrome are unable to move their facial expressions like laugh, smile, frown or blinking eyes. It’s a neurological disorder that is present at birth.

Congenital Insensitivity to Pain

People with this syndrome are unable to feel physical pain. It might sound interesting but trust me it’s really bad. Caused by the mutation of a specific gene that is responsible for the pain in body. They mostly die of trauma due to the fact that they are unaware of any bone damage.

Alien Hand Syndrome

Sufferers believe that their hand has its own brain and cannot be controlled by them. They believe that their hand does things on its own like unbuttoning, waving etc. they often do not know what their hand is doing unless they are told to give attention to it.

Medical Students’ Syndrome

This syndrome emerges in medical students. Sufferers begin to believe that they are suffering from many diseases they learned about.

Stendhal Syndrome

A name given to a feeling of anxiety, dizziness, confusion, rapid heartbeat upon seeing beautiful works of art. The sufferer sometimes faint due to the overwhelming sensation.

Source: listphobia.com

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