FDA fat-burning Supplement Warning

The FDA is investigating “the potential relationship between Hydroxycut dietary supplements and liver injury or other potentially serious side effects” according to the issued warning.

While it appeared that removing Ephedra (Ma Huang) from fat burning supplements would make them safe - it turns out that many of the so termed “thermogenic enhancers” can also pose health risks. As of this time, I have not come across any theories as to what ingredient/combination of ingredients may be causing problems. Here’s the ingredients list for Hydroxycut.
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5 Weight Loss Tools

Being the start of a new year, I imagine quite a few of you are restarting the diet you started a year ago. Let’s face it: you’re fat. Or, is it just me? Well, in case it’s not just me, here are a few techie weght-loss tools that may help you reach your goal weight:

1. Jeremy Zawodny’s Diet Tips: Take diet tips from a fellow techie and give his weight and calorie tracking spreadsheet a try. It helped Jeremy lose 50 pounds!

2. Calorie King: Zawodny mentions this useful site in his diet tips post. Track the calories you’re consuming or look up how many calories that Big Mac with Fries and a Coke has.

3. Run Fat Boy: Run Fat Boy is a web based self-pace personal training site. After each workout, log the results and mark them as easy or hard. Run Fat Boy follows up with recommendations for your next workout, increasing your strength, endurance, and beach muscles over time.

4. Chris Carmichael: He’s trained Lance Armstrong, written best-selling books on sports nutrition, and has a team of personal trainers who will work with you on a consulting basis to help you be your best in a wide variety of endurance and strength sports.

5. Garmin 305 GPS Heart Rate Monitor: Ben uses one of these and loves it. It tracks how fast your heart is pumping when you’re working out, helping you figure out how hard you’re training. This is particularly helpful for people starting out who often train harder than they really should to build a strong base. The GPS system tells you your pace in real-time and can be exported to show you the path you ran on a Google Map.

Rice Diet Programs and Menu

The Rice Diet is the basis for a medically-supervised, live-in program designed for rapid weight-loss over a period of 2 to 4 weeks or more, in the treatment of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and renal disease. The program operates as part of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, USA.

Origins of the Rice Diet

The originator of the Rice Diet was Walter Kempner, born Germany 1903, who joined Duke University’s Department of Medicine in 1934. Kempner investigated the effect of diet on diseases including hypertension and diabetes, and found that they were rarely problems for people using rice as a staple food.

Kempner developed a diet of rice, fruit, juices, sugar, plus vitamin and iron supplements to help people with these and related health problems. The Kempner diet or Rice Diet has been used since 1939 in treating, often with dramatic results, more than 18,000 patients from around the world suffering from diabetes, obesity, heart disease and hypertension.

Available in book form: The Rice Diet Solution by Robert Rosati

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How to Break a Sugar Addiction

No, addiction is not about enjoyment. Ask any smoker whether their first cigarette was enjoyable. They’ll tell you they almost choked. Ask any alcoholic if their first drink was enjoyable. They’ll tell you it was repellent (unless they learned to drink using wine spritzers).

Very recent research on the mechanics of addiction suggests that addictive substances do more than stimulate dopamine response. They actually change your brain. These drugs take over our brain’s learning function. When we learn or practice something we strengthen the links between neurons. These strengthened links help us remember and apply knowledge.

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