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Let me define junkfood — yes we all know that we should eat cookies, chips, fried foods.  What I also want to throw in the mix is processed foods.  Some many times I read a food journal and they are “lite foods” “non-fat” foods. Many of these foods are “processed” to make them healthier. Honestly these are no better than junk food. You “feel” better about them because the front of the package may say “healthy” “natural” “whole grain” I encourage you all to read your food labels. 

Have you ever tried one of those diets that claimed to help you burn fat and lose weight at a miraculous rate’ You tried it, and it actually worked. The problem was, it did not allow your body to ingest the minerals, nutrients and vitamins it needs to be healthy, so you eventually regained all the weight you lost and even more. I know that has happened to me in the past, when  I denied myself of EVERYTHING and BOOM the willpower damn power and I was head first in to a pint of ice cream.  That is the same danger that exists when you attempt to quit junk food overnight.

Your body is the most amazing machine ever created. In conjunction with your brain, it learns to adapt your physical growth to whatever fuel you give it. That is why people can live their entire life eating food which is not that healthy for them. The brain and body will keep working hard to let you live as long as possible, in spite of your bad eating habits.

When you feed yourself junk food on a regular basis, your brain tells your body to get used to it. Plus, our brains get lit up by the combination of sugar, salt and fat. If you cut junk food off dramatically, your brain won’t like it. You may trigger cravings. If you are currently experiencing cravings these cravings may intensify.

Since you are tackling in many cases emotional and mental dependency, the most successful route to defeat junk food addiction is to take it slow.

• Begin by keeping a food journal, and write down EVERYTHING you ingest
• Eating 10 junk food items every week, perhaps cut back to 7 or 8 junk food rewards the first week
• Review your list of stuff and think what could be the easiest thing to give up.

Slowly taper down weekly, and forget about a cold turkey approach. There is a reason why your addiction to junk food is so strong. And that means that even if cold turkey quitting works in the short term, your success is often short-lived, and you go rushing back to junk food eventually.

Want an action guide to help you get though your junk food detox’

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Now you don’t need anything fancy to track your workouts, I just use a plain notebook that I purchased a Staples. As you can see I just write down my exercises, the date and weight I lifted. I also track my cardio as far as time and mileage if I were running.

As for food, everything that goes in my mouth I write down.  I use myfitnesspal. It has most of the foods that I eat, I’m able to customize it to the exact amounts that I eat in a given meal. If the food doesn’t appear, I can construct it or go out to Calorie King and look up the food. Worse case scenario I will cut out the nutrition label on the food and manually add it to Fitday. If you are an iPhone user, there are a few products that are getting alot of buzz. Check out this NY Times article, Losing Weight the Smartphone Way, With A Nutritionist In Your Pocket.

So the secret to weight loss is OWNING what you put in your mouth and being accountable. Trust me when you start writing it down you will be surprised at how much or little you eat in a given day. You’ll also become a bit of a food snob. You’ll start to look at food and ask is it worth the caloric intake.

If you have any other weight loss tips, just let me know below.

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