WHAT EVERY MAN REALLY NEEDS!

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Contents

Introduction....................................................................ixChapter 1 Why Do We Eat and Why Diet?...........................................1Chapter 2 Why Fad Diets Don't Work..............................................5Chapter 3 Factors That Affect Your Weight.......................................15Chapter 4 Healthy Eating Guides.................................................21Chapter 5 Why Exercise Is So Important..........................................35Chapter 6 Exercises To Live By..................................................39Chapter 7 Importance of Sexual Activity for Health Reasons......................47Chapter 8 The Mid Life Crisis...................................................51Chapter 9 How to Build a Better Relationship....................................59Chapter 10 Reducing the Stress in Your Life.....................................81Chapter 11 Tips For a Better Life...............................................93Chapter 12 Recipes To Make Life Easier..........................................97Appendix........................................................................123Resources.......................................................................123Food Charts.....................................................................143Index...........................................................................145

Chapter One

Why do we eat?

We basically do not eat because we are hungry. Hunger is when the body needs food to provide energy in order to perform the basic metabolic tasks, such as breathing and pumping blood, and extra tasks such as working and playing. Many people eat because it's the time of day (breakfast, lunch and dinner time) or as a result of depression, boredom or habit (like when you are watching TV).

How much you eat isn't just a matter of willpower or the lack of it. It is a biological process that drives our ability to survive. Trying to lose weight by using diets and food restrictions is counterproductive and only causes the body to trigger chemical reactions to stimulate your appetite and increase your hunger. This creates a vicious cycle of overeating because of a complex system of chemical and hormonal reactions that tell you to eat.

How hunger works

The hypothalamus is partly responsible for processing eating behavior. The cells in the hypothalamus communicate with cells in other parts of the brain to coordinate the release of chemicals that form the feedback system that helps regulate how much and what you eat.

When the body needs nourishment, neurotransmitters (chemicals that transmit information to the neurons or brain cells) are released. Current research is being done to help explain the exact mechanism, but one neurotransmitter called Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is thought to respond when the body needs carbohydrates. According to the theory, low levels of glycogen (carbohydrate in storage form in your body) and low blood sugar levels stimulate NPY's release from the hypothalamus.

As NPY levels increase, so does your desire for sweet and starchy foods. While you sleep, your glycogen and blood sugar stores are used up, and they send a message to the brain to release NPY. It's no coincidence that our favorite morning foods are rich in carbohydrates-cereal, breads, bagels, and fruit. Skipping breakfast increases NPY levels so that by afternoon you need a carbohydrate binge. This craving for carbs is an innate biological urge at work, not a lack of willpower. Stress and dieting are thought to trigger NPY production as well.

Eating carbohydrates or other favorite foods turn off NPY by using a serotonin feedback system. Serotonin is another neurotransmitter that is associated with the feeling of fullness and satisfaction. When serotonin increases, NPY decreases, telling your body that you have had enough food and you can stop eating.

Another neurotransmitter called galanin is released when the fat stores need replenishment. Research on galanin has been conducted only on animals, but the human appetite for fat is believed to act in a similar way. Laboratory animals that have been injected with galanin prefer high-fat foods to high-carbohydrate ones. And when animals were given drugs that interfered with the galanin production, their preference for fat decreased. How galanin works may help explain why some people store more fat than others do. In the evening, galanin levels tend to rise, which may be the body's way of making sure that people have enough calories to last them through the night without taking in more food.

Motivation

Long-term weight loss is a matter of attitude and conditioning. What the short-time diets focus on is "the don'ts", denial, and immediate results, without allowing room for slip-ups. You need to focus on making healthier choices, enjoy feeling better, be healthier and more energized, establish flexible, short- term attainable goals and leave room for indulgences. When you feel good about yourself, you have more energy and want to continue eating better and feeling healthier.

To accomplish this, you need to emphasize healthy eating and exercise.

Why diet at all?

Your degree of risk for developing weight-related health problems depends not only on how overweight you are, but also where you store the excess fat. Body fat that accumulates around the stomach area poses a greater health risk than fat stored in the lower body. Typically, men are prone to building up fat in the stomach area, developing a "beer belly" or "pot belly". Men are more apt to develop diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and certain types of cancer with this condition. Reducing your weight by only 5 to 10 percent increases your HDL levels (the good cholesterol) while reducing LDL and triglyceride levels, which are associated with increased risk of heart disease.

Chapter Two

This chapter explains and exposes some of the different popular fad diets that all promise the same thing: Quick and easy weight loss. As men, we are naturally skeptical about the "new and revolutionary" diet plans that are simply rehashes of old programs that use current scientific weight-loss vocabulary and a little technical- sounding mumbo jumbo to sell us on diets that will fail. These "doctors and self styled nutritionists" count on the public's lack of knowledge about nutrition to bamboozle millions of dollars out of our pockets. The women buy into this because they will try anything to look like the fashion models or movie stars who have figures that are not the norm.

The key to successful weight loss is not rocket science. What all these fad diets don't tell you is that your body will lose weight if you do two things; reduce your calories and exercise. When you go on one of these fad diets you will lose weight quickly because the body's metabolism thinks you are starving and will burn its stored fat. But then your metabolism will slow down to conserve the energy stored and you will stop losing weight. This results in frustration and causes you to go off the diet, and over-eat, and gain back the weight you lost (and sometimes more). You then try another fad diet and the cycle repeats itself. This yo-yo effect is detrimental...