March 6th, 2010 | 
Author: 
Free weight loss programs are ideal for people who want to lose weight and either don’t want to spend money or budget for it. Free weight loss programs work when they are sensible and part of your overall health management regime.
Weight loss programs deal with the two major components of weight loss:
- Diet or calorie intake
- Exercise
By changing these two factors of your free weight loss program, you will be able to manage your weight better and see some results in a relatively short time.
When beginning on your free weight loss program, remember to start with the weight loss plan gradually. This is not a rollercoaster ride where you can be stagnant and be moving in a second (even rollercoaster rides need preparation). It will take time for both your body and mind to adjust to the changes in your lifestyle and food intake.
Find weight loss programs that are suitable for you. Programs that do not fit your lifestyle or force you to form new habits that conflict with your personality, you are more likely to quit when you hit these obstacles, rather than working through them and adjusting. Part of the reason for weight gain is psychological and therefore this must be addressed along with any easy weight loss diet that is being used.
Here are some ways you can build your own free weight loss program:
Your Free Weight Loss Program Diet Tip
People tend to eat more when they have a larger variety of foods they can select from. Taking a portion from each dish can quickly add up to a huge meal. With the different tastes and sensations of each dish, a person can be seduced into eating more than they should.
A simple way to control your diet is through portion control. In most cases, the food that you are eating will probably already be what you need. The problem tends to be larger than necessary portions. By simply cutting your portions in half or reducing your portion size, you are already reducing the amount of calories you are consuming.
Because weight loss in most cases is the simple formula of expending more calories than you consume, reducing your calorie intake already puts you ahead in the game. The great part about portion control is you don’t have to entirely miss out on your favorite foods. You can still eat them, but in smaller portions.
Free weight loss Exercise Tips
In many cases, people live sedentary lifestyles. Unless your work involves a lot of physical labor, the majority of people today sit in front of their computers, behind their desks doing paperwork, or making phone calls. While there is physical activity, it’s usually limited.
One free and simple way to increase the level of your exercise is to take a walk every day. You can go on your own, or together with your spouse or partner. Taking the stairs instead of the lift will also help increase the rate at which you burn calories. Don’t laugh at this, because if you’re not doing anything at all even a small change like walking will help you get started on your weight loss program!
Walking to lose weight is one way you can immediately incorporate into your lifestyle. Over time, as you start to drop the pounds from the combination of diet and exercise, you may want to add sports or even running into your lifestyle. Start the momentum of exercising in your life, and you will be amazed at how much difference there is at the end of one year!
Other Tips In Your Free Weight Loss Program
Research proves when you track your nutrition, you are more likely to reach your diet and health goals. It will take a little while you get comfortable with writing down everything you eat and drink. This helps to bring into your awareness what you think you are doing with what you are doing in reality.
The more aware you are of what you eat and its effects on your body, the more likely you will become conscious of the types and portions of the food you eat. The more aware of how lazy or sedentary your lifestyle is, the more likely you will want to start moving and exercising.
Keep a journal of your weight loss program. When you start, it’ll be a lot easier to set realistic goals that you have control over. For example, instead of setting a goal of losing 10 pounds in 2 days, set a goal of reducing your meal portions by one third or half for the next week.
These are targets you can do, because the amount of actual weight loss is outside of your control. By changing your lifestyle in terms of diet and exercise, not only will you start to lose weight and build a better body, it’s something that will be permanent and healthy for you the rest of your life.
Ryan Daniels Lee
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/free-weight-loss-programs-simple-ways-to-be-healthier-714786.html
Posted in weight loss programs
Is This the Best Answer to the Healthcare Crisis You Ever Heard?
Health Insurance Plan — 100% Different From Anything You Have Heard About!?
Here’s a health insurance plan I dreamed up today. I would like to know your thoughts about it. But before you give me your thoughts, please take a moment to read the plan.
Companies stop offerring health insurance.
What they offer instead is wellness programs, which can be on or off company property.
These programs are focused on weight control, exercise, nutrition, and medical monitoring (blood pressure, heart health, obesity, range of motion, pulminary function, liver function — simple blood tests)
No employees are compelled in any way to participate in any way in any company wellness program.
But, those that do, get certificates signed by physicians stating the wellness factors that apply to that individual participant. Kept his weight down, did running, has good heart function, liver is fine … blah blah blah. These would be the kind of certificates that local health insurors would take into account in rating the premiums to be paid by that individual wellness program participant.
Beyond the certificate, and depending upon wellness factors attainments (weight loss, better this, better that etc) the company provides a wellness encouragement award in the form of a check, once every 90 days.
Recipients of such checks can use that cash for anything they want, including time with working girls in Nevada, or rye whiskey, or Cuban cigars.
However if they can present a receipt for a health insurance premium they have paid, for their own selves as beneficiaries of privately acquired health insurance policies (with a little help from the certificate signed by physicians from the wellness program) then, their next award check, if they get one by continuing to make attainments, will be doubled in value. The doubling only happens once. Once a person is getting double-sized award checks they keep getting those checks as long as they keep buying private health insurance, and can show receipts, and as long as they keep making attainments in the company wellness program.
This plan is filled to the brim with justice. It is highly focused on individual responsibility, not just a gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme style system. People whose behavior is cost-containing and good get highly rewarded. All people of every kind are completely free to do anything they want. Nobody is compelled in any way to do anything.
The company gets to set up their wellness program as a charitable educational or health related organization — a 501 (c) (3).
They also get to create a company Foundation — a 501 (c) (6) to give money on a tax deductible basis to the wellness program.
So all the costs of the wellness program become tax deductions, including the fees for the trainers, nutritionists, and the award checks given to employees, either in the single portion amount or in the double portion amount — all those costs are a tax deduction for the company. They come out of pre-tax gross income.
The incentives here are 100% perfect.
The outcome here is that probably 10 million additional people get health insurance — not the full load of 35 million, but a step in the right direction is still a step.
More importantly by dumping a lot of healthy people into the insurance pools, who pay full premiums (some of which is subsidized by their award checks), everybody’s health insurance premiums go down.
Not only that, the average healthiness of the American population goes up.
So more healthy people are paying premiums and there are less sick people who need healthcare.
Less sick people, not only makes premiums go down it also makes our national productivity go up.
How productive we are, in relation to our national debt, determines how long we get to exist as a nation that’s not in default or owned outright by China.
My plan is an extremely good plan — it cuts through all the nonsense and goes straight to the core issue which is health. It properly incentivizes everybody involved. It is 0% coersive — no mandates on anybody.
I’m putting it up here so that a few thoughtful people can read it, think about it, and send me useful comments to make it better, or fix any flaws you see in it. Cynical clowns could just please leave this question alone, I don’t have time to read your snarky junk answers. Persons of goodwill, please come forward, my strength is not equal to my task, I need your help.
For Don:
We’ve got 35 million uninsured with no healthcare.
My plan would knock that down to 25 million uninsured with no healthcare.
So Don, your conclusion using your logical and ethical skills is that my plan is a bad plan.
Unless every single person can be fixed all at once — nobody should be fixed — we should just stay broken — as broken — not any less broken — that Don’s path to success.
My path is called dis-jointed incrementalism. You knock off a piece of the problem.
Then you go back to the smaller problem, and knock off a piece of that.
Repeat as required until problem is gone.
This is how you chop down a tree, break up a huge block of ice, or move a pile of snow.
Many problems in the *real* world are solved by dis-jointed incrementalism.
The only people who need to solve huge problems all at once with one huge law are people who are not in fact interested in the problem at all — what they want is totalitarian power for themselves. Seig .
All citizens should have the government run health care that’s gotten Dick Cheney through all of his heart attacks. I’m sure he won’t be dropped for costing the insurance company too much money.
David, you actually believe that Cheney pays for all of his medical needs out of pocket? Seriously?
References :
http://iowaindependent.com/1596/nurses-ads-cheney-would-be-dead-with-regular-guy-health-care
Nope.
By the way, my work actually has this type of wellness program as part of our insurance package.
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You have a great idea there!
Why not copy and paste it to the Whitehouse web site and all the elected officials?
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A lot of that companies through their health plans have many of those things already.
Nyssa, you do realise that Cheney being one of the EVIL rich, he pays for his own medical treatments with his own money right?
BTW, you really think that government healthcare with all of it’s built in rationing would have paid for a single medical treatment for cheney (given his age) much less the several…..
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Wellness encouragement etc. is noble and certainly a good idea. But your whole premise is based on the idea that all illness is self inflicted. That by living and eating healthy we avoid all illness. This is not true. What happens to the child of the employee that developes Leukemia? If you are in an individual plan and not an employer sponsored plan then the insurance company can raise your premiums to a point that you cannot afford them or drop you all together. So sorry, yours is not a very good plan.
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Wellness programs are fine, but the won’t be all that useful.
People are overwhelmingly overweight, yet we are living longer than ever. They might need to take that into account at some point. Then too genetics plays a role in quite few illnesses. Wellness programs won’t touch that. The human body is prone to wearing down from some of the very ideas promoted as healthy. Even Bush needed knee surgery due to excess stress. And then there is aging. If we are lucky we will age, and the raft of small, annoying but expensive things that hits after fifty is amazing.
Not to mention the costs of pregnancy and delivery in younger women, neonate care for the baby and its attendant medical needs. For young men there is the unfortunate tendency to go too fast be it by car or parachute. Sports injuries abound in that group too.
Wellness has nothing to do with any of those common but costly items.
Don’t people realize that if your company has a group plan its already a deduction for the company?
Cheney has the best health insurance plan in the world. And we pay for it. Maybe Cheney paid for his phone.
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Wow, i could only stomach reading half of ‘your awesome plan’.
-What good little "Citizen Comrades" we would all be.
No, it sucks. It undermines everything about being an American that I love. Freedom of choice without ‘the carrot’.
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No it is not. Sorry.
I am always amazed how many Americans seem not to be aware about the real healthcare issues relying instead on FOX and other sources to spread lies about the healthcare system of the USA and those abroad. I mean, if healthcare in nations with universal coverage is so bad, why do they keep it?
Obama wants to make insurance more available to all and change the system so that it gives the American people value for money [1]. He also wants change so that the insurance companies find it harder to get out of paying for treatment. The system he is proposing looks similar to that which works in Taiwan where private companies are involved in providing healthcare [2].
Obama campaigned on reforming the healthcare system. He said he wanted to make insurance more available and he was elected to do this [3].
FACT – the US has higher death rates for kids both for kids aged under one and those under five than western European countries with universal health coverage [4].
FACT – American insurance companies push up prices and work to stop paying out claims on those they cover [5].
FACT – the USA spends more on healthcare PER PERSON than any other nation on the planet [6].
That means that a dead American four year old would have had a better chance of life if they were born in any western nation with universal health coverage.
If you do not like the policies that Obama was elected to bring in, he can always be voted out of office in 2012. But if you disagree with the facts, please let me know. I am always willing to learn, but please provide proof. None of those who disagree with me have been able to do that so far.
References :
[1] http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/08/31/f-a-q-everything-youve-wanted-to-know-about-health-care-refor/
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/oct/07/taiwangetshealthy
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J_igVFvmhw
[4] http://www.who.int/whr/2005/annex/annex2a.xls
[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9oOOJivb1c
[6] http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/annex01_en.pdf
The best ? ……
……. Maybe not totally , but well on the way — if only because someone is thinking not blindly complaining without alternates. Full kudos for THAT !
As with any plan, I (and I’m sure, you) fully recognise the plan would be subjected to expansion and partial rejigging.
The basic thrust seems to have parallels to an ancient Chinese system in which doctors were paid to keep patients well rather than cure them after the onset of illness. When a patient became sick the doctors ceased being paid, so it was in the medico’s interest to effect a rapid cure and return to wellness. How widespread the practice was — and whether the vast number of Chinese now is any testimony to it — I don’t know.
As with any initial plan, some extra considerations will need to be made.
These include:
1) Coverage for non-contributors. Another respondent mentioned children with Leukaemia. Some afflictions are high care dependency into adulthood like Autism. Some ailments are late onset which previous contributions may not entirely cover.
2) Some people may be physically healthy but this may not be reflected in wellness programs. At high school a fellow student had the nickname of "Big Bird" due to her immense size caused by glandular problems — yet was an active basketballer and softballer. Exceptions need to be made for various situations but inevitably these will be exploited.
3) Where do smokers fit in ? NOT all smokers are afflicted by the many vaunted horror diseases attributed to them. Many may well meet wellness program criteria. Currently many smokers are discriminated against by being given lower priority in health care queues. Yet with most of the retail cost of cigarettes being various taxes, smokers have made far greater contributions to any potential health costs. Many medical facilities could not be built and staffed without cigarette tax funding from the collective tax pool.
4) Industrial accidents create severe drains on health costs as whilst they may not be numerous(comparative to other afflictions) are often extremely costly. Would all companies/ business’ be obliged to be publicly accountable for their safety regulation adherence ? Could tax write-offs of confidential out-of-court settlements be prohibited ? Doing so would make pay-outs nondeductible absorbed expenses and encourage better safety programs implementation (which would be deductible) and adherence.
5) Closer governmental inspection and prosecution of regulatory non-compliant individuals and business’. Circa 1998 — in Queensland, Australia — a crackdown was announced on companies not contributing funds to the Workers Compensation Schemes. Apparently around 83% of business’ were not making appropriate contributions. This was a government administered scheme for which only they had the statistics. Clearly compliance administration was sorely lacking to the populace’s detriment.
6) Could medical industries profit margins be capped ?
i) Equipment and medication prices are extravagant — even unnecessarily exorbitant price gouging. A surgical grade set of forceps can be bought — for home use — for around $20. Equivalents for doctors/ hospitals can be billed at $100 to $200 in the confidence they WILL be paid. Claims of recouping research and developments costs are most often specious.
ii) Ordinary doctor/ dentist plant and equipment and realty expenses are frequently substantially less than those of car mechanics or other trades people who charge only a part of the hourly rate of medics.
iii) Streamline patient access to advanced/ specialist medical assistance. The resultant over-billing by base-level doctors is often unrequired just so they can be "kept in the loop". The constant necessity to deal through General Practitioners is not only frustrating and inept but expensive.
7) Oblige ALL levels of practicing medics to be mandatorily examined regularly in their areas of expertise. Results of gradings of competences/ abilities could be publicly accessible to identify the unrecognised experts — and the profit-oriented inept.
In Australia there was a time — perhaps still is — when all deaths resulting from accidents, industry, violence, road traffic and crime were in total less than from medical maladministration, malpractice, misdiagnosis and complacent ineptitude. Industry self regulation needs to be replaced with external independent examination.
Should convenience/ junk foods with acknowledged little or no nutritional value be permitted to be marketed ? With their removal, more nutritional wellness foods may become more economically viable as choices.
Should cars/ weapons/ other products be produced that exceed legal capabilities — especially for purchase by those with no definable legitimacy to ownership or use ?
The above are but few of the extra considerations to your wellness program. Parts of my response I acknowledge extend beyond your wellness focus.
The fact that you have engaged with providing a possible solution basis for an enduring problem is laudable and needs to be replicated.
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