You’ve seen a million commercials, heard a million plugs, and have read a billion magazines that all talk about their secret new weight loss cure. The funny thing is that there is no lack of scientific findings in the field of weight loss, rather there is the lack of utilization of this valuable scientific evidence presented to us. There’s nothing new about weight loss, and unless we change the way we are eating, the obesity epidemic will continue.

Stopping the Obesity Epidemic

Why is the U.S. combating this obesity epidemic? It goes much deeper than not having to chase our food if we want to eat.

You may be thinking that is has to do with the increased production of food, and the subsequently increased amount of accessibility. While this certainly has something to do with it, it is not the core component. One of the root causes for the obesity epidemic is additives in food. With the increase of genetically modified foods (GMO foods) on our shelves, paired with monosodium glutamate and other toxic additives in food, it’s no wonder Americans are getting huge! High fructose corn syrup, one of the most frequently used additives in food is often genetically modified. There has been much talk about high fructose corn syrup and it’s link to not only obesity, but a wide array of disease. When the entire body is stressed, multiple conditions will follow.

Monosodium Glutamate, Additives in Food, and Other Toxic Sweeteners

This junk in our food is causing Americans to grow by the second. With countless studies showing the horrible effects on the human body from increased consumption of monosodium glutamate, aspartame, trans fat, and genetically modified food, it’s amazing that anyone continues to consume them. In order to truly begin reclaiming your health and achieve weight loss, you must avoid these additives and know the truth regarding this lesser known cause of the obesity epidemic. Start buying 100 percent organic foods, and reading the labels to ensure that the food you are buying is truly high quality. Remember to also make sure it is a non-GMO product, and make sure to check for high fructose corn syrup. Buying high quality organic is the best option for preventing GMOs in addition to looking for the verified Non-GMO Project seal. Do your own research into the brand and the product’s ingredients.

Other primary things to avoid:

Aspartame – Found to cause tumors in rats, while also being associated with an increased risk of lymphomas, leukemias, and other cancers, aspartame is frequently found in chewing gum and diet sodas.

Trans fat – A well-known toxic fat, trans-fat is prone to turning into a plastic-like substance in the body.

Reclaim your health and enhance your body with nutritionally-powerful foods, and obtain optimum wellness without paying a dime. Don’t participate in the obesity epidemic. Utilize this information and you can potentially change your life for the better. With better physical health comes better living.

It is no secret that the average American diet is completely in the slumps. Consuming packaged foods, fast food, artificially enhanced products, and especially low quality cheap food is the norm, but is it any wonder that being overweight while also falling victim to a host of illnesses is also the norm. Being raised in this era of poor health makes it difficult to know what is truly healthful and unhealthful. Food has drastically changed since decades ago, and so parents often aren’t aware of the severe decline in food quality. Fast food in particular is one of the primary reasons for the drastic health decline seen today.

Why You Should Avoid Fast Food at All Costs

If you haven’t already, take a couple of hours to watch the films Super Size Me or Fast Food Nation. After watching these films, you can see first hand how fast food causes severe damage to your body – even if you don’t consume it for every meal of every day like in one of the films. Fast food is nothing but a concoction of harmful and health-damaging chemicals which can easily be understood if you were to think for a moment how any restaurant could offer a double cheeseburger for only $1.

Most recently it was uncovered that these $1 cheeseburgers, along with the rest of McDonald’s’ beef and chicken, were actually harnessing ‘pink slime’ scrap meat covered with ammonium hydroxide. Not only does this fake meat provide no nutritional value at all, but it is chemically contaminated from ammonia, the toxic cleaning agent found under the sink. The meat is actually fat trimmings and connective tissue that are separated from the bone – scrap meat that is not fit for human consumption. The ammonia treatment is in response to the danger of contamination from salmonella or E. coli, but the scrap meats themselves are more likely to contain pathogens. Despite the chemical treatment, the meat is still in the line of fire for contamination.

Additionally, McDonald’s McNuggets contain 7 different ingredients making up the ‘meat’, many of which contain sub-ingredients. Instead of using real meat, the ingredient list utilizes sodium phosphate, safflower oil, wheat starch, dextrose, and autolyzed yeast extract – a particularly dangerous substance very similar to the toxic MSG. Along side with these ingredients comes the use of dimethylpolysiloxane, a silicon substance used as an anti-foaming agent and often found in breast implants and silly putty.

Of course the use of these ingredients is not limited only to McDonald’s. In fact, all of the fast food restaurants are guilty of using them. The worst part? They are aware of the destructive nature behind these ingredients, but truly couldn’t care any less. The truth behind such a statement can be exemplified by Taco Bell’s attempt to create a drive-thru diet where individuals would supposed to lose weight by eating fast food. It was only a few years ago when Taco Bell announced the “Drive-Thru Diet”, where they showcased their foods low in fat. But what they don’t tell you is that even if their food has 9 grams of fat, it is still made up of numerous ingredients contributing to the global health decline.

While the reasons for the influx of fast food consumption are many, one primary one is the usage of psychological advertising. Being one of the most powerful tools to reach both the conscious and subconscious, advertising plays a huge role in how society is ran today, and that includes which foods we eat. What’s more, children are much more influenced by what they see and hear, and research proves it. A study conduced late in 2011 showed that 71 percent of children will choose junk food like french fries over apple slices when given coupons for each of them. The number dropped only to 55 percent when parents encouraged children to choose the apple slices. But the desired reach does not stop at direct advertising and influence.

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A new children’s educational book has recently been launched by the Council for Biotechnology Information, educating young children on the ‘numerous benefits’ of genetically modified food. Of course genetically modified food has time and time again been shown to cause human and environmental harm, but still the attempt to brainwash young children is carelessly made. The advertising for such food is also heavily tied in with fast food, as virtually all fast food is constructed with genetically modified food and ingredients.

These are but only a few of the countless reasons to never ingest fast food.

The FDA is setting up to approve the first prescription weight-loss medication since 1999, but will this risky appetite suppressant really lead to effective fat loss? And more importantly, at what cost? Trendy fat loss pills have a history of being recalled over serious health concerns, in addition to being called out for simply not working. With 75 million obese adults in the U.S., and an obesity rate of nearly 35%, something must be done. The most potent form of lasting fat loss starts in your kitchen, and it costs absolutely nothing.

1. Stop Dieting

In our modern world, it is important to realize that it is not necessarily the foods themselves that should firstly be considered when beginning your journey to lasting fat loss, but the ingredients that make up the foods you are eating on a daily basis. Do your foods contain obesity-inducing high-fructose corn syrup, MSG, or large amounts of sugar? If you’re following a traditional ‘diet’ program as sold by Weight Watchers and others, the answer is most likely yes. The issue with these organizations is that they examine the macro-nutrient content of the product, not the ingredients or the overall quality.

While it is important to eat within certain parameters (high protein to stimulate fat loss, for example), this is something to concern yourself with after removing the harmful ingredients from your diet. What does it matter if the food item you’re eating for dinner is low in carbs when it’s loaded with fat-packing toxic ingredients that will not only destroy your fat loss attempts, but make you sick. Instead of stressing over calorie intake, look for high quality organic materials to make your own means — not chemical-laden “lean” meals that will only serve to damage your health.

Start making your meals from scratch with organic produce purchased from your local farmers market or health food store. This will improve your overall health, digestion, and be vital in your quest to maintained fat loss. Need proof? Watch this gut-wrenching video of what really happens in your body when you eat processed junk verses legitimately wholesome foods.

2. More of the Good Stuff

Eliminating toxic ingredients that are contributing to your weight loss woes is essential, but so is incorporating beneficial items into your daily nutritional intake. One substance that stands out among many fat-combating substances is vitamin D. The research is very clear that vitamin D is a powerful tool in the fight against obesity, much more so than hazardous diet pills. This is due to the fact that vitamin D levels may actually play a role in determining the overall success of your fat loss diet. If you’re vitamin D deficient, this could mean further unneeded hardship in your fight against fat.

Groundbreaking findings presented at The Endocrine Society’s 91st Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. demonstrated this aspect of the sunshine vitamin. Instead of worthless diet pills, vitamin D should be recommended to the public. The best part? It’s free! You can generate vitamin D for free outdoors during the appropriate months, and in the winter months it’s not a challenge to purchase highly inexpensive vitamin D3 supplements for a fraction of a single takeout meal.

Be sure you’re optimizing your vitamin D levels, get a blood test:

Other powerful nutritional fat loss solutions include:

• High quality whey protein
• Organic tea
• Saturated fat (to curb cravings)
• Organic green, leafy vegetables
• Apple cider vinegar
• Turmeric

3. Stop Exercising for Hours

You don’t have to spend hours in the gym to lose fat. In fact, it may actually be hurting your progress in the fight against fat. Giving up hours on the treadmill in favor of just 15-30 minutes of high intensity training can serve to empower your fat loss lifestyle much more efficiently, in addition to saving you time.

It’s called high intensity interval training, and it’s catching on fast. While at first scrutinized by health professionals, HIIT is now recommended by a large number of experts from around the world. Studies have shown that performing HIIT in such a short period of time can actually lead to lasting fat burn, with one study finding that the fat incinerating effects lasted for roughly 24 hours afterwards. This means that even while you’re sitting at home doing nothing, you’re still burning fat. For more detailed instructions, check out the HIIT infographic with all of the specifics.

The flavor enhancer monosodium glutamate (MSG), most often associated with Chinese food and after-dinner headaches, may also be enhancing waistlines, a new study finds.

Researchers found that people who eat more MSG are more likely to be overweight or obese. And the increased risk wasn’t simply because people were stuffing themselves with MSG-rich foods. The link between high MSG intake and being overweight held even after accounting for the total number of calories people ate.

Ka He, a nutrition expert at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who led the study, said that although the risk of weight gain attributable to MSG was modest, the implications for public health are substantial. “Everybody eats it,” He told Reuters Health.

MSG is one of the world’s most widely used food additives. Although it tends to be more popular in Asian countries, Americans manage to get their share in processed foods, from chips to canned soups, even when it’s not labeled as such.

Americans’ typical daily intake of MSG is estimated to be only about half a gram, whereas estimates for Japan and Korea put average intakes anywhere between a gram-and-a-half and 10 grams a day.

MSG is considered safe, but some people complain of headaches, nausea and other bad reactions it.

Several studies have examined the potential link between MSG and body weight, with conflicting results. Scientists have speculated that people may eat larger helpings of food with MSG because it just tastes better. Other evidence suggests that MSG might interfere with signaling systems in the body that regulate appetite.

In the latest research, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, He and his colleagues followed more than 10,000 adults in China for about 5.5 years on average.

The researchers measured MSG intake directly by before-and-after weighing of products, such as bottles of soy sauce, to see how much people ate. They also asked people to estimate their intake over three 24-hour periods.

Men and women who ate the most MSG (a median of 5 grams a day) were about 30 percent more likely to become overweight by the end of the study than those who ate the least amount of the flavoring (less than a half-gram a day), the researchers found. After excluding people who were overweight at the start of the study, the risk rose to 33 percent.

Obesity is not as much of a problem in China as it is in the United States, which might suggest that MSG is not a significant culprit in weight gain. But the Chinese tend to be physically active, which might help offset the pound-producing properties of the additive, He said.

Why MSG and weight gain may be linked isn’t clear, He added, but it may have something to do with the hormone leptin, which regulates appetite and metabolism. He’s group found that people who consumed more MSG produced more leptin. “MSG consumption may cause leptin resistance,” He said, so that the body cannot properly process the energy it receives from food. That, He added, could explain why people who ate more MSG gained weight regardless of how many calories they consumed.

But Ivan E. de Araujo, a Yale University neurobiologist who has studied the effects of MSG on leptin, was not convinced by the new findings.

Leptin is released by fat cells, so as people gain weight they have more leptin in their blood, Araujo said. The effect of MSG on leptin levels, then, may simply be a reflection of growing body mass.

Araujo called the researchers’ suggestion that prolonged exposure to high quantities of MSG may trigger leptin resistance by damaging an area of the brain called the hypothalamus, “rather speculative, given the current lack of direct evidence that” MSG in normal dietary amounts could produce a physical injury to that part of the brain.

Araujo added, it is “somewhat intriguing” that moderate weight gain was only seen in the group with the very highest MSG intakes. People who consumed the most MSG also consumed the most salt in their diets, Araujo noted, which can itself cause water retention and weight gain.

For a follow-up study, He and his colleagues hope to see whether people who stop using MSG experience any health benefits attributable to the change in diet.

A new study done by the Medical Organization for the Regulatory Objective of Natural Sciences (M.O.R.O.N.S.) has revealed the unimagined: junk food contains a life-giving nutrient labeled Junk. That’s right, MSG-laden doughnuts and aspartame-filled diet sodas are actually something your body needs! What’s even more stunning is the fact that the research shows your body might be deficient in this essential nutrient of Junk, leading to diseases like cancer and diabetes. Could Junk be the cure for cancer?

This amazing research has truly changed science as we know it, and the very fabric that held together our previous dietary misconceptions! Splenda used to be considered absolutely toxic to your body due to it’s affects on digestion, weight gain, and diabetes. Now, we can simply pour hundreds of packets into our mouth, and wash it down with blended up Oreos!

Don’t Do Anything!

This research proves what Americans have been saying all along! There’s no need to exercise when you can sit, and there’s no reason to sit when you can lay down! This study proves that it’s now impossible to do any good through exercise, or even moving. Therefore, don’t move! Sit there all day! Who cares!

Millions around the world are trying to satisfy their body’s need for Junk

The general public thought that the millions around the globe who were eating everything in sight were simply gluttonous and overweight. Now we have come to realize these men were geniuses! Through their extensive research they must have realized that Junk was present in such food sources, enabling them to long life and a disease-free world. These people are the real heroes that we should honor for their founding of Junk. What would we do without them?

The Make-up of Junk

The make-up of Junk is extremely complex and potent. Due to the overload of neurotoxins and chemically engineered ingredients within the food, it creates the opposite effect. Thanks to huge corporations like Monsanto spending billions to genetically splice the seeds of just about every crop they can get their hands on, now we are able to reap the benefits of Junk.

Since Monsanto and other companies polluted the food supply with zombie-esque crops and seeds, a quantum black hole effect occurred: the food was so satiated with degenerative ingredients that all of them counteracted each other and turned into a magical ingredient! Wow, thanks Monsanto! As if that weren’t healthy already, it appears that the extensive use of harmful pesticides and illegal farming practices in South America also contributed to the compilation of Junk.

Luckily for the people of the United States not only do we get a chance to eat Monsanto-created zombie foods, but we also can enjoy the pesticide-drenched crops delivered directly from South America from our shores. In fact, the farming practices in South America have been banned in the United States for quite some time, but as long as it’s done before they bring them here, then that’s okay!

In Reality

Satirical humor aside, this article is both humorous but also informative. The practices of adding deadly chemicals to the food is indeed real, and it is something that is greatly affecting the health of the world. Beyond the additives previously listed in this article such as MSG and aspartame, there is a much stranger corruption of the food supply. With the addition of genetically modified foods (GMO) into the food chain, only time and extensive study can fully calculate the end result.

As of right now, there have been numerous studies showing not only the negative effects of GMO foods in regards to health, but also the effects of GMO foods on the very genetic coding of the body. Seeing as the modification process involves the alteration of the plant or seed’s genetic structure, it is obvious that there will be a reaction inside the body. An example of this that has actually been done is adding pig genes to a tomato to get it to be larger and juicier. The body was not designed to recognize pig genetics inside of a tomato, changing it’s composition.

Playing with nature to such an extent has always proven to be a mistake, and will continue to do so in the future. Stay away from foods containing these harmful ingredients, and always check the labels.