Slimming Down - Fast!

How many times do you come across some product, service or thing that makes you think “I’ll never do that again”? Not many times, I’ll bet. Well I recently discovered such a thing that I want to tell you about and was even more chuffed to discover that it has slimming down and healthy weight loss connotations.

For years I accepted that some mornings I’d wake up with a slight headache that would last all day. I put that down to stress, dehydration, constipation and all sorts. Sometimes I’d come awake awash in sweat and during the night, especially during the summer, I’d wake up and kick my covering off craving for some coolness.

Neck pain too was also quite normal. I put that down to just sleeping badly. Well I discovered that it was nothing to do with sleeping badly. My pillow was the culprit and I never suspected it until I stumbled across Buckwheat Pillows (in a book, see below) being great support while doing the wild thing – you know! I did a quick search on the Internet for supporting evidence of that claim and I bought a pair within minutes.

So what is Buckwheat anyway? It is a by-product of making Buckwheat flour. The key thing is that the irregular shape of each Buckwheat seed is such that, when lumped together, they remain separate from each other and air is able to pass through them allowing your pillow to remain cool.

I’ve had mine now for over a month and I love it. How did I get to my age and have only just discovered this? I love this BuckWheat Pillow because it remains cool no matter what temperature I am during the night or day. It supports my head and neck and has alleviated my occasional neck problems. The pillow keeps its shape as you sleep and its temperature remains such that it doesn’t get too hot or too cold. The UK manufacturer reckons that it will last for years and years. It is easily much better than the ordinary feather, sponge (I’ve had no experience with memory foam) pillows that I’ve had in the past.

On the down side the pillow does have an initial unusual smell, when new, that takes a few days to get used to. In the end, I grew to like that smell and became disappointed when I could no longer smell it straight off!

It is slightly more expensive than I would have liked but it really is a quality product that I hope never needs changing.

Would I recommend the Buckwheat Pillow? “Hell, yes”. Whole-heartedly. All benefits far outweigh the slight disadvantage of cost and smell.

Get yourself a pair and you won’t look back. They are slightly expensive but they will improve the quality of your sleep. Buy cheap, buy thrice! They would also make a great gift for someone you truly care about. Know that if someone does use it, whatever happens, you’ll never get it back ever!

One point that I hope does not get lost here is that quality sleep of sufficient duration is successful for the success of any or  regimen. Like food, quality sleep is crucial for your success.

I’ll say for sure that I’ll NEVER sleep on an ordinary pillow again.

To your greater health and wellbeing

Dominic

* The 4-Hour Body – Timothy Ferris

I find it difficult to say enough good things about this book without rambling on and on. It is a full 571 pages with 17 pages of indexes. The book is aimed clearly at people that take life seriously like runners, weightlifters, people wanting to put weight on, people wanting to slim down and therefore lose weight. It contains an abundance of health and well-being information covering topics like subtracting fat, losing muscle, improving sex, perfecting sleep, reversing injuries, running faster, getting stronger and a whole lot more. It is jam-packed with facts, science, diagrams, pictures, exercises, charts, graphs, schedules, diets, recipes, advice, quotes, stories, experiments, tools, tricks, equipment, suggestions, examples, mistakes, tips, case studies and bonuses (web site) that make it one of the best Health and Fitness (Weight Loss) books that I’ve come across.

To what do I refer? I refer to a book written by Tim Ferris named The 4-Hour Body – An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex and Becoming Superman published in 2010 by Vermilion that became a #1 New York best seller.

Here’s what the http://fourhourbody.com website says you’ll learn from this book

·        How to prevent fat gain while bingeing (X-mas, holidays, weekends)

·        How to increase fat-loss 300% with a few bags of ice

·        How Tim gained 34 pounds of muscle in 28 days, without steroids, and in four hours of total gym time

·        How to sleep 2 hours per day and feel fully rested

·        How to produce 15-minute female orgasms

·        How to triple testosterone and double sperm count

·        How to go from running 5 kilometers to 50 kilometers in 12 weeks

·        How to reverse "permanent" injuries

·        How to add 150+ pounds to your lifts in 6 months

Bear in mind that the above information is presented not regurgitated like so many books I come across but as the well-researched result of experiments performed by the author and others.

One thing I really like about this book is that it provides information that I’ve never heard of. By that I mean unique information. For example, in this book I read about that missing element of weight loss that is so obvious that I wondered now I never considered it myself before (This is a post in its own right). No one that values looking good and feeling good about themself, would want to overlook The Myotatic Crunch or The Cat Vomit Exercise? Who could ignore the chapter titled “Six-Minute Abs – Two Exercises That Actually Work”

What I like about this book is that it contains some sensible straightforward advice. For example – Don’t drink calories. Makes sense, right? If you’re serious about getting fitter or losing weight why drink loads of fruit juice then spend time at the gym burning it off? It doesn’t make sense! How about the fact that cinnamon makes a big difference to the levels of glucose? Does learning how to lose 9kg in just 30 days without exercise attract you? How about learning how to build a better butt? It also has some simple advice that would save you tons of money while making a big difference to your weight loss. For example, how about eating the same few meals over and over again especially if you saw results almost straight away? Would that attract you? Like I said, this book contains real valuable unique information that I have seen nowhere else and answers questions that I have always wondered about.

One thing that I like less about this book, that is in fact one of its strengths, is that it is too big to fit comfortably in my hands to read while standing on the underground. I know it is a pretty poor reason not to like it – but that’s the point. I really do like it.

One key question you may ask is – does it do what it says on the tin (so to speak)? I have no doubt, based on the before and after facts, figures and apparent research, that it lives up to its name. Well, actually I’m not so sure about the Superhuman bit but maybe someone else can say.

All in all a very good read that I heartily recommend. This is a book that I doubt you’ll want to lend out. You can find this precise book lurking in my Slimming Down Convenience Store.

To your greater health,

Dominic

The Perfect SITUP is actually a useful piece of equipment. What you find when the majority of people do their sit ups is that they use a technique that causes pain in their neck or lower back. It's surprising how such a simple-looking exercise can be so deceptively difficult.

The Perfect SITUPI find aligns your body correctly so that your body is not twisted in any way therefore and causing technique to no longer be an issue. 

One problem with doing situps is that it's not always obvious how far to sit up! This specific problem is solved by this piece of equipment because it has a range-motion sensor that  gives and audible click as you complete the sit up and in the correct way. This feature is fantastic for a beginner doing abdominal exercises ensuring that you don't get put off doing situps, as so many people do, by causing pain to yourself during your workout.

The Perfect SITUP also allows for variation with the sit ups.  You can raise your legs, twist while crunching so you can keep the exercises varied.  All of these variations are shown in the pretty wall chart that acccompanies the product. The wall chart is double-sided ( I wish it was single sided and larger that I really could pin to the wall). On one side in glorious colour it shows the fundamentals for gettign started and getting into the proper position. It therefore shows how to secure your feet in the stirups that are part of the unit. It shows how to position the lower part of your body to get a nice 90 degree angle between your calves and your thighs. It shows the proper way to grip the handle and adjust your neck for proper working. This is invaluable.

On the bottom of the chart on the same side is a workout chart for beginners, intermediate and advanced individuals with 8 straightforward exercises to get you going, showing recommended reps, sets and for best cardio.

On the other side of the wall chart is a pictorial breakdown of each of the exercises for working your lower abs, upper abs, combination of movements for great effect and other exercise modifications that add even more value.

One down-side of the Perfect SITUPis that because it so takes care of ensuring that you do the correct movements you may not learn the correct technique because it takes care of it for you. What that means is that if you go to a gym or on holiday without having the Perfect SITUP with you, you may struggle to effectly work your abs. Unless you have the unit with you everywhere you may struggle to simulate the same intensity. 

Overall a great piece of equipment and having used it, I highly recommend it. 

Oh, I almost forgot! With the unit comes 2 other very worthy publications. The first is title Owner's Manual and Meal Plan and Guide the Healthy Eating. This first manual is 55 pages long and contains lots of useful information. For example, it shows how to assemble the unit and how to adjust it according to your height. It includes exercise guidelines, warm up exercises, warm down exercises, a description of the Perfect Situp System (You'd reasonably expect this to be here), cardio conditioning and 27 further pages of the recipes for a "10 day Meal Plan" and for a "Four Week Meal Plan". Fantastic!

Even better is the other publication Guide the Healthy Eating that, as the name suggests, contains 40 pages of healthy diet material. For example, it details how to determine your calorie needs and provides Menu Plans based on those calories needs. So, for example, there are Menu Meals if your needs per day are 1200 calories, 1300 caolries, 1400 and so on up to 2000 calories per day. 

Together these publications are great resources and I'm pleased to point these out to you.

So if you're looking for a relatively inexpensive way to strengthen your core you've found it.

To your greater health

Dominic

P.S. I feature the precise product that I describe above, for your convenience, on my new Amazon Store - Check it out for yourself.