The best way to lose weight can sometimes seem like one of life's greatest mysteries. Sometimes it actually is very puzzling. It seems that there are a lot of factors working against you. Fast food is so convenient. Healthy food costs so much more. The odds are not always in your favor. Hopefully the following little known tips to losing weight can help tilt the odds back in your favor.
The first thing to remember is to always eat non processed food. The more you steer towards natural food and away from processed food the better off you are going to be. Processed food is food that has been altered in some form or another. The more altered it is the worse it is for you. A general rule of thumb in identifying processed food is to just realize that if it cannot be found in nature in the form that it is in on your plate, then it has been processed. For example you can go out in the jungle and find a banana in pretty much the same form on a tree as you see them in the store. Now I seriously doubt you can go anywhere and find a Twinkie snack cake on a tree or plant anywhere in the world. There is just no such thing. Something like a Twinkie snack cake is a heavily processed food and really bad for your health and goal of losing weight. Stick to natural unprocessed food and you are wee loin your way to losing weight.
The second tip is to not eat any carbs after 6pm when trying to lose weight. Now do not misunderstand and think that I am saying carbs are bad. Good complex carbohydrates like whole grains can be a great source of energy. But when trying to lose weight you have to manage the usage of that energy source. Later in the day you do not need as much of that fuel and it can turn into excess very easily.
The third tip is to utilize weight training to add muscle to your frame. A lot of people misunderstand the role of muscle in weight loss. Muscles always burn energy. The more muscle mass you have on your body the more calories you will naturally burn. This can greatly aid in burning fat. Women should not be afraid of adding some muscle mass. You are not going to blow up like a muscle bound balloon overnight. Do not be scared of adding a small amount of muscle mass.
The fourth tip for losing weight is to make sure to always eat several small meals throughout the day instead of one or a few large meals. 5 or 6 small meals will allow your body to efficiently burn the fuel and not have an excess to turn into fat. Think about your body like a furnace. Which would be better for a furnace? Is it better to throw a huge amount of coal on the furnace at one time? Or is it better to add small amounts of coal to the fire throughout the day? Obviously you will benefit more from the small spread out amounts.
Keep these tips in mind and before you know it you will be a fat burning machine.
Banana snack industry goes stale
Not so long ago, the Central Java town of Majenang was famous for being the home of sale pisang, a unique snack made with bananas, but recently the market changed and the local snack industry faded to a fraction of its former success.
Majenang, one of 23 districts in Cilacap regency in the far west of the province - bordering with Banjar and Ciamis regencies in West Java - has about 30 small factories producing the snack.
Before the 1998 economic crisis, there were around 100 such producers, leading Cilacap administration to come up with the idea of making the snack the icon of Majenang.
But with the crisis, the plan hit snags and many cottage industries were forced out of business. More than a decade later, the situation has yet to improve.
"Before the crisis I could sell 2 or 3 tons of fried banana sweets to Jakarta. But things are difficult now," Yayat, a 61-year-old sale pisang business owner, told The Jakarta Post in Majenang.
Today, Yayat produces only about 200 kilograms of sale pisang a month, and 99 percent of this is sold in Majenang. The snacks are sold in 250-gram packages, each costing around Rp 25,000 (US$2).
Another snack producer, Juremi, said that before the crisis she could send 2 tons of sale pisang to Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya each month.
"Now we only sell sale pisang for the local market," the 60-year-old said.
Juremi said most of the snack producers were struggling to survive.
"What's important is that business survives. If there are buyers in the city, that's enough. Sometimes we get an order from outside the city, but this is unreliable," she said.
"Once, a distributor from outside the city wanted to place an order, but the price he offered was too low to cover our production costs. Rather than suffering losses, we preferred not to take it."
Making sale pisang does not take long. Ripe bananas are cut into slices and dried in the sun.
"If the sun is bright, the bananas will dry out in two days. But in a rainy season like this, it takes about four days," Juremi said.
The dried bananas are then smeared with flour and deep-fried. After being drained, the banana chips are ready to be packaged and sold.
The sale pisang business has supported many, including farmers and traders who sell raw bananas to cottage industries in Majenang, as well as banana snack makers such as Juremi and Yayat, and the vendors.
Majenang district head, Heru Susedyo, said he was aware of the stagnant business situation.
"Sale pisang was once so popular that the Cilacap administration planned to make it the icon of Majenang city, but the plan could not be realized because sales keep decreasing."
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/03/06/
Tuesday 13 January 2009
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