Eating out with the family is not an impossible task. For example, if the crew wants to go out for Chinese, you can go too!

Just check the restaurant's menu beforehand. This is easily handled since most restaurants have a web presence and you can view their menus before leaving the house.

Many Chinese restaurants are mindful of dietary preferences and have incorporated healthy choices into their menus. One of the restaurants in my area features a "Revolution Menu" and all of the items are steamed! Make sure that there is no sauce and no MSG!

Two Chinese restaurants in our area have steamed dishes: chicken and broccoli and chicken with vegetables. If you get the vegetable selection, be sure to as them to give you some tofu instead of the baby corn and carrots.

I would also get an extra dish for carryout to have at home. One of my favorite dinners is IP Chicken Soup with the chicken and vegetable or chicken and broccoli in the bowl.

The only way to lose weight permanently is by changing your attitude towards and your relationship with food.

The statistics for losing weight permanently through dieting alone are not very promising. Various research shows that 98% of people who lose weight through dieting regain it all within three years. This is because most diets are too restrictive and not sustainable in the long run. Entire food groups are often eliminated and calories are very low on these diets. 

Most people prepare themselves to stick to a diet long enough to lose the weight and look forward to the day when they can go back to their old eating habits. Taking this approach sets them up for failure before they’ve even start.

The only way to lose weight permanently is by changing your attitude towards and your relationship with food. You have to change how you think about food to make healthy living and weight management sustainable.

To make lifestyle changes you will need to make permanent changes to your way of eating and your relationship with food. This will, in turn, lead to improved health and a more stable, ideal body weight. You cannot eat the way you’ve always eaten and still have the body you desire.

Achieving a healthy lifestyle and long-term weight loss is a hare and tortoise race. There are no extra points for being quick off the mark. What counts is going the distance and achieving the good health and body you desire. Becoming aware of your potentially poor relationship with food is the first step in your journey to wellness and achieving the body you’ve always wanted.

COMMON UNHEALTHY EATING HABITS INCLUDE
Binge eating (or binging)
Cravings
Emotional eating
Eating for taste
Night snacking
Habitual eating

THE CAUSE OF WEIGHT GAIN
Overeating is the only way we can gain significant weight. Almost everyone overeats at some time or another. However, if your overeating is regular and uncontrollable, it may be regarded as binge eating or binging.

For most people, binging is a way of coping with stress or negative emotions. This type of compulsive eating usually ends up making them feel worse. A cycle soon perpetuates. Overeating is therefore only comforting for a brief moment.
​
When reality sets the regret and self loathing soon follows. Weight gain, even to the extent of obesity, often reinforces compulsive or binge eating. The worse the person feels about themselves, the more they use food to cope.

This becomes a vicious cycle; Eat to feel better . . . feel worse . . . turn to food for relief . . . and so it continues.

© http://lovehealth.co.za/its-not-a-diet-its-a-lifestyle/

Most people are aware of the wide-ranging benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, but you likely aren’t aware of a category of omega-7 fats that provide some unique health effects.

Scientists have recently uncovered a specific kind of omega-7 called palmitoleic acid. This newly discovered fat molecule is so important that Harvard Medical School has applied for a patent on it.

What’s so special about this particular omega-7?

It powerfully addresses many of the underlying factors involved in metabolic syndrome. This feat would require multiple prescription drugs to achieve—with potentially dangerous side effects. Omega-7 palmitoleic acid can safely do all this at a fraction of the cost.

Omega-7 can reduce risk of type II diabetes, prevent the buildup of atherosclerotic plaque, increase beneficial HDL and lower an inflammation marker called C-reactive protein, which is associated with an increased risk for heart attack and stroke.

In these ways, omega-7 is able to powerfully—and affordably reduce risk of the negative consequences of metabolic syndrome—including heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and other life-threatening disorders.

What Is Palmitoleic Acid? Palmitoleic acid is a member of the class called omega-7 fatty acids. Omega-7s include several different fatty acids. For the purposes of this article, when we refer to omega-7, we’re referring to palmitoleic acid.

Unlike the better known polyunsaturated omega-3s, omega-7s are monounsaturated fats. And while omega-3 fatty acids are beneficial largely because they become incorporated into anti-inflammatory molecules, omega-7s have an entirely different mechanism of action. Omega-7 fats function as signaling molecules that facilitate communication between fat and muscle tissue in your body.

This special signaling function qualifies omega-7 to be identified as a unique lipokine—a hormone-like molecule that links distant body tissues to assure optimal energy utilization and storage.

That’s what allows omega-7 to have broad-reaching effects on various factors of metabolic syndrome.

Ingestion of just a small amount of omega-7 has a profound effect on the body’s response to energy intake, fat storage, and utilization, all of which are imbalanced in metabolic syndrome. Omega-7 suppresses the production of new fat molecules, especially those fats that damage tissue and raise cardiovascular risk.

In fact, omega-7’s beneficial effects resemble those of many drugs (such as Lipitor®, Actos®, Lopid®, and others) commonly used by people with high cholesterol and/or high blood sugar, major elements of metabolic syndrome that increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Omega-7 Fights The Factors Of Metabolic Syndrome As medically defined, metabolic syndrome, a major contributor to cardiovascular disease risk and type II diabetes, consists of:

1. Elevated glucose and insulin resistance.
2. Lipid disturbances (high triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol).
3. High blood pressure.
4. Central obesity (“apple shape”).
5. Chronic inflammation.

Even though chronic inflammation is not technically a criterion for metabolic syndrome, it is widely recognized as a fifth major pathological contributor to the condition.
​
Palmitoleic Acid Improves Arterial HealthOmega-7’s ability to raise HDL and lower LDL—while also supporting endothelial function—make it extremely beneficial for cardiovascular health.

Studies show that omega-7 improves lipid balance by favorably regulating fat production within fat cells, while regulating fat burning. That means less fat deposition—and lower levels of fat and triglycerides in blood and liver tissue.

In a lab study done at the Cleveland Clinic, omega-7 supplementation increased beneficial HDL after just 8 to 12 weeks (something statin drugs are not very good at doing). In the same study, the reduction in the size of atherosclerotic plaque in the aorta was 47% lower in the group receiving omega-7 supplementation.

Omega-7 levels have also been shown to be powerful predictors of the all-important endothelial function, the control of blood flow and pressure by the inner lining, or endothelium, of blood vessels.

These beneficial effects on cholesterol were demonstrated by a study using macadamia nuts and sea buckthorn, two substances that are known for their high omega-7 content. Studies show that after just three weeks of eating macadamia nuts every day, healthy young women had reductions in total and LDL cholesterol, body weight, and body mass index (BMI). And in men with high cholesterol, 1 to 3 ounces per day of these fat-containing nuts produced reductions in atherosclerosis risk factors such as markers of inflammation and oxidative stress.

These studies may have shown greater effects had the subjects used a purified omega-7 palmitoleic acid supplement instead of the high-fat macadamia nuts, which are also rich in dangerous palmitic acid.

In a study of patients with stubbornly high lipid levels, a purified omega-7 supplement (840 mg/day) produced modest lipid reductions. LDL fell by 7.6% (from 118 to 109 mg/dL) while non-HDL cholesterol* was reduced by 8.2% (from 147 to 135 mg/dL). Patients with the highest levels of baseline triglycerides saw their total cholesterol and triglyceride levels drop by as much as 30%.

* (Non-HDL cholesterol is gaining increasing importance as a risk marker for cardiovascular outcomes. It is calculated as total cholesterol minus HDL cholesterol.)

What makes that study remarkable is that most participants were already taking statin or fibrate drugs, yet still had high lipid levels. This showed that adding omega-7 to these drugs produced additional benefits, lowering cholesterol and triglycerides where prescription drugs couldn’t.

In a subsequent controlled clinical trial, patients taking purified omega-7 palmitoleic acid at a lower dose (210 mg/day) had improvements in lipid levels after 30 days of supplementation: triglycerides dropped by 36.9 mg/dL (17%), LDL by 13.5 mg/dL (11%), and beneficial HDL rose by 4.5 mg/dL (10%).

Omega-7 Helps Manage Body WeightThe reason central or abdominal obesity (“apple shape”) is a factor in metabolic syndrome is because it has such strong associations with cardiovascular disease risk. This is due, in large part, to the increased inflammation produced by fat tissue.

Omega-7s help manage this factor of metabolic syndrome because they signal your body to stop storing fat.

Animals fed diets rich in omega-7 show significant increases in stomach and intestinal hormones that promote the feeling of fullness (satiety). At the same time, such diets produce decreases in hunger-promoting hormones. The combined effect is a significant reduction in food intake.

Several statin drugs, while lowering cholesterol and triglycerides, also produce increases in body and liver fat deposition. Omega-7s do just the opposite. Omega-7 reduces the production of fat in the liver.3 Increases in liver fat can result in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which is considered a major manifestation of the metabolic syndrome—and which can eventually lead to liver failure and even cancer.

SummaryResearch has shown that omega-7 has beneficial effects on a majority of the pathological components of metabolic syndrome.

It improves insulin sensitivity, lowers LDL-cholesterol-triglycerides, and raises beneficial HDL.

​It helps manage body weight by promoting fullness-inducing hormones and dissipating hunger-producing hormones.Perhaps most important of all, omega-7 acts in a unique fashion to stop the inflammation that forms the link between the metabolic syndrome and its life-shortening consequences.

By beneficially influencing these deadly pathological factors, omega-7 can dramatically improve cardiovascular and metabolic health.

All Contents ©2015 Life Extension®. All rights reserved

British endocrinologist Albert T. W. Simeons proposed HCG as an adjunct to an ultra-low-calorie weight-loss diet (less than 500 calories).[36] Simeons, while studying pregnant women in India on a calorie-deficient diet, and "fat boys" with pituitary problems (Frölich's syndrome) treated with low-dose HCG, observed that both lost fat rather than lean (muscle) tissue.[36] He reasoned that HCG must be programming the hypothalamus to do this in the former cases in order to protect the developing fetus by promoting mobilization and consumption of abnormal, excessive adipose deposits. Simeons in 1954 published a book entitled Pounds and Inches, designed to combat obesity. Simeons, practicing at Salvator Mundi International Hospital in Rome, Italy, recommended low-dose daily HCG injections (125 IU) in combination with a customized ultra-low-calorie (500 cal/day, high-protein, low-carbohydrate/fat) diet, which was supposed to result in a loss of adipose tissue without loss of lean tissue.[36]

Simeons' results were not reproduced by other researchers and in 1976 in response to complaints the FDA required Simeons and others to include the following disclaimer on all advertisements:[37]

There is no scientific evidence that HCG is effective in the treatment of obesity. The meta-analysis found insufficient evidence supporting the claims that HCG is effective in altering fat-distribution, hunger reduction or in inducing a feeling of well-being. The authors stated “…the use of HCG should be regarded as an inappropriate therapy for weight reduction…” In the authors opinion, “Pharmacists and physicians should be alert on the use of HCG for Simeons therapy. The results of this meta-analysis support a firm standpoint against this improper indication. Restraints on physicians practicing this therapy can be based on our findings.”
— American Society of Bariatric Physicians'[42] commentary on Lijesen et. al (1995)[41]

There is no real evidence that the hormone injections to lose weight and can be dangerous in some people because it can cause blood clots, depression, and headaches.

The FDA has approved choriogonadotropin hormone injections as a treatment for fertility, but not for weight loss.

According to the American Society of Bariatric Physicians, no new clinical trials have been published since the definitive 1995 meta-analysis.[42]

The scientific consensus is that any weight loss reported by individuals on an "HCG diet" may be attributed entirely to the fact that such diets prescribe calorie intake of between 500 and 1,000 calories per day, substantially below recommended levels for an adult, to the point that this may risk health effects associated with malnutrition.[43]

Popular HGC diets with Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG)​​ are still available through medical professionals but should be avoided at all cost! 

The only dieting programs that work are those that treat weight loss with real food and real food products such as those offered by Ideal Protein.

© https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_chorionic_gonadotropin
© http://vladimiria.blogspot.com/2012_06_01_archive.html