Science Horizons

For the last several years, the biggest diet buzzwords have all been, low-carb dieting. While it’s true that many of the high carbohydrate foods that we eat are not good high metabolism foods, our body does need carbohydrates for energy. It is not a good idea to totally eliminate carbohydrates from your diet. Here’s why:

If you follow a low-carb diet for a long time, you run the risk of creating health problems. If you DO put yourself on a low carbohydrate diet, make sure it’s only for a short period of time. Some of the health risks you face with long term low-carb dieting are truly frightening.

Diets which are high in protein – like animal protein from meat – tend to build up acids in our blood. These acids are the result of digesting large amounts of protein. To neutralize these acids our bodies take calcium from our bones. This can create osteoporosis and is a particularly dangerous problem for women.

According to the American Institute for Cancer Research, low carbohydrate diets which are low in fruit, vegetables and whole grains (all excellent metabolism foods) while at the same time being high in animal proteins increase the risk of acquiring certain types of cancer.

There’s another problem with low carbohydrate diets, which is that they increase the amount of fats we eat. In fact, studies have shown that countries that consume vast amounts of fats also have the highest rates of breast cancer. Therefore, particularly if you are a woman, make sure you get a large amount of high-fiber metabolism foods in your diet to reduce your risk of breast cancer.

Further, too much saturated fat in the diet risks raising LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol), and can increase the risk of heart attack, cardiovascular disease and stroke.

To effectively lose weight, we need to include carbohydrates, proteins and fats in our diets. Our body needs them all – in the right proportions. There are many alternative high metabolism foods in each of the three categories that are healthier than others, but we need all three.

The only sure way to lose weight effectively and keep it off is to increase your metabolic rate with the best metabolism foods for your body. It’s healthy to do this, too, as long as you do so safely. It’s also a pretty simple thing to do and it’s never going to mean you’ll starve yourself. In fact, if you’re hungry, you’re not doing it right.

To learn more about metabolism foods and the best ones for your metabolism – and how you can give it a boost, take a look at my website. While you’re there, why not enroll for a free copy of my “Fast Weight Loss Tips!” mini-course?

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Diets for quick weight loss can be very risky. But, do you like to take risks with your health? If so, the 500 calorie diet may be right for you. Even when considering diets for quick weight loss, the 500 calorie diet is an extreme form of dieting. However, it is very popular.

The reason for the popularity is that it will help you lose weight very quickly. Among people who are looking for quick weight loss, low calorie diets are quite common. But even among low calorie diets, 500 calories is at the low end of the scale.

1200 calories per day is generally used as the cutoff point to determine a low-calorie diet. In other words, anything below 1200 calories is considered to be a low-calorie diet. Obviously, the whole point to a low-calorie diet is to quickly lose weight. But again, this can’t be over stressed, severely limiting your caloric intake is very dangerous. Any low-calorie diet should be thoroughly planned with your nutritionist and/or your family doctor.

To lose weight, it’s clear that you have to burn more calories than you eat. You can eat less, or burn more. Either way works. Just to keep functioning, your body needs a certain number of calories every day. The idea is, that if you eat fewer calories than needed, the excess will come from your stored fat.

But, keep in mind that your body is very smart. It won’t simply keep burning away calories. Your body will think you are starving, and it will cut way back on the number of calories it uses to survive. This affects your metabolic rate, which means that your body will start eating away at your muscle mass.

For the long-term, this is very dangerous. It’s your muscles that burn calories (far more than fat) and if you lose muscle mass, it can have a highly detrimental effect on your body and on your ability to keep weight off in the future. As one of the diets for quick weight loss, it works…but only for a little while.

Depending on your body type, gender, height, activity level, and overall health and well-being – 500 calories per day may be sufficient. At least for a short time.

It’s likely, that you’ve been taking in 2000 to 5000 or more calories per day. Suddenly dropping to 500 will immediately move your body into starvation mode. As it should. For most of us 500 calories per day IS literally starving our bodies. To conserve energy and to help keep you alive, your metabolism will slow way down.

Our bodies are quite adaptable. In a very short time you will learn to survive on 500 calories per day. (At least until you run out of calories to burn…then you’ll go into a coma and die.)

The good news is, we usually stop our dieting before that happens. The bad news is, now that you’ve lost so much muscle mass and your metabolism is so slow, as soon as you go back to your old eating habits (and we all do) you will have a sudden spike in weight gain. In fact you’ll gain more weight than you would have if you had never gone on a diet to start with. Diets for quick weight loss may seem to be very effective, but they just don’t work over the long haul.

The most effective method of determining a healthy, livable daily calorie level, is by using a BMR/AMR calculator. It will tell you how many calories are necessary to support your health and your lifestyle. Once you know how many calories you need to maintain your weight, then you can subtract 500 calories per day, and you have one of the ideal diets for quick weight loss success.

Since the body size and mass of men and women is so obviously different, this means that they need a different number of calories to survive. While the average woman may eat 1200 to 1300 calories per day their male counterpart needs from 1500 to 1600 calories per day. That’s why it’s so important for you to consult your physician before starting any diet. Safety must come first.

Finally, when it comes to diets for quick weight loss…the 500 calorie per day diet is a popular one. But, keep in mind that it can be very dangerous. Clearly, it will help you to lose weight. But the weight loss is only temporary. It’s going to come right back as soon as you stop the diet. Unless you are under the constant supervision and monitoring of a doctor, you should never cut back your calories that dramatically.

To get your FREE copy of my “Fast Weight Loss Tips!” mini-course, and to learn more about the best ways to lose weight, check out my website right now.

Dan Eitreim Weight Loss diet, dieting, diets, Fitness, food, Health, health and fitness, healthy weight loss, lose weight, metabolic rate, metabolism, Weight Loss, weight;loss

Great news! If you’ve been scouring the internet looking for articles on, “how to speed up my metabolism” you found the right place. Let’s face it, for weight loss the metabolism is where it’s at. And speeding it up isn’t as hard as you might think.

First, let’s define what I mean by metabolism… your metabolism, is simply what your body does with the food you give it. Nothing more, nothing less. How to speed up my metabolism, could be rephrased as, how can I better use my food?

What I mean is, whenever you eat – you are taking in calories. Your body must find some way to deal with these calories. If you happen to need some energy, the calories get burned off as energy. If you don’t need any energy right then, your body saves them up for a “rainy day”, in the form of fat.

The best part is that anyone can lose weight. It’s a scientific given. All you have to do is burn off more calories than you take in. In that way, you are not adding to your stores of fat, but you’re actually taking away from them.

That’s all that is meant by metabolism. You could think of it like that fairytale, “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” – you have three choices. If you use more calories than you take in, you’ll lose weight. (We think of that as a fast metabolism.) If you take in more calories than you use, you will gain weight. (We think of that as a slow metabolism.) And obviously, if you eat just right you won’t gain or lose anything.

So, to “speed up my metabolism”, we need to start burning off more of our calories. There are two basic ways to do this. First, we can start eating fewer calories or start getting our calories from more “usable” sources. And second, we can start exercising more, which will burn off calories.

It is in the eating less section that we all tend to run into trouble. It defies logic, but if you eat too little, you could actually slow down your metabolism and set yourself up for massive weight gain. Your body thinks you’re starving – and it wants to keep you alive – so it slows down your energy consumption. In other words it slows down your metabolism.

Here is a way you can trick your body. It’s a way to cut back on your calories, while still making your body think you are getting enough. This will ramp everything up into high gear, and kick start your metabolism.

My favorite method for accomplishing this miracle, is to focus a large portion of my diet on negative calorie foods.

Negative calorie foods, are foods that require more energy to digest than they actually give you. For example, a 100 g piece of broccoli will give you about 25 calories. But it uses 80 calories in being digested. So, you have a net loss of 55 calories! Plus your body thinks you’re eating plenty so doesn’t cut back on your metabolism! It doesn’t get any better than that!

You won’t be able to avoid losing weight if you work negative calorie foods into your diet program. Pay attention to the portion sizes on your other foods, and start a basic exercise program and it will work! In the area of fruits and vegetables there are quite a few negative calorie options.

To discover a lot of interesting articles as well as more information about negative calorie foods, Check out my website. It’s worth the effort.

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Have you ever dreamed of starting a photo business? If so, there are a few things you will want to do.

It goes without saying that you’ll need to know a little bit about photography. Clearly you off to have some level of skill, but that is not nearly as important as you might think. You could earn a very substantial income even if you are only just competent in photography.

To gain any level of success with your photography, your knowledge of marketing and how to sell your pictures is far more valuable. Amazingly, a lot of good marketing advice can be learned at the movies.

“Hello Dolly” was one of the longest-running Broadway plays ever. It was made into a movie in 1968, starring Barbra Streisand. (This was likely before most of you were born.) It’s one of my favorite movies and a terrific source of marketing training.

Dolly Levi, is the ultimate in entrepreneur in this movie. It seems that she has a business for every potential market. When she sees anyone with any sort of need, she immediately gives them a business card promoting her business – that specializes in that exact area.

Throughout the entire movie, this is a running gag.

I got two valuable marketing lessons from that.

First, pass out your business cards! If no one knows you are around, how can they call? Dolly must have passed out over a hundred business cards before the opening credits finished. How many do you pass out? If you aren’t going through at least a thousand cards a month – you aren’t even trying!

“If you have to live from hand to mouth, you’d best be ambidextrous.” Was the reply Dolly gave when someone asked her why she ran so many businesses.

I’m not suggesting you run out and start a ton of businesses, but how many of us get hung up on doing the same sort of photos, the same way, every day? Branch out! Try new things, new ways of marketing to new markets! That’s when you will start to see the money you have been dreaming about.

Finally, you’ll have enough money to ____________. I’ll let you fill in the blank, there must be some sort or reason why you want to have your own photography business. Then, get off your duff and go for it. It’s a lot easier than you may imagine. To learn more, check out my website. There’s a free mini course that will teach you tons of ways to make money with your camera.

Dan Eitreim Photography Camera, Marketing, marketing photography, photo, photo careers, photo income, photo jobs, photo sales, Photography, photography income, photography jobs, photos, professional photography, selling photography

No matter how hard we try to avoid it, all the best ways to lose weight require some sort of exercise. But, just because that’s true, doesn’t make it any more fun. Most of us dread our daily workout and skipping it is a leading cause of failure in most weight loss plans. Have heart, here are some pointers that could actually help out…

Particularly at first, we all hate exercising, but that changes. Before you know it, you start looking forward to your workouts! You start feeling like something is wrong or missing if you skip a day. You can stop giggling now. It happens, (yes, even to you).

The tough part is the beginning. We know we have to do it, so we muster all our mental reserves and force ourselves. For a little while anyway – the vast majority end up quitting in frustration, never knowing how close they may have been to a breakthrough. There are some strategies and tips you can employ to help you learn to love working out. When you’ve attained that level, weight loss becomes much easier. Almost an afterthought.

If another endless round of stomach crunches, lunges, or mindlessly jogging in circles around a track has you hitting the snooze alarm – just because you can’t face it for another day – take heart. There’s hope!

Crunches may strengthen the core, but there’s other ways too. Did you ever stop to realize that swimming is every bit as good an aerobic exercise as jogging? Most people think it’s better, and not as hard on the joints! Try dancing! Get some cd’s and dance your heart out in the privacy of your own home. Get a bicycle and tour your community. It’s fun and you’ll get a little sun too. The point is, that for every dreaded, mind numbing exercise you do, there is a fun alternative. If you are having fun, you will stick with the program and you will be well on the way to losing weight and keeping it lost.

Obviously, the boring exercises exist for a reason. Some of the more fun alternatives may not be quite as ideal. That’s ok. At first, you want to do anything that you are likely to stick with. After all, NOT DOING a perfect exercise is far worse than DOING a pretty good one! Any exercise is better than none. As you get more in shape, your muscles will start to crave the daily sessions, then you can slowly start replacing the lesser exercises with the better ones. You’ll find they aren’t so tedious now that you actually like working out.

Consider working up a sweat by doing some vigorous gardening around the yard. Rake up all those leaves! Park the power mower and get one of the old push mowers. Try to mow your grass a little faster each week. Make it a personal competition.

That boring jog can be replaced by winter sports if you live in the colder areas. Try tobogganing with friends. Just stay away from the after sledding hot chocolate. Or you could dig through the piles of stuff in the garage and drag out your ice skates. (You know, the ones you haven’t seen in 20 years.) Get one of the new Wii games. There are several games available that will give you a good aerobic workout. You may even get the kids to join in. Just be sure to call it a game, not an exercise.

Get a partner! A workout buddy can help immensely. We all need a little extra motivation from time to time and a gentle push from our friends can get us over the hump. As you each get in better and better shape, you can graduate from tennis on the Wii to an actual tennis court. In this case, being a bad player is a bonus! You’d be running all over chasing tennis balls. You can each set personal goals and challenges and you could make it a competition.

If you go to a gym, a trainer can help you design a program that will be safe. Plus they are there to help keep you motivated and make it more fun and interesting. Boredom, injury and feeling overwhelmed are the biggest drawbacks to working out at a gym. Your trainer is an expert at helping you get past those hurdles.

You don’t have to do this by yourself. Take an exercise class at your gym! Most gyms offer them free with your membership or if not free, they don’t cost much. You may meet someone that turns into your best friend – who knows? The classes keep you learning new exercises, they motivate you and push you a little. Most community centers have free or low cost classes if cash is a little lean right now. Look into it tomorrow!

Whatever you do, don’t quit. Find a way to make it fun and stick with it. Pretty soon, it won’t seem like a dreaded chore. You will actually start to look forward to exercising and it will become a high point of your day. You will have mastered one of the best ways to lose weight.

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Shadows can and frequently do ruin otherwise good photographs.

The bad news is; shadows are a constant problem for photographers. The good news is, there are a number of simple “fixes”.

First, what causes the shadow? Well, obviously it is caused by the light hitting your subject and not hitting the background behind them.

The first “fix” if you’re having a problem with distracting, ugly shadows on your backdrop…remove the backdrop. If there is nothing behind your model, there is nothing for the shadow to fall on, therefor there’s no visible shadow.

So, fix number one would be – eliminate the background.

If your session is being shot outdoors, just move your model so that there’s no background behind them. Not too difficult.

If your shoot is being done indoors, your clearly can’t remove the walls, but you can be sure your model is further away from them. Do your shooting with your model in the middle of the room rather than right up next to the wall. It makes a better picture and your shadow difficulties will evaporate.

The second way to approach the problem is to position a light to illuminate the background.

If you are using a “studio” lighting setup, once you get your subject lit the way you want them, add an additional light that strikes only the background and not the subject.

The additional bonus to this is that with the use of colored gels, cookies, and scrims – you can make this background light throw different colors, shapes and patterns onto the background. That way, you can make it into a design element not just a shadow removal system.

The way to think of light and shadow is this…light is like a billiards ball. When you roll a billiards ball into a cushion, the ball will bounce off. The key is, it will bounce off at the same angle it struck to cushion. (Remember this the next time you are trying to eliminate glare from eyeglasses.)

The shadow on the other hand, is ALWAYS directly in line with the light. So, you can minimize the shadow problem by changing the angle of the lights so that the shadow falls into an area that won’t show in the final photo.

Indoors, with a studio light setup, just move the lights around until you find the optimal angle. Outside, you have to move your model around until the light is coming from the right direction. Reflectors can help too! you can change the angle of light when using an on camera flash by bouncing it off a wall or the ceiling. Just be sure the wall or ceiling are not painted a color that will throw an odd color cast on your model.

The final intensity and harshness of a shadow is determined by the size and strength of the light source, relative to the subject.

You can minimize a shadows intensity and the distraction it causes by lowering the intensity of the light.

Two easy ways to lower a lights’ intensity are; use the same power settings, but move the light further from the subject or simply use less power to the light. (Good studio lighting systems have multiple power settings.)

Another option is to increase the size of a light relative to the model. This makes the light wrap around them and minimizes the shadow. You can make a light bigger with umbrellas, reflectors and softboxes.

Think of an umbrella or softbox like a cloud moving between the sun and a subject. It diffuses the light making the entire cloud a light source rather than just the tiny little sun. Go outside and observe some shadows before and after being blocked by clouds. You should see a dramatic difference in the shadows.

This article is just a simple primer on light, shadows and diffusion. There are entire books written on the subject and I’d suggest reading a few.

Shoot well.

Dan Eitreim Photography Camera, digital photography, freelance photography, make money, photo, photo jobs, photo marketing, photo studio, photographer, photographers, Photography, photos, professional photography

Are there distracting shadows ruining your photographs?

Unfortunately, shadows are a constant challenge for photographers. Fortunately, there are quite a few easy but effective fixes.

To start, what is causing the shadow? That’s easy, it’s when light is hitting your photo subject and not hitting the backdrop behind them.

The first “fix” if you’re having a problem with distracting, ugly shadows on your backdrop…remove the backdrop. If there is nothing behind your model, there is nothing for the shadow to fall on, therefor there’s no visible shadow.

So, fix number one would be – eliminate the background.

If your session is being shot outdoors, just move your model so that there’s no background behind them. Not too difficult.

If you are indoors, obviously you can’t take down the walls, but you can move the subject further away from them! Shoot them closer to the middle of the room instead of right up against the wall and your ugly shadow problems will disappear.

Another way to approach the problem is to add another light source that is hitting the backdrop.

If you’re lighting your subject with “studio” type lights; get your model lit the way you want and then add another light that bypasses the model and lights up the background.

Adding the extra light can be more than just a shadow remover. By adding in scrims, cookies and colored gels to modify the light, it becomes a part of the design of the photo. The modifiers will throw colors, patterns and shapes on your backdrop.

Think of light like a ball on a billiards table. It will hit the subject at a certain angle and reflect off at that same angle – like the billiards ball striking the cushion and bouncing off. (This is important to remember when trying to eliminate glare from eyeglasses.)

Shadows don’t bounce, they are ALWAYS perfectly in line with the light. You can fix your problem shadow by moving the light so that it strikes the subject in such a way that the shadows fall into an area that won’t be in the picture.

Outdoors this would be done by deciding which direction you want the light to hit your model and then moving them to the proper position. With a studio lighting system indoors, you move and adjust the lights to find the best angles. If you are stuck using an on camera flash, you can bounce the light off a wall or the ceiling. This will effectively change the angle the light is coming from and striking your model. Be careful the ceiling and walls are not painted a color that will throw an odd color cast on the subject.

The size and strength of the light source – as related to your model – is what will control the harshness and intensity of your shadows.

You can minimize a shadows intensity and the distraction it causes by lowering the intensity of the light.

Moving the light further from the model or reducing the lights’ power are two simple ways to lower the intensity of light hitting your subject.

Another option is to increase the size of a light relative to the model. This makes the light wrap around them and minimizes the shadow. You can make a light bigger with umbrellas, reflectors and softboxes.

Think of an umbrella or softbox like a cloud moving between the sun and a subject. It diffuses the light making the entire cloud a light source rather than just the tiny little sun. Go outside and observe some shadows before and after being blocked by clouds. You should see a dramatic difference in the shadows.

Light, diffusion and shadows are the subjects of many books. This article is only a beginning. go to the library and read a few books on the subject, you’ll be glad you did.

Shoot well.

Dan Eitreim Photography Camera, digital photography, freelance photography, make money, photo, photo jobs, photo marketing, photo studio, photographer, photographers, Photography, photos, professional photography

Does this sound familiar? You haunt all the area camera shops, buy all the interesting photo books, save every penny you can to buy the latest photo gadgets, subscribe to half a dozen photo magazines… Finally you insert a blank memory stick or some film into your camera and start firing away.

You anxiously run down to the photo lab to get your film developed, (or spend a few hours trying to remember how to download your photos into the computer- who can see anything on that tiny screen anyway?). Finally, we get the results.

Horrors! There’s a huge branch coming right out of the head of our gorgeous model! Or kids playing in the background – or cars going by and obscuring our pretty backdrop. Didn’t notice the trash can off to the side, did you? You know, the one that is ruining EVERY SHOT!

It is so easy to get focused on our model, her pose, her smile and so on that we completely forget the rest of the scene we are photographing. It’s easy to do and every photographer has done it – hundreds of times.

There’s so much to think about when constructing a good portrait. Is she (or he) smiling, is the angle of her head appealing, is everything in focus, did we focus on the eyes – and now we have to worry about trees, garbage cans, cars and kids?

Yup. Add one more challenge to the list. It’s not too hard to get in the habit of checking all the way around the edges of the frame – if you make it a habit!

Slow down. It’s easy to get caught up in the moment and shoot too fast. Force yourself to scan the viewfinders’ edges. What about that trash can off in the distance? Will it be blurred out? Or will it show in focus in the final print. Can you or your model move so you are shooting at an angle to eliminate it?

Does your background include a street? Watch out for traffic – auto or pedestrian. Can you move to a different location, or change shooting angles and eliminate the traffic? Will you have to wait for a break in the traffic to get your shot?

I know this is a very obvious tip, but if this wasn’t a very costly, everyday problem I wouldn’t have bothered with this article. You can save a lot of time and money by just taking an extra second or two and looking at your backgrounds.

Dan Eitreim Photography Camera, digital photography, freelance photography, make money, photo, photo jobs, photo marketing, photo studio, photographer, photographers, Photography, photos, professional photography