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Add on years by shedding some extra pounds! These days, upwards of 60 percent of Americans are obese or overweight. Correspondingly, the rates of heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes are skyrocketing. Here are some ways to cut your risk of being counted among the statistics and lose the weight. These simple tips will have you losing weight in a balanced and healthy way.

Lose weight with water. Water is essential for everybody; it is also the key to losing weight. If you haven't been drinking enough water, your body has developed a pattern of storing water. This water retention equals extra unwanted weight. By drinking more water, you are not only flushing out toxins, you are also teaching your body that it no longer needs to store water. Drink at least 60 ounces of water (about 8 glasses) a day. Boil water and sliced lemons, and drink this throughout the day to help with fluid retention. One more thing to keep in mind: water is a natural appetite suppressant!

• 1. Focus on being fit rather than being thin. Aiming to be thin often means restricted eating, over-exercising, and anxious obsessing about weight-there is nothing healthy about this mindset.

• 2. Keep weight off by eating early. The human body follows a circadian rhythm, which means that the same foods eaten at breakfast and lunch are processed differently than when eaten at dinner. Studies show that when you eat your daily protein and fat at breakfast you tend to lose weight and have more energy; conversely, eating the same things at dinner tend to increase tendencies toward weight gain. Try to eat your last meal of the day by 7 PM.

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Stress has become a part of the fabric of our busy lives, but it wreaks havoc on our health-and our lives. When you are under mental pressure, adrenaline is released from the adrenal gland that tells the body to convert stored sugar from the liver to glucose because the energy needs of the body increase substantially during the supposed fight-or-flight scenario. The bad news is that this scenario almost never plays out and the excess blood sugar that never got used up ends up being stored as fat.

One of two things can happen from a prolonged survival mode. One: Your body will keep storing up excess sugar as fat and asking for more energy from more sugar! This equals weight gain. Two: All of this stress and colossal effort continually depletes your body of its energy resources until it inevitably crumples under the overload. This can lead to such conditions as adrenal exhaustion, nervous breakdown, or a broken down immune system. The vicious circle repeats itself over and over again and people never seem to be able to get out of the rat race.

Here are some healthy habits you can integrate into your daily grind to free yourself from stress.

1. Cut the Caffeine: Caffeine stimulates the adrenaline release. Give up the cup of coffee and opt for the therapeutic benefits of caffeine-free herbal teas. Or you can cut down on your caffeine intake by substituting coffee with green tea, which usually has 1/3 of the caffeine as compared to a cup of coffee-but with the benefits of the antioxidant polyphenols.

2. Cleanse the Clutter.

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When our immune system is run down, we run the risk of catching a cold, or even worse, the flu. Here are some ways to mobilize your body to fight off illness.

Simple Ways to Boost Your Immune System

As the old adage says, prevention is the best medicine. Without a healthy immune system, we would be sick all the time. When our systems become run down, we need to look to our lifestyle. From poor dietary habits and increasing work pressures, to insufficient sleep and poor stress management, a life out of balance leads to illness. The activities below will help you build your immunity:

Get enough rest, at least eight hours a night. Studies show that your immune system function drops by an average of 60% after just three nights of poor sleep.

Keep your stress level low with meditation, tai chi or yoga.

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Maoshing Ni is our guest blogger during the week of January 7th. If you have any questions for Maoshing Ni, add a comment to any of his posts. Here is some brief information about Secrets of Self-Healing:

Dr. Mao’s philosophy is simple: We all have a built-in healing ability, so why not try to activate it with natural means before we resort to drugs and invasive procedures?

For the common cold, why not exploit the power of garlic, ginger, and the herb astragalus instead of taking cold medicine that simply replaces symptoms with side effects? For insomnia, why not try to find a long term solution through acupressure or feng shui instead of popping sleeping pills, which don’t treat the source of the problem?

Chinese medicine sees well-being as a result of a balanced life, not just a healthy body. In Part One of Secrets of Self-Healing, Dr. Mao explains that healing food and herbs, exercise, a positive emotional life, a suitable living environment, and spiritual growth are all essential to vitality and lasting health. Using examples of his own patients’ experiences, he demonstrates:

-How negative emotions can make us ill
-How clutter in our homes can create imbalances in our bodies
-How Eastern and Western medicine can work together to fight cancer

Then, in Part Two, he reveals detailed home remedies for seventy common ailments, such as sore throat, allergies, high blood pressure, sunburn, insomnia, memory loss, and jet lag. Inspirational yet practical, Secrets of Self-Healing will put readers on the path to a balanced and healthy life.