Losing weight is one of the most important goals for many people, but one of the hardest parts to tackle is losing those last 5 lbs. Thankfully, Khloe Kardashian shared her 4 simple tips & tricks on how you can shed those pesky extra pounds fast!

Its no secret that Khlo Kardashian, 33, is the queen of all things fitness and weight loss. She completely transformed her entire body because of working out and eating healthy, and the results are astonishing. While losing weight is a serious goal for many people, weight loss can be tricky and challenging. Khloe shared on her app, Khlo With A K, her 4 tips for losing those last 5 pounds and you have to find out what they are, because theyre life-changing! Khloe shared, While I prefer to focus on feeling healthy and energized rather than tracking numbers on a scale, I totally get that weight loss is an important goal for many, so stalling on the last few pounds is a very real and frustrating thing. A lot of people see big results at the beginning of their fitness and diet journey, but as time goes on, it can get harder to make progress the way you did at the outset. Dont be discouraged! It might just take a few simple tweaks to your diet and routine to go the final distance.

Fat-free foods arent all theyre cracked up to be, dolls! If youre reading your labels closely, youll see that these foods often compensate by adding sugars, thickeners and flour (i.e., extra calories) to improve the flavor. Furthermore, without fats to slow the digestion process, these added sugars and simple carbs enter the bloodstream at a faster rate. This causes blood sugar levels to go haywire, causing you to eat MORE. Your daily fat-free yogurt might very well be sabotaging your diet! Read labels carefully and opt for low-fat or full-fat mono-unsaturated or unsaturated foods. Just be mindful of portion controlthis is not a license to go crazy!

Our bodies are seriously smart. After only a few weeks of repeating the same exercise routine, the body will acclimate and adjust by figuring out how to use less energy and calories to accomplish the same thing. This means youre working just as hard as you were before but burning less fat. You dont have to work out MORE, necessarily, but you do have to workout SMARTER by always keeping your muscles guessing. If youve never tried strength training before, give it a shot! Or maybe try a kickboxing class! Do anything thats not your norm and do it honestly. If its not truly challenging you, its not working!

Ask any nutritionist and theyll tell you the same thing: Artificial sweeteners are consistently linked to weight gain. In fact, they are arguably worse for you than real sugar! Fake sugar wreaks havoc on hormonal function, the neurological pathways that control hunger and your metabolism by attempting to trick your body into thinking its getting something sweet. Additionally, artificial sweeteners are over 1,000 times sweeter than the real thing, making them highly addictive and leading you to crave them much more often. That diet soda could be whats standing between you and those last 5 pounds! Try reaching for foods sweetened with small amounts of fruit sugar, if you need to get that fix.

Its sad, but true: Alcohol is packed with dreaded empty caloriesthe kind that cause weight gain and dont provide any useable fuel. Boozy beverages are recognized by your body as toxins, causing it to go into overdrive to flush them out, all the while taking its toll on your metabolism and storing itself as fat. Cut the cocktails (and wine and beer) from your diet and youll reap the benefits quicklyas much as 3 pounds in the first 2 weeks. Check out some of my tasty and refreshing mocktails while youre on hiatus!

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Khloe Kardashian's 4 Fitness Tips forLosing Those Last 5 Pesky Pounds - Hollywood Life

Enrico Benedetti, professor and chair of surgery, with Derrick (center) and Patrick Noel.

Patrick Noel was on his way home from his brothers house July 24, 2016, when a car pulled up next to him. The stranger in the other car asked Patrick if he lived in the neighborhood. Sensing something was wrong, Patrick hesitated briefly, but said that yes, he was from Calumet City. The man looked at Patrick, pulled out a gun and shot at him 10 times before driving off.

It was a case of mistaken identity.

Six shots hit Patrick; one grazed his head, others hit his back, foot and leg.

Another bullet pierced the blood vessels supplying his small intestine, and the organ quickly began to die.

An ambulance rushed Patrick, 32, to a nearby hospital where surgeons worked to remove the bullets. Because of blood loss, he lost his small bowel and about half his colon.

For months afterward, his stomach emptied directly into a colostomy bag and even as he received nutrition intravenously, Patrick was quickly losing weight.

Doctors at the hospital warned Patrick that he would more than likely require a small bowel transplant. The small bowel, also known as the small intestine, is responsible for absorbing nutrients from food. If either damaged or removed, patients must receive nutrition intravenously which carries risks of line infections and liver failure.

Luckily, Patrick had a perfect match for a transplant: his identical twin brother, Derrick.

When the doctors found out that I was Patricks twin, they hinted that down the road I might be asked to donate part of my small bowel to him, and I was fine with that right from the start, Derrick said.

In September, Patrick was referred to Enrico Benedetti, professor and Warren H. Cole Chair of Surgery at the University of Illinois Hospital. A renowned transplant surgeon, Benedetti has performed approximately two-thirds of the worlds small bowel living donor transplants. He is also one of just four surgeons worldwide to have performed an identical twin living-donor small bowel transplant. Only four of these surgeries had been performed worldwide.

It looked like Patrick had found another perfect match in Benedetti.

When I learned that Patrick had an identical twin willing to make the donation, I knew that a living-donor transplant would not only be possible, but because his brother is a genetic match, he is also a perfect match, Benedetti said. Rejection and infection are the two main concerns for any transplant, especially opportunistic infections that arise due to the immune-suppressing anti-rejection drugs. Because of Derrick, Patrick effectively avoids both these risks.

Because Derrick was a perfect match, Patrick wouldnt need to take immunosupressive drugs to prevent organ rejection. Most transplant patients require these drugs for the rest of their lives.

Before Benedetti could perform the transplant, in addition to the intravenous feedings, he needed Patrick to start eating solid, soft foods, as well as broths and soups.

If he could absorb at least some water through his remaining large bowel, it would be a big improvement, Benedetti said.

After Benedetti attached the bottom of Patricks stomach to what was left of his large bowel, his weight loss began to slow.

On April 27, the Noel twins underwent the transplant surgery.

Benedetti and Ivo Tzvetanov, associate professor of transplant surgery in the UIC College of Medicine, removed about 7 feet of the small intestine from Derrick most people have about 20 feet of small intestine and used it to connect Patricks stomach and large bowel. The surgery went smoothly and both brothers recovered rapidly.

Because Patrick is doing so well due to the fact that his new organ is a perfect match, we plan to get him off the intravenous feeding in less than half the normal time, Benedetti said.

Derrick is planning to return to work as a barber as Patrick continues to gain weight and strength at home.

Derrick never thought twice about undergoing the operation to help his brother, said a grateful Patrick.

He didnt ask any questions, Patrick said. He just said, Yes.

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Twin donates part of small bowel in rare transplant - UIC News

Decode the scale by asking yourself these four questions You step on the scale and youre magically five pounds lighter than you were at your last weigh-in. Yaaaas!

But before you do a little happy dance or treat yo self to the chocolate hiding in your freezer behind the broccoli, its worth knowing if you legit lost weight or youre just dehydrated.

So, we asked an R.D. for the questions you can ask yourself to find out if youre dropping fat or just a whole bunch of H2O. Heres your pop quiz

1. When Was the Last Time You Weighed Yourself? Weight-loss transformations dont happen over night, and its extremely rare to lose more than one-quarter of a pound of fat in 24 hours. Thats especially true if youre approaching weight-loss in a healthy, no-crash diet way, says Washington, D.C.-based registered dietitian Jessica Swift. However, over the course of the day or night, its possible that you could lose up to five pounds of water weight, she says. So if you weighed yourself last night and woke up five pounds lighter, most (if not all) of that was water. If you weighed yourself last week and lost five pounds, its more likely to be fat-loss. Thats especially true if you lost the same amount of weight this week as you did last week.

2. Is The Weight Loss Steady?

Real weight loss is consistent, while water weight can greatly fluctuate, Swift says. After all, if you can lose as much as 10 pounds in water weight in a day, you can gain it back that quickly, too. Each time you step on the scale, consider how your weight has been dropping over time. If you notice a significant loss that seems outside of the norm, its possible that part of that is due to dehydration.

This is where tracking your weigh-ins comes in handy. To help keep things as consistent as possible, weigh yourself in the morning, ideally after youve gone to the bathroom and before you dig into breakfast. 3. What Did You Eat In The Last 24 Hours? Over the long-term (think: weeks and months), the foods you eat make a huge impact in your fat-loss progress. But the foods youve eaten in the last 24 hours make the biggest impact on your ever-changing water weight.

While both sodium and carbohydrates are vital nutrients that you need for good health, overdoing them can cause your body to hold onto more water weight than usual, Swift says. On the flip side, cutting sodium or carbs can trigger a quick drop in water weightwhich explains why most women lose weight quickly at the beginning of any low-carb diet. So if your last few meals have been significantly less carby and salty, the scale could be detecting a drop in water weight.

4. Where Are You In Your Monthly Cycle? While water retention is a notorious symptom of PMS, that extra poundage tends to let up once your period starts and stays stable until ovulation or later, Swift says. So during and shortly after your period, you might very well be carrying around less water weight than you were before. Call it a consolation prize for all that cramping.

source: Womenshealth

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'Did I Really Lose WeightOr Is It Just Water Weight?' - Information Nigeria

This article originally appeared on AlterNet

Its tempting to think that, by rearranging your entire diet, you could quickly lose weight and keep it off. All you need to do is eat right for your blood type, or give up carbs, or eat like a Paleolithic human, or eat only raw foods, and so on, and you will be thin before you know it. At least, thats what fad diets promise.

Melinda Hemmelgarn, a Registered Dietitian and investigative nutritionist, who hosts Food Sleuth Radio, distinguishes between fad diets and what she calls popular diets. A fad diet generally promises quick and easy weight loss but comes up short on quality. They may lack certain nutrients, and could even be dangerous. She adds that they are notoriously difficult to follow.

She specifies that the Mediterranean and DASH diets are not fads. They are both popular but they are also effective for maintaining health for the general population and relatively easy to follow if you have access to healthy foods. The Mediterranean diet calls for eating like people who live in the Mediterranean high in vegetables and olive oil and only moderate in animal protein, and the DASH diet stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. It calls for a low sodium diet with plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables and low fat dairy plus moderate amounts of whole grains, fish, poultry, and nuts.

When U.S. News and World Reports asked health experts to rank 38 different diets overall, DASH and Mediterranean came in first and second, respectively. The experts considered whether they were easy to follow, nutritious, safe, effective for weight loss and protective against diabetes and heart disease.

A number of well known fad diets fared poorly in the rankings: Slim Fast (#20), South Beach (#24), Glycemic Index Diet (#25), The Zone (#25), Medifast (#29), Raw Food (#32), Atkins (#35), and Paleo (#36).

While a few of those that did poorly overall actually ranked well for promoting weight loss (raw food ranked fifth and Atkins came in twelfth), the Paleo diet came in dead last for weight loss. If that isnt enough bad news about the Paleo diet, archaeological scientist Christina Warinner, says that the foods called for by the diet are not even what ancient human ancestors actually ate.

Hemmelgarn adds that some diets can be clinically indicated for certain patients but may be fad diets if others adopt them. She includes gluten-free in this category. For many, eschewing gluten is no fad. If you have celiac disease, an autoimmune disease in which you become ill from eating even the smallest amount of gluten, a protein found in wheat and some other grains, going gluten-free is an important matter of staying healthy. But if your body tolerates gluten just fine and you decide to give it up, that can be a fad.

The same can be said for the ketogenic diet, a low carb diet that calls for eating whole foods and avoiding processed foods. The name ketogenic refers to ketosis. Normally, your body gets its fuel by turning the carbohydrates you eat into glycogen and using glycogen as its energy source. If you do not eat carbs, then your body must turn elsewhere for fuel. It turns fat into molecules called ketones and the ketones serve as the bodys fuel. When your body does this, it is in ketosis.

By avoiding carbohydrates in the diet, people on the ketogenic diet cause their bodies to go into ketosis. While this sounds like a weight loss scheme, the ketogenic diet is actually often recommended to epilepsy patients to help manage their epilepsy. According to Hemmelgarn, ketogenic diets should be followed under the guidance of a Registered Dietitian who is proficient in working with them. They are hard to follow. They are generally effective in weight loss, but most people who follow these kinds of diets generally gain the weight back once they start eating higher carbohydrate levels.

Registered Dietitian Nutritionist Amanda Bullat adds that while shed support any patient following a ketogenic diet for clinically indicated reasons, research is not conclusive about whether it is a good diet if your only goal is weight loss. In particular, she worries that a high protein, high fat diet could be taxing to the kidneys and liver.

Both the ketogenic and the paleo diets call for eliminating all grains and legumes from the diet. Bullat comments on this, saying, for myself and my clients, when we cut a carbohydrate coming from whole grains and legumes pretty significantly, we start having some mood issues and start being kind of lethargic. Its not to say that I think people should necessarily eat as much bread and pasta as they want, she qualifies. Having small amounts of whole grains, having small amounts of legumes, youre getting your nutrients from those whole foods and then youre not having to be on a B complex vitamin.

While some followers of diets that eliminate whole grains and legumes point out that these foods contain anti-nutrients (chemicals that interfere with the absorption of nutrients), Bullat recommends soaking, sprouting, or fermenting as methods of eliminating the anti-nutrients from grains and legumes.

But Bullat takes an even larger perspective of fad diets. Rather than nitpicking the particular details of each individual diet, she questions the idea of going on a diet in the first place. Bullat approaches nutrition from a Health At Every Size perspective. That means turning the idea of diets on its head. If youve tried ten diets to lose weight and you have not lost weight, you might say, I failed. The Health At Every Size approach says that the dieter did not fail; the diets failed.

Bullat explains, saying The science shows that across the board, no matter what diet people are put on in the study, in the long term, that way of eating will not help them promote weight loss. If you try a diet and fail to lose weight, or lose weight and then gain it back, the studies show that youre not the only one. Therefore that shows that the physiology aspect of the diet shows that its not possible to lose the weight off of that diet.

Using this approach, analyzing individual fad diets becomes more or less meaningless. Bullat coaches patients to be intuitive eaters who can listen to their bodies cues so that they eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full, and by eating foods that make their bodies feel healthy. This is basically the exact opposite of following a complicated diet plan that promises weight loss while attempting to ignore your bodys own signals.

In other words, no matter how much we might wish it, theres no magic bullet to quickly and easily lose weight and keep it off but there are ways to adopt new long term dietary habits to promote health and weight loss, whether it is through intuitive eating or a more prescriptive diet plan such as the Mediterranean diet.

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Have you ever tried a fad diet to lose weight? Here's why it didn't work - Salon

Two fitness trainers who lost a combined 200 pounds are opening up about their weight loss success stories, sharing the key to their transformations.

At his heaviest, Adonis Hill says he was 310 pounds. I was tired of looking in the mirror and not liking myself, he told ABC News Mara Schiavocampo on the latest episode of the "Motivated" podcast.

Hill lost 100 pounds, became a fitness trainer and then decided to gain back weight to participate in A&Es "Fit to Fat to Fit" reality show. On the show, trainers sign up to gain weight so they can lose it again with their clients. Hill ended up gaining 70 pounds in just four months before dropping almost 60 pounds with his client on the show.

I realized that not only am I a stronger person physically but mentally I realized I can accomplish and do whatever I put my mind to, he said.

To get results, Hill upped the exercise and diet. Now, he gives his clients the same advice. Mentally, we have to get you start focusing on how you view foods, he said.

For Shanna Fried, finding the perfect exercise was key to dropping the weight. I would say the main reason how I got to almost 300 pounds [was] I gave up on myself. I gave up on the hope that I can ever lose weight, the New York-based trainer said. A friend introduced her to boxing and she said she fell in love with it from the first punch.

In that moment I would say a light bulb went off in my head saying, 'OK this is it I have a chance. There is a chance I don't have to accept this is the way I'm going to be. I have to fight for it. I'm not going to come in here and enjoy every second of it. But this is something that I love doing.'

Finding an exercise she loved encouraged her to change her eating habits as well. From that point on, I completely stopped eating fast food, completely stopped soda. And just from that, weight started dropping like water, she shared. Her hard work eventually paid off -- she dropped down to 165 pounds.

Hill and Fried are now trainers who hope their stories can inspire others to keep going.

New episodes of "Motivated" are posted every Monday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play Music, ABCNewsPodcasts.com and the ABC News apps.

Original post:
'Motivated' podcast: Incredible weight loss transformations - ABC News

One of the ways I love giving back is by helping folks on their weight loss journeys in online forums, and on sites like Quora. Theres an abundance of misinformation out there, so when I see someone struggling to see through the BS, thats where I like to come in:-)

This morning, I got a great email from a guy in India looking to lose weight. I receive unsolicited emails like these on a daily basis, and after exchanging a few messages with him back and forth, I was able to bring some clarity to his personal journey. However, he brought up a whole bunch of things I see far too often in these forums, and so I want to shed some light on these so that you can stop blinding yourself with complicated scientific metrics you dont really need to pay any mind to.

Lets dig in, shall we?

1) Providing your age and his weight, but not your height.

While Im not a huge proponent of the concept If youre 6'0" tall, you MUST weigh no more than 185 lbs!, there are generally accepted ranges where our weights should NOT fall. If youre 5'6", for example, theres no reason for you to weigh 300 lbs! That being said, when youre starting your weight loss journey, its important to have a guesstimation as to how much weight youre looking to lose. In the example I just provided, wed be looking at around 150 lbs of weight to lose TO START for the person whos 5'6"!! This can obviously change as you go based upon the number of inches lost, how much muscle youve put on, etc., but if you say youre an arbitrary weight, I dont know if youre looking to lose five lbs, or 50.

2) Trying to lose weight with a popular dietary strategy: In this case, Intermittent Fasting (IF).

Fad diets come and go Right now, keto and IF are the talk of the town! Unfortunately, many of the programs youre hearing about that recommend these dietary methods arent actually keto or IF, and are instead a very loose interpretation of the two.

Before starting ANY dietary strategy, make sure you do your homework. While Im sure youll find a great deal of conflicting reports on the benefits and the detriments of following different dietary plans, here are a couple of things to consider: 1) Are there REAL studies supporting that this method of eating is both healthy and sustainable, and 2) Were these studies funded by food or supplement companies with ulterior motives?

Sadly, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) here in the United States is a very corrupt and underfunded body that does NOT regulate the supplement industry whatsoever, and has done a notoriously TERRIBLE job of regulating large food manufacturers with deep pockets. Often, studies promoting the benefits of foods that are actually UNHEALTHY is due to the fact that these deep-pocketed organizations are trying to push their agenda across to the public

That agenda? MO MONEY, MO MONEY, MO MONEY!!!

Fortunately, Intermittent Fasting has been shown to have numerous health benefits, so my buddy isnt barking up the wrong tree, and has done his research. However, in six months, when another one or two NEW fads come out, make sure you do your research before deciding to try that strategy out;-)

3) Thinking that WHAT you eat is solely based upon macronutrient gram and percentage breakdowns.

Listen, Im all about being as scientific as possible when embarking on a new endeavor. In this world of calorie counting, portion control and If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYM), hundreds of thousands, if not MILLIONS of folks the world over are keeping very constant track of their calories, points, grams of food, and macro percentages. And while certain dietary strategies that bark up these trees CAN be effective for health and for weight loss, theyre NOT sustainable.

I want you to do a quick exercise for me right now that will help prove this point: Close your eyes (after reading this, of course!), and imagine living the life you want while being in the best shape of your life. Youre toned, youre sexy, and youre happy. Youre out to lunch at a beautiful restaurant with your three favorite people. Youve just sat down at the table, and youre looking forward to a delicious meal.

But then, the bell goes off in your head as you pick up the menu: WHICH MEAL WILL FIT MY CALORIES?! WHICH MEAL WILL INSURE I STAY AT THE RIGHT MACRO PERCENTAGES?!!

The fun you were having leading up to looking at the menu is over, as you now have to perform a bunch of calculations in your head and on a nutrition tracking app for the upcoming meal. Wouldnt it be easier to SIMPLIFY your nutritional protocol, so that regardless of where youre at or who youre with, you know what you can enjoy, and what you should stay away from?

Quality nutrition can be summed up in TWO sentences: Eat meats, vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no (added) sugar. Eat ONLY when hungry, and just to satisfyNOT to stuff your face.

Thats it! Stop counting points, calories or macros, and start LIVING! I promise you that if you follow this nutritional protocol with EVERY dietary decision you make from here on out, youll be very, very happy:-)

pete@weightlossbypete.com

P.S. If youre READY to take that first step on your health and weight loss journey, then youre REALLY going to want to download my FREE report!

With 10 years of experience, SEVEN different fitness and nutrition certifications, and a sustained weight loss of 100 lbs., I think I know a thing or two about this Permanent Weight Loss thing;-)

This report will provide you with the five strategies I personally used to lose 100 lbs., and KEEP THEM OFF! These are the same five strategies I teach my Permanent Weight Loss clients, and are the basis to losing weight and getting healthy once and for all!

To get your FREE copy, please go to http://www.weightlossbypete.com/5strategies.

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Weight Loss Tip: Stop Overcomplicating Things! - HuffPost

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While strict diet plans can help you tone up and slim down, they can be difficult to maintain.

But one mum found the perfect solution to her weight loss woes, and it didn't involve restrictive dieting or constant weighing on the scales.

Instagram sensation Nikki Rees explained to Metro.co.uk: "Four months after the baby had arrived, I visited my sister in London for her birthday. I bought a super tight, figure hugging dress, convincing myself that this was exactly what I needed - that if I could squeeze myself into this dress, I would feel good about myself. I got a spray tan, I painted my nails, I blew out my hair and I armed myself with a pair of super strength tummy control Spanx.

"Unfortunately a night that was meant to be so glamorous and so fun, ended up feeling so uncomfortable. By the time my second Bellini arrived, my overly full breastfeeding boobs were on the verge of exploding out of the top of my low cut dress and my tummy had forced its way over the top of my spanks which had now rolled right down, creating weird looking bulges amplified by a too-tight dress."

Nikki felt so terrible about her body in that moment she refused to take her coat off and sat through the whole dinner with her arms wrapped tightly around her stomach.

I decided I wouldn't spend another second feeling uncomfortable and miserable, that I would never ever wear a pair of Spanx again and that I would never rely on a dress to make me feel good about myself.

She added: "I came home feeling disappointed and not in control of my own body. I decided I wouldn't spend another second feeling uncomfortable and miserable, that I would never ever wear a pair of Spanx again and that I would never rely on a dress to make me feel good about myself."

The next day, Nikki posted her very first "fitness" Instagram picture, and has been posting every day ever since.

One of her most recent posts shows her body transformation aged 34 to 36.

But when many of her followers have asked about her diet and weight loss plan, Nikki's answer is, "there's nothing really to tell".

On one reply she wrote: "I don't follow a plan, I don't count anything (not macros not calories) I don't try to cut out food groups or stop eating carbs after 5pm. I don't do intermittent fasting or flexible dieting or even clean eating."

Getty Images

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Nikki revealed she eats cake "more days than not", still drinks prosecco and loves a takeaway.

The difference between the before and after picture, Nikki says, is not what those foods do to her body, but what they do to her head.

She wrote alongside the post: "Two years ago eating sweets and takeaways and junk all day would send me into a downward spiral of feeling bad about myself. All that yummy food would actually fuel my EXCUSES to quit exercise, to not bother balancing the treats out with nutritious alternatives. Now, these same foods (and my passion for them) fuel my AMBITION to condition my body.

"If a day happens where I binge eat cake and a tub of butter, I leave it at just that - I day that happened. It doesn't de-rail my goals like is used to, I don't see it as a reason to give up but a reason to continue.

"I don't workout out of guilt - I workout to be GUILT FREE."

To get into shape, Nikki has been using Kayla Itsines Bikini Body Guide at home for the last two years.

She wrote: "It's a killer workout program but it's easy to modify, needs minimal space and equipment - so it's perfect for a stay at home mum. I generally workout for 28 mins in my living room with my (now) 2-year-old and it just works for me. I've definitely grown a huge amount in confidence and now I change up the workouts, add weights or resistance bands, push myself to try new variations of common exercises to keep things interesting and keep my body guessing."

Nikki started increasing the amount of food she was eating by having between three and five smaller meals every day, but while she doesn't keep track of calories, she does try to avoid "eating mindlessly" and checks she's had a good balance of food for the day.

She continued: "In turn my weight has steadily increased over the last 18 months back up to my start weight of 63kg but my body composition is entirely different and so is my body shape."

A nutritionist has claimed that cutting this out your diet can help you lose weight.

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Weight loss: Woman sheds pounds WITHOUT using scales or strict diet - Express.co.uk

Steve Patterson's observations and writing are based on his 20 years of experience working in the primordial ooze of start-ups in Boston and the San Francisco Bay Area.

The IoT in the commercial sector might better be called the Internet of Prototypes, the IoP.

Few of the components for building the ubiquitous IoT that the future holds are available today. The best way to envision the future is by prototyping. Prototypes of mission-critical or high-ROI applications will tease money out of research budgets to build them. All the prototypes will lead to a greater understanding, and when the cost of the problem matches the development investment the prototypes will become products. With cost reduction and standardization, products could become generalized extensible platforms.

MIT built a fitting prototype that could, with further development, scale into a platform. A multidisciplinary team from the MIT Design Lab led by MIT Media Lab researcher Guillermo Bernal won best research paper at the Petra Conference last month for the teams work applying IoT and wearables to industrial safety. The sophisticated and purpose-built prototype at the center of the research makes the paper Safety++. Designing IoT and Wearable Systems for Industrial Safety through a User-Centered Design Approach extremely tangible and predictive about how the IoT will unfold.

The energy industry was the context of the research. Testing was conducted at refineries owned by ENI S.p.A. The team began its research with existing literature, interviews with plant supervisors and workers, and a study of video recordings of the production area. This research served as the framework for designing a prototype to close the gaps between existing protective measures and their adoption to protect workers from four risks:

Exposure: Exposure to chemical and physical agents is significant danger in the energy industry.

Man down: Lone workers are common in the energy industry, where operators have to inspect or maintain wide areas. Workers can encounter health issues such as strokes, incidents, heart attacks, etc. resulting in the loss consciousness, without being able to call for help.

Falls from heights: Falls from heights accounted for four of seven fatalities in a recent year in the European oil refining industry and 8.6 percent of lost workdays. In the closely related and the larger construction industry, 37 percent of the fatalities are related to falls.

Load lifting: Workers often ignore weight limits by overestimation, work culture and even confirmation bias, from over lifting without injury.

The prototype begins with a vest designed to be worn by workers that is embedded with respiration, heart rate, and galvanic skin response (GSR) sensors. GSRs can measure emotional state. The vest includes 16 haptic devices to send sensation messages to the wearer, such as a nearby man down. The haptic devices and sensors tie into a 32-bit ARM processor that connects the vest to the outer layer jacket.

The jacket has environmental monitoring sensors to measure air quality, noise levels, smoke and airborne chemicals. Alerts for dangerous conditions are communicated to the worker with haptic sensations and also sent to a supervisors dashboard.

Load lifting is monitored by work shoes that have embedded force sensors. In the event that the worker lifts an excessive load, the shoes vibrate until the overload is resolved. Nearby workers are notified that a co-worker needs help.

The IoT system includes a carabiner, a safety strap for tethering the worker when operating at heights to something stationary to prevent a fall. The carabiner includes a wireless module and a pressure sensor.

The worker wearing the protective apparel is connected to peers and the supervisors dashboard via a ZigBee mesh network. The bio-sensors communicate individually, and the system analyzes them to measure vital states of the worker such as stress levels. These are selectively reported to both peers via haptic sensation and to the dashboard.

The jacket provides advance warning of potential harm to the wearer, and it monitors the entire work environment via the combined bio- and environmental sensors.

The carabiner pressure sensor reports whether or not it is attached. The altimeter and presumably the location sensor detects if the worker has climbed to a hazardous height. If the worker is strapped in, a signal is sent to a database and an actuator unlocks the workers toolbox. If the worker is not safely strapped in, the worker is notified with haptic sensations.

The designers of the Safety++ system considered that the IoT and wearable safety system communications traffic could cognitively overload the worker, creating a distraction. The haptic communication was surveyed with the workers to find the most accurate pattern to signal a condition. The authors left this as an open issue as an application-specific design factor.

The prototype test results were positive. The system was well received by both management and workers. The workers appreciated the peer-to-peer communications because the system relieved them of conscripting assistance lifting a load and provided protection via the bio- and environmental-sensors. Thinking about the Safety++ project, there is no reason that the sensors could not be added to provide other safety features, such shutting down dangerous machines.

The MIT team had unique design, development and fabrication skills needed to build the prototype. At the same time, there are many industrial conditions where the overhead costs per worker are measured in the thousands and tens of thousands of dollars per day due to the risks and environmental hostility. Configured differently, the Safety++ concept could be applied to new high-risk environments.

Insurance companies, regulators, unions and safety professionals have influenced the near universal adoption of fluorescent vests and safety apparel. This ubiquitous fluorescent apparel can be imagined to merge with the Saftey++ prototype concept, becoming a safety platform in every occupation when a wide-area IoT wireless infrastructure is built and sensors and radios are cost reduced.

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MIT IoT and wearable project foretells the future of industrial safety - Network World