Archive for the “Eating Tips” Category

The biggest factor in weight loss is your motivation.

It’s more important than which diet you choose. It’s also the biggest reason why diets often fail. Since it’s so important, let’s find out how to make it work for you, not against you.

Most weight loss programs work if you stick with them. The trouble may be that you don’t. Why are programs so hard to stick to? Because you often feel bad when you are trying to follow them – you get hungry, the wrong hormones are coursing through your body, you may be missing a source of comfort, and you may have emotional links to your weight issues. Read the rest of this entry »

So you want to lose weight fast? Well, join the club! But how do you do it?

Losing weight in the best of times is not easy. But aiming for rapid weight loss adds the extra burden of doing it with a deadline. Asking for more means you have to put more into it. On the mental side, you’ll need determination, specific targets, a detailed plan, and extra discipline to stick to the plan. On the physical side, you’ll have to do even more exercise than you would if there was no hurry. You’ll also need to make changes in what you eat. (Note: Be sure to talk to your doctor before starting any weight loss program.)

First the mental items. Determination and discipline. If you want to achieve your weight loss goal in a limited time, you have to make up your mind that there will be no backsliding. Either you consistently do what it takes to get the weight off, or the weight stays on. You won’t have time to catch up if you let yourself slip. Success will be your only reward. Read the rest of this entry »

Losing weight has gotten a bad reputation. People avoid it, dread having to do it, try it and give up, and generally approach it with the idea in mind of how hard it is! But it can be much easier than that. The trick is to approach it gradually.

Don’t try to make huge changes all at once.

Make one small change at a time and give yourself some time – maybe a week or more – to get used to it. Then add on another small change. If you keep it up, which is not very hard to do, after only a few weeks you will start to notice changes in your energy, your strength, and how your clothes fit.

What kinds of things can you change? Well, we can start by remembering that weight loss or gain come from the foods you put into your body and the exercise you do with it. That gives us a lot of possibilities. One week you can add a short walk after dinner or lunch. Read the rest of this entry »

Well it is that time of year again, you are a little pale and the spare tire is a little bit bigger than it was in the fall and now you want to lose some weight and look better in those skin showing summer clothes. What you need is a plan and a bit of a change in schedule.

Here is a simple list of things that you can do starting today to make sure that you are buff and ready as the summer and summer activities come in a couple of months.

Eat Smarter

The key to a healthy diet plan is to eat smarter than before. Over the winter you may have been eating a little badly, keeping on track but cheating. Now is the time to start eating in a very structured and focused way.

No matter how you have been eating you must now start eating every couple or three hours. Really this just means toad snacks, good for you snacks. Let’s say that you eat breakfast at 8, lunch at 12, dinner at 6. Now all you have to do is add snacks (really just smaller meals) at 10 am, 3 pm and 8 pm. Now you must be wondering, what you should be eating.

The next important thing is to be sure to eat smaller meals and small snacks. The idea of eating so often is that your body will be better able to use the food that you are eating and a side effect of this is that it will raise your metabolism.

Raise the protein, drop the carbohydrates

What you eat is the next thing that is important. You should get a good idea of what is a carb based food and what is a protein based food and we all know what is fatty and these high fat foods should be avoided when you are trying to lose weight.

I said that you need to eat small meals but most importantly you need to make sure that you have lots of protein and less carbohydrates than you are used to. This may be initially harder than you expect but in the end this adjustment will pay great dividends in having a healthy diet plan for summer.

Stay hydrated when you exercise

When you are working out you will want to of course drink water and sports drinks so that you can keep not only your liquids up but the magic of sports drinks like Gatorade is that they bring back the electrolytes that you are losing by sweating. Getting dehydrated will drop your energy and in the end will stop your body from functioning normally.

These steps to a healthy diet plan will make a big difference this spring and summer to make you healthier and more fit.

I got a comment on the Fat Loss for Idiots review from a fellow that had cheated the night before on his diet. Here is part of how I responded

The best thing to do is to jump right on the diet this evening and tomorrow. There is no way that you can undo what you did in your eating but remember that it is only day 2 and you are just getting used to the diet, these things can and will happen but it is youor reaction to them that is important.

Now that you know that dinner is your tough time it is probably a good thing to look at your successes over the first two days and figure out what you will od about dinner. Most of us are used to having a big dinner and if you can convince yourself (lying to yourself is fine) that dinner is just another meal and a weak one at that since it is so close to sleep then maybe you can have a better plan for how to tackle dinner tomorrow.

What do you do now?

Often we try hard on a diet or exercise program and in just a moment we lose our concentration or our willpower and then we feel we have failed and need to start over. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the things that will drive you crazy on a diet is the opportunities to binge on sweets. I know becasue I am very bad with binging myself and have to build some really good coping mechanisms when I find myself gaining a bit of weight. Here is the way that I deal with sweets, something that I always like.

1. When you start the day, start with a good solid meal. A solid meal will consist of lots of protein and carbohydrates. By starting up your metabolism this way you will not have as much trouble with your energy and should have a better bet against urges for sugar.

2. Eat meals often. To avoid those drops in blood sugar and the idea of an interesting treat it is important to eat every couple or three hours. There is a lot of science behind eating often but there are a few important things about eating often and one that is critical is that when you eat often your blood sugar is consistent and you will not have that urge to eat, and hopefully avoid those sugars… Read the rest of this entry »

Just ran across a great bit of research over at Med Page Today that says that eating a high carb breakfast is helpful to a diet in the long term.

Loading up on protein and carbohydrates at breakfast may help obese patients with metabolic syndrome stick to a low-calorie, low-carbohydrate diet the rest of the day, researchers found.

Such a breakfast was associated with five-fold greater weight loss than was achieved on a low-carb, low-calorie diet alone, reported Daniela Jakubowicz, M.D., of the Hospital de Clinicas in Caracas, Venezuela, at the Endocrine Society meeting here.

These 32-week findings from a randomized clinical trial suggested that it’s not enough to simply reduce food intake and increase exercise for effective long-term weight loss, Dr. Jakubowicz said.
Although restrictive, low-carb diets are among the most effective for short-term weight loss, though maintenance is dismal with a success rate of only 5% after two years, she said.

Read the rest of this entry »

All milk is Pasteurized right? The reason for this to me has always been because any bad bacteria could be quickly boiled out of the milk and make it more healthy.

Well today that idea of why milk is Pasteurized has been changed to me. There is a dark history that led to the Pasteurization of milk that Kim at Whole Food Nation has let me know about.

It seems that raw milk (unpasteurized milk) is better for us if it is from a place where the cows are let to roam more freely and allowed also to eat better hay. Watch the video above and find out some great and interesting facts. Read the rest of this entry »

A little late but anyway, here are some ideas from a site called 50-plus. These are mostly things that we sould know already but I thought would be great stuff as BBQ season is just starting up for most people. It is awfully hard to stay and get healthy when you are giving yourself food poisoning

Always keep your hands as well as anything touching food clean

• Handwashing is one of the easiest ways to prevent the spread of bacteria. Wash your hands for at least 20 seconds with soap and warm water before and after handling food. Also wash when you switch from one food to another
• Keep counter tops and utensils sanitized. Tip: you can make your own sanitizer by combining 5 mL (1 tsp) of bleach with 750 mL (3 cups) of water in a spray bottle. (Don’t forget to label the bottle!)
• When camping or on a picnic, be sure to bring clean water. You may also want to consider using waterless hand sanitizer or disposable wipes.

Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of days ago my son was not eating his dinner and my daughter piped in

“Jaiden eat the chicken, it has protein, it will give you energy”

I cringed a little but this myth has gotten legs over the years. If you are tired and need energy nothing can beat a big steak.

In fact this idea is not at all true. Carbohydrates are the choice of energy sources in the body the fact is that the simpler the carb the more likely your body is to break it down and use it. The way that I look at energy sources your body will use the following in order; glycogen stores in your muscles, sugar, starch, and then equally protein and fat.

Many people on a diet will try to cut down on all of their carbs and will try to lose weight. This works initially because the body uses up all of the easy to get carbs and then will then move on to eating away at fat and protein. After a while you will get tired as your body will be really craving some kind of simple carbs for energy and it is a struggle for your body to use protein and fat as quick energy sources. This problem is even more of a problem when you exercise as there are no easy ways to get energy for your workouts.

So now you see why I am always writing about how important it is to get protein in your diet, not for the energy but more to counteract your body eating away at the protein in your muscles as well as the fat on your body when trying to lose weight. Your goal should be to look healthy not to look starved and muscleless.

So yes your body can use protein for energy buy mostly as a last resort. The problem is that when losing weight your body will use the protein in your muscles for energy as well as the fat in your body. But it will not use that steak right away.