Posts Tagged ‘losing weight’

Healthy Recipes to Help You Lose Weight

April 7th, 2010

waist women If you are looking to lose weight, you have probably tried all sorts of crazy ideas and wacky diets.

You’ve eaten nothing but cabbage soup.

You’ve stuffed yourself with celery.

You have fasted.

You have restricted your eating to daylight hours only.

You’ve downed three glasses of water before every meal.

You’ve tried diet meals, no meals and six meals a day.

But in the end, all of these ideas are unsustainable. They are plans that last a week, or a month, but they’re not true diet plans. They are “get thin quick” schemes that might work in a pinch, but the results don’t stick around.

If you want to get serious about losing weight, you need to make a lifestyle change when it comes to your diet. You need to alter the way you eat, for the rest of your life – not just until bikini season. And to do that effectively, you need to come up with some recipes that will not only help you to eat healthier, but will give you food that you enjoy making, love to eat, and will continue to bring to the table.

Incorporating more raw foods into your diet is a good, solid way to help you battle the bulge, but many people are scared off by the idea that it is difficult to prepare raw foods and make them tasty and interesting. With a little bit of imagination, you can make raw foods that are as satisfying as your old cooked favorites, but with tons more benefits to you in your goal to lose weight.

For instance, let’s say that one of your guilty pleasures is a nice plate of pasta. And we’re not talking a lean pasta with a thin sauce, either. We’re talking creamy alfredo sauce. You might think that such an extravagance is a serious no-no when you’re trying to lose weight, and you’re right. But the raw version is not only incredibly tasty, but it is actually going to help you shed some of those pounds.

To make the pasta, all you need is a regular sized zucchini and a vegetable peeler. Use the peeler to create “noodles” out of the zucchini, as thick or as thin as you like. Once you’ve made the noodles, toss them in no more than a half of a teaspoon of cold-pressed olive oil. Voila, you have raw pasta noodles.

To make the alfredo sauce, you will need a food processor or blender. To start, you will need to soak a cup of cashews overnight in water to soften them up. Drain the nuts, and toss them into the food processor along with a generous pinch of kosher salt, the juice of half of a lemon, and a third of a cup of water. Blend on high until the mixture is completely smooth, and add a bit more water if it is still too thick. Spoon over the pasta, and garnish with a sprig of mint.

Yes, that’s it. It’s simple, delicious, and will help you to get on the path of eating well for the rests of your life. Do that, and the excess pounds will take care of themselves.

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Posted in Raw Food Recipes

Tags: Bikini Season Bulge Cabbage Soup Celery Crazy Ideas Creamy Alfredo Sauce Daylight Hours Diet Meals Diet Plans Extravagance Guilty Pleasures Healthy Recipes Lifestyle Change lose weight losing weight Making Love Noodles raw food diet Raw Food Recipes Raw Foods Raw Version Rest Of Your Life Weight Loss Zucchini

How NOT to Eat – Lessons from Santa Claus

December 9th, 2009

santa The other day, I had an awesome interview with the one and only Santa Claus. The reason for the interview was that I was wanted to know Santa’s fitness secrets that enabled him to rush around the globe in less than 24 hours while lugging around millions of gifts.

But even though Santa had some insightful fitness tips, today I want to use him as an example of how NOT to eat. After all, he may be fit but he’s certainly not a healthy weight. He even told me that his diet needed much improvement.

So let’s look at some of the reasons why Santa is still overweight despite being physically active.

1. Santa eats late at night

If there’s cardinal sin for losing weight, eating late at night may well take the cake (no pun intended). And Santa’s sneaky about too. When everyone’s asleep that’s when discretely makes his way into our home to get his milk and cookies.

I mean talk about a sneaky binger. And you add up the millions of homes he’s visiting each year (during just 24 hours) that’s a lot of cookies! No wonder he trains so hard during the remaining 364 days of the year.

If you want to lose weight, give yourself several hours to digest your last meal before going to bed. Ideally, this meal should be light and not heavily centered around sweets and carbohydrates, as these will get stored as fat if they are not burned before turning in for the night.

2. Santa may enjoy alcohol a little too much

Kids and Santa lovers – rest assured, I’m saying that Santa is an alcoholic, not at all.

But he comes from the north and we all know how Scandinavians and people from the north enjoy their drinks. Pardon the stereotype as pretty much all cultures enjoy drinking, but I’m half Danish so I can vouch from first hand experience from many a christmas gathering where the beer and schnapps flow like water.

Another indication that Santa may drink too much is that he has a red cheeks and a rosy nose. This could be caused by the cold weather but I suspect that years of drinking alcohol has also taken its toll as well.

On the skin, alcohol causes dilation of surface capillaries (tiny blood vessels), resulting in facial flushing and a pinkish-red hue to the cheeks. With chronic use of alcohol, the face and nose will sustain flushing and appear red.

Plus, since each ounce of alcohol carries with it 7 calories, frequent alcohol consumption does not help in the battle of the bulge. A single glass of red wine has about 150 calories while a pint of beer has about 300 calories. These numbers can quickly add up, especially over the holiday season when drinking is part of the festivities.

3. Santa needs to eat more fruits and veggies

This is only an assumption but I take it that since he lives in a winter wonderland, Santa doesn’t get a regular supply of fresh fruits and vegetables. How could they possibly grow in permafrost anyway?

Because he most likely doesn’t eat many of the foods that provide so many antioxidants and other incredible nutrients, he must be filling himself up with something else.

Now we all know that it’s recommended to get in between 5-10 servings of fruits and veggies per day for optimal health, yet so few of us do. And even though Santa is a great icon of our culture, we shouldn’t look to him as an example of healthy eating.

But that’s not why we love him anyway, right.

=> CLICK HERE to eat exactly the opposite of Santa!

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Posted in Weight Loss

Tags: beer Binger calories Cardinal Sin christmas Cold Weather Days Of The Year Eating Late At Night Fitness Secrets Fitness Tips Flow Like Water fruits Hand Experience Healthy Eating holiday season Last Meal Late At Night losing weight Milk And Cookies Pun Red Cheeks Santa Claus Santa Lovers Scandinavians Schnapps Stereotype vegetables veggies wine

Why is Water Beneficial For Weight Loss?

September 11th, 2009

Is water beneficial for weight loss?

You better believe it!

If you’re goal is to lose weight, then I’m sure you’ve heard people tell you to drink more water, right? But why?

Sure they tell you it helps you lose weight but still many people are left in the dark as to how exactly water helps you lose weight.

So let’s look at a few reasons why water is so good for weight loss.

Replacing High-Calorie Beverages

Replacing alcohol, soda, and other high-calorie drinks with water will certainly make a difference in weight loss. High-calorie drinks put the pounds on.

Conversely, water has zero calories. And, unlike many beverages like Coke Zero that claim to have no calories, “good” water doesn’t contain any nasty additives or sweeteners that do more harm than good!

A 2006 study in the journal Obesity showed just how powerful replacing high-sugar drinks with water can be for losing weight.

In this study, researchers analyzed weight-loss data on 240 overweight women, ages 25 to 50, who were following one of several popular diet plans, including Atkins and The Zone, programs that restrict carbohydrate consumption to varying degrees.

Before beginning their programs, the women drank an average of about two cans a day of sugary drinks (about 200 calories total), including soda and juice.

The findings of this study included:

Dieters who replaced virtually all sweetened drinks with water lost an average 5 pounds more in a year than dieters who didn’t.

Those who drank more than four cups of water a day lost an additional 2 pounds more than dieters who did not drink that much.

Essentially, drinking water helps you lose weight because you are replacing some calories (ie. 200 calories in a soda) with a liquid that has no calories.,

One of the reasons for our “obesity epidemic” is that North Americans haven’t changed their water intake over the past decade, yet we are drinking about 20 more ounces a day of caloric beverages.

Yet, many people claim that water doesn’t taste good.

Come on! Get a life.

Maybe it’s because their bodies are so toxic and their palettes are so messed up from all the garbage foods they are eating. Obviously, when you eat high-sugar drinks all day, water is going to taste bland in comparison.

Get rid of the junk and nourish your body with what it actually craves – water.

Water-Rich Foods Instead of Calorie-Dense Foods

When it comes to food simply replacing high-calorie foods with high-water foods can help you lose weight.

Can you say raw foods?

Raw foods are amazing because they have a high water content. Vegetables and fruit are predominantly water. And they serve up incredible nutrition.

Think of it this way…

When you cook a hamburger, doesn’t it shrink?

Yes it does.

And it does so because the cooking/heating process evaporates the water right out of the meat.

Now, when your body goes to digest this burger it must draw upon its own water reserves to “liquify” the burger for easier digestion and assimilation.

I don’t advocate eating raw meat but simply by eating more raw fruits and vegetables you will lessen the burden on your digestive system and allow your body to conserve more of its own water.

Doing so can help to avoid packing on pounds of undigested food.

Appetite Suppression

Water has been known and shown to suppress your appetite. As little as one glass of water can suppress your appetite by up to about 25%!

So if you want to avoid over eating at your next meal just drink a glass of water. You’ll even find that you weren’t even that hungry in the first place.

Drinking water is another great strategy to avoid “boredom snacking”.

You know when you reach for foods because you’re bored but not really hungry. Instead, just have a glass of water and you’ll help to dissipate those apparent hunger pains. Oh yeah, and try doing something that stimulates you so don’t feel bored!