By: Audrey Okaneko
As women, as we get older, our bodies change yet again on us. As they change, our bodies do not want or need as many calories as when we were teenagers. Yet we still love cheesecake, cheeseburgers, and milkshakes. So how can we have these foods while still keeping those extra pounds off?
I?ll share some of my own personal tips and secrets.
Living each day for just that day is really important. If yesterday, you overate, you can not undo that. No matter how upset you get, how much you want to change what happened yesterday, we can?t. So, forget about yesterday and think about just today.
I try to be very aware of what I?m eating. It?s so easy to eat food mindlessly, either while watching T.V., or while talking on the phone, or even while reading. When we eat mindlessly, it means that we really are not tasting or enjoying the food. Instead, take a short break and enjoy the food and become conscious of what you are eating.
Cut white breads out of your diet. When I eat bread, I eat either grain or whole wheat bread. I am a white bread lover, so it did take some getting used to, but I actually much prefer 12 grain bread over white bread now.
I am very careful how many ?low fat? items I buy. Low fat products almost always have higher sugar content. When you put more sugar into your body, your body naturally craves sugar. The more you reduce the sugar going into your body, the less your body will crave it. Because of my love for chocolate, I could never be sugar free, but again I make very conscious choices. If I have a slice of chocolate cake, I try to stay away from other sugars that day.
Don?t deprive yourself. When we know we ?can?t? have something, or know we ?shouldn?t? have something, we want it. We think about it. We crave it. Instead of deprivation, instead think of moderation. I love Snickers bars. A trick I learned was to cut one bar into 4 pieces and then freeze it. When I want a Snickers bar, I take one piece out of the freezer and see if that satisfies my craving. Very often it does. When I want ice cream, I never put it in a bowl. Instead I take one of two spoonfuls from the container. Again, almost always I feel satisfied. I also love Starbucks. I go there twice a week. I feel very satisfied and there are some weeks I only go once a week. Again, moderation, not deprivation.
Eat more fruits and vegetables.. I have tons and tons of different salad dressings. This is one area where I do buy both fat free and low fat. I also buy tons of ingredients for the salad, lettuce, tomato, zucchini, cucumber, bell peppers, raisins, olives, broccoli, carrots and more. Oh my gosh, if it?s in the vegetable section, I buy it for salads. I do not eat salad every day, but I do enjoy salad several times a week. We do buy a lot of fruit. I love melons, peaches, grapes and cherries.
Rotate what you eat. Variety is important is not feeling deprived. Plan menus a week in advance. Most weeks, I never have the same thing twice for dinner. When you cook nice meals, you often have leftovers for lunch the next day. This premade lunch is yet another way to lower your calorie intake. A piece of chicken with vegetables is much lower in calories than the lunchmeat sandwich.
My last suggestion is about exercise. I think I?ve only met a handful of people in my entire life that say ?I love to exercise?. Most of us would rather do anything other than exercise. So, turn exercise into something fun. Dancing is exercise. Bicycle riding is exercise. Swimming is exercising. Golfing is exercise. Yoga is exercising. Do you have dogs? Walk them, but go a bit longer. Walk with them for 30 minutes. There are just so many ways to turn exercise into something fun. If working out at a gym is not your thing, save your money and try swimming or biking instead. Instead of meeting a friend for lunch, meet for a walk.
Combining all of the above tips helps me be very conscious of what I?m eating and how much exercise I am getting.
Audrey Okaneko can be reached at audreyoka@cox.net or visited at http://www.scrapping-made-simple.com
The Simple Weight Loss Tips
How to Stoke Your Bodys Furnace With Low Carbohydrate Food
By: Nathan T Lynch
Though there are many different low carbohydrate diet plans, they are based on the same principles. When carbohydrates (such as starches and sugars) are consumed, the body's blood sugar level rises. To counteract high blood sugar levels, the body releases insulin, which in turn increases fat storage and decreases the body's ability to burn fat.
When a low carb dieter restricts carbohydrates, his or her blood sugar is only slightly raised, thus preventing excess insulin production. But many low carbohydrate dieters? hopes are ruined by uncontrollable sweet cravings, hypoglycaemic mood swings, hunger urges and lethargy.
The truth about carbohydrate is that too much carbohydrate provides too many Calories and probably also has certain negative effects on blood glucose and insulin levels. Despite this however, the body must still have a minimum amount of carbohydrate (as glucose) to stay alive.
Although the brain and nervous system normally want the most glucose, these organs can get along without it in a pinch. But that's not true for certain blood cells and other types of cells. They must have a steady supply of glucose, because without it they'll quickly die.
For this reason, glucose is so important that your body will begin to make the glucose it needs for these cells out of muscle protein if it doesn't get enough carbohydrate from food. But, although possible, this is a stressful emergency reaction (called ketosis), which also makes you miserable with hunger, cravings, and many other unpleasant sensations. Obviously, dieting would be much more successful if we could avoid all that.
When your body runs low on any nutrient it needs to stay healthy, it naturally triggers hunger to make you go get it some more of that thing.?But if you habitually eat foods that have too little of whatever it's running low on and too many Calories, you're going to get fat from this reaction.
Fortunately you can lose the weight again by simply reversing the process. To do so, you learn to eat things that have lots of what your body needs but not many Calories. When you succeed at this your body has no reason to trigger hunger and food cravings even when you're eating very few Calories and it's burning excess fat (stored Calories) to make up for this.?
This reaction is as true for carbohydrate as it is for each of the other nutrients. If you eat too little carbohydrate, your body will trigger hunger because it needs a minimum amount of glucose every day to supply the cells that can't use anything else.
If you eat too much carbohydrate, you'll get fat because too much carbohydrate has both too many Calories and the aforementioned negative effects on blood glucose and insulin levels. So how much is "enough but not too much"? That amount is probably highly variable depending on your lifestyle. A stressful "go-go" day can require a lot of carbohydrate while a relaxed day probably won't. However, most scientists put the minimum amount of carbohydrate that most people will need in the range of 50-100 grams per day (which is 200-400 Calories from carbohydrate). This is the amount that prevents your body from starting to make glucose out of muscle protein.
Since most food labels list the amount of carbohydrate in the food you eat, tracking and controlling amounts is not difficult. Try to eat in the range of 400 Calories from carbohydrate per day. This will usually prevent the hunger and cravings that are triggered by too little glucose.
There are several other nutrients that also trigger hunger and cravings when you get too little of them - and which must therefore also be managed similarly.
Lo carb diets are all the rage and you can easily see why. While lowering your carbohydrate intake you thusly have to burn less calories, which means less exercise.
Guide To Quick To Fix Easy Low Carb Recipes
By: Nathan T Lynch
Everyone these days wants to find easy, low-carb recipes to build a healthy diet that is low in carbohydrates. With the recent low-carb craze, dieters can find information all over the place. Here are some guidelines to help you get what you want out of the low-carb phenomenon.
Whether you are searching the Internet, paging through a cookbook or digging through a friend?s pile of recipes, you need to keep in mind what it is that you want out of this diet. You should desire low-carb recipes that appeal to you, that will help you lose weight healthily, that you want to eat and that you can prepare without too big a headache.
Just because foods are low-carb and diet-friendly doesn?t mean they have to be bad or boring. You can find easy, low-carb recipes without sacrificing foods you enjoy. You can easily find recipes focusing on meat, poultry or seafood. You can find dozens of great ideas for breads, pastas, sauces and dips, as well as low-carb desserts and snacks. You can even have low-carb beer and other alcoholic beverages.
When preparing meals containing meats, be sure to choose carefully. As you make an effort to avoid carbohydrates, you will naturally move toward foods higher in protein. Many of these high-protein foods are our favorite meats, but many of these meats are also contain large amounts of fat. To get the best out of your diet, choose easy, low-carb recipes that call for lean meat, poultry or seafood. Even lean cuts of pork are better for you than meats like bacon and beef.
Breads are another area of interest in a low-carb diet. People are often surprised to learn that cutting breads out of their diet entirely is unnecessary. With an assault on carbohydrates in their diets, many people see breads as off limits. Books have even been written discussing how to live without bread.
Breads themselves are not bad, but some can certainly not low in carbohydrates. Many easy, low-carb recipes are available that allow you to enjoy sandwiches, burgers, toast or muffins. These recipes use a slightly different list of ingredients, but they yield healthy, tasty breads. Also, breads contain fiber, which is important to include in your diet.
Many recipes targeting a low-carb audience will specify nutritional information for the food, especially carbohydrate, protein and fiber content. This information is provided for a reason: as you probably know, foods low in carbohydrates and high in protein are central to the Atkins and other low-carb diets. Fiber is also a big part of the equation; simply put, you can have more carbs in your diet if they are in the form of fiber. Also, foods high in fiber are generally full of ?good carbs,? the type of carbohydrates you don?t need to eliminate from your diet.
This brings up another good point: you don?t need to completely eliminate carbohydrates from your diet. Keeping some carbs in your diet is healthy and does not negatively affect your diet. Most low-carb recipes have at least some carbs. Instead of cutting out all carbohydrates, you should focus on minimizing or eliminating ?empty carbs,? carbohydrates that come from foods with little or no nutritional value. Soft drinks and candy bard have empty carbs; fruits and vegetables, for example, have good carbs.
An important part of a low-carb diet is variety. You?re trying to limit carbohydrates, but that doesn?t mean you should eat eggs every day and avoid bread like the plague. Abide the guidelines for a healthy, low-carb diet: limit but don?t eliminate carbs, get plenty of fiber, make sure your protein-rich meats are not too full of fat.
Again, to easily sustain a healthy, low-carb lifestyle you should eat foods you enjoy. Low-carb foods should not be a burden. The list of diet-friendly choices has enough variety to make even the pickiest eaters happy. You have plenty of delicious, easy, low-carb recipes to choose from.
