Studies show that people who exercise consistently are much more successful long term with weight loss than those who don’t exercise.
If you haven’t noticed, a lot of people go on a diet, lose a little weight, then go right back to their old habits. They sit on the couch, eat Doritos and ice cream, and feel lousy. They gain all of their weight back (or more).
When someone is exercising consistently, even if they struggle with their food, they’re keeping their weight and health in focus. They may have a period of weight loss then a plateau, but if they keep exercising they can hang on to their weight loss. Usually they can return to a weight loss phase because they are exercising.
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Have you ever gotten behind writing receipts into your checkbook? Did you know exactly how much money was left in your checking account? Probably not.
How about your monthly bills? Do you know what they are and put money aside for them? Or do you just spend money and hope you have enough to pay them? Hopefully you have a budget to follow!
Well, tracking our money can be compared to tracking our calories. We have to know how much money we need, how much we can spend, and how much is left over.
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It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to live every day of your life without getting any sugar of any kind. Going out to dinner, having a work luncheon, or going to a friend’s house probably means food with sugar.
Even if you try to make the best choices, sugar is found in almost every product – including bread, crackers, sauces, dressings, etc.
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If you want to lose weight, you need to stay positive and truthful with yourself. A lot of this comes down to how you think about dieting and exercising.
Make sure you’re not falling into these pitfalls – or thought traps:
I’ll do better tomorrow. So many times people think they need to wait until a big deadline at work is over, or for a less stressful day to start eating right. The problem is that life always throws us curveballs. There never will be a “good day” to start dieting. You have to make each day a good food day despite your circumstances.
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Most people grossly underestimate how much they eat in a day – both the quantity and the calories. Then they say, “I don’t eat that much. Why can’t I lose weight?”
Those of you who’ve kept a food log (I mean really kept one) know how quickly calories and portions add up over the course of the day. It’s easy to eat way more than your body needs. A handful of pretzels, a cookie, and some of your kid’s gummy bears and you’ve added on hundreds of calories.
The only way to lose weight is to consume less calories than your body burns each day. This causes a calorie deficit and the body has to draw from its fat stores.
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Vegetables are perfect for weight loss and good health! They are high in fiber, low in calories, and packed with vitamins. Vegetables help keep you full. They keep your bowels moving. And they ward off diseases, such as heart disease and cancer.
You don’t want to skimp on veggies. But did you ever get to the end of the day and realize you didn’t eat enough vegetables?
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Is food mastering you?
For a lot of people with weight issues, food is the main problem. It’s often easier to start walking during your lunch break than it is to control the food that goes into your mouth all day.
Food is supposed to be used for sustenance and strength. It’s meant to give nutrition to the body. Unfortunately, especially in the U.S. and developed countries, food is used for entertainment, stress relief, pleasure, and instant gratification.
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Summer’s here and it’s hot! Ready to cool off with some healthy refreshment?
Try this icy Orange Shake. It’s super easy to make and will cool you down!
1 orange
1/4 cup fat free milk
2 Tbs. Splenda
3-4 ice cubes
Squeeze orange and get as much juice from it as you can. Put orange juice and milk in a blender with Splenda and ice cubes. Blend until mixture is smooth.
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Everybody loves to grill out on their patio for Memorial Day. It’s a great time for picnics, friends, and family!
A typical menu is loaded with calories – burgers, cheese, mayo, white rolls, macaroni salad, chips, soda, ice cream, and cookies.
You can makeover your Memorial Day menu to make it healthy and tasty! Here’s how:
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For most of us the weekend means time with family and friends… time to relax and let work pressures slip away… time for R&R and having a good time.
Weekends also usually mean eating too much and consuming too many calories!
Of course you want to celebrate the weekend, but you don’t want to gain weight either. Well, you can “have your cake and eat it too” if you’re smart about it.
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We’ve all been conditioned to eat too much. We eat until we’re full – instead of eating just until our hunger is satisfied. Often (way too often!) we eat until we’re uncomfortably stuffed.
All this extra food is unnecessary. It’s just extra calories that make it harder to lose weight. If we can eat less and control portions, we can control calories. When we control our calories, we can have success at losing weight!
Here are 7 ways to help you eat less. [More]
Soup is a great dish to have on hand. It’s a quick meal anytime. And you can chock it full of healthy vegetables and lots of flavor for very little calories.
Here’s a recipe for Chicken Vegetable Soup that’s great for your diet. It makes a lot so you can freeze half of it for another week if you want, or freeze it in serving containers for quick lunches.
Chicken Vegetable Soup
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 pepper, chopped
1 Tbs. minced garlic
3 boneless, skinless chicken breast pieces, cubed
Assorted chopped veggies:
Cabbage
Celery
Carrot
Cauliflower
Green beans
Chicken broth, fat free reduced sodium
Assorted spices to your taste:
Salt
Pepper
Oregano
Coriander
Paprika
Parsley
Worcestershire sauce
Add last:
Broccoli
Mushrooms
In a large pot, heat olive oil. Add onion, pepper, garlic, and cubed chicken breast. Saute until veggies soften and meat is white on the outside. Add assorted veggies and enough chicken broth to fully cover the vegetables. Add spices to your taste. Simmer until veggies are tender then add broccoli and mushrooms for the last 5 minutes of cooking.
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Weight loss is a pretty simple principle. You have to burn more calories than you take in. In response, your body taps into its fat stores for fuel.
Two ways we accomplish this: 1) Eat a healthy diet within our calorie range, and 2) Add daily exercise.
Now, weight loss can happen with diet alone, but it is much more efficient to add exercise. Not only are you using up more calories by adding exercise to your day, but you are adding cardio and muscular fitness.
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Eggs can be a good source for protein. They’re quick and easy to make, plus they don’t take a lot of preparation and cooking time like meats do.
Now, most of the calories and all of the fat is in the egg yolk. So if you can handle eating only egg whites that’s the way to go. You can also use one whole egg and add several whites to it for more of the “eggy” flavor. There are products on the market too, such as Egg Beaters, that give you egg flavor and color with less fat and calories.
Compare the nutrition information below:
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Don’t get stuck in a rut! With exercise that is easy to do. Same walk, same class, same DVD, etc.
Your body adapts to exercise. Before you know it, you’re exercising at a lower intensity – even though you’re doing the same thing you did three months ago and it was hard back then. Your body has just gotten used to it.
So now it’s time to throw the challenge back into exercise. Try these 7 ways to ramp it up: [More]
It’s not too hard to eat healthy once you set yourself up for it. This means cleaning junk food out of your house and stocking your kitchen with healthy, whole foods.
Setting yourself up for healthy eating also means making good food behaviors your habit. Here are 7 strategies to get you started:
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At some point in your weight loss journey, you will probably hit a weight loss plateau. This can be very frustrating when you’ve seen the numbers on the scale consistently drop and now it seems stuck.
Your body is adjusting and balancing itself. It does not like to lose weight and is working to restore the balance of calories in – calories out.
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My son brought a cookie home – not just any old cookie. It was a peanut butter cookie with a Hershey’s kiss in the center. It winked at me from its cozy spot on the counter and whispered, “You should taste me. You know how much you love me.”
Several times I was tempted to reach for it. I reasoned, “If I share it with my boys, it won’t be that bad.”
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Tom Landry, former coach of the Dallas Cowboys, said there are three things that make a successful team:
- Set your goal
- Develop your game plan
- Identify your enemies
These same three things work in any area of our lives. Whether we’re going back to school to get a degree or going on a diet to lose 30 pounds, we have to take the right steps.
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You think you’re eating right, but you’re really not.
If the scale isn’t moving down, you’re lying to yourself. You may have convinced yourself that your diet is good and you “just don’t understand why you aren’t losing weight.”
I’ve been there. I used to say all the time, “I eat the same things that my friends do and they’re all skinny. I just don’t understand it!” I would cry over my weight. I would complain how unfair it was.
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If you’re like me, there are certain foods that need to be cut from your diet – or greatly restricted. They may not even be “bad” foods. However, they are foods that sabotage your diet.
For example, nuts and peanut butter are foods that are on my watch list. I love, love, love nuts and peanut butter. I cannot have a whole container of almonds or peanuts in the cupboard. I will pick away all day long – a few here, a few there. Before I know it, I’ve eaten 300 calories worth.
Because nuts, especially almonds and walnuts, are healthy, i do not want to eliminate them from my diet. What I do as soon as I get home from the grocery store is to measure them out into snack baggies. Then I put all the snack baggies into one big bag in the cupboard. Having them proportioned keeps me in control.
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If your schedule requires you to eat out often, it can be devastating to your weight loss efforts. Even when you think you’re ordering healthy, you’re getting more calories, fat, and sodium than you would cooking at home.
Do the best you can to stay on track with your diet with these 10 eating-out tips: [More]
Genetics play a powerful role in body weight. How you’re made up can make it really easy to stay slim, or make it very difficult to stay at a healthy weight.
One reason is metabolism. This is basically the rate at which you burn calories. Someone with a high metabolism can eat a lot of calories and burn them off quickly. Someone with a slow metabolism will burn calories very slowly and will not need as many each day. Unfortunately, you inherit your metabolism.
Another reason is your fat cells. If you are over overweight (by about 25 pounds or more) your body manufactures fat cells to hold the extra fat. When you lose weight, the fat cells empty out, but they never go away. They are constantly “wanting” to fill back up.
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Watch portions and calories.
Weight loss still comes down to calories in versus calories out. Over the course of the day, you need to burn more calories than you eat.
How do you do that? By paying attention to your portions and calories.
The best way to do this is by keeping a food journal. Most people grossly underestimate the amount of food and calories they eat in a day. By journaling, you can keep accurate account of your food intake.
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Eat frequently.
Our bodies are like machines. They work all day, around the clock. We don’t always realize it while we’re sitting at our desks or driving in our cars.
There are thousands of processes going on. Our bodies are repairing and rebuilding muscle, building bone, pumping blood, digesting food, etc.
To do all this well and efficiently, our bodies need fuel. Just like we wouldn’t expect our car to work without gas, we shouldn’t expect our body to run without fuel.
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