There's No Such Thing as Cheating

There's no right or wrong way to eat. Healthy eating is all about motivation, balance, and flexibility. There will be times when you eat a high-fat meal or eat beyond fullness, or when your schedule gets so busy that you miss a work- out. This happens. It's normal. But it's very important that you don't get down on yourself and abandon your new healthy lifestyle when this happens. 

If you're like most people, your reaction to these diet/ fitness obstacles is guilt. You feel as if all your hard work has been for nothing. "I blew it; I was doing so well. Oh well, I might as well enjoy this weekend and start over on Monday." Or even worse: "I just don't have the motiva- tion or will power to start over and be successful. I quit." Feeling defeated, many people discontinue the healthy living and return to their old routine until some mythical time in the future: "Maybe this spring will be a better time to start over again." This kind of scenario is a perfect example of the diet mentality at work..

An all-or-nothing attitude is why so many people have so little success; we choose structured programs because they relieve us from making choices for ourselves. A properly designed program makes sense, but expecting to stick to a structured eating and exercise plan for an extended period of time without ever deviating makes no sense at all. In fact, this is so unrealistic as to be a set-up for failure. If you begin to change your habits with the assumption that any deviation from your plan will ruin it, you might as well not even begin. Life is full of unplanned obstacles, distractions, and temptations. Your best approach is to prepare for them, keeping an open mind and maintaining a positive attitude. 

It's very important that you begin your healthier lifestyle with an understanding that there will be days when you will stray from healthy eating and exercising. Before you begin, tell yourself that no matter what happens, rather than abandoning your new lifestyle, you'll resume your healthy habits as soon as you can; it is equally important that you feel confident, not guilty, about doing so. What- ever the temptation or obstacle is, keep in mind that it's not wrong or bad to eat fattening foods once in a while or to miss a workout. Just remember to resume your healthy lifestyle. If you keep moving forward and you don't let guilt and discouragement stop your program all together, you'll eventually have improved eating and exercise habits. 

With this approach, there is no such thing as cheating. When we feel we are cheating, we often punish ourselves; we make ourselves feel guilty, frustrated and defeated. Replacing the negative concept of "cheating" with the idea of "straying from healthy habits" takes away the all-or- nothing emphasis on right and wrong. If you treat every deviation from your plan as a failure, you won't get very far.

Substituting the idea of a brief straying away from your plan instead of feeling guilty, and learning to return more and more quickly to healthier habits, is more realistic. It's also easier and more enjoyable. 

In the non-diet approach, all foods are legal. There are no "good" foods or "bad" foods. You must believe this. Sudden changes and/or drastic restrictions of high-fat foods when you have a preference or craving for fat will result in feelings of deprivation. No one can or should go through life depriving themselves of foods they really enjoy. You must learn how to make gradual healthy changes to the foods you love while experimenting with and learning to appreciate new flavors and textures. 

A recent survey showed that more than 75 percent of people feel guilty about eating so-called "bad" foods. The greatest obstacle to adopting healthy eating habits is guilt. Attaching a value to foods only makes you feel bad for eating them. When you do decide to eat a high-fat food, enjoy it. Don't beat your- self up over it. Just make a special effort to eat low-fat the rest of the day. Remember, there is nothing wrong with splurging now and then. It can even be good for you if the satisfaction of a higher-fat meal that you've been craving helps you stick with a low-fat lifestyle the rest of the time.

If you're having a special diet meal that's different from what the rest of your family or friends are eating, you'll feel as though you're being punished. In order to be successful in changing your eating habits, you must look forward to and enjoy each meal you eat. This doesn't mean that you have to learn to like rice cakes and celery. It means you must learn how to make simple changes in the foods you love. 

Perhaps one of your favorite meals is fried chicken, a baked potato, and salad. Small changes in how the food is prepared can turn this traditionally high-fat meal into a low-fat well- balanced one. Simply marinating a skinless chicken breast in sweet and sour sauce, rolling it in bread crumbs, and baking it makes the chicken a lot less fattening than if it's fried. Instead of butter or regular sour cream on your potato, try low-fat or nonfat sour cream or a reduced fat ranch dressing. Try using a non-fat or low-fat salad dressing rather than a regular dressing and adding as many vegetables to your salad as possible for their additional flavor, texture and nutrients. Any or all of these changes drastically reduce the amount of fat in the meal without sacrificing flavor or feelings of satisfaction. 

Healthy eating patterns can only occur when you're enjoying all the foods you eat. If you're eating low-fat foods just to be healthy but without enjoying the flavors and textures or how they make you feel, this most likely won't be a permanent change. However, if you begin enjoying healthy foods, you're far more likely to stick with healthy eating for life.

Many people also enjoy eating out but associate this with being "bad" or eating "illegal" foods. Fortunately, it is very possible to eat a healthy, low-fat meal in a restaurant. You don't need to forego your favorite foods or eat before you go out with friends or family. The same decision-making process occurs whether you eat at home or go out to a restaurant. Many people think that they have two options when eating: eating for taste and pleasure or eating for health. As you learn and practice healthy eating techniques, these two options will become one and the same. Good luck and enjoy all the wonderful benefits of a healthy, active lifestyle.

Weight Loss Hypnotherapy Program

Weight loss hypnotherapy is the right way to work through your weight problem and bring a solution in reducing it. Hypnosis is a scientific method through which a patient is sent in a state of trance. Though the process does not involve any external interventions of medicines, but it is a very useful process of communicating with the subconscious mind, where lies many of the problems.

How hypnosis drives away weight and anxiety errors

Hypnosis works through the art of an expert hypnotist who knows how to deal with the patient and access his mind. The mind is where the problem resides. Though fat is accumulated in your body but you can help yourself reduce it by working with your mind.

Get in conversation with a licensed practitioner who will be able to send you in a trance. Now, the best thing with weight loss hypnotherapy is that you will be able to converse with him about your problems. The hypnotist will access your mind, where problems like fear, anxiety, self-esteem and problems as such resides. He will give you suggestions as to how to overcome the problems.

The best thing is that in a trance you are very much in receptive mind. You will be able to accept anything that is being said to you. You work as you are being said. But there is a minus point to the whole process. You might tend to forget what you were being told and so you need to sit for such sessions again and again.

Anxiety hypnotherapy is a very useful process that brings in the best solution for you. You are open to repeated sessions, which might be able to bring in a permanent solution, since the advice will work in your favour and it will bring in tips for you to overcome weight loss or depression.

Remember, you need to have will power to fight against the odds. Therefore, will power combined with hypnotherapy bring in effective solution for you.

Use Cardio to burn more fat!

Cardio workouts are a great way to speed up your weight loss if you have got the dedication to do it right.

Visit any modern health club and they will tell you to do the same thing: you need to keep at a 'steady state'. However, this regimen can be very hard for those who have not to stamina to maintain it. To do it successfully you need to keep going at the same identical speed for long stretches of time. No breaks. No slowing down. But consistently.

Now for the average slimmer, like you or me, reaching this fitness level can take some time, and even when you have achieved it, you often rarely lose any pounds.

The reason for this is your metabolism. Whilst cardio certainly tones up the muscles, to experience real, natural weight loss you need to speed up your metabolism. And as the saying goes 'the faster your metabolism, the faster you will burn fat.'

So how can you get this balance right? Simple. By introducing a technique called 'interval training'. Expanding on the 'steady state', this workout ensures that your body still receives the full workout of cardio but more importantly increases your calorie burn. 

Interval Training - your step-by-step guide to instant calorie burn

Alternating between low and high intensities, interval training traditional incorporates the following format:

• 15 minute warm-up
• Amplify pace slightly as well as the resistance for 2 minutes
• Go very fast for the next 0.5 to 1 minutes. It is essential at this point that you do it as hard as you can.
• Repeat for 2 minutes, with a 1 minute fast interval 3 to 6 times.
• 5 minute cool down

So give this routine a try and begin feeling the difference of a healthier, more toned body.

Top 5 best exercises to lose belly fat

Who doesn't want flat abs? People desperate to lose weight will willingly starve themselves, take expensive supplements or do the latest fad diet that promises to give them that flawless figure in 30 days. Thankfully, belly fat is metabolically active and easier to lose. However, if proper nutrition is not observed and the resort is made to low calorie diets, weight loss may not happen within the desired time frame. Hunger and calorie deprivation will eventually kick in and dieters confronted with that favorite food they have been avoiding will have the tendency to binge at the first opportunity. The likelihood of gaining more weight than they originally lost is not far-fetched.

According to Christine Rosenbloom, a nutrition professor at Georgia State University, eating a calorie-controlled diet and 60 minutes of daily moderate exercise activity will result to weight loss and can even help with the desired weight maintenance. In fact, according to Professor Michael Jensen of the Mayo Clinic, intense aerobic exercise will result to being leaner around the abdomen.

It is important to remember that keeping the body's metabolism up and running so that the body continuously burns calories prevents it from going into the fat-storing mode that causes unnecessary weight gain.

Why exercise is necessary

Most people involved in weight loss believe that it's all about the calories. If you burn calories more than you take in, you lose weight. If you take in more calories than you can burn, the body gains fat. While this piece of logic may make sense, it is only partly true. What burns calories nonstop is actually the lean muscle mass underneath body fat that allows more intake of calories without weight gain.

The body actually adapts to the changes it undergoes. Losing weight without exercising increases the risk of losing lean body mass, slowing the metabolism and putting the body into fat-storing mode. People who have lost body fat and muscle mass may notice that they don't have the muscle mass they once had. Worse yet, once they overeat even a little bit, they start filling up on body fat once again.

Building up muscle mass

An important thing to remember when undergoing a weight loss program is to understand what needs to be done. Realistic and achievable goals can help in building the confidence needed to make the necessary leap for the achievement of a desired weight.

Researchers at the Biomechanics Lab at San Diego State University took a look at some popular abdominal exercises and ranked them. Results of the study revealed that exercises that require constant abdominal stabilization and body rotation resulted in the most muscle activity in the abdomen.

Below are the top five belly exercises as ranked by the study:

1. The Bicycle Exercise - best for targeting the six pack muscles and the obliques. To do this exercise, get into a supine position with hands at the back of your head. Bring knees to the chest while lifting shoulders off the floor. Slowly bring your right elbow towards your left knee as you straighten your right leg. Switch sides and continue in a pedaling motion. Do 1 to 3 sets with 12 to 16 repetitions.

2. The Captain's Chair Leg Raise - This exercise requires a captain's chair, a rack with padded arms allowing for the legs to hang free that is commonly found in gyms or health clubs. To do this exercise, stand on the chair and grip hand holds. Press back against the pad then raise knees to the chest to contract the abs then lower them back down. Do 1 to 3 sets with 12 to 16 repetitions.

3. Exercise Ball Crunch - For this exercise, an exercise ball is necessary. In this routine, the abdomen does more exerting but will still need the entire body to stabilize it throughout the routine. To do this exercise, lie on the ball with your lower back fully supported. Place hands behind the head. To lift the torso off the ball, contract the abs to pull the bottom of the rib cage towards the hips. Keep ball stable as you curl up, then lower back down to stretch the abs. Do 1 to 3 sets with 12 to 16 repetitions.

4. Vertical Leg Crunch - Performing this exercise is similar to doing a leg crunch except that the legs are straight up, forcing the abs to work and adding intensity to the routine. To do this, lie on the floor with the legs straight up, knees crossed, and place the hands beneath the head for support. Contract abs lifting the shoulders off the floor and keep legs in a fixed position to crunch. Do 1 to 3 sets with 12 to 16 repetitions.

5. Long Arm Crunch - This is a variant of the traditional floor crunch where the arms are held straight behind you, adding a lever to the move and making for a challenging exercise. To do this, lie on the floor or a mat then extend arms straight behind, keeping them clasped and next to the ears. Slowly contract abs and lift shoulders off the floor carefully to keep the arms straight. Do 1 to 3 sets with 12 to 16 repetitions.

The best strategy to weight loss is to observe a healthy diet coupled with exercise of at least an hour a day. Although there is no sure fire way to deal with belly fat, there are a number of activities from which to choose and enjoy. As long as you're having fun, you can lose weight without realizing it. It is important to look for an exercise you enjoy. If the suggested exercises above do not suit your taste, taking a hike, swimming or biking are just as effective in burning fat and toning muscles.

Enjoy St. Patrick's Day with a Healthy Recipe

If you are planning to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, you'll want to make sure that the festivities don't derail your diet plan.  So how do you indulge in the Irish party without gaining weight?  Foodie Amy Sherman has a solution.

Irish food is often full of fat and calories. But Amy Sherman has adapted a healthy recipe for St. Patrick's Day.  Her recipe "Stir-fry Cabbage with Mustard and Chives" is a low calorie alternative to Colcannon, a rich dish of cabbage combined with mashed potatoes loaded with butter and cream.

Stir-fry Cabbage with Mustard and Chives

• 6 cups cabbage, cut into approximately 1 inch squares (about 1/2 head)
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 T or 1/2 ActiFry spoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 3 teaspoons chives, minced

Whisk together the water, olive oil, mustard, sugar and salt. Place the cabbage in a frying pan or use a T-Fal ActiFry. Drizzle the sauce on top. Cook for 15 minutes or until tender-crisp. Top with minced chives.

The recipe pairs nicely with green beer, but you'll want to be sure it's a light beer to avoid the calories in the more typical dark Irish varieties.

Special Diet Plans for Weight Loss

Most of the people who want to lose weight prefer to follow a particular and planned regime to do so. They want to have a set of rules and regulations for the same. Diet products, books, and services are one of the most flourishing industries in the world today. But before adopting any such technique, one should always keep in mind that it is practically impossible to lose weight just by resorting to these dietary short-cuts without making any changes in his/her lifestyle or reducing the intake of fatty food items.

Some of the most popular diet plans that people across the world follow are the Atkins diet, the GM diet and the like. Most of these diet plans have been a success with people. The idea is to figure out a diet plan that sounds plausible and which you think would work best for you. One should not forget that the most successful weight loss is due to dietary changes and healthy food habits that one should continue for a long time rather than diets that can leave you famished and yearning to eat more.

Most of the people are apprehensive about taking on to a diet plan is because they want to avoid pangs of hunger. But they need to understand the fact that the proper diet is about eating regular meals and keeping oneself full. Keeping one’s hunger in check will ensure that a person does not overeat and will also ensure that he/she does not suffer from frustration that result out of hunger.

One should eat 5-6 small meals a day instead of sticking to the conventional 3 meals. The way this works is simple. When we stick to 3 meals, by the time it is time for one meal, we are so hungry that we end up over overeating. Eating more number of meals will ensure that we are full and let us be in control. The next thing that one should always take care of is to never skip meals. If a person skips a meal in a day, he/she ends up compensating for the skipped meal at some other point of time during the day and that is all the more dangerous. Skipping meals slows down the metabolism because this way, the body feels that it is not getting enough food and thereby, it burns lesser number of calories.

One should adopt the trick of eating slowly. The human body and mind takes 20 minutes to realise that it is full and does not need any more food. If a person eats quickly, then by the end of 20 minutes, he/she has already eaten so much that the entire purpose of reducing calorie intake is lost. But if a person eats slowly, then at the end of the same 20minutes, he/she feels full and also reduces calorie intake in the process. Basically, it is to be strictly believed that a person does not need to starve to ensure there is weight loss. If a person loses weight in a healthy way, he/she is likely to keep it away for good.

Keeping in mind these factors, let us now have a look at the various diet plans and their pros and cons, and their potential effects.

Author: Medha Behera

Weight Loss Diet Help: Straightforward Tips

What are the best sources of information when you are seeking weight loss diet help? There are countless books and other publications, each promoting unique weight loss diet help that claims to allow you to lose weight in a week or two.

The problem is that these plans are not successful. Some may give you some amazing results initially, but ultimately you end up gaining the weight back the moment you discontinue the diet. Others are impossible to maintain.

The weight loss diet help that can work for you must be feasible and should elevate your metabolism without destabilizing your insulin levels. You also should locate a diet plan that you can stick with long-term without deleterious health effects. Here are some more tips that you should remember when you search for weight loss diet help.

In terms of eating carbs, you want to choose sources that are rich in fiber. This means that unprocessed foods and veggies are more beneficial compared to processed foods that are loaded with flour, grains, and unwanted preservatives and additives. Unprocessed foods retain more of their vitamins and minerals and thus have a greater health benefit.

There is no utility in beginning a weight lost diet plan that restricts your consumption of lean red meats, skinless poultry, and fish. These are all great sources of complete proteins and a necessary part of any effective diet plan.

Ensuring that your body receives a sufficient amount of protein is also vital to guaranteeing that you don't catabolize lean muscle tissue to maintain an elevated fat burning metabolism.

You also need to avoid refined carbs and sugary snacks. These foods are harmful because they cause a spike in your blood glucose levels. This in turn triggers secretion of insulin from the pancreas, resulting in elevated insulin levels.

Insulin stores glucose in the liver as glycogen. Any excess sugar is converted into fatty acids and is stored in fat tissue. Since consuming refined sugars caused destabilization of your blood sugar levels, quality weight loss diet help will recommend that you avoid any foods loaded with these simple carbohydrates.

The secretion of excess insulin by the pancreas is a symptom of metabolic syndrome. Also a precursor to diabetes, metabolic syndrome is a pretty common malady where you put on weight to a degree where you may become markedly overweight.

You suffer from elevated triglycerides and an increased risk of diabetes and heart disease. Good weight loss diet help can help you cure and prevent metabolic syndrome.

Any weight loss diet help that you locate is not complete unless it incorporates exercise. Exercise elevates your metabolism and allows you to gain muscle mass. Weight training and cardiovascular exercise are vital for weight loss and should be included in your weight loss plan.

Finally, any weight loss diet help that does not recommend more sleep is insufficient. You need to get at least 7 or 8 hours of sleep per night. When your body lacks sleep, you are generally more hungry and thus more prone to eating, especially late at night when few healthy options are available.

Learn How to Eat to Lose Weight Now

Finally find out what to eat to lose weight

Especially when you reach a plateau phase in your diet, you might nearly grow desperate over the question what to eat to lose weight. This question isn’t so easy to answer. The habits that you formed over the course of your life can’t just disappear overnight and so you might feel hungry and have less energy while keeping a diet. However, there are some weight loss foods that you can eat to help you getting across such phases. Also, some foods that may seem healthy may contain more calories than you think and so they are not what to eat to lose weight.

What should be your goal to lose weight?

The medical aspect of losing weight is very simple: You need to take in fewer calories than your body burns across the day. In reality this proves to be a lot more complicated than on paper. Many people have different metabolism rates and use up a different base amount of calories. However, the basic rule remains the same. Eating less and exercising will help you lose weight. Don’t worry; you don’t need to spend hours a day at the gym. Even a short walk of half an hour will help you burn some calories.

For example, according to studies, a 30 year old male weighing 200 pounds and being 6 foot tall uses about 1900 calories a day, if he doesn’t exercise at all. If he only exercises three times a week, this rises to 2600 calories a day. This way, even if he eats the same diet as always, he will start to lose weight.

Weight Loss Foods that will help you reach your goal

Those were the bad news so far. While there are many weight loss products on the market that promise to help you in your efforts, you still have to do the main job. And, if you ask yourself what to eat to lose weight, then there is some good news. Sticking to your goals and keeping your diet is hard, when you hear your stomach rumbling all day long. But there are some foods that you can eat to sate your hunger that won’t interfere with your goal of losing weight.

Raw vegetables, whole-grain bread and products, for example will keep you sated for many hours and because they contain a lot of fibers they are also healthy for your digestive system. Nuts are also an often neglected food that you can eat to lose weight. They are a counter-intuitive choice, because they contain a lot of fat and hence calories, but they also provide you with a lot of healthy nutrients like unsaturated fatty acids. Just half an ounce of mixed nuts is enough to sate your hunger for a healthy snack between meals.

What mistakes you should avoid when you decide what to eat to lose weight You may have formed a lot of bad habits over the years that led you to your overweight in the first place. For example, a lot of things that you serve to your meals may add a lot of unnecessary calories. Ketchup contains a lot of sugar and mayonnaise a lot of fat. That is why you should reduce them as well as other fatty sauces. Vegetables are also the healthiest when you just eat them without any sauces, just blanched.

It is not only a decision of what to eat to lose weight, you also need to think about what you drink. Water or teas without sugar are the best choice. Fruit juices are, while they seem to be very healthy, a bad choice. The most important parts of the fruit have been removed and they contain a lot of sugar and calories. It’s better to just eat an orange or an apple for a snack and stay with sugar-free beverages across the day.

Some other things that you should keep in mind

Now you have a general idea of what to eat to lose weight. Losing weight is a journey that takes some time and effort as old habits have to be replaced with new ones. If you enjoyed eating huge portions, then it is time to think again and stop eating when you don’t feel hungry anymore. Also, many people just eat when they are bored. Is the bag of chips in front of TV really necessary? Do you really need to eat those dinner remnants before going to bed?

Keep your goal in mind and be disciplined and persistent. Try to steadily reduce your calorie intake and exercise more to burn more calories. You’ll see that it becomes easier over time as your body adjusts to your new habits. Looking for foods with low calories, high protein and fiber and low fat and sugar is a good rule of thumb when you need to choose what to eat to lose weight.

Think Right, and Lose Weight Now.

What’s the most important step toward losing weight?

No, it’s not what you eat, although that’s important, and pigging out on pizza and chips a couple times a day will scuttle your plans to drop some pound.

No, it’s not exercising, although that’s a critical component of your plan.

No, it’s not the system you buy, although a good system can be tremendously helpful.

The most important step is deciding to lose weight. Most people never do that. They wish they could lose weight, or they long to lose weight, or they’re angry about being fat, or they get mad about not being able to lose weight. But they never make a firm commitment to achieving a reasonable target weight.

Any major life achievement begins with a decision (if it happens by accident, did you really achieve anything?) You have to decide to be thin. You know you’ve really decided when you don’t quit. If you quit, you never really committed in the first place. That might be hard to hear, but it’s the truth.

Suppose your most cherished person in the world was trapped in a burning building. Nobody else is around. You save this person, or this person burns to death, and you’ll hear the screaming. Are you going in to save that person? You bet, and you’ll come out with that person or die trying.

That, my friend, is commitment. If you’re not deathly committed to your weight loss goals, you won’t achieve them.

You don’t have to be super-human, but there’s no escaping the fact that losing weight, like anything else worth doing, takes some commitment and discipline. But the effort will pay you back for the rest of your life.