Health & Fitness Tips

Naked Smoothies Provide a Quick Pick Me Up

I’ve recently become a huge fan of Naked fruit smoothies. You can find them in a lot of natural foods stores and also they are carried, I’ve found, in quite a few chain grocery stores as well.  They can be a bit pricey, but I’ve found that they go on sale quite often at the natural foods stores I frequent (actually the grocery store rarely has all flavors on sale, go figure), for 2 for five bucks (Whole Foods has had this sale a few times), so that’s not bad at all when you consider the high price of nutritionless sodas and “juice drinks”.

There is another brand too that has a similar concept, Odwalla, but I’ve foudn the Naked ones to have more flavors that I personally like – just a personal preference, nothing against Odwalla.

If you are a person who watched their calories, or even more so their carb intake, you may look at the back of one of these smoothies and think it’s really high in both. However, I’ve found that just a few swigs is a great tide over to dinner and lunch when you’re just starting to get hungry and need a quick natural blood sugar pick up.

I have never drank a whole one at one sitting, I’ve found them more beneficial when you keep them around for a little “snack” in between meals.  My two favorite blends are the Green Machine, which contains everything from apples, to broccoli, to spirulina for an even great energy boost.  And it tastes nothing like vegetables, and yet it’s got them in it.  That one is probably my all time favorite, plus there are tons of good nutritious ingredients in it.

The runner up for me is the mango flavor with beneficial probiotics added, for digestion and waste elimination efficiency. It helps you to be regular, since mango is filled with fiber, and also helps replenish your healthy intestinal flora that keeps things moving in that regard, if you know what I mean.

When I’m buying the smoothies, I try to really look at what’s in them, including their “boosts” and see if those vitamins and nutrients are something that I might be lacking in or not.  This way, I know I’m getting the right benefits from drinking them, in addition to the benefits I’m getting from drinking something that helps tide my appetite over for big meals.

Resolutions for a Thinner You by Summer

I’ve decided to put together a short, succinct list to help you on the way to getting your summer-perfect bikini (or swim trunks if you’re a guy) body.  Believe it or not, if you’re only a few pounds off your ideal summer goal weight and you just have to get a a little of that extra winter padding off, then it’s not all that hard to make a few habit changes to shrug off the weight in no time.

1.) Expose yourself to sunlight as often as you can. During the day, at your job, try to get outside a few times. I firmly believe that sunshine is a natural appetite suppressant, and I totally notice a difference in my appetite when I either lounge out in the sun or if I just go out and get a bit of the bright orange orb’s light in my eyes. There’s something about a bit of warmth and sunshine that makes you crave healthier foods like fruits (especially fruits!) and veggies.

2.)  Drink a TON of water.  Add some lemon juice, fresh squeezed if you can. Lemon juice helps to purify your body, and it also even helps to keep your appetite down. If you want to kill it even more, take a teaspoon of pure organic cinnamon as well, and this evens out your blood sugar so you have less hunger spikes throughout your day.

3.) Listen to a great hypnosis CD for weight loss. These can really kick your weight loss ambitions into high drive, even without you knowing what’s happening. It’s all on a subliminal level, so you actually eat less without even understanding why necessarily. Cool concept!

4.)  Foresake some of the salt.  Try to pass on salting your food. Extra sodium just makes you retain more water, which can add up to five pounds or more of water weight.

Avoid Pigging Out on Football Sundays

Now that the football season is here again, I know that I’m going to have to ramp up for having more willpower since we happen to be the gathering point of all our football watching friends and also we happen to always buy lots of chips, dips and appetizers, on top of a “meal” food like pizza or some other ridiculously fattening fare that makes you think of football sundays. 

Oh, and pile on the beer or other alcoholic beverages that are bound to be consumed and you have a recipe for unavoidable weight gain every start of the NFL season.  At least that’s how it works for me and my fiance. 

We almost always put on weight during the football season, however I’m determined to not do it this time.  It seems like that one little day of pigging out nonstop leads to a barrage of eating badly and wanting MORE MORE MORE.  More fat, more sugar and more heavy, stick to your thighs good.  Sure, it tastes great while you’re eating it, but it leads to a bigger overall appetite, a slower pace mentally and physically, and countless Mondays hung over from drinking on Sundays.  Not a good combo, my friend!

So, my strategy this time is to actually do what I always do, which is work at my “other job” for half the time on Sundays that people are here, which will inevitably keep little paws out of the cookie jar, so to speak. And by cookie jar, I mean keep it out of the endless bowls of chips, pretzels, fattening sour cream based dips, cheesy surprises, sauerkraut balls, mini pigs in a blanket, and all the other good, greasy fare that tends to go with those fun football sundays.  There’s a huge part of me that loves the whole ritual, but my body definitely does not appreciate it in the end. 

I looked at pictures of myself after football season last year, and my face looked puffy and unhealthy, and that made me really think about what I was putting into my body.  Not just on Sundays either, it’s because it’s a domino effect, and it always ends up trailing out into the whole week, or at least into Monday and Tuesday. 

That adds up to a lot of calories and a lot of careless meal choices that can’t be reversed except with a lot of discipline and dieting for the next several months.  If you’re a victim of football sunday overeating, take my advice, sit out at least one part of the day, and join the rest of the buffet in the evening, so at least you won’t be eating all day long and be able to stop the unstoppable inertia of overeating.

Make Your Breakfast Biggest Meal

Part of the reason that the US has so many problems with obesity is portion control.  If we could just grow out of this “bigger is better” mentality, then we would be able to shake a lot of the obesity epidemic as well as all the health problems that always seem to go in tandem with obesity once and for all. But alas, we don’t seem to learn, and we keep eating the wrong things and the wrong portions.  I’m really hoping that with all this new healthcare program talk going on that healthcare plans offer real incentives to eat right and stay at a healthy weight.

For example, my significant other’s company he works for  gives him so many dollars for every preventive program he goes to.  So, if he participates in a wellness program or a checkup of some sort, he gets money in a special account. Great idea and a great incentive for staying healthy!  One of the things we Americans get really wrong is the importance of making breakfast the biggest meal of the day.  Instead, we tend to load up our plates with fat and calories more so at the end of the day, and because of that, we experience weight gain and weight that is hard to take off due ot the fact that we aren’t really burning any of it off after we eat it.

Think about it, and it makes sense.  Why would you “fuel up” your body at night when all you’re going to do is go to bed in the next few hours, where that food does not get burned off and instead is much more likely to be stored as excess fat somewhere on your body?  I’ve tried to convert to this way of thinking, and I’ll admit, at first it seemed weird to me because I was used to eating more at night.  I think eating more at night was a big part of my relaxation routine though, and it was a way of rewarding myself after a long day’s work.

Now, I’m trying more to think of breakfast as being the time to indulge in a little more calorie intake.  Not only does it help me think more clearly at work and let me have a more productive morning, but it also provides me fuel right up to lunch, whereas before I would be starving by about ten o’clock in the morning for a snack because my breakfast was too small.  Oh, and a nice byproduct is weight loss and ease of weight maintenance too!

Eating with a Distraction?

It’s mind boggling when you think of how many Americans eat their dinner, lunch, snacks, breakfast and anything in between, when they are watching television. TV has become such a major distraction to us in our every day lives, and is such a “turn your mind off and relax” thing, that we look forward to doing it every night. Most of us at least, and by the way I’m not counting myself out of that circle because it is true for me as well.

You’ve probably heard before out of the thousands of little diet tips and how to be healthier and have a better relationship with your food, that eating with distractions of any kind, possibly even reading, is actually not good because it makes you lose your focus on how your food tastes, savoring your food and enjoying it for what it is, and also losing track of how much food you are actually stuffing down your gullet as you blindly watch that last episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

When I really think about how I eat when I watch television, it is sort of true that I don’t really enjoy my food as much as if I’m in a restaurant where there are no distractions, only good conversation, and how much more I focus on and enjoy my food, but also how much faster I’m tuned into the fact that I’m full and done eating, whereas when I’m watching TV, tend to want to eat more and more and more. You get the point. It gets to the point where you correlate watching TV with eating, and therefore you subconsciously want to eat the whole time you’re enjoying a movie or a TV show.

Sitting at the dinner table with your family, husband or partner, or just by yourself, actually may seem boring, and to some people it even sounds a bit scary. They’ve had the TV or some other distraction for years when they sit down to eat, and now that is being taken away and that does create some anxiety I suppose. However, when you realize how much less you might eat and how much quicker your appetite is satisfied, and how much more you become in touch with being full and actually savoring the textures, scents and flavors of your food, you just might always want to eat that way!

Can You Walk or Bike to Work?

If you are within a reasonable distance to walk or bike (faster than walking), then you by all means may want to examine the possibility. After all, you’ll not only contribute to a better environment by not emitting exhaust fumes from your car every day, but you’ll also save an immense amount of money on gasoline, and you’ll also give a significant boost to your metabolism for the day, simultaneously conditioning your leg muscles as well as your cardio fitness level.

I’d say that’s an allover win situation. Of course I’m overlooking the obvious in that it may take you a longer time to get to work this way, and thereby deprive you of a little bit of that precious shut eye, however, if you can get to work fairly fast without a car, then you may actually cut time off your commute, especially if you have a high traffic area with lots of stop lights.

When a study was done on whether those that commute to work via a bike or by walking, versus those that commute by vehicle, it was found that those that biked or walked performed much better on a treadmill and had better heart rate performances. So, if you think you have what it takes to bike or walk to work, it’s definitely worth it, so you can help the environment, save mileage on the car, save gas money and improve your cardiovascular health. You could be the next Ed Bagley Jr!

The Wonderful Walnut

Everyone always talks about one nut in particular that is so good for your health and is loaded with those omega 3 fatty acids that are so good for your heart, diet and well being, the almond, that it seems that another great nut has kind of gotten lost in the shuffle. I used to be an almond devotee and only put those in my yogurt, until I discovered that walnuts have about the same calorie content, and also have some additional health benefits to the almond with in my opinion, more taste and texture, and seemingly more filling fiber content.

So, don’t walnuts have omega 3 fatty acids in them too? They sure do! In fact, their content of these healthy fats may rival that of the almond, it’s just not as widely used of a nut and may not be considered as portable and easy to snack on as the almond. Walnuts also have fiber in them, so you’re getting added dietary advantage of filling up faster when you eat them. In my opinion, they are superior to the almond this way, as I feel twice as satisfied after eating walnuts as I do almonds. It seems to take more almonds to make me feel like I’ve eaten enough. But that may just be my personal preference.

Walnuts also contains vitamin E, which is a great vitamin to incorporate into the diet, and often doesn’t get as much intake as it should in the American diet. It also has magnesium, another mineral that is hard to get in many processed foods and in such a pure, natural form. But the walnut is also an excellent source of plant derived protein, so you can eat it and get your protein content without eating the animal fat, so it’s a great nut for vegetarians and vegans to incorporate into their diet.

Walnuts also contain B vitamins, which are a great source of energy. You do want to be careful not to overeat walnuts, as they are caloric in nature, like most other nuts, but eating them in moderation is the best way to enjoy their healthy benefits and great, rich and satisfying taste. I like to snack on a few with an apple sometimes, or I also like to put them in my yogurt and fruit in the morning to add some crunch and interest in my breakfast, and also to add the additional protein and vitamins.

Summer Time Restaurant Indulging?

It seems somewhat counterintuitive, because most people think of summer time as the time when they are more in shape, less likely to pig out and gain a bunch of weight, and be more active because the weather is nice. While it’s definitely true on the being more active part, we’ve noticed that for us, it seems like the restaurant temptations come much harder and faster in the summer, and we actually found for a while that rather than losing summer time weight, we were gaining because we were indulging in going out more, spending more money on food and fun (and inevitably, summer time sugar alcoholic drinks), and essentially packing in way more calories than we should have on a daily basis.

Let’s give a typical weekend (in our old way of living, we don’t do this any more, we made a pact to lose weight and keep it off, plus we’ve been really scrounging to save money lately) as an example of these weekly temptations to go out and indulge in fattening, caloric foods.  It’s the weekend, and Sally and Tom (two fictitious names of course, we don’t have friends by those names), call us up and ask us to dinner at the latest Mexican bar and restaurant that opened up just up the road from us.  Far be it from us to resist the temptation of any easy night of dining, fun, food and drinks and foresake the leftover baked chicken from the night before, so we accept.

This happened almost weekly, we’d have healthy eating plans for the night and either we’d get invited to go out with friends and drink and eat, or we would just say screw it and go to a restaurant out of sheer laziness and wanting the experience and instant gratification.  And there you have the reason why we could never get weight off in the summer time.  We’d be fine during the week, and Friday Saturday and Sunday we’d shed our lunch packing, calories conserving ways and become the weekend warriors of restaurant indulging.

I’m sure you have similar stories.  The moral here is that maybe the recession will spur you to forego the typical weekend restaurant trips that tend to turn into three nights in a row of splurging and overdoing it on the calories.  It may seem harmless and fun at first, but believe me, both your waistline and your pocketbook will suffer in the end whereas if you eat healthfully at home, you will conserve on both your hard earned money, and calories, fat, sugar and extra weight!

Get Motivated to Lose Weight : Look at Before and After Pics

Well, my boyfriend and I are on our journey to lose all holiday related weight and then some right now, and I just got a major boost of encouragement and a renewed sense of purpose by looking at some before and after pictures of regular people who lost a lot of weight through sheer determination, a healthy diet, reduced calories, and exercise.  Because all three of those I feel are needed for long term health and associated weight stability, it truly is an inspiration that these people did this on their own and realized how much better they feel.

One story hit me especially.  It was about a woman who was in a relationship for several years and felt that she could eat whatever she wanted because she was comfortable in the relationship and felt loved.  Not that I don’t feel that being loved is a bad thing, but when we become complacent with a higher weight and compromised health because we are happy and content, that does present a problem for both parties.

That’s why I really love doing this with my boyfriend, I feel that we support eachother in our weight loss goals, and that we even have a friendly little “competition” going to see who can lose the most weight the fastest, who works out more, and so on and so forth.  He’s a guy though, and men do tend to lose weight faster than women do, so he’s kicking my butt in that arena, I’m reluctant to admit.  We’ve both lost a good amount of weight though within about one month.  He’s dropped ten pounds and I’m working on dropping my eighth pound, and I feel much better, lighter and happier.

Looking at random before and after pictures of others who have done it makes you realize that although weight loss may be painful at first, you soon see and feel the benefits of eating healthier, exercising, and enjoying the side effects of losing weight.  It also occurred to me that there is a “detox” period where you will most definitely be craving all that naughty food, almost unbearably at times, but once you’re past that, it’s not that bad.  Also, maintenance isn’t so bad because you can reintroduce some of the foods you avoided like the plague when you were dieting hard core, you just can’t go crazy with them or you’ll find yourself in the weightloss candidate boat before you know it.

Starting Off Day with Carbs : Not Good

Well, I must admit.  My boyfriend and I have just indulged in a day of total diet debauchery, without an ounce of care for what is good for us, starting our day off with the worst foods you can imagine for beginning your day.  First of all, there was not a good piece of protein to be found in our breakfast, where we ate at our local Cracker Barrel restaurant, which happens to have the best pancakes and maple syrup in our town. 

He got bacon, and my lousy excuse for protein was a pile of scrambled eggs with some processed American cheese thrown on top, which I barely even touched, instead opting for the luscious mounds of cheesy hash brown casserole and the buttery biscuits and pancakes.  Yeah, real well rounded and nutritious, huh? 

Needless to say, about an hour after we ate this carb filled breakfast – and none of it was the good kind of carbs with all that fiber and nutrition, oh no, we were ravenous once again, opting for yet anothe carby, fattening food when we went to the food court at the local mall, and got none other than Sbarros pizza, and to boot, a bread stick to go with it! 

It seems that when you start your day off wrong, that is, with all simple carbohydrates like refined breads and sugary sweets like pancakes drenched in maple syrup – and no, we’re not even talking buckwheat pancakes which at least have a saving grace of bundles of fiber, we’re talking those delectable, fill your belly for an hour then drop you like a rock in blood sugar, buttermilk variety! 

So, in a decided effort to eat a little better for dinner, we decided to go to Boston Market for dinner and make it a day of eating out.  Hey, at least at Boston Market, you can guy some things that aren’t absolutely heinous for your health, like chicken and veggies and sometimes a low fat soup or salad. 

However, of course, after having consumed starches and simple carbs all day, it seemed almost impossible to not go for the carbs one more time for dinner, so I got mashed potatoes.  Hey, tomorrow’s a new day, right?  I just need to make sure I start it with my usual low fat yogurt with berries and veggie sausage links – now that’s a good breakfast that doesn’t leave you feening for garbage all day long!