DIET
Avoid “fad”
diets: Negative calories diet, extremely low calories diet, low carb diet, and
any other type of “fad” diet that is unbalanced.
Changing diet
should be a matter of healthier life style. Learn all you can about different
foods and nutrition. The more you know the easier it is to implement healthy
nutrition and calories in your diet.
1)
Substitute fruit purees for butter or margarine. They are easy to
prepare in a food processor and will significantly reduce calories and fat.
2)
Cheese is good for you, but the fat is not. Try this: Zap cheese in
the microwave and drain off grease.
3)
Exercising before you eat just makes you hungrier. Exercise AFTER
eating when the body has to work harder to digest food.
4)
Don’t eat while watching television. You can become so engrossed in
your program that don’t realize how much you are eating.
5)
Too many people skip breakfast. Eat in the morning when the body burns
more calories.
6) Water mixed with
fructose suppresses appetite better than glucose with water or diet drinks.
Drink a glass of orange juice one half to one hour before a meal.
7)
Avoid trans-fatty
acids. Use olive, corn or canola oil
when cooking.
8)
Switch from whole
to skim milk. All the nutrients are there with out
9)
Limit yourself to
just four egg yolks a week.
10)
Trim all fat from meats before cooking. You’ll be amazed at how much
you reduce your fat intake if you take this one small step.
11)
Eliminate fried
foods. Do we need to say why?
12)
Cream sauces like Alfredo and hollandaise are loaded with fat. Use
tomato based sauces instead of cream.
13)
Use lemon juice
or low sodium soy sauce for flavor.
14)
Don’t skip
meals. When you do, you eat more at your
next
meal and usually eat the wrong foods.
15)
Read labels –
check fat, sugar and carb content.
16)
Stop buying on
impulse. Never shop for groceries
without a
list.
17)
Avoid shopping
when you are hungry – eat first!
18)
Shop for groceries once a week and only buy from your prepared list.
19)
Head directly to
the fruit and vegetable aisles when you enter
the grocery
store. Fill up your basket in these aisles and you’ll be less likely to buy
binge food.
20)
If you have a local “farmers market” where you can buy your fruits and
veggies off the truck, by all means do so. They’ll be
fresher and tastier.
21)
Make sure you buy everything you need for your weekly meal planning.
Returning to the grocery store numerous times increases
22)
Vary your foods – introduce something new each week. Menu planning can
become boring when you eat the same things. That boredom translates into over
eating. Try new healthy recipes each week.
23)
Stay away from processed foods as much as possible. Yes, they are very
convenient. They are also loaded with fat and/or sugar, not to mention the
chemicals.
24)
The ads are soooo
compelling. Cut fast food from your
diet!
25)
Eat more fish but avoid breading or batters. Fish oil is good for you.
26)
Eat more vegetables. Try mixing and matching fresh vegetables for
variety.
27)
Steam your veggies instead of boiling them. They’ll taste better and
you’ll retain more of their nutritional value.
28)
Use fat free or low fat salad dressings or make your own using lemon
juice, spices and a tiny amount of olive oil.
29)
Exchange water
for soft drinks – yes, even diet drinks!
30)
Slim down with
casseroles – just use lean meat and veggies.
31)
Go ahead and snack, just snack on good stuff, like raisins, nuts
veggies and dried fruit.
32)
Never eat while
you are standing.
33)
Don’t sample when
you are cooking. A taste here, a little
bite
there and before you know it you’ve eaten an entire portions
34)
Don’t give up potatoes. A baked potato has 0 grams of fat and only 160
calories. Just don’t eat fries that weigh in at 13 fat
grams and 480 calories!
35)
Stay away from pastries. They are loaded with fat and are also loaded
with sugar.
36)
Eat more salads
but don’t let salad become boring. Add
different
ingredients. Throw in a few raisins, canned beans like garbanzos and vary your
dressings. Leave out the mayo!
37)
Limit your intake
of meat to just two or three meat choices
per week and select more “white” meats than red.
38)
You don’t have to
give up dessert, just rearrange it. Try
mixing fresh
fruits with low fat yogurt. Strawberries with banana yogurt is delicious!
39)
Add nuts to your
yogurt and salads. Chopped nuts make a
great alternative to “breaded” style garnishes like croutons.
40)
Replace white
bread with whole grain bread. If you can
find
bread that still contains the “wheat germ,” buy it!
41)
When baking, applesauce makes a great substitute for shortening.
42)
Prepare foods in different ways. Instead of traditional frying, try
stir-fry and use a low fat spray or non-stick pan.
43)
Reduce portions at meal time. We live in a “jumbo size” world. There’s
no reason why the portions we consumer need to be super sized as well.
commonly eat.
Eventually, you will be able to “eyeball” a proper serving.
45)
Keep a food diary of everything you eat. This is the first step to
acquiring a new, healthier life style.
46)
Wait no more than five hours between meals or snacks. This regiment
will help to stabilize your metabolism.
47)
Specific food
combinations can help to burn calories by
enhancing your metabolism. Eat
carbs that are rich in fiber. They
take longer to
digest and you will feel “fuller” for longer periods of time.
48)
Use fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables. Canned veggies are okay in
a pinch, but generally include more salt than you need. By the time they are
canned and processed, they have lost much of their nutritive value.
49)
Eat more yogurt. Yogurt is a protein as well as a carbohydrate
therefore giving you the small amount of energy needed to burn the protein.
50)
Add more tuna to your diet. You can grill it, broil it, steam it and
poach it, all without any added fat.
51)
Try different varieties of beans rather than sticking to the same old
type you are accustomed to. Beans are a great source of energy, protein and
fiber.
53)
Salads to avoid
are tuna, chicken and egg. It isn’t the
meat
or egg that’s the
problem. It’s the mayonnaise. Try making them with plain yogurt and spices to
dress it up and you’ll have a healthy combination.
54)
If you absolutely must have your fatty salad dressing, try this. Have
the dressing on the side and dip your fork into the dressing
before you spear
the salad ingredient. You’ll have your taste but without dredging your salad in
fat.
55)
Love
avocado? Go ahead and indulge a quarter
cup but don’t
mix it with sour cream!
56)
Roasted, flavored
almonds make a great snack.
57)
Make your own
potato chips. It’s simple. Thinly slice a large
baking potato and
place in a single layer on a cookie sheet sprayed with low fat aerosol spray.
Spray the slices lightly as well. Sprinkle with paprika and any other spice of
your choosing. Bake in a 400 degree oven for thirty minutes making sure to turn
once. ‘Voila! Your own home baked potato chips and a great snack.
58)
Switch from cream
of wheat cereal to oatmeal. The whole
grain in oatmeal
is much better for you and won’t leave you hungry an hour later like the cream
of wheat.
59)
If you plan on
eating out at a buffet, eat something before
the temptation to graze or go back for seconds.
61)
Go through the
buffet line one time only.
62)
Load up at the salad bar. Gelatin or plan green salads should be
abundant.
63)
Look for baked
roasted or grilled entrees like fish or lean roast
beef.
64)
Avoid the breaded
fish or fried chicken.
65)
Select soups you can see through. If you can see through them, they
are broths with fewer fat and calories.
66)
Eat slowly. Savor each bite. Take your time and enjoy eating. If you
eat too fast, your stomach will be full long before the message to stop chewing
down reaches your brain.
67)
Ask yourself if
you really tasted and enjoyed that last bite of
food. If your answer is no,
it’s time to slow down.
68)
To help downsize your portions, use a smaller plate. Instead of a
dinner plate, use a salad plate for your entire meal.
69)
When eating in a
restaurant, ask for a child’s portion or ask to
have the entrée split and have the second half packaged as takeout.
70)
As an assist to making certain you are getting the right nutrition
from your vegetables, alternate the colors from day to day. One day eat fresh
yellow and orange vegetables like squash, pumpkin, and carrots then switch to
green the next day, like spinach, or dark leafy lettuces.
71)
Pass up peanuts
for snacking. Two ounces of salted
peanuts
72)
Skip fried shrimp. A three ounce serving has 206 calories while the
same weight when boiled is only 84 calories.
73)
If you love pie, stick with the fruit pies. Pumpkin and other fruit
pies are lower in calories. Pecan pie has about 430 calories while the same
slice of pumpkin pie is only 240. You can drop
another 100 calories if you don’t eat the crust!
74)
Try Canadian bacon instead of regular bacon. One ounce of regular
bacon is about four medium cooked slices and carries 163 calories. A one ounce
slice of Canadian bacon is much leaner and only has about 57 calories.
75)
Avoid the high fat temptations when dining out. Call ahead. Many high
quality restaurants will accommodate your needs if you give them sufficient
time beforehand. Explain that you are on a low fat diet and ask if they can
prepare your food without frying.
76)
If you frequent a specific restaurant, ask to take a menu home so you
can study what they offer and learn how to plan your meals out.
77)
Steer Clear of fast food restaurants. Most of their food is 40 to 50
percent fat. Many are finally wising up, however, and you can get salads, plain
hamburgers or grilled chicken. You can also ask for the restaurant’s
nutritional information. Many now offer that.
78)
Stay away from the appetizers unless you request crackers, pretzels or
fresh vegetables like carrots or celery with a honey-
79)
Put your waiter
through his or her paces. Ask lots of
questions and
don’t stop until you are satisfied. How is the fish grilled? If it is in
butter, ask for it dry. If a fried entrée is offered on the menu, ask if the
chef can bake it, broil it, grill it or steam it to cut down on the fat. Make
sure they follow up. It’s your meal and your money paying for it and within
reason you should be able to get it the way you want it.
80)
If a restaurant won’t split a portion in half for you, preparing half
of it “to go,” request a doggie bag or box be delivered with your meal and split
it yourself immediately before you begin to eat.
81)
You can also
carry a “survival kit.” Use a small
plastic
sandwich bag and
carry packets of low fat dressings, herbal teas, spices or other essentials
that may not be readily available at a restaurant.
82)
Split a meal with
a friend. Order soup or salad a’ la
carte with
one entrée and
ask the waiter for an extra plate. It will save you money AND reduce the fat in
each meal.
83)
Visit pizzerias
that offer salads and pizza by the slice.
Don’t
order pizza with
meat. Stick with vegetable toppings and, if possible, a wheat crust. Some pizza
places do offer that option.
84)
Eliminate tartar sauce. If you order a fish fillet sandwich ask that
the tartar sauce be left off the bun.
85)
Bake with cocoa instead of chocolate. For each ounce of unsweetened
chocolate called for in a recipe, substitute 3
86)
Use evaporated skim milk for sauces and soups. It has the texture and
the flavor of cream but without the fat. Each cup contains 80 grams less of fat
and 600 few calories than heavy cream.
87)
Plain nonfat or
low fat yogurt is a great replacement for sour
cream. Use it to
make salad dressings. It’s also good as an add-on to breakfast cereals and
desserts.
88)
Low fat foods may seem less flavorful when you first try them because
fat adds flavor to some foods and you are used to that. Add zip with lots of
herbs and spices like basil, garlic, ginger, onion powder tarragon and oregano.
Vary the spices and come up with your own combinations.
89)
Yogurt can help you lose weight while protecting muscle. A recent
study of overweight people who ate three servings of yogurt daily for 12 weeks
lost 22% more weight, 61% more body fat and 81%more abdominal fat than people
who ate a similar number of calories but no dairy products.
90)
Spicy foods curb appetite as evidenced in a recent study. People who
ate a sauce containing capsaicin (the compound that makes hot pepper
spicy), consumed an average of 200 fewer calories over the next three hours
than those who didn’t eat the
sauce. Consider eating more
spicy foods.
91)
A 12 ounce cola has 150 calories, two tablespoons of full fat salad
dressing 150, a glazed doughnut 250 and a four ounce bagel,
92)
Another recent study shows that calcium from diary foods is more
effective for weight loss than supplements. Why? Food is a complex mixture of
known and unknown components. There is a co-operation among the components that
can’t be reproduced in a nutritional supplement. Dairy contains calcium and a
host of other biologically active components including the amino acid leucine.
Recent research reveals that leucine may increase the ability of muscle to use
fat. Have low-fat or skim milk before a meal. Studies show that getting a
liquid from dairy before eating helps you feel fuller sooner at that meal and
eat less at the next meal. If you are lactose intolerant, try yogurt with live
culture (it has very little lactose) or take a lactose supplement when
consuming dairy.
93)
Eat fish at least twice a week. The omega 3 fatty acids in fish have
been shown to reduce heart attack and stroke risk in addition to helping you
maintain a nutritional diet.
94)
Sometimes you can go with fast food. Burger Kings BI Veggie Burger
with reduced fat mayonnaise contains 340 calories and 2
grams of
saturated fat. It’s better than just about any burger at any other food chain.
95)
McDonald’s Fruit
and Yogurt Parfait is low fat vanilla yogurt
layered with
berries and topped with granola. It’s a nutrient rich bargain at only 380
calories.
96)
Subway’s 7 subs
with 6 grams of fat or less include ham,
roast beef, chicken and turkey and range from 200 to 300 calories
97)
Wendy’s Mandarin Chicken Garden Sensation Salad is a creative salad
alternative of mixed greens, with chicken and mandarin orange sections, roasted
almonds and a half packet of Oriental sesame dressing. It is a great
alternative at just 470 calories.
98)
A veggie sandwich may not always be the ideal choice. The two ounces
of cheese added to these popular lunchtime meals
contain three
quarters of a full day’s allowance for saturated fat. Tuna salad (because of
the mayonnaise), has 720 calories and chicken salad is 550 calories. Stick with
turkey, roast beef, chick breast or veggie sandwich without the cheese.
99)
All salads are not created equal. A taco salad is served in a fried
taco shell filled with ground beef, cheese, sour cream and
guacamole. It
contains 1,100 calories and a full day’s quota of saturated fat!
100)
Not only is a
single order of Fettuccine Alfredo an artery
clogger, it also weighs
in at a whopping 1,500 calories! When eating Italian food, opt for pasta
topped with marinara or meat sauce (skip the meatballs), red or white clam
sauce or chicken Marsala.
EXERCISE
We’ve discussed
at least 55 ways to adjust your eating habits. Some of the tips we covered will
help your metabolism burn extra
The dawn of the
Information Age has given us more labor saving devices than any other period in
history. Along with this knowledge we have settled into a more sedentary
lifestyle.
Taking a little
trip back in time can really open our eyes. A typical day for your great
grandmother began long before the sunrise. She was usually the first to awaken
so she could have a hearty breakfast on the table for the rest of the family.
She would
probably stoke her range with wood brought in the previous evening. Unless one
of the children was old enough to be charged with the task, she would put on
her coat, scarf and gloves and trek out to the barn to milk the cow, stopping
on her way back to gather eggs from the chicken coop, home-cured ham and
sausage from the smoke house, cheese (that she had made herself) butter (that
she churned) and potatoes from the cold storage cellar.
Returning to her
kitchen with her collection in tow, she would prepare a breakfast that most
likely consisted of ham, sausage and eggs fried in lard she had rendered,
biscuits, gravy made from the leavings in the frying pan, flapjacks, whole milk
and strong coffee.
Bear in mind that
after her pre-dawn preparations she would spend the remainder of her day,
sweeping, dusting, polishing, scrubbing clothing using hot water that she
boiled herself, hanging the laundry out to dry, tending her vegetable garden
and often toiling in the fields with the men.
The comparison
between your great grandparents is not so much what they ate, as how they used
the calories they consumed. Life was hard. Normal physical activity usually
burned off the calories they consumed. They worked hard and ate hearty and, yes
they did have a shorter life expectancy.
Today we eat
foods that are processed and contain more fat and chemicals than nutrition. To
top it off, we also live sedentary lives. Unlike grandma’s hearty breakfast we
are more likely to grab a cup of coffee on the run. We rush to an office, only
to spend the next 8 hours sitting in front of a computer screen, just as you
are doing now.
Getting a handle
on your diet is just the first step toward losing weight and living a healthier
lifestyle. In order to tame the weight loss beast, you MUST change your
physical habits as well as your eating habits.
You don’t necessarily have to exert yourself as if you were training
Before you begin
a fitness/exercise
program, you need to know what you want to accomplish. Determine your ideal
weight and once you have your plan firmly in place you can begin to incorporate
the following tips:
101)
Always warm up before beginning your exercise activity using smooth
and fluid movement. The purpose of the warm up is to minimize discomfort and
prevent injury and loosen up your muscles for the exercise to come.
102)
Begin with a couple of deep breaths, inhaling through the nose and
exhaling from your mouth.
103)
When you plan to walk or run, do just a few hundred yards at a slower
walk or a gentler jog.
104)
Use the cool down routine in the reverse of the warm-up, gently
slowing down. This will enable your breathing and heart rate to return to
normal.
105)
Learn to listen
to your body and differentiate between good
pain and bad pain.
106)
Never exercise on
a full or empty stomach.
107)
Drink plenty of water to reduce the chance of dehydration. Experts
usually recommend 16 ounces either one or two hours before exercising.
108)
Always use stretching routines. These are not just for jocks and
fitness gurus but should be used by everyone. The older you are, the more
important this becomes as you can help retain flexibility and good range of
movement for all your daily activities.
109)
When warming up and stretching, use the movements for five to ten
minutes. This will help to loosen your muscles.
110)
Do not bounce when warming up with stretching as you can cause tears
in your muscle fibers.
111)
To increase your flexibility, hold each stretch for fifteen to twenty
seconds or longer.
112)
Be sure you stretch lightly during warm up to prevent stretch reflex.
This is caused by over using a cold muscle.
113)
Breathe slowly
and evenly throughout your warm up.
114)
If you have a tendency to become stiff, take a hot shower or bath
before beginning your warm up.
115)
Breathing is extremely important when exercising as your body need to
process oxygen that will transfer from your lungs through the bloodstream to
the muscles that are being worked. Normal breathing is shallow meaning that the
air is not reaching deep into the lungs. This can tighten neck muscles which
can cause stiffness and pain in the neck, shoulder upper back and chest.
116)
Always inhale before you lift, exhale as you lift and inhale as you
lower the weight for maximum benefit.
117)
Turn everyday activity into exercise. Try balancing on one foot
without support while putting on your shoes and socks.
YOUR
DESTINATION
Starting today .
. . right now . . . this very minute, make a conscious decision that you no
longer accept ownership of excess weight. You are not what you weigh. You are a
unique human being and entitled to all the gifts that this life has to offer.
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