Christmas Weight Gain - Little Tips to Lose Weight

When it comes to our eating habits, the Holidays prove to be the most disastrous time of the year. Christmas cookies are calling to be eaten, while spreads of turkey and cranberry sauce serve as signals for binge eating. More often than not, giving in to these tasty temptations punish us with the dreaded Christmas weight gain. But, with a little bit of willpower, keeping your figure from ballooning amidst the Holiday feast is not an impossible task.

The first thing to remember is the 40-40-20 rule: 40% lean protein, 40% complex carbohydrates, 20% fat. This rule would help you make healthy food choices in a sea of less healthy foods. Turkey without skin, potatoes without gravy and vegetables without butter all follow this cardinal rule. By removing some parts of your Holiday feast, you immediately transform your banquet into a healthy Christmas buffet. Sugar and alcohol are two other things to avoid on the dinner table. Not only are these two addictive, they are also major causes of weight gain.

Once you've screened out the unhealthy servings on the food table, the next step is to control how often you eat. Many experts say that eating more often results in better metabolism, a key to achieving some fat loss even on holidays. Spreading out your daily calorie intake through six small meals is a better approach to holiday weight loss than eating three full meals. Instead of starting and stopping, your digestive system continuously burns fats and calories when your meals are spaced a few hours apart. To further enhance your metabolism, you could pair your favorite foods with a glass of iced water and hot coffee. These two beverages allow your body to amp up its basic metabolic rate, thus making it more efficient in burning some of those would-be Christmas weight gain.

Taking control of your diet extends even after the feasts are over. A good way to continue your good holiday weight loss practices is to reset your fridge once the slew of Christmas parties have come and gone. Throw out all those Christmas leftover treats such as cakes, cookies, carbonated drinks and alcohol. This way, you are less prone to the temptations that these tasty treats represent.

Christmas time may be a time of giving, but this does not include giving a whole lot of fat to your belly. Maintaining healthy eating habits, even in taxing situations such as the Christmas Holidays, is a product of self-discipline. By following all these anti-weight gain tips, you can perhaps set an example to your family and friends on how to incorporate healthy eating in your lifestyle. Who knows? Maybe Santa can pick up on your tricks, too.

Green Tea and Weight Loss Go Hand in Hand Together

There are lots of secrets to losing weight from exercise techniques to food preparations, dietary supplements to vitamins and even special diets for food and beverages. One secret is the combination of green tea and weight loss. Did you know that this beverage increases your body's calorific burn rate, making it easier for you to burn those calories off? Lots of dieticians will tell you that they go hand in hand together when you need to shed a few pounds. According to many studies, it is not only a healthy beverage but also has the benefits of increasing metabolic rates, the ability to burn fat, and providing antioxidants that decrease the amount of free radicals in your body. 
  
Going on a green tea diet doesn't necessarily mean having a liquid diet. However it does mean adding it to your diet in other ways. To get a good diet you can increase the amount of hot or cold green teas you drink. You can also find it in supplements to use. Improve your diet with this beverage and losing weight will be not only easier for you but also tastier. Another way to include it into your diet is in smoothies that some coffee shops have started to introduce to customers who are dieting. 
  
There's also some good news for us dieters. The combination of green tea and losing weight is becoming noticed more and more by companies and stores out there. Many coffee shops, as previously stated, are offering green tea brewed both hot and cold, and in smoothies. You can find many stores selling variations and weight loss conscious customers are buying them up quick. Several companies are producing more variety of these drinks than previously done before, to help in the weight loss department. 
  
Vitamin stores and pharmacies are starting to provide more products to help weight conscious customers. There are many green tea supplements out there, so be careful which ones you buy. Make sure to look at the side effects, and ingredients. Add to your dietary plan any form of green tea and weight loss will become easier for you when you combine healthy exercising into the equation. This wonderful beverage and weight loss truly do go hand in hand together. With the right combination's of exercise, green tea recipes or beverages, and a strong healthy diet, you'll be dropping those pounds quickly.

Amazing Foods To Eat For Fast Weight Loss

5 Amazing Foods To Eat For Fast Weight Loss

Indeed, you can actually lose weight by eating. Surprised? Well, you can achieve that slim figure you crave for just by eating the right kinds of foods as opposed to going on a crash diet where you will need to starve yourself. If you make the wrong choice of foods that you eat then excess weight/obesity is in your future. So here are 5 foods to eat for fast weight loss.

1. Fishes

Fishes are very nutritious and healthy. They are very effective for quick weight loss. Most fishes contain Omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3 fatty acids are beneficial to your body's health as they help to reduce the hormone called 'leptin' that is responsible for storing fat in the body. Therefore, you should make sure to include fish in your diet for fast weight loss.

2. Lean meat

Lean meats contain lots of protein yet little fat and they help you burn fat quickly as they increase the body's metabolic rate. Lean chicken meat or turkey breast should be taken often instead of red meats.

3. Nuts

Nuts are also great as they help in digestion and also help the body burn more calories resulting in reduces weight. E.g. Walnuts, cashew nuts, groundnuts, palm nuts etc

4. Olive oil

Olive oil hardly contains saturated fats which add to the body weight but instead contains a reasonable amount of unsaturated fats. You should substitute your fatty oils with olive oil. One advantage of olive oil is that it helps to keep the level of cholesterol in the body low.

5. Fruits and vegetables

These are a must for anyone serious about being slim, fit and healthy. For fast weight loss, fresh fruits should be taken regularly as they not only taste real good but would help suppress hunger thereby helping you focus less on eating and more on achieving quick weight loss.

The fact that you desire to lose weight does not in any way mean that you have to starve yourself of food. Weight loss by following a steady meal plan with recipes is the best approach. So many people still starve themselves in a bid to lose weight but eating the right foods instead will make you not only lose that excess weight but become healthy as well.

Please note that there are many more foods that you can use to achieve fast weight loss apart from the ones mentioned above. Others like, oatmeal, eggs, green tea e.t.c can also help you eliminate fat easily. You should include these foods in your diet so as to see positive results towards your weight reduction
.

When Is a Calorie Not a Calorie!

Many health practitioners, especially those educated years ago, continue to repeat the mantra that, "A calories is a calorie" like they are all interchangeable. To lose weight, many still recommend counting and cutting calories below your current level, taking the position that calories from fats, proteins and carbs are the same! Many doctors and weight-loss companies also focus on cutting calories to lose weight. We even have computer apps to track and count calories, making the approach seem legitimate. It's not!

What's a calorie:

Some of you might remember that a calorie is: the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of water by 1 degree Celsius. It's essentially a measurement of energy production. It's also an abstraction, removed from nutrition and physiology in key ways!

Digestion and metabolism are the key

The reason that calories are not equal is because the approach doesn't account for the digestive and metabolic process, where different foods are processed differently.

During digestion, sugars and refined carbs break down quickly, starting with chewing and saliva. They are absorbed quickly after leaving the stomach, spiking blood sugar. Proteins and fats need more time in stomach acid, bile (from the gall bladder), and other enzymes to break down, so those nutrients take significantly longer to digest. The simple speed list for digestion is: fats are slowest, proteins second slowest, and carbs, especially sugar/refined carbs like soda, cookies and crackers, are quickest. Refined carbs, those with a high-glycemic index, often spike blood glucose, and high sugar levels are toxic to tissues! The result is extra weight, fat and other health problems.

A flawed approach for weight loss

People who use calorie restriction for weight loss often gain all the weight back, plus more! So if you follow that flawed advice of cutting calories to lose weight, it will backfire! Why?

Calorie restriction is unwise and unhealthy. You lose important vitamins and minerals, as well as lean muscle and bone. It also puts your body into starvation mode, which slows your metabolism further! And any loss of muscle means you now have a smaller engine to use food calories, making weight gain faster and easier once you stop calorie restriction or dieting. In fact, the whole concept of "dieting" or cutting calories/food intake for a few weeks to lose weight is a myth! You will be worse off than when you started!

Consider 2 meals with similar calorie totals (values approximate)

Here is a comparison of 2 meals, a 4-oz. chicken breast, a large serving of mixed veggies with olive oil and spices, a medium serving of brown/wild rice and mug of green tea, VS. a 3-oz. beef burger on a bun, small french fries, and a small, 6-oz. soda.

1. For the chicken/veggie meal, the overall nutrient totals are: 

• 480 calories for the chicken breast, veggies, rice mix and tea
• 32 grams of protein
• 28 grams of complex, high-fiber carbs
• 22 grams of fat, mostly healthy

2. For the burger/fries meal, the overall nutrient totals are: 

• 500 calories for the burger, bun, fries and small soda
• 24 grams of protein
• 54 grams of low-fiber, high-glycemic carbs
• 23 grams of mostly unhealthy fat

Note: It was a challenge to get the calories to match exactly. I had to use smaller servings of fries and soda for the burger meal or would have been much higher.

Results 

• What stands out the most is that the burger/fries meal has far more refined, low-fiber carbs, and almost twice as many total carbs, 54 vs. 28. Those refined carbs (bun, fries, soda) will spike your blood sugar more quickly, whereas the veggies and rice blend in the chicken meal are more complex carbs. They will digest far more slowly, even slower than protein.
• The chicken meal has more protein grams (32 vs. 24 grams for the burger), meaning the chicken meal will also digest more slowly because of the extra protein.
• The fats in both meals were similar but the chicken meal had less saturated fat and more healthy, monounsaturated fat from the olive oil.
• The chicken meal will give you more sustained energy over a longer period of time, resulting in little or no weight gain!

Similar total calories bring different outcomes

The impact on weight and health is clear! The lower-nutrient burger meal has 54 grams of more high-glycemic carbs, along with lower protein levels. That combo will spike your blood sugar faster and higher (think of a steep rise and fall like a sharp mountain peak), adding to weight gain and inflammation (the sugars, refined carbs and veggie oils are more pro-inflammatory).

The higher-nutrient chicken meal with nutrient-rich veggies (vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidants), rice blend and higher protein will digest far more slowly. It will keep blood sugar more stable compared to the burger meal (picture a gradual rise and fall over several hours like a small hill). With the slower rise, you can burn off those calories with normal activity more easily, resulting in little or no fat storage. You might even lose weight! It's also a low-inflammatory meal because it has more complex, healthy nutrients and fats. The green tea also adds anti-inflammatory polyphenols.

So the outcome on health is very different for the 2 meals: One leads to probable weight gain and inflammation/health problems (the burger meal), while the other leads to stable weight or weight loss, and can actually help to lower inflammation and improve health (chicken/veggie meal).

In fact, the typical meal of a burger, fries and soda will spike your blood sugar in an hour (or less), adding to weight gain after insulin is released and glucose is removed from the blood and stored as fat. Unless you are very active after you eat, you will probably store them!

I'll burn those calories!

How much activity does it take to burn off the glucose-spiking burger meal? How about 30-45 minutes of running, cycling or jumping rope to keep from gaining weight! That's about how much exercise you will need to do to burn up the calories and the surge in blood glucose! How many people have these fast-food meals (or make them at home), and are working out for 30-45 minutes every time they eat that way?

Keep in mind, many burger/cheeseburger, fries and soda combinations have much larger portion sizes than I used, reaching 700-1,000 total calories. That means it could take a good hour of exercise to use up the calories and spiking blood sugar for one meal! No wonder so many people gain weight, year after year!

If you've seen my other article and posts, you know that the burger meal, with its refined carbs and inflammatory foods, will also contribute to a host of health conditions and diseases, such as heart disease, atherosclerosis, high BP, diabetes, arthritis, cancer and more! Those problems add to the misinformation that all calories are the same. They are clearly not!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Carney

10 Bad mood causes

Ever woken up in a bad mood and not known why? You may be surprised by the cause. While many things contribute to putting us in a bad mood, there are steps you can take to eliminate some common causes. Here are 10 surprising things that can spoil your mood.

Bad mood trigger 1: Food intolerance

Food intoleranceFood intolerances are responsible for a wide range of physical conditions including nausea and abdominal pain, but they can also affect your mood, causing irritability, mood swings, lack of focus, aggression, nervousness or hyperactivity. If you suffer from regular mood swings, try keeping a food diary – noting what you eat as well as any changes in mood – to see if you can identify a link.

Bad mood trigger 2: Your home decor

If you want to give your mood a boost, try changing your home decor as your surroundings can heavily influence your mood. While red can make some people feel irritable or hostile, yellow communicates happiness and blue aids relaxation, so try accessorising your home with colours that enhance your mood. Research has also suggested that hanging up soothing pictures — such as beautiful landscape paintings —can positively affect a person’s mood and reduce stress and anxiety.

Bad mood trigger 3: Getting promoted

While many of us dream of getting a promotion in work, the reality may not be as rosy as you think. A study by researchers at the University of Warwick has found that rather than improving quality of life for workers, following a job promotion employees suffered from increased mental strain and there was on average a 10 per cent decrease in people’s mental health.

Bad mood trigger 4: Your bedside lamp

If you regularly fall asleep reading or watching TV, this can have repercussions on your mood the next day. Research has shown that night time light can suppress the production of melatonin; a mood-regulating hormone which is only produced during darkness. So, try investing in some heavy curtains and make sure you turn off all lights at night to give yourself a happiness boost.

Bad mood trigger 5: Nutrient deficiencies

While depression can be caused by a number of things, symptoms can be worsened or improved by your diet. Deficiencies in vitamin D, the B vitamins (particularly B6, B12 and folate) and omega-3 fatty acids can all lead to feelings of depression and anxiety. Try introducing more foods rich in these nutrients into your diet to see if symptoms improve. 

Bad mood trigger 6: Your friends

You might think that spending time with your friends is a great mood booster; however, that could all depend on their mood. Research has found that emotions – both positive and negative – are contagious and easily passed from person to person, often without you being aware of it. Furthermore, you don’t even need to see your friends to catch their mood, as a study suggests that the emotions of Facebook users directly affect the emotions of their friends for up to three days.

Bad mood trigger 7: Late nights

Many of us are aware that lack of sleep can contribute to a low mood; however, research suggests that when you go to sleep could be almost as important as how much sleep you get. According to a study published in Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, night owls are almost three times as likely as early birds to experience severe symptoms of depression, so try getting some early nights to boost your mood.

Bad mood trigger 8: The Pill

A study by researchers from Monash University has found that women who take birth control pills are twice as likely to be depressed as those who don’t. For some, certain birth control pills can also lead to mood swings, increased anger and loss of libido. If you think that your mood has changed for the worse since you began taking the pill, visit your GP to discuss the alternatives.

Bad mood trigger 9: Smoking

We all know that smoking causes cancer, heart disease and premature ageing, but it is less well known that cigarettes can also affect your mental health. According to the results of a large study conducted by New Zealand researchers, people who smoke cigarettes may increase their risk of developing depression, and those who are addicted to nicotine may be more than twice as likely to have depressive symptoms than those who are not.

Bad mood trigger 10: Sunlight

Most of us have heard of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) caused by dark winter days, but did you know that sunlight can also bring on the blues? While summer SAD is thought to affect less than one per cent of the population (compared to the five per cent affected by the winter version) it can be a serious condition for those it affects, bringing on insomnia, decreased appetite and depression.

See artical here  http://www.realbuzz.com/articles/10-surprising-things-that-put-you-in-a-bad-mood-gb-en/