Tuesday 11 November 2014

How to Lose Weight: 40 Fast, Easy Tips

You know the drill when it comes to losing weight: take in fewer calories, burn more calories. But you also know that most diets and quick weight-loss plans don't work as promised. If you're trying to drop a few pounds fast, these expert tips will make it easy for you to lose the weight quickly.
1. Write down what you eat for one week and you will lose weight. Studies found that people who keep food diaries wind up eating about 15 percent less food than those who don’t. Watch out for weekends: A University of North Carolina study found people tend to consume an extra 115 calories per weekend day, primarily from alcohol and fat. Then cut out or down calories from spreads, dressings, sauces, condiments, drinks, and snacks; they could make the difference between weight gain and loss.
2. Add 10 percent to the amount of daily calories you think you’re eating. If you think you’re consuming 1,700 calories a day and don’t understand why you’re not losing weight, add another 170 calories to your guesstimate. Chances are, the new number is more accurate. Adjust your eating habits accordingly.
3. Get an online weight loss buddy to lose more weight. A University of Vermont study found that online weight-loss buddies help you keep the weight off. The researchers followed volunteers for 18 months. Those assigned to an Internet-based weight maintenance program sustained their weight loss better than those who met face-to-face in a support group.
4. Get a mantra. You’ve heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy? If you keep focusing on things you can’t do, like resisting junk food or getting out the door for a daily walk, chances are you won’t do them. Instead (whether you believe it or not) repeat positive thoughts to yourself. “I can lose weight.” “I will get out for my walk today.” “I know I can resist the pastry cart after dinner.” Repeat these phrases and before too long, they will become true for you.
foods that prevent wrinkles water5. After breakfast, stick to water. At breakfast, go ahead and drink orange juice. But throughout the rest of the day, focus on water instead of juice or soda. The average American consumes an extra 245 calories a day from soft drinks. That’s nearly 90,000 calories a year—or 25 pounds! And research shows that despite the calories, sugary drinks don’t trigger a sense of fullness the way that food does.
6. Eat three fewer bites of your meal, one less treat a day, or one less glass of orange juice. Doing any of these can save you about 100 calories a day, and that alone is enough to prevent you from gaining the two pounds most people mindlessly pack on each year.
7. Watch one less hour of TV. A study of 76 undergraduate students found the more they watched television, the more often they ate and the more they ate overall. Sacrifice one program (there’s probably one you don’t really want to watch anyway) and go for a walk instead.
8. Wash something thoroughly once a week. Whether that’s a floor, a couple of windows, the shower stall, bathroom tile, or your car, a 150-pound person will burn about four calories for every minute spent cleaning. Scrub for 30 minutes and you could work off approximately 120 calories, the same number in a half-cup of vanilla frozen yogurt.
9. Wait until your stomach rumbles before you reach for food. It’s stunning how often we eat out of boredom, nervousness, habit, or frustration—so often, in fact, that many of us have actually forgotten what physical hunger feels like. If you’re hankering for a specific food, it’s probably a craving, not hunger. If you’d eat anything you could get your hands on, chances are you’re truly hungry. Find ways other than eating to express love, tame stress, and relieve boredom.
crazy weight loss tips, smell some fruit10. Sniff a banana, an apple, or a peppermint when you feel hungry. You might feel silly, but it works. When Alan R. Hirsch, M.D., neurological director of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, tried this with 3,000 volunteers, he found that the more frequently people sniffed, the less hungry they were and the more weight they lost—an average of 30 pounds each. One theory is that sniffing the food tricks the brain into thinking you’re actually eating it.
11. Stare at the color blue. There’s a good reason you won’t see many fast-food restaurants decorated in blue: it functions as an appetite suppressant. So serve up dinner on blue plates, dress in blue while you eat, and cover your table with a blue tablecloth. Conversely, avoid red, yellow, and orange in your dining areas. Studies find they encourage eating.
12. Eat in front of mirrors and you’ll lose weight. One study found that eating in front of mirrors slashed the amount people ate by nearly one-third. Having to look yourself in the eye reflects back some of your own inner standards and goals, and reminds you of why you’re trying to lose weight in the first place.
13. Spend 10 minutes a day walking up and down stairs. The Centers for Disease Control says that’s all it takes to help you shed as much as 10 pounds a year (assuming you don’t start eating more).
14. Walk five minutes for at least every two hours. Stuck at a desk all day? A brisk five-minute walk every two hours will parlay into an extra 20-minute walk by the end of the day. And getting a break will make you less likely to reach for snacks out of antsiness.
15. You’ll lose weight and fat if you walk 45 minutes a day, not 30. The reason we’re suggesting 45 minutes instead of the typical 30 is that a Duke University study found that while 30 minutes of daily walking is enough to prevent weight gain in most relatively sedentary people, exercise beyond 30 minutes results in weight and fat loss. Burning an additional 300 calories a day with three miles of brisk walking (45 minutes should do it) could help you lose 30 pounds in a year without even changing how much you’re eating.
eat-better-spend-less-store-brands-sl16. Don’t buy any prepared food that lists sugar, fructose, or corn syrup among the first four ingredients on the label. You should be able to find a lower-sugar version of the same type of food. If you can’t, grab a piece of fruit instead! Look for sugar-free varieties of foods such as ketchup, mayonnaise, and salad dressing. Also, avoid partially hydrogenated foods, and look for more than two grams of fiber per 100 calories in all grain products. Finally, a short ingredient list means fewer flavor enhancers and empty calories.
17. Put your fork or spoon down between every bite. At the table, sip water frequently. Intersperse your eating with stories for your dining partner of the amusing things that happened during your day. Your brain lags your stomach by about 20 minutes when it comes to satiety (fullness) signals. If you eat slowly enough, your brain will catch up to tell you that you are no longer in need of food.
18. Throw out your “fat” clothes for good. Once you’ve started losing weight, throw out or give away every piece of clothing that doesn’t fit. The idea of having to buy a whole new wardrobe if you gain the weight back will serve as a strong incentive to stay fit.
19. Close the kitchen for 12 hours. After dinner, wash all the dishes, wipe down the counters, turn out the light, and, if necessary, tape closed the cabinets and refrigerator. Late-evening eating significantly increases the overall number of calories you eat, a University of Texas study found. Stopping late-night snacking can save 300 or more calories a day, or 31 pounds a year.
20. Walk before dinner and you’ll cut calories AND your appetite. In a study of 10 obese women conducted at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, 20 minutes of walking reduced appetite and increased sensations of fullness as effectively as a light meal.
walk-outside-sl21. Make one social outing this week an active one. Pass on the movies and screen the views of a local park instead. Not only will you sit less, but you’ll be saving calories because you won’t chow down on that bucket of popcorn. Other active ideas: a tennis match, a guided nature or city walk (check your local listings), a bike ride, or bowling.
22. Buy a pedometer, clip it to your belt, and aim for an extra 1,000 steps a day. On average, sedentary people take only 2,000 to 3,000 steps a day. Adding 2,000 steps will help you maintain your current weight and stop gaining weight; adding more than that will help you lose weight.
23. Put less food out and you’ll take less in. Conversely, the more food in front of you, the more you’ll eat—regardless of how hungry you are. So instead of using regular dinner plates that range these days from 10 to 14 inches (making them look empty if they’re not heaped with food), serve your main course on salad plates (about 7 to 9 inches wide). Instead of 16-ounce glasses and oversized coffee mugs, return to the old days of 8-ounce glasses and 6-ounce coffee cups.
24. Eat 90 percent of your meals at home. You’re more likely to eat more—and eat more high-fat, high-calorie foods—when you eat out than when you eat at home. Restaurants today serve such large portions that many have switched to larger plates and tables to accommodate them.
healthy-changes-lean-portion-01-ss25. Serve food on your plate instead of on platters. If you eat your dinner restaurant style on your plate rather than family style, helping yourself from bowls and platters on the table, you’ll lose weight. Most of us tend to eat an average of 150 percent more calories in the evening than in the morning. You’ll avoid that now because when your plate is empty, you’re finished; there’s no reaching for seconds.
26. Don’t eat with a large group. A study published in the Journal of Physiological Behavior found that we tend to eat more when we eat with other people, most likely because we spend more time at the table. But eating with your significant other or your family, and using table time for talking in between chewing, can help cut down on calories.
27. Order the smallest portion of everything. If you’re out and ordering a sub, get the 6-inch sandwich. Buy a small popcorn, a small salad, a small hamburger. Again, studies find we tend to eat what’s in front of us, even though we’d feel just as full on less.
28. Eat water-rich foods and you’ll eat fewer calories overall. A body of research out of Pennsylvania State University finds that eating water-rich foods such as zucchini, tomatoes, and cucumbers during meals reduces your overall calorie consumption. Other water-rich foods include soups and salads. You won’t get the same benefits by just drinking your water, though. Because the body processes hunger and thirst through different mechanisms, it simply doesn’t register a sense of fullness with water (or soda, tea, coffee, or juice).
29. Bulk up your meals with veggies. You can eat twice as much pasta salad loaded with veggies like broccoli, carrots, and tomatoes for the same calories as a pasta salad sporting just mayonnaise. Same goes for stir-fries, omelets, and other veggie-friendly dishes. If you eat a 1:1 ratio of grains to veggies, the high-fiber veggies will help satisfy your hunger before you overeat the grains.
iStock/Thinkstock
30. Avoid white foods. There is some scientific legitimacy to today’s lower-carb diets: Large amounts of simple carbohydrates from white flour and added sugar can wreak havoc on your blood sugar and lead to weight gain. While avoiding sugar, white rice, and white flour, however, you should eat plenty of whole-grain breads and brown rice. One Harvard study of 74,000 women found that those who ate more than two daily servings of whole grains were 49 percent less likely to be overweight than those who ate the white stuff.
31. Switch to ordinary coffee. Fancy coffee drinks from trendy coffee joints often pack several hundred calories, thanks to whole milk, whipped cream, sugar, and sugary syrups. A cup of regular coffee with skim milk has just a small fraction of those calories. And when brewed with good beans, it tastes just as great. You can also try nonfat powdered milk in coffee. You’ll get the nutritional benefits of skim milk, which is high in calcium and low in calories. And, because the water has been removed, powdered milk doesn’t dilute the coffee the way skim milk does.
32. If you’re going to indulge, choose fat-releasing foods. They should help keep you from feeling deprived and binging on higher-calorie foods. For instance: honey has just 64 fat releasing calories in one tablespoon. Eggs have just 70 calories in one hard-boiled egg, loaded with fat releasing protein. Part-skim ricotta cheese has just 39 calories in one ounce, packed with fat releasing calcium. Dark chocolate has about 168 calories in a one-ounce square, but it’s packed with fat releasers. And a University of Tennessee study found that people who cut 500 calories a day and ate yogurt three times a day for 12 weeks lost more weight and body fat than a group that only cut the calories. The researchers concluded that the calcium in low-fat dairy foods triggers a hormonal response that inhibits the body’s production of fat cells and boosts the breakdown of fat.
33. Enjoy high-calorie treats as the accent, not the centerpiece Make a spoonful of ice cream the jewel and a bowl of fruit the crown. Cut down on the chips by pairing each bite with lots of chunky, filling fresh salsa, suggests Jeff Novick, director of nutrition at the Pritikin Longevity Center & Spa in Florida. Balance a little cheese with a lot of fruit or salad.

34. Eat cereal for breakfast five days a week. Studies find that people who eat cereal for breakfast every day are significantly less likely to be obese and have diabetes than those who don’t. They also consume more fiber and calcium—and less fat—than those who eat other breakfast foods. Make oatmeal, or pour out a high-fiber, low-sugar cereal like Total or Grape Nuts.
35. Try hot sauce, salsa, and Cajun seasonings They provide lots of flavor with no fat and few calories, plus they turn up your digestive fires, causing your body to temporarily burn more calories. Choose them over butter and creamy or sugary sauces.
36. Eat fruit instead of drinking fruit juice. For the calories in one kid-size box of apple juice, you can enjoy an apple, orange, and a slice of watermelon. These whole foods will keep you satisfied much longer than that box of apple juice, so you’ll eat less overall.
37. Drop your milk type and you cut calories by about 20 percent. If you drink regular, go to 2%. If you already drink 2%, go down another notch to 1% or skim milk. Each step downward cuts the calories by about 20 percent. Once you train your taste buds to enjoy skim milk, you’ll have cut the calories in the whole milk by about half and trimmed the fat by more than 95 percent.
38. Snack on a small handful of nuts. Studies have found that overweight people who ate a moderate-fat diet containing almonds lost more weight than a control group that didn’t eat nuts. Snacking once or twice a day helps stave off hunger and keeps your metabolism stoked. You can also pack up baby carrots or your own trail mix with nuts, raisins, seeds, and dried fruit.
39. Get most of your calories before noon. Studies find that the more you eat in the morning, the less you’ll eat in the evening. And you have more opportunities to burn off those early-day calories than you do to burn off dinner calories.
40. Brush your teeth after every meal, especially dinner. That clean, minty freshness will serve as a cue to your body and brain that mealtime is over.

Monday 10 November 2014

10 Best Low Carb Diet Tips by Julian Bakery

 1)  Start Off Properly
When starting a low carb diet, make sure you complete your due diligence and know what you are getting yourself into.  There are a lot of low carb myths out there that could potentially ruin any attempt at losing weight, or even worse compromise your health.  Find out as much as you can about each low carb program so that you can pick the one that you think is best for you.  Learn the difference between simple and complex carbohydrates, and which foods contain each type.  Discover what ketosis is, and how to achieve a ketosis state.  When initially starting a low carb diet, your body will go through some major metabolic changes.  There are some great references like this one that will help you cope with these changes and adjust your diet as necessary. 
2) Don’t Give Up
Starting a low carb diet is not always easy for everyone.  Some people may experience physical differences that will indicate that there are adjustments that need to be made.
Many people completely cut carbs from their diet and then experience fatigue and irritability within the first week.  These types of unpleasant responses made by your body often times cause people to discontinue their diet attempt.  By easing yourself into the diet and learning about these changes before they happen, you can preemptively avoid problems or quickly  resolve them to keep you on track.      
 3)  Eat Enough Fruit and Vegetables
A common misconception about low carb dieting is that because fruit and vegetables contain carbs, they shouldn’t be eaten.  Avoiding fruits and vegetables in the long term could have some serious health repercussions.  You’re better off thinking of fruit and vegetables as the basis of your diet.  The micronutrients in fruits and vegetables will help you prevent fatigue throughout the day.  Learn which fruits and vegetables are the best during low-carb dieting.
 4)  Eat Enough Fiber
Cutting carbs usually means that you’re cutting fiber from your diet as well.  Additionally, because fiber is considered a carbohydrate many people stay away from it on a low carb diet.  It is important to know that fiber is not digested like other carbohydrates and therefore not counted in total carb intake. Fiber plays a major role in digestion health, so knowing these facts before you start a low carb diet can prevent issues in the long run.  By eating enough fruits and vegetables, your fiber intake will remain sufficient.  Julian Bakery Smart Carb #1 is a perfect food for low carb and high fiber intake. If you eat gluten free, check out Smart Carb GF #3.  There are other great low carb, high fiber foods that can be utilized during low carb dieting to maintain a high fiber intake.
 5)  Count Calories
In addition to counting your carbohydrate intake, it is also a good idea to keep track of how many calories you are eating as well.  Low carb dieters often have the misconception that they can eat as much as they want, and as long as it’s all low carb food, they will still lose weight.  We must keep in mind that other macronutrients, if eaten in abundance, will also be stored as fat.  It is important to stay tuned to your appetite.  Only eat if you feel hungry and stop eating when you feel satiated.
 6)  Plan Your Diet
One of the biggest issues that dieters experience is not planning their meals.  By having diet friendly foods on hand and packing your lunch, you will avoid referring back to bad habits.  Before starting your diet, cleanse your kitchen of foods that do not fit into the diet and replace them with foods that do.  Surrounding yourself with healthy food is a great way to develop better eating habits.  Nothing is worse than being hungry, not knowing what to eat, and settling for the drive through.
 Always have Julian Bakery bread in your refrigerator, order 6 loaves today and take advantage of our summer shipping promotion.
 7)  Mix It Up
When dieting, it is very easy to pick a handful of meals that work and stick to eating the same ones every week.  This is a sure-fire way to get bored of your diet.  It is important to eat a variety of foods so that you don’t become a slave to the same foods.  Different foods offer different nutrients and combine to provide a well-balanced diet.  Do not settle for food you
don’t like just because it fits into your diet.  It is possible to still eat your favorite meals, just look for the low carb versions.
 8)  Monitor Ingredients
Some ingredients used to replace sugar and starch should be completely avoided.  Low carb or sugar free meal replacement and dessert products are often red flags for dangerous ingredients like maltitol, xylitol, and sorbitol.  These sugar alcohols are actually carbohydrates that are not completely absorbed and can ferment in the intestines causing bloating, gas, or diarrhea.
 9)  Avoid The Carb ‘Ramp Up’
After successfully losing weight on a low carb diet, it is easy to begin adding small amounts of carbs back into your diet.  Some people seem to do it as a reward for successfully losing weight, others do it subconsciously. Either way, continuously cheating on your diet will increase carb cravings and eventually cause weight gain.  Dieting should be thought of more as a lifestyle change, or else it could result in a vicious cycle of weight gain that becomes tough to break.
 Keep your carbs low with Julian Bakery’s Smart Carb Bread!
10)  Exercise
There is a very common misconception that if you are on a low carb diet, you don’t have to exercise.  Many people can be successful at losing weight while staying sedentary.  However, I can not stress enough how important exercise is for more than just losing weight.  Exercise increases metabolism, improves cardiovascular and respiratory health, as well as improves overall sense of well-being.  Whether dieting or not, exercise is a very good lifestyle habit to form

Sunday 9 November 2014

How to Eat Out Low-Carb by Cathy Leman

It's easy to monitor what ends up on your plate and in your mouth when you're cooking at home. Dining out presents new challenges. Many restaurants, though, have begun to pay attention to diet trends and help customers eat more healthfully. You'll find some menu choices marked with special icons designating healthier choices. Just remember, what you want to do is include more healthy carbohydrates in your diet, not eliminate most carbohydrates.
A few tips for low-carb dining. Meat, poultry, and seafood do not contain carbohydrate-none whatsoever. The same goes for most types of cheeses. But even those cheeses that do have carbohydrate, such as feta, have very small amounts.
Keep cholesterol and saturated fat levels in check by ordering lean cuts of red meat, choosing poultry and fish more often, and limiting the amount of cheese. Dishes that are heavy in animal protein and smothered in cream sauce or cheese may be low in carbohydrate, but they're certainly not heart healthy.
Instead order dishes that have more vegetables-or order more vegetables as side dishes-since vegetables naturally contain very low amounts of carbohydrates. And don't shy away from fruit: The carbohydrates in fruit come with lots of nutrients. Whole-grain and bean-based dishes provide fiber, protein, and healthy carbs. And as always, keep portion sizes in check. When it comes to weight gain, it's how many calories you take in. If you consume more calories than you need, you will gain weight.
There certainly is a lot to consider when you're dining out. In this article, we'll tell you how to go to various types restaurants -- from American and Mediterranean to Asian and Italian -- and enjoy your meals while ensuring that you keep your carbs in order. We'll start with American food.
Low-Carb American FoodIf you're not a particularly adventurous eater or live in an area with few ethnic restaurant choices, good old American standbys probably make up the majority of your meals. Use these pointers to include the carbohydrates so crucial for energy and overall good health while maintaining the variety so critical to success and changing eating habits for the better.
Order red meat less often. You've heard this before but may not know why it's recommended. Red meat has the same amount of protein as poultry and fish, but (depending on the cut) it has much more saturated fat and cholesterol. Poultry and fish do have cholesterol, but in lower amounts. We make all the cholesterol we need in our livers, so try not to add excess cholesterol in your diet. Lower-fat cuts of beef include eye of the round, top round, round tip, top sirloin, bottom round, top loin, and tenderloin. It may be difficult to locate these cuts on restaurant menus, so if they're not available, order the smallest, leanest cut you can find (or poultry, fish, or seafood in its place), and concentrate on always serving the "skinny" cuts at home.
Have sauces and dressings served on the side. They add flavor and very few carbs but lots of calories and saturated fat. Use the "dip" method: Dip (not dunk!) your fork into the sauce or dressing before spearing a bite of food to get the full flavor of the sauce in smaller, less damaging doses.
©2006 Publications International, Ltd. Ordering dishes that contain a lot of vegetables is a key to healthy dining.
Double up on vegetables and salads. Instead of having protein as the center of your meal, push it to the side (unless of course it's vegetable-based protein such as soy or beans), and load up on green, yellow, orange, and red foods. Don't skimp on the veggies! They're naturally low carb, full of flavor and nutrients, and guaranteed to fill you up, not out. Vegetables don't have to be flavorless; just avoid drowning them in butter, cheese, or cream sauce. Look for (or ask for) vegetables that are roasted, sauted with herbs, prepared with olive oil, or prepared with garlic. If the dish you're ordering doesn't come with a vegetable you like, scan the menu for one you do. Ask the server to substitute a different veggie from another dish. Restaurants are usually more than happy to oblige.
Don't make bread "the meal before the meal." You don't have to forgo the bread basket, just don't overdo it. If you just can't stop at one piece, select the darkest, most hearty-looking piece in the basket and ask the waitstaff to remove the rest. Eat your piece of bread when you most enjoy it-on its own while waiting for your dinner, as an accompaniment to your salad, or with your main meal. Then savor every bite. As a rule, foccacia-type breads are higher in fat and calories. The plainer the item, the fewer calories, fat, sodium, and other additives there are.
Don't skip dessert. There's no reason to skip dessert, but there's also no reason to consume a piece of chocolate cake large enough to feed several people. You need a strategy. Remember the tips from earlier in this chapter about including fruit as dessert? Now's the time to use them. First, scan the menu for anything that's fruit-based-even if it's pie. You can always eat just the fruit and the bottom crust. Sorbet with fruit, a fruit crumble or crisp, or even an apple tart all contribute some nutrients. And they're all healthier than a bowl of chocolate mousse, which is primarily fat and sugar. Second tip: share!
If Asian food is your thing, the next section will be of particular interest.