It’s the time of year when many of us will be spending more time socializing with family, friends, and co-workers. Those who are throwing the party or invited you over are going to feel obligated to offer you food, and it’ll likely be foods that you’re trying to avoid. Food Pushers are going to be around every corner, so you need to know what to do in advance so that you can enjoy yourself, but keep your lifestyle and diet on track.

• You’re invited to happy hour … Your friends and co-workers are going to want you to enjoy a cocktail with them, but it’s not hard to get out of this one. If you must drink, choose a low calorie beer or wine spritzer. Then just babysit the drink all night long!
• Your spouse, partner, boyfriend or girlfriend … If they’re not watching their calories, they’ll probably want to indulge with your company. One way to solve this is to get them involved in eating healthy too, but allow one day where you two can indulge together.
• Boss bought lunch at the office… and it wouldn’t be polite to not show up. Eat a healthy snack in the middle of the morning so you aren’t so hungry, and then eat a few bites of what they’ve bought.
• The in-laws invite you over for a calorie filled, high-fat dinner… Offer to bring a dish to pass, and make it something you’ll feel comfortable eating. Then just take small portions of what they offer and eat a bite or two.
• You’re on a date… and your date takes you to a nice restaurant where he wants to impress you. Telling him you’re on a diet may not be such a great idea if you don’t know each other well, so either order something healthy for yourself, or make up an excuse like you ate a late lunch. Then he’ll be understanding when you just nibble on the five course meal he ordered for you.

Source: AOL Body

Remember Jared, the guy who lost lots of weight eating Subway sandwiches all the time? Well, now there’s someone else who took the same approach and  lost weight by eating burritos everyday from Chipotle , the McDonalds owned “Mexican” Grill. Now here’s the thing, if you select a low-fat 6-inch sub from Subway like Turkey or even Ham, it’s somewhat healthy (lower in calories, low in fat) so I can see why Jared lost weight. The problem with Justin Hall who went on the Chipotle Burrito diet is that the burrito he eats every single day has 1,330 calories. He says it fills him up for a long time and the rest of the day he just eats fruits and salad. It’s working for him, he’s lost 40 pounds so far, but eating one calorie dense meal each day just doesn’t sound like it will be good for his long-term health and weight.

One big component to maintaining a healthy lifestyle and losing weight is exercise.  Justin has not added any type of exercise to his plan — he just sticks to eating the daily burrito. On one hand, his method isn’t ideal, but on the other hand, he is losing weight that could bring him down to a weight where he’d have more energy to exercise. Should he be encouraged to continue it because he is losing weight, or is he better off trying to change his habits all around that will give him sustainable success?

My thought is that he’d be better off trying to change his habits, ditching the burrito, and incorporating exercise into his daily life – but at least he’s trying. Once he decides he’s had enough burritos and stops the fad diet, he’ll likely go back to old habits and gain the weight back. What he’s eating just doesn’t sound like something that would be good in the long run for anybody. If I had to pick between the Subway diet and the Chipotle diet, I’d definitely pick Subway.

Source: Diet Blog

We all know that most of what fast food restaurants offer are loaded with fat, calories, sodium, and other things that are bad for our health. Given that, I think you’ll be surprised at some of the “fast food shockers” we’re going to talk about today. I came across this information on AOL’s Body site where they had a quiz called “Test Your Fast Food knowledge” So here we go…

Which has the fewest calories?

A. Big Mac
B. Grilled Chicken Club
C. 20 McNuggets
D. Large Fries

Answer: Big Mac – That’s right, a Bic Mac  with 540 calories has fewer calories than a grilled chicken club.

Which has the most calories?

A. Corn muffin
B. Glazed doughnut
C. French Toastix
D. Egg McMuffin

Answer: A corn muffin has the most- 500 calories! 

How many calories are in a packet of Wendy’s honey mustard dressing?

A. 80
B. 180
C. 280
D. 380

Answer: 280

A Whopper with cheese has how many fat grams?

A. 17
B. 27
C. 37
D. 47

Answer: 47

Which pizza topping adds the most calories?

A. Onion
B. Sausage
C. Green Pepper
D. Mushroom

Answer: Sausage

Which Taco Bell item has the most calories?

A. Taco Salad
B. Soft Taco
C. Gordita
D. Chalupa

Answer: Taco Salad

When you’re trying to lose weight, it helps to know what it takes to drop a pound — the specifics. The information I’m going to share with you today is just the simple basics behind weight loss. To start with, we need to know the calorie deficit that it will take to drop one pound. Any guesses? The answer is 3,500. If you have a deficit of 3,500 calories, you will drop one pound. Given that, now we need to talk about how you cut out 3,500 calories in a healthy way over a realistic amount of time — a week.

• Cut 500 calories each day
• Increase your activity to burn an extra 500 calories each day
• Cut 250 calories each day and increase your physical activity to burn an extra 250 calories each day

By choosing one of the methods above, you should be able to drop about one pound per week which is certainly an attainable goal. So now you might need a few ideas to increase your activity or cut calories from your diet. Here are a few suggestions:

Increase activity by:

• Doing an extra 20-30 minutes of cardio exercise per day
• Clean your house – yes, washing windows and vacuuming actually burns calories
• Turn off the TV and go for a brisk walk
• Yard work- mow the grass, weed, water plants, etc.

Cut calories by:

• Start using smaller plates- you’ll likely eat less
• Eat slowly – you’ll enjoy your food and give your brain time to tell you when you’re full
• Snack Smart – cut out the chips, soda and ice cream and replace it with a healthy snack like fresh veggies
• Cut the salad dressing – switch from using a creamy dressing to using a good quality extra virgin olive oil and vinegar, or try squeezing a fresh lemon or lime over it

I’d really like to think that I am always mindful when I eat, and I gauge my fullness by how I feel and not by how much food I have left sitting on my plate, but I’m not sure that’s always the case.  A recent study found that people eat more with their eyes than they do with their stomachs, and use the amount of food remaining on their plate or in their bowl to determine if they’ve had enough to eat.

So how did they go about performing this study to determine that people used visual clues instead of clues given by their brains that signaled they were full? They used a specially rigged “bottomless” bowl of soup! This is how it worked:

Four people would sit at a table for 20 minutes, each eating from an 18-ounce bowl of tomato soup.  The catch was that two of the bowls would never get empty, thanks to tubing running from the bowls to a six-quart vat of soup hidden under the tables.

The results? Well, those who ate from the normal bowls of soup each ate about 9 ounces while those with the bottomless bowls ate about 15 ounces of soup. When asked to estimate how many calories were consumed, those with the normal bowl guessed 123 when in reality it was 155. Those with the bottomless bowls estimated that they ate about 127 calories when in reality they ate about 268 calories worth. Certainly this would be considered mindless eating.

Reading this study was a great reminder of how important it is to pay attention to the signals that our bodies give us that tell us when we’re full. It was also a great reminder for me that when I eat, I shouldn’t be doing anything else like watching TV, or talking on the phone, or whatever else I do to multitask when I eat. The next time you sit down for a meal, stop to think about how you determine when you’re full and if you use those important clues from your brain, or if you’re the type to just clean your plate and eat everything on it.

Source: Retuers

Are you being realistic with the weight-loss goal that you set for yourself? Being realistic is one of the most important things to take into consideration when you’re setting your goals. If your goals are unrealistic, you’re likely to fail. You deserve to achieve the goals that you have made for yourself, so set yourself up for success! If you weigh 210 pounds and your goal is to weigh 110 pounds in six months, it’s not going to happen. Realize that you should only lose about two pounds per week for healthy weight loss.

According to the Mayo clinic, to lose weight, cutting back on calories is needed.  Below is a table that shows what your daily calorie goals should be, based upon your weight, if you want to lose weight:

Eliminating breakfast to save yourself calories for the rest of the day is one of the worst things you could do for yourself! What you’ll need to do is incorporate healthier foods into your diet that are lower in fat which means they’re lower in calories. Take out all the fast food and the junk processed foods and start eating fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and you’ll have no problem achieving your daily calorie goal, all while feeling satisfied!

When I first started losing weight, I dropped my calorie intake to about 1,200 calories as suggested and then I started eating healthy whole foods and started exercising. In no time, the weight started coming off and I was able to meet the realistic weight-loss goal that I had set for myself.

There are all kinds of mental things that you can do to help you lose weight like dealing with your emotional eating, preventing yourself from impulse eating, and getting rid of negative thoughts that bring you down. But there are also physical tools that can help you along the way as well.  Today I’m going to share with you three of the tools I use to help me lose weight and keep it off!

1. Scale – If you don’t have a scale, get one! It’s one of the most important things to have around the house no matter if you’re trying to lose weight or not. Sure, getting on it initially might be a challenge, but you need to do it.  Weighing yourself regularly will get you thinking about healthy behaviors.  I choose to weigh myself each morning after I wake up, and because I know that I do this every morning, I make better eating decisions throughout the day.
2. Measuring cups – There was an article posted over at the Diet Blog not that long ago that pointed out that those 100 calorie packs that you can buy at the store are double the price! You’re paying a premium price to have everything portioned out for you. Get yourself some measuring cups and do the portioning yourself, and you’ll save yourself some calories and money.
3. Table – Eat your meals sitting down and away from distractions! Right now I don’t have a table to eat at due to living in a small one bedroom apartment with no room for a table, and boy, do I miss it! Take the time to enjoy your meal sitting down at a table, and it’ll be much easier to practice mindful eating like we talked about yesterday.

I’m always looking for resources on the Internet that will help me to maintain my current weight which took so much work to get to. One website that I stumbled upon is www.calorieconnect.com which is a free online wellness center.    It would have been nice to find something like this about a year ago when I was counting calories like crazy, but that’s okay   They have a few different free services, but my favorite is their calorie counter.

With the calorie counter, all you have to do is start typing the name of a food that you have eaten, and it will instantly start pulling up results for you to choose from.  For example,  I was searching for wheat bread. After I was done typing in my search, it pulled up a list of different wheat bread items.  Then I could click the one that fit my search, and all of the dietary information is displayed from calories and fat to carbs and calcium.  The picture below shows what their calorie counter looks like.

Another option is to create a profile where you can keep track of nutrition and exercise targets.  I created a profile in just a couple of minutes.  You enter your age, sex, height, and weight, and then it calculates your BMI or your body mass index.  This is a very general indication of your weight status. For example, my normal BMI is between 108 and 146 pounds. 

After you’ve created a profile, you can create nutrition and exercise targets. This includes what your daily goals are for calories, fat, protein, calories burned, minutes exercised ,etc.  Each day you can enter in your values for each of them, and then you can track your progress and targets, and view 7 day and 30 day averages.

Part of the calorie counter includes recording the foods that you have eaten so that you can easily keep track.  Another nice feature is that you can add a custom food to the database, one that they don’t have but that you have the information for. Really, this entire site is about keeping track of the elements that will help you stay healthy, and lose weight.  I’ve found CalorieConnect very helpful, and hopefully you will too.

I’m one of those that tends to get into ruts with what I’m eating, which can get boring. For example, my most recent rut involved oatmeal for breakfast, and a banana, every single day for about 16 weeks. To get out of my rut, I’ve looked for other healthy alternatives. I don’t eat eggs of any kind, so that is never an option. Instead, I turned to smoothies. Here are a couple of the recipes I have come across:

— Mixed Berry Smoothie–

1/4 cup orange juice
1/2 cup plain, low-fat yogurt
1/6 cup washed, stemmed raspberries
1/6 cup washed, stemmed strawberries
1/6 cup washed, stemmed blueberries
4 ice cubes
Honey to taste

All you have to do is place all of the ingredients into a blender, and blend on high until it’s all smooth and delicious! Add honey if you’d like some sweetness.

–Oprah’s Fruit and Yogurt Breakfast–

1 container key lime pie Yoplait yogurt
1 mango, chopped
Blueberries
Chopped walnuts
4 ice cubes

Mix the yogurt, mango, blueberries and walnuts all together, and enjoy!

I lost weight by cutting calories, it was the only way I knew how. Dropping my caloric intake by 200-300 calories per day seamed doable to me, so that’s what I did. It worked. I counted calories religiously and made sure that I hovered around 1200 per day. I LOVED the foods that were healthy for me, but also were low-cal. Technically, there aren’t too many foods that are zero calorie when you intake them. But, the key is that they can still be zero calorie foods if they burn up more calories in the digestive process than what they originally started with. So, here’s the list of foods that are zero calorie foods, at least after digestion.

• Hot tea with Splenda (rumor has it that drinking tea can also help prevent other health related issues)
• Berries: strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries…. mmmmm.
• Crunchy Veggies: Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, brussel sprouts
• Egg whites prepared with non stick spray (great source of protein)
• Water: this is a no-brainer!
• Other: Garlic, spinach, papaya, onion, lettuce, cucumber, endive

What I love about these types of foods is the fact that you can eat a big helping and still feel good about yourself! There are lots of creative ways to prepare some of these foods to keep them figure friendly, good, and great for your health.