Weekends hard?

How do you do when it comes to the weekend? Is it a little hard to stay focused? What is your food fettish? Are you a chocolate lover (like me)? Or, is do you crave salty snacks? Or, is it a need for ice-cream?

Well... let's see... what do you do to keep from snacking all night long, all weekend long? I'll attempt to give you a couple of ideas to help you through this weekend.

First, have something like an apple, a piece of fruit or some carrot sticks BEFORE you run to the store to buy your groceries. :) Then, when you go to the grocery store, try to look for natural foods (fruits, vegetables). If that doesn't sound good, then at least try to purchase snacks or sweets that are low fat or low sugar. I try to fill the cupboards with pretzels or low-fat wheat crackers for my kids. Sherbet is also a good alternative to ice-cream. I also try to buy things that seem good (but healthy) for my kids, yet not tempting for myself.

Then, go ahead and keep drinking your water! Get some flavored water if that will help you feel like you're treating yourself to something sweet.

Finally, if you really want to have something "off your list" of approved diet foods, then try to treat yourself with a bite or two of someone else's serving. That way they can eat the rest before you're tempted further.

Good luck! Have a great weekend... enjoy something healthy and watch a great movie!

Water... your best drink option!

Hi! I've been quite busy this week, but thought I better take a few minutes to post another weight loss tip.

Water... this is what you should be drinking each and every day... at least 8 glasses (64 ounces total). More is even better. Other drink options include coffee and tea, preferably warm tea. You should use a sugar substitute rather than sugar. The best sugar substitute available is Xylotol. Do not count your cups of coffee or tea as part of your 64 ounces of water.

Start first thing in the morning with 8 ounces of water. This will help fill your stomach. Then, throughout the day keep a cup of water with you to sip.

Although you may think it's okay to drink diet soda, it's really not good for you. It actually causes you to be more thirsty as well as causing you to crave foods, especially sugars.

So, if you're craving some pop, just take a sip of a friends and then go back to your water. If you're bored with plain old water, then try some flavored water or sparkling water. I began the switch from pop to flavored water. That's the only way I managed to make the switch. Then, after a few months, I got tired of the sweet flavor of the water and actually preferred plain, crisp, cool water.

Good luck... have a drink (of water) on me tonight!

Remember, weight loss is possible. You can do it. Stay focused and take baby steps!

Best Veggies to Eat

During the main, strict portion of my plan I was very limited on the vegetables I could eat. Let me share the list with you:

Lettuce (darker leafed forms of lettuce is best)
Spinach
Onions
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Celery
Red radishes
Cabbage
Fennel
Asparagus
Chard
Chicory
Beet-greens

I listed the fully available vegetables, but I didn't personally like all those listed so for my 7 weeks of strict dieting, I was limited to lettuce, spinach, onions, cucumbers and celery. I had radishes once, but they're just not that exciting to me. :)

So, how much can/should you eat? Well, it was suggested that you eat one handful of one vegetable for lunch and one handful for supper. It has been suggested that you can eat larger quantities than one handful, if needed, of this list since they are lower in caloric value.

It is best to not have the same exact meal for lunch and supper in the same day. So, if you have beef and onions for lunch, then try to have chicken and lettuce or some other vegetable other than onion for supper.

So, go now and enjoy some great vegetables that are also good for you and your weight loss effort!

Track Your Weight Loss Success

Tracking your weight loss is helpful to keep you focused on the plan. It can also be another form of encouragement!

I started my Excel spreadsheet in 2001 - 4 diets ago. :) I've tracked weekly weight loss (and then gain) each time until I gave up... UNTIL this time.

This past year (July 2007) I started tracking for the fourth time on a new sheet in my Excel workbook file. I have the past diet losses to compare with, which is a bit fun.

You may be wondering what should be "tracked". Well, I weigh in (and record my weight) every Friday morning. I type in this weight in one column. I then have other columns give me some calculations to show how much I've lost during the past week, how much I've lost total since I started and the average pounds lost per week. I also have two more columns - the date and the total number of weeks I've been dieting. This time I also added one more column for the total percentage of body weight I've lost so far.

My stats this week are:
55 weeks completed, 88 pounds lost total, average of 1.6 pounds lost per week, lost 34.38% of my total weight since I started.

So, go ahead... begin a new tracking system whether it's in Excel or some other format. It's just good to have that weekly date to look forward to and also great to have a record of goals met and weight loss to be able to look back at and get encouraged!

Something else to track would be inches lost... more on that another time!

Grapefruits Help with Weight Loss!

Grapefruits are beneficial to quicker weight loss in the plan I've been following this past year. During the weeks that I was very limited in what I could eat, I needed to eat 1 grapefruit per day. Of course, not being a great fan of grapefruits, I sort of got burned out from eating them every day for 7 weeks, so I then started eating other fruits instead of grapefruit. However, my total weight loss per week started to slow down and I firmly believe it was partially attributed to the lack of grapefruit in my diet.

A great benefit of adding grapefruit to your diet is that researchers believe grapefruit reduces insulin levels, which help with weight loss. A high level of insulin indicates your body is not utilizing sugar for energy and the excess sugar can be converted and stored as fat on your body. High levels of insulin can also make people feel hungry even though they just ate! Studies indicate the consumption of grapefruit helps to lower the insulin levels, allowing the body to more effectively burn energy, increase the metabolic rate, and give us the feeling of being full.

So, add 1-2 grapefruits per day to your diet plan and enjoy a quicker metabolism and less hunger pangs!

Click here for a great fat loss plan!

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When Should You Weigh In?

Some people don't like stepping on the scale, so even when they begin a new diet they are tempted to just weigh in weekly. It has been said that once a week weigh-ins are not as effective as daily weigh-ins.

Through this past year, I have weighed myself every day. Daily weigh-ins help you stay on track from day to day. It also tends to help as another "accountability" factor, knowing that you'll be weighing yourself again tomorrow morning does help you refrain from that brownie that's staring you in the face tonight.

So, I highly advocate a daily weigh-in rather than weekly. But, when should you weigh yourself? Everything I've read shows that stepping on the scales first thing in the morning is the best time for weighing in. You should get out of bed, go to the bathroom and step on the scales. Do NOT drink a cup of coffee first, do NOT go get the newspaper and read it, do NOT eat breakfast. Weigh yourself FIRST! Then, go do whatever else it is you do in the mornings.

Every morning should be the same routine - get up, go to the bathroom, step on the scales. It's even more accurate if you do this at about the same time of day (6:00 am) each morning, but that's not always possible.

So, start following a simple morning pattern and get weighing in!

Until next time...

Roasted Vegetables - A Recipe Great for Dieters!

Veggies... how many of you like eating vegetables every day? I haven't been much of a veggie eater. There are few of them that I really like, and most that I do like aren't found on "diet" lists. :) Thus comes the challenge when trying a new weight loss/diet plan.

I've spent the past year on this new "eating plan", traditionally known as a diet. For me, it's a new way of living, a new way of eating. I have a list of vegetables that I can eat on a regular basis. Of course, it's not always easy to find ways to eat your veggies without overcooking them or just eating them raw all the time.

Well, my husband (the cook of the house) has come up with a couple ways to roast vegetables in the oven that is simply delicious! I ask for roasted veggies every night. My kids are kind of sick of them now, but I still love them.

Set your oven to 450 degrees. Spread out your vegetables (in our case, we usually do carrots or a combination of carrots and onions) on a 9 x 13 jelly roll pan. Pour 1-2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil over the veggies. Stir briefly, if needed. Sprinkle with seasonings (I'll list a few of my favorites). Bake for 30-40 minutes, stirring half way through. The carrots should look half wrinkled up with blackened edges to them. They should be tender to the touch, but not smooshy.

Season options include:

• Dill weed (best when roasting just carrots)
• Garlic powder (great on carrots or combination of veggies)
• Sea salt & pepper (great when including red onions, or when also including potatoe wedges for your family)

Be creative with your vegetable choices. We tried zucchini and onions the other night. The zucchini cooked a little too much, so it would probably be better to start with only the onions in the oven, then add the zucchini 10 minutes later.

Enjoy! Bon appetit!

How are you doing today with your diet?

Do you have trouble staying focused? Do you make it until about 3pm and then just want to go find the best candy bar in the vending machine? That sounds like me Thursday at work. You might be wondering how I handled myself. Well, for the past year now I've resisted the vending machine at work. I broke down on Thursday, however.

I've been focused for so long, but it's now getting a bit tougher. I needed chocolate... I grabbed some change and headed straight for the vending machine. Peanut M & M's were calling to me. I purchased them, opened them and stuck the first one in my mouth. Mmm! Then the next one slipped into my mouth.

Guilt began to come over me. I read the calorie count... 250 calories for the package. That's equal to 5 apples or 2-1/2 bananas! Yet much harder for my body to break down and process than fruit. Though the chocolate tasted good, I decided to compromise. I ate HALF the package, gave the remaining to my husband to eat. (Forgot he doesn't eat peanuts IN things.) He then kept the other half of the package for me to enjoy another day.

Just wanted to encourage you that even when you have a day that you begin to struggle, you can still make choices that may help you "enjoy" a little without totally falling off the wagon. So, keep up the good work... stay focused! And, remember if you're really doing this for YOU, you can do it!!! Picture yourself at your goal weight... you can do it!

The Best Day to "Start" Your Weight Loss Program

Many of us have had great plans to begin a new diet, right? We say, let's begin on January 1st - New Year's Resolution... or, we say, "Next Monday I'll start."

Well, many have studied this and found that it is harder to stick to your new plan faithfully when your weekly "weigh-in" day is MONDAY. You may do well all week then comes the weekend. Though you may finally have some relaxation time, the weekends can become quite long and difficult to stay focused on eating healthy. The next thing you know, you've cheated (more than once) and Monday morning has rolled around - "D-day"! It's time to weigh in. Now the scales show that you stayed the same or possibly even went UP. How depressing! Then you start your week down-trodden and before you know it you've completely given up on this whole diet thing.

Try something NEW... Pick you "weigh-in" day as FRIDAY! I have been doing this successfully for the past year now. It has allowed me to have the weekdays at the end leading directly into "weigh-in" day. Weekdays tend to be easier days to stay focused on the plan. So, Friday morning comes, you weigh in... and, have a successful reading - your weight actually goes DOWN. This then encourages you to stay focused throughout the weekend! And, if for some reason, you cheat a bit over the weekend, you still have 4 weekdays to stay back on track before "weigh-in" day rolls around again.

So, this time... start your new weight loss plan on FRIDAY!!! And... Good Luck!

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Here's a quick 10-day weight loss plan you may like to try today!

How to Lose Weight Quickly

Losing weight is hard, but there are ways to lose weight quickly with a little focus. Try a few of the following ideas.

• Stop drinking pop/soft drinks - there are a lot of empty calories that you take in with each can of pop. Just dropping pop can help you lose up to 1 pound per week. Pop also tends to make you hungrier and really doesn't quench your thirst.
  
• Drink at least 8 glasses of water per day - keeping your body hydrated is essential. Water also helps fill up your stomach so the hunger pangs during those difficult times throughout the day become less intense.
  
• Stop eating 3 hours before you go to bed - as the evening progresses, your metabolism slows down. It is best to not snack into the night, even if it's on something healthy. Plan on when you are going to go to bed and then think back 3 hours. Do not eat anything past that magical time of the evening. If it's hard, just keep drinking more water.

So, begin your weight loss today using these tips for a quick start!

It is Possible to Lose Weight Without Exercising!

Have you been wanting to lose weight? Are you mostly used to Yo-Yo dieting? That's been my life for the past 30 years. I would try one diet, then another. Each time I might lose some weight, but within a short amount of time I would give up and before I knew it I would gain all the weight back plus some extra pounds.

After having four kids, it was simply easier to just blame the pregnancies. I would joke about how happy I was at the size I was. Inside, I really wasn't happy. It was just too hard to lose the weight, and much harder to keep it off.

Last year I finally decided it was time again to try losing weight... and found something to stay focused on. It's been one year now... 88 pounds lost-to-date and still losing!

I will be sharing tips and tricks that I've used to lose my weight and to help me stay focused over the long haul.

Best news is I've lost it all without doing ANY form of exercise unless you count sitting on the couch enjoying Netflix in the evening. :)

I hope you'll visit my blog again to find out more!