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!

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!