Thursday, June 22, 2006

Winning Weight Loss Strategies

6 Ok, Time to take control of your favourite foods.

Don’t let your favourite foods prevent you from being your favourite size.

You are well aware of those wonderful foods you just looooooooove to eat?
What are your favourites?
Are any of them a problem for you when it’s a question of your weight?
Can you use another method of handling your favourites?

Look it’s not about not eating your favourite food. Eat for heavens sake but not whenever or in unlimited amounts. Smarten up with your eating!

You have two alternatives:

A Keep your favourite food and why not? But make sure that you have control not the food.

You need to find a way to limit yourself as to how often and much you eat each time.

You also need to ensure that it’s not easily accessible. Otherwise you will easily fall in to the it’s there so I’ll eat it trap.

So make sure that you don’t keep it at home in the pantry. If the others in the family eat the same tell them not to leave the temptation lying around the kitchen.

The more you see the ice cream or the bag of crisps, the more difficult to keep control.

  • Eat your favourite food on special occasions only. On your birthday or when you are invited. When you go to a restaurant. On Saturdays only. The upside is you appreciate your favourite more when you’re not eating it so often.

  • Buy smaller packs. Giant bags of chips, or gallons of ice cream. Oh it was reduced price. To hell with the reduced price. It's cheaper with one portion of expensive ice-cream than a gallon on sales. Keep the cookies at work (not by your desk, make it difficult to get to them) and bring a couple with you home to eat after dinner- I know, it might sound a bit silly, make sure it works for you.
  • Get the support from your family. Tell your family never to leave tempting food around. The more you see it the harder it will be to resist it.

B comes into play when you recognise that it is always the (chocolate, pasta with cheese sauce, ice cream or fries) that stop you from keeping the weight down and off.

Alternative A isn’t an alternative at al for you.

When you have finally made a decision you will be well surprised at how simple it all is.

You don’t need to count the calories or eat small portions- of all the food in the world there are only two or three things that you shouldn’t eat.

  • Make the decision that you don’t eat THAT” even in mini portions.

  • Refuse to feel sorry for yourself. There are loads of other foods you can eat so what does it matter what you have to distance yourself from? Tell yourself you are allergic to it or just tell yourself “this doesn’t do it for me”. Don’t pull the old I deserve a treat if that thought enters your head. Start thinking I deserve to be a size …

  • Avoid the temptations. Don’t look in the ice cream department. Don’t drool over others big Mac with double fries.

7 Don't feel ashamed. Learn from your mistakes.

There is one thing that is absolutely forbidden:

If you want to succeed in losing weight, never never ever say “I blew it” or “I failed”.

If you want to loose weight and stay that way then you have to learn from your mistakes and go on. Don’t loose your enthusiasm and console yourself with a giant portion of sticky cake and cream washed down with a full cream latte.

Just ask “What went wrong there? How can I do it better next time?”

(Treat life the same way)

Now if you have absolutely made a complete dunce of yourself and eaten loads of what you really shouldn’t have. Then immediately go into the twenty four hour treatment. Immediately. Secrets on weight loss...

The twenty four hour remedy:

1 Stop blaming yourself.
You are only human after all.Yeh ok it was wrong. But it’s not the end of the world is it?

2 Don’t give up and sigh what you know you mustn’t say. Don’t push the double milk shake down just because you think you have failed. Stop there you have the twenty four hour remedy to help.

3 Immediately make a strategy for the rest of the day. What are you going to eat the rest of the day? Force yourself to write a menu. Choose only the food that you like and that is hopefully healthy.

Don’t hop over meals don’t even reduce the amount a little just to get out weigh your over eating. In fact don’t bother just carry on as if it hadn’t happened.

4 Write down what you are going to eat tomorrow. Make sure you have the ingredients at home.

5 Give yourself a short mental lesson before the next confrontation with the type of food you have just indulged in.

Think about how you are going to feel and think and what you answer for example when you smell the pizza. Hmm it smells great. I can see that tasty pizza.

Tell yourself, it doesn’t do it for me to eat pizza. That’s whets made me overweight. Say it until your reply ability is dead tired of it. The brain reacts by being tired of the sight and smell s that tempt you.

6 Stick to the menu!

7 When you wake up next day be aware that your taste buds are now in overdrive. When they start shouting out after sugar or fast carbs let them. That is your hang over.

8 Start the day with 15-20 minutes exercise. That will strengthen you at least physically.

9 Go through your eating plan for today. Make sure that it’s food you really like so that you don’t go through PMS “poor me syndrome”

10 Important. Don’t under eat. It’s important to regain control don’t be afraid if the scales show a kilo or two extra. If you ate extra carbs and salt it will be soaked in water by the body. It will disappear.

11 Eat an extra main meal. Eat four main meals plus an in-between instead of the usual three plus. Have it when you need it most usually late afternoon.

12 Don’t go shopping for food.

13 Keep busy. Meet friends. Go to the pictures, think of other things than food...

24 hours has gone and your back on track. Well done

8 Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

If you want to loose weight it’s not enough just to change your eating habits. You have to change the way you think. Get your mind right!

It is essential if you want to loose weight and keep it off that you learn to think differently.

It wont work if you start to feel sorry for yourself.

"Poor me I don’t want to starve myself to death. I can't chomp as much as I want.
I have to stay away from French fries, cream, chocolate and jummy cakes."

It won't work either if you are continually comparing yourself to others. "How is it she can eat all those cakes and not put on weight? How come he can eat a whole sirloin, fries and béarnaise sauce and never get fat?"

This is about YOU and your life and your body. What do you think is more important to get to eat without restrictions or to be really bloody healthy and have a body and soul you are happy and can live with? Your choice!

Talk to yourself like this, instead of defending your habit. I have been eating like this for so many years and it hasn’t made me happier only fatter.

Quick fix for the craving
  • Take a throat lozenge of menthol and eucalyptus. Within five minutes it’s taken hold of your taste buds and the smell of pizza is far less attractive.

  • Don’t go hungry. Eat at least every third or fourth hour. The bodies “eat immune” defence keeps the unwanted temptations away.

Make sure you get the most from your calorie budget

Lets get something straight from the start. You can not continue to eat what you want and as much as you want, stay happy, healthy and keep the body size you would like!

That’s a fact and make sure you take it in.

Food is like money. You have a limited budget and it’s important that you get as much as possible from the resources available.

You may choose to throw your calorie budget at fast food and quick kicks.

Or you can use your calorie budget wisely to get all you need to feel great, look fabulous, and get the luxurious benefits with the perceived value for money.

Try this;

  • Look for food that has few calories but lots of taste.

  • Look for nutrition that burns more fat than others.

  • Find a healthy alternative to your favourite food.

  • Avoid the food and the habits that continually bust your budget.

Great Budget tips

1. Choose food that burns lots of fat. All food contains calories but during digestion they also burn calories. Lean meat needs more calories to digest than it contains. Give priority to fish, egg whites, fibre and crustaceans...Read the book "Negative Calories" and learn how you can loose weight by eating. It gives you tasty and simple recipes to help you reach your goal weight and maintain it.

2. Prioritise food that makes the fat cells work harder. Dairy products and cinnamon.

3. Find tasty replacements. More often than not you can find products that taste just as good and often better. Take the time to find them.

4. Eat food that gives a feeling of being full. Fish and crustaceans are in first place followed closely by boiled potatoes.

5. Go for grapefruit and pineapple. Science has no idea why but it’s clear that these two fruits eaten regularly with the rest of your diet greatly assist in weight reduction.

10 Remember the past but keep your weight in the future.

Loosing weight is the easy bit. Keeping it off is the difficult bit. This is the bit where you learn success.

When you are trying to loose weight it’s a dilemma. In the beginning, you feel lousy. You are not at all happy with your body. Then you start to drop a few pounds (kilos), the compliments start coming in. You feel satisfied. At last you have succeeded.

You have reached your target weight and you don’t need to loose any more. You start to be used to your mirror image. No compliments about how fresh and slim you look any more, people are used to you. This is when it starts to get difficult.

This is when it’s so easy to let it all slip and get back to your old ways.

Make sure that the way there was worth the effort. It’s a life long process. Get the secret of the "Tibetan Rites" to help you on the way!

Understand that even if you've gotten rid of the weight your vulnerability is there. You still have the same weaknesses. It’s still easy to fall into your old ways.

Get rid of your old fat clothes. Sling them out now!

Give yourself an ideal weight. Because your weight always varies don’t worry about any change until you have increased your weight by 1.5 kilos and you’ve
kept it for three weeks or more. Now you need to act to get back. Need some extra help on the way?

Weigh yourself on the "Hold my weight scales"
Ask yourself once a week the following questions:

1. Have I started to eat food or snacks that I ate too much of in the past?

2. Am I loosing my grip on the strategies of how I live and plan?

3. Have I started to eat too much of the good food?

4. Have I started picking again?

5. Do I still weigh myself as often as I should?

6. Do I have problem food at home?

7. Have I started to hop over meals. Do I go more tan four hours without eating/

8. Are my clothes feeling tight?

9. Do I allow my feelings to rule how I eat?

10. Do I not bother with exercise?

Good Luck!

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Wednesday, June 21, 2006

10 Winning Weight Loss Strategies

It always amazes me that after all these years of expert advise from Atkins, Gullo, Jane Fonda, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers and so on that we are still asking how do I get my weight to an acceptable level, keep it there and feel bloody good about myself.

I reckon I have read and seen the most on the art of loosing weight. Partly because of my own body and the dilemmas I put it through in my hedonistic life.

Like most of us I have succeeded countless times in loosing weight.
Several kilos lots of times!
8 kilos in three months.
8 kilos in three weeks.
I was fantastic at it. Then up it went and again and again and again.

Now without blowing my own trumpet too much. There are loads of things that I’m pretty bloody good at. I manage most tasks I undertake with relative ease. How is it then that I, like almost all of us, have difficulty in keeping my weight in check?

So I spent some time reading “the Experts” and amongst them I found Stephen Gullo.
In he blew like a breath of fresh air amongst all the red and green dots, calorie and GI tables, and carbs and fat phobias!

I found out there is nothing wrong with our characters! We don’t have the correct strategies!

“You can eat as much as you want of anything” say some. “Bullshit” says Gullo.

Many people are overweight all of their lives because of one or two specific things they always fall down on. For example chocolate or pizza. We can as easy as pie fix our weight problems as long as we don’t take the first bite of that type of food.

But as we pointed out before “you must get your head right”. You don’t need more character. You don’t need a strong will either. You just need a strategy that works. Just learn from your mistakes and see the patterns for yourself.


1
The only character you need is the character to get a plan


There are, as a general rule seven situations where you eat.

  • At home
  • At work
  • At restaurants, fast-food outlets and cafes.
  • At friends and relatives
  • When you travel
  • On holidays
  • At parties and special holidays. Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving etc.

You meet the same food and the same temptations every time! Now.

Identify your food pattern

1. Make a note of where it is you make a pig of yourself.
2.
Make a note of where you don’t.
As a rule the cause of being overweight is that you eat too much of just a few things. You know, extra sauce, chips, pizza, lots of cheese or sweets and chocolate.
Write ‘em down.
3.
Make a note of what excuses you use to “stuff your face”. Go on be honest write ‘em down.
4.
How would you like your mind to be?
Now you can be strict with your answer.
Can you see the pattern emerging?

Ok you have identified the problem food and the problem situations. The next step is instead of weighing yourself every day. Once a week ask yourself the following:

Swap the scales for these questions

1. Am I eating every third or fourth waking hour? A meal or a good between meals snack?
2. Am I planning my eating? Do I ensure that there is good healthy food at home? Have I got my mind right before I put myself in “food temptation situations”? Don’t go to them feeling hungry! Eat a little before you leave.
3. Avoid the food you have weakness for. The ones that you always eat too much of.
4. Know the difference between how you feel and hunger. Avoid eating for consolation that you had a bad day at work. Or that you are angry or sad. This has nothing to do with food and it resolves nothing.
5. Make sure that you don’t buy “problem food” to take home. (The stuff that tempts you most).
6. Make sure you have eaten enough of the right food, lean meat, fruit and vegetables.
7. Keep an eye on the hidden calories. Yeh you know the salad dressing the sauces. Ask for side dishes at restaurants.
8. Remind yourself this is about giving yourself a happier and healthier life not about the misuse of food.

The result of asking yourself these questions is you will quickly be aware that you haven’t started to fall back into your old habits.

2 Your history of eating is more important than the calories!

Your food impression is personal, like your fingerprints.

You over eat time and time again exactly the same way. The same food, the same frame of mind, the same place for the same old reasons.

You had a bad day at work. Buy a bag of toffees or chips or crisps (whatever you call ‘em, in the UK they are crisps.). Stop off and take a couple of drinks, “just to take the edge off the day”. Grab a bag of cakes and biscuits or cookies, sit in front of the TV and eat on auto pilot until they are gone!

And you know which food triggers off over eating!
Take out the cheese plate and you can’t stop. Or it’s a bag of peanuts, chocolate.
Grab a bag of crisps and you eat the whole bag. (Always the giant size too eh?) Take a biscuit or cookie and you’ll eat at least seven.

So when do you over eat? What triggers it?

1.
Make a note of the grub you eat often and lots of.
2. What time of the day is it?
3. When do you overeat?
When you are: Angry, Stressed, Bored, Happy, Sad, Alone. What about here: Parties, Cinema, Self service, Restaurants, or when you are drinking Alcohol? Maybe all of them?

Solutions:

1.
Stop eating peanuts or whatever else triggers your overeating.
2. Replace your food trigger with something else. You probably cannot eat just one cookie in the afternoon but have no problem with just one portion of chocolate mousse. Of course there are more calories in the mousse than in one single cookie but there are loads more calories in ten cookies than one portion of mousse.
3. Try to put a limit on yourself. Buy a small bag of crisps not the giant family size. When it’s gone. It’s gone. Don’t for crying out loud eat straight from the ice cream tub. Serve yourself a portion in a bowl so that you know how much you have. (OK I know it’s not easy, I do it myself).

3 Recognise that sometimes it’s the fault of the food not yours!

Oops! What happened? Your sitting there with a whole one litre of empty ice cream package in front of you. Suddenly you’re wondering what have I done?

You sigh! I have no discipline. I have no will. I must have some sort of eating disorder.

Stop Right There. It’s more than likely the food’s fault not yours!

Research shows that certain foods influence the brains chemistry. It varies enormously from person to person.
Your friend Malin who eats two spoons of ice cream then says no thanks that’s enough doesn’t need to be a person with stronger strength of character or will power.
Her body just is less receptive chemically for certain tastes and substances in food.

If your body has inherited a sensitivity for say sweet things and you eat sweet things at a certain time (when your hungry and hasn’t had any nutrition for 3-4 hours) your brain reacts by increasing the appetite and creating a craving!

Now list up the food and snacks that create moorish cravings with you.

Some solutions for how to handle the moorish cravings.

1. Always eat your favourite crave food after a meal not when you have that the cravings three hours later. It’s on an empty stomach the effect on the brain is at it’s worst.
2. Wear the demands out or down. Eat ice cream, crisps or whatever you want twice a day for fourteen days. After lunch and after dinner.


4
Get some structure into your eating habits

People say it was a lot easier before. Not funnier but simpler. You ate three cooked meals a day and that was that. Today’s freedom of choice makes it more difficult to keep account.

The risk is that you eat too little at breakfast, (or nothing at all in a lot of cases) hardly anything for lunch and dinner (and kid yourself that you have been really good and saved a load of calories) and then all the snacks and between meals junk. That cookie(s) doesn’t count does it? At the end of the day you haven’t the faintest idea of what you have eaten.

Lets get one thing straight if you want to loose weight keep it off and have a fantastic amount of joy and self esteem you have to have some structure in your eating habits.
The biggest mistake you can make is to hop over mealtimes or eat irregularly.

This is your structure

1. Eat three times a day.
Proper meals when you sit down and eat in peace and quite.
2. Always, always eat one in-between meals meal.
In the afternoon between four and five o’clock. Plan It! This will prevent from falling into the chomp chomp trough after work. A good in between meal can be yoghurt, fruit a sandwich with boiled egg. Make sure that it’s not too small. This is an important point in your weight loss.
3. Never go more than 3-4 hours without having something to eat.
4. Never go to a party or a restaurant feeling hungry!
Don’t bother about ruining your appetite. It’s you who care about not ruining your weight loss and the best thing you can do is to eat a little before you go so you don’t lose control.
5. Don’t go shopping for food when you are hungry!


5
Don't mix emotions with food or drink

Do you eat for comfort when you’re sad? To give yourself a kick when you’re tired and worn-out? Do you eat when you’re stressed? You are not alone. Because it works. To give yourself a bit of pleasure, eat something tasty. Gets you in a good humour and wraps itself around you like a blanket.

Then it’s only the consequences you have to face.

Typical comfort food

Most of us when choosing “comfort food” go for something from the following:

  • It has to be sweet. (Sweets, ice cream, cakes.)
  • It has to be salt (Crisps, peanuts, pizza).
  • It has to be creamy (ice cream cheese).
  • It has to be crunchy (biscuits, peanuts)
  • It has to be finger food. (Sweets, candies, nuts).

Strategies that break comfort eating

1. Don’t buy stuff you eat to comfort yourself.
Stupidly simple but very effective. If there is no easy access then you will quickly realise there are other ways to get rid of stress or emotional upsets.
Go for a walk, call a friend, read a book, do some light exercise, go to Q n A at Yahoo and ask a few questions. Keeps your fingers busy too.
2. Change comfort food cravings for more nutritious food.
Something that does the same function. It should taste good, salt, sweet, creamy, and crunchy or pick food.

I used to sit in front of the TV to wind down always with a bag of crisps (chips). I love crunchy stuff. Anyway I changed from crisps to raw beans. It worked wonderfully.

I got to pick and crunch and that’s what I needed to wind down after a stress full day.

Now you might prefer cauliflower heads, celery, carrots.

If your consolation food is ice cream then carrots are not going to do the trick are they? Try something like strawberry smoothie or a sweet creamy protein drink. Vanilla yoghurt with loads of fresh berries and exotic fruits?

Ok? Make a note of some alternatives for yourself.

That should be enough to get you started. Compliment this stategy with a best selling training system, find it here! I'll give you the 5 last steps tomorrow.

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Saturday, June 17, 2006

Getting the mind right for weightloss

Being overweight is an ongoing battle. You've pushed yourself through diet after diet and the times you've lost weight you soon put it back on faster than you got rid of it (and isn't it strange how you always put a bit more on then you started with).

We spend our entire life focusing on "the right diets" and "the right exercise" and in the end we always end up falling back into our old habits. So why even bother? Is it really worth it?

You had better believe it! Once you get there it's worth every second of the effort.

The frenetic search for the right diet and exercise blinds us from the real reason why we're overweight. Of course it’s important to know how to live a healthy lifestyle but you will never be able to reach your goals if you don’t find the cause of your problem.

If you recognise yourself, I can tell you that the problem is in YOUR MIND.
Until you’ve got your mind right there is no way you will ever get into that old dress of yours, forget it! Get your mind right.

What happens to us in the past affects our self-image, thoughts and self-discipline. Distorted thinking will ruin your self-image. We need self-discipline that will overcome compulsive, obsessive behavior and there are fabulous and workable methods of dealing with cravings and negative thoughts. Self-confidence and determination are often at a low after another failed diet. So how do we fight cravings? With self-encouragement!

Now, we all can’t afford Oprah’s favourite, Dr Phill to sort us out can we?
But we can now help ourselves.

I first read "Eating in Freedom", by Tom Mc Gregor about six or seven months ago and the changes that have occurred in me have been remarkable. I would recommend it to anyone who has ever been on a diet. Download your own copy, it's only a lifechanging 15 bucks!StumbleUpon My StumbleUpon Page

Sunday, June 04, 2006

How to eat yourself slim.

So, you can't eat this and you can't eat that! Right? Wrong!

You have to know and you don't, otherwise you wouldn't be overweight would you, that there is food out there that you can scoff to your hearts content. Food that consumes more calories to digest than it contains!

Here's an example, to eat a piece of apple pie containing 350 calories takes 100 calories to burn. Result you have taken in 250 calories more than you needed. Stored as fat! An apple, Ok it’s not quite as tasty as pie, contains 65 calories and takes 100 calories to burn, result 35 calories of your fat is needed to burn an apple! Makes sense doesn't it? Learn how to turn your body into a fat burning machine by eating.

We have been brainwashed into believing that to have a healthy diet is about cutting out fat and eating like a rabbit. And it is just not true!

First of all your body needs fat to burn fat, but it's all about eating the "right" type of fat. Don't believe that a pack of bacon is going to do you any good!!! The fat you find in nuts, olives and fish for example will actually burn some of your stored fat for you, great isn't it. Secrets on fat burning foods...

The second mistake people make is that they don't eat enough. When you start to cut down on meals your body goes into starvation prevention mode. Everything you eat gets stored as fat instead of being converted into energy and the body starts to use the goodness in your muscles. Ever wondered why you feel weak when dieting? It's just the body trying to preserve energy because you have cut off the supply of nutrition. Trying to survive! In plain straight forward language the metabolism slows right down 'cause it aint got enough fuel!

You feel lousy which is why you get straight back to your old fat happy ways. You’re fat but not starving. Then the heart problems start. You can't manage to make love. Your partner doesn't find you attractive anymore. The kids irritate you. You can't be bothered to walk to the shops. You sit in front of the TV watching Oprah along with all the other fatties doing the same thing. Oh I can't be bothered. I've tried dieting before and I just can't loose weight. It’s in my genes.

Wrong! It's in your jeans. If you can find jeans to fit you. Now, you've recognised the symptoms. Time to do something about it! How about loosing 14pounds in 7 days simply by eating?

Believe me it is possible and easy when you know how. Get the help you need from The Negative Calorie Diet. A-book which you can simply down load in seconds and names over 100 foods to choose between, all burning fat instead of storing it. It will even stop the cravings for junk food, change your eating habits completely. No more Yo-Yo dieting, that's for sure. If you think you've tried everything and you still haven’t reached your goal then your doing the wrong things. You have to do it with good old common sense. The Negative Calorie Diet. Get going now! Stop procrastinating.

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