SelfHelpWorks

Avoid diets! Diets do not work because they do not provide long term solutions. Just eat healthier. Eating nutritionally dense food will keep you full longer.

Eat fiber! Fiber can increase your ability to burn fat. Three servings of fruits and vegetables each day would be great.

Trade in carbs for protein. Lean protein like chicken, turkey, and fish can help maintain lean muscle and increase your metabolism.

We have all heard it; breakfast is the most important meal of the day! Eating breakfast will get your metabolism working and give you energy throughout the day.

Focus on the fun and festivities, not the food.

Indulge in your favorite holiday treat, not all of them.

You are so busy during the holiday; fill your freezer with healthy foods.

When you go shopping, park further away from your destination. This will keep you moving!

Learn to say no. Saying yes when you should say no can make you feel overwhelmed and resentful.

Take some time to yourself. Too much stress can lower your immunity.

Milk : Studies showed that those who drank a glass of fat free milk before a meal experienced decreased appetite and calorie intake.
Almonds : One of the healthiest of all the nuts, research has been found that people with a diet rich in almonds lost more pounds than those without. Almonds can also help with blood pressure.
Vinegar : Some studies suggest that vinegar can increase metabolism. This in turn helps the body process food and burn more calories.
Jalapenos : Similar to the above, the spice found here can also increase metabolism. In fact, many naturally spicy foods tout similar properties.
Make It Raw : Because cooking food can remove nutrients while leaving fat, some people choose a raw diet.
Pine Nuts : Use these nuts as a garnish to many dishes to help naturally decrease your appetite. The pinolenic acid found in them is what makes it work.
Flaxseeds : Similar to the above, they also help suppress appetite. The seeds also contain omega-3 fats and fiber as well.

Christmas is a time of celebration, but it also tends to be a time of high-fat, high-calorie food. Being part of the Christmas celebration without sabotaging your health goals may be difficult, but it is definitely doable. The key to eating healthy at Christmas is to plan ahead, bringing your own snacks and dishes if necessary, so that you don’t get caught unaware and end up filling up on unhealthy options.

Eat a healthy breakfast on Christmas morning. Include at least one fruit or vegetable and some protein such as eggs or nuts. This will help stave off hunger and prevent overeating high-calorie snacks while waiting for the big lunch or dinner to be served.

Bring a nutritious dish to the festivities. Offer beforehand to provide a salad or vegetable side dish so you can be assured that there will be at least one healthy item at the meal.

Pack a snack to bring with you in case you can’t find anything healthy to nibble on between meals. An apple or orange and a small bag of nuts makes a good portable snack.

Consume a healthy snack or small meal every three to four hours throughout the day. This helps keep blood sugar levels stable and is much healthier than consuming a single large meal.

Load your plate with healthy options first. Instead of heading straight for the calorie and fat-laden side dishes, choose some lean turkey or ham and vegetables for your first plateful. You can have some higher-calorie options when you’re ready for seconds and already somewhat full.

Drink a glass of red wine with your Christmas dinner. Red wine is high in resveratrol, a phytochemical that helps fight heart disease and cancer. If you don’t drink alcohol, try a glass of grape juice or just have plain water instead.

Practice portion control. Instead of completely depriving yourself of the high-calorie options, try a single piece or just one bite, enough to get a taste, but not enough to leave you feeling stuffed.

Have a cup of tea before, or even in place of, dessert. Tea has loads of antioxidants, and the liquid will fill you up, making it less likely you will gorge on cake, pie and candy.

A new study has showed that people with the highest blood levels of alpha carotene had a reduced mortality risk of about 39%, which included risks of dying from any cause, as well as heart disease and cancer. Alpha carotene is a hardworking, free-radical-fighting antioxidant that’s found in almost all colorful veggies, but particularly yellow, orange, and dark green ones like winter squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, spinach, peas, broccoli and kale. Alpha carotene is similar to beta carotene, but researchers think that alpha carotene may be a bit mightier at slowing and stopping the growth of certain types of cancer cells.

You won’t find this powerhouse in antioxidant supplements and they haven’t found that carotenoid supplements like beta carotene are very effective disease fighters. So remember to fill up your plate everyday with a colorful, antioxidant medley of vegetables to meet all your carotene needs.

Study Shows: Putting More Green Leafy Vegetables in Your Diet May Reduce the Risk of Developing Type 2 Diabetes!

People who add more green leafy vegetables to their diet may significantly reduce their risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Eating one and one half servings of green leafy vegetables per day reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes by 14%.

Fruit and Vegetable Intake

Although many studies have found that diets high in fruits and vegetables reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer, many people don’t seem to be getting the message.

For example:
•86% of adults in the United Kingdom ate less than the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables per day, according to a 2002 study.
•62% ate fewer than three servings.

Eat More Vegetables

Fruits and vegetables can prevent several chronic diseases, likely because of their antioxidant content. Spinach and other green leafy veggies may reduce type 2 diabetes risk because of their high concentrations of polyphenols and vitamin C, both of which have antioxidant properties. They also contain magnesium, which may further reduce risk.

Try to incorporate a few servings of leafy vegetables into your daily diet. A healthy lifestyle, and in particular green leafy vegetables, can help prevent type 2 diabetes.

Getting physical is good for you, and there are dozens of new reasons to get moving. Here’s a look at the latest findings from studies presented over the weekend at the Obesity Society meeting in San Diego.

Strength training works well with aerobics: New evidence is reinforcing the notion that the combination of strength training and aerobic activities, such as walking, may be just what the doctor ordered. To examine the impact of exercise on people with type 2 diabetes, Timothy Church, director of preventive medicine research at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, and colleagues had people with type 2 diabetes do either aerobics only (mostly walking), strength training only or a combination of the two. They found that those who did both forms of exercise for nine months lost the most body fat (3 pounds), trimmed the most from their waistlines (1 inch), had the most improvements in fitness and got the most significant improvement in hemoglobin A1C, a test for blood-sugar levels. ”For optimal health, you need to work your heart and lungs with aerobic exercise and your muscles and bones with weight lifting,” says Church, co-author of Move Yourself.

The federal government’s physical activity guidelines recommend that adults:

• Do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity each week, such as brisk walking, or 75 minutes of a vigorous-intensity activity, such as jogging or swimming laps, or a combination of the two types, to get the most health benefits from exercise. These aerobic activities should be done in at least 10-minute bouts.

• Do muscle-strengthening (resistance) activities two or more days a week at a moderate- or high-intensity level for all major muscle groups, including exercises for the chest, back, shoulders, upper legs, hips, abdomen and lower legs.

The exercises can be done with free weights or machines, resistance bands, calisthenics that use body weight for resistance (push-ups, pull-ups and sit-ups, for instance) or carrying heavy loads or doing heavy gardening such as digging or hoeing.

Since cleaning up your diet takes time, little steps over the course of a few months is the best way to succeed. Trying to do everything at once is a recipe for failure. Home cooked meals is one way to shift towards more whole foods and saving money. Since many restaurants rely on highly processed food to create their meals, cooking at home allows you control over the amount of sugar, salt & chemicals you consume. Mastering one-pot & one-pan dishes is a great way to start. Usually these meals can be whipped up quickly and will yield leftovers for additional quick meals later in the week. Another potential benefit to cooking meals at home is making it a family event; distributing responsibilities to family members brings people together in a shared activity.

As the daylight hours start to fade with the onset of Autumn, our chances of getting out in the sunshine shrink too. Sunshine helps our bodies make vitamin D and helps keep our bones strong. It may also help in the reduction of cancer and diabetes. New research also indicates that vitamin D may bolster our resistance to colds and flu. Daily doses of 1,200 IU has shown to cut the risk of catching a cold by 40%. This study also revealed that people with the lowest blood levels of vitamin D were about one-third more likely to report a recent upper respiratory tract infection than those with the highest levels. The daily recommended intake is 200 to 600 IU although some experts recommend 1,000 IU or more.

Sherrie, Living Free from San Francisco, California and Beanie, Living smart from Tucson, Arizona both sent me e-mails today with a similar problem. Sherrie’s reads – I am in session 7 of Living Free and doing well, but…Today is Thursday and I am going to a big party tomorrow where I know people will be drinking and smoking. I am worried to death that I won’t make it through. It is causing me to feel real anxious.
According to the Chinese Book of TAO the only way to achieve peace and serenity in life is to learn to live in the now.
The fourth reality of choice states that choices are only momentary. I have a business associate who has a bar in his home. Above the bar, there is an old antique stained glass mirror, upon which is written the definition of time. The words read: “Time is every moment that ever was or ever will be.” At first, I didn’t give it second notice, but the longer I looked at the writing the more it bothered me… and then I realized why. The definition depicted the way I mentally lived my life, in the past and in the future, but it left out the only time that we can do anything about anything, which is now. Time is an infinite series of nows. Now number 1, now that is gone; then we have now number 2; then now 3; then now 4 all the way to infinity. Each now is a distinct moment in time that provides us with an opportunity to choose. Since each distinct now lasts only an instant and since now is the only time we can choose, then the truth is that each choice that we make in life can only last a moment. Now, what does this have to do with Living Lean or Free?
In the past, when you decided you were going to give up pizza or candy or even cigarettes, you chose to quit forever. And by doing that, you implicitly gave away all of your future choices and thus your future power. Consequently, when you thought of the future you felt deprived because you thought you wouldn’t be able to eat chocolate anymore.
You only need to choose for right now, and right now, and right now. When you make these choices correctly, something very powerful will happen. Your mind will start to change and in a short period of time, your choices to live lean or free will become natural.
When you anticipate the future, you not only cause anxiety for yourself in the now, but you also give away your power to consciously choose. If you find yourself worried about tomorrow, bring yourself back to the present time by telling yourself that NOW is the only time you need to focus on, that you do not know what the future will be like, and that you will handle it when it comes.