Happy Healthy Thanksgiving from Optimal Weight Control

Enjoy the holiday feast without the guilt — or the weight gain.

Nutritionists estimate that the average Thanksgiving meal ranges from 3,000 to 5,000 calories. If our daily needs should not exceed between 1,200 to 1,800 calories, it is not surprising that people complain about weight gain during the holidays.  Year after year, most of us pack on at least a pound (some gain more) during the holidays — and keep the extra weight permanently.

But Thanksgiving does not have to sabotage your weight, experts say. With a little know-how, you can satisfy your desire for traditional favorites and still enjoy a guilt-free Thanksgiving feast. After all, being stuffed is a good idea only if you are a turkey!

Get Active

Create a calorie deficit by exercising to burn off extra calories before you ever indulge in your favorite foods, suggests Connie Diekman, MEd, RD, former president of the American Dietetic Association (ADA).

“‘Eat less and exercise more’ is the winning formula to prevent weight gain during the holidays,” Diekman says. “Increase your steps or lengthen your fitness routine the weeks ahead and especially the day of the feast.”

Make fitness a family adventure, recommends Susan Finn, PhD, RD, chair of the American Council on Fitness and Nutrition: “Take a walk early in the day and then again after dinner. It is a wonderful way for families to get physical activity and enjoy the holiday together.”

Eat Breakfast

While you might think it makes sense to save up calories for the big meal, experts say eating a small meal in the morning can give you more control over your appetite. Start your day with a small but satisfying breakfast — such as an egg with a slice of whole-wheat toast, or a bowl of whole-grain cereal with low-fat milk — so you won’t be starving when you arrive at the gathering.

“Eating a nutritious meal with protein and fiber before you arrive takes the edge off your appetite and allows you to be more discriminating in your food and beverage choices,” says Diekman.

Lighten Up

Whether you are hosting Thanksgiving dinner or bringing a few dishes to share, make your recipes healthier with less fat, sugar, and calories.

“There is more sugar and fat in most recipes than is needed, and no one will notice the difference if you skim calories by using lower calorie ingredients,” says Diekman.

Her suggestions:

  • Use fat-free chicken broth to baste the turkey and make gravy.
  • Use sugar substitutes in place of sugar and/or fruit purees instead of oil in baked goods.
  • Reduce oil and butter wherever you can.
  • Try plain yogurt or fat-free sour cream in creamy dips, mashed potatoes, and casseroles.

Police Your Portions

  • Thanksgiving tables are bountiful and beautiful displays of traditional family favorites. Before you fill your plate, survey the buffet table and decide what you’re going to choose. Then select reasonable-sized portions of foods you cannot live without.

“Don’t waste your calories on foods that you can have all year long,” suggests Diekman. “Fill your plate with small portions of holiday favorites that only come around once a year so you can enjoy desirable, traditional foods.”

  • Skip the Seconds.Try to resist the temptation to go back for second helpings.”Leftovers are much better the next day, and if you limit yourself to one plate, you are less likely to overeat and have more room for a delectable dessert,” Diekman says.
  • Choose the Best Bets on the Buffet.While each of us has our own favorites, keep in mind that some holiday foods are better choices than others.”White turkey meat, plain vegetables, roasted sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, defatted gravy, and pumpkin pie tend to be the best bets because they are lower in fat and calories,” says Diekman. But she adds that, “if you keep your portions small, you can enjoy whatever you like.”

Slowly Savor

Eating slowly, putting your fork down between bites, and tasting each mouthful is one of the easiest ways to enjoy your meal and feel satisfied with one plate full of food, experts say. Choosing whole grains, fruits, vegetables, broth-based soups, salads, and other foods with lots of water and fiber add to the feeling of fullness.

Spread out the food and fun all day long. At the Finn family Thanksgiving gathering, they schedule dessert after a walk, while watching a movie together.

“We eat midday, and instead of another meal at dinnertime, we continue the feast with dessert a few hours after the main meal,” Finn explains.

Go Easy on Alcohol

Don’t forget those alcohol calories that can add up quickly.

“Have a glass of wine or a wine spritzer and between alcoholic drinks, (or) enjoy sparkling water,” says Diekman. “this way you stay hydrated, limit alcohol calories, and stay sober.”

Be Realistic

The holiday season is a time for celebration. With busy schedules and so many extra temptations, this is a good time to strive for weight maintenance instead of weight loss.

“Shift from a mindset of weight loss to weight maintenance,” says Finn. “You will be ahead of the game if you can avoid gaining any weight over the holidays.”

Focus on Family and Friends

Thanksgiving is not just about the delicious bounty of food. It’s a time to celebrate relationships with family and friends.

“The main event should be family and friends socializing, spending quality time together, not just what is on the buffet,” says Finn.

 

Article Source: http://www.webmd.com/

Ways to Lose Weight After the Holiday Overeating

For months, you have tracked your food and exercised regularly to improve your health and alter the shape of your body. More than a “diet” or a fitness fad, you have created real behavioral modifications, lifestyle changes and built the confidence that you can stick with it for the long haul. So why is the winter holiday season so intimidating—even scary—for so many?

The answer is complex. Sure, there’s the food. Unlike other food-centric holidays like Valentine’s Day or Halloween, the winter holiday season lasts for weeks. There are more parties, more potlucks, more food gifts, more cookies and well, just more everything! And these temptations won’t be going away any time soon. Then there’s the stress. Buying gifts, volunteering, decorating, cooking and party hopping often take the place of cooking healthy meals at home or hitting the gym. Like an infant sitting on Santa’s lap for the first time, it’s no wonder we’re scared of the holidays and the infamous weight gain they encourage. How can we keep up with a healthy diet and fitness program—let alone lose weight—with all of this going on around us, day after day?

Most Americans gain at least 1 pound between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Though this may not seem like much, over time the extra pounds accumulate. According to the National Institutes of Health, holiday weight gain can contribute to obesity and chronic diseases later in life.

Healthy Breakfast

Drop those holiday pounds by adding a healthy breakfast to your morning routine. A 2002 study in “Obesity Research” found a common factor among participants who’d lost at least 30 pounds and kept it off for more than one year: Seventy-eight percent ate breakfast every day. The study also found that breakfast eaters engaged in more physical activity than nonbreakfast eaters, another key to weight loss. Harvard Medical School recommends eating a breakfast containing at least 6 grams of fiber to lose weight and prevent chronic diseases.

Increased Movement

When you burn more calories than you consume by adding physical activities and exercise into your daily routine, you’ll lose those extra holiday pounds. While even 30 minutes of exercise per day offers health benefits, weight loss generally requires about 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise or 150 to 300 minutes of moderate exercise per week, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Fiber-Rich Foods

Bulk up your diet with healthy, fiber-rich foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and nuts. Not only do these foods make you feel fuller — a sensation you probably got accustomed to during the holiday season — most offer vitamins, minerals and nutrients without a heavy caloric impact. For weight loss, the U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends filling half your plate with fruits and vegetables, upping your whole grain intake to at least half of your total grain intake and increasing your consumption of beans, peas and lentils.

Set Realistic Goals

Of course you want to drop pounds quickly, but setting unrealistic goals can actually thwart your progress. A 2009 study in the “American Journal of Medicine” found that setting personalized, realistic goals led to less frustration and greater long-term weight loss. Aim for a loss of about 1 to 2 pounds per week.

Think Long-Term

If you want to lose those holiday pounds and keep them off permanently, think of weight loss as a long-term lifestyle choice. According to the Mayo Clinic, achieving weight loss — and better overall fitness — involves mental, emotional and physical commitment along with the realization that the process doesn’t happen overnight. Keep yourself motivated by tracking your progress in a weight-loss journal and by engaging a supportive group of friends and family in your efforts.

Article Source: Healthy living AZ Central

Gaining Muscle & Not Losing Weight

Building muscle mass may cause temporary weight gain, you may lose weight over the long-term. Before you make any changes to your exercise routine, consult your doctor.

The idea that muscle weighs more than fat is a common misconception. One pound of muscle weighs the same as 1 lb. of fat, but muscle and fat differ in volume. One pound of fat takes up more room in the body than 1 lb. of muscle. This does not necessarily mean you’ll gain weight when you build muscle mass. If you lose fat and develop lean muscle mass, the scale will likely go down.

Features

Muscle burns more calories than fat, which can help you lose weight. This is the reason that exercise programs recommend including strength training in your workouts. Spend at least three days a week participating in strength-building exercises. You may use resistance exercise machines, such as pull-up bars, leg presses, ab exercisers and bicep curlers. If you are new to weight training, use a small weight and large number of reps. As you advance, increase weight and decrease number of reps.

 

Body Fat Decrease

If you have gained muscle, your body composition may have improved, even if you did not lose weight. A pound of muscle may weigh the same as a pound of fat, but the muscle takes up less room in your body. In other words, if you build seven pounds of muscle during the same time you lose seven pounds of fat, your scale would not budge, but your measurements would decrease. Consider measuring your waist circumference or the circumference of other body parts to monitor your weight loss instead of relying on the scale. As your measurements decrease and you carry less fat, you decrease your chances of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease and joint injuries.

 

Weight-Loss Reality

Weight loss requires you to create a calorie deficit between the number of calories you take into your body and the number of calories your body uses. If you do not create a calorie deficit, you will not lose weight. Gaining muscle mass does increase your body’s need for calories, but if this need does not exceed your intake, you cannot lose weight. Increase your weight-loss potential while gaining muscle by decreasing the number of calories you consume and increasing the number of calories you use with exercise.

 

Dietary Improvements

A reduced-calorie diet can help you lose weight without leaving you hungry, if you make the right dietary changes. The University of Michigan Health System reports that people who have lost weight successfully eat more snacks of high nutritional value and eat breakfast on a regular basis. When you increase the nutritional value of the foods you eat, you typically decrease your calorie consumption, while allowing yourself to eat more food. Focus on consuming a diet full of fiber, whole grains and lean protein to keep nutrient consumption high while keeping your fat and calorie consumption low.

Exercise Changes

Weight training builds muscle quickly but does not burn as many calories as cardiovascular exercise. Consider adding 30 minutes a day of cardio exercise into your weight-lifting schedule. The higher the intensity of the exercise, the more calories it burns. Common exercises that burn high amounts of calories include jumping rope, rollerblading, running, and active sports such as basketball and football.

 

Article originally posted by: Kimberly Wonderly, Demand Media

Benefits of 5-10 Percent Weight-loss

At Optimal Weight Control program your first goal is to lose 10% of your current body weight at an average of two to two and half pounds per week along with our one-on-one therapeutic consultation. Achievement and maintenance of a 5 to 10% weight loss improves risk factors and co-morbidities says The Champlain Primary Care Cardiovascular Disease Prevention & Management Guidelines.

When thinking about weight-loss, one often has an “ideal” body weight in mind or an ultimate weight-loss goal. It’s very common for people to think that unless they lose dozens of pounds, they will not be any healthier.
This is a misconception. Studies have shown that health benefits resulting from weight-loss are evident with a weight reduction as low as 5-10 percent. This means that an individual that weighs 200 pounds will benefit greatly from losing 10 to 20 pounds.

There’s scientific evidence that many obesity-related conditions improve with a 5-10 percent weight-loss. Let’s look at these related conditions and see how modest weight-loss may greatly improve them and your overall quality of health:

Cholesterol
 Although we have good medications that decrease our “bad” cholesterol also called LDL cholesterol, doctors and patients alike know how hard it is to increase the “good” cholesterol otherwise known as “HDL cholesterol” even by a few points.

A 5-10 percent weight-loss can result in a five point increase in HDL cholesterol. This deserves applause as raising HDL by these few points can lower the risk of an individual developing heart disease. HDL cholesterol of more than 40 mg/dl for men and more than 50 mg/dl for women is protective against heart disease.

There are other fat-like particles in the blood that are harmful in elevated amounts. They are called triglycerides. People with high triglycerides are at higher risk for heart attacks and strokes among other problems. A normal level should be below 150 mg/dl, while anything above 200 mg/dl is considered high.

Losing 5-10 percent of body weight was shown to decrease triglycerides by an average of 40 mg/dl, which is a significant drop. This level can further improve with exercise, a diet low in concentrated sugars, carbohydrates and fats as well as with reduction of excessive alcohol intake.

Hypertension
Excess body weight accounts for about 25-30 percent of cases of hypertension. As body weight increases, it causes hemodynamic abnormalities and other changes that result in elevated blood pressure. By losing 5-10 percent of one’s weight, blood pressure, both systolic and diastolic, decrease by 5 mmHg on average. In conjunction with a salt restricted diet, rich in vegetables, fruit and low-fat dairy, this weight-loss could be potentially even higher.

Diabetes
One of the laboratory markers used to screen for diabetes and to monitor its treatment is called Hemoglobin A1C. The normal level should be below 6.5. Research has shown that a 5-10 percent weight-loss can decrease this marker by half a point on average. This comes close to the effect that some anti-diabetic pills have on blood sugars.

Insulin Resistance
Another condition that is seen with weight gain is a phenomenon called insulin resistance. In this disorder, the pancreas produces larger than normal amounts of a hormone called insulin. Insulin is responsible for keeping blood sugar levels normal. In this condition, high levels of insulin are needed because tissues are resistant to its effects.

When someone has insulin resistance, the resulting high levels of insulin in the blood cause an increase in fat tissue especially in the waist area, abnormal cholesterol, and sometimes a change in certain hormone levels in women that causes male pattern hair growth and infertility. Modest weight-loss was found to significantly decrease insulin levels and thus to help with reversing these conditions.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea
 Obstructive sleep apnea is a sleep disorder commonly diagnosed in patients affected by excess weight that snore or gasp for air during sleep. It’s caused by pauses and gaps in breathing during sleep and results in insufficient oxygenation. This causes fatigue and sleepiness during the day. It also is responsible for making certain diseases less responsive to treatment, like hypertension for example.

When sleep apnea is significant, oxygen levels in the blood are too low during sleep and the use of a breathing machine called CPAP is necessary. It has been shown that a 5-10 percent weight-loss may improve sleep apnea and sometimes if the apnea was not very severe, one can be weaned from the CPAP breathing machine. This is a big achievement for some, as having to use a CPAP is life-saving but often perceived as cumbersome by those who need to use it.

Inflammation
In studies looking at the effect of excess weight on cells of the human body, it was found that fat cells and especially abdominal fat cells produce a large number of substances that result in inflammation in blood vessels. This inflammation then can result in plaques and clots and turn into strokes and heart attacks. When weight-loss achieves a level of 10 percent, the levels of inflammatory substances circulating in the blood drop significantly and therefore the risk of vascular damage is reduced as well.

Conclusion

All these improvements caused by weight-loss as low as 5-10 percent ultimately lead to very significant benefits including a lesser chance of having a heart attack or stroke. Now, the next question that comes to mind is since we know that a 5-10 percent weight-loss is very beneficial, how can it
be achieved?

First and foremost, weight-loss starts with lifestyle changes: diet and exercise. The first step is to talk to your healthcare provider. They will help choose the diet that is most appropriate. The diet choices are usually determined by the existing medical problems among other factors and should be discussed with your healthcare provider. On this note, it is worth mentioning that scientists have recently shown that a “Mediterranean diet,” which is rich in fish, vegetables, olive oil or nuts will protect you from heart disease even more when compared to other commonly used diets.

To attain and maintain any amount of weight-loss, exercise is mandatory. Generally, an average of at least one hour, five days a week is needed. But this again should be monitored by your healthcare provider to assure safe exercise practices.

Scientists have shown over and over again that lifestyle changes that include an appropriate healthy diet and the right exercise regimen will help attain a 5-10 percent weight-loss. In addition, any legitimate weight-loss program should promote these lifestyle changes as the first step in attaining weight-loss. They are absolutely indispensable. They work on their own when the planned weight-loss is 5-10 percent of body weight and are always used in conjunction with other measures (weight-loss medications or bariatric surgery) if a more significant weight-loss is needed or when lifestyle changes by themselves did not achieve the medically required weight-loss goal.

Thus, when contemplating weight-loss, the initial goal may be set as low as 5-10 percent of body weight. As discussed in this article, this seemingly modest weight change already results in tremendous health benefits.

 

Article by: Nadia B. Pietrzykowska, MD, FACP

About the Author:
Nadia B. Pietrzykowska, MD, FACP, is a Board Certified Physician Nutrition Specialist with Residency training in Internal medicine and subspecialty training in Bariatric Medicine and Nutrition.

Love Yourself And Lose Weight In The Process

How do you learn to accept, respect, and love your current body 100%, right now, extra weight and all? To learn how to do just that, I’d like you to try a very special two-step exercise that will quickly show you how to better accept, respect, and love your body and thus make weight loss a walk in the park!

 

Step 1: Get Aware

Stop believing the old lies you have been consciously or subconsciously telling yourself about how your body is not special enough, amazing enough, or precious enough to warrant your utmost attention and care right now. For example, if you are telling yourself, “Perhaps someday when it looks better (or younger or thinner), I will take better care of my body,” you’re telling yourself a lie.

 

I’d like you to uncover all of the damaging lies that you may be telling yourself, lies that will prevent you from fully accepting and respecting your body. To help you do that, I’ve listed 21 of the most common lies, ones that my clients have found limited their ability to succeed at any weight loss plan:

 

  1. “Losing weight is expensive.” In reality, weight loss costs nothing. You don’t need to buy expensive equipment or premade meals for weight loss. And think about this: The costs of not getting fit—heart disease, diabetes, arthritis—are much higher than the costs of starting a weight loss program.

 

  1. “I don’t have enough time to exercise.” You don’t need a lot of time to get fit. You need only 8 minutes. That’s right, just 8 minutes. Set your alarm 8 minutes earlier than usual and get up and just do it.

 

  1. “I can overeat now and make up for these excess calories by eating less tomorrow.” This is a form of procrastination, and it always results in disaster. Few people make up for the excess “tomorrow.” And those who do eat less end up starving themselves and slowing their metabolisms. When you truly respect your body, you’ll stick to healthful food portions all the time and never punish your body with starvation.

 

  1. “I need to take care of others first. Once I meet their needs, then I can focus on myself.” This is perhaps one of the most prevalent and most vicious lies out there. In reality, you can’t take care of others until you have first taken care of yourself. When you neglect your mind and body, you eventually have nothing left to give. And if you suffer a heart attack from neglecting your body, eventually others will have to take care of you.

 

  1. “Weight loss is not worth the effort. I’m just going to gain it all back anyway.” I understand why you may feel this way, particularly if you have already lost and regained weight numerous times before. You must understand, however, that you’re not to blame for those past failed attempts—the programs are at fault. For permanent weight loss, you must address the source of your problem. You must accept your body and heal your hungry heart. Once you do that, you will effortlessly lose the weight.

 

  1. “My work is more important than my body.” To quote a fairly well-known phrase: “ No man ever said on his deathbed, ‘I wish I had spent more time at the office.’ Yet, I would bet that plenty of people on their deathbeds had wished they had taken better care of their bodies.

 

  1. “Weight doesn’t matter. I am ugly at any size.” Your body is an extraordinary machine that does extraordinary tasks every day. Once you learn to recognize that simple fact, you will realize that ugliness is a matter of perspective. If you focus on the amazing nature of your body–on your heart’s ability to beat, on your muscles’ ability to move, on your skin’s ability to heal—then you will understand the inherent beauty of your body.

 

  1. “Nobody loves me or cares about me, so why should I care about myself?” Perhaps one of the most perverse laws of human nature is that you must first love yourself before you can earn and receive love from others. Quite often, lack of self-love is what drives others from you. Think about it. Would you rather be around a depressed, sad, negative person or a confident, cheerful person? Once you become more confident, you’ll find friends suddenly appearing in your life.

 

  1. “I have already blown it today, so I might as well give up.” You’ve never blown it until you’ve given up altogether. Just one overeating episode will not ruin your chance for success. For the same reason fat is so hard to lose, it is also hard to gain. It takes 3,500 excess calories in order to gain one pound of fat. That’s a lot of food. Believe me, you’ve never eaten that much in one sitting!

 

  1. “I work hard. I deserve to eat as much as I want.” If you work hard, you deserve to pamper yourself, that’s true. But overeating is a form of body punishment, not a form of pampering. I suggest you treat yourself to a massage, a warm bath, or a long talk with an old friend instead of treating yourself to food. (Check out these other ways to treat youself.)

 

  1. “I am fine on the inside. That’s all that matters.” Both the inside and the outside of your body matter. Excess weight—on the outside—weakens and sickens the inside of your body. Take care of the outside of your body with weight loss, and the inside-your heart, lungs, and blood vessels—will become healthier and stronger.

 

  1. “One day of not caring is not going to matter.” The problem with this thinking is that 1 day turns into 2 days which turns into 3 days, then 4, and so on. Start caring about your body today.

 

  1. “My partner loves me no matter what my size.” I’m sure your spouse loves you, but this isn’t about your spouse. This is about you. You should lose weight to make your life better, to improve your body, to feel more energetic and healthy, and to make your life easier. Of course, those around you will benefit, but you are the one that counts the most.

 

  1. “Food is the only friend that can lift my spirits or remove the ache of loneliness.” Plenty of things—besides food—can help you heal your hungry heart.

 

  1. “I don’t want to offend my friends by not indulging with them.” My mother used to say, “If your friend jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?” Overeating hurts you just as much as using recreational drugs. If your friends are offended that you want to take better care of your body, they are not really your friends.

 

  1. “I’m old. All old people are fat.” It’s true that many people gain weight as they age as a result of a slower metabolism. If you strength train, however, you can keep your metabolism from slowing down in the first place.

 

  1. “I’m still young. I can lose the weight later.” The statistics are stacked against you on this one. Most people tend to gain weight as they get older, not lose it. The best time for weight loss is right now!

 

  1. “I can eat as much as my 6-foot-2-inch husband.” You probably know that this isn’t true—as much as you want it to be so. Many women tell me that they gained weight when they were first married and began eating the same food portions as their husbands. Your husband has more muscle mass and is probably taller, and he therefore burns more calories each day than you do. You must stick to smaller food portions in order to lose weight.

 

  1. “My metabolism is terrible.” This may be true. After many years of dieting, your metabolism may be much slower than it used to be. You can rev it up, however, with strength training. (Check out how to get a metabolism that soars.)

 

  1. “I’m genetically meant to be overweight.” This is only a half-truth. Some people do carry what scientists call a “thrifty gene,” which makes their bodies resist burning fat. It only means, however, that you’ll have to work a little harder than someone without this gene in order to lose weight and keep it off.

 

  1. “I’m too fat to exercise.” This lie is what led me to develop this book. Certain types of exercise may not be best suited for your body. But I know that you’ll be able to comfortably perform the exercises in my program. I tested them on full-figured women. They work.

 

Working With Negative Beliefs

Did any of those lies resonate with you? Have you found yourself using them to make excuses for not exercising or eating healthful food portions? Do you have even more lies buried deep inside? Take a moment right now to think about what you’ve told yourself in the past that led to overeating or not exercising. Were you lying to yourself?

 

To get fully aware of your damaging, negative, and false beliefs, I want you write down your top three limiting beliefs that you have consciously or subconsciously told yourself, lies that resulted in your not believing that your body was special enough, amazing enough, or precious enough to warrant your highest attention and care. Feel free to borrow a few from those I mentioned earlier.

 

After you write down your top three limiting beliefs, write down the consequence of believing these old dis-empowering beliefs. And know that dissatisfaction can be a powerful spark that gets you to take action and change your behaviors forever.

 

Once you’ve completed the limiting-beliefs exercise, you’re ready to take another step on your journey to body respect. To fully acknowledge that your three negative beliefs are no longer a part of you, I want you to do something symbolic. Take a thick, black marker and ink out those three old beliefs with your pen. Yes, draw on top of them. Cover them up. Put a big XXX over them. This may seem like a simple, and maybe even silly, exercise, but believe me, it will symbolically help you to delete those same lies from your brain’s hard drive.

 

By doing this, you will be signaling to your brain and subconscious that you are no longer willing to be ruled by these lies. As the words disappear, so will those damaging beliefs! You will feel empowered and invigorated. You will be free. Don’t continue to read this until you have done this exercise. This physical act of destroying those old beliefs will impact your future success for the better. You will almost feel reborn.

 

Step 2: Replace the Junk with a Gem

Now that you have cleared out your emotional closet of the junk, it is now time to replace that junk with a true gem: empowering beliefs that will change your life and how you treat your body forever. Ready? Simply replace those three old limiting beliefs with the following power pledge: “My current body is the most precious gift I have ever been given.”

 

To fully commit that pledge to memory, write down the positive consequences of believing this. For example, you might write:

 

“I will treat my body as a top priority.”

“I will make sure to exercise my body on a regular basis.”

“I will feed my body properly.”

“I will finally lose the extra weight.”

To strengthen your pledge, I want you to support it with 10 ultimate references. These are 10 ideas that make the power pledge completely real for you. To create your ultimate references, ask yourself this simple question: “Why is this true?” In other words, “Why is my current body truly the most precious gift I have ever been given?” Write your answers down.

 

Now that you’ve listed your 10 ultimate references, make three copies and place them in three spots in your house. I highly recommend posting it on your nightstand and in the bathroom, so you can see it when you first get up, and in the kitchen, so you can see it whenever you feel tempted to overeat or skip your workout.

 

Your poster will serve as a powerful reminder to put your body first. Remember that it is essential for you to realize that the first secret to real weight loss is to unconditionally accept and thus respect your body 100%, right now, no matter what your current size. If you don’t fully respect your current body, I can assure you that you will never truly treat it as the most precious gift that has ever been given to you.

 

Source: Article by Jorge Cruise (www.prevention.com)

Diet For Sedentary Lifestyle

Sedentary Lifestyle Weight Loss Tips

 

As we know, most of us live sedentary lives owing to the nature of our work that demands that we spend most of our time sitting at a desk. Despite knowing the fact that a sedentary lifestyle and poor eating habits are the main causes of weight gain, we do not have time to exercise. Therefore, a perfect diet for sedentary lifestyle is necessary to avoid gaining weight.

The calorie requirement for an individual depends on many factors such as age, gender, weight, lifestyle, etc. Since people having sedentary lifestyle do not burn calories similar to moderately active people, they have to consume fewer calories in order to maintain weight. However, they still need proper nutrition to prevent malnutrition.

Thus, a well-balanced, low calorie diet for a sedentary lifestyle is best to keep good health as well as maintain healthy weight.

Calorie Requirements

The daily calorie requirement for people with sedentary lives depends on their body frame, weight, gender, and height. Sedentary women aged between 19 and 30 should consume 2000 calories a day, whereas women between the age of 31 and 50 should consume 1800 calories daily. Men usually burn more calories, and the daily allowed calories for men aged between 10 and 30 are 2400; 2200 calories for those aged between 31 and 50.

Food to include

The diet of people who are sedentary should incorporate 45% to 65% carbohydrate, 15% protein, and 30% to 35 % fat. Obese people have to adjust their fat intake to 20% of the daily allotted calories.

  • People with a sedentary lifestyle should consume more carbohydrates as the main base of their diets. Instead of simple, refined carbs, healthy, complex carbs such as fruits, vegetables, whole grain, whole wheat products, whole cereals, whole pulses, beans, legumes, etc. are recommended.
  • Ensure to include good sources of protein such as eggs, low fat dairy products, poultry without skin, lean meat, and fish in the daily diet.
  • Good fat forms do not make you gain weight. Eat low fat dairy products such as yogurt, cheese, and skim milk. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat forms are high in omega 3 fatty acids and are good options. Seeds, olive oil, and nuts are good sources of healthy fat forms.
  • Ensure to include all food groups daily to gain all vitamins and minerals in the diet.
  • It is necessary to drink plenty of water.  As per the recommendation of the Institute of Medicine, men require 13 cups of beverages and women needs 9 cups of beverages daily. Ensure to drink calorie free water most of the time.
  • Fresh fruits and salads will be a great alternative to salty, fatty snacks.

A sample 1800-calorie meal plan that is appropriate for sedentary women ages 19 to 50 is as follows:

  • 2.5 cups vegetables
  • 1.5 cups fruits
  • 6 ounces grains
  • 5 ounces high protein foods
  • 3 cups dairy foods
  • 5 teaspoons oil

In addition to this diet, one can take 161 extra calories each day.

Sedentary men aged between 19 and 50 can consume 2400 calories each day, and the foods for men with sedentary life include:

  • Vegetables, 3 cups
  • Fruits, 2 cups
  • Grains, 8 ounces
  • High protein foods, 6.5 ounces
  • Dairy foods, 3 cups
  • Oil, 7 teaspoons

In addition to this, men can eat 330 extra calories each day.

Foods to avoid

 

Apart from following the diet for a sedentary lifestyle, it is necessary to avoid certain food forms that make you gain weight.

  • Sedentary people should avoid unhealthy fat forms such as trans fats. These fat forms also increase LDL cholesterol level.
  • Limit the intake of saturated fats.
  • A person leading a sedentary lifestyle should avoid high-cholesterol foods.
  • Avoid processed foods and junk foods.
  • Avoid sugary drinks such as fruit juices, soda, sweetened tea, etc.

Physical activity is essential to improve overall health; try to increase physical activity as much as possible to avoid a sedentary lifestyle.

Reference: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/obesity