Thank You For Visiting Our Blog, FEEL BETTER AND LIVE LONGER!

The purpose of our blog is to share what we have learned about nutrition, weight loss, fitness, and health, in order to help you find ways to feel better and live longer. It is amazing how much our diet and lifestyle affect our health and well-being.

Did you know that you can reduce your risk and even prevent many diseases and health conditions simply by making some changes to your diet? Check back often for valuable tips and information.

HOW TO LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF:

For the first time in my life I have found weight loss success. During my adult life I have tried dozens and dozens of so-called "diets" and none of them worked over the long-haul. Oh, I was able to lose weight with some of them, but once I went off of the "diet" I quickly gained back all of my weight (plus some).

I have finally learned that losing weight has to be a lifestyle change, not a temporary fix. Crash diets and all the other crazy diets will not only cause you to fail, they are harmful to your health. To lose weight and keep it off you must NOT go on a "diet." What? Why? Because we all consider a "diet" a temporary thing. For example, how many times have you said, "Oh, I will go on this low-fat diet until I lose 20 pounds." Okay, what happens after you lose the 20 pounds? Or you simply give up? You go back to your old habits and gain that 20 pounds back.

The only way you will ever be successful at losing weight, with the added benefit of improving your health, is to make healthy changes that you can live with for the rest of your life. Period. Not for a week, a month or 3 months, but for life. For me, my initial goal was to lower my cholesterol level. I had to have a blood test for my insurance coverage and my cholesterol level had to be lower than the previous year's levels or I would have to pay a much higher premium. Well, that was a pretty good incentive for me make some positive changes.

I sat down and figured out what I needed to do. I knew I had to change the way I ate and I knew I had to exercise in some form or other every day. So, I made a list and I stuck to it. It was difficult at first. To make matters worse, I am a compulsive eater. However, as the days went by, it became much easier because my body stopped craving sweets and processed foods. For the first time in my life, I was never tempted to binge because I never felt deprived.

Use the list below and make whatever changes you need to make in order for it to work for you. FYI, my cholesterol level dropped 65 points after 7 weeks, and my triglycerides dropped 70 points! Another benefit that I hadn't planned on was that after being an insomniac since my teen-age years, I now sleep like a baby every night!

MY LIST FOR WEIGHT LOSS SUCESS:

1. Avoid "white" Foods & Processed Foods. These foods have no nutritional value and are "empty" calories. Sweets, anything made with white flour,and anything that comes in a package with a long list of ingredients. Always read the food labels. Stay away from those long lists of ingredients. The longer the list, the more chemicals and additives are present. These are extremely toxic to your body.

2. Drink Lots of Water. Water keeps your body's organs hydrated and flushes out unhealthy toxins. It helps to fill you up and reduces your urge to over-eat.

3. Eat a Healthy Breakfast. Instead of coffee and donuts, try fruit, yogurt, grains like oatmeal or whole grain toast, and lean protein. NEVER skip breakfast. By eating a large, healthy meal when you get up in the morning, your metabolism will "rev up" and you will not be hungry by mid-morning. If you skip breakfast, your body will go into starvation mode and store calories in your body as FAT, yes FAT! So do yourself a big favor and eat breakfast.

4. Reduce Your Stress Level. So many of us live with too much stress. Stress lowers your immune system, making it easier to get sick. It also makes us lethargic, tired, and depressed. There are a lot of simple things you can do and a lot of ways to feel better about yourself and your life. Take a long, hot bath, read a book, listen to music, get a massage. Do something nice for yourself. Giving yourself something to look forward to is a tremendous mental incentive.

5. Move! Oh my gosh! There are so many ways to incorporate movement into your day, even at work. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Get up every hour and walk around your floor, your hallway or your desk. Park your car in the farthest space from where you need to be. Walk or bike to work. Skate, dance, golf, jump rope, clean house, play tag. The best exercise you can do is to walk. Try to take a walk every day! The more you move, the more your metabolism will be your friend. (I walk 3 miles every day whether it is raining, snowing or freezing.)

Effective Stress Management

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We all suffer from stress, either occasionally or chronically. It is important to find ways to decrease stressful incidents and decrease negative reactions to stress. Here are some effective stress management tips you can do that will help you ease your stress level.

MANAGE YOUR TIME

Time management skills allow you more time with your family and friends and increase your performance and productivity. This helps reduce your stress level.

Save time by focusing and concentrating, delegating, and scheduling time for yourself.

Keep a record of how you spend your time, including work, family, and leisure time.

Prioritize your time by rating tasks by importance and urgency. Redirect your time to those activities that are important and meaningful to you.

Manage your commitments by not over- or under-committing. Don't commit to what is not important to you.

Deal with procrastination by using a day planner, breaking large projects into smaller ones, and setting short-term deadlines.

Examine your beliefs to reduce conflict between what you believe and what your life is like.

Build healthy coping strategies. It is important to identify your coping strategies. One way to do this is by recording the stressful event, your reaction, and how you cope in a stress journal. With this information, you can work to change unhealthy coping strategies into healthy ones; those that help you focus on what you can change or control in your life.


LIFESTYLE

Some behaviors and lifestyle choices affect your stress level. They may not cause stress directly, but they can interfere with the ways your body seeks relief from stress.

It’s all about balance. Learn how to balance personal, work, and family needs and obligations.

Purpose. Have a sense of purpose in life.

Get enough sleep since your body recovers from the stresses of the day while you are sleeping.

Eat a balanced diet for a nutritional defense against stress.

Get moderate exercise throughout the week.

Limit your consumption of alcohol to one or two glasses of wine a day. If you are a beer drinker, have no more than a couple d day. If you must drink hard liquor, limit to one drink a day.

Don't smoke. There is no room to wiggle here. Don’t smoke at all. If you do, quit. You will sleep better, live longer and be healthier.
SOCIAL SUPPORT

Social support is a major factor in how we experience stress. Social support is the positive support you receive from family, friends, and the community. It is the knowledge that you are cared for, loved, and valued. More and more research indicates a strong relationship between social support and better mental and physical health.

CHANGE YOUR THINKING

When an event triggers negative thoughts, you may experience fear, insecurity, anxiety, depression, rage, guilt, and a sense of worthlessness or powerlessness. These emotions trigger the body's stress, just as an actual threat does. Dealing with your negative thoughts and how you see things can help reduce stress.

Thought-stopping helps you stop a negative thought to help eliminate stress.

Disproving irrational thoughts helps you to avoid exaggerating the negative thought, anticipating the worst, and interpreting an event incorrectly.

Problem solving helps you identify all aspects of a stressful event and find ways to deal with it.

Changing your communication style helps you communicate in a way that makes your views known without making others feel put down, hostile, or intimidated. This reduces the stress that comes from poor communication.

You CAN reduce stress in your life if you have the right tools and are willing to make the necessary effort. Finding ways to ease the stress in your life will give you a whole new outlook. You will be healthier, both mentally and physically, and you will feel better.

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