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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.)


Negative Calorie Foods

You will find a list of negative calorie foods below, but first let's consider what this means. There is no such thing as a negative calorie - a calorie is a unit of heat and it cannot be negative. So when people talk about negative calorie foods, this just means a food whose calorie level is low enough that it takes more energy to eat and digest it than the food contains.

For example, if you consider water to be a food, then cold water is certainly a negative calorie food. It contains no calories at all and the body has to expend energy to bring it up to blood temperature. So every time we drink a glass of cold water we burn up a couple of calories and lose a little weight. But there are very few foods like this.

Most foods that are on the list do not really use more calories than they add, or if they do, the effect is negligible ... until you remember that at the same time the body expends energy just to keep alive and breathing. Celery, for example, does not give us enough calories to cover both the energy that it takes to digest it, plus the energy that we expend even when we are doing nothing. So that is why people call it a negative calorie food.

Negative calorie foods are most attractive to anorexics. A negative calorie diet would obviously result in starvation in the long term and nutritional deficiencies can occur surprisingly quickly. The calories burnt usually come from muscle mass, and the result is debility and wasting away.

A more healthy way to use a negative calorie diet is as a form of fasting or detox. It is something you can do for one to three days right after the Christmas season or another time when you have been eating an over-rich diet. Provided you are otherwise healthy it can be a great way to clean out the system. However it is still best to take medical advice before attempting this.

 If you decide to use a negative calorie detox, keep the following points in mind:

1. It is never a good idea to eat huge quantities of one type of food, especially fruits. A lot of foods contain substances that can be damaging if consumed to excess. For example, the acid in grapefruit and pineapple can damage your stomach lining. Other foods put an excessive burden on the liver or may cause diarrhea. So try to use all the different foods in small quantities.

2. Do not spend all day eating. You will just become bloated and feel sick. If you are only doing this for a couple days, you should not feel too hungry. Plan four or five salad meals each day, and let your digestion rest at other times.

3. You will feel more satisfied if you eat slowly and chew your food thoroughly. You will also use more calories that way. So if the foods can be eaten raw, that will be more effective than cooking them. Foods like carrots and beets will also be more satisfying if you eat them grated.

4. Schedule time when you do not have any important commitments. As with fasting or any kind of detox, you may suffer some uncomfortable symptoms including headaches, tiredness, depression and irritability. If these become severe, stop the diet and see a doctor.

5. When you end the detox, plan a gradual return to normal eating.

If all the above points are checked, let's move on to the list of foods.

    * Apples
    * Apricots
    * Asparagus
    * Beets
    * Bell peppers
    * Blueberries
    * Broccoli
    * Cantaloupes
    * Carrot
    * Cauliflower
    * Celery stalk
    * Celery   
    * Cranberries
    * Cucumbers
    * Eggplant
    * Endives
    * Garden cress
    * Garlic
    * Grapefruit
    * Green beans
    * Green cabbage
    * Hot chili peppers
    * Lamb's lettuce
    * Lemons
    * Lettuce
    * Onions
    * Papayas
    * Pineapples
    * Prunes
    * Radishes
    * Raspberries
    * Spinach
    * Strawberries
    * Tangerines
    * Tomatoes
    * Turnips
    * Zucchini

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