Weight Loss and Exercise Stories from the front lines

With our hectic schedules these days, it can be hard to eat right on the go. Despite all those healthy, on-the-run snacks and meals, you could be packing on pounds simply because you don’t plan ahead. If you want to lose weight, it is essential that you plan ahead to eat right.

Planning ahead leaves you no option but to eat what’s planned and what’s good for you. It’s similar to having a schedule, and you will feel good when you adhere to the meal plan that you have set forward to yourself. It can also help you save money at the grocery store by keeping you from purchasing fattening snack items on a whim.

In order to plan ahead you need two lists: a list of planned meals, and a list of the ingredients you’ll need to cook those meals (your grocery list.) Start out by browsing through cookbooks and online recipe blogs to get ideas of what you want to eat. You might be surprised at the number of quick and nutritious meals you can find when you do a little research. Even if you want a breakfast on the go, be sure to research what breakfast bars or other quick breakfast options are the healthiest.

Write down all the ingredients and go grocery shopping. With list in hand, you will find it easier to avoid random, unhealthy purchases. As you learn to splurge less at the grocery store, you will learn to plan better meals that can help you lose more weight.

I just heard about this product yesterday when I was reviewing sale items at my local grocery store. Banana babies? What is that?!

I looked it up and found out that they were chocolate covered frozen bananas available in the freezer aisle. One serving is a half of a (large) banana, which makes them more snacker-friendly. I love frozen bananas, and they are currently on sale, so I decided to pick some up. I’m so glad I did.

These awesome frozen treats are better than all of the ice cream products out there because they give you the nutrients found in bananas. The chocolate makes them a sweet treat that will satisfy your sweet tooth at about 130 calories each. I know it’s a little higher than some of those 100 calorie snacks out there, but I bet those treats don’t give you a serving of fruit, do they?

If you like bananas and you’re looking for alternatives to 100 calorie snack packs and yogurt for your diet-friendly snack, I recommend you give these a try. They taste great and would make a perfect snack on a hot day. Even if the temperatures are cool, they’re still a nutritious alternative snack for only 130 calories!

When people are trying to lose weight, they often count the calories of everything they eat; however, many people forget that the way they prepare a food can drastically affect the number of calories in a dish. Many preparations of the healthiest foods contain some type of oil or butter that can add (forgotten) calories to the daily total. If you are looking for a way to cut some of those calories or even just more accurately count your calories, I suggest you try poaching your foods.

Most people think of poaching as poached eggs and not much more, but the truth is that most anything can be cooked in this very healthy way of cooking. Poaching cooks food with the use of a hot liquid of your choosing, and it adds very few calories, if any. When poaching meat, you typically get a more succulent piece of meat (or fish) simply because the meat is being cooked in liquids that will be retained once the cooking process is finished.

You can use nearly any type of liquid you want to poach food, so feel free to get creative. I have poached things in stock/wine combinations as well as in seasoned water, and both have come out great. If you’re interested in giving poaching a try, I suggest you look up some recipes to see the amazing variety of poaching liquids suggested in many recipes. You’ll be surprised at how many different options there are. When you’re preparing your poaching liquid, be sure to test the flavor of it – it will give you a better idea of what your finished product will taste like. You can always add more seasoning if you think it will improve the flavor!

Next time you’re looking for healthy recipes, look up poaching recipes to reduce the fat and calories in your cooking preparation.

Most dieters succumb to the occasional visit to a restaurant, and many often fall back on the salad selection as a safe bet for diet-friendly options. Unfortunately, many salads – especially those found on restaurant menus – contain as many if not more calories than some of the regular entrees. If you’re committed to your salad habit, here are a few tips and tricks to stay on the wagon as well as what to watch out for.

Cheese on a salad is pretty much always bad. Restaurant chefs are often pretty heavy-handed with the cheese, too, making it even worse. Try to avoid salads with cheese on them because a heavy sprinkling of this dairy product can boost your calorie count by about 100 calories. Just for cheese! You can always ask for it on the side if you’re having a fierce cheese craving, but the best bet is to ask for no cheese at all.

Salad dressings can also be extremely high in calories, especially since you may not have control over how much dressing is on the salad. Of course creamy dressings are obvious high-calorie risks, but many people don’t realize that very sweet dressings can also be high in calories. French dressing is the least healthy dressing you can order; instead, opt for oil-based dressings. Always ask for your dressing on the side.

If you order your salads with meat, be careful to avoid high calorie preparations. Fried chicken or shrimp have a lot of calories that could easily be avoided by ordering the meat grilled. It’s also best to avoid bacon on your salad because of the high sodium content.

Next time you go out to a restaurant, be careful to check what’s on the salad so you can stick to your diet.

If you’ve ever been on a diet, you’ve probably heard that cottage cheese is a typical diet food. Cottage cheese gets this reputation because it is a high protein dairy product that is low in calories and relatively low in fat – even lower if you choose the reduced fat varieties! Most cottage cheeses are also quite high in calcium albeit a high sodium content is its one downfall. Unfortunately, although this food is chock full of awesome nutritional facts to help dieters diet better, many people complain that the bland taste makes it difficult to add to their diet.

There are several ways you can spice up cottage cheese without adding too many calories or fat. One of the most obvious ways is by adding fruit – this not only ups the nutritional content, but it can also satisfy your sweet tooth. You can always use a bit more fruit in your diet, so this is a wonderful snack. Try it with cantaloupe, strawberries or pineapple, and you can even add a bit of honey to boost the sweetness.

Vegetables are also another go-to item for giving some extra flavor to cottage cheese. The cottage cheese can act as a substitute for some of your favorite (more fattening) dips like ranch dressing. Try it with carrots or celery. Or, a bit of tomatoes and/or roasted red peppers can have a more Mediterranean feel.

If you’re craving something different, try adding a bit of hot sauce to your cottage cheese. The cottage cheese gives a great texture and most of the flavor comes from the spice of the sauce. If you’re not a fan of the texture of cottage cheese, grab 3 or 4 potato chips and crunch them up, sprinkling the crumbs of the cottage cheese. Although potato chips are high in fat and calories, if you only use a few, you won’t increase your calorie intake by much. And you’ll have a great new texture for this favorite diet food!

Have you ever found that when you go on a diet, all you want to do is eat? Even if you force yourself to pay little attention to food as soon as you go on diet, all of a sudden you become obsessed with it. You find yourself concerned about what you’ll have for your meal, even what you’ll allow yourself to eat tomorrow. What’s going on?
The mind and the body are linked, and never is this more apparent than when you go on a diet. While the body becomes a “slow burner” in an attempt to hang on to every single calorie, the mind gears itself to purpose: getting food. Your body wants food, and your mind does, too.

After a few days of extremely limiting your food, you’ll probably become more depressed and anxious. You may suddenly like to spend more time alone — it takes too much energy to deal with others — and your self-esteem may start to drop. Unfortunately, the more depressed, anxious, and isolated you are, the more you’ll become obsessed about food.

Some people can hold out longer than others, but the result is eventually the same: a binge. During the binge you feel relief — at last you can relax and do what you’ve wanted to do all along. But you may feel as if you’re in a trance and can’t stop yourself. As a result, you can end up eating more food than you ever did when you weren’t dieting.

If you’re looking for a low-calorie food that will fill you up, pumpkin is the super food that can be used for more than just carving jack-o-lanterns. With a rich, velvety flavor perfect for autumn and winter, adding pumpkin to your diet can be a tasty way to feel fuller longer.

I first considered adding pumpkin to my diet because of something my vet said: in order to help my dog lose a bit of weight, substitute pumpkin for about half of his dog food.

What? Yes, the canned pumpkin you buy for making pumpkin pie was suggested as an additive to my dog’s food to help him lose weight. She told me that pumpkin is a great low-calorie food (safe for dogs) that still has all the nutrients my dog needed. So I began researching pumpkin as a food in general.

What I found was some wonderful statistics about this highly overlooked food. Although it’s high in carbohydrates which might concern Atkins-addicts, it’s important to remember that carbs give us energy. The best thing I found was that it had one of the highest ratings on the scale in terms of making people feel full, and it was considered an optimal food to eat for weight loss. Additionally, it is absolutely full of so many nutrients that most of us are probably not getting nearly enough of as well as being low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium!

The best thing about this superfood is that it tastes wonderful when prepared correctly. Pumpkin is a squash, so it has a very nice winter flavor and can easily be spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, curry, etc. My favorite preparation is pureed with cauliflower. There are plenty of pumpkin recipes online, though, so simply search pumpkin recipes and find your favorites. Adding pumpkin to your diet should not only help you lose weight but also decrease your dependence on a daily vitamin.

When you’re on a diet, you may cut out desserts as a way to cut sugar, calories and temptation. However, when you deprive yourself of these small pleasures, you put yourself at risk for binging on way more sweet stuff than you otherwise would have. Adding a dollop of Reddi Whip to fruit (or just squirting a bit out of the can!) can be a great way to satisfy your sweet tooth and not break your diet.

Traditional Reddi Whip (not the low-fat, low-cal whatever options) only has 15 calories per serving. Even though a serving is relatively small, you can get away with 2 or 3 servings and not worry about having eaten too many calories. A cup of blackberries has about 60 calories – pair that with a generous amount of whipped cream (3 servings) and you’ll have a tasty dessert that’s just over 100 calories.

A word of advice, though. Don’t confuse Reddi Whip with homemade whipped creams like the kind Starbucks makes. A small dollop of Starbucks whipped cream has at least 100 calories – just for the whipped cream! They use heavy cream and vanilla syrup, so as delicious as it is, it comes with quite a high calorie content.

Remember to check the calories before you buy, but for the most part, whipped cream is an excellent diet dessert that will satisfy your low-cal cravings.

When we are on strict diet plans, we sometimes forget everything outside of counting calories. It’s easy to forget how important it is to drink enough water every day to lose more weight.

So how does drinking more water help you lose weight? In several ways. First, water can curb hunger cravings. Sometimes when we think we feel hungry, our body is actually telling us that we are thirsty. If we mistake it for hunger, we will end up eating when we’re not hungry – and at the end, we won’t even feel satisfied. It can also help lessen our appetite while we are waiting to eat, helping us eat less overall.

Water weight can also cause us to weigh more than we actually should. Although some people are under the misconception that drinking too much water will make them gain water weight, the opposite is true. Our bodies hold onto water only when we are not putting enough in; when we drink enough water consistently, our body sheds the water weight.

So next time you are starting a new diet plan, make sure your glass is all full of water. It will curb your appetite and help you lose weight faster.

You may have seen spirulina supplements advertised at your favorite juice or smoothie bar but not been quite sure what it is or what the benefits are. Spirulina is classified as an algae that typically grows in tropical climates. Today, we use it as a food supplement because of the vast health benefits and nutrients contained within.

Spirulina is relatively low in calories, and for every gram of protein there are about 4 calories. Some skeptics have pointed out that that’s about the equivalent of the calories in sugar, but sugar isn’t packed full of protein and B12, is it? You could technically get your entire daily protein requirement from spirulina (50 grams) and only consume 200 calories. That’s way more benefit than you’ll get out of 200 calories worth of sugar!!

The reason this can really make a difference in your weight loss is because you can feel full on very few calories. If you added some spirulina to each meal, it would likely decrease the frequency of your hunger cravings, allowing you to eat less. The high protein content is also important if you’re trying to build lean muscle while losing fat since protein is key to muscle development. And the B12 will make you feel energized throughout your workout.

Spirulina is a great addition to your diet to help you have less food cravings and power through your workout.