Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

Should You Limit Carbs on the Paleo Diet?

No two people lose weight in the same way. This is why it is hard to determine how many carbs each person should consume every day. Some people may find that they can lose weight while eating 40 grams of carbs each day, while others have to limit their choices to fewer than 20 grams.

In order to find how many carbs you should be consuming you will need to track your weight loss results. Start off by keeping a food and exercise journal. This way you can review it each week and see exactly what you ate and how many pounds you lost.

You should also take into account your exercise level as well. If you are an athlete training for a sporting event you can eat more carbs than a person who is trying to lose weight.

Even though you have your list of recommended foods for the Paleo Diet they each contain different amounts of calories and carbohydrate levels. Just because a food is listed doesn’t mean you can eat them all day in huge quantities. You should take your overall calories into consideration as well.

A good example of this would be nuts. Yes they are allowed on the Paleo diet but they are also very high in calories. Nuts are best used as a snack and limited to a small handful, around 10-12 nuts each day.

Another area to be careful with carbs and sugars is with fruit. Again fruits are healthy and good for you, but some fruits contain large amounts of sugar. If you are trying to lose more than just a few pounds limit your fruit to one or two pieces per day.

Sweet potatoes are another recommended Paleo food but are also high in calories. Eating a sweet potato is a good choice for lunch if you are planning on an afternoon of high activity, such as gardening. Your body needs energy to perform this task and by eating before exercising you can burn off the calories. It is best to avoid eating sweet potatoes for dinner. You are less likely to be active in the evening and the calories will just sit on your body.

When starting out on the Paleo diet limit your choices of high carbohydrate foods and choose those which are rich in fibre such as vegetable. This will help maximize your weight loss efforts.

By keeping track of how many carbs you consume you can see how your body reacts. If you aren’t losing each week then cut back on your carbs and fruits. As you reach your desired weight loss goal you can slowly add these back in.

Related Blogs

  • Related Blogs on Athlete
  • Related Blogs on Burn Calories
Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

Eliminating Sugar from Your Diet

When following the Paleo Diet you will see that all sugary foods are banned. Even though this might be hard for some people, eliminating sugar from your diet is a good thing!

Yes, sugar does taste good but it also contains fats and huge amounts of calories. Not good for anyone wanting to lose weight! Sugar is addictive and you will find that the more you eat, the more your body will crave sugar.

Eliminating Sugar from Your Diet

Your body cannot handle all this sugar and will store excess sugar as fat. This fat shows up on your hips, thighs, buttocks and stomach.

As well as food cravings sugar is responsible for making you feel tired. If you eat too much sugar you may find that you wake up tired. You don’t feel refreshed at all. You can get rid of this tiredness but eating more sugar but then the cycle starts over again. You feel better from the sugar high but your body crashes leaving you feeling extremely hungry and fatigued.

Breaking the Sugar Cycle

So how do you break this cycle, how do you eliminate sugar from your diet? Well the obvious way is by eliminating as much sugar as possible from your diet.

Eliminating Sugar from Your Diet

Eliminating Sugar from Your Diet

Cutting back on soft drinks, processed foods, crackers, muffins and cookies is a good start. You should also be careful about choosing fruits which are high in sugar. If you are trying to lose weight only eat one or two pieces of fruit per day.

People who eat high amounts of sugar have been found to have high triglyceride levels, plus their good (HDL) cholesterol levels are low. Low HDL levels are a cause for heart attacks.

The amount of sugar that you can safely eat is around 8 teaspoons per day, or 100 calories for women and 150 calories from sugar for men. This amount of sugar can be found in one can of soda!

The best way to eliminate sugar from your diet is to take one step at a time. Start by replacing those soft drinks with herbal tea or water. Water will actually help flush out toxins from your body and jump start your weight loss efforts.

Start eating regularly and allow yourself small snacks in between each meal. Sugar is known to curb your hunger quickly, so not allowing yourself to suffer from those hunger attacks is key. By keeping your body full with nourishing healthy foods you can overcome your sugar cravings and eliminating sugar from your diet within a few days.

If you do decide to quit sugar totally the first two to three days will be the hardest to get through. Your body will crave something sweet so make sure you have snacks such as nuts or berries on hand to eat.

Stress is another cause of sugar cravings and if you find yourself wanting to eat when stressed then it is time to deal with the cause of your stress. Taking the time to find out the root cause and handling it is the only way to remove stress from your life. As well as making you crave sugar stress can cause all kinds of health issues including heart attacks and death!

By following the Paleo diet you will only be consuming sugar that is found naturally in foods. By eliminating sugar from your diet you should experience a sharp drop in your weight quite quickly.

Related Blogs

  • Related Blogs on Buttocks
Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

Colder Weather Exercise


The Summer is creeping away here in Calgary. On my ride in this morning the temperature was right at freezing so the nice easy schedule of riding in to work and home will be over sooner than I would hope. Now is the time of year that all of those outdoor activities that keep you in shape so easily are going to come to an end in the northern latitudes.

What will you do about it?

Most people have a bad habit of fluctuation exercise. In the Spring you get sore from exercising outside for the first time since the fall and your body hates you for it, but you endure it and workout through the Summer and in the Fall and Winter get almost no exercise again and have your weight float up a few pounds hoping that you can lose it again next Spring. I will be giving tips all Winter for staying in shape but this is a good chance to look at what you should start thinking about right now.

First prioritize your exercise schedule for the Winter. It may be tougher to work out but of course you can do it if you work out the days and times you will be working out. Most of all be realistic. The best times to workout are early morning before you get caught up with the issues of the day and after work if you have a stable work schedule. If you push dinner out a bit you may be able to either workout right after work before dinner or else get an hour in while watching one of the many great TV shows that eat up our Winter nights.

Next figure out what you want to do this Winter for exercise. A few years ago my family (actually my wife and I, the toddlers had no say in it) bought a good treadmill and exercise bike and then each Fall we go out and replace one of the items and lose a bit on the trade-in but at least have some great new and new to us equipment to keep us interested in the Winter.

Lastly make sure that you have a good mix of exercise. One or two pieces of fitness equipment may not be enough to keep you motivated is make sure you plan on skating, skiing or climbing stairs in an office building to supplement your exercise this Winter. If you can find local fitness events that you can take part in. There are a lot of different leagues in the Winter be they hockey or curling or badminton and volleyball.


One great tip for exercise equipment is to have a running log of your distance. This would be floors for a stair machine or actual miles on a treadmill, bike or elliptical trainer. Using a map it is fun to keep track of the distance that you have covered and you can even try to go city to city with goals in between over the course of the Winter.


Related Blogs

  • Related Blogs on Bad Habit
  • Related Blogs on Exercise Bike