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General Weight Loss Tips

Dear April

My last entry accidentally got deleted. This has happened maybe twice since I started blogging four years ago and I think it happened when the server updated and it got lost. So I apologize for that, it wasn’t intentional, especially since it took me forever to write and now I have no interest in writing it again.

It’s April! I have so many plans and goals for this month that I’m very excited about. But first, I have some updates:

–No Sugar. It’s been three months without sugar. I loosely say no sugar. I eat sugar in other forms such as fruit, natural sugars (I’ve added honey back in), and I will add sugar to a Vietnamese or Thai dish if it calls for it. It has been hard…some days harder than others. Right now I have cake and cookies in my house. I plan to give them away. It’s nice to not have them haunt me. I have sugar in the house, and I still bake. My treats are in the form of my glucosamine “candies”, Izze drinks, all natural fruit jam on toast/oatmeal/yogurt, and fruit smoothies. I’ve been hesitant to tell people I’m not eating sugar, in fact, if you don’t read this blog you probably don’t know.

I don’t want to be watched and I don’t want “sugar-free” to be confused with carb-free or have people think “oh she says no to ice cream, but yes to pizza! bah!” indeed so. This sugar-free thing is for cakes, cookies, ice cream…obvious sugar. It’s not a dietary guideline, it’s just me trying to get rid of something I have a hard time not overeating. I like rules.

– No TV. I have to admit I’ve gone almost five weeks without my regular rotation of TV watching and will confess I’ve been watching Mad Men on DVD this past week (season four just came out). Not a ton, and not like before when I get obsessed and watch five in one sitting. But, considerably less. I’ve noticed that I don’t miss TV in the mindless sort of way of passing time or procrastinating- I can always find ways to fill my time with work. However- I’ve come to realize that watching an episode of a good show with Josh is a treat for a days worth of work. We both work from home and it’s a nice way to turn off from work and relax together.

– Strength Training. Can I just say that I love strength training? I’ve been doing it off and on for almost five years now and it’s very rewarding. We picked it back up in January and I’m lifting weights that are 10-30 pounds heavier than I was then. We make notes during each session- can we increase the weight or stay the same. On February 3rd I could only do 80lbs. on the pull down machine (for arms, back and shoulders) and said I couldn’t do more.

Today I was able to pull down 120 lbs. That’s a 40 lb. increase in strength, meaning that I’m gaining muscle. This is the same for almost all of the machines I do. Did you know that for every pound of muscle you gain, your body burns 50 extra resting calories? Gaining 10 lbs. of muscle is 500 extra calories burned a day! I love that and I can tell that it is one reason that I’ve not gained any weight since January.

–Insanity. This week marks the 12th week of Insanity! I’ve lost 12-15lbs (it’s goes up and down) so far. I just can’t believe we’ve stuck with it for so long. We are already in our second rotation. I will admit that the past couple of weeks have been harder, we’ve done at least three workouts a week instead of our usual six. So we are getting back on track with six workouts this week.

April plans and goals:

The next two months (and most of summer) are going to be pretty hectic. I really need to step up my organization and will need continued exercise and eating well if I’m going to stay on top of everything. Spring marks the beginning of  of jewelry shows and my freelance design business is growing so I can use all the energy I can get.

I’m stepping up my game this month. I’m dedicated to counting calories and keeping a food journal. My goal it to lose 10-12 pounds this month with continued exercise and food tracking. I have no interest (as usual) in doing this by eating “diet” food, my method is to eat less, control portions, eat from home as much as possible and enjoy the food I’m eating.

Continuing with 5 days of the Insanity Workout with one day of strength. We may add yoga and running back in if the spirits moves us. And speaking of us… Josh is wearing all of his jeans now. All of the jeans that just a month ago would too tight. I am still steadily wearing a size 24/22. I’d love to be in a 20/18 by mid to late summer.

What are your April goals?

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Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

How to Succeed With A Weight Loss Program

Succeed With Weight Loss

Succeed With Weight Loss

Motivation is the problem that most people have when attempting to lose weight. While you may be all for losing weight at first, once the going gets tough, many people find that they have a hard time maintaining that motivation. Finding the best ways to maintain motivation is essential to sticking with a weight loss program.

How to Succeed With A Weight Loss Program

Here are some suggestions to help you stay motivated and continue losing weight. These can help you stay motivated. Some of these may even encourage you to push beyond your initial weight loss goals and into leaner weight classes.

1. Write down your goals. All too often, people do not write down their goals and then begin to falter in their resolves. Write down what weight you want to be at and how much weight you want to lose a week or a month.

2. Reward yourself every time you reach a goal. This reward should not be a food reward, but rather a gift reward, such as new shoes or new clothing. Something small for hitting small goals, something big when you hit milestone goals.

3. Track your progress. Be sure to draw up charts and write down your weight loss progression. Also consider writing down the number of inches lost as this can change even if the weight numbers do not change.

4. Track your portions and calories. Many times people will follow a diet plan, but will not follow the portion controls the entire time. This will cause you to gain weight, rather than lose it.

5. Keep a journal. Emotional eating is one of the most prevalent reasons that people gain weight. By keeping a journal, you can get your emotions out and not contributing to the desire to eat.

6. Keep a record of your exercise routine. All too often people forget to increase the weights used or change the exercise plan. This will cause you to stop losing weight and lose motivation.

7. Take stock as to why you want to lose weight. If it is just appearance sake, you might find you lose motivation quicker than if it is also about your health and the way you feel.

8. Put up mantras around the house and work place. These are small phrases that will remind you of your goals and how you are going to reach these goals.

With these 8 tips, you will be able to keep the motivation that you need to continue to lose weight. These tips will help you to reach your weight goals and maybe even surpass them as you get yourself into a routine.

Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

Example Raw Food Diet Menu

Raw Food Diet Menu

Figuring out a raw food diet menu can be challenging. You have access to hundreds if not thousands of raw recipes on the internet and in cookbooks, but how do you plan an actual menu from all of that? In this article we will look at what you might serve for a special meal, such as a dinner party.

Raw Food Diet Menu For A Special Meal

Prepare to have fun when you are planning a menu for a special raw meal. There are just so many dishes to choose from! It may take a little time but you are sure to come up with something that will please your guests and probably astonish them too, if they don’t have experience of how varied and delicious a raw food diet menu can be.

One of the great things about eating raw is that you can have some stunning colors on the table. Cooked foods lose the vibrancy of their colors along with so much else. When you are serving raw food, it’s easy to prepare a menu plan that will cover the table with color and make people long to taste everything.

Many Colorful Raw Food Diet Dishes

For that reason, you may want to prepare a range of dishes and serve them all together, buffet style, even if people are sitting down at the table. Provided the tastes will not clash, this is easy to do. Instead of offering one large bowl of mixed salad, you can serve a green salad with just a splash of color, and slices or sticks of crunchy salad vegetables separately, with a range of dips. Put enough dishes on the table and you have a combined first course and main.

You can also provide cabbage leaves for people to stuff to make their own raw spring rolls. This makes a great first course.

If you are serving the main course separately, you may want to offer something more traditional like zucchini noodles with a tomato based sauce, raw pizza, or a raw stir-fry without the frying. Raw vegetable noodles require a simple piece of kitchen equipment known as a spiral slicer, or you can slice them into ribbons very thinly with a knife.

Raw Food Diet Desserts

The choice of desserts for your raw food diet menu is huge. You probably already have your own favorites. If not, go experiment! The choices include cheesecake substitutes, chocolate puddings, raw brownies, fruit tarts and pies with a nut-based crust, or simply freeze your favorite smoothie recipe (with less added water) to make ice cream. Some of these are even better than the real thing!

Gourmet raw food recipes can be very filling, so it’s worth offering guests an alternative of plain fruit salad at the dessert stage. Some will want your classic nut-based ‘cheesecake’ but others will already have eaten their fill during the earlier courses of your raw food diet menu.

Of course, as with any dinner party, it is important to test all your dishes before the big day. You need to make sure they all work, both in appearance and in taste. If you can, have other people try the dishes in your raw food diet menu too.

 

 

 

 

 

Raw Food Diet
This is my recommendation for a cheap and easy book to learn the essentials of the Raw Food Diet. Whether you want to start today doing Raw completely or if you just want to test out the Raw Food waters this book is a must. This specific easy to use Raw Food diet will help you lose weight, look younger, and have great energy. Learn more about Raw Food here now.