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Weight Loss Exercise

A new type of Canada Food Guide?


Earlier I mentioned how I like the idea of the Canada Food Guide but I really do not like the ratios of foods. Here is how I would change things if I had the choice.

I am not sure how much you know about the Canada Food Guide but the idea is that the Canadian government has come up with a list a lot like the US food pyramid that list a type of guidline of what you should eat every day. There has always been arguments from people that the meat, milk, and grain lobby all have too much influence as well as the fact that a lot of people that have problems with lactose or gluten intolerance, as well as vegetarians are not really recognized in the Canada Food Guide.

Last year Health Canada radically revamped the Canada Food Guide and it is much better as it looks at age, sex, and other factors. Anyway I have my own ideas of what I would like to see as basics of the Canada Food Guide even though they have done a great job at Health Canada I think lots of people will not follow the more complex guidelines and are instead looking for a set of simple rules.

My Canada Food Guide

A new type of Canada Food Guide?8 glasses of water a day
I don’t care that water is not food. Water is still a nutrient that people need for a healthy diet and most people do not drink any water let alone a little bit. Adding water to the food guide would be a great addition

3-5 small servings of meat or fish
I know that meat and fish are not th only place to get protein but at least mentioning fish again would add to the options. Also most people think that a serving of meat is an 8 ounce steak, not a can of tuna but the can of tuna is just as good. Your body just can not metabolize a big steak.

3-5 servings of vegetables

3-5 servings of fruit
Why is it that fruits and vegetables have always been lumped together? Fruits are great for their high water content and antioxidants and Vegetables are great for minerals including iron and Calcium. I know that this is a generalization but it would be nice to see people eating more of both fruits and vegetables. Oh, and tater tots and french fries are not a vegetable no matter what my brother in law thinks.

2-3 servings of high fiber grains
The idea of lots of breads I believe is outdated as a nitritous food group, instead I beleive it would be good to have reference to high fiber foods and to have examples.

Serving sizes for My Canada Food Guide
Come on governments on both sides of the border, it would be nice to have a better idea, not just in print but in news papers and TV, of what a serving size really is. The biggest poblem facing most people is not the junk and misplaced nutrients but instead it is a lack of idea of what serving sizes really are. A bowl of food or cup of coffee is a great sized breakfast but a giant plate of food is not quite enough for dinner? We need to get the word out about what is a good meal morning, noon, and night.

I know that there is a lot more to a good diet than these few things but I look at this as a guide, a way to look at a days food, not the everything that we eat in a day.

Do you have better ideas? Let me know. I would love to add a few more things to this list of my Canada Food Guide in a follow up.


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Categories
General Weight Loss Tips

Trimming the Fat

I’ve been reading so many books lately that are rocking my world and changing my perspective. I would like to consider myself someone who is open (yet reluctant at times) to evolving my opinion and changing what I’m doing. Sometimes I worry that people see it as flighty and at times it can be, but I like to be aware of what behaviors are and are not working for me. If something doesn’t feel right I either try to change it, or change the way I look at it.

What book am I speaking of?

If you read nothing else this summer, please read this one. Oh my. Oh my. Oh my. I’m only a few pages in and I’m seeing the changes ahead of me. At first glance I thought this book was going to be about living on less, buying less and being a better consumer. And while it does touch on those subjects, Leo talks a lot about doing less. I could not have read this at a better time.

Lately (as you will notice from my lack of blog posting) that I’ve been a wee bit busy. We’re all busy right? Well, I’ve been piling things on. Saying yes when I should say no, getting less sleep, constantly trying to catch-up with my work and just trying to stay above water. All the while hoping that it would all take me to a place of productivity, more money and more freedom. I was wrong. I goodness I was wrong.

You remember my cough from a few weeks ago? I’m still coughing. I feel better, and the cough is less, but I’m still coughing. And the work that I am getting done feels rushed- a feeling that I’m truly not comfortable with.

In The Power of Less Leo compares two journalists. One who writes thirty articles a week compared to the one who writes only one a week. The first journalist gets praise from his editor for his productivity which boosts him up to keep going, yet his articles are not well researched. The second journalist who spends more time researching, writing and re-writing isn’t praised immediately, but respected. His article wins awards and propels his career. For a long time now I’ve the first journalist. And I really want to be the second one.

Leo talks about setting yearly goals; one or two instead of the typical 10-20 some of us (me!) set every year. He talks about trimming out excess tasks that aren’t getting you closer to your goals.

How is this related to weight loss?

My goal is better health through weight loss (or weight loss through better health!. It comes in different forms, has been mildly achieved, but still out there waiting for me to arrive. My banner begs to be changed to The Former Token Fat Girl. It’s the line blinking, waiting for me to type.

Just like a job that you show up for every day, a project with deadlines, or paying off debt- weight loss is a goal, a responsibility to myself to show up every day for, same as it were an item on my to-do list. I am just as important as the jewelry I make, the designs that are filed away on my computer and all the future interests I may have. I am more important.

My daily to-do lists make my head spin. They are paralyzing at times. They are unobtainable tasks mocking me from afar. The thing about my life is that I am my work. What I do to make a living is every bit apart of who I am. The ideas never stop. I don’t go home and settle down for the evening and turn off my creativity. When someone asks me to design a logo, if I’m lucky I will start to see how it’s going to look as a flash in my head. Sometimes I wake up with the design ideas in my head waiting for me to execute them. Often it feels like creativity is something I receive from an unknowing source. It just is.

But what I do have control over is how I spend my time and what is worth focusing on. I feel lucky that, for me, it is all intertwined. Being healthy, blogging, creating jewelry, designing…it’s all the same for me. It’s all creative, captivating and interesting. However, I’m at the point where I can’t carry so many torches. No matter how much I’d love to be a caterer, personal chef, interior designer, blogger, fitness guru, graphic design, metal smith, painter, illustrator, florist- all at the same time- I can’t. I have to let go. I have to focus.

I don’t want to mass produce jewelry, cramming in all I can the day before a show. If I only create a couple of pieces a month- pieces that are thought out, well executed and the best craftsmanship that I can produce- I will be happy, if not happier with my production. And with that I have decided to stop selling at markets and shows. I want fewer, high-quality items to represent me. Trimming the fat.

Next, there will be a major overhaul with my stuff. Getting rid of the excess, the unnecessary and unloved. The clutter that prevents the organization—the sanity.

I’m going to focus on less, fewer big goals with lots of small goals contributing to the big ones.

My big goals are:

1) Be healthy/lose weight and document the process here. To make myself a priority.

2) To create fewer, higher-quality pieces of jewelry a year.

3) To grow as a graphic designer.

Of course, I will still dabble for fun, but I’m going to stop trying to turn every interest into a career. I may change course next year and decide that I want to make handbags, or jars of salsa but that’s for me to decide next year.

Phew.

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Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

Juicing Recipe Ideas


For many people looking for juicing recipe ideas and starting to get into the benefits of juicing there is always two things they look at, juicing fruit and juicing carrots. I thought it would help to have a large list of juicing recipes so that it is a lot easier to get some good juicing recipe ideas

Potassium Power House

Juicing Recipe Ideas

Juicing Recipe Ideas

  • Combine cucumber, lettuce, celery, kale, and tomato.
  • For taste, add ½ carrot and 1 green apple, or ¼ lemon

Take advantage of the metabolism-stimulating effect of grapes and the fat-fighting properties of lemon with this recipe:

Juice a handful of grapes, 1 apple, ½ lemon or 1 lime.  To spice up the taste, add ¼ or ½ inch ginger.  Add cold drinking water to taste. V8-Like

Vegetable Juicing Recipe

  • 2 organic carrots
  • 2 organic Roma tomatoes,
  • ½ cup spinach
  • 1 or 2 celery stalks
  • To taste:
  • a handful of parsley bunch or cilantro
  • Optional: add 1/10 cayenne (red) pepper after juice is done to your glass and stir with a spoon.

SuperCleanser Juicing Recipe

  • 4 celery stalks
  • ½ small beet
  • 1 cilantro bunch
  • a handful of spinach

Breakfast Juice Fast Recipe

  • ¼ head of cabbage
  • 3 stalks of carrots
  • 1 apple with skin

Lunch Juice Fast Recipe

Combine the same ingredients above and add asparagus.

Juicing Recipe ideas for Weight Loss

Often people will ask me what is a good combination for juicing recipe ideas for weight loss and detox and I have come across this list of a sample day of juicing. Remember that as much as juicing seems like it is a snacky kind of food it is giving you lots of nutrients and being liquid based it is low in calories.

Test some of these weight loss juicing recipe ideas and see how they work out for you.

Morning Detoxification and Weight-Loss Recipe

  • ½ apple
  • ½ pear
  • 3 stalks of carrots
  • ginger

For lunch:

  • Brussel sprouts
  • Cauliflower
  • 3 stalks of carrots

For dinner:

  • Cabbage
  • Carrots
  • Any fruit

Here is another list of a whole bunch of different juices that you can try anytime just as a pick me up or to get more nutrients into you body.

Simply Green Juice

  • 1 cup of spinach
  • 2 cups of kale
  • 2 cups of parsley
  • 1 cucumber
  • 3 celery stalks
  • Optional:  a little garlic or ginger

Apple and Cucumber

  • 2 ½ apples, with stems removed
  • ½ cucumber
  • 1 inch ginger

Alkaline Juicer Recipes

  • 1 cup of spinach
  • ½ cucumber
  • 2 stalks of celery, including leaves
  • 3 carrots
  • ½ apple

Green Heaven Detox Juice Recipe

  • 3 stalks of celery
  • 4 large spinach leaves
  • 1 handful of parsley
  • ½ cucumber
  • 1 shot of wheatgrass
  • Note: This is a strong green juice, so start small to minimize detoxification reactions.

There are lots of options out there for juicing recipes and really there is a lot we can get our of juicing. I have a very comprehensive juicing article here on the blog but there are also lots of other ideas that you can find depending on what you would like to focus on in your health.

Have fun juicing and experimenting with fruits, vegetables and herbs. I hope these juicing recipe ideas are a help to you.


Juicing Recipe Ideas

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