Tag: lifestyle

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#TuesdayTip Boosting Your Metabolism

As some of you may know, I’ve been trying to lose weight and be healthier. I’ve made some lifestyle changes to do that and have lost 30 pounds. Some of the changes are probably obvious, but I’ll share them anyway along with some links for you on this Tuesday Tip day!

I drink more water! Water fills you up. It helps your liver process toxins from your body and first thing in the a.m., it wakes up your metabolism from a long night of rest. Click here for more info on how drinking water can help you!

I walk more and I exercise every day in one way or another. I try to hit the gym for cardio exercise at least twice a week and then do strength training twice a week. As we get older, it’s important to improve our core strength and stay strong to do everyday tasks. Click here for info on the muscles to work on for core strength and a quick core workout.

If you want, you can friend me on Fitbit and challenge me to a workout! I love challenges.

I’ve stopped using artificial sweeteners and only have sugar in my first cup of coffee. I’ve also limited myself to two diet sodas a day. Rough for me, but I know they are not healthy. Here’s a good article from the Mayo Clinic explaining the different sweeteners and possible concerns with them.

Finally, I’ve been researching ways to boost my metabolism to help burn calories. At work I’ve got a little kitchen timer that dings regularly to remind me to get up and move. I’ve started doing intervals on the elliptical and even while I’m walking, changing the pace to increase my metabolic rate. Click here for more tips on things you can do to boost your metabolism and burn calories just by doing some pretty simple things.

Hope you enjoyed today’s Tuesday Tip!
TuesdayTip

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#Fitness Friday Tips for Getting More Fit & Healthy

I’m always striving to be healthier and to find ways to get more fit. Since I try to keep up on news about such things, I’d thought I’d share them with you in a new Friday segment – Fitness Friday!

Check out these articles on various aspects of being more fit and healthy.

3 Steps to Avoid Junk Food Cravings: http://bit.ly/1IK9XYw
Calories count more than fat or carbs: http://reut.rs/1L8NPKW
Don’t Fear the Scale – Why you don’t have to fear weighing yourself every day: http://cnn.it/1IK8O36
Fighting Office Body – Move more to improve your health & Posture: http://yhoo.it/1IK7Eoe
High Protein Breakfasts May Help Prevent Fat Gain: http://bit.ly/1IK9BRs
How to Stay Motivated in your Fitness Regimen: http://bit.ly/1IKad9Z

Now I have to say one thing about the article on the types of calories not mattering as much as the calories themselves. I’ve been using my Fitbit and religiously tracking what I eat and how active I am. When I eat the same number of calories, but include “bad carbs” such as bread, crackers, cookies and pasta, I not only gain weight immediately, but I experience belly bloat and other things. I’m not saying you all will experience the same thing, but you need to listen to your body and what it’s telling you about the food you’re eating.

Speaking of Fitbit, if you want to become a pal and cheer me on while I cheer you on, you can friend me at https://www.fitbit.com/user/3GZT48.

If you want to join me and others in a DietBet – that’s where you put your money on how much weight you can lose – click here to check it out!
FitnessFriday

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Pound of Feathers or Lead? Serving Sizes Matter

As some of you may know from my Twitter and Facebook Posts, my goal for the New Year is to get healthier and lose weight. I’ve always stuck to an exercise regimen, but found that losing weight was just not happening in the past couple of years.

One thing that I had not done, as I had in the past, was limit my carbs. That was step one and wow, what a difference. Cutting back and substituting whole grain carbs has made a HUGE difference. It’s been just two weeks and I’ve lost 11 pounds.

The other thing I’m doing is being more conscious of serving sizes. Let’s face it, it’s tough to know what is a cup of anything and the last thing I want to do is to turn cooking dinner into a chemistry lab where I am busily measuring everything.

But serving sizes do matter and with that in mind, I laid out a tablespoon on the kitchen counter and took my plastic measuring cups to my office, where most of my mot egregious eating happens at lunch hour with my friends. The goal: make sure that the size of my portions was in keeping with the serving size so that I would know just how many calories I was eating!

But measuring cups and spoons are not always available, so how do you know when it’s one serving or more?

I’ve tracked down this excellent visual comparison from the people at the Food Network! Just click here to see how you can gauge just how many servings are in your portion!

My hardest one to judge is always meats. Now I know that of beef/chicken/pork looks like a deck of cards or my palm without my fingers (another good way to gauge). So how many ounces is in a meat serving? 3 ounces. If you’re eating fish, three ounces looks like the size of a checkbook.

If you’re going to have a larger portion (8 ounces) of meat, a serving is about the size of a thin paperback novel.

I hope this helps out if like me, you’re trying to implement a healthier lifestyle for the New Year.

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Tuesday Tip – Weight Loss Progress & Tricks

Both my husband and I used to say, give us good bread, tasty cheese and a yummy bottle of wine and we’d be set for life.

The truth is, we’ve found that only two of the three have been good for us — the dairy and wine part. The carbs, not so good.

In our desire to pursue a healthier lifestyle and control our weight, cholesterol, etc. we’ve been decidedly better at choosing what to eat, namely, lower fat dairy, lean meats, more vegetables and fruits and the occasional glass of red wine (and yes, I know 100% grape juice has the same benefits!)

But when it came to weight loss, the one sure thing that helped and also reduced our belly fat — lowering our carbohydrate intake. We haven’t totally eliminated it, but we are much more conscious of eating high fiber, whole grain, low calorie carbohydrate products.

Of course, each person’s metabolism is different, so it’s a give and take to find out what works best for you. To help you, here are some more tips for you to consider.

Chocolate milk is a wonderful choice. I had hubby substitute it for those expensive high protein supplements and not only is it working, it’s natural! You can read more about the health benefits of milk by clicking here.

Substitute tea and iced tea for coffee or soda. Tea is packed with antioxidants and the polyphenols in tea can help ward off cancer and diabetes while providing a gentle boost of energy. Just make sure not to steep the tea too long to avoid releasing tannins which can cause stomach upset and constipation. Here’s more on the benefits of tea in your diet!

Use honey in your tea or for your other sweetening needs. Honey is one of nature’s wonder products and you can find out more about the health benefits of honey here. I had tried using agave nectar and found it quite sweet. In retrospect, and beyond all the hype about its wonders, I’m starting to hear a lot of negative things about agave nectar. So, if you’ve got diabetes or problems with your tri-glycerides, you may want to avoid it.

In my case, I had reached a plateau where I was stuck at a certain weight. No matter what I did eating wise, I could not get that scale to budge which I have to do for health reasons and not for vanity’s sake. The solution for me — increasing my weight training by adding more weight and increasing the work during my aerobic workout by likewise adding resistance. Both helped me bust through a plateau! I’ve lost 13 pounds and am looking to keep on losing until I am a recommended weight for my height.

You can read some other tricks for busting through a plateau by clicking on this link!

I hope you found this Tuesday Tip helpful! I’ll keep you posted on my progress and if you’ve got any suggestions of your own about losing weight and getting healthier, please share them in the comments section. And as always, check with your doctor about what you can and can’t do in terms of diet and exercise.

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