Eating Out And Losing Weight

simple salad : home,
originally uploaded by aiyah.

By: Robert Kokoska

One of the hardest things in the world to do is eat out at a restaurant when you are trying to lose weight. Losing weight is all about burning more calories than you consume and when you are not the one preparing the meal, you are often eating higher amounts of calories than you thought would be in a given serving. In order to stay strict with those calories, there are a few tricks to eating out and losing weight.

* Choosing a salad. The salad section of a menu can seem like the safest place to start. But, salads in a restaurant setting are not like the salads you prepare at home. These are often laden with extra calories from the bacon bits to the cheese, the tortilla strips to the dressing. Two tablespoons of blur cheese dressing alone contains 150 calories. If a salad is on your mind, choose the side salad with lemon juice and use this as a starter for the meal.

* Eating from the kids menu. The kids menu offers smaller versions of the adult menu. But, these choices are often larger than a traditional portion you would serve yourself at home. Kids menu options are also most often deep fried and full of the wrong kinds of fats. Staying away from the kids menu is a great choice whenever dining out and trying to lose weight.

* Choosing chicken. Chicken is a safe choice in many restaurants as long as two simple rules are followed. Do not choose the battered version and do not eat the entire serving. A serving of chicken should only be the size of a deck of cards. This can be added to the garden salad to make for a light and healthy salad while dining in a restaurant.

* Flavored tea. Many restaurants are now serving flavored teas as a part of their menus. These teas can be appealing and there are just tea, right? Wrong. Many of the mango, raspberry and strawberry teas are flavored with sugared syrups and can contain more calories than a can of sugared soda. Ask how the teas are flavored before ordering.

* Choosing low carb. Unless you are on a low carb diet, the low carb menu should be avoided at all costs. Losing weight by counting calories is about just that, counting calories. Low carb options will contain fewer carbs but more fat and calories than many other options on the menu.

* Soups. Soups are another no-no in many restaurants. This is especially true for creamed soups. If soup is a must, ask for the nutritional data on the soup before ordering. Then, choose the soup with the lowest calorie count. And, always remember, you do not have to finish the entire bowl.

Losing weight and eating in a restaurant can be accomplished easily and without starving for that burger next to you. If the meal out is a planned one, eating a snack high in fiber before heading off to the restaurant is the best choice. The fiber will keep you feeling full and you will be less likely to order that huge meal sure to bump you off the weight loss track.

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Nutrition Vs. Diet: are You Getting the Nutrients Your Body Needs?

Grape,
originally uploaded by shadphotos.

Author: Healing Headquarters LLC

Today we hear the word diet much more than we hear the word nutrition. There are so many diets on the market that it’s easy to get lost in the fad and forget what nutrition truly is. There is the Atkins Diet, the Zone Diet, Weight Watchers and many others, from Slim Fast to the various one-food diets, such as the cabbage soup diet or the grapefruit diet. Society has become fixated on the ‘diet’, instead of quality nutrition. Unfortunately, this fixation isn’t working. America is the fattest nation in the world, with high rates of diabetes, heart disease and other life threatening illnesses. While diets are becoming more popular, nutrition is suffering.

What is a diet?

While many people think a diet is a set of rules you follow to try to lose weight, your diet is actually the food that you eat to supply your body with the nutrients it needs to function properly. While an average American diet consists of large quantities of processed sugar, white flour, meat and fast foods, a healthy diet is one that supplies the body with vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidants and enzymes. These nutritional building blocks affect your energy levels, your quality of life, and have a direct affect on your mood, memory, eyesight, body functions and lifespan. Without a healthy diet that supplies the body with much needed nutrients, you are more susceptible to colds, infections, and illnesses. Your diet, in other words your nutrition, is what sustains your life.

Nutritional Labels

There is much confusion surrounding nutritional labels. Most people look strictly toward the top for calories, fat grams and serving size information. The truth is that nutritional labels offer a look at the nutrients in one’s food, such as vitamins A, C, D and E, as well as calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc and folic acid. This information, although lower down on the nutritional label, is very important information if you are seeking to supply your body with nutrients, as opposed to empty calories.

The most important aspect of a nutritional label, although almost completely overlooked, is the actual ingredients within your food. While it may be easier to check to see how many calories and fat grams a certain food product has in each serving, when it comes to healthy nutrition the most important ingredient is what you are actually ingesting. It may have only 220 calories, but where are those calories coming from? Are you ingesting mostly corn syrup and sodium phosphate, or high amounts of preservatives, such as sorbic acid and sulfur dioxide? The ingredients in your food are the tell-tale clues to how much nutrition you are actually taking in. If your food is strictly cheese and flour, as opposed to nutrient providing vegetables and vitamins, it doesn’t really matter if the calories are low.

A Nutritional Diet

Nutrition comes from vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Food sources that are rich with nutrients are whole, living foods that are supplied from the earth. Dark leafy greens offer more calcium than milk, while beans and grains offer high amounts of iron. It is easy to turn your focus from diet to nutrition. And when you do, you might find yourself eating a diet that is rich in nutrients and optimal for losing weight.

Fad Diets, Bad Idea

Healthy Fruits & Vegetables,
originally uploaded by khancafee.

Author: John Spencer Ellis

It seems almost as if there is a new fad diet every week. Many of these contain elements of truth, but on the whole they contain much more good marketing than good science.

There is the 3-day diet, which touts eating little more than fruits for three days, followed by vegetables or meat or grains the other days. There are lots of variations.

While it's certainly true that eating fruit regularly is a key element to good health - most contain needed carbohydrates, vitamins and fiber - eating almost exclusively fruit for three days leads to imbalance - in carbohydrates, fiber and additional otherwise healthy components. To an extent the body will equalize and store what it needs for later, but there are limits.

Similarly, the 'low carb, high protein' diets, such as Atkins, recommend cutting way down on carbohydrates and eating substantial amounts of food high in protein. Here again protein is vital to proper nutrition, but so are carbohydrates. Putting too much emphasis on the first over the second leads to rapid, temporary weight loss, but at a high cost.

Carbohydrates are essential for supplying energy for all biochemical processes. Though the body, when needed, will use other sources, such as fat and protein. Too great an emphasis on protein reduces the ability of the body to store and regulate the appropriate amount of water, whereas carbohydrates help that.

There are very attractive sounding 'chocolate diets'. Nearly everyone loves chocolate and, contrary to some reports of a few years ago, it is healthy - in moderation. Chocolate contains anti-oxidants and other compounds that are helpful. But, as with anything, too much of a good thing is just that - too much. Also, since many will seek chocolate in forms that come with high fat, high sugar amounts it's possible to get some not-so-helpful elements along with the good.

There are ultra-low fat diets. Once again, the problem isn't with reduced fat, but going to extremes. A certain amount of fat in the diet is a healthy thing.

Any diet which makes promises of radical, rapid or quick weight loss - or any other extreme claim - is almost guaranteed to be more harmful than helpful. The human body has evolved over millions of years and decades of good nutritional research still confirms the common sense truth: balance is good, moderation is healthy.

Eat moderate portions at regular intervals of fruits and vegetables (for vitamins, carbohydrates and fiber), grains (for carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and fiber), protein (for amino acids) and dairy products (for calcium, unless you're lactose intolerant). For the average person, between 2000-2500 calories per day is appropriate. Less for women, on average, and for those seeking rapid weight loss.

A balanced diet, coupled with age-appropriate, moderate and regular exercise, will lead to a healthy percentage of body fat, good muscle tone and a well-tuned system. You'll find you feel better and look good.

Carbohydrates, The Good and The Bad

Japanese healthy food, homemade!!,
originally uploaded by mOOrango*.

By: Michelle Lacroix-toro Email Article

Carbohydrates have been put into the spotlight ever since diets like the Atkin’s Diet and the South Beach Diet have recommended cutting carbohydrates out of your meals as much as possible. However, before you make any drastic decisions about what foods to include and not include, it is crucial to learn about carbohydrates and what they do for your body.

In short, carbohydrates can be good or bad for your body. It is necessary to eat enough good carbohydrates, because that is how our body has enough energy for low-intensity activities during the day. Carbohydrates are found in breads and grains, but actually they are also found in a number of other foods as well, such as fruits and vegetables. When keeping an eye on your intake of carbohydrates it is important to distinguish the good from the bad.

All carbohydrates are basically sugars. Complex carbohydrates are the good carbohydrates for your body. These strings of sugar are very difficult to break down and trap nutrients like vitamins and minerals in the sugar strings. As they slowly break down, the other nutrients are also released into your body, and you are provided with fuel for a number of hours.

Bad carbohydrates, on the other hand, are simple sugars. Because their structure is not complex, it is easy to break down and holds little nutrients for your body other than the sugars from which it is made. Your body breaks down these carbohydrates rather quickly and what it cannot use is converted to fat and stored in the body. Staying away from simple carbohydrates is what most diets recommend, since they have little nutritional value when compared to complex carbohydrates.

More importantly than how carbohydrates work in the body and the difference between good carbohydrates and bad carbohydrates is how you can actually eat these carbohydrates! First, eat plenty of fruits and vegetables. These foods include carbohydrates, but also a variety of other nutrients needed by your body. Another great tip is to cut the white bread and bread products out of your diet and replace them with whole wheat or 12-grain breads instead. Look at the packaging. Foods rich in fiber are probably a source of good carbohydrates.

Learning the difference between good and bad carbohydrates is very important if you wish to have a healthy diet. It is not good for your body to cut out carbohydrates completely—in fact, that is very difficult to do unless you only eat meat! Eating a healthy and balanced diet means including good carbohydrates into your meals.

Michelle Lacroix-Toro resides in Southern Florida with her husband and children. She can be reached at mgabalot@peoplepc.com and her website addresses are www.MicMorEnterprises.com and www.MicSanMoneyMaker.com

10 Tips For Successful Weight Loss

Morning Jog at Broadbeach,
originally uploaded by autumn_leaf.

By: Gary Grewal Email Article

Losing weight is not a very difficult job. You can find hundreds of people out there who have successfully lost weight and have maintained it to date. Even you can do this, you need to know what they did and follow it with consistency. Following are some tips that you can use to lose weight.

1. Make exercises like swimming, cycling, jogging or walking as part of your life. Follow it every day and make sure that you spend some time on it. Make it a part of your life and no matter what happens you should not skip it.

2. If you get bored of doing exercises alone then find a friend to accompany you. Try to go in a park for walk or try the outdoors. If this doesn’t help then try different exercises on different days, this will keep you busy and you won’t get bored.

3. Try to avoid smoking as much as possible. Chances are that if you smoke you won’t lose weight and if you do lose weight you will not be able to maintain it.

4. Get up early and do your exercises in morning.

5. Don’t weigh yourself every day; this will put you in a doubt. Weight loss does not happen in a day or two. It requires a couple of weeks.

6. Keep a strong focus and be determinant in losing weight. The more willing you are the more interest you will take in losing weight. Don’t give up at all; it takes time so you need to have patience.

7. Don’t try to look for shortcuts; you will see a lot of ads on TV claiming to lose weight. Don’t fall for them always stick to a good and healthy plan. Ask people to give you honest suggestions about the schedule that is effective.

8. Have faith in your body and use healthier food. Don’t go for any un-natural steroids or other nutrition’s. Eat healthy food and take fewer amounts of sugar and fat.

9. Avoid junk food as much as possible and cook your own food. Use healthy vegetables and meat, this way you know what you are eating.

10. Build your body muscle and maintain it, weigh your body once a week and it will give you a good idea about the amount of weight you are losing. Even if you are not losing any don’t get frustrated, give it more time and then look for results.

Another thing to remember is that weight loss is a tricky business and it can take well over a month to be effective. There can be times in which a particular exercise shows result for one person but for others. It’s not working. Don’t get panic in this situation as every person has a different body structure and it can take different amount of time for people. Keep yourself focus, maintain your schedule and follow it with consistency. Try not to skip your work out sessions.


Gary Grewal is the founder of 101weightloss.com; a site featuring many articles on weight loss diets, pills, eating right, exercises etc. Visit his site for many more healthy weight loss tips.