5 Simple Steps to Start Your Weight Loss ProgramWritten by Nick Webb
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A good diet doesn’t end when you finally reach your target goal. Maintaining good nutrition, regular exercise and a healthy lifestyle is a continuing process. Only this will give you energy to face challenges of your busy day, boost your self-image, and make you look and feel better. And there’s no feeling like satisfaction when you achieve your goals by sticking to a sensible, healthy, diet plan. Besides, where would we be without food? Changing your diet to prevent or reverse heart disease, reduce your blood pressure, or to get better of your diabetes and, naturally to reach your desired weight, is not just a matter of cutting out butter and eggs and counting amount of fat grams you eat each day. For instance, most Americans get close to 40% of their calories from fat! This is twice recommended amount if you already suffer from heart disease. There are many misconceptions and confusion concerning fat these days, some seem to make sense, others are just plain dumb! Remember, concerning fat, several things are now known for sure. It is known that most of us eat too much fat and that obesity is a major health concern, increasing risk for heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, back pain and cancer. It is also known that saturated fat, more than anything else, is responsible for increasing our cholesterol levels. I know it’s weird, but it’s been found, ironically, that when people focus exclusively on eliminating cholesterol from their daily diet they may unknowingly move on to a diet high in saturated fats! Some people decide to become vegetarian, leaving out meat and eggs, but salad dressings, nuts and peanut butter, for instance, do more damage than a lean steak! Message: be careful what you eat, you may be surprised.
Nick Webb: Author of "Getting Your Life Back & Living it to the Full" offers encouragement, help, tips and advice for beating down your blood pressure, reducing cholesterol and conquering diabetes and living a longer, better life. Check out http://www.cureyourheart.com
| | 7 Winter Exercise Tips for Busy PeopleWritten by Dale Reynolds
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Park farther away from door and walk. At work, at grocery store, at mall; any place where you’re stuck walking outside anyway, just bundle up and get a few extra steps. When indoors, take stairs instead of elevator or escalator. You’ll burn lots more calories. You can even try using restrooms, copy machines, etc. on a different floor just to get more exercise. Consider wearing a pedometer and challenging yourself to keep increasing your steps per day. Use your lunch break if you work in an office. If your company has a gym, use it. Walk outside when weather permits. If it’s raining or snowing, walk laps around parking garage or laps around each floor perimeter plus steps between floors. Be less efficient! If you live in a multi-story house, take as many trips up and down stairs as you can instead of saving things to go up or down. At office, take a walk to see your coworkers instead of always using email. Face-to-face conversation is often better anyway, as it avoids misunderstandings and leads to better bonding and teamwork. Consider winter sports. Skiing (downhill or cross-country), ice skating, and snow-shoeing can all burn lots of calories. Also, just play in snow! Go sledding or build a snowman, and make some snow angels! I hope these tips help you to stay active this winter! Remember, key to weight loss is to burn more calories than you consume (and weight maintenance is balancing intake and burn equally over time.) If you don’t burn calories with exercise, you’ll need to cut your food intake, and that will be especially difficult during holidays. I personally would rather exercise more and enjoy a few holiday cookies! So get in habit of exercising consistently now!
Dale is a weight loss counselor, writer and speaker living in upstate New York. She has written a book, "A Slim Book on Weighty Matters".
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