Food cravings can spell disaster for someone on a healthy diet. In some cases, you can trace your cravings to an emotional need or a hormonal impulse. Yes, it’s true! Just look at Read more
Avoid holiday weight gain starting NOW! Today is Thanksgiving and it’s the perfect time to start thinking ahead. Since it’s just the start of the holiday season, you can get a head start on a healthy eating program by planning ahead!
Too much food, too much wine, too much holiday cheer can lead to months and months of diet deprivation into 2009 and beyond.
So, here are the tips that I’ve found to be very helpful:
Lighten up your weight loss goals. This advice is not for everyone especially if you’ve had lots of success losing weight and you don’t want to mess up your plan. If that’s you, great! But if you’ve struggled with your weight loss so far, consider easing up a little. Revise your goals for the holidays to lose half as much as you’ve been trying to lose or just make a goal to maintain your weight right now. I encourage you to still follow your plan but if you should happen to slip up, don’t beat yourself up.
Keep to your exercise schedule of at least 30 minutes a day 3 to 5 times a week. You’ll need the stress-relieving benefits of exercise during this time, anyway.
Eat a small healthy meal or snack before you go so that the goodies on the holiday table won’t tempt you as much. Eating a small amount of protein 20 minutes before a meal can help suppress your appetite and make you feel fuller sooner.
If you’re not already doing this, start a food journal so you can track what you’re eating.This will make you accountable to yourself to make sure you stick to a healthy eating plan.
If you get a craving for something sweet or even feel a little hungry but it’s not time to eat yet, keep sugar free gum or mints handy.
Metabolism is the way your body burns the energy it takes in as food. You can count calories forever but if you’re not burning them faster than you’re taking them in, you won’t be able to lose weight.
Many people have success in their weight loss approach by learning how to combine the right foods with the right amount and type of exercise that burns fat and increases the body’s thermogenesis. Read more
You can lose fat,build muscle, and look great with strength training. Better than cardiovascular exerscise, it helps you lose fat and build muscle…the kind that gives you a sleek and toned look and minimizes flab.
Strength training helps you lose fat by building muscle in your body…which is the engine that burns the fat on your body. The more muscle you have, the more calories your body burns. Read more
Right now, water aerobic exercise is the last thing I would try because it’s something like 60 degrees outside…and I live in Florida!
But since I mentioned it in the previous post, I thought I would tell those of you who have access to an indoor pool or who live in a really warm place that never gets cold how to get started.
Water aerobics is great because Read more
Fitness for busy moms is hard because most mothers don’t really have much time to think about how to begin a health physical fitness program. But it’s wise to make room for it in your daily life before you start to experience weight problems and other complications from an unhealthy lifestyle. Read more
Want to know how to build stamina? Maybe you’re just starting a fitness program or you’re returning to your fitness program after a long illness or surgery. Whatever the reason, here are some tips to get you back on your fitness track.
The definition of stamina – the ability to endure prolonged physical or mental strain. There are a few things you can do first to make sure you have a good foundation.
First, just like a car needs gas in it to make it run, you need good food to give you the vitality you need to have stamina and endurance.
Eat three healthy meals throughout the day and a mini-meal of 200-300 calories about 60-90 minutes before exercising to give you the energy to “go”! If you exercise on an empty stomach, it can cause dizziness and fatigue which is exactly what you don’t want to do if you’re trying to build stamina.
Good choices for the mini-meal are low fat yogurt and a banana, string cheese and an apple or peanut butter (no trans fat) and crackers. If you don’t have time for that, even a small snack 30 minutes before you exercise can help. A simple carbohydrate is your best bet such as jello or a piece of fruit. Read more
The latest thing in weight loss supplements is Hoodia Gordonii. My hoodia gordonii review was sparked by my own curiosity. Everyone is talking about Hoodia Gordonii and hoping that it is the “magic pill” that is the answer to the obesity problem forever.
I know, I know…of all people I should know that the best weight loss program is one that is based on a balanced diet, exercise and lots of water. But my curiosity got the best of me and in the interest of “science”, I thought I’d give it a try.
Hoodia Gordonii is a succulent botanical that is similar to a cactus. It grows in the Kalahari Desert in Africa and the San Bushmen of South Africa have been eating hoodia gordonii for thousands of years to keep from getting hungry and thirsty during long hunting trips in the desert.
It works by “tricking your brain” into thinking the body is “full”, similar to the effects of sugar so you stop eating.
In the 1960’s, research started on the appetite-suppressing effects of this plant. Recently, they released this information: Hoodia Gordonii has no side effects and can suppress appetite to the point where a person can cut 1,000 calories or more from their diet.
For my hoodia gordonii reviews, I chose 3 different manufacturers of hoodia. There are many different forms of hoodia in the marketplace right now that claim to help you lose weight. The most common are the hoodia diet pills and tea.
Hoodia Extract from Source Naturals® was the first one I chose to try for my hoodia gordonii reviews. It cost $13.95 for 30-250mg capsules at my local health food store and says 20:1 on the label. This is a reference to the extraction process that was patented by Phytopharm. Basically, they use about 20 pounds of raw hoodia to extract 1 pound of hoodia effective for weight loss. You will find most bottles of hoodia will have this designation on the bottle. My rating: Poor. I really felt no appetite suppressant effect at all and feel like I wasted my money on this product.
The second choice in my hoodia gordonii reviews list is Hoodia Slimming BIJA Healing Teas made by Flora. They are a well-known and credible manufacturer of supplements and herbs. I bought it for $9.95 for 20 tea bags at my local health food store. It is a proprietary blend that also contains organically grown Ceylon green tea, oatstraw herb and regular Magnolia bark, bitter orange extract, Garcinia Cambogia powder in addition to the Hoodia powder. You brew it for 3-4 minutes and drink it hot or cold. My rating: Fair. While I felt some appetite suppressant effects, it could be due to the other ingredients in the tea. However it tasted awful, even when I added Splenda to sweeten it up a little. I don’t feel like this was a total waste of money but I probably won’t buy it again.
The third contender in my hoodia gordonii reviews is Hoodia Super Slim 400 made by Pure Herbal Extracts, also a well-known provider of herbal extracts and supplements. I bought a bottle of 90 capsules for $39.95 (not including shipping) but they had a money back guarantee so I figured I had nothing to lose, except for the cost of shipping.
Pure Herbal Extracts uses 8,000 mg of the core of the hoodia plan in order to make one 400 mg capsule. They call this a concentrate rather than an extract. Directions for use say to take one hour before normal meal time with a full glass of water. My rating: Save your money. Although the instruction say that you should wait at least 14 days before making a judgment on whether it’s effective, I had to stop because of constipation. And I really didn’t see an appetite suppressant effect either so I sent the product back.
Conclusion for hoodia gordonii reviews
Hoodia Gordonii has proven to be a very popular product no matter what form it takes. The folks at the health food stores where I purchased and did research said that they can’t keep it in stock.
However, there are many imitators and I don’t beleive the product claims made by these companies. The Hoodia Super Slim site says that the San Bushmen in the Kalahari desert only used the core of the plant. Hoodia Super Slim 400 claims that they strip away the outer layers and only use the inner core of their product. They provide a Lab Assay and export permit in order to demonstrate that their product is the real thing. Many of the other products bottled under different names take the whole cactus, grind it up and put it in a pill. I don’t know how you can tell the difference unless you have your own test lab.
My hoodia gordonii reviews recommendation is to save your money and wait for Unilever to come out with their patented and authentic Hoodia Gordonii. Obviously, they are making a safe and effective product that has been clinically tested for results. When it does come out, it’s going to be a blockbuster!
My hoodia gordonii reviews notes that like any other dietary supplement, the labels and instructions on all of these products say that you must eat right and exercise! Proof that the best weight loss program includes a balanced diet, exercise and water.
While hoodia can “trick your brain” into thinking that you are full and don’t need any more food, this doesn’t help when you are eating to fill an emotional need. That doesn’t change, no matter how much or what form of diet pill you might take. Make sure you are always eating for the right reasons.
When I was younger, I thought that whole food vitamins were for hippies. Come to think of it, I’m not sure we had whole food vitamins back then.
It used to be that you could count on regular food…meat and potatoes, vegetables and dairy, to supply all the nutrition you needed to be healthy.
Unfortunately, things change and I’ve discovered that the world’s food supply today has never been more deficient in nutrition simply because we’re not taking proper care of our natural resources and we’re relying too much on manufactured nutrition.
Back in the day, farmers used methods like crop rotation to make sure the soil had time to rest and regenerate the nutrients within. But nowadays that’s just not possible because farmers can’t afford to let the soil rest. They have to get as much out of their farms as they can in order to make a living in this 21st century economy.
Farmers add synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and preservatives to their crops but these can make us sick and detract from the quality of our food supply even more.
For this reason, I started a few years ago to take vitamin supplements in an effort to get the nutrition I know I need. The truth is that no matter how much I eat (and I do eat a lot sometimes - lol) , I’m not getting the nutrition my body needs from the food I eat.
Some people say that the reason we are so overweight as a nation is because we are not getting what we need to get the nutrition we need so we over-eat to try to satisfy that need.
When I started to research the best vitamins to take, I found some surprising information about synthetic vitamins.
First of all. did you know that there was such a thing? Synthetic Vitamins?????
What are they, exactly? Well, vitamin makers isolate the vitamin needed from the food supply. That means they remove all the beneficial substances or phytochemicals that make the vitamin works so well in your body.
Studies done by the New England Journal of Medicine reveal a couple of interesting conclusions about taking synthetic vitamins:
Vitamin and mineral tablets or capsules are 85% indigestible (ie. the nutrition is not getting where we want it to because it can’t be absorbed by your body)
What is digested is not easily absorbed by the body (ie. what does get there isn’t being used very well)
The study authors ultimately concluded that eating whole foods is still your best bet for good nutrition, which means eating whole fruits and vegetables that still have the “life force” within.
Unfortunately, we’re back to where we started. Your body was designed to absorb vitamins and minerals from the food you eat but foods from the farm no longer contain the quality and quantity of nutrition your body requires.
After “digesting” all this information, I started looking for a quality, whole food vitamin that was affordable. I tried quite a few brands but couldn’t find anything that really worked for me.
I finally met my friend Brandi who introduced me to The Feast. It’s a whole food vitamin and mineral supplement made from nutrient-dense organic crops that are nurtured and harvested at the peak of nutrition. . .juiced and dried to preserve the nutritional integrity of the plant so that you have a vitamin that’s a 100% pure, nutrient rich, unpasteurized juice powder.
What makes it different from other Superjuices like Mona Vie or Juice Plus? First, it’s not pasteurized…it’s processed at a temperature that protects the nutrition of the fruits and vegetables that are in it. And, it’s affordable.
All you have to do to The Feast is simply add water to the powder and drink it. Or what I do is add it to one of my favorite protein drinks to make a delicious smoothie. Some people add it to yogurt.
You can try The Feast Starter Pack and get a free shaker, free samples of Beyond Berries and The Feast Supercharged along with your canister of The Feast.
Detox the body with Holy Tea. Is this a spiritual exercise or an authentic blend of herbal tea? Well, it might be a religious experience once you get “detoxed” by drinking this tea (lol) but it really is a blend of tea which has the main ingredient from the holy thistle plant.
Many health problems can be improved by doing a natural body detox. A body cleanse detox can get rid of toxins that can build up from taking antibiotics, eating too many processed foods, and drinking pasteurized dairy products.
Normally, regular bowel movements move waste through your system but if you’ve been eating the wrong kinds of foods, those bowel movements can be few and far between. Then slow moving waste can get stuck in your intestinal walls and cause auto-intoxification (i.e. absorbing toxins, self-poisoning). You might be suffering from it if you have symptoms like these:
- Acid Reflux Disease (GERD) or Heartburn Indigestion, Stomach Ache
Irregularity, Constipation, Hard Stools, Hemorrhoids
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Crohn’s Disease
Abdominal Pain, Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBDs)
Spastic Colon, Colitis, Ileitis
Excess Gas, Flatulence
Bad Breath, Bad Body Odor
Belching, Bloating
Enlarged Abdomen, Protruding Belly
Excess Stored Fat, Excess Weight, Obesity
Skin Conditions, Itchy, flakey skin or scalp
Inflamed Skin, Dermatitis, Eczema, Psoriasis
Allergies, Hay Fever, Food Allergies
Fibromyalgia, Sciatica
Joint Pain, Arthritis, Migraine Headaches
Insomnia, Restless sleep
Low Energy, Loss of Mental Clarity and Concentration, “Brain Fog”, Forgetfulness
I’ve tried lots of ways to detox my body and most of them involve either fasting or long term restrictive diets. I’ve finally found a way to do a natural body detox that’s easy and simple to do. All I do is drink an herbal detox tea that gently cleanses my digestive tract of toxic waste material, restores a healthy digestive system, and reduces the risk of all the ailments that are caused by auto-intoxification.
This tea is made from safe, natural, edible herbs: Holy Thistle, Persimmon leaves, Malva leaves, Marsh Mallow leaves, and Blessed Thistle.
In my opinion, the tea tastes like the regular tea you buy in the grocery store.
The directions are simple to follow; just boil a quart of water in a pot, place the 2 tea bags in, let it steep for 8 hours and then add enough water to complete a gallon. You’ll have enough to last you for a week but if you want to have family members drink it along with you, you’ll be using more, of course.
You can even add juice instead of water or add sweetener, if you like. It will take about a day to first feel the effects but it won’t be an embarrassing run to the bathroom. You’ll just feel an urgency to “go” so make sure you are close to home the first couple of days if that bothers you. After the first couple of days, your body will regulate itself.
Recent Comments