What Is The Best Way To Lose Weight?

When we talk about losing weight we normally associate it to dieting and exercising. But actually there is more to it. In order to lose weight and keep it that way, it actually involves a minor lifestyle change. Here is an article by Chileshe Mwape that summarizes the best steps one should take to effectively lose weight.

The best way to lose weight is to eat fewer calories and increase your physical activity. Experts suggest aiming for a weight loss goal of about a pound a week.

1. Set Realistic Goals The first step to weight loss is setting a realistic goal. By using a BMI chart and consulting with your health care provider, you can determine what a healthy weight is for you. To reach your goal safely, plan to lose weight gradually. A weight loss of one-half to two pounds a week is usually safe.

2. Change Your Lifestyle To be successful at losing weight, you need to change your lifestyle and not just go on a diet. This requires cutting back on the number of calories you eat by eating smaller amounts of foods and choosing foods lower in calories. It also means being more physically active.

3. Change Your Eating Habits Consider limiting portion sizes, especially of foods high in calories, such as cookies, cakes and other sweets; fried foods, like fried chicken and french fries; and fats, oils, and spreads. Keep your intake of saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol as low as possible. Choose foods naturally high in fiber, such as fruits, vegetables, legumes (such as beans and lentils), and whole grains. The high fiber content of many of these foods may help you to feel full with fewer calories.

4. Increase Your Physical Activity Most health experts recommend a combination of a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity for weight loss. Exercise does not have to be strenuous to be beneficial. And some studies show that short sessions of exercise several times a day are just as effective at burning calories and improving health as one long session. To lose weight and to maintain a healthy weight after weight loss, many people need to do more than 30 minutes of moderate to intensive physical activity daily. Walking is an excellent form of physical activity that almost everyone can do.

5. Summary Successful weight loss and healthy weight management depend on sensible goals and expectations. If you set sensible goals for yourself, chances are you'll be more likely to meet them and have a better chance of keeping the weight off. A lifestyle based on healthy eating and regular physical activity is the best way to lose weight permanently.

There it is, easy isn't it, however it takes some time to get adjusted to these changes. It might be tough initially but it'll be easier once you get used to it. So till our next issue of How to look great and feel happy, Have a nice day.

How to Experience More Energy, Health, & Youth In Your Life!

Do you often feel out of energy especially after your meals?

In fact, it is usually around 3-4 pm (depending on the time you eat your lunch) when you find yourself having difficulty in keeping yourself awake. You feel tired, exhausted and just could not continue with your work.

Recently, I've read something interesting regarding this - the main reason why we experience this way is because excessive energy is needed to digest the food we ate for lunch.

During 3-4 pm, our organs have already worked hard for half a day and with the excess energy needed to digest our lunch, our body naturally needs to take a rest from it. I used to assume that this is a natural process - we ought to feel lethargic in the afternoon.......but I was so wrong..

The truth is the way you eat our foods, the foods that you put into your mouths, are destructive to your body and health. For example, do you eat meat and potatoes together? How about milk and cereal, or fish and rice?

Do you know that those combinations are totally destructive to your internal system and rob you of energy?

Let me explain how these combinations are destructive and how you can save yourself large amounts of energy you may currently be wasting.

Different foods are digested differently - Starchy foods require alkaline digestive medium and proteins foods like meat require and acidic medium for digestion. And when you mix both together, the medium neutralize each other. Digestion is impaired or completely arrested.

This is very destructive to your body as more energy is require to digest the same amount of food.

When our human body is functioning at its optimal level,  human body fluids and tissues exist in a slightly alkaline state (not acidic). The food we eat often becomes the raw material to rebuild its tissue. Our pH balance can quickly become unbalanced if our diet consists largely of "acidifying" foods.

These acidifying foods would result in our blood and body tissues to become bathed in an acidic solution. Of course it won't kill you right away, but if left untreated, this acidic condition leads to diseases such as heart disease, high cholesterol and even obesity.

How do you know whether your body is acidic and requires your attention?

Here's what you are going to do today to find out whether your body is dangerously acidic..

You would first need to ask yourself whether you experience any of the symptoms below.

a. Pimples & Acnes
b. Agitation
c. Rapid panting breath
d. Rapid heartbeat
e. Muscular pain
f. Pre-menstrual and menstrual cramping
g. Pre-menstrual anxiety and depression
h. Cold hands and feet
i. Light headedness & dizziness
j. Exhausted easily and low energy
k. Joint pains that travel
l. Food allergies
m. Excessive gas
n. Hyperactivity
o. Lack of sex drive
p. Bloating
q. Heartburn & acid reflux
r. Yellow & strong smelling urine
s. Headaches & migraines
t. Irregular heartbeat
u. White coated tongue
v. Hard to get up in morning
w. Excess head mucous (stuffiness)

If you experience more than 2 of the symptoms listed here, there is a high chance that your body is acidic and you may want to take precaution and change your diet before it accumulates and turn into deadly diseases or cancer one day.

There are other ways to confirm your body internal conditions, for example using a self urine test.

If you suspect your body is acidic or you want to feel healthy, youthful, and lose weight the natural way, find out how you can do so with  Emma Deangela's book at  The Alkaline Diet.

Until the next issue of  How to Look Great and Feel Happy, have a nice day, an energized one with the  alkaline diet.

How to look young and keep the wrinkles away.

It's my sisters birthday two days ago. And as getting older sometimes means getting more wrinkles on your face we will address the problem  on how to look young and keep the wrinkles away.

Wrinkles are a by-product of the aging process. With age, skin cells divide more slowly, and the inner layer, called the dermis, begins to thin. The network of elastin (the protein which causes skin to stretch) and collagen fibers (the major structural proteins in the skin), which support the outer layer, loosen and unravel, causing depressions on the surface. With aging, skin also loses its elasticity, is less able to retain moisture, oil-secreting glands are less efficient and the skin is slower to heal. All of these contribute to the development of wrinkles.

And now you ask...How do I keep the wrinkles away. Well in truth, you can't really keep them away, but you can help reduce the appearance of them and slow down the visibility signs of aging. So what do you do to look younger? Here are some steps that would help your face look great and younger.

• Avoid smoking because smoking reduces the production of collagen and lack of new collagen results in development of wrinkles. Nicotine also deminish the blood and oxygen that flows to the skin.

•  Take care of your skin by practising the regular daily cleansing, toning and moisturising  the face both during the daytime and before you go to bed. Use moisturiser with SPF of at least 15. Try to use products that are all natural. Creams and lotions that contains alcohol and artifical ingredients may dry out your skin. If you have sensitive skin you can try using olive oil as a moisturiser.
  

• Drink lots of water to avoid dehydration, when the body dries out, it pulls away the moisture away from the skin.

•  Eat a well balance diet and  lots of fruit rich in antioxidants which combats wrinkles by reducing  free radicals. Fruits high in Vitamin C helps build more collagen which keeps skin firm.

• Avoid excessive exposure to the sun as exposure to ultraviolet radiation (too much sun) can result in premature aging of skin.

•  Don't forget to get your daily dose of exercise to help your body toned, your skin radiant , your stress level low and your mind sharp.

That's all for this weeks issue of How to Look Great and Feel Happy. In the meantime,watch this video on how to keep your face looking young and  enjoy !!!
 

How to make New Years Resolutions Work

I hope it's not too late to wish everyone a Happy new year. A new year... a new beginning... a new hope. If the last year was a lot of gloom and doom then maybe this new year will bring in good news.

But before that its important that we make a cross examination of the past and see why some things didn't work as well as we anticipated it to be. Do a SWOT analysis of the past so that we can start the new year with a bang with new strategies to get improved results.

One of the things that can help you get better results for the new year is by :

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  Writing up your Goals. What you want to achieve daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. Make a cheklist of them and cross them out or tick them off once you've achieved them.
  
  
  

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   Stick this checklist in a place you can easily see so that you are constantly reminded to take action of them.
  
  
  

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  If you haven't got the discipline to stand by your goals then get someone who can support you. Someone who will remind you that you need to do it. Someone like your spouse, your children or a close friend. This will make  them feel important too.
  
  
  

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  Reward yourself once you've achieved these goals or punish yourself if you do not achieve them. For example may be you have to treat your  friends to a fancy dinner everytime you fail to achieve one goal. This way you'll be more motivated to take action.
  
  
  

Hope this will help you achieve your new years resolutions. Until next time on How to Look Great & Feel Happy have a Happy New Year and may all your dreams come true

Relationship Issues and Overcoming them

Since the Holiday season is coming up soon, I thought It'd be a good idea to talk about relationship issues this time. There are times when we face problems in life  and things get tougher that our relationship with the people around us is strained and we become unhappy. Not only relationship with our spouse but with our children parents, family and friends.

When this happens it's best to identify what the problems are and find ways on how we can turn it around. This is especially true in a marriage.Sometimes one person feels that he/she is taken for granted or there are some issues that creates tension and negetive feeling towards the other.

If this person just keeps it quiet and let it be for some time, then all this tension  will keep on stacking up creating more and more resentments and rejection towards the other. It might get so bad that, it might  break the relationship.

So before this happens it's always important to remember to talk things through with your spouse. If there was a problem, you can tell them about it, eventhough if it was something that is unpleasant to them.

It's better to deal with these issues early on then let it roll on to became something bigger that you need to face later on. So this holiday season, if you have relationship problem with anyone, not just your spouse, maybe with your father, mother, son or daughter. Now is the best time to mend broken bridges together.

In the meantime, watch this interesting by Anthony Robbins and his wife Sage about relationship stressors. Till next time on How to Look Great & Feel Happy, Have a wonderful time this holiday season.

Diet for Cancer Patients

My sister recently had a masectomy to remove the breast cancer. It was a long operation, about 15 hours long. She went in the operation room in the morning and did'nt come out till it was twelve at night.

It took a long time because after removing the cancer the surgeons did some reconstruction work using the skin from her belly. Thank God everything went well. It was a long day that day and especially so for her children who waited patiently at the hospital.

So I did some research on diet for cancer patients and here is what I found out from the net with regards to cancer treatment, every food that we eat or drink can be categorized into several different categories:

• 1) Foods that feed and strengthen the cancer cells and/or the microbes in the cancer cells and body. Examples would be: refined sugar, refined flour, soda pop, dairy products, etc.

• 2) Foods that cause cancer (e.g. trans fatty acids [margarine, french fries and virtually every other processed food you buy], aspartame [Diet Coke, NutraSweet, Equal, etc.], MSG, polyunsaturated oils [e.g. corn oil], etc.)

• 3) Foods that directly interfere with alternative treatments for cancer (e.g. chlorine, fluoride, alcohol, coffee, etc.)

• 4) Foods that occupy and distract the immunity system from focusing on killing the cancer cells (e.g. beef, turkey, etc.)

• 5) Foods that contain nutrients that kill the cancer cells, stop the spread of cancer, or in some other way help treat the cancer (e.g. purple grapes with seeds and skin, red raspberries with seeds, strawberries with seeds, broccoli, cauliflower, tapioca, several herbs, lentils,carrots, pineapples, apple seeds, almonds, graviola, etc.)

In addition there are things like cooking vegetables. The cooking destroys the enzymes in the vegetables and make them far less digestible and far less effective in treating cancer. Pasteurizing any food or drink also does this.

Ideally, during a cancer treatment, if foods are allowed on a particular diet, 100% of everything you eat should be in the category of "Foods that contain nutrients that kill the cancer cells, stop the spread of cancer, or in some other way help treat the cancer.

" Whenever you eat a food that is not in that category, you are interfering with your cancer treatment! This is why so many cancer diets are very high in certain raw vegetables and certain raw fruits. It is best to avoid processed foods as they might contain MSG or preservatives that might induce growth of cancer cells.

I hope this will be helpful to any cancer patients out there. In the meantime, we should all adopt a healthy diet ourselves in order to avoid getting cancer. Currently one in every four deaths in the United States are due to cancer. In the mean time Enjoy this video about anti cancer diet

So until the next issue of Look Great Feel Happy, remember to adopt a happy lifestyle and well balanced eating habits so that we can stay happy and healthy. And for those cancer patients out there who feel like giving up..... just watch this video about this inspiring young man who has beaten cancer not once but three times.

Turn on Your Metabolic Switch … And Burn the Fat!

*Breakthrough Research from the Clinic of Al Sears MD*

Turn on Your Metabolic Switch … And Burn the Fat!

If you’ve tried and failed to burn fat in the past I have good news… Dr. Sears’ High-Speed Fat Loss is getting even the most hardened skeptics to change their minds about fat loss. By studying the science behind human metabolism and weight gain Dr. Sears developed a sure-fire way for anyone to lose as much weight as they want. His patients say it’s nothing short of a miracle.

Like one of Dr. Sears’ patients – let’s call him “SM” – he arrived at the clinic 100 pounds overweight with a body fat level over 50%. After 3 months, SM had to give away all his “fat clothes” and buy a whole new wardrobe.SM’s family and friends went into shock after seeing the amazing results. Most of them are now patients of Dr. Sears.Now, if you… or someone you care about… wants to lose weight, there’s no easier, safer, or faster way than with Dr. Sears’ High-Speed Fat Loss in 7 Easy Steps program.

To find out how SM lost all that fat – and how you can too – click HERE.

Turn on Your Metabolic Switch and Burn the Fat

The Delicious way to LoseWeight - Pine Nut

I'm down with flu and fever now. Sorry for not posting anything for some time. I actually ran out of topics to talk about. Anyway as I was sitting down tonight munching away some pine nuts my sister's friend had brought from Pakistan. It occured to me why don't I write something about these terribly delicious nuts. Surely these something good about these nuts.

And here is what I found out from Wiki Answers about these amazing lil' pine nuts. They're actually great for dieters.

These tasty nuts have a light, nutty tang and contain some fatty acids that are capable of holding back hunger. It is estimated that one cup of pine nut (just about one ounce) provides you 190 calories and 19g of fat, while its carbohydrate content is only 4g.

No other nut or seed has more protein than Pine nuts. In addition, pine nuts are store houses of many vitamins including vitamins E, B3, B1 and B2 apart from essential amino acids, beta-carotene, magnesium, copper, zinc, iron and iodine, which are essential for a healthy living.

Pine nuts and pine nut oil contain the polyunsaturated fat of Pinolenic acid, which stimulates the hunger suppressing hormones such as CCK. Pinolenic acid is an essential ingredient of many diet formulas for repressing hunger as they act by sending signals to your brain that your stomach is already full.

Now all you have to do is just to toss a few nuts into your mouth to chuck out those extra pounds! Does that sound like music to your ears?

How do pine nuts act to suppress hunger? The peptide hormone of cholecystokinin is produced during food ingestion to be released into the blood. It is this hormone that makes you feel satiated. It is thought that the fractional digestion of proteins also results in the production of CCK. Remember that pine nuts are extremely rich in protein.

Extensive researches have been made on CCK ever since it was discovered 30 years ago. The studies have established that CCK production takes place at the duodenum, when your stomach is full.

This in turn conveys this message to the brain. CCK also brings about the discharge of pancreatic digestive enzymes, contraction of gall bladder and reduction of the rate of bowel movements, which also gives you a feeling of fullness.

Moreover, Pine nuts help in improving digestion and enhancing cardiovascular health. It increases satiety and is also helpful in managing gastrointestinal problems, autoimmune disorders and inflammation.

So to all of you who wanna lose some weight, my tip to is to get some pine nuts to help you out because apart from all the great nutritional value it has, these pine nuts are simply delicious. Till the next issue of Look Great Feel Happy, have a wonderful day.