Negative Calorie Foods

by Weight Loss - June 30, 2018

Negative Calorie Foods are those that require more calories to digest than what they contain.

Anyone wishing to lose weight should try them. It makes perfect sense that every dieter should take advantage of what nature offers you.

Negative calorie foods are very common.

Vegetables such as Broccoli, Asparagus, Lettuce, Cucumbers, Celery, Zucchini, Cauliflower, Carrots and Tomatoes.

Fruits like Apricots, Apples, Watermelon, Grapefruit, Strawberries, Papaya, Melons and Oranges.

These foods, in order to be digested will burn stored body fat.

Some of these veggies actually burn 90% stored fat and only 10% from eating them. Therefore the end result is natural, healthy weight loss.

Celery is especially good because it uses 90% of the calories required to digest it from your fat stores.

Using them as snacks is actually the best way. To avoid malnutrition, however, eat them together with other healthy proteins, carbohydrates and fiber.

Also remember that to lose weight exercising regularly is a must.

A 20 minute walk done regularly should be enough to maintain tone and cardio vascular health.

Since it takes more energy to consume them than the calories they contain, combining negative calorie foods with a healthy exercise routine will really work.

Raw Food Diet and Weight Loss

by Weight Loss - February 20, 2012

Raw Food Diet and Weight Loss

Can a raw food diet help you with weight loss? Definitely! Raw food diets do cause weight loss and people who are on them can eat a vast amount of food. While you might be depriving your body of cooked food, you are not going to be depriving your body of food volume.

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There are some great benefits of a raw food diet. Weight loss is just one of them. Other benefits could include elimination of many health issues, reduction in chronic pain, an increase in memory, clarity, and feeling of overall well being, improved sleep, healthier complexion, reduction in bad breath, improved digestive function, reduction in recurring yeast infections, getting your body to a healthier and more alkaline (instead of acidic) state, and the list goes on. Without fighting toxins on a constant basis, this could have great results for your body’s organs.

As you shed weight and increase the feelings of wellness, you’ll be doing great things from a digestive and a detoxification standpoint. A great side effect of detoxification, after you’ve gotten over the hump of withdrawals of junk food, is the fact that you’ll stop craving that junk. Junk food cravings and ingestion accounts for a vast amount of weight gain. Eating the wrong foods leads to craving the wrong foods. Detoxification through a raw food diet could break that vicious cycle.

Raw food diets can help you break the cycle of emotional eating and feed your body instead of feelings and find other ways to satiate stress (such as with exercise, which will also contribute to your achieving your goals for weight, wellness, and fitness).

Caution – Get Enough Calories on a Raw Food Weight Loss Diet

When using a raw food diet for weight loss, it’s important that you get enough calories for your body to survive. A good way to do this is to track those calories. Once you start to get an idea of the caloric value of various foods, it will be easier to do. A good combination of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes is important.

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Here are some other things you’ll want to eat on a raw food diet weight loss regimen:

Green drinks and / or smoothies. These can be chock full of nutrients. Many are designed to supplement a raw food diet.
Nuts, avocados, and other raw MUFA (mono unsaturated fats) foods. These are especially helpful in targeting abdominal fat.
Greens. Man cannot live on iceberg lettuce alone. Experiment with green combinations
Fruit. Fruit will satisfy cravings and help you get full. Experiment with new fruits and exotic ones, too.
Veggies and other plant based foods like edible flowers and edible mushrooms.
In most diets you’ll be reminded to drink water. But the great thing about raw foods is that many have a high water content than cooked foods. Drink to quench your thirst but don’t stress, because if you’re eating a lot of fruits and vegetables and you’re eliminating well (with plenty of clear urine), you’re getting hydration.
Fish. Sushi enthusiasts often don’t mind the transition to raw food. You do need to be careful about mercury levels and safe food handling, though.

If trying a raw food diet for weight loss, do a lot of reading and researching so that you can get the best results possible. If you’re looking for some raw food recipes, check out our article: Raw Food Diet Recipes!

Adding Low Calorie Foods To Your Diet

by Weight Loss - February 10, 2012

Adding Low Calorie Foods To Your Diet

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Adding low calorie foods regularly to your meals will make a notable difference.

Do you know how many calories you’re consuming every day? Those who track their caloric intake and make efforts to eat more low calorie foods have a greater chance of reaching their weight loss goals and of maintaining their weight once they reach those goals. It’s not all about portion control and exercise. It’s also about calorie control.

Adding low calorie foods to your diet can help you fill up and lower your chances of eating the wrong things as well as can make it easier for you to stay within your desired calorie range.

Read the Label

Before you eat something, read the label to see if it is a low calorie food. Look closely at the serving size as well as at the calorie count. Before long, you’ll get to know when you are adding low calorie foods.

Look for Alternatives

Do you love sour cream on your potato? Why not try light or fat free? The same goes for other condiments and for anything you eat that has an alternative. These lower calorie foods will add up to lower calories overall for you. Measure your portions as well so you don’t make the mistake of using extra just because you’re opting for the lower calorie option.

Your Plate

Portion your plate with vegetables as half the plate. Vegetables are low calorie foods so you can eat more of them to fill your body, increase your nutrient intake, and reduce the calorie count of your meal overall. Hence, choose a lean piece of protein and a small fist-sized portion of carbs. Most people make their vegetables the smallest portion on the plate but increasing them is a great way to lose weight.

Water Intake

Are you looking for low calorie beverage options so you don’t wind up consuming several hundred calories a day in liquid? Better choose water, it has zero fat, zero carbs and zero calories. It will help your overall health and help you reach your weight loss goals.

Eat Low Calorie Snack Foods

It’s not realistic to cut out snacks altogether. Therefore, snacking on the right foods can actually help you reach your health and weight loss goals. Not all low calorie foods taste like health food. Here are some low calorie snack food suggestions to help keep you full between meals without sabotaging your weight loss or nutrition goals.

Baby carrots, cucumbers, radishes, and grape tomatoes. Dip in low fat dressing.
Fruits. If you like, make a low fat dip by mixing some orange juice with a little bit of fat free sour cream and fat free vanilla pudding.
Berries
Rice cakes. There are some flavoured options that make a great potato chip substitute.
Laughing Cow or cottage cheese.
Jell-O
Frozen grapes
Air-popped popcorn

Tip: Try to keep snacks to under 200 calories.

Adding Low Calorie Foods To Your daily diet will show results in no time.

Vegetarian Diet Weight Loss – Tips For Dieters

by Weight Loss - February 6, 2012

Vegetarian diet weight loss tips well worth knowing about.

A lot of new vegetarians look to dieting and weight loss plans for help. It’s not difficult for a new vegetarian to gain weight and many blame a carb overload on gaining weight. Learning to be a vegetarian that eats the right mix of foods can take time and during the transition, you may well gain some weight. A vegetarian diet weight loss program will probably make some specific recommendations to you, such as:

Counting calories
Reducing fat
Getting more lean protein
Adding exercise in to your diet

Counting Calories

Counting calories can make you more aware of what you are eating. On a diet, if you strive to reduce your daily caloric intake by about 500 calories, you can expect to lose about 2-3 kgs a month from diet alone. Adding in exercise can help you lose even more weight but we’ll get to exercise later on.

In terms of dieting, striving to eat under 2,000 calories can help. Anywhere from 1200-1800 calories might be a suggestion for your weight loss depending on your current weight, gender, and activity level. (Note: Most people do need more than 1200 calories a day to function well.)

Reducing Fat

Beyond looking at how many calories you eat every day, have a look at which ones come from fat. If you’re like many vegetarians, you get a lot of your protein from dairy. Opt for low fat dairy choices wherever possible. Switch to 1% or skim milk and low fat cheese. Reduce your condiments wherever possible as well. Your sauces and dressings could be adding a large percentage of calories to your meals.

Getting More Lean Protein

Other great vegetarian diet weight loss tips include making sure you’re getting enough protein. Opt for lean sources of protein, which isn’t difficult to do as a vegetarian. Your weight loss diet plan may benefit from reducing carbohydrates , especially refined carbs. Experiment with some new vegetarian protein sources so you can find extra sources that make it easier for you to reduce your carbs.

Adding Exercise to Your Diet

There’s no doubt about it.. exercise will help you lose weight. It will also help you reduce loose skin after weight loss. As a vegetarian, weight loss diets aren’t as easy as you’re not able to follow many diet recipe suggestions. Consider looking for great sources of vegetarian diet recipes so that you can experiment and eat new low fat things without sacrificing variety and flavor.

We believe these Vegetarian Diet Weight Loss Tips are well worth trying.

Defining Nutrition is Not Always Easy to Do

by Weight Loss - February 3, 2012

Defining Nutrition is more difficult than it appears to be.

Defining Nutrition is Not Always Easy to Do

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To get all the nutrition you need on a daily basis. Are you really making the effort, though? A great exercise is to track your food intake for a week.

First of all, do this and see how your outcome stacks up against suggestions for nutrition.

You might be (unpleasantly) surprised at the outcome, however you could take it as a great opportunity to make positive changes.

Consequently, measure your diet against the suggested food pyramid, how well are you doing? Defining nutrition for most resides in the outcome.

How do you look? How do you feel? Are you happy with your weight?

Most of all if you know that you need a combination of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins to be able to function, then it becomes much easier.

Your needs include:

Vitamins: A, B, C, K, and others.
Minerals: iron, sodium, calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, iodine, zinc, and others.
Protein, fats, fiber…

Tracking your nutrition for a week with your typical diet can demonstrate where you are lacking in terms of meeting the definition of nutrition.

Almost everyone has a handful of go-to meals that they repeatedly eat out of habit, out of culture, and out of desire. Once you look at a typical week, it could reveal several things:

Deficiencies in specific vitamins and minerals.
Excess amounts of a particular area, such as a really high fat ratio.
Low ratios, such as low protein, but very high carbohydrates.

How do you track if you’re meeting the definition of nutrition? There are many free calorie counting products (Fitday, MyFitnessPal, and others) These can help you track your calories, your exercise (for calories burned), and your nutrition levels.

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Probably you will determine that you aren’t getting enough vitamin K, you can look up foods rich in vitamin K and adjust your diet. Incidentally, a lot of people find that this is an area they have difficulty in meeting these requirements. Broccoli, cabbage, asparagus, celery, okra, seaweed, and some beans can help in this area.

If you can see that you’ve got a problem meeting the daily requirements for calcium. Regardless of whether you don’t consume enough dairy, or because you’re lactose intolerant.

Probably you could make a concerted effort to increase your calcium intake and / or take a supplement. (Supplements can be very effective but it’s always advisable to do your best to get your nutrition through food wherever possible).

Defining nutrition and keeping it in mind with meal planning is wise and can help you get more variety into your diet.

Therefore, the added benefit of working hard at doing this is that it will result in your starting to weed out the less than healthy items that dominate your diet today.

Most of all, it will ultimately positively improve your wellness levels and could result in weight loss as well.

Finally, defining nutrition becomes very important if you are to succeed at loosing weight. Do it now!

Healthy Recipes for Weight Loss

by Weight Loss - February 1, 2012

Healthy Recipes for Weight Loss are easy to find

Weight loss is, by and large, about math. But if you can’t exactly follow a cookie cutter approach because your life varies on a day to day basis. When it comes to food, you need to be sure you’ve got a variety of healthy recipes for weight loss so you don’t become bored and increase chances of falling off the dieting band wagon.

Finding healthy recipes for weight loss requires a bit of effort and planning. Here are some practical tips for finding healthy weight loss recipes and for keeping your menu as interesting and as fulfilling as possible:

Finding Healthy Recipes for Weight Loss

See a nutritionist.. A nutritionist or weight loss clinic will provide you with plenty of meal suggestions and some will give you specific recipes.

Buy cookbooks that focus on weight loss.. There are great options for books that will help you. You can find books locally and find cooking e-books online.

Use the internet.. This is typically the most available and easiest-to-use option. When you look online for recipes, you’ll find a number of options. You’ll find sites dedicated to decadence and indulgence, yes, but you’ll also find many sources of low cal, low fat, high protein, high satiety, high flavour foods. Consider joining mailing lists for sites that offer healthy recipes for weight loss. You might even find mobile phone apps that you can use for recipes and ingredients lists while shopping in the grocery store.

Weight Loss Doesn’t Happen Overnight

Patience and perseverance are two of the key ingredients for success with weight loss. As you find recipes to try and keep the variety level high you’ll find that it’s easier to think of your diet as a new lifestyle rather than being something that denies you pleasure in life. Experiment with new ingredients and cooking techniques and try shopping for seasonal and local items as well to save costs and get flavorful choices.

Here are some additional tips for your search for healthy recipes for weight loss:

Try take-out recipes. If you feel like fried chicken, for instance, look for a lower calorie option that uses breading but that bakes the chicken. You can find recipes for take-out style meals that you can cook at home, too. Check out our low calorie chicken recipes.

Aim to fill half your plate with vegetables but look for great veggie recipes so that it doesn’t feel boring. You can’t eat steamed veggies every day of the week without feeling like it’s deprivation.

Trade healthy weight loss recipes with a friend. If you diet with a buddy, there is a greater chance of reaching your goals.

Related Posts: Low Fat Soup Recipes, Eating Healthy To Lose Weight, Healthy Lunch Ideas for Weight Loss, Low Calorie Desserts For Weight Loss, Quick and Healthy Recipes for Dinner, 3 Low Fat Soup Recipes That Taste Great

Detox Recipes that Help Cleanse your Body

by Weight Loss - January 30, 2012

Detox Recipes

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Looking for detox recipes to help you detoxify and cleanse your body? A detox period isn’t necessarily easy to endure but it is said, by many, to offer great potential for improved health and wellness as well as weight loss.

Here are some signs you might want to do a detox:

You know you don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables.
You’ve been constipated lately.
You’re feeling run down and sluggish and / or you frequently catch cold and flu.
Your hair and skin are looking dull and lifeless.
You’ve recently recovered from an illness.
You’re just back from a holiday with plenty of indulgence in food and drink.
You’re interested in losing weight and want to overcome cravings.

Some detox programs suggest that you refrain from eating specific foods during a detox period. Others encourage specific foods and drinks to aid the body in cleansing.

Here are a few suggestions for detoxification help:

Master Cleanse

Detox Recipes The Master Cleanse, also known as the Lemonade Diet or the Beyonce Knowles diet involves fasting, laxatives, and a recipe for a master cleanse detox drink recipe. This detox diet is said to have the benefit of not only detoxification but weight loss as well.

Here’s the detox drink recipe:

Half an organic lemon
1/8 cup of organic maple syrup
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Glass of purified water (hot or cold. Your choice)

Sacred Heart Soup Detox Recipes

The Sacred heart detox diet involves a specific menu over a 7 day period. A summary is:

First day: soup and fruit. Second day: vegetables and soup, plus one baked potato. Third day: fruit, veggies, and sacred heart detox soup. Fourth day: milk, bananas, detox soup. Day 5: Meat, tomatoes, and soup. Sixth day: Meat, vegetables, and soup. Seventh Day: Veggies, soup, and brown rice.

*Specific fruits and vegetables are allowed on these days.

Detox Recipes for the soup vary but here’s the standard one:

Two cans of diced tomatoes, some scallions, beef or chicken broth (noodle broth is okay) a bunch of carrots, some celery, and some coloured peppers. Some detox recipes call for cabbage and call this the Cabbage Soup Diet. Gently boil (or use a crock pot) until vegetables are tender.

Other Great Detox Recipes Include..

Fruit and vegetable juices and smoothies. If you’re doing a fruit and veggie only detox, there are great recipes that can help you feel full while detoxing.

Here’s an example of a detox recipe for a veggie juice: 1 Cucumber, 4 stalks celery, handful of spinach, a few lettuce leaves, some alfalfa and some parsley. Add 3 carrots if you wish.

Consider a raw only detox diet. The enzymes in raw foods can do wonders for your body. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, certain legumes…

There are also detox recipes that help you detoxify specific systems. Drinking dandelion tea, for instance, could help you do a liver cleanse.

There are a variety of detox recipes available to help you reach your goals. If doing a detoxification, it’s important to realize that some types of detoxification result in flu-like symptoms as your body rids itself of toxins. If doing a detox, research the methods you’re considering, be sure to stay well-hydrated, and make sure you rest.

Low Cholesterol Recipes with Flavour

by Weight Loss - January 25, 2012

Low Cholesterol Recipes With Good Flavour

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If you need to start to watch your cholesterol, you might think that tasty foods with are now off limits to you.

Not so. When you need to watch your cholesterol levels use low cholesterol recipes and eat cholesterol lowering foods, too.

Tip 1

Anyone on a low cholesterol diet should use condiments sparingly. Many of these are a big culprit for producing high cholesterol levels.

Tip 2

Integrate these cholesterol lowering foods into your recipes..

Garlic provides a plethora of health benefits. You can feel good about using garlic.

While avocados are high in fat, they are a great food for those fighting cholesterol.

Using orange juice as a glaze on food as well as drinking orange juice and eating oranges is good for your cholesterol levels.

Prunes can help you lower your cholesterol.

Oatmeal and Cheerios or another oat cereal can both help you lower your cholesterol and make for a great breakfast, especially when paired with fruit.

Add nuts into your cooking and have it as a snack. Walnuts and almonds are both great choices for fighting cholesterol.

Soy is good for cholesterol levels.

Eat more beans and other fibre-laden foods.

Tip 3

Cook according to advice for fighting and lowering bad cholesterol levels. Here are some tips for low cholesterol recipes..

GerDukes / Pixabay

Look for alternatives to deep frying and frying in general. Experiment with cholesterol-friendly ways to cook your favourite foods. Steaming vegetables isn’t just a way to prevent bad cholesterol from frying or drenching it in butter. It’s also said to be a way to help lower cholesterol levels by changing the way your body processes the food, resulting in lower LDL levels.

Use whole grain bread in your recipes instead of white bread.

Switch to skim milk and low fat cheese. Use cheese sparingly in your recipes.

Don’t use cream in your recipes (or your coffee). Try using low fat or fat-free milk instead. Skip the full fat sour cream on your potato and try different toppings instead (you can get creative with potato toppings, such as by making a lean turkey chili, for instance.

Eat red meat less often. Try experimenting with recipes that use other meat, such as turkey or chicken.

Use plant oils, such as olive oil instead of butter for your cooking. Use all oils and fats sparingly.

When you switch to low cholesterol recipes, you’ll find that a bit of experimenting with spice can go a long way in adding flavour to your dishes.

Yes, you might not be frying those vegetables in butter but some fresh herbs and lemon juice can add loads of flavour.

When you begin to transition to healthier low cholesterol recipes you’ll soon find that you stop craving so many fatty foods.

Weight Loss Recipes – How to find them

by Weight Loss - January 18, 2012

Weight Loss Recipes are available from multiple sources. Finding the best ones, however requires some basic knowledge.

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How To Find Great Weight Loss Recipes

If you use the web to find weight loss recipes, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much easier it is to lose weight without feeling deprived.

One of the biggest difficulties with weight loss is not knowing what to cook. This feeling of being lost is what drives a lot of people back to their old habits. Weight Loss Recipes

If you’re someone who is overweight, there’s a good chance that your menu is pretty repetitive.

People who experiment with weight loss recipes tend to have a better success rate with long term weight loss without deprivation.

Trying out new weight loss recipes will be an adventure for your taste buds. You don’t have to eat the same things day in and day out.

There are great ideas throughout the internet that can help you effectively lose weight without the boredom of eating steamed vegetables and flavourless meat on a daily basis.

Weight loss recipes tend to use the right portion, low fat or fat free condiments, plenty of herbs and spices (so you don’t have to resort to calorie laden sauces), and whole foods rather than convenience foods. Not only will experimenting with weight loss recipes help you at night but they’ll help you with breakfast, lunch, and healthy snack ideas as well. Have a look for a variety of recipes.

Weight Loss Recipes – Tips

Look through your weekly grocery flyer for what’s on sale before looking for weight loss recipes.

If chicken breasts are on sale this week or a specific set of vegetables is in season, look for recipes that use these ingredients.

Use your crock pot. There are a lot of crock pot recipes that are figure friendly and using them will save you on time, especially during the workweek.

When you find weight loss recipes you like, make double batches and freeze some for dinner on another day.

Some recipe sites offer subscriptions. Subscribe to a weight loss recipe category, then you’ll get sent new recipes via e-mail as they become available.

Got some recipes you like that you know aren’t figure friendly? Try substituting some lower calorie items in them. 1% milk for cream, whole wheat pasta for white pasta, fat free mayo and sour cream, low fat cheese, and so on.

Look for low calorie desserts for weight loss as well. You’ll find great options that let you enjoy some treats without as much guilt.

You might want to purchase some weight loss recipe books as well as look online. There are some great books dedicated to specific diet plans as well.

You can find books that conform to the Weight Watchers point system, or that are specific to another plan, such as the South Beach or Mediterranean diet, the Atkins diet, and so on.

Weight loss can happen when you find great ways to enjoy lower fat and lower calorie foods. Experiment with weight loss recipes to keep away feelings of deprivation and keep things interesting.

Raw Food Diet Recipes for Weigh Loss

by Weight Loss - January 17, 2012

Raw Food Diet Recipes that work well

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There are some substantial benefits to a raw food diet. But, to succeed with this diet, whether temporarily or on an ongoing basis, you will need to find some great raw food diet recipes. There are some interesting and creative ways to follow a raw food diet. Recipes can increase your chances of finding satiety with this sort of diet plan. Here are a few suggestions:

Add Variety To Your Salads

Salads are probably the best part of a raw food diet. Recipes for salads are in abundance. Add variety and colour to your salad, eat a big volume of it if it’s serving as a meal, and look for salad-friendly raw protein sources, such as seeds and nuts. Shop your local farmer’s market for great variety of organic vegetable and fruit sources.

Beverages That Double As Meals

Shakes and smoothies are great for raw food enthusiasts. You’ll find ways of pureeing raw food into shakes, smoothies, and cold soups. Here are a few raw food diet recipes you may want to try, to make up a meal:

Salad Example:

Broccoli & Cranberries Salad: Mix broccoli florets with a handful of dried cranberries and slivered almonds and cashews. If desired, mix with a little dressing made of fruit juice and organic apple cider vinegar.

Shakes:

You can make a delicious and nutritious shake by juicing some juice and then mixing with a banana or two as well as your favourite fruits and blend until thick.

Cold Soup:

You can make a lot of different raw soups, such as a creamy carrot soup. Wonder how you’ll get raw carrots to taste creamy? Mix raw carrot juice and pureed avocado, and garnish with some parsley.

Dessert:

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Blend bananas, vanilla, honey, and a few almonds and it can become the consistency of banana nut pudding. You’ll be surprised when you delve into the world of raw food diet recipes just how many options there are. And there are additional sources of raw food that you might also enjoy, such as sushi. Whether you are interested in doing it for a week or transitioning to a complete raw food diet, recipes are abundantly available online and offer you a great opportunity to experiment and develop your own. Raw food diets can benefit your digestive system, your skin, and your overall health and wellness. Cooking many foods eliminates enzymes and forces your body to work harder at digestion. Even increasing your diet to include more raw food more often would be a good thing. And if you’re up for doing the radical thing and trying to go 100% raw food only, you’ll find that there is an abundance of information out there, helping you find a variety of fun and creative raw food diet recipes to try.