Natural Weight Loss Archives

Negative Calorie Foods: Are They for Real?

negative calorie foodsWhat is a negative calorie foods, anyway?  Is it just another diet gimmick, or can they really help you lose weight and keep it off?  First of all, there is no such thing as a “negative calorie” – all foods have calories.

When people talk about negative calorie foods they are referring to foods that require more energy expended to digest them than you ingest when eating them.  Example:  water.  Water isn’t technically a food, but it has zero calories.  When you drink water, your body has to expend energy to absorb and process the water, so you now have a “negative calorie” effect, where you have burned more calories than you ingested.

The same concept can apply to foods that do have calories, especially if the calories are low in quantity.  Remember too that even as your body is digesting food and absorbing liquid, it is also expending energy to keep vital bodily functions going, like respiration, heartbeat, blood circulation, and the like.

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Quick Natural Weight Loss Techniques

quick natural weight lossLooking for quick natural weight loss techniques? Losing excess weight can undoubtedly improve your quality of life, not to mention your appearance.  And like most people, if you’re carrying a few extra pounds (or more than a few) you probably want to lose it sooner rather than later.  This is understandable, but some common sense and caution should still be used before doing something that will set you up for health problems later.

Checking with your doctor is a good idea, because he or she may be able to recommend a healthy, effective weight loss plan.

Beyond that, here are a few common sense quick natural weight loss tips that should help you shed the fat quickly and easily:

#1 – Remember that weight loss is not just a one-trick pony

You need to address several areas to be successful, such as overall calorie intake, quality of foods eaten, level of physical activity, and nutrients needed for optimal health.

It makes sense that your diet should include healthy, nutrient-rich food.  But you may also benefit from taking a multi-vitamin or select supplements, according to what your doctor recommends.

It also makes sense that in order to burn more calories, you need to get your body moving more than it was before.  (Again, check with your doctor on this to be sure exercise is okay for you.)  If you currently lead a very sedentary life, you’ll need to start slowly by walking briskly for 15-30 minutes each day, or performing similar low-intensity exercises.  As you get into better shape, you can increase both the length of your workouts and the intensity at which you work.
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Low Calorie Snack Foods for Weight Loss

Low Calorie Snack FoodsOne of the most challenging aspects of weight loss is hunger. Since most diets require reducing your caloric intake, you may end up feeling hungry and dissatisfied for at least part of the day. What’s the solution?

Low calorie snack foods that taste great but won’t hold back your weight loss.

Here are some great choices:

- Fruit

Fruit is a great snack option because it can help satisfy a sweet tooth, but also contains fiber and antioxidants. Some of the lowest calorie fruits are: grapefruit, watermelon, peaches, berries like strawberries, raspberries and blueberries, apples, honeydew melon, and canteloupe.

If you don’t want to eat fruit “as is” you can spruce it up in a number of ways, like making a dip out of lowfat cottage cheese, or whipping it into a smoothie with some yogurt. You could even bake apples in the oven and sprinkle them with cinnamon, nutmeg, and top with a few chopped nuts.

- Raw vegetables

Vegetables are very filling because of their high fiber content, but also low in calories. Eating vegetables raw provides a satisfying “crunch” that can easily replace fattening snacks like potato chips.

Try snacking on raw peppers (sweet or spicy), grape tomatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, cucumbers, radishes, and carrots. If you don’t want to eat the vegetables plain, salsa makes a great low calorie dip, as well as hommus (ground chickpeas), or a ready made low calorie dip from the supermarket.

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How to Boost Your Metabolism

how to boost your metabolismHow to boost your metabolism? When most people talk about metabolism, they mean the metabolism of fat. The problem is that many dieters are doing things that actually slow down their metabolism rather than speeding it up, so their weight loss is often slow and frustrating.

Believe it or not, boosting your metabolism isn’t as hard as you may think. Here are a few tips on how to boost your metabolism to get you moving toward faster, easier weight loss:

How to Boost Your Metabolism Tips #1 – Green tea

Do you drink a lot of coffee? If so, you may want to consider swapping a few of those daily cups for green tea instead. Green tea has long been believed to stimulate your metabolism and help you burn more fat. Beyond weight loss, green tea also contains a lot of antioxidants, which help you prevent many illnesses.

How to Boost Your Metabolism Tips #2 – Eating frequently

One sure way to bog down your metaoblism is to skip meals and reduce your caloric intake too far. When you do this, your body immediately kicks into survival mode and slows down the fat burning process. It thinks you’re at risk of starving to death and tries to conserve energy and resources as much as possible!

Instead, if you eat something every 2-3 hours, your metabolism will speed up because it needs to keep moving to process the foods you eat. Since you’re eating regularly, you can easily reduce the portion sizes so you’re not overdoing it on calories. Also helpful is to include lots of lean protein, and moderate amounts of healthy fats because they keep you feeling satisfied for much longer than carbohydrates do. Read the rest of this entry

Common Diet Problems

diet problemsFor most people, diets seem to work, at least for a little while. But if you are one of the few that has experienced diet problems, you know how frustrating it can be.

There are some common problems that hinder diets, and below we have highlighted three of them:

#1 – Self sabotage

This is easily one of the most common diet problems, and it’s often a subconscious thing, not anything that you will be immediately aware of. However, it always shows up in the actions you take each day.

Even though you have every intention of sticking to your diet and losing weight, you may catch yourself doing things that contradict your goals, like gobbling down a doughnut even while part of your mind was shrieking, “What are you DOING?!” Essentially, what happens is that part of you wants to stick to the diet and achieve your weight loss goal, but another part of you doesn’t want that at all. That’s the part that gobbles down the doughnut (or other fattening foods).

Why on earth would this part of you NOT want to succeed at weight loss? Read the rest of this entry

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