Eat, Enjoy & Lose Weight

The bad news for people who are trying to lose weight is: Diets don't work! The good news? You can learn to eat creatively, enjoy what you eat, eat as much as you want... and lose all that excess weight that is making you unhappy and unhealthy! Here I would like to share some great tips with you so you never have to worry about being overweight again!

It's incredible how much hype and misinformation is out there about what is the best diet to go on for losing weight. While the Internet has been great in getting a lot of important information to us, there is also a lot of confusion resulting from information overload.

Most weight loss programs today focus on calorie counting which has proven to be ineffective as the average dieter often ends up worse off when they started. Such weight loss programs can also slow down the metabolic rate, making the weight loss more difficult to maintain.

Formulating an effective and healthy diet plan is not difficult, once you understand the basics of healthy eating and what would help you not only lose weight fast, but also maintain the weight and stay healthy as well.

So, just what is healthy to eat? First, allow me to stress that there is an almost inexhaustible list of good, health-promoting food out there, so if you have whole, natural, nutrient-rich foods you love, go ahead!

I picked these foods based on a few criteria:

1.They are nutrient-dense.

2.They are whole foods.

3.They are affordable and easily available.

4.They taste healthylicious!

The last point is so important as I always tell my clients: “The best diet is one you enjoy so much, you don't even know you are on it!”

So, go ahead – eat, enjoy and stay healthy!

1. Avocado - contains lots of Omega 9 and high in beta-sitosterol which lowers cholesterol levels

2. Bananas - packed with the mood enhancing protein tryptophan, which helps the body produce serotonin, also know as the “happy hormone”, high in potassium and B6

3. Broccoli - rich in vitamin C, A, K, B-complex, iron, zinc, phosporus and phyto-nutrients

4. Cabbage - high in vitamin K, sulphur, potassium, helps to detoxify, lowers blood pressure and blood sugar levels

5. Nuts and seeds – almonds, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, walnuts

6. Olives and olive oil, extra virgin - rich in Omega 3, Omega 9

7. Quinoa - loaded with riboflavin, magnesium, potassium, iron.

8.  Salmon - high in amino acids and omega 3 which will help to get you into fat burning zone

9.  Spinach - loaded vitamins C, A, K, helps stabilize blood sugar levels, great for heart health

10.  Sweet potato - contain carotenoids that help stabilize blood sugar levels, improve metabolism

11. Tomatoes - high in lycopene

12. Watermelon - high in glutathione which is an essential antioxidant

And don't forget to get some herbs and spice to life – black pepper, cayenne pepper, chili, cinnamon, ginger, mustard seeds, oregano, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, turmeric and more!

One final note – no more processed foods like refined sugar, white rice and breads. These are literally poison for your body, so substitute with healthy alternatives like blackstrap molasses, coconut sugar and honey instead of refined sugar, and brown rice and quinoa in place of white rice.

Who says eating healthy is boring? You just need to be creative and you can cook up a storm for yourself and your family.

For those of you who need extra help to burn the fat that has been piling up over the years, especially the visceral fat surrounding your major organs, I would recommend you to take FitLine Proshape All-in-1.  The green coffee bean inside has been tried, tested and proven to be particularly effective in helping those inches around the waist and hip to literally vanish! I have customers who report inch loss of up to 3 inches around the waist in less than a week! ProShape All-in-1 is a great tasting meal replacement that also contains mate tea extract to keep away craving and helps you feel full longer, as well as nettle, an effective diuretic to get rid of water retention and great for supporting the kidney, thyroid. With ProShape, not only do you lose weight healthily, you will find yourself more alert, full of energy, and most importantly - it tastes yummy!

For more information on ProShape, just drop me a message and I would be happy to share with you!

In my next article, I will share more on how fat is burnt and what foods you should avoid to get into the fat burning zone.

Health For Life Food Pyramid

There's so much conflicting advice out there about what to eat, what not to eat, how much to eat, that it's indeed for the uninformed or untrained individual to really separate the truth from what's mere hype and pure politics.

As a health coach and nutritionist, I have had my share of confusion. After much research and study, here's what my take on a healthy diet plan that would not only help you achieve your desired weight (whether you need to gain or lose weight), as well as stay healthy for life:

1. Eat foods that provide your body with the necessary building blocks to make healthy cells, enhance your body's natural antioxidant defense system, immune system, repair system, while maintaining hormonal balance. That means the focus should primarily be on the quality of the food you eat rather than simply how much is the proportion of carbo, fats and proteins you should take.

2. Debunking the myth of the well-balanced diet. The base of the traditional Food Pyramid recommends 6 to 11 servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta, as we have taught that this is our "staple". So, for the Asians, this mean a big serving of rice (mostly white) or noodles, with a small portion of meat and vegetables. I prefer the Healthy for Life Food Pyramid, recommednded by Ray Strand, M.D., author of Healthy for Life.

What he recommends is to have 40 - 50% of your calories coming from carbohydrates, 30% from fat and 20 - 30% from protein.

3. Forget about calorie counting or starving yourself! My gosh, how many of you out there actually counts or is able to count the number of calories in every of your meal? Someone suggested the other day that I list down the number of calories in the recipes given in my Healthylicious Meals website, and my response was: "Whatever for?" As long as the ingredients used are super healthy for us, all we have to do is just eat enough.

Quick weight loss diets that endeavours to help followers lose weight by calorie restriction are simply NOT going to work in the long term. Experience and research has shown that people on such diets are simply unable to stay on the diet for long, and whatever weight they do lose, will come back as soon as they are off the diet.

4. Eat enough and often. What I teach my clients is to learn how to enjoy what they eat - to delight in each bite - rather than to stuff themselves and end up feeling sick from having overeaten! The key is to eat slowly, and savour the myriad sensations of the food you are eating. (You probably can't do that for the hamburger from the fast food restaurant, so that should tell you something, right?)

That way, your brain has enough time to register that you are full already and can stop eating. Start with small portions and just enjoy what's on your plate slowly.

Eating small meals many times a day is better than eating three full meals a day. I eat at least five times a day - breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner and supper. People who know me are amazed that I can stay so slim as they see me getting hungry and eating all the time!

5. Eating good carbo. One of the main culprits that have contributed to an alarming increase in obesity worldwide is the amount and quality of the carbohydrates that is being consumed. The base of the traditional Food Pyramid recommends 6 to 11 servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta, 85 - 90% of which are highly processed, with high glycemic index! Your white bread and white rice is even worse than table sugar when it comes to spiking your sugar level. Do you wonder now why more and more people are becoming diabetic?

6. Eating whole foods. Whole foods simply mean foods that mankind has not changed in any way - no processing, minimal cooking e.g. your fruits and vegetables. These would be your source of good carbo. They contain vital nutrients, are mostly low-glycemic and have a low glycemic load, with the exception of white potatoes. If possible, avoid white potatoes; I substitute them with my favourite sweet potatoes, for my curries and soups, or even as my side dish in the form of baked sweet potato.

7. Not all fats are bad. In fact, fats are essential for our health - it is needed to build our cell membranes, brain cells, nerves, as well as many of our hormones. The problem is not in the fats, or even the cholesterol that we take, but really the kind of fats we are consuming. More in a future article as this is a huge topic on its own. For me and my family, I use mostly olive oil and coconut oil.

8. And for me personally - no milk! The common erroneous thinking is that we need to drink milk to get the calcium we need. A great example of the misinformation we have been indoctrinated with for centuries! Your best source of absorbable calcium (and other nutrients) is still your whole foods, and nuts and seeds.

9. Last but not least, you need to supplement for cellular health. Good cellular nutrition is the solution to oxidative stress - the underlying cause of more than 70 chronic degenerative disease like heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's.

Exactly what and how much you need can only be covered in another article; suffice it to say that the basics I would recommend are: Vitamin C, Vitamin E, B Vitamins, CoQ10, Glutathione precursor, minerals like calcium, magnesium, zinc, selenium, chromium, copper, manganese.

Watch out for my next article for more details on this. Meanwhile, if you have queries, do write to me at coach@health-coach-international.com or post a comment here.

Healthy for Life
Jessica