Have you been battling with your weight, trying diet after diet, only to gain the weight back? Imagine being stress free, eating what you love and feeling confident about your food choices. You have everything you need to end cravings and stop feeling powerless. Now you can remember them and start living again. Does this sound familiar? You want to be healthy and fit but years of yo-yo diets leave you feeling deprived and punished. You try so hard to be “good” only to sabotage yourself on a bad day. You are tired of feeling guilty about your food choices. You have irresistible cravings for food but you don’t know why. You want to get rid of your sugar habits once and for all. You want to make peace with food and eat without counting, charting, or worrying. You think that if you lose weight it will require long-term dieting maintenance. When you look into the mirror all you see is things you would change
Continue reading…Break Free From Dieting
Any one who has ever tried to lose weight by dieting has come up against cravings. Often times we are told to just not eat the food our body is demanding. The problem with this thinking is, in reality, cravings are brilliant signals from our body.
This perception that cravings are a failure to stick to our diets is inaccurate. We think, “If only we had the willpower to overcome our weakness we could be thin.” When we look at what cravings do for our body, we realize they are our body’s means of telling us what it needs. When we understand what these signals are for, we are able to make choices that support our health and weight loss.
What are Cravings…Really?
You might be wondering about now, how cravings could be signals from our body. Think of it this way. Our body has certain needs and tries to get
Continue reading…Weight Loss Mistake #4: Cravings
A key weight loss mistake most people disregard is getting sufficient sleep. In our fast paced life we are using more energy drinks to keep us going long beyond our body’s ability to provide energy. Research shows that people who sleep less than 5 hours or more than 9 hours a night are more likely to be over weight. The less sleep they get the higher their BMI will be.
The Research
There are two key hormones at play in the connection between sleep and weight. The first is ghrelin which tells the body when to eat. The second is leptin, the counter to ghrelin, that tells the body when to stop eating because it is satisfied.¹
A joint research project with researchers at Stanford and the University of Wisconsin found that when a person gets less than 8 hours of sleep the levels of ghrelin jump significantly and leptin drops.
Continue reading…Weight Loss Mistake #3: Sleep
Dehydration is more common than we think. The body often mistake signs of dehydration for hunger, illness or lethargy. We have lost the ability to read the body’s signals and understand the purpose of cravings in the body. Therefore, we treat dehydration with food rather than pure water. Water is the only pure form of liquid that adequately hydrates and cleanses the body.
Symptoms of Mild to Moderate Dehydration
Dry, sticky mouth Sleepiness or tiredness Hunger Thirst Decreased urine output or dark urine Dry skin Headache Constipation Dizziness or light-headedness
Physiological Functions of Water
Our body relies on water to deliver oxygen and nutrients to the cells, muscles and organs. It is necessary for fat-burning and removal of toxins in the form of urine and feces. Water is used to regulate the temperature of the body to prevent over-heating through sweating and air vapor. Water is necessary for the lungs to remove carbon
Continue reading…Weight Loss Mistake #2: Dehydration
Camellia sinensis
Camellia sinensis (aka tea) One plant makes all the varieties of what we know as tea. Black, green, white, the whole spectrum of oolong and pu’erh teas are all made from the same plant leaves.
The variations of tea are all influenced by several factors. Each region where camellia sinensis where grows imparts different flavors and characteristics. For example, Assam tea can only be grown in the Assam region of India. Every attempt to grow it elsewhere loses the distinctive characteristics of the traditional Assam tea. Also, the method and length of drying time for the leaves changes the flavor, texture and in some cases medicinal uses of the end product.
VARIETIES OF TEA
White tea is typically air-dried with little fermenting. This leaves a fresh, clean tasting tea which can be a wonderful basis add other flavors.
Green teas are also dried with limited oxidation
Continue reading…Tea promotes health and weight loss
Anyone with children knows how hard the early days are. Babies, while needing many hours of sleep a day, don’t feel the need to make those hours consecutive. As a nursing mom I was always the one getting up with every feeding and late night waking. Multiply that by two and it makes ideal conditions for sleep deprivation. Since I stopped sleeping through the night around the beginning of the third trimester I figure I didn’t get more than 4 consecutive hours of sleep for about 3 years.
During that time I wasn’t taking the best care of myself. I made sure I got the basic nutrients but moved through my days in a foggy haze. 4 years later I realize I am 4 sizes bigger than I started. Not my finest hour. Last spring, as my energy was picking up and I was feeling more like a woman and less
Continue reading…Purification diet
For the past several months I have been trying to lose the weight I gained when I had my kids. Carrying twins really takes a toll on the body. Of course I am
Getting Veggies
doing all the things you know about. I have increased the vegetables and fruits in my diet. Cut back on the fried foods and meals consisting of only bread and cheese (desperate times of the sleep-deprived). I am at the gym, on the bike or running with the kids just about everyday. All of these things have helped immensely.
You didn’t come here to read about the things you know already, did you? I have added two new tools I have found great success with. The first I wrote about in this article. Using chia seeds helps me to feel full faster and not want to snack or binge late into the night. It’s great
Continue reading…Weight loss tips you haven’t heard before
Chia seeds for health
One of my current goals is to lose the weight I gained since 2003 after two pregnancies, a motor vehicle accident and the ups and downs of life. All told 48 pounds. I don’t come from naturally skinny people. My mom and her sisters are on perpetual diets. (I speak of my matrilineal side because my father was adopted and his family genetics are not available to me.) In any event, while living my life I gained 48 pounds and I want them gone.
So I have been changing my diet and hitting the gym pretty regularly. I have made one major addition that has been great for making all of this come together. Chia seeds are my new favorite food.
Chia seeds were a major component of Aztec and Mayan life for centuries. They are considered the food of the warrior because of their nutrient
Continue reading…Chia seeds aid weight loss
|
FREE Integrative Nutrition Book
|
Follow Me!