Saturday, May 17, 2008

Weight Loss Wand - your source for weight loss tips

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In a world of diet fads, drinks, pills and standards of beauty that are often defined by an air brush, it is an easy thing to feel like your weight is entirely out of your control and that you will never be healthy and happy. Put aside your fears and step up to a positive way of thinking and possibilities for achieving weight loss and thus, a healthier you. You can also read some personal recommendations on this blog.

Are you sick and tired of those extra tyres around your belly? Are you also looking for tips and techniques that will help you burn those extra pounds?

Well, go no further. With the "20 tried and tested tips for weight loss" discussed on this page, you are not only assured but also guaranteed to see results quicker than never before!

There's really no need to starve yourself or go and spend hours at the gym anymore. If you are a business man or a busy corporate employee, if you are a house wife or a professional, it just does not matter anymore. These tricks for weight loss are sure to help you lose weight no matter what kind of life you lead, just stick to this techniques and see the difference for yourself.

20 tried and tested tips for weight loss sent by our readers

Weight Loss Tip #1:
Push in two fruits or vegetables with every meal you eat. This will fill your stomach and help you cut down on the calories you would take in from the other foods.

Weight Loss Tip #2:
Eat breakfast daily. You would have gone hours without eating since the previous night, hence eating breakfast would not decrease your tendency to overeat later during the day.

Weight Loss Tip #3:
Have some snacks every 4 hours. You could have any snack: Oranges, Apples, Chips, String Cheese, Pretzels etc. Eat anything you want (in small quantities), just make sure you have something in your stomach at all times, you shouldn't feel hungry.

Weight Loss Tip #4:
Eat at regular intervals. Eating at odd irregular times would upset your whole diet. It is always advisable to maintain a specific schedule and always stick to it.

Weight Loss Tip #5:
Always know your portions: Half a cup of rice is about the size of your fist, one ounce of cheese is as much as a large marble; a three ounce serving of meat is the size of a deck of cards.
Divide your plate into parts: Three fourths of it should be filled with vegetables, grains, beans and fruits while the other quarter should be extra-lean meat or low-fat dairy products.

Weight Loss Tip #6:
NEVER skip your meals. NEVER!
Skipping a meal might seem like cutting on calories but thats not the case. You are basically starving yourself which is very wrong. The next meal that you eat will be converted to pure fat. This will eventually cause you to gain weight rather than losing any.

Weight Loss Tip #7:
Drink A LOT of water. This is one of the most essential components of your diet plan. One glass of water every hour would do wonders to your body. It helps you eat lesser without making you feel hungry. The large amount of water intake also flushes out all the unwanted waste in your body and helps in digestion too. Drink atleast two to three litres of water daily.

Weight Loss Tip #8:
Eat slowly. Munch and chew every bite. Grind it to pieces before swallowing it. Generally when we're in a hurry, we just tend to swallow down whole chunks of food. We do not realise when we're full and when we're overeating. Eating slowly will not only give you satisfaction from every bite but you will also realise when to stop.

Weight Loss Tip #9:
Cut 100 calories a day from your diet. Replace your daily bar of chocolate with a banana or an orange. These 100 calories a day sum up to 1 pound a month. Just by giving up that one bar of chocolate, you can lose 1 pound of weight in one month!

Weight Loss Tip #10:
Buy pre-cut fruits and vegetables. You're more likely to munch on them as a snack or make a salad from them if they're already cut. You might feel lazy on one particular day and decide to wipe those veggies and fruits out for that one single day. However, if they're already cut, you'll feel like eating them.

Weight Loss Tip #11:
Go in for the less processed food. Its less fattening. For example: Potatoes versus chips, Whole Wheat Bread versus Doughnuts etc.

Weight Loss Tip #12:
Don't eat on auto-pilot. For example: Tasting the food you are cooking, Noshing from the serving bowl etc.

Weight Loss Tip #13:
Limit your alcohol intake. Limit it to only occasions. Alcohol is not only extremely fattening but also deteriorates your will power. Alcohol is also very harmful for your body in the long run. Try your best to limit your consumption, if not call it to quits.

Weight Loss Tip #14:

Don't do it alone. Get a friend or relative to go on a diet with you. In this way, both of you will inspire and push each other and keep going.

Weight Loss Tip #15:
Eat beans every now and then. Add a handful to your salads to curb your hunger pangs longer.
Sweeten your food with spice. use spices like cinnamon and vanilla to desserts instead of sugar. They're less fattening.

Weight Loss Tip #16:
Keep moving, Don't be a couch potato. Daily physical activity, like walking, along with healthy eating is key to long-term weight-loss success and maintenance. Once again, more is better.

Weight Loss Tip #17:
Make a strong start, Contrary to common wisdom that "slow and steady wins the race", weight loss is best, recent articles have found that dieters who lost weight quickly, lost more total weight and kept off more weight long-term. Researchers concluded that how well dieters do in the first 2-4 weeks predicts their success up to five years later.

Weight Loss Tip #18:
Fight your temptation. Don't break your whole diet plan just because of one outing with friends of family. Order just steamed veggies or maybe a grilled sandwich or even a soup and salad combo.

Weight Loss Tip #19:
Try introducing a herbal supplement in your diet to help curb your appetite and give you more energy as an alternative to overeating.

Weight Loss Tip #20:
The last and final tip: FOLLOW ALL THE ABOVE TIPS.
There are no hard and fast rules in this diet plan. If you notice, these are very easy methods and techniques that won't even make you feel like you're on a weight loss programme. Neither will you ever feel hungry nor will you have to undergo a monotonous, tasteless food intake. Its as interesting a diet as it gets.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Can anyone create joy at will?

It came as no surprise to a woman we'll call Joan when, after 16 years of marriage, she and her husband started discussing the possibility of divorce. Deep down, she'd never believed her marriage, or any marriage, could be genuinely happy. Still, the reality was crushing. "I was desperate," she says. "I thought, 'I'd do anything to feel better."

How about singing every day, making lists of things that made her happy, and getting a "joy buddy"?

Those are among the suggestions given in Awakening Joy, a class taught by James Baraz, a meditation instructor and founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. A series of exercises, lectures, and meditations stretched over 10 months, Awakening Joy is designed to bring more happiness to people's lives.

Like some participants, Joan, who heard about the program while attending a meditation retreat at Spirit Rock, initially balked at the idea of singing. "I thought James wanted me to join a choir," she says, "but I took it on faith that the singing was going to work." So she started trilling along with the Hairspray soundtrack while driving. "It seemed ridiculous, but that's what initially helped me the most."

"The course uses practices that lead the mind toward states of happiness and well-being," says Baraz. "In other words, it teaches you to focus on how it feels to feel good." The first and most important step, he says, is intention: making the decision to be happy. Robert Holden, PhD, author of Happiness Now! Timeless Wisdom for Feeling Good Fast and director of the Happiness Project in the United Kingdom, agrees that this is key. "Intention is another word for focus. Whatever you focus on will become more apparent and will grow. For centuries, optimists and pessimists have argued over who's right, and the answer is they both are; each sees what they're looking for. If you focus on happiness, that's what you become more aware of."

Once participants have made up their minds to be happier, Baraz gives them the tools - delivered in lectures to the live class he teaches in Berkeley and in twice-monthly e-mails sent to participants in other areas - to teach them how to cultivate a positive state of mind. Among them:

  • Writing what the word joy means to you
  • Doing some form of physical movement - such as yoga, dance, or walking - a few times a week
  • Making a "nourishment list" of activities you enjoy, checking off those you do regularly and circling the ones that could be done more often
  • Checking in with your "joy buddy," a kind of running partner in the pursuit of happiness.