Raw Desserts Eliminate Guilt and Get Rave Reviews

i love dessert2In a perfect world, desserts would be healthy. They would provide you with anti-oxidants, minerals, amino acids, and enzymes. There would be no bloating, lethargy or guilt felt as a result of eating them either.

Is there such a dessert? A way to feed our body nutrients while enjoying one of mankind’s favorite past times…snacking on desserts and treats?

You might be surprised to know that the answer is simple…raw desserts created from nature’s bounty…without processed ingredients or high heat that destroys the nutrients.

Eating “raw” (including dessert) helps eliminate the culprits that have been linked to degenerative diseases and weight gain including “bad carbs” (white flour and sugar) and “bad fats” (saturated fats and trans fats) along with a heap of unhealthy chemicals and preservatives. [Read more…]

Are You Busy “Weight-cycling” Rather Than Losing Weight Permanently?

yo-yo dietingWeight cycling…a term that experts use to define what others call yo-yo dieting is becoming a national pastime.

Truth is the world is obsessed with dieting and bottom line is 99 ½% of diets simply do not work because you are taking yourself into a temporary plan. Temporary plans are just that…temporary. The results are going to be temporary when you engage a temporary diet…one that asks you to change your diet…temporarily.

Have you figured out that the keyword here is “temporary”?

Unfortunately, no matter how good we are on our diets…no matter if we stick to the diet to the end, if your diet is not a complete lifestyle change that takes you into the future then your temporary results disappear after a short while.

Most people simply regain what they have taken off when dieting and this kicks in “weight cycling” or yo-yo dieting and the reason a typical dieter begins a new diet plan as many as 4 times a year. The results simply don’t stick around.

The problem is…your waistline is not the only thing taking a hit when you yo-yo. “Repeated crash dieting increases metabolic hormones such as insulin, and elevates levels of sex hormones, including estrogen,” says Andrea Pennington MD. These types of changes cause you to add weight to your middle section…not a good thing because it is linked to insulin resistance, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. [Read more…]

You Can Beat Inflammation

anti-inflammatoryThe starting point for many seriously debilitating diseases and ailments is inflammation.

Every one of us has experienced inflammation at some point in our lives from swollen joints to severe arthritis.

But, those are just the obvious signs we have inflammation going on. Inflammation can also hide its damage well. It plays a role in many brain diseases but because there are no pain receptors operating there, you are never aware that you are experiencing inflammation while you are experiencing it.

Because of that hidden danger alone, we need to take proactive steps in maintaining an anti-inflammatory diet by keeping our blood sugar levels in balance and in check and by incorporating as many healthy fats like avocados and olive oil into our daily diets as possible.

There are so many positives to following an anti-inflammatory approach to nutrition. Your diet will  naturally be filled with healthy unrefined and unprocessed carbohydrates…no more dead calories.

You’ll enjoy colorful fruits, vegetables and healthy whole grains, all of which supply you with a range of important anti-oxidants. [Read more…]

The Art of Assessing Your Self-Talk

rebound free1Most people have no idea what kind of impact the “self-statements” they make to themselves continually all day long have on them.

What statements are you telling yourself? If you are dieting are you aware of how are these statements impact how you feel about the progress you are making?

Have you ever noticed that the “voice in your head” has a lot of self-judgments? You know this voice, it’s the voice you give great authority to…the one that is always giving advice (only the advice is fear based), and telling us what we should and should not do. [Read more…]

Attack the Snack

152959-400x300-HealthyAccording to research done by USDA, most of our snacking habits are devoid of rich nutrients but loaded with wasted calories. Do we have to eliminate snacking altogether?

The key is not to try and eliminate snacking, but to shift the way you snack from dead calories to nutritional calories, from bad snacks to good snack.

Snacking fuels you between meals, is the energy to fuel work-outs and supplies you with much needed nutrients…when done right.

Snacking done right can help you to lose or maintain your weight while snacking done wrong is a destroyer of all the good you’ve done…all your weight loss efforts. [Read more…]

Recipes Packed With Smart Nutrition

chfitness1How many people do you know that start up a diet program hoping to lose weight temporarily?

How many people want to get down to their ideal weight only to have it come piling back on shortly after they come off their diet protocol?

Pretty easy answer huh? NONE.

Who the heck wants to go through all that work only to have what you’ve done reappear?

People want a diet that is going to help them lose weight and keep it off for good, they want to make sure that they sustain that new lower weight for all of time to come.

They want a permanent weight loss solution and I am sure if you are reading this that’s exactly what you are looking for too. [Read more…]

Maintaining Acid-Alkaline Balance

alkaline1One of the biggest benefits of eating foods in their raw state is they provide us important alkaline foods, foods we can enjoy in abundance.

A typical Western diet is high in carbohydrates, sugar and fat while low in complex carbohydrates all of which promote an overly acidic body chemistry. Other products such as alcohol, coffee, tobacco, chemicals additives and drugs of all kinds compound this acidic problem.

Acidic foods can potentially cause damage to your liver or kidneys and can even increase the risk of getting diabetes. [Read more…]

10 Principles to Successful Intuitive Eating

gut1Warning! Dieting is bad for your weight and your health!

Sad but true. Even with diet ad over-kill, most people are awakening to the fact that diets simply do not work.

Dieting not only does not work, it actually increases your body’s propensity for weight gain and is a likely contributing factor to the obesity epidemic. Scientists even have a name for it: “dieting-induced weight-gain”.

The truth of the matter is that dieting actually enforces our preoccupation with food causing us to eat even when we are not experiencing real hunger which ultimately results in binge eating. [Read more…]

You Can Beat Yo-Yo Dieting

Weight cycling is the cycle of repeated loss and gains in weight.

Anyone who repeatedly loses weight and gains it back again is “weight cycling”. These losses can be anywhere from large loss/gains of 50 lbs. or more to smaller loss/gains. Often when people diet they end up in “weight cycling” and when this happens it becomes “yo-yo dieting” and the more you go through this type of dieting, (gaining and losing cycles) the more you’ll be convinced that you can ever be free of this constant depressing motion. [Read more…]

Tips to Avoid Emotional Eating

foodexerciseFor many, food has become a mechanism for dealing with trauma.

Whether you emotionally eat in order to feel better or because you lack confidence and the ability to accept a healthier you here’s some tips to help you conquer your emotions and your emotional eating.

First off, you need to get acquainted with the voice in your head…after all, it’s talking all day long and rarely shuts up. Make a conscious choice to decide what story will play in your head, change any erroneous story that repeats in your head such as “I feel deprived when I can’t eat my favorite foods when I want” to “I am so proud of myself for taking control and eating healthy and saying ‘no’ to undesirable snacks”. [Read more…]