Eating clean and healthy foods for breakfast is not as difficult and time consuming as one would think. In fact, many healthy breakfasts can be prepared with common items out of your own pantry.
Since breakfast is the first meal of the day it only takes some common sense to realize that this meal sets the tone for the rest of the day. Assuming your last meal from the previous day was eaten somewhere in the evening then approximately 8 to 10 hours will have passed since your last bite of food.
It is important to remember that you need protein and some carbohydrates at breakfast. Protein is important in helping to build healthy muscle mass and carbohydrates are important because they give you sustainable energy until your next meal. The following is a list of some really healthy meal ideas:
1. Oatmeal with fruit. Add 1/2 cup of rolled oats to 1 cup of boiling water. Boil the water for 2 minutes in the microwave. Add the oats to it and cover with a plate to allow the heat to absorb the oats. In a couple of minutes your oatmeal is done. Add 1/2 cup of berries like strawberries, blueberries, or any other type of berry. If you cannot buy them fresh then buy them frozen. Add 2 teaspoons of cinnamon for a better flavor. I personally add 2 teaspoons of flaxseed (found in the health food store or health markets). Flaxseed is rich in omega-3 oils.
2. Egg Whites with fruit - You can make your egg whites by several methods. The easiest method is hard boiled. It's easiest to hard boil your eggs in advance of when you want to eat them. This method allows me to pull a few eggs out of the refrigerator in the morning. After I peel them I remove the yokes. I then add cut up fruit to the bowl. The eggs have the needed protein and the fruit has the carbs that are needed.
3. Grainy bread and peanut butter - There are many reasons why a peanut butter sandwich is a healthy breakfast option. But what's also important to know is that you should choose a healthy grain bread and natural peanut butter. The best bread is a very grainy wheat bread that does not contain high fructose corn syrup as one of it's ingredients. All natural peanut butter is the best nut butter to use. The peanut butter gives you the protein and the bread gives you the necessary carbs.
4. Protein Shake - Although I don't personally drink shakes as a meal replacement it doesn't mean you can't. In general shakes don't fill me up for 3 hours and I only end up feeling very hungry rather quickly. However, you may want to have a shake. The following is an idea for a healthy breakfast smoothie: 1/2 cup skim milk, 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup berries, 1 tbsp flaxseed, 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce, 1/2 cup plain nonfat yogurt, 2 scoops protein powder, ice cubes. Puree it all together.
Another good tip to starting your day off clean and healthy is to drink at least one tall glass of water right when you wake up and drink another glass of water throughout your breakfast.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Diet Meal Delivery Service - 5 Tips For Greater Success
Diet meal delivery services have gained in popularity in recent years. Many of them, like Nutrisystem and Jenny Craig, have been around for decades, but the Internet has breathed new life into them. Now anyone with a web connection can get online and order diet meals delivered to their homes in just a few minutes. When it comes to losing weight, it doesn't get much easier than that.
There are a few things you need to know to get the most out of your plan, however. Here are five tips to get you off on the right foot.
1. Choose your service wisely. You're going to spend a good chunk of money and have at least four weeks worth of food in your freezer, so make sure you're going to like the choices. Ask your friends and family, do a search on the Internet for reviews, and see if you can order sample meals - or at least snacks - to try out before making a commitment.
2. Choose your individual plan carefully. Some diet meal delivery services have several plan choices, including diabetic, vegetarian, and low-carb. Some also allow you to choose the number of calories you want to consume. Don't make the mistake of opting for 1200 calorie days only to wind up feeling hungry every afternoon. That's a recipe for failure.
3. Stock up on healthy snack foods. Ideally, you'll be eating only the foods on your diet plan. Of course we all know there will be days when that just isn't enough food. Having healthy snacks on hand will help you to avoid gorging on potato chips and candy bars.
4. Learn a new lifestyle. Anyone can lose weight when all their food is prepared for them. But to keep it off, you're going to have to learn to eat better, even after you stop buying packaged meals. Pay close attention to portion sizes and protein/carbohydrate ratios so you can duplicate them when you go back to cooking your own foods.
5. Eat breakfast. Some diet meal delivery plans don't include breakfast, but that doesn't mean you can just skip it. Breakfast is important for waking your brain and body up every day, and without it you'll feel hungrier and be more likely to overeat at lunch. If your plan doesn't come with breakfast, stock up on eggs, whole wheat bagels, and fruit and make your own healthy breakfast.
There are a few things you need to know to get the most out of your plan, however. Here are five tips to get you off on the right foot.
1. Choose your service wisely. You're going to spend a good chunk of money and have at least four weeks worth of food in your freezer, so make sure you're going to like the choices. Ask your friends and family, do a search on the Internet for reviews, and see if you can order sample meals - or at least snacks - to try out before making a commitment.
2. Choose your individual plan carefully. Some diet meal delivery services have several plan choices, including diabetic, vegetarian, and low-carb. Some also allow you to choose the number of calories you want to consume. Don't make the mistake of opting for 1200 calorie days only to wind up feeling hungry every afternoon. That's a recipe for failure.
3. Stock up on healthy snack foods. Ideally, you'll be eating only the foods on your diet plan. Of course we all know there will be days when that just isn't enough food. Having healthy snacks on hand will help you to avoid gorging on potato chips and candy bars.
4. Learn a new lifestyle. Anyone can lose weight when all their food is prepared for them. But to keep it off, you're going to have to learn to eat better, even after you stop buying packaged meals. Pay close attention to portion sizes and protein/carbohydrate ratios so you can duplicate them when you go back to cooking your own foods.
5. Eat breakfast. Some diet meal delivery plans don't include breakfast, but that doesn't mean you can just skip it. Breakfast is important for waking your brain and body up every day, and without it you'll feel hungrier and be more likely to overeat at lunch. If your plan doesn't come with breakfast, stock up on eggs, whole wheat bagels, and fruit and make your own healthy breakfast.
What Are the Health Benefits of Stevia?
Stevia is a plant which can be used alternatively to sugar as a sweetener. It is naively growing in South America, where it is used as sweetener by the natives since centuries. Its extracts can be up to 300 times sweeter then normal sugar. In 1987 it was discovered by a Swiss botanist (Moisés Santiago Bertoni). But from then on it took pretty long to make it more popular in the western world. The first country which thought about Stevia as a sugar substitute was Japan. They made their first cultivating experiments in the 1950's, and started to use it as complementary food and sweetener in the 1970's. In 1980 the consumption has already risen up to 2000 tons of Stevia per year.
So far for the far east, but in Europe and North America Stevia was, and still is mainly prohibited, due to concerns about side effects of Stevia, especially about steviol, the metabolized aglycone of stevioside,what is the main component of Stevia. Some studies with animals, especially rats, in the 1980's affirmed that the steviol would be mutagenic. But these studies were hardly criticized, and considered not to be transferable to the human by the critics. If a human ate the proportional amount of Stevia which one rat in the experiments ate, he would have eaten a half of his body weight in Stevia leaves. In these amounts even sugar would be very unhealthy. Because of these concerns it is still unapproved as consumable in the most parts of the western world, and can only be sold as a beauty product, in some places in diet food or as tea.
But to come back to the title, I will now talk about the health benefits of Stevia. Some studies say that it is effective against dental caries and the accumulation of plaque, in opposite to sugar, what is doing harm to the teeth. Some other studies affirm that Stevia does not cause a raise of the blood sugar, but even lowers it. So it is perfectly usable as a sugar substitute for diabetics and better then other artificial sweeteners like aspartame or sucralose (Splenda), as it is natural and not chemical. What makes it even more suitable for dietary foods, is the fact that the extract of Stevia literally has got zero calories. Stevia also contains about 100 minerals and vitamins, but in the amounts consumed by the human, the effects are pretty negligible.
As mentioned above, the negative side effects are literally inexistent, so the health organizations of the European Union and the USA should really reconsider the prohibition of Stevia, or enforce some real studies about it, to clear the true risks of Stevia consumption. Then it could be used for dietary food and generally as sugar supplement and to replace the artificial sweeteners in the future.
So far for the far east, but in Europe and North America Stevia was, and still is mainly prohibited, due to concerns about side effects of Stevia, especially about steviol, the metabolized aglycone of stevioside,what is the main component of Stevia. Some studies with animals, especially rats, in the 1980's affirmed that the steviol would be mutagenic. But these studies were hardly criticized, and considered not to be transferable to the human by the critics. If a human ate the proportional amount of Stevia which one rat in the experiments ate, he would have eaten a half of his body weight in Stevia leaves. In these amounts even sugar would be very unhealthy. Because of these concerns it is still unapproved as consumable in the most parts of the western world, and can only be sold as a beauty product, in some places in diet food or as tea.
But to come back to the title, I will now talk about the health benefits of Stevia. Some studies say that it is effective against dental caries and the accumulation of plaque, in opposite to sugar, what is doing harm to the teeth. Some other studies affirm that Stevia does not cause a raise of the blood sugar, but even lowers it. So it is perfectly usable as a sugar substitute for diabetics and better then other artificial sweeteners like aspartame or sucralose (Splenda), as it is natural and not chemical. What makes it even more suitable for dietary foods, is the fact that the extract of Stevia literally has got zero calories. Stevia also contains about 100 minerals and vitamins, but in the amounts consumed by the human, the effects are pretty negligible.
As mentioned above, the negative side effects are literally inexistent, so the health organizations of the European Union and the USA should really reconsider the prohibition of Stevia, or enforce some real studies about it, to clear the true risks of Stevia consumption. Then it could be used for dietary food and generally as sugar supplement and to replace the artificial sweeteners in the future.
Replace Sugar
Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni is also known as Sweet leaf, Sugarleaf and just plain Stevia. It is a herb that belongs to the sunflower family (Asteraceae), native to subtropical and tropical regions from western North America to South America, although it is now grown throughout the world in such places as Japan, Korea, China or India.
Paraguay is the most famous country for the origins of Stevia, where the Guarani Indians have used it for over 1500 years to sweeten their mate tea.
As Stevia is 100% Natural, has Zero Calories, a Low Glycemic Index and is 200-400 times sweeter than sugar when refined. I can be very useful in replacing sugar in diets.
It has also reportable minimised hunger sensations, cravings for sweets and fatty foods. With Diabetes rising amongst the population, Stevia can be useful for those Diabetics with a sweet tooth.
The World Health Organisation forecast of over 300 million people will have Diabetes by 2025! It is also well known that medicine treatments for Diabetes have not changed greatly since the first insulin injections back in 1921.
A change of habits and lifestyle can help modify patients' quality of life by taking physical exercise and eating a healthy diet. It is incredibly hard for people who crave sugar to give up that craving, but with Stevia it is possible to have sweetness in your diet without worrying about the dangers of sugar and saccharine.
Tests conclude that Stevia has got anti-acid, antibacterial, anti-diabetic, cardiotonic, digestive, diuretic, sweetening, hypoglycaemic, hypo-tensing, metabolic enhancing and vasodilating properties.
Beneficial effects in fat absorption and blood pressure have also been proven.
Why risk the dangers of sugar and other possibly carcinogenic sweeteners when the Guarani Indians of Paraguay have known that Stevia is the perfect Natural herb to sweeten foods and drinks!
Paraguay is the most famous country for the origins of Stevia, where the Guarani Indians have used it for over 1500 years to sweeten their mate tea.
As Stevia is 100% Natural, has Zero Calories, a Low Glycemic Index and is 200-400 times sweeter than sugar when refined. I can be very useful in replacing sugar in diets.
It has also reportable minimised hunger sensations, cravings for sweets and fatty foods. With Diabetes rising amongst the population, Stevia can be useful for those Diabetics with a sweet tooth.
The World Health Organisation forecast of over 300 million people will have Diabetes by 2025! It is also well known that medicine treatments for Diabetes have not changed greatly since the first insulin injections back in 1921.
A change of habits and lifestyle can help modify patients' quality of life by taking physical exercise and eating a healthy diet. It is incredibly hard for people who crave sugar to give up that craving, but with Stevia it is possible to have sweetness in your diet without worrying about the dangers of sugar and saccharine.
Tests conclude that Stevia has got anti-acid, antibacterial, anti-diabetic, cardiotonic, digestive, diuretic, sweetening, hypoglycaemic, hypo-tensing, metabolic enhancing and vasodilating properties.
Beneficial effects in fat absorption and blood pressure have also been proven.
Why risk the dangers of sugar and other possibly carcinogenic sweeteners when the Guarani Indians of Paraguay have known that Stevia is the perfect Natural herb to sweeten foods and drinks!
Monday, March 15, 2010
Diet Meal Delivery Service - 5 Tips For Greater Success
Diet meal delivery services have gained in popularity in recent years. Many of them, like Nutrisystem and Jenny Craig, have been around for decades, but the Internet has breathed new life into them. Now anyone with a web connection can get online and order diet meals delivered to their homes in just a few minutes. When it comes to losing weight, it doesn't get much easier than that.
There are a few things you need to know to get the most out of your plan, however. Here are five tips to get you off on the right foot.
1. Choose your service wisely. You're going to spend a good chunk of money and have at least four weeks worth of food in your freezer, so make sure you're going to like the choices. Ask your friends and family, do a search on the Internet for reviews, and see if you can order sample meals - or at least snacks - to try out before making a commitment.
2. Choose your individual plan carefully. Some diet meal delivery services have several plan choices, including diabetic, vegetarian, and low-carb. Some also allow you to choose the number of calories you want to consume. Don't make the mistake of opting for 1200 calorie days only to wind up feeling hungry every afternoon. That's a recipe for failure.
3. Stock up on healthy snack foods. Ideally, you'll be eating only the foods on your diet plan. Of course we all know there will be days when that just isn't enough food. Having healthy snacks on hand will help you to avoid gorging on potato chips and candy bars.
4. Learn a new lifestyle. Anyone can lose weight when all their food is prepared for them. But to keep it off, you're going to have to learn to eat better, even after you stop buying packaged meals. Pay close attention to portion sizes and protein/carbohydrate ratios so you can duplicate them when you go back to cooking your own foods.
5. Eat breakfast. Some diet meal delivery plans don't include breakfast, but that doesn't mean you can just skip it. Breakfast is important for waking your brain and body up every day, and without it you'll feel hungrier and be more likely to overeat at lunch. If your plan doesn't come with breakfast, stock up on eggs, whole wheat bagels, and fruit and make your own healthy breakfast.
There are a few things you need to know to get the most out of your plan, however. Here are five tips to get you off on the right foot.
1. Choose your service wisely. You're going to spend a good chunk of money and have at least four weeks worth of food in your freezer, so make sure you're going to like the choices. Ask your friends and family, do a search on the Internet for reviews, and see if you can order sample meals - or at least snacks - to try out before making a commitment.
2. Choose your individual plan carefully. Some diet meal delivery services have several plan choices, including diabetic, vegetarian, and low-carb. Some also allow you to choose the number of calories you want to consume. Don't make the mistake of opting for 1200 calorie days only to wind up feeling hungry every afternoon. That's a recipe for failure.
3. Stock up on healthy snack foods. Ideally, you'll be eating only the foods on your diet plan. Of course we all know there will be days when that just isn't enough food. Having healthy snacks on hand will help you to avoid gorging on potato chips and candy bars.
4. Learn a new lifestyle. Anyone can lose weight when all their food is prepared for them. But to keep it off, you're going to have to learn to eat better, even after you stop buying packaged meals. Pay close attention to portion sizes and protein/carbohydrate ratios so you can duplicate them when you go back to cooking your own foods.
5. Eat breakfast. Some diet meal delivery plans don't include breakfast, but that doesn't mean you can just skip it. Breakfast is important for waking your brain and body up every day, and without it you'll feel hungrier and be more likely to overeat at lunch. If your plan doesn't come with breakfast, stock up on eggs, whole wheat bagels, and fruit and make your own healthy breakfast.
Healthy Food Does Not Have to Be Boring and Tasteless
There is this misconception going around that eating healthy food means one has to eat raw, tasteless vegetables and fruits. Well, this article will throw that misconception out of the window and show you how healthy food can be absolutely delicious and so mouth-watering, you won't even know that it's health food.
In today's world of fat-laden fast food and processed food, it is pretty easy to grab these to satisfy one's hunger. However, that's not a great thing for your body as it only serves to clog your arteries and add to your body fat. You certainly do not need to put in too much junk in your body. It's like putting sand into the gas tank of your car. One day, your body will break down from all that junk.
Now, many people gave the excuse that they can't stick to healthy food because it is boring, tasteless or even downright nasty. Well, this is not true. There are plenty of healthy recipes abound that are easy to prepare and yet are tasty and great for your body. Even if you don't have the time to cook, there are plenty of crock pot recipes for you to simple dump in all the ingredients, set the pot and in several hours' time, you have your food. Easy and simple.
If you are curious about what kind of healthy foods that are not boring and tasteless, an example would be very low fat brownie. Yes, you can even eat desserts as long as it's prepared healthily and with less sugar and fats. If you have heard of quinoa, the super grain introduced by the Incas, these can also be cooked healthily and be a great addition to your diet!
So, it does not have to be salads all the time. There are plenty of great low fat, low sugar, low sodium and yet delicious recipes out there for you to try. Sure, you can indulge in sinfully high calorie desserts every once in a while but if you make it a habit to consume healthy food all the time, you will find that you have more energy and the pounds will slowly drop off too.
In today's world of fat-laden fast food and processed food, it is pretty easy to grab these to satisfy one's hunger. However, that's not a great thing for your body as it only serves to clog your arteries and add to your body fat. You certainly do not need to put in too much junk in your body. It's like putting sand into the gas tank of your car. One day, your body will break down from all that junk.
Now, many people gave the excuse that they can't stick to healthy food because it is boring, tasteless or even downright nasty. Well, this is not true. There are plenty of healthy recipes abound that are easy to prepare and yet are tasty and great for your body. Even if you don't have the time to cook, there are plenty of crock pot recipes for you to simple dump in all the ingredients, set the pot and in several hours' time, you have your food. Easy and simple.
If you are curious about what kind of healthy foods that are not boring and tasteless, an example would be very low fat brownie. Yes, you can even eat desserts as long as it's prepared healthily and with less sugar and fats. If you have heard of quinoa, the super grain introduced by the Incas, these can also be cooked healthily and be a great addition to your diet!
So, it does not have to be salads all the time. There are plenty of great low fat, low sugar, low sodium and yet delicious recipes out there for you to try. Sure, you can indulge in sinfully high calorie desserts every once in a while but if you make it a habit to consume healthy food all the time, you will find that you have more energy and the pounds will slowly drop off too.
What Are the Health Benefits of Stevia?
Stevia is a plant which can be used alternatively to sugar as a sweetener. It is naively growing in South America, where it is used as sweetener by the natives since centuries. Its extracts can be up to 300 times sweeter then normal sugar. In 1987 it was discovered by a Swiss botanist (Moisés Santiago Bertoni). But from then on it took pretty long to make it more popular in the western world. The first country which thought about Stevia as a sugar substitute was Japan. They made their first cultivating experiments in the 1950's, and started to use it as complementary food and sweetener in the 1970's. In 1980 the consumption has already risen up to 2000 tons of Stevia per year.
So far for the far east, but in Europe and North America Stevia was, and still is mainly prohibited, due to concerns about side effects of Stevia, especially about steviol, the metabolized aglycone of stevioside,what is the main component of Stevia. Some studies with animals, especially rats, in the 1980's affirmed that the steviol would be mutagenic. But these studies were hardly criticized, and considered not to be transferable to the human by the critics. If a human ate the proportional amount of Stevia which one rat in the experiments ate, he would have eaten a half of his body weight in Stevia leaves. In these amounts even sugar would be very unhealthy. Because of these concerns it is still unapproved as consumable in the most parts of the western world, and can only be sold as a beauty product, in some places in diet food or as tea.
But to come back to the title, I will now talk about the health benefits of Stevia. Some studies say that it is effective against dental caries and the accumulation of plaque, in opposite to sugar, what is doing harm to the teeth. Some other studies affirm that Stevia does not cause a raise of the blood sugar, but even lowers it. So it is perfectly usable as a sugar substitute for diabetics and better then other artificial sweeteners like aspartame or sucralose (Splenda), as it is natural and not chemical. What makes it even more suitable for dietary foods, is the fact that the extract of Stevia literally has got zero calories. Stevia also contains about 100 minerals and vitamins, but in the amounts consumed by the human, the effects are pretty negligible.
As mentioned above, the negative side effects are literally inexistent, so the health organizations of the European Union and the USA should really reconsider the prohibition of Stevia, or enforce some real studies about it, to clear the true risks of Stevia consumption. Then it could be used for dietary food and generally as sugar supplement and to replace the artificial sweeteners in the future.
So far for the far east, but in Europe and North America Stevia was, and still is mainly prohibited, due to concerns about side effects of Stevia, especially about steviol, the metabolized aglycone of stevioside,what is the main component of Stevia. Some studies with animals, especially rats, in the 1980's affirmed that the steviol would be mutagenic. But these studies were hardly criticized, and considered not to be transferable to the human by the critics. If a human ate the proportional amount of Stevia which one rat in the experiments ate, he would have eaten a half of his body weight in Stevia leaves. In these amounts even sugar would be very unhealthy. Because of these concerns it is still unapproved as consumable in the most parts of the western world, and can only be sold as a beauty product, in some places in diet food or as tea.
But to come back to the title, I will now talk about the health benefits of Stevia. Some studies say that it is effective against dental caries and the accumulation of plaque, in opposite to sugar, what is doing harm to the teeth. Some other studies affirm that Stevia does not cause a raise of the blood sugar, but even lowers it. So it is perfectly usable as a sugar substitute for diabetics and better then other artificial sweeteners like aspartame or sucralose (Splenda), as it is natural and not chemical. What makes it even more suitable for dietary foods, is the fact that the extract of Stevia literally has got zero calories. Stevia also contains about 100 minerals and vitamins, but in the amounts consumed by the human, the effects are pretty negligible.
As mentioned above, the negative side effects are literally inexistent, so the health organizations of the European Union and the USA should really reconsider the prohibition of Stevia, or enforce some real studies about it, to clear the true risks of Stevia consumption. Then it could be used for dietary food and generally as sugar supplement and to replace the artificial sweeteners in the future.
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