Low calorie dairy foods

The following dairy foods can be used to increase your calcium intake when you are on a weightloss program and watching your diet :

Fat free or skim milk

Fat free or low fat cottage cheese

Fat free sour milk

Fat free or skim milk yoghurt - the plain, unflavoured varieties are better as flavoured yoghurts have a higher calorie content

Spice Up Your Food

Spices boosts metabolism, suppresses appetite, reduce fat absorption and adds taste to your meal. Replace butter or mayonnaise with garlic, chili, mustard, ginger. Saute vegetables and chicken in hot sauce as opposed to oil.

Appetite suppression: The strong odors and flavors of spices reduces feelings of hunger. Hot food may inhibit your food consumption. It is more difficult to overindulge in a meal or snack which causes the mouth to be slightly uncomfortable.

Increase metabolic rate: Spices speed up your metabolism and boost fat burning.

Reduce fat absorption: Ginger, fenugreek and garlic reduces the absorption of fat.
Quick Weight Loss Tips

Get Plenty of Sleep - It May Aid Weight Loss

Sleep aids weight loss - Sleep loss may equal weight gain.

How much you sleep and the quality of your sleep affects food cravings. Studies have shown that sleep deprivation increases levels of a hunger hormone and decreases levels of a hormone that makes you feel full. Inadequate sleep triggers food cravings which may lead to overeating and weight gain. So get your full eight hours each night to stay healthy and fit .

Back to the grind

Work today. 3:45 - 9:00
I have a new student today, which is great. They live in my village so its even better. I must remember to get a load of calendars and welcome letters printed out to give to them.

So already I am getting ready for my next holiday - which will be from Sunday 25th May until Monday the 2nd June, then on the 5th June we go to Malta.

So I have just 42 days of work until I am free again for a couple of weeks. That makes it easier to cope with! The weird thing is that it is the thought of going to work, lying in bed in the morning, that I hate. When I am actually at work, I really like it! Funny huh?

Anyway, seeing as I bought a new car on Friday, I have to get dedicated to the family money fund!

Weight wise, this morning I am 16 stone 2 pounds... still!

BUT

A miracle happened today. I have eBay'ed a load of clothes, meaning that shortly I will have to buy some more (what a shame!). However, I was going through my drawers to see what I could put on today that was semi decent, and I came across 2 pairs of 3/4 length trousers that I bought last May before I went to Sri Lanka. Now, they still have their labels on them and have sat in the drawer because, as you all know the band buggered up right at that point. So I have never worn them. They never even came to Sri Lanka with me because they were a little on the tight side and I kept them because I thought that give it a couple of weeks and I would be in them. Sadly that was not the case, but today...

I AM WEARING THEM!

Yes, I am wearing a pair of grey 3/4 length trousers from Tesco by Florence and Fred size 20.

YIPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

They are comfortable, not digging in, look nice, hang well and basically just... FIT

So this is a small miracle because when I went to Sri Lanka last year, I weighed 16 stone 3 pounds, and now I weight 16 stone 2 pounds, but I am obviously smaller somewhere than I was then! How cool is that. I am definitely at my smallest now.

Now, onto the next thing that is bugging the heck out of me. I am off to the acupuncturist in about ... ooh 30 minutes, to have her take a look at me. My skin is DREADFUL. Its worse that teenage skin. It positively hurts. I also have a nagging low back ache which I have had for years, but is getting increasingly worse, and to top it off the area of my tongue that relates to my liver is pitted deep with holes like I have bitten it through. Now, I know its sort of *mumbo jumbo* but I really believe in acupuncture as its helped me so much before, and she couples it with the whole tongue diagnosis as well which is great.

I know that the area of tongue which is dodgy is supposed to be linked to the liver. My skin is terrible, and when the liver is not working properly the skin can suffer. Also low back ache in my kidney areas is also a sign that something is not great.

So I am off to get sorted. My spots totally cleared up last time I saw her. I went for slimming help remember? It kind of helped, but I did notice it helping in the spot department big time. so hopefully this time will be the same.

As far as my fill goes... I am not noticing the same amount of restriction like I had after my last fill, but the hunger seems to have disappeared. I can go back within the next 2 weeks and get a little top up for nothing, and I don't want to fin 3 weeks down the road that I really need another fill... but at the same time, I don't want to be puking all over the place. The weird thing is that I haven't puked at all since my fill. I was having a lot of chokes before, so not sure what has happened there.

I will keep monitoring it for a few days and see what happens. I guess the scales and my hunger will decide it for me.

Cut the Sugar - Cut the Fat

Cut down the sugar intake - Excessive intake of sugar often leads to weight gain and hence cutting down the sugar intake can actually work wonders for you. The more refined it comes, the more your body is going to react negatively to it. Try and substitute synthetic sugar with natural sugar sources like fruits or honey. Sugar in fruits are better for you than the sugar in candy bars, cakes and icecreams(empty calories). Fruits are high fiber foods and packed with vitamins and antioxidants.
Google "Aspartame Side Effects" -Artificial sweeteners are just as evil as sugar itself. Just google "Aspartame Side Effects" and you will know.The best thing to do is to avoid all artificial and chemical sweetener substitutes. Aspartame is the most common form of artificial 'low calorie' sugar. It is found in most diet products and diet sodas. It is also found as a tabletop sweetener for coffee or tea.There is an endless list of side effects that you can get from aspartame.

Weight Loss Motivation And Inspiration

Identifying Your Personal Motivators and Reward Yourself

Find good reasons to lose weight. Find out what motivates you. It could be anything- wanting to fit into your favorite dress again , lose weight to feel better and look better or be healthy . Find out what inspires you and why do you want to lose weight? Do it for that reason. Do it for your self.

Reward Yourself - Rewarding yourself for sticking to your weight loss program is a good way to keep yourself motivated. Reward yourself when you accomplish your short term goals, but not with food. You might buy a new book, a new dress or go for a massage. When you reach your target weight reward yourself with something bigger like a vacation or a cruise .

Surround yourself with positive people who believe in you, they will support, encourage and motivate you to acheive your target weight.

Leptin and Lectins: Part II

Why do Americans become overweight and diseased on a high-carbohydrate diet while the carbohydrate-loving Kuna and Kitavans remain exceptionally free of chronic disease? Dr. Lindeberg proposes an answer- grains.

Dr. Lindeberg's hypothesis is that grains cause leptin resistance, which as we saw in the last post, has the potential to precipitate the metabolic syndrome and its various consorts. It's an attractive idea. The Kitavans (who he has studied personally), Kuna, and other cultures in Melanesia, Malaysia, Africa, the Arctic and South America, do not suffer from the diseases of civilization. These are all cultures that consume little or no grain, despite some having starchy diets. The Kitavans have low circulating leptin and remain lean and disease-free despite a high intake of carbohydrate.

Dr. Lindeberg says that grain-based cultures almost universally suffer from varying degrees of our illnesses, although his references to support that statement are unsatisfying. He did provide a reference showing that stroke occurs in affluent grain-based societies (whereas it seems not to in Kitavans), but I would really have liked to see a side-by-side comparison of cultures with similar lifestyles and differing grain intakes.

One thing that's certain is humans have not been eating grains for very long. Before the invention of agriculture in the fertile crescent, grains were a minor and seasonal crop for a small number of groups. Something we have been eating for a long time however is starchy tubers, bulbs and roots. Hunter-gatherers didn't generally go after wild grass seeds (grains) because they weren't a concentrated enough food source in most places. If you collect grass seeds all day, you might end up with a mouthful, after which you have to soak, grind, and cook them before chowing down. Dig up a few camas bulbs however, and you've got yourself a meal in 5 minutes.

The distinction between different sources of starch may lie in a class of molecules called lectins. Lectins were originally defined by their ability to aggregate red blood cells (erythrocytes). They do this by binding to the natural coating of carbohydrate on the cells' surface. A more current definition of a lectin is a molecule that specifically binds carbohydrate. Lectins are found throughout all kingdoms of life, and they serve a variety of useful functions. Many plants use lectins as a defense against hungry animals. Thus, an animal that is not adapted to the lectins in the plant it's eating may suffer damage or death.

Grains and legumes (beans, soy, peas, peanuts) are rich in some particularly nasty lectins. Especially wheat. Some can degrade the intestinal lining. Some have the ability to pass through the intestinal lining and show up in the bloodstream. Once in the bloodstream, they may bind all sorts of carbohydrate-containing proteins in the body, including the insulin receptor. They could theoretically bind the leptin receptor, which also contains carbohydrate (= it's glycosylated), potentially desensitizing it. This remains to be tested, and to my knowledge is pure speculation at this point. What is not so speculative is that once you're leptin-resistant, you become obese and insulin resistant, and at that point you are intolerant to any type of carbohydrate. This may explain the efficacy of carbohydrate restriction in weight loss and improving general health.

Another thing I have to mention about lectins is they can be broken down by certain food processing techniques. Remember all those old-fashioned things our grandparents used to do to grains and beans before eating them, like soaking beans overnight, sourdough-fermenting bread dough and nixtamalizing corn? All those things we've abandoned in favor of modern convenience foods? You guessed it, those reduce lectins dramatically, along with a long list of other toxins like phytic acid and protease inhibitors. Modern yeast-leavened breads, pastries, crackers, corn and soy products are no longer prepared according to these methods, and their lectin levels are typically much higher. One thing to keep in mind is that these processes reduce but generally do not eliminate lectins and other toxins.

The thing I really like about Dr. Lindeberg's idea is it explains a lot of what is happening in the world around us. The Kitavans eat yams, sweet potatoes, taro and tapioca as their staples. Incidentally, the long-lived Okinawans also eat sweet potatoes as a staple. The Kuna eat mostly plantains, yucca and kidney beans. These are three exceptionally healthy populations with a very low intake of grains. What happens when you feed these same people wheat? The Kuna have a well-documented rise in blood pressure, diabetes and cardiovascular disease mortality when they move to an urban, westernized setting. Okinawans became obese and unhealthy when American food was introduced. Wherever white flour and sugar go, the diseases of civilization follow. Weston Price documented this in the dental and skeletal health of 14 different cultures throughout the world.

It also explains what's going on under our very noses. Like I mentioned earlier, modern processed food is rich in lectins because it hasn't been treated by soaking, sprouting or bacterial fermentation. Soy has one of the highest lectin activities of any food, unless it's traditionally fermented into miso, tempeh, tamari or natto. As we've begun relying more and more on industrial food, our health has taken a major turn for the worse. Obesity is soaring in the US and diabetes is close on its heels.

I think it's very likely that grains are one of the major culprits in the diseases of civilization. This could be due to lectins causing leptin resistance. It's a fantastic hypothesis that could explain the health problems we see in modern grain-based societies.