Lose weight step by step – The ultimate weight loss guide!

Since I have received many requests on “how to lose weight fast and what should I do”, I have decided to write an explicit weight loss guide that will entail the most basic and efficient weight loss tools.

Your weight loss results will depend on the strictness with which you follow this guide and stick to your regimen. Don’t expect anything “magical” and “easy-to-do” because I don’t know anybody who has managed to lose weight just by sitting on the couch and putting no diet and exercise effort whatsoever.

Enough talking, let’s get back to business. So your goal is weight loss, and whatever the amount of kilograms (pounds) you would like to shake off, you will manage to do it with the help of some basic rules.

Remember: weight loss takes time, so don’t expect to get rid of enormous amounts of weight within an instant. Your weight loss strongly depends on your current weight, the amount of exercise you will pursue, and the strictness with which you will follow your diet. If you are overweight – you will lose more weight and faster. If you’ve already lost a lot of weight or you have a normal, healthy BMI – your weight loss will be slightly more challenging.

Rule #1 – Start exercising! If you haven’t ever been exercising before, you are likely to burn 30% more fat if you are exercising. Another benefit of exercise is building muscles. They will not only give you nice shapes, but also speed up your metabolism, thus making you lose weight faster. If you’ve never been exercising before and sport is not your habit, I recommend starting with 40-50 minutes workouts, 3 to 5 times a day. The most efficient fat-burning exercises are cardio exercises: running, jogging and biking. Don’t push too hard, too fast. Start with fast walking – slow running, and gradually increase your speed and the duration of your workout as you progress through the weeks. If you are already exercising for a while, increase the speed and the duration of your workouts.

Rule #2 – Watch your diet! As obvious as it sounds, you have to leave out a few basic foods in order to make weight loss possible. These include: junk food, fat/greasy foods, take-aways, sauces, dressings, all sorts of salty snacks, all sorts of sweet snacks. The foods that you CAN and actually should eat during a healthy diet are: fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, diary products (don’t exaggerate with them), brown rice, whole-wheat bread, nuts, eggs and oats. For more recipes with healthy and low-calorie sweets, please refer to the following link on my page: https://galinabella.wordpress.com/category/good-foodrecipes/

Rule # 3 – Watch your portion size! I know it sounds tough but this is what you have to do in order to lose weight. Besides the fact that your body has to receive healthy, nutritious foods, it also has to receive less of it. For a start, I recommend removing a quarter of our portion, and then bringing it down to a half of your portion. This will most likely make you feel still hungry after you’ve polished your plate – but this is what it takes. Drink a glass of green tea after your meal in order to survive the food cravings. At some point, you will be fine with eating less, and I believe most people eat more than their body actually requires – so it will do you good.

Rule # 4 – Don’t eat after 6 pm! This is yet another challenge to overcome. If you’re a fan of late-night snacks and dinners – you better forget about them! 6pm is your last chance to have something to eat, and it better be something light. A fruit salad, or a vegetable salad with 1 cup of yogurt and 1 slice of whole-wheat bread is what you can eat. In order to combat with your food cravings after 6 pm, I recommend green tea, plain yogurt and vegetables. For more healthy snacks ideas please refer to my article: https://galinabella.wordpress.com/2013/04/19/some-healthy-snacks-you-can-have-during-your-diet/

Rule # 5 – It’s all about cooking methods! In order to lose weight, you have to take good care not only of what you eat, but also how you prepare your foods. When you’re on a diet you should NOT deep fry or pan fry your food, and definitely exclude using oils, butter, sauces and fat while cooking. In return, you can oven-bake, microwave and boil your foods or eat them raw. There is no need to use excess of oils, sweeteners, sauces and dressings – get used to the natural taste of food.

Rule # 6 – Watch your drinks! I know that fizzy drinks and sodas taste good – but they are nothing but water with gas and a whole a lot of sugar (yes, even the ones that are “light” or “zero” sugar). Forget about fizzy drinks and chose water, tea or coffee instead. You can occasionally give in to fresh fruit juices, however do not exaggerate with them either since they contain quite some sugar as well.

Rule # 7 – Have a healthy daily regimen. For this you will have to remember to sleep during the night and not any other time of the day and try to adapt the “early awake early asleep” approach. Your weight loss processes take place during your sleep, especially between 12am – 6am. This is the time that should be dedicated to sleeping. Another important factor for a healthy metabolism is waking up and having breakfast early in the morning – between 7am – 9am. This will make you feel energetic during the day, and will make you feel less food cravings and hunger pangs during the day.

Rule # 8 – REGULARITY is the key! You have to understand that doing all these things for one day or one week isn’t going to get you anywhere. A healthy diet and exercise should become a habit, a lifestyle that should be rather routine than rarity. If you are decided to start, start NOW and stick to your plan! Consistency and regularity is the key to successful weight loss! What is a battle in the beginning, is a habit in the end, and it will do you only good!

I wish you best of luck and I hope this has been helpful!

A bowl of health – 300 calorie breakfast and super delicious!

We have all heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and since it is not a simple rumor but a fact, breakfast should start with a healthy kick of nutrients for the day! If you’re wondering what a healthy breakfast should look like – here is a perfect example.

This Orange-Apple combination with a pinch of oats will start your day with a “kick” of vitamins, fiber and minerals! And most importantly: it is absolutely delicious! I could have this for breakfast for weeks in a row, even though – variety is the most important element of a healthy diet (don’t forget)!

So how is this prepared? Very simple: it will take you about 5 minutes to prepare and about 8 minutes if you really suck at cooking. All you have to do is chop an orange and one apple into small cubes. Place them in a bowl together with 4 table-spoons of plain yogurt and 4 table-spoons of dried oats!

To spice it up you can add nuts and raisins to it – this will increase its calorie content from 300 to 400 calories (which is still quite decent for a good breakfast)! Nuts will provide your body with natural, healthy fats, while raisins will enhance the taste – whatever you prefer!

For a good finish of your healthy breakfast, wash it off with a glass of fresh orange juice or a cup of green tea! This will get your system going for the day and boost your energy levels! Make an effort for yourself and treat your body with care – it will pay off!

Sexy tips – Build your confidence and never give up!

I think I’ve talked enough about diet and exercise for the past month, and I think it’s time to touch the “painful” topic – your complexes, your issues and your confidence. 

Ask any person on the street if there is anything they don’t like in their body – I am sure 99% of them will point out at least one spot that they hate. And since all of us have those imperfections, I want to give you a confidence boost and change your attitude towards yourself!

Remember: no diet and exercise on this earth will make you look good if you don’t believe in yourself! And sexy is not about the slim figure and perfect curves – it is about your attitude and the way you treat yourself! If you’re taking care of what you’re eating, you do your regular exercising – you’re on your way to success! 

Many of us tend to get too consumed by our imperfections and we’re in a constant struggle to achieve our, sometimes, unrealistic goals! Take a break, take a good look at yourself and see how far you’ve come – thank yourself for the effort you’ve made and look at the results you’ve got! This is what will boost your confidence level and motivate you to keep pursuing what you’ve started!

Don’t give up if your efforts are not showing the results you’ve been expecting. Don’t change your mind if the obstacles become harder to overcome – if you keep fighting, you’re already 10 times stronger than most of the people around you!

Being fit means treating yourself with respect! Being sexy means having that solid confidence and positive attitude towards yourself – forget about imperfections! If we’re all imperfect, there is nothing to be ashamed of!

Love yourself, respect yourself and thank yourself – and you’ll always be on top 😉

 

How to easily change your portion size – you will not notice!

Today I am going to speak about the so-called “psychological eating” – and no, its not a syndrome or an insanity diagnosis, its a simple but nevertheless common habit that is present in everyone of us. 

So what is “psychological eating” in fact? Scientists have proved that a person tends to eat with their eyes, and usually that hunger is bigger than the natural, physical hunger. To be more explicit, this means that people tend to eat as much food as they see, since it looks yummy, delicious, mouth-watering, and so and so on. By seeing all these gifts of heaven on our buffet or plate, we usually tend to ignore our real hunger, and stuff ourselves with all the things we love. Have you experienced this?

You will not believe it, but by knowing this weakness in us, and doing the right things to prevent it from taking over our minds, we can reduce our food and beverage intake with every single portion we’re having, just by following a few very useful cheat codes. Let’s see!

1. Put less food on your plate – This is rule number one if you want to eat less. People tend to polish their plate regardless to the amount of food that’s on it. It’s like we’re in a competition with ourselves to finish that God dam* meal despite the fact that we’re full already. Just by putting less food on your plate, you can already eat less without noticing it.

2. Out of sight – out of mind – This works exactly the same way as point number 1. You are full already, but you can’t avoid the temptation of eating just a little bit more of the foods that are laying around you on the table. Never place sweets, sauces or any kinds of snacks around you when you’re having your main meal. I can assure you that you will have a taste of those snacks once they’re around you, and you will less likely have them if they’re laying somewhere in your grocery closet.

3. Eat slower – As stupid as it sounds – it works. The feeling of fullness comes only about 15 to 20 minutes after you’ve started your meal. Your stomach is not reacting as fast as your mouth does, so give it some time. For some people it is quite challenging to eat slow, and I can totally understand that. However, make an effort and slow down – you will see that you’ll feel full from eating a smaller portion.

4. Use the right glass – Besides being food lovers, we also are keen at drinking lots of soda, juices or refreshing drinks. It is common knowledge that fizzy drinks and juices contain a lot of sugar, and their consumption should be diminished if not to zero, well then at least to minimum. Here is where I would like to test you. Below there are two glasses in front of you. Is the amount of liquid in both of them, equal?

The answer is: Of course NOT! See what happens if I pour the content of these glasses into two absolutely identical wine glasses:

Exactly! You see my point? The thick, fat glass, contains about 30% more liquid than the thin, tall glass! My kitchen is definitely not a NASA laboratory but the outcome of this experiment is obvious! By choosing to drink from a thin glass, you will drink, in average, 30% less than if you used the thick glass. Simple, isn’t it? 

This was it for today and I hope this will change something about your eating habits! It is easy and it works. All the temptations are there in your brain and so is your appetite sometimes. So stop thinking about food and do some jogging instead 😉

Cheers everyone!

Just think about it!

A quick motivation kick for all of you!

How to choose the right muesli for breakfast? Diet Essentials Part 8

There are a lot of muesli and cereals on the shelves in the supermarkets, and most of us tend to just pick the first package that seems to be the most attractive. I have to admit I am not a fan of muesli and until last week I haven’t ever had them for breakfast.

Everyone thinks they’re so yummy and amazing so – I decided to give them a shot! I have to be honest, it took me about 30 minutes and all my nutritional knowledge before I chose the suitable pack. I have to say I picked up some quite useful things from this experience. Again, reading the label is of crucial importance – even more important than reading which type of chocolate or dried fruit goes into your muesli. Especially if you’re careful with your weight, it is important that you follow the right steps when picking your muesli:

1. First examine a few packages

2. Pick 3 or 4 that seem at the same time tasty and most healthy to you

3. Pick the healthiest out of them

Now I am going to define the word “healthy” in the world of muesli. Obviously, everyone of us has a different perception of what healthy is –  however if you are on a diet and your goal is to lose or maintain weight, you have to follow some basic guidelines for “healthy” in this case.

First things first, so when you’re studying the label of your muesli, you should look at:

1. Carbohydrates

2. Fats

3. Sugar

Note: Your goal is to pick the package that suits best to your taste and has a relatively decent amount of all the above listed.

To give you a real-life example, after 30 minutes of examining and struggling with my choices, I picked a muesli mix made of: rolled oats, wheat, cereals, seeds and nuts. Quite a traditional muesli mix, which had 53 grams of carbohydrates and 5.6 grams of fat per 100 grams of muesli.

I believe it was the most decent and tasty choice (for myself) that I’ve made. Some packages that contained added chocolate or dried fruits had from 70 to 77 grams of carbs and about 6 to 8 grams of fat per 100 grams of product. Watch out for preservatives like honey and syrup added to make your muesli taste better. Those mixes should have about 77 grams of carbs and 8 grams of fat in a 100 grams (which is a lot). And what about those chocolate cornflakes in your muesli? Dramatically, their presence can already add 4 extra grams of carbs and 2 extra grams of fat to your portion.

I would also stay away from mixes that contain cornflakes in general, since that only adds up to the overall carb and fat amount and doesn’t contribute that much to the taste. Beware of added sugars as well. Some producers tend to add sugars to the mix just to make them taste better – that ruins the concept of healthy and your diet alltogether.

Diet implications of muesli:

Now let’s get back to basics. In order to lose weight a person needs to eat around 50 to 100 grams of carbs per day. If your breakfast muesli makes up to 50% of carbs that you need during the entire day, I can imagine it will be very hard to NOT to slip out of this range by the end of the day.

The same applies for weight maintenance. If you’re aiming at maintaining your current weight, you should be eating between 100 and 150 grams of carbs a day. If you have a generous portion of muesli in the morning, it will be hard to stay within that limit.

As a conclusion I would just like to point out that you should be careful with muesli. I do not recommend having them on a daily basis, especially if you are aiming at losing weight. I hope this article also gave you an insight on how to pick the most innocent muesli and still enjoy them with less harm for your diet.

Strawberry-Almond Delights – 35 calories per cookie! Recipe

Ah don’t they look amazing? These cookies are perfect for your diet since they don’t contain added sugars and taste absolutely delicious! Almonds do the trick with flavor, while reduced sugar strawberry jam and chocolate crumbs give them a gentle, heavenly sweet taste.

As usually they are very easy to make and won’t lay heavy on your budget. This recipe combines just a few simple ingredients which result in a healthy and tasteful snack.

Ingredient list:

– 50 grams of almonds

– 100 grams of flour

– 1 egg

– 40 grams of butter

– 2 tea-spoons of vanilla aroma

– 2 tea-spoons of liquor

– 25 grams of chocolate

– reduced-sugar strawberry jam

How to prepare: These cookies can be prepared in just a few easy steps. Crush the chocolate and almonds into small chunks. Leave just a few pieces of almond for (on top) decoration. Melt the butter and mix all ingredients together except the strawberry jam. Spread your dough in a very thin layer: about 2 millimeters.  A good trick to make those even, beautiful cookie circles is with the help of a Champagne glass. Just push the mouth of the glass into the dough until a circle is formed. Easy right? Put a half of tea-spoon of strawberry jam on one side of the cookie and cover with another cookie. You’re nearly there. Melt a bit of butter and polish the top of your cookies with a cooking tassel (brush) with it. Lay the bits of almonds on top of the cookie and place it in a pre-heated oven at 170 degrees Celsius. Wait for about 17 minutes. Ready to go 🙂

Tip: If you are a sweet tooth and you can’t imagine your dessert without any added sugar, I recommend using 2 table-spoons of honey or maple syrup.

This recipe will yield a lot of cookies, so don’t worry if it sounds like little! And yes, go ahead have one, and another one, and another one!

You think you eat normal, but you’re still gaining weight? Find out why!

The most common complaint I have probably heard about a thousand times is – “I keep on eating healthy and little, but I’m still gaining weight”. I have experienced this as well, and believe me, it took a while before I realized what the real problem was. Most of the people that aren’t committed diet fans and do not thoroughly record everything they eat, experience the habit of “instinctive eating”.

Instinctive eating is mainly about eating whenever you feel like it, without really thinking what exactly you are putting in your stomach and how much of it you are actually having. Your eating schedule is dictated by your food cravings and your appetite and you hardly think of counting that calorie intake or lowering your portion sizes – because they seem small and healthy enough to you. Fair enough, but is this really true? Most people do not realize that their small snacks and late dinners might not be as diet-friendly and tiny as they think.

This is what I hear from most of the sufferers of instinctive eating: “I eat like a normal person, three times a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. I even think I’m eating less that most of my friends do, and I am still gaining weight. I sometimes even tend to skip my breakfast, which means that I really don’t eat a lot, but the weight keeps pilling up”.

If you are experiencing this and you really have no clue why this is happening – you are lucky to have found this article. I am going to break your “healthy size portion” beliefs and reveal the secrets of your weight gain. There is nothing complicated to this, and in fact, it is all a matter of habit and your perception of “little and tiny”.

To start off, I would like to point out that an average daily calorie intake for women is around 2000 calories while for men it is about 2500 calories. Having cleared that out, let me give you a very good example of how most people exceed this calorie intake, which thus makes them gain weight without even noticing it.

Let’s look at your snacks first. Most of us tend to snack on average from 2 to 4 times a day between the meals. What do people usually have as a snack and how many calories does one have?

– 2 American chocolate chip cookies – 200 calories

– a slice of white bread – 100 calories

– a slice of cheese – 110 calories

– a regular serving of cake – between 250 and 350 calories

– a white bun or bread roll – 220 calories

– a banana – 135 calories

– a slice of pepperoni pizza – about 230 calories

– a cup of flavored yogurt – 120 calories

– a glass of milk – 120 calories

The list can go on forever. The point is that people tend to underestimate the real energy value of those little and innocent snacks. A lot of us tend to snack with bread or buns which might cost you 400-500 calories extra for just 1 and a half serving. And this is just the snack – what about the meals?

Let’s look at a few lunch samples and analyze them.

– Caesar salad with egg, cheese and bacon and Caesar dressing with a slice of white-bread and a chocolate muffin as a dessert – about 800 calories.

– French fries with a cheeseburger with mayonnaise or ketchup and a chocolate milkshake – about 900 calories.

– Chicken wings with a veggie salad and dressing and a cheesecake for a dessert – about 700 calories.

– A Chineese take-away with rice or noodles, beef, egg and vegetables and a fizzy drink – about 750 calories.

So let’s say you have had your 800 calorie lunch and 2 snacks during the day. That makes up to about 60% of an average calorie intake for women, and I have to admit I have been quite modest on the lunch calorie count. So if your lunch and 2 snacks normally make up to 60% of your daily calorie intake, let alone the dinner and breakfast, how are you supposed to NOT to gain weight?

Here is a list of common and dramatic mistakes that prevent people from losing or maintaining weight:

1. Many people tend to skip breakfast thinking that it will help them eat less during the day. In fact, this is essentially wrong. Starving during your first half of the day won’t get you anywhere near proper weight management. You will find yourself craving for food way more often and in larger amounts should you skip breakfast.

2. Another common source of unwanted calories are the fizzy drinks and even fresh juices that seem healthy at the first glance. An average glass of orange juice has about 170 calories, while a glass of your favorite soda normally has about 210 calories with 3 table-spoons of sugar in it. Are you already starting to think back of what you’ve had today?

3. Most people think that if they exercise on a regular basis they can allow themselves to eat more. This is a dramatic mistake that makes you pile up those pounds. One hour workout at the gym, regardless to whether it is weight lifting or cardio exercises or both, it doesn’t exactly allow you to have whatever you like afterwards. Keep an eye on what you’re eating despite the amount of exercise you’re performing. Your late-evening dinner devour can ruin your energy loss during the workout. It is useless work you’re doing there in the gym if you’re fully giving in to your temptations afterwards!

The purpose of this article is to make you think twice. Are your portion sizes really that small and aren’t you forgetting to count your little and innocent snacks you’ve had during the day? If you are experiencing weight gain despite your regular workout routine – it is clearly the result of a poor diet. Your instinctive eating makes you feel and think like you haven’t eaten much – but believe me, you’re underestimating your daily calorie intake. Think about it! I’m sure you’re doing it wrong!

Low-calorie Chocolate Chip cookies – Recipe

Chocolate chip cookies are probably the most adored and beloved treats of many of us! Everything about them is amazing except their high sugar and fat content. Fortunately, I have invented a recipe that doesn’t use white sugar at all and still gives them a delicious flavor and rich taste. Are you ready for it?

Before I begin I would like to point out that the entire dough preparation takes about 7 minutes. No cooking, pre-baking and any sort of preparation is required! Really fast, convenient and most importantly – healthy.

List of ingredients:

– 200 grams of oatmeal

– 1 banana

– 1/4 of a chocolate bar (any kind of chocolate you like)

– 1 table-spoon of cinnamon

– 1 table-spoon of liquor or rum

– 1 egg

– 1 table-spoon of melted butter

– 2 table-spoons of crushed nuts (optional)

– 15 grams of baking powder

– 1 table-spoon of raisins (optional)

Preparation: Crush your chocolate in smaller chunks and mix all ingredients together. You should have a nice, smooth and homogeneous mass. Take a baking tray and spread a thin layer of melted butter on it. Portion your dough according to the cookie size you would like to have, and lay it gently on the baking tray. Take care that your cookies will grow and spread a little in the oven so make sure you place them far enough from each other on the baking tray. Pre-hit the oven to 170 degrees Celsius and place them there for 13 minutes until they get golden-brown shades.

This is how your dough should look like:

Tasting profile: Amazingly, but these cookies are very sweet without any sugar. This is one of those recipes that doesn’t reveal the sugar absence at all, especially if you are using raisins and chocolate chunks. Besides the naturally sweet taste, they are rich in flavor and softer in texture. The combination of nuts, chocolate and oatmeal is both healthy and delicious.

Calorie content: The most important benefit of this recipe is not only the absence of sugar, but also the absence of flour. These two components usually add about 200 calories  extra to each dessert. This recipe yields about 8 cookies, each having about 120 calories. A normal chocolate chip cookie of this size, American style, has about 180 calories.

Enjoy your healthy, low-calorie cookies with pleasure!

Diet Pills! – waste of fat or waste of time?

Since the beginning of the fitness/nutrition journey in my life, I have tried about a dozen of weight loss and exercise methods. Once I have reached my weight goal and learnt how to maintain it, I became curious about “experimenting”! Diet pills was one of those methods that I’ve never really tried since I’ve always believed that nothing can break your fat tissue besides proper eating and exercise. So I decided to try my first diet pills – just to see if it works. Since every diet pill instruction tells you that it works best when you combine it with workouts and a little bit of diet, not too much of course since diet pills are magic, I decided to give it a go!

Excited and impatient I started off with my pills. The label on the package sounded very promising – it was something like: “easy and efficient weight loss, just have this super pill and do some whatever workout and some dieting and you’ll be fine”. Well, sounds easy, right? The pills were absolutely “natural”, with an entire range of ingredients and names that I’ve never heard of but which sounded quite fancy. They were based on some extract from chilli peppers that were supposed to boost my metabolism to unbelievable speeds and nearly evaporate the food  from my stomach, thus preventing it from storing into my belly.

I took all the courage and enthusiasm! I drank those 2 times a day during my breakfast and dinner and went for a workout full of hope and anxiety. I’ve measured myself properly before I swallowed my first pill – I couldn’t allow myself to leave any lost millimeters unobserved!

To make this story short my friends – after an entire month of patience and 60 pills I had my final weigh in! And what did I encounter? Nothing besides an obvious loss of $20 that I’ve invested into them. My weight didn’t move by one gram, and I can very much assure you that I’ve thoroughly respected my diet and workout plan! Another “inconvenience” that I’ve encountered during taking those pills was the burning desire to pee all the time (about 12 times a day). My body was craving for water and I was drinking like a tank. My skin was as dry as an apricot and my hair looked more like a toilet brush. Another disadvantage of always being dehydrated is that you might experience often headaches and dizziness. Do you really need that? One of the other unpleasant side-effects I have encountered were constant sugar cravings that I couldn’t control. Maybe those pills did speed up my digestion by that only made me even more hungry after my meal. 

Was it worth it you will ask me? I would say, definitely not! Not worth your money and your precious time, let alone that disappointed image on your face when you’ll face the reality.

Each person is different in their own way and I’m sure that the side-effects will be different for everyone. If you did take those pills and pursued good exercise and diet and lost a considerable amount of weight – well, I am 99% certain that your weight loss happened due to diet and exercise rather than taking those pills – so congrats on a good food plan and hard work!

To make this article more objective I have consulted with other 3 diet pill amateurs that came to the same conclusion as I did. For all of those 3 diet fans, pills were more of a burden than help.

Look here is my advice to you: Nothing is MORE efficient that investing one hour a few times a week into some solid and undoubtedly efficient – exercise. Keep the money you’ve saved for those pills for some new trendy clothes that you are going to fit once you’ll decide to start exercising.

Once again I’ve proved to myself that there is nothing more helpful for getting your “killer body” than eating healthy and exercising! Forget about those catchy labels like “easy and quick or powerful and natural weight loss!” – there is NO other natural weight loss besides exercise and stop-chewing-all-the-time 🙂

It would be nice to start as of NOW! Summer is almost here!