Balance shift work and your diet (Night shifts and weight gain)

I have recently started working night shifts and I found it a real struggle both on psychological and physical level.

I am a typical dinner skipper and I’ve been replacing my dinner with healthy snacks, salads and soups for about 2 years now, but obviously you won’t survive the entire night on just one soup. 

I have been working for only two weeks now and I’ve gained 2 kilograms just from eating at night and not being used to it. I’m still exercising 4 times a week during the evening before my shift – but that doesn’t seem to boost my metabolism too much. I’ve tried to give it a good thought and find ways to adapt my diet to shifting work without having to gain weight. 

The worst is when your shifts are constantly jumping from day work to night work (that’s what happens to me) – because your metabolism goes bananas and slows down dramatically. Actually, this has been quite a challenge for me also cause I can’t do nothing about the shifting work and about my metabolism. Another ugly side of shifting work is that you’re constantly craving sugary, salty and energy boosting snacks that are of course causing nothing but weight gain. For all those of you who experience this – I feel for you, we’re in the same boat! 

Here are some ways through which I tried to balance my diet and eat healthily during the night and try to avoid snacking on unhealthy stuff:

– I started packing my own lunch/dinner which consists of big chunks of vegetables and ham or chicken and eggs. The most frequent lunch components are: bell-peppers, carrots, mushrooms, tomatoes, cucumber, corn, beans, egg, chicken, ham and low-fat cheese. The advantage of these ingredients is that you can mix any kind of salad out of them which is at the same time delicious and healthy. I am sometimes replacing the meat with tuna, salmon and some nuts  and I usually use olive oil or low-fat yoghurt as dressing. 

Now the reason why I have mentioned the “big chunks” of vegetables is because if you cut your vegetables in bigger pieces, you will feel fuller faster and you will most likely eat less. 

– Another trick for avoiding unhealthy snacking is replacing them with soup powders that are easy and fast to make and contain not more than 120 calories per cup of soup. You can buy these in any grocery store, they don’t cost anything and drinking them will take your hunger away and make you feel full again.

– My last trick is drinking a glass of fresh fruit juice or (if you don’t have it near by), a glass of green tea with lemon. Tea is a good hunger ditcher and it gives you energy.

– Last but not least, if you’re still hungry after a while, you can snack with an apple, orange or banana. They contain healthy sugars and they will most certainly take your hunger away.

Even though all these tricks might be very useful in keeping your weight stable, you shouldn’t forget about exercising. At least 3 days a week should be your norm ,especially when working irregular shifts. Sport keeps your metabolism running especially in this changing sleep schedule. 

I am still struggling as well, it is difficult and unpleasant to stay up during the hours when most of the others are sleeping. For those of you who really care about their diet and weight, I can assure you that these tricks will work for you. 

Keep yourself away from unhealthy snacks because during the night they tend to have a stronger negative impact on your body than during the day.

Stay calm, stay focused! Have a good shift everyone!

 

Health benefits of breakfast and more

To be honest I myself am not a perfect healthy- breakfast eater because breakfast for me, is the time of the day when I allow myself some of the “forbidden” things to eat. Sometimes I even forget about the healthy oatmeal, eggs or bacon and I replace it with candy, pancakes and loads of honey – I confess. Has this happened to you too?

The question is, how important is it really to eat a healthy breakfast and how does it affect our body during the day? Well, as usually, I am going to share my own observations on this. For instance let’s imagine a healthy breakfast: a lot of protein (which means: eggs, low fat bacon and peanut butter for me), some complex carbs: beans or oatmeal and minimum fat. After having eaten that I’ve noticed that I have considerably more energy during the day than if I stuff myself with cookies and sugary cereal.

Another benefit of eating a healthy breakfast is more power (way more power) during your workout. I’ve noticed this by a positive change in the duration and speed during my workout (just for the record: I am a runner). As for the energy level during the day, it is undeniable that I tend to snack less and eat a smaller portion for lunch if I get a complex breakfast in the morning. 

I have also read a couple of articles with researchers saying that people that ate healthy breakfast on a regular basis, lost more weight over a longer period of time than those that didn’t. Now I personally cannot approve if that is exactly true, but I can surely say that you do have more energy during the day once you eat a proper breakfast. 

Another important aspect is of course that preparing a healthy breakfast is time-consuming, and many of us prefer spending another 15 extra minutes in our bed instead of preparing ourselves a good breakfast. Here are some quick tips and alternatives for a healthy and easy breakfast. They work for me at least:

– always keep some boiled eggs in your fridge

– always keep some sort of veggies in your fridge – any kind would do

– forget about cereal

– keep whole-grains in your drawer – bread, bagels, crackers 

– fresh fruit for breakfast can be very filling. The recommended fruit is: oranges, apples, banana, grapefruit, grapes. 

– yogurt mixed with nuts, dried-fruit or fresh fruit is a great option 

– keep low-fat bacon in your fridge. If it is smoked you don’t even need to cook it 

– smoked salmon will be a great source of protein too

– a glass of milk will complete your meal and make you feel full

Just stick to the rule that you can make a sandwich out of anything. None of the things mentioned above need preparation and long-time cooking, therefore it will take you approximately 5 minutes to make yourself a healthy and filling breakfast. This little morning effort will fuel your day and benefit your body (at least from my own observations).

And please don’t forget to hydrate yourself! Hydration is sometimes more important than food! Don’t waste time for making your tea or coffee, just pour yourself a full glass of water and there you go! 

I hope this was interesting to read, and I am looking forward for your remarks. 

P.S – Next time I would like to talk more about low-fat products. Are they really making the difference and is it really the low-fat that makes you slim down? If you’re interested, please stay with me. 😉 

 

The overeating problem and it’s been a while…

Update for my followers – if you’re not a follower you can skip this!

I know it’s been a while..been quite busy graduating from university and launching my career – quite an exciting and difficult moment at the same time. BUT, I’m not here today to talk about my laziness, I am here to inspire you, update you and finally hope for your forgiveness for not being a dedicated blogger.

A quick update on my healthy lifestyle routine – I’m still exercising 3 to 4 times a week, still eating healthy and still staying fit. My weight hasn’t shifted ever since I’ve been posting here, and I’m staying at 60kg at a height of 176 cm. I have been so passionately convincing you to stick to your habits and be perseverant in your diet that I would have been the biggest douche if I didn’t practice what I preached!

Now let’s get back to business!

Even though I’ve been away for a while, my interest for discovering new aspects of a healthy lifestyle hasn’t faded even a little. I’ve been visiting a lot of diet/fitness blogs were most of you “strugglers” are very concerned with the OVEREATING trouble. Most of you are posting questions like “How often can I overeat?”, “How much can I overeat?”, “Can I overeat once a week?”.

The truth is, if you’re scheduling specific days in your calendar on which you’re planning to overeat – you’re already setting yourself up for failure! You’ve only adapted a healthy eating lifestyle when you actually stop bothering about food.

Now let’s leave the theory and get to practice. I’ll give you an example from my personal life. When I’ve just started changing my food habits and I tried to eat healthier foods in a smaller portion, I used to think about overeating like daily, seriously. I used to tell myself “once a week is ok” and on that specific week day the grocery store suffered from an unexpected attack where some of the junk food shells were cleared out by me. What happened next? I gave in, I loved it and I hated it 2 minutes later. Luckily, later I realized what my biggest problem was.

For those of you who are wondering, I do think that planning on overeating once a week is not ok. The mere idea of “planning on overeating” is not ok in general. What you should really do is change your mindset! Talk to yourself! Try to genuinely fall in love with healthier foods and drinks and find them taste just as good as the unhealthy ones.

I’m sometimes comparing the food habit change to a breakup recovery. You’re craving, crying and hating but eventually you get over it. Relating this to food and drinks, you can be sure that you will always crave junk food if you allow yourself to eat it. Likewise, you will crave carrots, bananas or apples as a snack (for example) if you keep eating them for a longer period of time. Your body has the powerful ability to adapt to ANY kinds of foods and drinks that prevail in your menu.

I have a great example with coke! I haven’t been drinking cola for at least 5 months now. Whenever I wanted a sip I told myself it was not good for me and that water was way better. After a while I just forgot about it and stopped craving for it. 5 months on, I decided to give it a try -I took a sip. Believe it or not,  it just didn’t taste good to me. I’ve become so used to the plain taste of water that when I had a sip of cola it just seemed too sweet, redundantly sweet to drink – I didn’t like it anymore.

Having said that, you can be sure that this will happen to any kind of drink and food and even portion size that you adapt. If you keep eating a smaller portion than you’re used to for a longer period of time, it will eventually satisfy you – quite logical I know, but a lot of people don’t get that and give up! My biggest advice is: don’t try to force a healthy food/drink item on yourself – try to find healthy  foods and drinks that you genuinely love. Substitute your unhealthy options with them and stick to them. And again, remember to talk to yourself. All your troubles come from your mind and not from your body. Become a friend with yourself, and I promise that if you just talk to yourself and give it a thought before opening another bag of crisps – you will very likely change your mind!

Just for the record: I haven’t visited McDonald’s for at least 1 year and I haven’t had a glass of cola in at least 5 months. I haven’t been craving for them either. Believe it or not but I am completely happy and satisfied with my healthy food options and I enjoy them just as pleasurably as I enjoyed the unhealthy ones. And what about the overeating habit? – It eliminated itself. At the moment I cannot stuff myself with a lot of food anymore just because it will make me feel sick. I’m not able to eat a full bag of crisps anymore just because my satiety comes way faster than before. If I do occasionally overeat, it is not an eating festival or a grocery store attack anymore just because my attitude to food has changed.

I must admit, this takes time. It won’t take 1 month or 2, it will probably take a year or 2. During this time, you will probably feel guilty a lot of  times, you will question yourself a lot  and probably shift in weight. But if you learn to talk to yourself and if you learn to stick to your choices, you will get there! My weight has shifted throughout the year as well – I’ve lost and gained in average from 2 to 4 kilograms, but I never stopped trying. For the last 6 months, my weight has remained stable, and I stopped caring so much about food. I used to weigh in daily and go bananas when I saw weight fluctuations…now I weigh myself once in 2 weeks and my weight hasn’t changed since. I do eat more sometimes, everyone does – but a single fat meal is not going to make you fat, right?! So leave the guilt aside and keep on working on yourself!

I hope this has been helpful. PLEASE feel free to comment cause your comments will motivate me to create new articles! Thanks for listening. Goodluck everyone!

4 most common “healthy” foods to AVOID!

Thanks to food industries‘ multi-billion advertising campaigns many of us have been fooled to eat food products that carry the “healthy” label. Unfortunately, some of these products are only healthy on the label, but in fact, they could be contributing to making us fat. Today, I would like to discuss some of these products and show you that what is believed or advertised as “healthy” is not always true. 

If you’ve noticed that despite of your healthy diet you’re still gaining weight, you could be lured by those “healthy” labels and low fat products.

Before we start, I would like to point out one very common “crime” most of us commit. Whenever the label of a product states that it is “Fat free” or “Reduced fat”, most of us tend to eat 50% more of that product just because it seems healthy, and should logically have less calories. Well my friends, this is a dramatic misunderstanding and lack of knowledge. In fact, the amount of fat in a product doesn’t necessarily mean that the product has less calories. Food industries tend to compensate the fat in “Fat free” or “Reduced fat” products by adding sugar and other food enhancers that have the same amount of calories as the fat does. So, as a result, your “Reduced fat” yogurt or chips may have exactly the same amount of calories as the ones with a regular fat content. In order to avoid this mistake, always read the calorie content of the product and check the sugar and carbohydrate amount stated on the label instead. 

As you’re more informed now, I would like to show you which products you should better avoid or eat in smaller amounts even though they carry the “healthy” or “organic” label. 

#1: Muesli/Cruesli/Cereal – Muesli bars or muesli for breakfast have been always considered one of the healthiest things to eat. People tend to believe that if those goods are healthy, they can have more of them. A regular 40 gram portion of muesli has about 200 calories, plus you’re probably eating it with milk –  so add another 50 to 60 calories to it. As a result, one portion of muesli has around 250 calories, and from my own experience I can tell that 40 grams is a rather decent portion. People tend to eat 70 – 90 grams of muesli with milk, which adds up to 500 calories per portion only for muesli. 

#2: Yougurts – With fruit flavors, cereals,  jam – there are hundreds of yogurt variations that claim to be super healthy. In fact, most of these yogurts have a huge amount of added sugar to them in order to make them taste better. A regular cup of fruit yogurt with cereal has the same amount of calories as a crispy doughnut. It’s all about our perception of those things – doughnuts are seen as unhealthy and fattening and yogurt must be good for you. Try to avoid sweet yogurts even if they have attractive fruit pieces in them. Buying a cup of plain Greek yogurt and adding freshly chopped fruit to it will be way healthier for you than eating the processed factory yogurt with God knows how many taste enhancers and sugar in it.

#3: Juices – I know that for some of you this is a reality check, but juices are not as diet friendly as they seem. One 150ml bottle of multivitamin juice bought in the “healthy” section of the supermarket has the same amount of calories as a serving of chocolate cream cake. Again, always look at the calorie amount and not at the attractive package that says “organic”, “fresh” or “healthy”. Juices have a lot of sugar in them – both fresh juices and factory juices. It will take you about 12 apples to make a 150ml bottle of apple juice, so by drinking it – you’re drinking the sugar content of 12 apples – Think about it! Instead of drinking the juice, I would suggest eating the fruit alone. The same applies to  “beverages”. Supermarkets offer a wide range of fruit beverages, and they are called so, because they only contain a tiny-tiny amount of fresh juice in them – the rest is sugar, sugar and more sugar. 

#4: Supermarket salads – These are my favorite topic of discussion, because people have no idea how fattening these salads can be. A regular supermarket “salad to go” can have the same amount of calories as a Big Mac from McDonald’s. Why is it so? Because of the sauces that go with it and because of the preparation method of that meat that goes with it. If you’re having a chicken Caesar salad, it will probably be accompanied by a Caesar dressing and fried pieces of chicken that have been stabilized with chemicals to make them taste good. The truth is, all together your salad will have about 500-550 calories, which is quite a lot for a salad. Be careful with “salads to go”, and the best way to avoid the redundant amount of calories is by NOT adding the sauce that goes with it.

I hope this has been a wake-up call for some of you. Always read the labels carefully instead of getting fooled by the catchy label! And don’t forget about exercise! If you know some more of such products, please feel free to share!

Cheers x

You have to eat- to lose weight! Tips from my own experience

Quote of the day: “You should treat exercise as your job! It requires commitment, regulartiy and devotion. Only then you will succeed!”

First of all, apologies for not posting for a while, I am graduating from university this year and it’s been quite busy for me.

Despite the fact that I’ve been busy, I kept working out and experimenting with my body. Due to the study load during these weeks I have been eating quite irregularly, with a lot of sugar cravings and feelings of hunger in between. I also ditched my regular sleeping routine which has also impacted my body. These, of course, resulted in a slight weight gain (about 1 kg – 2.4 Ibs) in about 10 days.

Nothing can set me back and obviously I am going to drop this sugar weight, however, during this experience I have observed a very interesting pattern that I would like to share with you. I decided to name it “you have to eat – to lose weight” and there is no hidden message behind it, it’s just as obvious as it sounds.

From my own observations, I’ve concluded that irregular eating and skipping meals will definitely lead you to weight gain. During this study week I’ve had, I tended to skip my meals and tried to hang on to fruit and sugar snacks instead. I ate a light breakfast, lunch and dinner, and snacked about 5 times a day.

I must say, after an entire day of this kind of nutrition I felt exhausted, tired and most importantly – I was starving. I had to take extra sugary snacks to be able to perform during my workout.

When I realized that my nutrition was rubbish and it only harmed my body, I started finding time to eat full, balanced meals instead of snacking and getting through the day with convenience foods.

I started having a full breakfast: egg, two toasts with a slice of cheese and bacon and a piece of fruit.

Lunch was something like: chicken salad with a slice of brown bread and fruit

Dinner was: some kind of fish with rice/beans or salad.

The results once again proved that eating healthy, full and balanced foods is 10 times more beneficial for your weight loss than trying to starve yourself and hang on to various snacks. I have returned to this healthy way of eating 5 days ago, and with no effort and no changes in my workouts I’ve again lost around 1 kilogram (2.4 Ibs).

I felt more energy during the day, I didn’t have to snack more than 2 times in between meals and I felt energetic enough to exercise in the evening. Moreover, the quality of my skin improved considerably. The sugary diet gave me a lot of pimples and dry skin.

Through this I wanted to show you once again the importance of eating 3 times a day and eating the healthy food: fish, meat, diary, fruits and vegetables. Snacks such as nuts, peanut butter and bananas will help you ditch your sugary cravings in a fast and efficient way.

Everyone have a great day and please share your opinion about this!

Breaking more diet myths – Lose weight faster!

There are some more common mistakes that people consider to be beneficial for their diet and weight loss, and since I haven’t managed to mention all of them in my previous article, I will have to bust a few more myths. 

The purpose of this is to make you realize that dieting and eating healthy is way more simple than it sounds, and can be quite efficient if common mistakes are avoided. Let’s start:

– A very common statement I have heard from many dieters is: “If I eat before sleeping, I will gain weight”. This is wrong simply because your body doesn’t shut down when you’re sleeping. It is a 24/7 machine that doesn’t slow its processes down even during your sleep. The reason why “late-night eaters” or “midnight-snackers” do gain weight, is because of overeating, which doesn’t have anything to do with the time when the meal was taken. Studies prove that people that have the habit of eating during late/night hours, tend to exceed the healthy amount of calories per day which therefore causes weight gain. So if you’ve just had your meal and you’re tired – relax and go for it!

All you have to do is watch your portion size! If you have a 700 calorie Pasta/Cheese meal before you go to sleep – it will tend to deposit somewhere on your body!

– Another common nonsense that I’ve heard quite often is “If I only eat healthy stuff, I can eat as much as I want of it – it’s healthy” – dear reader, don’t be fooled by this. Obviously, healthy, nutritious foods are beneficial for your health, but overeating them will also lead to weight gain. Seeds and nuts are very healthy for instance, but they contain about 600 calories per 100 grams, and if you overeat those – weight gain is guaranteed! Healthy doesn’t mean you can have tons of it! If you’re aiming at losing/maintaining your weight, you will have to discover the virtue of small and balanced portion sizes. Don’t snack too many times during the day even if those are all the healthy snacks. Don’t overeat with your healthy foods because they won’t prevent you from getting a big belly – believe me.

And, to make it short for today, I would like to finalize this with one last tip: “Don’t weigh in every day!”. Don’t do it for the sake of your mental sanity and motivation, since I have experienced it all on my skin. Your body tends to accumulate and absorb water in higher or smaller quantities throughout the month. Sometimes it absorbs less, and sometimes more (especially for the ladies during their period). If you hop on the scale on a daily basis, you are going to go bananas! Your body is able to accumulate 2.4 Ibs (1 kilogram) of water weight overnight, and I can imagine your facial expression in the morning! Don’t do it! Relax, watch your diet and your exercise and I guarantee you are going to be fine! 

Everybody have a great day and see you soon in another post!

Major mistakes to avoid when losing weight – Diet Essentials

Today I am going to talk about “the forbidden”! There are a few things that might mistakenly seem like helpful for your diet, but in fact they only make things worse for you.

I have had a lot of women complaining to me that “oh I almost don’t eat anything and I’m not losing any weight”, and having heard enough of that, I want to break the most common dieting myths for good. 

Myth 1 – Skipping meals will help you lose weight! This is the most common and the most ridiculous thing to do when you’re on a diet. Besides the fact that it won’t make you lose weight, it will leave you feel hungry and irritated at all times. The worst case that this can turn into is actually weight gain, since your body is starving and desperately clinging on to calories. The best way to avoid this is obviously having 3 good meals a day, since it is not the meal itself that makes you fat – but the portion size and the content of your meal. 

If you’re having balanced, healthy and nutritious meals 3 times a day, and you’re not putting garbage in your stomach, you are more likely to lose weight!

Myth 2 – I can replace my breakfast with coffee and cut out some calories! No, no and again no. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and by skipping it, you’re leaving your body starving until the afternoon. What will actually happen should you decide to skip your breakfast – you will eat more during the rest of the day, and you are very likely to exceed your calorie limit for the day. 

To avoid this, have a healthy, filling breakfast on a regular basis. Studies show that people who tend to have a regular breakfast are less likely to exceed their calorie limits during the day. 

Myth 3 – Fat free and low carb food is the most important during diet! This is not necessarily true. Foods that are rich in healthy fats (monosaturated fats) such as nuts, avocado and fatty fish are actually good for your diet. Saturated fats (the unhealthy fats) are the ones to avoid. They are present in almost all the processed foods, such as: snacks, junk, sweets, white breads, etc. The same applies to carbs. Foods that are rich in healthy carbs are: oats, whole-grains, dairy products, etc. 

Diet doesn’t mean you have to avoid all foods that are rich in sugar, carbs and fats. It is all about knowing which kinds of foods contain healthy, nutritious fats, carbs and sugars, and I can assure you, they won’t harm your diet. Your body needs these essential nutrients to carry out a healthy living. 

Myth 4 – I can eat rubbish as long as I exercise hard! This is not exactly true. If you’re aiming at losing weight, you cannot out-exercise a bad diet. Eating rubbish food is not good for you from many perspectives, not only the losing weight point of view, but also for your general well-being. I bet you don’t want to have anything to do with heart diseases, high blood pressure, fat on your liver and clogged vessels. These reasons are already enough to make you quit eating rubbish food. So, for the sake of your health in the first place – stop making a waste bin out of your stomach. Exercising won’t help you lose weight if you’re not eating proper foods, and it will only bring your motivation down when you’ll see that you don’t progress. 

To avoid this, have a balanced diet and exercise. Exercise will tone your muscles, strengthen your immune system, help you lose weight, and finally, make a healthy person out of you!

If you can’t survive the temptations with all the sweets and junk in your closet – throw them away or feed them to birds. Don’t buy them if you know you will eat them. Gradually, you will stop craving for them once they are not there – out of sight, out of mind!

Goodluck everyone! 

Just think about it!

A quick motivation kick for all of you!

How to stay fit during the summer holidays – the HOT GUIDE!

I have to admit, when I got the idea for this article, I checked about a dozen of similar articles on the net, and what can I say – most of them are rubbish. Rubbish because they are giving you a  general list of things you can’t eat and occasionally, an exercise plan you have to follow. But who cares about this bla bla bla, daily routine that you normally do when you’re on your diet? You’re on a holiday – you want to actually enjoy the food and the sun! Nobody wants to break their mood with calorie calculations and emotional frustrations when they’re on a holiday. So what about some real stuff? I am going to give you some real advice and some helpful tricks. You will be able to have some of the “forbidden” foods, enjoy your nights out and stay fit at the same time. I can’t promise you weight loss, and I must say, the extent of your “staying fit” depends solely on you. I am here to help, so here we go.

Before I rush into telling you all my secrets, I’m going to put you through a test. I want to see your ability to distinguish between low and high calorie meals. So here are 2 types of breakfast: 1) a creamy cafe latte with chocolate chip muffin and 2)  2 sunny-side-up eggs, 3 oven-baked chicken nuggets with 2 slices of grapefruit and ham on the side. Which one, in your opinion, has the most calories? 20 seconds – GO!

Drumroll and …THE RESULTS! Option 1 has about 700 calories, while Option 2 has just 450 calories. Are you surprised? It’s all about the cooking methods and the ingredients used in these foods. This, my friends, are the basics of your summer holiday survival, and if you are aiming at having fun and holding your weight down – let’s start!

The cooking method:

Regardless to whether you stay at a resort where the buffet is usually overloaded with food, or whether you decide to cook together with your friends – this should be the first trick you should make use of. Deep frying, pan frying, any frying is not a good option. Choose for grilled, oven baked, boiled or raw food. Surprisingly, that would already cut down your intake in average by about 200 calories. You can even chose to make some fries and as long as they are oven- baked, they can have a go.

Portion Sizes

This should be your weapon number 2. Whether they are shelves in the supermarket or layers on your international buffet, they are overloaded with food choices. You are on a holiday and it will be hard to eat spinach and  drink carrot smoothies as long as your friends are savoring on desserts and snacks. Therefore, your portion size is of CRUCIAL importance. If it is a portion of chili tacos or a chocolate croissant, try to half the portion. If you’re not able to do that, have your dessert at least one hour after your main meal. If you’re a truly impatient person and you can’t handle waiting, my biggest advice is – don’t fill up your plate with excess of food. Rather fill your plate with only a half of what you think you’re able to eat, and come back for more later if you will need it. It is in fact a psychological factor – people tend to empty their plate regardless to the amount of food that is in it. Your psychological hunger is usually bigger than your real physical hunger. Taking a smaller portion will enable you to eat a smaller amount of food and will give you the chance to decide whether you want to have more or your figure is more important.

Re-think your snacks

I am not saying that holiday is the time of total restrictions and control, however you should keep some rationale behind your food choices. Nobody wants to tackle the depression and frustration of weight-gain after they’ve returned from their holiday, and for this, it is important that you keep some sort of control over your diet. Snacks are a perfect opportunity to diminish your daily calorie intake without too much stress. Instead of having a hot dog or a fat cheese sandwich as an afternoon snack, try to save some space for dinner by having fruit, veggies, yogurt or a few nuts instead. It is a snack – not a meal, so try to take advantage of that and throw something healthy into your stomach.

Water

The weather is on your side! It is already hot outside which is to your benefit. By drinking a lot of water, you will sweat more – which will release the toxins from your body and assure a neat flow of nutrients through your body. People tend to confuse the feeling of thirst with the feeling of hunger and start snacking as soon as they think they feel hungry. In fact, during the hot season it often happens that your body is actually craving for water instead of food. If you’re feeling hungry and dizzy, try water first – doesn’t work? well then have a piece of fruit!

Soft drinks

The consumption of soft drinks (sweet drinks) may disrupt your diet considerably. It is unbelievable how your body can pile up weight just because of the excessive amount of sugar that is present in all those famous sodas as well as in the “light” versions of them.  My advice to you – cut down your calorie intake by around 300 to 400 calories just by drinking amazing, refreshing and natural drinks. Examples of such drinks include: Lemonade (sparkling water with squeezed lemon), ice-cold fresh fruit smoothies (made of plain yogurt and fresh fruit) and even fresh juices mixed with sparkling ice water are a better replacement for the regular soda’s. Just make sure that there is NO additional white-sugar added to your drink.

Chose the right dessert

This should be the last one. I know that the temptations are high when it comes to desserts, and nobody will neglect them especially during a holiday. My only advice is: pick the more “innocent” desserts if I may say. Avoid desserts made solely of butter , cream and excess of sugar. Chose something lighter, for instance jelly desserts, fruity desserts or yogurt-based desserts. And yes, avoid using extra toppings! The absence of chocolate, caramel or chocolate sprinkles will save you at least another 150- 200 calories. If none of these sound appetizing to you, well then you’ll have to miss on the size of your dessert.

Sport, sport, sport

As bad as it sounds, when your diet is suffering, your exercise has to compensate to a certain extent. Try to find fun ways to spend your calories such as swimming for an hour (about 600 calories), playing tennis or volleyball (about 800 calories in 1 hour), or just by going for a jog in the morning/evening (about 600 calories in 1 hour). It is worth the effort since then you can enjoy more of the foods you love without having to blame yourself afterwards. Remember though: you can’t out-exercise a bad diet! I will have to repeat myself and say that you do have to maintain a certain control over your diet and eating everything at once and in big amounts can’t be repaired by any exercise!

I hope this has been helpful and I promise to come up with even more tips on how to stay fit during the season of HOT TEMPTATIONS! Enjoy the sun everyone!

20 NON-fitness activities that help you lose a lot of calories!

I know that exercising everyday is hard and time-consuming for many of us. We often feel sore, tired, exhausted or just not motivated to work out. So what are those extra activities we can easily do besides working out, that help us lose a lot of energy and do something useful at the same time? I made my investigations and I decided to arrange the activities from highest calorie count to lowest. This is fun, here we go:

1. Playing volleyball/football/basketball – 800 calories in 1 hour

2. Playing tennis – 700 calories in 1 hour

3. Swimming – 600 calories in 1 hour

4. Jumping with a jumping-rope – 500 calories in 1 hour

5. Giving a massage to someone – 400 calories in 1 hour

6. Dancing to your favorite music – 400 calories in 1 hour

7. Fast walking – 400 calories in 1 hour

8. Garden work – 400 calories in 1 hour 

9. Housework (cleaning, mopping, brushing) – 400 calories in 1 hour

10. Biking tour through the city – 300 calories in 1 hour

11. Playing badminton with your friends – 300 calories in 1 hour

12. Ironing your clothes – 300 calories in 1 hour

13. Washing the windows of your house – 300 calories in 1 hour

14. Shopping for clothes – 250 calories in 1 hour

15. Taking a walk in the park – 220 calories in 1 hour

16. Kitchen work (cooking, baking) – 200 calories in 1 hour

17. Playing with your elder siblings – 200 calories in 1 hour

18. Doing your homework – 200 calories in 1 hour 

19. Reading a book – 120 calories in 1 hour

20. Attending a class/lecture – 120 calories in 1 hour

It’s easy! Some of the activities are really fun to do and can be done without exiting your house! Think about it! There are lots of opportunities around you – all you need is to use them! Stop being all lazy laying on the couch – some cleaning wouldn’t harm anyone, or you could surprise your friends/family with a delicious dessert you’ve just cooked. Find ways to stay active and stop thinking about food all the time. Food is there to assure you’re alive – it’s not the biggest comfort or happiness in your life. 

I hope this has been useful! Cheers everyone!