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Consistently Using Your Calorie Counter Can Help You Lose Weight

One of the main points of failure when using a calorie tracker to lose weight is consistency. Keeping up with daily records can be difficult, but there are some things that you can do to help yourself stay on top of it. Incorporating your online or mobile journal into your daily routine is an important step to maintaining consistency in your logging while you are losing weight. Another is the ability to get in the right frame of mind and not let yourself give up when you are confronted with a challenge.

Logging your daily calorie intake with the help of a food database is a fairly quick and easy process that can be incorporated into almost any daily routine. Whether you log in the morning, the evening, or continuously throughout the day, make sure you are logging every day for maximum benefit. A good way to make this easier is to pre-plan many of your meals days or even a week in advance. Taking a day to log food intake ahead of time can help you stay on top because then all you have to do is go in every day to make any adjustments that have come up.

At one point or another when you are using an online food journal you are going to come across a challenging situation. It may be an unscheduled lunch with co-workers, dinner with a friend, or a big event like a wedding. You may just fall off the wagon one day and eat more than you should. It’s important to remember that challenges are temporary, but your weight loss is long term. Many people quit after they feel like they’ve “blown” a diet, forgetting that they can make up for the excess calories by eating a little less on other days of the week to come out even.

If you think of your food journal almost like you do your checkbook, you can help yourself stay consistent. You can make sure that you stay within your calorie budget by always logging all of your foods, much like you list all of the checks that you write. This analogy also applies to confronting challenges because weight loss doesn’t happen in a day, but week by week, so if you ensure that you are meeting your weekly goals, dealing with a daily challenge becomes much more manageable.

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Paleo diet foods list, Paleo diet Guidelines

Before there were packaged goods, processed foods, GMOs and an ongoing debate between organic or not, there was dirt, seeds, water and roaming animals. It may be hard to consider now, but the dawn of man produced hunters and gatherers and humans had to get their own food – not by heading to the supermarket.

There were no sprays to kill insects, no chemicals or genes added or modified. No extra-large tomatoes or vibrant yellow bananas. Food was simple. It was either found, picked or hunted. And although there weren’t doctors or research scientists to confirm the benefits of such eating, it seems that when it comes to dietary habits, eating like our ancestors has some merit.

Diets come and diets go, but one in particular seems to have staying power and for good reasons as well. It’s based on eating similar to that of prehistoric man and it’s being touted as one of the best way to eat. It’s called the Paleo diet.

What is the Paleo diet?
The Paleo diet was created by Loren Cordain, a now-famous author, speaker and professor of health and exercise science at Colorado State University, who specializes in disease and diet. The Paleo diet itself reflects food items and methods of eating similar to our Stone Age ancestors – that’s right, this diet is framed around eating like cavemen. Through scientific research and peer-reviewed studies, Cordain has uncovered many health benefits to eating the Stone Age way.

There are seven premise on which the Paleo diet guidelines are based:

High protein
Low carbohydrates and low glycemic index
High fiber
Moderate to high fat intake – monosaturated and polysaturated fats with omega-3s and 6s

High potassium, low sodium
Net dietary alkaline balances dietary acid – some foods produce acid (meat) and others are alkaline (fruits and vegetables). Eating a balance of both alkaline and acid foods can have positive health effects.

High intake of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and plant phytochemicals.

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What You Should Know about Weight Loss Products

How is Your Self –Esteem

For many people losing weight is not just a matter of feeling healthy and great again, but a way of recovering self-esteem as well. No wonder then that there is a variety of weight loss products on the market, most of them being over-the-counter drugs. However, several questions rise regarding these weight loss products: how safe and effective are they? Do you actually get the looks you hoped for? Are herbal supplements the real natural alternative to traditional weight-loss pills? Here are a few tips about such products and what you should actually expect from them. You can find yourself a totally different person after the administration of such products; let’s make sure you’re healthier too.

Talk to Your Doctor

Popular weight loss products are available not only in local drugstores and supermarkets but on the Internet as well. Many of these are highly effective, helping people get rid of annoying extra pounds, yet there are also high potential risks consumers often are unaware of. The regular buyer may check the compounds in a dietary supplement he or she may buy, but among the twenty or so herbs, vitamins and laxatives, it is hard to differentiate which is good or harmful for your body. There are two ways to avoid buying poor quality weight loss products. You can either talk to you doctor or check for the medical authority approval of the product. For instance all supplements and drugs issued in the US carry should carry FDA authorization.

More Harm Than Good

Here is one very relevant example of how some weight loss products may do more harm than good. For instance, the former ephedra, the basis of many weight loss pills was withdrawn from the market because of the health concerns it raised, and it was soon replaced by another “magic” ingredient: bitter orange. Many weight loss products now say: ephedra-free, which is by far a great thing, but they may contain an higher amount of bitter orange than it is safe for the body. Bitter orange used in high dosage may cause increased blood pressure, arrhythmias or can even inhibit metabolism. The doctor’s advice is crucial in such cases. Don’t start a pill-based diet without asking for his / her opinion.

Finally

To do justice to high quality weight loss products, we should also say that there are also completely risk-free dietary supplements that adjust well to the body’s requirements. For instance the weight loss products based on green tea extract combined with ginseng root have proved a huge success on the market. The green tea extract acts as a laxative and antioxidant, stimulating the body’s natural metabolism, whereas the ginseng root provides the right nutrient and mineral vitality. In the same category we could range weight loss products based on seaweed such as chlorella or spirulin that are excellent tonics and great fat-burners. When starting a pill-based diet, remember one thing, the more natural its composition, the healthier you stay!

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