How is your Sunday going? Are you looking to play a little golf or go fishing? Perhaps if your like my sister, you'll spend the day sitting down with a good book.

This week from the Fitness Health Network:

• It's hot, the sun is shining, and you're in need of SPF protection. Lazy Man and Health writes a review on Neutrogena Sunscreen.
• A picture diary is a good way to keep motivated and track weight. See what your fellow bloggers at Get Fit Slowly look like: then and now in Together Again.
• What are Nitrates and Why Are They Bad!? Journal of Healthy Living explains succinctly in this post.
• This guest post from Fat Man Unleashed looks into Overeaters Anonymous (OA) Meetings.
• NCN is right on track in One Pound A Week - Right On Schedule.

Thank you to all my readers. I wanted to give a little shout out to those that wrote to me this week:

• Yoga Practice: Your Roadmap To Perfect Balance at Healthy New Age is an in depth look at yoga.
• Recession Or Not - The Challenge The Fed And Our Economy Has by Free From Broke explains nominal Federal Funds rate and what it means for us.
• Mizfit's Guest Chef Time: The ImNotWorthy ImNotWorthy edition will make your mouth water.
• Quick to Fit examines 100 calorie packs in Think you're eating healthier by buying 100 calorie packs? What do you think?
• Simple Weight writes this week 8 tips to make a food diary work for weight loss rather than just plain more work.
• Andrew is thinking about participating in The Volcanoes Challenge.
• What a work out! Boot Camp at Healthy Living Today gives a run down of Mark's exercises for the day.
• Nutrition- week 3 over at Family in Shape provides a list of healthy snacks.
• At Livinlavidalocarb there is talk about A New Stevia-Based Sweetener Called Truvia.
• What do you do to make walking interesting? On my walk today... Spunkysuzi takes photos.
• Speaking of walks, Nutrition Fitness Life takes walks too. My Daily Jaunts says walking clears away the cobwebs!
• Tippin the Scale Thursday's over at Weight Down... Money Up, is a short, sweet, little check in for healthy eating. Where do you eat out that is healthy?

Originally posted 2008-07-20 05:51:46. Republished by Old Post Promoter

• Cash Prizes Weekend Roundup... see end of post for more details. This week from Fitness Health Network: Below are a couple of great posts from my fitness blogger friends - check them out! To Stretch, Or Not To Stretch-Who Knows? Get Fit Slowly examines the research. Journal of Healthy Living writes about Myths About Coffee: America's #1 Drink. NCN tries out......
• Happy Mother's Day Happy Mother's Day everyone! Today is the day to tell Mom just how much you love her. My mother is one of the best people I know and I don't tell her often enough just how much I appreciate her. You're always there for me. Thank you. These are my......
• Father's Day Edition of Weekly Roundup I can't stay and write for long. My wife brought my dad out (from all the way across the country) as a surprise on Friday. We're having Father's Day brunch today. What are your plans for Father's Day? Be sure to tell your Dads how much you love them. Wives......
• Post 4th of July Roundup How was everybody's 4th of July? Did you enjoy your fireworks, BBQs, and family time? Better still did you all keep on your diets and stay focused on your health goals during the celebration? Check out my Guest Post at MizFit: Food Glorious Food From the Fitness Health Network this......
• Link Roundup Pre July 4th Still got the bum foot, and so you get a plethora of links...  Check out the FREE eBook: How to Loss Weight and Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle  Check out my guest post @ StrongLifts:  7 Steps to Stop Making Excuses and Start Making Progress So for this week from the Fitness Health......

• Heart Rate Monitors Monitors Pedometers Gym, Workout Yoga Exercise Fitness
• Health Beauty Advertising Collectibles

One of the major reasons that people have difficulty keeping on their diets is the urge to snack. For many of us, it's hard to get through the day without having at least one snack. However, that one snack can easily turn into ten and before you know it you're grazing all day long, adding useless calories to your daily intake. While snacking can be important, you're going to need to be smart about it to make sure that you can stick to your diet.

When we need a little snack fix, most of us reach for a bag of chips or a candy bar. It's a quick fix and provides you with that burst of sugar that will make you feel pretty good right away, but not so good later on. The key to snacking without ruining your diet is picking the right kind of snacks. It may take a little while at first to get used to eating healthier snacks, but before long, you'll be able to prefer it.

Start by figuring out how many calories you want to eat per day. Add up your three main meals and then figure out how many calories you have left over. This can be used as a guide to help you pick the snacks that will keep you on your diet. You'll also need to figure out the times when you are most likely to snack and target some changes in your regular meals to help you get through the day.

A great snack will contain enough protein to give you the energy you need to make it to your next meal without feeling deprived. Over the long term it is much more effective than carbs at keeping your body fueled right. For example, instead of that can of soda and a serving of chips, which can equal more than 300 calories, have one serving of low fat cottage cheese. This contains only about 80 calories and can actually be quite satisfying. Nuts, nuts, nuts... Almonds are particularly good for you, but almost any kind of nut is a great source of energy and in appropriate amounts nuts will fit into any diet. (5 almounds is equal to 1 protien serving on my diet. I get 14 protien a day.) Even a small block of cheese, a serving of tuna or some other small treat can be a great low calorie high protein alternative. A really great healthy snack that I just picked up at the local Costco (seriously tastes great) is dry roasted and lightly salted edamame aka soybean. 70% Less fat and 40% more protein than peanuts... one serving is 14 grams of soy protein and 2 net carbs.

Figure out what kind of protein snacks you like to eat. If you are one that absolutely needs to feed your sweet tooth, look for special protein bars that are low in calories and carbs while high in protein. These can provide a great boost of energy and keep you balanced all day.

Earlier, we mentioned that it is also important to figure out what times of the day you are most likely to snack. This is usually a sign that you are not eating a balanced enough meal before hand. For example, if you have a lot of carbs for breakfast, that sugar is going to wear off well before lunch, leaving you feeling hungry. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but is should contain enough protein to give you the fuel you need to make it to lunch.

Photo Credits: 1

Originally posted 2008-06-25 05:23:38. Republished by Old Post Promoter

• How to Retrain Your Cravings Whenever you start a new diet, cravings are pretty much inevitable. It can get to the point where you feel as though you'll literally stop existing unless you cave in. Countless diets are broken due to cravings, but there are a few techniques that you can use to retrain......
• Getting Past Your First Craving Today marks day 6 in my medically assisted weightloss journey. Sunday evening I had my first craving and I made it through... We were having dinner at my wife's parents house... It was a bit of an event... Needless to say I was expecting temptation... Here is how I prepared.........
• Low Carb Dieting For Dummies By Katherine Chauncey Out of all of the low carb diet books out there, this has to be the most confusing. Normally, we steer clear of diets that are strictly low carb, since few are balanced, but since this was a book from the Dummies line, we thought it might be worthwhile. What......
• Your Guide to Summer Parties and Staying in Shape Summertime is party time for many people and there will be plenty of barbeques and nights out that may test your dieting endurance. However, this doesn’t mean that you have to become a hermit just to keep your body in beach ready condition. Here are some tips on how to......
• The 5 Most Common Diet Myths When it comes to dieting over the past 100 years, there have been so many new techniques and advice books that they could literally fill a library all on their own. With these new techniques have come a lot of myths that have been ingrained in our consciousness. We may......

There are a lot of different foods in your daily nutritional plan that can probably be switched out for healthier alternatives. Here are some of the best healthy food alternatives and how can you swap bad goods out of your diet in favor of healthier alternatives. Substituting bad foods for good is a lot easier than simply cutting out the bad foods from your diet.

For example, you can replace white products with whole wheat food alternatives. Whole wheat bread, for example, is a lot healthier for you than white bread, and this is not a myth despite what many people are often lead to believe. Whole wheat bread products are packed to the brim with healthy nutrients ad vitamins, and white bread products are loaded with starch and carbohydrates rather than a whole lot of nutrition. Still, you need to keep in mind that only eating 100% whole wheat bread products can afford you these health benefits, so cut all of the white bread products out of your diet if you want to start seeing health benefits.

Replace more fattening options with leaner options whenever you can. Meat, for example, can be really fattening, but there are plenty of leaner options out there. If you eat a lot of hamburgers for example, try a turkey burger or a veggie burger instead. If you like milk, consider choosing lower fat dairy options like low fat or fat free milk, or low fat yogurt options instead. If you enjoy bacon or higher fat meats like that, consider vegetarian options or turkey options because they are much lower in fat. Most of the foods in your diet can be substituted out in favor of foods with lower fat contents, even things like your lunch meats. You can also replace fried foods with lower fat baked, grilled or boil options. The healthiest choices are usually fish, chicken and turkey, so try to substitute these in as much as you possibly can.

Dairy products can definitely be extremely fattening if you choose the wrong ones. Luckily, there are plenty of ways that you can replace unhealthy options in favor of lower fat dairy options. For example, drinking reduced fat milk is healthier and actually higher in vitamins than drinking whole milk. Choosing lower fat or reduced calorie cheeses is another option for high fat cheeses. Low fat or reduced calorie yogurt is another excellent choice because regular yogurt is usually fairly high in fat.

Another excellent opportunity to eliminate some of the fat and calories from your diet is to replace snacks with reduced fat options. Snacking is a common reason for weight gain, because everyone enjoys snacking. There are low fat and reduced fat options for pretty much every nack out there, so you simply need to find a better option for all of your favorite snacks. For example, choose dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate and save calories while adding additional health benefits at the same time.

Photo Credit: 1

• Five Ways to Start Eating Better Right Now Sometimes it is too easy to make excuses about eating the right foods. Whether it’s simply inconvenient, we feel that eating healthy deprives us, or the lure of unhealthy food is too strong, we end up putting off eating right until it may be too late. Here are five easy......
• Saturday Weekly Recap and Links Given that I have already talked about my new diet the medically assisted food based 1200 calorie low carb low fat diet and first full day and my weekly MIC injection with my second day it is time to talk about the rest of the week... Before I tell you......
• Are Carbs Really That Bad? Out of every food on earth, in the past few years, there has been no other food as demonized as the ones that contain carbs. There are so many fad diets that focus on completely removing carbs from your life - but is this a smart solution? The simple answer......
• Happy Mother's Day Happy Mother's Day everyone! Today is the day to tell Mom just how much you love her. My mother is one of the best people I know and I don't tell her often enough just how much I appreciate her. You're always there for me. Thank you. These are my......
• How to Lose Weight Over the Long Term When you first start a diet, it's easy to get all excited about the amount of weight you're losing and how great you look. Unfortunately, most of us reach our goals and then go off of our diets. Within a few months, we may be back where we started, or......

• Burger King Restaurant Food Restaurant Advertising Collectibles
• Signs Dairy Food Restaurant Advertising Collectibles
• Ads-Print Dairy Food Restaurant Advertising Collectibles
• Dairy Food Restaurant Advertising Collectibles
• Bread Bakery, Baking Food Restaurant Advertising Collectibles

Dieting can be very stressful in many ways. It's never easy to start depriving yourself of food, and you'll undoubtedly experience not only physical stress but some emotional stress too. While it's hard to completely avoid all stress in your life, there are ways that you can make your diet less stressful. By using these techniques, you can be assured that you're not setting yourself up for failure. By removing the stressors from your diet, you'll be able to stay on track and get healthy.

Tip 1 -

Don't pick a diet that is going to deprive you. While the word diet is synonymous with deprivation, it doesn't have to be. So many people set themselves up for failure by picking a diet that is simply to hard to maintain. The main key is reducing the overall amount of calories that you're putting in to your body and increasing the amount of exercise. If you're not getting the right kind of fuel, you won't be able to exercise. Instead of picking a severe diet at first, go with one that is going to be easier. You'll be able to ramp up your efforts once you start to see results.

Tip 2 -

Understand that sometimes snacking is necessary. If you work long hours, chances are you're going to get hungry between lunch and dinner. Too many people beat themselves up about snacking and get all stressed out. The key is not avoiding snacking, the key is finding the right kind of foods to snack on. Instead of that high calorie candy bar, pick a treat that has a lot of protein in it, such as low fat cottage cheese. Your body may be telling you it needs sugar to keep going, but what it really needs is some protein to create real fuel. There are times when you simply run out of fuel, but don't put just any kind of fuel in your tank. By filling up with the right fuels you'll be able to de-stress and keep going longer.

Tip 3 -

Pick an exercise program you can maintain. Beating yourself up because you can't keep to an hour a day of heavy aerobics is not only stressful, it's unhealthy. You're not going to be able to run a marathon overnight. Stick with a small amount of exercise at first, until you start to build up your energy. Instead of a full hour, try a half hour for the first few weeks. It may take a bit longer to see results, but you're building a firm foundation for success.

The key is finding ways to avoid beating yourself up on your diet. We are usually our harshest critics and it becomes all too easy to succumb to that little voice that tells us we can't do it. By circumventing that voice and starting small, you'll be able to get over your diet stress and start seeing real results. A healthy diet takes work, and changes won't happen overnight.

Photo Credits: 1

• The Role of Protein in Weight Loss When it comes to the trio of protein, fat and carbs, most people tend to focus on the last two. They are demonized, championed, reviled – you name it. But in this mess, protein is usually forgotten, or lumped into a category where it doesn’t belong. Protein is vital, especially......
• Five Ways to Start Eating Better Right Now Sometimes it is too easy to make excuses about eating the right foods. Whether it’s simply inconvenient, we feel that eating healthy deprives us, or the lure of unhealthy food is too strong, we end up putting off eating right until it may be too late. Here are five easy......
• Is Swimming The Ultimate Exercise? When it comes to finding the right workout plan, it may be a good idea to consider giving swimming a try. As the nation watched Mark Phelps make history in 8 swimming events, more people started getting interested in just how good swimming can be for your body. As you......
• 4 Ways to Avoid Hitting the Exercise Wall Have you ever hit the wall when you're exercising? We're not talking about an actual wall here, we're talking about that point of no return when your body says "Enough" and refuses to do anything else. Most of us have hit it once or twice, but during the summer months,......
• The Right Kind of Foods Your Body Needs When you're trying to lose weight, it is all so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that deprivation is the only way to go. There are some foods that your body really needs, even if you are on a diet. In addition, there are foods that your......

Have you ever fallen off the diet wagon and then said, well, I may as well enjoy myself today, since I’ve already messed up. I’ll get back on my diet tomorrow. If this sounds familiar, you’re dealing with one of the biggest reasons that diets fail. Cheat days are fine, within reason, but if you’re letting them get out of control, you are dooming yourself to failure in more ways than one.

Let’s say that you simply cannot ignore that piece of chocolate cake that is looking at you and pleading with you to partake. It’s easy enough – we’ve all fallen victim to the cake monster a time or two. But, after that piece of cake, you start to beat yourself up. You did it *again*. By this point, you’ve already mentally defeated yourself for that day, so why bother eating healthy? Most of us then turn around and scarf down a pizza for dinner, since we’ve already derailed our diet for the day anyway.

This is exactly what you do not want to do. One piece of cake made have added 500 extra calories, but how about the rest of the day? It’s time to break free of that cycle and banish your cheat “days” for good. We’re not saying that you have to avoid cheating all together. We’re human, it happens. You fall down, it’s natural. The key is to get back up immediately, and not roll around in a banana cream pie for the rest of the day.

By saying, “Ok, I had that piece of cake. I shouldn’t, but I’m not going to let it ruin my diet,” you’re allowing yourself to breath, to make that mistake and get back up. You may need to do a little retraining at first, but you’ll get there. It is vital to stop beating yourself up mentally. After all, it is only a piece of cake. By kicking yourself repeatedly, you’re only going to want to eat more. If you have an issue with eating for comfort, this could spiral out of control.

Cheat days can really wear on a diet, and if you banish the concept of a cheat “day” you can do a lot better. Instead, have a cheat “lunch” or a cheat “snack.” You won’t be completely demolishing your diet and you won’t fall off track. Avoid the “Well, I’ll just do X amount of sit-ups” routine as well. Chances are you won’t, and you’re giving yourself just another reason to beat yourself up again. Realize that every now and again you’re going to make mistakes.

No one is perfect, and sometimes, that cake gets the best of us. You may lose that battle, but you don’t have to lose the war. Get the right mindset and become your best ally instead of your worst enemy. This will help you stay on your diet, and more importantly, you’ll be building up your own self-esteem as you go, and that will pay off for the rest of your life.

Photo Credits: 1

• The Dangers of Weight Loss Shortcuts The problem with weight loss shortcuts is that they attempt to go against the real science behind weight loss, health and nutrition. There is only one real way to diet, and that is to burn more calories than you take in. A single pound of weight is equivalent to 3,500......
• How to Retrain Your Cravings Whenever you start a new diet, cravings are pretty much inevitable. It can get to the point where you feel as though you'll literally stop existing unless you cave in. Countless diets are broken due to cravings, but there are a few techniques that you can use to retrain......
• Are You Making These 4 Dieting Mistakes? The road to wellness is paved with potholes for many people and dieting mistakes are rampant. However, if you pay attention to the warning signs as you travel down that road you will know when to swerve and when to look out for danger spots. Here are the most common......
• Why Do Diets Fail? The diet industry is a multi-billion dollar machine that keeps churning out new diets, new hope and new hype every single year. If diets were so effective, there would be no need to keep coming up with new methods and new diet plans, but the sad truth is, the vast......
• How to Find the Diet That Works For You Once you're ready to take that step and go on a diet, there will literally be thousands of options available to you. There are a myriad of different diets out there and most claim that they have the secret to fast weight loss. It can be very frustrating to keep......

• Cake Pans Bakeware Kitchenware Housewares Kitchenware Collectibles
• Cake Carriers, Savers Kitchenware Housewares Kitchenware Collectibles

For many of us, it's just too hard to get through the day without nibbling on something. If you have issues with your blood sugar being too low, or you are simply hungry during the day, snacking can be second nature. While snacking generally gets frowned upon, grazing is typically recommended for many diets. The key is finding the right balance so that you don't get overly hungry and you still feel satisfied throughout the day.

First, you need to set limits for your grazing behavior. It's one thing to graze on peanut butter cups all day, and it's another to graze on unbuttered air popped popcorn. One contains loads of fat and calories, the other has approximately 31 calories for a whole cup. You can really fill up on popcorn without filling up on calories. Figure out how many calories you are allowed each day and then how much you use for your regular meals.

That will give you the amount left over that you can eat while grazing. It is best to stick to a very low calories amount so that you don't end up sabotaging your diet. For example, instead of a candy bar, try low calorie string cheese. Instead of a bag of chips, have some crunchy vegetables. By making the right food choices when you're grazing, you'll have better luck at losing weight.

If you do find it necessary to graze because you are starving, you may need to address what is causing this. Are you not eating enough during your regular meals or are you eating the wrong balance of foods? If you're not getting enough protein, then you will be left feeling hungry after your meals. By getting the right balance of carbs, fats and proteins you can reduce those cravings that make you graze.

It is almost important to remember that if you are doing a lot of brain work, you are going to be hungrier during the day. Your brain uses more than 30% of your body's blood sugar just to run and when you're really using it, you'll burn through your supply quite quickly. Just find low calories fuel to keep you going in this situation.

Snacking and grazing can be too different things. Some of us get into the habit of the afternoon snack or late night snack and we are so routinized that it doesn't matter if we are hungry or not - we're going to eat that snack. Learn to recognize true hunger as opposed to "my brain is telling me it's time to eat."

Grazing is not necessarily a bad idea and when utilized properly it can help you lose weight. You just need to make sure that you are using smart choices when it comes to the food you are grazing on. Eat small amounts of low calories and still keep track of what you eat each day to stay below you recommended amount. This is grazing at its best.

Photo Credits: 1

• The Role of Protein in Weight Loss When it comes to the trio of protein, fat and carbs, most people tend to focus on the last two. They are demonized, championed, reviled – you name it. But in this mess, protein is usually forgotten, or lumped into a category where it doesn’t belong. Protein is vital, especially......
• How to Eat Low Fat Without Low Taste One of the main things that keeps people from trying low fat foods is the fact that a lot of them taste, well, pretty bad. It's all too easy to brush it off as "rabbit food," and convince yourself that you need real food. However, there are many low......
• Snacking Without Ruining Your Diet One of the major reasons that people have difficulty keeping on their diets is the urge to snack. For many of us, it's hard to get through the day without having at least one snack. However, that one snack can easily turn into ten and before you know it you're......
• 4 Ways to Avoid Hitting the Exercise Wall Have you ever hit the wall when you're exercising? We're not talking about an actual wall here, we're talking about that point of no return when your body says "Enough" and refuses to do anything else. Most of us have hit it once or twice, but during the summer months,......
• 5 Ways to Dramatically Decrease Your Calorie Intake the Easy Way For many of us, trying to consume fewer calories can be very difficult. If you are someone that has a hard time feeling satisfied on little meals, or you just can’t seem to make any headway with your calorie count, there are a few ways that you can dramatically reduce......

• Jam, Jelly, Peanut Butter Food Restaurant Advertising Collectibles