Tips for dropping excess weight without dieting

Time Your Meals
Set a timer for 20 minutes and reinvent yourself as a slow eater. This is one of the top habits for slimming down without a complicated diet plan. Savor each bite and make it last until the bell chimes. Paced meals offer great pleasure from smaller portions and trigger the body’s fullness hormones. Wolfing your food down in a hurry blocks those signals and causes overeating.

Sleep More, Weigh Less
Sleeping an extra hour a night could help a person drop 14 pounds in a year, according to a University of Michigan researcher who ran the numbers for a 2,500 calorie per day intake. His scenario shows that when sleep replaces idle activities – and the usual mindless snacking – you can effortlessly cut calories by 6%. Results would vary for each person, but sleep may help in another way, too. There’s evidence that getting too little sleep revs up your appetite, making you uncommonly hungry.


Serve More, Eat More Veggies
Serve three vegetables with dinner tonight, instead of just one, and you’ll eat more without really trying. Greater variety tricks people into eating more food – and eating more fruits and vegetables is a great way to lose weight. The high fiber and water content fills you up with fewer calories. Cook them without added fat. And season with lemon juice and herbs rather than drowning their goodness in high-fat sauces or dressings.


When Soup’s On, Weight Comes Off
Add a broth-based soup to your day and you’ll fill up on fewer calories. Think minestrone, tortilla soup, or Chinese won-ton. Soup's especially handy at the beginning of a meal because it slows your eating and curbs your appetite. Start with a low-sodium broth or canned soup, add fresh or frozen vegetables and simmer. Beware of creamy soups, which can be high in fat and calories.

Go for Whole Grains
Whole grains such as brown rice, barley, oats, buckwheat, and whole wheat also belong in your stealthy weight loss strategy. They help fill you up with fewer calories and may improve your cholesterol profile, too. Whole grains are now in many products including waffles, pizza crust, English muffins, pasta, and soft "white" whole-wheat bread.

Eyeball Your Skinny Clothes
Hang an old favorite dress, skirt, or a smokin' pair of jeans where you’ll see them every day. This keeps your eyes on the prize. Choose an item that's just a little too snug, so you reach this reward in a relatively short time. Then pull out last year's cocktail dress for your next small, attainable goal.

Skip the Bacon
Pass on those two strips of bacon at breakfast or in your sandwich at lunch time. This simple move saves about 100 calories, which can add up to a 10 pound weight loss over a year. Other sandwich fixings can replace the flavor with fewer calories. Think about tomato slices, banana peppers, roasted red bell peppers, grainy mustard, or a light spread of herbed goat cheese.

Build a Better Slice of Pizza
Choose vegetable toppings for pizza instead of meat and you'll shave 100 calories from your meal. Other skinny pizza tricks: go light on the cheese or use reduced-fat cheese and choose a thin, bread-like crust made with just a touch of olive oil.

Sip Smart: Cut Back on Sugar
Replace one sugary drink like regular soda with water or a zero-calorie seltzer and you'll avoid 10 teaspoons of sugar. Add lemon, mint or frozen strawberries for flavor and fun.

The liquid sugar in soda appears to bypass the body's normal fullness cues. One study compared an extra 450 calories per day from jelly beans vs. soda. The candy eaters unconsciously ate fewer calories overall, but not so the soda drinkers. They gained 2.5 pounds in four weeks.

Sip Smart: Use a Tall, Thin Glass
Use a tall, skinny glass instead of a short, wide tumbler to cut liquid calories — and your weight — without dieting. You’ll drink 25-30% less juice, soda, wine, or any other beverage.

How can this work? Brian Wansink, PhD, says visual cues can trick us into consuming more or less. His tests at Cornell University found all kinds of people poured more into a short, wide glass — even experienced bartenders.

Sip Smart: Limit Alcohol
When an occasion includes alcohol, follow the first drink with a nonalcoholic, low-calorie beverage like sparkling water instead of moving directly to another cocktail, beer, or glass of wine. Alcohol has more calories per gram (7) than carbohydrates (4) or protein (4). It can also loosen your resolve, leading you to mindlessly inhale chips, nuts, and other foods you’d normally limit.

Sip Smart: Go for Green Tea
Drinking green tea may also be a good weight loss strategy. Some studies suggest that it can rev up the body's calorie-burning engine temporarily, possibly through the action of phytochemicals called catechins. At the very least, you’ll get a refreshing drink without tons of calories.

Slip Into a Yoga State of Mind
Women who do yoga tend to weigh less than others, according to a study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. What’s the connection? The yoga regulars reported a more "mindful" approach to eating. For example, they tend to notice the large portions in restaurants but eat only enough to feel full. Researchers think the calm self-awareness developed through yoga may help people resist overeating.

Eat at Home
Eat home-cooked meals at least five days a week to live like a thin person. A Consumer Reports survey found this was a top habit of "successful losers." Sound daunting? Cooking may be easier than you think. Shortcut foods can make for quick meals, such as pre-chopped lean beef for fajitas, washed lettuce, pre-cut veggies, canned beans, cooked chicken strips, or grilled deli salmon.

Catch the "Eating Pause"
Most people have a natural "eating pause," when they drop the fork for a couple of minutes. Watch for this moment and don't take another bite. Clear your plate and enjoy the conversation. This is the quiet signal that you're full, but not stuffed. Most people miss it.

Chew Strong Mint Gum
Chew sugarless gum with a strong flavor when you're at risk for a snack attack. Making dinner after work, at a party, watching TV, or surfing the Internet are a few dangerous scenarios for mindless snacking. Gum with a big flavor punch overpowers other foods so they don’t taste good.

Shrink Your Dishes
Chose a 10" lunch plate instead of a 12" dinner plate to automatically eat less. Cornell's Brian Wansink, PhD, found in test after test that people serve more and eat more food with larger dishes. Shrink your plate or bowl to cut out 100-200 calories a day – and 10-20 pounds in a year. In Wansink’s tests, no one felt hungry or even noticed when tricks of the eye shaved 200 calories off their daily intake.

Get Food Portions Right
The top habit of slim people is to stick with modest food portions at every meal, five days a week or more. "Always slim" people do it and successful losers do it, too, according to a Consumer Reports survey. After measuring portions a few times, it can become automatic. Make it easier with small "snack" packs and by keeping serving dishes off the table at meal time.

The 80-20 Rule
Americans are conditioned to keep eating until they’re stuffed, but residents of Okinawa eat until they’re 80% full. They even have a name for this naturally slimming habit: hara hachi bu. We can adopt this healthy habit by dishing out 20% less food, according to researcher Brian Wansink, PhD. His studies show most people don’t miss it.

Eat Out Your Way
Restaurant meals are notoriously fattening, so consider these special orders that keep portions under control:

Split an entrée with a friend.
Order an appetizer as a meal.
Choose the child's plate.
Get half the meal in a doggie bag before it's brought to the table.
Complement a smaller entrée with extra salad for the right balance: half the plate filled with veggies.

Reach for the Red Sauce
Choose marinara sauce for pasta instead of Alfredo sauce. The tomato-based sauces tend to have fewer calories and much less fat than cream-based sauces. But remember, portion size still counts. A serving of pasta is one cup or roughly the size of a tennis ball.

Go Meatless More Often
Eating vegetarian meals more often is a slimming habit, according to WebMD's "recipe doctor," Elaine Magee, MPH, RD. Vegetarians weigh up to 20% less than meat eaters. While there are several reasons for this, legumes play an important role. Bean burgers, lentil soup, and other tasty legume-based foods are simply packed with fiber. Most Americans get only half of this important nutrient, which fills you up with fewer calories.
Burn 100 Calories More
Lose 10 pounds in a year without dieting by burning an extra 100 calories every day. Try one of these activities:

Walk 1 mile, about 20 minutes.
Pull weeds or plant flowers for 20 minutes.
Mow the lawn for 20 minutes.
Clean house for 30 minutes.
Jog for 10 minutes.

Celebrate
When you’ve kicked the soda habit or simply made it through the day without overeating, pat yourself on the back. You’ve moved closer to a slimming lifestyle that helps people lose weight without crazy or complicated diet plans. Phone a friend, get a pedicure, buy new clothes -- or on occasion, indulge in a small slice of cheesecake.

Courtesy: WebMD.com Newsletter

Winter Health (Concl.)

5. Start a Winter Tradition: Family Workouts
Grandparents are in town, a flurry of kids is underfoot, and you're wondering where you'll find time for a quick winter workout. Here's a thought: Why not get everyone involved with these simple workouts?

Walking: It's suitable for young or old, with a pace that's sedate or speedy. Try these ideas to get the gang on their feet:

Do laps at the mall. If you shop, cart your own packages and then unload them in the car after every store.
Disguise the walk as something else. Toss a ball as you stroll, fling a Frisbee, or take the dog to the park.
Instead of driving, walk over to your favorite local restaurant.
Take part in a holiday fund-raiser, like the Arthritis Foundation's Jingle Bell Run/Walk
Make the Living Room Your Gym

When everyone's on the couch chatting, or watching TV -- why not sneak in a little calorie burn, too?

Do crunches: Sit on the edge of the couch, hands gripping the edge at your side, then bend knees, lifting them toward your chest.
Leg lifts: Use the same position as above, but lift your legs straight up, instead of bending them.
Trim those triceps by doing dips off the couch edge.
Build your biceps: Grab a bottle of water or a can of soda and do curls.


6. Eat Locally
Organic may be today's healthy-eating watchword, but don't forget this phrase too: eat locally.

Some nutritionists think eating locally may be even more important than eating organically. That's because a vital factor in a food's nutrient profile is how long it took to get from farm to table: A head of locally grown lettuce, for example, may be more nutrient-dense than one shipped coast to coast.

Does this mean you should forgo pesticide-free foods when they're available? No, but it's a great idea to make room on your plate for locally-grown goods too, even if they haven't been grown the organic way. Better yet: Eat locally and organic, when you can.

An easy way to get local -- and often organic -- food on the table: Join a CSA (community-supported agriculture). CSAs help you form a relationship with a local farm, which then provides you with fresh, local produce, even milk, eggs, or cheese. Some also function twelve months a year. Find a CSA near you at LocalHarvest.org.

7. Try These 3 Simple Diet & Exercise Tips

Go Slow: You don't need to do a diet slash-and-burn. If you cut just 200calories a day you'll see slow (and easy) weight loss. Skip a pat of butter here, a cookie there and you're on your way!

Start Small: Banning junk food from the cupboards or boosting fiber may be your goal, but think baby steps. Switch from potato chips to low-fat popcorn, for example, or toss a carrot into your brown bag lunch.

Just Show Up: Don't feel like working out today? Don those exercise clothes anyway. Still not in the mood? Fine. But chances are good that once you're dressed, you're also motivated and ready to go!

8. Invest in Your Health - Literally
If you have a high-deductible insurance plan (deductibles of $1,100 for an individual; $2,200 for a family), you're probably eligible to deposit tax-free cash into a health savings account (HSA).

HSAs help you sock away savings now for medical expenses later. Open an HSA and each year you can stash $2,850 for yourself ($5,650 for a family) -- tax-free. And if you don't use up the balance in your HSA this year, it simply rolls over into the next year, and the next -- and continues to grow tax-deferred. Intrigued? Talk to your human resources department to find out if you're eligible.

Whichever healthy steps you take this year -- eating better, exercising more, saving -- remember they're an investment in you and your future. So follow these steps toward better health -- or take your own. Bank a little more sleep this year. Set aside stressful differences. Stock a healthier pantry. Salt away ... a little less salt. It's your body -- and your future!

Courtesy: WebMD.com Newsletter

Stay Healthy in eight Easy Steps this Winter

A better diet, a little more exercise - healthy living is easy if you take it one tip at a time.
By Wendy C. Fries -
WebMD FeatureReviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MD

Holidays, stress, post-holidays, even more stress -- who has time for taking care of ourselves?

You do! Resolve to follow these eight diet, exercise, and lifestyle tips, and you can be good to yourself this winter - and all year long.

1. Enjoy the Benefits of Yogurt
It's creamy smooth, packed with flavor -- and just may be the wonder food you've been craving. Research suggests that that humble carton of yogurt may:

Help prevent osteoporosis
Reduce your risk of high blood pressure
Aid gastrointestinal conditions like inflammatory bowel disease and constipation
Ready to take home a few cartons of yummy yogurt? When buying think low-fat, make sure the yogurt contains active cultures and vitamin D, and keep tabs on sugar content.

2. Help Holiday Heartburn
Getting hit with heartburn over the holidays? Help is at hand! Try these hints and you can stop the burn before it starts:

Nibble: Enjoy your favorite foods -- but in moderation. No need to heap on the goodies (or go back for seconds and thirds!). Packing your stomach with food makes heartburn much more likely.

Know Your Triggers: Certain foods feed heartburn's flame. Typical triggers include foods full of sugar and fat -- think pumpkin pie slathered with whipped cream. Instead reach for complex carbs like veggies and whole-wheat breads -- or at least share that dessert!

Get Up: Stretching out for a nap post-meal is a great way to guarantee you'll get reflux. Instead, keep your head higher than your stomach -- or keep right on walking, away from the dinner table and out the door. Light exercise is a great way to prevent heartburn.

3. Kiss Holiday Cold Sores Good-bye
Holidays: That busy time for toasting the coming year, savoring seasonal sweets, staying up late -- and cold sores?

If you find you're more prone to cold sores (also called fever blisters) during the hectic holiday season, you may be your own worst enemy. That's because lack of sleep, too much alcohol or sugar, stress, and close physical contact (think auntie's smooches) can all contribute to outbreaks.

So, to help keep your kisser cold-sore-free this year -- or to keep from passing your cold sores to others -- try these tips:

Don't overdo the holiday goodies -- maintain a healthy diet.
Get plenty of rest.
Wash your hands.
Don't share food or drink containers.
Discard used tissues.
Don't kiss on or near anyone's cold sore -- and don't let them near yours!


4. De-Stress With Meditation
The bad weather, the seasonal pace, work: If this time of year has your stress meter spiking, it may be time to close your eyes, breathe ... and get a little repetitive.

Repetition is at the heart of meditation's soothing power. The act of banishing thoughts, focusing on your breathing, and repeating a single word or phrase, fires up your body's natural relaxation response.

And meditation can do more than soothe away stress. Research shows it may help lower blood pressure, boost immunity, reduce PMS symptoms, even aid in fertility and the delivery of a new mom's milk.
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JACQUES' NOTE: Actually, dynamic deep self-hypnosis enhanced by visualizations works better, faster and more effectively. More passive Meditation and Yoga are helpful aids when done properly.

(To be continued in our next post)

The Truth About Tryptophan (concl.)

Amino Acid Overload

When you eat foods rich in tryptophan, as the food digests, amino acids - not just tryptophan - make their way into the bloodstream. This causes competition among the various amino acids to enter the brain.

"Tryptophan, which is a bulky amino acid, would have to stand in line to get through the blood-brain barrier with a whole bunch of amino acids," Somer says. "It would be like standing in line when the Harry Potter movie comes out and you didn't get in line early enough. The chances of getting in [to see the movie] are pretty slim. That's what happens when you eat a protein-rich food. Tryptophan has to compete with all these other amino acids. It waits in line to get through the blood-brain barrier and very little of it makes it across."

The small, all-carbohydrate snack is tryptophan's ticket across the blood-brain barrier, where it can boost serotonin levels. So have your turkey, Somer says, because it will increase your store of tryptophan in the body, but count on the carbohydrates to help give you the mood boost or the restful sleep.

"It's the all-carb snack that ends up being like a sneak preview of the [Harry Potter] movie, where no one else knows it's showing," she says.

Too Much of a Sleepy Thing

Is it possible to have too much tryptophan in the body? Not really, Somer says. "Except if you end up eating a lot of tryptophan, it means you're eating a lot of protein and Americans already eat a lot of protein. It's the only nutrient we get too much of," she says.

"If you're getting even one serving of 3 ounces of meat, chicken, or fish; a couple of glasses of milk or yogurt; or if you're eating beans and rice, you will get all the amino acids you need and in there will be the tryptophan," Somer says.

Thanksgiving Grogginess: Look Beyond the Turkey

So if eating turkey isn't exactly the same as popping a sleeping pill, why the sudden grogginess as soon as our holiday feast is over?

"It boils down to Thanksgiving being a time when people overeat," Jackson Blatner says. "When people overeat food, the digestion process takes a lot of energy. Don't incriminate the turkey that you ate," she says of post-Thanksgiving meal exhaustion, "incriminate the three plates of food that you piled high."

And let's not forget that the holidays generally mean time off from work and with family. Many people feel more relaxed to begin with (family wars not withstanding). Add alcohol to the mix, and voila! Sleep!

Speaking of sleep, Joyce Walsleban, PhD, associate professor at New York University's Sleep Disorders Center, suggests we all get plenty of it. "Coming up on the holidays and trying to get all the things done that one would normally be doing, you short cut your sleep and that's never helpful. By the time the holiday comes, everyone has gotten sick."
At least then you'll have a good excuse to lay down and take a nap.

Couretsy WebMD.com newsletter

The Truth About Tryptophan

Does tryptophan really make you sleepy -- and is turkey to blame? Experts set the record straight.
By Lisa Zamosky, WebMD Feature Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

Every year at Thanksgiving, most of us engage in an annual rite of passage: stuffing ourselves mercilessly with turkey, cranberry sauce, and pie. Not a bad way to spend a Thursday. But inevitably, in that hour between feeling so full you think you'll explode and gearing up for round two with the leftovers, your relatives can find you conked out on the couch.

Along comes Aunt Mildred with her armchair scientific explanation. You're tired, she tells you, because the turkey you just ate is laden with L-tryptophan. Tryptophan, she says, makes you tired.

So is your aunt right? Is the turkey really what's to blame for Thanksgiving sleepiness? The experts helped WebMD sort out the facts.

What is L-Tryptophan?

L-tryptophan is an essential amino acid. The body can't make it, so diet must supply tryptophan. Amino acids are building blocks of proteins. Foods rich in tryptophan include, you guessed it, turkey. Tryptophan is also found in other poultry, meat, cheese, yogurt, fish, and eggs.

Tryptophan is used by the body to make niacin, a B vitamin that is important for digestion, skin and nerves, and serotonin. Serotonin is a brain chemical that plays a large role in mood) and can help to create a feeling of well-being and relaxation. "When levels of serotonin are high, you're in a better mood, sleep better, and have a higher pain tolerance," says Elizabeth Somer, MA, RD, author of numerous nutrition books, including her latest, Eat Your Way to Happiness.

Tryptophan is needed for the body to produce serotonin. Serotonin is used to make melatonin, a hormone that helps to control your sleep and wake cycles.

Turkey the Sleep Inducer?

As it turns out, turkey contains no more of the amino acid tryptophan than other kinds of poultry. In fact, turkey actually has slightly less tryptophan than chicken, says Dawn Jackson Blatner, RD, LDN, an American Dietetic Association spokeswoman and author of The Flexitarian Diet.

Jackson Blatner says that if we're sleepy on Thanksgiving as a direct result of eating turkey, then eating other foods rich in tryptophan should have the same effect.

"When is the last time someone ate a chicken breast at a summertime barbecue and thought they felt sluggish [because of it]?" she asks.

Turkey is, indeed, a good source of tryptophan. Still, it's a myth that eating foods high in tryptophan boosts brain levels of tryptophan and therefore brain levels of serotonin, Somer says.

Somer says that proteins like turkey, chicken, and fish, which are high in tryptophan, require assistance from foods high in carbohydrates to affect serotonin levels.

"Tryptophan is quite high in milk and turkey, but that's not the food that will give you the serotonin boost," she says. It's a small, all-carbohydrate snack -- no more than 30 grams of carbohydrates -- in combination with the tryptophan stored in your body from food you've already eaten that will give you the biggest boost of serotonin, Somer says.

A serotonin-boosting snack may include a few Fig Newtons, half of a small whole wheat bagel with honey drizzled over it, or a few cups of air-popped popcorn some time after you've eaten foods high in tryptophan. "Research shows that a light, 30 gram carbohydrate snack just before bed will actually help you sleep better," Somer says.

(To be continued...)

For Lasting Change, Start with a Power Mind

by Pamela Peeke, M.D./WebMD's Fitness Expert

I'll bet that more than once most of you have courageously started out on a journey to change yourself for the better, only to find that you continually trip and stumble over life's speed bumps of stress, causing your journey to come to a grinding halt. We've all been there. We pray for change to last, and yet sustainable change seems so elusive. Your gym bag sits buried at the bottom of the closet, your pots and pans gather dust as you rush out to grab fast food, and you never did get around to listening to that meditation CD. Enough is enough. It's time to create lasting change. The first step is to experience a mental transformation. You can't just dive into changing up the way you eat or exercise if you don't have the right mental state. If you're going to achieve and hold onto a stronger, healthier body, you must have the mindset for success. This is the kind of mindset that allows you to adapt and adjust to life's stresses, while continuing to take care of yourself. This mindset is what I call the Power Mind.

Armed with the Power Mind, you can make any positive change in your life stick. The Power Mind helps you manage stress without downing a pint of Jamocha Almond Fudge ice cream, or heading for cigarettes, drugs and alcohol to numb your mental angst. The Power Mind also helps you regroup when you stumble, so that you're not paralyzed every time life throws you a curve ball. And this mindset helps guide you as you balance care giving others with your own self care. Begin your own mental transformation with a simple pledge:

"Today_________(date) I _________(your name) I will begin to practice healthier lifestyle habits and I will make the following commitments. I will give to myself as I give to others. I will value my health as I value the health of my loved ones. I won't ask 'should I or shouldn't I?' about matters of self care. I will just do it. I humbly accept that I must work to be the best that I can be. I will choose to work for myself, rather than abandon myself. I will take responsibility for my lifestyle behaviors and I commit to practicing them with patience and consistency. And, I will embrace adversity as an opportunity to test my newfound mental and physical strength."

Print this pledge and post copies of it in key places – on the fridge door, inside the pantry, on your bed stand, in your sneakers – where you'll be reminded to focus and stay mindful of your change goal. You can share with a close friend – pets count! – who supports your efforts.

The next step is to study and practice the principles that are the foundation of the Power Mind. When I wrote Body for Life for Women, I realized that the key to lasting change resides in the mind, which is why I created the concept of the Power Mind. These are universal principles applicable to men and women of any age. Here's a quick synopsis of the principles so that you can begin to practice them right away. Remember that to master the Power Mind, you will practice these principles throughout your life, continuously refining your skills. The more you practice, the greater your successes at lasting change.

Creating your own Power Mind means to:

adapt and adjust to adversity without self destruction and begin to recognize that tough times are actually golden opportunities to learn about life;

stay mentally mindful and in the present, maintaining a focus on the goal;

avoid over-thinking, ruminating and complaining and instead become positive and proactive;

pursue progress, not perfection;

give yourself a license to chill by gifting yourself with Mini Chills (closing your eyes for several minutes or more) of mental rest and peace throughout the day;

strive to become a master of regrouping when life's challenges threaten to derail your journey of change;

be self-assertive and fight for the right to take care of yourself;

gather and nurture your own support system to help guide you on your journey.

Use this template as a map to help guide you on the road to sustainable change. The stronger your Power Mind, the easier it is to apply new healthy lifestyle behavior changes – nutrition, physical fitness – and make them stick. Start practicing your Power Mind principles today

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Jacques' Note:

Many fine Health and Fitness articles have been written and published in conjuncton with the New Year. I opted for this excellent one to share with you and wish You and Yours a wonderful, Healthy, Joyous, Fulfilled New 2010 and Decade!

Your Friend,

Jacques