Six Dieting and Exercise Tips for Rainy Days

I live in the UK, where, even by our standards, it’s been a long, cold and rainy winter! So I know how hard it is to stay motivated with dieting and exercise when the weather’s awful. Not only does it make going outside for exercise a hassle, it drags your mood down too – not a combination which any dieter wants.

However, a rainy day (or a rainy week) doesn’t need to be an excuse to quit your diet. Here are six ways to make the most of those rainy days:

Are Snacks Ruining Your Diet?

When I was a student, I was always on and off diets. Usually, my meals were very virtuous: lots of salads and vegetables, and small portions of carbohydrates and lean meats. Unfortunately, I often found that the calorie count crept up on the inbetweens … chips, chocolate, alcohol and other snacky foods.

Of course, we all know that healthy snacks– perhaps a piece of fruit or a small sandwich – can be a great way to fill the gap between meals and keep our energy levels. However, all too often our snacking involves the wrong sorts of foods. Just look at recent reports in the UK of movie theaters serving buckets of popcorn containing 1,800 calories – that’s enough for some small women for an entire day!

ATD: How do I Help my Overweight Child?

My son is 10yrs old 125pounds wears 18husky and has asthma.I have spoke to several physicians with limited help. Is there any advise you can give me? ‘Im lost and need help.   La’Chelle

Dear La’Chelle,

I’m so glad you are motivated to help your child change his weight and his eating habits at this young age. There is still plenty of time to get him to learn new ways of eating so when he’s on his own he’ll know the right choices to make and be in the routine of eating healthy to maintain a lifelong healthy lifestyle.

Diet 101: Dealing with Setbacks

It was bound to happen…. you were going along so well on your diet, sticking with it for more weeks than you knew possible, even exercising! The pounds were coming off, one by one, and you were so proud of yourself.  Then, something happened. Maybe you had a crisis at work or a close relative became ill. Maybe you started a new relationship or went on vacation.  Bad or good, life events can throw our diet off course. Now you’re discouraged, angry at yourself, and wondering if you should toss the whole deal out the window.

Jillian Michaels Sued – Is it Fair or Greedy People Trying to Make a Quick Buck?

Jillian Michaels is the famous trainer on the hit show “The Biggest Loser.” She is known for her tough, no-nonsense attitude and difficult, but effective, exercise programs. Michaels often stresses the importance of healthy diet and exercise as the best way to lose weight. She also endorses several weight loss products that are available at major retailers.

Michaels is being sued over a product called “Jillian Michaels Maximum Strength Calorie Control.” The packaging of these diet pills states, “Two Capsules Before Main Meals and You Lose Weight … That’s It!” However, a woman named Christie Christensen of Lake Elsinore, Calif., begs to differ.  She purchased these pills, but claims she didn’t lose any weight or have a decreased appetite after taking the diet pills for one month.

How to Make a Food Diary into a Habit

I firmly believe that a lot of success in dieting isn’t down to willpower or self-control: you don’t need to have iron self-discipline in order to lose weight. In order to succeed, you need to establish good habits which work for you.

There are plenty of habits you could try: perhaps eating a piece of fruit before each meal, or drinking a glass of water whenever you feel hungry. One of the best habits, though – shown to double your rate of weight loss – is to keep a food diary.

Diet 101: How To Stay On Your Diet

photo credit: frerieke

So, you’ve spent a lot of time deciding which diet is best to follow, determining that now is the time healthy eating and exercise are a priority, and choosing a start date. Your diet went along well for a few weeks, but now you find it difficult to keep going. How do you muster the will power to keep forging ahead?  What started you on this journey is the idea that you really want is to be a healthy and attractive weight. Here are a few methods to get you back into the frame of mind that a bit of suffering now will be worth it in the long run!

What Does Dieting Success Mean to You?

Most of us would agree that dieting involves losing weight. However, getting down to a set weight on the scale does not have to be the way we judge success.
Why are you on a diet? It’s probably not really to do with the number on your scales. Your reason for dieting might be:

• You want to fit back into those jeans
• You’d love to have the energy to run around with your kids or grandchildren
• You want to set yourself up for good health for years to come

ATD: I Need to Lose Weight, but Where do I Start?

Question:

Not sure of where to start!  I went to the doctor today and found out that my BMI is 33.55  at 227lbs and 5′9″.  I do lift weights and have always had a bigger build. I have done 1/2 marathons but have not done much cardio due to cold weather, ice and snow.  I don’t like the treadmill. However I want to lose the extra weight and know I need to increase exercise but I also know my eating habits need to change.  I have tried Atkins in the past but not sure I want to do that again.  I liked the results but it was a hard and possibly unhealthy diet.  What diets are recommended for a guy who has a bigger build – and wants to lose the extra weight and reduce bmi.  Thanks for your time! Steve

Distinguishing Real Hunger from Emotional Hunger

When you have a sudden craving for a candy bar or a big bowl of fries smothered in ketchup, are you really hungry … or is it just emotional hunger?

It can be surprisingly hard sometimes to figure out exactly what we’re feeling! If you’re on a diet after quite a long period of being overweight, you may have to get back in touch with your body’s hunger signals – many of us fall into the trap of nibbling constantly, and not really having much appetite when it comes to meal-time.

How to Take Regular Exercise (And Love It)

One of the keys to health is taking regular exercise (and if you doubt that, just check out this story of a 100 year old British woman taking keep fit classes!) But many of us find it difficult to stick with an exercise routine. Perhaps we’re too busy or too tired, or maybe we just don’t enjoy exercise that much.

Being active doesn’t have to feel like a chore or a punishment – it’s a great way to boost your mood, to keep your heart and bones healthy, and to burn calories and build muscle. Here’s how you can fit regular exercise into your life – and enjoy it!

Give up Calories, Not Nutrition

photo credit: selena marie

In the haste to give up calories in order to lose weight, many dieters lose sight of what they should be eating for the nutritional value. All too often people are quick to skip breakfast or deny themselves a piece of fruit in order to save a few calories. Later on, however, they manage to justify a glass of wine or some diet ice cream “just this once” and “since I’ve been so good today”! Here are a few points to help you manage your calorie level and your nutrition at the same time.

New Reviews: January 2010

Hello everyone.  I hope you are enjoying 2010 and are starting to put your resolutions into action.  Here are some new reviews published for January:

1. Cheat Your Way Thin
2. Eat Stop Eat
3. The Diet Solution Program
4. Fit Yummy Mummy
5. LipoBind
6. Adios
7. Phen375
8. Appesat
9. Certified Acai
10. 7 Minute Muscle

If there is a program out there that you think is worth us taking a look at, leave your comments below.

Getting Honest About Your Eating Habits

Have you slipped into bad habits over Christmas and the New Year? It’s easy for bad eating patterns to creep up on us. With me, one of the signals of this is when chocolate goes from being an occasional treat to a two-or-three-times daily indulgence!

It’s all too easy to kid ourselves that we “usually” eat a healthy diet – because surely, birthdays, weekends, meals out with friends, and one-offs don’t count, right? The problem is, if you’re regularly putting away chips, candies, cake or ice-cream, your body doesn’t care where the calories come from. You’ll put on weight all the same.

Planning Ahead To Eat Right

One of the best habits you can develop to help improve the nutritional value of your diet is to plan ahead. Whether you want to lose weight, maintain your current healthy weight, or even just avoid a vitamin deficiency, you have to do a little work ahead of time to be sure everything falls into place by the end of an average day.  Otherwise, you may discover a few extra grams of fat or a few hundred extra calories have found their way into your system by the end of the day, and maybe not enough calcium or vitamin C.

Setting Yourself Up for Dieting Success

It’s January – when hundreds of thousands of us will be going on a diet. You might be looking to lose those few extra pounds that you put on over Christmas. Or perhaps you’ve got a longer journey ahead, and you’re determined that 2010 will be the year when you finally succeed in getting down to a healthy weight.

My jeans are fitting a little too snugly at the moment, after gaining a few pounds through a combination of busyness, slipping out of my usual exercise routine, and enjoying a bit too much of my mum and grandma’s cooking over the holiday period! I’ve been preparing myself for success – and here’s how you can too, however much weight you need to lose.

What’s Your Reason This Season?

If you are like many people across the world, you are planning a New Year’s resolution to begin in just a few days. And if you are like thousands of others, it probably has something to do with weight loss. And, if you’re like most of them, you’ve probably done this before, and at some point a few weeks into the year you’ve given up in hopeless frustration. Why is it so hard to stick with our plan to lose weight? One reason might, of course, be the plan itself. Another reason to consider–maybe it wasn’t so important for you to lose weight.

What Do You Need to Cut Out of Your Life?

Many of us spend the New Year period taking stock: often making resolutions to do better with our diets, to stick to our healthy eating, to take up exercise, and perhaps also to achieve particular goals in personal or career projects.

What we don’t always consider is what we might need to cut out of our lives. Somehow, we end up forgetting that we only have 24 hours in a day – and that we have a limited amount of energy and attention.

If you’re going to see real dieting success next year, what do you need to cut out of your life?

Your Gift This Season

photo credit: Axel Bührmann

During the holidays we are so busy running around to find those perfect gifts for the kids, our parents, our friends, and other loved ones. This season, stop for a moment and consider giving a gift to yourself, specifically to your body.

I encourage you to take some time this week to stop a few times during the day and think about what your body would ask for if it could. Perhaps some more sleep? A nice tall glass of cool, clear water? Maybe a little walk to stretch the muscles and get the heart beating a bit.  How about some fresh fruit for fiber, vitamins, and antioxidants!

Getting Into Great Dieting Habits

Much of what we do each day is habit … and that covers our eating and exercising as well as the rest of our lives. If you always skip breakfast, that’s a habit. If you always eat a donut at 11am, that’s a habit too. And if you end up getting take out most evenings – despite resolving to cook – guess what? Yup … it’s a habit.

The good news is, you’ve probably already got some good dieting habits – and you can build on these to create a simple set of habits which will lead you onwards to success. Sounds good? Here are the three steps you need.

Is Your Job Making You Fat?

Have you piled on the pounds in recent years? Do you have a sedentary job which involves a tedious commute through traffic, and sitting at a desk for most of the day? Many of us do – and our jobs have a big influence on our health.

Here are four different aspects of your job which could be making you fat – and what to do about them.

Getting Through the Winter Without Gaining Weight

Do you put on weight every single winter? Many of us find that our weight creeps up over November and December, with Thanksgiving and Christmas merging the early winter into a holiday from our diet … and then those January resolutions last all of a week.

Here’s how to get through the winter without gaining weight, despite the twin dangers of cold weather and Christmas.

(Apologies to those of you in the southern hemisphere: hopefully the Christmas tips will help, and you can use the cold weather ones in six months’ time…)

Five “Do”s and “Don’t”s to Help a Friend Who’s Dieting

Perhaps you’re a seasoned and successful dieter … or even someone who hasn’t ever needed to diet. Even if you’re not currently on a diet yourself, the chances are, you know someone who’s is: here in the UK, 37% of women claim to be on a diet “most of the time”.

If you have a friend, relative or colleague who’s dieting, how can you help them?

(Psst – if you are dieting yourself, how about emailing this article to your friends and family? You might start getting the support that you need…)

This Thanksgiving Eat Smart and Be Grateful

So many of us look forward to the Thanksgiving celebration in anticipation of a buffet of scrumptious food… and afterwards spend days regretting overeating. This year, plan ahead to eat reasonably. Enjoy the array of holiday foods but don’t overdo it. Here are some tips to get you through the day:

Fill up on the veggie platter. Most people have appetizers out for snacking until dinner is prepared. This often includes a tray of cut vegetables. Help yourself to carrots, cauliflower, celery, radishes and other raw vegetables. Just go light on the dip. The fiber and water in the crudites will help fill you up so you aren’t starving by the time dinner is served.

How Other People Affect Your Diet

When you go on a diet, you might see it as an intensely personal matter: your weight – and your weight loss – is your business, not anyone else’s. While this is true, it’s also true that other people can have a significant effect on whether or not your diet is likely to succeed.

These are three key ways in which your friends, family and even strangers might be affecting your diet…