The beginning of a new year brings resolutions galore of losing weight and getting healthy. Sound familiar? Deprivation diets abound and a couple weeks later they are abandoned. The journey to weight loss and better health shouldn't be one of the worst experiences of your life. Here's a few key ideas that can help you achieve your goals and make lifetime changes with no crash diet.
1. Keep hydrated.
Are you drinking water? Getting properly hydrated will make a huge difference to your weight loss efforts. In fact, every function in your body is influenced by the quantity and quality of the water your drink.
How much? Drink 6-18 cups of water each day. A good rule of thumb is to drink half your body weight in ounces each day.
Start your day right by drinking lemon water: 2 cups of lukewarm filtered water with the freshly squeezed juice from ½ lemon. It helps cleanse the digestive system, ignite your metabolism, buffer excess acids and flush the cellular toxins that have been released during the night. This is especially awesome first thing upon waking.
Wanna be a water ninja? While drinking simple lemon water is amazing for you, you can take it even further. Add a pinch of sea or Himalayan salt to your glass. Why? It will lower the surface tension of the water allowing it to penetrate your cells even better. When the water can get into your cells, the toxins can get flushed out. Translation: weight loss. Pretty cool, huh?
2. Go GREEN!
There are thousands upon thousands of phytochemicals in greens. Phytochemicals are a fancy word for plant nutrients that are available by simply eating greens. A lab cannot create these. You cannot buy these in a pill. They are the magic that will change your health and life. The more greens that you add to your daily diet the better. Make a salad with a variety of greens. Be creative and regularly mix and match different varieties so your body can take advantage of a large array of nutrients. Throw a variety of greens into a daily smoothie. One of my favorite authors, Dr. Joel Fuhrman advocates eating a pound of greens daily. This may seem like a lot, and it is, but if you're eating salads at meals and stuffing your smoothies with greens it is not unreachable. It's a nice goal to have regardless of whether you are able to meet it every day. I can speak from experience that I felt a profound improvement in my health (and shed pounds) when I made eating greens a high priority.
3. Eliminate or Reduce Processed foods
This is a big one, I know. Don't throw in the towel. Focus on at least reducing the amount of processed foods in your diet. I could go on and on about this, but I will state it as simply as possible. If you can buy it in a box on the shelf at the store there's a really good chance it is garbage to your body. That is blunt but it is true. Always look at the ingredient list. Ask yourself, "Are these ingredients simple and clear?" Pay especially close attention to the top 3 ingredients. Were the ingredients created in a laboratory? Are there more than a handful of ingredients? Can you pronounce each ingredient and tell a friend what it is? If not, it is likely not good for you. The sad fact is that lab created ingredients (i.e. fructose corn syrups) and foods have a negative impact on your body. Your body will treat the processed ingredients like foreign invaders and will struggle to get the nutrition from them despite the claims on the package.
I ate processed foods much of my life and still do on occasion. I will always be honest about that. The world we live in makes it really hard to ALWAYS avoid processed foods. I do my best. I'm not perfect and I'm okay with that. My favorite motto that helps me to keep this in balance is "When you eat good most of the time, it's okay to eat bad some of the time."
Eliminating or at least significantly reducing processed foods from your diet will have a positive impact on your health, especially when combined with the other simple ideas.
4. Adding in/Crowding Out Philosophy
Take it slowly! Here's a great philosophy that is gentle and practical: When you add in the good, you crowd out the bad. For example, I used to eat a waffle for breakfast. I realized that eating waffles was not helping me lose the weight. So I added in a morning smoothie. I didn't tell myself that I couldn't eat waffles. I never put that pressure on myself; however, my nutritious smoothie was very filling and easily got me through the morning hours until lunch. I had crowded out the waffle without even trying, without going on a diet or even feeling deprived. I knew I could eat a waffle again anytime so I never had to "miss" it. See how it works? Diets are for the birds! Just add in the good and you'll crowd out the bad.
One last note: DO NOT GIVE UP! It is okay to get discouraged. It's okay to have a bad day, to fall off the "wagon". It's OK! Don't expect perfection! View your journey as an experiment. Work at it and seek others that will support and be excited with you!
Lily Gold is a holistic health counselor and David Wolfe Raw Nutrition certified. Visit her website for free recipes, newsletters, resources, and an invitation for a free consultation. http://www.segolilynutrition.com/. You may also visit her on http://www.facebook.com/SegolilyNutrition.
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