Beauty & Health Tips

There are foods that can boost your weight loss program and are super for you.  Include them in your diet as often as possible—try to add at least two or three each day to your daily menu.

Here are 10 “superfoods” to help you lose weight and feel great:

Tomatoes: very low in calories, source of vitamin A, C and antioxidants.  Use cooked and raw.  Try halved tomatoes sprinkled with parmesan cheese and broiled until cheese melts.

Salmon:  the super fish, heavy in omega 3 fatty acids, protein and calcium, Vitamin D and B.  Grilled, baked or sautéed, serve over a bed of brown rice with a squeeze of lemon juice.

Green tea: metabolism booster, rich in antioxidants.  Try iced or hot. Green tea can be mixed with black tea if you don’t care for the taste. Add a sprig of mint or lemon for variety.

Broccoli: high in fiber, folate vitamins A and C, low in calories.  Stir fry broccoli with garlic and scallions with a splash of soy sauce for an oriental treat.

Apples:  An apple before each meal helps you lose weight.  High in pectin and fiber so you feel full longer.  Bake apples with the center filled with walnuts and a sprinkle of brown sugar.

Spinach:  Popeye was right about spinach but the fresh kind not the canned kind.  High in antioxidants, vitamins A, K, B and C.  Dress a raw spinach salad with olive oil and vinegar dressing.  Add a sliced hard boiled egg and you almost have a perfect meal.

Walnuts:  source of protein, healthy fat and fiber.  Add chopped walnuts to yogurt to boost the protein and add some fiber.  Or to cooked brown rice for a bit of crunch.  Other nuts to try include almonds and hazelnuts.

Oats:  the long cooking kind takes only 5 minutes and is a better source of fiber than quick cooking.  Oats have been shown to decrease cholesterol.  Oats are not just for breakfast add them to meatloaf or meat balls for extra fiber.

Blueberries: the miracle berry, full of vitamins and antioxidants.  Blueberries in a salad are an extra treat. Add a handful of blueberries in the blender with a fruit smoothie.

Garlic:  great for cooking and for your health.  Reduces cholesterol and blood pressure.  Garlic mellows considerably when cooked.  Throw several cloves into the water when you’re making pasta then smash and add to the sauce.

Just for fun—heres’ a menu which uses all of the superfoods.

Grilled salmon served with broccoli.  Spinach salad, cherry tomatoes with garlic dressing.  Sliced apple compote with blueberries baked with oats and walnuts.  Iced green tea.

When you look in the mirror, do you like what you see?  If you’re like many people, you have unwanted and unsightly belly fat.  And when it comes to your health and happiness, belly fat loss can make a dramatic improvement in your life.

Take a look at your body and if you have excess belly fat, it’s time to weigh the benefits of belly fat loss.  You’ll be glad you took the steps necessary to improve your waistline and your health. 

So, what are YOUR reasons for losing the belly fat?

Whether you’re trying to lose weight or just wanting to maintain your sleek physique, boosting your metabolism to a higher rate is always a good idea. There are several ways to give your metabolism an extra push—including exercising early in the day—but eating can also be a factor in its elevation.

Increasing your metabolism means your body burns calories at a higher rate. So if your metabolism is high, it’s burning calories even when you aren’t working hard at the gym. A sluggish metabolism can cause you to gain weight, because you’re consuming more than your body is burning.

Here are 7 ways to boost your metabolism, so you can burn fat fast:

Tom Venuto – The Fat Loss Guru is a natural bodybuilder, certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) and a certified personal trainer (CPT). I’ve learned so much from Tom through his Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle Program. No hype, no gimmicks — Tom shoots straight from the hip, and tells you the truth about fat loss. Listen up as he shares his favorite fat burning foods…

Anytime the topic of discussion in my blogs, articles or newsletters has turned to my own personal grocery shopping list, there has always been a spike in interest. It seems that many people are not only curious about what foods a natural bodybuilder eats to maintain single digit body fat, but they also want to be taken by the hand and told exactly what foods to eat themselves while on fat-burning or muscle building programs. That’s why I decided to put together four separate “top 10″ lists of healthy foods that burn fat and build muscle.

Exact quantities and menus are not listed, just the individual foods, and of course my food intake does vary. I aim to get as many different varieties of fruits and vegetables as possible over the course of every week and there are a lot of substitutions made, so you are not seeing the full list of everything I eat, only what foods I eat most of the time.

I also want to point out that while I don’t believe that extreme low carbs are necessary or most effective when you look at the long term, research has shown that there are some definite advantages to a low to moderate carb and higher protein diet for fat loss purposes. These include reduced appetite, higher thermic effect of food and “automatic” calorie control.

Personally, I reduce my carb intake moderately and temporarily prior to bodybuilding competitions. Specifically, it’s the foods that are on the starchy carbs and grains list that go down during the brief pre-competition period when I’m working on that really “ripped” look. I keep the green and fibrous veggie intake very high however, along with large amounts of lean protein, small amounts of fruit, and adequate amounts of essential fats.

This list reflects my personal preferences, so this is not a prescription to all readers to eat as I do. It’s very important for compliance to choose foods you enjoy and to have the option for a wide variety of choices. In the past several years, nutrition and obesity research – in studying ALL types of diets – has continued to conclude that almost any hypocaloric diet that is not completely “moronic” can work, at least in the short term.

It’s not so much about the high carb – low carb argument or any other debate as much as it is about calorie control and compliance. The trouble is, restricted diets and staying in a calorie deficit is difficult, so most people can’t stick with any program and they fall off the wagon, whichever wagon that may be.

I believe that a lot of our attention needs to shift away from pointless debates (for example, low carb vs. high carb is getting really old… so like… get over it everyone, its a calorie deficit that makes you lose weight, not the amount of carbs).

Instead, our focus should shift towards these questions:

Here’s one good answer: Eat a wide variety of high nutrient density, low calorie density foods that you enjoy which still fit within healthy, fat-burning, muscle-building guidelines!

Here are the lists of foods I choose to achieve these three outcomes. This eating plan is not difficult to stick with at all, by the way. I enjoy eating like this and it feels almost weird not to eat like this after doing it for so long.

Remember, habits work in both directions, and as motivational speaker Jim Rohn has said, “Bad habits are easy to form and hard to live with and good habits are hard to form but easy to live with.”

These are listed in the order I frequently consume them. So for example, if oatmeal is on the top of the list, it means that is the food I am most likely to eat every single day.

My 10 top natural starchy carb and whole grains

1. Oatmeal (old fashioned)
2. Yams
3. Brown rice (a favorite is basmati, a long grain aromatic rice)
4. Sweet potatoes (almost same as yams)
5. Multi grain hot cereal (mix or barley, oats, rye. titricale and a few others)
6. White potatoes
7. 100% whole wheat bread
8. 100% whole wheat pasta
9. Beans (great for healthy chili recipes)
10. Cream of rice hot cereal

My Top 10 top vegetables

1. Broccoli
2. Asparagus
3. Spinach
4. Salad greens
5. Tomatoes
6. Peppers (green, red or yellow)
7. Onions
8. Mushrooms
9. Cucumbers
10. Zucchini

My top 10 lean proteins

1. Egg whites (whole eggs in limited quantities)
2. Whey or Casein protein (protein powder supplements)
3. Chicken Breast
4. Salmon (wild Alaskan)
5. Turkey Breast
6. Top round steak (grass fed beef)
7. Flank Steak (grass fed beef)
8. Lean Ground Turkey
9. Bison/Buffalo
10. Trout

My top 10 fruits

1. Grapefruit
2. Apples
3. Blueberries
4. Canteloupe
5. Oranges
6. Bananas
7. Peaches
8. Grapes
9. Strawberries
10. Pineapple

Note: I DO include healthy fats as well, such as walnuts, almonds, extra virgin olive oil, flaxseeds, flaxseed oil (supplement – not to cook with), avocado and a few others.

Also, I do eat dairy products and have nothing against them, nor am I lactose intolerant. I simply don’t eat as much dairy as the rest of the stuff on my lists. When I eat dairy, its usually skim milk, low or non fat cottage cheese, low or non fat yogurt and low or non fat cheese (great for omelettes).

Last but not least, I usually follow a compliance rate of about 95%, which means I take two or three meals per week of whatever I want (stuff that is NOT on these lists – like pizza, sushi, big fatty restaurant steaks, etc)

I hope you found this helpful and interesting. Keep in mind, this is MY food list, and although you probably couldn’t go wrong to emulate it, you need to choose natural foods you enjoy in order to develop habits you can stick with long term. In the fruits and vegetables categories alone, there are hundreds of other choices out there, so enjoy them all!

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) and a certified personal trainer (CPT). Tom is the creator of the “Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle Program,” which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using methods of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: www.burnthefat.com

Looking for ways to get slim naturally? If you want to lose weight, but don’t want to take diet pills or follow some ridiculous diet (cabbage, anyone?), you need to learn how people can get slim naturally, without much effort.

If you have to spend too much time to lose weight, you’re likely to give up and go back to your regular habits because they are easier. The key to losing weight and keeping it off is to learn the little tricks that make losing weight easy. Take a look at these seven simple ways to get slim naturally (say that 10 times fast!): 1. Eat five times a day, starting with breakfast. Many people try to skip breakfast, thinking that they are saving themselves some calories. This rarely works—they end up overeating at other times of the day. In the morning, your body has gone without food for several hours while you were sleeping. It needs that energy to get started. By eating five small meals each day, starting with breakfast, you’ll stoke the fires of your metabolism, making it easier to lose weight.

See: Calories Per Meal Calculator

2. Drink more water. Surprisingly, many people reach for food when their body is actually thirsty. Water also helps your body to flush things out, helping you get slim. Drink at least 8 bottles of water per day and try to drink more if you are particularly active or it is a hot day. This will keep you hydrated.

See:  7 Reasons To Give Water the Respect It Deserves

3. Grab a piece of fruit. Before you leave your house, be sure to take an apple or banana with you. When you’re out and about, you may not have access to healthy snacks when you get hungry. This could lead you straight to the drive-through. However, if you have a piece of fruit with you, you’ll have something to hold you over until you get home.

4. Eat slowly and stop eating before you feel full. Your brain can take up to 20 minutes to realize that your stomach is full. Because of this, you should make sure to stop eating before you eat too much. It helps if you eat slowly instead of scarfing down a full meal in 5 minutes.

See:  You Need to Slow Down to Lose Weight

5. Watch your portion sizes. Eating too much can negatively affect your plans to lose weight. When you don’t watch how much you eat, you’ll gain weight instead of losing it. People that stay naturally slim eat smaller portions.

6. Don’t drink your calories. Whether your poison is energy drinks, lattes, sugary sodas, or even juice, beverages can contain a lot of calories and they don’t make you full. Swap these out for low- or no-calorie beverages and you’ll get slim naturally.

See:  How Liquid Calories May Be Making You Fat 

7. Eat cake. Or chocolate. Or potato chips. Whatever “bad” snack is your favorite, it’s OK to eat it sometimes, in normal sized portions. Naturally slim people allow themselves a few indulgences because they know that this tends to prevent the overindulging that occurs when you deprive yourself.