Your Weight Training Diet Starts in the Supermarket

Article by Catherine McCloud

Your Weight Training Diet Starts in the Supermarket – Health – Weight Loss

Search by Author, Title or Content

Article ContentAuthor NameArticle Title

Home
Submit Articles
Author Guidelines
Publisher Guidelines
Content Feeds
RSS Feeds
FAQ
Contact Us

The best way to keep junk from appearing on your plate is to keep it out of the house. I know I don’t have the willpower to resist chocolate or garlic bread or some of my other weaknesses once I can smell them in the house. It might seem overly mundane, but improving your grocery shopping can have a positive effect on your fitness goals. Here are some tips to improve your shopping and thus your eating:

1. Don’t Shop Hungry

Plan to do your grocery shopping immediately after eating a meal. Boy is it ever easy to give in to some bad purchases when you are hungry. Arm yourself by shopping on a full stomach.

2. Stick to Your List

When you create your list you are actively thinking about what you NEED. It’s another topic entirely about which items you should add to your list and which you should avoid, but if it didn’t make it on to your list when you were at home, then you must not really need it. Stores are designed to get people to buy things they don’t need… everything from the layout of the store, to the placement of products, to packaging. None of that is arbitrary, and once you are in the store you will not be able to make unbiased decisions about what you actually need anymore. Which is where your pre-approved list comes into importance. If its not on your list, don’t let it into your cart when you are at the store.

3. Explore Other Options

Companies pay good money to have their products placed at your eye-level. Take some time to explore what is a few rows up and a few rows below; you might find that you weren’t necessarily getting the healthiest option. As a kid I would only eat plain chicken that was baked so much it could be pulled into strings. I think this “string chicken” drove my mom nuts, and I gag at the thought now. Another way to expand your options is to explore new foods and new recipes. With the internet you don’t have to limit yourself to just your Grandmother’s recipe box anymore. Make an effort to try a few new healthy recipes and new food types.

4. Read the Labels

Now that you are looking at more options, you will want to read the labels to be sure you are picking the healthiest option. In the beginning this could be a pain, I admit. Over time though, you will know what is what and will need to do this less. Of course, one of the best ways to avoid reading labels is to avoid buying things with labels and therefore sticking with vegetables, fruits, etc, but that is another topic. For instance sugar is rarely written simply as sugar, and is often hidden under names such as high-fructose corn syrup, malt syrup, maltodextrin, any many others.

5. Resist Bargains and Sales

Who doesn’t love a good sale? We’re programmed to buy things that are marked “on sale”… probably even to the point of disregarding whether the price is actually discounted beyond the usual price or not. Unfortunately in the grocery store, reduced price very often equates itself to reduced quality. Go back to your list! You can save money by planning your purchases for when things are on sale, but ignoring your list just because something is on sale can be dangerous to your diet. Once it gets into your house it is most likely to get eaten, and you are just setting yourself up for failure. This is doubly damaging if you decide to “stock up” on sale items that aren’t on your list. If something can last in the pantry for months you have to wonder just how healthy it is for you.

I hope these tips will help you become a smarter food shopper. Protect your grocery cart and protect your diet.

About the Author

If you are liked these tips then check out the free fat-loss report at MyBellyFatLossSecrets for 27 unique methods that will boost your metabolism and help you lose that belly fat.

Use and distribution of this article is subject to our Publisher Guidelines
whereby the original author’s information and copyright must be included.

Catherine McCloud

RSS Feed

Report Article

Publish Article

Print Article

Add to Favorites

Article Directory
About
FAQ
Contact Us
Advanced Search
Privacy Statement
Disclaimer

GoArticles.com © 2012, All Rights Reserved.

Detox: Healthy Living Starts From Within

Article by Thomas Jane

In my early 20s, I was fortunate to bag the job-of-a-lifetime! I plan events, TV commercials and photo shoots for magazines — yes, basically I rub elbows with celebrities and up-and-coming stars. The glamour and thrill of advertising was priceless, but I had sacrificed a lot of things including holidays and vacations, sleep, and my health. The fast-paced environment of the industry was taxing; food were my ways of coping. But then I wasn’t eating right. That’s where the problem starts.

I have an erratic eating pattern. I sometimes eat one meal in a day; yes, I consider coffee as my meal. Because with the kind of work I am in, who has the time to indulge in a 30-minute break? Sometimes, I binge in weird places and times. Sometimes I eat walking my way to a meeting, while waiting for a taxi cab, while working on my laptop, etc.

So you see the way I lived my life then is quite stressed out and toxic.

When I started working, I lost a lot of weight. You could say that I got slimmer, but if you’d weigh me down the scale I was underweight. Then I got pregnant. Then I gave birth. Then I stayed at home to become a work-at-home mom. Then came another problem: post-pregnancy weight and the effects of sitting for long hours in front of a computer.

I tried almost all types of diets and bought all kinds of slimming products from slimming teas to slimming coffees and slimming pills to get me back in shape, but none of them worked on me completely. I’d loose a couple of centimeters and shed some pounds, but it goes back again when I start pigging out — especially on holidays.

Exercise outdoors, yes, but never on a gym. But it is not the same as it used to. I cannot go anywhere as I please as I have parenting duties, household chores, and work to mind.

In a holiday reunion with my family last year I saw my cousin, who could pass as a contestant for The Biggest Lose, and whoa — he really lost the weight. So we talked and I learned through him the wonder of detox diets.

I got home and googled it.

According to Linda Page, N.D., Ph.D., a naturopathic doctor, lecturer, and author of the book Detoxification, “Detoxification is a normal body process of eliminating or neutralizing toxins through the colon, liver, kidneys, lungs, lymph glands, and skin,” she writes in her book. “Just as our hearts beat nonstop and our lungs breathe continuously, so our metabolic processes continuously dispose of accumulated toxic matter.”

The general idea suggests that detox diets can involve consuming extremely limited foods (water or juice only) or eliminating certain foods from the diet (like Atkins Diet) thereby resulting to cause the body to burn or secret accumulated stored fats and toxins.

Page recommends that if you feel “congested” from too much food — or the wrong kinds of food — you may want to detoxify. If your energy level is low, if you have been taking many medications that have not been eliminated from your system, or you feel bloated with all the foods and beverages you’ve taken on weekdays, a weekend detox may help you feel better.

So, I started to change my lifestyle. I embarked on a green lifestyle and embraced anything organic. I could never be a Vegan because I still need lean meat in my life, but still eating vegetables are a must.

Now, I am doing daily reps of Cardio and Pilates exercises and healthy diet (6 meals a day in small portions; I make sure that I take at least 2 liters of water a day (water therapy — the best detox ever!), eat fresh fruits and veggies, and have my Wheatgrass Juice Diet on weekends.

Aside from my exercise and diet regimens, I make sure that I indulge in wellness activities like going to the day spa for a massage therapy and meditations to aide detoxing.

Indeed, detoxing is not just about secreting toxins inside the body but also relieving ourselves with negative emotional baggage.

And just what Deepak Chopra said, “The way you think, the way you behave, the way you eat, can influence your life by 30 to 50 years.”