This Is So Much Easier Than You Think!

There isn’t a diet plan out there that doesn’t restrict your diet in one way or another. 

Everywhere you look companies are trying to sell you prepackaged food plans or tell you to work out hours a day. But this one tip can save you SOOO many hours on the treadmill and make weight loss planning nearly effortless.

Sounds Way Too Good To Be True!

I know this sounds way too good to be true. Most of you have probably heard this first sentence many times before. And truthfully many people already expect me to recommend some amazing new magical pill that has no FDA approval or actual science supporting it.

BUT Seriously I AM NOT!

The simple FREE tip is watch a couple youtube videos and practice a few healthy recipes. I know there is going to be the excuse that I’m no cook. But you don’t have to be a cook to make great food. You just need minimal practice, for real like try it once or twice.

Why Is This The Number One Tip?

An all too common excuse for many (I should know, I use to use this one) is that healthy food tastes terrible. I have family members relate anything even hinting a food is healthy as rabbit food. First I want to say that yes salads can be fantastic for weight loss and if you love them, then super awesome. When made correctly they can be healthy and very filling. And secondly, salads ARE NOT the only healthy food. 

What Should Be My First Step?

I know that there are many places out there that love to give you a fantastic tip and just sort a leaves you hanging. In other words it would be equivalent to me saying “A Great Tip To Lose Weight Is To Eat Healthy, Good Luck!” Or “Buy Our Small Portion Prepackaged Food And You’ll Lose Weight”. But, saying this is pretty unhelpful and just not cool. But, here we are going to go over a few of my favorite meals and snacks. 

Meal #1

This is one of those foods that many people completely love and many just totally hate.

We are going to go over Meal #1 a bit more than the others to explain a couple things to look for in your foods. 

Eggs

Yes, one of my favorite meal/snack is a bacon omelet. Seriously a bacon omelet can be considered healthy and even healthier if you were to kick the bacon. But, for me the bacon  really makes the omelet a satisfying meal that can serve as a complete meal or just hold you over to your next meal.

Portion

It has become a meme all on its own that healthy eating always means that you have to practically starve your self. But, here is where most are wrong. You can eat an omelet big enough to serve as dinner and still be way under 200 calories(seriously).

What Kind Of Eggs?

There are a few types of eggs out there and you are going to hear many conflicting answers. First we will cover some of the facts and then I’ll give my opinion on the debate of whole eggs vs egg whites. This information is available on just about any product available. Even restaurants have this information usually on their websites, or all you have to do is simply google what ever you’re eating. 

Whole Eggs VS Egg Whites

Which Should I Pick?

As you can see there are pretty big differences between whole eggs and egg whites. Because Carbs are not too far from one another, we are going to skip over this. Let’s focus on Total Fat, Protein, and Calories. 

Again We are going to go over this a bit more in Meal #1 just so you can see the process and replicate it yourself. 

Total Fats

Here you will get a few people reccommeding whole eggs over egg whites because whole eggs contain more good fats. Before we dive into this here. Just understand that there are good fats and bad fats. The body does require fats to function proper and has many health benefits ranging from helping your cholesterol to just being healthy for your heart. But, Then there are bad fats. These are at the fats that you should really avoid. These fats are the ones that get all the ugly attention because not only do they raise your bad cholesterol but the lower the HDL (good cholesterol). These can really increase your risks to many health risks ranging from heat disease to even increasing your risks to diabetes. 

So there is a trade off for going with the egg whites. While you do miss out on the good fats you also avoid the bad fats. 

Quick Tip

Again this is available on almost any food container and online.

Good Fats

• • Monounsaturated and Polyunsaturated Fats

Bad Fats

• • Trans Fat and Saturated Fats

The Argument

Some may argue that the healthy fats in eggs are worth consuming the unhealthy fats. But, if healthy fats are what your looking for you can simply look for them in foods that contain the healthy fats like just about any nut (pecans, almonds, peanuts, macadamia, chews and hazelnuts). And these are a great way to get these healthy fats. 

+1 Win for Egg Whites

Calories & Protein

These sort of go together because of the argument. But, let’s start with the protein. It is very important to get plenty of protein in your diet especially when you are losing weight and working out. Making sure consume enough protein during working our will help build muscle. And, during weight loss protein will help prevent muscle loss.

The Argument

You have probably heard this argument. But, people argue that if you don’t consume the egg yolk that you’re losing protein. Granted that when you subtract the egg yolk you will have have less protein. But, when you really measure the amount of protein, you will find that egg whites don’t fall far behind whole eggs. 

Now let’s include calories to the argument. If your goal was to consume more protein while lowering your calories. You will now find that egg whites contain about 2.58 times more protein for the amount of calories. This becomes much more helpful in being able to eat more while keeping your calorie count low. 

My opinion

I really believe that egg whites are a great option over whole eggs. Any way you look at it the low calorie count in egg white and still containing ample protein allows you to eat enough with out over doing it on calories. 

Now For The Tip!

I know the above was a bit long but I wanted to explain it enough so that you can really replicate the decision on other food comparisons that you may have. 

But now for that tip. You have heard that they’re plenty of ways to cook an egg and all you have to do is find one way that you like. With egg whites missing the yellow color you’re going to be a bit more limited on the way you can cook them but there are still plenty of ways. I have seen many people say that they hate eggs and when I saw them try and make them I saw the giant FLAW. They just didn’t really know how to cook them. They over over cooked them so much that it nearly impossible to like them. It was more of a brownish rubbery frisbee. But, simply taking a few minutes to look at different ways of making a healthy food can show you many more possibilities.

Just a Few Examples

• • Simple Scrambled Egg Whites
    • You can mike just about anything in them. A strip of bacon at about 40 calories cut up can add a new texture and give you that more satisfying full meal feeling. 
  • Omelts
    • This is just fancy scrambled eggs. You can really just throw anything in to help make a simple omelet into a full satisfying meal. 
  • Stir Frys
    • You can add egg to these to help bulk up a a good stir fry for minimal calories. 

Meal #1 Conclusion

As you can see the long answer to meal #1 was that you should really give egg whites a try. They are healthy, low in calories, and contain a significant amount of protein to calories. I like to use the liquid egg whites that come in a container. This makes this meal super easy to make and no waste from dumping egg yolks.

Prepared my way

Heres my favorite.

• • 2 slices of bacon (about 80 calories)
  • About 1/2 cup of egg whites (about 133 calories)
    • Some people have asked that if I separate the egg whites from yolks. So here is a link to the egg whites at walmart. You can find these in one brand or another in just about any supermarket. Look for the 100% egg whites.
      • Link to Walmart

I cook the two strips of bacon till I get the texture (crunchy). In the same pan I let the pan cool slightly and add the egg whites on low to medium heat. I then add salt, pepper, and bits of bacon to the egg whites. 

Quick Tip!

If you use a smaller pan you will get more of a fluffy omelet. A large pan will make more of an egg pancake.

Meal #2

Here in Meal # 2 I am going to go over a great breakfast option that literally takes you less than 2 minutes to make. There are plenty “shakes” that can pack over 220 calories in just 8 oz and contain enough sugar to compete with the foods we know we should be avoiding.

This is really my favorite snack. It is a fresh banana smoothie that has 82.5 calories per 8 oz and rivals those that can pack many 100’s of calories more. 

All the Ingredients

• • 1/2 Banna per smoothie (52.5 calories)
  • Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk (30 Calories)

Preparation

This is really one of the easies recipes out there. And, because this smoothie doesn’t use any ice. The perfect smoothie texture lasts much longer and doesn’t separate.

• • Slice up fresh bananas in about 1/4 slices and freeze in a ziplock bag. 
    • It is important to cut them up prior to freezing, it will alter the texture and flavor.
      • I like to just slice up the whole bunch at once and put it all in a bag.
      • Tip!
        • Don’t place too much in one bag. This way you can just simply break off how much banana you want.(it separates in a bag much easier than a container)
  • Simply place about 1/2 a banana per 8 oz of unsweetened vanilla almond milk in a blender. 
    • You will find that the banana will add plenty of sweetness to this smoothie.
    • But I have found this ratio of 1/2 banana to 8 oz of unsweetened vanilla almond milk to be the best. 
  • Here is what I use
    • This is blender I use. I use the small blending cup that comes with the blender
      • Ninja Professional Counter Top Blender
    • This is the milk that I use
      • Almond Breeze Almond Milk.

Meal #2 Conclusion

If you try this smoothie and like it, you will find that you can have plenty of sweet drinks with out all the calories and sugars. Because of the low calories and the ability for it to matin its texture for long periods of time this is a great option for snacks and on the go treats. 

Meal # 3

This is my favorite dinner. I can just about eat this everyday. 

When you hear about healthy food you usually don’t expect to hear the word fried with it. But, this is truly an awesome dinner option. 

I know that most people have already heard about air fryers and I have to say that I love mine. I have had my first air fryer for over a year and now that I found a new one it is just soooooooo much better.

Breaded chicken steaks air fried with a serving of brown rice is my favorite dinner. This is where this Number one tip of learning how to make good healthy food is so important. I will admit that I still need to use a cheap food temperature probe that is nearly 4 years old to make my dinner. Leaving your chicken steaks in the air fryer even just for 3 minutes to long will give you a chicken steak that you will probably never want again. But, a properly cooked one can give you a healthy alternative .

Ingredients

• • Chicken Breast Steaks (about 5oz each)
    • I find thicker steaks cook much better in the air fryer
  • Brown Rice 

Preparation and Cooking

• • Bread the chicken steaks 
  • Place the Breaded chicken steaks in a single layer with space between them on the wire rack in the air fryer
  • Place the temperature probe in the thickest part of the chicken steak
    • Make sure this probe can go in the fryer. 
  • Cook the chicken steaks till the temperature reaches at least 165 degrees fahrenheit.
    • Make sure you do not over cook. You will find that as soon as the temperature goes over 170 degrees Fahrenheit, your steaks will become chewy and just not good. 
      • The reason why the temperature probe is so important 

Here are the Air Friers that I have used

Power XL 8 QT Family Sized Air Fryer

I have used this air fryer for over 2 yeas and it has been great. It cooks my food fantastically and even though I use it several times a week it has held up well. The fact that I know that this fryer has lasted well over two years and has never given me an issue. I wouldn’t saying that this is a great purchase. But, if you asked me. I would so recommend my new air fryer. It is much less expensive and many times more versatile. 

Now that I have had the chance to try a new air fryer I will admit that this is so many times better than my last air fryer. I find it so much more usable and its actually less expensive. I will admit this one is a bit bigger and does take up more counter space. But It actually serve as an oven. It makes tombstone pizzas better and quicker on the regular bake mode!

Farberware Air Fryer Toaster Oven

I don’t recommend ever abusing a stores return policy. But, this is from Walmart and they have an awesome return policy. If you don’t like it simply return it for a FULL refund.

When using an air fryer it is a great idea to buy a food temperature probe. It is so easy to over cook food and completely ruin  your meal. But perfectly cooked air fried food is just awesome. 

Remember Your Food Thermometer!

This is the food thermometer I have used

Taylor Digital Wired Probe

Conclusion

The simplest tip for weight loss is simply learning how to cook great meals. Even something that is as easy as cooking scrambled eggs can taste so much better when done correctly. You don’t have to be a cooke to cook healthy food that tastes great. 

Here Are Some Other Interesting Articles

• Best Banana Smoothie!
• Why Am I Not Losing Wight?
• How Fast Can I Lose Weight?
• How Many Calories Should I eat?
• Awesome Healthy Snack At Work!

The post The Number One Tip On How To Lose Weight! appeared first on Just Live Simply.

I really think that the fact that Oreos and Coke are far from healthy is something that many of us can agree is true. But, let’s really look at “junk food” in general. You may have many times com across instances that you have been limited by yourself or by a parent to the amount of junk food you can eat. But, if we are drinking our sugar packed fizzy drinks how much does limiting our other junk foods help?

I use to To one of the millions of people out there that enjoy their favorite sugar pack fizzy drinks all the time. But ,when I finally to really start to pay attention to my weight and health I was surprised as to just how much sugar is packed into our everyday foods.

The Bitter Truth

Here in this post we are going to stick with two extremely well known unhealthy treats that are very far from being healthy. Oreos and Coke are extremely popular all over the world and we all know that these two should really be limited in our everyday diets. But, just how bad are they?

The Numbers 

I know there are a ton of people out there that can go through en entire 2 liter of Coke a day, I should really know because I use to be one of them years back. But, when you look at these numbers you should know that Coke isn’t the only unhealthy drink out there. The only reason I use it, is that everyone knows it. Many of the prepackaged sweet drinks available can be just as unhealthy and in some cases significantly more unhealthy than Coke. So, it is a good practice to really look at the grams of sugar and calories in your drinks. Just so that we can understand and picture quantities: 4 grams of sugar equals about one teaspoon of white processed granulated sugar.

What about zero calorie sugar substitutes? 

We cover this briefly in another article. If you would like to read a little more about that you can read that article here. “Why Am I Not Losing Weight“. 

Oreos Vs Coke

The Facts!

Here you can see that both of these foods are extremely unhealthy. And just for comparison let’s just look at a few foods that I think just about anyone can agree are healthy. Let’s look at lettuce, blue berries, and strawberries. Yes, fruits do contain sugar and some people do have to limit even their natural sugars. But, natural sugars are far healthier than processed.

Wow!

As you can see from out second table. Junk Food can be incredibly unhealthy. 

But Let’s Get Back On Topic

Ok, we all know that healthy food are so much better than junk food. But, getting back on topic let’s look at the first chart and look at the numbers. 

Calories and Sugar!

As you can see “junk food” literally comes packed with calories. If you think about it, it’s sort of amazing that so many calories can be packed into something. The argument here in the amount of calories really depends on how much you really like Oreos and how much you enjoy your unhealthy sweet drinks. 

Limiting

When we try and look at the amount that we consume can depend mainly on how much we really enjoy the food. But, if we take two people that truly enjoy their Oreos and someone that enjoys their 2 liters. 

I’m going to use a 32 Coke here for example, because they are available at just about any fast food restaurant. I use to drink several of these a day because it felt it was just so easy.

Moderation

It really is the best to simply cut all processed sugars in your diet on or off a diet. Your body will thank you so much for doing so. You will find that your energy levels will be better. Your Skin will be healthier. And you can greatly reduce your chances at developing so many diseases from diabetes and heart disease to obesity. We have an awesome article thats worth a read. “How to Kick Sugar For Good In Just Two Weeks!“

Liquid Sweets Can Be So Much Harder To Limit!

When trying to limit something you should look at just how simple it really is to overdo it on something. I know that I love Oreos but I know that even I couldn’t eat half the pack a day. There just comes a limit that you find it easy to slow down. But when it comes to liquid sweets like soft drinks. This limiting can become much more difficult because it just so easy to keep drinking them. Let’s go over two excuses that are used way too much!

Excuse #1

I Drink A Lot of Soda Because I’m Thirsty All The Time

This is an excuse used by many that I know and that I even used. There is a difference to being thirsty and staying hydrated to just needing to have something sweet. Like it or not our bodies treat all of our sweet drinks like a drug, and every time we give in to that “thirsty” feeling. We are only giving our bodies another fix of the sweets that it so desires.  I know that there are going to be a ton of people that disagree with me here. And I will take into account just one excuse, “sort of”. There are Health conditions that do make you more thirsty, but nothing says it has to be sugar packed drinks.

Experiment

Let’s Prove Just How Thirsty You Really Are!

Side note here:

I know that it maybe hard to think of this, but our bodies have a mind of their own. I’m not talking about alter personalities. But, our bodies have the amazing ability to drastically control our conscious thoughts. How often are your hungry only because you tell your self “body be hungry” or “body, crave a can of Coke NOW!”. I have to be honest and say that I really don’t know anyone that does this. With this in mind “thirst” is the body’s way of telling you that it wants something and this usually is something to drink. And when it is rewarded with a  surgery sweet you are always thirsty.

Here you are going to see that the whole thirsty thing is just your body tricking you into wanting more sweets. 

Step 1

Get rid of all your surgery drinks. You have to at least get past this step to try this experiment. Yes it may be hard but you are proving thirsty to be just an excuse 

Step 2

Have only water. I know that people will say that they don’t like the flavor of water, and this is excuse number two that we are going to disprove. But, by only consuming water our body will have to learn that thirst is rewarded with supplying our bodies with hydration. 

Step 3

This is where it really gets hard. Don’t consume sugary drinks for three weeks and you will see that you are no where near as thirsty. If this occurs two things will happen. First, you ditched sugar! Secondly, you trained your body that  thirst means hydration and no longer just a fix of sweet. 

Excuse #2

“I Don’t Like The Taste Of Water”

This is an excuse that sort of borders passable for a few reasons. First, some water do carry a flavor and I personally find some not good tasting. Secondly, water can sort of be boring. 

These only sort of pass because water is to be used to hydrate our selves. Not because we adore the flavor and just can’t have enough of it. 

Why Don’t We Like Water?

I understand that there are plenty of reasons why we just don’t like something. I love my veggies but I just can stand spinach. Theres really no reason but it just is. But, when it comes to our sweet drinks we have to take into account of what we covered earlier. Our bodies have an amazing ability to alter or conscious thoughts. If you treat our bodies like a stubborn two year old. Water vs Sweet drinks, Water will lose.

Understanding that our bodies treat sweetness like addictive substance. Understand that the more we consume a sweet the higher tolerance we build against. This leads to us always needs just a bit more sweetness next time. But, here’s the good news we can actually reverse and change this.

Many people can actually alter their tastes away from sweets. If you can mange to cut sugar for just three weeks you will notice that your tastes will change. You will notice that foods that you use to add sugar to will need much less and drinks that you use to find not sweet enough will become too sweet. 

Conclusion

I know that it can sound over simplified to say “Just cut sugar for three weeks”. But, when you do something like this you will notice that diet planning and cutting calories in general become much easier. 

In this post I am not saying that Oreos are healthy than Coke because you can see that while just 3 Oreos can contain more calories that an entire can of Coke. But, that can of Coke contains nearly three times the amount of sugar. 

So in the end even though both of these foods are very unhealthy. Sweet drinks like juices, sweet teas, and soft drinks can make it far easier to over do it on the calories and sugar. 

Other Interesting Posts

• Awesome Healthy Snacks At Work!
• Is Sugar Bad For Me?
• How To Kick Sugar For Good In Just Two Weeks!
• How Fast Can I Lose Weight?
• Why Am I Not Losing Weight?
• How Many Calories Should I Eat?

The post Liquid Sweets Vs Junk Food! appeared first on Just Live Simply.

Always

Always consult your doctor before changing your living habits. Especially when you are trying to improve your life. You will be surprised that your doctor may even become your personal cheerleader always willing to help you. There are medical conditions that can keep you from your weight loss goals. If you feel you may have a medical condition you should talk to your doctor. You can take with you a detailed list of the exact amount of calories and what you have been eating. 

Never

Unless you are under the close supervision of a medical professional you should never try to go on ultra low calorie diets. Never starve yourself for weight loss, there are many ways to lose weight. Always live Healthy.

When dieting, the whole weight loss part of it can be incredibly frustrating specially when that number on the scale just refuses to move. But, let’s go over why. Actually finding out why you’re not losing weight may actually be so much easier than you may have thought. Some of these reasons may have seemed too obvious, but here they are. 

First Reason! (defective diet planning)

Again these reasons may just seem just way too obvious, but here’s the number one reason. 

Even though you may be trying so massively hard to eat healthy, your diet may just be defective from the start. There are hundreds of apps and methods to measure all sorts of criteria for what you’re eating, but simply try this. 

Process

I know it will feel so obvious just to use your phone or any of the apps available to measure your daily calorie intake. But, just use a simple pen and paper. Even if you find this so difficult, just do it for a few days even.

Reason One

FIND THEM CALORIES!

Again even if you do this just for a few days. Write down EVERYTHING you eat and drink. Even if it sounds healthy, KNOW what is actually in your foods and drinks. You may find foods that are listed as “healthy” “all natural” “fat burning”. But, it doesn’t matter. Look for the calories.

Just about every food or drink item has a calorie count. Never just assume that two items with the same name will contain the same amount of calories. To find the calories on just about everything, simply look at the packaging. If you out enjoying a tasty snack somewhere. Simply look up what you’re eating or drinking on their website. 

Just An Example.

Example 1

I use to be this person so I understand just how easy it is to over look. 

Just one large drink can’t be that bad right? I even made a deal with my self. I would get a large water along with my sugary drink to help cut down the sugar…

You know them large cups that are offered at your local gas stations. They come in 32, 42,  and even 64 oz cups (a 2 liter is about 68oz). Every time I had to go out in 100+ degree heat, I would stop at my local Wawa to pick up an ice cold drink “it was only one”. When I finally just looked up how unhealthy my drinks were, I was amazed!  Did you know that that just one 42 oz fountain Coke has about 560 calories! If the calories alone don’t sound alarming enough. My 42 oz’s of Coke contained about 140 grams of sugar! That’s about 35 teaspoons of sugar! And I thought one less spoon of sugar in my morning coffee was going to help…

If you use the 3,500 calories per pound of fat. One 42 oz Coke a day can be equivalent to more than 4 pounds a month.

In terms of calories and work outs, a rough estimate for runners is about 100 calories per mile. That means you need to run about 5.6 miles to burn that single coke. I say opt for the water and save yourself a ton of calories.

Example 2

The unhealthy healthies?

Nuts

Most of us have herd that we must always look for healthy foods. So when I say that even foods that are healthy can actually make you gain weight. Some may think this must be nuts “ha”.

Foods such as nuts (pecans are my favorite) can be incredibly healthy. They can provide you with tons of valuable vitamins and do an amazing job and helping to curb your cravings. But, did you know that just a 1/4 of pecans have about 200 calories. Thats feels like a handful! So if you like to snack on pecans, pistachios, cashews, and just about any other nut. KNOW the quantities you are eating. People trying to increase calorie intake sometimes choose these.

Milk

People like to believe that replacing unhealthy snacks and drinks with what we believe are healthy. But, did you know that milk actually has a lot of calories AND sugar?

Let’s put this into context and compare milk to an obvious unhealthy option.

As you can see from above you really should look at what your eating and drinking and the quantities.

Reason Two 

Snacking

When you really think about it. This “Reason Two” can still be considered part of step one. But, snacking can really ruin any diet plan when you don’t account for the amount your snacking and what your snacking on. 

If you use our example of pecans from above. You can see that if you decided to take a cup of pecans to work and snack on them. This little cup can be more than half your daily calorie target at about 800 calories!

We have two awesomely useful posts about snacking and calories that I’ll list here

Awesome Healthy Snacks At Work!

Here we give a few great snack ideas and the calories in them. Worth a read!

Easiest Calorie Calculator Ever! and How Many Calories Should I Eat?

Here we go over how many calories you really should be consuming. Also a great read!

Reason Three

There are going to be many people that believe this to be untrue but I will link to studies in the National Center for Biotechnology Information. 

Artificial Sweeteners

Even though Artificial Sweeteners don’t contain any calories. This doesn’t mean that they don’t have any effects on our body. Artificial Sweeteners can be several hundred times sweeter than regular raw sugar. These sugars can greatly alter our cravings, causeing us to snack and eat foods that ultimately cause us to consume more calories. 

Artificial Sweeteners overtime has been linked to altering the good bacteria in our bodies. And, this can have an entire host of issues and lead to weight gain here (nih.gov)

Statistically, people that consume more artificial sweeteners tend to actually gain weight versus losing it. (nih.gov)

Our bodies treat sugars as an addictive drug and when we feed our bodies artificial sweeteners. We only increase its tolerance to sugar and just cause our body to crave even more sweetness. (nih.gov(1)(2))

Is Sugar Bad For Me?

Here is a post about sugar.

Reason Three Conclusion

When the topic of artificial sweeteners comes up. It may be best just to limit them altogether. If you’re trying to kick sugar and your dependance on it. You should understand if you can kick it for just a little while you will notice that your tastes with drastically change in even a relatively short time. I recommend reading our post on How To Kick Sugar In Two Weeks.

Conclusion

If you find that you aren’t losing weight many times you will find that your diet can use some adjusting.  It is best to go over everything that you are consuming on a daily basis. Make sure you account for everything! Even count the calories in your coffee creamer, ketchup, those little snacks, and even those little sugar packets. I understand that there are plenty of apps and sites that can help you document all the calories you are consuming but nothing will be as accurate as using a simple pice of paper and pen.

Just Simple Calories!

Understand that all calories are not created equal and you really should focus on consuming healthy foods. But, when trying to narrow down why you may not losing weight you can use simple calories as a guide into see how much you truly are eating. 

Final Point

You don’t have to starve yourself in trying to lose weight. The trick is to find foods that you truly enjoy that are just healthy. Here is a post that helps finding these healthy foods and never being hungry on a diet again. 

Click Here How Not To Be Hungry On A Diet

Other Posts You Maybe Interested In

• How Fast Can I lose Weight?
• How to Plan A Meal!
• Awesome Healthy Snack At Work!
• How Many Calories Should I Eat?

The post Why Am I Not Losing Weight! appeared first on Just Live Simply.

You know that you have to admit that it really is easy to snack on just about anything when you’re sitting in front of your computer, or just about anytime. Your probably snacking on something right now 🙂 

Let’s go over some awesomely healthy tasty snacks you can be binging with out all the calories!

# 1 Blueberries

This is an awesome healthy snack for several reasons.

They are amazingly low in calories. An entire pound of these berries only have 260 calories. Thats about 85 calories per cup (It’s pretty difficult to eat a whole pound). Besides these just being super tasty and super low in calories, these are packed with awesome vitamins and nutrients. 

#2 Strawberries

These even beat the blueberries in calories. Strawberries only have 150 calories per pound. Thats nearly 40 strawberries per pound! 

Side fact it would take nearly 7 pounds and about 250 strawberries to equal just 1,000 calories. 

You can enjoy theses by simply eating them off the leafy ends or just the way I do. I wash and slice them up and simply enjoy with a fork. (Keeps my keyboard and the IT department happy) 

With Strawberries being so low in calories you can really as much as you want and rarely worry about calories.

#3 Cucumber

This one my be a bit odd for some to think about as a simple snack. But, cucumbers are another fruit that is massively low in calories. You can literally binge on these and never go over on your calories.

Cucumbers have about 60 Calories each. This means that if you’re daily allowed calories was 1,500 calories. You would have to eat 25 Cucumbers just to get enough calories. If you can accomplish that “Bravo”.

I enjoy these peeled and sliced. Depending on how I’m eating them. 1) I will just cut these into slices. Or 2) I  slice the cucumber in four “long ways” (4 long narrow quarters) then just chop them into small bite size pieces. Makes it much easier to fish out of the container with a fork. 

Even though cucumbers are refreshing and tasty on there own, I sometimes like to prepare them just a bit. I will Squeeze fresh lime juice with just a bit of salt over the cucumber. And, for when your wanting just a little bit of spice sprinkle a bit of Cayenne Pepper (powder) over your cucumbers. (You find this pepper in the seasonings and spices isle in your local supermarket in the little jars. (Here’s a link of what it is on Amazon)

#4 Bananas

I know this one seems a bit far from being a desk side snack. They really don’t last well peeled, but they can really satisfy a sweet tooth while still keeping calories low. Besides being packed full of healthy vitamins and nutrients. The high fiber content in bananas can help you fell full for longer. This ultimately can lead you to snacking less and consuming more calories in the long run. 

Just know each banana is about 100 calories and they can add up a bit quickly.

#4.5 Banana Smoothie

I had to add this one because this is one of my favorite smoothies. And, for the ultra low calories content this smoothie can fit into just about ANY diet planning!

This is just about the easiest smoothies you can make. It literally takes less than 2 minutes to make and is an awesome on the go treat. Because this smoothie doesn’t use ice, is actually lasts very well if your enjoying it as a tasty beverage snack. 

Ingredients

• • • • Frozen chopped banana (1/4 inches slices)
        • Make sure to chop before freezing (it actually makes a difference “for real…”)
      • Unsweetened Almond Milk 
        • If you use fresh banana (frozen) you will find that the banana alone can make the smoothies incredibly sweet. 

Quick Instructions 

Click Here To Go To This Recipe Page!

• • • Perferable the day before. Chop some fresh bananas in 1/4 inch slices and freeze them in a plastic bad. 
      • It really can alter the flavor by chopping the banana prior to freezing
      • Using a plastic bag is much easier than a container because the banana will tend to freeze to the sides of the container in a large clump and make it difficult to separate.
    • I prefer the unsweetened vanilla almond milk because I find the banana can add plenty of sweetness. 
      • You can find this milk at your local super markets or on Amazon (Link to Amazon)

    • The Actual Making

    • Place about a half banana per 8 oz of Almond Milk in a blender. I like the single serving blender cup.  
      • I personally find the ration has the best flavor.
      • This is blender I use (It has multiple attachments and I use the personal cup)
    • Here is the difficult part, blend the banana and milk for a few seconds. Then You’re all done!

A Quick Tip

• • • Because this smoothie uses no ice it doesn’t melt and lasts significantly longer.
    • Rinse the pitcher right away, the banana can stick to the pitcher and make cleaning later so annoying.
    • Only use cups easy to clean (usually smooth). Again the banana sticks when dried. 

#5 Popcorn (air popped)

Popcorn can be an awesome option for snacking. But, you should note that all popcorn isn’t the same. Air popped popcorn is among the one of the healthiest options here. Air popped popcorn has about 31 calories per cup. And, when oils and butter isn’t this snack can be a fantastic option to snack on all day. With no sticky or greasy fingers you can sit in front of your computer at work all day snacking, with minimal calories. 

#6 Carrots

From whole carrots too baby, shredded, and chip carrots. Carrots can be an awesome snack. The crunchyness and refreshing taste of carrots makes these a great option to snack on. Carrots only have about 25 calories per each medium carrot. This is only about 186 calories per pound. So this is another snack that you can binge on with minimal calories.

Quick Snack Option

Agin this is another great snack that tastes great with fresh squeezed lime and a bit of salt. “Yes I like lime and salt”

#7 Grapes

The ease and great taste of Grapes, makes them a fatalistic option for snacking. Green grapes contain plenty of healthy nutrients and vitamins. Grapes have about 315 calories per pounds. Even though grapes rank a bit higher in calories per pound here on our list. A pound of grapes is plenty and ease of enjoying grapes really makes them a healthy alternative to other snacks.

#8 Watermelon

Awesome refreshing option for snacking. Because of the high water content, watermelon can make you feel full for longer. And, this can drastically limit other things that you otherwise be your unhealthy snack alternatives. Watermelon only has 46 calories per cup (diced). This works out to 137 calories per pounds. that would mean you would have to eat nearly 4 pounds of watermelon to equal 500 calories. (Thats a lot of watermelon!)

Quick Snack Option

I know that many people will probably think this sounds terrible. But, this can give your watermelon a kick, especially when you have over eaten so much watermelon and just need a bit of a change. 

In a bowl of chopped up watermelon, add some fresh squeezed lime, salt, and cayenne pepper (this is a powder click here for a link to it).

#9 All Nuts!

“Awe nuts”, here we go on something that can be a bit confusing. Nuts such as pecans cashews, pistachios, and plenty of others have a love hate relationship with weight loss guides. Nuts can be a fantastic option for people looking for healthy snack alternatives. But, let’s look at why some people try to avoid them. Many kinds of nuts have an amazing ability to really curb your hunger and drastically limit your cravings for other foods.

But why would people avoid theses?

Many kinds of nuts contain very high calorie content by volume. Nuts can be a great option when you are actually trying to increase your calorie intake. Peacans (my favorite) contain 200 calories per 1/4 cup. If your someone that enjoys handfuls at a time these can add up very fast. just a single cup of pecan halves equal 800 calories.

This is why Nuts are at the bottom of the list. They have tons of healthy benefits and really help you limit your cravings. But, these are a snack to enjoy sparingly.  

Here Are Some other Interesting Posts

• How Not To be Hungry While Dieting
• Easiest Diet Ever?
• Is Sugar Bad For Me?
• How Fast Can I Lose Weight?

The post Awesome Healthy Snacks At Work appeared first on Just Live Simply.

We’re not going to sugar coat this answer, 🙂 sugar doesn’t belong in a human diet. But let’s answer a slightly different question that most people are probably thinking instead.

Can I Still Have Sugary Foods?

Over the years sugar has gotten a pretty bad wrap. And, to tell you the truth sugar is no way healthy for you. But to simply say you should never have sugar ever again is probably going to make some people say “yay right”. If you can cut 100% of your sugar intake you have the will power way beyond most people. And truthfully, I say good freaking job!

But for the rest of us lets go over a different way of viewing sugar. 

Actual Pounds Of Sugar A Day!

When you start paying even minimal amount of attention to your eating and drinks habits your are going to be amazed on the amount of sugar that are hidden in your food. Let’s go over a scenario here. Let’s say you come home and your husband tells you that your son for some reason started eating raw sugar out of the container. And, just before you blow up, your husband tells you that he only allowed your son to have 27 teaspoons. This way it doesn’t effect his dinner. 

I will admit that putting it this way it may seem crazy unlikely this would happen. But, there are about 27 teaspoons of sugar in just one large McDonalds coke (no ice). Imagine the 44 and 64 oz gas station sodas.

Who Drinks This Much Soda!

I will admit that I use to drink a ton of Coke. I would easily drink more that 2 liters a day and let’s just put this into the same perspective as above. Let’s face it, a lot of up love our super unhealthy drinks and many of us easily drink a 2 liter a day. Now let’s look at just how much sugar is in one 2 liter. A two liter Coke has 6 servings with each serving having 39g of sugar. This is about 234g per bottle. With 4grams equaling about 1 teaspoon. We are at 58 and a half teaspoons of sugar per bottle. That is more than half a pound of sugar per bottle!

What about Snacks?

I really don’t want to make you hungry or crave a massively unhealthy snack. But, let’s go over my favorite, Oreos. Again I will admit that I can demolish the entire pack of these. I really do avoid buying them and when I do I really do try to eat healthy for at least the next week or so because these are just addicting. 

Let’s go over the Mega Stuffed. On the nutritional label provided on the packaging, these have 18g of sugar per 2 cookies! At 4 grams per teaspoon thats more than 2 teaspoons per cookie! And you know that it almost impossible to stop at 1 so this adds up to a ton of sugar. 

Can I Add Sugar To My Coffee?

This is something that sort of shocked me when I really looked at how much sugar I was consuming everyday. I use to feel slightly guilty for adding more then one teaspoon to my coffee. But, when you look at the facts the amount of raw sugar you add to your coffees or teas are usually minimal compared to the amounts that are in pre packaged or processed foods. Sugar is an item that should be closely monitored and really should be avoided. But  you should understand that the amount of sugar in most foods that are prepared out of site have huge amounts of sugar. Below I will place a table with some popular foods and the amount of sugar in them. It really is amazing.

How Do I Find Out How Much Sugar Is In My Foods?

The best thing to do is simply try and start to look at nutritional labels. Here you will find all the information you’re going to need. 

Step 1

Look for the serving size. For packages that are sized to eat in one “sitting” or one person it will usually show serving size of one per package. If you are looking at a larger package you will see a quantity per serving and number of servings per package. in the case of the Mega Stuffed Oreos, it shows 2 cookies per serving and about 14 serving per package. With things like cookies it may be easy to determine the amount of servings, but packages will sometimes shows weights. Here it can become very helpful to purchase an inexpensive food scale. (Here is one that I have liked) Another not completely accurate method is divide the number of servings per package and estimate the amount of the package you consumed. This works great if your the only one that eats from that that package. So by the end of the package you will have accounted for all of the sugar in it.

Step 2

After determining how many serving you consumed. Multiply the grams of sugar to the number of servings you consumed. If you ate four of these cookies, you would have had 2 servings with each serving containing 18g of sugar. 

Step 3

Heres a measurement conversion for sugar

Let’s Look At Some Popular Foods

Conclusions

Let’s face it we consume tons of sugar and in no way is this healthy for our bodies. There is almost no reason a person should be consuming sugar and especially in the quantities that we do nowadays. By cutting our sugar intake we can do our bodies a massive benefit. After cutting sugar many people start to experience more energy, changes in food tastes, better skin condition, and just all around better feeling. You most likely have heard this at least a half a million times but no hurting in hearing it just once more. You will greatly improve your health by lowering your chances of heart disease, diabetes, dental health, aging, and of course we can’t forget that cutting sugar can help cut pounds off our bellies.

Conclusion “Extended”

It is extremely easy to say just don’t eat sugar ever again. But let face it enjoying sweet foods and drink are a big part of life and this is where we really should view it differently. Sweet foods and drinks should simply be a treat. These foods should never take the pace of healthy alternatives such as water, vegetables, fruits, and basically anything healthy. It would be great to simply stop all consumption of processed sugars and there really isn’t any reason you shouldn’t. But consuming sugar should be treated as a treat alone and not used to quench a thirst or hunger.

Other Interesting Posts

• How To Kick Sugar In Two Weeks!
• Awesome Healthy Snacks At Work!
• How Not To Be Hungry While Dieting!
• How Many Calories Should I Eat?
• How Fast Can I Lose Weight?

The post Is Sugar Bad For Me? appeared first on Just Live Simply.

Easier said than done can really be an understatement. But if you follow just these few steps it really can be done!

A Few Facts First!

Sugar Is Addictive

The first part to understand about sugar is that our body treats it as an addictive drug. Those cravings for something sweet is your body so wanting its next fix of sugar. So make sure you know that the beginning is the only hard part. Your cravings will soon fade, many times very quickly. 

Nothing Tastes Right?

Have you ever heard “Wow that is too sweet” about something that a person normally eats or drinks. This many times happens with candies and juices, but can really be with anything that is sweet. This happens because our bodies have an amazing ability to adapt, but just sometimes really works agains us.

We Are Addicted!

As we consume sugary foods and drinks our body continually builds tolerances to the sugar. This causes us to always add a tiny bit more sweetness to our foods to achieve that same satisfaction of sweetness. 

Tastes Actually Can Change!

Heres a bit of Great News! Our tolerances and dependence on sugar can change relatively quickly. This means that it becomes incredibly easier to stay off sugar the longer you go. 

How Long Does It Take!

Truthfully, the amount of time it takes to get over sugar can really vary deepening on the person. But, for most of us we will begin seeing results in as little as a few days to two weeks. 

Let’s go over a probably very oversimplified example. During the first few days you will be craving anything sweet and water will be the furthest thing from your craving. But, look at this in another view. Our bodies will be crazy stubborn for the first few days and once it gets over the fact that it’s not going to get that sugary drink it will learn to become satisfied with just water. Once this happens you will notice that will eventually begin craving water because it is so much better at satisfying thirst. 

Step # 1 (day 1)

Take a really good look at what you’re eating and drinking every day. Just because something may seem healthy doesn’t make it healthy. A granola bar can sometimes be as bad a candy bar. And, a fruit juice can sometimes be worse than a can of pop. 

This may sound extreme, but just for a little while cut everything with added sugar. You will want to cheat for a little while but the cravings for something sweet will subside. 

Typical Things To Cut

• • Fruit Juices (if its prepackaged you should cut it)
  • Sodas
  • Candy
  • Pastries
  • Energy Bars
  • Energy Drinks (These usually have massive amounts of sugar)
  • Sweet Teas (these can be worse than soft drinks)
  • etc… (just look at the label for sugar content)
  • Artificial sweeteners 
    • Some people may believe this unnecessary, but we are trying to kick the sweetness. Artificial sweeteners can be several hundreds of times sweeter than sugar. Consuming artificial sweeteners can then effect our tolerances to sweetness causing all of our foods and drinks to taste bland and unsatisfying. 

Step # 2 (day 2-7)

This is where you learn that your body can have a mind of its own. You will notice that your body can be extremely stubborn and be quite manipulative.

The first day or two may be a bit easier because you’re pretty pumped of finally kicking sugar. But, let’s go over the next phase, this usually starts around day 3. You will start to crave your favorite sugary drinks as if they were the only thing that would keep you from dehydrating. Taking into account that our bodies can be extremely stubborn and manipulative. You will begin trying to make deals with your self of just one cookie or drink than you’ll drink x number cups of water. Don’t fall for it! Stick to your plan of cutting the sugar.  

Step # 3 (day 7-14)

Even though it may seem comical or absurd. But, usually after the first week of arguing with your body, you will notice that your body just begins to cave in to your will.  You will notice the sugar craving subside drastically. (This may take a little longer for some people.) This is where it is equally as important to stay on track. You want to accustom your body to enjoy and crave healthy alternatives.

Here you will notice that you taste of foods and drinks can begin changing. Water and unsweetened drinks won’t be as repulsive as they once were. You will begin getting your body use to new foods and drinks. 

Side Note

I use to drink a lot of sugary drinks, and I could never see my self drinking water and unsweetened teas. But, once kicking sugar your tastes can change quite drastically.

Here is my favorite unsweetened tea

1. 1. 1. I simply boil a little over a liter of water in my electric kettle
      2. toss in 2 tea bags
      3. let steep for 10-15 minutes
      4. pour into a glass container removing the tea bags and refrigerate 
         1. Do not squeeze the tea bags you will alter the flavor

Step # 4 (14 day +)

For many people you will notice that your cravings for everything sweet will have subsided quite drastically. But it is important to continue on limiting your consumption of sweets. But, after a few weeks practice on acknowledging sweets as purely a treat and not to be used to quench thirst or hunger.

Side Note:

A simple example of what I do, I still enjoy my sweet tea. When I eat out I order two drinks, one sweet tea and one unsweetened. When thirsty drink the unsweetened tea and drink the sweet tea in small amounts as purely a treat and to enjoy the flavor.

Conclusion

Even though the first few days are the toughest you will see it will become increasingly easier to kick your sugar addiction. You will notice your energy levels, skin, and even weight become better. But, if you do begin to introduce sugary drinks into your diet it is a slippery slope to over doing it. So make sure you always keep an eye on your sugar intake.

The post How To Kick Sugar For Good In Just Two Weeks! appeared first on Just Live Simply.

Everyone and their mother are always looking for the easiest diet possible. And, with out making you wait here it is! It’s simply Moderation. 

Really That Easy?

Seriously, Moderation really can be one of the most powerful diets. If you Google Diets, you will be bombarded by thousands of diets ranging from border line starvation to complicated point counting. Here I’ll explain why moderation can be an awesome “light” version of dieting. 

Caveat 

I will admit that you do have to pay attention to what you eat but simply understanding what is in your food can surprise you. 

So What Is Moderation?

If you look up the definition for “Moderation” it basically sums it up.

“Here I’ll do it for you. This is from Dictionary.com“

• • Dictionary.com
  • noun
  • The quality of being moderate: restraint; avoidance of extremes or excesses; temperance.

The Few Steps In Understanding Moderation

You know it couldn’t be as simple as just reading a couple of words and finding one of the simplest diets right. Here we are going to go over the minimal effort that is going to be needed to understand moderation as a dieting method. 

Step One – Nearly Zero Effort (For Real)

The reason step one is considered “Nearly Zero Effort” Is you simply have to look at labels. This means that anything you eat or drink you just need to get into to the habit of knowing what is actually in it. 

Quick Example  – Just because a salad sounds healthy you should know what is actually in it. Some restaurants can serve salads with 1,500 + calories. Simply put, it doesn’t matter that it’s called a salad. A 1,500 calorie salad will not help you lose any weight. 

Step Two – Tiny Bit of Effort (I’ll help you cheat:)

Now that we got thought the entire few lines of step one, lets now cover step two. Here all we have to do is understand the label and know how to moderate it. I promise is still super simple!

To keep this simple, we are going to mainly look at two numbers that are available on just about every single edible item. These are Sugar and Calories. 

Sugar

I’m not going to sugar coat this (sorry I had too), but sugar really doesn’t belong in a human diet. Before you click away for thinking “This site must be crazy if they think I’m cutting 100% of sugar”. I am not saying you have to cut all the sugar in your life. You just have to understand the actual amounts that you are consuming. Let’s go over this a bit more. 

Is Sugar Good For Me?

Plain and simple “No”. “But, can I still enjoy sugar?”. Now this is an entirely different question. Here I am going to say that you really should make every effort you can to limit your sugar intake. Too much sugar can really have negative health effects ranging from weight gain to much higher risks of many serious diseases, but that’s more for a different post.

Sugar & Moderation

Here you may ask “How do I moderate my sugar intake?” this is where the tiny bit of effort comes into play. I know I told you I would help you cheat here, and here is the cheat: Four grams of Sugar is equal to one tea spoon. I will say that you really don’t need to know this but this can drastically help you in understanding the actual quantity of sugar in something that you are eating.

The Truth of Raw Sugar!

When I first started to learn about the whole world of eating healthier and just over all healthier living. I will admit that I thought raw sugar was massively unhealthy. Agin sugar isn’t healthy, but we are talking about moderation. I thought that something like coffee creamer had to be better than adding a teaspoon or two raw sugar to my coffee it just seemed like such a large quantity. But,  Boy was I wrong. Even though it physically looked like a lot, it was nowhere near the amount is hidden in just about anything we can sort of automatically call unhealthy. After we quickly go over Calories I will place a few examples.

Calories

This one is actually much simpler the reason that we look at calories here is to help us monitor the quantity of food we eat. I recommend reading a post that we created that talks about knowing how many calories you should be eating. (Click here for that post) I recommend that you should count artificial sweeteners similar to its real version because artificial sweeteners can still have some health effects and can effect your appetite. 

Calorie & Moderation

Simply put know the amount of calories you should be consuming and find alternative filling foods that allow you to eat much more without the calories. To learn how to do this simply look at a post we made about this exact issue (How not to be Hungry on a Diet).

Step Three – A Bit More Effort ( I promise it’s not too much)

This step is to simply look at your food with taking step two into mind (sort of a copy of step one). But the best way to explain step three is by going over a few examples.

Example 1 – My Starbucks Frappuccino

#1  Is a bit longer because we explain more here.

My favorite Starbucks Frappuccino Is the Java Chip. (I know super unhealthy)

Calories

First let’s start by looking at the calories. It has a whopping 560 calories. This a massive chunk of my daily allowed calories. So under our “Calorie Moderation” approach we should know that if we decide to consume this drink, we need to adjust our daily calorie intake. 

Quick Note – Our bodies do require calories to function. Getting a large portion of your calories from a sugar packed treat doesn’t allow your body to function optimally. This is where moderation comes into play. Every once in a while allows you to satisfy a sweet tooth and gives you an occasional treat.

Sugar 

This is where we really start to notice why so many complain about sugar. Remember from above when I thought that adding one maybe two teaspoons to my coffee was bad? Let us really look at what a lot of sugar looks like. A Java Chip Frappuccino has about 84 grams of sugar! Let’s just do a bit of math here! 4grams=1teaspoon. This means that my drink that I can finish in just a few minutes has 21 teaspoons of sugar!

Side Note – I really do find it amazing how so much sugar can be packed into such a small package. Remember the drink is mainly ice :/

Example 2 – 2 Liter of Coke

I know a lot of people that can go through an entire two liter of coke a day. (I was one of them). But you should really understand the level of sugar and calories that come in this. 

Calories

A single 2 liter of coke contains 840 calories. This is literally the majority of calories that you should be consuming in total over the entire day AND night. This is where Moderation should be really considered. You should really eliminate all soft drinks from your diet. But, for those that this isn’t an option yet you should treat these drinks as a treat. First, start by having small glasses of these drinks at a time and then try to make a deal with yourself. Try and add a few glasses of water before your soft drink. 

Side note – Super helpful hint, the longer you limit sugar the easier it gets to limit sugary drinks and foods.

Sugar

Of course we are going to cover sugar here. A single two liter of coke contains 58 and a half teaspoons of sugar! That really is a lot :/ Thats a little over a half of pound of sugar. 

Example 3 – A Whole Single Donut

We are going to use a glazed jelly donut. 

Calories

I know I’m probably making you hungry, but remember moderation 🙂 A single glazed jelly donut from Dunkin Donuts can have 490 calories. A lot, but still sort a manageable for a rare treat. 

Sugar 

Here we have about 61g of carbs and about 1 g of fiber. This leaves about 39g of sugar. With our simple math we see that this is equal to about 10 teaspoons of sugar. Again amazing how well they are packed in there. 

Let’s Do A Healthy Alternatives

Example 4 – Oat Meal (Prepared my way)

Here we are going to do Brown Sugar Apple Cinnamon Oat Meal.

Takes a whole 2 – 4 minutes to prepare

• • • 1 Small chopped Apple (a lot of apple for just one serving)( 87 calories 11g of sugar)
    • 2 teaspoon of light brown sugar (30 calories 8g of sugar)
    • 1/3 cup of 1 minute oats (100 calories 1g of sugar)

Calories

This is where we have to understand that all calories are not the same. In this meal that can serve as a good filling breakfast or a large snack (big enough to ruin and skip dinner). Healthy foods like fruits and oat meal can actually help you in more than one way. They can be very filling. This meal is great as a breakfast because oats and fruits keep you feeling full longer and helps curb your appetite. 

Total calories here are 217, not bad for the amount you eat and how full you feel afterwords. Also, you can stretch the apple for more than one serving (its a bit too much).

Sugar

Here is another area that can be considered a bit gray. Some fruits contain a lot of sugar. but these sugars are much healthier than the refined and artificial ones. Here is a place we want to focus more on calories. We only have 2 teaspoons of sugar that are not from the apple in this entire  snack/meal. 

Conclusion

There’re a few reasons why moderation can be considered a great and possibly easiest dieting method. First, it allows you to eat just about anything you want in moderation. Second, you can easily adjust your meals to fit your goals. 

Quick Tips & Links

• It’s a good idea to get you daily allowed calories. 
  • How Many Calories Should I Eat
  • Calorie Calculator
• Find low calorie and low sugar options that are tasty and filling
  • How Not To Be Hungry While Dieting
  • Awesome Healthy Banana Smoothie
• If Weight Loss is your goal 
  • How Fast Should I Lose Weight

The post Easiest Diet Ever? appeared first on Just Live Simply.

Google anything about weight loss and you can easily find the “simple” method to weight loss. This is simple short phrase is repeated so many times it has become a meme all on its own. If I tell you “Eat Less and You’ll Lose Weight” I would probably get is a simple “duh”. Let’s go over why eating less just really isn’t the answer. We will also go over ways that it can become nearly impossible to eat enough calories. You will actually need to find high calorie foods. Weird right? 

Quick Over View

Here we are going to go over how you can eat So Much that you will actually need to find ways to eat more calories. For Real! We are going to approach this in a simple three step approach. You will be able to never feel like your diet is trying to starve you ever agin.

Before We Begin ( “Safety Foods”)

Let’s just define a term that we are going to be using here in this article. We are going to consider a Safety Food an item that you can eat nearly eat unlimited amounts of. The Chart below will prove this.

The Steps

• Learn Quality Vs Quantity
• Finding Safety Foods
• How To Eat More

1 Spotting Quality

Just about everywhere you search online will tell you that you should eat healthy quality foods. But many fail to explain how certain foods can effect your hunger and the actual quantity you can eat. There are more, but we are going to focus on three main points on how to spot Quality

First

This is the really Simple one, just about anyone can do this one. Simply compare something to a Known Healthy Food (ie: Broccoli Vs Donut). This can cover the majorly of foods out there. 

Second

This one goes a little more in depth than number one, but I promise I will still keep it short. One of the easiest ways to know if something is healthy is simply but knowing what in the food. We may be simplifying this too far, but simply look at the calories. This is usually (not always) a dead giveaway on how much is truly added to your food. Just because something may say that it is healthy, all natural, or even low calories, these terms can be very vague in definition. “Healthy” may be that it contains no preservatives but has a 1,000 calories. “All natural? may mean that they simply used real sugar instead or artificial. And “Low Calories” can simply mean it’s lower than something else that contains more.

Side note about counting calories high calorie items tend to be on the unhealthy side. But, things like nuts can contain a lot of calories but are healthy in just about any diet. 

Example – A banana smoothie can vary drastically depending on where you get it. A prepared banana smoothie can have nearly 600 calories, while one you make at home can have just 83 calories. They both maybe called a smoothie but it is a good idea to look at label. You will soon be able to spot these items easy. 

If you would like to know how to make a super easy and healthy Banana Smoothie that you can enjoy at anytime just click below.

The Best Banana Smoothie 

Third

This one can sort of complicate number 2 above. But we have to cover Artificial Sweeteners. Even though artificial sweeteners contain zero calories they can still have tremendous effects on our bodies. Let’s just go over a few benefits to cutting artificial sweeteners.

1 –  Our bodies can actually treat sugar as a drug and this can have huge effects on out body. As we ingest sugar we actually effect or tolerance to sweetness every time. This basically means the amount of sugar you need next time will need to be higher to have the same sense of sweetness. This then compounds over the years.

2 – Ingesting something sweet can actually make us crave even more sweets later, throwing off our weight loss plan. Studies show that regularly ingesting Artificial sweeteners has been linked to weight gain. Weird right…

3 – Artificial sweeteners have been linked to increase your risks to disease like type to diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

Here is a link to some of this information

A good way to limiting your Artificial Sweeteners intake is to simply count them as their “real” sugar counter part, ie diet soda can be counted simply as a soda.

2 – Finding Safety Foods

This is actually much simpler than you may think. After learning from above on how to spot quality and healthy foods, this will be much easier. Here we are going to begin looking for foods that we can really enjoy. For ease we are going to split this in two categories. First the “Obvious” healthy foods, then the “Tasty Foods”.

Healthy Foods

This firs part about “Healthy Foods” is sort of a repeat from step one. But these foods will find their way into just about every single diet out there. 

Veggies – Just about everyone can agree that veggies are considered a healthy food. This is for a few reasons. First they contains tons of healthy nutrients and vitamins. Second, vegetable contain a high amount of fiber which allows your body to feel the sense of fullness longer. Thirdly, vegetables can be extremely low in calories, you can eat enormous amounts of them with out even getting close to your daily calorie allowance. I will Place a table below to show you how much you can really eat on 1,900 calories per day diet.

Tasty Foods

Truthfully the definition of Tasty foods is really vague. I personally think some vegetables and quite tasty while others probably can barely touch them. But here in this section we are going to cover the foods that may fall in the gray areas of being a healthy food. We are going to break this categories. First being the dreaded Carbs that are talked about in every healthy website and the Carb Diet. Secondly the Hearty Stuff that some people may think are unhealthy. 

Carbs!!

The carb diet is probably one of the most popular diets out there for two simple reasons. First, because of how strict it can be, it can be pretty strict. Secondly, the diet actually can work. This is usually because the diet restricts just so much of your diet. We aren’t to going to cover much more about the Carb Diet in this post, if you would like to read more about this kind of diet I will link to that post just below.

Our Diet Vs Other Diets

Now that we got that little bit out of the way, Let’s cover Carbs for this article. When people begin a new weight loss plan, people often believe all carbs must go. This usually includes all of them, healthy as well as the unhealthy ones. But, if weight loss is your goal it is a good practice to limit you intake of carbs for various reason that can go far beyond this post. But the big one is carbs can simply increase your appetite. Of the different types of carbs out there, your really should be focus on mainly avoid refined carbs. These are mainly white breads and sugar. If you are following a diet that doesn’t limit carbs, attempt to limit yourself towards healthier options like vegetables, whole fruit, legumes, potatoes, and whole grains.

The Hearty Stuff!

True Story, when I was younger my family would relate healthy to eating like a rabbit. When I first started my weight loss planning, by father thought that I was basically going to live on lettuce. Technically you couldn’t survive on lettuce for two reasons. First, and it would be nearly impossibly to eat enough to meet you daily calorie goal. Second, you need to get more nutrition that what lettuce can give you alone.

For many people trying to find healthy foods can sometimes become a bit confusing when it refers to these “Hearty Foods”. Foods like fish, beef, pork, chicken, potatoes, rice and pastas. By many diets some of these can sometimes be considered off limits. But when you follow a weight loss plan that focuses on a healthy diet in general. You will find that these items can be easily added to your diet. The main thing to keep in mind of these types of foods are to simply choose the healthiest variations of them. Here I can place a few quick examples.

• • • • Chicken breast (white meat) is healthier than dark meat
      • You can choose lean cuts of beef and trim the fat
      • Whole grain pastas can be more beneficial that white/refined pastas.
      • Brown Rice is healthier than refined white rice

Below is a chart of a few popular foods. 

How Much Food Is 1,900 Calories

3 – How To Eat More

Let’s finally answer How Do I Eat MORE  And Not Feel Hungry Because Of My Diet. I will break this up in to three methods that can and should be combined. 

• • First – Find a food that you really enjoy that is filling.
    • This can be a healthy salad or even a large bacon omelet (seriously).
  • Second – Eat a good breakfast.
  • Third – This is important because, just about everyone is going to have a taste for something sweet every now and then. Find a healthy sweet treat.

First

When Starting a weight loss plan it is important to really find a few foods that are healthy and filling. This is important because any diet plan that make you hungry runs a much higher risk of being abandoned. And being hungry will most likely lead you to scavenging for anything that looks tasty that’s probably no the best dieting choice. Simply put make an effort on finding very low calorie foods that you enjoy to fill you up.

Personally the foods that I find the best for me are bacon egg white omelets, salads, and cucumbers. 

My current favorite has to be the Bacon Egg White Omelet, it contains a total of 178 calories and very easy to make. Even when you are feeling a little hungier you can simply add more egg. With the bacon at about 45 calories per slice and egg whites only containing 67 calories per half cup. This can be extremely tasty and filling. If your even able to drop the bacon you can have massive omelets for minimal calories. I can almost guarantee that you can not eat more egg white omelets than your calorie allowance. (1,500 calories would be about 11.25 cups of egg whites or nearly 23 good sized omelets)

Second

This sort of ties in with my favorite healthy filling food, but the options here are endless. Having a healthy breakfast is really important. Studies show that having a healthy breakfast can greatly aid in weigh loss (NCBI). With a healthy breakfast you will notice that your appetite though out the day improves drastically.

This can be a simple oat meal, fruit, or an awesome omelet. Just make sure you start your day on a good meal.

Third

This one you should enjoy a bit more. Find a snack that you enjoy and can at least consider semi healthy. But make sure you portion it correctly and account for the calories. Here you can pick anything that you find you can have a good portion for calories. Planning a snack can keep you from scavenging for the brightest wrapped food.

Here are some of my favorites.

• • • Banana Smoothie (Only 83 calories)
      • Click Here To Learn How to Make a Good Smoothie
    • Mini M&M’s (120 Calories about 1 calorie each)
      • These are in no way healthy but a snack every now and then
    • Pecans (200 calories per 1/4 cup)
      • Nuts are really healthy and can actually help curb appetite. But they are can pack a ton of calories. So make sure a portion is good for you. 
    • Blueberries (85 calories / about 80 berries)
    • Strawberries (38 calories per 1/4 pound) 

Conclusion

By seeing our chart you can see that you shouldn’t be starving simply because you are on a diet. The best way to increase the amount you eat is to simply find healthy foods that you enjoy and use these to bulk up your meals. 

Other Posts You Maybe Interested In

• Our Diet Vs Other Diets
• Meal Planning Guide
• How Many Calories Should I Eat
• How Fast Can I lose Weight

The post How Not to be Hungry While Dieting appeared first on Just Live Simply.

This recipe is literally too easy for it not to be all over the place and in every smoothie shop. This is probably the healthiest fresh banana smoothie you can make. It packs a whopping 82.5 CALORIES with no added sugar and actually really healthy. I almost want to say that this doesn’t even qualify for a recipe because its just so easy.

This treat is great for just about anytime of day. Whether you just have a taste for a healthy treat, or needing a new perfect morning on the go beverage.  I promise it has super few steps. Let’s make one!

Time

You can prepare a few days worth of smoothies in about 2 minutes. And it takes about another 2 minutes to make. This is perfect if your looking for a quick snack.

Ingredients

Here are ALL the ingredients.

• • Half a Whole Banana (52.5 Calories)
  • 8 oz of Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk (30 Calories)
    • You Can Find This on Amazon
  • And Nothing else… Seriously!
  • Now let’s MAKE AN AWESOME SMOOTHIE!

I really don’t know why I have been missing out on this for so long. When you make your smoothie the right way you will notice that your drink will come out perfectly sweet with that perfect smoothie texture. It’s all in the way you make it.

Even though we aren’t adding extra sugar or really anything else, you will be surprised on how good this smoothie really is.

Step #1

Here we are going to be freezing some bananas.

Peel and slice some fresh bananas in about 1/4 inch slices. 

It may seem odd but slicing the banana in smaller slices before freezing will actually effect the texture of your Smoothie. (For real try it)

Place the slices in a small ziplock bag and toss them in the freezer till they are frozen solid. 

Using a bag is actually much easier than a container. In the bag you can easily break the frozen banana apart. Also, in a container the banana tends to stick to the bottom and can get a bit annoying to get out.

Step #2

Heres the hard work!

Toss about half a banana worth of slices (frozen) with about about 1 cup of Unsweetened Vanilla Milk in the blender. 

Tip: When Blended you will yield a bit more than 8 oz. 

Step #3

Enjoy!

After making this the first time I really don’t see why this isn’t more popular. It’s super easy and very healthy. Especially when you compare it to other recipes and fast-food restaurant smoothies. Nothing really comes close to the 82 and a half calories in this smoothie.

Tip: This is perfect size for the single cup blenders. I just recommend pouring in a cup and  rinsing out the blender right after making your smoothie, it cleans much easier.

You can use any blender but I get asked what my blender is. I has made me a ton of awesome smoothies!

Amazon Link to My Blender

If you feel you need just a bit more sweetness you can try Sweetened Vanilla Almond Milk or even a hint of chocolate syrup!

The post The Best Almond Milk Smoothie appeared first on Just Live Simply.

I will admit that this is sort of a an odd post. You are probably thinking why should I like like drinking water and tea.

Becoming accustomed to less or non sugary drinks can have many beneficial effects on you.

Just a Few of Those Benefits

1- You can enjoy the tons of teas that are available in just about every supermarket in the country. 

2- You can cut the TON of calories that are hidden in your sugary drinks.

Did you know that those famous giant 100oz big gulps can have a massive amount of sugar and calories. Here we are going to do a little math. First lets get a units of measurement we can picture. 1 teaspoon is equal to 4 grams. Now lets put this into context. A single 20oz bottle of Mountain Dew has 290 calories and 77g of carbs/sugar. Thats a whopping 19 and 1 quarter teaspoons of sugar in just one 20oz bottle. Now for those that can fill a big gulp (I use to be able to go through one) this is multiplied by 5 times. That means you there are about 96.25 teaspoons of sugar and 1,450 calories in just one drink. And for those of you that count carbs and go to the extreme of 50g per day this would account for more than a week of your carb allowance at 385g. 

If you know your ideal calorie intake you know that this is just a ton of calories. If your would like to get your Ideal calorie number just click the link below.

(Click Here to Find Your Ideal Calorie Intake.)

If you would like to read more about calorie counting vs other diets just click the link below.

(Click Here Our Diet vs Other Diets)

3- Liquid calories are amongst the easiest way to go over board. This can ruin just about any diet plan.

4- There are a ton of health risks linked to sugar with the most known being diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.

You can read more on this article by Harvard Health

5- You will notice that waters and teas are so much better at satisfying thirst. 

But I want Sugar!

The first part of this is actually quite blunt, we are just addicted to sugar. This may seem a bit over exaggerated but you should know that sugar causes many changes in the body and mind that can be compared to drug addition. Every time we consume sugar whether it be from sugary drinks or foods, we reinforce the compulsive behavior we have towards sugar. This causes us to crave even more sugary foods which then builds stronger tolerance every time we consume it.

(Click Here Is Sugar as Addictive as Cocaine? By Health Line

Have you heard someone say “wow thats too sweet” and another thinks it tastes just fine? Truthfully just like with any drug your body and mind begins to build tolerances that can make you feel like you not experiencing the same sugar “high” or level of sweetness as the last time. If your begin cutting your sugar intake, you will notice that over time you will begin noticing that you will not need as much sugar as you use to. This is very helpful when you are trying to cut calories and unhealthy foods from your diet.

Try Something New

Another way to try to like something that just isn’t sweet is to make sure you give it a good chance. There are some teas and flavored waters out there that I find just terrible, but others like them. You can slowly introduce new teas in steps. First start with a tea that you like, even if you have to add a bit of sugar, and slowly reduce the amount of sugar. You can walk down the tea and coffee isle of just about any supermarket and you will find a ton of teas in just about every flavor you can imagine. Remember that there may be a lot of them that you are just not going to like, but give them a chance. Most of the teas you find will usually be priced pretty low ($2-$3 range).

The biggest issue with this method is that you basically experience a drink that you don’t enjoy for a longer time. By slowing reducing the amount of sugar every time you try your tea. You will constantly think it’s not sweet enough.

Cold Turkey

The Best method I believe is to just go all in. First find a tea that you can sort of tolerate and just drink it for a week or so, no sugar. Try to just enjoy the flavors that you can actually taste in it. At first you may not taste some of them because of the lack of sweetness but it gets better. You will find after a little time that you will actually come to enjoy it. Seriously just try it.

Here are my favorite teas you can literally get them delivered next day through amazon. 

(You local store will sell smaller quantities, Amazon may require larger quantities)

• • • Teavana
    • Bigelow Classic Mint
    • Bigelow Green Tea Mint (no caffeine)
    • Fresh Home Grown Mint tea

Quick Tip

I like to brew about a liter with two teabags for about 5-10 minutes. Remove teabags then once cooled I just toss it in the refrigerator for great iced tea.

Conclusion

Remember you can still enjoy your favorite drinks. But adding a no calorie drink to you diet can allow you to drink your favorite drink solely to enjoy it.                         

The post Learn How To Like Unsweetened Tea and Water appeared first on Just Live Simply.