Low Calorie, Healthy Snack Ideas That You’re Bound to Love

Snacks are the bane of any dieter’s existence. You can have as great a diet as you like, balance all your nutrition really carefully, and then an attack of the munchies comes along and suddenly your wellness and wellbeing go out of the window as you reach into the biscuit barrel (and again, and again… )

 

The way to beat the snack attack is to be prepared. Next time the munchies hit, be ready to fight back, armed with recipes for low calorie snacks, smoothies, dips and popcorn. Stock up the pantry in readiness, and just don’t buy any biscuits or sweets at all.

 

One of the must indulgent (but not really) snacks that you can possibly keep in the house is the chocolate-covered frozen banana. To make these, get some ordinary bananas and chop them in half, through the middle. Get some lollipop sticks (the wooden ones) and gently insert them into the flat edge of each piece of banana. Put the banana popsicles onto a sheet of wax paper and slide them into the freezer for a few hours. When they’re frozen, quickly dip them in a pot of melted chocolate and them put them back into the freezer to set. If you’re feeling particularly ambitious, you can also sprinkle the hot chocolate mixture with coconut or chopped nuts.

 

Cherry cream cheese is another one that looks and tastes fabulous but won’t show up on the scales later. Blend some fresh cherries (black are best for this) and stir the puree into cream cheese. Spread this on a bagel or a graham cracker for a sweet and tasty low-calorie snack.

 

On movie night, reduce the calories of your favourite popcorn dramatically by making air-dried popcorn and then sprinkling it with a little cayenne pepper and some fresh Parmesan cheese.

Categories: banana, calorie, cheese, chocolate, cream cheese, diet, nbsp, popcorn, snacks

Can You Lose Weight With Negative Calorie Foods?

There are a number of foods that are championed as ‘negative calorie’ foodstuffs – but many people often think of these as ‘no calorie’ foods. But the reality is that there is no such thing as a food that doesn’t have calories in it – all food has calorie content, apart from water. However, the concept of negative calorie foods is that eating and digesting them takes more energy than you actually get from them in first place. This simple concepts suggests that you can actually lose weight by eating these foods as you don’t have the excess calories, so the body has to burn off fat from your bodily stores.

 

The example would be that if you eat a dessert that has 400 calories in, but that takes 150 calories for your body to digest, you’ll have an excess of 250 calories that you’ll have to burn off in other ways if you want to lose weight. Alternatively, eating a portion of broccoli the same size as the dessert might be equal to about 100 calories. This would mean that you would burn off 150 calories in digestive the broccoli, so you would be ahead by 50 calories and that if you follow this logic to its conclusion, you will lose weight. While this is clearly a fine idea in principal, this question is: does it really work?

 

The majority of negative calorie foods are very high in water and it is this large water content that can make you feel fuller. In a sense this is the same tactic that is recommended by many dieticians and nutritionists, who say you should drink a glass of water before your meal in order to add to the contents of your stomach so that you feel fuller for longer. Negative calorie foods are also generally high in fibre, and it is this that makes them more difficult for the body to digest, and therefore uses up more calories in the process.

 

While negative calorie foods are certainly able to make up a good part of a healthy diet, it is clearly not possible for you to eat lots of negative calorie foods to be the only part of your diet. Trying to eat only foods that didn’t give you enough energy would leave you feel constantly fatigued and could even lead to serious medical problems. The best diet that you can have for weight loss doesn’t just focus on one type of food, it promotes a balanced range of foods as a part of your daily intake including protein and healthy fats.

 

Nevertheless, it is a good idea to add more negative calorie foods to your diet as they can clearly play a role in weight loss and maintaining a great figure. There are plenty of them out there including many vegetables and fruits and you can enjoy them as part of a healthy and nutritious diet. They do live up the hype and can help you. But more important than the specific idea of eating negative calorie food in order to lose weight is the concept of common sense.

 

It is clear to us that if we want to lose weight we have to burn off more calories than we consume. Yes, this can mean eating food that is offer negative calorie content but it also means you will need to do lots of exercise to burn off the calories the normal way. Talk to your doctor about ways to lead a healthy life, but generally it includes doing any sort of exercise and always remembering to eat well every single day.

Categories: calorie, calorie content, calorie foods, calories, feel fuller, foods, Healthy, Lose weight, negative calorie, Weight Loss

Best Tricks to Lose Weight Without Losing Your Wellness

Losing weight and improving your fitness doesn’t have to be an awful process. It is possible to improve your wellness and wellbeing without going to any swanky resort or putting yourself through hell down at the gym.

 

If you’re trying to do it the easy way, fibre is your friend. Fibre helps you to absorb the fat and cholesterol in your body and it also travels down your digestive tract really nicely which helps to stop any excess weight from water retention or constipation.

 

The recommended daily consumption of fibre is 30 grams, and it should be easy enough to get this into your diet. For breakfast, you could have a cup of Greek yoghurt with granola, some popcorn for a snack, chickpeas with your lunch, apples and almonds as a snack and then broccoli and quinoa with your evening meal, and that would fulfil your dietary requirements.

 

There are also easy ways to drop a few pounds quickly. For example, most people consume a great deal of calories at night, which is a bad idea because your metabolism slows down and you find it harder to burn off these calories again at that time of day. A really simple strategy to help avoid this is to make sure that breakfast is the biggest meal of the day. If you start with, for example, a 500 calorie breakfast and then have 400 for lunch and a 200 calorie tea, with a couple of 100 – 200 calorie snacks during the day. This will give you your total calorie content for the day but just in the reverse order to what you might expect.

 

Beating your cravings is also possible. Instead of depriving yourself altogether or tucking in straight away, the best way to beat cravings is simply to delay gratification. Tell yourself that it’s not that you won’t indulge, but that you won’t indulge straight away.

Categories: breakfast, calorie, easy, fibre, loss, nbsp, Tricks, weight

Is Your Daily Workout Giving You Optimum Calorie Burn?

Have you been focusing on your weight and fitness for a long time, but suddenly found that your weight loss has hit a plateau no matter how hard you work? Or have you been working out but think that you could kick it up a notch and make an even more significant difference to your wellness and wellbeing? Whatever the reason, there are always ways to boost your workout and improve the way that you are burning calories.

 

Interval training is the latest and greatest way to get cardio exercise into your routine. The technique has long been a favourite with competitive athletes, and it is now making its way into the amateur fitness circles. It is incredibly popular because it can reduce your workout time enormously whilst also increasing the number of calories that you burn.

 

In order to do interval training, spend around two to five minutes working out at a slow or moderate pace, and then increase your efforts to nearly your maximum ability and hold this for around 30 seconds to two minutes. Then go back to the slow pace again. Keep repeating this cycle as you work out, alternating between periods of intensity and periods of taking it easy. This throws your body out of homeostasis and requires it to work at restoring the balance for around 24 hours after your workout, which leads to an increased.

 

One recent study from the University of Colorado involved studying participants as they did a workout that involved four minutes of gentle cycling on an exercise bike, interspersed with 30 seconds of flat out spring cycling. Researchers found that after the workout was complete, participants continued to burn around 200 calories more than normal for the rest of the day.

Categories: burn, calorie, calories, Interval Training, nbsp, work, Workout

Weird Diets That Could Actually Work

Diets go through some bizarre fads but how do you really know if they’re effective? In one of the most random acts of weight loss, the media published a story a few years ago that claims a man at college dropped 245 pounds by eating nothing but Subway sandwiches. There’s no shortage of weird diets on the market, with companies and experts clinging to anything that offers the slightest hint of weight loss. Some dangerous, some effective, some simply bizarre, diets are a big business. However, the more random diets tend to rely on foods people enjoy eating, so they tend to be easier to stick to. One of the weird diets researchers have found to have mixed effects is what is known as the Tailgater’s Diet – this relies on consuming around 1500 calories a day from sausages and craft ale. Psychologically, it’s an easy one to stick to because the foods are appealing and tasty. However, as a long-term solution for weight loss, it has no nutrients and will cause a problem for your health. Protein is a great way to fill up though, so it’s a good idea to use it with each meal to stave off hunger – lean meats or tofu and legumes are great sources.

The bacteria diet works by you consuming the kinds of foods which plump up the amount of healthy bacteria in the digestive tract. Creator of the diet, Stella Mestovas, found that in each of her clients who ate at least half a cup of probiotic-rich foods each day, each lost around 21 pounds over six months. This is all without cutting any calories from their diet. Despite the unappealing name, this diet can actually be very effective in regulating your appetite and metabolism. A better balance of healthy bacteria in the gut can prevent weight gain, so try eating some fermented foods each day. Sauerkraut and kimchi can be great options, as these have healthy bacteria in them. Love Starbucks? Christine Hall, aged 66, reportedly lost over 75 pounds over two years simply by surviving on Starbucks and sticking to a 1000-calorie a day diet. Hall claimed that the portion sizes helped her to limit her overall calorie intake, helping her to lose weight. It doesn’t need to be just Starbucks, though. You can download apps that monitor the calorie intake of fast food, to help you estimate what that bought lunch will cost you, weight-wise.

It may not be the most appealing diet, but the cabbage soup diet has had its time in the spotlight. You only need to be on it for a week to see results, but the downside is that it’s boring – breakfast, lunch and dinner all consist of the same veggie meal. You can lose up to 10 pounds on this in just a week, but the boredom factor means many people give up after just a couple of days. The soup includes half a head of cabbage, cooked with green onions, tomatoes, green peppers, celery, mushrooms and carrots. The copious amounts of liquids mean you’ll feel relatively full, as well as having less room for high-calorie foods. Any low-calorie and low-salt soup eaten 15 to 30 minutes before a balanced meal will help to keep you fuller before you overeat on fattier foods. With this variation you won’t lose weight as quickly, but you’ll also be able to eat a more balanced diet overall, stopping you from skipping vital nutrients. You can also try drinking water before meals for the same effect.

Categories: calorie, calorie intake, diet, Diets, Fat, foods, healthy bacteria, Lose weight, weight, Weight Loss

How to Add Flavour to Your Recipes Without Adding Calories

One of the reasons that many people struggle to follow a low fat diet and provide themselves with the right nutrition to maintain their wellness is that they find this type of food very bland. Many people associate any food that is beneficial for their wellbeing with boredom and frustration, but actually even diet food can be packed full of flavour.

 

There are actually tons of low calorie ways to add flavour to your food, and with the right knowledge your diet can be anything but boring.

 

Hot sauce has got to be one of the most exciting ways to add a bit of zing to your meal. It’s not only low in calories, but the chilli peppers also boost your metabolism. Keep eating spicy foods and speed up the rate at which you burn calories. You can add it to a chilli made with lean beef or to chicken or turkey dishes.

 

Following the same train of thought, spices are also low on calorie and packed with flavour. You can add anything from pepper to onion powder to a variety of low calorie recipes, to add a lot of flavour to a normally bland, low-calorie meal.

 

To make a fruity, summer dish, try adding barbeque sauce to the menu. This will turn plain old pork chops or baked chicken into a tasty and flavoursome dish. Just make sure that you look out for a barbeque sauce that is low in sugar, as some of them can have high levels of sugar.

 

If you want a fresher flavour, citrus juices can be a fantastic way to add a lot of extra flavour to the menu without adding any calories. You can use these to jazz up so many things – from adding a splash of orange or lemon juice to make your glass of water tastier to using it as a marinade for chicken or fish.

Categories: add flavour, adding, barbeque sauce, calorie, calories, diet, flavour, Food, nbsp