The Daily Gain - WeightLossWars.com

Quick, Healthy Meals!

Mon, 03 Aug 2009

The school year is fast approaching and we all know that life gets a lot busier with everyone's schedules in full force. Don't think you can't have a healthy meal even if you are short on prep time. Here are some great ideas:

Pancakes made from whole grain store-bought mix, canned applesauce, milk.

Microwave-warmed tortillas filled with shredded cheese, canned black beans and salsa. Serve with green pepper strips

Make your own sandwich buffet. Use whole wheat bread or rolls, cheese, leftover turkey or chicken, green or red peppers, cucumbers, mustard, etc.

The "everything-but-the-kitchen sink" salad. Combine any of the following: a can of tuna, raisins, sunflower seeds, sprouts, leftover rice or pasta, shredded cheese, drained canned chick peas, leftover tender cooked broccoli bits, etc. Serve with a loaf of fresh baked bread from the bakery or bake muffins from a mix (or scratch) w...

Portion Distortion

Mon, 20 Jul 2009

Eating smaller portions of food is one of the easiest ways to cut back on calories – but it can also be one of the most challenging, especially with the current trend of super-sizing.

Oversized portions, all-you-can-eat-buffets, and extra-large “single servings” of chips, candy bars, and other snack foods are all contributing to an overeating epedimic. Even if you’re not attempting to lose weight, you should be aware of portion sizes. Research has shown that Americans often overestimate the portion sizes for several foods and underestimate how many calories they consume each day by as much as 25%!

Try pouring out your usual portion of pasta or cereal and measuring it. Now, compare it to the portion size written on the label. Chances are, you’re eating two, three, or four times the amount on the label.

The best way to determine the amount of food in a serving is to look at the food label and measure it out. For example, fill a measuring cup with a correctly sized ...

Tired of Your Same Old Cardio Routine?

Mon, 22 Jun 2009

Try this hot new game that is fun, easy to set up and burns a ton of calories!

What: Speedminton

Calories Burned: About 400 per hour

Body Benefits: Tank-worthy arms. This hot new game is a cross between racquetball, badminton, and tennis but with no nets or walls involved. Players bat a speeder--which looks like the birdie used in badminton--back and forth using lightweight racquets.

"If you can swing a racquet, you can learn to play, and it's great cardio," says 30-year-old Christina Higgins of San Diego, mother to a newborn and a toddler. "The results are similar to those in tennis--sculpted arms and back, toned legs, and better hand-eye coordination."

Weekend Benefits: Time with friends. "Our neighbors introduced my husband and me to the game, so now we all play in our cul-de-sac," Higgins says. "The speeder glows, so we can even play well into the night....

The Speed of Weight Loss

Mon, 25 May 2009

Weight Loss Includes Fat, Muscle and Water

When we lose weight we don't just lose fat. We lose a combination of body fat, and muscle tissue. For example, studies show that when we diet, the weight we lose is on average 75 percent fat and 25 percent muscle. Furthermore, a relatively high percentage of this weight loss is likely to be water loss. Remember, water accounts for about 70 percent of the total body weight of an average person, with muscle tissue containing roughly 75 percent water (plus 20 percent protein and 5 percent minerals), and body fat containing roughly 50 percent water.

Factors That Affect Speed of Weight Loss

The human body does not lose weight at a regular or uniform speed. Different people reduce weight at different speeds. This is because weight reduction is dependent on various factors, including: weight; diet and lifestyle; level of physical activity; health and genes (inc. metabolic rate); the level of stress ex...

Dedicated and Disciplined

Mon, 18 May 2009

Losing weight can be hard but worth the efforts you make. Here are some ways to make it to your weight loss goals, and stay in the game.

Commit

We all know losing weight is a commitment but what does that entail? It entails making a choice. You decide to make healthy choices and have to wake up everyday and make that decision over and over. We all know just because we say we are on a diet we still have to make that choice again and again through out our day to stay on that diet as we are faced with the temptations that may lead us astray. Here are some tips to help you stay committed and make your choices easier.

Plan and Prepare -The night before plan your workout and meals. Decide what you are going to eat that day at stick to it. Make plans to exercise the day before and get your things (shoes, clothes, gym pass) in order. This way you have your workout scheduled and your meals planned, the healthy choices are easier to make.

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The Flat Ab Diet

Mon, 11 May 2009

Just can't get rid of your flabby belly, even though you do sit-ups and crunches until you're ready to drop? Assuming that you are already physically active and have a sensible diet with lots of fruits and vegetables and low in fat and your belly is still a bit bigger than you wish, read on. If you want to go from fat to fab abs, new research shows that what you eat is just as important as how - or even how much - you work out.

Ab Diet Tip 1. Eat more fiber.

Not eating enough fiber may be a major reason women are getting fatter and flabbier. To ditch the fat and show off firm, beautiful abs, you need to eat at least 25 grams of fiber daily, says leading fiber researcher David J.A. Jenkins, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., Professor of Nutrition at the University of Toronto, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Food and Nutrition Board. Fiber, which is the indigestible part of fruits, vegetables and whole-grain foods, helps you achieve flat abs.

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Interval Training for Weight Loss and Fitness

Mon, 27 Apr 2009

by Maia Appleby

The theory behind interval training is this: By mixing bursts of high intensity work with low intensity periods of recovery, you're overloading both the aerobic and anaerobic systems at the same time, getting the benefits of both aspects of training simultaneously. You can realistically get a complete workout in thirty minutes with interval training.

How is it done?
Begin as you would on any other day. Start at an easy pace and gradually increase your heart rate for at least five minutes. You can monitor this by taking your pulse for fifteen seconds and multiplying it by four or using a heart rate monitor When you're sufficiently warmed up, you're ready for a burst of high intensity work. If you're on a treadmill, break into a jog or a sprint, depending on what "high intensity" means to you.

During the high intensity periods, you're decreasing your body's ability to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide. You begin to feel the &qu...

Easter Weight Loss & The Easter Bunny - Are They Both A Myth?

Mon, 06 Apr 2009

by Tracie Johanson

Millions of Americans are well into their annual spring diet program, trying to lose weight fast before summer arrives. Unfortunately, Easter can derail our weight loss efforts faster than Peter Cottontail hops down his bunny trail. With mountains of candy eggs and legions of chocolate bunnies, Easter packs enough fat and calories to obliterate even the best weight loss program. Attempting to stick with a healthy diet through Easter may leave the dieter wondering if Easter weight loss is a bigger myth than the Easter bunny.

"Easter is third in candy consumption in the United States with 940 million dollars spent on it in 1998. That's a lot of chocolate bunnies" (Source: about.com). "In 2000, Americans bought $1.9 billion of Easter candy and consumed 7.1 billion pounds to edge ahead of Christmas sales that year" (Source: Topeka Capital Journal, April, 2004).

So what's a weight watcher to do, short of filling the Easter eggs with diet pi...

Turn Your Body into a Fat Burning Machine

Mon, 30 Mar 2009

By Paige Waehner, About.com

I once had a client who asked, "When I eat too many calories, how do they know to go straight to my thighs? Do they have some kind of homing device or what?" I suppose that's one way to look at it since our genes usually determine where we store excess fat. But, a more important point is that, if we didn't eat too many calories, we wouldn't have any extra calories to store. We have no problem eating those calories, but getting rid of them is a whole other problem.

We all have areas where fat cells seem to congregate and, sadly, thrive. The real challenge is burning that fat and keeping it off. We hear a lot about fat burning, from working out in the 'fat burning zone' to eating foods or taking supplements that supposedly burn more fat. But, gimmicks aside, what we all want to know is: What's the best way to burn fat? Knowing a little more about how your body works can help you become a better fat burning machine.

The Basics of ...

The Scoop on Night Time Eating

Mon, 23 Mar 2009

"Eat breakfast like a king, eat lunch like a prince and eat dinner like a pauper." This maxim can be attributed to nutrition writer Adelle Davis, and since her passing in 1974, the advice to eat less at night to help with fat loss has lived on and continued to circulate in many different incarnations. This includes suggestions such as:

"Dont eat a lot before bedtime"
"Don't eat midnight snacks"
"Don't eat anything after 7pm"
"Don't eat any carbs at night"
"Don't eat any carbs after 3 pm"
and so on.

Eating lightly at night is usually very solid advice for people seeking increased fat loss, especially for people who are inactive at night.

Opinions on this subject are definitely mixed. Many highly respected experts strongly recommend eating less at night to improve fat loss, while others suggest that it's only calories in vs calories out over 24 hours that matters.

The critics claim that it...