29 Aug 09 Reinvigorate Your Diet

One of the most successful diet tactics, is simply knowing how to successfully cut calories from the foods that you already eat on a daily basis. By simply knowing where to cut calories from your daily routine, you can dodge all sorts of diet pitfalls that you may otherwise fall into headfirst. Part of this strategy is of course just being aware of what you are eating. But also, making small changes without wholly changing how you see or consume food is the real key to making changes to your diet stick. Remember, it takes about 21 days to form a new habit, so changing the way you eat should be a slow progression.

-Firstly, if you tend to eat out a lot, whether out of habit or your job forces you to, halve your portions so that you are only in taking half of what you normally would.

-If you drink and or use 2% whole milk on your cereal in the morning, try switching to skim. You’ll still get the familiar milk flavor in the mix, but you’ll be cutting the calories significantly, and more importantly cutting the amount of fat and cholesterol that you intake.

-Remember that even if you’re drinking juice that’s healthier for your body, on average it still packs as much sugar and calories as soda. That’s not a good thing. So try sticking to less juice, and try eating a piece of fruit to supplement when you’d be drinking a glass of juice otherwise.

-Try keeping a food journal, to track how much you eat and when. You may be surprised, and this will also help you formulate a strategy to curb how much you are eating. Thus helping you cut calories, and keep a better hold of how much food you are eating in the first place.

-Finally, make eating into a routine, in which you prepare all of your food, plate it, and then sit down to eat. By making your eating habits into a ritual like this every time, you’ll be less tempted to snack, as eating becomes a bit of a hassle. So it’s a worthwhile strategy in the long run.

Tags: All Sorts, Calories, Cereal, Cholesterol, Daily Basis, Daily Routine, Diet, Dodge, Eating Habits, Firstly, Food Journal, Food Plate, Habit, Hassle, Pitfalls, Slow Progression, Small Changes, Snack, Soda, Whole Milk

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08 Jul 09 5 Ways To Help The Environment You Hadn’t Thought Of

There are plenty of ways to be more environmentally friendly without really changing your lifestyle in a way that will affect your daily routine in any sort of negative way. In fact there are plenty of ways to be much more environmentally friendly, that are also fairly easy to accommodate, that you probably haven’t even thought about. And here are five tips that you may not have considered that will bring you five steps closer to reversing that carbon footprint you’re leaving behind:

Eat a meatless meal at least once a week.
Unplug chargers when not in use.
Don’t preheat your stove.
Read the news online, opposed to buying a newspaper or magazine.
Use compact fluorescent light bulbs.

If you’re a meat eater, one thing you probably don’t realize is that meat exhausts a massive amount of resources to maintain and produce. From feeding/transporting the animals, to processing their carcasses, a lot of irreplaceable fossil fuels are exhausted, not to mention carbon emissions are released into the environment. Fruits and Vegetables cause far fewer resources to be exhausted in route to you at the grocery store. I’m not saying go vegetarian, but just cut it down a little bit. You’ll be healthier, and the environment will become a little bit more healthy with you.

Your charger for your cell phone, or any other portable device, will continue to draw power when plugged in to a wall socket, whether your device is present or not. This wastes energy, and also costs you more money on your electricity bill, for absolutely no reason. So save some green, and help yourself go green by unplugging any charger that isn’t currently in use.

When cooking a meal that will take over an hour in a stove to cook, don’t preheat your oven. The preheat time will only waste energy that doesn’t need to be consumed through a preheat process. Something like a roast doesn’t need a preheating process beforehand, and you’ll save energy this way. Also you can turn your oven off ten minutes prior to the meal’s cooking time ends, and the heat will remain to cook the food, but you will be consuming a little bit less energy by shutting the stove off early.

Newspapers and magazines are recyclable, but the problem is that very few people dispose of them in the proper fashion, so most newspapers and magazines just end up as more trash polluting our world. Instead cut down on the amount of trash, as well as the resources consumed to produce them, by just reading the same articles and news online via the internet instead.

Compact bulbs might be more expensive at the store, but they use 75% less energy than conventional light bulbs, and they last 10 times longer, making the energy savings alone worth the price. Plus it will actually save you more money in the long run. And Mother Earth will thank you for your efforts to conserve power.

Tags: Carbon Emissions, Carbon Footprint, Carcasses, cell phone, Chargers, Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs, Daily Routine, Electricity Bill, Five Steps, Fluorescent Light Bulbs, Fossil Fuels, Fruits And Vegetables, Fruits Vegetables, Grocery Store, Lifestyle, Little Bit, Meat Eater, Meatless Meal, Wall Socket, Ways To Help The Environment

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03 Jul 09 Five Tips To Keep Your Mind Fit

The importance of mental fitness is lost on many people, as physical fitness has taken a front seat as our nation battles the rising obesity rates. But keeping your mind fit is every bit as important as keeping your body physically fit. Which is why you should make sure to regularly partake in mind exercises. These are vitally important to the healthy human being, as exercising your brain will help you fight off memory loss at an older age, increase brain power, and battle back against other possible mental illnesses. There are well more than a few exercises you can do to get yourself on your way to better mental fitness:

Use your non-dominant hand
Read more books
Change up your routine occasionally
Go shopping without a list
Exercise your body

If you’re right handed, using your left hand for tasks occasionally forces your brain to think differently, and work out how to do the same easy tasks you’re used to in a different way. This works parts of your brain that you don’t normally use as often as a right hander, and will help you keep your brain in better shape by giving it a full workout.

Reading requires you to not only visually recognize words and characters, but to also interpret them into something visual inside your imagination. Your brain reads what is written, and then your brain plays out the story in your mind, a good daunting task that strengthens your ability to reason and think.

The problem with a daily routine that’s always the same, is that your brain doesn’t have to think about anything very much. However if you change that routine, your brain will have to wake up so that you can make decisions on the fly. Not only does this keep your brain well exercised, but it also helps to wake you up and really prepare for your day.

Going shopping without a list causes you to have to search throughout your mind to remember the things that you need to buy at the store. Yes it might take you longer to go shopping that way, and you may forget a few items. But the more you go without a list, the better your memory will get, and you’ll find yourself forgetting items you need less, as well as exercising your brain.

Finally, keep your body fit as well. By keeping yourself fit and at a healthy body weight you keep a healthy blood flow to your brain. Ensuring your brain receives the proper nutrients, and that it always has a good air supply from your blood is the best measure for keeping your mind healthy for a long time.

Tags: Brain Power, Daily Routine, Daunting Task, Decisions, Dominant Hand, Fly, Front Seat, Going Shopping, Left Hand, Memory Loss, Mental Fitness, Mental Illnesses, Mind Exercises, Obesity Rates, Physical Fitness, Right Hander, Rising Obesity, Shape, Visual Imagination, Workout

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29 Aug 09 Reinvigorate Your Diet

08 Jul 09 5 Ways To Help The Environment You Hadn’t Thought Of

03 Jul 09 Five Tips To Keep Your Mind Fit

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