‘Tis the Season to Eat Comfort Food

‘Tis the Season to Eat Comfort Food

With summer having left the building, (although not that many of us heard it knock in the first place), it is now officially the season of comforting food. Autumn combines grey skies and plentiful food supplies and it’s a great time for a whole range of warm, filling comforting recipes. Not traditionally known for its focus on diet friendly cooking, autumn is a time for stocking up our cupboards and our bodies. In the darker, colder months we all need to keep our energy levels up and while it’s important to eat healthily at all times of the year, this time of year can provide an excuse or two for adding a few extra calories to our plates. As long as you keep an eye on those portion sizes, autumn is a good time to bring into play the old say ‘a little of what you fancy does you good’!

Smashing Mash

For perfect mash every time all you need is a little milk and butter, which does sound a little fattening! It probably is, but a little is the key word here. Once you’ve softened your potatoes mash them with a dash of milk and a knob of butter, plus salt and pepper to taste. Give a final blitz with a whisk to create the perfect, filling, tasty and comfort-food mix. If you really don’t care about the calories add cheese to create cheesy mash.

Perfect Pie

Chicken pie is not only a classic food it’s a great make-do-and-mend dish; it often features as Monday’s Tea, as a way to make Sunday’s leftovers earn their keep. If you’re splashing out on a chicken especially for the pie you’ll need a medium sized one. If you’re being sensible and efficient get a big one for Sunday and don’t let the kids see where you’ve hidden the leftovers. The chicken should be combined with some onions that have been fried off, steamed vegetables, carrots and/or leftover vegetables from the Sunday roast are a great idea. Pastry, unless you’re a die-hard cook, can be bought and rolled out but the classic white sauce should be home-made. Two ounces of butter, two of plain flour and half a pint of milk should be enough to make a good quantity. Place chicken, veg and sauce into your pastry casing, top with more pastry and bake for around twenty five minutes.

Pancake-tastic Breakfasts

A comforting winter addition to the breakfast table is the home-made pancake. Obviously we’re not talking the Monday-Friday breakfast table here. Although simple to make pancakes fall under the “faffy” section in most peoples’ minds, with fairly good reason. For a warming winter twist, add a dash of ginger to the recipe, which adds an unexpected kick. Essential for happy families and a messy kitchen is a good smothering of maple syrup. Again, not exactly calorie counting friendly, but Monday-Friday breakfasts are for that; we all deserve a treat at the weekend!

Bonfires and Bangers

With firework displays and outdoor Christmas markets pressing upon us, one great dish for parents faced with not only their own but several lucky friends and neighbours kids to cater for, consider a mass batch of Toad in the Hole. The big advantage to Toad in the Hole is that it’s not exactly a high-octane cooking event. For large batches it’s best to use several baking trays. The batter recipe is basically the same as Yorkshire pudding batter and can be found easily online. For large quantities use 5 eggs per tray and scale up the other ingredients to match. Ten sausages should hopefully be enough per tray, and once the batter is ready and the oven heated to around 220C it takes no more than 30 minutes to cook. Onion gravy is a welcome addition in most cases. It may be calorie filled and cheap but it is very definitely cheerful!

All of these dishes contain a healthy dose of dairy products, particularly milk, which is a great source of calcium and vitamins for growing bodies. While not exactly low on calories skimmed milk and healthier butter alternatives can be added, without compromising on taste or essential goodness. Dairy products, carbohydrates and protein filled pies may not sound exactly good for your diet, but at this time of year a little comfort food can help your body to build your immune system and keep you healthy.

Lose Weight With The Biggest Loser Diet

Biggest Loser Diet

You don’t need to be on the television show to take advantage of the Biggest Loser Diet. By knowing how to feed your body right and balance that out with some exercise, you can have success on this plan. It is important to understand how to start this diet in order to have the most success possible.

The plan used by the Biggest Loser is a low calorie diet based on the 4-3-2-1 pyramid. This translates to four servings of fruits and vegetables, three servings of lean protein, two of whole grains, and one extra. The program generally lasts for 12 weeks. These meals should be smaller, but consumed more frequently throughout the day. This way you will not feel starved or deprived, which greatly increases your chances of success. It also helps increase your metabolism, which turns your body into a more efficient machine. A high metabolism means you can burn more calories throughout the day without doing extra activity.

Another aspect of this diet plan is what you are not eating, which is foods that tend to stimulate your appetite. These include breads, pasta, and potatoes.  So called “white foods” make it harder to control your appetite and keep the pounds off.

Food logs are another aspect of the Biggest Loser Diet. By keeping track of how many calories you have consumed, you can become more aware of your eating habits. This is also a way to track your progress throughout the program. Many people also choose to do a diet cleanse, which adjusts your palate and helps get rid of excess weight.

Not everyone is lucky enough to make it onto the hit show. However, you can still enjoy the health benefits of weight loss experienced by the contestants. Consider trying the Biggest Loser Diet along with a diet cleanse.

Top 5 Ketogenic Dieting Mistakes To Avoid

While starting our fitness plan and regime – the first mistake we make is of becoming ambitious! We want quick results. However with some early success, sooner or later we come to a point where there is no progress at all; or on the contrary, we start to gain weight instead. Read carefully these Ketogenic Dieting Mistakes To Avoid.

You might start to believe that the diet plan was not for you or you might just blame the equipment for not working on your body. But wait a minute, was it really the plan that didn’t work or was it YOU? It could also be some common mistakes people make while going on diets. Here are some common mistakes that render the dieting plans as ineffective, make sure you aren’t committing them! Here goes:

1. Avoiding Carbohydrates

Completely depriving your body of carbohydrates is not the right way to go on a diet. No doubt that carbohydrates are the new food demons (a status formerly reserved for fats and lipids), it is however not good to completely cut off carbohydrates from your diet.

Carbohydrates are important for your body as they help in energy production. They are necessary for the secretion of serotonin which evokes the feeling of happiness in our body. So, in other words, it is about eating smart. You can eat the good healthy carbs like whole grains and you can avoid the refined unhealthy carbohydrates on your way to weight loss & fitness.

2. Consuming Calories Unknowingly

Take a look at the food items which you are consuming. Some harmless looking food stuff contains a great amount of calories which you forgot or thought them as harmless and note down in your calorie counting book. Gulping that glass of orange juice in a hot afternoon or that coffee while you were conversing with your fellow workers might seem harmless, but they contain good amount of calories which can lead to weight gain.

Sweetened beverages are even worse in this context and one must avoid consuming these products.

The key is to be aware and alert about what you are having. Noted dieticians often comment that most of the people who come to them claim not having anything extra or unhealthy. But they’d be popping chocolates, drinking sweet – cold coffee and binging on potatoes chips and crispies. This is far from healthy! So be aware.

Ketogenic Dieting Mistakes to Avoid
Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Peter Lewis serves a crew member during lunch Wed., Dec. 21, 2016 in the galley at Station Point Allerton. Recently, Chief Lewis and Station Point Allerton won the Coast Guard’s Forrest E. Rednour Award for Excellence in Dining. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Aux. Reid Oslin)

3. Depriving Yourself

Completely depriving yourself of certain food items can actually backfire to your diet program. Although your intention might be to control the intake of calories and get to that ideal weight, your body is not accustomed to the changes. If you have been regularly catering to your “sweet tooth” then a sudden stop on sweet intake may not go down well with your body. There can be the “withdrawal symptoms” and at times, you might even suffer from ill effects.

So instead of completely avoiding certain food items, here is what you could do:

  1. Decrease the intake frequency. For instance, don’t have dessert everyday!
  2. Decrease the quantity of intake. For instance, have a small helping of ice-cream for dessert instead of the regular bowl.
  3. Burn your calories. And this is irrespective of whether you have that dessert or not!

Exercise is important for weight loss. More so, it is important for your fitness.

4. Not keeping a tab on calories

If you are not monitoring your calories, there is a real problem. You must know what you are eating.

For starters, you should maintain a journal to keep a track on your calories. Not keeping one is also a reason for diet plan fails. For your weight loss plan to be a success, you must keep a tab on the calories you eat as well as on those you exhaust. It may be a bit hard and awkward to count the calories at first, but it will definitely pay off in the long run. Make sure that you shamelessly count each and every calorie which you ever consume and don’t even let the harmless looking candy slip off! It’s after all, for your health. At the same time, keep a tab on the number of calories you spent as the difference is what will tell you how much you have improved and how close you are to the ideal weight and figure!

5. Skipping Meals a Big Ketogenic Dieting Mistake

You might think that to reduce weight one needs to reduce calories. Skipping meals can then reduce a whole bunch of calories, can’t it? Well, although the same might be true in a perfect world, ours sadly isn’t one. Skipping meals can interfere with your body’s digestion and lead to indigestion and render your body unable to utilize the food properly. Also, it is found that people who skip a meal overeat when they get a chance to in the next meal, which possesses a higher threat to weight loss.

So it’s all about being wise, eating well and doing the right amount of exercise. Get that discipline in your life – your body deserves it! Cheers! I hope you enjoyed these Ketogenic Dieting Mistakes to Avoid.

The author is a writer in a blog which provides various health and nutrition related solutions. She has written blog posts in the subject of weight loss tips, prevention and cure of acne, prevention of early aging and HGH  to name a few.

Lose Weight and Build Muscle – 4 Tips

Most people believe it is impossible to lose weight while gaining muscle at the same time. This belief is not wrong, but just not clear how it could be possible. For starters, to gain weight one must consume an excess of calories; on the other hand, to lose weight you must reduce the total number of calories you consume. So how is it possible to do both? Read these tips to help you accomplish it;

Do Cardio

Although this is fairly obvious to anyone wanting to lose weight, it is the type and duration that makes the difference. There is standard “slow” cardio, which is done for maybe 45 minutes at a time; and then there is HIIT (high intensity interval training), done for 30 minutes max. The difference with these two types being that the HIIT type expends more calories while limiting protein breakdown, while the slow type may be more geared to a gradual mainly weight loss pattern. So if losing fat and gaining weight are your goals, HIIT seems better suited for you.

Weight training

You must do this if you require your body to take on a new look. Endless cardio won’t reveal your “hidden” body; actually you will look like one of the many skinny-fat guys around. The reason for this is because cardio is an activity that quite often results in both fat and muscle breakdown. So if you really want to change the way you look, strength training must be done to give the body a reason to change.

Nutrition

Nutrition is basically the make or break factor when it comes to achieving this double feat. Every time we eat, hormonal signals are released which dictate if we gain muscle, fat or lose weight. The nutrition plan that seems most geared to the goals in focus here work around cycling carbohydrate and fat intake, while keeping protein levels reasonably high. It appears that the body makes best use of carbohydrates to incorporate in muscle glycogen when taken around the workout; some before and about three times following the workout.  During these high-carbohydrates meals, fat should be minimized. It is a good rule of thumb to state that fat and carbohydrates should not be consumed in large quantities together, this is a recipe for weight gain.

Wise Use of Supplements

Many natural thermogenics exist; including green tea extract, ginseng and even the use of Chia seeds. These supplements can give you that small push to increase your metabolism and shift into a recomposition state.

Above all, be realistic; don’t expect to gain large amounts of muscle while simultaneously losing excessive fat, expect to do a little bit of both. After all, no vehicle ever got anywhere with its wheels spinning in the opposite directions.

 

John has been a personal trainer for over 3 years. He enjoys writing about bodybuilding, supplements, and natural remedies. His favorite website is Remedy Tip.

Diet And Exercise To Lose More Weight

Physical exercise will help you lose weight. Studies show that individuals who exercise, not just lose weight, but maintain it off more effectively than these who don’t workout. Physical exercise will help raise your metabolic price and create a calorie deficit, which helps the excess weight occur off faster. Keep moving to maintain the excess weight off.   Get rid of that muffin top with muffin top exercises.

For shedding excess weight, nothing at all is better than eating high quantities of fiber. Fiber is discovered in entire grain foods, nuts and lots of fruits and greens. Fiber requires lengthier for the physique to break it down, so you really feel complete for much extended and will not begin craving snacks and unhealthy foods.

If you want to lose excess weight you must maintain a every day foods journal. By retaining monitor of all food items and beverages consumed throughout the day, and beneath what situations they may be selected, it gets simpler to stay accountable for the dietary patterns. Understanding of what types of scenarios trigger your overeating can help you adjust your habits and adopt more healthy habits.   Lose more weight and start getting rid of muffin top.

To aid you achieve your weight reduction objectives when starting out, you should make your targets affordable. One particular to two kilos every week is what many people should goal to hit. A person shouldn’t make an effort to goal for more than that since you wish to make sure to consider a wholesome and secure route. Also aiming for an accurate number may help you to be successful, not fall short.

To reduce your weight, you need to avoid consuming proper prior to gonna mattress. The foods you consume before sleeping is not gonna be consumed as power by your body. It is going to change into fat and be saved whilst you snooze. You ought to consume your supper a few hrs just before going to bed.

Join a fat reduction assistance group such as Fat Watchers or Nutrisystem to aid you drop weight. Acquiring support from other individuals who are following the same path you’re on helps you to stay on the right track. You can also satisfy individuals at these groups who’ve accomplished their objectives, assisting you recognize that it really is possible.

Sleep your approach to weight loss. To successfully burn up body fat, your body demands rest.Your brain wants rest as a way to produce great choices, and also you wish to have the ability to create fantastic foods and physical exercise choice. The body must relaxation the two physically and mentally to be at its very best.

An excellent approach to enable you to drop weight is to be part of a biking group. There are biking teams in every town and all it takes to seek out them is really a rapid internet search. Not only will you be burning tons of calories, it is also an excellent way to satisfy folks.

B12 injections For Weight Loss

One of the easiest ways that you can lose any additional weight you have been carrying around is the use of B12 shots for weight loss. The perfect way to get great weight loss results would be B12 shots for weightloss because of how effective they are.

These vitamins are found naturally in some of the healthiest foods that you could put into your body. However, you will save yourself time and money by simply using these shots in order to get the same benefits without the additional calories that you would otherwise take in. Weight loss is very simple, reduce the amount of calories you take in each day. Once you do this, simply burn off what you are putting into your body and you will experience great results. Many people find this difficult to do because of the fact that they have very little energy or time at the end of each day. When you feel constantly worn out, it is very hard to find the motivation to get in the exercise that is needed in order to shed extra pounds. The greatest thing about these shots is the energy boost that they provide.

Many medical clinics suggest B12 shots for weight-loss to their patients, this is because b12 is proven to boost your metabolism and allow you to burn fast much faster than you have in the past. With B12 shots for weight loss your system will begin working more efficiently, it will help you to burn off anything that you are eating much faster. Since your system is working harder to burn off calories, you will be able to spend less time exercising than you are currently.  One of the most common excuses that people use to avoid exercise is to say they lack the time required. However, this is simply a matter of having the right tools to get the job done in the shortest possible time. Additionally, these shots have been shown to help provide you with a boost of energy, this can make exercise more enjoyable and much easier to commit to. Losing weight is something that millions of people make a promise to take up every day. However, most of these promises are broken simply because the person believes it is just too hard to lose weight. These shorts are the perfect solution, they can help you to change your body with a lot bit of science and exercise. While there are many choices available to you, these shots are proven to provide results. When you are in need of a dramatic change, allowing b12 to work to your advantage can change your body forever. Avoid crash diets and take control of your weight with these injections.