7 EASY TIPS

No Evening Meals

Nighttime and your sleep period is when your body repairs and restores vital functions. Although you might be tempted to snack before bed, experts recommend going to bed a bit hungry and then enjoying a full breakfast. When you eat four hours or less before going to sleep, your body will have to work to digest that food and will spend less time burning fat.

Take a Break from Alcohol

While many people enjoy a glass of wine with dinner or sharing a beer with friends, alcohol and weight loss do not a good combination make. Beer, especially, is roughly the equivalent of bread, and overloading your body with carbohydrates won’t help you shed those unwanted pounds.

Health experts recommend slowly re-introducing alcohol back into your diet (think Turkey day!) once you’ve attained your desired weight and have ingrained healthy dietary and exercise habits.

Drink Lots and Lots of Water

It seems strange, but many people in wealthy nations are actually dehydrated even though they drink plenty of liquids. Drinks other than plain water can often serve as a diuretic, forcing your body to use more water to process it than any hydration gained from drinking the beverage.

Drinking lots of water also helps your body’s systems operate more smoothly and efficiently, much like how clean oil in a car helps the motor and other vital parts running better. If you can’t stomach drinking another glass of water, try eating more watery foods, such as thin (more broth) soups and juicy vegetables and fruits.

Get Enough Sleep

Probably the greatest open secret about losing weight is that getting enough rest is a key part of losing weight. During the night, as you sleep, your body’s hormone balance and other key functions are reset and restored, helping maintain a healthy metabolic function.

Caffeine

Experts agree that drinking too much coffee or other sources of caffeine isn’t good, a little caffeine in your blood stream will help curb your appetite while simultaneously removing free fatty acids, helping you to lose weight.

Protein and Fiber – At Every Meal

Fiber in our foods has no nutritional value, but it does serve as an important part of our digestive system, essentially acting a cleanser, removing toxins, dead cells, and other waste from our bodies. Fiber also helps you feel full, triggering your brain’s sense of satisfaction, which will help keep you from reaching for an unhealthy treat. In the morning, you can enjoy a healthy whole grain breakfast, but to achieve the best results, it’s important to eat a source of fiber with every meal and snack.

Likewise, a good source of protein with every meal helps your body burn fat and build muscles, which leads to a righteous cycle as more muscles burn more fat, helping you to steadily lose unwanted weight. Vegetarians can enjoy protein-rich foods such as beans, peanuts, and pulses, while omnivores can add low-fat meats like chicken and turkey to every meal in order to maintain a well-balanced diet.

These handful of easy and helpful tips will help you ease into the holiday season a bit lighter, as well as your clothes!

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THE THREE PILLARS OF CLEAN EATING

Pillar 1 – The most important step in clean eating is to avoid consuming chemicals, additives, preservatives, artificial substances, and genetically-engineered organisms (GMO). While many of these products are legally able to tout their “natural” origin, or “healthy” benefits, we all know that the clean, pure foods found in nature have absolutely nothing in common with these poisonous industrial products.

While many people are understandably focused on the results of eating clean, such as losing weight, having clearer skin and complexions, and healing from illnesses, even an otherwise healthy person will force their body to work overtime if they consume chemicals and artificial additives in their foods and beverages. Before we can begin to achieve maximum health, the first step is to quit taxing our bodies with toxic substances.

Pillar 2 – After moving towards a diet that is free from chemicals and preservatives, the next area to be aware of is understanding the source of the fruits, vegetables, grains, and even meats that we eat. A tomato grown with tender loving care in a small garden is a vastly different plant than what results from large-scale commercial growing enterprises. Secondly, food is always cleaner when it is acquired in its purest, most natural state, meaning fresh from the vine, bush, tree, or plant instead of being boiled, canned, diced, and otherwise processed.

While some advocates of clean eating avoid the consumption of meats, others feel comfortable with it. Whenever possible, it is best to buy meat in its natural, whole state from a local butcher, instead of processed meats like hamburgers and sausages, mass-produced by robotic industrial machines on a commercial scale. Consuming meat in its cleanest state starts with buying large joints or natural cuts of meat, and then cutting them and processing them at home yourself, rather than relying on industrial machines to serve up pre-packaged fillets and steaks.

Consuming whole grains and fiber, as opposed to processed white flour, is an important part of eating clean. In this area, a careful examination of the label is very important. While it’s fashionable and convenient to put the word “whole grains” on products, a careful examination of the label often reveals that while yes, the food was made from whole grains, it was also made with ordinary processed white flour as well, completely negating the benefit of eating clean.

Last, but not least, a good way to ensure that you are eating clean is to count the number of ingredients in the foods that you are eating. The old rule of thumb of five or less ingredients is incredibly useful. Almost anything for sale in a supermarket that has more than five ingredients is probably heavily processed and full of chemicals, preservatives, or additives.

Pillar 3:  The third pillar of clean eating is regulating your meals.

Nutritional science now understands that the human body does best when we eat small meals more often, rather than the traditional three large meals during the day. A number of hormones and other natural chemicals are produced during the digestive process, and keeping our bodies fueled and hydrated throughout the day helps keep those hormones at steady levels. When we go from large meals to periods of not consuming anything, the insulin in our blood spikes and falls, and adds a lot of stress to our bodies.

Nighttime and the sleep period is when our bodies rest and repair from the stresses of the day. When we are active and alert, it is generally a good idea to keep our bodies in a steady state of processing and digestion, converting the clean foods and beverages we consume into a healthy source of reliable energy.

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