Best Be Beautiful

Health & beauty blog
healthylivingforyou:

lowcalorierecipes:

Raspberry Rockets (a.k.a. white chocolate filled raspberries that are perfect for a sweet craving)
Ingredients:
20 raspberries (20)
20 white chocolate chips (34)
Method:
Wash the raspberries by holding them under gently running water or submerging in a bowl of water and agitating gently. Allow the raspberries to air-dry by simply putting them on a towel. Once dry, insert one chip into each berry with flat side of the chip facing you. Serve.
Each serving (10 raspberry rockets) holds 27 calories

So cute and clever! I think I would use dark chocolate, maybe even butterscotch just for the hell of it. Yum!

healthylivingforyou:

lowcalorierecipes:

Raspberry Rockets (a.k.a. white chocolate filled raspberries that are perfect for a sweet craving)

Ingredients:

  • 20 raspberries (20)
  • 20 white chocolate chips (34)

Method:

Wash the raspberries by holding them under gently running water or submerging in a bowl of water and agitating gently. Allow the raspberries to air-dry by simply putting them on a towel. Once dry, insert one chip into each berry with flat side of the chip facing you. Serve.

Each serving (10 raspberry rockets) holds 27 calories

So cute and clever! I think I would use dark chocolate, maybe even butterscotch just for the hell of it. Yum!

(via beautifulfitandsane)

undressedskeleton:

This morning I decided to make a change! I’m going to slowly cut out all the artificial sweeteners. I never realized how dangerous they are and I’m slowly poisoning my body. There are 92 side effects of artificial sweeteners. The occasional indulgence once and a while is fine but I do admit I over do it. I did a little research and found the best alternative, Truvia. I will start substituting with that whenever I can. It’s time to truly treat my body with respect.
Starting with my morning coffee :) I honestly cant taste the difference.
http://www.truvia.com/about/qa/

undressedskeleton:

This morning I decided to make a change! I’m going to slowly cut out all the artificial sweeteners. I never realized how dangerous they are and I’m slowly poisoning my body. There are 92 side effects of artificial sweeteners. The occasional indulgence once and a while is fine but I do admit I over do it. I did a little research and found the best alternative, Truvia. I will start substituting with that whenever I can. It’s time to truly treat my body with respect.

Starting with my morning coffee :) I honestly cant taste the difference.

http://www.truvia.com/about/qa/

undressedskeleton:

Strawberry & Banana Bagel
167 Calories 22g Carbs 6g Protein, 3g Fat
Perfect Dorm Room Breakfast!

undressedskeleton:

Strawberry & Banana Bagel

167 Calories 22g Carbs 6g Protein, 3g Fat

Perfect Dorm Room Breakfast!

Your running program: nutrition

Find some fibre

Fibre takes longer to digest, so more time will pass before you feel hungry again. It expands in your stomach, making you feel fuller. So feast on fruit, high fibre cereal and brown rice.

Can the carbs

Or at least the ones with high glycaemic index ratings, such as white bread, pasta and rice. “They cause spikes in insulin levels, followed by cravings for sweet, fatty foods to keep blood sugar levels high,” says nutritionist Anita Bean. “Low index foods include wholegrain bread, fruit and branflakes, but shredded wheat, for example, is highly glycaemic.”

Feel full

Changing meal frequency causes dieters most difficulty, so see what works for you. Regardless of when or how often you eat, you’ll still lose weight if you eat fewer calories overall.

Squeeze it in

In a University of Virginia study, subjects lost weight four times quicker by adding small, light exercise bursts each day to their usual schedule. Try a brisk walk or a series of stretches.

Get wet

“Drinking plenty is the first step in losing weight,” says nutritionist Amanda Ursell. Dehydration is often mistaken for hunger, so aim for at least four pints of water daily.

Don’t deny your urges

If you know you’re going to crave a chocolate bar at 4pm every day, incorporate it into your daily calorie intake. “If you can’t go a week without a pizza, make sure you eat fewer calories in other meals,” advises Ursell. “One slip isn’t irreparable. Just create a general sense of control, which is easier when you’re flexible.”

Read the label

“You should know exactly what’s going in your mouth every time you eat or drink,” says Ursell. Read all food labels and before going out to eat, check nutritional values on the restaurant’s website.

Drink some milk

Like water, low-fat milk’s volume fills your stomach, but it also contains carbohydrates – so you eat less. Have a glass of skimmed as a mid morning and afternoon snack.

Make a dash for it

The harder you exercise, the more your body generates growth hormone, your number one fat burner. Mix one-minute sprint intervals into your aerobic workout, with two minutes’ rest.

Front load

Start with a big breakfast and reduce your meal size through the day. “You’ll eat less,” says nutritionist Nancy Clark. “And you’ll sleep better with less food in your stomach.”

Work it out

To maintain his weight, a reasonably active 100kg (16 stone) man requires around 3,250 per day; a 90kg (14 stone) man needs 3,032; and a 75kg (12 stone) man, 2,800. “Take 500 calories off, and you’ll lose around 0.5kg a week,” says Ursell.

Pack in the protein

Eating a high protein diet can increase weight loss rates by over 25%, the International Journal of Obesity reports. Add low fat, high protein foods such as tuna and semi-skimmed milk.

Do some sums

Subtract your neck size from your waist size for the simplest way to measure weight loss progress. Repeat this calculation every two weeks: “If the number is going down – if your waist’s getting smaller relative to your neck – you’re losing fat. If it’s going the opposite direction, you need to beef up your workouts and slow down your fork,” says sports nutritionist Penny Hunking.

Hit the weights

Steady aerobic exercise will burn fat, but it won’t increase your resting metabolism – so you won’t burn as much fat when sitting still. For best results lift some big weights too.

Be a green god

Drink green tea before you exercise. The caffeine frees fatty acids so that you burn fat more easily. If you have high blood pressure, skip this tip.

Get chewing

Researchers recently discovered that chewing sugar free gum all day increases your metabolic rate by about 20%. That could burn off around 5kg (11lb) a year. And a US study showed that simply fidgeting can burn up to 700 calories a day. “Doing something active, such as fiddling with a pencil while you think, helps burn calories without any effort at all,” says Hart

(Source: happy-by-fall)

Julianne Hough dancing workout

ZUMBA abs workout to “Años Luz” by Shakira

Avoid these 4 mistakes!

1) Overdoing the slow, steady-state cardio.  It’s been embedded in our brains since we first knew what body fat was, that you have to do lots of cardio to lose stubborn fat.  Although standard cardio sessions do burn a fair amount of calories during the session, they don’t do much for burning calories (and therefore extra body fat) the next 12-72 hours.  Hardcore interval training will do a much better job of fighting fat around the clock, plus it takes a lot less time to do.

The only case where I use moderate intensity cardio is if I want to add a lil extra calorie burning to my weight training and interval sessions for the week, but my legs are shot from the weights and intervals.  This is an easy way to expand your caloric deficit, while letting your muscles (legs, especially) recover from the more demanding workouts…which should of course be the foundation of your fat loss plan.

2) Doing your cardio BEFORE weight training.  I can see where people get confused – it sounds like good reasoning to assume that if fat loss is your primary goal, you should place the greatest emphasis on cardio, right?

Nope and here’s why…strength training requires maximum energy and intensity to produce significant results.  Therefore, it’s important that you attack your weight training workouts when you’re fresh and able to put in maximum effort.

Also, studies have shown that doing cardio AFTER weight training results in significantly more fat burning.  The main reason for this is most likely due to the fact that weight training eats up stored glycogen…so when you hit up your cardio session, the only ‘fuel’ left to burn is fat.  This is a good thing.

3) Lifting light weights for high reps.  Again, it’s easy to see why people come to the conclusion that heavy weights will make you look bulky and light weights will help you look tone.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there is no such thing as ‘toning a muscle.’  You can either build muscle, maintain muscle or lose muscle…but ‘toning’ doesn’t exist.

*You can do certain things to promote greater muscle tension/tightness, especially while at rest, and I’ll be doing a post about this in the future…but it’s my general understanding that most people who talk about lifting to get “toned muscles” are referring to the low body fat, fitness model look…in which case you generally still need to increase muscle size and decrease body fat.

I still use the term once in a while because it’s been used inappropriately for so long that people who are going for the lean and tone look don’t want to hear that we’re going to be ‘adding muscle.’  They don’t understand that looking lean and tone is just a matter of adding the right amount of muscle mass (not overdoing it), combined with achieving a low body fat percentage.

To add lean muscle – which most of us NEED to do – you must challenge the muscles by lifting heavy weights or by lifting moderate weights and mixing in advanced training techniques, like my explosive eccentric training tactic.  I recommend going both heavy and advanced for maximum muscle building and fat burning effects.

4) Skipping protein or amino acids before workouts.  The goal of working our butts off to burn body fat is so that we’ll look lean, tone and sexy – not skinny, weak, soft and lacking symmetry.  For this reason, it’s muy importante (I think that’s Spanish for ‘very important’) to prevent muscle breakdown as much as possible, both during cardio and weight training.

By feeding your body amino acids before your workouts, you’ll be effectively ‘hating’ on potential muscle breakdown for energy (also a good thing).  I recommend taking 4-6 grams of amino acids or slamming a 20-30 gram whey protein shake within 15 minutes prior to any cardio or strength training workout.

*If you’re a mesomorph or could care less about potentially losing muscle mass, however, then you’re free to rock the morning cardio sessions on an empty stomach.

The post-workout meal/snack is even more important and should contain a carb:protein mix to maximize skeletal muscle synthesis (building bigger muscles), while preventing muscle catabolism (the breakdown of muscle tissue).  This post-workout nutrition is certainly worthy of an entire post itself, so stay tuned for that bad boy in the near future.

There are many more mistakes that people make unknowingly when they’re trying to to tone-up and shed body fat…but these 4 are among the most common and most detrimental mistakes that could be holding you back.  If any of these apply to you…you know what to do :)

(Source: 93miles)