Vegans, vegetarians, and organic food lovers are all celebrating the news on raw food diets. Apparently, the same type of food, such as a green pepper, is much healthier and easier to digest when it isn’t cooked. Not only is weight loss a result, but also healthier skin and more energy. The raw food diet is a great way to lose weight, but it can often be hard to stick to.

The problem with cooked food is that helpful enzymes are destroyed when the food is cooked over 116 degrees Fahrenheit. This eliminates most forms of cooking, such as frying or baking. The affected enzymes aid in digestion, keeps nutritional value of food intact, and also helps the absorption of such nutritional value. Not to mention that most processed foods contain food coloring and preservatives.



A study was undertaken that actually found out that the increased benefits of eating a strict diet of raw foods actually helped reduce risk of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.

Don’t worry if there are a few withdrawal symptoms when the diet is first started. Nausea or headaches may become common, but an undeniable craving for “real” cooked food is what destroys the diet for most hopeful dieters. This makes consistent use of the diet rather hard, but the diet is effective nonetheless- and getting past the withdrawal symptoms is possible. Once a good track record of only raw foods is eaten, sticking to it will be no problem at all.

The best way to go about enforcing the raw food diet is to know what to eat, and what not to eat. The bulk of foods that are good for the diet will come in the form of vegetables, fruits, and nuts. As for drinks, the same rules apply. Fresh fruit drinks or juices and purified water are great for the raw food dieter- but also more exotic things such as coconut milk, sushi and temaki are applicable. It is important to note that any type of foods bought for the raw food diet plan should be unprocessed, or else the purpose of the diet is ruined.

The human body has come a long way since raw food was the major source of intake- as critics remind all raw food dieters. The inclusion of stronger jaw bones, teeth, larger intestines, and other factors all suggest that cooked food is becoming a way of life for the common human being.

Critics also point out that the human body has its own digestive system, and that the extra enzymes are not necessarily needed that cooking food removes. Other critics claim that the raw food diet plan is largely based on the placebo effect. Whatever the case, many people have seen success from the diet plan that can’t just be ignored.

Deciding whether or not the raw food diet is best for you is as easy as trying it out- it is one of the easiest diet plans to start. No extreme knowledge of carbohydrates, protein, fats, or other factors in other diet plans aren’t necessarily needed.

In fact, it’s as easy as going to the local supermarket and finding fresh fruit, vegetables, beans, breads, or other unprocessed and organic foods. Since a lot of people worldwide have seen success with this diet regimen, it is well worth the try.

The easiest implementation of this diet is by incorporating two raw foods consumption daily. A good choice would be fresh fruits and unprocessed nuts in your daily meals as a start. Both taste quite well and fit into every meals that you usually have. Then gradually increase the consumption of raw fruits and vegetables for the first month. It's inexpensive and unrestrictive, one of the easy way to stay healthy and fit. Heck even if you don't make it, at least you will be tad healthier by consuming fresh fruits and nuts everyday in addition to your meal.

Welcome to the August 1, 2007 edition of healthy living carnival. This is my first Carnival. If you have never heard of carnival then I suggest you drop by here to start your carnival or participate in other carnival. It's a great way to network with other blogger and it's a good way to get links. I received more than 30 articles submitted to me in my debut carnival, too bad I have to reject some of them which are unrelated or too generic. Thanks for participating and stay tuned for the next Carnival at September.

Aparna presents Beauty and Personality Grooming: Yogic diet posted at Beauty & Personality Grooming.

Kathryn Lang presents Make the Kids Lose Your Weight. posted at The Peculiar Club, saying, "Get moving and get losing - let family time become your weight loss secret."

Tiffany Washko presents Book Review: Three Grin Salad posted at Natural Family Living Blog.

Dianne M. Buxton presents Healthy Office Space Workouts posted at manifestingsuccess, saying, "Tips for those who sit down at a desk most of the day, for muscle tone, keeping up metabolism, and producing endorphins."

Josh presents Is Health Care Really on its Way to Reform? posted at The Mad Money Analyst, saying, "The problem: Simply put, the costs of health care services are on a continuous, seemingly unstoppable, upward spiral. Increasing at a rate more than twice as fast as the rate of inflation, health insurance costs are on the rise as well. What could be the cause of this? What can be done about it?..."

Peter25 presents And Your Health in All That? posted at Small Business.

Debra Moorhead presents How I Lost 25 Pounds in One Month posted at Debra Moorhead.com.

Anmol Mehta presents Online Yoga Exercises for Healthy Weight Loss posted at Mastery of Meditation, Enlightenment & Kundalini Yoga, saying, "Effective yoga exercises for safe healthy weight loss, fitness and energy."

Dianne M. Buxton presents Weight Loss, and Exercise posted at Ballet Shoes and Pointe Shoes, saying, "An 11 year old aspiring ballerina asks about healthy weight loss and nutrtion."

Laura Young presents Shop Right to Eat Right: Supermarket Survival Tips posted at Dragon Slayer.

Jimson Lee presents Its Summertime, and the living is Organic | Speedendurance.com posted at Speedendurance.com, saying, "Selectively switch to organics for foods with this Top 20 list."

Raymond David Salas presents The Powerful Benefits of Walking posted at ZenChill.com Power Tools Blog.

Gal Josefsberg presents 10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight posted at 60 IN 3, saying, "This is an article I wrote about the ten most important things I did when I first started losing weight and regaining health. I'm doing a detailed breakdown of each item in subsequent posts."

Kevin Bedell presents A simple step you can take: Eat more locally grown food posted at 21st Century Citizen, saying, "Tips to simplify eating in an environmentally friendly way."

Pirates of the Caribbean series may have come to an end, but the clumsy, happy go lucky character of Captain Jack Sparrow remains in many people's heart long after the movies ended. I am not smoking anything when I wrote this entry just in case you are wondering. Aye, there are a couple of things about weight loss which we can learn from Jack Sparrow character without developing a symptom for scurvy or madness either.


1. Stand out from the crowd
More often than not, Captain Jack's decision was labeled as controversial by his crews. His offbeat nature and partially drunken state always leaded him to make a decision which was unorthodox. It turned out that his decisions were accurate (well at least all turned out well). He stood out from the crowd and made the decisions which he deemed as correct.

Unless you are living in Atlantis you will find that your surroundings don't really facilitate your weight loss diet. People often sneer when they see us being extremely picky in ordering foods. Our decision of changing our lifestyle from unhealthy to healthy is often deemed as waste of money by others. The presence of fast food joints every few blocks does not help either. Jack Sparrow teaches us to stand out from the crowd and stick to what we believe is true. With enough luck (and rum as Jack said) we will achieve our goal.

2. Be Active
Jack was man of action. If he wasn't busy running away or swimming frantically on the sea then he must be busy yelling at his crews(well, at least when he wasn't under the influence of Rum).

Be active as well and go burn some calories off. You can take a hint from the movie and start a regular swimming session (perhaps that will give you Johny Depp body, who knows). Make an exercise schedule and don't let laziness overcome your body.

3. Don't follow the Pirate's diet
Although real pirates and seamen eat hard tack, we rarely see Jack Sparrow and his crews did so. While what Jack and his crews ate is still a mystery, it appeared that they looked quite healthy throughout the movie. The only conclusion is Disney must be providing them some good foods.

Many seamen and pirates on that era depend on hard tack (rotten biscuits with maggot inside which you need to tack against the table to weed out the maggots). Many of them developed scurvy and other nasty diseases as a result of sticking into a type of food for long period of time. Take heed that fad diets such as lemonade diet, cabbage soup diet or American Heart Association Diet are not healthy, especially if you do them for a long period of time.

4. Persistence
Jack Sparrow's plans have often gone devastated. He was put in tight situations for countless times. It was persistence that led him to achieve what he wanted to achieve from the start. He lost his ship, got stuck at the end of the world and got into other trouble as well but he never gave up trying.

Persistence is the key to a weight loss diet success. Diet is a long term journey with more downs than ups, without persistence then you are not likely to make it. I find the SOW trick really works for me in building up my perseverance.

5. Excessive alcohol is bad
Unless you want to be able to start a lengthy conversation within voices in your own head of course. But that is not a bad idea to pass time anyway.

Technorati Tags: Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean, diet

Do you crave every now and so for those gravy topped mashed potato? Do you have an endless craving of cookies and cream flavored ice cream? If you do then here's a way to satisfy your craving without inflating your waist (Well, that's what the inventor hoped).

Invented by David Burke, Flavor Sprays™ are claimed to satisfy your craving. Since the sprays just contain aerated flavor, then there's no calories or fat in the spray. The idea is by spraying these sprays, you can help satisfy your craving without actually consume the foods that you crave, thus you will not gain weight.



There are more than 30 flavors available ranging from classic flavors such as pop corn butter and smoked bacon to sweet and sinful flavors such as chocolate fudge and banana split. By spraying the sprays to your favorite foods, you can make your meals taste different. Try spraying the root beer float flavor spray to your skimmed milk. Voila, here comes your low calorie high protein root beer! These fancy sprays are priced at € 6.95 at the Germany portal.

Of course if you add an ounce of creativity to this spray then the possibilities become endless. For instance, you can spray the gravy flavor to your body and help everybody to satisfy their craving. You can also spray the maple flavored spray to your pillow and enjoy a good night sleep with that maple scent on your pillow. Of course you can also spray your spouse with the Peach Melba flavor and have a kinky fat burning sex. After all sex helps you lose weight, adding zero calorie flavors would do more good than harm anyway!

In my opinion these sprays are great additions to weight loss diet but I am not going to try it. I love foods the way they are and I can't stand eating foods which don't taste like they are supposed to. The idea of eating vegetable sandwich with invisible bacon makes me shudder already. I hate the idea of adding more unnatural additives to my foods also. Our foods may have already contained food coloring and other additives, I hate to add another additives just for the sake of taste.

See what others think about this spray:
I Heart Bacon
The Nibble

The Official Site: http://www.flavorspraydiet.com/index.html

Past editions of Freaky Friday:
-Pierce Your Ear to Lose Weight
-Alli: Pooping Sensation
-Not So Edible Chocolate Flower
-Geek-a-Cycle
-Diet Water
-Hula Chair
-Pet Fat
-Caffeine Pantyhose
-Cheese Burger Vacuum
-Sauna Sweat Suit

Technorati Tags: diet spray, artificial flavor

Do your friends make you fat? The answer is yes according to the latest research by Harvard and UC, San Diego. According to a research by Harvard and University of California, obesity is contagious through social networks. In a layman term, your obese best friends can make you fat in several years.


Many people have always take for granted that obesity is caused by individual decisions such as lack of exercises and unhealthy eating habits, but this research found out that your social friends could also impact your waist size. As published in July 26 Edition of New England Journal of Medicine, study led by Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School and James Fowler of UC San Diego established the fact that obesity spread through social networks of an individual.

This means when people gain weight then there's an increased chance that their friends, spouses or siblings will also gain weight. The like hood of this weight gain depends on how close two people in term of social relationship. The closer two people are in social relationship then the more that each other will affect each other's weight. Strangely, the research found that friends had more effect compared to siblings.

To summarize the study, the researchers found that friends had 57% increased chance of becoming obese. The fact that two best friends were 1000 miles apart did not change the contagious effect of obesity. The research result was still valid for two friends who lived far away from each other. According to the researchers, the reason of this phenomenon is because people see their friends gain weight and become bigger thus conclude that it's okay to be bigger since their surrounding network are also grow bigger.

What's the moral story of this research? I decide to feature this on my blog post not to point out that you should avoid your obese friends. But I want to point out that thinness is also contagious. By maintaining your healthy lifestyle and exercises habit, you will influence your friends in losing more weight. That way I am sure we have contributed something to fight the obesity epidemic although perhaps, our roles are small.

The study can be viewed here (The title is The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network Over 32 Years)
A review of this study on UCSD News Center and Harvard Medical School.

I have managed to enthrall a lot of my guests by serving them this healthy mushroom soup on edible bread bowl. This dish looks magnificent and is utterly easy to prepare. The idea is to use bread as a bowl, it can serve a lot of dishes such as chili, dipping sauce and soup. Although the general idea is to eat the bread after you finish the soup, I don't consume the bread to limit my carbohydrate intake. It looks so beautiful that I am already satisfied by seeing the piping hot soup served in such round bread.


The most important thing is to use the right type of bread. You should use a round shape bread (Italian, French or sourdough) and carefully carve the bread to make a bowl. First you need to cut around 0.5 inch - 1.5 inch from the top depending on how big the bread is. Then use the knife to take out the main part of the bread to form a bowl, ensure that the bread is still one inch thick on the inside.

Preheat the oven to 350 F or 180 Celsius and butter the inside with butter or if you are on a diet like me then lightly cover the inside with olive oil inside. Put the bread on the oven for only five minutes. Then serve the soup, on the bread bowl. Make sure that the soup is not boiling hot or it may leak through the bowl. This recipe is a good healthy appetizer (well it depends on what you put inside the bowl) and make a good quick breakfast. Just prepare the soup and the bowl overnight, heat them in the morning and grab a few bites of the bread. Of course you can always serve anything in this bread bowl and give your dish an elegant look.

Technorati Tags: diet soup, bread bowl soup

Obesity is deemed as crisis according to U.S researchers. Famed as a fast food nation, the obesity rate at USA is growing at alarming rate. Experts predict that by 2015 75% of adults will be overweight if not obese according to this study. The researchers use BMI (Body Mass Index) to measure whether someone is obese or overweight. What I would like to raise in this issue is that whether this will be true and whether BMI is accurate in determining overweight?

In my opinion BMI is not really accurate in determining whether someone is obese or normal. There are several flaws in BMI according to my opinion. The first flaw is that BMI (to calculate your BMI click here) only measures the weight and height of a person. This does not take muscle mass into account.

For instance, a bodybuilder friend of mine has a BMI score of 26 which is overweight by the BMI table. But his body and his eating and exercise habits clearly outline that he's not overweight at all and I can bet that he's healthier compared to a lot of people. Another flaw is that BMI does not take into account about what we eat. I have several vegetarian friends who are classified into overweight by the BMI table. But since many of them don't eat processed foods at all and only strictly eat vegetarian dishes then they are healthier than people who have normal BMI but consume a high number of processed foods in their everyday life.

According to this study, people who are overweight face lower risk of death compared to normal people. BMI makes a good indicator for researches and studies but I don't personally care about BMI. What I use to measure myself are my waist size and my foods. I don't really care about BMI as long as I can achieve my desired size while eating healthy foods and minimizing unhealthy foods. I think they should make a change in the BMI table, it's better of they use the term "Face a serious risk of heart disease" rather than overweight since the term overweight isn't really objective.

What do you think about BMI?

Technorati Tags: obesity, BMI, child obesity

Cutting calories and exercising in the gym may be the most known ways in losing weight. But you may want to start counting sheep in addition to calories to lose weight more effectively. A study conducted by Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and the Obesity Research Center has found out that lack of sleep is linked with risk of being obese. No wonder that obesity rate is growing everywhere, I notice that people sleep less and less nowadays.

The study discovered that people who slept less than four hours in a night were 73% more likely to be obese compared to those who slept between seven and nine hours. As a comparison if you usually have five hours of sleep then you are 50% more likely to face obesity risk compared to those who sleep eight hours a day. Lack of sleep disrupts your body metabolism processes and will make it more difficult to lose weight.



As quoted by this source, the culprit of this sleepless obesity phenomenon dated back to the prehistoric era where our ancestors were used to sleep less during summer and ate as much as they can in order to stock food to face the winter ahead. Although that sounds too far fetched, judging from my past experience, I tend to crave more for sugary stuffs if I slept for less than 7 hours. It felt like my body was searching for more energy in order to compensate with the lack of sleep.

Sleep deprivation causes a particular hormone named Cortisol to store the excess calories and store the calories as body fat. In a layman's term, Cortisol controls your appetite and by sleeping less than you ought to, Cortisol will make you feel hungrier than usual. This explains why I craved for more foods whenever I haven't had enough sleep. Lack of sleep has also been linked with higher blood glucose levels, which triggers an excess supply of insulin to our blood and can possibly lead to diabetes or obesity. Getting enough rest is highlighted also in Body Clock Diet guide as one of the vital aspects in optimizing our body metabolism.

These nasty effects make it essential to get enough sleep so that our weight loss efforts can be more effective. Although the number of hours needed vary for each person, it's generally believed that six to eight hours is the general consensus. There's one bright side of this news. At least you can do more sex before you sleep so that you burn more calories!

Technorati Tags: sleep, diabetes, obesity

50 years ago, the idea of piercing your tongue may be bizarre, but nowadays such piercing has become usual. Ear piercing may also be usual, but ear piercing for weight loss is not the everyday piercing that you will see.

For today freaky Friday, I will write about a weight loss staple which will put piercing in your ears which are supposed to make you lose weight. The inventor, Dr. William Burrows, would not reveal his secret on how the staple works. And it sounds very shady since the only information that could be gathered was that this staple utilized a acupuncture method to make us lose weight.

Dr Burrows must be making very good money from this since he claims that he has stapled approximately 30,000 innocent ears in fourteen years. But again it might be that his credential that delivered so many people to have their ears stapled, Dr. Burrows has a degree as a doctor of chiropractic, Bachelor of Science degree in anatomy, and holds an acupuncture certificate. But still there's not any scientific back up of having your ears nastily stapled will make you lose weight. Let's find out more about the side effects, result and cost.



Dr. Burrows claims that most people who get their ears stapled will lose staggering 10 - 30 pounds a month without any exercise! Although Dr. Burrows cannot really guarantee the amount of weight lost since literally the heavier you are then the more you can lose. Weight loss staple uses a small surgical stainless steel staple which is pierced in your ear so that it stimulates the effect of appetite suppression. Of course you will lose weight then, since you won't feel hungry. But doesn't it sound nasty?

The metal staple is placed on the stomach point in the ear, the stomach point will send a signal to the brain saying that it's full resulting in lose of appetite. There's not any notable side effect according to Dr. Burrows save for few beneficial side effects such as eliminating sugar cravings and curing diarrhea and constipation. This sounds too good to be true, but there are several die hard patients who testified for KFOR.com. Brenda Garett testified that she lost 10 pounds within a little over a month.

How much does it cost? If you are going to sacrifice your ears to be stapled then it is going to cost you US$50 to pierce one ear and US$70 to pierce both according to his website. The amount of ears that he has pierced indicates that around 15,000 people (assuming one people get piercing for both ears) were desperate enough to lose weight. Geez, in my opinion the piercing looks nasty and I don't hate my appetite that much! Heck I am not that desperate to lose weight. If I have to choose between pooping in my pants and having my ears pierced then I will gladly choose o poop in my own pant. This looks nasty even though it works. And the side effects might not be apparent now.

Anybody want to get their ears stapled? This is Dr. Burrows website.

Past editions of Freaky Friday:
-Alli: Pooping Sensation
-Not So Edible Chocolate Flower
-Geek-a-Cycle
-Diet Water
-Hula Chair
-Pet Fat
-Caffeine Pantyhose
-Cheese Burger Vacuum
-Sauna Sweat Suit

Technorati Tags: piercing, weight loss staple, ear

All the information above is derived from this website except the bit about my opinion.

Japan is not the only country which promotes healthy diet and longevity. There's also a diet called Mediterranean Diet which also promotes longevity and also healthier living. Mediterranean diet does not promise a steady weight loss since it's mainly for healthier life.

Mediterranean diet guideline is not originated from one of the countries in the Mediterranean since each countries and regions practice a modified Mediterranean diet, but the general consensus and guideline of the diet stays the same.

People who practice Mediterranean diet are reported to have lower death rate and lower heart disease rate. This is because people in Mediterranean diet show lower blood levels of C-reactive protein which decreases the chance of having heart attack and stroke altogether. Although the Mediterranean diet places a great emphasis on the type of food eaten, we can’t neglect the amount of walking done by people who live in the Mediterranean countries. Let’s review the guidelines of Mediterranean Diet below.

Mediterranean diet got its publicity when people began to realize that Mediterranean people consumed the same number if not greater amount of fat than American yet they showed lower risk of heart disease. The secret of Mediterranean diet lies in the type of fat consumed. Mediterranean diet favors a generous usage of olive oil instead of animal fats.

Olive oil is a source of unsaturated fat and is a heart friendly oil rather than the saturated fat commonly found in fast food and packaged snack such as Cheetos.
Olive oil is not the sole secret of Mediterranean diet; here are some other foods which are part of the diet based on the Mediterranean food pyramid.

Daily Consumption:
At least six glasses of pure water
Carbohydrates: Whole grain cereals, oats, barley, whole wheat pasta and potato.
Fruits: Fruits with low glycemic index such as:
Apples, banana, blueberries, cherries, grapefruit, orange, pears
Cheese, yogurt, beans and nuts
Vegetables: Green and leafy vegetables
One glass of red wine

Two to three times a week:
Egg, Poultry and fish

Once a week:
Sweet products and red meat

That is the general guideline of this diet which is not very restrictive compared to South Beach Diet or Atkins Diet. The problem is that this diet is not very reliable if it’s weight loss that you seek. But if weight is not a major problem right now then you won’t gain too much weight by following Mediterranean diet. Another drawback of this diet is the few choices of foods. Since fish and poultry can’t be consumed daily, you have to rely on vegetables and pasta as your main staples. This can be boring and hard to stick to.

The easiest modification of this Mediterranean diet in daily life is the incorporation of olive oil and the regulated consumption of red meat and sweet desserts. Stick with olive oil instead of tropical oil or butter and don’t consume too much red meat and sweet stuffs. In a nutshell, Mediterranean diet takes us back into nature by limiting the consumption of processed foods, refined sugars and fast food.

Technorati Tags: mediterranean, mediterranean diet,
olive

The residents of Oklahoma City and Dublin should be relieved that their cities are littered with fast food joints instead of steamed dumplings vendors.

Although the amounts of fast food joints make both cities as one of the worst places to lose weight, at least they are not the worst place to live. A recent undercover investigation by China Central Television found that cardboards are the main ingredient of some pork dumplings sold in Beijing.

Dumplings or steamed buns are consumed frequently by the locals there. Some producers tried to further optimize its cost by using cardboard as the filling. Cardboard is first made into pulp by soaking it in caustic soda. Then the cardboard is chopped and mixed with pork and powdered seasoning as quoted from Newsvine.

Dumplings or steamed bun are also the main staples of China’s people similar to how fast food is attached to many USA people. The difference is that the cardboard dumpling is an illegal practice there while fast food is legal in USA. Although fast food won’t result in short term health damage such as cardboard buns, both of them still have three similarities such as:

1. Both are not transparent regarding their ingredients

Of course you can’t expect the sellers to put up a big notice “Cardboard Filling”. Fast food joints are not really transparent either about their nutrition label. The regulation that was supposed to force many restaurants to give correct nutrition labels to their menu had been delayed.

2. Both are hazardous to your health

Caustic soda which is used to turn the cardboard into pulp is the same chemical ingredient used in the making process of soap. I am sure that even Chuck Norris won’t survive eating cardboard for long time. Fast food on the other hand is linked with obesity and heart disease due to the amount of saturated fat it uses.

3. Both taste cunningly fine

The seller of the cardboard bun told the reporter that most of his customers don’t realize that the bun contains cardboard. I am sure that he must be using tons of seasoning powder. Fast food also tastes fine if not great for some people. Despite the obvious health hazards some people are more addicted to fast food than ever.

Technorati Tags: cardboard bun, dumpling, baozi, China

Ever wondered whether sex has a significant effect on your weight loss? There was a buzz on this topic when Kerry McCloskey, a New York research expert and model, wrote her book titled The Ultimate Sex Diet. McCloskey was also featured in Oprah after she claimed that she lost a whooping thirteen pounds by just having sex for around eight times in a week over three months. Is sex really effective for weight loss purpose?

If we sum up McCloskey effort, then it means she lost around four pounds within a month which falls safely in the healthy weight loss rate (two pounds in a week). What makes this sound phenomenal is the promise that weight loss can depend on other things beside foods. There is one gray area in The Ultimate Sex Diet book which is McCloskey's claim that sex burns around two hundred calories within thirty minutes. This claim is written without citing adequate references as back up. Let's take a closer look on sex effect on calories burned and weight loss.



The number of calories burned during sex is a debatable issue. Although McCloskey claims that thirty minutes sex burns 200 calories, such estimation will vary greatly from one to another. There are a lot of variable factors to count such as the humidity, temperature, active movement during sex, weight of the people involved, as well as the intensity. These factors vary greatly from one condition to other thus making it hard for us to predict an accurate estimation of calories burned during sex.

A more orthodox approach hints that 30 minutes of moderate sex burns around 46 pounds (ref: Calorie Calculator) while 30 minutes of vigorous sex burns around 53 calories which is not much higher than a moderate sex. Let's take an average of 50 calories per 30 minutes sex for example. If you have sex seven times in a week then in a month you will burn 1400 calories. A pound of body fat approximately equals to 3500 calories (ref), so 1400 calories is less than a pound. Not a very encouraging number but sex can still help your weight loss journey in a different way.

Sex produces 'pleasure' chemical in your brain which can relieve you from stress. Many people transfer their stress to their waist by excessively consumes batty foods whenever they are frustrated. Sex helps by reducing the frustration thus should be able keeping you from stress eating. To think about it, sex indeed appears to be a more appealing stress solution than food.

Although the number of calories burned during sex is debatable and possibly very tiny, sex can still be a good addition to your weight loss for above reason. It's compulsory for you to know that weight loss does not come only from sex solely, it comes as a result of change in your lifestyle. Sex makes a great addition but that does not make sex a prime star in weight loss culture. A healthy eating habit coupled with fitness exercise,Wii exercise in the weekend and sex could really work wonder in chopping down the weight.

Technorati Tags: sex diet, calories burn




Before leaving for any vacation , ideally one should get his travel insurance taken out. In fact , every member of the family needs to have an individual insurance. Taking care of such stuff is much more important than getting hotel reservations or remembering to go airline.

Excessive craving for sugary snacks or other fattening foods have often shattered our weight loss diet. Since craving is unavoidable then there's not much sense in trying to curb it by using appetite suppressant pill.

While occasional craving is perfectly all right, I often find myself snacking excessively following the first bite of that Cheetos. If you are not the type of person who can't resist temptation like me, then you may not need this trick since occasional mars bars won't make you fat instantly. There is one trick I always use to curb my excessive snack craving.

I always use the "fruits" trick before I snack. The trick is simple, you should find one fruit that you like best and eat the fruit before you go snacking. You can continue snacking afterward. Most of the time, I felt that the impulse of snacking was not as strong as before I ate the fruit. This is because we give our brain time to overcome that 'rebellious' emotion. When we are on diet which restricts some of our favorite foods, our brain tends to lead a rebel supported by those restricted foods.

In my case I use strawberry since it is easier to eat than apple and orange. The taste is great and the size is small. In fact, snacking strawberry resembles snacking for chips for me. In conclusion, name your favorite fruit; keep a stash of them handy; eat them before you eat your snack! Good figure good health good life!

Other Tips:
Ten Commandments of Diet Dining Out
Negative Calories Dining
Quit Binge Eating

Technorati Tags: strawberry, snacks

Here we come again at another edition of Freaky Friday. Today edition highlights an ordinary diet pill with extraordinary side effects. Although diet pill is not something you call "freaky" this hyped diet pill really fits into the "freaky" category. A few months ago, FDA review panel gave their approval to the new diet pill, Alli. The review panel said that the health benefit outweigh the risk according to the review panel.

Alli is classified as the over the counter diet pill. This means Alli can be sold without prescription. Alli was released with a great marketing exposure gaining publicity amongst the dieters and non dieters. GlaxoSmithKline, the company who produces Alli, emphasizes its marketing campaign with smart approach of offering 'reasonable solution' for weight loss. The campaign stated that Alli is not a magic solution however Alli will only work if it's accompanied with good diet. What makes this pill freaky is the fact that one of the side effects may cause you to poop in your pant.



According to Mike Adams at Newstarget, people who took Alli only managed to lose 1 pound over a month which is not sensational at all. While the claim was that Alli can help you to reduce additional two to three pounds for every five pounds you reduce. Alli works by blocking your body from absorbing 25% of the fat you eat.

As an illustration, let's use salmon sushi which has 200 calories per ounce serving. If I take Alli then I would be able to reduce the calories to 150. So I could save 50 calories just by consuming Alli. But does it worth the side effect?

The company does not hide the fact that Alli can cause unpleasant side effects. They have stated in right in the campaign by saying that Alli would work if you also follow a change in lifestyle (low fat, reduced calorie diet). In other word, if you don't do that "lifestyle change" then you may be subjected to the side effect which may force you to poop in the pant. Taken from News Medical, Alli comes with a warning label which says "wear dark pants and bring a change of clothes with you to work until you have a sense of any treatment effects."

What makes this more ridiculous is the fact that a lot of people don't seem to mind about this nasty side effects. Well I don't think losing weight equals to having that funny smell and having to change pants. Just imagine when you have lost few pounds then your colleagues start treating you like a walking dung robot. Imagine having to sit on your office desk and then finding out that your bottom feels a little wet!

Of course, some people think that this potential side effect is NOT SERIOUS. As highlighted here, the author thinks that Alli side effects are not serious although they are uncomfortable. I guess personal preference matters here. One thing for sure, I am not going to try it.

See what Lady Rose thinks about Alli!
Alli official website
Alli at South Bend Tribune

Past editions of Freaky Friday:
-Not So Edible Chocolate Flower
-Geek-a-Cycle
-Diet Water
-Hula Chair
-Pet Fat
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Technorati Tags: Alli, diet pill,
poop

Blender is a God sent device for students, singles or anyone who are too busy to create proper meal in the morning. As you might have noticed, I was buried in immense workload that sometimes even going out to grab a drink was out of question.

Blender was my savior whenever I was feeling a little hungry. With blender I could quickly whip up some easy recipes to satisfy my hungry stomach and my sweet teeth. How can we live without it? The high temperature here (35 - 40 Celsius) makes me crave for refreshing meals. Here are three recipes which are easy enough to whip with blender and taste wonderfully delicious in summer.

The three easiest blender recipes which I often make are tofu pudding, Gazpacho soup, green tea smoothie and oatmeal yogurt drink. As you perhaps notice, they are fit into the summer camp menu. All of them are made to be served cold. Tofu pudding is a tender soft pudding made from tofu which is utterly easy to make, Gazpacho is a Spanish soup which is served cold, while the green tea smoothie explain for themselves.


1. Tofu Pudding

Ingredients:
12 ounces of silken tofu
3 tablespoons of fruit syrup
Fresh Fruit

You can just mix all the ingredient in a blender before refrigerating it. Make sure you use the right type of tofu which is silken tofu.

2. Gazpacho

This is my favorite meal during summer and busy times since it's utterly easy to prepare. Of course this is just basic Gazpacho since I usually spend just a few minutes to prepare this delicious refreshing soup.

Ingredients:
2 RIPE tomatoes
1.5 pound of cantaloupe
2 tablespoons of breadcrumbs
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
1 cup of tomato juice
2 tablespoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon of oregano
1 cup of icy water
Tabasco, salt and pepper to taste

My friend actually recommended me to use avocado. However I can't really bear eating Gazpacho if it has avocado so I resort to Melon instead.

Instructions:
Peel and cut the tomatoes and melon into rough chunk. Seed them and wash them properly. Sprinkle very lightly with salt and pepper. Then warm the olive oil in two separate stoves, then fry the tomatoes and the melon in separate skillets quickly. Just two minutes will do.

After that insert the tomatoes, melon, tomato juice, water, oregano and the breadcrumbs in a blender. Add salt, pepper and tabasco to your preference before blending. Then puree the Gazpacho until it's smooth, add the lemon juice when it's ready. After that just chill the Gazpacho in refrigerator.

3. Green Tea Smoothie

This is my favorite drink and it's very easy to make. Green tea smoothie is fresh and promotes several health benefit.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup of green tea
1/4 cup of low fat plain yogurt
1/4 cup of low fat milk
1/4 cup of cranberry juice

Instructions:
Just pour and mix all of the ingredients in a blender and blend it until it's smooth. Add ice cubes or chill until it's cool.

Those are my favorite healthy recipes to make with blender. They are easy and fit nicely to be consumed in summer. Do you have any easy and healthy recipes with blender? Please do share!

Technorati Tags: Green Tea, Summer Recipes, gazpacho

After finally having a proper 8-hour sleep for the first time this month, I feel better although my body still feels a little bit peaky. What I need, aside from a refreshing drink, is a refreshing meal which is low in calorie but still taste wonderfully refreshing in this summer. Low calorie meal is of course the most common guideline of all weight loss diet. My choice today would be a refreshing Cold Soba.

Soba is a noodle made from buckwheat. Soba is considered as one of Japan signature dishes beside sushi. Because it is hard to produce high quality Soba in my home, I won't be posting in detail about the process of making Soba. But I will focus on the health benefit as well as the sauce recipe. My favorite is the cold green colored Soba which is called cold Green Tea Soba Noodle.

The next time you stop by Japanese or Asian Food Restaurant, make sure you rummage around the menu until you find the cold green noodle picture. Unlike most noodle which is served hot or stir fried, Soba can be served hot or cold. My preference of course is the Zaru Soba or the cold Soba. It is more refreshing for me, especially when I am a little bit unfit.

Soba is made from buckwheat and very soft in texture. Just like other Japanese food, Soba promotes great health benefits. Soba fits perfectly for dieter since Soba is low in calorie but high in protein. As a comparison, the amount of protein in Soba is more than one and a half of the protein in white rice.

Buckwheat, which is the main ingredient of Soba is also good for reducing fat accumulation and contain better health promoting attributes compared to other vegetables and fruit.

Approximately, 114 gram (a cup) of Soba contains around 113 calories based on Calorie Counter.

Thanks to internet, I can easily find my Soba ingredients online. One of the shop that I always use to buy all my Asian food ingredients is Asian Food Grocer. They have a large selections of Asian food ingredients at rock bottom price.

The recipe for making Soba is similar to cooking a noodle. However there are several procedures which you need to undertake in order to have great Soba.

Ingredients for a basic Soba:
Instant Soba (Green Tea Soba or White Soba)
Instant Soba Sauce
Bamboo Mat (not compulsory)

Instructions:
Boil the water and put the Soba in the boiling water
Reduce the heat so that the water is simmering instead of boiling
Cook until 5 - 6 minutes depending on the instruction on your noodle package
Drain well and prepare a pot of cold water
Put the noodle in the cold water and then drain well
Cool for a while in refrigerator, serve cold


Restaurants use special plate which has hole in the bottom so they can insert ice below the noodle however just refrigerating will do. For the sauce just prepare according to the the instruction listed in the sauce bottle, as every sauce has different instruction.

You can find the ingredients in the Asian Food Grocer. They have a wide range of Japanese and Asian products at competitive price.

Technorati Tags: soba, cold soba,Japanese Food

















Other Japanese Food Entries:
Chawan Mushi Recipe
Easy Temaki Recipe at home
Japanese Guide to Eating
Sushi for the Calories Nerd
Green Tea Passion Fruit Recipe

Forgive the lack of update today since I am having a bad influenza today. My body is peaky and I can't seem to focus on the monitor without feeling drowsy. My eyes are always watery and I can't seem to think properly. Perhaps this is because my body is suffering from lack of sleep these past few days. And the worse thing is I can't take any day off due to the high amount of clients whom I have personally admitted before my sickness.

This short post today will highlight the contest which I have entered a few days ago. Why do I bother to enter this contest? Because this contest is easy and does not require an offbeat post. I participated in Daniel's Blog Project: Three and submitted my past post about Top Three Worst Cities in USA for losing weight.

The contest is simple enough since all you have to do is to write a post with the number three. And since many of the entries are awesome, I will post my top three favorite from the entries. These are superb and entertaining post which you should check yourself.

Three reasons why I hate diet by Joey
3 Things I Miss About Being Fat by Anna Farmery
Three bad foods that are really good by Graham

Those three posts are the posts which I person