stress! stress! stress!

 

 

These past two weeks have been way more stressful than usual. I’ve been trying to juggle a hundred different things & it feels like I’m working 24/7. It just seems hard to well, relax.

Even when I should be relaxing, it’s not happening.

Lately it’s been go, go, go. Between a million e-mails about this blog, studying, assignments, reading cases, family, friends, etc IM POOPED!

 

I mean, does anyone else feel like there really, seriously isn’t enough hours in the day? Geezzzzzz.

 

Anyway, enough of the Debbie Downer crap…

 

These are the ways I’ve been dealing with the chaos. They’re all simple, natural remedies but each one has been helping me decompress.

 

How I say buh-bye to stress:

+ Ice cream fizzies + candles make for a the perf bubble bath. Add some hot water and lemon & I’m chilling.

 

+ musk & kukui nut body oils…because they’re just yummy.

 

+ Cucumber slices for my eyes…my mom swears by this.

 

+ And last but def not least, lavender aromatherapy. Call me crazy but I add a few drops plus water into a mini spray bottle ( << just like a magician!! ) & then spritz it my pillow. and then i take long, deep breaths ; ). Ahhhh.

 

Obviously my number one stress cure is a workout. But I’m sure you already knew that.

 

Happy Friday!

Hey fatty!

Reasons you may not be getting fat loss results

Not Sure where to start?
There are so many different diets and exercise programs out there, and so many are conflicting.
The best thing you can do is do your research and make a choice. Don’t worry if something you try doesn’t work for you; you can always try something else as everyone is different. What works for your friend or someone else may not work for you. It may take some time to get it right, be patient you will get there if you keep going; this is your long-term health, not a quick fix. Get professional help if you need to.
Make sure you ditch the scales, get a tape measure, and get your body fat measured, take progress pictures and use a mirror.
Don’t do too much, too soon.
Remember the term baby steps; make small changes over time. Just as an example, just by cutting back on sugar refined foods and fizzy drinks is a start, then you can think about introducing more fruit, vegetables and drink more water once you’ve conquered your first step. Change is hard, make small gradual changes and build on that. The last thing you want to do is a rush things, set unrealistic timeframes and goals. Keep a food and workout diary so you can’t lie to yourself, it’s known that keeping track of your progress is the best way to success.

Lacking consistency
You do great for 5 days, then crash for the next 5 days or so, and then you start again (usually on a Monday). Don’t worry to much about the odd day here and there, we are only human and you’re not going to undo all your hard work in a couple of days. But, having a week off here and there is going to undo some of last week’s hard work. Think of how well you did, and how proud you were when you felt great and saw results in the mirror. Keep reminding yourself of how great that feels, and keep visual images of your goals in site to help keep you on track.
Avoid the extremes of binging and then starving yourself, you’re going to play havoc with your metabolism. If you do binge (try not to please) don’t starve yourself after, just get back on track with healthy eating (any day of the week, not just on a Monday), do some exercise and don’t dwell on it, learn from how rubbish you felt, remember what triggered it, avoid that feeling in the future and don’t do it again.
You’re eating more than you should, without realising.
Even if you are eating healthy, if you’re not in calorie deficit you’re not going to burn away that excess fat. If you have too much fat that means you have been consuming more calories than your body uses, which has made your body store the excess calories as fat. Check potion sizes, use measuring devices and use smaller plates. Workout how much you should be consuming a day and keep a food dairy.
Don’t over compensate for exercise either, and don’t be tempted to reward yourself with an edible treat after a workout. You’re just going to increase your calorie intake, which can lead to fat gain and undo all your hard work. Don’t over estimate how much you may have actually worked off.

You’re not eating enough.
Not eating enough and skipping meals will make it very difficult for you to shed those extra pounds. Your body will go into starvation mode; this your body’s way of protecting its self. It will hoard anything you eat and store it away as fat, and slow down your metabolism. This will make it very difficult to lose excess fat. Eating 5-6 small meals a day, roughly every 3 hours will keep your metabolism up. NOT BIG MEALS AND NOT FATTENING ONES EITHER.
To many empty calories, hidden calories and calorific drinks.
This includes fizzy drinks and liquid calories. Every calorie counts, and you may not realise how many calories are in your soft drinks and beverages and don’t account for them, even that milk and sugar you just put in your coffee.
Remember to count the butter and dressings you add to your food etc. Be aware of mindless eating, how many times did you reach into that bag of sweets or chocolate whist watching TV without noticing?
Resisting temptation is the hardest; do you want that waste on your waistline? If you want to snack on delicious chocolates and treats every now and then, set a day aside and allow yourself one free/cheat/refeed/reward meal without the guilt, that’s how most of us keep sane. Think, “we can have it, just not till later” this will allow you to keep on track and learn discipline. Trust me it does get easier, either that or you just get better.

You’re not exercising.
A sedentary lifestyle isn’t good for health anyway, but if you are trying to lose those extra kilos, exercise will help greatly as well as improve overall health. Starting at 20 minutes a day is something, and you can build on that as fitness improves. Get a home workout DVD, go for a brisk walk/jog/run, get a personal trainer, join a gym, go to a local dance glass, go swimming, martial arts, the list goes on. There are so many ways to incorporate fitness into your life.
If you want to step it up, include resistance (strength) training with interval cardio, and keep it fresh and varied. Work hard!
EXCUSES!!
You’re too tired, I’ll go tomorrow, I’ll wait until Monday, I’m too busy, I’ll wait until after the party, the list goes on. You have to take responsibility and not blame it on others or situations, you’re only cheating yourself. How much do you want this? Now take charge of your life, no excuses, you want this! Set goals, make plans and make it happen!

The common Sense Diet

 

 

What would happen if you ate chocolate chip cookie dough for every meal for two weeks straight? Conventional wisdom says "disaster." And yet this is exactly how Geneen Roth, author of many books on intuitive eating, saved her sanity, gave up dieting forever, and ultimately lost 18 kilos (and kept it off for more than two decades).

Roth's story started like many others with chronic yo-yo dieting and chronic body dissatisfaction, but instead of continuing down that road, one day Roth decided she was finished telling her body what it should and shouldn't eat. It was time to let her body tell her what it wanted. This small change turned into a revolution, and by the time I discovered Intuitive Eating three years ago, it had grown into a phenomenon of Oprah-level proportions. (Seriously--Oprah loves Roth.)

What is Intuitive Eating?

Intuitive Eating (IE) is a style of non-dieting that teaches people to trust their body's signals--the opposite of what most diets do. Rather than trying to "suppress your appetite" or "stoke your metabolism," you focus on eating what your body tells you it needs and wants and stopping when you are full. Therein lies the best part of Intuitive Eating: you eat what you truly want, when you want it. It's also the hardest part: you eat whatever you truly want, only when you truly want it.

A common misconception with IE is that it's a no-holds-barred food fest where you eat anything and everything without limits. While that may sound like diet heaven at first, it would not make your body feel good in the end. And eating what makes your body feel its best is exactly what you are trying to do. You discover pretty quickly--once you start paying attention--that eating bags of jelly beans every day makes you feel tired and sick, while filling up on a salad with protein, veggies, and homemade dressing is energizing (and delicious). It's that slight change of perspective--it's not that the jelly beans are "bad" or "off limits" but rather that you don't feel good when you eat a lot of them--that makes all the difference.

Why I Chose Intuitive Eating
It's a mistake to deprive your body of everything, especially when you won't be able to keep it up. Eating everything in moderation allows for you to stick to your diet and once you do eat something, your body wont react badly to it. Eat in moderation and remember your goals

 

How to Start Eating Intuitively
The first step is making these two little changes:

1. Eat un-distracted. Sit down with no books, no TV, no computers, and (at first) no serious conversation to distract you. Without making judgments about it, you want to pay attention to everything you eat. Note how it tastes, how it smells, how you feel when you eat it.

2. Eat only when you are hungry and stop when you are full. I thought that years of stifling, ignoring, or masking my body's hunger cues would make this impossible for me, but our bodies are smart. As I learned to trust mine, I learned that it would, in fact, tell me when it needed food and when it didn't.

It's hard to eat this way in a world with TV screens in restaurant tables and unlimited appetizers. Pushing away your plate when everyone else is still digging into their food is hard. Eating a piece of rich dark chocolate when everyone else is giving up sugar is hard. But none of it is as hard as fighting your body for the rest of your life. Doing these two things will make a huge difference in how you think about food. Food is not a punishment or forbidden fruit or even a decadent excess; it's a life-sustaining gift.

The first step on your 2013 EMOTIONAL diet plan.

As we approach the end of January 2012 and make plans about how we're going to tackle the new year, one of the biggest themes that draws attention is weight.

After partying it up with coworkers, inhaling the abundant supply of cookies and milkshakes, and savoring Mom's signature guilty pleasures, our waistlines begin to voice the need for change. And many of us answer that need with renewed focus, a new gym membership, and a commitment to a proven diet plan -- anything to lose weight.

 

Given the importance of weight in our lives, especially around the new year, I wanted to share with you its exact definition.

 

Weight: 1) "A body's relative mass or the quantity of matter contained by it ... the heaviness of a person or thing"

 

As a fitness freak, this definition intrigues me -- kg's are not even mentioned! Weight is not about the scale; that's our society's interpretation. In fact, a person can be very fit and still be heavy. How? I propose the following reasoning through my definition of "emotional weight."

 

Emotional Weight: "A spirit's relative mass or the quantity of matter, the weight of words, contained by it, giving rise to a downward or upward force; the heaviness of a person or thing."

 

I see so many slim, trim people daily  that look so heavy. Yes, they are in shape, but their auras and demeanors make it seem like they have packed on an additional hundred pounds! This emotional weight can be just as alarming and detrimental as unhealthy physical weight.

 

 

A healthy person isn't weighed down by emotions. Instead, his or her true spirit shines so clear and vibrantly that the world can't help but experience it.

And how we understand, articulate, and share our spirits with the world occurs through words. Let's say I wake up in the morning and tell myself, "I wish I were different, no one understands me," or "I will only be happy when I lose weight," or "I'm so beautiful, nothing can bring me down." Before I even eat my breakfast, I've already started packing on the weight of words.

 

Over the years, we have all accumulated this emotional weight -- the weight of words -- and just like we should be aware of what we eat, we should also be aware of the exact words we digest into our spirits. One word has the power to weigh much more than that single slice of cake at the holiday party this year.

 

If we want to be healthy, fit and confident in the new year, we have to appreciate the weight of words. It requires strength and conviction to challenge the ideas of pounds, food, exercise and perfection that intermingle so seamlessly in our society. All of us will experience the ultimate weight transformation only when we start to lose this emotional weight.

 

Going on the latest diet will not necessarily help us lose physical weight, but a desire to take ownership of our lifestyle will. Similarly, going to therapy or dedicating our lives to yoga and meditation will not help us lose emotional weight, but a desire to take ownership of the words we use, have been exposed to, listen to, admire, and live by, will.

 

For most of us, hopping on a treadmill for 30 minutes is much easier than devoting 30 minutes on the phone call to our moms and owning up to the words we said to her in a fight. It requires clarity and drive to reflect on our emotional weight, and patience and accountability to understand the impact of the words and actions we live with and by. If you can start to lose the weight of words, you will lose emotional weight and be on a loving, long-lasting path to a healthy spirit.

After all, there is no perfect body, no perfect mind, and no perfect person. There is only the perfect you. Maybe you like to be pleasantly plump or maybe you like to be skinny -- none of it matters if your spirit is weighed down. Rather than chase after the subjective notions of body and mind prescribed to us, why not trim down our ideals and discover our light, beautiful, and individual spirits?

 

This New Year, let's draw needed attention to and appreciate the simplicity and significance of the weight of words. Let's gain control over our emotional waistlines and reflect on the words and sayings that weigh us down and lift us up.

 

The first step on the 2013 emotional diet plan: Connect to one word that reflects your spirit or goal this year. Look up its dictionary definition and interpret it for your life. Own and live it. Let your one word shine and serve, as your ultimate scale this year -- don't let it get weighed down by other words

Tips to improve your diet!

 

 

5 tips to improve diet now

Are you trying to be a “healthier you” in 2013 but don’t know where to start? Try putting these five tips into action, and your diet will be instantly healthier. Yes, it’s that easy.

1. If it says “whole wheat,” “whole grain,” or “multigrain” on the label, then it’s a-OK. Complex carbohydrates make you feel fuller faster and generally are a good source of fiber. Substitute whole-wheat pasta for regular pasta. Ditch the white bread for multigrain bread. Ask for your sushi to be rolled in brown rice instead of white rice. You get the idea.

2. Cut out the sugar. I think of sugar as empty calories. The sad thing is, there could be a significant amount of sugar in things you may not even think about— in your tomato sauce,Fruit such as Banana's, juice, or even your salad dressing. Before you buy it, check the nutrition label for the sugar content. Compare various brands to find the one with the least amount of sugar, and, when available, opt for products with “no sugar added” written on the label.

 

3. Just because the label says “diet,” it doesn’t mean it’s “healthy.” Diet soda is still soda, people. It doesn’t mean soda magically becomes healthy because there is fake sugar in it. If you’re thirsty, drink water. If you want caffeine, try green tea. You likely won’t be missing the diet soda once you figure out what it is you are truly craving.

4. Ditch the frozen meals and take out's. While frozen dinners  and take out's are convenient, they are usually loaded with sodium. A high amount of sodium can make your body retain water. (Bloating…gross!) Whenever possible, prepare a fresh meal instead of fishing in the freezer or ordering take out.

5. Sneak in fruits and veggies whenever possible. Making spaghetti? Throw in some broccoli. Cooking fish? Sautee some spinach on the side. Want to spice up a boring chicken salad sandwich? Throw some cauliflower in there. The possibilities are endless! Use your imagination.

and the healthiest salaad dressing is...

 

Healthiest Fats

Salad dressing is solely responsible for turning many healthy meals into unhealthy ones. While it's understandable to want more flavor on your salad, make sure you're making healthy choices when it comes to your diet.

The first tip is that healthy fats are actually a liquid at room temperature. These oily fats are much better for your heart than dressing made with mayonnaise, for example.

 

Boosting Nutrition

You can increase the nutrition value of a salad by using citrus juices instead of dressing. Add a dose of vitamin C with sweet red grapefuit or orange juice. Sweet red peppers and kiwi are both great sources of vitamin C as well!

 

Healthy and Creamy

Non-fat yogurt makes a delicious and creamy guilt-free dressing. Thin out the yogurt slightly with water or vegetable juice and pour it over your leafy dinner.

 

Fat-Free Dressings

Salad dressings that contain little to no fat are obviously better for you. The juice of watery veggies combined with herbs make for a great tasting, fat-free dressing. Making the switch to fat-free dressing will save you hundreds of calories a day.

Good Fats

The healthy fats in avocados make a nutritious, creamy dressing. The combination of low-fat buttermilk and mashed avocado packs vitamins, minerals, and good fat. Avocado lovers might even forget that regular dressing even existed!

 

Anti-Aging Options

Fight aging while dressing your salad by creating your own homemade batch. Adding a dash of turmeric to your homemade dressing introduces antioxidants that kill off free radicals, and it will give it a spicy kick!

 

Vinegar Dressings

If you have fresh herbs available, douse them in vinegar and add them to a salad for an immediate flavor boost. An even better choice is rice vinegar, which is smoother than regular vinegar. This is a much healthier option than fatty or oily substances, and a little goes a long way.

 

Fruity Dressings

If you have a bit of a sweet tooth, then color your dressing with bright fruit flavors to keep the calories low. Fruit vinegars are naturally sweet, and you'll need less oil to create a dressing. You can also use fruit juices in small amounts to add that sweet flavor.

 

Avoid Hidden Sodium

Something to watch out for is sodium. Often, the "healthy" low-fat varieties of salad dressing contain a lot of sodium. That hidden sodium adds up fast, so make sure to check nutrition labels on bottled dressing for salt content.

 

Measure, Don't Pour

One of the biggest reasons why people are getting fat off of salads is portion control. Pouring a full cup of salad dressing onto your salad might make it more fattening than a hamburger. Keep an eye on measurements. Two tablespoons of dressing is more than enough for one serving of salad.

saudi champagne

Saudi Champagne
This a very famous Saudi drink that is
soothing and refreshing esp in hot
summer days. 'Saudi' and 'Champagne' are 2 words that do not go together, but this drink is totally non-alcoholic.Ingredients

1 cup Mixture of fresh fruits(apple
with skin, Oranges skin, strawberry
and pineapple) cut into chunks.
Few mint leaves washed
500 ml (cold) apple juice
500 ml (cold)sparkling water 1 can (cold) 7 up
Lots of ice.

Method

1. Put all your fruits in a serving jug.

2. Just before serving pour in the Apple
juice, sparkling water and 7-up.

3. Decorate with mint leaves and ice and Serve chilled.