High energy levels don’t just happen—for some people anyway. For many, a lack of sleep and exercise combined with poor eating habits result in underperformance and low energy levels. In addition, if these basic health habits are not adhered to, studies show that mental sharpness and memory seem to dwindle as well. Fortunately, the opposite is true as well—for people who are not getting enough sleep, never work out, and have no energy and bad memories, there is good news: taking on better habits can increase both your energy and mental performance!
I read this kind of information all the time. But over the last few months, I actually did a little experiment and was baffled by the results. For the first time in…oh, maybe 10 years…I forced myself to get to bed before 12:00am, get a full eight hours of sleep, and stop eating candy completely. I kid you not—I was a new gal. My energy levels shot through the roof; I was able to focus sharply; and, at night, I was able to sleep better.
Sometimes I fall back into my old self-indulgent ways and Internet surf into the wee hours of the night when humans should really be sleeping. For those times, I learned about a supplement that people can take that helps energy levels naturally. A friend recently recommended an NADH supplement to me that enhances mental alertness and energy levels. (NADH is a coenzyme that helps the body in the process of energy extraction.) She is completely sold on it. It is called Enada NADH. I’m going to try it—I researched it and it appears to be quite effective! I’ll let you know how it goes!
Barack Obama has admitted to falling off the wagon when it comes to stopping the nicotine habit. He reportedly chewed Nicorette gum while on the campaign trail. Wonder how he’ll hold up now that he will have the US economy, foreign policy, and housing crises to contend with.
In an interview for the November issue of Men’s Health magazine, Obama explained, “There have been a couple of times during the campaign when I fell off the wagon and bummed one, and I had to kick it again.” He continued, “But I figure, seeing as I’m running for president, I need to cut myself a little slack.”
On overall health, though, it appears that Obama is otherwise fit and working hard to stay healthy. On the campaign trail, he reportedly managed to fit in 45-minute workouts six days a week. He admits that occasionally sleeping takes precedence over working out, however, as working out must be done before the day starts.
We are rooting for Obama and anyone else who wants to stop smoking! According to Dr. Abraham Ishaaya of ALPS Medical Center located in Los Angeles, California, “Taking care of the patient as a whole is critical to achieve ultimate well being.” He explains that one condition can affect others. So, smoking affects sleeping, which can affect a person’s weight, and the cycle continues from there. Obama seems to have the right idea—try to stop smoking, as well as work out, eat right, sleep right, and all of those other simple things that sometimes seem so hard to do!
Eating healthy just got a little bit tastier. At least this dish of sauted zucchini and chikuwa looks like it tastes wonderful and won’t give you love handles. It’s from the flickr photo stream of yomi955 who also happens to have plenty of other photos of very tasty looking dishes. Now, I had to look up chikuwa to be honest. Wikipedia tells me that chikuwa is is “a Japanese tube-like food product made from ingredients like fish surimi, salt, sugar, starch, and egg white”. You apparently mix these ingredients well then wrap the mixture around bamboo or metal sticks, then you steam or broil them. Once steamed/broiled, you then slice them up. The name “chikuwa” apparently literally translates to “bamboo ring”.
Doesn’t this picture make you want to prepare yourself a plate of sauted zucchini and chikuwa, or maybe hire yomi955 to prepare it for you?
I’ve been eating non-stop since I woke up this morning. Let me see if I can even remember what I’ve had to eat. I started with left over Chinese. Yep, first thing in the morning I had left over Chinese; and this after having more than I should have had last night. So I started by having a couple of bites of cashew nut chicken and a bit of Mongolian beef. After that I had about a 2-inch piece of Italian bread with a slice a cheese and a slice of turkey. Following that I had a cookie. Following that I had a handful of “Just Bunches”. Following that I might have had another cookie, can’t remember. I probably then went back and had another handful of just bunches and then a 1-inch piece of Italian bread. I had a 1/2 cup of ice cream; and I had a piece of chicken. Just call me Miss Piggy.
I won’t beat up myself about eating though because it serves no good purpose. What I will do is get up and go work out for an hour. I’ll be doing some streching, followed by some dance aerobics, followed again by some stretching with some random exercises done with a 15 pound barbell. I’ll be working out to Britney Spears’ “Womanizer”, “Gimme More”, “Piece of Me”, “Break the Ice”, “Toxic”, “I’m A Slave 4 U”. I find her music is pretty good for working out to. I’ve actually never purchased a Britney Spears CD before, but this year I’ve put Blackout and Circus on my Holiday Shopping List. For now I just go to youtube and let the videos run while I work out.
Well, it’s time to go burn some of those calories.
Image: Stretch by Mrs Flinger via Flickr
I don’t have anything to eat for lunch today, unless I eat leftovers from yesterday’s dinner; but it was macaroni and cheese with spinach and pieces of chicken mixed in. It’s way too heavy for lunch. We’re still struggling with finances around here and just barely managing to get the essentials paid. The cupboards and the fridge are usually bare these days, which isn’t to imply we’re starving. We manage to eat every day, but we haven’t been able to afford to do any major grocery shopping for a while.
I was fantasizing about having a nice lunch to eat for a change so I went looking for pictures on Flickr and came across this picture by NCinDC. This is what the owner of the picture wrote about the colorful lunch you see on the plate:
I had a delicious lunch at the Uptown Cafe (I think that’s the name of it?) across from The Westin Grand in Faggy Bottom. Hmm, let’s see now. On my plate was sushi, tuna salad, pasta with grilled chicken, cucumbers, tomato and avocado salad, watermelon, pineapple, and strawberries. Deeeelicious.
I have to say it does look delicious, although I have to admit I’ve never had sushi. I’m allergic to certain seafood and so I don’t take chances on any seafood I’m not sure if I can safely eat. I’d probably not eat the sushi part of the dish but everything else looks very tasty.
Hope you enjoy your lunch today, whatever you end up eating. Remember, it’s not about what you eat necessarily but how much you eat, and whether or not you’re getting enough exercise to balance it out. Forget starvation diets. Your body and your mind need nourishment. Eat. Live. Life is short.
Dieting isn’t always easy. Life is filled with stressful moments and in moments of stress some of us turn to food. If you start your day breaking your diet there’s no need to feel guilty about it. Guilt is pointless, and, in fact, guilt is likely to increase your stress level and send you back to the cupboard or the fridge looking for something else to eat; so forget about the guilt.
The best way to handle a situation where you’ve had something to eat that you feel perhaps you should not have eaten is to get some exercise to offset whatever damage you fear you might have done. Exercising is not always fun, that is true, but remind yourself that you’re exercising for the same reason that you eat impulsively, to help yourself feel more calm and comforted; and the great thing about exercise is that it comes with that great benefit of helping to keep you in shape.
So if you had two slices of pizza for breakfast this morning don’t sweat it. It’s not a world crisis or even a personal crisis. Just use the energy from the nutrients you’ve consumed. Go out and run if you can. Don’t like to run? Go out and walk. Don’t want to go out? Put on your Britney Spears CD and pretend you’re at a club. Don’t have a Britney Spears CD? Go to youtube and load up her womanizer video, turn up the volume on your speakers and have some early morning fun. Why not? Life is good.
Image: Pizza Pizza by The Pizza Review via Flickr
Taking a guess here and could be wrong but strongly suspect Jessica Alba used the starvation diet method combined with 4-hour workouts 7 days per week to lose her pregnancy weight fast. There’s nothing better for losing lots of weight in very little time than not eating anything for days and working out on an empty stomach as if you’re training for a triathlon.
Then again, it’s possible Jessica just has good genes and lost the weight without going to such extremes as to starve herself. They say some women lose weight rapidly as a result of breast feeding. Maybe Jessica is one of those women, and combined with her good eating and exercising habits, the benefits of breast-feeding enabled her to shed the extra pounds within a couple of weeks.
While a bacon egg and cheese biscuit won’t usually be an item found on a diet menu, you can certainly have a bacon egg and cheese biscuit for breakfast and still lose weight. As long you manage the rest of the meals you consume for the day so that when added to the bacon egg and cheese biscuit you don’t go over your daily allowance of calories, fat, sugars and other nutrients that you are trying to reduce in your diet, a bacon egg and cheese biscuit for breakfast is perfectly allowable. You should probably make it yourself at home in your kitchen. You can pick up reduced fat biscuits, use egg beaters and veggie bacon to make it even healthier.
The key to losing weight isn’t necessarily to quit eating the things you like to eat. It’s really a matter of balancing things out so that you’re not consuming too many calories, too much fat, too many grams of sugar, carbohydrates etc. To lose weight, obviously, you have to reduce your intake of calories, fats, sugars, carbohydrates and so on; but once you’ve determined the amount you can safely consume and still lose weight, you can eat whatever you like as long as you are keeping tabs so that you’ll know when you’ve reached your maximum allowed.
You probably shouldn’t have a bacon egg and cheese biscuit for breakfast every morning, and you probably shouldn’t follow up a bacon egg and cheese biscuit breakfast with a couple of slices of stuff-crust pizza for lunch and Chinese food for dinner. Balance things out and you’ll be fine.
Image: McBreakfast by Gun Show via Flickr
The most you can reasonably expect to lose in 7 days is 3 – 5 pounds. Some people can probably lose more by going to extremes of starving themselves and working out 2 – 4 hours per day; but if you’re more inclined to take a safe and sensible approach to your dieting, you should expect that it will take at least 28 days to lose 12 – 20 pounds; and you’re more likely to lose closer to 12 pounds than closer to 20 pounds.
Anyone who tells you they have a system you can use to help you lose 20 pounds in 7 days is trying to swindle you. Common sense alone should tell you that the only way someone loses that much weight in such a short space of time is if they come down with some kind of illness.
When dieting it’s important to have reasonable expectations for how long it’s going to take to lose the weight you’re trying to lose. It is also important to lose the weight gradually as you’ll tend to keep the weight off longer when you allow yourself enough time to develop healthy eating and exercising habits.
Most people who lose weight rapidly will usually gain back the weight in no time. If you want to lose weight and keep the weight off diet smartly.
Image: Two girls exercising cayucos beach by mikebaird via Flickr
Alexander Morentin of betterlivingwithwholefoods.com has a warning for you about fat free products. One fat free product in particular, the Skinny Cow Low-Fat Ice Cream, has been deemed by Mister Morentin as being harmful to dieters. According to the post “Sex, Lies, and Fat-Free Ice Cream” Skinny Cow Low-Fat Ice Cream “will sabotage your weight loss and diet goals” and should avoided like the plague.
Why are ice cream sandwiches even necessary to begin with? Isn’t the ice cream by itself enough of a treat? Aren’t the wafters, or cookies or whatever is used as the top and bottom of the sandwich by themselves enough of a treat? Why do we need to combine them to create something with more of the stuff that’s no good for our bodies?
We seem to always need to go overboard when it comes to food. We can’t just have ice cream. We have to have ice cream with cookies and cream mixed in. Our burgers have to be a foot high. Our pizzas must have ten toppings and five layers of extra cheese. Our sanwiches must be two feet long and one foot high.
97% fat free or full of fat, Ice cream sandwiches are messy to eat, and they are a completely unnecessary snack. They add no value to your life so you might as well keep them off your shopping list.
Read Sex, Lies, and Fat-Free Ice Cream by Alexander Morentin
Image: carie & ice cream sandwich by nayrb7 via Flickr
