Whenever you’re in a grocery store or health food store be sure to pickup trial size and free samples. Stash them with your camp kitchen gear or picnic basket. This way you don’t have to pack full size herbs, spices and condiments.
5 Rejuvenating Ways to Spend Your Lunch Hour
It doesn’t seem quite fair that in the mix of the eight-eight-eight breakdown of a day —eight hours of work, eight hours of sleep (ideally) and eight hours of downtime — we have to spend one of those precious downtime hours at the office. Yet your lunch hour, properly spent, can go a long way toward rejuvenating you, making you happier and more productive for the rest of the day and even propel you along towards your weight loss goal.
Check out these tips for ways to spend your lunch hour that will help you to continue losing weight and getting healthier:
1. Get moving! Taking a walk during your lunch hour is probably the best way to recharge yourself. Walking helps you relax, burns calories, and releases energy in your body that makes it hard to sit still during the workday. Better yet, snap on a pedometer and track your steps throughout the day. Challenge yourself to get at least 10,000 steps a day.
2. Go to the park. If there’s a park near your office, spending some time in nature can be amazingly rejuvenating. Watching the squirrels and birds is relaxing, and breathing in the natural scents helps you breathe more deeply and melts away stress.
3. Do yoga. Find an empty conference room — or better yet, head to that park —and pull out your yoga mat. Yoga helps you relax and refocus your brain so that you can make it through the afternoon.
4. Plan ahead. With everything we have to get done on a daily basis, meal preparation can seem next to impossible – especially a healthy meal. Rather than checking Facebook or reading the latest celeb gossip during your lunch hour, write out the meals you will prepare throughout the week. Better yet, write out your grocery list as well so that you can hit the market on the way home – and so that you won’t be sidetracked by junk food.
5. Make a call and hit the road. Make a pact with a friend or family member that you’ll have walking calls over lunch. Use this time constructively: talk through work, family or personal issues – but be sure to discuss solutions, too. Doing so will nip stress in the bud, and will leave you with a game plan for moving forward. By walking while you talk, you’ll burn calories and knock out at least 30 minutes of exercise. Now that’s what you call a “Power Lunch”!
Whether your office feels oppressive or it’s the best thing in your life, we all need an escape from time to time. Take that escape daily during your lunch hour, and you’ll enjoy your job more. As an added benefit, shifting attention away from work in the middle of the day frees your brain to come up with creative solutions to problems that have been bugging you, so when you come back to work, you’ll be refreshed and ready to tackle what’s left of the day. Not to mention – you’ll burn some calories, too!
About the Author:
Tina Daniels writes about self-improvement for Vape World.
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Crock Pot Whole Chicken Recipe
Summer time is coming up and that means one of my favorite seasonal high protein foods barbecue smoked chicken! The big problem with barbecue is in order to make it right you have to slow cook it, and most of us don’t have a smoker or slow cooker in our back yards. This handy dandy recipe give you the sweet sweet taste of juicy slow cooked smoked chicken all with the help of a crock pot instead of a back yard smoker. Best of all, it’s high in protein and contains no added sugar or carbs!
What You’ll Need:
- 1 whole chicken, 4 – 5 pounds
- 1 onion – quartered
- 1/4 cup bottled smoke
- aluminum foil
For DRY RUB:
- 1/4 cup Chili Powder
- 2 tablespoons kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper
- 1 tablespoon cumin
Mix the dry rub ingredients together in a small bowl. Alternatively you can use a store bought seasoning. I prefer to make my own so I’ve given you my recipe. Make sure your chicken is cleaned and any excess fat or feathers have been removed. Line your crock pot with aluminum foil leaving enough extra foil hanging outside the pot to fold over and wrap your chicken after the next step. The foil is what allows the chicken to cook slowly but not turn into a soggy mess when it’s done.
Place the chicken in the crock pot and cover every inch of it in the dry rub, including inside the cavity. Place the quartered onion inside the chicken’s cavity, pour in the bottled smoke and wrap the aluminum foil around the chicken to completely enclosing it. Cover with the crock pot lid and turn that bad boy on.
Let the chicken cook on low for 5 – 6 hours or on high for 3 – 4 hours. Make sure the internal temperature of the chicken reaches at least 175 degrees. When the chicken is done, pull it out of the pot and let it sit for 10 minutes before carving. If all goes according to plan you should have a beautiful golden well seasoned “SMOKED” bird. and remember with crock pots and slow cookers, leave the lid on until you’re almost done, if you looking you ain’t cooking. This recipe can be used with pork loin or brisket also.
Max Saffron is a blogger out of Dallas, Texas. He writes for Dallas Accident Recovery a site dedicated to information on legal, financial and medical issues surrounding automobiles and auto accidents.
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Guide to Acai Juice Choices
Healthy To Go Acai Natural Energy Boost
Acai Natural Energy Boost™ combines one of nature’s most powerful superfruits, organic acai, with organic grape, apple, pomegranate, and mango to create an all-natural, antioxidant packed energy drink in convenient “stick packs” designed to go where you go!
These amazing SuperFruits are then blended with a balanced Vitamin B blend, all-natural energy compounds from organic green tea, organic Yerba Mate, and organic guarana seed extract and a special dark chocolate extract called Chocamine™. Chocamine™ offers the proven antioxidant and energizing benefits of chocolate without the fat, sugar, or dairy.
Rounding out Acai Natural Energy Boost™ is Chromium. This essential mineral is needed in the body to support normal blood sugar levels. Acai Natural Energy Boost™ contains more than 80% of your daily value of chromium in one serving. This combined with the naturally sweet Stevia Leaf, provides a sustaned energy boost without the typical energy drink , “spike & crash”.
Acai Natural Energy Boost™ contains no MSG, preservatives, artificial sweeteners, colors, or flavors ,and no genetically modified organisms (non-GMO).
Reviews:
“Tastes slightly medicinal. I didn’t like it mixed with water but loved it when I added it to either a vanilla or chocolate protein shake.” Jenn – Hollywood, CA
“I wasn’t crazy about the taste but when I added it to lemonade I actually liked it and it was good to know that I was getting all the extra nutritional benefits of the acai.” Patty – Irvine, CA
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Pros and Cons of Cooking Spinach
Spinach is one green leafy vegetable that is very rich in nutrition. Most people can relate to having been cooreced to eat spinach as a child because of their parents belief that spinach helps to keep the doctor away. The real truth is that spinach contains a variety of components which help maintain good health and build up immunity against diseases. However, one question remains – which is best, cooked or raw spinach?
Eating raw vegetables of any kind is generally encouraged in any weight loss program. And while that is certainly true, cooked spinach has its own unique advantages over raw spinach. Cooking spinach seems to improve your body’s ability to absorb the beneficial nutrients. Whether you boil, steam or fry, cooking spinach changes the iron into a form that is more readily absorbed into the body. Spinach contains iron in the non-heme form which is not as bio-available as heme iron that is found in foods from animal products. Moreover, spinach in its raw form contains a compound known as oxalic acid which inhibits iron absorption by binding onto it. When you cook your spinach the oxalic acid and other inhibitors will be unlocked and iron will be made more bio-available.
Secondly, cooked spinach releases more lutein. Lutein is a type of phytochemical that protects the eyes from the formation of cataracts and other age related complications like macular degeneration. In raw form, spinach has lower levels of lutein.
On the other side of the argument, raw spinach has more antioxidant properties compared to cooked spinach. The antioxidants are found in the form of vitamins like A and C and also flavanoid polyphenolics. Cooked spinach still contains these antioxidants but in reduced quantities.
Another disadvantage to cooking spinach is that there is a tendency towards overcooking it which greatly reduces the nutrient load. When cooking be careful to keep an eye on it and remove it from the heat right at the moment that it wilts. There is no need to cook it any longer than that.
The one method that I would not recommend is to boil spinach in a pot of water – unless you’re making soup and are boiling the spinach in the broth you’ll end up consuming. Boiling in water that you’ll then throw out means you’ll lose the water soluble vitamins such as the B complex vitamins.
So bottom line – cooked spinach is going to give you a more nutrition packed meal, just be careful not to overcook it and not to boil it and toss out the water.
Garlic Spinach
One of my favorite ways to serve spinach is to saute sliced onion in extra-virgin olive oil. Seasone with sea salt and black pepper and a bit of crushed red pepper if you like. Once the onion starts to soften, add some crushed or sliced garlic and continue sauteing until the onion is soft. Add handfuls of fresh spinach. Turn off the heat and allow the spinach to wilt. Season again with salt and pepper and serve with just about any meat dish or add some more extra virgin olive oil and toss with whole grain pasta.
Spinach Pizza
Pick up a prebaked whole wheat pizza crust. Spread with tomato sauce. Top with 1 bag of baby spinach that’s been steamed, squeezed dry and chopped, then mozzerella, Parmesan cheeses. Sprinkle with sea salt and crushed red pepper flakes. Bake until cheeses are melted and slightly browned.
Cheesy Spinach Eggs
And here’s a recipe from our book “The UnDiet: 2 Weeks of Extremely Low Carb Menus & Recipes” which is only 3 carbs for the entire recipe. You can decide if this is one or two servings.
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil or butter
¼ cup Parmesan cheese, shredded
¼ cup mascarpone cheese
3 large eggs
¼ teaspoon each dried basil and thyme
small pinch each of salt and black pepper
1 – 2 cups fresh spinach, steamed, squeezed dry and chopped
Instructions:
In a medium bowl mix all ingredients except spinach.
Heat oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add egg mixture and spinach to pan. Stir once to combine and then allow the eggs to cook without stirring. Lift the edge of the eggs every now and then, tilting the pan to allow the uncooked egg to run to the bottom of the pan. Remove from heat when the eggs are still slightly runny as they’ll continue cooking for a few minutes. This method keeps the eggs nice and moist, rather than dry and overcooked.
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Eating More Greens to Improve Your Health
We’re working hard on getting our new book “The UnDiet – 2 Weeks of Extremely Low Carb Menus & Recipes” out on Kindle and so we are very pleased that this guest poster has offered to share these delicious fruit smoothie recipes packed with “green power”.
Getting more vegetables and green foods specifically into your diet has a wide host of health benefits. These plants can improve all aspects of your life, including cardiovascular and weight loss advantages. Whatever challenges you face in your life, there is no doubt that more greens can help you meet those obstacles.
First off, any kind of green you eat is beneficial because of the chlorophyll present. As you probably know, chlorophyll is the substance in plants that makes them look green, and it is responsible for carrying out the process of photosynthesis, which creates energy for plants in the form of glucose. Interestingly enough, chlorophyll is extremely similar to hemoglobin, which carries oxygen through the human body. The two molecules are virtually identical, except that there is a magnesium atom in the center of the chlorophyll, and an iron in the center of the hemoglobin. It is extremely incredible how they are so similar, and the phenomenon is evidence of the intimate relationship between man and plant.
The point of that little science lesson was to demonstrate the importance of consuming green foods. They flood the system with chlorophyll, the constituents of which can be used to improve the quality of the blood. Since the blood is such a critical aspect of our bodies, having healthy blood usually leads to health in other areas. Chlorophyll has also been shown to have potent antibacterial and energy producing properties, and is a superfood in its own right. Yet this molecule is just one of the many reasons to consume green foods.
All green foods contain many other phytonutrients which act as antioxidants, eliminating free radicals and decreasing the rate of aging. Antioxidants also help prevent cancer, which is why foods like spinach and broccoli are recommended as anticancer foods. There are also many of the common vitamins found in foods like these. For example, spinach is very high in both Vitamin A and Vitamin C, as well as a vegetarian source of iron. Of course, there is also magnesium in all green foods, as it is present in the chlorophyll.
Getting more green foods into your life is not as hard as it seems. Besides simply making a conscious choice to purchase more at the grocery store, there are also shortcuts of sorts. You can get green drink mixes that integrate many different plants into the formula, and these products enable you to get many servings of vegetables in a single drink. Enzymes and probiotics are also featured in green drinks, so there is no shortage of benefits to drinking them. You can also purchase a juicer and make your own green drinks in your home, and both routes are equally acceptable for getting more plant nutrients on a daily basis.
For a quick start on upping your greens intake, here are two great and simple recipes to try out.
Hemp Power Salad
Ingredients:
1/2 cup spinach
1/2 cup kale
1/4 cup almonds
3 tablespoons hemp seed
1 tablespoon hemp seed oil
Mix all ingredients together for a raw salad that is jam-packed with vitamins, minerals, protein, Omega-3, and fiber. You cannot get better than a salad like this. And if you want your greens meals to taste even sweeter, then the next recipe will be even better.
Ultimate Antioxidant Shake
Ingredients:
1 cup spinach
1 cup blueberries
1 cup almond milk
3 tablespoons
Chocolate Hemp Shake powder (or any good quality chocolate protein powder)
4 ice cubes
Mix all ingredients in a blender, pushing down the spinach as necessary to make sure it is properly pulverized. Both spinach and blueberries are respective superfoods in their vegetable/fruit categories, and the cocao in the HempShake powder compliments the protein with even more powerful antioxidants. Fitting both of these recipes into your day will ensure complete nutrition.
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Suppressing Hunger Naturally
Have you been sucked in by late night infomercials hawking the latest miracle supplement which will help you to lose weight without changing your diet or adding to your exercise routine? Don’t be embarrassed, I’ve tried many of them. Of course, I can pretend that I’m doing it as research for this blog, but the truth is that I had high hopes when I opened each little bottle of miracle pills. I had the highest hopes for the ones that were made of natural ingredients. But let me tell you – EVERY SINGLE ONE WAS A DISAPPOINTMENT AND A WASTE OF MONEY. At least with the whole food supplements I could console myself that I was putting good things into my body, but as to weight loss – NADA.
In the end, the same thing that I’ve been telling you since day one on this blog and earlier with the website, eating whole, minimally processed foods is the path to weight loss. But did you know you can use food to suppress hunger naturally.
Eating a whole apple slows down the the digestive process due to the pectin which is an indigestible fiber. Almonds are another food that works to keep hunger under control. They are a good source of fiber and protein, but they can be high in calories so eat a small amount (6 to 10) as a snack. Oatmeal for breakfast is a good fiber source and also very filling. These natural appetite suppressants are also a part of a healthy eating plan.
If a sweet tooth is your diet downfall you can suppress that sweets craving using natural sweeteners such as Stevia. Stevia is an herb that sweetens foods but has zero calories and zero carbs!
One last tip – drinking plenty of water (plain water, herb tea and citrus flavored water) throughout the day is one of my biggest ways to help decrease hunger. Water cleanses the body of toxins and contains minerals your body needs.
What it all boils down to is that eating whole foods in place of highly processed foods works to decrease your hunger simply by giving your body the nutrition it craves. When you try to satisfy a craving by eating something such as a bagel made with white flour or a sticky cinnamon roll your body still cries for you to feed it because it didn’t get the nutrition it needed.
So add more whole, unprocessed foods and unprocessed water drinks to your day and you’ll find that your hunger will be safely suppressed without needing to waste your money on questionable supplements.
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Neutral After School Snacks
There’s nothing like a quick and easy snack that contains no starches, no proteins and is essentially a “neutral” snack. Neutral foods are made up of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and/or soy.
Apples with Cheese: top apple slices with thin slices of non-dairy cheese.
Apple Peanut Butter Sandwiches: slices of apple topped with peanut butter.
Baked Tofu: slice baked tofu into sticks.
Banana Peanut Butter Bites: slices of banana topped with peanut butter.
Coconut Milk Yogurt: eat as is, use as a fruit dip or freeze in popsicle molds.
Frozen Grapes: freeze grapes. Eat directly from the freezer.
Roasted Endamame: pour one layer of shelled soybeans into a pie plate. Spray or drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt and garlic or chili powder if you like. Roast at 450 degrees until lightly browned, about 10 to fifteen minutes. These are more delish than you can imagine!
Soy Yogurt: eat as is, use as a fruit dip or freeze in popsicle molds.
Veggie Sticks: dip radishes, celery, carrot, jicama, cucumber, bell pepper … into your favorite lo-cal dressing or stir lemon juice, salt, cayenne pepper and a little garlic into lo-fat yogurt.
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Treadclimber: A Low Impact Way to Achieve a High Level of Fitness
Normally I am kind of a skeptic when it comes to infomercials on fitness equipment. The testimonials just seem too unrealistic for the most part and quite often I find myself rolling my eyes and changing the channel within just a few minutes. However, when I saw an infomercial for the Bowflex Treadclimber, for the first time … maybe ever, I was pretty intrigued by the piece and what it can do for its users.
What is a Treadclimber?
A Treadclimber is a home gym piece of equipment that basically gives you the best of three different types of cardio machines. It functions largely like a treadmill in that it generates a forward walking motion, like a stepper, as it has two separate treadles allowing you to step up with each stride, and finally like an elliptical machine as the two previously mentioned motions are combined to make a smooth, low impact exercise that protects your joints from intense wear and tear.
So Why is it So Great?
The great thing about the Bowflex Treadclimber is that the calorie burning that it facilitates is AWESOME, especially for a piece that is made for only walking. The claim behind it is that more muscle groups are engaged simultaneously, causing you to burn more than twice the amount of calories that you would on a stepper, treadmill, or elliptical trainer. Users also claim that it is easy to use, provides a great workout, operates smoothly, and has up to date technology that allow for goal setting and tracking of progress. It also supports a pretty high weight capacity at 300 lbs.
Cons?
The primary complaints that Treadclimber users have are that it hard to store, can be hard to move, it is expensive (ranging from about $1000 to $3300 depending on the model), it can be noisy, and the warranty isn’t very long.
The truth is, sometimes injuries and joint pain keep us grounded and unable to engage in high impact exercise. However, the Treadclimber still offers a way to get into some pretty great shape. You can still achieve great fitness and contribute to a much healthier lifestyle. So, no more excuses! You can also check out this page featuring home gym reviews that could add even more possibilities to your fitness program.
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Exercise on a Budget
Many people feel that exercising simply costs too much money. If money is the ONE obstacle standing in the way between you and getting a regular and proper workout then consider a few helpful hints at how to exercise when you’re under a budget.
One of the first ways to cut back on spending while still being able to exercise regularly is to purchase exercise equipment that has multiple uses or can be used for a multitude of exercises. Some exercise equipment on the market is designed to work only one part of the human body. These items can be tempting to buy but will give you less results in overall health for a higher dollar price overall. Some equipment that can be used for a variety of exercises will work multiple areas of the body include an exercise ball, a multi station home gym, or a home cardio machines.
Exercise balls, which are relatively inexpensive (usually starting around $20), can be used for a variety of activities including working your abs, cardio exercises, and as a light weight medicine ball. But a smart purchase of an inexpensive multi use exercise tool is not the only way to save money while getting fit.
Gym memberships can cost an individual hundreds and even thousands of dollars a year. While a gym offers their customers access to multiple types of exercise equipment, their main use comes in the form of fixed cardio equipment and weightlifting equipment. This means that the same person who spends hundreds of dollars a year and only uses the gym’s cardio machines would be better off purchasing their own equipment for their home. Quality equipment such as treadmills and elliptical machines can be purchased online and shipped to the buyer at a surprisingly cheap cost, certainly less than the cost of one year at a gym.
Consumers who wish to save even more when purchasing their own equipment should consider using online discount and coupon services like nordictrackcoupon.com. This site, nordictrackcoupon.com, gives patrons the ability to use coupons for the trusted exercise brand Nordic Track to receive discounts on purchasing exercise equipment.
Exercising on a budget is possible for those who have the desire and motivation to do so. By investing a little now on home exercise equipment an individual can save hundreds of dollars a year in gym membership cost while receiving the same or better results that all the gym rats achieve.
