Weight Loss Holidays

In this season of food feast, reunions, parties and holiday vacations, it is but tempting to indulge in any kind of foods especially in those nutritionally-devoid but deliciously-prepared meals. What usually matters is the bonding moments created in the space of excitement and delight  while having the fun and spirit of the season. However, on top of these, you should still need to be mindful  largely on your health . Know the nutritional  values of healthier food choices and spare yourself sometime to be a little bit healthier.
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Fresh raw living foods has been known for its great benefits to health. There are many nutritional experts that have written books , have talked about and  spread the good news about raw food.  During the holiday season where gaining weight is usually the unlikely reward, you have the option to treat yourself healthily without spoiling the massive food fun on the occasion.
Here's a list of the value you can get from eating raw fresh plant foods:
1. It has enzymes that gives more life to the plant. Enzymes are catalyst that speeds up the chemical reaction. We normally have enzymes and it helps in all body metabolic  processes. Eating foods rich in enzymes helps to boost our immune system
2. It has very low calories makes it ideal for those who are on a diet
3. It contains high fiber thus makes you feel full longer thus lessen the cravings for more foods
4. It helps to detoxify. Because of its high fiber content, it promotes better elimination.
5. It contains more nutrients than cooked foods. Cooking foods destroys the enzymes and lessen the nutritional value of foods.
6. You'll find more valuable nutrition in raw plant foods especially in green leafy vegetables such as chlorophyll, and the mineral magnesium. These contributes largely in promoting  good health. 
You really have a choice to be healthier.
Here's to your healthy holiday feast!

Your STEPS To Weight Loss

Here's a scenario: It's coffee break and the cafeteria is just two floors down from your office, and the elevator door is just right next to your office doorsteps. What would you choose to do, use the stairs in going down or the elevator?

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Chances are, in usual cases, many would use the elevator. Many wants the quick ways, right? Who wouldn't want it?. No sweat, no extra effort. But if you want to lose weight, you'd better be committing to yourself to walk your way a little bit, choose to have an extra effort so that you'll get every chance to sweat and every little chance to burn calories. In the long run, you'll reap the benefits anyway.

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One of the great ways to stay fit is choosing to walk most of the time. This is considered to be an exercise. If you find it a hassle to go the gym class, then schedule a few minutes, few days a week of walking. A 30-minute walking exercise a day, three times a week will already help in giving you health benefits. You start with baby steps and as you continue on increasing a little bit faster, you are already making your big STEPS to your own weight loss program.

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To get you more motivated, here are some more benefits of walking:

• Helps to speed up metabolism and supports weight loss
• It helps to relieve stress, depression and anxiety
• Helps to keep bones strong, therefore a very good preventive approach to osteoporosis
• It helps improves the body's ability to use insulin, therefore it helps to regulate blood sugar level, beneficial for diabetics
• It helps to improve sleep therefore helps to address some sleep problems
• It helps to build strength and stamina. 

Now get up and begin early the STEPS to your weight loss program.
Enjoy the walk!

JuJu Cleanse

Considering a juice diet? Recently there's a couple who came up with such a great idea of helping people achieve their goal of staying healthy through healthy juices. Health advocates who find it hard to spare more time to prepare fresh juices could find this new juice diet regimen very rewarding.  This is now popularly known (in the Philippines) as Juju Cleanse.  "JuJu" stands for "just juice".

Just Juice Cleanse, which means that through taking fresh juices, you also get the benefits of cleansing aside from its health nourishing effect on the body.

Juices come in 6 bottles of different pure fresh juices placed in a trendy-environmentally friendly bag. You can choose to have juices on a Level 1, or Level 2 or 3. As a starter, you are always recommended to do the Level 1 juice diet, and you may stay there for another day. This is being discussed with you through email or phone. That means that you are guided all through-out the cleansing process! The good thing about this juju cleanse is that it is sustainable when it comes to starting or continuing a cleansing program. It's more than like taking a vegetarian multivitamin pill, because it also gives you the feeling a satiety. Imagine yourself taking a bottle of pure fresh fruit and vegetable juice for your meal and snacks instead of taking those pills...super nourished and full...wow! What a great meal!

With the guidance of the maker of juju cleanse... you'll never get lost finding your way to a healthier body and a lighter, healthier lifestyle.

Here's to your "juju" day!

Biguerlai , slimming tea?

In an effort to slim down, some would resort to slimming teas. Think more than twice. There are some laxatives that most sexy wannabes are using with the thought that it is a slimming tea. One of these is the Biguerlai tea, available over the counter in the Philippines. It's an herbal laxative Senna (Cassia Augustifolia Vahl), which is used to address constipation in a natural approach instead of using the traditional conventional medications. Laxative increases the release of water from our own system and goes together with the waste materials that needs to be evacuated. This creates a feeling of abdominal discomfort such as gassy abdomen, rumbling feeling in the gut, and an urge of immediate bowel movement, resulting to transient diarrhea. It doesn't block the absorption of fats, especially bad fats which dieters are dreaming of, but will only hasten the release of waste matter and water from the gut. Therefore frequent use could make someone dehydrated. Be careful in deciding to use slimming teas. However, herbal laxative teas are good alternative laxatives instead of being dependent of synthetic ones.

Here's to your easy moves!

Is Colon Cleansing Really Beneficial?

Elimination. This is one of the reason why we sometimes have to use the rest room. But there are ways of elimination that a different kind of rest room is used and this is where you see some colon cleansing procedures. This is called an enema room or colonic room.
One of the strategies to help lose weight is cleansing the colon, or the large intestine. Once the body gets rid of the long staying waste or toxins, it's a lot easier for the body to do its process in losing weight. It can be done by the simple enema or coffee enema, or through the use of a colonic machine. However , it is still best to consult your physician before doing this because there are also some contraindications to this, such as: bleeding hemorrhoids, recent abdominal surgery, colon polyps or cancer, uncontrolled hypertension, and even pregnancy is a contraindication. Colon cleansing is something that helps to enhance the process of our own detoxification. This should not be done as a regular activity replacing the normal body activity of elimination through the colon.

The following are some of the many benefits of a colon detoxification:

• It helps to normalize bowel movement.
• It helps to clear up the skin from having recurrent skin conditions such as acne, psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, eczema
• It helps to remove excessive abdominal bloating because of frequent gas accumulation
• It makes you feel lighter and clean
• it helps to naturally bring down high cholesterol and triglyceride levels especially if done together with a diet modification
• it's a good jump-start to a weight loss program

It is always recommended to take a probiotic (good bacteria) supplement as a nutritional support during a colon cleansing and at least one week after the colon detoxification.

Here's to your healthy colon!

Psyllium and Fiber Supplements

If we want to lose weight, one of the substances in the foods that we should be always looking for is "fiber". This substance has the power or ability to increase the process of weight loss. Other benefits of fiber are its ability to lower blood sugar and cholesterol, therefore helps in reducing the risk for heart disease, cancer and diabetes.
How does fiber aids in weight loss? It acts like a friendly sponge in our kitchen absorbing the fats and toxins that we have had accumulated as a result of unhealthy diet. It also acts like a broom as it sweeps away the hardened toxins that were left inside the so-called human wastebasket. Since fiber creates a bulk, it gives also the feeling of satiety, allowing someone to feel full for some more time.
There are many high fiber supplements available; however, it is still best to consume a natural fiber such as psyllium fiber and those that are found in fruits such as apple, watermelon, and grapefruit.

Have a high fiber day!

Cleansing fast

Choosing foods that allows the body to cleanse helps to speed up the process of losing weight. Aside from the physical elimination of toxins, it also carries with them some emotional releases, or unburdening of the emotional baggage which contributes to a person's appetite and therefore becomes a hindrance to the goal of losing weight.
A cleansing fast is a way of resting the body from consuming foods that have preservatives, food additives, artificial flavorings, and foods that are difficult to digest. During this period, what is advisable is to eat whole foods; these are foods that are in its natural state and as much as possible, organic and fresh. This activity can be, as a start, just plainly having easy to digest foods such as fruits and vegetables, avoiding meat temporarily and choosing healthier choices of foods such as brown/red rice over white rice. Avoidance of white sugar and white bread is important. To meat lovers, this is already such a big step. You may stay on this stage for about two weeks and observe for yourself how you feel. Increase level of activity, such as having a regular exercise even just walking exercise compared to none. Keeping yourself hydrated by taking 8 to 10 glasses of water daily plays a big role in a cleansing fast.
By doing this, a mild process of detoxification is already achieved.

Detoxify and live high!

Fats...Friend or Foe?

" It's a torture not to eat those chocolates, but I'm on a diet, I stay away from fats.
" I can't eat those nuts, I avoid fats".
" Those avocados are fattening, It's my favorite but I'm on a diet"
" I don't eat anything with fats, I'm trying to lose weight"

Does any of those statements sounds familiar to you? Do you also believe that fats shouldn't be in your diet if you're trying to lose weight? Think twice because our body needs fats! FATS! OILS! FATS! OILS! Not as many as I am writing it down now, but to a certain percentage so that our body is not being devoid of those necessary nutrients that is dependent on fats. These are nutrients that will help prevent premature aging and will keep us looking younger. If we will always be avoiding fats, those nutrients that would keep our youthful look will also avoid us. I'm referring to some of the fat soluble nutrients: Vitamin A and Vitamin E. These are antioxidants, meaning they help in neutralizing free- radical damage. In a more layman's term, it protects us from harmful effects of toxins from environment, from stress, and from unhealthy diet and lifestyle. We need its absorption to be maximized. To have that happen, we should have fats in our body. But, we have to choose healthy fats. Good fats such as avocado, olive oil, Durian, virgin cold-pressed coconut oil, fish oil, and fats we get from nuts and seeds such as almonds, macadamia and flax seeds. We lessen or avoid intake of bad fats from animal sources, and add on these good fats to our diet.

Fats therefore can be a foe when it’s the bad fats you consume, but a friend when you replace it with good fats.

Now, find and enjoy those friendly fats!

How Detox Can Make You Lose Weight

There are many ways to lose weight. One of them is going on in a special diet. Some people would go for a cleansing program. This one has the primary goal of helping one's body in the detoxification. It is already a normal process of our body to eliminate excessive toxins--these are substances that have been created in response to the body's metabolic processes. Our own mechanical system digests, absorbs and eliminate the excess substances that could be harmonious to our health. Imagine your trash bins full of your 2 to 4-day garbage or a one-week garbage if not being thrown away on a daily basis. It ruts, stinks and can even ruin your day. This is what's happening to our system if toxins are not eliminated regularly, and our amazing body has its way to do it! We just have to ensure our elimination channels are not clogged up. What are these elimination channels? Here they are, not in order of importance for they are all important.
1. Skin - This is a large organ of elimination. From head to toe! Sweating is one of those ways to enhance detox through the skin.
2. Large Intestine- This is considered to be the human body's wastebasket. How do you feel when you're beside a full, foul-smelling trash bag that hasn't been emptied for the past 7 days? That’s how stingy our waste system could be if we don’t have our regular toilet habits.
3. Kidneys- these functions to filter and release waste fluids from our body. We normally have a more concentrated light yellow urine in the morning on our first void. However, if that highly colored urine will keep happening all throughout the day, it's time to have yourself checked , or ask yourself if you are drinking enough water.
4. Liver- Whatever we eat or drink is being processed by this magnificent organ. It is like an authoritative powerful security guard on the bank, screening everyone and everything that goes inside. It's toxic, that powerful guard has to do something about it to protect the system. Therefore, love your liver because it loves you that much.
5. Lymphatic system- There are many organs involve in this area of elimination, such as the tonsils, the appendix, the spleen, among others. It's like a battalion squad doing elimination and protection for the body's healthy immune system.

There's so much to say about each of those detox channels. You can see now how our body spectacularly does its job of throwing toxins out through all this route of elimination. Doing a cleansing diet primarily helps our system to detoxify and weight loss is such a great, healthy secondary grain.

Here's to your weight loss success!