How to Lose Weight with Eating Fast Food

Gone are the days when fast food meant fat-filled food. As we, the consumers, have become more health conscious, fast food chains have responded by adding healthier alternatives to their menus. So you can add fast foods to your diet without necessarily running the risk of putting on lots of weight. If you don't feel like cooking sometimes or just don't have the time and need something quickly, you can go to a fast food restaurant without feeling guilty.

The movie "Super Size Me" might have put some people right off going to places like McDonalds. For those of you who aren't familiar with the movie, the guy in it ate nothing but three McDonalds' combo meals a day. This is about three times as many calories as the average person requires each day. Now, that's definitely overdoing it!

But you can eat fast food and still restrict your calorie intake. Even if you choose one of the less healthy burgers, you can keep the calories down by skipping the fries or drinking water instead of soda. Mayo in sandwiches is another big calorie adder that you can probably survive without.

While eating fast food on a daily basis is still not a good idea, it can be incorporated into a healthy eating plan. LIVE's Nutritional Plan can show you ways that you can add fast food to your diet and still increase your metabolism. The key to maintaining a good metabolism is to eat five small meals a day.

Below is a list of some of the fast food chains and a few of the more healthy choices they offer.

McDonalds

1. Grilled Chicken Classic Sandwich (no mayo)
2. Plain Hamburger
3. Bacon Ranch Salad with Grilled Chicken
4. Side salad instead of fries

Wendy's

1. Jr. Hamburger (no mayo)
2. Ultimate Chicken Grill Sandwich (no mayo)
3. Plain baked potato with a small plain chili on top
4. Fresh fruit bowl
5. Low fat strawberry yogurt

KFC

1. Honey BBQ Snacker Sandwich
2. Honey BBQ Sandwich
3. Chicken breast without skin or breading
4. Sides of green beans, seasoned rice, or corn on the cob

Burger King

1. Chicken Whopper Sandwich (no mayo)
2. BK Veggie Burger (no mayo)
3. Fire Grilled Chicken Garden Salad

Baja Fresh

1. Baja Style Tacos: Charbroiled Chicken or Shrimp
2. Baja Ensalada: Charbroiled Chicken or Shrimp

Subway

1. 6" Ham
2. 6" Oven Roasted Chicken Breast
3. 6" Roast Beef
4. 6" Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki
5. 6" Turkey Breast
6. 6" Veggie Delight

As you can see, there are lots of healthy fast food choices. Just take some time to look at the menu next time you go in and see exactly what's in each option.

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What are Healthy Bacteria Probiotics?

Probiotics have become increasingly popular especially as people are living longer and the stress that Americans put on their bodies. Probiotics are living healthy bacteria that are essential microorganisms found in your digestive system. Probiotics have been labeled "good bacteria" or "friendly bacteria" as not to confuse with most people's idea that all bacteria are harmful to your health. You many not know that probiotics are found in the food we eat.

There are many reasons why probiotics are paramount for healthy living. First, probiotics support the prevention of illness that attacks many American's immune systems. Second, probiotics restore the healthy bacteria (flora) back into your gut for optimal digestive functioning. Also, probiotics have bring the body back into balance from stress, poor diet choices, and physical activity.

Probiotics by definition are "live microorganisms, which, administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host." When looking at probiotics, it is important to understand that there are many different strains of probiotics needed for optimal health. Some of the top products on the market have over 16 active stains of different probiotics in their supplement formulations. Each strain plays an active role in your digestive and overall health.

Probiotics are not prebiotics which are non-digestible food substances that enhance the functioning of healthy microorganisms already found in your colon. Probiotics and prebiotics work together in your digestive system in a synergistic relationship.

One of the more common ways for people to get all the different strains of probiotics that they need is through high quality supplements. Probiotics can also be found in yogurt, certain milk products, miso, soy milk products, and tempeh. New, products have probiotics fortified during the preparation period when not found originally with the product.

Probiotics are made up of the good bacteria in your gut. Most probiotics come from two different groups of probiotics called Lactobacillus or Bifidobacterium. One of the most common probiotics is Lactobacillus acidophilus which is one of many different strains of probiotics. Some other probiotics like Saccharomyces boulardii are yeasts and not bacteria.

Stress, poor diet choices, physical activity, and the medications we take all reduce the number of healthy bacteria or probiotics in our digestive system. Your body is at risk for illness, digestive functioning issues, and reduced effectiveness of your immune system when probiotic levels are low in your gut. This is the main reason why probiotics have become popular in reason years, as almost all Americans found into at least one category for why probiotic levels can be low.

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Why Core Fitness is Important

If you've listened to the buzz around the fitness world lately or perused the latest workout books, you've probably heard the experts referencing core fitness in some shape or form. Traditionally, strength training has been dominated by exercises focused on isolating the muscles of the arms and legs. In fact, if you look at many of the weight machines that have become popular in modern gyms, you'll notice that they require you to sit or recline while you use them.

While these machines will effectively help you build the muscles that they target, the problem is that, in real life, we don't use our muscles that way. We lift a box from the floor to a shelf, swing a golf club, push our children on the swing set, or climb a rock wall. In fact, the vast majority of the things we do require all of the muscles in our bodies to function together and be coordinated through our mid-sections, or our "core."

While those activities may make the use of core muscles seem very obvious, this area, made up of the muscles of our midsection, are actually responsible for quite a few of the more subtle functions as well, including posture, balance and stability.

A weakened core will often result in poor posture and stability, yet we don't necessarily feel the results of it in areas that show us a direct cause and effect correlation. For example, poor posture, due to a weakened core, might allow our hips to slip out of alignment resulting in knee pain. In fact, quite a few of the chronic muscle and joint pain issues that Americans are suffering with today stem from a weakened core.

It is no wonder, then, that exercise science has taken a dramatic shift in recent years to include the core in strength training regimes. Now, rather than using a machine to first exercise your legs and then your arms, trainers are suggesting that their clients use free weights or bands to combine exercises such as a squat to overhead press. By linking the two, people are forced to transition the exercise movement through their core, and the core muscles in turn help to maintain good posture throughout the exercise. The end result is that we are exercising in a fashion that mimics the movements that we use in everyday life, while creating better posture and increasing our stability and balance.

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Stay Motivated and Lose Weighy by Training Like an Athlete

One of the challenges to people who are looking to improve their fitness is staying motivated until they reach their fitness goals. With about 9 in 10 people wanting to change their appearance (make that: lose weight) as their primary objective, getting all the way to the target weight and keeping those extra pounds off can prove to be much more difficult than some had originally bargained for.

One of the big obstacles that people face is the fact they have been out of shape for years when they decide to finally do something about their fitness, and once they do start working out, the fact that the results that they seek may take awhile and can feel like hard work will test their motivation to the limit. One of the big reasons people hire personal trainers is that, in addition to the education they can receive from a professional instructor, the trainer can create workouts that are consistently fun and engaging as well as an atmosphere of support. And this can keep a person taking on their fitness motivated all the way to the finish line.

As a personal trainer myself, I believe that one of the best tools to keeping a person really motivated all the way to their goal and target body weight is to set very specific guidelines as to what that goal is, and have the person working out be very excited about what reaching that goal can mean to them. If a person wants to lose 20 pounds, we will discuss in detail what losing 20 pounds can do for their life and how they will feel and be different when they get there. And we come back to this reason over and over again during the period of working toward that goal.

One thing that I found, though, in my career as a trainer is that frequently just having a goal about weight loss is insufficient to keep a person motivated all the way to the end. The reason is that the process of weight loss in a healthy way can be a slow one. Even if a person had a great week of training and eating well, their body may not have changed a lot anyway. That can leave them with a feeling of being unsuccessful, even though everything that they did that week was positive and will benefit them in the long run. So, I was left with the problem of having a person doing everything they need to be doing really well and actually feeling like they were successful even if they hadn't lost a lot of weight in a particular week.

The key is to get all people in the process of improving their fitness thinking like athletes, even if on a smaller scale than someone training for the Olympic Games. I believe that all people have the ability to experience their athleticism on some level, even those that have been out of shape for some time, and when they make a connection to their bodies that allow for this, they can get hooked on that experience and want more of it. They will see that improving their fitness itself feels good and can be fun on its own, and that it would be something they would enjoy doing whether they were losing weight doing it or not. Once a person gets to this level, the irony is that they will lose all the weight they want anyway because they are actually at a point where they will stick with the exercise.

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to be a trainer in a couple of "weight loss" competitions sponsored by a local TV station here in Phoenix. Each of the two years that I participated, I worked with a person who was competing against three others to see who could make the biggest successful lifestyle change over a 5 month period. What the other trainers and I found over the length of the competition was that the people who ended up losing a significant amount of weight were the ones who got to the point that they realiozed that the weight loss was actually secondary in motivation to them feeling fit, athletic and healthy for the first time in a long time. All of the trainers worked with their clients using some techniques that were athletic in nature, similar to how an athlete on a sports team would train, with jumping and running drills, using medicine balls, playing basketball, etc. All of the successful participants said that once they realized they like feeling like they were athletes, they knew they would stick with the program for the rest of their lives.

I use the term "inner athlete" to describe this way of thinking, and I know that it works. Rather than having a client do just cardio, we may set a goal to have them do their first ever 5k road race in 3 months, and their cardio trains them for that in addition to helping them lose weight. Or they want to do a great hike in the coming summer, or their kids are now playing sports and they want to be able to play with them, so I do sports drills with them so they build the skills that any athlete at any age would want to have. These are the things that people like having whether they are losing weight or not, and the fact that this type of exercise helps them lose weight makes it all the better.

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Treat Yourself, But Don't Overdo It

Whether you're at the family barbecue, out with friends, or having dinner with colleagues, a time will come when temptation to cheat on your nutrition plan will present itself, and many will give in. I have this conversation with my clients frequently, and since the decision to indulge a little has already been made, I try to give tips for making better choices and still feel like you are treating yourself.

Soda or iced tea, or juice iced tea is regarded as the better choice simply due to the high levels of sugar and the carbonation in soda. Iced tea can certainly have sugar but if you have unsweetened, you can at least regulate how much. An 8oz glass of fruit juice is about 120 cal, 29 carbs and 26 grams of sugar, hardly considered a great alternative. All are bad for your teeth, and if you use lemon in your tea, the acidity can lead to cavities as sugar does in soda. One other note regarding soda, have you ever seen how easily soda takes corrosion off your car battery? Honestly I would choose water.

Alcohol light beer on average carries about 27% less calories than regular beer, with Michelob Ultra and Becks Premiere leading the way at less than 100 calories and 4 carbs. Red and white wine, on a list of over 100 averaged between 80-200 calories per glass. If you love a good mixed drink, keep this in mind if you're trying to watch your weight. A 12oz Margarita is around 680 cal, Pina Colada (650 cal), rum & coke (10oz, 356 cal). Of course the calories really add up when we add appetizers and have a few rounds. A couple drinks and a plate of potato skins may add up to your entire daily calorie allowance!

Eating out. Hmmm, way too many choices to be made here. But here are a few ideas for when you're out to dinner. Choose grilled when you can and ask for your meat to be prepared without oil or butter. Try losing the bun of your burger. And use mustard instead of mayo or special sauce. Mustard can add virtually no calories to your meal. Order salad dressing on the side, shy away from thick creamy dressings. Have ½ your meal wrapped to go before you're served. Choose a side of veggies rather than fries.

Don't forget dessert. This being my favorite category of food, sometimes it's hard avoiding overindulgence and still feel like I'm having a treat. So the only suggestion I will make in regards to dessert is choose whatever you like, but have a small portion. A few bites to satisfy our craving shouldn't hurt, overindulgence will. Maybe share that slice of pie with a friend.

Making the choice to eat healthier doesn't have to feel like you are being squeezed with restriction. A quality nutrition plan can include a day to relax and eat what you want. Sometimes, like on our cheat day, we can make healthy choices and still feel like we are treating ourselves.

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Lower Stress While Driving

Have you ever noticed how stressed you get behind the wheel of a car. We get upset when the person in front of us is driving to slow, traffic is backed up, a car cuts us off, or wishing the kids in the back would settle down. As we know stress causes many of the health problems we face today. Just think how a reduction in your stress while driving will make you healthier, especially when you think how many times we drive everyday.

bmwIf you live in an area similar to my parents in South Dakota you may be thinking to yourself what stress while driving. This article is for the rest of the world that has to deal with traffic, road construction, and more learner permit drivers than we know what to do with. The average person spends 1.5 hours a day behind the wheel of a car. Since we are not going to being spending this time exercising we can learn to lower our stress and improve our health while we drive.

The first secret to lower your stress while driving is to identify what cause you stress while behind the wheel. Most people have some daily event that causes their stress levels to rise. For some it is when they are stuck in traffic, getting cut off, changing lanes, or bad weather. These stresses are usually caused by fear that you may not be aware of. For instance when you hit gridlock in traffic is it really the traffic that upsets you or the fact that you are going to be late. You may find though you get upset at the traffic that it is really an underlining issue that causes your stress. The more you understand what causes you stress behind the wheel the better you can make a better choice to distress while driving.

I used to train a psychiatrist who talked about that one of the most common syptoms she would treat was road anxiety. She helped these people by having them eat a candy bar on their way home from work when they were the most stressed. What she didn’t know was that the reason people are so irritable on the way home from work comes a lack of proper eating habits. You body wants 5 small meals a day when it doesn’t get it your body finds unhealthy ways to get energy. In the case of our rush hour drivers, because they typically eat 3 meals or less, they have low blood sugar while driving home which causes them to be quickly go to anxiety and rage. You will find as your blood sugar is stable from eating throughout the day, your stress levels reduce substantially.

Tips for Better Stress Free Driving

1. Start your trip earlier: It will always take longer than you think to get some where, especially if you live in a big city. Most people’s stress rises because they didn’t give themselves enough time reach their destination if things don’t go perfectly. If you start early than you won’t be as bothered when traffic situations happen.

2. Relax while driving: Use the time while driving to unwind and reflect about your day. If you have a lengthy commute home spend the time being alone with yourself instead of racing to get home as fast as you can to only have plenty of stuff do once you get their. You have an opportunity to take a few minutes out of the rat race while you drive home.

3. Be courteous: We all hate it when someone cuts us off though I can’t throw the first stone from never cutting people off myself. A person once told me that how would you feel if that person was rushing a dying person to the hospital and that if they make it on time the person would survive. Every time I see a person driving dangerously I wish them well and hope that their need to drive fast has benefit for them. This works the same during accidents which if you live in Phoenix is an everyday occurrence. What calms me down is I truly hope the people are ok. Though I don’t like traffic slowing down, I don’t people hurt either. I find I lose my anger when I think of the poor people who are having it worse than my delay home.

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5 Foods for Instant Healthier Diet

Have you ever said to yourself that "I want to start eating healthy?" Then only to figure out you don't know where to start. The first idea is often fruits and vegetables which are important though there is more to eating healthy. Live Lean Today has listed 5 foods that will work perfect for any person to add to their diet and it will become instantly healthier. You can plug these foods and more into you own online diet plan.

Cranberries

They earn super status for their ability to help fight off nasty urinary tract infections. About 10 ounces of juice a day does the trick. Plus, recent research shows that cranberries might also help fend off colds and fight stomach bugs, gum disease, and certain types of cancer. Add a little unsweetened cranberry juice to smoothies, and sprinkle some dried berries into cereal and muffin mix. Cranberries are great to add to any weight management program.

Walnuts

These nuts are rich in omega-3s, which help reduce inflammation and increase good cholesterol. They may even help with depression and reduce your risk of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. Top your salad with 1/4 cup or try them in pesto.

Beans

The humble legume may prevent heart disease and help head off colon cancer. Rich in two heart-friendly phytochemicals, beans are packed with magnesium, potassium, folate, and fiber. Get a 1/2 cup five to six times per week by adding canned kidney and garbanzo beans (rinse and drain first) to salads, burritos, and dips.

Fish

Studies show that eating seafood rich in omega-3s at least twice a week could reduce your risk of heart disease. And the reports say women of childbearing age and nursing mothers can safely eat as much as 12 ounces of seafood a week if they avoid high-mercury swordfish, shark, tilefish, and king mackerel; albacore tuna should be limited to 6 ounces a week.

Tomatoes

Loaded with the antioxidant lycopene, tomatoes and cooked tomato products pack a big health punch (at 32 milligrams, 1 cup of spaghetti sauce serves up the day's recommended intake). Studies show that women with lycopene-rich diets can have as much as a 50 percent lower risk of developing breast cancer. The antioxidant can also lower your blood pressure and bad cholesterol, and may even reduce your risk of getting macular degeneration and a host of cancers.

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How to Eat for Health: Fats and Oils

Fats are an extremely important part of a healthy diet, and the essential fatty acids are named essential for a reason. They aid in just about every bodily function as they play a crucial role in cell wall function. Working as a transporter, they pass oxygen and nutrients through the cell wall and help to keep invaders and other foreign bodies out of the cell. Other functions performed include brain cell function, immune system, nervous system and hormone function.

So what is hydrogenation and what are the results of ingesting partially hydrogenated fats into your body? Well, hydrogenation is simply the process of heating an oil to the point where hydrogen bubbles enter, becomes attached to the fatty acids and form a solid in fully hydrogenated and more of a thick cream, or butter texture when partially hydrogenated. Hydrogenated oil has a high level of trans fats and these trans fats act within a cell in a confused manor and will keep nutrients out and let the foreign bodies in. Not only do these trans fats lead to obesity, but also are linked to disease such as diabetes and coronary disease (the leading killer in America).

Trans fats and partially hydrogenated oils can be found in a number of foods, and are used because they are a less expensive alternative to other cooking substitutes such as butter. Baked goods, potato chips, cookies, crackers, are just a few of the food categories that contain partially hydrogenated oils, the worst of which is partially hydrogenated soybean oil. This soybean oil is noted to negatively affect the thyroid function resulting in feeling sluggish, a decrease in energy and reluctance to want to exercise.

How much trans fat is bad? When you find out something can lead to heart disease and obesity, I wouldn’t take any chances and I would avoid any of it at all costs. Some reports have shown that .5g of trans fat is equal to approximately 1.5g of unsaturated fat in terms of how it affects your health. You won’t see this in the label of many products as .5 g can still be labeled as 0% trans fat due to federal law. But when you scroll down the ingredients, you might come across partially hydrogenated oil present in the first few lines.

The best way to avoid trans fat is to read your labels thoroughly. Avoid grocery shopping in the middle aisles for food and stay on the outskirts of the store where the fresh produce, dairy and meat are located. When cooking, choose to cook with virgin coconut oil, although high in saturated fat, and low on many health food lists, it is unaffected by heat, and it is metabolized differently than other oils as it will be burned as fuel and not stored into the fat cells. Fats are extremely important to our diet, but you can make healthy choices about fats by reading labels and learning about the different types of fats and how they affect the body.

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Keep Your Fat Weight Off

Okay so you have tried diet pills, expensive diet plans, exercising, low-carb diets, and everything else imaginable to loose the weight. Finally you are at the weight that you feel comfortable with and then a month goes by and you are right back where you started. This is the trickiest part to dieting, they never tell you how to keep the weight off. Well here is six steps you can do to help lose weight and then maintain it.

First- Get Active and Stay Active. Once you develop a healthy exercise routine that works your whole body keep with it. This can be as simple as walking everyday, playing an active sport that you love, or hitting the gym to lift weights and get a good cardio workout The key is that you continue exercising when you reach that desired weight.

Second- Eat a diet low in calories and fat. Many people don't pay attention to how many calories and fats they are consuming each day. Keep a record for one week of the foods you eat and how many calories and fats are in these foods. Then reduce that number. Look for snacks that are low in calories and fats. Fruits and Vegetables are wonderful. Also limit yourself from eating fast food to only once a week.

Third- Don't skip breakfast. Our moms always told us that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. This doesn't mean you have to eat eggs, bacon, toast, pancakes, milk, and juice everyday. Something as simple as a bowl of cereal and a piece of fruit will benefit you greatly. Breakfast helps get your metabolism started each day. With your metabolism working your body is able to burn more fat during the day. Breakfast also helps control your hunger throughout the day so in turn you eat less and at more consistent intervals.

Fourth- Hit the scales. I know it is hard to watch your weight on a daily basis. But if you are checking in to see what your body is doing throughout the week you can catch when you are gaining a couple pounds and then adjust your diet accordingly.

Fifth- Maintain a consistent eating pattern. Many people do wonderful on a diet during the workweek. Then a weekend hits or worst a holiday and all eating patterns go out the window. Try and continue eating around the same time and the same amount of food as you would if it was a normal day. This might be difficult but it will help your body maintain the weight. You can still eat the fun things that come with the holidays but in moderation.

Sixth- Catch the "slips" before they become bigger. If you happen to gain a couple pounds make sure to correct your diet and exercise right way. It is easier it to get back on track when things are little.

Now you can get the weight off and keep it off without anything to fancy and expensive!

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