Fitness4Her

Women's Fitness

Eat Delicious Foods and Lose Weight

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If you are thinking about dieting but love to eat flavorful foods, then the Fitness4Her diet won’t disappoint your taste buds. Based on eating rather than skipping meals, the Fitness4Her diet includes everyday foods that are easy to find, simple to prepare and very satisfying so you never have to feel hungry.

Dieting is not something that should be approached as a temporary fix. Redesigning the way you cook and eat must be something you can live with on an on-going basis. If you can’t live with your diet, then chances are you won’t follow it for long. The problem with many diets is the food or the amount of food that you are allowed to eat. If you are hungry all the time, then it is not a diet that you can live with.

Your diet of healthy foods must sustain you for a lifetime. The Fitness4Her diet includes foods that offer more than just taste, although there is no reason to eat any foods that taste bad. However, you must be open to new flavors and new ways to prepare your old favorites. In order to change one thing in your life, like your weight and your health, you must be willing to accept change in other areas, too.

Along with a good diet, like the Fitness4Her diet, the best way to eat delicious foods and lose weight is to begin exercising. If you exercise moderately now, but aren’t seeing the results you would like, take your workout up a notch and go to the next level. Adding weights or more repetitions gradually, trying new exercises or even hiring a personal training coach can help to make significant changes in your weight and body shape.

The secret to successful dieting is by understanding the role that food plays in our lives. Food is more than just something to satisfy hunger. Food provides comfort; it brings us together with family and friends and is a universal offering of friendship. Food satisfies the soul as well as the tummy.

A healthy diet full of delicious foods will keep you sustained and satisfy your needs both body and soul. Practicing healthier ways to prepare your foods means you don’t ever have to eat different foods than the rest of your family. You will be able to share your food with everyone else. I cook the same foods for my family as I do for myself and I never get any complaints.

Beat Heart Disease With Beets

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Protect your heart by adding the wonderfully nutritious beet to your diet. This health-friendly tuberous root vegetable has been found to offer protection against coronary artery disease and stroke as well as lowering cholesterol levels. Eating beets at least twice a week will offer many other health benefits, too.

The root of the beet is rich in glycine betaine. This phytochemical compound lowers cholesterol levels in the blood and helps to fight depression.

Beets are a great source of folates, too. Folates are a water-soluble B vitamin, a key nutrient for a healthy diet. As a matter of fact, low levels of folate can have devastating effects on the body.

Beets are very low in calories, about 45 calories per cup. Low in fat, with zero cholesterol, beets do contain a high amount of sugar. But don’t let that scare you away from this wonderful food. This completely natural sugar is released gradually into the body to give you plenty of energy. Few foods feature this wonderful benefit.

Eating beets will improve your overall health, too. They are high in fiber, potassium, copper, magnesium, iron, phosphorus, vitamins A, B and C. Beets contain antioxidants to help protect your body from free radicals. A top tonic for liver health; beets purify the blood and prevent certain types of cancer.

By now, you are probably wondering why you aren’t eating more of this superfood. Well, it’s not too late, to partake of this red beauty. Beets taste good and are quick and easy to prepare. While many cooks boil the beets for an hour. This long cooking process can deplete the nutritious value you get from this vegetable. Just 15 minutes to steam and you have a fabulous new root vegetable to add to your meal. You can also eat beets raw or use them for juicing.

To steam your beets in just 15 minutes, wash beets and cut them into quarters. Don’t worry about peeling them. Peeling takes too much time and is not needed at this stage. Use a steamer basket and sauce pan to steam the beets for about 15 to 20 minutes. After cooking the peel will fall right off and the beets will be ready to serve.

Keep mealtime interesting with fresh, seasonal vegetables and fruits. Don’t be afraid to try new foods—versatility is the spice of life.

A Fitness Journal Will Help You Lose Weight

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When you are ready to lose weight, start keeping a fitness journal. It is a proven fact that women who keep a food diary or journal of everything they eat and drink and all of the activity that they do; have a far greater chance of success than those who do not. Just like diet and exercise, journaling is an essential element to weight loss.

A journal is similar to a diary, except that it is a bit more detailed. A fitness journal should be able to track your progress every day. Your fitness journal can be your own private story of your eating habits and your fitness level. Be sure to write your goals each week to keep your journal and diet from becoming mundane and boring.

Before you begin, recording your goals, you’ll want written proof of where you started. What was your weight before you began losing pounds and inches? To have an accurate account of this most important part of your fitness plan you will need to write it down in the very beginning. Use your fitness journal to write down your starting weight, your measurements, your current size and your weight loss and fitness goals.

It doesn’t take much time to keep your journal current; just remember to record everything you eat at snacks and regular meals. The mere act of writing down what you eat at each meal; makes it easier to choose wisely at the next meal. You can also use your journal to write down how you feel when you eat. Are you starving, do you feel guilty about your food choices, do you continue to eat past the point of being full? Addressing these issues can help to determine what your eating patterns are.

Eating should be a celebratory time and never laden with guilt. You can make healthy choices about what you eat and still take pleasure in your food. Feelings of guilt will only make you feel disappointed in yourself. Keep in mind that food is not the problem; food is the answer. Your diet is your way of life; it is what sustains you and makes you whole.

Keeping a fitness journal will keep you accountable, not only for your weight loss but for your overall fitness health. Your fitness journal will be the proof behind your efforts and will give you a clear view of what is working and what isn’t.

Affirmations for Weight Loss

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Choosing the right diet and exercise is a major hurdle to losing weight. Still, even with the best efforts, some of those stubborn pounds just seem to hang on. Women can start to feel as if all this hard work and sacrifice isn’t accomplishing anything. Unfortunately, we begin to blame ourselves for not losing the weight. We deem ourselves as failures and give up on our weight loss goals. Then, we feel worse about ourselves for having given in. It is a vicious cycle, but there is an easy way to overcome these negative feelings. The process of weight loss starts in the mind. Change the way your brain perceives your weight loss goals and watch the pounds melt away.

Daily affirmations can boost your weight loss efforts and empower you to achieve your goals. These positive phrases can help to change your insight about yourself. Affirmations work by replacing negative thought patterns with positive ones. Instead of focusing on what you don’t have or what you want to have, affirmations re-program your thoughts to truly appreciate what you already have.

Studies have shown that if our mind is comfortable with a certain number on the scale, our bodies will maintain that weight. It is as if our brain gives permission to the body to stay that size. Negative thoughts not only prevent weight loss, in many occasions, these destructive reinforcements can even make you gain weight. You must break the habit of negative thoughts and replace them, with positive affirmations.

Your body is listening to what you tell it—isn’t it time you said something encouraging?
Your affirmations should always be in the present. Refrain from projecting into the future. Praise your body for where it is now not where it might be.

Below are 10 positive affirmations that are targeted at weight loss. After you have become comfortable with these, begin to make your own list of these wonderfully positive reinforcements for your body, mind and soul.

1. I give myself recognition beyond food.
2. I am my ideal weight.
3. I can say “No.”
4. My body’s natural state is to be lean.
5. I am fulfilled.
6. Food is a resource I manage wisely.
7. My metabolism works great.
8. My body knows what to do with what I give it.
9. Everything I eat nourishes my body.
10. I feel thinner today.

Vegetable Pita Pizza

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Love pizza but hate the fat and calories from traditional types? Try this absolutely delicious Veggie Pita Pizza and you can enjoy every slice, guilt free!

2 large whole wheat pitas, toasted
¼ cup of broccoli
¼ cup red, yellow, orange or green bell peppers
¼ cup pizza sauce
¼ cup low fat Mozzarella cheese

Directions:

1. Toast pitas.
2. Divide pizza sauce between the two pitas.
3. Divide broccoli and bell peppers between the two pitas.
4. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.
5. Bake at 400 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes.
6. Can substitute any of the following vegetables: Cauliflower, mushrooms, onion, garlic, eggplant and even carrots.

Health Benefits:
Low in saturated fat, low in cholesterol, low in calories, these pita pizzas provide you with plenty of nutrients such as calcium, vitamins C, K, and A, potassium, chromium, and zinc. Full of antioxidants and the fiber aids in digestion.