Stretching is a wonderful way to boost your fitness and to get excercise for weight loss. It is quick, easy and you see results very quickly. I mean quickly as in you will be more flexible after your first time stretching! Stretching has many benifits. When you are flexible you are less prone to injury. By stretching you can boost you strength by up to 10%. It is also a great way to ease into a more rigorous excercise routine.

Stretching also has the added benifits of relieving stress. It increases bloodflow throught the body, giving you a sence of wellness and limberness. I have compiled 14 of my favorite stretches for your enjoyment. There stretches also happen to be the most effective and rewarding stretches in terms of fitness, feeling good and losing weight. If you need more information: Here are some good books on stretching.

To be safe while stretching, follow these rules:

1. Do not force yourself. Stretch until you feel tension. If it hurts you are forcing yourself
2. Do not bounce. Move slow and fluid.
3. Breathe normally. Take full breaths during the whole stretch. Do not hold your breathe.

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As i have said in my previous entry, your diet needs to be trained like anything else pertaining to you body. I eluded to how it is done, however I didnt give any specifics. In this article I will outline the factors you need to master to achieve diet fitness. There are 10 things that you need to control, and here they are in no particular order:

• Portion Size
• Amount of Calories
• Hunger Management
• Scheduled Eating
• Exchanging Unhealthy foods for Healthy foods
• Becoming Aware of Healthy foods
• Becoming Aware of Unhealthy foods
• Craving Management
• Snacking
• Dinning Out

Each topic will discuss the importance of it pertaining to you diet fitness. It will also teach how to effectively master the topic. Each topis is independent and can be learned without knowledge of the others. Once you master a topic you will be one step closer to having a geood healthy diet, and one step closer to achieving your ideal weight. Once all 10 topics are mastered, you will have a healthy, manageable good diet; the pounds will just melt off of you. 

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When you start out lift weights, do you expect to be able to bench press 300 pounds? When you start out jogging, do you expect to be ale to run a marathon? Of course you dont. You know that your body and muscles need to be properly trained to do that sort of thing. You also know that is takes time be build muscle strength or running endurance. With that, why do you expect to be able to eat healthy right when you start a diet?

You use you body to lift weights, to run and also to eat. You take in food and you body uses it to rebuild and keep you alive. IF you have been eating poorly, you body is in no shape to eat completely healthy. Just as is you nerer run, you cannot expect to run a marathon. This is why many diets fail. People expect to be able to run the marathon. They put forth their best effort, but they didn’t have the proper training.

You must treat you diet like any other part of you body. You muscles, lungs and heard need training to properly run. Your stomach, intestines and metabolism need the proper training to supply the body.

Training you diet is no different then training a muscle. You start with a light weight and do some reps. When that gets easy, you add more weight. You continue this until you muscle is the strength you want it to be. It is the same with dieting. If you want to cut calories, you need to start by cutting a few, say 100 calories, from your diet. When you no longer notice the 100 calories, you can cut some more. You continue this until you are at the caloric intake you want to be at.

You also have to do this, not only to cut calories, but to heat healthy. You should start by replacing some small unhealthy food, like a snack, with a healthy one. Just replace one food, no more than that. When you eat the healthy food on instinct, meaning it is easy to eat it, you then switch out another food. Over time you will be trained to eat only healthy foods.

Just like a trained muscle is strong and will remain string with use, your healthy diet will remain healthy with use. You wont have to work hard to stay on this diet because you are in peak condition for the diet. Ill put it this way… When train your arm to lift 20 pounds, lifting 20 pounds is easy for you arm. It wont take strain or much effort. It is the same for a health diet. If your diet is trained to eat healty, you wont have to put much effort or strain into maintaining it.

Just remember, you have to treat you bodies metabolic functions, eating, digesting, etc. like a muscle. You cannot expect to run a marathon if you only have been sitting on the couch your entire life. You cannot expect to eat healthy if you only have been eating fasat food, or huge portions all your life. Take it slow and easy, you need to train your diet.

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This is my top 50 weight loss tips. I have collected there its and added my own interprestions on them. I collected there tips while scouring the internet in a search to find easy ways to lose weight. I am still currenltly on my weight loss mission, but i fing all of these tips very helpful.

1: Dietary control and Excercise

There is no sectet to loosing weight. You need to eat less and excercise more. You must do both! If you excercise without a proper diet, you will fail. If you diet without out excercise you will fail. There are no magic pills, and you dont need special, “high protien”, “low carb”, “juice only”, “celery”, “magic juju” diet plans. And you especially dont need a $49.95 book to tell you weight loss secrets. Eat less and excercise more, that is the secret.

2: Change your lifestyle

You may be able to loose weight with a fad diet, but what happens when you stop that diet? You go right back to you old eating habits, thats what happens. Then you get fat again. Its called “Yo-Yo dieting”. Im sure you all have heard that term before. It is very detrimental to you health and weight loss efforts. It is crushing to achive grat weight loss just to have it come back. I know, because I have done it too. To permanently loose the weight you need to change how and what you eat. There are no diets. There is only eating well and eating poorly. The diference is huge and there are no grey areas. The secret is to eat foods that are good for you and dont eat foods that are bad, and of course eat in moderation.

3: Use your intuition

There are no secrets to what foods are good for you and what foods are not good for you. Some say that all foods are good in moderation. I call BS on that. They are NOT good, they just dont hurt you right away. Small amounts of lead are harmless, but over time they wil kill you. Some foods are quite abviously good, like Veggies, fruits, nuts, lean meats, etc. Some foods are abviously bad, like deep fried mars bars, or tripple cheese burgers. However, there are some foods that are on the border. This border is not set. It is made by popular culture. Some foods are made out to be bad, like breads, pasta and butter. The trick to these food is to Use you intuition. If you first thought is that this food seems good to eat, then it probably is, Go fot it. However, if you have to think about it, or rationalize why it might be Ok to eat, then it probably is bad for you. Just trust you instincts.

4: Take before and after photos.

There is nothing more motivating that seeing a picture of your own fat arse. It is escpecially motivating when you can look at the photo and not recognize your self. Its the best feeling in the world to look back in time and see you accomplishments. Put the before picture where you can see it. It helps to see what you are trying to get rid of. When the time comes where you are slim, take another photo to remind yourself of your achievment. See my before photo here: http://www.inru.in/wp-content/uploads/2006/07/day11.jpg

5: Subtitute with Soy

Try lower calorie alternatives to you favorite foods. Try shopping in the vegitarian aisle of you supermarket. Try a soy based meat product. They have soy hamburger, ham, bacon, hotdogs, and more. They are worth trying. If you turn out to like them, awsome, if not, then no harm done. I have tried soy based meats, and I find little difference between them and processed meats. Its all a personal preference. But try them! Dont think that because they are vegitarian that only hippies eat it. If its tasty and healthy and will aid in your weight loss goals, then do it. There are only upsides!

6: Read Nutrition Labels

You need to know what nutrition you are getting from you foods. Ill say it again. You need to know what nutrition you are getting from you foods. Luckily ALL foods come with nutrition information. Read it and remember it. If you dont, you will more than likely overeat. Food portions are usually smaller than we expect, so be conscious of what is in the food you are eating. Being familiar with the food label will also make it easier to identify foods to avoid… You know, the snacks with 57 g of sodium or 37 g of trans-fat per 8 crackers. You know what to avoid, the label will proove it to you.

7: Behold the power of Cheese

Contrary to popular propoganda, cheese is very good for you! Real cheese that is. Those greasy singles things are the devil. Real cheese is heavenly. If you need quick snacks, pick up some individual string cheese packs or those individual ‘Baby Bell’ things. You know, those little red or yellow circles in the mesh bags. The serving size is right so you wont over eat. Cheese is also full of good fats and protien. It makes you feel fuller and apparently causes you brain to release chemicals to make you feel good. Horray for cheese! Just dont over do it!

8: Involve your Family

Tell you family of you weight loss goals. They will be the most honest and supportive presence you have. People that love you will not be afraid to tell you if you are messing up you weight loss goals. A sibling is the best person to tell and get involved; A bratty little brother, if you have one available. If you are messing up, they are sure to make it known to you. Personally, my mom calls me to remind me to work out. Its quite motivating when you are 25 having you mommy call you and remind you to not be fat. Motivating or embarassing, it will help.

9: Go Public and Tell Everyone

Tell all of you friends of your weight loss goals. This is not for support. Most likely, your friends want you to fail. It makes them feel better about themselfs. And with that, you know they will be the first to bring it up when you are messing up. Friends are also a great judge to see if you are doing good. If you hear nothing from your friends about you weight loss, then you are probably doing well and pissing them all off.

10: Don’t take you friends advice

In my previous tip i said tell you friends about your goals. I also said that they mostly want you to fail, to make themselfs feel better. No, they are not a-holes, its just how people are. Listen to youself, you know you better that you friends do. You can always could on friends to point out you flaws, so use that to you advantage. Just be wary of anything helpful they try and do.

11: Find YOUR excercise

Not all excercise is made for all people. Some love to run, others like to lift weights and some like to swim or dance. There are tons of excercise opportunities out there. You need to find one that you enjoy. Don’t force youself to do anything you dont enjoy! It will lead to failure or possible injury. Personally, I like to lift weights but i hate running. Actually i cant run, due to bad knees from being really bad at skate boarding when i was younger. I use an Eliptical machine. Its not as effective as running, but i enjoy it. Unless you are training for the Iron Man competition, who cares if something is not the most effective excercise? You just want to shed a few pounds, do what feels good.

12: Turn off your Brain

Excercise can get very repetative and boring. Cardio workouts are especially prone to being repetative and boring, repetative and boring, repetative and boring. ZONE OUT. Do something to mindless to occupy you thinking brain. Listen to music or watch a TV. I listen to Hard trance music. It keeps my mind off the workout. Actually, i cant do much thinking at all when that stuff is playing. But it is upbeat and easy to listen to. Find whatever works for you. Anything that keeps you mind from obsessing over how repetative and boring, repetative and boring you workout is will help immensely.

13: Replace your desk chair

Replace your desk chair with one of those big rubber workout balls. They dont really do much, but make sitting a little more challenging. Actually, they do something. Using a ball as achair forces you to balance. That gives you back and ab muscles a little woukout. It strengthens the core and will help prevent injury. You will also get better balance. I use one. I can now sit cross-legged on it without falling or touching anything. If anything you will have a trick to preform.

14: Avoid trans fats and high fructose corn syrup.

This is the easiest way to rule out any fast food from you diet. I dont think there is anything good that has trans fats and high fructose corn syrup. Fried foods are the biggest culprit. I have also read that trans fat causes a whole mass of probems, from high cholesterol, to a huge gut (excessive weight gain). Some are even working to ban it completely. But you wont have to worry about that is you just dont eat it. Think of it as an easy way to know if a food is good for you or not. You wont eliminate good foods by eliminating trans fat. Its easy to just avoid it completely.

15: Vitamins are good for you

If you are dieting and loosing weight , that probably means that you are not getting the vitamins your body is used to getting. Since you are taking in less food than your body is used to, you body needs time to catch up in its food processing abilities. Just take a multi vitamin to be safe. It cant hurt. Personally. i never remember to take my vitamins so i bought a big bottle of Childrens chewable dinosaure vitamins. They have all the vitamins needed for an adult (read the label to be sure) and they are tasty! I just have to make sure to only take one a day, because too mush vitamins are unhealthy too.

16: Identify your ideal weight

It helps to know what you goal is when you are working towards it. It also helps to have a realistic goal as well. It is even better to have a goal that is actually benificial. If you are trying to loose weight, then you need to identify you ideal weight. There are many tools out there for this. The ideal weight calculator from http://www.fitnessonline.com/tools/idealweight/ is a good one. But take the weight it gives you with a grain of salt. It may not be completely acurate, but it will give you a good range to shoot for.

17: Fast food is the devil

Avoid fast food at all costs! They call fast food, ‘Food’, solely because it is edible. Glue is edible too but that doesnt mean it should be eaten. Fast food is more of a food product than anything else. The meats used are mostly labeled as ‘Food Grade’. Like ‘grade A’ meats fast food is ‘Food Grade’ Meaning, it wont kill you rightaway if you eat it. Personally, i wouldnt trust food that cant even be labeled with a letter. Even dog food if labled food grade. Why yould you do that to yourself, eating high quality food is a good way to obtain health. Good food makes you better, bad food makes you worse. Plus, i dont really trust a bunch of High School freshmen to cook my meals.

18: Reliable Sources

Would you take advice on how to quit smoking from a guy who smokes two packs a day? No, you wouldn’t. Why would you take to heart advice given to you by other fat people? I dont understand how their are obese doctors and personal trainers. It they can extol the virtues of a slim life, why cant they feed their own advice? Not im not saying to ignore health profesionals. Im just saying, dont take their advice as cold hard fact. Use you own mind and intuition to gleam the good bits out of their advice. If you doctor does tell you that you weight is hurting you, LISTEN TO THEM. Doctors know when things are bad for you.

19: Watch your weight

Some say its better to not check your weight when you start a diet. Why would you want to do that? If you are working hard, you probably want to see results. My advice is to get a high quality digital scale. Dont get a cheapy one, because they are unreliable. Beleive me, stepping the scale just to see you are 25 pounds heavier that yesterday, is pretty frustrating. So, get a good scale.Your weight fluctuates throught the day by as much as three pounds. You loose and gain water or eat meals or ‘make room for more meals’. You should pick a set time to weigh yourself and only weight youself at that time. I also recoment placing a note pad next to the scale to record your progress. Your weight will fluctuate from day to day, so to avoid discouragement, you use your notebook to see long term changes. Dont trust you memory on this either. You WILL forget what you weighed, at it will seem like no progress has been made.

20: Sleep is good

You need 8 hours of sleep a night. Some people will tell you that that is not so. But you are loosing weight and excercising. That puts a strain on you body and your mind. You need as much sleep as you can get. Eight hours is the minimum. Most of you body repairs happen at night while you sleep. Dont sell you body short by not sleeping. However, that doesn’t mean over sleep. This is not an excuse to lounge around all day. One you awaken, get up. Dont flop around for an hour, just get up. Too little sleep will raise your stress levels and severely hinder, stop or even reverse you weight loss. Sleeep is Good!

21: One pound a week

Try to stick to loosing about one pound a week. A little more is also ok, but you really shouldnt be loosing less than a pound a week. You also shouldnt be loosing alot more than a pound a week.Losing less that a pound a week probably means you are not doing something right. You need to increase your excercise, fix your eating habbits or both. If you are consitently losing a pound a week, you can consider youself on the right track.On the other side, if you are losing much more than a pound a week, then you might be over doing it. It is potentially unhealthy to lose too much weight too fast. You also run the risk of putting the weight back on later. I’ve read that if you are losing weight more than a pound a week, then you might be losing muscle mass.This is not hard fact though, some people lose faster or slower than others, but i have found a pound a week is a good measure.

22: The rainy day principle

Saving a little cash away for a rainy day? You body does this too. If you body feels like it is going to need some emergency energy sometime in the near future, it will store come away for a rainy day. More consicely, your body will store energy as fat if it feels like a food shortage is comming. Cutting you food intake will cause you body to do this. You body will sense the decrease in food and it will assume that there is a famine comming. To counter act this, you need to tell you body that it is ok out in the world and that there is no food shortage. You need to do two things. Eat consistently and excercise.Eating consistently trains you body to accept that you need less food to live, it will no longer think there is a famine out there. You need energy to move, and moving is alot more important to you body than storing fat. So if you regulary excercise your body assumes that you have to move, so less energy goes to storage. Diet and excercise work togher… you need both!

23: Walk the walk

Walking is one of the most effective excercises in relation to its effort. It is not as effective as running, but it a hell of a lot easier. You can walk anywhere, at any time and with no special equipment. I do recomend some well supportive shoes, but they are not nessesary at all. Try it for 30 minutes a day. Just walk around the neighborhood. You dont need to work up a sweat, just take is nice and easy. You will find it calms you mind and loosens the body. It is a great stress reducer.

24: Dont work too hard

I think the reason why most people fail at becoming slim it that they work too hard at it. They just get burnt out. It is like pushing a broken down car. You have to push slow and steady. There is no way you can get a car moving fast by pushing it, it is just too heavy. It is the same for weight loss. You need a small effort over time. People expect weight loss to be hard, so they work hard. If you go slow and easy, you WILL loose the weight. And when it is gone you will need the same minimal effort to keep it off.

25: Fall into a pattern

Doing something is much easier when you dont have to think about it. You need to create a pattern of behavior for yourself. Get out of bed at 8, eat breakfast, brush your teeth, go to work, come home, go to the gym, eat dinner, brush you teeth, sleep, repeat. That is an example of a pattern. Find some pattern for you day that works and stick to it. The most important factors in you pattern is Consistency and ease. You must be able to do it effortlessly and everyday at the same time. You dont need to plan every detail, just the big stuff, like meals and excercise. It will take about 30 days to solidify your pattern. After that you will not even have to think about it. For more information see this post: http://www.inru.in/?p=13

26: Fiber equals Good!

I cant recoment eating fiber enough. Get fiber into your body. Eat fruits and vegetables, wheat breads or anything else with fiber in it. It has magical properties, this fiber. It actually causes you to feel full! You can eat alot of it because the foods that contain it are low in callories and good for you. It also keeps everything moving inside of you. The last point is the most important. You may find that switching your diet from bad to good food and excercising more tends to back things up for a while. Fiber cures this. Horray for Fiber.

27: Water, Water everywhere

Did you know that most Americans mistake thirst for hunger. I took a stress management class, i actually was force to by the school. I guess Computer Science / Math majors get really stressed out. Anyway, i learned there that Americans dont know the difference in feeling thirty and feeling hungry. We typically only mistake thirst for hunger. So when we are dehydrated, which is bad, we eat. So get enough water into you! You dont need to follow the 8 glasses a day thing. You may need much more or less. What i do, is when i get the feeling of hunger (may be thirst) i dring a large glass of cool refreshing water. I then wait 20 or so minutes to see if i am still hungry. If i am, then i have a snack. I realized that this was true, i wanted water much more than food. If anybody knows why Americans have this problem (i guess its a cultural thing) please enlighten me.

28: Sparkling Water is magic

I have always seen those odd bottles for Peligrino Water and wondered what they were. I just bought one, one day and tried it. It is carbonated water. Apparently, it is all you can get in Europe. When I bought the water, it was from Starbucks, i also got a Cresaunt. I drank the water, and too my suprise I felt very full, I couldn’t eat my Cresaunt. So now, if I feel like snacking, I just pop open a small bottle of sparkling water. Maybe its the gasses that fill you up or maybe it is magic! Whetever it is, I now can skip un-needed snacks without driving myself bonkers.

29: You got single served

That has to be my most dumb title. What i mean is to eat only the recomended serving size of a food, and only eat one serving. To make life easier, portion out single servings of food into those little clear sandwich bags. It will hep you keep you portion size down and it will also help you recognise what a proper portion size is.If you feel like eating some doritos, measure out ONE serving and put it in a sndwich bag, then enjoy your chips. Over time you will learn to not overeat my eating the recomended serving size. Do this for all snacks.

30: Bored of water? Single favoring packs.

Lipton and Chrystal Light and im sure others make their drink flavor powders in single service packets. They are made to dump in a standard bottle of water, shake and enjoy. They are pretty low calorie, or no calorie, and they are tasty. So if you quickly tire of plain water try these things out. It is a thousand times better than getting a soda. They are also good if you are stingy, like me. The packets are much cheaper than the same drink at a restraunt. If you go out you can order water and dump one in. Its better than soda and you will save a few bucks too.

31: Say no to soda

Just say no to sodas. They are nothing but pure sugar and empty calories. I have completely given up sodas. It was the easiest thing in the world to do, and it has made a huge difference in my life. I now drink water or unsweetened ice tea (i just prefer no sugar) and as a result I eat less. I would always guzzle down soda, just one after another. I calculated it out once. I had 4, 24 ounce sodas about half ice. So, 48 oz. of soda at 130 calories ber 12 oz. I had 520 calories plus food for no good reason. I stopped, i recomend you do to. If you must have a soda, Coca-Cola makes half size cans. They satisfy your craving and stops you from everdoing it.

32: You WILL fall off the wagon

You will fail to adhere to you weight loss plan many times. The difference between ultimately succeeding or ultimately failing is your persistance. If you mess up, who cares? Just be sure to remember why you messed up, so you can avoid it in the future. No body is perfect, so know you are going to mess every once and a while. Dont delude youself that you have to stick perfectly to your plans. Just be sure to learn why you messed up and try to not repeat it. I see it as “Finding out what DOES NOT work for you” If you fail enough, you will know exactly what you dont need to do to loose weight. Then all that is left is success!

33: Don’t look for a parking space

If you are looking for an easy way to increase the ammount of excercise you get daily, try parking at the far end of the parking lot. It will add just a little bit of extra walking, but every little bit counts. Its great, because it requires less effort that finding a close spot. Its all benifits here, extra excercise and less stress. Its easy, just pull into the first open spot you come by.

34: The power of citrus

Citrus fruits are nutritious and delicious. The acids in citrus fruit actually make curb your appetite. If you feel like snacking, grab an orange, you will eat less than you would have you had some crackers. I find that this works best for fruits like oranges, grapefruit, pineapple and apples. The sour green apples are the best.

35: Don’t be drastic

Do not go overboard with anything. Changing too much , too fast is a recipe for failure. Instead of giving up all sugary foods cold turkey, first start by limiting your serving size. When you can do that with out effort, try limiting the ammount of servings you eat a day. When that is effortless, you may want to stop eating the food all together. Think of it as weening you self off the unhealth food. Some say cold turkey is the best, but it puts you under too much stress. It you are starting to lose weight and working out, you are under enough stress already. Dont make it harder for yourself. Take is slow and easy.

36: Do not over prepare

Some preparation is good when you are starting a new workout or diet. But over preparing will set you up for failure. You dont need to plan every little detail when you start something. I have met many people that will plan their workouts weeks in advance, down to every weight and set. While this is commendabke and takes alot of work, it is not wise. When you over plan like this, you set youself up for many avenues for failure. It is very discouraging to miss one workout. It is devastating to have the one missed workout destroy your entire workout plan. Instead, just plan to workout daily, or to eat more fruit. Your goals should be simple and not require much planning.

37: Know your daily calorie limit

If you are trying to cut calories, then you have to know how much to cut. There are a number of sites that tell you you dailt calorie needs. Here is one i like: http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm It will tell you the calories you currently use, the calories you need to use to lose weight, and the calories to use is you cant faster weight loss. Remember, dont use this as a hard and fast rule. If you feel that youcan eat more or less and feel good, then do so. These things are estimates, but thar are still good tools.

38: Fruits and Veggies

Eat more fruits and veggies. They are good tasting and good for you. Try substituting them for less healthy snacks. Instead of chips, have an apple. Instead of french fries with dinner, get steamed vegetables. Fruits and fegetables are fulll of natural goodness like antioxidants, vitamins and fiber. Plus, a serving of fruit, usually one fruit, is about 130 calories.

39: Dress for success

If you are like most people, you tend to put off excercise util the last minute. Some times you just forget about it all together. TV, cooking, whatever sounds much more interesting. To get over you procrastination, put your workout cloths on BEFORE the time you are supposed to work out. That way, when the time comes, you can just go work out. Procrastination will be much harder.

40: Brown Bag It

Im sure you have heard this one, but it is a good one. Bring you own lunch to work or school. Yoiu will be able to pack foods you like and that are the right portion for you. Often cafeteria style foods are not very healthy or delicious, thus tempting us to go eat fast food. Just avoid the whole rug-a-maroo and bring you own lunches.

41: Just do it

Just like the Nike slogen, Just Do It. Dont think about excercising, just do outside and go for a walk. It takes no prepartion at all. You dont need sny special cloths or to set asige a long block of time. You just go outside and start excercising. Walking is the easiest thing to do. One foot in front of the other. The less thought and planning involved, the easier it is to just do something.

42: Sugar is Evil

Sugar is Evil, bit it tastes so good. Actually its not the sugar that is evil, its the amount of sugar that is packed into some products. Sugar is a quick energy source and is easily converted to fat. A soda may have only 130 calories, but it is all from sugar. In essense you just put on 130 calories worth of fat on your body. If you do have an urge for something sweet, have a fruit. The sugars in fruit, being not refined, are much harder to break down. Plus, fruits have tons of vitamins and fiber, which are also good for you.

43: Fake sugar is even more Evil

If sugar is evil, artificial sugar is concentrated evil. Your body cant really tell the difference from a natural sugar and an artificial one. To you body they are both sweet. What artificial sweeteners do is desnsitize you to the real taste of sugar. If you only eat artificial sugar, with 0 calories, then you get something with real sugar, with hundreds of calories, then how would you tell the difference? You couldn’t. Artificial sugar sets you up for the evils of regular sugar. If you avoid overly sweetened products all together, when you get a food that has too much sugar in it, it is easy to identify and avoid.

44: The fork is not a shovel

Food is delicious and meant to be enjoyed. Why would you waste that goodness by just shoveling foog into your mouth? Slow down and enjoy you food. Savor every bite; the flovor, aroma and texture. Take the time to ejoy it. Doing this not only makes eating more enjoyable, but alows you to eat slower. The stomach is slow in telling the brain when it is full. So be eating slower, your brain will get the ‘FULL’ signal at the correct time. This will help in overeating and that stuffed feeling.

45: Be you own snack machine

Instead of going to the office or campus snach machine, bring you own snacks with you. It will be much easier to eat health snacks if you pack then youself. You coulg cut up an apple or bring a bag of carrot sticks. If you want, you could have some chips. The beauty is that since you do it youself you can control the portion. You wont be stuck eating the somtimes oversized vending machine portions.

46: You need Variety

If you limit the food you eat too much, you will burn youself out. More acuratly, you will bore youself to death. Make sure you dont deprive youself of the foods you love. And, make sure you eare eating like a normal person. Nobody can withstand not eating carbs for the rest of their life, that is just absurd. Eat a good variety of healthy foods and you wont bore youself out of your fitness goals

47: Focus on the Feeling

Instead of trying to guage you success and prograss on how you look in the mirror, judge youself on how well you feel. In the begining, you progress in weight loss and fitness will not be highly noticable. You will, however, feel better right away. Also, weight loss may not be a sign of fitness. You can loose weight and still feel like crap because of a bad diet. Judge you sucess on how well you feel, rather than how you look.

48: Coffee!!!

I love coffee. When you first start your new diet, you will feel hungry. This is due to the fack that you body is not used to the ammount of food it is getting. Coffee is a natural appetite suppresant. I recoment a small cup of black coffee in the morning to One: get you awake and going faster, and Two: stave of the feeling of hunger that will hit later. Just add a cup in the morning with breakfast. Do not substitute coffee for any meal. Plus, coffee is a natural anti-oxidant.

49: Take a Class

If you are new to working out or just looking for something new, Try taking an aerobics, pilates, dance, jazzer-cize or whatever class. You will get to meet people with similar goals as you. it may also be what you need to kick start some fat burning. Some classes are fun. Try some and fing out what you like to do. Dont just do it because someone says “Its The best”. Do it because you like it and it makes you feel and look better.

50: Know your BMI

Your BMI or Body Mass Index is a good tool to judge if your weight is unhealthy. It is a number used to determine if when extra pounds translate into health risks. Here is a good one by the CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/bmi/adult_BMI/english_bmi_calculator/bmi_calculator.htm Here is a simple chart to give the number some more meaning.   

Risk of Associated Disease According to BMI and Waist Size
BMI		Waist less than or equal to 40 in. (men) or 35 in. (women)	Waist greater than 40 in. (men) or 35 in. (women)
18.5 or less	Underweight	-	N/A
18.5 - 24.9	Normal	-	N/A
25.0 - 29.9	Overweight	Increased	High
30.0 - 34.9	Obese	High	Very High
35.0 - 39.9	Obese	Very High	Very High
40 or greater	Extremely Obese	Extremely High	Extremely High

from: http://www.consumer.gov/weightloss/bmi.htm Remember, these things are not always acurate, so dont take them as the rule. However, i have found that they are close enough to be trusted.

There you go. I hope you like.

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1) It negatively affects protein synthesis.  Protein synthesis is the process where amino acids are joined together to form complete proteins. Excessive alcohol consumption slows this process down by up to 20%, and since your muscles are made up of protein, you can see how this is a problem.  

2) It lowers testosterone levels and increases estrogen.  

Testosterone is the most important muscle-building hormone in your body. One of the limiting factors that determines how much muscle a person can gain is their level of free-flowing testosterone.  

3) It causes dehydration.  

The kidneys must filter very large amounts of water in order to break down the alcohol, and this can result in severe dehydration within the body. Water plays an absolutely crucial role in the muscle-building process, and being even slightly dehydrated is a recipe for disaster. The muscles alone are comprised of 70% water.  

4) It depletes the body of vitamins and minerals.  

Alcohol consumption causes vitamins A, C, the B’s, calcium, zinc and phosphorus to all be drained at rapid rates. Vitamins and minerals keep every little process in your body functioning properly, and many of these processes involve muscle growth and maintenance.  

5) It increases fat storage. With 7 empty calories per gram, alcohol can actually be quite fattening. Alcohol also disrupts the Kreb’s Cycle, which plays an important role in fat burning. 

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