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This weekend I put on my baggy jeans and they were tight. "Oh that's not good," I thought, "I should probably weigh myself."  So I did, only to find the scale hitting my highest weight. Ekk, just what no women wants to see.  I seriously thought I had escaped the dreaded holiday weight due to my healthy eating and the warmer weather we have had has allowed me to be more active. So I thought I'd take this as an opportunity to share how I regulate my weight.  I have maintained my weight to a 25 lb flex my whole adult life.  Meaning my lowest and highest ever weight has been within 25 lbs. I can still wear clothes I had over 15 years ago.  
How have I done it you ask?  Well I really don't worry about my weight, fat or calories.  I don't even weigh myself.  I just worry about eating healthy real no processed organic foods and I don't drink sugary drinks.  That's it, until I don't fit into my clothes any more.  Then I really focus on eating the perfect "diet" and exercising more.  Losing 5 lbs isn't that hard (I found out after writing this article our scale was 5 pounds off so I actually have 10 pounds to lose to be safely in my good weight range. Hmmm that might take longer), if I make a few simple changes (listed below) I should lose that in no time (I'll post an update when I do).  When you suddenly gain weight, that means something is off in your life style and if you ignore it and change nothing you'll keep adding pounds on slowly, add then they can add up to an amount that is hard to take off.  Also while doing my little tricks work, I realistically wouldn't keep it up for long.  But I do just long enough to get me in my normal weight zone, and then I don't even think about my weight and I stop weighing myself....until my jeans get tight again.

  15 Easy Tricks to Lose 5 Lbs

• Don't Drink Calories.  I drink 2-4 cups of teas (cold with stevia in the summer) with no sugar or sweetener. A great choice is Yerba Mate tea, which according to Tim Feriss on Dr Oz helps you burn fat.  According to Dr Oz"Oolong tea contains polyphenols that help block fat-building enzymes. This young tea is low in caffeine so you can drink it throughout the day for continued results. Research shows that your metabolism will be raised for two hours after every cup of Oolong".  I also drink a lot of filtered water.  And I do have coffee in the mourning with organic half and half and stevia.
• Eliminate added sugar You should not have more than 15 grams of sugar a day including the sugar naturally in fruit. You should not have any sweetened drinks, even diet soda (the chemical sweeteners have been shown to make you want to eat more not to mention other dangerous side effects).   I did a post about Dr Oz has a 28 day sugar detox plan that might be helpful along with a video of the famous lecture "The Bitter Truth" which I guarantee will help motivate you to take sugar out of your diet.  I use stevia as an no calorie all natural sweetener to replace sugar.
• Have broth based soup with veggies before lunch and dinner.  This is what the Japanese do, and they are super healthy.  This will help you fill up before you eat.
• Limit Carbs and Have More In the Mourning According to the creator of the popular Insanity workout Shaun T showed on the Dr Oz show how to decrease your carbs throughout the day and increase your protein.  This might run contrary to the 30 grams of protein within 30 min of waking up rule(see below tip), but does make sense to me.  His thinking is that you burn off the carbs more easily in the mourning, but later in the day it changes into fat.  You can watch the video of him on Dr Oz here explaining his diet.  I'm trying to  basically follow the paleo diet with beans and legumes added with the exception of steel cut oatmeal in the mourning and a free day to eat whatever. 
• Raise your heart rate for at least 10 min a day twice a day  You can find 10 min to exercise in the mourning and night right?  Some easy ways to do this is to do jumping jacks, jog in place watching TV, climb stairs in your house, or just dance to your favorite song.  You’ll burn about 100 calories doing 500 jumping jacks a day, and it only takes about 2 minutes to knock out each set of 100 jacks, so that’s 10 minutes TOTAL for the day.  Or you could do Shaun T's (the creator of the Insanity workout) 15 min exercise video that he showed on the Dr OZ show that uses interval training that continues to burn fat after you stop exercising.  Can't do any of the above?  Then maybe you can park further away, take your dog for an extra walk, or take the stairs instead of the escalator or elevator.  Every little bit adds up in the end no matter what your physical abilities are everyone can move a little more.  What I am doing is trying to work up to doing 30 min of dance cardio with a 5 min walk as a cool down.  I found a dance cardio video that I love that's easy for non-coordinated people like me with great music.
• Make veggies and fruit the star of your meal and meat, fish, and carbs the sides.
• Listen to Music that Makes You Want to Dance I started listening to my dance station on Pandora while I cook, do chores, or work on projects.  I don't full on dance but I do a little and I'm sure I burn some more calories (and even if I don't I'm having fun so who cares).
• Eat every 4 hrs and have breakfast within one hr of waking and do not eat after 9 PM, Eat until your full but not stuffed.  This will help get your hormones working for you according to Jillian micheals.  
•  Have organic fruit, veggies and protein for snacks.  For snacks some of my favorites are my banana shake recipe with vegetarian protein powder (1/2 scoop of Vega-one) and a tablespoon of organic pysillum husks, baby carrots with hummus, salads, the possibilities are endless.  For low calorie high protein options you can try plain organic Greek yogurt (6 oz has 15-20 g of protein) and sweeten with stevia at home and add organic frozen fruit defrosted.  Or another great option is low sodium organic cottage cheese (1/2 cup has 15 g of protein). 
• Take Vitamin supplements When we are deprived of nutrition we get hungry.  I currently take krill oil (for omega 3 and Astaxanthin, the most known potent antioxidant), vitamin D3, spurillia (is seweed that is detoxing), probiotics, and resterval (is found in red wine and believed to protect against disease), and tumeric extract.  Dr Oz says raspberry keytones can help naturally in weight loss, so that might be worth looking in to, but I have not tried it myself.  Make sure that you only buy high quality vitamins and that they are not synthetic or have any fillers that could be potentially bad for you.  I would suggest trying to get your nutrition from whole foods as much as possible and supplement only when you think it is hard to get in food form or if you have had a nutrition test and found yourself to be low in certain nutrition.  Do your own research and find out which supplements you think would be best for you. 
• No Alcoholic drinks  One innocent-looking margarita or cosmopolitan can rack up hundreds of calories that do nothing to quench your appetite.  I'm not saying for ever, just until you lose those 5 lbs.
• Eat 30 grams of Protein Within 30 Min of Waking up. Tim Ferriss author of "The 4 Hour Body" believes that this is the easiest way to lose weight that has the biggest impact.  This is a hard one, especially if your vegan. Most high protein foods tend to be animal products, then beans, and then nuts and seeds.  I think it's best to try and get as much protein as you can as early as possible depending on your lifestyle. My husband and I have been having Steel Cut Oatmeal that we make overnight, it has only 7 grams of protein (still better than almost all cereal), and if you have it with organic whole milk it will add 6 grams of protein (for 3/4 cup per serving, 1 cup has 8g of protein) for 13g of protein per serving.  I am thinking of trying to use chicken sausage with eggs and black beans and salsa or sun dried tomatoes.  I get my chicken sausage from Trader Joe's and Target (that don't have nitrates or MSG). Right now I have Archer Farm's (Target's brand) sun dried tomato and asiago chicken sausage, 13 g or protein and 90 calories for one link.  A large egg has about 6g of protein. So I'm thinking chicken sausage, and and egg with egg whites added and 1/2 cup of black beans has 7.5 grams of protein, so that's 23 grams not quite but it'll do better than the 7 grams I have been getting. 
• Go to sleep a half and hour earlier your more likely to exercise in the mourning, also the longer we sleep the more we reserve our cortisol.  According to Lisa Nelson a registered dietician, you should get 7-9 hours of sleep to avoid weight loss. Medical News published an article talking about studies that have shown getting more sleep helps in weight loss.
• Do weight resistance exercises twice a week
• Add spice and savory flavors to your meals in place of salt and sugar.  Since the major taste we all crave are sugar, salt, savory (umani) and spicy, you need to keep a few.  You can add savory flavors by adding mushrooms, miso (fermented soy), soy sauce, and tomatoes,etc.  You should have spices on hand like cayenne, chilli, paprika,ginger, cinnamon, etc.
• Eat high protein and fiber foods  Some good sources of lean protein are chicken breast, sea food, and beans (which are also high in fiber), and nitrate free deli meat.  It it keeps you satisfied longer and protein helps build muscle, which burns fat.

 I want to preference the above list with the fact that, you never ever want to starve yourself.  It does no good to you and is completely unnecessary and actually will make you fatter!  How could eating less make you fatter?  If your body thinks your starving it will try to protect itself by slowing your metabolism and clinging to you fat.  It will also increase your hunger hormones, according to Jillian Michael's in "Master Your Metabolism".   I also want to emphasis I don't believe in depriving ourselves.  So if you have a serious craving for a dessert or a glass of wine, a piece of chocolate, go ahead and have some.  But just enough to enjoy the taste.  Have a little piece of chocolate, half a glass of wine, or a few bites of your friends dessert.  That's how the French do it.    We can learn alot from other cultures.

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Disclamer
I am not a doctor, dietitian, nutritionist, or fitness expert. I have ZERO medical training and NO formal nutritional or fitness training.  The information provided on this site, such as text, graphics, images, is for informational purposes only. It is not to be construed as medical care or medical advice and is not a replacement for medical care given by physicians or trained medical personnel.  Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider(s) when experiencing symptoms or health problems, or before starting any new treatment.


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