Weight Loss | GreenCupboards Blog

Health Tips for the Holidays

Dec 222011

don't be tempted to overindulge!

Hanukkah has begun, and Christmas and Kwanzaa are only days away. Gifts, family, good food and sparkling lights are tokens of the holiday season, but so is the reality of unwanted weight gain. During the holidays many people find themselves immersed in family activities and surrounded by rich homemade dishes and treats. It’s hard to keep up a healthy lifestyle during a season when we celebrate all the good things that we have. The year is coming to a close and soon we will be heading into 2012 with every intention to trim our waistlines. To avoid the regret that can come with the holiday weight gain, here are some tips from GreenCupboards.com to help you keep up with a healthy lifestyle during the holidays.

Drink lots of water: Hot chocolate, warm buttered rum, peppermint mochas, and apple cider are all traditional treats during the holiday season. Keep in mind that they are just that: a treat. There’s no shame in indulging your taste buds with a warm cup of cocoa, but limit splurging. To stay hydrated, keep a BPA free water bottle handy. Need something warm? Add a tea bag to your water. Studies have shown that green tea can increase your body’s ability to metabolize fat.

Go for a walk: Whether you’re driving or flying to your holiday destination, your legs will appreciate a good stretch. Hectic holiday situations that increase stress may be diffused by taking a quick break. Go for a walk around the block, to a nearby park, or look at the holiday decorations in town. Need some one on one time with a loved one? Bring them along and check out the holiday lights in your neighborhood.

Small plates and portions: Often holiday weight gain is caused not by what you eat, but by how much. There’s no use refusing a slice of grandma’s pie, so instead insist on a small portion. If you’re craving something it’s better to eat a little bit rather than try to satisfy your craving by filling up on “healthier” options. At parties use the smallest plates and allow yourself small portions.

Active family bonding: Although it’s nice to stay warm and cozy inside, there are lots of fun activities waiting in the winter wonderland. Instead of settling in for a board game, suggest a family snowball fight, build a snow fort or a snowman, go skiing, sledding, or snowboarding. No snow this holiday season? Try a family game of football, tag, or go for a bike ride.

Manage your time: Eat regularly! The one for sure way to overindulge at the neighbor’s party is to go without a decent meal all day. Although there doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day, the two major causes of weight gain during the holiday season are lack of sleep and skipping meals. Eat a small meal or salad before heading to a holiday party, and try to get in some time to relax and catch some Z’s.

Wishing you happy holiday’s from the GreenCupboards.com team!

Images:

http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20307175_5,00.html

http://justlikegrams.blogspot.com/2010/11/christmas-baking-anyone.html

GreenCupboards.com Team Commits to Biking Commute

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Nov 152011

Team bikes

Putting the “pedal to the metal” has been replaced at GreenCupboards.com by pedaling to work. Lately, city commuters have been trading four wheels for two as the number of people who bike to work is quickly increasing.

Why bike to work? With the cost of gasoline, biking to work has the undeniable perk of relieving monetary stress. What’s our real purpose? The GreenCupboards.com team is dedicated to seizing any opportunity to decrease our carbon footprint.

What’s more? It’s good for us!

According to the Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation, the repetitive motion of cycling is a physical stress reliever. Cycling away emotional stress leads to reduced blood pressure and cuts the chance of heart disease. Biking not only strengthens the heart, but it tones the body, increases oxygen flow and circulation, and decreases an individual’s chance of cancer, obesity, and spinal disease. All of these improved physical and emotional health conditions lead to an overall improved quality of life for the individual.

We’re not the first to find pleasure in this activity. Actor Ed Begley Jr. is a leading force in Hollywood, setting the bar high as he bicycles to red carpet events in his tuxedo.

Personally, I’d like to tip my webmaster hat to those members of society who are joining our team in a commitment to a healthy life and a healthy planet. Bike on!

Looking for inspiration? Take a look at GreenCupboards.com team member Aaron and his European biking adventures.

A Weight Loss Mango

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May 032011

Slimy yet Satisfying...

Weight loss- Weight loss- Weight loss, its seems to me that’s the American slogan of the time. Everybody seems to be obsessed with weight loss, On any channel, and on every radio station there are advertisements for a new “superior weight loss” solution. These solutions come in all forms: pills, drinks, packages, weights, dumbbells etc. All of these products are “clinically proven” and often “discounted if you buy within the next 15 minutes!” So if you are a little overweight and you have been thinking about trying one of the solutions you have heard about, let me tell you about just one more before you make your decision.

If you had the choice between a natural solution or a synthetic one which would you choose? I would say that many Americans would opt for the synthetic option thinking it will be more “advanced” than the natural alternative. I am one of the people that would opt for a natural solution first (why fix it if it ain’t broke?) If you are also one of these people and your overweight then you might like to hear about the African Mango.

The African Mango is related to the mango that you already know and love, except this mango is only found in the deserts of West Africa and it has some incredible effects. The African Mango unlike many weight loss products is not a stimulant, it is a 100% organic compound that can help you lose weight, eat less, detox your body, energize you, and lower your cholesterol and risk of diabetes. All of these benefits are “clinically proven” with the African Mango, as well as the knowledge that what your putting into your body was not engineered in a lab, but grown at the hands of nature.

For twenty years the African Mango has been used, tested, and proven to help increase weight loss. So why isn’t the African Mango more popular? Like I said earlier it’s sometimes hard for people to realize that natural products (not just the African Mango) are better for you than processed products (and food). If you put a mango on the desk with a white little pill beside it and someone told you to guess which one of these two things could help you lose 12.8 pounds every 28 days, I think many Americans would pick up the pill. How can a fruit be so effective? I could not answer that, its one of the miracles of nature.

I could write out all of the doctor’s who have endorsed this product but that seems redundant and unnecessary, if you don’t want to take my word on the African Mango then do the research for yourself… I’ll bet that you will be surprised at the number of respondents you will find who have used and endorsed this fruit.

Sources:

http://www.post-sentinel.com/

http://www.africanmangos.net/

http://healthybodydaily.com/dr-oz-diets/dr-oz-dr-oz-african-mango-irvingia-gabonensis-for-weight-loss-three-must-have-vitamins-for-weight-loss

http://www.drugs.com/npp/african-mango.html

Images:

http://buyafricanmango.co/

http://www.dietpills.md/african-mango

http://www.myhealthstoreonline.com/AfricanMango-WeightLossPill

Factory verses Farm

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Apr 072011

180 day old McDonalds Meal: looking the same as it was out of the bag..

Mcdonalds burgers and fries have proved to hold off decomposition for six months. The lack of decomposition has experts looking into the actual nutritional value of Mcdonalds food and the preservatives used in it. Is the preservation of the burger and fries a good thing, or is it just unnatural?

In 2010, Mark Haub, a professor of nutrition, went on a “convenience store diet” made up of Hostess, Little Debbies, and Doritos. In two months he lost 27 pounds proving “That in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most – not the nutritional value of the food.”

Salley Davies, a Manhattan resident, conducted a Mcdonalds expirment: She bought a meal and photographed it every day over the course of six months, noticing the lack of decomposition taking place.

According to the findings of the convenience store diet, the nutritional value of Davies Mcdonalds shouldn’t matter at all, nor should the fact that it fails to decompose, only calorie count should define nutritional value, right?

Twinkies are often incorrectly thought to have a long shelf. Twinkies can only last for about 25-40 days on a shelf before the uncooked spongy material will decompose. What does this say about the Twinkie? Is it healthier than the Mcdonalds meal?

Margarine will not decompose, it will not grow mold, it will not smell, and it will not attract flies- Much like the Mcdonalds meal. So then what is the nutritional value of margarine if there is any at all? There are calories in margarine, so by eating it you could be sustained- with 0g of protein and 0g of carbohydrates, you could theoretically lose weight by counting the amount of calories ingested off of margarine alone.

Super Size Me is a documentary where Morgan Spurock another New Yorker goes for 30 days eating nothing but Mcdonalds. In that time he gained 25 pounds and both his cholesterol and blood pressure skyrocketed. What if Spurock had counted calories during those 30 days? Could he have eaten healthily?

“That’s where the head scratching comes… What does that mean? Does that mean I’m healthier? Or does it mean how we define health from a biology standpoint, that we’re missing something?” These are the questions Mark Haub asks, after losing 27 pounds on a convenience store diet.

So, the question remains: what is a healthy diet?

Is healthy being slim and trim? Or is health a result of a mindful balance of substance coupled with exercise?

I think in the end it comes down to nature. Will man ever be able to create a “healthier” food than what nature has already provided?

At Puristat.com, a digestive wellness site, I found a passage that provided me with some answers:

Non-Foods Consist of:

“Processed food is made from real food that has been put through devitalizing chemical processes and is infused with chemicals and preservatives. Beef jerky, canned tea, jam, hot dogs, and low-fat yogurt with sugar or aspartame are a few examples of processed food.

Junk foods contain very little real food. They’re made of devitalized processed food, hydrogenated fats, chemicals, and preservatives, and include anything made with refined white flour. Canned breakfast drinks, cold/sugary cereals, doughnuts, drive-through foods, and soda are examples of junk foods.

Fake foods are made primarily of chemicals, and often contain gums and sugar fillers. Examples include bacon bits, bottled salad dressing, dehydrated soups, and instant coffee.

Energy Output > Exceeds Nutritional Input

These non-foods have one thing in common: it costs your body a great deal more to digest, absorb, and eliminate them than they offer your body in nutritional value – an extremely poor return on your investment that leaves your body sluggish and depleted.”

We are a generation of convenient, fast, and long lasting food eaters- yet that “convenience” is at a cost to health. Health not measured in pounds or calories, but in well-rounded, natural diet. That is why there is such a trend today to go organic, despite the often inflated cost of natural organic foods, those foods are not taking the bodily toll that processed foods do. In essence, natural food does what food should do: it nourishes. Processed/ junk/ fake food can fill you up but it’s not really making your body functional. In the long term not eating natural food can manifest itself in diseases like diabetes, heart failure, and could turn into obesity.

So watch your health, not in the mirror, but in what you put into yourself. And remember, you didn’t come from a factory and neither should your food.