Honestly speaking I like to switch sides once in a while, depending on the snack I can eat before bedtime. For example if it’s my favorite fruit, or a glass of milk and a wholegrain biscuit – there is no way for me to resist those before bedtime, so I eat them.

Here are a few ideas on how to avoid eating just before bedtime. And of course a few ideas about healthy bedtime snack for those of you who can’t fall asleep without one.

I myself divide evening snacks into two groups – those taken immediately after dinner and snacks taken late at night just before bedtime. Of course the second group is worse so grab your strong will and let’s learn a few tricks on how to avoid evening snacking:

1. Brush your teeth after dinner
This could stop you from eating anything after dinner, because if you do eat something then you will need to brush them again and after all who likes to brush their teeth more than once at a time…

2. Never ever make dinner your biggest meal of the day
Instead of skipping breakfast or lunch, make one of them your biggest meal for the day, so in the evening you won’t feel so hungry to stuff yourself like a Thanksgiving turkey.

3. Eat balanced dinner – the key to self-control after dinner food cravings
Try to make your dinner as healthy and delicious as possible, i.e. give what your body needs and what your mind pleases. Sounds complex but it’s not.
If your dinner consists of one half vegetables and the other half proteins and carbohydrates then it is healthy. You will definitely feel satisfied after eating your dinner, i.e. your body gets everything it needs. And if dinner is deliciously cooked then it is sure your mind enjoys every bite of it.

4. Make yourself busy after dinner
Obviously not busy snacking after dinner in front of the TV or the computer. Try doing a hobby or other routine that has nothing to do with food. If you don’t have a hobby yet then it’s about time to invent one. Simple housework outside the kitchen can really keep you away from snacking before bed.

5. Eat a small snack immediately after dinner
If eating before bedtime is wrong in general then eating immediately after dinner is the smaller wrong. Allow yourself a snack (a healthy one) as a dessert after the dinner meal – a small but remarkable finish of your eating for the day.

Number 1 has always worked best for me What about you? Which number would you prefer? If you have more ideas about how to skip snacking late at night feel free to share them with us as a comment below.

Dancing is better than the traditional cardio workout

As we all know cardio is good and low-impact cardio workout is even better. Running, aerobics, jogging and dancing can improve your overall health, but in more details, it will increase body stamina, improve cardiovascular health, strengthen muscles and bone structure, increase lungs capacity and stave off illnesses like heart disease and diabetes. By doing cardio workout everyday, you will strengthen the heart as it is a muscle and lower your blood sugar and cholesterol levers.

Many fitness experts agree that dancing can give you a lot more than the traditional cardio fitness exercises like running on the treadmill for example. It will not only improve your cardiovascular endurance and body composition, but it will also improve muscular endurance and flexibility. The benefits of dancing are not limited to these only. You will improve balance, coordination, power, agility, reactivity and speed.

But there are dancing and dancing. Some slow couple dances like ballroom dances do not qualify as cardio workout, so be sure to select dinamic and fast dances. The main idea here is to rise the heart rate and to start burn calories. With fast dancing you can burn as many calories as running and swimming. The modern dances like Zumba and Pilates are used for weight loss by millions of people around the world.

Zumba

This dance is a new hot dance and its popularity in the world of fitness grows daily. It is a Latin dance aerobics that combines cardio workout and dancing. While zumbing you are not only dancing, but you also do your fitness training. The difference is that you enjoy doing it, the opposite of doing your regular exersing routine. Everytime you do something different and new and if you love dancing, you should not get board with it. One of the greatest things about zumba is that you are dancing with the modern sounds of Latin rythms such as salsa, merengue, reggaeton.

While dancing and enjoying with other buddies, you also lose exess weight and get your body in shape.
Zumba goes beyond the classic aerobics because in the first 45 minutes you do cardio workout and in the last 15 minutes you are doing special exercising oriented to your body areas that needs more attention. For example you can address abdomen, legs and buttocks.

Pilates

Pilates is cobination of exercises and stretching that was created nearly a century ago by Joseph Pilates. It is a mix of ballet, yoga and callanetics. It is very popular among the dancers across the globe.

Pilates method works great to tighten and elongate muscles without straining the bones thus it works for your body, but it also works for your mind as it emphasis on concentration and breathing thought your workout. The exercises are developed to involve the so-called power plant all the time. The power plant includes the abdomen, waist and buttocks, which are of a great importance for person’s great looking figure and overall body shape. If you’ve managed to achieve physical tone and flexibility, and have felt stress relieved at the end of your Pilates sessions then you already know what is Pilates all about.

Belly Dance

The “Belly dance” term comes from the French phrase “danse du ventre”. Despite its name this dance involves every part of the body. However the most featured body part is the hips. Belly dance is so popular from India and North Africa across Europe and North America to Australia or in short – all over the globe.

Belly dance has so many different forms depending on country and region that I will probably need a few pages to describe them all. In short the greatest differences are in costumes and the dance style itself. As belly dance travels across the world, and especially the Western world, new costumes and styles have evolved and popularity has grown enormously. However there is one common thing about contemporary belly dance all over the world and it’s the performers themselves – they are all women.

No matter which dance you choose to workout make sure you dance at least 3 times per week. Otherwise you will not see any weight loss effect, beautiful body shaping or muscle strengthening. Eventually you will give up dancing and all you’ll remember in time would be the good music you used to listen and danced to once or twice a week…which will be very sad, as dancing is fun and energising. And if you share your dance sessions with a friend you will get the most amusing body shaping, muscle strengthening and weight loss workout in the world.

The result is – you will weight fewer pounds, but you will look the same way as before the diet.

If you just want to reduce your weight, this would perfectly fit for you, but if you want to have a good looking body like a fashion model, then you should think about including some exercises in your daily routine.

Exercising is fun, it keeps you healthy and it will help you to burn calories and fat. When we talk about exercising, people usually think about cardio on the treadmill. There is nothing wrong with that, but it definitely is not enough to build a strong and good looking body. You should do some physical exercises like push ups, crunches and squats as well.

Every morning stand up 20 minutes earlier and start exercising. At the very beginning you can start with the easiest exercises, and the best thing about these exercises is that you don’t need any equipment.
You can use you body weight as resistance.

1) Push ups

Lie with the stomach down and place your hands and toes on the floor. The distance between your hands should be little more than your shoulders width. Your legs should be put closely – side by side. Now give a little pressure to the floor, and try to push your body up until you feel your elbows reach 90 degree bend. Make sure that you don’t bend your back. From this position, exhale and push your body up from the floor. Repeat this several times until you can’t do it any more.

2) Crunches

Doing crunches will help you to make you stomach flat and will help you to lose belly fat. They are easier than push ups and you can do more of them. If you do them regularly, this can lead to six pack abs muscles. There is nothing more beautiful than tight body with abs muscles showed.

How to do crunches? First you have to lie on your back . To feel comfortably while doing crunches, you can use carpet or mat, but you can do it directly on the floor. From this point, you can situate you feet on the floor, or you can hold them in the air. We suggest you to try both ways and to see which is more acceptable for you.

Place your hands behind your neck or head, the way that you feel comfortable. Let them rest on your hands. Slowly lift the body up while tightening the abdominal muscles. Do not lift your entire back off the floor, you don’t want to case your body a back pain, right?

Repeat this step as many times as you can.

3) Squats

You will love squats as they are the easiest of the three and yet they are among the most effective body tightening exercises. In order to get maximum effect from squats and avoid injury you need to do them absolutely right.

Stand forward and hold your chest up and out.
1. Place your feet apart as wide as your shoulder-width. Stretch out your hands in front of you in order to keep balance.
2. Start sitting back and down like you would sit into an imaginary chair. Face forward as higher as possible while your upper body bends forward a bit. Instead of rounding you back, let your lower back arch slightly as you descend.
3. Lower as much down as possible so your thighs to be parallel to the floor. Try to keep your knees over your ankles. Press your weight back into your heels.
4. While keeping your body tight push through your heels and bring yourself back to starting position.

We hope that you will be able to dedicate 20 minutes from your precious time to exercise daily. Train you body as more intensive as possible and you will see the results sooner than you expect. It is also important to combine the exercises with a proper diet that is not as drastic as the classic diets suggest. Your body will need more energy and that is why you will need a well balanced, properly portioned diet food. Drink plenty of water during the day, and avoid drinking water while exercising.

This is possibly the simplest way to start you spring weight loss journey with no cost to you. Good luck!

For adults it takes about 20 minutes for the satiety center in your brain to register the feeling of fullness and to send out the signal to the hypothalamus gland *. After receiving the indication, the hypothalamus gland, which controls hunger, simply shuts your appetite and you don’t feel like eating or drinking anything more.

Here is the problem why we can’t literally eat like babies do – these 20 minutes for shutting down appetite are just too much for an adult. An adult, who by the way can eat, over eat and even over stuff oneself like a Thanksgiving turkey for those twenty minutes. For babies this reaction time is twice faster - about 5 to 10 minutes, according to my personal non-scientific observations on my children.

Babies Eat to Live, Adults Live to Eat

That’s it – I am 100 percent sure of that! Babies eat to live, and adults live to eat. Babies are in a hurry to eat and off they go to play again, while we like to talk, chat, text, browse internet, tweet, relax, stress out, watch movie or TV show, read the newspaper or book, etc. while still eating. Any of these “activities” can take you much more than 20 minutes, unfortunately so takes eating along with it.

It turns out that eating for adults is like escaping from everything else even for half an hour or less (work, stress, responsibilities are all gone so you can enjoy your lunch, for example).
On the contrary, eating for babies is like pulling them away from all the fun and interesting games, putting them in the high baby chair and stuffing them with a spoon full of some pureed soup.

How to train ourselves to eat as often as babies do and until we feel moderately full, not overwhelmingly fed up?

1. First: you should try eating at least 4 times a day – breakfast, lunch, afternoon meal and dinner.

2. Second: the size of the meal portions:

Breakfast – one medium sized cereal bowl of wholegrain breakfast cereals is great. OR one cup of skim milk and 2-3 wholegrain breakfast crackers is perfect. OR Medium sized sandwich with some lean meat like chicken, tuna etc or with low fat cottage cheese (my favorite). And a cup of juice and/or sugar free coffee is also served along with the breakfast But please try to not to sweeten your coffee even artificial sweeteners – trust me it’s for the best.

Lunch and dinner vary depending on where you are during the day – home, work, business trip, official dinner, etc. Remember one medium sized portion is enough, NO desserts, or at least no patisserie. You can eat 1-2 fruits depending on size and please wait at least 30 minutes to 1 hour before eating that fruit.

Afternoon meal – around 3 – 4 p.m. – that’s my personal favor…It should be one medium sized fruit like banana, orange, apple, etc. OR a handful or raw nuts OR a cup of yoghurt…

The afternoon meal is very important and should not be missed, because it helps you feel not very hungry for the dinner, so no dinner overeating is possible. And as a dieter you should know dinner overeating is one of the worst things to do while trying to lose weight.

3. Third: There is a popular game show called “A Minute Is Too Much”, well I’d paraphrase it to 20 minutes are too much for eating.

20 Minutes Are Too Much for Eating

That doesn’t mean you should run away from the table after 10 minutes without finishing your meal. NO! Here’s the key – you have a portion of meal and you know approximately how much calories it contains, and you eat it – nothing more, nothing less. Eating can take you 10, 20 or even 30 minutes if you talk to your table-companions, but as long as you eat your portion it’s OK.

Do not take an extra portion, do not eat a patisserie desert (one fruit is OK but wait at least half an hour after eating), no chocolate, no ice-cream, no any other junk foods just to keep you busy chewing something.

Eat like a baby to lose weight may sound a little bit crazy for some, a little bit too drastic for others, but please wait and you’ll see. The longer you stick to this regime the better the results will be and I promise you’ll feel the difference – firstly with your stomach, because you will never ever feel like you are about to throw up any second and then with your mind…You’ll reunite your body and mind and feel somehow peaceful. Your body won’t fight your mind anymore and vice verse. And the extra pounds – they’ll be shed for good.

* Hypothalamus gland controls hunger, thirst, and sexual activity.

Although I am not sure if it’s the tea or the healthier foods we are eating but I already lost 2 kilograms with minimum exercising.

The Weight Loss Herbal Tea

The tea itself has very strong and rich aroma. I can clearly sense and feel my favorite cinnamon flavor inside. I am drinking it with no added sugar, honey or any other sweeteners. And probably that’s why I find it a little bit bitter. But as long as it is for detox and weight loss, I am OK with the bitter-sour flavor.

Healthier Foods and Meals with Steam Cooker

I mentioned now we eat healthier foods…Well, we bought a new home appliance for the kitchen – a steam cooker. At first I was skeptical about the taste of the meals it cooks – no cooking oil is used – just pure steam. But from the very first bite of freshly steamed vegetables I loved it.

I love the taste of everything I cook with my steam cooker. The rice and potatoes are surprisingly tasty (I would never believe if someone had told me that steamed rice and potatoes can taste just as great as, or even better, than the old-fashioned baked potatoes and stewed rice). As or the steamed vegetables – no comments there!!! They are fantastic especially the broccoli and carrots.

I use fresh and frozen vegetables to make my own mixes of veggies with broccoli, carrots, beans, corn, cabbage, leeks, onions, peppers (green and red) and so on…The list is too long to count all vegetable. All I need to say is I’m very very happy we brought that thing at home. Now it’s my best kitchen-helper

For me steam cooking is a fantastic new way to cook healthier food for my family. With no added cooking oils and all vitamins preserved, with a lot less heat processing the vegetables, fish and all kinds of meats (chicken, turkey, even pork) remain healthier, crispy, juicy and twice more delicious.

Minimum Exercising

That’s something I am not very proud of, but that’s because I don’t have much time to exercise. Instead of 3 times a week, I did only once a week — 20 minutes on the treadmill. I am trying my best to exercise at least twice a week and last week I really did it.

My Healthy Weight Loss Program

Again, I am not sure if it is because of the herbal tea, the healthy home made meals, or the treadmill exercises, but I already lost 2 kilograms just like that. I drug myself into this healthy weight loss program and honestly I like it, I even enjoy it already, because it doesn’t cost me anything more than a little effort on the treadmill.

I am so inspired to continue with my weight loss plan. I am even planning to cook our traditional Christmas meals and New Years specialties in my steam cooker. If all turns out to be as great as I expect, I promise I will share the recipes with you next year here at my blog.

I did 20 minutes on the treadmill today and lost approximately 50 calories. I feel like walking 20 more minutes but it’ll be too much for a starter like me. I haven’t been exercising for quite long time and it’s not good to over exercise myself from the very first day.

Today I will also try a new weight loss herbal tea I just bought yesterday. It contains very rich herbal bouquet – 17 natural herbs. I hope it works and if it does I promise I’ll share all about my first herbal weight loss trial with you here at my blog.

I’m sure many things have happened since I am gone – new weight loss products, new diets. The new weight loss trend is probably rolling in the waves of the old well know weight loss knowledge and the latest fashionably new diet of someone famous such as a music, movie, TV or sports star.

Well, you know me I’ve always respected everything new in weight loss and I’ve always tried and tested everything I consider interesting for you. Shearing my experience and my weight loss knowledge with you is what always’s been important to me and I’ll do my best to keep doing it in the future.

I promise there will be no boring stuff, no too long and too hard to read posts. Just short, sharp and straight to the point ones.

Let’s have fun together and let’s lose weight together here at
Weight-Loss-Advisor.com/blog

Protein Shake addict or just being on a Protein Shake diet?

If some of your friends are not aware that you are following a special diet plan like the Protein Shake Diet and yet they see you taking shakes all day long, then they might really think you are a protein supplements addict. Well, you probably would need to explain that you are not the newest bodybuilder on the block, and you are just on a meal replacement diet that replaces some or all of your daily meals with protein shakes.

If you are on a diet with shakes then it’s OK to take a few of them daily, but what about the other cases…
People take protein supplements because they think they don’t eat enough proteins, or because they like shakes’ taste and prefer to take one quick made shake instead of one healthy protein meal, or because they’ve heard from friends or read online that shakes are healthy and may help them lose weight easily, etc.

Protein Shake addict or just being a Vegetarian?

If you are a vegetarian, or for any reason you do not consume enough proteins from natural sources like dairy and meat then you might need some protein supplement for the day. Whether it will be a protein shake, drink, bar, cookie or else, it is a matter of personal choice.

Why Choose Real Food to Protein supplements?

Yes, you can replace one or two meals a day with protein supplements, but remember there is nothing healthier than the “real food” – balanced meals rich in proteins, carbs and fats. Do not resort to protein shakes only because you are lazy and don’t feel like making yourself some delicious meal with real food.

You can’t skip one or two meals everyday for the rest of you life and replace them with protein supplements. NO! But you can take one shake when you are on the go and really don’t have time for a real home made meal.

What about protein supplements for weight loss?

Some of you may have heard, read or even tried shakes, drinks, bars and other high protein and low fat supplements for weight loss. There are a few very popular weight loss programs (Medifast and WonderSlim) based on such supplements. They use them as meal replacements for one or more daily meals.

Even the greatest disbelievers can’t ignore the facts all over the Internet that such weight loss plan is very easy to follow and really help people lose weight with almost no efforts:

• no starvation
• easy to store and prepare shakes and other protein drinks
• reduced and controlled intake of calories and fats
• as surprising as it may sound, it turns that meal replacements are cheaper than the meals they replace

More details and benefits of WonderSlim diet and Medifast diet read here
If you wonder how to get started there are wonderful weight loss starter kits

My personal opinion

What I particularly like about meal replacement (protein supplemented) diet plans is the fact they do not cause mental or physical stress for the body by making you eat (chew) healthy foods you hate…even if you don’t like protein supplements’ taste (which I seriously doubt) all you have to do is to drink it and you won’t have a long bad taste in the mouth

Bottom line …

Well, protein supplements for weight loss work very successfully. They really can help you lose weight and maintain it afterwards, but they can’t do it all alone…you need at least one healthy real food meal a day and a well balanced physical activity at least 3 times a week. Not that you won’t lose weight without exercises, but with them it’s more natural for the body and much more quickly for you.

So you will be almost right to think that everything delicious in this world is high in calories.

That’s awful but I can’t help it. I order large French fries every time I order anything at Mc Donald’s. I know they are mostly fat and sodium – nothing healthy, but these are the facts – fast food restaurants are not offering healthy food. And that’s my opinion only I do not mean to offend any to the restaurants offering such food. It’s a matter of personal choice whether you dine at KFC or Mc Donald’s.

I think fast food restaurants are not the type of restaurants where you should have breakfast or lunch every day. If you are on the go, if you don’t have lunch or dinner at home – yes, you can have a Big Mac or a cheeseburger (it has fewer calories than the Big Mac according to the Mc Donald’s nutrition facts), otherwise – no.

I am sure if you had a comparison chart of all fast food nutrition facts of the most popular restaurants you would sit down a start calculating which one of your favorite menus has fewer calories thus you will decide whether you should dine at Wendy’s, Burger King, Dominoes, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, etc. And don’t forget to enjoy your meal, because it’ll be your first and last fast food meal for the week.

A few years ago I read about a man, who lost weight eating only hamburgers at Mc Donald’s. That’s ridiculous! Even if this guy has lost some weight, I really doubt the hamburgers have helped Probably he’s been eating so much before this strange “diet” that the small portioned fast food meal has been like a diet for him.

I know that many celebrities like Amy Winehouse and Mily Sires enjoy fast food without caring about the nutrition facts behind every hamburger, sandwich or fries portion. And that’s an example you should not follow. Once a week on fast food is OK and more than that is just not recommended.

The low fat smoothie recipes I have listed below are really very quick to prepare – not more than 5 to 10 minutes – and do not require preliminary preparation of the ingredients (like boiling or else).

Here are a few low fat smoothie recipes you can easily prepare in no more than 5 minutes:

Acai-Blueberry Smoothie

Preparation time: 5 min

Servings: 4

Ingredients:
100 g frozen acai pulp (6 tbsp)
2 cups frozen blueberries
1 banana
1/2 cup low fat milk
1 1/2 cups low-fat yogurt (vanilla)
2 tbsp of honey
1 cup ice

Preparation:
Cut banana in half and blend all ingredients, except ice, in a blender until smooth. Add ice; blend again until the drink gets perfectly smooth. Serve immediately.

Pomegranate Smoothie

Preparation time: 5 min

Servings: 2

Ingredients:
1 cup pomegranate juice
1 carton fat free yogurt (vanilla)
2 tbsp of honey
1/2 cup ice

Preparation:
Blend all ingredients, except ice, in a blender until smooth. Add ice; blend again until the drink gets frothy. Serve immediately.

Low fat smoothie recipes you can easily prepare in 10 minutes:

The Perfect Wake-Up Smoothie

Prep. Time: 10 min

Servings: 8

Ingredients:
1 banana
1/2 cup blackberries (fresh)
1 cup apple cinder (chilled)
1 carton low fat yogurt
1 cup fat free milk
2 tbsp of honey
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

Preparation:
Slice banana and blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth. Serve immediately.

Mango-Ginger Smoothie

Calories: 142 per 2000 calorie diet. Saturated fat 1 gram. The smoothie does NOT contain Monounsaturated and Polyunsaturated fats.

Prep. Time: 10 min

Servings: 4

Ingredients:
2 cups mango chunks (Preferably frozen for thicker icy drink, but if you can’t find any, seed and peel and cut 2 fresh mangos into chunks and freeze for about 2 hours)
1 cup fresh pineapple cut into cubes
1 carton low fat yogurt
1/2 cup fat-free milk
1/4 cup nonfat dry milk powder (optional)
2 tbsp of honey
1/4 tsp ground ginger

Preparation:
Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth.