Lose Weight in Summer

Can you lose weight in Summer? You sure can!

In Australia, we're in the beginning of the second month of Summer. Some states have certainly been having hot summer weather, sending people inside where it's cool. That means people may not be doing their usual jogging or walking to keep fit. They're staying inside instead, and maybe they're raiding the fridge in their search for coolness.

This can lead to eating too many sweet and cool things. This, added to the lack of exercise and combined with the usual Christmas season partying and good food, all adds up to danger time if you're trying to lose weight. There are some ways you can stock the fridge though, that can help you.

Keep the fridge topped up with calorie free drinks - water is still the best thirst quencher there is, so make sure you always have a jug of water in the fridge. There are a great many diet soft drinks available if you want a change from water every now and then.

There are some great cooling foods available in summer, especially grapes. Crunchy sweet grapes are a lovely snack, and don't add too many calories. Other good food ideas are sandwiches - cheese with pickles says summer to me, and I love the sandwiches nice and cool, sometimes with some chicken or turkey slices, yum!

Nuts are also a good snack. Yes, nuts are high in fat, but the fat they have is a fat that's healthy for you body. This doesn't mean you should go overboard and eat nuts all day, the weight would pile on if you did that. Nuts are high in protein though, and they have fibre too, so they fill up your tummy, and your body shouldn't get hungry as it would if you were eating sweet foods.

In summer, salads come to mind, and they can be a great way to have a healthy and low calorie meal. Be careful with the dressing you use though. There are some excellent low cal mayonnaise products available in the shops, and of course lemon juice is a great way to give raw vegetables a zing. Another interesting and no fat dressing is balsamic vinegar - excellent with fresh mushrooms and baby spinach!

For people with Wii Fit games and good air conditioning, there are lots of fun ways to exercise, alone or with friends. And of course summer in Australia is synonymous with the beach or the pool. Go outside and play in the water, fun, fun, fun!

So there are some ideas to help you lose weight over summer, enjoy!

New Years Eve Resolutions

It's Christmas time as I write this post, and New Years Eve will follow. Christmas for most means lots of fun, and lots and lots of lovely food.

New Years Eve often means New Years Eve resolutions about losing the excess weight you have, some of it caused by that lovely food. I'm not here to bring you down and tell you not to eat any of that yummy food. I'll leave it up to you to find a way to get through this time in a way that suits you.

I have written an article about these issues though, and you might like to go here to find out some health reasons to help you to do the right thing for your body.

I'm going out for Christmas lunch tomorrow, and I know I'll eat more food than I actually need. I can deal with that later, and I will deal with it, and not ignore it. I intend continuing my current exercise program tomorrow morning, even though it's Christmas.

I have multiple sclerosis MS and I'm doing my best to keep active. Doing my best currently means I get up in the morning and switch on my Wii Fit Plus, and do 30 minutes of exercise. I try to do some of the more difficult exercises, not just the easy ones. I feel as though this is helping me to keep mobile.

I've also know about healthy diet, and I'm working toward eating healthy food as much as I can. Nuts and seeds, fruit and vegetables, some dairy and meat. These are my main sources of food. I'm trying to lose some extra weight, but I'm keeping within my ideal weight range.

I hope my words on this blog and here may be of assistance to you if you're struggling to reach your own ideal weight. I have further help for you here. It may be the thing that kicks off the new and slimmer you!

Community Foodies, Week Four

For our fourth session we talked about making a plan and organising ourselves to do our work as Community Foodies, once we are all trained. The other participants and I have a good idea about what we are going to do for our presentation to the group, and that begins in week five.

I am going to do a short presentation about getting non-vegetable lovers to eat vegetables. I have been putting more vegetables into the food I serve up for our family. It has been very good because I have been made more aware about the importance of vegetables in our diet. I won't say I feel better physically for doing this, but I certainly feel I am being a better mother and wife for doing it. The physical benefits take a little long, but they are happening.

We also talked bout the importance of exercise. I am aware that I have been remiss about this one too, and I will aim at doing a lot more. It's difficult when it's winter and so cold outside!

No excuses. I have Wii Fit, and I can get my exercise inside where it's much, much warmer than outside. So, from now on, or soon, anyway, I will try very hard to get in the required thirty minutes of exercise that the health authorities recommend for adults.

Community Foodies, Week Three

This week our group talked about presenting a session to a group. As Community Foodies, we will be giving information and support to people in our community who would like help with nutrition.

That can be all manner things, from feeding children, eating for weight loss, eating for better health and others. Various diseases require different nutritional response. By the time we have finished our training, we will be far better equipped to help people out with their food needs, either by telling people what they're interested in knowing, or by letting people know who they can get the information or help from.

Someone at the group yesterday talked about hating to be called a do-gooder and getting derided for it. I thought about that for a while. Personally, I always try to do good things, but for some reason being a 'do-gooder' has become a bad thing.

I told the person they can call themselves a helper rather than a do-gooder. That is the way I see my role as a Community Foodie, as a helper to people who want my help. I will not force my opinions on people, but will be there if they would like some help.

All of the members in the group will be putting on a short presentation to the other members in a fortnights' time, and yesterday we said what we thought we might do. The range of things covered was amazing. From a small group of less than ten, we were all looking at doing something interesting and different.

I am personally interested in increasing my own vegetable intake, because I am well aware now of the importance of it. I also have a son who was a fussy eater as a young child (he's fifteen now, and much more accepting of different foods), so my idea for a presentation was about ways to hide vegetables in acceptable food for people, particularly children who don't like vegetables.

I already have some ideas on this, and I have done some research on it today as well. I will try to make it fun, and will welcome ideas from the people I give my presentation too. I will have a recipe handout, and some other information available.