Relax in less than 5 minutes

Here you have simple and easy ways to help you relax wherever you are:

Pet your dog/cat

Your pet not only gives you unconditional love, but he's also good for your health.  When you pet your dog/cat even for just a few minutes, your body releases feel-good hormones like serotonin, prolactin, and oxytocin.  At the same time, it decreases the amount of the damaging stress hormones that are released, which helps lower blood pressure, less anxiety, and even boost your immunity.

Sing a song

Turn up the radio in the car or sing in the shower.  No matter how out of tune you are, singing can make you feel happier.  Choral members who were surveyed said singing put them in a better mood and made them feel less stressed.  Singing also can be good for your breathing and posture, as well as your heart and immune system.

Take a walk

Exercise is a great way to ease stress, it helps your body produce endorphins -- the substances in your brain that make you feel good.  It also forces you to focus, helping you forget what's making you anxious.  Exercising in warm, sunny weather can boost your mood.  And if you walk briskly for at least 30 minutes, you'll meet daily exercise recommendations, and increase stress-busting benefits even more.

Chew some gum

Chewing gum can do more than freshen your breath.  According to research, chewing a stick of gum also seems to reduce stress and anxiety, as well as improve mental performance during tasks

Take a deep breath

Aromatherapy isn't just for spas.  No matter where you are, taking a deep whiff of lavender or rosemary can put you into a more relaxed state.  Inhaling those aromas can lower your levels of the stress hormone cortisol. But just the act of breathing deeply is also a stress buster.  Deep breathing sends oxygen surging through your bloodstream, helping to calm your entire body.

See you next week!

Reference: webmd.com

Enjoy your VACATIONS without diets.

 Does the thought of taking a vacation remind you of snacks, soft drinks, alcohol, food and losing control of your weight? Do you predispose yourself to gain the weight you lost this last period?

Don’t freak out! This time I'll give some tips for you to go on vacation without guilt when eating and enjoying the most without gaining weight:

• Try to prepare healthy snacks with fruits, vegetables and healthy dressings.
• If you want to avoid small eating all day, choose the snacks that you like, put them on a plate and eat only that amount.
• Always choose snacks that contain vegetables and have a fat-free dressing.
• Choose fat-free dressings such as vinegar, chili powder, lemon, soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce.
• If you know you're going out for dinner at a restaurant, try to have a very light lunch.
• Do not skip meals, try to eat at least 3 times a day, even a little.
• If you like alcohol, choose low calorie beverages such as wine and beer. Drinks with more degrees of alcohol like vodka, tequila and rum have much more calories.
• If you drink beverages containing soda, use those that don’t contain sugar.
• Whenever you can, drink natural water and add sliced fruit like watermelon, strawberry, kiwi, lemon, tangerine or orange to give it a little taste. You can add some Stevia to achieve the sweetness you want.
• Try taking a walk a day, at least 30 minutes and preferably after eating.
• Choose to be active this holiday, climb stairs, play with your children, do group sports, and go for a walk with your family.
• Relax and sleep.

Remember that holidays are to recover and take new energy.  If you go up a few extra pounds, that is no reason not to enjoy your family.  You will eventually come back home and start your healthy routines.

"There is only one life, sizes are many" M. Godoy

A little secret that will transform your diet...

This week I was thinking about those small details that we commit in our diets that lead us to failure. 

Today we will talk about PORTION SIZES.

You can choose the most wonderful diet, internationally proven, the diet of Hollywood stars, you can buy the most exotic food, but if your portion sizes are larger than indicated, everything falls apart.

The concept of a "normal portion" is entirely relative. A portion that is excessive to me may be small for someone else.

 

For example, a serving of meat is equivalent to 30g (the size of the palm of your hand) and it is a common belief that a portion of meat is 150g because that is the amount of a “small” Mc Donald's burger.

To make it simple, in recent years everyday objects have been used as reference for food portion sizes.

A poker chip = one serving of oil, butter, margarine or peanut butter = 45 kcal

A pack of cigarettes = 1 serving of meat (chicken, beef, pork, fish) or cheese = Approx 70 Kcal

A baseball or tennis ball = 1 serving of vegetables (25 kcal) or cereals (75 kcal)

A CD = one serving of breakfast bread (hot cakes, waffles, bagel) = 75-100 kcal

In this way, the next time you make a change in your habits, compare what you call a portion with what it really is and try to adapt to these new quantities.
A very simple way is to choose smaller plates, so that every meal you eat a little bit less.

 You'll see that your efforts will be well rewarded.

Best of luck!

 
 


 

10 tips to eat healthy.

This time I will give you some tips that I use in order to eat low-calorie products without having to buy expensive ones:

1. If you are used to eating cereal in the morning, try to prepare it with skim milk and add fruits like banana, strawberry, peach or pear. This way you will eat more fiber, less sugar and you will be more satisfied.

2. If you like sweet and high-calorie cereals, I recommend purchasing a large box of unsweetened cereal like oatmeal (Quaker), corn (Corn Flakes),or rice (Special K), then buy the small presentation of your favorite cereal and mix them; this way you will reduce the calories you eat at breakfast without sacrificing the flavor.

3. If you like sweet bread, cut each piece in half and eat one piece each time.

4. If you like cookies, choose the ones that do not have any filling and prefer the ones with fiber.

5. Change whole milk to skim milk.  If you're braver switch to soy milk.

6. If you're a fan of aged cheeses like Machego, Gouda or Edam, make sure that on your weekly grocery shop you buy half of them fresh like mozarella or cottage cheese and half of the ones you like.

7. If you like your eggs scrambled, prepare them in a non-stick pan to reduce the fat, use only one per person and add vegetables like squash, peppers, onions, corn, etc. You will feel more satisfied, increase your fiber intake and will reduce fat (and they will look so tasty).

8. Change to cooking oil spray and choose non-sticking pans.

9. Take 2 glasses of plain water before eating and a cup of tea or coffee after dinner. You can use stevia to sweeten your drinks (each teaspoon of sugar has 20 calories).

10. If you like soda or flavored water, try diluting them gradually, first add 1/4 of water to your soda and increase it gradually.

See you next week!

And to all this ... What are the BAD fats?

Every single bad fat is man-made.  Once again, thanks to humanity for the hole in the ozone layer, global warming, pollution and deforestation.

Commonly called "Trans", these fats are made by bombing unsaturated fat  (the good ones) with hydrogen, until they become solid and the molecules are arranged like animal fats (saturated).

According to scientific studies (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition), 30,000 deaths annually are caused by eating Transfats, due to four main reasons:

• When we include Transfats in our diet, we exclude the good fats (poly/monounsaturated).

• Since they are artificial, Trans fats stay in the bloodstream for much longer and are more capable of clogging arteries or being stored as body fat.
• Transfats block the beneficial effects of the "good" fats we consume.
• Transfats increase the levels of bad cholesterol (LDL) while lowering levels of the good one (HDL).

I hope I was clear that Transfats SHOULD NOT EXIST in our diet at all. It's the only food we can define as "universally BAD". There is no way to combine or modify them in order to make them beneficial for our health.

GOOD FATS

The general recommendation is that our diet includes 30% fat, much of which is found in the meat, egg and dairy we consume, so it is recommended that we eat 3-5 servings of fats a day to prepare our food (oil, seasonings and nuts).

Finally these are some of the products that contain a good amount of healthy fats:

Almonds	Macadamia	Olives
Cashews	Peanuts	Avocado
Hazelnuts	Sunflower Seeds	Salmon
Walnuts	Linseed Oil
Pistachios	Olive Oil

See you next week!

EAT FAT …LOSE FAT

We continue with Athenea Lara...

To lose fat you have to EAT fat, yes ... I know that at first seems that this statement makes little sense, all these years of anti - fat campaign have managed to convince us that fat is responsible for the closures tight jeans, lost buttons and increasing sizes... but surprise! THAT IS NOT TRUE! Did you know that some polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fat actually speed up yourmetabolism?

EAT FAT TO GAIN MUSCLE

To begin with, building muscle requires a lot of energy. Because a gram of fat contains a little over twice the energy of one gram of carbohydrate or protein, this makes an ideal muscle building element, PROVIDED THAT is the right type of fat and you are exercising.

EAT FAT TO STAY YOUNG

Sooner or later we have to accept it: we are getting older with each passing day ... but that does not mean you are destined to a dramatic physical and mental decline.

To date, scientists have not been able to determine what exactly makes us age, but the most popular theory is that of "free radicals ", which says that aging arises from the bombardment of free radicals to our genes .

If we protect our cells from free radicals, then we will gradually grow old and healthy. There are two ways to do this, the first is exercise and the second eating fat. Both create a protective environment to our cells if we include them in our life style on a daily basis.

Bottom line is: If you want to stay young, exercise frequently and include unsaturated fats in your diet.

Fat: Friend or Foe

This time we have invited an expert in nutrition and fitness, Athenea Lara, with over 6 years of experience, she shares her secrets:

Despite many years of hearing arguments for "anti- fat,” it is increasingly clear that the right kinds of fat make us healthier, smarter, more muscular and less fat!

In the 80 's, everything we saw or read about nutrition tried to eradicate all common dietary fats, thus giving the message that any food containing any kind of fat was harmful to our health. 

Athletes and people concerned about nutrition adopted the idea that the less fat their diet had, the better. From that moment on, a low-fat diet was fashionable.

Today it remains a challenge to change the mindset of people, and to make them understand that the correct fat is not only essential, but also very beneficial to our body. 

I’ve seen this example with my clients: none seems to have any conflict with eating a muffin, brownie, or burger ... however the vast majority shows major concerns over olive oil, dressings or a small handful of almonds in their diet.

The message that I want to give today is: FAT IS NOT THE DEVIL, but quite the contrary, it is one of our best allies to get in shape.

An important fact: Walter Willett, director of the department of nutrition at Harvard, has devoted the last years to show that since the start of the anti-fat movement, obesity has increased further and health in the general population did not improve at all.

It is true that there is a type of fat (let´s call them " bad fats ") that block our arteries, increase our adipose tissue, and accelerates aging, but it is also true that there is another type of fat ("the good one") that protects us against heart disease, damage from free radicals, increases our metabolic rate and fat burning, and can help gain muscle and testosterone production.

Next week we will talk in detail about which are good fats and how to use them to improve our health and live better...