Having a Garden in your yard

Eating well and fresh produce can go hand in hand. Growing small garden in your yard is always great idea, you can grow, herbs, pepper, tomatoes, basil and other plant that you can buy it from gardening store.

Here are some great resources for you to look at it, check it out.

Helpful gardener has a great tips on how to grow herb garden. Site also have other gardening resources such as gardening flowers and other useful tips.
How to grow herb garden

About.com has a great section on gardening. Here is a good article that shows you what type of stuff you can do in month of June. Check out, June gardening

Heart and Mind websites that talks about more about life style improvement and slowing down and enjoying life wrote about 101 changes series that she writes there. Check out 101 changes: Plant something in your garden .

Veggie Garden tips site has a great suggestions on growing mushroom at home. I never thought of doing it, does people plant mushrooms at home? It might be good thing, check it out Mushroom gardening

Do you garden? Was this suggestions useful?

How to take off your weight and keep it off: Tools you will need : Part 1

First of you want to is to start out with is check your BMI: Body Mass Index, so you will know your weight is normal, underweight, overweight etc. So how do you know your BMI? It is easy and FREE. If you have an access to internet, check here to check your BMI.

BMI Calculator

When you will type in your height and weight, it will automatically tell you the range you will fall in. From there you can determined, if you need to lose a few pounds or more or some lucky ones may need to gain a few pounds. For sake of majority, we will assume that we need to lose a few pounds, adjust this according to your own weight gain and comfort level.

Second you want to find out how much calories you need to eat per day to lose X amount of weight.
According to Judith Beck's diet book, Complete Beck diet for life using following formula will set you in right direction for amount of daily calories you need to eat in order to lose weight. It is bit complex but I have tried it, so check it out.

For women
A =Your age * 7.31
B = 387-A
C = Your weight in lbs *4.95
D = Your height in inches * 16.78
E = C+D
F = B+ E
G = F-200 = Your daily calorie goal

 For Men
A =Your age * 9.72
B = 864-A
C = Your weight in lbs * 6.46
D = Your height in inches *13.8
E = C+D
F = B+ E
G = F-200 = Your daily calorie goal


More on Part 2.
Mgirl

Weight Loss, - pitfalls to avoid

Summer is here, are you ready? I always have to work little bit hard to get ready for summer, so I can wear summer friendly clothes. How about you?

Weight loss seemed to be simple enough someone who is fit and slim. Many experts will tell you simple, eat less and burn more calories, do exercise at least for 15 minutes. It was simple enough, then all of us would be doing it right? Let's say you even got started, but sticking to the program is harder in long run. And losing those 15 lbs are impossible, at least for me. They are like my long lost pals, who does not want to leave me at all.

What are your pitfalls? What have you tried that quite did not work for you.

1. Excersizing too fast and losing momentum and feeling drained
2. Eating more, due to more excercise, burning calories, net result zero or sometimes gain weight.
3. Eating too little, feeling tired and dizzy to do anything.
4. Seem like losing weight, but it is only water loss and causing you to dehydrated.
5. Your body getting adjusted to new excersise routine, stopping any new weight loss
6.Stop eating your favorite food, hence craving and binging on chocalte icecream later on.
7. Losing motivation, no momentum
8. Your metabilism does not budge no matter what you do, or it gets adjusted fast to your new routine
9. No support system
10. Or worse, sabotage system where someone does not want you to be fit and slim and does everything in his/her power to entice you to fall out from your goal.

These are some realistic and possible pitfalls one can have when trying to lose weight as if losing weight itself was not hard enough. No wonder we can not start and stay motivated enough to lose weight and stay fit. There are way too many distraction and friction in between.

What is yours? How do you keep it to your goal?

Image: Zenhabits.net

Spring cleaning your eating

Spring is here, many of us are clearing away and cleaning out clutter from house and cars. How about doing same for our eating and making us healthy sound?

Here are a few simple ways to spring clean your food eating habits and change your diet.

1. Eat More natural and organic food
2. Eat more rainbow color fruits and vegetables.
3. Drink more water
4. Drink less soda, alcohol
5. Exercise more.

Here are some great recipes to share to get you motivated on eating well.

Garlic and Sesame Green Bean Salad

Spicy Ginger Glazed carrots

Simple Cucumber with Hummus and Yogurt recipe

Enjoy
Mgirl

Recipe and Image source: http://visualrecipes.com

Are you an emotional eater?

Many of us can be an emotional eater. What is an emotional eater? Whenever you are stressed, feeling sad, you turn to food to make you feel better. I know, I have been there. Eating comfort food that is laden with sugar and fat may make you feel good for momentarily but will make you gain weight in long run. So how do you avoid emotional eating? Follow these strategies to stop emotional eating and stop gaining weight.

First of all, let us look at the reasons we might be eating for emotional reasons:

1. Stress (Money, Family, Work, Love, Marriage, Kids, Friends etc.,)
2. Feeling sad or down
3. Boredom (Not having an excitement or joy in life)
4. Being alone, lonely (Broken Relationship)
5. Low self esteem
6. Anxiety
7. Feeling lot of anger or resentment

There could be other problems related to above issues. I have faced most of these issues and most of my emotional eating have been at night time. No more. How? Here are some tips that helped me and it will help you too.

1. Know your trigger points. Before eating know, if you are really hungry or feeling one of the above reasons causing you to eat. 
2. Drink water first. Some times we are thirsty and we mistake it for hunger instead. Drinking water will make you full, hydrated and not gain you any inches or pound.
3. Keep Journal: Keeping a food diary or journal can help you identify what is bugging you and why do you eat those times, helping with process of not eating during those times.
4. Do something else: Find an alternative activities when you feel down, sad or angry instead of eating. Call up a good friend, listen to jokes, or watch some funny videos, read your favorite book etc.,
5. Get your ZZZs: I used to not sleep well and get all junk food during night time, watching all these late night informercials. Now, I try to get my 8 hours of sleep and nap if I can and it has helped me and my energy levels tremendously.
6. Walk it off: Whenever you feel emotional hunger showing up, walk it off. Go for jogging in a park or jump on treadmill instead. 
7. Eat Healthy stuff: If you must eat, eat healthier stuff such as apple or banana or protein bars.
8. Forgive yourself: By chance you made a mistake and binged on fatty and sugary comfort food, forgive your self and try to correct your next time instead of beating your self up.

Was these tips useful? It has worked for me and I am sure it will work for you as well. Try it.

Mgirl