Great Resources to Start your Journey

Want to lose weight? Here are some resources that REALLY helped as I embarked on my weight loss journey. Seriously.

1. Hungry Girl. Visit www.hungry-girl.com and sign up for her daily (yes, an email every day) emails with great snack ideas and meals. She takes "normal food" and figures out how to make it healthy. I loved her when I was easing into healthier eating. She is great for the beginning changes in lifestyle.

2. Eat This, Not That, from Men's Health. Again, this is a daily email. I like daily emails bc they remind me, first thing - everyday - that my goal is to eat healthy and make good decisions. Sign up for the free e-newsletter here: http://eatthis.menshealth.com/home

3. Find an app or site that will help you track calories and foods. I love Sparkpeople.com a good friend of mine loves Loseit.com ... Also, Weight Watchers has one too, I think. After each meal (snacks too!), enter your foods and keep track of your intake. Don't do too little, but of course don't eat too much! Sparkpeople also allows me to track my fitness stuff and then gives a differential so I know how many calories I burned over what I consumed. Know this: to lose ONE pound, you must burn 3500 more calories than you consume.

4. Fast Food Salvation: We are busy people and can't always cook every meal. For that, I keep a list in my glove compartment of 35 fast food options that are less than 500 calories. VERY handy! http://weightloss.about.com/od/eatsmart/a/052207a.htm

5. Not a resource, but still important: Eat breakfast. Seriously. Everyday. Kick off your metabolism within an hour of waking up and your body will learn to trust that you are going to feed it. Then, eat every 3 hours or so. A lot of times our bodies horde calories out of fear it won't get fueled again soon. Give your body what it wants (and what you probably love if you are like me): FOOD. Just not too much :)

Linking and Thinking More

Here is a round-up of links I've received lately ... the good ones, at least.

Can you be healthy at any size?
Women's Health is asking a question we all want answered. Is BMI really that important? Can you be healthy and still "overweight"?

Cut your Carbohydrate Footprint
The guys over at Eat This, Not That point out hidden sugars in what have become everyday "health" foods - like store-bought granola!

31 Days to Healthier Holidays
Sparkpeople has provided daily tips to get us through the next month of holiday hoopla. Hooray! They provide a nice calendar that will look great hanging on fridges or cubicle walls.

The 9 Best Winter Foods
Another winner from Eat This, Not That is a great introduction to winter fruits and veggies that might spark some creativity in your kitchen. I know it did in mine!

Thanksgiving Recipe Roundup

Here are a couple of Thanksgiving Recipe links that have found their way to my inbox in the past week.

They are definitely worth the share, trust me!

Women's Health: Delicious Low-Fat Thanksgiving Side Dish Recipes
(I love the idea of twice baked potatoes anytime of the year!)


Hungry Girl's Ode to Pumpkin
(HIGHLY recommend the Pumpkin Smash.)

And more Hungry Girl: Your One-Stop Guilt-Free-Thanksgiving-Recipe Spot!
(She is really good at creating healthy versions of normal food!)

And for the day after ... some great ideas for the leftovers!


Taste of Home's Just-Like-Thanksgiving Turkey Meat Loaf


Hungry Girl's "Gobble Gobble Cranberry Grilled Cheese"
(The second recipe on the page.)


My own Turkey and "Dumplings"
(I made this one up last year.)

Tip of the Week

I know it's only Monday, but there is no way any article can make me happier than this tip. I'm calling it the tip of the week, but to be honest, it might warrant tip of the year!

DID YOU KNOW: Calcium helps your body metabolize fat more efficiently by increasing the rate at which it gets rid of fat as waste (yes, that kind). Read a bit about the study that showed this here.

This means that milk after your pizza (or donut, or  fries, or hamburger, etc.) can help mitigate the damage caused by those foods!!!


Natalie Note: I wonder if ice cream counts as the calcium-rich food or the fatty food? Since I went for McDonald's reduced fat ice cream after eating crinkle-cut fries and a piece of buffalo pizza (Seriously, just one! I'm very proud of this - only 225 calories) during the Cowboys game yesterday, I'd like to think I put this theory to work.

Keep reading the Women's Health "article" for even more tips of increasing the rate you metabolize foods!

This one was also pretty eye-opening to me: "Knocking back the equivalent of just two mixed drinks (or two glasses of wine or two bottles of beer) puts the brakes on fat burning by a whopping 73 percent." WHOA. Good thing I just stuck to coffee (with milk - more calcium!) during the game!

I'm also going to add green tea to my afternoon regimen. This will be nice as the weather gets colder.  Right now I have a box of Chai tea in my study carrel at school, but it can easily be replaced with green tea. This is just one benefit to drinking green tea, by the way. It also has amazing powers to strengthen your immune system - something we can all use as we head into the winter season!