Living Right - Losing Weight

It’s a common question in diet forums and blogs: is there such a think as a fat burning breakfast?
What should I eat for breakfast in order to maximize fat loss?
First, let’s get rid of the obvious stuff:
A fat burning breakfast does not equal no breakfast at all!
You should never skip breakfast.
Skipping breakfast does only makes you tired and grumpy and stressful which is even worse then it sounds (look up my article concerning stress and your diet for more detail), it also makes it more plausible that you’ll compensate by eating a bigger lunch.
Second (and this is true only if you don’t intend to workout in the morning) a fat burning breakfast means then you should eat a relatively low carb and low sugar breakfast.
This is easier then you think:
Instead of focusing on white bread, coffee, or cereal
Just drink orange juice, eat an egg or omelet with some vegetables and slim cheese or cottage cheese.
There are many more options for a good low carb breakfast menu, don’t settle for anything less then a diverse menu that you will enjoy.
The benefit of this kind of breakfast is low calorie consumption. The lower calorie consumption the more fat reserves your body will use.
But is that the best you can do? Of course not.
To really achieve a fat burning breakfast, you should also exercise in the morning.
But that raises the question: should you eat before or after the workout.
Well, it is common belief that you should eat only after the workout, but the belief is wrong for two reasons.
First, you need energy to workout.
Second, when you wake up, your body is in preservation mode.
You haven’t eaten all night, and your body doesn’t want to get rid of the excess fat.
It holds on at it as if your life depends on it.
So my idea for a fat burning breakfast is this:
When you wake up, eat a small portion of a high complex carb food of some sort. This can be whole grain cereals or whole grain bread.
That way you get your metabolic process going and you get your body ready for exercise and fat burning.
If you do not eat before you workout your body will burn less fat.
After the workout you can allow yourself another portion of a high protein food such as egg or tuna fish that will help you build muscle (which are also important for fat burning since muscle consumes more energy even at rest).
So here it is, the fat burning breakfast: a small high carb snack before you workout and then another small meal.
Now get to it!

Click Here to find out what’s wrong with your diet
Click Here to use your mind and make your diet easier

Good luck,

David H. Mason

P.S
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Cheap diets are hard to find. Let’s face it, dieting can be a costly business.
If you are looking for cheap diets, you might be disappointed.
The problem is this:
Fatty food is usually cheaper then healthy foods or low fat foods.
Dieting aids are usually expensive.
A diet program that includes instruction of any sort is expensive too.
Training in a gym means a monthly fee which alleviates expanses.
All of these can build up to burn a hole in you bank account.
Obviously, going on a diet does not happen in a void.
Yes, a lot of us have weight issues,
But a lot more of us have money issues.
You should not feel bad for looking for cheap diets.
Actually, money problems and concerns can actually disrupt your diet.
Eventually, if you’re looking for cheap diets,
You’ll have to create them yourself.
Here are some tips that will help you:
#1 Avoid unnecessary products
Our fast lives dictate that we buy ready made products.
The problem is: readymade low fat products are expensive.
Instead, try to find good recipes and invest the time on cooking your own food.
You might even find out you’re a better cook then you thought!
Also, avoid organic foods.
Even though organic got a lot of buzz lately,
A recent research found that there is no big difference health wise between this kind of food and regular food.
The major difference is that regular food is cheaper.
Most importantly, you should cut down on leisurely products.
By leisurely products I don’t mean caviar,
I mean sweetened beverages,
Ice cream and visits at the local restaurant.
Avoid these and you’ll significantly cut down expenses.
#2 create your own diet program
Instead of buying trendy dieting aids and starting fancy diet programs,
You can just as well create your own diet program.
This just might be easier that it sounds.
True, you are probably not experts on the matter,
That’s why a lot of people go to specialists that will dictate a proper diet for them and advise them along the way.
But you can become experts on your own.
There’s plenty of information available online about cheap diets.
And you can buy a decent book that costs no more then 20$-40$ that can be used as a proper guide.
This will most certainly help you in the search for cheap diets.
#3 You don’t need to go to the gym
For a lot of people, going to the gym is a favorable option.
The whole training atmosphere can give you motivation to do a proper workout and race for your target weight.
But if you’re looking for cheap diets then the gym is one of the first things that you should scratch off your list,
Since they are usually fairly expensive.
Instead, you have to find the way to do your workout at home.
This is easier then it sounds.
Walking and running is always available (no expenses on going outside!),
As well as sit-ups and push ups. You can even do a cardio workout in front of your TV set.
The problem is only your motivation,
Find ways to get yourself motivated and you can save on going to the gym.
To sum,
If you want to find cheap diets and cut costs of your weight loss program,
You will have to trust yourself.
It’s not easy but it’s possible.
I hope this will help you out,
Click Here to find out what’s wrong with your diet
Click Here to use your mind and make your diet easier

Good luck,

David H. Mason

P.S
Please share your thoughts and comment

Counting calories is considered almost a precondition to dieting.
But is it that important?
Can’t you lose weight without reading the tag of everything you eat?
Let me paint you a little picture:
You open your fridge,
Your eye catches a fruit yogurt.
You really want that yogurt.
You start thinking: “what did I eat today?”, “can I allow myself this yogurt?”
You reach for the yogurt and start looking for the nutrient table.
Then you start deciphering the table and the meaning of these calories.
You decide to eat the yogurt.
It only took you a few minutes and you even feel a little guilty about it.
Sounds familiar?
This is what a dieting person goes through every day.
But I say:
Isn’t it enough that we need to know what we eat and when we eat?
Do we have to become a human calorie calculator?
Must we count calories to burn fat?
No, we must not.
We can stop counting every calorie and still lose weight in a satisfactory manner.
Of course you should have proper knowledge about what you should eat and how much of it.
The problem is: people become fanatics.
Being on a diet, we can’t just eat whatever we want whenever we want it (yes, we are still on a diet),
But we also shouldn’t ourselves constantly with counting calories to burn fat properly.
For example:
If you know your diet tells you to eat a 400 calorie meal,
It can be translated to eat 350-450 calorie meal (as long as you don’t just add 50 calories to each meal of the day).
You can count calories in broader strokes and still lose real weight.
Believe me, the relief of not having to count every calorie will worth much more than the occasional 100-150 calories per day which you might eat.
The important thing is to set yourself free.
I’m not exaggerating.
If you’ve been doing it for a while stopping the calorie counting is so refreshing,
You’ll feel like a different person.
But don’t mistake it with paying less attention.
You actually have to pay more attention, not to calories, but to what feels right.
In the long run, the motivation to keep going is way more vital than the extra few calories.
You should change your state of mind from:
“I must count calories to burn fat”
To:
“I must know my calories to burn fat”
Concentrate on the content of the food, its’ nutrition value and not the difference between a 200 kcal sandwiches to a 230 kcal one.
This state of mind will help you stick to your diet.
And more importantly it will help you make your diet easier and calmer.
Don’t you want that?
Don’t you want to enjoy your diet? Or at least not suffer?
Sure you do.
Remember: a good diet should give you balance, not rob you of it.
Click Here to find out what’s wrong with your diet
Click Here to use your mind and make your diet easier

Good luck,

David H. Mason

When there are so many diets plans to choose from,
You may be surprised to know that the best one is none of them.
The best one is your own personal diet plan.
If you’ve tried dieting before and been around people who diet like I have,
You should have already noticed the variety of diets and methods out there.
There are enough diet plans to make us believe there must be one diet plan perfect for us.
Well, that may just be true.
But are you willing to go through all of them to find out?
I definitely don’t expect you to.
Since a readymade diet is never really tailored to your specific needs, body or mind set, it will almost certainly be less than a perfect match.
A diet plan that doesn’t fit you can be frustrating. And frustration from your diet is a sure recipe for quitting your diet.
I can however offer you an interesting alternative:
Make your own personal diet plan.
Sounds tough, doesn’t it?
It shouldn’t.
All you need is the right knowledge, and this knowledge is everywhere.
You can read some diet books, have some sessions with a professional dietician or surf the web just like you’re doing now.
Any of the above will get you this knowledge if you are willing to look for it.
But of course, I don’t expect you to be better than the pros, so there are a couple of courses you can take.
The first option is for the more serious folks out there and you don’t have to do it if you feel like it’s too hard.
You can make your own personal diet plan with no assistance at all
Start from the basics – learn about carbs and the effects of different sorts of foods on the body,
Then move to meal plans and exercise plans.
I can assure you, it’s not simple and it takes some time,
But after you’re done, you have a real chance to make a change in your life.
And better than that, you can start helping others.
The bottom line is: achievable but will definitely require some time and lots of knowledge.
If you don’t think you’re up for this challenge,
You don’t have to make your personal diet plan from scratch.
Just take an existing diet plan and tweak it to fit your own needs.
If you have the necessary knowledge, you can easily transform a boring diet to a nice and easy one.
So go ahead, and make your favorite personal diet plan, it will be much easier to keep up with when you can change it to your liking.
The bottom line: totally doable and very effective.
Anywhere between these two options is also a possibility,
For example, you can make the meal plan on your own and tweak an existing exercise program to fit it.
You can start on your own then make the final touches with a certified pro.
The important point is: your own personal diet plan is definitely the best diet plan out there.
Click Here to find out what’s wrong with your diet
Click Here to use your mind and make your diet easier

Good luck,

David H. Mason

P.S
Please share your thoughts and comment

Most adult people have jobs and most jobs are stressful or time consuming.
When you have no time, it’s hard to squeeze in a balanced diet.
If you’re looking for the best diet for work you should familiarize yourself with the common problems.
Here are some problems with fitting a good diet for working men and women and good ways to deal with them:
1. There’s only enough time for fast food
When planning a good “diet for work” we must find a way to avoid fast food.
There are several options:
The cheap option is to make your own lunch and bring it with you.
When you cook your own food you get to control every ingredient that gets into your plate.
And also, it cuts down costs which can always be an issue while dieting.
Of course, cooking is time consuming,
And some work environments don’t have norms that support brining your own food.
So the expensive option is to keep eating out but either you find a better place to eat, order a more diet oriented meal (even McDonalds have some).
Just remember to calculate approximately how many calories you consume.
You’ll be surprised how many calories can hide in a regular salad dressing…
2. A Stressful environment
Unfortunately, a lot of work environments are stressful.
Stress, as I’ve stated some times before, is a devastating enemy to your diet.
When stressed, the mind goes to auto-pilot with one goal:
Reduce stress.
How should you reduce stress?
By whatever simple solution is available.
For overweight people, this solution often involves eating “emotional food”.
A diet for work should approach these issues.
There are two solutions and they are both difficult to implement: first, you should always try to improve your work environment (easier said than done obviously),
And second, you should manage your own stress better.
Find productive ways to get rid of it and be aware of its’ effects on your eating habits.
3. Low energy and abundance of snacks and coffee
A long day of working at the office can be exhausting.
What will most people do when they’re exhausted?
Eat a snack or drink a cup of coffee.
When planning the best “diet for work”, we don’t have that privilege.
So what to do?
First, you should see to it that you get enough sleep.
Not only does enough sleep build our energy, it also helps with your metabolic processes and helps manage stress.
Second, you should replace regular snacks with better sources of energy like fruits or even granola bars.
Not only are they healthier, they will not give you a short high and a quick down as most snacks.
Third, it’s better to eat a small lunch that will energize you instead of make you sleepy.
Take care of your energy levels,
Don’t allow yourself to get very tired at any point.
And in regards to coffee, there’s a debate how it affects your diet.
In any way you should try not to drink too much of the stuff and not right before or after a meal.
Dieting is about control of your eating habits.
A “diet for work” contains unique challenges for us to handle.
Get familiarized with these challenges, deal with them or work around them.
Don’t let them get in the way of your diet.

Click Here to find out what’s wrong with your diet
Click Here to use your mind and make your diet easier

Good luck,

David H. Mason

Every part of a diet has it’s own set of difficulties.
Knowing these difficulties in advance can give you a fighting chance to surpass them.
During your diet, you will have to fight of temptations and doubts.
If your diet is hard on you, you will question if it’s worth it.
If your diet doesn’t include immediate lose of weight, you will doubt if it’s good at all.
So to prepare yourself for these difficulties, here are four advices that can help keep you going:

#1 A fun, custom made diet
The first, and probably the most important advice is this:
Choose a diet that will not make you suffer,
Moreover, choose a diet program that will include different sorts of meals that you’ll enjoy.
If something is not fun enough, customize it to make it fun.
Add something of your own.
A diet that is tailored for your abilities and your taste of food (within limitations of course) will be much easier to follow.

#2 Friends and family
Some people hide their diets from their loved ones.
They keep it a secret.
That’s not what you want to do.
Friends and family are a great source of support during a diet.
It’s very good to have someone to share your ups and downs with.
One or more of them might even join you on your program, that’s even better.
Being honest of your needs will make things easier. For example, you won’t find yourself sitting in a pizza parlor, holding your hand, just because your kids wanted a pizza.

#3 Avoiding Temptations
The best way not to break your diet is simply not have the option for it.
Facing temptations on a daily basis is good for building character – but it’s bad for your diet.
If you have a craving for sweets and there are snacks lying around, the chance of you choosing an apple to subdue your hunger decreases.
Your body is still used to eating the things that are wrong for you,
Try to get rid of these in advance,
You’ll find it much easier to re-educate yourself.

#4 Think of the next moment as every other moment
You have started this diet for a reason. Do you remember?
It could be to improve your health or self esteem or any other reason.
The problem is that when confronted with temptations we tend to forget these goals, even for a short moment.
We think to ourselves: what can one snack do? Or, tomorrow I’ll go for a jog.
Basically, during everyday life, we give much more attention to our current desires then our future ones.
So, the next time you are confronted with such a temptation, just remind yourself that this moment matters!
That this moment is exactly like the next one, and this chain of moments will eventually bring you to you goal.

Obviously, there are many more techniques and advices that might help you.
These too are most beneficial if they are tailored sown for you.
My suggestion is to arm yourself with as much knowledge and as many good advices as you can find.
It might take time, but it can really make all the difference.

You can read more about dieting psychology HERE
I hope I these advices help you out in you journey,
Good luck,
David

We’ve been talking a lot lately about what can go wrong with your diet, but one of the most obvious things I intentionally left out until now is avoiding the wrong food.
In any diet, you should have a good and organized meal plan,
But aside of the meal plan, you should be aware of the foods which can really harm your diet.
There are two main categories of wrong foods: The obvious ones and the ones you don’t know of.
With the obvious ones, there is the fast foods, the sweets, the snacks etc.
The problem with fast food is not the type of food you eat but the quality of the product and the way it is being cooked.
For example: eating a big hamburger in a whole meat bun, if you cook the hamburger in the oven instead of frying it, you use fresh lettuce and vegetables and you don’t use a lot of gravy, you have got a decent meal.
I’m not suggesting eating such a meal every day, but it is definitely a legitimate meal.
On the other hand, when you eat the same meal “fast food style”, you get a lot more calories, much more oil, lesser quality vegetables and white bread.
And this is how you turn a not-so-bad meal to a calorie bomb.
You have to really understand this concept of fast food and avoid it at all costs.
The problem is that consuming fast food is easier then cooking your own meal.
It’s not easy to change, but this is something you must cross it of your list.
The same goes for sweets and snacks. There are good substitutes for those, use them!
Energy bars, granola snacks and all kinds of low fat snacks are everywhere,
You just need to get those available to you when you crave a snack.

As for the wrong foods you don’t know about: this is a much bigger problem.
During a diet we sometimes need to improvise, especially when we’ve been at it for a long while.
You find yourself improving your meals and switching some ingredients around.
While this is a good idea which can help you enjoy your diet,
You have to be very careful with it.
There is always a good reason to why a meal plan is the way it is - so pay good attention to what you are adding and how it affects you meal or your entire meal plan.
For example, some people love eating everything with ketchup,
It’s not a problem as long as you know how many calories it adds to your meal.
I once found myself eating a specific sauce which that was as high in calories as a third of my main meal.
It took me a month to realize that I’m eating a lot more calories than I planned.

To sum up, try to be very aware of what you’re eating so you won’t make you diet harder with no good reason,
In a diet, the right information is priceless.
You can read more about dieting psychology HERE
Good Luck,
David