If you want to stop cravings, the first step is to give your body the nutrition it needs. Your body is designed to make you seek out the foods it requires for good health. If you starve it of important nutrients it will send you rummaging through the fridge and the cupboards to find them. You will eat almost on autopilot, trying to satisfy a deficit you can’t even name. Even when you are full you will still want to eat more.
When you want to lose weight you must start first by adding in everything your body has been missing. Only then will your poor, nutritionally starving body breathe a sigh of relief and relax its desperate quest.
The first need – and the easiest to satisfy – is thirst. If you crave sweet foods then this is your confused primeval body telling you to eat some fruit so it can have the water stored inside the fruit. This is why a piece of chocolate or spoonful of icecream is so moreish. Your body did not actually want the chocolate, icecream or other sweet thing. It wanted the water it thought would come with it. So the moment your mouth is empty you want more. You can devour a whole chocolate bar or tub of icecream, bite by bite, when you’re not really hungry.
Or you can eat a piece of fruit. Or get your piece of chocolate or scoop of icecream, put it in a bowl and put the rest away, drink a couple of glasses of water and then have your treat. It will be much more satisfying. You can finish by brushing your teeth. You’ll be amazed how much easier it is to resist the rest of the chocolate or icecream.
Eating the Right Foods – It’s Not about What You Leave Out of Your Diet, Pg 1
Attractiveness Versus Perfect Beauty – The Great Divide 
Apple Cinnamon Bran Muffin Recipe 
Is 20 Minutes of Exercise a Day Is Enough to Get You Fit? 
8 Natural Metabolism Boosters For Weight Loss Eating the Right Foods – It’s Not about What You Leave Out of Your Diet, Pg 1
Attractiveness Versus Perfect Beauty – The Great Divide
Many misguided women want to be beautiful. Perfectly, ideally beautiful. Frankly it’s overrated. Real perfect beauty is off-putting. It intimidates both men and women. Women resent it. Men are afraid to approach it, are awkward and tongue-tied in its presence. Unless they are high-status men who see it as the trophy to which they are entitled.
Sadly too many of us look at some one part of ourselves we see as imperfect, awful or even repulsive. “I hate my legs,” we moan, or “Ewww, look at my flabby upper arms. Look at them swing when I wave. Yuck!” “My nose is awful. If only I had a nose like hers. Then I’d be happy.”
We cripple our confidence with our critical evaluations of our features. We think perfection is what it takes to be attractive. But it’s not. Just the opposite. Perfection repels.
What we should each of us aim for is attractiveness. And attractiveness is about joy, vitality and good health.
Good health is luscious hair, glowing skin and clear eyes, a trim body (some muscle tone and a moderate amount of fat to plump out the skin), good teeth and a mild, pleasant scent.
Vitality is a vigorous use of a healthy body, grace and freedom of movement, liveliness, energy and excellent posture.
Joy is a welcoming smile, a positive approach to life, a delight, gratitude and appreciation for all we have.
Imagine a person like that. Imagine you see them across the room at a party. Are you attracted? Would you like to stand next to them, talk to them? Would you like to be their friend? Would you like to get to know them better, wake up to them tomorrow, sit across a breakfast table from them?
Do you feel like wandering over and striking up a conversation? If so, you’ve just been attracted.
Now imagine a perfect-looking person. Fantastic figure, perfect features, immaculately waved hair. Not a flaw to be seen. They could have stepped off a movie screen. Out of a beauty magazine. You can’t help but stare. They are mesmerising. Unreal.
Do you feel like wandering over and striking up a conversation?
Or do you cringe with embarrassment at the very thought?
For how could such a perfect, flawless person need us to be their friend, their lover? How could they need anything when clearly they have it all?
For us to be the successful social animals we are designed to be, we need attractiveness, not perfect beauty. We need to forgive our flaws and forget them. To work to achieve good health, vitality and joy, the sort of beauty that is its own reward.
Apple Cinnamon Bran Muffin Recipe
Convincing my kids to eat a healthy breakfast is nigh impossible, so this weekend, my wife was looking to put together a new muffin recipe, with a goal of incorporating apple flavor to lure them in, and sneaking in whole wheat for nutrition. These delicious apple cinnamon bran muffins were the result.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup Quick Oats
- 1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour
- 1/2 cup Ground Flax
- 1/2 cup All Bran Buds
- 1 cup All Purpose Flour
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 TBSP cinnamon
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1/3 cup apple butter
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup apple cider
- 3 apples, finely chopped or diced (Granny Smith, or other tart firm variety)
via livefitblog.com
