Did you overindulge in sweets and fats during the holidays?

Are you belting your pants one notch looser than before the holidays?

Don’t worry. You can turn the weight gain and internal body toxication around in as little as one week.

Forget about grandiose diets and long lists of healthy ingredients.
You know from experience that those diets never last for long because they are too complicated.

Think simple. Eat one huge live veg salad for either lunch or dinner. Make sure it contains a dark green leaf like spinach or dark romaine lettuce plus any number of other veggies incl. cucumber, celery, carrot, tomato, sprouts, radishes, etc., with a small side portion of whatever else you want to eat for the meal.

And move your body daily…. get to the gym, climb stairs, take a walk, do a yoga tape.

That’s it. Just do it every day for one or two weeks. You’ll be amazed!

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Another small but significant step has been taken to improve the future prospects of Planet Earth.

A hotel in Sweden has become the first in the world to introduce Meat Free Monday – and may also see an entire chain of hotels join the campaign – serving only meat-free meals on a Monday.

The Nordic Light Hotel in Stockholm, Sweden, will become the first hotel in Nordic Choice Hospitality Group to implement MFM, beginning with a launch party later today.

A number of hotels already support weekly meat-free day initiatives. But rather than offering good vegetarian options to support MFM in addition to a normal menu – which the hotel does as a matter of course throughout the week – all meals at Nordic Light will be completely meat-free on a Monday, including a la carte, breakfast menus and room service.

Nordic Choice operates 170 hotels across five brands. If the campaign is rolled out across the board it will become the first hotel group in the world to remove meat from its menus at the start of the week.

Why is this significant? First, meat production is a tremendous producer of deadly greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Secondly, the production of meat hogs up many of the planets precious resources like water and grain that can be used much more efficiently to nourish the world’s hungry population.

Read more

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Wondering how to bake this season with more natural sugar substitutes so that you don’t overload your loved ones with sugar?

Do you associate holiday cheer with old family favorites such as eggnog, sugar cookies, or plum pudding? You’re not alone.

As holiday festivities continue, we tend to socialize more and, for many of us, our consumption of sweets increases dramatically. While we may be able to resist the temptation at any other time of the year, the holiday season tends to unhinge our common sense about eating a moderately low-sugar diet.

I recommend baking traditional favorite sweets with more natural sugar substitutes that are far less dangerous than sugar to your health. My favorite sweetening combo for many recipes is brown rice syrup and liquid stevia. Both are considered low glycemic foods.

Brown rice syrup does raise blood sugar levels, but because it’s a complex carbohydrate, it acts on the body much more gently than any of the harsher sugars.

Stevia, derived from the herb of that name, does not at all initiate an insulin reaction at all.

Why the combination of brown rice syrup and stevia? I find that the mellow sweetness of brown rice syrup balances out the harsher sweet taste of stevia to create a pleasant result. The positive reaction of family and friends to my baked goods also confirms my choice.

One of my favorite recipes that uses this sweetening combo is Blueberry Cobbler.

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For weight control, put your food on a plate.

I know it may seem obvious to some of you. Putting your food on a plate before eating makes common sense, doesn’t it? Not.

For anyone who has added a few extra pounds as many of us did over the holidays, placing food on a plate before eating may not be so obvious after all.

Think in terms of breaking open a bag of chips and diving into it mindlessly. Get it?

Well… I’m here to remind you, that if you want to lose that extra fat you accumulated over the holidays (who doesn’t?), you’ll need to place your food single layer on a plate. And I do mean a plate, not a bowl, which obscures quantities.

Take my celery stick. It’s a great little snack. The celery is light; the bit of nut butter in the stick helps psychologically because of its luxurious creaminess and its fat content helps satisfy the appetite.

Try it and see how you like it.

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