Day Lillies

Day Lillies
This site does not give medical advise. Consult your physican if you have a medical problem. This is a conversation among people who are finding a new direction in eating and living.

Monday, June 20, 2011

How To Quit Drinking Coffee If you are trying to lose Weight!

Drinking coffee while dieting slows down your weight loss.  I know this from personal experience.  Years ago I went on a 1200 per day calorie diet and found to my sorry (I love Coffee)  that on days when I drank coffee, my weight loss came to a standstill.  I've researched and can't seem to find the reason, unless the stimulation in coffee changes the metabolism so that calories are conserved instead of burned.

Even though coffee is entirely legal – as evidenced by the prevalence of coffee shops all across every town – it is a stimulant, and it is actually quite similar to a drug. Of course, coffee does not have the adverse effects on the body that many drugs have, but if you try to quit drinking coffee, you will find that the withdrawal symptoms will make it feel a lot like you are trying to quit something much harder than coffee! If you have come to the realization that you are dependent on coffee to make it through the day, and you want to break this cycle, here are a few tips for weaning yourself off coffee – without experiencing the headaches and fatigue many others experience!

Slowly cut back: By slowly cutting back on your coffee intake, you can eventually reach a place where you no longer need coffee. The first step of cutting back is to figure out exactly how many milligrams of caffeine you consume in a day; once you have come up with this figure, try to cut twenty percent off this original level of caffeine every week, until you are no longer dependent on coffee!

Find alternatives: There are certainly a lot of alternatives to coffee - but realize that this does not mean you should switch to energy drinks instead! There are plenty of foods that are “energy foods,” and once you start adding these foods to your regular diet, you will be able to cut coffee out far more quickly!

Drink water: Water is the biggest need for your body, so when you start cutting back on coffee, you should help your body make the transition by giving it as much water as you can. Water will make it less likely that you end up with those nasty caffeine headaches, and it will also help to give you natural energy.

Even though coffee is unlike a drug in that it is not horrible for your body, it is always nice to be able to have coffee as a “treat” instead of because you are dependent on it; once you follow these tips, you will be that much closer to cutting coffee off your “needs” list completely!

How To Eat A Healthy Breakfast On The Go

                                          We all have heard it said before that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but despite this assertion, many of us are simply “too busy” to make sure we get a healthy breakfast in us. But if you truly want to be as healthy as possible, it will be important that you make sure to eat something at the start of the day – and even if you are “too busy,” there are a lot of options for eating a healthy breakfast on the go.

If you are going to be eating your breakfast on the go, you will need food that you can take with you in the car or on the subway – but this does not just mean you have to bring a bagel or a muffin along! One of the best ways to get your body going at the start of the day is by eating fruit, as it is healthy for you and will start you off with the energy that is necessary for moving forward in your day. Additionally, you can pack food at night – food that will be healthy and easy to take with you the next day – such as breakfast sandwiches (using regular toast, or using something like a bagel or an english muffin) or hard-boiled eggs.


A lot of people also have leftovers from their dinners, but they do not think of these as “breakfast foods,” and so they leave these leftovers in the refrigerator and end up skipping breakfast altogether – but there is nothing wrong with bringing “dinner” leftovers for your breakfast! Just load some of your extra food into a tupperware when you finish eating dinner, and the next morning you will have something that is easy to bring with you and either heat up when you get to work or eat cold on your way in!

You can already distinguish between “healthy” foods and “unhealthy” foods without any help; now, you just need to make sure you are making the effort to bring some of these “healthy” foods with you so that you will be starting your day on the right foot!

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Do You need to Lose Weight? Do you know the Symptoms of Diabetes?

The easiest way to find out if you suffer from diabetes, is to visit a doctor and get a proper analysis of your glucose. Usually for an adult it will be type 2 adult onset diabetes.  You may have any of the three diabetes types - type 1, type 2 and pregnancy type. There are common symptoms in all types of diabetes.
The most common type is diabetes type 2. If you feel like urinating quite often and especially if you also wake up at night to do it, then it may be a sign of diabetes. Increased sensation of thirst will also be experienced by you, as the kidneys increase their activity to remove the extra glucose from the blood. These two symptoms always come together.
A sudden and unexplainable weight loss - up to 3-5pounds a month is also usually determined by a high level of blood glucose. This unexpected weight loss comes as a result of the insulin not providing the cells with glucose. Therefore, there is nothing in the body that the cells  can use to transform sugar or glucose into energy, so the liver starts converting  the proteins in muscles and fat to allow the body to survive. As the readings  of the glucose become high, intense hunger may also appear.
The body asks for extra food to work properly, when its level goes down. Itches and dry skin are also symptoms of diabetes. The skin problems sometimes include dark spots in the areas of armpits and neck .  Whenever you suffer from a wound or a cut and it takes a long time to heal can be a sign of diabetes. Obviously, your blood vessels are deteriorated and this is usually due to the high quantity of glucose. Other symptoms of diabetes  are tiredness and foggy vision,  nerve tingles and numbness.  Often feet and legs will hurt at night and keep you awake.  If left untreated diabetes can lead to damaged circulation, damaged eyesight, and because of damage to blood vessels lead to strokes and heartattacks.
On the other hand, the diabetes type 1 is less common, and affects younger people. Between the first symptoms and the diagnosis of diabetes 1, there is usually only a few months. The high need for water because of thirst and frequent urinations, tiredness, extra hunger, weakness and weight loss are included in this type of diabetes,  the symptoms are almost the same for each type. These two types of diabetes are very different from one another, although the symptoms are very much similar.  People with type 1 diabetes are often born with it and type 2  diabetes is usually the result of being overweight because of incorrect eating and no exercise.  It is very important to know that any of these symptoms may be also common for other diseases, so make sure you ask for detailed professional tests when you consult a doctor. When two or more of these symptoms start showing up at the same time, the chances to have diabetes are pretty high.
Pregnancy diabetes suffered by a pregnant woman is generally without symptoms, just like the other two types of diabetes until it becomes severe enough to start showing the same classic symptoms. In rare cases, tiredness, extra urination and hunger may show up. During the 2-nd and 3-rd trimesters of pregnancy, the insulin demands of a pregnant woman are about 3 times higher than normal.

Whichever of these symptoms you may encounter, consult a doctor as fast as possible. There are many ways to prevent  type 2 diabetes development, though there is not an official way to cure it.  The best you can do is maintain control by following a scheduled meal plan, exercising and eating in moderation.
You are What you EAT!.