9 Economical Ways to Lose Weight

If you’ve resolved to lose weight or get healthier this year, you’re not alone. According to a 2013 Outlook Survey organized by TD Ameritrade, 42% of Americans made health-related resolutions this year.

If you’re asking yourself how you’re going to lose weight and still maintain your budget, our budget experts say if you’re careful, eating a healthy diet is no more expensive than picking up that value lunch at your local fast food joint.

Here are 9 of their tips for losing weight while still maintaining a fat wallet:

1. Make monthly resolutions
When a resolution is fresh in our minds, we tend to approach it with more vigor and commitment. So instead of thinking about the whole year, break it down by month and shake up your routine with creative ideas to keep you inspired ! For example, if your goal is saving money while losing weight, resolve to get into a habit of clipping coupons in January. In February, resolve to brown bag your lunch instead of eating out. Keep making those resolutions to form new habits throughout the year.

2. Ditch the gym.
You don’t need a pricey gym club membership or a personal trainer to get healthy, says Dan Giuglianotti, a physician and certified health fitness specialist at the American College of Sports Medicine. Try to get 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise at least five days per week while watching what you eat and your clothes will start fitting better. Use a cheaper portable equipment like FitBit to track your exercise activities and keep them in check.

Christmas Season Weight Loss Tips

Christmas, or the "silly season" as it is affectionately called, is a particularly perilous time for those of us who want to lose weight. In this article we provide our top ten weight loss tips for the holiday season so that many of us can maintain our weight loss momentum, maintain our weight in an acceptable zone for the holiday period, or at least minimize the 'weight gain damage' so that come January 1, we'll have a few less kilos of weight loss attached to our New Year's resolution.

Tip 1. Keeping our alcohol consumption in check.

Alcohol is high in kilojoules/calories. In fact 1g of alcohol contains around 28 kilojoules or 7 calories. In addition, all of these calories are known as "empty" calories because they provide no real nutritional value to our body. One of the reasons many of us put on weight during the Christmas season is because our alcohol consumption 'goes through the roof' during this time.

Drinking at office parties, get-togethers with friends, Christmas Eve, Christmas dinner and of course the big one, New Years Eve are all part of the festive season and at most, if not at all of these occasions, alcohol consumption is part of the social mix.

But we don't have to be a party-pooper if we're watching our weight. We just need a strategy to cope with the situations we know we'll find ourselves in.

For example we can try:

-Alternating alcoholic drinks with low calorie non-alcoholic drinks or water.

-Using or asking for low calorie/diet mixers with our spirits.

-Making wine Spritzers using mineral or soda water and our favourite wine.

-Substitute pre-prepared "alcoholic soft-drinks" with a shot of our favourite spirit and a low calorie mixer.

-Making allowances for alcohol in our daily diets (kilojoule/calorie quota) - without skipping meals to compensate, which is not a good idea.

-Remembering that moderation is the key.

Tip 2. Ask for sporty presents for Christmas.
If our partner, family and friends don't know what to buy us for Christmas, perhaps we should suggest that we would like something sporty or that involves physical activity of some kind.
For example, why not hint that we would love to receive:
 

-A new pair of walking or jogging shoes.
-Some new workout wear, like t-shirts, shorts, or a new tracksuit.
-A new bicycle or tennis racquet.
-Some exercise videos or a Swiss Ball.
-A six month gym membership or membership to the local golf club.
-A dozen sessions with a personal trainer.
-Some rollerblades.
-A set of dumbells for working out at home.


Tip 3. Allowing ourselves some indulgence days.

Christmas and holidays are meant to be enjoyed; a happy time to spend with close friends and family.Part of that enjoyment comes from eating and drinking our favourite foods and drinks and it would be a real shame to deny ourselves some of these simple pleasures.Having said that, balance is the key to really enjoying the festive season and this includes balancing out our meals each day and balancing our 'good' and 'bad' days each week.Having one indulgent day per week is usually OK, even if we are trying to lose weight.

So if we think that the whole of December is the most dangerous time for us, we can allocate 4 days within that month where we can let our 'hair down' a little and enjoy the good stuff.If we were to allocate, for example, Christmas day and New Years Eve as two of those days, we still have two others to allocate to enjoying an office party or get-together with friends and we'll still be right on track.

Tip 4. Don't let our exercise routine slip.

The end of year holiday season may be a time of catching up with old friends and family mixed with a little overindulgence, but it shouldn't be a time when we have to give up completely on our regular exercise routine.

Sure, we'll all be very busy during December shopping for presents, cards and festive foods, making plans for BBQ's, Christmas lunch and dinner and New Years Eve, and catching up with people during the week and on weekends, but these things needn't interfere with our healthy habits, like exercising.

If we exercise in the mornings, there aren't any good excuses not to continue to do so before the rigours of these hectic days begin (other than a hangover and lack of sleep from partying the night before!).

If we like exercising throughout the day or in the evenings, and there are now some festive activities competing for the same timeslot, perhaps we can make allowances for this by changing when we exercise and perhaps how we exercise - like exercising in the mornings and increasing the intensity so we can burn the same amount of energy during a shorter workout - just until all the festivities are over.

Tips When Dining Out

Do you consistantly starve yourself until you get to the restaurant, and then order everything on the menu to fill the hunger gap? If you are serious about watching your weight there are things you can do to be a more ‘informed diner’ so you make the right decisions on what food to eat when you dine out.

Fitness expert Bob Green (yes, the same Bob Green from the Oprah show) gives us a few tips on what to consider at different types of restaurants.

Italian Restaurants
-Skip the bread basket. At the very least, don’t have it sitting in front of you for the whole meal.
-Split the pasta dishes. Portions are normally large enough for two.
-Choose soup for a meal, like Minestrone.
-Avoid anything called ‘parmagiana’ as it is usually fried and layered with cheese.

Chinese Restaurants
-Watch the oil and avoid anything deep-fried.
-Remember most of the calories are hidden in the sauces.

Boost Your Memory With Caffeine

There have been a lot of negative reviews of the consequences of consuming coffee, tea or eating chocolate because of the amount of caffeine that these substances contain. There might be a silver lining to the caffeine cloud though and that's how caffeine can play an important role in boosting your memory.

Often we experience short term memory problems. At times it can be whether we turned off the water after we brushed our teeth or if we locked the door before we went to bed. These things can nag at our minds enough that we turn our car around to make certain that we won't be faced with a flood because of running water or we jump out of bed only to find that we did indeed lock the door.

Life is busy and it's easy to forget some of the smaller things that we take for granted. Our minds might have trouble focusing because of a conflict at work or stress at home. This isn't an uncommon occurrence and it happens everyday to people of every age. Losing track of tiny details is common but certainly not something that we need to live with. There are steps that we can take to improve our memory enough that we never have to deal with having our minds filled with those nagging thoughts again.

Nutritional Goodies Of Apricots

Apricots are somewhat lesser known in society, but pack a super nutritional punch.

Alexander the Great fell in love with this surprisingly sweet fruit in Asia, where he found them growing wild. When he returned to Europe from his military expeditions, he brought some with him.

The ancient Romans gave the apricot its name - from the Latin word for "precocious" - because the apricot is the first fruit of the season to ripen. The name stuck, and the apricot spread all over, from Europe, to America, and all the way to Australia.

The apricot is a fantastic fruit - loaded with beta carotene, iron, fiber, vitamin C, and several B vitamins. If you dry an apricot, its nutrients get more concentrated, making dried apricots a great snack.

Whether fresh or dried, eating apricots will help you fight the effects of aging, protect your eyesight, ward off cancer, and prevent heart disease.

4 ways apricots keep you healthy

The Seven-Minute Workout

Get fit in just seven minutes with this exclusive workout from Dr. Oz and trainer Joel Harper.

Are Your Relationships Making You Fat?

Are you constantly surrounded by temptation? Can’t say no to those fattening lunch dates, or those home-baked pies from your mother-in-law or to the huge box of chocolates from your partner? The diet is hard enough without high-calorie foods being pushed in your direction.

How can you stick to your resolve?

WebMD experts offer five simple strategies to help you stick to a healthy eating plan (even when you're surrounded by non-dieting friends and loved ones).

1. Make a Statement. It’s up to the dieter to make his or her feelings known. Directly ask your loved ones not to give you food as gifts or eat in front of you. No matter how strong you are, you can't stare fattening foods in the face every day without your willpower breaking down.

2. Keep Temptation Out of Sight. Even if your loved ones agree to eat their fattening goodies when you're not around, ask them to keep it in a cabinet where you don't normally go for your diet foods - you'll be less tempted to eat it.

Can Exercise Make You Smarter?

Be Healthier With Veggies

The new food guidelines issued by the United States government recommend that all Americans eat between five and nine servings of fruits and vegetables each and every day. When you first hear that number, it may seem like a lot, but it is actually much easier than you think to fit that many servings of fruits and vegetables into your daily diet. For one thing, the shelves of the grocery stores are fairly bursting with fresh fruits and vegetables. In addition, vegetables and fruits are some of the least expensive, most nutrient rich, foods in the supermarket. With all these fruits and vegetables to choose from, it is very easy to make these nutritious, delicious foods part of your daily meals and snacks.

When you take into account how much a serving really is, it is actually quite easy to get five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables per day. For instance, the recommended daily amount actually equates to a quite reasonable two cups of fruit and two and a half cups of vegetables every day. When you consider how many fruits and vegetables are available, and how low the prices usually are, it is easy to see how easy to reach this daily goal really is.

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