5 Tips To Help Stop Sugar Cravings And Start Losing Weight

One of the most difficult challenges to deal with when you start losing weight is stop sugar cravings. Sugar is very addictive and the more you eat the more you want. Here are 5 ways to help you stop sugar sugar cravings and start losing weight.

Trying to stop sugar cravings is one of the most challenging things to deal with when you start losing weight. Sugar is addictive and the more you have the more you want. It triggers pleasure points in the brain and leads to the production of endorphins and serotonin that makes us feel good when we eat it. But sugar is calorie heavy and if we eat too much of it we will put on weight, not lose it.

1. Substitute The Bad For The Good.

Your mind and body can't distinguish where sugar comes from. One way to stop sugar cravings that you get from of desserts, pastries or candy is to give your body healthy natural sugars like fruit. It is a great thing to eat when you want something sweet and it also delivers many other natural vitamins and nutrients as well.

2. Don't Miss Meals.

One of the worst things you can do to stop sugar cravings is to make yourself hungry. When you start losing weight it may seem like a good idea to miss out meals, but in the end, it just makes you hunger for those fast sugars found in sweets and cakes. Ensure that you eat healthy and nutritious meals and if you want a snack, go for healthy options like nuts, fruit or vegetables.

3. Exercise Regularly.

Exercise programs make your body releases chemicals called endorphins which drastically and quickly make you feel happier and healthier, much more than a sugar rush from a chocolate bar. Even just taking a short walk when you feel yourself starting to crave something sweet to eat can help. Being outside and away from tempting sugarly foods will help you control your craving.

4. Stress And Emotional Eating.

The feel good factor that you get from sugars make them very tempting to eat when you feel upset or stressed. You do need to manage what is causing these feelings. Managing your emotions can go a long way to stop sugar cravings and help you towards your healthy living weight loss goals.

5. Reward Yourself.

When you start losing weight, positive reinforcement is a great way to keep your diet plans on the right track. Instead of eating that big piece of chocolate cake as a reward, try treating yourself to different things to help stop sugar cravings. They can be simple things like watching your favorite TV show or a movie or more significant things like a new outfit or a day out with friends at a spa.

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Sugar Free Homemade Granola

Did you grow up with the nutty and wholesome smell of granola in the oven? I didn't, but thanks to this recipe, my mom now makes her own as well!

4 cups rolled oats

½ cup olive oil

½ cup maple syrup

½ cup EACH sesame OR sunflower seeds AND pumpkin seeds

1 cup chopped walnuts, pecans or almonds

1/8 tsp EACH nutmeg AND cinnamon

Dried fruit: craisins, raisins or chopped, dried apricots

Pour oats, seeds and nuts into a square baking pan. Then drizzle the wet ingredients over the top, slowly rolling all together with wooden spoons. Bake at 275 degrees until golden brown. I check and stir every 20-30 minutes.

While cooling, I toss in the dried fruit. We store this on our counter top with a ¼ measuring spoon for a quick snack when needed. I typically double this batch and it lasts us about two weeks.

The thing to remember with homemade granola is that you can change up the measurements and ingredients as you like. For example, switch up the spices, nuts, seeds, or dried fruit to something different and the taste completely changes. What you want to maintain is the ratio of wet to dry, specifically of and for the olive oil, syrup and rolled oats. You can also switch out honey for maple syrup and get a nice crunch with a little sweet. Sometimes that makes all the difference in the world.

Easy to give as a gift, just store in a Mason Jar, tie with a bow and you have yourself a last minute hostess gift, thank you or holiday gift.

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Why Good Nutrition Is An Essential Part Of Your Anti-Aging Skincare Routine

If you're interested in keeping your skin young and beautiful, you need to establish a good skin care routine now, no matter your age. While a skincare routine probably brings to mind cleansers, clarifiers, exfoliants and anti-aging creams, good eating habits should be part of your skincare routine as well. Good nutrition is essential to healthy skin, since it is the body's largest organ. Here is a closer look at how you can establish a healthy diet as part of your anti-aging game plan.

Bright Colored, Raw Vegetables and Fruits

First, you'll want to start making sure you eat plenty of brightly colored, raw vegetables and fruits for great anti-aging results. Going with vegetables and fruits that are brightly colored means you'll get more of the natural antioxidants your body needs to fight free radicals. Cooking vegetables and fruits can destroy or change many of the amino acids, nutrients and vitamins that are in these foods, so eating them raw is a great choice. Getting plenty of bright, raw veggies and fruits also helps to firm skin, smooth it and stabilize the presence of vitamins within the skin tissue. Adding fruits and veggies that have vitamin A in them can help to fight off acne. If you're dealing with blemishes or oily skin, apples are a great anti-aging nutrition choice, since they offer vitamin C, calcium, magnesium and copper.

Avoid High Sugar Foods

If you're working to establish a good anti-aging skincare routine, another nutrition tip is to avoid eating high sugar foods. Foods high in sugar can cause obesity and blood sugar problems, such as diabetes. Highly processed foods that contain a lot of sugar can also ruin your anti-aging routine by causing blotchy skin, wrinkles, sagging and a loss of radiance. Limit the amount of cereals, breads, sugars and other simple carbs to help fight the signs of aging.

Healthy Fats Improve Skin

Healthy fats should be added to your anti-aging skincare routine. While you want to avoid eating bad fats, it is important to ensure you eat good fats as a part of the body. Taking in those healthy fats helps to keep the skin supple, smooth and moist. Healthy fats also are essential for helping with the transport and absorption of fat-soluble vitamins, such as vitamin K, vitamin D, vitamin E and vitamin A, which are all important for anti-aging. You can find healthy fats in seeds, nuts, tuna, flax seeds, sardines, olive oil and avocados.

Build Healthy Skin Cells with Protein

As you work to add good nutrition to your anti-aging routine, you need to focus on getting enough healthy protein, since it is essential for building healthy skin cells. Complete proteins can be found in dairy, fish, eggs, poultry and beef. Those who prefer a vegetarian diet can find proteins in wheat, beans, lentils, soy and dried grains.

Hydrate for Beautiful Skin

Of course, you can't afford to forget proper hydration as a part of your anti-aging plan. Getting plenty of water each day is important for proper food digestion and the absorption of nutrients. The skin is made up of about 70% water, which means you have to continually hydrate to avoid skin that is flaky and dry.

What you put into your body is definitely going to affect your skin, which is why good nutrition must be a part of your comprehensive anti-aging skin routine. Keep this advice in mind as you combine a good diet with quality anti-aging products for beautiful skin that won't give your age away.

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Natural Sugar Substitutes Keep You Healthy

Learn about natural sweeteners which are healthier and do not involve any processing like white sugar that would cause environmental pollution.

Our daily diets always include sugar in one form or the other, which is indeed necessary for our body. Sometimes, it will be in the form of fruits, and some other time, it will be sweets, cookies, chocolates, cakes and smoothies. But, fruits, as we all know, are of fewer calories and the natural sugar contained in them is not harmful to the body, compared to sweetened products. The sweetened products available in the market are usually made out of synthetic sugar, which is hard to be processed and eliminated by the body, and it gets deposited in the body as fat.

Also, there are serious problems linked with too much consumption of sugar including obesity, imbalance in blood sugar levels, heart diseases, arthritis etc. One cannot completely exclude sugar from their diet, but can replace the synthetic sugar with natural sugar substitutes, thereby keeping the fitness of the body.

The natural sugar substitutes are healthier and do not involve any processing like white sugar that would cause environmental pollution. They are widely available in the market and are not much expensive. Some of the healthy sweeteners have been discussed below. Any of these natural sugar substitutes can be included in your diet and you can stay healthy and fit.

Agave Nectar

Agave Nectar is made out of blue agave plant seen in Southern Mexico. 90 percent of agave nectar is composed of fructose and it is sweeter than the usual table sugar and hence can be used in a lower quantity.

Stevia

Stevia is made from the stevia rebaudiana plant extract and is said that it has no carbohydrates, no calories and very safe to use. It requires only a very small amount of stevia for sweetening as it is around 300 times sweeter than regular sugar.

Brown Rice Syrup

When rice is cultured with enzymes, starch contained in the rice breaks down and results in the formation of rice syrup. As brown rice syrup is contained with soluble complex carbohydrates, it gets digested within two or three hours after intake. The evaporation of this syrup results in the formation of rice syrup powder.

Maple syrup

Maple syrup is also a natural sugar substitute and is also an antioxidant. The darker B grade maple syrup is contained with more minerals than the A grade one.

Honey

Honey is a natural sugar substitute and sweeter than sugar. It has high calories and carbohydrates compared to refined sugar. According to reports, raw honey is composed of enzymes, minerals and B-complex vitamins.

Xylitol

Xylitol is a low calorie, sugar alcohol which is a natural sugar substitute. The one advantage of xylitol is that, it is absorbed slowly and will not add in a rise in blood sugar level in the body.

ZSweet

ZSweet is an ideal sugar substitute for sugar substitutes as it does not increase glucose level in the body. It is of zero calorie and tastes like refined sugar. It is produced from erythritol which is cultured from sugar and natural plant extracts.

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5 Things You Need To Know About Breakfast Cereals

Breakfast cereals can be a quick healthy solution to starting your day off right with a well balanced diet. They can also be a great way to help you regulate your system and lose weight. Leading health experts say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day because most breakfast cereals can be a great source of fiber, vitamins, and other nutritional values that your body craves for on a daily basis. But choosing the right kind of cereal can be confusing and seem as though we buy the cereal based upon the looks of the box or picture of cereal and not by the nutritional values. Many would agree that the cereal aisle can be compared to a gauntlet, similar to the checkout aisle.

The cereal aisle is stacked with product the entire length. It typically contains a mixture of both good and bad choices of cereals and it is difficult to tell them apart because of the many different brands of cereals, variety of colorful boxes with images and phrases that are just begging for your consideration. In addition, many breakfast cereals high in sugar entice you to buy simply because of the promotional giveaways or fun activities on the back of the boxes. But there is a simple solution to finding the best healthy breakfast cereal.

The following tips will guide you on making the best selection the next time you walk down the cereal aisle:

1. Nutrition Facts Label 

This label provides you with all the nutritional values that you need to make the right cereal selection and is typically found on the side of the box in small print. Here are the values that you are looking for: Sugar, Fiber, Vitamins & Minerals, Ingredients and the suggested serving sizes. Plus the label typically has two values: with milk and without milk.

2. Sugar Values 

Look for cereals that contain 8 grams or less of sugar. Most sugar cereals contain over 10 grams of sugar per serving, not to mention that the average serving size is only ¾ cup and the average person eats 2-3 servings in one bowl.

Tip: You can give your cereal a sweat boost by adding fresh fruits and berries.

3. Fiber Values 

Look for cereals that list the ingredients Whole Grains first. You need at least 3 grams per serving.

Tip: The more sugar in a cereal, the less fiber it contains.

4. Vitamins & Minerals 

Healthy cereals contain high levels of vitamins such as Vitamin C,D, added calcium, and folic acid.

Tip: Excellent source for stubborn eaters.

5. Artificial Flavoring 

Avoid these ingredients at all costs. You will notice them more in the colorful cereals and high sugar cereals.

Finally, never shop on an empty stomach. It is a recipe for making poor healthy choices. It can also be related to rapid weight gain and changes in behavior and mood swings because of the average portion sizes of cereals high in sugar.

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Top Tips To Beat Bloating And Sugar Cravings | VIDEO

Do you feel bloated after your meals and would like to find a way how to deal with it? In this video, I have put together few top tips how to fight bloating and sugar cravings.

So what causes bloating? Bloating is a common digestive problem, usually caused by certain foods and ingredients that we consume throughout the day. Bloating can cause discomfort and sometimes even pain and should not be ignored. There are several ways how you can reduce and fight bloating and in this video I am talking about some of them:

Firstly, I would suggest to think about minerals that you could add to your diet and that work very effectively to grab the free radicals in the body and alleviate the bloating:

Charcoal
A natural supplement that traps toxins and chemicals, allowing them to be flushed out of the body. Charcoal can be made from a variety of sources, but for natural healing an activated charcoal made from natural sources is the best. Charcoal is used to reduce bloating and gas, to lower cholesterol level and to detoxify the body.

Zeolite
Zeolite is a safe, natural and non-toxic volcanic mineral that is formed when volcanic rocks and ash react with water. Zeolite is great for detoxification and can remove heavy metals from our body that are causing imbalances. This mineral can absorb, filter and release chemicals, nutrients and ions, depending on your body needs and acts as one of the best antioxidants. It can improve liver function and digestion, purify the blood, balance pH levels and reduce allergies.

What about sugar cravings? We all get them but eating too much sugary foods can damage digestive and immune system. My top 3 supplements to beat sugar cravings are:

Chromium
Chromium is a mineral that balances and controls blood sugar levels. Chromium is found in some foods but can also be taken as a supplement. Foods that are good sources of chromium include liver, kidney, yeast products, wholegrain cereal, nuts and legumes. Most people get enough chromium from food.

Plant bases protein
Plant based protein can be found in various foods, e.g., spirulina, yeast, pumpkin, hemp and chia seeds, quinoa, soy beans, tofu, black beans, green peas, chickpeas, lentils, almonds.

Cinnamon
Cinnamon is one of the most delicious and healthiest spices. It can lower blood sugar levels, reduce heart disease risk factors, and has a lot of other health benefits. Cinnamon is loaded with powerful antioxidants, has anti-inflammatory properties, helps to fight infections, reduce the risk of heart disease, helps to reduce cholesterol level and blood pressure.

You can find out more about natural supplements here! (Tried, tested and recommended!)