A lot of vegans do not even know why they wanted to become vegans in the first place. Why are you a vegan? If you cannot answer this question in depth, then there's really no reason to become a vegan diet fan. You have to do some soul searching and find some answers from deep inside you. Find out exactly why you want to become a vegan. If you don't find any reasons behind your decision then it's just a phase you're going through.

So first of all, you have to educate yourself about being a vegan.

1. Know the facts of the vegan diet.
2. Know exactly what you're getting yourself into.
3. Know exactly why you are doing it.
4. Start reading books, newspapers, magazines about vegan diets.
5. Search the internet for articles or other information concerning vegan diets.

To sum up you have to know the pros and cons of becoming a vegan.

Here are some secret tips to get you started if you're really desperate about becoming e vegetarian.

1. Start the easy way.
Did you have any favorite dish before becoming a vegetarian? Maybe that dish was a vegetarian dish or could become one easily. So start with that favorite dish. You may not even know that some dishes are vegetarian.
For example you can start with vegetable pasta or lasagne or pasta primavera. There are thousands of choices.

2. Buy a Vegan Recipe CookBook
Being a vegetarian means that you have to learn to prepare your food sometimes. So why not follow some proven tips and recipes from a good vegetarian cookbook?

3. Don't Push Yourself
So you decide to switch to a vegan diet but you find yourself so tired and really hungry. Well, you may not be eating enough!
Don't pressure your body. Try to stay balanced and get enough calories and nutrients to keep you going. Don't just stick to only a few different types of food.

4. Get support from your friends
Make your friends understand the fact that you're vegetarian. Make them respect your choices. A good example would be to get them to try some of your food and taste what you eat.

5. Do not compare yourself with other vegetarians.
If you're reading vegan magazines or articles or talking to longtime vegetarians then you will notice that everyone has something to say. And they claim they have the best solution for you. Well, ignore them. Do not compare yourself and your body with anyone else's! You want to be a vegetarian for your own reasons. So find out what's right for you and be comfortable with your decisions.

6. Timing matters
Feel free to start on a vegan diet at any time of the year. But be wise. Remember that if you start during the summer you'll have the chance to try a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables. Moreover, people have the tendency to eat lighter during summer months. During the winter there's the advantage of eating soups or baked food.

Labels: Diet Food, Vegan Diet, Vegetarian

Weight training is of great importance in this context, which enables the body to absorb more nutrients from the food by increasing the amount of hormones your body receives and increasing the mass of the muscles.

You may have goals in mind of what you would like to achieve with a training routine. Most of the time, people who train hit plateaus because people rarely change their training variables over time. All people who train and work out will eventually hit a plateau, you need to work through this and keep training. Sometimes when working out you start to feel that it is not working anymore and you feel stale, well there is a way to start making progress on your workouts again, it is call unilateral training and it is the perfect way to help to build muscle and increase your workout training. No supplement will help you if you are not training and dieting correctly.

Weight training is of great importance in this context, which enables the body to absorb more nutrients from the food by increasing the amount of hormones your body receives and increasing the mass of the muscles. To gain weight just follow this simple formula, by eating more calories than you burn you will gain weight.

It is important that you use a training program that is designed to help you gain weight and build muscle. When lifting weights you want to build more muscle, the only way to do this is to move in the direction of lifting heavier weights.

Make sure that you eat enough protein. Protein is made up of amino acids, the building blocks of muscle. The body then requires more protein in order to repair the damage. Instead of doing many reps to burn calories and create muscle with lighter weights, you should take time to tear the muscles which are made of fibers apart, which will then intern build more muscle when receiving protein and will increase your strength.

While it is definitely possible to both lose fat and gain muscle at the same time, in my experience, the best results comes from concentrating on one major goal at a time. Everyone who trains dreams of one thing and one thing only, the ability to lose as much fat as possible and to build as much muscle as possible in the shortest amount of time.

There are many exercises you can do without machines. One of the big factors that many talk about when searching for the correct ways to gain weight and build muscle is the type of exercises selected for each muscle group.

You train like crazy and never build muscle. Train no more than three times per week. Do 2-3 easy warm up sets to get the blood flowing. Resting four minutes between sets increases recycling ability to 90 percent. Warming up is very important when working out, just like a professional baseball pitcher needs to throw a ball around to warm up his arm before throwing the ball fast and hard, so before lifting do some reps with light weight before lifting the heavy weights.

One of the most important points is to be consistent in what every type of weight loss, training program you choose.

Labels: Diet Food, Dieting, Weight Lifting

Flatulence is not just a social problem but it can also be very painful. These strategies should help alleviate the flatulence problem.

Here. Pull my finger…

Blaaat! - The flatulence orchestra tunes up.

The rear-end musically inclined love to play that joke on kids. We’ve all laughed at farting jokes and suffered the unpleasant odour from someone’s released gas. You’ve probably felt the discomfort, even pain, of gas, bloating, and trying to hold flatulence in because someone is nearby.

And you’ve probably also felt the embarrassment of being caught out when you didn’t hold it in. It always happens … no one’s around so you think it’s safe to let it go … ahh what a relief! But two seconds later someone walks into the room. Sometimes it’s a bit hard to blame it on the dog.

Then of course there are the times when someone else does it and everyone looks at you! You can’t do much about theirs but you can do something about yours.

Follow these five ideas for minimizing the amount of flatulence gas your body produces.

1. Avoid laxatives

These can irritate the intestinal lining and cause bowel spasms which can trap gas and produce pain from the gas accumulation.

2. Soak and cook legumes

Legumes include peas, beans of all types, chickpeas, peanuts and lentils. Soaking and cooking reduces the concentration of alpha-galactosides (the substance apparently responsible for the gaseous distention associated with these foods.)

3. Try anti-gas agents

An anti-foaming preparation called simethicone, when swallowed, breaks down large gas bubbles into smaller ones.

A product called Beano contains an enzyme that, when added to food, can break down the complex sugars found in beans and other gas-forming foods. If milk and milk products are a gas problem you could try lactaid which assists the milk sugar to be absorbed.

4. Eat charcoal

Charcoal is a strong absorber of gas and can be effective at preventing gas accumulation. And no, you don’t have to go out and chew on an old hunk of burnt wood. Nor do you have to raid your kid’s drawing supplies. Charcoal can be obtained in tablet form. If you like to chew them up though be prepared for a hideously black mouth.

5. Avoid gas-forming foods

Complex carbs, while great for long term energy, are frequent sources of gas. We need bacteria to digest complex carbs. A very high carbohydrate or fibre diet increases the bacteria in the small intestine thus increasing the fermentation processes.

Vegetables which are known gas producers include beets, broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, lettuce, parsley, spinach and squash.

The gas-forming grains include oat, rice and wheat bran, whole-wheat flour, sesame flour, rye and barley.

So even though to many, flatulence is an endless source of amusement, self-expression and male bonding the real truth is that it is simply a by-product of digestion. Normal though it is, unless you’re producing enough to run the stove and heating appliances in your house or you somehow earn money from farting, you’ll probably want to reduce production if you can.

Therefore, if you’re prepared to lessen your entertainment value among your mates, taking these few simple precautions could help you avoid painful gaseous bloating and having to blame that stink known politely as flatulence on the dog.

Labels: Health

A champion athlete has a good coach to help achieve their goals. Do your diet and weight loss goals get the support they need in order to be realised?

So you’ve got another diet underway in your battle of the bulge. You’re probably anticipating more deprivation and frustration before you even start. Then a short time later you’ve added yet another failure to your long list of attempts at weight loss. You coach yourself to the couch and give up yet again.

Why is it that this is such a common story from those with the balloon-shaped and pair-shaped bodies?

What is the one thing, outside yourself, that can really help you in achieving your weight loss goals?

For a change the answer lies not with you but with someone else.

Obviously, in the end, it is all up to you but you don't have to do it all by yourself.

Athletes rarely try to do it all by themselves.

All top athletes have a coach. Why is that?

Because they have a goal and the coach is there to help them achieve it.

Your goal is weight loss, or more importantly to change your body shape to what you desire. It is a worthy goal worthy of a coach's support.

How can a coach help?

* Set small weight loss goals

A coach can help you set smaller goals as stepping stones to the achievement of your bigger ones.

Focusing on all that weight you want to lose is like moving a mountain and very discouraging. But even a mountain could be moved with just one teaspoon at a time.

* Commitment

Making a commitment to another person is like a contract. You are probably more likely to honor a commitment to someone else than you will honor a commitment to yourself. Keeping a commitment to yourself involves willpower and we all know commitment runs second best to won't-power (our feelings).

Commitment to someone else brings pride, honor and integrity into play.

* Motivation

A coach can be your greatest source of motivation to start and keep going. Their encouragement can pull you through those times when you would give up on your diet or lapse into old habits if you were by yourself. Imagine being able to eat whatever you want as long as you ring your coach first.

No longer will you have only that self-sabotaging voice of Miss Gobble-it-up in your head to listen to. You'll have the voice of your coach to make it a fair debate so you can repeatedly make a better choice about what you're eating.

• Knowledge

While your coach could be anyone who is willing to help you and gently give you some tough love when it comes to your diet, it is probably wiser to find someone who knows about how the human body responds to food and eating habits.

That way you’ll be more likely to eat in a manner that actually removes fat rather than water and muscle tissue. You’ll also have some guidance when your diet stalls and doesn’t seem to be working any more.

With a coach you can avoid the Yo-yo diet syndrome where you get fatter and fatter. Even if you have to pay for a coach the cost will be more than justified when you consider the cost of obesity on your health, time and self esteem.

Get a coach. You've nothing to lose, but weight, and everything to gain, except weight.

Labels: Weight loss

You don't have to sabotage your diet just because you're on the run. In fact, most fast food chains have added healthier options to their menus in just the past few years. Here are some of the healthier options you can choose from.


You don't have to sabotage your diet just because you're on the run.

In fact, most fast food chains have added healthier options to their menus in just the past few years. Fast food menu's now provide salads, wraps, a number of other "healthy" options.

Whenever you are eating on the go, look for grilled chicken sandwiches or salads with low-fat dressings. To save some additional calories, go for water instead of the soft drink. You'd be surprised how many calories you will save simply by following these two guidelines.

Listed below are some healthy options you can make at your favorite fast food restaurants:

McDonald's:

English Muffin: 140 calories, 4 grams of protein, and only 2 grams of fat

McDonald's Fruit 'n Yogurt Parfait with Granola: 160 calories, 2 grams of fat, and 31 grams of carbohydrates

Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad: 100 calories, 2.5 grams of fat, 17 grams of protein. Choose one of the fat free or reduced fat dressings.


Subway:

Subway is one of the best fast food options when you are looking for something quick and healthy. They offer a variety of healthier options. If you want to reduce the calories and the fat, hold the mayo.

6-inch Turkey Breast: 254 calories, 16 grams of protein, and 12 grams of fat

6-inch Veggie Delight: 200 calories, 7 grams of protein, and 11 grams of fat

6-inch Roast Beef: 264 calories, 18 grams of protein, and 15 grams of fat

6-inch Roasted Chicken Breast: 311 calories, 25 grams of protein, and 16 grams of fat

6-inch Subway Club: 294 calories, 22 grams of protein, and 15 grams of fat

Wendy's:

Best Choice: Caesar Side Salad

Without dressing or croutons, this salad contains 70 calories, 4 grams of fat, and 7 grams of protein. You can use the Fat Free French dressing, which will only add 80 calories to your meal.

Your next best bet is the Grilled Chicken Sandwich, which has 300 calories, 8 grams of fat, and 24 grams of protein.

Arby's:

Martha's Vineyard Salad: This salad is packed with greens, grilled chicken, shredded cheddar cheese, diced apples, dried cranberries, toasted almonds, tomatoes, and raspberry vinaigrette. It is certainly one of Arby's healthiest options with 276 calories, 26 grams of protein, 24 grams of carbs, and only 8 grams of fat.

Labels: Fast Food

Three weeks prior to the get together those of us that were organizing the event got together. I asked the other four women over to our house for a planning luncheon.



I made three of my favorite salad recipes to serve along with fresh bread and wine. We spent the lunch time catching up with each other on what we had done thus far in the summer. The women all liked the food and asked for my salad recipes. As I was looking up the recipes one of the women suggested that we should have a salad bar as a theme for the barbeque. We could have grills going for hamburgers and hotdogs and then have a variety of salads to go along with the meat. This sounded like a great idea to all of us. We would ask each of the neighbors to make their favorite salad recipes and to bring hamburgers or hot dogs for their family. Everyone would bring what they wanted to drink.

During the summer months it seems that entertaining and meals are mush more casual. People like to organize barbeques for family and neighborhood gatherings. Summer time is when I pull out my salad recipes and create fresh light dishes. At the beginning of the summer several of us that live on the block decided that we would have a neighborhood get together at the end of August. We set the date and passed the word. We decided that we would get together closer to the date and come up with a menu.

Three weeks prior to the get together those of us that were organizing the event got together. I asked the other four women over to our house for a planning luncheon. I made three of my favorite salad recipes to serve along with fresh bread and wine. We spent the lunch time catching up with each other on what we had done thus far in the summer. The women all liked the food and asked for my salad recipes. As I was looking up the recipes one of the women suggested that we should have a salad bar as a theme for the barbeque. We could have grills going for hamburgers and hotdogs and then have a variety of salads to go along with the meat. This sounded like a great idea to all of us. We would ask each of the neighbors to make their favorite salad recipes and to bring hamburgers or hot dogs for their family. Everyone would bring what they wanted to drink.

The neighbor that lives in the middle of the block has a large yard and a nice beach area for swimming. She said that the barbeque could be in their yard. We live fairly close so we would carry over extra picnic tables and chairs. We set out a goodwill basket to cover the cost of plates, napkins and silverware and any money that is left over is donated to a local charity. We printed up flyers asking the neighbors to make their favorite

Labels: Salad Recipes

What to do when diets do not work. Five great ways to lose weight permanently!

It is very hard to stick to your diets, so many people constantly fail them. They try every kind of new diets, hoping one of them would work and make them thinner. But unfortunately, that never happens. It's about the mistakes they make. The human brain ignores bad things or things that make us uncomfortable, so you hear many times people saying they only eat salat the whole week, but often that's not true. Here are five very useful tips that will help you lose weight permanently.

1. Write down what you eat

It's an easy thing to carry around a pen and a notebook, where you write down everything you eat. And that means every little thing from that snack in the morning, to the coffee or that evening juice. Or you have finished that half of the pizza from your partner - write it down. At the end of the day, just check what you wrote down and you'll be very surprised how much you actually eat during the day. You can calorie values of each food on the internet and calculate how many calories you've eaten.

2. Ask yourself - WHY?

Eating and drinking are usually unconcence behaviours, not controlled by the brain but rather by our stomach. That's why every time you eat something, ask yourself: "Why am I doing this?". You might be hungry or bored, lonely perhaps depressed, thirsty or stressed. But the only reason you should eat or drink is
thurst and hunger. So, if you're not hungry put that sendwich down. If you're not thirsty, put that bottle of cola down. If you're feeling lonely or depressed, go visit a friend, watch a movie or read a book. Best thing though is to exercise.

3. Never starve yourself

One of the biggest mistake in dieting is starving yourself. Unless you have a strong willpower, sooner or later you'll start eating snacks or fast food or whatever comes in your way. Starvation also makes your body go to safe mode, that means that it's limiting your energy levels and all that food you now intake will go to excess fat. So there's an absolute must that you eat three meals a day, plus a snack consisting of fruit and veggies. That's a good way to lose weight.

4. Eat your favourite food

Do not try to ban your favourite food, just because you are losing weight. The key here is eating moderate, not starving or denying the favourite food. Like pizza? Well, eat a piece or two, but not the whole plate. Like ice-cream? Eat one spoonful instad of three. That means eating your favourite food and eating less at the same time - this is what helps your weight loss long-term. But you should have a forbidden food day every 5 or 6 days, where you eat only "healthy" food, like vegetables, fruit and low fat food.

5. Exercise

Last but not least, it's exercise. If you're not used to it, start small. Maybe 10 minutes per day, 3 or 4 times per week. There's no need to go out and run for 4 hours straight. Start small and lengthen your exercises when time passes. Your goal should be at least 30 minutes of workout every day, 60 minutes is even better but it will come in time. EVentually you'll lose weight, get a great figure and live a healthy and happy life.

Labels: Weight loss