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Tis’ the season of candy and sweet treats. Chocolate santas, marshmallow snowmen, homemade cookies, pies, cakes, and candy canes are everywhere. Yummy treats are offered to us left and right. They’re hard to resist. Do you need a strong, compelling reason not to indulge in sweets? Perhaps you have a health concern, want to lose weight, or simply want to watch what you eat. If you need a little help or motivation to stay away from treats, consider the following:

1. Sweets are addictive!

Like potato chips, it’s hard to eat just one piece of candy, a cookie, a slice of cake or pie. Have you ever noticed the “lust” that sweets trigger? You eat one piece, and rage sets in. You want more. You must have it! You’ll do anything to get it. The urge is hard to resist.

The reason that sweets trigger “lust” is because the manufacturers have added taste enhancers that cause you to crave more and more. The reason they do is to get you physically addicted to their products. Of course, when you continue to eat and buy more sweets, it’s good repeat business for them.

2. Sugar is a sweet-talking moocher!

Nothing is worse than a freeloader. A moocher who takes from you, and never gives back. Unfortunately, sugar leeches vitamins and minerals from your body. To digest sugar, you need B-complex vitamins, calcium and magnesium. Complex carbohydrates (raw fruit and vegetables) contain enough of these nutrients to digest and convert into energy. However, simple refined sugars (white or brown) are difficult to digest. Your body must rob its own resources to digest them.

Where are these nutrients leeched? Vitamin B-complex is taken from your central nervous system. Calcium is robbed from your teeth and bones.

Over time, eating sugar will result in Vitamin-B deficiency. This will cause you to suffer from nervousness, forgetfulness, fatigue, anxiety, rage, depression, indigestion, lack of appetite, craving for more sweets, neuralgia and neuritis, muscle soreness, headaches, insomnia, and dizziness.

3. Sugar weakens your immune system.

When you eat sugar, it weakens your white blood cells, which are an important part of your immune system. White blood cells protect your body from foreign invaders (such as cancer cells) who attack your body and try to make you sick. When white blood cells are weak, they don’t have the strength to fight back. In other words, they can’t do their job. Ultimately, eating candy weakens your immune system.

Are you ready to fight back?

Being aware of the hidden dangers of sugar will motivate you to get fresh. That’s right; push that candy away. Just say no. Reach for something that is good for you. Bite into a tart green “Granny Smith” apple, eat a handful of juicy berries, a tangy tangerine, or fresh cut pineapple.

Keep healthy alternatives on hand so that you can resist sweets. If you can’t give up sweets, limit yourself to a small portion. Throw the rest away! Change your focus, so that you can resist those nutritionally empty, good-for-nothings who only end up hurting you. Decide in advance that you’ll be the one getting fresh… now that you’re wise to sugar’s sweet little game of deceit.

Nicky Vanvalkenburgh writes about practical tips, techniques and strategies for personal empowerment. Check out her stress reduction website at http://www.20minutestolessstress.com/

In order to have your body pain free and to trust the process in getting there, you need to be a certain amount of trust to believe that things will shift inside. Trust heals fear and insecurity. How many times in your life does it feel hard to accept your circumstances, your body, and your life in general? This is where spirituality comes in. Spirituality is not about practicing a certain path or religion. It is about trusting that there is a greater and higher power, trusting there is something greater than we are. It is very easy to become dissatisfied in life if we do not trust what we are given. It has been said over an over in all ancient traditions that we are always given exactly what we need, at exactly the right time. We must trust that the universe in which ever perspective we resonate with is coming from love and compassion. We must trust that “horrible” circumstances are exactly what is needed for healing at the time. All circumstances, events, triggers, are processes are an opportunities for healing. The pain is not meant to hurt you. It is meant to get your attention to what needs to be addressed, and looked at.

This is a lot of what having chronic headaches is about. They are providing an opportunity over and over again to let go. To trust your own life process. To turn it over to something higher than yourself, whatever that means for you. The headaches provide you an opportunity to reconnect to your heart. To live from your heart fully. Allowing yourself to really express what is inside of you. To be congruent with yourself and others.
If being open to a higher power does not resonate with you, contemplate what that is about. There is no right or wrong. Many times, what is the most powerful is the invisible. Trusting in something bigger than yourself allows you to let go. It allows you to simply surrender, trust that what is happening in your life has a reason, a lesson, and a gift.

Why We Start Diets on Monday

The biggest problem with any attempt at change is where to begin? There are so many things to think about, so many distractions, so many reasons why it won’t work. Have you ever noticed everyone seems to start a new eating plan on Monday? Why not start on Wednesday afternoon, or Friday morning for that matter?

We’ve grown up counting the days, weeks, and years off like worry beads. Birthdays mark one year older and wiser, New Year’s Eve marks a new beginning, the first day of the month and first day of the week; they all mark a new beginning. There is no reason you can’t simply decide to begin right here, right now. So, let’s start now. Really, I’m not kidding. You can decide to start at any time. You don’t need to wait until Monday. “But, I always start a new diet on Monday!” Ah, but this isn’t a diet, this is a lifestyle change. A lifestyle change isn’t about being ON or OFF a program, you are just living, and this is about beginning from this day forward, whether today is Tuesday or Saturday doesn’t matter.

That’s why lifestyle changes work best for long-term weight loss. It may seem like it takes longer to lose weight by changing your usual habits, but it doesn’t. Think about all the diets you’ve been on, all the days, weeks, months you’ve wasted dieting, that have added up to a big fat nothing, except maybe more weight. That to me seems like taking a very long time, in fact, the chances are you’ll never truly succeed with any ON again, OFF again program. They don’t work over the long-term because as soon as you go back to your usual habits, your usual weight comes right back. How could it be otherwise? In contrast, a lifestyle change may take a month to see much difference, but once you do notice a difference, once you’ve lost that 10 pounds, it’s gone for good (unless of course you run right back to your old lifestyle).

Practice makes perfect. Since there is no way to be perfect, it’s far better to decide you’ll do your best and then proceed about doing it. Eating something “off plan” is not a lapse, it’s a life, it happens. We all have treats at birthdays and too much to drink New Year’s Eve but we don’t continue that pattern the next day, so why think you must eat perfectly from now on? It won’t work if you set yourself up to fail by expecting perfection. Better to work on making one small change at a time.

Choose to Make One Small Change, Then Another

Fad weight loss diets work over the short-term because you are drastically changing your habits, but drastic changes rarely stick. Who wants to live a life of deprivation? Not me. Instead, decide right now to make one small change. Choose something in your lifestyle that could be improved on and improve it. This is an ongoing process. As you lose some weight, you’ll need to decide again and again whether you want to make any additional changes.

I lost 80 pounds in nine months over 17 years ago. Over the years since then as my diet and daily habits shifted so did my weight. A few times I noticed I had put back on 10 or 20 pounds. That’s when I’d begin to notice my clothes don’t fit well and I either must buy bigger clothes or make some changes. I’d rather make changes in what I’m eating.

My diet had shifted from a very healthy one to a pre-sweetened cereal for breakfast, cookies for lunch and grab what I can find for dinner lifestyle. Slowly the weight came back and despite thinking I wasn’t eating that many calories, I actually was eating far more than I realized, plus the nutrition was poor quality. Your body needs quality food. Without it, you’ll continue having hunger pangs despite having just eaten. Until you get some real nutrition you can expect to continue feeling hungry. The nutrition I was eating was poor and my body reflected that, plus I had stopped exercising completely.

How to Lose 10 Pounds Without Really Trying

I turned it around by returning to regular, consistent exercise (No. 1 best way to lose weight and keep it off is to exercise consistently), and I switched from pre-sweetened cereal to Grapenuts, oatmeal or other whole grain cereals. I still like cereal and eat it most mornings. I started to snack on fruits and vegetables instead of store bought cookies, and I started to eat quality protein with vegetables and salads for dinner.

I still eat dessert most every night but now it’s one-third the quantity it was when I had let my weight creep up. Small changes, but basically I’m still eating and living the same lifestyle. My choices are slightly different but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t ever eat pre-sweetened cereal again. It does mean I know if I do eat Corn Pops (one of my favorites) I’ll likely be hungry for something sugary sweet by 10 AM and keep that preference all day. It’s also very likely if I eat sugary foods (highly processed like chips, pastries) for three or four days in a row, then it’s going to be tougher to switch back to a healthier lifestyle. Consequently, I make an effort to not let the worse eating become a habit by nipping it in the bud.

I still order a giant double-cheese burger with a family pack fry if I go to Dairy Queen but it’s about twice a year instead of once a week. I tried to order a smaller burger and it didn’t satisfy me, but cutting back the frequency was painless. Switching from eating at Dairy Queen once a week to more like twice a year makes a big difference. Another change I made was the Thursday night Chinese food take-out habit. No big deal except I’d buy enough for three days, so I was eating Chinese again, far too often. This is store bought, highly sugared Chinese food not clean healthy Chinese fare as you might cook yourself or get in a better quality restaurant. In fact, Chinese food is very healthy if it’s not Americanized but I was eating breaded and sweetened things like Orange Chicken (you won’t find that in any Asian country) and deep fried shrimp with that red sauce (tomato candy).

Examine your usual eating habits and see where you might make small changes. Keep a notepad handy and jot down everything you eat for one week. It’s not easy to do, but it’s so valuable to really discover what you usually eat, and then make small changes either in frequency or quantity of those things. If you always eat french fries, then maybe once a week you could instead have an orange. Not the same I know, I’m just tossing out ideas. It’s up to you to decide what you’ll have instead.

Remember, it’s not about simply stopping your usual routine but switching to a new routine. No matter what you decide, start now. You aren’t going to be eating perfectly, you’re just going to work on eating a bit better, so get started.

~~ Kathryn Martyn, Master NLP Practitioner, EFT counselor, author of Changing Beliefs, Your First Step to Permanent Weight Loss, and owner of OneMoreBite-Weightloss.com lost 80 pounds over 17 years ago. She maintains her weight using the techniques she teaches in her 8-week Ending Emotional Eating online weight loss program, private coaching practice and her popular workshops.

Get The Daily Bites: Inspirational mini lessons and tips for using EFT and NLP to end your struggle with weight loss.

Virgin coconut oil started her journey a very long time ago. It was stated in an ancient book of Ayuverda, that thousands of years before century (B.C.), people exploited this oil, for consumption as well as for cure.

For people in Indonesia, Polynesia, Micronesia and other tropical parts of the world, coconut is very essential. They took advantages of its meat and water, processed it for coconut cream and coconut oil to enhance their quality of life.

And this went on for thousands of years…

Around 1945, virgin coconut oil reached its golden years. In some Asian Pacific countries, the commodity became one of the most wanted goods. Coconut water also played an important role in the World War II. It helped cure many of the injured Alliance troops. They actually used the water from coconut as a cold compress for wounds!

After the war, the Americans and English transformed virgin coconut oil into margarine. Some business-oriented parties in both countries started a campaign against this oil. They intended to stop the dependency for tropical oils. The next thing, they promoted corn oil and soybean oil for exchange…

In mid 1950’s, heart disease became a nightmare in the United States and this is the turning point of all the negative campaigns against virgin coconut oil…

The situation got worse when a young scientist named David Kritchevsky issued the results of his pre-clinic test on rabbits. The results showed that cholesterol blocked the artery and this had caused the heart disease. He claimed that corn oil and soybean oil could reduce cholesterol and coconut oil is quite the opposite.

The negative campaigns against virgin coconut oil (or should I say wrong accusations..?) went on. Those people blamed this innocent oil for something she did not do…

If you want to know the complete story of virgin coconut oil and its struggle to crush all envious claims against her, I suggest you read it at the virgin coconut oil story

Don’t worry, it’s a happy ending story…you’ll love it!

F. Aziz is the owner of http://www.all-about-Virgin-Coconut-Oil.com. Visit all-about-Virgin-Coconut-Oil.com and see how this miracle oil could amazingly help you improve your health.

Think about the number one reasons why people are overweight nowadays. Overweight people fall into one of two different categories.

Either they have an unhealthy lifestyle - working long hours, eating out all the time, not getting enough exercise - or they simply eat too much, often in a compulsive way.

This type of eating - eating when one isn’t hungry, for example, or eating for emotional reasons rather than physical hunger - is really a type of addiction. It should be understood as an addiction, and it often is.

For example, the group Overeaters Anonymous functions on many of the same principles as AA or other twelve step programs. Excessive eating is treated like an addiction because that’s exactly what it is.

But if that’s the case, it’s easy to see why this addiction might be harder to treat than some others. The way to deal with an addiction is to stay away from the behaviour that’s out of control - alcoholics can’t touch alcohol, for example. The idea is to not do it at all until the addiction becomes a thing of the past - in fact, for many addicts, they can never indulge in their addictive behavior again, not even once.

With food addiction, though, that’s obviously impossible. People have to eat - there’s no getting away from it. That’s why food addiction, though it’s an addiction to a non-lethal substance, may be the hardest of all to deal with. And that’s also why companies such as Slim-fast, who produce and market meal replacements for people to use while dieting to lose weight, actually do succeed in helping some people.

The idea behind meal replacements is that you don’t really eat at all for a good part of the day - instead, you have a special shake or other product that gives you all the nutrients you need, and stops you from feeling hungry. This works in two ways: first, it controls the calories you take in, because the meal replacements are quite low calorie. Second, it breaks the cycle of addictive behavior because you’re not really eating. You can get away from the behavior much as an alcoholic can (and must) get away from alcohol, and that gives you a better chance of breaking the addictive process.

Though most meal replacement plans do recommend that you eat one ‘normal’ meal per day, some people who are serious about losing weight don’t do even that. That’s precisely how Oprah Winfrey once lost a lot of weight - about fifty pounds. She said that she found it easier not to eat at all (subsisting on meal replacement shakes and bars) than to control her eating. When you know that you won’t be eating ‘real food’ at all for a while, it takes the guesswork out of it. Everything becomes very straightforward, and it’s a fact that many people have lost weight using this method of weight loss.

There are drawbacks, though. For one thing, while a weight loss program is supposed to teach you about how to eat for the rest of your life - to establish healthy habits, in other words - using meal replacements clearly doesn’t do so. Once you go back to eating real food, you might find that your problems with controlling your food intake are still there. Though you will have lost weight, you are more likely to gain it back if you haven’t learned healthy eating habits.

Also, there’s a danger that some people will keep on using the meal replacements for extended periods of time, just because it’s easier and more convenient. Thought they re designed to give you a minimum level of calories and nutrition, meal replacement bars cannot substitute for real food over an extended period.

However, if you know or suspect that your problem with food resembles an addiction or compulsion, it may be worth your while to think about using meal replacements for a while in order to lose some weight. Try to make the time you spend using them as productive as possible, though. Really come to terms with your past behaviour, and learn what it feels like to be full but not stuffed. Figuring out the answer to these and other aspects of healthy eating will help make your weight loss permanent.

Who else wants to get rid of those stubborn body fats, lose weight and maintain a healthy body? You’ve done a lot of techniques and diets? But nothing seems to work for you? Just visit Rene Graeber’s free website for more information: www.obesity-weight-loss-diet.com/

Since before recorded history, botanicals - in the form of essential oil - have been used for medicinal healing and spiritual and religious ceremonies. Ancient civilizations used herbal fragrances in everything from embalming to architecture, as well as for baths and perfumes. Rene-Maurice Gattefosse, a French cosmetic chemist, coined the term “aromatherapy” in the early 1900s, when he discovered the healing properties of lavender.

Today, essential oils from plants are used both in their pure forms and as ingredients in many cosmetic, body, and bath products. There are different theories about the psychological and physical benefits imparted by specific herbs and other botanicals, yet there’s no question that scents have an impact on our moods and sense of well being-one whiff of chocolate chip cookies baking can immediately transport us to the cozy comfort of our mom’s kitchen. So consider adding a little scent to your life, and relax and enjoy the benefits you receive.

Essential oils can be used in many ways (but never take them internally!). Here are a few suggestions:

Bath: In warm water, essential oils are absorbed through your skin, and the aromatherapeutic vapors are effortlessly inhaled.

Massage: Essential oils penetrate into skin tissues and are circulated throughout the body.

Skin Care: When diluted with other products, essential oils can rejuvenate and moisturize your skin.

Hair Care: Essential oils can strengthen and stimulate your hair follicles, and can add shine to your hair.

Inhalation: Whether a spritz on your pillow, a few drops on a tissue, or in a vaporizer, inhaling essential oils is the easiest method to enjoy their benefits.

Diffusion: Essential oils can enhance your environment via sprays, air fresheners, and diffusers.

The essential oil of each plant has a distinct property and use. Here are metaphysical and medicinal uses for some essential oils.

Fennel - Metaphysical: Wards off negativity and evil. Medicinal: Improves digestion and lactation.

Mint - Metaphysical: Stimulating and energizing; inspiring. Medicinal: Cleansing and strengthening of the body.

Rosemary - Metaphysical: Energizing, stimulating, aids concentration. Medicinal: Stimulates circulation; respiratory problems; migraines.

Cedarwood - Metaphysical: Balancing, grounding, inspiring faith and optimism. Medicinal: Stimulates hair growth; respiratory ailments

Orange Peel - Metaphysical: Promotes mental clarity and emotional balance; stimulates creativity and confidence. Medicinal: Antidepressant, lymphatic drainage.

Chamomile - Metaphysical: Attracts prosperity; relaxation. Medicinal: insomnia, menstrual cramps; boosts immune system.

Juniper Berry - Metaphysical: Clears negative energy and promotes a sense of well-being. Medicinal: Urinary infections and water retention.

Angelica Root - Metaphysical: Integrating the physical, emotional and spiritual. Medicinal: Digestive problems; aids detoxification of body

Cinnamon - Metaphysical: Encouraging, uplifting. Medicinal: Cold remedies.

Chris Robertson is an author of Majon International, one of the worlds MOST popular internet marketing companies on the web.
Visit this Health and Beauty Website and Majon’s Health and Beauty directory.

One of the biggest mistakes that weight loss failures make is cutting out carbs altogether. An example of this flawed ideology is the Atkins diet. Clinical studies have proven that the low-carb, high fat diet has a negative impact on the health of your heart and blood.

But bringing back the carbs can cause problems too. Did you know that many of the carbs we eat every day may cause a condition called insulin resistance? With the extra carbs adding the extra pounds and inches to your body, the insulin hormone runs into a big problem: It can’t help you process fuel, fats, or sugars. When you reach this condition, your body stores even more fat than it should be, mostly around your stomach and hips.

So how do we keep the delicious carbohydrate-filled foods without adding inches and developing insulin resistance? If you’re dedicated to losing weight and achieving health for the rest of your life, this solution is for you! You must understand that thre are two types of carbohydrates; good and bad. Good carbohydrates include non-processed foods like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Bad carbohydrates include those such as white bread, chips, snacks and other baked or fried foods that have been mechanically processed.

What are the good carboydrates?

These are the carbs we should focus on eating. They come in more natural forms such as whole grain wheat bread, fruit like strawberries and peaches, and vegetables such as carrots, green beans or squash.

What are the bad carbs?

If you want to keep the healthiest blood chemistry, try hard to avoid eating these foods. Some of the foods with “bad” carbohydrates include those such as white bread, chips, snacks and other baked or fried foods that have been mechanically processed. These carbs bad for you because during processing, much or all of the dietary fiber is removed from them, and your body cannot process these new complex carbs with efficiency.

Copyright (C) Shoppe.MD, PhenForum and Ian Mason, 2004-2005

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All the best,

Ian Mason