How I lost Weight And Maintained It

From the emails I get, many of my readers seem to have questions about keeping weight off. I'll explain how I did it and maintained it for 10+ years.

I didn't have a plan at the beginning. I know I wanted to lose weight and to do that I needed to change my diet and I did change what I was eating, and I did lose weight. I tried to lose weight by working out and trying to burn more fat, but I had little success. It took time to realize that I had to eat healthy, cut calories, and stick to that new lifestyle. 

That meant I had to give up the foods I was eating, quit eating out, I had to make my meals and stop drinking calories. It will take time and I do some exercise but not that much. Losing weight is 80% diet, but not what you think. I don't starve myself. I simply eat healthy foods. I eat fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, and fresh meats, nuts, Greek yogurt and drink lots of water. You can drink any zero-calorie drink.  

Don't expect results right away, your body has to adjust to your new diet and your body will burn your excess fat over-time. I had to lose 60 pounds. It took me more than one year. Your body burns fat everyday but only small amounts, less than one ounce a day. 

Try not to eat any manufactured food. Eat only a small amount of red meat each week, it has too much fat. Take the skin off of chicken and fish. I made to reader up on "how to eat healthy". 

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

If you really want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Getting To A Healthy Weight

Losing weight safely means balancing protein, fat, and carbohydrate with every meal and snack. You’ll feel fuller longer as your body takes its time digesting the food. There is no perfect method for weight loss, but it helps to have a guide.
Limit fat intake to no more than 20% to 35% of your total calorie intake. For a person following a 1,500-calorie diet, this means eating no more than 35 to 60 grams of fat each day.
Choose complex carbohydrates, such as whole grains, vegetables, and fruits. About 45% to 65% of your total calorie intake should come from carbohydrates. For someone following a 1,500-calorie diet, this means eating between 170 to 240 grams of carbohydrate each day.
Choose low-fat protein sources, such as fish, poultry, and legumes (for example, pinto beans, lentils, and split peas). About 10% to 35% of your total calorie intake should come from protein. For someone following a 1,500-calorie diet, this means eating between 55 to 95 grams of protein each day.
Get enough fiber each day. Men should aim for 38 grams a day, and women should aim for 25 grams a day.
Have no more than 1 alcoholic drink a day for women and 2 alcoholic drinks a day for men.
If you need some help making your meals and snacks balanced, a dietitian can help you create a plan that fits your lifestyle. Also, you can look at the nutrition facts label camera.gif to figure out the fat, carbohydrate, and protein in foods.
Calories
In the table, find your gender, age, and activity level.
Choose sedentary if your activity is limited to normal movement in everyday life.
Choose moderately active if you do an activity that is equivalent to walking 1.5 to 3 miles a day at 3 to 4 miles an hour.
Choose active if you do an activity that is more strenuous than walking 3 miles a day at 3 to 4 miles an hour.
Estimated daily calorie needs by gender, age, and physical activity level 1
Physical activity level
Gender Age (years) Sedentary Moderately active Active
Very young boys and girls 2–3 1,000–1,200 1,000–1,400 1,000–1,400

Females* 4–8 1,200–1,400 1,400–1,600 1,400–1,800
9–13 1,400–1,600 1,600–2,000 1,800–2,200
14–18 1,800 2,000 2,400
19–30 1,800–2,000 2,000–2,200 2,400
31–50 1,800 2,000 2,200
51+ 1,600 1,800 2,000–2,200

Males ages:

4–8         1,200–1,400 1,400–1,600 1,600–2,000        calories
9–13       1,600–2,000 1,800–2,200 2,000–2,600       calories

14–18      2,000–2,400 2,400–2,800 2,800–3,200     calories
19–30     2,400–2,600 2,600–2,800 3,000                   calories
31–50     2,200–2,400 2,400–2,600 2,800–3,000      calories
51+         2,000–2,200 2,200–2,400 2,400–2,800       calories

Getting To A

Very low-calorie diets
Use extreme caution with a very low-calorie diet (VLCD). You are starving your body. VLCDs generally are not recommended. Regaining weight is almost certain, which is damaging both physically and psychologically. If you need to lose weight, it is better to lose weight slowly. You will be more likely to lose the weight safely and keep it off.
Although initial weight loss is greater on a VLCD than on a low-calorie diet, in the long term about the same amount of weight is lost in both types of diets.2
Diets this low in calories (less than 1,000 calories a day) generally do not provide enough nutrients for good health unless the diet is specially prepared. You will need the assistance of a health professional. A diet that does not have enough vitamins or minerals can lead to serious, potentially fatal health problems.
These diets are not recommended if you have heart problems, blood clotting problems, bleeding ulcers, liver disease, kidney disease, or cancer or if you have had a stroke. If you are older than 50, you will need frequent monitoring by your health professional to be sure you are losing fat and not muscle.
People on these diets often feel tired or have constipation, nausea, or diarrhea as a side effect.
The most common serious side effect is developing gallstones. People who are obese are more likely to develop gallstones than people who are lean, and when a person who is obese uses a very low-calorie diet, the chance that he or she will develop gallstones becomes even greater. People who lose a large amount of weight quickly are at greater risk than those who lose weight more slowly. Studies have shown that people who lose more than 3 lb (1.4 kg) a week are at greater risk for gallstones.3 But you can take medicine that helps prevent gallstones from forming.
The following are the changes your body goes through during a VLCD:
Your metabolism slows to conserve energy because the body thinks it is starving. A slower metabolism burns fewer calories.
To get the carbohydrate it needs, your body breaks down protein. You lose lean body tissues (muscle and organ tissue). It is important to preserve lean tissue because it increases your basal metabolic rate. Losing too much lean tissue increases the percentage of fat in your body. The result is a reduced metabolism. This is one reason why it is so easy to regain weight after you lose weight quickly.
In a VLCD (or during starvation), about half the weight you lose is fat and the other half is lean tissue, such as muscle. On a more moderate diet, you lose 3 times more fat than lean tissue. It is important to preserve lean tissue since it increases your resting metabolic rate. This is one reason it is so easy to regain weight when you lose weight quickly
Mineral and electrolyte imbalances can occur. These imbalances can be life-threatening. This is the reason these VLCDs must only be used under a health professional’s supervision.
Bone mass is lost. This is riskier for women, because they diet more often than men, and they are also at higher risk for osteoporosis.

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone.

 Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight”.

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

How Do I Lose Weight?

This is from an article on MedicineNet.com, a great website to find answers to health problems.  Read on, I hope it helps you solve your weight loss problems.

The most effective method for weight loss is reducing the number of calories you consume while increasing the number of calories you burn through physical activity. To lose 1 pound, you need an expenditure of approximately 3,500 calories. You can achieve this either by cutting back on your food intake, increasing physical activity, or ideally, by doing both.

For example, suppose you consume 500 extra calories per day for one week without changing your activity level. In that case, you will gain 1 pound in weight (seven days multiplied by 500 calories equals 3,500 calories or the number of calories resulting in a 1-pound weight gain). Likewise, if you eat 500 fewer calories each day or burn 500 calories per day through exercise for one week, you will lose 1 pound.

Examples of the calorie content of some popular foods and beverages include the following:

One slice of original-style crust pepperoni pizza – 230 calories
One glass of dry white wine – 160 calories
One can of cola – 150 calories
One quarter-pound hamburger with cheese – 500 calories
One jumbo banana nut muffin – 580 calories
Any activities you do throughout the day are added to your BMR (basal metabolic rate) to determine the total number of calories you burn each day. For example, a 170-pound person who spends 45 minutes walking briskly will burn about 300 calories. The exact time spent on housecleaning burns about 200 calories, and mowing the lawn for 45 minutes consumes around 275 calories.
How fast should you expect to lose weight?

Most experts agree that a safe, healthy rate of weight loss is one to 1 to 1½ pounds per week. Modification of eating habits along with regular exercise is the most effective way to lose weight over the long term. It is also the ideal way to ensure that the weight stays off.

Starvation diets may result in rapid weight loss, but this type of weight loss can be unsafe and is almost impossible to maintain for most people. When food intake is severely restricted (below approximately 1,200 calories per day), the body begins to adapt to this state of poor nutrition by reducing its metabolic rate, potentially making it even more difficult to lose weight. In plain English, if the body thinks you’re starving it will quit burning calories. Not completely stop, but slow down so much that you’re not going to lose any weight. It is also possible to experience hunger pangs, bouts of hypoglycemia, headaches, and mood changes from overly stringent dieting. These symptoms can result in binge eating and weight gain. Since a highly restrictive diet is almost impossible to maintain for a long time, people who attempt to starve themselves thin often start to gain weight again when they stop dieting and resume their former eating habits. So simply you have to continually eat just in small amounts. Your body has to know there’s another meal coming soon. This method also avoids cravings.

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone.

 Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight”.

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

Is The Slow And Steady Method Best?

There’s a new study that changes the thinking about how to lose weight. “Across the world, guidelines recommend gradual weight loss for the treatment of obesity, reflecting the widely held belief that fast weight loss is more quickly regained,” study lead author Katrina Purcell, a dietician at the University of Melbourne in Australia, said in a journal news release.

However, the new study shows that “achieving a weight loss target of 12.5 percent is more likely, and drop-out is lower if losing weight is done quickly,” Purcell said.
Current guidelines recommend slow and steady weight loss in the belief that it is more likely than rapid weight loss to help people keep their weight under control.
This study included 200 obese adults randomly assigned to either a 36-week gradual weight-loss program in which they consumed 500 fewer calories per day or a 12-week rapid weight-loss regimen that featured a very-low-calorie diet of 450 to 800 calories a day.

Overall, 81 percent of those in the rapid weight-loss group and 50 percent of those in the gradual weight-loss group lost more than 12.5 percent of their body weight. After that drop in weight, the participants were placed on a weight “maintenance” diet for three years.
People in both groups regained about 71 percent of their lost weight by the end of three years, regardless of how fast they had slimmed down, the researchers said.

Those in the study regained their weight because they were not losing fat. If you want permanent weight loss you have to lose body fat. Forget the scale and concentrate on losing inches.

There are a number of possible reasons for the study findings, the researchers said. The limited carbohydrate intake of a very-low-calorie diet — the type used in rapid weight loss — may cause a greater feeling of being full, and reduce food intake by forcing the body to burn fat.

That fat-burning activity causes the body to release breakdown products called ketones, which suppresses hunger, the researchers said.
Speedy weight loss may also motivate people to stick with their diet and achieve greater amounts of weight loss, they added.

The study “indicates that for weight loss, a slow and steady approach does not win the race, and the myth that rapid weight loss is associated with rapid weight regain is no more true than Aesop’s fable,” Corby Martin and Kishore Gadde, from Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., wrote in an accompanying commentary.

“Clinicians should bear in mind that different weight-loss approaches might be suitable for different patients . . . and that efforts to curb the speed of initial weight loss might hinder their ultimate weight-loss success,” Martin and Gadde said.

Christopher Ochner is an assistant professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. He called the study “well-conducted” with “sound results,” but said it might not take human psychology into account.

“Recommendations for gradual weight loss are not based on the supposition that the rate of weight loss affects the proportion of weight regain [post-diet], but the supposition that rate of weight loss will affect the length of time before typical ‘diet fatigue sets in,” he said.
“This is when people typically stop dieting and revert back to their former eating habits, which causes weight to regain,” Ochner said.

“Ultimately, the answer lies not in a particular type of diet, but in making lifelong healthy adjustments to eating habits,” he said.
However, another expert said the study might support faster approaches to weight loss for some people.

Dr. Caroline Messer, an endocrinologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, believes that “based on these findings, clinicians should consider a rapid weight-loss program as a possible strategy for some patients.”
— Robert Preidt

Please remember that rapid weight loss isn’t going to work for everyone. I believe in slow and steady weight loss. Give your body time to adjust to losing weight. I believe between 5 and 10 pounds a month is the best way. Some people have more weight to lose, like 100 pounds, and might be on the higher end of the scale and someone who only has 20 pounds to lose might be on the lower end. Regardless, I think that your body needs time to adjust. Rapid weight loss should only be done under a doctor's supervision.

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone.

 Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight”.

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

Why Does Weight Loss Always Come Back?

 It's easy to lose a few pounds temporarily but it's normal that the weight comes back in a few days or weeks. The only permanent weight loss occurs when you reduce body fat. By losing inches you lose weight. 

I did this by changing the foods I was eating, and drinking. I had to stop drinking calories. If you buy can or bottle drinks change to zero-calorie carbonated water. There are several flavors available. 

The change in my diet was drastic, to say the least. I had to quit drinking alcohol for a few months and stop eating dairy completely. The only thing I was eating was chicken or turkey breasts, vegetables, fruits, and a small handful of nuts occasionally. You can eat the same thing several times a day, but don't cheat. 

The good news is that you don't have to count calories or carbs. In the beginning, you might be eating more than normal but that will change in a few weeks. 

When you make any drastic change in your diet you should first talk to your doctor. The doctor might want to tweak the diet a little or adjust your medications. 

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone.

 Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight”.

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

Diets And Why We Do It

 

There are many different reasons why we diet. One all-encompassing reason is that we don’t feel good about ourselves. It’s a feeling we have that for some reason we’re not the way we use to be. Sometimes this happens over a long period of time and because of our busy lives, we tend to ignore our feelings. We wait until our condition is out of control and then we see a doctor and hope he can fix it. Doctors treat symptoms. So, they might put you on a diet, but they might just check your vitals and send you home with a prescription. I believe in watching out for warning signs, paying attention to your body and don’t ever put anything off. Having said that, I know that a lot of young people today go without health insurance because of the cost and I understand and that’s a good reason for self-monitoring. Keeping your weight under control will help your body work properly.

When a person first reaches adulthood (about age 21) your body is fully grown and your organs might take a year or so longer to fully develop, it depends on the person, but at that time that is the size your meant to be. Of course if your overweight at that time, losing some weight will probably do your body some good. I know that child obesity is a problem today, and this is something you should take up with your doctor, every case is different depending on age and development of the child. There’s no one answer that can apply to all children. And the reason I mention this is because adult problems with weight are much different from children. And because an adult is fully grown we can deal with weight problems in a similar manner, that’s not true with children. Just because your overweight doesn’t mean your child should be overweight. And a child can’t diet the way you diet just because they’re heavy.

I want to get back to adults and why we diet. The biggest reason and I mentioned it earlier is that you’re not feeling good about yourself. Sometimes this is more physical and sometimes you just want to look better. So when it’s physical, it’s generally because we’re tired all the time. It’s harder to make that flight of stairs, It’s harder to walk thru the mall or you just get tired too easily. And if this is your problem you need to ask yourself some hard questions. So many times people will blame these type problems on their age. “I guess I need to slow down. I’m overdoing it.” This is a typical response. We do nothing about our weight because we decided our problem is our age. I’m 70 years old and I can do just as much as my kids. I wash both cars in my driveway on Saturday morning, I can work alongside anyone over 40. I feel like 40 because I never gained any weight and I don’t smoke. I weight less now then I did at age 25, when I was in my best shape. Everyone has aches and pains, that’s normal, it comes with years of work and having small injuries over a long period of time, but if you stay active those little pains won’t bother you as much.

So, now the question is still “why do we diet”. Why do we do it. Subconsciously we want to feel better, look better and we know if we can lose weight then that will fix everything. And how do we do this, well we tend to take the easy way. “If I just eat less, I’ll lose weight.” Well starving yourself might work for a few weeks, but no one can keep it up. It’s not sustainable. So the weight comes right back. Some people have to go on a diet. The doctor says you have to. This is not the unusual, this happens more than you might thing. So now there’s three reasons why most people diet.

Personally, I believe that most of us who want to lose weight, just want to look better, want their clothes to fit better and want to ware the same type clothes as the others. Plus size clothes don’t have the same style as normal sizes and when you try to ware normal sizes everything bulges. You actually make yourself look bigger then you are.

So how do we do this the right way, so the weight stays off? You have to change your life. I don’t know If you watch The Today Show or The Weather Channel, but if you have you know Al Roker. Al’s story is a great example of how a person who struggled with his weight from childhood and how he finally got it under control after 20 years of struggle. Al wrote a couple of books about losing weight and there a good read. If you want some inspiration, his books will really work. He had to undergo gastric bypass surgery. I’m not advocating surgery, but that’s what his doctor prescribed.

“Today Show” weatherman Al Roker has often spoken about his struggles with weight. But in a column published on Today.com Thursday, Roker revealed that his weight issues took a toll on his marriage to size-four Deborah Roberts. His advice to the “thin half” of mixed-weight couples? Stop nagging your partner to lose weight.

“Here’s the thing I say to the person in the couple who’s not struggling with their weight: Shut up. We know we’re fat. We know we need to lose weight,” Roker wrote. “Your nagging us and pleading with us doesn’t help. In fact, in ways it makes it worse.”
Roker said nothing will change until the overweight spouse decides that it’s time to get healthy. When he finally did (he has lost more than 100 pounds since undergoing gastric bypass surgery in 2002), he said he and Roberts began participating in healthy activities together.

“It’s not that we don’t love you; it’s not that we don’t care. It’s just that right now, we’re not prepared to deal with it for whatever reason, whether it’s emotionally or physically,” he wrote.
A recent study found that mixed-weight couples, in which the wife is overweight and the husband is not, experienced greater conflict than other couples, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. Another recent study revealed that those in happy marriages may gain weight, while those in unhappy marriages tend to lose weight.

I think it’s important that you know being overweight can cause many different problems in your life and those problems can carry over into the lives of your family. If you want a happy life, then you want to “get healthy” and set a good example for all the people around you. Even if you feel good today, being overweight will catch up with you. Being overweight will age your body faster than you. Being overweight is a young person in an old body. If you don’t want to be a walking drug store, someone who takes a dozen prescriptions very day, then maybe it’s time to start eating healthy and take control of your life.

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

If you really want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Eat 5 Meals A Day, Sounds Crazy, Right

I had some email requests to resend this post, so here goes.

How can I lose weight like that? The whole idea is to control blood sugar levels and avoid food cravings. You will still be eating fewer calories than you do now and you’ll be eating healthier.

Yes, today anyone preaching weight loss will tell you to eat every 2 to 3 hours to avoid cravings. It’s cravings that cause you to “impulse eat” and eat the wrong things. That’s harder than it sounds if you work all day. If you have a weight problem or maybe too much body fat, you're probably overeating when you do eat. There’s a great article below, written by a working mom who happens to be a Chef and I already know what you're going to say. Well, a Chef can through a meal together in minutes, it takes me forever.

If you have a weight problem you are doing it wrong. You are not eating often enough, you're eating the wrong foods and when you are eating a meal, you eating too much. When I first started to eat frequent meals, I was eating 6 meals a day, but not the size meals you might think. I kept the calories to 300 per meal. So basically they were big snacks. After all your going to eat again in 3 hours. Never go longer then 3 hours. Always eat sometime between 2 1/2 and 3 hours. This way you keep your blood sugar from spiking and you avoid cravings. So if you are never hungry and never eat after 7 p.m., you’ll be hungry when you wake and you can start the day with protein which will start your body's engine and you’ll start burning fat from the beginning of your day.

By Domenica Catelli

I’m a chef (and a mom). You might think that eating frequent meals wouldn’t be an issue.

I understand the concept: Five small meals a day takes the edge off your appetite, evens out blood sugar levels, and keeps your energy steady. But I confess: I don’t always eat this way.

Although my fitness trainer encourages me to eat healthy food every few hours, my meals usually look like this: coffee, a bit more coffee, lunch at 3 p.m., dinner at 9 p.m. I start over again the next morning.

When I decided to change this habit, I found that doing these five things helped:

Plan ahead. Five meals a day equals breakfast, lunch, dinner, and two snacks. To do this right, you need to plan what you’ll eat every day for each “meal.” And you need to schedule eating every 2 to 3 hours.

Stock up. Face it: You’re going to grab whatever food is closest. So stock up on veggies, fruit, healthy carbs, lean proteins, and low-fat dairy products such as milk, yogurt, and cottage cheese.

Go for taste. Choose snack foods that will sustain you and taste good. Remember, healthy food can be satisfying.

Whip up a smoothie. Blend fruit, milk, yogurt, and a little honey for a sweet, filling snack packed with vitamins, fiber, protein, and calcium.

Combine carbs and protein to stay full longer. Try whole-wheat toast with peanut butter or a hard-boiled egg; whole-grain pasta with olive oil and cheese; or oatmeal with fruit, milk, and honey. Or make yourself a big pot of soup (like my Tuscan chicken soup) to heat up for lunches or snacks.

Preparing food ahead of time is the key to success and if you have to eat out, eat light. Salads or fish, no bread or pasta, it’s too heavy for mid-day. And remember when you do eat out, do not go over the 300 calories and fit the meal in your every 3-hour schedule.

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone.

 Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight”.

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.