Weight Loss Made Easy

Water is really good for you, but face it, it doesn’t have any flavor. It’s hard to drink eight glasses of water a day when you crave something sweet and you’re not getting it. Here’s a way to add some flavor and some sweetness to your water to make it easier to get it all down.

Cut up some fruit and put it in your water pitcher before adding your water. Try this with oranges, mangos, raspberries, lemon or lime and make your water taste a whole lot better. Of course, you’ll want to let it sit for at least 15 minutes so the water has time to pull the flavors out of the fruit. Longer if you can wait.

For a twist try freezing some fruit and using it as ice cubes in your water. Grapes, raspberries and chopped up apples are great for this.

Replace your high calorie coffee with a lower calorie alternative and save about 150 calories per cup. If you regularly have a large coffee with cream and syrup in it for flavor, you’re coffee is probably around 240 calories per cup, or more. If you have 2 cups a day that’s almost 500 calories just in coffee.

If you replace that high calorie coffee with a skinny mocha that’s around 90 calories per cup you’re saving about 150 calories per cup, or 300 calories a day. If you just drink a regular coffee with some half and half and a Splenda your coffee will only be about 20 calories. That’s a savings of about 250 calories per cup or 500 calories per day.

Just think about how much weight you could lose by just making this small change in your daily diet.

Have you ever had a fruit smoothie? They’re super sweet and really good for you. They’re also really easy to make yourself, and probably healthier than buying one at the mall. You only need a few ingredients and a blender to make yourself the sweetest healthy desert ever.

The main thing you’re going to need to make yourself a fruit smoothie is… fruit. Frozen fruit that is. Just pick up a bag at the grocery store. Any kind you like. Strawberries, raspberries, peaches or something else. If you want you can even use a combination of fruits in your smoothie.

Then you’ll need something liquid or semi liquid. Orange juice, or another kind of fruit juice is good for that. Pour your fruit into the blender, then pour in a little juice. Press it down with a spatula, put the lid on and blend. You many need to press is down more or try the pulse button to get it started, or you may need a little more juice.

If you want to add some protein to your smoothie you can use low fat vanilla yogurt, peanut butter or soft tofu.

I’m not saying you can’t drink at all. What I am saying is that alcohol has a lot of calories in it. One good night out with friends can pack on hundreds, even thousands, of calories. Let’s say that you have five beers at approximately 100 calories each, that’s 500 calories right there. Then, because you’re intoxicated and out with friends, you decide to order the cheesy fries, heavy on the cheese. Now you’re up over 1000 calories.

Instead have a sparkling water with lemon or lime. You’ll feel like you’re still drinking with your friends and having fun, but you’ll get a whole lot less calories. Don’t go for drinks with fruit juice in them, they also have a lot of calories.

Maybe you like to have one glass of wine each night before bed. That’s around 700 extra calories a week. That’s 2-3 more hours extra that you need to exercise. Is it worth it? Destress by doing a workout, going for a walk or play a game with your family instead.

Some studies have shown that green tea helps burn calories. I’m not going to suggest to you that you should drink 5 or more cups of green tea a day to get the calorie burning benefit. I will tell you that drinking green tea does other things besides help burn fat though, and that may be a reason to drink some everyday.

If you drink 5 or more cups of green tea a day you’ll burn more calories, but not that many. Not enough to be worth drinking that much green tea, unless you really like drinking a lot of green tea I don’t recommend this. I drink green tea every day, probably about 3 cups, instead of coffee.

Other reasons to drink green tea are that it’s good for your heart and circulation. It also gives you energy. I especially like Bigelow Mint green tea. I drink it when I’m feeling tired and it helps to perk me up and give me more energy so I can get on with my day. This means I can exercise and move around more, thus burning more calories.

Water is one of the most important things you can do to promote weight loss and good health. Drinking eight to ten glasses of water a day does wonders for your whole body. It hydrates your skin and flushes out all the bad stuff in your system. It’s also a great way to lose weight.

Before you eat, every time you eat, drink a glass of water first. This does two things. First, it gets you closer to that eight to ten glasses of water you need each day to stay healthy. Second, it stays in your stomach while you eat causing you to eat less.

If you don’t like your water straight you can substitute with decaf coffee and tea or low sugar fruit juice. Watch the calories though. If you add milk and sugar to your coffee and tea, you’re adding calories. I said decaf because caffeine will actually work to pull the water out of your system, so regular coffee doesn’t count toward your eight to ten.