| Liz's Health Home Page. |
| Lose Weight: Weight Watchers - it WORKS Dottie's Weight Loss Zone - tips, tricks and point conversions galore! Eat Well: Publix - world's BEST grocery store. Go to Apron's Recipes, where Publix posts very tasty and quick-to-make meals, with complete nutritional information. Get Fit: LA Fitness - a gym whose clientele consists mainly of people you will someday look like. YMCA - well equipped health clubs with a less intimidating clientele. I loved being a member of the East Lake Y in Florida. Or, get a bike: Outback Bikes - love 'em in the ATL Chainwheel Drive - my FL bike shop Look Good: Mary Kay - for great skin Origins - more great skin products Mac Cosmetics - the best. Van Michael Salon - you can't go wrong with this one. Banana Republic - deck yourself out Back to Liz's Page |
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| Everyone seems to ask me lots of health-related questions, so from now on, I hope this page will answer your questions when I direct you to it. This pagecontains a lot of what I've learned about being healthy. What is written is based primarily on my own experience and what works for me, but I've included alternate ideas that should get the same effect. Everyone is different, so feel free to pick and choose your tips. And in no way are your choices to adapt your lifestyle my responsibility, I am simply offering tips and guidelines which you may decide to incorporate into your routine. It is always a good idea to check with a healthcare professional before making dietary or physical activity changes. |
| Health Tip: Eat a Good Breakfast! Mom wasn't kidding: breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It sets the pace for your metabolism. People who eat a sensible breakfast are less tired and have more energy throughout the day. QUICK BREAKFAST. Granola bars or other cereal bars. Just watch the sugar content (the chewy ones tend to have a lot of sugar - read the label). This is a no-brainer. $2.50 for a box, you can eat them in the car, on the bus to work, whatever. Nature Valley Oat's and Honey granola bars are awesome. YOU DO HAVE THE TIME. FRUIT. Have a banana. Hate bananas? Have an apple. Hate apples? Have a... pick your favorite fruit and eat it. Blueberries and Melons (cantaloupe, honeydew) are particularly beneficial. Eating only fruit will probably not sustain your energy for the morning, but it's a good way to break into eating breakfast regularly if you feel your body can't handle full meals right away. Either way, start making it a habit to eat some fruit (fresh) as part of your breakfast. OATMEAL. Oatmeal is so good for you. You can buy the instant packs - 2 minutes in the microwave and you've got a hot and tasty meal to start your day off. Oatmeal and a peice of fruit (or putting fruit in the oatmeal) will keep me full throughout the morning. My roommate has "3 times the energy" when she eats oatmeal for breakfast as opposed to eating nothing. CEREAL. Just try to limit the sugar. Life Cereal is really good if you like sweet stuff. Plain Cheerios with sliced banana or blueberries in it is good, too. Raisin Bran Crunch, SO TASTY and super filling! Oh and check this out, GENERAL MILLS cereals - including lucky charms - are about to be made with whole grains!! I also love hot granola (low fat) or hot grape nuts - in either case just pour the cereal into a bowl with some milk and stick it in the microwave for a couple minutes. YUM! TOASTER WAFFLES. Le'go my Eggo. Another quick way for a tasty AM meal. Just watch out for using too much syrup - a lot of sugar will NOT do you right. EGGS. The jury is undecided on this one. I probably wouldn't eat more than an average of 1 egg YOLK per day, but that's just me. Egg beaters are great if you love scrambled eggs. (I love to saute some onions, add spinach, then dump in the egg beaters). Egg whites are very good for you, and very high in protein. So there you go. 6 new breakfast ideas. Start making breakfast a daily habit. It makes a difference! |
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| Below are links to my favorite things. I am not paid in any way to endorse what is listed, it's all just stuff I use and would like to reccommend to others. |
| Tips on Training and Exercise Tips on Eating Well Tips for Weight Loss My Recipes My Training Log My Weight Watchers Experience |
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| Health Tip: Recipe substitutions You can make a lot of your favorite recipes much healthier by subsituting ingredients. One thing I've learned, don't substitute everything in the recipe or you'll get something entirely different (and barely edible). Applesauce for Vegetable Oil. Use this substitution in baking recipes. I use exact amounts (1/3 cup for 1/3 cup) and then add an extra teaspoon of water for each 1/3 cup, but I think you are okay even without the water. You can also substitute applesauce for butter. Every time I make a cake or brownies with applesauce instead of oil or butter, it comes out lighter and more moist than it would have with the fatty ingredients. Most people think it's BETTER the applesauce way! Special note: use sugar-free or no-sugar added applesauce in cakes and such - using a sweetened applesauce will make the end product too sweet. Egg Beaters for regular eggs. There is absolutely no taste difference for this one. I use egg beaters (or some other egg substitue product) in everything - cakes, cookies, pie, casseroles, omelettes, scrambled eggs - unless the recipe calls for egg whites. You still get all the protein and taste, and I think the egg substitues have a filler or something that makes the consistency less slimy than plain egg whites. If you are making quiche or some other egg-heavy dish, I use 1/3 real eggs and 2/3 egg beaters. (i.e. if it calls for 3 eggs, use 1 regular egg and 2 egg substitute eggs.) Wheat flour for white flour. White flour is generally bleached and more processed than wheat flour. Plus, when you use the wheat flour, you add more fiber to what you are making. The downside is the consistencies of the flours are different, and will alter the texture of your recipe (which is some cases is a plus). An alternative is to use the half-and-half flour, which is less grainy than the straight whole wheat flour, or to use 1/2 wheat flour and 1/2 white flour. Fat free chicken or vegetable broth. Instead of the fat-laden kind. I promise you, the flavor is still there - lots of it! Also use it instead of oil for sauteeing veggies and meats - best in a non-stick pan. Whole wheat pasta. Again, the wheat is better for fiber content and it's less processed than the bleached flour used in regular pasta. Fat free ricotta cheese. Especially in a recipe containing other cheeses, the differnce in the taste and consistency of ricotta vs. fat free ricotta is virtually undetectable. So there you have 6 ideas for healthier recipes. Off to the kitchen with you! |
| Health Opinions: Carbs and weight loss - what's up? A lot of people have had quite a bit of success losing weight on low carb diets such as Atkins and South Beach. The real success, though, comes in being able to keep that weight off. What happens when they start eating carbs again? They gain the weight back. I'm not saying that eating carbs again is the reason people gain weight back. It's more that they haven't learned to eat - carbs or low carb food - in moderation. The key to permanent weight loss is making healthy changes you can live with. If you can live without eating carbohydrate-rich foods for the rest of your life, then an atkins/south beach sort of plan could really work well for you to get the weight off and keep it off. Atkins and South Beach have gotten a lot of publicity because of the speedy results you see. Americans want the quick results, the magic answer. But the truth is, you won't be able to keep weight off if you can't make some permanent changes to your eating habits. I tried Atkins a long time ago but I was light-headed and sluggish. I also found that when I didn't eat as many carbs, my athletic performance suffered, it would be harder to run, my muscles would get sore more quickly. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep it up forever, so I stopped and switched to eating less of everything (with the help of weight watchers). Everyone's body is different, but weight loss is a very simple constant. All you have to do is take in fewer calories than you burn. There are lots of websites out there that can tell you how many calories you burn just in an average day - click here for a good caloric needs calculator. Then you can track your food intake someplace like fitday.com, and just make sure you burn more calories than you take in There are also programs like Weight Watchers that have done a lot of the guesswork for you. My sister always cuts out the carbs to lose 5 or 10 pounds, and it works for her. Then she eats 'normally' and a couple months later, has to cut the carbs out again. But this system works for her and she doesn't mind doing it. I'd rather just keep the weight off permanently and eat less of everything I like. I find the weight hasn't come back yet. I've been at this for 18 months now and I eat all kinds of carbs - they're not hindering my weight loss unless I eat more calories than I'm alotted for the day. If you want to lose weight, do it in a way that you can live with for the rest of your life. This may be by cutting carbs, but you need to learn to live with the dietary changes you make to lose the weight, if you're going to keep the weight off. |