Fat Burning Smoothie Recipe

Want your smoothie to burn fat? All you need to do is substitute green tea for the milk or juice in your favorite smoothie recipe.

Now if you are sensitive to caffeine you should use decaf green tea as it is not the caffeine content but the ECGC that burns fat. To get the optimal benefit steep 2-3 tea bags for at least 15 minutes (can allow to cool and steep overnight in the fridge).

Fat Burning Smoothie Recipe:

8-10 oz iced green tea
1 small container of nonfat yogurt
1 scoop of whey protein powder (I like Vanilla Designer Whey)
1-3 Tablespoons freshly ground flaxseeds
a few handfuls of your favorite frozen fruit (mixed berries are fabulous!) until the desired consistency is reached. Remember it is always easier to ADD more fruit but if you get in a pinch and your smoothie is too thick just add more iced tea, rice milk, soy milk, or almond milk.

ENJOY as a quick fat burning start to your day, or as a delicious lunch time pick me up!

Happy Fat Burning!

Pedometers: The FAT BURNING Power!

Oh pedometers are a fabulous little device to keep us on track with our fat burning goals. You see we have to be in the 60% of our max heart rate zone.

(220-your age)*.60= Target Heart Rate

Now for most people to hit the 90-110 bpm range, you know what they need to be doing? Walking!

Walking burns FAT helps us lose weight and research shows you don't have to do it all at once. A 45 minute walk once a day is just as effective as three combined 15 minute walks.

This is great news. Pedometers count how many steps we take, and researchers believe that a healthy human needs 10,000 steps a day.

If you work in the office or on a computer all day you are likely only achieving about 3000-4000 per day.

A pedometer can help you keep on track with your weight loss goals. Now of course the highest percentage of fat burning occurs after 40 minutes of being in that 60% range (you will burn about 95-97% of calories from fat)...but if that is not an option in your day, just break it up. Make sure you take your 10,000 steps and by all means just KEEP MOVING to burn fat!!

Fat Burning Cocktail

By Dr. Nicole Sundene

This simple fat burning cocktail should help you “Unleash your inner fabulosity”.

Mixing fat burning green tea with pomegranate juice is a most delicious delivery system for the heart healthy antioxidants, proanthocyanins, bioflavonoids, and polyphenols that protect our cardiovascular systems from the ravages of inflammation.

Ultimately these gifts from nature work synergistically to preventing heart disease and aging. Green tea is also a known fat burner, and can be consumed copiously by dieters for its thermogenic properties.

Ingredients:

• 8 bags of Green Tea.
• 1 cup pure Pomegranate juice (Trader Joes has a great organic one that I like).

Directions:

• Steep eight tea bags with seven cups of boiling water for about 15 minutes in a Pyrex container.
• Remove tea bags.
• Allow to cool to room temperature.
• Add 1 cup of pomegranate juice (Or to taste).
• Chill and serve over ice cubes.
• Drink several glasses daily to prevent heart disease, and increase fat burning.
• One eight ounce glass is only about 20 calories! If you are trying to get off diet soda, a Villain of the Kitchen Table, this Whole Foods cocktail should be your new best friend! Diet pop actually makes you fat, this recipe will burn fat.

Variations:

• For parties add some festive garnishes: Mint, lemon balm, lavender, fruit, and edible flowers will surely make you look like Martha Stewart gone on a health rampage. Plop a few frozen blueberries or raspberries in there as well to make it look interesting, or chop a bunch of fruit and create an herbal non-alcoholic “sangria” for your guests.
• Black tea is also high in polyphenols for those that don’t care about burning fat, you may also use Oolong, White Tea, or any herbal tea. Have fun with the ingredients you have readily on hand.
• For stress relief, grab a box of herbal stress relief tea like Celestial Seasonings “Tension Tamer” or a “Night Night” tea and enjoy iced with your favorite fruit juice.
• For diarrhea, mix heavily steeped black tea with blueberry juice. The tannins have an astringent quality on the gut that serve to stop diarrhea. For extra tannins, try a bit of cinnamon too if you like!
• Add a pinch of sea salt and you have yourself an herbal fat burning organic sports drink! For long work out sessions you may also want to increase the amount of juice in the recipe.
• For sick children, mixing pure juice and prescribed herbal teas (not caffeinated!) prevents dehydration while also treating illness. Add a pinch of sea salt for electrolytes.

If you have your own favorite herbal fat burning recipe, feel free to share it in the comments section.

Isn’t burning fat so much fun?

Fat Burning Formula

Now before we get started, please ask yourself the following question “Do I want to lose weight and be healthy long term?”

If your answer is no, then don’t bother to read the rest of what I have to say. I don’t want to waste your time. I am here to teach you how to be healthy and to only somewhat manipulate and “cheat the system” with a few of my glamorous tips and tricks.

Remember that “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Also keep in mind that every year our metabolism goes down by 1% in activity so in order to maintain our current weight we have to learn to eat less as time goes by, otherwise we will be victims to the average American weight gain of ten pounds per decade.

Discipline is an art form that takes time and dedication to hone for the most of us self indulgent folks born with inherently weak will power and a love for food.

In order to not disappoint, I promise I will in fact talk about all the latest and greatest naturopathic herbs and supplements to help with weight loss, but I am going to save that for a future post so that I can take the time to emphasize WHY the following foundations of health are fundamental to the success of any weight loss program you ever choose to partake in. Let’s get the foundation properly laid down before we build the rest of the house, shall we?

Are you ready to start pouring some cement?

Sleep - Yes, sleeping is my first tip. I know! I am sure you are all quite shocked, but if you are over-tired, you will not have the energy to exercise and eat right. Also, the more we sleep the less we crave foods that are high in carbohydrates. Sleep increases our growth hormone production which naturally keeps us feeling young and fabulous. Try it. See if you can sleep your way to a slimmer you! (Please don’t put yourself in a coma or anything crazy like that, I don’t need any lawsuits here. We are just covering the basics.)

Whole Foods- The most important question for weight loss is “do you have real fat or false fat?” Real fat is “adipose tissue”. False fat is from fluid retention. Most diets high in sodium and refined foods cause fluid retention, and the resultant “false fat” that is the evil unnecessary enemy for dieters.

Most people the first few days of a diet will lose ten pounds because they are just losing the water they have been retaining by eating more healthfully. A gallon of water weighs eight pounds. So just keep in mind that whenever you start the latest “diet trend” you are always immediately getting results because you are losing “false fat”.

As added motivation for avoiding processed “white foods”, it is REALLY tough to be overweight on a whole foods diet. I don’t know many people that eat a whole foods diet that are overweight, and trust me I know a lot of them! Most people can only manage to remain ten or twenty pounds overweight at the very most on a whole foods diet. If you are new to whole foods eating take a friend with you to the grocery store, make a few purchases together as an adventure and make new friends with recipes and products bit by bit so it is not too overwhelming.

Exercise - Everyone needs to exercise, so please just do it. You cannot expect to lose weight, be healthy, prevent osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease without exercise. That is really all I have to say about that. Please do read my tirade on exercise and why you should buy a heart rate monitor and pedometer to ensure fat burning success. You do not want to be working out too hard to lose weight, you have to be in the fat burning zone, which means more time spent doing lower impact exercise.

Diabetes diet- If I could, I would put nearly everyone in America on the diabetes diet for two reasons. First of all diabetes is soon to be a national epidemic as people are developing pre-diabetes and diabetes as I write this, so it is a fabulous preventative measure to ensure that at least my patients do not fall victim to diabetes. Second of all the diabetes diet is the best way to ensure that you remain feeling satisfied and not STARVING all day long. Eating foods with a high “satiety index” that are high in fiber, protein and water is the key to not feeling so hungry all the time. A piece of white bread all by itself will just go right through you and leave you cranky, hungry and irritable an hour later when you are on a diet.

Keeping stable blood sugar is fundamental to ensuring that you don’t go on a super bad hungry binge. Most women that are “hypoglycemic” simply need to be on this diet to insure stable blood sugar as well. I just can’t preach enough positive about eating The Low Glycemic Index diet. Keeping your blood sugar stable also prevents premature aging. It is relatively simple to follow and everyone can do it. All you have to do is learn which foods are high in protein and high in fiber and then simply eat them at every meal. Voila! I have single handedly cured the epidemic of diabetes running rampant, well not quite, it is a matter of getting people to DO the diet that is so tough.

So let’s review the formula for success one last time…

Protein + Fiber + Water + Whole Foods + Exercise + Sleep= Weight Loss

Exercise for Fat Burning

Exercise is the fountain of youth. Exercise not only keeps us feeling young and fit and energetic, it is critical for maintaining a healthy cardiovascular system. Exercise stimulates the immune system, improves memory, prevents osteoporosis and fights aging. Regardless of your current level of fitness, be sure to increase your levels of exercise gradually as the muscles tend to get conditioned faster than the joints. By giving your joints time to get used to a new exercise program you will stay healthy with less chance for long term injury.

Remember that extreme exercise can be just as hard on your body as a lack of exercise altogether. Before starting any exercise program you should always check with your doctor, especially those with chronic conditions or over the age of 40.

The first step to becoming more physically fit is not to just implement a new workout program but to get used to the idea of being more active in general. The summary of Newton’s Laws of Motion is basically that “An object at rest stays at rest, and an object in motion stays in motion.” Starting an outdoor hobby, joining a recreational sports team, and playing with children and pets are simple ways to increase the amount of movement in your day.

If you are working in an office and mostly sedentary you can obtain a basic pedometer to count how many steps you take each day. The average sedentary office worker only takes about 2000 steps per day. An optimal number of steps to work your way up to would be 10,000 steps per day. Get creative and find ways to add more movement in to your everyday activities! Walking at lunch, running up and down stairs, and parking as far away from your office as possible are a great place to start. Make it your job to fetch the things that someone else is supposed to get for you. Strolling around on breaks to chat with co-workers is also a simple way to get more steps in. Have a weekly contest with friends, family, or coworkers to see who is getting the most steps in each day.

The best place to start with an exercise program is to start doing twenty minutes of walking every other day. Work up to a twenty minute walk daily as your baseline. At the very least you should be doing this twenty minute walk every day. Walking is a great way to start the day, or is an asset after meals to improve digestion and jump start your metabolism.

Heart Rate Monitor for Fat Burning

Many people trying to burn fat and lose weight through exercise are simply exercising at too intense of a level that is not conducive to burning fat as the primary source of fuel. Whether you are trying to burn fat or improve your cardiovascular conditioning an investment in a basic heart rate monitor is a solid investment to ensure you meet your exercise goals. You really only need a basic heart rate monitor that tells you your heart rate as a number and as a percentage. Let’s save the fancy ones for the professional athletes.

To start a fat burning program, you should work up to exercising in the 50-70% for over 45 minutes to an hour each day. After 40 minutes of exercise in this zone our bodies are using fat for their primary source of energy.

For cardiovascular benefits, we need to work up to doing twenty minutes of exercise in the 70-80% range.

Even if your ultimate goal is to burn fat you still should spend some time in the cardiovascular range to prevent heart disease, and lower your blood pressure and cholesterol.

To determine your heart target heart rates we must first calculate your max heart rate.

Max Heart Rate= 220-your age

So if you are 50 years old for instance, that means your max heart rate is 170bpm (beats per minute). To be in the fat burning range you need to be at about 60% of that which is 102bpm. Now most people will be above that 102bpm with just a brisk walk, and that is why most of us work out and wonder why we are not burning any of that stubborn fat! Still twenty minutes of your work out should be at about 75% of your max heart rate which would be about 127bpm. So if you are exercising for forty minutes the most of the time should be around 100-120bpm and less than half of that time should be spent in the 120-130bpm range.

Follow the specific recommendations from your doctor when getting started on a new exercise plan and be gentle with yourself as you develop a new fitness routine. Remember to schedule exercise in to every single day so that if something inevitably comes up you are at least meeting your goals 4-6 times per week.

What are your challenges with starting or maintaining a fitness program?

Weight Loss Diet

There is no cheating the system. In order to lose weight one must follow the basic laws of physiology that you must consume less calories that you burn each day.

Or alternatively you must burn more calories from exercise than you consume. Addressing the underlying causes behind poor eating and lifestyle habits is the ONLY way to ensure a healthy and long-term approach to weight loss.

The best approach to weight loss emphasizes lifestyle changes that incorporate whole foods and activity. It is our belief that sustainable changes in dietary and activity patterns can lead to maintainable, long-term weight loss success.

Physical activity guidelines are recommended to complement the nutrition counseling and make this process easier and more productive.

While each person has different needs and will require a custom tailored dietary program, there are some basic concepts that are helpful for most people. A health promoting, weight control diet will be:

• HIGH in fiber-dense carbohydrates found in whole grains, beans, fresh fruits, and vegetables. Also, it is important to drink plenty of water (approximately 2 quarts per day).

• MODERATE in fish and chemical-free lean meats (chicken, and turkey).

• LOW in red meat, animal fats, hydrogenated oils, full-fat dairy products, pre-packaged, processed, and refined foods, sugar, alcohol, and caffeine.

General Tips
• Set a realistic weight loss goal, usually 1 to 2 pounds per week is recommended.
• Balance food intake with activity. The most successful weight loss programs combine increased activity with decreased caloric intake.

Tips to Increase the Amount of Physical Activity in a Day:
• Try some group activity classes at the local gym, fitness center, or swimming pool.
• Work out with family, friends, or neighbors. Motivation is increased with partners.
• Take a walk at lunchtime.
• Use a bike to run local errands and go for pleasure rides.
• Use the stairs instead of the elevator.
• Walk to the bus stop or work
• Park the car a few blocks away and walk.
• Dance to some favorite music at home or sign-up for a series of classes.

Tips to Reduce the Quantity of Food Eaten:
• Plan and prepare meals ahead of time.
• Identify foods that are often over consumed and set limits, or avoid.
• Identify and limit problem foods.
• Eat small, frequent meals and healthful snacks.
• Eat slowly and savor each mouthful. Allow 20-30 minutes for each meal, rest, set the fork down, and/or converse between bites. Chew the food well.
• Wait 10-15 minutes before taking a second helping.
• Serve food on a smaller plate.
• Drink two glasses of water or a cup of hot tea 30 minutes before meals to reduce appetite.
• Postpone a desired snack for at least 10 minutes. It may be helpful to take a walk, get some fresh air, drink a cup of water or tea, or take a short nap during this time.
• At restaurants eat half of the portion and take the rest home. Prepackage the food to go before starting the meal.
• Nurture with nonfood related activities, such as a hot bubble bath or a massage, developing a hobby, relaxing with a good book, or listening to some music.

Tips to Eliminate Eating Cues that Promote Overeating:
• Designate a specific place in the home to eat, preferably the kitchen or dining room. Eat snacks and meals only when sitting down at this place.
• Avoid watching TV, talking on the phone, reading, or driving while eating. This will help increase the awareness of fullness.
• Do the grocery shopping on a full stomach to decrease impulse buys.
• Create a schedule for eating. Plan meals and snacks at regular intervals, including the types of food to be eaten.
• Carry food to work or when going out, to eliminate long periods without eating.
• To prevent visual food distractions, keep all food stored in the kitchen cupboards or refrigerator, rather than out on the counter.
• Read or listen to motivational books, join a support group, or consider seeing a therapist to help with any emotional issues involving food, eating, and/or weight loss.

Diet, activity, and emotional work can provide feelings of health and wellness, which establish new patterns that support and nurture the body.

Think well! Eat well! Be well!