10 Reasons Apple Cider Vinegar Weight Loss Works

Apple cider vinegar helps to control blood sugar

There are all sorts of suggestions out there for how to lose weight—and adding apple cider vinegar (ACV) to your diet might be one that actually works. How? An apple cider vinegar weight loss plan affects how blood sugar is regulated, according to a study by Carol Johnston, PhD, at Arizona State University. “Her research provides evidence that drinking vinegar before eating actually led to a decrease in change of blood glucose post meals,” says Tanya Zuckerbrot MS, RD, New York City-based registered dietitian, best-selling author, and founder of the F-Factor Diet. “Drinking apple cider vinegar before a carbohydrate-filled meal can reduce blood sugar spikes that would usually occur after eating.” And that’s not just good for weight loss—it’s good for your overall health, too. Learn some more amazing health benefits of taking apple cider vinegar.

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The Hurricane Method Book Review By Lindsay Lake

The Hurricane Method Book Review By Lindsay Lake - Discover the Hurricane Method Program about? Happens to be the Hurricane Writing Method System Scam or Really Worth? The Hurricane Method International High-ranked Author Lindsay Lake Reveals Her Number one Secret 'Sea tempest Method' Anybody can Use To Create And Write Total Length Novel Within 14 Days.

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50 Things Nutritionists Never Eat—So You Shouldn’t Either

Artificial sweeteners

A grande iced coffee with skim milk and two Splendas, please? Think again—and hold the sweet stuff. “I do not think there is sufficient evidence to prove that most artificial sweeteners are safe for consumers, so I prefer to stay away from them and indulge in the real thing [sugar] occasionally and mindfully. Plus, there’s a plethora of research that shows how consuming diet beverages may counter-intuitively lead to weight gain, which can increase your risk of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease,” registered dietitian and nutritionist, Chelsey Amer says. This is what could happen to your body when you stop eating artificial sweeteners. .

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15 Ways You Can Change Your Eating Habits in Just One Day

Keep it simple

“People think of changing their eating habits as being all or nothing, a huge makeover; but that just becomes overwhelming,” says Libby Mills, MS, RDN, LDN, spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Instead, make one little change a day (go easy on yourself: skip dessert or eat an extra helping of veggies). It’ll be more manageable and still make a big impact in the long run. Here are eight ways to eat more veggies without even trying.

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More Baby Boomers Trying to Find Bliss With Marijuana

Recently, when I've attended concerts that tend to attract baby boomers, such as Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones, I've noticed a lot of boomers lighting up joints. Turns out that's no coincidence. According to a recent report in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, more baby boomers are using weed and other cannabis products.

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9 Foods That Fight Cellulite—and 4 That Make It Worse

Best: Saffron

“Saffron contains anti-inflammatory ingredients that discourage fat cell expansion,” Alan Roberts, PhD, tells Woman’s Day. This reduces cellulite by increasing circulation between tissues and increasing muscle tone under the skin, eliminating valleys on the surface to give skin a smoother and stronger appearance.

“I add saffron to chicken, rice, and roasted cauliflower dishes,” says Jenna Appel, MS, RD, of Appel Nutrition in Boca Raton. “It gives a gourmet taste, aroma, and beautiful color. You can also make a healthy and refreshing tea using saffron threads, water, and fresh ginger.”

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The Best and Worst Diets for Heart Health

Best: The DASH Diet

The acronym stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, and the plan was designed by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute specifically to lower blood pressure and prevent hypertension. DASH emphasizes foods high in fiber, vitamins, and minerals, and low in saturated fat, salt, and sugar, and the concept has withstood scientific scrutiny for 20 years: It’s effective for lowering blood pressure and cholesterol.

On the DASH Diet, you’ll be eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts, fish, poultry, and low-fat dairy, while taking it easy on fatty meats, sweets, and high-sodium processed foods.

A typical day on the DASH Diet: Breakfast: Yogurt with fruit and nuts. Lunch: Turkey and roasted vegetable sandwich on whole-wheat bread. Snack: Vegetables with hummus or guacamole for a snack. Dinner: Fish with vegetables and brown rice.

Bottom line: The emphasis on eating whole foods without cutting out entire food groups makes the DASH Diet easier to stick to in the long run, and its proven effectiveness makes it a great heart-healthy plan. Learn more about the best foods for lowering blood pressure.

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What Is the OMAD Diet—and What It Really Does to Your Body

Dieting trends come and go, but one that’s seemingly here to stay is intermittent fasting. A new, bigger, badder, and more extreme fasting approach is the OMAD, or one meal a day, diet. The OMAD diet is exactly what it sounds like—people only eat one meal per day. The protocol is you must eat in the same four-hour window on a standard-sized dinner plate every day. The food can only pile up to three inches high, but no foods are off limits.

This extreme form of fasting is just another way to restrict calories, according to Alyssa Pike, RD, the Nutrition Communications Coordinator for the International Food Information Council Foundation. “The OMAD diet is theorized to work for weight loss because if you’re only able to eat once per day, it’s assumed that you won’t be able to eat as much as if you’re eating multiple times throughout the day.” This is what being healthy will look and feel like in 2020.

The concept is simple enough—eating fewer meals could create a calorie deficit resulting in weight loss. Both Malina Malkani, MS, RDN, CDN, media spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and Pike agree, however, that the OMAD diet could have negative consequences for your body. One glaring issue is that restricting your food means you’re limiting the variety and amount of vitamins and nutrients you eat, Malkani says. Nutritional deficiencies could lead to a medley of health issues like digestion problems, skin disorders, and even dementia, among others, Healthline reports. As with any other calorie restricting diet, eating less also means your body will have less energy resulting in a slow, sluggish feeling.

The longer-term consequences of the OMAD diet are harder to say since there is little to no research on it, Pike adds. One likely result is the body will compensate for the lack of consistent food by slowing down your metabolism, and you’ll more than likely regain any weight you lost. “Sure, this diet might lead to short-term weight loss, but what happens when you begin to eat normally again,” Pike says. “A diet that advocates for extreme restriction or control of one’s eating habits isn’t sustainable long-term or beneficial for your mental health.” This is what it’s really like to try intermittent fasting.

The mental health aspect is a key reason why Malkani and Pike don’t advocate for such restrictive fad dieting. These harsh rules make it more likely for people to foster an unhealthy focus on and relationship with food, Malkani, creator of the Wholitarian lifestyle, says. Fans of the OMAD diet claim eating once per day leads to the opposite—improved focus and “diet freedom,” Pike says. Since no foods are off limits, people think they’ll be more satisfied with their diet even if they only get to eat once a day. But Pike finds it hard to believe someone eating only once a day won’t also be preoccupied with or thinking about food for most of the day. This could lead to making poor food choices when the time finally does come to eat. Research shows that fasting increases the risk binge eating which is linked to a whole host of psychological and physical health issues.

Intermittent fasting, however, is a bit of a different story. Still-emerging research shows intermittent fasting could lead to weight loss, better blood sugar regulation, and some chronic disease prevention, Malkani says. Unlike the OMAD diet, the typical intermittent fasting diet requires 16 hours of fasting and 8 hours of eating, making it less extreme. “It offers a more sensible and balanced approach which means there is less likelihood of potential negative effects,” Malkani says. Excluding people who fast for religious reasons, Pike doesn’t advocate for any fasting diets since they often intensify thoughts peoples’ food and effectively damage their relationship with food, Pike says. Here’s the healthy diet plan nutritionists use to lose weight.

Although the OMAD diet could work for weight loss in the short term, it will more than likely lead to a preoccupation with food, poor nutrition, and eventually regaining any lost weight. It’s more beneficial to find a healthy, sustainable eating approach that you enjoy. Next, check out the 59 rampant health myths that need to die.

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20 Foods That Are Never Worth the Calories

Cream soda

A ton of research suggests limiting sugar-sweetened beverages, which are pretty much the ultimate example of zero nutrition. In fact U.S. Dietary Guidelines suggest there’s strong evidence these beverages contribute to excess weight in adults and children. Surprisingly, some choices in this category are better than others. Ginger ale has 32 grams of sugar per can versus 49 grams in the same amount of cream soda, according to the USDA Food Database. But it might be better to just cut this category of drinks from your diet. For more evidence, here are 10 reasons to avoid all soda.

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Triple Your Weight Loss—No Extra Exercise Required

The real issue with losing weight is all that sweat: Extra gym trips, weight-lifting, and jogs around the block. But maybe you don’t need to expend more effort to get better results, suggests new research published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism: Put your mind to work and you could lose a lot more weight.

The study, done from University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire National Health Services Trust in the United Kingdom, involved 53 obese people who had signed up for an intensive weight-loss program. Half the people were also taught mindful eating—they were given strategies that helped them slow down and focus on their food, such as chewing more slowly, tasting every bite, and taking their time at meals. The group who practiced mindfulness lost three times as much weight, on average, compared to those who didn’t practice mindful eating. And adopting mindful behavior is not all that difficult. Here are 11 ways you can fit mindfulness into your everyday life.

“This research is significant, as we have shown that problematic eating behavior can be improved with mindfulness application,” Petra Hanson, a research fellow and doctoral student told Medical News Today. The strategy also happens to be one of the 12 weight-loss tricks only nutritionists know.

“Individuals who completed the course said they were better able to plan meals in advance and felt more confident in self-management of weight loss moving forward,” said Hanson. Here are an additional 10 weight-loss tricks that have nothing to do with diet or exercise.

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13 Real Reasons You’re Not Losing Weight

You eat when you’re not hungry

A lot of us are slaves to the clock. It’s best to make sure you eat regularly to keep from getting so ravenous that you lose control and can’t stop eating. But if you’re in the habit of eating when the clock says to, instead of when you’re actually hungry, you tend to lose touch with what “hungry” feels like and eat more than you really need. Research shows that mindful and or intuitive eating has health and potentially weight loss benefits, too.

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The 15 Worst Foods for Your Stomach

Carb-dense foods

This may change the way you look at “good carbs” and “bad carbs” forever. Carb-dense foods can alter the balance of our gut flora, triggering inflammation. Foods are considered carb-dense if they have a high ratio of carb grams relative to their weight. A small potato, which many consider a bad carb, weighs 170 grams, but it’s mostly water; only about 23 percent of it is carbohydrate. A plain rice cake, by contrast, weighs only nine grams, but almost 80 percent of it is carbohydrate!

Found in: Bagels, bread (including whole-grain breads), crackers, pasta, cereals, white rice, pretzels. Here are 17 more “healthy” foods you should actually avoid.

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10 Heart Healthy Meals Cardiologists Cook for Themselves

Olive tapenade

Olives are a staple of the heart-healthy Mediterranean diet, and one of the best ways to incorporate them into the foods that you already eat is to make a tapenade. (Think: wraps, pasta dishes, pizzas, etc.) “Olives are antioxidant-rich, helping to lower bad cholesterol and the risk of heart disease,” says Jim Froehlich, MD, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan provider and University of Michigan cardiologist. “They also contain healthy monounsaturated fats, which reduce atherosclerosis and increase good cholesterol levels.” Check out some more foods that lower cholesterol.

Ingredients

Half-pound of Kalamata and green olives, pitted

1 anchovy fillet, rinsed

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 tablespoons of capers

3 fresh basil leaves

2 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil

Directions

1. Rinse olives in cool water.
2. Place all ingredients in food processor and process to combine thoroughly, until it becomes a coarse paste.
3. Transfer to bowl and serve with your favorite vegetables and toast points.

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35 Health Secrets Your Body Is Trying to Tell You

I can think myself full

If you’re indulging in a milk shake and I think it’s high in fat and calories, levels of my hunger hormone ghrelin will dip a lot lower—and leave me feeling more satisfied—than if I believe I’m sipping on a healthier shake, even if the two have the same calorie count, a study in the journal Health Psychology showed.

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19 Things You Shouldn’t Eat If You’re Trying to Lose Weight

Granola

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, a half-cup of granola has anywhere between 200 and 300 calories, 12 to 16 grams of sugar, 3 to 15 grams of fat (depending on low-fat options), and nearly 40 grams of carbs. Plus, granola is usually mixed with something, like yogurt or fruit, which only increases its caloric value. “Although you may think starting your day with a bowl of granola is the healthy thing to do, the calories can easily add up to over 600 calories, just at breakfast,” says Toby Amidor, MS, RD nutrition expert and author of the Greek Yogurt Kitchen.

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18 Food Combinations that Can Dramatically Boost Your Health

Hard boiled egg + salad

Out of all the numerous topping options at the salad bar, pick up a hard boiled egg. The fat in the egg yolk helps your body best absorb carotenoids, disease-busting antioxidants found in veggies, according to 2015 research in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Count it as one more reason you should definitely eat the yolks. Check out these other perfect pairings with eggs.

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23 Tricks to Flatten Your Belly—Without a Lick of Exercise

Become a pro at probiotics

Our gut microbiome controls far more than we give it credit for, which is why having your gut colonized with beneficial types of bacteria is so important. One way to do this is by taking a probiotic supplement. You can also make these 12 foods that boost good gut bacteria part of your everyday diet. Not only will this help you get sick less, feel happier, and ease digestion but it can also help you de-bloat, flattening out your tummy in the process. Try these home remedies to lose belly fat.

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12 Keto Supplements That Are Worth Your Money

MCT oil

Medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) are fatty acids usually derived from coconut or palm oil. They are one of several popular keto supplements commonly used by keto dieters. Elroy Vojdani, MD, IFMCP, a functional medicine doctor in Los Angeles, recommends adding a tablespoon or two to a coffee or smoothie in the morning to fuel ketosis and boost mental energy. Indeed, a 2018 review suggests that people who use MCT oil reach ketosis more quickly than people who do not. Plus, people who use MCT oil may have higher levels of circulating ketones in the blood, the review said. “The more circulating ketones you have, the more potential fuel your brain cells have to use when in ketosis,” Dr. Vojdani says.

Taking it in the morning will help you get the biggest benefits from that brain boost, he adds. “It really helps curb appetite, pushing your first true meal into later in the day and potentially amplifying the effect of intermittent fasting if you are doing this alongside keto,” he says. Start with small doses so you don’t cause stomach pain.

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The Best 15 Sources of Plant-Based Protein

Lentils (1 cup of cooked lentil = 18 grams of protein)

Lentils could be the new red meat. One cup has almost 37 percent of your daily value of iron. Not to mention the 16 grams of fiber it has to fill you up (and stop you from reaching for that mid-afternoon doughnut). These are the best vegan protein sources.

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11 Foods Successful Keto Dieters Never Eat

Zero-carbohydrate foods

People on the ketogenic (keto) diet are fastidious carbohydrate counters. After all, most keto eaters aim to eat around 20 net—or total—carbs in a day. With a number that low, every single bite counts. Low- and no-carb foods may be particularly alluring for that reason, but Jessica Rosen, certified holistic health coach and co-founder of Raw Generation, says you should be wary. “Not all zero-carbohydrate foods are smart choices for a keto dieter,” Rosen says. “Artificial sweeteners may not have any carbs or calories, but they can negatively impact the healthy bacteria in your gut. That can lead to fat storage and digestive issues,” she says. “Degrading one’s gut bacteria can be particularly detrimental if you’re eating a diet high in difficult-to-digest proteins and fats.” Here are 12 things that happen to your body when you’re on the keto diet.

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7 Exercise Mistakes That Make You Look Older

You’re always at the gym

While keeping an ambitious workout schedule is admirable, rest days are necessary, especially as muscles age. “Intense, prolonged exercise and sleep deprivation will release and increase levels of cortisol in the blood,” sports and rehab therapist Jav Asaro told webmd.com. “This will have a counter effect to insulin and increase blood sugars. These sugars go through a process and end up as a product known as Advanced Glycation End products (AGEs). AGEs then bond between the collagen fibers causing reduced elasticity, blotches, and premature wrinkles.” To reduce this type of inflammation, include at least one rest day per week. Here are 22 more habits that are making you age faster.

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This Is How Much It Really Takes to Lose One Pound

“Lose 10 pounds in just two weeks, guaranteed!” Sound familiar? So many diets promise miracle weight loss that sounds too good to be true, and generally it is.We talked to experts about how many calories in a pound you’d need to burn off in order to see results.

The short answer: It depends on what type of pound we are talking about. It’s easy to lose a pound of water or a digit on the scale. It’s losing a pound of fat—and keeping it off—that’s more challenging.

How many calories in a pound?

In simplest terms, losing fat—even just a pound—means taking in fewer calories and doing more physical activity. There’s been much ado about how many calories make (or break) a pound. The number of calories in a pound is far from set in stone. “There is an adage that a 3,500 caloric deficit is needed to lose one pound, and this is a good average, but height and weight matter too,” explains Holly Lofton, MD, director of the Medical Weight Management Program at NYU Langone in New York City. There is likely no single answer as to how many calories you’d have to skip to lose one pound, since the number of calories in a pound can vary greatly depending on the person, but we do have a ballpark. “You’d need a deficit of 2,000 to 4,000 calories depending on person’s build,” Dr. Lofton says.

For some context, a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder with cheese has 530 calories; add fries for another 230 and a sugary soda for 70 more.

But it’s not just how many calories in a pound—it’s what type of calories. Not all calories are equal by any stretch, and the amount of calories in a pound is also dependent on the food itself. “If you cut 3,500 calories and just ate ice cream, you would lose less than if you chose asparagus and chicken,” Dr. Lofton says. “You want to eat a protein and carb mix or a protein and vegetable mix,” she says. Her tip: High-fiber, low-calorie vegetables such as cabbage, broccoli, and spinach will allow you to feel fuller, making any caloric deficit easier to manage. Here’s how to find out how many calories you should be eating to lose weight.

Protein is also key here because it’s super thermogenic, adds Jason Ewoldt, RDN, LD, a wellness dietitian at the Mayo Clinic Health Living Program in Rochester, Minnesota. This is a science-y way of saying that protein turns up the heat in our body’s furnace, which increases our metabolism and our ability to burn fat.

By contrast, eating just carbs will increase fat storage by raising insulin levels. Here’s what happens: You mow down a bag of chips, your glucose or blood sugar shoots up, and your pancreas produces a large amount of the hormone insulin to take the excess glucose out of your bloodstream. The glucose converts to a starch called glycogen, which is stored in the liver and in muscles. The catch? Your body can only store a limited amount of glycogen, so the excess glucose is stored as body fat. Check out these easy ways to cut more than 3,500 calories in just one day.

Our physical build also factors into our ability to lose even just one pound of fat. “If you think of muscle tissue vs. fat tissue, the muscle needs more calories to be maintained,” Ewoldt says, “so one individual could theoretically ingest more calories and still lose weight [compared with someone] who has more adipose fat tissue.” Plus, make sure you avoid these 20 foods that are never worth the calories.

How to lose one pound a week?

“In the short term, it takes an energy deficit—burning off more than you take in,” says Scott Kahan, MD, MPH, director of the National Center for Weight and Wellness in Washington, D.C. This is the equivalent of about 500 calories per day below your maintenance level. You can easily determine your maintenance level (the number of calories you should take in to maintain your current weight) with a free online calculator. If it says you can maintain your weight eating about 2,000 calories per day, shave off 500 to lose about one pound per week in the short term, Dr. Kahan says. That’s probably the best measure of the number of calories in a pound for you personally.

But, Ewoldt cautions, “humans are very bad at keeping track of how much they’re eating. They generally underestimate calorie intake—they forget about that candy bar they ate in between lunch and dinner. They forget about pouring a little more orange juice in their glass in the morning—and that all adds up.”

In addition, people “tend to overestimate calorie expenditure. So we go for a walk and think we burn 500 calories, and you put that person in a research setting and it’s actually only 200,” he continues. Don’t miss these other 15 weight-loss mistakes nearly everyone makes.

Exercise does make a difference though, Dr. Lofton says. She typically recommends a minimum of 180 minutes a week of huffing and puffing for weight loss, and sometimes suggests kicking it up to 300 minutes per week. Some exercises are superior calorie burners than others.

“For most people, focusing on moderately decreasing caloric intake will be more reasonable to achieve than increasing physical activity, though a combination is ideal,” Dr. Kahan says. “Most important, especially for those who have had challenges managing weight, is figuring out why it’s been difficult to decrease their calorie intake or increase activity.” Now that you know how many calories in a pound there are (for you), check out these 42 quick and easy weight-loss tricks.

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10 Weight-Loss Products That Are Worth Your Money

Medium-chain triglycerides

People use this fatty acid in smoothies, coffee, salad dressings, and more. The idea is that your body can burn these shorter fat chains faster, meaning that their calories are less likely to end up on your waist and thighs. Research suggests that MCTs (medium-chain triglycerides) may help you feel fuller longer, and they may help curb appetite so you eat less food. There’s a bonus: If you exercise, MCTs may boost endurance so you can have stronger, more beneficial workouts.

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50 Expert-Approved Ways to Lose Weight After 50

Chill out

Mid-life is often a time of stress and worry, says Scott Kahan, MD, MPH, the director of the National Center for Weight and Wellness in Washington, DC. “In addition to managing our personal lives, we often have stressful careers, the challenges of raising children, paying a mortgage, and so on, not to mention having to start to think about retirement, ’empty-nesting’ and so forth,” Dr. Kahan says. The more stressed out we become, the less likely we are to do the things we should to stay healthy such as exercise and eat right.

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The Most Popular Weight-Loss Products on Amazon

Apple cider vinegar pills

By now, we’ve all heard that apple cider vinegar, or ACV, is a wonder-cure for just about everything. But how does it work, and why are these Havasu Nutrition Extra Strength apple cider vinegar pills the most popular weight-loss pills on Amazon right now? It turns out these pills may help you avoid storing fat, but only if you’re already eating a reduced calorie diet and exercising.

“Acetic acid is the main component of vinegar and gives it that memorable taste. It has been shown in multiple scientific studies to suppress the ability of the body to store fat,” explains Ryan Neinstein, MD, a New York plastic surgeon. “In addition to the control of daily calorie intake and a more active lifestyle, consuming diets or food with bioactive nutrients has been proposed as an effective solution to combat and even prevent obesity.”

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15 Weight Loss Smoothies That’ll Help You Slim Down

Raspberry Oat Smoothie

“Bet you didn’t know you could put oats in a smoothie. It may sound strange but they’re an awesome addition—and they’re really filling. Oats make your smoothie thicker, heartier, and more satisfying. This blended beverage will keep you full until lunchtime,” says Keri Glassman, MS, RD, CDN.

• 1 cup kefir
• 1 cup frozen raspberries
• 1/4 cup raw rolled oats
• 1 CocoaVia Unsweetened Dark Chocolate stick pack
• 1 teaspoon honey (optional)

Blend all ingredients until smooth. If you like oatmeal in a bowl with one of your weight loss smoothies, check out these 10 surprising but healthy oatmeal toppings.

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15 Foods Proven to Flatten Your Belly

Oats and nuts

One sure way to zap belly fat is to increase the amount of soluble fiber you consume, says Jessica Crandall, a registered dietitian nutritionist and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Foods that are rich in soluble fiber include oats, nuts, beans, and berries. You should aim for 25-35 grams per day, especially if you’re diabetic. Soluble fiber does a much better job controlling your blood sugar than carbs, like a piece of bread, which can make your blood sugar spike then drop. Check out more tricks to flatten your belly—without a lick of exercise.

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The Best Keto Diet Menu for Beginners

Keto breakfast recipes to start your day

If you’re a newbie planning your weekly keto diet menu, make the meals as easy as possible. A keto breakfast, for example, can take advantage of many classic breakfast foods, including eggs, bacon, sausage, and ham. Eggs are real winners in the keto world. They’re extremely versatile, easy to cook, and have just half a gram of carbs but 6 g of protein and 5 g of fat.

“Eggs have a lot of vitamins like vitamin A, B complex, D, K, E, calcium, and zinc,” says Ryan Weaver, a personal trainer and keto enthusiast. “That’s why eggs are an excellent choice for breakfast when you follow the keto diet. To avoid getting bored, you can try different ways of preparing the eggs—boiled, fried, or baked. Also, you can combine the eggs with different foods like bacon, ham, cheddar cheese, butter, mayonnaise, so you get a different recipe each day although using the same main ingredient.”

Egg-celent keto breakfast options include:

• Frittatas and quiches
• Hash with pork, kale, and eggs
• Baked eggs in avocados
• Omelet with sautéed spinach, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, and goat cheese
• Eggs scrambled with cream cheese, bell peppers, and spinach

And good news for coffee addicts: you can still have your morning cup of joe. You’ll just need to adjust what you stir into it. Switch out flavored creamer for the real deal—full-fat heavy whipping cream, which has only 1 gram of carbs per tablespoon. If you want to give your java a jolt of sweet, stir in a low-carb sweetener that uses sugar alcohols. But if you can skip the sweet, even better. In time, you’ll retrain your palate to not crave a sugary start to the day. This is what everyone gets wrong about the keto diet.

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10 Men Who Lost 100-Plus Pounds—and How They Did It

“Admit you have a problem—and go from there.”

John Pasquale, the director of sales and marketing for Hard Rock Cafe, says he’s always been husky. But it was a photo from the NFL Draft that made him turn to his brother and admit he had an issue. At 426 pounds, he decided to try gastric-sleeve surgery. It worked—he dropped 140 pounds. But to get from 280 down to his current weight of 238, he needed to adopt—and maintain—a weight-loss and workout program. For Pasquale, admitting to himself that he had a problem was key. “Until you want to do something, nothing anybody says or does will make you want to do it. I watch everything I eat every day and work out five to seven times a week,” he explains. “It’s so easy to go back to old habits. You have to have the mental strength and discipline to stick to it.” Stuck in a weight-loss plateau? These are the tips you need to get yourself out of it.

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11 Ways to Make Your Coffee Habit Healthier

Don’t have coffee—and only coffee—for breakfast

So, you’re running late for work and you manage to guzzle down a cuppa before heading into your first a.m. meeting. Fast forward to mid-day and your stomach is growling and you realize that—whoops!—you completely forgot to eat breakfast and now it’s past lunchtime. Though drinking coffee is healthy, Adina Pearson, RD, says that because coffee can suppress your appetite and is a stimulant, some people use it as a meal replacement. “Coffee’s stimulant properties may mask the fact you’re undereating, but it’s only temporary. Good self-care means eating enough—not just being buzzed. You can’t run on caffeine you need food—carbs, protein, fat, vitamins and minerals, and fiber—for overall health.” Here are 7 signs you’re drinking too much caffeine.

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13 Foods with Way More Salt than You Realized

Cottage cheese

Cottage cheese with fruit is an old lunchtime favorite, packed with protein and calcium. But if you’re aiming to lower your sodium, you might want to skip these creamy curds, as they’re actually foods high in sodium. Cottage cheese has at least 400 mg of sodium per half cup. For a tasty substitute, try Greek yogurt. You’ll get more protein, calcium, vitamin D, and as a bonus, some good-for-your-gut probiotics. Most Greek yogurts weigh in at only 70 mg of sodium per half cup. Greek yogurt can be part of one these healthy high-protein breakfasts you’ll want to start eating.

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30 Tiny Diet Changes That Can Help You Lose Weight

Ask yourself two questions before giving in to cravings

One simple, but effective, diet change that could help you lose weight is asking two questions. First, ask if you’re hungry and then ask what you’re in the mood to eat. Susan Bowerman, registered dietitian, and director of Worldwide Nutritional Education and Training at Herbalife, says that people often eat for reasons besides physical hunger. Understanding why you want to eat a certain food could help you determine if eating is the best solution. “You could be procrastinating, or bored, or stressed. Or maybe you just really need a hug. Distract yourself for five to ten minutes, a buffer time to decide if you’re really hungry,” adds Jennipher Walters, a certified personal trainer, co-founder of Fit Bottomed Girls LLC, and author of The Fit Bottomed Girls Anti-Diet. Here are easy ways to lose weight naturally.

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15 Best Diet Plans to Lose Weight Fast

HMR program

The HMR program’s approach makes the top of the list of best diet plans because the Decision-Free plan suggests you can lose up to 66 pounds in 26 weeks. You could also drop 37 pounds on its Healthy Solutions option. The Decision-Free diet is a medically supervised, very low-calorie diet of shakes and snacks; Healthy Solutions includes shakes, snacks, entrees, and your own fruits and vegetables. You should expect to exercise plenty to lose the most weight; you can also sign up for health coaching to boost success. The convenience is a plus—but you will get a very limited choice of foods and aren’t allowed to drink alcohol or eat out. And remember: You risk gaining weight once you go back to real food. Check out these 42 tips for losing weight fast.

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