Alternatives for Ice Cream While Dieting

Alternatives for Ice Cream While Dieting

If you've given up your favorite treat for your diet, we've got good news. It turns out there are dozens of healthier alternatives to ice cream. An average ice cream bar contains 260 calories and 17 grams of fat, but dip into sorbet or low-fat frozen yogurt and you'll save at least 100 calories and 10 grams of fat. Nonfat fudge bars, ice pops, and low-calorie ice cream sandwiches are other yummy ways to indulge while watching your waistline!

And those nonfat fudge bars, ice pops, and low-calorie ice cream sandwiches taste just like the regular ones. What a way to be on a diet!

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Dieting Tips

Here is another brief diet tip. Funny how small things can add up while we are dieting.

Before you whip up regular potatoes with dinner tonight, why not make sweet potatoes instead? At around 90 calories per half cup, sweet potatoes are an excellent source of beta-carotene, antioxidants, and fiber; regular potatoes baked in their skins have almost double the calories and very little beta-carotene. No need to add sugar or a lot of butter to the tasty orange tubers either, because these potatoes are sweet enough! Not bad tasting and what benefits there are for your diet.

Not only are you saving majorly on the calories, but you are also getting fiber, beta-carotene, and antioxidants. These are all important in any diet.

Diet Tip of the Day

Diet Tip of the Day

Starting your meal with a small, healthy salad of dark greens, colorful veggies, and low-calorie dressing is a quick way to get some added vitamins while also taking the edge off your hunger.

Restaurant appetizers can often be deep fried or high in calories, carbs, and fat.

Start with a crisp salad and you'll eat less of your entree while still getting all the vitamins you need!

Carrots, celery, broccoli, and cauliflower are my favorites to have whenever I need a snack. Very good diet food and also very filling. Just don't use that high calorie veggie dips. Be creative and make your own low calorie diet dip for them.

Quick Diet Tip

Quick Diet Tip

If you absolutely hate jogging, you probably won't look forward to a mile around the track. You can get the same benefit from rollerblading, dancing, or practicing karate -- depending on the amount of time and the level of exertion. A fun, 20-minute game of basketball can burn up around 175 calories. So find the exercise that's right for you, and then you'll want to stick to it.

Today's Diet Tip

Today's Diet Tip

Taking time to enjoy a meal can often seem like a major inconvenience. An excellent way to moderate how much you eat is to slow down, relax, and focus on your food. If you're eating while you're driving in your car or while you're working on your computer, you're rushing through the process and potentially overeating. It takes 20 minutes for the body to start really digesting food, so take your time and enjoy your meal!

Something so simple to start doing and can make some major changes while you are trying to lose weight while dieting.

Dieting and the Yo Yo Affects

Dieting and the Yo Yo affects are one of the worst scenarios, while trying to lose weight. You do so well at the beginning of the diet. Can see the pounds drop on the scale and then it stops after a week or so.

We wonder what we have done wrong and become bewildered with the diet and the lack of progress then.

This begins the YO Yo affects that I was referring to. After deciding the diet was a failure we stop with the diet. Then the weight we had lost comes back and sometimes even more.

Time to sit back and evaluate what you are doing or not doing during this process of dieting. Are you giving the diet enough time to actually work? Do you quit when you hit the plataue? Did you give the diet time to make the changes in your eating habits?

Sit down and write out all the reasons why the diet failed or why you believe it failed. Evaluate the diet fairly.

Some other things to ask yourself is:

• Did I pick a diet that I actually could deal with?
• Was the diet leaving me feeling like I was starving?
• Did you exercise along with dieting?
• Where you serious about the diet before you started?

These are only thought starters. Still the same, they are important.

Picking out a diet that has foods on it that you don't like is going to kill your chances of staying on the diet for very long. Pick out a diet that has food you will eat.

If you choose a diet that leaves you feeling like you are starving all the time. You will fail miserably with it. Be practical and make sure you are getting enough food or liquids to where you are left feeling full.


If you diet and don't exercise, you are not giving your body something it needs. Speeding up your metabolism helps you to burn more calories, as well as to make you feel better. Exercising does not mean doing sit-ups or going to a work out gym alone. Exercising can be as easy as just going out for a walk. Preferrably a power walk. This means that you are going at a good rate that raises your heart rate. You will feel great after you do this and jump start your metabolism. Believe me, you will see the difference as you do this and diet.

Being serious about the diet before you start is so very important. If you just say you are going on a diet to appease someone else, you are in trouble! I find that when I go on a diet, it is best to just keep this to myself and do it. Then the only person I'm dealing with is myself. Remember the saying "To thine ownself be true"?

Break the dieting yo yo. Set your own goals and make sure you follow-up on the things I mentioned above, before you start your diet.

Happy dieting!


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Reducing Cortisol Levels While Dieting

Dieting and the reasons why we find ourselves in the need of dieting is caused by many things. I have found that as I have gotten older than many things in my body chemistry has changed. Making it harder for me to lose weight once I have gained it. Also the reasons for which I gained the weight in the first place.

Hopefully this article I found will help you in your search of the how's and why's of dieting.


Women's Health and Fitness - Reducing Cortisol Levels Can Help You To Lose Weight


It is now known that stress can actually stop you losing weight especially around your middle. Stress can cause your body to secrete high levels of cortisol hormone into your bloodstream, because of your body's "flight or fight" response to stress. Stress can be either psychological (mental and emotional) or physical.

Cortisol is secreted by the adrenal glands and is actually important for the regulation of blood pressure, the immune system and many other functions. Cortisol can be good in small amounts but high levels can lead to an increase of abdominal fat, which can lead to heart attacks, strokes and can also increase your bad cholesterol levels and decrease your good cholesterol levels.

High levels of cortisol can also decrease your bone density, leading to osteoporosis and loss of muscle tissue, which will also slow down your metabolic rate, and it can also increase your blood pressure along with other problems.

Each of you will react differently to stress; some of you will produce more cortisol to a particular stress while others will produce less. It has been found that those of you that produce more cortisol will actually eat more food as well, in particular carbohydrates.

What you need to do to combat producing too much cortisol is to learn ways to relax and also to maybe change your lifestyle.

Relaxation can be achieved in a number of ways either by exercising, mediation, yoga or breathing to start with.

Maybe one of the easiest and simplest ways is breathing. This is done by gently breathing in through the nose, gently expanding your abdomen and then gently expelling the air through your nose pulling in your abdomen at the same time. Whilst breathing out the air you need to focus on that breath. After several breaths in and out you should start to feel yourself relax. You need to practice doing this exercise a few minutes a day to start with building up to five minutes in the end. You can also practice this when you are feeling stressed or when things are getting on top of you. Just a few minutes can slow your body down and help it to feel relax.

Life style changes can be like changing your eating habits for a healthier diet, getting enough sleep, or even organizing your time more efficiently so that you do not feel so stressed. Also looking after your body will help your body to cope with stresses that you come across during your day.

So if you are exercising frequently and eating properly but still not losing any weight especially from around the middle then maybe you are suffering from high levels of cortisol caused by stress. Look at ways to solve the problem and hopefully then you should see a difference in your weight and around your middle.


- - - - - -Gill Webster is dedicated to helping women over 40, learn how to live a healthy beautiful life. To learn more, jump to www.feelinggreatafter40.com and sign up for her free newsletter on health and fitness.