Are you still keeping up on your New Year Resolutions? Did you try to change some of your eating habits and incorporate more weight loss recipes into your diet and menu plan?

In order to lose weight, try to speed up your metabolism by adding more fiber rich foods, cleansing spices, cleansing herbs and fat dissolving vegetables, such as onions, green onions, celery, shitake mushrooms, horseradish, turnip, turmeric, etc. in your diet.

Here are two recipes for you to try to keep your New Year Resolution:

Warm Black Bean, Arugula and Goat Cheese Salad Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of cooked black beans (soaked overnight and cooked till tender)
• 2 cups arugula
• 2 carrots, grated
• 1 /2 cup grated goat cheese
• 2 onions, chopped
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1/6 tsp cayenne pepper
• 2 tbsp green onions chopped
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp ghee
• 1 tsp horseradish, grated
• Immunity Boosting Spices Mix
• 1 tbsp parsley, chopped, per serving

Directions:

Saute onions and carrots in olive oil for 10 min., add turmeric, cayenne pepper, salt, ghee, stir thoroughly. Mix with arugula, top with grated goat cheese. Garnish with parsley.

Comforting and Healthy Homemade Vegetable Soup Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 onions chopped
• 2 carrots chopped
• 1 turnip cubed
• 1 small potato, chopped
• 1 cup shitake mushrooms soaked
• 1 celery stock chopped
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp ghee
• sour cream
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tbsp dill, minced (per serving)
• Immunity Boosting Spices Mix

Directions:

For vegetable broth: mix ½ onion, a carrot, a celery stack, a potato, a turnip, in 4 cups of water approximately for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, sauté the rest of onions and carrots in olive oil, for 5 minutes, add shitake mushrooms, chopped and cook for 5 more minutes; add ghee and set aside. When vegetable broth is ready, add sautéed vegetables, salt and pepper to taste. Serve with sour cream and chopped dill on top.

Bon Appetit!

Breathe, smile and be happy

© Irina Wardas, HHC

Women’s Holistic Health, Nutrition and Relationship Expert

NaturalCounselorBlog.com

Keep Your New Year Resolutions with Fat Dissolving Vegetable Recipes

So how good are your eating habits?  Do you eat while reading, watching TV, looking at your computer, talking over the phone, etc.?

Have you ever noticed when you multitask you can eat a lot without noticing what you are actually eating? Even when you have dinner with your friends or coworkers, as soon as the conversation starts, the control of how much you eat ends..

As a Holistic Health and Nutrition Coach and Counselor, I always remind my clients that if you eat while multitasking, you will give your brain the wrong signals. You can call this mindless eating.  If your brain is thinking of work, it isn’t thinking of eating and won’t tell your body to stop eating .

If you focus your mind on your eating you will:

• eat less,
• be full faster,
• digest your food properly,
• absorb all nutrients
• lose weight

Here are some healthy tips and ideas to help focus your brain for mindful eating:

• Take a couple of deep breathes to slow down before your meal.
• Bless your food, or at least give thanks – it will help you feel gratitude, which by itself a powerful stress relief technique to help your digestion.
• Try to enjoy what you eat by noticing the food, smelling and savoring it.
• Chew properly – it helps enzymes from your pancreas and other organs get into your stomach and small intestines.
• Eat slower to feel full faster.
• Have a quiet happy family dinner at least twice a week instead of eating on the go.
• Chant “Sat Nam” five times.( Sat Nam is a healing sound or meditation mantra).
• Say Bon Appetit before every meal even if you eat alone. It will help you set your mood for eating and enjoying the food.

Establish these stress free eating habits to maintain your weight more easily and feel and look fabulous, shall we?

Breathe, smile and be happy.

© Irina Wardas, HHC

Women’s Holistic Health and Nutrition Coach and Counselor

Mindful Eating Stress Free Meals to Lose Weight and Feel Fabulous

Many people underestimate the value of good old fashioned apples. Apples are one of the best whole fruits; a super food we should eat every day. An apple diet can keep the doctor away!

All whole fruit contains valuable minerals, vitamins, enzymes and fiber. Are you wondering why apples?

1. Healthy Apple Fiber.

Apples are rich in fiber pectin, which we can use to improve our complexion, metabolic balance, and blood pressure. Pectin (soluble fiber) lowers not only cholesterol but also body fats. How great is that?!!  Apples improve digestion, and also help with some digestive concerns (for example, if you have indigestion or diarrhea – have an apple; if you have  constipation – have an apple!).

2. Natural Apple Antioxidants.

Apples are full of antioxidants to fight free radicals and support the heart, immune system, and brain.

3. Apples as an Energy Booster.

Apples are also a perfect healthy snack and natural energy booster.

But remember that apples contain natural sugars, so if you plan to eat many apples a day, don’t forget to pay attention to your weight.

And, unfortunately, apples can contain high levels of pesticides, which means that you should buy them organic, but remember, they should still be washed.

4. Apples as a Detox Food.

Apples and their juice can be used as one of the foods that detox naturally. They can do a natural cleanse of the intestinal tract with fiber, which is very helpful if you want healthy detox weight loss results to lose extra pounds. The pectin in apples can not only reduce cholesterol, but it can also remove certain toxic metals from the liver, such as lead and mercury, and residues of radiation.

P.S. Don’t forget that you can also use apples to make Apple Water that you can use to reduce wrinkles.

Breathe, smile and be happy.

©Irina Wardas, HHC

Women’s Holistic Health, Nutrition Coach, Counselor, and Relationship Expert

Detox, Weight Loss, Energy Boost and Other Great Reasons to Eat Apples

Do you know your Body Mass Index?  Are you skinny, overweight or obese? We know already that obesity leads to high blood pressure, heart attacks and stroke, type 2 diabetes, some types of cancer, etc. But what is the difference between overweight and obese? How do you know that you have already crossed that dangerous line from being overweight to becoming obese?

“Whether you want to be thick or thin is a matter of taste” –Daniel Worona

Studies (published in the medical journal The Lancet ) show that it is important not only to know your weight but also your body fat, because Body Mass Index is crucial. Obesity can shorten your life by about three- four years (death because of high blood pressure leading to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, kidney and liver problems), but if you are very obese, it might be shorten by eight – ten years according to new study.

I teach them not to be obsessed with their weight loss or gain but be healthy weight smart.

The first sign of your gaining a couple of pounds is always your tight clothes. But it is always easier to maintain the weight you want if you know about your extra pounds as soon as you gain them. I don’t believe in a sudden extra 20 pounds gain. How can it be possible to gain 10 – 20 pounds without knowing it? Of course, it takes time, and if you are not alert, if you don’t weight yourself, don’t watch what you eat (I don’t like the word “diet”), you might get in trouble. Sometimes it can be too late, and it means you cross the line from being healthy to being at risk.  What’s the take away – weight your self regularly to make sure that you have not fallen off the “wagon” – but don’t obsess about it.

How to Find Your Perfect Weight and Live Longer

Body Mass Index is a ratio of weight to height to estimate body fat and obesity. It is better than only using your scale, even it is not very accurate for those who have a lot of muscles.

Click here to calculate your Body Mass Index, Body Fat and Activity / Calories Used

Taking your age into consideration:

Under 35:

recommended:  18 -24; overweight:  25 + ;  obese:  30+

35 and over:

recommended:  19 -26;  overweight:  27 + ;  obese:  30+

No matter what, let us be BMI smart

And don’t be too skinny either: several reports say that underweight women have a lower life expectancy than people who have an average or healthy weight.

Breathe, smile and be happy.

Irina Wardas, HHC

Women’s Holistic Health, Nutrition Coach and Counselor

How to Find Your Perfect Weight to Live Longer

To feel and look fabulous, we need learn to listen to our bodies.  Our body will always give us advance signals that something is wrong   But did you know that we can also talk to our body?  If you enjoyed our first visualization exercise – “Food Meditation as a Stress Relief Tool and Weight Loss Technique”, you will like this exercise.

I would like to share with you an excerpt from The Self-Healing Cook Book by Kristina Turner.

Here is a simple exercise you can use whenever your mind feels saturated with to much new information about dieting. It can help you tune-in to your own body’s innate wisdom…and help you get clear about  your next steps in self-healing.

• Begin by sitting quietly, in a comfortable chair.
• Relax…..let your body sink down into the chair…..giving your weight to the earth. Notice how you are breathing…and gradually let it get deeper and more even.
• Now, in your imagination, go inside your body.  Look for any place that feels uncomfortable, or in need of special, loving attention. Talk to it, like you would talk to a friend….

“Hi there, can I help? What do you need?”  Listen to an answer.

• Ask it to tell you or show you a picture of how it wants to feel.
• Now, get a sense of a particular food that would make your body feel both calm and energized.  Is there a new food it wants to try this week? Or a familiar food that would be especially vitalizing?
• When you have an answer, say thanks! Open your eyes, and decide how and when you want to cook your “healing food”.  Finally, savor it.  Just one food, eaten in a spirit of cooperating with your body’s intuitive needs, may be the most important first step to take towards gaining greater control of your health.

I hope you enjoyed this creative food visualization and meditation exercise and will share it with your friends a family.

Breathe, smile and be happy.

Irina Wardas, HHC

Women’s Holistic Health, Nutrition and Relationship Expert

NaturalCounselor.com

Listen to Your Body and Weight with Creative Food Visualization and Meditation

Are you on a weight loss diet and have been frustrated by your results? You are not alone. Believe it or not, I can show you how to lose about 20 pounds a year by cutting 250 calories a day.

It is all about small diet changes we can make. To get big results we need to focus on very small changes. In order to lose weight, we have to set practical goals and take one step at a time in order to achieve them.

Did you know that 3.500 calories = about 1 pound fat?! Let me show you how to save some calories to lose weight naturally.

Try to focus on cutting 200 calorie a day if you are in your 30′s and 250 calories a day if you are after 40. And by the way, this small change can save you more than 75,000 calories a year. But, please don’t forget  tostill  exercise or at least to use exercise shortcuts to burn calories and feel fabulous.

Here is a list of calorie overload foods to help you lose weight one slice at a time:

• Starbucks Caffé latte with non-fat milk – 160 calories
• Starbucks Caffé Mocha with non-fat milk – 330 calories
• Starbucks Strawberries and Cream Frappuccino without whipped cream – about 440 calories
• Turkey breast, roasted -2 oz. = 230 calories
• Ham, fresh – 3.5 oz. – 222 calories
• 1 cup mashed potatoes – 222 calories
• Pecan pie – 1/8 pie – 510 calories
• Pumpkin pie – 1/8 pie – 367 calories
• 1 slice Cherry pie – 308 calories
• 1 slice Apple pie – 302 calories
• 2 Sugar cookies – 178 calories
• premium Vanilla Ice Cream – 1/2 cup – 270 calories
• 1 English muffin – 150 calories
• 1 slice Cheese pizza – 230 calories
• 1 slice Pepperoni Pizza – 290 calories
• 2 large scrambled eggs – 200 calories
• 1 cup chocolate milk – 257 calories
• 1 slice of white bread – 60-80 calories
• 1 hot dog – 250 calories
• 4 chicken wings, skinless – 171 calories
• 30 small corn chips – 155 calories
• 20 potato chips – 210 calories
• 10 tortilla chips – 150 calories
• 6 peanut butter crackers – 205 calories
• 1 candy bar – 250 calories
• 1 slice cheesecake – 257 calories
• 1 slice sponge cake – 196 calories
• 3 brownies with nuts – 279 calories
• 5 chocolate chip cookies – 247 calories
• 4 peanut butter cookies – 245 calories
• 5 sugar wafers – 230 calories
• 1 donut – 227 calories
• 4 vanilla or chocolate sandwich cookies – 297 calories
• ½ cup chocolate pudding – 192 calories
• 1 cream puff – 300 calories
• 1 eclair – 239 calories
• When you read labels looking for calories, don’t forget to check on sugar content:
• 1 cup Apple juice – 117 calories and 27 g of sugar (more than 6 tsp of sugar)
• 1 cup Orange Juice – 112 calories and 20.8 g of sugar (5 tsp of sugar)

Let us cut some calories, to feel and look fabulous, shall we?

Breathe, smile and be happy.

© Irina Wardas, HHC

Women’s Holistic Health, Nutrition Coach, Counselor, and Radio Show Host

NaturalCounselor.com

How to Lose 20 Pounds a Year by Cutting 250 Calories a Day