Ingredients:

2 eggs whites

2 sweet onions, cut crosswise into 1/4″ – thick slices and separated into rings

2 cups crushed cornflakes

1 teaspoon chili powder

Procedure:

Preheat the oven to 365 F. Coat a baking sheet with no-stick spray and set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until foamy. Add the onions and toss to coat.

In another large bowl, combine the cornflakes and chili powder. Dip the rings into the ixture until well coated. Place the coated rings in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet. Bkae for 15 minutes, or until the onions are tender and the coating is crisp.

Sodium makes you retain water, leaving you feeling bloated and fat. Get on a scale the day after drinking a few diet sodas, and you’ll actually weigh a few pounds more because your body is retaining water.

Caffeine boosta the secretion of insulin, a hormone that lowers your blood sugar, leaving you feeling hungry. Caffeine also is a diuretic, increasing the output of urine, which makes you thirsty. Hungry and thirsty – not exactly the best combiation for weight loss.

Tips in drinking sodas:

1. Two is the max. Keep your soda consumption to two or less a day.
2. Go for the “no”. Opt for noncaffeinated sodas.
3. Water it down. Make sure to drink a glass of water with (or right after) each soda so that you flush the sodium out of your body and quench your thirst.

Many fruits and vegetables contain vitamins and other natural substances that can help neutralize free radicals, molecular fragments that can harm body cells. And blocking free radicals is crucial in protecting your body from degenerative diseases and premature aging.

In other words, all those fruits and vegetables that help you maintain your good health while you’re fighting fat can also help you look and feel younger.

But what exactly are free radicals, and how do certain nutrients stand in the way of their insidious attacks?

According to the widely accepted “free radical theory,” unstable, highly reactive pieces of molecules darting among our cells react easily with oxygen, creating oxidation. And oxidation is what erodes things, causing metal to rust and fruit to rot. The free radicals in cell set off chain reactions, creating a destructive effect that biochemist call a cascade. The predominant damage is to DNA, the genetic material inside the nucleus of the cell. When DNA gets damaged, the aftereffects can lead to cancer, heart disease and premature aging.

When you get fresh fruits and vegetables on your diet, you’re absorbing some substances called antioxidants. These are free radical quenchers that can short-circuit the oxidation process. These substance interfere with the madcap destruction by free radicals. The antioxidants in fresh produce are beta-carotene which is found in brightly colored and dark green fresh vegetables and vitamin C.

Other substances that help restrain free radicals are important B vitamins (B1,B6 and pantothenic acid), cysteine (an amino acid), zinc, selenium, catechols and indoles – protective substances found in the potatoes and bananas. Add the radical-control benefits you get from chlorophyll, which is found in the most green vegetables, and it’s clear that fresh fruits and vegetables turn into all around cell protectors.

• It’s not all in your genes.

A research suggest that if you have been overweight as a child and have at least one overweight parent, you’ll have a much harder time losing weight as an adult. The majority of the participants in the study fit this description. They are proof that, yes, there are genetic factors involved in obesity, but it doesn’t mean that you cannot be successful at weight loss.

• If you fail, try and try again.

No matter how unsuccessful you have been in your past attempts to lose weight, don’t give up trying. Most of the participants had failed several times before successfully losing weight.

• Change both eating and exercise habits.

Almost all the participants said that to lose  or maintain their weight, they changed both their eating and exercise habits. In other words, they didn’t just diet without exercising or vice-versa.

The most common strategy in changing eating habits was to eat less a certain type of food. These foods were those that have very high calories like desserts.

The second most common strategy was to eat all kinds of food, but limit the quantity. The majority reported that they’ve watched their fat intake.

Very few of the participants used crash or fad diets. This confirms the result of other reliable studies that indicate that  crash diet have a poor success rates.

A study also show that it is very difficult to manage your weight without exercise. Keep in mind that the heavier you are, the more calories you burn when you exercise. 2,800 calories a week is not a literal goal for everyone. The less you weigh, the fewer calories you need to burn to lose or maintain your weight. Most weight loss experts recommend burning 1,000 calories a week through exercise.

To determine if, or how much, you are a food therapist, rate each statement on a scale of 1 to 5. A rating of 1 means the statement is rarely true to you, a rating of 5 means it is usually true. If you completely disagree with the statement, the score is 0.

1. There is no problem that can’t be solved with chocolate or potato chips.
2. I like to treat myself to a nice dinner (or some other food treat) to celebrate accomplishments or a job well done.
3. On previous diet’s,I’ve sometime cheated because I just felt I deserved a little treat.
4. When I’m particularly stressed or upset, I usually feel better after I’ve eaten something.
5. I have a favorite restaurant where my friends and I usually go to celebrate or just get together.
6. I have a particular food that I always crave when I am under stress.
7. I always gain weight when I’m under pressure.
8. Whenever I’ve gone off a diet plan, there was something unpleasant going on in my life.
9. I always overeat when I go home to visit my parents (or any other similar stressful relationship, situation that applies to you).
10. I always overeat after a fight with my boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife.

If you score 21 points or less, you’re doing well. You may occasionally turn food for solace, but you’re not a person who uses food for emotional control. If you scored 22 to 36 points, you turn to food comfort you on a part-time basis. However, if you scored 37 points or more, you are one of the legions of people who turn to food first to solve (or at least temporarily relieve) your distress.

Physical versus Emotional Hunger

Everyone knows the perception of physical hunger. We get light-headed, our stomachs start to gurgle and have that empty feeling. However, many people can no longer differentiate between the physical hunger in their stomachs and emotional hunger in their psyches. Food is used as a cover-up for emotions like boredom, loneliness, anger and sadness.

According to Nan Kathryn Francis, author of “Overcoming the legacy of Overeating”, many people overeat because they confuse hunger for food with their hunger for emotional fulfillment. People are not aware that they are using food as a coping mechanism for underlying feelings. “The more we abuse the food and use it as tranquilizer, the more we learn to live in a state of denial”. We tune out, turn away, avoid, and forget the underlying problem. Finally we forget we have forgotten and blame weight and eating habits for every thing that’s gone wrong with our lives.

• Post-Deprivation Elation. As soon as the diet is over, the first thing post-dieters may do is gorge on all the foods (good and bad) the diet made off limits. They believe the diet has protected them against weight gain and that they can eat anything.
• Diet-Failure Despair. If you have been on a diet and haven’t lost as much weight as you’d wanted to, you’ll be demoralized and won’t even have the desire to try again.
• The Energy Zap. Diets are very exhausting. They take some time, effort, and often don’t provide enough calories to sustained energy.
• The Craving Crazies. In addition to slowed metabolism, deprivation creates an exaggerated cravings, and a piece of chocolate seems a million times more desirable than it really is. When people are on a diet, they tend to focus on deprivation, and thinking more about the foods they can’t eat, then they become obsessed and respond with diet-induced overeating. And they never focused on what really matters which is changing their behavior and how they think about food in relation to themselves.

Yes According to Dr. Lendon Smith (author of several books about diet), exercise is the only diet that works. It is more effective than diet because sustained physical activity eventually increases the amount of muscle tissue, which alter your body chemistry and speeds up your metabolism so that you burn calories more efficiently even while sleeping. Diet will not loose anything but fat under your skin and the shape of your body will remain the same.

So if you really want to loose weight and have a perfect shape, begin a regular exercise program first then the diet follows. At first, you may gain a few pounds because muscle is heavier than fats and this don’t look encouraging. But soon as you go on, you will see that your shape is beginning to change. What you have gained is lean body mass. By exercising, you are reducing the fat stores that are inside the muscle, making your muscles long, lean and firm.

How to choose the best exercise

• To remove oils and salty liquids, drain canned salmon, tuna, or sardines. Then add water to the can and drain again to rinse.
• Toast seeds, nuts and whole spices to bring out their full flavor. Cook them in a dry skillet over moderate heat or on a baking sheet in a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven.
• Roasting vegetables in a hot oven will caramelize their natural sugars.
• Pound garlic, chilies and fresh herbs and spices with a mortar and pestle to release their flavor.
• Use citrus zest. The zest is the part of the peel without the white pith; it holds the true flavor of the fruit. Either grate it with a flat, sheet-type grater or remove it with a vegetable peeler and then cut the piece into thin strips.
• Grate fresh ginger with a flat, sheet type grater. Use a food processor to grate fresh horseradish, which packs more punch than the salted, bottle kind.
• Use fresh herbs instead of dried when possible. Chop and add them at the last moment for fresher, more “alive” taste.
• Add dried herbs such as thyme, rosemary and marjoram for more pungent flavor, but use them sparingly.
• Sprinkle vinegar or citrus juice for a wonderful flavor or enhancer, but add it at the last moment. Vinegar is wonderful on vegetables such as greens, citrus on fruits such as cantaloupe. Either is great on fish.
• Use dry mustard or salt-free mustard. Mix the dry mustard with water to make a very sharp condiment. You can also found bottled, salt-free mustard that’s just as powerful as the kind that contains salt.
• For a little more “bite,” add fresh hot peppers to your dishes. Remove the membrane and seeds before finely chopping. They are fine raw, and a small amount goes along.
• Vegetables and fruits are easy to season without salt. Fill an herb shaker with a combination of fresh herbs and spices. Use that in place of a salt shaker.
• Some vegetables and fruits, such as mushrooms, tomatoes, chilies, cherries, cranberries, and currants, impart a more intense flavor when dried than fresh. Add if they are soaked in water and reconstituted, you get as a bonus a natural “broth” to work with.
• Buy the best and freshest whole spices and grind them in a spice grinder. You’ll taste a big difference.