Collection of Tricks and Easy Ways to Lose Weight

The traditional diets of the Mediterranean countries are not only good for losing weight, but they are delicious and healthy. They bring together lower cholesterol, lower rates of heart disease, lower rates of cancer. One great dish of the Mediterranean countries is the salad. So, let’s learn how to make one such salad and start feeling healthier. Those that are bored of eating the regular old salads will like this one.

Ingredients:

1 tomato – thinly shredded
1 cucumber – thinly sliced
300 grams of light white cheese – cut in cubes
5 leafs of laaf lettuce – thinly shredded
A few black olives
Some mint, some oregano, a bit of lemon juice, salt, pepper

Mix all the ingredients in a blow and decorate with the olives. Yes, you can eat the olives! As long as you keep the major ingredients, feel free to add a bit of other vegetables that you might like. A bit of onion wouldn’t be bad, would it?

Let’s take a trip to the East… Well that’s East for the Westerners out there. You probably have heard of shish kebap (kabob). You can make it with meat or chicken. This recipe uses chicken and is a diet recipe.

Ingredients:

2 breasts of chicken
Cherry tomatoes or some medium sized normal tomatoes
Shallots (small onions)
Green peppers

Keep in mind, all these are what will go on the shish, or rather “skewer”. So you’ll probably want a tomato, a shallot, a cut green onion on the skewer with pieces of chicken in between them. Depending on the length of your skewers or your taste, feel free to add more tomatoes (or what you want) and set up the dish as you want.

But before we get there, we need to marinate the chicken. So here are the ingredients for marinating:

Some salt and pepper
A grated clove of garlic and some thinly sliced onion
Olive oil and some paste/sauce (tomato or red pepper)
Additionally, if you would like to add some other spices, go ahead.

Cut your chicken so that you have pieces around the size of the shallots. Marinate the pieces in the ingredients mentioned above.

After a few hours of marinating, line up your goodies (marinated chicken, tomatoes, shallots, green peppers cut to fit, etc.) on your skewers. Grill these until the chicken meat is no longer pinkish.

In the previous post we were talking about resistant starch and how it helps you lose weight. In this post I will share with you two Turkish recipes (based on dried beans) that use the resistant starch ‘technique’.

DRIED BEANS SALAD WITH OLIVE OIL

2 glasses dried beans
2 carrots
1 celery root
2 onions
1 clove garlic
1/2 spoon thick tomato paste
three spoons chopped fresh parsley
1/3 spoon sugar
1/4 spoon salt
EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)

1. Wash the beans and let them soak in cold water from evening till morning (or use sieved canned beans if not). The next morning wash them again and boil them in fresh water until they are half boiled.
(I am sure you are familiar with the unpleasant results of eating beans. This process removes the ‘unpleasant results’ totally.)

2. Cut in small cubes the carrots, celery, onion and garlic;

3. Add them to a pot with a few spoons of olive oil; mix until they turn gold and carrots change a little their color;

4. Add the tomato paste and mix some more;

5. Add the beans (without the water in which they previously boiled), add sugar and salt, and 1.5-2 glasses of water. Cook on low fire. Cover with a lid later, while cooking.

6. When cooked, allow it to cool by partially uncovering the pot.

7. Remove to another platter and decorate with parsley.

Chill in the fridge.

Optional: you can add lemon juice to the salad. Try separately before trying on all your food.

DRIED BEANS SALAD WITH SOYA SAUCE

4 servings, 200 calories
Source: Sofra Magazine

400 g (14.10 oz.) dried beans
6 green onion
2 small spoons lemon juice
2 small spoons soya sauce
3 spoons EVOO
black pepper, salt, paprika

1. Wash the beans and let them soak in cold water from evening till morning (or use sieved canned beans if not). The next morning wash them again and boil them in fresh water until they have softened. You should add enough water to cover the beans, plus 1/2 glass more. If the beans need more water while boiling, you can add extra water but make sure it is hot water, not cold.

2. Add to a another pot with olive oil the chopped green onions, the lemon juice and the soya sauce. Mix for 2-3 minutes.

3. Add the beans with the water in which they have boiled, salt, and black pepper.

4. Boil on low fire for 10-15 minutes.

Serve cold.

A new research has proved that carbs *can* actually make you lose weight if you know how to cook them and eat them. Great news, I would say. According to Leslie Bonci, author of the American Dietetic Association’s Guide to Better Digestion, “Resistant starch has the potential to become the next hot nutrition trend.”

Many diets have already qualified potatoes, rice, beans, grains, corn as bad for those who want to lose weight. This new ‘discovery’ proves that one can lose weight as long as you eat these veggies cold. We are already knew that each of the above reduces your hunger and fills you up quicker than other foods. But the latest news is that it also helps you burn fat faster. This food is rich in fiber and it keep you blood sugar under control – two factors extremely important if you want to lose weight.

You also lose weight because this resistant starch forces your body to stop using the carbs for fuel and, instead, it burns the fat in your body.

How can you obtain this starch? Easy. Cool your food in the fridge before eating it, and eat it cold. Do not rewarm the food because you lose the resistant starch. In other words – salads made from the foods above is the solution.

Since I have lived in Turkey for 3 years, I have also learn to replace flour with starch whenever needed.

One such meal a day should help you burn fat – given that you do not increase the quantity of food intake during the day but only replace a meal with such a dish.

So, let’s make a list of foods that, while eaten cold, can help you lose that extra weight:

* corn
* rice and brown rice
* yams
* slightly green bananas
* potatoes
* beans
* starch

For me, no matter what I do, without exercise I cannot stay fit for very long. I hate food restrictions and I hate going to fitness centers and waiting in line or just having someone run after me to tell me how I should do things.

I also feel I’m wasting time when I exercises – unless I play sports, which is different. So I either need to watch TV or read a book while exercising, not thinking about burnt calories. If I use the bike 30 minutes, out of those 10 are those I use thinking about what I am doing (5, for warm-up, at the beginning, and 5 minutes to reach my kilometers, calories, or minutes count, at the end). I use the other 20 watching TV or reading.

This week, even though I am low on money, I went to buy an indoor bike (magnetic is what i wanted) and I bought a Kettler Vento for 250 bucks. It’s worth it. Actually, I wanted a bike (similar to the elliptical below) that works out your arms too but those had no seat so the chances of reading and working out were dim.

30 minutes on such a bike can help you burn 300 calories, medium difficulty, medium pace. It’s not only the calories you burn, it’s working out the muscles. You can see the results the next day. Honestly.

For the upper body I do push-ups and I have my own weights so I exercisea few times a week, a few minutes and all’s going well. As for stomach – I don’t have a problem with losing weight there – I have built muscles there in the past so a few pillates plus crunches plus other funny exercises, 5 minutes a day, 4 times a week, help me enough to be stay satisfied.