14. Get excited about exercise! Choose to start that rock-climbing class now! Focus your attention on that— not on baking oatmeal-chocolate-chip-raisin-walnut cake bars for the office. There’s already enough of that stuff being sent to your place of employment by FedEx at this very moment. See Tip #7.
15. Don’t give up your healthy habits just because you’ve got a ton of errands to do. It’s just as easy to hit the health food deli and get some hot lentil soup and an herb-grilled chicken breast, as it would be to go next store and buy a pizza.
16. If you’ve still got Halloween candy hanging around, ditch it. In fact, ditch everything that has sugar, which impedes fat loss, and fill the fridge with raw carrots, bags of green salads, avocadoes, almonds, humus dip, and soynut butter (less fat than peanut butter).
17. Get enough sleep. Let your body heal itself. It’s winter, after all. And studies have shown that when we are sleep-deprived, the stress hormone cortisol is released at an increased level, which makes us feel hungry, even if we are full.
18. Just say NO to egg nog. An 8-ounce glass contains 343 calories, 11 grams of saturated fat, 21 grams of sugar, 34 grams of carbohydrates, and 150 mgs of cholesterol. And that’s without the rum.
19. Go green! Green tea, that is. Iced or hot, green tea helps you burn fat, fight off free radicals, and build stronger bones. Try jasmine-flavored, or mixed with yerba maté, for twice the fat-burning power!
20. Aw, go take a hike! I’m serious. I’m all about the lunchtime walk. Stand up straight, engage the abs, squeeze those glutes with each stride; I call it the “inner pinch.” And hey, if you don’t want to pinch your butt— well, no one else will want to, either.
21. Seaweed: it’s not just for getting tangled in your hair at the beach anymore. It blocks up to 75 percent fat, has thermogenic properties, and is loaded with minerals and phytonutrients. Have some miso soup with wakame, a nori roll stuffed with brown rice and avocado, and tasty seaweed salad for lunch today!
22. Clean the house from top to bottom, in preparation for the holidays. “Cardio Cleaning” burns almost 600 calories an hour!
23. Go outside and rake the leaves after cleaning the house. Yard work burns off about 400 calories an hour. And you’ll probably burn off even more when you jump into the leaf pile…
24. Avoid fruit juices; you might as well be drinking pop. Twelve ounces of Coca-Cola has 10 teaspoons/40 grams of sugar. The same amount of orange juice contains 8 teaspoons/33 grams; apple juice has 10 teaspoons/39 grams and grape juice contains 15 teaspoons/58 grams!
25. Eat vitamin and fiber-rich whole-grain breads and pastas. They keep you satisfied, and keep blood sugar and insulin levels stable.
