Germs – they’re everywhere. On the handrail up the stairs to your office,the dumbbells at the gym and the sink in your bathroom. Sometimes no matter how many times you wash your hands you just can’t seem to get away from the germs or avoid a cold.

The Problem

You have a weak immune system. You may not think so, but the lack of certain vitamins and minerals in your daily diet can make your immune system a wide open goal for catching bacteria and germs that lead to you being sick and in bed.

The Good News

This is not a lost cause. Strengthening your immune system is something that you can do quite easily. Whether through eating a wider variety of foods that have these vitamins and minerals or by adding a few supplements to your diet you can easily boost your immune system and start fighting off those germs. Read the full story

Making sure you eat every few hours ensures that your metabolism is revving and the pounds are coming off – even when you aren’t at the gym.

Think of eating every few hours like putting a log on the fire to keep it burning.

Just like a fire needs energy (or a log) to keep burning strong – your body needs nutrients to keep it burning strong. Eating every 3-4 hours helps to keep the fire in your tummy going strong. Well, you don’t really have a fire in your stomach – but your metabolism is the fire that gives you energy. When you don’t eat every few hours the fire starts to go out and you have less energy. Less energy to focus at work. Less energy to workout. Less energy to even make dinner.

How can you keep the fire in your stomach stoked?

Try one of these Three Flat Stomach Diet snacks

Sliced Apples and Natural Peanut Butter – I’m sure we all remember having apples and peanut butter as a kid for an after school snack. Well, the benefits of this snack are STILL as good for you. The good fat in natural peanut butter helps to fill you up, while the apples give you a sweet treat to fill your sugar cravings.

Almonds and Goji Berries - The health benefits of goji berries are endless – from helping fight cancer, to helping you lose weight and give you energy to make it through the day. Don’t think that you are only going to get health benefits from the goji berries – almonds hold their own when it comes to nutrients. Almonds are full of nutrients such as vitamin E and fiber – while helping to lower blood pressure and heart disease. When you combine the goji berries with almonds you get a snack PACKED with nutrients.

Hummus and Veggies – Adding a snack with hummus is a great way to increase the fiber in your diet. The fiber in hummus helps keep you fuller for longer and avoid those unhealthy treats. Eating the hummus with veggies is a great way to add green vegetables to your diet and avoid extra carbohydrates (if you chose the alternative bread to eat with your hummus).

Any of these three flat stomach diet snacks will not only fit into your flat stomach diet, but they are quick and easy. You can grab them at the grocery store and throw them into your lunch, without much time or preparation. Once they are in your lunch bag you’ll be more inclined to eat them – keeping your fire stoked and giving you the energy you need to make it through the day, while working towards your fitness goals.

Want more Flat Stomach Diet Snack Recipes? Check out these:

Healthy Snack Options to Lose Weight

Four Healthy Snack Options

A new week of working towards your fitness goals and flat stomach is about to begin. It doesn’t matter anymore if you didn’t stick to your diet last week or missed a few workouts. Its a new week and now is the time to plan and make sure you don’t make the same mistakes as last week. Or if you had a perfect week last week – ate every meal you had to and had some AWESOME workouts, its time to make sure that this week is perfect yet again.

In order to ensure a successful week I’ve created a list of four of my favorite healthy snack options that are quick and easy to put together, plus GOOD for you. In order to ensure maximum fat loss and great results, its better to eat 5 to 6 smaller meals a day, two of them (between breakfast and lunch then between lunch and dinner) can be what I like to call ’snacks’.  Adding these snacks into your flat stomach diet is going to help you keep your metabolism going and burning fat all day long, even when you’re at work sitting in front of the computer.

Most importantly, they’re tasty. Many people think that the term ‘healthy’ means ‘no flavor’ or ‘tastes like cardboard’ – no ma’am! I’m personally not a fan of cardboard – SO I’m not going to share anything with you that tastes that bad!

Now that I have your mouth watering…here we go!

1. Yogurt – Yogurt is simple and easy to pack, especially if you’re on the go. Yogurt is a great source of protein and healthy fat.  Add some fresh fruit or some granola (depending on your carb intake) and you’ll have a tasty sweet treat to keep you going until lunch.
   



2. Natural Peanut Butter – Easily my favorite flat stomach diet staple.  Put a tablespoon of peanut butter on some celery, an apple, or a low fat rice cake for a quick snack that will fill you up. Sometimes, I forget the vegetable or fruit and just eat peanut butter right out of the jar! Its SO tasty and a great source of natural healthy fat that will help keep your burning the ‘bad’ fat.
3. Almonds – Almonds are an AWESOME snack time option, not only because they are tasty but they are SO good for you! Almonds are a great source of fiber, Vitamin E, and magnesium (that’s just on top of the usual protein and healthy fat).  Almonds help lower blood pressure, fight heart disease and help you build muscle.  Next time your hungry, have a few almonds and let the fighting of fat and high blood pressure begin.

   

4. Blueberries - Instead of reaching for the bowl of M&M’s on your desk – next time reach for a handful of blueberries. This delicious sweet snack have loads of benefits, as research has recently discovered. Blueberries have the highest levels of antioxidants, which will help fight disease, and they are a great source of fiber, which helps prevent the absorption of some fat.  Add your blueberries to your yogurt or cottage cheese, or even eat them by yourself and you’ll be satisfied until your next meal.

There are so many healthy snack options, these are just a few of my favorite to get you through this week.  Another quick tip for successful weight loss this week – make sure to add these delicious treats to your grocery list and buy your food for the week before the week starts. Knowing what you are going to eat all week only helps to set you up for weight loss success – ensuring that you have all the food you need all week long.  Then pack up your meals the night before and your ready to go!

Let’s make this week another successful week!

By Jennifer Jolan

Here are the best ways to lose weight fast without suffering through idiotic diets and torturing workouts. If you just follow these simple things to do, you can’t help BUT TO lose weight. Read this now if you want to finally, once and for all, get rid of your extra pounds without suffering.
Best Ways to Lose Weight Fast
1. Add extra fiber to your diet
Fiber is the secret ingredient for weight loss that few people seem to talk about. I’m going to make this as simple as possible for you. I want you to add 2 foods to your diet everyday. One for snacks and the other to be added to your meals.
What are they?
Black beans and apples. Use the apples (2-3 a day) for snacks and use 1 can of black beans as part of 1-2 meals. There’s 25 grams of fiber in a can of black beans and 5 grams of fiber in each apple. Those extra 40 grams of fiber will literally FORCE your body into losing weight whether it wants to or not.

Note from Melissa – Other great sources of fiber can include: broccoli, green beans, spinach, almonds, berries, or dried fruit such as apricots.
2. Get rid of 3-5 pounds of excess water bloat
Water weight is about the easiest thing you can manipulate for weight loss. You should understand this… you’re probably carrying 3-5 pounds of extra water that is not needed. This is because of evolution and survival. The extra water weight helped you to survive in times of scarce water.
The easy way to get rid of this extra water weight is to do something that is a paradox… you drink MORE water. Yep, you’ve heard it countless times before and I’m sure the people didn’t explain the science behind WHY you need to drink extra water. But if you did drink 30-50 ounces of extra water beyond what you’re currently drinking, your body will take that as a cue that water isn’t scarce.
The body then FLUSHES the unneeded water out of your system within 1-2 days usually.
Those are 2 of the best ways to lose weight fast and easy.