Healthy Diet Plans-A Comparison

I am sure it comes as no surprise to you that many of us are packing a few more pounds than we should. Putting together a healthy diet plan is a priority for most of us. Doing an internet search for a good weight loss program will return millions of results but who has time to sift through them all?

Though a new fad diet or quick-weight-loss-pill clamors for our attention nearly every day, the principles of healthy weight loss have not changed in decades:

Eat a well-balanced diet where most of the calories are derived from whole grains, vegetables and fruits.

Eat fewer calories than you expend.

Exercise moderately every day.

Learn to eat that way as a lifestyle and you will lose weight-and keep it off!

Whether you choose the Atkins Diet, the Mediterranean Diet, the Mayo Clinic, the South Beach or whatever the diet du jour is today, they will all include the principles mentioned. The only real difference is in what is emphasized.

The Atkins, South Beach and several other diets tout the benefits of 'low carbohydrate' intake. What they're really saying is to avoid breads and other starchy foods and to get the essential carbohydrates your body needs from vegetables instead.

Which, of course, is the same thing the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and others have been advising all along.

All these nutrition advisors want you to eat about 2 1/2 cups of vegetables every day and only eat till you're not hungry anymore. I've got news for you: If you eat 2 1/2 cups of vegetables, you're not going to be very hungry anymore. So your calorie intake from whatever you try to eat on top of those vegetables is going to be naturally restricted. Add a little moderate exercise and 'Voila!', you'll lose weight. Keep it up and you've switched to a healthy lifestyle that will keep the weight off.

So don't get caught up in whatever diet guru is shouting at you today. In the end, they all agree on the basic principles. It boils down to this: Eat Less, Move More, Rinse and Repeat Daily.

Fat Loss for Idiots-A Plan That Works.

My Secret to Happiness

I suspect that most people are unhappy to a greater or lesser degree. They are unhappy because they don't know how to achieve happiness. Worse, they do things that they think will lead to happiness and instead achieve the opposite result.

I'm going to tell you the secret to happiness. I discovered it in my youth and it's so simple that I'm amazed that it's not universally known.

In my mid twenties, I achieved a lifelong dream when I acquired the necessary credentials to become a professional pilot. I was only on the first rung of a tall ladder but at least I was on the ladder and my future was in sight and it thrilled me.

I accepted my sister's invitation to come stay with her for awhile in New Mexico. My sister, her husband and their neighbors were all relics of the '60's. Flower children and 'hippies' who hadn't joined us in the next decade yet. They lived in homemade log cabins in a remote valley near Guadalupita.

While there I got a job as a cowboy on a small ranch in Mora and worked for $10 per day plus meals and a patch of floor upon which to spread my bedroll.

In time I saved enough money to put gas in my old Ford Cortina, with the oil light and water light frequently illuminating my dashboard, and go searching for my first flying job.

In Albuquerque, I landed a job as a flight instructor with a small flying school. I started my career with $15 in my pocket, a homemade loaf of bread, jar of pickled beets and sack of potatoes with which my sister had sent me off and I lived in a pup tent at a campground a few miles outside the city. I was a member of the class known as 'the working poor'...and I was happier than I'd ever been before.

I had neither the proverbial pot nor the window. My sole indulgence was breakfast at a diner where I could get a 'short stack' and a cup of coffee for $1.25. I was undeniably impoverished but I was nearly in a state of bliss. How could this be?

I had stumbled upon the secret to happiness:

If you want and need LESS than you can provide for yourself, you will be happy.

Unhappiness is the result of wanting what you can't have...yet.

I was exactly where I wanted to be doing exactly what I wanted to do at that moment and all my needs were met to my satisfaction. In the decades since then, my wants and needs have increased but so has my ability to provide them for myself.

Whenever my desires have exceeded my ability to meet them, I stumbled and the resultant stress has made me unhappy until I've reminded myself of the basic truth about happiness and returned to the path.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that you shouldn't set goals beyond your present ability to achieve. The Scottish poet, Robert Burns said: "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"

I had lofty goals but I broke them up into small sequential and achievable steps and set my foot firmly upon the first one before taking each of the others in turn. Then I lived fully in each moment as it came. Consequently, while there have been times I'd rather not live through again, for thirty years I've enjoyed a life of adventure and travel and can honestly say, though wealth has eluded me, for the most part I've been happy.

Take stock of your circumstances. Are you using debt to acquire things NOW that might better wait till later? Are you driving a $25,000 car when a $2,500 car would do? Are you living beyond your means? Are you eating your seed stock instead of planting your fields?

If your answers to these questions are yes, I'm betting you are unhappy. It's time to reassess what you can realistically achieve with your present capabilities and reduce your wants and needs to fit within your abilities. THEN take steps to create surplus and use that surplus to create more surplus. You are infinitely more likely to achieve all the goals you've set for yourself and what's more important, you will thoroughly enjoy the journey.


Fat Loss for Idiots-A Plan That Works.