Meine Woche 1 & 2 mit Size Zero

Hey meine Lieben,

ich habe die ersten zwei Wochen von Size Zero geschafft, daher wollte ich euch meine ersten Eindrücke und Erfahrungen zu dem Programm mitteilen.

Training:
Das Trainingsprogramm besteht aus Push und Pull Einheiten kombiniert mit Ausdauer, sowie einer Ausdauer Einheit. Ich war bisher eine sehr sportliche Person und war mindestens viermal in der Woche im Fitnessstudio und dennoch hatte ich den schlimmsten Muskelkater seit langem. Nach der ersten Push Einheit konnte ich mich nicht aus dem Bett bewegen :) Man muss also nach dem Programm fünfmal in der Woche Sport machen, aber es fällt mir nicht schwer, da die Einheiten an sich nicht länger als 45 Minuten dauern und sehr abwechslungsreich sind.

Ernährung:
Der Ernährungsplan ist exakt angegeben, dennoch hat man genug Freiheiten um individuelle Rezepte zu kreieren. Schaut mal bei meinem Instagram Account vorbei. Dort poste ich regelmäßig meine Ideen :) -> LINK

Es handelt sich hier um eine Low Carb Diet, wobei die Kohlenhydrate langsam reduziert werden. Mittags kann man noch seine Nudeln essen, aber abends fallen sie weg. Für mich als absoluter Reis und Nudel-Süchtiger war das eine enorme Umstellung. Und ich hatte erste Entzugserscheinungen. Nach dem Abendessen, ab ca. 21 Uhr hatte ich absolut keine Kraft mehr und konnte nur noch im Bett liegen. Auch hatte ich mit Übelkeit und Magenkrämpfen zu kämpfen. Aber ab Tag 5 hatte sich mein Körper an die Ernährungsumstellung gewöhnt. Ich hab jetzt absolut keine Beschwerden mehr :) Aber ich muss sagen, dass es einige Tage dauerte bis ich mich an die fehlenden Carbs am Abend gewöhnt hatte.

Ich bin beeindruckt wie tolle Gerichte man zaubern kann. Size Zero eröffnet mir jetzt schone eine ganz neue Rezeptwelt in der ich kreativ werden kann. Es war auch der Sonntag in Woche 2, als ich meinen ersten Kuchen ausprobiert habe:

Mein Lieblingsessen: Mittagessen, ich genieße meine Pasta :)
Meine Stimmung: Außer die anfänglichen "Entzugserscheinungen", sehr gut

Social Life:
Ich will den Punkt "Social Life" auch mit reinbringen. Durch die eingeschränkte Ernährung und den straffen Fitnessplan, wird oft erwähnt, dass man sein Sozialleben wie gemeinsame Treffen vernachlässigen muss. Ich muss sagen, dass es mir im Moment nicht schwer fällt. Ich treffe mich weiterhin mit Freunden. Entweder ich trinke mit meinen Freunden Size Zero konforme Getränke (light-Getränke, Tee, etc.) oder wenn ich weiß, dass ich abends Essen gehe, dann lege ich mir meine Carbs auf den Abend. Aber das hab ich jetzt die zwei Wochen jeweils einmal gemacht.

Zwischenfazit:
Das Size Zero Programm gefällt mir bis jetzt sehr gut. Durch die tolle Facebook Army wird man sehr motiviert weiterzumachen. Vielleicht ist es noch die Anfangseuphorie, aber ich bin sehr zufrieden mit dem Programm und hatte mir es erst schwerer vorgestellt.

Habt ihr schon Erfahrungen mit Size Zero?

Alles Liebe,

Size Zero - Deine Topform in 10 Wochen

Hallo meine Lieben!
Wie geht es euch?

Ich habe mich lange nicht mehr gemeldet, auch weil ich mein Leben sortieren musste. Ein Teil davon war und ist meine Ernährung. Seit ich alleine lebe, habe ich noch nicht das richtige Gefühl für eine Portionsgröße bekommen. Die Folge war trotz meines Fitnessprogramms GEWICHTSZUNAHME. Nach meinem 21. Geburtstag dachte ich mir, jetzt reichte. Meine Fitnessbemühungen sollen sich zeigen, ich will endlich zu meiner Topform gelangen und wirkliche Erfolge zielen. Ich entschloss mich kurzerhand für das Size Zero Programm von Julian Zietlow und seiner Verlobten Alina (link).

Was ist Size Zero?
Hinter Size Zero verbirgt sich nicht die Kleidergröße. Es handelt sich vielmehr um ein 10 Wochenprogramm, um seine persönliche Topform zu erreichen. Es beinhaltet sowohl einen Ernährungs-, als auch einen Fitnessplan, der sich alle zwei Wochen variiert. Das ganze kostet stolze 300€.

Warum keine normale Diät?
300€ ist nicht gerade wenig und gerade im Vergleich dazu erscheint eine gesunde Ernährung oder eine günstigere, wenn nicht sogar kostenlose Diät als sinnvoller. Jedoch spornt mich gerade der Preis verbunden mit der reißen Unterstützung vom Team und den Girls auf Facebook gerade an dem Programm zu folgen. Wo bekommt man noch so viel tolle Motivation?

Was nun?
Ich werde für euch wöchentliche Updates geben und von meinem Erfahrungen in der Woche berichten. Zudem werde ich ein Endfazit ziehen, sodass ihr euch ein eigens Bild über das Ganze machen könnt.

Ich freue mich auf die 10 Wochen und die Veränderungen :)

Alles Liebe,
Marie

Runners Are More Attractive - 10 More Reasons To Start Running

Hey everybody!

How are you?
Inspired by the fact that I have become a runner and feeling the first positive aspects of running only after one week, I want to encourage you introducing running into to your weekly workout routine. After watching Chariots of Fire last night, I just had to write this post, so here are 10 motivating reasons why you have to start running RIGHT NOW. So let's start.

1. Running improves your health

Probably the most important reason to start running is the fact you improve your health so much. Here are some facts: Running strengthens the heart, ensure the efficient flow of blood and oxygen throughout the body, decreases your risk of a heart attack as your heart gets stronger, reduces your blood pressure if it's above normal, strengthens lungs and bronchi keeps high cholesterol under control, improves your immune system, reduces effect of diabetes, increases bone density, which can fend off osteoporosis.

2. Runners are more attractive
Regular runners report that their attitude has changed as running increases their confidence and self-esteem especially by setting specific goals. You'll realize that you'll become a lot more positive and happier in your life, some notice that you are more sociable than usual. Also studies have shwon that runners are more patient, balanced, optimistic and happier than non-runners. PErsonally, I have really experienced this change.

3. Set a specific goal
Some people find it hard to train without any specific aim or intention. However, running provides you a huge variety of competition starting with races, 5K, 10K or even a marathon. Setting a specific goal can really boost your motivation to run and you become even better.

4. You sleep better
Something that I have really noticed after the first run is that my sleep has improved so much even though I don't feel extremely exhausted after my run.

5. You get more energy
Running strengthens and clear the body and the mind. Running not only refreshes but also gives you energy and increases your ability of concentrate. Consequently, it gives you a great memory and good concentration during study, work or daily tasks. This is another point that I have definitely experienced.

6. The best calorie burner
Even though the exercise is pretty simple. running burns the most calories with an avergae of 705-865 calories in an hour. So this is the perfect exercise if you want to lose weight / fat which can be even improved by doing interval training.


7. Experience something new and explore your area
By introducing running into your workout schedule, you will be able to break out of your daily routine and get your old excitement back. Also, by searching for running tracks, you can explore your area and become aware of new places, your neighbours, the nature and the beautiful weather.

8. Running helps with stress relief
As many other exercises, running is great as a stress relief an can cure emotion strain and mild depressions. People who exercise are generally happier than those who don't, whereas I personally have experienced that running really clears the mind and thus, is perfect for relieve some stress.

9. Meet people through running
People who say that running is a lonely sport, but that's totally wrong. Some prefer the quiet and solitude of running, others use this time for social connections. In many cities there exist running clubs where people meet in order to run together so that they motivate each other and can accomplish goals together, so you can make really good friends there.

10. Running is versatile and inexpensive
In order to run, you only need a good pair of trainers and then you can step out of your front door. There is no expensive equipment e.g. a bike needed, so it is an exercise for everyone. You don't need a special place, you can choose your own running tracks and there are tons of different tracks around your house, which makes every running session so versatile. Also, when you are traveling a lot, you can just pack your running shoes and you are ready to run at your destination.

 So these were my Top 10 Reasons To Start Running. There exist a lot of good reasons why you should start running, but I thought these were the most interesting. Anyway, just crap your running shoes and give this exercise a go. Choose a nice running track on a sunny day and don't think too much, just start running with some walking breaks in between.
I hope you liked this post and tell me whether you go running?

Wish you a wonderful day! 

Love,

14 Simple Healthy Decisions in Your Diet - Weight Loss Tips

Hey guys!

Some of you have asked me how you can lose weight and how you can easily cut out calories in your daily eating plan? Today I want to list 14 simple healthy decisions how you can easily cut out a lot of calories. However, this is not about how to eat healthy like eating kale, almonds, whole grain etc. which, of course, is really important. Please take these tips just as an addition to your diet when you want to lose weight or struggle to keep your weight.

My healthy decisions:

No. 1:  ✓  fresh fruits  X dry fruits

Fresh fruits contain a lot more water so that you not only can eat more for the same amount of calorie and thus, they'll fill you up faster but also you'll get more nutritions.

No. 2:  ✓  balsamico dressing  X yogurt/caesar dressing

No. 3:  ✓  stevia  X sugar

No. 4:  ✓  crisp bread  X white bread

No. 5:  ✓  tea  X juice

Of course, it is important that you drink a lot of water. However, if you want to have a bit of a taste then grab to tea or if you really want to drink juice then use 1/3 juice and 2/3 water.

No. 6:  ✓  almond milk  X regular milk

Here I am talking about huge milk drinkers (min. 250ml per day). Otherwise these 10 calories in your coffee or tea aren't a big thing.

No. 7:  ✓  frozen yogurt  X ice cream

I actually made my own "frozen yogurt" by putting a pot of yogurt in the freezer. It has a quiet hard consistency, but tastes like normal frozen yogurt.

No. 8:  ✓  pumpkin chips  X crisps/chips

Slice your pumpkin in thin slices. Put them on a baking sheet with salt, pepper and olive oil and bake them for 15min at 200°C. No fat, but tastier than crisps.

No. 9:  ✓  sliced apple, berries, grapes with cinnamon  X chocolate, sweets

No. 10:  ✓  vegetable sticks (cucumber, carrots etc)  X chips, salty snacks

No. 11:  ✓  soya cream  X normal cream

A lot of people are scared of using soya products, however, soya cream has 190cal per 100ml whereas normal cream has 288cal per 100ml and seriously, you can not taste a difference at all.

No. 12:  ✓  vegetable stock  X ready sauces

Vegetable stock can not only be used as a spice for anything but also can serve as a real sauce by adding water. It really taste great with vegetables and you don't need these ready sauces full of additives, glutamate, artificial colours AND a lot of calories.

all photos from pinterest

No. 13:  ✓  super dark chocolate  X white, milk chocolate

Dark chocolate prevents from heart attacks and the slightly bitter taste of the chocolate will make you eat less.

No. 14:  ✓  smashed tomatoes  X ready-made tomato sauces

Okay, this is more an addition to No. 12, however, a lot of people just open up one of these ready-made tomato sauces (e.g. Barilla) when they are eating pasta. However, you are just eating unnecessary extra-calories, because these sauces contain a lot of sugar. Just buy a tin of smashed tomatoes, add salt, pepper, garlic and some italian herbs and you are done.

These were my 14 really simple healthy decisions in my diet. Nevertheless, keep in mind that you can eat milk chocolate, normal sugar or dry fruits as long as you keep it in moderation. I am also human and I also drink juice or eat other unhealthy things, but I hope that these decisions might be helpful in your weight loss process.

Comment below what are your little healthy habits? 

Wish you a wonderful day!

Lots of love,

Favourite Apps: Calorie Counter - ShapeUp Club

In order to become a bit more lean and toned and to get my calorie income under control, I searched for a nice and handy app. After testing DietDiary, which was not really my cup of tea, I found the calorie counter by Shape Up Club. Shape Up Club is a food and exercise diary for Android which helps you to lose weight or to maintain your current weight.

How it works

✓ Personalized weight plan

✓ Set individual weight & nutrition goals

✓ Barcode scanner

✓ Ability to customize everything (such as daily calories & nutritional information)

✓ Track calories, nutrients, fruit & water

✓ Food database with 400 000+ items

✓ Track body measurements (waist, body fat, hips, arms etc.)

✓ Visible progress from charts

✓ Write daily comments

✓ ShapeUp Club is free and without ads

✓ Works without an Internet connection

✓ Complete backup and sync with website, ShapeUpClub.com

✓ Health Graph integration

✓ RunKeeper integration & Withings scale integration

Conclusion

I like this app because it shows you how much you can still eat at the end of the day and it really helped me to lose weight. I also had the experience that when I know that I have to add everything that I eat to this app, I start to eat less just because I am to lazy :) I like the different food choices, the topic with morning and afternoon snack and the fact that it shows you the fat, protein and carbohydrate  values. However, any additional services can only be done with a subscription to the ShapeUp Club which costs money. And let's say 40% of the options of this app have to be payed. Nevertheless, I will continue using it and can recommend it to anyone who still struggles with his daily income or doesn't want to calculate ever single calorie in his head anymore.

Have you ever tried any calorie counter app?

Wish you a wonderful day!

Lots of love,

My Fitness & Diet Update + Personal Weight Loss

Hello guys!

Not so long ago, I gave you an update on my fitness and sport routine what I do to stay fit. However, today I want to give you another update on this topic, because not only my fitness philosophy and aims have changed but also my fitness routine and my diet. With this routine I am convinced that I have reached an higher fitness level. If you want to know how I stay fit and toned, then keep on reading.

Diets & Weight Loss - Trying to Capture A Myth

Hello everybody!

During this time of the year companies and all magazines will publish their recent diet and weight loss programs after the comfortable christmas and winter time. Did you know that the fitness and diet industry is one of the most profitable branches? Thus, it is hardly surprising that all of them try to make the most money by promising the dream body or the most amazing weight loss, of course, ONLY with their program.

There exist ton of different fitness and diet programs starting from extreme crash diets, extreme diet changes like Atkins Diet, Dukan Diet, Vegan or the controlled healthy eating program symbolized by Weight Watchers. However, after watching and studying all of these programs, I came up with this main rule that is the base of all diets and the key to weight loss and getting healthy: diet and fitness / income and outcome have to be in balance!

My beautiful graph :)

This is so simple that I found it hard to believe, but all these programs use this basic rule in different ways. Whether they decrease the income dramatically like in a crash diet, change the substances of your income completely like in a Vegan diet or just have a program that gives you a controlled eating plan like Weight Watchers. However, they are all not a miracle. They can help you by motivating you, by giving you an idea of what to eat and by keeping you on track with your diet, but you don't need them to lose weight. You can do everything on you own! 

So let's have a look at your diet, at your food:

When you want to lose weight the simple thing is that you have to eat less which means controlling your portion size. You don't need a super-size menu, just eat as much as your body needs. When it comes to what to eat, then it's easy to say to eat healthy. Basically, this means to avoid lots of fats and an one-sided diet and to replace it with a clean diet with lots of veggies, fruits and "white" meat. The key to every diet is moderation, because nobody can scratch all sweets out of its diet, so always keep your discipline and control so that you can allow yourself 1-2 pieces of chocolate and not one bar.

Fitness:

Even though fitness is claimed to be the key to weight loss, only 20% of our fitness influences our weight. 80% of our weight loss is influenced by our diet! However, if you want to lose weight and get a defined and lean body, then you have to do sport. I do HIIT workout our Zuzana Light's amazing workouts (Link) about 5 times a week, but again, it's not about a certain program. The basic rule is that you find an exercise that incorporates strength and cardio and that you like and thus, it becomes a part of your routine. 

The main thing is that you keep income and outcome, food/diet and fitness in balance. Allow yourself some treats, but keep everything in moderation and keep the overview of what you are eating. When it helps you, then you can write it down. 

Nevertheless, keep in mind that you don't need one of these expensive diet and fitness programs which lead to the yo-yo effect in the worst case! Weight loss starts in your head and with these two factors that have to be in balance, everyone can lose weight on it own for free!

I hope you liked this post and tell me whether you have had any experiences with diets?

Wish you a wonderful day! Love,

Get Rid of Nausea Within Seconds

Today I felt incredible nauseous, probably because of the terrible changes of the temperature. However, I found a simple and easy way to get rid of nausea without any medicine within a few seconds. If you want to know what I have been using then keep on reading.

I made myself a ginger tea!

Ginger is known as a spice in the kitchen, however it is definitely underrated in its health benefits.

These benefits of the ginger root are:

anti-inflammatory, carminative, anti-flatulent, and anti-microbial properties

essential oils such as gingerol, zingerone, shogaol, farnesene and small amounts of β-phelladrene, cineol, and citral. Gingerols improve the intestinal motility and has anti-inflammatory, painkiller (analgesic), nerve soothing, anti-pyretic as well as anti-bacterial properties. Studies have shown that it may reduce nausea induced by motion sickness or pregnancy and may help relieve migraine headaches.

Zingerone, which gives pungent character to the ginger root, has been found to be effective against E.coli induced diarrhea, especially in children.

low in calories and contains no cholesterol, but is very rich source of many essential nutrients and essential vitamins such as pyridoxine (vitamin B-6), pantothenic acid (vit.B-5).

minerals like potassium, manganese, copper, and magnesium. Potassium is an important component of cell and body fluids that helps controlling heart rate and blood pressure.

by nutrition-and-you

So I found a piece of ginger in my fridge, chopped it in small slices, put it in a cup and brew it with hot water. You can drink right now or brew this tea for 10 minutes for better benefits. 

 

photos by pinterest

10 minutes after drinking the tea I noticed that my nausea was suddenly gone and I didn't feel nauseous for the whole day. I was so surprised about the effect because I haven't expected this at all. Thus, I can totally recommend drinking a ginger tea when you're feeling nauseous.

Please let me know whether this helped you too or whether you have other methods to get rid of nausea?

Wish you a wonderful day!

Lots of love,

My Fitness Inspiration + Fitness Update

 As you might can tell, recently I am on a fitness and health kick. However, I concentrated myself on sport and also had my fitness plan where I really sticked to, but I didn't see a massive difference. I could feel the muscles and see a few of them, but there weren't that visible because of the fat on top of my muscles.

No amount of sport can show you the result which a good diet does. The diet influences the weight loss about 70% whereas sport supports this only about 30%. I don't intend to lose weight primarily, but I want to get a more defined body where I can see my muscles and look more toned. The key of a healthy diet is clean eating. I will talk about clean eating in detail in another post. I follow this eating method with passion and totally love it. I feel energized and vitalized without being stuffed.

My inspiration and motivation for my new step to my "dream body" is the Bodyrock-Team. Bodyrock is a online website which post mainly free workout videos, sometimes also diet tips or hauls. However, my full diet inspirations are Lisa-Marie and recently Haley. These two woman do the workouts in front of the camera and post a lot of pictures on Facebook. Especially, Lisa-Marie posts great motivational pictures as you can see a few of them here even though she is even an inspiration. 

 How do you get your fitness inspiration and motivation?

Wish you a wonderful day!

Lots of love,

10 Important Reasons Why You Should Exercise

I know that a lot of you struggle with doing sport on a regular basis and yes, I also struggled with the same problem. I know that the motivation can get lost and you stop doing sport without even noticing it. However, today I want to tell you 10 important reasons why you should exercise and which benefits you are going to get!  If you want to know which reasons motivate me, then keep on reading!

Hard-Core Workouts in June

It is time for my monthly fitness timetable. I created my first personal fitness timetable last month and I am so impressed of the difference it made. When I have a timetable, which I see everyday on my desktop of my MacBook, I am so motivated to cross out the workout after finishing it. 

This is such a satisfaction! 

Consequently, I completed all my workout in May and I have definitely increased my fitness level.

Thus, I took some time and created a new timetable for June.

This month I want to kick my ass a little bit more and want to increase my amount of workouts and their intensity. The summer is right in front of us and in order to tone our body for the bikini season I created this timetable. Also, I have a sport festival in the third week of June where I want to have a great fitness.

When you are wondering what are the "Workouts". Basically, I do the workouts from bodyrock.tv. 

I can not express how much I adore this website, their workouts and the trainer. They workouts are short, intense, but really effective! If you want to have a full review of bodyrock, then please let me know!

But let me say you that this site is absolutely amazing and if you want to be fitter and you are searching for good workouts, then please check them out!

Anyway, I am really looking forward to doing the workouts. The timetable and my "cross-out routine" really give me another boost! I just totally recommend creating your personal timetable too!

All the best,

7 Effects Junk Food Has On You

A lot of people don't care about what they are eating respectively they don't know what effects junk food has on their whole health. Basically, there exist the standard effects that probably everybody know like overweight, heart problems and less energy. However, there are other effects that are often forgotten.

1) Skin problems - Junk food can cause acne or other inflammatory reactions because of increasing insulin level caused by the sugars, trans fats and starches.

2) Bloating - Eating a lot of junk food can cause bloating and more water weight, because your body is to balance the extra fluid and salt.

3) "White" products - White bread, white rice or other products without any grains can cause congestions as these white products don't aid digestion.

4) Acid Indigestion - Food high in saturated fat takes longer to process and meanwhile these meals high in fat create acid indigestion. If there is anything left in your stomach, which means that you haven't digested probably, excess acid can be a problem.

5) Mood Swings - Increasing and decreasing insulin level caused by sugar and starches can affect your brain chemicals and thus, your mood swings.

6) Aspirin - Tyramine, which is an agent in aspirin, is a chemical that can be found in the breakdown of a protein found in colorants, dyes, nitrates and has been known to cause headaches. 

7) Depression - Studies have shown that people who eat a lot of junk food, were much more likely to experience depression.

(Source: Shape.com)

School Stress + My Personal Fitness Timetable

I know that a lot of people are talking about stress and I never believed that I am going to suffer this symptom.

I believed in this myth before I came into my second to last year of school.

It is the pure horror!

You have got 4 weeks of rest where you don't write any exam and then there comes the four exam-weeks and you are basically dead. You just live for school, you don't have any free time, no hobbies, you don't have even the time to go to the doctor etc.

Last year I wasn't able to do sport because of a leg injury and I was even more stressed. For the first time in my life I has real stress symptoms: headache, backache, terrible nausea, stomachaches and I even developed a lactose intolerance!

Thus, I wanted to prevent any of these symptoms by creating my own personal fitness timetable and I really stick to my plan so far!

I set realistic dates so that I am able to learn for my exams as well. Even though it isn't always that easy to stick to this timetable and the stress seems to overwhelm me, I want to follow this. Otherwise I would develop all my symptoms  again.

So this is just my quick check in. I hope you understand that I don't have so much time right now. Do you have a fitness timetable?

All the best,

Quick Tip To Avoid Binge Eating I

Find an occupation or a hobby which require quiet a while and your full concentration!

By concentrating on other thinks than food you can get your head free and you might be able to ask yourself: "Do I really need to eat this? What is the sense of eating all this stuff?"

This might not be the most "healthy" solution, but by pushing your obsession from food to your hobby, e.g. sport, painting or blogging ;), you might be able to escape out of your binge eating!

Everyone has an obsession and nobody says something against an obsession for makeup or painting, so why not pushing your obsession to another way.

Low Carb Diet Challenge

Because of my current not so healthy eating habits, I just made a decision and want to start a low carb diet challenge for at least 3 weeks.

So what is bad about carbs?

In general, carbs are not that bad for you if you eat them moderately, but some people start with cereals in the morning, eat a toast for lunch and then curry with rice for the dinner. Carbs are really good to give you a quick boost of energy, because you're body burns carbs before burning fat or proteins. However, we are overwhelmed by carb products which we, in fact, do not really need for our body in contrast to proteins and fats. These essential substance get kind of lost in our lifestyle. Also, when you are eating carbs, which in fact consist of sugar, your blood has to balance a huge amount of sugar everyday which can cause diabetes! Another fact is that carbs don't saturate you for a long time, therefore, you get hungry much earlier and you will eat more. 

Thus, concentrating on eating proteins instead of carbs is much healthier, also because you will build up muscles with proteins. So don't waste this ability to build muscles by eating carbs!

What do I expect from this diet?

○ flatter tummy 

○ no acne break outs / better skin in general

○ a little bit of weight loss

○ feel more comfortable in my body

○ getting a better / "lighter" feeling for my body

The most important reason why I am starting this diet is because of my acne. After eating quite a lot of carbs, I had a massive break out around my mouth and nose. With this diet I hope to get my acne under control again as I had a really nice skin while eating quite healthy a few weeks ago.

Basically, I try to eat as less carbs as possible. Of course you can eat a few carbs, but just really moderately. Therefore, I will, for example, eat instead of bread or cereals in the morning a yoghurt with fruits. For lunch I try to stick to salad or a wrap with lots of vegetables and perhaps a few pieces of chicken, a soup would be great too. For dinner you can eat basically everything just by cutting out the carb side orders, so a chicken with steamed vegetables is really tasty!

If you want, then you can start this challenge with me!

Does anybody of you has an experience with a low carb diet? What were your effects of it?

10 Reasons Why You Don't Lose Weight

A lot of people struggle with their weight and don't know why they stay at their current weight or even gain weight. Everybody knows that Fast Food or chips/French fries isn't the most healthiest thing, but even though the people who really wants to lose weight and who are paying attention at these rules, can not reduce their weight! Then, you have to detect these hidden "thickeners". So, here we go!

1. Eat because of stress

There are these people who can't eat anything while they are having stress, but normally we intend to gain weight. That's normal, because the stress hormone cortisol provoke appetite.

How to prevent this: Any exercise or movement is the best method to reduce the stress hormone and it's also really good for your brain!

2. Snacking

Lots of people say that they don't eat a lot of food and still gaining weight. Well, that could be correct for the three meals, but during these meals they are always snacking. When we are snacking, we don't really realize how much we are eating, especially eating in from to the TV is really bad!

How to prevent this: Firstly, try to eat just to the three meals and when you can not stop snacking, then just chop some vegetables or fruits.

3. Crash Diets

It sounds strange, but Crash Diets can increase your weight. I will write a special post about Crash diets, so I don't want to go to much into details. Generally, when you decrease your calories to an absolute minimum, then your body will get used to that and will work in a "standby mode". When you then start eating normal (which you have to do sooner or later), your body will store a lot of fat, because he's expecting another hunger period.

How to prevent this: Lose weight slowly, but secure! Just try a healthy, low-fat and low-sugar nutrition plan.

4. Eating light products or products with sweeteners 

Sweeteners have got nearly 0 calories and also light products having less calories and less fat. But sweeteners provoke our appetite which is why I am going to write another post about this. Also, a lot of people are eating the double amount of the products which in the end causes that you might eat more calories than usual.

How to prevent this: Be aware of what you are eating and how much you are eating! Then you can also cut out the light products (the original products taste even better ;))

5. "Drinks don't count!"

You wants to lose weight should drink a lot, but don't forget that 1 liter of apple juice or coke (0,7l) has about 400 calories!

How to prevent this: Drink drinks with low calories like water and unsweetened tea.

6. "I want to lose 6 pounds in 5 days!"

If you have so high expectations, you always be disappointed of the results. These high expectations automatically come with Crash Diets (see No.3), so firstly you are just losing a lot of water which is the reason why you can lose so much weight. But in the end your fat will still be on your body!

How to prevent this: Decrease your expectations and stay realistic! It will give you better results!

7. To little sleep

In comparison to people who are not sleeping a lot, people who sleep a long time are normally slimmer. Scientist are not sure what is the reason for that, but basically during our sleep our metabolism slows down. Also, we need for certain processes a lot of energy and lastly, we don't have any hunger :)

How to prevent this: Try to sleep longer. If you have a sleep disorder than please go to a doctor. Do not treat it lightly!

8. Missing physical strength

If you have job in front of the computer then you will probably have a missing of physical strength. Also, lots of people overrate physical strength, so they are just walking a little bit and think that they have burned a lot of calories.

How to prevent this: Find an activity that you really like and start doing this activity at least 3 times a week. Or/ Also, try to walk about 30 minutes a day. Fresh air is really good for your brain and your mind and your are burning calories in the same time!

9. Eating in community

When we are eating together, we often eat more than we usually would. Instead of a spartan supper, we are celebrating a huge dinner. Or as a saying says: "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach."

How to prevent this: Try to be creative with the meals and cook a light, healthy and fresh "huge" dinner. Or you can also have a romantic walk together which can be as romantic as a dinner!

10. Alcohol doesn't count

We often forget that alcohol contains a lot of calories! Additionally, alcohol provokes our appetite, so we often don't realize how much we are consuming. Lastly, alcohols block our fat fatburning!

How to prevent this: Decrease your alcohol consumption to a minimum during your diet. If you don't want to eliminate alcohol then try to drink alcohol just 2 days a week. And then just one glass of beer or wine.

So now, with the knowledge of these 10 hidden "thickeners", there should nothing stand in the way to start your successful diet!

All the best,