Weight Loss Struggle: 5 Things to Remind You About Why You Started When In Doubt

I was busy moving to another town these past weeks, and while busy arranging the children new school and adapting to new surrounding, I piling on the pounds. I fall off the No Cheat Challenge wagon.

There are times when sometimes I don't care about my weight anymore. I know am in a bad shape and I know that I must lose the weight but sometimes I just feel like I don't want to do it anymore. I am a SAHM, I spent most of my time at home with my family so I feel less pressure to lose weight. But when I have to attend an event or when I have to go out hanging with old friends, I have this sudden urge to lose weight like I WANT TO LOSE WEIGHT RIGHT NOW because all my clothes are not fit anymore. I looked tired and old. But when I get back to my comfort zone, the motivations to lose weight just fade away like the dew of the morning.

Have you ever felt like this? Not wanting to do the things that you need and want to do? So I took some time to reevaluate myself and my weight loss and health goal. Okay maybe this can restore your faith too, these are 5 things to remind you about why you started when you feel like giving up.

1. Remember that your feeling to give up is just an emotion
There are saying, 'don't promise when you're happy, don't reply when you're angry, and don't decide when you're sad.' You may regret the decision you made in that moment of frustration once the wave has passed. This emotion may be a sign that you need to change your approach to exercise and learn how to improve your diet.

2. Remind yourself of past successes
Not all progress can be seen on the scale. Non scale victories like quitting junk foods, manage to keeps your food portion under control, hitting the gym without fail are small accomplishment that worth celebrating.

3. Admit the things that are not working out 
Life is a series of choices and YOU get to decide on what will move you closer to your goals. Don’t try to rationalize things that are not working in your life. For example, I always wanted to rise early every morning before everyone else and use the opportunity to meditate and exercise. But I am not a morning person, I tend to feel most energetic just before I go to sleep at night. So if exercise in the morning is not working, don't try to make excuse for it. Embrace your inner night owl. Exercise in the late afternoon or early evening whenever you have the best chance of getting it done.

4. Don't believe those weight loss lies you told yourself
We might not notice it, but we all believe lies. The lies that you can't lose weight because you have this fat gene, the lies that telling you that you are too old to lose weight and get fit, that no matter how much you lose, you will eventually gain back all the weight you lost. That's a lie! Identify the lies, express your frustration, let it all go, but do not give too much power to your negative thoughts. Challenge these negative thoughts by finding and stating the truth.

5. Imagine the taste of success
Imagine being able to order clothes from a catalogue without worrying if they will fit. Imagine being able to wear something that doesn't say PLUS on it. You are no longer afraid of looking fat in tagged pictures. You don't have to worry about rashes and sweating anymore. The children are also not embarrassed about the way you looks. Most of all you feel better about yourself. How liberating is that?

It's important to remember why you're doing it in the first place and once you rediscover the spark, you'll find it's easy to start the flame again.

Now it's your turn: Share in the comments how do you overcome loss of motivation when you're feeling a bit hopeless, lost and stuck? 

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10 Items in Your Fridge that Have More Calories Than You Think

I don’t usually count calories, but every once and awhile, I get curious about what’s going into my body. So I decided to look up the calories of an avocado, a previously-indispensable part of my breakfast. And boy was I gobsmacked by the results. An average avocado has upwards of 320 calories!

As I stood in front of my kitchen sink, trying to take in the bad news, I started wondering what other foods might be harboring more than their fair share of calories. Here’s a list of the most sneaky culprits.

1. Greek Yogurt
We at Modernize love our Greek yogurt. It’s got lots of protein, and about half the carbs of typical yogurt. Plus, if you’re like me, you prefer the creamy texture. In its plain form, it’s actually pretty low-cal, running you only about 150 calories.

The problem is that plain Greek yogurt is, well, plain. So you start adding honey, nuts, fruit, and sugar, and then you have a problem. And goodness help you if you add granola—another sneaky calorie goblin. Since it’s so healthy, the best idea is just to shop carefully—get the brands that contain fewer calories, and stay away from the low-fat brands, as more often than not that’s just code for “more sugar.”

Via Allwomenstalk

2. Multigrain and Wheat Breads
The good news is gluten may not be as bad for us as we thought. The bad new is many breads contain refined flours—even those that may seem healthy.

It’s important to look at the bread you buy and make sure it says it is 100 percent whole wheat. Otherwise, you might as well be eating white bread, for all the nutritional benefit you’ll get. Wheat breads that are not made from 100 percent whole wheat flour contain enriched flours, where all the healthy vitamins and nutrients are stripped from the flour during processing.
Via Health Works

3. Your Smoothie Ingredients
You may think you’re being super healthy by glugging down that smoothie every morning—and it’s true, smoothies have lots of vitamins. But they can also pack a calorie punch if you’re not careful!

To solve this, stay away from adding peanut butter, yogurt, or chocolate to your home-made smoothies, and look for lower calorie recipes that will make sure you’re not accidentally guzzling 700 plus calories every morning.
Via Yogurt Frenzy

4. Coconut Milk
If you’re substituting coconut milk for a glass of milk or in your morning coffee, beware! While coconut milk does have health benefits, such as helping your body fight bacteria and infections, with its hefty load of saturated fats, it has a pretty high calorie rate.

So use it in moderation, and check the packaging before you buy for lower calorie servings.
Via Vital Routine

5. Cheese
If you’re on a strict diet, you’re already probably avoiding cheese, but if you are still eating it, you may be surprised to learn that the average portion size is an ounce—about four die-sized cubes. Also, different kinds of cheese have different calorie counts.

Your healthiest option is to stick to mozzarella (about 85 calories per serving), and skip the gruyere (about 120 calories). Via Philadelphia Magazine

6. Prepared Tofu
You may be subbing tofu as a healthy alternative to meats, but if you’re buying it seasoned and prepared from the grocery store, you could be loading yourself up with calories.

If the prepared tofu has been fried, the frying oil adds calories. Also, sugar-laden sauces, like teriyaki, rack up the calories in otherwise healthy salads and stir fries. Via Food.com

7. Your Salad Supplies
By now, you probably know that salad dressing contains a lot of fat, but did you know it’s also hefty in the calories? Plus, some of your most coveted salad ingredients may be adding to the count. Chickpeas, for instance, rack up a whopping 286 calories per cup. Add that to a sugary or fatty salad dressing, and you could be looking at a salad with 700 to 800 calories. Not exactly low-cal.

To solve this, make sure you’re picking an oil-based dressing rather than the creamy kind, and look for products that have oil, vinegar and water as the first three ingredients listed. Also, stay away from low-fat dressings, as they often have more sugar to make up for the lack of fat.
Via Eat&Relish

8. Hummus
Hummus is good for you. Prepared traditionally with olive oil and paired with vegetables, hummus has fewer saturated fats that other snacks.

However, to save money, some commercial brands use other, less healthy oils instead of pure olive oil, which decreases the health benefits and adds on calories. Via Boston Magazine

9. Pepperoni It’s your cheat day, and you’re hankering for pizza. But you still want to be healthy about it. You’re only eating a few pepperonis on your slice, so it can’t be that bad for you, right? Wrong. One small slice of pepperoni can add as many as 30 calories to your meal. Multiply that by four, and you’ve just added over 100 calories to an already calorie-dense meal.
Via Delish

10. Juice
Okay, so it’s a drink, not a food, but you still might be thinking that orange juice is good for you. What about all that vitamin C? Well, although orange juice has lots of vitamins, a cup of it also nets you an extra 112 calories, and has a bunch of carbs, to boot. Via ABC News





About the Author

Erin Vaughan nurtures her HGTV obsession and passion for all things home decor by writing for Modernize.com She is an aspiring homeowner based in Austin, Texas.

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Mesothelioma Awareness Day: What You Need to Know About Mesothelioma Cancer

I stumbled upon this sad story on Daily Mail about an art teacher, who died from lung cancer 'after years of pinning pupils' work to asbestos-lined classroom walls'.

Jennifer Barnett, 60 passed away last September, just 14 months after she was diagnosed with mesothelioma - a cancer whose most common cause is asbestos. Her husband, Nigel, told an inquest into her death in January that his wife worked at various schools as an art teacher from 1977 until 1995, often hanging paintings on walls containing asbestos.

What is Mesothelioma
Mesothelioma is a rare but aggressive cancer affecting the membrane lining of the lungs and abdomen. It is a fatal disease caused almost exclusively by exposure to airborne asbestos fibers.

Asbestos is commonly used in many construction and consumer products for its versatility, strength, fire resistant and resistance to fire or heat. In 1935, medical researchers made a first probable causal relationship between exposure to asbestos and lung cancer. Seven years later, a member of the National Cancer Institute confirmed asbestos as a cause of lung cancer.

People who work in asbestos mines, asbestos mills and factories, and shipyards that use asbestos, as well as people who manufacture and install asbestos insulation, have an increased risk of mesothelioma. So do people who live with asbestos workers, near asbestos mining areas, near asbestos product factories or near shipyards where use of asbestos has produced large quantities of airborne asbestos fibers.

According to this statistic, approximately 3,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year. Between 1999 and 2010, more than 31,000 people in the U.S. died due to mesothelioma. From 1999 to 2010, the number of people who died each year in the U.S. from mesothelioma as an underlying or contributing cause increased by 10%.

Asbestos in Your Home 
A few years back when we renovated our home, I remember our contractor asked us what material would we like to choose for our bathroom ceiling tiles. We choose ceiling planks over asbestos based ceiling tiles because we find it way cheaper. Little did I know that asbestos exposure can actually lead to serious health risk.

Asbestos containing material is not generally harmful unless it is friable, means that the asbestos is easily crumbled by hand, releasing dust or fibers into the air where they can be inhaled or ingested. For example, if an asbestos ceiling tile is drilled or broken, it may release fibers into the air.

Asbestos is commonly found in:

• Asbestos cement on garage or shed roofs
• Asbestos cement on shed and garage wall panels
• Asbestos cement drain pipes
• Asbestos cement or insulation board
• soffit, infill panels and partitions
• Asbestos cement on the side of bath panels
• Roof felt or lining panels
• Roof sheets or tiles
• Asbestos cement cold water tanks
• Old ventilation pipes
• Textured coatings (Artex) and ceiling panels
• Hot water pipe insulation
• Panels behind fires or heaters
• Fire door panels
• Floor tiles and linoleum products in kitchens and bathrooms
• Some old toilet seats and cisterns, (usually black)

Examples of ceiling that may contain asbestos cement sheeting in older Malaysia’s homes built in the 1970 and 80′s. But quite often, plywood was used as well. Image from Malaysian Asbestos Removal Guide. 

Asbestos is still not banned globally, and can be found in older buildings, homes, and consumer products such as crayons and children’s toys.

Most Common Mesothelioma Symptoms
The most common symptoms of mesothelioma are:

• Dry Cough or Wheezing
• Shortness of Breath (dyspnea)
• Respiratory Complications or Difficulty Breathing
• Pain in the Chest or Abdomen
• Fever
• Pleural Effusions

Mesothelioma Prevention
The best way to reduce your risk of mesothelioma is to prevent or limit your exposure to asbestos at home, in public buildings, and at work.

At work, protective gear should be worn any time the presence of asbestos is suspected. Any clothes worn while working with asbestos should be left at the site. Wearing asbestos-covered clothes outside the work area could subject others to unwanted exposure.

At home, you should always wear protective gear when doing any serious renovation work on a home built prior to 1980. Do-it-yourself projects can catch non-professionals off guard. Do take every precaution to avoid damaging asbestos-containing material. Keep activities to a minimum in any areas having damaged material that may contain asbestos, including limiting children's access to any materials that may contain asbestos. Don't dust, sweep, or vacuum debris that may contain asbestos. If you cannot avoid walking through the area, have it cleaned with a wet mop or call an asbestos professional if a large area must be cleaned.

Mesothelioma Awareness Day
Mesothelioma Awareness Day was on Saturday, September 26th. I have to admit I am a little late on this game but I would be remiss if I didn't talk about this deadly but preventable cancer. Thank you Cameron Von St. James and his blogger wife and mesothelioma survivor, Heather Von St. James, for tagging me along into this good cause.

Heather was diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma 9 years ago. She was unknowingly exposed to asbestos as a young girl by wearing her father's work jacket to do outside chores. Her doctor gave her 15 months to live, but after a highly-invasive surgery that involved the removal of her left lung, Heather is now a survivor! She now works to spread awareness with her husband Cameron.

What can you do to help: 

Help us spread the word and raise awareness of Mesothelioma by donate your social status here or get on Facebook or Twitter and use the hashtags #MesoAwarenessDay to helps raise support and awareness of mesothelioma.

Leave your comments below when you done sharing. I always love to hear feedback from you. Have a good day!

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Lose Faith in Losing Weight? Three Simple Things You Can Do to Restore Belief in Yourself

So I drove a car last Sunday for the first time in 13 years.

Nervous mom inside: I haven't driven since getting my license because I'm...

My husband came over the weekend. After two night stay, we had to say goodbye. The children complained, why dad could not stay longer. I think I wrote this earlier in my previous post. Due to my husband's job changes we really had no choice but to live 168 miles away from each other and only spend every weekend together until everything being taken care of - the children's school, new house, etc. We sent daddy off to bus terminal and I had to drive alone with the kids afterward.

I was so freaking nervous!

It's an auto car, but I still worried that I might run into someone else's car, or anything bad like that. When I first got my driving licence, I was 20. I wanted to drive my father's car back then but my parents especially mom, the natural worrier did not allow me to. "Wait until you're good at it (driving)", they said. Whhhat? How on earth you can be a better driver without practice? I knew my argument won't change their mind so I rest my case and haven't driven a car ever since.

I know it sound cliché but last Sunday, it was a touching moments for me. My husband was so convinced to let me drive alone and he did not show any sign of worry. He believes in me more than I do to myself. Of course we survived the "trip", the kids and I arrive home safely and I manage to park the car nicely but what actually I really wanted to share here is about believing in yourself. My husband believe in me, why can't I believe in myself. The same applies with weight loss.

If you hear yourself saying: "I am born to be fat", "I have no willpower", "life is no fun when I'm on a diet", "I am a hopeless failure. I haven't lost a pound these two weeks", guess what… you won’t be able to lose weight. If I choose not to believe in myself, I'd never lay my hands on the steering wheel that day and we will never reach home. If you don't believe in yourself to hit your weight-loss goals, you may see the path to weight loss as a task that you’re afraid of failing. You may not realize this but your feelings and beliefs can affect your action. Your body will going to respond accordingly. Just as you feared, you’ll fall off your diet or avoid exercise and ruining your weight loss effort.

“No matter how many people believe or don’t believe in you,
you must be the ultimate believer in yourself!”
― Pablo

The driving experience with my husband help me to discover three simple things you can do to restore belief in yourself, to be stay focused while you're losing weight or boost your confidence in whatever life goal you might have now. Hope this may help you too.

1. See yourself as having already achieved the goal
I use this FaceinHole app to visualize myself losing weight. As you all know, weight loss is a constant struggle for me. Weight loss affirmation is a great way to send positive messages to your subconscious mind with new thoughts and image so you'll be nicer to yourself.

2. Remind yourself of past successes
Make a list of your past accomplishment. Remember not all progress can be seen on the scale. Feeling healthier, keeps portion under control or you probably able to do more repetitions are an examples of non scale victories that are well worth celebrating.
 
3. Keep trying until you achieve the results that you know you can achieve
Because weight loss failure is a possibility, we tend to feel quitting or giving up. Failure happens to the best of us. Stop worrying about failure and start to make peace with it by figuring out what doesn't work and what is. Allow each failure to serve as an opportunity to learn about willpower, persistence, self-discipline, and the value of hard work.

Talk it over, take some time to leave your answer in the comments below:

• What are your biggest goals and dreams?
• What's stopping you from pursuing them? Why? How can you overcome them?

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Weight Loss Chat: Why You Should Stop Doing Cheat Meals

I haven't been updating this blog for many many weeks. Let's just assume I have had blogging block. I have yet to find my blogging mojo but I think I better just type along to to get over the block and get back to blogging.

I don't remember in which post did I mention that I've gain somewhere around 83 kg and since then I have stop weighing myself. I am afraid of any possible bad news. What if I surpass that 83 kg mark? Going 85? 90? Touch wood. What a shame. I've been trying to lose the baby weight since I gave birth to my second child 5 years ago, and till now I'm still trying! It's encouraging to read those amazing weight loss stories on the net, how fat people started their weight loss journey 1 year ago and have lost weight today, getting fitter than ever. But part of me feels a bit disappointed for my poor progress.

Weight loss failure. Is it because I cheat on my diet too much? I used to believe in cheat days, cheat meals...to keep you sane and happy while dieting. But come to think of it, cheat meals may have gets in my way, way too much that my focus get distracted and a healthier lifestyle gets pushed aside. I read a worth reading article on Authority Nutrition about why you should stop doing cheat meals. Here I'm going to talk about those few points from the article that I can relate to.

Why You Should Stop Doing Cheat Meals

1. Because Cheat Meals Can Feed The Addiction
For some people, moderation is the key to diet success. But not in my case. When I give into food cravings—once I start, I just can't stop. I want more and more, more than I want to. Giving into these cravings will just make the cravings even stronger. The only way to fight cravings and beat the addiction is by avoiding these foods COMPLETELY, period.

2. Because You Might Binge and Eat Way Too Much
My cheat meals often turns into binge eating. Worst of all, one cheat meal become cheat days, and then cheat week. The dark side of cheat meals.

3. Because Cheat Meals Make You Feel Guilty Afterwards
After a binge, I used to feel bad, guilty and sad about the out-of-control eating. Negative emotions can affect your health. The food that might comfort you for a moment, now making you feel guilty, miserable, anxious, depressed or low on self-worth. Such shame leads to more bingeing and sets off a cycle that’s hard to break.

August is officially over. I've been eating so well these past week, not because I want to but because I had to. My husband quit his job and join a new company recently. He is being stationed to this new work place which is miles away from us. Switching school is not easy in the middle of the year, so the kids and I have no option but to patiently wait to reunite with the father only on weekend. And sometimes once in two week when we are short of cash. Since the daddy is not around, we are no longer hang out outside a lot like we used to be. The kids and I have not been eating out lately. I don't even remember the last time I grabbed junk foods. I make sure to always get healthy food in stock for a week because I am too lazy to grocery shopping every two or three days. And even though I am poor at meal planning I had to do it to save money. All this changes resulting in 5 kg weight loss - when I weighed myself last week.

I am feeling hopeful. My SEPTEMBER NO CHEAT CHALLENGE start today. No sodas, alcohol, fried, processed foods! I can't promise myself to be perfect but I'll try my best.

Let's talk:

• Do you cheat on your diet? Is it OK for you?
• How do you enjoy your cheat meals?
• What do you do after cheat on your diet? 

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