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At the start of each new year, millions of people want to loose some body weight. Not an easy task if you consider that obesity and drugs addiction share common brain characteristics. Click here to read the NIDA article written in 2001 with this statement. For most people losing weight is a lifetime fight. Sounds like a cliché but to loose weight consistently, you have to commit to a new lifestyle.

Although I am not obese yet, I have to watch out for the foods and drinks that I select.

In order to make smart eating choices, you need to eat fresh foods. Of course you need to like the food you choose otherwise you can’t keep up with your new eating lifestyle. Dirty drinks like Slim-Fast does not motivate me. It makes me quit after the first zip.
The “tool” that I used to select my food is the USDA National Nutrient Database. This database has lists of foods sorted by nutrients.

Click on the USDA logo below to go to the nutrients list.

So I took the list that sorts food by Energy (Calories) and highlighted foods that I really like and are low in calories. I repeated this process with other lists, like the cholesterol list. Healthy items, that I have highlighted on both lists, are now topping my weekly grocery list. If I didn’t go through the nutrient list, I would have missed several delicious low calorie food items.

Another good site to use is: calorie-count. This site grades foods and provide nutrition facts. I have always been told that I should avoid food items where more than 30% of the total number of calories comes from fat.

This means that reduced fat Jif creamy peanut butter is not a healthy choice. Even when the label on the jar reads: reduced fat. Luckily this site provides me other brands that have healthier peanut butter. Be careful though, less fat does not necessarily mean less calories. Calories are only one component of selecting healthy foods.

Bad food choice: more than 30% of all calories is coming from fat.

Besides selecting healthy foods, I have a hard time to stay motivated to a healthy lifestyle but found a good support solution. On the Internet, there are several weight loss forums that show pictures from people before and after their weight loss. Many people look beautiful after their weight loss. Losing more than 20% of your starting weight makes you physically and mentally a different person. My compliments to those people with a significant weight loss. You are my motivator.

Here are 2 sites/forums that show before and after weight loss pictures. Take a look yourself, pretty awesome transformations you will see on these sites.

Do you have any tips or cool websites that can help people with their weight loss? Please let me know.

Disclaimer: I am not a weight loss expert and can not be held liable for the information in this posting. Please consult with your doctor before starting a weight loss program.

Omron HJ-112 Digital Premium Pedometer

Tanita BF681W Family Scale Plus Body Fat Monitor with Body Water

CalorieSmart - Handheld Electronic Calorie Counter (Silver)

I hope this blog post will inspire you to take similar action that I took this morning.

Christmas day is over and I hope you had a great Christmas celebration. In my blog post yesterday, I talked about my “disappointing” gift but today, I want to stand still for the people that don’t have a luxury life. In other words: people that don’t have a roof over their head and a good daily meal to eat.

Yesterday afternoon, before I visited family to celebrate Christmas, my wife and I were watching television and saw families that were not able to celebrate Christmas in the way we are able to.

Their children did not get a nice Christmas meal and there were no presents under the Christmas tree. Of course, they showed the sad eyes of the children.

When I looked around in our living room, the floor was covered with presents and gift wrapping paper. My defective TomTom navigation system was laying in a corner, abandoned to be returned to the manufacturer.

While visiting my family later that afternoon, I also noticed the nice gifts everybody received. Notebooks, a video camera, a Nintendo game computer and even a Sony playstation 3 were given.

I was still thinking about the poor people that were shown on television and got a guilty feeling. When I feel guilty, I want to get ride of that feeling as quick as possible so when my wife and I went home, I told my wife that there is one more gift that I want to give. She was surprised and said: “Patrick, you have given me already so many nice gifts this morning.” I explained to her that this gift was not a gift to her but to a charitable organization. My wife was surprised that those words came out of my mouth but she understood and agreed immediately.

Because it was a late evening, I decided to make a donation early next morning.

Today, after I got up, I researched on the computer for the best charitable organization. There are so many charitable organizations to choose so I found a website that was able to help me out with the selection of a good organization.

The name of the website is: Charity Navigator with web address: charitynavigator.org

This website provides ratings for thousands of charitable organizations in the world. You can search for organizations in your state and by different categories.

I choose for a homeless shelter in Portland, Maine and made my contribution. I feel good about my donation and don’t feel guilty anymore. Life is all about sharing the good life.

Please check out: charitynavigator.org and make a donation to a charitable organization of your choice.

If you need a push to make donation, please search on youtube.com under the keywords: homeless and shelter and watch some videos.

Let me know if you have guilty feeling towards people in need as well and how you handle these feelings.

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