If you’re pregnant, whether you know it or not you need a pregnancy diet plan. Many moms-to-be think, “Oh, good, I’m pregnant;that means I can eat anything I want”. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. A pregnancy diet plan is about ensuring you eat the right things for you and your baby to have a healthy pregnancy, it doesn’t mean “losing weight”.

While you do need SOME extra calories during pregnancy, you only need about 300 extra per day which really isn’t that much, it’s the equivalent of a small sandwich. You can have a treat every so often but, do not consume alcohol, tobacco, or illegal drugs during pregnancy, these can be harmful to your baby’s development.

Pregnancy and Weight…

It goes without saying that when you’re pregnant, you will gain some weight, for most women, that’s about 30 pounds (13-14kg) as long as you are of normal weight to start with, you should gain a little more if you were under weight when you became pregnant and a little less if you were overweight when you became pregnant. That weight gain, by the way, should come from healthy baby growth and good nutrition on your part, not because you ordered out from Domino’s Pizza every night.

Pregnancy Diet Plan

Your pregnancy diet plan should focus on good nutrition. When you’re pregnant, you need to make sure everything you eat gives you a good nutritional “bang for your buck,” so to speak. Food to include in your diet includes:

Lean meats, chicken and fish (avoid fish high in mercury

Dried beans and Lentils

Nuts and Seeds

Green Leafy Vegetables

Lots of: Fruit, Vegetables, wholegrain breads and cereals

Medium amounts of: Low fat dairy foods and lean meats

Small Amounts of: Foods high in fat, sugar and salt

Eating small meals more often is best.

Especially in your first trimester, you may have difficulty eating because of nausea and morning sickness. Therefore, your pregnancy diet plan should include small meals eaten frequently instead of large meals eaten infrequently. In addition, you may have some digestive problems such as heartburn because of your pregnancy, and eating small meals will also help keep this at bay.

If you do suffer from morning sickness, make sure you eat something light and carbohydrate rich, like crackers or rice cakes, before you get out of bed. This should help negate the effects of morning sickness and perhaps even keep them under better control.

A pregnancy diet plan is one part of managing your pregnancy and weight. Proper nutritional diet needs to be combined with a well-structured exercise routine to help you keep your weight gain to a healthy level. Of course before you begin or continue any exercise during pregnancy you must get your doctor’s or your family’s health care provider’s approval.

Exercising when pregnant will also keep you healthier during your pregnancy,help make your labor easier and get you back in shape quicker after your pregnancy.

Finally if you keep to your pregnancy diet plan, avoid certain foods which could be potentially harmful to your baby and take exercise approved by your doctor you can look forward to a healthier pregnancy and weight under control.

Be healthy, look good, feel great and enjoy this wonderful time.

Recent studies show that green tea can help greatly in the process of losing weight. It does it by increasing the body’s metabolism. If consumed regularly, it can help you burn as much as eighty calories extra. In a year, that’s about 8 pounds; you lose that much just by drinking, even without diet and exercise.

To further enlighten you as to how green tea works, read on below:

1. Green tea slows down the absorption of fats and regulates glucose. The same substance, cathechin polyphenol, restrains the transition of glucose into fats. By doing that, experts believe that green tea is an effective glucose regulator. It effectively prevents insulin spikes and slows the rise of blood sugar after every meal. Insulin, as specialists agreed upon, promotes the storage of fats as it deals with the body’s blood sugar.

2. Green tea has the ability to reduce appetite. Because green teas have regulating effects on the blood sugar, people who drink it are observed to eat food as much as 60 percent lesser than usual. This particular hypothesis was proven when green tea was injected into laboratory rats for experimentation. Researchers believe that it has the same effects on humans.

3. Green tea is a good alternative to coffee. If you drink tea instead of coffee in the morning or throughout the day, your body gets fewer calories in the long run. The sugar and the cream included in your daily cappuccinos add inches and bulges to the waistline. But with green tea, instead of accumulating fats, you are actually reducing its build up.

4. Green tea affects the bodily systems positively. A parallel research about green tea brings forward its overall effects in the body. The systems benefiting from it include cardiovascular, respiratory, circulatory, nervous, urogenital, immune, lymphatic, and musculoskelatal systems. With this, green tea shows to have a very broad effect on the body. Only a few types of food can boast of this characteristic.

To learn more tips on visit  natural remedies here.

Green Tea has proven to be a good remedy for acne. Medical studies show that green tea is just as effective as benzoyl peroxide (an ingredient found in many over-the-counter acne treatments) and with out the side effects…green tea is also inexpensive, and can be found in health and nutrition stores, on the internet, and in certain grocery stores in the “tea” or the “natural foods” sections.

Many acne sufferers swear by green tea as “the ultimate natural acne cure”. In fact, just drinking the tea has been known to clear acne in some cases. Green tea is also a great treatment for eczema and skin problems in general.

The Key is This: The best results for curing acne include applying green tea to your face, and any other acne areas – and also drinking green tea 2 to 3 times a day.  After you finish drinking the tea, dab the tea bag on acne areas, or use a cotton ball to apply the tea. You don’t have to wash it off right away – you can leave it on your skin.

* Note: The Green Tea Must Be Decaffeinated -  in other words ONLY use DECAF…the reason is that it’s well known that caffeine makes acne worse, so it’s a good idea not only to use decaf green tea, but also decaf every thing else…

Another Note: When drinking green tea, don’t add sugar or anything else to it – it has been stated that if sugar or artificial sweeteners are added, it tends to cancel most of the beneficial properties.
Here Are Some of the Benefits of Green Tea:

* Anti-inflammatory properties

* Anti-oxident

* Anti-bacterial – has been shown to kill acne bacteria.

* Anti-viral

* Skin rejuvenator

* Rids the body of toxins

* Is believed to help the immune system function properly.

If for some reason you prefer not to drink green tea or apply tea to your skin, you can try green tea skin creams, and green tea in pill form.
For More FREE Information on Effective Acne Treatments Visit: FREE ACNE INFORMATION

We know that dieting is a necessary part of losing weight and dieting is all about eating healthy foods, but we still get it wrong primarily because of our lack of knowledge about the foods we should choose from and eating habits we should adopt. ‘Easy Veggie meal plans’ is your source to helping you discover how to quickly lose weight the healthy way with new simple, easy, and cheap Veggie Meal Plans.

The difference between vegetarian and vegan is that Vegans eat no animal products at all; no eggs, milk, cheese or anything that has been cooked in animal fat. Vegetarians, on the other hand, will generally eat those things, or some plus or minus combination of those things.

Kardena Pauza is a former Ms. Fitness America; she will show you which foods to eat to lose body fat and which ones’ you should avoid. She will also teach you how to get enough complete protein sources so that you can maintain and even build muscle on vegetarian or vegan diet.

With easy veggies meal plan you’ll get a 90-day meal plan for men or women that is full of vegan meals that will save you time and money. It will teach you how to begin a new vegetarian life style.

Some people may struggle when they start a vegetarian diet and even some people reportedly gain weight while starting vegetarian diets but it is all because they don’t know right vegetarian life style. The beginner vegetarians often eat all their meals from boxed foods found in the freezer section at the grocery store, and before they realize it, they gain ugly belly fat from the excess sugar and sodium in those so-called health foods.

She shows you how eating too much meat can be harmful to your body and she also blows the myth away that you cannot satisfy your protein requirements without eating meat. She will tell you that how eating the right vegetarian diet – full of healthy living foods, anti-oxidants, and nutrient-rich meals – will make you have more energy than a teenager, plus the complexion of a cover model and the healthiest body of anyone at any age.

The vegetarian life style is becoming popular because it really works, most of the celebrities of Hollywood for example Brad Pitt, Christie Brinkley, Jerry Seinfeld, Gwyneth Paltrow, Carl Lewis, Bodybuilder Bill Pearl, Alicia Silverstone, Martina Navratilova, Liv Tyler and Anthony Robbins have adopted the vegetarian lifestyle.

 This program also teaches you that how you can adopt to vegetarian foods with convenience and how they can be cooked faster and more conveniently than meat meals. Moreover the program comes with a 60-day money back guarantee if you are not satisfied with the program so that you don’t have anything to lose other than Fat!

Hello, Readers. Nas has graciously accepted my invitation to write a post on Ramadhan and here she is some great – offering goodies! – Sarah Johansen.

Guest Post
by Nas M.

Ramadan is a special month for Muslims the world over as it is the month full of blessings and rewards. Muslims make the most of this month by avoiding backbiting, swearing, shouting …etc; instead they will do good deeds by helping one another, sharing food, reading the Holy Book, praying and generally being a good human being. Oh and of course fasting! That is the essence of Ramadan.

Well the month is almost half over – how quickly time flies!

Instead of writing a post on this special month, I have decided to give away a collection of some of the traditional Arabic Ramadan recipes.

The spirit of Ramadan is changing slowly. We can see many youngsters breaking their fast with burgers, pizzas, fizzy drinks and all other kinds of fast food and unhealthy drinks. What happened to the simple dates and water? As we know, fasting is not about not eating but it is important to eat the right kind of food when breaking the fast. Break it with some dates, yogurt and a cool glass of water.

I present this collection of tradtional Arabic Ramadan recipes in the hope of bringing back the true spirit of Ramadan. I plan to follow up this collection with a bigger one so stay tuned for that!

Hope you enjoy it.

           Download it here - zip

           Download it here - pdf

 Would love to get some feedback – maybe submitting  your own dish or variation of what is in the book. Though these are Arabic dishes, I would include any new dish in my upcoming book  International Cuisine. You can email me directly at admin@ezine4success.com.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Nas

Nas M is our guest writer. She loves to experiment with healthy food and here she is talking about this fabulous drink. Try it … its almost addicitve! – Sarah Johansen

I do not travel a lot but when I visited Hyderabad about three years ago, I was mesmerized by the sheer exotic monsoon rains. I love rain so I was in the right place at the right time.

While there, I had the urge to drink something refreshing and different. So into the kitchen I went and made Limada – the lime drink. This is really one healthy and refreshing drink. It is very easy to make. Yes it is my own recipe and the name just came to me… I never knew there is a similar drink called Limeata or something like that.

I am going to share with you the recipe here. It is very versatile and you can add or reduce according to your taste.

Living a healthy life style is not all that difficult. We are now all used to fast food and fizzy drinks but once we tune ourselves to healthy food, we will wonder how we managed without it.

There is nothing like a refreshing drink on a hot day. Limada is delicious, aromatic and healthy drink. It’s called a spa drink because you feel luxurious and exotic drinking this.

Additionally not only do lemons or limes help to detoxify your body but you can use the lemon on your face as astringent. Ginger is good for digestion and mint acts as a stomach soother and an aid to digestion also.

Here is how to make Limada. Try it, it’s really good.

Things You’ll Need:

• 2 limes per person
• Chopped ginger
• Chopped mint
• Finely grated lime zest (optional)
• Salt or sugar to taste. I like it with salt.
• Water
• Crushed ice or ice cubes with lemon floats and a mint leave inside.

· Squeeze the limes into a container. Remember to keep the floats in but remove the seeds. Take some of the floats and keep them in ice tray with a mint leave or chopped mint and freeze the water. You can also add lime zests.

Now, add water to dilute the lime juice. Add enough water as per your taste. If you like it light then add more.

Pour into serving glass or a drinking bottle and add salt or sugar as per your liking and taste.

The reason you add ginger and mint after pouring into the serving glass is because if you add these to the mixture in the preparation container, then ginger will settle down and mint will float. So when you are pouring into the serving glass, the mint/ginger pieces would all flow out while ginger will be left behind.

Now add some chopped ginger and mint and mix well. If you have used a bottle, then close the cap and shake the bottle.

Add the crushed ice or the ice cubes with mint, floats or rind pieces in them … and ENJOY! It’s a wonderful thing!

Mmmmm … refeshing! Enjoy in the rain.

Nas M