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Boredom brings with it the urge for sugary treats or crunchy, salty snacks, but seldom the urge to eat a bowl of steamed veggies or an apple. That’s because people often eat when they’re bored to fill that empty gap and get a feeling of satisfaction and enjoyment. The empty gap isn’t in the stomach, but in the situation. If you’re bored, you’re not involved in anything that’s productive, exciting or rewarding, so you’re not getting any feedback from your brain in the form of dopamine, the feel good hormone our brain gives us as a reward. Instead, you turn to food to create that dopamine and not healthy food, but food associated with good times and enjoyment, like sweet sugary treats. You can stay healthy when you’re bored if you learn to identify emotional eating and replace it with other behavior.

Know what causes those binge snacks at night.

You probably don’t binge on snacks all the time. Maybe it’s just at night when you’re alone chilling and watching whatever’s on TV or at family get-togethers when you’ve told Aunt Grace for the hundredth time you’re living in the city and have a great job. Both are situations where you would love a feel good snack just for “something to do that feels good!” That’s when you reach for that Danish or the cake even though your stomach tells you that you’re full. That’s boredom eating.

Set an eating schedule.

Not everyone can eat only when they’re hungry. Too many emotions mix with the act of eating. Most of us need a cue. If boredom or other emotions mix into eating patterns, causing you to chronically overeat, the best way to stop the bingeing is to eat on schedule. Let the clock be your guide or at least close to it. Plan meals and snacks and stick to the schedule until it becomes second nature. Not only will your body tell you when you’re hungry, you won’t end up ravenous because you skipped a meal and overeat.

Make sure you have healthy foods in your diet.

Healthy foods include more than just veggies and fruit. You should also have a source of healthy protein and healthy fat. Both will keep you feeling fuller longer and satisfy hunger. Don’t be shocked about the healthy fat. Some fat is good and it keeps you feeling full. Some examples of foods with healthy fat are cheese, hard boiled eggs, avocados and even dark chocolate.

• If you find you’re ready to snack because of boredom, take a walk instead. If that’s not possible, do a few exercises or run up and down the stairs. Do anything that gets you moving.
• Create a list of small jobs you want to get done that take between 15 minutes to an hour. When you get bored, don’t reach for a snack but the list and get busy.
• Grab a bottle of water. Not only does it give some hand to mouth action, often the signs of thirst are the same as those of hunger.
• Brush your teeth. Yup, nothing sweet tastes good after you brush your teeth and most people won’t feel like eating once they do it.

Teenagers’ nutritional needs aren’t the same as their mother’s or a sibling who is past their teen years. Unfortunately, today so much emphasis has been on being thin, rather than being fit, that many teens aren’t meeting the nutritional needs they require. Body image issues play a huge role in the creation of eating disorders that were relatively unknown just fifty years ago. To add to the problem, families eat on the run and teens have far more control over what they eat than they did when they were just a few years younger.

Teens go through a growth spurt akin to that of early childhood.

Most teenagers reach their full growth some time during their teen year’s. Most of the growth is achieved in an 1 ½ to 2 year period, even though the teen years last from age 13 through 19. During that time, teens need a high volume of calories and nutrients. Puberty increases female body fat from 19% to the adult level of almost 22%. While boys maintain the same body fat percentage of 15% through adulthood, they do add muscle mass.

Protein and healthy fat are important.

With muscle tissue increase and the growth spurts, teens need at least 15% to 20% of their calories from protein. If your child chooses to become a vegetarian, which is more common than you might expect, you need to be vigilant to ensure there’s an adequate balanced amount from vegetarian sources. Healthy fat is one of the more difficult nutritional needs to fill. While getting fat is easy, since there’s junk food abound from which to choose, you’ll find most teens often fail to get the healthy type. Avocados, flaxseed, pumpkin seeds and salmon are a good source of healthy fat.

Calcium and iron are also important for teens.

Teens are growing during those years, which means they need the nutrients for growth, which includes calcium and vitamin D to ensure absorption of the calcium for the proper skeletal growth. For both males and females, the need for iron increases as well. Boys need more because muscle mass increases, so there’s a greater volume of blood. Girls need it to replace the iron they lose during menstruation. Cheese and leafy greens can supply calcium, while spinach and peas are a source of iron.

• Adding a side dish of a food rich in vitamin C boosts the absorption of iron.
• Zinc is also necessary for growth. Foods with zinc include dark chocolate, beef and wheat germ.
• Vitamin B complex is important for converting food to energy and helping with other functions, such as to help prevent the flow of sebum and reduce the potential for acne.
• One way to ensure teens not only get adequate nutrition, but also maintain a healthy outlook and weight is to promote regular exercise at least three to four days each week. Physical activity is equally important for both males and females.

If you’re out of shape and covered yourself completely last summer, rather joining the fun at the beach, you need to start on your summer body now rather than wait. While you’ll read many articles that say you can be bikini ready in just twelve weeks, they don’t account for personal differences and levels of fitness. Someone that is fifty pounds or more overweight will look significantly better in twelve weeks but still be overweight. Even if you’re in good shape. For those closer to their ultimate goal, you still can hone your appearance and feel comfortable trying on swimsuits.

A toned body requires strength training.

Strength training not only builds muscle tissue, it boosts your metabolism to make weight loss even easier. You need to do it at least three times a week and it will increase your calorie burning into the next day. Finding strength-building exercises that work multiple muscle groups is your best bet. You’ll get maximum results from these.

A tight booty and flat stomach are strictly manditory for the beach.

If you try on that suit and it doesn’t look great from both the front and back, you need to take a step back and run, not walk to the gym. Nothing looks worse than a droopy derrierre, unless it’s a bulging belly. Both take time to build to perfection, so you’ll get the maximum results when you start immediately. Don’t wait to the last moment and find yourself disappointed.

Start eating healthy now and get the best results.

A healthy diet is just as important as the time you spend at the gym. Eating healthy also helps your complexion, just as regular exercise does. You’ll shed pounds without dieting when you eat healthy and won’t have to worry about them returning. You’ll also have a smoother silhouette and skin that looks so good you’ll be proud to display it.

• Get rid of cellulite while you workout. Shedding pounds and building muscle tissue helps. Strength training also is important. Getting a head start on working out gives you the time to take care of this problem.
• Eat most of your calories before three in the afternoon and don’t eat after eight in the evening. Studies show that the earlier you eat, the more you burn calories. Exercising in the morning can also stimulate your metabolism to burn calories all day long.
• While strength-building is important, so is flexibility. You’ll walk more catlike and avoid injury that can set you back for months when you have flexibility training.
• Even though endurance training won’t shed pounds as fast, it can boost your energy to keep you more active. Don’t forget to include it in your summer workout.

One way to get results you want is to work just a little harder today. That’s one reason personal trainers push you to achieve your maximum potential and then when you think you’ve accomplished it, make the workout even more difficult. By raising the stakes, for that short time of working out, you’ll be struggling, but for the other 23+ hours in the day, you’ll find life becomes easier and easier.

Don’t get discouraged by the increasing difficulty.

Some people get a bit disgruntled by the ever increasing demands of their workout, but they fail to see the big picture. Working harder today makes life far easier tomorrow. It help the person working hard to achieve their goals faster and strive to even bigger ones. That’s what it’s all about, giving it your all. The more you sew, the more you’ll reap when it comes to fitness.

You’ll be bursting with energy.

The body is so amazing. The more you work it, the more energy it has. Working out isn’t easy if you’re doing it right, but that difficulty will and the exhaustion you feel if you’ve pushed yourself further than you’ve ever gone before, disappears quickly. You end the workout feeling exhilarated and ready to take on the world. You’ll sleep soundly that night and awake in the morning feeling even more energized than you did the day previously.

Working out to the max busts stress and helps release hormones to make you feel fantastic.

If you’re day has been filled with frustration and stress, the gym is the best place to get rid of that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. The harder you workout, the more you sweat, the better you’ll start to feel. That’s because your body is burning off the hormones created by the fight or flight response. Once those burn off, you’ll start feeling the rush of hormones like dopamine and endorphins that give you an exhilarating feeling. If all you got out of the workout was that, it would make it worth working out hard. Luckily, you get so much more.

• Only putting in half effort is useless. The more effort you put in, the results grow geometrically and far beyond what you’d expect.
• Challenging yourself is fun and it makes you look forward to exercising even more.
• Putting in the extra effort helps you shed weight and look fabulous faster. That keeps you more focused and motivated.
• When you’re doing everything right and putting in the extra effort, you’ll be amazed at how much you’re capable of achieving.

Is carob a healthy chocolate alternative or is that just another marketing ploy to sell more carob? It’s often hard to separate fact from fiction in today’s marketplace, since advertising has promoting their product sales down to a science. Let’s take a look at all the benefits that carob has to offer, but also include some of the benefits of eating healthy chocolate—the darker kind. First, carob contains no caffeine or theobromine, another stimulant. Unlike caffeine that primarily works on the nervous system, theobromine affects your pulmonary and cardiovascular system. It can affect sensitive people and prove lethal to dogs and can cause fibroid tumors in humans.

Carob is naturally sweet.

If you’ve ever made the mistake of chomping down on a hunk of baker’s chocolate, the kind that has no sweetener added, you probably wore that scowl on your face that the bitter chocolate created for quite a while. Oil, cream and sugar are added to make it smooth and more palatable, but it also makes it far less healthy. One reason for the oils and milk or cream is to create a smooth, less grainy texture. Carob is both naturally sweet with a smooth texture that doesn’t require the extra additives.

You might not like chocolate if you watched the processing at the source.

Sure when you see the chocolate final product, it came from the clean sanitized factories locally. It doesn’t start out that way, however. Chocolate is fermented to get the chocolaty flavor we all love. To do that, it’s heaped on the ground in piles. Not only are there bugs flourishing in the area, there are dogs running loose who choose those piles as their personal urinal. The chocolate heats as it ferments, just as compost piles do. It releases moisture and the combination is a perfect setting for mold and bacteria to grow. Cancer-causing agents, aflatoxins, which occur with the molding now are in the cocoa beans. The processing of carob is quite different and doesn’t require fermentation.

People have eaten carob for centuries.

Carob, also known as St. John’s bread and locust, has a prominent place in the Bible and throughout history. The bean can be eaten raw or dried and ground for other purposes. While the nutrient value varies by the variety of carob, all contain a multitude of mnerals, which include magnesium, zinc, copper and more. Carob is a significant source of iron, potassium and calcium, too and it has an alkalizing effect for the body. It provides vitamins K, E, C and A, while also providing protein and a healthy ration of Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acids.

– Carob is rich in antioxidants that can boost the immune system and help fight environmental toxins.

– Carob may help lower cholesterol and can be used as a digestive aid. Chocolate, on the other hand, is one culprit that may trigger the digestive problem GERD.

– You can use carob in a number of ways from eating the fresh pods to roasting it. You’ll often find carob powders in the grocery, but be aware these may have commercial

additives.

– Dark chocolate does have many health benefits, too. It’s rich in nutrients and antioxidants, plus may lower blood pressure, raise good cholesterol levels, prevent plaque build up and prevent heart disease. It’s also good for the brain and skin.