If you work outside the home, brown bag your lunch

It's tempting to run out to the nearest fast food joint for a high fat, high carb lunch. If you pack your lunch you have control of what you eat and won't be tempted by a burger and fries. If you have a fridge and microwave at your office, and who doesn't these days, you can serve up a delicious salad and soup lunch. As an added benefit you will save money. The average fast food lunch these days costs around $7.00. And you can use the time you save to run errands, relax or take a walk around the block.

Lose That Weight with Acai Berries

You know you've put it off long enough. First it was "wait until the kids were back in school," then "who can diet at Halloween with all the festivities," then along came Thanksgiving and Christmas with all the cookies. Well you're out of excuses it's time to lose that weight in 2009.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to find a food that was not only good for you but helped you lose weight and tasted good? How about a raspberry chocolate flavored juice? There is such a thing: the Acai berry. It's high in antioxidants, amino acids, and essential fatty acids. It helps you lose weight because the Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids it contains help increase your metabolism. The fiber fills you up and because it takes longer to digest, it keeps you full so you don't get hungry as soon.

Acai berries are not some brand new scientifically molded super food. It's been around for ages and has been consumed by native South Americans as a regular part of their diet. The Acai palm tree produces two crops a year. Are you now wondering why this wonder fruit doesn't show up in the produce section of your local supermarket or at least health food store? It's simply because the berries are extremely perishable once they've been harvested. Within 24 hours of being removed from the palm tree the berry starts to rot. That and the fact that the berry is a small sized fruit about the size of a grape with a rather large seed there isn't a lot that's edible.

The good news is that Acai berries products are available in the United States and other parts of the world besides South America. There's Acai berry juice, pulp, powders, extracts, and supplements.

Like any good for you food the challenge is to incorporate the food into your diet on a daily and regular basis. Here are a couple of ways to get Acai berries into your diet and boost your weight loss program. Here are a few more ideas.

Fruit smoothie - Mix 1/2 cup of juice with 1/2 cup of yogurt, whirl in a blender with a handful of chopped fresh fruit.

Mix the pulp with equal portions of applesauce

Mix half juice and half green tea

Mix half juice with half sparkling water

The amount you should use of the powders, extracts and supplements depend on the quality of the product and how the acai berry was processed. While there haven't been any side effects confirmed from Acai berries eating too much of anything isn't good for you.

Have breakfast

Skipping breakfast leads to low blood sugar mid morning which results in cravings for sugary foods to pump the blood sugar back up. A vicious cycle results and continues throughout the day. Your breakfast should consist of whole grains, a protein source and fruit. It doesn't have to be fancy. A slice of whole wheat toast spread with a tablespoon of low fat peanut butter and an apple will do just fine. Or you could mix ½ cup of nonfat cottage cheese with chopped fresh peaches and a couple of whole wheat crackers. Another possibility is a scrambled egg served on an English muffin with a glass of orange juice.

Can You Lose Weight Fast And Easy Or Are You Your Own Worst Enemy?

You've been lugging the same 15 pounds, or maybe it's 25 or 50 pounds, around for what seems like forever. You've tried every diet known from cabbage soup to no carb to bananas and peanuts. You lose a little weight and then it comes right back on. Are you your own worst enemy when you try to lose weight fast and easy?

The key word is "try." When you think about it there's really no such thing as "try." You either accomplish your goal or you don't. And that may be why you've had such a difficult time "trying" to lose weight, you didn't think you actually could.

How you think determines how successful you'll be. Trying implies a half hearted effort that may work for a little while but is full of doubts to whether you'll achieve your goal. So change your way of thinking as much as your way of eating to lose weight.

Picture yourself healthy and at the weight you want to be. If you have photos of the thinner you put them up on the bathroom mirror. When you look at the photos picture yourself looking like that now. If you don't have photos choose a picture of someone you'd like to look like.

The idea is to fill your mind with the positive image. When a cookie beckons or you're dying for a double mocha latte in the afternoon, replace the craving with the positive image of you.

Change the way you think about food. Fresh fruits, vegetables, and juices are filled with energy and that's what the new you wants: lots of energy. Sugary cookies, breads, candies, sauces, and rich foods are filled with sludgy, draining, weigh you down calories, and that's what you do not want.

Enjoy the crunch of a fresh apple and the sweetness of the juice. Thank about the vitamins and antioxidants you're giving your body. Apples have another benefit. It's been shown that eating a small apple before every meal leads to weight loss. That's because apples contain a substance called pectin which makes you feel fuller so you eat less.

Now compare the apple with a frozen entrée, over salted, laden with chemical preservatives, and added fat to replace any flavors the natural ingredients may have had. The entrée just sits in your stomach like a lump and then slowly slugs through your digestive system.

Which would you rather have?

Change your thinking from trying to doing and you'll lose weight fast.

Visit Dee Power's Lose Weight Fast for more weight loss tips.