Quick Mango Lassi (Mango Yogurt Drink)

Mango lassi is a delicious way to take advantage of the weight loss benefits of yogurt. Here’s a very simple recipe.

Quick Mango Lassi (Mango Yogurt Drink)

In a blender, combine 2½ cups plain low-fat yogurt, ¾ cup frozen peeled mango, and ¼ cup sugar. Blend until smooth.

Makes 3 servings.

Relevance to Natural Weight Loss:

Weight Loss Tip: To take full advantage of mango lassi’s weight loss potential, take small sips and savor each one. Whether you drink it as a snack or in a meal, taking several minutes to enjoy this drink will give your stomach time to register satisfaction, and will make eating anything else seem boring in comparison.

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Eat a Bigger Breakfast to Lose Weight

Many dieters try to lose weight by eating a small breakfast or skipping it altogether. A study by scientists in Virginia and Venezuela suggests that eating a larger breakfast may be a better weight loss approach. They found that dieters who ate a 610-calorie breakfast each day initially lost less weight than dieters who ate a 290-calorie breakfast, but were more successful at keeping the weight off. Dieters who ate the small breakfasts regained much of the weight they had initially lost. By the end of the eight-month study, dieters who ate the larger breakfasts had lost nearly four times as much weight as the dieters who ate the small breakfasts. They also reported less hunger and fewer cravings throughout the day.

You can read more about big breakfast weight loss on The Endocrine Society’s web site.

Relevance to Natural Weight Loss:

Weight Loss Tip: Eat a hearty breakfast, and then make up for those extra calories by making supper smaller. A little extra food in your stomach will help you avoid cravings. You need that extra help during the daytime, not at night when you are sleeping.

Find more simple weight loss tips and recipes in this top-rated ebook at Amazon.

Walking Helps Prevent Chocolate Abuse

Walking can help you lose weight, and it’s not just because of the exercise. In a study by scientists at the U. of Exeter, chocolate lovers who were asked to take a brisk 15-minute treadmill walk before beginning work snacked on only half as much chocolate as study participants who were allowed to skip the walk and rest instead.
In an earlier study by the same group, a 15-minute walk was found to significantly reduce chocolate cravings.

You can read more about the walk to eat less chocolate and kill the chocolate cravings studies on the ScienceDaily web site.

Relevance to Natural Weight Loss:

Weight Loss Tip: Get up and take a brisk 15 minute walk before your usual chocolate craving time. If walking isn’t convenient, try a different exercise. And remember, just trying not to think about chocolate doesn’t work.

Greek Dip (Tzatziki) for Weight Loss

Tzatziki is a delicious and versatile low-calorie dip. Use it to provide some counter-temptation to all of that holiday junk food. Here’s a very simple recipe.

Tzatziki (Cucumber Yogurt Dip or Sauce)

Peel a cucumber and cut it in half lengthwise. Remove the seeds by scraping out the center portion of the cucumber with a spoon. Grate the cucumber and press it with a paper towel to remove the extra liquid. Mix the grated cucumber with 2 cups plain Greek yogurt, 1 tablespoon fresh dill or mint (or 1/3 tablespoon dry dill weed or mint), 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice, 1 tablespoon olive oil (optional), and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Chill for 2 hours before serving. Serves 6.

Serve generously alongside almost any hot dish or use as a spread or vegetable dip. You can make this recipe even more flavorful by adding a finely minced or crushed clove of garlic. To make a salad dressing, use regular yogurt instead of Greek yogurt.

Relevance to Natural Weight Loss:

Weight Loss Tip: This recipe is so good you will just want to keep eating. Eat away! Eat it as a snack or as half a meal, or use it as a low-calorie substitute for other dips and toppings.

Find more simple weight loss tips and recipes in this top-rated ebook at Amazon.

Easy Greek (Strained) Yogurt Recipe

Greek or strained yogurt is a thick, rich, creamy yogurt that can be eaten alone or used in recipes as a low-calorie, high-protein substitute for sour cream or cream cheese. Use it to make dips, spreads, cheesecake, sauces, etc. It’s easy to make Greek yogurt using plain low-fat yogurt.

Easy Greek Yogurt

Line a strainer or colander with a layer of cheesecloth or coffee filters. Add plain home made low-fat yogurt (or any plain low-fat yogurt without added stabilizers). Let the liquid drain for at least two hours.

That’s it! You have now Greek yogurt. You can also use the drained liquid (whey) as a nutritious substitute for water in many recipes.

Relevance to Natural Weight Loss:

Weight Loss Tip: Use Greek yogurt as a low-calorie substitute in recipes that call for cream cheese or sour cream.

A Big Fork, or Home Cooking?

Researchers at the University of Utah supplied unwary restaurant diners at a local Italian restaurant with either a small or a large fork, and then weighed the abandoned plate after each diner finished eating to see how much food was left uneaten. Diners who were given smaller forks ate more of their meal, on average, than those who had been given big forks.

Why would you eat more when using a smaller fork? The researchers explained that people go to restaurants intending to eat a lot (to get their money’s worth?). Shoveling large amounts of food into your mouth with a big fork helps you feel that you are reaching that goal sooner. As good scientists will often do, they then repeated the experiment, in a lab. The results this time around were different: those with the bigger forks ate more. Apparently, people don’t go to laboratories with the same intentions.

So what’s the take-home message? Don’t take any one scientific study too seriously, and don’t rely on a big fork to help you eat less, at least not at home.

To learn more about the study, read the TIME magazine article on eating less with a big fork.

Relevance to Natural Weight Loss:

Weight Loss Tip: Avoid restaurants. Make your own meals. Pay no attention to your fork.

Protein for Breakfast to Lose Weight Naturally

Researchers at the University of Missouri used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of overweight adolescent girls who habitually skipped breakfast. Each girl underwent a brain scan after skipping breakfast for several days, after eating a “normal” breakfast for several days, and again after eating a “high protein” breakfast for several days. The brain scans were conducted three hours after breakfast time in each case. The normal breakfast consisted of cereal and milk. The high protein breakfast consisted of Belgium waffles, syrup, and yogurt. Neural activity in parts of the brain associated with appetite was lower following the normal breakfast, and lower still following the high-protein breakfast.

To learn more about the study, read the article on breakfast, protein, and cravings at the University of Missouri’s news site.

Relevance to Natural Weight Loss:

Weight Loss Tip: Add eggs, yogurt, meat, beans, or other protein source to your breakfast so that it will keep you satisfied longer. If you don’t have time for breakfast in the morning, try preparing it the night before. It doesn’t have to be complicated: a boiled egg or yogurt with fruit might be a substantial improvement over what you are currently doing.

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Stay Up Late, Gain Weight

In a study of eating and sleeping habits of 51 adults, researchers at Northwestern University found that those who habitually went to bed late and slept late into the morning ate about 250 calories more per day than did those on a more normal sleep schedule.

The extra calories were largely due to consumption of twice as much fast food and half as many fruits and vegetables as were eaten by the normal sleepers. Late sleepers also drank more sugary drinks. The extra calories tended to be eaten after normal sleepers were already in bed.

To learn more about the study, read the article on sleeping late and weight gain at Northwestern University’s news site.

Relevance to Natural Weight Loss:

Weight Loss Tip: Get to bed at a reasonable time. If you do plan on staying up late, have some fruits and vegetables handy to snack on.

Red Pepper as an Appetite Suppressant

According to a study on the effects of red pepper on thermogenesis and appetite by scientists at Purdue University, 1 gram of red pepper eaten with a meal can not only suppress appetite but also cause the body to heat up (thermogenesis), burning calories in the process. Is this the new miracle food for natural weight loss?

Not quite.

First, the suppressing effect on appetite was significant in participants who were non-users (did not usually eat red pepper), but not in habitual users. This suggests that if you decide to use red pepper as an appetite suppressant, it may only work until you become accustomed to eating red pepper. The effect of red pepper on both appetite suppression and thermogenesis is apparently mediated by the burn in your mouth, so taking it in capsule form would not be expected to have as much effect.

Second, the effective dose in this study was 1 gram. This was about three times greater than the amount of red pepper participants who were non-users “preferred” on their food.

Bottom line. Adding red pepper to your food might help suppress your appetite and burn calories, unless, of course, you happen to like red pepper, in which case it probably won’t help you much.

You can read more about the study at Science Daily.

Relevance to Natural Weight Loss:

Weight Loss Tip: Add some red pepper to your food. It can’t hurt, and might help you lose weight naturally; but don’t cancel your gym membership just yet.

Toxic Sugar

Is sugar toxic? In a recent New York Times article entitled “Is Sugar Toxic,” author Gary Taubes suggests that sugar is not only the primary ingredient behind the obesity epidemic, but also that it independently contributes to risks of high blood pressure, heart disease, and many cancers. Fructose, he says, is the big problem because of how it is handled by the liver relative to other sugars. Many people get their fructose primarily from the high fructose corn syrup in sweetened beverages and other junk food, but it also occurs naturally in most fruits. The article has ignited plenty of controversy, and Gary Taubes has responded to many readers’ comments about his article on a New York Times blog post. In an LA Times post,  Dr. Gerard Mullin, a nutrition expert at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, provides some independent analysis of Taubes’ article. 

According to Dr. Mullin and most nutritionists, the fructose in fruit is not usually a problem. Fiber in the fruit slows the digestion of the sugar, reducing its potential for harm in the liver and blood stream. Sugar added to drinks, on the other hand, can be consumed quickly and in large quantities. This sudden burst of sugar can not only lead to fatty liver, but can also quickly exceed your daily calorie requirements, making weight loss goals extremely difficult to achieve. Most other sweets don’t produce quite the burst of calories that sugary drinks do, but they can be eaten and digested quite quickly, and are often eaten in large quantities (compared to fruit and other natural foods), so they also tend to provide more than their share of calories. 

Relevance to Natural Weight Loss:

Weight Loss Tip: If you drink anything with added sugar, consider replacing it with something a little more natural. Perhaps water? It is completely natural and no calories. But you like the sweetness? Try fruit. Changing an eating happen can be difficult, especially for the first few days, so here’s another tip. Make a goal to give up sugary drinks for two weeks, and then see how you feel. It could be the start of something good.