Does Your Diet Need Anger Management?

Slow traffic on overcrowded roads. Co-workers who refuse to carry their weight. Family members who won't pick up after themselves.

There are countless reasons for the rage that swells up within us, calling upon our anger management skills to squelch our impatience. Is dieting another issue that makes you frustrated?

Your anxiety about dieting may be holding you back from achieving the healthy, attractive body you really want.

Consider these easy ways to get rid of dieting rage:

• Enjoy the healthy journey without constantly worrying how many pounds you lost. After all, it's a lifestyle change you are trying to achieve first, and the pounds will then melt off naturally.
• Crash diets put you on the fast track to dieting frustration and failure. Slow and steady wins the race and helps you reach your dieting goals without grief.
• Have someone join you for the dieting experience. Jog with a neighbor, tally calories with your best friend, walk your dog everyday or join an online forum to find a fitness friend.
• Be patient with yourself and the world around you. Life constantly presents changing circumstances that may cause you to stop and restart your diet. Go with the flow and you will always return to the right path.

If dietary distress is holding you back from losing the weight you want, de-stress so you can enjoy your fitness routine instead of dreading it.

Does What You Drink Jeopardize Your Fitness Efforts?

If you are exercising daily and eating well-balanced meals but still not losing all the weight you want, consider your beverage choices.

What you drink could be packing on quiet pounds and jeopardizing your fitness goals.

Consider some of the unhealthy beverages you may wind up sipping at some point during the day:

• Soda has empty calories and even diet soda may have caffeine that works as a diuretic, dehydrating your body;
• Coffee also has caffeine and adding sugar or milk will add calories;
• Whole milk contains essential nutrients but also has the highest fat content; and
• Alcohol causes dehydration, possible liver damage, minimizes absorption of essential nutrients and even interferes with the way fat is metabolized in your body.

There are, however, healthy beverage choices that support your fitness efforts:

• Green tea is a preferred choice over coffee because it's an antioxidant with lower caffeine;
• Tomato juice is an antioxidant with vitamins and minerals with a fun spicy flavor;
• Skim milk contains all the essential nutrients that whole milk has without all the fat; and
• Water hydrates your body, flushes out toxins from your system and has no calories naturally.

To boost your fitness routine, make sure you include healthy beverages on your everyday menu.

How To Keep The Weight Off Now That You're Fit

After a lot of hard work, you finally reached your goal weight. Is it time to celebrate with a rich dessert? You may want to reconsider.

While self deprivation is never suggested, you have to change your habits to successfully lose weight.

Getting rid of old habits should be a lifestyle change, not a temporary state of mind.

Unfortunately, almost ninety percent of people who lose weight struggle with keeping it off.

You can beat those odds by maintaining your new lifestyle - remember:

• there are healthy snacks that are equally tasty without all the fat;
• you worked hard to achieve your goals and don't want to step back; and
• if you do indulge, will that pull an emotional trigger that sends you back to unhealthy eating habits?

More ways to maintain your new weight and lifestyle include having a fitness buddy and setting new challenges for yourself.

Sometimes people feel lost after they lose weight. Having a fitness buddy keeps you active and thinking about weight loss.

Setting new challenges, such as running a marathon or learning how to play golf, makes fitness fun and rewarding.

By keeping a healthy perspective, you can stay fit and happy for the rest of your life.

A Halloween Sugar High and Holiday Sweets

Halloween seems to be the time of year that gets us started with sweet treats and it goes on right into the New Year, when we all get on the scale and make resolutions to lose ten pounds.

No matter how many people may succumb to this temptation, it is still an unhealthy choice to avoid.

The refined sugar found in Halloween candy and pre-packaged holiday treats offers no nutritional value and contributes to serious conditions such as obesity, diabetes and severe dental decay.

Consider these tips to steer clear of those tempting treats so you feel and look fantastic through the holidays:

• Keep in mind the U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines for people on a 2,000 calorie diet diet are 10 teaspoons of added sugar (80 grams), which is the approximate amount of sugar in one glass of soda;
• With the amount of sugar in soda in mind, drink water rather than sweetened beverages;
• Buy Halloween candy you don't like so you won't be tempted to pick;
• Keep candy and sweets out of sight rather than displayed in irresistible bowls or on the counter;
• Make sure you fill up on healthy snacks so you won't be hungry for all the sweet snacks; and
• Avoid total self-deprivation during the holidays by allowing yourself just one of your favorite treats - but if you can't have just one - you need to stay away from the temptation altogether.

By keeping these few simple tips in mind from October through December, you can face the New Year without worrying about unwanted weight gain.

Thanksgiving Diet Tips

While we always want to know how big the Thanksgiving turkey is, do we bother to weigh ourselves before the big feast?

Often we avoid the scale from Thanksgiving until the New Year so we remain unaware of the pounds we are packing on.

With turkey day right around the corner, consider these simple Thanksgiving diet tips to avoid gaining an excessive amount of weight that will require you to make a New Year's resolution to knock it off:

• weigh yourself before Thanksgiving and after to judge just how much you indulged and use this as a guideline to avoid equal indulgences during the other upcoming holidays;
• eat a light, healthy snack, such as fruit, vegetables or low-fat dairy, an hour before Thanksgiving dinner so you are not hungry;
• avoid second helpings, even if those sweet potatoes are the best you ever tasted;
• stick to one dessert instead of piling your plate with tiny versions of everything available which wind up adding on lots of extra calories;
• take it easy on the butter and gravy - use only a small amount or none at all;
• don't add salt to your meal;
• and take a walk after Thanksgiving dinner to get a bit of exercise after eating.

By following the above Thanksgiving diet tips, you will look great for rest of the holidays and the New Year.