A healthy diet isn’t always easy. If you’re working from home, you probably have easy access to all sorts of foods. From the pantry to your desk drawer, it’s easy to keep treats on hand when you work for yourself. It can be tempting to indulge your sweet tooth between meals or eat several servings of your favorite salty snacks in the afternoons.

And if you’re not working, controlling the temptation to snack can be hard, as boredom often plays a role. So it’s even more important to make sure that the fuel going into your system is serving you, rather than adding to your energy problems.

5 Energy-Boosting Snacks to Recharge

To keep your energy level up throughout the day, you need to choose snacks that are part of a healthy diet. Healthy snacks are easier for your body to digest and can help you stay productive. These are the best foods to reach for when you start feeling hungry and need a quick snack.

1 – green smoothies

Smoothies are an excellent way to get more fruits and vegetables in your diet. Not only will a smoothie nourish your body, it’s also a good source of vitamins and minerals. But read the labels for the green smoothies that are on store shelves. Some of them have added sugars or other ingredients that aren’t as healthy for you. Try to compare two or three brands to find the smoothies that taste the best and are the most nutritious.

2 – eggs

Eggs aren’t just for breakfast. They also make a great snack for fending off your mid-day munchies. Eggs are naturally packed with protein, so you’ll feel full longer. There are many ways you can make eggs, but one of the simplest ways is to hard-boil a few, peel them, and leave them in the fridge. Then next time you’re craving a snack, grab an egg.

3 – soups with legumes

Legumes are vegetables that are encased in a pod or shell, like green beans and peas. Legumes are rich in fiber, which prevents blood sugar spikes. When it comes to soups, it’s best to go homemade if possible. But if you decide to purchase ready-made soup, try to look for a low sodium option, since sodium is a preservative that’s abundant in processed foods.

4 – healthy chocolate

Maybe it’s been one of “those kind of days” and you really just need a quick chocolate fix. Instead of reaching for your favorite brand of chocolate, try a healthier alternative like a chocolate banana smoothie. You still get the taste of chocolate, but you also get the health benefits of a banana.

5 – fruit and yogurt

Indulge your sweet tooth with a bit of fruit and yogurt. Yogurt is made from milk, which is a good source of protein. You might be tempted to grab a yogurt from the store shelf that already contains fruit. But that type of yogurt is likely to have added preservatives and extra sugar. That’s why it’s best to opt for plain yogurt and mix in your own fresh fruits.

Life isn’t always easy. But eating a healthy diet should be. Keep in mind that you don’t have to make everything from scratch. There are plenty of ready-made snacks that you can buy at your local grocery store. Compare labels on different products to make sure that you’re picking the most nutritious one. Make your healthy snacks easy to reach for. Store the ingredients you need for a smoothie next to your blender. Precut your vegetables so you can just grab a serving and mix in some yogurt. To stay productive, you need to give your body healthy foods and they need to be easy to grab, or you’re going to fall back to old habits.

4 Refreshing Drinks that Rehydrate You & Boost Your Brainpower

A healthy diet isn’t just about the foods you eat.

Do you feel fatigued through the day? Do you frequently experience headaches or dizziness while you’re going about your daily activities? Do you find yourself feeling like your brain is in a haze as you struggle to think clearly?

These symptoms might sound scary at first. But they’re often caused by a simple medical condition known as dehydration. Dehydration happens when your body doesn’t have enough fluid. As a result, you may feel tired and achy. You can experience dry mouth, headaches, and even dizziness because of your dehydration. The good news is that it’s easy to fix dehydration. You just need to drink a few glasses of liquid. Water is the best choice to rehydrate your system. Other beverages like coffee and soda contain caffeine, which can further dehydrate you. That’s why you should opt for water if possible.

But what if you simply hate the taste of water?

While some people believe water has no taste, others insist that it does have a boring flavor. If that describes you, then try one of these healthy options to mask the flavor of your water. You’ll still get the health benefits of drinking but without the taste you dislike.

1 – water & lime

Lime is a great way to add flavor to your water. This mild citrus fruit is filled with Vitamin C and cancer fighting flavonoids. If you’re really craving a sweet taste, consider adding one teaspoon of raw honey to your lime water.

2 – cucumber & apple water

Combining cucumber and apple will give your water a sweet, refreshing taste. Cucumbers are an excellent source of several B vitamins, while apples are known to fight diseases like Type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.

3 – green tea

If you’re still not a fan of water after trying to natural flavors provided by nature, then opt for green tea. Not only can green tea help rehydrate your body, scientists also believe that it helps the body burn fat naturally.

4 – fresh mint tea

Like green tea, peppermint tea also boasts many health benefits. It can be useful in preventing nausea and reducing painful stomach cramps. Another advantage of drinking peppermint tea is that it’s a natural anti-inflammatory. If you have an autoimmune disease like arthritis, then it may be helpful to drink peppermint tea regularly.

Action Time: Journal Your Thoughts

1. What snacks do you reach for when you want a treat?

2. How do you feel about your current eating habits? What could you do to improve them?

3. Do you keep healthy foods on hand? Why or why not?

4. Are you drinking enough regularly to prevent dehydration?

5. How can you add more water and tea into your daily routine?

6. What are some unhealthy drinking choices that you’re making? Could you replace one of these choices with a healthier alternative?

Let me know in the comments what snack/rehydration issue you struggle with the most.

Up Next: Collecting those scattered thoughts

The post Healthy Diet: Are You Getting the Right Fuel? appeared first on Beyond Retirement.

To simplify things, the keto diet works on a very basic principle – most of the calories you consume will need to come from foods that are high in fat. Your consumption of protein will be moderate, while your carb intake will be very low. 75 to 80 percent of your calories will need to be fat. 20 to 25 percent will need to be protein. Your carb intake should hover between 20 to 50 grams.

The idea of eating fat to lose fat may seem ironic. The common misconception is that one should avoid fatty foods in order to lose weight. Yet, the reason the ketogenic diet works is because when you consume a lot of fat, your body realizes that it always has access to ample fat.

It doesn’t see a need to cling on to the fat stores in your body. You’ll find it much easier to shed the stubborn pounds when you’re on a keto diet because the body burns off your fat more easily.

The average person who tries to lose weight does it by restricting his or her calories. While this is one way to do it, the body still uses glycogen and carbs for fuel, instead of fat. The fat burning process is slower.

With the keto diet, since carb intake is low, your glycogen reserves and the insulin in your body will be low too. It’ll be easy to deplete those, and your body will have no choice but to burn the fat for its energy needs.

Check out what Dr Oz has to say!

The body will produce ketones for energy when your carb consumption is low. Your liver uses the fat in your body to produce the ketones. Since you’re consuming lots of fat, the body doesn’t try to cling on to the fat stores. It quickly uses them to create ketones.

The Atkins diet tries to achieve the same goal by reducing carb intake. However, with the Atkins diet, your body is not primed to burn fat, like it is with the keto diet. So, once you come off the Atkins diet, your body goes back to burning carbs for fuel and you slowly gain back the weight you’ve lost.

While the keto diet is highly effective, the core principles of weight loss remain the same. You must be at a caloric deficit to lose weight. Even if most of your diet is comprised of fat, the total calories that you consume for the day should be about 500 calories below maintenance.

You can check your calorie numbers here. There are also sample diet plans for various calorie levels.

What makes the keto diet so effective compared to other diets is that it trains your body to use its fat stores. Almost all diets advocate not consuming sugar, refined foods, processed foods, etc. But most of them do not ‘teach’ your body to burn fat directly.

The fat burning is an afterthought. It’s assumed that if you’re eating fewer calories than you expend, you will lose weight… and that is true. But the keto diet aims to get you to lose as much weight as possible by burning fat, instead of burning carbs first and then using fat for the rest of the body’s needs.

If you wish to lose weight fast and you’re willing to change your diet, it would be a great idea to give the keto diet a try. It’s relatively easy to follow once you get the hang of it.

The post How Does the Keto Diet Work? appeared first on Beyond Retirement.