Personal Branding is a hot topic right now,find out more from my video http://ping.fm/nT4dD rate and leave me a comment :) heck subscribe too if u want:)

It's all About You

Just a quick micro blog here, I have just released a new video on you tube, it is all about personal branding and how important it is for you and your business.
Please hop on over and have a look, let me know what you think. Don't forget to rate my video and subscribe to my channel, it all helps :)

http://ping.fm/Kk6P2

Colette aka workfmhomeDiva

We all are here for a reason, some want to find out, others just don't care or want to know. I want to make a difference!

Eating Out Vs Eating In

We all have to eat out sometime, it's just the way society is now. But can you eat out and eat sensibly? We tend to go overboard when dining out, why is that? Many decent restuarants have a healthy variety of foods, but more often than not, we tend to ignore the healthy and go for the rich, fatty foods that are not really good for us at all.

So, how can you dine out and enjoy yourself without having to eat 'rabbit food'. Well look at the portion sizes, ask for smaller portions if you need to, or ask for a smaller plate is another alternative. Eat fresh vegetables where ever it is on the menu and try to remember to fill your plate with carbs, proteins and fibre in order that you have a balanced meal. However, food cooked in a restaurant has hidden salts, sugars and fats which you may not be aware of and which may be detrimental to your health. It's not that I dont advocate eating out, I love eating out, but you just have to be aware of the choices you have or make.

If you are going to drink when dining out, alcohol is ok, if you do not drink more than the recommended units per week. If you add the calorie count into your meal plan you won't feel too guilty about having it.

So, Eating in - well some benefits are you control what you are eating and what you are cooking. You can also control your portion sizes. Having a healthy balanced meal is important and you can control the levels of salt, sugar and fat in your home cooked meal.

All in all eating out or in, ensure you eat healthy, watch your portion size and include any alcoholic beverage into your calorie count.


Colette Morris F.R.S.A SAC Dipl, (Diet & Nutrition)
If you would like a consultation call
Email: formula4finess@ymail.com
Tel. 213 261 4233 (usa) 0208 816 7045 (uk)

Exercises for a Flatter Stomach

 Great 5 minute video showing some easy exercises to help get your stomach in shape.  Remember it's EASY to do, and EASY NOT to do.  The choice is yours...




Colette Morris F.R.S.A, S.A.C Dip, (Diet &Nutrition)
If you would like a consultation call or email Email: formula4fitness@ymail.com 
Tel. 213 261 4233 (usa) 0208 816 7045 (uk)

10 Benefits of Regular Exercise By Mary Ponce

We should all have a regular physical exercise regime, even if it is only half an hour each day for an energetic walk. The benefits of frequent exercise are enormous, these are ten real advantages that can be derived from physical activity.

1. Increasing your metabolic rate.

This is particularly helpful to people who want to lose weight. Your metabolic rate is the one at which your body burn off calories and therefore fat when it is at rest. Regular exercise increases your metabolic rate and it helps to increase weight loss.

2. Improves cardiovascular health.

Cardiovascular exercise, or cardio as it is often referred to, is the exercise that works the heart and lungs. Regular exercise includes such things as: swimming and cycling. These exercises can also be described as aerobic. They exercise the heart and lungs making them much stronger and healthier organs.

3. Stronger bones.

Regular weight bearing aerobic exercises such as: walking, jogging, aerobics classes, and dancing. All help to strengthen your bones.

4. Healthier skin.

Because cardiovascular exercise raises your heartbeat and gets your lungs working harder, this improves your circulation. Which in turn leads to an improved supply of essential nutrients to your skin, helping to detox your body and promoting healthy skin. Exercise also delivers more oxygen to the skin which helps it to fill out and promotes a healthier skin color.

5. Reduces stress.

The stress is caused by the presence of certain hormones in the bloodstream. Regular physical exercise helps to remove these hormones consequently reducing the levels of stress.

6. Improves mood.

Mood swings are governed by hormones called endorphins that are found in the brain. When our endorphin levels are low, we experience feelings of depression. It is proven that exercise increases endorphin levels thereby helping to reduce or alleviate feelings of depression. A survey has revealed that people who perform regular exercise are as much as 50% less prone to depression than people who do not exercise. It is also known that work outs promotes the production of the serotonin. Serotonin has been associated with calmness, therefore creates feelings of increased calmness.

7. Increased brainpower.

The brain, through its ability to stimulate increased blood flow, also facilitates a healthier and more active brain with exercise.

8. Improved immune system.

Regular physical exercise has also been linked with beefing up the immune system so that simple infections such and colds and flu are contracted less often.

9. Keeps you looking more youthful.

As mentioned earlier, habitual exercise also increases the blood supply and aids circulation. This helps to reduce the amount of fine wrinkles. This weight loss will also maintain you to looking and feeling younger.

10. A more flexible body.

If we do not exercise our joints and muscles tend to seize up. Regular exercise helps to keep our bodies more fluid, which facilitates our body's agility and mobility.

It can clearly be seen just how good and also how important regular physical exercise is for us. It not only keeps us fit, but it helps us to lose weight, it improves our mood. It also prolongs our life by promoting a strong healthy heart and it allow us to look and feel younger too.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mary_Ponce


Colette Morris F.R.S.A, S.A.C Dipl, (Diet & Nutrition)
If you would like a consultation call or email Email: formula4fitness@ymail.com
Tel. 213 261 4233 (USA) 0208 816 7045 (UK)

LFGC A day out at the Park..

Great video of the London Fit Girls out in the park this morning. The sun was out and boy did I get a tan just doing the circuit. Pat was very brave, being her first time,but she managed to keep up with us and loved the football and the wind down, particularly the wind down....watch the video to see what I mean!



Colette Morris SAC Dip., Diet & Nutrition
If you would like a consultation call or email Email: formula4fitness@ymail.com Tel. 213 261 4233 (usa) 0208 816 7045 (uk)

There Are Several Aspects in the Treatment of Diabetes, Each One with a Very Important Role

Written by James Norman MD, FACS, FACE

The mainstays of diabetes treatment are:

1. Working towards obtaining ideal body weight
2. Following a diabetic diet
3. Regular exercise
4. Diabetic medication if needed

Note: Type 1 diabetes must be treated with insulin; if you have type 2 diabetes, you may not need to take insulin. This involves injecting insulin under the skin for it to work. Insulin cannot be taken as a pill because the digestive juices in the stomach would destroy the insulin before it could work. Scientists are looking for new ways to give insulin. But today, shots are the only method. There are, however, new methods to give the shots. Insulin pumps are now being widely used and many people are having great results.

Working towards obtaining ideal body weight
An estimate of ideal body weight can be calculated using this formula:

For women:
Start with 100 pounds for 5 feet tall. Add 5 pounds for every inch over 5 feet. If you are under 5 feet, subtract 5 pounds for each inch under 5 feet. This will give you your ideal weight.

If you have a large frame, add 10%. If you have a small frame, subtract 10%. A good way to decide your frame size is to look at your wrist size compared to other women's.

Example: a woman who is 5' 4" tall and has a large frame.
100 pounds + 20 pounds (4 inches times 5 pounds per inch) =120 pounds.
Add 10% for large frame (in this case 10% of 120 pounds is 12 pounds).
120 pounds + 12 pounds = 132 pounds ideal body weight.

For men:
Start with 106 pounds for a height of 5 foot. Add 6 pounds for every inch above 5 foot.

For a large frame, add 10%. For a small frame, subtract 10%. (See above for further details).

The Diabetic Diet
Diet is very important in diabetes. There are differing philosophies on what is the best diet but below is a guideline with some general principles.

To learn more about meal planning when you have diabetes, sign up for the Diabetic Recipes eNewsletter. It's packed full of easy recipes to help you eat well. We also have the Diabetes Advisor eNewsletter, which has treatment tips and advice from leading experts.

Patients with type 1 diabetes should have a diet that has approximately 35 calories per kg of body weight per day (or 16 calories per pound of body weight per day). If you have a child who has type 1 diabetes, we encourage you to read our article about meal planning for children with type 1 diabetes.

Patients with type 2 diabetes generally are put on a 1500-1800 calorie diet per day to promote weight loss and then the maintenance of ideal body weight. However, this may vary depending on the person's age, sex, activity level, current weight and body style. More obese individuals may need more calories initially until their weight is less. This is because it takes more calories to maintain a larger body and a 1600 calorie diet for them may promote weight loss that is too fast to be healthy.

Men have more muscle mass in general and therefore may require more calories. Muscle burns more calories per hour than fat. (Thus also one reason to regularly exercise and build up muscle!) Also, people whose activity level is low will have less daily caloric needs.

Generally, carbohydrates should make up about 50% of the daily calories (with the accepted range 40%-60%). In general, lower carbohydrate intake is associated with lower sugar levels in the blood. However the benefits of this can be cancelled out by the problems associated with a higher fat diet taken in to compensate for the lower amount of carbohydrates. This problem can be improved by substituting monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats for saturated fats.

Most people with diabetes find that it is quite helpful to sit down with a dietitian or nutritionist for a consult about what is the best diet for them and how many daily calories they need. It is quite important for diabetics to understand the principles of carbohydrate counting and how to help control blood sugar levels through proper diet. Below are some general principles about the diabetic diet.

Try out our carb counting quiz to test how well you know your carbohydrates.

Understanding Food Groups
There are three basic food groups: fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. The carbohydrates are the foods that can be broken down into sugar. It is essential to have all three food groups in your diet to have good nutrition.

1. Why Count Carbohydrates?
Carbohydrates make your blood glucose level go up. If you know how much carbohydrates you've eaten, you have a good idea what your blood glucose level is going to do. The more carbohydrates you eat, the higher your blood sugar will go up.

2. Which Foods Contain Carbohydrates?
Most of the carbohydrate we eat comes from three food groups: starch, fruit, and milk.

Vegetables also contain some carbohydrates, but foods in the meat and fat groups contain very little carbohydrate. Sugars may be added or may be naturally present (such as in fruits).

The nutrient term for sugars can also be identified by looking for -ose at the end of a word ( i.e, glucose, fructose, and sucrose are all sugars). Look for these on food labels to help identify foods that contain sugar.

Below are some examples of carbohydrate grams for some common food items:

Food	Amount	Carb grams	Food	Amount	Carb grams
1 % fat milk	1 cup	12	yogurt fruited	1 cup	40
Bran Chex	2/3 cup	23	yogurt fruit	1 cup	19
Frosted Flakes	3/4 cup	26	Raisin Bran	3/4 cup	28
fruit juice	1/2 cup	15	bread/toast	1 slice	15
banana	1/2	15	sugar	1 tsp.	4
pancake syrup	2 Tbsp.	30	pancakes - 4	2	15
low-fat granola	1/2 cup	30	sugar-free syrup	2 Tbsp.	4

To make things easy, many people begin carbohydrate counting by rounding the carbohydrate value of milk up to 15.

In other words, one serving of starch, fruit, or milk contains 15 grams carbohydrate or one carbohydrate serving. Three servings of vegetable also contain 15 grams. Each meal and snack will contain a specific total number of grams of carbohydrate.

For example: Each gram of carbohydrate provides 4 calories. A person with diabetes on a 1600 calorie diet should get 50% of these calories from carbohydrate. This would be a total of 800 calories of carbohydrates (at 4 calories per gram) spread out over the day. At 15 grams per exchange, this would be about 13 exchanges of carbohydrate per day.

The amount of food you eat is closely related to blood sugar control. If you eat more food than is recommended on your meal plan, your blood sugar goes up. Although foods containing carbohydrate (carb) have the most impact on blood sugars, the calories from all foods will affect blood sugar. The only way you can tell if you are eating the right amount is to measure your foods carefully. Also, it is important to space your carbohydrates out throughout the day to avoid sugar "loading." Measuring your blood sugar regularly also provides important feedback on how high your sugar went based on what you ate and your level of activity.

Where Do You Get Carbohydrate Information?
The "Nutrition Facts" label on most foods is the best way to get carbohydrate information, but not all foods have labels. Your local bookstore and library have books that list the carbohydrate in restaurant foods, fast foods, convenience foods and fresh foods. You will still need to weigh or measure the foods to know the amount of grams of carbohydrates present.

How Do You Count Carbohydrates?
Carbohydrates can be counted in number of grams or can be counted as exchanges. One carbohydrate exchange equals 15 grams of carbohydrate.

Free Foods
These are foods that you can eat without counting. A free food or drink is one that contains less than 20 calories and 5 grams or less of carbohydrate per serving. If your serving of a food contains more than 5 grams of carbohydrate, you should count it in your meal plan.

Examples of free foods:

* Bouillon or broth
* Carbonated or mineral water
* Club soda
* Coffee or tea
* Diet soft drinks
* Drink mixes, sugar-free
* Tonic water, sugar free
* Sugar-free hard candy
* Sugar-free Jell-O
* Sugar-free gum
* Jam or jelly, light or low-sugar, 2 tsp.
* Sugar free syrup, 2 tsp.

You should spread out free foods throughout the day and not eat them in one sitting.

Fitting Sugar in Your Meal Plan
It is commonly thought that people with diabetes should avoid all forms of sugar. Most people with diabetes can eat foods containing sugar as long as the total amount of carbohydrate (carb) for that meal or snack is consistent. Many research studies have shown that meals which contain sugar do not make the blood sugar rise higher than meals of equal carbohydrate levels which do not contain sugar. However, if the sugar-containing meal contains more carb, the blood sugar levels will go up.

Can I Eat Cake and Not Worry About It?
No! A slice of white cake with chocolate icing (1/12 of a cake or 80 gram weight) will give you about 300 calories, 45 grams of carbs, and 12 grams of fat. That is three starch servings and over 2 fat servings.

Before you have a slice of cake, ask yourself the following questions: Will that small piece of cake be satisfying or will I still be hungry? How it will fit into my meal plan? Do I have 300 calories to "spend" on this? Are there other choices I could make which would contribute less fat?

A 1/12 slice of angel food cake has less than 1 gram of fat and only 30 carb. This may be a better choice.

Controlling All Carbohydrates
It is important to realize that sugar is not the only carbohydrate that you have to "control". The body will convert all carbohydrates to glucose, so eating extra servings of rice, pasta, bread, fruit, or other carbohydrate foods will make the blood sugar rise. Just because something doesn't have sugar in it doesn't mean you can eat as much as you want. Your meal plan is designed so that the carbohydrate content of your meals remains as consistent as possible from day to day.

A Word of Caution
Although sugar does not cause the blood sugar to rise any higher than other carbohydrates, it should be eaten along with other healthy foods. If you choose to drink a 12 ounce can of a sugar-sweetened soft drink, that would use up about 45 grams carb, and you wouldn't have gotten any nutrition (protein, vitamins, or minerals). What a waste of calories!

High sugar foods are more concentrated in carb. Therefore the volume would be smaller than a low sugar food. High sugar foods might not be a good choice if they will just tempt you to eat more. If you would rather eat larger portions, select low sugar choices.

Look at the differences in portion size you get for equal amounts of carbohydrate in these cereals!

Granola	Frosted Flakes	Corn Flakes	Cheerios	Puffed Wheat
1/4 cup	1/3 cup	3/4 cup	1 cup	1 1/4 cup

In addition, many sugar-containing foods also contain a lot of fat. Foods such as cookies, pastries, ice cream and cakes should be avoided largely because of the fat content and because they don't contribute much nutritional value. If you do want a "sweet," make a low-fat choice, such as low-fat frozen yogurt, gingersnaps, fig bars, or graham crackers and substitute it for other carbohydrates on your meal plan.


Colette Morris 
If you would like a consultation call or email Email: formula4fitness@ymail.com 
Tel. 213 261 4233 (usa) 0208 816 7045 (uk)

Strawberries and ??? What's your flavour?

Short Video from LFGC member Colette on the benefits of having a smoothie for breakfast. Aside from being quick and easy to prepare, it is also easier on the digestive system first thing in the morning. Packed with Protein to keep away the hunger pangs, a truly fast food type of breakfast you can take away with you if you are in a hurry....

If you are on a weight loss diet, then having two smoothies like this per day with two to three snacks and a regular meal will aid weight loss, but you must consult your physician first. Also, if you have a lot of weight to lose it is always advisable to contact a qualified nutritionist to work with you.







Colette Morris S.A.C. Dip,(Diet & Nutrition), F.R.S.A,
If you would like a consultation call or email Email: formula4fitness@ymail.com Tel. 213 261 4233 (usa) 0208 816 7045 (uk)

Benefits of Bike Riding

It's been a while since we updated the blog,but lots have been happening in the offline world.  This weekend started out great on Saturday and LFGC member Colette decided to get out there on her Bike. 
Now, if you are going to go out riding, ensure you have the right equipment, safety helmet, riding shorts (yes it can get pretty sore between your groin if you are doing long rides,so the extra padding helps), and a drink to hydrate while you ride.


That said, go watch the video and don't forget to leave a comment on my blog and on you tube please :)









Colette Morris. Sac Dip, Diet & Nutrition
If you would like a consultation call or email 
Email: formula4fitness@ymail.com 
Tel. 213 261 4233 (usa) 
Tel. 0208 816 7045 (uk)
Catch me on Twitter: @workfmhomeDiva