One of my favorite ways to fix zucchini is grilling. Hey ladies some of us guys might not be that good in the kitchen but give us a barbecue and we will at least fake that we know what we are doing.

Not only zucchini is great grilled but so are a lot of other vegetable so if you are having difficulty getting your kids to eat vegetables grilling may do the trick.

Here are a few tips that you just might find handy in preparing and grilling those veggies from zucchini to corn, tomatoes, portabella mushrooms, potatoes, onions, peppers and just about anything else that will fit on the grill.

Preparation Tips

Zucchini: Wash thoroughly. Trim off the ends and slice the Zucchini lengthwise in one-quarter inch thick slices. Brush with olive oil and place over a hot grill. They will not take long so keep and eye on them. Do not over-cook.

Corn on the Cob: Peel the husks back a little over half way. Do not pull them off completely. Try to get most of the corn silk off, then pull the husks back up and tie them to the cob, then soak the whole ear in water for about an hour before setting over a hot fire on the grill.  When you take the cobs out of the water, untie them and brush them with a mixture of melted butter and chili pepper sauce, salt and pepper, then tie them back up and then put them on the grill. Yummy!

Bell peppers: Grill the whole pepper until the skins blister and turn black. Then scrape or pull the blackened skin off, toss with olive oil and salt and pepper and enjoy. You can also do this with chilies and other peppers.
Potatoes: Clean the skins and cook in boiling salted water until only half cooked. Let them cool and cut into triangles lengthwise and spray with olive oil, place on hot grill, turning occasionally until brown and crispy.

Asparagus: Roll in olive oil, salt and pepper and placed across the grill and turned occasionally. They are great and again, do not over cook.

Eggplant:  Slice about half an inch thick, salted and placed in a strainer to drain. After about half of an hour, dry the slices with a clean paper towel and brush with olive oil and grill.

Artichokes:  Halve lengthwise and place in boiling salted water for about 15-20 minutes, then drained thoroughly. Brush the cut sides liberally with olive oil, salt and pepper and place cut side down over hot fire.

Onion: Skin the onion, either cook whole or cut a cross from the top down three-quarters of the way through the onion, pour on some olive oil and wrap with foil, salt and pepper and grill.

As far as your choice of cooking oil I usually use olive oil but you can use canola, sunflower, walnut or just about any other oil as long as it is food grade so you might want to keep an eye on some of your guys to make sure they are not using motor oil.

As far as grilling of those vegetable you can do like me an place them directly on the grill or if you are a neat freak or don’t like a bit of burnt veggie you can cook them on foil.  Generally you will grill for 10 to 15 minutes and then salt, pepper or spice, as you prefer.
Vegetables generally are grilled over high heat, so when grilling with charcoal, build a 3-zone fire with the coals piled in a double layer on one side of the grill, then in a single layer in the center of the grill and then with no coals on the other side. This lets you sear over the high heat of the double layer, cook over the moderate heat of the single layer, and keep your vegetables warm over the coal free zone.

While your at it keep some skewers around to make shish kabobs. Slice up a varieties of vegetable not forgetting that zucchini and slide them on the skewer and grill. You can intermix the vegetables with chicken, pork, beef or other meat if you prefer.

Hey folks just because we are on a diet or had weight loss surgery doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy our zucchini! Enjoy that garden, eat those vegetables and have a great time grilling this summer and fall.

Many of us that want to become or stay fit are committed to our daily exercise routines. Some of us are so committed that if we miss  one of their daily workouts we feel really bad about our self. In order for us to reap the harvest from our vigorous workout, not only do we strive to stick to our exercise programs to the letter, but many of us also use  supplements to keep  going at all times.

Energy bars, sport drinks, low-fat foods, protein powder and the like are some of the most popular choices employed as their “pick-me-up” super duper power foods. But more often than not, these supposedly “health foods” can do much damage to the body beyond anyone’s comprehension.

While there are healthy supplements from companies such as Bariatric Advantage there are also plenty of  packaged foods out there labeled as “healthy” and “natural” that are often found to contain anything but health food.

For example, these “exercise nuts” buy energy bars for extra energy while filling their nutritional needs on the fly, but the sad truth is that these bars contain hydrogenated vegetable oils and trans fats that rob their body of vital nutrients, create fatigue, and promote heart disease.

They will often depend on sport drinks that promise to provide them with nutrients to give them the much needed “competitive edge.”

But these sport drinks have been proven to contain high fructose corn syrup, which induces a hormonal reaction that blocks important minerals, compromising rather than improving their performance and sport competitiveness.

So many people are particularly drawn to buying “low-fat” foods that claim to be able to help them lose weight. But little do they know that these so-called “low-fat” foods contain artificial sweeteners that create cravings, lead to further weight gain and produce formaldehyde which is so toxic to their liver and brain that these artificial sweeteners are believed to be even more toxic and harmful to the human body than rat poisons.

So in other words, these high energy bars will make people tired, sport drinks will make them weak, and low-fat foods will make them fat – fatter and fatter indeed.

One may think that if these are so bad how come they’re allowed to be made available to the average consumers.

The reason often is because those food manufacturers, in order to succeed in securing their profits by misleading the public with mis-information, have been paying big bucks to fund many “scientific” researches the findings of which, of course, will be tailored-made to the favor of their advertising campaigns, which will further help to impose such a “positive” image and message on these advertised “health foods” that the public will have no way to find out about the right and the wrong.

Therefore, the consumers must owe it to themselves to read the labels of the kind of foods – health foods in particular – they’re going to buy such that they’re better equipped with the correct understanding of what they’re “biting” into; thus reducing much chance of being ripped off by this false and misleading advertisement that has gone rampant.

The diet plan you choose should be one that you can stick to for the rest of your life, and it should be healthy for your body. If like to eat rice, pasta or bread than trying a diet that limits or removes carbohydrates will not be practical for you. By eating chicken, meats or high protein meals a low carb diet might be right for you.

A balanced diet replaces all the fuel used in the workouts. The best way is to get daily exercise and eat a balanced diet. When dieting it is obvious to eat foods that do not have a lot of fat or calories, try not to eat foods in excess. The secret to burning body fat to get to your ideal weight is you must eat and exercise right or it simply won’t happen.

Gaining weight or having body fat that is high is brought on by the following feelings, laziness, pride and denial. Any weight loss program is often accompanied by diet and exercise.

To loose weight there are no secrets, no magical pills, no magical weight loss programs it is purely done by eating right and exercising. The exercise the experts are keeping a Secret. Let’s look at one way of curbing both reasons for not following through on an exercise program and how to keep your body fat levels low.

Cardiovascular training is when you exercise your heart at a certain level of effort. Try to change your exercise routing every 10-12 weeks, the reason for this is because your body adapts to the same routine. When we talk about exercise to loose weight most people think of running, aerobics and sometimes kickboxing, usually it is an exercise that will get you heart rate up for about 35-45 minutes. It’s true, that one hour of aerobic exercise probably burns more calories than one hour of weight training. To loose weight and build a healthy routine you need to start and maintain an exercise program, having the discipline to do this everyday is the magic that everyone is talking about, once you get into a habit it will jump start you and make it easier to loose weight and reach your goal.

As we go through our daily lives you find yourself gaining weight, this is mostly caused by influences from advertising and labels on food misleading you that these types of food are fat free or low in fat. Many times these foods are the same or worse.

Many people are pushing the hoodia patch, they report it will suppress your appetite and that it works better and faster than taking the hoodia pills, or liquid. Hoodia has been become very popular and many media sources are publicizing it on networks like BBC, Today Show, Good Morning America and many others.

What is comes down to it, if you want to loose weight and feel better, eat better and exercise, it is really will power. If you really want it to happen you will find a way.

To be straightforward here, the couple of foods that to be discussed here is not made for appetite suppressing, but it will help you tremendously in your diet, help you cope with diet and exercise requirements as well as to fill your stomach up so that your calorie intake for weight loss would not be surpassed

Natural appetite suppressant food 1

Dark chocolates can be a wonderful natural appetite suppressant. People might think that I am crazy advising dieters to eat chocolate and lose weight at the same time. But the fact is, the chocolate that is mentioned here is dark chocolate and they are made up from 70% cocoa. The usual one that is sold in the store are mixed with lots of sugar and caramel making them fattening and the usual chocolates are processed as well, making the content of cocoa in the chocolate reduced. Dark chocolates are fantastic natural appetite suppressant because they small, making them easy to carry around, curbs your appetite, gives a little trickle of sweetness, low in calories, contains high levels of antioxidants and also, its cheap and easy to get. The portion of dark chocolates that is recommended is about the size of your index finger. Of course when you buys chocolates, read the box for levels of sugar that it contains, choose the ones that are the lowest.

Natural appetite suppressant food 2

This time it’s an herbal natural suppressant. You love your herbal tea? Good! Try green tea for a change. Whether its Japanese green tea or Chinese green tea, it doesn’t matter, green tea’s polyphenols can increase the levels of cholecystokinin (CCK), which is actually a hormone that suppresses food consumption. As you know, calories in must be lower than calories in for effective weight loss, so, have a hot cup of green tea and eat what your body needs not what your tongue wants! Also, don’t forget the other superb benefits of green tea like for example, it can increase your body metabolism for more fat burning and acts as powerful antioxidant to protect your from those harmful free radicals. Just make sure you do not drink the bottled sweetened ones, which are loaded with sugar! Go natural!

Natural Appetite Suppressant food 3

Another beverage that can be a wonderful natural appetite suppressant is the wonderful coffee! My favorite beverage that gives me taste and zero calories! Although there are some argument saying that caffeine can raise blood sugar levels and in return spike up the insulin level which is a disaster for dieters, caffeine have been proven to a staple in many successful dieters menu. Including mine! Drinking down a cup of coffee before a workout can make you breeze through your quick effective weight loss workout.

Here is a tip how you can make coffee a wonderful natural appetite suppressant:

Make a cup of cappuccino, with fat free milk, sprinkle some cocoa on top, another natural appetite suppressant, and add a little sweetener. Have it with 4 almond nuts. If you want something really hardcore, try this. I used it when I was dieting for competition. Just make yourself a cup of black coffee with no sugar and add in a tablespoon of olive oil! It will slap you silly and make you alert and the olive oil with have a good source of fats with kill you appetite.

Natural Appetite Suppressant 4

Chili peppers! Get red and hot with this spicy natural appetite supplement. Eating chili for weight loss? Those Mexicans must be really lean! Most people think that eating chili peppers can help them burn fat because they felt hot after eating it, there are some theories stating that Capsaicin in chili peppers is appetite suppressing and can increase body metabolism, however there are not enough studies confirming these theories. But wait! It is still a superb appetite suppressant because it spices up boring diet foods, its only 4 calories per tablespoon and it supplies a good hand full of anti oxidant. I always put in chili peppers in my diet food, like stir fry some chili peppers with broccoli and onions as side dishes for my steak or making an omelet that is full with chili peppers, making it a huge plate of omelet. Just use 2 eggs, 4 chili peppers and some onions. Viola! Low calorie, natural appetite suppressant food for quick effective weight loss!

And check this out. For your afternoon snack, just to bring you comfortably to dinner without a gigantic appetite, eat some pickled chili peppers. The ones that is green.

Natural Appetite Suppressant 5

An apple a day keeps the weight away! Yes, it’s true. Apples is a good source of fiber that will fill you up, full of vitamins, cheap, you don’t have to keep it refrigerated and it’s very easy to carry along. Drink a large cup of water after eating the apple, this will fill up your stomach and makes the brain thinks it’s really full. Apple is also a wonderful natural appetite suppressant because it can be added into a lot of boring and dull diet food. Like for example, cut the apple into thin slices or cubes and add it into your hot bowl of rolled oats. This will give the oats some flavor and an extra munch. It can be also added into your favorite salad to give some natural sweetness and also it can be cut into thin slices and blended with some vanilla protein powder to make a fruit flavored protein blended shake. Try to use green apples instead of red apples because they have lesser calories. Quick natural appetite suppressant that you can carry around:

1. A small packet of cashew nuts. Its rich in omega-3 and can really hold the hunger pangs. But watch out for the amount though, just a small palm full would do. 2. A mini can of canned tuna. Eat it for a snack, between lunch and dinner. It is power packed with protein and healthy fats. 3. Diet coke. Do I need to explain this? 4. Sugar free lemon mints. Keeps your mouth busy and prevents the mouth from going dry. I normally lose my appetite after eating strong mints before a meal. A quick effective weight loss diet sample

Breakfast: 1 bowl of oatmeal with half of an apple sliced
1 hard-boiled egg
1 cup of black coffee

Snack 1 Omelet with 2 egg whites, 1 egg yolk, with mushrooms, 4 chili peppers, onions and garlic.
1 glass of cold iced water, with a squeeze of lemon

Lunch A piece of steak, with stir-fried broccoli and chili peppers
1 palm full of brown rice
A cup of coffee no sugar or a hot cup of green tea

Snack 1 palm full of cashew nuts
1 can of diet coke (1 episode of Desperate Housewives)

Dinner 1 piece of roasted chicken breast, marinated with chili and paprika
Salad with some sliced green apples

There you go, a diet mixed with some healthy natural appetite suppressant foods! Eating these foods does not mean that you can go the whole day without meals, but these foods are satisfying, healthy, natural and easily available from the local store. Play around with the quantity of food according to your calorie intake for weight loss. Yours Sincerely,

Leong.

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About the Author

Hello, I have been a personal trainer since 2000. I have also joined bodybuilding junior competition and claimed my first state title in 2001 and from there I moved on to joining male pageants and won my first Mr. Intercontinental for Malaysia in the year 2002. Life has been interesting and fitness has really changed my life. I used to be fat and now, since I have managed to lose weight successfully, I share my knowledge and passion with my clients!

Do you ever go to a buffet restaurant and pig out? I have an assignment for you. Go to a buffet of your choosing, American, Chinese, Mexican, Swedish, French, German, Vegetarian or other. It makes absolutely no difference what type of food they serve. While you are there you have my permission to eat like a glutton and get it out of your system. Your assignment while there is to people watch.

• Look around at the people you see, most of them are overweight and many of them are downright obese? Sure, there are a few skinny people there with their fat friends or those that cannot gain a pound no matter how hard they try.
• Go to the salad bar and take notice of how obese people drift toward the salads loaded with mayo. Notice how many people build a nice healthy salad and then cover it with ladle after ladle of fattening salad dressing.
• At the buffet line look at the peoples plates stacked high with food but don’t be too obvious about it or their food may end up in your lap. Notice how the plates are stacked high with greasy or fried foods and lots of starches with a spoonful of vegetables as they try to convince themselves, “this is healthy eating”.
• As they go to the soda machine do you notice how they fill their glass with diet soda? (Have to cut somewhere you know!)
• Are the people returning to the buffet bar and each time putting enough food on the plate to feed a family of four?
• Now watch the people going to the dessert bar, are they getting 2 or 3 desserts? Are they going back for more desserts?

What you see at buffets is people gorging themselves with artery clogging fats and thousands upon thousands of calories and drinking a diet soda as they try to persuade themselves that they are eating healthy. Do you still want to gorge while you are there? Probably, just this one time so do it and get it out of your system.

Now that you have gorged and probably felt a bit guilty later on, lets get started on a good exercise program and proper eating. If you don’t give a damn if you clog your arteries, dull your mind, shorten your life and reduce your sexual pleasure then it makes little sense for you to read much further. If you want to reverse aging, look and feel younger and experience great sex then we are on the same page. Now folks, I want you to know that at one time I too was a glutton and sometimes I still slip back and have to smack myself upside the head.

For a long period in my life I was very obese, more then 100 pounds overweight. Waddling around I did not have the energy to perform even light exercise. Walking up a short flight of steps would have me gasping for air. During much of that time my wife had serious health problems and was unable to do anything strenuous. The two of us engaged in little activity that required even mild exertion. Our main pleasure outside of the home was to go to the movies where we would eat popcorn and drink diet soda and we would regularly go out to eat. Our favorite restaurants were buffets and I particularly liked the dessert bars and still do. When we went grocery shopping we would always buy ice cream, which we would eat while watching television and a scoop for us was more, like a pint each. Exercise and diet were not in our vocabularies and day-by-day we were exacerbating the problems we already had. While we were able to enjoy sex it could never be too strenuous or too frequent as neither of us had the energy.

My wife Lady Lynda had very serious diabetes, was suffering from congestive heart failure and had experienced a number of strokes along with other physical problems. My weight and blood pressure were out of control. Day-by-day the two of us were committing suicide through poor nutrition and inactivity. During the last year of Lynda’s life she was in and out of hospitals and nursing homes and was being kept alive by medication. My love of 42 years, my soul mate was dying and there was little I could do about it. I was an emotional wreck and continued to medicate myself with food and beverage. It became a vicious cycle, the more I ate the fatter I got and the worse I felt, but the gorging continued.

A few months prior to Lynda’s death I finally woke up to the fact that I was committing suicide and that while I was going to loose my loving wife it was not too late to save my own life. I started to eat a bit more sensibly and lost a few pounds. In April of 2002 Lynda was ready to be with the Lord and she passed away. I went into a long period of grieving but still continued to eat sensibly and day-by-day, month-by-month the pounds were slowly coming off.

In December of 2002 I had an injury to my neck and back at which time I was also diagnosed as having spinal stenosis. The injury had aggravated the spinal stenosis resulting in severe pain. The neurosurgeon offered me two choices: 1) She could perform surgery to widen the channel in my spine and at the same time fuse two or more vertebrae. 2) Or, I could put the surgery off for a year and during this time loose weight, and start stretching and exercising about 3 to 4 days per week to strengthen the muscles around the spine, improve flexibility and help reduce the pain. I chose diet and exercise.

In February 2003 I purchased a gym membership and started working out 3 days per week with a personal trainer. During the first few sessions I was like a beached whale. My endurance level was a zero on a scale of one to ten with 1 being the worst and 10 being the best. My trainer would call me the human “C” for I walked bent over like a 90-year-old man.

The trainer was a true professional and very wise. He kept asking about my medical problems and if the doctor had given me permission to work out. Like a fool I parsed the truth, telling him yes, while not telling him that she had recommended that due to the spinal injury I perform the exercise in a swimming pool. If you have an injury or illnesses don’t be a fool as I was but listen to your doctor. If you are working with a trainer they need to know about the injury or illness so they can properly guide you without aggravating it or causing harm.

For the first several sessions the trainer worked with me on stretching, posture and balance as he slowly introduced weight training and cardiovascular exercise. Week by week I was becoming more flexible and my body was getting stronger and I was able to perform more intense cardio exercise. I was working up from ten minutes to a half hour and on many days 2 half hour sessions. I was getting more energy, loosing weight and feeling great. Seeing the results I added more cardio and started taking a spinning class.

During the first 3 or 4 months of stretching and exercising I would frequently grimace in pain. People would regularly ask me if I was all right and I would tell them yes. I kept telling my trainer that the exercise plan was okay with my doctor and that I was just in a little pain. He kept asking for the doctor’s name and phone number and kept pushing for my medical records and I kept putting him off. This of course was foolish behavior on my part as I could have brought injury to myself. Some days when stretching and exercising it felt like a jagged stick was being twisted in my back, but I believed that exercise and stretching was the way to get better. Even though the doctor had prescribed pain medication it was rarely used for I did not want to become dependent on it. Some days after a hard workout the pain was so intense that as I was walking back to my car I could no longer hold back the tears and alone in my car I would break down and cry.

After a few months the pain started to calm down. I was no longer being called the human “C”, was walking upright and looked a few years younger. I had lost 25 combined inches from my hips, waist, chest and neck, and had gained a lot of muscle. Six months after starting to work out I felt so good and so much younger that I went skydiving for my 62^nd birthday. Let me tell you folks, this was my first dive and free falling at 12,000 feet is one hell of a climax.

Through diet and exercise I had brought the pain under control, became much more flexible, improved my balance, muscle tone and central nervous system. When I went to the doctor for a checkup she said that surgery was no longer needed. She stated that while she encouraged exercise most of her patients were unwilling to make the change and opted for surgery and medication. She jumped on me for not consulting her so she could discuss an appropriate exercise program with my trainer. She became unglued when I told her I had gone skydiving as she reminded me that because of my previous spinal injury a serious jerk or blow to the back of the head could result in serious injury or paralysis. When I then asked her if I could go bungee jumping using a waist harness she reminded me of my mother when she was chewing my ass up one side and down the other.

Going through hell to get better was worth it to me and in the end it worked out. I must once again stress though that I was a fool by putting myself at great risk by not listening to my doctor and not allowing my doctor and trainer to collaborate. If you have a medical condition work with your physician on a sensible plan that will improve your health and not put you at harm.

Now that you have heard my sob story, hopefully you haven’t been talked out of exercise. Yes, pain is hell but exercise should not be painful especially for those that do not already have a pain causing injury or disease. In my case the spinal stenosis was the cause of the pain and I was aggravating it by doing strenuous exercise sooner then the doctor or trainer would have recommended.

I continue to exercise, control my weight and month after month instead of feeling older I feel younger. Yes, you can turn back the clock and as you do you will be able to enjoy a better life in everything you do including sex.

If you are overweight I am not going to recommend a diet to you. For me it was and still is a sensible eating program based on good nutrition. The important thing is to select a safe and healthy program that works for you and keep with it. I still enjoy going to buffets and regularly do, but I eat moderately and select healthy foods. When using salad dressing I dip my fork into it instead of ladling it onto the salad. When at a restaurant that has a good chopped tomato salsa I use that on my salad. I rarely eat deep fried or fatty foods. Once in a while I will see something tempting but unhealthy at the salad bar or in the buffet line that I can’t resist, I will put about a teaspoon of it on the plate and usually find out that it doesn’t taste as good as it looks. I still go to the dessert bar but partake in moderation. At the supermarket I purchase only healthy food for if I buy a bag of potato chips or a gallon of ice cream I will likely gorge on it. Food is an addiction and a hard one to break, but we can control it and control pays us rewarding dividends.

07/25/04