Friday Five: Tips for a Healthy Truebie

For this, the first Friday Five of 2011, we thought we would make our focus the thing that is on everyone’s mind at this time of year (besides the return date of True Blood) – healthy living and losing that holiday heft.

You’ve taken the tree down, packed up all the ornaments and garland and tinsel. If you’re like me, you have to rearrange your living room furniture as well. And if you see one more cookie or slice of pumpkin pie, your stomach will launch a revolt the likes of which haven’t been seen since, well, last year. Your body is now screaming for restoration. After all, vampires and werewolves are on the prowl and plump, tasty humans are on the menu!

I asked Certified NASM (National Academy of Sports Medicine) Personal Trainer (since 1998)  and International Romance Cover Model (on over 850 covers), Jimmy Thomas, for some help on how to get us started on our way to looking and feeling our best in the new year.

Health Tips

1.) Drink a gallon of water everyday. Do so by buying a gallon water jug so that you know you drank a full gallon. You will see a loss of 7-10 pounds in a week just from that alone, and watch your skin clear up. When you lack enough water intake, your body goes big time into survival mode and stores the little water you do give it; you look and feel bloated and water retained. The more water you drink, the more your body doesn’t need to store it and gets rid of it instead. So you’ll have to pee more, big deal. Weigh the options – pee more, OR be overweight, dehydrated, have bad skin, low energy, and a slower metabolism as water is needed to pass fibrous foods through you, otherwise fibrous foods will bind up in you more so than non-fibrous foods. Do you shower without water? Clear a pipe or drain without water? Then how do you expect to clear out your intestines and colon without plenty of water?

2.) Eat small meals every 3 or so hours at no more than 250-300 calories. Make them in bulk and package them so when you are hungry they are ready for you so you don’t dive into the snacks instead, make sure each one has plenty of protein in it.

3.) Cut out the soda completely! It is one of the worst things you can possibly consume. If you drink soda and you tell people they shouldn’t smoke, you are a hypocrite as you aren’t treating your body any better.

4.) Stop using Equal, NutraSweet and Splenda. They are artificial sweeteners that your body has no idea what to do with because they aren’t from the earth, they are man-made in a lab, so they wedge themselves into crevices of your intestines and colon and have been well known to be related to many illnesses and diseases including cancer. This big hype of ‘sugar turns to fat’ is preposterous! Too many “calories” turn to fat; eating too much “protein” can turn to fat for Pete’s sake. Your body can only process so much at a time, but refined sugar burns fast, faster than anything else you can consume. So put raw sugar, if you have to have sugar, or at least refined white sugar, in your coffee, tea, etc., and not those colored packets, as a packet of real sugar only has 4-5 carbs (15-20 calories)! I just burnt that amount typing this.  😉  This includes foods that are sugar-free. They are sugar-free because they have artificial sweeteners in them (Sucralose, Aspartame, Saccharin, Phenylanoline, Acesulfame Potassium, Cyclamate, Sorbitol, Xylitol, Neotame).

5.) Do a colon cleanse by Dr. Natura (you can get it from his website, it is the healthiest and non-invasive one I have found) for at least 1 month for females and 2-3 months for males, and be shocked by what comes out of you!

Thanks, Jimmy! Add proper exercise to your schedule and you are on your way to a new you! Supernaturals of any kind might be a bit more wary of you. And you might just give Sookie and Jason Stackhouse a run for their money in the hotness department!