It can be easy to overeat at work. Your colleagues bring in treats every day because it’s always someone’s birthday or leaving party. There’s a culture that people eat muffins or doughnuts every Friday or even every day. The staff restaurant is full of fried food or mayonnaise laden salads and the nearest place outside work serves nothing but fast food.

Here are 8 tips to immunise yourself against unwanted workplace calories.

1. Bring your own healthy lunch and snacks

You know it makes sense. If you have something healthy and delicious to eat you’ll be less tempted by all the other unhealthy stuff around. It takes a bit of planning when you do your weekly shop but you’ll reap the rewards. Choose food which is easy to prepare and get as much as you can ready the night before to avoid last-minute panics in the morning.

2. Say “No” nicely

You can get a lot of pressure from others to sample the snacks they bring in so this one may take some practise but it does get easier after a while. Just say “No thanks not just now” or “No thanks, I’m just about to have an apple” or “No thanks I’ve just eaten” or simply “No thanks” - no need to explain or apologise.

Saying you’re on a diet seems to make some people try and persuade you more forcefully. (”One won’t hurt”, “Surely you don’t need to lose any more weight you’ll fade away” etc). Before you know it you’re giving in. If you really can’t stand the pressure say “Thanks I’ll save it for later”, take it home and throw it out.

3. Keep your desk clear of food

It’s asking for trouble to keep food on your desk. Put the lunch and snacks you brought out of sight so that you have to go and get something from the kitchen or locker room when you’re hungry. On the other hand, if the kitchen at your place of work tends to be loaded with treats people have left for sharing, you may be better keeping your food at your desk. But at least keep it out of sight in a cupboard or drawer.

4. Stop to eat

Don’t nibble food unconsciously at your desk - it’s the easiest way to overeat. Pause in whatever you are doing whenever you decide to eat and take time to really taste the food. If there’s somewhere you can go away from your desk to eat then do that, otherwise just stop working on your report or reading your emails for 5 minutes and be fully aware of the food you are eating.

5. Stay away from vending machines

Vending machines tend to be full of unhealthy calorie-laden food. Having your own snacks should help you resist the temptation to treat yourself. But, in any case, keep away from the room with the machines and if you really can’t resist, stop bringing any change to work - it’s the only way!

6. When you need a break

Don’t eat just because you need a break. Instead, take a quick walk or have a glass of water or herbal tea - even coffee is better than eating food you don’t need. If you find that there are times you just have to nibble on something make sure you always have plenty of healthy snacks with you. You can nibble quite a bit on carrots sticks, cucumber and celery without doing any damage to your waistline.

7. Team up

If you have a colleague who is also trying to lose weight, join forces and help each other stay on track. It’s great to have someone to go for a walk with at lunchtime or to commiserate with when everyone else is wolfing down cakes someone has brought in.

8. Choose wisely

You don’t have to turn down social invitations from colleagues to be able to succeed at losing weight so go ahead and join in. But you do have to select what you have to eat and drink carefully when you eat out on a regular basis. Choose the smallest portions you can and get to know the menus at the local restaurants so that you can plan what to eat ahead of time. Even fast food places now have healthier options but remember it’s often the extras which are the most fattening - condiments, dressings and sugary or milky drinks can more than double the calories in a meal.

Copyright 2005, Janice Elizabeth Small

Janice Elizabeth is a weight loss coach, slimming club owner and author of “The Diet Exit Plan”, an 8 week coaching program for automatic permanent weight loss. Request her FREE 15 page report “How to lose weight without dieting - 7 secrets the diet industry doesn’t want you to know” at http://www.SimplySlimming.com TODAY!

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Many of us think back fondly to times we cannot possibly remember - times and places when voluptuous, even hefty, women were glorified, when a few extra pounds was a sign of beauty rather than a problem to be dealt with . It is a fact that, even today, there are some societies that have quite a different idea about weight gain than we do - especially for women. And there are quite a few reasons why this sort of thinking might not actually be misguided. For a start, women with a few extra pounds - not obese, mind you, just with some meat on their bones - are more fertile than very thin women. Also, a very thin woman might not be able, in a traditional society, to feed her child adequately. Because human ideas of attractiveness follow necessity, it’s natural that very thin women would not have been considered the most desirable in traditional societies. In fact, it’s only in a society full of excess, such as ours, that thinness becomes the desired goal.

On the other hand, it’s also true that few if any traditional societies had the problem with weight that we do. That’s because the food we eat today - while less nutritious than the food our predecessors ate - is also far more plentiful. To put yourself back in the mindset - and the body type - that typified our ancestors, try following a traditional diet.

It takes a bit of willpower - more than just a bit, actually. But not because you are about to starve yourself or cut out whole food groups. On the contrary - the traditional meals that you will eat are hearty and satisfying. Where the will power comes in, though, is in ignoring most if not all of the food messages that are coming at you through advertising and from the packaged foods in your grocery store. The basic idea is to ignore anything that has a brand name on it. Of course, that’s easier said than done.

So what do you eat, then? Well, if you choose to follow the Medieval Peasant Diet, for example, what you do is to pick a staple food and stick to it, more or less day in and day out. On special occasions, you can vary from your staple diet - for example, you can enjoy a restaurant meal now and then, say once a month or so - but for the most part, you stick to your staple diet.

A medieval peasant in Europe would have lived, for the most part, on a type of stew or porridge whose main ingredient was beans or peas. A pot of this stew was kept on the back of the stove at all times, and added to as needed. The main ingredients of the stew never varied, but sometimes bits of meat of vegetables in season would be added.

And basically, that was it. The medieval peasant would typically eat just one main meal a day, and that would consist of ample helpings of the stew, along with some bread and ale. At other times of the day, people might eat a piece of bread and a mug of ale, or maybe some fruit when it was in season. And once in a while, like on a special feast day or holy day (which occurred rather frequently in Medieval Europe - once or twice a month at least) people would eat - and drink - more than that. There might be roasts of meat, for example, or cakes. But these things were not a part of the day-to-day diet.

On the one hand, the Medieval Peasant Diet would probably not pass muster with today’s nutritionists. It seems a bit low on certain nutrients, such as vitamins that come from fruits and vegetables. We should remember that today’s soil is very depleted compared to soil in the middle ages, so we probably need to eat more fruits and vegetables than they did. That’s something to keep in mind if you want to follow this diet for the long term.

On the other hand, keep in mind that this sort of diet - with local variations - sustained humankind for the vast majority of their history. With the exception of nobility (who, incidentally, were the only people susceptible to modern diseases such as obesity, heart disease, and tooth decay until very recently) this diet kept people healthy - and slim - for millennia.

For more great information visit Gabae Weight Loss the premiere resource for weight loss, diets, nutrition and living a great healthy life style!

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Surely, spring is a wonderful season. Everything awakes from winter sleepiness, long-awaited sun finally appears and we want singing, dancing, falling in love and flying. Only those, whose excess kilograms prevent them from flying, can argue this. Some of us even cannot take off, not to mention flying.

A well-known picture: opening a window to first spring sun beams, you rush to try on that striking dress, which was an occasion for many dates last summer. After 5-minute glance in the mirror (as a rule, surprised one), you close (and curtain off windows), put dress back in a wardrobe, and it starts seeming to you that it would be better if spring does not come at all. What should you do now?! Take a deep breathe, calm down and reckon although to 15.

1. Keep a food diary

Write down everything you eat during a week. You may be absolutely unaware how many useless calories you consume, until you start paying careful attention to them. In general, a diary is the best way to follow successful passing of planned program. So keep on writing, until you feel confidently on your new life road.

2. Analyze

Think, which of your food habits impede you, and change them. Moreover, think what they may be caused by. Very often people hide their real problems behind food. What makes you reach for the second portion of this divine cheese-cake? Boring work, captious boss, apartment that failed to wait till its lucky hour of repair, boyfriend, showing little attention that is so necessary in spring for you? Find other work, repaint walls of drawing-room in orange, change boyfriend! Finally, spring is time for changing not only in centimeters!

3. Get rid of self-pity

Beforehand, so that this damned pity could not interfere you further. And it is even better to set it on other channel. Necessary one. The thing that makes you fat, - is not a bar of chocolate, which you decided to spoil yourself with, when He did not call you again. And even not half of cake, which you and your friend celebrated the fact that He called at last with. These are your food habits. You need to change them not only to become slender and energetic, but also keep this state. Change for ever.
You sorrow for yourself while refusing from chocolate or vanilla ice-cream? Think! Does not such a good girl like you deserve surrounding men’s wolf whistles? Think better. Motivation is very important. Here you need to determine what is important right now for you. Any, even the most unusual variants, will suit (come to your junior sister’s school party unnoticed and have great fun there; put on that breath-taking short skirt, which you have been dreaming of for the second season already; drive him crazy with a stunning strip-tease). How many unique life opportunities go by!

4. Keep informed

“Keeping informed - means being on top of issues”, - one of popular slogans says. Grow thin sensibly! Quit relying on numerous experts’ opinions, telling you what, when and with what to eat.

Learn the way your organism works, what it needs, and learn providing it with all necessary things. It will repay your kindness with a flat belly, couple of slender legs and a sea of energy. Of course, you need time to learn orienting in the sea of calories, centimeters, physical trainings and hypoglycemic indexes. And you want to be slender right now already. So, add to your armoury basic knowledge:

- Everything you eat can be conditionally divided into proteins, fats and carbohydrates (according to prevalence of first, second or third in them, all three components in pure form are contained only in artificially created products). To imagine which your daily ration should be, draw a triangle on a sheet of paper and call its angles like 3 elements of nutrition. Write down 60-65% for carbohydrates, 30-35% for proteins and 10-15% for fats. Now you have only to read labels on products carefully.

- We all know something about calories. These are some obscure terms, with help of which we value products and divide them into good and bad. In fact, a calorie (to be more exact, kilocalorie) - is an energy, which you need to spend to heat 1 kg (liter) of water on 1

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