Becoming Coco

After a good friend of mine suggested this topic to me, I thought for a while where to begin, then I procrastinated and finally late one night it hit me. If you have never really tried eating healthy before how should you begin? Replacements! What if you aren't a health-conscious eater, but you want to be? Maybe you never have been successful with dieting or you haven't had the desire to and now you think it's time to get healthy. You may want to eventually go all out, but you're new to this and you need to start small.  The easiest way to start is with the simple act of replacing. This means slowly switching out your current food and life choices for slightly more healthy versions one-by-one until you reach your health goals. It may seem simple, but too many people try to start being healthy by going straight for the latest diet or trying to change everything at once. We are bombarded by all the latest health claims and diet fads. Many of us get overwhelmed and guil...

Found this interesting factoid in an article about gummy vitamins: "The people who take multivitamins are often the ones who need them the least — healthy adults who are already concerned with wellness and most likely reach their daily allotment of most vitamins and minerals just by eating a fairly nutritious diet " - http://greatist.com/health/gummy-vitamins-for-adults So do most of us even need to take vitamin supplements?  40% of the adult population report to take a multi-vitamin daily, but do they really need to? Are they wasting time, money or even possibly harming themselves?  Some experts say it's ok, some say it could kill you. Read on. I did some research and here is who  should  take vitamins: - College students who most likely are not able to eat a well balanced diet - Pregnant women, prenatal a obviously and these women more than any should get specific advice from their doctor on what to take - Alcoholics, for whatever reason they really ne...

(Cool picture from my hike, more on that later) Overall the first week went pretty good. With my BMI range I shouldn't be losing more than 1 pound a week and I didn't so no surprise there. The positives: I went down 4 pounds, but only 1 is verifiable (see previous post on why scales suck). And I went down 1 body fat % point.  The negatives : I had a headaches and cloudy thinking. However if you read my notes there were other possible explanations for those phenomena.  Overall a good start and if the trend continues I may be a believer of GC, but it really depends on if the trend continues.  (Well work night technically, but I do work at school during the day. I'm a secret agent by night.) Day 4 GC Today I feel tired and cloudy headed, but I think it's because I just woke up from a nap. I was tired probably because I got to bed at 3 am. I couldn't sleep last night because I had coffee at 10pm.  Note to self: don't have coffee at 10 pm no matter how cold and ti...

So this supplement "Garcinia Cambogia" according to Dr.Oz and Oprah and all these "health gurus" is supposed to be the magical weight loss cure we've all been waiting for. I have no real desire to lose weight at all, but I love testing a theory or product for validity, you know in the name of science.  Also some other claimed benefits sound appealing. If you regularly take this supplement the benefits are: - Suppressed Appetite and better able to control cravings  - Increased serotonin levels  - Feeling fuller longer - Prevents fat from being produced by forcing carbs to be used as energy rather than stored as fat - Curb emotional eating - Increase in Serotonin levels  - Improve mood - Deeper more restful sleep - Losing weight rapidly with no other changes to diet or exercise (average weight loss of 2-4 pounds a month) - Possible Immunity boost and immune support *** I'm all about that possibility  So why not try it. If it works on me then I'll suggest i...