After the December holiday season, with all the associated over-eating and over-consumption, it’s back to normal in January… Or is it? Most of us have put on weight and probably have some extra fat rolls that have mysteriously appeared, and which make fitting into the same size clothes just that little less comfortable….
So what’s the solution? Many of us rush to sign up to a dieting club or weight loss website, or start that exercise regime we’ve been avoiding. But after a few weeks, somehow the endless calorie counting and physical stuff just doesn’t seem to be doing the trick – the extra pounds are still there, stubbornly refusing to reduce, and that familiar feeling of dread creeps up every time we think of stepping on the scales.
The sad truth is that diets and dieting don’t work!
If diets worked, the majority of people would only need to diet ONCE in their lives – and most of us would be SLIM, not overweight.
Let’s look at diet plans, particularly the 600 calorie meal plan, and unpack them:
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So what really is the solution then?
Did you ever notice how eating in our society is closely linked to emotions and feelings?
- When we feel a little tired at work, it’s time to take a break and drink or eat something…
- When we’re feeling a little down, someone will think they’re doing good by making you a drink or meal to “cheer you up”…..
- When we feel good, we treat or reward ourselves with a meal or a snack (often involving chocolate)….
Unfortunately this has been responsible for scrambling the information between our bodies and our brains – we no longer eat when we’re really hungry or when we need certain nutrients, but we eat just because we want to, and to fit with various emotional states.
So it’s time to get the balance back.
The one and only weight loss secret is this: Be happy. Be truly happy with yourself, your family, your partner, your work, your life as a whole. Fix the things that make you unhappy, and not with food!
Once you have reconnected with you, you will be much more in tune with your body too. It’s then much more likely that you’ll eat only what and when you need, and you’ll slowly lose weight over time to reach your ideal weight in a few months.
This is not a process you can rush – it’s a new attitude to food – but the benefit of taking longer to lose weight is that your healthy eating habits become more ingrained in your eating psychology, and you’ll keep to your ideal weight forever!
Read Yael Cohen’s story of her dieting journey, and how she eventually learnt to love food and lose weight at the same time: My “No Diet” Diet.
To help you kick-start your weight loss journey, why not try Forever Living Product’s “Forever Lean”?
These amazing fat loss pills are eaten just before meals and contain two revolutionary, natural ingredients that can help reduce the body’s absorption of calories from fat and carbohydrates. A fibre from the prickly pear and a protein derived from white kidney beans together help you to succeed in your quest to reach your ideal weight. Order your Forever Lean weight loss supplement from the USA FLP store or the UK FLP store. You can find out more about Forever Lean here.
Bins picture courtesy of http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2642939/Householders-face-70-fines-for-putting-wrong-waste-in-green-bins.html
This week’s guest blogger, Maria Rainier, writes about the importance of checking product ingredients on packaging labels…
It’s a simple idea to flip over a product to read the ingredients listed on the product label. It’s surprising how often this concept is neglected! Especially considering that the food additives and product ingredients added to processed food can make a big difference to your overall health – including weight loss and appetite.
Ingredients to Avoid
Most of the following ingredients are found very commonly in processed products. Be sure to keep a look out for these (and avoid or reduce your intake of them, if possible):
1. Soybean/Seed Oils
Hydrogenated or not, unsaturated oils can have some offensive properties, especially pertaining to your thyroid. The thyroid is a major gland which controls many functions, including controlling your metabolism (the speed at which your digestive system processes your food – obviously important for weight loss and overall health). These oils block the thyroid from properly functioning. In addition to this, soybeans specifically can raise estrogens in the body. All of this can have negative effects on the body’s blood sugar levels, causing a bigger appetite as a result – not good if you’re trying to lose weight!
2. Carrageenan/Soy Lecithin
These additives are highly allergenic, and have been shown in research to produce long-term and short-term effects of cancer. Common in whole foods like milk and cream, these are ones to be sure to look out for. Some products do not list carrageenan, despite having them in their product. Their disruption of the digestive tract has an impact on other bodily functions too, including interfering with your metabolism.
3. Artificial Sweeteners
There is conflicting research which argues that artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame, can cause cancer in lab animals. One concern that is that all artificial sweeteners (including the natural ones) have an ability to raise insulin in the body as a result of the sweet taste, yet they fail to provide the fructose/glucose combination to properly support your body’s blood sugar levels. This causes persistent hunger and further complicates weight and diabetic conditions.
4. Modified Food/Corn Starch
Corn starch has the ability, as pure glucose, to enter the bloodstream and spike blood sugar levels. These effects trigger a lack of satisfaction with what you eat, making it more difficult to eat less.
Start Reading Labels!
One of the best places to begin your weight loss journey is by making sure to pay attention to not just the nutritional content of your food, but also the ingredients list on the product packaging labels. Reading contents and finding products that don’t include the truly unhealthy additives, as well as choosing to eat more whole and unprocessed foods, is a sure fire start to better health for you.
Blogger’s Bio: Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and blogger for ‘First in Education’ where she’s recently written on architect careers along with a guide to mechanical engineering careers. In her spare time, she enjoys studying and writing on health topics, yoga, traveling, and working with origami.
Did you know that Forever Living Aloe Vera Gel drinks contain no preservatives and as few additives as possible? The main ingredient – the one that must always be listed first in the product ingredients list – is pure Aloe Vera, extracted carefully from the Aloe Vera plant to conserve its delicate natural chemical structure, so that you get the full nutritional benefit of the Aloe Vera, as nature intended. Read more about Forever Living Aloe Vera drinks here.
Quite a few diets or weight loss plans talk about eating a low calorie main meal of the day, lunch or dinner – often suggesting a maximum of 600 calories/kcal per meal.
But what is a 600 calorie or low calorie meal?
Quite simply put, the calories/kcal of all the ingredients and food items in any main meal that you eat must add up to around 600 calories/kcal. You can either purchase a calorie counter book and add up the calories of each ingredient in your meal/recipe, or use a calorie counter online tool, which are helpful, but can be a little laborious.
Or you can simply get started by using some of these low calorie (400 calorie/kcal) meal suggestions for lunch or dinner, straight from the Forever Living Nutri-Lean Programme:
Meal 1 – Grilled chicken with sweet potato and salad
1 medium chicken breast, skinless (100g)
1 medium baked sweet potato or yam
125g steamed vegetables
125g Romaine lettuce salad with 1 tablespoon light dressing
Meal 2 – Salmon with angel hair pasta, green beans and toasted almonds
75g – 100g salmon
125g angel hair pasta with 1 teaspoon olive oil
125g green beans with 1 tablespoon toasted almonds
Meal 3 – Chinese shrimp/tofu and brown rice
125g shrimp or 125g tofu
125g chinese stir fry vegetables
2 tablespoons stir fry sauce
125g brown rice
1 fortune cookie
Meal 4 – Baked potato with cheese and romaine lettuce salad
1 medium baked potato with skin
25g low fat shredded/grated cheddar cheese
1 teaspoon diced onion
125g Romaine lettuce salad with 1 tablespoon light dressing
Meal 5 – Low fat beef or turkey burger on wholewheat bread rolls
75g extra lean (90%) minced beef or turkey burger
2 slices light wholewheat bread, or a light wholewheat roll
Lettuce, pickles, onions, mustard (unlimited) as relish for your burger
Meal 6 – Low fat grilled pork chops with wild rice and spinach
100g lean pork chop or tenderloin, with visible fat trimmed off
125g wild rice
125g cooked spinach
Meal 7 – Tasty low fat tortillas
2 soft corn tortillas
75g seasoned extra lean ground beef
25g low fat shredded/grated cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon light or low-cal sour cream
Diced tomatoes, lettuce, onions, salsa (unlimited) as relish for your tortillas
Meal 8 – Chicken breast strips with linguini pasta and french bread
125g cooked linguini noodles
75g skinless chicken breast strips
125g sauted green or yellow peppers, garlic and onions in 1 teaspoon olive oil
125g tomato pasta sauce
1 piece french bread
Once you’ve tried a few of these low calorie meals, you should be able to adapt your usual recipes and meals more easily.
Some of the concepts used to create these low calorie meal ideas, which you can use too:
- Include meat or vegetable protein, grains/starches and greens in every meal to ensure optimum nutrition,
- Use different proteins, starches and vegetables every day to ensure you get exposed to a range of different vitamins, minerals and nutrition across the week,
- Use light, low fat or low calorie versions of ingredients where possible, and trim visible fat off meats,
- Be creative – try something new and different every few days, so that your taste and smell senses are excited and you look forward to meals with anticipation, not anxiety because you’re dieting.
Keep eating low calorie meals to sustain your weight loss – but do monitor it, and increase your calorie intake slightly when you reach your ideal weight. Involve your family – simply multiply the ingedients by 3 or 4 or 5 if you’re cooking for more than 1 person, but remember that children and non-dieting adults will need to consume more calories, so allow extra for them. Have fun and enjoy your food – it’s one of life’s little pleasures!
Get some more low calorie meal ideas from the bbc good food website here.
Here’s to you being slim and even more beautiful than you already are! 
P.S. Get your low calorie recipe and meal idea books here:
Selected 400 calorie meal suggestions from the Forever Living Nutri-Lean Programme booklet, which comes free with your Clean-9 or Nutri-Lean weight loss package.
Low fat turkey burger image thanks to: http://missbeautyfoodie.com/2011/05/26/crunchy-quinoa-grilled-turkey-burgersc-low-fat/
Food guide pyramid image thanks to: http://www.eternity-fitness.com/services/nutrition/
Alex Chris, one of our guest bloggers, shares his thoughts and expertise on why there is a small success rate with most weight loss plans...
If you are one of the thousands working on reducing weight, you may find that most slimming plans proposed over the net are quite difficult to achieve or maintain. The best thing to have is a plan that you can stick to for a longer period of time, so that it becomes habitual, which can make it quite a challenge.
Looking into the brighter side, there are still some good weight loss tips that you can follow. You may have gone through tough times with your previous plan but with a natural method of weight loss, you may have a better chance of really achieving your dieting goals.
Natural Weight Loss Tips
Firstly, the thing that you should understand is if the weight loss plan is suitable for you. It should be a plan that works for you or else it won’t work at all. Stop worrying about other’s plans that seem to make them successful. What matter most is YOU. So double check on the plans that you are about to partake in. We did talk about natural methods earlier, and they might be an easier plan to fit in with. Minor changes in your diet and activities every week are important to having better results.
Take note that in order for you to stick to a program and lose weight, you will have to be able to do it without thinking much of it. Sticking to the plan for only a few weeks is different to making the plan a routine or a good habit. This is the essence of natural weight management. You make it a ‘natural part’ of your system and daily life.
To start with the adaptation of your natural method, you will have to know about the things you should do, and plan accordingly. It may of course entail some major changes, but the thing is you must focus on is doing them slowly. A habit is not a task – it can be a thing that you love – but generally it is a thing that you do no matter what. It should be automatic.
To make things automatic with your diet, you will have to gradually introduce healthy food items. Make it a habit of trying new food items every week. Maintaining a healthy diet high in nutrition is important. Try to discover some recipes that promote these natural food items – there are tons of them available on the Internet.
One technique you can use in making exercise a habit is the “start the day and end the day” rule. This means that the first thing and last thing you do every day is some healthy exercise – which will not only give you more energy but will also help you lose weight. Through this twice a day method, you’re less likely to forget doing your exercise and it becomes a good habit in the long run.
Once you truly take the first step and begin to see yourself doing all these natural activities as a habit, then you will have a much better chance of sticking to a natural plan. This should yield weight loss quite soon and it should be ongoing too!
Author bio:
Alex Chris writes about healthy weight loss topics. He strongly believes that losing weight should be done using natural and safe methods. All his articles are easy to follow and are based on established research and personal experience. Catch up with Chris at his blog: Weight Loss Help and Tips.
Strawberry weight loss image thanks to: http://www.myweightlosstips.info/
Everyone would like to be slim or at least be a comfortable weight, where you don’t feel embarrassed and you’re healthy. No one wants to have fat rolls or get breathless climbing stairs. But the reality is it’s difficult to get to your ideal weight if you’re overweight, even if you’re slightly overweight, but even more so if you have a lot of weight to lose.
Here’s 5 things you can do to help you lose weight – they’re simple and easy, they won’t completely change the way you are, and they don’t cost more than you’re already spending (in fact, you should save money with these tips):
Weight loss tip 1: Compromise, don’t be ruthless.
If you love snacking, don’t cut them out, simply try to spread out eating your snacks over a longer period of time. Preferably add up your daily calories, and if you’re over for today’s target, reward yourself with eating the snack tomorrow, so that that snack’s calories go into the next day’s count. Obviously cutting out most snacks and replacing them with healthy foods is your ultimate aim, but start slowly and work towards that.
Here’s a good online Calorie Counter/Diary from Everydayhealth.com – which means you don’t have to do the math.
Weight loss tip 2: Be kind to yourself.
You’re going to slip and go back to your old ways sometimes, simply because getting used to new habits and healthier ways of doing things takes time. When you do eat more you should, or snack when you promised yourself you wouldn’t, acknowledge your mistake, but also remember that you’re human. Don’t turn it into a negative experience, which only adds to the roller coaster of comfort eating. Instead, look forward, analyze what went wrong, and work out ways to deal with it better next time. For example, instead of snacking, do something that takes your mind off food and hopefully lifts your mood too: maybe call a friend or go for a walk in the sunshine.
Sign up to SelfGrowth.com’s inspirational quotes to help lift your spirits.
Weight loss tip 3: Healthy eating is important.
If you’re eating high fat or calorie laden foods, or foods cooked in lots of oil, you’re not only adding to your weight, but also probably damaging your body and your health (for example, cholesterol). So get a low fat or healthy eating cookbook, and experiment with some recipes that you enjoy cooking and eating. Connect with food again – have fun choosing, touching and cutting up the vegetables or meat, adding spices and flavorings you like, and inhaling the aroma coming from the kitchen before you sit down to eat.
Check out these healthy eating and low fat recipe books from Amazon:
Weight loss tip 4: Eat less – most of us overeat.
Whether you’re eating unhealthy and fattening foods, or healthier and low fat ones, you might still be eating too much. Most of us do. If you can’t get into the habit of putting less food on your plate, change to using a smaller plate, so that you simply can’t overfill it. This will not only reduce your calorie intake, but also allow you to feel lighter and avoid that uncomfortably full feeling we often experience after a big dinner.
Weight loss tip 5: Exercise definitely helps.
Exercise burns calories, which means you use up more of the energy you’ve taken in from food and drink, so there’s less left over that will turn into fat in your body. It’s that simple. You don’t need to suddenly join a gym with all the expense of the latest gym fashions, or go running at 5am every day for 2 hours (although you’ll certainly get results from something like that, but maybe not all positive, as your body isn’t used to it). Decide how you can exercize with enjoyment and in a way that fits into your lifestyle and daily schedule. Then do it, even if it’s a 20 minute walk once a day, as long as it’s more than you did before.
Watch this HowdiniGuru video for a quick and effective workout (in only 3 moves):
So that’s it. Incorporate these 5 tips into your daily life, and remember to look after yourself. You’re important and you’re worth it. After all, that’s why you’re trying to lose weight, and to give yourself a better quality of life.
Good luck and be strong
P.S. Check out this Aloe Vera based diet plan – giving you nutritional support while you lose weight, so you don’t experience that tired, listless feeling when dieting.
Beautifully Big Venus picture courtesy of: http://www.florencestudio.it/bb/7203C7246C.htm
If you’re into dieting, weight loss, weight control or nutrition, you’ve probably heard of Glycaemic Index, or GI, or Gi, but might not know exactly what it is or how it works. So let’s check it all out.
What you need to know about Gi…
- Gi is a measure of how quickly foods are digested and broken down into Glucose by our bodies.
- Glucose is the human body’s source of energy. It is a Sugar Carbohydrate, and has a simple chemical structure.
- The Gi is a comparison score against Glucose, so Glucose has been given a Gi of 100.
- Any foods that break down slowly have a low-Gi (under 55), and are viewed as desirable for a Gi diet, because they give you a ‘full’ feeling for longer, and are more sustaining.
- Any foods which break down quicker have a medium-Gi or high-Gi (56-100), and are thus undesirable for a Gi diet, because your body will want more, sooner.
Why is Gi important?
There are three compelling reasons why measuring Gi and changing your diet to incorporate foods with lower Gi makes sense:
- Low-Gi foods are often less processed, so in addition to being more sustaining, they are more nutritional too. When foods have been highly processed, they usually have had some of their vitamins, minerals, fibre or other nutrients stripped away.
- Low-Gi foods are helpful for losing weight or managing your ideal weight, because they make you feel ‘satisfied’ for longer, so you’re less likely to snack or eat as much.
- Lower Gi foods are helpful when living with certain diseases (or trying to avoid these diseases), especially Hypo-/Hyper-glycemia and Diabetes (where watching one’s blood sugar levels is important).
So how do you plan a low Gi diet?
Although Gi is based on Carbohydrates (because Glucose is a Carbohydrate), most Carbohydrate foods also contain other ingredients, such as Protein or Fat. So whenever you eat anything, you will be eating a mixture of various categories of foods. Ideally, you need to be aiming to eat foods which have low Gi Carbohydrates, low fat Proteins, good Fats/Oils, and Fibre.
Initially it’s best to use a book or resource to guide you, which gives you all the nutritional information, including Gi score, of the most common foods. Over time, as you get used to the Gi and nutritional values of each food (with the aid of your book), you will probably be able to guess fairly accurately whether foods have a high, medium or low Gi.
Many branded or packaged foods now include a Gi label/indicator. Sometimes these are even colour coded, with red for high-Gi, orange for medium-Gi, and green for low-Gi. Remember to also check the serving size, calories, and fat and sugar content on the food labels.
Do be careful, though, as some foods can be deceptive. The most unpredictable Gi occurs in rice and potatoes. Depending on how they are cooked, they are broken down chemically in different ways, and end up having different Gi values. For example, long grain or basmati rice has a lower Gi than short grain rice (which is more sticky/glutinous). And smaller boiled potatoes have a lower Gi than larger baked, fried (chips or fries) or mashed potatoes.
It’s not always necessary to cook separate low-Gi recipes (although if you do, your diet is likely to be more successful), because it is usually possible to simply adapt your meals and replace high Gi foods with low Gi foods and snacks. However investing in and using a low-Gi recipe book will probably give you ideas, inspire you, and make your meals and diet seem more exciting.
But like anything else, a low Gi diet is not perfect!
Not all low-Gi foods are good for you! Watch out for these issues:
- Besides the Glycaemic Index of foods, you also need to be aware of their fat and sugar content:
- Fats have twice the calories per gram, compared to Carbohydrates, so a food with a low Gi but high Fat content isn’t going to help you lose weight. Examples include dairy and chocolate.
- Similarly, some low Gi foods contain a high Sugar content, and again, are not good for weight loss. Try sugar free or artificially sweetened varieties.
- Although low-Gi foods will sustain you longer, you may still get hungry inbetween meals. Try to spread out your food intake across the day, so have three smaller meals during the day, as well as three snacks inbetween meals, all with low-Gi foods if possible.
- These are some low Gi snack suggestions: low fat dairy (cottage cheese or yoghurt), fresh fruit (apple, orange or grapefruit), fresh vegetables (green pepper, celery or carrot), nuts (almonds or hazelnuts), cereal bars, high bran cereals, porridge.
More information
To get you started, here is a list of some low Gi recipes, with thanks to the GI Diet Guide website; and here is a Glycaemic Index Table, with thanks to WeightLossResources.co.uk.
If you’re looking for books about GI or low Gi recipes, check these out:
Source of information for this article: Gallop, Rick and Renton, Hamish (2005) – The Gi Guide – Virgin Books / Tesco.
Letter G and I pictures courtesy of: http://www.bigislandexplorers.com/abcs.html
I wanted to introduce you to a nifty online Calorie Counter, based at an interesting website called EverydayHealth.com.
It’s an all-in-one health, dieting and nutrition website, which also includes a social networking function for members, so you can search for and link to Friends and Family who are also members, as well as find yourself an online “weight loss buddy” (what a good idea!), and discuss health and dieting issues in the community forums. It has a host of online health tools too, such as BMI (Body Mass Index) calculator, Weight Tracker graphs, and a Meal Planner, to name but a few. Membership is free!
Anyhow to me one of the most useful features is their online Food and Fitness Journal (or Calorie Tracker), because I don’t enjoy carrying calorie-counter books around with me, and trying to add up food and calories in my head all day. So I simply login once a day, usually after dinner at night, and add in all my daily food, drink and exercise, to see my total calories for the day (and whether under or over my target calories). Your target daily calories are worked out based on your current height and weight, plus your average daily activity levels. My target is just over 1200 kcal.
This daily food and diet diary tool is great because it has thousands of foods in the database already (including nutritional breakdown), which you simply search for and add to a meal, or you can create/add your own foods with their nutritional stats to the database. You can also edit the foods, so if you didn’t eat 100g but only 50g of something today, you simply change it before adding it to your journal.
This is how it looks (but remember you will have all the meals of the day, plus your exercise logged):
MyEverydayHealth - Food and Fitness Journal example
It’s a great help to dieters, because all your info is automatically stored, and you can go back and forth, comparing days/weeks, tracking your weight loss, etc. You can even create a blog on the site and share your dieting experiences as you go!
The only moan I have so far about this website is that it’s based in the USA and thus has mostly US food brands and measurements (while I’m based in the UK). But its wealth of useful features and functions far outweigh any bad points.
Have a go yourself – and add me as a Friend at EverydayHealth.com. Enjoy!
Check out this weight loss meal replacement shake – with completely balanced nutrition, so you won’t feel light headed or weak.
Aloe Vera, meaning ‘true aloe’, is essentially the gel from inside the leaves of the Aloe Barbadensis Miller plant. Although it looks like a cactus, the plant is a succulent and spikey member of the lily family!
Aloe Vera has been used for centuries, and it’s healing properties are widely known and discussed. It contains more than 75 nutrients, including vitamins, minerals, enzymes and amino acids. It even contains some substances that the human body needs but cannot manufacture itself.
It works especially well on the linings of the body, including the skin and the digestive and respiratory systems, as well as providing balance for the immune system.
This means that not only is Aloe Vera an excellent all-round health tonic, especially when taken internally as a drink, but it also has restorative and balancing properties (when taken internally and/or used externally) for people with conditions like: dry skin, acne, psoriasis, eczema, digestive problems such as IBS and colitis, asthma, hayfever, allergies, immune conditions, bone degeneration and joint/mobility problems like arthritis…. the list goes on and on.
There are many testimonials from people with health problems which Aloe Vera has significantly improved or even completely eradicated!
Things you need to know before buying Aloe Vera
To benefit properly from Aloe Vera’s amazing properties, two things need to be in place:
- Firstly, the gel used in health/beauty products must be extracted with care and without destroying it’s purity or any nutrients;
- Secondly, Aloe Vera needs to be the main ingredient and occur in significant quantities in any products you use.
Unfortunately many Aloe Vera products available off-the-shelf or via the internet have too little of this amazing substance in them - not enough to have any real effect, and/or they contain poorly extracted or low quality aloe, which simply means you’re paying for something you’re not getting!
Even when the labels claim “100% Aloe Vera”, this often means the Aloe Vera they used was originally not diluted. But it is then added to all the other ingredients in the product, to the point where it may occur in such small quantities (sometimes as little as 10% is Aloe Vera), that these products no longer have much benefit at all. Do yourself a favour - check the product labels: the ingredients are listed in order of amount, the first ingredient being the majority substance in that product. If it’s not Aloe Vera or Aloe Barbadenis Miller, then the product probably contains very little Aloe Vera, unfortunately.
Read more details on how to check that you really are buying and using the best quality and most beneficial Aloe Vera drink products.
Why is Aloe Vera good for weight loss or weight management?
Aloe Vera is natural, highly nutritional, and kind to the digestive system, so is very supportive of the body while it’s under the stress and strains of dieting and losing weight. If you include high-concentration and high-quality Aloe Vera as part of your weight loss or weight management daily diet, with an appropriate low calorie diet and the right balance of exercise, you will in all likelihood feel much more energetic and have a better sense of overall health and wellbeing, compared to with any other diet/weight loss program. Check out this natural weight loss program, based on Aloe Vera.
If you’re interested in pure, high-quality and high-concentration Aloe Vera health and beauty products you can trust and which really work, take a look at these ones at Aloe Bee Health – my family and I use them ourselves, and we can vouch for their quality and healing properties from personal experience. They even come with a 60-day no-questions-asked money-back guarantee, if for whatever reason you’re not happy with these products, even if you’ve already opened and used them!
And if you like the idea of starting your own Aloe Vera work-from-home business, earning the money you choose, working when you want to, and building residual wealth for you and your family, please check out the Aloe Vera Business Opportunity.
Please click ‘Comments’ or ‘Leave a Response’ to send me a comment – then simply scroll down and ‘Leave a Reply’ - I’d love to hear your views!
Kathryn Wilson (Blogger)
Aloe Vera plant picture thanks to: http://www.globalherbalsupplies.com/herb_information/aloe_vera.htm
We’re talking your own home business here. Ever thought about it? About making that little bit of extra income online, or possibly a ton of money (even better)? About getting income coming in, even when you’re sleeping? And no, it’s not easy! But the most sensible thing to do is to find and market to a Niche. A Niche Market is simply a specific set of customers, who have specific needs – and who would usually be a subset of a larger market. These days there are so many websites, online businesses and Internet Marketers, that for you as a new business to be noticed and stand out from the crowd, you have to find a different way, a way around or through all of this.
So instead of aiming for all the main markets of customers, where the big gun companies and Interner Marketers are taking over, a Niche Market is the way to go. Fewer customers, but easier to reach. The advantages of a Niche Market are:
- Often there is less competition to you, because there are fewer other online businesses targeting these unique and very specific groups of customers (they simply haven’t thought to do it, don’t think it’s viable, or haven’t ‘discovered’ a particular Niche yet),
- Because a particular Niche is a very specifically defined group of customers with very specific needs, of course there will be fewer of them. So there are fewer left handed golfers than there are golfers, and there are fewer left handed women golfers than there are left handed golfers…
But how do you find these ‘goldmine’ Niche Markets?
Well, it’s a combination of brainstorming ideas around things you already know about or have a passion for (don’t choose the Niche of ‘disabled child horseriders’, if you know nothing about this field or don’t have any particular affinity for it), and researching what internet users are looking for.
Start thinking big, then keep breaking your topic/market down further and further. Write your ideas down, talk to people, ask those who might fall into your potential Niche Market what they look for and how they search online, take your time.
If you’re struggling to think of a Niche Market, here’s a really simple and practical way to do it:
- Think of a market - say “GOLF” (it’s best if you know something about it yourself and feel emotionally attached to it).
- Now simply think of all the types of equipment, products, tools, that are needed for that market, say gloves, clubs, fashion, shoes, etc (the ‘WHAT’).
- Then simply think of all the different types of people in that market, say women golfers, left hand golfers, amateur golfers, etc (the ‘WHO’).
- Finally, simply put a ‘WHAT’ together with a ’WHO’, or a few related ‘WHATS’ together with a ‘WHO’ or two (maybe ‘gloves and clubs for left-handed women golfers’), and you have a Niche Market!
Of course, this method won’t necessarily be suitable for all markets/Niche Markets, but it’s a good start, to get you moving and thinking in the right direction.
This idea was borrowed from an interesting Squidoo Lens: http://www.squidoo.com/howtofindnichemarkets
Next you need to add science into the mix…
You need to know if there are real people out there, actually looking for and wanting what you will be selling. A good tool is Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool (free to use, by the way). There are other keyword tools and software you can pay for (with additional features), but Google’s is good enough as a starter, and many experienced Internet Marketers use it quite happily.
You need to type into Google’s Keyword Tool a few search strings (search phrases) that you imagine internet users from your potential Niche Market will be using when they’re searching online. Be specific and preferably use phrases of 3+ words long, not just one word or two words. You will get related search strings coming up as well as the phrases you’re looking for, plus how many global and local monthly searches there are for each search phrase. If you click on each search phrase, it will open a new window - a Google search for that phrase, and you will be able to see how many websites compete for that phrase. There is not 100% consensus on the best strategy to choose here, but I think it’s sensible to choose a phrase or set of phrases (indicating a market) with a reasonable number of global/local monthly searches (this might only be 1000 or so for a Niche Market), but with fewer competing websites (under 1 million is what you should be aiming for, as a rough guide).
For example, if you type the following four phrases into Google’s Keyword Tool:
left handed golfing
left handed golfers
left handed golf equipment
golf for left handers
…you will see that ”left handed golf equipment” has around 2900 monthly global searches and only 141 000 competing websites, as opposed to “left hand golf equipment” which has only 1300 global monthly searches but more than 300 000 competing websites. Even something like “left handed golf glove” gets 1000 global monthly searches and has only 56 600 competing websites. This type of information will start steering you in the direction of choosing a domain name for your website/blog and a business name, as well as the keywords to use when promoting your business. Beware of going too small though and getting too focused – you may simply not get enough website traffic to make that Niche viable.
By the way, this blog I write is aimed at a Niche Market, those into natural and healthy weight loss and slimming. If you’re interested in exploring your own home based business aimed at a specific Niche Market, how about targeting unique health and beauty markets – such as natural weight loss, healthy skin-friendly cosmetics, or natural skincare, personal care or alternative health products? Why not check out this opportunity – it’s possible to take just one segment from all these natural health and beauty products and aim at a specific niche of customers; plus you’ll be shown how with step-by-step Internet Marketing help, support and mentoring: Aloe Bee Health – home business opportunity.
And if you’re interested in reading more about Internet Marketing, including strategies and advice for small businesses, visit the Aztec Internet Marketing blog.
Please click ‘Comments’ or ‘Leave a Response’ to send me a comment – then simply scroll down and ‘Leave a Reply’ - I’d love to hear your views!
Picture thanks to: http://www.qualtrics.com/blog/market-research-v-marketing-research/
“Calories count, so count calories” – that’s what we’re told these days. But what are calories, how do we count them, and why should we bother?
Calories are essentially energy in food and drinks. A calorie is the measure of this energy. There are other ways to measure energy, such as kilojoules (kJ), which you’ll often see on food labels, especially in the UK, alongside the calorie count (kcal).
There is a rough guideline that adults should eat and drink no more than 2000 kcal per day. But this is a rough guideline, because if you’re an active male, you’ll need more, and if you’re an inactive female (or a child), you’ll need less, for example.
This is how calories work in our bodies: we use the energy provided in food and drink to do all sorts of things, from thinking, to walking, to sleeping, to running. But if we consume more energy in a day than we need, the leftover energy is turned into fat in our bodies. Unfortunately most processed foods have either a lot of fats in them already (excess fats will also be stored as fat in our bodies), or have a high count of calories, or both – it’s just the way that many processed foods and drinks are made.
Human bodies were designed to consume things like fruits, vegetables, grains and nuts (if you think about primitive societies), and there was no way that people long ago ate and drank as many fats and energy as we do today. They also kept moving while doing their daily work, so had plenty of natural exercise, which of course used up more of the energy they consumed.
So, because of two reasons, we do need to be calorie-aware in our diets today:
- Often we’re more sedentary nowadays than primitive humans were, so we simply move and exercise less than they did, and thus we burn less calories on a daily basis.
- Processed foods these days might give us plenty more variety and taste compared to the diets of primitive humans, but they often include a lot of extra energy and fats, more than we need.
Tip 1: If you want to lose weight, you’ll need to consume less energy and fat in your food and drink – approximately 500 kcal LESS per day, which should mean you lose about 1 pound (or half a kilogram) of body fat a week. Again, these are approximate figures only. Starving yourself, by not eating anything or by eating very little for a few days, only means your body goes into ‘emergency mode’, and holds onto all the stores of fat and energy it has, thus you’ll lose weight slower or not at all, compared to dieting more sensibly.
Tip 2: Really the most sensible, healthy and natural way to diet and lose weight has to be with a well-balanced, nutritionally-rich, but calorie-reduced diet, over a longer period of time, so that your weight loss is slower but also more permanent. The benefits of such an approach are that not only do you lose weight, but you feel healthier, and you learn and get used to good habits around eating, exercise, calorie counting and how your own body works.
Bearing in mind that to lose weight, you should be aiming to eat and drink no more than around 1500-2000 kcal a day, it’s interesting and frightening to note how many calories there are in some common foods and drinks, for example:
- Large bowl of cereal = approx 260 kcal
- Small baked potato with butter and grated cheese = approx 450 kcal
- 200g Bag of gum-type sweets = approx 700 kcal
- Small glass of wine (125ml) = approx 90 kcal
But all hope is not lost! You simply cannot view dieting and calorie-reduction as a restriction on you, or as something unfair you have to do when others don’t, or anything negative along those lines. You want to lose weight? Then think of the positive outcome, and diet for the love of your body, and to become more healthy and happy, not because you hate it! If you want to lose weight sensibly and naturally, and have a structure to work with, why not look at this Healthy Weight Loss Diet, based on reducing calories and adding the nutritionally-rich Aloe Vera to your diet to support your body through the weight loss process?
Counting blocks Picture thanks to: http://www.countingblocks.com/
