Chez FitMercy

One of the tasks for this weekend on the Biggest Loser Challenge is to blog about what I have been doing right for the past one month. I started this challenge in the first week of last month and I will like to reflect on my weigh-ins for the past 5 weeks and then we can conclude if what I am doing is working and either right or wrong First Week: 166.2lbs Second Week: 166.2lbs Third Week: 165.6lbs Fourth Week: 167lbs Fifth Week: 167.8lbs (sighs) Well, the above is never a lie because whatever choices I make on this weight loss journey will most definitely reflect on the scale. Except you want to start deceiving yourself on this, when you don't do it right it will definitely be evident and the best is to be accountable for it, make changes and move on.

Unlike cravings, the desire to eat or appetite is more physiological than psychological. An appetite is not a bad thing, in fact when we feel true hunger the desire to eat must rise before we can eat to satiety. A desire to eat is an appeal to consume food either because of hunger caused by true hunger or some emotional or hormonal imbalances in the body. In a desire to eat, there is a physiological stimulation which is being controlled from the brain to other parts within the process. This desire could be stimulated by some factors including but not limited to: 1. Pictures of food (Sight) 2. Seeing other people eat (Sight & Smell) 3. Time to eat (for those who have specific timings) (Biological clock) 4. Attempt to suppress a negative emotion e.g. boredom, anger, depression etc (Psychological) 5. Cravings 6. True Hunger These attitude to food are all controlled in the brain which is not the subject of today's post, but the main focus is to know what ...

It started yesterday and I have decided to make it a post. I started craving these foods yesterday, and I feel like sharing in a post today. and of course this:   How do you handle your cravings? Why do we crave only the not-so-healthy foods? Can you eat the above without overeating them? I need help.

I used to hate spinach (saw it more as a detox) as a veggie option for a long time until recently when I made it work for me and it had been yielding without tummy bugs. I grew up to not only steam spinach but blanch it if you ask and I get all manners of tummy troubles a day after, so I grew to dislike spinach. As a student I met some ibo girls that made me love ugwu (pumpkin leaves) and so I discarded spinach but during the dry seasons, ugwu is so untouchable. All these pushed me into finding a way out, so I can eat my spinach with all its nutrients intact and not having to frequent the bathroom 12 hours after. I got some spinach from the garden on Saturday and I wanted to just share what I did with it. Fresh spinach from garden Ingredients 1. 2 handful of Spinach (preferably baby spinach) 2. Red Oil (be careful because 1tbsp of Palm oil is 120 calories, add as desired) 3. 2 Ripe tomatoes 4. 3 Hot Scotch Bonnet pepper (Rodo) 5. 1 big ball of red onion 6. 1 smok...

I always dreamed about it and now I have done it. Chicken Roast Recipe 1 dressed chicken 1 Tsp Curry Powder 1 Tsp Thyme 5-8 pieces of dry Basil leaves 1 tbs cayenne pepper (powder) 1 stock cube Salt to taste Directions 1. Mix all the spices in a bowl 2. Rinse the chicken and pat both in and out dry 3. Rub the spice on the chicken and some to go under the skin. Let the spice go round. 4. You can stuff with cooked rice or half boiled potatoes. 5. Tie the legs together and put in the pre-heated oven. Reduce the heat after 20 minutes and cook till done on a low heat. 6. Check the thighs, when it's done leave for 10 more minutes. 7. It is ready to be explored, lol. Here's mine

I wish to call it " Limorange ", I used 100% orange juice and 100% lime juice to give me that tangy/sweet taste of the lemon. The recipe below: - 8 Lemons - 250g sugar - 500ml water Materials - 1 bowl - 1 Juicer - 1 small pan - 1 wooden spoon Procedure: - Juice the lemons or like me juice enough oranges and lime and I used 2/3 cup lime + 1.5 cup of orange juice. (Use the lemons if you have it, it tastes better) - Boil sugar and water, stir on a gentle boil, remove when sugar dissolves. - Pour into the juice and stir - Chill for half an hour - Serve on rocks My mom brought oranges for me yesterday and today being my recipe trial day, I tried this recipe AGAIN. I did it before with lemons, it tasted better. Lime are more concentrated than lemons, I added the orange to tone it down too. Fresh from Farm Oranges Limorange Drink

Bingeing – according to the dictionary – is a period of excessive indulgence in an activity, especially drinking alcohol or eating. It is splurging and overindulgence, this shows that bingeing is not a normal situation. Over the years bingeing had included other activities apart from eating like excessive shopping and excessive watching. It is good to note that these activities (binge eating, drinking, watching and shopping) are all to cover up issues, bingeing is mostly mental/physical disorder and an escape route from some negative emotions. When there is a compulsion to do any activity in excess, check it.  Some physical signs to note includes : - Eating much more rapidly than usual - Eating until feeling uncomfortably full - Eating large amounts of food when not feeling hungry - Eating alone because of the embarrassment at the large quantities consumed  Binge happens within a short period and it is attached with so much guilt after the act. ...

Tried Sweet Potato Fries I ended with this (forgive the pictures) Tried  Tortilla Espanola Ended with this It's nice giving new recipes a trial once a while. It makes food more interesting and of course a total departure from boring.

What are you thankful for? So I'm here today because God kept me. I'm alive today, only because of His grace. God kept me so I wouldn’t let go There is hope of better days/things to come when we still have breathe in us, a hope of doing a lot more in life is assured only if we are alive. Sustenance of life rests with God. He created food, provides food, makes the food work, even the ability to eat/digest the food lies with God (wonderfully and fearfully created). The digestion starting from the mouth and down till making it beneficial for us is awesomely God, and we need to be thankful for this. There is little we can do to really help ourselves outside God and thus my reason for being thankful to Him today. However, that “ little ” we can do must be of utmost priority, this is where fitness and healthy diet comes in. We need to be conscious of a fact that “toxin” is a part of life in this generation (remember global warming), but in case we cannot ...

Clean Eating  is simply eating clean, lol. I feel clean eating is when your meals are devoid of processed foods. Processed foods are the natural foods that are already manipulated. Some materials are either added or taken away to distort their naturalness either for convenience or preservation. For example you can have rice processed or leave unprocessed, the same way fish can be processed or unprocessed. The bottom line is that, for every processed food, there is an unprocessed version of it. So when you want to eat clean according to ME, it's when you limit to the barest minimum the number of processed foods you take at a given meal. For me, a processed meal could be canned beans taken with bread and a glass of orange juice. hmm yummy! Portion Control is when you serve food within a calorie range that is healthy for you. It is when you keep the proportion of foods taken at a given time within what your body adequately requires. Mark the word "requires" and not ...