Fruits with the Highest Fiber Content

A high fiber diet is very helpful for losing weight and improving digestion. When our intestinal tract is not functioning properly it can cause fatigue and listlessness. Legumes, vegetables, bran and oats are all high fiber foods. But some fruits are way up there as well in terms of high fiber content. What are the fruits with the highest fiber content?

A cup of raspberries has a whopping 8 grams of fiber and only 60 calories. That's almost twice as much fiber as a cup of broccoli, which is also a high fiber food. Pears have almost 4 grams of fiber. The delicious asian pears have the highest fiber content of all pears. One cup of strawberries has about 3 grams of fiber and one of the small kiwifruits has 2.5 grams of fiber.

These foods make great snacks. Get munching on some rasberries, pears, strawberries or kiwifruits today!

To lose weight without going hungry, try eating 25 grams of fiber everyday. This is the daily recommended amount but very few people get even half of this much fiber in their daily diet.

Some of these fruits can be quite expensive, especially when they are not in season. The most cost-efficient way to get a high-fiber diet is to eat lots of legumes, greens and brown rice. Legumes and greens are loaded with other vitamins and nutrients as well as fiber.

Jessica is Fat No More

Jessica has lost 140 pounds. She has lost all her weight naturally, without surgery, fad diets or diet pills. She says she was finally able to start losing weight "once I realized that being "fat" and being "me" were not the same thing.

See her weight loss tips here.

Munnalita On Infertility and Obesity

Munnalita Kyrimis wants to get pregnant but she hasn't been able to conceive and she thinks her obesity may be the reason behind her infertility.

Munalita is one of the contestants on the Biggest Loser in Australia. Her starting weight on the show was 127 kilograms which converts to 280 pounds. She is 5 feet and five inches tall.

She's a hairdresser and becoming a mother has always been her dream. Her and her husband have already tried IVF for two years but her doctors have told her she really needs to lose weight to help her fertility and improve her chances.

Her infertility has made her more depressed and this has led to an even worse obsession with food. She says she eats an extreme amount of chocolate and is always thinking about food.

Munnalita has done really well on the Biggest Loser so far. In the first four weeks she has already lost 37 pounds.

We wish her the best luck and great determination for the rest of the show.

Mel Russell on the Biggest Loser

Mel Russell is one of the contestants on the Biggest Loser show in Australia. She is 24 years old and her starting weight on the contest was 108 kilograms which converts to 239 pounds.

At six feet tall she's quite a bit taller than the average Australian woman. She works at a food magazine as an advertising coordinator and has to share offices with skinny snobby fashion magazine types. She's never had a boyfriend and feels her weight is the key problem.

She's done really well in her first four weeks on the show. She has already lost 30 pounds.

We wish her great luck and lots of determination as the contest proceeds.

A Toned Belly Inspirational Video

For those of us with a little extra flab on our bellies, here's an entertaining video clip showing toned bellydancers show off their beautiful bellies. It's a promotional video for the Bellyqueen Dance Theatre in New York.

An Outstanding True Story of Fat to Slim

Jennette has succeeded in an incredible feat. She has lost half her body weight. She is now down to 186 pounds and wants to lose another twenty pounds. (She's 5'9" tall.)

Jennette has done it the slow way. She's completely changed her diet (by abiding to the South Beach Diet guidelines) and is now exercising regularly.

In the process, she has scored a book contract to write about her weight loss journey. Her book, Breaking Up with Lane Bryant: A Weight Loss Memoir will be published in early 2008. It's unlikely she got a huge royalty in advance for her book. But if I was Oprah, I'd be a little worried about the competition. Oprah signed a book contract earlier this year to write about weight loss and received an incredible record $12 million dollar royalty advance.

Jennette has a wonderful writing style. I've posted about her before but if you haven't visited her site yet, see her story here. Her book is going to be a blockbuster bestseller.

Breathing Mindfully to Lose Weight

How can something as simple as breathing help us lose weight?

I know what I need to do to lose weight. So why aren't I doing it? The real secret for losing weight successfully is not some specific diet and exercise plan but in the mental and emotional hangups that I have to battle with in order to get to that point where I am no longer sabotaging my body and want to take good care of it.

I came across a very interesting podcast by Gil Fronsdal, a Buddhist monk. He discusses how breathing properly can bring about physical and mental healing.

The breath connects us to our inner world, our body, our minds and our emotions. The mechanical process of breathing is intimately tied to our intentions, reactions, feelings and thoughts. We breathe shallowly when we are not at ease. Many people are chronically contracted around their breathing. They have a band of tightness in their chests at most times.

His 43-minute free podcast discusses how important the breath is and how we can become much less anxious in our daily lives if we practise some daily meditation. The lecture doesn't mention weight loss as a goal but he is addressing the deeper underlying problems of anxiety and unhealthy coping mechanisms. I found the first seven minutes a bit boring but it got much more interesting after that. You can listen to it here. It's the lecture called "Healing Breath" dated March 2003.