Surviving the Silly Season – 10 Healthy Tips

With Christmas almost upon us the following ten tips can help get you through the silly season relatively unscathed!

1. Moderation is the Key! Look for areas where you can scale back chances to over-indulge. Assess you invitations and make some decisions: which parties do you want to go to? Choose the ones that you wish to drink alcohol at and keep the others alcohol free.
2.  Drink a glass of warm water with 1/4 lemon squeezed into it every morning—your liver loves this!
3. Take a specific liver-protecting supplement that contains St. Mary’s Thistle. This herb is specific for protecting liver cells.
4. Take a good quality B vitamin or multi before drinking alcohol. The B vitamins help your liver process and detoxify alcohol. There is also some research to show that they lessen/ prevent a hangover.
5. Alternate an alcoholic drink with a glass of water.
6. Fresh is best! Avoid deep fried and processed canapés and starters – go for ones that have vegetables or fresh foods as their base.
7. Increase your exercise to off-set your extra calorie intake: 1 standard drink is roughly equivalent to the carbohydrates in 1 piece of bread and it takes at least 20 minutes of fast-paced walking to burn it off! 
8. Never turn up to an event ravenous! Make sure you maintain your protein intake throughout the day. If this has been a challenge for you, make sure you have a protein rich snack before heading out.
9. Go for weight maintenance rather than focusing on weight loss – be kind to yourself. Set yourself realistic and achievable goals around your health and weight.
10. Practice “Hara Hashi Bu” – A Japanese saying that translates to: ’Eat only until you are 80% full’. While it can take some practice, it will prevent you from consuming unnecessary calories. It’s the ultimate practice of moderation!

How the Green Tea Diet Works

Introduction
Lose 20 pounds in 20 days!" "Trim inches off your waistline with one easy pill!" With seemingly miraculous guarantees like these, who wouldn't want to give diet pills a try? But with so many diets, supplements and pills to choose from, it's easy to get overwhelmed by choices. What really works? What's worth your money? And, most importantly, what's actually safe and healthful to be putting into your body?

This last question -- and the fact that more and more studies are claiming certain supplements and chemicals can cause more harm than good to your body -- has been pushing people toward the use of gentler, more natural weight loss supplements. As a result, green tea has gained popularity as a safe, effective weight loss aid.
For centuries, certain cultures -- especially those in China and Japan -- have been drinking tea for its health benefits. Among tea choices, green tea has been especially noted for its positive antioxidant, anticarcinogenic and metabolic properties. Many of these benefits are due to its high amounts of polyphenols, especially a certain polyphenol called EGCG. Because they contain potent antioxidant properties, polyphenols are thought to help the body's immune system, protecting cells against disease-causing free radicals [source: University of Maryland Medical Center]. Thanks to this composition of chemicals, green tea has been said to protect against everything from cancer to high cholesterol to heart disease. And some even claim that EGCG may boost the metabolism, suppress appetite and even burn fat.

But will this healthful supplement really help you drop those pounds? Read on to find out how green tea is used in diet pills.

Green Tea Diet Pills
Name That Tea
Most teas we drink come from the same plant, Camellia sinensis. So how does one plant produce so many types of tea? It all has to do with the way the leaves are processed after picking. To make black tea, leaves are allowed to ferment, or oxidize -- this step of exposing the leaves to the air gives the tea its color. Green tea, on the other hand, is lightly steamed rather than fermented, so it retains much more of its polyphenols, which increases its antioxidant properties [source: University of Maryland Medical Center].
So how can an ancient beverage be used in a diet pill? Green tea diet pills use the same leaves that are used to make the drinkable green tea, but they are in a concentrated form. When a diet pill contains green tea extract, supposedly, the "extract" is the polyphenols from the green tea leaves.

In addition to EGCG and its benefits -- including increased metabolism -- green tea also contains caffeine, which is said to be a mild appetite suppressant. Caffeine is also said to speed up thermogenesis, which is the body's process of producing heat that leads to fat burning.

Though these benefits can be obtained through drinking green tea, some people would rather swallow a couple pills rather than gulp down cups and cups of a beverage every day. For those who do prefer the pill form, there are many varieties of green tea diet pills. Some pills contain 100 percent green tea extract -- these are basically just super-concentrated green tea. However, the majority of green tea diet pills also contain other weight-loss supplements, such as chromium or hoodia. When used in combination with these stronger appetite suppressants, these are said to be more effective, though additional research is needed to be certain.

When choosing a green tea diet pill, the important thing to look for is the amount of polyphenols, also called catechins, which the pill contains, since this is the main substance that gives green tea its weight-loss properties. If you're taking a pill that contains 100 milligrams of catechins twice daily, that's equivalent to about two cups of green tea. Is the pill worth it? Some experts suggest looking for a pill that contains 125 to 500 milligrams of polyphenols, though there is no established recommended dose [source: Pizzo].