Good old cinnamon

We all know cinnamon as one of the best-smelling natural food preservatives. When we were little,  I guess, most of us also tried tasting it, and, surprisingly, cinnamon alone was disgusting. And that's what spices are like: you can not enjoy eating them alone, but when you combine it with certain foods, just a little dash of spices can make miracles.
If that alone wasn't enough, quite recently I happened to find some information, proving cinnamon to be very useful for us. What I found was that many centuries ago cinnamon was used to treat certain diseases. Consequently, cinnamon can have positive effects to those who have type 2 diabetes, also to have an anti-clotting effect on the blood, lower bad cholesterol, and relieve arthritis pain. In addition to that, very recently cinnamon has been found to be a natural remedy to eliminate headaches and migraine relief. Surprisingly, I also found that smelling cinnamon boosts cognitive function and memory! This sounds quite weird, but I think it's worth a shot.
And finally, just before I end this post- good news for those who are trying hard to get fit- cinnamon can stabilize blood sugar, which means, it fastens weight-loss. So, this information I found once again proves that big difference comes out of small changes. Conclusion: I should go and get some cinnamon. To end this small article, some tips and tricks from me on combining your meal with cinnamon:
1. Simply put a couple of dashes of it in your cereal or morning coffee.
2. One of my favorite light snacks: chop some apples, pour yogurt on them and then put some cinnamon on top.
3. When mixing the dough for your morning pancakes, put a little bit of cinnamon, along with vanilla sugar in it- your entire kitchen will smell good after you are finished cooking.

Doing my abs (crunches)

So, besides starting the squats challenge, I also started another one. This time, crunches. So far, I have been doing it for 13 days as well, but it is not as difficult as squatting. Firstly, the numbers aren't that big, and, secondly, I have worked hard on my abs before, by doing a challenge that involved doing 100 of them in one go, everyday, for two weeks. So, the fact that I'll have to do 90 of them today doesn't look so scary. Even if you do not have any experience in this, but you want to get started right off, I suggest that you take this. However, if you want a smooth start, I can upload a lot of different workout plans :) So, I'll get back to this when it overcomes 100.

The profits of writing a food diary/counting calories

Since the summer is getting closer and closer (it's almost here actually), for the past three months I have been trying quite hard to get fitter. What I began with was sports: jogging, exercising, running, walking etc. Then, after some time, I did a research, looking for tips and tricks on the internet. And then I found this picture.

And that is where it got really interesting. It wasn't all about sports anymore. As time passed, more and more people were starting to live, eat healthier. This sort of became a new trend, so there were plenty of tips and articles I found everywhere even without any special effort: Facebook, Weheartit, Twitter, and so on. So I made a lot of research on healthy lifestyle and balanced diet (if you are interested in what I found, you just have to ask for it, and I'll write more blog posts about that), gathered everything in my computer and started changing my eating habits.  I bought much more vegetables and fruits, changed white bread and rice into their wholegrain equivalents. I also read that if I wanted not only to prevent weight growth, but to lose some, I had to reduce my calorie consumption.from 2000 a day to at least 1500. But how do I know how much I consume? There was a way to do it. I started a calorie journal. Every day, I made a schedule, trying to eat at the same time every day, four times a day, following the balanced diet tips and, of course, counting calories I have consumed. What made it a lot easier were different websites for calorie counting, such as http://www.caloriegallery.com. So, I went for 1500 calories a day and wrote the journal for about a month. Then, quite recently, I stopped doing it, because there was no need to do it anymore. My body got used to it and I am pretty confident I do not consume more than that. Of course, I can never be sure, but I eat way less than I used to before, and I'm happy with it. I still jog and exercise daily, and so far it is working :) So, my advice is to keep the food journal in the beginning and to just stop when you feel it's not so relevant to keep note of what you eat anymore. This way you will get used to eating regularly and less, and, what is more, you will have evidence to be proud of :)