THE PERFECT LOVER MAKES LOVE WITH BODY AND SOUL

Trust Yourself

You are the soil where all things rest.

You are the earth whence all things spring forth.

You are here, you are solid, you are alive.

You are the point where all things

in the universe begin.

     It has always been asserted that the most erotic zone of every human being starts and ends in oneself.

     In Tantric philosophy, sex is the union between the earth and the universe—human beings act within this sexual union like a channel or bridge having an infinite and eternal erotic force.

     Due to ignorance, the true function of sex has always been a mystery, particularly its origin or the root cause that generates such an excitement in every human being.

     No one can deny that sexual energy is the most subtle and powerful energy in our existence. Vitality is directly related to sexuality, combining the three spheres of life: thought, feeling, and will.

     The result of the various modifications of these three factors generates the most sensual and profound sexual desire, both in relation to oneself and to others.

     If your attitude with respect to sex is not based on philosophical arguments or negative or positive prejudices, you will open up to the understanding of Tantra. Only in this way can eroticism be useful, because sexual energy is difficult to control, difficult to handle, difficult to know, and difficult to store. If we manage to be ever more conscious of our sexual impulses, we'll be able to live in paradise.

     Our intuition will guide us to do the right thing. Conscious knowledge of what causes sexual desire is part of the training and the willingness to channel our vital forces in a truly beneficial way.

6 tips to boost your metabolism

1: Get moving

Up to two hours after vigorous exercise, you continue to burn calories faster than normal while your body replenishes its energy reserves and repairs muscle tissue. The longer and more intense your workout, the greater the ‘after-burn’.

2: Tone up

To increase your metabolic rate in the long term, you have to add muscle. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends two weight training sessions a week: the increased muscle tone you develop as a result will make your body burn more calories every day.

3: Eat small meals often through the day
Small, regular meals will keep your metabolism ticking over and are a much better way to burn off calories than, for example, one meal a day. Plan three meals and two or three snacks daily, spacing them out evenly. Your metabolism is boosted by about 10 per cent for two to three hours after you eat. Avoid skipping meals or leaving more than five hours between meals.

4: Eat enough protein
While eating in general raises your metabolic rate, protein boosts it the most: up to 20 per cent of a protein meal’s calories may be burned off as heat.

5: Eat a healthy breakfast
Breakfast kick-starts your metabolism and allows you the whole day to burn off calories. A combination of carbohydrate and protein (for example, porridge made with semi-skimmed milk) will give you sustained energy.

6: Go for a walk after a meal
Moderate exercise, such as walking, after eating may increase your metabolic rate, turning more of the calories you have eaten into heat. Similarly, eating in the hour after vigorous exercise encourages food to be turned into energy rather than stored as fat, as the metabolic rate is also speeded up during this time.

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22 Tips Fat Loss That Work

1: Eat several, smaller meals
Eating smaller meals more frequently not only reduces the chances of fat storage but also helps you recognize when you really are hungry. Spreading your meals more evenly through the day, as four to six small meals rather than two or three big ones, helps avoid blood sugar highs and lows and the resulting insulin surges. Insulin is a powerful anabolic hormone that drives glucose from the bloodstream into muscle cells and – when there’s too much glucose – into your fat cells. Your aim should be to keep your blood glucose and insulin levels stable, so your body can manage them more easily. Eat regular snacks of fruit,
nuts or seeds to give you slow-release energy throughout the day.

2: Limit your food choices
Research carried out at Tufts University in Massachusetts, United States, found that when people are presented with a wider variety of foods they eat considerably more. Also, when eating a single food, the individual’s eating rate slows down, he or she is satiated more quickly and, therefore, he or she will eat less. The pleasure of eating a food increases up to the third or fourth bite then drops off. If you have lots of different foods on your plate you prolong the sensory pleasure, which stops you feeling full. The message here is to simplify your diet: place fewer types of food on your plate.

3: Practice portion control
It may sound obvious but larger portions make you eat more. Researchers at Cornell University, New York, found that people ate 33 per cent more food when given a large
portion even when they disliked the food. Try putting smaller portions of foods with a high-energy density (such as meat, cheese and pizza) on your plate and larger portions of low-energy density foods such as vegetables on your plate. Check your portion sizes against those suggested in the Fitness Food Pyramid.

4: Don’t ban your favourite foods
Including your favourite foods in moderation will make your weight loss plan easier to stick to, if not pleasurable. If you know that you can eat a little of your favourite indulgence every day, you’ll stop thinking of it as a forbidden food and then won’t want to binge on it. So go ahead and include chocolate or ice cream in your nutrition plan but make sure it’s only a little.

5: Don’t skip breakfast
Starting the day with a healthy, filling breakfast dramatically increases your chances of eating healthily throughout the day. It also provides your body withfuel and kick-starts your metabolism, so you have the rest of the day to burn up those calories. The carbohydrates you eat at breakfast will be used to fuel your daily activities and workouts, instead of being stored as body fat (as they are if eaten in the evening). If you don’t eat breakfast, you are more likely to snack during the morning and overeat at lunch. Studies have shown that dieters who ate a high-fibre breakfast lost more weight than their breakfast-skipping counterparts and consumed 100–150 fewer calories for breakfast and lunch.

6: Start with salad
According to a 2004 study at Pennsylvania State University, United States, eating a large portion of low energy density foods, such as salad or fruit, as a starter can cut the number of calories eaten during the main meal by 12 per cent. The fibre and water in the salad/ fruit takes the edge off the appetite, causing you to eat less of the higher calorie foods. (Take care not to add too much salad dressing.)

7: Sleep more
Sleeping an extra hour or so may help you lose weight, according to a study published in the journal Sleep in 2004. The study found that those who slept nine hours or more had, on average, a significantly lower body mass index than those who slept five hours or less. This is because lack of sleep boosts levels of the hormone ghrelin, which makes you feel hungry, while lowering levels of the hormone leptin, which makes you feel full. This hormonal imbalance sends a signal to the brain that more food is needed when, in fact, enough has been eaten. Research at the University of Chicago, United States, also shows that sleeping for four hours or less increases levels of another hormone, cortisol, which makes you feel hungry in the evening rather than sleepy.

8: Fill up with soup
Starting your meal with a bowl of chunky soup can cut your calorie intake by 20 per cent, according to a study by the University of Pennsylvania, United States. The idea is that fibre in soup fills you up so you’ll eat less of the higher-calorie foods that follow. Avoid creamy soups, though: stick to vegetable varieties.

9: Switch off the TV
Don’t eat in front of the television nor while you are working or reading – you are less likely to notice what you’re eating. Studies have shown that the distraction of TV postpones the point at which people stop eating, with TV watchers eating approximately 12–15 per cent more than those who do not eat in front of the television. In addition, people who watch TV for more than four hours a day consume one-third more calories because they have more opportunity to nibble and less opportunity to exercise. Another study found that those who eat with family or friends consume up to 70 per cent more on average than those who eat alone. Social company, it seems, overrides satiety.

10: Distinguish between hunger and appetite
Unfortunately, it is easy to confuse hunger and appetite. Appetite is produced by external stimuli, such as the sight or smell of food or simply feeling bored. Real feelings of hunger are produced when blood sugar begins to fall. The difference is that appetite goes away when you distract yourself with another activity. Next time you feel the urge to eat, distract yourself by going for a walk, taking a bath or doing your nails. If you’re still hungry then you know you need to eat.

11: Play music while you eat
Listening to music while you eat can help you lose weight. Studies have found that listening to relaxing music while eating makes you chew more slowly and eat less than when listening to frantic tunes.

12: Don’t be ‘fat phobic’
While cutting out high-fat foods will help you lose weight, don’t completely cut fat out from your diet. This would be unhealthy and hinder your progress. Including foods rich in essential fats – oily fish, avocados, nuts, olives and seeds - in moderation can help burn body fat more efficiently, improve aerobic capacity and boost immunity. Fat also helps to give foods taste, so including it in moderation will help you stick to your eating plan. If you’re eating 1,500 calories a day, aim to consume 33–42 g of healthy fats daily.

13: Eat slowly
You’ll eat 15 per cent fewer calories if you sit down and take time to eat your meal rather than eating on the go. Studies have shows that people eat up to 15 per cent more calories when they rush at mealtimes. Scoffing your meal means that your hypothalamus – the part of the brain that senses when you are full – doesn’t receive the right signals, which explains why you may feel hungrier sooner if you rush a meal.

14: Keep an eye on your alcohol consumption
Alcohol calories count too: if you enjoy several alcoholic drinks in an evening, they can sabotage your fat-loss plan. Alcohol calories can’t be stored and have to be used as they are consumed – this means that calories excess to requirements from other foods get stored as fat instead. One small glass of red wine contains 85 calories and a bottle of lager contains 130 calories. If you have a drink, make sure you include it in your daily calorie allowance.

15: Drink water
Many people confuse thirst with hunger. Both thirst and hunger sensations are generated at the same time to indicate the brain’s needs. If you don’t recognise the sensation of thirst, you may assume that you are hungry and eat instead of drinking water. Next time you’re feeling peckish, drink a glass of water and wait ten minutes to see if you are still hungry.

16: Eat fruit instead of drinking juice
Eating fruit is one of the best things you can do for your health; aim for 2–4 portions daily. However, you should only count a maximum of one portion of fruit juice towards your daily target. A glass of juice provides 120 calories but if you eat an orange instead (60 calories) you’ll save 60 calories, consume more fibre and still get your daily vitamin C quota. Both fruit juice and dried fruit contain much higher concentrations of (natural) sugar than the fresh fruit they came from and are less satiating.

17: Beware of ‘reduced-fat’ labels
Eating foods labelled ‘reduced-fat’ may make you feel virtuous but it can trick your brain into letting you overeat. Many lower-fat versions of biscuits, ice cream, cakes and yoghurt contain extra sugar or modified starch in place of the fat, making their calorie count just as high. Unfortunately, the body is not very good at regulating the intake of high-calorie food, whether the calories come from fat or carbohydrate. You may keep eating, thinking you’re being good, while actually you’re being overloaded with calories. You would be better off eating the occasional biscuit or cake rather than regularly eating the reduced-fat versions.

18: Don’t go shopping when you’re hungry
If you go shopping when you’re hungry you will be tempted to fill up your trolley with high calorie foods. Make a shopping list before you hit the supermarket – that way you’ll avoid unplanned supermarket splurges in unhealthy foods. If you shop with a list you will be less likely to make impulsive food choices.

19: Replace half your carbohydrates with veggies
Try replacing half of your usual portion of carbohydrates (bread, pasta, potatoes) with vegetables such as carrots, broccoli, green beans or cauliflower. That way you won’t feel like you’re eating less.

20: Match every excuse to a solution
Do you snack on high-calorie foods during the day because you’re always in a rush? The solution is to prepare meals in advance or, perhaps, to take a supply of healthy snacks with you to eat between meals. Do you always snack on highcalorie foods in front of the television? Eat an apple instead or, better still, think of an activity to take you away from the television.

21: Carry healthy snacks
Always carry healthy snacks, such as apples, satsumas, nuts or small cereal bars, with you so you don’t end up at the chocolate vending machine or snack food counter when you feel hungry.

22: Stock up with healthy foods
Keep a well-stocked supply of healthy foods that you love to make your fat-loss programme easy. Decide which new foods you’re going to substitute for high-fat or sugary foods. This way, you’ll keep yourself on track and avoid the temptation of slipping back into old eating habits. Remember, fruit, vegetables, pulses and wholegrain cereals give the best filling power for the minimum calories. They contain lots of water and fibre, which fill you up, slow down your eating speed and give best meal satisfaction. Choose the ones you like and stock up on those.

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9 Step For Your Personal Weight Loss Plan

Step 1: Set yourself a goal

To help you succeed at losing weight, set an achievable goal and reward your positive behaviour. A goal has to be personal, specific, realistic and measurable.
■ Personal – you have to believe in and truly want to achieve your goal. For example, ‘I know that losing weight will allow me to fit into my clothes more comfortably and make me feel more confident, so I will begin to eat more healthily and take more exercise.’
■ Specific – you need to clearly define what you want to achieve then prioritise steps, organise plans and establish a timescale for reaching your goal. For example, ‘I will limit myself to one chocolate bar once a week, on Saturdays, and eat three portions of fruit each day in place of biscuits.’

■ Realistic – your goal has to be realistic and attainable for your body shape and lifestyle. For example, ‘I will lose 3 kilograms in six weeks.’
■ Measurable – you need to state how you will know when you’ve reached your goal. Keeping a food diary and training log will help you monitor your progress and allow you to see whether you met the goal. For example, ‘I will eat five portions of fruit and vegetables each day of the week, as confirmed by my food diary.’
■ Agreed – agree your goal with someone else and write it down. This signals a commitment to change and makes it more likely that you will be successful.
■ Reward yourself – rewarding yourself when you have reached a goal helps you stay motivated and focused. Rewards can be something simple like a star for reaching a weekly target or something tangible like a new pair of shoes, a CD, a theatre trip or a beauty treatment.

Step 2: Visualise success

Visualise yourself looking slimmer. Draw a clear mental picture of how you will look and feel once you have achieved your goal. Focus hard on this image, including your face, body, clothes, hairstyle and as many colours and sounds as possible to help bring the image to life. Try to see yourself smiling, talking and moving around. Using visualisation in this way to persuade yourself that you are slim will give your body the message that being slim is a good thing. Very soon you will begin to eat healthier foods, become more active and achieve your weight loss goal.

Step 3: Get an idea of how many calories you should be eating

To lose weight, reduce your daily calorie intake by 15 per cent (multiply by 0.85). This will produce a calorie deficit of approximately 3,500 calories resulting in a fat loss of about 0.5 kg per week. (See ‘How many calories do I need?’ on page 2 to calculate your daily calorie needs.)

Step 4: Step up your physical activity

Increasing physical activity is an important part of your weight loss programme. For the best fat-burning results, make sure you include both resistance exercise and cardiovascular (endurance or aerobic) exercise in your weekly schedule. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends two weight training sessions a week in addition to three 20–40 minute sessions of aerobic activity.

Step 5: Keep a food diary

Keeping a food diary will give you a much clearer idea of where your calories are coming from. Write down everything that you eat and drink for three days (or longer if you can manage it), noting the portion weights and sizes. Try to be as accurate as possible, recording the weights of everything and remembering to write down each snack and drink. Be as honest as possible – include the handful of crisps, the biscuits while making tea, the pint of beer after work. You may be surprised how quickly the calories add up or how often you nibble. Now put your eating habits to the test by comparing your portions
with the recommendations of the Fitness Food Pyramid. Look at your food diary and identify the foods or drinks that really aren’t helping your fat loss efforts. Work out which types of food you need to reduce or increase.
Saturated and trans fats are non-essential and provide no benefit for the body. Main culprits are likely to be calorie-dense low-fibre snacks: biscuits, puddings, crisps, ice cream, cakes and chocolate bars.

Step 6: Eat mostly foods with a low energy density

Energy density is the number of calories in a fixed weight of food (usually expressed as calories per gram). Thus, foods with a low energy density contain relatively few calories per gram. To reduce your calorie intake and feel full on fewer calories, select mostly foods with an energy density less than 1.5. Eat foods with higher energy densities less often or in smaller portions.

You can lower the energy density of a dish or meal by adding water-rich ingredients (water has an energy density of zero) such as vegetables, salad or fruits, or by cutting out some of the fat. By increasing the amount of vegetables and fruit in a meal you can have satisfying portions for relatively few calories.
The fat content is also important – fat is the most energy dense nutrient (9 kcal per gram compared with 4 kcal per gram in protein or carbohydrate) and is, therefore, easy to overeat. If you take out some of the fat from a meal you can eat a larger portion for the same calories. For example, if you use skimmed milk instead of whole milk for making a sauce, you will get nearly twice as much for the same calories.

Step 7: Choose fibre-rich foods

Eating more fibre-rich foods can help to reduce calorie intake. Fibre expands in the gut, thereby making you feel fuller and helping to prevent overeating. It also helps to satisfy your hunger by slowing the rate that foods pass through your digestive system and stabilising blood sugar levels. Studies have shown that people who increased their fibre intake for 4 months ate fewer calories and lost an average of 5 lb – with no dieting!

Step 8: Include lean protein

High-protein foods suppress the appetite longer and help prolong satiety more than foods high in carbohydrate or fat. Therefore, make sure you include adequate amounts of lean protein. Skipping protein may induce hunger. Include 2–4 portions (140–280 g) of high-protein foods (poultry, fish, low-fat dairy foods, beans, eggs, tofu) daily, depending on your fitness programme or sport. Daily, you should aim for 1.2–1.8 g of protein per kg of body weight. However, eating more protein than you need won’t help you to
lose weight faster, boost your metabolism or build muscle.

Step 9: Eat less fat

Reducing the amount of fat you consume lowers the energy density of your diet. This means you can eat bigger portions for the same or even fewer calories. But don’t cut fat out of your diet completely – you need a certain amount of ‘healthy’ fats: the unsaturated fats found in fish, nuts, seeds and their oils. Fats should provide around 20–25 per cent of calories consumed, with most coming from unsaturated sources. Cut down on foods rich in saturated and hydrogenated fats (butter, fatty meats, burgers, pastry, biscuits and cakes). Substitute reduced-fat or low-fat versions for high-fat foods (e.g. skimmed instead of whole milk). Use lower fat cooking methods (e.g. grilling instead of frying). Experiment with non-fat flavouring ingredients for your food, e.g. onions, garlic, lemon zest, herbs and spices.

How To Lose Weight?

When it comes to losing weight, those who exercise regularly have a head start. Whether you wish to lose a few pounds or have a bigger goal, exercise provides a healthy way to burn off extra calories. The problem is that even if you work out daily, it is hard to lose weight through exercise alone. Studies have shown that the secret to successful weight loss is regular exercise together with a healthy and careful calorie intake. Follow the eating tips throughout this chapter to help you drop those unwanted pounds.

The only proven way to lose weight is to eat fewer calories than your body uses as fuel for your activities. The idea is to find a diet and lifestyle that you can comfortably live with, rather than attempt to lose weight periodically with diets that are hard to maintain.

Don’t diet

Many popular diets are based on gimmicks or unproven science and often involve cutting out certain food categories or limiting carbohydrates. They may help you lose weight in the short term but they are not sustainable. Most people don’t like giving up favourite foods, whether chocolate, bread or cheese, so any diet that dramatically restricts these isn’t likely to work in the long term.
Sooner or later you’ll give in to the temptation to eat the banned foods, thereby giving up the diet and putting the weight back on. Long-term weight control is about making simple yet lasting changes to the way you eat and incorporating regular activity in to your daily schedule. Your eating plan should include all food groups – in particular, foods that:
■ satisfy your appetite
■ are high in complex and low-glycaemic carbohydrates
■ contain a modest amount of protein
■ have a high fibre and water content.

Do the calorie maths

Experts agree that 0.5–1.0 kg per week is a healthy and effective rate of weight loss. 0.5 kg of fat equates to roughly 3,500 calories. So, to lose 0.5 kg in a week you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in. This isn’t as daunting as it sounds – lose 300 calories a day by foregoing two biscuits and drinkingone less glass of wine and step up your expenditure by 200 calories a day, and you’ll lose 0.5 kg a week.

What is the secret to successful weight loss?

The secret ingredient in weight management is satiety, the feeling of fullness and satisfaction that you should have at the end of a meal. It may sound obvious, but the reason most diets fail is that they are too restrictive and don’t satisfy hunger. To lose weight you need to be able to choose foods that are not only nutritious and enjoyable but also satisfy your hunger. If you don’t feel sated you will get hungry and tend to snack or overeat more readily. On the other hand, by eating mostly foods with a ‘high satiety’ rating, i.e. foods that are nutritious and also satisfy your hunger, you will find that you can feel full with fewer calories. Feeling full and satisfied while eating foods you like
makes it much easier to lose unwanted pounds.

Why is satiety important?

Eating foods that satisfy your hunger will mean that you consume fewer calories – it’s that simple. Obesity researchers have found that people tend to eat the same weight of food every day, regardless of the calorie content. When the water content of a dish is increased or extra vegetables are added, people eat the same amount but with fewer calories – yet they feel just as full and satisfied. So, by choosing foods that have fewer calories but eating your usual weight of food, you will end up eating fewer calories. In other words, opt for foods with a low energy density most of the time and eat smaller portions of foods with a high energy density.

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