Sometimes it feels like an uphill climb...

But then I'm positive your mother told you that anything worth doing was going to be challenging, right?  Well I'm playing catch up here but I do want to start off by encouraging you to stick with it. If you go back over all the posts you will find some hints, tips and tricks for helping you to lose weight and then keep it off not necessarily by dieting but by learning what to eat and how much to eat and the balance of movement/exercise on the other side which is pretty much a reformation of habits that are lifelong.  Here's the thing - it works!  You know how I encouraged you to relax and enjoy the holiday goodies.  Well, I did that.  So on January 1st 
or thereabouts I was no longer in my ideal 5 lb. weight range but had gained 10 lbs. above the high end of that weight range. Oh my!  The key is I had a plan. 

I started knocking off all the junk food, the alcohol and went back on my controlled portions, lots of water, protein enriched, low carb, low fat eating way of life and I'm happy to say that as predicted by 1/25/13 I had returned to my normal self.  Some of you might remember that I was reaching for being at my normal weight for sure by 2/14/13.  Well here's the thing.  So on that weekend when I found my old top weight I went out and over a couple of games of Top Golf with my hubby I downed a couple beers (no they weren't light and they weren't small!) and some chips, salsa and queso and voila!  I deluded myself into believing that by swinging that golf club a few times I was working out - ha! By Monday morning my body was doing it's happy fat dance and the scale was saying bad things again.  So I got it together and got back down again and don't you know that darn Super Bowl weekend came up which just had to mean super nachos, more beer (light this time proving that I learned something) and a fruit pizza, right?  BAD!  So I feel a bit like the picture but did some gardening for extra movement and it was only ONE day so it wasn't too bad.  And as predicted I will be on the straight and narrow until next week on Thursday, likely back to my goal weight, and it will be all about LOVE!  Please someone save me from candy hearts!!  I know I will be good though because I want to wear my red dress and I can only wear it if I have my weight under control so that's my motivational plan...what's yours???

I spend a lot of time with medical records doing what I do and I had to laugh when I came across an entry by an MD today that was counseling an overweight patient.  He told him to "shop in the produce and butcher departments and leave the rest of the store alone!"  Great advice.

I posted this link on facebook but I also wanted to share this with anyone who might be reading this blog.  There are 24 hours in a day and there's a fabulous prescription that is successful in treating many forms of disease and the cool thing is not only does it work but it's inexpensive.  Please go here and get yours. It's a short video - 9 minutes or so. It 's called 23 1/2 Hours:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUaInS6HIGo

Here are some obesity facts from the CDC:
http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html

In the past week the New England Journal of Medicine published a study about several obesity myths.  Since I doubt all of you subscribe to NEJM  here is CNN's take on the information in the article.  There are many versions out there if you just google New England Journal Obesity Myths and look for a publication date in the last week:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/05/opinion/carroll-obesity-myths/index.html

All I can say is I know what's worked for me and it was about lifestyle change, not about diet.  Maintenance of weight loss once you've achieved it still requires some work on your part - you are never going to be able to go back to making large quantities of comfort food and eating it with abandon on a daily basis or enjoy fast food as a regular part of your diet or spend more money in the bakery than in produce if you want to be healthy - that's a reality. The good news is that when you re-learn what good food really tastes like and is you're no longer fighting an uphill battle!  It's like Free Air...   Enjoy the ride!

'Til next time
HV 13

                                                                                
                                                                         

Wanna Eat Out?

Eating at home and paying careful attention to all those pesky details when you're also trying to lose weight before you've become really expert can make you want to throw up your hands and say, "Enough, already"!                          

But hopefully by now you've had some success with that bathroom monster - your scale - so you've continued on steadfastly trying, right?

 

The January enthusiasm for resolutions has long since

waned and you're tired of cold, early nights and someone

says helpfully, "Hey, let's go out!"  Uh -oh!  Will it all end here????

 

I'm here to tell you it doesn't have to but you do have to understand The Twilight Zone you're about to enter and use your

brain a bit to navigate.  It'll be worth it.

 

One of the best things about dining out is that someone else is slaving away in the kitchen, AND bonus, cleaning up the mess!  So enjoy that part to the max.  Look forward to it, celebrate it a bit and do something fun with your extra time - another walk around the block with your honey or your pet?...or something.  I know you have imaginations.  Plan that it will burn calories.

 

Next the environment is usually pretty fun because a) it's not your home and b) it's nice and clean and prettily decorated and c) usually comfortable.  I'm sure your home is all that too but everyone likes a change of venue.  So get into that before you get into the menu.

 

Next the temptation's going to be to "save" your calories before you go out!  Big mistake. Don't do it.  You'll be way too hungry if you starve yourself before and it's temptation city out there so don't. Eat like you normally do and if you want to do some scale balancing then up your exercise before and after.  I would definitely drink a water on the way though.  That way when your tempted to order everything you shouldn't on the menu you'll have two reasons to pause and use that restroom - one to have a mental talk with yourself about what you're going to eat and well, you know.

 

The goal of the restaurant is to make you spend a lot of money and tempt you to INDULGE.  Now where did that get you before? Exactly. So your goal is to beat them at their own game. They have good food, it's a given or you wouldn't be wasting your hard earned money there.  But really look at what they're trying to stuff into you. 

 

The Cocktails! - oh my.  You can sabotage your whole week without even getting to the table.  Yes those frozen, slushy, hidden alcohol beverages (I've not usually found much in mine- how about you?) have 500 or 1000 calories in that tiny but pretty glass. Just say NO!  So my first question is, do you want to eat healthy food or will it just make your evening if you have a glass of wine or a shot of gin? If you've got a long way to go I'd pass and order something you don't usually have at home like a diet soda - because we all know you've pretty much gotten rid of those right?  Or how about water with lemon?  Decaf coffee?  Your bill will be less and your spouse will love you more.  Oh wait, that probably only works with my spouse, sorry.

 

Appetizers - unless there's a healthy veggie plate with low cal dip (yes, less than 2 tbsps. please) skip this page and go straight to the salad. 

 

Salads - Phew - made it past the first two tests.  You can indulge in a salad, right?  But wait - they want to make it cost more so they're going to add everything they can find back there in that kitchen including croutons, fat laden dressings, various cheeses and tortilla strips.  So don't relax your vigilance but do read the description.  Nothing works on that page?  Here's where you enlist the aid of your helpful waiter.  Tell him/ her that you're on a special meal plan and because of it you can only have greens like romaine or spinach, some fat free vinaigrette on the side please, and maybe some fresh broccoli on the top or  a hint of hard boiled egg or some carrots or ...etc.  You get it.  Look at what they've got to make the other things with 750 calories and see what they might do for you.  I did it all the time and people were usually very nice and extremely helpful.  I even had a chef come to my table one night to help me pick something I could eat.

 

Soups - this can be a nice choice too but stick to a cup, not a bowl and look for water based rather than cream based soups...and no French Onion with the bread and cheese is not a good choice, sorry.

 

The deadly bread basket! Yikes, you've skipped the drinks, made it past ordering a salad and probably you've at least selected an entree and here they come, unless they were really listening when you asked for help with the salad and said, "You probably don't want the bread?"  You'll need to ask for some help from your dinner companions too.  Either they need to keep it on their side of the table out of reach so you would be so rude and make such a spectacle of yourself that you won't be tempted or leave it in the kitchen and voila, everyone's healthier!

 

Entrees - OK so this is the hard one because they all come sliding across a mountain of pasta or slithering alongside potato hills or drizzled helpfully over gobs of rice.  So your job is to look at what they've got for sides, look at what meats are offered and start paring it down.  A small steak without sauce or toppings or dripping in butter - cool!  A side of green veggies - could you pretty please steam them for me and leave off the butter?? Excellent and really good tasting too.  A small chicken breast... and really some of these chickens are overendowed these days.  Cut that baby in half before you bite it and get a takeout box.  It will taste great with your spinach tomorrow.  For you fish eaters you're on your own - don't like it, won't eat it and I'm still alive - go figure.

 

The point is read what's available in the kitchen, choose wisely, ask for help,  and ask questions.  Don't grab the chips and salsa or the popcorn or the potato skins or whatever else you usually have. Leave that bloomin' onion on the vine!  If your plate looks barren you've won the restaurant game!!  I mean in the fanciest of restaurants you typically have to search for your entree with a microscope so just practice that now.  It won't cost half as much.  Don't order the potato, order two veggies instead. These are the tips and tricks.

 

Finished and didn't that taste great?  OK, they're gonna talk about dessert and after all your excellent restraint we both know where you'd like this to head.  So go to the head again!  Literally - if they won't leave the dessert tray/menus in the kitchen or your dining companions want to go there, go freshen your lipstick and wash your hands.  I know that you are one smart cookie and there's a protein snack or ice cream pop or something in your freezer or pantry that will just hit the spot when you get home.  Think how much money you'll save.  You can go hit a sale and pick up a cute pair of earrings or a fun pair of socks or maybe a new CD.  You'll enjoy all of those things longer than that chocolate death casserole, I promise.

 

The bottom line is mentally prepare yourself and decide how you're going to eat out before you go.  Watch the fat content, watch the sauces, watch the starches and walk right on by them. Ask for help and to go boxes and put it in the box before your fork hits the plate.  Know your body!  By now, if you've been working at this you know that full is not when you feel like you can't breathe or eat another bite.  Use all the tricks.  Eat slowly and savor it. Drink sips of water between bites and chew everything thoroughly. Relax and enjoy the conversation and the environment. Ask you dinner companion for some help if they're able to use some limits for their own fare.  You'll feel a thousand times better after and enjoy it more than if you booze it up, slam it down, pour it on and generally pig out. While you can certainly recover from that, is that what your aim is - to recover from dinner out?

 

Even in fast food restaurants these days there are choices.  Use your head, know your limits and stay on track with the principles - the scale will reward you and your health hangs in the balance.

 

Let me know how it goes!

HV-13

Plateaus...Don't you just want to jump?

Whenever I think about a plateau I think of the flat top of a high cliff               
and when I hit one while dieting, believe me I want to jump! Ugh, so
totally frustrating, right? There you are doing everything you're
supposed to be doing, humming along with something to celebrate once
a week and wham, that bloody scale gets stuck!!!!  Well when you lose
a lot of weight like I did, you learn there are options besides jumping and
fortunately I never did...jump.

It's kind of like the stock market.  Have you ever heard all those talking heads
say that the market's "made a correction"?  So it's  run up and up and then
investors decide to take some of their paper profits off the table and put them in
their pockets and the market pulls back, sometimes dramatically. Well, it's kind
of like that when your body drops, drops, drops and says, "Whoa, wait a minute I
need to catch up here and rebalance everything."  So what do you do when that
stubborn reading won't budge?

First of all stick with what you're doing - it really does not mean it's not working.  It means you're a tad delayed in the forward move but that's because it's catching up on the microscopic level. [Believe that  - it will help...and no, I have no idea if that's true - it's just what I told myself when I was stuck!] The first week when it happens you're tempted to give up but just make sure you're drinking the water and doing everything you're supposed to including moving and stretching and staying away from excess carbs.  If it's still stuck at week 2 you're almost there...it will break and soon.  Sometimes if I've been ultra good between week 1 and week 2 and it still hasn't budged I take that as a sign my nutrition engine needs a jump start. So I'll eat some extra protein for a day if I'm really hungry or sometimes - please take this as rarely - I might eat a little more of a regular healthy meal for dinner; just enough to re-assure my BMR that we're not starving here and there's more where that came from.  Now typically the plateau breaks after week 1 but this is if you're really stuck and you're really doing it all the way you're supposed to.  What I also found should cheer you though because sometimes after a really stubborn plateau the next drop was bigger!  And believe me you'll feel like you deserved that if you power your way through.  The important thing is to hang in there and stick to your plan.  DO NOT GIVE UP.  If you want to a week after your plateau breaks then ok, but not during plateau week, ever, okay?

The other thing you need to deal with is cravings!  These are not just for pregnant women unfortunately although I had problems with them then too.  Ask  my husband how many times he had to go get me a hamburger at 10:00 PM!  So if they're striking once a week, they're probably not cravings, they're probably your bad habit trying to re-assert itself.  But every once in a while I'd get a hot fudge sundae stuck in my head.  The mistake I made was to eat things instead. So after eating everything I didn't really want and still wanting that ice cream I'd finally give in and go get one.  So if you're truly having a craving and can't distract yourself out of it, go get it, get it over with and move on.  One slip, no problem but multiple slips means you're off your plan and that's self sabotage so just don't!

By now you've probably encountered the opportunity to go out for meals.  Next time we'll take a brief look at the traps inside different restaurants and how to navigate them with your head in the game.  Trust me, you don't have to stay at home forever but you do have to have your brain engaged if you're going to sit down in the seductive atmosphere of waiters, candle light, food you don't have to prepare yourself and alcohol.

Until then, don't jump unless it's with a jump rope and keep going on your changes for health!  You'll be glad you did. Let me know how it goes!!
HV - 13

Is It Worth It?

If you've been following this you're probably thinking, "Wow, this is a lot of work!"  One of the reasons I chose to go with a diet plan when I lost a large amount of weight over doing it myself was I needed the motivational kick of spending money to do what I already knew how to do myself.  Every time I was tempted to backslide I'd remind myself that I had paid for my plan and I had better be successful or it was like standing over my trash can and dropping in fistfuls of money. 

The side benefit was that it was startlingly easy.  I didn't have to stand at the meat counter and try to figure out what I needed to buy or what I was going to make that evening to "fit" my plan.  I also want to state that I'm not recommending any specific plan or product though I've mentioned several in this blog.  I'm telling you about things that worked for me and the general principles of basic weight loss 101.  Going back to the beginning, "No one can help you do what you don't want to really do for yourself". Simply put, when you decide to lose weight and commit yourself to that you will. If you don't make the commitment or quit at 10 or 20 lbs. in and resume your old habits you'll regain everything you've lost and probably more.  It's a lifestyle change, not a diet and the reason you have to change your lifestyle is because you wouldn't be in the shape you are if your lifestyle was helping you to be healthy.

How many years have you been fighting with yourself over this?  For me it was on and off again for most of my adult life.  Yet after less than a full year of doing something about it almost every day, of re-committing myself to the big goal every week, I was DONE! 


I don't have to diet anymore.  It doesn't mean I eat everything I want... I did that before I got here with a horrible result.  It does mean the choices I make about what I want are very different and then when that special occasion comes or it's Friday night and I want to go out for dinner I can and I won't feel bad on Saturday.  I can't think of the years I wasted being miserable...some examples...does any of this sound familiar? not being able to go on rides with my kids because I was too large, not being able to run with the kids around a park because I had no energy and my knees hurt, not going LOTS of places I wanted to go because I was thoroughly embarrassed about how I looked, wearing clothes I loathed because they were the only ones that fit!!!  I am telling you it's not worth it and now that I'm all the way down I would have to lose control for a really long time to get all the way back up.  I am here to tell you it is so totally worth it.  I only wish I had done it years ago when my kids were little.  It would've benefited us all.

Years ago my gynecologist who was a great human being and really like a friend knew I struggled with my weight and told me his strategy for staying trim and fit.  He encouraged me to eat what I enjoyed, within reason, on the weekends and then keep it light during the week.  Well, I always knew he was a smart man because that's what I do now and it works.  Having lost the weight I don't have to diet but during the week I tend to eat protein bars and salads/soups for lunch and I eat Lean Cuisine's for dinner sometimes because I love the ease of making them and the portion control.  It depends on what I'm making for my spouse but with all of the kids gone we've got it to the point where it works for us.  Then on the weekend if we want to go split a pizza, salad and some beers, it's no problem.

Then there are the really fun times.  At Christmas time for about 2 weeks, I eat whatever I want and lots of it.  I gain weight - typically at least 10 lbs.  I enjoy myself and then come January I knock it all the way off; off the alcohol, off the cookies and great party food, off the full course heavy meals.  I go back on plan.  Because I've been overeating typically the first 5 lbs. drops right off because I'm not doing anything to maintain that increased calorie load. It takes about a week and a half.  Then the rest takes a couple or three weeks.  There's usually a plateau in there somewhere which is just part of the deal.  I'll talk about that soon.  The point is by Valentine's Day I'll be fine and if my spouse gives me a box of candy I can eat it, assuming it's not 5 lbs! I'm not suggesting you all do this, I'm just telling you that you can and I do.  The rest of your life doesn't have to be about self denial.

Vacation time is kind of similar though not usually as fattening because I'm typically more active on vacation than when I'm at home and working. I also usually try to have some really nice clothes with me that I don't want to be uncomfortable in so I probably behave a little more.  Still I have a good time and then when I get back home and unpack that suitcase, it's back on plan until I'm where I'm supposed to be.  This has worked for me for the past six and a half years and I still wear the same size clothing I did when I finished my weight loss.  I'm happy with my BMI which is in the middle of the normal range and I plan on keeping it there.

I hope that you can help yourself to health too and that some of the ideas in this blog can help you get there.  The key is to make the journey your own and try to find the things that work for you based on the principles of adjusting your eating habits towards health.  Don't forget to drink your water and move every day.  How's that stretching going???

Come on, you're worth it!!
HV - 13

 

Oh Goody, Yum, Goody Dessert!

                                                                                                               

Wow!  Sorry to leave y'all hangin' at dessert but you know life happens!  I hope you've been wildly successful in the past couple of  weeks with your portion control and boosting your proteins and knocking off the free carbs that will keep you slim and trim going forward.  I suspect you're all experts, like I am, at dessert.  It's my favorite time of day...about 9 PM and I'm indulging but wait, maybe you're not as expert as you'd like to be or need to be so let's chat.

If you've been following along you've realized that you're dividing up your calories during the day so that you keep your physiologic engine burning but don't really provide enough "leftovers" for it to start turning anything into fat.  Also given that you're not indulging on a lot of over processed sugar/fat carbs and are turning mostly to whole foods, especially the fruits/veggies stuff what you're providing is great nutrition.  But what about the you inside that loves a treat for being good all day? We have to satisfy that or you'll fall off the wagon.  The key is what you eat for dessert but trust me it can be very satisfying and keep you connected with your healthy eating too.  The key is what is today's indulgence?

So given you've probably successfully kept your intake to the portions and food types we've talked about you've probably got something in the neighborhood of 150 - 180 calories you can spend for dessert with no worries.  You don't want to wake up at night starving though so along with some well deserved sweetness try to think a little protein too.  So when I was on my diet plan they provided me with protein packed good tasting cookies, cake, ice cream, pretzels, snack mix and that's just what I remember.  But this wasn't your garden variety "Chips Ahoy". So when you're thinking dessert don't go to the bakery to pick it up. Instead start in the aisle with the protein bars and supplements for starters.

Again there are several manufacturers including South Beach, Atkins and a bunch of others that make fairly good tasting "desserts" that have a little protein.  One of my current favorites is the Atkins Cashew Trail Mix Bar at 170 calories with 7 gms of protein along with your carbs.  Another South Beach favorite for a day when I think I've hit it a little heavy is the 100 calorie Whipped Chocolate Almond Snack Bar with 6 gms of protein.  So theses are satisfying but still put a little protein in there to keep you feeling full overnight and your blood sugar stable.

Then of course there are any number of Weight Watcher's Desserts if you're an ice creamaholic like me.  They have a coffee latte bar that's 90 calories that's to die for, my opinion.  I don't remember how much protein is in them but they have a chocolate fudgicle type snack  bar that's 45 calories I think and has about 2 gms. of protein or so.  The  serving size is 2 bars so that's 90 calories. Jello has those great pudding cups for 60 calories with a variety of flavors  so my point is this.  Go look around your market but skip the bakery, skip the cookie aisle and find things that will satisfy your sweet/salt cravings but try to get something that has some protein value underneath the carbs and the sugar to keep you from spiking your sugar and sending you back into overeating. Even the picture above could be a great treat if you used sugar free pudding, fresh fruit and used a graham cracker bottom with Splenda instead of sugar. There are ways to make great tasting desserts out there too  and it doesn't mean you have to give up taste.  Like everything else watch your portion size and determine how to get the most out of the calories you're consuming that will satisfy you so you don't feel deprived.

I happen to know you can order things like desserts from Nutrisytem's line " a la carte" but I think that's pretty expensive.  They did have some great tasting cookies packed with protein but I've seen similar things where the protein bars are.  Special K used to make a packet of drink mix that you poured into 16 oz of cold water which was like 30 calories and super satisfying too as a drink mix.  So look around and be sensible.  Don't believe the labels about low fat, low calorie printed on the front.  Look at the label.  What's the serving size,  how many calories, how many gms protein, how many grms carbs and eat healthy!  Enjoy the treat at the end of you day because you've earned it and tomorrow you'll start again feeling fabulous because you're in control of your health and what you're eating.

How's the moving and stretching going?  Is it second nature yet?  Are you drinking your water?  Let me know how it's going!

'til next time,
HV 13

Time for Dinner, Yum!

I don't know about you but my least favorite question  of the day
is "What's for dinner, Mom?" unless I happen to be having an extraordinarily organized week where I've gone to the store, planned the menus for each day and have those ingredients handy. Dinner time is a great time for the family to gather and catch up and I have to say when I look back on the years gone by with the kids I'm glad I made the effort most of the time. I've
already confessed that my menus have had to change over the years.  If you look at the picture on the left it's chicken kabobs with couscous and nectarine salsa and was from a Weight Watcher's recommended cooking light site.  It was hard finding
a picture of a healthy meal but let's talk about what's for dinner.

You know the drill by now so what you need to incorporate in your evening meal will be the following:

DINNER
An entree
2 servings of veggies
Either a salad or a fruit serving

If you haven't had your fat you can save it for dinner.  So what we're talking about here is maybe  a deck of card sized portion of lean meat, say, chicken, fish, lean beef, or turkey.  You can make a salad to go along or under it  or you can have two veggies and add a fruit on the side.  Since I'm not a big veggie lover and because I had a problem not grazing while I made everyone else's dinner I used one of my veggies while I was making dinner.  Campbell's sells a six pack of small tomato juice which I think is about 30 calories.  I poured it chilled into a glass and sipped it while I made dinner.  No vodka either!  It helped give me something to put in my mouth and kept me out of the other food I was making and got one of those darn veggie servings out of the way, yeah!  I prefer fruit to salad - I could do one salad a day but two was pretty much too much on most days.  So a little meat, a little broccoli, 1/3rd of a cantaloupe or 1/2 banana and I was good to go with the tomato juice and water.  But that's really a strategy if you've got the patience to do all that and stick to portion control while also making enough to feed others.  When I started out I didn't have that kind of resistance so I used my pre-packaged portion controlled meals to start until portions were second nature to me and the "big dinner plate" was a thing of the past.  If you're not on a plan, one thing you can consider is the gazillion entrees in the grocery store that are prepackaged.  Lean Cuisine is pretty good and has a good variety.  There are several other choices in those freezer sections.  I happen to know Lean Cuisine is cost effective, generally under $3 - $4/meal and sometimes significantly less if you have coupons or hit a sale and you don't have to think except to add a veggie if it's short one or add your fruit depending.  You need to watch things by reading labels like total calories - something below 300 is good, closer to 200 is better if you're adding stuff, and watch the salt too. Hopefully there's some real protein in those meals because you'll need that to feel satisfied.

I also want to encourage you to get creative with recipes.  There are a ton of sites out there that offer lean cooking and new ideas for what to put on your plate at night.  Maybe now is the time to search out a new recipe once a week and try it for the family or maybe there's a site that has a whole week's menus planned out for you.  However you go about it watch the portions!  My cereal bowls always got me in trouble at breakfast and when I served a big bowl of chili with cornbread in it on a cold evening not only was the one serving too much, I used to have 2 servings.  Those big dinner plates hold an awful lot of food and not only is it bad for you to eat that much at the end of the day and then sit in front of the TV or computer but it costs a lot too!  I'm pretty lazy so when I want to control what I'm eating I just switch back to Lean Cuisine and it's fast, easy and inexpensive.

I did continue to cook regular meals for my family while I managed my weight loss but some of the things that were more healthful found their way into our eating habits as a family and it really took off when my husband reached an age where he couldn't vacuum the table and not gain an ounce any longer.  My youngest started on healthy eating early on due to football, weight training and just watching what was going on around him and I'm proud to say that the calls I got from school when he first went about what foods were the healthy ones were really gratifying.  He hasn't gained any weight at school - in fact he's lost some but that's because he's crewing - already an exercise addict and don't you wish you started that when you were a teenager!!

By the way if you're not feeling overwhelmed I'd be surprised.  Even when everything I ate came in a big box with instructions from my plan and I just had to add a few side items it was pretty overwhelming at first.  Learning anything new generally is and typically the things that are most valuable require the most input by you.  This is by you for you and you're worth it so take the time to figure some things out.  Yes, it's much easier to just do what you've done for a thousand years, I should know!  It's been more than six years for me on the "new way" and certainly things have evolved over time for me but I have generally been successful because I realized how much better I felt as a human after I got that extra person off me.  I have clothes I like to wear now not the endless black skirt or slacks habit.  I can go up and down stairs with ease.  My B/P is normal.  I don't have to listen to the ugly voice inside my head making me feel bad if I reach for a cookie or a snack at a party that wonders if everyone else is wondering how I can not notice that I've gained a lot of weight over the years.  So hang in there and celebrate your successes when you lose 5 lbs and 10 lbs.  Do find a way to reward yourself but not with food.  Those days are behind you.  Do you like earrings?  What about  some cute shoes?  Maybe a new lipstick or hair ornament?  Whatever tools you can use to make it easier, do it and smile because you can beat this and change!  You're awesome so let yourself be your most awesome self.

When you add up your servings of fruits and veggies for the day you should be getting about 3 fruit servings a day and 3-4 veggie servings a day along with protein and dairy which is terrific!  Don't forget your water.  Oh and dessert's on the way!

Enjoy!  Talk with your family, laugh, share your days news and eat well.  Get right up after you're done and go do something more active than you're used to.  You'll be so very glad you did!
HV-13

Snack Time!!

Wait, wait - before you reach for the chips, salsa and margaritas!

We're talking a different type of snack here but it can still be exciting.  Especially when it's guilt free and contributes to your
overall healthy change in eating habits.

A typical day for me when losing weight started with breakfast about 6 AM with my "saved protein/dairy" item at about 10:00 AM followed by lunch around noon with snack time at 3:00 PM.  In that way I was never more than a few hours between meals.  Dinner typically was about 6:30 PM and I saved my dessert until about 9 PM.  This is a structure that I've pretty much maintained to this day because it works for me to eat "constantly"!

So what's in a snack?
Here's where you pick up another fruit serving and another healthy protein/dairy item.  A cup of yogurt with fruit might fit your bill or for me a piece of fresh fruit like a small apple or a handful of strawberries or whatever is low glycemic and in season is what I reach for.  A small wedge of cheese is great especially if it's low fat but other protein like low fat cottage cheese or sandwich meat as long as it's low fat works too.  If I'm really having a hard time I'll cook a zucchini since it's a free food and use 2 tbsp. of Parmesan on the top - it's filling and with the fruit is like another meal. 

I also meant to mention that I'm not a protein shake person but I know that there are some really great products out there that are meant for substitute lunch entrees that are protein loaded and there are some snack foods like that too.  Some of the mainstream junk food manufacturers have gotten on board with 100 calorie packs of things but again I'd get my portion expectations under control before I started adding back that stuff.  It's too easy to slide back into old habits. 

I also took some time in the grocery store this weekend and want to recommend you stay away from the "health" or "protein" bars in the cereal aisles.  Most of those have high carbs - like 29 gms and maybe 2 gms of protein - they can think they're healthy but not on my planet.  You'll want to go to the aisle that's usually somewhere near the pharmacy and has all kinds of protein bars, shakes, vitamin supplements and stuff like that.  The better choices are there but again read the labels.  If you can manage things like 10 gms of protein and 13 gms of carbs that's a great bar as long as the calories aren't ridiculous.

SNACK TIME
One serving of fruit
One protein/dairy item


There are also some free foods that can help you that are your typical diet things - for instance any flavor of sugar free jello makes a great addition to snack time - it doesn't count really in the calories you're consuming and there are tons of flavors.  You can have a fat serving once a day so one of mine was to eat a small portion of nuts but we're talking really small here like 4 walnut halves or 10 peanuts or 6 almonds.  You're still drinking water too and that will help fill you up.

The great thing is that you're pretty much putting whole foods or foods that are recognizable from nature into yourself and if you're eating all these smaller meals your blood sugar is staying relatively stable and the satiation from the protein is helping you to not feel like you're dieting.  These things have stayed with me since I lost the weight and is part of why I'm able to maintain my weight loss even though my menu now includes things that aren't on this list.  I've learned how to eat normally, how to add some splurge items and recognize the danger signs that I need to pay attention again.  The high protein, low fat, lower carbs and lots of fruits/veggies works though so hang in there.

I also want to take a minute to talk about expense because food costs are incredible and there are savings to be had here.  When I used to go to the grocery store, coupons in hand or to the places like Costco or Sam's, the cookie/bread/bakery/Pillsbury doughboy stuff always jumped into my cart.  Then there was the puddings for dessert or the cake mixes or the ice creams not to mention anything alcoholic while I spent as little time as possible looking at the fruit and veggies because while it looked good it was expensive and it always seemed like half of it went bad before we ate it.  Well D'uh!  My entire family was reaching for the goodies/snacks/breads, etc., first and even if I could get them to drink juice or milk instead of soda which was a rule in our home I wasn't spending the money on the right things and I was buying too much of it at once which resulted in spoilage.  When you stop and add up what you're spending on snacks that aren't healthy and how much you're spending on a healthy snack instead I think you'll see some savings.

Then there's the whole portion thing.  When I didn't pay attention to how much cereal I was eating and was using the bowl as the unit of measure I'd go through a box of cereal in a week or a week and half.  The box always said there was some ridiculous number of servings in it like 20 but not for me.  Well guess what - when you actually eat one serving at time the box lasts a long time - same thing with boxes of raisins, fruit, etc.  When you realize the five apples you bought will actually last five days they kind of get less expensive.  If you're only eating 5 medium strawberries at each serving or 15 grapes they last longer so the key is understanding how much you need and how much to buy at one time to help you manage the costs.  Maybe that's intuitive for you but it wasn't for me.

We'll talk about dinner next time. and guess what - I eat dessert every day!  So stay tuned and stay on track.  Your blood pressure, your joints and your cardiovascular system will love you never mind your brain.  After you've tried eating healthier choices if your brain feels any clearer or you feel better let me hear from you!  Success is contagious and I hope everyone catches it!

'til next time,
HV 13

What's for Lunch???

 

Yuck!  I hate lunch... lunch food, lunch time, lunch bags and boxes.  It's the meal I never liked as a kid and I still don't like it even though I absolutely love food.  The only good thing I can remember about lunch was that my Dad gave us money to buy it and I spent it all on chocolate chip mint ice cream that they sold in the school cafeteria.  Or at least until they installed a vending machine that sold brownies.  So yes, I've been struggling with weight my whole life.  And no, my parents never knew that or they would've gone ballistic.

Thankfully we all can change and I have.  I'll never LOVE lettuce and salads will not always be at the top of my list when dining out
but I will admit lunch has changed for me for the better and permanently since I started the eating program that changed my eating from a problem into health so perhaps I can say something that will help you make a few changes too.  I actually might eat the salad in that picture these days.

If you've been following you've had a reasonable breakfast and maybe you saved your protein for mid morning.  You've had at least 16 oz of water or more but lunch time is coming and your stomach is telling you it's time...by the way you should listen to your body.  You don't have to wait until your stomach is actually growling but I advise you not to eat until you really feel hungry.  So what should you eat?

Once again you'll need an "entree" of some sort.  When I was eating Nutrisystem their lunch items consisted of things like soups, protein bars, mini heat and eat entrees like a little pasta with meat sauce like chicken cacciatore and I think there was even a sloppy jo mix that you made and put on a small whole grain roll. There was more than that in their menu but this was six years ago so I've forgotten.  What I remembered and kept as part of my plan was that protein bars, certain types anyway, were more like eating a candy bar for lunch so of course that was really right up my alley!  Easy, convenient, go anywhere and packing a lot of nutrition in a small size.  There are a lot of protein bars out there but like everything else if it sounds too good to be true it probably is and you'd better read the labels.  Nutrisystem had these very good tasting bars that had protein grams that were nearly equal to carbs and there again that's a ratio you want to keep an eye on.  The calories were somewhere between 150 and 210 I think.  Are you freezing and need something warm?  Well start looking at soups because these days there are a lot of choices out there and you can likely find one that has lower calories per serving but again watch the protein and fat content if that's where you're headed.  Just have to have meat?  Well, we'll get there, no worries.  Since coming off Nutrisystem I had to find great tasting protein bars that didn't have tons of carbs.  The best ones I've found for my tastes and needs are Atkins bars but there are lots out there so go exploring in the grocery aisle where they keep the Atkins bars or go to one of those GNC type stores if you want to find something fabulous.  So in my world I start with a protein bar.

Next you need a vegetable.  So here's where the whole salad thing starts.  It turns out that there are some raw vegetables that you can eat in unlimited quantities and they won't skew your weight loss.  One of them is spinach.  A lot of us are not natural spinach eaters but I have to say that fresh spinach with a hard boiled egg sliced and a few tiny bacon bits with some of that salad spritzer dressing makes me smile these days!  Or if I'm not in the mood for a hard boiled egg, a low fat mozzarella string cheese stick torn up makes a great addition to that mix.  Other veggies that don't add problems regardless of quantity include things like cucumber, alfalfa sprouts, green onions, lettuce of any variety, watercress, cabbage, zucchini and mushrooms.  Don't like spinach?  What about some nice romaine or some butter lettuce.  I'd stay away from iceberg lettuce as it doesn't offer you much nutrition - just remember the greener the better!!  The cool thing about this whole salad thing is you can eat a whole lot of it and really exercise that chewing urge you have without any guilt.

You've probably guessed from reading the above that you'll need a dairy/protein too.  Mine is the hard boiled egg or the string cheese but on some days you could  add some smoked turkey slices or some really lean ham slices all torn up.  The key is again "portion".  You can't add unlimited slices of deli sliced smoked turkey.  You can get some of that thin sliced deli turkey or ham, about 1 oz. If you're gonna eat the meat then you have to lose the egg.  Here's what it looks like:

LUNCH
An entree - 1 Protein Bar/small serving soup
Spinach (or other) salad
Dairy/Protein  - 1 hard boiled egg
Salad spritzer dressing, sparingly please - no more than 2 tbsps.
Beverage

More about what you're drinking.  So you're supposed to drink water but you can also drink things like diet soda or crystal light or sugar free tonic water or iced tea with artificial sweetener, etc.  Make sure you're drinking your water - Add a slice of lemon and put it over ice with a straw in it.  For me, I started drinking bottled water because I just would never drink enough tap water ( I have no idea what that's about and don't want to know so don't tell me).

You'll notice there aren't any carbohydrates in there of any sort - no bread for a sandwich.  If you have to have something like that then choose something like a Breton cracker that is reduced fat and reduced sodium but for me if I ate any of the breads, even whole grain, it would just make me hungrier.  So for awhile just stay away and you'll get enough fiber from your vegetables and fruits and you cereal serving in the morning. After a while you won't miss it, I promise.  Notice there wasn't any fruit with lunch either.  Trust me, we'll bring it back. 

I mentioned a few bacon bits.   Oscar Meyer makes some ready to serve Real Bacon Bits that are 25 calories in a tablespoon with 2 grams protein and 0 carbs.  So I might not use a whole tablespoon but I will sprinkle a few on there for that little punch of flavor.

By the way this is for a woman.  This isn't for a child or a man.  The men on the program got to have a low glycemic index carbohydrate at every meal but that is because their metabolism is different.  I'd rather stick with mine - I bore children and I haven't met any men that have done that yet.  I would suggest you can apply the principles of trying to eat things that are whole foods - like fresh fruit and vegetables easily to your children's plates but if you're helping a child with a diet their pediatrician should be involved, in my opinion. Otherwise you may eliminate something essential to their growth and development that is not needed as an adult.  If you're a man and you want to know what the low glycemic index carbs are just ask me in comments and I'll post it.

Don't despair if this is lighter than the lunch of your dreams.  Snack time's coming.  Oh and let me just let you know a bit about eating out since a lot of folks are at work and the girls go to lunch to get out of the office.  Those salads at most restaurants have portions that are absolutely way out of control!  They've begun to publish the  nutrition facts in some of the menus and tout that their salads are healthy because they're 500 calories - geez, if I'm eating 500 calories for lunch it's not going to be salad - I'll go for the hamburger please.  So if you find yourself in that situation, here's some help.  If you order something healthy, like their version of spinach salad for instance, first ask for the dressing on the side and any of the other stuff like the egg or bleu cheese or bacon bits or whatever ask if they can bring it so you can assemble it or have them hold it in the kitchen.  If you just can't do that then ask for the to go box up front and get the dressing on the side.  Before you stick your fork into it and add saliva to what's on your plate, take 1/2 or 3/4's of whatever you've ordered and put it in that to go box - you can eat it tomorrow and it will keep if you didn't add saliva or dressing.  Then you can enjoy what you ordered.  Unless your friends object tell them to hold any of that complimentary bread in the kitchen.  Once it's on the table I really can hardly ever say no!

When I was seriously dieting and my family wanted to go out I'd go and look over what was on the menu but in most cases it was loaded with way to much "extra" stuff I wasn't eating.  I found that if I talked to the waiter and told him I was on a special diet and asked if I could have two veggies instead of a potato or could they leave the topping off the meat or could the dressing be on the side or whatever I'd decided to do I often got great meals that were way better than what my family was ordering off the menu as they tried to get creative in their kitchen and help me.  So along with enlisting the aid of your family, don't be afraid to ask for help in a restaurant.  Obviously I'm not talking about fast food here although these days they even have some "better" choices than grease soaked, is that really meat? on a bun.  Trust me, you'll feel so much better if you go out with your family and have a great time you won't miss the extra calories but until you get this hang of this you just might want to eat in a break room with stuff you bring in from home or celebrate eating in the dining room with your family for a few weeks.

Are you moving?  Are you stretching?  If you aren't ask yourself why not?  Are you important to you?  My Dad always got a big kick out of that L'Oreal commercial but seriously, "You're Worth It".
What inspires you to success?  Is it a picture of you from several years ago?  A picture of a hot outfit from a catalogue?  Should you print words  of encouragement on sticky notes and post them around the house?  Since most of the people I associate with, and therefore may be reading this blog, are also people that have some type of faith structure in their environment I'll up the motivation factor here. You know you want to change your health for the better. God who loves you always just the way you are will always answer your prayers so how about praying for the strength to make this change and stick with it?

Til next time,
HV 13

Put the Cookie Down and Back Away!!!!

What SHOULD You Be Eating? Consider these Choices...           

            A  lot of dieters start out by trying to control their calories through skipping meals.  If you want to lose weight one of the very best strategies is to eat more frequent, smaller meal portions and avoid skipping meals.  Skipping will make you more hungry later on and possibly lead to overeating so just say No!  You want to keep your calories above 1200 calories

per day.  To find out how many calories you need in a day to
maintain your current weight you can use a basal metabolic
rate calculator to determine that number.  Here's a link and some explanations of BMR and a calculator so you can figure out your BMR:  http://walking.about.com/cs/calories/l/blcalcalc.htm

Start your day with a healthy breakfast. Please understand that

I'm going to try to give you principles and how you choose to apply them depends on what your preferences are and what your resources are.  If you've decided to adopt a full meal plan with one of the more popular weight loss programs stick to it.  If you're doing this on your own, you can check out these choices. 

 

BREAKFAST

Choose an "entree".  This should be a cereal such as granola or oatmeal, yogurt or eggs, a muffin or pancakes.  Look carefully at the calorie count and do your best to maximize the ratio between protein and carbs.  The higher the protein amount the longer you'll keep that "full" feeling.  Add a serving of dairy or protein and a serving of fruit. So as an example:
1/3 cup of granola
4 oz. of fat free milk [when you use milk on your cereal you still get a protein/dairy serving]
3/4 cup of fresh blueberries
Coffee ( mine is black and therefore I can drink as much as I want)/Tea

I typically save my breakfast protein/dairy serving and eat it about halfway between breakfast and lunch.  A low fat string cheese or a wedge of the "Light, Laughing Cow Cheese" works great and helps keep away hunger pangs.  You could eat yours at breakfast if desired.

I'm sure you're reading this going pancakes?  Consider this.  If you take 1/4 - 1/3 cup of "Heart Smart" Bisquick and add 1/4  - 1/3 cup of low fat milk you can make 3 small pancakes.   If you want to use your protein mix in an egg.  Add 3/4 of a cup of blueberries inside  or 5 medium strawberries sliced on the top and you no longer need any syrup or toppings and you have a great tasting breakfast.  You can also add cinnamon to the batter with a small box of raisins (the little ones) and have cinnamon raisin pancakes.  If you just have to have butter and syrup I recommend "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" and some sort of sugar free syrup.

By the way while you're transitioning over from calorie laden items to less you can use the weaning method.  For instance if you're used to cream and two sugars, gradually reduce them or replace one of your sugars with Splenda for a few days and keep the other, etc. so you gradually transition rather than cold turkey if that helps you.

Don't forget your water.  I try to add my first 16 oz. in with my mid-morning "saved" protein serving.  Depending on how you construct your breakfast you may come up with another strategy that works well.

You should also know that some fruits have a higher glycemic index than others which makes sense because some are sweeter than others.  What that means is you can still eat them, you just get less of them than you would of something less sweet.  Here's a link to some information about low glycemic index fruits that you can read about to give you some hints about smart choices:
http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/whattoeat/a/glycemicindlist_3.htm

My personal favorites are apples, blueberries, strawberries, pineapples, watermelon, and for portability, raisins.  I get the tiny boxes and keep two in my purse in case I'm really hungry for a quick snack.  You can also drink fruit juice but the serving size is typically 1/2 cup so I tend to go for the whole fruits when I can.

Put the cookie down and try this instead, won't you?  More about the other meals of the day in my next post.  Stretch, move and drink water and before you know it the pounds will begin coming off.
Use all the usual strategies you've learned for weight loss like drink a glass of water before a meal, chew slowly, really taste your food, use a small plate and leave the table when you're done eating.  Clean up your kitchen and get out of it at night.  Go do something else like walk, fold laundry, read a book in a separate room of the house, play a game with your kids but keep yourself distracted.  The first couple weeks are hard because you're changing what you're doing and you have to think about it but soon enough if you stick with it, this becomes second nature and you won't even have to think and you'll reach for the right things.

Cheers,
HV 13

Your Diet Plan

In order to start a diet you have to know what to eat, right?  I mean you throw out all your holiday leftovers, clean your pantry and fridge but what next?  How much do I eat?  What is a portion?  How often should I eat?  Whom should I believe about what goes into "healthy nutrition"?  That's the $64 dollar question and there are as many answers as there are websites to help you.  My purpose here is to direct you to what will work for you.  Only you can answer what it is that will work but awareness is the first step and you've already acknowledged that you are aware that you want to change.  Now you need to arm yourself with education.                                                                   

There are several excellent programs out there right now that can help you.  Even knowing everything I know about nutrition as a nurse I turned to one finally for help because I needed a new discipline.  I went on Nutrisystem in 2006 and lost 85 lbs.  I used their coupons and auto delivery to lower the cost and I followed the plan exactly.  It took about one year and I took some short breaks along the way.  There are many other excellent plans out there including Weight Watchers Online and Jenny Craig and I know people who've lost weight with them.  Joy Bauer, a nutritionist on "The Today Show" also has a website and plan you pay $4.00/week to join and she provides a ton of information.  If you feel you can't do this alone these are excellent plans that make it simple and understandable to begin a weight loss regimen without any guess work but the key is following the plan.  Stick to it.  Don't cheat.  If they say don't eat this, then don't eat it.  If they say exercise, then do try.  If they say drink water, do it. You get the drill.

Want to figure out how many calories you'll burn if your moving every day?  Try your health plan's website for resources or check this out from my plan at Blue Cross Blue Shield:
http://healthandwellness.bluecrossmn.com/InteractiveTools/Calculators/41,CalorieBurnCalc

The principles that undergird most weight loss programs that are successful today has to do with the level of blood sugar in your body at any one time.  There are research studies that say that if you starve yourself your body thinks your in an elemental conservation mode and everything you take in will be preserved against this loss of intake.  So if you fast or near fast for several days and then eat, boom, your body holds onto all those calories against another famine.  I would suggest that anything that causes you to delete food groups entirely is probably not the best idea. However, since we no longer go out and plough the back "40 acres" after breakfast, we probably don't need the carb loads associated with a farm breakfast and our energy needs are pretty stable throughout the day.  So a goal that worked for me was to try to keep my blood sugar level relatively stable throughout the day rather than having it go way up and go way down.  They call that "low glycemic index" but essentially it means you take in food items in a way that keeps your blood sugar fairly constant throughout the day.  It prevents those episodes of severe hunger you've felt with deprivation diets and some of the cravings too.

So the first thing is to figure out how much you really need to lose.  Did you use the BMI calculator link I published to figure out where your BMI is and where it needs to be?  That's where you start.  The other thing is that weight loss that really stays lost won't occur if you go into a severe change that you can't keep up after you lose the weight.  So if you think well I'll just give up all carbs, eat all protein and drink no alcohol for 6 weeks you'll probably lose weight and possibly pretty rapidly.  But what happens after that six weeks is up?  Are you never going to eat a dinner roll again?  Did you mean to give up a Friday evening glass of wine forever?  I doubt that.  So the modifications you are going to take on have to be something you can live with for a long time.  That's why the new habits are so important.  You need to rethink your exercise plan overall - not the sweaty, gym rat type- I'm not that - but walking, or swimming, or biking, or bowling or something you enjoy doing that will move you, hopefully every day for at least 30 minutes a day. It doesn't have to be the same thing every day and you can do 10 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes at night or 10 minutes 3 times/day.  The important thing is that you do it. You need to rethink your intake plan so that you can still include some of the things you love but knock off the things you know you really shouldn't be eating.  I mean seriously, do you really need that handful of peanut M & M's, the wintergreen lifesavers you're addicted to or that glass of wine with dinner every night?  Isn't that how you got here?  If you gave all these things up for six months, melted off 50 lbs. and then could have them once in a while wouldn't it be worth it???

So go ahead re-calculate your BMI here:
http://nhlbisupport.com/bmi/bminojs.htm


Now what about that diet.  Well our government isn't just designed to send us over fiscal cliffs or vex us with the price of milk.  There are things we've paid for that have been done and can provide you with tools you need to help.  Remember that education I talked about.  Here's a good website chock full of information and tools.  Go there. Make use of it. You've already paid for it.
http://www.nutrition.gov/smart-nutrition-101/myplate-food-pyramid-resources


One of the things on this site that I like is the comparison feature for foods.  For instance you can compare a serving of broccoli side by side with a serving of corn.  Broccoli has 65 calories and low sodium.  A same size serving of corn has over 90 calories and much higher sodium.  Which do you think is better for you?  Guess what - the broccoli is more likely to fill you up too.

While you're on this government site they'll also give you some ideas about a weight loss plan and how to formulate it.  Here's what I found out when I embarked on my successful diet.  I hope that whatever strategy you adopt you experience this.                                  

As I came off the breads I loved, the desserts, the candy, the alcohol and ate fresh fruit for the first time in a long time and fresh, I mean really fresh vegetables, it took about a week before I began to like the taste.  When you're used to incredibly sweet or high caloric yeasty, shortening laden foods your taste buds apparently don't do much for you.  By the second week off the junk and on the fresh pineapple, the apple, the zucchini and broccoli, the tomato juice, the water, my mind was so much clearer.  It was like the lifting of a brain fog.  The walking helped too.  I get winter depression - I hate cold and being stuck indoors probably to the point of becoming clinically depressed if I don't go out.  By getting out, doing something for myself, by myself and getting off that junk I had freed my body from processing that poison and was putting seriously good things inside it.  Largely protein based food was the mainstay balanced with some fruits or vegetables and a few low fat cheeses for dairy, some nuts here and there and in controlled portions.  When I was hungry I drank my water.  It helped it really did.  Because I went from a bunch of high caloric junk to real food I immediately lost weight.
As I stabilized on my new foods, the weight loss continued at a more or less stable pace.  Yes, I hit plateaus and we'll talk about that elsewhere.  Yes, I sometimes didn't like something I ate.  But it worked and as the weight began to fall off, I felt so much better it was an altogether different high.  My clothes began to be too big and as I lost a size, I put the old ones in a box and gave them away or sent them to my sister.

I have one size in my closet today.  I have been one size since 2007.  When my weight goes over the 5 lb. variance I allow myself, I get back on my plan because if I don't, I can't close my jeans, button my blouses and I have nothing else to wear!  I purposely spent money on clothes I love because I'm NEVER going back and I have them all which means I have a lot of clothes.  But they're all one size.

I keep meaning to talk about sodas/pop, too. Please give them up.  They say Cola products can eat the paint off a car.  Diet sodas are not your friend.  I will tell you one good thing.  When I stopped drinking sodas of any type and changed over to water, tea, coffee (without anything in them) the cellulite inhabiting my derriere improved and sometimes is difficult to see.  Some of that came from my stretching program and walking but I think sodas, diet or otherwise, have something in them that contributes to that nasty cellulite deposition.  So consider cutting way back and giving them up entirely. They aren't good for your children either.  Give your kids fruit juice - real fruit juice not 10% juice 90% junk.  If you drink your sugar/creamer with tea or coffee consider using Splenda and other low caloric aids until you can work your way to black.  I don't put anything in my coffee anymore and I love the taste of  a fresh brew.

You can do this.  You can take charge of your life and get this part under control.  You can do any number of other things when you best this struggle in your life.  You have my permission to succeed wildly at this.

More to come.
HV 13

Happy New Year! Today's the Day!

Happy 2013!  The Year When You've Decided to Take Charge of Your Life!! Congratulations - you've survived the holidays!  Today is the day when you start to add energy, positivity, small accomplishments, big gains in health and success to your calendar!!!  You've made the right decision but now you have to spend a day doing some prep work.  The Farmer's Almanac wants you to know the best days to start a diet this month are tomorrow, January 2nd and Sunday, January 6th so set your date and let's get busy.  Anything you've had to do in analyzing why you have food issues, what causes your overeating, and why you sabotage yourself are things I hope you've done over the holidays.

I promised you an answer to why I asked you to move every day if not for weight loss and the answer is I wanted you to form a habit.  The things you'll do now is to form new habits, replacing your prior habits in some cases, and hopefully improving your overall health.  So if you faithfully moved, even a little more each day, you probably have a habit of doing something every day just for you by moving. If you didn't do it, go back and re-read the blog and figure out what you need to do.

Today, you need to clean out your pantry, your refrigerator, your candy dishes, your cake and pie safes and your cookie tins.  You can do this in a variety of ways.  If you have a family you have to consider, "Do they really need all this?"  "Will they return to school/work routines tomorrow and not miss it?"  "Can I stay away from this if it's still here?"  Go through your leftovers and give them away, freeze them or chuck them.  Go through your supplies.  Is there unmade cookie dough?  Freeze it or give it away.  Do you have cakes and pies leftover - plan for someone to eat them today other than you and then chuck the rest.  Limit the items for snacks in your pantry to things your kids will feel really bad about if they aren't in their lunches.  For my kids they wanted chocolate chip cookies so there was one box of cookies and it was hidden from my view at all times except when making lunch.  Plan to replace your old standby pre-packaged foods into your kids lunches with fresh fruits/veggies like you're going to eat.  It will be so much better for everyone.

Let's talk about expenses.  One argument for avoiding fresh, healthy fruits and veggies is the expense.  Pre-packaged, pre-processed foods are cheaper. Fast food in a bag has a fixed cost and you know it in advance while cooking fresher, closer to whole foods takes time and you have to buy the groceries, make the meal, do the dishes and in general it's a lot more trouble.  So that's an "expense" too.  For me I have recipes in my head, learned as a child, and can shop without lists and cook without thinking and they're great tasting meals. Unfortunately, the expense that was never measured was the one to my health and the health of my family in terms of the fat, calories and extra salt included in these old standbys.  So let's rethink this.  Garbage in - garbage out - it's true.

One of my problems was I'm a once a week shopper or I try to be. On Friday afternoon a fresh banana looks really appealing, a zucchini is whole and firm, grapes look lush and juicy but by next Wednesday the banana is brown, the zucchini mushy and the grapes have fallen off the stems, are brown at the top and are flavorless mush - yuck!  So when you throw that out and order a hot fresh pizza who can blame you? So you have to rethink your shopping habits.  Go and buy small quantities of the freshest items you can find.  Don't by large quantities.  Are you going to eat 1 orange for lunch each day for 3 days?  Buy 2-3 oranges.  Buy a small bag of  carrots or sugar snap peas.  Buy 2 apples, or 2 bananas and plan to go back. Why?  You don't have time?  Well if you buy in small quantities, exactly what you want to eat you'll have fresh appealing fruits and veggies, they won't cost an arm and a leg and you'll use them all up without throwing anything away.  Trust me. I've been doing this for years.

"But wait", I hear you saying, "if I go into the store I'll buy the candy I want instead of the fruit I'll need!"  Here's the reason you won't.  If you've really committed to doing this for a week, just do it. Bypass the endcaps, the half off the huge box of leftover cookies, the discounted wines, the displays of temptation and go for the fresh fruit/veggie aisle, grab your milk for you kids if they need it and get the heck out of that store - go to the express aisle or the self checkout.  When you get this down it will take you less time than a run through the drive thru will take and you've feel so much better!!  By having only the things you know you're going to eat (see next post) you'll help yourself resist temptation because it won't be there.  Half the problem is availability so get rid of the stuff  - be ruthless and every time you're tempted think about how much money you threw away in food you shouldn't have bought anyway, Stop! Go out for a walk instead of trying to stuff something in your face you really don't want in your more rational moments.

Stock your shelves for success.  Buy a crisper full of vegetables.  Try carrots, zucchini, cherry or grape tomatoes, asparagus or whatever           
veggies you like and can think of eating
with a positive attitude.  Not a big veggie eater?
What about small cans, individual size, of tomato
juice?  For fruits grab some blueberries, some
oranges/tangelos, clementines, a fresh pineapple,
a banana or two and some apples.  There will be another post about what and how much.  Today just get rid of your bad habits, whistle while you work and think about how lovely you'll feel when you've lost that first 5 lbs.

One other thing and it's not a small one.  Today, while you're at the height of your commitment to do something new, tell someone who will be honest with you that you're doing this.  In fact, tell several someones.  Tell your kids, tell your family, tell your friends, your husband, your boyfriend, whomever.  Tell your peers at work.  For some of you, it's an old story - you've told them before you're going on a diet and when you fell off no one said anything.  So do it differently this time.  Tell them you need their help and support.  That you want to do this for you.  That you want them to ask you if they see you heading for fast food or your favorite potato chip crutch, "Do you really want to do this?" Tell them to grab your coat and hand and walk with you outside instead.  Ask them to beg you to wait 20 minutes and go do something else and if you really, really want to eat whatever it is 20 minutes later you can go back and get it but then get you into something else.

If you drive past a Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts or some other place daily and you always succumb, drive some other route.  Find side streets without stores that sell food.  Similarly if you eat while you watch TV at night, stop watching TV.  Go to the library and find 3 books you want to read and do it.  If your whole family watches TV then go get a skein of yarn and learn how to knit/crochet so your hands are busy.  Have a cell phone?  Get a free game on your apps and play it while you watch.  Whenever you find yourself with down time and the urge to eat, stop. Reverse your direction immediately - get away from the kitchen even if it means you have to go outside.  Go look at your landscape and plan an update for the spring.  Go make 5 snowballs and throw them at a tree.  Always, always try to distract yourself and with movement if possible - remind yourself that the walking you're doing isn't your favorite thing but the doing it in combination with not falling back into bad habits is cumulative and you'll get there faster if you don't succumb. Drink lots of water!!!!

There's a lot more but this will get you going today.
Happy New Year and Congratulations on the decision to help yourself to health!  You deserve it.
HV-13