This is an old tip, but it works. If at all possible, do your shopping after you've had breakfast or lunch - or even dinner - so that you're full and not craving anything, when you walk into that big ol' store with all its shelves of goodies.
And if possible, don't bring your kids in with you, either. Or if you do, start in on them young to teach them discipline - no eating in the store, no opening of things you've bought for them - no, not in the store, not in the car, they must wait until they get home. Patience, and Willpower needs to be taught in kids from a young age.
You should also have a list of stuff you're going to buy, and then buy only what's on the list. No impulse shopping. (Unless you're impulse is to try certain, low-calorie foods!)
Avoid going down the candy aisle to get somewhere else.
And of course, don't buy a candybar as you're waiting in the checkout line.
Although, offering candy at checkout lines does seem to be diminishing. I'm sure the guv'mint is pressuring stores to do this.
What I've noticed is that stores are going towards these self-service checkout counters, where you run your own items over the bar scan, bag them, and so on. And around these scanners, there's no racks of goodies at all.
(I could talk about the rise of the self-service checkout counter, but that's a rant for a different blog...)
Of course, saying "Don't shop while hungry" is easy, but what if you're at home, have a craving for something, and decide to hop into your car, go to a store and buy it?
That's the hard thing...the thing that you've been training and exercising your willpower to resist. The thing to do is take your mind off it.
If watching TV triggers a craving (and I always turn the sound down on the commercials, and even walk out of the room while they're on so I don't see commercials for restaurants) then try reading a book instead. Get involved in a craft project, somethign that takes all your attention, so 10 minutes later, you've completely forgotten about your craving.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
How Varied Is Your Menu? And can you make a habit out of it?
I tell my clients not to bother about counting calories. Just eat whatever you want, but do it in small portions...and if you must snack after 8 pm or so, snack on carrots or something of that nature.
But it is necessary to start from a baseline - to know how many calories certain kinds of food have.
Of course, it's really common sense. Obviously a whole pizza is going to have a gazillion calories. Likewise a blooming onion (mmm, I love blooming onions, but they have over a thousand calories. But then, you'll probably only have one if you're out to dinner at an Outback Steakhouse, and you'll share it with friends, and split the calories that way).
A big piece of chocolate cake will have a lot of calories...a small candybar, about half, and so on.
So the question is...how big is your menu? By that I mean, over the course of two weeks, do you have five different things for dinner, and then just repeat them over and over? Or do you experiment and have a different type of meal every day of the month? (IF you do, I salute you!)
I eat chicken and beef, and eschew fish, veal, etc. I also don't eat a lot of vegetables - corn, potatos, peas, carrots, those are my staples. (Do you fix spinach with cheese and butter. Supposedly it's the cheese and butter that makes it taste good...and adds on the calories...)
So if there are only about 20 types of foods you eat, its easy to find out the calories for those kinds of foods, and that gives you knowledge of what you're consuming each day.
But don't make an obsession out of it.
The book might say... 3 ounces of chicken, 100 calories. Don't put a piece of chicken on a scale, and start cutting off tiny slices in an effort to get it to precisely 3 ounces. An extra ounce doesn't matter at all!
But it is necessary to start from a baseline - to know how many calories certain kinds of food have.
Of course, it's really common sense. Obviously a whole pizza is going to have a gazillion calories. Likewise a blooming onion (mmm, I love blooming onions, but they have over a thousand calories. But then, you'll probably only have one if you're out to dinner at an Outback Steakhouse, and you'll share it with friends, and split the calories that way).
A big piece of chocolate cake will have a lot of calories...a small candybar, about half, and so on.
So the question is...how big is your menu? By that I mean, over the course of two weeks, do you have five different things for dinner, and then just repeat them over and over? Or do you experiment and have a different type of meal every day of the month? (IF you do, I salute you!)
I eat chicken and beef, and eschew fish, veal, etc. I also don't eat a lot of vegetables - corn, potatos, peas, carrots, those are my staples. (Do you fix spinach with cheese and butter. Supposedly it's the cheese and butter that makes it taste good...and adds on the calories...)
So if there are only about 20 types of foods you eat, its easy to find out the calories for those kinds of foods, and that gives you knowledge of what you're consuming each day.
But don't make an obsession out of it.
The book might say... 3 ounces of chicken, 100 calories. Don't put a piece of chicken on a scale, and start cutting off tiny slices in an effort to get it to precisely 3 ounces. An extra ounce doesn't matter at all!
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Live "Purpose-Driven" Days
There is a religious movement out there called "The Purpose Driven Life," and I think they've copyrighted the phrase, but the term "purpose driven" is necessary to be used in this context.
I'm not talking about living your days Religiously, by the way, but religiously.
Set your goals, and then do what you have to do to achieve them. Typically, in order to achieve goals, you have to work on them every day, and when you're not working on them, you have to think about them.
But I'm not talking about losing weight, in this context.
The more you obsess over losing weight, the harder it will be... perhaps not to do so, but to maintain that weight loss once you've finally achieved your desired weight. I've made this analogy before... weight loss (or your nerves) is like a rubber band, stretching further and further. When you achieve the goal, and "release the band" it comes together with a snap, and all of a sudden every precept you'd held on losing weight - eating only small portions, having a treat only once a week, exercising every day - they go out the window and all of a sudden you're eating larger portions and more often, treating yourself twice a day, and not exercising.
And worst of all...you can't stop.
With this sudden "snap", your body - and your subconscious - wants to return to the way it was...and does what it can to achieve that.
Which is why once you achieve your desired weight, you can't stop "cold-turkey." You need to gradually increaes your food portion size, gradually give yourself a treat every other day, and NEVER stop exercising.
(And when I say "treat" - I don't mean to say that prior to this you've cut out treats entirely. The example I use is freshly baked cookies. I can't have freshly baked cookies in the house, they don't last two minutes. But I can have Oreo cookies. I eat two for dessert, they satisfy my chocolate craving, and I don't yearn for more. My "treat" is to go out to a Mrs. Fields Cookies in a mall - once a week, and have one of their freshly baked cookies.)
No, when I say "Purpose Driven" days, I mean something quite different. While eating should be an enjoyable part of your life, your whole life's goal should not be to stay at a healthy weight! No, your life's goal should be to achieve something...to accomplish something.
The accomplishments can be small - at least, small to some people - like reading a book every day on a different subject. Creating a miniature model train set. Learning to draw. Creating a garden. And so on.
Or, it can be large - inventing a new piece of equipment that can simplify life for others, Volunteering to visit the aged in nursing homes, or helping disabled kids at Special Olympics, or teaching adults to read...
But those are important goals in life.
And more often than not you can't achieve them unless you set yourself smaller goals each day, goals for the week, goals for the month, goals for the year.
With your mind on important things, and with food reduced to its proper scale of importance in your life, you can get on with your life and enjoy it!
I'm not talking about living your days Religiously, by the way, but religiously.
Set your goals, and then do what you have to do to achieve them. Typically, in order to achieve goals, you have to work on them every day, and when you're not working on them, you have to think about them.
But I'm not talking about losing weight, in this context.
The more you obsess over losing weight, the harder it will be... perhaps not to do so, but to maintain that weight loss once you've finally achieved your desired weight. I've made this analogy before... weight loss (or your nerves) is like a rubber band, stretching further and further. When you achieve the goal, and "release the band" it comes together with a snap, and all of a sudden every precept you'd held on losing weight - eating only small portions, having a treat only once a week, exercising every day - they go out the window and all of a sudden you're eating larger portions and more often, treating yourself twice a day, and not exercising.
And worst of all...you can't stop.
With this sudden "snap", your body - and your subconscious - wants to return to the way it was...and does what it can to achieve that.
Which is why once you achieve your desired weight, you can't stop "cold-turkey." You need to gradually increaes your food portion size, gradually give yourself a treat every other day, and NEVER stop exercising.
(And when I say "treat" - I don't mean to say that prior to this you've cut out treats entirely. The example I use is freshly baked cookies. I can't have freshly baked cookies in the house, they don't last two minutes. But I can have Oreo cookies. I eat two for dessert, they satisfy my chocolate craving, and I don't yearn for more. My "treat" is to go out to a Mrs. Fields Cookies in a mall - once a week, and have one of their freshly baked cookies.)
No, when I say "Purpose Driven" days, I mean something quite different. While eating should be an enjoyable part of your life, your whole life's goal should not be to stay at a healthy weight! No, your life's goal should be to achieve something...to accomplish something.
The accomplishments can be small - at least, small to some people - like reading a book every day on a different subject. Creating a miniature model train set. Learning to draw. Creating a garden. And so on.
Or, it can be large - inventing a new piece of equipment that can simplify life for others, Volunteering to visit the aged in nursing homes, or helping disabled kids at Special Olympics, or teaching adults to read...
But those are important goals in life.
And more often than not you can't achieve them unless you set yourself smaller goals each day, goals for the week, goals for the month, goals for the year.
With your mind on important things, and with food reduced to its proper scale of importance in your life, you can get on with your life and enjoy it!
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Are You Honest in Your Record Keeping?
Whenever I first meet with a client who wants to lose weight, I tell them that the first thing to do is spend a week keeping a journal - in which they write down everything they eat.
I want more than that, of course. The times they eat, how they feel before and after they eat, and so on.
Keeping a detailed journal allows the individual to know themselves - do they overeat because they are hungry all the time...or because they are bored? Or because they are depressed and need comfort food?
Are there any foods they eat that engender cravings, such that they can't stop eating that particular food after a small portion? (Chocolate and salty snacks are the main culprits here...)
But when they, and you, keep this journal (and even after you get started on your new life, you should continue to keep a detailed journal), are you honest about it?
According to 10 Habits That Mess Up a Woman's Diet, there are people who lie...even in private journals to themselves! (Well, I can believe that. Many years ago I caught my mother stepping on a scale. She did not like the amount it told. So what did she do? She adjusted the scale so it read 5 pounds lighter! Well, that's one way of losing weight...)
Losing weight - and maintaiing your new weight once you have achieved it - is a never ending process. I hasten to say it's a process like learning a new skill, learning a new topic, and so on.... it's not something to obsess over and fret about.
Health is the key, not weight.
(Indeed, on that note I've found a new blog I like, called Defiant Athletes. http://liveoncejuicy.com/imperfect-athlete/. These are athletes who are large and in charge, and participate in sports because they love sports, not to lose weight.
I want more than that, of course. The times they eat, how they feel before and after they eat, and so on.
Keeping a detailed journal allows the individual to know themselves - do they overeat because they are hungry all the time...or because they are bored? Or because they are depressed and need comfort food?
Are there any foods they eat that engender cravings, such that they can't stop eating that particular food after a small portion? (Chocolate and salty snacks are the main culprits here...)
But when they, and you, keep this journal (and even after you get started on your new life, you should continue to keep a detailed journal), are you honest about it?
According to 10 Habits That Mess Up a Woman's Diet, there are people who lie...even in private journals to themselves! (Well, I can believe that. Many years ago I caught my mother stepping on a scale. She did not like the amount it told. So what did she do? She adjusted the scale so it read 5 pounds lighter! Well, that's one way of losing weight...)
Losing weight - and maintaiing your new weight once you have achieved it - is a never ending process. I hasten to say it's a process like learning a new skill, learning a new topic, and so on.... it's not something to obsess over and fret about.
Health is the key, not weight.
(Indeed, on that note I've found a new blog I like, called Defiant Athletes. http://liveoncejuicy.com/imperfect-athlete/. These are athletes who are large and in charge, and participate in sports because they love sports, not to lose weight.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
A couple of weird old tips...
I was surfing the web this morning, checking out the lies and truth on weight loss and weight maintenance tht permeate the web, and came across these interesting little tidbits, that I'd never heard before.
Most of the tips on the page were kind of silly, but these two sounded interesting:
I don't know if they'll work...but hey, give 'em a try...not just once, of course. As with anything that you're experimenting with, you need to give it a fair trial. Keep notes of your success, or lack of success, over the course of a week:
1) Are you having a craving for a sugary trick? Break out a vanilla candle (or open up a small bottle of vanilla extract).
2) Add more hot spices or spicy foods to your meals
Spicy foods can reduce your appetite by increasing your body's norepinephrine and epinephrine levels. Canadian researchers found that people who ate appetizers with hot sauce ate 200 less calories than people who did not use hot sauce and... Another study in the British Journal of Nutrition found that women who added 2 teaspoons of dried red pepper on their food ate less calories during the day.
Most of the tips on the page were kind of silly, but these two sounded interesting:
I don't know if they'll work...but hey, give 'em a try...not just once, of course. As with anything that you're experimenting with, you need to give it a fair trial. Keep notes of your success, or lack of success, over the course of a week:
1) Are you having a craving for a sugary trick? Break out a vanilla candle (or open up a small bottle of vanilla extract).
2) Add more hot spices or spicy foods to your meals
Spicy foods can reduce your appetite by increasing your body's norepinephrine and epinephrine levels. Canadian researchers found that people who ate appetizers with hot sauce ate 200 less calories than people who did not use hot sauce and... Another study in the British Journal of Nutrition found that women who added 2 teaspoons of dried red pepper on their food ate less calories during the day.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Beware Email Warnings or Requests For Charity
Well, if a finance blog can give diet tips (or rather, diet guilt tips), I can use a day's posts to warn my readers to not believe the 90% of emails they receive.
If you're like me, you have friends and relatives who send you, and everyone else on their list, emails about cancer-afflicted children who have written poems that they want forwarded to everyone you know (I received this one yesterday) or warnings that your cellphone number is about to be sold to a gazillion advertisers and there's nothing you can do about it. (Received this one about three weeks ago.)
And of course, they are all frauds.
When you receive an email like this, the thing to do is go to your favorite search engine - I use www.google.com, and type the topic in and do a search on it. Usually Snopes.com debunks the warning emails - most of those have been floating around for years, and you'll also find these charity requests debunked on a variety of sites.
It's a pity, really, that there are people out there with so much time on their hands that they try to think up these things and then see how long they have an internet shelf life...all too long, apparently.
So just a tip, if you ever receive a request - especially for a charitable donation - do your research on it first - in particular if it comes from Nigeria! They are all frauds.
If you're like me, you have friends and relatives who send you, and everyone else on their list, emails about cancer-afflicted children who have written poems that they want forwarded to everyone you know (I received this one yesterday) or warnings that your cellphone number is about to be sold to a gazillion advertisers and there's nothing you can do about it. (Received this one about three weeks ago.)
And of course, they are all frauds.
When you receive an email like this, the thing to do is go to your favorite search engine - I use www.google.com, and type the topic in and do a search on it. Usually Snopes.com debunks the warning emails - most of those have been floating around for years, and you'll also find these charity requests debunked on a variety of sites.
It's a pity, really, that there are people out there with so much time on their hands that they try to think up these things and then see how long they have an internet shelf life...all too long, apparently.
So just a tip, if you ever receive a request - especially for a charitable donation - do your research on it first - in particular if it comes from Nigeria! They are all frauds.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
There are no "weird old tricks" or "secrets your doctor doesn't want you to know'
In my daily surfs through the web, I come across those advertising phrases often. "Try this one weird old trick to lose belly fat" or "Lose weight with this secret your doctor doesnt' want you to know."
Such claims are bogus.
I dont' really understand the psychology behind such phrases. Does calling someting a "weird old trick" appeal to teenagers who feel attracted to the words "weird" and "trick"? And are we so distrustful of doctors and the medical profession that we really believe there are "secrets" that they don't want us to know?
Losing weight is common sense. Burn more calories than you consume, and you'll lose weight. There are no tricks to it.
There's only a problem - for a lot of people. There's soooo much food available, and food these days tastes soooo good, and we've got so much free time on our hands because most of us don't have to grub in the dirt for a living.
Losing weight is simple (for those individuals who are healthy and mobile - that's who my advice is directed toward. If you've got chronic illnesses such as diabetes, you'll need to approach things a bit differently) - will power must be developed.
And that's easy if you approach it gradually.
Most diets insist you cut out certain kinds of foods - processed foods, sugars, carbohydrates, fat, and so on and so on. Not necessary. Just eat them in moderation.
Of course if you're unable to moderate...then they must be cut out completely. For myself, that's fresh baked cookies. I can't have them in the house because for all my vaunted willpower, I can't resist them. The whole batch would be gone before two hours had passed. So I confine myself to a couple of Oreo cookies for dessert, which satisfy my chocolate craving but don't "call to me" to come and get more.
You must find foods that you react to the same way.
And of course there's buying for kids. I don't give much advice on how to lose weight while coping with the demands of a family, as I have no kids and am quite happy about it, but I do have a nephew, and see the crap he eats.
Such things as "Fruit rollups" should be abolished. If you want your kid to eat fruit, give him or her an apple, or an orange, or something. Even a blueberry muffin is better than a processed piece of sugar with fruit flavoring called a "fruit rollup."
There are other foods designed for kids which really should not be touched. Indeed, the best thing to do is, if at all possible, don't go shopping with your kids in the cart. They'll see things they want, which you'll either buy, or if you don't buy them they'll cry which will distress the other shoppers!
Tip of the day
Water. Start developing the habit of drinking a glass of water after every meal. A full belly - albeit one full of water - will keep you feelng fuller, longer. Indeed, at night when the cravings call, try to distract your mind by turning to a good book and drinking a glass of water at the same time. The cravings will generally disappear, and you'll be able to go to bed with no hunger pains.
Such claims are bogus.
I dont' really understand the psychology behind such phrases. Does calling someting a "weird old trick" appeal to teenagers who feel attracted to the words "weird" and "trick"? And are we so distrustful of doctors and the medical profession that we really believe there are "secrets" that they don't want us to know?
Losing weight is common sense. Burn more calories than you consume, and you'll lose weight. There are no tricks to it.
There's only a problem - for a lot of people. There's soooo much food available, and food these days tastes soooo good, and we've got so much free time on our hands because most of us don't have to grub in the dirt for a living.
Losing weight is simple (for those individuals who are healthy and mobile - that's who my advice is directed toward. If you've got chronic illnesses such as diabetes, you'll need to approach things a bit differently) - will power must be developed.
And that's easy if you approach it gradually.
Most diets insist you cut out certain kinds of foods - processed foods, sugars, carbohydrates, fat, and so on and so on. Not necessary. Just eat them in moderation.
Of course if you're unable to moderate...then they must be cut out completely. For myself, that's fresh baked cookies. I can't have them in the house because for all my vaunted willpower, I can't resist them. The whole batch would be gone before two hours had passed. So I confine myself to a couple of Oreo cookies for dessert, which satisfy my chocolate craving but don't "call to me" to come and get more.
You must find foods that you react to the same way.
And of course there's buying for kids. I don't give much advice on how to lose weight while coping with the demands of a family, as I have no kids and am quite happy about it, but I do have a nephew, and see the crap he eats.
Such things as "Fruit rollups" should be abolished. If you want your kid to eat fruit, give him or her an apple, or an orange, or something. Even a blueberry muffin is better than a processed piece of sugar with fruit flavoring called a "fruit rollup."
There are other foods designed for kids which really should not be touched. Indeed, the best thing to do is, if at all possible, don't go shopping with your kids in the cart. They'll see things they want, which you'll either buy, or if you don't buy them they'll cry which will distress the other shoppers!
Tip of the day
Water. Start developing the habit of drinking a glass of water after every meal. A full belly - albeit one full of water - will keep you feelng fuller, longer. Indeed, at night when the cravings call, try to distract your mind by turning to a good book and drinking a glass of water at the same time. The cravings will generally disappear, and you'll be able to go to bed with no hunger pains.
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