Starting to Think About Thanksgiving

It is time to start thinking about Thanksgiving and what you are going to prepare and eat for this wonderful holiday. Some things you should do to start thinking about having a healthy holiday are:

Start making a game plan for the day - what will you eat during the day? when will you fit in your exercise?

How much will you eat at your Thanksgiving meal - will you eat a small breakfast and lunch before as to not overindulge?

What are those special foods that you will eat at this meal - are there 1 or 2 dishes that you love and only have once a year such as pumpkin pie or sweet potatoes with marshmallows? Will you enjoy a small serving of these foods? What foods can you pass on?

Are there foods that make better leftovers - what can you pass on today and eat tomorrow because sometimes leftovers just taste better and this can help you from really over eating.

Will you be the host to have control over the foods prepared or are you the guest who can bring a healthy dish or two for you and the rest of the guests?

Remember that this is just one day of the year so if you do overindulge you know you can get right back on track the next day.

What are some tips you have to help you have a Happy Thanksgiving?

Lose that Last 5 Pounds

I was speaking to a large group of people this weekend and one thing I heard from a few attendees was that they were “stuck” trying to lose that last 5 pounds.

If this sounds like you and you need a little push to get the weight loss started again I have a few suggestions for you:

1. Write down your daily meal plan. Take a look to see if you’ve been sneaking a few “extras” in there subconsciously throughout the day. They can really add up over time…

2. I would also see if you can add just 10 more minutes to your workouts. I’m not asking you to put another hour or entire day in at the gym, but rather a few more minutes of high quality work.

3. Relax. Find a way to reduce inflammation and acidity in your body by destressing. You may take a nightly walk or even a yoga class to unwind. A lot of times when you’re stuck trying to lose weight it has to do with your body refusing to lose any more weight because of what is going on internally. Learn to breathe and relax.

I hope these 3 quick tips help and definitely let me know if you have any other suggestions or successes to share!

Address Emotional Eating and Lose Weight

I know this may sound cliche (and maybe just too easy) but one thing I have always suggested for emotional eaters is to journal feelings. I suggest it because those who do it are much more successful  mastering their emotional eating! Negative feelings frequently occur because specific needs are not  being appropriately met. By making this self-realization a person can gain more control over any kind of emotional eating (stress, frustration, boredom, anger, etc.)

When you truly understand what you are feeling through writing  you might also also note any patterns that might occur. For example do you find you always eat when you are overwhelmed and stressed? How can you get your needs met better or how can you diffuse the stress in an appropriate way? Do you find that you always eat in specific situations with certain people? By exploring these things in a food diary and/or along with your feelings you can figure things out and take some steps to actively change your eating behaviors.

For more direction with emotional eating and writing you might try reading the Writing Diet: Write Yourself Right-Size by Julia Cameron. She's got some  inspiring insights of what others have discovered and some specific writing techniques which ultimately helped them overcome emotional eating.

The bottom line is if you self-sabotage your dieting efforts because of any kind of emotional eating you need to address the feeling behind the eating regardless of how you find the correlation.

3 Progressive Ab Exercises

Today I want to safely guide you through 3 different exercises you can do to strengthen your abs and core before moving on to traditional crunches.

A good example of a level one exercise to master is the "plank." It's a powerful static exercise to engage your entire mid-section and tighten your waistline.

After you master the plank I would move onto an exercise called a "chop." This adds a little bit more of a dynamic movement where you're resisting rotation and as a result strengthening your core.

Once you master both of those you can try a more challenging traditional ab exercise called "reverse crunch" or leg lift.

Although I don't believe you need to do crunches or sit-ups to get great abs you should be more balanced through your core and lower back after mastering the previous 3 exercises and will now be more equipped to safely handle these types of crunching movements.

Eating Slowly Can Help With Weight Loss

Perhaps you've heard that eating more slowly can help with weight loss. Here's why: When food enters digestive tract, hormones are released by the gut. These hormones signal the brain that we are full.  But this process takes time.  When you eat too quickly, by the time your brain gets the signal that you are satisfied, you've eaten way more calories than you actually need. Excess calories lead to weight gain. 

A study in an upcoming issue of Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism demonstrates this effect. The researchers found that people who took 30 minutes to finish a serving of ice cream had higher levels of certain gut hormones and tended to feel fuller than those who ate the same size serving more quickly.

Eating more slowly can allow you to reduce your caloric intake but still leave the table feeling satisfied.  It can be hard to slow down in such a fast paced society, but here are some tips to help you slow down:

Don't eat in front of the TV, computer, or while reading

Set up an environment where you feel relaxed while eating

Put your fork down between bites

Chew your food completely

Don't eat in the car or on the run

What tips do you have to help slow down eating?

Success in Weight Loss is a Mindset

Wouldn’t it be great if you realized that the very obstacles you seem to face are merely created in your mind rather than being real? When you view something with self-doubt rather than the “I can” attitude full of faith and conviction you will succeed. So replace doubt and fear with a strong conviction of certainty and you will succeed. You give away your own power to the food rather than realizing your mind can be stronger. So no matter where you are in your weight loss, rethink it,  start today with a different strong life force of real faith of self encouragement, belief, and trust in yourself that this time you will make it.

But  just how do you do it? Face the challenges head on, step by step, day by day, challenge by challenge and get help if you need to. So even if the upcoming holidays seem so full of temptations  remember you really can be successful. Act as if failure really is impossible because it is if you believe that.

“Act as if failure is impossible, and your success will be assured. Wipe out every thought of your not achieving your objective, be brave and set no limits on the workings of your imaginations. Never be a prisoner of your past, Become the architect of your future…and you will see that nothing can stop you.”  - Author unknown

Don't Just Work Your Abs!

I know you want to work your mid-section to flatten your stomach, but did you know all those ab exercises can be bad for your back?

Every time you do a sit-up or crunch you are flexing your spine and potentially putting your back at risk. This doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t work you abs, but there is a right way to do it to stay safe.

One tip I like to give my clients is to choose an abdominal exercise to complete first and then immediately follow it up with a lower back exercise. That way there you will strengthen both the front and back of your mid-section and create a healthier and stronger core.

In my next post I'll show you 3 ab exercises to work your way up safely from beginner to advanced!

Bridging Workout for Your Glutes

In my last post I explained how to do a static bridge to strengthen your glutes and posterior chain muscles and today I want to give you a few variations on how to do that exercise:

Static Bridging:
• Hold for 30-60 seconds
• Rest for 60 seconds and repeat 1-2 more times

Dynamic Bridging:
• Lift your hips off the floor and then lower them to 1 inch above the floor completing 10-15 “up and down” repetitions
• Rest for 60 seconds and repeat 1-2 more times

Dynamic Ball Bridging:
• You can use the same form and technique as the static or dynamic bridge except you are keeping a stability ball under your shoulders and head while completing the exercise
• Complete either variation on the ball and then rest for 60 seconds and repeat 1-2 more times
• You can keep your arms by your sides, overhead, or folded across your chest

Enjoy the bridging workouts and feel free to add them to any warm-up or use them at the end of a workout when you’re exercising your ab and core muscles!

A Cookie Diet...Really?!?

Yes it is true that there is a cookie diet. Actually, there are a few companies that are producing this diet which allows participants to eat 6 cookies a day plus one "real meal" which consists of vegetables and chicken.

Can you lose weight on this diet? Well, yes...and that is because you'd be consuming anywhere from 800-1000 calories a day. Those low numbers would help anyone lose weight placing this diet into another one of our culture's quick fixes for losing weight. It also helps "legalize" the cookie which is usually a forbidden food on most diet plans.

Critics of the diet don't feel this is a good way to go because when you cut calories below 1,000 calories day you can have potassium deficiency, gallstones, heart palpitations and other health issues and it never leads to long lasting weight loss.

I am in agreement with these critics. Eating cookies is not teaching healthy eating habits. It is a quick fix and will not help keep the weight off long term which is the goal of weight loss. Instead of investing in a cookie diet use the tips from ND to help you with weight loss - keep a food diary, reduce the amount of processed foods you eat, eat more fruits and vegetables, and don't forget to exercise.

Dirty Little Secrets that Restaurants Hide

I’ve never been a fan of pushing dining out whether in regular restaurants or fast foods but now I’m convinced it’s a downright conspiracy to keep American overweight and unhealthy. In fact the writers of Eat This Not That have started confronting some local chains.  I applaud their efforts to let the public see things as they really are. Here’s just one of many dirty little secrets they found:

“Maggiano's Little Italy doesn't want you to know just how many calories and carbs you're consuming in those massive pasta portions. (As the menu puts it, "Family-style service or individual entrees are available ... Whichever you choose, you'll have plenty to share or take home.") Note In Italy, a standard pasta serving means 4 ounces of noodles with a few tablespoons of sauce. At Maggiano’s, a large order of pasta translates into two pounds of noodles piled high on a hubcap-size dinner plate (15 inches in diameter). A PR rep responded to our request for nutritional information a week later: "Sorry for the delay, I had to wait for corporate approval. Unfortunately, they have declined to participate." - "July 2008 Update: With no New York City locations, Maggiano's is still hiding from us — and you. But we're still watching.”

Do read more dirty little secrets that have been discovered here.  I'm sure there are numerous other resturants besides the ones discovered here doing similar things. These examples are exactly why the public needs to have the nutritional information boldly posted. Ignorance certainly is not bliss when it comes to our health.