Archive for Weightloss
Snack Smart For the Mom On The Go
Posted by: | CommentsAs busy moms we are always on the go which means we often ignore our hunger pains until we are starving. Then we overeat! 
Studies show if you add a snack between each meal you will eat less calories overall in the day. A simple way to get your snacks in is to pre-pack them when you make your kids lunch. I also keep a couple of dried snacks in the car for those days that you’re out all day.
Keep your snack portions small around 200 to 300 calories and choose healthy, nutrient dense food.
Here are some suggestions:
1. Pair a piece of fruit with peanut butter, cottage cheese or a slice of deli meat
2. Pair raw or slightly cooked vegetables with a slice of cheese or lean meat
3. Mix a high fiber cereal such as Kashi GoLean Crunch with dried fruit or on its own.
4. Low fat or full fat yogurt
5. Mix dried fruit with just a bit of nuts
How To Quit The Clean Plate Club
Posted by: | CommentsHello Moms!
I ran into a friend who mentioned to me how she’d love to figure out how to stop eating until she’s full. I know many of us including myself were raised to eat everything on our plate because there was a child out there who was starving. I was a stubborn child and a picky eater and spent many nights eating in the dark. Now as moms we want to kick that habit because we are storing more of those calories in our hips and thighs than burning them off as we did as children. .
Here are a couple of tips to help you kick the habit:
1. Slow down when you eat it’s not a race. Then you can listen to your body and notice when your satisfied and before you get full.
2. Trick your mind into eating less by serving your food on a smaller plate.
3. Drink water throughout your meal, so you will feel fuller while eating less calories
Eventually as you make a habit of eating a little less you will notice that you will feel fuller on less food.
5 Tricks To Keep You Exercising
Posted by: | CommentsNow that it’s spring although in some places it may not feel that way, our thoughts often turn toward having a summer ready body. Here are some tips to help you get the body you want.
1. Look at exercise differently
All movement is exercise. The gym isn’t the only place to exercise and not having to shower doesn’t mean you didn’t exercise or that you have to exercise for thirty minutes or it doesn’t count. Look at exercise as movement, so a brisk fifteen minute walk; walking up several flights of stairs or doing some pushups all count for exercise.
2. Think small
When you don’t have the time to exercise for thirty minutes don’t throw in the towel. Do what you can and just a little bit of exercise will keep you from feeling like you failed and keep you moving forward.
3. Get off the beaten path
Try something new. Learning a new activity is energizing and fun. Here are some suggestions, bowling, dancing, hiking, snow shoeing, skating and so on.
4. Get a buddy
Studies show that having a friend to exercise with increases the likelihood that you will stick with exercise for the long term. If you can’t find someone to exercise with find a coach or an accountability partner who will check in on you and you can report your progress.
5. Set a goal
Challenge yourself by committing to a bike race, a walkathon, or something small like I will run a mile in 12 minutes by the end of the month. Setting your sights on something ahead and having a buddy or coach will keep you motivated.
Lose Weight Eat Fats and Carbs
Posted by: | CommentsFats and carbohydrates are not all bad. In fact we need them to lose weight. There’s a lot of information in the media, magazines and books that tout that we need to stop eating fats or cut out carbohydrates or do both to lose weight. You will initially lose weight but you will have very low energy, feel bad and ultimately you will not be able to sustain the weightloss. So let’s take a look at what fats and carbohydrates are and why they are so important to a balanced and healthy weightloss plan.
We need fats for energy but it has an even more important role in fat soluble vitamins and the cushioning of our organs. There are several different types of fat; polyunsatuated fats and monounsaturated fats.
You should get most of your limited fat intake from polyunsaturated fats (as in liquid corn oil or soybean oil) and monounsaturated fats (in olive oil, avocados, and nuts). Limit saturated fats (beef, pork, veal, butter, shortening, and cheese). So good fats come from vegetables and cold water fish such as salmon and fats from animals are what you want to limit.
You also want to avoid transfats (hydrogenated fats) which are found in stick margarine and in many processed foods such as crackers and cookies. Transfats are now shown on the nutrition labels found on most packaged foods.
Transfats is a man made product and was created as an healthier alternative to butter which is a saturated fat that you want to limit but unfortunately transfats do more harm than saturated fats. So it’s actually better to have butter, then a cookie that has transfats in it.
Vegetable shortening such as Crisco is another man made fat that was meant to be a healthier alternative than pork lard, but you’re better off eating lard than vegetable shortening
Despite all of our technology voodoo we can’t improve on mother nature. My philosophy is to eat less processed foods and more natural foods that haven’t been altered.
So now let’s take a look at carbohydrates they give us the most energy. Unfortunately it’s gotten a bad rap, with the Atkins diets, and the media perpetuating that carbohydrates are something we should limit.
There are two types of carbohydrates – complex carbohydrates and simple sugars. The simple sugars are found in confectionery, cakes and biscuits, cereals, puddings, soft drinks and juices. These are the carbohydrates that you want to limit somewhat. Now complex carbohydrates are found in potatoes, rice, bread, wholegrain cereals, semi skimmed milk, yoghurt, fruit, vegetables, beans. You want to eat more of these complex carbohydrates than simple sugar carbohydrates. Complex carbohydrates are the ones that have all the vitamins and minerals compared to simple sugar carbohydrates which have very little and are what I call empty calories. . Also complex carbohydrates are low in fat as long as you don’t slap on loads of butter and fatty sauces.
To recap fats from non animal sources such as olive oil, sunflower oil and corn oil and cold water fish such as salmon are the healthier fats. Complex carbohydrates such as wholegrain cereals and breads, rice, pasta, fruits and vegetables have the most nutrition. Eating a moderate amount of these fats and carbohydrates will keep your energy up and your metabolism running on high to lose weight rather than totally excluding fat or carbohydrates which will result in very little weight loss and a sluggish metabolism.
Take a Different Approach
Posted by: | CommentsI had a wonderful conversation with one of my clients who is attending my Jump Start Your Wellness Group Coaching class. She wanted to lose weight and incorporate exercise back into her life. She said upfront that she felt she had a good diet, and didn’t eat junk food. She also was not going to eat chicken breast to lose weight! This client is a foodie and had taken many culinary classes and “bland chicken breast” was not going to touch her lips. Also, she had many self imposed restrictions on when and what she would do in the exercise area, which made it difficult to fit in any exercise.
Not to toot my horn too much but fast forward four weeks into my Jump Start Your Wellness Program. She has incorporated exercise into her life several days a week and is now eating chicken breast. Now, chicken breast isn’t a requirement for losing weight but it is a great source of lean protein. She was able to take
a different approach with her exercise and diet that worked for her. She is now making tasty skinless boneless chicken breast meals that she’s enjoying. She also realized that even thought she doesn’t eat junk food her regular visits to the “all you can eat” restaurants was packing on the extra pounds so she cut back on those visits.
She also realized that she didn’t have to go to the gym to get fit, so she cancelled her gym membership. Heck, she hadn’t seen the inside of her gym for at least a year and hadn’t gone regularly for almost three years. She now wakes up every morning and does pushups and crunches and works out with a friend several times a week at home and outdoors.
She use to be a gym rat in her 30’s and was always working toward that “perfect body”. Looking back she realized that she was never satisfied with herself. Now that she’s in her 40’s and a mom of preteen she’s not striving for perfection or to look like someone else but now wants to feel healthier, have more energy for herself and not for anyone else.
Choose your own path or create a new one!
We often have preconceived notions that we must eat certain foods to lose weight, or go to the gym to get fit. Instead, do what you enjoy whether that’s going for walks or dancing or eating the dark meat of chicken (it’s better than frying it). Your likelihood of making permanent changes is much greater when you do something you like! Makes sense right? Also, start out by taking baby steps when you decide to go on a diet or start exercising. In the excitement of it all we tend to bite off more than we can chew then we get down on ourselves and quit when we don’t follow thru. Initially, make small changes consistently for several weeks, and then you can tweak it a little more as you get use to your new routine or eating habits. Remember to celebrate every accomplishment no matter how small it is!
Going on vacation? Don’t throw out your diet.
Posted by: | CommentsI’m on day seven of a ten day vacation in Nuevo Vallarta. I’m here with my younger sister, husband and three year old son.
We’ve gone on several tourist excursions ranging from swimming with dolphins to an island excursion on a pirate ship for an entire day. It is not an easy thing for me to enter into water above my waist with confidence, but I put aside my anxiety for the good of the experience and showed no fear for fear that it would instill fear in my young son. In the end it was a lifelong experience that will be fondly recalled in years to come.
However the pirate tour was not without its issues. The entire ship down to the toilet stalls were themed in pirate regalia that would make any Long John Silver shudder with glee. This I can tell you, can be downright frightening to most 3 year old children, as they cannot rationalize the idea of why there is a six foot tall fiberglass facade of a human skull looming over the toilet. It took some explanation, time and understanding coupled with the increasing pressure in ones bladder that we were eventually able to coax him into the bathroom… with his eyes closed tight of course. It also helped that there was a bribe (I mean a purchase) of a souvenir eye patch to further grease the skids towards the bathroom break.
Living in the Seattle area means there are very few good Mexican restaurants like the one’s in Southern California where I previously lived. So in Nuevo Vallarta it was guacomole and seafood heaven for me. I especially love when guacomole is made fresh at my table with salt and fresh pico de gallo and live mariachi music!
Being on vacation fills our lives with wonderful experiences but when we return home and step on the scale all of our happy thoughts can vanish in a moment if the numbers reflect a few too many indulgences.
I want to enjoy my vacation but I also don’t want to come back heavier; And for those who are on a diet and who decide to go on a vacation, I know it can be emotionally tough to decide how to approach your vacation. Either you decide to go off your diet and risk certain weight gain, or be miserable on vacation while you do your best to stick to your diet.
I’m here to tell you there is another way. Change your focus while your’e on vacation to maintaining your weight rather than losing weight. Wouldn’t it be awesome to not gain weight?!
By maintaining your weight you can enjoy your vacation and indulge some without feeling guilty and deprived. Here are some suggestions on how to go about this.
1. Eat until your satisfied rather than full.
2. Pick one meal a day where you will indulge and the other meals eat a little less and healthier.
3. If you enjoy drinking alcohol try drinking one glass of water for every drink. You will feel fuller sooner and drink less in calories.
4. Most importantly, be mindfull of what your eating and how much. What I mean by this is to be aware of what you are doing. Are you eating when your not really hungry but everyone else is? Are you eating to reward yourself? The vacation and all of the new experiences should be your reward. Enjoy the time with your family and friends. Let your focus be less about the food and more about great conversations.
5. Stay positive you have it in you to control how much you eat and what you eat. If you’re feeling deprived then have what ever it is. If you don’t you will most likely feel miserable and punish yourself by eating even more than usual at your next meal.
6. Stay active. Go for walks, swim or do whatever else is fun to burn those extra calories.
I hope this has been helpful. I’ll give an update when we return home.
