Holiday Eating

Happy Holidays Everyone,

I hope that everyone is enjoying the holiday season. I wanted to give you a few of my personal tips to make it through the holidays without gaining a ton of weight! These are my favorites and they work for me.

1. Do not deny yourself when you go to a party. Denial leads to sneaking later on. I have been to many holiday celebrations this year already and have noticed that I eat more than everyone else. I take a serving of each thing I like, skip the items I can get other times of the year, skip desserts I do not love and eat a generous portion of any fruits and veggies that are at celebrations! My plate is always full and I leave full but not stuffed. I never feel the need to go home and pig out because I've denied myself. I totally enjoy party foods!

2. Keep self-talk under control. When I come home from a party I do not berate myself for indulging in party foods. You must keep your thoughts under control as I believe most overeating starts with poor thoughts of yourself and beating yourself up.

3. Practice healthy eating for meals in between your parties. This is where the difficulty comes in. Yesterday, I went to a ladies brunch with amazing treats and also a pizza party in the evening. Quite a caloric day for me. I noticed this morning that my regular breakfast of Trader Joe's High Fiber cereal did not sound appealing. My brain was telling me that a scone, bran muffin or bread pudding would taste wonderful (my previous day's brunch). I was mulling over what I could eat. I do not have a house with junk food in it. Therefore, my choices were to eat my regular cereal or bake something. I am lazy so ate my cereal. It is very important during the holidays to keep your house clear of foods that call your name. I had to sit myself down this morning and practice some great self-talk about staying within my eating boundaries. I planned out my breakfast and lunch. They will be very healthy to make up for yesterday. 

4. Take something healthy to your holiday celebrations. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, you will have something healthy to eat at the party. I took fresh pineapple and mascarpone cheese to my brunch. Everyone loved it and it was the only healthy food at the brunch. The second reason is that you will bring home healthy leftovers. If I had taken a gooey cinnamon roll creation to my brunch (my second choice), I would have eaten it again today when my brain was rebelling against healthy eating this morning. I will eat my leftover pineapple with a tuna salad for lunch!

5. Keep your home baking under control or bake and give it away. I baked four types of Christmas cookies last week for a party. I had tons of leftovers. I plated them immediately and passed them on to my neighbors. They loved them and I had the cookies out of my house! I will bake a couple of types of cookies right before Christmas but not my usual splurge. I know that if I bake variety, I will not be satisfied with a couple of cookies but will want one of each type. Keep your baking to a minimum!

It is possible to party and keep your weight under control during the holidays! It does take some planning and great self talk though! 

Transparency

Hey Everyone,
Transparency is something that has been on my mind for the last few weeks. I am a leader with a Young Life Capernaum group of young adults. Capernaum works with students and young adults that are differently-abled. Many of them have become some of my very best friends. What I love about them is their insight and that they do not make life complicated, as I often do. It is so refreshing to me! I love their transparency! When they are struggling at work, they'll call and say "Hey, I am struggling at work and yelled at my boss today." When they are worried about their family Christmas party, they might say, "I am so nervous about the drama that revolves around Christmas at my house when the family gets together!" I love this transparency!

Most of us would admit that we are not transparent. The last thing we want to admit is our struggles. I have seen from my friends that facing your struggles and asking for help is not a bad way to live. When problems and struggles come during the holiday season, try reaching out to one of your friends or family and talking it out rather than reaching for food. Food is a temporary way to sooth your hurts and does not work long term. We all know this, yet we still try to eat to satisfy our emotions with food.

Join me during the holidays in practicing transparency with your friends and family. I have seen that most of my problems are not as big as I have made them in mind, when I share them with others. Sometimes a hug from a friend feels a whole lot better than eating lots of tortilla chips (my ultimate love/hate food). No guilt and shame but love and acceptance!

Blessings for the Holiday Season!

Kerry

Lifestyle Changes

Most of us with a weight problem have gained weight slowly over the years. If you gained 10 pounds this year, you have overeaten 100 calories per day. This is not a lot of food. The notion going around is that you must mindfully eat. Such a small error in your eating caused this weight gain so you must count your calories carefully each day. There are many websites set up to help you keep track of every single thing that you eat. You must not diet because we all know that dieting does not work, but somehow magically get all of your habits, emotional eating and overindulging under control. This is exhausting!

What if you looked at your ten pound yearly weight gain in a different light and thought, "I am only overeating 100 calories per day and this is not a lot of food. I do not need to change my entire life and count every single calorie that goes into my mouth." What if you chose 3 areas of your eating and cleaned them up a bit. Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating encourages people to do this. Choose three habits or areas in your eating life that you can clean up. You might substitute an Americano for your latte and save over 200 calories a day. You might use light margarine on your toast and save 100 calories per day. If you keep a food journal for a week, you will begin to see many areas where a few changes can be made that will result in many calorie savings.

If you can decrease 500 calories per day, you should lose one pound per week fairly effortlessly! That would be 50 lost pounds in a year. Wow!

A lifestyle change does not mean that you must mindfully eat all of the time. It means that you will clean up a few of your major trouble spots and add more healthy foods in their place. Does it mean you will not ever eat a dessert again. No, but you might cut your quantity in half. Those giant Costco pies are not meant to be cut into eighths but into sixteenths. Relearn your portions, make some simple personal changes daily, and add a few more veggies into your meals. You might be surprised that some simple changes can add up to a huge weight loss with little effort!!!

Easy Tips for Cooking Light on Thanksgiving

I am not in favor of trying to limit what I eat at Thanksgiving but I do not want to gain weight. There are some easy steps to make this meal less caloric and just as enjoyable!

1. Cook a fresh turkey breast

2. Saute the veggies for your dressing in fat free chicken or veggie broth rather than a stick of butter. If you are making corn bread dressing decrease the fat by half in your corn bread.

3. Cook fresh green beans in a tad of olive oil rather than the fried onion green bean casserole.

4. Cook a low starch veggie rather than peas or corn. (Enough starch with the potatoes and dressing).

5. Make a sugar free jello with fresh fruit.

6. Make a fresh fruit salad or a fresh veggie salad.

7. Skip bread

8. Add a bit of neufatel cream cheese to the potatoes rather than gobs of butter.

9. Purchase Costco turkey gravy which is lower calorie than making your own where it is hard to control the fat. Go lightly on the gravy.

10. Make a lower fat pumpkin dessert. You could make a pumpkin mousse or cheesecake in ramekins and ditch the crust which is loaded in calories.

Join me in giving Thanks without feeling a load of guilt. Blessings!

Thanksgiving is Not the Beginning of the Fall

Greetings Everyone,

I know this is a busy day as we prepare for the next 6 weeks of holiday chaos and craziness! First comes Thanksgiving and great food to be thankful for. Then we try to squeeze in as many December parties as we can before Christmas. We finish our splurging with the New Year and perhaps a great Superbowl party. Unfortunately by this time most of us can't squeeze into our pants and are hit with the winter blues! If this cycle sounds familiar, taking a few minutes today can change your outcome. Is there any hope of breaking the cycle and if so what can you do?

1. Remember to stick to the basics and plan. If you are trying to eat 1700 calories a day, stick with your preplanned meals. You know you are going to be eating some extra foods so plan for these. Do not grab hold of the mentality that says "Oh well. I am going to go to a party so I should binge all day. Remember it is about eating right 80% of the time and sane 100% of the time.
2. Try to make your Thanksgiving less about heavy carbs. Add some fresh salads or veggies. Observe the half plate rule that says half of your plate should be salads and veggies. Have the mashed potatoes and dressing but in smaller quantities. Who really needs bread when you have potatoes and dressing so skip bread. Maybe ditch the pre-dinner binge that could be 1000's of calories. You know all of those chips and dip and pistachios you sneak in!
3. Keep eating your regular high fiber breakfast and fruit. It is so easy to go hog wild and add in a cinnamon roll here and there. Try not to do this. They may taste great for a few minutes but the after effects last a long time. They are not worth it. Try making a new egg scramble with fresh veggies or a baked egg casserole with veggies for your special occasions. They are delicious and you will feel a lot better than the weakness brought on by a sugar high.
4. Purchase healthy fruits and veggies for grab and go foods and keep the baking to a minimum. Remember that you can't very easily eat what is not in your cupboard. Cookies are very caloric especially since we tend to grab a couple each time we pass the kitchen. You might actually find you do better having a small piece of pie to satisfy your sweet tooth because you do not crave tons of pie but you crave one of each cookie and since you baked 10 kinds....oops!
5. Do not skip meals. People who eat more meals per day eat less calories by the end of the day. Make sure your meals are very healthy. Most of us do eat more junk food during this time so if you really make your home meals healthy this can help balance out the parties. Keep your processed carbs to a minimum. Go hog wild on veggie soups, chilies, veggies and low fat proteins and skip the dips/chips and the snack foods that are so filled with calories and leave you feeling bloated.
6. The holidays can be a very emotional time for many people. It is important to be aware of times that you are eating for emotional reasons rather than hunger and plan some strategies for eliminating emotional eating. Maybe you can find a friend to call on a regular basis to talk to about your struggles. Food can not fill the hole in your heart that is hurting. As you become more aware of the times you emotionally eat you will be able to avoid those situations or develop other ways to feel better.

Life as a healthy person is about balance. People who are a healthy weight have learned how to add in a few treats and balance that with mostly healthy eating. It starts in your mind first. It is something you must plan for and arrange your life around. Eating is a pleasure and to be enjoyed, so go for it these holidays in a preplanned small way. If you make careful choices you will easily squeeze into your jeans in January. Yeah!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Halloween Tips

Greetings Ladies! It is that time of year again when we begin to plan our holiday eating rituals. We hope that we will not gain any weight!  Lets be proactive this year so we will not begin 2011 in "Scale Shock!" Is there really anything that we can do?

Here are a few tips for Halloween:

1. Do not buy Halloween candy early. It will not last until Halloween. Buy your candy right before Halloween, and do not open it until the first trick or treater arrives. This from someone who has already eaten two bags of candy corn! YIKES!

2. Do not buy your favorite candy. Who can resist Butterfingers, but who is tempted by Twizzlers! Just not the same!

3. Only buy the amount of candy that you will actually need. Do not buy the "Costco bag" if you only have 10 trick or treaters usually.

4. If you have "accidentally" bought too much (right), then throw it away the next day! This is expensive but the expense of gaining weight is greater. Do not send your extra Halloween candy to your adult children, because you can't throw away candy. My mother actually has done this in the past!

5. Hand out candy to your kids, but buy yourself one adult size candy treat that you love. It is better to allow yourself a nice treat like a full size butterfinger than to sneak a few (ok 10) mini butterfingers that add up to many more calories. Know what you eat and plan to include that treat that day. No one is encouraging denial here!

6. Be boring and healthy and hand out a healthy treat. This year I have purchased "100 calorie snack packs of "craisins", which I will be handing out. If there are leftovers that is great. We will use them on our cereal! All of that groaning is my husband and son complaining that we do not have real candy!

Halloween begins the season of open eating. Lets be proactive this year. I heard a quote this year that I love. Eat great 80% of the time and sane 100% of the time. Let's be sane this year people and avoid "Scale Shock" in January!

Diets Do Not Work

Everywhere I go people ask me for "Diet Advice." Diets do not work because they slow your metabolism down and you will most likely gain the weight right back. Making small changes permanently does work. If you can simply cut out 500 calories a day from your diet, you will lose 52 pounds this year. Wouldn't that be amazing! Here is a sample of what you could do to cut out a few hundred calories per day without dieting.

1. Cut out one soda a day and drink water with a lemon or lime slice. (150 calories saved)

2. Use mustard rather than mayo or sauce on your sandwich. (100 or more calories saved)

3. Remove the skin from your chicken for lunch or dinner. (100 or more calories saved)

4. Use a low calorie salad dressing or lemon on your salad. (100 or many more calories saved)

5. Do not put cheese on your lunch sandwich but extra veggies. (150 to 200 calories saved)

6. Skip juice in the morning. (100 calories saved)

7. Exchange regular butter or marg. for light ones. (50 calories per Tablespoon saved)

8. Substitute an Americano for your favorite coffee extravaganza! (200 to 600 calories saved)

Calories can add up quickly if you are not paying attention. Start looking for ways to make some permanent changes and these changes can add up to weight loss. Happy Reducing!

Manage Your Life

Still trying to "Lose Weight?" It's June and we are almost halfway through the year. Are you where you want to be weight wise? If not consider some changes:

1. Avoid and Learn to Manage your Stress. Many of us use food as a stress reliever for initial stress relief but unfortunately the long term effects of overeating cause us poor health and more stress as our weight increases. Take the time develop ways to combat your stress. This could be asking for help, calling friends, taking a walk, getting more sleep, prayer or meditation, and most of all knowing your limits or as we call it in our family-living in the real world. Be honest with yourself and make those changes.

2. Begin to make "Food Policies" that work for you. There is no "One Plan Works for All." You must look at your life and evaluate the areas that are causing you to fail and make some rational policies that you will follow. Some of your food policies might look like:

a. Each family member scrapes their plate into the trash so you will not pick while doing the dishes. Remember 5 extra bites daily can add 15 pounds this year.

b. Dessert will be an eat out affair and not something you purchase at home and eat daily. Try McDonalds soft serve cone (150 calories) rather than buying the carton of ice cream and eating it daily or in a huge quantity.

c. Only eat half of a take out meal and save the rest for lunch the next day.

Basically ladies, losing weight is a mind game. We must connect our minds when it comes to eating rather than existing in auto pilot and not thinking about what we eat. You Can Do It!!!

Simple Website to Help

Happy Monday Everyone,

I have had this website for awhile and I really like it. It is very simple to use and not done by a company, just by a guy wanting to help others. Check it out: http://www.weightcommander2.com/d7/startingweight2.php?flag=9&userid=10401114

He has a points counter, carbohydrate counter, calorie counter and a place for you to journal, graphing to keep track of your weight, food tips and recipes that he has found helpful, and many more helps, including a message center that seems very friendly. Hope that this helps. Have a great week! Kerry

Going to a Fancy Tea! What to Eat?

Well Ladies,

Today I am going to a fancy tea put on by my church. I have helped with the preparation and I know our event today will include: Moroccan chicken salad, spinach and artichoke tarts, celery flagship boats, lemon bars, a muffin, fudge, and the list goes on. Everything I saw being prepared was high in calories and decadent! I have been watching my diet because I want to lose the 5 pounds I put on over winter. What should I do? Should I watch what I eat or should I simply enjoy the day and eat what is placed before me? This is a question that I am always asked by clients who want to know the secret of not eating while attending special events like weddings.

I believe that life is about balance. Diets do not work because we must deny ourselves and life is full of fun events that include food. To be successful we must learn to eat properly most of the time. This goes against our all or nothing thinking which says that if I am trying to diet, then I must never make a mistake or it is the end of the world and I may as well eat everything in sight because I have blown it already. That is the thinking that we must delete.

You have permission to go to special events and enjoy the food without guilt. The key is to continue to eat well the rest of the time. I am eating a healthy breakfast and I will eat a healthy dinner. I will eat all of the tea selections and chat away with my lady friends about how wonderful everything is. I may even go for a walk afterward. But I will feel no guilt, only the joy of this special day.

Ladies, we must learn how to include special eating events into their lives to be successful with weight control because it does not feel good to deny ourselves always. So go to your spring and summer weddings and special events and quit looking for ways to not eat the cake! Enjoy those special events without guilt and continue eating healthy most of the time.

I am off to my "Passport Around the World Tea"!!!

Kerry

Great article on Yahoo!

I read a great article on Yahoo today written by Deborah Kotz and it's a great review of simple ideas to keep your weight off. Her article is about the tie between weight gain and breast cancer. She lets us know that most of us gain a pound or two each year after age 20 so by the time we are 50, 2/3's of us are overweight and more prone to heart disease, pre-diabetes and breast cancer. SCARY! What can we do?

1. Cut back on Calories. Each decade after age 30 our metabolism slows down by 5 to 7% so by the time we are fifty we need to be eating 300 to 500 less calories than we could at age 20. NOT FAIR! Ladies this is not many calories. There are so many small ways that we can cut this amount of food out of your diets that you will never notice. The fix could be as simple as substituting an Americano for your Latte. Look for ways to make small changes that you will never notice. These small changes will add up to a big payoff. For every 500 calories that you delete daily, you will lose 10 pounds in a year. That is huge!!!! You do not need to go on an all or nothing diet. Just eat what you love and clean up your diet by adding more veggies.

2. Sweat, sweat,sweat! She says that those that work out an hour a day remain thin. This can be walking also. I recently joined a line dance class at the senior center even though I am technically not old enough to be there (haha). In our class of 20 to 30 women hardly anyone is overweight. Why is this? Simple. If you stay active you will keep your weight off. This does not mean you need to sweat at the gym. Join some fun active classes. I have met so many nice ladies and line dancing is a total blast and a pretty good workout! Have fun!!!

3. Lift weights. We all know that muscle burns more calories than fat. So either get some weights and work at home or join a gym and get started.

4. Get enough sleep. Most of us fail here but it is super important. When you do not sleep enough you mess up your bodies ability to regulate your hunger hormones. Take note next time you have a difficult time sleeping and you will notice you are starving the next day no matter how much you eat! This is more difficult as we age but work to keep your sleep under control. Visit your doctor if you can't do it as there are many helps that do not require medication. The better you sleep the less hungry you will be!

5. Eat mini meals. She recommends eating 6 mini meals at 250 to 300 calories per meal. This is hard for us as we like to eat such a large dinner but do your best to eat smaller meals more often. This will help boost your metabolism, stop hunger pains and also an opportunity to eat is always very near! Yeah!

6. Weigh yourself often! I believe you should weigh yourself daily and not freak out if you are a couple of pounds higher one day. Adding or losing weight does not happen overnight but eating a lot of salt one day will make you gain water weight. If you eat a giant meal it will not show up on the scale for 3 or 4 days so you have plenty of time to offset the overeating by proper eating and not gain the weight. Just plot your weight and make sure it averages the same weight. When you are consistently 3 pounds over your ideal weight cut back 500 calories per day till the three pounds are off consistently.

Well ladies, best wishes for keeping the weight down and losing! Simple changes can bring huge rewards!

Emotional Eating

So you know that you do eat for emotional reasons. Is there anything that you can do in the moment when emotional eating hits? Probably not much but indulge and feel disappointed with yourself later.

It is important to have planned healthy distractions that you can do rather than eat when the moment hits. It is important to identify what you are feeling at the time. Are you feeling "lonely? Your plan might be to call a friend or diet buddy to chat. Are you "bored"? Your plan might be to develop some new hobbies or volunteer for a worthy cause or go for a walk. Knitting is great as your hands are occupied making it difficult to eat! Are you "tired"? Your plan might be to just go to bed. Are you "mad"? Your plan might be to develop some new communication skills and work through your anger. It is important to have a preplanned attack for emotional eating rather that using food as a temporary fix for your feelings. Your goal is to develop a plan this week and actually implement this plan when your feelings are urging you to eat. Remember food is just a temporary fix for your hurts.

Physically speaking there are a few things you can do to avoid emotional eating also.

1. Do not buy binge foods for your home. No brainer, but most of us buy the junk food that takes us down the road to emotional eating.

2. Plan fun into your life. Most of us do not do many things for fun in our lives. Live a little!!!!!

3. Eat your three healthy foods before you binge. Try a yogurt, apple and two handfuls of baby carrots before you binge. This will save calories as you will usually be full enough to avoid a binge.

* Many of you have had some very difficult things happen in your lives that have led to your emotional eating. Many of them are unspeakable things. There are times when you might need to seek a counselor to work through these difficult problems. Take those steps toward healing.

Happy Valentines Day to all! Love yourself this week and develop those strategies!

OK I am an Emotional Eater

You took the mini test and you are an emotional eater. What next. One of the first things to understand is the difference between emotional hunger and physical hunger.

Physical hunger comes on slowly. Your stomach might growl and it has probably been 4 to 5 hours since you last ate. You might feel a little light headed and you would be willing to eat anything to cut your hunger. If you had an apple, you would happily devour it.

Emotional hunger on the other hand usually comes on quickly regardless of when you last ate and a particular food usually "sounds good." It is something that you use to feel better emotionally rather than physically. It is your comfort. Most of us would be looking for salty foods like chips, cake or cookies, something creamy like ice cream or there's CHOCOLATE!

My ultimate comfort food is Trader Joes Organic Tortilla Chips. Take a few minutes to ID your comfort foods. My comfort foods are __________ ,__________ ,__________!

Most of eat 80% of the time when we are not physically hungry. YIKES!

Once you have identified that you are emotionally hungry, you can ask yourself what you are feeling and develop other options besides eating.

Book Recommendation for Emotional Eating

You took the quiz and you are an emotional eater! Welcome to the world of being a woman. We all eat for emotional reasons.

One of my favorite books about Emotional Eating is "Shrink Yourself" by Roger Gould. He says that emotional eating is by far the greatest reason that we gain weight and it is never addressed in dieting. We use food to comfort ourselves and smother our feelings. Then we feel guilty and start the process all over again. Somewhere along the line we need to learn to break this cycle of powerlessness. He says that people feel powerless for five reasons: when we doubt ourselves, feel frustrated, feel vulnerable or unsafe, feel rebellious or angry, or feel empty.

His book is kind of a therapy book designed to help you understand why you overeat and how to break the cycle and take control of your emotions rather than eating. It is a heavy book but very helpful and full of ah-ha moments.

*Weekends are deadly for overeating because we eat out so much and can blow a weeks worth of hard work. Before you venture out remember to look up your calorie stats on-line and choose a meal that fits into your meal plan calorie level. It is impossible to eye ball a menu and choose a meal because foods that sound low calorie are not and foods you think are high calorie are often fine. THE MORE YOU KNOW THE MORE YOU CAN EAT!

Are You An Emotional Eater

These are a few questions you can ask yourself if you are not sure if emotional eating is a problem for you.

1. Do you think about food many times during the day?
2. Do you eat when you are worried, tense or upset?
3. Do you eat when you are feeling bored?
4. Do you often eat until you are stuffed or feel sick?
5. Do you eat when you are feeling anxious?
6. Do you mindlessly eat without thinking about it?
7. Do you sneak food because you are embarrassed by how much or what you eat?
8. Do you feel guilty after eating?
9. Do you eat small amounts in public but eat a lot when by yourself?
10. Do you have to clean your plate?
11. Can you limit yourself to one serving of your comfort foods?
12. Do you eat on impulse and feel unable to control yourself?
13. Do you eat when you are not physically hungry?
14. Do you lie to yourself about the quantity you ate?
15. Do you binge on huge quantities of food?
16. Do you spend your life on one diet after another?
17. Do you eat while watching television or reading?
18. Do you eat in the car?
19. Do you eat very quickly?
20. Do you hide the evidence that you ate, like your wrappers?
21. Do you feel out of control and distressed when you eat?
22. Do you use food to avoid uncomfortable feelings?
23. Do you miss work, school or social events because of your weight or eating habits?
24. Do you become moody all day long if you gained a pound?
25. Do you believe your weight is tied to your happiness?

Well if you are like most of us you answered yes to many of these questions. Diets are not successful long term because most of us do not work on our emotional eating. In the next few days we will look at some of the ways we can make some changes. Have a great weekend!

*Remember alcoholic drinks can be very caloric.

MINDLESS EATING

Most of us gain weight slowly over the years and it does not take a major diet redo to lose weight. Brian Wansink, author of MINDLESS EATING, says that if we can reduce what we eat by 20%, our brain will not notice it. He calls this the Mindless Margin. Other ideas he offers are:
Pre-plate all food that you eat, even dessert. You eat by volume and if your brain sees the food up front you will be satisfied and eat less.
Use smaller serving dishes and plates. The smaller the serving dish, the less you will eat. The smaller the plate the more satisfied you will be. Plate sizes have increased by 50%.
Eliminate impulse eating by making over-eating a hassle. Serve your plates and put the leftovers away so you will not be tempted to eat extra food. Put tempting foods out of sight. If cookies are sitting on a platter in your kitchen you will snatch one often. Snack only on a plate in the kitchen.
Practice distraction free eating. Distract yourself before you begin to snack but once you have begun to snack, do not distract yourself. Have you ever eaten a bag of chips while watching television and not even tasted them or realized you ate the whole bag. Serve yourself a ration upfront if you must eat while doing something else.
Make comfort foods more comforting. Eat comfort foods in smaller amounts and eat what you love. Try and rewire your comfort foods (cookies, candy, chips and cake) by making new favorites. EG. Try frozen yogurt with half fruit, fill up on fruits and veggies and save your comfort food for last when you are full and will eat less.
Use the half plate rule with your family and serve snacks in pre-done amounts and put the rest of the snack away.
Be careful of the portion distortion of fast food. Supersizing is not a bargain for your body.
Specific changes he encourages everyone to make are:
Plan 100 to 200 calorie changes in your daily eating that will allow you to not be deprived.
Develop food trade-offs. If I exercise I can eat a small dessert.
Develop food policies. If I do not eat at my desk all week, I will allow myself a muffin on Saturday.
Choose three ways to save 100 calories per day. This would allow you to lose 30 pounds this year without a major diet overhaul.

Ask Those Difficult Questions

Well, we are half way through the month of January now and those resolutions are beginning to fade and the frustration has set in and you may be feeling like a failure. Why can’t I stick to the latest, greatest diet? Could it be that diets really do not work as you have been told? They don’t. Let’s work together and develop some new habits this year and work on learning to feel again rather than eating when life gets difficult. This is where the hard work begins.

For those of you who have been Journaling or trying to keep track of your eating patterns, you should begin to see some of your problem areas developing by now. Even if you are not journaling, they may be obvious. Some questions to ask yourself as you begin to evaluate your eating are:
1. Are you eating smaller meals from a plate or are you still reaching for the bag and eating a random amount that might be the entire bag?
2. Are you looking for munching food when you are angry, bored, lonely, frustrated, depressed or really any emotion?
3. Is there a time of day when you are more tempted by snacking? How about night time nibbling?
4. Do you have a place where you can go to have a secret snack? Or is the break room at work deadly? Is your car your secret eating sanctuary?
5. Is there a person or situation like your job that triggers you to eat?
6. Is the junk food that you buy for your kids really your stash?
7. Are you practicing the half plate rule and trying to cut down on the processed foods, eating way too much sugar or no veggies?
8. Are you eating out for many meals, skipping meals or grabbing a large coffee drink daily that has the calories of a Whopper?

There are many questions that we could ask ourselves. Ask those difficult questions. HONESTY with yourself is what will drive your motivation. Eating to ease your emotions works only temporarily and usually leads to guilt and feeling even worse about yourself. It truly does feel great to fix these underlying problems and learn to eat for enjoyment and be free from the fear of food. We will talk about some of these areas this next week.

*Just a note. Journaling is the single, greatest predictor of whether you will lose weight or not!

Getting Started

Hi Everyone. I have given you a few ideas to get started as I knew you were anxious. To really start you need to go back to the beginning and sort of make a plan and start with the right mindset. Things to remember about developing a new lifestyle.

1. This is not a diet. There is no “blowing it” mentality that leads to shame.

2. This is a lifestyle change with no start and end date, just a commitment to live healthier.

3. Slow weight loss leads to success.

4. Make small changes that are easy to incorporate into your life.

5. Add exercise into your life slowly.

6. You get a lot more “bang for your buck” by changing your eating habits. EG. A 450 calorie coffee drink takes approx. 1 ½ hours to walk off so it is much easier to work on the habits and change to an Americano. Delicious and no guilt.

7. Be realistic and change your goals often if they are not working. That is ok.

8. Focus on adding really awesome delicious healthy foods and not on depriving yourself.

9. Find a few new special things that are lower calorie that feel like treats to you.

10. Find ways to keep a good, positive attitude as this will drive your behavior.

Review of "The Thin Commandments Diet" by Stephen Gullo

First of all, this is not a diet book, but a book with strategies for weight loss. It is a book that thinkers will enjoy. He presents a couple of ideas I had never thought about but are key and really make you think.
1. Think Historically. Most dieters gain back the same weight with the same foods in the same place at the same time of day for the same reasons and the same behaviors. If we did that in any other area of our lives we would make some changes. Wouldn't we?
2. Quit Using Food Baby Talk. When you feel deprived or crave certain foods have you said or thought:
But it's my favorite!
It's not fair that I can't have it!
But I've been so good!
It's my comfort!
It's my treat!
If you have welcome to the club. You might need to grow up in this area. He says most of us do not act like mature adults, but that eating is the one area of our lives that we revert back to childhood. We must develop strategies to give up these childish thoughts and become selective gourmets and stop resenting what we need to do to keep our bodies healthy and attractive.

I loved his bluntness with the truth. Let's accept ourselves as being underdeveloped in the area of food this year and work hard to make some changes and grow up. Tell it like it is Stephen.

More on those Deadly Calories

The average person is off by 25 to 40% when they are counting calories for the day. If that is so should we just completely forget about them? You hear many people saying don't worry about them. I am a firm believer in knowing calories. I believe that: "The more you know the more you can eat," and I am all about eating.
Calories are helpful in your decision making process when you are choosing between two items, especially when you are eating out. Why choose a 3000 calorie meal when there is one that is 800 that you love as much. Be mindful when you are eating out and go on-line and choose your meal before you go. This will save you 1000's of calories this year. Remember it takes 3500 calories to produce or reduce a pound so meals eaten out are killing us.
Purchase a small calorie guide and become familiar with your favorite foods. A good one is "Calorie King Guide"(Target).
Read Labels but beware as advertisers have become saavy to us and trying to trick us by putting the calorie amount of half of an item so pay attention.
Try and wrap your mind around the fact that the average woman can eat around 2000 calories/day. Some more, some less. It is a great idea to divide your day into meals by calories and plan 4 or 5 ideas that you consistantly eat for breakfast, lunch and then dinner (half plate rule) and snacks. As you do this you begin to kind of see what you have to work with. EG.
Breakfast 400 calories Lunch 500 Dinner 800
Snack 100 calories Snack 200
You can divide your meal planning guide anyway that works for you but you must eat breakfast.
By having this framework set you will really begin to see that you do not have alot of extra room for the mindless eating that you do. Also eating out takes on new meaning when you know what you are shooting for. Just try to plan a meal at Red Robin to fit into this meal guide.
If you develop a basic meal plan like I have shown, the next step would be to make the foods you love fit your plan. More on this in later blogs.

Calories Do Count

All calories count and if you eat more than your body needs you will store them as fat. We all have different levels of calories that we can consume a day depending on our metabolism and how much we exercise. If you overeat 100 extra calories per day you will gain 10 pounds this year. A small amount of food overeaten daily can cause a large weight gain. So what can we do? It is virtually impossible to count calories successfully and try to shoot for a specific number as there are so many variations and even the food packages are often incorrect. Is there any hope for us?

The easiest way to lose weight successfully is not to look for a diet where you turn your eating world upside down. As you are evaluating the things you are eating daily, look for the types of things you are eating and see if there are some things you can consistantly find a food swap or substitution for. EG. Try a butter or marg. that is half the calories, look for the lightened foods, eat more lean protein, eat beans, eat soups, eat salads with lean protein, look for some of the lightened desserts. The trick is for every 100 calories you can cut out from your diet daily for a year you will lose 10 pounds. So if you can just look for ways to clean up your diet and then be adding alot more vegetables you will most likely lose weight. If you eat a costco muffin (700 -900 calories) per day and you substitute a 200 calorie muffin and an egg you could lose many pounds this year. Cutting out your mocha each day could save you 450 calories a day. Imagine the calorie loss. Try the calorie free Americano. Clean it up and lose big this year and do not buy the latest greatest diet book on the market this year, even though every store has them highlighted. Start the year with a new resolution to eat healthy this year and ditch the dieting mentality even though I know you are very tempted with everyone trying to diet now. Don't worry because by February everyone will be back to normal.
BE SURE AND CHECK OUT TRADER JOES AS THEY HAVE MANY FUN HEALTHY FOODS THAT ARE NOT EXPENSIVE. THEY HAVE GREAT PRE-PACKAGED VEGGIES LIKE BROCCOLI SLAW AND CABBAGE AND SHREDDED CARROTS.

Helpful Ideas

Hi Everyone,
I wanted to give you a few ideas today as I know everyone wants to jump in rather than working on habits and emotional eating.
1. FEAST ON FIBER-The more fiber you add to your diet the less hungry you will be. Fiber helps slow down digestion and makes you feel fuller longer. I would suggest that everyone has a small bowl of a high fiber cereal daily. It's a great way to start your day. It is good to shoot for 35 grams of fiber a day but start slowly and work your way up. Try to get a cereal that has at least 10 grams of fiber or so. Trader Joe's High Fiber cereal is great and has 9 gm of fiber and is crunchy not mushy like some. It is great with yogurt. Try to add beans to your diet a few times a week. Keep a wide variety in your home and add them to salads and soups and casseroles or just as a side. A serving is 1/2 a cup. I think the average american only eats 1/2 cup of beans a year. Veggies also contain alot of fiber. It is not that hard to meet the level you need but it will take planning and the average person only gets around 10 gm a day.
2. EAT BREAKFAST. For some reason this point always provokes many comments in our classes. Everyone says they are not hungry in the morning. This is the one time that you need to eat as breakfast speeds up your metabolism and also people who eat breakfast eat between 300 to 400 calories less per day. And that my friends adds up to 30 to 40 pounds of weight per year. Breakfast is huge.
3. DOWNSIZE YOUR DINNER PLATES. If you can start using a smaller dinner plate you will feel better. I use a cute pink plate for myself that is a couple of inches smaller than I use for my boys. If your brain sees your plate as full it will feel satisfied. If you serve a normal size meal on the massive plates of today it looks like an appetizer and you will eat alot more.
4. ONLY EAT FOOD ON A PLATE. Quit picking and eating out of the bag. Plate all of the food that you eat and sit at the table. This really will help you to become aware of how often you are snacking and mindlessly eating. These are the calories that cause most of us to gain weight.
5. PRACTICE THE HALF PLATE RULE. Fill your plate half full of veggies and salad and just a bit of fruit. Concentrate on the veggies and learn to cook fresh ones. They taste great stir fried in just a bit of olive oil and garlic. Do not boil them. No wonder we hate veggies. Look for amazing new salad recipes with grains and just chopped veggies. Simple is great. It does not have to be complicated. Fill your plate 1/4 full of a lean protein and 1/4 full of a complex carb. If you are going to have a piece of bread skip the potato etc. Choose one healthy carb only that is starchy. Veggies are carbs but you can have as many of them as you like.
6. EAT PLANNED SNACKS. You will feel better if you eat smaller meals with a snack in between. A snack is not mindless eating from a bag of chips but a planned mini meal like an apple and cheese, veggies and hummus etc. Try to pair a fruit or veggie with a type of protein. Celery or red peppers with low fat cream cheese and walnuts. Just eat food that tastes great that is not sugar.
7. Start to decrease processed foods from your diet. The more sugar you eat the more you will crave it and feel lethargic. If you can fill up on healthy foods the cravings will decrease over time.

These are just a few ideas you can start with. I know you all know them but amazingly they do work. Try to make these changes with no diet mentality that you will do this till you lose weight and then be done. These are permanent changes that you will add to your life forever and you will become healthier which is awesome.

Ready, Set, Go

This is not a race to the finish line where we meet our goal and it is done. We have all tried the newest, latest diet and failed. There is hope and slow and steady does win the race. So join us.

Before we start we need to work on a few things and make a plan to figure out where we failed in the past and we are all different so this can be a bit tricky. There are three areas that we will be addressing in detail in the next few months. The first is actual food and some tricks to help us. The second is our habits and patterns. The third is emotional eating. Diets rarely address our habits and emotional eating so we squelch them for the diet length and then they overwhelm us again and we gain back our weight. We will develop personal strategies to fix our habits and find alternatives to using food when we are emotional. This is not simple.

The first thing that we need to learn to develop in our lives is grace for ourselves. This involves all or nothing thinking which is at the core of why most of us fail. We expect perfection in our eating life and if we are not perfect we start the emotional eating cycle. Oh my gosh, I ate a piece of cheesecake that was 400 calories and it is the end of the world so I will now eat 20,000 calories on a binge because of my failure. That is all or nothing thinking. It is OK to eat a small amount of food from your forbidden food list. It is not the end of the world. Please practice giving yourselves the grace you give others.

The second thing you can do for yourselves is to find a way to become cognisant of the food that you put into your mouth each day. In a perfect world we would all journal about what, why, when and where we ate during the day. I can hear the groans as I write this so do whatever you have to do. A great idea is taking a photo of every piece of food that you put into your mouth for the next three days. You will have your food journal in photos at the end of each day. Remember six extra bites of food a day can add up to 15 pounds of weight gain a year. Add ten years and you are 150 pounds overweight. You do not have to overeat by much to become overweight.

Many of us will not have to make many changes. Our goal is to have you eat the same way you are used to and add a few things to your diet and make small corrections. This summer I was at my moms house and she asked me to watch how she ate and help her. She ate too much fruit, not enough veggies, and her portions were a bit too big. She ate a plate of fruit at night that she did not want but my dad fixed for her. This was a habit that my dad stopped and she saved 200 extra calories a day. I had her practice the half plate rule that says fill your plate half full of salad or veggies (and corn, peas and potatoes are carbs ladies), one quarter of the plate lean protein and one quarter a complex carb. (one half cup serving of a good carb). This was very easy for her to visualize. She has dropped 15 pounds in 4 months by eating more food than she used to eat. She is almost 80 and everywhere she goes people are asking "What diet are you on and you look great" She did not have to make major changes to her life to become a success story but she did need to know what she was doing wrong. Being that I do not live with you guys to see what you are doing wrong, you will need to find a way to do this yourselves. I can give you help along the way.

Grace to you all! Kerry

FOR THOSE DUMBFOUNDED IN JANUARY

Welcome Everyone. Let's face it, most of us went hog wild in the eating department over the holidays even though we knew we should not. Life as we know it is now over. Is it really? It's time to jump right back in there and begin to eat right. Not diet but eat right. Lets begin the year with a new mentality. Lets add the things to our diets that are good (yes healthy food should taste great) instead of making those lists of bad bad bad foods that we can never eat again. Life is about moderation and that thinking just does not work. Thus the high failure rate of diets. Lets start to make small changes to our eating that is for life and learn to eat healthy. The purpose of this blog is for us to work together on small changes that add up to permanent weight loss. We are all different and there are some of us who may need alot of help in a certain area like emotional eating (ladies) but there are some simple changes that can add up to greater health and decreased cravings for those processed carbs. Yahoo, there is hope so dry those tears that keep coming since you stepped on the scale this morning and wondered how you got those extra pounds. I will add some simple steps for you to follow each week and also some thoughts that may help. Send me your questions or what you would like to discuss and we will run with it. The goal is practicality and we do not want to get bogged down and make eating so complicated that we all run for the cookies, ice cream or CHOCOLATE because we are so stressed out. Blessings to all of you who want to join in. Kerry and Cindy