Weight-Loss & Nutrition

I know so many people who are trying to lose weight.  And I'm not talking about the folks that are 5, 10, 15 pounds overweight, but friends who are 100+ pounds overweight.  It's heartbreaking to imagine what they feel like and think about themselves, but also desperately frustrating to see them continuing to make bad decisions.  To combat my frustration, I’ve decided to blog about my experiences and what I’ve learned.  I guess I have a lot to say, because this will be a blog series.  Today, I'll talk about nutrition.  Then I'll briefly discuss exercise. And finally, I’ll talk a bit about resting then conclude the blog.  Each of these components is important for your health!  

I’ve read some on this stuff, mostly from www.SparkPeople.com or www.Active.com, although the majority of what’s is from my own experiences and observations.  Overall, my advice is to prioritize your health, plan, and be consistent.  Some of us find planning and consistency easier than others, so be aware if these traits are one of your weak points.  I, personally, feel distraught without a plan, love consistency, and am pretty good at prioritizing.  Even so, I can struggle every day with healthy choices!  Being persistent, getting back up on that horse, is what’ll pull you through.  Find the things that’ll motivate you to keep getting up, keeping making the difficult but healthy decisions that will get you where you want to do. 

Which reminds me, SparkPeople talks a lot of goal-setting and meeting your goals.  You’ve gotta have specific, measurable, attainable goals or you won’t ever reach them.  Rather than thinking, “I wanna lost weight,” say, or better yet, write it somewhere visible, “I want to lose 10% of my body weight in 4 months.”  Specific, measurable, potentially attainable.  

Nutrition

• We are not talking about a "diet" here.  This is not something that you'll do "until the weight is off" and then get back to your normal (unhealthy) eating habits. Eating is about fueling your body, and sometimes about the joy of eating.  Neither of those things are going away, so create healthy habits that you can maintain for the rest of your life.  You’ll have to plan to have healthy food available, in all the situations in which you should eat, and even those that you shouldn’t but you know that you will (e.g., snacking while watching TV or at the movies, afternoon snack because work is boring, etc.).
• Although your weight is partially due to genetics and any health conditions that you may have, it is also due to choices.  Never forget that.  You must prioritize healthy eating.  You must choose every day between the ice cream and the banana.  It is up to you.  There are plenty of excuses.  You'll probably say that it's hard and you don't have enough time and that others in your life are your priorities (like your kids).  Yes, it can be difficult.  Yes, you don't have time, but only because you don't make the time.  Yes, your kids are important.  But healthy eating can be a habit that you pass down.  Plus, you'll get much more joy out of your kids if you are active and healthy.  Time and commitments are excuses for making bad choices, but they aren’t the cause of those bad choices.  You are.  What you eat is your choice.  No one’s force-feeding you.  Figure out what’ll motivate you to make better choices, then plan to make that happen!
• I used SparkPeople's Nutrition Tracker for a few months to figure out what (and how much) I needed to eat based on my activity level, and what I was eating.  It turns out, I eat too much fat but that I'm pretty good on other things.  I don't recommend using this feature forever as it could easily help develop an eating disorder, but it's a great way to figure out where you're at.  I still occasionally put in what I ate for a day or two to see where I'm at!  
• Get to know what a portion size really is!  It’s not as big as you think.  Except for fruits and veggies, then it’s probably smaller than you think. 
• Don't buy unhealthy food.  There's no reason for your pantry to have chips or your freezer to have ice cream.  Just don't get it.  How is that so difficult?  If it's not at your house or at your work desk, you're less likely to eat it, right?  Why would someone who’s trying to lose weight ever have cupcakes or donuts at their house or chips in their desk drawer?  If you’re worried that your family will complain, ask them if they want you to continue to be unhealthy.  Thinking of it that way, their small sacrifice (desserts at home) is totally outweighed by what they’ll get (a healthier, happier you, and for longer).
• I find it easiest to plan when I focus on meals that are balanced.  For me, this means that I have a fruit/veggie and a protein at each meal.  Some meals I also have a carb, but I try to make it whole grain (read up on this; similar phrases are used to confuse consumers!).  Thus, breakfast could be sausage and a banana, or Greek yogurt.  Today was peanut butter and honey on rye toast with a banana.
• Add in veggies and fruit at every chance!  Some quick tips are adding lettuce to your sandwiches, fresh or dried fruit to you morning breakfast (cereal, yogurt, oatmeal), use baby carrots with your dips instead of chips or pita. 
• Eat breakfast!
• Eat lots of (healthy) snacks!  I have a drawer at work full of dried food that I choose from every day, often several times a day.  I have several different kinds of nuts, jerky, popcorn, and dried fruit.  Today I had almonds before lunch, and a granola bar after lunch.  You'd be surprised how satisfying healthy snacks can be. Salted almonds can replace your potato chips, trust me.  I eat snacks pretty frequently, usually one to three times while at work, then once more before I go to bed.  That's in addition to the three regular meals.  Eating frequently is supposed to keep up your metabolism.  Although packing my work drawer with healthy snacks isn't that difficult, eating every 2-4 hours could be daunting.  That's where planning might come in!
• If you are trying to drop unhealthy food from your diet, choose only one at a time, and avoid that food for a month or two before you drop another one.  Remember, fast and furious doesn't win this race, but consistency does!  We're aiming for habits that you can maintain here, not quickly dropping pounds.  Rather than drop a type of food completely, you could also limit it.  I used to have one Coffee Day a week at work.  It was easier for me to limit my coffee drinking to one day than to completely cut it out.  Trying to never drink coffee at work would not only have depressed me, and I would’ve been obsessed with it! 
• And if you just don’t want to give up something, use bribes!  My kitchen at work almost always has snacks in it.  This week there are decadent cookies.  My last boyfriend bribed me to not eat them; if I didn't eat dessert during the work week, then he'd grill me a steak on the weekend.  So every time that I passed that cake, I just thought about how much more I'd enjoy a juicy steak.  It was plenty enough motivation for me!  If steak isn't your thing, think about what else you can reward yourself (time with someone, TV time, new shoes, whatever!).  
• Don't do anything else during meals or snacks, like watch TV or even read.  I stopped reading at breakfast and lunch, and found that I did pay a lot more attention to what I was eating and how full I felt.  And when you're staring at the wall while eating, thinking about what you're going to do next, you end up finding the food less interesting and want to get up and go!  Not distracting yourself while eating is also supposed to help you really taste the food so that you get more enjoyment out of each bite.  It's also supposed to help you notice when you're feeling full.  Have you ever ate through a bag of potato chips to realize that you're overly stuffed?  Part of that might be that you weren't paying attention to the emotional and physical satisfaction that you were getting from each chip. 

See the next blog for my ideas about exercise!