No Failing

Some of my clients are facing new weight loss challenges and the dreaded plateau, but you can actually be on a successful weight loss track, and because you don’t KNOW what a successful track looks like, it may feel like you are failing.

Once you believe that you have screwed up, it is easy to say “screw it” and really screw up. I am good at that! If only you knew how well you were doing! While success does depend on your specific goals, starting point, body type and exercise routine, there are a few things that are consistent across the board. Here are some things to consider:

1. Weight loss does NOT come in the form of losing two pounds every week until you reach your goal, no matter how well you’ve stuck to your food and exercise plan.

When you gain weight, you don’t gain two pounds every single week in a measured fashion. You’re not going to lose it in a measured fashion no matter how well you stick to your plan. You might lose two pounds one week. You might even lose three pounds in a week. Then, you might lose one pound the next week.

Some weeks you might lose zero, and there are weeks you even gain. These weeks are the most frustrating, and we all have these kinds of weeks where we feel like we’re doing everything right and the scale doesn’t give us what we want.

Keep track of the weekly weigh-ins but take a look at the month and see the overall trend. You might have gained a 1/2 pound one of the weeks but take note if you lost 4 pounds overall for the month. If the month is trending downwards, you are in the right place.

2. Nobody is perfect 100% of the time.

Just because you went out drinking and ate all the bread, stuffed yourself with fried food and had two desserts, and then woke up and had eggs Benedict the next day does not mean you have failed.

Everyone does this.

We all make a commitment and we all slip up. I ate an entire chocolate cake the other day. You fell. So what? Learn what will work for you to get back on track. You can fall and still be on a successful weight loss track by simply making the decision to get back there.

Real life weight loss is like a marathon, some miles are effortless, some are excruciating and the only way you really fail is if you quit.

Something New

Hi.  I am trying a different blog format, so for now I have put this blog on hold.  Please check out my new format at musclemommy.net

Kids Can’t Eat What is Not There

The last few months I have noticed a down hill spiral of eating habits in our house. Breakfasts and snacks became a free for all of low nutrient, high fat, high calorie foods. (Lunches were packed healthy, and dinners became the only really healthy meal that the kids would eat at home) I was guilty of buying too many snacky foods, which became the kids first choice. This of course led to lots of battles.

I decided to throw out every snack food that was unhealthy and replace everything with healthy choices. Not a single unhealthy snack left in our house. But, I did tell the kids that they can have one day a week where they can choose a treat.

It is going on three weeks now, and the kids have not complained once about their snacks and food options. I am kind of surprised, as I thought for sure I would hear a lot of whining about nothing “good to eat”. The best part is that the kids are chowing on all the healthy stuff and loving it.

Kids, especially younger ones, will eat mostly what’s available at home. That’s why it’s important to control the supply lines — the foods that you serve for meals and have on hand for snacks. Kids can’t eat what is not there. A side bonus is that you will not be tempted by your kids snacks.

Here are some basic tips that are great for kids but also for parents:

1. Work fruits and vegetables into the daily routine, aiming for the goal of at least five servings a day. Be sure you serve fruit or vegetables at every meal.

2. Make it easy for kids to choose healthy snacks by keeping fruits and vegetables on hand and ready to eat. Other good snacks that my kids love include low-fat yogurt blended with some low fat milk to make a shake/smoothie, peanut butter and capples or celery, or whole-grain crackers and cheese.

3. Serve lean meats and other good sources of protein, such as fish, eggs, beans, and nuts.
Choose whole-grain breads and cereals so kids get more fiber. Don’t be fooled by kids’ cereal marketing. Read the ingredients.

4. Limit fat intake by avoiding deep-fried foods and choosing healthier cooking methods, such as broiling, grilling, roasting, and steaming. Choose low-fat or nonfat dairy products.

5. Limit fast food and low-nutrient snacks, such as chips and candy. But don’t completely ban their favorite snacks. Instead, make them a special treat, so kids don’t feel deprived.

6. Limit sugary drinks, such as soda, juice, and fruit-flavored drinks. Serve water and low-fat milk instead

Something Nice for Yourself

 

 Recently, I wrote an article about other ways to get calcium.  Many of the options I offered were leafy greens.  When I posted the link on Face Book, my dad commented on my post by saying this – “Who wants to eat collard greens or kelp for breakfast?”

I didn’t really mean to eat leafy greens for breakfast, but he has a very valid point. Most people will never, ever eat collard greens, kelp, or kale for any meal, let alone for breakfast .  I ate kale once. ONCE.  My brother swears that kale tastes delicious steamed or boiled, but I am not going to chance it.  I have never eaten cooked collard greens, but I have juiced them… many times.

I wanted to offer an alternative to “eating” leafy greens.  Juicing is a fantastic way to “ingest” all sorts of fruits and veggies that we would most likely never go near.  There are so many benefits to drinking fresh juice, you really feel like you have done something nice for yourself.

The thing about juicing is that it takes some commitment.  Investing in a juicer is like buying a gym membership or piece of exercise equipment.  You have to decide to use it, make time to juice, and be consistent.  It is not difficult, and it does not take very much time.  Just like any other habit, once you have it, it is easy to follow through with buying extra fruits and veggies and prepping them each week.  You can also get really creative with juicing by adding all sorts of new fruits and veggies.  It is cool how you can juice an entire bundle of spinach or collard greens added to any variety of juiced berries, peaches, pineapples, etc, and you wouldn’t even know the leafy greens were in the mix.

Plus, since juicing removes the indigestible fiber, these nutrients are available to the body in much larger quantities than if the piece of fruit or vegetable was eaten whole. For example, because many of the nutrients are trapped in the fiber, when you eat a raw carrot, you are only able to assimilate about 1% of the available beta carotene. When a carrot is juiced, removing the fiber, nearly 100% of the beta carotene can be assimilated.

Or, for another example, consider fresh juice’s ability to deliver another important group of nutrients, know as enzymes. Enzymes are your body’s work force. Acting as catalysts in hundreds of thousands of chemical reactions that take place throughout the body, enzymes are essential for digestion and absorption of food, for conversion of food stuffs into body tissue, and for the production of energy at the cellular level. In fact, enzymes are critical for most of the metabolic activities taking place in your body every second of every day.

Fresh juices are a tremendous source of enzymes. In fact, the “freshness” of juice is one of their key features, because enzymes are destroyed by heat. When you eat cooked foods, whether its meal, grains, fruits, or vegetables, if the food is cooked at temperatures above 114 degrees, the enzymes have been destroyed by the heat. Since fruits and vegetables are juiced raw, the enzymes are still viable when you drink the juice.

Finally, fruits and vegetables provide one more substance that is absolutely essential for good health – water. More than 65% of most of the cells in the human body are made of water, and in some tissues, for example the brain, the cells can be made up of as much as 80% water. Water is absolutely essential for good health, yet most people don’t consume enough water each day. Plus, many of the fluids we do drink, coffee, tea, soft drinks, alcoholic beverages and artificially flavored drinks each contain substances that require extra water for your body to eliminate. Fruit and vegetable juices are free of these unneeded substances and are full of pure, clean water.

There are all sorts of juicers on the market with a variety of functions, colors, and gadgets.  They have become so popular, you can find some great deals out there.  Here is a web site to find the best one for your needs.

http://www.best-juicer-reviews.com

Bone Savings Account

A friend of mine loves chocolate milk.  Don’t we all, really?  She drinks a container every morning. (This friend is about 30 pounds overweight) I was looking at the nutrition label and made a comment to her that there were over 300 calories in one serving, and the second ingredient was sugar.  Her response surprised me. She said “well, I have to drink this to get my daily calcium”.  I tried to hide my shock and horror and compose myself so I could offer her some better alternatives.

At first I wasn’t sure if this was just an excuse so she felt justified in drinking chocolate milk every morning, or if she really did believe that this was the best way for her to get her calcium.  I think if was a combination of the two.

Calcium is critical to good health. The human body requires more calcium than any other mineral. The adult human body contains about 1000 to 1200 g of calcium. At least 99% of the calcium is found in the bones and teeth, giving them strength and rigidity.

An easy way to think of calcium and bone health is to imagine the bones as a savings account at a bank. Until the ages of 30-35 the body stores calcium in the bones. However, after this time calcium is no longer stored in bones. As a result, its only source of calcium is ingested calcium. If you’re not eating enough calcium, the body has nothing to use and bone density decreases. The calcium you consume early in life is deposited into your “bone” savings account. If little calcium is saved, then there will be little to spend when retirement comes.  A great reason to make sure our kids get enough calcium.

Back to my friend… Getting calcium is important, but choosing a low fat low calorie option may be even more important. She is not necessarily interested in losing weight, and she is fine with her body and her current weight, but that doesn’t mean that she shouldn’t alter her choices to improve her overall health.  Since she loves chocolate milk, I certainly don’t want her to give it up, but to drink such a large amount every day along with some of her other food choices, will lead to poor health in the future.

Dairy products (milk) are definitely one way to get calcium, but you should always go for the low fat option.  Leave the chocolate milk for a treat once and a while.  There are so many better options to get your calcium than milk.  The milk producers of the world just have a really huge advertising budget, so it is the most visible.

The recommendation for adults is 1000 mg of calcium per day. One cup of milk has 296 mg, but there are plenty of reasons you might not to drink milk, from personal preference to medical reasons.

Here are 15 foods high in calcium that don’t come from a cow:

Sesame Seeds
A quarter cup of sesame seeds has 351 mg calcium.

Spinach
A cup of boiled spinach has 245 mg.

Collard Greens
A cup of boiled collard greens has 266 mg.

Blackstrap Molasses
One tablespoon has about 137 mg.

Tahini
Two tablespoons of raw tahini (sesame seed butter) have 126 mg.

Broccoli
Two cups of boiled broccoli have 124 mg.

Swiss Chard
One cup of boiled chard has 102 mg.

Kale
One cup of boiled kale has 94 mg.

Brazil Nuts
Two ounces of Brazil nuts (12 nuts) have 90 mg.

Celery
Two cups of raw celery have 81 mg.

Almonds
One ounce of almonds (23 nuts) has 75 mg.

Papaya
One medium papaya has 73 mg.

Flax Seeds
Two tablespoons of flax seeds have 52 mg.

Oranges
One medium orange has 52 mg.