Archive for the ‘Healthy Foods’ Category

NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS THAT STICK….AND TEN SMALL CHANGES THAT COUNT

Friday, January 7th, 2011

It’s a fresh start….it feels great….but I’m afraid I won’t keep it up…. I’ve heard these words, or something like them, a lot this week. So, I start this new year with thoughts on our resolutions to eat well, lose weight, or otherwise improve our diet habits.

New Year’s diet resolutions usually fizzle quickly. The goals we set may be too broad and sweeping, too out of touch with reality to last. They don’t factor in the inevitable complications and challenges. They don’t consider whether or not we’re really prepared or ready. Grand resolutions—say, to eat every day in a way that keeps weight down, for good, forever, period—require understanding and preparation. I’ll return to those in my next blog. Here, I offer some ideas for smaller resolutions.

Those who follow my blogs will know that I believe in the power of small changes (related blogs listed below). Changing one or two specific habits may or may not lead immediately to lost pounds. They open the door to other and bigger changes, though. And they usually have value in themselves, however they affect the scale in the short run. Perhaps most important now, they’re likely to stick. They’re less likely to fizzle out in two weeks. So they’ll leave you feeling confident about your ability to make future changes.

Previous blogs, like those listed here and others, offer plenty of ideas for small changes to integrate into your life right now. Here are ten additional ones, most gleaned from recent studies on weight management. The idea is to start doing this one thing. Assess (more…)

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THE BEST DIET: MORE FINDINGS TO FACTOR IN

Monday, September 20th, 2010

 There’s no one best diet for everyone.  Looking at how much people lose and keep off, research tells us a little about which diets might slightly outdo the competitors.  A few constants emerge, nevertheless, from the many studies carried out over the years.      Most of these rules of thumb not only help manage weight, as it happens, but also minimize cancer, cardiac, and other major disease risks.  Put in very short form, the best diets usually include lots of vegetables, along with fruits, lean protein, healthy oils, whole grains and legumes.   The best diets keep sugar and refined carbohydrates to a minimum.  And they are consumed within a lifestyle that includes exercise. 

Different diets prescribe these food categories in different proportions and amounts, and that’s where individual needs and choices—and outcomes—enter the picture.  It’s proving true that people with a lot of weight to lose (nearing 100 pounds, say) often do better on diets that emphasize protein, rather than those that emphasize complex carbohydrates.   (Let me say here, though, that the adage “the best diet is the one you’ll stick with” often applies even in these cases). (more…)

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MAD ABOUT LUCKY CHARMS & FROOT LOOPS?: How that helps sane eating

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

The following foods carry a “healthy” label from the manufacturers:  Lucky Charms, Froot Loops, Cocoa Pebbles, McDonald’s Happy Meals, Burger King Kids Meals, certain frozen corn-dog-and-fries dinners, and…..you get the picture.  As people push to get more fruits and vegetables onto their plates, food companies have added just enough of something—maybe increased whole wheat, for example–to justify the “healthy” claim.  In part, the claim on the label attracts people to these foods, which  aren’t really so healthy.  Also, it allows the food companies to keep on advertising the foods to children—otherwise, new laws would try to stop them.

 How can knowing this help you eat more sanely?  Or lose weight?  Several recent books and movies have drawn our attention to alarming food company practices (see below).  These practices keep us eating foods that are fattening, possibly harmful to health, and definitely appetite-stimulating.  That means they’re hard to not overeat.  Once aware of this, we hope to start making better choices.  We may consider how to minimize or avoid processed, sugar-added foods.   By definition, though, this is easier said than done.  If a food is indeed engineered to make you want more, then you’re probably going to have to struggle to eat less of it. (more…)

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SUGAR: Eating Sanely with a Sweet Tooth (Part 2)

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

Sweets top the food pyramid—they sit on that tiny “eat sparingly” point. We know “eat sparingly” is easier said than done. Sugary foods fill way too much of the average person’s diet these days. It’s hidden in foods we buy, we love it, and it’s hard to stop after any amount that could be called “sparing”.

As promised in June 25’s blog, I continue here the discussion of how to stick to those small amounts. I started with a few ideas about buying less, switching to items containing less, and eliminating sugared beverages. Now we turn to the sweets we eat because we want to—whether that’s candy, cookies, pie, or cake. How do you start to say “No, thanks, I’ve had enough” after one piece?

It doesn’t make sense for anyone—skinny, fat, or in-between—to eat sugar in large quantities. So what’s reasonable for you? A small serving per day? Two per week? Three? This is what you can set as your “working to get to” goal. (What’s reasonable if you have a lot of weight to lose will be on the lower end–not only because of the calorie content, but also because of how the sweets may affect your metabolism.) Often people will target something like “one chocolate after dinner each night”, or “dessert on weekend nights”.

Aim for this goal amount. Know that as you begin, you’ll probably want more after you’ve had that amount. Think of how you’ll deal with the desire for more. I’ll describe a couple of possible strategies here. First, giving yourself a time limit before you head back to the cookie plate sometimes works. This kind of scenario might evolve like this: (more…)

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SUGAR: Eating Sanely with a Sweet Tooth (Part 1)

Friday, June 25th, 2010

Sugar can doom our weight loss or sane eating plans.  Even as diet trends rapidly zig-zag and change, “avoid sugar” remains a constant.  Our craving for sugar remains constant, too.  And it continues to flavor more and more of our nation’s foods.

Why avoid sugar?  Well, its “empty”, non-nutritious, calories leave us hungry and easily fatten us.  It decays our teeth.  It can interfere with mood and energy.  Now, more and more evidence links sugar with inflammation, and inflammation with nearly any and every health problem.  Yet who can stop eating it? (more…)

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THE ROAD TO HEALTHY EATING ISN’T STRAIGHT

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

I recently read this “thought on whole living”:  The road to wellness isn’t straight, clear, or predictable.  It’s a path you forge yourself.*   It seems to me that you can substitute the words for any part of “wellness”—for example, “weight loss”, “sane eating,” or “moderation”—and this saying still holds true.

Fad diets and extreme eating prescriptions, such as “no carbs”, promise a clear straight path.  Few people stay on them, though, and they don’t reliably bring you where you want to go.  Invariably, someone who manages to keep weight off, someone who’s developed lasting healthy habits, will indeed report having “forged” a path that works.

Often we don’t realize we’re “forging” at all.  If you’ve stopped and started a hundred diets, though, chances are you’ve discovered a thing or two that actually does work for you, even if the overall schemes did not.  For example, you may not have kept your Weight Watchers pounds off, but maybe you’ve incorporated the idea of “budgeting”  so that’s it’s now part of your automatic thinking.  You may ask yourself “Can I afford this?”, as you approach the make-your-own-sundae party.  Maybe you’ve learned that a food log will pull you back to a more mindful eating stance. (more…)

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MODERATION: YES, BUT EASIER SAID THAN DONE

Monday, May 17th, 2010

Every so often, we scramble to shift how we eat in response to the latest diet news. First we aim to avoid fats as if they add instant pounds. Then we learn we can eat all the fats we want, but they have to be the right kind. First we seek “high carbohydrate living”, then we set to banish carbs forever, now we again seek the right kind. We know alcohol’s bad, but now we hear that a daily drink is good. And so on. In the end, we always come back to: everything in moderation. Few people argue with that. But still so many struggle. Somehow we’re more likely to go for the drastic measures, like eliminating food groups, even if they’re doomed to fail.

Why is it so hard to eat in moderation? Moderate portion sizes, moderate allowances for treats, moderate levels of fat or sugar or salt?

Well, some would say that we Americans have no cultural tradition, as people do in European or Asian countries, for example, to teach us how to eat available local foods in satisfying ways that have worked for generations. Others would certainly point to the addictive quality of the highly processed, artificially palatable foods—think cookie dough ice cream and nacho chips—that tempt us in huge quantities wherever we go. (more…)

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WEIGHT LOSS AND DEPRIVATION

Friday, April 30th, 2010

“But not all overeating is emotional….” I blogged on March 21.  In part I’d reacted to a headline stating “What Are You Hungry For?…It’s Not Food…In Fact, It’s Everything But Food.”  While I bristled at that, it did precede some good wisdom in the form of an excerpt from Geneen Roth’s Women, Food and God.  In fact, with sane eating  in mind, I turn now to a Roth quote highlighted in the pages beyond that headline.  She says “To change your body, you must first understand that which is shaping it.  Not fight it.  Not force it.  Not deprive it.  Not shame it.”   This is saying a lot. To start with, let’s consider the “Not deprive it” part.  How in the world can that support healthy weight?  Isn’t deprivation a built-in part of losing weight? 

People indeed report feelings of deprivation as a primary reason for abandoning weight loss efforts.  Often these feelings lead to overindulging in sweets, high-fat, and junk foods and in gorging on large portions.    To lose weight, to maintain a good weight, to make changes for the better, does require eating less of such things.  Is feeling deprived, then, inevitable?  I think to make changes that last, that become part of us, the answer has to be “no”.
Part of what has to happen, I think, is a change in perception, in how you think about and conceive of these foods in your life.  People who come to successfully manage their weight start to recognize the role of choice.   Their inner dialogue will tend to some form of:   “Yes, of course I can have that slab of mud pie…but do I really want all that goes with it—feeling stuffed, guilty, and then struggling forever after with the weight?”  Taking care of themselves, then, is doing what leaves them feeling more peaceful and on track with longer-term goals, not what immediately pleases the senses. (more…)

Posted in Emotional Eating, Habit Changes, Healthy Foods, Weight Loss | 3 Comments »

HEALTHY EATING AND WEIGHT LOSS: Good Advice

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

 I’m always combing the media, looking for both the useful and the absurd on food and diet and eating.  There’s certainly never a shortage of either.  Much of what populates the print and other media is not particularly helpful.  But it is possible to glean some excellent advice and guidance.  The best pieces can help us navigate what journalist Michael Pollan has called the “truly treacherous landscape” of our food world.  Or, as I’m more apt to put it, to help us find and stay on our path to sane eating.

This past week, I’ve encountered three such pieces.  For starters, I point to the most recent Nutrition Action newsletter (www.cspi.org), and its cover interview with Kelly Brownell, Ph.D., of Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.  Here, in just a few brief passages, Brownell sums up how the food industry keeps us eating too much, and too much of the stuff that makes us fat and unhealthy.  (See also David Kessler’s book The End of Overeating,  Rodale Press; 2009.)   A big part of EatSanely’s premise—“It’s Not Your Fault”—emerges clearly here.  So does the question that inevitably follows, “So what should I do about it?” (more…)

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RESTAURANTS AND WEIGHT: Socializing, Stress Relief, and Other Challenges

Friday, April 16th, 2010

 We all know that restaurants pose big challenges for people concerned with weight.   This week I spoke to someone who got me thinking about how the “just order a salad” type of suggestion doesn’t target the challenges well enough.

It’s hard to eat well and not overdo it when eating out.  Restaurants usually serve way-too-big portions and offer bread and other fillers along with the food.  Routinely, they add salt, fats, and other ingredients that make the food taste great—using much more than any home cook would.  Fast food and popular chain restaurants are especially bad in that department.

Since we don’t get ingredient lists in restaurants, we can’t really know what we’re getting.  While this messes up any intake-watching effort, it also seems to open the door for lack of restraint.  Being in a restaurant, in other words, means not having to keep track.  So then we may not bother to register much at all.  The restaurant setting then becomes a place where you eat and keep on eating without thought of consequences.  Done once in a while, this wouldn’t pose a problem.  However, many of us now eat out pretty regularly.  And that does pose a problem. (more…)

Tags: Add new tag, Restautants
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