Move Your Body

Research suggests that keeping a food diary can lead to successful weight loss.  A weight loss study published in last year’s August edition of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine included 1,685 overweight or obese U.S. adults aged 25 and older.  Participants were encouraged to eat a healthy diet, exercise and keep a food diary.  Those that wrote down everything they ate for six days or more a week lost twice as much weight as those who wrote only one or two days a week.

Why do food diaries work?  Well, writing down everything you eat and drink can be eye-opening.  You might not realize how much you’re eating in a day, or how often you snack on goodies your co-workers bring to the office.   Even if you don’t consider yourself a person who overeats, you may not realize how one snack can throw off your calorie intake for the day. A food diary makes you aware of where those extra calories are coming from – whether it be snacking, or just taking in more calories than you realized at a particular meal.  Keeping a consistent food diary makes you accountable to your eating habits and helps you actually SEE where you can make improvements.

We have personally used a food diary in the past, at the suggestion of the American Heart Association’s No Fad Diet, and found that it was key to eventually achieving weight loss goals.  I had no idea how many times I was snacking during the day, or that Chinese food for dinner, if not eaten in the correct portion sizes, could be killer!

Even if you are not necessarily looking to lose weight, a food diary may still be an interesting experience.  You may find that you are not getting enough protein, fruits or veggies during the day, for example.  It can be a good way just to start eating healthier.

So how do you start keeping a food diary?  Here are some helpful tips from WebMd, as well as some of our own:

Write as you go:  Don’t wait until the end of the day to record your food – or you’ll never remember everything you ate.

Pay attention to portion sizes:  Try practicing measuring your portion sizes at home using measuring cups, scales, etc.  If you don’t have access to those things (while eating at work or out, for example), use this handy chart about estimating portion sizes.

Be specific! Be sure to add any condiments, for example, mustard or mayo,  the type of bread you’re using on your sandwich or even the veggies and dressing on your salad.  Also, if you are a coffee drinker, don’t forget to count the calories from cream and/or sugar.

Don’t forget water.  Water intake is VERY important.  Be sure to track everything you drink.  You should drink eight 8 oz glasses of water a day, and even more if you’re exercising a lot.

Use the format that works for you:  Scribble your food diary in a notebook (if you are an organized scribbler), on some scrap paper, type it into your computer or, if you have an iPhone, you can use a cool app to track your food.  You really don’t need anything fancy to keep track of your food, though.  Just make sure you are recording what you ate and how much of it.

Don’t beat yourself up! The food diary exercise is not supposed to make you feel badly about what you are eating.  You are taking the first steps toward building a healthy lifestyle.  So you find out that you eat a bag of M&Ms during your stressful Monday morning meeting.  Don’t be too hard on yourself.  You are now becoming more conscious of your habits and can begin to make choices to change them for the better.

If you’re still not convinced, here’s a few more reasons to keep a food diary, from dietblog.

[Article courtesy of allrecipes.com and Reader's Digest: Cut Your Cholesterol.]

Eliminating those calories (as well as burning more through exercise) doesn’t have to be painful. Starvation and deprivation diets simply don’t work. Instead, the little things are what matter. Here are seven ideas to get you started:

1. Eat breakfast.

A study published in the February 2002 journal Obesity Research found that eating breakfast was a key behavior among people who averaged a 60-pound weight loss and kept it off an average of six years. Participants told researchers that skipping breakfast made them so hungry that they overate during other meals and snacked on unhealthy, high-calorie foods.

2. Measure that cereal.

The average serving of cereal is 1 cup. Yet most adults pour out at least twice that.

3. Scoop and save.

Every now and then someone comes up with such a cool kitchen utensil that you just have to rush right out and buy it. That’s the Lê Scoop. Its function: to scoop out the inside dough from a bagel, leaving you with the outer crust (and, of course, less fat and fewer calories). Fill the inside with nonfat cottage cheese sprinkled with ground flaxseeds for an easy, low-fat, low-calorie breakfast.

4. Buy the smaller size.

The larger the portion in front of you, the more you’ll eat. It’s a proven fact. When researchers sent 79 parents home with a video and either 1- or 2-pound bags of M&Ms along with either a medium or jumbo size tub of popcorn for each family member, they ate more M&M’s from the 2-pound bag than the 1-pound bag, and about half a tub of popcorn, regardless of the tub size.

5. Make smart switches.

See how much you can save by switching from high-fat, high-calorie indulgences to lower-fat, lower-calorie options. Just by making the following substitutions, you could lose 25 pounds a year:

6. Skip the soda.

If you drink non-diet soda, you can cut 160 calories (per 16 ounces) out of your day just by switching to diet soda. Better yet, drink green tea or water flavored with a squeeze of lemon or lime.

7. Start with soup.

Studies show that people who start a meal with soup–especially broth-based soup–end up eating fewer calories by the end of the day without feeling hungrier.

Source: Allrecipes.com, From Reader’s Digest Cut Your Cholesterol.

I never had to make it a point to exercise when I was younger. I was involved in sports, I danced a lot, and really, I could eat what I wanted without really paying for it. When I got to college I gained a little weight, but nothing to be too worried about. I was busy running from place to place and staying busy, so it wasn’t too much of a challenge to say at a weight that was comfortable to me. It wasn’t until I got my first desk job that I really started to notice my body changing. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I was sitting behind a desk for 8+ hours a day! I was no longer running across campus from class to class, and certainly not dancing four days a week like I did in high school. No, the most exercise I got was the walk to and from the bus every morning. Although my exercise habits had nearly become non-existent, my eating habits hadn’t changed and arguably got worse. I was eating garbage, really. The diet of a kid right out of college who is still acting like they need to subsist on Ramen noodles and Cheetos.

I began to dread shopping for clothes, as I watched myself go from a size 8 to 10 to 12 to 14 and so on. My self esteem had plummeted and I was self- conscious when I would go out. It was then that I realized that I needed to change something. I have never been a big believer in dieting. I love food, quite honestly, and I find it difficult to put such limitations on myself. It also never seemed to make sense to me to eliminate certain foods from my diet completely, especially if I liked them. But I wanted to learn more about what I could do in order to lose weight, eat healthier and begin to make exercise a part of my life again.

I picked up the book, “The No-Fad Diet” by the American Heart Association. It was the best thing I could have done and as cliché as it sounds, it changed my life. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking to live a healthier lifestyle – whether your challenges lie in exercising, eating healthy, or the mental and emotional work it takes just to begin. This book offers a no-nonsense approach to losing weight and healthy living.

One of the things that I really found attractive about the book is that it’s written by the American Heart Association. The American Heart Association is the “nation’s most trusted authority on heart-healthy living.” Who better to write a diet book? With the American Heart Association behind this book, you know you will be getting an authoritative and comprehensive solution to your weight loss goals.

The No-Fad Diet is broken up into two parts: losing weight and menu planning/recipes. The book markets itself as a “no-fad” approach to weight loss and healthy living. I think this is the best possible message to follow when looking to live a healthier lifestyle. Weight loss cannot be thought of in a vacuum. Your ways of thinking about your body, your approach to exercise, and your eating habits all need to be examined in order to achieve success.

The “No-Fad Diet” helps you change your thoughts about dieting and exercise and helps you combat negative thoughts that block your progress. It explains the methods in detail and offers quizzes and checklists so that you can personalize your program. The second half of the book contains hundreds of recipes and menus. There are recipes for appetizers, soups, salads, poultry, steak, vegetarian entreés, desserts and more! I have personally tried many of the recipes in this book and they are great! Certainly not lacking in taste. For each recipe, you will see how many calories per serving, total fat, cholesterol, sodium and more stats to help you keep things in check.

The aim of The No-Fad Diet is to help you change your lifestyle and teach you to lose weight in a healthy way that will last. And I can tell you from experience that it can be a great tool to kick start your way to a healthier life!

With the warm weather approaching (soon we hope!), it is time to start making refreshing, yet, healthy meals. Being a huge salad fan, I can honestly say that this is one of my favorite recipes (found at Allrecipes.com). If you’re someone who is busy and wishes you could come home and have dinner ready, good news! This recipe takes less than 15 minutes to make.

INGREDIENTS
* 2 bunches spinach, rinsed and torn into bite-size pieces
* 4 cups sliced strawberries
* 1/2 cup vegetable oil
* 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
* 1/2 cup white sugar
* 1/4 teaspoon paprika
* 2 tablespoons sesame seeds
* 1 tablespoon poppy seeds

DIRECTIONS
1. In a large bowl, toss together the spinach and strawberries.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the oil, vinegar, sugar, paprika, sesame seeds, and poppy seeds. Pour over the spinach and strawberries, and toss to coat.

I made a few alterations when preparing this recipe. I used 1/4 Cup of Vegetable Oil, 2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, and 1/8 Cup of sugar just to make it a little lighter. Also, you can add 1/4 Cup of chopped onion, 1 chicken breast and 2 chopped hard boiled eggs for added flavor.

Nutritional Information

Servings Per Recipe: 8

Amount Per Serving

Calories: 232

* Total Fat: 16g
* Cholesterol: 0mg
* Sodium: 69mg
* Total Carbs: 22.1g
* Dietary Fiber: 4.6g
* Protein: 3.5g

Knowing the correct portion sizes is the easiest way to help lose those extra pounds. Ever wonder how the heck you’re supposed to know what a serving size really is???

The picture listed below will been very helpful while cooking or even when grabbing a snack on the go.  The picture may be difficult to read – try clicking it and that should help.

Portion size guide

Deck of cards – 3 oz cooked chicken or meat (4 oz raw)

Tennis ball – 1 cup cooked rice, pasta or ice cream

4 dice/1 domino – 1 oz cheese

Baseball – medium piece of fruit

One die – 1 tsp butter or margarine

Computer mouse – 1 small baked potato

Average woman’s fist – 1 cup

Golf ball – 2 tablespoons peanut butter, jam, salad dressing

A packet of dental floss – 1 oz chocolate (good luck!)

“When it comes to fueling up for a workout, the when is just as important as the what.” – Fitness Magazine 2008

PRE-WORKOUT INTAKE

Two main purposes:

• Helps diminish feelings of hungry and being sluggish
• Maintains best levels of energy

Exercising on a full stomach is not ideal

Eating 2-4 hours before is best

Ideal meal consists of high carbohydrates, moderate protein and low fat

POST-WORKOUT INTAKE:

Just as beneficial for peak performance

• 30 minutes within time of post exercise
• Helps body to recoup
• Snacks high in protein are a must, Example – Energy Bars