Got the New Year Blues?

Got the January blues?  The first few days and even weeks of taking on a new diet and lifestyle can get to you.  Many of us are going back to work after having time off for friends and family, and sometimes it's hard to get back into our routines.  Not only that, some have had weeks of indulging in foods they barely eat all year, and they've been on overload of not only the fatty, sweet, sugary foods, but most likely upped their intake of alcohol as well!

I know for myself, I traveled to Pennsylvania for two weeks for the Thanksgiving holiday, and traveled to Florida with the baby alone the weekend before Christmas.  So much traveling and time with the family and my hubby, and now, it's all back to basics.

I came across this article with some hope in "curing" those January blues.  It gives a great list of certain foods to make sure you incorporate in your diet, not only listing them, but getting to the heart of WHY these foods will work for you!

Check out the article here:  The January Blues Diet: What to Eat & Why

TGIF!!  Have a great weekend!!

Resolve to Change - One Step at a Time

Well, it's the New Year, 2012, and on top of most people's resolution list... you guessed it... LOSE WEIGHT!

The biggest challenge that people find is that they try to go all out in January, majorly change their eating habits, join the gym, and try to make all these drastic changes to their life all at once.  This is why most fail at losing weight, because it's too much, too soon, and most get discouraged within the first two months of the year, and get that "screw this!" mentality.

Why not try making small changes?  Add them one step at a time.  Maybe resolve to start walking after your main meal each day.  Or start by switching soda to water.  The next week, try to get more veggies in your diet.  Taking small steps in changing your lifestyle not only make it easier to work into your day to day routine, small changes can stick better, and by summer/fall, all those small changes you've made, you can look back and see how much change you've actually made and stuck with.

Best of luck to all of you in this new year!!  You can do it and all it just takes one step at a time.  I leave you with this quote I posted on my FB page today....

“All you can change is yourself, but sometimes that changes everything!”— Gary W. Goldstein

12 Steps to Wellness

I received this in an email from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition and it's by Joshua Rosenthal, IIN Founder and Director.  He called them the 12 Steps to Wellness:

1.    Drink more water

2.    Practice cooking

3.    Increase whole grains

4.    Increase sweet vegetables

5.    Increase leafy green vegetables

6.    Experiment with protein

7.    Eat less meat, dairy, sugar and chemicalized, artificial junk foods; consume less coffee, alcohol and tobacco

8.    Develop easy and reliable habits to nurture your body

9.    Have healthy relationships that support you

10.  Find physical activity you enjoy and do it regularly

11.  Find work you love or a way to love the work you have

12.  Develop a spiritual practice

Do you agree or disagree?  Is there anything you would add to these steps?

Weight Loss Strategies

This is taken from my Unit 7 Seminar Post from NS220 Nutrition Planning and Management class at Kaplan University.  The question posed was "If you were educating an overweight client, what types of strategies would you provide for weight loss?"  Here is my reply: 

When it comes to educating a client on weight loss, I would have to say that I would start with a lot of what the Mayo Clinic has to say regarding the six main strategies of weight loss:

1.  Get them to make a commitment to their weight loss.  Some are not aware of the mental and physical aspects of losing weight, so I would want to make them fully aware that this is not an easy road ahead, but by committing themselves to the process, they can and will achieve success.

2.  Help them find their inner motivation.  What is motivating them to achieve this weight loss?  Better health?  Do they want to be around longer for their kids and family?  Maybe an event like a wedding, reunion or vacation is coming up and they want to look and feel their best.  Finding their inner motivation will not only help them focus to their commitment to weight loss, it will also help them weed out the negativity in their life.  It will surprise a lot how unsupportive some friends and family members will be.   With their inner motivation they will be able to shrug off those people and comments, and know that that's their own insecurities and to not let them affect their own goals.  Which brings me to #3.

3.  Help them make S.M.A.R.T. goals with their weight loss.  They will be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time oriented.  How much weight are they looking to lose?  How long will it take?  What changes will they be able to allow in their lives to make it possible?  Having long and short term goals, and even writing them down, will help them on their weight loss journey, and will help them change their lifestyle and not just "diet".

4.  Have them start eating and enjoying more healthier foods.  Honestly, a lot of times, there are foods that are healthy for them they've never even tried!  Healthy doesn't mean bland, boring food!  There is a wide varieties of things that can be prepared and enjoyed that I truly feel they would be surprised with.  I would add one more specific thing to this strategy - meal planning.  When you take a little bit of time just once a week to sit down and figure out what you will eat for your meals in the upcoming week, not only will it save on calories and get your eating the right foods, it can also be a money saver, and an extra bonus in changing your lifestyle.

5. Get moving, and stay moving!  When I personally hear the excuses of "no time" for exercise, I have to ask that person, what is so important in your life that you've put your own health at risk for it?  If you are not healthy and active, you won't be around for those things that you made more of priority than your own health and well-being.  Whether work, kids, functions, events, if you don't take time for yourself to improve on your health, you won't have the ability to keep up with it all, and your health, mental state and physical abilities to do all that you do will become less and less, and your quality of life will be poor.  There are a number of ways to keep active that don't involve going to the gym and working out for X-amount of time a day.  I would show my clients the possibilities that fit into their current lifestyle and responsibilities.

6.  Help them change their perspective on losing weight and getting healthy.  So many times people give up because they want to see instant results on the scale.  A lot of times they are gaining muscle mass, or maybe that week they are retaining water more than normal, and sometimes they just aren't being truthful with themselves about what they are doing.  Many of the changes can be seen in their bloodwork and lab results.  They have to remember that is something that is changing almost every aspect of their lives, so it's not easy, and it's not an instant change.  Celebrating your successes is KEY!  Maybe the stuck with their exercise plan that week, or maybe they planned their dinners and kept to it.  These are great successes in the long term goal of not only losing weight, but having the tools in place to keep it off.

When it comes to my client, I would try to stay actively involved with their weight loss as well.  Maybe suggest a website such as www.FitDay.com to help them keep track of their calories, exercise, moods and be able to keep a journal for themselves to vent or praise themselves, or have them email me and touch base with them directly.  I honestly feel that people can achieve great success in weight loss and maintenance when they have a great support system in place.


References;

Mayo Clinic Staff (December 18, 2010) Weight loss: 6 strategies for success.  Retrieved 10/10/2011 from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/weight-loss/HQ01625

You Need to Watch This!

If you haven't seen this 2011 documentary, I highly encourage you to do so.  Forks Over Knives is an amazing documentary with wonderful studies and comparisons over the past 100 years on how the newly adapted "Western Diet" is linked to the increase in cancers, diabetes, heart disease and other chronic and life threatening diseases.

The hubs and I watched it on Netflix this past week, and it's a real eye opener on how what we put in our bodies can either have a positive or negative effect on our health and well-being.  To this day, it amazes me that there is all this information out there, yet people still live to eat instead of eating to LIVE!!

Why is it we don't change our diets until something happens to us.  So many people not only avoid the truth about foods, they are in denial themselves about what they put in their bodies, and how they themselves are partial responsible for the diseases being able to rule their life.  

This documentary, as well as a documentary I reviewed last year called Food Matters, are definitely something I feel every American needs to watch.  Both stress an d repeat Hippocrates quote - "Let Thy Food Be Thy Medicine".  Is yours?