14 days to Groundhog day, What are you doing about it?

Every year, people make New Year’s Resolutions.

Every year, Most people break their resolutions by U.S.’s Groundhog day,  (Feb 2)

What are you going to do about breaking your resolutions?

I resolved this year, not to make resolutions until Groundhog day (a la David Seah).    Now, you ask why?  The Party Forces are against you. Think about it.

• From Thanksgiving until Christmas, there are parties galore with all sorts of food and drinks.
• After Christmas, you’re eating up all the left-over cookies, candy canes, chocolate, and other wonderful goodies.
• New years, you’re partying it up.  Drinking and eating.
• New Year’s Day, with all the New Year’s American College Football games, who’s not going to over-eat chips and salsa, pizza, and beer on New year’s day?
• Then, we have a week of BCS college football games, NFL Playoffs, and then on to the Super Bowl Parties.

Wow, what a stacked load of over-eating bonanzas face us before Groundhog day.  Now, who’s ever heard of over-eating at Lincoln’s birthday parties?  or Valentine’s day nachos?  Heck, The Academy Awards are more of Tea and Wine Party than a bowl of chips and hot dogs.  Granted, for the typical party-goer, Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras throw a wrinkle in the plans of avoiding the over-indulgent parties. Additionally, Toss in the most wonderful TV time of year known as College Basketball March Madness and the parties are still coming.

Yet, those can be seen as hiccups in the spring along the way to summer BBQ’s.  So, What’s the best time to join a gym?  It sure isn’t January 1st when the wait for the cardio machines changes from a December 0 mintues to a January 30 minutes.  I suggest you Join the Gym in February when everyone else is fizzling on their New year’s resolutions and annoyed by all the January Joiners.  You can avoid the wait and be clean of the major party events.

To be honest, what’s the best time for Resolutions? it’s now, when you have convictions and motivation.  Do it Now, this Second, and resolve to be the new thin you.  Believe it, Dream it, Visualize it, and Feel it.

Not Convinced?

Well, I’m giving you (and myself) 14 days to become convinced.  You have to become so convinced and motivated that you will stick with your new habits at least until you achieve your goals and reach your swimsuit size by summer beach time.

How are you going to prepare yourself to begin the journey of healthy eating, healthy exercise, and a healthier you?

…stay tuned…

Of course, it has something to do with the Slow Weigh, but that’s enough of that for now.

Four Golden Rules for Eating and Weight Loss

In 2009, I will be reviewing popular diet, weight loss, and fitness books published over the last few years. These reviews will give you a chance to preview books before buying them and allow you to compare different weight loss and fitness approaches to see what fits best with your lifestyle.

A SimpleWeight Review of I Can Make You Thin

Known as the “Dr. Phil of Britain”, Paul McKenna, PhD, has just released the US version of his weight loss/self help book, I Can Make You Thin: The Revolutionary System Used by More Than 3 Million People (Book and CD) (published December 2008). Although it reinforces much of what has already been published about dieting and weight loss, McKenna boils down most of the weight loss principles into Four Golden Rules of eating. By following these rules, McKenna is certain that dieters can change their eating behaviors and lose weight in the process. Below you will find the highlights of McKenna’s book:

McKenna’s Four Golden Rules for Eating
1. Eat when you’re hungry: Sounds simple enough but the trick is to listen to your body and learn your personal levels of hunger. McKenna provides a “hunger scale” with 1 being physically faint from hunger and 10 being nauseous from eating too much. He suggests eating when your hunger level is at 3 or 4 (fairly or slightly hungry) and stopping when you reach a level of 6 or 7 (pleasantly satisfied or full).

Bonus Tip – Thirst is sometimes masked as hunger. In other words, you may think you are hungry when you are actually thirsty. If you think you are hungry, McKenna suggests drinking a glass of water first, then if you are still hungry, eat.

2. Eat what you want and not what you think you should eat: McKenna stresses that there are no forbidden foods using his weight loss method and that you can eat whatever makes you happy. This approach works due to the checks and balances of the other three Golden Rules. By merely following the other rules, you can eat whatever you want as long as you are truly hungry, you enjoy every bite, and you stop when you are full.

Bonus Tip – McKenna encourages you to throw away any foods that do not inspire you to eat, like the low fat, low carb, no taste snacks in the pantry (unless you really like to eat cardboard).

3. Eat consciously and enjoy every mouthful: Point blank, eat SLOWLY and really taste and enjoy your food. When you eat slowly, your stomach has enough time to send a signal to the brain and the rest of your body that you are “full” and to stop eating. People who are overweight tend to eat fast, not allowing their stomachs time to send this “full” signal. As result, they will continue to eat until they are overfull or even stuffed. Slow eating also allows you to appreciate all of the flavors and textures of the food, helping you decide what foods you really enjoy and which you can pass up.

Bonus Tip – Slow your eating down to a quarter of what you are used to and chew each mouthful completely, setting down your utensil between bites.

4. When you think you’re full, stop eating: Knowing when you are truly “full” may be difficult for many people, but McKenna offers an easy way to tell when you are full. As soon as you’ve had your fill of food, every bite thereafter will be less enjoyable then the one before. Continuing to eat after this point will create an uncomfortable feeling in your solar plexus (nerves in the abdomen). At this point, you should stop eating no matter how much food is still left on your plate.

Bonus Tip – For card-carrying members of the clean your plate club, McKenna suggests giving up this mindset and only eating until you are full, leaving behind any food as leftovers or for the trash.

Strengths – McKenna’s Four Golden Rules are extremely simple to understand. He explains them in clear terms and offers sound and, for the most part, jargon-free reasoning behind each of the principles. McKenna also offers a no-nonsense summary of why our dieting patterns have failed and have actually reprogrammed our bodies to not lose weight. This actually becomes the premise for the book, setting the stage for readers to change their habits and adopt better eating behaviors for life.

Limitations – Although the Four Golden Rules are simple in theory, actually following through with them is a different story. For many of us, following these rules will mean overcoming years of poor eating behaviors, many of which are now part of our subconscious. If you can get past this huge obstacle – you’re Golden. McKenna also stresses that no food is off limits, yet pays no mind to the nutritional value of food. Although I don’t believe any food should be forbidden (because it just makes you want it more), nutrition should also be a factor in what you eat.

The Twist – McKenna provides a guided hypnosis CD which aims to reinforce his golden rules and other weight loss techniques mentioned in the book. The idea of using hypnosis to lose weight may scare away dieters from even reading the book. This would be a mistake, because the basic principles are sound and don’t necessarily need hypnosis to follow.

Have you read this book? Tell me your thoughts about I Can Make You Thin. What other health books would you like to see reviewed on SimpleWeight.com?

Does the Flat Belly Diet or MUFA diet work for weight loss?

Welcome MUFA & Flat Belly Diet Searchers.  We have noticed a large percentage of our visits have been from people like you searching for MUFA.  So, We decided to revisit the MUFA / Flat Belly Diet.

With three questions for you:

• Are you following the Flat Belly Diet?
• What do you think of MUFA is it a fad diet or is it the next best thing since Protein Diets?
• How do you Balance MUFA vs. Calories?  Since, that’s the biggest challenge I have had.

Here’s my quick review for those of you new to the Flat Belly Diet.
Disclaimer: I have yet to complete the entire book, (I’ve only skimmed it).

Let’s review the basics of the Flat Belly Diet:

1. Have a calorie goal, they recommend 1600 calories/day
2. Eat MUFA at every meal.
3. Eat Often.
4. Manage your emotional eating.

Now:  Does the MUFA | Flat Belly Diet Really Work?

As we’ve said before at simpleweight, it does not matter what diet you are on, if you eat you less calories than you burn, then of course you will lose weight. When I wrote, Do I really eat 3790 calories a day, I learned that the average US person eats 3790 calories a day. Now, if you are a normal average person, and you go from eating 3790 calories to 1600 calories, then of course you will lose weight. So, restricting calorie intake is a key of any weight loss plan.

Now, the key for the Flat Belly Diet, is science research states by eating MUFA at every meal you will feel fuller longer and help to curb your appetite. If you are interested in the science, you can check out the British Journal of Nutrition (2003), 90:717-727 Cambridge University Press, specifically the article titled: Substitution of saturated with monounsaturated fat in a 4-week diet affects body weight and composition of overweight and obese men

Substituting dietary saturated fat with unsaturated fat, predominantly MUFA, can induce a small but significant loss of body weight and fat mass without a significant change in total energy or fat intake.

More science states that:

In conclusion, diets in which saturated fat is partially replaced by MUFA can achieve significant reductions in total and LDL-cholesterol concentrations, even when total fat and energy intakes are maintained.
Cholesterol reduction using manufactured foods high in monounsaturated fatty acids: a randomized crossover study

Okay, so you want to add MUFA to your diet, How can you do so?

Check How to add MUFA to breakfast, lunch, or dinner for weight loss?

The question as I stated above, is the challenge of balancing the 1600 calories a day with high calorie MUFA foods.

The other challenge is weight loss is both an emotional task as well as a physical task.  Physically is really the easy part:  Eat Less Food,  Exercise More.   Emotionally, weight loss is the difficult part.  With any lifestyle change, we have to very strong motivations for making the change.  The motivation to change must outweigh the difficulty in overcoming our predeliction for eating and emotional and pscychological attachment to unhealthy habits.  I’ve explored the topic of motivation many times here at simpleweight, and it can not be stated often enough.

You must think positively, manage expectations, create strong motivations, and make weight loss socially fun in order to sustain long term habitual change such as weight loss and weight management. For more information, I suggest you read:  7 steps to a positive and healthy lifestyle.

What are your motivations and how has the MUFA diet worked for you?

Your Fitness Bicycle Follows Your Habitual Inner Eye.

As my last post implied about restaurants, I was on vacation for a bit.

Upon returning from vacation, my writing time, my family time, my work productivity, my exercise habits, and my simpleweight development time have been competing for attention as demonstrated by my recent drop off in simpleweight posts. It’s amazing when one’s commitments begin to compete how people react.

• Some people buckle down, pick one thing and get right to it.
• Other people multi-task, and do little things from every piece.
• Other people become overwhelmed by the forest of projects that the tasks that are trees get lost and ultimately procrastination sets in.
• Other people trim their obligations.
• We all follow our Inner Eye trained by our Habits.

Since humans are creatures of habits, regardless of your response, all of us tend to slip in to old habits.  I know I have.  My eating quantity is up, my exercise is down, and my emotional state is directly related to that.  While reading the web as I love to do, I noticed this:

When the schedule gets squeezed, exercise and diet are the last things to cut from my daily routine.  –some commenter on some blog somewhere.

That’s a great mind-set.  Health and Fitness should be one of your top priorities.  I know I can help improve it.  In fact, I believe when you improve your diet and exercise, the rest of the commitments tend to fall in place.  It’s a balance between your passions, your fitness, and your spiritualism/science.  When one is of out whack, the rest of them follow suit.

Here’s a good analogy:  While driving a car or riding a bicycle, if you look to the right, you will start to move towards the direction you are looking.  It’s a balance.  The same came be said for our fitness habits.

If you let one of your habits veer off course, the rest of your habits will follow.  The reverse can be said.

For example, I noticed if I start exercising, I feel good, and then without thinking I start to become conscious of my eating habits.

Another example, a friend of mine and I went to a baseball game.  I ate a hot dog, and he ate a salad.  — Huh? A salad at a ball game?  Well, the backstory is the friend is highly motivated to eat healthy and exercise.  In no uncertain terms, his doctor said exercise and eat healthy.  Wow, what motivation.

Now, my friend asks, instead of how am I going to fit that run in,  how am I going to fit in everything around my running time.  The exercise time is non-negotiable.  By changing your self-questions, one changes their habits and ultimately creates the healthy balance.

Where is your inner eye looking?  How has that impacted your fitness habits?

7 steps to mix Weight Loss with Eating Out at Restaurants.

Steps to Weight Loss and Restaurants: Think, Read, Ask, Alter, Half, Slow, & Walk

It’s difficult to navigate the landscape of the over-sized, over-oiled, over-salted menus of today’s restaurants. In my opinion, mixing Weight-Loss with Restaurants is similar to mixing oil and water.

It’s much easier to prepare your own meals in portion sizes that you control what ingredients are being used. Having said that, one can still enjoy meals at restaurants and lose weight. It’s definitely possible, but more difficult.

A recent article in the Chicago Tribune describes Bernie Salazar’s, of Biggest Loser Fame, method for eating out and losing weight.

Bernie Salazar, who eats out twice a week, sometimes has half of his meal boxed up before the food ever gets to the table. And he asks them to keep it in the back—to avoid eating it right away. “Keep it out of sight,” he says. Do not have the other half sitting on the table with you. “A meal in a box is just a present!” he says, adding that he would be tempted to open it – and eat it – if it were sitting there with him.

Above all, he says, don’t be afraid to ask for food to be prepared the way you want it. “Would you rather offend the waiter or the cook by being picky or would you rather offend your heart?”

source: Trine Tsouderos, Chicago Tribune: A ‘Biggest Loser’s’ calorie-busting tips

Let’s break it down into steps we can repeat every-time we dine out.

7 tips for eating out and maintaining weight loss

1. Think before picking a restaurant. Try to find restaurants that don’t sacrifice taste in low-calorie dishes. Obviously, metropolitan areas like Chicago offer a large variety of restaurants to choose from, but in Paducah, KY, one might have less of a culinary choice.
2. Read and comprehend the menu. By actually reading the menu for comprehension, you’ll have to think about it. Consequently, if a starter sounds appetizing (then you’ll remember while reading) that you will have to exercise more later to compensate the increase in calories.
3. Ask questions! How is this prepared? What oil are our using? Is it fried or baked? How many calories are in this dish? Most restaurants will not divulge or conveniently choose not to know how many calories are in their menu items. By asking questions about how the food is prepared, you can make a better educated case into how many calories, carbs, fat, protein, nutrients are in the dish you are about to eat.
4. Ask the waiter, chef, to alter the dish to your dietary needs. In other words, ask them for no salt, or to bake the fish instead of frying it. Paraphrasing Salazar, its much better to offend the restaurant than to come to a premature death due to poor diet.
5. In the event that you do find yourself in a large-portion restaurant, while ordering your food, Ask the restaurant to half your order, and keep the doggie bag in the back as a gift for you when you leave the establishment. This way, you are not tempted to eat it, because its not on the table. Secondly, you’ll have a meal for home. I’ve suggested splitting the order in half in the past prior to eating, but I had not thought about asking the restaurant to split the order before even delivering the food to my table. That’s such a great idea.
6. Eat Slow during the meal taking it one bite at a time. Chew your food completely, savoring each bite. By making the meal a slow event, you enjoy the food and give your body time to digest the food. Consequently, you’ll eat less and get your money’s worth.
7. Take a walk after you eat to help with digestion. Exercise helps burn the calories. In fact, many experts suggest eating before and after a workout helps the body burn fat. I don’t go that far, but just the fact of walking around helps increase your activity and thus increases your Food Out.

What are your steps for maintaining weight-loss while eating at your favorite restaurant?