What About Easter?

I got a call the other day from a lovely lady asking about my Today’s the Day plan.  We discussed how I might best work with her to assist her in losing weight.  Toward the end of the conversation she asked me if she should begin right away or wait until after Easter, since it’s next week.

I told her that it is not what you do between Thanksgiving and New Year’s that makes or breaks you – but what you do between New Year’s and Thanksgiving!  I encouraged her to go through the print book she was going to purchase to familiarize herself with the plan, enjoy her Easter celebration and then contact me and we would discuss how she can begin the 7 week coaching plan.

Even if she had been on the plan for weeks, as one client has been, I would suggest the same thing. My other client is now in week 4 coaching with me.  If she “goes off” the plan on Easter Sunday with her family – does she undo all her hard work?  NO!!!  Absolutely not.

In fact, at times, taking one day and eating whatever you want and then just going right back to the plan the next day can boost your results!  It can motivate and encourage you to redouble your efforts.  We cannot become so rigid, unrealistic and inflexible that “life” cannot happen unless everything goes perfectly all the time.  It won’t and part of the plan is to teach you how to develop a different relationship with food – a healthier relationship.  Then a holiday or a business dinner or impromptu schedule change will not throw you into a tailspin and cause you to get discouraged and give up completely.

So, can you go off on Easter? YES!  Enjoy your family, enjoy the traditional family favorite foods, celebrate our wonderful Risen Lord and don’t stress over it.  Enjoy it, savor it.  And go back to your healthy eating on Monday.  It’s as simple as that.

Get Control of Your Thinking to Get Control of Your Weightt

The more you intentionally prepare yourself mentally to lose weight, clean up your diet and get fit, the more successful you will be long-term.  If you’ve ever tried to lose weight before (and most people embark on this journey multiple times), you know you have to have a strategy in place for when cravings hit, effectively manage stress, (otherwise it WILL manage you) and  be able to creatively side-step the diet landmines you’ll inevitably come up against at work and at home.

I won’t go into great detail about some of the strategies I use when working with clients, but I wanted to give you some food for thought (pun intended!)

The first step in Today’s the Day and my 3D Living Program is detox and that includes detoxing spirit, soul (mind, will and emotions) and body.  You will have toxic, negative self-talk looping through your mind creating disappointment, discouragement, anxiety and guilt.  A study in 2010 found people who were anxious had trouble completing a simple mathematical task like counting to 5!  So, it can certainly derail your decision-making processes.

I suggest my clients use my 3C’s strategy to capture, cancel and confess the toxic thought and replace it with a positive, faith-filled thought.  Taking a minute to stretch, move around or take a quick walk is also helpful in changing your train of thought.

You must stay focused and keep your eye on the prize!  Many studies prove eating mindfully decreases the amount you eat and makes you feel more satisfied with your meal. One of the things I counsel clients is to slow down, eat mindfully, savor and enjoy each bite rather than mindlessly devour your food.  Mindfulness is completely immersing yourself in the task at hand.  “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for God and not for man.  Colossians 3:23  You can also use what I call a short faith confession or mantra when your focus falters like “I am strong in the Lord” or “Food is my fuel.”

Along with mindfulness is resisting the temptation to do too many things at one time.  Intentionally begin to deliberately stop one task before moving on to the next, so you are fully focused on each task you engage in (eating, cooking, exercising, speaking, reading).  This way any anxious thoughts from one task are not carried over to the next.

Along with focus comes being intentional.  For me that’s opposite of being impulsive.  You know what I mean – going to grab an apple but seeing leftover cheesecake and grabbing that instead! One study concluded that the top 10% most impulsive people weighed 24 more pounds than the least impulsive. Here’s where another of the 3D Living Program principles comes into play – exercising your will.

The best way to do this is by keeping your word to yourself.  If your plan for today was to eat the apple and NOT the cheesecake, when the temptation presents itself – ask yourself not only what other option would be better, but remind yourself of the commitment you made.  You are a person of your word and keeping your word to yourself is as important as keeping your word to your spouse or child.

I strongly suggest my clients keep a detailed food log that tracks not only what they ate, when and how much, but how it made them feel.  It will help you make better decisions moving forward when you can review your log and see that an egg white omelet with veggies and one slice of millet toast kept you full and focused all the way to lunchtime, while a bowl of cereal had you starving by 10 am.  Carefully tracking what you eat as well as how you feel a couple of hours afterward is a great strategy.

Have you found that your thinking derailed even your best intentions at getting fit in the past?

Just Have Some Real Ice Cream and Be Done With It!

I saw a show on the Food Network last weekend called Hungry Girl.   I’ve enjoyed watching as she takes some higher calorie foods and makes lower calorie swaps for people who are trying to lose weight.  But in this last episode she was inventing low calorie substitutes for ice cream.

What she did was to use fat free whipped topping in place of the ice cream and added some mini marshmallows and other things to make it more like an ice cream sundae type of dessert.  Yes, I know the calorie count is much lower than ice cream, particularly full fat ice cream, but seriously, do you have any idea what fat free whipped topping is made of?  The first 4 ingredients in fat free Cool Whip are water, corn syrup, hydrogenated vegetable oil, high fructose corn syrup!  The only ingredient that isn’t toxic is the water and who knows how pure it is??

I have absolutely no problem with making smart swaps when trying to reduce calories in a dish.  I do that.  But I really wish people would keep in mind that the swap actually needs to be healthy as well!  If you trade off higher calorie for low calorie, totally synthetic, artificial and fake food – where’s the benefit?  You would be much better off in my opinion if you had a small bowl of real, full fat ice cream.  Even the lower fat varieties have too many artificial ingredients.

As I see it the problem is that we do not want to exercise self-control and just have a half cup of real ice cream occasionally – so we find these ways to have a bigger serving of some knock-off whenever we feel like it.  If it’s going into your body, it needs to be real food, otherwise it is not nourishing you, it’s poisoning you.

Would you rather have a little of a “real” treat food you love, or as much as you want of a synthetic knock-off?

Avoiding Extremes

It is very dangerous to totally eliminate any one food group.  Diets that emphasize “no carbs” or very “high protein” or “fat free” or all fruit or whatever the extreme is – are not balanced and healthy.

God gave us 3 macronutrients – protein, carbs and fats – for a reason.  The reason is that our bodies are created to require all of them.  The problem we seem to run into is that we favor one group, typically fat or carbs, and that’s when we end up in the ditch so to speak.

I know there are myriad diets out there and many focus on eliminating or severely limiting one of those groups.  High protein diets like the old Atkins diet that completely eliminated all carbs resulted in weight loss – initially.  But honestly how long can anyone go without any carbs – especially fruits and veggies??

Our brains need carbohydrates for energy.  That’s why people on those diets end up feeling mentally foggy and sluggish.  My Today’s the Day plan recommends keeping starchy carb intake low but the daily meals should be focused around vegetables (which are the healthiest carbs!) and includes clean protein, healthy fats and fruit in moderation.  And even starchy carbs are reintroduced because I believe if you make a plan too restrictive, it’s doomed to failure.

Too much fat, even healthy fat, can push the number on the scale too far up.  Too many carbs – well – I think we all know there are many problems with over-consuming carbs, particularly processed carbs, besides just becoming overweight, including blood sugar imbalance, digestive and cholesterol problems. Too much protein can also cause problems.  This is why we must be careful to remain balanced, while choosing the healthiest options available to us.

Do you feel you eat a pretty balanced diet that includes all the macronutrients?  Do you seem to favor one over the others?

 

What and When You Eat Can Boost the Results of Your Exercise

A healthy diet and regular exercise are two critical components of overall health and especially for losing weight and getting fit.  But did you realize what you eat before and after working out could greatly affect the results of all your hard work?  Well, it can!  In fact nourishing yourself properly can increase how much fat you burn by as much as 66%!

Your goal should be to burn fat rather than carbohydrates whether you are doing strength training or cardio.  When you burn fat during your strength training sessions, it leads to a more toned fit body by changing your body composition.  That’s why your weight can stay the same but you can go down a pant size or two and look so much better!  Burning fat during cardio whether it’s endurance work (walking or jogging on the treadmill) or high intensity interval exercise will allow you to work longer without becoming exhausted.  In both instances the result will be a leaner, fitter you, which should be the goal.

According to a new review in the British Journal of Nutrition, the following pre-workout nutrition strategies boost fat burning:

Eat low-glycemic carbs with protein about an hour before training.  Low glycemic carbs include green veggies and certain fruits.  Twenty grams of whey protein mixed with green powder in water would be perfect!  And exercising on a fairly empty stomach is also recommended in order to burn more fat.

Avoid fructose before and 2 hours after working out as it shuts down production of Human growth hormone (HGH) which your body naturally produces and releases during intense workouts.  That is important because it helps build lean muscle.  Actually – avoid fructose all the time – period!

The research also suggests you avoid milk because the proteins cause high insulin levels.  You should probably avoid commercially produced milk for many other reasons.

They suggest you take the amino acid l-carnitine regularly to “load” it into the muscles, but you can also take it with your pre-workout meal.  It makes your body more efficient at processing fuel so you burn more fat.

Regularly taking fish oil with your pre-workout meal also boosts fat burning by actually telling your body to use fat for energy almost immediately after taking it and improves insulin sensitivity.  Adding coconut oil or chia seeds to your pre-work out whey drink will give you healthy fat as well.

Drinking caffeinated green tea increases fat burning by 15% or more and elevates fat burning for 24 hours after drinking it.  Coffee can also boost fat burning, but studies show green tea is superior.

What you eat after working out can extend and amplify the results or totally shut them down.

Thirty minutes to an hour after strength training it is suggested you have another 20 grams of whey protein again to nourish your muscles and encourage continuing fat burning.

Consuming sugar of any type (including starchy carbs that convert to sugar, and sugary energy drinks) within two hours of exercise and particularly after high intensity interval exercise will negatively affect your insulin sensitivity and shut down Human growth hormone production.

Why is that so important? You can work out for hours, then eat a high sugar candy bar or have a high sugar energy drink, and this will shut down the synergistic benefits of HGH.  When you release HGH and don’t hinder it with your post-workout fuel, you burn calories during the workout and also get the bonus of fat burning for 2 hours after! 

Bottom Line:  A high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet has proven to be the most effective both for muscle building and weight loss.

Are you properly fueling your workouts for the best possible results?

Eat Dessert to Lose Weight?

Research from Tel Aviv University recently concluded that eating dessert with your breakfast could help you lose weight.  My dad, who ate dessert with EVERY meal on a family cruise vacation a few years ago, would heartily agree!! (Not about the weight loss part – just the eating dessert with breakfast part.)

Sometimes I read the results of these studies and it amazes me!  The thinking was that eating the high calorie dessert early in the day gives you the opportunity to burn it off and they found the subjects in the study didn’t seem to crave the sweets later in the day.  Fair enough.  I know my son, Matt, read a fitness book by Sylvester Stallone years ago and he also recommended having cake or ice cream for breakfast for the same reason.  Sly is always ahead of the curve!

I honestly could not recommend this!  I believe the reason people in the study who ate dessert with breakfast lost more weight was because they simply ate a bigger breakfast!  Yes, you have more time to burn off those calories eaten early in the day.  In Today’s the Day, I suggest adding healthy carbs to either breakfast or lunch when trying to lose weight for that reason.  However “healthy carbs” like sweet potatoes, quinoa, oatmeal, millet or brown rice are very different than a slab of chocolate cake, donuts or a cheese Danish!

Let’s be realistic – even if (and I’m not totally convinced it would) eating donuts with your omelet help you lose weight – think about the blood sugar consequences!  In my opinion, we have to stop trying to take the easy way out and just satisfy every craving and think about the long term effects to our overall health.  There is much more to being “healthy” than simply being thin.

What do you think?

I’ll Do It Tomorrow…

I’ll start next week…

I’ll wait until Monday…

Next month, I’ll do it…

We have a million excuses for procrastinating.  We can become experts at putting things off to a future time.  The problem with that is we never follow through.  Most people decide they’ll begin the diet and exercise plan January 1^st.  We all know gym attendance skyrockets those first couple of weeks and then drops back to normal very quickly.

There is no “magic” in a particular date.  It really doesn’t much matter if you begin on Thursday or on Monday; if you start on the first of the month or the 12^th.  Some of us fall into the trap of wanting everything to be “perfect.”  We all know short of heaven, things here will never be perfect!  If you’re a parent, you know if you waited for everything to be perfect before you decided to have your children – you probably would still be waiting!

I named my book and plan “Today’s the Day” because – it’s the only day you have.  Today.  Now.  This day.  No matter what change you want or need to make, that first step is always the most difficult.  But once you step out in faith and take it – every step after becomes easier.

There are definitely some strategies that will make that first step easier like preparing – yourself – physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally – and your environment. But it all comes down to making a quality decision to just do it now! And then following through – day by day. If you need a little more encouragement, take a few minutes to listen to this recent podcast about why today truly is the day!

What is your biggest obstacle to getting started with a diet or fitness plan?