I must confess, I ate a cup of ice cream and 2 oreo cookies. So much for changing behaviors!  I did measure the ice cream, and I thought about keeping it out of my journal (just for a nanosecond), but I stayed honest.

Oh, I had 2 small 2×2 squares of pizza at work on Superbowl Sunday. There, now it’s all out there!

How do I deal with this setback? Why did I do this? Some honest self-talk took me through reaffirming my goals. Can I do this and will it be worth it? The answer is still yes! I was disappointed in my slow weight loss and insecure about the next week. I was finished with my 2 weeks of planned diet, out of product and wasn’t clear on my next steps.

Claire to the rescue! She didn’t chastise me; she validated my emotions and gave me good information to understand my slow weight loss. I learned 2 things.

First, I now get that “where sodium goes water flows.” I learned that it takes 2-3 days to lose the water salt holds (my pizza).

Second, I now understand when you eat food higher in sugar (cookies & ice cream), you should have protein with it so it is metabolized and not stored. Good to know!

So, I have a food plan for this week, increased exercise and H.A.L.T. on the refrigerator.

• Am I Hungry?
• Am I Angry?
• Am I Lonely?
• Am I Tired?

Here’s to a new week and better results!

PS:  I weighted 167.6 this morning….YEA ME!

Photo by Woodley Wonderworks

Think about it…eggs were made as fully equipped little packages to sustain life.  They contain high quality protein.  Eating eggs for breakfast can also help you feel full and maintain your lean body mass.

But don’t just stop at breakfast- eggs are great for lunch, dinner or even snacks!  They are inexpensive, convenient & quick.  Eggs can be cooked in so many ways that you might never tire of them.

Eggs are “nutrition rock stars”, according to Frances Largeman-Roth, who wrote a wonderful article in the January/February issue of Health Magazine.  Largeman-Roth is a nutritionist who recommended these tasty ways to upgrade eggs:

• By adding a splash of hot sauce, you will “kick up” the flavor and add some health benefits.  It is the capsaicin in the hot sauce that revs up your metabolism and may help keep you slim.
• Asparagus spears can be dipped into soft-boiled eggs and you can try adding herbs and goat cheese to scrambled eggs.
• She also states that “simple poached eggs are a wonderful foil for salty salmon” and that eggs combined with a little diced ham in ramekins and baked at 400 degrees for 15 minutes offer a “big dose of flavor”.

Why are eggs “nutrition rock stars”?  Here’s a break down of the good nutrition found in eggs:

• Eggs are high in vitamins and minerals.  One large egg has 251 milligrams of choline, more than half of a woman’s daily requirement and 25 micrograms of vitamin K, one third of the daily requirement for women.  Choline is crucial for brain health as it important for brain development of unborn babies and affects memory later in life.  Vitamin K is a key nutrient in blood clotting.
• One medium whole egg has 65 calories, 1 gram of effective carbohydrate, 4 grams of fat and 5 grams of protein. A large egg has 75 calories, 1 gram of effective carbohydrate, 5 grams of fat and 6 grams of protein. An extra large egg has 85 calories, 1 effective carbohydrate, 6 grams of fat and 7 grams of protein.
• One large yolk has 60 calories, no carbohydrates, 5 grams of fat and 3 grams of protein.
• One large egg white has 15 calories, a trace of carbohydrates, no fat and 4 grams of protein.
• ¼ cup of egg substitute has 35 calories, a trace of carbohydrates, 1 fat gram and 6 grams of protein.

If you have high cholesterol, you might have been told to avoid eggs.  However, it is saturated fat that substantially impacts your blood cholesterol levels.  Recent studies have shown that adding eggs to a healthy diet did not increase LDL or heart disease.  It’s best, as always, to check with your physician before changing your diet, but why not ask if you can add a few eggs to your life?

Ultimately, eggs are good for you.  Maybe the English egg industry had it right when I was growing up.  Their TV commercials used a very memorable slogan – “Go to work on an egg”.

And then you step on a scale.

Why is it that it is so easy for us to gain weight and SO hard  to lose it?  Putting on weight is no problem for most of us but losing it is a huge struggle.  How can we gain several pounds in one short weekend of poor food choices?  And how come if we balance that off with two days of healthy eating and exercise, we are never back at our starting weight?  Why does it seem to take more work to lose the same two or three pounds than it did to gain it?

Well, one big reason it is easier to gain weight than to lose it is because eating more is easy.  Adding 200 calories to your daily food intake is no big deal, but take away 200 calories and you might feel hungry and cranky. Food is good, and junk food is especially inviting and convenient, and many of us are not really aware of how many calories are in those little indulgences.  There are many stumbling blocks out there- convenience stores, fast food restaurants, those kiosks in the mall, and even the grocery stores can all have calorie-laden choices.

A second reason that it is difficult to work off our weekend indulgences is reflected in a study conducted by Dr. Jules Hirsch at Rockefeller University.  He found that our bodies slow down their caloric burn rate after we’ve been losing weight.   We actually have to eat less to keep from gaining weight.  If you go back to eating the way you did before you lost weight, you may gain more back than you started with- even though you are not consuming any more calories.  It doesn’t seem fair, but that is the way our bodies are made.

Gaining weight is a survival mechanism.  As people evolved we had to endure lengths of time with unreliable food sources.  Our bodies became very good at storing and keeping fat that would be needed for energy when there was nothing to eat. When you’ve been reducing your fat stores by losing weight, your body worries that there might not be food coming, and so when you have a wild weekend, it is eager to store up fat, just in case there’s another famine.

Another aspect of your weekend weight gain might be water weight.   Salt and carbohydrates can make your body hold onto water.  So if your favorite weekend indulgence is a bag of potato chips, guess what?  You could be retaining water, and that will show up on your scale.  Many of us get discouraged by our water weight gain, but keep in mind it can take several days to lose water weight.

Bottom line – losing weight is much harder because it is work.  You have to work on your diet, work on your exercise and work on your lifestyle!  Try not to go hog wild every weekend so your body doesn’t grab back those pounds, and you don’t have to work so much harder to lose what you have already lost once.

photo credit Niklas Bildhauer

Water May Suppress Appetite Naturally

• Try drinking before a meal
• Some studies have shown that a decrease in water intake causes fat deposits to increase

Best Treatment for Water Retention

• The body perceives insufficient water as a threat to survival and holds onto every drop – resulting in swollen feet, legs and hands
• Give your body plenty of water so that stored water will be released
• Sodium – culprit, “wherever salt goes water follows” so, drink more water – water forced through the kidneys takes away excess sodium

Overweight / Larger People Need More Water

• Water is key to fat metabolism, also, metabolized fat must be shed
• Mayo clinic – body weight in pounds divided in half, convert into ounces, divided by 8 to determine cups needed

Weather / Exercise

• Increase in hot weather (especially dry heat)
• Drink before, during and after exercise – 1 cup within ½ hour, 4-8 ounces  every 20 minutes, 1 cup following.  Weigh before and after exercise Replace every pound lost with 20 ounces
• Cold water absorbed faster than warm

Constipation

Having difficulty drinking the 8 cups of water that is recommended daily for most people? Plan! Plan! Plan!

• Flavor it
• Have it with every meal
• Carry bottled water (drink on your way to work and on your way home) DRINK UP!

As you continue on your weight loss journey, don’t miss opportunities to learn about yourself and build up your self-esteem.

• Focus on the positive. Significant weight loss won’t happen overnight, so don’t put yourself down if you don’t see results as quickly as you like. Instead, emphasize the small victories you experience along the way. Losing weight takes effort and discipline, and you should feel proud of the hard work you have been putting forth.
• Don’t be afraid to have fun while exercising. While working out is an integral part of losing weight, it can also serve as a chance to discover new activities you enjoy.
• Don’t compare yourself to media images. Concentrate on your own unique qualities rather than the perceptions delivered through magazines, movies and television.
• Surround yourself with supportive voices. Seek advice and encouragement from those who are close to you. It can be especially helpful to find friends who are working to lose weight as well.

Judgments that people make about their worth is what is called “self-esteem.”

Characteristics of High and Low Self-esteem

People with high self-esteem believe they are worthwhile regardless of anything else including their looks and their actions. They accept themselves unconditionally as they are – understanding that they are fallible humans. While they may judge their behaviors, their worth as people does not change based on their behaviors, achievements, or lack thereof. For example, someone may be disappointed in her performance on a test but not go so far as judgingherself as inadequate based on this performance. They may wish they were more attractive in some way but not judge themselves as worthless because of it.

On the other hand, people with low self-esteem continually base their self-worth on the external such as how they look, what they do, how much money they have, or what they weigh. People with low self-esteem do not feel good about themselves unless they perceive themselves as having earned something such as having gotten to a desired weight or size. As one might imagine, the person with low self-esteem rides a roller coaster of self-worth – going up and down continually based on their judgment of their behavior.

How Self-esteem Can Interfere with or Facilitate Weight Loss

With respect to weight loss and fitness, self-esteem can mean the difference between success and failure. Why would the way a person judges himself interfere with successful weight management? Here are some reasons:

Read full Article at Suite101.com.

Christopher Westera has written a wonderful article called “The Eight Emotional Transformation Recipe”.  He suggests that by following his 8 steps you will have greater clarity and an increase in consciousness that will help you to let go of painful emotions and give you the spirit of openness and acceptance:

1. Accept full responsibility for the emotion even if you don’t fully believe it right now you need to tell yourself, “I create my reality, and I am creating this emotion right now”.
2. Name the emotion by positively identifying feelings such as disappointment, shame, anxiety etc.  This will increase your awareness, clarity and consciousness.
3. Let go of the story – The story is whatever is outside yourself that caused the emotion.
4. Bless the emotion by accepting it as a necessary learning step in order to move on to the next step.
5. Feel the emotion physically in your body without judging or resistance.  Christopher Westera states that what you resist persists and that you need to become a kind of observer of your own processes.
6. Ask for clarity - In order to grow you need to ask yourself, “What do I need to learn from this emotion” and “What effective belief do I own that created this emotion?”
7. Identify the belief – At the root of nearly every painful emotion there is an ineffective belief.  For example, you may believe that you must make everyone happy, or that you can’t be loved if you are not perfect or you believe that you are simply not worth it.
8. Replace the belief – Replace the belief with a more effective belief by telling yourself that you choose to reject the ineffective belief and that you are replacing it with an empowering belief.

By following theses 8 steps, changes will occur that will lead you to self-acceptance and in turn greater success in your weight loss efforts.

George Eliot has a wonderful quote that states, “It is never too late to be what you might have been”.

Mini Fritattas

• Nonstick cooking spray
• 8 large eggs
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 4 ounces thinly sliced ham, chopped
• 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Spray 2 mini muffin tins (each with 24 cups) with nonstick spray.  Whisk the eggs, milk, pepper, and salt in a large bowl to blend well.  Stir in the ham, cheese, and parsley.  Fill the muffin cups almost to the top with the egg mixture.  Bake until the egg mixture puffs and is just set in the center, about 8 to 10 minutes.  using a rubber spatula, loosen the frittatas from the muffin cups and slide the frittatas onto a platter.  Serve immediately.

4g carb, 12 grams of protein,  120 calories

“I feel the most important action one can take when trying to lose weight is to keep a food diary,” says SparkPeople dietitian Becky Hand. “Yes, it takes time to write down everything consumed during the day, but this in itself can curtail overeating and be vital for self-assessment and monitoring.  Today, it is easier than ever with computer-based tools such as SparkPeople’s free Food Tracker.  A few clicks, and your results are known immediately!”

Studies show that people who keep food journals lose more weight and keep more of that weight off in the long run. The National Weight Control Registry–an ongoing research project tracking more than 3,000 people who’ve lost an average of 66 pounds and kept it off for five years–found that keeping a food journal is the one strategy used by the majority of successful dieters. In fact, in a study of 1,685 dieters conducted by a health insurance company, the best predictor of weight loss throughout the first year was the number of food records kept per week. Another recent study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that dieters who tracked their food intake in a “food diary” lost twice as much weight as those who didn’t track their food.

Article from Sparkpeople.com.

To learn more about how food journaling can help you on your weight loss journey, contact us! We’re here to help you reach your weight loss goals!

• Simply put….a food journal will help you recognize why you eat the foods that you do and give you a means to analyze the nutrient content of your diet.  Listing everything you eat helps you take a critical look at your eating habits.
• Don’t rely on memory: write down everything as you eat it.  If that’s not possible, write down what you ate at end of the day otherwise, plan your day and write down everything ahead of time.
• Keep your journal for at least 3 days of the week:  I recommend 2 week days and 1 weekend day.  Weekends are difficult for some people. They will actually sabotage all of their week’s effort in those 2 days.
• Let’s talk about the success rate of keeping a journal…..people who keep a journal lose twice as much weight and did you know that 90% of people that journal have long term weight loss success?
  
  

Now, how do we keep a food journal?

Start by trying to record what you eat and drink each day:

• Start by writing down the day of the week.
• Document all the food you eat and its portion size.   Be specific, some of us underestimate how much we’re really consuming.  I hate to tell you this but every nibble counts, yes, that also means taste-testing as you’re cooking too!
• Write down the time and place you eat it.  What were you doing while you were eating? Were you driving or sitting on the sofa watching TV?
• Write down your fluid intake and how you feel physically.  Are you tired or energetic and do you notice a correlation between your energy level and food consumption?  On a scale of 1-10 how hungry are you before you eat?  Do you notice any association with your hunger level and food consumption?
• Document how you feel emotionally.  Are you angry, sad, nervous, bored or excited?  Some people eat more when they are upset and less when they are excited.  At the end of each day, examine how your emotions affected your eating.
• Finally, document the amount and type of exercise or activity you perform.  You will notice that the more you move the faster you lose.
• A journal is a great record of successful days and weeks.  Use your journal as a reference tool and copy successful days when you find yourself “slipping”.
• Be honest.  Remember, it’s a journal not a newsletter.

Attend one of our Support Group meetings today to share ideas and learn more about tips for success.  Click here for more information.