Fit Friday - Tips, Tricks and Inspiration

I apologize for the inconsistency in posting lately; my parents are in town for several weeks and I am suddenly super-stingy with my time, trying to soak up every minute of family time!  Nonetheless, the fight to fitness goes on so here I am!

I have a tip: If you want to change the state of your health, don't spend time worrying about small things, like the timing of meals, but focus on reducing calories and increasing activity. This article on timing of meals is interesting, but in the end, metabolism plays only a small part in weight loss. Exercising more can reduce stress and build muscle -- which does speed up our metabolism -- but most importantly, the common side effect of exercise is that when we feel better about ourselves, we make better choices about what we eat. We all want the magic thing that will make weight loss easy and while speeding up our metabolism can certainly aid our efforts, in the end, it's all about what we eat versus what we burn.

The trick of the week is one I picked up at Weight Watchers from last week:  Put your fork down and take a small sip of water after every bite.  It's a simple tip to slow down my eating enough for my brain to get the message that I've had enough. The question is, how will I remember? My plan is to take the time to set a lovely table in the dining room each evening so I remember -- this is family time, not mindless-eating-time. I think is as much a challenge for the week as a trick; who is going to try this with me?

For this week's inspiration, I offer this wonderful article from the amazing Dr. Katz. When I suggest to people that toddlers and children can eat whatever adults eat, they think I'm crazy. Even some of the healthy eaters we know feed their young children differently than they eat. Dr. Katz says we are ruining our children with "kid food" and I agree. After 10 years of eating mostly home cooked healthy food with limited forays into processes or restaurant food, I will tell you that those odd chemical flavorings that are added to almost everything these days taste really weird to me! My concern is that if we acclimate our children to these chemical flavors, real food won't stand a chance.

The flavors in nature's food are more subtle than chemically enhanced ones. Kids will complain at first so we parents have to be patient but any child can learn to eat healthful, real food. Bento boxes are one way we've made real food fun for our kids. One of my proudest moments as a parent came when a worker at school commented on my 4-year-olds love of all types of vegetables. Oh and be realistic; my kids go to birthday parties and trick-or-treating. They get their occasional dose of candy and confection. It's all about moderation and a gradual lifestyle shift. Please read the article for yourself and let me have your thoughts.

I'm healed up from a foot injury so back to my Couch to 5K program this week.  Have a good weekend, everyone.

Entering the Gimmick-Free Zone

I have tried lots of gimmicks to lose weight -- and I'll bet you have too. The gimmick that worked best for me was Weight Watchers points because after a while it's easy to count the points. However, I'm on a no-gimmick eating plan.

Basically, I sat down and asked myself what foods I really wanted to eat. This was so liberating! For probably the first time since I started gaining weight, I was focused on what I chose to eat and not what I "could not" or "should not eat." Then, I divided these foods into daily foods and things that --while I still want to be able to eat them--I want to limit. So, for instance, I have ice cream on my once-a-month list.

My next step was to figure out how many calories I could eat and still lose weight. The fab guys at Fat 2 Fit Radio suggest that you eat the number of calories you need to eat in order to maintain your goal weight. To do this yourself, you really need the help of a BMR (basic metabolic rate) calculator. I found instructions for calculating this in lots of places on the web, but the simplest way was to follow the instructions I found at Fat 2 Fit.

The reason this works has to do with the law of thermo-dynamics. Calories are energy. If you consume more calories than you use up (burn), it is stored in your body as fat. Although there are lots of claims for supplements that speed up the metabolism, there are risks with nearly all of them. So it seems much healthier and simpler to just do the math. If you exercise a lot, you burn more calories than if you are sedentary. But in the end, gimmicks aside, it really does have to come down to what you eat. You simply cannot lose or even maintain weight if you eat more calories than you burn. So no matter how you are working your weight loss goals, you do need to know how to do the math. [Actually, it's much more complex than this and if you really want to understand the nuances, try reading this article on the thermodynamics of weight loss on a night you can't get to sleep! I have opted for assuming I won't burn anything extra and not worrying about the nuances ]

Finally, I just matched up what I wanted to eat with my daily calories and, viola, instant food plan! I like it and it works for me on every level: it's full of vitamins, it's food I like, it's a low-carb plan because that works for me, and it's simple. Nearly everything has calories and recording them is easy. When I climb close to my daily total, I start thinking about how hungry I actually am. Obviously I would benefit from thinking about this all the time, but that just isn't always on my radar!!

This has also helped me curb my cravings for less-supportive foods. Weight loss programs always tell you that you can eat whatever you want to - and it's true -- but of course you have to mark the points or deal the cards or whatever. It's not free - it goes back to the math. I love ice cream - I mean I really love it. I think it is one of the most amazing recipes ever invented. However, it has a lot of calories for the amount of fun I get to have eating it. I can eat a lot of bowls of yummy pumpkin soup or put a big pile of shredded low-fat cheese on my salad for the same number of calories. When I realized that, my craving stopped. Actually, it screeched to a halt. It's just not worth it to me.

So that's my plan. It's simple, it's real, and it's very healthy. I focus on real foods - not processed ones - and cook almost all of it from scratch. I'm happy, my family's happy and we are all getting what we need from our food. No gimmicks - just real food and true satisfaction. Ahhhhh.