Avoid Holiday Weight Gain!

November 27, 2007 at 10:49 pm (health, personal development, weight loss, wellness)
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Well, I hope you had a truly lovely Thanksgiving… and if you ate too much, which many of us probably did, it is my sincere hope that you get right back on track by making sure you’re drinking lots of water, eating lots of fruits, veggies & whole grains and limiting your intake of simple sugars and alcohol.   oh, yes… and walk! (for more help with getting started with these healthy habits, see my “Tips” link to the left)

 I’d like to invite you to attend my first weight loss tele-seminar.  Here’s the details:

Holiday Helpline: how to avoid gaining the typical 7-10 lbs through the holiday season – Monday, December 3rd at 12:30 PM Pacific time.  (Can’t make the call?  no problem!  Just let me know that when you email me and I’ll send you an MP3 file of the call!)  TO REGISTER: Send an email to karen.stevens@optimizeyou.net and put “Holiday Help” in the subject line.  I will reply to you with the call in information for the tele-seminar.

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Halloween Candy… get it out of the house!

November 1, 2007 at 5:00 am (wellness)

Here it is, Halloween once again.  The tips, tricks & techniques to get through this holiday are many, and if you managed to buy candy you don’t like, or better yet – give out non-candy items (one of my neighbors was giving out matchbox cars & my kids were thrilled!), then congratulations.  You’ve hopefully gotten through the holiday unscathed.

For those who gave in to temptation and are now staring at a large bowl of your favorite candy… Get it out of the house!  If you have a neighbor who has a teenager, call him/her and have them come take it to share with their friends.  Throw it away, give it all to the last kid who rings your bell, or, if you can stand to have it around over night, take it to work tomorrow and put it in the break room.  It will be gone before you know it.

Whatever you do, don’t sit and eat it all.  You’ll just be mad at yourself tomorrow. 

And… if you do sit and eat too much candy tonight, you know what?  You’re still a good person.  :)   Time to have a healthy breakfast and go for a walk.  Back on track with your weight loss efforts and you’re good to go.

Happy Halloween!

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Its cumulative – so do what you can

October 25, 2007 at 5:31 pm (wellness)

Did you know that the benefits of exercise are cumulative?  If you exercise just five minutes each day its better than not exercising at all.  Isn’t that amazing? 

There are over 67 different documented health benefits to exercising.  Only a handful of them require that you “get your heart-rate up and sustain it for 20-30 minutes”.  Now, don’t get me wrong – sustaining an elevated heart-rate for 20-30 minutes a day is ideal – the benefits to your heart and lungs is priceless. 

But many people decide that if they can’t do 20-30 minutes then they might as well not exercise at all.  NOT SO!  If you can find five minutes to walk there are health benefits to that.  If you can find five minutes three times a day then WOW – you’ve walked 15 minutes that day!  But even just five minutes a day is better than not exercising at all.

Now…. don’t tell me you can’t find five minutes.  :)

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Its not about that…

October 25, 2007 at 12:35 am (wellness)

Often people think “I just need to eat the right foods, make better choices, get some exercise – then I’ll loose weight.” 

If its that simple, why don’t we just DO it? 

Because its not about that.  For most of us, weight issues run much deeper than just changing our eating habits.  We use food to comfort, reward and celebrate.   If we take away those foods – the foods we use for these reasons then we feel that we don’t have the means to comfort, reward or celebrate with ourselves.  So, in order to change that, we have to change our thinking… and change takes work.  (check out our “W4W Services” page to the left to see how we can help with this)

Its important to get to the root of why we do things the way we do and then we can deal with it. 

“Oh, no!” you’re thinking “I don’t have the time, or the energy, quite frankly to do therapy”

Not necessary!  You can get to the root of the problem without crying.  :)   There are all kinds of ways to do this, two of my favorites are NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programing) and EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) – both of which I use in my practice.

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Did you see Dr. Christianne Northrup on Oprah the other day?

October 18, 2007 at 9:10 pm (health, personal development, weight loss, wellness)
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We need more fruits & veggies, more whole grains, more exercise and… MORE JOY! 

Dr. Christianne Northrup, author of several books on women’s health, was on Oprah the day before yesterday.  I tivo’d it, so I watched it yesterday.  I just love her – I think she’s around 60 but she doesn’t look it, not even close.  But her message was so important – and what she was saying on Oprah yesterday is exactly the message that I feel it is my calling to help spread:

To be healthy (including being at a healthy weight) we need to eat less “white stuff”, eat more whole grains, eat more fruits & veggies, get some exercise every day, and meditate or pray every day… AND – this is a tough one for a lot of women – do something that brings you JOY every day.  Mmmmm – MMM!  Joy.  She said that JOY has been proven in clinical studies to increase your overall health.  Amazing.

So… do something that brings you JOY today!

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I ate a cookie… and its okay

October 9, 2007 at 7:23 pm (health, personal development, weight loss, wellness)

I’m eating a cookie and trying to decide how I feel about it.  I don’t feel guilty (which is good), and I am enjoying the flavor of the cookie, but I’m not entirely sure the flavor is “all that” and worth the calories, the sugar, and the junk. 

I guess we just need to continually remind ourselves that with each bite we take we are making a decision.  A decision to eat for health and vitality OR to eat for a quick fix, a pick-me-up.

We’re not perfect.  We won’t always choose the high road.  But if we choose to eat for health and vitality more often than not, and even improve from there, then we are on the road to a healthy weight and not only a light body, but a light and happy heart as well.

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More on Diet Mentality

October 4, 2007 at 7:04 pm (health, weight loss, wellness)
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I was in line at the grocery store the other day and this headline caught my eye:  “The Female Fat Cure: Drop 85lbs by Christmas”.  My heart skipped a beat.  Really???!!!???  A cure for being fat?  Could this finally be IT? 

Isn’t it funny?  I’ve been working in the weight loss feild for 12 years.  I know a lot about nutrition, wellness, health, and most importantly, healthy approaches to weight loss.  Shouldn’t headlines like this make me simply chuckle and move on?  They should.  But they don’t.   I still get that rush – that glimmer of hope that MAYBE, I can eat crappy and still be at a healthy weight.

But it just isn’t so.  Even this particular article is basically encouraging lots and lots of veggies and easy on everything else.   They just led with a crazy hype-filled headline to get those of us with weight struggles to buy it.

Oh… did I mention I bought it?  I told my self I was buying it for research for my new business: Wellness For WeightLoss – but that was only a half truth.  I also wanted to find out if they’d uncovered the CURE.  But, there was not one thing in that article that I didn’t already know.

I think we all know, really.  We just need support, motivation and constant reminders.

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Diet Mentality in Kids Shows

October 3, 2007 at 6:18 am (health, personal development, weight loss, wellness)

We are so sucked in by the diet mentality.  I was shocked this afternoon as my kids were watching “Bob The Builder” and one of the characters said that her husband shouldn’t have any cookies because he’s trying to loose weight!  On a preschool show!  Oh, I am going to have to write a letter to PBS.  I mean, I always think if I let them watch PBS they’re safe!

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What should I eat?

September 28, 2007 at 3:44 am (health, weight loss, wellness)

I was talking with a new client today and she said that she really need to understand WHAT to eat.  So, I thought that the “what to eat” question would be a great topic for today’s blog.

First of all, I am a firm believer in adding in foods and, at first, not taking away.  If you make sure that you eat all the right foods, without taking away permission to eat the other foods, you’re much more likely to do it, and you probaly won’t eat as much of the unhealthy foods because you’ll be too full!  But the idea is “Add In” don’t take away.

So, what should you add in?  First of all, you’ve got to drink a lot of water.  How much?  See my post from a couple days ago for amounts, but I would say you really should take in at least eight 8oz cups of water a day.  Second, add in fruits & veggies.  Check my tips page for more info on Fruits & Veggies, but have at least 5 servings a day, 7-9 is optimal (with a serving being the size of your fist).  Next, choose high fiber, whole grain carbs whenever you can.  Have brown rice instead of white rice, have whole wheat pasta instead of white pasta, have a hearty whole grain bread (I like Ezekial) instead of white or soft wheat bread, and try some new grains like Quinoa – one of my favorites.  For protein choose lean cuts of meat and fish over fattier meats – or even better, have a handful of raw almonds – great source of protein.  (but no more than can fit in the cup of your hand).

Start by adding these types of foods in and you’ll be off to a great start.  If you make it your first priority to add in the foods above, you’ll have less “room” for the unhealthy foods – and you’ll start to not crave them so much either!

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The Emotional Connection

September 26, 2007 at 9:40 pm (health, personal development, weight loss, wellness)
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Most of us who struggle with our weight are “emotional eaters” – we don’t always eat just because we’re hungry. We also eat to comfort, entertain and reward ourselves.

Eating.  We eat when we’re celebrating.  We eat when we’re sad.  We eat when we’re stressed… and so many of us walk around stressed most of the time!

How do we break the cycle?  How do we learn to eat when we’re hungry?

I could write on this subject for days – perhaps I will.  I think there are two issues: the foods we choose and the emotions themselves.  I think that emotionally triggered eating is not necessarily in and of itself a bad thing – but overeating is unhealthy no matter the state of mind we’re in when we do it, and we are much more likely to do it when our situation is emotionally charged.

The first step is to begin to identify those situations in which we are most likely to overeat and ask ourselves what it is about that situation.  Do you overeat when you come home at the end of the day frazzled and ravenous?  Do you overeat when you’ve got so much going on you don’t know which way to turn?  Or do you overeat when you are alone at night, haven’t eaten all day and you don’t want to deal with the feelings you have?  Or perhaps you overeat when you go out to eat with a group of friends – you’re having a wonderful time, the food is fantastic, who could possibly leave some on their plate?

Its possible that you could say, “all of the above” and there are many other scenarios as well.  The first step in learning not to overeat is to identify those situations in which we often do.  Once we’ve identified the situations we can begin to focus on how to work with our circumstances so that when we are in those situations we can behave differently.  We can learn to make healthier choices, stop eating when we’re no longer hungry, and comfort or reward ourselves in other ways.  Once we’ve learned these lessons, we can make lasting changes that will begin to melt the weight off.

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