Author: Diane Carbonell

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Sweat

The Triple Threat: Three Reasons for Obesity and How to Overcome Them

The obesity problem in America is not going away anytime soon. A recent report published in a 2015 issue of the “JAMA Internal Medicine” found for the first time that more Americans are obese than are overweight. That’s something to be concerned about.
I don’t know about you, but I think about obesity and weight loss a lot.
Not only do I write and speak on the subjects, I am also the primary person responsible for feeding my family healthy food. Like many of you, I have a vested interest in the topic and want my family to be as healthy as possible.
There are currently over 111,000 books on Amazon dealing with weight loss and 15,000 diet cookbooks. In addition to all the books written, there are thousands of research studies on the topic of obesity and weight. Because of this, you might assume that the reasons for obesity number in the thousands.
To the contrary, I believe there are three primary reasons for the obesity crisis. Of course each of the reasons is multi-layered, but these three lie at the core of the problem.
Fix them and the crisis will begin to fix itself.

1) Convenience Food

The increase in the consumption of convenience foods is one of the primary reasons for the obesity crisis. These foods include a variety of foods including:
Fast food
Boxed processed foods
Quick serve restaurant meals
Prepackaged frozen and refrigerated dinners
Snacks such as chips and pretzels
Candy
Frozen desserts
I was hooked on convenience foods. Not only did I like the way they tasted, I loved how easy they were to purchase and eat. I did not have to cut anything up, measure ingredients, or even set the table. I ate a lot of convenience food and I was rewarded with an extreme weight problem.
Convenience foods take away your choice of ingredients and calories. You can make chicken parmesan that contains fresh tomatoes and herbs, a small amount of cheese, boneless skinless chicken breasts, and homemade breading or you can purchase a boxed chicken parmesan meal that has over 15 ingredients, many of which you cannot pronounce.

2) Sedentary Lifestyle

Americans are a sedentary bunch, according to a Gallup poll. Only about 50 percent of Americans indicate they exercise at least three times a week for a mere 30 minutes.
Our increasing reliance and love of all things electronic definitely contributes to the lack of exercise and overall movement among Americans. And logic dictates the less you move during the day, the fewer calories you burn.
For example, the National Institutes of Health indicates a woman between the ages of 19 and 30 requires 1,800 calories if she is sedentary. A sedentary man the same age requires about 2,400 calories. The more active you are, the more calories you can have without gaining weight.
Think about it. If a woman eats a 350 calorie bagel with cream cheese for breakfast, a 500 calorie salad for lunch, two 300 calorie snacks, an 800 calorie dinner, and a 200 calorie bowl of ice cream during the day, she will have consumed 2,400 calories. If she does no exercise, she is eating about 600 calories a day more than she needs.
Over time, this excess calorie consumption combined with no exercise will cause weight gain. The solution to this problem is simple. Move more and eat within your calorie range to lose weight and then maintain it.
I exercise six days a week in some fashion. I swim, walk, or ride my bike. Mix up your exercise routine to avoid boredom and to challenge yourself physically.

3) Portion Sizes

The third reason for obesity is simply that we eat too much. Our portion sizes are off the charts.
Who needs a 2,400 calorie prime rib dinner like the one that Outback sells? Not me and probably not you either.
Portion sizes have increased during the past 40 years and so have American’s waistlines. When McDonald’s first opened they offered one size of fries. Now there are four sizes, including a large option with 510 calories.
Even the average plate and mug size has increased throughout the years, which contributes to the amount of food and drink you eat. Everything seems to have gotten bigger.
The fix is easy on the surface but harder to execute. It takes practice to know how many calories are in a pile of pasta or a burger. I recommend you weigh and measure your foods until you have a good grasp on how much you should be eating. Be particularly careful in restaurants and err on the side of caution when deciding how much of your entrée to finish and how much to take home.

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Wellbeing

Could It Be True? Playing Tetris To Lose Weight?

Tetris has been around since 1984, when Alexey Pajitnov, a Russian artificial intelligence researcher, invented it. Long popular among video game enthusiasts, Tetris is now being studied by researchers as a tool for reducing addictive behaviors. Who would have thought that playing Tetris could help you break the craving cycle and possibly lose weight?
A recent study from researchers at Plymouth University and Queensland University of Technology in Australia, was published in the journal Addictive Behaviors. The researchers discovered that playing this slightly addictive game on a smartphone for short amounts of time throughout the day lessened cravings in the participants.
Who knew?
Let’s take a look at why this might be, what the research showed, and whether you should add Tetris to your weight loss toolbox.
The researchers set out to study whether playing Tetris would impact participant’s cravings. One thing that sets this study apart is the researchers didn’t just put people in a laboratory and ask them to play the game. Instead, they studied them in real life and in different situations.
Turns out that playing the game for just 3 minutes each session reduced the participant’s cravings for food, some activities, and drugs by about 20 percent according to the researchers. One important factor to consider is cravings were only reported about 30 percent of the time.

Why did it work?

When I first heard about the study, my initial question was “I wonder why playing the game reduced cravings? The researchers theorized that because Tetris is a visually interesting game that fully occupies your mental processes, you forget about your cravings while playing the game. And that forgetfulness extends for a time even after you finish playing.
It makes perfect sense.
Even before the popularity of video games, weight loss experts have recommended staying mentally occupied as a way to combat food cravings. The technique certainly worked for me. I learned to knit, created scrapbooks, and played board games with the family in an attempt to take my mind off food and not give in to cravings.
Those distractions were highly effective in helping me focus on something other than food. And when my mind was occupied, I wasn’t eating junk.

Does it have to be Tetris?

The researchers did not specify whether it was only Tetris that would work for cravings. Because of my own experience, I suspect that any stimulating video game would work as well.

Make Tetris work for you.

  • Obviously the first thing you need to do is get the game. It is available on the iTunes and Google Play stores for less than a dollar. You can also play the game on your computer if you do not have a smartphone.
  • Set a series of alarms on your phone to remind yourself to play several times a day. Pick times when you find yourself reaching for food, such as mid-morning, right after lunch, before dinner, and late in the evening.
  • Commit to playing for a short burst of 3 to 5 minutes to avoid spending too much time on the game.
  • Monitor your cravings to see if they diminish after you finish your game session.
  • Record your weekly weight loss and compare it to weeks when you were not playing Tetris.

Playing Tetris is an inexpensive tool that is worth trying. You may find you see a decrease in cravings that can help you control your food intake. While playing the game won’t automatically cause you to drop 50 pounds, controlling your cravings can help you control your calorie intake, which does help with weight loss.

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Health x Body Wellbeing

Will Weight Loss Surgery Fix Your Life?

One of the most common questions people ask me when they discover I lost 158 pounds is whether I had weight loss surgery.
The answer to that question is “No, I did not.”
Personally, I did not have surgery for several reasons.
1) I am afraid of surgery in general.
2) Weight loss surgery was not as common when I was obese.
3) I could not afford it.
4) I had a feeling I could do lose weight myself.
Although I lost weight without surgery, there are over 175,000 people who underwent weight loss surgery in 2013, according to the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMB). Of those people, over half of them will regain at least 5 percent of their lost weight after 2 years.
You may be one of the many people who hope that having weight loss surgery will fix everything. You may hope you will easily lose weight after surgery, you won’t have to think about food as much, and everything that frustrates you about your life will be fixed after surgery.
Some of those things do happen – sometimes.
·      The reality is that losing weight through a surgical procedure does not always fix your weight problem. Most people will lose weight initially after the surgery but the weight loss can stall or stop completely if dietary changes are not maintained. And as the ASMB indicated, about half the patients regain some weight.  There may be a need for further surgery to adjust the mechanism helping you control your food intake.
·      Weight loss surgery cannot fix your emotional dependence on food or take away food cravings. Surgery makes it harder for you to eat large quantities of food without feeling ill, but the emotions and cravings are still present.
·      Friends and family members may miss the “old you.” Instead of being supportive, you may have some people in your life who wish you can eat like you used to and participate fully in celebrations that revolve around food.
·      You may find yourself sad or depressed when faced with the types of foods you can eat. It is a hard transition for many people to go from eating whatever they want to being required to follow a very strict diet post surgery.
I have known a lot of people who underwent weight loss surgery and were frustrated with their life post-surgery. In many of those cases, the person did not prepare emotionally for the changes that were about to take place.
Most reputable weight loss surgery centers require some type of pre-surgical counseling to ensure that patients have a complete understanding of what the surgery entails and what their food habits must be after surgery. However, even with counseling, some people are ill-prepared for the reality of eating small amounts of food and the difficulty associated with eating some of their favorite high fat foods.
In a lot of ways, the process to lose weight after surgery is similar to losing weight without surgery. Both require diligence to food choices, exercise when permitted by a doctor, reducing portion sizes, and addressing the emotional component of weight issues.
Although weight loss surgery will not automatically fix your life, you can make weight loss surgery work for you by researching your options thoroughly, getting counseling for emotional eating issues, and following your doctor’s dietary guidelines carefully. Remember that weight loss surgery is simply a tool you can use to get to a healthy weight. It is your responsibility to stay there.

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Nosh Nutrition x Advice

Should Fasting Be Part of Your Weight Loss Strategy?

Fasting for religious purposes dates back thousands of years as evidenced by references to fasting in ancient writings. Fasting for weight loss may not date back nearly as far, but the concept of fasting for weight loss is not new. In recent years, there has been a resurgence of traditional and intermittent fasting for weight loss and health.
Definitions of Fasting
The definition of fasting is simple: Fasting is abstaining from all food for a period of time. For simplicity sake, I like to think of traditional fasting as not eating for 24 hours and intermittent fasting as not eating for 12 to 18 hours.
Both types of fasting can work for weight loss but intermittent fasting is often easier to manage and allows you to eat normally for two meals each day.
What Are Some Benefits?
Fasting the right way can benefit your weight loss efforts. When you fast, your body uses glycogen for energy first and then fat stores. This can translate into losing pounds over time. Some people find that short-term fasting increases their energy levels and motivates them to exercise.
An important benefit that is not often discussed is that fasting can help you break a cycle of unhealthy eating. You may find that your cravings for sweets diminish and staying away from tempting foods for a time increases your confidence level in your ability to make healthy food choices.
What Are Some Downsides?
Fasting for more than 24 hours can cause health problems. Your immune system does not function as well, you will feel tired, and you may have nausea, or experience joint pain. Additionally, if you are like I am, resuming eating after a lengthy fast can trigger extreme cravings and a desire to binge.
And of course if that happens, you probably will not want to binge on fruits and vegetables but on unhealthy foods.
Another potential downside is that lengthy fasting can slow down your metabolic rate, which reduces how quickly your body burns calories. That’s not what you want when losing weight. A fix for this is to fast for shorter intervals so your metabolism stays strong and quick.
Do You Always Lose Weight?
Regular fasting, whether for 24 hours at a time or following an intermittent fasting schedule, can result in weight loss provided your overall calorie intake is within weight loss levels. For example, if you require 2,000 calories a day to maintain your weight you need 14,000 calories a week. Not eating anything for a day saves 2,000 calories but if you make up for those calories by eating more the other six days, you will not lose weight.
How to Make It Work
If you want to try fasting, I recommend following an intermittent fasting schedule where you fast for 12 to 18 hours at a time. For me, that would mean skipping breakfast and eating my first meal around lunchtime. Then I would eat an afternoon snack and dinner at 7:00 p.m. I would stop eating after dinner and fast until lunchtime the next day.
The key to using fasting as a weight loss tool is to plan your fasting times carefully, commit to not overeating as you come off the fast, and to drink plenty of water or other zero calorie drinks during your fasting time.

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Nosh Nutrition x Advice

Why Does It Feel Hard to Eat Healthy When Losing Weight?

It seems like a no-brainer. If you want to lose weight, eat healthy food and skip the junk. Why does it seem so difficult to stick to eating healthy foods when you are trying to drop a few pounds?
I struggled with cravings for junk food and sometimes resented the fact I couldn’t eat like I used to. I found it unfair that other people could eat junk and maintain a healthy weight while I seemed to gain weight by just looking at a piece of cake or smelling a bar of chocolate.
Healthy food doesn’t seem as appealing as junk food. I get that. You may like carrot cake a lot better than carrots or prefer ranch dip to hummus, but making healthier choices is not only possible but also enjoyable.
I think there are several reasons why it can feel hard to eat healthy when you are trying to drop pounds.
1) Junky foods are appealing.
Sure you’ve probably met people who say they hate fast food and would never touch a cinnamon roll at the mall, but the truth is that most people do find those types of foods appealing. Food manufacturers are experts at marketing foods to look good and appeal to your senses.
If I’m honest, I will tell you that I still look at some junk foods as slightly appealing, but now that I know what those foods did to my health and how difficult it was to lose weight while including them in my diet, they have lost most of their appeal. I am pretty sure that will happen to you as well.
Be firm in avoiding junk foods and over time their pull and appeal will lessen. I promise.
2) Healthy food takes time and planning.
It is easy to run into any grocery store and grab a deli sandwich, a frozen dinner that takes two minutes to heat up, or a box of cereal for lunch, breakfast, or dinner. It is much more difficult to do the same thing with healthy foods. Most healthy foods take some preparation.
For example, you have to cook oatmeal, cut up and wash vegetables before you cook or eat them, trim the fat off steaks and chicken before cooking, and do a lot more cooking at home when you are trying to eat healthy.
There is no quick fix for the fact that good food generally takes longer to prepare, but you can lessen the time required by planning ahead. Shop once a week and do a lot of prep work when you come home from the store. Precook meat and freeze it, wash vegetables, boil eggs, make overnight oats, and portion out yogurt and fruit for the week ahead.
3) Your friend group revolves around food. And not healthy food.
I had this issue when trying to eat healthier. My friends liked to go out to eat and they teased me when I ordered a salad or simple grilled chicken breast. They wanted me to join in on their food festivities.
It’s hard not to give in to this kind of pressure, but once your friend group realizes you are serious about changing your eating habits they will do one of two things. They will begin supporting you or they will begin to join in. Either one is a win for you.
4) Healthy food takes some getting used to.
If you have ever seen a baby try food for the first time you know that he or she gobbles up pureed pears and spits out peas. At least all seven of my kids did. If you haven’t regularly eaten vegetables, lentils, couscous, and other healthy foods you might not like them.
Start by disguising vegetables in tomato sauce or in soups and slowly add new healthier foods to your menus. Over time you will develop an appreciation for healthier foods. The longer you stay away from junk food the more appealing good food becomes because you appreciate the taste and how it makes your body feel.

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Nosh

5 Crazy Things That Happen When You Eliminate Bread From Your Diet

The low-carb craze has been around in some form for a long time. Dr. Robert Atkins popularized the concept way back in the 1970s, and there have been variations on his diet ever since. These days, between the rise of the gluten-free diet and continuing popularity of low-carb diets, you may be tempted to eliminate bread altogether. Before you get rid of bread and bread products completely, be prepared for changes in your body and your mind.

1. Cravings will be fierce.

If you are a true carb lover like I am, getting rid of bread can bring on some intense cravings.
I mean–really intense cravings. Cravings that make you feel as though you are going to explode or eat every donut in sight. In fact, you will likely think that everyone in the world eats bread except you. And you will probably feel annoyed when trying to order food at restaurants or making a meal plan that avoids bread.
The cravings for bread are related to your body desiring the sugar high from the simple carbohydrates found in most bread products. The cravings will subside over time but it usually takes a few weeks. Stay strong in your commitment to avoid bread and you will conquer the cravings completely.

2. You may feel sluggish for a time.

When you eat refined bread products, you get a short burst of energy and the level of serotonin (also known as the “happy hormone”) increases temporarily. You probably know exactly what I’m talking about if you have ever felt energetic immediately after eating a piece of white bread, a donut, or a croissant.
Not eating bread can make you feel tired and sluggish at first. The good news is that the feeling is temporary and your body quickly adjusts to your new way of eating. Remember that eliminating the refined carbohydrates found in processed breads is good for your health, and the short-term sluggish feeling will soon go away.

3. Your digestion feels off.

Refined bread has some nutrients that help with digestion. When you get rid of bread, you may find yourself feeling constipated. If this is the case, the easy and healthy fix is to add more fruits and vegetables to your diet.
And another big plus is that because they are so much lower in calories than bread, fruits and vegetables can help you lose weight.

4. Creativity kicks in.

I have always said that I am not a very creative person but eliminating certain foods from my diet brought some major creativity to my skillset.
I suspect the same will happen with you. When you get rid of bread, you have to replace it with something else. Hence the rise of cauliflower pizza crust recipes, pizza omelets, breads made with eggs and cottage cheese, and low-carb muffins made with flax seeds. Let your creative juices flow: Try new side dishes, experiment with other grains, and be open to trying completely new foods.

5. The scale moves down.

You have probably read stories about people who dropped tons of weight by eliminating bread from their diet. It is true that the scale will often move down when you eliminate bread. The simple carbohydrates in bread tend to make you hold water weight. Much of the initial weight loss you will see comes from a loss in water weight.
If you continue avoiding bread, but do not make other changes in your diet, your weight will likely stabilize. To keep seeing the scale move down, you must not only control your bread intake but also keep your calories at a weight loss level.

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Health x Body Wellbeing

Get Rid Of Belly Bloating For Good

Belly bloat. Most women have experienced it at one time or another, even if they don’t need to lose weight. I know I have. It is so frustrating to feel big around the middle or know that your pants are tight because you are bloated. If you are tired of belly bloat, try some of these suggestions to banish the bloat and maybe lose a few pounds at the same time.
Banishing belly bloating is a multi-faceted issue. There is no one magic remedy to feeling and looking bloated.
As an aside, there is a difference between feeling bloated and carrying excess weight around your middle. If you need to lose weight, you cannot simply follow these tips and wake up one morning with a perfectly flat tummy. That type of transformation takes all over weight loss and dedicated exercise. I know, that’s probably not what you wanted to hear.
In any case, you can banish belly bloating by focusing on four areas:

Foods You Eat

The foods you eat have a tremendous impact on bloating. Think about it. When you eat a restaurant meal or large quantities of processed foods don’t you often feel bloated afterward?
You might think it is because you ate too much, and that is definitely a contributing factor. However, these types of foods are also typically high in sodium. Many restaurant meals have over 2,000 mg of sodium. Even a healthier option like Panera’s low-fat vegetarian black bean soup has 1,120 mg of sodium. Sodium causes bloating because of water retention. To combat this, reduce how much you eat out, check the nutrition labels on processed foods you consume, and keep track of how much salt you add to home-cooked meals.
Other foods affecting bloating include those with wheat or gluten, extremely spicy foods, and foods that contribute to constipation, such as low fiber or sugar-filled foods. Choose foods your body can easily digest, such as high-fiber fruits and vegetables and foods with a high water content.

Medical Conditions

To further eliminate belly bloating, talk to your doctor about medical conditions or medications you take that can cause bloating. Your doctor may test you for lactose intolerance, gluten sensitivity, celiac disease, or other conditions. If you test positive for one of these and begin avoiding foods containing lactose or gluten, you will find your belly shrinks and your bloating is relieved.
Other medical conditions sometimes causing belly bloating include irritable bowel syndrome, gastroesophageal reflux disease, some tumors, and in rare cases, ovarian cancer.

Drinks You Consume

I used to love sodas of all kinds until I realized they were not good for my health. The sugar content in regular sodas and the artificial sweeteners in diet sodas were equally bad for me. You may be surprised that both regular and diet carbonated beverages contribute to belly bloating. The little bubbles that make the drinks fizzy put air in your belly when you drink the liquid. Excess air can lead to a bloated feeling. The fix for this one is easy: quit drinking carbonated beverages.
Good choices for relieving belly bloating include water with lemon juice, green tea, plain water, and green smoothies.

Degree Of Activity

Sitting around on the couch all day is not good for your digestion. When you eat, your body immediately begins breaking down the food into the nutrients it needs. When you sit down right after you eat, you are not giving your body any help in moving the food through your system. Relieve belly bloating by moving around after you eat, staying upright at least 60 minutes after you consume any food, and getting some form of dedicated exercise every day.

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Nosh Nutrition x Advice

How Cinnamon Can Aid In Your Weight Loss Goals

When I heard that cinnamon could be good for weight loss I immediately pictured a gooey cinnamon roll with icing. Reality set in when I resigned myself to the fact that although cinnamon is good for weight loss, cinnamon rolls definitely are not. If you are looking for a way to spice up your diet and help yourself lose weight, stock up on cinnamon and use it liberally.
I know it seems inconceivable that a simple spice like cinnamon could be good for weight loss, but there is scientific research supporting the claim. A study published in a 2011 issue of the Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism supports the theory. This study, like most studies on cinnamon and weight loss, focuses on the fact that cinnamon seems to play a role in stabilizing blood sugar and insulin levels. When your insulin and blood sugar levels are under control, your body is able to more easily burn fat instead of storing it.
It needs to be said that cinnamon isn’t a magic bullet for weight loss. However, you can add cinnamon to your diet in a way that will actually enhance your dieting efforts.
Fortunately, it’s easy: Add cinnamon to food.
Cinnamon is a unique spice in that it can be used in breakfast foods, main dishes, desserts, and snacks.
Breakfast ideas 
Sprinkle cinnamon on oatmeal, Greek yogurt, or scrambled eggs in the morning. The cinnamon will enhance the flavors of the food without overwhelming your senses.
Main dish ideas 
Include cinnamon in vegetarian chili, in fajitas filled with grilled chicken marinated in lime juice, on sweet potatoes, over brown rice, and in roasted pork dishes.
Dessert ideas
A traditional use of cinnamon, and one of my favorites, is to sprinkle cinnamon on apple or pear slices, warm them in a cast iron skillet with a bit of water, and serve as a dessert. It doesn’t get much better than that. You can also add cinnamon to vanilla-flavored low-fat ice cream or frozen yogurt.
Snack ideas
Roast pecans with a bit of coconut oil and cinnamon. The flavors pair well together and both pecans and coconut oil are good for weight loss. Other snack options that include cinnamon are homemade trail mix, popcorn sprinkled with cinnamon, homemade granola bars, and apple cinnamon fruit bars.

Spice up drinks with cinnamon

Sprinkling cinnamon directly on water is not very appetizing because the cinnamon just sits on top. Instead, I often add a bit of cinnamon to my coffee in the morning to give it a gourmet flavor and reap the health benefits. Other ideas to spice up your drinks with cinnamon are to add cinnamon to hot tea, sprinkle it in a fruit smoothie, mix it with almond or regular milk, or make a cinnamon vanilla yogurt shake.

Take a cinnamon supplement

There are several types of cinnamon, including Ceylon cinnamon and cassia cinnamon. While small amounts of cinnamon will not cause harm to most people, WebMD cautions that excessive amounts of cassia cinnamon can be toxic. If you purchase a cinnamon supplement make certain it is Ceylon cinnamon and do not exceed the recommended dosage.
It is important to understand that while it would be nice, cinnamon is not a magic spice for weight loss. It may marginally help your weight loss efforts, but adding cinnamon to your diet will not automatically cause pounds and inches to melt off.

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Sweat

Tomorrow is Too Late to Start Your Diet: Start Right Now

There is an old saying that tomorrow holds the promise of a new start. However, you have to start for that saying to hold true.

As a 300 pound woman, tomorrow was my favorite time to restart my diet. I frequently told my friends, family, and myself, “I will start my diet tomorrow.” The sad reality was that hundreds of tomorrows came and went without me taking the steps necessary to drop the 150 pounds that I needed to lose.

Putting off your diet until tomorrow is a common behavior. You may feel overwhelmed by the prospect of starting a new weight loss program and make excuses as to why waiting for another day to begin is better.

I’m going to be really honest with you and share my three go-to excuses for not starting a diet. I used these for over a decade until I finally quit waiting until tomorrow to start. I wonder if you can identify with any of them.

1. A Holiday is Near

Holidays were one of my favorite excuses for putting off my diet.  My rationale for waiting until after the holiday had passed is that I did not want to watch what I ate during the celebration. So instead of starting my diet near or on the holiday, I waited until the holiday is over.

Well, I was supposed to start once the holiday was over. Instead, I kept right on eating because another holiday was coming up.

The rebuttal to this excuse is simple. Holidays occur regularly whether it is Christmas, Halloween, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, or Memorial Day. And your birthday? It comes every year on the same day!

If you do not learn how to control your food choices over a holiday while you are successfully losing weight, you will never be able to control you food choices once you reach your goal weight.  

Believe me, I know.

2. I Was Tired of Trying

If you have tried to lose weight before but failed, putting off your diet is understandable. I often felt burned out, frustrated by my utter lack of progress, or just tired of being different than my friends.

I can understand this excuse because I had tried to lose weight hundreds of times before I finally had success. The key to putting this excuse to rest and starting your diet today is to honestly review your reasons for losing weight.

Ask yourself these questions:  

·      Do you feel good about yourself at your current weight?

·      Has your doctor told you to lose weight?

·      Do you have the energy required to do the physical things in your life? (ie: chase after your young children, walk for long periods of time, get things accomplished in your professional life.)

And the most important question:

Are you are more tired of trying or more tired of carrying around extra weight?

Examining your reasons for losing weight can help you get motivated to begin your diet today. Make a list of 10 reasons you want to lose weight and refer to it frequently.

3. Money As an Issue

We never had much money when we were first married. I often used the money excuse as a reason to put off my diet because I wanted to join Weight Watchers or try a commercial program but could not come up with the funds.

Funny how I did not have money for a $9.00 Weight Watcher meeting but I spent the same amount or more each week at McDonald’s. Kinda telling of where my priorities were and that lack of money was an imagined excuse, not a legitimate reason.

Money can be an excuse for not beginning your diet today if you think the only way to lose weight is to pay a program fee or join a group. While those are legitimate ways to lose weight, you do not have to do either. You can lose weight on your own, for free, using information from the Internet, borrowing books from the library, or joining a free program in your community.

Take money out of the equation and you have lost that excuse for putting off your diet until tomorrow. Websites that offer healthy and free weight loss plans include Sparkpeople, MyFitnessPal, and ChooseMyPlate from the United States Department of Agriculture.

For me, it was always tomorrow until the moment when I finally declared that tomorrow was too far away. I started my final weight loss effort in 1997 and lost 158 pounds by the following year. Put your excuses aside and begin your weight loss effort today.

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Nosh Nutrition x Advice

Dessert With Breakfast? Yes, Please.

Do you ever wake up in the morning and wish you could eat a cookie or a piece of cake and still lose weight? I occasionally have a craving for sweets in the morning. However, if you are trying to lose weight, the last thing you probably do is actually get out of bed and eat dessert with your healthy breakfast.
As crazy as it sounds, research out of Israel suggests this strategy might just work for weight loss. And work quite well.
Several researchers from Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University came together to study whether including dessert with breakfast would help or harm participant’s weight loss efforts. The study, which I read with great interest, was published in the March 2012 edition of the journal “Steroid.”
Over 190 people participated in the 32 week study. The participants were divided into two groups and consumed the same number of calories. Women ate 1,400 calories a day and men had 1,600 calories. The only difference between the two groups was the inclusion of a dessert item with breakfast.
The control group was given a 300 calorie low carbohydrate breakfast that had about 30 g of protein. That group had no cake with breakfast. The second group consumed a 600 calorie breakfast that averaged 60 g of carbs and 45 g of protein. Those lucky folks had a cookie, a piece of cake, or other dessert served alongside their healthy breakfast.
At first the researchers did not see much difference in the weight loss between the groups. Both groups lost an average of 33 pounds during the first half of the study, which verified to the researchers that either diet would work for weight loss. However, at the midway point, things changed.
Drastically.
By the end of the study, the dessert group lost an average of 40 pounds more than the control group. In fact, the control group began gaining weight after the midway point of the survey while the dessert group kept losing.
I found these results startling. After all, everyone knows that sugar has no nutritional value and is not good for weight loss. So why did this strategy work?
The researchers concluded that eating something sweet with breakfast served two purposes.
1) Avoided Deprivation
I am a firm believer in moderation in weight loss. While eating a perfect diet may look good on paper, the fact is that very few people can avoid dessert forever. Deprivation often backfires, which is what apparently happened with the control group in this study.
2) Suppressed Participants Appetite
Ghrelin, which is a hormone that suppresses your appetite, is usually lowest in the morning. By eating a higher calorie breakfast that included dessert, the participants felt less hungry throughout the day and had better appetite control.
The takeaway from this study is not that you should definitely eat dessert with your breakfast. The main takeaway is that what matters most in successful weight loss is your ability to follow a diet, stay within calorie limits, and feel satisfied throughout the day.
Extreme restriction never works long-term.
I found that eating the occasional dessert, sometimes in the morning, worked for me as well. There were mornings when I got up and wanted something sweet. Instead of feeling guilty for craving a brownie or a cookie, I sometimes ate it with my oatmeal or eggs. I went on with my day, making sure I adjusted my later meals for the higher calorie breakfast.
Controlling cravings and being aware of when you are likely to feel most hungry can help you lose weight and keep it off. All the better if you can have dessert with your breakfast.
It worked for me, it worked for these study participants, and it might just work for you.