In honor of Weigh In Day* today, here are a few things you can do to grease your metabolic gears.

Some of these suggestions are pretty obvious, but I think it’s a good reminder:

Break your fast
Eat a good breakfast every morning. If you don't, your body goes into starvation mode, slowing your metabolism to a crawl to conserve energy.

Coffee!
A recent study showed the average metabolic rate of people who drank coffee increased 16% over those who drank decaf.

Pick protein
Aim for about 30 grams of protein – one cup of low-fat cottage cheese or four ounces of chicken – at each meal. It builds lean muscle mass, which burns more calories than fat.

Drink your milkshake!
Calcium helps your body metabolize fat more efficiently.

Kick it up a notch

Labels: diet, metabolism, weigh in

Last week, when I posted my favorite office lunch, people commented on the sodium content (40% of your daily intake). To be honest, I rarely look at sodium. I never add salt to my food (Well, except for popcorn. I have a problem with popcorn. But I’ll save that for other post.) and don’t eat all that much processed food, so I figured I was safe.

I get so wrapped up looking at fat, calories, carbs, protein and sugars while trying to avoid partially hydrogenated oils that it’s hard to give sodium the attention it needs. So because of last weeks’ comments, I looked into the sodium situation, and it’s a scary sight!


Besides the superficial bloating, sodium can lead to high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease and kidney disease.

While it is an important part of our diet (remember that runner who died because she drank too much water?), the average American eats 3,400 mg of sodium a day – roughly twice the amount we're supposed to have. But it’s not just about snubbing the shaker. Nearly 80% of the sodium we eat comes from processed foods and only 11% comes from salt we add to our foods.

The govt is way ahead of me on this one. A few weeks ago, the FDA said it’s planning to gradually (so we don’t notice it) reduce the salt consumed each day by Americans in processed foods. They say if you slowly decrease the amount of salt you eat every day you’ll eventually no longer crave it.

But if you’re crazy about all that salty goodness, don’t fret! Helen sent me a story about Frito Lay attempting to rejigger the shape of a salt molecule so there's more surface area. This would allow Frito to use less sodium in its products without cutting the flavor. Sounds a little too good to be true (remember Olestra?), but apparently Britons have been eating this stuff for years and they seem fine.

Here are a few foods that secretly stash a surplus of salt:
Deli meats
Canned vegetables and soups
Condiments
Cereal
Cottage cheese
Salad dressings
Eggos
Tomato sauce (especially in a can)
Bread

So here’s your challenge for the week: Try to watch how much salt you eat for the next 7 days. See if you feel a difference. Do you still crave it? Add oodles of herbs to your meals so you don’t feel the need to add salt. I’m not saying you have to make everything from scratch, just peak at the nutrition label and become aware of where the white devil lies!

Help me out here. Were you surprised by the amount of salt in something? What was it?



Also, if you're competing in the Challenge, don't forget to email me your weight loss progress. I lost 1 pound this week! That may just be because I've been watching the salt in my diet. Let me know what's working for you!

Labels: diet, salt, sodium, weight loss

It’s weigh in day today. Some of you have been stellar at keeping me in the loop of your weight loss journey. Others, well … you’ve been a bit secretive. The purpose of this virtual weekly weigh in is more for you than for me. (Well, it’s for me, too. I love reading about everyone slimming down!) But I understand how hard it is to tell someone when you haven’t lost as much as you wanted to. I was in the same boat. Except I had to pay $40 a month for my boat. And I recently jumped ship.

I boarded Weight Watchers last fall to lose those last few pounds. Unfortunately, I was lost at sea for …. oh, say, 6 months. It took me 6 months to lose … 6 pounds. That’s right. One lousy pound in one lousy month. The last few months I was so ashamed of my loser losing status that I refused to go to a meeting until I had lost a decent amount of weight. I know, this doesn’t really make sense. Their meetings are for motivation and support to help you lose weight, and I was denying myself this help until I lost weight. (Sometimes I just don’t make sense.) So, I quit.

This doesn’t mean you’re allowed to quit the Weigh In challenge. I’m not charging you $40 a month, so you’ve got nothing to lose by giving this a shot. And even though I was disappointed when I only lost 1 pound in a month, I’m still down 6 pounds. And I could (probably would) be UP 6 pounds if I had never joined Weight Watchers in the first place. So even if you’ve only lost 1 pound during this Weigh In challenge, email me with an update. You still have time to lose some weight before summer’s here. You’ll feel better getting your body in tune for June.

So, go weigh yourself and send me an update at WeighIn@Captivate.com. Tell me how you’re doing, what challenges you’re facing, and what’s motivating you to keep going. I may steal all your ideas and post them here. But, I’ll probably give you credit. Probably.

Labels: diet, weigh in, weight loss

Even the military is ganging up on the lunch ladies. According to a USA Today article, a group of retired military leaders is blaming schools for unfit recruits.

They say about one-quarter of young adults age 17 to 24 are too heavy to serve. That’s 9 million people. And every year, the military discharges more than 1,200 first-term enlistees because of weight problems.

I’m not sharing this with you because I think you want to don some boots and camo (which is so not slimming). It’s just a sad reality that so many Americans are so out of shape.

Coming up tomorrow:
1. Weigh In Day!
2. Find out why you should opt for plain old sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup

Labels: diet, high-fructose corn syrup, weight loss

OK. It's weigh in day. Hopefully you woke up, went to the bathroom, removed every article of clothing along with watches and wedding bands, and hopped on the scale. Whatever the results are, send them my way. I'll confess I didn't do so well this week. I celebrated last week's weight loss a bit too much. But this morning got me back on track. So join the Weigh In challenge if you haven't already. Weigh yourself, and send the results to WeighIn@captivate.com. Track everything you eat , pick a plan that's right for you and be slimmer by summer.*



The other night I put spinach in my smoothie. No. I was not heavily medicated. I decided to walk on the wild side, throw caution to the wind, and turn the food pyramid on its head! (I don’t get out much.)

I’ve read a lot about putting odd things in your smoothie – avocado, kale, spinach.

So I was tempted.

I thought, “How cool would it be if this spinach smoothie turns out to be delicious! I’d share the recipe with the Weigh In world, we’d all go on spinach smoothie diets, loose fabulous amounts of weight, and never crave another doughnut again!”

And then I tasted the smoothie.**

And … it wasn’t … horrible. But it definitely tasted like I had just put a bunch of spinach in my fruit smoothie. And it didn’t dull my craving for doughnuts at all.

Had I been a little more patient, there probably wouldn’t have been any green gritty bits in there, either.

I haven't completely given up on my plan to trick myself into eating healthy food. But, I think I’ll try something else next time.

In the meantime, here’s my own fruit smoothie recipe (sans spinach).

½ cup mixed frozen berries***
½ cup fat free greek yogurt or plain yogurt****
½ cup Light Silk Vanilla soymilk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. agave*****
2 T protein powder

Put everything in a blender and mix. For a special treat, top your smoothie with a dollop of Lite Cool Whip.

Any suggestions for my next smoothie?





*Forget bikini season. That's just not going to happen for me. So short sleeve season here I come!

* *The things I do for you guys.

***I love frozen berries because the fresh stuff spoils before I can eat it all. And I’ve banned bananas from my home, ever since I was invaded by an army of kamikaze fruit flies. Yes. The fruit flies have won.

****I used to get fat free vanilla yogurt, but I didn’t like all the added ingredients. Now I just add vanilla extract to plain yogurt and it tastes the same!

*****If you don’t have agave, throw in some honey instead.

previous post

Labels: diet, health, smoothie, spinach

I wasn’t always overweight. I was completely within the normal range when I was born. But as I grew up, I also grew out.

Last night, I rummaged through my old photos to find a “before” picture to show you, but as any pleasantly plump person will tell you, photos are your enemy when you’re horizontally inclined. So it was difficult to find any photo of me before I ended my love affair with lard.

I found something, though. It’s not necessarily me at my heaviest, but it’s pretty darn close. Just like ripping off a band aid, I guess I’m going to have to show you this as quickly as possible and hope it hurts less.

So here goes:

Before – I know it was a bad hair cut. Leave me alone. I thought I was stylin'.

When I was rocking size 24 jeans and shopping at Lane Bryant I remember dreaming about being a size 18. That’s right. I thought everything would be right in the world if I could just shrink down to a slim size 18.

I’ve always wanted to lose weight* – I was a huge fan of Richard Simmons in his shorty shorts and Oprah in her skinny jeans. And I couldn’t tell you exactly when things clicked for me, but I finally started seeing results in college. That’s right. When girls were gaining their Freshman 15s, I was giving mine away. I guess I'm a little backwards that way.

The weight came off slowly … sometimes too slowly. And now, 10 years later, I’m here to report I’ve lost 100 pounds and still haven’t reached my goal weight. I know. I’m slow.

After

Sure, I’m damn close. But those last 10 or 15 pounds are so much harder to ditch than the first 15 or 20.

So, although I’m not an expert, I’ve been there. I’m still there. And I’ll be there with you. Even if you don’t reach that magic number or fit into those skinny jeans by the first day of summer, if you make a change in your life now, you’ll feel better. You’ll feel so much better. And maybe you'll even get a better hair cut like I did. Who knows.

If you haven’t joined the Weigh In Challenge, it’s not too late. Email me at WeighIn@captivate.com.

And good luck trumping temptation this weekend!



*Things I’ve tried (Thank God I was never tempted to try that Master Cleanse diet! I'm down with the maple syrup, but cayenne pepper and lemon juice?! No thank you!):
Weight Watchers – 3 times
Cabbage Soup diet
South Beach – lost 10 pounds twice … gained 15 back both times
Slim Fast
And various low calorie, low fat, low sodium, high fiber diets

What diets have you tried?

preivous post

Labels: diet, health, weight loss

Scientists at Newcastle University have already begun mixing Alginate -- a natural fiber found in sea kelp – into bread to see if the laboratory tests can be translated into the real world. And when used in a blind taste test, the alginate bread actually favored over plain, white bread.

"Our initial findings are that alginates significantly reduce fat digestion," explains Dr Brownlee.

"This suggests that if we can add the natural fiber to products commonly eaten daily -- such as bread, biscuits and yogurts -- up to three quarters of the fat contained in that meal could simply pass through the body.”

"There are countless claims about miracle cures for weight loss but only a few cases offer any sound scientific evidence to back up these claims," explains Dr Brownlee. "Alginates not only have great potential for weight management -- adding them to food also has the added advantage of boosting overall fiber content."

Seaweed isn't foreign to our food chain. And alginates, specifically, are already used in foods as thickeners. So feel free to chow down on some green stuff from the sea!

Don't forget! Tomorrow is Weigh In Wednesday. If you haven’t joined the weight loss challenge, start tomorrow! Weigh yourself first thing in the morning and email me at WeighIn@Captivate.com. The first day of summer is on its way!

previous post

Labels: cookie diet, diet, seaweed

I was going to wait until Monday to share this weight loss challenge with you, but then I thought that’s the trap perpetual dieters fall into. “I’ll start Monday,” is often followed by a weekend of Last Suppers. So, instead of waiting for the first of the month or a Monday, or the morning after a marathon love affair with chocolate, I’m starting this today. On a Thursday. In the middle of March. Exactly 95 days before the first day of summer.

So here’s the deal. I’ve recruited experts to share their wisdom with you here, on Weigh In. I’m also going to share success stories of people who have lost weight so we can pick their brains and find out how they battled brownies and won.

Those who want to participate can write to me at WeighIn@captivate.com. Send me a before picture with your weight and measurements. If you’re not comfortable sharing all this information, you don’t have to. You can just send in a before picture. Every Wednesday will be Weigh In Wednesdays. You’ll weigh yourself and report back to me at WeighIn@captivate.com. (If you don’t want to share your actual weight, you can just tell me how much you’ve lost/gained each week.) It’s important to be held accountable. Sure, you may still eat Oreos the night before weigh in, but you may not eat the whole sleeve. I’ll pop into your head around your fifth or sixth sinful circle of goodness and you'll put. down. the. bag. of. Oreos.

I’ll also share with you my progress – that’s right I’m doing this, too! Feel free to share your struggles and successes in your email and I’ll address them here.

95 days. 13 weeks. If you lose one pound a week, you’ll be 13 pounds lighter by the first day of summer. Why wouldn’t you want to do this?

So what now?

Calculate your BMI.

Take your measurements: (like my artwork?)




Chest: At the largest part of your chest.

Biceps: Halfway between your elbow and the top of your shoulder.

Waist: At the narrowest point, about an inch above your belly button. And don’t suck in your stomach!

Hips: At the largest part of your bum.

Thigh: At the largest part of your leg.




Read this.

And come back here tomorrow.

Labels: diet, healthy eating, weight loss

Yea .. I'm going to stick with four walls, a floor and heat.

Just call me old fashioned.

Run a marathon
I’m training for a half marathon in February. I’ve gotten in a couple of good long runs this month. One day I even ran to work (11 miles). Don’t worry, there are showers at work. I didn’t work stinky-style all day.

Be on time
I’d go with 50/50 here.**** I had considered turning all my clocks ahead, but I was afraid I’d just do the math, overcompensate and end up really late for things.

So there you have it. Some might read my progress and give me a big old F. But I like to work in baby steps. I’ve got 11 more of these months to improve.


What are your goals for 2010? Have you been keeping at it?


*A month for lovey dovey couples and oodles of chocolates
**So what if I’m making up words? I was an English major. We can do that.
***Flash back to grammar school, progress reports and gym class.
**** Which would be failing in school terms, but I think it’s pretty good!

previous post

Labels: diet, health, New Year's Resolutions, weight loss

I usually exercise 7 days a week. I know. Experts recommend a day of rest, but I’ve gotten into a routine that makes me feel guilty if I don’t set my alarm for 6. Why do I do this? Partly because I like how I feel after an 8-mile run, but mainly to lose weight. Has it worked? Not so much. I lost a lot* of weight several years ago, but those last 5 … 10 … sometimes 15 pounds just won’t go away and no amount of crunches, lunges or planks seem to scare them off. And I don’t know why. Or at least I didn’t know until I read a recent article in Time magazine.

According to Time, my obsessive exercising is either making me hungrier or making me think I deserve that Ding Dong. (Oh, Time, you know me so well!) Either way, I’m eating more calories than I burn, negating those early morning workouts. And it’s not just me!

More than 45 million Americans spend $19 billion a year on gym memberships, and 57% of Americans say they exercise regularly, according to a major study in 2000. But we’re all still fat. A third of Americans are obese, and another third are overweight. That math doesn’t match up.

A recent study took 464 overweight women who didn't regularly exercise and put them in 4 groups. Three groups worked out with a personal trainer for 72 minutes, 136 minutes and 194 minutes a week. The fourth group maintained their usual workout routines. Everyone was told to eat what they normally eat.

Six months later, all the women lost weight. But those who worked with a personal trainer for several days a week didn’t lose much more weight than those who did nothing. And some of the women actually gained weight (10+ pounds each!). Scientists call this the compensation factor. The women ate more than they did before they started working out – either the exercise made them hungry or they felt they deserved a reward.

That’s not to say we should hit the snooze and skip the gym. Exercising significantly lowers the risk of cancer, diabetes and many other illnesses. And it still feels good. We just have to work on working out our willpower.


So what’s your post-workout reward? Mine would be a honey wheat bagel with (extra) honey walnut cream cheese! ... I should probably work on that.


*over 100 lbs

Labels: diet, exercise, weight loss

It's just a fact. No one enjoys going on a diet. And salads and celery do not – in any way – stack up to cake and cookies. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying or … well, lying.

But not everyone needs to overhaul their intake. Sometimes all it takes is some tweaking. So here are some simple ways to trick yourself into eating healthier (stolen from Women’s Health).

– Cut your pancakes with cornmeal to add extra fiber and magnesium. Replace ¼ cup of flour with ¼ cup of cornmeal.

– Boil your peanuts. I know, it sounds kind of crazy. But researchers have found that boiled peanuts have four times more antioxidants than dry or roasted peanuts.
– Grab blue corn tortillas next time you’re making nachos or fajitas. Researchers have found tortillas made from blue corn have a lower glycemic load than white corn tortillas, so your blood sugar won’t rise as quickly. They also have more protein and less starch.

– Spice up your life. Scientists found overweight people have a better chance of losing weight after having a meal with chile peppers than after one that’s bland.
– Add oregano … to anything. One tablespoon of fresh oregano has the same amount of antioxidants as an apple.

– Beef up your burger … with vegetables. Before you toss that paddy on the grill, scoop out a hole in it and fill it with veggies. This will trick you into thinking you’re eating a massive meal when you’re really only eating your recommended serving of beef, which is 3 ounces.

– Add oil to a warm skillet. Cold oil tends to soak into meats and vegetables, so you’ll eat more fat.

– Opt for softer cheeses like goat, feta, and ricotta because they're about a third lower in fat and calories than harder cheeses.

Do you have any tricks of the trade?




For more tips on healthy eating check out Women’s Health.

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Labels: cooking, diet, healthy eating, weight loss