Going, Going…Gone

Following the marathon in October, I gained 3 pounds. It really didn’t start until November as a result of the holidays but mostly due to the fact I was working 70 hours a week. I wasn’t eating right and I definitely wasn’t getting my exercise in. I felt awful, but there was nothing I could do. I was so exhausted and so busy, I was just trying to keep sane. In January, things finally calmed down at my office and with my freelance work so I was able to get back into a routine.

The routine had its ups and downs. I was definitely going out to eat more to socialize with friends who I hadn’t seen during my busy time. So the 3 pounds wasn’t budging. Three pounds doesn’t sound like much, but if you let 3 slide, then it becomes 5 and then it becomes 10 and down rabbit hole you go. I was fretting about the 3 pounds, but I knew it’d come off eventually.

One of the hardest thing was getting a regular workout schedule going again at work. With a new promotion came new responsibilities and less time. However, my workouts are important not only for weight maintenance, but they help me greatly with stress. So I started marking them on my email calendar as a meeting so people wouldn’t schedule things at the office during this time. It really worked! I was able to leave and get my workout in. The interesting thing is that my work still got done. So it was okay to take some time for myself.

I cut back drastically on eating out. For one thing, I was tired of it. It doesn’t taste as good as homemade food and it was no longer a special treat I enjoyed. I made sure I allotted time to cook my meals and take my lunch. I got back to recording my calorie intake regularly as I had sometimes let it lapse.

Today, the 3 pounds is officially gone. It’s not much, but I can tell the difference in my clothes. I feel better too. Mostly I just feel good that I caught it before it turned into a serious number. That’s the key. If you put on a few pounds from the holidays or a vacation, it’s okay. It happens. Just make sure to get on top of it before it gets out of control. Put workout appointments on your phone or email calendar to make sure you get them in. Take time to record your food. These are all simple steps to success.

Healthy Recipe: Crispy Ranch Chicken

I love fried chicken. Seriously, one of the best foods ever. But, it’s definitely not the best thing for you and it’s a pain in the butt to make. I’ve always been skeptical of baked chicken recipes that promise fried chicken crunch. I’ve tried a few, and they always ended up mushy and definitely crunch-less.

However, I found a recipe on SparkRecipes.com yesterday that definitely has crunch! It uses Rice Krispies for the coating and you bake it on a cookie sheet. It’s an extremely simple recipe that is delicious, has a serious crunch factor and is only 245 calories a serving. I served it with a little bit of pasta and some corn for a tasty and easy dinner.

Spark Recipes: Crispy Ranch Chicken

The Obesity Stigma Continues…

This week in the news, fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, made headlines for calling superstar singer Adele fat. Although this isn’t the first time the designer has commented on others’ weight, for some reason, this one seemed especially cruel. Adele is recovering from vocal chord surgery, overcame a bad break-up (hence the reason her album is so successful) and is right now enjoying some much deserved praise as she sails into the Grammys with 6 nominations.

Adele is an amazingly talented singer. She is probably one of the best voices to come along in decades. Yet, rather than praising her Lagerfeld points out her weight. Typical in the society we currently live in. Demi Moore and Lindsay Lohan get more sympathy for their drug problems than the overweight do. Bridesmaids actress Melissa McCarthy is up for an Oscar, but it seems like every time she is mentioned, somehow her size is worked into the article. Whether it’s something along the lines of a plus sized actress getting a nomination or who thought she’d make it in Hollywood with her size.

Also, the majority of the comments out there are directed towards women. Overweight men never come under the same scrutiny. Being overweight is the ultimate sin in our society right now. It’s sad, because overeating is a legitimate problem just like alcohol and drug addiction, but it is still being ostracized.

Adele has repeatedly said over and over that she is comfortable in her own skin and represents the vast majority of the women in the world as more are closer to her size than a supermodel’s. I commend her for taking that stand, but I’m sure somewhere, deep down it does hurt to hear those things.

Obviously being overweight can be unhealthy and dangerous, and it is good to slim down a bit in order to prevent diseases like diabetes, cancer and heart problems. But, people can weigh more than the “norm” and be considered fit and healthy if they exercise and take care of themselves.

Instead of criticizing these women for their struggles and flaws, we need to praise them for their accomplishments with no strings attached. Adele is a great singer, period. Melissa McCarthy is a talented comedian. That’s all that needs to be said.

Cooking Done Right Saves Lives

I just read an article this morning on ABC News about a new Food Network show coming out called “Fat Chef.” Part of me thinks its’ release is damage control over Paula Deen’s diabetes diagnosis, but whatever the reason, this sounds like a good program. An award winning pastry chef, Michael Magnano, started out the show over 500 pounds. It wasn’t even so much from his own sugary concoctions, but rather working late hours at the restaurant and eating fast food meals. On the show, he goes through a 16 week boot camp of sorts to learn how to cook healthy and start exercising.

Although I’m not a huge fan of reality TV, I think this show sends a great message. It doesn’t sound like it has the extremes of Biggest Loser, but encourages healthy weight loss through healthy methods such as changing recipes and portion control. Michael has lost 115 pounds and has run a 5K race. He has also gotten off his diabetes medication.

I think in this day and age of fad diets and pills/juices that promise to lose weight, it’s refreshing to see a show go back to the basics. Healthy cooking, portion control and exercise will not only let you lose weight, but you have a much higher chance of keeping it off. The average person can watch that on TV and think I can do that. The average person cannot watch Biggest Loser and think oh yes, I have 6 hours a day to devote to the gym.

If you’re wanting to lose weight, start slow with a food journal and healthy food substitutions. Gradually cut back your portions and try to get more physically active. It takes small steps to make big changes.

Ninja Niblets: January 19, 2012

A few quick niblets and tidbits to get you going this week.

Awesome Workout Songs To Add To Your Playlist

What Doesn’t Kill You (Stronger) by Kelly Clarkson – I’m seriously obsessed with this one, it is so motivational and really gets me pumped!

International Love by Pitbull

Good Feeling by Flo Rida featuring Sia

Super Bass by Nicki Minaj

Mr. Know It All by Kelly Clarkson

Fitness Magazine: Calorie Cheat Sheet

Do you really know how many calories you’re eating? Or what you think is only 100 calories is probably much more than that. This quick cheat sheet from Fitness Magazine divides up some popular foods into categories of 100, 250 and 400 calories. You’d be surprised at how quickly things add up.

Shape Magazine: 8 Reasons to Lift Heavier Weights

Lifting weights is an essential part of working out and just as beneficial and sometimes more so than cardio work. Women especially veer away from weights thinking they’re going to bulk up and look like a guy. Not so. Our muscles can only get so big since we don’t have testosterone, so don’t worry about looking like the hulk. Instead, weightlifting will give more benefit to your cardio workout. If you have good, strong muscles, you will burn up to 100 calories more in the next 24 hours after a cardio workout. It also helps prevent injury and osteoporosis. Grab a dumbbell and get curling!

Fitsugar: Motivational Quotes

Feeling the blahs today? Don’t feel like getting your workout in? Try flipping through this photo gallery of motivational quotes. I bet by the end, you’ll be out the door running to your kickboxing class!

 

New Year Resolutions: Staying on Track for Success

It’s the second week of January and most people are still valiantly trying to stick to their new years resolutions, especially involving diet and exercise. It’s not until the end of next week that they start dropping off like flies.

But I want people to succeed so let’s take a step back and refine your efforts in order to keep them going for months. You’ve now had a week to get all the crazy extremes out of your system. I’m sure all cupboards have been cleared out of your favorite junk food, the fridge of full of veggies, tofu and other questionable health foods. You thought you could run a marathon after one week in the gym, but you seem a little stalled at a half mile. It’s okay, everyone gets excited and motivated and takes on too much.

Now that it’s out of your system, let’s get back go reality. Keep your groceries three-fourths health food that you actually enjoy. Don’t get strange stuff like tofu and kale when you really can’t stand it. But your favorite fruits and veggies and this way eating them won’t be a chore. But get yourself a treat too. It’s okay to eat that. Just pick one treat, your absolute favorite and make it your goal for the week to make one package last a week. Love chips? Portion it out every night so you can have a treat to look forward to, but don’t polish off the bag because you have to make it last until your next grocery trip.

This week cut your food portions by a fourth. Don’t cut it to a microscopic portion a nutritionist would recommend. Cut it back by one fourth of what you normally eat. Gradual changes lead to a lifestyle change and permanent results.

Finally, set a realistic fitness goal. You can’t run a marathon after a week. Setting a goal like that will only discourage you and make you quit. Instead search active.com and find a 5K near you. You can literally go from being a couch potato to a 5K in as little as five weeks. Sign up now. If you pay the registration fee, you are much more likely to follow through and do it. When the gym empties out next week, you’ll still be there training instead of wasting money.

Small changes this week can lead to big results. Keep your goals small, simple and realistic. Your frequent successes with small victories will keep you going long after the initial resolution period.

5 Changes to Make This Week

Three days into the new year, thousands are off and running with their new years resolutions to lose weight and get fit. Right about now, they are flocking into gyms across the country with brand new workout clothes, a huge cup of coffee and a breakfast of oat bran and other foreign foods inside them. Today’s goal is probably something extremely unrealistic like run 10 miles in 30 minutes. That seems to be the trend with resolutions involving weight loss and fitness: extreme and unrealistic.

Instead, I suggest we do some small changes this week. In my previous post I offered ideas on how to change your life slowly and make realistic goals in order to keep that resolution and make it a success. So let’s take 5 steps this week to change your life. It may not be dramatic, but it will add up over the upcoming weeks. More importantly, at the end of January, you’ll still be practicing these small changes while the other people’s new gym clothes stay wadded up at the bottom of their closets.

1. Add Greek yogurt and one piece of fruit to your diet every day. Whether you incorporate yogurt with blueberries for a breakfast treat or a snack, or have an apple when the afternoon lull hits, try adding these two things to your day. Apples have a lot of fiber that will help keep you full and the sugar will give you a boost when you get tired. Greek yogurt is full of protein and healthy bacteria to keep you full longer and keep your tummy happy.

2. Add some extra steps to your day. Everyday you go somewhere this week, park in the furthest spot in the parking lot. At the office, grocery store or out running errands, you can add some extra steps to your day by parking further. It gets you in the habit of walking more. Try and incorporate a 20 minute walk three times this week. Use your lunch hour or duck out after dinner to get it in.

3. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. They aren’t lying. If you eat breakfast within 30 minutes of getting up, it jumps starts your metabolism for the day. Eat something in the morning. If you’re not used to eating in the morning, it will be hard to start this habit. I used to never eat breakfast and the thought of food made me sick in the morning. Start with something small like a piece of toast with some peanut butter or the cup of yogurt with fruit I previously mentioned. Those things are healthy, gentle on your stomach and will keep you full.

4. Make one healthy substitution with your food. Switch out one thing that you eat that is unhealthy for a healthy item. Just one thing, you don’t have to clean out the whole pantry, start small. A recipe calls for sour cream, try Greek yogurt instead. You chow down on potato chips, try using almonds or low sodium peanuts instead. These small substitutions don’t affect the flavors of your food, but save a lot in calories and fat.

5. Cut one junk food portion by one fourth. If you eat ice cream every night or eat a bag of chips every day, try cutting the portion by one fourth. Measure it out ahead of time so you’re not tempted. One fourth won’t freak you out into thinking you’re deprived, but it gets you in the habit of starting to cut back on portions. It’s gradual so you won’t feel it, but it can really add up over the course of a week.

Try these 5 small steps. I guarantee you’re not going to be in any “pain” this week from food deprivation, but it really will start to make a difference. If you want to change your life, start with small changes.

Resolve to Ignore the Calendar

A new year is upon us and thousands of people are making their new year’s resolutions. A vast majority of those resolutions focus on losing weight and getting healthy. TV and radio are flooded with ads for fitness equipment and diet programs. The local gyms are going to be insanely crowded for the next three weeks or so. Then, like clockwork, they will empty out dramatically and resume their normal flow. Most people have abandoned their resolutions and life goes on.

I think there’s a lot of pressure put on new years, especially with losing weight and improving fitness. People try to take on too much in too short of time and they are doomed to fail. You see everyone in the gym in their brand new clothes attempting to run at 8 mph and conking out after a few minutes. Discouraged they leave and many don’t come back. You see grocery carts full of foods so healthy that even many of us health freaks haven’t seen them before. The following week you see the same people stocking up on Cheetohs and ice cream.

So I propose this new years, you ignore the calendar. Don’t make a resolution. Don’t go out and buy a whole new workout wardrobe and a grocery cart full of tofu and kale. Don’t mark the calendar and plot out an unrealistic gym schedule. Instead, starting today, put on an old tee shirt, some comfy jeans and a pair of sneakers and head out for a walk. Don’t worry about your pace or timing yourself. Just go for a walk and enjoy it. Try to do it again every other day this week.

When you go to the grocery store, buy what you normally buy, but add a few things that are healthy. Do you normally snack on chips all day at the office? Buy your chips, but instead of snacking on them all day, throw in a few apple breaks instead. Or buy some low-sodium almonds or peanuts to enjoy. Instead of buying the regular ground beef you get, get the 93% lean. Buy chicken breasts instead of thighs. Small changes and still buy the things you love.

Try jotting down what you eat everyday. Don’t worry about recording calories and fat yet. Just take a plain, old notebook and keep track of what you consume. Get in this habit and if you can stick to it for a few weeks, then try moving to an online source like sparkpeople.com, livestrong.com or my-calorie-counter.com and really start to record your calories.

If you’ve kept up these small habits over a month, then try joining a gym. Set a small, but realistic goal for yourself like entering a 5K race, even if you just walk the whole thing. Try to cut your dinner portion by a fourth and then half. Go gradual.

The key to changing your life is to make small changes with easily attainable goals. When reaching these goals, you’ll be happy and motivated to keep going. Change your life because you are ready and want to, not because the calendar says you have to.

Ninja Niblets: December 14

I apologize for the sporadic postings, but work and my freelance business have been absolutely INSANE. I hope to post regularly again after the new year once these projects die down. In the meantime, here are some ninja niblets to get you through the week.

Current Workout Songs

Good Feeling by Flo Rida

Super Bass by Nicki Minaj

Good Life by OneRepublic

Shape Magazine: Top Diet Trends of 2011

An interesting post of the top 10 diet fads and trends for 2011. The majority of them are ridiculous, some are dangerous (hello HCB diet) and almost none of them seem successful. If you want to lose weight, start exercising regularly and keep a food journal. Cut calories gradually with your journal and you will see results that will last more the than the lifetime of these fads.

Fitness Magazine: 7 Soup Recipes

It’s freezing cold outside and you long for comfort food to warm you up. Soups are a great way to get warm and the majority of them are healthy or with a few substitutions can be made healthy. Try these from Fitness Magazine and eat them with a warm roll or half of a grilled cheese sandwich and you can have a fairly healthy, but very filling meal.

Self Magazine: 100 Calorie Snacks

T’is the season for tons of goodies showing up in work break rooms, mom over baking and cookies on every corner. Try some of these goodies from Self Magazine’s 100 Calorie Snacks and save your waistline during the holidays.

How to Avoid the Dreaded Holiday Weight Gain

The holidays—one of my absolute favorite times of year. I love everything about the time period of Thanksgiving through Christmas. I fully embrace the Clark Griswold style of decorations—more is better. I love the parties, the radio station that plays nothing but Christmas music 24/7, the awesome movies and I even love the horribly, ugly holiday sweaters. But, one of the things I most love about the holidays is the food.

This is the time of year when everyone lets their diets and healthy habits (if they had them to begin with) go to hell and load up on homemade cookies, fruit cakes, prime rib, turkey and egg nog. Then the rush begins January 1 to undo all the damage of the past two months.

The key is not go insane over the holidays to begin with. It’s a lot easier to enjoy a few select treats and not gain any weight than it is to take off a two month binge. For every pound you put on, you can expect it’s going to take you 1 – 2 weeks to lose it depending on your metabolic rate. So if you put on 5 pounds, you  may need 5 – 10 weeks to take it off. Is it really worth it?

So I propose a few simple steps to enjoying the holidays and not feeling deprived, but also start and end the holiday season in the same jean size.

1. Be choosy and know that less is more. By all means enjoy the goodies that are flowing during December. Whether it’s mom’s homemade cookies or baskets of yumminess in your company’s break room, enjoy it. However, be selective. What are your absolute favorite treats of the holidays? Narrow it down to your top 3. Avoid everything else that isn’t in your top 3 so you’re not wasting precious “splurge calories” on stuff that’s not worth it. Then look at your top 3 and decide how much you typically eat of it. Cut it down to half or a third if you can. For example, my top 3 are egg nog ice cream, my mom’s red velvet cake and my mom’s cookies. If I really want to, I can eat a dozen of her cookies in one sitting. No problem. Instead last night I picked 4 cookies and munched on them slowly during a movie. Granted I still probably put away 300 – 400 calories, but it’s better than 1500. It’s a start.

2. Exercise. This is a great time of year to hit the gym. For one thing, they are typically not crowded. Most people are so busy during the holidays, they tend to skip their workouts. You can get a head start  on a great exercise program before the gym gets to over flowing capacity with the New Year’s Resolution crowd that hits on January 1. Try to get 3 solid workouts in a week. If you can do more, definitely go for it. Also, on the days of the “big meals,” i.e. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, at the very least go for a walk. Get 30 minutes of cardio in on those days. It will help a lot. Many towns have 5Ks and/or family walks on Christmas morning. They typically benefit the hungry or other charities. It’s a great cause, it helps avoid excess weight and best of all, you’re done in less than an hour.

3. Avoid the process. Processed food that is. The holidays are full of processed foods from cheese logs, overly preserved sausages, dips, candies, etc. When you’re cooking for yourself, still make your family favorites, but try some substitutions in the ingredient list that will help cut down on the processed foods. They are loaded with tons of extra sodium and chemicals that don’t help your waistline. Don’t use the Cheez Whiz, instead use real cheese. Yes, it’s still high in fat and calories, but it is a natural product without a lot of harmful extras. Buy products that are labeled lower in sodium. Check labels though when it’s label lower fat as a lot of times that means extra salt and sugar.

4. Have a splurge day. Not a week or a month. It’s what you do everyday that matters, not what you do once in a while. If Christmas dinner is your family’s big meal, then splurge that day and don’t feel guilty. Get a walk or other exercise in and chow down. If you’ve been “good” all month long and have avoided weight gain, chances are you’re going to be okay if you overdo it one day. You may be up a pound or two, but typically that’s salt that goes away. But even if it is permanent, one pound is easy to get rid of, not 5 or 6. Enjoy that one day. Eat the second helping of prime rib and have an extra cookie. But if you’ve been splurging all month long, it’s not good to add to the pile. Consider Christmas Day your big reward for being cautious during the whole month.

I honestly haven’t gained weight over the holidays since I started losing weight and changed my lifestyle. I follow my own advice and pick my favorites to indulge all the while maintaining my exercise program. I splurge on the big day but keep it healthy otherwise aside from an occasional cookie here and there. So when I show up at the gym on January 1, it’s because that’s a normal workout day for me, not a start to undo damage.

Enjoy this wonderful time of year, but practice a little restraint. Your favorite jeans will thank you for it!