Lose The Hate, Lose The Weight

There once was a woman with a rather large hook nose. And she loved that nose. She spoke of how it was her grandfather’s nose, who had his mother’s nose, who had her mother’s nose, and how that nose told a story of generations of people who were funny, brave, and kind. She wouldn’t trade that nose for anything, because even though it wasn’t pert and petite, and it overtook her face, it told a story of generations. She saw that nose as something to flaunt rather than hide. She loved that nose.

I don’t make this stuff up, girls! A new study* published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity shows that improving your body image can enhance the effectiveness of weight loss programs based on diet and exercise.

I learned this stuff through years of my own personal experiences with poor body image and weight gain, but I don’t have an M.D. or Ph.D after my name to make people really believe me, however this is EXACTLY what I’ve been practicing, preaching, teaching, and instilling in my clients.

Overweight and obese women were enrolled in a year-long weight loss program. Half were given information on eating well, exercise, stress management, and the importance of looking after yourself. The other half attended a 30 week group session where they discussed emotional eating, exercise, improving body image, and how to identify obstacles to weight loss and how to overcome them.

Compared with the first group of women, the second group improved the way they thought about their body and concerns over the size and shape of their body reduced. They were more successful in regulating what they ate and lost on average 7% of their starting weight compared with 2% for the group who just got the information alone.

Dr. Teixeira, who led the research had this to say:

“Body image problems are very common amongst overweight and obese people, often leading to comfort eating and more rigid eating patterns, and are obstacles to losing weight. Our results showed a strong correlation between improvements in body image, especially in reducing anxiety about other peoples’ opinions, and positive changes in eating behavior. From this we believe that learning to relate to your body in healthier ways is an important aspect of maintaining weight loss and should be addressed in every weight control program.”

So there you have it. I’m no doctor, but the message I’m trying to send about feeling good about yourself no matter what stage in your weight loss you are can be the linch pin in your success.

What do you think about this?

* BioMed Central Limited. “‘Love your body’ to lose weight.” ScienceDaily, 18 Jul. 2011. Web. 25 Jul. 2011.

Emotional Eating Survival Strategies

Emotional eating isn’t something that only overweight people do. People of all shapes and sizes use food to comfort themselves, because they’re bored, sad, lonely, or angry. At first you think that you’re hungry, so you go for a pint of ice cream in the freezer, but then before you know it, you’ve eaten almost the entire pint and you’ve gone from hungry to disgusted in a matter of minutes. Where those minutes have gone you have no idea, because it seems like you were almost in a trance through the whole thing. Even if you did notice what you were doing you probably rationalized all the thoughts that were telling you to stop, because “you deserve it”, or “you’ve been really good lately”, or “it’s only today, I won’t do it tomorrow, so let me just enjoy it.” But, what ends up happening is that today becomes tomorrow and then tomorrow becomes the next day and the next, and before long you’ve created a habit of comforting your anxiety with food, thinking that it’s going to help. All it does though is make your problems worse, because now on top of your boredom, loneliness, sadness, or anger is guilt. And what you’re left with is a vicious cycle that won’t end unless you make a conscious decision and effort to end it yourself.

Here are a 10 tips to use the next time you feel like masking your feelings with food:

1. Dig deep – The first thing you absolutely must do is figure out why and when you eat. What feelings are you trying to avoid dealing with? Did something happen at work, do you feel sad or angry? Figure out your patterns, so you can watch out for them next time.

2. Make a List – Make a list of things you can do instead of eating the next time you feel the urge to raid your refrigerator. You can include all the tips listed here plus some others that you think might help you specifically, such as calling a friend for help or occupying yourself with something else.

3. Wait 10 Minutes – If you feel the need to eat make sure to wait 10 minutes before indulging. Most of the time you’ll be able to talk yourself out of it and see that you don’t really want to eat.

4. Ask Yourself This Question – “What purpose is this serving me?” If the purpose of eating is to console yourself maybe you need to find another strategy. Think back to all the other times you ate out of discomfort and think about how you felt. Probably the only purpose it served was to make you feel good in the moment, but pretty badly for hours after and maybe even into the next day. You don’t need to feel that way. You’ll feel much better if you fight the urge.

5. Brush Your Teeth – – Ever have orange juice after brushing your teeth? Not so good, huh! Walk away from the temptations and instead go for your toothbrush. You’ll be less likely to eat after you brushed your teeth.

6. Use a Reminder Designate an object as your reminder and put it in a place where you can see it, such as the kitchen, so that the next time you go towards food for comfort you’ll see it and be reminded that you don’t really want to eat right now.

7. Repeat – Tell yourself, “this is my pattern, this is what I do.” When you understand what’s really going on with yourself and you recognize it as a series of habits and behaviors it’s easier to get a handle on things and steer it in a different direction. Keep telling yourself this mantra when you feel like eating, so that you drive home the point that this is just your pattern. You can change that pattern!

8. Journal – Writing down what you’re thinking and feeling can really help you work things out. The process of writing can help you get to the bottom of your thoughts and can help make sense of things. Remember that no one is reading it, so let it all out there and don’t worry about judgements.

9. Have a Support System – Choose someone you trust who you know will support you in your fight against this. Call them when you need to (kind of like a sponsor at an AA meeting).

10. Don’t Beat Yourself Up – If you do have an emotional eating episode do not be mad at yourself. What’s done is done, so feeling guilty is pointless. It will only feed into the cycle and force you to continue this pattern. All you can do is learn from the experience and strategize on how you’re going to deal with it next time. Instead, give yourself some major praise for actually thinking about these things and trying to do something about it. You can’t be perfect, you can only try your best.

4 Ways To Break Through Weight Loss Plateaus

Weight loss plateaus are frustrating. You feel like you’re doing everything right – watching your portions, eating 6 small meals throughout the day, doing your cardio and weight training, staying active, and making good choices when eating at restaurants, etc. – but for some reason, all of a sudden, bam, you’ve stopped losing weight. You have no idea what else you could possibly be doing to lose more weight and you feel like you’re stuck. Now what?

First figure out if you’ve really hit a plateau. It’s only a plateau if 3 things are happening: You haven’t dropped any pounds on the scale, you haven’t lost any body fat, and you haven’t lost any inches. The scale isn’t the only indicator that you’re losing weight. Sometimes you might be going down in inches, but the scale doesn’t move because you’re replacing body fat with muscle (and muscle weighs more than fat). So, if one of these things are happening then you haven’t really hit a plateau.

But if you truly have hit a plateau here are a few things that may shake things up a bit:
1. Food Diary – Start writing down everything you eat and see if maybe you’re eating more than you realize. Sometimes when people lose weight they get comfortable and take it as permission to get a little lax. Maybe you’re giving yourself permission to eat more than you should be.

2. Change up your workout – Your workout routine should change every 4-6 weeks. The body adapts to exercises and needs to be challenged. You can change the kinds of exercises you do, repetitions, sets, or all three. I give all my clients interval workouts, because it keeps the heart rate up throughout the entire workout and the little bursts of cardio will cause you to burn at least 150 more calories per workout. I suggest doing three exercises in a row and then follow that up with a 60 second all out sprint, then rest 2 minutes and begin again. Keep this up through your entire workout.

3. Take inventory – Thing about the past few weeks and see if there’s been any extra stress, anxiety, or anything else that might be tripping you up and leading to some sort of sabotage. Are you being as consistent with your workouts and eating as you think you’ve been? The best way to do this is to journal.

4. Persevere – Whatever you do, don’t give up. Keep at it and eventually you’ll start to see some movement again.

One last thing… This may be some advanced brain food, but think of the plateau as an opportunity to regroup. You need to check in with yourself every now and again to see if what you’re doing is really helping you. Without the plateau you might go through your routine without ever thinking of how you’re really feeling. Maybe what you really need is to simply change things up. Stop and look around for a minute. A plateau is a doorway to something new.

** Get more of these tried and true tips, plus a detailed weight loss plan when you join my 12-week weight management group. Email me for more info!

6 tricks for more sleep and less weight

Too little sleep puts your body all out of whack by lowering the hormones that tell your body its full and increasing the hormones that tell your body to eat. Add that to stress and you have a pretty successful weight gaining formula. Not your goal? Follow these tips to get in at least 7 hours of sleep a night:

1. stop eating 3-4 hours before bedtime. Giving your body time to digest your food before bed will help you get a more restful sleep. It’s pretty hard to sleep with indigestion and your mind can’t quiet down if it needs to process your food. Also be sure to limit your caffeine intake to no later than 2pm, because the stimulants will keep you from fully falling asleep.

2. stay away from alcohol within 2 hours of hitting the pillow. A glass of wine with dinner is ok, but too much alcohol will disrupt your sleep. You’ll feel drowsy at first, but you won’t have a good nights rest.

3. be active during the day. And if you can get outside and do it, say for an energizing walk, even better. Your body needs to sense daylight to produce serotonin and melatonin, hormones that regulate sleep. Avoid exercising too late at night though, because it will perk you up.

4. stop with the snooze button. It’s better to set your alarm 15 minutes later and sleep all the way through than waking up twice to hit that button like a lab rat.

5. journal before bed. Sleeping with a full brain can keep you a awake, so try this exercise: write down 5 things that you feel were a success each day and if you feel that you could have done something better or differently, decide how you will deal with it next time and move on.

6. avoid anything too stimulating. That means, no work and no email. Even books that are too stimulating, like self-help books might fill your brain with ideas and not rest.

sweet dreams.