Archive for diet
Don’t make Food decisions daily, put them on AutoPilot
Posted by: | CommentsYou can not use up your will power first thing in the morning deciding between poached eggs with toast or waffles with syrup. If you want to eat healthy, make the decision in advance and conserve your will power for later in the day. Eat right at breakfast and lunch and you have won the battle. Will power is like muscle power, when you use it regularly it becomes stronger, but hard workouts leave the will and the muscles weak and tired and vulnerable to injury and failure. Take this to heart and make some decisions in advance. Make preparations and then just follow through. In the following two videos I try to show you how I set myself up for success at breakfast and lunch time. Exercise is an important part of living and health but weight is controlled 80-90% by diet. These decisions are very important.
Please try these suggestions. Tell me about your failures and successes. Leave me questions and make criticisms of these videos. The information is good and the principles are solid. I may not say it the way that makes most sense to you. Let me know what help you need. If you want some coaching, click on my offer above. Enjoy the videos.
DIFFERENCES OF DIET VS. LIFESTYLE CHANGE
Posted by: | CommentsWhat is the difference between dieting and making a life style change?
In this video I discuss the idea that you have a different perspective when you decide to make lifestyle changes. When you are dieting, you are
- giving up control of what you are eating to a “program”
- looking for a temporary fix to a long term habit
- looking at external cues for your success or failure,such as number on a scale
- not taking responsibilities for your actions
- not learning about food or activities and how they can affect you
- treating a symptom not a cause
In making a life style change, you are deciding that you are in it for the long haul, such as forever. You are evaluating what works for you, through trial and error. You are deciding for YOU what works and does not work. You are getting in touch with your feelings and thoughts about changes you are making, and this can make these changes more effective and long lasting. To make effective life style changes, you should:
- plan, journal and evaluate your feelings and thoughts about goals
- focus on how the changes you are making are benefiting YOU
- don’t be hard on yourself- think about correcting mistakes and moving ahead instead of giving up because of mistakes
- start small and move slowly through changes, think baby steps to change
- enlist help of friends, family, co workers. Someone you trust to be your support
- make a plan for stressful times.
Lifestyle change is not sudden or magical, it comes through slow, deliberate and dedicated action. It is never to late to make a lifestyle change, because the changes you make can be as big or as small as you want them to be!
WHAT IS YOUR MOTIVATION TO ACHIEVE HEALTH?
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Fresh Food Helps Weight Loss
Now that the New Year is here, you have no doubt made a resolution to lose weight. Who of us does not feel that a few lost pounds would be welcome? The question is, why are you dieting again?
Many of us get tired of how we look in clothes. We look at the models in magazines and on TV shows and we think- I want to look better, like she does!
But is this realistic? Is this a good reason to change?
It might be. However our nations obsession with skinny or very slender, is just not realistic or healthy. The recent criticism of Jenifer Ringer, the sugar plum fairy in the New York City Ballet’s recent production of the Nutcracker illustrates how warped the perception of beauty can be. Here is a vibrant, healthy, and strong ballerina with (in my opinion) a wonderful figure who was recently slammed by a critic for appearing to have “eaten too many sugar plums herself”. There has happily been a huge backlash against the critic and in support of Ms. Ringer.
Regular exercise improves many things.
There are many reasons to change your diet in a healthy way, or to begin an exercise program. I would say that improved heart and lung fitness, improved strength and flexibility, improved energy and alertness, improvement in disease risk factors are all excellent reasons to “diet”!
When I say “diet”, what I really mean is an improved and healthy eating program. What I do not mean is restriction of major food groups and choosing from a small list of foods for your nutrition. What I mean by “diet” is to eat:
- wide variety of fruits and vegetables
- healthy fats such as olive oils and nuts
- lean meats/fish/poultry
- whole grains such as oatmeal that is not instant and flavored, wild rice, couscous, quinoa, barley
- whole grain bread and pasta with NO bleached flour
- drink water, pure juices, NOTHING with corn syrup, high fructose syrup or any other syrup
- keeping restaurant food as close to all the above as possible, no fast food, very limited sweets
Keeping the this type of eating plan will not only help you lose weight and get slimmer, but more importantly will improve your health so that you can live longer and enjoy doing just that!
Isn’t that what most of us want?
Contact us with questions, comments or concerns! There is much information on this website and soon we will have a program to help with making these changes, and many others in the future.
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Menopause Mentor – Do you need one?
Posted by: | CommentsThe Value of Membership!
Anne can be your coach and mentor for menopause issues like
- weight gain,
- sleep troubles,
- sexual difficulties from menopause,
- how to talk to your Doctor,
- Diet and Fitness
In this brief but fun video she has a conversation with a pretend coaching client. Would you have the same questions? Ask her in the comments section. The sign up form follows the video.
Obesity – Which camp are you in?
Posted by: | CommentsRamit Sethi is author of the blog I will Teach You to be Rich and author of the NYTimes best seller of the same name has something to say about how our attitude about money and food are much the same. We would rather spend an hour doing research about the best thing to do to get the weight off rather than actually take action on the problem. We would rather see a documentary with very thin science than read and apply principles that have been proven over and over. The Key: Do something that is right now! Don’t wait until you are an expert. Don’t wait until you know everything perfectly. DO SOMETHING NOW AND REPEAT IT REGULARLY! It does not have to be a lot, or really intense, or extreme, just a little regular exercise and a little less food each and every day. This video is not great. It does give you the visual message. You really ought to ask Anne in the comments section for examples and then take those examples and do something with them. Enjoy this 5 minute video.
Obesity – the truth about diet and exercise
Posted by: | CommentsThis is the follow up to the poll/quiz I posted yesterday. This post answers 4 basic questions.
Bruce Bair PA-C
What is obesity?
The accumulation of excess fat constitutes over-weight and beyond a certain point is defined as obesity. You can define obesity by Body Mass Index or Body Fat Measurement but I think waist measurement is the best one. A woman’s waist above 35″ or a man’s above 40″ constitutes obesity if you are under 7 feet tall. More importantly obesity is a state of inflammation. Inflammation is the basic cause of all health problems. When the inflammation gets bad enough the body’s defense breaks down. Abdominal fat produces many chemicals that increase inflammation, elevate blood pressure, elevate lipids and raise blood sugar levels. Obesity then can be called a metabolic state in which inflammation is dominate. You don’t have to be obese to suffer from inflammation, but you are at greater risk when you are obese.
Which is more important diet or exercise?
Both are important but to reverse and prevent obesity, diet plays a role of 80% and exercise 20%. The national weight loss data base statistics show that those that lose weight and keep it off are regular exercisers. The number one exercise is walking. Resistance exercise like lifting weights is important also.
What is the weight gain hormone and how do I control it?
Weight gain is controlled by many metabolic processes but the number one hormone is insulin. Insulin is produced in the pancreas in response to one nutrient in the blood. That nutrient is glucose – SUGAR. Glucose is a carbohydrate. Carbohydrates are sources of cheap energy. When you have too many of them in your blood, insulin and some other hormones cause the liver to create a fat called triglycerides (the fat inside your fat cells) and get the fat cells and liver to store it. When the carbohydrate is a difficult one for the liver to process, it gets stored within the liver and can result in a liver inflammation called NAFLD (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease). Until recently, this occurred in alcoholics, late in their life, and did not contribute to illness. Now we have 8 year old children with this problem and we don’t know what will happen in their liver after 30-40 years. Want to keep weight down? Keep insulin levels low in your blood. The glycemic load is a good way to look at how much sugar gets into your blood how fast from a serving of food. The lower the glycemic load, the lower the the amount of sugar in your blood and the lower your insulin.
Can you be fit and fat?
Short answer is yes. You can not be obese and fit. Fitness isn’t just measured by muscular or cardiovascular fitness. Fitness is a function of your physiology and your muscular strength and endurance. It is good to improve your strength and endurance but it is best to lose weight through a combination of diet (80% emphasis) and exercise (20%) emphasis.
What questions do you have? Ask them in the comments section. What is your story? Tell us about your successes and your struggles. I appreciate your participation in our blog and membership site.
Obesity and Exercise – can you cure obesity with enough activity
Posted by: | CommentsWhat is obesity that everyone says is an “epidemic”? Obesity is not a contagious disease. It is a result of the nutrition consumed. I would say it is the result of eating processed nutrition instead of nutrition that comes from unprocessed food. Do you remember what processed food is? It is food the way nature created it.
What do you need to do to help others and yourself from becoming over-weight or obese? Take the poll below and then check back tomorrow to get the results. One thing, you will need to be a fee member to get the results. As a free member you gain access to all our material – posts, audio interviews and a free report on preventing weight gain without a diet. You need to do three things now:
1. sign up
2. take the poll, tomorrow I will explain each of these choices.
3. leave a comment
OK, go – do all 3, Thanks!
Osteoporosis – Tips from 3 authors
Posted by: | CommentsThere is a lot of information about health topics on the web. Some of it is good. The problem is in trying to distinguish What is good now from what was good 1 month to 1 year ago. There is also the problem of who sponsored the information and what they have to gain.
Osteoporosis is one of the subjects that has information all over the map. In western society the common wisdom says a woman should:
- take vitamin D3 but how much, how often
- take calcium but how much, how often and from what sources
- exercise, but what kind and how much, how often
- take estrogen – this is a big risk, should you or not?
- take a bisphosphonate – Fosamax and others – but what about side-effects, poor absorption, and maybe more fractures with it than without
All this is quite confusing.
Let me introduce you to 3 women experts and authors on this subject.
The first is Dr. Christiane Northrup M.D. 
She is a gynecologist, an expert on women’s health especially during menopause. She is a best selling author and has had her books made into PBS specials (see PBS.org). Her book Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom has been updated. In it she addresses the issue of mineral supplements, topical progesterone, diet and the work of two other authors I will introduce in the next two paragraphs.
Second, you need to know the name of Amy Lanou, Ph.D. from the Univ of NC Asheville.
She is a researcher in health and wellness. She reviewed 1300 studies done on osteoporosis and identified 135 that addressed the issue of diet and fractures in menopausal women. She found that calcium, while important, was not a panacea. That unless you also consumed enough of 16 other nutrients, calcium wasn’t going to make a difference. She reports her findings in her book.
Last let me introduce you to Miriam E Nelson Ph.D, director of the Center for Physical Activity and Nutrition at Tufts University.
Her research has found that resistance exercise – we call it lifting weights – for as little as two 40 minute sessions a week, can prevent osteoporosis.
Learn more about these authors and their books on our Squidoo lens of the same name
Female Menopause Mentors.
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Who do you read? What is your experience with osteoporosis? Did you like what you read here? Leave us a comment! Recommend us on Twitter, Facebook and StumbleUpon by using the links at the end of this post. Tell us what you want. Send us a contact form!
Why some People will Always be Fat
Posted by: | CommentsSome people will be fat all their lives. It does not have to be that way. To be thin, they will have to have some help, but they will have to tell themselves they can do it. They will need some people around them saying the same thing. They will have to see themselves as OK despite being overweight. This slide show is an information tool. Anne and I want to be part of the support and accountability group for any woman who is in this situation over the age of 45.
Heart Disease and other vascular disease in Women part 1
Posted by: | CommentsCardiovascular disease (heart and blood vessel disease) is the number one cause of death in women. One in three women will have
Anne Vaillancourt
cardiovascular disease. The signs and symptoms will be different than in men and will usually present later (up to 10 years) than in men. This all depends on genetics and life style.
Genetics is what you inherit from your family. A clue to your genetics is present in the lives of older living and deceased relatives. When you might become menopausal, the problems like hypertension, diabetes, heart attack and brain attack (also called stroke) you might be susceptible to all represent possible risk (risk factors) you do not completely control. You do have some influence on gene expression (how the gene is used by your body) through your diet, your response to stress, whether or not you smoke or are exposed to smoke, and the amount and regularity of exercise through out your life.
In the following mp3, Anne Vaillancourt – the Menopause Mentor, and I discuss the variables affecting heart disease in women.
We welcome your questions and comments. Leave them in the comment section or contact us through our contact page.
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