| Physical Fitness Feels Great! |
Renee Barry - one of my weight loss clients and one of our Weight Loss Coaches - and I completed a 5K last weekend. We both finished the race in under 40 minutes. I feel like this was an awesome accomplishment for me!
When I think about my fitness level 15 months (and more than 130 lbs) ago I am extremely happy! As some of you may be remember, 15 months ago I had to stop to catch my breath just walking from my car into the club. I spent a lot of time driving around to find the closest parking space when I went somewhere.
Now, I can appreciate life so much more and the energy and ability I have is amazing to me. I am grateful to my weight loss coach and personal trainers more than words can say.
As I registered for the 5K I thought about how I could or might flake out at the last minute. As the day came closer I was really nervous as to if I would complete it. The day came and I drove to the race. As I walked around the registration area and looked at all the other runners I felt like I was out of my league. I was sure it would take me hours to finish the race. The temperature was rising and more and more "real" runners arrived.
Before I knew it we were off and running and, with my IPOD blasting motivating music, I took off. I ran the first 5-6 minutes of the race. Then I walked a little, but then I began running again. As we turned the corner and I realized we were at mile 2 the heat really struck me. It was hot, very hot! But I was determined to finish. I continued to run, walk, run, walk, walk, run. I was near the end of the race when a nice lady reminded me that we were almost there. I decided to finish strong. I started running and pushed myself past the finish line. As I crossed the finish line in under 40 minutes I was so proud of myself.
I am so pleased to be able to take advantage of the wonderful physical things there are to do, including sharing a run/walk with a good friend.
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| The Value of a Food Scale |
After 15 months on My Healthy Fit's weight loss program, I had lost over 130 lbs and had never gained weight during my weekly weigh in. So I was feeling confident last week before my weigh in.
But the traitorous scale took a page from Brutus and I had to rub my eyes to make sure I was reading it correctly. While I felt deeply wounded, after some time I recovered, got my senses back and reviewed my food log. I was baffled. It was virtually perfect.
I sat down that afternoon with my weight loss coach as he reviewed my log. He asked the right question, "What's with all the soy nuts and how do you know how many you are eating?"
I told him that I assumed about an ounce. As I tried to demonstrate what an ounce looked like by cupping my hands, I realized that I had no clue. He looked at me skeptically. He didn't have to say it - don't assume. What he did tell me was to invest in a food scale.
When I brought my new scale home that night, the first thing I did was to weigh my soy nuts. My ounce was really 3.4 ounces... or about 300 calories more than I was calculating. Oh boy!
So I started weighing chicken, cheese, fruit, anything and everything! I found that what I thought was 3 ounces of chicken is really just over 4 ounces. And that what I thought was 3 ounces of sweet potato was really almost 5 ounces!
While I had never used a food scale, I have always been good about using measuring cups and spoons. I have noticed that at times I think I know a Tablespoon (TBSP) by sight, only to find that when I take out the spoon my one TBSP has morphed into almost 2 TBSP's.
Using measuring tools is very helpful and now, with the help of my food scale I am sure I will not inadvertently overdue it.
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| The myth of a slow metabolism |
Do you ever think you're gaining weight because you have a slow metabolism?
I hear this from clients and members all the time. And I used to think that I had a slow metabolism. Now that I've lost 125 lbs in just over a year I know that I was wrong! But telling myself this little myth made it easier for me to keep gaining weight.
Clinical studies tell us that metabolic rates among same-weight humans only differ by 13% at most. Here's the shocker - clinical studies consistently show that heavier people have FASTER metabolisms, since it takes their bodies more work to perform normal bodily functions. So you can stop relying on your "slow metabolism" excuse.
That leaves you with the hard work of eating a moderate amount of healthy foods and making sure you get some exercise. These are the simple basics that you secretly knew were the only way to maintain weight loss. |
| Preparation Is A Great Way to Beat Emotional Eating |
I recently had a tough day at work and was there a couple hours later than I planned to be. As a result, I didn't have quite enough food with me to last through my work day. By the time I left work, between my emotional needs from a bad day and the fact that I hadn't eaten in the past 4 hours, I was feeling very hungry.
Of course, this is the worst time to go shopping - but that's exactly what I did! I found ice cream and pastries calling out to me as I walked past them. I tried to convince myself that buying a pint of ice cream would be ok. As I began to slow my cart down so I could look at the labels, the disappointed look of my nutrition coach flashed into my mind. He was reading my journal and circling "Ben & Jerry's" in red ink. I quickly pushed by and decided not to stop. Close call!
As soon as I was back in my car, I opened the 1% cottage cheese I had bought and I had a few bites. As I drove home I felt better from the cottage cheese and I reflected on my emotional day and my near miss in the ice cream section. I had set myself up for diaster. The 'perfect storm' of stress, a little hunger and grocery shopping could have ended in a 1,000+ calorie binge that would have wiped out a few good days.
I remembered what my nutrition coach has told me many times - and what I tell my clients - never be more than a few minutes away from healthy food options. For me, the emergency, non-refrigerated snack of choice is the Apex Brownie Delight bar. As soon as I got home I put 2 in my glove compartment.
Stay strong, stay fit and eat right!
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| Benefits and Joy of Functional Training |
Almost all of the personal training I do is functional training - and let me tell you it's awesome!
Functional training is a type of exercise which involves training the body for the activities performed in daily life. It is very different from traditional (isolated) stregth training during which you sit in a machine and focus on one muscle. In functional training, you typically involve multiple muscle groups simultaneously, the same way you do in life. For example, you might squat down to pick up a weight that you then lift over your head as you twist to your right. In this process, you involve many of the muscles of both legs, your lower back and stomach muscles, as well as many of the muscles in your arms, including your shoulders.
Funcational training is not something that beginners should do without supervision. Unlike a machine, which safely limits the range of motion for you, functional training requires that you (and/or your trainer) understand how to control your motions and muscles at different phases of the exercise. It often requires considerable balance and core (stomach and lower back) strength. Of course, your personal trainer will work with you at your level, gradually increasing difficulty and intensity as your technique, balance and core strength improves - and as your appetite for challenge increases.
While functional training is certainly more challenging than traditional machine training, its benefits are multiple. By simulating reality, it is the most helpful kind of strength training for day-to-day life. It is also the best way to avoid injury in daily life. My personal favorite is that it is much more fun and efficient than sitting on a machine which works one muscle or muscle group at a time. Put another way, it burns more calories per minute than traditional (isolated) strength training.
If you have never tried it, ask me or a personal trainer for more information and consider adding it to your routine. I doubt you'll regret it - and you might even grow to love it the way I do!
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| The importance of creating - and committing to - a goal |
I have now lost over 121lbs. I am asked almost daily how I am so successful at losing weight. The answer is simple: I set a quantitative goal with my nutrition coach and I made a commitment - to him, to my friends, and most importantly, to myself - to reaching it. Time after time, I have found - with myself and with my weight loss clients - that the difference between success and failure is committment to a clear, quantifiable goal. You can't "kind of sort of" lose weight. You
either do or you don't.
I realize that setting a goal is easy. Keeping your committment to it, however, is definitely not without challenges. So I thought I'd share with you some "tricks" I use to keep me committed to my goal:
1. I meet with my nutrition coach every single week. This has a few benefits:
First, I've learned so much from him about how to eat right.
When I started working with him, even though I had a lot of weight to
lose, I really thought I knew what to do and that it was just a matter
of better implementation. But I couldn't believe how many things I was
doing wrong just because I didn't know better! See my March 25, 2008
blog called "10 Rules for Weight Loss" and, for further details, visit
My Healthy Fit's detailed nutrition "white paper" at www.myhealthyfit.com/weightlosssystemc27.php (click on "free
whitepaper").
Second, my weekly meetings with him hold me accountable to his review of my meal log and to a weekly weigh-in. While he is always friendly, he does not try to be my best friend - at least not by letting me get away with things. When I do something that
compromises my goal he let's me know about it and he helps me get back on track.
When I got started with my weight loss coach he told me that I would be wasting my time if I didn't log my calories. He also told me that those who make it past the first 2 months with him were
almost always successful in reaching their goal, but that the drop out rate in the first 2
months was almost 25%. How did he know that I was thinking about when I could
quit?! Yes, I thought if I don't like this
logging thing I will just stop in 4 or 5 weeks. He also had me make a written committment to giving my best effort to reach my goal. There’s no point in
doing this, he said, if you aren’t going to make a commitment. And he modified my eating gradually, so that I never felt like I was giving very much up. Yes, there are records of lasagna and chocolate binges throughout my
first meal diary!
As a weight loss coach, I've had many clients who resist accountability. They will either mislead me - and possibly themselves - about what they ate (for example, writing down eggplant rather than eggplant parm) or refuse to log at all. They tell me that logging their food bothers them. Of course it bothers them! When you take a good look at what you put in your body it makes
you acknowledge that you are not eating healthy and that you are responsible for your weight problem. When I first started logging I was
shocked to see how many poor food choices - and how many calories - I
was really eating. I was so discouraged that, if I hadn't had a weight loss coach at that time, I would have quit. This relates to the third benefit...
Third, having a weight loss coach helps me (enormously!) deal with disappointment. The weight loss journey is full of frustrating - and inevitable - plateaus. I have found that most people 'fail' to reach their goal for the simple reason that they give up when they hit a bump. My weight loss coach helps figure out what I did wrong (my plateaus have almost always been because I have done something wrong, or because of fluid retention related to female time of month). He also encourages me and reminds me of the big picture - my goal and all the progress I have made. This keeps me from getting hung-up on the apparent 'failure' of the past week or two.
2. I pay for a personal trainer anywhere between 2-4 times a week.
I've found that there are two primary benefits to personal training.
First, a good trainer makes the time fly by - and helps me get quick results in the
form of adding more strength (remember, muscles burn fat!) and burning more calories than I would have
on my own. I don't know about you, but I find that without a friendly nudge and some enterainment I'm just not very likely to push myself as hard as I should. I think each 45 minute workout session with my trainer is worth at least 3 sessions I would do on my own. Since I value my time - and want to reach my goal sooner rather than later - my personal training is well worth it.
Second, having paid a price - in both money and challenging workouts - it's much easier to resist unhealthy food choices when I remember the price I am paying to reach my goal.
I hope you found some of my tips helpful. Feel free to email me (LKatz@myhealthyfit.com) if you want to share your thoughts - or ask me questions. I'd love to hear from you!
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| Dessert: Pumpkin Spice Bread |
Servings: 18
Serving Size: 1 slice
Ingredients:
2 c. unbleached flour
1 c. brown sugar, packed
1 tbsp. baking powder
2 tsps. Cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. cloves
1 x 15 oz. canned pumpkin
1/2 c. skim milk
2 egg whites, whipped
1/3 c. fat-free sour cream
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a bundt pan with cooking spray, set aside. Combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves in a large mixing bowl. In a medium mixing bowl, combine pumpkin, skim milk, egg whites and sour cream. Spoon the pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture and mix just until moistened. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 60 minutes.
Tip: The following pans may be used in place of the bundt: 4 mini loaf pans, 12 muffin pans, 1- 9x5" loaf pan, 1 9x13" baking pan, or 2 8x8" baking pans.
Percent Calories from:
Carbohydrate 84%, Protein 9%, Fat 7%
Nutrition Information per Serving:
133 calories, 28g carbohydrate, 3g protein, 1g fat
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| Dessert: Banana Pecan Loaf |
Serving Size: 1 slice
Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. Baking powder
1/2 tsp. Baking soda
1/2 tsp. Salt
1 cup very ripe mashed banana
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 large egg whites
1 large egg
1/4 cup chopped pecans
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9"x5" loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray. In a large bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a medium bowl mix mashed banana, applesauce, egg whites and egg with a fork.
Stir banana mixture into flour mixture just to moisten. Spoon batter into pan, sprinkle with chopped pecans. Bake 40 to 45 minutes. Cool loaf in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove loaf from pan, cool completely.
Percent Calories from:
Carbohydrate 75%, Protein 10%, Fat 15%
Nutrition Information per Serving:
118 calories, 22g carbohydrate, 3g protein, 2g fat
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| Japanese Noodle Soup |
Servings: 7
Serving Size: 12 ounces
Ingredients:
1 (8 1/2 ounce) package Japanese udon noodles or rice noodles
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 medium red bell pepper, cut into thin strips
1 medium carrot, diagonally cut
2 green onions, thinly sliced
2 cans (14 1/2 ounces) reduced sodium beef broth
1 cup water
1 teaspoon reduced sodium soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon grated ginger
2 cups thinly sliced shiitake mushrooms, caps only
4 ounces daikon (Japanese radish), peeled and cut into thin strips
8 ounces firm tofu, drained and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
Preparation:
Cook noodles according to package directions, drain and rinse. Heat oil in large nonstick skillet or soup pot over medium-high heat. Add bell pepper, carrot, green onions and cook until slightly softened, about 3 minutes. Stir in beef broth, water, soy sauce, ginger and black pepper. Bring to a boil. Add mushrooms, daikon, and tofu. Reduce heat and simmer gently for 5 minutes or until heated through. Place noodles in a serving bowl and ladle soup over noodles.
Percent Calories from:
Carbohydrate 77%, Protein 17%, Fat 6%
Nutrition Information per Serving:
161 calories, 31g carbohydrate, 7g protein, 1g fat
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| Eggplant and Orzo Soup |
Servings: 6
Serving Size: 12 ounces
Ingredients:
1 large onion, minced
1/2 cup minced celery
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons olive oil
2 cups cubed eggplant
2 cups chopped tomatoes
1 3/4 cups fat free chicken or vegetable broth
1/8 teaspoon dried thyme
1/8 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 cup orzo or other small pasta, cooked
Preparation:
Add oil to a large saucepan and heat over medium heat until hot. Add onions, celery and garlic and saute for 3 minutes. Add the eggplant and tomatoes, cover and simmer for 10 minutes or until tomatoes begin to give off liquid. Add the broth, thyme and rosemary and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the pasta and heat through.
Percent Calories from:
Carbohydrate 68%, Protein 15%, Fat 17%
Nutrition Information per Serving:
106 calories, 18g carbohydrate, 4g protein, 2g fat
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| Low Fat Cream of Broccoli Soup |
Servings: 6
Serving Size: 1/6 recipe
Ingredients:
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
24 ounces reduced sodium chicken broth
16 ounces broccoli (defrosted and drained if frozen)
2 1/2 cups skim milk
1/3 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 1/2 cup reduced calorie sharp cheddar cheese, grated
Preparation:
Spray a large soup pot with cooking spray and heat over medium heat until hot. Add onion and garlic and saute until tender. Add broccoli and broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
Place 1/3 of the broccoli/broth mixture into a food processor or blender and process until smooth. Return puree to soup pot. Combine milk and flour and mix well with a wire whisk. Slowly add milk mixture to soup and cook over very low heat for 20 minutes or until thickened. Remove from heat and add cheese, stirring until melted.
Percent Calories from:
Carbohydrate 42%, Protein 42%, Fat 16%
Nutrition Information per Serving:
163 calories, 17g carbohydrate, 17g protein, 3g fat
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| Side Dish: Hummus Deviled Eggs |
Servings: 24
Serving Size: 2 egg halves (1 whole egg)
Ingredients:
2 dozen (24) hardboiled eggs
2 x15 oz cans chickpeas/garbanzo beans
1/4 cup sesame tahini
1 clove garlic
2 Tbsp fresh parsley
2 Tbsp green onion
Salt and pepper to taste
Preparation:
Hard boil 2 dozen eggs.
Peel the eggs, slice in half and discard the yolks.
Make hummus mixture by combining the remaining ingredients in a blender or food processor and blending until smooth. If mixture is too thick for blending, add a splash of lemon juice.
Pipe hummus mixture into the eggs.
Percent Calories from:
Carbohydrate 27%, Protein 27%, Fat 46%
Nutrition Information per Serving:
135 calories, 9g carbohydrate, 9g protein, 7g fat
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