We’re all busy, so simple ways to improve our diets are in high demand. No
matter how good our intentions, most of us won’t stick with anything that
takes too much time or is burdensome, like rigidly tracking calories,
grams, and servings.  Even health experts don’t follow such regimens
perfectly, never mind for a lifetime.
So the key to making lasting, healthy change is to keep it simple and
enjoyable. Here are few tips to get more nutrition in your life:

•       SHOPPING – Good eating starts with what you buy.  Think of your
grocery cart as the foundation of an artwork or a garden project. So
naturally you’ll want to start with the most colorful foods.
These will be in the produce section.  Have fun with choosing as many
colors of fruits and vegetables as you can to make a beautiful arrangement.
Your cart will be filled with high-fiber, low-fat foods packed with
nutrition.
Bonus: You won’t have much room for those packaged, low-nutrient, colorless
foods from the center aisles of the store.
It’s a good idea also to follow a list and to shop after a meal so you
won’t get distracted by hunger. Stuck waiting at the checkout? Compare the
contents of your cart with others.  If yours is the most colorful, you’re
on the right track.
• FOOD GROUPS – In addition to those colorful fruits and vegetables, you’ll
also need grains, proteins, dairy and healthy fats. An easy way to improve
the quality of your diet is to think about your meals, and whether they
include items from each of the food groups. It’s true that there are
certain numbers of servings recommended for each food group. But don’t get
too wrapped up in counting and measuring if that will only stress you out.
As long as you make fruits and vegetables the stars of your plate, and use
whole grains, lean proteins and no- or low-fat dairy as side dishes, you’ll
be well on your way to better nutrition.

•       COUNT THE COLORS – If you’re going to count anything, let it be the
natural colors of fresh foods — greens, oranges, yellows, purples and reds.
Colorful foods are not only nutritious but they satisfy the mind, too.
Make a game out of seeing how many colors you’ve eaten each day.
•       EXPERIMENT – Even if you think you don’t like red cabbage, orange
peppers or purple eggplant, experiment with them. Maybe it’s been years
since you’ve tried them, or maybe they weren’t well prepared. Try a new
recipe (many grocery produce aisles feature suggestions on preparing exotic
fruits and veggies). Or try tricks that are often prescribed for finicky
kids, such as cutting new-to-you food items in small pieces and mixing them
with more familiar foods. If in the end you still don’t like it, that’s
fine. But you might surprise yourself.
•       EAT IN – When you dine out you have much less control over what you
eat than when you prepare meals at home.  Restaurants are more concerned
with what most people think tastes good, and these days, that often means a
lot of added salt, sugar, and fat.  Spend the time (and money) you would
have spent going out shopping for great food and making delicious food at
home.  Make eating out an occasional activity rather than a lifestyle.
Eating nutritiously is a gradual, personal growth process.  Remember that
nobody’s perfect, not even the experts.  Be colorful, have fun, look for
good-tasting foods that are also good for you, and be aware of what you’re
eating.  With time, while you’re having fun with color, you’ll sense your
body avoiding foods that hamper your health and being drawn toward those
that make your body sing.

Previously published in the St. Petersburg Times

Most diets leave a person battling with hunger yet the most effective way to lose weight should not involve any struggle with hunger.

The body needs food to survive and one of the ways the body makes sure that it gets this fuel is through the feeling of hunger. For most people in developed countries, not having enough food is not a problem. Instead, people are more concerned with losing weight and controlling their eating. The body has a fine balance, however, and eating too little by ignoring hunger can lead to gaining weight rather than losing it. This is often what is behind the yo-yo pattern of weight loss and regaining typical of most dieters. Successful weight loss is not a matter of how little a person can eat, but how they balance their eating.

Not only does the body’s metabolism slow down if it’s not fed enough (leading to a body that stores fat readily and burns it more slowly), but ignoring hunger to the point of excess leads to out of control eating. Almost everyone has experienced the feeling of ravenous hunger at one time or another and its resulting feeding frenzy. A slower metabolism and overeating spell weight gain, not loss. Clearly, careful care of hunger is important in any plan for losing weight.

The mind is an important part of behavior change especially when it comes to the complicated task of losing weight.

Ten Mind Tools For Successful Weight Loss

1. Keep track of hunger - When the body needs fuel the brain will push you to eat. The hungrier you are, the stronger the push making it difficult to control eating if you wait too long to eat. A simple mind tool is to use a hunger scale from 0-5, with 0 being no hunger and 5 being extremely hungry to the point that you can’t focus on anything else. The trick is to try to eat early, when you first start feeling hungry (2) and not going beyond a 3. The sooner you eat when hungry the sooner you will be satisfied and the less you will eat.
2. Slow down eating - Fast eaters tend to consume more food. Focus on slowing down eating by savoring food – chew it thoroughly, focus on appreciating all the flavors of the food, involve all the senses in savoring the food such as noticing the textures, the colors and the smells as well as the taste. Swallow before taking another bite, take a sip of water between bites, and take the time to look around and “smell the roses.” Too many people gobble down food without taking the time to appreciate it. There are few things people do more often than eat so we might as well enjoy it.
3. Keep nutritious foods in stock at all times – In our hectic culture, if food isn’t easily accessible we’re not likely to eat it. If the accessible foods are junk foods, that’s what will be reached for first. Instead, have plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grain foods, and nutritious goodies available and the brain will go for those first instead of the junk
4. Brush teeth after eating - Brushing your teeth after eating eliminates the food taste from your mouth and the signals to the brain that encourage it to want to eat more. The fresh, minty taste from the toothpaste soon becomes a signal that the meal is over and you can go on to doing other things without urges for more food.
5. Think ahead when leaving the house - Consider whether you’ll be gone at meal time or when you’re likely to get hungry, and make a plan. Sometimes it means eating something before you go out or taking something for the road.
6. Don’t go to the grocery store hungry - It’s better to eat first or wait until after a meal when your brain will not be susceptible to the temptations.
7. Don’t try to eliminate favorite foods - This will only make you feel deprived and, sooner or later, the favorite food will be eaten anyway. This strategy only leads to compulsive eating of the same favorite foods that were being eliminated.
8. Never skip meals or go long periods without eating – These strategies only result in a slower metabolism and rabid hunger – both of which lead to weight gain.
9. Make health rather than weight loss the priority – If you strive for health, not weight, the weight will come off anyway, but you’ll find it to be an easier road.
10. Don’t take life too seriously - The more relaxed and happy a person is the easier it is for him to lose weight. Ironically, the more intensely a person tries to lose weight, the harder it will be.

By using the mind tools above and those from Ten Mind Tips for Losing Weight,the best foot is stepping forward toward health, weight loss, and fitness.

Weight-loss talk is heard too often these days. If there’s a new fad diet going around, you hear about it and its so-called “successes.” • Weight-loss success ought to be defined not by how much weight has been lost, but by how long the weight loss is maintained. • People who have had long-term success with weight seem to be relatively quiet. You don’t usually hear, “I’m going on 10 years of managing my weight successfully,” or “I haven’t binged in 15 years!” • There are plenty of weight-loss myths that get in the way of weight-loss success. Here are some real-life examples, with names changed to protect patient privacy:

Myth 1: The Less You Eat, the More You Lose

Jeanie walked into my office sharing her frustration at a life filled with one diet after another. “I’ve tried every diet,” she told me. “You name it, I’ve tried it.” It quickly became clear that Jeanie subscribed to the myth that you have to keep eating less in order to lose more. Her diets became more restrictive through time. After years of such diets, her body had compensated for her starvation attempts by slowing its metabolism, making it more difficult for her body to burn fat and easier for it to store it. Without her realizing it, Jeanie’s diets were contributing to her weight problem.

With education, Jeanie was able to restructure her thinking and behavior. She started to eat more often, stopped skipping meals, and avoided long periods without eating. She focused on nutritious meals that were satisfying, preventing extreme hunger and feelings of deprivation.

She learned to allow time for her body to start burning more again. After all, she had been abusing it for a long time. Those kinds of physiological changes don’t happen overnight.

Once Jeanie understood how her body worked, she was able to give up the belief that the less you eat the more you lose. Then she started to gradually lose weight. By being consistent she made these changes part of her lifestyle and was able to manage her weight successfully.

Myth 2: If You Have a Busy Life, That’s Exercise

George was a busy guy. His work kept him on the move. Through the years, his body had put on an unattractive spare tire. “I don’t understand it,” he said. “I’m busy all the time at work. Why can’t I lose weight?”

George had confused busyness with fat-burning exercise. The type of exercise that burns fat is sustained activity that gets the heart pumping, creates deep but relaxed breathing, and lasts 30 minutes or more. Most of the busyness that George thought should be fat-burning exercise was stop-and-go activity.

George decided get up a half-hour earlier to get a run in each day. He started out slowly and worked up to running 30 minutes at a time. In addition, he used the run to decompress from the stress of work. Gradually, George’s body started to show the fat loss he was looking for.

Myth 3: Carbs Make You Fat

Leni was a believer in the no-carb craze. She was proud that carbs never touched her lips. Never, that is, except when she binged on carbs several nights per week. “Why can’t I control my eating?” she said. “I know I shouldn’t eat carbs, but I lose control!”

Leni didn’t realize that the reason she was bingeing was precisely because she was trying to eliminate carbs. Although some carbs are not very nutritious, they don’t, in and of themselves, make you fat. If they did, all people who eat bread and pasta would be fat.

Leni loved carbs. Her stringent rule of no carbs was actually causing her to lose control by making her feel deprived. This psychological deprivation made her preoccupied with carbs. It’s no wonder she lost control. Once she understood why she was bingeing, Leni was able to work on letting go of her rigid expectations, eat high-quality carbs and feel satisfied. Gradually, she regained natural control of eating, the binges stopped and she lost weight permanently.

• • •

There are ways to lose weight, but only a logical approach will keep it off. It pays to take the time to be honest with yourself about approaches that are only perpetuating the problem and start down the right road to a life of leanness. Even if the weight loss is slower, it’s not nearly as frustrating as losing and regaining the weight again and again.

Previously published in The St. Petersburg Times July 17, 2010

Americans like to eat out a lot. Unfortunately, eating out can get in the way of managing our weight. There are ways, however, to lessen its caloric impact.

Eating out can be fun and flavorful but it can also be fattening. Restaurants are businesses so they are concerned with the bottom line . One of the ways that restaurants get people to return is to make the food irresistibly flavorful. How do they do this? By enhancing the flavor with fat and spices (mostly salt). Fat and salt are inexpensive ways of making food tasty.

When we eat out we have no idea of how much fat, salt, and other ingredients are in the food. We just know whether we like the taste or not. For example, we see that we’re eating chicken but we don’t know how many calories, fat, or salt we’re eating. What we think is a normal meal may prove to be the reason we are frustrated with our weight gain next week.

Restaurant Portions

Another method that restaurants have used to get us to return is by serving extremely large portions. It’s not unusual today to be served enough for four people. Because it’s on our plate we have a tendency to think that it must be a serving for one person, but don’t be fooled – it could be enough for four people.

Frequency of Eating Out and Weight

Americans do like eating out frequently. With our fast-paced lifestyles, some people eat out more than they cook at home. That’s unfortunate because the more we eat out, the harder it is to manage weight.

How to Out-Smart Restaurants

How can we still have fun eating out without ruining our goals for fitness?

• Gradually reduce the number of times that you eat out and replace with quality meals at home.
• Don’t starve yourself all day to compensate for the meal out later. It will make you hungrier and will cause overeating. Eat enough to satisfy during the day but pick foods that are high in nutrition and fiber, and low in fat.
• Reduce or eliminate how much alcohol you drink when eating out as the effects of alcohol will only cause you to eat more and will add more calories.
• Ask for a “doggy bag” at the start of the meal and save part of the meal to have the next day.
• Eliminate the extras such as appetizers and desserts. These only make your “four-person meal” more like a “six person meal.” If you really want the appetizer or dessert then forgo the entree. Decide which is most important to you.

How to Handle Menu Choices

If you’ve done your job of not being too hungry or inebriated when you’re looking at the menu, it should be easy to choose a healthier meal. Here are steps to take:

1. Decide which meal you would really like.
2. Look for the most nutritious (more fiber, more vitamins, less fat, less salt) meal on the menu.
3. Ask yourself if you’d be satisfied with #2. If yes, then order it. If no, go to #4
4. Look for a meal that resembles your first choice but is more nutritious. Ask yourself if you would be satisfied with that choice. If yes, order it. If no, go to #5.
5. If you feel you won’t be satisfied with any of the alternate choices go back to choice #1. Now look for ways to make this meal more nutritious. For example, ask for meat to be baked or grilled instead of fried or saucy, ask for a lower fat vegetable, and don’t put butter on your bread.

It’s easy to gain weight from eating out. The smart ones learn to manage it well.

How to Eat Healthy Food Without Measuring, Weighing, or Counting

Diets that involve rigid measuring, weighing or counting never last. But there are simple and fun ways of improving nutrition without becoming a scholar on the subject.

Who wants to be bothered with studying up on nutrition to eat better or lose weight? Learning about vitamins and minerals, number of servings, and what food qualities affect what body functions can get tedious and boring.

Isn’t There an Easy Way to Improve Nutrition?

You don’t have to be a nutritionist or a biologist to improve your nutrition. All you have to do is:

1. Want to eat better.
2. Understand that learning to eat better is a process and needs to be done one step at a time.
3. Strive for continual improvement rather than perfection.
4. Be willing to experiment.

The 1-2-3′s of Better Nutrition

• One: Food Groups

The first thing to do to improve nutritional intake is to have a general knowledge of food groups. Most people are familiar with what these are:

• Protein/Meat Group-foods such as meats, eggs, beans
• Fruit/Vegetable Group-all fruits and vegetables
• Grains/Cereals Group-breads, pasta, cereals

Although the particular food groups differ depending upon the source, concentrating on the three basic food groups above will get you started in a good direction and keep you from feeling overwhelmed about how much to know. Remember it’s about increasing nutrition, not about perfection. Later, if you wish to learn more and continue to consume higher quality foods you can get into more details. For now, keep it simple. The psychology of change is important to success.

• Two: Color

The most nutritious foods have bright colors. Instead of boring ourselves with what vitamins and minerals are in different foods all we have to do is focus on color in the following ways:

1. Look for foods that have bright colors such as green, yellow, red, orange, and black. Fruits and vegetables are the most colorful foods.
2. Strive to make your plate colorful. A plate that has mainly beige and brown foods is not what we’re looking for. Make it look like a beautiful color wheel.
3. As you approach each meal ask yourself, “What colors have I eaten today? What colors am I missing?”
4. Strive to have a meal where most of the plate is composed of bright-colored foods.

By following the above, your nutrition will improve significantly and you will have had fun doing it. It’s that easy.

• Three: The Comfort Group

These are the foods that give you warm fuzzies – your favorite foods. It’s important to include comfort foods in any eating program as trying to eliminate them completely makes it more difficult to succeed at your goal. It’s one of the main reasons most diets are broken sooner or later. However, the focus here should be to see how your comfort foods can be made more nutritious. For example, if your comfort food is ice cream perhaps you can add colorful berries to add more nutrition and fiber. Experiment with your favorite cookie recipe to see what can be added or eliminated to add nutrition and still keep the flavor. Don’t eliminate these foods – just make them more nutritious.

Finally, experiment with different recipes to see if you can find ways to eat those nutritious foods you don’t like by disguising their flavor with other tastes. Sometimes mixing foods you don’t like with those you like a lot will make the whole dish taste good. Chopping less liked foods into tiny pieces to mix with other foods, also can be tried. Just don’t give up on something nutritious just because you feel you don’t like it. If nothing makes a disliked food taste good don’t eat it, but search for the same color elsewhere. It’s about making nutrition easy and fun.

Disclaimer: The above tips do not replace the advise of your health care professional. Consult with your doctor.

What are the Most Effective Cellulite Control Methods?

It’s a fact – there is no cure for cellulite. However, there are proven ways of cellulite control that are realistic and won’t break the bank.

Cellulite is nothing more than fat under the skin which tends to look like cottage cheese primarily on the thighs and butt. There is no other substance feared and hated more by women. The desire to get rid of it is so strong that women will go to great financial and risk-taking lengths to be free of it. Billions are spent on products and treatment methods promising to make it disappear. Some of these products sound logical and others are down-right silly, but none of these get rid of cellulite. That’s the sad truth.

Since there is so much money to be made from products promising to get rid of cellulite, Americans will continue to be bombarded by advertisements pushing ineffective products and treatments. It’s up to the consumer to educate herself and not be vulnerable to such scams. The good news, however, is that by becoming an educated consumer there will no longer be wasted time trying things that don’t work. The time will be spent using effective methods of controlling the appearance of cellulite.

If Cellulite is Just Fat Why Does It Look Lumpy in Some Places and Not in Others?

Areas of the body where more fat tends to be deposited and where skin is thinner are where the fat will take on the appearance of cottage cheese. That is why it tends to appear mainly on thighs, butt, and stomach.

There are several factors that influence whether you will get cellulite or not. They are:

• Gender-More women than men get cellulite.
• Genetics-It tends to run in families.
• Fat-The more fat on the body overall, the more likely cellulite will show.
• Skin Thickness-The thinner the skin the more cellulite will show. Women and certain ethnic groups, in general, have thinner skin than others and are more prone to showing cellulite.
• Age-The older you get the more likely that cellulite will appear. This has to do with changes in the thickness of the skin as we age.

What are Some Ineffective Products and Treatments for Cellulite?

The numbers of products that are sold as cellulite treatments are numerous but here are a few:

• Massage-the argument is that cellulite is caused by poor circulation and massage will improve circulation.
• Topical creams-meant to “dissolve” cellulite.
• Vitamins, minerals and herbs
• Body wraps
• Spa treatments

Some products may give a temporary appearance of improvement due to plumping of the skin rather than an actual decrease in cellulite.

Neither liposuction nor Smartlipo is approved by the FDA for getting rid of cellulite. Despite any advertising or anecdotal claims to the contrary, there is no good science demonstrating that these expensive procedures are effective with getting rid of cellulite. To date, most doctors (including plastic surgeons) still recommend getting fit as the most effective way to control cellulite.

What are the Most Effective Ways to Control Cellulite?

Get fit. Gradually reduce overall fat, increase muscle mass through strength training, drink plenty of water, and eat healthily. It’s an inexpensive method and it doesn’t waste your time. There’s no magical cure for cellulite but by doing what works, you’ll also achieve other health and appearance benefits.

The Psychological Approach to Dealing with Cellulite

• Accept that cellulite is just fat.
• Think about the factors such as age, gender, and heredity that may be involved in your problem with cellulite.
• Learn how to best lose overall fat and tone muscles so that you can reduce cellulite in a direct way.
• When you’ve done all you can do sensibly, move on with life. Keep working on getting fit and have fun. Don’t let cellulite get in your way.

© 2009 Lavinia Rodriguez

In the late 1960’s and 70’s Twiggy became the first prominent teenage model.  She weighed 90 pounds and was the idol of 14 and 15 year-old girls at the time.  Her body had no curves, no appreciable fat, and a twig-like appearance.

I was an adolescent during that era myself and remember well the huge impact Twiggy’s fame had on my girlfriends and me.  Many young girls strived to look like her and were willing to do what it took to be like Twiggy.  It was also around this time that our country experienced a boom of fad diets such as the Stillman and the Atkins diets.

The result of this much focus by young girls and our society on thinness was the beginning of an epidemic of eating disorders, a societal preoccupation with dieting, and unrealistic expectations of how women should look.

The Eating Disorder Generations

Many of the women that were growing up during these years have struggled with the legacy of growing up during a time when messages about physical perfection and thinness were thrown at them from every direction.

Interestingly, most of those women who viewed Twiggy as their idol are now grandmothers.  Some became chronic dieters, some developed eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, and some simply battled with a constant feeling that their bodies were never good enough.  Those that made it through totally unscathed are few.  In the field of psychology we have seen women with eating disorders who have raised daughters with eating disorders and who have, in turn, raised another generation of young girls exposed to this preoccupation with dieting, weight, and their body.

A few of these women conquered their problems with food but the majority continued to struggle with their preoccupations and to model behaviors that have been questionable, if not, harmful to their offspring.  Even those women who did not develop an eating disorder still came through that time with ideas about their bodies and weight that have not been good for their children.

The Power of Moms

Mothers are powerful figures.  A mother is the first important female figure in a young girl’s life.  So it is through her mother that a daughter gets her first lessons about what it means to be female, how to think of her body, and what her worth is as a woman.

More specifically, a young girl can develop a belief system regarding her relationship with food and her body from clues that her mother models about her own relationship with these things.  For example, a daughter growing up with a mother who talks about her weight frequently, constantly diets, and frequently criticizes her own weight and eating, is more likely to develop poor self-esteem and body image.  She is more likely to become preoccupied with being fat and worry about how she looks to others.  The end result can be a lifetime of the same preoccupation that her mother had.

It can matter little that this same mother may tell her daughter she just wants her to be healthy and happy.  If the more frequent messages are about dieting and general preoccupation with the body, that is what the daughter is likely to carry through life.

Tips for Moms

Most mothers mean well and do want their daughters to be happy.  However, there are misconceptions about how this is best accomplished.  Watching mom subsist on celery and cottage cheese, freak out at the sight of a carb, or inspect her body for fat continually is not the way that a young woman develops good self-esteem and an accurate body image.  And, without these, there is no inner peace and happiness.

Instead,

• Focus on modeling healthy behaviors you would like to see in your daughter rather than telling her what you want her to do. Practicing what you preach is more powerful than preaching.
• Don’t say, “I just want you to be happy.” If your actions don’t show that this is your priority, the words will not have an impact.
• Look closely at messages you give your daughter about how you feel about yourself.  Work on your own body image and self-esteem issues.  That will be a greater and longer lasting gift to your daughter than anything you could buy her.
• Focus on the abstract rather than the concrete.  Your child’s feeling of self-worth is more important than how her body looks.  Besides, if she feels good about herself, she will make better choices in life including those that have to do with health and fitness.

This Mother’s Day, what better gift to give a future mom than the gift of positive messages about health, body image, and self-worth that she can pass on to her daughters?

Previously published in the St. Petersburg Times