Month: March 2019

Practice mindful eating

Mindful eating is an effective weight-loss strategy that encourages you to slow down and pay attention to your food, noticing each sip or bite you take. It helps focus your senses on exploring, savoring and tasting your food, and teaches you to follow hunger cues. Put mindful eating into practice with these ideas as you prepare and eat meals. It gets easier over time!

  • Practice acceptance. Be aware of critical or judgmental thoughts about food, your eating habits and your body. Concentrate on the moment. Accept your body as it is.
  • Make a conscious decision to eat. Before you eat, ask yourself, “How hungry am I right now? Am I eating out of hunger, habit, boredom or emotion?”
  • Reserve time for your meal. Don’t eat on the run. If you’re eating with others, involve them in preparing the food to make that time social.
  • Avoid distractions while eating. Eat at a table. Turn off the TV and put away your phone, work, books and magazines until you are done.
  • Appreciate your food. Start your meal by taking a moment to express your gratitude for the food in front of you.
  • Breathe. Before and during your meal, consciously take a few deep breaths.
  • Use all your senses to fully experience your food and drinks. Observe the smells, textures, sounds, colors and tastes. Ask yourself how much you’re enjoying the food and how appealing it is.
  • Choose modest portions to avoid overeating.

    • Eat small bites, and chew slowly. Appreciate that your food fills you up and makes you healthy.

Of course, there will be times that you have to rush through a meal to get to an activity or an appointment. But if you can practice mindful eating on a regular basis, it can help you reach your weight-loss goals.

Hunger vs. craving: What’s the difference?

Have you noticed that when food temptations strike, it often has more to do with your mood than when you last ate? You may crave food to relax, relieve stress or boredom, soothe anger, or cope with loneliness, sadness or anxiety. Indulging in cravings during these emotional times may lead you to eat too many high-calorie, sweet, fatty foods.

Everyone has a food craving at times — and yes, chocolate is at the top of most people’s list. The first step to managing your cravings is being able to identify when you’re truly hungry. Learn how to recognize the difference between a craving and hunger.

Cravings:

  • Are usually for comfort foods, such as chocolate, sweets and fatty foods
  • Are often caused by negative feelings
  • Lead to eating that makes you feel good at first, but then guilty
  • Increase during a woman’s pregnancy and menstrual cycle
  • May be stronger when you’re dieting, especially if you’re giving up your favorite foods
  • Can occur even after you’ve recently eaten
  • Pass with time

Hunger:

  • Usually occurs when you haven’t eaten for a few hours or more
  • Results in a rumbling stomach, headache or feeling of weakness
  • Doesn’t pass with time
  • Isn’t just for one specific food
  • Can be satisfied by a healthy snack or meal

If you have a craving, distract yourself. Try calling a friend, listening to music, taking a walk or bike ride, reading, or writing. If a negative feeling is causing your craving, use positive self-talk, exercise or a fun activity to improve your mood.

Making healthy choices, dietary fats.

Your body needs some fat to function normally. But it’s wise to choose the healthier types of dietary fat and then enjoy them — in moderation.

The good and the bad
Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are the best choices. Look for products with little or no saturated fats, and avoid trans fats: Both increase blood-cholesterol levels and can increase your risk of heart disease. And keep in mind that all fats — the good stuff as well as the bad — are high in calories, so measuring and moderation are key.

The good:

  • Monounsaturated fats are found in olive, canola and peanut oils, as well as in avocados and most nuts.
  • Polyunsaturated fats are found in other plant-based oils, such as corn, sunflower, soybean, sesame and cottonseed oils. Omega-3 fats are polyunsaturated fats that help your cells function.

The bad:

  • Saturated fats are found in animal-based foods, such as meats, poultry, lard, egg yolks and whole-fat dairy products, including butter and cheese. They’re also in cocoa butter and coconut, palm and other tropical oils, which are used in many coffee lighteners, snack crackers, baked goods and other processed foods.
  • Trans fats — also called hydrogenated vegetable oils — are found in hardened vegetable fats, such as stick margarine and vegetable shortening. Lots of foods contain these unhealthy ingredients as well, including crackers, cookies, cakes, pies and other baked goods, as well as many candies, snack foods and french fries.

Choosing foods with the best types of dietary fat

First, focus on reducing foods high in saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol. Then emphasize food choices that include plenty of monounsaturated fats (MUFAs) and polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs). But a word of caution — don’t go overboard even on healthy fats. All fats, including the healthy ones, are high in calories. So consume MUFA-rich and PUFA-rich foods instead of other fatty foods, not in addition to them.

Here are some tips to help you make over the fat in your diet:

  • Use the Nutrition Facts label and ingredient list when selecting foods. Look for the amount of trans fat listed. By law a serving of food containing less than 0.5 grams of trans fat can be labeled as 0 grams. Therefore, it is important to also check the ingredient list rather than just the Nutrition Facts label for the terms trans fat and partially hydrogenated.
  • Prepare fish, such as salmon and mackerel, instead of meat at least twice a week to get a source of healthy omega-3 fatty acids. Limit sizes to 4 ounces of cooked seafood a serving, and bake or broil seafood instead of frying.
  • Use liquid vegetable oil instead of solid fats. For example, saute with olive oil instead of butter, and use canola oil when baking.
  • Use olive oil in salad dressings and marinades.
  • Use egg substitutes instead of whole eggs when possible to cut back on the cholesterol in yolks.
  • Select milk and dairy products that are low in fat.

5 reasons to strength train

In case you haven’t noticed yet — muscle mass naturally diminishes with age. If you don’t do anything to replace the muscle you lose, you’ll increase fat. But regular strength training can help you preserve and enhance your muscle mass — at any age. As part of your weight-loss plan, building lean muscle mass will help you control your body fat: As you increase lean muscle mass, your body burns calories more efficiently.

Strength training also helps you:

  1. Develop strong bones, reducing your risk of osteoporosis
  1. Reduce your risk of injury — building muscle protects your joints from injury
  2. Boost your stamina — as you grow stronger, you won’t fatigue as easily
  3. Improve your body image
  4. Get a better night’s sleep

 

Consider the options 
Most fitness centers offer various resistance machines, weights and other tools for strength training. But hand-held weights can also work well. In addition, resistance bands — elastic-like tubes or bands available in different tensions — are inexpensive. Of course, your own body weight counts, too. Try pushups, pullups, abdominal crunches and leg squats.

Start slowly and work your way up 
When you begin strength training, start slowly. Warm up with five to 10 minutes of stretching or gentle cardio activity, such as brisk walking. Then grab a light weight that you can lift at least 12 to 15 times, using smooth, controlled motions. Eventually, train with a weight that tires your muscles — so it’s difficult to finish the motion by the 12th repetition. (The number of repetitions refers to the number of times you do a specific exercise. One set means completing a specific number of repetitions.) If you use the proper weight or amount of resistance, you can build muscle just as efficiently with a single set of 12 repetitions as you can with more sets of the same exercise. When you can easily do 12 or more repetitions of a specific exercise, increase the weight or resistance by up to 10 percent.

To give your muscles time to recover, rest one full day between exercising each specific muscle group. But stop if you feel pain. Although mild muscle soreness is normal, sharp pain and sore or swollen joints are signs that you’ve overdone it. Two to three strength-training sessions a week for 20 to 30 minutes are enough for most people.