Food heavy hitters

People always ask me “what can I do to lose weight that’s easy?” Well, getting thinner is simple but not easy. It’s really not about the big changes you make but little things multiplied by days months and years that make the difference in overall health.

My aunt is a medical doctor in rural Arkansas where obesity is a huge problem. I asked her what was one tip she could give to help get healthy and she said “If people would just get in the habit of drinking their coffee with a little bit of milk rather than lots of crème that would make a huge difference. Start there then work on changing lots of other little things.”

She was right. Coffee crème has lots of calories and if you drink 4 cups a day 7 days a week that can make a big difference in your weight. There are a number of foods that fall into the category I call Heavy Hitters. Cut back on these foods or even better cutting out these foods completely will make a HUGE difference long term. For my clients who are only 20 or so pounds overweight, that’s all they would need to do.

Here goes:

Mayonnaises - There is nothing good to say about mayo, it’s pure fat and doesn’t add much flavor. Learn to enjoy your sandwiches’ without it.
Cheese - Compared to mayonnaise this has some nutrition, but a sandwich without cheese is a lot lower in calories and better for you.
Butter - Toast is good dry and it makes a huge difference in your daily fat intake to cut out the butter.
Coffee crème - Use nonfat milk instead or better yet get used to drinking coffee black.
Salad dressing - Use nonfat low cal instead. There are some that have only 20 calories per serving.
Special sauce - Ask any teenager working in fast food and they will tell you “special sauce” is usually mayonnaise with something else in it.

These little steps of cutting out foods multiplied over days, months and years can make a huge difference in your body long term and once you get used to eating this way you won’t even miss it.

Men and Women are different

A few weeks ago I got the stomach flu and was miserably sick. I will spare you the details but I will say I spent a lot of time that day in the bathroom hating life.

After a few days when I returned to the land of the living, the reaction to my illness varied greatly between my male and female friends.

Men: “that sucks, glad you are better”
Women: “glad you are better, HOW MUCH WEIGHT DID YOU LOSE?”

I lost 4 pounds(all fluids) and kept them off for about 10 minutes.

As women we are so conditioned to see weight loss as a good thing(even if you don’t need to lose any) that we don’t really care how it came about. I remember one of my girlfriends even asked if I had gotten lucky and lost a few pounds after my appendectomy. It’s almost like we want to get SOMETHING for our ordeal.

Here's the thing, I have never known anyone who has said they lost and kept off any weight as a result of the stomach flu, surgery or any other physical calamity.

Let's learn to see being healthy and feeling good as the real victory and love ourselves enough to do what it takes to make that happen.

www.healthyhabitshypnosis.com

The power of "Nothing"

One of my favorite movies ever is Office Space which jokes about life in corporate America. There is a part when two of the main characters are talking and one asks the other what he would do if he had a million dollars. He replied that he would do "nothing".

For me with a job and a business there are few times when the stars line up right and I get a week day to myself, but that recently happened and I decided I wanted to celebrate by doing "nothing". I gave myself a completely unassigned day and it was a wonderful luxury.

"Nothing" may seem like being lazy, but it’s not. You can’t give to others what you aren’t giving to yourself and that means recharging and relaxing.

"Nothing" to me ended up being watching TV in my pajamas and not feeling one moment of guilt about not making the world a better place in some way. Well, that made my world a better place and I enjoyed it so much that I decided to plan on 4 hours a week of completely “unassigned” alone time where I am free to do absolutely nothing and not feel the slightest bit guilty about it.

Do yourself a favor and schedule some completely free time where you don’t have to do anything on your to-do list or please anyone but yourself.

Take care of yourself and don’t bother me between 1-5 on Sunday afternoons, I will be busy doing "nothing".

look mom no hands

First blog, looking forward to sharing lots of fun and exciting weight loss tips and tools with everyone.

Bye for now but more sharing later.