Monthly Archives: July 2007

Friends and Fat

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You can hardly have missed the recent discussion about your friends making you fat.

The gist of it is this: Having an obese friend greatly increases your chances for being obese, even more so than having an obese relative or spouse. If one friend begins to gain weight, then there’s a good chance the other will too.  The article above chalks this up to changing norms, that is, as your friends become heavier, that body size seems more normal and acceptable.

I’m not sure I completely buy that.

Sure, if I hang out with heavy people, it seems normal to be heavy. However, I don’t think that explains why I’d gain weight. After all, I have to change my behavior to gain weight. I either eat more, exercise less, or both.  No amount of changing norms will make me gain weight unless I do something different.

I think the correlation between having obese friends and being obese is relatively straightforward. How do you get to be obese? You eat more than you should and exercise less than you should. If you’re hanging out with someone who’s doing that, then what do you think you’re doing? You’re probably doing a bit of the same, aren’t you?

If you’re overweight, like me, think about what you do in your social life. Do you invite friends out for a hike or to go swimming? Or do you meet for dinner and a movie? How about date night? Is it a bike ride or a romantic movie curled up on the couch?

I think this research does illustrate how important it can be to have people around you who support your efforts to lose weight. You don’t need to get new friends, however! Make the healthy changes you need to make in your life and still enjoy your time out with friends. Maybe you can be the catalyst to start everyone off making healthier choices.

Quick Tip for Lunchtime Exercisers

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Often, lunch is a great time to work in some exercise, but it’s often not a great time to shower. First off, if that’s your predicament, then I’d suggest keeping your mid-day exercise toned down to something like walking. You don’t want to go back to the office dripping sweat. If you want to get in a really strenuous workout, then a shower is a must.

However, everyone has days when you’re less… ahem… fresh than you’d like to be. Maybe you sweated more on your walk than you intended, or maybe you had to dash across the parking lot to avoid a thunderstorm. Whatever the reason, you’re smelling a little funky.

Keep a bottle of hand-sanitizer in your desk. Use it to wipe off your underarms or wherever to tend to sweat. This can be done quickly and inconspicuously in the bathroom stall with a few paper towels. The alcohol dries quickly and will kill the bacteria that cause body odor. It’s no substitute for a real shower, but it will get you through the rest of the day when you’re caught with no other alternative!

I like to keep a bottle in my purse too. Not only is it great for public restrooms, it’s a good choice when you’re traveling and need a little freshening up.

How to not blow it on the weekend

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You stick to your healthy eating plan and exercise all week, but when the weekend rolls around, something happens. You eat more than you should, don’t exercise, and end up feeling rotten by Sunday night. Sound familiar?

Do weekends and healthy plans just not mix? Actually, it is possible to stick to your diet and exercise goals and still enjoy the weekend.

  1. Give yourself permission to splurge. Often, feeling deprived is the root of the problem when it comes to not being able to stick with an eating plan. If you plan to splurge a little, it can often give you the motivation to stick with your goals otherwise.
  2. Combine meals. We love big breakfasts on the weekend, but they really can be diet disasters. Eat later in the day and let breakfast be brunch. You’ll combine two meals and mitigate the effects of that big breakfast.
  3. Choose healthier activities. You probably love to get out and do fun things on the weekend; who doesn’t? Try to work in some activity as well. One of our favorite things to do is see a movie, so we head to the mall about an hour or so before it begins and spend the time walking.
  4. Watch out for snack attacks. Weekends are prime snack time around our house. Since we often eat dinner earlier and stay up later, we usually end up wanting something to munch on. Try to keep junk food out of the house because it’s going to be tough to resist this temptation. Keep something available to snack on that’s a healthier alternative instead.
  5. Socializing doesn’t have to be a disaster. Weekends are also prime time for socializing. Whether you’re cooking out, meeting at a restaurant or enjoying a sit-down dinner, it’s always tempting to go overboard. If you’re doing the cooking, it’s easier. Plan to fix a healthy — but delicious — meal. If you prefer, mix healthier alternatives with more fattening ones to give everyone some variety. If you’re a guest, try to just sample the most fattening items and stick with those that are healthiest.

Weekends don’t have to mean a setback to your healthy eating and exercise routine. If you’ve managed to create a healthier lifestyle during the week, then you can do the same on the weekends too. Yes, you’re facing a change of routine which can throw off your plans, but you can use that to your advantage as well.

5 Tips for Day to Day Motivation

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Motivation is a funny thing. You may want a healthier lifestyle, to lose weight, manage a health problem, get in shape, or simply look better. All of those are great reasons to eat right and exercise, but they can often be lousy motivators.

You’re having dinner out at a nice restaurant. Which is likely to motivate you more, a desire to get in shape, or the dessert menu? Will you be able to resist the bread bowl, knowing that you may not be able to get in those jeans you want to buy? You may be weeks from fitting in those jeans, and getting in shape is a pretty abstract goal. Will that slice of turtle cheesecake really blow it?

Sometimes it’s difficult to make the small, day-to-day choices that enable you to achieve your goals.

So, how do you motivate yourself to make the right decisions, even when your ultimate goal seems far away?

The short answer is, it’s tough. It’s why so many people struggle to lose weight, eat right, exercise, and take care of their health in general. It’s hard to resist temptation that’s right in front of you in favor of a reward that’s far off.

I fall to temptation just like everyone else, but I do have some tricks I use to help me stay motivated.

  1. Envision the end result. I don’t mean the ultimate goal of being a size 10 or losing 100 pounds. I mean imagine the immediate end result. How will you feel on the drive home knowing you resisted dessert? How will you feel if you eat it? If you really take the time to imagine and compare the two, you can often offset the temptation when you think about the regret you’ll feel for succumbing.
  2. Buddy up. Losing weight with my husband has really helped us both. If I order something I shouldn’t, I know I’m tempting him to eat something he really ought not to have. If I don’t feel like exercising, he reminds me that we promised to “make” each other do it.
  3. Look at past successes. Think about the last time you dropped a few pounds, or the last time you tried something on and it was too big. It felt pretty good, didn’t it? Recall all the good choices you made to achieve that.
  4. Remember past failures. What caused you to stop your latest exercise routine, or start eating junk food again? Often, those types of changes creep up on you. Maybe you start skipping your exercise, and in a few weeks, you’re hardly exercising at all. Remember that the next time you want to skip it again!
  5. Reward yourself. Give yourself a reason to do the right thing. If you skip dessert, you’ll also skip the housework when you get home. If you exercise, you’ll go to the bookstore and buy the latest novel you’ve been wanting. It may be a bribe, but that’s okay.

It’s not easy to consistently do what’s right for your body. First, accept that you’ll give in to temptation sometimes, but don’t let that discourage you. Keep working at it, and try to make those times when you do succumb fewer and less frequent.

Tips for low-carb eating

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Whether you’re diabetic or just trying low-carb or low-glycemic diets to lose weight, it can be tough to plan meals. When potatoes, pasta, rice, and bread are pretty much out of the picture, it can be almost impossible to follow your tried and true recipes.

How can you go low-carb and still enjoy eating?

  1. Read labels. Beware light, lite, diet, and sugar-free items. You still need to check the carb count!  For example, the “sugar-free” candy my husband bought still contained 4g of carbs per tiny piece. Some foods will list unreasonably small serving sizes to make their foods seem more low-carb friendly.
  2. Substitute a no-calorie sweetener for sugar. Remember that not all sweeteners stand up to heat, so choose carefully for baking. NutraSweet in particular doesn’t stand the heat, but Splenda does. Make your own whipped cream with a no-calorie sweetener and whipping cream. This goes great on sugar-free jello and fresh fruit.
  3. Drink calorie-free drinks and sodas. These usually have no carbs or 1g carb per serving. Read the label to be sure.
  4. Substitute Carbquik for flour. In a recent post, I mentioned their product, along with my recipe for biscuits. This also works as a breading; I rolled chicken breast in it the other evening for fried chicken tenders.
  5. In the same post, I also mentioned Dreamfields pasta. Use it as you would any other pasta, but check your sauce to make sure it’s low-carb too.
  6. Try low-carb breads. I buy one from Nature’s Own that’s 7g carb with 2g fiber. To me, it tastes like any other wheat bread.
  7. Turn salads into a meal. Since raw vegetables are great for diabetics and those trying to lose weight, add some lean meat or cheese to the salad to turn it into a meal. Try fresh spinach with a vinaigrette dressing. Add a few sliced strawberries and some fresh crumbled bacon.
  8. Use gelatin to thicken desserts. Often sugar is added to a recipe to thicken it as well as sweeten. While a non-calorie sweetener will add the sweetness, it won’t give the same texture. Experiment with adding unflavored gelatin to thicken the recipe.
  9. Use eggs as a binder. I do this now with meatloaf with good success. Instead of adding breadcrumbs or oats, I add 4 or 5 large eggs to a large meatloaf. The eggs serve the same purpose of holding the meat together without adding carbs.
  10. Try low carb, high protein drinks. These are great as a breakfast replacement or snack. Also, they’re a great substitute for chocolate milk, since that’s pretty high in carbs. As an added bonus, they’ll satisfy your sweet craving as well. Most have only 2-3g of carb per drink.

These techniques can help you begin to alter your recipes for a low-carb eating plan. Be adventurous too; by trying different foods and recipes you can keep your menu from getting boring. You may be giving up carb-laden foods, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up enjoying your meals.

Sex and Weight Loss

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You probably know that losing weight can make you feel better about your body, which can help you enjoy sex more. Luckily, having sex can also help you lose weight. Talk about a lucky coincidence!

Fast facts about sex and weight loss.

  • Be active during sex for a good cardiovascular workout
  • Try different positions to work different muscles
  • Sex can help keep a woman’s pelvic muscles in shape, and prevent incontinence later in life
  • Sex can help prevent prostate trouble in men later in life
  • Losing weight can help you feel better about your body
  • Losing weight can make a man’s penis appear larger, some say as much as one inch for every 30 pounds lost

So, tell you spouse that you need to do more exercise, and get busy!
More reading

Better Sex: What’s weight got to do with it

Get Sexual for Ultimate Weight Loss