It’s July 4th weekend, and that means time for BBQ, picnics, and backyard parties.
Here are 5 quick tips to avoid overeating:
1. Choose what you want to have at your barbecue in advance. Rather than just doing a hot dog or hamburger because that’s the normal thing to do, think through what you really want. Chicken kabobs are a fun and nutritious choice, and grilled vegetables are DELICIOUS.
And if you do want that hot dog? Eat it consciously. Load your plate full of green vegetables, and use the room you have left for that hot dog you’ve been looking forward to. Dress it up exactly how you want it - don’t hold back - and then savor every single bite of it.
And the second your body tells you that it’s had enough, honor it!
2. Bring tasty vegetables to any picnic, party, or barbecue.
Contributing is a great way to be social, and veggies are something you’ll always want to have plenty of. They’re delicious grilled or raw - meaning you can have them with your grilled food, or raw to snack on throughout the day.
3. Focus on the reason you’re there.
At a social gathering with your friends or family, really focus on the people and the activities. Don’t allow food to become the focal point and the only reason you’re there.
If it starts to get a little slow, where everyone is focused on food and not so much on each other, use that opportunity to start a great conversation, ask some questions, tell a story, or start an activity. Spend time with the people you love, and move your body!
4. Eat often, and before you go.
Before you head out for that BBQ, eat something nutritious and satisfying. You definitely don’t want to walk into the party starving, and you don’t want to go too long after you’re there without eating.
Keep eating healthy snacks throughout the party - nuts and fruit, or raw veggies, and make sure you’re not ever starving. That definitely leads to over eating.
5. Stay hydrated!
One of the biggest ways to overeat is to be thirsty and mistake your thirst for hunger.
The number one rule, especially if you’re drinking alcohol, is to drink plenty of water!
Water keeps you hydrated and will help to prevent you from feeling that “starved” feeling.
I wanted to quickly share a conversation a friend and I had recently. We were discussing the health benefits of buying whole, organic foods…
… when she sadly commented “It’s a shame whole foods have so many more calories than diet foods.”
HuH?
She went on to explain that the organic ice cream she buys has 330 calories per serving, while the “regular” ice cream has a much smaller amount of calories per serving.
Just minutes later she said she still buys sugar-free pancake syrup, just because she can’t afford the calories that organic maple syrup carries with it.
I want you to know…
Buying organic is NOT how you drop body fat!
There are plenty of foods labeled organic that do NOT create body fat loss.
Is it better to eat organic maple syrup than sugar free syrup?
Yes.
Is it better to eat organic ice cream rather than conventional ice cream?
Sure.
But just because something says it’s organic, doesn’t mean it’s good for your body.
You can’t feed your body ice cream, syrup, and other foods and assume that because they’re labeled “organic”, you’re good to go.
The whole point of eating organic is to give your body the clean, whole, nutrient-rich food it craves.
You need to be eating a balanced blend of clean, chemical-free complex carbohydrates (like oatmeal, sweet potatoes, brown rice, and whole grains)…
Lean proteins (like chicken, eggs, turkey, fish, or legumes)…
And non-processed fats (like avocado, olive oil, fish oil, nuts, and natural peanut butter).
When you eat things like syrup - which is going to be a whole lot of sugar - a simple, non-complex carbohydrate - that’s going to be converted into energy inside your body in lightning speed… and there’s no way for you to use all that energy. It’s going to be stored as FAT in your body.
Don’t get me wrong… when you decide to indulge in something decadent… ice cream, or pancakes with syrup, or chips & guacamole… eating organic is THE way to go.
That way, at least the sugar you’re putting in your body is just that: sugar. You’re not getting high fructose corn syrup and other “junk” that your body doesn’t know what to do with.
But really… most of the time, stick to vegetables, fruits, meats, eggs, whole grains, brown rice, sweet potatoes, black beans. All those foods that have TONS of value that your body craves.
THAT’S what true organic eating is.
And when you do that… when you focus on foods that build up and nurture your body… guess what?
Calories aren’t so much of an issue any more.
You will naturally begin to shed body fat as you feed your body what it truly needs to function at an optimal level.
You’ll have energy.
You’ll want to move your body more.
You’ll feel GOOD about your body.
You won’t be bloated or swollen…
…bottom line, eating those whole foods are THE only way to nurture your body so that it effortlessly drops
weight.
Then… when you indulge in that high-calorie organic ice cream… well, your body will be running so
efficiently that there won’t be any need to check that label for calories.
Have you ever seen a picture or an advertisement for junk food and found yourself suddenly DESPERATE to taste it or something like it immediately? You know… where you just can’t wait to find something, anything, to give you that warm fuzzy feeling of delicious comfort food, filling your mouth and making you feel INCREDIBLE in the process…. know what I mean?
Tonight, I logged into my Facebook account to see what was going on with everyone. While my friends’ updates loaded, I glanced over to the advertisements on the right and noticed a picture of a gooey piece of chocolate cake with fudge icing dripping down the sides of the cake.
Don’t even ask me what the ad was for… all I saw was the cake!
Anyway, immediately I wanted some cake. I CRAVED it.
Ever been there?
I certainly was a few minutes ago!
So what did I do, you might ask…?
I simply became aware of how I talked to myself about the cake.
I realized that when I looked at the cake, the words that popped in my mind instantly were, “Mmmmm… yummy! That looks sooo good…”
I didn’t even register that it was cake… that it was chocolate cake with fudge icing… I spoke to myself about that dessert in terms of how my idea of it would make me feel. As soon as I heard myself thinking that, I took a step back and asked myself WHY. Asking WHY is a fantastic first step in course correcting… and tonight I did just that starting with that single one-word question.
“Why am I looking at the cake and thinking of words to describe it before I even process what it is and how much I would really like it right now?” I asked myself.
I looked at the next ad… a picture of a woman smiling. Did I think, “Oh, happy! Fun, stress-free, enjoying life… that’s awesome!” No, of course not… I thought, “Woman - smiling. Pretty teeth!” And yet, with the cake, I didn’t think about WHAT it was… I thought about what it would hypothetically make me FEEL.
Then I looked back at the cake. This time, after realizing what I had done, I looked at the cake and thought, “Chocolate cake. No nutrition. Sweet flavor - lots of sugar… that icing looks rich! That would be really tasty - I know I’d enjoy the flavor for a bite or two… but it’s really not worth it.”
The cravings instantly switched with my perspective.
See, what happened is that the first time I looked at the picture of the cake, I saw it in terms of what it could do for me. I saw it as a comfort, a delight, an emotionally fulfilling intangible idea. I thought of it in terms of “yummy”, “delicious”, and “I need that” (notice my thoughts were “I need that” and not “I need some chocolate cake“.
I was communicating with my emotions only, and all logic was gone - but I didn’t even know it at first!
When I took a step back, and looked at the picture logically, the words I associated with it were “tasty”, “sugar”, “calories”, “rich”, “no nutrients”, and “not worth it”.
It’s not the reality of how delicious the cake would be that changed, but rather that my perspective changed.
Every decision we make is based on a story we tell ourselves. In the first moment I looked at the picture, the story in my mind was, “OH! I NEED things like this delicious chocolate cake… it makes me happy and fulfilled, and I KNOW it’s amazingly perfect in every way.”
The second time I looked at the cake, the story in my head was different. I came from a position of power, and the story line in my head was more like, “What is this cake really? What’s in it? What would it really taste like? How would it make me feel? Would it be worth it to enjoy some right now if I had it? I don’t really need it, I just enjoy the flavor sometimes. I’m going to evaluate it and see if I want to make that decision.”
In the first moment, the cake held the power over me… or the picture of the cake did. It told ME what I needed. In the second look, I held the power. I know what I need, and the picture became what it is in reality - a picture of something that I may or may not want.
So next time you see junk food, call it what it is. It’s an inanimate, non-emotional substance that you may or may not put into your mouth. You don’t need it, and it’s not love, joy, family, social life, connectedness, or happiness. It’s FOOD. And it’s gonna come out of your body, and leave in its wake a trail of health that will support your health & weight goals, or it will leave a trail of JUNK for your body to work hard trying to clean up.
Sometimes it’s worth it. Sometimes it’s just fun to enjoy a little bit of something that isn’t all that healthy… just because you are treating yourself. But make sure you look at it for what it is… junk food. Non-nutrients. A delicious flavor that you’d like to enjoy, but you really don’t need and are fully empowered to walk away from.
And then, carry through with your choice confidently. Immerse yourself in the flavors you chose to enjoy slowly, savoring every moment and stopping when it’s no longer pleasurable (your body has a way of telling you when it’s full of the stuff it doesn’t need - eat slowly enough to make sure you hear it!).
Or if you choose to walk away, walk away confidently… knowing that anytime you want, you can choose to put something in your mouth. You’re not depriving yourself… you’re making conscious choices. And that’s where the power is!
Have you ever wanted to take control of your health by cooking at home more often, but you just can’t seem to do it?
If so… you’re just like me!!!
I’ve said for a long time that I want to eat at home more often… but honestly, it’s so hard for me…
…I’m going to tell you a secret: I don’t know how to cook.
I literally follow a recipe to boil eggs!
And… as you know, it can be really difficult to find truly healthy food at a restaurant… and it’s pretty expensive, too…
… so you can imagine how excited I was to find out that one of the most respected experts I know put together a super-healthy cookbook… one that even I can use!
If you haven’t been living in a cave in the last month or so, you’ve heard about the salmonella outbreak in tomatoes. At least the FDA “thinks” that it might be tomatoes carrying the salmonella - according to a report I read this week, they weren’t even sure that tomatoes are the culprit.
When I first heard about the problem, I was initially annoyed - I mean, lettuce, then spinach, now tomatoes -and I’m sure I missed some of the problem foods. The FDA is always announcing one vegetable or another that is “unsafe” to eat.
And then when I heard that someone close to my hometown was infected from a tomato, I was scared.
“Maybe I should stop eating tomatoes!” I thought.
And then I did a little research. Turns out, salmonella is rarely fatal - only in infants, very young children, the elderly and people with weak immune systems can salmonella be fatal.
The FDA says that the rest of us, if infected, might have diarrhea, fever, and abdominal pains.
Hmm. That’s not quite the devastating illness that I thought was happening.
The bottom line is that we should be eating as close to home-grown vegetables as we possibly can. Buying at a Farmers Market, a grocery store that specializes in organic foods, or even the organic section of your traditional grocery store, is safer than buying tomatoes that are non-organic.
The reason is because non-organic tomatoes are treated with chemicals & pesticides, and the water used to nurture those tomatoes is extremely questionable.
But even if you can’t buy organic for whatever reason… take care of your body & your health enough so that if you get a little salmonella bacteria into your body, your immune system can handle it. That’s what our immune system is there for - to attack “enemy” bacteria and keep you from getting sick!
So eat healthy. Eat natural, unprocessed foods whenever and as often as possible. And when you do eat processed foods, get as close to natural as you can get. Buy whole grain pasta, bread, tortillas and flour.
Keep your immune system at its peak, and things like tomatoes or spinach or whatever the latest “scare” is won’t be quite so daunting.
This is an interesting video… not quite sure yet what I think about it, but I definitely agree with the concept of fruits and vegetables being incrediby good for our bodies. And I found the body shapes interesting. What do you think about it?
For years, I’ve said “I don’t know how to cook,” or “I don’t cook.”
I mean, when my husband I were first married, I’d try my hand at the packaged meals like Hamburger Helper… and I didn’t really “mess them up”, but I didn’t enjoy cooking, and I didn’t enjoy the food enough to want to do it again.
So I developed a habit of eating out. Over the years, I’ve tried a few times to cook - fry some catfish here (it did NOT go well), bake some chicken there (umm… again, not so good)…. and you get the picture. I just “learned” that I can’t cook.
Until now. I bought a cookbook full of low fat, balanced meals that are EASY to prepare. Wow! I never thought I’d find that combination!
I tried my hand first at the chicken enchiladas… and surprise surprise! They were DELICIOUS, and I enjoyed the preparation and the cooking.
Tonight I made chicken parmesan. It was yummy! And I actually enjoyed preparing it, again. Somehow, knowing that all of that effort (not like it was alot… LOL) is going into a healthy, delicious meal that I can say I cooked MYSELF… is awesome!
Here’s a pic:
I’m still in shock that I can make a delicious entree - and a healthy one at that!
It makes sense to eat less when you want to lose weight, right? And most of us are pretty rushed in the morning, so it makes sense to cut out breakfast. It’s easy, we’re not that hungry anyway, and we skip some calories that way.
The problem with skipping breakfast is how your body reacts to it. Three things happen when you skip breakfast, and NONE of them are good for losing weight.
First, you get hungry about an hour later. That’s right - you’re hungry by 10, for sure. And most of us wait until at least 11 to eat lunch… so here we are, ready to go to lunch, stomach growling. And what looks good to us when our stomach is SCREAMING for food? Anything BIG. Lots of food. Preferably heavy, calorie-laden food like a burger & fries. It’s far better to eat a small breakfast before you get started in your day, so that a few hours later when it’s time to eat, you’re not starving. You make much, much better choices for weight loss when you’re a little hungry as opposed to famished.
The second thing that happens in our bodies when we skip breakfast is this: our brain knows that we haven’t had food in 9 hours or so… and it knows it’s time to eat. So when we skip breakfast, our brain sends a note to our fat storage that it’s going to be a while before we eat… so better hold onto some of that fat for future use. Our brain’s primary job is to serve our bodies, and it will do it’s job when it comes to not letting us starve. Our body doesn’t allow for missed meals - so it holds onto fat storage to make up for missed meals. Odd, isn’t it, that by eating you actually give your body permission to release fat?
And the third thing that happens when we skip breakfast is that we unintenionally slow down our metabolism. When we eat, our various body functions digest and metabolize the food. The energy that powers all of that processing is called our “metabolism”. So when we start our day off by eating breakfast, we kick our metabolism into gear and start our day off by burning calories to process and digest our food. Our metabolism, once it’s kick started, goes on auto pilot, looking for the next set of food to process and digest and metabolize. If we don’t give it that food, our metabolism dips back down, taking all of its calorie burning energy with it.
So don’t skip breakfast. Use that time in the morning to make a healthy choice. Use that time to take a few deep breaths, enjoy a smart breakfast, and start your day off the right way. It’s the #1 most under-utilized way women sabotage their weight loss efforts.
