Haters. Gonna. Hate.

Let's face it:  some people are haters.  They itch for fights.  They crave troubled relationships, so they figure, "why not have a terrible relationship with food?!"  Well, if you're one of those people, I'm not going to try and change you.  In fact, I am happy to assist you!  


Here are the top 10 ways to maintain a terrible relationship with food:

1. Set insane goals!  An great example is:  I want to lose 20 pounds in 2 weeks so I can ROCK this bikini at Barbie's pool party!
2. Go big or go home.  Your mentality should be all-or-nothing.  Keep phrases in mind like: "one brownie = total failure," or "must run 5 miles every day, rain or shine, pneumonia or renal stones."
3. Be hard core!  Moderation is seriously for wimps.  When you chose your "diet," the best ones are the extreme ones.  Anything less probably won't work.  Examples:  only-water-lemon-cayenne pepper-honey, or all-bacon-beef-boiled eggs.  
4. Monitor! Monitor! Monitor.  Weigh yourself ALL the time.  If you want to meet your goals you must be conscious of your stats.  How much do you weigh this morning?  How about this afternoon?  Count those Calories.  Track your energy expenditure--carefully!
5. Talk the talk:  Diets to look for are ones with words like:  ancient, hormone balancing, fat banishing, breakthrough, cure, easy/effortless, exotic, fast, guaranteed, magical, miraculous, mysterious, new discovery, quick, secret.  (So if you combine this guideline with number three, you should be doing the "breakthrough water/lemon/cayenne pepper/honey only fat-banishing diet.")
6. Start *everything* tomorrow.  Remember to enjoy your favorite foods before you "start your diet."  And when you start, start everything at once.  
7. Use guilt for good!  Why does guilt even exist if you can't benefit from it?  Think things like:  this lasagna is bad and if I eat it I'll end up looking like [insert person's name].
8. Glass half empty.  Half empty sounds more conducive to weight loss, does it not?  Motivate yourself with negativity.  You're a hater, after all.  Stick to it!  Call yourself mean names when you fall off your insane diet.  You probably fell off it because you're pathetic.  But tomorrow, you can start the blueberry-only diet and not act like such an idiot this time.  
9. Every party has a pooper.  Avoid social gatherings.  They'll mess up your incredibly designed diet.  
10. Every pooper has a party.  There are actually only nine ways to have a terrible relationship with food.  :-P

Bottom line:  You too can have a terrible relationship with food.  You can spend your life worried about dieting, restrictions, losing weight, image, getting fat, etc.  You just have to set your mind to it.  

Disclaimer:  Sorry about the extreme sarcasm, but if any of this actually sounds vaguely like you, you may have a few things to think about with regard to your relationship with food.

Trick or Treat! (?)

What was the last dessert you ate?  How did you feel before you ate it?  What was the occasion?  Birthday? Mother's Day?  Was it delicious?  With whom did you eat dessert?  How did you feel after you ate the dessert?

For you, are desserts tricks?  Or are they treats?  They are the exact same foods, but can be viewed two different ways.  Here are some of the differences:

Tricks

Treats

Eaten in response to emotion Eaten impulsively Eaten out of habit Guilt is evoked at some point You at times feel you should go completely without them You find yourself wondering what it will take to “work it off,” as if the moment it is eaten it clings to your thighs. You refer to them as “temptations,” that usually “win you over” which implies you have little control over the matter You classify/judge them negatively:  “fatty!” “sugary” “a cardiac arrest waiting to happen”

Eaten for special occasions You enjoy the taste, smell, and mouthfeel without guilt They create good memories, and usually involve friends and/or family You consider them part of a good relationship with food You don’t feel the need to eat them all the time You feel you have the capacity to either accept or decline a dessert--both accepting and declining is within your control You classify them more positively:  rich, creamy, flaky, flavorful, crispy, mmmmm

Don't be tricked into believing you should feel bad for eating something that is:

1. Functional (provides energy)
2. Contributes to emotional well-being by providing a pleasant sensory experience
3. Can also contribute positively to social well-being by assisting to create memories.

Bottom line:  Aim to let treats be treats! Your relationship with food will improve if you accept desserts as part of a healthy eating pattern.  If you save them for special occasions you will enjoy and appreciate them more.  

get up offa that thang.

I like to take the stairs and try to beat the fools on the elevator.  Then at the top I look back and say, "you like that, suckas??!!"

The USDA recommends 90 minutes of physical activity per day for adults who want to gradually lose weight.  So, you may be watching what you eat but not expending enough energy to lose weight, especially if your job is on the sedentary side.  Physical activity is not just for losing weight; other benefits include:

• improved mood
• prevent injury down the road by building strength and agility
• psychosocial benefits of being part of something
• emotional benefits of accomplishment

To lose weight, you don't have to do 90 minutes all at once, and don't expect to start tomorrow with 90 minutes and never again miss a day.  Make a goal to do a little more than what you are currently doing.  If you are currently going walking once a week, aim for twice a week until it becomes a habit.  Then gradually continue to increase the frequency and duration.  Here are seven tips for becoming more physically active:

1. 'L' is for the way you look at me...or it's for doing something you LIKE.  Whether it's walking, swimming, dancing, or playing hopscotch, if you like it, it will be easier to get started.  I like running because it gets me high.  By the end of a run I have this huge smile on my face and I feel like I own the world.  Find something that gets you high.
2. Routine care:  sign up for a class, make plans with a friend, or get involved with a group that requires some degree of routine and accountability.  Maybe every Tuesday and Thursday you can plan to go walking at lunch with a coworker.  The more you make physical activity part of your routine, the more natural it will become.
3. Something old? Something new?  Is there something you have always wanted to try?  Try it out!  Did you used to love rollerblading but haven't been in years?  Dust off those rollerblades and take them for a spin.  Don't be afraid to explore new options or bring back memories from the past.
4. Break up!  If you don't have 90 minutes at once, go for nine 10-minute walks, or five 10 minute walks, a 20-minute jog, and 20 minutes of abdominal work.  I'm just sayin, if you want to get in 90 minutes, it may seem more approachable if achieved in pieces.  
5. All or nothing at all?  If you miss one day of tooth-brushing, do you just give up on brushing your teeth all together?  Hope not.... If you miss a day of physical activity, it's cool, just get it tomorrow.  An "all-or-nothing" mentality will probably end up being "nothing."
6. I like to move it-move it!  Don't be lazy!  It's alright to relax, but are you just plain lazy?  Do you ask people to get stuff for you that you are perfectly capable of retrieving?  Are your legs painted on?  Do you text someone in the next room over?  Technology is nice but it makes some people so LAZY!  If your body gets used to moving, it won't be so painful to stand up and go communicate with someone instead of texting or yelling to them.  Plus, there's something to be said about face-to-face human interaction.  
7. No Buts.  Eliminate excuses.  Make a list of things that prevent you from being more physically active, and then find ways around those excuses.  For example, maybe your excuse for not going for a walk after work is that you are too hungry, and then you eat dinner and are too lazy to go after dinner.  Perhaps a way around that is to bring a small snack for the end of work, then you can have enough energy to go for that walk, and have a nice dinner after your walk.

The bottom line is:  gradual changes are the ones that are most likely to stick.  Rapid and big changes will just burn you out.  Make small steps.  If you already run once, run twice and for 10 minutes longer each time.  If you're sitting down right now, get up offa that thang, touch your toes, lift your knees, shuffle back and forth, look around to see if anyone saw that, and then sit back down.  Bet you feel better already ;-) 

no eggxaggerations

Eggs are an interesting concept.  When you think about what they are, they seem like a strange thing to consume.  The nutrient content is also intriguing.  Let's take a look at the breakdown of nutrients in one large egg, white, and yolk:  

	Large Egg	Egg White	Egg Yolk
Calories (kcals)	70	16	54
Protein (g)	6.3	3.6	2.7
Carbohydrate (g)	0.85	0.24	0.61
Fat (g)	4.8	0.3	4.5
Cholesterol (mg)	185	0	185
Vitamin A (IU)	245	0	245
Vitamin D (IU)	37	0	37
Vitamin B12 (mcg)	0.36	0.03	0.33
Folate (mcg)	24	1	23
Sodium (mg)	63	55	8
Potassium (mg)	73	54	19
(info from USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference)

As you can see, most of the fat, and ALL of the cholesterol is in the yolk.  But so are all of the fat-soluble vitamins (makes sense for fat-soluble vitamins to be found in fat).  The USDA recommends that you limit your cholesterol intake to 300 mg daily, so if eggs were your only source of cholesterol, it would be totally fine if you ate one whole egg each day (and as many egg whites as you want!)  But if you are also eating butter, steak, bacon, etc etc then you're probably exceeding your cholesterol limit without the eggs.  -But- eggs are more nutrient-dense than butter, bacon, etc, so they should be chosen more often.

Eggs do have some eggcellent qualities:

• The are versatile:  can be fried, scrambled, boiled, poached, made into omelets, the list eggxtends on and on..
• Ineggxpensive! (I can see you rolling your eyes, so I'll stop the egg jokes)
• They are a good source of protein, which is important in building and maintaining muscle mass, and repairing tissue (and lots of other stuff...details on another post)
• Long-lasting:  they can be stored and maintain good quality for several weeks (when refrigerated)
• They contain choline, which is an important component of the cell membranes in your brain.
• They contain lutein, which has been linked with the prevention of macular degeneration.  

Bottom line: eggs are/can be part of a nutrient-dense, balanced eating pattern, just don't over-do it on the yolks, folks.  

Hungry Hippo

One of my patients had a very poor appetite upon admission, and I was concerned she would lose weight and decline, so I recommended an appetite stimulant.  The drug clearly worked because before long the patient started eating great and saying "I'm a hungry hippo!!!" all the time.


You are born with an innate sense of how much you need to eat, and you follow those hunger and satiety cues to promote your growth and development.  But at some point in your early years you begin to respond to external cues to eat rather than your internal hunger and satiety cues.


Some of the external cues may include:  emotions brought upon by environmental factors, celebration, boredom, habit, food looks/smells good, or need for comfort or consistency in a world of variables.  Responding to these external cues creates a situation where internal cues are first ignored then eliminated.


Your objective for the next few days or weeks or however long it takes is to be re-introduce the internal cues of hunger and satiety into your life.  ("Hello, Hunger...Hello Satiety, it's a pleasure to meet you again.")  If you never let yourself know hunger, you will never know satiety.  Here are some guidelines for making the adjustment to responding to internal cues:

• Plan on eating three meals daily and not snacking.  Space your meals evenly throughout the day so by the time you get to your next meal you are hungry again.  
• Do not skip meals, doing this produces ravenousness instead of hunger and will likely result in over-consumption of Calories.  
• Slow down your eating pace--pay close attention to the fact you are eating.  Let your meal be a multi-sensory experience.  
• If you're satisfied before your food is gone, go ahead and stop eating.  If you are still hungry when your meal is gone, eat something else.  Each meal should satisfy you--you should not feel restricted or hungry at the end or any meal.  

You may still be trying to establish a healthy relationship with food (avoiding labeling foods "good" and "bad," etc..see previous post), so don't worry as much about *what* you eat as achieving the feelings of hunger and satiety.  The "what" will come later.  At this point, if you focus on what you eat, you will begin to think you are dieting, which is what I'd like for you to avoid.  

Good luck, have fun, feel hungry, feel satisfied, and enjoy your meals!! :-)

Food Labels

Before eating a high-Calorie, high-fat, high-sugar food, do you ever think, "I shouldn't be eating this, but [insert justification to make yourself feel better]," or do you ever come out of a weekend saying "I ate nothing but junk/bad food all weekend?" 


There are a few ways to eat junk.  One is to go to your trash can, get something out of it, and consume it.  Another is not gonna be discussed.  To eat "bad" food, take a piece of food, put it in a warm, moist environment, and let it sit there for days or even weeks.  Be sure there is discoloration, particularly blue/white/grey, maybe some fuzz.  Then eat it.  You'll be eating bad food.


Perfectly good kcal-containing, unspoiled food should not be referred to as "junk" or "bad" food--it hurts food's feelings to be labeled like that!  And it will result in you feeling guilty about something you should be thoroughly enjoying.  When guilt is introduced to your meal or snack, it damages your relationship with food.


All food has some sort of function.  Some foods just provide Calories (or energy).  Some contribute vitamins, minerals, fiber, etc.  No specific food will "make you fat."  An excess of Calories will make you fat.  


If you must label your food, classify it according to nutrient vs energy density.  The more vitamins/minerals/fiber the food has, the more nutrient dense it is.  The more Calories it has, the more energy dense.  Some foods are both nutrient and energy dense, like dried fruit, nuts, and avocados.  Some foods are only energy dense, like most things you formerly referred to as "bad" or "junk."  If you are trying to lose weight, it is in your best interest to choose more nutrient dense foods and less energy dense foods.  But don't feel guilty about enjoying a treat!!!  


You will be much more successful in your efforts to achieve the health you want if you:

• Stop labeling food "good" and "bad"
• Stop feeling guilty about occasionally eating energy-dense food
• And start enjoying all food you eat

So go eat a cookie and like it.

Intro

 Every  day, all sorts of different people ask me to "create a diet" for them.  Sometimes it's patients, sometimes friends, or family members.  They usually want some sort of menu.  They want a program.  They want to start tomorrow, or Monday, or at the beginning of next month or next year, and they want to lose 10 pounds, or 50 pounds, or they want a flatter stomach or stronger legs.  They are gearing up for summer, or an anniversary, or a wedding, or whatever.  Or maybe their doctor said losing 20 pounds would help with another condition. 

This asking for help is totally commendable.  It means they realize they need to make a change and are making preparations to do so.  But how you go about making a change is what will make the difference between success and failure.  In this blog I will give you tips on how to change your habits to achieve what you want to achieve in yourself, and make this achievement maintainable.  The tips will be based on the following three concepts:

1. Establishing a normal relationship with food
2. Finding a balance between aesthetics and nutrition in your meal choices
3. Creating habits that form a health-promoting lifestyle

Stay Tuned :-)

Meredith, RD