Eight Strategies That Will Help You Reach Your Healthy Tipping Point

April 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment

We all have some habits that hurt us in our quest to be healthier individuals.  Whether it’s schlepping around the gym in worn out shorts and a t-shirt or eating low-in-fat-but-high-in-sugar foods, pulling it all together so our body is cooperating with our brain can be a challenge.

Eight Ball Eight Strategies That Will Help You Reach Your Healthy Tipping Point

Eight strategies to get you to your healthy tipping point.

Here are eight strategies that will enhance the things you’re already doing and help you reach your healthy tipping point.

1.   Eat lean protein for breakfast.  Getting the day off to a good start by eating a nutritious breakfast is one of the best ways to ensure you’ll have a productive day.  And, there’s research that shows eating protein-rich foods will help you stay satisfied longer, and therefore, be less prone to snacking and overeating later in the day.

Eating eggs, turkey sausage, almonds (or other nuts), peanut butter or lentils for breakfast will give you a healthy dose of protein.  If you need some breakfast ideas, check out Delish’s eight high-protein, low-calorie breakfast recipes here: Delish 8 Pumped Up, High Protein Recipes.

2.  Wear a pedometer. Where I work we do a couple of pedometer challenges a year, and when people have a step counter clipped to their belt they move more.  Even the already physically active people are inspired to out-do themselves.  One of my co-workers works out in the morning and gets her 10,000 steps in before she gets to work so she upped her goal to 20,000 steps a day in the 10,000 steps challenge.

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Filed Under: Goal Setting for Healthy Behaviors

Isn’t It Time For You To Break Up With Sugar?

April 5, 2013 By 2 Comments

You can’t live a day without hearing that sugar is bad for you.  I know that some people are tired of hearing about it and plenty more are fed up with leaders that have decided to launch a war on sugar. The best example is Mayor Bloomberg that wants to eliminate extra-large sodas from being sold in New York City.

Still, if you’re trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle you can’t deny that sugar plays a role in your success.  Sugar is a substance that has 16 calories per teaspoon and zero nutritional value.  Eating too much sugar adds inches to our abs, buns and thighs without supplying any of the daily requirements for vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. It’s no secret.  Sugar makes us fat.

But a new study shows that sugar does more than that.  Researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine, the University of California Berkeley, and the University of California San Francisco have found a direct link between sugar and diabetes.  You might think that’s not new news.  But, while  sugar has been the prime suspect, the theory that it actually causes diabetes has yet to be proven until now.

Sugar bow Isn’t It Time For You To Break Up With Sugar?

The team of researchers analyzed a decade’s worth of food supply data from the United Nations that looked at diabetes rates and sugar availability across 175 countries.  Researchers concluded that for every extra 150 calories from sugar per person per day, diabetes prevalence rises by 1.1%.  The study also showed that reduced exposure to sugar was linked to a lower risk of diabetes.

If that’s not bad enough, growing evidence shows that Alzheimer’s is primarily a metabolic disease that is caused directly by the brain’s impaired response to insulin.  The evidence is so compelling some researchers are proposing reclassifying Alzheimer’s disease as Type 3 diabetes.

Even if you’re not convinced that consuming too much sugar puts you at risk for diabetes or Alzhemier’s, there’s no denying it is a big factor when it comes to weight management including getting rid of unwanted pounds and keeping them off.

Where’s The Sugar?

We’ve come to think of sugary beverages as the culprit that’s responsible for excessive sugar consumption and sugar addiction.  But sugar is lurking in places you might never think to look. Below is an infographic that show the foods and beverages that are loaded with sugar and just how much they contain.

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Filed Under: Goal Setting for Healthy Behaviors, Healthy Eating

40 Tips To Help You Eat Right Every Day

March 21, 2013 By Leave a Comment

It’s National Nutrition Month and the National Dietetics Association has launched their annual nutrition campaign.  This year’s theme is “Eat Right, Your Way, Every Day” which encourages personalized eating plans while following the recommended dietary guidelines.

Eating nutritious, whole foods isn’t as hard as you might imagine.  Even if you are too busy to cook, find yourself in the fast-food drive-up one or two times a week, or have an aversion to vegetables, there are some small, but significant choices that you can make every day that can dramatically improve your health.

Empty plate 2 40 Tips To Help You Eat Right Every Day

When you have an empty plate there are plenty of decisions to make as to how to fill it. Here are 40 tips to help you make the right choices.

Here are 40 tips to help you eat right, your way, every day, with lots of links leading to additional information.

  1. Change the screensaver on your computers to a picture of healthy, delicious looking food.
  2. Buy a bag of apples and eat one every day.
  3. Substitute cut up raw vegetables for salty commercially packaged food s (ex. potato chips) that you usually eat.
  4. Use a smaller plate at dinner.
  5. Fill half of your plate with fruits and vegetables.
  6. Be in the moment and practice mindful eating at every meal.

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Filed Under: Behavior Change, Goal Setting for Healthy Behaviors, Health and Wellness News, Healthy Eating

Do One Thing Different: 41 Small Changes You Can Make That Will Change Your Life.

February 2, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Are you familiar with Bill O’Hanlon’s book Do One Thing Different?  I wasn’t until a couple of days ago when, in a meeting, our wellness committee  came up with the idea to launch a program where employees would focus on changing just one behavior.

Our employees are no different than anyone else.  They are trying to do a hundred things at once.  They have to work every day to make a living, provide a home for their family, attend school meetings, do the laundry, drive the kids to soccer practice, clean house for an elderly parent on the weekend, shop, run errands, and on and on.

In the middle of it all they are trying to find work/life balance, lower their stress (and their blood pressure), eat healthier meals, exercise, lose ten pounds, stay in touch with friends, and carve out a little time to enjoy their life.  Exhausting!

Lightbulbs2 Do One Thing Different: 41 Small Changes You Can Make That Will Change Your Life.

Work on lighting one bulb at a time.

In our committee meeting our discussion focused on what program we could offer that would help people be healthier that wouldn’t involve weekly meetings or weigh-ins, a structured exercise program, a diet plan of any kind and, in general, anything overwhelming.

We want this program to involve everyone! Most of all we want to reach the people that we’re not already impacting with our programs.  We want to capture the attention of people that don’t take care of themselves because they are just too busy!

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Filed Under: Behavior Change, Goal Setting for Healthy Behaviors

How To Set New Year’s Resolutions That You’ll Keep (Part 2 of 2)

December 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

This is Part 2 Of A 2 Part Article

Remember the Seinfeld episode where Jerry went to pick up his rental car?  The company had his reservation but didn’t have a car for him.  Jerry said, “You know how to “take” the reservation, you just don’t know how to “hold” the reservation.  And that’s really the most important part of the reservation: the holding.

That’s how it is with New Year’s resolutions.  Easy to make, difficult to hold.

Below are tips for “holding” the top five most popular New Year’s resolutions:

Piggy Bank 2 How To Set New Years Resolutions That Youll Keep (Part 2 of 2)

Financial wellness involves getting debt and spending under control.

Reduce Spending

  • Eliminate impulse buying.  When in doubt about whether or not to make a purchase ask yourself if it’s something you can live without.  If you can live without it, don’t buy it.
  • Replace lights bulbs with CFLs and LEDs and turn them off when you leave the room.  Turn the thermostat down to 68 degrees (in the winter) and the hot water heater down to 120 degrees.  Small changes can add up to bigger savings over time.

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Filed Under: Behavior Change, Goal Setting for Healthy Behaviors

How To Set New Year’s Resolutions That You’ll Keep (Part 1 of 2)

December 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Most people look forward to January 1.  It’s the start of a new year and a chance for a do-over.  All of the resolutions that you made last year and didn’t keep can be made again with even more conviction.  And possibly, even more chance for failure.

According to Oliver Burkeman, author of Newsweek magazine’s The New Year’s Resolutions That Won’t Fail You, 89% of Americans make New Year’s resolutions.  Only 46% are successful in achieving them six months later.  The problem?  We make goals that are so ambitious they are nearly impossible to pull off.  If we want to be successful we need to establish process goals where we can have small wins that help keep the momentum going.

Burkeman says that Buddhist-influenced Japanese psychologist Shoma Morita recommends forgetting about making New Year’s resolutions and “get started on those things you want to accomplish before you die.”

New Years Clock How To Set New Year’s Resolutions That You’ll Keep (Part 1 of 2)

A new year means a new you if you put an action plan in place now.

The Top Ten New Year’s Resolutions

A survey conducted by the University of Scranton, Journal of Clinical Psychology, found that the ten most common New Year’s resolutions are:

1.   Have more fun.

2.   Relax and reduce stress.

3.   Spend more time with family.

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Filed Under: Behavior Change, Goal Setting for Healthy Behaviors

Are Tempting Seasonal Drinks Worth the Fat and Calories? You Decide.

December 4, 2012 By 1 Comment

Though Hard To Resist, They May Not Be Worth It.

It’s the time of year when you have to pick your battles.  By that I mean you have to decide which splurges you are going to indulge in and which you ones aren’t worth it.  Of, you could elect to eat as many of the season’s treats as you want – after all, it does only comes once a year – in which case you’ll have a big problem to deal with at the start of 2013.

Many of the food chains offer specialty drinks at this time of year that are loaded with calories, fat, and sugar.  They seem like a good idea when you’re carrying armloads of packages around a hot, overcrowded mall full of people that are every bit as impatient as you are.  You need something to help you get through it!

But, is a beverage that has 520 calories and 18 teaspoons of sugar, with little (if any) nutritional value the best choice?  You decide.

Seasonal Drinks1 Are Tempting Seasonal Drinks Worth the Fat and Calories? You Decide.

Are they worth it?

Seasonal Drinks You’ll Run Into This Year.

Below are some of the most popular, seasonal drinks this year along with their calorie, fat and sugar counts.  I’m not here to judge what anyone eats or drinks when they hit the shop-til-you-drop wall. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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Filed Under: Goal Setting for Healthy Behaviors, Health and Wellness News, Healthy Eating Tagged With:
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