Do the stars, moon, sun, and all of the planets need to be in alignment for you to start your diet?

The word diet usually means deprivation and a way of life that’s not easy, comforting, or fun.  So is there any wonder that there are tons of excuses and reasons to put off starting one?  Who wants to be deprived of food – especially if you love to eat?

Does This Sound Like You?

If you’re thinking about losing weight, do any of these seem familiar:

• “I’ll wait until Monday to start” – and then you eat enough through the week and over the weekend to pack on more weight.
• “Wow, it’s Monday, but it’s so and so’s birthday on Wednesday and we’re going out to dinner and then we’ll have cake – so I might as well wait until after Wednesday to start.”  And then it’s Thursday and you go back to “I’ll wait until Monday.”
• “I don’t have the right kind of food in the house and it’s raining outside and I can’t get to the gym – so I might as well chow down today and wait until I can stock up on the right stuff” (and when will that be?).
• “I was so ‘good’ all week and then on Friday I went out and had drinks and dessert and a ton of bread.  So I figured I ‘blew it’ and might as well eat what I want all weekend.  I can start again on Monday.”  Of course Monday comes along and another verse is added to this tune.

There’s Always A Reason — Or An Excuse – Not To Start 

You get the idea.  You can always find a reason not to start your new healthy eating plan.  How about listing the compelling reasons to want to start.

Just Start

Diets don’t work.  Maybe they do for the short-term, but it’s rare to have long lasting weight loss using a restrictive diet mentality.

Try a different approach.  Healthy eating habits are the key to success.  Finding what works for the long term may require some out of the box thinking and creative solutions.  Go for it and give it time.  Just start.

Have you ever watched an athlete look for an opening through a crowded field of players who are obstructing his or her way?  The athlete just keeps looking for an opening – an opportunity.  The ultimate choice might be unconventional and require lateral movement or some pulling back before surging forward, but without making some kind of move nothing happens.

The first step is deciding that you want to change your eating patterns.  Once you’ve decided you’re ready, look for your opening and take it – stop waiting for that elusive perfect moment in time.  You can keep telling yourself that you’ll start tomorrow — but will your “tomorrow” ever come if you don’t take some positive action to make it happen?

This article is part of the 30 day series of blog posts called: 30 Easy Tips for Looser Pants and Excellent Energy.

The post When’s The Best Time To Start Your Diet? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

It’s a week into the New Year.  Your pants are uncomfortably tight and the number on the scale is in the wrong zip code. Trying to right the ship did you resolve – swear — to never again eat another chocolate chip cookie?  Or maybe you’ve taken an oath to lay off potato chips forever or to go to the gym six days a week at 6AM.

Resolutions Can Be Tricky

Count yourself among the legions of people who have a specific end game in mind and then set broad – huge – resolutions and goals to try to get there. Unfortunately, those resolutions and goals usually aim for perfect achievement – something that’s virtually impossible to accomplish.

Aiming For Perfection

Be honest.  You know that aiming for perfectionmeans lining yourself up for a big time fall. Inevitably, you end up feeling awful when you step over the theoretical line – or maybe it’s more like you fall off the cliff.  Why must pursuit of a goal be done that way?  Perfection, in this case, is really the enemy of good.  In the real world, isn’t movement toward achieving your goal good enough?

Two Tips

1.  Ditch the all-or-nothing thinking and overly ambitious goals. Drastic changes usually don’t sync with daily life and probably won’t last more than a few weeks.  Cycle through the drastic changes often enough and you solidly embed a “no can do” attitude in your brain. Remember, your less than ideal behaviors have taken time to develop and replacing them with more ideal, healthier ones takes time, too. Don’t reassess/alter everything at once. Instead, work toward changing one thing at a time. Human brains don’t like too much disruption all at once – they like their familiar way of doing things.  Pick one thing at a time and create a new habit around it. Then go on to the next thing on your list.

2.  Not having succeeded before doesn’t mean you won’t succeed this time. Everyone has made and broken resolutions. We’ve all tried to lose weight or eat more fruit and veggies.  Adopt a positive attitude and frame your resolution in positive terms. “I will eat vegetables instead of French fries twice a week” or I’ll have cereal only on Saturday mornings” is much more positive than “I’ll never eat French fries or cereal again.” It’s easier to put a new habit in place than to change an old one, so embed the positive behavior not the negative one.

30 Days Of Usable Tips And Strategies

For the next 30 days check in daily at EatOutEatWell.com for a practical, usable tip of the day to help you on your way to achieving – and keeping – your resolutions and goals.

The post Resolutions And Goals: Perfection Just Might Be The Enemy Of Good appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Skip The Bacon

Want to save around 100 calories? That’s what’s in two medium slices of bacon.

Nix two slices of bacon on your bacon cheeseburger or two slices on your club sandwich or breakfast sandwich.

If you eat bacon five times a week that’s a pound lost in seven weeks and five pounds lost in 35 weeks just by subtracting those slices from what you normally eat.   Of course, that’s assuming you don’t add an extra slice of cheese or a heaping spoonful of mayo!

The post Want To Save 100 Calories? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Fortunately, for them, they have knowledge and their skill in the kitchen at their disposal to make food more flavorful, perhaps downright delicious, while cutting back on the use of sugar, fat, and salt.

What The Slimmed Down Chefs Do

According to an article in The Daily News, what they do is:

• Reengineer their palates:  Richard Blais of Top Chef fame followed a vegan diet for 30 days to jump start his 60 pound weight loss.  He says it was a palate cleanser that made him aware of how sweet, fatty, and salty his food was.  Art Smith, Oprah’s former chef, lost 95 pounds by changing the way he ate – incorporating more whole foods, eating six meals a day, and making uncomplicated food, often following the same menu most days of the week.

• Eat smaller portions:  Aside from eating smaller meals more frequently, some chefs like Houston’s Ronnie Killen, who lost 215 pounds, eats four ounces of a 16 ounce steak and saves the rest for another meal.

• Find new ways to add flavor and devise new ways to add taste but not tons of calories:  New York City’s Michael Psilakis poaches garlic in olive oil and then adds the garlic to various foods to really punch up the flavor of lower calorie items like mussels and gigante beans.  Many of the chefs use onion, garlic, and many herbs and spices for flavor.

• Indulge occasionally (or have a planned cheat day):  Many of the chefs, like Art Smith, build in a cheat day or leave room in their calorie budget for the occasional indulgence by eating lighter meals and fewer calories in anticipation of the indulgence.

• Exercise:  almost all of the chefs move around more than they did.  New York’s Rocco Dispirito became a triathlete, but Art Smith, who has a rigorous workout routine, says he sometimes just blasts music and dances.

The Bottom Line

Whatever routine a chef follows, they all seem to have become aware of  portion sizes.  They’ve learned about calories and the overabundance of sugar, fat, and salt in many recipes.  And, they move more.  They do not deprive themselves.  They may restrict the amount of food that they eat – but they are eating whole food with good flavor and they’re making room for the occasional, not daily, indulgence.

Art Smith cautions that dessert is a treat. As he says, “If you have dessert every day, then it’s no longer a treat.”

Try following their strategies when you’re cooking at home – or even when ordering in a restaurant.

If we could just get more chefs to offer smaller portions of delicious and healthy whole foods in their restaurants and food companies to do the same with their prepared products it would be a whole lot easier to lose and/or maintain weight and to be mindful of portion size.

The post Have You Noticed That Some Well-Known Chefs Are Shrinking? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Diet, not a word I usually use, implies deprivation and a way of life that is not easy, comforting, and fun.  So no wonder there are tons of excuses and reasons not to start.

Does This Sound Familiar?

You’ve decided that you want to lose weight.  Do any of these thoughts and actions seem familiar:

• “I’ll wait until Monday to start” – and then you eat enough over the weekend to gain more weight.
• “Wow, it’s Monday, but so and so’s birthday is Wednesday and we’re going out to dinner and then there will be cake – so I might as well wait until after Wednesday to start.”  And then it’s Thursday and you go back to “I’ll wait until Monday.”
• “I don’t have the right kind of food in the house and it’s raining outside and I can’t get to the gym – so I might as well chow down today and wait until I can stock up on the right stuff” (and when is that?).
• “I was so ‘good’ all week and then on Friday I went out and had drinks and dessert and a ton of bread.  So I figured I ‘blew it’ and might as well eat what I want all weekend.  I can start again on Monday.”  Of course Monday comes along and another verse is added to this tune.

There’s Always A Reason — Or An Excuse

You get the idea.  You can always find a reason not to start your new healthy eating plan or activity program.  How about listing the compelling reasons to want to start.

Try A Different Way Of Thinking

Diets don’t work.  Maybe they do for the short-term for some of you, but it’s rare to have long lasting weight loss from a restrictive diet mentality.

Try a different approach.  Healthy eating habits are the key to success.  Finding what works for the long term may require some out of the box thinking and creative solutions.  Go for it and give it time.  Just start.

Have you ever watched an athlete look for an opening through a crowded field of players all trying to obstruct his or her way?  The athlete just keeps looking for an opening – an opportunity.  The choice might be unconventional and require lateral movement or some pulling back before surging forward, but without some kind of move nothing’s going to happen  — no momentum will be gained.

Look for your opening and take it – stop waiting for that elusive perfect moment or the perfect time to lose weight.  You can keep telling yourself that you’ll start tomorrow — but will tomorrow ever come?

The post Are You Waiting For The Perfect Time To Start Your Diet? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

In the past few weeks I have heard two well-respected interviewers ask some well-known people questions like “How much weight have you lost?” or, “What do you weigh?”

The interviewers, Barbara Walters and Ann Curry, are excellent at their craft; highly intelligent; two people I admire; and thin, thin, thin. Neither of them looks like she has ever struggled – really struggled (I don’t mean losing five pounds to look better) with her weight.  I’m talking about the kind of weight that makes your health care professional describe you as obese or morbidly obese and start waving red flags.

In both cases, the person being interviewed (Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey in Ms. Curry’s interview, Carrie Fisher in Ms. Walters’) declined to give a number – but rather said that s/he’s on the right path, feels better, and is dedicated to losing weight for his/her health.  (Carrie Fisher is a paid spokesperson for Jenny Craig).

Good for them!  No, a stand-up round of applause for them!  I get it – both personally and professionally, that people who have never really had weight challenges don’t understand the difficulties associated with losing weight – real weight, not vanity weight.  There are legions of completed and ongoing research studies that have looked and are looking for answers to why some people gain – and cannot easily lose – weight, even though their caloric intake and energy expenditure should allow them to do so.

Inherent in the question, “How much weight have you lost?” is the implication that there is a formula, an algorithm, and if it is just applied weight will fly off and stay off.  Yea, right.  Don’t we wish!  Do people trying to lose weight function in a controlled space where all of the influences from the outside world coupled with their own unique physiology allow a predictable weight loss — a weight loss that can be easily sustained after it occurs?  If that’s the case, my education has misled me and I’m lying to my clients.  (On the record, I respect my education and I love working with my clients.)

So, here’s the thing.  If someone you know – or have occasion to talk to – is in the process of losing weight, don’t ask him or her to put a number on it.  Quite honestly, this could have a counterproductive effect because frequently people will lose inches, feel better, and have better clinical numbers (lipids, blood sugar) that may not initially be reflected in pounds lost.

Asking that dreaded question, “How much,” might just make the person think that a lack of significant change in numbers means that they are not succeeding.  If they want you to know, they’ll tell you.  Anyway, why do you need to know?

Losing weight is a long-term process.  Healthy habits need to be created that will facilitate weight loss and then keep it off.  Some people will never be slim – but they will be a whole lot healthier at a higher number on the scale if they are eating well and moving around.

Keep the number questions to yourself – just encourage and applaud the effort.

The post What Not to Ask: How Much Weight Have You Lost? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

The definition of a resolution is a firm decision to do or not do something. Have you made one or more resolutions recently – and does one or more of them have to do with losing weight or changing an eating habit?

The #1 New Year’s resolution is to lose weight. A recent study by a psychology professor found that for people who make resolutions, 75% keep them for the first week of the New Year; 71% are still maintaining their resolution after two weeks, and 46% are still keeping their New Year’s resolutions at six months.

Are those better stats than you thought? New Year’s resolutions really help you to define your goals and to identify what you want to accomplish or change.  But, identifying your goals or desires is one thing, realizing them requires a plan, work, and most of all, a commitment.

Why Do You Want To Lose Weight?

Losing weight and keeping it off takes time, effort, and a long-term commitment. It’s important to ask yourself if you’re really ready to make permanent changes and to decide if you’ll be making those changes for the right reasons  — for instance, losing weight because your want to feel better and be healthier, or that you want to look better because you want to look better – not because your spouse or partner wants you to look better.

Staying Committed

To stay committed you really need to be focused. It takes a lot of energy, both mental and physical, to form new healthy habits. So, to clear the way, first try to address the other challenges in your life – things like relationship or financial problems. It’s awfully tough to focus on multiple challenges at the same time.  While some challenges may never completely go away, managing them should make it easier to focus on losing weight.

Then, when you’re ready to commit to working on losing weight, pick a start date and go for it. Weight loss is a personal journey.  No one else can make you lose weight, although others can certainly help support you and hold you accountable in positive ways. Try to identify what will motivate you and keep you focused and then figure out a way to call on those motivators during those inevitable moments of temptation.

To use a frequently overused phrase – weight loss is a journey – but for this journey there is a map you can draw and follow – your own foodMAP to weight control.

Next post: goals, goals, and more goals.

The post Have You Broken Your “I’m Going To Lose Weight” Resolution Yet? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.