Holiday Tips You Can Use:
Welcome to our health & self help blog.
Focus on Your Health:
In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.
Today's post: Monday, 11-20-2006
Holiday Tips You Can Use:
Avoid Gaining Weight during the Holidays
& Easily Lose the Weight you do Gain
(Regular exercise & the other tips here work to help you keep off excess fat or lose it all year long as well.)
I. Keep up, resume, or start regular exercise.:
One of the most effective ways-- & one which is most forgiving of letting go & enjoying yourself—is to burn off the extra calories in the Gym.
Strength training is particularly good long term in keeping the weight off since the muscle you gain burns more calories than the fat it replaces.
So, if you possibly can, do your regular workouts & other exercise as much as your schedule allows over the holidays. And, keep it up all year as well.
II. Other Holiday Tips:
Here’s a list of things that help.
Just pick & use the ones that sound helpful & doable for you.
(If you tend to just let go & enjoy the holidays, part I. will still work.
But at least scan through part II. If you only find one idea you can use & DO it, it may well help you ward off 10 pounds!)
a) Keep up any healthful eating you do when you aren’t at holiday events.
And, if you have a range between healthful & bit less healthful, focus on staying at the healthful end of the range when you aren’t at Holiday events.
A friend of mine used this strategy all year. He went to a lot of business & networking lunches & dinners. So, on the days he was attending such an event, he simply ate a lighter & more healthful breakfast & lunch or dinner that day.
b) Take healthful treats & eat healthful treats or foods FIRST whether you brought them or found them at the event.
The November, 2004 edition of Prevention magazine even suggests eating your healthy snack at home before you go for some events. They called this the: “Don’t arrive hungry” approach.
Since healthful treats have protein, healthful fats or oils, &/or fiber, they definitely work to reduce hunger. And eating ones you like helps reduce the mentally & emotionally driven munchies also.
Here are some healthful treats to take or eat at events.:
1. Fresh fruits like strawberries, kiwifruit, blueberries, grapes, raspberries, cantaloupe chunks, etc. (Many stores sell such platters already set up. Upscale stores also often have a good salad bar for setting up something smaller on your own & an excellent produce section otherwise.)
2. Shrimp with cocktail sauce.
3. Nuts.
Avoid or a bit easy on the more commercial salted nuts as some of them are roasted with partially hydrogenated oils.
However, the latest information is that fresh & dry roasted nuts are much more healthful than was previously imagined. They have healthful oils & very little saturated fat. In fact, they have sterols that reduce LDL, the potentially harmful cholesterol!
(Whole Foods, if you have one locally to you, sells good quality nuts that you can eat & feel good about. Their dry roasted almonds, tamari almonds, & walnuts are all healthful--& cost less per pond than nuts bought in packages.)
4. Guacamole. Much like nuts, which have similar fats, etc, avocados are now also known to be superfoods & healthful! (Our local Whole Foods has both mild & spicy versions of guacamole in stock—pre-made. The one nearest you may also)
5. Veggies like broccoli florets, cauliflower, zucchini slices, carrot sticks, celery, & radishes all fit here. Eat veggies that you like from the veggie platter. (Many stores sell such pre-made platters during the holidays.)
An article on AOL suggested today that bringing hummus to use as a dip for the veggies is a much more healthful alternative than most other dips. And, many people including me, really like hummus.
Overall, by eating the healthful foods first, it then is MUCH easier to take smaller servings or fewer servings of cheeses & desserts, etc!
This is one I not only use myself, and actually like, I recommend it.
It both works & helps me feel rewarded, satisfied & part of the celebration.
c) Avoid store bought treats--stick to home made. And, avoid regular & nondiet sodas.
Stick to healthier alternatives like juice or Martinelli's carbonated apple juice &/or applle-cranberry juice.
At this writing, virtually all store bought cookies, cakes, & pies contain hydrogenated oils (transfats); & many contain high fructose corn syrup.
Except for the diet versions, almost all commercial sodas have high fructose corn syrup.
These ingredients are beginning to be universally recommended against. Research suggests they help cause heart disease & adult onset diabetes.
And, they may make it much more likely people will become fat & have trouble losing it.
This makes foods containing them an excellent choice to delete or eat MUCH less of!
Home-made cookies, frostings, etc are usually made with sugar & butter. And, they & pies can both be made this way. The worst case is that they’ll have margarine, which I suspect is lower in transfats than what the commercial bakers use. And, they hardly ever have high fructose corn syrup.
Go a bit easy; but these are less much less damaging to your health & waistline than almost all the store bought alternatives.
Martinelli’s carbonated apple juices, most juices, unsweetened carbonated waters, & Champagne all have no high fructose corn syrup.
(Most grocery stores carry Martinelli’s carbonated apple juices all year; & many people stock up over the holidays.
I haven’t see the labels, but I think the two Trader Joe’s holiday drinks featured in our local “Fearless Flyer” are OK also.: Sparkling Cranberry Juice & Spicy Cider.)
d) Focus on the people.
It’s simple math. If you spend 90 % of your time catching up with people you know & meeting some of the people you don’t, you’ll eat less than if you spend 90% of your time eating.
Plus, much of the good times of holiday events is found in enjoying the people.
So, spend most of your time doing that & wishing people Happy Holidays.
e) Treat yourself to stress relievers that aren’t food!
When you aren’t at the events, do something that relieves stress that works for you.
This can be no cost, like going to the library & reading or checking out a good book or taking a walk to meditating or doing Tai Chi.
Also, recent research shows that if you get less than 7 hours of sleep a night, this tends to result in weight gain.
So, if you have been a bit short on sleep & can get a bit extra on the days you aren’t going to events, this is a free stress reliever that’s been shown to work.
And, getting a massage can work wonders!
(Massages are available at Whole Foods in Palo Alto. A Whole Foods near you may also have them.)
The holidays can be stressful; & numerous studies confirm that lowering stress makes it MUCH easier to avoid bad foods & unnecessary weight gain.
f.) Avoid, side-step, & escape the worst stresses.
If you identify things that are stressing you in general -- or things that stress you about the holidays, you can then solve some of the easy ones, delay working on or worrying about some until after the holidays, & find some you can escape or side-step during the holidays.
This can increase your actual control & your feeling of control—both of which can even keep down your stress reactions & effective stress level. (Your body will feel the difference; & you’ll gain less weight.)
Do your best with the parts of the holidays that are important to people you care about; & include some things you enjoy.
Do what you can to minimize the rest & focus on the successes you did have & the positive parts of the holidays.
g) Stay positive!
Martin Seligman, PhD started the field of studying the part of optimism & positive thinking that actually helps people do well & enjoy live with his book, Learned Optimism.
Optimistic people, he found, think good things are permanent & bad things are temporary.
(That’s often because they focus on making good things happen & keep working creatively & persistently until they do.
And, it’s because they know most bad things can be fixed; & they will often make things go right themselves even when they didn’t cause the problem.)
Similarly, they realize that things that are going wrong (or have gone wrong in the past) can go right & will go right when the specific things that caused them to go wrong are removed or fixed, have stopped happening, or are overcome with focused & effective remedies.
One way to help remember to stay positive during the holidays is to remember & focus on the fact that the holidays themselves celebrate positive events.
One of my wiser friends once said that:
Christmas & the other holidays near the winter solstice are our way of celebrating the fact that even when things look dreary, good things always return –
& we can count it.
Focus on Your Health:
In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.
Today's post: Monday, 11-20-2006
Holiday Tips You Can Use:
Avoid Gaining Weight during the Holidays
& Easily Lose the Weight you do Gain
(Regular exercise & the other tips here work to help you keep off excess fat or lose it all year long as well.)
I. Keep up, resume, or start regular exercise.:
One of the most effective ways-- & one which is most forgiving of letting go & enjoying yourself—is to burn off the extra calories in the Gym.
Strength training is particularly good long term in keeping the weight off since the muscle you gain burns more calories than the fat it replaces.
So, if you possibly can, do your regular workouts & other exercise as much as your schedule allows over the holidays. And, keep it up all year as well.
II. Other Holiday Tips:
Here’s a list of things that help.
Just pick & use the ones that sound helpful & doable for you.
(If you tend to just let go & enjoy the holidays, part I. will still work.
But at least scan through part II. If you only find one idea you can use & DO it, it may well help you ward off 10 pounds!)
a) Keep up any healthful eating you do when you aren’t at holiday events.
And, if you have a range between healthful & bit less healthful, focus on staying at the healthful end of the range when you aren’t at Holiday events.
A friend of mine used this strategy all year. He went to a lot of business & networking lunches & dinners. So, on the days he was attending such an event, he simply ate a lighter & more healthful breakfast & lunch or dinner that day.
b) Take healthful treats & eat healthful treats or foods FIRST whether you brought them or found them at the event.
The November, 2004 edition of Prevention magazine even suggests eating your healthy snack at home before you go for some events. They called this the: “Don’t arrive hungry” approach.
Since healthful treats have protein, healthful fats or oils, &/or fiber, they definitely work to reduce hunger. And eating ones you like helps reduce the mentally & emotionally driven munchies also.
Here are some healthful treats to take or eat at events.:
1. Fresh fruits like strawberries, kiwifruit, blueberries, grapes, raspberries, cantaloupe chunks, etc. (Many stores sell such platters already set up. Upscale stores also often have a good salad bar for setting up something smaller on your own & an excellent produce section otherwise.)
2. Shrimp with cocktail sauce.
3. Nuts.
Avoid or a bit easy on the more commercial salted nuts as some of them are roasted with partially hydrogenated oils.
However, the latest information is that fresh & dry roasted nuts are much more healthful than was previously imagined. They have healthful oils & very little saturated fat. In fact, they have sterols that reduce LDL, the potentially harmful cholesterol!
(Whole Foods, if you have one locally to you, sells good quality nuts that you can eat & feel good about. Their dry roasted almonds, tamari almonds, & walnuts are all healthful--& cost less per pond than nuts bought in packages.)
4. Guacamole. Much like nuts, which have similar fats, etc, avocados are now also known to be superfoods & healthful! (Our local Whole Foods has both mild & spicy versions of guacamole in stock—pre-made. The one nearest you may also)
5. Veggies like broccoli florets, cauliflower, zucchini slices, carrot sticks, celery, & radishes all fit here. Eat veggies that you like from the veggie platter. (Many stores sell such pre-made platters during the holidays.)
An article on AOL suggested today that bringing hummus to use as a dip for the veggies is a much more healthful alternative than most other dips. And, many people including me, really like hummus.
Overall, by eating the healthful foods first, it then is MUCH easier to take smaller servings or fewer servings of cheeses & desserts, etc!
This is one I not only use myself, and actually like, I recommend it.
It both works & helps me feel rewarded, satisfied & part of the celebration.
c) Avoid store bought treats--stick to home made. And, avoid regular & nondiet sodas.
Stick to healthier alternatives like juice or Martinelli's carbonated apple juice &/or applle-cranberry juice.
At this writing, virtually all store bought cookies, cakes, & pies contain hydrogenated oils (transfats); & many contain high fructose corn syrup.
Except for the diet versions, almost all commercial sodas have high fructose corn syrup.
These ingredients are beginning to be universally recommended against. Research suggests they help cause heart disease & adult onset diabetes.
And, they may make it much more likely people will become fat & have trouble losing it.
This makes foods containing them an excellent choice to delete or eat MUCH less of!
Home-made cookies, frostings, etc are usually made with sugar & butter. And, they & pies can both be made this way. The worst case is that they’ll have margarine, which I suspect is lower in transfats than what the commercial bakers use. And, they hardly ever have high fructose corn syrup.
Go a bit easy; but these are less much less damaging to your health & waistline than almost all the store bought alternatives.
Martinelli’s carbonated apple juices, most juices, unsweetened carbonated waters, & Champagne all have no high fructose corn syrup.
(Most grocery stores carry Martinelli’s carbonated apple juices all year; & many people stock up over the holidays.
I haven’t see the labels, but I think the two Trader Joe’s holiday drinks featured in our local “Fearless Flyer” are OK also.: Sparkling Cranberry Juice & Spicy Cider.)
d) Focus on the people.
It’s simple math. If you spend 90 % of your time catching up with people you know & meeting some of the people you don’t, you’ll eat less than if you spend 90% of your time eating.
Plus, much of the good times of holiday events is found in enjoying the people.
So, spend most of your time doing that & wishing people Happy Holidays.
e) Treat yourself to stress relievers that aren’t food!
When you aren’t at the events, do something that relieves stress that works for you.
This can be no cost, like going to the library & reading or checking out a good book or taking a walk to meditating or doing Tai Chi.
Also, recent research shows that if you get less than 7 hours of sleep a night, this tends to result in weight gain.
So, if you have been a bit short on sleep & can get a bit extra on the days you aren’t going to events, this is a free stress reliever that’s been shown to work.
And, getting a massage can work wonders!
(Massages are available at Whole Foods in Palo Alto. A Whole Foods near you may also have them.)
The holidays can be stressful; & numerous studies confirm that lowering stress makes it MUCH easier to avoid bad foods & unnecessary weight gain.
f.) Avoid, side-step, & escape the worst stresses.
If you identify things that are stressing you in general -- or things that stress you about the holidays, you can then solve some of the easy ones, delay working on or worrying about some until after the holidays, & find some you can escape or side-step during the holidays.
This can increase your actual control & your feeling of control—both of which can even keep down your stress reactions & effective stress level. (Your body will feel the difference; & you’ll gain less weight.)
Do your best with the parts of the holidays that are important to people you care about; & include some things you enjoy.
Do what you can to minimize the rest & focus on the successes you did have & the positive parts of the holidays.
g) Stay positive!
Martin Seligman, PhD started the field of studying the part of optimism & positive thinking that actually helps people do well & enjoy live with his book, Learned Optimism.
Optimistic people, he found, think good things are permanent & bad things are temporary.
(That’s often because they focus on making good things happen & keep working creatively & persistently until they do.
And, it’s because they know most bad things can be fixed; & they will often make things go right themselves even when they didn’t cause the problem.)
Similarly, they realize that things that are going wrong (or have gone wrong in the past) can go right & will go right when the specific things that caused them to go wrong are removed or fixed, have stopped happening, or are overcome with focused & effective remedies.
One way to help remember to stay positive during the holidays is to remember & focus on the fact that the holidays themselves celebrate positive events.
One of my wiser friends once said that:
Christmas & the other holidays near the winter solstice are our way of celebrating the fact that even when things look dreary, good things always return –
& we can count it.
posted by David at 12:31 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home