I know, I know…you want to lose weight.  You want to have the body you had 5, 10, maybe even 20 years ago.  Your skinny jeans are folded neatly under piles of clothes, just waiting for you to squeeze into them.  And one day, you know you will.  Sound familiar?  Many of us at some point have gone through this.  But I’m going to tell you a secret…dieting doesn’t work.  Some of you may be thinking: “But my friend lost 20 pounds on the Atkins diet!” or “I have heard fantastic things about Nutrasystem.”  Sure, these diets work in the short term, but after a dieter stops dieting, they most likely put back on some, if not all of the weight.

In 2010, I’d like you to resolve not to diet.  And, I want you to remember the following things about diets, why they don’t work and what are better solutions for 2010:

1. Malnutrition: Contrary to popular belief, most diets are not healthy and may actually border on malnutrition.  Many urge us to do extreme things, forgo our favorite foods or cut major food groups in order to lose weight.  Healthy eating requires ALL nutrients (carbs, fats and protein) and a minimum number of calories in order to maintain health and proper body function.  FOR 2010: Focus on eating foods that are nutrient rich and that provide you with the balance to keep you feeling satisfied.
2. It is Unsustainable: Depriving your body shocks your body into losing weight, but once it gets over that shock, it adapts.  How?  By slowing down your metabolism, going into unhealthy physical states (such as ketosis) or stopping weight loss.  So, even if you have the mental willpower to diet forever, your body doesn’t.  FOR 2010: Change to a mindset of eating healthy as a lifestyle, not as dieting.  This will help you to lose excess pounds and maintain a healthy weight for a lifetime…not just for bikini season.
3. The Pendulum Factor: When you deprive yourself to an extreme, you end up craving to an extreme.  The pendulum swings from “being extremely good” to “being extremely bad” to compensate.  You may have heard this called “yo-yo dieting.”  FOR 2010: Implement a philosophy of moderation.  Enjoying the foods you love and the treats you crave once in awhile will help you to crave foods less overall.
4. Life Happens: Diets often require us to change our eating habits in such a way, that normal life gets in the way.  Eating out, going over friends houses for dinner, special occasions all become “problems.”  These things, however, are the very things that make life worth living!  Further, most of us are busy and may not always have the time to shop, cook and calorie-count the way many diets require.  FOR 2010: Find ways to fit healthy eating into every day life so that you can enjoy life AND be healthy.  Discover which nutritious foods you love that make healthy eating delicious! (Discover 40 easy and delicious recipes to eat healthy!)
5. Energy Loss and Metabolism: Dramatically reducing your calorie intake can result in reduced energy levels and fatigue.  Instead, it is important to understand which foods provide you with quality nutrition.  FOR 2010: Eat small meals often.  This strategy can actually stimulate weight loss, keep you satisfied and make you feel energetic.
6. Quantitative versus Qualitative: Dieting doesn’t really teach you how to eat for the long term.  You may be counting calories while eating foods that actually make you hungrier or cause you to crave more.  FOR 2010: Learn what foods are the most satisfying and most nutritious.  The more nutritious the food you eat, the less hungry you will be.  You’ll make smarter choices and lose weight without focusing on every calorie you ingest.
7. One Dimensional: In order to truly lose weight, you have to eat well AND be active.  I’m not saying you have to run a marathon, but as we get older, our metabolisms NATURALLY slow down.  The more active you are, the more calories you burn and the higher your metabolism will stay.  FOR 2010: Be active.  Even if it means taking stairs instead of the elevator, walking at lunch hour, walking to work instead of taking the train…just move.

Get real in 2010!  Change your life by changing your mentality towards health, nutrition and wellness.  Stop dieting, start eating and start seeing the results that you want…for the long term!

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1. One Plateful – One Time: Many eaters rely on visual cues, such as an empty plate, to decide when to stop eating.  Cornell University researcher Dr. Brian Wansink created a bottomless soup bowl, which secretly refilled during a meal.  He found that diners eating from the refillable bowl ate 73 percent more soup than diners who ate from a normal bowl.

What can you do? Eating one plateful will help you to eat less.  Further, forgo buffets and “bottomless” items on menus when eating out.  If eating family style, only fill your plate once!

2. Eat off a Smaller Plate: Dr. Brian Wansink also found that plate size matters.  By reducing plate size diameter from 12 to 10 inches, people ate 22 percent fewer calories.  Funny enough, in 1985, average plate size WAS 10″.  Over time, our plates have increased in size!

What you can do: Measure your plates at home.  How big are they?  If they are more than 10 inches, consider finding new plates to eat off of OR use a plate that is 10″ as a guide to fill your plates with food.  Stay within the 10″ diameter!  You’ll get used to the visual cue once you have done this enough.  Also, consider joining the Small Plate Challenge, which asks consumers to use a 10-inch plate for their biggest meals.  http://www.smallplatemovement.org

3. Eat Small Meals, often: Instead of three large meals a day…breakfast, lunch and dinner…decrease portion sizes and allocate some of the food for snacks. You will spread what would normally be three meals into five.  Doing so will help you eat smaller meals, stave off hunger throughout the day and keep you feeling satisfied and energized.

What you can do: Here’s a good schedule to try:

• Breakfast: 7:30am to 8:30am
• Morning Snack: 10:00am to 11:00am
• Lunch: 12:30pm to 1:30pm
• Afternoon Snack: 3:00pm to 4:00pm
• Dinner: 6:00pm to 7:00pm

4. Pre-Plate Your Food: Cornell University Food and Brand Lab researchers found that people who pre-plated their food ate approximately 14 percent less than those who took smaller amounts and returned for seconds and thirds.

What you can do: Pre-plate your meals or snacks before you start eating so that you have a visual stopping point. Avoid eating chips straight out of the bag or ice cream from the carton.

Adapted from “GET REAL” and STOP Dieting! Copyright © 2009 by Brett Blumenthal. All rights reserved.

Excerpted from "GET REAL" and STOP Dieting! Copyright 2009 - Brett Blumenthal

GET REAL TODAY!!! Learn the most simple, straightforward, no-nonsense way to lose excess weight, and keep it off for life...without dieting! BUY IT NOW!

Our society seems completely obsessed with quantities of food, instead of quality of food.  I have read several blogs and forums around the web where individuals will choose a product over another because it contains fewer calories.  I’m not talking about major differences in caloric values…this choice is often made around two products that differ by 20 calories.  This is not to say that the number of calories isn’t important, but it needs to be looked at from a holistic perspective. In short, what do the calories represent?

Understanding the ingredients, as well as the nutritional content of a product is more important than understanding the number of calories it contains.  Let’s take two products: Low-Calorie Product (100 calories) and Higher-Calorie Product (120 Calories). 

1. Ingredient Quality: If the calories in ‘Low-Calorie Product’ represent low quality ingredients that are processed (such as sugar, partially hydrogenized oils, bleached flour), and the ‘Higher-Calorie Product’ mainly has ingredients that are higher in quality (such as honey instead of sugar, olive oil instead of hydrogenized oils, whole grains instead of bleached flour) than the fact that the ’Low-Calorie Product’ has lower calories is irrelevant.  You are actually ‘wasting’ calories by eating this product.  You are better eating 20 calories more of good, wholesome ingredients, than 20 calories less of crapola.
2. Nutritional Quality: If the calories in ‘Low-Calorie Product’ represents little to no nutritional value, and the ‘Higher-Calorie Product’ offers good nutritional value, you are once again wasting calories by eating any of the ‘Low-Calorie Product’.   Nutritional values you should be paying attention to include:
   • Fiber: Given you should aim to get 25 grams of fiber a day, always look at how much fiber you are getting in the product.  The higher the fiber, the better.  Additionally, fiber helps to fill you up and keep you feeling fuller longer.  This means that you won’t be hungry in a half hour after eating.
   • Sugar: Sugars that aren’t a natural part of a food (such as fruit), are really no good.  If the product is high in sugars, then that is a good sign you aren’t getting a lot of nutritional value.
   • Fat: Fat can be good…if it is under 30% of your calories per product (This means 3.3 gms of fat per 100 calories) and if it is unsaturated (meaning monounsaturated, polyunsaturated and unsaturated).  If a product has most of its fat as saturated fat or trans fat, this is no good. 
   • Vitamins and Minerals: If a product has little to no vitamins or minerals, than again…you are eating empty calories.  Aim for the product that has some amount of vitamins and minerals to ensure you are working towards getting in your recommended daily intake.

What this all means is that the quality of your calories is way more important than the quantity of your calories.  If you try to find foods that have very few calories, you aren’t going to get any nutrition.  Without calories, you have no nutrition.  It is as simple as that.  So stop counting calories, and start counting nutritional value.  A great site that allows you to track the nutritional values of your food throughout the day is: Fit Day

Relevant Topics:

• Fiber
• Vitamins and Minerals
• Stevia: How sweet it is!
• 5 Ingredients to Avoid
• Reading Nutrition Labels