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Spring Clean Your Diet

Brett Blumenthal — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 19:24:56 +0000

One of my most favorite things to do in the spring is spring cleaning. I tend to rip open my closets and remove all of the items that seem to “weigh me down.” Let’s just say that the Salvation Army has come to expect a significant uptick in my giving in May. Spring cleaning, however, is also an activity to consider for your health. This spring, aim to eliminate the foods that are taking a toll on your energy, your weight and your overall well-being. Here are six types of food worth cleaning out of your life for optimal health and an extra spring in your step!

Refined Sugar and Sweetened Foods. Avoid foods with refined sugars as well as high fructose and regular corn syrups. Candy, soda, syrup, jelly, cookies and baked goods are on the “avoid list.” Instead, eat foods that are naturally sweet or sweetened with fruit or 100-percent fruit juice. You can also use natural sweeteners, such as honey or pure maple syrup.
White Flour, Refined Flour, Enriched Flour. Avoid eating bread, cereal or grain products that have been processed, refined or bleached, e.g., those that use white flour, refined flour or enriched flour. During the milling process, refined flour loses key vitamins and nutrients in the germ and bran. As a result, manufacturers will enrich flours by adding certain B vitamins and iron back into the flour after processing. Fiber (an important nutrient), however, is not added back to enriched flour. Instead, look for those grains that are whole.
Packaged Foods with “Un-Whole” Ingredients. Many packaged foods that seem healthy often contain fillers, preservatives and other ingredients you don’t want in your diet. If you do choose something that has been manufactured or processed (anything canned, packaged, etc.) try to avoid those that contain ingredients you don’t recognize or that you know to be especially unhealthy.
Diet Foods. Diet foods are lower caloric versions of their high-calorie cousins, made by reducing the sugar and/or fat content. Reduced sugar foods and beverages are often loaded with highly-processed, chemically-derived sugar substitutes; reduced fat foods usually have a lot of added sugars. Both options require additives and processing that are best avoided.
Fried Foods. Fried foods, especially those that are packaged or come from fast food restaurants, more often than not, contain saturated and trans fats. These fats have been linked to disease and other health problems.
Fast Foods. As upsetting as this may be, fast foods are, by all means, the worst of the worst offenders. Most are mass produced, processed and filled with preservatives, artificial flavorings, colorings and other additives. Furthermore, fast food restaurants tend to use ingredients of lesser quality combined with unhealthy fats.

Make this spring your healthiest yet! What do you plan on cutting out in order to spring clean your diet?

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

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3 Musts for Effective Food Journaling

Brett Blumenthal — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:35:23 +0000

Many people count calories when they are trying to lose weight. Doing so can be very helpful, and often, can lead to greater and more sustainable weight loss. In a study done by Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, those participants who kept a food diary lost almost twice the amount of weight of those who did not journal. Further, those who kept a diary managed to keep the weight off.

What really makes a food journal successful? Obviously, recording what you eat and how much of it you eat is definitely an important component to track. But is that enough? I’d argue…no. Tracking your caloric intake is undeniably important, but it doesn’t necessarily tackle the emotional side of the food intake equation. Many of us use food as a form of comfort…whether it be to fill a void…to alleviate emotional pain…to calm nervousness…or to offset boredom. In order to create sustainable lifestyle changes, knowing what triggers you to eat is arguably, just as important.

Mindfulness of the hows, whys, whats and whens of your food consumption promotes balance, choice and acceptance of what is. To practice this mindfulness, keep a journal to document how you feel physically AND mentally…before, during and after meals and snacks. Here are the three components you should track in your journal:

What You Eat. Document what and how much you eat. This will help you identify those foods that are most gratifying and filling as they apply to actual hunger as well as emotional triggers. It will also enable you to determine how balanced your snacks and meals are. Include calories of what you ate as well.
Appetite. Evaluate your appetite on a scale of 0 to 5: 0 represents “extremely hungry,” 5 extremely full. Whenever possible, strive never to be a 0 or a 5. If hunger sets in, aim for a rating no lower than 1; after you have eaten, you shouldn’t be fuller than a 4.
Physical and Emotional Status. When you get hungry and while you are eating, tune into your physical and emotional state. What were you doing when you became hungry? Were you thinking about anything in particular? Were you stressed? Depressed? Happy? Relaxed? Bored? Note your feelings in order to understand what triggers your eating. Are you really hungry? Are you using food to fill an empty void? Is food an automatic “go-to” when celebrating? Noting these feelings will help you distinguish between real hunger and emotional hunger.

Here is a chart of what your journal should look like:

Date & Time	What did I eat / drink?	Caloric Value	How did I feel before/during/after eating? (0 – 5)	What was I doing?	What was I thinking?	How was I feeling?

Have you used food journaling to help you lose weight? Did it work? What did you find most effective?

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4 Easy Ways to Cut Calories

Brett Blumenthal — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:00:21 +0000

I’m not a big believer in counting calories. I do think that it is important to be MINDFUL of how you eat, but counting calories makes anyone trying to be healthy feel like they are on a diet. Who wants to be on a diet? No one. Mindful eating, however, allows you to enjoy the foods you eat, while staying aware of how you feel so that you don’t over-eat. Here are a few ways to be proactively mindful, which in turn will help you to reduce your caloric intake, without the need for a calculator!

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.