Enjoy Holiday Feasting without Letting Yourself Go

by Kristin

Tonight you might be scarfing down swedish meatballs and several helpings of Auntie Mae’s special brownies, but come January 1st you’re getting a membership and losing 10 pounds. Afterall “Tomorrow is another day.”

So yes, at every party you’re going to help yourself to another glass of eggnog with an extra helping of sugar cookies. Already you’ve committed to a gym membership, a carb-free diet and a guaranteed horrible time working out to strip the extra holiday weight from your body. Isn’t that how every American starts their new year?

Maybe most of us succumb to gaining weight every Christmas more than we have to.  ‘Tis the season. But before facing the holidays feeling totally powerless to maintain some kind of restraint, or healthy mindset rather, when faced with a never-ending Christmas smorgasbord, here are a few suggestions to approaching Christmas and New Years celebrations without completely losing yourself…. (or gaining another self, rather.)

1.Eat when you’re hungry -

I know – groundbreaking. While it sounds like a obvious idea, those who actually eat 3 meals a day or more (snacks don’t hurt) are probably the minority. By eating before you’re famished you’re more likely to savor, choose wisely and actually enjoy your meals.

Some of us girls like to micro-manage the way we eat and for most guys it’s just convenient to skip a meal if you know there’s going to be free food in 3 hours. Overall there’s this idea that by skimping on breakfast or keeping lunch to a minimum of a bowl of salad, we’re somehow leaving room for a third helping of pecan pie later tonight. Trouble there is, you can’t really outsmart your gut. So try listening to it. Eat when you’re hungry, which is probably more often than not. Stop when you’re satisfied. Simple.

2. Don’t save the gym for Jan. 1st.

An effective workout doesn’t have to be a P90x sweat session with Tony Horton everyday (thank God!)You don’t need a trainer or gym membership to stay active through the next week. In 20 minutes you can get a decent workout at home on days when you’re crunched for time, though 30 – 60 is always ideal. Recently I’ve enjoyed short cardio circuit sessions by James Duigan. Wait til you get to the “burpee” on the link below and 20 minutes will be more than enough.

Here are some ideas for simple & quick workouts -

3. Forget about deprivation & diets

I can’t count the number of holidays I’ve faced thinking, “Ok, after vacation I’ll nix this and that and feel better.” I’ve done the whole no sugar, dairy, processed foods cleanse thing a handful of times and while there are endless benefits to this, the aftermath of supressing every urge for chocolate or cookies can get you in more of a mess than where you first began. You don’t have to be a certified nutritionist to grasp the idea of  healthy eating. Just keep it simple. Plenty of greens, lean proteins, fruits, whole grains, nuts and learn to moderate sweets and processed foods. Enjoy a variety. Don’t make it more complicated than it has to be.

Why is it that Americans revel in the extremes of holiday weight gain? The reason most of us continually fail or backtrack during these weeks is more connected with our train of thought than anything else. You can enjoy the holidays, those special brownies and a healthy lifestyle. Give yourself a Merry Christmas and don’t give yourself up so easily this year.

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Female Food Fixation

by Kristin

 

 

This one’s for the girls ( and no I have not been listening to Martina McBride), because for females, food can be so confusing. All women want to be able to actually enjoy half the delicious things we posted on Pinterest while being able to wear the outfits we equally drool over, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting this. But most of us girls can be preoccupied with how to have our cake and eat it too – which, in this case, is more attainable than we often make it.

If you’re like me, you anticipate that by the time you hit adulthood, say late 20’s or early 30’s (if you can call that adulthood these days) you’ve learned how eat in order to reach a desired weight, and maintain a balanced diet without raiding the chocolate stash every night. But, being the women that we are, we complicate things.

Some seasons have been easier for me than others when it comes to my “food philosophy”; eating in a way that keeps me where I want to be, both mentally and physically. At times I’ve been very regiment about it. I’ve had my list of do’s and don’t and felt the need to abide by it rigorously and I’ve had my not-so-angelic seasons, staying up late, raiding that chocolate stash, often due to times of being too “angelic” throughout my day to begin with.

Things get confusing when food becomes a fixation. Some of us formulate, sometimes manipulate our diet, with foods we think will effect either our a) comfort or b) physique. By comfort, I’m referring to foods we believe will make us happy, viewing them as awards, while the latter are those we think are ideal, healthy foods. In layman’s terms, a) is “bad” and b) is “good.” Now, maybe I’m the only female who has spent her fair share of time in both modes, but I find many women’s eating habits are driven by a desire to look good or feel good.

Food is just food. While the word “food” is used so loosely, as to now define, what Michael Pollan calls, “edible food-like substances,” please take what I’m saying with a grain of salt. But – food is just food. Food is meant for nourishment, as it is meant for pleasure, kinship, creativity, tradition and some sense of consistency and stability in our lives. I’m not saying we should throw caution to the wind and eat whatever (if you read my blog, you’d know that is not my philosophy whatsoever) we could benefit ourselves to learn about our bodies, by being mindful and sensible, rather than obsessing about every morsel.

While there’s always new diet trends or some life-changing celebrity cleanse, as promising as they may seem, none of them have the answer we want. Sometimes we try to transform our habits to a list of do’s and don’t’s, in hopes of a dramatic physical transformation. Most women, nowadays, understand “eating healthy” to mean a gluten-free, dairy-free, non-processed virgin-like approach to life. Not that these aren’t good ways of eating, but perfecting it and not allowing some kind give in your diet is not only unattainable, it sucks the life out of food. It sucks the joy out of eating with others and sucks the possibility of reaching a state of health that you will ever feel confident in – because forcing food plans makes us forever fixated on what we should and shouldn’t have, making us rather imprisoned to these ideals. If you are constantly relying on Health newsfeeds or some calorie counting App to navigate how to eat, instead of learning how to understand what you need and crave, you will likely face endless cycles of frustration and obsession.

If there’s one thing I’ve found, the harder I work at it, the less I’m able to maintain it. In other words, the more I try to tame my taste buds or I force rigid plans, the more unlikely I am to be at a weight I’m happy with, or maintain a peace of mind for that matter. A constantly hungry girl is not a happy girl and a unhappy girl isn’t always a pretty girl.

 

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The Monster Diet

by Kristin

America should call it’s diet The Monster Diet. Through our 200 some years of existing as a Nation we’ve established some very interesting habits towards food, that have set certain trends that are very much, let’s say, “American”. While some countries daily diets include tea-time, lingering lunches or savory breakfasts at cafes most Americans average diet probably looks quite different. Breakfast is coffee and a granola bar if you’re lucky, lunch is a salad and if you haven’t raided the candy aisle before dinner, you last meal of the day (if you’re being honest) is probably bigger that all the rest of the day combined. For some reason we’ve taken on this novel notion that being ferociously hungry through most of our day is how we are suppose to function. That or we are so driven in work, school or chasing kids all day as a Mom that we just “forget” to eat. But really how do you “forget” to eat? It’s like forgetting you need to use the bathroom. Unless you work for Channel Five News or work under some crazy dealines like for UPS, I don’t think many of us can forget that our stomachs are growling at us. But staying on a steady Monster diet – subsisting on a cycle of hunger and large meals, then more hunger and large meals – does more than just wreak havoc on your waistline.

Going through most days hungry or always eating past the point of comfort makes us on edge, and unpleasant. You can tell that many American’s eat this way just by how startling it is when you meet a pleasant smile in public. Not only does not eating make us grouches, but we tend to not always make the best decisions when we’re pushing past the point of hunger. We’re hasty, we’re pushy, we’re scatter-brained and a bit of a mess.

What you eat can have the same effect. We all know at this point how we’re suppose to and why. But did it ever cross you’re mind that what you ate could be making you cranky? Particularly women. Hate to single us out here but if you’re anything like me and you eat too much, or allow you diet to be healthy doses of Frappaccino’s and chocolate, well you just not going to feel to hot – no pun intended. To top it off women tend to crave sugar, while guys crave protein. (So this idea that women have a harder time then men losing weight is just a fib we like to feed ourselves.)

Anytime my family would go to Sam’s Club when I was a kid, we always knew we could forget about lunch. My parent’s had this great idea that we could “fill up” on samples mid-day, call it lunch and save the extra bucks. (I don’t quite think it to be abuse since my parents were blessed with feeding 6 hungry mouths at every meal – My poor folks). By 3 o’clock I would always ask for lunch, in which my Dad would reply  ”But you just ate.”  This often left me as the whiny “high-maintenance” individual in the family (which I still am teased for being from time to time.) Through the years I’ve tried so many different approaches to lose my extra weight. Believe it or not went into high school about 3, pushing 4 sizes bigger than I am now. But I found what worked for me was – drum roll please – eating when I was hungry. What a novel idea! Which in all honesty is more often then not. This means a few small healthy meals throughout my day.

None of us want to be ruled by food, but when we just ignore that our body’s need substance we’re not really doing the body good. There’s got to come a point where you take responsibility and take time to understand how your body functions best. How could our country be so obsessed with food, be such infrequent eaters and still manage to top as the Nation with the highest rate of obesity? We often don’t eat when we should and what we should. Moderation in all things is key. But I think most monsters are foreign to moderation.

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Why Admins Can Easily Get Depressed (& The Purple Radish)

by Kristin

 

So I have come to the conclusion that sitting for too long makes me depressed. This may seem like a random place to pick back up but I’m in the midst of learning and growing (I’m  forever learning and growing,) the very reason why I should probably be writing here more often. But when I feel like I have a lot more to learn, or am in the process of growing, I kinda feel like I’m feeding you all a load of crap (or fill in the blank …) if I’m not feeling all hunkey dorey and healthy. But I would gather that not even all my favorite writers embody the ideals they convey 100% of the time. So I write…

For those of you whom I’ve kept ill-informed, I have been giving much of my attention to another blog – The Purple Radish.  It’s a blog I’ve had for almost a year now, where I write or meander about life, love and culture. Post to post, it may come across as random, but that’s me. In a nut shell it’s where I write about what I’m passionate about. I hope to soon join Better Vita and The Purple Radish.

You don’t always hold jobs that are necessarily positions you’ve dreamed to be in. For me, that is any job where I’m serving coffee or sitting for an ungodly period of time. Currently I hold an administrative position, where e-mailing, documenting, mail-merging and meetings are just part of the job. Granted I’m working with several teams at a large church, so events and church services with 200 plus volunteers do get me off my feet a few days a week – obviously. But for anyone who works in a church, you understand that the prep time heavily outweighs the service and interaction time, though I wish this were reverseed. (When I was working on a College Campus I was always getting up to meet with students, be at services, classes, events… let’s just say there was a bit more movement required of me.) Since my hours are somewhat long and I live a bit away from work, I’m up earlier and try to get some movement for 30 minutes before I leave. Just some kind of activity to wake up before arriving to a desk.

Those of us who carry administrative jobs can often times feel like we’re the only one’s sitting at a desk while life and exciting things are  happening to everyone else outside these pasty walls. Or am I the only one who’s been struck with this thought from time to time? But I’m finding many of my biggest frustrations in life can be remedied with very practical solutions.

Frustration: “I feel lowsy and miserable after sitting behind a desk all day long!” (8 hours, if we’re counting)

Remedy: Get up!

It’s that simple, get up and start moving around. Who ever said I have to e-mail or submit room requests for a meeting while sitting down? When your sitting for long hours your body eventually adapts to a sedentary state. NBC.com news covered a Men’s Health article, “Why Sitting Down All Day is Slowly Killing You” examining the health risks of desk jobs. “If you spend too much time in a chair, your glute muscles will actually ‘forget’ how to fire,” says Hartman, a Men’s Health Advisor. If you’ve ever had a desk job you know how this feels. There’s a reason why so many people feel dead by the end of a work day, and often it’s not from too much activity. Whether you exercise or not, if you’re at a salary paying-desk job, though you may be making a significant amount more than a Starbucks Barista or grocer, you aren’t expending as many calories as you would with a job where you stand. Basically, if your not moving as much, your not active as much and the inactivity eventually gets to your head.

It’s too easy to let life and our situations define us. Defining how we want our lives to look takes a bit more work than just rolling with the punches. Our bodies weren’t even created for inactivity and how we feel after sitting for lengthy periods (when you’re legs are screaming at you to move) is a perfectly legitimate reason why we should not sit for so long at all (unless of course you’re catching up with Breaking Bad or plan on attending “The Master” premiere). So if you’re working at a desk today, or for this period of your life, don’t succumb to feeling like crap. Get up and move! You will find your mind is sharper, your body will feel lighter and mood will be much sweeter (for you and everyone else you work with.)

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You Can Have It All… (In Due Time)

by Kristin

Food is a force of life, a source of energy that keeps us going. But being the human beings we are, we easily can confuse food to being our source instead of a source. Sometime we just don’t know when to stop. It’s why buffets will never go out of business here in Florida. We are ravenous creatures whose eyes are a great deal larger than our stomaches. But it’s not abnormal to deal with this unsatiable appetite. We all deal with this at one point or another – at least if you’re human.  Liz Lemon from 30 Rock, is that type of woman, that relatable human being (at least to me.) One whose blunt, unapologetic and unfilitered thought process and impulses can probably relate to most of us. (Sorry : I know 30 Rock may be a dated example, but I don’t watch much tv except for a recent fixation about a certain chemistry teacher turned meth producer, that may have the best health-related materials, at least for now.)

I think Liz Lemon relates to food the way most of us are afraid to admit we do on a weekly basis (particulary women – sorry girls, just being honest)…
“I CAN HAVE IT ALL!” Some of us eat like it’s our last meal, with no tomorrow in sight. I’ve done it, and particularly struggled with this when I’ve put too much food off limits (like major food groups.) If your trying to be too angelic everyday (ex. low-fat foods, substance-lacking salads, sugar-free fat-free froyo), your cravings will likely turn you into a ‘lil devil. Certainly it explains some of our mood-swings. But this all or nothing mentality, in relation to our diets, seems to be a common eb and flow ( or a rather vicious cycle.)

Granted we deal with this “I want it all” idea, with nearly every aspect of life. How often are we completely content in the moment? Especially when we’ve got our eyes on something that we can’t have or that’s limited.   But just like you learn to budget your money, organize your time, and allot some relaxing or entertainment in your week, you must “budget” your eating patterns. Or you will forever find yourself in such situations…

So how do you control this ferocious voice inside you that says, “I can have it all!” and be satisfied?

1. Eat Breakfast – You all hear it all the time. But this will truly make a world of difference to your day.

2. Avoid Eating late – Unless you’re wake up call isn’t until 2pm everyday, avoid 2am Taco Bell runs. ( And one effects the other. of course if you eat too much at night you’re not going to feel like eating first thing in the morning.)

3. Cut Your Portions Way Down – Leave meals feeling satisfied rather than full.

4. Eat about 5 Small Meals Instead of 3 Big Onse –  But don’t think captain crunch, pizza, and big macs 5 times a day, but whole, clean foods.

                                                        Here’s an example of one day:

                                                       Breakfast – Oatmeal w berries, almonds w a dollop of greek yogurt

                                                       Snack – handful of sunflower seeds and an apple

                                                       Lunch – Grilled chicken, roasted broccoli & squash w olives

                                                       Snack – Carrots and hummus

                                                       Dinner – Sauteed Fish with green beans, quinoa & avacado

5. Cheat Meal/Day – Now I know I’ve said before I don’t like the idea of “cheating” but really it’s another way of “budgeting” or allowing indulgences while staying on track. So one meal (or one day) a week let yourself eat whatever you’re craving. This is all apart of the Clean and Lean philosophy, that I’ve been applying & sharing with you. It works!

Just a little patience and you can eventually have it all. Eventually….

 

 

 

 

 

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Watermelon Whaahhtt?!?!

June 22, 2012

Wherever most of you are, those outside of Florida, it might not feel like summer just yet. But dang, it’s hot here in muggy Florida.  I regulate Starbucks about as often as…, well let’s just say I go often. In the summer, this escalates with the heat and humidity. Since I know coffee isn’t the [...]

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For All You Salad-Haters

June 20, 2012

If you hate salads, chances are haven’t had a good one. A bowl full of romaine drenched in fat-free ranch would sounds about as appetizing to me as munching on strafoam insulation as well. A few weeks ago I mentioned the “Clean and Lean” Cookbook I began using (now available in the states!), altering and [...]

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Timely Eating

June 14, 2012

    Calories in, calories out… that seems to be our fixation when we want to lose unwanted weight. It’s a common idea that cutting way back on calories will somehow cut back on weight. We think less food equals less fat. But, that’s not always the case. On top of that we have a [...]

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Clean and Lean

June 4, 2012

Image from Womenshealthmag.com So I’m not one to tweet every “tweetable” thought  or instagram every morsel of food that goes into my mouth. It can be a little overwhelming, for me and everyone else, when your life is exposed via social network, but I have enjoy writing (be it ever inconsistent and sparse as I [...]

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Are Sweets Making us Stupid?

May 16, 2012

  It’s probably the last thing  you want to hear, but the latest is that sugar is making us dumb. This latest study from UCLA  researchers found that excess sugar, especially high fructose corn syrup, may be decreasing your brain power, disrupting learning and causing memory loss. Apparently the study was done on rats and the increase [...]

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