How will you be staying healthy during the holidays?

So we are in the middle of the holiday season! Whatever you celebrate, it is that time of the year where we eat until we hate ourselves, and then don't work out because we are too busy socializing. Yes, we're all guilty.

So in the middle of all the parties and time with family, how can we stay at least a little bit true to our goals? Here are a few tips:

Have regular meal times. This may sound silly, but for most of the year, you were able to stick with the theme of X meals a day so why can't you now? Plan where you will be at your meal time, and eat only during those times.

If you slip, don't stress. We all need  time to relax, and stressing over drinking too much eggnog has proven to actually do nothing but add on to your waistline. If you fall, let it go; concentrate on the next day!

Get enough sleep. This may also sound silly, but people who do not get enough rest tend not to lose weight. Party on, but sleep more.

Scan the buffet before you jump. You are loved and everybody cooks for you; okay, good. But when there is so much food, it doesn't mean you have to eat it all.If there is a buffet, slow down and spend time scanning the options before you jump. You make better decisions when you slow down. When someone asks what you want and gives you options, think a little first.

Smaller portions are the way to go. I cannot dare tell you to drop every fun thing during the holidays (who am I?) but try to use smaller plates to make sure you are not eating more than your stomach can take.

Alcohol can be your friend or your enemy. We tend to drink a ton of our calories, and alcohol is no different. A glass of wine or beer may not hurt, but having round after round may make you hungrier and just adds on to the calories you are trying to stay away from. Try not to be out drinking each night.

Find creative ways to exercise with your loved ones. Whether it is a yoga class, dancing, some exercise videos, or just taking walks together, look for ways to burn off the pounds and still hang with your loved ones. If you are off work, try to work out early in the day so you can focus on other fun things for the rest of the day.

How will you be staying healthy during the holidays?

Cheers Eights & Weights!

Merry Christmas!!!

I wish you a happy, healthy, restful, and all around beautiful Christmas with your families. Hope you get something beautiful from Santa :)

The Secret to Surviving the Holiday Buffet

Excerpt from Brian Wansink's "The Secret to Surviving the Holiday Buffet" on MSNBC.

There is probably no greater diet danger zone than the holiday buffet. It's hard to resist grabbing a huge plate and piling it up with buttery breads, cheeses, meats, cakes, cookies and pies.

Although it might seem as if we’re swimming against stream when it comes to the delicious but calorie-laden holiday table, there are a lot of people who seem immune to overloading their plates. They have fun at buffets, parties and dinners without gaining weight. What’s their secret?

To better understand how some people survive the pitfalls of all-you-can-eat dining, researchers at the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab observed 213 normal weight and overweight diners at buffets across the country. They found that heavier diners are more likely than slimmer diners to sit closer to the buffet, use larger plates and serve themselves immediately instead of browsing the buffet. 

In the study, heavy folks grabbed a plate almost as soon as they arrived and immediately started serving themselves. The normal weight diners were more likely to scout things out first. When they did pick up a plate they were seven times more likely than the heavy eaters to take the smallest plate available. Some specifics:

• 71% of normal-weight diners browsed the buffet before serving themselves, compared to 33% of obese diners.
• 27% of normal-weight patrons faced the buffet compared to 42% of obese diners.
• 16% of obese diners sat at a booth rather than a table compared to 38% of normal weight diners.
• Normal-weight people chewed their food an average of 15 times per bite versus overweight people who chewed only 12 times. In fact, speedy eaters are three times more likely to be overweight than people who eat more slowly and who don’t eat until they’re full, recent research found.
• Overweight diners sat an average of 16 feet closer to the buffet than normal-weight diners, presumably to shorten the trip when they go back for seconds … or thirds.

There are three main problems with a buffet, not only at the holidays, but anytime of the year. Those huge tables of food are prime examples of what I call the 3 C's of disastrous dieting:

Convenience:  Food is all around and it’s often with arm-reach.

Caloric: Whether sweet or salty, buffet foods are often higher in the indulgence factor than good sense.

Choices: There is a lot of variety, which increases how much you eat because your taste buds don’t burn out on one thing.

The bottom line of the buffet is you really can have your holiday cake and eat it, too. You just need to browse the food to find what you really want, use a small plate and eat slowly. To avoid the temptation of going back for seconds, sit as far away from the table of food as possible. If you don’t face the goodies, you are less likely to spot something else you want to pile on the plate.

In my book, "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think," I also describe a trick that seems to work well for many holiday buffet-goers. It’s called the Rule of Two. You can choose anything you want at the buffet, but you can never have more than two items on your plate.  If you want to load it up with nuts and cake, go ahead. If you want to go back for seconds and load it up again with chips and carrots, go ahead. Although this sounds like a recipe for disaster, it actually works quite well for people for three reasons: 

• You tend to take the two types of food you want most. People who love desserts don’t work their way up to desserts. They’ll start with the desserts, and then stop.
• You tend to not overfill you plate. Putting only two things on our plate helps keep our serving sizes somewhat small because we psychologically don’t want to overload on a particular item.
• You tend to not go back more than two times.  In one study we did on the Rule of Two, 83% of people only made one or two additional returns to the buffet.

Using some of these easy rules can help you take the focus off the food and pay more attention to what really makes the holidays special - your family and friends.

Brian Wansink, Ph.D., author of "Mindless Eating — Why We Eat More Than We Think," is head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. He is also director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab.

Photo credit: innermom.com

A Block is Just a Block, and a Mile is Just a Mile

Okay, I see you bringing out your knives to stab me. But hold off for a second. When we were children, we were so excited at the opportunity to walk down the street, jump around in the backyard, and just do anything besides sit in the same position for hours. Today, as adults, we just want to sit. Yes, we work and all that. And we have more responsibility so we get tired at the end of the day. But children get tired too. They have to go to school, do homework, and argue with their parents all day. You get my point?

As a culture, we have to start changing the way we think. You might say that we can afford all the luxuries of life, so why should we give up our engines for a half hour walk when we could get where we are going in ten minutes? Well, so your body can thank you. That’s why. Growing up in the African culture, most of us had uncles, aunties, cousins, house girls, house boys, cooks, drivers, wash men, and whatever other form of help we could find. So we don’t even walk down the street anymore. Someone else makes the food, serves the food, cleans the house, drives you around, and if possible, they would wash us too. So it is difficult to start thinking that we need to start walking more. But yes, that’s what I’m trying to say in a roundabout fashion: We need to start walking more.

On days like this, where it is icy on the ground (depending on where you are) and all you want to do is stay home, I can understand your hesitance to even open your front door. But don’t you wake up in the AM to go to work, church, the mosque, and even grocery shopping? You get up to go to the club, visit your friends, do your laundry, and get your car oil changed. So why not start thinking of your body like your laundry? When all your clothes are dirty, you’d have nothing to wear. Or like your car? When you don’t change your oil, your car could go through serious problems. Your body is like a car. You have to fix it one way or the other. So it’s either you work with it now to keep it running right, or you try (emphasis on ‘try’) to fix it when it goes bad.

Walking for about half an hour every day helps us keep our engines running. Granted, it may not burn the amount of fat that running does, and it may not give us amazing muscles like yoga might, but it is a good start. Most of us are busy, but in watching people, I do not know anyone that I can really look at and say “This person cannot possibly spare half an hour today to take a walk.” People like to look busy, and so complain that they have no time to do anything, but when you look at their lives, they do have time. Even if they don’t, they can make time if it is important enough. So my question for you is why are our bodies not important enough???

Some of us really need to spend some time in hospitals or with dying people to realize that a little can go a long way. We cannot control everything, but we can control what we can control. We can control our legs, right? Make it fun! Walk to the mall, walk around with your little brothers, sisters, cousins, sons, daughters this Christmas. A little walking won’t kill you. It only takes about 3 minutes to walk a block, and twenty minutes to walk a mile at a regular pace. Just think about making it to the next street, and then the next street, and before you know it, BAM!, you’ve walked a mile.

So please take a walk today. A block is just that: a block.

Have the Merriest Christmas ever Eights & Weights!