Howdy y’all!  Thanks so much for all the sweet comments and birthday wishes  

If you are ever visiting New Orleans, I recommend trying a local favorite- boiled crawfish!  While they are amazingly delicious, crawfish that are boiled in the traditional Southern fashion are usually very high in sodium so eat in moderation!  Click here for more info about crawfish.

Even though more than 50% of my work day is sitting at a desk, I usually make an effort to sneak in some physical activity by often taking the stairs instead of the elevators.  I was curious to see how effective my efforts were of increasing my level of physical activity at work.  So today, I wore a pedometer for the first time ever at work.  According to the Michigan Department of Community Health, “most people take 500 to 3,000 steps per day unless they make a special effort to walk or exercise”.  When I got home from work, the pedometer read…

4,313 steps from the moment I left the house till the moment I came home.  Could be better but could be worse!  2,000 steps usually equals about 1 mile (depending on your stride) which means I walked over two miles over the course of my work day.  10,000 steps each day is recommended for weight management.  I think the steps from my work day plus my usual cardio workout (~30 minutes of aerobics or dancing) comes pretty close to 10,000 steps.

Have you ever worn a pedometer to work?  How physically active is your job?  What are some ways you sneak in exercise at work?

Kasey

While I agree that many people drink empty calories that may contribute to obesity, I usually do not use nauseating scare tactics to get my patients to make healthier choices.  One can of 12 ounce regular soda has ten teaspoons of sugar and 150 calories.  I have had patients tell me that they drink up to 64 ounces of regular soda each day which equals 800 calories from soft drinks!!!  Clearly, excessive soft drink consumption may lead to weight gain.  At the end of the day, the strongest research shows weight management boils down to balancing calorie intake to calorie expenditure… what you eat versus how much energy your body burns daily.  In my opinion, soft drinks are “empty calories”.  In other words, you are not gaining any nutritional benefit other than calories from consuming soft drinks.  And I’m not buying into these sodas infused with vitamins either!  Why not get your vitamins from real food sources such as fruits and vegetables? 

End of soft drink rant.

So after I fell in love with Terra Sweet Potato Chips last week, I decided to give another variety a try.

Mediterranean Terra Chips!  The nutritional stats are pretty good for chips…

I love that the chips contain 3 grams of fiber per serving.  While they do contain 9 grams of fat per serving, only 1 gram of fat is saturated fat with the rest unsaturated fat (0 trans fat).   This flavor has more sodium (150 mg per serving) than the sweet potato variety (10 mg per serving).

The verdict:  I enjoyed the veggie chips but I prefer the sweet potato variety!  Cory agrees  

Have you seen the controversial soft drink video?

Kasey

For date night, we went to our favorite pizza place… Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza. 

I started with a small mixed green salad with olive dressing and artichokes… So Good!

I also had a glass of Trinity Oaks Pinot Noir which was smooth and delicious…

 For the main course, I had two slices of pizza with cheese and banana peppers.  The extra thin, crispy crust is why I love Theo’s pizza so much!  Thin crust is usually about 100 Calories less per slice than regular crust pizza.

 I  enjoyed delicious food while spending some quality time with my favorite guy

The remainder of my free time was spent relaxing at home and catching up on my favorite TV shows.  After watching The Biggest Loser: Where Are They Now?, I started thinking about what motivates people and how they are able to find their healthy balance. 

The show featured several previous contestants who are maintaining their weight loss (many of them over 100 pounds lost), running marathons, and giving back to their communities.  Exercise is a vital component to weight loss maintenance so I wasn’t surprised to see many of the previous contestants working as fitness instructors today. 

Someone who really caught my attention was the 64 year old man who was eliminated early in the seventh season shortly after collapsing during a workout.  He was able to lose 177 pounds at home.  This grandpa is in awesome shape… you should have seen him on a stationary bike!  I think his collapse during the first week of the season was a reality check that motivated him to improve his health.

Not everyone was successful at maintaining weight loss.  A previous season winner was featured who gained almost all of his weight back.  As Bob (one of the Biggest Loser trainers) interviewed him, I really picked up on his “all or nothing” attitude.  He felt he needed to either be on a very strict diet and exercise regimen at home or no diet or exercise regimen at all.  I think a lot of people have this attitude which may set them up for failure.  Balance is key!  Deprivation is not a long term tool for success.  Finding a balance of work, home, and health is necessary to reach long term fitness goals.  While I enjoy nutritious foods regularly, I never feel guilty or give up my healthy habits after enjoying an extra glass of wine or dining out for pizza occasionally   

Where are YOU now?  Did you have a “wake-up call” that motivated you to make your health a priority?  How are you maintaining your health/weight?

Kasey

Be Prepared with a Plan- 

• Eat breakfast that morning.  If you starve yourself all day, most likely you will be ravenous and end up consuming more calories at the Thanksgiving meal than you intended on. 
• Stay focused on your healthy goals.  If you overdo it at lunch, get back on track for dinner.  Put lunch behind you and make better choices at the next meal. 
• Have the right attitude.  Instead of thinking you’ll entirely blow your healthy eating for the day, think I’ll have a little bit of my favorite foods.  It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.
• Consider tweaking recipes to make them a little healthier.  Every year, I make a low fat pumpkin pie.  I often receive remarks like… “This doesn’t taste bad at all.  It actually is really good.”  “Are you sure this is low fat?”  In addition to my low fat pumpkin pie, I am considering bringing pomegranate seeds which were a huge hit at my family’s Christmas gathering last year.  I love introducing new, healthy foods to people!

Moderation with Mindful Eating- 

• Paying attention to serving sizes.  Consider using smaller plates or smaller serving utensils.
• Choose foods that are only available to you during the holidays such as grandma’s oyster dressing instead of baked macaroni and cheese which you may have several times a year.   
• Balance richer, more calorically dense foods with lean meats and vegetables. 
• Slow down and truly enjoy and savor the food that you and your family have prepared.  
• Hold off on seconds right away… chances are you will realize you aren’t that hungry.
• Watch for liquid calories.  You may want to try alternating water with alcohol beverages.
• After eating, stay active by playing with nieces and nephews or by helping clean up instead of settling into a food coma on the couch.

Most importantly, remember what the holiday is all about – being thankful!

What are your plans for Thanksgiving?  Have you found any healthy recipes to cook for your family? 

Kasey

He begins his story by calling himself a “baby bulimic”.  As a toddler, he would literally vomit if his mother denied him a third or fourth serving of food.  His strong appetite and love of food continued throughout his life. 

“My life-defining relationship, after all, wasn’t with a parent, a sibling, a teacher, a mate. It was with my stomach.  And among all the doubts, insecurities and second-guessing that had so often shadowed me, there was one certainty, one constant, I could eat.”

Family dynamics, of course, have an effect on all of us.  His family dynamics were no exception.  As he described his mother’s fad diet phase, I truly laughed out loud…

“She did some diet that required the consumption of a half grapefruit at a half dozen intervals during the day- it didn’t work, as I recall, but it certainly kept her safe from scurvy.”

Aside from his mother’s occasional fad diet, she took extreme pride in cooking for and feeding others…

“… mom treated our holiday visits as Make-A-Wish Foundation moments, only all the wishes involved eating.”

Frank eventually conquered bulimia (as a college student), a Mexican speed phase, abuse of laxatives, and sleep eating/middle of the night binges.  He revealed details of how his work, friends, and romantic relationships always were closely tied to and sometimes suffered due to his relationship with food and weight.  He went through phases of self denial, justifications, and rationalizations like many people do…

“Something strange happens when you keep gaining weight that you don’t want to be gaining and keep breaking your resolutions to lose it: a part of your brain- the part that keeps your disappointment in yourself at a manageable level, trading real self-disgust from more routine self-flagellation- shades the truth a little, and then a little more, and then a lot.”

“I suppose there are people who can pass up free guacamole, but they’re either allergic or too joyless to live.”

“And so, yet again, I faltered, beginning a diet and exercise program on Monday only to stop it on a Wednesday, because I’d slip up and decide that I should wait until the following Monday and the blank slate of a new week to begin.  Then I’d treat Thursday through Sunday as a free pass, a last-hurrah opportunity to get all my cravings out of my system.”

The ironic part of his story is that he achieved a healthy balance between food and his weight once he became a professional eater- a New York City food critic.  Of course, his humor remained as he described the exercise regimens he maintained to stay at a healthy balance of energy intake versus energy expenditure…

“He made me pretend I was a frog, crouched but not too crouched, leaping in a forward direction for the length of two rooms.  This supposedly worked wonders on the “glutes.”  I wasn’t entirely sure what or where “glutes” were, but I trusted that mine could use significant improvement.”

Many of Frank’s lessons learned are things I often discuss with patients that are trying to lose weight…

“I listened to hunger and responded to it, because I knew from the past what could happen if I let myself get too famished or feel too deprived.”

“I was celebrating instead of abusing food.  In so many previous chapters of my life I’d seen food as the enemy; now it was more a friend.”

“I had to admit that the success or failure of every diet I’d ever attempted boiled down to the most basic equation of all: how much energy I expended versus how much fuel I took in.  And no matter what I’d once tried to tell myself, I always knew, in the course of a given day, whether this equation was out of whack.”

“Losing weight- or not gaining it- boiled down to putting back the second dinner roll I’d just reached for, running or walking the extra mile, getting off the uptown Number 1 train when it pulled into the Sixty-sixth Street stop, near my gym, rather than staying on until Seventy-second Street, going home and unwinding until dinner.”

Overall, this book was charming, witty, and a pleasure to read with a great “take home” message on balancing indulgence with restraint.  I know this post is a bit quote heavy but I had a hard time narrowing the quotes down because they were all so good!

Have you read any inspiring books lately?

Kasey