Body stay vicious

Include sleep in your weight loss routine

2011-07-13T18:20:00.000-07:00

Sleep is one of those things many of us think we can afford to miss out on, but it really isn't. Lack of sleep not only affects our mental acuity (the ability to be mentally sharp), it also alters the functioning of our body's hormonal systems. In relation to weight loss, sleep loss has been proven to alter the ghrelin and leptin levels. Ghrelin stimulates appetite, while leptin inhibits appetite so when these are off balance, it can make a sleep deprived person feel hungry and eat even when she doesn't need to.

If you're trying to lose weight, you're probably also trying to control your appetite and your hunger. One way many people learn to do this is by listening to their bodies more carefully: eating only when they're truly hungry and their bodies needs the energy, and becoming more aware of when they're full so they can stop eating. Getting misleading signals from the body to eat when its not really hungry can sabotage these careful efforts.

So make sure to include sleep in your healthy, weight loss routine. For more information, read my Examiner.com article, Not sleeping enough can hinder weight loss.

All around body toner: Turkish get up how to

2011-03-12T22:56:00.000-08:00

Turkish get ups are often done with kettlebells, but can also be done with dumbbells. It's a good, all over body toner. Start with no weight or a light weight until you get the form down.

For a dumbbell version:

Early Resolutions with the BodyMedia FIT Armband

2011-01-18T10:49:00.000-08:00

I started my weight loss resolution a month early this year thanks to the BodyMedia Armband. I tested out one of the new Bluetooth enabled Armbands to write a review for examiner.com. I loved it. I wore it for 5 weeks and lost 5 pounds with it just by becoming more aware of my physical activity levels and paying closer attention to what I ate. It accurately calculated the calories I burned all day long and combined with my diligent food logging, I was able to see a complete view of my entire day's caloric activity.

You wear the Armband over your left tricep 23 hours a day. When I first saw it, I thought it'd be uncomfortable to wear, but I got used to it pretty quickly, even when I slept (and I sleep on my left side). The only time it bothered me a little was when I wore a snug top and it was bulky underneath.

Default Activity Manager display: you can expand most tabs for more detailed graphs.

The Activity Manager has a nice UI and is easy to use. It's really fascinating to see the data for a complete day. The detailed graphs made it easy to see when I'd worked out and by mousing over the graph, I could see how many calories I burned per minute during my workout. A quick glance at the calories burned or physical activity graph is all it takes to tell what kind of day you've had -- a sedentary day at your desk, or one where you've been running around all day with errands or housework.

Detailed view of physical activity levels.

The one thing I missed with the Activity Manager was community. On DailyBurn I can connect with other people in my demographic who have similar goals and encourage and get encouragement from them. It would have been nice to see how other people are progressing and get motivated by them.

The other thing that I wish was more configurable was the display of my weight progress. I lost 5 (now 6) lbs during the time I tested the device, but because I changed my weight loss program, it showed me I'd lost 0 pounds because it only shows you the weight you've lost since starting a weight loss program. I would rather it show me how much weight I've lost since I started wearing the Armband. That would motivate me more.

Detailed view of weight chart. The red line shows the start and end
of a weight loss program I chose to be on and shows my projected weight.

The issues I had with it were minor though. It may seem like a lot of data, but it gives you an insight into how physically active you really are. I heard Ivo Stivoric speak at CES 2011 and he mentioned how eye opening it was for him to realize how little activity he got even though he had thought he was pretty active.

I really believe that long term health is about being more aware of your own lifestyle and making conscious decisions to change your behavior. This is a great tool to do that with, and I think it's the best one on the market right now. It's a little expensive, but if you can afford it and you want to lose weight, this can definitely help. But only if you work at it -- all that data is useless if you don't food log and change your behaviors to reach your goals.

The eat water fad

2011-01-16T21:07:00.000-08:00

I've seen a couple of items lately about eating water and how it's supposed to be better for you than drinking water because it stays in your system longer (hydrates you better) whereas drinking water goes through you pretty quickly. Dr. Murad (of the skincare line) seems to think this is true, as does Dr. Hershberg with her Hershberg diet.

The thing is that fruits and vegetables have the most water in them so if you increase your intake of water-dense foods, it means you're also getting more fiber and vitamins and minerals and all the other wonderful nutrients fruits and vegetables provide you. And as long as your increased intake of fruits and vegetables is accompanied by a proportionate decrease in other, possibly less healthy foods you're eating, then of course you're going to lose weight and your skin is going to look better.

While I was doing research on this topic, I found an interesting study done by Barbara Rolls, PhD: Eat Water, Lose Weight. I think it's the basis for her Volumetrics Eating Plan in which you remove some less healthy foods and replace it with more fruits and veggies. But what was interesting about her study was that people like to eat a certain amount of food regardless of the caloric content. So if you make a bigger yogurt parfait using lower fat yogurt and more fresh fruit, you'll feel more satisfied than if you eat a smaller one with full fat yogurt and strawberry sauce.

All of these approaches are good and basically amount to the same thing: eat more fruits and vegetables and use them to replace some less healthy choices. They will hydrate and nourish you, and can help you lose weight.

Additional resources:

Eat Less Move More!

2011-01-04T22:54:00.000-08:00

You really want to lose weight this year? Is it on your list of New Year's resolutions? All you have to do is eat less and move more. I thought I was being so clever when I used that expression for my Tools to help you lose weight this New Year article, but then I found this hilarious MadTV skit.

And, Dr. Oz is sponsoring an 11 week free weight loss program to help you kick off the New Year right. And that's right, you "eat less, move more, lose weight, and feel great."

This year, you can really do it. I'm going to. I've got the move more part down pretty well, but I can still get lazy about my eating habits. This year I'm going to focus on making it easy for myself to eat well on those days when I'm too lazy to cook or put together a healthy snack by:

Preparing and freezing healthy snacks and meals in advance so that there's always something nutritious and satisfying for me to eat
Learning to eyeball portion sizes better (I'm pretty good at this, but only when I'm being mindful -- I want to make it such a habit I do it without even thinking about it). There are several good aids for portion control listed in my examiner.com article
Using smaller plates (I already do this with most of my meals, but want to make it a more permanent habit)
Bringing less junk food into the house (this one can be hard when you have a teenaged boy in the home :)

What are your goals this New Year's?

Tongue patch makes it difficult to eat

2009-09-22T00:29:00.000-07:00

I find this elective cosmetic procedure to lose weight slightly disturbing.

First off, it's surgery and I think people often forget the fact that any and every surgery has risk associated with it. Second, it doesn't appear to come with any behavior modification therapy which seems to imply that it's meant for quick and temporary weight loss only. Third, I have to assume that if a patient needs to have this procedure done, he/she cannot even manage to stay on a liquid diet for a month under his/her own motivation and therefore needs to be forced to adhere to one.

That seems so wrong to me on many different levels. On the other hand, I have to remind myself that it is elective surgery. The same people who are comfortable getting liposuction and tummy tucks for quick fixes are probably also not unwilling to undergo this procedure. And I don't have any problems with people opting for cosmetic surgery -- as long as they know exactly what they're getting into. The weight loss from this procedure is going to be temporary unless you follow it up with lifestyle or diet changes to keep the weight off.

Counting calories with DailyBurn

2009-07-25T11:20:00.000-07:00

I've reviewed free online food diaries before on this blog and at the time, I'd picked SparkPeople as my online food diary of choice because it had a lot of the features I wanted and also had a mobile site I could use. But the mobile site was so slow I never ended up using it, and after using the food diary portion for a while, I switched to DailyBurn.

I prefer DailyBurn because it's got a really nice, clean UI and is less cluttered with ads than either SparkPeople or LIVESTRONG's Daily Plate and more importantly, adding food to my daily food log is easiest on DailyBurn than the other two sites (I've tried both). The AJAXy UI is so nice -- you don't have to switch pages to add a food. You search for your food item, click on the button to add it to you food log and it displays a box you can enter your serving size and meal you ate it with and you hit submit and the box disappears and it all happens pretty fast and you're still on the search results page. The Daily Plate required multiple page clicks just to add a food. SparkPeople's UI is nicer -- it opens up a new, smaller window over the existing window so you can search for and add your food, but sometimes it's slow, and I don't think the UI is as seamless as on DailyBurn.

DailyBurn also often has an image of the food you're adding and when you look at your day's log, you can see the thumbnail of each food item you've eaten (when an image is available -- often user added foods don't have an image). You can group commonly eaten foods together with their recipe feature (I've written an article on how to add a recipe to DailyBurn), or add new recipes that you cook at home. I use this feature a lot, and if it wasn't easy to use, I probably wouldn't do it and I often didn't on SparkPeople.

I've kept a food diary off and on for a long time, but this is the first time I've been able to see exact calorie counts of the meals and foods I eat. And it's eye opening. DailyBurn is so easy to use, I can actually input every single thing I consume during the day and see the exact calorie count for the day and the breakdown of my consumption of carbs, fats, and proteins (there is a "Pro" membership for $45/year that lets you see additional nutrition information, but I haven't yet found a need to go Pro).

I can actually see now how consuming just one or two high calorie things can really spike my calorie count. I'm a small person so my meals average around 300 calories a meal, and one sweet can easily be that many calories or more. With the recipe feature, I can see exactly how many calories are in each cupcake I bake and frost and it makes me think a little more about grabbing one out of the fridge for a snack.

It is, however, time consuming. Keeping a food diary always is. I add everything I eat preferably as soon as I eat it. I use my food scale to weigh things I'm not sure about and convert grams to ounces and ounces to grams to add foods. If I can't get to my computer right away, I can use my browser on my phone, or I just jot some notes and add it later. I cook at home a lot so I'm constantly adding recipes and new food items to the site. But to be able to see my whole day's nutrition information is worth it for me. And I know I won't be doing it forever, and some days I might not do it, but I think it's invaluable and really helps me make wise food decisions.

If you want to see my profile (feel free to add me as a motivator), here's DailyBurn profile.

Nutrition information on calories may lead you astray

2009-07-17T10:23:00.000-07:00

New Scientist's article The calorie delusion: Why food labels are wrong is an interesting one for those of us trying to make calorie wise choices. Given the choice between a 250 calorie brownie or a 300 calorie nut based muesli bar, which would you pick? I'd like to think I'd pick the muesli bar, but if you're only counting calories and not factoring in nutrition, well then the brownie's the winner. Or at least you think.

Digestion of different types of foods take different amounts of energy. The more energy your body uses up trying to digest food, the less of it you have to burn yourself. The article mentions dietary fiber and protein as two examples. Dietary fiber provides energy for gut microbes so we get 25% less energy from the calories in dietary fiber than we do from other foods. So instead of 2 calories per gram, it should be 1.5 calories per gram.

This steak would have 20% less calories
if we had updated nutrition labels

Same with protein. It takes more energy for our bodies to process protein so its calorie count should be reduced by 20%. There's also something interesting to note about soft foods (brownies are soft): they take less energy to digest so you burn fewer calories eating them. In one study they fed one group of rats their regular hard pellets and another group of rats soft food. Both of the food had the same nutritional and caloric values, but the rats that ate the soft food became obese and had more belly fat.

Then there's the fact that the brownie is almost all simple carbs and finely milled flour (see my Carbs: A Love-Hate Relationship post for more about simple vs. complex carbs) so almost all of the carbs from that brownie go into your body so you have to burn it off (whereas a good portion of something made with coarse ground wheat flour will go undigested and have to be excreted in bodily waste).

Cooking also makes foods easier to digest. In meats, cooking breaks down long protein chains making it easier for your body to digest. And for starches, it makes what might not have been digestible by our bodies to become easily digestible. In a study with 5 patient volunteers, they found that 90% of a cooked egg will get digested, and only 51% of a raw egg will get digested (what's not digested is treated as waste).

Making food choices can seem complicated sometimes because there are so many things to consider. But practice and knowledge makes it easier. So what to make of the above? Eat food closer to their natural state. Don't overcook food, and eat veggies raw when possible. Eat complex carbs. They are usually both denser and harder to digest and also more of it will be processed as waste (so less calories for you to burn off). Plus they keep you feeling full longer without a sugar crash. And you can increase your protein and dietary fiber intake if you want to. Other than that, I'm not sure I'd make any dietary changes based on the information above, but it's interesting to know and knowing more about your food is helpful in making choices.

I <3 My Garmin Forerunner

2009-06-16T12:08:00.000-07:00

I love my Android phone and My Tracks app, too, but there's no beating the Forerunner for ease and comfort. I've been using both lately on the same trips to check out my various post run/walk sharing options. My Tracks makes it easy to add notes, and lets me take photos on walks, but the Forerunner is a better tool than my phone for a quick visual check to see how far I've gone and how long I've been going.

This site does not support embedded trip maps. View the trip here instead.

The one thing I wish for the Forerunner is an easier way to add notes along my runs/walks. Because I like to share my maps I want to be able to tell other people where there might be water or a bathroom or a particularly beautiful view. But I've figured out a way to add waypoints to my Garmin Forerunner maps.

This might not work for everyone, but seems to be ok for me. There is a way to mark a location on the Forerunner by going into Navigation -> Mark Location, but for me this requires about 8 button pushes to mark a location, then 2 button pushes to go back to the main screen (number of buttons pushes may vary depending on how you have your Forerunner set). When I'm running I'm not likely to want to push all those buttons. Instead, I just use the lap button.

This means I have to remember the waypoints and the order in which I saw them. When I upload my run/hike to Trimble Outdoors, the map editor notes my laps as "tracks". I can then select each point to add a note about the location. This works only if you can remember the waypoints on your run and don't need to use the lap button for its real intended purpose. So your mileage may vary trying to use this technique.

My maps on Trimble Outdoors.

Kelly Ripa is ripped!

2009-06-14T22:36:00.000-07:00

I had no idea Kelly Ripa was so ripped! Her workout routine looks pretty well balanced and she only spends 45-60 minutes on her workouts. I personally think this is the optimal amount of time to spend on a workout. Don't work out for so long that you overtax yourself -- always leave a little energy for the next workout, and for the rest of your day.

And when you hit your health goal, maintenance of your weight doesn't require a ton of time in exercise. Remember that it's a lifestyle change you're making. Good health isn't something you stop working once you've reached your "goal", but it isn't so hard to maintain once you get there if your focus is lifestyle change and not just how many pounds you want to lose.

One legged squats

2009-06-13T18:43:00.001-07:00

This is one of my favorite leg exercises because it's challenging and you can do it anywhere -- at the gym or at home. Notice how straight she keeps her upper body and when she bends her leg, her knee doesn't go over her toes (it's hard to tell this from many different angles in the video, but you can see it clearly at 0:12). Do them with perfect form. If you can't keep your upper body upright, then don't go as deep as she does. Do only as many reps as you can with perfect form. Make sure you really feel it in your glutes as you come up by keeping them tight and keep your abs tight to help stabilize. Enjoy!

Zuzana suggests you do 5 reps on each leg and 50 high knees as fast as you can.

How the free online food diaries stack up

2009-05-24T01:41:00.000-07:00

Photo: by Barbara In searching around, I've found that there are a lot of free, online food diaries. I wrote an article on examiner.com, Online food diaries: Free sites that can help you achieve your fitness goals about them, but here is a more detailed comparison of the food diary/log sites I looked at.

Most online food diaries aren't just for logging what you eat. They also help track your progress and offer resources. Some sites incorporate social networking so you can meet other people for support, some sites help you plan your meals and workouts, and a few have mobile apps or websites you can use on the go, but only a couple of them have it all.

The low down on the sites

I arbitrarily chose two test foods that I searched for on all the sites. Something I had for breakfast yesterday: Oroweat 12 grain bread, and Jennie O's Turkey bacon. When I refer to my "test" foods below, I'm referring to these two items. Please note that the prices for memberships reflect the prices when I did my research (May 23, 2009) and are subject to change at the discretion of the site's management. Please also note that is not a comprehensive list of these sites.

SparkPeople: This was my top pick. It offered everything above. Even though I'm not sure I'll take advantage of every aspect of the site, the fact that it had a free mobile site was a bonus for me (none of the other sites offer this for free). Plus the UI was nice and wasn't cluttered too badly with ads. The food search and add feature opened up a small, separate window so I could keep searching and adding foods to any meal/day. One thing I had a difficulty with was trying to add a strength training workout. It wanted me to pick individual exercises that I did and I found that slow and tedious.
The Daily Plate: Part of the Live Strong network. The food search wasn't as nice to use as SparkPeople's. There are ads at the top of the results which is a little confusing because you can't add those foods. It had a wide assortment of exercises, but I had the same problem I had with SparkPeople -- it wanted me to add individual exercises for a strength training session and again, it was tedious. It has iPhone and Blackberry apps, plus a mobile site, but none of that is free ($2.99 each for the apps, and you have to be a Gold member to use the mobile The Daily Plate site for updates, though it does let you do searches for caloric content over the phone).
My-Calorie-Counter: Part of the Everyday Health network. Decent database of foods -- had my two "test" foods and easy to understand serving sizes. You can add custom foods, but not add custom exercise/activities. Exercise activities required you to add time in decimals. It allowed you to add blog entries, but you have to sign up on everydayhealth.com (which hosts the blog) in order to do that. UI was ok with a clean, minimal look; ads are very visible in the header and right nav. Has the option to sign up for $5/week personal coaching. There are forums/discussion boards that looked pretty well populated and active.
FitDay: couldn't find my test foods in the foods database. You can track your moods and body measurements. They offer a premium membership at $5.49/month which lets you do custom tracking and gives you access to "advanced reports" on nutrition. They have a PC app that you can purchase for $19.95 that is supposedly easier & faster than the online version. No social networking, and no free resources other than the tools to help you meet your goals (like online articles or suggested plans, etc). I couldn't stand this site's UI except for their graphs which are nicer than SparkPeople's graphs. It's very ads spammy -- they're blinking at you from everywhere.
Gyminee: Social networking, lots of pre-saved workout routines. Lots of articles (but the "latest" news was from February 2009). Videos of exercises. Nice, clean UI.
NutriDiary: Doesn't force you to sign up (you can sign in as a guest and take a little tour). Can log weight, food, exercise, body measurements, has reports so you can track progress. Also has a forum, but isn't as well frequented as my-calorie-counter's above. UI is minimal and ads are obvious, but not as obnoxious as on FitDay.
NutraWatch: Has a premium membership option for $14.95/year with limited functionality for free. You can't track your exercise log with the free membership. Some social networking: it allows you to create "teams", but these consist of people you know and add yourself. You can add notes to your entries. And they supposedly have an app you can download to your java/web enabled phone, but when I tried to download it, all I got was an error (I tried multiple times). Sucky UI and limited free functionality.
NutriMirror: My two test foods were not in the food db, and limited exercise options to choose from. UI mostly ok and has some nice graphs, but the right hand nav is atrocious.
MyFitnessPartner: Good food database, but the exercise adder isn't all that intuitive. Forums that look pretty active, weight & body measurement tracking, blog (but can't add notes directly to a meal).

Note: I don't have a relationship with any of these sites so my opinions are unbiased (as much as anyone's opinions can ever be unbiased). And my research consisted of signing up for all of these sites and trying to input my current day's data, and looking at all the available tools on any given site, as well as looking at the what else was available like graphs, articles, forums, etc.

Power Plates vindicated?

2009-05-08T15:58:00.000-07:00

Remember this?

The first time I caught wind of the Power Plate was when Madonna made headlines using it. A lot of people wrote it off as a fad. I was in Zurich shortly after that and the gym at the office had one of these. I stared at it and thought about using it, but never gave it a try.

A new study, though, has shown that vibrating plates may help weight loss and decrease abdominal fat.

The study involved 61 people (mostly women) who at the beginning had roughly the same amount of fat (they measured overall fat and abdominal fat) and about equally obese. They broke those people into 4 groups:

The first were on a dietician prescribed diet. They were asked to do no exercise.

The 2nd group were on a dietician prescribed diet and attended supervised classes where they partook in a conventional fitness routine including cycling, swimming, running, step aerobics, and some general muscle strengthening exercises.

The 3rd group were on a dietician prescribed diet and supervised vibration plate training. They were asked to do no aerobic exercise.

The 4th group was the control group and were not asked to change anything

The year long study started with 6 months of the fitness regiment noted above, followed by 6 months of asking the participants to try their best to maintain a healthy diet and exercise on their own without supervision.

They took body measures and CT scans of abdominal fat at the beginning, at 3 months, 6 months, and then at 12 months. As you would expect, only the 2 groups that incorporated exercise (conventional or vibrating plate) maintained weight loss at the end of the year (~5% reduction). What's more amazing, though, are the results of the fat loss:

Group	Weight loss (6m)	Weight loss (12m)	Visceral fat loss (6m)	Visceral fat loss (12m)
1. Diet only group	6%	< 5% *	24.3 cm² (3.76 in²)	7.5 cm² (1.16 in²)
2. Conventional exercise group	7%	6.9%	17.6 cm² (2.7 in²)	1.6 cm² (0.25 in²)
3. Vibrating plate group	11%	10.5%	47.8 cm² (7.4 in²)	47.7 cm² (7.39 in²)
4. Control group	-	gained 1.5%	-	-

* 5% weight loss is considered enough to improve health

I'm kind of impressed. For the amount of time the participants of the study were on the vibrating plate (11 - 14 minutes per session), those are some amazing results. But I would have liked to have gotten more details about the exercise regiments. The gap is so large in the amount of fat that was lost -- I wonder how rigorously the "general muscle strengthening" exercises were in the conventional exercise group. Muscle helps burn more fat so doing just cardio will build some muscle in people who don't regularly exercise and have just begun a routine, but without the weight training the results won't be as great. I don't imagine doing one day a week of general muscle strengthening (which sounds so vague) is really going to help develop much muscle.

Interested in getting one? See Power Plate related products on Amazon

Blueberries, blueberries!

2009-04-21T07:52:00.000-07:00

If you're food aware, then you probably already know that blueberries are good for you, but now there's preliminary research that may indicate its even better for you than you thought. More research needs to be done, but in a study with rats, they found that blueberries may reduce belly fat and decrease diabetes risk. Blueberries are chock full of naturally occurring antioxidants which is what scientists suspect is responsible for its health benefits.

Researchers fed rats that are specially bred to become severely obese either a low-fat or high-fat diet. Some rats got fed a diet that was 2% blueberry. And after 90 days, the rats that were on the blueberry enriched diet had less abdominal fat, lower cholesterol, and were better able to process glucose (diabetes results when the body can no longer properly process glucose). Both the low-fat and high-fat diet benefited from the addition of blueberries, but the health benefits were even greater when combined with a low-fat diet.

Those on the low-fat + blueberry diet had the additional benefits of being lighter, having less body fat, and a smaller liver (enlarged livers are linked to obesity and diabetes).

It's blueberry season! Add it to cereal or yogurt, make some low-fat blueberry muffins or whole grain blueberry pancakes (my favorite), and enjoy those little blue gems.

Get Fit and Save the World!

2009-04-20T12:13:00.001-07:00

Obnoxious title, isn't it? But think about it, being healthy is actually good for the planet. Achieving and maintaining my optimal body weight means I consume less food and therefore consume less resources that go into making the food I eat including raw materials like plants and livestock, and save on production costs and waste to make the food I eat, as well as transportation costs to get the food to the grocery stores where I shop and the restaurants I frequent.

This article, Keeping Slim Is Good For The Planet, Say Scientists claims that a lean population, like that in Vietnam, consumes almost 20% less resources and produces less greenhouse gases.

So go green; get fit!

It's all about mind over matter

2009-04-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

There's a new research article out about how energy drinks work in mysterious ways. Researchers took 1) glucose (a simple sugar), 2) maltodextrin (a tasteless carbohydrate), and 3) nothing, and they flavored them all with artificial sweeteners so they tasted the same.

Then they had endurance trained athletes complete a challenging time trial and had them rinse their mouths with one of the three drinks above. Those who rinsed with 1 or 2 (the sugar or tasteless carb) outperformed the athletes who rinsed w/3 (nothing) by 2-3%.

None of them drank the liquids so an intake of additional carbs wasn't what boosted their energy. Instead, receptors in their mouths simply sent a signal to their brains that lit up their pleasure center and this was enough to improve their performance (by making the effort seem less hard than it really was). So it really is all about mind over matter!

What is maltodextrin?

It's an easily digestible carbohydrate and is often used as a food additive (often as a thickener or filler). It's derived from starches (usually corn, potato, or rice in the US) and is a creamy white powder.

8 quick ways to get started eating healthier

2009-04-07T16:40:00.002-07:00

Here are 8 little things you can do to start immediately improving your nutrition. Even if you don't do all of them, starting with a few of these tips will have you feeling healthier in no time.

Eat a bigger breakfast. Don't stuff yourself, but make sure you get full. And if you don't already eat breakfast, start!
Have protein with breakfast: a veggie sausage patty, an egg, some nuts in your cereal.
Substitute white carbs w/brown. If this seems like a chore, you can start with just one meal.
Eat some veggies w/every meal even breakfast. I use baby carrots as my fall back veggie and cucumber slices are good for breakfast.
Have fruit for dessert to satisfy your sweet craving.
Substitute your sodas with water. Those empty calories can really add up.
Get the dressing on the side (and only use a little).
Have smaller meals and snack in between. It won't take long for you to realize you can be satisfied with a (much) smaller portion.

You're a womanizer, baby

2009-04-03T08:26:00.001-07:00

Yes, I admit, I like cheesy pop music. Here's another one of my current favorite workout songs:

Womanizer - Britney Spears

Good health doesn't just start on Mondays

2009-04-01T23:16:00.000-07:00

I'm doing a review of women's health magazines to post here and I just read something in Shape magazine that I thought was worth posting now. It's something my nutritionist taught me too -- if you fall off the wagon, just get back on it at the next meal. Don't wait until Monday to start your "diet" over. Don't tell yourself, oh, I f***ed up, let's go hog wild until tomorrow or Monday or whatever day you like to start your good habits on.

I used to do that -- it was part of my binge eating. If I ate too much at a meal, had too many sweets, I'd fall into this guilt hole and a guilt hole only gets deeper and deeper. First I'd beat myself up with what the hell is wrong with me that I can't control my eating. Then I'd tell myself, ok, well I've already screwed up this day so I'm going to "let" myself eat whatever I want and I'll start over tomorrow. Except tomorrow might not be any better. Or maybe it will, but the next week I might do it again.

Avoid the guilt hole

Don't feel guilty. Just don't. Sometimes you're going to give in to your cravings. Sometimes you'll overindulge. How awful is it to have a slice of birthday cake at a party? It's not that bad. If you've got a healthy diet full of whole grains, lean protein, and fruits and veggies, you might not even want to eat the cake, but if you do it's ok. Eating is a social thing and it's ok to participate.

Don't try to "make up" for a bad day

If you feel like you've indulged, don't try to make up for it by starving yourself at the next meal or the next day or at all. Feed your body when it's hungry. If you feed it good stuff, it won't tell you it's hungry again until it really is.

The best way to make up for overindulgence is to just forget about it and get back to your good eating habits at the next meal. Every time you eat, it's an opportunity to make good food choices. It's harder in the beginning to make good choices all the time, but you'll learn.

How I learned to love eat chicken

2009-03-31T22:59:00.000-07:00

I spent my early youth in middle America in a Korean household so I love cow and pig. And I don't mean as pets. But since I'm trying to eat more lean protein, I've forced myself to consume chicken.

I have this grotesque story about why I hate chicken. I won't tell it to you, but will just say that it involves cadavers, in a medical school, that reminded me of chicken. And I've never looked at chicken the same since. I detest the dry, tasteless texture of its white meat. It's sucks all the moisture out of my mouth. For a long time the only way I could eat it was if it was fried or nugget-ized.

Now that I'm older (and farther away from that traumatic experience), I can also eat it roasted (when it's done well and not dried out), or stewed for a long time (it's more moist when cooked like this, plus has a lot of flavor from the seasonings it's stewed in). And while both of those can be healthy ways to prepare chicken, they take a long time. I need something faster so lately I've taken to getting a chicken breast, pounding it flat with the flat end of a meat pounder, then pan grilling it in a little bit of oil for a quick protein fix. It just takes a few minutes to cook in the pan. I usually just season with a bit of salt and pepper, and maybe some lemon. Cooked this way, it is neither overly dry or overly yummy. But, I usually take the leftovers and do things to them that make it more edible.

How to make chicken edible if you don't like it

I cut it into tiny pieces and put it into a salad. You can hardly tell what it is once it's mixed in with everything else.
I take leftover (cooked) chicken breast, cut it into strips and saute some peppers and onions until soft and throw in the chicken just to warm it, then make a small burrito in a whole wheat tortilla. With the chopped onions, cilantro, salsa, avocado -- you can hardly taste the chicken.
Drown it in some sort of (healthy) sauce. I cut up leftovers into small bits (small bits really helps) and put them in a tomato sauce with lots of veggies and put it on top of whole wheat pasta. Can't taste the chicken at all!
I get legs or thighs (which are dark meat so juicier) and do a homemade shake-n-bake. I put flour, seasoned salt, miscellaneous dried herbs including rosemary into a large ziploc bag. Wash and dry the chicken legs and throw them in the bag, shake until they're all covered, and then bake for 30-40 minutes on 350°. It's a healthier version of fried chicken. If I'm feeling decadent, I'll eat the skin. If I'm being conscientious, I just remove it. The chicken is juicy and has enough flavor from the baking to make it edible.

I tried this chicken satay recipe the other day from Everyday Food. It was quick and easy to make, but only ok. I think next time I'll leave the garlic out. It did make for convenient protein snacks though. And I cut up leftovers for burritos, salads, and pasta sauce. I didn't try the peanut sauce because I didn't have any peanut butter (and it seemed a little too decadent) -- it looks yummy in the photo though.

Get Your Daily Calcium!

2009-03-19T11:49:00.000-07:00

I think this article on Science Daily, Diet Rich In Calcium Aids Weight Loss In People With Calcium Deficient Diets is another example of how your brain compensates for what it needs by sending your body hunger signals.

A group of researchers conducted a study with obese women, all of whom took in less calcium than the daily recommended allowance of 1000mg of calcium. All the women were on a low calorie diet, but only part of the group got 1200 mg of calcium every day. The control group took a placebo. At the end of the 15 week experiment the women on the calcium supplements lost almost 6kg (13.2 lbs) while those on the placebo only lost 1kg (2.2 lbs).

So get your daily calcium (I'm lactose intolerant; I drink soy)! And while you're at it, make sure to get enough sleep, reduce your stress, and drink enough water to quench your thirst. All of these things will artificially stimulate hunger. Your body has needs -- take care of them :)

Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load

2009-03-16T00:15:00.000-07:00

In my carbohydrate research, I came across glycemic index and glycemic load. I've heard of them, but didn't know enough about them so I thought I'd do some research and write another blog entry.

Glycemic Index

The glycemic index classifies carbs based on how quickly your body absorbs them (i.e how fast it raises your blood sugar level). It ranges from 1 - 100 with 100 being the fastest foods to digest. 55 or below is considered low so ideally you would choose foods in that range.

Examples of high GI foods are white bread, potatoes, refined breakfast cereals. Low GI foods include rolled oats (oatmeal), brown rice, whole wheat bread, kidney beans. These mostly align with simple carbs/complex carbs as discussed yesterday.

Glycemic Load

While glycemic index only takes into account a food's absorption rate based on a fixed amount of carbs (50g of carbohydrates of any given food), the glycemic load takes into account that the amount of carbs in a serving of food can vary greatly. The GL is calculated by dividing the GI by 100 multiplied by the carbs minus fiber (in grams) in a serving.

Sounds complicated, doesn't it? It took me a little while to get the hang of it, but think of nutrition labels and how they're split into carbs, fat, sodium, etc. One serving of say, hot tamales may be 40g, and 90% of a serving is carbs (36g carbs). So it is both high on the glycemic index and high in glycemic load.

On the other hand, a serving of cantaloupe is 100g, but only 8% of that serving is carbs (8.16g carbs) so it has a med-high glycemic index (65), but a low glycemic load (4).

Easy, peasy

Some sites say to ignore the GI and just focus on the GL and I think this is probably sound since GL is based on what you'll actually be eating than on fixed and equalized portions that aren't related to real serving sizes of foods.

Foods low in glycemic load are almost always low on the glycemic index. But foods with med-high glycemic loads can range from low to high on the glycemic index. Check out the links below to get a better idea about how different foods are rated.

References:

Home of the Glycemic Index: has a database where you search for foods.
Glycemic index list of common foods
Quick fact sheet about GI and GL
The Glycemic Index by David Mendosa. A lot of information and a lot of links. He also has a GI / GL chart of a variety of foods.
Nutrition data you can search for the nutrition data of different foods and it includes the GL for them.

Workout Music

2009-03-15T22:51:00.000-07:00

I'm always looking for new workout music. Here's a new fave:

right round by flo-rida

Carbs: A Love-Hate Relationship

2009-03-14T11:27:00.000-07:00

I'm a sugar junkie. I've always loved sweets and it's often my downfall when I'm trying to eat healthy. But why?

It's easier to blame one thing than to try to understand complexity, but your body and metabolism are unavoidably complex systems. There are lots of fad diets that tell you to avoid carbs altogether. I think fad diets are easy to spot, but any diet that says to completely ignore a specific kind of food is clearly a bad fad diet. Yes, they work in the short term, but they're not sustainable and your body will eventually "learn" to stop dropping weight. Anytime you make a drastic change to your diet or exercise, your body reacts. Cutting out carbs is a drastic change.

Why carbs feel good

There are two different types of carbs: simple carbs and complex carbs. Simple carbs contain simple sugars like fructose, dextrose, glucose or sucrose (pretty much any sugar ending in -ose including lactose) and are in foods like white bread, milk, syrup, table sugar, and fruit. Complex carbs have complex sugars (three or more linked sugars) and are found in whole grains, veggies, legumes, brown rice, etc.

Simple carbs are broken down and absorbed by your body pretty quickly which is why you get that "sugar rush". It breaks down into glucose, spiking your blood sugar level which prompts your pancreas to produce insulin to remove the excess sugar from your blood and that's when you have your sugar crash. Your body then craves more energy and you repeat the sugar craving cycle.

This is bad because you consume a lot of empty calories, but also because it encourages your body to horde its stores of body fat. Glucagon is the hormone that lets your stored body fat get released and used by your body as energy. While your pancreas is producing more insulin, it is also decreasing your glucagon production. So now you're hording body fat and increasingly ingesting sugar.

How are complex carbs better?

Complex carbs take longer to break down. This obviously makes sense since their sugars are more complex so your body has to do more work. So energy doesn't spike, it gradually increases and because your body is fueled slowly and more consistently, you feel satiated for longer periods of time.

Complex sugars are broken down into glucose which is used immediately, and into glycogen which your body stores in your muscles and liver for quick use when your body needs it. When your body has enough of both of these -- immediately available and stored fuel -- it works efficiently. Excess glycogen is stored in your adipose fat tissue and when you need a prolonged burst of energy, then your body starts to break down body fat to use as fuel for your body.

So what should I eat?

Complex carbs, of course! I know you're heard this a gazillion times -- eat whole grains: brown rice, wheat pasta, oatmeal, vegetables. Don't ignore all simple carbs though -- fruit and milk are good for you. But do try to avoid foods w/syrups in them like corn syrup, maple syrup and glucose syrup. And if you don't have a lot of options and have to have simple carbs, try to eat some protein with it -- it'll slow down the sugar rush a little.

References:

Simple Sugars vs. Complex Carbs by Brian Calkins. Also includes some food choice tips at the bottom.
Carbohydrates: Good Carbs Guide the Way by Harvard School of Public Health. Includes a lot of references.
Medline Plus Carbohydrates page: includes lots of links to other resources. The nutrition section was the most interesting (but most are PDF files).

Eating at the Airport Sucks

2009-01-26T19:26:00.000-08:00

I feel like I've only worked about 6-7 days in the last five weeks. Actually, I have only worked 6 days in the last 5 weeks. Otherwise, I've been using up vacation / corporate holiday days.

I've been on 3 trips in that time so I've been in the airport at least 6 times. And because I try to eat healthy, I eat smaller meals and I eat more often which means that pretty much whenever I'm in the airport or on a plane I'm going to need to eat. My last two trips have been about an hour / hour and 20 minutes long so short flights, but between the rush to get to the airport, the time spent at the airport and then flight time, I still need to eat.

Making food choices at the airport is hard. It's a balancing act between

price
quantity (I want a small portion of food so I don't waste)
and quality (healthy and nutritious)

Sometimes you have to trade in one for another. Sometimes I sacrifice a little quality for price or quality for quantity. Airport food is expensive and most of it is crap. Salads are relatively freely available. But if you're really hungry, a salad just isn't enough.

Tonight, I picked a single taco for $4.49. A salad would have cost me $9 - $12 and would've left me hungry. I contemplated a small cheeseburger and fries from McDonald's which is sort of default cheap, crappy food for me, but that seemed too heavy. And the taco came with lettuce, salsa and guacamole so at least some vegetation.

I'm pretty sure my food choice was less than stellar, but with all this travel, I haven't been at the top of my game and am way off routine. I haven't had a workout in a week. And my body and mind are definitely feeling it.

Women's skewed body views

2008-12-16T23:40:00.000-08:00

I read an article in W magazine about patients who are about to undergo plastic surgery and how they care less about how soon they'll be able to have sex again than they do about getting back to the gym. (See my other commentary on this article)

The article wasn't solely about women, but based on some of the quotes from the surgeons, I got the impression that they were mostly referring to their female patients (most men don't want to look like Angelina Jolie, and probably wouldn't need a note telling their partner they can't have sex for two weeks). Not to mention that just over 90% of the cosmetic procedures in 2007 were performed on women.

These patients' intense focus on going to the gym and health and nutrition above almost everything else scares me. Because it makes me wonder a little if I'm obsessed. I don't think I am. But they probably don't think they are either.

The difference between me and them is that they seem to have an unrealistic ideal of beauty that they are striving to achieve: to stay forever young and fit and tight and thin, and working out and eating "well" is only in the service of that goal.

My goal is to get healthy. Not to try to achieve some sort of preternatural aesthetic of physical perfection. I don't want to be a barbie doll to only be enjoyed as something to look upon. I want to be enjoyed by real people -- physically and emotionally. This means being healthy enough to interact with my friends and partner. I want to be able to take a long walk through the city (something I love doing), and go skiing in the winter and camping and hiking when it's warmer, have great sex with my partner, and have the energy to keep up with small children when they're around.

This also means not obsessing about how much I weigh (yes, I weigh myself every morning, but it's just for reference and to see how the food I eat affects my daily weight). I don't obsess about how fast I'm losing weight, nor am I starving myself, or trying to fit into one size or another. Being careful about what you eat isn't the same thing as being obsessed about being thin. I know a friend of mine can tell when I'm being healthy by how I eat and I think she thinks I'm being super anal and actually counting everything I eat. But I don't. My food diary seems detailed, but I make guestimates about sizes and servings.

Sometimes I think people hear that a woman is eating "carefully" or has a workout schedule, and they equate it to "diet" in their heads. The kind of diet they're thinking of is bad, but "diet" also just means the kinds of foods a person eats. And being concerned about one's health isn't the same as being obsessed with being thin.

Holiday weekend

2008-12-14T23:21:00.000-08:00

My friends and I do 2nd Thanksgiving every year so yesterday was 2nd Thanksgiving for me. Including the full thanksgiving meal. I probably ate a little bit more stuffing than I should have, but I didn't overeat too much. I even had two (small) slices of pie with fresh made whipped cream, but that was hours after dinner and only when I was ready for it.

Remember: no guilt. That includes not feeling guilty that I didn't make it to my weekend workout. Saturday was my rest day and today I should've done weights. Instead I walked around for hours doing Christmas shopping (productively, might I add :) and eating out all day long. I overate dinner tonight, but I think it's probably because I didn't eat quite enough earlier in the day.

One of the things I've noticed lately is that I only eat things if they taste good. Since I've paying more attention to what I eat and how much (being careful to only eat until I'm full and not over), I am less motivated to eat things that don't taste good (unless I'm really hungry and there aren't other options). So lunch and snack weren't that filling -- I ate them because I was hungry but I didn't eat enough to completely satiate my hunger (because I didn't find them that appealing).

I don't guilt myself about missing workouts. I don't miss one that often, but sometimes I do. I want to get to a point where I don't ever miss a workout because it's an integral part of my life, but right now I'm just at the start of trying to develop that habit and if I falter a little bit, as long as I get right back to it, it's ok. And I think I'm doing pretty well so far :)

I hate the elliptical machine (but do it anyway)

2008-12-13T00:20:00.000-08:00

About a month and a half ago I overheard a personal trainer say, "steady state cardio is a joke" which made me cringe because I love steady state cardio and because I already knew this was (mostly) true and I hate what it means. (I say "mostly" true because I don't think it makes sense to say steady state cardio is not beneficial for your body and I incorporate it into my workouts).

They (the experts) say your body is a clever little thing and learns to work with the least effort when confronted with the same task over and over again. For example, if you start running your body will work hard and see great benefits, but if you keep running, your body adapts and learns to do it more efficiently so your body benefits less from that run than it used to. So if you want to keep your body on its toes, so to speak, you need to change up your workout constantly.

Now, I'm a creature of habit so this just makes workouts even harder for me because now I have to workout and get creative about it. I accomplish this by not ever sticking to a routine. My strength training workouts are different every time I do them. I do different exercises, in a different order, focus on different muscle groups, etc.

I also make sure to mix up my cardio workouts, too. This is something I learned from my favorite personal trainer, but that I tended to "forget" until recently. Now I run, bike, use the elliptical machine, stair climber, and rowing machine, and usually do interval training where you change the intensity of the session with relatively short periods of high intensity, mixed in with your regular pace (aka recovery period). Sometimes, I let myself do a steady state run where I slowly increase my pace over the course of the run, but don't do the high intensity part (so my heart rate is kept in a pretty steady state -- the pace increase over the course of the run is pretty small). These runs I do to try to increase distance.

If my body could take it, every workout would be a run. Running is the only exercise I truly enjoy. I'm not a good or fast runner. I like a slow pace (right now my pace is about an 11-12 minute) and do a relatively short run (3 - 3.5 miles). When I started working out 2 months ago, I could only run about 2.5 miles comfortably. I don't like weights. I don't like the other cardio machines. Especially the elliptical machines. I go backwards on them (because my legs do most of their cardio in the forward motion -- another way to change things up). Going backwards on the elliptical is hard for me. It's probably why I hate it. But I do it anyway.

Some links

What is interval training?
Interval training is good, but it's not all that some people hype it to be. I like this article because it's also somewhat generally about not buying into "hype" of any kind. It's sort of ironic that the author's "fat loss bible" feels so overly hyped on its own website -- it's linked to from the bottom of his article.

Making food choices

2008-12-11T23:00:00.000-08:00

This is today's lunch. It's hard to make the right choices. That tempura broccoli could have been roasted broccoli. That lamb could have been fish. I could have skipped the tempura sauce (which was so salty and slightly sweet and yummy).

But it's hard to do everything perfectly at once. If there's one thing I'm really trying to stay focused on, it's not rushing to do everything right all the time. I'm learning to slowly change my habits. Because a slow and gradual change means a real change, not just a temporary modification of my habits, but actual change.

Right now, I'm focusing on trying to stay on "good" carbs (whole grains), and making my plate proportionately correct. This is more important to me at the moment than making sure I make good food choices all the time. If my vegetables are fried or dipped in sauce, that's ok. As long as fruits and veggies take up half my plate, and my rice or bread is brown instead of white :)

Drink lots of water (if you want)

2008-12-10T21:03:00.000-08:00

I love water. I drink almost exclusively water throughout the day. I mostly gave up coffee a short while ago because I felt like I was drinking too much of it and I was drinking it to try to stay awake and it wasn't helping (now I make sure to try to get enough sleep so I don't get sleepy). Now I have it only occasionally and it perks me up a little when I need it and I've replaced it with tea (usually green tea, sometimes black) when I want something hot to sip on.

I used to drink soda (I love Coke) for lunch, but I was doing it because I needed something sweet with the salty lunch foods I was eating. I switched to carbonated water at lunch times, and if I need something sweet with my meal I'll have some fruit or some fresh fruit juice (we have agua fresca in one of our cafes). But I've also realized that if I eat less salty foods, I don't crave the sugar to compensate for it, so I avoid salty foods if I can (though I love my salt, too :)

I was trying to do some research about how drinking water is great. I found this great list of reasons to drink water, and then I found NPR's Five Myths about Water which sort of negates most of the first list. I think the main take away though is to drink water when you want to. It's ironic because I think a lot of us have grown up with the 8 glasses a day rule.

I drink water because I like it (and because I thought we needed 8 glasses of it a day :). I get thirsty really easily so I drink a lot of it and drinking water keeps me from drinking something else that has extra calories and sugar in it. It also helps me keep hydrated and sated -- thirst can sometimes be confused with hunger and if you're trying to eat only when you're really hunger, it's useful to keep potentially confusing signals at bay.

What I Learned from my Nutritionist

2008-12-08T22:57:00.000-08:00

I spent 12 weeks working with a nutritionist last year. My employer offered the MD Health Evolution program on campus so I spent 12 weeks in once weekly half hour sessions meeting with and talking to a registered nutritionist. What I learned from that program has always stuck with me.

Don't feel guilty

One of the biggest things I learned from the program was to not feel guilty about food. If I overeat one meal or one day, or for a week, I wasn't to feel guilty about it. Because feeling guilty didn't do anything for me. Being conscientious about what I ate and why I was eating were more important than making myself feel guilty about eating.

I used to binge eat

I've never had serious, life harming food issues, but I also used to binge eat. Some nights I'd eat everything sweet and salty I could get my hands on. I'd eat until I made myself sick sometimes. I never made myself vomit afterwards, but I did have an awful tummy ache and worse, felt really, really guilty about it. I didn't understand why I did it and wasn't able to stop myself from doing it.

I used to think I just didn't have enough self control, but I think I just didn't know how to eat. I don't ever binge eat anymore. And it's not even something I have to stop myself from doing; I just don't want to do it anymore. I think I learned to eat so that my body gets the nutrition it needs and wants and doesn't crave much of anything anymore.

Eating for balance

I learned a lot of nutritional information too, of course. How to estimate servings, how to choose foods that helped my body feel sated and kept my blood sugar level more even. Every day I look at my plate and try to keep it colorful and mixed with carbs and proteins and vegetables galore.

One tip that I consistently use when deciding on what to eat is something my nutritionist taught me: imagine your plate in 4ths. 1/4th should be a serving of carbs (preferably whole grain carbs that metabolize slower and don't spike your blood sugar levels), 1/4th should be a serving of protein (preferably low fat protein), and 1/2 of your plate should be vegetables. (This doesn't mean that an entire 1/4th of your plate should be covered in carbs -- this is just a rough proportion rule for a balanced meal).

Getting Started

2008-12-04T21:56:00.001-08:00

I used to love working out. Even when I'd take months off, it wasn't that difficult to start going again. But, maybe it's because I'm older, I had a really, really hard time getting back into it this last round. I used to be able to throw myself back into a heavy workout schedule, but not this time.

I eased myself into it

I tried to throw myself back at the gym, full force with the intensity I'd work out with if I was 10 years younger. I hated it, got too tired, and after a couple of weeks, just didn't want to go.

So I adjusted my schedule. I don't like weight training so I told myself that all I had to do was do 30 minutes of cardio every other day. For me this was doable. And because I wanted to make a lifestyle change, I wanted to make sure that:

I didn't work out so hard that I'd burn out
it didn't take up so much time that I begrudged it
it didn't become something I felt like I had to drag myself to.

Your favorite activities might differ

Easing into it probably means different things to different people. Maybe you would rather start off with 20 minutes of cardio 3 times a week. Or 15 minutes of cardio every 2 days. Whatever your initial routine is, make it easy. If you don't like cardio and have another activity you like (for example, I don't like weights; I prefer cardio, but maybe you prefer strength training to cardio, or maybe it's yoga or step classes) -- it doesn't matter which activity you start with, just make it something you like to do (or if you hate exercise completely, just make it something you're willing to do) and make it often enough so that you feel like you're starting to get a workout without imposing too much on your life.

It doesn't matter how long it takes

I stuck to my every other day of cardio for a couple of weeks. I'm a strong person and have years of past workout experience so it doesn't take my body too long to get into the working out routine. But it might take someone else a month or two or more to get into the rhythm of it. It doesn't matter how long it takes you to move to the next step. Just keep to your schedule and be consistent.

I think goals are important, but adjusting those goals isn't a bad thing -- especially when you're trying to makes changes that you'll stick with for life. The first couple of weeks I tried to start working out again, I failed. I made my goal too hard and got too exhausted and started to resent having to go to the gym. If you have to ratchet your goal down and try it again, don't make yourself feel guilty about it. Just keep at it -- it won't take long for your body to begin to get used to the routine and to benefit from it.

I am not a doctor

Before you start any exercise regimen, you should consult your doctor. I am not a doctor or an expert on any subject, and my opinions are only my opinions. If you really care about your health and want to get started on solid footing, see your doctor first.

Keeping a Food Diary

2008-12-03T23:55:00.000-08:00

It seems obsessive, doesn't it? Keeping tabs on when I eat and how much and what, but I find that what used to look like an overwhelming task is actually a pretty easy thing to do. It also keeps me aware of what I eat and how often because I have to take a mental inventory of it in order to put it in my food diary.

My biggest problem is overeating. No matter how much I work out, I still feel heavy because I overeat. Any time I eat past the point of being hungry or eat when I'm not hungry, I'm overeating.

Like when I eat something just because it tastes good (and not because I'm hungry), or when I save my favorite food item until the end because I want to savor it last (which means I force myself to eat everything else first whether I really want it or not), or when I eat mindlessly while distracted (watching TV or a movie or reading).

Keeping a food diary makes me really think about what and how much food I put in my mouth. I still overeat -- more than I'd like to, but now I know when I do. And I write it down anyway.

In a study by Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, people that kept a food diary doubled their weight loss. All other factors being the same, those who kept a journal and recorded their food intake lost twice as much weight -- just from the personal awareness the food diary gave them. That's powerful stuff :)

My current food diary.