Tag Archive | Weight Loss

Walking Works! Start Today!

Feb16

This is just a quick comment to say once again that walking works. This isn’t about food addiction, but it is about being overweight and losing weight.

I had lunch with a friend of mine the other day. We taught in the same classroom a few years ago and we still meet for lunch from time to time, less often than we did when we taught in the same school.

Debby is retiring from teaching this year, along with her husband who is also a teacher. After more than thirty years in the school system, they will be moving into their retirement home in North Carolina is just a few months.

I was thrilled to see her, as usual. She looked fabulous. As we looked at pictures of their new home in progress, she told me she had lost more than forty pounds.

She said that she and her husband walk together every day and that he had lost over thirty pounds himself . Obviously, the walking is working. I envied her having a constant walking buddy.

I see retirees out walking all the time. I used to think about how they have all the time in the world to walk, but it’s really about making the commitment and sticking to it.

Even though the semi-retired and working folks have other things to do, getting out there and moving is very important. The discipline of taking thirty or forty-five minutes out of your busy day to go for a walk will be greatly rewarded.

As we age, we gain weight. Our bodies shift and respond differently to our lifestyles. We have to be more diligent in the way we take care of ourselves.

Things get harder to do when we get older. Walking is something most everyone can do, but you have to make time for it.

Regular people–short and tall, thin and thick, old and young–benefit from daily walks. The sooner you start, the stronger you will be when age tries to slow you down.

Add walking to your to-do list every day, and start working on your own success story.

It’s Never Too Late to Be Great!

Walk Away From Fat

Feb14

Sometimes you just have to walk away. Easy to say, hard to do. Many if not most food addicts are fat. The problem with that is that we have a hard time walking away from food.

You have a food addiction, you get stressed, you get upset, and you eat. There is no walking away from food when you’re a food addict. If you could do that, food addiction wouldn’t be a problem.

Still, that doesn’t mean you can’t fight the good fight against fat, one of the “side effects” of food addiction. And you can walk away from fat.

In fact, walking is the easiest way to take off those extra pounds. I don’t mean speed walking or pounding the pavement so hard that you fall to the ground grabbing your gut after 30 seconds.

I mean easy, slow at first, constant paced walking while breathing in through your nose for four steps–it makes your stomach stick out when you do it–and out through your mouth for two steps–you’ll feel your stomach tighten. It’s a good feeling.

Don’t worry about how many calories you are burning. Just walk, and focus on your breathing.

Walk every day if you can. If you can’t walk outside, use a treadmill if possible. Most of all, be consistent so walking will become a habit.

Start with five or ten minutes if that’s all you can do. Don’t overdo, especially at first. You want your daily walk to become a habit so you will do it every day.

Start small and work your way up to 45 minutes or an hour. That’s all it takes, but if you want the best results, you have to do it every day.

Not to worry, though, because as your body gets used to this new invigorating activity, you will feel better, sleep better, and have more energy. Pretty soon, you’ll want to walk every day.

Measure your progress in inches, not pounds. You will be amazed at how this simple activity, when done consistently and thoughtfully, will change your life.

Walking is great for coping with stress, and when you breathe properly, walking will be an aerobic activity which burns fat rather than an anaerobic activity which burns sugar.

You want to burn fat. So lace up your most comfortable and supportive athletic shoes and hit  the road.

It’s Never Too Late to Be Great!

Pucker Foods for Food Addicts

Jan31

Are you ready to pucker up and kiss some of that emotional overeating, food addiction fat good-bye? Well, these two foods will definitely help you in that department. And they’re good for you, but you probably don’t want to hear that.

Food addicts and over-eaters of all kinds often don’t care if a food is good for you or not–at least not in the addiction state. We just eat whatever is there, as long as it’s very salty or very sweet or very something to match the intense emotions we feel when we eat helplessly.

But hey, we have our sane moments when our emotions are okay. It is in those moments that we have the opportunity to do things that support our body’s needs. It’s a chance you don’t want to pass up.

Lemons and vinegar are two really effective fat-burners and here’s why. They help you get your body out of its acid state  into alkalinity.  That’s when healing takes place. You can’t heal anything in an acid state. When you’re dealing with too many plumped up fat cells, your body is under duress, and it needs to heal.

I have two lemon trees in my back yard. This year, I’m really making the most of them. Lemons are great. I use half a fresh lemon in a glass of iced tea a few times a day. I drink a lot of iced tea. And I use the pink stuff. I confess.

You can squeeze one or two lemons over chicken or fish before you put it in the oven or on the grill. You can also just use a slice of lemon in water if you’re not nuts about the blank flavor of water. It does make a difference in the taste. And your body will thank you for it.

Another great food is vinegar. My favorite is balsamic vinegar. I put it on fish when I bake it and use it in stews and baked beans, as well. Vinegar also takes the acid out of things.

If you use balsamic vinegar on meat and fish when you’re baking it, or even in a pot roast or chili, you will find that you won’t have gas or get heartburn.

There’s no need to stuff yourself with good food. It  defeats the purpose of eating angry panic foods to stuff down your feelings like we do when we are stressed and uncomfortable.

Good food is a treat. And while you may add one of these two liquids for damage control, you’ll love what it does for your food and your body.

If you like baked fish, like New England Scrod or Alaskan Salmon as I do, squeeze a generous amount of fresh lemon juice and balsamic vinegar over your fish before you put it in to bake. You will be amazed at the incredible sauce the combination makes. Of course, it makes any fish taste fabulous.

The combination also works well on sweet red and orange  peppers. Bake the pepper strips until they look like they’ve been fried.

No fat and so delicious, you can eat them as a snack if you bake them long enough. Pay attention to the aroma so you’ll know when to take them out. Imagine eating something that tastes as good as potato chips and doesn’t give you heartburn or gas.

I hope you’ll give it a try. Sometimes little changes in our daily meals can make all the difference in the world.

New Thinking for Food Addicts

Jan5

One of the best ways to get past an over-dependency on food is to start thinking about it in a new way. There is a process to achieving any goal.

First, you think it. Then you learn it. And finally, you do it.

Inner speech is very important in the “Think it” stage. What we tell ourselves inside is more than likely to occur in our outside life, since we tend to attract that which we focus on.

For someone who is trying to lose weight and fighting a food addiction at the same time, there is a war of words going on inside your head. That makes it pretty hard to get the right message to your heart.

Without that message of self-love and support, you’re pretty much doomed to failure. You may not want to hear it, but that’s the way it usually works out.

So, here’s my two cents about how you think of yourself when you have some weight to lose and you’re struggling with a food addiction or if you tend to use food as a coping mechanism when you get stressed out emotionally as I do.

I don’t want to feel good about being fat. I know all about self-esteem. I teach workshops on it. Most people look at me and have no earthly idea of how my extra 30 pounds affect my life.

What I want is to be healthy and fit, because when I am, I feel good about everything. And I don’t have to lose all the weight I need to in order to get into the size I want to feel that way.

I’ve already started feeling like it now that I’ve  resumed my daily walks. I walk at a comfortable pace, breathing in for four steps and out for two steps. Sometimes I use the treadmill–same breathing pattern though.

That easy walking has already burned off 6 of  the 10 pounds of fat  I gained over the holidays. Boy that food was good, and I really enjoyed it. I’m not sorry I ate it, but now it’s time to get back on track.

In my opinion, it’s okay to eat holiday foods that you don’t eat all year round, as long as you don’t bring them home with you. I especially love the cookies and fudge.

I eat junk food more carefully when I eat out. But it would be unwise for me to keep addictive foods in my house because when I experience panic stress, I’d devour them.

At home, I prefer to eat healthier foods. They just make me feel better than foods that make me bloated and uncomfortable.  I have to admit that  I like the lighter feeling better.

I have come to realize that I may never lose all 30 of the pounds I’d like to shed, or maybe I will. What I do know for certain is that I can keep within 20 pounds of my ideal weight while I’m moving in that direction. And for me, for now, that’s acceptable.

In my next blog, I’ll talk about the “Learn it” phase.