Don't Hold Your Breath

We breathe by nature. We don't have to think about it.

What would happen if we didn't breathe?

Of course, if we could hold our breath long enough we would die. But long before that we would be building up the supply of carbon dioxide in our system. Carbon dioxide is the waste product we exhale.

Carbon dioxide is also the chemical the food industry uses to put the "POP" into our soda--the bubbles.

Just another reason to forgo soda...why do we drink something that is going to put more waste product into our body. That's kind of like eating...well a special ingredient that was featured in a recent, popular book and movie!

Wikipedia has more information about carbon dioxide and how it works in our body, and how it is used in products today.

Seriously, soda just adds chemicals, sugar and gas to our system...and many have caffeine on top of that. All of this does lead to more cravings (the sugar-free kind is shown to make us want more sweets and to become accustomed to sweeter foods.)

I'm not saying it is easy! I think I am actually fortunate that I am allergic to Aspartame...that really helped me to kick the diet soda habit. Since I knew I didn't want to be drinking all that sugar I switched to water (okay, and coffee!) years back.

I still love my coffee and I have a soda once in a blue moon...but mostly I drink lots, and lots, of water! I attribute much of my weight loss success to this healthy habit.

Weight Loss Secret: Treat Yourself Like Your Car

I recently heard from a young man who said he knew he would lose weight even if he ate snacks and treats all the time as long as he burned more calories than he ate. He went on with some extensive math calculations on how many calories the average sedentary person burns and how he will be able to lose weight by adding some additional exercises and dropping his calorie intake to under 2000 per day.

My first reaction is, Heaven help this guy...I wonder if he has ever tried to diet before?

Begin healthy and losing weight is not just a math equation...and certainly not a simple one! First of all, there is no "average" person...we are all unique and we react differently to different foods, exercise and moods.

Second, even if you caloric intake is low, you can not heal your body and create healthy, lean tissues if you eat junk food all day long.

Rather than counting calories and trying to figure out the math of losing weight, treat your body at least as well as you would your vehicle. You wouldn't put sugar in your car's gas tank and expect it to run, would you? No, you give your car the proper grade gasoline and oil that it requires. You keep the radiator filled. You check your battery. You inflate the tires to get the best mileage.

Your body is a fantastically complex machine and deserves similar treatment. Give your body good quality fuel, as in lean protein, complex carbs, healthy fats. Drink plenty of pure water (filter it yourself and save money and the environment) to help keep your system flushed and well regulated. By eating small amounts fairly often you keep your battery charged and like putting your car on cruise-control you can keep going and going without the roller-coaster ride of sugar rushes and crashes.

Quit counting calories and keep yourself on the highway of life, looking good and cruising by eating the right foods every day!

Strategy 10 for Curbing Emotional Eating

Like strategy #8, reading labels, this strategy is a habit that I developed years ago as part of my weight loss success plan. I've been pleasantly surprised to find that it also helps me curb my emotional eating.

Strategy #10: Water

I drink a lot of water. I don't drink much else. I do enjoy coffee in the morning and herbal tea from time to time--especially in the winter, but I mostly drink water.

So that's a healthy strategy...but how does water curb emotional eating?

It doesn't...not really...well, maybe it does...let me explain.

If you drink lots of water one of the benefits is that it flushes a bunch of toxins out of your body. That's great news. That way if (when) we do eat for emotional reasons, drinking water will help minimize the negative effects that the overeating has on our body. That's really great news.

Drinking water also helps keep you feeling fuller, so you actually have less room to pack in food. How much can you put in your stomach if you are sloshing with water? Not as much...so it can cut down on the amount of emotional eating you do.

The other way that drinking water can help with emotional eating is if you tend to drink alcohol. Drinking alcohol can loosen up your inner food warden and you might find that you are eating more food and higher calorie food then you would if you didn't have the booze. So by drinking more water, even if you choose to booze, you are diluting the effects of the alcohol, which can help keep you in better control of what you eat.

So, does water help curb emotional eating? I'm going to say yes, and even if it really doesn't, it has enough other good benefits that it still deserves to be in the top 10 strategy list!

Natinal Nutrition Month: Healthy Drink Choices for Weight Loss Success

In honor of National Nutrition Month, yesterday we talked about ways to drop 15 pounds in a year by cutting empty calories out of our diet pretty painlessly.

You may be wondering what you should drink instead that won't be filled with those empty calories.

I've said it before, but the absolute best thing to drink is good, clean, pure water. It is truly the only liquid the human body needs (as opposed to what we want!) We can live quite a long time without food...it turns out most of us could actually live for a couple of weeks without food--even though we sometimes feel like we are going to die without it after just a few hours. But water? Although there are reports of some people living through earthquakes and such and surviving for a week without water, most people will die after just 3 days without water.

I filter my water, which saves me money over buying bottled water and I don't use a lot of plastic bottles that way either. If you still can't drink enough water, add just a splash of 100% fruit juice to your glass of water. I start my day with lemon juice in water...I love the taste and find it refreshing and energizing. Keep in mind that all fruit juice (even 100% juice) contains sugars. Choosing 100% fruit juice ensures that there is no ADDED sugar, but fruit itself has natural sugar in the form of fructose. This is easier for your body to absorb, but if you want to lose weight successfully you want to be aware of all the sugars you are ingesting. Have most of the fruit you take in be in the form of food...so you also get all the fiber (which helps you feel full) and other good stuff that fruits have to offer!

Tea is another good choice because it is mostly water. Your risk of having a heart attack may be reduced by as much as 11% if you drink 3 or more cups of tea every day. Green tea may be better for us than black, but the most important thing about drinking tea is to take it without sugar or milk, especially without milk. The beneficial element found in tea is called "catechins" (pronounced cat-ih-kins) and these are made less active when combined with the proteins found in milk.

And coffee (black) is not the evil thing that we had heard about in the past for most of us. In fact, a cup or two may also have some health benefits including reducing your chances of developing colon cancer, Parkinson's disease and type 2 diabetes.

If you are used to drinking soda, you may want to wean yourself away from it...especially if your drink choice has been loaded with caffeine. Otherwise you may suffer from withdrawal, including headaches, fatigue or the jitters. Replace one serving at a time with water to help flush out your system. Don't rely on diet drinks--they may not have calories but they have their own set of problems and can actually hinder successful weight loss!

Weight Loss Tip: Drink Water

Okay, I know you've heard this before...from me (Dec 2008, Oct 2008, and Aug 2008) and from loads of other folks...but it really is true.

Water does a lot of good for our bodies, including keeping our skin more supple and helping us to feel more full without feeling stuffed.

Not everyone finds drinking water to be an easy habit to adopt...it can be especially hard if you are used to drinking things with loads of flavor or sugar. If that is the case you can ease into drinking more water by trying some herbal teas. Let them steep for a long time so you get loads of flavor.

Amanda Wicker, a fellow Lovelander, a weight loss inspiration and success story (she has lost 130lbs) wrote recently that she had a hard time getting enough water and felt it was a chore. I thought it would be good to share her perspective on drinking water.

"I found that I had to change my mind-set about it. When I started thinking about water as the conductor to flush fat and toxins out of my body, I was actually excited to drink my daily water."

This is an important point--we must change our mindset in order to lose weight. If we continue to think about them in the same way, we will have the same results.

Amanda points out some more benefits to drinking water:

• Helps control hunger and cravings
• Enhances fat loss
• Boosts metabolism
• Helps us look younger
• Flushes toxins from our bodies
• Key to disease prevention

Amanda's tips to increase your water

• Have a water bottle for home, car and work
• Add a piece of fruit or mint to your water for a splash of flavor
• Drink from a straw, it helps you drink more in a shorter amount of time
• Drink a glass of water before each meal, it will curb hunger and increase hydration
• Order water instead of soda at a restaurant

Amanda notes:

"We are literally exposed to hundreds of harmful substances daily. Our air, our foods and everything we touch has traces of harmful chemicals. Unfortunately, we can't keep toxins from getting into our bodies, but we can help our bodies get rid of them with water. Most of the degenerative diseases are the result of toxins building up in the body."

Tap water vs Bottled water

Water can be one of your best health and weight loss tools...but there is the ongoing debate over tap versus bottled water. Most tap water has a lot of chlorine in it...it will test "safe" but I don't like the way it smells or tastes. You might not even be aware of it--but that in itself may keep you from drinking enough water. Water should not have an odor or taste. Buying bottles of water can be expensive and it results in lots of little plastic bottles around which is not good for our environment. I recommend filtering your water rather than buying those expensive bottles...you get the same clean water without all the plastic.

So drink up! To your health and the health of our planet!

Remember to Drink Water

During the summer it is pretty easy for me to drink a lot of water. In the winter it is more challenging. We tend to spend more time indoors and less time being physically active outdoors. Since we're not hot and sweaty, a big glass of refreshing water may not be the first thing that comes to mind!

However, it is just as important during the winter months to keep hydrated, and good, pure water is the absolute best way to do that.

Not only is water crucial for our bodies to function at their peak, keeping hydrated helps our brains operate efficiently and clearly, and it also helps our skin to look its best. If that isn't enough, drinking ample water helps us feel fuller so we don't overeat! Especially helpful with all the holiday treats that are around this time of year!

Tips on getting your winter water allocation--

• Have a water glass or bottle on your desk
• Drink water at room temperature so you don't chill your body
• Add a small amount of pure fruit juice to a glass once in a while for variety--try a little apple juice and pretend you are having cider! (with a lot fewer calories!)
• Drink herbal tea (no caffeine)...it'll count for your water intake, comes in lots of flavors and is zero calories. If you want to sweeten it, get Stevia.
• Invest in a water filter so that you have plenty of clean, pure water available all the time. Use this filtered water for drinking straight and also for your tea.
  

Drink Water to Lose Weight

Drinking water is one of the biggest tips I can share with anyone trying to lose weight.

Invest in a filter! It is important that your water taste good and not have a lot of chemicals in it. A filter, whether on your faucet, a counter top container, or one in the frig, will pay for itself in a short period of time instead of buying bottled water.

Most tap water in the US is considered "safe" to drink. And it may be. For me, the taste and smell of the chlorine was too much. Not bad for an occasional glass, but I drink almost a gallon of water a day and it was upsetting my stomach.

If you think you don't like water--try some pure, filtered water. It can make all the difference.

You don't have to drink a gallon like me, but it won't hurt you either! I actually prefer water to just about anything else. And I used to drink a 6 pack of diet soda a day!

Why does water help you lose weight? One reason is that we eat less if we are drinking water. Many times when we eat it is because we are actually a bit (or a lot) dehydrated. In other words, we are thirsty! So rather than eating to get the water content out of the food, go direct to the source. At zero calories that is hard to beat!

We also eat less when we drink water because we feel fuller. The water takes up some space in our digestive system, so we have a comfortable sense of fullness and don't feel the need to fill up on food.

Another reason drinking water helps us lose weight is it helps to flush our systems. It keeps things running smoothly and cleans out the bad stuff. Just like flushing your car's radiator, drinking lots of good water on a regular basis keeps our systems nice and clean and our body is better able to regulate itself!

Food Journals Bring Awareness

Being aware of what you are eating now is key to being able to make small changes.

If you haven't already done this, get yourself a small notebook and do this exercise. Write down everything you eat and drink throughout the day. I mean everything. Every piece of gum and glass of water, too.

The goal is to bring a level of awareness to what you are putting in your mouth.

You won't have to write this journal forever. Commit to it for a two week period. Some people get so much out of this process they choose to continue it. For now, you don't have to decide that--just commit to two weeks.

This will give it enough time to cover a lot of unexpected events and emotions. I also suggest you write why you ate--it doesn't have to be a long explanation, a simple "lunch with friends", or "co-worker's birthday", or "felt depressed" will suffice. Especially write if there were physical or emotional triggers that caused you to eat.

This journaling period is not intended to restrict your eating. The point, again, is to bring to your consciousness what you really are eating and drinking. I remember the first time I did this I was SHOCKED to see just how many Oreo cookies I ate. I thought for sure someone else was eating most of the cookies. Nope, it was me.

By including the water you drink, you can also become aware of that habit and so you will know if you would be better off drinking more water in the future (most of us would be) or if you are already good at this habit.

The Importance of H20

Keeping hydrated is sometimes underrated. I happen to actually love drinking water, so it generally isn't a problem for me. However, I have talked to many people lately who say they don't "like" water, or they can't drink as much as is recommended, or they think drinking water will make them bloat so they stay thirsty, or they think drinking coffee and soda all day is the same as drinking water.

Starting from the back of the list, coffee and sodas are not water. They may be mostly water (or sugar) but they have other ingredients that actually can cause worse dehydration. Ingredients like caffeine and sugar, for example. For me, I gave up sodas years ago when saccharine was banned. From time to time I will have a sugar-laden soft drink, but it is so rare that I doubt my overall health is affected. Just like anything else, you can have it once in a while, it is the habitual consumption that really causes problems. And, I do drink water--about a gallon every day!

That leads to the next belief, that drinking water will cause bloat. The opposite is actually true. If you restrict your water intake then you body will hold onto the water it has. That is what causes bloat and swelling. The best way to combat the bloat is to increase your water intake!

If you are one of those who just doesn't "like" water, I have a couple of suggestions. First, it could be that you are drinking tap water, and while it is probably safe, it may have chlorine and other chemicals in it. These chemicals are added to our water to make them "safer." I have found that I am very sensitive to the smell and taste of these chemicals. So even "really good" tap water is difficult for me to drink.And remember, I LIKE to drink water! Real water should actually have no taste to it.

So try filtering your water. I use a Brita filter and find that it works great. There are other fancy options for purifying or oxygenating your water. They may be worth it, but for me right now, the price puts it into a "not at this time" category.

If that doesn't work for you, try adding a little squirt of lemon into your water. Or try another fruit juice...just add a little splash. Don't buy the premade drinks in the store. They'll have more sugars and cost you lots more money!

Finally, check the temperature of your water. I like water about room temperature, I find that I cannot drink as much water if it is very cold--it will actually upset my stomach. The exception is if it is extremely hot and I will be outside. Then I will want my water chilled--but that is only partly for thirst, it is also for temperature control and replacing the water I have been sweating out!