Send Email

If you’re like most dieters you’re very conscientious about the foods you eat, and, of course, that’s important.  But equally important are the thoughts you choose to feed your mind.  Here are some tips for empowered thinking that will strengthen and support you through your weight loss journey!

As the Golden Globe Awards approach, it is time to give credit, where credit is due.  The beginning of the year will be full of new diet commercials, but before they pave the way for new jokes and water cooler conversations, let’s recall the stupidest diet commercials of the year.  From a male leotard to bikini clad socialites, get ready to celebrate.

A sign once hanging in Albert Einstein’s Princeton University office read, “Not everything that counts can be counted; not everything that can be counted counts.”  As Calorie Counters, we know that calories do indeed count as one of the most important metrics for managing body weight and overall health. But what other types of data can we track about our bodies and daily lives to better improve our health, productivity, and happiness? And is it possible to go too far?

Recipe for Overeating

Ingredients:

• 1 batch, bag, box, or large plate of food
• 2 tablespoons of deprivation
• 1 heaping teaspoon of guilt
• Sprinkle of shame
• Optional: fatigue, stress, resentment, loneliness, boredom

Directions:

Is it a given that as you age, you will gain fat and lose muscle?  Not necessarily.  “It’s true that after age 40, you naturally lose muscle mass--up to eight percent per decade” says Vonda Wright, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon and author of Fitness After 40. “The good news is that although muscles can deteriorate with time, studies show muscle atrophy is reversible at any age.”  So how can you avoid a muscle midlife crisis? The answer is simple: use it or lose it.

What Shay said....

Everyone heads home for their “reveals.” Let me tell you, it is so weird to sit in that car and wait to reveal your new self to your family and friends. I am sure it is much different when you are going home as a final four than when you go home “eliminated,” but I think no matter how you get home it’s completely nerve-wrecking!

Listen to the rest.

As we’ve talked about in the past, enormous serving sizes and the deeply-ingrained mentality we have to “clean” our larger-than-average plates are some of the subconscious factors responsible for our overeating habits.  New research shows that there are additional visual cues which affect our sense of hunger and likelihood to gorge.  These subtle visual “tricks” used by restaurants and food manufacturers are leading us to buy (and eat) more and more without even realizing it.  Have you fallen into these traps?

A Course in Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever, by New York Times bestselling author Marianne Williamson, is probably the only book you need to help you lose weight permanently. This brilliant book boldly speaks to the fundamental truth about weight loss: to release excess weight from your body you must release the toxic weight from your spirit. And Williamson, whose works are based on the concepts explained in A Course in Miracles, shows you how.

What Shay said…

It’s week 11! Wait, really? Yeah it is! I almost forgot what week it was, but really after makeover week everything seems to blend together! So this week Alison drops the bomb that the deadly RED line is back and that two people are going home, which will whittle down the house to the final four. Every time that red line rears its ugly head everyone in the house goes BANANAS! You see crazy workouts, crazy focus and attention to every morsel. It really takes everything up a few notches. Even Bob and Jillian get the red line fever and they start making every single rep a last chance workout.

Listen to the rest.

Ever had a Thanksgiving dinner that tasted like sawdust? If we were living in one of the many futures predicted in the pages of Popular Mechanics in the first half of this century, you might be looking forward to a Thanksgiving dinner made of sawdust. This and many other hilarious and often prescient predictions are collected in The Wonderful Future That Never Was, a gloriously illustrated book just published by Hearst.

What Shay said...

So this week was the ever anticipated makeover week on the Biggest Loser. It is when all the guys who have chowchillas growing on their faces get a clean shave and get a little metro and the girls get an awesome celeb touch of highlights and hotness to show so much less of themselves off to their family and friends! By week 10 most people have already had a dramatic transformation in the weight loss department so to be able to fully see it with attire and all is a confidence booster for sure.

Listen to the rest.

As much I love all the special holiday meals, I know there’s an invisible line that separates a great celebration with wonderful food from an afternoon of discomfort and regret. I have to constantly remind myself that I live in a land of abundance where turkey and potatoes are available year round and food will always taste good.

Eating the right amount of food isn’t about being good. It’s about feeling good. Why eat until I’m miserable? 

Losing weight by snacking on candy bars instead of celery sticks may sound too good to be true, but convincing research from a few creative nutritionists is out to prove otherwise. Before you start unwrapping those snack cakes, be warned these junk food diets aren’t always as magical as they seem. Get past the hype and headlines by taking a closer look into two of these high-profile studies.

What Shay said...

We’re all familiar with some of the ways different foods affect our bodies, such as how dairy products can help build strong bones, or how a diet high in sodium can lead to high blood pressure.  Yet, we rarely consider how eating impacts our brains’ functions, including how we learn, age, think and feel.  A new book by Dr. Gary Wenk of The Ohio State University called “Your Brain on Food: How Chemicals Control Your Thoughts and Feelings” explores some of the many ways foods and spices can have profound effects on the most complex and remarkable organ in our body.