If there is one fact in my profession that every client knows, but doesn’t “know,” it’s this: You’re not perfect.

You’re going to struggle. You’re going to have bad days. You’re going to eat more than you planned on eating, and you’re going to feel like doing nothing sometimes. It’s not a matter of “if.” It’s “when.” And after helping more than 1,000 people lose weight, I can tell you “when” is usually Friday.

Friday is the most common day when people get a case of the “screw its.” When perfect is no longer an option, they just throw the play book completely out the window. But these swings in consistency are death to long-term weight loss because they rob us of momentum. So I started trying to come up with a better plan and, luckily for all my clients, I’m a huge Civil War history nerd.

One of the great generals (and characters) in the Civil War was Stonewall Jackson. A tactical genius, Jackson appreciated that the most important factor in war (and the war that’s weight loss) is momentum. So he was moving forward, even when he was moving backward. One of his contemporaries summarized Jackson:

Excerpt From Hello Healthy Coach Stevo. Read more click on link

Words matter, perhaps more than you realize. How you describe something expresses your underlying attitude about it, but the words themselves reflect back at you, shaping your thoughts and actions and impacting your success. Alot of research has been done with athletes — they achieve better results when they talk to themselves with positive, motivational language.

But this wordplay goes beyond sports to everyday performance. One study published in Psychological Science revealed the effect a small turn of phrase can have. In the study, participants who were asked to write the words “Will I” during what they thought was an unrelated handwriting task did better later at problem-solving and were more motivated than those who wrote “I will.” So approaching a task with the mind-set of a question or challenge had a more positive impact than using a declaration.

The bottom line is that what you say and how you say it shapes what you do. As a nutritionist, I am especially keyed in to the words we use around food and nutrition, and I see many popularly hashtagged terms hurting more than they help when it comes to our health and well-being. Here are five words I’d like to see banished from the food conversation.

[Ask us Ellie food, recipe and nutrition questions here]

Detox

While it is true that certain foods help your body’s detoxification systems do their critical work, the word “detox” mostly feeds the alarmist notion that our bodies regularly accumulate piles of harmful compounds and we have to do something about it fast. The treatment usually involves a special (and typically expensive) concoction or radical eating plan. In this way “detox” sets us up for a fear-oriented and extremist mind-set, where we think that we need something more advanced than regular healthful food to thrive and that some magic bullet can quickly erase the effects of partying, overindulging and generally not taking care of ourselves.

So scrap that word and strive for a balanced way of life that optimizes your liver, lungs and immune system, which thankfully are very good at consistently preventing toxins from building up. Eat plenty of vegetables and whole fruits, get enough sleep, exercise and water, and take it easy on alcohol. If you go off the rails one night or over the course of a weekend, you don’t have to do anything dramatic to repent. Just go back to normal the next day.

By Ellie Krieger

THE 5 WORST PICKS

1. Pastries Cinnamon rolls, packaged apple pies, and toaster pastries, these not-so-fresh, high-calorie baked goods are usually made with corn syrup and contain added preservatives to prolong shelf-life. These treats usually contain anywhere from 250 to more than 300 calories each and, much like a donut, won’t satiate your hunger for long.

2. Chips and crackers High in sodium and lacking real substance, snack crackers often contain trans fats in the form of hydrogenated oils. Chips, on the other hand, come in deceptively large servings and some are treated with BHA (Butylated Hydroxyanisole) and BHT (Butylated Hydroxytulene) to prevent spoiling, two controversial chemicals linked to cancer and hormone disruption.

3. Cookies They may satisfy your sweet tooth, but the bag of refined carbs and added sugars won’t do much to satisfy your stomach. Like pastries, packaged cookies also have added preservatives to increase shelf life. Additionally, most manufacturers have started swapping out hydrogenated oils (a.k.a. trans fats) for palm oil, an oil loaded with saturated fat, the production of which has been linked to major ecological issues including deforestation and habitat degradation.

4. Candy Sweet or sour, the candy in most vending machines are little more than concentrated sugar packed with artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. Downing a bag of Skittles won’t ease your hunger, but will likely lead to a sugar crash, caused by a sharp spike and drop in blood sugar, which can lead to sluggishness and—you guessed it!—more sugar cravings.

5. Soft-drinks We all know they’re not good for us. Sipping on soft drinks, such as soda, sweetened teas, and sports drinks, instead of water adds up to a lot of excess sugar and empty calories—and will quickly pack on the pounds.

THE 5 BEST OPTIONS

1. Nuts Frequent nut consumption has been shown to have health-boosting benefits, including weight control and decreased risk of chronic diseases, including heart disease and Type 2 Diabetes. A portioned-size packet of almonds or peanuts will provide some healthy fats, protein, and fiber to keep you satiated. Opt for lightly-salted or unsalted varieties when available.

2. Trail mix For those of us who love a sweet and salty combination, a bag of trail mix is a much better option than chocolate covered pretzels. Look for varieties with unsalted nuts and dried fruit, which offer a boost of protein, fiber, and some vitamins and minerals, rather than mixes solely made up of cereal and sugary candy.

3. Granola bars Portion-sized and usually under 200 calories, most granola bars contain some form of whole grain, like oats or flax, and nuts, which you’re your snack a healthy hit of fiber and protein.

4. Popcorn Popcorn is a whole grain that packs fiber and antioxidants, and it can be a great low-calorie snack. Just steer clear of kettle corn, which is sweetened with sugar, and stick to air-popped and low-salt popcorn instead.

5. Water Disregard the sweet, sugary sodas at eye-level and make water your go-to way to hydrate when thirst strikes. Save soda for occasions when it can be savored, like dinners out or weekend barbecues.

Excerpt from HelloHealthy

Author: Elle Penner, M.P.H., R.D., is the Registered Dietitian and Food & Nutrition Editor at MyFitnesssPal,

For many of us, it can be really scary and a bit intense to think about moving more and making changes to improve your health and fitness. Maybe your goal is to start running, perhaps for exercise or even for a race. But, where do you start? How long do you run? How fast? How often? There can be a lot to think about, which can be quite intimidating.

Here are some tools and tips to help you get fired up about your new fitness lifestyle, give you a heads-up on where to start, and what to expect when adding running or walking to your routine.

Everyone Starts Somewhere

A lot of people may be able to run faster and longer than you and that’s OK. Don’t be afraid to embrace your current level of fitness, and focus on making incremental progress. Simply moving more than you were before is a huge accomplishment.

Find the Right Shoes for You

Make sure that the shoes you wear when walking or running are a good fit for you. Your shoes are your foundation—you don’t want to hurt yourself or experience unnecessary aches and pains that could be prevented with proper footwear. If you can get your feet and stride tested at a specialty running shop, go for it! If not, just be prepared for some trial and error until you find the shoe that suits you best.

Pace or Length, not Both

A big mistake that runners (of all levels) can make is to run faster and longer at the same time. This can be a recipe for disaster; I actually had to find this out the hard way. Make sure you choose a goal and intention for each run or walk: Are you going to try and go farther or faster today? Focus on one metric at a time so that you don’t overdo it.

Walk and Talk

Going for a walk, or even a jog, can be more fun with company. Maybe you want to move more but are still feeling a bit intimidated or you lack motivation—then bring a friend! Talking can make the time go by faster, make it more enjoyable, and can be a good time for you to catch up with someone you might not otherwise get to see on a regular basis.

Get a Training Plan

Don’t be afraid to seek out help from experts. Training plans are designed and scheduled in a way to help you safely start where you are, and get you to where you want to be. Whether you want to be able to run 30 minutes without stopping or conquer your first 5K, there are plenty of good tools to help you find your way to success.

Be Prepared for “Off” Days

Some days you won’t feel like moving—that’s totally normal. As with anything new, there are going to be some complicated times and days when you have more motivation than others. On days when you’re well and uninjured but just don’t feel like training, lean on your workout buddies, or show up at your local running shoe store for a group run. Your friends will lean on you when their motivation runs low, so they’ll be happy to return the favor when you’re in need.

If you’re feeling really run down and exhausted in addition to lacking motivation, take an unplanned rest day. Often, one day off provides the mental break you need to get back into training the next day.

Author: Runtastic Blog

With weight gain, slow and steady is the common pace—we often look back, wondering: “How did I get to this weight?” Long-term weight gain typically happens at a miniscule 1-2 pounds per year, which can snowball into something substantial as we age. Fad diets lure us with the promise of rapid weight loss, but researchers are looking at it from a different angle: Can changing what we eat stop long-term steady weight gain?

What the Science Says

Scientists from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy did a study using data collected from 120,784 healthy, non-obese, middle-age participants in three well-established cohorts: Nurses’ Health Study, Nurses’ Health Study II, Health Professionals’ Follow-up Study. Data was collected at every four-year period for 16 to 24 years.

Researchers were interested in how participants’ diet quality affected their trend in weight gain. Without altering anyone’s food intake, the researchers looked at what participants consumed, with a focus on protein and the glycemic load (GL)—two measures of diet quality. Then, they examined how changes in participants’ weight corresponded to diet quality. Why?

High-protein foods (think meats, dairy, nuts, beans) are thought to help with weight loss because of their ability to promote satiety, spare lean muscle mass, and help offset the slow in metabolism. GL was used because it reveals both carbohydrate quality and quantity. The more popular “glycemic index” (GI) is used to assess how a food will increase your blood sugar, but this doesn’t account for the amount of the food that you eat. GL accounts for both the food’s GI and portion eaten. High GL foods (think refined carbs) are thought to make weight gain more likely because they make your blood sugar rise rapidly—leading to insulin release, which favors fat storage.

Weighty Findings

Once the data was collected, the researchers could then summarize “associations,” also known as data trends, between certain types of food and weight gain or loss. Here are some of their weightier findings:

• Not all protein foods are created equal. Certain protein foods appeared to be better than others when it comes to preventing weight gain. Nuts, peanut butter, fish, yogurt and low-fat cheese were associated with weight loss while red meat and processed meat were associated with weight gain.
• Eggs and cheese aren’t necessarily diet-busters. These foods were only associated with weight gain if the diet’s glycemic load was also high.
• High glycemic load diets were worse for weight loss. Foods with a high glycemic load (think white bread, potatoes, soda) were associated with weight gain. A diet with a higher GL ranking is positively associated with weight gain. In fact, a 50-unit increase in daily glycemic load (about two bagels) resulted in a 1-pound weight gain every 4 years.
• The type of protein consumed worked in combination with GL to affect weight. For example, someone who eats a high glycemic load diet plus a lot of red/processed meat would gain more weight than if he ate a low glycemic load diet with the same amount of red/processed meat.

Keep in mind that the results of this study are “associations” meant to show relationships between diet quality and weight gain or loss. This does not confirm that particular diet types cause weight gain or loss. Nonetheless, these relationships are still important, given that we’re looking at a large group of participants over the course of decades.

What’s the Takeaway?

This study confirms that the quality of your diet matters for keeping your weight in check over a long period of time. A balanced diet rich in whole grains, fruits and vegetables will help you maintain a low glycemic load. Choosing lean protein sources like chicken, fish, nut butter and low-fat cheese will reduce the amount of fat—particularly saturated fat—in your diet. Both glycemic load and protein type are indicators of your diet quality, and will affect your weight.

It’s apparent that a calorie is not a calorie in this case, so do calories still count when it comes to weight loss? The answer is a resounding Yes! Even though the study focused on diet quality, this is just one factor out of many that affect our weight. To be successful at maintaining a healthy weight, both the number of calories consumed and the quality of those calories matters.

Author Trinh Le is a dietitian consultant for MyFitnessPal. She holds her master’s in public health, nutrition from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and is a registered dietitian.

Excerpt from HelloHealthy

No matter how motivated we are in the morning, we can get driven to the edge by life and lose touch with why we’re on this crazy journey in the first place. Or sometimes it’s frustration with what we perceive as a lack of results. But no matter what kind of ledge you’re on, there are ways to get back onto the path you started. Here are just a few that have worked for my clients.

Enjoy that pizza. No really. The choice was made. Now it’s time to move forward. So throw out those leftovers and get back on track as soon as possible. A few slices will not ruin your lifetime of health and fitness, but the longer you nurse that case of the “screw its,” the longer you delay success. So enjoy the indulgence! And use this as an opportunity to learn how you can bounce back even faster.

Make a fallback plan. Almost every Thursday, my clients write their fallback plan for the weekend. While you’re in a good mood, before you come across the “screw its,” sit down and think about what the minimum-minimum is—what’s the ONE THING you need to do to feel like you’re still on track? Is it eating vegetables? Drinking water between adult beverages? Doing 10 push-ups?

Be realistic. Any healthy choice is still moving forward. Now write down your fallback plan, or take a picture of it on your phone so you’ll remember it just before the “screw its” happen.

Ask yourself, “What have I done well? What have I learned?” Most of us get fixed on outcomes. Weight. Sizes. Results. But evidence from 40 years of motivation research has shown that focus on the process rather than the outcome leads to better results. So when you’re feeling discouraged, take an honest self-assessment. What have you learned? What’s gotten easier? And what are you doing well that will help you for a lifetime?

Remind yourself that no weight-loss journey is linear. There’s always plateaus. Always, always. Even for you. Yes, you. You will have plateaus. If I sound redundant it’s because no one thinks this applies to them. But the people who successfully lose weight and keep it off are the ones who keep going. Like Winston Churchill said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going!”

Tell someone what you’re thinking. Eighty percent of my job is showing up and listening, which you don’t really need training to do. Seek out a friend or a forum and let people know what you’re thinking. Most of the time just saying stuff out loud to people you know are sharing your struggle is enough to see things in a different light.

Remember that the average American gains a pound a year. So even maintaining your weight means you’re above average!

Author: Coach Stevo is the nutrition and behavior change consultant .He is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Chicago and an MA in Sport Psychology from John F. Kennedy University. 

Ingredients

• 7 large pitted medjool dates (about 1/2 cup packed), soaked
• 5 tablespoons hot water
• 1/2 cup natural peanut butter (with salt)
• 3 tablespoons brown rice syrup (certified gluten-free if necessary; can also substitute with honey)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups old-fashioned oats (certified gluten-free if necessary)
• 1/4 cup chia seeds (certified gluten-free if necessary)
• 2 tablespoons ground flaxseed (certified gluten-free if necessary)

Directions

Line a shallow baking dish with parchment paper (or wax paper). I used a 7 inch x 11 inch glass dish.

Place pitted dates in a bowl. Cover the dates with boiling or very hot water (I used my tea kettle) until full submerged. Allow them to soak for at least 10 minutes.

Strain the soaked dates and place them plus 5 tablespoons of water in a blender. Blend until combined. The mixture will be very thick.

Place date mixture, peanut butter, brown rice syrup, and vanilla in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir until well-combined and heated through.

In a large bowl, combine oats, chia seeds, and flax. Stir in wet mixture until combined.

Spoon mixture into the baking dish, pressing very firmly so mixture is evenly spread throughout pan. It should be very compact. Place another piece of parchment paper on top and press down firmly. Remove top piece of parchment and freeze bars for at least 2 hours.

Cut into 12 bars. Store in the freezer.

Nutrition Information

Serves: 12 |  Serving Size: 1 bar

Per serving: Calories: 198; Total Fat: 7g; Saturated Fat: 1g; Monounsaturated Fat: 3g; Cholesterol: 0mg; Sodium: 39mg; Carbohydrate: 29g; Dietary Fiber: 5g; Sugar: 12g; Protein: 5g

Nutrition Bonus: Potassium: 137mg; Iron: 9%; Vitamin A: 0%; Vitamin C: 1%; Calcium: 5% 

Author: Alexis Joseph, MS, RD, LD is the whole foods enthusiast and registered dietitian

Pistachios and Sweet Cacao Nibs
Serving: 3/4 oz pistachios (roughly 35); 1/2 oz cacao nibs
You get a little bit of sweet and a little bit of salty with this snack, according to Erin Morse RD, CNSC, chief clinical dietitian at UCLA Health System. The pistachios are the big winner here. “They are a satiating snack because of their fiber, fat and protein content,” Morse says. “And research suggests that the actual action of cracking open the shell helps to slow down the eating process.”

Banana + Egg
Serving: 1 banana; 1 hard-boiled egg
Gans says that, if you’re truly in a hurry, defaulting to these staples before you run out the door is a smart choice. Start your day or fuel your afternoon with this snack filled with fiber, protein and key nutrients like potassium. “It’s built-in portion control, and it falls in that under-200 calorie range,” she says. “You can’t go wrong.”

Chobani Greek Yogurt + Whole-Grain Cereal
Serving: 8 oz yogurt; sprinkle of cereal
Love all things dairy? Here’s your go-to snack: Greek yogurt. “The key here is that it’s low-fat and it’s Greek,” says Gans. “The Greek yogurt provides the protein you’ll need in a snack.” She says that, if you’re really in a crunch, she’s OK with the flavored kinds, but to add a few slivered almonds or fresh fruit if you want bonus points. You can also add a whole-grain cereal for crunch, but just a sprinkle.

String Cheese + Kalamata Olives
Serving: 1 string cheese; 7 olives
Hey, cheese lovers: You can totally nosh on your fave food for a snack. “Part-skim cheese is a rich source of easily-digestible protein that is high in both calcium and phosphorus,” says Morse. “Calcium is essential for strong bones and teeth, and phosphorus helps the body better absorb nutrients from food. Add a few Kalamata olives or a Kalamata almond bar into the mix, and you’ve got a satiating superstar. “The olives are a very satisfying snack, and full of healthy monounsaturated fat,” says Morse.

KIND Bar
Serving: 1 Caramel Almond and Sea Salt bar
If you’re literally dashing out the door, look no further than a grab n’ go snack bar that clocks in at roughly 200 calories. “In terms of a packaged snack, I always say a KIND bar,” says Gans, who particularly notes the brand’s Caramel Almond and Sea Salt variety for its crazy-awesome nutrition information. “I love the flavor, and it has 7 grams of satiating fiber and 6 grams of protein,” Gans says. Win-win.

Veggies + Hummus
Serving: large handful of assorted veggies; 4 tbsp hummus
Chop up assorted veggies and measure out some store-bought hummus on a Sunday night so you can take this duo with you during the week. “You can have up to four tablespoons of the hummus and however many veggies you’d like,” Gans says.

Popcorn + Almonds
Serving: 100-calorie pack of popcorn; 100-calorie pack of almonds
Gans is a big fan of Orville Redenbacher’s 100-calorie popcorn packs, which you can stick in the microwave and have ready to go in about one minute. You get a lot of volume for few calories with popcorn, so you can reach for a nut to round out your snack. “I love almonds as a coupling here,” Gans says. “Grab a 100-calorie pack of the nuts, or you can choose a single-serve cheese like Babybel.” Either way, the combination of fiber, protein and healthy fat is spot-on.

Apple + Nut Butter
Serving: 1 apple; 1/2 squeeze-pack of nut butter
The healthy fats and protein in nut butter complement the fiber in a naturally ready-to-go apple. “Pre-portioned nut butter helps prevent overindulging and overeating, plus I love the convenience of the squeeze packets,” says Morse.

“Quercetin, which is found in apples, may inhibit carbohydrate-digesting enzymes,” says Morse. “When these enzymes are inhibited, carbs aren’t broken down as readily into simple sugars.” This means stable blood sugar, so you won’t crash soon after you snack.

- Jenna Birth, Health & Lifestyle Writer

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