Leverage

A couple weeks ago, a coworker asked me to create a series of classes on "Increasing your activity level to aid in weight loss". My program would be a complement to her nutrition series entitled Weight Management 101. Since she is a dietician and I am an exercise physiologist, this seems like a natural fit.

In order to get me started, she gave me the information she was going to use from the National Institutes of Health entitled "The Practical Guide to Identification, Evalutation, and Treatment of Overweight and Obese Adults". (and it was as dynamic of a read as the title indicates)

As I kicked around the idea of this program in my head, I keep coming back to the question:

Why would anyone, who already has a membership to my fitness facility and presumably is using it, choose to spend an hour listening to me talk about being more active when during that same hour, they could actually be active???

The best answer I could come up with was: Leverage

Investing the hour with me this month will allow them to leverage that time and become more active during the rest of their workouts. Hopefully, the knowledge they gain will give them an opportunity to burn more calories over the long haul than they would have if they continued doing exactly what they are currently doing because they didn't invest the hour in coming and listening to me.

The idea of leverage intrigues me -- both for eating and for activity (and, if I am honest with you, for money and for time).

The idea that I can make a small investment that will grow without much addition input of resources (additional time or money) so that I can create a greater desired outcome -- that is fantastic!!

So you know how leveraging your money works -- I make a commitment to have 6% of my paycheck taken out and put into a 401k -- starting when I am 24. Because my wage is small, there isn't much money going into the 401k -- of course, the sacrifice of giving up that 6% isn' that great either.

Over time, that 6% grows and compounds and over my working lifetime it adds up to something I can retire on (really comfortably -- I hope).

The same can be said for activity. In the 1930's, we burned enough calories in everyday tasks (think opening the garage door, starting the car, pulling it out of the garage, getting out of the car to MANAUALLY pull the garage door shut / dragging the carpets out onto the line to beat them with a stick instead of letting the Roomba do all the work / ect) to add up to the calories of 5 cheesecakes a month. -- Think about it, if you were doing all of those activities required for just living life in the 1930's, you could eat 1.25 cheesecakes per week and still stay at the same weight you are right now! Talk about leveraging the situation.

So what about food? How do you leverage your food choices?

The first idea is maximize your enjoyment!!!! If is doesn't taste GREAT -- only eat enough of it to get rid of your physical hunger.

If it does taste great, ENJOY every bite -- really taste it!

And most of all -- don't disregard all of the little "deposits" you make in the calorie savings bank! If you are able to decrease your fullness level by one number (from a 9 to an 8, let's say) at a meal, that is just like making that small 6% deposit into your 401k. The extra calories that are not satisfying physcial hunger are not going to be stored as fat AND you have had one more success in creating a habit of recognizing that a level 8 can be VERY satisfying even if it is not VERY full. That habit will make it more likely you will choose to eat less at another meal in the future, create another success, and increase your positive spiral.

All of your positive work (that, of course, you are CELEBRATING!! -- because that is the right thing to do with victories and you would celebrate with a friend if she were making these same decisions -- so you really should be celebrating when you make them for yourself!) ... positive decisions tend to lead to more positive decisions. When you are successful, you feel more empowered to make other challengine choices and be successful with those. With this phylosophy, your positive choices grow exponentially and you feel great about it! (This is very exciting to see. This is why I LOVE what the coaching I do!!)

So give the idea of leverage some thought. In your mind, when you choose to leave something uneaten -- think about it adding to your weight loss account. When you eat something that tastes great, know that you are EXPERIENCING the food and really appreciate it. That, too, is a deposit in the weight loss account because if you are tasting it and it is fantastic, there will be a time when you eat less of something because it does NOT taste fantastic and you know you can be satisfied with less of it.

And most of all -- no matter how much weight you need/want to lose or how much you are struggling to maintain your weight right now, giving the mindful eating approach some extra time and thought right now, will save you time, thought and heartache in dealing with your weight in the future -- and that is the ultimate leverage.

Which is worse...

Telling yourself "Not right now." or feeling pressured (by yourself or someone else)to tell yourself "No!" ??

"Not right now." means just because you are next to your favorite frozen custard stand -- you don't necessarily need to stop today because you aren't REALLY hungry for custard right now. You are not closing the door on custard for ever -- just this time.

"No!" feels like the door slamming on something that brings you joy. If I tell someone "No!" they are going to think and think about the forbidden something until they drive themselves crazy, breakdown, and eat a bunch of it (and then feel guilty). This is not the weight loss mentality I am after.

There are times when you can tell yourself "Not right now." and it is no big deal. You don't feel deprived and you are not going to obsess about what you didn't have.

Especially, when you are trying to fill an emotional hungry with physical food -- a few minutes of "Not right now." allows you to get distracted by something other than food and potential satisfy the emotional hunger with an emotional (vs. physical) fuel (think connecting with a friend if you feel disconnected, cleaning up the kitchen if the mess is driving you crazy, taking 3 slow breathes in a row if you are stressed) instead of masking the emotional hunger with food.

The important thing here is to remember mindful eating is not a bunch of rules -- that would be diet. Mindful eating is about making a decision for this moment based on this moment's current conditions.

30% Physical vs. 70% Emotional

Thursday, I attended a talk given by a life coach specializing in helping people increase their energy levels. We all know how precious energy is and I have yet to meet a person who wouldn't increase their energy levels if they could.

The talk started out with the statistic that 30% of our energy comes from physical sources (what we eat, how much and our quality of sleep, and exercise). The other 70% comes from how we are emotionally oriented to our world. The "glass half-full" mentality gives us more perceived energy (ability and willingness to interact with our environment) than those of us that are the "glass half empty" mentality.

The coach spent 40 of the 45 minutes talking about the things we can do to eat better, sleep better, and exercise more -- all of the things we know we should do -- all of the things the magazines lining the grocery store check-out scream at us.

The last 5 minutes of the talk touched on the emotional component of our energy levels. This seems to me to be a HUGE oversight! Not only from a numbers perspective --wouldn't I want to invest more time into the side of the equation that is responsible for the largest percentage of my energy? And don't I know enough about what I should be doing for my physical energy? And working on the emotional side of the equation is open to everyone! Because it is all in your head, it is open to unlimited change -- you are completely in charge of what goes on up there. Sure, it may not be easy -- but there isn't anything stopping you except yourself.

But before I get too ramped up talking about this, let's bring this back to the task at hand -- eating.

We live in a society that is focused on breaking things down to small parts and figuring out what the small parts do in isolation. You cannot tell me that reading the label on your fav Ben and Jerry's container is going to give you an understanding of the texture of the ice cream as it melts in your mouth (assuming you are being mindful and let it melt -- not just gulp it down in an effort to get the next spoonful in -- trust me, I have done both). Reading the label will not give the same emotional satisfaction of feeling the crunch of nuts mixing with the smooth and cold sensation of chocolate chunks -- tasting the flavors increase as your mouth brings the spoonful closer to body temperature. The experience is something completely different than fats, carbs, and proteins.

Why does it make sense to base something so wonderful as the opportunity to eat really flavorful foods on a list of the basic parts? Where is the joy in that? You may (and indeed do) get physical energy (measured in calories) from ice cream. But are you making use of that calorie expenditure to get your 70% emotional energy boost? If you are being mindful (tasting, appreciating smell, color,texture,etc.) you have a better shot at eating a few bites and getting a big boost on the emotional side without having to eat the whole container (and all the attendant calories).

Think about the foods that give you the greatest emotional boost. Are they all sweets? You all know how much I love cookies -- some cookies give me an emotional boost. But so does a beautiful salad, warm gnocchi with red sauce, the beef and tomatoes my mom makes, delicious soups. Just because we are talking about emotional energy boosting foods, it doesn't mean they are only the foods that would make a dietitian squirm.

The point is: every time we eat, we have an opportunity to fuel our physical selves AND we have the ability to fuel our emotional selves! We could get 70% more energy from something we already to if we just tune in a little more.

Seems like it is worth a try!

*** for those of you interested in the emotional energy side of things, I recommend a book called The Emotional Energy Factor -- the secrets high-energy people use to beat emotional fatigue ****

Do something Friday

A client recently asked me about food choices. She and I have worked together on and off for a couple years. Her afternoon snack is a staple behavior because by late afternoon she is physically hungry. By eating the snack, it allows her to be at a reasonable hunger level (level 3) by dinner and not closer to a 1.5 where she would be unable to be in charge of her eating speed.

For a number of reasons, she has "fallen off" the mindful eating wagon and is starting to get herself back on. However, when she fell off the wagon, she reverted back to the "diet" mentality of assessing a food's "goodness" or "badness" as a means of deciding what to eat instead of figuring out what really sounds wonderful to eat. Consequently, her afternoon snacks are not as satisfying to her as they used to be.

This lack of satisfaction seems reasonable to me. One size does not fit all. My favorite satisfying snack will not necessarily be satisfying to you. The snack that fits perfectly for the summer (think fresh strawberries) will not necessarily be the perfect snack in the winter (when a nice hot Chai latte would be so much more satisfying).

When we don't reach a certain satisfaction level with our food choices, we keep searching (and eating) until we get there. In the end, we eat more calories by trying to "be good" than if we had just had what we really wanted in the first place.

So the question becomes: What are you eating because you "should" and what are you denying yourself that would really satisfy you?

Think of it this way:

500 calories of salad vs. 500 calories of steak and baked potato with sour cream and butter.

If you are working on the diet mentality, you will choose the 500 calories of salad because that is what you "should" do -- and we have all been trained steak and baked potato (with or without the butter and sour cream) are not foods you eat to lose weight. But...500 calories is still 500 calories -- it doesn't matter where they come from.

But...you say...500 calories of salad is a larger volume of food than 500 calories of steak and baked potato. True. But...what is it you really want?

If a greater sensation of physical fullness is important then you would probably want to chose the salad.

If you really want the warmth and satisfaction of steak and baked potato -- and you are willing to be satisfied but not have as great a degree of physical stretching of your stomach -- then it makes sense to eat the steak. You will walk away from the table in the same spot as it relates to weight loss (having consumed the same number of calories you would have with the salad) but you will have a greater degree of satisfaction with the meal and be less likely to seek out something else to make you feel satisfied because you already are.

This weekend -- be aware of why you are making the choices you are making. Are you basing everything on the "diet" mentality and seeking out more opportunities to eat as a way to increase your satisfaction with food? If there were no "diet rules", what would you chose to eat? And are you willing to eat less of those things if you get to lose weight while being able to eat them?

Mindfulness

I just reread a article about how mindfulness training can be very helpful for bariatric surgery patients. One of the ways bariatric surgery is helpful is that pain results from eating too great a volume of food at any one time. This forces a person to be more mindful of what they are eating -- otherwise pain results and avoidance of pain is a HUGE motivator.

The authors of the article state that mindfulness is "synonymous with paying attention or taking care". Dictionary.com defines mindfulness as attentive or heedful.

We, as a society, don't really value being heedful or the act of paying attention to ourselves. We talk about "me" time -- but very few people are comfortable enough to really embrace that idea for themselves. Sure -- we tell others "You have to take care of yourself! That is the only way you will be able to take care of XYZ". It is a wonderful concept for "others" but we don't let it translate to ourselves.

But why not? Being mindful at your meal is surrendering yourself to the moment. Whatever the moment is (best dinner, artfully prepared and delicious, that you have every experienced or... the worst day-old stadium dog that has ever crossed your lips)-- Mindfulness is the willingness to experience each of those things for what they are -- neither of those situations are a judgement on you!

Mindfulness is being willing to engage in this particular moment of eating because this is the only moment that exists right now. What you ate yesterday is gone. Tomorrow's eating has not happened yet and indeed may never happen. This moment, this bite, is all you have.

Mindfulness asks you to live in this moment and put aside everything else to experience what is happening right now. If you can do that -- even just occasionally -- how would your life change?

Once you start learning to be engaged with what is happening while you are eating -- the habit starts developing in other areas of your life. Engaging with your kids, coworkers, spouse and friends. How would your life change if you were wholly involved where you are doing what you are doing when you are actually doing it?

You really would be heedful and taking more care of others because you are being heedful and taking more care of your own experience.

And the holiday eating continues???

I have noticed that not everyone is ready to give up the fun and pleasure of holiday eating just yet.

Case in point -- me. I want to keep eating cookies. They taste good. They are portable (and I told you yesterday I have been super busy!). They crunch (when they are frozen). And are soft (when they thaw). And most of all, my mom made them -- comfort like no other.

So -- I have done a pretty good job putting them away. I have only eaten 2 in the last 5 days. But the want to eat them is still there.

I met with a client this week who has let his portions creep back up and his weight is going that way too. Before the holidays -- not a problem. But the holidays knocked him off his groove and that is where he is now.

Another client realized she is stress eating -- not because she is stressed -- but because she was stressed through the holidays. Since the holidays have ended, the stress has gone but she is left with the stress eating habit.

What behaviors are you letting carry over into the new year? Do you feel you are in charge of your eating behaviors or are you just desperately trying to stay in control of them?

Welcome to the New Year

Is anyone else stressed to the gills already??

My job is crazy, busy time of year (think tax season for accountants). Lots of people have joined the ranks at BHFC and I love that!! People who have decided to be healthier in 2010 than they were in 2009 -- very cool!

The end result of this is a busier me. Lots of people who need to be seen, introduced to the facility, gotten off on the correct eating and exercise programs for each of them.

Plus, I was minding my own business the other day when a colleague asked if I would create an series of lectures on Increasing Activity to go along with her diet-based weight control program. Which, of course, I said yes to.

And the Eating Coach website isn't done (although the e-course is -- one small victory anyway).

And I have a Spring Learning Series to plan.

And I have to pick the dates for the spring Eating Coach classes.

And I just started back strength training (my official start date was February .....2009 -- so I would be in good strength for wake boarding season -- which is right around the corner, now that the days are getting longer).

And...

And...

And...

All of that to say -- Holy Cow!! Life is crazy and I want to lay down and take a nap. But I can't -- all of the above needs to get done. Some quicker than others but it all needs to happen. So now what???

If you are feeling like this -- think about stopping for just a minute and taking a breath. Slow in...slow out. Becoming aware of what is going on (as opposed to running on autopilot) is the first step. There is no easy answer to the to-do list -- like I said, it all needs to get done. But I don't want it to take me down in the process.

It is times like this where clients tend to fall off the Mindful Eating wagon. They stress eat or just end up grabbing whatever super-sized anything they can get their hands on just because it is convenient.

Don't let your stress derail you. Make a plan. Sunday I was smart enough to make a big pot of soup for lunches this week (okay -- there is another small victory). At least, I will have something easy to pack for lunch so I am not tempted to skip it and grab a big bag of chips on the way home.

Take your drive time to think about how hungry you are feeling so when you get home you have an idea of how much you are going to need to eat at dinner to relieve the physical hunger of the day.

Pay attention to how hungry you are in the morning when you first wake up. Are you hungrier than normal (don't freak out about this -- when you are busier and burning more calories running around you will feel hungrier) or do you feel what you always feel?

Are you more tempted to grab that high carb/high salt snack from the vending machine in the afternoon? Why? Are you bored or stressed about the work waiting for you back at your desk? Or are you truly hungry?

Keep notes about how you are feeling (stressed, bored, let down from the holidays, still fighting with your sibling over a holiday incident...) to see if you can see patterns in your eating.

Most of all -- and if you do nothing else -- Breathe. One slow one in and then slowly out. Appreciate the way your lungs expand and contract. Let the stress go -- it all needs to be done, believe me, I understand -- but one thing at a time -- Mindfully.