ThinkSlim

Lose Weight: Change Your Question

As a weight loss coach I have to admit that I'm far from perfect. I have no magic wand.

(Unfortunately there is no such thing as a magic wand for weight loss - and no magic, pill, patch or potion either which will make you lose weight)

I have to work on my motivation and habits just as much as anyone else to stay in shape.

So when I catch myself in  bad habit I like to let you know!

But anyway I was just getting myself a cup of coffee the other day and caught myself thinking "Now, what can I have to eat with that?"

Not much wrong with that you might say, but I was about to reach for a chocolate chip cookie and you know how one leads to another...

The thing is, I really wasn't hungry at all - hadn't thought about food one bit until I got the coffee. Having something to eat with coffee had slowly but surely become a habit!

So now I am re-training myself to ask "Do I really need to eat anything with that?" and if I think I do need something to eat I wait until after I have had the coffee. The urge to eat has often gone by then and I forget all about it.

Also for some reason it's easier to eat something healthy if it's not actually with the coffee. Carrot sticks and coffee just don't go together!

Walking Update: January walking plans are going well but not without hassles. My new pedometer order has been a bit of a fiasco. Serves me right for ordering from a slightly cheaper supplier instead of good old Amazon who have never let me down. Anyway I received an Omron pedometer instead of the one I ordered and so I sent it back - still waiting for the one I ordered....

Anyway I will get there in the end no doubt. Meanwhile I'm just walking every day without the pedometer. I WOULD like to know how well I am doing increasing my steps but I will just have to wait....

Party Leftovers (and Walking Update)

I hosted the monthly book club I belong to at my house yesterday evening.

With me (and probably you too) there's a big danger of overeating before, during and after a party with so many snacks, wine and leftover food around!

But don't panic, there are some things you can do to help prevent yourself consuming too many excess calories when you have a party.

• Don't drink too much - lots of empty calories in alcohol - stick to one glass of wine
• if it's a buffet, stay as far away from the food as you can after you serve it
• Keep busy serving others with drinks, plates, napkins etc
• Get rid of the leftovers straight away after the event
• Walk off any calorie damage the next day

What happened with me yesterday?

I ate a bit more than I usually would of course (I don't normally eat anything all evening after dinner) but not so much that I regret it today.

Any leftovers I can't rely on my boys to "hoover" up quickly are safely in the trash.

And I went for a 40 minute walk this morning ...

Update on my January walking plans

Walk accomplished today (see above). Still waiting for my pedometer to arrive to start my proper step program - hopefully it will arrive today.

Yesterday, I didn't get out at all - preparing for my visitors was my excuse but with minus 10 degrees C temperatures in parts of the UK yesterday I just didn't want to go out. If the Norwegians don't think there's such a thing as bad weather only bad clothes (see previous walking post) then all I can say is that they have warmer clothes than me :) Coward that I am, I stayed indoors. Anyway, "never say die" - instead of walking, I stepped for 45 minutes in front of the TV which made up for my missing walk.

January Walking Project Update

Plans to follow my own "Lose Weight in 28 Days with Your Pedometer" progam from today have been foiled by my crummy old pedometer giving up the ghost. It's permanently stuck on 3458 steps.

So I just ordered a brand spanking new one - the Silva EX3 - the height of pedometer sophistication :) It should get delivered soon.

So what do you do when life gets in the way. Do you throw in the towel and give up on your plans?

(I hope you're answering no to that one!)

I went for a 40 minute walk anyway without my pedometer. The calories will be lost just the same. The pedometer is just a great motivational tool which can really help but it's not the be all and end all of walking if it breaks down.

Why not join me and walk every day you can?

I know the weather may not be the best in January in some parts of the world but as I learned from my sister-in-law who married a Norwegian and went off to live in freezing cold winter Oslo - they say there is no such thing as bad weather only bad clothes. So I wrapped up warm and out I went.

Feel free to log your own walks in the comments on my daily entries and I'll give you as much encouragement as I can. And if you want to follow my program you can it in paperback or a downloadable copy on Amazon - more details here.

Exercise Motivation - 6 Ways to Just Do It

Exercise is one of things where you always feel better when you do it but it's difficult to get going with it. 

Annie (who we spoke about last week always) finds it better to exercise in the morning before life gets in the way, but then is not always able to get up early so her work out will often fall by the wayside.

My view on exercise is that it is so good for your health that you need to do it.

It's not absolutely essential for weight loss (you have to run or walk more than a marathon distance to lose a single pound of fat and so what you eat has by far the greatest effect for most people).

But exercise IS essential to keep you alive, to tone your muscles, to help you sleep and to keep your spirits up! And of course, every calorie you use up by exercising counts. This means that although you won't lose a pound of fat in a single day, you could easily do so over a number of them - in addition to those you lose by eating less.

So exercise is worth it for all those benefits.

The best strategies to make sure you fit in exercise are

Start Early

Exercise as early as possible in the day as Annie has found out - even if it's not first thing then try to get out at lunch time rather than leaving it until the evening and if it must be the evening make it before dinner rather than after. The less there is to get in the way the better.

Move and View

Exercise while you watch TV - only allow yourself to watch the show you love if you are lifting hand weights, using resistance bands, rebounding, stepping or skipping around your lounge. If you can afford it and have space, exercise machines like treadmills, stationery bikes or elliptical trainers are fantastic to use at home - just put a TV near by and only allow yourself to watch if you use your equipment.

Small Doses

Exercise in small amounts of time throughout the day - simply move as much as you can - don't sit, when you can stand, don't stand when you can be moving around, don't use the elevator or car when you can walk or cycle. 10 minutes exercise is better than none at all

Make a Date

Make an appointment with someone to exercise - a personal trainer three times a week will make you take action - failing that a friend or tennis partner who you have an appointment to meet can work wonders as you won't want to let someone else down

Family Fun

Take up exercise with someone else in your family and encourage each other to exercise (you have each others best interests at heart after all) 

Love whatever it is you do to Exercise

Start exercising in a way you love - skiing, paragliding, horse back riding whatever might get you moving

And nowhere did I mention joining the evil gym ... Don't Join a Gym!

How to Stop Evening Snacking

Christmas is a difficult time for losing weight even if it's just because of the sheer amount of extra snacks that are around the house.

There can't be a single person who escapes the gift of chocolates and if everyone in your family receives some then that's an awful lot of chocolate to munch through. Then there are all the other snacks - the nuts, the crisps, the crackers and cheese, the leftovers of delicious desserts.

The best way to stop snacking is to get rid of it all, straight in the trash and no regrets. But you won't do that will you? (I can't bring myself to do that either)

The next best is to share it out - invite a crowd round and let them polish it off. My son's friends are great for this!

Failing that, put it all away in a high cupboard (out of sight, out of mind) and/or ration it - one small treat a day.

After the Christmas goodies finally disappear you may find you have a new unwanted snacking habit (or just a continuation of an old one). That habit needs to go, if you want to lose weight. Unfortunately it doesn't take more than a few days regular snacking before we are used to eating something at particular times of the day and miss it when we don't.

Like Annie (whose issues we have been looking at this week), you might find you can eat well during the day but once evening comes you just want to snack in front of the TV especially if your family are eating something.

With any habit, it can be difficult if you just try and stop doing something. It is easier if you change something else associated with your habit. For example if you always have a cookie with your after dinner coffee, it can be hard to have the coffee without the cookie, so instead drink tea!

If you always just sit and watch TV in the evening, do something else while you view - knit, take up needlepoint, do the ironing, paste your photos in an album, lift a few hand weights - anything to keep your hands busy and break the pattern of viewing and snacking.

Annie found that her husband made it difficult for her to stop snacking because he was always eating in the evening. Her partner could eat the food and not gain weight. Here, it's important to remember that men use up around 500 calories more a day than women just because of their body composition. If you have a similar problem, try a combination of the following strategies

• ask your partner to support you by not eating snacks in front of you
• prepare your own special low calorie snacks in advance to have while they are eating their higher calorie snacks
• leave the room when they are eating
• practice saying "No thank you" whenever they ask you if you want some. You won't succeed every time but 80% will make a difference
• Every 5 times you succeed in saying "No" to snacking, reward yourself with a (non-food) treat
• don't buy fattening snacks or buy snacks which they like but you don't (I buy Jaffa cakes - can't stand them myself but my family like them)

Take a (Virtual) Walk with me and Lose Weight

It's about time I got going with some kind of formal exercise again and this year I've decided I will do it the easy way and just walk. (If you've been following my posts for a while you'll know that I take up running every year for a charity race and then promptly give it up (with huge relief) after the race is over).

My aim is to follow my own walking guide "Lose weight in 28 Days with your Pedometer" though I will be using it more for fitness than weight loss. I'll probably just dust off my old pedometer though I must say I'm tempted by some of the new ones available these days.

If you want to join in you can follow along my progress on the blog here and I'd love it if you decide to walk too and want to comment on your daily progress as well - I'll add some tips to help keep you going. 

By the way, if you'd like a specific plan to follow and don't have one, you can buy a copy of my "Lose Weight in 28 Days with your Pedometer" program on Amazon in paperback or for the Kindle. More details here. 

Losing Weight: Success Starts Here

One of the main obstacles to losing weight is within your own head.

If you think it will be impossible you are right!

You'll simply find reasons to give up whenever you have a slight setback. You'll be saying to yourself "Why persevere if it's never going to work? I may as well enjoy myself "

But, you know losing weight IS possible for everyone. There is not one of us who would not drop pound after pound if we were locked in a prison cell and forced to survive on water and a bit of bread.

Annie (who I mentioned in my last post) can rattle off a whole host of reasons why losing weight is not going to be easy. But then I'd have to ask

• Has anyone who is menopausal ever lost weight? Of course they have. then you can too!
• Has anyone who is reluctant to exercise ever lost weight? Yes, they have
• Has anyone with a husband who eats tempting snacks in the evening ever succeeded? Yes, again!

and you could go through every problem she mentioned to me, every difficulty and see that it doesn't make it impossible.

Will it be easy? Of course not! But with focus and determination Annie and everyone else who wants to lose weight can reach that elusive target weight.

Instead of piling up reason upon reason (or excuse after excuse) think about why you CAN succeed. What have you got going for you?

• a body which is physically capable of exercise (even if your mind is not so willing)?
• past experience of losing any weight at all (even a pound)? (Annie herself managed to lose 45lbs one time)
• a love of healthy food (any healthy food!)
• a huge desire to succeed
• support from friends (or this blog!)
• plenty of available information
• a knowledge of nutrition and calories
• an understanding why you gained weight etc etc

List reason upon reason why you can lose this time and whenever you feel yourself slipping back into a negative spiral read your list again.

Because mindset is everything, it is a major strand throughout my weight loss coaching program - don't just look at what you eat or how much you move - get your head right too or you may as well not begin!

Weight Loss : How to Deal with a Big Problem

Sometimes losing weight can seem like an overwhelming problem. Maybe you've tried many times and failed. Maybe you got so far towards your target and then for some reason just gave up. Maybe the road ahead just seems TOO long.

Now this may surprise you (and even irritate you a bit) but in most cases, weight loss does not have to be as difficult as you think it is, if you approach it in the right way. 

What set off this blog post is an email I had from a lady a couple of days ago. Let's call her Annie for the sake of anonymity. She described a whole lot of issues and explained that she had been trying to lose weight for two years and had been "floundering".

Now that is not unusual - floundering is what many people do when it comes to weight loss but that whole feeling of looking at your weight and thinking that it is a huge (even insurmountable) problem has to go if you are going to tackle it and succeed.

You see you didn't wake up one morning 20lb or 50lb or 100lb heavier than you were the day before. You got there by one small decision at a time - the extra cookie here, a bigger portion than you needed there, a snack you didn't really want but it was "around", a meal out where you ate too much, a few drinks, a "yes" to the offer of cake when you meant to say "no", a "couldn't be bothered to exercise today".

You'll know your own weaknesses and issues - and if you are overweight, chances are you have multiple habits which got you where you are today.

But instead of seeing the whole of your weight problem as one big, impossible-to-tackle issue, try breaking it down into the decisions, the situations that make you gain weight. Each of those decisions I mentioned above can be tackled  if you are focused and vigilant.

You won't succeed in making the right decision 100% of the time but you can certainly make enough of them to change your body and your life one decision at a time.

Think through and put in a place a strategy for dealing with each of those issues or problems one by one. Then keep focused on using your strategies until they become simply the way you behave. That is the way to change your habits long term and keep weight off. 

Of course a drastic diet will give you drastic (maybe even fast results) - but chances are you'll not be able to stick to it as long as it takes to reach your target and what's worse, you'll still be left with the problems that made you overweight in the first place after you come off the diet - because no one can stay on any kind of rigid diet forever.

Result: rapid weight gain undoing all your efforts.

Better to confront your issues one at a time and succeed forever. Please do this even if you opt for the drastic diet!

I'll be looking at Annie's issues and helping her to devise some strategies over the course of the next week or so - and I'll share any that may help you here on the blog.

Meanwhile think about your own issues and how you could tackle them one at a time.

How to Combat the Worst Diet Wrecker

There are quite a few diet wreckers around but I  think the very worst is found in every kitchen, cafe and food store and it's hidden in most manufactured food products. 

The worst diet wrecker of all time?

It  has to be sugar - pure, white and deadly.

Why is sugar such a demon?

• Sugar is calorie dense and without eating very much in quantity you will quickly consume a whole load of calories.
• Not only that but it's very natural to love sweet foods - so you want to eat more and more of it
• Sugar is often combined with high fat foods - just think about cakes, cookies, ice cream and chocolate so you get extra calories along with your sugar
• And because sugar has very little nutritional value or bulk it does not help to satisfy your appetite
• Last but not least, eating sugar rapidly raises blood sugar and insulin levels which increase your tendency to store excess energy as fat

The innocent looking white stuff has a lot to answer for but it's easy enough to avoid if you can see it.

The real problem is that we all eat a whole load of  sugar when we don't even know it's there.

• It's often consumed in beverages
• It's hidden in almost every manufactured food product.
• Not all of the products which contain sugar mention sugar in the list of ingredients on the packaging - sugar comes in all different variants so it's important to understand that fructose including high-fructose corn syrup, glucose, lactose, molasses, sucrose, dextrose, galactose and honey are all forms of sugar too and many products will have several of these included in the ingredients making up a huge proportion of the total.

To avoid eating too much sugar

• look out for those hidden ingredients and avoid buying products which load up their foods with empty calories
• eat (rather than drink) your calories - drink plain or sparkling water, herbal tea or black coffee
• eat slow-release whole grain carbohydrates which don't cause insulin levels to spike in place of sugar

 Of course I'm not saying ban sugar altogether (unless it's a real addiction and once you start you just can't stop). Just keep your sugar eating in moderation (maybe a square of chocolate after dinner) rather than filling yourself with empty calories and piling on the pounds.

Lose Weight : Teach Others To Respect You

Do your friends and family sabotage every diet you go on by offering you food you can't resist?

You know how it is.

It just takes a declaration that you need to lose 10lbs to fit into your party dress, for someone in your office to treat everyone to cakes or chocolates. Or for your partner to say, "Let's eat out tonight. How about trying that new "all-you-can-eat" place?"

Why do they do that?

It's probably just coincidence - because food and offers of food are all around us. Eating is a social activity after all and so you will often be invited to eat.

But if you want to reduce those offers and temptations you have to show your friends and family you mean business.

You do that by saying "No!"  without worrying about what they think of you.

Say "No I'd rather not because I am cutting back on food until I lose 10lbs" or whatever.

And the more you keep saying "no" the more respect you will earn and your friends will see that this time you really do mean it.

You can't really blame them for ignoring your half-hearted attempts to lose weight before can you?

How many times have you said to friends "I really shouldn't eat that" and then instantly followed it with "But go on then, just a small piece/just one"? It's no wonder that they don't believe you when you say you're on a diet.

Approach saying "No" like a sport that you are out to master. Try, try and try again until it comes naturally and your friends start to respect your efforts and stop pushing food on you.

This is important for weight management too because when that wonderful day comes when you reach your goal weight your friends will be telling you that you can eat everything now that you are slim. And if you believe them you won't be slim for long!