How to Shed the Winter Weight Gain

By: Maria Graft, Nutrition and Healthy Living Coach

If you’ve indulged over the holiday season or cut down on your activity during the winter months, you may have packed on a few extra pounds. Wouldn’t you like to shed that winter weight gain before the warm weather returns?

Rather than choosing the latest diet of the week, you could, instead, implement some sound strategies that have been proven to be effective in losing weight and keeping it off.

Here are some tips to help you say “good bye” to those extra pounds forever:

Exercise

Staying indoors more during the winter doesn’t mean you need to be less active! Follow these exercise techniques to bring you a variety of activities to tone up and slim down.

1. Don’t overdo it when you begin to exercise – you’ll only strain muscles! Invest in a good pair of walking shoes and begin by walking for fifteen minutes per day.
2. When you feel your body adjusting to the fifteen minutes, walk longer. Do this with any exercise, inside or out, to build a healthy, strong, and slimmer body.
   Doing the same exercise over and over again is a good way to fail before you begin. Include an assortment of exercises in your plan. Make it fun! For example, combine yoga with strength training. If you don’t have strength training equipment, use canned foods or other items as your weights.
   Any activity that gets you moving is an exercise. Play actively with your pets or children.  Put on some music and dance while you cook or clean house.
   Instead of sitting on the couch, ride an exercise bike while you watch TV.
3. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. The easiest way to keep up with your exercise routine is to have someone by your side who also wants to lose weight. Remind each other how important your weight loss goals are.
4. Get a diary or notebook and write down your goals. Keep track of how much weight you’re losing and what types of exercises you’re doing.

How to Eat Well Year-Round

Eating nutritiously year-round is the best way to keep off those extra winter pounds. It will also help you lose excess weight, give your body the nutrients it craves, and make you feel good!

Here are some simple healthy eating tips:

1. Yes, calories do count. If you’re unsure what your caloric intake should be (as it can vary from age, sex, and even height), enlist your doctor’s help or ask a nutritionist.
2. You don’t need to become a vegetarian, but including as many fresh fruits and vegetables in your diet as possible will bring you a plethora of benefits. Substitute fruits and vegetables for unhealthy snacks and calorie-laden desserts. Can’t find fresh fruits during the winter months? Frozen fruits with no added sugar are a good backup choice.
3. Don’t pile on that food! Just because fast-food restaurants are supersizing everything, it doesn’t mean you should too.
4. Many fruits, veggies, legumes, and grains are full of the good carbohydrates your body needs. They’re also high in vitamins, fibers, and minerals and free of cholesterol.
5. Every cell in your body needs water to function properly. Drinking lots of water will not only keep you well hydrated, but it also can help you lose weight. For example, a glass of water before a meal can help you control overeating.

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Shedding that winter weight is a reachable goal if you follow these tips. However, don’t feel like you have to make each of these changes tomorrow. Sometimes when people make too many drastic changes at once they have a harder time sticking with their plan.

Work on making one or two of these changes each week to get used to them. Before you know it, these weight loss strategies will be second nature to you and you’ll avoid those winter pounds altogether!

If you feel like you need some extra help, Maria is a Nutrition and Healthy Living Coach trained through Cornell University.  Reach out to her at maria@mariagraft.com

Everyday Healthy Living Tips

by: Maria Graft, Nutrition and Healthy Living Coach

It may be easy to forget the importance of living a healthy life when we’re going through the daily grind. It may be even easier to get caught up in what’s convenient instead of what’s good for us. However, the benefits you can enjoy with a healthy lifestyle are worth making healthy living a priority! 

Here are three healthy living tips you can use to better your health, increase your happiness, and enjoy life to its fullest: 

1. Rest and rejuvenate. The biggest healthy living tip that many people overlook is the need for sleep. 

Life can get hectic. When we don’t have enough time to get things done, most of us opt to stay up late to make up for the lack of time. Or perhaps our busy minds prevent us from getting a restful sleep in the first place. However, getting less sleep is actually counterproductive to doing anything  efficiently, effectively, or well! 

• Getting enough sleep enables you to work and pursue your passions vigorously. It rejuvenates your body, mind, and attitude. You should have an ergonomically correct mattress and pillow to ensure you get the best sleep possible. 

2. Eat nutritious food. Another healthy living tip is to eat a healthy, balanced diet. Many people believe that they don’t need to eat healthy or watch their diet because they don’t need to lose weight. This couldn’t be further from the truth! You should put only the best foods in your mouth no matter how much you weigh, what size you wear, or how fit you look. 

• What you eat affects your entire body, including your brain. You can think clearer, feel happier, enjoy more energy and avoid illness by eating nutritious foods. Strive to eat more raw vegetables and fruits instead of processed or packaged foods.  

3. Affirm the positive. Having a positive mindset is the key to living a fulfilling life. Many people don’t realize the importance of living and thinking positively. As a result, they inevitably find themselves allowing negative things to rule their mind and body. 

• Your attitude is one of the most important contributors to both your happiness and health. 

Like every other healthy living strategy mentioned, being positive all the time (or even most of the time) may take some effort. However, an easy way to incorporate positive thoughts into your everyday life is to use affirmations. 

Many people use affirmations to help them think more positively as they go about their daily life. Positive affirmations are simply statements you can use to replace the negative thoughts running through your head. 

• A good affirmation encourages you to live the healthiest lifestyle possible and be the best that you can be. 

Positive affirmations often remind you about how important it is to take care of yourself. An example could be, “I can neutralize bad habits with good food, exercise, and healthy living.” 

This is a simple way to be reminded of how important you are, how important your body is, and how important your mental health is. 

You have a whole toolbox and support system at your disposal to help make your life happier and healthier. All you have to do is take action! 

How to Overcome an Urge to Binge by Activating Your Neocortex

By: Maria Graft, Nutrition and Healthy Living Coach

Imagine the following scenario: You have been really good on your diet.  You’ve been making healthy choices for the past several weeks, but it’s your husband’s birthday and he really wants pizza and cake for his birthday.  You say to yourself you’ll fill your plate will mostly salad and just have one slice of pizza. You’ll finish off the night with a sliver of cake so your husband doesn’t feel bad.  You eat your salad and feel quite satisfied.  You’re not that hungry when you finally bite into that slice pizza, but man, does it taste good.  You finish it quickly—too quickly, actually and go for another slice, reminding yourself how “good” you’ve been for the last several weeks. Before you know it, though, you’ve eaten 5 slices and feel horrible about how the evening has turned out…

Urges to binge come in the form of overwhelming desires to eat large amounts of food in a short period of time. They are characterized by a sense of loss of control, excessive food consumption, and often followed by disappointment and shame.  This doesn’t mean you have a binge eating disorder or any eating disorder, per se, to be exposed to such urges.

Many people who’ve gone through a period of restrictive dieting experience at least one strong urge to binge. These powerful compulsions aren’t easy to resist. That’s why many of us, at some point in our diet, end up reaching for forbidden foods in larger amounts than what’s reasonable.

This is how we pave our road to ruin and give way to the well-known yo-yo effect.

As food consumption is an integral part of our daily lives, we don’t have the luxury to stay away from it, like in the case of cigarettes, alcohol, drugs or other addictive substances and behaviors.

So while food can’t and shouldn’t be eliminated from our lives, our thinking and acting around food can, indeed, be managed and optimized.

How can we rise above our constant desire to indulge in food that doesn’t serve us well in the long-term? What can support us in staying faithful to our initial intention for healthy nutrition? How can we make food choices that we won’t regret later?

The answer is already within you. To be more precise, it is located in the most recently developed region of your human brain called the neocortex.

This part of your brain, especially the prefrontal section, is responsible for:

• Planning and moderating complex behavior (including social behavior)
  
  
• Goal setting
  
  
• Expression of your personality
  
  
• Decision making

Your true self resides in this part of your brain. This is the self that doesn’t quickly lose control when exposed to animalistic desires such as an urge to binge.

Using Your Neocortex to Resist an Urge to Binge

How can we call on our neocortex when we want to make conscious food choices?

Follow these steps:

1. Consider your urge to be irrational. Before you take this step, ensure that you are consuming enough food. If you’re restricting your nourishment and starving yourself, then your urge to eat is a legit physiological need that should be met.
   If you’re eating enough and still have desires to indulge in fattening foods, consider that desire as brain junk. Tell yourself to ignore these messages.

2. Divert your attention. What you focus on grows. If you find yourself trying to fight your obsessive thoughts, they will only increase in strength and occupy even more of your precious mind space. What works better is to shift your focus to something more productive, self-care for example. Go outside for a walk, meditate, go work out, read a book, stretch…anything that is good for you that doesn’t involve food. Once you allow yourself to engage in a pleasant or meaningful activity, your neocortex will get engaged, and the urge will lessen until it leaves you entirely.

3. Reach out to others. Food can often be used for comfort. Many of us choose to deal with our emotional turmoil by indulging in short-lived pleasures provided by sugary, fattening treats. To keep this from happening, reach out to family, friends, or even strangers. Experience comfort from human connection. In doing so, you’re activating the part of your neocortex that regulates social behavior. Once you rise to this level of consciousness, your cravings will crumble down, letting you carry on with your day.

These tips are designed for those who have a relatively healthy relationship with food and experience occasional urges to binge. If you suffer from an eating disorder, you’ll find your best results in consulting professional support and recovery assistance.  As someone who has suffered from an eating disorder and has lost a niece to this terrible disease, I urge you get that help and seek support from family.  More on eating disorders in a future post

A Picky Eater’s Guide to Weight Loss and Eating Healthy

By Maria Graft, Nutrition and Healthy Living Coach

It’s natural for kids to be picky eaters, but over the course of a lifetime most adults manage to expand their diet. However, if you’re over 21 and still living on pizza and French fries, it may be taking a toll on your social life and your health.

Most picky eaters prefer bland comfort foods high in calories and low in nutrients. That makes it difficult to maintain a healthy weight and can put you at risk for other medical conditions.

Experts believe there are a number of reasons for being so selective. The origins of being a picky eater can go way back to your childhood. Family eating patters hold fast. You could also have a heightened sensitivity to certain food odors and textures. The most common complaints are about slippery and slimy sensations, as well as bitter and sour flavors.

How can you can enjoy a balanced diet and dine out comfortably without going near a Brussels sprout? Try this gradual approach for picky eaters who want to lose weight and eat healthy.

Altering What You Eat:

1. Cook differently. You might like cauliflower if it were prepared differently. Give some of your rejects another try with recipes that involve methods like roasting or air frying.
   
2. Choose healthy substitutes. Discover wholesome swaps for your favorite dishes that have too many empty calories. Breakfast on toasted oats with cinnamon instead of sugary instant oatmeal. Bake your own tortilla chips rather than buying fried snacks.
   
3. Create new combinations. Introduce one or two healthy new foods into your diet at a time by pairing them with something you already like. Macaroni and cheese offer infinite opportunities for ingredients like peas and carrots or scallops and shallots.
   
4. Drink your vegetables. You can consume kale without even knowing it if you blend it into a smoothie. Pureeing food for soups and other dishes could help, too, if lumpy textures bother you.

Altering How You Eat:

1. Think positive. Do you feel left out when the Food Network covers the latest artisanal trends and your friends want to go to ethnic restaurants? Remember to give yourself credit for trying new things. Seek out supportive family and friends.
   
2. Slow down. Unfamiliar foods may be less scary if you avoid rushing into anything. For example, start out by taking a long look at an avocado. Watch others enjoy guacamole. Then, take a small bite with or without swallowing. Do your experimenting alone if that’s more comfortable.
   
3. Make it convenient. Reduce temptation by keeping the foods you want to avoid out of your house and stocking up on the ones you’re trying to warm up to. You’re more likely to cook a balanced meal if there’s no frozen pizza in your freezer.
   
4. Limit snacking. Hunger can increase your motivation to become more adventurous. Cut back on grazing if it’s interfering with your appetite.
   
5. Keep trying. It may take many attempts before you appreciate tofu or Greek yogurt. Be patient and track your progress so you’ll see what’s working for you.
   
6. Be a role model. Childhood experiences can have a big influence on eating habits. If you grew up with stressful mealtimes and forbidden foods, try to create a different environment for your own children.
   
7. Talk with your doctor. If you feel like your eating habits are beyond your control, seek professional help. Your doctor can help you find the resources you need.

Adult picky eaters can benefit from many of the same strategies that work for kids. Take small steps towards expanding your diet. See your doctor if you need more assistance with changing your eating habits so you can stay slim and healthy.

12 Happy Hour Alternatives for Connecting with Co-Workers

-Maria Graft, Nutrition and Healthy Living Expert

There’s more to happy hour than beer and Buffalo wings. It’s a chance to bond with your colleagues and shake off stress before you return to your family in the evening.

Hold onto the advantages of happy hour without sabotaging your fitness. Try these healthier alternatives for socializing after work or anytime during the week.

After Work Social Activities

The hour after work deserves its popularity as a time to get together. You can decompress after a hectic day at the office. You may even be able to avoid the worst rush hour traffic on your commute home.

1. Work out. Exercise instead of having a drink. Sign up for group classes at the nearest gym or a local yoga studio. Join a softball league.
2. Eat cheap. Why wait for your senior years to start saving money with early bird specials? Finish your whole dinner or consider it a first course. You’ll have the rest of the evening free for other enjoyments. You’ll also be less tempted by junk food because you’ll feel full when you arrive home.
3. Appreciate art. In many cities, museums and other venues stay open late at least one evening each week. Browse through the galleries and discuss the works over a cup of tea in the cafe.
   
   

Before Work Social Activities

The decisions you make in the morning set the tone for your day. Plus, early morning sunshine lifts your mood, so share it with others.

1. Connect with nature. You’ll look forward to waking up early when you see all that nature has to offer. Meet your coworkers in the park while the sun is rising and birds are singing. Take a walk or do Tai Chi together.
2. Sit and meditate. Support each other in starting a meditation practice. Ask your employer about using the conference room or search for a meditation center in your neighborhood.
3. Eat breakfast. A nutritious meal will give you energy until lunch. Gather in the break room or the coffee shop in the lobby.
   
   

Lunchtime Social Activities

It can be tempting to work through lunch, but taking a break is likely to make you more productive. It may also be the only opportunity to discuss subjects other than business.

1. Invite speakers. The lunch hour is a great opportunity to hear from speakers on a variety of topics. Pass around a survey to discover what your fellow employees are interested in. They may want to learn more about health insurance or community gardening. Encourage your colleagues to share their own expertise too.
2. Make crafts. Switch gears by trading in the spreadsheets for felt and scissors. Creative activities may help you to think more innovatively when you return to your desk.
3. Watch a movie. Take your mind off your clients and vendors with a little entertainment. Show reruns of an old TV program or a funny movie. Split the show into segments to fit your schedule.
   
   

Weekend Social Activities

Plan an occasional weekend program. You’ll have more time to spend together, especially if you want to travel out of town.

1. Hold a weekend retreat. Retreats are a proven way to build teams. Incorporate play time into the agenda along with more serious discussions.
2. Throw a party. Celebrate company milestones and obscure holidays. Put together a potluck or a wine and cheese buffet.
3. Train for the future. Let your employer know you’re interested in increasing your value. Attend an outside program or hire your own instructor to teach the staff introductory Spanish or coding.
   
   

Happy hour alternatives can enrich your mind and your professional relationships without packing on extra calories. Talk with your employer about promoting healthy initiatives or invite your friends from work to join you for some quality time.