Category: nutrition

Inspiration and Perspiration

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Thomas Edison is quoted along the lines that achieving a goal is “One percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”

The Changeology Step 3 of Perspire lasts at least 30 days. It’s followed by the Persevere and Persist steps which round out and end the 90-day action plan.

Two prior goals I’ve already achieved using the Changeology method.

One was to wear makeup every day to my job. The other was to wear jeans to my job only 2 days a week. In fact I rarely wear jeans at all to my job anymore. And I do apply makeup in the morning before I go there.

Controlling the environment as regards these two goals was simple:

Placing my makeup in a cosmetics case and keeping the case on the bathroom sink ledge for easy and quick access.

Storing the jeans in an out-of-the way rack. Placing the pants front-and-center hanging in my everyday closet.

While I buckle down in the Perspire step I’m going to write in here about other fitness and nutrition topics.

I want to write about these things to give readers hope.

There’s a lot of confusing, conflicting, and downright contentious information about health that is passed off as the only right approach to living your life.

Remember: my claim to fame is that I wrote a book titled Left of the Dial. I see things differently and think differently from most people.

What I know to be true is that a dose of common sense is required when tackling problems that seem insurmountable.

Isn’t a 90-day action plan a short time frame in which to accomplish a goal that has the potential to become permanent for the rest of your life?

In a coming blog entry I’m going to focus on how I lost 20 pounds as a young woman and kept most of that weight off.

In fact I weigh the same at 53 as I did at 40. This indicates I know something about which I speak.

You could get toned lifting all the dozens of diet books that are published each year.

My goal is this: to empower readers not only to dare to dream but to actually do what you dream of.

More on how I lost weight and kept it off in the coming blog entries.

Changeology: Step Three: Perspire

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In the third Changeology step of Perspire you start to act on your goal or resolution.

Here you use techniques: rewarding, countering, controlling the environment, and helping relationships.

My goal was to go to the gym 2x per week and eat salads 3x per week at my job. This week I was only at my job two days and I did have salads for lunch on those days.

Last week I trained at the gym twice. This week I’m going to the gym 2x as well.

Along the way you’re supposed to reward yourself for achieving your sub-goals leading to the destination goal.

Countering is engaging in the health opposite of the prior behavior. Controlling the environment is the way to reduce the temptation to revert back to your old habit(s).

Helping relationships are the bonds you have with your change support team members while working on the 90-day action plan and beyond the 90 days.

Controlling the environment in terms of bringing food to my job is as simply as placing the insulated tote bag where I can see it in the morning. For quick access to it to store the items in and then dash out the door.

A member of my change team is a personal trainer.

From reading this you can see how the 5 steps of the Changeology action plan play out in detail.

I have a friend whose goal is “to be healthier.” That raised a red flag with me.

Your goal has to be S.M.A.R.T. How exactly are you going to execute your plan if you only have a vague notion of what you want to do that isn’t supported by specific measurable achievable relevant and time-sensitive sub-goals?

Trust me when I tell readers that the Changeology 5-step action plan has a greater probability of working than simply wanting “to lose weight” or “to be healthier.”

I’ve already achieved 2 other goals using this method. And I haven’t reverted back to the old behavior since achieving these goals.

You can do it. I cheer you on in any goal or resolution you have in the New Year.

Changeology: Step Two: Prep

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In Step Two: Prep you write down your S.M.A.R.T. goal that is Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant and Time-Specific.

Using my resolution as an example:

Specific:

To gain back the energy to cook my own dinners 4 times per week. To continue to exercise at the gym through the spring.

Measurable:

Lift weights 2 times per week. Pound the treadmill once per week.

Buy food online. Bring food in Rachel Ray insulated tote to make lunch at my job. Have salads 3 times per week for lunch. Eat only organic chicken. Bring fruit and yogurt to job to have as a snack.

Attainable:  This is realistic as I’m not seeking to lose 50 pounds in one month or do some other extreme thing.

Relevant: The goal is one I set. It wasn’t a resolution that another person imposed on me or wanted me to achieve.

Time-Specific: The Changeology method has a 90-day time frame for completion.

The other prime objective in Step Two: Prep is to ask people to be members of your change support team.

This week I’m going to enlist a fitness professional.

Coming up next week I’ll report on Step Three: Perspire.

 

 

New Year’s Resolution

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My goal is imperative and I’ll tell you why:

My father at the end of his life had stage 3 colon cancer that spread to his liver.

Though I don’t know that this type of cancer is can be inherited I’m not taking my chances..

It might not seem fair that hard work is required to succeed at a goal.

It takes mental work; physical work; emotional work; and spiritual work to get what you want in life.

My goal is to gain energy and achieve peak fitness.

The sub-goal is to have salads 3x per week for lunch.

To do this I will order food online and bring it to my job in the Rachel Ray insulated tote.

I’ve long advanced in this blog that eating healthful food can improve a person’s mood.

Two other goals I’ve achieved so far have contributed to having an elevated feeling.

They have been acted on using the Changeology book plan.

In the coming blog entry I’ll talk about Step Two: Prep

Changeology: Step One: Psych

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On the upper right of this blog where there’s text I inserted a new quote. It’s well worth it to read and remember the quote.

Here it is in case you can’t see the quote right away on your cell phone screen:

“Proceed as if Success is Inevitable.” – Unknown

This week I’ve started Step One–Psych–in the Changeology book. There are five steps total: Psych. Prep. Perspire. Persist. Persevere.

Step One is where you get in the mental game to psych yourself up to achieve the goal you’re going to set for the 90-day time frame.

My goal is to eat more healthful food for lunch and to save money on buying lunches. So, I’m going to bring food from home instead of buying food outside.

To do this I ordered a purple Rachael Ray XL 10 Gallon Insulated Tote. It arrived at my door. Wow–the tote is huge. I’m going to use it anyway. It folds, so will be convenient to take back home folded up.

With the holidays here I’ve been exercising only once a week on Sundays. At the start of the New Year I intend to go back to the gym to lift weights 2x per week. Plus hop on the treadmill one day a week in the winter.

I’ll stick with this one goal of eating more healthful food and ordering food online to bring with me to my job.

First up is keeping a food diary which I’ve been doing for three days so far. I’ll keep the food diary for 7 days.

Next week I will start Step Two: Prep.

I’m so impressed with the Changeology book that I’m giving a copy out as a Christmas gift.

Using this 5-Step method I’ve been successful so far with 2 goals I wanted to achieve.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race. It’s a cliche because it’s true: Slow and Steady Wins the Race.

My hope is that by sharing my own goal-setting plan I can empower readers to reach for your dreams too.

Organic Food Benefits

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How to Be Well has opened my eyes to how it’s non-negotiable to eat mostly organic food.

Not only is eating meat not-so-great for our waistlines it’s obviously not good at all for the earth. CAFOs–that is slaughterhouses–wreck the environment.

I haven’t eaten meat in over a decade. Today I’m not keen to eat chicken and turkey either unless I buy or order the organic version.

According to Frank Lipman, MD the author of How to Be Well chicken is given a chemical bath.

Chemical bath? Those words alone alarm me.

I say: opt for buying and eating organic chicken and turkey. Just Say No to Beef of any kind.

In the coming blog entries I want to thrown down another Fitness Challenge. I’ll record my own progress to motivate readers to embark on your own goal-setting routine.

Meet me in the next blog entry as I start out with Step 1: Psych.

The Truth About GMOs

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Roundup–the Monsanto pesticide–was proven to cause cancer in a legal trial.

Farming communities have high rates of cancer. Pesticides cause all sorts of health issues.

Eating produce that’s locally grown is better if you’re able to do this.

The cost of shopping at a Greenmarket offsets the catastrophic cost of becoming ill from disease. You either pay more for healthful food or you pay more for medical costs.

After skimming pages in How to Be Well I’m committed to changing my behavior in terms of consuming food.

My goal is to persuade blog readers to buy mostly organic food.

As I see it, to eat healthfully 80 percent of the time is a great goal. I’ve talked about this 80 percent rule before in the blog.

Monsanto and the other biotech firms will stop at nothing to keep advertising GMO crops as safe and nutritious. Only GMO food isn’t better for you than organic food.

Luckily, I can buy organic food and shop at Greenmarkets where I live in New York City.

In the coming blog entry I’ll talk more about the benefits of eating mostly organic food.

How to Be Well

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how to be well

This book is the real deal just like How to Make Disease Disappear.

In the coming blog entries I’m going to write about health topics touched on in How to Be Well.

It was my goal to turn back to talking about fitness and nutrition.

With January 1st coming up soon a lot of us are going to want to achieve resolutions.

As always, there’s one goal-setting book I recommend. I seem to have altered the title before in the blogs. The actual title is Changeology: 5 Steps to Realizing Your Goals and Resolutions.

This method is effective no matter the kind of behavior you seek to change.

One goal I have–I really don’t like to use the word resolution–is to create a better weekly meal plan and fitness routine.

Step 1 of the Changeology method is Psych. In order to be effective in realizing your resolution you first have to get in the mental game to do this.

Joining a gym and firing away at exercise before you engage in the Psych Step you’re going to run out of steam two months later and quit.

I’m going to end here with the truth that I’ll continue to detail in the coming blog entry: M.D.s don’t eat junk according to Frank Lipman, M.D. the author of How to Be Well.

He devotes a section of the book to GMOs which should be required reading.

I’d like to start in the next two weeks to use this blog as a forum for New Year’s goal-setting.

My aim is to show how it’s possible to realize your resolutions.

 

The Snob Diet

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Years ago I remember reading in a magazine–was it Glamour–about the Snob Diet.

The editors claimed this diet works. I’m no fan of diets.

No–I didn’t ever go on a diet when I lost 20 pounds in my twenties.

Though I gained a little in the form of muscle I’ve dropped one pant and one skirt size by lifting weights for over 7 years. In fact I dropped one size only one year after starting to lift weights consistently at the gym.

On the days I’m unable to go to the gym I work out at home. See my blog entry Setting Up a Home Gym for details about the equipment I bought.

OK–so the Snob Diet involves eating quality food–regular food–and not eating junk that is totally crap.

In the Dr. Chatterjee book How to Make Disease Disappear his section on the Eat Pillar disproves the claims that experts and adherents make for diets such as low-carb or keto or paleo. This British MD details the truth about how to eat to fuel your body to function optimally.

I can vouch for being a snob in terms of what I eat: mostly healthful food and a once-a-week indulgence in a chocolate croissant or some other kind of delectable.

Dr. Chatterjee busts the longest-running myth in staying slim: that how you maintain your weight is as simple as calories burned versus calories consumed.

Forget going on kooky and restrictive diets. You could tone up lifting all those diet books on the shelves.

I wrote a number of blog entries about the tenets of How to Make Disease Disappear. Dr. Chatterjee’s approach to health is sane and simple. It’s not difficult to maintain the kind of eating plan he talks about.

In this blog about a year or so ago I wrote about my own sensible eating plan: having a consistent habit of eating 80 percent healthfully and 20 percent anything.

The name Snob Diet has a ring to it.

I don’t advise acting like a snob towards people in your everyday life.

Yet being snobbish in the kind of food you eat might have advantages.

5-a-Day the Easy Way

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Dr. Chatterjee recommends having 5 servings of vegetables a day.

The MD includes avocados and olives in this “5-a-day” lineup.

You can print up copies of his Rainbow Chart and use them to check off the vegetables you’ve eaten each day.

In tandem with the “5-a-Day” eating plan Dr. Chatterjee recommends not eating food products that contain more than five ingredients.

The longer the ingredient list the more likely it’s processed food.

The government allows food  and drink companies to get away with not listing the actual names of chemicals contained in food and drink products.

Instead they’re listed as “natural flavor.” Food  or drink that companies claim is organic or otherwise good for you often has natural flavors in the ingredient list.

It’s perfectly legal to load up food and drink products with chemicals without having to list the chemicals on the ingredients list.

Any kind of protein bar is most likely high in sugar and has natural flavors.

Kind bar now lists on the package: Made with Real Food. Only when you read the ingredients list it also contains chemicals in the form of natural flavor.

I urge you to read the ingredient lists of food and drink products:

Anything that makes an emotional claim as being good for you most likely has chemicals added to whatever “good” part of the food they’re championing.

In the next blog entry here I’ll talk about some great snacks you can buy that are truly healthful.

You can do away with products that have natural flavors.

With 100 percent confidence I can tell you: stay away from any food or drink that didn’t come out of God’s green earth.

You’ll be healthier and feel better eating real food that isn’t doused in chemicals.

It’s fine every-so-often to have pastry or a cookie or doughnut. That should be an occasional treat. I stand by indulging once-a-week.

In a coming blog entry I’ll talk about a particular diet that was championed in Glamour magazine years ago.