Archive for the ‘Self Awareness’ Category
You walk in the door and make a beeline for the kitchen. Maybe the first thing you see is a stack of envelopes or a set of dishes. You open the fridge immediately, then open the snack drawer and rummage around the crinkly bags. You pick something crunchy, and if you’re lucky, you sit down with it. Your mind glazes over, and suddenly you come-to with an empty bag and snack-food fingers. What gives?
We all have habits that can sabotage our health goals, especially in our main food source: the kitchen! This space should inspire energy, not stress and distraction. Take these tips to the kitchen to get you off auto-pilot and back into control of your snacking – and your space!
1. First things first, when you walk in the door:
Take a detour. Move your first stop to somewhere other than the kitchen.
Make flowers, a plant, or a nice picture the first thing you see instead of bills or dishes.
Make something you love the first thing you can reach.
2. Out of sight, out of mind:
Move snack foods to inaccessible locations. If you need a stepstool to reach it, you’ll think twice.
Give yourself some low hanging fruit, literally. Get a 3-tiered fruit basket to put healthy choices at eye level.
Toss chocolate, cookies, and other easy-to-eat calorie dense foods in the freezer.
Create a “food curtain.” Push limiting foods to the back of the fridge or cabinet, and bring healthy snacks, water, or spices to the front. Bring frozen fruit bags to the front of your freezer, and push the desserts down low.
3. Squirrel! Maximize good distractions:
Pot some plants. The act of watering and pruning plants gives your mind something to focus on, and your hands something to do other than open the fridge.
Bring in books, puzzles, a soothing music player, or games. (A TV or computer is not recommended, as it increases mindless consumption).
Make food journaling part of your process. Keep a notebook nearby, or log foods in an app like Lose It!.
4. Switch it up on your brain
Change your snack drawer, and put in tea or plastic containers instead. This serves to break the habit chain your brain and body have made.
Clean your fridge. It’s more appealing to pull produce from a wiped-down shelf than one with crumbs and leaks.
Keep your bills and stressors elsewhere. Just seeing them can cause distracted stress-eating.
Take a seat. If you’re standing, your mind thinks you’re too busy to focus on the act of eating. Relax and chew.
5. Prepare for battle
Remove the crinkle, and reduce the appeal – take snacks out of their original container. Companies purposefully create a sensory experience around snacking, and the images, words, and feel of the bag are all part of the game.
Never eat from the bag. Portion out foods you eat in bulk into 100-200 calorie packs.
Leave positive, encouraging, or tough reminders for yourself as barriers to entry on snack foods and associated places.
Your hungry mind will stomp into the kitchen unannounced. Having the proper defense set up will stop the habits you’ve formed and give you back control and clarity.
No, I’m not married. But I listen to a whole lot of Dr. Jenn Berman on Cosmo Radio, so in my head I am pretty much a licensed psychotherapist. Counts, right?
I see posts with the theme “Before saying ‘I do'” a lot in financial and child-rearing realms, but what about with our health? With the growing health problems, processed food intake, and sedentary lifestyles, our pre-marital discussions may need to branch into exercise and nutrition visions for our relationships. 
American media tends to show us as packing on the pounds after marriage, but we can change that status quo. It’s not just a sitcom stereotype, it’s a dangerous cycle to begin after tying the knot. Popping the question shouldn’t mean popping cookies into your mouth. Once you’ve caught the big fish, it doesn’t mean you need to stuff yourself- and the fish. “Fat and happy” needs to be replaced with “fit and happy.”And once I’ve written one too many cliche’s, I should probably not write another.
As spring crawls slowly in among this 30-something degree weather, wedding bells will chime, chilly, but as planned. Before making the commitment, it may serve you well to discuss plainly how you will handle your future health as husband and wife:
1. When can we start? In “for better or for worse,” a healthy lifestyle maximizes the better. Discussing food and activity with your partner affects the amount of years you spend together and the quality of those years. The earlier you start, the earlier you will turn your lifestyle choices into habits that keep you together longer. If you are planners, plan to have a conversation and enhance your life together as soon as you can.
2. Where do we see ourselves? You may have an ideal image of yourself, but what about as a couple? Make visions for yourself as a couple to maintain a healthy weight and muscle mass. Visualize yourself in 5, 10, 25 years, making healthy snacks for yourself and your children, packing nutrient-filled lunches, bike riding as a family, and playing with your grandchildren with great health.
3. What do we like? Define your preferences : He may be into football, while you are a yogi. You’re a vegan, she’s a steak lover. With a plethora of healthy activities, you and your partner can find common ground. Try brainstorming activities you both find fun: cook together, go jogging or walking, or invite new activities like hiking or skiing. If you prefer to be healthy separately- so be it. Get creative, make it fun. Some couples work better with a little competitive tension. If you are competitive, race eachother. Make bets. Start a competition: set aside two jars. Put money in your jar for every workout you do, and money in your partner’s jar for every time you slip up with junk food. (There are other ways to spice up bets and competitions, but we’ll keep it P.G. here).
4. Set goals: How can we make it attainable and sustainable? Choose goals that are just out of reach enough that they offer a challenge, but not so far that they are unrealistic. If you know you don’t go to the gym even when you pay $50/month, then pick at-home exercises to do every day (see last week’s article for ideas). Make them specific and sustainable by choosing specific exercises and amounts: we will walk 2 times a week; do 15 pushups together 4 mornings a week, go for a bike ride 3 weekends a month. If you start with a small challenge and stick with it, you can adhere to the program and build on it.
5. How can we support each other? Talk about how you will hold eachother accountable. Make a promise to each other to take joint responsibility. If your partner joins a recreational league, go to the games. If one of you is struggling with overeating or snacking mindlessly, ask for gentle reminders or that your partner try to distract you through talking or entertainment. Share articles with eachother, pick healthy recipes. At the very least, make sure you are not sabotaging your partners efforts, i.e. through negative comments or keeping snacks in the house. Understand that your partners success is your success.
6. Tie it to your budget. Every cautionary advice article will tell you that money is the #1 cause of marital stress in most surveyed married couples. Realizing that your choices have a direct impact on your health will free up a large portion of your budget. Go over your prescription costs (real, or base them on your parents’). Chances are, some family issues are preventable. Unhealthy lifestyles lead to sickness. Sickness leads to doctor bills, prescription costs, hospital bills, and even larger grocery bills (in the case of overeating). Clean eating reduces disease, and exercise and flexibility training strengthen bones, reducing osteopenia. Eating out is also a huge source of calories and a big chunk out of your wallet. Check your budget for ways you can save money AND get healthier, like cutting out sodas, packing lunches for work, and choosing vegetable based meals. Eating nutritious foods is not more expensive. (Visit any Trader Joe’s and you’ll agree).
6. Commit! Just as you have chosen to commit to each other, decide to commit to a long, healthy, and happy life. Stick to your habits as a couple, and they will become easier for you as you create new activities and family traditions geared toward clean eating and fitness.
Congratulations, and here’s a virtual toast to your long and healthy marriage!
I may be a bit of a nerd, but I am fascinated with the brain and the way neurotransmitters (NTs for short) effect -and are affected!- by our behavior. The idea that we can change our brain chemical layout is pretty amazing.
The article below talks about what serotonin, dopamine, and other NT’s do during eating disorders, but also about what we can do to re-route them into better behavior. What’s even cooler is that by changing these behaviors, we can actually alter the levels of the NTs in our brain.
Read it here:
http://www.eatingdisorder-institute.com/?tag=neurotransmitters
Conquer Your Habit of Indulgence
Posted on: October 16, 2012
The more I learn about the brain and obesity, the more I realize that our HABITS are the biggest tool we have to changing our lives.
“In marketing indulgence, the food industry knows something about us that we don’t know about ourselves.
By encouraging us to consider any occasion to eat as an opportunity for pleasure and reward, the industry invites us to indulge a lot more often. That theme populates food industry marketing reports and conferences that drive new food products and services.” – The End of Overeating, David Kessler
Once you conquer the habit to “indulge,” your desired result will become the reward in itself. Better energy, a longer life, and a healthy, lean body are much better rewards than the momentary taste of engineered food.
Awareness is not enough- our brains are hardwired from years of the same old behaviors. It will take a conscious effort to say NO to ourselves, and start making better choices. We cannot continue to stimulate our reward centers with sugar, fat, salt, and the chemicals of processed food. The food present in America that is always in your face is not designed to satisfy your hunger. It is designed to keep you eating (aka buying) more, more, more– it is designed to STIMULATE appetite, not alleviate it.
Pick whole, fresh, foods. Use spices instead of salt. Stop using sugar to reward yourself and start associating pleasure with more productive things- reading, walking, talking to a loved one. Your future self- healthy, happy, and not controlled by low-brain behavior, will love you for it.
If you indulge more frequently than you like, have an obsession with food, want to gain control, or if you are a dork who loves neuroscience and applied behavior analysis like me, I urge you to pick up a copy of The End of Overeating by David Kessler.
http://www.theendofovereatingbook.com
Excerpts found at: http://theendofovereatingbook.com/blog.php
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/louise-mccready/d-kessler-author-of-emthe_b_195676.html
Lots of love!
Andrea
Make it Part of Your Identity
Posted on: October 10, 2012
Recently, I officially bought my package to study and take the Personal Trainer Certification Exam.. I have 180 days to complete the exam.
I’m pumped! I chose NASM (National Academy of Sports Medicine)- I read it is widely accepted, pays well in most gyms, and has strong ties to science.
With that said, today’s advice is, when you are trying to achieve something:
Make it part of your Identity
You undoubtedly associate yourself with variety of things. Especially in our teenage years, we struggle to find out what type of people we are. We use our surroundings- friends, family, what we do, how we act, what people think of us- to try and come up with a conclusive self. In adulthood, we learn to look within, but sometimes we do not shed the beliefs that we snagged up along the way. They may have served their purpose and are now old news to our wiser selves. We have quite literally outgrown our younger beliefs and need to reexamine them in order to grow further.
At the very peak, you can associate with your body and say “I am a fat person” or “I am a skinny person.” Then you can associate with your wants/desires: we have “I am a chocolate lover,” “I am addicted to ___,” “I love fast food.” Then, as teens do, you can view your actions and identify with them: “I always eat dessert after dinner,” “I eat in my car.” It definitely helps to explore these beliefs and become aware of our pitfalls. However- there is a better way. Fortunately, we can fast track our success and counter our negative beliefs by a simpler route.
Pick New Beliefs:
Act first, and the true belief will come.
A lot of traditional couch therapy focuses on delving into old beliefs in order to shed them. However, if you have nothing to replace them with- you are left with awareness but no way to apply it. Instead, what if we deliberately begin to add in new beliefs about ourselves to our current belief systems?
1. Stop focusing on what you think you can’t change
2. Choose what you WANT to believe about yourself.
3. Act accordingly.
If you decide you want to be a healthy eater, you have to believe that about yourself. You have to retrain your consciousness to believe health is part of your identity.
You can use the following statements to reinvent yourself:
“I am,” I love,” “I like,” and “I act”
“I am a healthy eater, I like choosing healthy foods, I love the feeling of eating clean, and I choose these foods every day.”
The choice to add self-serving beliefs into your routine will force out beliefs that need to be shed. Choose wisely and consciously.
Supplemental Information and Reading:
http://www.nasm.org (National Academy of Sports Medicine)
Mindset – C. Dweck
Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul – Deepak Chopra
The Body Fat Solution – Tom Venuto
Headstrong Health: The Psychology of Getting Fit 
