Monthly Archives: October 2011

5 Sneaky Ways to Lose 10 Pounds Fast

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Sometimes losing weight can feel like the most impossible task in the world, so I wanted to share these sneaky ways to lose 10 pounds QUICKLY, SAFELY, EASILY!!

1.  USE A SMALLER PLATE.  That’s it folks!  Just because its dinner time doesn’t mean that you need to use a dinner plate.  Try using a smaller plate to keep portion size in check.  Research shows that women who used larger sized dinner plates continued to eat long after they were hungry and even to a point of feeling overly full.  The American portion size is out of control compared to portions in other countries.  Do yourself a favor & start with a smaller plate.  You’ll be surprised!

2.  WHAT ARE YOU DRINKING?  If you eliminate soda from your diet, you will be shocked at how much weight you can lose.  Drinking diet soda is not going to help you lose weight, and some studies show that you may actually gain weight due to the effect that some artificial sweeteners have on your brain causing it to CRAVE other sweets.  When I eliminated diet soda from my diet, I lost 6-7 pounds in just a few weeks – and that happened without making any other modifications to my diet & exercise routine.  If you need caffeine, switch to iced tea with lemon (avoid artificial sweeteners).  Your best bet is to drink WATER, but it takes time to transition from drinking 10 Diet Cokes per day to drinking only water.  Set reasonable expectations, but STOP the sodas right away!

3.  EAT BREAKFAST.  It may seem like encouraging you to eat more rather than fewer meals works against you — it doesn’t!  Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but choose wisely.  Rather than grabbing a bagel with cream cheese & a hot mocha, choose a breakfast with both fiber and protein.  My favorite breakfast is non-fat Greek yogurt with a few raspberries, natural granola, and a small serving to mixed nuts (like unsalted pistachios, almonds, and cashews) with a soy cappuccino.  This gives me plenty of protein and a healthy dose of fiber first thing in the morning.  Skipping breakfast causes you to make bad eating decisions for the rest of the day, and you could end up eating more food with little nutritional value.

4.  SHORTEN YOUR WORKOUTS.  You can burn more calories by doing short bursts of cardio throughout the day than by walking at your average pace on the treadmill for an hour.  Do you stop by Starbucks every day on your way in to work?  Instead of driving by on your way to the office, try starting off your day with a 15-20 minute walk to grab your morning coffee.  Ready for your second cardio burst?  Instead of sitting down gabbing with your colleagues for 30 minutes after you have finished eating lunch, grab one or two of them and take the talk outside!  A 20-minute mid-day walk will give you more energy in the afternoon than that extra cup of coffee you were thinking about.  Same thing in the evening — walk around your neighborhood after dinner or if you have a dog, try taking him out for a walk instead of just letting him out the back door.

5.  MEAL PLANNING.  Taking the time to plan healthy meals and snacks and make a grocery list can save you from eating a ton of extra fat & calories.  There are so many meal-planning websites out there, you don’t have to even come up with the ideas yourself!  Don’t forget to wash & cut fruits & veggies that you will use for snacks as soon as you get home from the store.  This way, they are super easy to throw into the blender for a healthy, tasty smoothie when you get hungry instead of going for that calorie-packed energy bar.

With these little tips, you can lose 10 pounds in no time without even realizing it.  If you slip up on your weight loss journey, don’t beat yourself up about it.  Give yourself the same kindness that you would offer to a friend, and just keep going.

I’d love to hear your comments if you enjoyed this post.  Have other sneaky ways to burn off 10 pounds with little to no effort?  Share those below too!

Natural Cures for Exhaustion

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It’s Friday again. Chances are, you feel drained. Maybe even stressed, tired, or burned out? It’s inevitable given the way we multitask to balance work, family, friends, and other commitments. By taking stock in what you are asking yourself to do in a day, you are taking the first step towards saying goodbye to exhaustion and start feeling better. Here are a few common causes and cures of exhaustion that could change your life.

1) Your breath. Most of us are shallow, rapid breathers. This type of breathing can be caused by poor posture or stiff muscles and can lead to poor oxygen supply making us feel slow, fatigued, and exhausted! To practice deep breathing, start by lying on your back in a comfortable position. Put your hands on your belly underneath your rib cage. The tips of your two middle fingers should be barely touching. Breathe in fully through the nose & feel your chest expand — you will notice that your fingertips move apart slightly as your chest expands with air. For best results, practice deep breathing every day for a couple of minutes. Over time, you will notice a rise in energy levels.

2) Lack of connection. Do you remember your last beach vacation? How did you feel as you sat back in your chair looking out at the ocean? Relaxed, huh? There is something about a connection with nature that makes us feel less drained and less anxious. In our day-to-day lives, especially now that winter is lurking, we may go for days without seeing the light of day. We spend our entire day inside buildings with artificial light. As often as you can, talk an early morning walk. If that is impossible, get yourself outdoors for a fifteen to twenty minute walk at lunch time. Pay attention to the scenery or to your breathing — whatever works. Do not read your email on your smartphone; that’s defeating your purpose of connecting to nature!

3) No motivation. We all need a sense of meaning and a sense of joy to ground us. Getting caught up in the grind can be really depleting if you don’t have something that brings you happiness to balance it out. If you identify with this, I want to encourage you to write a few things down. Start off by listing the things that cause you to feel stressed and disconnected from the world. It could be a strained relationship with a family member, a recent break-up or job loss. Whatever it is, write it down & also write down your reaction to the stressful situation. Next, write down the things in your life that give you happiness and satisfaction. This will likely be a much shorter list, but your job is to start doing more of the things that make you feel connected and happy and less of the things that make you feel stressed and miserable. You might find that waking up early for that yoga class is worth it even if you are tired because you leave feeling energized and accomplished. Whatever it is, follow the positives and you are guaranteed that little spark you are seeking.

Controlling Stress May Be the Key to Fewer Age-Related Diseases

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I’ve written about stress before, but I was compelled to write on this topic again after some of the interactions I’ve had this week.

Psychological stress and anxiety can’t be completely avoided, they are a part of life. Did you know that there is a 50% increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) for people who deal with chronic work stress? That’s a 50 percent greater chance than the average person has of developing CVD if you are stressed at work and don’t change your environment.

Stress can further increase the diseases associated with aging, such as Alzheimer’s disease. Before running to the doctor for a prescription to make the symptoms disappear, it is important to identify your stressors. It may be work-related, family-related, or a combination of things. Stress is a reaction. The brain is involved in a person’s stress response (e.g., interprets what is threatening) and then regulates both how your body responds both physiologically and behaviorally.

Studies have found that the following can help decrease your body’s response to stress:

1) Exercise. Exercise increases the level of telomerase produced. Telomerase is an enzyme that protects loss of DNA from important end region of our chromosomes called telomeres. Think of a telomere like the protective piece at the end of a shoestring. Studies have found that elite athletes have very long telomeres.

2) Your Social Network. I’m not just taking about how many Facebook or Twitter followers you have! People with a strong partner relationship and close friendships have been found to be at lower risk for diseases associated with aging and to have less of a stress response to situations such as public speaking (which can evoke fear in many).

3) Better quality of sleep. The average person needs between 7 and 9 hours of sleep per night. People who got a better quality of sleep and woke up feeling rested have, on average, longer telomeres than those who suffered from poor quality sleep.

4) Nutrition. Individuals diagnosed with obesity and insulin resistance had shorter telomeres than others, whereas those who consumed a diet containing antioxidants and added supplements such as omega 3s had longer telomeres.

The lesson to take from this is that if we can embrace these preventive measures, we can increase our body’s resilience. As resilience increases, so does our ability to age well.

Comfort Food: Why Are You Seeking Comfort?

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Millions of people use food as a way of seeking comfort from pain or hurt in their lives. Most are doing it without even realizing it.

Do you find yourself sitting at home, alone & bored watching TV and eating when you aren’t hungry? Do you suffer from insomnia and find yourself getting up during the night & cleaning out the pantry? They don’t call it comfort food for nothing!

In order to break through this unhealthy behavior, you have to dig deep and figure out what is really eating at you! It may be worry about something going on in your life or someone close to you. It may be an issue stemming from childhood that you never worked through and hoped to bury. You have to work your way through the pain in order to come out on the other side. This hurt and discomfort you are experiencing is good — it is showing you that you are due for a change.

You may have tried dieting in the past many times with no success. Don’t beat yourself up about past failures. You weren’t ready to make a change or you needed help! Sometimes the true difference between failure and success is getting the help you need and deserve!

I want to help you by giving you a FREE resource that you can use to finally make the change you’ve been longing for and end your feelings of hopelessness once and for all.

Visit my website and click to download our FREE Wellness Workbook here: goo.gl/qKo3j

Me and the Dalai Lama

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One of the key elements to true health and happiness is an uncluttered mind. Do you ever notice that when someone tells you to breathe, you actually pause and take a full and deep inhale/exhale? This is how we should be breathing all of the time, though few of us actually do.

Most of us (including me!) engage in frequent stress-breathing that leads to tightness in our neck and shoulders. Add a few hours at the computer every day, and the result is pain! No wonder massage is nearly a 20 billion dollar/year industry!

The term meditation is used in many ways. For me, the word meditation used to bring to mind something spiritual or ritualistic. Don’t let the word itself scare you! It wasn’t until I spent a week at the famed Golden Door Spa in Escondido, California that I realized meditation can simply be about pausing for as little as sixty seconds to close your eyes and breathe.

Here are a few tips for beginners.

Start S-L-O-W-L-Y. Really, start with just one minute a day. You can be in line at the grocery store, sitting in your car in a parking lot… it doesn’t matter where you are. Sit, close your eyes, clear your mind as much as you can, and just take a few deep, slow breaths in and out. Try and focus on your chest expanding and contracting. You may want to add another minute the following day, find a quiet spot at home in the morning or just before bed. Do what is comfortable for you.

Stick with it. If you want to see a difference, consistency is key. Whether you feel like it or not, do it! Just think, it can be as little as one minute and you WILL see the health benefits from a relaxed mind. Sometimes, you can learn what is REALLY bothering you by sitting through a moment or two of uninterrupted time.

Don’t punish yourself. The goal of meditating is not to stop thinking altogether. It is to be aware and present with your thoughts. My trip to the Golden Door Spa was actually years ago, but I will never forget the wise words of a very wise woman at the Door, AnnHarriet Buck. While explaining how to meditate to a group of over-worked women, she shared a story about a conversation with the Dalai Lama. He shared that even HE had experienced his thoughts drifting from time to time while meditating. He said when this happened, he just laughed a little, forgave himself, and continued on. I’ll never forget AnnHarriet’s advice to us in the room. When she feels her mind wandering while meditating she simply smiles, forgives herself, and thinks, “me and the Dalai Lama.” Years later, I still remember this when I am in a yoga class and having trouble concentrating. I always have a private laugh with myself and keep going.

Good luck! I’d love to hear about your experience with yoga or meditation. Share them below this post in the Facebook comment box!