How I Dodge Diet Traps at Family Get-Togethers

Counting calories is a tedious pain sometimes, but it’s better for me than a scripted menu plan. Part of my job means tasting foods (rough, I know), and calorie-counting gives me the flexibility in my diet to allow for that. It also lets me follow my own whims for what I want to cook and eat. Every day, I aim for about 1,700 calories worth of healthy, filling foods. (Find out how I got this number.)

That calorie count isn’t too restrictive, but the tricky part is sticking to it when I’m not at home! This past week I was visiting my parents on vacation, and I don’t think I could have had a tougher diet challenge. It’s guaranteed that my parents’ kitchen contains Pepperidge Farm cookies, Häagen-Dazs ice cream bars, peanut-butter cups, chocolate bars… and on top of all that, requests for me to bake or cook their favorite foods. (I made a bittersweet chocolate tart for my mother on this trip.) And then, there’s the many restaurant meals to eat with family and old friends.

Here’s how I managed my eating during our family time and avoided diet pitfalls:

Eat a filling pre-flight snack before getting on the plane. This way I can easily pass by the airport food vendors. My snack is a glass of low-sodium tomato juice and a boiled egg. Total: 118 calories and 8 satiating grams of protein. (On the morning I flew back to Birmingham, I added another egg—that’s another 77 calories. Total: 195 calories.)

Look up menu nutrition info before going out to eat. Sunday night my sister wanted to go to PF Chang’s, so before we left I went online and decided I’d order the Wild Alaskan Steamed Salmon With Ginger and a small side of Shanghai Cucumbers. I also had two shrimp dumplings and a glass of unsweetened iced tea. Total: 429 calories. (I also went to a few locally owned independent restaurants that had no nutrition info available. There, I just had to make my best guess for something healthy, stick to soup or salad and skip the extra toppings, or go small by choosing a few appetizers.)

Bored with your Same Old Workout? Let’s Mix it up!

A few times each week I still manage to make my way to the gym (Lifetime Fitness) and while the facility is immaculate and I am into my health, I get bored. Sure, I have an iPod and I can watch their TVs but come on, for 3-4 hours each week, I am doing the same damn thing…..riding the bike, lifting weights, etc.

No matter how I mix up the workout routine (Dinosaur, Schwarzenegger, etc.) I am doing the same thing and simply “setting goals” isn’t cutting it. Bored out of my skull, I did some homework by talking to other people at the fitness center. As an introvert, I assure you that this was not easy. Nevertheless, over the last 3 months I came up with a handful of things you can do to spice up your boring workout. Your alternative is getting bored, quitting, and discouraged so make it easy on the mind and lose the monotony with some of these ideas.

Get a bag

This one is my favorite. I bought an 80 lb. punching bag and installed it to an I-beam in my basement. Once a week, I beat this thing until I can’t raise my arms. Based on how winded I am, this has to be great for a cardio workout, your arms, and even your legs (you know, if you stick and move..).

With this, I am able to replace the bike at the gym (although the scenery, if you know what I mean) is not as nice.

Row away the calories

5 miles from my house there is a lake and on that lake there is an old guy renting canoes. While I have already tipped that thing twice, rowing back and forth even in the smallest of lakes of a crazy workout. I cannot begin to explain the burn you feel in your arms. If you’re lucky, you’ll give up on the shore as opposed to sitting in the middle of the lake where there is no wake to push you in. You are on your own out there and rowing in the water sure beats the elliptical (and I still get to wear the iPod).

5 Ways to Stick to Your Diet and Still Keep Your Sweet Tooth

Finding my Feel Great Weight had nothing to do with strict dieting. It was all about eating healthy foods that filled me up while still allowing myself to indulge my sweet tooth so I wouldn’t feel deprived. I love sweet treats like cake and cookies, but enjoying them a little too much prevented me from losing weight. Now balancing my carrots with my cupcakes keeps me healthy and sane!

Ditch the diet mentality

I realized a long time ago that diets don’t work—especially in the long run. I used to set myself up for failure with restrictive meal plans that didn’t allow for my favorite foods. Inevitably, I’d only last a few weeks on the plan before I got frustrated and quit. And then, almost immediately, I’d regain all of the weight that I had lost. I love to eat so by not allowing for the occasional splurge, I wound up overindulging when I found myself near my favorite sweet treats.

Cutting dessert out of my life also made me miserable and obsessive—I couldn’t stop thinking about all of the foods I wasn’t allowed to have! Instead of ditching sweets, I pare-down my portion sizes. I allow myself to indulge in a small piece of high-quality chocolate almost daily. I love Lindt Lindor Truffles. They’re rich, delicious, and portion-controlled—and they’re only about 75 calories each.

Schedule your splurges

While a small piece of chocolate each day is a delicious way to indulge my sweet tooth daily, sometimes I really want to splurge. That used to mean donuts, pastries, and cookies almost daily—they were hard to resist when they were sitting in my office kitchen. But splurging never felt special since I was doing it so frequently. I felt powerless to my cravings.

5 Ways to Lose the Weight…Without Losing Your Unhealthy Friends

Before finding my Feel Great Weight, much of my social life revolved around food-focused get-togethers with friends. My calendar always seemed to be packed with birthday dinners, barbecues, and Sunday brunches. At these events, it was difficult to stick to my diet because I saw my friends feasting on fattening foods and gulping-down cocktails. Needless to say, the more active my social life became, the more pounds I piled on.

When I began my weight-loss journey, I worried that it would be hard to shed the pounds without shedding some of my less-than-healthy friends. But I also knew that it wouldn’t be any fun to fit into my skinny jeans if I could only wear them at home, alone and friendless.

At first, my friends were not at all supportive of my weight-loss efforts and continued to tempt me with rounds of cocktails and fatty appetizers at happy hour. Most of the time, I ended up caving in and indulging. My friends were my diet’s worst enemies! I soon realized that if I didn’t make some changes to my social life, I would never lose weight. But I also didn’t want to choose between my friends and having a waistline. Here’s what I did.

Pay attention

It’s a great joy for me to share a meal or a few cocktails with my friends, but when I dined with them, I often lost track of how much I ate. In the excitement of conversation, I didn’t notice how many tortilla chips I’d eaten or if I was on my second (or third) dinner roll. Lingering at the table didn’t help either: the longer I stayed at the table, the more I ate. I’d order another beer, snack on a plate of cold french fries, or finish off a friend’s brownie sundae. Now, when I am finished eating, I put my napkin (and any other trash, like a straw wrapper) on top of my plate. It signals to the server that he can take away my plate, plus it stops me from picking at it. I never want to eat off a plate with garbage on it!

15 Simple Changes That Will Quickly Improve Your Health

Did you start January full of health resolutions, determined that this would be the year that you ate better, lost weight and exercised regularly?

If you’re back to your usual habits – skipping breakfast, grabbing chocolate to get you through that afternoon slump, neglecting your fruit and veggie intake and chugging down mug after mug of coffee – don’t feel guilty about it. Your problem isn’t that you lack willpower – it’s that you tried to change too much at once.

Instead, try making some of these very easy changes to your eating, drinking and exercising habits. Once you’ve got used to a few of them, add in more. You’ll be making huge strides towards your health goals, with hardly any conscious effort. Sound good? Read on…

Easy Changes to Your Eating Habits

Eat a piece of fruit before lunch

Get into the habit of eating an apple, banana, pear or other piece of fruit before lunch each day. It’ll take the edge off your appetite – making you less likely to dig into greasy fast food or bag or crackers. You’ll also be one step closer to hitting your five-a-day.

Don’t use vending machines

Let’s face it, have you ever bought anything healthy from a vending machine? They’re overpriced and full of sugar-and-salt packed stuff that your body doesn’t need. Plus, they’re open all hours (unlike your corner shop) and they won’t look at you funny if you buy ten candy bars at a time. Make a pact with yourself not to buy anything except bottled water from vending machines.

Go vegetarian one night a week

The Culture of Cuisine: Diet Tricks I Learned in Morocco

How huge a role does culture play in diet? We’ve all seen the stats about how the U.S. has a higher percentage of obese people (more than 30% of adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) than countries like Japan, France, and Italy. Breaking it down even further, the Trust for America’s Health released a new report on obesity in America, and the South remains the fattest part of the country. (Mississippi has the highest obesity rate, followed by Alabama, where some of Health‘s offices are located.)

Traditional Southern fare includes fried foods (like fried green tomatoes, fish, and chicken), banana pudding, and sweet tea. In some families, there is also a culture that encourages overeating: For example, the idea that a man is more manly if he eats plenty—or that you’re not “healthy” if you don’t clean your plate. These eating habits may be the culprits behind expanding waistlines.

(Getty Images)

But that’s not the whole picture, as Time magazine acknowledged in its article, “Why Are Southerners So Fat?” Not every meal in the South comes from a deep fryer. In fact, for many Southerners, gardening and canning have always put veggies and fruit on the table, and new Southern cooking gives a bigger role to beautiful, fresh produce. Poverty plays a role in the South’s obesity picture, as does a lack of public transportation and city planning that makes it inconvenient or difficult to walk or cycle around town. The abundance of fast-food restaurants and frequency with which Americans eat out means meals in big portions and big calorie counts. A recent study showed that a greater number of fast-food restaurants and convenience stores in your neighborhood may sabotage your diet.

Vitamins Help Battle Sun Damage

With the heat and old man sun bearing down mercilessly, using Vitamins C and E can help in the battle against skin damage.

Studies in Britain’s Journal of Dermatology says Vitamin E cream is useful in stimulating the body’s antioxidant defenses.

Meanwhile, a report in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology says people taking daily 1,000-unit supplements of Vitamin E alongside Vitamin C suffered less skin damage from ultraviolet rays than test subjects taking a placebo.

But experts say neither can completely replace the role of good common sense on going out into the sun. Limit your exposure each day, particularly if your skin is still in its winter pallor stage, and always use an effective sunscreen.

31 Simple Ways to Help Prevent Cancer

We all know someone who was affected by cancer. As I now watch a friend live out her 6-month death sentence, I wonder if the loss could have been prevented. Cancer, especially certain types such as colon cancer, is larger predictable and preventable.

Reader’s Digest has posted 31 tips to help your body fight the creation of cancer cells. We should all take these seriously, if not for ourselves, for our friends and family. Which of their tips will you add to your daily routine?

Here is a sample of the tips. For the average person, most of them would be considered out of the normal realm of thinking.

Serve sauerkraut at your next picnic. A Finnish study found that the fermentation process involved in making sauerkraut produces several other cancer-fighting compounds, including ITCs, indoles, and sulforaphane. To reduce the sodium content, rinse canned or jarred sauerkraut before eating.

Every week, buy a cantaloupe at the grocery store and cut it up after you put away your groceries. Store it in a container and eat several pieces every morning. Cantaloupe is a great source of carotenoids, plant chemicals shown to significantly reduce the risk of lung cancer.

Carry a shot glass in your beach bag. Then fill it with sunscreen and rub it all over your body. A shot glass holds about 1.5 ounces, which is how much sunscreen dermatologists estimate you need to protect yourself from the cancer-causing UV rays of the sun. Repeat every two hours.

Taking a Cue From Julie & Julia: Can More Time in the Kitchen Make You Thin?

Have you read Michael Pollan’s New York Times Magazine article, “Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch“? He interviewed Harry Balzer, who’s been analyzing American eating habits since the 1970s. Pollan’s article ends with a quote from the food-research guru:

“….You want Americans to eat less? I have the diet for you. It’s short, and it’s simple. Here’s my diet plan: Cook it yourself. That’s it. Eat anything you want—just as long as you’re willing to cook it yourself.”

Balzer and Pollan are just two of the many who say that cooking at home can help fix the West’s obesity problems. British chef Jamie Oliver made the same point to policy makers in his own country when he argued that cooking should be taught in school. He’s bringing that same message to the U.S. next year in an ABC reality show in which he helps Americans slim down via cooking. Lifetime’s Cook Yourself Thin, another British import, does the same thing; guests learn how to lighten up their favorite recipes.

Kitchen skills don’t ensure a slim physique

I love cooking. I’ve been doing it since I was 6 years old. I’ve been to culinary school and I’ve studied gastronomy (both, by the way, through programs started by Julia Child, one of the subjects of the film Julie & Julia, which inspired Pollan’s article). My job here at Health is food related, and I occasionally teach private cooking lessons.

(LIFE.com)

But my kitchen skills alone haven’t given me a trim body. (I wish—oh, how I wish!) And eating healthfully, or eating to lose weight, isn’t simply a matter of avoiding all things processed. Brian Wansink at Cornell University did a study comparing several editions of one of America’s most enduring cookbooks, the Joy of Cooking. Between 1936 and 2006, the average number of calories per serving in the Joy of Cooking‘s recipes jumped by 63%. Portion sizes are bigger, and there is more sugar and fat in the most recent versions of recipes.