Posted by Michelle Butler Jan 29 2012, 9:25 pm in eating healthy, Emotional Eating, exercise, fitness, food diary, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, stress, weight loss
I’m hoping that last week’s post about my struggles with motivation, and the responses to it, are the start of a turn around in my health and fitness efforts. I have tried to do better this week. It wasn’t always pretty. I skipped Weight Watchers because I just could not face a bad weigh in. I didn’t make it to the gym. I didn’t stick to my initial goal of no sweets. The one thing I did accomplish was getting more control over how much I ate. I made better food choices and kept a food diary where I tracked and wrote down everything I ate.
I also spent some time thinking about what has worked for me in past attempts at losing weight and the lessons I’ve learned the past few years. One of the more helpful books I’ve read on food and weight issues is David Kessler’s The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite. Kessler writes a lot about the addictive qualities of any combination of sugar, fat and salt in food. The more you have of it the more you want to eat it. Stress will increase the siren call of sugar, fat and salt and will make you want to eat for reward. This was very much on my mind this week as I felt like I was fighting a craving for sugar and sweets all week. (An interesting aside is Kessler argues that a sweet tooth may actually be a fat tooth.)
One of Kessler’s tips to fight these kinds of cravings are to make rules about what you can and can’t eat. The fabulous boyfriend and I refer to them as Kessler rules. The idea is that if you set a rule such as you will not have more than 1 teaspoon of added sugar at any one serving you will not start the debate of whether you should eat that cookie or donut or brownie that someone has brought to work to share. Kessler argues that once you’ve started that internal debate of should I eat that, I shouldn’t eat that, but I really want to, would one make a difference, etc. you are almost doomed to giving in and eating it. If you have a rule that you won’t, you’ll walk right past it without wasting any energy or struggle in debating whether you should eat it.
These kinds of rules have worked for me in the past, and I think my recent food struggles are such that I have to go back to following some Kessler rules. That said, I also know that anything that is completely forbidden can become so desired that you can melt down and binge. I am playing with the idea of allowing myself one sugary treat per week. I didn’t quite make that this week. I ate some cookies and candy at a Friday during a party, and I had a piece of apple gingerbread at a tea Saturday afternoon and half a cookie Saturday night. That was much less sweets per week than I’ve been having lately, so I’m going to have hope that this Kessler sugar rule will work for me in the next few months.
I was also aware that while I enjoyed those sweets this weekendd, there was no lasting reward or pleasureable feeling from eating them just minutes after finishing them. Yes, there is a little feeling of reward while eating them, but it can be followed by guilt, remorse or even disgust when you are trying so hard not to eat food that has little to no nutritious value. But, I still struggle to resist such food when it is in front of me and need some help.
Kessler offers some helpful suggestions for this too. He argues that the one healthy activity that gives you a similar feeling of reward as the one from food or drugs is exercise. I know that this is true. I feel so good after I work out, and this good feeling can last hours or even a whole day. The benefits of exercise include improved mood, reduced stress, more energy, and better sleep as well as the increased chances of a smaller clothes size. Exercise also helps you resist the siren call of sugar, fat and salt as it reduces your stress and subsequently decreases that urge to eat junk food for a pick-me-up. It makes me feel better about my body, and I then want to treat my body well and feed it nutritious food in healthy portion sizes.
Yet, it can be so easy to backslide. As you start skipping the gym and eating more food, you forget these hard fought for lessons. I’m once again in a stage where I have to remember or relearn all that I know about losing weight and being healthier. As I gear up for and give my all to the Healthy Writer February Challenge, I’m going to have a new mantra. Zumba makes me feel better than a cookie does.
Do you have any mantras that help you make wise choices in your health and fitness efforts? Do you struggle to avoid sweets or to motivate to work out? What helps you overcome such challenges?
Posted by Michelle Butler Jan 22 2012, 10:00 pm in bad habits, eating healthy, exercise, fitness, food diary, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, motivation
I can’t seem to find my motivation. I know what I should be doing to pursue my health and fitness goals, but I just can’t seem to do them. To make things worse, baked goods (half the time baked by me!) and other not-wise-food choices keep calling my name, and I answer their cry. I [...]
Posted by Sally Kilpatrick Nov 18 2011, 12:03 am in family, fitness, goals, Sally Kilpatrick, Writing
I’ve only got a month or so before I start on my 2012 goals, so I thought I’d take a look at my 2011 goals: Writing Revise Beulah and submit to 50 editors and agents Write mortician story and submit to 4 contests Write 10k a week Beulah has been revised but only submitted [...]
Posted by Trish Milburn Nov 17 2011, 12:01 am in exercise, fitness, guest blogger
By Anju Gattani Just when I thought workouts were for muscles, I learned a new term, ‘brain fitness’ – the improvement of the cognitive abilities of the brain by exercising the brain. It’s a term used less in the science world and more in the self-help arena. It’s a term that could possibly go hand [...]
Posted by Michelle Butler Oct 23 2011, 9:34 pm in cooking, eating healthy, exercise, fitness, food, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays
Last week, we talked about whether carbs could be part of a healthy diet. It may surprise you that after asking that question I was a carb-centric cook this weekend. As I mentioned before, my fabulous boyfriend is running the October 30 Marine Corp Marathon in DC. I wanted to cook him some healthy meals [...]
Posted by Trish Milburn Oct 18 2011, 12:01 am in eating healthy, exercise, fitness, Trish Milburn
For the past week, I’ve been on vacation at the beach, a much-needed break after three very busy and stressful months. I love the Gulf Coast, and each time I visit I have a hard time coming home. And as I thought about it over the past few days, I realized that a lot of [...]
Posted by Trish Milburn Aug 12 2011, 8:21 am in confidence, cooking, exercise, fitness, goals, health tips, motivation, Trish Milburn, weight loss
Earlier this week, I asked some of the Healthy Writers about some of their favorite health- and fitness-related websites. Here’s a sampling. Mary Curry: World’s Healthiest Foods — This site, which Mary consults frequently in creating her Saturda vegetable posts, is rich with useful information. There are sections on cooking (recipes, seasonal cooking, cooking demos, [...]
Posted by Trish Milburn Jul 20 2011, 12:01 am in exercise, fitness, guest blogger, motivation, weight loss, Writing
By Gillian Doyle I consider myself an accidental novelist. Oddly enough, my lifelong battle-of-the-bulge led me to a writing class by one of my students at the Richard Simmons Anatomy Asylum. Yes, that wild and crazy weight-loss guru. In the mid-’80s I was an aerobics instructor at one of his studios in Los Angeles. But [...]
Posted by Trish Milburn Jun 15 2011, 12:01 am in eating healthy, exercise, fitness, goals, guest blogger, process, weight loss
By Heather Snow Hello! My name is Heather Snow and I am a very Un-healthy Writer. Well, that’s not true. Regardless of—luckily—blessedly, despite my habits I still enjoy overall good health. But I know that won’t last if I don’t change my ways. So let’s start again. Hello! My name is Heather Snow, and I [...]
Posted by Michelle Butler Jun 5 2011, 7:35 pm in confidence, Expectations, fear, fitness, Holidays, inspiration, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, positive thinking
June 4th was my birthday. I know the stereotype of a single woman in her 30s would be to bemoan the fact that I am now one year closer to 40 with less chances of getting married or having kids, but honestly, I feel fabulous! Saturday was a wonderful day in the midst of a [...]
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