I was chatting with my Food Coaching client last week about her feeling unmotivated and uninspired by food and the whole watch what you eat thing in order to lose weight.  I soon realised the problem was not with her food, it was with other aspects of her life, and I had changed the one thing she felt inspired by, BAD FOOD!

So we chatted more and I discovered her weight was not the only thing she was dissatisfied with in her life, she felt as though she was just ‘existing ’not living. She didn’t really enjoy her job anymore and wanted to either change career paths  or progress in her urrent field, her finances were weighing her down a little and she had not been on a decent holiday since…….. well what seemed like forever!

So we began setting some goals, short term ones for something other than her weight!

We set financial goals, career goals, travel goals, relationship goals and lifestyle goals. Looking at it all on paper sparked something inside of her. Her tone of voice changed from sombre to slightly high pitched and excited, her body language was more relaxed and she was more chatty than I’d ever seen her. It was quite satisfying to see her mood change.

Wow! I think what was needed was ‘something’ to look forward to; the thought of a short trip to Byron Bay would make anyone motivated.

Setting goals guides us in the right direction and it gives us something to look forward to, like a bride planning a wedding, half the excitement is in the lead up and the planning.  You need to put it down on paper so you can see it!

Feeling a little more inspired my client looked at me and said I really feel like going and doing my grocery shopping now and making a real go of this weight loss thing!

As soon as we took the focus off her weight and focused on her making better decisions in all other areas of her life it all seemed much easier to take on the weight loss battle.

Leaving my office that day was a woman who had a new goal in life and it wasn’t just to lose weight, it was to take back control of her life and not just exist, but LIVE!

If you are struggling with losing weight, getting fit or just feeling plain old unmotivated about it, take a good look at other areas of your life, they may need to be finetuned.

Easter weight gain solutions

Don’t let a few eggs derail your healthy eating. Learn how to set chocolate limits without turning into the Easter party pooper.

Easter means one thing to food lovers everywhere: chocolate. Milk, white, dark or
flavoured; whatever your preference, there’s an egg out there to tempt you, but what if your self-control runs a mile when faced with chocolate products? Wish you could just have a nibble, but don’t know when to stop? It’s time to take back control.

The human trash can

The human trash can can’t say no. Whether it’s saying yes to another hot cross bun to please a favourite aunt or finishing off that chocolate egg because it’s not worth wrapping it back up, whatever the scenario, when you overeat you are using your body as a rubbish bag.

Have one slice of cake, have a few mini chocolate eggs and enjoy a glass of champagne, but just because you’ve allowed yourself a few small treats, don’t let it slide into complete gluttony. Have some self-respect, listen to your body and learn when enough is enough. Don’t let the chocolate monster in you run wild.

Don’t go hungry

If you know temptation is waiting to strike, be prepared. Hunger is stronger than willpower so don’t test it. Make sure you eat a proper meal before indulging in something sweet. Most foods have a place in our diet, it’s just getting the balance right and don’t even think about avoiding one particular food, it will just make you crave it all the more.

Balance sugar cravings by eating plenty of slow-release wholegrain foods like oats and brown rice and stock up on vegetables to balance mineral and vitamin levels. If you over-indulge because you are genuinely hungry, you may not be eating enough protein. Scientists have discovered that protein is the most satisfying nutrient because it triggers the ‘I’m full’ feeling. They are not sure why, but suggest it could be to do with the digestion of protein taking longer than for carbohydrates or fat.

Adapting

If you know staying with relatives will disrupt your exercise routine, consider changing how and when you exercise. If the roads are too busy to run round at your mums, take an exercise DVD with you and workout indoors; if you usually exercise in the evening, but you know your cousin will want you to help cook supper, move your workout to the morning.

Suffering nightmares at the thought of how much butter your gran puts in her cake? Offer to bake it this year and adapt the recipe to make it lower-fat. Worried you won’t be able to resist the sugar rush from milk chocolate and will gobble the whole lot? Get your order in early and ask for a dark chocolate egg. It’s all about being flexible and planning ahead.

The aftermath

The Easter holidays are over, you can now put your chocolate       crimes behind you and get back to work, or can you…

Just when you thought it was safe to turn down the chocolate radar you spy the shiny, foil wrapping of an Easter egg. Even after all that eating you’ve still got some left! You’ve got three choices: for those with willpower simply throw away the eye catching wrapper, break it up and put it into a jar to use as cooking chocolate throughout the year; for those without willpower put it in the bin; for those without willpower and without morals invite your friends round for coffee and don’t let them leave until they’ve eaten it all.

“People do not lack strength; they lack will.” Victor Hugo

•  a sml bowl of cereal, oatmeal with milk and a banana,
• 1 bagel with cottage cheese
•  wholegrain crackers with cheese and tomato.

• Rice -(try quick cooking rice pouches – pre-cooked rice that needs just 90      seconds in the microwave to heat) with simple stir-fried chicken breast and some vegies, or
• Microwave  a potato in it’s jacket and add some tuna, corn and chopped red capsicum, or
• A bowl of rice bubbles with milk and a few berries will even do the trick!

• Wholegrain sandwich or wrap with tuna, chicken or egg plus salad (dark green leaves like rocket or cos lettuce with beetroot and grated carrot) plus fruit –
  good choices include oranges, mango, apples, berries
• Sushi rolls plus a side salad
• Low GI rice or pasta salad (avoid creamy sauces) containing chicken, legumes, fish and roasted vegetables

Over the years, I’ve dealt with my fair share of weigh-a-holics. That is, people who step on the scales far too often. Some do it every day of their lives. Morning and night. Some step on and off five times in ten seconds in the hope that a lower figure might magically appear between their feet. Then they do it again thirty seconds later.

 Sound familiar?

Unfortunatley the morning ritual of weighing yourself can either make or break your day!  Some people think that if they step lightly onto the scales the figure might be
lower. And some think that leaving part of their foot off the plate will give a better result. We have all done it, don’t look so shocked!!!

Do you have an unhealthy relationship with the Scales?

Me myself I am not a great fan of the scales, sure we need them in order to check our progress if our goal is to lose weight, however they are also a big cause of stress, anxiety and frustration. Weight is defiantly a relevant issue in the getting-fitter-healthier process but many (many, many) people have an unhealthy relationship with their scales. You might be such a person……I use to be…..

Of course if you do have a love hate relationship with scales there are times when you should avoid using them. Some examples are:

• When you have just eaten a massive dinner, not a good idea will only send you into a mental state and perhaps make you eat even more.
• When you are at a friends or relatives house. For the best accurate results, weigh yourself on the same scales at the same time of day.
• When the scales cost less than $20….let’s be realistic if they are dirt cheap how accurate can they be.
• When you have just completed a huge workout. It’s easy to shed more than a kilo of water weight during a 1hour cardio session. Or if you have had 3 bottles of water you could weigh heavier due to water retention.
• (For the girls)At certain times of the month you will typically be heavier.

If you are training with weights and are building muscle you are likely to weigh more as muscle is heavier than fat. (check out the photo)

 In most cases weighing yourself every day is unnecessary and unhealthy, it can lead to obsessive behaviour and do our mental and physical health more harm than good.

When the thought of weighing yourself puts you in a state of anxiety you may need to stop yourself from getting on them and use another way to measure your weight
loss. Your clothes are a good indicator as well as a tape measure to check on any cm’s lost or gained.

If you are happy with the way you look and feel and are healthy, who cares about a stupid number?

It happens to all of us, especially over holiday periods. Even if we had the best intentions to keep our portion sizes as normalor our alcohol consumption to one glass we all give in to temptation from time to time. Weather it’s having second helpings of Nan’s sherry loaded trifle or one too many glasses of Uncle John’s expensive champagne it’s not something that you can’t recover from.

Look at it like this, you have had your day ofindulgence, now get over it!!! Don’t wallow in your guilt, throw your arms up inthe air and give up. Just get back on track with your food at the next meal. Don’t let one day of overeating lead to 2 days, then one week, because before you know it a month has passed and you have fallen back into bad habits of over eating and your jeans are slightly tighter than before…..

Now would be a good time to start drinking lots of water, aim to drink anywhere between 1.5L to 2L a day. This will help to flush out excess sodium in your body which can cause fluid retention, it will also help rehydrate your body if alcohol was your guilty pleasure. Drinking water also gives the stomach a feeling of fullness and  will stop you from eating more.

Another thing people tend to do out of guilt the day after overeating, is to starve themselves. Not a good move. This will actually slow down your metabolism and after not eating all day you will indeed overeat again when the hunger pains kick in. Not a real healthy way to go. I would suggest getting back into your normal eating pattern as soon as possible, this will enable your body to get back to processing the amount of
food it is used to. Have lots of “healthy” foods available in your fridge and pantry.

Lastly I would suggest to get moving. I know it may be hard at first to get the motivation to get up and exercise, but once you do you will feel sooo much better. It is a good idea to do some type of physical activity every day. It can be as simple as going on a 15 minute brisk walk, take the dog, call a friend and have some company while
you walk, whatever it takes just get moving. Physiologically, this keeps your
metabolism up, helps to control your appetite, and energizes you! Mentally, exercise increases your mental freshness for hours, and it keeps you in a “healthy” frame of mind. Commit to doing at least 15 minutes every day.

You can recover from overeating by following a few simple rules. Everybody slips up and there is no reason to give up when we do. We need to focus on how to get ourselves back on the right track and begin to look at ways we can prevent this from happening again. Let’s face it, there are going to be many more occasions when we will be faced with temptation, so put your “recovery from overeating” plan in place so you know what to do next time.

Eating out is something that is done socially, for convenience and for pleasure, but what do you do when you are on a diet and have to eat out.

One way that can help you make the right choices when eating out is to plan ahead. If you know you are going to a particular cafe or restaurant, get a copy of the menu and decide what you are going to have in advance. This is a good way to resist temptation and make a bad food choice.

Following are some tips for eating out at specific types of restaurants:

THAI

• Broth Based Soup
• Go light on dishes with coconut milk
• Choose dishes that have been stir fried, grilled or steamed
• Go for steamed rice not fried rice

ITALIAN

• Dine on pasta rather than pizza, pizza dough id dense in calories
• Pasta choices to go with are Linguine, Puttanesca, Arrabiata or Marinara (tomato based sauces)
• Avoid cream based sauces (I know,the yummy ones) Alfredo and Primavera are the worst
• You can also decrease the calories by ordering entree size dishes and a side of salad or vegies
• Skip the garlic bread and opt for a dish of Olive oil and plain bread to dip in.

INDIAN

• Skip the appetizers as most are fried
• Order dishes with vegies, beans or peas
• Chicken Masala, Shimp Bhuna, Fish Vindaloo and Tandoori (baked)
• Avoid dishes made with coconut milk

CHINESE

• Avoid fried appetizers try steamed dumplings
• Start with a soup like wonton or chicken and corn
• Choose steamed rice and avoid fried noodles
• Order some steaned vegies as a side
• Avoid item described as crispy golen brown or sweet and sour as they are usually fried

JAPANESE

• Clear soup is good to start with
• Sushi, sashimi, California rolls, nori rolls are a good choice
• Braised or grilled beef, chicken or fish, chicken teriyaki
• Stir fries, steamed or pickled vegies
• Tofu dishes and steamed rice
• Avoid fried tofu, chicken, shrimp, fish or vegetable tempura

GREEK

• Choose dips like hummus and tzatziki avoid eggplant and taramosalata
• Choose cabbage rolls, stuffed vine leaves and lean spit roaste meats
• Stay away from fried cheese and fish, moussaka, baklava and other pastries which are calories loaded.

CAFE FOOD

This is a tricky one. All cafes sell different types of food ranging from gourmet sandwiches, to pasta dishes, meat and vegeatble dishes.

My suggestion would be is to follow the rules of all other take aways.

• Don’t order cream based pasta dishes
• Ask for the dressing on the side
• Avoid butter, mayo and any other fatty condiments on your sandwich
• Stick to grainy bread
• Skip the fries and for more salad or vegies
• Stay away from anything fried.

YOU ARE IN CONTROL of what you are eating, so before you order STOP, THINK  and RE THINK your choices and ask yourself will my tummy, hips and thighs thank me tomorrow? If the answer is YES  then you are on your way to making the right choices and are in control when you EAT OUT!

I had an interesting conversation recently with a woman who is a Personal Trainer …

We were chatting about different aspects of our job, what we liked  what we didn’t, where we worked etc. A little while into the conversation she went on to comment that she would never have picked me as a Personal Trainer, as I did not look like one…. At first I did not know whether to be offended or not. But then I asked the question, “What does a Personal Trainer look like?” I was curious.

“Oh”, she said, “you know someone who is buff, has muscle definition and looks better than their client”.

WOW! I was so surprised at the answer I got! I did not expect that. Maybe years ago that was the expectation of a Personal Trainer, but I think now a Personal Trainer is someone who motivates and encourages their clients to be a healthier, fitter version of themselves.. not someone who looks a certain way and makes their client feel insecure about their own appearance.

So I went on to say, “I am a Personal Trainer to REAL people, with REAL bodies and REAL lives. I want to motivate them to not want to be or look like anybody else, but to be a better healthier version of themselves.”

“I want my clients to feel comfortable with me and know I am just like them. I have 3 children, life is busy, I have the occasional bad day, I eat the odd treat. Its normal nobody is perfect and I don’t think that Personal Trainers should be boxed in to look a certain way!”

I am almost 170cm tall, wear a size 12, exercise 4-5 days a week. I am healthy and fit and I am comfortable in my skin!

Surprised by my answer the conversation came to a very quick end and off we went our separate ways. Me, to grab another cup of coffee, she, to probably spend another 2 hours in the gym to achieve what she thought a Personal Trainer should look like!

Health Me caters for the majority of the population, Real people with Real lives who don’t have 3 hours a day to spend exercising and follow a diet of food deprivation to achieve the perfect body. (If their is one)

Health Me wants to teach people how to incorporate good eating and exercise into their lifestyle so that they can have good health and a long life.

So I ask the question: ” What do you think a Personal Trainer should look like?”

Last week I put my lovely boot camp ladies through a pretty tough boot camp session, there was lots of whinging and complaining, however at this weeks weigh in we saw some great losses in both kg’s and in cm’s, so it was worth it.

It was the skipping (with a rope) and the jogging which was the problem! So what I did was I researched what exercise burns how many calories just to give them an idea of why these types of exercises are important in their quest to lose some weight.

An average 70kg woman will burn per/hr:

1056 cal – running up and down stairs

704 cal – skipping

633 cal – boxing

563 cal – tennis

503 cal – jogging

Compared to:

317 cal – dancing

281 cal – walking/running & playing with children

246 cal – cleaning the house.

Interesting don’t you think?

Given that their main goal is to lose weight I plan my sessions around this and incorporate exercises which will give them the maximum amount of calories burn’t in the hour they are training. So this does include running and skipping.

The results of this weeks weigh in speak for themselves and I am hoping that with the understanding of how many calories can be burnt doing particular exercises, there will be no more complaining or whining.

Maree xx