Hear Coach Laurie Interviewed for Weight Loss Tips!

Here is a link to hear Raw Andrew interview me for some helpful weight loss tips: http://www.shedyourweight.com/interview_with_laurie_beebe_dietitian_and_weight_loss_coach.html
You can listen now and hear us talk about the major obstacles to weight loss and how to get past them; the truth about fad diets and if you should follow them; the importance of having a good mindset to stop sabotaging your own weight loss plans.

The best way to lose weight is by eating healthy nutritious food and exercising. And it seems that the best way to keep the weight off is by maintaining the healthy eating habits and continuing to exercise.

Laurie also explains why you should seek professional weight loss help, especially if you are having a hard time losing weight. A good weight loss coach will hold you accountable and will guide you, making sure that you will take the less resistance path for weight loss.

Feel free to comment on Andrew's page or leave your thoughts here!

The Pistachio Principle

"Imagine the possibilities," Eastern Illinois University professor and researcher Dr. James Painter proposes "if the restriction and deprivation were removed from the 'diet' picture...."

Research conducted on pistachios, of all things, will yield a new approach to weight loss if Dr. Painter (also a registered dietitian) has a say. His suggestion is for people to focus on changing their environment and behavior rather than restricting their food intake to lose weight, based on recent research using pistachios to study food cues.

Subjects in one study were given the choice of eating pistachios they had to shell, or eating those that were already shelled. Participants were allowed to eat until they were satisfied, and those in the group who took the time to remove their own shells ate 50% fewer calories than the others.

In another study two groups both ate nuts with shells; but in group A the shells were left out on the table. Group B had their shells--evidence of how much they had eaten--whisked away. The results: Group A consumed 35% fewer calories.

In both these studies people ate all they wanted, and were no longer hungry. So it appears your mind can convince you that you are full not just based on what you ate or how much, but on how much you see you have eaten, or how much time you spend eating.

Here are a few ways you can change your environment at home to get your mind off counting calories, and just letting it naturally signal you when you've had enough:

1) Keep high-calorie easy-to-munch foods out of sight: shelled nuts, chips, cookies and candy can go down too easily--you keep eating them because they taste good and they're convenient. Why would being full make you stop?

2) Take some time and energy to prepare your food: Instead of purchasing pre-made, pre-packaged and ready-to-eat varieties, put some more effort into making your own--we're talking sandwiches, cut-up fruit and vegetables... Come on, burn some calories when you eat!

3) Put your food on a plate--no more eating out of the box or bag: This will help you visualize how much you are going to eat. You can always go back for more. Eating out of the bag gives you no visual cue and, again--it tastes good so what will stop you? If you have a handful on your plate and the bag is put back in the pantry, you'll run out before you've eaten the entire bag.

4) Stop when you are no longer hungry: Pause and take a mini-inventory every so often. Are you hungry? Are you paying attention to enjoying what you are eating (or mindlessly munching down while watching TV?)

You don't have to eat until you are full. When you aren't hungry, stop. Figure out something else that can satisfy you instead of ingesting hundreds more calories!

Apply the Pistachio Principle to your eating habits for six weeks and see how you find this new approach working for you. Please leave your comments here and let us know :)

What's Your Problem?

Through 25 years of working with thousands of clients, I have noted that people who are trying to lose weight can usually finish this sentence easily: "My problem is ..."
It may be that you just love sweets, or maybe you snack when you are bored. Perhaps you've never taken the time to plan your meals for the day, or you don't like to restrict yourself from foods you love to eat because it makes you feel deprived.

If you're trying to lose weight, give some thought to what your problem is. In what area of your eating pattern do you really know you are eating too much? It's a tough thing to do, because admitting you have a problem is the first step to solving it. And when we say "my problem is, I like to have a donut during my 10 am coffee break", or "my problem is, I am addicted to those 1/3 pound bacon cheeseburgers for lunch", or "my problem is I love a bag of chips to keep me company when I watch TV at night" ... well, then we know we're going to have to give up that comforting habit.

But don't despair! You don't have to go without, I promise. There are ways to find acceptable substitutes so you'll be able to have a sweet treat mid-morning, a fast food lunch you'll love, and a snack in the evening that will keep you happily munching away to your favorite reality tv show! Take that first step and figure out where the extra-calorie problem lies, and then you can take the second step--decide what smarter choice you have instead--to start the weight loss rolling.

For helpful ways to re-organize your diet if you've identified your problem as fast foods, skipping breakfast, or unwise snack choices, see my new e-books here: www.mycoachlaurie.com/products.

What is Fattening?

You hear people say, "I can't have that, it's fattening" all the time. What does fattening really mean? Presumably it means that the food you are eyeing is likely to add fat to your body. But how do people define 'fattening'? Is it a certain number of calories? A certain amount of fat?

Just about any food can provide you with an excess of calories if you eat too much of it. Likewise, there may be a very calorie-dense food (like chocolate cake or pecan pie) that won't really add on the pounds if you choose to consume a small portion of it.

I'd like to challenge you to re-define your use of the word. Think about foods in terms of portion sizes. Realize that apples may be fattening if you eat 10 of them at one time (total calories: 600), and a three-musketeers bar is not fattening if you have one fun sized bar (total calories: 60).

There are virtually no foods prohibited from a weight loss diet when consumed in moderation. Find out which of the foods you regularly eat are very high in calories (butter, salad dressing, ice cream) and reduce your portions of them or find lower calorie alternatives (spray butter; low-fat or low-calorie dressings; ice milk or low-fat ice cream). Fill up on the low calorie foods that you enjoy (carrots, watermelon, rice cakes, low-fat yogurt) to satisfy your hunger. Remember that foods themselves are not fattening, but rather it is how much you eat of them that makes them higher in calories.

What can you eat a smaller portion of this week to save on calories? Let us know!

The Calories You Save Today Will Be The Weight You Lose Tomorrow!

All it takes is saving 250 calories a day to lose half a pound a week. While that may sound like a measly amount, it means by New Year's Eve you could be six pounds lighter! That's a dress size for some women, and certainly enough to make anyone's snug trousers fit more comfortably. You don't need to go on a diet or start jogging every morning for this to happen. Just start paying attention to those high-calorie items and either skip them or replace them with something less fattening.

Here are six times during the day you can save yourself up to 250 calories:

- Your morning coffee drink. Coffee has about 2 calories. What you put in it could have a lot more. Some non-dairy creamer labels state a serving at 12 calories, but a serving size is a teaspoon! If you use 2 ounces (that's 12 teaspoons) your coffee has 150 calories! And that's just your first cup... If you have a name-brand coffee drink that has whole milk and flavored syrup you could be downing 260 calories without even having a bite of breakfast.

Consider opting for a smaller size, or using skim milk instead of whole milk, cream, or non-dairy creamers.

- Your lunchtime soda. The typical 20 oz plastic bottle of soda has 200 calories. Not what you recall reading on the label? Check again--there are 2.4 servings in one of them! When's the last time you shared one of these?

Try substituting with water, unsweetened iced tea, or an occasional diet soda. Or share your calories with a friend :)

-Your fast food lunch. ALL of the fast food establishments post their nutritional content on the web. Check the calorie content of foods you like. A typical order at Burger King--a whopper and large fries--hands you 670 calories from the sandwich plus 500 from the fries (1170 calories total).

Now, just try having a whopper junior with small fries and you're down to a 370 calorie sandwich and 230 calories from the fries (that's 600 calories for lunch, saving you 570 calories). Most of the restaurants now have healthy side alternatives such as applesauce at burger king or apple slices at McDonalds.... just ask!

Your afternoon candy bar. Looking for a quick source of energy when you start dragging after lunch? How much does a candy bar really help? Most of them contain a high amount of fat, often from nuts in addition to the chocolate, and they can actually leave you with a sugar crash a short time later. A candy bar can have between 180 and 240 calories. That's a medium sized one. Now there are king sized candy bars. They have more calories. Read the label.

Try fending off the drowsies with a glass of ice water, a short walk, or a 100-calorie snack bag. They make some great ones!

-A nice big, juicy steak for dinner. A prime cut of meat is prime partly because of the fatty marbling that makes it tender. The fat also contributes calories, so that each ounce of meat can have at least 75 calories. That means a 16 oz steak can have 1200 calories.

Cut it in half and save 600 calories. Also save having to buy lunch tomorrow when you eat the leftovers.

-Dessert. A relatively small slice of pecan pie can have over 400 calories; other pies without nuts have slightly fewer; a serving of cheesecake over 250 calories; Chocolate cake, 240 calories.

Try 1/2 cup sherbet for 100 calories, or some of the 'light' ice cream novelties that have less than 150 calories (Skinny Cow makes great fudge bars as well as ice cream sandwiches)!

Start reading labels or going online to find out how many calories are in foods you typically eat... you can usually find a substitute you like just as well (poached salmon instead of steak? Grilled chicken instead of a whopper?) and save a few hundred calories a day. You'll be losing weight in no time without having to go on the latest fad diet!

Color Your Thinking

One major reason people go 'off their diet' is a consequence of black and white thinking. We set ourselves up with the unrealistic goal "to eat perfectly forever," and as soon as we depart from the ideal, we feel like we failed. So we stop. We stop trying to eat healthy because once again we are telling ourselves, "I can't do it. I tried again, and I failed again. I'm just destined to be overweight forever," and so on and so on.
You end up telling yourself you failed again, when all you did was eat something that wasn't the very best choice. It's not the end of the world! You don't have to wait until Monday to 'start again'. You can start this very minute. "From this moment on," you can reassure yourself, "I will continue to make healthy choices for the rest of the day". Not for the rest of your life, just today.
Give yourself goals that are doable and you'll be more likely to succeed. Keep succeeding and you're more likely to feel successful. Feel successful and you'll keep making the best choices. What a colorful cycle you can start for yourself!

So, from now on, no black and white thinking; no "on" or "off" your diet; no "good" foods and "bad" foods. Only better choices more often! Start giving yourself positive reinforcement. Listen for the negative comments you tell yourself and challenge them right back with a positive one--or two! Instead of "I can't stop eating chips", you turn right back around and say to yourself, "I will be fine without the chips" and "I am making smarter choices about what I eat every day". When you hear yourself complaining, "I just can't lose any weight" remind yourself, "I am eating more healthy and the weight will come off" and "I am learning new and healthy habits and I feel better about myself--my body will be more fit as a result".

It may sound silly to try to talk yourself up at first, but give it a try and you will notice in a short time that you really can make yourself feel better. You really can be your own cheerleader! Live in a world of colorful thought and keep making better choices every day.

Weight Loss Solution: How Sally Lost Weight

Sally was not eating three meals a day when she came to see me for help losing weight. "I feel like I'm saving extra calories by skipping breakfast, and sometimes lunch," she told me. "If I can get by without eating then, doesn't that mean I should be losing weight? I'm afraid if I start adding all that extra food I'll gain even more." In the famous words of Dr. Phil I asked, "So, how's that working for you?"

Sally admitted it wasn't working. Sometimes she would get so hungry she would eat whatever she could find that was fast and easy--usually a candy bar from the vending machine or a convenience store. "And when I get home around dinner time I'm just too hungry to think of cooking an entire meal," she related. So dinner was usually something she could get quickly and lots of--like a buffet, or a Chinese take-out or a pizza. Obviously Sally had good intentions, but physiological hunger virtually always wins out in the end. Sally's body was talking her brain into feeding herself with the only regard being 'get something now'.

I told Sally about some research studies that showed convincing evidence of how eating more meals during the day helped people to weigh less. When subjects were given 2000 calories at one meal for six weeks in a row--and that's all they ate all day--they gained weight. As the same subjects had the same 2000 calories divided into 2 meals, then 3 meals, and eventually 6 meals a day for several weeks, they ended up losing weight. The same people, the same food: The only difference was they were eating it over a span of 15 hours instead of 50 minutes.

Sally agreed to try it. We came up with a simple and fast breakfast she could eat that wouldn't be time consuming for her while she was trying to dash out the door. We found several great options for snacks she could have during the day that were relatively low in calories so she wasn't so hungry just before a meal. Having planned snacks increases the chance that she'll think clearly at meal times, and make a wise decision about what to eat then. She could eat a fairly light lunch, since she was used to eating little at that time, and also because there was another snack to come in the afternoon.

After a couple of weeks Sally was adjusting to her new schedule and she was pleasantly surprised. "I actually enjoy my breakfast and have started looking forward to it," she told me with a smile ... "I can't believe all the food I'm eating and that I've actually lose three pounds!" Sally was no longer making candy bar runs mid-afternoon, because she never found herself too hungry to stop and think about what a smarter choice would be. She was arriving home at dinner time feeling only slightly hungry, and with enough energy to put some thought into preparing a balanced, low fat meal. She was getting comfortable with the idea that she could eat three meals (plus snacks!) on a regular schedule and not gain weight.

Try it out to see for yourself: Have a bowl of cereal for breakfast (or 2 slices of toast); bring some string cheese or a yogurt for a morning snack (you are likely to be hungry for lunch now that your body is getting fuel from breakfast and increasing your metabolism); have a 300 calorie frozen meal for lunch, or a sandwich, with a fresh fruit and a salad; bring a 100 calorie snack for the afternoon to be sure you don't arrive home so hungry that you raid the pantry; and prepare a nice healthy dinner (it doesn't have to be fancy) to round out your day. Chances are you can still have another snack in the evening (a low fat ice cream bar, or a few handfuls of popcorn) and find yourself on the road to successfully losing weight. Give it a few weeks and please post how you're doing here so we can cheer you on!

How Laurie Lost Weight

This is me! And the story of how I lost 15 pounds. I preach it now, calling it "watch out for the once-in-a-while's".


I'm a registered dietitian: I know how many calories are in virtually every food; I know how many grams of fat there are in a serving, how many grams of carbs are contained, what a reasonable portion size is, and which foods have little nutritional value; I know how many servings a day I should have of fruits, vegetables, dairy, and starches.
I know all of that. So why had I gained 15 pounds over the past 5 years and why wasn't it coming off? I ate reasonably well--I didn't binge, eat fast foods often, have desserts after every meal, or go out for ice cream every night. I was already eating what I thought was a fairly low calorie diet (about 1800 calories daily), so what could I change?

Right now I don't remember when it hit me, but it hit me hard, and I never forgot it: I was thinking about how well I avoided high calorie meals, struggling to figure out where I was going to come up with hundreds of calories a day to eliminate so I could lose a few pounds each month. I hardly ever ate fast food--maybe just every other week or so. I rarely had pizza because I knew that was a high-calorie dinner, so I wouldn't order one unless it had been a couple of weeks since the last time. Ditto with our local buffet restaurant, take-out chinese food, and eating out in any restaurant which served rolls and butter before the main meal. I didn't eat desserts often at lunch, even though they boasted quite a display of them at the cafeteria where I worked, so I would treat myself just once or twice a week. I very occasionally would indulge in a donut or sweet roll for breakfast, so it was especially enjoyable when I would give in every week or so. Sometimes I would be on the road during a trip and I would loosen the 'rules' a bit, allowing for snacks to help pass the drive; but that was only four or five times a year.

Are you seeing what I now see? I was trying to limit each of these indulgences to a reasonable frequency, but there were so many of them I wasn't being smart about all of them; I wasn't getting the meaning of eating the sum of them. I was, in fact, ingesting an extra 500 calories from something or other practically every other day: If I hadn't had pizza that week I got the extra calories from chinese and fast food meals; if I didn't have dessert I had already taken the calories earlier in the form of a donut; if I walked off the ice cream cone, I didn't exercise enough to walk off the cake from the office party too!

I thought I was keeping these "once-in-a-while's" down to once a month, but in fact I was "limiting" my choice 15 fattening foods to what amounted to 15 times a month--once a month for each of them--I had found the hundreds of calories to shave off my diet.
My new plan was to eat a high-calorie meal once in a while--only one. I could choose one day a week to have pizza or fast food or dessert or a donut. I couldn't rationalize that I hadn't had a cinnabon for six months if I just had a twice-a-year candy bar yesterday--that would never bring me the negative calorie balance I needed that week to lose weight.

I struggled with the idea of giving up pizza when it was so tempting to order out instead of cooking; giving up my favorite drive through restaurant when I was out and about and started to feel hungry; giving up my favorite donuts--just because I like donuts. But in the long run I realized I wanted to lose 15 pounds more than I wanted to eat donuts. There are plenty of foods I do like, and it's really just as easy to focus on all the delights I can enjoy than it is to pine away for the foods that bring me nothing but extra weight in the long run.

So I savor my fruits at snack time, munch on carrot sticks instead of potato chips, enjoy finding new and simple recipes to make for dinner, search for low calorie ice cream treats for the evening munchies, and plan ahead for times I don't feel like cooking. We eat out much less often and declare how much we've saved in money, gas, and calories at the end of our family dinner. It feels good to eat healthier almost all of the time instead of half the time. And, the bottom line for success: it feels much better weighing whatever I want to weigh than it does eating whatever I want to eat.