Free Diet Makeovers This Month!

It's the new year; the time where everyone is making new year's resolutions. And I'll bet that "lose some weight" is top on many people's list!
I'd love to help you do it right this year, so I'm offering to help you makeover your diet starting now!

It's easy to do--just think of three ways you can change your diet to make it better. How can you eat more foods that are good for you? Fewer foods that are high in calories? How can you be sure to exercise more regularly? Sit down with a pad of paper and jot down some ideas. When you come up with a few good ones, just send them here as comments. I'll add my expert comments to yours and help you refine them so they'll work best.

Here are some examples of what we might see:

1) Eat 3 fruits each day.
comment: have a plan to track them, such as keeping a log on the refrigerator door. After supper, check to see how close you are, and if you are lacking a fruit or two, have one for dessert and another as a bedtime snack.

2) Stop eating fast food.
comment: You don't want to set yourself up to fail. If you eat fast food often for convenience sake, you're going to have a back-up plan that works, like packing your lunch every day--and will you really do this? How about taking a few minutes to research your favorite fast food restaurant on their website for nutritional content of the foods you like best. You'll quickly find that some have hundreds more calories than others. Instead of "no more fast food" it may be wiser to refine your goal as "find the healthiest choices" for when you do turn into the drive through window!

3) Exercise every day.
comment: If you don't exercise every day now, what makes you think things will change so drastically? You need an easy plan! What exactly will you do for exercise, and where and when will you do it? Do you like to walk? Do you like aerobics classes? Can you follow a schedule more faithfully if you have an exercise buddy? Again, you want to set yourself up for success, so make your goal realistic. "I will walk monday and wednesday after dinner with my husband, and meet Barb at the gym on Tuesday and Saturday mornings for yoga classes" might work better for your new routine.

Share some goals with us and we can all get some good ideas to start out 2009 with healthy habits that can last this whole year!

This Year, Make Your New Year's Resolution Stick!

The first month of the new year makes us feel full of so many possibilities, and at this time of the year we are so gung ho to begin anew, making the best and biggest changes possible. Now find out how the way you state your resolutions can mean the difference between following through, or tossing them out the window after just a few days.

Think about some of the most common resolutions you hear: "I'm going to lose weight"; "I'm going to exercise more"; or "I'm going to eat more healthy". The problem with each of these is that they are too general. They don't give you any direction or any solid steps to follow. So after a few weeks when your excited phase starts wearing out and the gym becomes boring, you just let the good intentions drop away until, say, bathing suit season.

What can you do to turn these good ideas into good habits? Decide on what steps you can take to incorporate healthier eating and exercise habits into your life. Here are a few examples of how to re-word some new year's resolutions so you will find them easier to stick with:


1. I'm going to lose weight: Decide what steps you can take to make this happen. What can you incorporate into your daily routine to result in a decrease in calorie intake? How about, "I'm going to have fruit or sorbet after dinner instead of cookies or ice cream", or "I'm going to start keeping a food journal and set a goal of eating only when I am hungry or really want a certain treat once a week". These are behaviors you can perform, without watching the days go by with the scale not budging.

2. I'm going to exercise more. How are you going to be sure you actually follow through with this resolution? Some people work better with a schedule, or with an exercise buddy. "I'm going to find a class I like at the gym and find a buddy to join me so I'm sure to keep my appointed time on three days each week", or "I'm going to go for a 30 minute walk after dinner four nights a week" holds you accountable to a friend and to a schedule. It's a very concrete way of including exercise into your regular routine and you can keep this up literally for the rest of your life!

3. I'm going to eat more healthy. This statement is far too general. What does "healthy" mean to you? Will you stop eating processed foods? If you stop for fast food one day will you believe you've blown the whole 'healthy' resolution and pounce on a new reason to give up right away and pig out? "I'm going to make sure I eat at least three fruits and three vegetables each day", or "I'm going to avoid foods that contain more than 30% of the calories from fat" will direct you to a concrete action you can take. If you miss a vegetable one day, you can easily start over the next, knowing that you are doing better this year than you were last year.

Plan on some specifics that define what you really mean by "healthy" or "weight loss" or "more exercise", and start those new habits to form a healthier you in 2009!