Eating healthy during the holiday season

It is a fact that we are geared genetically to gain weight during the winter months. This is to help our bodies tolerate cold winters. Of course our genes don't know about central heating so it keeps telling us to eat for the winter. That is one of the main reasons that most feast days for humans have been historically in the winter months.

We must consciously make the decision to eat wisely during our feasting holidays. Eat small meals and don't pig out on odd burlesque pasties for sale or cakes that are very rich in creams and sugars. I am not saying you should avoid them entirely, no, just eat taster sizes. Don't eat a whole slice of cheese cake, cut it in half and share it.

Eat and savor each small bite and you'll find that the holiday season will be good to your body.

A healthy birthday

Birthday parties are fun and often fattening. Here are some tips to have a healthier birthday celebration.

• Eat small portions. You don't have to do without gourmet birthday cakes, just have a "taster" instead of filling up your plate with it. 
• If you are the host then put out more fruit and serve fruit juices. 
• Enjoy more active party games like swimming or playing a team sport. Forget those lame thinking games like trivial pursuit.
• Finally, don't stress out. Parties are often a source of stress for many people - don't sweat it, enjoy it.

The little pill that makes it all better

We are a society of the "quick fix." We want everything to be easy. Don't like the way you look? Have a little nip and tuck. Do you weigh too much? Take a pill and eat all you want. Yes, we want it all and want it NOW. Sorry folks, but it doesn't happen that way. It took months or even years for your body to gain weight so even the best weight loss pills in the world are not going to work in a few weeks. If they do then you will probably end up with other health problems like weakened bones or blood pressure problems.

Life is not a quick fix, it takes time to undo what damage we have done to ourselves. Take it easy and do it right. Learn eat right, learn to enjoy life without smoking and alcohol. You will feel better.

Building muscle mass

The best way to increase your metabolism is to increase your muscle mass in comparison to your fat percent of your body weight. Muscle cells use more calories than fat cells do just to maintain themselves. So what is the best muscle building supplement in terms of food? Think protein.

Great foods for muscle cells are lean meats, cottage cheese, yogurt and eggs. All are loaded with high protein, which is the building block that muscle tissue needs to grow and multiply.

Have a healthy Christmas Day

I just received an expensive set of spyderco delica knives as a gift. I am not known for being the cook in the family, I think it might be a hint. While on the subject of food:

Those yummy treats and foods that are laid out before you this day should not ruin your body or make you feel guilty. Just use common sense and moderation during the holidays for eating and you will not have to do any drastic dieting come the new year.

Have great Christmas Day.

Foods to induce sleep

Feeling tired after a big meal is a normal part of being human. Your body wants to slow down to properly digest the meal....and that means sleep. Some foods have been known to induce sleep and are a better choice than pill types of sleep aids.

Warm milk has a sleep inducing effect. I have not personally tried it since I am allergic to milk. Other foods are peanuts, sunflower seeds and oatmeal cookies. So technically a warm glass of milk with some oatmeal and raisin cookies should put you right to sleep.

A simple way to cut your appetite

Almost everyone I know has heard that you should eat your meals slowly so that you give your stomach time to feel full. Unfortunately we cannot always do that for lunch while at work or at school. I have found another way to help your stomach feel full without the aid of new diet pills or eating "filling foods." The secret is psyllium, the ingredient found in Metamucil®. What psyllium does is form a gel in your gut when it is wet and makes you feel full. In order for it to be effective you should take it in pill form. Take the pill about 1 hour before your big meal of the day. You will feel full or nearly full before you even start to eat. That will enable you to eat smaller portions and to walk away from the dinner table without any hunger pangs.

Foods that help you lose weight

I am often asked "what types of food should I eat to burn calories?" I just hate to tell them that there is no such thing as fat burning foods. I remember when I was young, my mother would religiously eat one banana and drink a small can of grapefruit juice for lunch everyday, to try and lose weight. She claimed that those foods burned off the fat in her body. I was just a kid and didn't know any better, so I took it as a fact.

When I got older and had more nutritional education, I realized that it was not the foods she ate but the small amounts of them that she ate. Both the grapefruit juice and banana amounted to about 200 calories for lunch. Topped with a small dinner of less than 800 calories and almost nothing of a breakfast, no wonder my short 5' mom was able to stay slim and tiny, she barely ate much at all.

One food that can help your body and skin

There are lots of foods that profess to help you lose weight. I can think of one main one off hand and that is grapefruit. I remember my mother eating a grapefruit for breakfast and drinking grapefruit juice for lunch as a method of weight loss. I asked her once if she liked grapefruits enough to eat them twice a day, everyday and she told me NO! She only ate them because she heard that they would help her body burn off fat. She did lose weight with her fruit diet but not because it was grapefruit but because she was almost starving herself in the process. If you are wondering if she put those pounds right back on after eating grapefruits for almost 2 years, she did. She did not learn to eat a balanced diet that she could maintain.

One food that I have found that worked for me was yogurt. I ate that for lunch along with a piece of fruit when I was at work. It was not only a quick and easy lunch to make but it kept me from feeling starved all afternoon long. I have also heard that yogurt is one of the best acne treatments around. Of course for acne, you don't eat the yogurt but put plain yogurt on your face after you wash it. Something about balancing your ph levels on your skin.

Midnight snackers

I have a dear friend that always seems to be on a diet of some sort. I have known her long enough to see her go through the very obese times to the very slim days. She is currently back to her overweight time and until recently I was unaware that she was a closet midnight snacker. Her husband told me that he would be getting ready for work one day and found all kinds of food left out in the kitchen. He put it away and thought nothing more about it. Then a week later it happened again. He thought it was one of his teenage sons and confronted him. It was then he found out that his wife was the sneaky snacker.

My friend and her husband had a huge argument over the issue. She refused to admit that eating 2 sandwiches at 1am in the morning was contributing to her almost 280 pound problem. At one point he threatened to put a lock on the refrigerator or figure out a way to keep her out of it during certain hours. He even wondered if any company made such a thing like refrigerator filters that detected who was opening the door and what they were getting out or putting in.

What he finally did in the end was make an appointment for her at the doctor and not tell her about it. The appointment was around lunch time and he made arraignments that it looked like he would be taking her out to lunch and instead they ended up at the doctors office. After the appointment her midnight snacking stopped......at least for now it has. She dropped 30 pounds since not making those midnight runs.

A balanced diet is extremely important

While dieting, everyone should take a physical inventory or their current health. Before the diet how was their skin condition? What was the condition of their hair and nails? Nail and hair growth along with skin condition are great indicators of health problems. Lack of certain vitamins in the diet can cause red flaky skin rashes and excessive hair loss for women. While hair loss in men also occurs, it is often put down as male pattern baldness and the dietary factor is often overlooked. Nail growth patterns to look for include nails that are progressively getting thinner and or break easily than they did before the diet. The rate of hair and nail growth should also be noted. Has it slowed down or sped up?

Eating not enough fiber on a diet that is rich in natural vitamins can cause a host of problems ranging from dandruff to digestive problems.

Eating a balanced diet that is low in carbs and calories can still be achieved with ease if you eat more vegetables and fruit with very lean non-processed meats.

Diets and smoking

I have never smoked but my slightly tubby hubby has. He has told me on several occasions that after eating a very full dinner he just felt like having a cigarette or one of his Davidoff cigars (gawd, I hated the smell of those things). When he quit smoking, he was afraid that he would substitute more food for his habit. Did didn't but he did substitute by drinking more sodas. It took him some time but not he is drinking more water and diet sodas. Smoking does change your eating habits. Once you quit smoking, your taste buds will change and food will become tastier.

Take care of yourself when you diet

The biggest flaw in fad diets is not getting a balanced diet. Everyone needs fiber in their diet to maintain a healthy colon. They also need to be getting at least the minimum recommended daily minerals and vitamins. I know that when I am stressed or have a sickness, my body uses up vitamin C like it was going out of style. My body will exhibit the beginnings of vitamin C shortage. There is a slight difference between womens vitamins and mens, but not that much. Just make sure you are eating a balanced diet when you are trying to lose weight.

The advantages of eating healthy

When you eat a balanced diet, not only do you lose extra weight but your overall health improves. I have personally noticed that my hair, skin and nails are no longer dry and have increased in their growth (the hair and nails, not the skin). A friend of mine told me that her increase in fruit consumption and decrease in eating potato chips has become a body acne treatment for her. She tells me that her skin now glows.

See what eating healthier can do for your body? Try it out and see.

Don't be stupid

Now I know that New Years is just a few days away now. Like most people you might be making unrealistic resolutions that you cannot keep. For example losing 20 pounds a month in weight. That is not only unrealistic but can be dangerous. The most drastic weight loss I have ever gone through was losing 15 pounds in 3 days, that was because I had the flu and between not eating much and spending my time either puking or pooping it was not a very nice way to lose weight. In fact for the next week after that I was extremely weak. I had the advantage of being in my late teens at the time so my young strong body could handle it. Nowadays forget it, I would end up in ER.

You don't want to lose weight by unconventional means either. Don't be planning on that trip down to Mexico for liposuction from a back alley doctor. Those places are known for leaving the patient with more health problems then they arrived with. A friend of mine went down for dental implants Mexico and ended up with a bone infection.

Lose those excessive pounds the old fashioned way, by eating less and being more active. Don't eat more than your body can use in energy and maintaining bodily functions.

Have a great new year and don't make unrealistic plans that you know you can't keep.

Being disabled and overweight

One of the major causes of being overweight in adults is being unable to exercise due to physical limitations. Another factor is depression. Often those 2 factors go hand in hand in the development of an overweight person.

When an adult becomes disabled they often go on social security disability. If their disability is not apparent to the average observer then they could be the victim of ridicule. That ridicule will often cause the disabled person to become depressed and that depression can lead to overeating, alcoholism or even drug addiction.

Contrary to popular belief, being on disability is not a free ride but only enough of an income to barely get by. Next time you see an overweight disabled person consider that over eating might be their "mental crutch" that they have had to lean on due to depression.

Foods for dieters

There are some foods that you should be avoiding that are just common sense, like cookies, candy and other empty calorie laden foods. Other foods that are eaten in larger than normal portions act like a sleeping pill on your body. You get pretty sleepy after that Thanksgiving dinner don't you? Turkey is one of those foods that puts you to sleep, milk does it too.

If you wake up during the night and want to eat because you are hungry here's a tip that my dietitian told me: Eat a 1/4 cup of peanuts right before you go to bed. Your body will take all night to digest them, thus keeping you asleep. Peanuts are also full of protein and not "empty" calories so they are just fine for your diet.

Has the economy affected our eating habits?

With the rise of food costs and the high unemployment rate you would thank that food consumption would be down. Before you say yes or no, let's look at some facts. McDonald's is experiencing a boom in sales. They have opened up 100's of new locations since the recession began. The next report is that many more people than usual are suffering from depression as a result of job loss or just worrying about losing a job. A most of us know, people turn to comfort foods to battle depression.

Several people that I personally know are actually cutting back on other expenses in order to buy food. One even got rid of their pets, another decided not to pay for motorhome insurance on his RV because it will sit parked for the next 8 months.

The bottom line is that even when times are hard people will still eat and often overeat just to feel better about their lives.

My favorite diet foods

I love fruit and vegetables. I was not always like that. I remember hating peas when I was a kid, I still do as an adult. Salads were rare at my house when I was growing up. It was meat and potatoes with often a vegetable I was not fond of.

Fast forward to married life and learning about Chinese and Mexican food with salad bars thrown in for good measure. Of course my favorite diet is one that includes lots of seafood, salads and raw vegetables. Raw, uncooked vegetables was one item that I never had as a kid. I think celery was the only one I can remember.

When I was pregnant I had a craving for all kinds of fruit, yep healthy stuff! My only true weakness was ice cream, unfortunately it still is.

Diet pills and all that jazz

We have become a take a pill for what ails you type of society. It is that type of mentality that has gotten us into the obesity problem we now have. People want to eat and eat, what they want, when they want it, without regards as to what overeating will do to their bodies. They think that taking a pill will stop any ill effects of overeating.

I can prove my point easily by pointing out how many internet searches there are done hourly on the internet for the "best weight loss pills", or "diet pill reviews". People, when will you learn to eat to fuel and maintain your body and not to over indulge your taste buds? Sure it tastes good, so just eat enough to taste it, not gorge yourself. A pill will not help you in the long run.