Experts tell us we are what we eat. A disturbing thought when we consider how much sugar, fat and white flour is consumed daily, hidden in ready meals and fast foods. It’s time to change the bad habits we have developed over the last three decades and start eating to improve health, not destroy it!
A vital area of life that requires our attention is this.learning to answer hunger pains appropriately. If we neglect this, weight can increase and well-being may suffer.
Whether you need to lose weight, maintain weight or tone up your body; inappropriate eating habits can jeopardize your best efforts. This articles will help you start to understand how to manage hunger in a busy lifestyle.
If it’s sticky and sweet, made with sugar and saturated fat, then you must only eat it as a rare treat. Can the same be said for a delicious bowl of strawberries, or a juicy sweet orange? That is the problem here? Why do we choose cakes and chocolate over nature’s best offering?
If you do not have a genuine glucose imbalance, one cause perhaps is that sweet treats are deeply connected to our childhood, where frequently, ’sweeteners’ were given as a reward for good behaviour, or to placate or console the unhappy child. Our memory will automatically associate sweet foods as a reward or a comfort. That bar of chocolate or sticky bun you devour mid-way through a stressful afternoon could be you rewarding yourself for hard work!
If you think you may be using sweet treats as a ‘reward’ or comfort and want to kick the habit, simply remember that putting on weight is NOT a reward. Then think of a reward that doesn’t involve food!
Guard yourself from the sweet snack attacks by being prepared and planning your day’s food patterns.
1. Incorporate protein in to your breakfast AND lunch. Protein is key to controlling carbohydrate cravings. The RDA of protein for women is 60 grams a day. For women wanting to lose weight, health professionals recommend approximately 100 grams of protein daily. Why? One of the principle advantages of protein is that it creates a feeling of fullness and satisfaction in the body that makes overeating much less likely. Source your protein from ultra lean sources so you don’t pick up unwanted calories and saturated fats.
Even better, than providing a sense of sustained fullness, protein can block the triggering effect that carbohydrates can have on the brain. If you eat protein with a carbohydrate it will reduce the cravings caused by eating the carbohydrate.
2. Never skip meals. Research has shown that people who skip meals are more prone to obesity than those who regularly eat 3 meals a day. In fact, people who space their daily food requirements by making appropriate use of healthy snacks do even better. Why is this? When you skip meals you are more likely to get hungry and fill up on easily obtained fast foods which are often trigger foods.
3. Drink 6 to 8 glasses of water throughout the day. For some people sugar laden soft drinks are a trigger food. Make sure you don’t get thirsty in the first place. Water creates a sense of fullness and has a host of other health benefits.
4. Plan the timing of your meals so that you don’t get hungry. Despite having three healthy meals a day, sometimes your work schedule can mean the spacing of those meals still does not guard against the carbohydrate cravings. If you have a long gap between meals, make sure you carry healthy snacks to cover the distance, otherwise hunger will set in
5. Plan your snacks. Plan out your weekly snack schedule with some delicious, healthy snacks. Purchase these with your weekly shopping so that you are fully prepared. If you need to, get up a few minutes earlier in the morning so you have time to prepare and take your snacks to work. Remember, healthy snacks don’t live in a vending machine! You are less likely to get hungry when you have a ready supply of healthy snacks.
6. Carry emergency supplies of nutritional protein bars in your handbag or brief case. When you feel a carbohydrate craving, eat the protein bar instead and wait 30 minutes before acting on the craving. More often than not the craving will pass and you will be in control again. This truly works.
Kim Beardsmore M.B.A. (H.R.M.), B.Sc. (Biochemistry) is an independent Herbalife distributor, weight loss coach and creator of the online fitness magazine Weight Loss Health. For a free weight loss consultation, newsletter and resources to help you lose weight and keep it off forever, visit http://www.weight-loss-health.com.au Your online Herbalife store at http://www.weightlosshealth.herbalcoach.com and for an introduction to the Herbalife home business opportunity visit: http://www.free2liv.com
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Are you a ‘look-and-lose’ dieter? Have you studied every diet ever created, read a zillion diet books, and yet are still unhappy with your weight?
Has your quest for the holy grail of dieting become a substitute for actually making changes required to take the ill health out of your current diet?
If so, you may not realise your thoughts are key to your happiness and success.
Do you look at yourself and say, “I’m fat”, or “My hips are too big”? Many of us look in the mirror and immediately compare ourselves to those ‘perfect’ human specimens we see every single day on TV, in magazines and in the newspapers.
Often we talk to ourself and make excuses, “It’s my genes”, “I’m much too busy to get fit“, “I like myself this”, as a way of protecting yourself from the way we see ourselves now and the way we want to be.
If we were to be truly honest with ourselves most people actually want to lose a few pounds - if we only knew how.
The good news is you CAN achieve your desired body shape with the right thinking about yourself, an understanding of how to get optimal nutrition, healthy eating habits and how to incorporate activity into your lifestyle to keep your muscles toned.
But most important of all, you need a regular mental workout to keep your self-image in shape.
Self-image is closely connected to the success or failure of any goal you choose to seek after, but none more so that the goal to get yourself fit and healthy.
So how do you go about strengthening your self-image? Well fortunately your self-image, just like your muscles, will respond well to a regular work out. You can actually strengthen your self-image with a few daily exercises.
Exercise One - Self Examination
Start by compiling a list of all those negative thoughts your have about yourselfI’m undisciplined, I can’t manage my time, I let people down, I can’t succeed, I don’t exercise enough. You will need to decide before you start this process that you won’t get discouraged.these are things that you will admit to yourself but they most certainly don’t have to control your life.
Next, compile a second list including everything you LIKE about yourself. Keep going until this list is LONGER than the first list you compiled. You might include things such as, I am a good cook, I can make people laugh, I contribute to the soccer club, my daughter loves the way I decorate her room.
Then, take your ‘negatives’ list and turn it into your ‘potentials’ list. You do this by creating a positive self-image to every ‘negative’ you listed. Instead of “I can’t succeed”, write a counter belief, “I will succeed”.
Ceremonially throw out the ‘negatives’ list - you are saying goodbye forever! Burn them, trash them, destroy them.they are no longer going to be a part of your thinking about yourself.
Now, keep your list of potentials in a prominent place. On your refrigerator door, in your daily journal, or in a picture frame on your desk. Make sure you have them in front on your every single day so that you are reading them constantly and reprogramming your daily thoughts.
Exercise Two: You Can Be What You Want to Be
Now that you have your list of potentials run your own visualisation stories so that you can ’see’ yourself in a new light. For example, if your list of potential includes “I eat just the right portions”, visualise yourself with a moderate portion on your plate, and feeling completely satisfied at the conclusion of your meal.
Read through your list of potentials every day taking a few moments of personal quiet time to reflect strongly on your visualisations. Try starting your day first thing in the morning and finishing as the last thing at night with visualising yourself being the person on your list, and doing the things you want to do.
Exercise Three: Keep a Journal of Your Daily Successes
Keep a record of all the positive changes in thoughts you have about yourself. We all have triumphs and ‘failures’. You must record and remind yourself of the positive changes because our human nature will replay the negatives - sometimes blowing them out of proportion. It’s important to nurture and celebrate the small steps you make every day.
Exercise Four: Go Easy On Yourself - You Are Beautiful Work In Progress
Don’t listen to the criticismnot your own nor that of others! Remember you are the designer of your self-esteem, do not hand this over to other people. You are way too important to give this away. Protect your role as creator of your own self-image and do not, take on board negative criticisms. We all make mistakes, and mistakes can be used to help us learn. Do not criticise yourself for being human and making a mistake. The only last mistake in the one from which we never learn to grow.
Exercise Five: Forget About The Past
The only moment you can live is the current one. You can’t live in the future and you most certainly shouldn’t live in the past.the challenge is to take charge of our thinking so that we think in the same time zone in which we live!
For example we may be tempted to think about yesterday’s failures”If only I hadn’t eaten second helpings”, “If only I didn’t reach for the chocolate cookies”. If we concentrate on the mistakes of yesterday this will our brains to replay our failures and reinforce them to us.
Yesterday is over, today is where you live.make sure that today you do NOT replay yesterday’s failures and make your resolve to change TODAY.
Exercise Six: Resolve to Change Today
Just as you shouldn’t live in the past, you can’t live in the future. You can only live or change today. The oldest clich
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Mindfulness is all about paying attention. It’s amazing what can be accomplished when mindfulness is applied to systems that need all the attention they can get. If there’s an industry that needs some CPR and TLC, it’s healthcare.
Cindy Jimmerson is a 30-year trauma nurse who is passionate about streamlining healthcare processes. Her consulting company, Lean HealthCare West, is blasting through always-done-it-that-way thinking to reduce waiting time for patients, eliminate staff errors, and save hospitals and patients millions of dollars.
She is the Queen of Lean in hospitals, and she’s on a mission to improve the health of our country’s largest industry–$1.76 trillion in 2002, and soon to explode as the baby-boomers hit their sixties.
When it comes to looking for powerful tools for transforming processes, we’re fortunate to have a proven model that continues to outperform peers around the world. The Toyota Production System was originally developed by an American, W. Edwards Deming, who couldn’t get anyone in the U.S. to pay attention to his approach. The Japanese listened and learned. Today, TPS continues to propel industries toward greater productivity, less waste, improved quality, and increased workplace appreciation.
Cindy’s firm takes TPS straight to the ER and beyond. Now, you might think that a model focusing on getting product moved through the assembly line more efficiently is completely inappropriate for handling human patients. You would be dead wrong.
TPS focuses on adding value to what matters most–in this case, caring for patients. In doing so, it takes a hard look at every step taken which results in less contact with those who need care. The customer is king, and in healthcare, the customer is the patient. Instead of developing ways to make hospitals more profitable by relegating the patient to widget status, TPS restores the patient as the primary focus. How refreshing!
There’s a common misconception that people do not like change. I happen to love rearranging rooms every season. However, I’d probably get a little cranky if I walked into my house and found that someone else had moved all the furniture.
The real story is that people do not like change that is imposed upon them, but they appreciate being part of the solution. Employees using TPS love having the opportunity to creatively explore options that allow them to perform their work with greater efficiency. And why not? It helps them reconnect to the best parts of their job.
Toyota walks its talk. It would be one thing if the company had a policy of being “open to suggestions” while rarely making any changes. But Toyota consistently acts on its employees’ recommendations. In fact, the most recent figures indicate that the company implemented 99% of its yearly total of over 700,000 employee ideas!
That same emphasis on valuing the knowledge and experience of employees and trusting them to develop better processes is the key to tackling healthcare’s estimated waste–a whopping 50%.
TPS is mindfulness in action–paying attention to extra steps, inconvenient sequences, and indirect communication. The best part? Anyone can do it.
Doctors, nurses and other hospital workers are hard-working, compassionate people who are committed to providing their patients with top-notch care. Broken systems get in the way. Mindful management can repair those systems, and in the process, everyone wins.
Mindfulness at work? It works.
Talk to your doctor about getting lean.
About The Author
Maya Talisman Frost is a mind masseuse offering specialized mindfulness training to indiviuals and corporate groups in the Pacific Northwest. To subscribe to her free weekly ezine, visit http://www.massageyourmind.com. To learn more about lean healthcare, visit http://leanhealthcarewest.com
maya@massageyourmind.com
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