Treat Yourself

Let us take a break from talk of healthful habits and try to bring some perspective into the equation. I am about being realistic, so let us get real. Why do diets fail? Well I will tell you why; they make you give up foods you love and they do not teach you anything about implementing any sort of long term eating habits. My opinion is that you should not have to give up the food you love in order to meet your goals. You may have to reduce your intake a bit, but if you have good eating habits for everything else and you are practicing good portion sizes, go head and treat yourself! That’s right, treat yourself!

There is nothing like a fresh home baked cookie. The smell as it cooks and the chewy texture right as it comes out of the oven. That is my vice, what’s yours? For some of us it might be going out to eat at their favorite restaurant. Go for it! Now I am not advocating eating cookies all day and eating out every night, but for goodness sake live a little! We work hard every day with work, school, kids, family, gym, life, etc. Food can be so therapeutic sometimes; in fact many people tend to eat their feelings. I do not suggest eating your feelings to the point of binging; however sometimes eating a little ice cream when you are upset can really make a difference. There is also nothing better than rewarding yourself for going to the gym every day than eating a couple of homemade cookies. 

Now here’s the catch. I know as a woman when I eat junk food I feel REALLY guilty afterward. In order for this to actually be a treat for ourselves, we need to stop stressing over it. Just relax and let it be. Junk food from time to time is not going to kill you. If you eat it in large amounts every day then ya, it probably will. But that is not what I am talking about here. If you try to live a healthy lifestyle by eating natural and organic foods along with less meat and more fruits and veggies then you have nothing to worry about. I treat myself quite frequently, but because I eat so healthful most of the time, I never gain a pound, and this is even without working out!

Now of course some treats are better than others are, and I do not mean taste-wise. You can choose wiser options for junk food and it can make you feel even better about treating yourself. For instance, I keep mentioning homemade cookies, emphasis on the homemade. By making your treats at home, you can control and play around with the ingredients. Try using whole-wheat flour instead of white flour. Not only are whole grains healthier for you, but they fill you up faster and therefore make you eat less. This is a great website that explains how to substitute whole-wheat flour for white flour along with some great tips: http://www.ehow.com/how_2299938_substitute-wholewheat-flour-white.html . Another substitute, if you are using chocolate, is to use dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate. Now if you are anything like me, I would much rather have the milk chocolate; however, dark chocolate is full of anti-oxidants and tends to have less calories and less fat. If you take a gander in the cereal aisle where all the granola bars are, note the brands and the type of chocolate they put in their products. Brands like Cascadian Farms and Kashi put dark chocolate, while less healthful brands use milk chocolate. There is a reason for that; dark chocolate is better for you. Cocoa is a super food, meaning that it is full of healthy things needed in our bodies. The more cocoa content in chocolate, the healthier it is for you. Milk chocolate has less cocoa content than dark chocolate and has much less sugar, hence its other name semi-sweet chocolate. This website has a couple other healthier baking options to try out while treating yourself: http://www.ehow.com/how_2263189_healthy-baking-substitutions.html .

If you choose to go outside of your own kitchen and want to buy something at the store, try to remember back to when I wrote about looking at the ingredients in your products. Try to avoid synthetic foods and sweeteners. If you cannot make the product in your own kitchen, do not buy it. Other healthy options include getting products with no added sugar. Blue Bunny Ice Cream has mostly no sugar added ice cream. This does not mean that there is a lack of sugar in the product, it just means that the sugar is from the recipe it actually takes to make the product, or from an ingredient that naturally supplies the sugar. For example strawberry ice cream; strawberries are full of natural sugar and the ice cream is very sweet without adding a ton of extra sugar. I have had the Blue Bunny no sugar added strawberry ice cream and at first, I admit, I was skeptical, however, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I tasted no difference. Many jams and many other products actually make low sugar options or no sugar added. BE CAREFUL! No sugar added=/= no sugar. Products that advertise as containing no sugar use synthetic sweeteners! Do not be fooled! Also, be careful with low fat products. Sometimes they have to be processed to do so. We need fat in our diet, as fat serves an essential function in our bodies. Since we are treating ourselves, try to ignore the low fat options and try to focus on other things that are easier to control, like the types of ingredients we put in our food or are already contained in our products.

These are only a few tricks that we can all use to treat ourselves and not to feel guilty about it. If you end up just going out to eat and cannot check the ingredients, do not sweat it! This is your treat, so eat what you love. Just do not make it an every night habit. There are probably many more tricks and options that you can find from just a click away, so go do your research and have fun with your delicious creations. Go treat yourself!

Best wishes,

Megan

Au Naturale

Many times as consumers, we are unaware of the dangerous toxins and chemicals that are placed in our everyday products. Products we are often aware to have toxins in them include various cleaning products, but did you ever think that some of the most harmful chemicals are your beauty products, laundry detergent, and dryer sheets? It may be hard to believe, but it is very true.

Our skin serves a very important role. It absorbs various medicines and other chemicals and also excretes toxins that are contained in our bodies. If medication can be absorbed through our skin, so can the harmful chemicals contained in our beauty products. Think of it this way, if it is too dangerous to put in your mouth, why would you put it on your skin to be absorbed into your blood stream? It just doesn’t make sense.

So here’s common logic: Well, the FDA approved it, so it has to be ok. Not true. The FDA has approved many things that are harmful to you. Why? First of all companies are in charge of doing tests on their own products, therefore, the research the FDA approves is done by the company that has a financial gain not to report correct findings. Now I don’t mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but to me this procedure seems sketchy. In addition, the FDA allows harmful chemicals to be put in products that we use daily as long as they are in a “safe” range. Think of all the toiletry products you use daily: shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, shaving cream, lotion, after-shave, toothpaste, perfume, etc. If all of these products contain harmful chemicals in “safe” amounts, the amount of these harmful products on your skin multiplies with each product you use. Although it may be “safe” in one product, it may not be “safe” after you use it in 8+ products. For me, personally, I would rather not have the harmful chemical in my product at all.

The good news: you don’t have to buy products that are harmful to you. This includes cleaning products and beauty products. We all know how harmful bleach is, but how often do we actually use gloves to clean with. I never did growing up and neither did anyone else in my family. Why do we even use products that require the use of protective equipment? Even with the use of gloves, you are still inhaling the chemicals. So again, why do we use things harmful to us? One reason is that we don’t realize how harmful it is. Another reason is that we don’t know about any other cleaning products. Well guess what? There are plenty of brands that you can buy at your favorite box store or grocery store. I have recently begun replacing all my cleaning products and beauty products with all-natural options. 

Companies that produce these natural products include Seventh Generation, Burt’s Bees, Nature’s Gate, and so many others. Wal-Mart carries Seventh Generation cleaning products that have laundry detergent, dish soap, automatic dishwasher soap, multi-purpose cleaners, bathroom cleaners, and anything else you need to clean your home. I know Wal-Mart carries one or two other all-natural options for cleaning products, and you can find them in the aisle with the all-purpose cleaners.

As far as cleaning products go, Wal-Mart and target carry Burt’s Bees brand. Now I’ve used their chapstick for years and I never realized it was an all-natural product. I just used it because it worked the best. However, this company has so much more than chapstick. They have shampoo, conditioner, shaving cream, acne treatments, soap, body wash, and all natural make-up. I am also pretty sure that you can find this brand at many other grocery stores.

For me, I buy all my natural products at Sprouts. Sprouts has over a dozen brands of beauty products along with many more supplements and cleaning supplies. The prices are also comparable to Wal-Mart. In fact, a Seventh Generation product that I bought was a dollar cheaper at Sprouts than at Wal-Mart.

So let’s talk anti-bacterial products. They kill 99.9% of germs! Great right? No. Antibiotics are causing bacteria to mutate and become resistant to antibiotics. Therefore, the more we use anti-bacterial products, the sooner we won’t be able to treat and kill bacteria. I understand that we are trying to protect our families by trying to kill these germs, but by doing this, we are actually hurting them in the long run. So what can we do? Seventh Generation has disinfecting wipes that also kill 99.9% of germs naturally without the use of anti-bacterial products! Seventh Generation uses botanicals to make all of their products making them non-toxic, safe, and all-natural. One thing many may not realize, is that soap in and of itself if sufficient for removing bacteria on our hands. The soap is simply too slippery for the bacteria to stick to our skin. Solution: scrub your hands for longer than a couple of seconds and use regular soap.

Here are a few items I have acquired over the past few months:

Seventh Generation laundry detergent and automatic dishwasher soap. The detergent is free & clear of all fragrances, which is great for my sensitive skin. Both products have worked great and I do not miss the toxic products.

Here I have Nature’s Gate Tea Tree shampoo and conditioner. After using these products my hair has never been healthier. Also seen is Nature’s Gate toothpaste without fluoride. Fluoride is a poison and although it strengthens your pearly whites, it is very damaging to your body. If you can’t do without fluoride, Nature’s Gate also has all natural toothpastes with fluoride in it. Next in the picture is the aforementioned Burt’s Bees chapstick. The final products shown in the picture is Lafes natural and organic deodorant stick without an antiperspirant. All of these products are fabulous and I would highly recommend them.

These two products are my most recent purchases. The large bottle is Nature’s Gate colloidal oatmeal lotion for dry, sensitive skin. It has no fragrances and truly relieves dry skin. Last but not least is my new shave cream. It is called Kiss My Face do what comes naturally and it is also fragrance free and super moisturizing.

I understand some of you may think I’m extreme, but I love my new products and they work just as well or better than the harmful products. Many of these items are pretty equally matched in price as well. My point in writing this blog is just to educate of the harmful chemicals in our everyday products. If you can only replace one item with an all-natural option, you have already greatly reduced the harmful chemicals put into your body. If that is all you can do, great! This blog was intended to help increase health one item at a time.

Hope all is well,

Megan

Portion Sizes

Portion Size

Here in America, we go big or go home. In the past twenty plus years our serving sizes have doubled or even tripled. When eating out we expect a giant plate of food or we feel cheated. At fast food locations we often “supersize” our meal or upgrade it to a larger size. The sad part of this is that most of us can actually eat all of this food in one sitting. I, myself, used to be able to eat these large portions with no problem. Obesity rates have sky rocketed in the past few years, part of it due to the use of processed foods, and the other part to the portion size problem. 

Many of you are probably saying “But if I eat any less, I’ll be hungry soon anyway”. I do not doubt that is probably true, but the reason being is that you have trained your body to want that much food. Here’s the kicker though: just because your body is used to that much food and craves that much food, doesn’t mean it NEEDS that much food. If you train your body to eat large quantities of food, you can also train your body to eat healthier portions. In no way am I saying to starve yourself. Starving your body is greatly unhealthy and can cause you to gain weight for a short while. This seems counterintuitive, but it is true. If you deprive yourself of food and then eat a small amount, your body will be desperate to hold on to that food and will most likely store it as fat. This event is often seen in recovering anorexics. When they begin to eat again, their body gains weight so quickly because it wants to hold on to the food as long as possible. This quick weight gain, unfortunately, often makes them relapse and turns into a vicious cycle.

To start training your body to eat smaller portions, begin to measure out your food. Most of the time, we are not even aware of how much we are eating; by measuring our food out, we can actually be cognizant of our food intake. Another step might be to write down what and how much you are consuming. Studies have shown that one of the key factors in successful weight loss is taking a food log. If you write down what you eat, you are more aware of what you should eat throughout the rest of the day. After you have begun measuring out your food, think about your serving sizes. Do you really need a whole cup of rice? Do you really need a full piece of chicken breast? The answer to these questions are both no.

A great website that can give you an idea of ideal portion sizes is: http://www.mealsmatter.org/articles-and-resources/healthy-living-articles/Portion-Sizes.aspx

After a while of being mindful of your food portions, it will become natural to you and you will no longer have to think about it too hard.

As mentioned earlier, if you feel that you must eat a lot in order to be satisfied completely, keep in mind that your body can be trained to eat healthier portions. As mentioned in a previous post, I love Costa Vita. I usually get their delectable salads, which come in either large or small sizes. I used to be able to eat the entire large salad by myself. This is outrageous if you are familiar with these salads, because they are gigantic and I am only 5 feet tall 107lbs. However, now that I have been mindful of my portions, I began to order the small salad, and I can’t even finish the small salad. I get too full before I can! I never thought I would see the day I couldn’t finish one of those salads, let alone a small one!

Here are some tips to train yourself to eat smaller portions:

1.       Only eat until you are satisfied/full, e.g. do not eat until you are stuffed. You know when this sensation is, so don’t feel bad if you need to take your food home in a doggy bag to eat later.

2.       Try drinking more water. Many times when we think we are hungry, our body is actually trying to tell us that it wants water. Drinking plenty of fluids (water in particular) throughout the day actually decreases your hunger. When you find you are hungry and want a snack, drink a glass of water first and wait a few minutes. If you are still hungry then eat a small snack. Operative word in previous statement being small.

3.       Try eating small meals throughout the day instead of 3 large lump meals. I eat every couple of hours but only small items like a sandwich one hour and then some fruit and a granola bar the next hour etc.

4.       Eat filling and slightly larger breakfast. Breakfast is meant to give you energy throughout your day. People who have small or no breakfast tend to be overweight. Simple solution: eat a well balanced and nutritional breakfast. A great breakfast I love to eat is some delicious blueberry organic yogurt (sometimes with some uncooked sliced almonds mixed in), two slices of toast (w/ jam or butter), an apple (or other fruit), and some sort of juice or water to drink. It is filling and covers many of the food groups.

Trust me when I say this, if I can do it, you can do it too. Remember that cutting back your servings does not mean you are withholding food. Eat, and eat plenty, but not more than your body’s needs.

-Megan