Eating Healthy on a Budget: When The Economic Crisis Meets The Obesity Crisis

Weekly Tips by Zonya, America’s Nutrition Leader

Is your goal to lose weight in the coming year? Let’s get one thing straight right now. I’d like to suggest that you DO NOT weigh yourself every day.

A healthy rate of weight loss is 1 pound per week (don’t fret, that’s 52 pounds in a year). And since your scale is probably NOT ABLE to measure changes of 1/7th of a pound, weighing yourself every day can be futile and depressing (especially for women when you consider fluid shifts, and of course gains in muscle which we all hope will occur with our added exercise!). And don’t we all know that the last thing we need is depressing news when we’re trying to lose weight! A tape measure right around your thickest part of you will tell you MUCH, MUCH more about your progress. As long as you are attempting to lose weight, weighing once a week, or better yet once a month, is truly the smartest choice. (Helping prevent the unwanted "mind games" that we all know the scale can play on us!)

On the other hand, if you are now attempting to maintain your weight and this is a constant challenge for you, many successful maintainers say their secret is: WEIGHING THEMSELVES EVERY DAY. (Say what?) This allows them to see a "backslide" coming on, before it turns into a 10-pound gain that they just "didn’t notice." So, consider this advice while maintaining: weight daily. If the scale is up one or two pounds, let it gently tell you to "cut back on portions and put in a longer walk."

Weekly Tips by Zonya, America’s Nutrition Leader

How is your holiday survival plan going?

Are you stressed out because the holiday parties were full of fattening treats that you couldn’t resist? Did your shopping and activity schedule take over your exercise routine? Give yourself a gift for the holiday: FORGIVENESS! Nobody is perfect, no exercise routine is fool proof, and no diet is 100% healthy! Give yourself a break! Look back on your successes and think of all the healthy habits you’ve adopted one week at a time! Look at the changes you’ve made for yourself and your family. Congratulations on a job well done! And remember, every step in the right direction is a success in itself, and any progress is exceptional progress. Each meal and each day is an opportunity for success.

Weekly Tips by Zonya, America’s Nutrition Leader

Oh the weather outside is frightful… so I’ll eat to feel delightful!

Ever wonder why we eat more in cold weather? It’s because a drop in body temperature stimulates appetite. And when we eat, the act of digesting food raises our body temperature. This can be a contributing factor to packing on some winter pounds! You can combat this by changing the definition of your comfort foods. Instead of reaching for mashed potatoes dripping in butter and gravy, opt for some piping hot broth-based soup. Warm, healthy soup will raise your body temperature and give you comfort without needless calories!

It’s important to identify stress eating, boredom eating or emotional eating, especially during the shorter daylight hours of winter when we tend to be less active. Learn to replace this with a more healthful coping response. Find out what constitutes your “plunge into oblivion” that is something other than food or drink. Learn to listen and respond correctly to your internal appestat, which tells you when you are hungry and when you are satisfied. It’s amazing how many times you don’t really need food; you just need the “escape into oblivion.”