Slow Arsenic and the Gift of Childhood Obesity

Tweet

Giving the gift of obesity to your child.

Someone talking about your child's weight can be uncomfortable. Especially if you don't think your child is overweight, and the other person does.

No one wants to think of their child as being overweight. In fact most parents don't see their child as being overweight even if the scales show otherwise. Parents are unable to tell the difference between puppy fat and childhood obesity. Non-judgmental parental love is the culprit here.

But discomfort and blindness aside, we are in the midst of a childhood obesity epidemic that is growing worse daily. And the only way it is going to be solved is to acknowledge the difficult truth that childhood obesity has doubled in the last 20 years. Clearly something is wrong and getting worse. Clearly a new, ongoing conversation needs to begin about the seriousness of the problem, and start grappling with solutions.

So, can we talk about your child's weight today?

Because it does matter if your child is overweight. It does matter if your child is obese. It does matter, even if they are not overweight today, because their weight status can change dramatically, rapidly during their growing years. It matters because a child that is obese, that slims down during their teens, still has 2-3 times the risk of becoming obese in their middle years.

In the end, childhood obesity matters because your child's weight, their over-weight or obesity, is your gift to them. This is more, much more than simple genetics.

• If you are an obese woman, your daughter is 10 times more likely to become obese

• If you are an obese man, your son is 6 times more likely to become obese

This is not just genetics at work. It is your gift of lifestyle – exercise and food choices. Genetics just sets-up the over-weight possibilities. The rest is what you do teach them to do with those genes.

Let's talk about the food you feed your child.

Slow arsenic: It's what's on the menu.
Would you knowingly give your child arsenic if you knew it would kill them in a week? What about a month – would you give them arsenic if it took a month to kill them?

If you knew your child would be wonderfully happy for an entire year, the most happy they could ever be, because you found a form of arsenic that would make them exceptionally happy before it killed them in a year, would the tradeoff be worth it?

Would your choice be different if you gave your child happy-inducing-arsenic that took five or ten years to kill them?

Of course not – not if you KNEW it was slow arsenic, and even if it induced happiness along the path to their demise.

Yet, unknowingly, unwittingly, unwillingly, feeding your child slow arsenic is exactly what you are doing every day. The evidence for that is your child (or most children) are getting fatter. It not only makes them fat, it rapidly and lastingly destroys their health. It may look like ordinary food, but if your child is gaining unhealthy excess weight, you need to be in the hunt for slow arsenic in their diet.

The most difficult choice any parent makes is what to feed their child.

How do you know what is really healthy? What is supposed to be in a "balanced" meal? If you eliminate the trans fats, and lower the fat grams your child eats, is that enough to keep your child from becoming overweight or obese?

What about Vitamin D, omega-3, fiber, and whole grains? If you get all these, is your job done?

Not knowing the best answers to these questions, parents do the best they can, eliminate the worst foods from a child's menu, and give-in to their child's food choice requests.

The trouble is, this strategy isn't working. In fact it is making things worse. What mothers and fathers don't know about nutrition is killing their kids. Slow arsenic to be sure, but killing them nonetheless. That sounds harsh. It can certainly feel harsh when someone else is talking about you and your child. It is, however, all too true for most kids.

Consider the rapid rise of childhood obesity this last two decades – the rate has doubled.

Adult onset diabetes – as the result of obesity – is the fastest growing childhood disease. Isn't that frightening?

One in six children are clinically obese when they start elementary school. You probably only knew one kid, maybe two kids in elementary school that were obese. Your kids will know 1 in 6. Could your child be one of them? Could your child BECOME one of them?

What can be done? What can You do?

You have to start over. You have to overcome your reliance on what is clearly not working. You have to quit listening to all the bad dietary advice served up in magazines and on TV.

You have to quit dieting, especially if you are a woman, because your daughter, (as young as 5 years old, in many cases), and increasingly your son, will take your dieting as a strong clue that they should do the same. Your dieting is your child's path, THE PATH, to eating disorders. Or excess weight gain.

That advice won't get you far, but at least it will stop increasing the damage.

For the rest, you will have to look to your own diet. Because study after study is confirming that what YOU eat, how often YOU eat, how much YOU eat, what foods YOU eat together, are all "caught" by your children. They see what you do and follow suit. Of course they have their own variations and preferences. But, the main course of their daily fare is learned by watching YOU. By the time they are 9 or 10 or 12, that learning is a lifelong habit.

Before they are old enough to be taught "nutrition," they have "caught" their lifelong eating preferences from you.

So, if you want your child to eat healthily, you are going to have to learn to eat healthy yourself.

If you are already overweight, how YOU lose weight is the model your children will learn to follow.

Are you prepared to feed your kids Weight Watcher meals for the rest of their years at your table?


PS: Would more discussion on this crucial subject of childhood obesity be of interest to you? I would like to hear from you, please.

Mom Was Big. Ideas to Eat Less – to Live More.

Tweet

"Mom was big."

You get excuses from your mother.

Your solutions are your own.

You are not a prisoner of your genetics. Unless you want to be.

Do you want your child to be shackled by the same excuse?

It is not an easy life, being overweight. Especially when there seems no upper limited to how high you can go.

And, whatever you may say to yourself about your own weight, you know you don't want the same thing for your children.

The "battle" for permanent weight loss
The difficulty is figuring out what to do – how to lose weight and keep it off permanently. There is a reason it is often referred to as a "battle with excess weight."

The first key point here is that while your genetics may work against you, because you may seem to be losing that "battle," it is not the fault of your character, nor your willpower, nor your restraint.

The second key point is that what you "know" is what is causing your on-again, off-again weight loss. "The "fat" is between your ears. Lose that, and you'll lose weight steadily.

How do you do that? Well, it may be as easy as doing the opposite of what you "know". While I don't advocate that, it certainly can't cause you more harm than has already been inflicted on you by the plethora of bad information you presently hold in your head.

No quick solutions to permanent weight loss
There are no quick solutions here – but there are real ones. Solutions grounded in science. Not some "secret" that has finally been revealed to the world by a self-styled guru, no matter how thin they may be now, nor how much they used to weigh.

The human body is an amazing miracle. The solution to permanent weight loss is to work with the body, not to try to trick it into short-term weight loss. The body will always respond to that by making you gain it back, plus some. Is that what you want?

If all you want is to drop a dress size or two for a special occasion, then there are certainly 101 ways to do that. The Internet is stuffed full of them.

If you want something more lasting, if you want to win the weight "battle" one last time, and then retire from the "war," you are going to have to be a lot more selective in how you choose to lose weight. No miracle herb, tea, food, or exercise is going to deliver what you want.

Nearly every commercial weight loss program is based on one scientific fallacy or another. Just because so many may sound similar doesn't make any of them correct.

The biggest weight loss fallacy – Low calorie diets
One glaring key fallacy: Low calorie diets.

Whether it is Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, NutriSystem, HCG, or African bush beans, nearly all are engineered to have you lower your calorie intake to very low levels. You will lose weight every time you do that – it doesn't really matter what program you chose. But, you will also pay the price with additional weight later. Low calories diets are ticking "weight bombs." Is it any wonder that these companies all thrive on repeat customers? Where is the "permanent" in "repeat"?

Which leads us back to you being a prisoner of your genetics. Unlike other wars, being confined within the prison of excess weight is a choice. You can choose to surrender and give up. Most of us, at one time or another, have felt that way... war-weary, perhaps you have felt that way for many years.

But you can break free of the prison bequeathed you in your genes. You can lay down the weapons of war, and walk away, free. Because that long-sought permanent solution is equally encoded into your genes. To take advantage of that, you will have to make a U-turn at the bottom of the hill. And that is the subject of my next article.

"Mom was big?"

You don't have to be.

Does saying your mother was big really make your day lighter?

VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Use Weight Watchers Like McDonald's

Tweet

"Sure I'm overweight. I can't do anything about it. So what?"

"If the only guys I had to pick from were not overweight, it would be pretty slim pickings (pardon the pun)."

"I was noticeably overweight when I got married, and so was he. Neither of us minded, why should you?"

"So what if I'm overweight. I know it, and I don't care if other people know it. As long as I'm not obese, what's the big deal?"

"Yeah, I wear clothes that show off my bulging waste. But I think it's kind of sexy, and so does my husband."

"I love Victoria Secret's thong underwear. I love showing it off when I bend over. It makes me feel sexy even with my 40 extra pounds."

"I've got too much else to worry about – two kids, an overworked husband, and money pressures. I'll worry about my weight when I have time and patience to deal with it."

"Bigger or smaller, I'm the same person. That's all that really matters. My extra weight is not a concern."

Weigh the differences in generations
For older adults, excess weight is about health. And beauty. Even sensuousness. Serious if silent concerns.

But something has shifted, in America. Something significant has changed. With 6 in ten adults overweight or obese, (a dangerous statistic if there were one), younger adults don't care. Those that do care use Weight Watchers like a McDonald's – a drive-up service you use periodically to drop a few pounds (only to regain it later, plus some extra).

Is this what weight control has become – a non-serious subject? With so many overweight, and "sexy" being redefined – short of lap-band surgery, should we really care?

Some have compared being overweight to being a smoker. It's a personal choice and the larger society has no stake in it, nor should they care.

Is being overweight a non-issue?
Others don't see overweight anymore. It's just the way it is. Personal or not, it's a non-issue.

Of course being overweight is personal. Deeply personal. For some.

What should it be? Is there a "should"?

What is it for you?

To Learn More & To Stay Current –
Enter your email address:

VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Your tongue is hungry? Ideas to Eat Less – To Live More.

Tweet

The things your tongue is hungry for are the things, that if you eat them, will spike your blood sugar and make you hungry again.

In the long run, would not giving in to your tongue's hunger really make your day lighter?


Ideas to eat less – to live more.


VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Put a string on the floor. Ideas to Eat Less – To Live More.

Tweet

Try this experiment with a gathering of your friends, men and women. Get two colors of strings. Have everyone take the first colored string and lay it on the floor. Have them lay it out as a circle on the floor, to show the circumference of the size they "estimate" their body is at its widest place.

Now, take the different colored string, and have them put it around the widest place on their body. Tie a knot in it to mark the right place, to remember exactly how long the second "actual" measurement string is.

Finally, take the second "actual size " string and put it on the floor in a concentric circle with the first "estimate size" string.

Which circle is on the outside?

Who was more accurate, the men or the women?


Ideas to eat less – to live life more.


VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Food is about relationships. Ideas to Eat Less – To Live More.

Tweet

A nice dinner with wine. A movie with a good friend, sharing a tub of popcorn. Eating a hurried lunch across a desk at work with a co-worker. Preparing a nice family meal. Thanksgiving. Tasting someone else's ice cream cone. Bringing a treat to a small get-together. A dinner-date in a new place.

Eating alone sucks. Food, when you are alone, can possibly nourish your body, but what you crave is nourishment for your social-soul.

You eat together because it creates its own mood, its own pleasure beyond the food itself. Food is more than just eating.

So, how do you uncouple your need for human interaction with your need for food? You don't. You shouldn't.

What you need is to uncouple relationships from the pleasure of eating the wrong food.

Too often you eat too much, and you eat the wrong food when you are with someone else. The closer the relationship, the more likely you are to not follow the sensible rules you have made for yourself.

You get into one of those: "I won't follow my rules if you won't follow yours." "It's such a special occasion, I'm going off Weight Watchers for this meal, how about you?"

What we need is permission to say, "How can we both find great pleasure in this meal, and keep on the path of our weight recovery?"

Are there no pleasure foods that can keep you both going in the right direction?

Perhaps, at the end of the day, that is an important quest you and your friends can go on together: "Let's find a dozen GREAT PLEASURE FOODS and WONDERFUL MEALS we can really enjoy together."

If you don't, you will always be battling the results of the wrong foods and meals. If you don't, and, you "stay on the wagon" together, you will each have a sense of being deprived of the joys of great food with enjoyable people. Which leads to wrong food choices later. And will deepen any unhealthy relationship you may already have with food.

So, a key activity is to search for, experiment with, and enjoy new comfort and pleasure foods with your friends. Do it together. That kind of support you can each use.

When you do that you will have not only a new relationship with food, you will share new experiences with dear friends.

In the long run, wouldn't that make your day lighter?


Ideas to eat less – to live life more.


VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Hang your husband on a clothesline: Rule 18 – How do you control your appetite?

Tweet

OK. So you don't have a clothesline. But your mother did, so you know what I'm talking about.

Perhaps the man (or partner) in your life shouldn't really be hung on a clothesline. But let me explain the sentiment I hear so often.

"Men don't get it."

Men don't get it
I hear that repeatedly, in various forms and sizes, but it is a recurring theme. "Men don't get it."

Perhaps it’s not their fault. It is rooted in their genes. Men gain weight slower than women. They lose it faster. And when they do get overweight, who cares? He certainly doesn't.

Women, on the other hand, have a rocky time with their weight. It goes on too easily. Comes off very reluctantly. And when you get overweight, people notice. You notice. You care.

It is not a balanced equation. We all know that, of course, but the reality can often hide resentments, jealousies, passive competition, and even sabotage. Most of it coming from you.

We love our mates, we really do. And we know they love us. But when it comes to weight, things can get quietly difficult.

Men and women really do see things differently when it comes to excess weight, and it is rooted in more than biology. It is also driven by our still-dominant male culture. That makes it difficult for both men and women to steer towards a better way to handle weight control issues for women.

For women, losing a lot of weight can be an emotional and frustrating battle. Self esteem can be at stake. Not the kind of self esteem issues that boil on the surface of your everyday life. But, quiet, inner doubts that silently grow. In time, it affects your outlook on your dreams and desires for the future.

It can also have a sexual context to it, as you try to work out intimacy issues for yourself – trying to give more, even as you feel less able to receive.

Intimacy issues
None of this happens overnight, of course. None of it dawns on you all at once. These are hidden, accumulating things that build over the course of years. Even when weight loss becomes successful, the emotional load can stay very much alive, and linger in unexpected ways.

When you and your partner gain weight together over the years, it can get to the point when you both realize you need to do something about it – again together. In the most supportive of ways, you can be a team to find solutions. But, if you are like most couples, that kind of teamwork breaks down all too quickly.

Because of the genetics of men's bodies, they can lose weight faster than women (usually at the rate of 2:1). They seemingly can do less and still lose weight faster. They can "cheat" on your new diet, and it still doesn't seem to affect their weight loss as much as it would you.

A partnership to lose weight?
That is where your "partnership" can break down. Unless you are both fully aware of the differences in biology, your teamwork can falter. He may feel you are not doing as much as him. You feel it is an unfair accusation. He thinks you must not be dedicated. You feel it is not fair that somehow he is making better progress than you. You end up working at it harder than him.

He can start criticizing the things you eat. You can start feeling those judgmental looks. You start to eat differently than him – usually much less than him – to "catch-up" to his weight loss. He may not see the thousands of things you need to do daily to keep the family running and the house chores done, things that impinge on your time for the kind of exercise your body needs to get in shape. He has more freedom to exercise as he wants.

Things can be difficult if you try to lose weight together. Unless you are massively open to the differences your bodies require, it can drive a wedge between you.

Going it alone
But, if you are going it alone, the problems only multiply. There is no free ride if you are the only one dedicated to losing serious weight.

Years ago we owned a large suburban fitness center – the kind with lots of moms and kids, and where spandex and tights were not the stuff of club attire. We started the beginnings of what is now our ScaleDown Weight Loss Education Program. We had teamed up with Johnson & Johnson's Weight Management course with some custom exercise programs put together by our resident exercise physiologist, and threw in a health dash of consultation with a registered dietician. It was the perfect, well-rounded program. Or so we thought.

Several weeks into our first group's use of the program, they were making great progress, individually and as a group. Six weeks in, we had one of those "congratulations for your success" type of mini-celebrations. We wanted them to be recognized for all their hard work and success. And that marked the beginning of their problems. Problems we had not anticipated. By our tenth week, many of our best "weight losers" had dropped out.

Best "weight losers" give up on free trip to Las Vegas
We were exceptionally puzzled because our initial group had a special incentive to make it to completing 12 weeks. The "deal" we had made with them when they signed up was that if they made it to 12 weeks, no matter their progress, they would get three days and nights in Las Vegas. FREE. All they had to do was stick it out for 12 weeks.

The puzzle was why would our best "weight losers" drop out so near their goal? Give up on a much needed FREE vacation to Las Vegas?

Perplexed, we called the dropouts and asked them to come in. Our concerns turned to dismay.

It took some prodding. And careful questioning. Had we done something wrong? Was not the program working for them any more? What could we do to make things better for them?

The answers, we found out, were not about what was happening at the club. It was what was happening in their homes.

These women had taken to eating different food than what they were preparing for their families. An added cost.

They were spending less time at home... not a lot less time, but less time nonetheless.

These women were spending more time at the club, working out and going to our classes. Plus taking time after class to just chat with the other women in the program. They were in this together and had found common bond with their classmates. They were taking time to share life before going home.

These women were reading more at night, to learn more about what they needed to do. And to just catch-up on making a slice of time for themselves personally.

All this was taking its toll on their relationships. While they were losing weight, they were also losing inches. Their contours were just starting to resemble something closer to how they looked when they first got married. And that is where it had finally gotten them into trouble. Accusations.

Love daggers
"Are you out to get somebody else?" "Do you already have somebody else?" "Why are you so happy?" Then the cruelest dagger: "You act like you are in love, again."

Wow. We didn't see any of that coming. Nor did they.

Faced with this stark dilemma, they chose their family (once again) over their individual needs. They quit the program.

Separately, not knowing other women were facing the same contradictions, they dropped out. Alone. Confused. Hurt. They went back to the old food. The lack of exercise. Less time for themselves. And more weight.

Heartbroken. We cried together.

A few years later I ran into Stella at the supermarket. She was a bit smaller than when she had started the program, but not anything like the slimmed-down woman I had last seen at the club the evening we all talked.

"I had no choice," she said. "I still don't."

Men don't get it.

Hang your husband on a clothesline
It may not really be his fault. Genes and male-culture are on his side. But, some day you need a break from it all. You need some time-out. With love and compassion for the confusion he may experience, explain to him the new journey you are on. That you need his unlimited support. Tell him. Then hang him on the proverbial clothesline for a month or two or three or four (or more), as you re-calibrate who you are – who you are becoming – and how you want to refocus your life for the future.

There is more at stake here than weight. More at risk than a different dress size.

You – who you really believe you are – need to come out of the muddled mix of daily living. You – a fully realized woman – need to emerge with your hopes and dreams and aspirations intact. Because, in the end, successful weight control is about you being you. Radiantly you. And projecting that to all the world. Most importantly of all, experiencing it yourself.

Weight loss or not, isn't that what your life is about – about being how you were created and formed, for you to live all of your unique role in life? For us all. For him. For the kids. Especially – especially for you?


How do you control your appetite?
Conclusion 18: Hang your husband on a clothesline


Next article...
How do you control your appetite:
Rule 19: Make a U-Turn at the bottom of the hill


VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Tie a string around your waist. Ideas to Eat Less – To Live More.

Tweet

An experiment was conducted on hospital patients who remained ambulatory but in the hospital for long stays. The staff secretly removed the waist string on the hospital pants of half the patients, chosen at random. Those without the string gained 5 pounds more than those with the string.

Lesson? Don't upsize your clothes. Say to yourself, "This size and no further."

In the long run, would tying a string around your waist really make your day lighter?


Ideas to eat less – to live life more.


VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Lose the fat between your ears. Ideas to Eat Less – To Live More.

Tweet

Scientists have long known that 90-95 % of all fat accumulation is between your ears.

If you can lose the fat between your ears, your weight will come down steadily.

In all your efforts to lose weight, it is not what you don't know that is causing your weight gain, and inability to get it off.

What is sabotaging your weight loss is what you already know, that is wrong.

If you are thinking about going on a diet to lose weight, and you want to keep it off permanently, you need to go on a diet that loses the fat between your ears first. Otherwise you will just yo-yo your weight.


In the long run, would losing fat between your ears really make your day lighter?

Ideas to eat less – to live more.


VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Spend all your cash. Max out your credit cards: Rule 16 to Control Your Appetite.

Tweet

To eat less is not a strategy to lose weight for many among us. It is survival. It is saving the food you would eat so your children can eat. And, in addition to the reality that this type of weight loss leads to weight gain, it is also a tragedy that hunger is all too present among us.

A few years ago I was in Chicago on a blustery Spring day to meet top executives of America's Second Harvest. Now called Feeding America it is a premiere resource to feed the hungry in America. According to the latest data, in the majority of states one in six kids is "food insecure" – parents don't know where their child's next meal is coming from.

Feeding America, and Ramona
Feeding America is the largest network of food banks in the nation. Receiving donated food from major food manufacturers and grocery store chains, as well as supporting scores of food drives, it feeds those who would otherwise go hungry. For many on food stamps, it supplements an otherwise meager cupboard.

I got a chance to talk to Ramona when I was in Feeding America’s conference room. She was a bright and cheery woman in her mid-forty's. She now worked at Feeding America, but she used to be one of it's recipients. Her story touched me deeply.

Back then Ramona was a single mother with three children, two of them pre-school age. She worked two jobs in South Chicago to support her family. Despite her mother's advanced diabetes, she would take the bus over to watch the kids while Ramona worked. On days when mom was too sick to come over, Ramona either had to skip work at her minimum wage jobs, or her oldest daughter had to stay home from second grade to watch the other two.

She spoke of a day when mom had a doctors appointment and couldn’t come over until noon. Her oldest was already in school, but Ramona needed cash so badly that she couldn’t afford to take any time off work. So her neighbor across the hall said she would "look in on the little ones". With no credit and no cash, to feed her kids Ramona felt she had no other choice. After all these years that wrenching decision still haunted her.

Ramona also took night classes working on her college degree in social work. It took her almost 12 years to get it done.

Starving to feed her kids
During this time, when the kids were still quite young, Ramona started getting extra food from the America's Second Harvest (now Feeding America) food bank in her area. Many days, especially at the end of the month, before her next paycheck and after the food stamps were all gone, her supermarket “shopping” consisted of whatever was available at the food bank. Once a month it was the only food they had. When the food wouldn’t stretch, she didn’t eat.

All during this conversation with me Ramona was very mater-of-fact. Her dark eyes would peer into mine as she wanted me to understand the great pride she had that her kids were now doing so well at school.

Shopping for food at a food bank
Then she said something surprising. Knowing my background, and why I was there, she said,"You know, starving so your kids can eat is the surest way I know to gain weight."

She explained how frequently her food stamps would run out about three weeks into the month, so she would go to the food bank. Sometimes the only food on the shelves were starchy boxed foods, or sugary cereals, or foods with high fat content. Healthy eating wasn't an option. Eating what was available was a necessity.

Then, when finally the food stamps came, feeling deprived and hungry, they sometimes ate more then they should. Fresh produce, she said, was their treat.

Ramona gained about 80 extra pounds in those lean years. Her kids had become overweight too. Now only a couple of years off food stamps, she had lost some of her extra weight, and was intent on losing the rest. One thing she knew for sure, "Not eating is the best way I know to gain weight," she repeated.

With her college degree, she went to work for Feeding America (then America's Second Harvest), with a passion for helping others eat. Her story and countless others like hers finally got the food producers and grocery stores to find ways to bring more fresh produce to the shelves of America's food banks. There is never enough, but at least there is a bit more to go around.

Eating less and healthy weight loss
Hopefully, as you read this, with frequent articles on this blog advocating you eat less to lower your weight, you don’t need to eat less just to feed your children.

But, there is a lot of truth to what Ramona said. Your body undergoes a lot of changes when you don't eat enough consistently. The “eating less” talked about here is not the same thing as starving yourself. (See previous post: Don’t Not Eat: Rule 5 to Control Your Appetite).

Your body needs a rich assortment of nutrients from a wide variety of sources. And the fresher that food is, the less processed it is, the better it is for your body.

When I talk about eating less here, it is about lowering the number of calories you consume, but not drastically. If you are overweight and cut 200-300 calories out of your daily diet, you will lose weight. Going from 2200 calories a day to 1900 is not about starving yourself.

When you consistently over eat by just a little, you gain a little, steadily. When you eat less regularly, you lose weight, steadily.

Eating less means making wise food choices. It is about being aware of not only what you put in your mouth, but how much.

Losing weight is a mindful choice. A choice you make one bite at a time.

Without credit or cash, eating less like Ramona could force you to control your appetite. If your situation is a bit better than that, controlling your appetite, eating less (in the right way), is a sure path to healthy weight loss.


PS: Ramona's story touched me. There are tens of thousands of others like her’s. And more every day. If you would like to help feed a family or two through their challenging times, donate to your local food bank, or contact Feeding America. Put fresh produce on someone’s table tonight.


How do you control your appetite?
Conclusion 16: Spend all your cash. Max out your credit cards.

Next article...
How do you control your appetite?
Rule 17: Have Surgery

VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Don't be a fast learner. Ideas to Eat Less – To Live More.

Tweet

Sometimes when faced squarely with a problem you want to solve, you jump right into researching it and learn all you can. You're like a sponge. After a few long sessions with Google, you're googled out.

A few days later you remember the key points you think you've gleaned. But like most people, you can only hold so much new information in your brain at a time. It's sort of like a small scratch pad with just a few pages.

Actually, most of what you learned, or could have learned is rapidly forgotten or glossed over.

The key to learning fast is to learn slow. Learn in short bursts of energy. Then wait a few days. Not only will you remember more, and understand more, something magical happens.

When you go to sleep, when you "sleep on it," all that "new" information mixes with all your "old" information. And that's the secret to really learning. When new mixes with old, new connections occur. New ideas spring up. Contradictions between old and new appear. Insights occur.

Then, the next time you jump into learning even more "new" stuff, you have a different point of view to discover and understand the newest "new" things. Your next bout of research will go in different directions.

Most importantly, you comprehend the new information and YOU CAN MAKE BETTER USE OF IT.

And that is the secret to making a new lifestyle change stick.

Do you want to make your new lifestyle stick? Be a slow learner.

In the long run, would learning slower really make your day lighter?


Ideas to eat less – to live life more.


VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Eating is an "Ethical Statement"? Ideas to Eat Less – To Live More.

Tweet

An old friend dropped by the other day. She's changed a lot in the years. Led a very interesting life, with more than her share of challenges along the way.

She just got back from a trip to Asia and the Middle-East. Her last trip was to Africa.

As we gathered in the kitchen to prepare a light lunch together, and mixed up a bunch of our mutual old-time favorite snacks, she said,

"You know, the food we eat is an ethical statement. What we eat, or don't eat. How it is packaged. Where our food comes from. Who grows it. How it is grown and prepared. These are all ethical statements."

Now, days later, I've had some time to contemplate what she said. It really made me think:

"Food is an ethical statement."

Is it? What do you think?

In the long run, would "eating ethically" really make your day lighter?


Ideas to eat less – to live life more.


VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Get a new crutch. Ideas to Eat Less – To Live More.

Tweet

You need a crutch. It doesn't matter if it's Weight Watchers, HCG, or the Everlasting Cleanse Diet. They all get down to two things: eating less, or getting it out faster. The rest is just window dressing – crutches.

When you know that, you can start choosing better crutches. More attractive crutches. Fashionable crutches.

After a while you realize you've been paying someone else a lot of money for a bunch of different crutches. At some point, shouldn't you realize you could be paying yourself for your own crutch?

Or make the decision you don't need a crutch at all.

In the long run, does getting a new crutch really make your day lighter?

Ideas to eat less – to live life more.


VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Weight loss programs make you hungry. Ideas to Eat Less – To Live More.

Tweet

The problem with weight loss programs is they all concentrate, one way or another, on cutting your calories to the bone. In the process they all make you hungrier.

And none of them teach you how to keep the weight off. They tell you to count points. Or jump through magic hoops. Or have you buy their special weight loss meals – that is their preferred option, because that is how they stay in business. Their "special" meals = $360/month.

If you can afford that, and can put up with the inevitable monotony, then go ahead. But, in the end, you will still be just as hungry.

In fact, given the enzymes and hormones their form of weight loss evokes, count on you always having the munchies. And no amount of will power is going to overcome it.

Sooner or later, you will begin to eat based on your old style eating habits. And soon the extra pounds reappear, plus some new ones come along for the ride.

In the long run, do weight loss programs really make your day lighter?

Ideas to eat less – to live life more.


VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Remember the Alamo! Rule 14: How do you control your appetite?

Tweet

Defeat is an ugly word. No one wears it very well. When it happens to you, you put the best face you can on it, and move forward.

I remember having a lengthy conversation with a soon-to-be-retired Chairman of one of the oldest “meal-plan, weekly weigh-in” type of weight loss companies. I asked him what he was most proud of from his many years of financial success at the helm of this household name company.

He quickly replied, “Over 85% of our customers are repeat customers.” With that he pursed his lips together and savored his achievement, half-closing his eyes.

Repeat Customers of a Weight Loss Company

Contemplate that for a moment. Repeat customers – weight loss company. Hmmm.

Now, to the cynic in me “repeat customers in a weight loss company” is a symbol of failure, not a boastful success.

The more I thought about that remark – even now a long time later – makes me fume. What he was saying was that his company made a lot of money from the failure of whole lot of women to keep their weight off, for a whole bunch of years. And he was retiring in luxury from the paid-for misery of people that trusted his company.

What he was saying was that his weight loss company sold false hope.

What was between his lines was that his company could get you to successfully lose weight. But they knew you would gain it all back, plus some. So, since they were nice people, and you actually did lose some weight, since you are now even more overweight than you were last year, you pay these people more money to help you lose it again.

Now, the ire in me is really aroused. Perhaps they planned it all that way. I really want to believe that Weight Watchers, and Jenny Craig, and NutriSystem, and other companies of that ilk started out wanting to help people. But somewhere along the road, surely some executive saw the numbers and realized:
“Wow, we keep getting the same overweight people back. We even get a lot of our customers from the other weight loss companies. If we were really doing our jobs, if our programs really worked, wouldn’t we be seeing mostly NEW people, not repeats, retreads, and do-overs?”

Or did the executives say…?
“You know what, these people keep coming back because they don’t keep buying our expensive, special diet foods year round. If they just stayed on our meal plans, and unthawed them 2-3 times a day, they would not have to come back”.

Maybe it is simpler than that. Maybe the weight loss executives said:
“We need more repeat customers. It’s cheaper to get old ones to come back, than advertise for new ones. How can we tweak our program for short term weight loss and long term weight re-gain?”

Clenching defeat from the powerful jaws of victory

I’ve been to these programs. I’ve seen the happiness, the real sense of satisfaction and progress these women have when they are seeing success in their weekly weigh-ins.

I’ve also had countless conversations with women who, many months and lots of new pounds later, said they felt they were failures. They didn’t jump right up and proclaim that, but they felt defeated by the system they were trying – unable – to follow.

The worst part? They all blamed themselves. They all confessed that there was something wrong with their will, their strength of character, their metabolism, their financial ability to stay “on the program.”
Their _______. So they failed. They felt defeated.

And the next time they decided they really needed to lose weight, guess what? They went back to these same old companies. Or employed the same failed system. Same result. Same short term win. Same long term defeat.

Old joke my grandpa told me:
Lady walks into a doctor’s office. She is hitting herself in the head with a hammer. She says, “Doctor, it hurts when I hit myself in the head with a hammer. What should I do?” The doctor says, “Quit hitting yourself in the head with a hammer.”

We’ve all heard the definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over, while expecting a different result.

First Truth:
There is nothing wrong with you. You are not a failure. You do not lack will power. Your character is just fine. Quit blaming yourself.

Second Truth:
It’s time to quit hitting yourself in the head with a hammer. It hurts.
Corollary: It’s not about calories, or weighing food. It’s not about exchanges or carbs. It’s not about fat grams or sugars or magic potions. The weight loss companies are wrong. Dead wrong. Get rid of that insanity.

Think about it. Is the only way to lose weight permanently to eat expensive packaged foods for the rest of your life? How bland, boring, and expensive is that? And what have you learned from them about how to eat to keep it off for life? Lots of repeat customers says, “not much.”

Is it possible that what you have learned from these companies is wrong? Even though it is churned over and re-cycled like some endlessly re-warmed left-over meat loaf by the popular media, does that make it correct?

Consider that if all they have been telling you is right, why does everyone, sooner or later fail at it?

“Repeat customers” is an admission of abject failure. Financial success for them. Weight failure for everyone else.

Third Truth:
If you are 30-50 pounds or more overweight, if you keep doing what the weight loss companies are telling you to do, it will kill you – slowly – but kill you nonetheless. It is not just the excess weight that causes health problems. It is the constant recycling of up, then down, then up weight re-gain that challenges your heart. As well as injuring your sense of will and self-respect. Both, in time, will kill you.

How can that be? If it’s not about fat grams and food exchanges and all that complicated stuff, what is it about?

What can it be? What is it that you don’t know? Is there some hidden secret to success, kept for thousands of years, buried under Ed McMahon’s mother’s front porch in a mayonnaise jar in the Oakridge mountains? No.

Fourth Truth:
It’s about you.

Fifth Truth:
You resist believing the fourth truth. As with all truths, the answer starts in your center and works its way out.

So, if you feel you have an injured center from years of hitting yourself in the head with a hammer. If you believe there is something wrong with you that prevents you from losing weight permanently. If you feel you need a helping hand to lead you where you can’t seem to get by yourself…

If you can’t grab hold of and focus on the beautiful light that illuminated your future… you have to start there.

It’s about unleashing the inner beauty of soul that was buried by kids, family, job, relationships, money problems, lack of sleep… so many things that got in the way of you being you for years on end.

It is not about you becoming anything… you already are

Everything you need you have already. You have the will, the strength of character. You don’t need a strong helping hand. Like the cowardly lion in Oz, all you need is the courage. To believe in yourself. And when you get that far, you can go the rest of the way to your success. You don’t need a wizard to do that for you.

Remember the Alamo

A long time ago, in what was then the distance reaches of the American frontier, a small band of men, some with wives and children, holed up in an old church mission, made the soft adobe walls as strong as they could, and waited for the army of Santa Ana to attack. Surrounded, outnumbered 10 to one, out-gunned, running out of water and food and ammunition, they held out. Then on the fateful day, after endless cannonade, they were attacked. The attackers were repulsed. Attacked again. Again repulsed. On the third wave, they were overwhelmed. Hand-to-hand, bayonet-to-knife, empty musket-to-shots-fired-at-close-range, they all perished.

The rag-tag Texas army, valiantly led but under-manned, arriving late to the rescue, retreated. Then the cry went forth. Remember the Alamo. Quietly spoken at first, it rose across the Texas plains. Remember the Alamo. Their numbers swelled. The Army grew. Remember the Alamo. The Army became an Army, as men flowed in from every point of the compass. They trained. More came. They drilled. They became strong. Confident. Remember the Alamo. They marched quickly to catch their enemy. Then they attacked. Their voices rose in unison as they passionately charged into battle – Remember the Alamo! Throats rising with the victorious assault, capturing Santa Ana himself, they cried, REMEMBER THE ALAMO!!!

Deep inside you, the Alamo plays out in silent drama. You may not know it, or sense it, but it is there. You have been holding out, surrounded by overwhelming forces that have smothered who you are, who you were once on the path to becoming. Remember the Alamo.

Assaulted by the realities and challenges and the multitude of sacrifices in life, you can be defeated. It is difficult to go on. More difficult to know what to change. Seemingly impossible to see how things can be any different. Remember the Alamo.

It can hurt sometimes. The sacrifices and difficulties can run deep. Leave scars. Surrounded by reasons for joy, it can be painful to smile… when you are alone with your thoughts and recollections, when the future can be dim and dark and foreboding. Remember the Alamo.

Defeat feels ugly on you

No one, including you, wears defeat well. When it happens to you, not only move forward, use it as a rallying cry that raises your courage to victory. Turn ugly into beauty. Remember the Alamo.

Quit hitting yourself in the head with a hammer. Quit believing all the failed-truths you’ve been told by the weight loss industry and the press. Everyone who follows it fails. Just look around you to see the truth of that. You have not failed, they have failed you – in a sense they failed to send you the resources, the truths, the reinforcements you need to succeed. Remember the Alamo.

Where is the wizard when you need him? Where are YOUR reinforcements. Where is YOUR rallying cry? Remember the Alamo.

Start there. Find a place in you that remains strong inside you. Fortify your soft adobe walls. Gather food and water and ammunition. Then find a place of peace inside your soul, and let it grow. You are strong enough to handle the inevitable attacks on your needs and independence . Despite the despair that can overcome you at times, all that you need, you have all ready, planted in you since birth. Remember the Alamo.

Is there a word, a phrase, a place of strong resonance that tells you who you are? Remember that. And hold it upfront in your daily conscious thought. Put it on your mirror. Place it on your wall. Carry it on the top of that picture in your wallet. Remember the Alamo.

Victory comes after your defeat

Victory comes from the heroic effort to gather all your resources in one place. To focus on your worthy goal. To overcome the opposition, no matter the cost – there is always a way – life finds a way. And you are life. Remember the Alamo.

Rally all the disconnected pieces of yourself. Concentrate your energies. Focus your resources. Attack the center of your enemy. And say to yourself, “Who I am matters. I deserve being happy. I have raised my expectations of myself and I will succeed. My butterfly wings will unfold. And I will soar. I will, from this day forth find, express, and be – me.”

When you have gotten that far, you will not have much further to go.

How do you control your appetite?
Conclusion 13: Remember the Alamo!

Next article...
How do you control your appetite?
Rule 14: Get a Volvo

VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Lower Your Expectations? – Rule 12 to Control Your Appetite

Tweet

You have to find a reason, a reason beyond food, to eat less, to lower your appetite. To weigh less. You need a counterweight to your hunger.

That is where, if you are like so many of us, you get stuck. And keep getting stuck.

Have you ever wondered why you can successfully lose weight, then gain it all back later?

When you treat weight loss as a problem with a bundle of calories, you’re going to get stuck. Because the calories you eat are tied to the human person holding the fork. It is the motivations of the human person that drives every successful weight loss effort. Plus, every failure.

Your motivations are complex. They may be not all be clear to you. Trouble is, many of your motivations may run so deep, so close to the core of who you are you don’t even notice they are in conflict with other, strong motivations.

You may want to lose weight, and are actively doing something about it. But other, hidden, internal “scripts” can get in your way. It is unintentional, self-defeating behavior.

Think about when you were growing up.

Was there a time when you were young that you had a sense of adventure, when you knew you would do great things when you got older? Did you have a dream, specific or general, that moved in your core – that was a beacon of light shining on your future?

Did you feel that sense growing in you as you got a bit older? Then high school and post-high school years, college, jobs, relationships, marriage became your focus. And before you knew it, you lost your path. You lost your way. Have you gotten lost on becoming who you knew you would be?

So you tried to re-direct your life, to get back to where you knew you were destined to go. But could never get back to that same sense of adventure and bright future you had imagined years before.

So, silently, you changed. Over the years, in spite of successes, and finding people you dearly love and respect, and need in your life, you felt something missing. And realized you were never going to get where you thought you were headed? So you lowered your expectations of life?

Growing up is often the process of lowering your expectations.

In your middle years it is hard to know how you can get back to seeing that bright light that had been focused on your future when you were much younger.

Sometimes you just give up. Not everything. Just enough that, as you invest in the lives of others that are so central to who you have become, you sacrifice pieces of your dream. Pieces of you. You sacrifice because that is what is needed to keep it all going. You do it willingly. Joyfully. Because this new reality is important to you, too. As it should be.

Then you get faced with a problem like excess weight. In the vast scheme of things, it seems so small. There are other problems, important ones to deal with. Money. Job. Spouse. Kids. Parents. In-laws. Your weight control problem seems so minor.

The realities of having a lot to worry about, so much else that needs to be done and prioritized, your struggles with weight are just not that important. Right? So, you slowly gain more weight. Add a few extra pounds. And, over the years, it accumulates.

Then, one day, you decide you must “really” do something about it. You diet. Start an exercise routine. But somehow, after weeks and months, the success of these efforts dissipate. The weight begins to reappear. Discouraged, you fall back into old patterns.

This is an old cycle that most people go through. The average person tries 7-9 times to lose weight before they finally succeed (usually gaining 5-10 pounds each time they fail). What makes them succeed in the end? It wasn’t a change in food or exercise. Those were the result, not the reason they lost weight permanently.

When successful weight loss becomes a lifestyle.

Successful weight loss becomes a lifestyle because something changes inside you. You quit lowering your expectations for yourself. All your life you faced other serious challenges and difficulties, priorities and time constraints. Each time you came last – your needs were less important than the needs of others that you loved.

To lose weight permanently your body needs to come first. You need to feed it, and exercise it in a way that supports you becoming lighter. And stronger. “You” needs to be the priority to do that.

You need to focus a bright light on your own future and say, “How am I going to keep being there for them in the future if I can’t be there for me now?”

At some future point you know that, with accumulating weight, even if holding steady at 30-40-50 + pounds overweight – your health will be at risk. Perhaps it already is. You need to take care of yourself. No one else can it for you.

This is not a repudiation of your love for them. It is a re-focusing on you and the unique spirit and body, hope and affirmation you were created with. It is a realization that the beauty of life that stirs at your core can be revitalized. With that, you can do wonders for them. And great good for yourself.

To lose weight successfully, and keep it off permanently, you have to get unstuck.

You need a counterweight to your hunger.

You have to find a reason, a reason beyond food, to eat less, to lower your appetite. To weigh less. You need a counterweight to your hunger.

When you treat weight loss as a problem with a bundle of calories, you’re going to get stuck. Because the calories you eat are tied to the human person holding your fork. It is your strong motivation that will drive your successful weight loss effort.

Reverse course. Raise your expectations for yourself. Regain the power of the bright future that lit your youth. It doesn’t have to be the same dream. It just has to be who you are now. Who you want to be 10 years from now.

You are important. Let your beauty shine again. Become out here, where we can all see it, what you have hidden inside while sacrificing to make the lives of others better.

When you do that, really do it, you have your counterweight to food. You control your appetite because it is the natural result of living out loud what had hid silently for so long.

Are you ready to do that?

How do you control your appetite?
Conclusion 12: Lower Your Expectations?

Next article...
How do you control your appetite:
Rule 13: Sleep ‘Til Noon


CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Eat A Variety of Nutritious Foods: Rule 3 to Control Your Appetite

Tweet

How do you control your appetite and cut your cravings?
Rule 3: Eat a lot of different, highly nutritious foods

Remember your strong cravings?

It is one thing to get rid of your hunger. But, if you are like a lot of people, the real culprit in your weight gain is your cravings. Do you sometimes get confused between being really hungry and craving snacks?

Do you sometimes feel cravings for "something" even if you're not sure what you are craving?

Do you ever wonder if you're getting all the nutrients your body really needs?

Do you realize your cravings, and your body's need for more nutrients are all part of the same problem?

We all know we probably eat too much… too many calories… too much fat… too much cholesterol.

Yet, we eat from far too few foods. So, while we are overeating we are starving our bodies of vital nutrients that only more food variety can provide.

Your body is designed to require a lot of nutrients you are not getting in your regular diet. It knows when it needs those missing nutrients.

When your body is hungry for nutrients, and it is not getting them, your body tells you in the only language it knows:

• Your body says, "Eat more food – perhaps I'll get what I need from your next meal."

• Your body says, "Crave this food – perhaps I'll get the specific nutrient I really need right away."

• Your body says, "Eat now – even if you're full, because I'm not getting what I need."

Persistent cravings are your body talking to you. It is insisting that you feed it a much wider range of nutrients. When you succumb to your body's insistent demand for more nutrition by eating the wrong foods, you consume more calories than you really need. And you gain weight. Worse, you are still under-nourished. So the craving problem keeps repeating.

Celebrate Chocolate contains the power of concentrated, natural plant nutrients from 59 whole foods. One bite. 59 concentrated foods. Day by day, your cravings fade away.

With Celebrate Chocolate™, your body is fed. It quits saying, “Eat more.” It quits insisting, “Eat now.”

No more confusion. You know when you are hungry. You can’t remember the last time you had cravings.

Less cravings. Less snacks. Less weight.

How do you control your appetite and cut your cravings?
Conclusion 3: Eat a lot of different, highly nutritious foods

Next to come...
How do your control your appetite?
Rule 4: Eat Small Meals, and Eat More Frequently

CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Don't Eat Appetizers: Rule 2 to Control Your Appetite

Tweet

How do you control your appetite and cut your cravings?
Rule 2: Don’t eat appetizers

Have you ever been to a restaurant and the menu starts out with, guess what? “Appetizers.”

Think about it. What is an appetizer? If a restaurant is selling you their “appetizers” it’s not because they want you to eat less. Can you see that?

Most “appetizer” foods are designed to make you hungrier. That is their purpose, to make you want to eat more. And every restaurant uses appetizers to make sure you buy more food than you otherwise would.

Have you ever just sat down at a restaurant and they quickly give you a hot loaf of “free” bread? Why would they do that? To kill your appetite before they can tell you the “specials of the day”?

Bread is an appetizer (as are crackers and pretzels and a lot of other foods). They quickly tell your body, “eat more and do it now, dummy.”

And here is a not insignificant point: Why is the “cocktail hour” just before mealtime?

Because cocktails are fiendishly great appetite increasers. So too are those little hors d’oevres they serve with them. Now all alcoholic beverages quickly increase your appetite, but the classic martini-type drinks just do it faster and better.

Now, back to the restaurant. Notice how they always ask for your drink order first. Here is the deal: Not only do alcoholic beverages make you eat more (plus the calories in them), but caffeinated beverages (coffee or sodas), and drinks sweetened with high fructose corn syrup also increase your appetite.


Thus, if you owned a restaurant, wouldn’t you take the drink orders first, and while you were preparing them, give the table a free loaf of hot bread?

How do you control your appetite and cut your cravings?
Conclusion 2: Don't eat appetizers, or have drinks before your meal

Next to Come...
How do you control your appetite?
Rule 3: Eat a Variety of Nutritious Foods

CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.