The Biggest Loser

How many of you are fans of The Biggest Loser? One reader asked for my opinion on the show, wondering if it is a good show for people to watch for inspiration when they are trying to lose weight. Excellent question.

Having worked in the weight loss industry for over 16 years, I have many opinions on the approach The Biggest Loser is using. First of all, we need to remember the primary goal of the show is to entertain and to make money. It has to be--otherwise it gets cancelled. They do this by making people want to watch what happens every week: who's going to make it, who isn't? They don't prioritize what is best for each individual's long term success. Let's take a look...

The Strengths:

• Shows that weight loss is possible, even for those who have lots of body fat to lose.
• Presents the importance of nutrition, exercise and group support (team spirit!)
• Shows that determination and focus are necessary for success.
• Inspires many to start losing their own weight.
• Belief: if they can do it, I can do it.
• Gives ideas for weight loss.

The Weaknesses:

• Contestants experience unrealistic weight loss. Safe weight loss is no more that 2# each week. When viewers lose their own awesome 1 or 2#, they often feel like a failure, since that is the message the show delivers. That's just nuts! Losing more than 2# per week can be dangerous: muscle mass and bone density have been shown to be lost at rates of 3 and more pounds per week. Yikes! The show never mentions that.
• Unrealistic workouts. When you lose weight, the best thing that you can do is to exercise the way you are willing to continue for the rest of you life---not just while you lose the weight. I have seen this happen way too often. When people exercise for 2 hours a day and more to lose the weight, and then go back to 1/2 hour per day to maintain their weight loss, they end up gaining weight. On the show, contestants exercise for hours each day. When they go back "off the farm," to their normal life of work and daily stresses, they are going to have a very rude awakening as to what it takes to eat and exercise to maintain or lose weight.
• Constant monitoring/support. Out in the real world, people who lose weight have to dig deep inside themselves and find internal resources that help them succeed: control, focus, determination, etc. This is actually critical for their long term success. Successful weight losers often find some help from support systems in groups, from coaches or at least on other person, but they also learn handle themselves individually, too. External support doesn't normally come 24/7. On the show, the contestants are under constant supervision and coaching. Are they given a chance to learn to monitor themselves?
• Artificially safe food environment. The Biggest Loser contestants aren't doing their own grocery shopping, making dinner for their families, eating out and making real life food decisions. It's much easier to lose weight this way! But, the struggle of making your own food choices is part of the learning process which that is critical to long term success in changing into that healthy, svelte, buff person....and learning to stay that way forever.
• Long term behavior changes. Telling the contestants how they should behave when they get home is one thing, but does it help when they haven't been doing it that way through the entire show? Its kind of like taking a basketball team and having them practice for the entire season running plays from one play book, practicing them over and over...everything works great. Now its play-off time. You have an entirely different play book with a new set of plays. Your coach won't be there, but you are told to just read those new plays, and you'll be fine. Practicing those plays is so overrated, right? Wrong! Practice is what we need. How many of those Biggest Loser contestants have been interviewed much later, and how many gained weight back?

If you enjoy watching The Biggest Loser because it motivates you and it fires you up to be successful getting you going on your own healthy eating and exercise program, watch it!! Just don't watch this show as a model for how to lose weight or for what to expect as you are losing weight. Remember, its just entertainment!

And, as for me, the negative coaching (yelling?) presenting a 1# weight loss as a failure, workouts until you drop, unrealistic expectations...it drives me crazy. I am a positive, encouraging coach and work with what is best for individuals, and it has worked wonderfully for years!

Don't Give Up What You Want the Most For What You Want at the Moment....

Snow Bound!

The snow keeps coming down and piling up on the roads. The kids are jumping up and down in their jammies with excitement. It's a snow day--no school! Great for the kids, but a reader wants to know how she can survive with her healthy living plans. Her kids like to munch snack foods all day long, and she can't get to her gym for her regular workout class.

I remember these days well! Let's first take a look at the way you can get some activity in even though it isn't your normal routine. Sometimes, life just hits, and we all have to learn to roll with it and adjust as we can.

Exercise Possibilities on a Snow Day

• Shovel the driveway--this burn lots of calories. Be sure to bend your knees as you lift that shovel. Turn toward the load and try not to twist your back. Warm up first, cool down and do a good stretching routine afterward. This is a real workout!
• Make snow angels or snow men with the kids--have fun in the snow!
• Get on the WII Fit or one of the active games with the kids. This is great fun. Come on, it's not just popular with the kids, but even senior centers and physical therapists are using it. You can, too!
• Put on some music and just dance, or take turns calling out what exercise you are going to do next, "everyone, do 12 jumping jacks..." When my boys were little, we had an album (yes, and old-fashioned LP vinyl record...still have it!) called Mousercise. Mickey led us through great workouts with his cute little voice and we just followed the colored pictures in the book. Lots of fun for all of us!
• Make a big chart and record all the exercises you want to accomplish that day--ones that use only the equipment you have at home, or none at all. Things like 25 ab scrunches, 15 wall push-ups, 10 times up and down the stairs. Put a sticker or colored marker check on the chart when you've done that one. Make a game of it and have the kids do their own, too. When everyone gets their charts done, it's time for a board game or watching a movie together.
• Wear your pedometer and try to see how many steps you can accumulate just moving around the house and playing in the snow today.
• Walk the dog in the snow...great workout for your legs, and the dog loves it!

For the snack attacks, try to provide healthy nibbles for everyone:

• 94% fat-free microwave popcorn
• cocoa made with skim milk, add a few mini-marshmallows
• whole grain crackers and low fat string cheese sticks
• baby carrots and cucumber slices with lowfat ranch dressing
• Sun Chips and hummus
• Spritzers: 1/2 orange juice or any 100% fruit juice and 1/2 club soda or sparkling water
• If you do make cookies together, remember to have something healthy for every cookie you eat: If You Give Yourself A Cookie, Don't Forget The Milk.

Make sure to promise yourself that when you choose to have a snack, that you will SIT DOWN and enjoy the snack...and chew! No snacking while doing other things. Make having that snack a special activity all its own. This helps you to realize you are eating and helps you truly enjoy the food.

Yes, you can survive these snow days. It takes a little bit of creative thinking sometimes, so be willing to be flexible in your approach and keep a positive attitude! Fire up! You can do it!

Building a Campfire, Part II: The MacroMix

The food we eat can be divided into three major groups of macronutrients: carbohydrates, protein, and fat. Macronutrients supply energy in the form of calories to our bodies. (Now you have a great word to impress your friends!)

Think about the different wood used on that campfire. Carbohydrates are represented by the dried leaves, newspaper and twigs that we place on the campfire. If you light a newspaper on fire, the flame is big, bright, and burns out very quickly. Carbs are like that. They are the fastest burning fuel, giving us very quick energy, but don't stay with us very long.Carbs come in 2 types: simple and complex.

Simple carbs or sugar are the dried leaves and newspaper. Simple carbs are sugar, syrup, fruit juice, jam, candy. These are the super fast fuels with no staying power. Think about it. If you have a little glass of OJ in the morning and nothing else, how long does it take until you get hungry again? That's what I thought!

Twigs are complex carbs or starch: breads, cereal, vegetables, rice, pasta, beans. They still burn fairly quickly, but the flame lasts longer than sugar. Complex carbs do better at keeping you fuller longer than simple carbs.

Protein is represented by the medium size logs. They provide a lower flame than the leaves and twigs, but burn much longer. Protein is found in meat, fish, eggs, soy, chicken, beans, legumes, nuts. You've experienced protein's staying power already: when you eat eggs for breakfast you feel fuller longer than if you only had toast in the morning. Protein power vs. carb power.

The great big log is fat. You don't need much at all, but one log gives a slow, steady burn for hours. And so it is with a little dietary fat: a little bit keeps you feeling fuller the longest.

Our goal is to keep the flames burning steadily all day long so that we don't have our blood sugar level and metabolic rate crashing and burning. We want to stay at peak mental and physical performance levels. How do we do it?

Eat a MacroMix! Try to have at least 2 macronutrients in each meal or snack, and you will find your campfire has much better staying power. Try protein and complex carbs, protein and fat, or complex carbs and fat. If you want the best staying power, go for the trio: complex carb, protein and fat.

MacroMix Mini-Meal/Snack Ideas:

• Peanut butter on whole grain crackers
• Apple slices dipped in peanut butter
• Whole grain toast with low-fat cheese
• Whole grain English Muffin, pizza sauce, low-fat mozzarella cheese, broiled
• Smoothie: low-fat yogurt or soy milk, banana, berries
• Celery with almond butter, raisins on top
• Trail mix: Cherrios, dried cherries, nuts
• Granola bar, high fiber and string cheese
• Low-fat yogurt with 6 walnut halves
• Leftover slice of pizza

What other ideas do you have for a MacroMix Mini-meal?

You are in control of your own campfire. It makes a difference what type of fuel you add to the fire and how often you feed the fire throughout the day. Do the best you can with you food choices, but one thing is for sure...

Keep your campfire burning brightly--You'll be much healthier and happier when you do!

Building a Campfire, Part I

Have you ever built a campfire? One good way is to start by placing a pile of dried leaves or newspaper down. Then, add a layer of sticks and twigs, with some medium size logs next. The really big logs go on top. Why? Each piece of fuel burns at different rates. Dried leaves and newspaper catch fire very quickly, making a great starter, but they also burn out the fastest. The sticks and medium size logs catch on to really launch the fire. Those great big logs don't catch fire easily, but once they do, they provide a low, steady burn for a very long time. Each piece of wood has its purpose and is necessary for the success of the fire to keep burning.

Imagine that you have a campfire going inside of you. This represents your blood sugar level. Its interesting to note that as your blood sugar level goes down, so does your metabolic rate, which is the rate at which your body burns calories.

When you wake up in the morning, your campfire is barely going---you just have glowing embers. Don't worry, if you wake up, it's not completely out! It is really important to add fuel to the fire in the morning. If you don't, you won't get the flames burning brightly...you'll stay at ember level. Bad news.

Is that a problem? Studies have shown that your brain doesn't function as well, so don't plan to take a test or make any major decisions at the low flame level. Your physical performance definitely suffers, too. You'll be tired, dragging, and if you are trying to run a race then, just forget your time that day! Your blood sugar level is directly correlated to your brain function and your physical performance.

For those of you trying to lose some extra body fat, focus on keeping that campfire burning at a good steady rate all day. Remember, when the flames flicker down, so does your metabolic rate, so you burn fewer calories. Not cool. Many people try to skip meals thinking it will be a great way to lose weight. Not a chance. Visualize those campfires: fires dwindle, and metabolic rate dwindles, too. No skipping meals.

Refuel your campfire in the morning! It's so important to eat breakfast. "Break" your "fast." Get those embers up to flame level. Your body and brain will certainly thank you for it. I know some of you may be telling me that you get too hungry throughout the day when you eat in the morning. This is actually a good sign: your campfire is ON! Not hungry means you are running on an empty, low performance level. You just need to learn what to feed that fire to ease the hunger, which is coming up next.

Tomorrow we'll be talking about the types of fuel on your campfire: macronutrients, so stay tuned for Part II !

Keep your campfires burning!

Chew On This

Now here's some food for thought. Whether we are at a healthy weight or not, many of us simply eat too fast and chew too little. Think about it. How many times do you really move that mouth up and down after you've taken a bite of that grilled chicken sandwich and let your teeth go to work on it? Truthfully, most of us barely pulverize that bite; we just chew it into small enough pieces to swallow as we load up our fork for the next bite!

So what's the problem? Granted, how much we chew is not going to make a difference in how many calories we obtain from the food, or how many vitamins, minerals or antioxidants we absorb from that bite. So, if nutrition is not a problem, why worry about the chewing part?

Chewing is supposed to be the first part of the digestive process. The teeth grind food into smaller and smaller bits. As we chew, good old saliva (spit) is mixed in with the food. Saliva actually contains enzymes in it that begin breaking down carbohydrates (breads, cereals, pasta, veggies, fruits, sugars) right in our mouth. That's what's supposed to happen, anyway!

When We Don't Chew Enough:

• Stomach works harder to digest bigger pieces of food. The stomach has extra work to do churning since its job is to break apart all those big chunks into tiny ones to be digested. Sometimes, excess stomach (gastric) acid is delivered to our stomach to help digest this bigger load of less pulverized pieces of food we've eaten so quickly. Some people also swallow more air while doing this. All of this may end up making stomachs more gassy, uncomfortable or upset after eating. Plop, plop, fizz, fizz...(an old Alka-Seltzer commercial line for those of you too young to remember! :)
• Eating too fast. This often leads to over eating. Eating too fast doesn't allow us the time it takes for our brain to tell us we've had enough and we are actually full. We just keep on stuffing it in. Doing this too often can lead to weight gain. Remember to swallow your bite after you chew before you reload that fork!
• Less ability to taste food. To taste food, it needs to stay in your mouth long enough for the taste buds to really sense it. Chewing enables you to taste and enjoy your food.
• Inability to realize that you have eaten something. Consciously chewing your food increases the awareness that you are eating. So many people have told me they get busy, eat quickly, and often end up not even remembering they have eaten. By focusing on mindful chewing, we learn to be more aware of their eating habits.

Mindful chewing is the eating behavior I want us all to focus on this week. This means we are going to chew each bite we take (unless it's a mouthful of yogurt or something that doesn't need to be chewed...but even with that soft, creamy stuff, hold it in your mouth for a bit.) I am not going to tell you to chew each bite 35 times or some ridiculous amount like that. Just be conscious of the act of chewing. Chew to savor the flavor and the texture of the food: enjoy the experience. Chew to slow down your eating process. And, chew to enable your digestive process to work more efficiently for your comfort. You may just find you don't need as many antacids throughout the day!

Moral: Slow down, your chewing too fast....you've got to make your chewing last!