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!

New Year's Resolutions

I can remember being at a New Year's Eve party when I was in high school. I had my New Year's resolution all ready to go when the last gong struck at midnight. It was the one I always made: I was going to lose weight. Diet, strictly, until I finally looked good. No goofing off: this was my year to do it. But, I still had time before the ball on Times Square fell. Until then, I stuffed my face with Lays chips and sour cream and onion dip. I mean, after midnight, that stuff would be no more. I ate crackers, cheese-- all sorts of nibblies that would soon be forbidden. Then, it happened. The last gong sounded. The diet was on! But the party was still going on, and I was so tired, and other people were still eating. I did it. I ate another chip. It was all over. I destroyed my entire resolution for that whole year. That fresh, new opportunity was gone. I was a failure once again. So, what the heck? I kept on eating...until next year...

Every year I tried to set a New Year's resolution: I resolved to lose weight. I always failed. In retrospect, I know I was trying to lose weight because it was the time I was supposed to do it: everyone made New Year's resolutions. I think I may have been resolving to lose weight for the calendar, in a way, but certainly not starting then because I was ready to do it for me.

As you face the new year tomorrow, think before you make a resolution to make those big, dramatic health change promises to yourself. If you can make the resolution with the understanding that becoming healthier is a goal that requires traveling a path with lots of bumps along the way, and you know in your heart that this is goal is for you, not for the calendar, that's great! Set up your resolution and reach for it! Accept slips as you learn your new healthier habits.

But, if you know that your idea of a resolution is an all-or-nothing/do or die approach, or you know you are doing it solely because of the calendar, don't even go there. You are setting yourself up for failure. Love yourself enough to know what your real intentions are. To succeed in reaching any health goal, you have to be willing to endure ups and downs in changing your behavior: learning to forgive yourself is a critical part of this process. You aren't ready yet for a big sweeping goal. Just start, one day at at time, making small changes in your behaviors that will result in changing your long term health habits. One small step at a time. Keep on kicking, don't every give up! (See the Frog blog post :) I, unfortunately, took many, many years to learn this key to my own healthy success.

To Your Health in the New Year and Always!