Rosa Smith-Montanaro blog
Rosa Smith-Montanaro is your virtual weight loss and wellness coach. She is the author of Mind Over Platter®: Train Your Brain to Think Thin and the award-winning creator of www.MindOverPlatter.com. Rosa is a certified Success Coach with an expertise in weight management and the mind/body connection. She is also certified at the Master level in Hypnosis, Neuro Linguistics Programming (NLP), Thought Field Therapy
TM (TFT), Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), Herbal Specialist and Humanistic Neuro Linguistic Psychology. Rosa teaches seminars throughout the country on the mind/body connection and how to create a life that is a reflection of your values. Rosa and her husband live in Greece and have three children. She welcomes you to blog with her and discover how you can create a healthier, happier and balanced life. Rosa can be reached at MindOverPlatter@aol.com.
Stick to the facts
I have spent enough time challenging fad diets, I hope you can find the value in a fad without getting caught up in the hype of it. My hope for you is that you discover a way of eating that suits you well and helps you maintain a healthy body.
My focus this week with my members is in sticking to the facts. Understanding what is in the food you are eating on a meal by meal basis. Do you know how many calories, grams of fat, carbs, protein and sodium are in your breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks? Do yourself a favor before you take that first bite, read the label, record each one of those areas and calculate your averages for a week. We will take a closer look at these numbers and what they mean.
The Magic Pill Diet
The magic pill! Take one and all your weight will go away. I have seen hundreds of people take pills over the years promising the solution. The most recent trend has been ranging from Trim Spa to Alli. Sure they help you lose weight but what happens when you discontinue taking them? The weight comes back on. When you consider the side effects, that range from heart palpitations to losing control of the bowels, it really wasn't worth it. When it comes to taking a pill, do your research, cross reference it with your family history, ask others what their experience has been and see who funded the studies that say this product works.
I have seen success when people use natural products to complement a program that includes behavior modification, changes in lifestyle, their mindset while following a healthy eating plan. It all comes back to being in the proper frame of mind. You can be doing all the right things but if you don't have your head in the right place nothing seems to work. When you have your head in the right plan anything can work.
The Grapefruit (any fruit) Diet
I recall seeing people eating grapefruit for days when I was younger. I have noticed lately, people don't limit themselves to grapefruit, they eat raw fruit in general but only raw fruit to lose weight fast.
For detox and cleansing purposes, this is pretty effective. Raw fruit in season is loaded with enzymes which aids in digestion. I am not opposed to a good cleanse and would follow this plan to give my body a break from processing food. Fruit is broken down in the intestinal track and will give the digestion system a rest. What I am saying is follow a raw fruit diet to cleanse or detox with the side benefit of weight loss. It isn’t a weight loss program for life, but a good habit periodically.
The Soup Diet
I am not picking on Progresso, I like their soup (the low sodium ones) on occasion. Eating soup to lose weight is not new, how many of us have followed the cabbage soup diet to lose a fast few pounds? I think soup is a great food, when you make it yourself with fresh vegetables in a non-cream base. My concern is how many teens are now eating soup for two meals and day and nothing else.
The reason this works is again the low calorie content. If you make a pot of soup and eat it for lunch every day because it satisfies you, that is a good habit. If you eat soup and only soup for fourteen days until you want to vomit just to lose weight, and then can't stomach it for months well this another topic altogether. I personally don't know anyone who has kept weight off that has lost it originally from the soup diet.
Homemade soup is much healthier than canned soup. If you do make it remember, the more vegetables the better, low sodium is a must and a clear or vegetable broth is preferred. Then eat it because you like it and if you are losing weight by eating it, can you live eating this way ten years from now.
The Peanut Butter Diet
This one is great, you get to eat peanut butter and the pounds will melt away! I read this study when the results were released a couple of years ago. They had two groups of dieters, both were on calorie controlled diets, one group was given two golf ball sized scoops of peanut butter and the other was not. The group that ate the peanut butter lost more weight and kept it off longer.
The study revealed that eating fat, especially the good fat (essential fatty acids, EFA) like the kind in fish, nuts and flax seeds, help the body lose weight. Another benefit is that fat fills you up and keeps you satisfied for longer periods of time. Rather than load up on one food group, add some healthy sources of fat to your meals. You will feel satisfied for hours!
The Milk Diet
Time to talk about the milk diet, you know the commercials that tell you to drink milk to lose weight. I have even seen advertisements promoting ice cream to lose weight. These are based on the same study, which showed how people on low fat diets that were give calcium lost an increased percentage of body fat.
I am not a fan of adults consuming cow's milk to begin with, so I am bias. I guess it stems from my natural health studies but that is another story. A large number of adults do not digest cow's milk well and may even have an allergy to it. In addition to this, milk has lactose, which is another word for sugar. I have had clients actually lose weight by reducing the amount of milk they drank. What I am saying is drinking milk is not the reason you lose weight, it is the calcium that helps you lose weight. The study showed results based on calcium supplements, calcium rich foods and calcium from dairy products. Dairy did actually yield the largest amount of fat loss. So rather than drink milk all day, eat some real food!
Good sources of calcium are: soy products including soy milk, yogurt, cheese, tofu, salmon, spinach, collard greens, broccoli, nuts and seeds are just a few.
Protein drinks for weight loss
Now let’s look at the high protein approach, primarily in the form of liquid intake. This works because, when you reduce your carb intake, your body will begin to burn stored fat for fuel. This is because the body doesn’t want to burn fat or protein for fuel. Rather than drink protein drinks all day long and protein water (sorry, I just don’t get it), add some protein to your daily intake. Boil some eggs, open a can of tuna, snack on a handful of raw almonds, add a chicken breast to your salad. All of these additions will give your body adequate protein without depriving you of FOOD. What a concept! Trust me it works, I have been eating this way for over eight years and have maintained my weight loss with little effort. Those drastic changes will only cause you to binge the second you get off track. Balance is the key, eat real food, add protein to your meals, cut the starchy carbs and use protein drinks to supplement your diet, not replace it.
Forgot those prepackaged food diets
Our first look is at having prepackaged meals or snacks. This works because it is mainly a calorie controlled diet. You don’t need to buy special food to accomplish this. Plan out your meals and snacks for the week. Then pre-measure your food so that you are not consuming more than 150 calories per snack or 300 calories per meal. Have three meals and day and two snacks and you will lose weight. If this is too hard to manage, create a master list of meals then go shopping. Buy a large selection of frozen vegetables, some lean protein and prepackage some meals for lunch. If you need ideas for snacks, get some yogurt, sugar free pudding, prepack peanuts, soychips, crackers and peanut butter, then label everything so that you know what you are eating on which day.
All of those commercially created meals are based on this, which is exactly why people lose weight. The difference is that you can live on a diet that is based on real food instead of boxes and packages.
Stop the madness diet
We are being bombarded with ads for weight loss products and programs. Even if you don’t have a weight problem you feel like you should be on a diet. We are conditioned to go on a diet after the first of the year. Companies launch special products for this occasion with the hopes of increasing their profits because 65% of our population is overweight. These attempts are focused on fads rather than common sense lifestyle changes. You can go on the Progresso soup diet, by consuming ready made cans of soup, the special K cereal diet, the snack diet, you can drink water that has protein, the Slim Fast diet, and let’s not forget the Subway diet. The list goes on and on and our instant gratification society runs out and stocks the shelves with these products hoping to lose those unwanted pounds.
As your weight loss coach and sticking to my theme of being authentic to myself, I have to share my professional opinion. America, this is madness, a healthy diet includes soup, cereal, water, a few snacks, a protein shake on occasion, but protein water? That just seems unnatural to me. Don’t be seduced by advertisers, resist the urge to get thin quick. Weight management is a lifestyle,e not a one time event. What predicts success is the ability to change your lifestyle so that your eating patterns fit in naturally. Do you really want to live on cereal or soup for the rest of your life to maintain a size six body? If you answered no to this question, keep reading this blog, we will discuss ways for you to reach your goal without an extreme approach.
Starting the new year embracing my theme!
I woke up on January 2nd expecting to be bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to tackle this new year with a smile, instead I had a migraine headache and stayed in bed most of the day. Whenever you make a public proclamation the universe will test you. First came the guilt of staying in bed and cancelling out the day, then my reminder, the world will be fine. Taking care of ourselves is vital yet under valued. I am still not feeling like myself 100%, that pain really knocked me out and I am still recuperating. No apologies, no excuses, today my 100% is normally my 70% and it is good enough. I still got 5 out of 5 on my evaluations from my workshops and I am still performing at acceptable levels. Today, I am putting my money where my mouth is, I am being me and embracing what the day brings.
