Are You a Weekend Food Bender?

It’s the weekend!  The work week is over and it’s time to hang with friends.  What are you doing this weekend?  The local winery is having live music, drinks and fun.  There is birthday celebration.  Oh yeah, don’t forget girls night out!  But wait, you are trying to lose weight and don’t want to break that good streak you have going. Does this sound like you every Friday night?

All week you managed to eat healthy and avoid binge eating or drinking alcohol.  Then the weekend comes and you are consumed with guilt because you want to have good time but avoid destroying your goals.  What can you do? 

The number one thing to do that will help you stay on task with your goals is KEEP WRITING in your food journal!  Write down everything you eat and drink.  Include alcoholic beverages and if you can’t remember then there is a big problem.  Write down your daily goal each morning especially on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  If binge eating/drinking is your problem then I would focus on a goal according to this issue.  Also another question you might ask yourself; are my friends making me fat?  I don’t mean literally but if the activities you do together revolve around food and drinking you might need to make some changes. 

Drinking more than one alcoholic drink can increase your likelihood of consuming extra calories.   Your inhibitions are down and you become more social and less aware.  Wine is a little more health friendly for someone trying to lose weight.  You can make wine go a little further if you ask for it to be mixed with Seltzer water.  This turns your drink into a spritzer.  Mixed drinks are the enemy; they contain higher sugar contents.  Beer typically adds 150 calories to your day as well as the extra carbs.

If you are attending a party make a healthy appetizer.  Providing your own food will allow you to eat and avoid guilt.   In addition when I attend a party or dinner I try to consume a protein shake with some fruit.  This will help me feel much fuller and I won’t eat very much.  If you eat out, box up half of your food before eating.  Boxing up your food will help decrease the calories you eat.  Most dinners out are 2-3 servings so you can see there are a lot of extra calories. 

If it is girls night out find an activity to do.  How about a girls day out; indoor rock climbing, Sky Zone, duck pen bowling, mani/pedi anything that doesn’t involve food. 

Try to keep your normal sleep schedule.  A lot of times we sleep-in over the weekend and miss breakfast.  When I oversleep I always start my day with breakfast.  Plus consuming at least 32 ounces of water because by this time I’m dehydrated.  Try to avoid eating breakfast out because the extra calories will kill your goals.  Don’t kid yourself if you exercise really hard over the weekend and the run to your local breakfast diner.  I guarantee you will consume more calories then you ever burned off. 

There are many ways to avoid weekend benders but you need to take a good look at what you are doing. 

Paleo Style Breakfast Egg & Bacon Muffins

My kids love breakfast for dinner and it's one of the simplest meals to make.  I'm usually good about throwing things together to make a quick meal so here goes.

Ingredients:

• 12 Whole Eggs & 1/2 cup egg whites
• 3 mini bella mushrooms washed and chopped
• 1/2 cup fresh salsa
• 10 pieces of cooked nitrate free bacon extra crispy and crumbled
• Grapeseed oil (Sprayed into muffin pan)

Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 350
Scramble all ingredients together pour 1/2 cup of egg mix into the muffin pan.
Bake until eggs are thoroughly cooked. 

Tired of Plateaus?

I am finding many of the challengers are hitting plateaus during this challenge. Here is a way to really jump start your metabolism and this will eliminate the feelings of starvation at the end of the day. If you feel sluggish in the evening or if you find yourself very hungry while you are fixing dinner then you are not eating like you should during your day.

It is important to first start your morning with (2) 8 oz. classes of water because over the 7-8 hours of sleep you become dehydrated. Drinking water will jump start your metabolism first thing in the morning and hydrate your body. Think of your metabolism as a wood burning stove, if you don't put wood in the stove during the night your house is cold in the morning. You need to throw a lot of wood in the stove and keep it fueled throughout the day. Your body needs food throughout the day so don't starve yourself. Skipping meals will actually do more damage to your metabolism and you will have a much harder time losing weight.

Once you have your metabolism started you need to eat a filling breakfast. I start my morning off with 1/2 cup dry oatmeal (cooked = 1 cup), 2 tbsp. of Stoneyfield French Vanilla yogurt added to the cooked oatmeal, along with blueberries, raspberries, bananas or apples. I also eat scrambled eggs (1) egg white and (1) whole egg and a bottle of water or 1 cup of hot green tea. This is a very filling breakfast and you want to consume most of your calories during the morning and by lunch time. You do not want to feel like you are starving at any time during the day. When you get the first signs of hunger eat!

As you can see in the picture below here are several snack ideas. Kashi bars, oranges, Hummus with vegetables, Ezekiel bread with almond butter or natural peanut butter. Another snack idea is a protein shake especially if you had a hard workout. Your goal should be to eat at least every two hours or 6 times a day. I mean eat "Clean" when I say eat. You do not want to consume empty calories and waste your calories on food high in sugar. Sugar will give you a rush but once it wears off you will crash hard. Listen to your body, drink a lot of water to keep yourself hydrated. Sometimes you can misread what you body is really telling you and think you are hungry when actually you are just dehydrated and need something to drink.

If you change the way you eat and stick to your daily workouts, I believe you can make a change and knock that plateau out. A plateau occurs because your body is used to the things you are doing and it needs a change to restart the program. When you plateau for more than three weeks then it's time for changes.

Focus on Goals

In order to lose weight you must set goals. Without goals this won't be a journey it will be a struggle and you will continually focus on the negative instead of the positives. This will cause you to give up again. You must set realistic goals too. You cannot expect to lose 25 pounds in 8 weeks because realistically you will end up gaining more weight back. Healthy weight loss is 1 -2 pounds per week and that's it. You need to also realize that your body weight changes several times throughout the month, you will see the scale go up 1-3 pounds in a day. This is not physically possible! What is it you ask? Well most of the time it is water, salt and a lot of hormones. You just need to realize that being a women we sometimes get the raw end of the deal. I'm kidding! Just realize that our bodies change a lot and your weight will fluctuate don't sweat it.

Instead of focusing on the number focus on goals. Here are a few examples of some goals you should be trying to achieve right now.

1. If your waist measures over 35 1/2 inches you have a much higher risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Set a goal to lose those inches and focus on getting below 35 1/2 inches try setting a goal for at least 30 inches to get you started.

2. Keep a calorie journal for 7 days. Can you set a 7 day goal? Sure you can! I hear a lot of my challengers say, "I just don't know what happened, I worked out really hard". Well maybe it was the food. Count your calories for a week and lets see what you might be doing wrong.

3. Set a goal to lose 5 -10 % of your weight. If you don't want to focus on the numbers on the scale focus on the percentages. Just remember if you have lost 2% great job! Think positive!

4. Eat breakfast every morning at least 1 hour after waking and drink two 8 oz. glasses of water. This should be your first little goal! You'll be amazed what your body will do if you just feed and re-hydrate it when you get up in the morning. I know, I know you say, "After I eat breakfast I'm always hungry." Really? You should be! It's because you have given your metabolism a jump start. At least 2 hours after eating breakfast eat a healthy snack, then 2 more hours eat lunch. You should be consuming most of your calories between breakfast, snack and lunch. Do not hold onto your calories till the end of the day and do not eat less calories then you need. Your body will keep all of your fat and eat up all of your muscles if you do this. Saving calories until the evening will cause you to graze and eat more calories then you are allowed. These calories will then be stored as fat. Focus on healthy breakfasts and lunches.

These are just a few simple goals you can set for yourself and achieve within the next 3 weeks. Focus on setting goals for the holidays. Just because it's the holidays doesn't mean you will need to go hog wild when you see all the wonderful food. Make healthy choices, use portion control, and most of all STOP eating when you feel full. Drink lots of water before you eat then you want tend to eat so much food.