Taste Life Blog

A weight-loss client who hired me Memorial Day weekend exclaimed, “I know what to do I just don’t do it. I vowed I wouldn’t be overweight when the summer came and summer is here and the shorts are out! I waste so much time being obsessed about doing it and don’t do a thing.” Sound familiar?

According to a new poll of 1,000 adults conducted by Nutrisystem, one fourth of Americans would rather have a dream body for the rest of their lives than win $1 million in the lottery. Maybe you know what to do just like my client but feel it is just too hard. Here are five easy tips to love your body and feel like you are winning the lottery.

Slow down and savor. Spend 30 minutes enjoying your meal. Research shows scarfing down food at every meal reduces the lev-els of key appetite controlling hormones. Lucky volunteers were served 2 ½ cups of ice cream. Day 1 they had to wolf it down in 5 minutes. (Sign me up!) Day 2 they had to linger and eat it for 30 minutes. Blood tests showed slow eating increased the appetite low-ering chemicals (peptide YY and gllucagon-like peptite 1) by 25% to 30%. These levels stayed high for 2 ½ hours.

Drink up. Easy to calculate water requirements are ½ ounce for every pound of your body weight. One recent study showed that dieters who drank two 8 ounce glasses of water before meals, three times a day, lost five pounds more over a 12 week period than dieters who didn’t. Remember, if you drink one 12 ounce can of soda pop (150 calories) every day for a year you will gain 15 pounds a year. Summer is the perfect time to experiment with your water.

Write it if you bite it. Sorry, boring but true! Every single study has shown that the number one way to lose weight is to write it down. But don’t wait to write! Studies show that if you wait until later in the day to record everything it has less of an effect com-pared to writing your food down as you go. Talk about being in the moment, I started using a fun way to record food with clients. Clients take a picture of their food with their phone or camera and email it to me for comments. Email me if you want to know more – chere@cherebork.com I call it Chere Bork RD in your pocket! Healthy weight loss fun!

Cut 100. 100 calories a day extra over your regular calories can result in a weight gain of ten pounds a year. If you cut buckets of calories you can feel deprived and will jump off the bridge to bingeing.

Five easy ways to cut 100 calories. Switch from regular pop to sparkling water. Omit one slice of cheese on your sandwich. Eat your sandwich open faced and use one piece of bread instead of two. Eat fresh fruit instead of dried fruit. Plop mustard on your lean hamburger or turkey burger instead of mayo. Two tablespoons of mayo has 200 calories versus mustard with 25 calories.

Decide. The first four are all “doing goals.” So you know what to do but have you decided you want to weigh a healthy weight. Everyone focuses on the goal. I want to lose weight. But have you really decided? Deciding is thinking. The power is in your deci-sion. Your decision is a conscious and real alive choice, not a wishy washy wish but a total commitment. Goals are doing and deci-sions are thinking.

You know what to do just like my client, but maybe you forgot the power is in your hand that lifts your fork to your mouth but don’t forget your brain makes that decision!