I received this email today and it completely
changed my outlook on the day.  I love getting
notes like this!  I wanted to share it with you
because there’s a lot to be learned from (and motivated by)
the story behind it:

“Hi Elaina and Cedric -
Thank you so much for my fabulous birthday gift!
I absolutely love pampering myself with bubble
baths and wonderful lotions and I will greatly
enjoy spoiling myself with the assortment you gave me!!!

Attached is a picture taken Saturday with some friends.
The reason I am sending this to you is because I was
able to fit into a pair of size 10 pants!  I have not
worn a 10 since I was about 16 years old (not kidding)!!!
My friends all noticed and I felt great about my progress!
Thank YOU for this!!!

Dinner tonight for my birthday and I feel in control!!!
That’s the best gift of all.

Connie”

(Connie’s the one bursting with beauty and self-confidence in the middle)
To give you a little background, Connie came to see us
back in September, frustrated because she wasn’t getting
results from her current trainer.  We did our fitness
consultation together, and decided that she really
just needed help with strength training and cardio, so
she’d come to train with Cedric five days per week at 5 a.m.
Yes, 5 a.m. daily workouts are dedication to a weight loss cause!
She strongly believed she had the eating thing down pat.
To measure our results from the training, we decided to
do monthly physio-graphs.  We did one at the beginning,
and we met again a month later to reassess. 

Connie stepped on the scale.  No change.  I didn’t panic
as I figured we must have just improved her body
composition… lost some pounds of body fat, and gained
some pounds of muscle.  We did the reading, assessed
the results, and I’ll be darned if there was absolutely
no change.  I checked and rechecked.  Surely this is a
mistake, I thought!  I quickly noticed Connie’s
disappointment, and I too, was equally disappointed. 

I sat down with Connie, and after we both got over the
initial shock and disappointment, we started to talk about
what we might be doing wrong.  Since we covered the cardio
and strength training for her, the only thing left was
her eating habits.  Connie was convinced she was doing
all the right things.  But when she started to throw
out a sample of things she thought were healthy choices
because she’d read it somewhere, like a fist full of
almonds for a snack… I thought we’d better start logging
so that we could see how that translated to in calories,
fat, and protein.

Long story short, logging was a wake up call for Connie!
As soon as she saw that the almonds had an entire day’s
worth of fat, she knew she had changes to make in her
eating habits.  She dedicated herself to our nutrition
program and did an overhaul on the way she ate.
And now here we are in December, with some seriously
celebratory results… on her birthday no less!

So, happy birthday, Connie!  When the going got tough for
you, you turned it up a notch and got going!  Most people
I know would have given up and claimed themselves to be
a medical mystery after putting all that hard work in
and not seeing change.  But you stuck with it, dedicated
yourself 100%, and made it happen. I couldn’t be more proud.

The cold, wet weather outside is perfect for this delicious, light soup with a little bit of a kick.  I like this soup for a few reasons - it has a fair amount of lean protein balanced by a reasonable amount of carbs (coming entirely from veggies), low fat, and makes use of that giant breast of turkey I had leftover from Thanksgiving.   There is a fair amount of chopping involved, but whip out your cuisinart and it’s a cinch.  This makes 11 servings, so you could even freeze some individual portions for quick meals as the holiday schedule gets more hectic.  Enjoy!

 WHITE TURKEY CHILI  (courtesy of Cooking Light)

Ingredients

• 1  tablespoon  stick margarine or butter
• 1 1/2  cups  chopped onion
• 1/2  cup  chopped celery
• 1/2  cup  chopped red bell pepper
• 1  tablespoon  minced seeded jalapeño pepper
• 1  garlic clove, minced
• 3  cups  chopped cooked turkey (about 15 ounces)
• 2  (19-ounce) cans cannellini beans or other white beans, drained and divided
• 2  (16-ounce) cans fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
• 1  (4.5-ounce) can chopped green chiles
• 1  cup  frozen whole-kernel corn
• 1 1/2  teaspoons  ground cumin
• 1  teaspoon  chili powder
• 1/2  teaspoon  salt
• 1/4  teaspoon  black pepper
• 1  cup  1% low-fat milk
• 1/2  cup  chopped fresh cilantro

Preparation

Melt the margarine in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion and next 4 ingredients (onion through garlic), and sauté 5 minutes. Add turkey, 1 1/2 cups beans, broth, and next 6 ingredients (broth through black pepper), and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes.

Mash remaining beans. Add mashed beans and milk to the turkey mixture. Simmer, uncovered, 20 minutes or until mixture is thick, stirring frequently. Stir in chopped cilantro.

Nutritional Information

Calories: 217 (19% from fat)

Fat: 4.6g (sat 1.1g,mono 1.3g,poly 1.6g)

Protein: 19.6g

Carbohydrate: 25.1g

Fiber: 3.5g

Cholesterol: 33mg

Iron: 3.2mg

Sodium: 462mg

Calcium: 82mg

Recently I’ve been bombarded by a pretty well known local radio personality’s endorsement ads for the Quick Weight Loss Center.  

I have a good amount of respect for this person, and when she endorsed a carpet cleaning company, she had me so convinced that certain nastiness lurked in my rugs that I didn’t hesitate to pick up the phone and schedule my very own cleaning.  And when she endorsed Viking kitchen appliances, well I would have loved to call and place my order for an entire kitchen renovation but after all, I have kid’s college funds that are not looking like they’ll cover even a single year of college lately.  So, hats off– you can sell, sister.

But the most recent Quick Weight Loss Center ads have gotten under my skin just a tiny bit. 

She starts out by saying she has been away from the program and let a few extra pounds creep in.  So she went right back in and Quick Weight Loss helped her out.

 She says something to the effect of “Losing weight is the easy part!  Keeping it off is the hard part.”

 The reason this peeves me is that this is the definition of yo-yo dieting.  It should be that losing weight is the hard part, and as for keeping it off?  Well that’s the easy part. 

And why is losing weight so hard?  Now when it comes down to it, losing weight is really not all that “hard.”  It is simple math, after all.  Calories eaten or “in” have to be less than calories burned or “out.”  But nevertheless, it’s a struggle for many.  Why?  Here are a few theories: 

1. There’s so much misinformation out there, that first you must overcome all of that to arrive at the truth of what works for weight loss.  And the truth does not include “lose 5 lbs. per week!” such as the offer stated in the QWL ad.  A good number to strive for in permanent weight loss is 1-2 lbs. per week.  It’s not glamorous, but would you rather lose it quickly and have it creep back (plus some), or lose it gradually over time FOR GOOD?  Gold star for you if you answered the latter.

2. Eliminating the “headtrash” is tough.  If you’ve tried many of the fad diets out there and failed (for good reason), then you are programmed to believe that any other attempt will fail as well.  It’s really a shame, because many people, for this very reason, become frustrated and give up completely, thinking a good solution simply doesn’t exist.   

3. Many weight loss programs provide you with a solution for the short-term, but don’t teach you how to make permanent lifestyle changes.  Take a point-counting system, for example.  Not only is it unreasonable to expect to be able to count the point value of food for the rest of your life, but it’s also crazy to think that if two pizzas equals your points allotment for a day, then you must be eating well and on track. 

So reason number 3 above transitions nicely into why, in my mind at least, keeping the weight off for good should be the easy part.  If the way that you lost the weight included an education on how to eat the right things at the right times, there’s no reason that it should be hard.  You know exactly the things you should be doing to maintain your healthy weight.  Sure, you may slip up every now and then, but if you did it right in the first place, your body will tell you immediately when you’re feeding it the wrong kind of fuel.  (food is fuel!  your body needs the right kind to get through the daily demands of life.)  This is your signal to get back on track.

 My point is not to try to put down all of the other weight loss programs out there.  I’m sure they all have their share of success stories.  But I would be curious to see what their long-term success rate is. I guess I’ll be doing a little research as this sounds like a decent topic for a future post!

To all of our North Fulton neighbors out there who want to lose weight– whether it’s 10, 20, 100 lbs… I want to help each and every one of you, I really do!  But you must, at a bare minimum, demonstrate a desire for change.  I say that, but I’m just not sure that everyone gets it!  Let me explain.

Recently, I had a fitness consultation with “Sally.”  Sally was in her 50’s, and up until very recently, got away with eating as she pleased and doing very little physical activity.  Perhaps she didn’t have the ideal body composition, but Sally was okay with it because her clothes (what she believed to be in her ideal size) fit.  Fair enough.  But, the aging process finally caught up with her.  Her metabolism slowed down as it does when we age, and the pounds started to gather, particularly around her mid-section.  So Sally was frustrated and ready to do something about it.  After learning all this through a phone conversation, I eagerly booked a consultation with Sally, confident we could help her through a combination of strength training and our nutrition program.

Sally arrived for her fitness consultation, and was pretty enthusiastic about the possibility of shedding this unwanted weight.  We sat down and talked about Sally’s current eating, exercise and lifestyle habits. 

• Sally spent 5 days a week on the treadmill for 30 minutes at a time, hoping that she would see a change on the scale, but with no success.  This is common and was not surprising to me.  Cardio is great, but there’s so much more to weight loss than logging miles on the treadmill.
• Sally revealed that she was a night owl and stayed awake until the wee hours of the night and often slept well into to the day to compensate.  She couldn’t fall asleep without the use of a sleep aid.  After she shared this, I could immediately sense the exhaustion but knew that adding a solid exercise regimen would provide some immediate relief. 
• Sally relied on some other supplements to keep her cholesterol down and bone density up.  Again, I knew that with some lifestyle changes, we could probably reduce or eliminate the need for these.
• Finally, Sally told me that had a serious sweet tooth, and often—daily, in fact, would substitute an entire meal for treats like cookies or cupcakes.  This was certainly an eye opener for me.  Admittedly, I do it very occasionally, and even less often now that I know how hard I’m being on my body by depriving it of the fuel it needs, but daily?  Seriously?So, my brain started racing—wondering how on earth Sally was going to muster the energy to make it through an hour-long workout with one of our trainers.  New clients who are eating well have an adjustment period to build up endurance to last through a workout, so I didn’t think Sally had a chance at making it until she made some major changes to the way she looked at food and fueled her body.  I recommended the nutrition program first and foremost, and then once we fed her body the nutrients it desperately needed, add the strength training.  Sally had lots of questions about the way our programs worked, but then, we arrived at what I like to call the showstopper.  Our nutrition program is successful for lots of reasons, but one of the main reasons is that it teaches you how to eat the proper portions in the correct proportions.  To ensure you’re eating the correct portions, you do need to do some measuring of food.  Not for the rest of your life, mind you, but you do need to do it until you figure out what a serving of chicken or rice or fruit…. Or whatever looks like.  We all think we know what a portion size is until we actually measure it out.  And then we learn, we adapt and we move on. 

  Well, I guess you have figured out by now that Sally was simply unwilling to measure.  Not only unwilling, but if Sally were skydiving and the only way her parachute would open is if she agreed to measure her food, I’m pretty darn well sure she’d prefer to be a pancake in a distant cornfield.      

  So needless to say our consult came to a screeching halt.  Sally wanted to change, but not if it meant adding a small task, such as measuring food, to her day for the next few weeks.  I’m pretty sure that means that she’d also have a hard time making more major changes to her life as well.  Because when it comes down to it, we can guarantee that if you follow our program, you will lose weight.  But the following our program part is up to you.  And if something as simple as measuring your food is going to hold you back, I can tell you with absolute certainty that this is not the place for you. 

  I am a little sad at the outcome of this situation.  First, because I like to help everyone who wants the help and comes through our doors.  But second, because I know that Sally is paying a very dear price for her unwillingness to change.  She is unrested,unhappy with her body, and relying on lots of unnatural drugs to help stabilize her poor lifestyle habits.  From an outsider’s perspective, it seems pretty miserable and I know that we could easily do a 180 on her quality of life. 

  So, Sally, if you’re reading this, I sincerely hope that you find the help you need because I can promise you that it will be life-changing in too many ways to list.  But at the end of the day, if you’re not willing to measure, I’m not willing to invest our staff’s coaching, mentoring, and dedication to you.  Sounds like tough love, eh?  It’s a little hard to explain because there are so many service providers in this arena that don’t take people’s lives seriously, but I hope that you’ve learned by now that we’re the exception.

  If you’re not Sally and are going to come in to see me for a consult and start any sentence with “I’m unwilling to,” it had better end with “go on with my unhealthy habits.” 

Undoubtedly, health care is one of the top issues in this presidential race.  And for the first time, the word “preventive” has come into play as a major part of that discussion.  Candidates on both sides have expressed interest in pursuing preventive health care options as a way to improve health care quality and efficiency.  Regardless of who you’re pulling for, you’ve got to agree that having the term “wellness” come into play on a national platform is a GREAT thing!

 I know I’m being very general here, but can we not say as a nation that we are typically reactive rather than proactive?  And we love to point fingers and play the blame-game, don’t we? 

“Surely rising health-care costs are someone else’s fault, not my own!  There is nothing I can do about it, but I’m the one stuck paying the high premiums!” 

Regardless of whether the elected President makes things happen to encourage preventive care, at the very least, hopefully it is helping to build awareness that such a proactive option exists.  Just maybe companies and individuals move away from the traditional health care paradigm and begin to embrace exercise and wellness as their own personal insurance policy for their senior years. 

 And while the debate will continue on about whether preventive health-care saves money, just consider for a moment that you’re at the helm of a health insurance carrier.  You have two choices of who you’ll cover:

1) A group of active, energetic, healthy adults.   They spend their free time cheering on their kids playing sports, walking around the neighborhood, bike riding, and occasionally enjoying a nice meal out.

2) A group of sedentary, over-eating, un-motivated sloths.  The kids spend most of their time indoors, occupied with video games, while the couch potato parents order fast food and takeout. 

Obviously you’d pick number 1, right?  And why?  Because these individuals believe in taking care of their bodies and making their health a priority.  It’s highly likely that they’re going to cost less money to insure.  So, if we encourage this type of behavior, we have everything to gain and little to lose (except for a little weight, maybe.)  The misconception that’s out there is that preventive care programs are wildly expensive and a gigantic time commitment.  Not so, especially if you consider it an investment on which you’ll see an amazing return, monetary and non-monetary.  I’ll delve into that in the next post, but for now, here are a few incredibly easy and cheap or free ways you can encourage wellness in the workplace.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

STUDIO ONE TO ONE’S HEALTH WEALTH & WINE TO BENEFIT ST. JUDE CHILDREN’S RESEARCH HOSPITAL

A few weeks ago, I decided to bite the bullet and try on some jeans.  You know, the old pre-pregnancy jeans with the daunting, tiny waists.  And guess what?  They fit!  And not squeezing-into-them-like-a-sausage fit, but a good, comfortable, these-are-the-right-size kind of fit.  So, I decided to get hooked up to the physio-graph to see what my body composition was doing.  And guess what?  My body composition has improved just a tad over what I measured pre-preganancy!

Now let me just share with you that this summer, whether I belonged in a bikini or not, I decided I would sport one just to movivate myself to get my body back to a place where I felt comfortable in one.  And all summer long, I’ve been getting compliments on how good I look in a bikini, especially given the small infant sitting in the stroller beside me.  But you know the head games we play, well at least I do.  “They’re just being nice.”  No matter what compliments I received, it took me getting to be where I felt comfortable to get that good old self-confidence back.  And the self-confidence is an amazing thing.  It can absolutely change your day and your outlook.  You know what I’m talking about, right?  Start your day off with not being able to fit into your favorite outfit and watch the doom and gloom of it all slowly trickle into the rest of your day.  It seems kind of shallow, but is it really?  Isn’t it important that we feel good about ourselves? 

Granted, I started this effort mid-March and now here in July, I am switching back to maintenance mode.  By no means am I posting Biggest Loser type stats here, but I also didn’t take a vacation from my life for months to focus on my weight loss.  I did what I could, prioritized it by working it into my schedule, ate sensibly for the most part but also lived life and indulged occasionally.  In the beginning, I tried to force myself to do something I knew I absolutely despised - cardio on a machine.  And about midway through, I decided I needed to stop torturing myself and get my heart rate up doing something that I enjoyed.  So I switched my cardio to singles tennis a couple of times a week.  And maybe it’s coincidence, but that’s when the weight really started coming off.  When I stopped thinking about it and just started doing.  Surely there is something you like doing that involves some kind of cardiac benefit?  Think outside the box and the machines for a moment and I’m sure you’ll come up with something.

 So what is my biggest piece of advice for those trying to lose weight?  Make your goals reasonable.  Don’t give up just because you miss a milestone.  Let it inspire you to work a little harder to meet or exceed the next one.  It will happen.  Maybe not on your ideal timeline (which for me, originally was Heidi Klum-like 6 weeks post-partum results!), but it’s a given if you stick with it, it will happen.

 This time last year, I was just finding out I was pregnant.  A year later, I am enjoying lots of pool time with the kids.  This feeling of accomplishment is priceless.  It took a lot of hard work, but trust me when I tell you it’s life-changing.  

So now that it’s mission accomplished for me, I’m signing off of this blog, at least as a personal journal.  I am going to retire this one and re-start a blog with a different purpose.  We’re going to use the new one to feature client successes, events, fitness tips, and more, so stay tuned for details!�

A couple of weeks ago, it was measurement time again.  I know you’re going to look at these numbers and see them decreasing, but overall be unimpressed.  Well, at least I was. 

Since the last measurement, I had lost about a pound a week.  It’s progress, but it’s not as quickly as I had hoped.  You should have just heard some of the smack I was talking when I was preggo about how I would snap back into shape in 2 months!   Reality set in for sure.  I really was shooting for closer to 2 pounds more week.  And although I lost lots of inches, I still was not even close to getting into any of my “normal size” jeans.  I was doing everything I should have been on the exercise front - plenty of cardio and strength training.  So that left my eating habits to be revisited.  I know how to eat well when I’m just in maintenance phase, but do I really know what I’m doing when it comes to trying to lose weight?  Everyone knows you need to eat fewer calories than you’re burning for the day, but I’ve never known how to do that without getting so hungry that my right arm looked appetizing!  For the past couple of times in my life when I had a weight loss challenge ahead, changing eating habits meant doing South Beach.  And with all this exercising, I knew I needed the carbs to get me through, so that was out of the question.  And not to mention I promised no fad diets to help me along on this journey.  So last time when I wrote, I did some different things with my eating, but I was still getting a little too hungry for comfort, which was probably leading to overeating.

Lucky for me, Regan had just completed training on our new nutrition program.  Yes, I know this sounds like I am leading into a commercial, but please trust that I am brutally honest.  I can never sell anything that I don’t believe in or know that customers would come back telling me they’ve wasted their time or money.  I’m too thin-skinned to handle that.  So just hear me out!

She hooked me up to the Physio-Graph, which is a device that gives you an accurate body composition measurement.  From that, we learned my basal-metabolic rate, which tells me how many calories I’m burning per day doing nothing but “being.”  So then I knew how many calories I needed to eat each day to lose.  But how to do this without feeling like I was starving myself?  The nutrition program then spit out a meal frequency plan, and a list of many foods that were okay for me to have, in exactly the quantities I needed for weight loss success!  I looked at some sample meal plans, and my excitement quickly fizzled as I though starvation was again on the horizon for me.  And while the first day adjustment was a bit tough, as time went on I found myself having to force myself to eat all the food!  While my favorite day of the week is still cheat day (you get one per week on the program), the others are certainly doable and can be applied whether you’re eating out or in.  The program’s foundation is accountability (logging all of your food and regular Physio-Graphs to measure progress.)    And the best part of all is that it’s providing you with an education on how to change your eating habits for life.  So there’s no lifetime membership required…. do it once and you’ll have the tools you need to succeed indefinitely.

 In my two weeks on the nutrition program, I’m down 4 additional pounds.  So that leaves me with 6 or 7 more to lose, but more importantly, my “normal” size jeans are just on the brink of fitting again!  (you know…. where they just barely zip but leave you paralyzed from the hips down with little or no circulation.)  With a summer vacation coming up mid-June, my new goal is to be back to my pre-pregnancy self by then.  It’s achievable and to think it will have taken 4 months total to get my old bod back after pregnancy (in which no opportunity for indulgence was spared!)….  I guess that’s not too shabby.  Especially considering I know I’ve done it the right way and the pounds won’t come creeping back once I switch to maintenance mode.

Well, I’m happy to report the pounds are finally starting to come off!  That and the warm weather are really driving my motivation to lose the remaining 10 or so pounds!  I promised I’d share my new ways of eating with you, so here are the things that have been key to my success so far: 

1. Eating smaller, more frequent meals throughout the day.  I am eating every 3 hours and have noticed that this has eliminated the mid-afternoon urge to snack on everything in sight.  I really like the recipes on www.body-for-life.com.They seem to be well-balanced.  This small meal thing also keeps my energy level consistent throughout the day.  No more sluggish mid-afternoons.

2. Making sure each meal has enough protein.  It takes lot of work to add muscle to my frame and I like to blame it on genetics.  But I am making an honest effort to be sure I get enough protein.  I start meal planning by choosing a protein, and building my meal around it.  Being a carb junkie in the past, I suspect I wasn’t doing all that I could to increase the muscle mass in my body.  The increase in protein has also helped to decrease my crazy appetite.

3. Looking at what foods I should “include” for the day instead of exclude.  It seems that when I take this approach, I don’t feel so deprived.  I look at each meal and ask myself what do I need to include in it to be sure it is equally balanced and that I’ve had enough fruits/veggies for the day.  Naturally, cookies and other treats don’t fit into things that I “need” daily, so the cravings for them don’t pop up as often. 

4. Before this weight loss effort, I could probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve packed a lunch in the past year.  But I know that if I’m prepared, I have a better likelihood for success.  Otherwise, I get stuck at my desk until I’m starving and compensate by eating the most easily accessible foods and entirely too much of them.  So, I’m brown bagging it on most days.

Things are going really well on the exercise front since the tennis season is back in full swing and I’m able to fit in a few strength training sessions a week while the baby watches peacefully (let’s see how long that lasts!)  I came across a great website, though, for others looking for exercise buddies.  It’s www.SeeMommyRun.com.  Mothers post their desired walk/run times, days, speeds, and locations, and you can join in on a group that fits your needs.  Put the baby in a stroller and you’re ready to roll!

So I’ve been working out consistently for two weeks now.  I’m doing all the things I think I should be – starting out at a moderate level by doing a couple of strength training sessions per week, three to four days of cardio, and eating well-balanced meals.  I got on the scale, expecting to see the fruit of my labor by some pounds melting away, yet there was NO change.  NONE.  Now any sane person would consider that my body is going through some major hormonal changes what with just having giving birth six weeks ago, and recently stopping nursing.  So, why can I not accept that my body will part with these pesky pounds in due time if I keep at it? 

Because I, like the rest of our society, have been programmed to expect instant gratification.  And even though I know the facts—that anything I do resulting in rapid weight loss will not provide permanent results, I am still tempted by the quick fix. Everyday, we’re inundated with quick-fix messages related to weight loss and every other emotional topic you can think of.  I educate myself on the science behind weight loss often, but not enough to counteract all the false claims that are floating around.  Every time I stand in the line at the grocery store, I catch a glance at the magazine headlines because it’s probably as far as I’ll get these days into reading them.  On my last visit, these are the headlines that caught my eye:

“Three Fats that Make You Skinny”

“Fat Free and Fabulous”

“The Get-Slim 14 Day Diet”

And certainly, all of us can admit that a headline entitled “Lose weight through hard work and commitment” is not nearly as glamorous or as appealing as any of the above. 

So, instead of giving up, I’m going to crank it up a notch.  I’m not going to do it by depriving myself of the fuel I need.  I think I have the food part under control.  And I know I promised you I’d tell you what I was doing on the eating side of things in this post, but somehow I just don’t think you’d be too convinced that it’s working when I have nothing to show for it.  So I’ll wait until next time, when hopefully I have some results to share beyond increased energy and fewer cravings and feelings of hunger (I see your ears perking up!)  For now, I am going to aim to get four to five days of intense cardio in, and take the strength training up to three days per week and see what happens.  Because when it comes down to it, we all get a little desperate when it comes to something as emotional as weight loss.  But those of us who are educated to understand what really works know better than to give into to our desperation.