New Year, New Body, New Technique

I know what's going on this week.

It's weight loss time!

The gyms are packed (my brother, a gym rat by nature, hates this time of year).
The diets are started.
The promises made.
Everyone is being so good.... Everyone is being so healthy...

Please try something new!

Or are they?

What's your plan? Is it the same as last year? Is it your "faithful routine" you fall back on whenever you need to shed some pounds that "works for you every time"?

I have a suggestion. In fact, it is a plea.
I want you to try something new this year.
I want you to truly look out for your health.
I want you to break this cycle, I want you to feel better and I want you to start off 2013 thinking about SOMETHING ELSE!!

This is no quick fix, but I believe it is worth the investment of your time.

The Plan

1. Assess your current health. Do you know your numbers? Not your measurements, your really important numbers like cholesterol levels, sugar levels, and blood pressure come to mind, but also anything that may be in your family history (I've been getting an annual colonoscopy ever since I reached my 30s). How healthy are you according to those numbers? If your doctor advises that you need to be on medication, ask him/her if any lifestyle changes can help you prevent that course.
2. Find YOUR foods. This is, to me, the most important step, but it must come second. With numbers and personal information in hand, find a nutritionist. Share your information with the nutritionist. Go through the tests for allergies and/or sensitivities to foods. Discuss your desire to lose weight and become more healthy. Be honest with him/her about your level of activity and your cooking/meal preparation habits.
3. Learn about food. Stop eating take out. Avoid packaged food as much as possible. Prepare your own meals, read labels and start experimenting with new fun good for you food. 
4. Be realistic about your activity. Don't run to the gym every single day this week and workout for three hours each day if that is not sustainable. Pick out something you like doing and fit it into your life. Also, be ready to be flexible. If you have decided that the spinning class at your gym is the thing you want to do, but then keep getting locked out of it because the one you can get to after work is just too packed, you should not decide that your time would be better spent at the local Carvel with a frosty chocolate shake! Be flexible about your activity and find something else to stay active with.

The Pros

• This is a plan for YOU specifically, no one else.You know how people tend to look 1,000 times better when they are wearing an outfit that was customized for them? Imagine what a customized lifestyle does for you!
• If followed correctly, you won't just look great, but you will feel great. Your doctors will be able to back up all the "great feelings" with good news as well. Imagine just being healthier... it is possible.
• You will learn more about yourself, your body and the food around you. You will be empowered to make better decisions for yourself every single day. Before long all of the "adjustments" you are making will become habits and become second nature.

The Cons

• This is a plan for YOU specifically, no one else. This is not a type-o. This is both a pro and a con. If you aren't living on your own during this transition  or tend to share meals with others most of the time, then you might find yourself in a situation where you have to eat different things than those around you (particularly if those others have found their own personal plans!).
• You may not (initially) be a big fan of all of the parts of your personal plan. I'll be honest, when my nutritionist first suggested that I had a sensitivity to gluten, I nearly smacked her upside the head and ran for the door. However, we are not perfect, so why should our plans be? I stuck it out, tried the crazy idea for a month and, in that short amount of time, I was a converted believer. Gluten (though I miss it so) has no place in my body.
• Not everyone will understand. "How do you do it?" they might ask. "Why don't you just cheat today?" they may tempt. However, after a couple of months of being strong, your body will tell the story for you.

There's no book for this. There's no formula or stories of how much weight was lost using this exact technique. There's no data until you try it. If you have, drop a note in the comments section about your successes, your set backs and your suggestions for others who are on the journey.

Best wishes for a happy HEALTHY new year as you search for all of your sustenance!


Further Reading

eat right. - Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Uh Oh! Eating Out Is Making The Whole World Fat  - Living Fit, Healthy and Happy
Too little protein may equal too much body fat - CNN Health
 *Have a post or article you think should be shared here? Just let me know!*

My Well-Fed Life

A number of years ago I came across a book that changed the way I looked at and felt about reading forever. It was Steve Leveen's "The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life." This book instantly caught my eye in my local Barnes and Noble because, as a voracious reader I have always sought after that esteemed title of "well-read." Over the years, however, it seemed that this was becoming more and more an insurmountable task - between the countless classics I had yet to read and the litany of best sellers and new classics being published week after week I felt stymied. Leveen's book, a guide, was exactly what I needed, I thought, to finally win the battle against my "to-read" list. What I found inside was not a step-by-step guide to getting to the end of the "well-read" rainbow, but, instead it was a fabulous book about letting that nightmare go and, instead embracing a well-read life in my own style - deciding for myself what my classics would be, what I thought should be on the best seller's list, reading at my own pace, in my own medium (he agreed that audio books were an acceptable form of "reading") and my relationships with my books should be personal. This may all seem obvious to you, but for me, at the time, it was a lesson I had not yet learned.

As of late I have found myself in nearly the same state of quandary about my eating as I once did about reading. I would like to eat "right" as they say, and I am beginning to finally think that the best way to do that is to live My Well-Fed Life. I have to decide what foods I want to bring to my table, and because this is my well-fed life, I need to think about what things are important to me in that quest. Here are five broad criteria that I have currently been using in building MY well-fed life:

Impact

Over the last couple of years, as reflected in this blog, a major factor in my personal food decisions has been based on their impact on the environment, on animals, on the industry and on the global and local community. This is the most difficult part of my eating since I am learning new things every single day that cause me to have to search for a new product or company to endorse.

Health

Due to my medical conditions, I have to be very careful of the foods that I eat. I know now of two food "groups" to avoid all together (gluten and dairy) that were evidently aggravating my system more than I realized. Knowing about these "illegal" foods has been a great help to my health, but dramatically changed what I thought my well-fed life was. In addition to the subtractions of these two food-types, I also like to pay attention to GMOs, organic foods and buying fresh whenever possible for the sake of my health and my husband's health.

Taste

I am being quite deceitful by putting this criteria third, because in my well-fed life (as I am sure in most everyone's), if a food does not satiate my taste buds it is off my shopping list. Let's be honest, no matter how good it is for me or my planet, if I don't like the way it tastes, I am not going to eat it - EVER.

Convenience

Sad, but true, for the most part I am not one who likes to spend hours upon hours constructing a meal that will take a fraction of that time to consume. I need to be realistic in my searches for foods that fit my life - can I get them with a quick trip here or there? Can I prepare these foods with the tools I have in my kitchen? If not, is it worth the investment to get those tools, or am I, realistically only going to cook this once? Do I have foods planned that are easy enough to cook that I can do so even if I am having a sick day?

Financial

Especially now, while I am on medical leave from my full-time job, I can not afford to overspend on food. However, it should not be overlooked that in my ranking of priority, this criteria squeaked onto the list in last place.


I think it is really important for everyone, especially those who do the food purchasing for the home, to develop their own personal well-fed guidelines. Of course, I believe health should be on everyone's list, and in this climate I think you would be remiss to exclude "impact" (no one will do this one for you!), but in the end, the point of this posting is that this is something you must determine for yourself.

I have only one bit of advice:  

BE WILLING TO TRY NEW THINGS. 

My hand was pretty much forced into this one with my food restrictions and my own conscience about my impact on the planet - I suddenly found myself asking, "What can I eat?" and the list was filled with strange foods I had never eaten or prepared before... I was terrified. My husband was empathetic, but grateful that, if need be he could still sneak back into the world of dairy and gluten. However, we bravely stepped out and starting trying things (we know, for sure, my mother is doing cartwheels in heaven - all she EVER wanted us both to do was TRY NEW THINGS, but we always resisted!), and we found a bunch of new things that we really, really like. Of course, not everything was fantastic, but there were a heck of a lot more wins than losses.

Good luck, good eating and I hope you find as much joy in your well-fed life as we have been finding in ours!