With many of our lives on the go, we have learned the habits of living a fast life, even down to how we eat.
But did you know that eating slowly has some great benefits?
Aside from forcing yourself to slow down to enjoy your food, chewing slowly helps with digestion, weight loss, and it reduces stress by putting you in a place where you are paying closer attention.
Try to slow down by chewing each bite at least 20 times, or try putting your fork down between each bite to enjoy the food in your mouth.
Do you have a tendency to eat quickly?
weight loss strategies
Less is More
In the time of Instagram, a big plate makes food look more photo-worthy, but when you are trying to drop a few pounds before that class reunion, or that beach trip, a big plate is a bad idea.
Here’s why:
Placing your portion sizes on a larger plate makes your portions look smaller which can cause you to feel unsated, whereas placing the same amounts on a smaller plate gives the appearance of abundance.
Give this trick a try and see how you feel.
Healthy Desserts While Dieting
When dieting, sweets are often one of the hardest cravings to overcome, but what if you had sweets that were actually healthy?
Sound too good to be true?
Well, it’s not. There are plenty of options out there to fulfill that sweet tooth without breaking the diet. Our weight management clients enjoy delicious desserts without worrying about messing up their dietary intake.
Try this amazing Avocado Mousse:
-1 large ripe avocado (halved, pitted)
-1 medjool date, pitted (or up to 3 dates to sweeten it more)
-1 very generous tablespoon raw cacao powder
-⅛ teaspoon vanilla powder or vanilla extract
-⅛ teaspoon cinnamon
-¼ cup (50 ml) nut milk (homemade or store-bought), coconut water, or water
-A pinch of sea salt
How to make:
Add all ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. Add more liquid as needed.
Does this recipe sound like something that would soothe your sweet tooth?
Body Composition Analysis
How well do you know your body’s makeup?
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, keep reading because this is for you.
Most people go about their day to day living not knowing how much fat, muscle, water, etc., they are carrying and they most certainly don’t know what these information mean for their health and well-being. Many people have a weight scale at home and step on it to much glee or to much disappointment. But what is the weight scale really telling you?
To gather true health information, you need more than a weight scale. That’s where the professional, comprehensive body composition analysis comes in. With full body composition analysis, you learn about your actual body fat mass, the percentage of fat to lean mass, cellular water weight, muscle mass, visceral fat (that’s the potentially bad fat around the internal organs), breakdown of tissue in different areas of your body and more.
With this information, you can work towards your health and fitness goals and track your progress regularly. For many of our current patients in the thirty five and over age range, we also use this information to detect bone, minerals and muscle loss. These three factors are linked to sarcopenia, osteopenia and osteoporosis. And with the comprehensive information we gather from the analysis, we work with our patients to stop and reverse any loss.
We also use the information we gather to help our patients understand their risks for diseases linked to metabolic syndrome, arthritis, and more.
The non -invasive analysis takes less than 1 minute and within 20 minutes, our patients are armed with detailed data that offer targeted and personalized approach to improvement and wellness.
To schedule your body composition analysis or inquire further about the process, text us at 805-867-7298.
So You Want To Lose Weight?
When it comes to weight loss, many of us are really wanting to lose the excess fat that are hanging around the abdomen, back, arms, legs, neck, and face. With that in mind, you begin your weight shedding journey and you step on your home scale after a few days to see how much you’ve lost. Yes, you’re three pounds down! But three pounds of what did you really lose?
Was it water, fat, muscle mass?
To truly know what you lost, you need a full body composition analysis.
Consider this image, two people who weigh the same yet appear differently. A big reason why they appear differently is due to their respective body fat amount. Analyzing your weight by measuring body composition offers you true values of your skeletal muscle mass, body fat (in the arms, legs, trunk), visceral fat level, body fat percentage and more.
True health is more than just weighing your ideal weight. True weight loss is more than dropping the pounds. It is about losing the excess fat, reducing any excess liquid waste weight, and increasing or maintaining healthy muscle mass. Body composition analysis can give you exact details that can help your fat loss goals. With a personalized report, you can track your progress monthly and make positive adjustments that keep you focused on your goals. In as little as 1 minute, you’ll learn more about your body than a home scale can tell you. Armed with that information, your nutrition and fitness goals can be adjusted to truly help you achieve and maintain your goals.
Whether you are ready to use body composition analysis to achieve your goals or want more information, we are here to answer your questions.
5 Key Things That will Make Your Weight Loss Permanent
So, you’re thinking about losing weight or you have lost it and are now wondering what to do to ensure the pounds don’t creep up on you again. Welcome, you’re in good company.
There are plethora of diets and strategies about weight loss and I admit, my head spins many times around her axis from the number of them. You have the very basic ones to the super complicated, breathe only air and sniff some water only (not really but it seems that way when you read the list of all the things you cannot do and the itsy 5 line of things you can do) programs. Then there are the ones that have you exercising almost to the point of keeling over, yikes! You can probably tell that I am not a fan of dieting just for weight loss.
I am a proponent of committing to a lifestyle that supports many areas of your health, including your weight. Therefore, I seek ways to effect lasting solutions for my clients. From our successful strategies that have benefited many of our clientele and helped them achieve and sustain their desired weight goals, I have gleaned a few to share with you here.
First, design your lifestyle plan. Why? Because this will help you identify the life you have now, the life you desire and the details of that life. This will also lead to clarified actions plan that can be your compass.
Now that you have your lifestyle plan and know what your desired health goals are, it becomes easier to itemize steps or actions you need to support your desired health goals.
Okay, we’re on to something now my friend; you can now get to work on your desired health actions.
Next, implement these actions in small steps and consistently, then track your actions.
Lastly, add these daily activities:
Drink ½ your current weight in ounces of water
Chew your foods until fine before swallowing
Reduce the size of your plate size by 30%, get new set of plates and use smaller bowls
Walk for 1 to 2 miles daily
Set a specific bedtime and stick with it as much as possible.
Wake up at a specific time daily
Fill one third of your plate with high fiber foods such as lentils, beans, quinoa, squashes, and root vegetables.
Fill the second one third of your plate with leafy vegetables
Divide the last one third into equal sixes and fill 1/6th with fresh fruit and the other 1/6th with 1 ounce of nuts or ½ avocado or small piece of animal protein
Eat your fresh fruit first, then your high fiber food, then your protein/fat, lastly your leafy vegetables.
You can track your progress daily or weekly to measure your success.