Holiday Eating Guide

Holiday Eating Guide

Veggies and meat

Are good to eat,

And fruit and fish

Should fill your dish.

But sugar and grain

Will cause you pain,

And if it comes from a packet

Your diet should lack it.

Happy Thanksgiving

Alright Everybody,

Remember to approach your eating and drinking activities today with a sense of sobriety and moderation.  Hope it goes well for everybody.

Wickham

Funny Thanksgiving Prayer

Humorous Thanksgiving Prayer

When turkey’s on the table laid,
And good things I may scan,
I’m thankful that I wasn’t made
A vegetarian.

-Edgar A. Guest

Please also remember that gorging yourself with a bunch of carbs is not a good way to thank God for all that is good in your life.

Wickham

The Protein Challenge

Take The Protein Challenge

I want to tell you about my patient Glenda, who one month ago decided to take the Protein Challenge.  Glenda first came to see us the first week of February.  She started the diet along with medication and by the first week of March she had lost 21.8 pounds!  From the first week of March to the first week of April she lost 7.6 pounds.  At that point she decided to take the Protein Challenge.  She began having one or our HealthWise protein drinks with her first meal of the day.  On some days she had a second protein drink around 4 pm.  What were her results?  I saw her yesterday and she has lost another 12 pounds!  After taking the Protein Challenge she lost 4.4 pounds more than she did the previous month.  That’s a little more than 1 pound a week more.  Since February Glenda has lost 41.4 pounds!

Here’s what Glenda told me about her experience using HealthWise protein drinks –

1.     It made me fuller and more satisfied quickly

2.     They are convenient and easy to use

3.     They taste terrific; I could not tell it was a protein drink

4.     It got me out of my 4pm “slump”

Remember, high protein meals and snacks preserve lean muscle mass, increase your sense of satiety, and they raise your metabolism during the process of digestion.  So, I continue to challenge you to one of our HealthWise protein drinks just prior to your first meal of the day.  They are only 70-80 calories (depending on flavor), they have 15 grams of protein, and they taste great.  Try it – you’ll feel fuller on less calories while sparing muscle and burning fat.   What are you waiting for?  Take the Protein Challenge!

Beat the Bloat

Beat the Bloat

You know sodium best as table salt, but salt and sodium are hidden in all kinds of products, including packaged foods, fast foods, frozen foods, canned foods, and condiments, to name a few.When you eat sodium, the excess sodium is deposited just beneath the skin where it attracts water, which is retained in your cells. This makes you look puffy and feel bloated.
You don't have to make yourself crazy over this, because there is sodium in everything! But here are a few tips:

• Read labels to check the sodium content of what you're eating.
• Replace processed foods with fresh.
• Avoid prepackaged and canned foods.
• Be wary of salt-laden condiments and use very little soy sauce, mustard, and table salt.
• Go easy on dairy, and avoid processed meat (hot dogs, jerky, bologna, corned beef), anything pickled (pickles, capers, sauerkraut), relish, ketchup, and butter.

Here are some sodium-free substitutes you can use instead: garlic, lemon, olive oil, vinegar, pepper, basil, cayenne, chili powder, cilantro, cumin, curry, dill, garlic powder, ginger, lemon, lime, mint, onion powder, oregano, paprika, parsley, rosemary, sage, tarragon, and thyme.

Go Veggies!

Diuretic veggies will also help because they contain potassium, which can help prevent fluid retention and metabolic slowdown. Spinach, lettuce, all greens (mustard, collard, beet, dandelion), parsley, argula, watercress, asparagus, and cucumber all have diuretic qualities. So eat up!

Need to Get Back on Track?

Gone Off Course?

Have your daily workouts begun to slip? Has your food intake gotten way out of hand again? Maybe the problem is with those New Year's resolutions you made exactly one month ago. If you've already blown them, they probably weren't realistic to begin with. Don't throw in the towel. Think about what went wrong and then work on ways you can fix it. Chances are you need to break your big resolutions — like lose 40 pounds — down into several smaller goals with milestones.  

Revise Those Resolutions

Don't let broken New Year's resolutions get you down. It's time to think of a more effective way to achieve your goals. If you promised yourself you'll only eat three meals and a snack every day, that's a reasonable goal. If you promised yourself you'll never eat pizza again, that's setting yourself up for inevitable failure. Think about the big picture, but work toward smaller goals. Soon, those resolutions will be a thing of the past — because you've already completed them!

Ways to Calm Hunger

5 Ways to Calm Hunger Pangs

Do you start getting hunger pangs at 11:50 a.m. in anticipation of lunch? We've all been there. The cause is the hormone ghrelin; released when the stomach is empty, it sets off a chain reaction in the body to make you hungry. In general, you want to keep levels of ghrelin low during the day so you can keep hunger in check. Apart from an empty stomach, there are several factors that can raise ghrelin levels, including drinking alcohol, eating too few calories, and eating greasy, fatty foods. Here are some strategies that will help you manage these triggers and keep your ghrelin levels from rising:Have a substantial breakfast. One study showed that people who ate a higher-calorie breakfast produced 33 percent less ghrelin throughout the day and felt satisfied for a longer period of time. Try a whole-wheat English muffin with organic peanut butter, a cup of strawberries, and some low-fat yogurt.
Choose complex carbs and get more fiber. Insulin and ghrelin go hand in hand. When insulin goes up after you eat, ghrelin goes down. If you eat the wrong kind of carbohydrates — refined carbs such as white bread and pasta — your blood sugar rises dramatically. In response, your body releases a surge of insulin to clear that sugar from the bloodstream. The insulin does its job very efficiently, and the resulting low blood sugar causes hunger sooner. These constant blood sugar ups and downs can wreak havoc on your metabolism, so it's best to eat complex carbs and fiber, which delay the release of sugar into the bloodstream so that insulin levels are kept stable and you feel full longer.
Eat on a schedule. Research has found that ghrelin levels rise and fall at your usual mealtimes, so eating on a schedule prevents spikes in ghrelin. If you're running errands and are away from the kitchen at one of your typical mealtimes, carry a small bag of almonds or other nuts with you — you can eat a little something to keep your stomach satisfied until you can get home and have a real meal.
Emphasize high-volume, low-calorie foods. Levels of ghrelin remain high until food stretches the walls of your stomach, making you feel full. High-volume, low-calorie foods, such as salads and soups, reduce ghrelin levels long before you've overeaten. All green veggies and any foods with a high water content count as high-volume, low-calorie foods.
Eat protein. Protein-rich foods can also suppress ghrelin levels — they help create a long-lasting feeling of fullness. Try adding whey protein to a low-calorie smoothie. (If you're sensitive to gluten, just be sure to check the ingredients list; some whey protein products contain gluten.) One study found that whey brought about a prolonged suppression of ghrelin.

Sit Down and Eat!

Turn it off and put it down! When you're watching television or reading, it's hard to gauge how much you are eating or how full you are. Get old school at mealtimes — set the table, sit down, and enjoy!

Triggers

Emotional Triggers Behind Eating

You just got into a knockdown-dragout fight with your spouse. Or your kid. Or your mom. Or the guy behind you in the checkout line. Your reaction is to head for the kitchen to soothe yourself with something smooth, fattening, creamy, sugary, salty, or crunchy — pick your poison.Sound familiar? If so, you're an emotional eater. But you've probably figured that out already. You've probably also figured out that unhealthy overeating leads not only to weight gain but to a destructive pattern of anxiety and self-loathing that's tough to break on your own. Want to break the cycle? I'm here to help.
You've got to start by facing the fact that there will never be a totally stress-free time in your life. There. That's as bad as it gets. Now on to the good news: You can stop emotional eating. The key is to identify the things that make you feel pressured, sad, angry, or anxious. Once you understand your triggers, you can break the cycle and start regaining control of when, why, and how you eat.
The best way to identify your emotional triggers is through self-examination. Face your issues. Bring them out of your subconscious and into your conscious reality. This is the most empowering thing you can do for yourself.

 Let Go!

To change the present, you have to let go of your past. Forget about the times when you binged because you were upset, hurt, angry, or depressed. The past does not define you; the present does. Having a crystal clear vision of the future affects your behavior now. Let your daily actions be governed by your game plan for a new you. Keep that game plan in the forefront of your mind by writing about it and letting it become real. There's no deadline. Just commit to the process and take it day by day.

Restoring Missing Nutrients With Power Foods

Restoring Missing Nutrients With Power Foods

When you consider what we Americans typically put into our bodies each day — all the junk food, refined and enriched grains, and other sources of empty calories — it's not surprising that more than 80 percent of us don't meet the daily recommendations for key nutrients. Many vitamins and other micronutrients are necessary for hormone production, which means that to maintain a healthy metabolism, we need to pay attention to our nutrient intake.Here are just a few key nutrients you probably need to restore to your diet. The daily nutrient intakes listed are recommendations of the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, a world-renowned research center on the science of micronutrients.
Pantothenic acid (5 milligrams a day): All steroid hormones, including estrogen and progesterone, can be produced only when you have enough pantothenic acid, or vitamin B₅.
Food sources: 8 ounces yogurt (1.35 mg); ½ cup sweet potato (0.88 mg)
Potassium (4.7 grams a day): Potassium is both a mineral and an electrolyte that regulates as much as 40 percent of our resting metabolic rate.
Food sources: 1 medium baked potato (926 mg); 6 ounces tomato juice (417 mg)
Vitamin B₆ (2 milligrams a day): This vitamin helps the body release glucose from stored glycogen. It also binds to the receptors for steroid hormones, preventing the uptake of excessive hormones and thus possibly helping to reduce the risk of breast and prostate cancer.
Food sources: 3 ounces chicken (0.51 mg); 1 medium banana (0.43 mg)
Zinc (15 milligrams a day): Zinc levels are linked to levels of leptin, the hormone that helps us feel satisfied after eating.
Food sources: 6 medium oysters (76 mg); 3 ounces dark-meat turkey (3.8 mg); 1/2 cup baked beans (1.8 mg) 

Cover Your Bases With a Multivitamin

Ideally, all of our nutrients would come from the foods we eat. But given changes in farming methods, the sad state of our soil, and the lack of biodiversity in this country, even our whole foods are not nearly as nutritious as they once were. Taking a high-quality multivitamin can help ensure that you're getting the nutrients you need. Look for a multi with all the ingredients listed above plus biotin, folic acid, niacin, riboflavin, thiamine, copper, magnesium, selenium, chromium, calcium, and vitamins A, B₁₂, C, D, E, and K. Premenopausal women should choose a multivitamin that also contains iron.

Always Hungry?

Always Hungry? Maybe This Hormone Is Out of Whack

I've worked with many people who have told me that no matter how much they eat, they're still hungry. They can scarf down half a pizza plus dessert and still feel ravenous afterward. Does this sound familiar? If so, it's possible that a condition called leptin resistance is at least partly to blame.To understand leptin resistance, you first have to understand the role the hormone leptin plays in your metabolism. When you've eaten a meal, the fat cells throughout your body release leptin, which travels to the hypothalamus, the part of your brain that helps regulate appetite. There, it switches off neuropeptide Y — a protein that tells your brain you're hungry — and switches on appetite-suppressing signals. In other words, it gives your brain the message to stop being hungry and start burning calories.
You'd think, then, that low levels of leptin would be the cause of an unstoppable appetite, but that's not necessarily the case. Some research indicates that many people who are overweight actually have very high levels of leptin. How could this be? Well, the more fat you have, the more leptin you produce. And when the body continually cranks out excess levels of leptin in response to overeating, the receptors for leptin in the hypothalamus can start to get worn out and no longer recognize it. People with leptin resistance have high circulating levels of leptin, but the receptors are "deaf" to it, so it can't shut off appetite or stimulate your metabolism.
This vicious circle is similar to what happens when a person develops resistance to insulin, the hormone that allows your cells to use the glucose in your blood. (Insulin resistance can cause high blood glucose levels and eventually lead to diabetes.) In fact, the two conditions often go hand in hand, and research suggests that leptin resistance may be reversed in the same way that insulin resistance can be reversed — by exercising, eating right, and losing weight.

The Role of Fat

You probably don't think of fat as an active part of your body, do you? Although researchers used to believe that fat cells were just big blobs of yuck waiting to get bigger or smaller, they now know that fat is an enormous endocrine gland, actively producing and reacting to hormones. The less fat you have, the less likely you are to overload your leptin receptors and deafen them to what leptin is trying to tell them — one more reason that fat-burning exercise is crucial for a healthy hormone balance!

Metabolic Rate

How Many Calories Do You Burn in a Day?

Your BMR is the number of calories your body burns in a day when operating at absolute minimum capacity. Basically, imagine sitting on the couch all day. (Is this a little too easy for you to imagine? Don't worry — we'll fix that!) Your BMR, then, is the number of calories your body burns just to maintain your heartbeat, digestion, respiration, tissue repair and other organ functions. That's it.BMR is influenced by a number of factors, including age, weight, height, gender, environmental temperature, and diet and exercise habits. Because of these varying factors, it's hard to pin down your BMR to the precise calorie, but we can get pretty close. Here are some formulas for figuring out your BMR. Get out your calculator and plug your numbers into whichever formula applies to you.
MALE: 66 + (6.3 × body weight in pounds) + (12.9 × height in inches) − (6.8 × age in years)
FEMALE: 655 + (4.3 × weight in pounds) + (4.7 × height in inches) − (4.7 × age in years)
Your basal metabolic rate accounts for only about 75 percent of your total daily caloric expenditure. You can also increase your BMR with exercise.