Smart Swaps

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Small substitutions can make a big difference.

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Sometimes a good diet isn’t all about completely revamping every little thing you eat. Often subtle substitutions to the foods you usually eat can make a huge difference in the number of calories you consume, the kind of nutrients you eat and your general health. Here are a few ways you can “health-ify” common meals. Use them as inspiration for altering your favorite dishes to better suit your healthy lifestyle.

Instead of: Spaghetti and Meatballs
Have: Whole Wheat Spaghetti and meatless meatballs

Switching to whole-wheat spaghetti eliminates much of the food starch that causes your insulin levels to rise and encourages your body to store fat. Plus it includes a lot of extra protein and fiber. Having vegetarian “meatless” meatballs instead of regular meatballs trims some saturated fat from the meal.

Instead of: Buttered toast, two eggs, and bacon
Have: Whole wheat toast with jelly, three egg whites, and a slice of lean ham

Even a traditional American breakfast can be made healthy. Jelly has about 1/3 of the calories of butter, plus none of the saturated fat. Scooping out the egg yolk takes out a lot of the cholesterol and saturated fat that have given eggs a bad rap. And ham has more protein than bacon but less grease.

Instead of: Two scoops of ice cream topped with chocolate syrup and sprinkles
Have: Two scoops of sorbet topped with low fat whipped cream and raspberries

No one said dieting means you have to give up your sweet tooth. Just keep an eye on the sugar and calorie content and you can have the occasional indulgence without feeling it in your waistline.

Dessert
I think this really illustrates that a good diet doesn’t start at home; it starts in the grocery store. Once you decide to only bring mostly healthy food into your home, slowly but surely, your white bread will be replaced by wheat bread; your whole milk will be replaced by skim milk; and your potato chips will be replaced by unbuttered popcorn. After that, eating healthy will simply be a matter of reaching for whatever happens to be in your fridge or cupboard.

Fitness Advice You Should Avoid

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Be wary of the advice you hear on the internet.

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Bad fitness advice abounds, especially on the internet. While this is not the only advice you should ignore, these things are particularly frustrating for me to hear coming from fitness “experts.”

Cardio Before Breakfast – The idea behind “fasted cardio,” or doing your cardio first thing in the morning before you’ve had anything to eat, is that the exercise will work directly towards burning fat, rather than burning the calories in the meal you just ate. There are a couple problems with this. Firstly, most people don’t have much energy to exercise before eating anything, so it might make the exercise difficult or even painful. Second, doing this might cause you to metabolize muscle, which will slow down your metabolism.

Take This Supplement – Not all supplements are bad. But for every nutritional supplement that might actually be useful, there are a thousand that are total garbage. Besides, who has the money to spend on all those pills and powders? Despite what ads on the internet or television might have you believe, they have yet to invent anything that will help you lose weight and get lean as quickly, safely, and effectively as a smart diet and exercise plan.

Drink A Gallon of Water a Day - Most people need to drink more water, but the actual amount you should be drinking for optimal hydration depends upon your body weight, the amount of physical activity you get, your altitude, and a few other factors. While it’s very difficult to drink too much water, you shouldn’t really be drinking so much that you feel the need to go to the bathroom every fifteen minutes. A good hydration measurement is the color of your urine: if it’s clear, you are drinking enough.

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If you ever hear fitness advice that sounds a bit off or just too good to be true, try to seek out a second opinion. There is nothing worse than spending months or years trying something to lose weight, only to discover it is totally ineffective. I certainly don’t like to waste my time like that, and I know my clients don’t either, so I always double check the sources and data on every piece of fitness or diet advice I hear.

Rise & Shine! It's Time to Eat.

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Wake up hungry more often.

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I'm sure you're wondering about how I'm going to squeeze a benefit out of this one.

Reason #1 - You are much more likely to eat breakfast if you're hungry, and skipping breakfast is a sure fire way to stall your weight loss. Check out Breakfast Counts for more information.

Reason #2 - If you're not hungry when you wake up, chances are that you either ate too much for dinner or ate too late at night. Either way, you are sabotaging yourself.

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Keep in mind that I never said that you should go to bed hungry. Just try to cut off your eating 60-90 minutes before you head to bed, and eat light when you truly are hungry at night.

I can personally vouch for this tip because when I'm eating properly, I'm ALWAYS hungry shortly after waking up in the AM. Because of this, I rarely (VERY rarely) skip breakfast. In fact, it's my favorite meal of the day!

Breakfast Counts

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Eat breakfast more often. Besides providing energy to carry you through the rest of your day, eating breakfast daily can actually help you consume less calories overall.

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Eating breakfast is an integral part to any healthy eating plan, but don't just take it from me. According to the National Weight Control Registry, 80% of people who have successfully maintained a weight loss of at least 35 pounds eat breakfast every day.

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While I know that many people struggle to find the time to eat breakfast or simply don't have an appetite in the morning, I must admit that I've never had those problems. Breakfast foods are among my favorite meal time choices, and I am almost always ready to eat shortly after waking up and getting dressed in the morning.

I have noticed that my morning appetite is connected to my workout habits. If I'm not working out (sick, snowed in, on vacation on a remote island :), I find that I'm not hungry at all in the AM, and I have to make myself eat. However, when I'm working out on my normal schedule, food is my first thought after handling Mother Nature in the mornings. Not sure if there's any science to support this theory, but at least for me...working out and eating breakfast go hand in hand.