Posts Tagged ‘diet’

I’m a Snacker

Posted by Sean on August 29, 2008

Yep, I’ admit it. I’m a snacker.

There was a time in my life when I would snack so bad that I couldn’t stop eating sometimes. We would be watching one of our many favorite TV shows, and I honestly could eat a whole bag of chips in one sitting. It was so subconscious. It was horrible.

That was a major hurdle for me this past year. Learning how to either not snack at all, or to snack more healthy.

I have pretty much eliminated snacking at home. If I do, I grab a yogurt, or some strip-cheese. Every so often I’ll binge on a good pint of ice cream or some cookies, but it’s few and far between.

So now my problem was me snacking at work. I mean in a 12hr shift, nurses exert and use up a CRAP LOAD of energy. And… getting a formal lunch break is unheard of these days with the staffing shortages that have no end in sight. So I of course solved the no lunch problem by eating throughout the day. Yep, snacking.

So I had to figure out how to satisfy my hunger pangs at work, without shoving too much crappy food down my throat. I mean I take a great leap forward with my home habit and then fall 10 steps backward by eating nothing but candy and junk at work.

So I thought I’d share some of the ‘more’ healthy things I eat at work that get me through the day. Now by no means are these things the picture of health. In fact most have a good bit of fat content. But they have a great taste and aren’t as horrible for your body as that Hershey’s Chocolate bar, or a bag of M&M’s. Which I find are so readily available to nurses working in a hospital. Confused

So in no particular order here is what I snack on throughout the day to keep my metabolism in check at work.

Hostess Mini Muffins- great for the on-the-go breakfast snack

15g Fat
32g Carbohydrates
3g Protein

Quaker Oats Oatmeal To Go(sorry for the blurry pic)- also a great breakfast item. I actually eat a lot of these. It’s also a great way of reducing your cholesterol! Winking

4g Fat
44g Carbohydrates
4g Protein

Kellogg’s Special K Bar – this actually surprised me how good they taste

1.5g Fat
18g Carbohydrates
1g Protein

Nature Valley Roasted Peanut Crunch Bar – another surprise on how good these taste

12g Fat
14g Carbohydrates
7g Protein

Cutie Pie Snack Pies- sorry these are just darn good, portable and great tasting. Yep this is the one snack that’s just all around not healthy, but a vice I’m willing to live with. The funny thing is these has less fat than the Peanut Crunch Bar. Blushing

10g Fat
28g Carbohydrates
1g Protein

(Once again, none of these are the epitome of health, but they are also not candy bars!)

Let us keep in mind, the more weight you lose, and the more muscle you gain, the higher your metabolism gets. So your body will burn calories way more efficiently and your hunger pangs will be more frequently. I have trained my body to have a snack or eat a small meal every 2-4hrs these days. So I’m not only keeping my metabolism at a steady level (instead of the roller coastering effect most of us have) but I’m not STORING any of the fat. I burn it up throughout the day due to my frequency and size of my meals. Winking

Even if only one of these items helps, it’s better than nothing at all.

Baby steps folks. Baby steps.

Carpe Diem

Posted in fitness | Tagged: diet, snack | 12 Comments »

Dying to Diet

Posted by Sean on May 27, 2008

So what’s all the craziness about dieting? Do you diet? Do you know someone who is on a diet? Someone who was on a diet?

I’ll bet you do. I’m willing to bet everyone knows at least one if not more than a handful of people who have or had been dieting.

You would think with all the hype about diets and dieting that we would NOT have an obese nation? But it’s exactly the opposite. An astounding greater than 60% of the male and female population of America are obese.

So why the conundrum? We have so many options and so many opportunities for weight loss out there.. yet we seem to remain overweight.

I did a quick Google search yesterday when I was thinking about this post. I less than 2 minutes I was able to find 11 or more different diet plans. And that was without digging deeper.

Everything from Nurtisystem, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, to the lesser known Mediterranean & Water Diet programs. As I was looking into diets… I also noticed the plethora of spokespersons for each diet program. Everyone from Beyonce, Queen Latifah, to Valerie Bertinelli.

So where is one to turn? Which program do you choose? Which program is successful?

So the answer is all of the work and all of them don’t work. I dont know

Yep, they all work for someone. Yep, they all didn’t work for someone.

The problem is no two people are made the same. Your metabolism, your eating habits, your basal metabolic rate are not the same as the spokespersons’, or the same as your best friends, or that great looking model you saw on the internet.

But that’s only part of the equation.

The bottom line. Diets don’t work.

If you want to lose weight, simply buying different food, and following someone’s reccomendations on what to eat, when to eat it, and how much to eat of it then by all means give it a go. But all your going to do is find out the same thing everyone else has and still has to continually discover on your own. Diets, while will initially give you some results, you will bounce back to your pre-diet weight in no time. Ergo the emergence of the “Yo-Yo Diet” Phenomena.

Anyone that has a success story will give you a clue as to what works. It’s called a lifestyle change. In order to change your weight, you are going to have to change the habit’s that created the weight in the first place. I’ll say that again just for posterity. You have to change the HABIT that created the weight in the first place in order to remove the weight you desire.

Here’s the irony of it all. The etymology of the word diet is crudely defined as ‘a manner of living’, or ‘to lead one’s life’. So even the origin of the word knew that you have to change your life, and not just tweaking what, when, and how much food goes into your mouth.

So simply enrolling into a new and improved eating plan will not give the long term weight loss results you want if you don’t change the lifestyle surrounding the food preparation!

My personal vice was always snacking. Boy did I love to snack. Snack while I’m in front of the TV. Snack while I’m working on the computer, etc. And I wouldn’t just have a small snack. NO. I had to eat a whole bag of greasy chips, or cookies. Or I would have a whole pint of ice cream. The list goes on.

It took a lot of discipline, and a lot of self discovery, but I now only snack on little things. In fact, my snacking has become almost non-existent.

With that being said, there is the other part of why dieting does not work.

You are human. You will slip up. You will have a moment of weakness. Heck you may have several moments of weakness. The idea being you keep at it, no matter how many times you break the rules. When you on a diet, everyone talks about ‘cheating’ on there diet. Quit worrying about cheating on your diet, and be human. Give yourself that leniency, in the long run it will be worth it.

Of course there are tons of aspects of dieting I have not even touched on. Everything from dieting with a friend, or making your diet public. To the time and money you spend on simply adjusting your spending habits.

The take home message is this. Dieting ALONE does not, will not and cannot work. If anything, it’s a temporary fix. Make LIFESTYLE changes to take better care of yourself and you’ll see results that are long term.

Here are some truths and pearls of wisdom when referring to dieting, weight loss or fat reduction:

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SPOT REDUCTION- you will not and cannot lose weight just in a particular area of your body!
MULTIPLY THE TIME IT TOOK FOR YOU TO GAIN THE WEIGHT BY 3 OR 4, AND THAT IS HOW LONG IT WILL TAKE TO LOSE IT – sorry it’s true, anything else is just a temporary loss and you will gain it back
THEY DON’T CALL THEM FAD DIETS FOR NOTHING
YO-YO DIETS ARE MORE POPULAR THAN EVER BEFORE
WEIGHT LOSS IS A SIMPLE MATH EQUATION: GET RID OF AND BURN OFF MORE THAN YOU TAKE IN
YOU WILL NOT LOSE WEIGHT IF YOU CAN’T ACCOMPLISH #5, NO MATTER HOW MANY PILLS YOU TAKE
WE ARE A CONVENIENCE SOCIETY – we love to be lazy. When was the last time you purposefully parked farther away when shopping?
DISCIPLINE AND PATIENCE ARE EQUAL PARTNERS IN THIS GAME OF LOSING WEIGHT
THINK ABOUT THE FOOD YOU ARE PUTTING INTO YOUR SYSTEM – are you living to eat, or eating to live?
NO MATTER WHAT RESULTS YOU GET DO NOT POINT FINGERS – the only person responsible for your weight is you.