You’ll usually only find carob at health food stores or in the “healthy food” aisle of the regular grocery store. So, what are the advantages of substituting carob for chocolate? How do the two compare nutritionally? Find out in this week’s show.
Author: Monica Reinagel, MS, LDN
Is Krill Better than Fish Oil?
I’ve gotten half a dozen requests from readers to weigh in on krill oil, an omega-3 supplement that’s supposed to be even better for you than fish oil! Of course, it’s also more expensive. So let’s take a closer look at what advantages krill oil might (or might not) offer and whether it’s worth the premium price. Read or listen to it here.
How Important is a Varied Diet?
We hear a lot about the importance of eating a varied diet, but is it truly essential? Why couldn’t you just eat the same healthy meal plan every day? I discuss the advantages (and potential disadvantages) of a varied diet in this week’s episode. Read or listen to it here.
Coping with an Unsupportive Environment
It’s a lot easier to change your eating habits when everyone in the family is on board. But they often aren’t. In this week’s episode, I have tips for how to stick to your program even if others in the household are not being supportive. Read or listen to it here.
How to Overcome an Unsupportive Environment
I got a letter this week from a listener that I know will resonate with many of you. Meredith writes:
“I need to lose about 20 pounds. But I have three growing sons and a husband who stays thin no matter what he eats. I have tried getting the junk out of the house but after a few days, the guys end up making a run to the store for chips and candy. Even if I don’t buy it, it seems impossible to keep it out of the house. How do I ease the whole family away from the junk food and toward healthier choices? I know we would all benefit even if I am the only one looking to lose weight. Do you have any tips for overcoming resistance to a healthier lifestyle?”
This article is also available as a podcast. Click to listen.
Meredith faces a tough challenge, and one that I encounter frequently in my nutrition counseling practice. One spouse wants to make a change but the other wants to keep things just the way they are, and this creates a lot of tension.
Although couples and families frequently have to negotiate over conflicting priorities, in this case, the person agitating for change usually feels that their desires should prevail. After all, as Meredith argues, cutting down on junk food would be good for everyone in the household.
But of course, Meredith’s desire to improve her family’s eating habits is not entirely altruistic. If you’ve ever tried to lose weight—or even just to overhaul your eating habits—you know that controlling the environment is a huge factor. It’s hard to choose carrot sticks over corn chips and apple slices instead of ice cream—especially at first.
Meredith recognizes that keeping tempting foods out of the house will make it a lot easier for her to make healthy choices and to succeed in her goal of losing weight. And her family’s unwillingness to support her efforts by keeping the house junk-food-free can feel like sabotage.
How to Change in an Unsupportive Environment
The first step, of course, is to let your significant other, family, or roommate know what you’re trying to do and why, and how their actions affect you. You can ask for their help and support—but you might not get it. However, this cannot be your excuse to give up. Here are 4 strategies that can help you stick to your guns even without the support of those in your household.
- Divide and Conquer. If household members insist on bringing foods into the house that you find tempting, try to establish one cupboard where those foods will be stored…and discipline yourself to stay away from that cupboard. It helps if the “junk” cupboard can be out of the way. By the same token, clear out an easily accessible cupboard to stock with “approved” snacks and foods. You can do the same thing with shelves in the fridge.
- Establish No-Snack Zones. Sticking to your guns while watching a movie, working on the computer, or spending time with your family may be challenging if the family room is a 24-hour snack buffet. Even if you can’t control what or when they eat, it helps if you can at least control where they eat it. Confine food and snacks to the kitchen and dining room or some other space and reserve living areas for living.
- Live and Let Live. Make a deal with your family. You won’t lecture them about their eating habits but they cannot make any comments about yours, either. No teasing about what you’re missing. No snarky comments about rabbit food. No comments that “you’re perfect just the way you are.” Keep in mind that people who don’t want to change often try to prevent the people around them from changing because it takes the pressure off of them.
- Find Support Outside the Home. Just because you don’t have the support of your family, doesn’t mean you have to go it alone. It’s never been easier to connect with friends or even total strangers who share your goals and can offer moral support. You can communicate by text message, post on an online forum, use social networking sites, or pick up the phone.
How to Get Others to Change
Finally, let me address the part of Meredith’s question that has to do with convincing her kids and husband to join her in her quest to eat healthier. I’ve talked in the past about strategies for instilling healthy eating habits in kids. But these tips are most effective when your kids are small and you’re still able to call the shots about what they eat. Once kids are old enough to run to the store for chips and candy on their own, it’s a lot tougher to control their eating habits. You could try to sell your boys and husband on the benefits of a healthy diet but the fact is that trying to get other people to change when they don’t want to is usually a huge waste of energy.
Your energy is better spent focusing on your own goals and priorities. Be the change you want to see in the world (or, in this case, in your kitchen). In other words, instead of nagging your loved ones about what they should and shouldn’t eat, simply model those healthy eating habits and enjoy the benefits. Be patient. As your new habits get more ingrained, and the benefits more apparent, it will get easier to stick with them. And don’t be surprised if some of your new healthy eating habits end up rubbing off on the rest of the family, after all. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Originally published at QuickandDirtyTips.com
Paula Deen Wastes Her Teachable Moment
When the news of Paula Deen’s Type 2 Diabetes diagnosis first broke, I was hopeful that it might provide a “teachable moment” for the millions of fans who cherish Paula and relish her over-the-top brand of culinary naughtiness. Instead, Paula seems to be sending a very different message; one that I find quite dangerous. Read or listen to more here.
Biggest Nutrition Traps
This special three-part series takes a look at the most common mistakes even nutrition-savvy people make with their diets. In the first installment, I talk about the all-important difference between natural and healthy. In the second part, I talk about quality vs. quantity. In the final installment, I discuss the importance of focusing on the average (or, mean) rather than the extremes in your diet.
Nutrition Trap #3: Mean vs. Extreme
n the first installment of this three-part series, I talked about the all-important difference between natural and healthy (we often make the mistake of thinking that something is good for you just because it’s all-natural or organic). In the second part, I talked about quality vs. quantity (even when a food is good for you, it doesn’t necessarily follow that you can eat as much of it as you want). And today, in the final installment, I want to talk about focusing on the average (or, mean) rather than the extremes in your diet.
This article is also available as a podcast. Click to listen:
The Thanksgiving Trap
A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, a writer called to interview me for a piece she was doing. The average Thanksgiving dinner is said to contain 3,000 calories. Her story was on ways to burn 3,000 calories over the course of the Thanksgiving-day weekend, ostensibly neutralizing the effect of the big meal.
It was a cute idea but it’s a perfect example of how we tend to overestimate the impact of our most extreme behavior and underestimate the importance of our typical behavior. Obviously, a single day of over-indulging is not going to make you fat, any more than a single hyper-active weekend is going to keep you slim. How much you eat and exercise on all the rest of the days of the year is what’s really going to determine your size and shape.
The Sin and Repent Cycle
We seem to be wired to pay more attention to the exception rather than the norm. If we’ve been really “bad,” our impulse is to make up for it by being really “good” for a day or two. But in reality, it’s not our worst days or our best days that tell the story. It’s not the day that our team wins the Superbowl and we celebrate by polishing off an entire tray of nachos. Nor is it the next day, when we do penance by eating nothing but cabbage broth. It’s all the days in between.
Think of it like a grade point average. Getting an A is great. So is going an entire week without French fries. But a single A has a relatively minor impact on a solid C average. And a single French-fry-less week doesn’t do too much to offset the effects of eating French fries the other 51 weeks of the year. Your grade point average would be higher if you focused on getting all Bs—even if you never got a single A. And you’d be better off nutritionally if you cut your French fries consumption in half over the course of the entire year than if you cut them out entirely for a single week.
To put this concept into practice, download the free Nutrition GPA app!
Focus on the Mean, Not the Extreme
In other words, small positive changes that become a permanent part of your routine have a much bigger impact than big dramatic gestures that last only a few days. So don’t waste too much energy fretting over a particularly bad choice you may have made—and don’t exhaust your willpower on an extreme but short-term correction. Focus instead on improving your nutritional grade point average by making your typical day a little healthier.
This article was originally published at QuickandDirtyTips.com