Tips & Tricks

THE FOLLOWING ARE TIPS TO HELP YOU SUCCEED ON YOUR JOURNEY TO CONSISTENT WEIGHT MANAGEMENT:

      REMEMBER: YOU ARE IN CHARGE!

Prayer and meditation both will help you on your journey to a lifetime of weight management and health. Never underestimate the power of prayer or altered consciousness states such as meditation or self-hypnosis.

• Use smaller plates so that you’ll think you’re eating more.
• Eat on the prettiest plates you have. After all, you are worth it!
• Place your napkin in your lap. People who do so tend to eat less. Additionally, it’s just good manners.
• Mind your portions. On your plate, you should have a protein about the size of your palm (the size of your palm will represent about 4 to 6 ounces). Surrounding your protein should be lots of colorful veggies.
• Always check nutrition fact labels for calories and fiber. Fiber is very important for the prevention of disease and for keeping your digestion “regular.”
• The best oil to use is olive oil, but here’s the trick: Don’t pour it!
• Put olive oil in a spray bottle container and spray it onto your food. The coverage will be perfect for salads while easily avoiding overserving yourself of this healthy but high-calorie fat.
• If you are grilling, use a brush to apply olive oil to your meat or veggies.
• Use a flavored vinegar to make your salads or grilled goods a little more interesting. The best vinegar I’ve found is Orange Muscat Champagne Vinegar from Trader Joe’s.
• I would spray this as well for even coverage in salads or grilling or whatever suits your fancy. But don’t be paradigm bound: be creative and imaginative!!
• Did you know? You can grill all kinds of vegetables. For example: cauliflower, broccoli, corn, skewered mushrooms, and red, yellow, orange, and green bell peppers.
• Try grilling fruit as well. Peaches and pineapples are particularly delicious when grilled.
• Warm beverages can help abate hunger. I suggest plain hot coffee or tea with a cinnamon stick.
• Alternatively, cold water with a wedge of lemon may be perfect for you.
• Keep track of your progress.
• Weigh yourself every day. Write the results down in a small notebook where you can observe your trends week by week.
• If you are committed, you should be able to lose 1-2 pounds per week. If you are not, you may be eating too much or eating the wrong foods.
• In a separate notebook, keep a food diary. Write down everything you eat and include the calories, as best you can. Then, watch what happens with your progress week by week. If you find you are not losing weight, this means you are doing something incorrectly, but you’ll be able to look back at your log to determine what it is.
• As I said earlier, ideal weight management is simple, but not easy. Nevertheless, you can do it.
• Foods naturally contain enough sodium to satisfy your nutritional needs (and too much sodium contributes to a long list of health complications), so keep added salt to a minimum. If you must add salt to a meal, use grinders so you can control the amount easily. Trader Joe’s sells salt grinders for only about $2
• To make your meals more flavorful, use other spices in lieu of extra salt. Most spices at Trader Joe’s are in the $2 range. This is a really great deal! Spices elsewhere can be priced at $6 and up (even at Target).
• Practice Hara Hachi Bu. Hara Hachi Bu is a Confucian teaching that instructs people to eat until they are 80 percent full. In English, the Japanese phrase roughly translates to, “Eat until you are eight parts full” or “Belly 80 percent full”.
• The Okinawans practice this, and they typically live to be more than 100 years old. They have learned to eat slowly and to eat until they are only approximately 80% satisfied. Certainly, they are not “stuffed.”
• Keep in mind: It takes 20 minutes for your brain to register that there is food in your stomach.
• Drink lots of water throughout the day.
• Use turmeric in your cooking, or take a turmeric supplement. Curcumin is the primary active ingredient in this bright yellow spice and has potent anti-inflammatory effects. It is also a powerful antioxidant. Curcumin neutralizes free radicals on its own, then has the added benefit of stimulating the body’s own antioxidant enzymes. It is linked to improved brain function and a lower risk of brain diseases.
• Add cinnamon to your meals. For example, add cinnamon sticks to beverages or ground cinnamon to oatmeal. Be creative. It’s a delicious spice with numerous health benefits. Its benefits are as follows:
  • High source of antioxidants
  • Anti-inflammatory properties
  • Protects heart health
  • Fights diabetes
  • Helps defend against cognitive decline
  • Protects brain function
  • Fights infections and viruses
  • Protects dental health
  • Freshens breath naturally
  • May help lower cancer risk
• A word (or several) on fiber: One of the primary reasons we need dietary fiber is to keep our digestion nice and smooth and to prevent constipation.
• Fiber also helps to protect you from various conditions, including:
  • Diarrhea
  • Irritable Bowel Syndrome
  • Cardiovascular Disease
  • High Blood Sugar
  • Obesity (because high fiber foods are naturally filling)
  • High Blood Pressure
  • and Premature Death. For example, if you add 10 grams of fiber to your daily minimum requisite intake, your risk of dying from heart disease is lowered by 17%.
• It is best to get fiber from the foods we eat, but if you’re not able to eat fibrous foods due to special circumstances (dental surgery, for example), you can always add Dextrin, a soluble, tasteless fiber that can be found in stores virtually everywhere. Its trade name is Benefiber.
• Use apple butter as a spread instead of high calorie, high-fat alternatives.

• Eat oatmeal! It is called a “superfood” for a reason. Oatmeal is low in calories and high in fiber. It makes you feel warm and full and is very good for you!!!
• Try this great way to cook poultry: Squeeze the juice from fresh oranges and lemons into a bowl, then use a small baster to inject the bird with the juice. Stuff the remaining orange and lemon rinds into the bird. Add whatever spices you like. Your dinner will be fantastic, and the poultry will be tasty and tender.
  • Bonus tip: Microwave your oranges and lemons for 10 seconds and they will yield more juice!
• Prepare fruits and veggies so that they are ready to eat and keep them in the FRONT of the fridge so that when you are very hungry you will reach for them first.
• Purchase a spiralizer so you can make squiggly, pasta noodle-like veggies. This works perfectly using zucchini, yellow squash, colored carrots, and other root vegetables. Pour some marinara sauce over your veggie pasta and enjoy!
• Above all, be creative and have fun!!!