5 Secrets to a Healthy Weight
New year, new you
January 2009 | By Elaine Ambrose
Reprinted with permission from Taste For Life

So long, sweets, treats, and festive dinners. Hello, resolutions. It's time to take stock and assess the damage. 

Whether you dodged adding pounds during the holidays (kudos!) or indulged and bulged, January's a good month to renew your pledge to a healthy lifestyle. Here are five tips to strengthen that resolve.

1. Keep a food journal.
Forget swords — the pen is mightier than the fork. In a recent study, participants who kept food diaries shed twice as much weight as those who didn't. Successful losers found that when they were about to snack, just the thought of having to write down "brownie, 1:25 p.m." made them reconsider. Others found it easier to pass on seconds at mealtimes — they didn't want to revisit them in black and white. Sounds simple, right? After all, record keeping is a successful behavioral technique for setting and reaching all kinds of goals. But many dieters  don't stick with it. For those who do, the impact is powerful.

Use a diary along with a calorie-counting guide. When you realize the caloric cost of some of your choices, you may opt for healthier ones. You can use your computer to track what you eat, or download a simple week-long food and activity diary from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Web site (www.nhlbi.nih.gov). Besides what you eat, record your daily physical activity. (This part you'll like writing down.) Set a goal, like walking 30 minutes a day for a week. When you reach it, reward yourself with a nonfood treat — a movie, an afternoon off, a bubble bath — whatever makes you feel good.

2. Stop emotional eating.
We often turn to food for comfort when we're stressed, sad, lonely, angry, or just bored. And seldom does celery offer solace or distraction. High-calorie, sweet, salty, and fatty foods make emotional eating one of the biggest pitfalls to maintaining a healthy weight.

Figure out your triggers. What situations, places, times of the day, or even people tend to make you head for comfort foods? Recording these can help you take control. Learn how to tell if your hunger is physical or emotional with these tips from the University of Texas:

• Emotional hunger comes on suddenly; true physical hunger comes on gradually.
• Emotional hunger is related to cravingsùonly a certain food, like pizza or ice cream, will do. If you're physically hungry, a number of options will satisfy.
• Emotional hunger demands immediate attention. Physical hunger can wait.
• If you're eating because you're really hungry, it's easier to stop when you feel full — not so with emotional eating.
• Emotional eating is far more likely to leave you feeling guilty.

Take a holistic view. Regular exercise and a healthy diet will help you cope with negative situations that trigger emotional eating. Whole grains, low-fat dairy, fruits and veggies, and lean protein will keep you feeling full longer so you eat less. They'll also give you more stamina for exercise, which in turn can help you cope with stress.

Try a walk or yoga, meditation, or deep-breathing exercises to help control the urge to eat for emotional reasons. Call a supportive friend or listen to relaxing music. Take a tea break. These activities may buy you time to assess your hunger.
Still have the urge to eat? Choose healthy foods — fresh fruit, air-popped popcorn, fat-free yogurt, or raw veggies, prepped and waiting in your fridge. Make your home a junk-food-free zone.

3. Separate good fats from bad.
A major source of energy, fats help us stay sharp, are instrumental in blood clotting, and assist in preventing cancer cells from forming. They aid in absorption of certain vitamins and are needed for regulating blood pressure and heart rate.

Monounsaturated fats (in olive, canola, and peanut oils) are healthy, as are polyunsaturated fats (in soybean, corn, sunflower, and safflower oils as well as fish oils). Increase your intake of omega-3 fatty acidsùhealthy, polyunsaturated fats found in fish like salmon, mackerel, and herring. Aim for two servings a week. Don't like seafood? You'll find these good fats in walnuts, flaxseeds, and flaxseed oil too.

Bad fats are the crucial problem. Decrease intake, especially, of saturated and trans fats. Found mainly in whole milk, cheese, butter, beef, and pork, saturated fats are used by the liver to make cholesterol. This can cause an increase in LDL (bad cholesterol) levels. Limit saturated fats in your diet.

Trans fat is the one to avoid. This man-made fat raises LDL cholesterol and lowers HDL (good cholesterol). To steer clear, reduce your intake of processed and fried foods, and become a label reader. Manufacturers can advertise 0 grams trans fat in foods with less than 0.5 grams per serving, making nutrition labels confusing. Instead check the ingredients label and avoid foods that include the words ôhydrogenatedö or "partially hydrogenated oil."

4. Try supportive supplements.
A daily multivitamin/mineral is important during any weight-loss plan. In addition, green tea helps boost metabolism so you burn calories and fat more efficiently, and it may suppress appetite.

Research has also linked supplemental calcium with improved weight control among middle-aged women. Remember to balance supplemental calcium with magnesium; many experts suggest a 2:1 calcium/magnesium ratio.

Consider chromium, another mineral that is often lacking in our diets. Needed to regulate insulin production, chromium is useful for overall health and weight management.

Research also suggests that pro-biotics can help to control weight. These good bacteria not only stimulate a healthy immune system but also improve digestive health. Probiotics are found in cultured dairy products with active live cultures, such as kefir and yogurt. Foods that support probiotics and help them to flourish in the gut include spices, berries, apples, and beans.

5. Move it to lose it.
Exercise plus a weight-loss program results in losing not only pounds but also visceral, or belly, fat. In addition to a brisk, 30-minute walk most days, consider strength training with weights to build muscle and boost metabolic rate. You'll also increase energy and stamina to help you stay active all day, improve balance, and minimize appearance of cellulite, since muscle will smooth out lumpy fat. You may even sleep better. Strength training is also thought to improve how the body processes sugar, which may lower diabetes risk.

Begin with lighter weightsùthree or five poundsùand build up gradually. If you can't do eight exercises in a row, try a lighter weight. If you can lift a weight more than fifteen times, use a slightly heavier one. Never train the same muscle group two days in a row, as muscles need time to recover. For basic information on weight training, borrow a book or video from the library if you donÆt have access to a trainer. And if you haven't exercised in some time, check with your healthcare provider before beginning a program.

selected sources

• "Chocoholics Rejoice! More Benefits Found in Heart Study," CNN.com, 11/06
• “17 Best Foods for Dieters” by Kathleen M. Zelman, MPH, RD, LD, www.webmd.com, 2/14/08
• Flat Belly Diet! by Liz Vaccariello with Cynthia Sass, MPH, RD ($25.95, Rodale, 2008)
• “An Obesity-Associated Gut Microbiome with Increased Capacity for Energy Harvest” by Peter J. Turnbaugh et al., Nature, 12/06
• “Weight Loss During the Intensive Intervention Phase of the Weight-Loss Maintenance Trial” by Jack F. Hollis, PhD, et al., American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 8/08
• “Weight-Loss Help: How to Stop Emotional Eating” by the Mayo Clinic Staff, www.mayoclinic.com, 12/1/07
• “Writing Down Every Morsel Doubles Weight Loss” by Steve Mitchell, Fitness Matters, 11-12/08