Most of my clients know the healthy eating drill pretty well – keep your fats down, eat plenty of fruits and veggies, make most of your grains “whole” and focus on low fat protein. But many of them have adopted some eating habits that they truly believe are healthy – and I have to spend some time trying to convince them otherwise. These eating habits sound like they’re healthy – but they really end up being less so when they’re put into practice. Are your eating habits as healthy as you think they are? Read more »

A couple of weeks ago, I posted my top 10 resolutions for a healthier 2012.   Maybe you’re already doing many of the things on the list – in which case your list of resolutions will look a little different from mine.  But as you’re thinking about your own health and fitness goals for the upcoming year, I’d like to add a few words of encouragement – with some thoughts on how you can make promises to yourself that you can actually keep. Read more »

People often ask me if there are certain foods that they should – or shouldn’t – eat at the same time.  Some people have heard, for example, that “if you don’t eat proteins and carbs at the same meal, you’ll lose weight” – but a study published about ten years ago¹ debunked that idea.  On the other hand, there is another concept around ‘food combining’– sometimes called food synergy – which recognizes that certain foods offer bit more nutritional benefit when eaten together than if you eat them separately.  Think of it as a nutritional ‘one and one makes three’.

• Colorful veggies with a little fat.  Many fruits and vegetables contain compounds called carotenoids – natural pigments that give foods like tomatoes, carrots and spinach their beautiful hues – from the pigments lycopene, beta-carotene and lutein, respectively.  Carotenoids function as antioxidants in the body, which is one reason why fruits and vegetables are such an important part of a healthy diet.  But if you eat your veggies with a little bit of fat, your body is able to take up more carotenoids.  So adding some healthy fat from avocado or olive oil to your salad will help you absorb the lutein from the romaine lettuce, the beta-carotene from the carrots, and the lycopene from the tomatoes. 

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One of the most common complaints that I hear from my weight-loss clients is that they’re “hungry all the time.”  Often when I hear this, I first have to help them sort what it actually means to be hungry.  True hunger is usually felt first in the stomach – as blood sugar drops, the body releases hormones that stimulate the stomach to contract, and you get hunger pangs.  But some people confuse hunger with wanting to eat – which is actually appetite, not hunger.  To help them learn the difference, I ask them to let a moderate amount of hunger to set in – to really recognize the body’s signals that say “time to eat” – and to put the fork down when they feel comfortable – not stuffed.

It also helps to incorporate healthier, filling foods along the way.   Because in the end – no matter how you define it – if you feel hungry, it’s going to be a lot harder to stick with the program. So here’s my list of some of the most filling foods you can eat.

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