Samantha and I are in privileged company this week – we’re looking forward to a guest post from Louis Ignarro Ph.D, Nobel Laureate*,  consultant to Herbalife and member of the Herbalife Nutrition Institute Nutrition Advisory Board, in which he’ll describe the impact of a healthy, active lifestyle on heart health.   A healthy diet is, as Dr. Ignarro says, “as good for your heart as it is for your taste buds.” 

I couldn’t have said it better.  But what I often run into with my patients is that it’s one thing to know what to eat – and why (okay, that’s two things…) – but they often get hung up figuring out how to incorporate more healthy foods into their diet.  So let’s take a good look at the key “whats”, “whys” and – more importantly – the “how tos” of a heart healthy diet.

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Want to shape up for summer?  Don’t wait until the last minute!  If you start now, you’ve got six weeks or so – plenty of time to see some serious results before swimsuit season starts.

I’m nudging you now, because many people have the tendency to put this off.  As in, “I’m going on a surfing trip next week and I can’t be seen looking like this”  A crash diet to take off a couple of pounds in a week might make you slightly less self-conscious in your board shorts, but if you really want to make some headway before swimsuit season, the time to start is now. 

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Have you reached a weight loss plateau? If your weight loss has stalled, take a look at my top 5 tips to get help you avoid a weight loss plateau and achieve your dream weight.

One of the more frustrating parts of weight loss is the inevitable weight loss plateau.  Everything seems to be going along fine, and then all of a sudden – no matter what you do – you find that the scale just doesn’t budge.  When you find that your weekly weight loss has stalled that’s often known as a ‘weight loss plateau’ and many dieters find the sudden lack of progress deeply frustrating. Let me help you understand why your weight may plateau and give you some ideas to make sure you continue to meet your goals so that your weight will start moving again.

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Small changes to your recipes can lead to big calorie cuts.  A few ingredient swaps can make home-cooked dishes so much healthier.

Now that the holidays are solidly behind us, the reality of those New Year’s promises we made to ourselves are starting to settle in.  Many of us start out the New Year with big plans for big changes…which is why all this month we’re focusing on the ‘little things’.  That’s because small steps – taken together – can add up to big results, and are often easier to handle than huge sweeping changes that can be unsettling. In the last post, I made some suggestions for small changes you can make at the grocery store – that is, after all, where the path to healthy eating begins.  But now that you’ve brought your healthy ingredients into the house, you want to make sure to keep them that way when it’s time to cook. And with just a few small changes, you can make every dish you prepare at home a little bit better for you.

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Last week, I was interviewed by one of our local news channels about a ‘new’ strategy for weight loss. The idea goes a little bit beyond “thinking your way thin” – which focuses on behavior change when it comes to food choice – to something more like, “believing your way thin”. It’s basically an attitude adjustment. If you tell yourself – and believe – that you’re already a healthy, active person who eats well, then you’re much more likely to behave like one. And those healthy behaviors should, in turn, lead you closer to your goal.

The psychology of weight loss focuses mostly on shifting one’s approach to food – like determining what it is that leads to overeating, and how to replace bad behaviors with good ones. It also means teaching our inner voices to ‘talk nice’. Positive self-talk means that we don’t beat ourselves up when we slip – instead, our inner voices remind us that just because we slipped, it doesn’t mean we have to fall.

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Last week, I had a conversation that I’ve probably had hundreds of times in my career. A new client came in for weight loss counseling and, as I was taking his diet history, I asked my usual first question – “when do you first start eating, and what do you typically eat and drink in a day?” Like most people, he assumed that I was asking about a weekday, so he had little trouble providing a quick rundown of his usual meals and snacks on a typical Monday through Friday. But when I asked, “do you eat differently on the weekends?” he responded with a groan.

 “I try to be good during the week, but by Friday night, I just want to let go. I spend most of my weekend on the couch, and I hate getting on the scale on Monday morning.”

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Going gluten-free has gotten a lot easier lately.  Gluten-free products – everything from bagels to beer– are showing up on store shelves like never before.  And consumers can’t get enough. Last year alone, Americans spent $2.6 billion on gluten-free foods, and they’re hungry for more.  For those who have a true intolerance or sensitivity to gluten – a protein found in wheat, rye and barley – these foods are blessing.  But many of these products are being snapped up by those who tolerate gluten just fine – in the belief that going gluten-free is a great strategy for weight loss.  And to them, I say, “buyer beware” – because gluten-free doesn’t necessarily mean low calorie.

This glut of gluten-free products reminds me of the avalanche of low-carb foods that was dumped into stores at the tail end of the low-carbohydrate diet craze a few years ago.  When the low-carbohydrate diet was first popular, meals consisted mainly of protein and fat, a very limited number of fruits and vegetables – and not much of anything else.  Staying within the day’s carbohydrate allotment was pretty easy – since food choices were so limited – and calorie counting wasn’t necessary.  Even with the promise that they could eat all the meat they wanted, people lost weight.  But this was due, in part, because boredom set in.  With so little variety, people simply ended up eating less.  There’s only so much meat a person can eat at a sitting, day after day. 

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A few months ago, I got a call from a long-time patient who hadn’t been in for a while. The last time I had seen her, she was doing so well with her diet and exercise program – she lost about 25 pounds with another 20 to go – that we agreed to loosen the reins between us a bit. So when she called, I expected her to give me the good news that she’d reached her goal. Instead, she asked if she could come back in to see me – and if she could bring her husband.

 “You need to talk to him,” she said, “because lately, I feel like he’s sabotaging me. Every time I turn around, he’s bringing goodies into the house. Then last night he told me that he liked me better when I had more meat on my bones!”

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Let’s face it – losing weight is no simple task.  If it were, we’d surely see fewer people struggling to get their weight down and keep it off.  Taking in fewer calories than you spend every day sounds like a simple enough formula, but counting calories accurately – both the ones that you eat and the ones that you burn – takes considerable practice. 

 On top of the calorie counting problem, I’ve found many dieters – with good intentions, mind you – who make critical mistakes when it comes to devising their own health plans.  So when patients tell me they can’t lose weight, it’s often because they’re committing a few of these common dieting mistakes.

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