Why And How To Avoid Tempting Fad Diets

January 8, 2018January 7, 2018

It’s January, it’s a new year, and almost every magazine or health related email you open this month will have advice on what you should and shouldn’t be eating.

It can be really tempting to try the latest fad diet that the fitness and/or diet industry is promoting. It’s a normal human response to be intrigued by all the marketing that these industries roll out in January… especially if you’ve gained a few pounds over the holidays.

While I completely understand the desire to want to lose weight quickly, research continues to show us that restrictive dieting is not very effective long term and can potentially do you more harm than good.

Some of the reasons diets fail you are:

They slow down your metabolism
They cause you to store fat, not burn it
They’re unsustainable for most people’s lifestyle
They are a means to manipulate bodies to become a size they were never designed to be
When you stop starving yourself and go back to normal calorie-consumption, you WILL gain weight
Lack of energy due to being hungry
Some diets ask you to eliminate entire food groups and key nutrients
They can cause binge eating due to a scarcity mentality
They can cause stress which is known to cause belly fat due to hormonal changes in the body

There is nothing wrong with wanting to lose unwanted weight. I recently lost a few pounds after recovering from a broken foot. What’s important to remember is that long term, sustainable, weight loss happens when you focus more on health and less on the size of your jeans.

Healthy weight loss is not about counting calories just to reach a number on a scale. It’s about feeling good, having plenty of energy, feeding your brain properly, creating balance in your life, being happy, and allowing your body to settle into it’s own natural and healthy weight. Things like eating the appropriate amount of food, cutting back on the foods and or liquids that you know are excessive, avoiding overly processed foods, and meal planning are all considered healthy eating, not starvation diets or skipping meals entirely.

HERE ARE Seven TIPS THAT WILL HELP YOU LOSE WEIGHT WITHOUT DIETING

1) Eat enough food. It absolutely amazes me that there are still diets out on the market today that recommend dangerously low calorie meal plans when the science says otherwise. Your body will get really good at storing what it doesn’t get enough of. For example, if you eliminate fat from your diet, your body will not want to burn fat. It will want to store fat. Sound nutritional research tells us that you need to eat fat in order to burn fat. I am a firm believer that the low fat and low carb craze has contributed heavily to the weight issues in the United States.

Instead of restricting what you eat, you’ll find more success when you focus on a balanced diet that is centered around whole foods. A balanced diet includes carbohydrates, proteins, fruits & vegetables, healthy fats, and water. Any diet that cuts one of these important nutrients out should be avoided.

2) Exercise. One of the most effective ways to lose weight for good is a combination of eating well AND regular exercise. However, there are many other reasons we should all be exercising regularly besides a desire to lose weight. Research shows that exercise can help with depression, lower the risk for heart disease and cancer, reduce the risk of diabetes, and even grow new brain cells. Exercise is an excellent anti-aging tool!

3) Eat in. Cook at home as often as you can and bring your lunch. When I make our food, I get to choose how much butter, oil, salt, and sugar I add. Sometimes I add more than the recipe calls for and sometimes I cut it back. I can also make substitutions that I think are healthier for us like swapping out more refined grains for whole grains, adding more veggies, and choosing oils that I believe are better than others.

4) Cut back on liquid calories. Try substituting alcohol, sodas, and other higher calorie drinks with water. Try adding lemon or cucumber for some variation.

If cutting out liquid calories sounds extreme, take a more moderate approach and cut down to half or even a quarter of what you usually drink. You can always go back to your normal consumption if you want to. This is about figuring out what works for you personally.

5) Get plenty of rest. Substantial medical evidence is telling us that a lack of sleep affects hormones which are linked to an increase in appetite. Your body becomes less satisfied and you are tempted to eat more food than you may actually need. Sleep deprivation can also affect your hormones in such a way that your metabolism will literally slow down. The National Sleep Foundation recommends 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night.

6) Tell guilt to take a hike. First off, guilt should never be associated with food ever. When I go into a restaurant I order what I want and I do not feel guilty about my choices. Guilty thoughts that attempt to beat us up usually come from a desire to be perfect. And, even though most of us know that perfection is impossible, much of the”professional” advertising we see focuses on displaying perfection as a form of happiness or acceptance. Thank goodness for social media! Live raw video helps to remind us that nobody is perfect and to give ourselves a break.

7) Be yourself. It’s really important that you know what’s most important to you. Not everyone wants to be or was designed to look like the models on the cover of fitness magazines. If challenging yourself to reach an elite athlete status is fun for you and you can achieve it in a healthy way, then by all means go for it! However, if you know in your heart you’d just like to live a long healthy life, fit in your clothes, and have the stamina to do the activities you enjoy without a whole lot of restrictions in your life, then general health and fitness is for you so please don’t beat yourself up because you’re not “doing whatever it takes” to try to look like a fitness model. Perfection is overrated and impossible to achieve. Even fitness models don’t look like their photos all of the time.

Instead of dieting, I recommend you pick as many things from above that you can realistically implement without stressing yourself out and then stay consistent. Diet and exercise are very personal which is why a canned approach rarely works. We all have different lives, different goals, and different needs. 🙂

Here’s to a happy and healthy 2018!

Shared with love,

Jennifer

It’s Time To Stop Dieting And Start Living

April 17, 2017April 17, 2017

I recently had the opportunity to talk with a gorgeous woman who began dieting at the age of six. 🙁 Her story and some of the things that people have said to her throughout her life broke my heart. She spent years trying to fit in and force her body to be what society wanted her to be rather than who she was designed to be. She tried every diet she could find and, in the end, every single one of them failed her.

If you have ever struggled with weight loss, you are not alone. Solid science continues to confirm that a restrictive, weight-focused approach doesn’t work. In a review of 31 long-term studies on dieting, Medicare’s Search for Effective Obesity Treatments: Diets Are Not the Answer, the authors shared that “there is little support for the notion that diets lead to lasting weight loss or health benefits.” Their studies found that most people are unable to maintain weight loss over the long term and one-third to two-thirds of dieters regain more weight than they lost.

Yet the billion dollar diet industry continues to promise things it usually can’t deliver and, in most cases, does more harm than good to the person on the diet. Even the diets that don’t wreak havoc on your body’s metabolism leave a dust trail of heartache behind them due to the emotional and psychological harm they can cause.

It’s time that we as a society STOP dieting and focusing on weight all of the time. It’s time that we give ourselves permission to start living and stop allowing the fitness and diet industry’s narrow definition of what “healthy” looks like to control our lives. Dining with family and friends is one of the simplest pleasures in life. Food is SO much more than fuel. It’s cultural, it’s memories, and it’s fun.

How To Stop Dieting And start living

To stop dieting does not mean that you “let yourself go” or slip into a food “free for all.” It means that you are going to eat appropriate portions of tasty food when you are hungry, learn what works best for you, and discover what a healthy baseline or body weight is for you.

A healthy body weight is normally a weight that you can maintain without restricting yourself from the things you enjoy. We all have our own natural weight where our body is most comfortable and can maintain itself. We also know when we are overdoing it any area of our lives and if there are things we should cut back on like sugar, alcohol, etc. Practicing moderation should be about your health, not about numbers on the scale. When you focus on truly being healthy instead of skinny, weight loss is often times a natural byproduct.

Diets don’t work and they can create stress in many areas of your life. No one needs more stress in their life. If you have been struggling with dieting, I encourage you to give up the diet mentality once and for all. Embrace your natural body type and allow yourself to focus on creating a happy, healthy, and fulfilling lifestyle.

Here’s to saying no to dieting and yes to LIVING!

Shared with love,
Jennifer

How Much Rest Should You Get After A Workout?

March 6, 2017May 9, 2017

How Much Rest Should You Get After A Workout? by Jennifer Ledford

Recently, I was scrolling through my newsfeed on one of my social media pages and came across a friend’s post that asked a question regarding exercise and rest.

While I love, love, loved the enthusiasm the people commenting on the post showed toward exercise, some of the comments or answers were either outdated or tailored to their own personal needs which may or may not have been appropriate or safe for the person asking the question. Exercise, just like diet, is very personal which is why it’s always a good idea to consult with someone that’s trained to answer your question and has a proven track record in the field.

Seeing this post reminded me that while most people know it’s a good idea to exercise, not everyone understands that rest and recovery is JUST as important as exercise itself.

Rest days allow your muscles, nerves, bones, and connective tissue time to rebuild. It’s during this rebuilding process that they grow back stronger. A lack of rest or “overtraining” can leave the body susceptible to injury and even slow the metabolism down.

Resting after exercise does not necessarily mean you are sitting on the couch all day. Most of the time, active rest is best. The body is designed to move and “sitting” for too long can negatively affect someone’s health. There can be solid medical reasons for someone to get off their feet and rest for longer periods of time. However, if you have been medically cleared for exercise, active rest is usually best.

How much active rest your body needs after exercise is personal. Your fitness level, the type of exercise you are performing, and what your body needs will all come into play.

RECOMMENDED TYPES OF EXERCISE AND REST

Some examples of types of exercise and recommended rest are:

Interval Training. High intensity interval training, also known as HIIT, is an effective way to burn calories in a short period of time and can improve cardiovascular health as well as blood pressure. HIIT formulas consist of short “bouts” or intervals of an exercise that feel hard or very hard to maintain followed by a recovery interval that is easy to maintain. Interval based cycling classes, interval programs designed for exercise machines, Tabata training, and interval based group exercise or circuit routines are some examples of interval training.

The recovery guidelines for HIIT training are pretty straightforward. After performing a HIIT workout, you will want to wait a minimum of 48 hours before repeating another. It’s VERY important to allow your body to recover properly from high interval training to avoid overtraining which can have a negative effect on your body.

Years ago, when spinning or cycling classes entered the fitness scene, people (mostly women) were so thrilled with the physical results they were getting from their “spin” classes, they began attending them five, sometimes six, days per week. Many of them began to plateau and others actually saw the scale go up due to their metabolisms slowing down. When it comes to high intensity training, too much can produce the opposite effect you were looking for. A moderate cardio workout or strength routine (depending on what you did during your interval workout) are great ways to actively recover during your 48-hour rest period.

2. Moderate Exercise. The fitness industry considers anything that gets your heart rate up to 50 to 60 percent higher than its rate when you are at rest moderate intensity exercise. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend 30-45 minutes of moderate exercise most days of the week for health purposes. Doing some sort of moderate exercise daily is optimal which is what makes moderate exercise so popular because you can pretty much do it every day without having to take a rest.

Some examples of moderate activity include:

Walking your dog
Biking
Swimming laps
Jogging
Moderate Intensity Water Aerobics
Gardening for 30 minutes
Raking leaves for 30 minutes
House cleaning for 30-45 minutes

3. Strength Training. One of the simplest ways to know you need to rest a muscle after strength training is if it is sore. It’s important to note how long your muscle soreness lasts. Soreness from proper training should not last more than 48 hours after the workout. If you are sore for longer than 48 hours it usually means that you’ve “overtrained” or worked the muscles too hard and need to scale back just a bit.

A good rule of thumb is to allow the muscles you specifically worked to actively rest for 48 hours before strength-training them again. A good balance is to train other muscles or perform moderate cardio on off days. For years, strength training three to four days per week has been a popular formula in the fitness industry because it allows for a good amount of recovery time.

Your body is smart. It will tell you when it’s time to rest and it’s important to listen to it! When we balance our exercise and rest properly, the body can get stronger and build more endurance. Or, for some of us, simply help you maintain the strength you already have. At the end of the day, exercise shouldn’t make you feel run down. It should leave you feeling good!

Here’s to a lifetime of health and happiness!