HEALTHY EATING
(Disclaimer: I am not a nutritionist – this is presented from a mindful cognitive-behavioral point of view – MOST important: Plan. Enjoy your food, Eat slowly and mindfully, and enjoy eating with your family/friends/etc.)
Make a plan to go online and a healthy vegetable recipe, once a week for 8 weeks, and keep rotating – this is enough to radically improve her diet and to help lose weight, along with at least 20-30 minutes walking outside a day (which is also almost as good, if not as good – according to much research - as a single dose of anti-depressant medication)
suggestions for more “accessible” vegetables (find your own online if these don’t appeal to you):
healthy French fries (hardly more than 5 minutes prep time – or just buy frozen at Ingles),
sweet corn mixed with salsa and fresh tomatoes,
roasted (in oven) portabella mushrooms (with small amount of cheese),
guacamole,
roasted zucchini (with small amount of cheese if that helps),
artichoke with lemon/salt/pepper/mayonnaise dressing,
add store bought salsa or spaghetti sauce to any of the dishes; sauté some onions and garlic in oil with salt and ground pepper to add extra flavor; squeeze on a bit of lemon or lime to taste
Discover one new healthy (fairly low sugar) fruit per week to make weight loss even easier (try a thin spread of healthy no-salt-added peanut butter on a slice of apple; spread banana on buttered toast with St. Dalfour sugar-free jam and fresh or frozen blueberries – takes five minutes and tastes better than pie).
Fastest weight loss of all: identify one highly processed, high calorie food to eat less of each week (high calorie sugar drinks, sugar snacks, salty chips, etc)
Google healthy substitutes for the most popular fast foods; pizza, Subway sandwich, pasta, burgers, fries, etc. Learn one a month.
At the end of four months, you’ll have 16 healthy vegetable dishes, 8 healthy fruits, at least 4 healthy substitutes for fast food, and you’ll have eliminated 16 food items that are probably most responsible for weight gain.
Exercise and Food
If you're just starting an exercise routine, BE SURE you check with your doctor first!
As you probably know, exercise is definitely still considered great for weight loss, but it is only about 20% of the equation. Which means what seems to be a nightmare to figure out food - but it's actually quite simple. People aren't generally aware that Michael Pollan's summary - Eat real food, mostly plants, not too much - is consistent with over 50 years of nutritional science.
If you just cut down as much as possible on processed foods ("Unreal food" as opposed to real food) you're ahead of about 80% of Americans.
If you add to that a health portion of veggies - especially leafy greens and non-starchy vegetables like mushrooms, onions, cauiliflower, eggplant, - and moderate amounts of fruit, you're even further ahead, and ALL diets agree on this. The great thing about learning to love leafy greens and non-starchy vegetables is you can eat as much as you want without gaining weight. You literally can’t eat too much of these foods (as long as you don’t add heavy dressings or sauces!). And they are incredibly good for you.
If you just cut down as much as possible on processed foods ("Unreal food" as opposed to real food) you're ahead of about 80% of Americans.
If you add to that a health portion of veggies - especially leafy greens and non-starchy vegetables like mushrooms, onions, cauiliflower, eggplant, - and moderate amounts of fruit, you're even further ahead, and ALL diets agree on this. The great thing about learning to love leafy greens and non-starchy vegetables is you can eat as much as you want without gaining weight. You literally can’t eat too much of these foods (as long as you don’t add heavy dressings or sauces!). And they are incredibly good for you.
Quite modest (1-2 oz) of nuts and seeds (they're incredibly nutritious but can pack the pounds on pretty quickly), and after that, nobody agrees, but if it suits you, 1 cup each of grains and legumes, OR healthy eggs, fish, lean meat should be fine (that last part is where everyone argues but you can avoid all that just by being sensible).
The key is (a) eating food you love: (b) making it VERY easy (prepare a week worth of soup on Sundays; make oatmeal with fruit and nuts in the morning, learn 4 smoothies you love, make large salads and learn about 4 low-calorie salad dressings you love) (c) inexpensive and (d) healthy (and the last one does NOT have to conflict with the first, eating food you love).
Ok, now exercise. Virtually all exercise scientists agree that a healthy combination of cardio, strengthening and stretching , along with some balance exercises, is the best.
1. Cardio: Everyone now agrees this is the best thing for weight loss. The first principle for food is the same for exercise: "the best exercise is the one you will do - and keep doing the rest of your life". For 40% of Americans, that's walking. I do 3 aerobics classes a week that I love, but Jan and I also walk almost every day. We've been doing this for years and it never gets old - our neighborhood and as many parks and forests as we can find.
It's true that going out dancing, playing tennis and other similar activities is helpful, but generally for exercise, a bit more disciplined cardio is more efficient. But you can get that through swimming, cycling classes (actually, biking can be excellent too, especially if there are hills near you - and also if you want to be gentle on your knees) elliptical and more. But don't make it too complicated. if you dont' do anything else, just start walking (I keep a mini trampoline and light kettle bell - 8 pounds - in my home office and I take 3 or 4 breaks a day to spend a few minutes moving; frequent light activity throughout the day has recently been found to be excellent for health)
1a: High intensity cardio. HIIT: if you're new to this so you probably shouldn't do this, but it helps to know. When you're in better shape, you can do this just by going for a moderate 20 minute walk, and for 1 minute, 3 times, go a bit faster. Ideally HIIT involves going all out, but you DEFINITELY don't want to do that at this stage. I'm just mentioning it because it's part of an all round plan.
2. Strengthening - this is the one where you should be REALLY careful if you're a beginner. LOTS of people get injured with weights. I probably shouldn't say too much here, mainly because I don't have much knowledge in this area but also because it's best being shown in person. I would strongly second another person's suggestion to do at least one or two training sessions. The only thing I'll add is that there are only about 10 exercises that are almost universally considered the "best" - squats, deadlifts, lunges, presses, pulldowns and a few more; you're going to hear about virtually hundreds of different routines but if you pay attention you'll see they're often variations of the basics. Just Google "10 best weight training exercises."
3. Stretching - Pilates is great but if you don't get a good teacher you can also hurt yourself. yoga is amazing (despite what you heard, almost all sincere yoga teachers I know of admit that it's not enough in itself for strengthening OR aerobics). You may be able to find a combination yoga/pilates class. The only thing to keep in mind is you should ALWAYS do dynamic (moving) stretching before static (holding still) stretching.
4. Balance - usually included in any good yoga class.
so, have fun, that's the most important thing. if you love it, you'll keep doing it (or as some folks put it, “The best exercise is the one you DO!!!”
The key is (a) eating food you love: (b) making it VERY easy (prepare a week worth of soup on Sundays; make oatmeal with fruit and nuts in the morning, learn 4 smoothies you love, make large salads and learn about 4 low-calorie salad dressings you love) (c) inexpensive and (d) healthy (and the last one does NOT have to conflict with the first, eating food you love).
Ok, now exercise. Virtually all exercise scientists agree that a healthy combination of cardio, strengthening and stretching , along with some balance exercises, is the best.
1. Cardio: Everyone now agrees this is the best thing for weight loss. The first principle for food is the same for exercise: "the best exercise is the one you will do - and keep doing the rest of your life". For 40% of Americans, that's walking. I do 3 aerobics classes a week that I love, but Jan and I also walk almost every day. We've been doing this for years and it never gets old - our neighborhood and as many parks and forests as we can find.
It's true that going out dancing, playing tennis and other similar activities is helpful, but generally for exercise, a bit more disciplined cardio is more efficient. But you can get that through swimming, cycling classes (actually, biking can be excellent too, especially if there are hills near you - and also if you want to be gentle on your knees) elliptical and more. But don't make it too complicated. if you dont' do anything else, just start walking (I keep a mini trampoline and light kettle bell - 8 pounds - in my home office and I take 3 or 4 breaks a day to spend a few minutes moving; frequent light activity throughout the day has recently been found to be excellent for health)
1a: High intensity cardio. HIIT: if you're new to this so you probably shouldn't do this, but it helps to know. When you're in better shape, you can do this just by going for a moderate 20 minute walk, and for 1 minute, 3 times, go a bit faster. Ideally HIIT involves going all out, but you DEFINITELY don't want to do that at this stage. I'm just mentioning it because it's part of an all round plan.
2. Strengthening - this is the one where you should be REALLY careful if you're a beginner. LOTS of people get injured with weights. I probably shouldn't say too much here, mainly because I don't have much knowledge in this area but also because it's best being shown in person. I would strongly second another person's suggestion to do at least one or two training sessions. The only thing I'll add is that there are only about 10 exercises that are almost universally considered the "best" - squats, deadlifts, lunges, presses, pulldowns and a few more; you're going to hear about virtually hundreds of different routines but if you pay attention you'll see they're often variations of the basics. Just Google "10 best weight training exercises."
3. Stretching - Pilates is great but if you don't get a good teacher you can also hurt yourself. yoga is amazing (despite what you heard, almost all sincere yoga teachers I know of admit that it's not enough in itself for strengthening OR aerobics). You may be able to find a combination yoga/pilates class. The only thing to keep in mind is you should ALWAYS do dynamic (moving) stretching before static (holding still) stretching.
4. Balance - usually included in any good yoga class.
so, have fun, that's the most important thing. if you love it, you'll keep doing it (or as some folks put it, “The best exercise is the one you DO!!!”
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