Exercising and Diet ... Two Peas in a Pod

Italy here I come!!! In less than two weeks John and I are Tuscany bound along with three other couples. I am so excited. I have never left the Country and cannot believe I will be seeing beautiful Italy. I have heard so many stories of how romantic and gorgeous it is there. We plan to do some of our site seeing by bike with our tour guide who is a professional cyclist in Italy. How cool is that? But no worries, we also rented a 10 passenger van so we didn’t have to be on our bikes all day long. I’ll let you know how the trip goes when I return.


Have you been to the doctor at any time and the doctor recommended that you lose weight? Did you leave the doctor frustrated at all because you’re not sure at how to go about losing weight? You may even be confused because the doctor didn’t say to lose weight because you are grossly overweight but were told your blood sugars are elevated, or that you had a change in your cholesterol levels or because you have been running higher than normal blood pressures. Most feel overwhelmed when told to lose weight because they don’t know how to do it so they don’t. It truly is a vicious cycle. Doctors are not trained to teach you how to lose weight and they are not dieticians. So we leave the doctors office not sure of what to do. Does this scenario sound familiar?

Have you ever known a friend who went on a diet, lost a lot of weight and when the diet was over they gained back the weight plus more. Sadly, this is what happens. I kind of describe it like this. When you diet you eat less calories, lose a lot of water weight, lose muscle (muscle weighs more than fat) and your metabolism slows down therefore your weight drops. When you stop dieting most end up eating food higher in calories and higher in fat over time, they now have less strength, the fluctuation of fluid returns and their metabolism is now slower yet they are now consuming more calories which are turning back into fat. Can you see where I am going with this? To lose weight, dieting is just the first part of the equation. Exercise is the second and honestly, one cannot work without the other. One easy way to begin watching your food intake is when you go to a restaurant and you are served your meal ask for the doggy bag first. Put half of the meal in the doggy bag. Why?? Most meals at a restaurant are large enough for 2 to 3 servings. My clients find this tip very helpful when they first begin to change their eating habits. Portion control is a big deal and most people overeat at any given meal time. I find that many enjoy the “crunch” of food. So I recommend replacing chips with baby carrots, celery with peanut butter, or cut up apples. You may find you have a “crunchy” food that is healthy and tasty that you can think of to replace for chips. For sandwiches, I recommend using mustard instead of mayonnaise.   Obviously these are a few ways to begin to change your eating habits.  Local dieticians can help you learn more tips along with great companies like Weight Watchers.

In terms of exercise think of the word “cumulative”. Exercise is cumulative. How cool!!! This means that all the walking you do in a day adds each week to calories burned. Even better, all the stairs you climb in a day add up to calories burned weekly too. Do you drive around a parking lot for 10 minutes looking for the perfect parking space? Do you watch TV for hours a day? Do you sit at the computer for hours a day? How about reading or paperwork. How many hours a day are you sitting?? This is a big deal. The more sedentary we are the less likely we are to burn off our breakfast, lunch, snack or dinner. Here are a few easy tips for adding some exercise to your day. Park to the back of the parking lot, don’t use the elevators use the stairs, walk your pets daily (they will love you!), walk with your spouse or your kids, run your errands at the mall and park at the other end of the mall far away from where you have to run your errand or take a walk during lunch with a friend in your office instead of sitting at a restaurant. These are truly not hard ways to add exercise into your day.  Join a local gym and take a Zumba class or try a pilates class.  Try it, you may be amazed how you feel!

The first step to chaning your life starts today.  Pick one habit to change each week so you won't be overwhelmed.  I call them baby steps to a new you!!

Have a nice afernoon.  MaryAnne