The Grocery Store

This post is somewhat of a guest blogger post.

Remy Maguire is a NASM certified personal trainer working at Northwest Women's Fitness here in Portland Oregon. Every year she provides a 9-week-fat-loss class at the gym. The second one she ever held happened during a point where I had reached a plateau in my own fat loss goals, so of course I signed up. It was such a great experience and when my finances are back in order I plan on taking it again! There was so much useful information and great motivation to aid in reaching your goals.

In one of the class days we met and talked about grocery shopping. She provided us some great information on paper about how to shop and plan to ensure you return home with healthful items. She then proceeded to walk us across the street to the grocery store to live demo what she was talking about!

The following is the information provided to us on that sheet. Sorry I can't provide the live demo here!

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Getting in and out of the grocery store can be a real hastle, whetherr you are running in for just one thing, or stocking up to feed the family for a week. Here are some tips and guidelines to consider next time you get ready to make the trip.

WHAT TO BUY?

Produce: 
Spend the most time in the produce section, the first area you encounter in most grocery stores (and usually the largest). Choose a rainbow of colorful fruits and vegetables. The colors reflect the different vitamin, mineral, and phytonutrient content of each fruit or vegetable.

Meat, Fish, and Poultry: 
The American Heart Association recommends two servings of fish a week. Salmon is a great choice, it's widely available, affordable, not too fishy, and a good source of omega-3 fatty acids. Be sure to choose lean cuts of meat (like round, top sirloin, and tenderloin), opt for skinless poultry, and watch your portion sizes.

Breads, Cereals, and Pasta:
Choose the least processed foods that are made from whole grains. For example, regular oatmeal is preferable to instant oatmeal. But even instant oatmeal is a whole grain, and a good choice.

When choosing whole-grain cereals, aim for at least 4 grams of fiber per serving, and the less sugar, the better. Keep in mind that 1 level teaspoon of sugar equals 4 grams and let this guide your selections. Cereal and grains -- those with added sugar -- make great vehicles for milk, yogurt, and/or fruit. Avoid granolas, even the low-fat variety; they tend to have more fat and sugar than other cereals.

Bread, pasta, rice, and grains offer more opportunities to work whole grains into your diet. Choose whole-wheat bread and pastas, brown rice, grain mixes, quinoa, bulgur, and barley. To help your family get used to whole grains, you can start out with whole-wheat blends and slowly transition to 100% whole-wheat pasta and breads.

Dairy:
Dairy foods are an excellent source of bone-building calcium and vitamin D. There are plenty of low-fat and nonfat options to help you get three servings a day, including drinkable and single-serve tube yogurts, and pre-portioned cheeses. If you enjoy higher-fat cheeses, no problem -- just keep your portions small.

Frozen Foods:
Frozen fruits and vegetables (without sauce) are a convenient way to help fill in the produce gap, especially in winter. Try adding frozen veggies to bulk up microwave meals, sauces, stirfrys and soups.

Canned and Dried Foods: 

Keep a variety of canned vegetables, fruits, and beans on hand to toss into soups, salads, pasta, or rice dishes. Whenever possible, choose vegetables without added salt, and fruit packed in juice. Tuna packed in water, low-fat soups, nut butters, olive and canola oils, and assorted vinegars should be in every healthy pantry.

HOW TO PLAN AND MAKE A LIST

1. How many people are you shopping for this week?

Without knowing this piece of information it’s very easy to “overpurchase” and therefore overeat during the week. For example, if it’s just you this week and your significant other is out of town, you can likely cut your grocery items in half. If you typically grab 6 apples, then 3 will do for this week. If you normally buy 2 bags of spinach, buy just one this week and so on…

2. What is your planned activity/exercise level this week?

The recommended amount of exercise is 5 hours/week. If your exercise includes the suggested variety of high intensity, weights and steady state exercise then you’ll want to consider your nutrient timing rule: post workout carbohydrate intake. Be sure to select whole grain, natural carb selections (eg. quinoa, whole grain pasta, Ezekiel wraps, long grain wild rice etc.).

If you’re not exercising much that week — maybe it’s a “recovery week” — you won’t need nearly as many carbohydrate rich foods.

3. What is your work environment this week?

There is a significant difference between a sedentary career and laborious or active career when it comes to calorie expenditure.For example, a physical education teacher will be expending energy all day long compared to a senior analyst who will only leave their desk chair for meetings in another desk chair. These two careers will lead to a different nutritional regimen.

If your work-based activity is sedentary to moderate, keep the carbohydrate and natural sugar intake to a minimum and select a variety of vegetable, healthy fat and protein sources.

If you’re moving around, and on your feet all day, include a few carbohydrate and natural sugar options such as fruits, wraps, and whole grain bread.

4. Will you be entertaining or dining out this week?

This is an important question to answer and plan ahead. If you’re eating out with friends, that is an entire meal you don’t need to have in your fridge. If those extra foods are there it’s quite likely that you’ll be tempted to indulge. Rather than relying on willpower, just don’t have that temptation there. Purchase less food when you grocery shop that week.

On the other hand, if you are hosting a dinner party or gathering at your place this week, be sure to have the ingredients you’ll need on your list so you don’t have to revisit the grocery store later that week. Plan ahead, make one trip per week to the grocery store, and avoid the temptation to pick up “extras”.

IMPORTANT TIPS

1. Shop with a list.

2. Shop mostly along the perimeter, where the produce, dairy, and meat aisles are. Avoid the inner aisles such as the frozen or processed food aisles. Stay away from the junk food aisle!

3. If you must enter an inner aisle, enter and exit at the same end. There is rarely a reason to wander the entire aisle. Get in, get what you need and gracefully exit.

4. Be aware that grocers stock sale items at the end of the aisles. Sometimes these are good — e.g. cans of tuna — but mostly they’re not.

5. Never fill your cart, unless you’re feeding a big family or stocking up on pumpkins and giant fluffy bunches of kale. (See above about buying for your actual household needs.)

Complete your entire grocery outing in 45 mins or less. Don’t linger.

BONUS

Allowing yourself to feel hunger pains is a sure way to eating unwanted foods. Rather, eat small frequent meals every 2-3 hrs and you’ll be sure to make healthy nutritional choices.

Avoid situations that you know are going to be unhealthy. For example, if you are getting together with friends pick a restaurant that offers delicious, nutritionally appropriate meals. Avoid the wings and beer places!

Always be prepared. Never leave home without a little stash of mixed nuts, chopped veggies, and snap peas in your bag or car. Should you end up in a situation where you are hungry and the food choices around you are minimal or unhealthy, you are prepared with the foods you have brought with you.

A protein bar or nutritious smoothie will also help you avoid any undesirable nutritional situations such as this.

Season your meals with things like spices, fresh herbs, a squeeze of lemon, etc. Then take the time to taste the delicious variety of flavors. In other words, become aware of what is in your mouth. Tune in to your taste buds! Eating healthy doesn’t mean having to eat bland, tasteless food. It’s quite the opposite, actually.

Stop and take a sip of your water in between bites. This will help to make you feel full and potentially answer the question: are you still hungry or are you thirsty?

And last, eat slowly. So what if it takes you 15-20 mins to eat? Is that a crime? What is the rush after all? Give yourself that time. Allow yourself to really enjoy the meal that you’ve created. There is no reason to rush through your meals.

If you find yourself finishing off your plate in less than 5 minutes, ask yourself: Did I enjoy that meal? The answer will be no, because you hardly tasted it. Let all the senses in your body indulge in the experience we call dining.
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You can take this next week to think about how to apply these tips to your upcoming month! The more tools you can cultivate in your health and fitness "tool bag" the more successful you will be. This really is something you can cultivate and learn to be successful at - YOU CAN DO THIS!!!

~TigressSky~

P.S. You can follow Remy on here very own blog - Manifest the Best

Battle Lines Are Drawn!!

In this corner we have the medical term Obese.

In this corner we have the societal term Fat.

In the middle is were I stand, trying to avoid either or both of those terms sticking it to me as they duke it out.

Here in the United States it is a far greater stigma to be in the corner with Obese than it is to be in the corner with Fat. In other countries, however, it is just the opposite.

For me, I had to find a balance in which neither one of those words were a stigma. Basically I took away the power of those words to make me feel bad about where I sat in my current health and fitness goals. That doesn't mean those words will lose all power of negativity; they remain painful if someone decides to use them to purposefully be mean and cause hurt. Yet, in my own personal journey, coming across those words and finding them applied to me in some way is no longer a stigma.

It is all in what the word means to you. The word has the power you give it, nothing more or less. It is just a word.

So lets start with de-stigmatizing the word fat.

Fat. I have it. All over my body. Some places more than others. It is natural to have fat. Fat is a part of us. Everyone has fat. Some of us have more than others. Excess fat can cause and worsen the effects of thousands of ailments we all suffer from. Excess fat can also be seen as a social stigma.

My goal for my overall health is fat loss. I replaced the word weight with the word fat to remind myself that fat is the focus, not weight. Fat loss can happen because of muscle gain, which imparts no noticeable weight loss. Fat loss is what makes my organs healthy. Fat loss is what drives away a myriad of diseases my family members all suffer from.

Not too hard to de-stigmatize it when you look at it this way.

De-stigmatizing the word obese was a little harder.

The first time my beautifully fit doctor handed me information on fat-loss and then said, "we have to work on your obesity," I was taken aback and offended. Sure, I was a little over-weight, maybe even fat, but I wasn't obese!

I told my friends who chanted with me, "you are NOT obese."

I was though. That is the crux of the whole issue.

To determine obesity doctors use a calculation called Body Mass Index (BMI).  BMI is a number calculated from a person's weight and height. BMI provides a reliable indicator of body fatness for most people and is used to screen for weight categories that may lead to health problems.

That is it, plain and simple.

At the time, based on calculations from my height and weight, my doctor was alerted to the fact that I was in the obese category. The doctor, knowing that I do not yet suffer from any of the ailments being in that category can afford, simply went into preventive maintenance mode and handed me some information on fat loss.

The BMI is based on averages and wasn't designed to fit everyone perfect. It was designed to say, "on average, in this size body, with these levels of fat, (or even on the other end of the spectrum focusing on levels of not enough fat), people typically are at risk, or greater risk, for certain ailments and chronic diseases." The people who do not fit into these averages are the rarity not the norm. Most people are categorized correctly within the BMI scale.

What we have to start seeing is that being obese does not mean all those negative things that are running through your brain right now. Being obese simply means you are in the highest category for possible suffering from fat related health issues, most of which are chronic and easily avoided with just a minimal (10% of your current body weight) loss of fat.

If you find yourself one of the few whom BMI just doesn't fit, then no problem. Let it go that you are labeled  in the obese category. You already know you don't need to focus on any fat loss as it doesn't apply to you.

As well, if you are in the obese category legitimately do not beat yourself up. It is not a negative label, it simply is a way of measuring your risk for many of the health related issues that can be caused or are due to excessive fat.

Do not look at the BMI as a weight goal or as the total amount of fat loss you should focus on. That is not the intent. The BMI is instead a knowledge tool that helps you maintain your focus on the importance of losing fat - your overall health.

Will this help anyone else? I'm not certain. I know for me though, pulling out the emotions and looking at the crux of the issue really has helped me; tremendously. I don't want to live a life that is only survived by handfuls of pills and Wheel of Fortune as I become aged. So, I use all the tools and terms given me to aid in ensuring I don't!

Speaking of, we are halfway through our "Do Life" challenge and here are this weeks motivational challenges!

1.) Now that you know and are meeting your caloric range, have removed some bad habits, and added some good, - well know it is time to focus on WHAT it is your are putting in your body. This weeks challenge is to take at least one (but maybe try all!) meal you eat from a box or can, (or a meal that you make with items from a box or can), and find a recipe so you can make it from scratch ingredients!

2.) Go to the toy aisle of a local shop and find one toy, in your price range, that requires physical activity. Buy it. Now play with it at least 2 times this week! It doesn't have to be expensive or require a lot of exertion either. As long as it motivates you to play for 10-20 minutes! Well ... HAVE FUN!!!

Bonus Challenge: (I didn't change this one up from last weeks to give us all a second chance to focus on some SLEEP!) Remain exercising to the videos I shared or your own fitness levels and goals for at LEAST 30 minutes a day at LEAST 3 days a week. Spend at least 1 day in a 20 minute meditation AND here is the new and important and most challenging aspect - get AT LEAST 7 hours of sleep per night the entire week! Whew! That is going to be a challenge for me.

~TigressSky~

Where is your focus?

This image has become major motivation for me recently. My entire life I have said, "if it is not something you would want your kids to do than don't do it."

Now, I don't have kids, but it doesn't make the statement any less true regardless.

Throughout my life I have witnessed a fair number of adults smoke, drink, curse, eat unhealthy, and participate in all number of things society deems children should be "protected" from.  All the while watching these same adults hide these very things from their kids; with the guise of protecting some level of innocence, (which is truly only ignorance), the child may have in regards to the "topic" at hand. These are the same parents whom always say, "my kids think I'm so dumb, like I wasn't going to know they were doing something they shouldn't..."

Well parents, kids think and know the exact same thing. They know the bad things you are doing and hiding from them. Difference is they don't understand them. Yet they do understand enough, by the way you are treating it, to know they certainly can't talk to you about "it".

Yet, that point runs us down a different slippery slope altogether. So let's get back on track here ...

Here we have miss Britany Spears doing one of the most strongly admirable things of her career - showing you how she really looks as compared to how we normally see her: photo-shopped.

In other words: STOP comparing yourself to the media driven images of beauty - they don't even exist!

The same thing goes for that number in your head. The number in your head you are obsessing over. The number that means you are finally fit and trim. The number you are using as the ultimate measure of your success. STOP IT! Stop using that number to determine your success or failure - that number will never equate to your expectations!

Now take these two concepts and FIND a value driven motivation that you would share with your kids; regardless of if you have kids or not.

Examples? Well how about:

- Hanging a dress you want to wear this summer in a prominent place and trying it on every now and then?
- Measuring your moods on days you successfully meet all your health goals compared to those days when you don't?
- Measuring your energy level on days you successfully meet all your health goals compared to those days when you don't?

- Complete your first or fiftieth 5k or other physical challenge!
- Try out a new healthy recipe every month and build a cookbook and monthly menu that make you feel proud.
- Do at least 30 minutes of exercise a day.
- Reward yourself with non-food motivated items - new clothes, toys, go see a show.
- Grow something yourself! Maybe it is just a couple herbs in the window, maybe you tackle a whole garden in your yard.
- Make time for relaxing activities like stretch focused yoga, meditation, reading, or writing.

Whatever you do stop making this about the unattainable and start focusing on what being health and fit "feel" like. That is what is important, not the scale and most certainly not unattainable falsified images of beauty.

Comparison analysis, like the two suggested above, are always very helpful in understanding this point. Even if you just do it for a week, tracking your mood and energy level throughout the day helps one discover, with a high level of certainty, what it truly feels like to be healthy. That feeling for each of us is of course truly personalized - so it is important to try and take the time to discover it for yourself - it is so worth it and it gives you so many more truly effective things to focus on.

Which brings me to this weeks "Do Life" motivational challenges:

1.) Now that you know your caloric range, have removed some bad habits, and added some good - well it is time to meet your caloric intake diligently all week long. Do not go over it and try to stay as close to it as you can. This may mean eating more or less than you are use to, but try and make that calorie count daily - let's see what that really does for our progression. Make sure you are getting your water intake met!

2.) Park the farthest away from the entry door ANY place you go! This one sounds simple but it could have huge impact. Studies show that just adding an additional 10 minutes of activity to your regular routines in everyday life could equate to a loss of 25-50 pounds of fat per year! So, if you park far away and opt to walk in - well, those extra ten minutes will get added to your everyday life quicker than you think! Try it!

Bonus Challenge: Remain exercising to the videos I shared or your own fitness levels and goals for at LEAST 30 minutes a day at LEAST 3 days a week. Spend at least 1 day in a 20 minute meditation AND here is the new and important and most challenging aspect - get AT LEAST 7 hours of sleep per night the entire week! Whew! That is going to be a challenge for me.

I was going to have you not use your scale at all this week, but I realize that it is one of the tools we are using during this entire challenge. So keep looking at it that way, just a tool you have in your arsenal of tools to help you measure and remain accountable for your goals. Yet do not let that number on the scale be the end-all-be-all in your health journey. See it, acknowledge it, and then move on!

This week we will rock!!!

~TigressSky~