The habits of slender women

Have you ever wondered how some women appear to do nothing to stay slender? Whilst there are women who can eat all they want, take zero exercise and still manage to retain their figure, most of us need to take a little more action to keep our figure looking slender, svelte and gorgeous.

There are several different ways to achieve a slender figure and these include a life-time of dieting or dedicated time exercising, and for some women a combination of the two.

But what if there was another way? What if you could maintain a slender figure without being on a permanent diet or finding the energy and time to exercise most days?

The good news is that there is an alternative option. The excellent news is that this option not only permits but actually encourages you to enjoy some of your favourite foods including chocolate and a glass of red wine. And there is the added bonus of choosing to do exercise for fun, enjoyment and pleasure if you chose. You don't have to spend hours working up a sweat or even putting on your gym gear unless you choose to do so.

What is this alternative option?

You can adopt the habits of slender women. These particular women chose to remain slender without dieting and without sweat inducing exercise for the sake of weight loss. These women can be found enjoying a desert after a meal with friends, relaxing and having fun and making the most of quality ingredients used to create tasty meals. These women have learnt certain habits from family and friends that allow them to maintain their figure and make it look effortless, because it can be when each of the habits become just that: a habit, which means that they don't need to think about it. They just do it.

Start today by being mindful of everything you eat in the next 7 days. Don't change what you eat and don't be judgemental. Just be aware.

love
Sarah

Hide the remote

Did you know that your TV remote is potentially responsible for an extra kilo of weight every year?  Remember when you had to get up off the couch to change the channel?

It has been estimated that just the simple act of getting up to change the channel, adjust the sound or to turn the TV off helped to use up enough energy for one whole kilo of body fat. People also watched less TV because there was less, a lot less. No breakfast programs or daytime programs and only three channels to choose from. Every station shut down over night and this was usually before midnight unless it was a Saturday night and the station was showing a black and white horror film.

Watching TV sends your brain into a relaxed state that is almost hypnotic. This is why it feels like it is more energy to turn it off and go to bed than to stay there watching the screen even though your eyelids keep closing and you know that you need to get some sleep. Then when you start to get ready for bed you find yourself more awake than when you were watching TV but this is only because you have been released from your hypnotic state.

With endless channels and a remote it is possible to remain motionless on the couch for hours at a time, only disturbed by the call of nature and to collect more high fat and high sugary snacks and drinks on the way back. Research also shows that you learn far more reading than you do watching TV, despite all those 'educational' channels.

Next time you watch TV make a note of how many times you use the remote and from this how much exercise you would have gained without one. Every time you use the remote you could do one squat or one press up or just stand up and wiggle on the spot and sit down again. Your cardiovascular system will thank you for it and so will your brain.

TV: watch responsibly!

love
Sarah

Enjoy Easter eggs without weight gain

I have just returned from my favourite chocolate shop, Chocolatier in Ivanhoe East, with a bag full of chocolate eggs and bunnies. There is one chocolate gift for each us. I always have great difficulty in chosing what to buy for whom and having bought it, worry that they might not like it. One of the great benefits of buying from Chocolatier is that the chocolate is always delicious and beautifully presented, which really helps for giving gifts.

If you are one of the many women who feel guilty after eating chocolate then let this be the beginning of guilt free, pure enjoyment chocolate eating. Eat your chocolate in your favourite relaxing spot, focusing totally on the chocolate aroma, texture, feel and taste. Take your time to savour every morsel and ensure that you are left in peach and quiet to fully experience your chocolate moments.

The other great benefit is the quality of the chocolate, which brings me to the the three ways that you can enjoy your Easter eggs without gaining weight.

1. Only eat Easter eggs that are made from good quality chocolate. This means that there is less sugar and more cocoa and therefore less calories and more taste. It also means that the chocolate will coat your whole mouth leaving you feeling satisfied with less each time (Choose milk or dark chocolate).
2. Divide your egg or bunny into approximately 8 pieces (an average Easter egg) and enjoy and savour each piece after one of your meals each day for the 8 days. 
3. Only eat chocolate and give away any additional lollies or filled chocolates that come with your egg or bunny. This is because those additional lollies or filled chocolates will have extra sugar in them causing additional calories without the luxourisous flavour and texture of quality chocolate.

 Happy holidays
love
Sarah

Savour little moments of luxury

Sometimes luxury can seem just out of reach for you on a weekly basis let alone a daily basis. Until  a few years ago luxury seemed out of reach on an annual basis for a very good reason: I didn't understand how important it is to savour little moments of luxury.

If you think that enjoying a little bit of luxury costs lots of money then think again. Even better than costing just a little bit of money, a little bit of luxury can be totally free.

Every time you savour a little moment of luxury you release endorphins which make you happy and this helps to fight the stress hormones that cause weight gain, poor health and fatigue. But savouring these little moments offers even more.

You only continue to make an effort when it rewards you with a result. This is one of the reasons that you may have given up going to the gym or eating less sugar or fewer biscuits; the rewards weren't big enough. When you savour little moments of luxury on a daily basis it offers a reward. Just think of all the things that you do during your day for others. Now imagine sitting back and enjoying a little moment of luxury.

Free moments of luxury can include:

• a quiet cup of tea or coffee outside enjoying the sounds of nature, fresh air and the feel of the sun on your skin
• two pieces of quality chocolate as it melts in your mouth, coating your tongue and palette, the aroma floating up to your nostrils 
• pampering your skin with oils or creams after your shower
• having a laugh over a lunch with a good friend

How many little moments of luxury can you create every day?

warmest wishes
Sarah

Comfort food can be just what you need

I remember the time that I dropped the children off at junior school and then popped back to the car to retrieve a lunch-box that one of them had left behind. For some reason, which I can't remember, I left my handbag in the car knowing that I would be back in a minute. I chose the day that two men were working the whole street outside the school. It took them approximately 10 seconds to break the window and steal my handbag.

I raced back to the school and told the lady who ran the kitchen/first aid and a whole heap of other activities (it was a small school) and one of my close friends was there. She told me to sit down, have a cup of tea and that she would be back in five minutes. True to her word she appeared with a small bar of chocolate. She told me that she found it helped when she had a nasty surprise. The tea helped as well and the chocolate made me feel a bit better and more able to cope.

Over the years comfort food has been given a bad rap and yet there are times when it offers a hit of sugar and fat just when we need it most. Mention comfort food and many people envision some lonely woman eating her way through a litre of ice-cream or a family sized box of chocolates or chocolate biscuits, or maybe all three.

However many of us turn to comfort food in times of emotional need. The sugar gives us an instant boost from which we benefit  because our body may have diverted much of our fuel resources to the fight or flight mechanism, which means that our hearts are pounding and our muscles are ready to go and we feel edgy. The endorphins found in foods such as chocolate help to elevate our mood and can help us to calm down and think more resourcefully. All our cells need fat to function and it can also help to keep us fuelled whilst we sort out and cope with the issue or situation that caused us to want comfort food. Psychologically we feel better when we indulge in some comfort food and this can be traced back to food our mother gave us to help us feel better when things upset us.

The problem only arises when we turn to comfort food every (or nearly) every day because the stressful and/or upsetting situation continues. If this is the case then having a plan can really help. A friend of mine went through an on-going stressful and upsetting situation for nearly a year and for that year she turned to comfort food on a regular basis. As she explained, she knew that it was increasing her weight to the point where she was uncomfortable in her skin and for her, getting through the situation to a conclusion and closure was the most important thing in her life. She decided that once she had closure she would go back to making better food choices. And this is what happened.

For the short-term comfort eating enjoy and savour every mouthful.

For long-term comfort eating there can be slightly healthier alternatives to chocolate, chips and ice-cream. Below are a list of suggestions which you can adapt to suit your taste and comfort needs:

• banana muffin 
• buttery popcorn
• strawberries dipped in melted dark chocolate
• thick sliced wholemeal bread with butter or peanut butter
• banana with thick creamy yoghurt sprinkled with Cinnamon

Enjoy the odd comfort food with all of your senses.

love
Sarah

How to search for hidden calories

Have you ever weighed yourself after weeks of dieting only to wonder why you haven't lost more weight? You stuck to the food on the list you gave yourself (or were given) and yet the scales are firmly stuck higher than you expected. It can be so disappointing and frustrating.

There can be many reasons that you don't loose weight as fast as you would like and one of those reasons can be hidden calories.

For example you may decide to get a take-away lunch at a well known chain that offers long bread rolls filled with meat, cheese and salad. They even display the low calorie options to help you choose your lunch. You choose chicken, avoid the cheese, have lots of salad and believe that you are doing really well. And then you choose a low fat dressing but what you may not be aware of is the amount of sugar in that dressing. In this case it is the dressing that has the hidden calories.

Nearly all sauces and dressings have sugar in them. Next time you want a sauce or dressing from a bottle have a look at the label first. The way to avoid the hidden calories is to use mustard (but not American mustard) or to make your own dressings using olive oil and lemon juice or natural yoghurt (not low fat) and lime (or lemon) zest and juice. You can also add spices, herbs and vinegars except Balsamic which has a very high sugar content.

One of the other big contenders in the hidden calorie category is the nibble. It is quite astonishing just how many extra calories you can consume by nibbling. Do you nibble when you cook or if there is food out? How about that little snack on the way home from a long day at work or when you are doing the food shop? You often forget about them because you didn't consume the food as part of a meal or on a plate. You can consume over a third of your required calories through nibbling. Some people chew gum to prevent them nibbling. Others carry a bottle of water everywhere and sip on that. Try adding some mint leaves and cucumber slices, or a slice of lemon or lime to your water.

Enjoy becoming a detective of hidden calories and celebrate the change it brings to your weight management.

love
Sarah

Craving or addiction?

Have you ever wanted chocolate so badly that nothing else would do? Join the club. I suspect that you and I are not alone and that there are many women who have had the same experience, and have had this experience more than once.

Certain events seem to trigger this desire for chocolate including sudden stress, sudden hunger and 'that time of the month'. And then there are the days that there is no apparent or obvious reason. We just want chocolate.

I have been told by clients that they are addicted to chocolate and that whatever plan we create for them to follow must include some chocolate. Some of my clients are quite concerned that they could be addicted to chocolate.

How do you tell the difference between a craving and an addiction? Here are a few differences so that you can work out which one is you for difference foods and drinks. For example you may have cravings for cheese and be addicted to coffee. I recently met someone who has 7 - 8 cups a day.

• A craving causes you to be very focused on that one food and there is no substitute for that food. There are no signs and symptoms such as shaking, nausea or headaches, just a real desire to eat that food.
• When you eat that food it feels great and you feel very satisfied.
• An addiction means that you need that food and without it you experience a range of signs and symptoms. An example of this could be suddenly giving up coffee when you usually consume 8 cups a day. You will get headaches and other signs and symptoms.
• With an addiction the consumption of that food or drink item doesn't make you feel great, rather it makes you feel normal and cures the withdrawal symptoms that you were experiencing.
• With an addiction you require an increasing amount of that food or drink to feel normal. It is the same with drugs such as Morphine or Valium.

Now that you understand the difference you can work out if you have a craving or an addiction to chocolate. The answer is nearly always a craving and not an addiction.

love
Sarah

Can alcohol help you sleep?

Alcohol has been used for centuries both for recreation and for medicinal purposes. I have a 1946 nursing dictionary that has a whole entry on the use of Brandy. It recommends Brandy for all ages for gastric ailments, shock and general malaise. It has the amounts to administer including the number of drops for new-born babies. And it that isn't enough to make your eyebrows rise up, it goes on to state that in cases of sudden collapse the Brandy should be administered by injection into the vein. Talk about a 'shot in the arm'.

Have you ever experienced a heavy lunch and several glasses of wine helping you snooze for an hour after lunch or at bedtime? Alcohol can make us sleepy and it can also make some people very active. It also diminishes inhibitions and insight, allowing people to think that they can dance like John Travolta and sing like Frank Sinatra. Karaoke bars are a shining example of this.

So how can it be that alcohol can make you sleepy and even help you get to sleep and yet can also prevent you from getting good sleep by waking you up several hours later?

When we sleep we go through several cycles of REM sleep and non-REM sleep. These cycles are very important and we need a minimum of 4 - 5 cycles every night for a restorative and restful night. When we are disturbed by noises such as a party next door, or due to illness or anxiety we miss out on several cycles and feel tired and fractious in the morning.

The consumption of alcohol increases the amount of non-REM sleep and reduces the number of full cycles. More than this it can also lead to nightmares or vivid dreams, sweating and multiple awakenings during the night. These negative effects can also be felt when alcohol is consumed in the late afternoon.

Alcohol may be able to help you get to sleep but it will then give you an interrupted and poor quality of sleep.

sweet dreams
Sarah

Sugar for stress

Have you ever noticed that when you are feeling stressed you want some chocolate or something sweet? Did you ever wonder why this happens or just take it for granted because it has always been like this?

Why do we reach for something sugary in times of stress? There are good biological and chemical reasons for it but because we are stressed so often in our modern society we end up reaching for something sweet nearly every day.

All our cells need glucose. Sweet foods contain one or more types of sugar and our body will convert these into the glucose for us. Except for fructose, which I have mentioned before. It converts fructose into fatty acids and this is then sent off to float in our blood vessels and eventually be stored as fat. More about fructose another day.

In the days of wooly mammoths and sabre tooth tigers the need for sugar to provide instant energy made sense. It gave the cave woman some time to find other food supplies such as berries and nuts, and the cave men time to hunt for meat and possibly fish.

When our brain is tired it will ask your body for more glucose and this is why we reach for sweet foods when we are tired. We also sometimes fancy sweet foods when we are ill, because our bodies are using our resources to help to heal us. When I worked as a nurse in the emergency department we often made shocked relatives cups of hot sweet tea. The heat helped to keep the circulation going, tea is both a stimulant and a relaxant and the sugar provided a hit of instant energy because shock causes the digestive system to shut down so that the body can provide all its resources to the vital organs and the muscles.

As children most of us were rewarded with a sweet treat for being 'brave' during something unpleasant which could range from an injection to having a broken limp fixed. Sweet drinks were on hand for flu, any amount of infections brought home from school and lollies and chocolates helped when your best friend turned nasty and went off with another girl from school. Add in hormones as we mature and pretty soon chocolate is becoming something that we can always rely on to get us through a tough moment or entire bad year.

The combination of being physically engineered to seek out sweet food, a brain that demands glucose when tired and a body that demands glucose under stress with a life time of being given sweet food as a treat or to make us feel better all leads to us turning to chocolates and lollies every time we feel tired, upset or stressed. And this doesn't include the times we use them to celebrate occasions and success.

Once you understand all the chemistry and natural desires of our body and brain plus conditioning it becomes easier to notice it when it happens and seek out alternatives.

Next time you are stressed you could try this 10 second stress reliever:
Place your hands together palm to palm and then curl your fingers over each other.
Breath in deeply and then quickly breath out deeply.
Do this 10 times.
Each time you do this raise one finger until you have raised all 10 fingers (and thumbs).

This uses up the adrenaline that we pump out when we become stressed so that don't feel so agitated and jumpy, which in turn reduces our need for sugar.

love
Sarah