lose weight

Nourishing Resolutions: Give Yourself Time to Change

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Lia Huber — No Comments ↓

OK, let’s have it … how many of you have stuck to your New Year’s resolutions so far this year? If you’re grimacing right now, you’re not alone. Statistics show that somewhere between 78% and 88% of people give up on (or forget) their resolutions before the days on the calendar hit double digits.

My theory is that people get frustrated when their lives don’t do an about-face after seven days of good intentions. I know I used to. Then one year, about eight years ago, I gave myself an entire year to lose the 20 pounds I’d been trying to lose and everything changed. I changed.

In the years since, as I learned about behavioral change, it became clear that time was a major key to my success. It makes sense if you think about it; a habit is something we’ve done so consistently for so long that we do it without thinking. The cool thing, though, is that we can use the same process to develop new, healthier habits.

How we form habits

There is a proven progression in learning:

1. from unconscious incompetence (not knowing that you don’t know)

2. to conscious incompetence (knowing that you don’t know)

3. to conscious competence (you know what you want to do, but you still have to think about what you’re doing)

4. to unconscious competence (you automatically do what you want to do).

It’s the shift from conscious competence (the “I should”) to unconscious competence (the “I want to”) that creates sustainable change. You get to the place, in fact, where it feels uncomfortable to go back to your old ways. I hear this voiced all the time with My Nourish Mentor participants near the end of the program. They say, “I look back on how I used to eat and I wouldn’t even choose to do that any more.” Not only have their behaviors shifted, but positive emotions and experiences have reinforced those new behaviors and cemented them into place.

Getting there takes time, though. One 2009 study found this long-term shift takes an average of 66 days (incidentally, My Nourish Mentor takes 90 days … I like the extra padding for peaks and valleys).

Reforming habits in real life

Let me give you an example of how this worked in my own life. For years and years and years, I was frustrated with myself because I couldn’t lose the weight I wanted to. I tried diet after diet, but still couldn’t get the dang pounds to stay off. At that point, I was at the first stage of unconscious incompetence; I had no idea what I really needed to do to make sustainable change in the way I ate.

When I finally walked away from silver bullets and diets of the month and dug into learning sound nutritional truths, I knew what I needed to do to lose the weight for good—eat more vegetables and whole grains, and less calorie-dense meat and refined foods—but I didn’t know how to get there without feeling like I was giving up all I enjoyed (sound familiar?). I had gotten to the second stage of conscience incompetence.

I decided to tackle one area at a time. To start, I set out to double the amount of vegetables I ate each day. Sounds easy, sure, but when you’re not used to consuming vegetables in large quantities, there are a lot of hurdles. Like refrigerator space, for instance—I had no idea how much space a pound of kale could take up! And then there was repertoire. Most of my go-to’s at the time centered on refined grains and meat—sandwiches made with deli meats for lunch, pasta with meat or sausage and a bit of veggies for dinner. I was in this third stage of conscious competence for quite some time, working at how to get more vegetables on my plate in a way that got me excited about—not dreading—eating them.

But I did get there over time, and I eventually reached the fourth stage of unconscious competence. Now if I don’t get enough vegetables during the course of the day, I feel a bit off kilter and will crave them for dinner; eating an abundance of veggies has become my norm.

So if you’re struggling with the resolutions you made earlier this month, I urge you to give it time. Set your sights on something you want to change and, over the next two months, experiment, work out the kinks, mess up and try again. Most important, though, consistently practice the way you want to be.

Get Over the Guilt

Posted on May 25, 2011 by Lia Huber — No Comments ↓

I came of age during the height of America’s low-fat craze; guilt is built into my circuitry. When I’d eat a virtuous meal of steamed veggies I’d end up feeling deprived, but if I dared add olive oil I’d be leveled by guilt. This deprivation-guilt cycle only intensified as I willed the numbers on the scale to drop; the more I obsessed over what was on my plate the more miserable I’d become until, finally, I’d fall off the see-saw and eat an excess of all the “bad” foods I’d been depriving myself of.

But I’ve learned it doesn’t have to be that way. And in My Nourish Mentor, others are learning it too. As one of them put it, “When I’m eating right, I don’t even want to eat the way I used to. I love that confidence and awareness in my eating.” Here’s how–and why–that happens. And it’s so simple it seems ridiculous. “Good foods” prepared in enticing ways can bring loads of pleasure and “bad foods”–if you’re talking foods like olive oil and chocolate anyway–really aren’t bad at all in reasonable portions.

For me, it was a combination of gaining a firm grasp of what certain foods were doing to my body–that olive oil helped regulate my cholesterol, for instance, and that refined starch sent my body through a tumultuous blood sugar spike without giving it anything to grow strong–and then deliberately taking my eye off the numbers and refocusing on enjoying what was on my plate.

Ironically, once I had that grounding embedded within me and stopped thinking so much, and instead just enjoyed myself, my weight actually dropped. Because what I wanted to eat had changed. And it’s not just me. The person I quoted above just mentioned this week that she’s lost 8 pounds, and another member 20, while on the program … and neither one have once felt deprived.

I’m not talking mindless binging, mind you. I’m talking about engaging with food as, well, food–not a conglomeration of nutrients and numbers and percentages that are destined to make us either miserable or fat or both. The bottom line is that our bodies know better than we think they do. And once we have a bit of a grounding in sound nutrition, we know better than we think we do.

So I challenge you to give yourself a break. See what it feels like to simply enjoy your meals. Notice how thinking about them as food instead of something sinful or healthy impacts what (and how much) you eat. Notice how it makes your body–and your mind–feel. And, sure, go ahead and check the scale. Now, that’s a mindful eating practice you’ll enjoy with every bite. I’ll bet you’ll be surprised by the results.

Eat Fat to Stay Slim

Posted on August 20, 2009 by Lia Huber — 9 Comments ↓

Would you believe me if I said you stand a better chance of dropping pounds and maintaining a healthy weight by using more olive oil? It’s true. Yet if you’re like me, you’re still carrying around false beliefs instilled by decades of guidelines based on sketchy science.

Nearly 20 years ago, when I was practically living on fat-free yogurt and pretzels and feeling oh-so righteous for doing so, I spent a summer on Corfu, Greece. Each time Mama put a plate of oil-drenched vegetables in front of me I’d cringe, thinking I was doomed to balloon. But I left the island lighter than when I’d arrived. Years later, when I started writing articles on healthy fats, I began to understand why eating more fat can help you stay slim.

And yet even after that experience in Greece, even after scouring studies and speaking to experts around the globe, my first reaction is still to shy away from dishes with double-digit fat grams. It’s not easy to banish old habits, but one step at a time I call to mind the facts I’ve learned and move towards reshaping my views for good.

• Fact to Remember #1: Overall Fat Intake Means Nothing to Your Weight. Well, almost nothing. The amount of fat you consume doesn’t directly make you gain weight, but there’s no skirting the fact that fat is the most calorically dense food group there is. That means that even though that tablespoon of olive oil in and of itself won’t make you fat, the 120 calories it carries with it will, if you don’t balance it out. A great strategy is to pair up “good fats” (see FFtR #3) and veggies, since vegetables are inherently low in calories, while trimming back on calorically dense meat, starches and dairy for the majority of your meals.

• Fact to Remember #2: Fat Helps Us Maintain a Healthy Weight. This is so contrary to what’s been drummed into us that I, personally, still find it hard to digest at times. Yet it’s a fact. Subjects on Mediterranean and low-carb diets that included a moderate amount of healthy fats from things like olive oil, nuts and fish lost more weight and kept it off longer than those on a low-fat diet. If you think about it, it makes sense. We’re programmed to like fat. Just a drizzle of olive oil or a few slices of avocado make a meal exponentially more enjoyable, and when we take pleasure in something we’re much more likely to repeat it. The good news, as you’ll see in the next Fact, is that we should be eating these kinds of fats.

• Fact to Remember #3: Our Bodies Need Fat to Function. Once you digest the reality that consuming fat isn’t directly related to becoming fat and in fact helps prevent it, turn your mind to the truth that “good fats”—monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats—are an essential part of our bodies’ systems, playing a whole host of functions at the cellular level. Monounsaturated fats, like olive oil and those found in avocados, are especially beneficial to our cardiovascular health. Polyunsaturated fats, like the omega-3 fatty acids found in salmon, help build brain cell membranes and regulate blood clotting. They’ve also been shown to protect against numerous diseases, from cancer to heart disease to autoimmune disorders. Steer clear of saturated fats as much as you can, though, as they send cholesterol into our blood streams where it can cause problems, and avoid the double-whammy negative of trans fats altogether. A good rule of thumb is to put down anything that has “partially hydrogenated” or “hydrogenated” in the ingredients list.

So what does a healthy view of fat look like? Scroll down to the Grilled Onions with Chile-Nut Paste and you’ll see one view. You may think “frying” the sauce would make it less healthy, but all the fats in this recipe are good fats in portions that won’t widen your waist. So enjoy to your heart’s content . . . literally.