Here are Vtrim Online’s secrets for making weight-loss doable and sustainable:

1. It’s Not You, It’s Your Home! Is your home toxic for weight loss? Pay attention to your home environment to be successful. Keep fewer fatty foods in the kitchen and fewer TVs throughout the house. A new study suggests that those who are successful at maintaining a weight loss have fewer high fat foods and more exercise equipment in their homes. While you’re at it, create better access to exercise equipment. Don’t leave a treadmill in the basement to collect dust. Move it to a new room that you frequent more often. It will remind you to get your exercise in.

2. The Scent of a Cookie. Food cues trip us up all the time. We smell the hint of caramel corn in the air. We see an advertisement for velvety chocolate on television. Suddenly, we find ourselves digging into the cookie jar for that last chocolate chipper. Reduce impulse eating by eliminating visible foods, eating cues, and temptations. Give high calorie foods a low profile. Store them in the back of your cupboard or on high shelves where they can’t be seen. Same goes for your refrigerator and freezer: store high fat foods in the rear with low calorie, healthy options up front.

3. Step Away From the Couch. To stave off temptation, pick a place (your “Designated Eating Place” or “DEP” for short) and restrict your eating to this location. If you trade carrots for cookies when you’re sitting on the couch watching TV you haven’t changed your behavior, you’ve only changed what you eat while watching TV. Such mindless eating is more often a reaction to boredom than hunger. Enjoy the foods you love at your DEP. You’ll be surprised by how much unnecessary munching you will cut out.

4. Crack Open a Cook Book. Shake up your tried and true recipes with some new additions. What’s so helpful about making your own food is that you choose the ingredients and determine the portion sizes (and leftovers can be served up as tomorrow’s healthy lunch). A Vtrim favorite is a power salad from the Eating Well Diet Cook Book. It’s a healthy spin on a chef’s salad: 6 cups mixed greens, 1 cup shredded carrots, 2 tablespoons chopped red onion, ¼ cup dressing, 10 cherry tomatoes, 4 slices of cut up roast turkey breast, and 2 slices of reduced-fat Swiss cheese, cut up. Takes 10 minutes to make 2 servings with just 180 calories and 4 grams of fat!

5. Take the Short Way Home. When it comes to being more active and burning calories, it doesn’t matter whether it’s in one long exercise session or multiple short sessions. You can take three ten-minute walks, which is just as good as one thirty-minute walk. One study found that people who took more short exercise bouts actually lost more weight. Walking is a perfect exercise because our own bodies act as our resistance – no fancy equipment necessary, just you. Instead of meeting a friend for coffee, ask her to join you for a catch-up walk so you can burn calories over conversation.

Weight loss isn’t easy, but by making small, steady changes in behavior over time, people can come through on their 2010 New Year’s resolutions. And come 2011, unsuccessful weight loss resolutions will be a thing of the past and different life goals can become the focus while maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Read more about Vtrim’s January classes at www.uvm.edu/vtrim.

About Vtrim Weight Management Program
The Vtrim Weight Management Program was developed by Jean Harvey-Berino, Ph.D., R.D., a nationally recognized weight-loss researcher at the University of Vermont. Dr. Harvey-Berino’s concept is based on behavior changes: a systematic shaping of daily habits to help people move more and eat less.

Image: sxc.hu.

Post from: Blisstree

Small Secrets for Bigtime Weightloss

I’m just as guilty of putting on weight when life gets stressed. I think that’s when a lot of women do. I read this quick article about five reasons you can’t lose weight, and found this statistic really telling:

“80 percent of women underestimated their daily food intake by a whopping 700 calories!”

Seven hundred calories is a lot of poundage. It adds up. Most women I know seem to be (on the surface) very good about realizing what they are eating. But there are a couple things that trip them up. Nibbling is one. Perhaps is something you do while making dinner or maybe it’s just eating a few bites off of your kid’s plate, but nibbling adds up to extra calories.

Drinking extra calories is another. I’m a diet soda drinker, but juice has added calories and so does alcohol. If you’re not paying attention, you be adding 500 calories a day just with the things you drink. I know a lot of women slack off with exercise when their lives get stressed. They put other people first. I certainly do this. But we have to tell ourselves it’s okay to take some time in order to be healthy first.

Image: sxc.hu.

Post from: Blisstree

Why You Can’t Lose Weight

Jillian Michaels, one of the trainers for The Biggest Loser, mentioned something very interesting the other day on MSN. She said you can change your success with willpower by change the way you look at it. She cites the example that when you do things on impulse (grabbing that cookie – or five – sitting on the counter) you are using the part of your brain in charge of spur of the moment decisions. But when you stop for just a moment and think, you are using a different part of the brain. So if you stop and think about whether you want to shove that cookie in your mouth, you’re automatically giving yourself a boost when it comes to willpower.

She always says that the more you learn to think this way, the better you will be with willpower overall. In short, you’ll be making better choices.

Image: Bauer-Griffin

Post from: Blisstree

How to Get Willpower

More surprisingly, liquid calorie intake had a stronger impact on weight than solid calorie intake. The study found that sweetened beverages were the only beverages significantly associated with weight change.

This means that reducing the amount of sugar-sweetened beverages consumed can have a major impact on achieving weight loss goals. According to the study, “Consumption of liquid calories from beverages has increased in parallel with the obesity epidemic.”

The weight loss study is published in the April 1 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Read more by visiting the news release for the study at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Will this information change how you consume sugar-sweetened beverages?

(Image via stock.xchng)

Post from: Blisstree

What You Drink Affects Weight Loss More