by Joan Kent | Jul 18, 2016 | Health and Wellness
Only a few days ago, I learned that July 21 is National Junk Food Day. Really. Did you even know there was one?
Research revealed a disappointing body of information. Neither the creator nor the origin of National Junk Food Day is known. The day is “dedicated” to the snacks “everyone loves.” Those foods are, by definition, high in fats, sugars, salt and calories, with little or no nutritional value.
Celebrating National Junk Food Day involves consuming your favorite guilty pleasures. And, of course, posting on social media using #NationalJunkFoodDay. (Yawn.) Yes, I’m old, but really?
Believe it or not, several Junk Food Day websites exist. One explained the day as a reaction to the unappealing routine of “being healthy, preparing a balanced meal, and snacking on carrot sticks.” The Junk Food celebration satisfies cravings for something “naughtier, greasier” and more fattening than the unexciting meal you know you should eat instead.
How To Minimize the Damage
Another website suggested taking a walk or doing yard work to burn off the extra calories. As if it’s only about calories.
My field is psychoactive nutrition, so I think about what a day of junk food can do to the brain: the food hangover that gives you brain fog and makes you feel as if you’ve been run over by a truck, for instance.
Or the cravings that will occur for up to a week and make it difficult to get back on track.
Or the results that never happen. I’m currently working with a client who, per her doctor’s instructions, is on a food plan that doesn’t permit starches. But she takes 2 days off every week and isn’t losing weight. Yard work won’t change that; she’s a runner. My theory is her 5 “on” days are probably just detoxing her from the 2 days of damage.
Why Must Days Off Be an Accident?
A woman in the weight-loss program I ran for many years actually complained that I never got sick.
She wasn’t envious of my good health. She told me how nice it would be to come in for the day’s training — and find I wasn’t there because I was out sick.
Okay, first: Why not work out on your own if the instructor’s sick, instead of leaving the gym? The gym equipment still functions when the instructor’s out. So … really?
Second: Gee, thanks for wishing sickness upon me. What unpleasantries may I wish upon you? Yikes.
Days Off can take place anytime and for any reason. If you want one, don’t go to the gym. Ah, but that means taking responsibility.
Apparently, It’s About Lack Of Guilt
It seems the idea of Nat’l Junk Food Day is to eat those favorite junk foods — just that day — without guilt.
Many years ago, I was a fitness instructor for a one-week, residential seminar on weight loss. The other fitness instructor and I had no control over the nutrition guidelines, the seminar format — or the announcement of a Day Off at the mid-week mark.
I objected. Why did we need a day off in a one-week program? Why were we teaching people who were just getting started to take a day off every week? Did anyone besides me see the self-sabotage flaw in that plan? Had anyone besides me ever dealt with nutrition clients who couldn’t lose weight due to a weekly day off that turned into a free-for-all?
The answers were unsatisfactory, but it wasn’t my call. It was about lack of guilt.
“If you own this story you get to write the ending.” ― Brené Brown
If you eat healthfully the other 364 days a year, then by all means celebrate National Junk Food Day and enjoy it.
If you eat well 95% of the time and have a solid plan for dealing with life’s inevitable nutrition interruptions — parties, weddings, and so on — you don’t need a guilt-free Junk Food Day. You’re already taking responsibility — even for your off-days.
Much brilliant work has been written about responsibility, so it would be foolish to discuss the topic here. But maybe the conversation comes down to a difference between external and internal motivation.
Once we’ve decided how we want to eat, why surrender motivation and responsibility for our food choices to a holiday — any holiday? Why not stay internally motivated and take responsibility for both on-days and off-days?
My advice is to stick with your healthful food plan no matter what. Find other ways to enjoy holidays and parties — the company, the conversation, the laughter.
Find the food plan that makes you feel great throughout the day, and eat that way throughout the year.
Why give it up for an anonymously invented occasion that provides a trivial external excuse to avoid responsibility?
Maybe I’m just a party-pooper, but I’ll toss in a quote on responsibility that made me grin when I read it the very first time. It’s by Theodore Roosevelt:
“If you could kick in the pants the person responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.”
Let’s end with the reaction of the strength-training coach in my long-running (13 years!) weight-loss program. When participants complained about not having days off, his very annoyed reply was, “There are no days off! This is it — the way you eat, the way you train — all the time.”
Good point, and I second the motion, National Junk Food Day or not.
by Joan Kent | Jul 5, 2016 | Engage Your Students
We’ve finally moved past fat-phobia, and it’s now common knowledge that sugar is bad news. Because of that, I’ve noticed people no longer seem interested in sugar as a topic.
But obesity is epidemic, so it is worth looking at eating triggers.
Sugar is definitely an eating trigger — and not just for more sugar, although that does happen. It can make us want to eat more food in general, and that’s obviously not good.
In fact, sugar may trigger full-scale binge eating episodes.
This post is not about binge-eating disorder, detailed in the DSM-5. Instead, it’s about binge eating, which can, and does, occur without the frequency or emotional aspects of the disorder. This post will focus on binges that involve eating large amounts of food, even when not hungry.
How Can Sugar Make Me Binge Eat?
Sugar can make you binge in several ways. This post will cover three of them.
Sugar triggers brain release of endorphins (beta-endorphin). Endorphins affect the part of the brain that signals satiety — the feeling that we’ve had enough food and don’t need to eat more.
Satiety goes beyond just ending a meal at a certain point. After the meal is over, it keeps us from wanting to go back for more food. The part of the brain that houses the satiety center is the VMH (ventromedial hypothalamus, for the curious).
Endorphins stop the VMH from producing the feeling of satiety. So sugar may cause the meal to go on and on — and may also start the next meal much sooner than it otherwise would.
Does Sugar Affect Everyone That Way?
Sugar’s effect on satiety is common to most of us, but some people are more susceptible to the brain effects of sugar. That might include folks with a personal or family history of alcoholism or other addiction, depression or other mood disorders, or a personal history of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).
Someone with one or more of these factors in his/her background may release more endorphins (beta-endorphin) when eating sugar. That could prevent the VMH from performing its satiety function for an extended time.
Then There Are Food Preferences
Endorphins change food preferences, making us want foods that trigger more endorphins. Those would be fats and more sugars.
Some explanations center on the “palatability” of sugars and fats, and that’s logical. Sugars and fats taste great.
But it’s the change in the brain because of the endorphins that makes us want different foods — and those foods further encourage binge eating.
The next post will cover another way sugar might make you binge.
by Joan Kent | May 31, 2016 | Big Box Instructor, Health and Wellness
The last post offered real-life examples that suggest the way you do anything is apparently not the way you do everything — in contrast to the common saying to the contrary.
I’ve saved the worst for last.
When I ran a weight-loss program in Silicon Valley, many of the participants were engineers, all very smart. Over the years, we had some excellent groups who followed instructions and achieved their goals, and also clueless groups.
The clueless groups couldn’t seem to manage anything pertaining to the training program.
They never showed up on time and were often up to 45 minutes late in a 90-minute program. They would forget to bring their workout equipment with them — heart rate monitors, cycling shoes, water bottles, towels, and more. They were undisciplined about making time for training on their own, between the scheduled studio sessions. They frequently failed to log their food as required. Some even had difficulty focusing on the training.
I asked one particularly scattered group to please start showing up as if they were doing it on purpose.
Clearly, people who performed their jobs with the same haphazard incompetence would be promptly fired. But these guys all had jobs and seemed to be good at them.
So the way you do anything is not necessarily the way you do everything.
How Can This Help Your Participants?
What have they done with great success? It may be any victory, small or large.
Are they great at planning the day? At making the most of in-between moments — spare blocks of 5 to 15 minutes, for example? They can find some stretching or strength exercises to do standing or seated, in office attire. (They do exist!) They an find a short but intense cardio workout to fit in first thing in the morning, or in the evening on days they can’t make it to your classes.
Are they good “just in case” people? Suggest that they pre-pack a gym bag and leave it in the car, even on days that seem too crowded for a trip to the gym. You never know. And if it’s packed and ready, they’ll never forget a key item.
Are they disciplined enough to get up an extra 15 minutes early? Suggest they wake up and immediately head to the kitchen and eat real food. It’s far better than waiting and grabbing something convenient but junky, like a granola bar, as you run out the door.
Bonus tip: Tell them to stop buying granola bars.
Are they adventurous enough to get away from standard breakfast meals? They can try healthful dinner leftovers for breakfast (something other than pizza and beer, right?). Seriously, if they start the day with protein and vegetables, they will probably notice a big difference in energy and mental focus.
Are they good at planning and pre-planning meals? Why not suggest they prepare lunches and snacks on the weekend, enough for a couple of days? Repeat midweek.
Many examples can be found in virtually anything they’ve done well. The obvious, but overlooked, trick is simply to assess their wins for the skills that made them possible. Apply those skills to fitness and wholesome food.
Then it’s easy to make them part of their lives — in a way that’s already comfortable for them. Maybe the way they do anything will, in fact, become the way they do everything.
by Joan Kent | May 24, 2016 | Best Practices, Engage Your Students
By Joan Kent, PhD
Have you heard it? It’s been around a long time: “How you do anything is how you do everything.”
I feel sure whoever came up with that statement — bad grammar and all — never worked in the fitness industry, or as a nutritionist.
How many times have I run into training clients like Kathy the stockbroker? She was a fearless cyclist but, by all accounts, a rather cowardly stock broker.
Or Debra, a sugar addict whose lack of progress in our weight-loss program made the supervisor say, “I don’t understand. She trains well.” For this client, training was the easy part. Not only was she accustomed to working out regularly, she was down for the intense workouts, too. Nutrition, on the other hand, was her challenge.
Debra was conscientious about her workouts because she’d been using them for years to compensate for bad food habits and her sugar addiction. She was trying to burn all those excess sugar calories in tough fitness classes.
If the how-you-do-anything cliché were actually true, why would these two clients do one thing so well, but not another?
Where There’s No Law, There’s No Freedom
(Apologies to John Locke)
Rachel was a successful attorney and a partner in a thriving law firm. She was less successful at creating healthful meals, at least at first. She did get on the right nutrition track pretty easily, but exercise was the tougher obstacle.
You might wonder how someone who could get into a good law school, make it all the way through, pass the notoriously difficult California bar exam, and become a successful lawyer could possibly have difficulty fitting exercise into her life.
But it had never been part of her life before, so it was completely new. The idea of making time for it was new. Prioritizing it, working her appointments around her exercise session, even waking up a few minutes earlier to squeeze a modified workout into her busy day — were all new.
Rachel didn’t seem to see that she could use the same skills she’d used her entire professional life to launch her fitness “career.”
In fact, when she started working on a new case and knew her schedule would be hectic for at least 6 weeks, her plan was … to skip her workouts till that hectic time was over.
Rachel had no clear picture of the impact those 6 sedentary weeks would have had on her fitness. You can’t take 6 weeks off and expect to pick up where you left off when you quit. You’ll end up starting from square one, especially in the early stages of a fitness program.
We did finally get Rachel’s fitness program solidly entrenched in her schedule, but it was slow going. She started with one day a week, and occasionally a second. Moving to 3 days a week — the minimum for fitness maintenance — took a long time. But she did it and got results.
Perhaps you have participants who are doing similar things. Part 2 will cover a final extreme example and some suggestions for how to use this info to advantage.
by Joan Kent | May 16, 2016 | Health and Wellness, Instructor Training
I see it more and more often: people who know they eat too much sugar but just don’t want to quit.
Here are 3 reasons people seem afraid to banish desserts or other sugary foods from their diets. Please inform your clients and class participants.
Fear #1: Not having a “sugar crutch” when you need it
When the going gets tough, the stressed grab cookies. If you haven’t figured out a different — and more healthful — stress management strategy, sugar may seem like the only way you can relieve the stress you’re facing.
What To Do Instead
Several options come to mind for stress relief. Here’s a simple one.
Breathe. Most people recommend slow, deep breathing, which can be very helpful. But from my own experience, as well as from accounts by others, I know that deep breathing won’t always work. In fact, when we’re super-stressed, it can be difficult to take slow, deep breaths.
I suggest short, sharp exhalations. Breathe out forcefully enough to make noise — similar to the sound a tennis player might make when hitting a serve. (If you’re in a location where you can’t make noise, just breathe out quickly and with power.)
Do a set of 3 sharp exhalations. Stop for a moment and feel the tingling in your body. Do another set of 3. Stop again and feel your body. Do a third set of 3.
By the time you’ve done that, there should be lots of tingling and a significant change in the way you feel. It should then be possible to slow down your breathing to a deeper, more relaxed rate. If you want to follow with a short meditation, it will work better once you’ve brought your breathing under control.
Fear #2: Going a little nuts without sugar
Some people are quite aware of what happens to them when they don’t eat their usual sugary treats. That’s what they worry about when someone suggests that they get rid of sugar in their diets.
You may have experienced some of these withdrawal symptoms. They can take different, yet predictable, forms. You might feel edgy and restless. You might be irritable, impatient, or unable to concentrate. You may have serious cravings for the foods you’re trying to eliminate. You might get headaches. You might start thinking about sugary foods — and nothing but them. You might keep walking back and forth to the break room or the kitchen.
What To Do Instead
Short-term relief can be made simple with a teaspoon of liquid B-complex (the entire B-complex, not just one or two B vitamins). Check with your doctor before trying this to be sure it’s okay for you to have these water-soluble vitamins.
B-complex is highly effective. It will eliminate cravings and other withdrawal symptoms within minutes and typically prevent their return for up to 24 hours.
The vitamins are water-soluble, so you’ll excrete any excess in urine. This is a short-term strategy only. Long-term craving elimination may require nutrition changes.
Fear #3: Never being able to enjoy eating again
It’s rough to give up foods we love. It can seem as if nothing will ever take their place. And the foods we use to handle stress, to celebrate, or for comfort and relaxation usually change brain chemistry in a big way.
Anything that changes brain chem can promote a strong reaction when we think about getting rid of it. Let’s call that reaction “emotional attachment.” Anyone who knows the power those foods can have over them — especially at certain times — is aware that the attachment can be quite emotional.
A client once stomped her food and said (more accurately, whined), “Joan, do you ever enjoy eating?!”
My answer to her applies to anyone else: “Of course!”
What To Do Instead
Eat healthful fats. Or choose savory seasonings. Or use more salt for a while. If you’re concerned about hypertension, be aware that sugar (and the insulin it triggers) can raise blood pressure even more than salt. And you don’t have to use extra salt forever, just till you get past sugar’s grip.
We don’t need sugar to enjoy eating. Many, many non-sugary foods taste absolutely wonderful. Great news: As you get away from sugar, foods you didn’t like before may actually taste good!
Vegetables are a perfect example. Every client of mine who hated vegetables was hooked on sugar big-time. And every one of them changed his/her opinion after ditching sugar.
Getting past withdrawal, cravings, and unhealthful “stress junk” is the freedom I wish for your participants. If they haven’t quit sugar because they don’t think they can — or fear they’ll fail — let them know it’s easy, it really works, and they can do it. And help is available. They’ll feel great, and great about themselves for quitting.
