Saturday, December 29, 2012

Trouble with cravings? Here's 5 tips to help you lose weight, stay on track, and keep it off!

How are you doing with your health, fitness, and weight loss goals?  Do you find that food temptations get the best of you?  Easily get off track?  Want to lose weight and experience your absolute best health, but can't stay on course? 

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you're not alone.  Let's be honest, it's part of our human genetic code, our DNA. What am I talking about?  Survival is a basic human instinct.  To increase our odds at surviving, in primitive times, we needed energy readily at our disposal.  Energy was necessary to survive in a physically demanding world that required energy for food, securing shelter, safety, and ultimately survival.  This is why our instincts naturally lean towards the preservation of energy and towards the consumption of high energy foods.  My instincts lean towards watching TV over running and eating pizza over parsnips. Is all lost?  Are we doomed to sit more and move less, eat more ho ho's and less whole grains?  Absolutely not!  You can take control of your genes and reach your potential!  You can turn the tide from missed workouts to made ones, in turn leading you to the health you were born to have!

How to get started?  See below for 5 steps to reach your health and weight loss goals!

  1. Train your brain!  What powerfully motivates you?  Take time to write down and reflect daily how your life will change for the better.  Then, connect your day to day food and exercise choices with your motivators to add strength to your willpower.  
  2. Restructure your environment!  Is your home and work environment a booby trap for willpower challenges?  Set up your environment up to cue you to make the right decisions, not continually challenge and tempt you to make the wrong ones. 
  3. Plan for success?  Have you planned out what you're eating in advance?  If you have 3 meals per day x 7 days, that's 21 opportunities.  How many are planned for?  You know what they say, without a plan, plan to fail.  Pre-planning meals is a cornerstone of success and sets a mental track for you to follow!
  4. To splurge or not to splurge?  Do you have to be perfect too lose weight and keep it off?  Absolutely not.  As a matter of fact, scheduling 1-2 moderate splurges per week can help decrease impulsive eating.
  5. Balance your blood sugar.  Find yourself with uncontrollable urges?  If so, how long has it been since you've eaten?  Go for longer than four hours, your blood sugar will lower to baseline which triggers hunger.  Go even longer and the cravings really start to get strong.  Try and eat a meal or snack every 3-4 hours for blood sugar balance and hunger control. 
Written by Kevin Grodnitzky, MS, RD, CDE, LDN Owner and Registered Dietitian at Nutrition Coaching Center.  www.nutritioncc.com


Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Welcome to the Nutrition Coaching Center!

Hello,

My name is Kevin Grodnitzky, founder and Nutritionist of the newly launched Nutrition Coaching Center, a weight loss and nutrition center located in Baltimore, Maryland.  Stay tuned for blogs to come about nutrition, health, weight loss, wellness, motivation, behavior change, and much more!  I'll be posting soon so stay in touch and thanks again for stopping by!

Yours in good health!

Kevin Grodnitzky, MS, RD, CDE