To succeed in weight loss, don't stop - substitute

We wean a baby from the bottle or breast by providing an equally gratifying oral substitute namely, food.

So when we want to lose weight we cannot simply stop eating, for obvious reasons.

Instead, we need to exchange unhealthy eating with healthy substitutes, including food as well as other means of gratification.

A recent study at the University of Michigan found that women who received an "exchange list" of foods as well as dietary counseling over the phone "demonstrated a twofold increase in fruit and vegetable intake and significantly increased their consumption of so-called "good" fats."*

For example, they were advised to use olive oil instead of corn oil or margarine, and to increase the amount of dark green, red and yellow or orange vegetables in their diet.

This study confirms that with the support of an ongoing relationship with a nutritionist, women can modify longstanding eating patterns when they are given the necessary information and follow-up.

These women did not suddenly transform themselves; nor were they necessarily successful dieters before they entered the study. What's important is that they were helped in a constructive way to achieve the goals that they set for themselves.

You can do it, too.

But you have to be ready. It may take days, months or years before you feel strong enough to make the transition. See my previous blog (Stop Feeding your Brain) for some thoughts about getting ready.

Then get yourself a coach to support you in your efforts. You can use this list of healthy substitutes to begin:

* 8-10 servings every day of high monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA) - olive or hazelnut oil, avocado and macadamia nuts
* Limits on corn oil, margarine, tahini, pine nuts, sesame seeds and other fats that are low in MUFA
* One or more servings each day of each of the following:
o Dark green vegetables, such as broccoli, peas and spinach
o Garlic, onions and leeks
o Green herbs, such as basil, cilantro, peppermint and sage
o Red vegetables, such as tomatoes, tomato sauce and salsa
o Yellow or orange vegetables, such as carrots, red bell peppers and pumpkin
o Other vegetables such as artichokes, cucumber, green beans and sugar snap peas
o Vitamin C fruits, such as oranges, mangoes and strawberries
o Other fruits, such as apples, bananas and grapes

*http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/133566.php

Do you suffer from PTSD?

PTSD, or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, is an emotional disorder that results from having experienced a traumatic event, usually one that posed a serious physical or psychological threat to the person.

More women than we realize are suffering from PTSD.

These women may have suffered physical or psychological abuse as children or after marriage, a difficult birth or miscarriage, or traumas related to their children.

But they don't talk about it.

Because to talk about abuse invites others to comment or further criticize them. They stand a good chance of feeling shamed rather than supported.

So they suffer in silence.

The PTSD symptoms may recur whenever the woman feels threatened. This threat might appear to someone else as mild criticism but to the PTSD sufferer the remark pierces her armor of normality and strikes at her sense of integrity and self-esteem.

She needs help.

She needs you to listen, to understand and to acknowledge her strengths and her gifts to the world so that the PTSD nightmare can end.

Stop Feeding your Brain

I'm an obsessive reader of research concerning the benefit and difficulty of losing weight.

My father and his two brothers died young from coronary heart disease. My father was 58 at the time of his death. He did not live to see his first grandchild.

We did not know about the harmful effects of diet and lifestyle when I was growing up. That is no longer the case.

Ironically, we have more knowledge at the same time that we have greater levels of obesity among young and old.

There are many theories of the causes of weight gain in this country, but they basically boil down to the inverse relationship between activity level and caloric intake - one goes down while the other goes up.

I also think that we are misreading basic cues. We may eat because we're suffering from unmet physical needs, such as sleep or sexual relations, or from psychological ones. We eat when we're stressed, overworked, frustrated, bored, depressed, lonely or angry. We eat to feed ourselves in a primal, primitive way.

Food = love, according to the emotional brain.

It takes conscious effort to sever this connection. When one does, however, one is on the road to solving much more than a weight problem.