How to Snack Well

As a personal trainer who specializes in weight loss, I am constantly being asked “what am I doing wrong”? I then begin to ask some questions and the resounding response is snacking and portion size.

The remedy to both is sometimes the same thing. If you eat food that is healthy you can often get a bad result if you have too much of it. If you want to snack, you can eat the right stuff but again too much of it.

The best advice I can give you is to read the label. Most of the foods we buy comes in a package that allows you to find out how many calories are in a serving. We need to be careful that the serving size is not a trick. What I mean by this some companies give a small serving size that no one actually uses. Cereal is a good example. If you weight an ounce or cereal it is often half of what most people consider a bowl. Spray butter is another. They say it has no fat because one spray is less than a half a gram. When is the last time you only used one spray.

Next time you dole out a portion, look at how many portions are in the container. You can also buy a small food scale. After you use it on an item you can usually eyeball it for the next serving. Most people eat the same thing 80% of the time and eat new food item only on occasion. If you can learn the calories in the 80% the other 20% won't get you in much trouble.

Update on Family Weight Loss

     I posted something a few weeks back about a family member who asked how she could get back in shape. I had the unusual position where I didn't have to pussy foot around because of our long relationship and because of the fact that she asked for my professional opinion.

    Yesterday I got a text that she was doing great and had already lost six and a half pounds. We were both ecstatic. I then asked what was the secret. She said there are no short cuts but that one thing I said made a huge impact on her progress. I was curious what it was because I am always looking for a common denominator. If it works for one person it won't work for everyone but it may works for others as well.

    She said that one thing I said stuck out in her mind like never before. I don't remember the exact words unfortunately but it all came down to something like this. At the end of the day the only thing that matters is one word. "willpower". It may be two words "self discipline". She said that only thing keeping her fat and cutting her life span was her lack of willpower. No carb or fattening dish is worth my self esteem she texted! The good news was that there were only a few key times of day that she had to address to regain power and start making progress.

     If you are a successful business person and have done what it takes to succeed at work, just apply the same tenacity on something equally important, yourself. Someone once said that nothing tastes as good as being fit feels. You may find that if you try it for a few weeks you can create a new habit.