It’s January! And, if you’re like many, that means resolutions are in full force … you’re workin’ the scale, getting your body moving, sleeping more, and maybe even working less (yeah, right!). Congratulations. Stick with it. But, remember, there are good and bad ways to get in shape. In honor of Healthy Weight Week, we’ve got five tips any reader can do today to ensure their efforts pay off – the healthy way.
- Make friends with the scale. There’s a wide chasm of opinion between those who support using a scale, and those who do not. Many physicians say it’s a smart way to monitor the effect our eating habits have on our weight, while weight loss consultants and those who study body image, would rather you toss it in the trash, or use it for anaerobic exercise. The answer seems to lie in the middle. Perhaps you’ve heard something like this: “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” It makes sense, right? Keep track of your weight each day, and you’ll get a feeling for whether that pizza you ate this week was a choice your body deals well with … or, not. It’s a wonderful approach to dealing with the scale in your bathroom as well. So, use it. But make sure your understand it shouldn’t rule your life. Talk back to it, even! The scale is there to help measure where you’ve come from, and where you’re headed — not as a measure of who you are as a person. You are not the number on the scale.
- Don’t neglect your muscles. A healthy weight is best maintained when the muscles that support our body are strong. So, any sort of training that helps you build strong muscles should be considered a plus.
- Recognize achievements now. The difficulty maintaining a healthy weight often has to do with improper goal setting. Long-term goals (like retirement, for example) are difficult for humans to keep in focus beyond a short period of time. Failure, then, is almost predictable. It’s impossible to discount the feeling you’ll get when you’ve got a bag of groceries in each arm, and are aware of your muscles working to carry them; or when you feel yourself more deftly move in and out of your car after a particularly good week of healthy eating. These are real, immediate, AND measureable experiences. Experiences that when added up and remembered each day are the key to keeping your body healthy.
- Know your brain. Your brain lies to you. Yes, it does. It tells you you’re hungry when you’re tired. And, it tells you you’re tired when you’ve still got an extra mile in you. Don’t allow it to trick you. Learn more about your brain, and how to corral its tomfoolery on the FitWoman website. Which, by the way, has a lot of actionable healthy weight resources for women AND men!
- Asian soup bowls to the rescue! Speaking of our brains, how about we play a trick on it instead? It’s no surprise, that the larger the plate, the more we put on it. And the more we put on the plate, the more we eat. So, here’s a trick you can take to the bank. Pick up a few Asian soup bowls … not the giant ones used for the Vietnamese soup known as Pho, but more the Japanese miso soup variety … the small ones. If you struggle with portion control, try using these smaller bowls during mealtimes. It’ll slow you down, and allow your brain to start seeing them as the preferred portion size. It’ll help you manage servings more appropriately, and over time, you’ll get used to the new way of eating. Mangia, Mangia!
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