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Health
How Busy Parents Can Lose Weight
By Rebecca Van Damm, CHC, RYT
Mar/Apr 2011


Moms and dads are not lazy. They take their kids to school, prepare meals for the family, juggle extracurricular activities and doctor appointments, take the dog and cat to the vet, clean up after the kids, pets, and sometimes spouses, go to PTO meetings, all the while working 9-to-5s, which easily become 8-to-7s on any given day. And on some days, as if by a miracle, they might have some time to socialize with friends their own age.

Parents work hard.

So, why are they overweight? With that kind of work ethic, who would have any trouble staying in shape? I mean, overweight is synonymous with slothful, right?

You crave whatever is in your bloodstream. So, when you inundate your body with fresh, healthy, fruits and vegetables, you no longer want the things that make you sick or overweight.

It doesn't mean that your metabolism has slowed down beyond repair. In fact, I hereby encourage you to do just that. Slow. Down. Your problem isn't that you're sitting around too much. It's that you're not sitting around enough. Let me explain by taking you on a trip to Italy.

Think heavy foods: pasta, cheese, wine, prosciutto, bread, pastries, cappuccinos, gelato, you name it. Think sexy, thin people in designer clothing riding mopeds. Think healthy bodies and glowing smiles. (I realize this is a massive generalization, but just go with it.) How can anyone eat like an Italian every single day and be in shape? I'll tell you how. It's not what they eat that makes them healthy. It's how they eat. They cook their own food from scratch. They sit down with friends and loved ones and take their time to eat, talk, share and enjoy each other. Their portions are smaller, and they take longer to eat them. They use a fork and a knife even when it's pizza. They chew their food. They do not eat in the car or on the run. Food is not just fuel to them. It's culture, it's family, it's life.

cooking with friendsI'm not saying that dinner should be a three-hour ordeal, and I'm certainly not promoting a white flour, white sugar diet of spaghetti and tiramisu. I'm just saying that losing weight and getting healthy is not a simple matter of "less calories in, more calories out." Unfortunately, our high-stress, sleep-deprived, coffee-fueled, sugar-addicted lives have made it more complicated than that. All of these factors affect our adrenal gland, which releases a hormone called cortisol when we are stressed and/or drinking too much caffeine, eating too much sugar and not getting enough sleep. That hormone tells our body to build up fat around the organs (right on the belly) to protect us from imminent danger. Basically, when we employ our American work ethic and run on empty without coming up for air, our body thinks we're running from a tiger in the jungle. So, even if we do exercise, we don't lose weight because our adrenal gland just takes the physical excursion as confirmation that we are indeed running from a tiger, and it is crucial to store fat until it's safe to find food again.

And it's different for everyone. It might be your adrenal gland. It could also be your thyroid, your estrogen levels or your liver. Maybe you just have a sweet tooth that you don't know how to fix. Maybe it's just hard to find time for yourself to make the changes you want to make in your life. The problems may be many, but the solution is simple: Don't focus on losing weight. Focus on healing. When the body heals, it natural reaches its optimal weight, which is not overweight.

Shifting your focus to healing means:

healthy cooking
  • Concentrate on what your food has, not what it doesn't. In other words, stop looking for labels with low fat, no fat, low carbs, no carbs, low calorie, no calorie promises. That's not nutrition. That's processed food. And it's misleading. For example, most food products that make the "low fat" claim make up for flavor by adding more sugar. You can see for yourself in the yogurt aisle. Check out the sugar content of the low fat yogurt versus the whole milk kind. There's a difference. Plus, you need fat. It helps your brain tissue function, lubricates your joints and activates your taste buds so you get full sooner and don't have to eat as much to feel satiated. The best way to get what you need nutritionally is to have color in your diet. Every color represents a different nutrient that you're putting in your body. We're not talking Jolly Ranchers here. We're talking strawberries, oranges, squash, broccoli, blueberries and eggplant! There's a whole rainbow out there just waiting to give your body what it needs to look and feel wonderful.

  • Crowding out. You crave whatever is in your bloodstream. So, when you inundate your body with fresh, healthy, fruits and vegetables, you no longer want the things that make you sick or overweight. Diets gurus are always telling people what to leave out of their diet. But when you're constantly thinking about how you can't eat carbs, for example, all you want to eat are carbs! And it's silly not to have carbs anyway! Carbohydrates are macronutrients that give your body energy. So, instead of depriving yourself of the foods you love, try adding the foods you know you should be eating with every meal. Have a salad everyday. Make a smoothie or oatmeal in the morning. Have something green with every dinner. Manage your sweet tooth with sweet vegetables like butternut squash and yams. If you really want chocolate, have organic, dark chocolate. Eat the best quality food you can and see if your body even wants to put anything else in it anymore.

  • Following the 90/10 Rule. The 90/10 Rule means 90 percent of the time, try to eat as healthy as you can, and 10 percent of the time, don't worry about it. How many diets have you been on where you just couldn't take it anymore and binge ate your way back to sanity? If you want to balance your body, balance your mind first. Stress and food don't mix. Nobody's perfect. Make 90 percent of what you eat fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and just leave some space for the French fries, alcohol and candy. It's OK. You can go back to eating healthy in your very next meal. You can start over every day, every hour, every minute. Every moment is a new chance to try again and heal your body.

  • Focus on how you feel, not how you look. When you eat sautŽed spinach and mushrooms with garlic and olive oil how do you feel? Keep asking and keep discovering. Everybody's body is different. No one diet works for everyone, and one person's food is another one's poison.

  • Get some sleep. Drink some water. I can't stress it enough. Even before exercise or healthy food, you need sleep and water. Eight hours a day, and half your weight in ounces, respectively.

You do a lot in your life. So, reward yourself and set a positive example for your kids by slowing down. Chew your food. Pack your meals with nutrition. You know what to do! Fruits, vegetables, water, sleep. Not too much coffee, meat and sugar. Move your body. Spend time with people you love. That's it! I know it's easier said than done. But keep working at it each day and eventually you'll get there.

And if you want support, I run a program called the Weekend Wellness Workshop, a 12-week intensive course designed to help you discover whole foods, whole health and whole happiness with multimedia holistic nutrition and wellness talks, healthy cooking classes, a grocery store tour, an individual consultation with a holistic health coach (me!), group discussion and more. Visit www.weekendwellnessgroup.com.

Rebecca Van Damm is a registered yoga teacher and a certified health coach. She works with busy people who want to find balance in their lives and feel good in their bodies, whether that means losing weight, feeling more energetic, learning to make healthy food or all of the above.


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