David Viscott (American psychiatrist, author, businessman, and media personality)
“You must begin to think of yourself as becoming the person you want to be.”
7 Android Apps That Can Help You Lose Weight
March 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Use Your Android Phone to Lose Weight
Remember the days when a phone was just a phone and it had a cord tethering you to it like a leash on a dog?
Those days are long gone and phones these days do so much more than just make calls.
In fact your phone can help you lose weight.
I did a little checking on my Motorola Droid and found 7 cool little apps that can help you lose weight, stay healthy, and get in shape.
The bonus is these apps are all free so you’ll have more money to put towards those new smaller clothes you’re going to need soon.
Calorie Counter – Provides nutritional value on fast food, restaurant chains, popular supermarket foods, and has a bar code scanner that instantly brings up the nutritional info for that product.
Plus you can track your daily calorie intake in the food diary, track your exercise and track your weight.
And you can sync the data to fatsecret.com and have the info you enter available on both your phone and your computer.
My favorite part of this app is the food diary. It’s way easier than lugging around my paper notebook weight loss dairy (which I tend to leave on the kitchen counter) whereas my trusty Droid is nearly anatomically attached to me and is always with me (except when I shower but if it ever becomes waterproof……..).
My Tracks – It monitors your performance when you go biking, hiking, walking or running. You can track your route, see how fast and far you went, and watch that data live (but please use the “watch live” feature carefully because it wouldn’t be cool if you ran into a pole while you were looking at your data instead of watching where you’re going).
The data or “tracks” can be shared once they’re recorded (start a competition with your best bud if even if he or she is thousands of miles away to help push both of you to go faster and farther and get fitter).
Ultimate Stopwatch – A great app that does exactly what it sounds like – works as a stopwatch.
Healthy Recipes – Browse thousands of healthy recipes anywhere. Then when you’re at the store and can’t think of something healthy to make for dinner and are 2 seconds away from tossing a couple of frozen pizzas and a package of cupcakes in your grocery cart, you can quickly find a healthy recipe instead, grab the ingredients, and stay on track with healthy eating.
CardioTrainer – It’s your free training partner for outdoor running, cycling, and walking. My favorite function is the pedometer. The downside is that the weight loss trainer and race against yourself functions on it aren’t free.
Rockon – Let’s face it, exercise is more fun with music and android’s built in music player is about as useful as a using your seat cushion as a floatation device in the event of a water landing.
With Rockon you can create playlists of your favorite “pump you up” music to help make your workout more effective. Yes, music helps with your workout. A study in 2005 showed that listening to music boosted workouts, leading to a greater reduction in weight and body fat compared to the participants who weren’t rocking out to tunes (done by researcher Christopher Capuano, PhD.). The music also helped participants stick with their exercise program, probably because the music took their mind off the difficulty of the exercise and helped time seem like it was going by faster.
If you get sick of your own music and want to try out some new tunes, give the Pandora (my fave), Last.fm, or Slacker apps a try.
WWdiary – If you’re a Weight Watchers follower, this app is for you. You can set what day your new “points” week starts, decide whether to use the extra weekly allowance of points or activity points first when you go over your daily allowance, and also use it to track your weight. It’s a great alternative to the “pen and paper” trackers from Weight Watchers.
Those are my favorite “freebie” apps, but if you have a couple extra bucks in your pocket (or better yet can find $2.99 in change in your sofa cushions – moving those cushions around and digging for the change counts as exercise, right?), then check out FitSynch. It has 1600+ exercises, videos, 500 workouts, and 60 fitness plans. Plus you get to “try before your buy” with a 15 day free trial.
You don’t feel like taking the time to download apps? No problem. Your android smartphone can still do lots to help you with your weight loss.
Use the browser to quickly access your favorite calorie counter websites; send a text to a friend when you’re in need of moral support to help you resist walking into the ice cream shop and buying a triple scoop fudge ripple cone; or my favorite technique when it’s a super busy time crunched day – use the camera to take pictures of everything you eat during the day and then browse those pictures later in the day when you have time to fill in your food diary (the one on your phone, on your computer, or your “old school” pen and paper). The camera will help your faulty memory remember everything you ate, including that latte you grabbed at Starbucks for a much needed afternoon pickup.
What about iPhone users? Well, I don’t personally have or use one, but you can read about similar apps for the iPhone here, here and here.
How To Stick To Your Diet Plan… By Not Following It!
March 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Look, following a diet plan can get old and really wear a person down after a while, especially if you’re like me and have a lot of weight to lose.
It’s enough to make a person channel their inner teenager and rebel but instead of going out and getting your nose pierced or dying your hair, you flip your diet the bird and eat all the junk food you can find and then some.
So here’s a way to make sticking to you diet infinitely easier.
Take a day off!
You don’t work 7 days a week, do you? No, you get weekends (or at least a day) off, right?
And you don’t exercise 7 days a week either. So why should you be expected to diet 7 days a week? You shouldn’t.
Remember, even God rested on the 7th day when he was creating Earth.
Just like a bridge that doesn’t have any “give” to it, it won’t hold up over time and disaster will happen. The same thing happens to most of us while dieting. We stick to a super healthy and strict diet plan to get the weight off, but at some point we just can’t take it anymore and go off the deep end.
So by building in some “give” to a diet in the form of a day off makes it much easier to stick to the diet the other 6 days of the week.
That way when you’re at a restaurant and the waiter walks by with a delicious looking plate of pasta drenched in Alfredo sauce that’s practically calling your name, you don’t have to sigh and think you can’t ever have it while simultaneously stabbing the lettuce leaves in your salad with a vengeance. Instead you can smile, know that on your day off you can have it if you want, and know that you can stick to your diet for the other 6 days of the week. It’s instant resolve and willpower!
This is how it works:
One day a week you get a break from dieting. That means no weighing or measuring of food.
It means no counting calories, counting carbs, counting fat grams, counting points or counting how many Twinkie wrappers are in the trash can!
It means no writing down what you ate. Your food journal gets decommissioned one day a week.
You eat what you want when you want the entire day.
Want fried chicken? Eat it!
Want an icy cold bottle of sugary Coca-Cola? Drink it!
Drooling over that chocolate cupcake in the bakery window? Buy it and enjoy every last morsel
Then the next day get back on your diet and follow it for 6 days using that upcoming 7th day off as a source of your willpower and resolve because you can do anything for 6 days, right?
One word of caution though. NEVER EVER weight yourself the day after your day off. Wait at least 2 days of being back on your diet to step back on the scale.
My son used this technique with a lot of success. He has followed some very strict vegan, raw food, and juice fasting diets to lose weight, cleanse his body, and feel healthier. While they were tough for him to follow he was able to do it because he never did them more than 6 days in a row. He knew what he was doing wasn’t permanent. There was light (aka – any food he wanted) waiting at the end of the tunnel!
By trying this technique myself I’m finding another bonus to it – it’s keeping my metabolism from tanking which means I’m not having those super frustrating plateaus that make a lot of us give up.
So go ahead, stick to your diet plan by not following it, one day a week!
Motivational Weight Loss Quote of the Week
March 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment
George S. Patton (World War II General)
“You’re never beaten until you admit it.”
Lighten Up Your Bakery Bun In Less Than A Minute
March 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Sandwich Thins, those skinny pieces of bread, are all the rage these days. And while they taste okay there’s nothing like a fresh from the bakery bun when it’s burger night.
Those delicious bakery buns can carry a pretty hefty calorie count though. My favorite, pictured below, weighs in at 170 calories which is not good for the waistline I’m trying to shrink.
So I turn my bakery bun into a “sandwich thins” style bun in less than a minute; cutting the calories by about a third.
Here’s how to do it.
1) Visualize the bun in three equal horizontal pieces, if the bun is uncut. If it’s precut then visualize slicing each half in half again.
2) Using a sharp serrated cut bun in thirds horizontally (or into 4 pieces if you have a precut bun).
3) Keep the top and bottom “crust” sections for your “lightened up” sandwich.
4) Place the middle section(s) in a plastic baggie for another use.
(Ideas to use up the middle pieces: keep in freezer and use to make fresh bread crumbs; slice, toss with olive oil and herbs and bake in the oven for fresh croutons; toast and top with Canadian bacon and an egg for an open faced sandwich).
To make it easier to slice the bun and for stability, place the palm of your non knife holding hand flat on top of the bun (but do it lightly so you don’t squish the bun into oblivion).
WEIGHT LOSS TIP OF THE DAY – Try New Fruits and Vegetables
March 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Try a new fruit or vegetable every week. It will help prevent boredom with eating the same things all the time and you just might find some new favorites. (I’m going to try Starfruit this week if my store has it).
How To “Deep Fry” an Egg Roll
March 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Do you love egg rolls?
I do (my Filipino sister-in-law makes killer good ones) but they’re not exactly diet or heart friendly after deep frying them in a vat of oil (but they’re really tasty that way).
One day I decided I wanted to know for sure how much oil they were soaking up rather than just estimating it so I measured the oil before and after (a really messy job).
Each egg roll soaked up almost 3/4 teaspoon of the peanut oil I cooked them in (90 calories worth). 
After making so much effort to find egg rolls that were tasty yet had a reasonable calorie and fat count (my favorites are Van’s shrimp egg rolls-110 calories each, or Van’s chicken egg rolls-120 calories each) it seemed like a really bad idea to deep fry them but I loved the crispy crunchy shell that forms when they’re deep fried.
I tried replicating that crispy shell in the oven by spritzing them with a little Pam spray but they didn’t get nice and crunchy even though I baked them almost to the point of burning them.
Then one day while rubbing oil on potatoes before baking them to ensure a crispy skin I realized that same concept would probably work great on my egg rolls.
After experimenting with different amounts of oil, types of oil, and application (dipping, rolling, rubbing with paper towel, and pastry brush) this is the process I think works best but keep in mind that every oven cooks a little differently so watch them closely the first time you try it and adjust times and temperature if needed. My method adds 20 calories to each egg roll instead of the 90 calories worth that deep frying uses – a savings of 70 calories per egg roll.
HOW TO FAUX DEEP FRY AN EGG ROLL
Measure out 1/2 teaspoon peanut oil for each egg roll
Apply oil to all sides of each egg roll with a silicone pastry brush
Bake egg rolls at 425 degrees (this is a higher temperature than most packages recommend but a higher temp is needed to get a crispy egg roll)
Bake for 12 minutes then turn. Bake for another 10-12 minutes or until egg rolls are browned and crispy.
WEIGHT LOSS TIP OF THE DAY – Shop the Perimeter of the Grocery Store
March 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Do most of your grocery shopping around the perimeter of the grocery store where the fruits, vegetables, meat, seafood and bulk food bins containing inexpensive whole grains are usually located.
Fruit2Day – Another New Way To Get Your Daily Recommended Amount of Fruit
March 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Talk to almost any nutritionist and he or she will say that us Americans are pretty bad at getting in the daily recommended amount of fruit, which varies according to age and sex but is 3-4 servings a day for adults.
Trying to get in 4 servings of fruit may seem daunting so why bother trying right?
Actually it’s not as much as you might think. A serving is only half a cup and it doesn’t take long for fruit to add up. It’s as easy as eating a large banana and a small apple. I was surprised by this myself – I thought a banana and apple would only add up to 2 servings but according to the information on mypyramid.gov a large banana is about 1 cup (two servings) and a small gala apple is about 1 cup (two servings).
But even though 4 servings isn’t that much fruit I’m one of those people that finds it hard to always get it in because fruit can go from fresh to “icky and rotten” in a hurry; and there’s nothing quite as horrible to eat as a piece of fresh fruit that tastes more like mealy cardboard than the apple or peach or strawberry that it’s supposed to be (like the strawberries I bought today that looked and smelled good but are crunchy-strawberries should NEVER be crunchy, and almost tasteless. That good deal of 2 quarts for $3 was a wasted $3). 
So since drinking juice, as long as it’s real juice and not artificially flavored sugar water, counts as a serving of fruit I keep it around but still try to have fresh fruit be half my intake because there’s less calories and more fiber in fresh fruit.
There’s a new juice on the market to try that’s part juice and part fruit because it has bits of fruit in it, called Fruit2Day.
Each single serve bottle has between 110-120 calories and 2 servings of fruit. Plus there’s no added sugar and it’s all natural.
There’s currently 4 flavors:
Strawberry Orange
Pineapple Banana
Mango Peach
Cherry Grape
To find out if a store in your area has it yet, use the website’s “where to find it” gizmo.
If you can get your hands on it save yourself a little green and print out a $1 off coupon from the product website. The website says to “introduce a friend” to get the coupon but you can send the coupon to yourself (I tried it – put the same name and e-mail in both the “who I was” and “who my friend” was fields and got the coupon but if you have gmail it will think it’s spam so look for the coupon in that folder).
Are you going to try it?
WEIGHT LOSS TIP OF THE DAY – Reward Yourself for Meeting Weight Loss Goals
March 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Reward yourself for meeting small weight loss goals such as 5 pounds or even for every pound you lose. It can help keep you motivated. My favorite personal rewards are inexpensive bouquets of flowers, a pair of cute socks, or an afternoon off to do whatever I want such as reading a book at the beach or playing video games.
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