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New Days Added!

1/21/2015

Starting February 1st 2015, I will be seeing patients in my East Greenwich location on Tuesdays from 8am to 3pm. For more information or to schedule an appointment, please call (401) 829-6561.

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Happy New Year! Now that the holidays have past and we all have made our resolutions, how can we ensure that we follow through? First of all, resolutions are rarely kept. In fact, in 2013 only 8% of people actually were successful in completing their resolution! What was the number one ranked resolution in 2013? According to a University of Scranton study in the Journal of Clinical Psychology, weight loss was the number one ranked resolution of that year. So how can you better your odds at being successful? This one is a harder question to answer, because we all have our reasons and we all have our own obstacles to overcome. Looking at it from a more general stance, this is how you can better your chances of following through.

Be Realistic! Adopting more general resolutions that include small changes are going to be easier for you to follow through with and eventually success at this level will serve as a catalyst for further change. If you want to lose weight, then try adopting a resolution that includes eating healthier or being more active. These resolutions may appear general, however they aren't as rigid as saying that you want to lose weight. For example, if your resolution is I want to lose weight then there is only one measure to go by-weight. But if you change that to I want to eat healthier, you have opened up a variety of measures to monitor your progress. Eating healthier may be as simple as adding vegetables to three meals a day or drinking 6-8 glasses of water. Being more active may be as simple as walking more often, or attending one group exercise class a week.
The 80-20 Rule! Much of the time we base success on end measures, however how well we believe we are doing in between measurements (i.e weight, body fat, or how much you can run or lift at one time)is much more subjective. People will often adopt a black and white way of thinking, meaning that if they aren't eating low calorie, low fat foods at every meal then they have somehow 'fallen off of the wagon'. The truth of the matter is that adopting less rigid guidelines will enable you to follow through more consistently and therefore be more successful. I like to think of this as the 80-20 rule. 80% of the time you aim to eat the foods that are healthy for you (if healthy eating is your resolution), while the other 20% of the time you can be less stringent. If you eat 5 meals a day this means that four of these meals can be within your guidelines, and the remaining meal can be outside of them. This does not mean you have failed, or that you are weak....This means you are human! Whether it's because of a time constraint, or not having the availability of the organic/unprocessed ingredients you want to include, this gives you a pass to say, "it's ok to eat some of these other foods sometimes". In turn you will be nicer to yourself and less likely to beat yourself up and lower your self esteem.
There are no "BAD" foods! That's right! No more thinking that this is 'bad' and that is 'good'. Labeling foods as 'bad' does not lead to better choices. If anything, the labeling of foods as 'bad' and 'good' only perpetuates 'black and white' thinking. Instead of saying, "this is a bad food and I cannot ever eat this again", replace this with, "this is a food that I should eat limited quantities of, and in limited frequency." Allowing ourselves to indulge in processed sugary or salty snacks, while adopting a 'black and white' perspective, only leads to self-sabotage. How many times have you indulged in a sugary treat while on a 'diet' and then got angry at yourself for doing it? This often leads to guilt. Then guilt leads to this idea that, "well I guess I screwed up my diet, guess I can't change" then you proceed to eat the whole box of cookies. If you change your perspective and adopt this notion that all food is fuel, and hey sometimes I like to eat cookies. Then the few cookies you eat don't' overwhelm you with guilt, and you can move on to making better choices.

There are many different approaches to losing weight and eating healthy. The few points I make above are simply an approach that I have found useful in choosing to eat healthy. No matter what 'diet' or exercise plan you chose to adopt, just remember to be nice to yourself. Most likely you didn't gain all of that weight or become 'out of shape' in one week. So don't expect yourself to change overnight! Changing habits takes time and patience. But if you really want to achieve a goal, the best way is to always move forward.

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New Days Added!

A New Year and a New You!

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