Look at that ingredients list... good grief.

This is awesome. But now, I have to address something a little less than awesome. The FDA.

For those of us who are calorie counting, this is of interest to us. I, really, have no words for this just yet. But trust me.. they’re coming.

For those of you who may not be able to watch the video, the transcript (provided by The Today Show website) is pasted below. Just… wowzers.

Matt Lauer: This morning on TODAY INVESTIGATES, exposing the truth behind diet food labels. Can you really believe those fat and calorie numbers? NBC’s Jeff Rossen went to find out. And I have a feeling this is bad news, Jeff. Good morning.

JEFF ROSSEN reporting: No. And we brought them out to show you.

LAUER: All right.

ROSSEN: You know, a lot of us are on diets, including one of us on the couch right now. We’ll let you guess which one. And that’s why we buy these frozen meals. They make the hard sell right on the front. I’m sure you’ve seen it, with the low-calorie and the low-fat numbers. So we took them to a lab and did some testing of our own. This morning, we separate the fat from the fiction. IN the battle of the bulge these companies say they have the secret weapon.

ROSSEN: They brag about low fat and calories, knowing consumers eat this stuff up. How important are these numbers to you?

Unidentified Woman #1: They’re important.

Unidentified Man: And that’s all I look at. First thing, even before price.

Unidentified Woman #2: People don’t buy it because it tastes good. They buy it because the calories are there. And that’s what they’re looking for. And they’re like…

ROSSEN: So if the calories and the fat are off?

Woman #2: Yeah, then it’s what’s the point?

ROSSEN: Exactly. So we bought meals from the top diet brands: Lean Cuisine, Weight Watchers’ Smart Ones and Healthy Choice. We took the meals out of the packaging and put them into specially marked baggies, then sent them here to ESL, a top food laboratory. Scientists tested each sample for fat and calories. Would the numbers really match the labels? We found it was all over the map. Some were actually lower. Healthy Choice Roasted Beef Merlot, 17 percent less fat compared to the label. Lean Cuisine’s Grilled Chicken Primavera, 19 percent fewer calories than the label. And the rosemary Chicken, 60 percent less fat. But don’t start binging yet. Our tests showed many meals were packaged with higher numbers. Smart Ones Shrimp Marinara had ten percent more calories than the label. Healthy Choice Lobster Cheese Ravioli, 17 percent more fat than the label. And that Lean Cuisine Chicken Primavera? Twenty percent more fat. But the biggest gut busted of all? Smart Ones Sweet and Sour Chicken. It advertises 210 calories and two grams of fat. We found it really had 11 percent more calories and the whopping 350 percent more fat. While the company was “skeptical” at our results, they’ve now launched an internal audit.

Ms. SUSAN ROBERTS, PHD (Tufts University): It’s enough to make you cry. I mean, these – this is disgraceful.

ROSSEN: Susan Roberts should know. As a leading food scientist, she did similar testing in her lab and, like us, found lying labels.

Ms. ROBERTS: We hear all the time that people are not losing weight. They’re plateauing. They can’t understand why they’re eating almost nothing and not losing weight. Here’s one explanation.

ROSSEN: You may be outraged by this, but the government isn’t. In many cases, under the law it’s perfectly OK. Believe it or not, FDA regulations allow food companies to be as much as 20 percent off on their labels.

Unidentified Woman #3: That’s unfortunate, and especially at the same time when they’re preaching to us about obesity.

ROSSEN: The government allows these companies to be 20 percent off on their label.

Unidentified Woman #3: Why?

ROSSEN: Good question. The FDA declined our request for an interview, so we went to the group representing the food companies. Isn’t this deceptive?

Mr. ROBERT BRACKETT (Grocery Manufacturers Association): No, it’s not at all deceptive. It may be something that the consumers don’t necessarily understand. And this is a great to explain them.

ROSSEN: He says these labels are merely an average. Companies come up with the numbers by testing a dozen or so meals then taking the average. Portions vary so they say no one meal can be exact. Why not be more transparent on the label and say this isn’t necessarily 230 calories, it’s an average? It’s 230-ish calories.

Mr. BRACKETT: Well, you could but it really wouldn’t help consumers. The idea here is that if you see 230 calories, that that’s a food that you normally eat, some are going to be more and some are going to be less.

ROSSEN: So you’re saying it’s OK for one particular sample to be three times higher than it says, another sample to be three times lower, as long as it averages out?

Mr. BRACKETT: Well, it’s — a better way to say this is not it’s OK, is that it’s a fact of nature. It’s a matter of being practical.

ROSSEN: Tell that to the poor customer who ends up with our Sweet and Sour Chicken, packed with three and a half times more fat than the label claims.

Woman #2: That’s scary, actually, because I eat those a lot, like very often, and now I’m wondering maybe that’s why I am — my weight hasn’t budged.

ROSSEN: No, she still looks good. In fact, scientists say these variations could cause you to gain weight over time. We shared our results with the food companies. They told us their labels and their testing procedures follow all FDA regulations. And, Matt, the big question is if these are made on a production line, why can’t they be more exact? The food companies say we’re dealing with real food here…

Can We Really Trust Nutrition Labels? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Are The Fat Free Labels Lying To You?
2. How To Dine With Nutrition In Mind
3. Supermarket Swindle: Two Things To Avoid On Your Food Labels

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: calorie counting, FDA, government, healthy foods, myths, nutrition labels

So, at last week’s FITNESS Magazine Meet & Tweet, I attended a panel discussion titled “The Real Deal on Carbs, Cleanses and Caffeine.” Believe it or not, the crowd was kind of sparse – I feel like people were far more interested in the swag than the dialogue – but y’all know me. I’m nerdly… and I don’t turn down the opportunity to gather more info for BGG2WL. Considering how they had June DeMelo, FITNESS magazine’s nutrition editor; as well as Keri Gans, RD and author of The Small Change Diet (grrr, there’s that word again); and Tanya Zuckerbrot, RD and author of The Miracle Carb Diet (…and again…), I figured there’d be some valuable information worthy of sharing, here.

So…I recorded the dialogue.

I separated out the portion on coffee because I think its worthy of its own separate post, since so many people ask me about it. I feel like, far too little, people differentiate between “coffee” and “instant” coffee, coffee that you brew yourself and “coffee” that you get from certain places, or are even unwilling to say “a little coffee” vs the “all or nothing” approach.

Considering what I knew about coffee before I attended, I was glad to see some of what I knew to be confirmed…but lots of things weren’t touched.

Quoting the participants:

“There’s actually research that shows that a little bit of coffee before your workout can help you work out harder, longer, not feel the kind of the pain or difficulty and just a lot of research in general saying it has health benefits and that you don’t need to feel guilty in drinking it.”

Hmmm….

“There are, actually, so many health benefits now associated with intake of coffee and, [applause] I’m with you on that. Coffee can lower your risk to everything from Alzheimer’s to depression. Of course coffee’s been linked to reducing your risk for cancer, so there are some amazing health benefits associated with drinking coffee. Of course, you don’t want to exceed what is recommended, which is approximately 3 cups (24oz) a day, which is what they say is a safe amount for women. As far as the benefits for exercise, some studies do correlate if you drink approximately one cup of coffee before a workout, that your intake will enhance performance and that’s because caffeine is a stimulant. You will have energy. What I will warn you about is, if your workouts are longer than an hour, you will come crashing down. If it’s just a quick burst of energy, studies have shown that a cup of coffee is effective and is no different from an energy drink some people would have… it’s just not a good supply of long term energy. But there are health benefits, you do not have to stop coffee… except in two cases: 1) if you’re trying to get pregnant, more than two cups of coffee a day have been shown to reduce fertility by a rate of 40%; and 2) if you are pregnant, you should not drink more than one cup of coffee per day because it may increase the risk of a miscarriage, but pregnant women, have your coffee. It’s been known to be a mood enhancer.”

Double hmmm….

“What you want to be careful of, though, is not letting your cup of joe become a dessert. I think one too many people think “Oh, I can drink coffee,” but they’re not thinking about what they’re putting in that coffee. So, if we’re telling someone “Oh, have a cup of coffee for exercise, we’re not talking about some mocha frappucino something or other with whipped cream that’s five hundred calories. That’d be pretty silly if you’re going to work out and try to be healthy. So I think that what people really need to look at, is what they’re putting in their coffee. It’s one thing to have a tall black coffee, you know, a few calories, but then you start to add things… the coffee really starts to become more like a dessert. I also know, that if someone’s not a coffee drinker, it’s just like wine – you don’t need to become a coffee drinker. And there’s benefits, yes, from the caffeine, but a lot of it is the antioxidants that are in the coffee and not the caffeine. So, for instance, lowering the risk of diabetes can come from drinking coffee but it has, really, nothing to do with the caffeine but possibly the antioxidants. What I recommend, as opposed to having that cup of coffee before working out, is having a healthy snack. Keeping your body fueled properly throughout the day, in my opinion, is much more beneficial that drinking coffee all day. I mean, I love my coffee. I am a coffee drinker. However, I’m not using that for my fuel. I’m using food for fuel. So, before a workout, I’d much prefer to see someone have a piece of fruit and maybe some string cheese or maybe a yogurt and some fruit works, again, replete with energy.”

All are great quotes. I just…need to contrast them with this:

Scientists agree that caffeine activates the pleasure centers of the brain by slowing down the rate of dopamine reabsorption, thus making us feel peppy and good (cocaine and heroin do the same thing, but obviouslyl to a much greater degree.) Caffeine also provides a shot of adrenaline, so we feel charged up, while blocking reception of adenosine, another neurotransmitter believed to play a part in promoting sleep, making us feel sharp and awake. Now, once the adrenaline wears off, what’s next? Well, as any coffee drinker knows, we feel tired, in the dumps, irritated, and jumpy, and our heads hurt, too, since caffeine restricts the blood vessels in our brains, and we need a coffee to get our adrenaline levels back to the levels to which our bodies have grown accustomed. [source]

Coffee, it seems, is one of those things people either go for or don’t really care for, and I’m totally fine with that. That being said, all coffee is not created equal. There’s a reason why, even though there’s “instant” “coffee” (it dissolves in your cup!…?!??) there’s still a “brew your own at home” market. And, even though there are brands that are out here with catchy commercials and epic marketing, there’s still a market for people who like to have their beans ground right in front of them. There’s a reason why, for all of that.

I think the infographic above, courtesy of Good.is, covers fair trade and its importance pretty thoroughly. There’s easily another thousand words I could throw in here about this, but I’ll save that for another day. Suffice it to say, when things come too cheaply, someone’s getting shortchanged in the end… and it’s usually the person with the fewest representatives and the smallest “voice” (read: least money.) You want to consume consciously not only for your health, but for the sustainability of our communities (yes, even the global community, as well).

As with all other things, the more manipulated it is by man, the less the benefit you can receive when it comes time to consume it. So instant coffee… that’s out. Nothing should be dissolving into your drink and creating “awesomey goodness.” That’s the height of hyper-processed food trickery. If it dissolves… it’s gotta go.

Processed coffees with branding, labels and other fancy schmanciness… let’s just say this. If you have a spot in your coffee section that allows you to portion out your own beans and grind them, then you should do that.The less the processing, the more of those antioxidants you’ll be receiving from your cup. There are different flavors available – they’re made in almost every way between “pouring ‘natural flavors’ on your beans” to “roasting the beans with fruits to give their flavor” – and often times, the flavors are good enough where you neither want nor need all the sugar and cream and goodness knows what else in your coffee. You can also add flavors to your own beans and roast them yourself. There are lots of coffee shops who will do that for you, as well.

That leads me to another point, that one of the RDs made above. What are you putting in your coffee? If it’s some form of artificial sweetener… let’s talk. Are you using raw sugar? Actual raw sugar? Unbleached? (No, not even those “bleached but coated in molasses after the fact” sugars will do.) Consider using something a little less…adulterated.

And what about those creamers? If you’re using a certain creamer brand, you can rest assured it’s not clean. In fact, it has trans fats in it. If you’re using a non-dairy creamer, again… rest assured, it uses trans fats. Coffee, though it may have antioxidants, is not essential enough to sacrifice “clean-liness” for it. If you’re in need of a pick-me-up that badly, a hearty piece of fruit does the job just as well as coffee… unless you’ve become addicted to it (which, considering how it has effects similar to other addictive substances, would make sense.) Try to stick with regular creamy substances to avoid the negative side effects of consuming mystery chemicals on a regular basis. Using creamer is, more often than not, a means of adding fat to the drink to make it more palpable – people can often be caught adding any member of the sugar/fat/salt trifecta to their food – so, I must say, coffee isn’t essential enough for the strife.

As a “clean” coffee habit can get kind of pricey – fair trade, flavorful beans, raw cane sugar, clean creamers – it’s easy to see why someone would simply tap out. To drink, or not to drink… that is the question.

That being said, I wish y’all could see the cup of coffee I have sitting beside me on my desk. Pardon me as I hug my island roast, complete with coconut milk. Swag my morning out.

I do it the el cheapo way because, quite frankly, I’m cheap. I invested in a french press. I use, maybe, one tablespoon of coffee each morning in the bottom of my french press and boil two hearty cups. Sometimes I use something to make it creamy, sometimes I don’t. I don’t add sugar, but I also don’t swallow my cup whole. It’s coffee, not kool-aid.

I also went to a coffee shop and paid outright for a full pound of coffee, ground especially for a french press. Because the press uses so much less coffee than a coffeemaker (and uses less electricity), I wind up saving money both ways. The pound of coffee has lasted me six weeks thus far, and I just got to the half-pound mark.

So…tell me. How do you do your coffee?

The Coffee Conundrum: To Drink Or Not To Drink? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Do YOU Drink 93 Packets Of Sugar A Day?
2. Weekend WTF: Can’t Eat Your Bacon? Drink It!
3. Why The Food Stamp Soft Drink Ban Is BS

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

I do. What happened to breakfast?

Why do we do this to ourselves? Because we know that we’ll be alright if we only get something else a little later on instead of now? Are we even properly gauging what we can actually handle?

Here’s the skinny: It’s called breakfast because you’re breaking the fast that you endure when sleeping. You fast during sleep, you wake up, you eat! If you wait until lunch time.. what happens? You’re starving, and likely to order to first 1,300 calorie burger you can get your mitts on and pow! Overeating again!

Is it an issue of time? If so, here’s a suggestion. Grab a waffle or two. Cut up some fruit in ziploc bags, and grab one in the morning as you prepare your shower or get your thoughts together for the day.

No matter how many times you hear your friends say otherwise, skipping breakfast isn’t saving you calories in the slightest. They eventually wind up overcompensating for the calories lost at breakfast, because the body is much more hungry than it would’ve been at breakfast. It’s not beneficial to your weight loss efforts at all!

It could be as complex as a salsa omelette, or as simple as a half of a grapefruit sliced in fourths. The important thing here is to nourish your body in the morning, so that you’re not eating to make up for 14-16 hours of starvation at lunch time. Your tummy will thank you for it!

Skipping Breakfast: A Surefire Way To Gain Weight is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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1. My Struggle With Quitting Smoking And Weight Gain
2. Q&A Wednesday: A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight GAIN?
3. Vanity Sizing: Accidentally Masking Weight Gain?

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Fad Diets

People are lovin’ this thing! I mean, OD’ing on it! Seems like the only ones up in arms about it are deskchair critics like myself, thumping away on our laptops and writing angrily on our blogs. I have to admit. The thing is well received. So much so, that there was a slew of articles written about how “The Double Down Is Less Calories Than The Average Salad… So Let Us Eat Our Two Pieces Of Fried Chicken With Pork And Simulated Cheese In Between In Peace!”

Anyone else hear the record skip? I did.

It’s bull.

Those of us who are calorie counting… I get it. It’s only 540 calories… it’s tempting. But think about it – if you’re really calorie counting, then you know full well what you can get for 540 calories. You know that that’s over 10 cups of broccoli. (Not that you’d actually eat that, but it leads into a larger point.)

Since I brought up broccoli, can we address the primary issue, here? You’re spending 540 calories on two pieces of fried chicken, pork, and a slice of “processed cheese food.” A primary point of calorie counting is the fact that since you are working to limit your intake of food, you make the most out of each calorie you’re ingesting. FiveThirtyEight offers up a pretty good explanation of what I mean:

Here, the Double Down’s credentials are more impressive. Those 540 calories contain 145 milligrams of cholesterol (more than twice that of the Big Mac and about half of the USDA’s daily allowance) — along with 1,380 milligrams of sodium (the USDA recommends no more than 2,400 per day) and 32 grams of fat (65 will keep you slim, says the government). So, for getting only about one-quarter of the calories that you need in a day, you’re exhausting about half your budget of “bad stuff”. [source]

So, let’s keep it real. For those 540 calories, you’re getting nothing but salt, oil, fat, a pickle and a chemical conglomeration that comes out something similar to cheese.

Thus… we come to the REAL problem I have with the food discourse, right now. Why are we comparing a sandwich made of chicken and pork… to a salad? Certainly, we’re ignoring salads with fried toppings and creamy high fructose corn syrup dressings in this conversation… but a salad with actual nutrients to offer the eater is compared to a sandwich made of sadness and skinny chickens? It doesn’t matter where your calories come from as long as the total amount of calories is relatively small? A calorie is just a calorie anyway, right?

Let me make something clear. A calorie is not, in fact, just a calorie. It absolutely does matter whether your calories are coming from sugar, fat or protein. It matters because your body does very different things with each. And there are far too many people profiting off of continuing this perception that calories are just …calories.

Don’t believe me? Check this out:

“If all consumers exercised, did what they had to do, the problem of obesity wouldn’t exist.”

Know who dropped that little tidbit of nutritional science?

PepsiCo’s Chief Executive Officer, Indra Nooyi. Yep.

It’s the eternal passing of the buck. It’s not that “people are eating too much of my product.” It’s not even “people need to exercise moderation.” The message is “if you exercised, you wouldn’t be fat.” The message is also “there is no reason to stop buying my products, because the problem is only that you don’t exercise!” Understand what that means – it completely absolves the company of their share of responsibility in the obesity epidemic. It says the problem is the fact that you don’t move enough, as if that is the only explanation for why people become overweight. It simply isn’t.

The food industry is great at this – guilting the public into feeling bad about exercise (since, let’s face it – many simply do not) and using that guilt to avoid accepting some of the blame. I start to feel like a conspiracy theorist sometimes when I talk about the marketing and trickery used in their language… but at least I’m not making stuff up or pulling it out of thin air.

Because I know this is confusing to many, understanding why a calorie isn’t simply “a calorie,” I intend to spend this week talking about this very subject. So now, the next time some genius tells you “my double down is better than your salad,” you can let them know exactly what they can – and will – do with that double down.

1. Comprehending Calories: The Basics
2. Comprehending Calories: The Role of Carbs In Your Diet
3. Comprehending Calories: How To Properly Read A Nutrition Label

Thoughts? Let’s hear ‘em!

KFC’s Double Down Reminds Us: All Calories Are Not Created Equal is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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1. Double Leg Lifts
2. Weekend WTF: Would YOU Eat Lab-Created Meat?
3. How Many Calories Are You Drinking?

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 18 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: calorie counting, calories, dirty eating, double down, Fast Food, junk food, kfc, nutrition, pepsi, soda, soft drinks

Why?

There are a few reasons. But first, I think it might be important to explain the process that the grain must go through (because rice starts out as a much larger grain) in order to become the white rices and pastas that we enjoy so much.

This diagram, from The Today Show, diagrams the grain when it’s first harvested. It goes through a rice husker to have the outermost shell removed, and you’re left wit brown rice. Ta-da! The bran part of the grain is where all the rich and chewy fiber is located. The germ is where the nutrient-rich portion of the grain is found. The endosperm is, well… we’ll get to that.

Take it a step further. To get white rice, the outer husk and bran (the fiber-packed part?) are stripped from the grain, as is the nutrient-filled germ. This, obviously, leaves only the starchy endosperm. From here, the endosperm is polished in sugars and/or powders to not only aid in taste, but reshape the grain. Sounds like all of the good stuff is stripped from the grain, right?

Well, that’s because it is.

This is where that “enriched” part comes in. Processing plants will “add” vitamin D and whatever else into the endosperm so that total nutritional value isn’t lost, but it pales in comparison to what originally was in the rice in the first place. As in, what it grew from the ground carrying. Riboflavin and thiamin (which helps your body in metabolizing fats), potassium (which helps your body balance out high sodium intake), vitamin e (a skin care essential that aids in anti-aging)? All are lost when rice makes the transition from brown to white.

I won’t go on my typical trademark rant, but I will say this: rice in it’s least processed form is three times as filling as enriched white rice.

Since you can see that white rice is brown rice with all the valuable stuff stripped of it with some other stuff injected in to “enrich” the endosperm, you can see why it’s so easy to cook white rice… or why it’s so difficult to cook brown rice. What would I suggest? Honestly, ditch the minute/microwaveable rices, and opt for something else.

What else is there?

I’m a big basmati and jasmine rice eater, as well as brown rice. Basmati rice might be a bit pricier – there’s no $0.99 bag of it available anywhere – but for those who love to eat enriched white rice, both are viable options. I eat brown rice, but because I was always so used to white rice, it was a hard switch for me. What do I do instead? After I cook my brown rice (for about 45 minutes – yes, that extra nutrition-y goodness means it takes much longer to cook), I use it in stir fry type dishes or I create a sauce with the leftover juices from cooking the other parts of my dish. A little lemon juice, orange peel, or even an oregano/sage/cranberry blend can go a long way.

In short, there is a benefit to taking the leap away from enriched white rice. Are you taking the leap? Have you already lept? Let me hear about it!

What’s Wrong With White Rice? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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2. Pleasure and The Puritans: Why “If It Tastes Good, It MUST Be Bad” Is Wrong
3. The Myth of The Food Desert: Where The Root Went Wrong

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 26 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: processed foods

Full of tequila and triple sec from the first Lobsterita, I’d go in again! “One more for the road! I’m in there like swimwear!” Clearly drunk.

Let’s do some quick math, shall we? One Lobsterita – 890 calories. Guess who had two? Allow me to raise my hand.

1,780 calories went strictly to drinks. Stuff that couldn’t even substantially fill me up. Granted I enjoyed myself, but 1,700 is more than I eat in a single day now… if the mixed drink game is like that, then I’d rather do straight tequila shots. (Not advocating that at all, though. Just sayin’.)

Here’s my point. Calories are not to be wasted. Sure, there’s plenty of good food out there that people love to indulge in.. but how valuable is it to your body? People love a Twinkie all day but darn if they don’t notice that the stuff is so far removed from being food that it doesn’t perish. There are no nutrients in a twinkie to even cause it to mold or rot. How valuable could that possibly be to your body?

That brings me to drinks. If there are no nutrients in what you’re drinking, it is empty calories. A waste of an opportunity to nourish your body properly. You’re taking in something that simply isn’t beneficial to your body in any capacity.

Think about this. If I drink a single 20oz pepsi every day for 30 days, that’s what – about 250 calories (100cals per 8oz)? So that’s a total of 7,500 calories from drinking a single pepsi every day. Considering how 3,500 calories is the equivalent of a pound… you’d lose at least two pounds from dropping the pepsi habit. Look at it this way. Orange juice is about 100 calories per every 8oz serving. You’re going to get vitamin C, calcium, as well as vitamin b – in their natural origin (meaning those vitamins naturally exist in oranges, they’re not put there by scientists in a chem lab) – and because of those nutrients, it’s going to fill you up.Your body will have obtained what it needed in the form of vitamins, and will send the signal that you don’t need much more.

Which 100-calorie indulgence is going to be more beneficial to your body? 8oz of pepsi, or 8oz of orange juice? Especially since I can almost assure you that you won’t need to drink as much orange juice as you could drink in the soft drink. More on that later.

Every time you take in food, you should be taking advantage of the opportunity to nourish your body. Yes, the soft drink might give you sugar-originated energy, but wouldn’t some green tea do the same? Wouldn’t a regular cup of coffee do better for you than a [insert super long name] from Starbucks? And really, wouldn’t anything do better than the 860 calorie cup of egg nog? (Yes, 860 calories, and when I saw it, I started to cry. I love egg nog.)

What do I drink? I drink lots of water. I drink lots of teas. I occasionally indulge and serve myself a glass of rum. I gave up soft drinks a very long time ago, and I find it hard to take oranges in drink form. I use apple juice sparingly. I don’t drink anything that may have partially come from a powder, or anything that recreates the taste of a fruit (so all the strawberry, grape, watermelon and orange impersonators – yes, that means YOU, Sunny D – need to fall back!).

I ask you, take a good hard look at your daily eating habits. Is there an excess of useless calories in there? If so, why not swap it out for something a little more useful to your body? I promise, it’ll thank you for it in multiples!

Tell me… what drinks aregoing to be the most difficult for you to give up? Which ones are you going to try to give up? Let me know!

How Many Calories Are You Drinking? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Q&A Wednesday: Drinking Wine While Trying To Slim Down
2. KFC’s Double Down Reminds Us: All Calories Are Not Created Equal
3. Worldwide: A Day’s Worth Of Food In Calories

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: calorie counting, give it up!, junk food

As usual, a few notes:

“Being overweight is infectious. Friends of those who become obese risk a 57% chance of also becoming overweight.”

Really? Oh.

“Studies have shown that binge eating of sugary sweets can cause an addictive response in the brain similar to illegal drugs.”

Again, really? Oh.

“Stress and depression can be temporarily alleviated by eating. Cortisol, a stress hormone, also causes weight to be retained in several key areas. At 9.6%, America has the highest depression rate in the world. 75% of the population considers itself overstressed, up from 59% last year.”

I wonder why that happens.

“The closer a school is to a fast food restaurant, the more student obesity it has. The average American school is only 600 meters away from a fast food restaurant, a seven minute walk or a far shorter cruise to the drive thru. This may be the reason why childhood obesity has quadrupled in the last forty years.”

“Still not worried?” 10% of national medical costs are spent dealing with complications and disease brought on by obesity – roughly $147 billion tax dollars every year.”

“Brought on” by obesity, or “coupled with” obesity? The two are very different. Type 2 diabetes occurs in “skinny” people, too. Not only that, but the same things that cause type 2 diabetes are the same things that cause obesity, so…. just like a person can be overweight and not have diabetes? A person can be diabetic and not be overweight. The longer we continue that stupid philosophy, the longer we continue to deal with these problems because we insist on attributing it to obesity instead of food.

It’ll be a hilarious day, indeed, when we’ve “cured” obesity and people start to realize that type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure are still around. “Well what the hell happened?” “Gee, buddy, I don’t know…”

“The Obesity Olympics…”

…seriously? [insert confused face]

“Still, we choose what we put into our bodies, right? Not entirely – food deserts, areas with little to no access to healthy foods, exist throughout America, eliminating the option to eat healthily entirely.”

For once, a infographic doesn’t completely ignore this issue.

Your thoughts?

Infograph: Obesity In America is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Infographic: The Skinny on Obesity in America
2. Statistics: Obesity By The Numbers
3. What Does An Overweight Surgeon General Mean To America?

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Post tags: Fast Food, infographics, obesity, relationships, schools

Thoughts? Questions?

Infographic: The Ultimate Guide To Workout Nutrition is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Infographic: The Complete Guide To Interval Training
2. Infographic: The Secrets Of Better Sleep
3. Infographic: The Skinny on Obesity in America

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Pictured below, you will find two different versions of the same generic brand of cream cheese. One version is the “regular” kind, with the other serving as the “low-fat” version. Take a look at the photo and see if you can find anything that’s noticeably different.

Now, before I get into explaining what those differences are…. I suppose I should tell you which is which, eh? Welp:

That’s right. The top box is the “fat free” version, the bottom is the original. Never mind the processed goodness of Oreo pudding and Lenders bagels… what, with all its high fructose corn syrupy sweetness and “melt in your mouth” refined flours that, well, melt away at the touch of saliva. Never mind all that. Focus on the cream cheese, here.

I’m going to paste the nutrition labels of those two one more time, so that it’ll serve as an easier reference point.

There are quite a few things worth noting, here. For starters, the fat-free version of the cream cheese is true to its label – it has reduced the fat content of the cheese down to nothing. There’s also 70 calories less in the fat-free version than there is in there regular. Well, I’ll be. [insert applause]

But look at the number of ingredients in the fat free cheese in comparison to the regular version. Better yet, how many of those ingredients are actual real food items and not the result of a chemistry experiment?

Cheese is made from milk, and let’s face it. Milk is supposed to be fattening. Let me repeat that. Milk is supposed to be fattening. The reason mammals produce milk (cows, goats and YES, humans) is to nourish their young and help them grow. It fattens them up. So needless to say, a cheese made from the milk of a mammal is going to have some fat in it. In order to create a cheese with the same consistency as regular cheese but remove the fat? A manufacturer has to add all those chemicals to it. Just to prevent the cheese from doing what it, technically, is supposed to do.

Look at how much sugar is in the regular version in comparison to the fat-free version. The natural “mmmm” that comes from the fat in cream cheese is now gone, so the manufacturer has to add it back by adding excess sugar. Interesting.

Check out how much sodium is in each version. Again, adding a little more salt to help the cheese get back that “mmmm” feeling it once had. I mean, I’m just sayin’. It’s something to think about.

I’d also like to compare the contents of the ingredients lists. In the regular version of cream cheese, it’s straight-forward: “Milk, cream, cheese culture, salt, carob bean, guar gum (a thickener, similar to cornstarch).” In the fat-free version? There’s… tragedy. And shame. And two “kinds” of salt (salt and sodium tripolyphosphate, a preservative derived from triphosphoric acid.) And twelve more ingredients than you can find in the regular version.

It takes a manufacturer 18 ingredients (many of whom not found in nature) to present you a cream cheese with the same taste and as close to that “mmm” feeling as possible. Sure, it has twice as much sugar and almost 60% more salt, but hey – at least you get fewer calories.

Why does this matter? It matters because in the quest for hunting for “fat free,” we’ve neglected the primary purpose of food – nourishing our bodies. If you change the structure of the milk used – from regular to skim – then you change the nutrients available. You change what the dish can do for you. You change its ability to nourish you and fill you up. You’re sticking more chemicals in your body.

As strange as it sounds, in the interest of clean eating? I’d actually stick with the regular version, leaving the fat free version of the cream cheese behind. The fat-free version has to be thoroughly processed to make a fat-filled item fat-free. I do find myself balking at the fact that this means I’m taking on 70 more calories per serving by eating the regular… but that’s all the more reason for me to exercise some major portion control, and protect my plate from foolishness.

If you spend some time in the grocery this weekend, compare your “regular” versions with your “fat-free” versions – we may even have those fat-free items in the fridge right now! – and see how unclean they are. Might be a little surprised!

Supermarket Swindle: Fat, Low Fat, Fat Free? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Supermarket Swindle: Two Things To Avoid On Your Food Labels
2. Supermarket Swindle: Is Your Honey Really Honey?
3. The GMO-Free Eater

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Post tags: clean eating, fat, fat free, food labels, low fat, no fat, nutrition label, processed foods

This year, I got to add a new handful to my list, because New York City has so many (no, really – there are over 60!) Lots of the same stuff as my market in Indy, but here, they have something new that I’d never seen before.

No, it wasn’t a fruit, vegetable or meat, but it was just as compelling:

“Tokens accepted here! Food stamp (EBT)/Debit/Credit Tokens now welcome here. Choose fresh. Buy local. Use your card.”

Now, this was interesting. My farmer’s market in Miami was run by one individual who collected and distributed the produce for the farmers themselves. It simplified things, because that meant that one person handled the checkout. It was easy to just get a card swiper. However, my market in Indy wasn’t the same – 40 vendors, and very few of them bothered with cards. You were basically expected to arrive with cash. This, though? This was interesting.

As soon as I saw the sign (and it opened up my eyes), I took off running to an info booth where I could find out more information.

Here’s how the system works:

You go up to the information booth (even if your farmer’s market isn’t a part of a giant system such as the NYC Greenmarkets, it should have an info booth. Someone’s got to be putting it on.), card in hand. You tell them how much you want in tokens, in increments of $1s and $5s. They swipe your card and, upon approval, you are given your dollar amount in tokens. The difference between EBT tokens and credit/debit card tokens is the fact that debit/credit tokens can be exchanged for cash; EBT tokens can only have their value returned to the EBT card.

Your tokens act as cash at the market. With EBT tokens, you can purchase vegetables, dairy, fish, poultry, bread, fruits, baked goods like breads and muffins, jams and jellies, syrups, honey, seeds and meats. The tokens never expire, and can be saved for the next visit to the farmer’s market if one so chooses. At the end of the day, farmers exchange their tokens for cash at the information booth with the market’s manager.

You have to admit, this is a pretty ingenious way to do business. Finding a way to bring in card users and SNAP recipients only benefits the farmers that much more because its more money going into their pockets. Even better, it’s more money being spent locally in their own communities. What’s more, you also are encouraging (in some cases) the underprivileged to get in on all the fruit and veggie action – it’s much fresher, tastes better, is oftentimes less expensive and they can get tips from the farmers on how to actually cook their purchases.

Now, I’m curious – does your farmer’s market use this system for accepting card purchases? If not, what system do they use, if they have a system at all? (And if they don’t, feel free to send them this post!)

And, as always, visit LocalHarvest.org for more information on farmer’s markets near you!

How Does A Farmer’s Market Accept Credit, Debit or EBT Cards? Info Inside! is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Can Credit Cards Make You Fatter?
2. Shirley Sherrod, The NAACP, The USDA & Our Black Farmers
3. Our Trip To The Farmer’s Market

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I’d just look forward to my square meal that day. It might’ve been a BIG square, but a square, nonetheless.

For me, it was hard. I was always hungry. I mean, I could not wait to dig in at the next meal. I’d grab the largest plate, and take as much food as I could fit on my plate. If I wanted seconds, I’d get ‘em. No big deal, right? I mean, the last time I ate was six hours ago!

It was a while before I was able to stop this series of bad habits. Yes. Series of bad habits.

First… why am I always hungry? Is it because the quality of the food I was always eating couldn’t fill me up?

If you watched the clip above, you already know. Our processed foods are broken down to their most basic parts, mixed in with preservatives (which help, you know, preserve the final product), flavor additives, water, flour, various forms of salt, then manipulated to be whatever they want to sell us. The same ground up chicken carcass (which is what is in that photo) can be chicken patties, chicken nuggets, chicken fingers, “diced chicken,” the chicken in your chicken pot pie, the chicken in your soup… whatever. Just look for “mechanically separated [animal] parts.” You won’t have to look too hard.

Once it’s broken down to create this… goo… chemicals are used to hold it in place to form whatever shape it’s going to take. Once it meets your saliva and enters your body, it breaks right back down to the goo… with no fiber inside to help push it out. It essentially deflates inside of your system, making it easier to consume more calories because you’re “not full yet.” Couple all of this with the fact that it takes approximately 20 minutes for your brain to get the signal from your digestive system that you’re “full,” and you start to see why a food that breaks down this quickly is a recipe for disaster – a breaded chicken breast on wheat bread breaks down much more slowly than a chicken patty sandwich on white bread, takes longer to chew (buying you time until that 20 minute mark… see what that 30 bites was important?), takes longer to digest (thus leaving you feeling fulfilled longer), and keeps you from overindulging. You’re getting that “full” feeling for less calories. You’re not scarfing it down because it’s breaking down faster than it can fill you up… only to find that “all-of-a-sudden-I-feel-like-I-ate-too-much” feeling arrive.

Excerpted from The Chemical “Processing” In Your Processed Foods | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

Then… if I’m always hungry when I sit down to eat, how likely is it that I’m going to overstuff myself just because I’m trying to rid myself of that “OMG SO HUNGRY OM NOM NOM” feeling?

This is why portion sizes have doubled and tripled over the past few years… the more processed our foods have become, the more we have to eat in order to remain full and the more our bodies compel us to eat because the foods lack the nutrients our bodies are looking for. That’s important. A processed food diet relies heavily on that “full feeling” to identify when we are “satisfied,” as opposed to the naturally-occurring chemical and neurological processes of the body that tell us to stop eating. So, in being ruled by both of those instead of just the natural processes of the body, our compulsion to overeat multiplies. All bad.

Excerpted from Avoiding That Starving Feeling | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

Next, why was I grabbing the largest plate?

When you are first converting to clean eating, every decision you make involving food has to be conscious. You have to be aware. So everything from the piece of peppermint you had after breakfast to the taste-testing you did while cooking dinner, they all have to conscious. You have to know that food is going into your mouth. You also have to know how much you’re giving yourself.

Having said that… let’s talk about the best way to game the system: Your plate.

I’m willing to bet it’s huge. You know how I know this? Because mine are huge. Massive, even. My plates were a gift to me from a dear friend, and though they’re a gorgeous set – complete with tea cups, saucers, bowls and ginormous plates – they’re killin’ me.

When we make our plates, we literally work to fill the plate. Show me someone who is comfortable with making their plate and having only half of it filled, and I’ll show you someone who either (a) is using plates that they didn’t buy or (b) is extremely conscious of their portion sizes (even though they may not admit that part to you.) It’s just a fact of life.

Don’t get me wrong – there’s a point where you no longer have to worry about portion sizes because this, like the old habits, does start to solidify itself as a new habit. But you still have to go through the growing pains. For now, that includes the basics.

Excerpted from Portion Control: Gaming The System | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

Now… take it a step further. If I’ve got giant plates, I’m going back for seconds… and science basically proves that I’m going to seek to fill my plate – whenever I fill my plate? It’s a recipe for overeating, accidental or otherwise.

The reality is that going long stretches of time without eating, or waiting until you get that “starving” feeling, is bad for the body. They body becomes accustomed to expecting very little food, causing it to hold onto the stored energy supply (read: fat) and making it difficult to lose weight.

Once upon a time, in a land not very far from your home… lived mankind. No fast cars, no shiny structures, no skyscrapers, nothing. Just man.. rock… and animals.

See, this worked for man because his only task was to hunt wildlife, and gather his kill for his family. That was his responsibility. His purpose was to bring the salt and fat from the animal to the family. Not work, not bills… just hunt. Because life was much simpler then, this was man’s sole source of stress.

One day, man could not hunt. Every time he threw his spear, he’d miss his prey. He just couldn’t catch SQUAT! His family was to go hungry and he just… he couldn’t take it. The stress started to build up inside of him.

Because stress about the inability to eat is the only source of stress for man, his body became used to the eventual chain of events. His body knows: Lots of stress = lack of food coming in. How did his body react? His body decided to hold on to what it had – by way of diminishing the amount of energy his body could exert all at one time, by way of making sure his body took a very long time to lose weight, by way of making sure it held onto every pound and fat cell it could. This bodily reaction would only further compel man to step up his hunting skills… why? Because he didn’t want to feel that way! He didn’t want his family to feel that way! He had to get his caveman hustle on! When man was finally able to tackle that antelope or whatever-what-have-you, the fats and salts in the meat were sooooo satisfying that they would cure man of the bodily reaction to stress.

Excerpted from Telling A Tale of Stress and Emotional Eating | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

Let me explain. Though the above passage relates specifically to emotional eating, it still explains how the body approaches the feeling of famine. The body slows down on its expenditure of energy. I didn’t – at first – acknowledge a tired feeling… but I absolutely felt a boost of energy when I added to my eating schedule.

And yes – I gave myself an eating schedule! I packed away an apple, a pear, an orange, grapefruit slices – something – so that I could have something to bite into whenever my alarm went off.

Yes. I set an alarm. Whenever it went off, it said “Dig in, baby!” and that’s exactly what I did. After that… that “hungry” feeling was completely foreign to me. My energy levels increased. My weight loss couldn’t stall. I had a regular energy supply coming in, so my body could feel more comfortable with burning off energy. From here, calorie counting could actually produce better results. (If I’m not burning energy, any calories I take in will be stored as fat, remember?)

There’s also the issue of nourishing my body throughout the day. I wouldn’t go 6 or 7 hours without feeding an infant, right? Why? Because they need nourishment for their bodies to grow and function properly.

How is the adult body any different? We need not only the constant energy source, but we need the nourishment! Our bodies cannot function as well as it should if its only working on limited resources. We absolutely must eat… and nothing’s wrong with eating a little more often!

No one’s talking about full meals – cucumber slices, carrot sticks, apples, pears, mangoes (I am notorious for slaughtering a whole mango), cashews, sunflower seeds… whatever. Just a little something to tide you over. If you’re not hungry, nothing should be compelling you to overeat. If you’re eating whole foods, nothing should be leaving you so starving that you overeat until the next meal. If you’re eating a little bit regularly (hungry or not), your body can function properly and it’ll start to believe that it can safely release the fat stored on your body…. since it believes that it will get a regular supply of energy (calories) again.

In short… this, again, goes back to what I believe is the primary principle of weight loss. Neglecting to nourish yourself is neglecting your health and well-being. That neglect will be present in our bodily function as well as our weight. Don’t do it to yourself – set an alarm on your phone, pack a bag of apples and get your Johnny (Jane?) Appleseed on!

What Happens When You Don’t Eat Often Enough is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: hunger, overeating, snacking

You hit the frozen foods section at the grocery store, and you pass the waffles. You’re thinking “Man, I could eat these for a quick breakfast in the morning.” You skim the freezer, and it catches your eye.

“Blueberry Waffles — Made With REAL BLUEBERRIES!”

I don’t know about you, but the first thing that comes to my mind is, “Well, what kinda corny claim is that? It’s food, ain’t it? If it’s not blueberries, then what is it?” The second thing that comes to my mind is, “What kind of state is food in if you have to claim your food is made with real food to sell it?”

Interesting – and yet, confusing – issue.

Take this article from Alternet about some of the scariest processed foods out there right now. (Be advised – I’ve got several posts coming up about this single article.) You don’t have to feel compelled to read it, because the good stuff is quoted below:

Frozen waffles are fairly non-nutritious. Indeed, the only real way to get any sort of vitamins in your waffles each morning is to buy blueberry waffles that contain….

But, hang on! It turns out those aren’t blueberries at all! They’re more like…well, just what are they? An apt description would be “purple globs of sugary goo,” but they’re actually called “artificially flavored blueberry bits.” Their ingredients include sugar, dextrose, soybean oil, soy protein, salt, citric acid, cellulose gum, artificial flavor, malic acid, Red 40 Lake, Blue 2 Lake and…that’s it. Notice anything missing? Oh yeah: blueberries!

For a long time, companies such as Aunt Jemima parent Pinnacle Foods were able to get away with implying that these little unfruity lumps were actual blueberries, as the box for Aunt Jemima’s blueberry waffles had pictures of actual blueberries strewn across it. But the threat of a lawsuit from Center for Science in the Public Interest made Pinnacle decide to tell people that their waffles didn’t contain any actual blueberries.

What makes the development of fake blueberries so exciting is the number of possibilities it opens up for other fake fruits. Picture artificial strawberry strips, made mostly of bacon and high-fructose corn syrup. Or perhaps artificial melon mounds made of solidified vegetable oil and dextrose monohydrate. Or the coup de grace, artificial artificial blueberry bits, made with NutraSweet and artificial soy protein. Not one natural ingredient, baby!

The interesting thing about this is that I was asking myself, “What kind of state is food in if you have to claim your food is made with real food to sell it?” as if to question why the only claim a food would have to make is that it contains real food.

Alas, that is the issue. When we talk about the food industry, we talk about an industry that got the green light to “create” food instead of “cook” food back in 1973. What happened?

The 1938 Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act imposed strict rules requiring that the word “imitation” appear on any food product that was, well, an imitation … [And] the food industry [argued over the word], strenuously for decades, and in 1973 it finally succeeded in getting the imitation rule tossed out, a little-notice but momentous step that helped speed America down the path of nutritionism.

… The American Heart Association, eager to get Americans off saturated fats and onto vegetable oils (including hydrogenated vegetable oils), was actively encouraging the food industry to “modify” various foods to get the saturated fats and cholesterol out of them, and in the early seventies the association urged that “any existing and regulatory barriers to the marketing of such foods be removed.”

And so they were when, in 1973, the FDA (not, note, the Congress that wrote the law) simply repealed the 1938 rule concerning imitation foods. It buried the change in a set of new, seemingly consumer-friendly rules about nutrient labeling so that news of the imitation rule’s appeal did not appear until the twenty-seventh paragraph of The New York Times’ account, published under the headline F.D.A. PROPOSES SWEEPING CHANGE IN FOOD LABELING: NEW RULES DESIGNED TO GIVE CONSUMERS A BETTER IDEA OF NUTRITIONAL VALUE. … The revised imitation rule held that as long as an imitation product was not “nutritionally inferior” to the natural food it sought to impersonate—as long as it had the same quantities of recongized nutrients—the imitation could be marketed without using the dreaded “i” word.

For those who skipped over that, here’s the brief understanding. Once upon a time, the food industry was forced to label any foods that weren’t foods as we know them as “imitation.” The food industry knew that labeling a food as “imitation” was pretty much a kiss of death on the shelves, when it had to sit next to some proud, prim, and proper food with real, home grown foods. So… they fought tooth-and-nail to change this policy. Once this law was repealed, this gave the food industry the green light to put whatever it wanted in food as long as it had the same amounts of identifiable nutrients as the food it was imitating.

So what happens as a result of this change in law? We get fake blueberries in waffles with boxes of real blueberries on the front, and words like “imitation blueberries” or “naturally flavored” in tiny print on the front of the box. Not real blueberries, not the nutritional value of the blueberries. Just, as Alternet put it, “purple globs of sugary goo.” Putting it mildly, a grocery store item that makes the claim of being made with “real food” does so because, looking at the other items on the shelf, the rest simply do not.

Taking a look back at my stroll in the frozen foods section… if I still probably shopped there, I think I might still ask “What kind of state is food in if you have to claim your food is made with real food to sell it?”

Just… y’know.. for different reasons.

Where have you seen that “it-should-be-obvious” kind of claim made on a box? I swear I saw a wrapper for cheese that said “Made with real cheese” on it… if you can top that, I wanna hear it!

Lies In Your Food: Made With REAL Blueberries? But I Thought… is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. The 6 Most Horrifying Lies The Food Industry Is Feeding You
2. Infographic: How To Find Real Food At The Supermarket
3. Neither Soul Food, Nor “Slave Food,” Made You Fat

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Post tags: processed foods

, Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss will be explaining calorie counting, and ways to win the war. This is post 3 of the series – post 1, Defining The Basics of Calorie Counting, can be found here. Comments are always welcomed, and questions will always be answered to the best of my ability.

Keeping in mind those constants that I listed in the first installment, head over to this page and enter your information. It’ll tell you your estimated Body Mass Index (or BMI) – I know, cringeworthy, right? – as well as an estimated value for how many calories your body burns in a 24 hour time period. Then head over to this page, and do the same. Compare the two values for your daily calorie expenses, and take the lower of the values. Hold on to that number. Now, do a food journal for one day. Don’t try to eat “better” than you usually do.. just write down a day’s worth of what you’re eating. No calorie values yet.. just merely what you’re eating. During the next day (’cause doing it the same day just might depress you), sit down and google the caloric values of the foods you’re eating. Make sure you’re sitting in a leveled chair when you do… because you might just tip over.

Compare the number of calories your body burns in a 24 hour period to the amount of calories you took in during a 24 hour period. Think about the days you’ve eaten more than you did the day you wrote everything down. Think about the foods you might’ve intentionally left off the list as a means of cushioning your ego. Think about how often you eat more than what you wrote down. Is it pretty darn often? Think about the days where you eat nothing but fast food. Is your calorie count up near the 3,000s? Is it IN the 3,000s?

Setting the goal

Going back to that calorie count… take a look at that number you came up with. Weight loss is about creating a deficit – more calories burned than taken in. If you’re maintaining the weight you’ve put on, it’s because this deficit doesn’t exist. You’re either nor burning enough calories, or you’re eating too many calories. Having said that, if you create a deficit of 500 calories a day (meaning, if you eat 500 calories less than you “usually” do), you will lose 1lb a week. Create a deficit of 1000 calories a day, you will lose 2lbs (1000 calories multiplied by 7 days a week: 1000 x 7 = 7000 divided by 3500 calories in one pound equals 2lbs.) If you create a deficit of 1000 calories, and burn 500 a day walking/running, you will lose 3lbs per week (1500 x 7 divided by 3500). I’m suuure you get my drift, right? The better you plan, the better you prepare, the more likely you are to succeed.

Be honest with yourself

I’ve read several books about scientific studies in relation to obesity and they tend to say, in short: “In efforts to attempt to track the eating habits of overweight and obese individuals, we gave them a journal to document their daily intake of food. Considering the number of methods used to monitor intake, it was easy to determine that overweight people were more likely to lie about not only what they’d eaten, but how much of it they’d eaten.”

I don’t mention that as a put down – I mention that because I know I did it, and didn’t even know it. It’s another method of consciousness. It’s also another reason to make SURE you’re being honest with yourself. It’s vital to know what you’re putting in your body, so that you know what kind of dragon you need to slay. Lying to yourself might save your ego, but it does nothing for the rest of you, especially your weight.

It’s ok to admit you have very little control over your eating habits – it’s ok to admit that your discipline might be lacking. There is an industry that makes billions off of your inability to control yourself, and they have millions invested in ensuring that you never get it. It’s ok to admit that this beast is on your back. This, here, will help you gain control… and it starts with being honest with yourself.

Looking for other posts in the Understanding Calorie Counting series? Check the links below!

• Understanding Calorie Counting: The Basics
• Understanding Calorie Counting: What is it? Calorie Counting Defined
• Understanding Calorie Counting: Creating Your Calorie Goal and Being Honest About It
• Understanding Calorie Counting: The Payoff – Why Am I Doing This To Myself?
• Understanding Calorie Counting: Preparing Yourself For Success
• Understanding Calorie Counting: A Final Word

Understanding Calorie Counting: Creating Your Calorie Goal and Being Honest About It is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Understanding Calorie Counting: What is it? Calorie Counting Defined
2. Understanding Calorie Counting: Preparing Yourself For Success
3. Understanding Calorie Counting: The Payoff – Why Am I Doing This To Myself?

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: calorie counting, overeating

NASA Celebrates the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day

I know this is a pretty idealistic concept, and we all might like to give lip service to living eco-friendly lives… but who has time for all that? It’s hard enough for most-if-not-all of us to get this healthy eating thing down pat. Now, we’ve got to protect the Earth, too?

It doesn’t take much effort. In fact, being eco-friendly and clean eating go hand in hand and both can be managed by the busy lifestyler. Here are a few ways to live a little cleaner, a little greener, without costing you a ton of time each day.

"Processed cheese product"... in a jar. How.. innovative?

Ditching the Processed Products

Obviously, this is the largest factor in clean eating. Pardon me for getting a little preachy, but I see it like this – our connection to the Earth is symbiotic. We cultivate the Earth with our activity, and in return it promotes the growth of humanity. So… we have to be mindful of what we put out there. Ditching the boxed and canned foods, essentially, means less trash… going to less landfills… less air and land pollution.

But if I give up foods, how do I replace them?

Buy fresh veggies. Only buy what you believe you will cook that week. This way, you not only spend much less, but you don’t leave anything sitting and risk your food rotting. You can learn to cook the same veggie three different ways, and get more creative with your cooking style. You also don’t run into the problem of additional preservatives or salts used to preserve the shelf life of your food.

I buy things like onions and peppers knowing that I don’t want red peppers or onions every day… so I’ll take them, chop them up in the ways that I know I usually eat them, and freeze them that way. So I’ll have a bag of onions chopped in rings, a bag diced in squares and a bag cut in strips. I’ll have a bag of red peppers chopped in strips and another bag diced in chunks. I do the same with mushrooms, cucumbers, celery, carrots, spinach (the spinach I use to cook, not the ones I use for salad) and bean sprouts. I cannot tell you how much time this saves me, and it takes me a half hour. Tops.

My carrots, squash, broccoli and corn/okra/pepper blend, preparing for the freezer.

Buy frozen. Generic store-brand frozen veggies are a dollar a bag (rarely more than $2.50) and can last forever. Carrots, broccoli, string beans, onions, peppers, different veggie blends (I bought a 5lb bag of carrot/broccoli/cauliflower for $3… lasted forever) all at your fingertips, and only requiring a little steaming, baking, boiling or sauteeing.

I keep a combination of both in my fridge. I keep fresh broccoli in the fridge for salads, and frozen in the freezer for cooking.. and I never intermingle the two. I don’t cook with my fresh, and I don’t thaw my frozen for salads.

Try to find a local butcher. No plastic-wrapped chicken, no pre-packaged beef patties. You get an awesome guy (or girl) with a vast knowledge of meat, who can offer you suggestions and steps on how to prepare and preserve your meats. A wonderful butcher will never be reluctant to offer you suggestions. He wants your business.

Make your own junk food. That’s right – no matter how many green velvet cupcakes you make, I promise you the calorie count wouldn’t scrape the surface of what it is when you buy boxed cupcake mix. Seriously.

Practicing what I preach... there's my wild rice, right there!

Make your freezer your best friend. Things like wild rice, brown rice… stuff that takes forever to cook? I cook it all in one giant pot, divvy it up into individual servings, put them in ziploc bags (which I reuse), and freeze them. That way, I have my own microwaveable rice bags without all the extra salt and preservatives… and I’m saving money.

Get Your Sugar From The Earth

Meaning.. if you need sugar, go for a fruit - something that came directly from the Earth. Skip the soft drinks, fruit juices and candies. I write enough about this for folks to know how I feel about these, since all three contain high fructose corn syrup. Aside from the fact that the stuff expands your waistline like nobody’s business, it’s a direct factor in causing and inflaming type 2 diabetes. If you drink a soda, there is nothing in that but sugar, salt and carbonation. Fruits have vitamins, minerals – the stuff of life – and, well, sugar. You can’t eat fruits, in their sugary splendor, in abundance because those nutrients in them will fill you up faster than a coke can. You’re not taking in empty calories. Even though you should be moderate in your fruit consumption, you’d do better to have an orange than a coke.

It’s cheaper, too.

Drink water.

And no, I don’t mean Fiji, Aquafina, or whatever. Get yourself a nice, attractive reusable container to carry with you throughout the day, and keep refilling it. Skip the water bottles that go… in a landfill, buried where trees – or people – could live, instead. If you’re having a hard time with the taste of water, squeeze a lemon/lime/orange/strawberry or whatever in it. Freeze some grapes, use ‘em as ice cubes at home. Buy some frozen blueberries, use those. Slice up a cucumber, drop it in there. I mean, outside of being super cute and attractive looking at a table, the stuff actually adds a nice little refreshing taste to water.

Purchase a 2.5gal jug – if you must – from your local grocery. Way less plastic than the 24pk of bottles, much less trash than the regular gallon jugs, and can fit in your fridge and last a while. I drink a little over a gallon of water a day (which means yes, I don’t drink much else besides water and my evening tea) because it keeps my skin looking a lovely healthy shade of chocolatey brown.

Reduce Your Portion Sizes

Measuring cups may not be so necessary after all!

Slow down. This means that you can’t eat standing up anymore. No, you can’t eat out of the pan anymore. No, you can’t eat in front of the TV. No, you can’t sit all the food on the table and you just pass around the pans. Relax. Take the time to enjoy your dinner companions, be they friends, family, whomever. Don’t put food in between you. Leave the food in the kitchen. Eat slower. Talk to one another. You’ll find that you not only eat less and still feel full, but you will have actually enjoyed your time together at the table. That is what it means to enjoy food. Not the feeling you get from the food, but from the company you’ve kept while you ate.

Pack your lunch. Not only do you save money… not only do you create less waste… but you save calories as well. Buy yourself an attractive (I keep wanting to say cute, but I know several fellas who are taking the challenge, too) lunch pail and stock it with your favorite snacks. Your body will thank you for it.

These things all help you save time as well as money, and benefit the Earth. The goal is to reduce our carbon footprint as much as possible, and each of these tips gets us one step closer. It takes planning and preparation, but that’s why we’re discussing the challenge the week before we begin! Spend a little time today – Earth Day – and take at least one of these suggestions to heart. Every single step and every little effort counts. I promise!

Have any additional ideas? Let’s hear ‘em!

Fitting Clean Eating Into A Busy Life is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Q&A Wednesday: Is Clean Eating An Eating Disorder?
2. Q&A Wednesday Clean Eating Style
3. Now That I’m Clean Eating, What Can I Cook?

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 16 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: clean eating, earth day, ecofriendly, grocery shopping, high fructose corn syrup, portion control, processed foods, saving money, vegetables, water

My thoughts were, of course you can be fit and “fat.” And considering how “fat” in America is anything over a size 4 – depending upon who you talk to – MANY of us are “fat” in someone else’s eyes… clearly that doesn’t matter anywhere near as much as the stuff that keeps us alive. That stuff is filed under that “fit” label.

Those who I’ve dialogued with outside of the site know how I feel about this “fat” thing. As I’ve said before, my primary goal was just being a healthy weight. The vanity aspect of it came when I could afford to be vain and think about looks.. which, basically, was when I had my health situated.

There’s a point in that clip that disturbed me, though – the thinner woman said, “Because I am thin, because I’ve never been sick,” she never thought that her system could be in such bad shape because her body wasn’t in bad shape. I think that the American understanding that our “outer” is a direct reflection of our “inner” is what’s making it so hard for us to have these conversations about health.

What do I mean? I mean that we keep connecting a person’s size to their ability to be healthy. It shortchanges the people on both ends of the spectrum. If being obese is the epitome of poor health, then if I’m superskinny I should be good, right? I should be able to avoid all of that, right? Ever heard of metabolic syndrome?

Metabolic syndrome is a series of diseases that appear in the body in conjunction with one another as a result of a poor diet yet doesn’t always result in obesity. It creeps up on people because, since they believe their small frames alleviate them of the responsibility of caring for their systems, they tend to not only ignore any warning signs that their habits might be unhealthy but this also results in them continuing in said damaging behavior!

I guess I wanted to share this because I want us to stop thinking this skinny/fat thing is so linear. Good health manifests itself within ourselves mentally as well as physically. It extends itself far beyond a nice body. Taking care of ourselves means inside as WELL as outside. Don’t let yourselves get caught up in BEING skinny or shooting for skinny. Aim for better health first and foremost, and I can assure you everything else will become MUCH simpler!

Can You Be Fit AND “Fat?” is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 23 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: health, mentality, myths

Food cravings are a normal part of life; after all, who hasn’t at some point found herself staring into the freezer, ready to eat more than just a few scoops of that mint chocolate chip ice cream? While the occasional “crave-in” isn’t a big deal, if it happens regularly, it can lead to weight gain, not to mention a slew of other health problems including headaches, bloating and feeling downright blech. Though you may not be able to curb your food cravings entirely (in my book, spinach and celery will never satisfy a hankering for chocolate or chips), understanding what causes them can help you develop a realistic plan for dealing with them.

Blame it on the brain. A few good theories explain what’s going on. One is that eating sugar, fat and salt triggers the release of dopamine, a feel-good brain chemical that can also make you want to eat when you’re not really hungry. Over time, the mere sight or smell of certain foods is enough to make your brain say “Gimme!” This wouldn’t be a problem if we ate foods high in sugar, fat or salt (or all three) as rare treats, but due to their increased production, availability and visibility, that desire to eat is constantly being triggered, suggests David Kessler, MD, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, in his book The End of Overeating.

Certain types of foods also leave behind a sensory imprint. Once our brains experience the feel-good effects of dopamine when we eat those foods, we always associate the two— and this could also explain why some of us turn to food to deal with negative emotions.

…and hormones. Feeling like you absolutely must have certain foods during “that time of the month” is not all in your head, especially if you suffer from premenstrual syndrome (PMS) or premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD, a severe form of PMS). Both conditions are marked by a decrease in serotonin, another mood-boosting brain chemical that responds favorably to—you guessed it—carbs! And that can make muffins, chips and cookies feel like a girl’s best friend. We can also be cranky and emotional during this time of the month, which typically magnifies comfort food cravings (for me, it’s ice cream).

One thing that doesn’t cause cravings: nutrient deficiencies. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard women say they need to eat that chocolate because they’re low in magnesium or they’ve got to have a juicy burger because they need more iron. Sorry to disappoint, but science has never been able to show a connection between nutrient deficiencies and cravings.

So… how do you handle them?

Craving Cures
Now it’s time to plan an intervention.

1. Turn off the dopamine. Let’s start with Dr. Kessler’s theory that junk food being easily accessible is to blame. He says (and I agree) that by avoiding highly processed foods that are packed with fat, sugar and salt, we can derail the overproduction of dopamine that happens when you taste, see and smell these foods. The best way to do this is to mainly shop the perimeter of your supermarket, where you’ll find fresh foods. When you do choose packaged foods, go for items that have the shortest ingredients list possible; the fewer ingredients, the less processed it is.

Also try to avoid situations that stimulate your senses and lead to mindless eating. Some triggers—especially emotional ones like stress—are hard to avoid, but others just require a little planning. Here’s how to manage common craving-inducing scenarios:

a. You’re around goodies at the office. Choose one treat to enjoy, but save it for later in the day (not before lunch!). This way, you don’t open the floodgates and nibble on junk for the rest of the day. If the treats are in your direct line of sight, ask if you can move them into the office kitchen (or as far from your desk as possible!) so they’re not staring you down all day.

b. You’re throwing a birthday party for your husband and are making his (and your!) favorite foods. Squash the desire to nosh while you cook with positive self-talk before you get started (I will not lick the batter, I will not lick the batter) and distract your taste buds by sipping on herbal tea or a skim latte. You can also keep your mouth busy by chomping on crunchy raw veggies like carrots or sugar snap peas. For me, a stick of sweet mint gum and singing along to a CD does the trick!

2. Picture this, not that. Research shows that replacing the mental image of the food you’re craving with a nonfood one, such as a Caribbean beach (minus the piña colada!) can help quash the desire to eat it. In other words, if you walk past a bakery and want that slice of double-chocolate fudge cake, imagine relaxing on the beach or dial up a friend on your cell phone. Good chance the cake urge will dissipate.

3. Eat to beat them. The best way to tame carb cravings is to incorporate healthy carbs such as vegetables, fruit and whole grains into your meals and snacks. This can help regulate the production of serotonin, so take particular care to do this around your period, when serotonin levels may be low. High-quality “comfort carbs” that can also help quell hormone-induced cravings include bean burritos, baby carrots dipped in hummus, whole-wheat penne tossed with marinara sauce, hearty vegetable soups and stews, and a bowl of warm oatmeal topped with fresh fruit.

4. Don’t forget the basics. One of the biggest triggers for those “I gotta eat that!” urges is skipping meals. The most important thing you can do to prevent chronic cravings is to establish a regular eating pattern that includes breakfast, lunch, dinner and one or two snacks.

If you tend to skip one or more of these meals, try including them for one week. I bet you’ll find that you eat less at each meal, choose healthier options and have fewer cravings.

5. If all else fails… Of course, there are times in which you’ve called a friend, crunched on carrot sticks and still found yourself dead-set on digging into a pint of ice cream. In those instances, I find it’s best not to reach for a substitute food, like rice cakes instead of potato chips, because chances are you’ll eat too many of them, or you’ll eat them and then have the real thing anyway. Double whammy!

Thoughts? Let’s hear ‘em!

Joy Bauer: Eat To Beat Your Food Cravings is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. A Few Thoughts on Cravings, Deprivation and Indulging
2. Q&A Thursday: Aunt Flo’ And The Cravings
3. Q&A Wednesday: Menstrual Cravings & Defeating The Sugar Demon

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cravings, joy bauer, today show, woman's day

"Sex In Progress?" Nope.. not over here.

If I can talk about stretch marks, cellulite, emotional eating and poop… surely, I can talk about this.

Besides, it’s my blog. C’mon. C’mooooooooon.

As I’ve mentioned a few times before, I’m abstinent. That’s right. I’m not having sex. Last time I had sex? Let’s just say the President in office used words like “strategery.”

And in any other context, it’d totally make sense for you to ask me why, on Earth, I’d bring this up on a blog for weight loss and wellness. But today, it’s important.

Why? Because my experience with losing weight has caused my sex drive to increase to such a monumental degree… that if I didn’t put a [chastity] ring on it, I might’ve lost my mind.

Mind you, my decision to remain abstinent had more to do with my desire to spend this time focusing on myself. I’d broken up with the boyfriend I had when I first began, realized that I needed to spend some time being selfish and made my decision to keep my body to myself – literally – for as long as I needed. Undergoing the changes that I’ve endured throughout this time period left me vulnerable emotionally (abandoning emotional eating and trying to find ways to cope with stress that weren’t addictive in nature? very vulnerable) and I think I would’ve either been extremely paranoid of anyone around me romantically, or become emotionally dependent upon them. That’s not fair to anyone. I’ll keep me to myself for the time being.

I first noticed it after about the 50lb mark. I mean, I’ll be honest – part of me was just excited to be able to possibly “do my Beyonce thing someday,” and I figured that I was just feelin’ myself a little bit. No biggie, right? I mean, it’s exciting to recognize that the effort you’re putting through is causing such major changes in your body, and even if you don’t feel physically sexier just yet… you certainly feel empowered. And power is always sexy, right?

At the 100lb mark? It wasn’t just “Oh, I’m empowered! I’m Super Woman! This is sexy!” It wasn’t even “Oh, I’m abstinent so that I can be selfish and focus on myself right now.” It was “Oh my gosh, why am I always horny?! I can’t take this! This can’t be life!” It was obnoxious. Couple that with the fact that at events, men (women?) who haven’t seen you in a while are so in awe of your changes that they want to touch you… and keep touching you? I’ll be honest. It made life rough. Men, who I’ve known for years, would stand near me and insisted on touching me more suggestively than they ever had before… wrapping their hand around me and resting it on my hip – my hip that no longer had a spare tire resting on it and was a nicely-shaped curve – and it took a lot of blinking, deep breathing and thinking-before-I-spoke to keep me from throwing abstinence out the window and ducking away in a damn linen closet somewhere. And did I mentioned the heightened sensitivity you feel in places where you’ve lost weight? Good grief.

I didn’t say I was proud of it. I’m just tellin’ the truth.

At the 150lb mark? I straight up gave up and became a hermit.

I’m kidding… sorta.

I feel like it came in waves. Just when I was getting used to it, another wave would come over me and I’d have to reacclimate to what I was dealing with all over again. It’s not that it got increasingly worse, but if I hadn’t struggled to become accustomed to what my body was feeling? It might’ve felt that way.

Of course there’s a scientific explanation for all this, right? Right.

Let’s talk about sex drive for a minute. Your libido is the thing that makes you want sex. It’s what compels you to want to get down to business. Primarily controlled by testosterone levels in the body, its what gives you the ability to put forth the energy necessary to develop and satisfy a sexual appetite. Men might make way more testosterone, but women are more sensitive to it.

What role does weight play in sex drive?

Men aren’t alone with sex problems caused by poor blood flow. Research shows overweight women’s sex drive and desire are affected by the same problem.

“We are beginning to see that the width of the blood vessels leading to the clitoris [the area of the vagina most closely related to sexual response] in women are affected by the same kind of blockages that impact blood flow to the penis,” says Susan Kellogg, PhD, director of sexual medicine at the Pelvic and Sexual Health Institute of Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia.

When this happens, says Kellogg, a woman’s body is far less responsive, and a drop in desire is not far behind.

Complicating matters further for both sexes: The more body fat you have, the higher your levels of a natural chemical known as SHBG (short for sex hormone binding globulin). It’s aptly named because it binds to the sex hormone testosterone. Doctors theorize that the more testosterone that is bound to SHBG, the less there is available to stimulate desire. [source]

If you listen to Dr. Oz (my personal crush – or is that just my libido talking?) tell it, he’ll say the following:

“The big issue on weight loss, for me, is that it allows your hormones to work the way they’re supposed to. When you have that belly fat that I was showing you earlier, it becomes metabolically alive. It begins to convert hormones. It’ll convert your estrogen levels in the wrong way – which is why it’s associated with different cancers… breast cancer, uterine cancer and the like – but it also does bad things to your testosterone. And women have testosterone, too. Any guy who’s got a big waist, I can guarantee you, begins to have problems with testosterone levels. ‘Cause if your testicles are a normal size, and the testosterone that’s being made by the testicles is being converted by your big belly into estrogen or other things, you don’t have any left. The same goes for women. So one of the surefire ways to re-light the sexual adventures in your life, is to get rid of that belly fat.” [source]

The increase in my sexual appetite was noticeable to me because my entire journey has been about learning, listening to and answering to my body. It was ever-present to me because I noticed that certain things I would do would either remind me of sex or would make me think something sex-related. While I think that can be super duper fun in the right contexts… I certainly think it can also be dangerous, especially for those of us who might be feeling a little insecure with our bodies. Insecurity + an increasingly growing sexual appetite = recipe for disaster: how many times do women do things they eventually regret because someone told them “what they wanted to hear?” Especially when all you want to hear is that you’re “beautiful” and “sexy” and “amazing” and all those other vague words that really excite us for some weird reason? Yeah… no. Nothing worse than having that void to fill, letting empty compliments from strangers fill that void and then being left empty when your stranger decides they can no longer benefit from what you have to offer.

In all seriousness… losing any weight is going to be an awesome experience, but for those of you in committed relationships? Just… tell your mate to get ready. And for people like me, who will be single when they experience those waves of libidoey goodness? Especially those of you who may have a lot to lose as well? Consider taking some time out to learn how to understand and appreciate your new sexual appetite. You’d hate to have someone around who’d simply appreciate how voracious you’ve become, only to decide there’s nothing else to enjoy about you once you’ve “normalized.” Besides, considering how much you’ll be learning about yourself and your body? You might be far too excited by yourself to want to be bothered with anyone else.

No pun intended. I promise. (Sort of.)

Weight Loss… and Your Libido is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. A Very Big Piece of My Weight Loss Story
2. The Math Behind Weight Loss Plateaus
3. Stop Defeating Your Weight Loss Efforts Before You Begin

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 48 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: abstinence, hormones, libido, relationships, sex, sexual appetite, testosterone, the body, weight loss and sex drive, your body

As someone who’s already made these kinds of changes in her life, I thought it might be a good idea for a series on dietary lifestyle changes – what they are, how to convert, and what they can (and cannot) do for you. They’re typically uncommon and because we rarely think about changing our lifestyles in this way, they’re an untapped mine for opportunities to eat healthier.

Firstly, let’s talk about dietary restrictions. When I say “dietary restrictions,” I’m not referring to diet in the “American” sense. When we say “diet” we often mean “temporary,” as in “the Grapefruit Diet” or “The Lemonade Diet.” (Thank you, Beyonce.) That’s not what I’m getting at. Dietary restrictions are common place for people with allergies – allergic to peanut butter? You’re going to restrict Peanut Butter Cookies from your diet. Allergic to shellfish? Crab will eternally be restricted from your daily diet. Dietary restrictions are basically a daily lifestyle that makes it clear to you what you will and will not be eating.

Now.. let’s talk about options. When it comes to eating lifestyles, you have plenty of options.

Vegan. [cue horror music]

Veganism is a lifestyle where you commit yourself to avoiding the use of animal products and by-products for any purpose – food, clothes, accessories, anything.

There’s an emotional commitment to veganism, I think. There’s a passion there that you’re going out of your way to go against society and the prevalence of animal by-products for a very real purpose. Animal by-products are everywhere, and it requires major effort and consciousness to not slip up.

The positives about this are not only the commitment to the environment, but the commitment to your health. If you are vegan and avoid processed foods, you’re on a pretty solid path for good health. It basically leaves you fruit, nuts, and vegetables. If done properly, you can ensure that you get all of the nutrients you need with minimal interference and involvement from the outside world OR animal products.

The negatives are the serious risk of malnutrition if you’re not careful. Most Americans are used to getting the whole of their calcium from dairy products. If you cut dairy without finding a suitable replacement, you will feel it. Most Americans get their protein from animal meat. If you don’t plan for that, you will feel it. If you get most of your food from processed foods, you have to think about nutrition. Seriously. It’s not healthy for you just because it says “healthy” on the box, and most food manufacturers know that new vegans are dying for good tasting food… healthy-ness be damned.

Raw Vegan [cue hippie music]

Raw veganism is a lifestyle that consists of uncooked fruits and vegetables. The end. The belief is that any item cooked beyond 105degrees begins to decrease in nutritional value, so they avoid cooking it. I know raw vegans who do a lot of “cooking” in the summertime – leaving things like sweet potatoes covered in aluminum foil outside to “cook,” and the food can actually be quite delicious.

I think there are a ton of positives here – super inexpensive; no processed foods; with all the super low calorie counts for produce, you literally could eat all day and still not overeat; your body would get back to the way it should be, with only focusing on digesting things it’s been digesting for centuries. Not… high fructose corn syrup.

The negatives? The difficulty – no bagels in the meetings. No potato salad at the family reunion. No corn-fresh-off-the-grill. No ribs. No ice cream. You’re doing a wonderful thing for your body, but your mind’s memories of food will make the struggle long and hard. Then again, the harder the struggle, the better the reward? I don’t know too many unhealthy (not fat, unhealthy) raw vegans… and I know plenty of ‘em.

Vegetarian

Vegetarianism is a daily lifestyle that avoids ingesting any animal. Red meat, poultry, fish, all of it. It’s not quite as restrictive as raw veganism because you are still able to cook, and it’s not as rough as veganism because you can have dairy (and leather Coach bags?), but it is cutting down on your overall intake. Particularly if you’re drawn to things like fried pork chops, burgers.

The positives here are that because you’re cutting back on a heavy-in-calorie food category, you can indulge more in your fruits and veggies without breaking the bank in calories and getting wholesome nutrition.

The negatives are simple. When I converted to vegetarianism a while back, I [foolishly] thought that just because I wasn’t eating meat that I’d lose weight regardless of what I ate… so I went in on the hot fries, the doritos, the grilled cheese sandwiches… why? I mean, it’s vegetarian! Well, (like many of the negatives above) ignoring proper nutrition will leave you running short. I developed a quick bout with hypoglycemia, but eventually got myself together by using the next option.

Flexitarian

What is a Flexitarian? It’s a typical vegetarian diet, that relies on the occasional meat dish. It means that meat isn’t the premier item in the diet – it’s a luxury, so to speak. It’s used for an occasion.. not a regular occurrence.

The pros here are that since you’re relying less on meat, you get much more creative with your dishes. You get to save a little money buying less meat, you get to indulge a little… you also don’t have to shut yourself off eternally from the things you enjoy. You just get to realistically cut back from them in an accepted fashion.

Are there cons to Flexitarianism? Seriously? Outside of the initial pain of sacrifice, I don’t think there is one. Lots of us are flexitarians and never even knew it. The joke is that flexitarians are vegetarians with commitment issues. I won’t tell you that you have to commit.. ’cause this is one instance where it might benefit you.

Pescetarian

A pescetarian is one who only eats fruits, veggies and seafood at the expense of red meats, pork, and poultry. Shrimp, crab, lobster, sushi? This isn’t a bad option.

The pros are simple – since you’re taking in so much fish, you’ll definitely get in your omega-3s, which (while I rarely promote focusing on individual nutrients, I do like when we’re getting nutrients in their original form.. from nature) promotes a healthy heart. I think my folks in NoLa or the DC/MD/VA area might appreciate this.

The cons? Living anywhere else not rich in seafood and trying to live this lifestyle. A pint of crab meat was little over $11 for me here in Miami. Uh, I’m good.

Pollotarianism

Ahhh, this one isn’t too bad, I think. In the same vein as pescetarianism, pollotarianism swaps out seafood for poultry. This allows a lot of room – chicken, turkey, duck. Ground chicken/turkey for burgers, still can eat eggs and cheese… various ways to cook poultry would allow for the creative eater to enjoy themselves for quite a while.

The positives – a simple solution for the question, “Well, where do you get your protein?” Limited restriction, but enough to make a difference and a major shift in your diet.

The negatives? Outside of the sacrifice? Outside of trying to figure out a different way to cook poultry every night? Meh.

Polpescetarian

This is simply a combination of the previous two. You’re basically cutting out red meat and pork.

You’ll notice that all of these options begin with – at their core – cutting out pork and red meat. Sometimes, if you can’t get the better quality of meats, it might be best to consider cutting it out. I could go into reasons why, but I’ll save that for another post. The bottom line is, if you’re doing a lot of fried pork, or burgers full of condiments and other things that might be calorie overkill, it might be a nice way to switch it up and maybe cut down your reliance on those items.

I’ve been all of these – yes, all of ‘em – and couldn’t say that I am one in particular. At various points in my journey, I’ve been all of them. I haven’t had red meat or pork since 1999. I do go long periods of time without chicken. I eat very little dairy. I go extended periods of time eating like a raw vegan but because I still cook for my daughter, I’m tempted regularly to step outside of myself and chow down a bit.

I’d prefer to be a raw vegan. I know my dieting habits are pushing me in that direction, but I also know that’s giving up a LOT. So I’m not rushing it. After taking about six months to make the conversion, I eat chicken maybe once or twice a week, dairy maybe twice a week, and ground turkey maybe twice a month. I’m taking my time with it.

In closing, I do believe this is a decision best made after giving careful consideration to how you can execute it. As you can see, avoiding nutritional deficiency is a big issue and shouldn’t be taken lightly just to lose weight. It’s easy to get your protein and healthy fats outside of meats – peanut butter and basic nuts are a prime example – but if your daily routine can’t accommodate it, work to make sure that it does or find a more suitable option.

I’ll be writing more about this topic, so let me know – what questions do you have about these options? Do you live one of these lifestyles? If so, how has it benefitted you? Are you on the journey to change now, as well?

Changing Your Daily Diet? Vegetarian Isn’t The Only Option is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Q&A Wednesday: Should I Weigh Myself Daily?
2. Budget Friendly, Vegetarian AND The Original: Get A Meal Plan Today!
3. The Anatomy of A Diet: Why They Work, and Why The Success Never Lasts

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 31 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: calorie counting, eating lifestyles, veganism, vegetarian

For our first series ever, Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss will be explaining calorie counting, and ways to win the war. This is post 2 of the series – post 1, Defining The Basics of Calorie Counting, can be found here. Comments are always welcomed, and questions will always be answered to the best of my ability.

Calorie counting is comprised of two elements:

• A) Gauging approximately how many calories you burn in a given day, and
• B) Setting a total calorie maximum for how many calories you will take in during a 24 hour time frame.

This is a very controlled method for managing caloric input – not eating anything unless you know how many calories it will add to your daily total. That means… if you’re planning to visit a restaurant? You’d better google those nutritional values for their dishes, and pick a dish that will keep you under your caloric intake.

Conscious eating, and the power of “No”

This also requires a LOT of consciousness. It forces you to consider the things you eat every day – every… day – without thinking. Do you leave the house in search of the nearest Starbucks to get your morning Strawberries & Crème Frappuccino? Well, if you’re calorie counting, you’d have to consider that your morning drink (not even food!) costs you 750 calories, 120grams of sugars, and 15grams of fat. Say you don’t hit Starbucks in the morning. Instead, you give yourself an extra 20 minutes and hit up McDonalds for a Deluxe Breakfast. Calorie counting? You’d need to know – in advance – that this entire meal just cost you 1,370 calories, 161grams of carbohydrates, and 64.5grams of fat (consider that, on average, MY fat intake value for a person 6′ fall at ~200lbs is no more than 80grams… that’d leave me 15.5 grams to enjoy the rest of the day!) without even mentioning the 2,335mg of sodium. McDonalds’ would’ve screwed up your whole calorie day! You would’ve been inhaling kool-aid packets all day for sustenance!

Calorie counting requires a LOT of what I refer to when I say conscious consumerism. It means taking 10 seconds to think about what you’re preparing to do before you do it. Did a co-worker come over to your desk and ask you to dip out with her and dine at Macaroni Grill after work? Is your favorite dish the Parmesan Crusted Sole? Well how, exactly, does 2,190 calories, 141grams of fat, and 145grams of carbohydrates fit into your total caloric intake? Do you think you can go without ordering your favorite dish out of habit? You spot that the Pollo Magro is only 320 calories.. could you commit yourself to ordering that instead? Can you be honest with yourself and say “No” if you really can’t do it? Do you have the wherewithal to tell your co-worker “No” if you know the temptation is too great?

Trust me, it takes about ten seconds to run this scenario through your mind one good time, if you’re being honest with yourself. And I’ll admit it – in the beginning of MY experience with calorie counting, I had to learn the QUICK way how to simply say “No.” It might even make you feel like you’re talking to yourself… and then you might feel awkward because you actually respond, but it’s for the better. That “No” is important, because it is FAR easier than “Let me get an Egg McMuffin (300 calories, 12g fat, 30g carbohydrates – less fat than that Starbucks drink that I mentioned up there) instead of that big giant dish of pancakes… mmm, with that syrup… oh, and that hash brown? Hmm…” Please believe, in 2 seconds flat, it turns into “Actually, let me just get the Deluxe Breakfast instead.” You must be at the ready. No auto-pilot. You must always be conscious.

Calorie counting requires that you take a long…hard…look at the foods you’re eating at home. Lots of microwaveables? Calorie counting demands that you take a hard look at each item. Could you make this better at home? If not – and that’s OK if you can’t – would you be better off with another dish, instead? Look long and hard and the caloric values on that nutrition label. Does it say 1 serving is equal to 400 calories? If so, does it say that there are actually TWO servings in the entire dish? You know, the dish packaged like it’s made for only one person? You have to be conscious!

Looking for other posts in the Understanding Calorie Counting series? Check the links below!

• Understanding Calorie Counting: The Basics
• Understanding Calorie Counting: What is it? Calorie Counting Defined
• Understanding Calorie Counting: Creating Your Calorie Goal and Being Honest About It
• Understanding Calorie Counting: The Payoff – Why Am I Doing This To Myself?
• Understanding Calorie Counting: Preparing Yourself For Success
• Understanding Calorie Counting: A Final Word

Understanding Calorie Counting: What is it? Calorie Counting Defined is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Understanding Calorie Counting: Creating Your Calorie Goal and Being Honest About It
2. Understanding Calorie Counting: Preparing Yourself For Success
3. Understanding Calorie Counting: The Payoff – Why Am I Doing This To Myself?

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: calorie counting, overeating

Greatist, however, has plenty of answers to your questions about sleeping and how sleep affects your health:

Thoughts?

Infographic: The Secrets Of Better Sleep is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Infographic: The Ultimate Guide To Workout Nutrition
2. Infographic: The Complete Guide To Interval Training
3. Infographic: “The Childhood Obesity Epidemic”

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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