How to Control Your Eating

I had an idea the other day about how to control your eating when you're at a restaurant.

The problem with restaurants is that they give you way too much food.  So you say to yourself, "I'm only going to eat this much."  Then you get to that point and you stop eating.  Nice job.

But wait.  Five minutes later that food is still sitting in front of you.  So you take a nibble.  And another nibble.

Then the person you're dining with asks if you want to taste their food.  Sure!

Or someone you're with doesn't finish their food and you help them finish it.  Can't let if go to waste, right?

All the sudden you've eaten 200 calories more than you wanted to.  How can we prevent this?

Try this out.  Bring some gum with you and place a stick of gum next to your plate when your meal comes. Decide how much of that food you should eat.  After you finish that much food, immediately put the gum in your mouth.

Now you can't nibble anymore.  No more french fries.   No more samples from someone else's plate.  This way you can leave the restaurant without feeling stuffed.

Are you going to give this a try or what?  It may sound ridiculous, but a lot of these little diet tips do sound ridiculous until you try them and they work.

Avocados and Guacamole

Avocados get a bad rap because they are quite fatty, but that fat is actually the good kind. They're also a good source of potassium, folate, and antioxidants.

Maybe you should try to eat one per week. You can cut up avocados and put them in a salad or use them in guacamole.

Here's my simple guacamole recipe:

1 Avocado
1 small plum tomato (or any tomato)
Corn chips

Scoop out the avocado, put it in a bowl, and mash it. Dice the tomato and stir it in with the avocado. Shake some garlic salt and add a spritz of lime juice and it's ready to eat! Makes a hearty snack for two.

Don't be surprised if you feel quite full after eating some guacamole. Fat is known for producing a feeling of satiety. It's pretty much a small meal more than a snack. I like to eat it as a meal on a day where I'm not that hungry or if I had a big lunch earlier.

Senior Strength Training Tip

Here's a common strength training mistake I see a lot of people making. Let's say you're lifting weights, and you're doing a set of 15 reps, and you find it's too easy, what do you do next time?

A). Increase the weight.

B). Increase the reps.

Let's go over choice A. Let's say you increase the reps and do 20 reps. But eventually that's too easy.

Now what. 30 reps? If you continue on this road, you might be doing 50 reps or more in a couple months.

I actually see this a lot. People tell me they're doing 3 sets of 50!

If you're doing that many reps, you probably aren't even using your strength muscle fibers, you're using your endurance fibers.

But you already work your endurance fibers plenty when you're doing your cardiovascular exercise (you are doing cardio, right?).

Your strength fibers will only be used if the weight is heavy enough that the brain thinks they're needed. If you're using a weight that you can do 30 reps with, it will be too light to recruit your strength fibers.

The solution, of course, is to go with choice A - increase the weight. You should be doing sets of 20 or less reps if possible. Choose a weight that fatigues the muscle by the time you get to 20 reps.

Three Reasons to Eat Dark Chocolate

If you're not already eating dark chocolate on a regular basis, you're missing out. Here's three reasons you should start today:

1. Dark chocolate is packed with antioxidants that can help prevent heart disease, Alzheimer's, and arthritis.

2. It improves your mood because it contains serotonin and stimulates endorphin (your body's natural pain killer) release.

3. You can use it as a substitute for junk food. Instead of a candy bar or a cookie, have a few squares of dark chocolate. It tastes good, but it's low in sugar.

Try Ghirardelli Twilight Delight, which is delicious.

To learn more about dark chocolate click here.

Senior Exercise Video

Check out this senior exercise video.  It talks about 4 major components of senior exercise - cardiovascular training, strength training, balance training, and flexibility.  It also covers the basic parameters for each aspect, like how often and how much.

Senior Health and Fitness

I can sum up the entire idea behind senior health and fitness in one word - prevention.

It's much easier to prevent than it is to try to turn the tide after a couple decades neglecting your health.

Don't wait until your Dr. tells you your're at risk of a heart attack to start exercising.

Don't wait until your Dr. tells you you have high cholesterol before you start eating right.

Don't wait until you have Osteoporosis before you start thinking about building bone mass.

And don't wait until you fall to start thinking about training your balance.

Don't wait.  Prevent.

It's much easier to start preventing now before it's a problem than it is to try to turn the boat around after it's been sailing one direction for ten years.

Strength Training for Seniors

If you're doing some strength training already, great.  Here three important things to think about that most people don't know.

1. Think about the muscles you're using as you do the exercise.  It's easy to just go through the motions.  By mentally trying to contract the muscles that are involved, you will get a much better activation of the muscles.  This is called the "Mind-Muscle Connection."

2. Breathe.  People often tend to hold their breath when strength training.  This is a bad idea because it causes your blood pressure to skyrocket.  Try to breathe smoothly and continuously.

3. Engage the muscles both ways.  There are two parts of every strength training motion.  The hard part where you move the weight or stretch the band, and the easy part where you return to your starting position.  During the second part, it is easy to move quickly and just let the weight or band pull themselves back to where they started.  Try to resist it on the way back.  You can do this by going a little slower on the way back.  Now you'll get a muscular contraction in both directions.  That's twice the workout in half the time, as they say.

Stay tuned for more posts on Strength Training for Seniors.