5 Ways to Fix the Calorie Damage From Easter Candy

One (or two) chocolate bunnies don't have to derail your weight loss goals.​

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Did you enjoy your Easter weekend? Maybe a little too much? Even if you found yourself staring at an emptied out basket with candy wrappers strewn everywhere–don't fret. "It takes eating 3,500 calories above and beyond your body's needs to equal a pound of weight gained," says Christen Cooper, R.D., owner of Cooper Education and Communication in Pleasantville, New York. So even if you ate a lot of sweet treats on Easter (and a few days after), you can probably still fit in your jeans. "In fact, you probably didn't even gain a full pound," says Cooper.

But our experts did agree the average Easter basket can contain up to 1,500 to 2,000 calories (yikes!), so if you enjoyed the whole thing, here are five easy ways toget back on track.

1) Estimate the actual calorie damage done and reverse it in small steps, recommends Cooper. For example, if you know you downed about 1,000 extra calories over the weekend, try cutting out your usual dessert (just for this week). A deduction of 200 calories over five nights equals 1,000 calories.

2) Consume a protein-rich shake in the morning to stabilize your blood sugar, suggests Stella Metsovas, R.D., owner of w8lessnutrition. "You don't need to add any fruit to the mix–instead, opt for fiber-rich ingredients (low in natural sugars), like flax seed or hemp seed, fresh or frozen greens, coconut milk or almond milk." 

3) Get rid of sugar bloat with salt. "Take one granule of Celtic sea salt and add to your water, per one liter," recommends Metsovas. "Bloating occurs for many reasons, one of which is a disruption in mineral consumption (i.e., excess intake of sugar)." 

4) Skip the diet sodas and artificial sweeteners for awhile, says Sharon Richter, R.D. They will make you feel more bloated, and their overly sweet taste may trigger another chocolate binge, says Richter. 

5) Sweat off up to 500 calories with this "Mix it up Cardio Burn" workout recommended by fitness expert Amy Dixon. Start with a five-minute warm-up on the treadmill at a moderate intensity, and then do the following as hard as you can (without losing your breath): 10 minutes on the treadmill, followed by 10 minutes on a stationary bike, 10 more minutes on the elliptical, finish up with 10 minutes on the stair mill, and then cool down by walking it off. "Mixing it up is the name of the game," says Dixon, "and working at an uncomfortable intensity will help you burn some major calories." 

I hope you had a wonderful Easter with family and friends! It's alright to slide off the rails every now and again, as long as you've got a back up plan to help you get back on track :)

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Top Tips to Beat the Binge this Easter

With Easter around the corner, many people trying to keep their weight in check will be starting to panic, and it's little wonder.

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Australians scoff around 110,000 tonnes of chocolate each year - translating to a whopping 5.8 kilograms per person[1] per year, along with 42 kilograms of sugar - a staggering 27 teaspoons per person per day[2].

For many people, avoiding the sweet stuff is a daily struggle, at Easter time - with Easter eggs, bilbies and bunnies tempting us at every turn - it might seem near impossible. This, says Accredited Practising Dietitian Duncan Hunter, is where most people slip up.

"With temptation all around it's all too easy to opt to ignore your healthy eating plan over the Easter break, thinking you'll get back on track the following week. And while it's not realistic to completely ignore the Easter tradition - and the chocolates that go along with it - there are a few savvy strategies you can employ to make sure you treat yourself (a little) but don't undo your hard work and set your diet back because of a few days off the wagon."

To put that in perspective, Hunter says it takes two hours of brisk walking or 60 minutes of jogging to work off a large 100 gram egg, and even a small 7 gram Easter egg will see you walking for 8 minutes or jogging for 4 minutes to get rid of the guilt. 

"If you do the math, and consider how much effort is required to work off just a few eggs you might think twice before you put too many into your mouth. To boost your ability to navigate the Easter minefield, plan ahead so you don't get caught on the hop," Mr Hunter advised.

"The evidence shows that the fastest - and simplest - way to lose weight is through a carbohydrate controlled eating plan where there's no need to count calories and you feel satisfied for longer. This is why New Atkins is so successful; it begins by restricting carbohydrates for rapid weight loss and gradually adds nutrient-rich, low-GI carbs such as wholegrains and legumes as followers move through the four phases. It also allows followers to enjoy delicious foods they'd never dream of eating on an extreme low calorie plan which will make the Easter chocfest easier to navigate."

Here are Duncan Hunter's top tips for beating the binge this Easter:

• Rather than gorging across the entire holiday, choose one day to indulge within reason - and stick to your healthy low-carb eating plan, such as the New Atkins Nutritional Approach, for the other three days

• Don't walk down the chocolate aisle. No, really. The choice to eat chocolate begins when you choose to walk down that aisle in the supermarket. If you don't bring it home (or at least not too much of it), you can't eat it. Ditto for high-carb hot cross buns

• Don't constrain yourself entirely - there are plenty of healthy, sweet tasting treats that you can indulge in over Easter. Try swapping hot cross buns (41grams of carbohydrates each) for orange and poppy seed scones (5.6g of carbs each), or a regular sized 75g chocolate eggs (46g of carbs) for a serve of (Atkins) chocolate coated macadamias and blueberries (3.7g of carbs) (see recipes below)

• If you are going to allow yourself some chocolate, decide how much in advance, purchase small (less than 30g) low-sugar dark chocolate Easter eggs (check the label) that are wrapped so you can't eat them too quickly. Once you've eaten your designated stash, that's it. Don't keep bingeing all weekend

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• Leftovers can linger so once your family meal is done or your visitors are leaving, send a takeaway container home with your guests so that you don't have temptation sitting in the fridge all week. Give away or throw out any leftover chocolate - better in the waste than around your waist
• If you're still craving chocolate, satisfy your sweet tooth with a guilt-free low-carb treat such as an Atkins Chocolate Decadence Advantage Bar (just 1g sugar) or an Atkins Milk Chocolate Advantage Shake - the go-to drink for health-conscious chocoholics
 

Post-Easter plan.

Should your best-laid plans come unstuck, don't despair, Duncan Hunter has whipped up a quick post-feast fix to get you back on track in a flash.

"Since most of the weight gain from a brief episode of carbohydrate overindulgence is water, the best antidote is to reduce your carb intake. Drop back to 20 grams per day of carbohydrates and stay there until the weight you gained comes off. After that you can slowly increase your carbohydrate intake according to your individual goals and metabolism," Mr Hunter advises.

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Hunter also suggests a morning exercise session the day after Easter to reset your metabolism and get back into a routine. Alternatively, grab a friend and sign up for the New Atkins Buddy program so that you have a friend to support you - and keep you motivated on the way to your weight loss and healthy lifestyle goals.





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Are You Suffering From Decision Fatigue? (Plus What to Do About It)

The world is a maelstrom of choices. From smartphones (iPhone or Android?), diets (Primal or Paleo or vegan?), cars (electric or gasoline, SUV or sedan?), health plans (PPO, HMO, or health savings account?), to entertainment (TV or Twitter or YouTube or Xbox or Netflix), we’ve never had more options from which to choose. This is supposed to be a good thing. It’s supposed to be liberating. Having more options is supposed to help us make better decisions. But in reality, something called decision fatigue gets in the way.

A recent study examining the factors determining the outcome of parole hearings illustrates this concept. All the things you’d imagine determined a parole decision — the nature of the crime, history of the criminal, laws broken — had little to no impact on the outcome of the hearing. The likelihood that a criminal received parole depended primarily on one variable: the time of day the hearing was held. Early morning hearings were more likely to decide in favor of the criminal. Hearings held just before lunch were more likely to decide against parole. Immediately after lunch, it switched back: the judges were more likely to grant parole. As late afternoon approached, they again grew more likely to deny parole. What gives?

The judges were burning through their “decision capacity.” Making decisions is like using a muscle; you get fatigued. Granting parole is a harder decision because it takes more brainpower. If your decision muscles are exhausted, it’s easier (and safer) to assume guilt than it is to assess the evidence, make an informed decision about a potential parolee, and risk releasing someone who could commit another crime. As the judges accumulated decision fatigue, the easy, safe decision grew more and more attractive.

Another study found that decision-making degrades self-control and saps willpower. When subjects were forced to make a series of minor decisions about consumer goods (“Do you prefer the red shirt or the black shirt?”), they only lasted 28 seconds in a classic test of self-control: holding your hand in ice water for as long as you can. Subjects who made no decisions lasted over a minute.

Consider what this means for you. You get up in the morning, brush your teeth, wash your face, trudge to the kitchen for something warm and stimulating to drink, and find yourself awash in decisions that must be made.

Coffee or tea? Coffee.

Single-origin microlot Guatemalan light roast or organic instant French roast? Single origin.

French press or Chemex pour over? French press.

Bulletproof coffee, Primal egg coffee, black, or heavy cream? And so it goes. By the time we decide what to wear, which route to take the dogs on their morning walk, whether to eat breakfast, what to eat for breakfast, whether to bike or drive to the office, whether to dive right into work email or mess around on Facebook, where to go for lunch, we’re exhausted. And by the end of the day, we’re making poorer choices. The cookies at the checkout line are harder to resist. Take-out sounds better than cooking dinner. Vegging out in front of the TV beats Scrabble with the spouse. If we get around to working out, we probably won’t go as hard or last as long. The infinite freedom of endless options has degraded our ability to make good decisions and exercise self-control.

All those choices can also paralyze us, preventing us from even making a decision. A classic study from Columbia University gave upscale grocery store customers the opportunity to sample gourmet jams from one of two rotating displays: a booth featuring 24 different jams and one featuring just six. The larger display was more enticing, attracting 60% of passers-by, while the smaller booth brought in 40%. On average, customers who stopped sampled two jams, regardless of the size of the display, and every person received a coupon for a dollar off a jam purchase.

But when the time came to make a purchase, just 3% of the customers at the booth with 24 jams actually bought one, while 30% of the customers who’d visited the smaller display bought jam. Having two dozen jams to choose from might have looked and sounded great, but all those options were debilitating. The more options they had, the less likely they were to choose one.

I’ve got a friend, a desk jockey type, who got tired of being really overweight, tired all the time, and unable to move freely without discomfort. He went Primal, bought the books, and lost the weight. He feels better than he has in years. But here’s the thing: he can’t cook. He achieved his transformation entirely with boiled eggs, Primal Fuel, and prepared Primal-friendly foods. It’s not a sustainable way of going Primal and he knew it. So he decides he’s going to learn to cook – to fend for himself. He scours the blogs to determine the best cookware, the best kitchen gadgets, the essential spices, and anything else pertaining to cooking Primal fare.

After a month of research, his Amazon cart has hundreds of items. Several different pressure cookers, three types of roasting pans, frying pans, mason jars, you name it. Everything a home cook could ever want or need. Every product ever mentioned on Nom Nom Paleo. Enough to supply a commercial kitchen several times over.

Two months later, I ask him how his new lifestyle’s going. What’s his favorite dish to cook? What kind of cast iron skillet did he spring for? I can’t wait to see his progress, and maybe even taste it. Turns out his Amazon cart is still full. He’s made no purchases. He’s paralyzed by analysis of the myriad options.

A month later, he’s finally made the purchases and his kitchen is stocked, but he’s stuck on another set of choices. What cookbook to buy? Which brand of pastured chicken is best? Should he roast the chicken with high heat or braise it at a lower, gentler temperature? It never ends.

His is an extreme example, but it’s a real one, and it illustrates the point made in the Columbia study.

That’s one reason people find the Primal Blueprint to be so powerful: it automates certain aspects of your life. It’s a framework for making decisions, so the deliberation time is reduced or even eliminated. You no longer have to waste time and cognitive capacity on daily decisions (what to eat, whether to exercise, how much sleep to get) because that’s been laid out. You avoid paralysis because there are fewer choices, and many of them have already been made for you. There’s wiggle room for personal variability, of course, and you’re free to geek out on the minutiae, but the big picture items are covered.

For every decision we make about health, lifestyle, sleep, training, food, the Primal Blueprint provides a frame of reference. We’re not starting from ground zero. Instead of agonizing over that package of cookies by the register, you don’t even consider buying them because they’re made of grains, refined sugar, and processed seed oils. You don’t even have to really think about it.

That said, it’s just a framework. It doesn’t solve everything, and if you feel like you’re suffering from too many decisions and you’re making bad choices on the decisions that really impact your life (work, relationships, health), I’ve got a few suggestions that may help.

Make rules for yourself. Stick to them.

Rules help because they eliminate decision making. Rules like eat 60 grams of carbs or less per day, eliminate all refined sugar, stop eating fast food and soda, or eat 50 grams of protein every meal are effective for weight loss not only because they improve your metabolic health but because they automate your diet. A few rare birds even do well by setting ironclad calorie limits (1600 calories a day) and sticking to them no matter what. If you have no more calories left for the day, you “can’t” eat dessert. There’s no decision to make.

Automate.

Deciding what color of sock to wear in the morning when you’re rushed and you have a full day of momentous decisions ahead of you is a waste of time. Lots of fairly successful people wear or wore, for example, the same thing every day to eliminate unnecessary decision-making. Steve Jobs and his black turtlenecks. Barack Obama and his suit(s). Mark Zuckerberg’s T-shirt and hoodie. This is harder to pull off when you’re not a billionaire CEO or leader of the free world, but you can still automate parts of your life. Like:

• Breakfast: Know what you’re going to eat for breakfast every morning. Even better, eat the same thing every day.
• Clothing: Plan what you’re going to wear the night before.
• Morning routine: A powerful benefit to morning routines (that I didn’t mention last week) is their ability to streamline your day. Rather than rushing around in a frenzy first thing in the morning, making decisions (often rashly) and using up a ton of your decision capacity, you spend the first part of your day in a beautiful decision-free state.

Plan meals for the week.

If deciding what to cook is a stressful choice, don’t wait to the end of the day to hit the grocery store and wing it. Every Sunday (or whatever day you consider to be the start of the week), figure out what you’re going to eat, and when. Decide all at once, so it’s one decision rather than many.

Heck, if you can swing it, actually cooking meals ahead of time can further reduce the amount of brain power you devote to food.

Narrow your choices.

We waste a lot of time eliminating choices that we were never really going to consider in the first place. One of the worst experiences is killing time trying to decide where to go out to eat. You hop on Yelp, use an asinine search term like “food” or “restaurant,”  type in your ZIP code, and get dozens of results — none of them satisfactory. You spend unnecessary decision points winnowing the results down to something you actually want to eat. Instead, figure out what cuisine you want before searching.

Remove your choices.

If you want to workout more often but have trouble actually deciding to do it, hire a trainer or get a workout buddy. When you have a responsibility to someone else, or your hard-earned money is at stake, you’ll be obligated to attend and the decision will be made for you.

Make the most important decisions early in the day.

Those decisions you’ve been failing at lately? Handle them earlier, when your decision muscles are well-rested. This could mean grocery shopping in the morning instead of after work.

Flip a coin.

You know those agonizing decisions that don’t even really matter, like whether to buy collard greens or kale for dinner tonight? Those decisions where you fully admit that either choice would be perfectly adequate, yet you still can’t pull the trigger? When you find yourself in this situation, deliberating over errata, just flip a coin. Literally: take a coin out, assign values, and flip it.

Let go.

The perfect choice doesn’t exist. The idea that it does exist is the enemy of even approaching perfection. Good is good enough.

Avoiding decision fatigue and decision paralysis aren’t just important for making better choices, being more productive, and “winning” at life. They’re also crucial for simply being happy, reducing stress, and removing mental clutter. One of the sharpest double-edged blades of being human is our ability to think about thinking, to analyze and over-analyze, to weigh the pros and cons and be weighed down by them. If we can eliminate any extraneous decision-making and analysis by planning, routine, automation, and maybe even relinquishing a little control, I think it’s a good idea to do so.

What about you guys? Does this post resonate with you? Do you suffer from decision fatigue? How are you currently handling it? Let me know down below!

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http://www.marksdailyapple.com/decision-fatigue/#axzz3pf9Qq7Zl

6 ways to beat your food addiction

It’s an all-too-common scenario: You wake up in the morning swearing today’s the day when you’ll eat clean, nourish yourself with a healthy breakfast at home, and pass up the glistening bakery goodies that tempt you every day. 

You make it to work without incident and then stress hits—any kind of stress, from a new project deadline to a caustic remark from your boss. A little while later, you find yourself with pastries in hand, wolfing down sugary anesthetics and wanting more. When you finally pop out of your food trance, and the reality of what you’ve done begins to settle in, the ensuing feelings of shame and guilt stoke your stress levels more and you’re already plotting your next food fix. 

You wonder: Why do I keep caving to these cravings? Where’s my discipline and willpower? This is your brain addicted to food.

That’s right. Addicted. You might tell yourself, "I’m not addicted to food; I just love a good sweet now and then." 

Well, I’m here to tell you that food addiction is real; it affects more people than you know, and manufacturers actually design food products so that they are as addicting as possible. Yes, that perfect combination of salty, sweet, and savory was created to make sure you keep reaching for more. That’s why I wrote The Hunger Fix, because I want to change the game that is rigged against you.

Here are six ways to beat food addiction:

1) Take the test. First, you need to find out if your relationship with food is a healthy one. 

Take my Food Addiction Quiz. This is a special assessment developed by Yale University researchers to evaluate your relationship with food. Experts believe that the majority of people who are overweight or obese have some level of food addiction. However, anyone of any age and size can have this issue.
 

2) Know your staples from your treats. Our brains are rigged to seek out the delicious reward of natural carbs like berries from a bush or veggies from the ground. We savor healthy fats from avocados, olive oil, and fish and lean meats. Our brains drive us to forage around to find these foods so that we have quick energy (from carbs) and long-lasting fuel (from fat). These natural whole foods have sustained us since the dawn of time. Our brains were acclimated to the taste of these rewards. Every now and again, we’d savor a treat that contained more natural sugar (grapes) or fat (dairy or meat). This mix of staples and treats became our natural balance of healthy nutrients.  

Flash-forward, and now we have manufacturers creating “hyperpalatable” foods—full of sugar, fat, and salt. And because they are ubiquitous, cheap, and easily accessible, fewer people cook. Grab and go is now the way to go.

3) Rein in your reward center. When hyperpalatables compete with natural foods, your brain’s reward center, which secretes the pleasure chemical dopamine, gets hijacked. Insulin levels go up and push you to want more and more. Suddenly, that bowl of fresh berries can’t compete with the über rewards of a Pop-Tart or a chocolate-coated breakfast bar. 

An occasional treat, such as a birthday dessert, also leads to a dopamine rush, but then your brain settles down to more normal levels of dopamine. But when you can get your hands on hyperpalatable foods 24/7 and you start the day with that sugary/fatty/salty pastry and grande sugary coffee drink, you end up with an endless appetite for more.

4) Recognize the “False Fix.” After constant exposure and consumption of these hyperpalatables, which I refer to as “False Fixes” in The Hunger Fix, your brain actually changes. The brain cannot tolerate this level of hyperstimulation. As a result, it decreases the number of dopamine receptors so that you no longer feel it as over-stimulation. That’s the good news. The bad news is that by doing this, your typical serving of food is no longer as rewarding. You find yourself not feeling as pleased and satisfied. You know the end result. Not satisfied, you end up with second and third and fourth portions, packing on weight along the way.

But wait, there’s more: At the same time your reward center is being hijacked, the brain’s CEO, the prefrontal cortex (tap your forehead and that’s where the PFC is located), is becoming damaged and impaired. The PFC can no longer help you rein in impulses or stay focused and vigilant. That’s why, when someone is in full-on addictive mode, moderation is a moot point. Revolutionary and groundbreaking new studies funded by the National Institutes of Health funded have shown that the brain scans of food addicts show the same changes and damage as those of a cocaine user. And, for your information, research also shows that table sugar (sucrose) is more addictive than cocaine.

All right, what’s the solution? Science-based detox and recovery from the foods and beverages that you know are causing you to lose control and overeat.

5) Know your enemy. Make a list all of your False Fix foods that you know will lead you to feel out of control and overeat. As you prepare to detox, look around you and inventory the persons, places, and things that enable your food addiction. This isn’t just about switching up False Fix foods for Healthy Fixes. It’s also about examining your entire lifestyle so you can make new, healthier choices to support your recovery. You’re not going to change everything overnight, so you’ll start with small but powerful steps to ensure sustainable, long-term success.

6) Remember these words: MIND, MOUTH, MUSCLE. That will help you organize how you’ll detox and recover.

MIND: Reclaim your brain. A strong PFC is absolutely required to repair and reclaim your reward center. And you can repair your PFC with transcendental meditation and mindfulness. The key is to practice them daily to stimulate new brain cell formation and to repair damage. When you meditate you cause actual brain changes to help repair and strengthen brain cells.

MOUTH: Get high…naturally. Achieve a natural “high” from whole foods that increase dopamine production naturally. Specific foods—watermelon, spinach, avocados, tofu, and sesame seeds, to name a few—perform magic and reestablish normal reward responses for natural foods. Also, use powerful protein and fiber combinations—carrots and hummus, peanut or almond butter and apple slices, for instance—that satisfy and stop the urge to splurge on sugary/fatty/salty foods.

MUSCLE: Every step you take during the day stimulates brain growth, including your PFC, which translates to a bigger, stronger, more focused brain. And one of the mottos of The Hunger Fix is big brain, small waist. 

You’ll make smarter decisions and shed extra weight if your brain is healthy. Research has also shown that regular physical activity will also keep you calmer and decrease the chance of relapse. All you need is regular moderate exercise to make this work. Walking is the easiest way to go for most people. Doing it outdoors and stepping up the pace when you can enhances the entire experience and results. I’m not talking marathons here, folks. Just getting up and moving.

The bottom line is that food addiction is real—it’s been acknowledged by world-class scientists—and we need to start taking it seriously. And, more important, we have the ability to reverse the damage and reclaim our healthy, natural relationship with food.

Comment below what you thought of the article. Do you struggle with a food addiction? Have you found any of these tips helpful? Comment below any tips you've found helpful along the way! Love hearing from you x



Source
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/12/12/6-ways-to-beat-your-food-addiction/