Don't unfriend the scale

that's my little bamboo number lurking

The scale is a tricky thing. Some people are bff's with the scale, get together daily and enjoy its feedback. Others are highly sensitive to the scale's information, it has the power to ruin a day, or even a week. I'm "bi-scaleual" I've had times when I pop on each morning and others where I don't feel its necessary. I know this will fly in the face of intuitive eating but I think you can benefit from the scale, to some degree.
Our clients have us weigh them (facing away from the numbers) so we can track their numbers. I have friends who have personal trainers to monitor things. These are solutions to weighing without fixating on the number. I know you may be thinking jeans don't lie but they can fib. Your jeans may be a little different without you noticing. Do a little experiment, try on your "reference clothing" and see what you think, up, down or the same. Then, pop on the scale and see it it's in sync with your prediction. Anyone want to partner on a scale that simply has an up arrow or a down arrow?
On a personal note, my weight is fairly stable. I will tell you that my first visit with bamboo (see above) was mildly shocking. I was up four from my typical number. I remedied that (doesn't hurt that we're test driving our September Squeeze recipes). A long distance Foodstalking client summed it up yesterday, On our Monday food log we say "starting weight if you're a weigher." This client emailed me her Monday weight and said "and I have to weigh myself. Remember when I stopped? That is when it started coming on because I thought I was lighter than I was." I suggest taking a weekly weight or at least a monthly check in.

If the scale will send you over the edge, ignore what I'm saying. But if your behaviors have been a little off and you're open to it, see what the scale says. Oh and it's not broken.

Cheese is like crack and salad leads us to cheese

Last week I received multiple emails entitled “cheese is crack” referring to an LA Times article.  Yeah, yeah I thought as I clicked through, I could’ve told you that. Cheese is my dietary kryptonite. What I didn’t know was this:

“Casomorphins attach to the brain’s opiate receptors to cause a calming effect in much the same way heroin and morphine do," said Barnard. And since cheese has a concentrated content of casomorphins, Barnard suggested it may be called dairy crack.

While many associate sugar with a drug-like or addictive response, I thought cheese lovers were simply eating cheese because it’s the most delicious food in the universe. I am not sure if this notion of “calming cheese” makes me want to eat more or less of it but it makes sense to me. When cheese is in my life or kitchen, it’s hard to see it in my refrigerator drawer and pass it up. Fortunately, having not been to the Farmer’s market this week, I am cheese free. Fingers crossed no casomorph withdrawal.

Note: casomorphins come from casein (milk protein), all cheese has casein even though some cheeses are lactose free.

In other nutrition news, the NY Times Sunday Review highlighted “just the idea that we can have salad leads us toillicit treats”. The article explains something called the licensing effect. The licensing effect refers to our tendency to make an unhealthy choice following a healthy one. This can be the typical “I worked out so therefore…” or in supermarket studies research shows “drop a bunch of kale into your cart and you’re more likely to head to the ice cream or beer section.” There are some ways to get around this. First, the article mentions that we all have a concept of how healthy or unhealthy we are. When we stray too far from our norm, we’re more likely to compensate. I would say the more you tend to follow a positive decision with a negative one, the more you should opt for gradual, manageable changes versus rash ones. Second, focus on the behavior and not the scale. This licensing effect can encourage us to gain weight after we’ve lost it if the focus is numerical.

So the answer isn’t to skip the kale and head directly for the cheese plate but rather something along the lines of a kale Caesar salad. We need a place for cheese and other treats, crack-like or not, so that we don’t give ourselves license to binge.

Are you a cheese addict? Or what’s your dietary kryptonite? How have you seen yourself “licensing” unhealthy choices?

To count or not to count?

If life can be divided into those who count and those who do not, I am a dedicated counter. I love my Fitbit, jump on the scale every morning (not more than that, promise) and prefer Flywheel, the spin studio that gives you stats, versus Soul. So, it only makes sense given my inclination to count that running would involve a state of the art GPS watch providing me with pace, distance and everything else one would like to know about a workout.

However, you may recall I was burned by my Garmin GPS watch. In a marathon in a semi-remote location, my Garmin didn’t get signal. It wasn’t a great race for a number of reasons but any normal person would go to plan B and run based on perceived exertion but I was lost. I had relinquished any sense of what a certain pace felt like as I relied on my ex-friend Garmin to tell me if I needed to speed up or slow down. I also lost a lot of the pleasure that comes from running. I always wanted to be one of those people who ran a race and yet stopped to take photos but thought, “how are they sacrificing those precious minutes?” As if I were an Olympian and minutes made any difference.

This summer I look a different approach. Marc and I are signed up for a race that basically involves running up and down a mountain; one doesn’t do this type of terrain for time. And in a major departure, I’ve been running without a watch. I’ll go out for an hour or two hours without concerning myself about pace or exact distance.

When you’re not fixated on your watch you start to look around

In the course of my training I happened to  receive a Timex watch in the mail as a thank you or a project we participated in. I use it just as a simple stopwatch. I don’t stop it when I break for water or any of the other silly games I used to play. Just start and stop.

I am by no means defecting into the no-count camp. I’m wearing my Fitbit as I type this and will get on the scale this morning. I tell clients to take a break from weighing themselves when they are scale prisoners. When numbers cause you to be in a bad mood or zap pleasure from an activity or day, it’s time to make a change. Now, I need to get over carrying my phone to take pictures as I run…

Are you a counter or a non-counter? What do you count? Has your counting ever crossed the line? Do you run with a watch?

I Call it Thin, You Call it Strong, She Calls it Healthy but It's All in the Approach

I was so honored the fantastic site Well and Good named LBT “One of the 6 New Healthy Food Books That Don’t Promote Fad Diets”The write up is great saying, “her tips are relevant, actionable, and easy to implement and she delivers tools to help you use them, like checklists, recipes, and side notes on "how to boil the perfect egg. (It's hard, right??)” But there was this “its name may suggest an obsession with getting thin (strong is the new skinny!), but don't let the title fool you.”

Really? Does the word thin suggest obsessiveness? If the title had been “Get Thin or Be Miserable” I’d understand some implied negativity.  When I ask clients for their goals the words healthy, thin, fit, confident and yes even…skinny (don’t mind that one either) come up most often. Many LBT readers and Foodtrainers’ clients know that part of the weight or size puzzle is that it takes planning and strategy even to maintain your weight and this strategy needs to change with age. But whether we’re talking thin, skinny or strong it’s really all in the approach.

The same day as the Well and Good list, my friend Aidan posted a great recap of our Happier Hour discussion appropriately titled Thin is Not A Dirty Word and 9 other Lauren Lessons.

But that would not be the final word on thin, this comment was posted:

I have to say that I think our culture is too focused on being thin. I agree that thin and healthy can coexist (for some) but I argue that the focus needs to shift to being healthy and the byproduct will be reaching our “healthy” body weight. My health (and appearance) improved tremendously when I started to focus on getting more of the good stuff (nutrient dense foods) into my body. I have educated myself on what is good for me – eating colorful plant based foods and a moderate amount of healthy proteins, drinking lots of water, and getting adequate sleep and moderate amounts of exercises that I enjoy. I choose this approach because it’s about adding good stuff not depriving myself of the bad stuff. I guess I prefer to focus on the positive…what I can “gain” from being healthy (energy, glowing skin, longevity and vitality) not what I can loose on the scale.

While I’ll agree that we care about weight and appearance a little too much, the solution is to provide healthy strategies to approach food and exercise rather than pretending we only care about being healthy (or strong). The truth is, even this commenter acknowledged a change in her appearance so even if she’s anti scale she’s conscious of her looks too, we all are.

I also agree with the reader’s proactive steps and “additive” approach. My days are spent cheerleading for my clients. It would be so pathetic if my professional training resulted in helping people lose 5 pounds. There are so many “bigger” things that stem from taking control of your nutrition and the confidence that comes with it.  In the Little Book of Thin, I discuss how we can end food guilt, applaud ourselves for the effort cooking and “planning” takes and feel our best. Is that “obsessive”?

The irony is that I obsess over my body and weight when I eat the wrong foods. When my clothes feel good, when I’m eating foods that agree with my body and yes, when I feel thin I am not obsessed or overthinking any of it. Let’s not get stuck on a word or try to deny we care about our appearance. Instead let’s direct our energy toward whatever self-improvement means to each of us, spread positivity and eat the most delicious food possible. Deal?  

Do you thin is off putting? Or do you think it's semantics/splitting hairs? What are the adjectives you'd use to describe how you'd like your body to feel or look? 

You want an airline ticket? Step on the scale.

When I go to the store and buy wild salmon, the fishmonger weighs the salmon and affixes a price tag based on how much I buy. The same per pound system goes for apples, potatoes and nuts from the bulk bins. I’m not thrilled about it but when traveling, our ginormous black wedding registry (pre bags on scales) bags get weighed as well and this often results in a surcharge. However, if I want salmon and produce and travel, the scale is a prerequisite. Samoa Airlines is taking this one step further. What’s used for Tumi and tangerines is also used for people of all sizes; they’ve started charging based on weight. Passengers weight + baggage weight = price.

There’s a silver lining if you look for one. Kids would be less. Instead of a 2 year old being charged the same as a 200-pound adult male, they would benefit from being smaller and lighter (as long as they don’t charge based on noise level or decibels). And hey, if you’re dropping weight for a beach vacation, you now have a financial incentive. Weigh less pay less? I’m not sure if this would impact initial efforts to lose weight just for the sake of airfare.

In Samoa’s defense, Samoans are large- often the largest people on earth and this airline, to date, flies small planes. Cargo weight does matter. Military planes take weight into consideration. But most people aren’t Samoan, soldiers or excited for public weighing. Not that we’re happy about whipping out the credit card because you happen to have heavy ski boots (or more likely too many shoes with you). I don’t like removing my shoes for the security like but I do it, but that’s for “security” is getting on the scale the same?

This may work for a small airline. I get their stance that planes fly based on “cargo” weight not based on seats. I get that people are getting larger. But what happens when someone gets to the airport and cannot afford their ticket based on their size? Would companies pick smaller employees to do more travel if it saves them money? Would people be willing to do this hopping on the scale pre-flight?

Lots of questions and for now mostly hypothetical but interesting. It doesn’t seem right  nor does the person seated in front of me reclining in my lap or breaching their armrest boarder. On our recent trip, a child in front of us was using an ipad. The parents hadn’t contemplated the mute button or headphones. I politely asked them to lower it. You know what happened? The kid freaked out. I’m not sure telling a person “politely” to pay triple for their ticket would have a better outcome.

What do you think? Is this, as the head of Samoan airlines said “the future”? Can you see this working? What are the advantages or disadvantages?

Cooler, Scale, Magnifying Mirror- Let's Go.

Insert roof rack for more accurate image

I’m sure a good number of you are away as you read this. If you’re not, take comfort in the fact that you have access to your kitchen, your usual workouts, and your routine. Yes, sure I know some of the “fun” of being away is getting away from all of that but there is a downside. We spend a lot of time in Vermont (where I am right now). Last week, our good friends spent the week before Christmas up here. I received the following text from my friend:

I’m in full on VT mode: fat, hirsute and very bad hair. I have no idea what’s going on in the world and have adjusted to shopping at a 7 eleven. We’ll be up here for New Years; I can’t go out at home given my current state.

My friend was kidding, sort of kidding. The difference from prior years where we all commiserated about the color the well water turns our hair, how forgiving leggings and a giant sweater seem to be and the fact that skiing, when you do it all the time, isn’t really that good of a workout was that I was still in NYC. I had the opportunity to take charge and prevent “VT mode.”

Cooler and then some- I pack a mean cooler for any road trip but for a week in Vermont it was filled to the rim. Sadly, my new pretty stainless steel cooler has no wheels, so my husband had to hoist it from apartment to car and car to house. Ski eating is protein heavy so I packed an array of greens, cauliflower, broccoli, multiple avocados, probiotics and also omega 3 eggs, grass-fed meat and Siggis plain yogurt. Instead of bringing booze and ingredients for festive drinks for our “guests” I kept things to organic red and white wine. As I made balsamic roasted cauliflower and a huge salad last night, I felt as though I was winning the healthy versus heavy battle- round one to Lauren.

Scale- I have never travelled with a scale and sometimes curse hotels when they include them in the bathrooms. The thing is, despite exercise and eating well somehow something happens in this state and I come back feeling resolution-worthy. And lest you think it’s a female or spoiled thing my husband, knowing the “Vermont effect”, supported the precautionary measures. So the scale came in the car and I will get on it daily. I mentioned this on Twitter and received this reply

@Foodtrainers nuts to travel with a scale when you exercise and know what to eat. Slippery slope to a disorder IMO.

IMO (In my opinion) not having the scale is a “slippery slope” to gaining a couple of pounds after a week on the slippery slopes of Vermont despite exercise and eating well. I appreciated this tweeps concern.

Magnifying Mirror- it’s so easy to forego make-up, throw on a hat and go about your day here. You can’t see errant eyebrow hair behind ski goggles but eventually the goggles come off. So, after the hirsute admission from my friend, in the suitcase (only an LL Bean tote, not so big) went the magnifying mirror.

If this sounds extreme, not to worry there will be wine and cheese and I get the “when in Rome” mentality; however, we’re not in Rome. I can have any of these foods any weekend and, for me, getting home feeling good is a “treat”.  I would rather curb the enthusiasm by watching and tweezing that to adopt the ignorance is bliss mentality. I’m all for bringing any part of your routine with you if it makes you feel good.

Have you traveled with any of the items mentioned above? What food or items do you tote to temper the treats? Do you think I’m cautious or crazy? 

Skinny Jeans and Size Lies

Many new clients come to my office with weight goals. Some want to lose 10 pounds, others more. There are women who want to reach their “wedding weight” and men who want to be under 200 pounds. The brackets on the scale are meaningful. I have a doctor’s floor scale and the each bracket represents 50 pounds. Other people declare that they do not care about “the number” on the scale that they just want to be a certain size or for their clothes to fit.  These clothing-based goals appear sensible but have some inherent problems.

Last week, the NYT ran a story about the confusing state of clothing sizes. “One Size Fits Nobody: Seeking a Steady 4 or a 10.” The article discussed what many women already know and that’s that your “size” depends less on how much you weigh or what size you are and more on the whim of the retailer. Depending on the store your size can vary by a few sizes.

Many retailers, responding to their, ahem, growing consumer base have resorted to a practice called vanity sizing. Vanity sizing involves labeling clothes with smaller sizes so that a size 10 customer feels as though she’s a size 6 because that’s what fits her. I don’t think most people are gullible enough to think they’ve dropped a couple of sizes unbeknownst to them; rather it just makes shopping confusing.  A company known as My Best Fit developed a potential solution. My best developed kiosks at malls across America. Basically, your measurements are taken and you are given a report indicating the size you should select at various different retailers. To me, vanity sizing is like the mirrors at a carnival distorting what you look like and the kiosks some sort of fortuneteller. Knowing your size shouldn’t be that hard.

Aware that sizes are unreliable many people rely on a certain article of clothing as their litmus test. I don’t know why but this piece of clothing is a pair of jeans more times than not. We’ve all heard about “skinny” jeans, I have a client who calls her test jeans “reference jeans”. Others know they’re in good shape when they can buy jeans- period. I caution using clothes as your arbiter of size or fitness. For starters, your body can change. I have female clients who, like Aidan who we discussed last week, get back into tip top shape after babies. Yet, your body may change. Sometimes your hips are permanently a little wider after childbirth or things simply redistribute.  Changing your workouts can also alter the way apparel fits. You may have a certain look when you were running and your “inches” may be different if you start kickboxing. Slip your skinny jeans on in these instances and you may feel discouraged but the truth is clothes that fit at one time may just never fit well again even if you look great.  I also have to add that laundering and dry cleaning can shrink clothes or at least we think it can…

So what to do? We try to be more evolved and not let a number on the scale determine our success with food and exercise but other assessment methods have their flaws. It may come down to what Crunch gym said so well in one of their ad campaigns, we just need to see when we “feel better naked” although I like the jeans concept better.

Are you a scale person or do you go by your clothes? How do you know when you’re making progress with food or exercise? If there’s a piece of clothing you use as a reference, what is it?

Weighing In

My office isn’t large. On one wall are two chairs for clients with a window in between them. My chair and a small table for my computer sit opposite. On one of the two remaining walls hangs my favorite painting and against the other rests my healthometer “doctors”scale. I’m a nutritionist and having a scaleis pretty much a prerequisite but I can sense the stress creates, the metal elephant in the room. I remember when I was first counseling, I had an office in one of the Manhattan gyms. They had a scale, much like my healthometer, in the locker rooms. On a daily basis members would come to the front desk complaining the scale was wrong. It may have been slightly off but it wasn’t broken. Finally, a sign was posted above the scale simply stating “it’s not the scale.” Harsh but true.

I weigh most of my clients backward, with them facing away from the scale’s numbers. I do this because clients are fully dressed (though some slightly disrobe) and come at various times of day. I tell them if they’re up or down and approximately how much. I do this to avoid the number game and yet even without a number of pounds the scale can affect our behavior. There was a Cathy cartoon that comes to mind. In this cartoon Cathy gets on a scale and proclaims “I didn’t lose weight I may as well eat more.” In the next frame she gets on the scale again and says “ooh I lost weight, now I can really eat more.” Many clients, though fully dressed, take every last piece of jewelry off. One client insisted I deduct from her weight because she was in blue jeans. I told her it doesn’t matter that much. She weighed her jeans when she got home and called me “they are 1 pound heavier than my pants.”

While this all seems silly, the scale seems to be an important tool for weight loss and weight maintenance. The National Weight Control Registry , which tracks the habits of people who have successfully lost and maintained 30 pounds or more, shows that 75% of their maintainers weigh themselves at least once a week. I have a nutrition colleague who has also lost a good amount of weight who has been known to travel with her scale. She finds it keeps her in check to weigh herself daily. Others feel the scale makes them crazy and instead judge by how their clothes fit. My worry with this is that for clothes to feel different we’re talking close to 5 pounds lost or gained. As for me, I weigh myself post-poop and pre-dressing when I remember. Hey, if Oprah can talk about poop on a vegan diet I can talk about it with the scale. And in case you’re wondering (I know you are) poop tends to weigh between 6 and 8 ounces. And no I didn’t weigh any poop to find that out.

How often do you weigh yourself? Can you remember what you weighed at various times in your life? Any amusing scale stories? Please weigh in.

I'm Fat

I am not fishing for compliments; I’m not looking for “Lauren, you’re not fat you look great.” And I know I’m not really fat. My weight is generally in the same 3-4 pound range it was pre-kids, I wear a small size…you get it. You may be wondering then what is with the title of this post, well I’ll tell you. It all started this morning. After 10 days in Vermont, I boldly hopped on my bathroom scale. I was well above that normal range, a whopping 6 pounds heavier than when I left! For my body I am fat. What’s semi-interesting about this fatness is that I ate well and exercised while away.

In terms of exercise, I was not running miles a day or locating a spin class in Southern Vermont. I was, however, skiing, snowshoeing or at the gym 8 of the 10 days away, not bad-right? It feels virtuous to report I had a salad every day I was at the mountain for lunch and split pea soup (that I made) on other days. I set a no fried food and no wheat (I don’t eat wheat anyway but not for weight purposes) guideline. I had no days where I had more than 2 drinks (including New Years Eve!!) and no desserts except dark chocolate. And I was surrounded by 2 young boys having hot chocolate, macaroni and cheese and all of the other mountain temptations. If a client gave me this report post-trip I would commend them.

There is a little more to the story though. As a nutritionist I know details are important. Starting with the alcohol, while I never had too much to drink, I also never had a night I did not drink. At home I hover at about 4 drinks a week and away it was probably double. For dinners at home I tend to be the fish and shellfish girl. Although I did manage 3 fish dinners away, there was a lot more meat in my diet. As for “no wheat no fried foods” I was perfectly fine until a run in with nachos on Saturday night. Anticipating the nachos, I corrected with a green salad for my entrée but I cannot lie, there were nachos (and they were good). And finally, on the way home last night we avoided reliving “Fast Food Slaytons” but stopped on the road for dinner. My large tomato soup probably had as many milligrams of sodium as there are people in China.

All in all I still feel good about my eating and exercise over the holidays. It’s just important to remember that pretty good vacation eating can still be very different calorically from day-to-day eating. I know, from weighing clients every day, that the scale will be down tomorrow with one day of clean NYC eating. And chances are by Friday, when I have to go on TV talking about New Year’s Resolutions; I will no longer be fat.

How was your eating over the holidays or while away? Are you fat today too?