A New Year's P.L.A.N.

Christmas calories have caught up with me. And I don’t want to carry them along in the New Year, especially not in the year I’m going to be the mother of the groom! Typically I eat too many sugary calories the last half of December. But unfortunately this year, I also ended up with a bad cold and sinus infection, which temporarily curtailed my exercise minutes. Yikes. I’m happy to say I’m slowly cutting back on the calories and today couldn’t resist adding a short run to my exercise walk.

This is the time of year when many people make a variety of resolutions, including weight and other health issues. What is your plan? Here is the P.L.A.N. I frequently use with my patients to help them succeed. Utilize this P.L.A.N. to help you get back on track, “flee from evil” and use the “magic bullet” to your advantage. Follow this PLAN towards success:

P: Portion control

*Smaller portion of food.

*Greater portion of exercise and activity.

Practically speaking, no foods are forbidden. However, portion sizes of all foods needs to be controlled.  In the land of “super-size” food servings, we need to eat smaller portions especially of high calorie, low nutrient-rich foods.  Typical “junk foods” such as potato chips, soda, candy bars, etc. have comparatively fewer nutrients and more calories than foods like apples, spinach, or grapes. If we take in more calories than we burn, we will carry that weight on our bodies. (Additionally, in a very complex hormone system in the body, eating carbohydrates triggers more eating. Eating more protein helps curb appetite.)

A Journal of the American Medical Association 11/2015 article declares, “Physical inactivity has been labeled pandemic due to its increasing global prevalence and its health, economic, environmental, and social consequences.  More than half of US adults fail to meet the 2008 physical activity recommendations of 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise daily or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise weekly.” Unfortunately elevators, remote controls, and “automatic” almost everything have reduced our activity. Clearly most people need to increase the number of daily activity minutes. In what ways can you increase number of steps every day? Every step counts; it does not have to be in one chunk exercise session. Park farther away from the store or office. Set a rime for 60 minutes and walk a few minutes or climb a flight of stairs every time it goes off. Walk to the mailbox. Find little ways to add steps throughout the day.

L: Leave it. Flee from evil.  

*Leave it...high-calorie low-nutrient food sources.

*Leave it...couch, computer chair, & other sedentary circumstances.

Flee from anything that tempts you to eat too many calories. What are areas from which you need to flee? Drive home on a different route so McDonalds or Dairy Queen does not call your name?  Walk right past the break room at work or down a different hallway?  Push your grocery cart towards the fruit aisle and away from the snack aisle?  Avoid the all-you-can eat restaurants?

Turn the TV, computer or other electronics off so you avoid sedentary evenings on the couch, at least until after you have exercised? 

A:Accountability 

*Food diary

*Exercise diary

*Accountability partner

Repeatedly, research shows that keeping a food diary helps a person reduce the number of calories and increases the number of exercise minutes. Because of modern technology, multiple options are easily available for food and exercise diaries:online apps, calendar logs, or journals. 

A few years back, at an obesity conference, a renowned speaker declared, “We have the magic bullet for weight loss.” You could have heard a pin drop in that room as people listened expectantly. “Every research study has shown that if people keep food & exercise logs, they will lose weight!”

Pick a person to be your accountability partner. Identify your problem areas. Give your accountability partner 2-3 quantitative (yes or no, or specific number) questions to ask you each week. Examples might include: How many minutes did you exercise last week? How many evenings did you eat food past 8:00?  How many sodas did you drink? Did you eat vegetables every day last week?

N: Nurture

*Nurture in non-food ways. 

*Nurture yourself with exercise.

Unfortunately, our culture uses food to comfort, to calm, to celebrate.  Identify non-food ways to nurture yourself, your family, and your friends. Make a list. Have your ideas easily available so that you do not fall back to your usual source of food (and usually high-calorie, low-nutrient food.)  

Instead of cookies for the children after school, how about hugs, fruit, and cuddling on the couch reading a good book. Instead of grabbing a bag of chips, stroll around the block. Instead of eating candy, take a few moments to read or listen to God’s word. Other ideas include: listening to favorite music, taking a soothing bath, writing or drawing in a journal, golfing, playing the piano or another musical instrument, woodworking, talking with a friend, reading a fun book, or doing another favorite hobby. 

Exercise should not be unpleasant or a punishment, but instead exercise refreshes the body, soul, and mind.  As you exercise, focus your mind on fun memories, memorize a special bible verse, allow God’s Word to penetrate your mind and soul by listening to the Bible on a phone app, or just be mindful of the moment.  Or nurture yourself and a family member or friend by enjoying exercise time together.

Bask in God’s love and nurture for you!

 “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you with His love He will exult over you with loud singing. “ Zephaniah 3:17

Our bodies are fueled by food, and exercise makes our bodies strong and functional. Psalm 139:14 declares, “ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Indeed our bodies are amazing -fearfully and wonderfully made!  However, In the unfriendly environment of too many calories and too few calorie burners, often it is difficult to maneuver towards healthy choices. A P.L.A.N. can enable a person to steer clear of obesity and associated diseases, and live a healthy, functional, vibrant life.

February Fine Tuning!

This post first appeared on CPH.org blog on Feb. 18, 2006
https://www.cph.org/b-296-february-finetuning-for-new-years-resolutions.aspx

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February Fine-Tuning for New Year’s Resolutions

Karen Sue Murdy

Feb 18, 2016

Everyday Faith

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How are your New Year’s resolutions?  In need of some fine-tuning? Proverbs 21:5 says, “The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.” As you diligently plan for action, may you have abundance of success in making changes for a healthy lifestyle. Here are some suggestions for diligent planning.

Although many people make New Year’s resolutions, not everyone has success. By fine-turning resolutions into goals with an action plan, you can and will be more successful. Goals succeed when they meet three criteria: realistic, reasonable to your starting point, and flexible. Goals need an action plan. Goals such as “losing weight,” “exercising,” or “changing eating habits” do not really address a specific plan. However, setting goals with several realistic, reasonable, and flexible action plans turns resolutions into reality.

Let’s take a look at how this can be done. For example, how can “losing weight” be turned into a realistic, reasonable, flexible action plan?  What specific actions are needed?  Here are several possibilities:

Goal: Increase fruits and vegetables.

• Action: Buy some fruits and vegetables while grocery shopping each week.
• Action: Plan fruits and vegetables into most meals.
• Action: Take fruits and vegetables to work as snacks.
• Action: Make fruits easily available (baby carrots, washed grapes, etc.).

Is this realistic? Yes, fruits and vegetables are readily available, and you can use coupons and sales to help stretch the budget.
Is this reasonable? Yes. If you are currently not eating any fruits or vegetables, you can begin the process by eating even one or two per day and gradually increase the amount.

Is this flexible? Yes. You can pick from a great variety. You can eat them at various times of the day.

Monitor: By using a food diary, you can keep track of how many fruits and vegetables you eat each day. After a week, you can check the diary and see if your action plan is working. If not, revise. Perhaps you need to buy different fruits and vegetables that are more palatable to you. Maybe you need to buy sandwich bags so it is convenient to take veggies and fruits to work. Or try researching different options for cooking vegetables.

Goal: Eliminate high-calorie eating at nighttime. (It is very common for overweight people to struggle with this problem. Often, nighttime eating habits have been formed since childhood. You can help your own children and grandchildren by developing healthier habits.)

• Action: Establish a stop-eating-after-supper routine. Here’s an example: Wash the dishes. Turn out the kitchen lights. Drink a tall glass of water. Brush your teeth. Walk once around the block. Begin to train your mind and body that this cue means eating is finished for the evening.
• Action: Choose to eat evening snacks only two nights per week. Save those two nights for special times, such as Friday night card party or movie night.
• Action: Plan a low-calorie evening snack. Eat a clementine or two (35 calories each) if you are a sweet eater or an individual bag of prepopped popcorn (such as Skinny Pop brand, 100 calories per bag) if you are a salty person.
• Action: Develop a list of alternative activities to hang on your mirror or refrigerator door. Include hobbies such as crocheting, woodworking, playing piano, doing jigsaw or crossword puzzles, reading (a delightful, laugh-out-loud read is Katie Schuermann’sHouse of Living Stones), painting your or your daughter’s toenails, golfing, journaling, or calling a friend. Put only fun ideas on your list!

Goal: Increase exercise.

• Action: Schedule exercise most days of the week. Over the weekend, look at your calendar for the following week. Schedule exercise time on your calendar just as if it were an appointment.
• Action: Plan 120–150 minutes of exercise per week. The number of minutes needs to be reasonable based on your current exercise level. If you are not doing any exercise, start with 15–20 minutes per day. You may even start with 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the afternoon. Ultimately, exercising at least 200 minutes per week is ideal. Having a weekly goal allows you to make adjustments for the days. Some days may be 40 minute days; on a really busy day, you may get only 20 minutes. But you begin to get a sense of how every exercise minute benefits your weekly total.
• Action: Buy and wear an exercise tracker, such as a Fitbit. Keep track of how many steps you get each day. After a week, average your daily number of steps. Try to increase your daily goal each week by about 1,000 steps per day until you get to 10,000 steps per day. 
• Action: Arrange activity “dates.” Walk with your husband. Ride bikes with a friend. Lift weights with your teen at the gym. Play with your grandkids at the park. Go dancing.

Each time you set a goal with an action plan, ask these questions: Is this reasonable? realistic? flexible?

Monitor your behavior. If the plan works, continue. If not, revise!

As an added bonus, many health-care plans give reimbursements for healthy lifestyle monitoring. Check with your health-care provider.

Diligent plans lead to abundant results!