The State of the Union Is …

Every year around our wedding anniversary Michael and I go out to dinner and have a lengthy discussion about our life together. We call it, “The State of the Union Dinner.”

Topics include: kids, careers, our marriage, friends, family, hopes and dreams for the future and anything else that pops into our heads.

To begin this conversation we like to pretend we’re the President of the U.S. addressing the American public. The speech starts like this, “I’m honored to report to the American people that the State of our Union is …. (Insert appropriate adjective or phrase here.)

Because we are who we are, we typically insert something like “weak,” “deplorable,” “in jeopardy” or “about to implode.”

After 30 minutes of laughter and tears, we settle down and begin the serious business of discussing our life together.

Tonight we’re celebrating our 15^th anniversary. Quite a milestone in my mind and it got me thinking about things I’ve learned over the past decade and a half.

With respect to health, I have consistently talked to Michael about his reluctance to exercise. (I say “talked,” Michael would probably say, “nagged.”) I repeatedly urged him to do something, ANYTHING, for his health. Sometimes he’d begrudgingly say he’d try. Other times he’d promise he’d change. His answers varied but the result was always the same—he never did it.

I should tell you, he’s perfectly healthy. He’s one of those annoying individuals that can eat a bunch of crap, not work out and his cholesterol, blood pressure, etc. are excellent. He’s a medical mystery. His physician’s explanation for his good fortune is, “You can’t beat good genes.”

Exactly. He won the genetic lottery. (Insert expletive here.)

Michael, defending himself, pointed this out saying he didn’t need to exercise because he was already healthy. Which, I had to admit, was a fair point.

So, after a decade-long argument, I let it go. 

And peace once again fell over the land. No more nagging. No more broken promises.

Acceptance is a powerful thing.

Just like I’ve accepted that Michael won’t engage in structured exercise, I’ve come to accept that I won’t ever achieve my ideal weight.

Self Magazine promotes something called your “happy weight.” It’s a healthy weight that’s easy to maintain. And I know from experience that I’m at mine. It’s not the magic number I have in my head. You know, the one that lets me fit into my skinny jeans, but it’s a healthy weight for my height.

The problem with my “ideal” weight number is that to maintain it, I have to work out at least five days a week and count every calorie that enters my mouth. There’s no room for cheating. No room for taking a day off, indulging at a party, or splurging while on vacation. There’s no room for life. And that’s no way to live.

This year I’ve decided to accept my happy weight. To stop obsessing about an unrealistic goal. To be thankful for my health. To continue my current pattern of healthy eating and exercise.

Ahhhh, acceptance. It’s a beautiful thing.

To find your Happy Weight, check out this weight calculator from Self Magazine.

For more information on this topic click here.

Dieting Makes You Cranky

A study published in the Journal of Consumer Research asserts that dieting makes people irritable and angry. To which I reply, really? You mean feeling deprived and in a constant mental battle to sustain your self-control puts people on edge? Really? Because when my dining companions gluttonously devour mounds of garlic bread and lasagna and the sauce, cheese and butter drips from their chins, and they wash the entire mess down with copious amounts of wine while I sit there placidly eating my delicate chopped salad and sipping on a glass of water with a spritz of lime, I’M NOT ANGRY AT ALL! NO, I’M POSITIVELY DELIGHTED WITH MY CHOICES! REALLY I AM. I’M SO HAPPY WITH MY FOOD THAT I DON’T EVEN CARE IF THEY ORDER DESSERT. NOT EVEN WHEN IT’S CHOCOLATE CAKE WITH CHOCOLATE FUDGE ICING. REALLY!

Okay, I feel better now. I think I was harboring some rage.

The authors of the study, David Gal from Northwestern University and Wendy Liu of the University of California, noted that prior research has demonstrated that "people on diets tend to be irritable and aggressive. For instance, in one experiment ... participants who were asked to refrain from consuming a tempting doughnut manifested increased aggression in response to a subsequent insult."


(The lesson here: If you're going to insult someone, give them a doughnut first. They'll be less likely to punch you.)

While the link between exerting self-control and aggressive behavior has been established, the authors were curious at how much the anger would seep into a person's life. They discovered that “… after exerting self-control people exhibit increased preference for anger-themed content, greater interest in faces exhibiting anger, greater endorsement of anger-framed appeals, and greater irritation to others’ attempts to control their behavior."

So to summarize: people that have to exert high levels of self-control, i.e., dieters, liked seeing, hearing and spewing anger. Isn’t that special. Kind of makes me want to go to a Weight Watchers meeting and see what happens.

What strikes me about all of this is that this is why diets don’t work. Because diets are synonymous with deprivation. And no one likes that. I didn’t need a research study to tell me deprivation makes me cranky.

I subscribe to the Ellie Krieger philosophy. Krieger is a registered dietician, author and the star of The Food Network show Healthy Appetite. In her cookbook, The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life she writes.

In my food world there is no fear or guilt, only joy and balance. So no ingredient is ever off-limits. Rather, all of the recipes here follow my Usually-Sometimes-Rarely philosophy. Notice there is no Never.

In her world there is no such thing as a Never food. Amen sister.

She uses this philosophy in her cooking making the Usually foods—colorful vegetables and fruit, whole grains, lean meats and fish, beans, nuts, low-fat dairy and healthful oils—the leading actors in her recipes.

Sometimes foods—regular pasta, white flour and sugar, and foods higher in saturated fat, like chicken thighs—claim a supporting role.

And the Rarely foods—butter, full-fat cheese, bacon, cream, etc.—have cameo appearances.

I’m not bright enough to remember the exact number of servings of fruits and veggies I’m supposed to have daily, but I can look at a restaurant menu or scan a recipe and figure out if it's filled with Usually, Sometimes or Rarely foods and adjust accordingly. And knowing that nothing is ever off-limits makes this girl less cranky.


For more information about Ellie Krieger and her recipes, click here.

To Weigh or Not to Weigh, That is the Question

Hamlet never contemplated this dilemma, what with obesity being a modern epidemic. Plus, his weight was the least of his worries. He was too busy plotting Claudius's murder to bother with counting calories or making sure he got in his daily hour of jousting.

My life is much simpler than a Shakespearean tragedy, so whether or not to weigh myself is exactly the type of question that occupies my mind.

In a very unscientific poll, I asked several girlfriends what they thought about the scale. Did they weigh themselves or not? What I discovered is that people are passionate about this issue and they fall decidedly into one of two camps—either they love the scale or they hate it. There is no gray area. It's like dog people versus cat people, Republicans versus Democrats, creationists versus evolutionists. 

I’m a scale-lover. I find comfort in knowing exactly what my weight is. The daily reminder not only keeps me motivated to stay on track, but it also allows me to make immediate adjustments if I notice the number starting to creep up.

There are downsides of course. For one, my weight is never steady. It fluctuates daily which can be frustrating. Since the human body is two-thirds water this is a natural occurrence. Too much salt in my diet, “that time of the month” and certain medications can make me retain water, which will increase my weight for a day or so. To take this into account and make sure I don’t obsess about each ounce, I allow myself a 4-pound fluctuation range. As long as my weight bounces around within a four-pound range, I don’t worry about it. But if I gain five pounds and it doesn’t drop within a day or so, I know it’s a sign that I need to take a look at my lifestyle. Chances are I’ve allowed a bad snack habit to infiltrate my life or I’ve slacked off on my exercise routine and it’s time to take action before things get out of control.

These daily fluctuations contribute to the second biggest downside to a daily weigh-in. Weight loss does not happen in a straight line. There are ups as well as downs and that can be very de-motivating.

Which is why most of my friends are scale-haters.

When I asked if they weighed themselves they gave me the universal scale-hater response—lurching backward and wincing they shrieked, "Oh my God no! I NEVER weigh myself." 

You'd think I just asked them if they'd ever killed someone.

“Well then, how do you manage your weight?” I asked.

“I can tell by how my clothes fit and how I feel,” was the average scale-hater response.

And that’s perfectly valid. Weight is not the perfect measure of health.

While I respect my friends' opinion and feel their position is reasonable, I will say that research has shown that people who weigh themselves frequently lose more weight and keep it off versus people who don't weight themselves regularly. 

The point of all this is that measurement is an important part of any weight loss program, (it's the "M" in the SMART goal methodology) but you have to find something that's comfortable for you. If you're a scale-hater, use your clothing as a guide or a tape measure to keep track of inches lost.

If you do choose to weigh yourself follow these tips:

•      Weigh yourself in the morning before you eat breakfast

•      Remember that daily fluctuations are normal

•      If you’re female recognize that your weight will fluctuate monthly with your menstrual cycle

•      Plateaus are common. Keep up your exercise and healthy eating plans and if you can’t break through the plateau seek advice from your physician to help diagnosis the problem.