Are You Still Counting Calories for Weight Loss?

by

Are you still counting calories for weight loss?

Calories in versus calories out, this is what the food industry would love you to continue to buy into, both literally and figuratively. On the surface, it seems to makes sense, if I eat 3,000 calories on Thanksgiving and then run a marathon at midnight burning 3,000 calories, I’ll be even!!! If only it were that simple, unfortunately we are not the equivalent of a Bunsen burner but a very complex organism that hormones, not calories determine whether or not we store or burn calories.

Think about this logically, how does your body process 250 calories of ice cream versus 250 calories of steamed broccoli? You don’t need a nutritional biochemistry class to understand that the consequences are very unique. Counting calories exclusively ignores the main driver of weight management, insulin, the energy/ fat storage hormone.

If all calories are not created equal, then where we choose to spend our calories is the pivotal question. The answer may reside in part by considering why we are driven to eat what we eat!

The three top drivers of food selection:

Calories: we are driven to seek out calories which we need for energy, growth and survival. In particular, we are drawn to calorie dense foods that provide a combination of carbohydrates and fat, ie: bread and butter. Interesting to know that the only place in nature where carbohydrates and fat appear together in is breast milk, where we want the largest growth in our lifetimes. It is no wonder we find it impossible to control eating certain foods such as ice cream or cheese. While our brains are still wired to prevent us from starvation, we are surrounded by a constant available buffet of dietary choices!

Nutrients: our cravings for a variety of flavors haves been linked to the presence of nutrients in our food that we require for optimum health. Your cravings for specific flavors foods may reveal the need for specific nutrients, such as needing the magnesium in chocolate!

Unfortunately, two major changes in our modern food supply have made our bodies innate intelligence for obtaining what it needs a challenging task.

Number one: we have been growing crops and livestock to increase volume and ultimately profits as quickly as possible. The price we pay for this increase in yield is in the loss of precious nutrients, leaving us with a far inferior product.

Number two: we have had the explosion of the flavor industry where we now have the ability to recreate every flavor in nature in a chemical. The final result is that we are increasingly eating foods loaded with artificial flavors, that do not contain any nutrients and leave use unsatisfied and always craving more. This is why nacho, taco or buffalo flavored snacks are addictive but never fill us up. Your body requires nutrients in order to feel satisfied.

Reward: We are the only species that will consciously decide to eat simply for the pleasure, joy or entertainment of the activity. Having a good day or particularly bad day, one can always rationalize how a special treat is the remedy! Most of us have been socialized from the beginning to associate food with reward, even going to the doctor is made better by grabbing a piece of candy at the reception desk.

Final takeaways: If counting calories, minding our cravings or rewarding ourselves with food isn’t the answer, then what is? Start counting nutrients, focusing on the most nutrient dense foods that provide both the essential macronutrients (protein, fat and carbohydrates) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), and you will find that your body is satisfied and you will naturally and instinctually know how much to eat what, all without counting calories!

If you want to know how a personalized plan could be the missing link in achieving your goals, please call now 941-685-8074 or click here to schedule a free 15 minute discovery call.

How does your environment affect your weight loss goals!

by

How does your environment affect your weight loss goals!

It’s a familiar story, you have the best of intentions while establishing a weight loss or health goal. You may have even carefully designed a plan to achieve those goals, but something always derails you!
Maybe, you don’t need to revise your goals, maybe what you need is to adjust your environment!

This frustrating predicament of environments’ effect on behavior and weight was depicted on the famous reality show, “The Biggest Loser”. While on the show, contestants successfully lost weight in a completely controlled and artificial environment. They didn’t have to make the hard behavioral changes while having to deal with the environmental triggers that may have contributed to their weight loss struggle.

Unfortunately, when they returned home to the real world, old habits returned and along with them, all of the weight they lost. Consequently, no reunion show, as the majority of contestants gained all the weight back or more!

What are the top environmental influences affecting your weight loss goals and what can you do to combat them?
1) Visual triggers:
• Seeing temptations such as candy or popcorn in a glass bowl versus an opaque container can influence your determination to avoid them!
• Watching endless streams on social media of ascetically pleasing and tantalizing prepared meals can cause you to respond physically such as salivating and releasing the fat storage hormone insulin, in preparation for consumption of food!
• Eating out of a package makes sticking with a reasonable portion size difficult, people eat more from bigger bags and bigger plates!

2) Smell: scents of foods have been demonstrated to directly increase appetite, trigger salivation and release gastric acid in preparation for digestion. Maybe this why the Cinnabun company places their ovens near the door, filling the air with cinnamon, sugar and butter?

3) Social connections: This may be the most powerful of all environmental influences. According to research a person’s chance of becoming obese increases by 57 percent if a close friend is obese, 40 percent if a sibling is obese, and 37 percent if a spouse is obese. Apparently, obesity is contagious; however, so is eating healthy and being fit.

How can we combat these powerful environmental influences?
1) Do not rely on willpower: put temptations out of site, make the unwanted behavior more difficult. Ie: hide the cookies, chips or ice cream. Make the desired behaviors easier ie: keep cut-up fruit or vegetables easy to grab.
2) Planning: the best time to stop an unwanted behavior is before it happens. Start by packing your first meal of the day with a combination of protein, fat and fiber and then plan ahead for Lunch and/ or Dinner. The least decisions you have to make about what to eat, the more successful you will be at adopting habits that support your goals.
3) Create your support group: communicate to your close family and friends what you need specifically from them to support your personal goals. They are not mind readers and you may be pleasantly surprised by their positive responses!

Finally, while we cannot always control our environment, we can adopt the skills that allow us to engage in behaviors that more powerfully support our goals and allow us to live more authentically.

If you want to know how a personalized plan could be the missing link in achieving your goals, please call now 941-685-8074 or click here to schedule a free 15 minute discovery call.

Why Is Weight Management So Challenging?

by

Why is weight Management so Challenging 2021?

Are you completely frustrated by attempts to lose weight or find your weight slowly creeping up? You are not alone! In fact, it has become the new normal with 70% of Americans being classified as overweight and 40% or more as obese. What is going on?

YOU have been given the wrong information.
• 75% of the authorities who determine the dietary guidelines are from the pharmaceutical industry or food industry, who do not have and financial incentive for individuals to consume whole foods.
• The dietary guidelines, are not guided by all the available scientific facts when they determined a healthy eating plan for most.
• The guidelines are also based on healthy population and according to recent numbers 88% of Americans have metabolic dysfunction.

YOU are being purposely confused and overwhelmed.
• Our food supply has dramatically changed in the past century making it increasingly difficult to decipher labels and determine what to eat.
• Deceptive food labeling such as natural, trans-fat free or free range is accepted as it is deemed the responsibility of the consumer to make the best personal decisions.

Personally, I have always tried to follow healthy eating recommendations. While attending NYU for my Master’s in Clinical Nutrition as well as working at Equinox as personal trainer in the 1990’s, I did my best to adhere to the high carb, low fat style. Sadly, I skipped cheese on my pizza, ate bagels with jelly and of course nothing but skim milk and equal in my ice coffee. Guess what, I was hungry and regularly found myself overeating or bingeing on cereal, popcorn or cookies? I worked out to excess, as the recommendations at that time was to stay slow and steady in order to remain in the fat burning zone. I’m embarrassed to admit the hours logged at the gym. In spite of all this, I continued to be bothered what I felt was an extra 8 to 10lbs I couldn’t get rid of. However, most troubling was that feeling of being out of control with food and my body. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Luckily, we have come a long way in our understanding of what constitutes a healthy diet. In fact, many recommendations currently are in direct opposition of what we once believed to be true.

Here is my top 3 steps that you can take today, to take the challenge out of weight management:

1) Set up your environment for success. This is not about willpower. If you don’t have temptations in view or available, it will make it easier to resist.
2) Keep it simple! The less effort you have to make when deciding what to eat the more likely you will be able stick with better choices. Ie: rotate 3 basic meals to start.
3) Finally, and most importantly, any changes that you make need to be sustainable over the long run, which means strive for progress not perfection. You most likely didn’t get here overnight and creating new habits that last may also take time to establish.

If you want to know how a personalized plan could be the missing link in achieving your goals, please call now 941-685-8074 or click here to schedule a free 15 minute discovery call.

Carbohydrates: what to include, what to skip to arm your immune system!

by

Carbohydrates:
what to include, what to skip to arm your immune system!

Carbohydrates
When it comes to carbohydrates it is just as important to include the ones that support your healthy and weight goals as it is to minimize the intake of the ones that threaten it!

Do include: a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables at every meal.
1) Cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower and brussel sprouts as they have been shown to help latch on to toxins in our colon and remove from our bodies.
2) Bitter vegetables such as broccoli rabe, escarole, endive contain compounds that contain polyphenols that help counteract free radicals.
3) Herbs, spices and teas that have even higher concentrations of essential phytonutrients help fight inflammation and boost your immune system.
4) Fermented vegetables, such as sauerkraut, kimchi as well as resistant starch such as heated/ cooled potatoes, overnight oats or greens bananas. Fermenting produces beneficial bacteria for the health of microbiome while the resistant starch provides food for the microbes to encourage proliferation and growth!
5) Fruit, especially berries such as blueberries have immune boosting flavonoids.

Best to avoid: high sources of sugar and/ or highly processed carbohydrates.
1) Sugar suppresses your immune system by blocking receptors on your cells where vitamin C should go.
2) Compromises the response of white blood cells to pathological bacteria
3) Feeds bacteria in the gut that trigger inflammation
4) Provides empty calories depleting the body of essential nutrients.
5) Associated with obesity and most if not all chronic diseases.

Bottom line: focus on getting more fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices and look to avoid sugar by reducing the amount of packaged foods and always read labels. (warning: sugar has 61 different names!)

Fats: what to include, what to skip to arm your immune system!

by

Fats:
what to include, what to skip to arm your immune system!

There is no denying fat is delicious and satiating. But fat also serves very many important functions in the body such as absorption of fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E and K, production of hormone production, formation of cell membranes. Finally, fat also plays a critical role in inflammation, a key player in determining your ability to stay healthy.

There are 3 types of fat: Monounsaturated, Saturated and Polyunsaturated. The majority of fat in our body is composed of Monounsaturated and Saturated fats.

In contrast, Polyunsaturated fats are only needed in small amounts, however, these are the essential fats that must be obtained through our diet. Omega-3 are anti-inflammatory, while Omega-6 are pro-inflammatory. While we require some of both fats, the western diet is roughly 15 or 30:1 in favor of Omega-6, while the ideal ratio is much closer to 3:1.

Key takeaway: It isn’t enough just to increase Omega-3 intake, you need to decrease your Omega-6 intake as well.

Do include sources Monounsaturated and Saturated fats:
Olive oil, avocadoes and nuts and seeds, olives, grass-fed butter, ghee or coconut oil.

Do include sources of polyunsaturated fats (higher in omega-3):
Walnuts, herring, mackerel, salmon, trout, shellfish chia or algae.
Best to avoid: dangerous sources of Omega-6 such as corn, soybean and canola oil are pro-inflammatory. These are highly processed industrial oils which are pro-inflammatory and when heated become an even more dangerous compound like trans-fat. Best to avoid fried foods, some salad dressings, many processed packaged foods, grain-fed meats and many farm raised seafood.

Bottom line: when it comes to fat, consider the source! Eat more foods high in omega-3 or consider taking a high quality omega-3 supplement and eat less feed-lot cattle, poultry, farmed raised fish and avoid industrial oils such as soy, corn and canola. It is all about the ratio.

Protein for a Tough Immune System!

by

PROTEIN
Want a tough immune?

Start paying attention to this essential nutrient and which specific sources and quantities reign supreme.

Proteins have long been referred to as the building blocks of life. Protein plays a critical role in our immune system by building antibodies as well as muscle. Bodycomposition and percentage muscle mass are emerging as an important influencer on your bodies ability to respond to a virus attack.

Quality
Not all protein is created equal. For example, there is a vast difference in your body’s ability to use protein from peanut butter compared to an egg. In fact, the FAO/WHO have adopted the Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score (PDCAAS) as the preferred method for the measurement of the protein value in human nutrition.

Quantity can vary greatly related to age, sex, activity or medical condition. .8 grams per kilogram of bodyweight is considered minimum and up to 2 grams is considered safe for most. Measuring your bodycomposition and percentage of lean body mass is a worthwhile investment to determine if what you are consuming is working for you.

Do include:
High-quality sources of protein such as wild caught, cold-water fish, seafood, organic pasture-raised poultry, organic pasture raised eggs, and 100% grass-fed meat. In addition, good sources of vegetable protein include non-GMO fermented soy products, hemp, nuts, seeds, and beans. Finally, protein powders are an option, although it is always preferable to obtain most of your food from whole foods.

Do limit:
Fish high in mercury, such as tuna, swordfish or Chilean seabass, conventionally raised poultry, feed-lot-raised meat, and smoked meat or fish.

Try to avoid:
Most processed meats, including deli-meat, hot dogs, sausages, and highly processed vegetarian or vegan meat alternatives that contain GMO soy.

The Bottom Line:
Focus on consuming better quality protein more of the time, and consuming inferior sources less of the time.

London Wellness Introduces Peak Performance Plan

by

Mind, body and soul meet in Sarasota with the latest wellness endeavor from London Wellness, the Peak Performance Plan. A multifaceted “concierge-style” wellness plan uniting everything from hypnotism to proper diet, the latest from London Wellness Founder Bonni London takes a holistic approach to health. Focusing on preventative techniques, London wants to keep those Golden Years enjoyable for clients.

A personal trainer with a Masters in Nutrition from New York University, London found that during her sessions as a nutritionist, she was spending a large amount of time discussing an overall healthy lifestyle with clients, as opposed to a single aspect. The Peak Performance Plan is centered around the idea that factors like stress, exercise, diet and sleep directly affect how the last years of life will be experienced, and all need to be cared for in tandem for the best outcome. This month’s launch combines the traditional avenues of health and wellness, such as diet and exercise, with psychological and emotional elements such as stress control and hypnosis. The plan centers around dynamic partnerships between multiple professionals, including hypnotist Dr. Art Emrich and chef Alyson Zildjian, which aim to result in a total lifestyle change.

Linda Maree became a client of London Wellness after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease last year, with a goal of maintaining her strength. Maree made the choice not to accept the “bad days” and worked with London towards her goal. “As we started tweaking my diet, not only did I begin to feel stronger,” she says, “my friends started telling me I was looking younger.”

Important to making and maintaining any lifestyle change is a sense of community and encouragement, which is one of the final pieces that London Wellness seeks to provide its clients. And through the process of making their lifestyle change, London sends regular supportive emails to her clients, with tips and encouragement to maximize their success. “Change is hard,” London agrees, but she plans on making it easier with a little help from her friends.

Photos from the Launch Party for The Peak Performance Plan

A Goal Without A Plan Is Merely A Wish!

by

You start off with all the motivation in the world. “This is it”, you say to yourself. This time is really going to be different, you know what to do you have done many times before. Your going to finally get in shape, lose that 30lbs, avoid foods that you know aggravate your diabetes, high blood pressure or gastric reflux. You carefully “watch” what you are eating all day and then after a long day you come home, starving, wanting to de-stress and have forgotten to plan for Dinner.  All of your resolve to make a different choice escapes your memory as you mindlessly eat whatever is available! Now you blew it, and you might as well just give up till next Monday.

This scenario is the norm not the exception, as we try to just wish ourselves to a healthier lifestyle rather than a well thought out plan. Would you consider taking a vacation, going to a business meeting or run a marathon without creating a plan of how you are going to accomplish these goals. Absolutely not, than why do we think we should be able to adhere to a diet /lifestyle goal without a plan?

You can’t, the expression “fail to plan or plan to fail” applies. Achieving or maintaining a healthy body does not happen by accident, it requires planning! This is where getting a strategic, personalized plan from a professional whose only focus is to give you the tools to accomplish your goals is crucial. This is not about will-power, it is about “skill-power”! In other words, planning ahead for where you know you have gotten into trouble before can make all the difference in the world. Overtime, you will strengthen the skills you need to make longterm meaningful changes.

Make your goal a reality by creating a personalized plan that works for you and your lifestyle. Every client has unique challenges. I have successfully counseled busy executives who travel 50% of the time, full-time parents who have to balance work and family, as well as many retirees who may eat Dinner out nearly every evening. You can see whether you have all the time in the world or are booked down to the minute, creating a diet and lifestyle that is in alignment with your goals requires strategic planning.

It is my personal mission at London Wellness to provide you with the tools you need to plan appropriately and successfully accomplish the goals you have set for yourself.

You Can Choose To Live Your Best Possible Version Of Yourself

by

 

How would you like the tools to maintain your weight and optimum health without dieting again?

After all, a diet is something you do for a short period of time and guess what, dieting makes you hungry and more likely to overindulge when the opportunity arises. Humans are built for survival, and this means that it seeks homeostasis or stable weight. It does not want you to lose the fat without a battle, you might need it the next time you decide to go without food for extended period of time. However, with appropriate diet and lifestyle choices you can convince your body to perform the way you demand.

This is not a dress rehearsal, you only get one body and learning to take care of it is a responsibility you owe to yourself. We live in a complicated, modern world and have been inundated with an overload of information. Turn on any media outlet and you are sure to find the latest, greatest techniques to lose weight easily and live the life of your dreams. Watching cooking has become a spectator sport instead of an activity we accept that we must engage in for survival! When did something as instinctual as eating become so confusing?

Give Food A Chance!

by

A century ago, we may have been much more concerned with if we were eating rather than what we were eating. Jump ahead to current times and we are bombarded with food on nearly every corner, from fast food restaurants to grabbing lunch at the gas station. Unfortunately, our food has become so adulterated that it no longer resembles food, it is food-like substances that we have come to accept as edible. In addition, foods that we do recognize such as chicken has become altered due to what our livestock is fed, such as antibiotics and GMO corn and soy,  that the end product is very different from what our Grandparents knew to be chicken. I fear that the next generation may think chicken comes in a plastic wrap!

I would like to suggest something radical – food! Give food a chance! What have you got to lose? Today is truly the first day of the rest of your life. The only time it is possible make a change is now, the past is over and the future isn’t here. Only today, can you decide to embrace diet and lifestyle choices that truly support your vision of your future ideal self.

What are you waiting for?  Adopt a longterm lifestyle that truly supports your health and weight goals and never diet again.

Are you ready to be transformed? You bring your desire and commitment to make consistent, positive changes and we will work together to accomplish your goals.

The London Wellness mission is to empower individuals to utilize nutrition, exercise and lifestyle changes that will dramatically impact and improve quality of life! The Creation of London Wellness is the culmination of life experiences, research and science combined with leading edge information on nutrition, fitness and lifestyle.

As an authority on lifestyle coaching, I integrate the latest research with your personalized goals to achieve your vision!