#5aDay

Nutrition is complex.

It's hard to know what to eat and how much and when.

But one thing is for extra-double-super-duper sure:

Fruits and veggies are good for you!!!

I know people get hung up on the fact that they aren't manna and they're not perfect for you. They have pesticide residue, or natural sugar, or are starchy or cooked in butter.

I think when people think of fruits and veggies, they go into health nut thinking mode. Yes, grapes have sugar, but you know what? They're still waaaay healthier than cookies:) Yes, broccoli may be sauteed in butter, but you know what? Buttered broccoli is still waaaay healthier than Cheetos.

I don't think I really realized the virtues of fruits and veggies until I started studying nutrition in college. I always thought it was a waste of time to eat a veggie that was high in only one vitamin instead of all of them (once again, veggies aren't manna:). But now I understand it's not only worth it, but essential for optimal health.

Some of the benefits of fruits and veggies:

• High fiber content- aids with digestion 
• High water content- hydrates you as you eat them!
• High in many micronutrients (vitamins, phytochemicals, etc.)- staves off a bunch of diseases caused by vitamin deficiencies, improves immunity, improves functioning of every bodily system. 
• Low in calories- no one ever becomes overweight because they just ate too many apples. It's virtually impossible to gain weight from eating fruits and veggies. They are super low calorie and high volume, so filling up on fruits and veggies gives you less calories than filling up on almost anything else. (Of course, those with diabetes may need to be careful not to consume too much of certain things at once.)
• It's easy:)- It does take some intentional effort to add fruits and veggies to your diet, but it's much easier than say, cutting out sugar or starting a new workout routine. But the health benefits are huge!

For the month of September I'm doing the #5aDay Challenge by eating five servings of fruits or vegetables every day of the month. I hope you will too!

TIPS:

• Eat a variety of fruits and veggies. They are all different and have different benefits
• Eat fruits and veggies in the way you like them. Not in pie and fries;) But notice which ones you like and which you don't. Notice whether you like broccoli better steamed or fresh. If you like grapes, but dislike rasins. If you love steamed spinach and hate peas. It's okay if not every fruit or veggie is something you like, you don't have to eat it. And if you looove cauliflower with a little cheese sauce, don't be afraid to eat it. Sustainability is more important than ever so slightly healthier choices.

*Eating 5 a Day is just a start. It's still important to get lean protein, whole grains, vitamins/minerals and water from other sources. And it's important to limit harmful things in your diet as well, such as trans/saturated fat, refined sugar, refined carbohydrates, SODA, and alcohol. There is no silver bullet for health. But eating at least 5 servings of fruits and veggies a day is a great place where most people could use improvement and the benefits are huge!

If you liked this post, you might also like: What Is Caloric Density?

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy

I'd heard about this book from my Bishop, a good friend, and an article on LDS.org. I finally checked out the free preview on Amazon. Feeling Good, by David Burns. It's probably the best book on cognitive therapy I've ever read.

You have my permission to skip the entire intro and first chapter (I did), it's a little boring.
What first caught my attention was the checklist at the beginning of chapter two.
I've included a picture of it below if you want to complete it.

 Dr. Burns explains that a normal, happy, functional person would have a score around five, and anything below ten is considered normal. Someone who scores higher could use some of the techniques and exercises in this book to improve their level of happiness.

What I loved about this checklist and book is that it didn't just focus on feeling "sad," and it didn't focus on feeling depressed "for no reason," two things we commonly think of when we think of depression. It focuses on negative thinking being the primary cause of feelings of anxiety, guilt, pessimism, procrastination, low self-esteem, hopelessness, and other feelings of depression. It also addressed how most of these things come from how we perceive real problems and challenges in our lives. By changing the way we think rather than feeling we can't be happy until we change the situation, we are able to find happiness at all times throughout our lives and ironically find more motivation for change. (Where have I heard that before, OH YEAH, the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it's also a key principle of existentialism:)

Dr. Burns presents 10 common negative thinking patterns that cause one to feel those negative feelings. I hesitated to list them here, because I really just want you to read the book. It explains so much more.


1. All or Nothing Thinking. This refers to your tendency to evaluate your personal qualities in extreme, black or white categories.
2. Over-generalization. You arbitrarily conclude that since something that happened to you once will occur over and over again.
3. Mental Filter. You pick out a negative detail in any situation and dwell on it exclusively thus perceiving that the whole situation is negative.
4. Disqualifying the Positive. Transform neutral or even positive experiences into negative ones. (Including mind reading and fortune telling errors.)
5. Jumping to Conclusions. You arbitrarily jump to a negative conclusion that is not justified by the facts of the situation.
6. Magnification and Minimization. When you look at your own errors, fears, imperfections and exaggerate their importance, and when you think about your strengths, you may to the opposite.
7. Emotional Reasoning. You take your emotions as evidence for the truth.
8. Should Statements. You try to motivate yourself by saying "I should do this" or "I must do that."
9. Labeling and Mislabeling. Creating a completely negative self-image based on your errors.
10. Personalization. You assume responsibility for a negative event even when there is no basis for doing so.

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by Dr. David Burns Pages 60-70

One reviewer said the book was almost too "cheerful" for someone who is depressed to take seriously. I loved that description. :) It is very cheerful, but the scenarios and conversations recorded in the book make it accessible and relatable. Dr. Burns explains that it is, of course, normal to feel sad and have some of the above mentioned symptoms sometimes. But he makes a sharp distinction with examples between normal sadness and depressive hopelessness. He also explains how learning to think realistically takes time and improvement may ebb and flow, but that improvement will happen. He shares how he still does exercises from the book and how it helps him be happy in his daily life to deal with feelings and internal dialog in a realistic, honest way.
The book also goes into detail about the use of anti-depressant drugs in the last section, which may also be helpful for some cases.
David Burns also wrote a book on relationships and loneliness available here for free that is really great.


*Disclaimer: while I strongly recommend this book for it's superb presentation of cognitive therapy, I don't necessarily support all of the opinions and attitudes expressed by the author on other topics. :)

What Does Caloric Density Mean?

Here's an excerpt of a post I wrote for our website at work, www.utahfootdoc.com. Please check out our podiatry website! There's a lot of info about foot pain and how to prevent problems with your feet.

In the mean time, when I tell people I studied nutrition, I get a lot of questions about what to/not to eat to maintain health and especially to stay or get to a healthy weight. Some people think the trick to losing weight is eating "less." False! Starving yourself is just setting yourself up for failure and can be very unhealthy. Instead, eat a diet low in calories, high in food volume and vitamins/minerals (micronutrients.)

Here's what I said about calories for a post on Valentine's Day Chocolate, it's a tiny bit technical, but it covers the basics of Caloric density:

Chocolate can cause weight gain due to something called caloric density. Caloric density is how many calories are in a given mass.  For example, one pound of broccoli will have far fewer calories than one pound of chocolate. There are two reasons for this caloric discrepancy.

First, the type of macronutrients in the food.

This shows how many calories are in a gram of fat, protein, carbohydrate, and alcohol. 

Fat: 1 gram = 9 calories
Protein: 1 gram = 4 calories
Carbohydrates: 1 gram = 4 calories
Alcohol: 1 gram = 7 calories 

Chocolate has a lot more fat than broccoli.  Fat is one of the four “macronutrients,” or nutrients that give us energy. It has the highest caloric density, 9 calories in each gram, compared with 4 calories per gram in carbs and protein.

Second, the proportion of macronutrients to other food volume.

Chocolate is almost pure macronutrient: sugar and cocoa (carbohydrate); and butter (fat). Each bite is pure energy. Broccoli has macronutrients (mostly carbohydrate) but also contains a lot of fiber and water, so there are fewer macronutrients in each bite.

So, if you are choosing a diet that’s not calorically dense in effort to lose weight, consider:

· Do you have a healthy balance of macronutrients (fat, carb, and protein)?

· Are you eating foods high in fiber?

· Are you eating foods high in water?

Take home message: It’s Valentine’s Day, enjoy some chocolates!:)  Eating a few chocolates won’t wreck a healthy diet, but for every day eating, stick with foods that are less calorie dense.

Braces Update...and Gums...

Today's images are brought to you by: Non-Focusing Camera!
Seriously, though, it's hard taking pictures of your own mouth...

 I have good news and bad news. First, the good! I should be out of my braces by the end of this month. Woohoo!!! I know I haven't been in them that long, but knowing it was just a quick touch up made me really impatient for them to come off. I need to work on my whole patience thing...

Look how far we've come...

Lookin' good!

You can see a little better in this one, my front teeth aren't quite together yet, we may need a little more IPR and a couple minor tilt adjustments. And then of course a little contouring of the bottoms.

Hopefully, we can take care of these last couple of details at my next appointment and get these puppies off! 

So, now onto the not-so-great news. I need a bone and gum graft.

I know it's fuzzy, but my lower two (especially the right one) front teeth have receding gums and bone.

My lower gums have been hurting for weeks. Turns out my frenulum was just too high and pulling on my gums. It got damaged, and now I have a half-ripped frenulum pulling on my gums. Ouch. I'm super excited to get that fixed. And my periodontist is awwewesome. It's going to be expensive and a little bit of a healing process, but don't worry, I bought some sensitive toothpaste to help get me through. 

Come Over Here and Gimme Some Suga!

Happy New Year and all that, I've made some resolutions.  They're very flexible this year, and so far they've been great at guiding me.  One is to do something every day to improve myself (physically, spiritually, financially... just in some way something out of the ordinary).  The other is to consciously serve someone (go out of my way to do something selfless for someone) every day.  It's really made me examine my life, and it's been great so far:)

On the same track as resolutions... since I got braces, I've been a little more conscious about how much sugar I eat. I have always been a sweets kinda girl, not so much a potato chips, or even soda, thank goodness. I just love treats! I've been aware that I should be more public health:) and stop eating so much sugar, because it's not healthy for me, but despite previous attempts, I've never really cut back.  My weight's never been an issue, and it's hard to motivate myself just by "knowing" it's healthier.  I thought I'd be better about it now having braces, but I really haven't been.  The last few days though, I've been testing my willpower.  When I reach for a sugary treat, I've stopped myself a few times.  When ever I think to myself, "This is the last one..." I stop and don't eat it.  It's been really exciting!  To actually see that I can exercise my willpower and make improvements.  I mean, it's only been a few days, and I know I'll never get to the point when I no longer eat sugar, but it's already boosted my feelings of self-efficacy.

Yummmmmaaay!

I think one reason it's been easier for me to decrease my sugar intake is getting a gym pass because I've been working out a lot more lately.  I studied public health, and my area of interest is everything to do with weight, eating, body dismorphia, society's stigmatism, etc.  

People sometimes ask me, which is more important, eating healthy or working out?  The answer isn't what they want to hear, but it's really "Both."  They are two wings of the health airplane.  Neither is sufficient.  Together, neither has do work as hard.  

But.  If we're talking about weight and it's strictly math, then I'll tell you: diet is more important.  I say this because it's far, far easier to control calorie intake than to work out.  Eat one chocolate chip cookie, it takes 20 seconds.  But it takes about 30 minutes on the treadmill to burn those calories off.  Wow, right?  Daily caloric intake can vary by literally thousands of calories, but we can (sustainably) only change how many calories we use up by a few hundred by working out.

But human beings aren't that mathematical.  We don't eat for math.  We eat for emotion, pleasure, society. And working out helps control the appetite.  Some say they're hungrier when they work out.  True.  BUT they have fewer cravings.  Because while hunger, or the physiological need to eat is increased, appetite, or the psychological desire to eat is decreased.  So you might eat more at meals, but you won't be binging or eating as many treats. And your higher muscle mass will burn more calories.

Exercise bathes the brain in healthy and happy neurotransmitters.  That is why exercise is always encouraged for people dealing with psychological issues.  When you get that stimulation, you need it less from other sources.

So, maybe a better way of saying it is that intake is more important than output when it comes to weight. However, intake is best managed by a) proper intake habits and balances b) working out. So, yeah, both are essential, their's just no getting around it:)

I Go to Gold's...

Yeah... I go to Gold's.

The basic yellow card wouldn't scan...so they gave me a platinum card (raises eyebrows impressively.)  People must think I am soo hardcore about my workouts.

It's been great so far, the only thing is on the intake form there was no option for  "get swoll..." as a reason for joining the gym.  Which, of course, is my primary reason.

What If We Chose How We Look?

I was ready to leave for work this morning.  I had gotten all packed up for Thanksgiving break so I could head straight for home right after closing time.  I was standing in the living room, eating my cereal mentally scanning for anything I forgot to pack.  The sun was coming up and soft morning light was coming through the windows, and I could see the frost on my car outside.

I have a big, rectangular mirror hanging on the wall in my living room.  As I was finishing my cereal I absent-mindedly started gazing at myself. I was having those rolling, dreamlike thoughts, the kind you're barely aware you're having.  I had my hair pulled back in a bun with no make up on except a little red lipstick.
I was thinking to myself, "Yeah, I look pretty good:)  I like the way I look.  I mean, if I were choosing, I'd probably have tweaked a couple things a little differently...." Then I chuckled at the thought of my spirit in Heaven before I was born getting toddler-excited and picking out a bunch of crazy features:)

But then I stopped and thought, "Well, why not?"  I'm pretty dang sure this is false doctrine, so most def don't quote me in general conference when you become a general authority, but I thought, What if we did?  What if, in Heaven, we got to choose how we would look?  And everyone picked out what their tastes truly dictated was the most beautiful to them?  And we didn't think otherwise until we came to Earth and society imposed false standards on us and we lost our ability to see all beauty?  What if we are all the most beautiful?  And some of us just forgot? What if we picked everything about ourselves?

Food for thought:)

However, we are all created in the image of God by a loving Father in Heaven.  Isn't that kinda enough to make you accept the beautiful gift of your body?

Shuga Shuga

Today's post is dedicated to sugar.  Kind of the way I'm dedicated to sugar.  I majored in public health. I try to live a healthy lifestyle, you know, fruits/veggies, whole grains, sleep, physical activity.  If I have one Achilles's heel, it's sugar. I just love me some sugar.  In basically every form.  When I was diagnosed with dairy allergy, I had to give up ice cream (I have almond ice cream sometimes, or sorbets, but they're just not the same). Since cutting out milk, cream, cheese, ice cream, cream cheese... my diet's gotten healthier, but I still eat cookies/chocolate/treats every day, sometimes multiple times a day;)

Over the last few weeks I've been getting the message that I need to be eating less sugar.  I keep talking to friends who tell me their worried about diabetes, just trying to be healthier, etc. and they're decreasing their sugar intake.  I've been in the "contemplation" stage of change:) I know there's too much sugar in my diet, but there are barriers to cutting it out.  For example: I love it.

But I've committed to my first baby step of change.  Because I'm serious about this.  Diabetes runs in my family, and also in our country...so I want to get serious about not overworking my dear pancreas.  I've decided to try this:  no sugar before lunch or after 8:00pm.  

It reminds me a little of a roommate I once had (who shall remain nameless) who gave up food after 8:00pm and felt the need to force her diet on us all whenever we ate something at night by saying, "uhhh, you really shouldn't be eating.  It's too late." Well maybe I'm hungry!  I still eat late when I'm hungry, I'm just eating real food, not sugar.:)

Anyway, I've been trying it for the last few days and it hasn't even been hard:)  Which is why I chose to start with such an achievable goal;)

I will probably add some better guidelines to help me stop eating so much sugar in the future.  I feel like the less processed sugar/foods you eat, the less you crave them. We'll see how it goes!

End the Glorification of "Busy."

I manage our business Facebook page.  You know how Facebook will prompt you to update your status by saying, "What's on your mind?"  On the business pages, it will prompt you with other things, like "Are you doing anything special for the holidays?" or "Share something with your audience..."

Today, the prompt really stood out to me.  It said "Tell people what you're busy with today..."  I have recently been thinking a lot about "busyness."  I have a friend whose life motto is "End the glorification of 'busy.'"


Elder Utchdorf commented on the glorification of busy:
"And, sad to say, we even wear our busyness as a badge of honor, as though being busy, by itself, was an accomplishment or sign of a superior life.

Is it?

I think of our Lord and Exemplar, Jesus Christ, and His short life among the people of Galilee and Jerusalem. I have tried to imagine Him bustling between meetings or multitasking to get a list of urgent things accomplished.

I can’t see it."

We live in a culture of stress and overabundance.  We run from work, school, practice, lessons, parties and errands in an endless whirlwind of busyness.  Maybe it makes us feel important.  Maybe we look down on those who are not busy because we are jealous of them.  We may think we have to do all these things. When we see people with the focus to say no, people with control over their lives, people who delegate and are interdependent, maybe we are a bit envious.

We know that the way they are living is good, better than the meaningless hustle and bustle.  They seem to posses such clarity; we feel embarrassed to be so overwhelmed.  So we start to make excuses about why we need to be so busy, and we defensively attack non-busy people questioning whether they are as needed or important or high-functioning as us.

Of course, life does get busy at times.  But it's one thing to get busy once in a while, and quite another to live as an angry American, ready to explode the second a car cuts in front of you on the road.  Life is not meant to be lived that way.

I am a fan of yoga and meditation.  When you are so high strung all the time, it's hard to slow down and connect with your body.  It's sad that we get that way.  We forget how to feel.

There is an interesting phenomenon that occurs when busy people first experience yoga. They cry.  Even if they're not sad.  They feel the weight of things that have happened to them years ago.  They breakdown after being overwhelmed for far too long.  They finally take the time to slow down and connect with their bodies.  They feel.

Busyness is jading.  It forces people to go into survival mode because they can't emotionally handle all of the stimulation they're experiencing.  This is a great mechanism when you have to go through really stressful times.  But it can be hard to turn that off when the stressful times are over. It takes conscious effort to clear our minds and schedules and end the glorification of busy.

Yogurt Land!!!!

On a brighter note, I went to Yogurt Land the other night and they have DAIRY FREE SORBETS!!!

This is a big deal.  I was diagnosed with a milk allergy about a year ago, and I miss my fro yo.:(

Not anymore:))))