Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week– Chocolate’s Health Benefits

Since Valentine’s Day is this week I thought I’d write about chocolate. Besides, I love chocolate! If you love chocolate as much as I do, you know there has been recent research showing that it provides certain health benefits.

Chocolate contains flavanols, which, studies have shown, lower blood pressure, increase blood flow and promote a healthier heart. It’s also high in antioxidants, which attack cancer-causing free radicals. These flavanols are present in higher quantities in dark chocolate than in other types of chocolate. However, processing kills the flavanols, so producers are developing new methods to preserve the flavanols during processing.

Different studies use different types of chocolate and different quantities. For example, one study used one cup of hot cocoa, another used 30 g of dark vs. white chocolate, and yet another used 100 g of dark vs. milk chocolate. A typical American candy bar is about 2 oz. or 60 g. All the studies I read concluded that dark chocolate has more health benefits than milk or white chocolate and that the unhealthy, saturated fat in chocolate candy definitely compensates for any health benefits. However, hot cocoa made with water or skim milk contains almost no saturated fat.

In the end, it goes back to two things I always say: everything in moderation, and if you’re going to eat chocolate, make it good quality chocolate! Although the studies did not discuss the quality of the chocolate, high quality chocolate contains higher quantities of cocoa liquor and cocoa butter, no corn syrup and partially-hydrogenated oil and fewer preservatives and chemicals.

I think you’ll agree that very good quality, dark chocolate in a smaller amount is much better than a lot of cheap chocolate! Make sure your sweetie knows this before buying your Valentine’s chocolates!

At the same time, flowers and a hand-written card are calorie and fat free, and the card lasts forever.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate#Chocolate_liquor

http://www.chocolate.org/health/antioxidants.html

http://www.immunesupport.com/library/showarticle.cfm/ID/3464/

http://www.medicationsense.com/articles/july_sept_03/chocolate.html

Look for another topic next week, and keep living the SWEET Life!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Suzanne

Conquering Holiday Feasts & Goodies

Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week -- Conquering Holiday Feasts & Goodies
The two months between Halloween and New Year’s Day are filled with special foods and sweets. As such, you need to make a plan for how you are going to face all those temptations. Don’t deprive yourself of these special holiday indulgences, but go in with a plan.

One holiday control plan is to enjoy each holiday, but to maintain your regular healthy eating plan, along with the other elements of the SWEET Life, all the other days in between holidays. That makes about four days of being gluttonous, depending on which holidays you celebrate, rather than 60 days! In the scope of 60 days, those four days will be insignificant.

Some “at the moment” ideas for holiday party control are the following:
· Don’t starve yourself all day to “save up” calories. You’ll be so hungry by the time you eat that you’ll eat more than you would have if you’d eaten a regular meal a few hours beforehand.
· Serve or offer to bring “relishes” as an appetizer. Carrot, celery, and cucumber sticks; cherry tomatoes, radishes, bell pepper strips, etc. with hummus for dipping are a healthy way to stave off those hunger pangs while waiting for people to gather and the meal to begin.
· “Select,” don’t “select all,” at the buffet. Make yourself a meal of protein, grains and vegetables, rather than a little bit of everything. Think of a buffet like a deli counter: as much as everything looks good, you only choose a few things to make your meal.
· Only serve yourself 2-3 bites of each food. That way, if you don’t like something, you can leave the rest without wasting a lot of food. It also allows you to try more foods, if you’re so inclined.
· Thanksgiving is typically weak in vegetables, so eat all you can.
· Don’t waste stomach space and calories on bad food. If you have kids, you know that food they don’t like immediately comes back out. As adults, we are polite enough to swallow that bite, but don’t go thinking the second bite will somehow taste better.
· Don’t “eat all you can” (unless it’s veggies).

What about all those sweets people give you when they drop by? Pay them forward: Serve them to guests who drop by or take them to people’s houses that you visit. Just because people give them to you doesn’t mean that you, personally, have to eat them all!

Have a SWEET week!

Suzanne

Enjoying Halloween without eating all the candy

Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.

How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week -- Enjoying Halloween without eating all the candy

As a Personal Trainer, you might expect me to say not to eat any Halloween candy. However, if you know me personally, you know I love chocolate! I always say, “Everything in moderation, with the emphasis on everything.” That includes Halloween candy.

Halloween, however, is merely the beginning of the two-month-long holiday season, ending on New Year’s Day. As such, this is the beginning of making a holiday plan for health maintenance, so that you don’t gain any holiday weight. Making a plan now, and following it for the next two months, will prevent you from having that dreaded feeling on New Year’s Day that you have to start a health kick.

However, this week we are going to focus on Halloween. There are many ways to avoid overindulging on Halloween candy. You don’t need to follow every idea, just decide which idea(s) will work best for you and follow through.

It’s important to consider both the amount of candy you are going to eat and the amount of time you will give yourself to eat it. You might decide that since October 31 is the actual holiday, you will only indulge in candy on that day. At the same time, you can go intensive or extensive, for example, all the candy you want to eat, but only on Halloween day vs. one piece of candy a day for a week following Halloween. Do whatever works for you, but decide on your plan in advance and follow through.

If you’re single and don’t live in an area with kids, you don’t have to worry about Halloween candy, right? No kids come to your door, and you’re probably out at a party where you are more likely drinking than eating candy anyway. Why don’t you have to worry about eating too much candy? Because it’s for the kids.

Remembering that the candy is for the trick-or-treaters might help you avoid eating too much. That being said, don’t steal your kids’ candy! Set a good example, if you have kids, of not eating too much, of sharing, and of not stealing other people’s candy. That means, you ask your child politely for a piece, just like you would want your child to ask, and you don’t sneak into another room to eat some, just like you wouldn’t want your child to do. Those things will definitely prevent you from overindulging!

Another thing to do to avoid eating Halloween candy is to buy candy you don’t like; then there’s no temptation.

November 1, to prevent the temptation of candy at home, many people will take it to the office. That’s a great way to get it out of the house; however, remember that it’s basically someone else’s trash. It’s not there for you to eat; it’s there to prevent someone else from eating it at home. And it’s usually not the good stuff; that’s already saved or gone; it’s the junk candy that no one in the house likes, so don’t eat someone else’s junk. Only eat good Halloween candy.

Finally, probably the best idea is to donate your leftover Halloween candy to hospitalized kids who couldn’t go trick-or-treating. Find out from your local hospital how you can do this. The kids will be thrilled, and you’ll feel good too.

The next two months of holidays are filled with special foods and sweets. Plan now how you are going to face all those temptations. Don’t deprive yourself, but make a plan and follow your plan.
Have a SWEET week!

Suzanne