One unfounded belief is that to eat healthily, you can only eat lettuce, fresh vegetables, and broiled chicken or something the equivalent of that. You can eat healthier without depriving yourself by making a few changes. It doesn’t mean you give up all sweet treats. It does mean you can’t eat them every day, and when you do, eat one serving size. A scoop of ice cream occasionally is okay, but eating a quart a day is not healthy. So how do you start?

Start by identifying your weaknesses and places you need to improve.

You don’t have to be dramatic about the changes. They can be minor and gradual. If you’re used to eating a sweet treat during mid-morning break, don’t skip the treat, substitute it with fruit. If you love a dish of ice cream with your meal, either make the serving smaller until you only eat a small amount every other day or switch to a frozen fruit sorbet with no added sugar. Switching one ingredient for another without changing the flavor is another way to eat healthier. Use Greek yogurt instead of sour cream and whole grain brown rice instead of processed white rice.

Drink a glass of water before a meal.

If you drink 8 ounces of water a half hour before a meal, you’ll eat less. You can switch from soft drinks to water for calorie savings and health benefits. Change the way you cook your food. Bake meat instead of frying it. Consider using an air fryer if you crave that fried food flavor occasionally. Try zoodles or spaghetti squash to replace pasta. Most people find the taste isn’t that much different. Some people love the flavor of spaghetti squash better.

Take your time and eat mindfully.

Mindful eating can help digestion and aid in weight loss. You savor each bite and slow your eating. When you take a bite, chew it until it’s a liquid. As you chew it, notice the flavor and texture. Think about how each bite is making you healthier. It can help to note every time you eat something. It slows you down and makes digestion easier.

• Find ways to add vegetables to dishes. Add veggies to rice, put them in muffins, mix extra in casseroles, or put extra veggies in tuna or chicken salad.
• Eating healthy doesn’t mean you can never eat sweet treats. Just don’t eat them often. If you’re at a birthday party, don’t turn down the cake if you love it. Eat a smaller piece.
• Eating healthy doesn’t mean you can never eat sweet treats. Just don’t eat them often. If you’re at a birthday party, don’t turn down cake if you love it. Plan the week’s meals one day, shop another, and spend one day making them. Include snacks.
• Get creative and include a variety of fruits and vegetables in your diet. Try pickled vegetables, baked, stewed, and raw ones. Serving healthy food in a variety of ways will leave you feeling satisfied.

For more information, contact us today at Team-ISC

Everyone wants the best and most effective diet for shedding fat and maintaining good health. Some people in Sacramento, CA, have turned to a low-carb diet. Is it easier to maintain? Does it work? Is it all hype and another way to sell books or get clicks on articles? Low-carb diets aren’t new. They’ve been around since the mid-1800s when Claude Bernard, a French physician, gave a dietary theory conference

and Dr. Harvey heard it. It was the origination of a low-carb diet. He later filled in for the doctor of William Banting and tried out the theory. After years of failed attempts to lose weight, Banting finally had a successful outcome with this diet. In 1863, Banting wrote a pamphlet inspired by his success called On Corpulence. It was the first low-carb diet.

What was the miraculous advice?

The advice that Banting heard and followed was simple. It was to give up beer, sugar, milk, butter,bread, and potatoes. He also suggested to fill in the gap with vegetables that weren’t starchy. In the mid-1900s, Dr. Atkins revived that low-carb approach with his book Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution. A newer, healthier approach divides the meal by macronutrient calories. The division increases the calories from protein and reduces those from carbohydrates.

Reducing carbohydrates works, but why?

Sugar is a carbohydrate. Reducing sugar and other simple carbohydrates lowers insulin levels and prevents blood sugar spikes. Insulin does other things besides regulating blood glucose levels. It stores energy by triggering the production and storage of fat. It causes the body to burn glucose and avoid burning fat, so it limits the fat the body burns. Reducing insulin levels allows your body to burn fat cells and makes weight loss easier.

Low carb diets eliminate many of the junk foods that trigger dopamine.

Junk and highly processed foods are high in sugar and trigger the release of dopamine, the body’s reward system. It’s instinctive and helped early man survive. Early man required calories to exist. Food that didn’t taste sweet was often poisonous. To encourage eating sweet foods and avoid toxic foods, the brain’s reward system releases dopamine, encouraging early man to eat more sweet foods. It’s still instinctive today. Cutting out reward-style foods with sugar helps you eat less by withholding a reward. Low-carb diets are higher in protein. Protein requires more calories to be burned for digestion. In the initial stages of very low-carb diets, extra calories are burned during gluconeogenesis, transforming protein to glucose. Protein also diminishes appetite and increases muscle mass.

• Rapid weight loss on low-carb diets often occurs due to water weight loss. Other weight loss occurs because lower carbohydrates often result in lower calorie intake.
• Whether you choose a low-carb diet or another type of diet, making a lifestyle change to healthier eating is what counts. Cutting out food high in sugar and starch that offers few, if any, benefits helps.
• Our nutrition coaches can help you with personalized dietary recommendations that consider personal preference and special dietary considerations. We even provide meal plans that make it even easier to eat healthy.

For more information, contact us today at Team-ISC

Many people in Sacramento, CA, have started diets or exercise programs that ended in disaster. Sometimes, programs are destined to fail from the start because the diet is too restrictive or the exercise program is too hard for their fitness level. Lack of motivation also diminished willpower. If you think willpower is your problem, you’re probably wrong. Getting and staying fit is all about changing lifestyle habits. Habits are hard to change but with the right help, it’s possible.

Identify your goal and why you want to achieve it first.

Some people start without a goal or any motivation to improve their fitness. If you ask, they say they want to lose weight or get fit but can’t identify how many pounds they want to lose or what it means to get fit. Be precise when you identify your goal and link it to a reasonable time limit. I want to lose twenty pounds in ten weeks by losing two pounds each week. Or…I want to be able to run up the stairs without stopping by the end of August. Both lack one thing. It’s the why. Why do you want to improve your fitness? Do you want to look better, live longer, or have more energy to play with the kids? Find your why, and you’ll find extra motivation to boost your willpower.

Focus on eating healthy rather than dieting.

Diets don’t work. They’re often too restrictive and always end, either in success or failure. That’s when the dieter returns to their eating pattern that added the extra pounds in the first place. Even if the dieter lost all the weight they wanted, those extra pounds will return home and sometimes bring friends. When you focus on lifestyle changes and eating healthier, willpower isn’t as necessary. It’s all about choosing food wisely and making the best choice. For instance, if you substitute brown rice for white rice and save calories while improving nutrition.

If you structure your program correctly, it diminishes the need for willpower.

Putting exercise on your schedule at the same time daily as an appointment helps ensure you’ll stick with the program in two ways. It creates a consistency that builds a habit. Habits are hard to break. It also elevates exercises’ importance and ensures it’s not an afterthought at the end of the day. Too often, there’s no time left to exercise then.

• Do meal planning. Plan meals one day, shop on another, and cook everything for the week on the weekend. Just heat and eat during the week.
• Check your sleep schedule. If you lack sleep, it’s harder to motivate yourself to exercise or stick with healthy eating. Lack of sleep causes an increased production of ghrelin, the hunger hormone, and a decrease of leptin, the satiety hormone.
• Boost your progress by focusing on moving more. Do simple things to improve your fitness, like taking the stairs instead of the elevator or walking to lunch. Every extra step taken helps with fitness.
• Check with your healthcare professional before starting any fitness program or dietary change, especially if you have a health issue.

For more information, contact us today at Team-ISC