Welcome!

Over the years, I've counseled 100's of patients about nutrition. It's been
very enlightening to observe how most people choose what they want to eat
and drink. They typically believe the often misleading advertising used to
market food and drink products, and don't utilize the "Nutrition Facts" label
that's included on the product packaging. To sum it up…most don't know
what they're consuming, and don't know how to make healthier choices.
The following text reflects my experience with the public and focuses on a
healthy diet and bodyweight. It's intended for the average person who doesn't
have special dietary needs due to physical or psychological disease or disability.

First, there are NO magic diets, foods or potions that will make fat disappear with
little effort on your part. FAD diets are just that, fads that come and go and depend
on "junk science" to separate you from your money. Expensive programs that sell
you pre-packaged meals may work at first because you're eating fewer calories.
The problem comes when you reach your goal weight and start to resume your old
eating habits. If you don't learn to eat properly on your own, you'll be fighting
a never-ending battle with your weight. You'll also be a poor role model for your
children.

Let's talk about the word "diet." Many people think it means restricting
your food intake in order to lose weight; it implies denial of all pleasurable foods.
However, when I get a "diet recall" from my patients, I explain that a diet is
whatever food and beverages they usually consume. This is how YOU need to
think of the word diet. Let go of the negative connotations. Simply put, your diet
should include the right amounts of foods and beverages necessary to maintain
a healthy body and weight. Unfortunately, most of you don't know how much you
should consume or what your weight should be. To help you learn what a healthy
diet is for YOU, I'm sharing some of my favorite websites, along with some
steps you may find useful. Good luck!

Step 1.
Assess your current weight and risk factors for obesity-related diseases.
Click on Aim for a Healthy Weight . Another good site can be found at BMI.

Step 2.
Determine the weight you want to be. It should fall in the healthy (normal)
range and be something that's realistic and makes you feel good about yourself.
Start with Ideal Weight Table and then go to Calulate Your Body Mass. Here
you can enter your height and your goal weight See if your goal weight falls within
the "normal weight" BMI category. Adjust your goal weight as needed if it falls
outside the normal range.

Step 3.
Now you need to know how many calories you should eat to reach
and maintain your healthy weight. Go to the Daily Needs Calculator for
very detailed guidelines including a breakdown of specific nutrient needs.
Go to My Pyramid for less detailed information but a customized printable
food guide pyramid that includes the number of servings you should eat from
each food group.

Step 4.
Start keeping a food diary. Make your own chart or try these:
Food Tracker Chart or Daily Food and Activity Dairy. For 1 week, continue
to eat the foods and beverages you usually have. Total your daily calories by
using the NUTRITION FACTS label that's on all food/beverage packaging
(for more info. see Tips for Using the Food Label ). You can also use websites
with calorie and nutrition data; try Nutrition Data  and Calorie-Count .
Compare your total to the calorie recommendation from Step 3 above.

If you're like most Americans, you're going to be shocked by the actual number of
calories that you consume compared to the number you should consume. The more
you eat out and depend on pre-packaged processed foods, the larger the gap will
be. Don't feel badly. The International Food Information Council (ific.org) recently
completed a consumer survey that revealed "nearly 9 out of 10 (88%) are unable
to accurately estimate the number of calories they should eat in an average day".
Just completing Steps 1 - 4 is a major accomplishment.

Accept that changes in your diet and weight will be slow and gradual. There's no
reason to get discouraged. It probably took years for you to get overweight and
set in your ways. You can't be unrealistic and expect to get thin and fit overnight.
You also shouldn't expect that you can change your body type into that of a
supermodel or Olympic athlete. You can improve your health and the shape you
were born with, but don't be fooled by deceptive diet and exercise advertising!

Step 5.
Start with baby steps, but start TODAY. Before you know it, 6 months will
have passed whether you take control of your diet or not. Then a year, then 2 years.
How do you want to feel and look the rest of your life? How much money do you
want to spend on fun activities versus rising costs for health care and medicine?
How much time are you willing to waste just sitting in a doctor's office and driving
to the pharmacy? It's YOUR choice, and your RESPONSIBILITY to set a good
example. Are you ready to get started?

Review your diet and identify the foods and drinks that have the most calories for
the least amount of nutrients. These are usually processed foods/drinks.Once
you've identified the poor quality foods/beverages, start eliminating them from
your diet. If you eliminate one 140-calorie 12oz soda and two 50-calorie cookies
per day, that's 1680 calories per week. Since 3500 calories = one pound, it'll take
approximately 2 weeks to lose one pound. Remember that just 100 added calories
a day will add up to 10 - 11 pounds of  fat by the end of a year. Subtracting that
100 calories will add up to a weight loss of 10 - 11 pound! It's not rocket science…
gradually eliminate the poor foods/drinks and replace them with lower calorie
nutritious foods/drinks. Focus on non-processed (whole) foods,e.g., an apple
rather than applesauce; look for the fewest number of ingrediants on the
ingrediant list.

Another example: Starbuck's Blackberry Green Tea Frappuccino® Blended Crème
in the medium size is 560 calories. If you had 4 per week, that would total 116,480
calories per year. 116,480 divided by 3500 cal. = 33.28 pounds. You can see how
much damage just a few extra foods/drinks can do. Luckily, the pounds come off
when you subtract the extras. If you add exercise, you'll burn off additional calories.

Step 6.
Gradually continue to modify your diet until you arrive at the calorie level
needed to reach and maintain your healthy weight goal. Slowly increase your physical
activity at the same time. Understand that it takes 3 to 4 weeks to establish a new habit.
As you improve your eating habits, you'll be reducing the amount of processed foods
and, therefore, your intake of unhealthy fats, sugars, and salt (sodium). As you do this,
your taste buds will become more sensitive and you won't miss all that added "gunk"
(my term for the potentially unhealthy ingredients so common in processed foods ).

Remember, the foods you eat are determined by your immediate culture and family.
If you grew up on fast food and your family made fun of so-called "health nuts", you'll
have a harder time transitioning to healthy foods as a result of perceived likes and dislikes.
You'll have to change your food attitude from "living to eat" to "eating to live.". Even in
the face of a national obesity/health care crisis, food companies continue to introduce
HIGHER calorie foods and beverages. Rather than focusing their marketing dollars on
their healthy-version selections, they bombard us with advertising for foods like quadruple
hamburgers, fried macaroni appetizers, and hand-spun milkshakes. The more you visualize
this food as harmful to your health, the easier it'll get to resist it. Spend your money on a
quality diet now and you may not have to spend it on expensive medicines with annoying
side effects.

Step 7.
If you've gradually improved your diet over several weeks, you're probably ready to
continue with a healthy diet you'll stick with. Unlike so many commercial weight-loss
diets that only work short-term, you'll have established lifelong healthy habits. Use a
food diary periodically to reinforce your good diet.

NOTE: I mention this because so many people still think it's possible to "spot reduce".
It's NOT. When you lose fat, you lose it from all over your body. When you exercise a
particular muscle group such as your abdominals, you may tone up those muscles, but
you don't lose fat just from that area. It's very important to exercise all your muscle
groups. If you concentrate on just one group, you'll increase your risk for injury because
your muscle strength will be unbalanced. This can cause poor posture, abnormal stress
on joints, lack of flexibilty, etc.

I hope this information helps you! Best wishes for a healthy and more enjoyable life.