Summertime parties, picnics, and cookouts present challenging situations to those trying to eat right. Don’t despair! Try these 12 tips to successfully stay slim throughout the summer season.

1.  Make the menu. When you’re hosting an event, YOU have the advantage! Make/ask your guests to bring food selections that you’re willing to eat. If you don’t need it, your guests don’t either!

2.  Don’t go hungry. You are more apt to overeat or make unhealthy choices when you are famished and are faced by many non-healthy options.

3.  Strive for balance & a variety of food groups on your serving table and plate. Serve a variety of grains, fruits, vegetables, and proteins.

4.  Take small amounts of food. Use what you’ve learned about portion sizes at home, and apply that to the foods you put on your plate.

5.  Eat fruit as a dessert.

6.  Don’t hang out by the food and beverages.

7.  Plan lower calorie meals leading up to the event, to leave yourself caloric “leeway”.

8.  Decide BEFORE you go out how many alcoholic beverages you’ll allow yourself.

9.  Don’t let what others do at the event affect your decisions. Stay committed to your plan and gain pride in yourself and your ability to maintain self-control.

10.  Attempt to stick to a meal and snack schedule to keep your blood sugar, energy and moods stable.

11.  If you are traveling, pack a cooler for a better selection of foods instead of being limited to the choices at convenience stores and roadside restaurants.

12.  Stay hydrated! Drink lots of water, and add a slice of fruit for flavor if you’d like.

Kara Paris, Personal Trainer

What’s your priority, food or activity?

I know plenty of people who are committed to getting all their meals for the day. These same people will say that they just don’t have the time to exercise.

Really?

I say people make time for the things they are committed to.

Personal fitness is a top level commitment for me. You might say,”Of course you’re committed to it, Rob. You’re a personal trainer.” Actually, I’m a personal trainer because I’m passionate about my fitness – and yours.

It’s great that I get to do what I love but just because fitness is part of my job doesn’t mean I don’t have to work at it.

One area I am always working on is diet. I’ve said before that I have a weakness for sweets. Being fit doesn’t make me stop wanting cookies. But I’m able to limit myself appropriately. This requires discipline.  No diet replaces the need for discipline. I don’t care what kind of plan it is. If you are going to have any success with losing fat and getting lean, you’re going to have to develop discipline. Any approach that proposes to work without discipline will probably not even have short term results, let alone lasting change.

In addition, to discipline you have to have motivation. It’s the fuel for the engine.

Are you motivated? What is your motivation? Can you picture it? When you think of your own personal fitness, is your thought, “I’ve got to have it!” That kind of motivation is what makes the discipline possible. It’s what helps you make activity a higher priority than eating.

“You must earn your food by physical activity.”

I love that quote. Earning you food through your activity is a good mindset to have. That doesn’t mean you should run for 2 hours every day to offset the Pop Tarts you had for breakfast. It does mean that you get things in the right order and that you see food primarily as fuel. Eat to live vs. live to eat.

Are you ready to change your relationship with food? Make your decision. Take action.

P.S. The Slim Down weight loss class can help you with motivation and discipline. A new 8 week session starts soon.

My friend, Kevin Buckley, is a personal trainer in New Hampshire.  I love reading his blog.  Recently he posted this:

Getting out of shape for most people is easy. When you stop being active and you eat like crap then you lose your fitness and you lose your health. Many people have stressful, sedentary jobs. They eat from machines and packages. They have coffee for breakfast. They eat dinner at 9:00pm and wash it down with a half bottle of wine. They don’t do anything that gets the heart rate up. They look in the mirror and see somebody that looks as though they could have eaten the 18 year old version of themselves and wonder how it got so bad. They get depressed, they get stressed. They want to get back in shape, but they worry about how hard it’s going to be and how long it will take. Plus, they have no idea what they need to do to get there. They start making excuses.. Here’s the top excuses I hear regularly.

Excuse #1 – I don’t have time.
Excuse #2 – I don’t know how.
Excuse #3 – I can’t afford it.

What’s your excuse?

“The evidence is now overwhelming that cruciferous vegetables play a major and unique role in the widely recognized protective effects of natural plant foods against cancer…For those in the know, these foods are the most important nutritional factors to prevent common human cancers.”

This statement was made by Dr. Joel Furhman in a recent article I received.  Dr. Furhman is a leading expert on nutrition and natural healing.

It only reinforces my commitment to eating as much whole, natural food as possible.  Now that Spring is here we Hoosiers will have an easier time getting a variety of fresh vegetables.

Read the article Cancer Alert:Your Best Defense – Go Cruciferous.

Photo credit thebittenword.

Time to check-in on the fitness goals I shared previously.

Last week the news was good.  This week…not so good.  I have not done well. Specifically, I’ve not been disciplined with my eating plan.

I’m a sucker for good cookies or a big slice of cake. In the past few days I’ve had a couple of bad eating episodes involving both.  During the day at work being disciplined is no problem but when I get home in the evenings or on the weekends I’m vulnerable to bad choices.  Most of us are.

These 5 things will help when you find yourself in temptation.

Run away

Get away from the temptation.  Get out of the house.  Go do something.  Workout.  If you can’t get out of the house or the apartment then go to another room.  Being out of arms reach of those cookies would have helped me.

Involve a friend

Do you have someone you can call when you’re close to breaking down?  Talking to a friend can distract you from the immediate desire to eat that bag of Cheetos.  Or maybe a friend could exercise with you to get you over a psychological hump.

Review your goals

You need something else on your mind.  Sit down and read through your goals.  Get your brain thinking about a different subject.

Remember your motivations

This is similar to the idea of reviewing your goals.  If I’m going to stick to my goals it will be helpful to remind myself of why I was going after them in the first place.  What was I thinking about when I felt motivated?  Where are the pictures that represent what I’m trying to achieve or become? Is there a swim suit I’m trying to fit in to?  Look at it.  If I’m doing this for my kids, I could look at pictures of them or maybe even go play with them.  Keeping my mind on the right track is essential to my discipline.  It’s where everything starts.

Plan ahead

Being prepared will really make the difference.  Obviously, it might be too late once I’m standing in front of the plate of cookies but I can use the situation to help me plan better.  Did I have the right kind of food in the house?  Did I let myself get too hungry?  Did I not tell the other people in the house what I was trying to do?  Can I find a healthy recipe for some cookies?  Etc…  I need to expect some difficulties.  Thinking about them ahead of time will help me beat them.

In addition to those tips I need to have an honest conversation with myself.  Are my goals appropriate and reasonable? It’s possible that my goal of reaching a peak fitness level is not reasonable right now.  Maybe I should adjust my goal.  It could be that my goals are right on target and I need to reexamine my discipline.  Do I want it bad enough? Maybe there are distractions that I need to deal with.

Don’t beat your self up.  Just because I blew it one time (0k, two times) doesn’t mean I need to give up completely.  If I messed up and had a piece of cake when I shouldn’t have it doesn’t mean I might as well eat two pieces…or the whole cake.  Most of the time I eat very clean.  There’s no need to abandon all my efforts.

And one more piece of advice, don’t punish your self with a workout or strict diet. It doesn’t do any good to try and make up for a failure by working out until I hurt myself or by depriving myself of food.  Pain, exhaustion, and hunger are not the right kind of motivators.  You do not want to associate exercise and healthy eating with punishment.  That kind of negative attitude will not help.  I’ll say more about the importance of attitude another time.

We’re all human.  Get back on the horse. Keep up the fight.  Push the reset button and start again.

Photo from Flickr by Crystl