The Biggest Loser show has received much criticism over the past year.  The bulk of the criticism centers around the fact that these individuals are taken completely out of their normal routine, and put into an environment where they focus 100% of their time and energy on weight loss.  They lose massive amounts of weight quickly, and as history is showing, re-enter their normal lives and end up gaining some weight back as they don’t have the same amount of time to focus on managing their weight and health.

But I take a different view on the show.  Millions of consumers watch the show.  If it motives even a small percentage of these viewers to make changes towards a healthier lifestyle, it’s a good thing.  After all, who can watch the show, see the amazing amount of work they do and fortitude the contestants have and not think “If they can do this, I can do something” to be more active or eat more healthfully.  Workplaces and communities have gotten into the action, with Biggest Loser team competitions occurring across the country.

Three paragraphs in, this brings me to the topic of this blog – motivation.  Most of us know we could make changes to live a healthier life, but we don’t necessarily do so.  The trick is finding the trigger that makes a healthier life meaningful to us personally.

The company I work for, NuVal LLC, recently heard from a mom who has lost 115 pounds in the past 18 months, by exercising and using NuVal® Scores to make more nutritious food choices at her local Hy-Vee grocery store.  What interested me most about Sally Galvin’s story was the trigger that tripped for her, the signal that she started her down the pathway to better health.  For Sally, it was an upcoming trip with her husband and two kids to Walt Disney World.  She wanted to be fit enough to enjoy all the parks and keep up with her kids. 

Sally Galvin lost 115lbs using NuVal Scores

Can you follow the lead of Sally and all those contestants on the Biggest Loser and find the trigger that will send you down a pathway of healthier living?

Visit NuVal to learn more about Sally’s story and the NuVal® Mom of the Month program.

In a world of constant data, I have a lot of news bulletin-type emails that come across my desk that only get opened if the subject line seems intriguing.  “How much time do Americans spend eating?” came across my desk recently and definitely caught my eye.

The article discusses research done by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on this exact topic – how much time we spend eating.

Here are the stats (based on consumers age 15 and older):

• We spend about 67 minutes a day in primary eating and drinking
• We spend an additional 23.5 minutes eating while doing something else
• We spend an additional 63 minutes drinking while doing something else

The something else ranges from watching television to working to prepping and cleaning up meals to grooming (think getting dressed).

The study then went on to try and assess whether these habits impact our health.  As it turns out, if you eat or drink while grooming, prepping or cleaning up meals or working, your Body Mass Index (BMI, a measure of overweight) is below the national average.  Those people who eat and drink while watching television have BMIs higher than the US average.

It’s not to say that one causes the other.  But as we’re in the season of New Year’s Resolutions, this research seems to suggest a very tactical, straight-forward action to take – stop eating while watching television.

Visit www.nuval.com to assess the overall nutrition quality of the foods and beverages you consume in all these minutes.

It’s that time of year when candy dishes filled with mini-candy bars and candy corn start appearing on your co-workers desks.  Then on November 1^st, they’ll be piled with all the Halloween candy their kids don’t like.  Then we transition into cookie season before long. 

At this time of year, the temptations as you weave your way to your desk can be daunting.  Most people like to then talk about “will power,” and using it to hold up against the constant temptation of all these treats.   But in reality, I don’t think it has anything to do with will power.

Consider this. . .

“Every time we see the candy jar we have to decide whether we want a Hershey’s Kiss or whether we don’t.  Every time we see it, we have to say no to something that is tasty and tempting.  If we see that temptress of a candy jar every five minutes, it means needing to say no 12 times the first hour, 12 times the second hour, and so on.  Eventually some of those no’s turn into yes’s.  . .. Out of sight, out of mind.  In sight, in mind.”

This is an excerpt from Brian Wansick’s book Mindless Eating.  The book focuses on how visual cues can impact the amount of food we eat in most situations throughout the day and how changing your environment can help you establish and maintain healthier eating habits.  Leaving chicken wing bones on your plate during a Super Bowl party can help you eat less of them.  Stocking your kitchen with smaller cups, glasses and bowls can help you manage portions at mealtime.

But back to your daily strolls through the streets of Candy Land.  The answer, according to Wansick, is to find a new route to walk.  Are there pathways to and from your desk that are candy free?  Or buy your coworker a candy dish this is colored and covered (out of sight, out of mind).  The trick is to change your environment so that you don’t have to say no all those times each and every day for the next two months. 

Visit www.nuval.com to see scores on sweet treats and other foods.

The company I work for is headquartered in Boston, and as a Minnesotan, I take a lot of flak from my coworkers about where I live.  In July, they’ll ask me if it’s snowing.  I get questions about wild life and farming (despite the fact that I live in the city).  All the stereotypes there are about Minnesota – I hear about them. 

But today, I get to give them a little flak, as my hometown (the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis) was named the healthiest, fittest city in the U.S. followed by Washington, D.C. in the number two spot and Boston in the number three spot.

The ranking of the healthiest cities is done by the American College of Sports Medicine.  The determination was made using the annual American Fitness Index, which looks at the percentage of residents who smoke and who exercise regularly, obesity rates, and the availability of parks, walking trails and farmers’ markets.  In the Twin Cities, we have a lower-than-average obesity rate, an above-average percentage of residents who exercise, a relatively low smoking rate and moderate-to-low rates of chronic health problems such as asthma, heart disease and diabetes.  Minneapolis was one of the first cities in the nation to have organized bike trails and to ban smoking in public places.  We have more land dedicated to parks than the national average. 

The beauty of this is that living somewhere where health and fitness are a priority makes it simpler to live a healthier life.  If trails are easily accessible, people are more likely to walk, run, blade, and bike.  If smoking is banned in public places, people are less likely to smoke or will smoke less often.  If healthy food is readily available, people are more likely to choose it.  Living in a healthy city perpetuates health.

What is your home town doing today to make it easier for you to live a healthier life?

Visit www.nuval.com to learn about a nutrition guidance system available at Coborn’s Stores in the Minnesota that helps keep all us residents healthy.

We are creatures of habit.  No matter our age or gender, there is a pattern to our lives which we tend to fall into.  Of course, some of us are more spontaneous than others and may have less rhythm to the habits, but overall, there is a pattern to our habits which keeps us moving forward and grounded.

Habits can be good, bad or neutral.  This may be an oversimplification, but you get the point.  Once you have an established habit, there are benefits and pitfalls.  For example, the fact that I work out in the morning or evening is neutral, but the fact that I have a workout routine is a good thing for my overall health. 

The trick is that once you have the pattern, the rhythm, it can be difficult to change it.  In my life, my son has suggested that my husband and I both give up pop/soda.  It’s not a bad idea, but now I just need to figure out how to do it.  I start every morning with a Diet Mountain Dew, and I have to think about a new way to start my morning.  Is it tea?  Is it nothing?  I’m also still struggling with whether I want to change or not.  One diet pop a day seems like a small vice, but I also would prefer that my son grow up knowing that pop is not a recommended daily food item. 

To change any habit, there are a variety of steps we need to go through.  First, we need to acknowledge that we have some habits that may need changing and have the desire to change them.  Then we need to seriously think through how to change that habit.  The planning is often just as important as the doing.  Will you give yourself rewards along the way?  Is there a person in your life who can support you through the change or who will make the change with you?  Is there a new habit you need to form instead of getting rid of an existing habit?  And then at some point, we need to act, to actually make the change.

I once heard that it takes 21 days or times or occurrences to change an old habit or build a new one.  But doing it in increments can take the pressure away.  Just do it today.  Then tomorrow, wake up and do it again.  And then the next day.  Pretty soon, you won’t even know what the old habit was.

Visit www.nuval.com and make using NuVal™ Scores to find more nutritious foods a new habit.

For roughly the past five years, states, cities and counties have been implementing laws and regulations requiring restaurants to provide calories and sometimes other nutrients on menus and menu boards.  In 2010, legislation was passed that will make this mandatory for all restaurants with 20 or more establishments under the same name (think McDonalds, Taco Bell, TGIFridays).  The thought is that posting calories on these menu boards will help consumers make healthier choices and turn the tide on rising rates of obesity in our country.

On Friday, however, Time.com highlighted a study done in Washington state, showing that posting of calorie information on fast food items did not impact sales of items nor shift sales to more healthy items on the menu.  Other studies in New York City and elsewhere have shown conflicting results, some indicating the posting of this information helps, some showing it doesn’t impact consumer choice in restaurants.

My assessment of this data, in part, relates to the fact that consumers are smart enough to know that it isn’t just about one nutrient.  You can’t base your eating patterns off of just one nutrient, even if it is calories.  Diet Coke doesn’t have any calories per se, but it also doesn’t provide any of the good nutrients your body needs (think fiber, calcium, vitamin C).  Some research suggests, too, that simply the taste of sweetness (even if there are no calories) impacts what we eat the rest of the day and our ongoing craving for sweet foods.  So basing a decision off of just calories, or any one nutrient alone isn’t enough.

Visit www.nuval.com to see a system that gives you the full nutrition assessment on every food it ranks.

I’m sure many of you have had the experience where a song sticks in your head and you just can’t seem to shake it.  It happened to me just this weekend.  The song was Forget You, but the Glee version, not the Cee Lo Green version.

In the same way, an organization’s tagline has gotten stuck in my head, and I just can’t seem to shake it.  The tagline is to “make the healthy choice the easy choice,” and the organization is BLEND , a health coalition in St. Cloud, Minnesota.

As we head into the New Year, I’ve decided to make this the mantra in my personal life and in my family’s life.  How can we live our lives each day focused on making the healthy choice the easy choice?  Some ideas I’ve already compiled are:

• Planning social events and family time around active things.  Cross country skiing is our latest choice, but with kids there are a bazillion options to try – making snow forts in the yard, snow tubing, snow shoeing (okay, yes it’s winter in Minnesota!), la cross, exploring bike trails, family walks after dinner.
• Cleaning out the pantry and stocking it with healthier staples.  I always end up buying caramel corn from the Boy Scouts and with left over Christmas cookies.  Over the holiday break, we cleaned it all out.  We’re starting fresh with a pantry filled with whole wheat flour, unsalted nuts for snacking, cereals with better nutrition quality.
• With all the snow we’ve had this winter, my son Jack and I once joked that he could cross country ski to basketball practice.  But in all seriousness, we’re going to think more about walking or biking for local errands.

It’s just the start of the list at my house, but we’re on our way to living healthier lives in 2011.  Can you help make this a “movement,” adopting this mantra in your life?

Visit www.nuval.com for food choices that are the healthy choice.

If you’ve ever read the “About Me” section of this blog, you know I come from a big Italian family, and am the youngest of seven siblings.  Lately, my mom (85 years young!) has gotten us back in the habit of having family dinners on Sunday nights.  It’s a great way to connect and recharge for the week.  The conversation is always lively (last week a generational discussion as to whether Facebook was a good or bad thing for our culture) and I am always relaxed when I head home.

Most often on this blog, I talk about nutrition.  But in reality, there are many factors that contribute to living a long and healthy life.  Interestingly enough, connectedness is one of them.  Several years ago, a man named Dan Buettner wrote a book called The Blue Zones, which identified zones in the world where people have the greatest longevity.  According to Buettner’s work, Connect is one of the factors that contribute to your health, adding as much as four years to your life.  The three components of connect are Belong (create a healthy social network), Beliefs (spiritual or religious participation) and Your Tribe (make family a priority).

So Sunday dinners at my moms are about more than the nutrition.  In fact, I don’t even pay attention to what she’s serving.  But as I see it, my mom has two of these nailed – Your Tribe and Belong.  She is helping all of us – her kids, spouses, grandkids – Connect, making family a priority and creating a healthy social network.  Little does she realize, I imagine, this legacy she is leaving to us.

As we move into the Thanksgiving holiday, think of your time with family and loved ones as a way to Connect and add years to your life.

When you’re ready to work on Eat Wisely (add 8 years to your life!) from the Blue Zones, visit www.nuval.com.

It’s that time of year here in Minnesota.  The sun is shining hot; the dew points are high.  Kids everywhere are lamenting the fact that school starts in just a few days.  In the center of the Twin Cities, right between St. Paul and Minneapolis, the smell of frying corn dogs, mini-donuts and horse manure are in the air.  It’s that time of year – the Minnesota State Fair.

Minnesota has a state fair that rivals the biggest in the country – Texas and Iowa.  If you’re a native, you know ours is best, partially because it marks the official end of summer.  Running through Labor Day, many locals and visitors come to see all the fair has to offer – from concerts (acts as big as Carrie Underwood play our State Fair) to the animal birthing center, to the latest gadget in the grandstand.

Oh, and did I mention the food?  The theme of our State Fair is anything and everything on a stick – corndogs, pork chops, waffles, and frozen, chocolate dipped bananas.  The secondary theme is deep fried, as in cheese curds, candy bars, French fries, and the already mentioned corn dogs.

As a dietitian, you might expect me to advise you to seek out the healthiest options – like fruit cups and bottled water and grilled chicken — when you visit county fairs, state fairs and Renaissance festivals.  But that’s not the way I roll.  My advice is to go to the fair that one day and indulge on all your favorites.  Yes, really.  It’s what I do.  It’s what I recommend you do.

But, there’s a caveat.  This assumes that on a typical day, you’re eating well.  You’re getting your 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables.  You limit foods that are high in saturated, trans fat and added sugar/empty calories.  You manage your portions.

I have long lived by the 85-15 Rule.  If 85% of the time, you’re making really nutritious choices (and I mean the best choices possible), the other 15% can include items that are a bit indulgent.   Healthy is the mainstay, and indulgent is the exception.   My visit to the State Fair falls into my 15%.  The food is part of the experience for me.

Is the 85-15 Rule one you can adopt?

Visit www.nuval.com to ensure you’re choosing the best at least 85% of the time.

Quick.  Grab a pen and piece of scratch paper.  Jot down three things you could do to be healthier.  Quickly.  Don’t hesitate.

Now read through them slowly.  Read them again.  One by one, think about why you don’t do these things.

While working out this morning, I read an article in a woman’s magazine (My stack of magazines is getting so high that my husband is complaining, so I’m trying to power through some!) profiling five women who have been successful at weight loss and how they accomplished their goal.

My point between the action I asked you to take and the article I read this morning is that when it comes to healthy lifestyle behaviors, it’s less about “how” we do it and more about figuring out “why” to do it.  And this is personal.  It’s about a real and tangible benefit for us as individuals.  We all need to dig deep and find the real reason that will motivate us individually to be healthier.  Is it to live to see our kids or grand kids get married?  To get a promotion at work?  To be sexier?  To be able to keep up with our kids when they ride their bikes?  Because a high school or family reunion is coming up? 

If we  can figure out the real “why,” the “how” will follow. 

When you’re ready for the “how,” visit www.nuval.com for a tool that helps you choose foods with the best nutrition.