Annie’s Healthy Weight & Eating Blog

Last winter, Howard Wills did a number of healing ho-downs on the North Shore in Kauai. On Howard’s site, you can find a collection of prayers that he’s written and that he uses in his work. He says repeating the prayers creates a powerful positive mindset, and facilitates our physical and emotional healing.

I’ve used the prayers somewhat regularly over the past months, and who knows if I’m healthier for it. I do know that whenever I put in the 20 minutes or so to say the prayers, I feel happy. Give them a try and I’d love to hear if and how they impact your life.
Be healthy and happy,

Annie

It’s been hot on Nantucket this week, so anywhere else it must be nasty. I have a longtime smoothie habit, and have gotten into adding crushed flax seed to my morning blend. I knew that coffee grinder would come in handy someday. I’ve been re-evaluating the benefit of nutritional supplementation, and it just feels better to me to get a little omega-3 this way rather than through a pill.
Here’s a new piece I’ve posted to suite 101 on Smoothie Savvy. Enjoy.

I have a very beautiful group of women that I’m working with on Nantucket this month. Hi everyone!

One of you asked that I make the ‘emotionally healthy habits & affirmations’ slides from Dr. Gould’s work into a handout, and here it is:

Emotionally Healthy Habits & Affirmations

I’m also including the Steps to Lifestyle Manifestation handout so that you can continue to use it as a framework as you work with different aspects of lifestyle:

Steps to Lifestyle Manifestation

Lastly, I’m attaching a Inquiry Food Journal, that you can use as an exercise to delve deeper into what you’re eating, and why/how. As I mentioned in our group, keeping a food journal can be difficult, but can also provide you lots of info and support. Most of us eat much more healthfully when we know that we’re writing it down! There was a recent study that suggested that people who use food journals lose twice as much weight as those following a similar program without tracking.

I suggest that you do your journaling in groups of 3 days, and try to plan 3 different but somewhat typical sorts of days. For example one week day, one weekend day, and a family gathering day (if these are typical for you). Then take time to ‘digest’ your journal, looking for ideas on how you can shift your environment or your habits to support healthy choices.

Here it is:

Inquiry Food Journal

See you on Tuesday!

Annie

Nobody. And I mean nobody, likes to keep a food journal. It’s time consuming, and requires you to face up in a big way to what, how much and when you eat. But, if you really want to improve your diet, it’s a terrific tool and worth the temporary discomfort. Think of it as growing-conscious pains. What I tell people is to remember that it’s not forever, but to take a few days, particularly if you are going to work with a nutritionist, and dive in.

Here’s the link to the Kaiser Study, which was funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the NIH, and will be published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

I admit it - I watch Law & Order. Actually, what I watch is the last half-hour when, like clockwork, it transitions from the street to the courtroom. I love rightous Jack - he reminds me of the passionate do-gooders from my public health days. And I do love knowing that no matter what, by the top of the hour, they’ll have a verdict and a moral. BUM-BUM.
I recently joined a writing bank called suite 101, and came across this article written by one of the other writers on the site. Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen writes about psychology and health, and her report on a recent study suggesting that watching television shows that show or discuss murder make us dwell somewhere in our psyche on our own demise. That makes us nervous and that makes us eat.

I can’t say that how it happens in my own life, but take a read of her interesting piece here.

Here’s some stuff from last week -

It seems that after a decade of escalating childhood obesity rates we’ve leveled off. I think that schools and parents now understand the food environment kids are in, and education is shifting so that kids learn to be better consumers - something they really never had to do before this epidemic with relation to food.

Recent Data Gives Hope in Childhood Obesity - New York Times

Nothing like a scoop on a warm day…

The Scoop on Fattening Ice Cream Flavors - New York Times/Newsweek

Marian Nestle comments on new study from the International Food Information Council

NYTimes: World’s Poor Pay as Food Research is Cut

The Veggie Queen Vegetarian Recipes

I think a lot about change and how to flow with it. From my own tendencies to nest and check out, to coaching people to change their diet or cope with the economics of escalating food prices, there can be so much discomfort in changing. At times it seems impossible.

That’s why I like this NYT article on some of the research around change. The author suggests that there are different intensities of change, and if we stretch with small improvements fairly consistently, we tend to be more resilient and more successful. That feels true to me, though having the energy to continue to stretch can be challenging - I think our human nature is more equipped to do big rapid changes, then backslide, then change again. In interviewing some of the MDs with big diet books, they tend to be into the big rapid change, and say that if people see the difference they’ll be motivate to sustain. The little change strategy is perhaps a good yogic daily approach, with an occasional transformation to inspire. Happy reading, and happy Mother’s Day.

Here is the article:  NYT Change Article

Every Bite Is Divine has been selected as a finalist for the Ben Franklin Award in the category of health & wellness. That’s the third time it’s been short-listed for a national book award, the others being:

2007 Nautilus Awards - honoring books on conscious living and positive social change.

2007 Best Books Awards - in the health and diet category.

The winners of the Ben Franklin will be announced in late May. We’ll keep you posted.

For decades, Jane Brody of the New York Times has been a bit of an idle of mine (and of most of my nutrition-communications colleagues). Here’s a great update she did today on moderate exercise - the closest thing we have to a magic bullet for chronic disease.

Jane Brody Moderate Physical Activity Update - NY Times Article