Aim for a Healthy Weight – Part 1

June 16, 2023 at 6:11 am

Getting Started

Losing weight and keeping it off can be a challenge. It is frustrating to work hard to lose the weight and then see it starting to creep up. Below are some helpful tips to help you lose the weight and then to keep it off.

Eat for health

Choose a variety of nutritious and low-calorie foods in reasonable amounts.
Include Fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
Choose low-fat or fat-free milk, as well as fish, lean meat, poultry, or dry beans.
Select foods that are low in fat and added sugars.
Choose sensible portion sizes.
Watch the number of calories you are eating daily. To lose weight, most overweight people will need to cut 500 to 1,000 calories per day from their current diet.

Choosing Sensible Servings

We have all been guilty of our “eyes were bigger than our stomachs” and having over-eaten. What we “see” as a serving and what is actually a serving may surprise you. It is quite easy to misjudge what equals a serving and pile on unwanted pounds.

This is especially true when eating out, restaurant portion sizes have been steadily increasing. Twenty years ago, the average pasta portion size in a restaurant was 2 cups totaling 280 calories. Today, it is 4 cups totaling 560 calories! The recommended single serving size for pasta is 1 to 1 ½ cups.

To keep your portion sizes sensible:

When eating out, choose small portion sizes, share an entrée with a friend, or take some of the food home (if you can chill it right away). You can enjoy the leftovers for lunch or dinner the next day.
Check the Nutrition Facts label on product packages to learn how much food is considered a serving, as well as how many calories and how much fat are in the food. Do not just look at the calories and assume that the entire package is that many calories, the calories are per serving. It is also important to know how many servings there are in the package to make sure you serve the correct amount.
Be especially careful to limit portion sizes of high-calorie foods such as cookies, cakes, other sweets, sodas, french fries, oils, and spreads. Just a tablespoon of oil has 90 calories or more. If you are not paying attention, it is extremely easy to add several hundred calories to your meal.

Choose Low-Fat and Low-Calorie Foods.

Many folks remove dairy from their diet when they are here low-fat and low-calorie. You do not have to do that; you want to keep milk on the menu. Do not cut out milk products as you try to reduce calories and fat. Milk and milk products are rich in calcium, a nutrient that helps prevent the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis. Instead, choose low-fat or fat-free milk and milk products, which have the same amount of calcium as whole-milk products. Make the switch gradually. If you are used to drinking whole milk, first cut back to 2 percent, then move to 1 percent, and finally to fat-free milk.

Substituting low-calorie foods for high-fat and high-calorie foods

Below are great low-calorie alternatives to your favorites. Make sure to read labels to find serving size and calories.

Milk Products

Whole milk – Use low-fat or fat-free milk.
Ice cream – Choose sorbet, sherbet, fat-free frozen yogurt, or reduced-fat ice cream.
Whipping cream – Imitation whipped cream (made with fat-free milk) or low-fat vanilla yogurt.
Sour cream – Substitute plain, low-fat yogurt or fat-free sour cream.
Cream cheese – Neufchatel cheese, “light” or fat-free cream cheese are great tasting substitutes.
Cheese (sandwich types) – Replace with reduced-calorie, low-calorie, or fat-free cheeses.

Cereals and Pastas

Ramen noodles – Serve brown rice or whole-grain pasta.
Pasta with cheese sauce – Prepare whole-grain pasta with red sauce or vegetables.
Granola – Buy Bran flakes, crispy rice cereals, cooked grits or oatmeal, reduced-fat granola.

Meat, Fish, Poultry

Cold cuts, hot dogs – Look for low-fat cold cuts and hot dogs (watch sodium content).
Bacon or sausage – Cook up some Canadian bacon or lean ham.
Regular ground beef – Extra-lean ground beef or ground turkey is a great substitute.
Chicken or turkey with skin – White-meat chicken or turkey without skin.
Oil-packed tuna – 5 oz can of water-packed tuna is only 120 calories compared to 280 calories for oil packed.
Beef (chuck, rib, brisket) – Buy beef (round, loin) with fat trimmed off; if possible, choose select grades.
Pork (spareribs, untrimmed loin) – Choose Pork tenderloin (trimmed), lean smoked ham.
Whole eggs – use egg whites for omelets, salads, and egg sandwiches. 2 egg whites can replace 1 whole egg in many recipes.

Baked Goods

Croissants, brioches, etc. – Buy hard French rolls or “brown ‘n serve” rolls.
Donuts, sweet rolls, muffins – Substitute english muffins, bagels, reduced-fat, or muffins fat-free muffins.
Cake (pound, layer) – Choose angel food or gingerbread cake.
Cookies – Look for reduced-fat, low-calorie, or fat-free cookies (graham crackers, ginger snaps, fig bars).

Fats, Oils, Salad Dressings

Regular margarine or butter – Replace with light-spread, reduced-calorie, or diet margarines; look for “trans fat-free” soft margarines.
Regular mayonnaise – Pick light or diet mayonnaise.
Regular salad dressing – Look for reduced-calorie or fat-free dressings, lemon juice, vinegars. Read the label there can be a lot of calories hiding in what looks like innocent salad dressing.
Oils, shortening, or lard – Nonstick cooking spray instead of greasing pans for sautéing. Many pans do not require anything and will produce a nice sear or crisp.

Keep moving.

Besides watching what you eat, you need to move. Exercise in some form is key to successful long-term weight loss. Moving your body will help you trim extra fat from your waist, lose weight and help to control your appetite. You can increase your aerobic fitness while toning your muscles. To lose and keep it off it is recommended that you gradually build up to at least 60 minutes of moderate physical activity on most days.

If you have lost weight, in order to keep it off you will need to keep moving. You do not need to move to exhaustion. Studies have shown that brisk walking is as effective as more vigorous exercises to help people lose weight. Take a friend to the trails and make a day of it.

Avoid Fast Food

A meal from a fast-food restaurant may contain as many calories as you need for a whole day! A recent study showed that young adults who eat frequently at fast food restaurants gain more weight and are at higher risk for diabetes in middle age than those who avoid the fast-food habit. If you do eat at a fast-food restaurant, choose salads and grilled foods, and keep portion sizes small. Ask for salad dressings, mayonnaise, and other high-fat condiments to be served on the side—or not at all.

Know about medicines

If you are very overweight, or if you are overweight and have other weight-related risk factors or diseases, your doctor may advise you to take a medicine to help you take off pounds. You should use a weight-loss drug only after you have tried a low-calorie diet, more moderate-intensity physical activity, and other lifestyle changes for 6 months without successfully losing weight.

Weight-loss medicines have side effects. Talk with your health care team about all of the risks and benefits before trying one of them. These drugs should be used under doctor care along with a low-calorie eating plan and regular physical activity, not as a substitute for these lifestyle changes.

Get Support

Ask your family and friends to support you on your weight loss journey. Let them know how they can be most helpful to you. Some people also find it useful to join a structured weight-loss program. The most effective groups provide support and advice for permanently changing eating and physical activity habits.

Lock in your losses

Once you reach your goal, focus on keeping the weight off. Continue to eat a nutritious and lower calorie diet. Do not stop your exercise, in fact you may want to increase it a bit. This may seem like a lot, but your normal daily activities count too!

Climbing the stairs, doing laundry, gardening, walking the dog and playing with the grandkids all count as physical activity. Just make sure you are doing enough of them.

After reaching your weight-loss goal, switch your efforts to keeping the weight off by continuing to eat a nutritious, lower calorie diet and getting regular physical activity. To maintain your weight, you will need to become even more active than before: Aim for 60 to 90 minutes of physical activity per day.

While this may seem like a tall order, remember that you can count the activities that you are already doing. Common daily activities such as climbing stairs, pushing a stroller, unloading groceries, gardening, and brisk walking all count as physical activity. Just be sure you do enough of them!

As we said in our last article there are no quick fixes. Successful, lasting weight loss requires a change of lifestyle, not a brief effort to drop pounds quickly. Otherwise, you will probably regain the weight.

Dr. Bobish

Dr. Bobish and her team’s goal is to help you reduce your risk of heart disease. Helping you to understand your risk factors and make healthful lifestyle changes.

Remember regardless of age or current state of health it is never too late to start protecting your heart. It is also never too soon and the sooner you act the better. Follow us on Facebook to see our latest post helping to keep you heart healthy. You can also explore all our articles that offer diet and exercise tips, recipes and information on procedures and heart disease.

Dr. Bobish and her team focus on preventative care and are here to support you. Alpine Cardiology provides patients with education as well as compassionate care and treatment. We are committed to keeping you healthy and heart smart! Request an appointment at 989-448-7002

Guide to a Healthy Heart

We are committed to keeping Northern Michigan healthy and heart-smart!

Over the next several months we will be publishing a series of articles that will become A Guide to a Healthy Heart. By breaking these guidelines into chapters we are able to offer more in depth information on the topics. Watch our Facebook page or website for the latest article.

Alpine Cardiology’s goal is to give you a better understanding of how to live a healthy lifestyle and to take care of your heart. To take the mystery out of what the tests are and what they mean. To encourage you to talk to your healthcare provider about your risk factors and how to reduce your risk. The more you know and understand the more likely you are to be successful in reducing risk and having a healthier lifestyle.

Links to published chapters are below if you would like to explore the guide more.