Dr. Jonny Bowden

Category: Weight-Loss

  • Is This Food “Allergy” Making You Sick, Fat, Tired and Depressed?

    The Gluten-Free Expo in Sandy, Utah is one of the country’s biggest events dedicated to wheat-free food. The first ten minutes it opened, four hundred people flooded into the convention center; there were 1200 people by the end of the first hour and 6000 by the end of the day.

    What the heck is going on?

     

    The back story

    Gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley and rye (and sometimes in oats). An extreme intolerance to gluten is called celiac disease. When people with celiac eat foods containing gluten, their immune system responds by damaging the villi— little fingerlike protrusions that line the small intestine and allow nutrients from food to be absorbed through the small intestine into the bloodstream.

    This is bad news. Without healthy villi, a person becomes malnourished. And though symptoms of celiac disease vary from person to person, the list of conditions caused by celiac is pretty grim. It includes abdominal bloating and pain, chronic diarrhea, unexplained iron-deficiency anemia, fatigue, arthritis, joint pain, depression, and a whole lot of other nasty symptoms.

    About 1 in 133 people have full blown celiac, but here’s the problem. Like many health issues—blood pressure and insulin sensitivity and carbohydrate intolerance—reactions to gluten exist on a continuum. Celiac disease may be the diagnosable “end point” but there are plenty of people who have major problems with gluten. Those problems don’t necessarily meet the diagnostic criteria for celiac but they are pretty darn serious and pretty darn difficult to live with nonetheless.

    Dr. Shari Lieberman, in her superb book, The Gluten Connection, suggests that gluten sensitivity can be a factor in a bakers dozen of conditions from neurological disorders to skin diseases. Anyone who has ever seen the great neurologist David (Grain Brain) Perlmutter will never forget the video of a severely handicapped young man who couldn’t stand without shaking uncontrollably, followed by a video of the same young man, completely able to walk and talk normally, six months after Perlmutter put him on a gluten-free diet.

    The symptoms of wheat or gluten intolerance aren’t just physical, by the way.

    One component of gluten called gliadin breaks down to a substance called gluteomorphin, an opiod peptide that passes into the brain and disrupts brain function. Davis suggests that gluteomorphin may be the reason why wheat products can be addictive for many people.

     

    Is gluten-free for you?

    I did a video interview with Dr. Tom O’Bryan, who is my go-to guy for anything related to gluten, gluten-sensitivity, or gluten-intolerance. An expert in functional medicine—which studies how everything in the body works together— Dr. O’Bryan went around the world interviewing the top academic experts in gluten intolerance. He assembled his findings in a fascinating program called The Gluten Summit, which is probably one of the most popular and successful educational programs ever marketed on the internet. You can check it out here.

    If you suffer with all kinds of weird symptoms whose cause you just can’t figure out, you might want to consider that the culprit might be gluten. Gluten-free foods are available everywhere, and certainly are worth a try, but remember that just because a food is “gluten free” does not mean it’s healthy.

    As William Davis, MD, says, in his brilliant book, Wheat Belly, it’s better to be gluten free than to eat gluten free. There are thousands of natural, unprocessed, Paleo-centric foods that are already gluten-free—they come that way! Gluten-free processed foods have a lot of crap in them, and they’re filled with a lot of substitute ingredients that may be almost as bad for you as the ingredient they replace.

    If you’re at all interested in the subject of gluten-sensitivity—either for yourself or for a family member or loved one—I urge you to check back on Wednesday to watch to my short video interview with Dr. O’Bryan. You can also read Dr. O’Bryan’s guest blog here later this week.

  • Which Diet Is Better for Weight Loss, Low-Carb or Low-Fat?

    The following is a guest blog from my friend, Steven Masley, MD, CNS, star of PBS television and author of the best-selling book, “The 30-Day Heart Tune-Up”.

     

    Which Diet Is Better for Weight Loss, Low-Carb or Low-Fat?

    By Steven Masley, MD, FAHA, FACN, FAAFP, CNS

    The news media has highlighted a fascinating study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that compared Low-Carb with Low-Fat Diets. It is terrific that they measured weight loss and cardiovascular risk factors. Of course, the media only got the message half right.

    Before you hear the results, you need to understand what the people in the study actually did, something the media failed to understand.

    The investigators randomized 148 obese men and women to follow two diets:

    Diet #1: Less carb, higher fat, higher protein 

    These subjects increased fat intake from 34% of calories to 40% of calories and increased their protein from 17% of calories to 24% of calories. They were supposed to increase their fiber, but didn’t (their fiber intake stayed the same). The biggest increase in fat was from nuts and olive oil (monounsaturated fat), and they were asked to eliminate hydrogenated fat. They were also given shakes to help them follow the plan.

    Diet #2: Less fat, higher carbs, same protein

    These subjects decreased their fat intake from 34% to 28-30% (not really low fat enough to be a low-low fat diet), and increased their carb intake from 46% to 54% of calories. They didn’t increase their fiber (they were asked to, but it stayed the same) instead, they added more starch (potatoes, white bread, white rice and pasta).

    Both groups were asked to not change their activity and they were given meal plans to reduce their calorie intake and lose weight.

    The low-carb, higher fat, higher protein group dropped fromm eating 2000 calories per day to only 1200-1400 calories per day for 12 months. They lost 12 pounds in the first 3 months, and then their weight stayed the same for the rest of the year. Their cholesterol profile improved nicely.

    The higher refined carb, lower fat, same protein group dropped form eating 2000 calories per day to only 1400-1500 calories per day for 12 months. They lost 5 pounds in the first 3 months, and then gained half that weight back over the rest of the year, and their cholesterol profile worsened.

    What did this study really show?

    When you look at the real results, you can see that eating more “healthy” fat, more protein, and less refined carbs (less potatoes, rice, bread, and pasta) helped people lose weight and improve their cholesterol profile. They were also given a shake a day to help change their eating habits.

    Asking people to eat less fat and more refined carbs (sugar and starch) without fiber isn’t very effective for weight loss and increases your risk for heart problems

    The bottom line from this study is that you should eat more “healthy” fat and protein, and less refined carbs.

    I suspect the reason the subjects in the higher refined carb diet gained their weight back despite following the low calorie intake, is that without extra protein, their metabolic rate (calorie burn rate) decreased. Adding more protein to the low-carb, higher fat plan boosts calorie burn and was a smart idea!

    Notice that the people in this study were obese, yet they only lost 12 pounds. They likely would have lost twice as much weight if they had added more FIBER (fiber makes you full and satisfied and improves your cholesterol profile), but the fiber must come from eating more vegetables, beans, nuts, and fruits–not from eating more flour!

    If they had added more activity, they would have kept losing weight after 12 months and their cholesterol profile would have looked even better. So unlike the results in this study,  the ideal plan would have been more “healthy” fat and protein, less refined carbs, more fiber, and more activity.

    I wish you the best of health!

    Steven Masley, MD, FAHA, FACN, FAAFP, CNS

  • My Video Interview With Steven Masley

    The following is a short discussion i had about high fat diets with my friend Steven Masley, MD, CNS, star of  PBS television and author of The 30-Day Heart Tune-Up.

    Dr. Masley and I had just come from the annual meeting of the American College of Nutrition in San Antonio, where we heard a lecture on high-fat diets for athletes and “regular” people. I asked Steve what he thought of the lecture…. listen to this, it’s pretty cool.

  • Exercise: The News You Don’t Want To Hear

    Exercise: The News You Don’t Want To Hear

    My mentor, the late great nutritionist Robert Crayhon, used to say this: “The two great dangers with nutrition are thinking it does everything, and thinking it does nothing”.

    The same can be said of exercise.

    This article is about exercise. And about weight loss. And about the relationship between the two.

    Which, sad to say, is probably a very different relationship than you might think.

    Now before we get started, a disclaimer. I exercise regularly. I think you should too, no matter who you are. I think exercise is the greatest anti-aging activity on the planet. And the data are clear: exercise can help with depression, lower the risk for heart disease and cancer, reduce the risk and complications of diabetes. It can even grow new brain cells.

    What it can’t do is cause you to lose weight—at least not if you do exercise in the traditional way.

    (I told you this was news you didn’t want to hear.)

    For every person who managed to make the annual weight loss issue of People magazine, for every healthy guy smilingly holding up an old pair of pants twice the size of Cleveland, for every 100-pound lighter winner of “the Biggest Loser”, there are thousands more who lose, regain, lose, regain, give up and essentially look the same year in and year out. If exercising the traditional way could produce weight loss, we’d be a whole lot skinnier as a nation and those “success” stories would be far more common.

    A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association followed the exercise habits of over 34,000 women and concluded that it took about an hour a day of moderate (3mph walking) exercising to maintain weight. This research confirms the findings of the National Weight Control Registry which reports that 90% of people who have successfully lost weight and kept it off exercise on average for an hour a day.

    Now that sounds like a lot. But remember that nearly all of this research focuses on moderate intensity exercise like walking. And walking is fine—for all the health benefits mentioned above—but it’s pretty inefficient for weight loss.

    A much better and more efficient way to exercise—and one which research is clearly showing works a lot better—is to do high intensity circuit training. Put the beauty bells down and lift some iron. Shorten your rest periods. If you’re doing “aerobics” do some interval training where you sprint for a while then jog to catch your breath. (This is exactly what programs like Metabolic Aftershock do! )

    So here’s the strategy:

    One: Revamp your diet, concentrating on carbohydrates. Carbohydrates- particularly sugar, soft drinks and starches like potatoes, rice, pasta, bread, cereals and crackers—drive levels of insulin, your “fat storage” hormone, through the roof, which makes it brutally hard to lose body fat. Eat more protein and fat, get your carbs from vegetables and fruits, and eat less of everything.

    Two: Exercise regularly, but exercise smart. Increase the intensity and shorten the time. Circuit and interval training are the modalities that have trainers and exercise physiologists the most excited these days when it comes to both health benefits and fat burning. Pay attention—they’re right! (My current favorite exercise program is Jade Teta’s Metabolic Aftershock.)

    Three: Recognize that fitness and six-pack abs aren’t the same thing. Exercise for fitness and for health, and to maintain your gains. But don’t expect your morning walk to create a complete body transformation, especially if you don’t take serious aim at your diet.

    Eric Ravussin, professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, LA and an expert on weight loss put it best: “In general, exercise by itself is pretty useless for weight loss”.

    That’s certainly true—if you’re doing exercise in the conventional way.

    But with a brilliantly designed, scientifically based, high-intensity interval program like Metabolic Aftershock—which takes just 15 minutes three times a week—it’s a whole different story. Combine that program with a controlled carbohydrate diet like New You in 22, and you’ll be on your way to a body—and a state of health—that you’ll be proud of for the rest of your life.

  • Death by Food Pyramid

    Today I want to talk to you about Death by Food Pyramid, the long awaited new book by Denise Minger (more about her in just a moment).

    Full disclosure—I don’t sell this book on my website, had nothing to do with it’s production, and have never even met the author (though we’ve exchanged maybe two single sentence e-mails over the years of the “Go get ‘em!” variety).

    I believe this book is likely to stand as one of the most important books on nutrition, diet and health in the last ten years. It has the power—literally—to change your life, or at least the way you think about diet, weight and health. And best of all, it accomplishes this herculean task by brushing off some some tools that have been all but lost in the acrimony of nutritional debates: grace and style.

    So if you don’t know who Denise Minger is, I forgive you—no one really knows a whole lot about her. She came out of nowhere—a bright, apple-cheeked twenty-something from Oregon with no advanced degree in medicine or health, billing herself cheerfully as just a “girl with a blog”—and then proceeded to write a dazzling piece on Colin Campbell’s vegetarian manifesto The China Study. That widely discussed piece remains a classic, and earned Minger immediate stardom as a blogger in the “health space”.

    Her critique was so nuanced, so thoroughly backed up by unassailable scientific references, so richly researched, and so brilliantly written that some of the people who were offended by such a killer assault on their treasured beliefs started the rumor that Denise Minger didn’t exist. They argued that it wasn’t possible that some young woman without any credentials could have written such a piece, ergo there was no such person as Denise Minger. The writer “calling” herself “Denise Minger”, they reasoned, had to be a consortium of anti-vegetarian scholars writing under a pen name.

    Nope, not making that one up.

    And her China Study critique was no fluke. Her subsequent pieces—including one on how everyone got the Ancel Keys story wrong, including, by the way, yours truly—have been equally brilliant.

    So now comes her eagerly awaited—long awaited— first book, Death by Food Pyramid.

    Let me just say this: It was worth the wait.

    Denise Minger is a former vegetarian and raw food person who had some serious health problems that she undertook to solve. So her interest in nutrition came from her own personal mission. I’m not going to tell you much about that, you can read it in the book, but it’s relevant. Because Ms. Minger is such a critical thinker and keen observer, her journey through a dozen different diets– each promising relief, health, weight loss, longevity—is more than a little instructive, and something a whole lot of people will be able to relate to.

    Not only that, her sense of nutrition history—and her knowledge of historical details—is impressive. Why does this matter? Because she takes you, step by step, through exactly what happened to get this country on its idiotic collision course with the epidemics of diabetes, obesity and heart disease. When you see how this all happened—how we got sold the low-fat hypothesis, the cholesterol hypothesis, the saturated-fat-is-the-devil hypothesis, the grains-are-great hypothesis—it’s like having the scales fall from your eyes.

    I’m sure this book will be the first time many readers come face to face with the fact that our government recommendations for healthy eating are flawed and inaccurate and have been for some time. Not only that, but the shaping influences on those recommendation are frighteningly political, so much so that one is left with the feeling that looking to “official” government recommendations as a guide to healthy eating is a fool’s errand.

    But Death by Food Pyramid is anything but pessimistic. It’s actually a manifesto in how to empower yourself, honor your own individuality, and find your own road in the nutrition forest.

    Oh, and did I mention how this lady writes?

    Denise Minger is a writer in the school of Winston Churchill, which is to say she implicitly embraces the idea that great ideas can be said clearly, succinctly, and without a lot of high-falutin’ words. Seriously. This gal is one gifted communicator. She manages to execute a hard-to-pull-off balance of first-rate scholarship with a writing style that is humorous, light-hearted, good natured, non-abrasive, and without a hint of an agenda. She is the Jon Stewart of nutrition reporting, able to gently take on opponents with frightening intelligence– but she does it with such good grace and humor that even those she demolishes wind up liking her.

    Read this book. Even if you think you already know everything that’s in it, read it for the delightful writing style and the engaging tour of the world of nutrition, politics and shabby science.

    And then give it to a friend who’s struggling with diet and weight loss.

    I promise you– whoever you give this book to will thank you.

    Probably twice.

  • The Most Delicious Way to Burn Fat

    I’ve sung the praises of coconut oil for a long time.

    The fat in coconut oil — a form of saturated fat known as MCT (medium chain triglycerides) — is among the healthiest fat in the world. It contains fatty acids such as lauric acid and caprylic acid known to be anti-viral and anti-microbial.

    And medium-chain-triglycerides are more likely to be burned for energy than stored as fat, leading to their popularity in the bodybuilding community.

    A Brazilian study even suggests that coconut oil might have a role in weight loss…

    Can Coconut Oil Help You Lose Weight?

    In the Brazilian study, 40 women aged 20-40 years old with abdominal obesity were given daily dietary supplements of either soybean oil or coconut oil over the course of 12 weeks. All subjects followed a “balanced” diet with the same number of calories and were told to walk for 50 minutes a day.

    By the end of the study, the coconut oil group had significantly higher HDL (“good”) cholesterol and an improved LDL: HDL ratio. Meanwhile, the soybean oil group saw their HDL go down and their cholesterol ratio go up!

    While both the soybean oil group and the coconut oil group had similar reductions in BMI, ONLY the coconut oil group saw a reduction in the circumference of their waists.

    A very interesting — and unexpected — finding was that those consuming the coconut oil spontaneously reduced their consumption of carbohydrates and increased their consumption of protein and fiber over the course of the study.

    “Supplementation with coconut oil does not cause dyslipidemia and seems to promote a reduction in abdominal obesity”, write the researchers.

    And researchers in the International Journal of Obesity and Metabolic Disorders stated that “MCT consumption has been shown to increase energy expenditure and lead to greater losses of the adipose (fat) tissue in animals and humans.”

    Island Studies Prove the Value of Coconut

    The good news on coconut actually started with research back in the 1960’s and 1970’s. It’s long been observed that people from the Pacific Islands and Asia whose diets are very high in coconut oil are surprisingly free from cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other degenerative diseases. A long-term, multidisciplinary study was set up to examine the health of the people living in the small, idyllic coconut-eating islands of Tokelau and Pukapuka.

    And what it found was astonishing.

    Despite eating a “high-fat” diet (30 to 60 percent of their calories were from fat, mostly saturated fat from coconuts), the Pukapuka and Tokelau islanders were virtually free of atherosclerosis, heart disease, and colon cancer. Digestive problems were rare. The islanders were lean and healthy; there were no signs of kidney disease, and high blood cholesterol was unknown.

    Yet when these native people moved to the “big cities,” changed their diets, and gave up eating coconut oil in favor of the refined polyunsaturated vegetable oils that are believed to be “healthier,” their incidence of heart disease increased dramatically.

    But What About Saturated Fat?

    Well, what about it? As I’ve written before, the “evidence” against saturated fat is falling apart all over the place. Two major papers published in the last few years completely vindicated saturated fat as a culprit in heart disease. And the type of saturated fat in coconut—something called MCTs (medium-chain-triglycerides)—is actually used by the body for energy, much like carbohydrates. The body prefers to burn MCTs for fuel rather than store them around your hips. That’s one reason bodybuilders use MCT oil as a supplement—they need the calories, but don’t want to put on fat.

    Another Great Benefit of Coconut Oil

    If all that weren’t enough, coconut oil is great for the immune system. Fatty acids in coconut oil-specifically lauric acid—is known to be anti-microbal, helping to fight bacteria and viruses. And caprylic acid—another fatty acid in the oil—is widely used to help keep Candida albicans in check.

    I love coconut oil. It’s delicious, healthy, and helps keep your waist size in check. My  favorite coconut oil on the planet is Barlean’s Extra Virgin Coconut Oil

    It’s inexpensive, organic, and comes from hand-selected coconuts. I use it for everything, including sautéing vegetables and making eggs. It’s spectacularly delicious!

  • I Ate Ice Cream for Breakfast!

    Sunday morning, Michelle and I ate ice cream for breakfast.

    It gets worse.

    We also ordered gluten-free pizza from Domino’s.

    And yes, I’m telling you this for a reason.

    (more…)

  • “What Should I Eat for Lunch?”

    If you are reading this blog post, then I’m pretty sure the question “What can I eat?” has been a vexing one for you, as it has for hundreds of people who write to me with this same question.

    What can I eat for breakfast?

    For lunch?

    What’s a good dinner?

    Help!

    Now granted, I have some advantages. I have an assistant who was trained at Corden Bleu. I live a mile from a Whole Foods that has a terrific salad bar and prepared foods section. I’m pretty easy to please, in a culinary sense. The matriarch of our LA family, my dear friend Sky London, makes sensational, over-the-top seven course family dinners for all of us every Sunday night, the leftovers from which last me for several days. So finding stuff to eat isn’t much of a problem for me.

    That said, yesterday I tried an experiment. I presented my amazing assistant, Amber Linder, with a challenge. Go downstairs to the kitchen, look around, and see if you can whip up a nutritious and delicious lunch with just what’s in the frig and the cabinet. (Believe me, there wasn’t much there). And see if you can do it in record time.

    (Here’s a picture of my office staff. Amber is on the left. The other two members of the staff, Emily and Bubba, were out of the office on this particular day, no doubt chasing squirrels.)

    So here’s what she did.

    She opened a can of Vital Choice tuna (the only kind I use) mixed it with some magic spices and oil,  cut an avocado in two,  and stuffed it with the tuna mix. Total prep time: 4 minutes.

    Here’s what it looked like:

    I asked her for the “recipe” which is this:

    • 1 can of Vital Choice tuna
    • A good swirl of extra-virgin olive oil
    • A dollop of mustard
    • Himalayan sea salt and pepper to taste
    • 1 tablespoon of chopped fresh herbs (whatever is on hand- I like parsley and chive)
    • 1 med avocado cut in half, seed removed
    • Pile as much tuna on top of the halves you can eat…Bon appetite!

    Easy, right?

    If you like this recipe, let me know and I’ll post more of them.

  • Chemicals in Food that Make You Fat

    Chemicals in Food that Make You Fat

    For decades we’ve been told that the “formula” for weight loss is incredibly simple: eat less and exercise more.

    Unfortunately, that’s very far from the whole truth.

    We’re now learning that there are powerful influences on weight that go beyond calories and exercise.

    We’re at the infancy of our knowledge about obesity, and we’re not all that brilliant about weight loss in general. But one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty is this: it’s not just about eating less. No one wakes up in the morning and says, “Hey, I think I’d like to be obese!” I’ve talked to serious scientists who’ve been studying this stuff for 20 years, people who the media would consider A-list experts, and privately they’ll tell you that obesity is baffling and mysterious and that they’re just scratching the surface of the subject.

    One of the most disturbing discoveries in the past decades has been that chemicals in our food and our environment are actually obesity promoters. Known as “endocrine disrupters”, these chemicals “mimic” what hormones in our body do. These chemicals hijack hormonal pathways, sending messages to cells to store fat and generally disrupting the regulatory system that helps control appetite and weight. They can do this by…

    1. increasing your number of fat cells
    2. lowering the number of calories you burn
    3. playing havoc with the mechanisms (like the hormone leptin)  that regulate our appetite

    High fructose corn syrup, for example, is an obesogen. It makes you insulin resistant and interferes with leptin efficiency. The result is a double whammy:

    1. you crave more food and…
    2. the food you eat turns into fat more easily.

    Even tap water contains obesogens. One in particular—atrazine—slows thyroid hormone metabolism. Another—a fungicide called tributylin—stimulates the production of fat cells.

    Bisphenol-A (BPA) is a synthetic estrogen and has been shown to increase insulin resistance, which is at the heart of obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome. And phthalates, which are chemicals found in all sorts of products from shower curtains to perfumes, may lower your metabolism, leading to increased weight and lowered muscle mass.

    What a mess.

    Avoiding these chemicals is no small trick, especially since we haven’t even indentified all the potential endocrine disrupters in the environment and food supply, and no one knows the “safe” dose of any of them.

    This is why, in my judgement, it’s always prudent to err on the side of caution. Eat food that looks like food your grandmother would have recognized as food. Avoid food with bar codes. Buy organic—especially for the “dirty dozen”, foods that have been found to have the greatest pesticide residue. (You can find the “Dirty Dozen” online at the website of the Environmental Working Group.)

    Since many of the foods that contain these endocrine disrupters are processed foods that are also addictive, breaking the addiction to sugar should be a primary goal of anyone wanting to lose weight and get healthy.

    And make no mistake—the foods that make us fat, sick, tired and depressed are as addictive as any drug on the planet. (That’s why we spend as much time as we do on breaking the chains of food addiction in my diet program Unleash Your Thin »

    In addition:

    • Buy fish and meat that is hormone and antibiotic free. That means wild salmon and grass-fed beef only.
    • Use aluminum bottles or BPA-free ones.
    • Don’t let plastic water bottles get hot—it increases the leaching of BPA into the water.
    • Never, ever put plastic in the microwave
    • Move away from canned foods and towards pouches, frozen or fresh when possible.
    • Dump your air fresheners. (Try opening a window or putting out a nice diffuser, potpourri or fresh lavender
    • Get rid of non-stick pans, especially Teflon ones. If you must use them, never ever use a metal implement on them, as that can scratch the surface and release damaging chemicals.
    • Use natural skin care products without “fragrance” – I use Jeneuvia by Wallsburg Farms »

  • 13 Ways to Stick to Your Diet During the Holidays

    Are you afraid the holidays will derail your diet?  They don’t have to!

    The key to sticking to your diet and eating healthy is mental toughness. That means there are no shortcuts to dieting, even at the holidays. You either adhere to a healthy diet or pay the price of gaining weight, sickness and disease. This is not a short-term project. This is a lifetime strategy that is essential and must be approached like any other long-term investment.

    Here are 13 mental toughness tips to help you stick to your diet this Thanksgiving and holiday season:

    1. 99% compliance on a diet is failure, even at the holidays!  Sounds harsh, but if you’re going to get fit, it’s all or nothing.  If you are in a committed relationship you wouldn’t cheat on your significant other just one time, so why would you cheat on something as important as your diet?
    2. Expect challenges such as cravings, and when this happens have a plan in place to push forward and stay compliant.
    3. Create a vision board filled with pictures of lean, fit and sexy people. Hang it in a very visible location. When you feel discouraged, feel like giving up, get the urge to eat bad or cheat on your diet, look at the vision board which will reinforce your health goals.
    4. Before you put anything in your mouth, always ask yourself, “How is this food going to impact my health?”
    5. If you’re on a diet during the holidays, don’t look at dieting as drudgery, but see it as a strategy for a lifetime to keep you healthy, looking good and feeling great.
    6. Developing a world-class self-talk may be the greatest mental toughness tool of all. This is one of the things that will really help you change your core beliefs about diets and exercise, and help you make it through the holidays.
    7. Find happiness in the holidays not from food, but in time spent with friends and family creating a lifetime of memories and new traditions.
    8. Realize that ultimately being fit and healthy is completely your responsibility, and blaming the holidays for your weight gain is just as bad as blaming other outside factors the rest of the year such as restaurants, the food manufacturers and portion sizes.
    9. Work through the holiday food/eating challenges with a friend. When you have someone else to help hold you accountable, it makes the process much easier.
    10. The holidays can be a very stressful time, so to avoid turning to food for comfort, take at least 30 minutes each day for yourself. Go for a walk, do something you enjoy and just make sometime for you.
    11. There’s no shame in saying no when someone wants you to try their homemade dessert. Simply tell people that this year you’re watching what you eat because you’re trying to lose weight and get healthy. In fact, it’s actually something to be proud of.
    12. Watching what you drink is just as important as watching what you eat. Drinks lots of water not only because it’s good for you, but it will help fill you up so you eat less. Avoid special holiday cocktails because their packed with calories and too much alcohol could let you loosen up too much to the point where you forget about your diet.
    13. People tend to see exercise as a burden during the holidays, when in fact they should make it more of a priority to help burn extra calories, relieve stress and give them an emotional boost.

    When you’re tempted to overeat at the holidays, think about the bigger picture. Being fit will help you improve every area of your life. You’ll have more confidence at work, better inter-personal relationships, and being fit will reignite your sex life like nothing else.

    When you’re tempted to cheat, ask yourself these questions…

    • When am I going to stop starting over? 
    • What makes tomorrow better than today to get fit?
    • If I continue to cheat and start over, will I eventually die fat?

    Food will be in abundance this holiday season, but you have the mental toughness already inside you to stick to your diet and achieve your weight loss goals.

    Steve Siebold is author of the book Die Fat or Get Tough: 101 Differences in Thinking Between Fat People and Fit People, and a mental toughness coach who has helped thousands of people lose weight. He is the founder of The Fat Loser program, a free 21 day online mental toughness training program for people serious about losing weight.  Visit diefatbook  and  fat loser  for more info.