The Lighter Perspective Blog

Somehow, sweets have become intertwined in the celebration of womanhood like a fattening party favor.  There's Valentine’s Day, when lovers bring their favorite gal a box of upscale candies. What romantic comedy would be complete without the turning point of its heroine gorging on ice cream to nurse a hurting heart? Heck, even PMS gives us permission to unleash one’s inner warrior princess by unapologetically reaching for large quantities of chocolate. But in honor of National Women’s Health Week, I had to let my peeps know that sugar isn’t your sweetie after all.

Most of us understand that reaching for an extra slab of cake every day is going to pack on the pounds. However, sugar’s impact goes far beyond your waistline. A new study just released by scientists at UCLA has found that eating too much of the substance can make you dumb.

As reported in the Journal of Physiology, this new study of lab rats is the first to show how a high-fructose diet slows the brain, hampering memory and learning.  "Our findings illustrate that what you eat affects how you think," said Fernando Gomez-Pinilla in the news article, a professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a professor of integrative biology and physiology in the UCLA College of Letters and Science. "Eating a high-fructose diet over the long term alters your brain's ability to learn and remember information. But adding omega-3 fatty acids to your meals can help minimize the damage."

Think avoiding high-fructose corn syrup just means keeping away from candy bars? It’s actually present in some unexpected places like sodas, salad dressings, baby food and even processed snacks marketed as low fat, healthier options. No wonder the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that the average American consumes more than 40 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup annually.

I’ve known for a while that eating too much sugar puts you in a bad mood (here’s a quick explanation why from Shape Magazine.) When I avoid the stuff, I think clearer and feel better. When we traveled around England last week, I thought the trip would be relatively healthy because my fiancée booked hotels with proximity to gyms. But I didn’t factor in the UK chocolate, which tastes amazing because of the dairy used. A few nibbles a day turned into a full-fledged candy frenzy by the time we departed on Saturday. And only now, being back home and in a lower-sugar routine for the past four days, has my mental acuity and sense of well-being fully returned.

So what can a woman do about balancing healthy living with the siren call of sweets? Read food labels to understand what you’re actually ingesting. If you crave chocolate for emotional reasons, find other ways to soothe yourself like taking a walk, calling a friend or soaking in the tub. And if you absolutely, really want that piece of cheesecake after pausing and asking yourself about it, eat it close to another meal or with some form of protein to avoid the blood sugar crash that can trigger fatigue, irritability and as mentioned above, a case of the stupids.

What role do sweets play in your life? How do you handle dessert cravings triggered by social situations or emotion?

P.S. This blog was inspired by a blogger challenge to spread awareness about women’s health. Check out some of the other posts on this important topic!

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Proving that the ladies’ locker room is often a cross between a sorority house and amateur comedy night, we early morning regulars have crafted nicknames for compatriots. Like Suntan Girl, whose skin had an intense bronze hue after 20 years of daily visits to the tanning salon. Or One-Up. No matter what you said to this corporate executive, she had to top it. Just bought a new car? Hers was a more expensive model. Planning a trip to Europe? Then you’ll hear why the accommodations she booked last year were vastly superior.  While I haven’t seen One-Up in years, she popped into my mind today when I read this Time Magazine story about the advent of cheeseburger stuffed crust pizza – the latest example of culinary one-upmanship that is making our world a fatter place.

I bet the gastronomic minds at Pizza Hut thought they struck gold with this idea, which is currently just offered in the Middle East. Apparently it features entire cheeseburgers nestled around the rim of a pizza also covered in hamburger meat, cheese and other toppings.  If placing extra cheese in the crust of pizza was akin to man taking his first steps on the moon, then this concoction counts as a manned expedition to Mars.  Not to be outdone, Pizza Hut U.K. one-upped the calories with a hot dog crust stuffed  crust. Feel like I should chug a bottle of Pepto-Bismol just writing about it.

But really, in a country that created Turducken because turkey and duck weren’t exciting enough on their own and sausage pancake bites, what surprises me most is that the cheeseburger and hot dog stuffed crust pizza weren’t offered on our shores first.

Not to say that I haven’t been guilty of culinary overkill myself in the past. That great chocolate chip banana bread I’ve been making since college, a caloric bomb in its own right, has been served warm with ice cream and fudge sauce on top to dinner party guests.  Last week, fueled by a PMS-induced competitive streak, I added an extra scoop of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup crumbles to my dish of frozen yogurt after spying my fiancée’s topping selection.

Do you think our society is one-upping its way to even higher levels of obesity?  Feel like the cheeseburger stuffed crust pizza is the latest sign of the apocalypse or a stroke of genius? What artery-clogging concoctions have astounded you recently?

Last Saturday, my super cool boyfriend of three years became my fiancé.  Since that moment, I’ve been floating on the proverbial cloud nine - accepting congrats over Facebook, sharing the details of his romantic proposal and letting girlfriends admire the ring. Then this morning, I learned that in addition to gaining an “official” lifelong commitment, I’ve also managed to pack on several extra pounds.

Maybe it was the red velvet cupcake devoured during the afternoon picnic where he popped the question or the desserts my brother and sister-in-law brought over on Sunday night when congratulating us in person. Whatever the case, it made me wonder if love and marriage is always followed by extra weight around your carriage.

A study conducted by Cornell University found that newlyweds gain more weight on average than single people or widowers or divorcees, usually within the first two years of getting married. But you don’t even have to walk down the aisle to have the scale slap your face. In July 2008, the journal Obesity published a study of almost 1,300 couples that found women who lived with a partner for at least a year increased the likelihood of being obese while the odds of weight gain doubled for guys after one year of cohabitation.

Although people may gain weight together, couples can also lose weight simultaneously. Another study published by the National Institutes of Health found that when one spouse went through a successful weigh loss effort, their partner often took pounds off even without active treatment.

All of those factoids made me reflect back on my past. I was my heaviest during an unhappy relationship twenty years ago so bliss wasn’t part of the equation. Even if I weighed less before embarking on this relationship, my muscle mass is actually higher now. You know, on days when desserts aren’t my primary food group. Eating clean and exercising regularly will soon let me bid farewell to those snarky extra pounds. But as you can see from the above photo taken of us several hours after the proposal, the bliss is going to stick around for good.

Have you ever gained weight during a romantic relationship and if so, how did you handle it? Is it easier for you to stay in shape single or when you have a partner?

When I showed up at the gym today for my early morning butt-kicking, a.k.a. personal training session, Allen took one look at me and said “You’re tired.”  It was true this week I had pushed the envelope hard with more intense workouts, crazy deadlines with my PR practice and working overtime on my book proposal. But I kept dragging through it all. Despite the lack of sleep, I even added an extra cardio interval session yesterday morning in the spirit of being the forty-something equivalent of the Energizer Bunny. All of which has left me with an empty gas tank, unable to sputter out of first gear.

After our session wrapped up, my trainer extraordinaire advised me of the most important thing I could do this weekend to regain my energy - nothing. That’s right, taking two days in a row off to get my groove back and return stronger than before. At first, my mind raced with panic. My boyfriend has planned a fun anniversary dinner out on Saturday night and normally I’d create more “caloric room” with a spin class that morning. Maybe I could sneak a long walk in on Sunday as a day of active recovery.

That’s when common sense kicked in and told me to chill out, literally and figuratively. Allen’s got lots of credentials and more than a decade of experience helping people reach their training potential. If I’m paying him to help pump up my muscle, perhaps I should listen when he tells me to rest too. So this weekend, I really am going to rest and resist the temptation to exercise in some form. Scout’s Honor (though you really shouldn’t trust a girl who left her troop after the annual cookie sales because she didn’t want to go camping, right?). Maybe I'll have more time for sleep, reading a book or even daydreaming with no agenda at all. Whatever the case, it's going to be good for me.

How do you get your groove back after pushing too hard with exercise, work or your crazy schedule overall? Has doing “nothing” ever helped you come back to better results?

Forget the presidential candidates, Dancing with the Stars contestants or Alec Baldwin’s upcoming nuptials. The pop culture figure getting the most attention these days is the Evil Queen from Snow White. After all, she is being portrayed by Julia Roberts and Charlize Theron at the movies this spring and is the main power player in TV show Once Upon A Time. But with all of that magic at her fingertips, what’s the girl really hung up on? Being the fairest in the land. Perhaps if Queenie had been more concerned with fitness rather than appearance, her fairytale might have had a different ending.

This being a healthy living blog and all, it also made me wonder if more people are influenced by looking good or being fit when it comes to wellness. Not that there’s anything wrong with being influenced by both, as long as the outcome is healthier practices and habits. Appearance was one of my motivating factors went I started my weight loss journey twenty years ago, although self-esteem and a desire to make my body feel better topped that list.

Curious about this issue, I created a survey to learn more about why people regain lost pounds. So far only about 450 people have responded and I need more for the sampling to be scientifically valid. But I thought you mind find this factoid interesting. When asked what factors inspired their desire to lose weight, living a healthier, longer life (76%) actually topped the list, followed by clothes fitting better (74%) and feeling more attractive (67%).

What motivates your healthy living journey?  Feel like doing an emerging author a solid and increasing the number of survey respondents? It takes less than two minutes to take this survey and you can enter a drawing to win a $50 gift card. Thanks for helping me spread the word!

Sometimes I feel like my body is like a MacGyver concoction, held together by Super Glue, safety pins and smart ass prayers. I’m in pretty good shape and all, with the mostly healthy food and regular workouts. But for way too many years, the frozen peas that crowd my freezer have been used for healing aching body parts instead of eating.

It all started back in the late 1990’s following a string of sprained ankles. My podiatrist at the time was an affable guy who worked with Olympic athletes and normal folk alike (hence my face time in his office). He suggested elevating and icing each ankle using a small bag of frozen peas because they conformed so well to the contours of feet. Sure enough, somewhere between 10-15 minutes each day with those little packets of Green Giant’s best and my ankles were back to normal.  By the turn of the century, I pulled the frozen pea trick following every intense work out to keep my ankles happy.

About six years ago, my knees decided to join in on the fun. A diagnosis of chondromalacia patellae, a fancy, high SAT verbal score way of saying soft cartilage under the knees caps, was the impetus. Icing those suckers helped remove pain and swelling, and boy was I grateful. Then like the fluffy creatures that multiply when you add water from “Gremlins,” the frozen pea packets started to proliferate. Add in the parts of my feet impacted by neuromas last year, and now I’m up to six bags per icing session following a day of hard exercise. Just check out the lovely photo accompanying this post to see the bag I haul out each night for medicinal purposes. Fun times, right? Guess that explains why I never order peas anymore when dining out, irrationally suspecting they're just been used to treat someone's tennis elbow.

Do you have any sore spots, chronic injuries or tweaks on your body? If so, how do you treat them?

When I hear the term recovery, several images pop into my mind. Like the time I listlessly guzzled chicken soup and water while cocooned in my dorm room following my all-time worst hangover in college. (Which involved way too many Long Island Iced Teas and dancing on a table at an Irish pub – don’t ask.)  Or any manner of interchangeable patients healing after an unconventional yet brilliant surgery performed by Dr. House or the staff of Seattle Grace Hospital. But now, with thoughts of wellness dancing in my head like buff sugarplum fairies, I’ve also learned that recovery is an important part of exercise too.

Let’s say you go all bionic in the weight room, hoisting heavy free weights and Kettlebells with gusto. Using good form, of course. To get the most out of that workout, you need to recover with the proper nutrition. “After a hard training session, it’s essential to eat within 60 minutes to provide your cells the nutrients they need for an effective recovery,” notes Cory Demuth, Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach in Los Angeles.  “Protein is a critical component of a post-workout meal.”

Taking this advice helped tone up my muscles and bolster my pre-workout energy. Most mornings, I chug a homemade protein shake featuring unsweetened vanilla almond milk, frozen blueberries and a scoop of vegan protein powder immediately after working with my trainer.  As a member of FitFluential planning on attending the Fitness & Health Bloggers Conference in June, I was also interested to hear about Refuel with Chocolate Milk. So now you get the yummy goodness of lowfat chocolate milk to make your taste buds and muscles happy? Sign me up now!

It’s also important to let your muscles rest following intense workouts. “Recovery is as much a part of your workout routine as anything else, but I’m a proponent of an ‘active recovery’ plan,” continues DeMuth. “Chose to take a day off from the gym and instead opt for an outdoor walk, a stretching session, guided meditation or a casual bike ride. Keep your body active without doing anything to ‘overload’ when you’re taking a recovery day, which should be at least once a week.”

Do you regularly eat something within an hour of working out? If so, what are your recovery foods and beverages of choice?  How many days a week do you take off to rest after challenging workouts?

Still debating Team Edward versus Team Jacob, or worshipping the boy wizard who defeated Lord Voldemort? That’s soooooo last year. The new obsession for teenagers and pop-culture addicts of all ages, myself included, is now The Hunger Games. The movie from book one of Suzanne Collins’ brilliant trilogy, about a dystopian future where teens have to fight to the death in an annual reality show competition, opens on movie screens everywhere next weekend. While the gritty plot is enthralling, that fictional competition pales in comparison to the hunger games we play with ourselves. Here are a few of the symptoms:

1)      Lying to ourselves.  We’ve all heard that honesty is the best policy. That’s why it is ironic people who would never stretch the truth to get out of a speeding ticket or consider fudging their taxes will lie like crazy when it comes to their weight. You know what I mean. Blaming the dry cleaners when that favorite pair of black pants is tight or claiming water retention pounds from PMS for 27 days each month.  Shaving 10, 20 or 40 pounds off your driver’s license weight because you can’t bear to admit the truth, even when the DMV employee gives you a double-take after reviewing the form. (Yes I’ve had that experience firsthand!)

2)      Planting land mines. Parties have always been a huge overeating trigger. But instead of planning ahead for the occasion, you arrive at Mindy’s birthday soiree starving and consume half a plate of cupcakes before coming up for air. Or that time last week when you bought a large box of Oreo cookies for your significant other or children, even though they don’t like chocolate and its your equivalent of crack cocaine. Self-sabotage is not pretty.

3)      Being stuck in the past.  Over the past ten years, you’ve tried diets involving everything from cabbage soup to an overabundance of bananas and none of them have worked. That doesn’t mean that you are going to fail now. But rather than learning from past mistakes, many people assume their efforts are doomed from the start and give up within 48 hours.

What are some hunger games you’ve played with yourself? Have you broken any of these patterns and if so, how?

A fun lunch with Nora, Iris and yours truly! No we didn't drink all of the wine in the background.

He looked like a deer in headlights. At least that what I thought when the twenty-something blonde waiter, a cross between a skater boy and a non-tan Ken doll, tentatively approached our table. Maybe it’s because we were laughing so loud he could barely get a word in, or as Iris just tweeted, “he was clearly terrified of three hot, cougar-aged smart women.”  My theory is that our garcon, cognizant of his eventual tip, didn’t want to interrupt the happy glow of our fun lunch. Because friendship is just as important to wellness as exercise and nutrition.

No woman, or man, is an island. Okay, maybe Rush Limbaugh should be banished to some remote locale without the benefit of Gilligan or his friends. But I digress. All of the great ideas sparking in your brain become even brighter when you share them with like-minded souls. You know, people that get your warped sense of humor and whose “over-sharing” makes you like them even more. Today, I got together with Nora of the Life Lessons, Halfway Through blog, a long-time friend and impressive PR expert, and a new buddy, the hysterical Iris of The Bearded Iris, who despite her moniker, had no apparent overabundance of facial hair.

We laughed a lot. Talked about our blogs, and dreams and challenges along the way. Lovingly poked fun at the great guys in our lives.  Celebrated potential victories and cheered each other on. As I left, dashing out to another appointment, I felt uplifted – sort of like the endorphin rush following a hard spin class, without having to deal with runoff from the guy who sweats too much on the bike next to me.  Even hours later, the glow continues. It’s prompted new ideas for my blog and book. I easily drove by the Fresh Market, home of my favorite chocolate covered almonds, without stopping in to get a small bag of the treats. And I’m just happy to have some really great people in my life.

Do you make time regular time for camaraderie as part of your commitment to healthy living? When was the last time a friend, in-person or on-line, made your day even better?

The concept of water has always fascinated me.  I’m not a swimmer, mind you, so this isn’t about becoming one with the ocean while competing in an Ironman Triathlon (though I admire my buddies who do). I’m talking about the sense of peace that descends from being near the ocean, believing that wishes made over coins thrown in historic fountains really can come true and considering Aquaman to be the ultimate hottie of cartoon superheroes.  But nothing beats drinking the stuff, by the cup or gallon. Because unlike miracle pills or devices, this ubiquitous liquid really can help you obtain a healthier body for good.

As Professional Health Coach Lori L. Shemek, PhD, CLC, CNC of DLS Health Works, LLC explains, “Water is vital to weight loss success!  Our bodies are mostly water – 75%.  Mild dehydration equals inflammation, which causes weight gain.  Most people are walking around mildly dehydrated and do not even know it, suffering from headaches, joint pain, fatigue, hunger foggy thinking and much more.  Dehydrated cells cannot function optimally – they slow down and so does your metabolism. By drinking ample water, we are promoting the breakdown of fat. ”

Thirsty yet? I had to pause and chug a few hits from my water bottle before continuing on.

Curious about how much water should be consumed each day? While we’ve all heard the rule about striving for eight daily glasses, the Mayo Clinic says you might need more. For example, you need to drink extra water to compensate for fluid loss following exercise, which could be anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 cups following shorter workouts. Personally, I feel my best sipping at least 12 glasses of water a day, and more following butt-kicking exercise.

Plus drinking water helps you feel full. “Many people confuse thirst with hunger,” adds Lori.  “The brain has trouble distinguishing between the two so the next time you feel thirsty, drink water instead.”

Now that advice deserves a raised glass! What’s your hydration situation – reluctantly consume water when needed or guzzle the stuff like it’s going out of fashion? How has drinking water helped achieve your wellness goals?