Trim Mom

How to Have a Healthier Thanksgiving

Of course, WeightLoss quests during the holiday season can be TOUGH! The holiday season is notorious for packing on the pounds, but eating a good Thanksgiving meal doesn’t mean you have to eat fattening foods. By the same token, eating a healthy meal doesn’t mean you have to forego your Thanksgiving favorites. With Thanksgiving coming up, I just wanted to give you a few ideas on Healthy Cooking For Thanksgiving.

Here are some easy ways to tweak the classics to be a bit healthier for you and your family.

Spices
As long as you use tasting and add them in small increments, adding extra spices to your foods is a great way to cut back on calories. If the food is well seasoned, you won’t need to add butter or gravy to make it taste good. Plus, if food is hot or spicy, you tend to eat less of it!

Evaporated milk
Evaporated milk is great for adding to recipes like pies or gravy. It adds flavor without all the calories of cream. Just remember to use a product made from skim milk.

Ditch the fat
When it comes to turkey, it’s pretty easy to cut back on the greasy fat. Cook the turkey in a drip pan instead of one that collects the fat at the bottom. Before you eat the turkey, be sure to remove the skin because this is where hidden fat and extra calories can be found.

Don’t stuff your turkey
Stuffing absorbs most of the fat and calories you’d rather keep out. Don’t worry, I’m not saying you can’t have stuffing. I love stuffing too and don’t think I could eliminate it from my Thanksgiving celebration. However, you can have more healthy stuffing by cooking it in a separate pan instead of inside your turkey. If you use the drippings to make gravy, skim the fat off first. You can add broth to these dishes to keep the moisture without adding the bad stuff.

Lose the butter
Butter is a big offender on Thanksgiving. You can put it on almost anything and it adds lots of fat and calories. Instead, try using chicken broth and evaporated milk to add flavor to dishes like mashed potatoes without all the fat.

Watch the drinks
You may not realize it, but Thanksgiving calories can come from what you drink as well as what you eat. Try having water or juice with your meal rather than high-calorie drinks like eggnog, soda, shakes, or alcoholic beverages.

Salad for side dishes
A lot of what we eat on Thanksgiving comes in the form of side dishes rather than the main course. Why not skip the stuffing or the rolls and start with a salad instead? This is a healthy option to help fill you up before the meal so you eat less of the fatty offenders with your turkey. Just remember that salads can be bad for you too, depending what you put in them. Personally, I tend to drown salad in dressing which is not the best idea for trying to get or stay trim.

Even Carrots Can Make You Fat
Just one last thought…Remember that no matter how good something is for you, if you eat thousands of calories, you’re probably going to gain weight. Even healthy food should be enjoyed in moderation, so watch your portions as well as the kind of food you’re eating.

Use these tips for a healthier, trimmer Thanksgiving celebration. Enjoy your holiday!

Technorati Tags: diet, holiday cooking, holiday diet, holiday food, thanksgiving, thanksgiving meal, WeightLoss Tips

5 Basic WeightLoss Tips for Moms

If you’re at a loss at how to get started with WeightLoss or at are at a bit of a stand still, these basic, yet important, tips may help. Here are 5 basic WeightLoss tips to keep in mind when trying to trim those pounds.

1. More Lean Muscle = More Fat Burned
The more lean muscle mass you have, the more fat you’ll burn (even while you are sleeping). However, as each year passes, and older mom’s body tends to lose lean muscle mass and gain fat.

2. Skipping Meals Can Cause You to Gain Weight
As a busy mom, you may fall into the habit of skipping meals throughout the day. Why? Because cutting meals out of your day may cause your body to go into “starvation mode.” This will cause your metabolism to slow and make you gain weight even if you aren’t eating more. What a bummer!

3. Stress Can Make your Waist Fat
While you’re skipping meals, ongoing stress can cause your body to repeatedly release the hormone cortisol that makes your body deposit fat in your mid-abdomen/waist area. This means that your waist size can grow even if you do not ingest more calories. Not cool!

4. Something Has to Give
In order for you to lose weight, something must change. Either you need to burn more calories or take in less calories OR both. You can’t eat the same and maintain the same activity level and expect different results. What was that insanity quote? “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” by Albert Einstein

5. More is Not Better
Losing lots of weight fast is not ideal. Often times weight that is lost FAST does not last. Losing 1 to 2 pounds per week is more ideal. Slow and steady wins the race.

So, build more lean muscle, shoot for slow and steady, don’t skip meals, do stress relieving activities (exercise IS one), and CHANGE! Do you promise to eat breakfast tomorrow?

Technorati Tags: moms weightloss, WeightLoss Tips

WeightLoss Tip: Find an Exercise Activity You Enjoy

I’m sure you’ll agree that exercise is a significant part of your WeightLoss efforts or in trying to become or remain a Trim Mom. However, sticking with a workout plan can be challenging. If you have difficulty sticking with a fitness or exercise routine, try choosing an activity (or two) that is more fun. Studies have shown that people are more likely to stick exercise when they choose an activity they like and enjoy.

Here are some suggestions of activites you can do to get your blood flowing and your heart pumping:

Ride a bike
Go for a swim
Jump Rope to 4 great upbeat songs
Jump on a trampoline
Walk around the block or park while pushing a stroller
Run up the stairs in your house instead of walk
Dance with your kids to 4-5 great upbeat songs (if your child is too young to dance, carry him/her while you dance!)
Do some Hula Hooping
Go Ice Skating (or falling)
Shoot some hoops
Walk up a hill
Go rock climbing
Rollerblade
Go golfing and don’t get a golf cart
Play tennis (or hit a ball against a wall - you can usually find a cheap racket and maybe even balls at a swap meet or discount/donation store)
Ride a Ripstik
Play the Wii Sports Game
Do TaeBo (this worked wonderfully for me after my 2nd daughter was born)

If you used to play a sport when you were younger, do some sport-related activities (fielding softball ground balls is a much tougher workout for me now than it used to be….I really feel it in my legs the next day and I don’t think of it as “mandatory exercise” while I’m doing it).

Point is, if you put a little thought into it, chances are you can find 1 or 2 activities that you actually enjoy doing and mix them up to give yourself a fun and interesting way to fit exercise into your day and give yourself a decent workout to help with your quest to become (or remain) a Trim Mom.

Technorati Tags: exercise ideas, exercise tips, WeightLoss Tips

No Fair! It’s Easier for Men?

Did you know that losing weight is easier for men than it is for women? Apparently there are biological reasons why we have it tougher than men when it comes to WeightLoss. That’s so not fair!

According to an article I recently read, men naturally burn calories faster than women. Not only that, because of estrogen, women tend to “collect” fat in areas that are tougher to trim down (hips, thighs, butt!).

This article also explains why my body suddenly began to want to hold on to the calories I consume rather than use them up like it used to.

If you’re wondering why it’s always seemed like the men in your life had less of a struggle with WeightLoss than you, CLICK HERE to read this article on metabolism changes and “A Different Kind of Energy Crisis.”

Technorati Tags: metabolism, mom, WeightLoss Tips, women