3 Ways to Prevent Emotional Overeating

June 17, 2016 by Richard Battista

Whether you happen to overeat after a stressful day at work or to simply reward yourself, it is common for individuals to overeat to fulfill their junk foods cravings, get something off their minds, or simply are bored. Regardless of the reason, overeating in general is a really unhealthy happen that tends to exponentially increase obesity for Americans across the country.

“Emotional overeating happens when we eat to cope with stress, either in the absence of hunger or passed the point of being satiated,” said Dr. Heather Meggers-Wright, licensed psychologist of Behavioral Health Clinic of Wausau.

Dr. Heather Meggers-Wright also provides professional insight in relation to the types of food we crave as we overeat. With stress, we often crave foods high in calories that take our minds off whatever is stressing us out or negatively affecting our mental or emotional health.

In addition to simply gaining weight, overeating can also lead to some psychological effects related to decreased self-esteem and feeling sad or upset the unhealthy food consumed.

To avoid extreme cases such as bulimia or consist overeating, try to follow the below steps to prevent any negative health effects from this habit.

Know yourself

Find a healthy replacement if you generally consume high calorie food when you are stressed or have anxiety. Instead of going to the chocolate cake first, try eating your favorite fruit or low-calorie dessert to supplement you craving. You know yourself better than anyone so making the best food choices is really up to you and you only.

Small snacks

Your body takes about three hours to digest a meal. Eating small snacks throughout the day instead of large meals will help suppress hunger on a regular basis. A ready supply of carrots, apples, or nuts will both give you sufficient energy without causing drowsiness that heavy or high calorie foods tend to have.

Cultural norms

On a macro-level, social events such as Thanksgiving or weddings are often seen as special occasions geared towards overeating in the name of celebration. As you attend these gatherings, exercise self-control to prevent overeating that would deter the healthy habits in your day to day.

If you have a tendency to overindulge at these times, one tip is to eat healthier foods before going to said event in order to prevent any kind of overeating. Also, incorporating lean or vegetarian proteins to curb your appetite is also very useful when faced with the urge to overeat. Some healthy foods high in protein include eggs, beans and poultry.

Eating Well After Exercise

April 1, 2016 by Richard Battista

Eating anywhere within the hour after you workout is the most ideal timeframe to replenish your body’s muscles, joints and bones in the most effective way possible. In the process of repair and healing, consuming natural foods that provide your body with the necessary vitamins and nutrients is vital to help on a larger level. Lack of proper recovery can not only have your body feeling weaker than it should, but it also hinders any progress with building up endurance and lean muscle tissue.

An ideal recovery meal should include lean protein, good fat and healthy starches to provide your body with a well-balanced nutritional base when you are healing from the intense physical activity. Lean proteins such as eggs or chicken along with complex starches such as quinoa, sweet potato and beans are all great ways to replenish energy levels.

If you happened to work out more than an hour, seriously consider drinking a sports drink to rehydrate or provide different forms of energy lost during intense physical activity. After certain high intensity workouts, there comes a time that simply consuming water is not enough to provide your body with the energy it needs to actually recover to its full potential. Energy drink intake is specific to different needs, so be sure to do a bit of research to find which beverages are most beneficial to your goals, whether it is weight loss, toning or building up muscle.

While consuming a fair amount of healthy fats and proteins is the most ideal way to recharge energy in your body, one of the most unproductive things you can do is to overeat. If weight loss is one of your primary goals after working out, taking the time to evaluate what you are putting into your body before actually doing so is a great mental tool to practice some self-control. Some people may use the excuse that they in fact “earned” eating sweets or processed foods, but this in fact hinders progress with any goals you have previously set for yourself.

To maintain healthy cells which are constantly building and repairing themselves, consuming a spectrum of foods low in artificial sugar and fat is a key tip to remember as you work out throughout the week. In other words, the phrase “you are what you eat” is best to keep in mind before you end up splurging on junk food you may regret eating later on in the day.

Staying Healthy in the Winter

February 14, 2016 by Richard Battista

Massive winter storms that force us to stay at home can sometimes be quite relaxing, but it’s fair to assume that some Americans often get into this rhythm of abrupt laziness once the temperature outside hits below forty degrees. Unfortunately, this trend has become commonplace for individuals of all ages because people have the tendency to indulge when the weather is not necessarily particularly inviting outside.

Although these fat-based comfort foods make you feel satisfied, the overall lack of nutrition causes your body to be more sluggish, often times more ways than one. While most of us can be tempted to be bundled up enjoying some hot chocolate, questioning whether or not your body needs the empty calories from a certain product is the best way to go in terms of eating well throughout the winter.

With this in mind, it’s vital to maintain a steady, nutrition based calorie intake throughout the winter as a means of boosting your immune system, feeling more energized and to actually engage in physical activity regardless of the temperature outside. Especially for the elderly, as you age well into your sixties or seventies your body naturally absorbs less nutrients from food, so pay special attention to how these loved ones are keeping up with their health.

The below is a general nutrition guide to follow during the winter months:

-Staying in the house during the wintertime not only increases physical fatigue for many people, but also creates an overall lack of vitamin D to lack of exposure to the sun. If you are unable to intake vitamin D from the sun naturally, consuming products such as insoluble fibers (grains), egg yolks and seafood which is very low in fat.

-Try your best to consume at least two to three servings of dark, leafy green vegetables which are super rich in antioxidants. Even if these types of vegetables are not necessarily your most favorite types of produce, you can try incorporating them in soups or stews or pairing them with sweeter vegetables such as yams.

-Carrots and yams have the naturally high sugar content that allow them to mask the not so sweet or sometimes bitter flavor of leafy green vegetables which are packed with vitamins. One resourceful way to convince your children or even other adults that are not too fond of green vegetables to consume is by combining them in smoothies which would cover any non-sweet taste.

-With oranges, grapefruit and other citrus fruit in season during the cold, winter months, make a special effort to ingest these heavily packed vitamin C goods that are rich in flavonoids to increase good cholesterol. Doctors and various other medical professionals agree that it is much better for your health to actually consume the fruit in its entirety instead of processed drinks with a high level of artificial sugar.

Indulging in an occasional scoop of ice cream or two won’t necessarily be immediately detrimental, but please bear in mind that not forgetting those leafy green vegetables or a bowl of oatmeal can go a long way in terms of preventing sickness. For more information to stay well this winter take a look at Fairfax’s article which touches upon a variety of ways to help this process.

A Healthy Lifestyle Promotes Better Aging

August 10, 2014 by Richard Battista

The more active and healthy women stay, the better the aging process will be.

In a recent article, Fox News talks about how maintaining a healthy lifestyle, especially during stressful times in ones life can help reduce aging effects on the body. In a new study, 239 women between the ages of 50 to 65 were examined by researchers to see how their healthy diet and lifestyle affected their stress levels and aging to their body at the cellular level. The participants of the study were asked to report their health and behaviors in addition to major stressful situations in their lives such as losing a job, a divorce that occurred during this year long study.

In order for the researchers to measure the patient’s stress levels on a cellular level, the researchers measured the length of cell structures called telomeres. Telomeres are used as protective cap at the end of the chromosomes. It is believed that a cell’s length is related to and thought to be an index of cell’s aging. The researchers took blood samples for each of the patients at the beginning and end of the study. This was in to measure the changes in the white blood cell telomeres.

The results of the study showed that major stressful events in the subject’s life directly linked with a shortening in the telomeres. On the other hand, the women who participated in healthy behaviors had a decrease in decline of telomere length. However, for the women that didn’t eat right, exercise or slept less, they experienced more telomere shortening. One can conclude from this particular study that staying active, having a well balanced diet and sleeping well during high periods of stress are key to stop the advanced aging of our immune cells.

Healthy living is especially important to promote and keep up in order to prevent our bodies from premature aging and under times of pressures and stress such as death and caregiving. Even though the results of this study fall in line with many other studies that were similar, the researchers still noted that a body’s aging has many contributing factors such as genetics, behaviors and stressors over the course of one’s life.

Healthy Eating Becomes Unhealthy Obsession

July 26, 2014 by Richard Battista

Obsessing over the way you change your eating habits can actually be unhelathy.

In today’s society, advertisements and advice on how to eat healthy cannot be avoided. Healthy eating choices are beyond encouraged; they are nearly required, as advertisements push for a surge in pure and organic products in diets. As a result of this dedication from popular culture, a new eating disorder has developed, according to an article recently completed by The Times.

At the start of orthorexia nervosa, a change in eating habits is pursued. An individual sees the pressure to eat healthier and vows to veer towards pure and organic foods. At first, this is a healthy choice, as a healthier diet is always a good thing. However, with time, this choice can develop into an obsession and a disorder, as the sufferer stops to think obsessively on the ingredients of every meal prior to consumption. With time, the sufferer will start to eat less and less, as they amend their requirements for foods to become even stricter and find fewer foods that meet said requirements; essentially, eventually all foods that are not deemed pure enough are purged from the diet. What started as a healthy choice becomes an unhealthy obsession with eating healthy.

The danger of the disorder, according to psychologist Karin Kratina, is when the food choices become so restrictive in variety and calories that the health of the sufferer starts to suffer. The condition is relatively new, but gaining attention; popular food blogger Jordan Young brought the disorder to the attention of the public, as she spoke of her own obsession with eating healthy. Young spoke of the obsession’s role in going from a healthy eater to unhealthy in physique.

While little is known about the condition thus far, the United States’ Eating Disorder Association does acknowledge some possible causes for the condition. It is believed that orthorexia stems from any combination of the following factors—a compulsion for complete control, a need to escape one’s fears, a desire to be thin, a pursuit to improve self-esteem, a search for spirituality through food or the inclination to use food as a means of creating an identity.

No Meats are Good, But Processed Meats are Particularly Bad

June 12, 2014 by Richard Battista

Red meat can be especially harmful to men and can lead to heart disease.

According to a study recently published in an American Heart Association journal entitled Circulation: Heart Failure, and summarized for an article completed by Science Daily, an excess of processed meats in male diets leads to increased risk of incident and death via heart failure.

Processed meats are preserved by smoking, curing, salting or adding preservatives; none of these processes are beneficial to a diet, but do serve to measurably increase taste. Some popular examples include cold cuts, sausage, bacon and hot dogs. It is no mystery that processed meats are not a positive addition to diet; they commonly contain sodium, nitrates, phosphates and other food additives, as well as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

However, the Cohort of Swedish Men study has recently concluded that, while none of these factors are particularly positive in terms of diet, they may all contributed to an increased risk of heart failure. The study, which is the first to examine the effects of processed red meat in comparison to unprocessed meats, included just over thirty seven thousand male participants, ranging in age from forty-five to seventy-nine years old. All participants had no history of heart failure, ischemic heart disorder or cancer.

At the start of the study, participants were asked to complete a questionnaire on food intake and various lifestyle choices. From this information, the men were divided into two groups—those who would receive the excessive amount of over seventy-five grams of processed red meats daily and those who would be given an acceptable amount of less than twenty-five grams per day.

The health of the men was charted starting in 1998 and continued until the date of heart failure diagnosis, death or the end of the study in 2010. In the twelve years of observation, almost three thousand men were diagnosed and two hundred and sixty six died of heart failure. The group of men receiving over seventy-five grams of processed meat daily had a twenty-six percent higher risk of heart failure. Specifically, with every fifty grams of processed meats, risk of heart failure incident increased by eight percent and chances of death from heart failure rose thirty eight percent.

From these findings, researchers encourage all consumers avoid processed meat in diet in order to decrease the likelihood of heart failure. On the issue of unprocessed meats, which do contain fewer food additives and are usually lower in sodium, researchers still encourage moderation; limit diet to one or two services per week.