This post is my 100th consecutive post since declaring on July 14, 2013 that I would post something daily to this blog over the next 365 days. Prior to that I had only posted once or twice a month, and even skipped a few months. That declaration meant that I would have to create a new habit: the habit of writing and posting daily.

A tool that has helped me develop my new habit of writing daily posts was created by comedian Jerry Seinfeld to help him write new material every day. He used a large year-at-a-glance calendar, and for every day that he wrote new material, he got to derive pleasure from drawing a big red “X” through that day. If he didn’t write, he didn’t get to draw the big red “X” through that day. Seinfeld found that drawing the Xs was fun and rewarding, so he kept doing it. Before long, he created a chain of red Xs. The idea is to never break the chain by not writing!

I wanted to start my chain as soon as I learned of the idea from my brother, David. I immediately printed out my own calendar and marked big red “Xs” through all the days I had already written posts for this blog.

Don’t break the chain. In my case, the only way to not break the chain is by writing and posting something to this blog every single day. The thought of breaking the chain always motivates me to write and post something, especially on those days that I don’t feel like writing. As of today, I’m proud to say that my chain now has 100 Xs, which you can see in the photo!

This tool is very powerful for driving change, and can be used for any new habit you want to create. Maybe you want to exercise daily. Maybe you want to quit smoking. Maybe you want to eat more veggies. Maybe you want to stop eating junk food. Maybe you want to read daily. Maybe you want to journal daily. Maybe you want to meditate daily. Maybe you want to write material for a book daily. It could be anything! Whatever it is, every day that you do the thing that you want to do, or eliminate the thing that you don’t want to do, you get to draw a big red “X” over that day.

An even bigger reward than getting to draw the big red “X” on your calendar every day and creating a long chain is getting the benefit of the new habit! If you’re exercising, adding healthy food, and/or eliminating junk food every day, you will lose weight. If you’re writing every day, eventually you will have a large body of work. If you’re reading daily, eventually you will have read several books. Whatever it is that you are doing, as long as you are doing it daily, you will make real progress toward achieving your goal!

Try it. And remember, don’t break the chain!

I was first introduced to the bright red dried raisin-like berries about eight years ago by a good friend from Chengdu, China. She told me that as a little girl, she was told by her Grandmother to eat five goji berries every day to remain in excellent health. That advice came from their local Traditional Chinese Medicine Man.

Goji berries, which come from a shrub native to China, are rich in antioxidants, including carotenoids such as beta-carotene and zeaxanthin. Antioxidants neutralize free radicals and help prevent cancer, reduce inflammation, protect eye sight, and promote overall good health.

Also known as Fructus lycii, wolfberry, and Lycium barbarum, dried goji berries look like bright red raisins and have a very pleasant mildly sweet, slightly sour taste. The dried berries have a chewy texture. Goji berries can be reconstituted in hot water or tea, or cooked with whole grains such as rice or quinoa to add a slightly sweet taste.

According to WebMD, goji berries may interact with warfarin, a blood thinner, as well as diabetes and blood pressure medications. However, when eaten in moderation, goji berries appear to be safe.

I love adding goji berries to hot whole-grain cereals along with walnuts, flax or chia seeds, banana and diced apple. I also love adding about 5-10 goji berries to plain hot water. The goji berries become soft and sweeten the water.

You can find goji berries in your local health food store or Asian market.

Is there something in your life that is not working? Maybe the problem is that you’re overweight. Maybe the problem is that you have a health issue that requires changing your eating habits. Maybe the problem is that you want to quit smoking. Maybe the problem is that you want to be more centered. Regardless of what it is that’s not working, if you don’t do something differently, your problem will persist.

Albert Einstein described insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Sounds pretty obvious, doesn’t it? But think about it. How often do you wish for something to be different, yet you continue to do the same things over and over again out of habit? Of course nothing changes! The only way to get a different result is to do something different. In other words, you must change your habits.

Changing habits is not easy. If it were, nobody would be fat; nobody would be addicted to nicotine, alcohol, drugs, or gambling; nobody would be stuck in an abusive relationship, nobody would be stuck in a rut, and we would all be living our perfect lives.

You have to be aware that you have a problem before you can make changes to habits that address that problem. Sometimes your problem is obvious, and sometimes it’s not. Your problem might be obvious to others before it becomes obvious to you. Or maybe you are aware, yet in denial that it is a problem. For example, you could be obese and you might be aware that you are overweight, yet you may not believe it’s a problem, when actually it is. Maybe it doesn’t seem like a problem to you because you have plenty of clothes that fit you and you carry yourself well and come across with confidence. Yet your family and friends are concerned for your health and they’re the ones who think you need to lose weight.

There are pros and cons to making changes, especially when it comes to lifestyle changes. For example, some of the pros of losing weight might include looking good, being healthier, feeling good about yourself, feeling more confident, feeling more attractive, being able to wear smaller, more fashionable styles, being able to be more active, and/or having more stamina.

The cons of losing weight might include giving up your favorite foods, eating foods you don’t like as much, more effort to prepare meals, feeling like you’re missing out at big meals with family and friends, getting taunted, teased, or picked on by others because you’re eating differently, and/or changing your persona if your identity comes from being fat. If activities with certain friends or with family revolve around food, you may find that you must spend less time around those people or even stop spending time with them altogether in order to change. So losing weight could alter or eliminate key relationships. Change can be scary.

Becoming aware that you have a problem is the first step. Notice how your problem impacts you and those you love. Notice how things would be for you and others if the problem were eliminated.

Becoming aware of the pros and cons of changing your behavior in order to eliminate the problem will help you to know if you are ready to make changes. Create a list of the pros and cons of eliminating the problem, whether the problem is being overweight, having a health condition, being a smoker, or something else.

If the cons are more important to you than the pros, your fear of what you are giving up outweighs your hope of what there is to gain by being successful. The reality is that you are not ready for change and will probably not be successful. And that’s ok.

It can take time for the pros to become more important to you than the cons. It could be a process, or it could be some event such as a diagnosis or reaching a certain weight, that suddenly makes the pros of changing become significantly more important to you. Regardless of how it happens, once the pros are significantly more important to you than the cons, you are well on your way to making lasting changes that finally will get you different results.

Be present. Many of us hear that expression used quite frequently. I even mentioned being present as a way to help break the cycle of mindless eating in yesterday’s post. But what does it mean to be present?

Being present means noticing, being aware of, paying attention to, or focusing on what is going on within and/or around you in that moment. Being present can mean noticing things about yourself such as how you feel, if you’re hungry or full, if you’re thirsty, how your food tastes, if you’re tired, if you’re excited, if you’re tense, or if you’re warm or cold. Being present can mean noticing things around you such as the scenery, the sky (is it cloudy or clear?), noise levels, smells, lighting, or traffic. Being present with another person can mean focusing on or being fully engaged with that person.

When you’re present with another person, you get the opportunity to connect with that person and deepen the relationship. Think about how it makes you feel when you have someone’s undivided attention. Doesn’t it make you feel great when someone is actually listening to you rather than scanning the room for someone else to talk to or checking their smart phone for emails or text messages? We all feel that way!

This evening I am going to a black tie event that’s being held at the Nixon Library. I’m having my nails and hair done, and will wear my favorite midnight-blue, full-length gown. I purchased that gown for a similar event about seven years ago, when I carried over 45 extra pounds. I just had the dress altered so that I could wear it tonight; about eight inches were removed.

You can bet that I will be present tonight! I will be aware of how good it feels to be dressed up and feel beautiful inside and out. I will take in the beautiful and historical surroundings of the Nixon Library. I will focus on those with whom I engage in conversations by maintaining eye contact and not letting my eyes wander to see who else is in the room (or check my smart phone). I will eat slowly and enjoy the special vegan meal that has been arranged for me. I will listen intently to the panel discussions.

So be present. Put away your smart phone or whatever it is that takes you out of the present moment and tune in to your world, even if only for five minutes. Notice what is happening around you. Notice where you are. Notice how you feel. Notice what you eat. Engage with those with whom you interact. You may just notice that time will slow down and life won’t pass you by.

Have your ever found yourself holding an empty bag of chips (or some other food) and wondering how could it possibly be empty? Didn’t you just grab a completely full bag only a few minutes ago? And weren’t you only going to have one or two? Certainly not the whole thing!

Mindless eating. It can spell disaster for your diet as well as your health. Especially if it’s something you tend to do on a regular basis. And it’s very easy to do.

We all have many demands in our very busy lives. There’s too much to do and too little time to get it all done. With the convenience of processed, packaged foods, it’s become quite normal to grab foods that are quick, tasty, and convenient, and eat them while doing something else (multitasking). And if you’re like many people, quick and tasty usually wins out over slower and nutritious. And while you’re busy working on that “something else”, you’re not paying attention to how much you’re eating or that you’re full.

Maybe you give yourself a much-needed break from your busy life to relax to read a good book, or watch a movie, show, or sporting event. You get comfortable with some of your favorite foods. The problem is that you continuously feed that food into your mouth while focusing on the entertainment, oblivious to what and how much you’re eating.

How can you break that cycle?

Don’t eat while distracted or on the run. Be present and aware of what you are eating. Sit down and eat deliberately. Eat slowly and taste your food. Enjoy your food, enjoy the flavors and textures. Chew your food completely. Focus on how you feel while you are eating. Are you getting filled up? And finally, either take the time to prepare your own foods with fresh, healthy, whole ingredients or purchase healthy quick snacks such as pre-cut veggies and fruit, or raw nuts. Throw fresh fruits and/or vegetables into your blender for a quick, nutritious smoothie.

Try it! If you do this, you will be likely to eat less because you will actually notice when you begin to feel full. You will also absorb more nutrients by eating more slowly and giving your body the opportunity to extract the nutrients from the foods you eat. And eating healthier foods will give your body more nutrients to absorb. You will feel better and you will stop your weight from creeping up or even lose weight.

Make the switch from mindless to mindful eating and see what happens!

Have you ever ordered food in a restaurant and asked for something to be left off? Maybe you see the perfect salad on the menu and everything looks great except that you don’t want the croutons, so you order the salad without the croutons. Or maybe you want that sandwich without the mayo. But how often has the food actually arrived without the item you asked to be left off?

Of course, being plant-based (vegan) means no meat, dairy, or eggs. I often find great salads, sandwiches, and pastas on menus that are loaded with veggies and have cheese either in or on them. So all I have to do ask them to leave off the cheese, make sure that nothing is cooked in butter, and that there’s no dairy in the sauce. Simple, right?

More often than not, my meal arrives, cheese and all. When I bring it to the server’s attention, I’m usually asked “would you like me to take it back?” Well, yes, I would! Back it goes. I wait, hungry and watching others eat their meals. It comes back with most of the cheese scraped off. But there’s still cheese! If I send it back again, the server gets annoyed. My other option is to just pick around the cheese that’s left. Have you ever experienced that?

Beverly Lynn Bennett describes a great way to assure that “no dairy” means “no dairy” in her book “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Vegan Living”. Tell your server that you are allergic to dairy. It works because no restaurant manager wants to the backlash of an allergic reaction on his/her hands.

Ever since I read about telling servers that I’m allergic to dairy, I’ve tried it every time I eat out in a restaurant. It works like a charm! The servers are very accommodating and I have not found any dairy surprises in anything I’ve ordered.

Regardless, servers work hard, even when they don’t get your order exactly right. Always treat and tip your servers well!

Today is the 10th anniversary of the passing of someone very, very special, to me, as well as to many, many others. My uncle Dennis. In honor of this 10th anniversary, my brother, Dave, compiled and released a series of videos from Dennis’ memorial. What does this have to do with laughter? Everything!

Dennis was by far one of the funniest people I have ever known. And I am not alone in feeling that way. I just watched 28 video tributes to Dennis loaded with gems about his sense of humor. Dennis loved to laugh and he loved make those around him laugh. Dennis did things like show up to help his friends move with a note from his Mom excusing him from helping, or drive through tunnels blaring Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture with the windshield cleaner spraying, the windshield wipers going, headlights flashing, all the windows down, and his arm out the window conducting.

Dennis taught me by example to laugh and to find the humor in things, even the bad things. For example, when he was undergoing treatment for brain cancer and seeing Drs. Green and Cloughesy (sounds like “Klausy”) at UCLA Neurosurgery, he asked that they introduce themselves in the following way: “I’m Dr. Green and I feel keen; I’m Dr. Cloughesy and I feel lousy”. He had a gift for finding comedy in the irony and the absurd.

Why is this so important? Because humor and laughter trigger healthy physical changes in your body by strengthening your immune system, boosting your energy, diminishing your pain, and reducing the damaging effects of stress. Plus shared humor and laughter strengthen relationships by bringing people together and increasing intimacy and happiness. And the best part is that this medicine is fun, it’s free, and it’s easy to use! For more on the benefits of laughter, go to http://www.helpguide.org/life/humor_laughter_health.htm.

Miss you, Deno.

Orange flesh, starchy, sweet, delicious, satisfying. Is it a sweet potato? Is it a yam? It could be either. We use the names interchangeably here in the U.S. So what is the difference between a sweet potato and a yam?

Sweet potatoes are yellow or orange tubers that taper to a point on both ends. One type has a paler, thin, light yellow skin with a pale yellow flesh that is not sweet and has a dry, crumbly texture similar to a white baking potato. The other type has a darker, thicker, orange to reddish skin with a sweet, deep orange flesh with a moist texture. This darker type is often mistakenly called “yam”.

A true yam is a tuber of Dioscorea batatas, a tropical vine. Yams are in no way related to the sweet potato. Yams are generally sweeter than sweet potatoes, and can also be much larger.

While both are great sources of fiber and other nutrients, there are differences in terms of nutrition. Both are assumed to be rich in vitamin A due to their orange flesh, an indicator of foods rich in beta-carotene, a precursor to vitamin A. One hundred fifty grams (g) of sweet potatoes (about one cup diced) has 18,866 IU of vitamin A, well over three times the daily requirement for vitamin A. Here’s a surprise: the same amount of yams (150 g) has only 207 IU of vitamin A, only about 4% of the daily requirement.

That same 150 g of yams have 1,224 milligrams (mg) of potassium, over one third of the daily requirement. Compare that with 150 g of sweet potatoes, which has 448 mg of potassium. Yams have more vitamin C than sweet potatoes with 25.6 mg (43% of the daily requirements) compared to only 3.2 mg in sweet potatoes. Yams have 600 micrograms of manganese, 30% of the daily requirements and twice the amount of sweet potatoes. Yams also pack more calories and total carbohydrates than sweet potatoes. One hundred fifty grams of yams have 177 calories and 42 g total carbohydrate compared to sweet potatoes, with 114 calories and 27 g total carbohydrate.

Whether you are eating a sweet potato or a yam, you are getting fiber plus many great nutrients and phytonutrients. Serve your potatoes with a variety of other vegetables, including leafy greens, to be sure you’re getting all your daily nutritional requirements.

I love roasted sweet potatoes (or yams?). What is your favorite way to prepare sweet potatoes or yams?

Resources

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_potato
  
• http://homecooking.about.com/od/howtocookvegetables/a/sweetpotatodiff.htm
  
• http://nutritiondata.self.com/
  

How healthy can this be: a low-carb, low-calorie diet that restricts you to 500 calories per day? What if I told you that it includes one “gorge” day every week in which you are instructed to gorge on high-fat, high-cholesterol, high-sugar foods such as bacon, sausage, eggs, high sugar cereals, bagels with cream cheese, fast food (be sure to “supersize” it), and Haagan Dazs ice cream, to name a few. And what if I told you that you are required to inject yourself with a hormone that is produced during pregnancy and also produced by some cancerous tumors in order for this diet to work? What if I also told you that some doctors actually prescribe this diet?

This is a very real diet known as the hCG diet, named for the human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) hormone and is based on a diet developed in 1954 by Dr. A. T. W. Simeons, MD based on observations. The diet claims to result in permanent weight loss of one pound per day and to be the only diet to isolate and target unwanted fat in specific areas such as thighs and buttocks. The diet also claims no hunger or muscle loss and that it will reset metabolism to a “normal” rate which allows followers to eat normally without weight re-gain. Why the hCG hormone? Because according to Dr. Simeons, hCG accelerates fat mobilization from certain parts of the body when combined with a very low-calorie diet.

Does this diet really work? No! Simeons’ results were not reproduced by other researchers. Any weight loss is attributed to the calorie restrictions and not to hCG, and no re-distribution of fat was observed. Furthermore, hCG is a drug that has not been approved as safe by the FDA. In fact, the FDA required Simeons and others to include a disclaimer stating all of the above. And finally, the FDA states that over-the-counter hCG-containing products are fraudulent and ineffective for weight loss.

Calorie-restricted diets are not sustainable and not healthy. If you’ve ever lost weight on a calorie-restricted diet, chances are that you gained all the weight back and then some because you go right back to your old habits as soon as you go off the diet. Furthermore, according to Mayo Clinic Nutritionist Jennifer K. Nelson, R.D., L.D., calorie restriction has risks, such as gallstone formation, irregular heartbeat, and an imbalance of the electrolytes that keep the body's muscles and nerves functioning properly.

There is nothing healthy about this diet! It’s not sustainable. There’s no positive lifestyle change. Followers must starve on a 500 calorie/day diet. Followers are taught that it’s ok to gorge on the worst possible foods for health and weight management. Followers are injected with hCG, a drug that has not been approved as safe by the FDA.

Consuming a whole, plant-based diet is so much simpler and safer. It’s satisfying and naturally low-calorie and low-fat, without being restrictive. It’s an easy-to-adopt lifestyle that if followed, is sustainable and leads to permanent good health and weight loss.

Resources

• http://aestheticmedicinenews.com/follow-jeffs-hcg-weight-loss.htm
  
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_chorionic_gonadotropin
  
• Mark R. Stein, MD., Ronald E. Julis, MD, Carl C. Peck, MD, William Hinshaw, MS Hosp. Pharm., John E. Sawicki, MD, and John J. Deller, Jr., MD, Ineffectiveness of human chorionic gonadotropin in weight reduction: a double-blind study, 1976, 29, American J. of Clinical Nutr., p. 940-948. (http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/29/9/940.full.pdf)
  
• http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/hcg-diet/an02091
  

When was the last time you were told to eat more chips? The more kale chips you eat, the better. Why? Because kale chips, made from fresh kale, are one of the healthiest, most nutritional snacks you can eat. Plus, they’re so good that you probably can’t eat just one!

Kale is loaded with antioxidants, which help boost your immune system and lower your risk for chronic degenerative diseases, including cancer. Antioxidants also give kale anti-inflammatory properties that may help reduce the risk of heart disease, arthritis, asthma, and autoimmune disorders. Kale is also a great source of calcium, potassium, copper, and manganese and a good source of dietary fiber, protein, thiamin, riboflavin, Folate, iron, magnesium, and phosphorous.

The fiber in kale cleans your intestinal tract and helps lower blood cholesterol levels, which reduces the risk of heart disease. Kale is low in calories and fat, and has no cholesterol, so it won’t make you fat or clog your arteries!

Kale chips are incredible! Light, crispy, crunchy, and tasty, they are super easy to make. See the recipe I posted on the “Healthy Recipes” page (under “more…”) to make yours today and enjoy them as a snack or with your favorite sandwich.