Do you need to take Supplements to be Healthy?

As a Health Educator, I receive countless offers from companies wanting me to offer their products to my clientele. Everything from whey protein to vitamins & Acai berry drinks. I do take supplements myself, but believe that with the right diet, my clients really don’t NEED to take supplements. So here’s a list of the supplements that I currently take & why: Multi-Vitamin – I do recommend that everyone take a good multi-vitamin. I don’t recommend a particular brand. Just make sure that it has the Consumer Lab’s seal of quality on it. Calcium – Women between the ages of 24 & 50 have an RDA of 800/1000mg of Calcium for bone health. Calcium is best absorbed in quantities less than 500mg, so I take one tablet 2x daily. Although I do eat a lot of leafy green vegetables, I don’t always consume dairy. This ensures that I have strong Read More . . .

The Gift of Elizabeth

NOTE: pronouns (he/she) were intentionally interchanged in this post A few years ago I had a client approach me for a Valentine’s Day gift-certificate of Nutritional Counseling for her husband. "He really needs to start working out and eating better. He’s getting fat & I think he could really use your help." He never called me to schedule his appointments. I knew that he wouldn’t. One would probably think that I would be a huge advocate of giving the gift of Elizabeth; after all, it’s a win for everyone. Right? Well, not necessarily. Purchasing health related gifts for your loved ones is a delicate gift to give. This applies to purchasing personal training, nutritional counseling, gym memberships or even workout equipment and fitness gadgets like the bodybugg. If you’re reading this blog, you are probably somewhat interested in your health. You know how good you feel by eating foods that Read More . . .

You Can’t Fool Mother Nature

Last night I saw this commercial for the Jenny Craig weight loss system. It's Valerie Bertinelli stating that for the first year in 20 years that she will not be making a new year's resolution for weight loss, because she has hit her goal & maintained it. The commercial kind of hit a chord with me because I feel very similarly. For the first time since I've been on my nutrition journey, I feel like I'm not 'white knuckling' it. People who know me probably want to smack me right now. They'd probably say, "What the h*ll are you talking about? You're not fat." I was over-fat 10 years ago & came to my smaller resting size about 6-7 years ago. To the unobserving eye, although my weight has shifted in small increments (maybe not even enough to notice), I haven't had huge fluctuations; I am at a good size Read More . . .

In the interest of Self-Disclosure

To so many folks battling with their weight, next month’s O Magazine cover shows an unre-touched Oprah at her current weight, next to a photo taken 4 years ago, is like reading a page from their own diary. It’s an all too familiar story of weight lost, feeling confidence & power over food, and then regaining the weight. Oprah: "I’m mad at myself. I’m embarrassed. I can’t believe that after all these years, all the things I know how to do, I’m still talking about my weight. I look at my thinner self and think, ‘How did I let this happen again?’" I empathize with Oprah’s struggle, and anyone else who has struggled with their eating and health habits. And HABIT is the key word there. We are the size and shape we are because of our habits. As a Wellness Coach I help people change their behaviors, or rather, Read More . . .

Wellcoaches is On Board!

I have gotten my first sponsor for the Total Health Challenge. Yippee! I am a licensed Wellness Coach through wellcoaches, so I thought it would be a great idea if each of the participants in the program gets one-on-one wellness coaching. In addition, each of the participating trainers will receive free tuition to complete the wellness coach certification on their own. It's a win for everyone! Copyright Elizabeth Sherman. Purchase a Bodybugg through Elizabeth Sherman. Read More . . .

What do you say to yourself?

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my bodybugg? I also have the display device which, when I originally got it, didn't think it was that useful. After all, I uploaded my information on a pretty consistent basis – twice or three times a day. Since it doesn't take that long to upload the data from the armband, it was really easy for me to keep track of the number of calories I was burning. Well, once I got the digital display, I realized that I didn't need to update as often as I had been doing, because the digital display allows me to see almost real time how many calories I'm burning. Yes, Exactly! It allows me to be even more anal retentive than I had been before! So anyway, I recently set a goal to burn 100 calories per hour, or 2400 calories per day. I burn Read More . . .

I’m not going to feel guilty on Vacation

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was on vacation last week; and I ate. A lot! So the next question you might ask is, "Did you wear your Bodybugg?" No, I did not. I wore it when I exercised – because I have the display device, and I wanted to know how many calories I was burning. There were a few days that I really wish that I had worn it because Gary & I were so active that I was curious to know how many calories I was burning. The main reason I didn't wear it was because of the food. I was going to eat what I wanted to eat regardless of how many calories I burned; and also add to it that I was eating restaurant food, which, in my opinion, is more difficult to estimate calories than the national debt. I was on vacation, Read More . . .

Custom Calories?

Whether you use the Bodybugg Weight Managemtent System or fitday or the daily plate, or sparkpeople, to log your food, One of the complaints is that it takes a long time to find the food that you want to log. When I first started using fitday, I remember I typed in "milk" and got 350 items! As with any new activity, it takes a while to get familiar with the new way of doing things; and that's uncomfortable. The key in being successful in the new behavior is getting through the discomfort. One thing that's a HUGE pain in the rear whenever you use a logging tool is not only finding the foods that you eat (and remembering how they're listed) but then entering the foods that aren't in the system that you consume. Typically, we each eat about 100 foods over & over & over again. So, once you Read More . . .

I’ll try not to let it go to my head

I was interviewed by the local press last week about the Bodybugg. Jessica, my client did an excellent job in the interview & I think she even upstaged me a little bit. I'm excited about the buzz that it's causing. The news story was even picked up by not only the Texas Cable Network, but also three other markets: Austin, Las Vegas, and Topeka Kansas. How exciting! Apex is thrilled with the exposure, as they should be. It's a really cool device & I'm confident that it will do well. Lately, folks have been asking me if it will work for them. Yes, it will. However, I've been coming up with a list of criteria for those who it will work best with: You're motivated enough to wear it all the time – If you only want to wear it part-time, then just go out & buy a heart rate Read More . . .

Success!

After 12 weeks of using the bodybugg, I've achieved my goal weight. If someone had told me that I would have been able to lose almost a pound a week without starving myself or working out for 2 hours a day, I would have told them that they just didn't know my body. My body is different. It's very efficient & doesn't like to give up it's calories & fat. It's impossible for me. I know this because I've tried. I guess I really don't know this because after using the bodybugg, it proved that I'm wrong. I competed in a bodybuilding contest about 3 years ago. I competed in the figure division, which the judging favors the athletic female form rather than the overly muscled women that you think of when you think of women's bodybuilding. When competing in bodybuilding, the competitor must get his/her body fat down to Read More . . .

It’s Very Freeing

I really love my bodybugg! I love it because I am so close to achieving my goal. And that's exciting. It's exciting to know that as a personal trainer and nutritionist, I'm not a failure at losing weight — I just didn't have the proper tools before. And it's amazing to me how easy it is. As I've said before, I've always had a rather clean diet, and I've journaled my food for years — nothing new there. I don't think I'm exercising more either. I haven't given up carbohydrates, and I still pretty much eat chocolate every day. I have become more aware of my hunger, and I try to eat to that, however whenever I had tried to eat according to my hunger cues in the past, it had led to eventual overeating. I think there were days that I certainly didn't eat enough for my activity level, Read More . . .

The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.

It’s not that people lie on purpose; when it comes to weight loss, the most recent statistics show overweight people underreporting daily food intake by 30-40% while normal weight individuals underreport by 16%. Virtually no one over-reports their food intake. Additionally, they’ll overestimate how much they move. The combination of those two little white lies that folks tell themselves is partially to blame the expanding waistline of the American public. I’m not immune to these lies. I feel like I’ve struggled with my weight for years. Well, wait… let me back up there. For most of my life I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. It wasn’t until I was in my first marriage that I used food to emotionally cope with my problems. Although I wasn’t fit when I got married, I was thin, and when I got divorced,I was definitely fat. Here’s my transformation in case you’ve Read More . . .

But … how do you know? Part 2

The art of weight loss isn’t rocket science, however given the fact that weight loss is a multi-billion dollar industry, we can see that it eludes quite a number of folks. Weight maintenance/loss/gain is simply a matter of “calories in” versus “calories out”. On the nutrition side, if you eat more calories than your body needs, you’ll gain weight; if you eat the same number of calories that your body needs, then you will maintain your weight; and if you consume fewer calories than your body needs to maintain it’s weight, you will lose weight. But, how do you know how many calories your body needs to maintain it’s weight? In But … how do you know? Part 1, I explained that our metabolism (BMR),depending on how active a person is, can make up for approximately 75% or less of our calories burned. I also explained how we can estimate Read More . . .

But … how do you know? Part 1

On the bottom of every nutritional facts label there is a foot note. The footnote tells us that diets based on 2000 & 2500 Calories should have "x" amount of Total Fat, Saturated Fat, Cholesterol, Sodium, Total Carbohydrates and Fiber respectively. That's great, but how do you know which one you should abide by? How many Calories do you need in a day? Three things influence how many calories you need in order to maintain your weight. Your Metabolism (aka: Basal Metabolic Rate – BMR) The amount of activity that you get on a daily basis (aka: Thermic Effect of Activity – TEA) How many Calories your body uses to process the foods that you eat (aka: Thermic Effect of Food – TEF) Your metabolism is responsible for using the bulk of your calories in a day – roughly 75%. A few things contribute to your metabolism: Genetics Age Weight Read More . . .