Kansas State University nutrition professor Mark Haub is engaged as we write in a 30 day Twinkie / junk-food diet. The idea: challenge the widely held conviction and advice that eating better quality of food is key to good health and losing weight. To the contrary, he posits that junk food may actually help people lose weight. [click to continue…]
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Our focus at PsychDIETry is to explore and share ideas, techniques, trends, developments, scams and the like that consider the mind in achieving diet goals. We recently discovered a blog (link below) with some excellent content and analysis of personal motivation.
Most of us go through periods of low energy, low output, and a general lack of motivation. While in these times it seems impossible or daunting at best to maintain our focus and apply ourselves, achieving goals requires sustained effort and continuous output.
Battling this condition requires knowledge of the issue (self awareness), a set of tools and techniques to counter the effect, and establishing a new set of habits that come in to play on a daily basis.
The article includes notes on taking action, finding motivating tools that fit your own personality, living healthfully, and advocates stepping out of your “fog of dreams into the light of reality”. There are also a number of links and references to useful source material. For example the Sedona Method is recommended as an approach to releasing blocked energy that stands in the way of action and motivation.
As always, there is no magic bullet. Achieving goals is an incremental process that includes progress, set backs, and a long-term investment of time and energy. The rewards, we know, are many. Enjoy!
http://www.wilywalnut.com/The-Motivated-Mind.html
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Apparently there is more to weight management than, “less is more” when it comes to performance athletes. The New York Times reports today that contrary to what you might expect, lower weight may not lead to better performance.
Athletic events that require carrying one’s body weight over distances - such as biking, running, or climbing for example, would seem to benefit from reduced weight. The study finds that at some level, the loss of body mass crosses a line and causes a reduction in efficiency and power resulting in weaker performance.
Athletes were only able to find the optimal weight through trial and error, a time consuming and difficult process. The technology doesn’t exist yet to figure this out easily.
As with any effort undertaken to improve physical or mental performance ability, the key is moderation. Too much of a good thing may eventually turn bad.
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Having realistic goals is as much a key to success as the commitment to achieving them.
This was recently made clear in an article from the Associated Press about the national health goals in the U.S. established by leading federal health officials every ten years.
As the new decade rolls around, we look back and find that the goals set in 2000 were largely unmet. We are more obese, have higher blood pressure and more tooth decay in children. Not only did we fail to meet the goals, we moved in the wrong direction.
There is always a balance between realism and “stretching”, but clearly something was wrong in the planning and implementation of these national goals. Setting appropriate targets that push us yet don’t discourage is an iterative process. Set a target, work towards it, assess results, review targets, do it again.
I’m suggesting that the ten year period is too long and these goals should probably be assessed every 2 or 3 years with adjustments made to the rolling ten year plan.
The same concept applies to individuals. If the goal is to lose weight over a period of time, call it 12 months, the program can be established on January 1st but will likely fail if it isn’t reviewed and evaluated on a monthly basis, or something in that range.
PsychDIETry believes that feedback, monitoring and revising the goals and the implementation program on a regular/repeating basis is central to achieving results.
Photo Credit: chart
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It is our goal at PsychDIETry to provide readers with simple, intelligent and direct information about dieting and health, along with insight into the mental pathways that often hinder, yet can exponentially propel the achievements we pursue.
As we conduct research and make entries to the blog, we often come across books, products and services that complement our ideas and facilitate their implementation. For your convenience, we’ve launched a list of referrals to such products under a “store” tab where you can view, read about, and purchase items. These items are highly supportive of our philosophies and approach to diet, health, goal achievement, and life in general.
The list will be updated periodically usually to reflect background information or solutions pertaining to our latest stories and entries.
Your input on the PsychDIETry store will help shape its direction and keep it relevant. Please don’t hesitate to comment.
Thanks!
PsychDIETry
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![fruitsveg[1]](http://www.psychdietry.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/fruitsveg1.jpg "fruitsveg[1]")
By Robert Preidt
(HealthDay News) — Seniors who eat plenty of fruits and vegetables and who have good cognitive function are much less likely to die from heart disease than those who have poorer cognitive function and eat fewer fruits and vegetables, a new study has found.
Cognitive function refers to the ability to think, remember, plan and organize information. [click to continue…]
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![wjg001_r2_c2[1]](http://www.psychdietry.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/wjg001_r2_c21.gif "wjg001_r2_c2[1]")
Eating disorders (ED) patients display a high prevalence of gastrointestinal symptoms and functional gastrointestinal disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome. These symptoms may interfere with their nutritional management. Ingestion of fructose-sorbitol (F-S) is an established means of gastrointestinal symptom provocation in irritable bowel syndrome patients. Surprisingly, although ED patients are known to consume “diet” products containing fructose and sorbitol, their gastrointestinal symptom responses to F-S provocation have not been studied.
A research article published on November 14, 2009 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology describes the responses of 26 ED patients to F-S provocation. [click to continue…]
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I remember stumbling upon SparkPeople.com late last year. I surfed through what appeared to be a fairly modest website with a small community and relatively few resources and thought, “just another diet website”. What impressive progress they have made since then.
SparkPeople.com is a health and diet website that provides a broad range of information, tools, newsletters, and other resources to help people improve their health and quality of life through diet and exercise. The site proudly announces their “mission is to SPARK millions of PEOPLE to reach their goals and lead healthier lives.” [click to continue…]
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If you want to achieve something really meaningful, you need to set a goal and then take steps that lead you in the right direction. Like setting out on a road trip without a destination, no goal nor map and you could end up nearly anywhere. Often we do just that and are then disappointed with the results. It doesn’t have to be that way. It was none other than Dr. Seuss who once said, “you have brains in your head and feet in your shoes, “you can steer yourself any direction you choose”.
Wouldn’t it be helpful to build a set of success tracks and ride them to a better place? It’s simple to do if taken one step at a time. [click to continue…]
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New research in the FASEB Journal shows that high-fat diets are just as unhealthful in the short term as they are in the long term
Short-term memory getting worse? Exercise getting harder? Examine your diet. New research published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) showed that in less than 10 days of eating a high-fat diet, rats had a decreased ability to exercise and experienced significant short-term memory loss. These results show an important link between what we eat, how we think, and how our bodies perform. [click to continue…]
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