The other day I’m having a conversation with a woman in our Louisville boot camp — she was asking about strategies to lose weight.

I was making what I thought were some simple suggestions …

Switch to drinking only wheat grass, substituting chia seeds for your morning cereal, you know, the basics.

All kidding aside, we DID talk about nutrition basics (and, no, I don’t use wheat grass or chia seeds on a regular basis).

The basics started with a question — where in your diet can you add fruits and/or veggies?

And then I went on to what we believe to be some smart starting points that this woman wasn’t doing on a daily basis.

Eat breakfast daily.

Replace liquid calories. 

That’s step 1.

And for every suggestion, she kept coming back with the a barrier "but it costs too much for organic food."

 "But it doesn’t have to be organic" I said.

"Well, it costs too much to eat healthy."

Does it?

Does it REALLY cost too much to eat well?

Here’s a quickcomparison of just a few "junk foods" on the left vs. "health foods" on the right side of the table

 *Of course you do pay SOME for tap water, but minimal

So those are just a handful of comparisons.  Not only are the foods on the right side of the table more nutrient dense, but you get a lot more bang for your buck …

…1 dozen eggs can provide breakfast most days of the week, whereas a sausage & egg biscuit from McDonald’s feeds you for just 1 day.  Even when you add in a piece of fruit or whole grain toast, you’ll still pay less for that entire meal.

And while this last concept is hard to understand — eating well NOW will save you a SIGNIFICANT amount of money down the road, as you’re preventing sickness by caring for yourself now.

Just make 1 small positive change each day …

…it will ultimately allow you to achieve whatever physical goals you set for yourself.

You’re 35,000 feet in the air.

And the stewardess on the plane goes through the safety "schpeel" … here’s how to buckle your belt, here are the exits, etc.

But something else is said that always stands out to me.

If you are with a child or someone else who needs assistance, put YOUR oxygen mask on FIRST…

That’s right, they tell you to help YOU first vs. helping anyone else.

But I have a daughter (who is now 1, I may add), there’s NO WAY I’d help myself first before making sure she is safe as she can possibly be.  Or would I?  Am I just selfish because I’d help myself first, THEN help her?

And why am I talking about any of this since having to use the oxygen masks on a plane clearly means something is going wrong … and who wants to think about that?

It’s all relative and it’s relative to you making changes in your own body. 

Moms in particular are guilty. 

They put EVERYONE and everything else first, before themselves.

Kids.  Spouse.  Friends.  Work.  Cleaning and tidying the house.  And so on.  Finally, at the end of the day, there is ZERO time for themselves.

Day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year, it’s easy to get lost in, well, being a "slave" to everyone around you.

There’s of course no time to workout.  There’s clearly no time to cook and eat a healthy diet.  Next thing you know, you’re 10, 20, or more pounds overweight.  And it seems like such an uphill battle, there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.

It’s time to STOP THE INSANITY! 

First and foremost, take care of YOU first.  Why?  Because you’ll be better at taking care of everyone else.

It’s been told to me before, when mom is happy, everyone is happy!  And I couldn’t agree more.

But take the time to fuel your body with clean foods, not drive thru processed junk.  Plan ahead for you and your family.

Take time to move each day — if that means your kids are at the day care at the gym, fantastic.  Take advantage of that.  We fought it ourselves for awhile, but then it became difficult to manage her and working out.  

Get sufficient rest, so you have more energy and aren’t snippy or short with the kids or others you interact with.

It all can be a vicsous cycle, but at the same time, a little extra "mom" time each day will truly HELP the health of you and your family.

So put your oxygen on first — help yourself, so you can better help everyone else in your life!

We’re keeping this short and sweet …

We want to know — what are YOUR summer diet goals?

Click the comment button above to leave us your thoughts so we can better help you!

We were recently on vacation with Kara’s family — 17 of us, with Ella being the youngest and kids ranging up to 20.  

Needless to say, with all the kids in the house, there were a lot of snack foods, various cereals, etc …

… and one thing that kept jumping out at me was the marketing targeted to kids.  There were Sponge Bob yogurts, Scooby Do gummy treats, and various cartoon covered cereals. 

One of our standard messages has always been "if there’s a cartoon on the box, leave it on the shelf."

Well check this out — the results of this study, done at Yale’s Obesity Research Center, are pretty crazy. 

Kids were asked to taste 3 pairs of identical foods (Graham crackers, gummy fruit snacks, and carrots).  These foods were presented either with or without popular cartoon characters.

The kids were then asked if the foods tasted the same or one tasted better, with the different packaging (remember, the foods they were comparing were the same).  They were also asked which they would prefer to eat for a snack.

What did they find?

Children significantly preferred the taste of foods with cartoon characters on the packaging, compared with the same foods without characters.

Most kids also selected the food sample with the popular cartoon on it for their snack. 

Bottom Line:

We’ll stick with our messaging — if there’s a cartoon on the box, leave it on the shelf. 

Marketing clearly changes what kids (and adults) eat — be smart and don’t fall for the clever tricks and packaging that "make" you buy certain foods!

We’ve all heard the saying "if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is."

And of course we’ve said there is no magic bullet for losing weight.  You don’t gain weight overnight and you won’t lose it overnight. 

It takes hard work.  It takes dedication.  And it takes determination to lose weight permanently.

But how about THIS interesting study, published in the International Journal of Obesity that concluded "obese individuals who supplement with a multivitamin/mineral may lose more weight than those who do not"

Here’s a quick summary of the study:

Nearly 100 obese women were given either a multivitamin/mineral supplement, calcium, or a placebo over a 26 week period.  The calcium was added in the mix as calcium has been shown in other research to potentially help with weight loss.

What they found was that those who were given the multivitamin/mineral supplement lost more body weight and had a lower body mass index at the end of the study while continuing to eat their "normal" diets.

Now, the authors suggested obese people have lower levels of nutrients and this could affect appetite.  They also suggested there is also the possibility of increased calorie and fat burning through the various nutrients.

Clearly more research needs to be done.  We’re NOT actually saying everyone should take a multivitamin/mineral product with the hopes of losing body fat quickly …

…at the same time, when restricting calories, taking a daily multi is a wise idea in our opinion.

Of course it goes without saying that the best way to get your nutrients, though, is through a wide variety of different foods.