Create a strategy for avoiding food temptations
When The Temptations sang “The Way You Do the Things You Do,” in 1964, they earned their first top-20 hit. That was sweet, seductive music for sure. But the temptations you face from added fats and sweets in your everyday life affect the way you do the things you do, but not in such a positive way.
Anyone who’s struggled to shed pounds or overcome diet-related health issues knows that temptations are everywhere:
In the grocery store checkout line you’re surrounded by processed, added-sugar health bombs. (In England they tested eliminating such foods from the checkout aisles and found a 76 percent reduction in “grab and eat” purchases of snacky foods!)
TV and the internet bombard you with ads for snacks, sweets and treats. In 2012 fastfood restaurants spent $4.6 billion on all advertising, and Happy Meal display ads increased 63 percent to 31 million ads monthly.
Social media is relentless, too. In 2012, 6 billion fast-food ads appeared on Facebook alone!
To embrace healthy eating habits, you need a plan to deal with the temptations you face every day. But first, let’s clear away the biggest myth that may be keeping you from making progress …
Willpower alone won’t cut it. No matter how determined, chances are you can’t endlessly tough it out. It’s only natural to crave sugar when you’re tired and to feel captivated by the enticing look or smell of some calorie- and sugar-packed treat. You need a strategy, not an iron will, to resist temptations.
Now, let’s build your strategy for success, which will help you dodge the temptations you encounter:
Take charge of your surroundings. If there’s always junk food at work, make sure you have healthful snacks on hand. You can enjoy them while your co-workers stuff their faces and ding their health. Pack baggies with trail mix, nuts, veggie slices, even 1-ounce chunks of 70 percent dark chocolate. Stash them in your bag, drawers, pockets. Make them handy!
Do a pantry/shelf sweep. If you have treacherous temptations on your kitchen shelves, banish them. And if your spouse or partner insists on keeping them in the house, sequester them somewhere you can avoid seeing them (the temptations, not your spouse!). Out of sight, out of mind.
Avoid “hunger panic.” If you’ve got a busy day with no time for meals, are on the road a lot or headed into new territory, prepare and pack up lunch, snacks, beverages and even dinner, if needed. Then you won’t have to opt for a brain-killing drive-thru or grab a sugar bomb just to keep going. And you can stick to your plan!
4. Talk to your friends and family about your goal. Enlist an AT (Avoid Temptations) Buddy — a friend, co-worker or family member who also wants to eliminate food temptations. You can work together by exchanging daily reports on how you’re doing, sharing healthful snacks at work or home, even preparing healthful foods together as co-chefs.
5. Build in rewards. Everyone deserves a healthful treat! Slow-roast strawberries and almonds and stir into nonfat Greek yogurt. Drizzle melted 70 percent cacao dark chocolate over orange slices. Puree mangoes, pineapple and/or papayas, and freeze the juicy goodness for an icy dessert.
6. Forgive if you forget. This is one of the most important principals of Dr. Mike’s eating plan: Don’t beat yourself up for backsliding. So, you gobbled some fries. Try next time to avoid them — choose an apple instead. And if you do give in to your temptations, make an effort to limit your intake. As Dr. Oz says, “It’s not the first two bites that will do you in; it’s the 14th and 15th!”
Statins need your help to do their job
When Egyptian Mohamed ElShorbagy became the No. 1 squash player in the world this year, did his lifelong Mediterranean diet give him an edge? We’re betting it did. The plantcentric, fiber-rich diet that includes healthy oils, legumes, cereals, fish, lean proteins and not much meat or dairy provides what you need to have a healthy heart and very agile muscles and bones.
But you don’t have to be a competitive athlete to reap the amazing benefits of the Mediterranean diet. If you have had a heart attack or stroke and are taking a statin to help lower your lousy LDL cholesterol level and avoid a future blockage or clot, the Med diet can help save your life.
Unfortunately, many folks who take a statin think it’s a green light for eating inflammatory, high-sat-fat foods. One study in JAMA Internal Medicine found that caloric and fat intake increases significantly (9.6 percent and 14.4 percent respectively) over time for folks taking statins!
If that’s you, cut it out and listen up! In a new study in the International Journal of Cardiology, Italian researchers found that combining statins and a Mediterranean diet reduces bodywide inflammation big time. That’s good news if you’ve previously had a cardiovascular event because if you’ve got a lot of inflammation, your risk of premature death doubles!
So, squash that impulse to rely on your statin to provide complete protection from another heart attack or stroke. It can’t do it alone. You need to upgrade your diet to downgrade your risk. Madison Q., Duluth, Minnesota
A: You’re right to want to protect your family and your pets from ticks. The deer tick is the most common variety in your area (it carries Lyme disease), but there are other ticks that can cause illnesses such as babesiosis (a protozoan infection) and even Rocky Mountain spotted fever (spread by the American dog tick). For some areas, the newest threat may come from the Asian longhorned tick, first reported in the U.S. in 2017. Around the world, it’s “an important vector for human and animal disease,” according to a CDC report — although in the U.S. it has yet to be connected to transmission of any disease.
So, you want to keep ticks off your dogs. But the Food and Drug Administration has issued a warning about potential “neurologic adverse events” associated with flea and tick products in pill form that contain isoxazoline — although they did say that these anti-tick meds are safely used for the majority of dogs and cats. So, we say, if you can, “Avoid the I-socks!” Stick with flea and tick collars, and a thorough inspection of your dogs after every trip outdoors. (A trimmed short coat of fur also is helpful.)
Bottom line: Protect yourself and your pets. But skip the Scottish whisky called Sheep Dip, which legend has it was used to kill ticks and fleas on sheep before they went to market. This “legend” now sells for as much as $57 a liter — not cost effective. For now, stick with the new flea collars that last from eight weeks to eight months.