Stress and Weight Loss

Stress, not matter the amount, is something that affects us everyday. It affects us physically and emotionally. What a lot of people don't realize is that while a little bit of stress is okay when it's managed, it will also sabotage any effort you may have to lose weight and gain healthier habits.

A lot of people use stres to their advantage. When life begins to drag me down a bit, I find that a good sweat at the gym makes me feel a lot better. In fact, it has been scientifically proven that by exercising, the heart rate goes up and the body naturally releases natural stress-relieving hormones. However, when a trip to the gym is followed by things such as emotional eating or binging, my efforts at the gym are completely wasted.

But don't get discouraged. Stress CAN be managed! Here are some tips from the Mayo Clinic's Dr. Edward T. Creagan M.D. on how to keep stress at bay:

■Recognize the warning signs of stress, such as anxiety, irritability and muscle tension.
■Before eating, ask yourself why you're eating — are you truly hungry or do you feel stressed or anxious?
■If you're tempted to eat when you're not hungry, find a distraction.
■Don't skip meals, especially breakfast.
■Identify comfort foods and keep them out of your house or office.
■Keep a record of your behavior and eating habits so that you can look for patterns and connections — and then overcome them.
■Learn problem-solving skills so that you can anticipate challenges and cope with setbacks.
■Practice relaxation skills, such as yoga, massage or meditation.
■Engage in regular physical activity or exercise.
■Get adequate sleep.
■Get encouragement from supportive friends and family.

With a little practice, you'll be able to keep your stress down to a minimal level and see some weight loss results. But don't "stress-out" about it--your body appreciates the effort!

Carbs Aren't All That Bad!

Carbohydrates are essential for good health. They fuel our muscles and cells so our bodies can function. Without them, we'd be as active as three-toed sloths. And while low-carb diets can be great for jump-starting weight loss, they're not for everyone. When I go low-carb, I feel murderous within a week. So what works for me?

1. I eat plenty of "good" carbs. First, I make sure that the majority of my carb intake consists of so-called good carbs—oats, brown rice, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and beans are some of my favorites. I also eat plenty of vegetables, and even fruit . These foods contain tons of fiber, vitamins, minerals, and protein, so I get lots of energy-boosting nutrition and I stay full longer.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not immune to the lure of cookies and candy, but I've learned through a lot of trial and error that these things don't make me feel very good once the initial sugar rush wears off. Since I'd rather be alert than snoozing at my desk in the afternoon, I just can't eat like that too often. Besides, too many treats and I don't fit into my pants. Not a bonus.

2. I try to eat most of my carbs earlier in the day and around workouts. When I start my day with some satisfying carbs and protein, I just feel better. Oatmeal with a little protein powder added at the end, or Shakeology® with peanut butter and a banana, and I'm off to a pretty good start. I also like to eat some carbs around my workouts. If I'm hungry, I'll eat a piece of fruit or some berries with fat-free Greek yogurt about an hour before I train. Afterward, I'll have a whey protein shake with fruit, or P90X Results and Recovery Formula® if it's a particularly brutal workout. Dinnertime usually means chicken and a large salad, although I do love pasta with marinara sauce, or even cheese, crackers, and fruit. So whatever choice I make, I just eat it and enjoy it. The next day, I'll probably eat more vegetables and protein to balance things out a bit.

3. If I really want it, I eat it. Sometimes a hot-fudge sundae is the only thing that'll cure my craving. So I eat one.

I'm serious—when I decide I simply must have ice cream, I eat enough to be satisfied and then I move on. The difference is that I usually substitute that treat for whatever healthy meal I'd eat around the same time. So if the only suitable dinner choice is a hot-fudge sundae, so be it. (For obvious reasons, this cannot be a frequent occurrence. Besides, it tastes soooo much better when you really want it.)
4.Can you lose weight eating like this? Simply put, yes. As long as you're eating fewer calories than you're burning, you will lose weight on a higher-carb diet. When I need to lose weight (after a few too many pizza dinners, for example) I eat the same as always, but I cut down my portion sizes. I still get all the flavors and textures I love without feeling deprived. And I bump up my workout intensity so I'm burning more calories each time.

If you're like me, you love to eat all kinds of carbs. But I know that in order to be as lean as I want, I need to make good choices most of the time and keep up with my workouts. As much as I'd love to eat bread and butter all day long, I wouldn't look or feel very good. I often stop and ask myself what's more important, this bowl of pasta or fitting into my skinny jeans again? One decadent meal will not derail a week's worth of healthy eating. It may slow down my progress, that's true, but I'll get where I want to be eventually. And even better, I'll be healthy, happy, and sane!

Low Calorie Holiday Cocktails

For most of us, it's just not the holidays without sipping a drink that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside (and I ain't talking about hot chocolate!). Here's a list of holiday cocktails that will put you in the spirit without blowing all your hard weight-loss effort. *As with all alcohol beverages, please consume responsibly*

Pumpkin Pie Martini
Yeah, I know. It's as good as it sounds. There are several pumpkin liqueurs on the market, which are convenient, but add a ton of calories. By using the actual squash, you get the flavor without the calories—and, believe it or not, a little fiber in your drink.

6 oz. canned unsweetened pumpkin
6 oz. vanilla-flavored vodka
4 oz. fat-free condensed milk
4 oz. unsweetened almond milk (or fat-free milk)
4 Tbsp. pumpkin pie seasoning
Ice cubes
6 crushed reduced-fat vanilla wafers
Place vodka and pumpkin in bowl, and stir until pumpkin has melted. Stir in condensed milk and almond milk. Add seasoning. Dip rim of glass in crushed vanilla wafers. Pour liquid over ice into glass and enjoy. Serves 6.

Grog
Its rich history dates back 400 years, when it used to be rationed out to sailors at sea. The big babies wouldn't drink their scurvy-preventing dose of lemon juice straight, so the powers-that-be dressed it up with a little rum. Since the added ingredients only serve to make it that much tastier, it stands to reason that being "three sheets to the wind" was fairly common.

Juice of 2 lemons
1 lemon peel
4 Tbsp. of sugar
4 whole cloves
1 whole orange peel
4 oz. golden rum
10 oz. water
4 cinnamon sticks
In a pan, combine the lemon juice and peel with the sugar, cloves, orange peel, cinnamon sticks, and water. Let simmer for 15 minutes, and then slowly stir in rum. Pour though a fine strainer into mugs, and serve each mug with a cinnamon stick. Serves 4.

Gingerbread Toddy
In cold weather, a hot drink can warm you up faster than a Snuggie® and an electric blanket. This hot toddy will get you warm, and make you think you are eating gingerbread cookies in the process. Yummy.

1 oz. brandy
1 oz. gingerbread liqueur
1 lemon wedge
8 oz. hot water
cinnamon stick (optional)
Pour ingredients into a preheated mug in the order listed. Serve garnished with a cinnamon stick to stir. Serves 1.

Holiday Hot Chocolate
You can do this the easy way and buy no-sugar-added hot chocolate in packages. But you're no slacker. You can make homemade hot chocolate, which makes your house smell amazing, and impresses your friends and family.

4 cups evaporated fat-free milk
1 cup fat-free milk
1/2 cup baking chocolate
2 Tbsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar, or natural sugar substitute, like agave
6 oz. Frangelico® liqueur
Combine evaporated milk, fat-free milk, chocolate, vanilla, and sugar in pan and heat over stove on low. Stir in Frangelico. Pour into mugs and serve with a small candy cane. Serves 6.

Peppermint Martini
This is, perhaps, the simplest and tastiest low-calorie cocktail out there. Just three ingredients and a bit of candy cane. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

9 oz. vanilla vodka
9 oz. peppermint schnapps
3 oz. fat-free condensed milk
Ice
Mini candy canes
Place all liquids in a martini shaker with ice. Shake and pour into glasses. Serve with a candy cane. Serves 6.

Mulled Apple Cider
Nothing makes a house smell more like Christmas than some mulled apple cider—except those overpriced candles that they constantly advertise on TV. And this tastes better, so take that, Glade®!

8 cups apple cider
1 3-inch cinnamon stick
10 whole cloves
1 navel orange, peeled and sliced crosswise
A 2-inch piece of peeled fresh ginger, cut into 6 slices
4 oz. light brandy
In a large saucepan, combine cider, cinnamon stick, cloves, orange and ginger, and simmer the mixture for 20 minutes. Pour brandy into pan. Strain through a fine strainer into a heatproof pitcher, and serve the mulled cider warm. Serves 6.

Blitzen's Bliss
Given Blitzen is the final reindeer in the lineup, he probably gets knocked around a fair bit by the sleigh over the course of Christmas Eve. But once he has circumvented the globe, he comes home, has a few of these, and it's all good. Not only does he feel better, but since they're just 130 calories apiece, he doesn't feel all bloated for his Christmas dinner the next day.

2 cups pomegranate juice
Juice of two limes
8 oz. vodka
1 tsp. peppermint extract
12 ice cubes
6 mini candy canes
4 tablespoons chopped mint
Place all liquids in shaker with ice. Shake and pour into individual glasses. Top with sprinkle of mint and candy cane. Serves 6.

Sangria for Santa
Santa really appreciates the cookies and milk. But after hundreds of years, he's over it. Want to be on the "nice" list next year? Then get a little naughty. Leave some sangria for Santa by the fireplace.

10 green grapes, halved
4 fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
1 peach, pitted and sliced
1 bottle of white or red wine
1-1/2 cups white grape juice
1/2 cup brandy
2 sprigs fresh mint
Fill a large glass pitcher halfway with ice; add fruit and wine. Add juice and brandy; stir gently. Stir in mint. Let sit in refrigerator for 2 hours before serving. Serves 6.

8 Fitness "Myths"

1. You can get thin with a supplement. One of the most common questions we get is whether or not our programs will work without the supplements. Given how many claims there are about miracle cures involving a pill, this question makes sense. What doesn't make sense is that when we tell people that diet and exercise are the major components of our programs, they often become skeptical. We've been led to believe by advertisers that the reason we're overweight or out of shape is because there's a secret ingredient in some supplement that we've been missing. This, to put it a noninflammatory way, is not how it works. The obesity epidemic is the result of two rather simple numbers: we eat about 5 percent more calories than we once did, and we exercise about 20 percent less.

This in no way means that supplements are worthless. While there are many shady supplement manufacturers in the marketplace, the reason that we have supplements at all is because they can be effective in keeping us healthy. The use of supplements goes back thousands of years. Traditional medicines were the original supplements. There have been many advancements in the modern world, but basically, those same herbs and nutrients that aided people's health once upon a time have the same effects today. But they weren't miracle cures in the old days, and they still aren't. This is the reason we refer to our programs as being supplement-assisted exercises.

2. Medicine can make you healthy. Medicine can make you not sick, but it can't make you healthy. Along with curing us from diseases and injuries, doctors now inject, alter, and prescribe us into becoming healthier-appearing beings. Cosmetic medical advancements are indeed impressive, but let's not lose sight of the facts. The human body needs exercise and nutrients to run smoothly. There is no way to chemically change this. There are certainly medical alterations that can be done to change our bodies once they've been misused and started to fall apart. And there are drugs and other chemical alterations that can reverse certain conditions. But try as they might, scientists have still yet to come up with a way for us not to need to exercise and eat properly so that we can perform to the best of our abilities. We may be able to increase our natural abilities using medicine, but without the fundamental groundwork that is exercise and what we eat, no amount of medical help will allow us to live long and vibrant lives.

3. You can get ripped with the right diet. With the "Flat Belly Diet" on the bestseller list and the "Abs Diet" on the cover of Men's Health, it may be hard to believe that no diet alone is going to land you on the cover of a Joe Weider publication. Dieting can help you lose weight and greatly improve your health. But since that isn't what marketers like to spin, it's generally not what they pitch. The only diet that will give you ripped abs is a starvation diet. And that one comes with a lot of undesirable side effects.

Many of these diets, including the two referenced above, are basically very healthy. But if you want your body to look ripped, you need to exercise and diet in combination. A healthy body can look lean but rarely ripped. A muscular body with too much fat won't look ripped, either. Only a healthy and muscular body can allow you to both look ripped and perform well. A starved body will be both lean and ripped in appearance, but this is not due to your body being healthy—rather, it's due to the catabolic state you enter as your body feeds on its muscle for survival.

4. You can have a six-pack by only working out your abs. Ab work will make your abdominal muscles strong, but you won't be able to see them unless your diet is in line with your exercise expenditure. The easiest and quickest way to see your abs is to work your entire body intensely and eat well. The more muscle you add to your frame—your entire frame—the more your metabolism will increase, the more fat your body will burn at rest, and the sooner your ab muscles will appear. And, of course, the cleaner you eat, the faster you will make this happen.

Six-pack abs—like most things used to gauge fitness—are a function of one's overall health and condition. They won't pop up on their own. But you're also not wasting your time working on them. Your core, which is in part your abs, is the foundation that all of your movements are based on. Having a strong core is the single most important aspect to being physically fit.

5. One supplement can make up for a bad diet. We love miracles, especially when they don't require much work on our part. That's why we're always looking for a pill we can take that will make up for our bad habits. Supposed muscle-enhancing supplements have been available since Jack LaLanne invented the Universal Gym, but in the last decade, we've also been bombarded with things promising the opposite. Fat blockers, carb blockers, diet pills, cleansing pills, and so on all promise to rid us of something we wished we hadn't eaten in the first place. This, unfortunately, can't be done.

There are many good dietary supplements, but heed the word "dietary." Supplements work along with the other factors of your diet. Nothing can even hint at offsetting a poor diet. In fact, one of the main advantages of supplements is exactly the opposite: they make the biggest difference when you're dieting already. Supplements are, basically, condensed nutrients. When you're exercising and also attempting to lose weight, it becomes difficult to get all of the nutrients that your body requires to recover from exercise. This is the realm of the highly effective supplement. Proper supplementation can allow you to eat fewer calories than you normally could and still allow you to recover from hard workouts, which greatly enhances your results. Beachbody's ActiVit® Multivitamin is a great way to make sure you get the nutrients you need each day to get the most out of your fitness program.

6. Cardio is the only exercise you need. Cardio isn't even a scientific term for a type of exercise, yet it's still often trumpeted as the be-all and end-all for exercise effectiveness. This, in my experience, is often a cop-out by medical practitioners who feel the need to recommend exercise but don't want to risk being specific. Cardio as a general term means anything affecting the heart. The problem with interpreting the term is that everything you do has an effect on your heart. And although intense exercise works the heart much more than easy aerobic exercise does, it seems that most people define cardio as aerobic, meaning low-level movement. And low-level movement is not the only exercise you need, unless your physical state inhibits you from doing something more intense.

The key to changing your body composition, staying young, and remaining healthy is to do short bouts of high-intensity exercise. If done correctly, this is all the "cardio" you need. It also promotes muscle breakdown and hormonal releases that have a pronounced effect on your health. All "cardio" training is good, including low-level aerobic training. It just should, however, not be the only exercise you do.

7. You can plug in and get ripped. Remember the old exercise machine that had a strap you placed around your butt that would vibrate like a washing machine? Back in the 60s, this odd contraption filled fitness centers worldwide and, undoubtedly, made someone a lot of money. It also never shed a pound off of anyone. And even though it's used in many gimmick jokes, we just can't stop trying to replicate it. If you ever see an advertisement for something that does all the work for you and claims you'll look better because of it, start searching for the remote. The calories you burn looking for it will exceed any amount you'll burn using the device.

As is the case with most gimmicks, there is a scientific example at their root somewhere. Most of these modern contraptions are some type of electronic muscle stimulation (EMS) device. These machines use electrodes to contract your muscles while you do nothing. They were designed for physical therapy and work well within this application of keeping your muscle tissue from atrophying when you can't work your muscles naturally. So, yes, these machines do build muscle. But they lack the ability to stimulate anything near what you would do naturally. To keep the type of physique you would acquire in a round of P90X® would require you to be plugged in for most of any given 24-hour period. And if you're going to go to this much trouble, you'll save yourself a lot of effort by doing any 30-minute exercise video—shoot, one 10-Minute Trainer® workout will do a lot more for you than a full night on an EMS machine!

8. A single type of workout will make you fit. Beware of exercise that promises to be "the only workout you'll ever need." Even if one workout did cover all of your energy systems using each workout modality, it still would not be all you need. The reasons are many, but, primarily, it's because your body adapts over time to any exercise regimen. To achieve continued progress, you need to alter what you do from time to time. The more planned out this is the better.

There is a reason that Beachbody designs fitness programs. For best results, you should train your body progressively and periodizationally. That is to say that you need to progressively overload your system as it becomes used to any one thing. Then, you should change the focus of your program to target various energy systems. By doing this, you keep your body stimulated and your progress curve will continually ascend.

A Healthy Holiday Treat

Creamy Candy Cane Shakeology

1 scoop Chocolate Shakeology
1 cup almond milk
2 tbsp crushed candy canes
Ice to taste

Mix all ingredients in a blender and enjoy!

Sound yummy? See my Shakeology website for details and ordering information. Shipping is FREE when you use Home Direct Delivery. Make sure you place your order before Dec 14 to get your Shakeology in time for Christmas!

Eat More, Lose Weight

Since becoming a Beachbody coach, I have had this discussion with countless people. We've all heard that the key to losing weight is not eating and having the body "feed" off of itself. THIS IS A MYTH, AND A VERY DANGEROUS ONE! Here's why:

1. Metabolism is the key to weight loss. If you don't eat enough, or often enough, your metabolism slows to a crawl and weight loss becomes more difficult, especially when you're exercising. That's why skipping meals isn't a good idea if the goal is to shed pounds.

Tip: Always eat breakfast to kick-start metabolism and try eating mini-meals throughout the day to keep your metabolism fired up.

2. To keep your metabolism up, you MUST eat. Conventional wisdom dictates that when you first start dieting, the less you eat, the better. While it's true that you often should eat less, eating too little can backfire over time. As your body composition changes, your body will think it's starving, which can make it hold on to fat. (The process actually has to do with excessive release of a hormone called cortisol, but you don't need to know the details, so we'll just call it fat.) To avoid this, most experts agree that over time, you shouldn't eat fewer than 1,200 calories per day for women, 1,500 for men. If your daily diet consists of fewer calories than that, consider eating more.

Tip: Keep a food diary to track calories.

3. You need more calories when you work out. If you're exercising while following a low-calorie eating plan, you'll need to take into account the calories you're burning. That's because it's now easier to enter starvation mode. Let's say you're burning 400 calories and only eating 1,200 to 1,300 calories per day. This means you're really only taking in 800 to 900 calories per day before you begin to calculate how your body composition is changing. Muscle burns more calories at rest than fat does, so as your body changes, you need to eat more to keep the weight loss coming.

Tip: Drink an after-workout recovery drink like P90X Results and Recovery Formula®. After hard workouts, its calories are utilized so quickly by your body, some people refer to them as "free calories." They really aren't, but those calories will ensure that your muscles (and metabolism) recover quickly.

And remember this:

Figuring out to what to eat, how much to eat, and when to eat isn't easy. That's why people often refer to losing weight as a journey. It takes a few different paths to get there. Sometimes you have to adjust your ratio of protein, fat, and carbs to start losing again. Or adjust your calorie level, which can include eating more to lose weight.

Tip: Use the Team Beachbody® Meal Planner. It can make figuring out your calories much, much easier. You can personalize an eating plan that takes your workouts into consideration.

Finally, if you're still on the fence about needing to eat more to lose weight: You might be thinking, "How come I know some really skinny people who barely eat?"

The answer is this: You can eventually lose weight by not eating. It's called starving. Reduce calories enough and your body will start breaking down its muscle tissue, and this will result in weight loss. However, it makes your body increase its emergency hormonal responses, which also causes your body to be stressed and hang onto fat, making it very easy to gain the weight back again.

So I hope you take this thought away with you today: The idea is to keep your metabolism revving and running. This will help you get healthy and stay strong. Eat the right amount of food to help your body continuously burn calories, and you're more likely to shed those unwanted pounds.

9 Foods That Can Fool You

1. Yogurt. It starts out as good stuff. Fat aside, there's the calcium and protein you find in all milk products, along with probiotics, which make it easier to digest for those with lactose issues. The only problem is, straight yogurt can be pretty bitter, so manufacturers load the stuff with sugar to make it more palatable and masquerade those carbs as fruit. Have a look at most flavored yogurt, and you'll find the second ingredient to be sugar or high fructose corn syrup. One container of Yoplait® Original Strawberry is 170 calories with 5 grams of protein and 33 grams of carbohydrates, 27 of which are sugar. Oddly enough, these are the exact same nutrition facts for Yoplait's other, less healthy-sounding flavors, including Key Lime Pie and White Chocolate Raspberry.

Solution: Buy plain yogurt and flavor it yourself. You'd be amazed at how far a handful of raspberries or a tablespoon of honey will go to cut the bitter taste. And while you're at it, choose the low-fat or fat-free stuff. You'll still get all the nutritional benefits.

2. Wheat Bread. If you're reading this, you probably know enough about nutrition to understand that whole-grain wheat is better for you than refined wheat. By keeping the bran and germ, you maintain the naturally occurring nutrients and fiber.
But for some reason, manufacturers constantly come up with new chicanery to lead you back to the refined stuff. One of their latest tricks is to refer to refined flour as "wheat flour" because, obviously, it's made of wheat. But just because it's wheat-based doesn't mean it's not refined. The distracted shopper can mistake this label for "whole wheat flour" and throw it in his cart. Another loaf of cruddy, refined, fiberless bread has a new home.

Solution: Slow down when you read the label. That word "whole" is an important one.

3. Chicken. Just because you made the switch from red meat doesn't mean you're in the clear. If you opt for dark meat—the wings, thighs, and legs—you're losing protein and gaining fat. Three ounces of raw chicken breast, meat only, is 93 calories, 19.5 grams of protein, and 1.2 grams of fat. Three ounces of dark meat, meat only, is 105 calories, 18 grams of protein, and 3.6 grams of fat. It doesn't seem like much, but it adds up.

Solution: Go for the breast, and while you're at it, ditch the skin. It's nothing but fat.

4. Frozen or canned fruit. Any food swimming in juice or "light syrup" isn't going to work in your favor on the scale. Furthermore, most canned fruit is peeled, meaning you're being robbed of a valuable source of fiber.
Frozen fruit is a little trickier. While freezing preserves the fruit itself, adding sugar during the freezing process preserves color and taste; so many store-bought frozen fruits add it in.

Solution: Read that ingredients list! You want it to say fruit, water—and that's it.

5. Canned veggies. "What?" you declare. "There's light syrup in canned string beans, too?" No, actually, they add salt to preserve this produce. A half-cup serving of canned string beans has approximately 300 to 400 milligrams of sodium.

Solution: Many companies offer "no salt added" options. If you can't find one to your liking, go frozen instead—no salt (or light syrup).

6. Peanut butter. Squish up peanuts, maybe add a little salt. How hard is it to make that taste good?
Apparently, it's so incredibly difficult that many companies feel compelled to add sugar or high fructose corn syrup into the mix. Why? I do not know. Some manufacturers, such as Skippy®, are up front enough to admit this and call their product "Peanut Butter Spread," but many others still refer to their sugary concoction as good old "peanut butter."

Solution: Read the label. (There's a theme emerging here.) Considering real peanut butter has one ingredient, two ingredients max, it shouldn't be too hard to figure it out.

7. Juice. The range in the nutritional value of store-bought juices is massive. On one end, you have "fruit drinks" with just a modicum of actual juice in them. On the other end, you have fresh-squeezed, 100% preservative-free juice such as Odwalla® and Naked Juice®. But no matter which one you choose, it's important to remember that it's never going to be as healthy as whole fruit. And if you're trying to lose weight, it's a flat-out bad idea. First off, it's been stripped of fiber, so you absorb it faster, which makes it more likely to induce blood-sugar spikes. Secondly, you consume it faster and it's less filling, so you're more likely to drink more.

Solution: If you must buy it, go fresh squeezed, but you're usually better off just skipping it entirely.

8. Canned soup. As is also the case with canned veggies, you're entering a sodium minefield. Half a cup of Campbell's® Chicken Noodle Soup has 890 milligrams of sodium. That's 37 percent of the recommended daily allowance (RDA)*—and who eats half a cup?

Solution: Read those labels carefully. Most companies make low-sodium versions.

9. Fat-free salad dressing. Dressing, by definition, is supposed to be fatty, thus highly caloric. You use a little bit of it and in doing so, you get a healthy hit of the fats you need for a nutritionally balanced diet. Unfortunately, people prefer to buy fat-free versions so that they can drown their greens yet avoid excess fat.
Nothing's for free. All this stuff does is replace the fat with carbs and salt, so you've basically gone from pouring a little healthy, unsaturated fat on your salad to dumping on a pile of sugar. For example, Wish-Bone® Fat Free Chunky Blue Cheese is 7 grams of pure carbs and 270 milligrams of sodium for 2 tablespoons, which you'll never stop at anyway. Also, given that there's no fat or protein in this particular dressing, one can only imagine what makes it "chunky."

Solution: Make your own salad dressing. One part vinegar and one part olive oil with a blob of Dijon mustard makes an awesome vinaigrette. And here's another trick: Make your salad in a sealable container, add a tiny bit of dressing, and shake it up. It'll coat so much more than tossing will.

What's The Big Deal?

You've heard me talk about it but here's the real deal. Watch this video and hear what makes Shakeology the best drink on the market.

10 Ways To Break Bad Health Habits

1. Avoid eating late at night. Your metabolism slows down when you sleep, so late-night calories are harder to burn off.
Fight back: Eat small meals or snacks every 2 to 3 hours throughout the day. Time your meals so that you stop 2 to 3 hours before you go to bed.

2. Don't grab fast food on impulse. You're already on your way to avoiding this one if you're eating regular small meals and snacks. You'll keep your brain fed, so it doesn't shut down.
Fight back: Pack healthy snacks and bring them with you. These can be simple—a small handful of raw almonds is a better choice than a greasy burger.

3. If you shouldn't eat it, don't put it in your shopping cart. Seriously. If you put it in your shopping cart, it comes home with you. And you know it's there.
Fight back: It's much harder to eat junk food in a moment of stress or weakness if it's not in your house.

4. If you're tempted by junk food, look in the mirror. Think it through—those calories will go somewhere. And probably somewhere you've spent hours in the gym trying to slim and shape. So a bad choice now will just mean more effort later.
Fight back: Reach for a piece of fruit instead.

5. Don't eat for comfort. If something gets you stressed or upset, take a breath, not a bite. Knowing that you're taking good care of yourself, even when you're down, will help you to feel better more quickly.
Fight back: Try calling a friend, taking a 10-minute walk around the block, or playing with your pet. Or working out.

6. Find healthy versions of your favorite guilty pleasures. Stock your kitchen with those instead.
Fight back: Craving ice cream? A creamy low-fat yogurt could hit the spot. Want the crunch of chips? Try snacking on fresh red peppers, sliced jicama, or baked kale chips (they're easy to make, and astonishingly tasty).

7. Pay attention to portion size. You don't need to eat heaping helpings.
Fight back: If you absolutely must have ice cream, grab a teacup instead of a bowl. You'll get the taste you crave, but in a much smaller serving.

8. Make exercise a priority. It's easy to let it feel optional and get lost in the shuffle.
Fight back: Plan your workout schedule for the week and stick to it. If that feels too daunting, start by committing to 1 day. Then try planning for 2 days, and build from there. When you start seeing results, you won't want to stop.

9. Just work out—don't ask yourself if you want to. Most people (myself included) would answer "No."
Fight back: Just commit, get in your workout clothes, and Push Play. You'll be sweating, happy, and proud of yourself before you know it.

10. Must have chocolate? Reach for chocolate Shakeology®. It's made with real cocoa, so it hits that chocolate nerve—as well as providing essential vitamins and minerals to nourish your body, and cleansing prebiotics to gently eliminate built-up toxins from eating processed foods.

Apple Raisin Coffee Cake

Got relatives staying with you over the holidays? Here's an easy breakfast recipe, chock-full of healthy fruit and nuts, that'll serve a small army.

5 cups cored, peeled, and chopped apples
1 cup raisins
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tsp. vanilla
1 egg, beaten
2-1/2 cups whole-grain flour
1-1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
Olive oil cooking spray
13" x 9" x 2" baking dish or pan
Large mixing bowl

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly spray a 13" x 9" x 2" baking dish or pan with cooking spray. In a large mixing bowl, combine apples, raisins, sugar, and walnuts, and mix them together well. Allow mixture to stand for 30 minutes. Then stir olive oil, vanilla, and egg into mixture. Sift flour, soda, and cinnamon together, then slowly stir into apple mixture, making sure it stays moist. Fold mixture into pan and bake 35 to 40 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool slightly before serving. Makes 20 servings.

Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 35 to 40 minutes

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