Back in skinny jeans

How you can innocently drink 700 calories in one day

Diet Blog has an interesting post "Do Americans Have a Drinking Problem?" on how the Average American has nearly doubled the amount of calories he/she intakes through beverages alone over the past 37 years. I  was curious to see just how many calories one could consume just through drinks alone living in our Starbucks, Jamba Juice, Vitamin Water, soda society.

I was shocked to find that you could innocently consume 700 calories alone and be someone who is generally conscious about what they consume. In this first example, I used Odwalla OJ, milk, a Fuze drink, a basic Starbucks coffee, and a glass of Merlot for dinner. There is no soda, no fat/sugar loaded Frappucinos, or even any fat/sugar loaded alcoholic drinks like a Pina Colada.

Most of the drinks on this list could be considered pretty innocent, and drinks most health-conscious folks  would imbibe. In your head, you could easily rationalize that if you had to have a Starbucks drink that a Soy Gingerbread Latte minus whip is not going to break your caloric bank like a Strawberries & Creme Frappucino would. As well at dinner, one glass of Merlot is better than having a Mai Tai. One at a time, each choice seems like a fairly innocent one, but add them up over the day, and WHAMO! 700 calories and you haven't even eaten any food!  Shockingly as well, you are consuming 112g of sugar. That's pure fuel for muffin top creation.

I was going to add a Jamba Juice drink into this mix because most of us consider Jamba drinks "healthy", but holey moley, those drinks are loaded with calories and sugar, and the lower cal versions use artificial sweeteners which I think everyone should avoid. So, to keep the heart palpitations to a minimum, I left Jamba Juice out.

To relieve the shocking horror, I created another table that lists lower calorie and lower sugar alternatives to the above list.

Holiday Skinny Tip #4: Think Gorgeous versus Gorge

Half of the weight loss battle is mental, so one way to help avoid over doing it calorie wise this holiday season is to start thinking, "Gorgeous versus Gorge." One reason so many of us gain so much weight over the holidays is because of all the gorging of food and alcohol.

No matter your size, weight, or state in life, start putting yourself into a Gorgeous mindset. Look in the mirror and say, "Hello Gorgeous!" When driving, shopping, or waiting in line, smile and think to yourself, "I am a gorgeous woman." Compliment your girl friends, your neighbors, or one of your co-workers and tell them,"Hey, you look gorgeous today." The smile you put on their face will brighten their day and make you feel wonderful.

Now that you are reveling in all this gorgeousness, when you walk into that next holiday gathering or walk past all those goodies in the break room at work, look at all the food and ask yourself, "What would a gorgeous woman eat?"

Say it ain't so! No more movie nakedness for Brad Pitt and other sniffles around the skinny-sphere

• For the sake of not embarrassing his kids, Brad Pitt says he will no longer do nude scenes in his movies. Awwww! But come on! If your dad was Brad Pitt, would you be embarrassed to see his bare tooshie on screen?...Well okay, I can see his point. Now I have to see Brad's movies for the acting. [SF Gate]

• Even in his sketches, Roberto Cavalli wears the fashion lens of distortion. Can you imagine if the Spice Girls looked like this in real life with those legs? [Perez Hilton]

• Want to know what the healthiest and unhealthiest cities in the US for women are? Tip for #1 Healthiest City. This city has a very suave and handsome mayor who was recently re-elected despite a sex scandal during his administration which he fessed up to.Tip for #1 Unhealthiest city. This city is the birth place of a very famous pop star who has had so much plastic surgery over the years that he almost looks like one of the zombies in one of his most famous music videos. [FitSugar]

• The new Hindu Krishna-Avanti School in Harrow UK will require all of its 240 pupils to be vegetarian in accordance with traditional Hindu practices. Can you imagine a vegetarian school in the U.S? Upon graduation, those kids would probably not want to see a Tator Tot or boiled peas and carrots ever again. [WayOdd]

The 3 things in common in Oprah's Dramatic Weight Loss Winners

Yesterday on Oprah, she and her favorite fitness guru, Bob Greene of The Best Life Diet, who by the way just turned 50 and looks really good, chatted with some people who had lost dramatic amounts of weight. Of the guests, the weight loss ranged from 530 pounds to about 160.

Oprah had each guest tell their "Before" story which included a picture of the person at their heaviest, and then she asked them what their secret was to losing all the weight. Each guest had their own unique story but what I found interesting is that I could see about 3 common themes that resonated from every guest's story.

• Each gained the enormous amount of weight in the first place because of some emotional driver. A primary emotional driver was loneliness and feelings of isolation. The fatter the person got, the more they were treated like they were invisible. Not shocking given that people can be very cruel to the obese. Only one guest talked of a Thyroid issue, and her getting to 600 pounds in the first place was not because of an under active Thyroid.

• Most had a problem with night eating or night binging, and consuming massive amounts of sugary foods. One woman even ordered herself a 3-tiered wedding cake and ate the whole thing with milk in 2 days. If I were a shrink, I'd say that she got that cake and ate because it was a symbol of marriage and family something she desperately wants to bring sweetness into her life but feels she couldn't have that so she eats the whole cake to stuff the painful feelings.

Quote on character II

Weigh-in Wed: #26 Week "Injury due to over extending exercise"

It's Weigh-In Wed after Thanksgiving, and I didn't gain nor lose any pounds or inches which is also quite an amazing thing because I also had to stop exercising because I made a cardinal weight loss mistake, and that is I sustained an injury due to over-extending myself in exercise. My bad! Learn from my mistake, and do not push yourselves too hard. Respect your physical limitations. I did not when I should know better and now am paying the price. We live and learn.

When you let your ego instead of reason lead your weight loss efforts, you set yourself up for injury. Why? Because the ego will push you to do things much harder than what your body can handle. In the video, I get into more detail as to exactly why my ego got me into trouble and what exactly I injured.

I did go see my doctor,  and all is better again, but I still need to take it easy and slow down for awhile. So, this coming week, there will be no running, elliptical, or high impact cardio like kickboxing. Walking is what I will be doing for cardio, along with yoga and pilates.

I must also stress that if you injure yourself to go check in with your doctor or sports injury related specialist. If you don't, you could be creating a bigger mess for later. For those of you who mentally dislike or fear going to the doctor, I include a simple way to help change your perspective of seeing the doc. It helped me a greast deal as I used to have a major phobia of hospitals. (video 4min 15sec)

Residents of the O.C. now get to drink purified toilet water

I thought this was just another one of Cartman's South Park money making schemes, but no, it's for real. This Friday, November 30, residents of Orange County California will get to drink purified sewage water that has been hard scrubbed with "filters, screens, chemicals and ultraviolet light and the passage of time underground" at the world's largest plant designed to turn poo and pee infested water into human consumption water for our workouts, lemonade stands, and dish washing. Is your thirst dead yet? Mine is. Most people don't drink the 8 glasses of water their bodies need in the first place, and this news most definitely will not help the cause.

Memorably known as "Toilet to Tap" water, the point of utilizing this type of water processing is to help out with water shortages in times of drought and to help maximize the amount of water we have in use. The purified water will not flow directly from the plant into taps in people's homes but instead will be injected underground where half will help create a barrier to sea water intrusion, and the other half will filter into aquifers that supply water to the residents. The quality of this purified water apparently exceeds current drinking water standards.

Now, I'm all for looking at ways to recycle and re-purpose materials but come on, who really wants to consume water from processed toiler water? The possibility for disease and illness just seem so enormous. And again, we have all the chemicals that need to be used to "clean" the water. Can imagine what the  messages from this purified water would be sharing with Dr. Emoto?

Besides stools and yellow rivers, do you have any idea of what other kinds of things people flush down toilets? It wouldn't shock me to know that radioactive material, human body parts, or anything from a CSI trace collection was flushed down the pot. And let's not forget that the toilet is also the water burial ground for millions of gold fish.

How did the people of the OC agree to this?

8 out of 10 Jamba Juice Original Size Classic drinks have more calories than a Quarter Pounder and other stunners around the skinny-sphere

• 8 out of 10 Original size (24oz- the "medium" size) Jamba Juice Classic drinks like Mango-a-go-go, Banana Berry, and Razzmatazz have more calories than a McDonald's Quarter Pounder with no cheese which weighs in at 410 calories. That's right! The worst of the bunch is Strawberry Surf Rider at 490 calories and 107g of sugar which is the equivalent of the amount of sugar grams in 3-1/3 Snickers candy bars. So, sugar from fruit is different than from candy bars, but still, too much of any sugar is not going to make that muffin top go away. The Quarter Pounder loses in the fat grams war coming in at 19g compared to Jambas which most fall under 2g at the 24oz size.

• Set your TIVOs for Oprah today (Wed 11/28) because the show is all about dramatic weight loss stories including one woman who dropped 530 pounds in under 3 years on her "Internet Diet." Socializing on the Internet helped Nancy Makin, 51 stop from emotional over eating. This story, I have to hear. [FOX News]

• Dr. Robert Cade, 80, the man who invented Gatorade, passed away yesterday. He was a professor at the University of Florida, and a colleague said, "His main contribution is that he was a very nice, decent, generous person, and that he was dedicated to education." What a really thoughtful thing to say. Let's all toast a glass of Gatorade in Dr. Cade's honor. [Gator Sports]

• Ladies, the lab coats are out with yet another experiment revelation. Women who drink moderate amounts of red wine may have less inflammation in their blood vessels. Okay great, but more importantly, how does one get inflamed blood vessels in the first place. [Reuters]

Holiday Skinny Tip #3: That craving may be thirst not hunger

Those cravings you've been having may actually be thirst for water cravings, and not food cravings. Most people think that feeling parched is the sign that your body wants water. Actually, when you get to the parched level you are heading into dehydration zone which is like the equivalent of going way too long without food for fuel.

Next time you have a hankering for some grub, and you have eaten recently, try drinking a glass of water first and wait about 10-15 minutes. If that pang, goes away, then your body was thirsty, and you took care of the need without any extra calories. If the pang is still around after the water, then go nibble on something small to carry you over to your next full meal.

The important thing to do is drink water. Your body needs water to hydrate, flush toxins, and replenish. Thinking that liquid is just liquid, and that any type of drink will do the same job as water is not true. For example, drinking soda, juice, or coffee, is not going to hydrate you like water will plus you are adding caffeine, sugars, and possibly high fructose corn syrup. And don't even think that egg nog or apple cider or any array of booze is a water replacement either. Oh-no-no-no!

If you don't like the taste of water, then try squeezing some fresh lemon or lime, or add some cucumbers slices like they do at the spa. Or try adding a small slice of your favorite fruit. It's okay to add a pinch of something to help make the water experience more pleasurable. The point is that you are supplying your body with something it really needs and can benefit from.