Posts Tagged healthy eating
Surprise Surprise….
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on February 2nd, 2010
Rex was quite a surprise for us. As a good friend of mine likes to say,I couldn’t have been more surprised if I woke up with my head stapled to the carpet, when I found out Suzy was pregnant again. Jax, our second son, was definitely not on our schedule.
It was tough on Suzy because she was only a few pounds away from her goal weight again when we found out Jax was on his way. I was doing well too. This time we pretty much just let loose. We were dealing with a 5 month old and we just gave in. Once again Suzy and I packed on the weight together.
The odd thing is that since we were doing it together it wasn’t so bad in our minds. After all, I was just trying to make my wife happy. I guess that is one of the things about having been on the show together. I think it kind of gave us a false confidence. “We may have gained weight, but we can lose it when we want.” It was true that we could lose it when we wanted, but it was going to take a lot longer than when we were living on the ranch.
I talk all the time about how people in the real world shouldn’t expect to see double digit weight loss numbers every week like they see on the show. I know from experience that it takes hours of activity and pretty excessive calorie restriction to get those numbers. Knowing all this, in the back of my mind I thought I should still be able to do that.
I can’t. Not only can I not lose double digits each week, I don’t want to. I don’t want to live on 1200 calories a day the rest of my life. I like to eat food and enjoy it. I don’t want to feel guilty every time I eat something I’m “not suppose to”. I want to be able to go out to eat with my wife and have some bread. I want to enjoy living a healthy life.
After having our second son, Suzy and I decided to make it our goal to be a healthy family. Not a family on a diet with an exercise obsession, but a healthy family. We decided that we would eat healthy as a family and be active as a family. This meant taking the boys with us when we went for walks. It meant working our schedules out so that each of us could get our own workouts in. It meant making healthy meals and staying away from the fast food joints.
Suzy made all of the boys’ baby food. We never bought a jar of baby food from the store. Doing this made us more aware of how we were eating as well. Just before Jax was born we went for a hike. On the way down from the mountains Suzy wanted to stop and get some ice cream at Dairy Queen. Well, I didn’t want her to have to eat ice cream alone so I got some as well.
About 2 minutes after we got our ice cream Rex started squaking in the back seat. He wanted some ice cream. Suzy said “No Rex, this isn’t for little boys.” After she said that we both looked at each other. We couldn’t tell our kids not to do things if we weren’t willing to not do them ourselves. We tossed the ice cream.
We knew that Rex was getting old enough to see what we were doing. We couldn’t fake it anymore. This crazy life of ours has just gotten crazier as the boys get older but we are doing our best to change our family’s legacy when it comes to health.
See you tomorrow!
Can a Healthy Thanksgiving Still Taste Good?
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on November 25th, 2009
So here we are, a couple days from Turkey Day. Every year we are bombarded with ideas of how to make the holidays healthier. Every year many of us say to ourselves, maybe next year I’ll give it a try.
Last year Suzy and I decided that we would begin hosting Thanksgiving at our house. The reason was two-fold. First, we had just had our second child and it would be easier to stay at home. Secondly, we would be able to prepare the food and have some control over what was served.
I grew up on buffet style holidays. Everyone brought a dish and I ate until I could eat no more. The spread of food at my Grandma’s house would put a Vegas buffet to shame and all of my aunts can cook some delicious food. Unfortunately, I wanted to make sure I got a good amount of everything which meant eating to excess.
Suzy and I decided that we wanted to focus more on the meaning of the day rather than focusing on food. When we decided to start having dinner at our house we talked about how we can have a healthy meal without having our guests feel like they are being deprived or punished because we are working on ourselves.
The interesting thing about Thanksgiving is that many of the common staples of the meal are pretty healthy. Somewhere along the way we decided that those staples needed some added ingredients to make them taste better.
Let’s take turkey for example. Turkey is a healthy lean meat but for some reason the good old fashion way of baking it or roasting it for hours just wasn’t that appealing anymore. What did we do about that? Deep fried turkey! Mashed potatoes aren’t that bad in the big scheme of things when prepared sensibly but now people “add some flavor” by adding extra butter, cream, even sour cream. We take yams or sweet potatoes and cover them in a layer of marshmallows and butter and brown sugar, but hey they’re still healthy because there are yams under there. Right?
I could go on and on. Instead, I want to share what we do at our house. For starters, Suzy roasts the turkey and uses several herbs such as sage, rosemary, and time. She puts carrots, celery, and onions on the bottom of the pan and puts the bird on top of it. After she adds some water, a little salt and some pepper, she has made a nice little broth to baste the bird in. I can say from tasting it, the turkey tastes great and she doesn’t even rub it down with butter or stuff it under the skin which seems to be a poular method these days. TURKEY TIP: Try using natural ingredients to enhance the flavor of your turkey!
For mashed potatoes Suzy uses red potatoes and adds skim milk. Instead of butter she adds some chicken stock instead of butter. Once again, as a veteran mashed potato eater, I have no complaints with her healthier version.
Alright alright, yes we do still have some desert! Believe it or not, we have actually found a way to have healthier options at desert as well. My favorite holiday desert is pecan pie. Not just pecan pie, but pecan pie with good old fasioned real whipped cream and not just a tablespoon. I want so much whipped cream you can’t even tell there is pie underneath!
Unfortunately, I can’t do that in good conscience anymore but I still want my pecan pie. Suzy came up with a great idea. She bought those little tiny cupcake tins and made bite size pecan pies. So to get my pecan pie fix I got my little “mini pie” with a little bit of fat free cool whip. Having the little portion allowed me to have a taste and Suzy only prepared enough for us all to have ONE. I was able to stay in control.
Possibly my favorite desert is something that Suzy started making to take to get togethers around the holidays so that we could have something to eat without worrying about calorie counts. I call it pumpkin pie pudding. It consists of 2 pkgs of fat free/sugar free pudding prepared as directed on the box. Add half a can of prepared pumpkin, add cinnamon and pumpkin pie seasoning to taste. Put in the fridge until it sets and then add one container of fat free cool whip and mix right before serving. This is a delicious creamy dessert that can take the place of some of the heavier more calorie filled dishes that we often like to have at Thanksgiving.
These are a couple of the things that we do at our home. Tomorrow I am going to give you some ideas on how to keep active over the next couple of days. See you then!
Here come the Holidays!
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on November 23rd, 2009
I can’t beleive it’s Thanksgiving already. Thanksgiving seems to be the kick-off for the holidays. For many the word holidays conjures up the thoughts of multiple parties, time with friends and family, or a time to be a little lax on their exercise. After all, New Years will be here soon and you can set the same resolution you have the last however many years, to get healthier and fitter.
Here is the thing. For many the holidays are really only 2 days, Thanksgiving and Christmas, yet many of us turn December into a month long celebration. We take the holiDAYs and turn it into holiWEEKs. And by the end of the month many have packed on an the pounds. Stats show that average gain in the month of December is 3-7 pounds.
Why do some people pack on the pounds while others go through the holidays unscathed? It really is pretty simple. It comes down to planning and common sense. Fit people tend to grasp the idea that the holidays are a time to spend with your family and celebrate your beliefs, not take a whole month off from working out and over-indulging.
Think about how many parties that you will attend over the next month, not even including Thanksgiving and Christmas. My guess is that most of us will attend at least two many of us anywhere from 4-6. Attending that many get togethers leads to ample opportunities to over do it.
I am not saying don’t leave the house this festive season, I am saying use your head. Plan Ahead! My gym is open on Thanksgiving morning. Guess where I will be before I sit down to enjoy some turkey? The gym!
By getting a workout in I feel more in control at the table. I know that this is simply another meal and that the real joy of the day comes from spending it with people you care about. Last year Suzy and I began hosting Thanksgiving at our house. We had a blast but more importantly, we knew how everything was prepared and made dishes that we could enjoy and that others would enjoy as well. No one complained about having a meal prepared in a healthier way and it tasted great despite missing pounds of butter.
Tomorrow I will have Suzy join me and we are going to share some ideas about how you can make Thanksgiving enjoyable while still making progress toward your healthy lifestyle. The rest of this month I will be writing about not just surviving the holidays but thriving during this month and how we are going to all get a jumpstart on those who are waiting for the new year to begin their changes.
This is an exciting time of the year for many reasons, lets get excited about being fit too!
How I am Losing Weight and Sticking to My Diet with Medical Hypnosis
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on June 24th, 2009
You would think that a guy who lost a huge amount of weight in front of America on the most watch reality weight loss TV show along with winning $250,000 would have no trouble keeping the weight off.
I wish that was the case for me, but it wasn’t. My name is Matt Hoover and I am the winner of NBC’s hit show The Biggest Loser. My season aired nearly four years ago.
I kept the weight off easily for about a year and then real life hit. I wasn’t able to work out even a quarter of as much as I did on the show and I let myself believe that I could eat just like everybody else. I was wrong.
The weight slowly crept back on until I reached 255 pounds. I wasn’t alarmed, more like disappointed. I had still kept off 100 pounds since my highest weight, but this was of no consolation to me.
As I wondered why I had done this to myself again I had to look at my options. I could accept it and try to be all right with the amount of weight that I had kept off, or I could take action and lose the weight that I needed to in order to feel good about myself.
I knew I couldn’t commit to 6-8 hours of exercise a day to take it off quickly like I did on the show. This time I was going to commit to doing it right and using the resources available to me.
I began looking at tools that could help me and that is when I met Michael at the Hypnosis Network. He told me about the various programs and offered to send me some CD’s.
When they arrived I put in a CD entitled Enjoying Weight Loss with Dr. Roberta Temes. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I kept an open mind. I listened to the entire session and when it was over I didn’t really feel very different. I was relaxed, but I didn’t physically feel any different. It wasn’t until the next day that I noticed what had gone on. The next day I realized that I wasn’t craving any of the foods that I had been eating for several months that were not necessarily beneficial to me.
I ate when I was hungry but nothing in between. I also began to choose water rather than soda without feeling deprived. I immediately began to form a healthy relationship with food. Something I hadn’t been able to do for years.
I have always been an emotional eater. When things were good or bad, when I was happy or sad, food was my soother. I have a dear friend who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Normally the news alone would have sent me into a tailspin. In fact I did have a 4-pound weight gain after I found out because I went to food. When I realized what I was doing I put my CD with Dr. Roberta in and had a session. I was able to immediately get back on track.
I have lost 30 pounds with the use of my hypnosis cd’s and proper exercise and diet. These sessions are teaching me how to enjoy eating for health.
I listen to the CD’s at least once a month, but usually more. When I feel like I am down or getting into a funk they are the first things I go to. My favorite is the Enjoying Weight Loss program. Most of the time when I am not feeling great it is because I am struggling in this department.
I am currently training for the Ford Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii this October. As I am doing my training I have implemented hypnosis to help me succeed at this as well.
To those of you considering trying hypnosis to help you reach your weight loss or other goals I say, do it. You have nothing to lose and the benefits were amazing for me. Many of us who have struggled with our weight have felt like we have tried everything. Give it a try and I am sure your results will be great.
The great thing about getting the CD’s is that you can use them over and over. Rather than paying for individual sessions at a therapist you get a professional in your ear and head at any time you need them. I have had great success and continue to use the discs as I reevaluate and work to maintain my goals.
These discs have helped me reprogram my thoughts about food and my relationship with food. It has helped my family life because I am feeling better about myself and act accordingly. My wife has noticed the changes and has recommended I do sessions if she has noticed me slipping into a potential funk.
