Remember, restricting meals and snacks will NOT aid in long term weight loss.  Keeping your metabolism up requires giving your body the nutrients it needs.  Skipping meals only leads to increased appetite and low satiety as the body prevents starvation. 

Your body will make a choice: lose body fat or lose muscle.  If your body is not adequately fueled, it will choose to drop calorie-burning muscle rather than fat.  Increased loss of lean muscle mass will initially lead to weight loss but will not improve body composition or health.

Skipping meals may seem like a good path to losing weight, but will ultimately hurt you more than help.  You may lose weight, but it will be slow and frustrating.  You will also be losing valuable muscle mass instead of body fat and will eventually gain that weight back.  It’s important to fuel your metabolism by eating often (and healthy!).  Here are some tips to help:

Breakfast is KEY

Start the day with a well-balanced breakfast.  Breakfast starts your metabolic engine and is associated with successful maintenance of weight loss.  Without it, you are prone to overeating later in the day.

Snacking

            A well-timed snack will prevent that late afternoon crash and overeating at meal time.  Plan to snack.  Keep healthy options accessible to avoid the candy dish   Prepare snacks ahead of time so they are available when you need them.

Eat More to Consume Less

            Nourish your body with quality foods that you can eat more of such as foods that are high in volume, but low in calories.  This will help to fill your stomach without overdoing calorie consumption.

To read more, click here

“When it comes to eating right and exercising, there is no “I’ll start tomorrow.”  Tomorrow is disease.”

-V.L. Allinear

CNN recently published an article citing a study that was conducted concerning pregnant women and vitamin D.  Results of that study indicated that pregnant women could, and probably SHOULD, consume about 10 times more vitamin D than is currently recommended. 

Guidelines for vitamin D consumption in the past have been capped at 2,000 IU per day (according to doctor recommendations).  However, researchers have now stated that that much vitamin D is not only safe during pregnancy, but doubling that amount may actually reduce the risk of complications.

It is important to remember that pregnant women should consult with their physicians before any dramatic increase in vitamin D.  This study was only performed on women in their second trimester and beyond, and has not yet been tested for earlier term pregnancy.

The study performed tests on 500 women who were at least 12 weeks pregnant.  Researchers had each woman take a different dose of vitamin D on a daily basis.  Women took either 400, 2,000, or 4, 000 IU.  The women who took 4, 000 IU were found to be least likely to go into labor early, give birth prematurely, or develop infections.           

Bruce Hollis, Ph.D, and director of pediatric nutritional sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina stated, “We didn’t see a single adverse effect.  It was absolutely safe, and we saw a lot of improved outcomes.  The risk of preterm labor was vastly decreased and so was the risk of other complications of pregnancy.”

To read more of this article, click here.

“The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but instead will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.”

-Thomas Edison

Proper diet and exercise are the foundation for a healthy lifestyle.  While most of us know this, it is sometimes hard to get started.  The article above gives some excellent suggestions on diet, but where do you begin with exercise?  Below are some tips on how to get started:

• Talk to your doctor before beginning a new program
• Begin Gradually
• Be Patient
• Exercise with a friend
• Join a sporting club or fitness center
• Set realistic goals
• Choose a time and an activity that is right for you
• Focus on the activity itself

Click here for more tips

A couple of weeks ago the Salt Lake managers put a little twist on their managers meeting.  For lunch they were able to coordinate and make several dishes that are from our Tosh Health website!  The food was delicious!  They did a great job of picking healthy and interesting recipes. 

The menu included:

• Garlic Parmesan Flaxseed Crackers with Hummus and Cheese
• Cannelloni Bean Salad
• Spicy and Tangy Shrimp
• Cauliflower Pizza
• White Bean Soup
• Frozen Fruit and Yogurt Pops

Again, all of these recipes can be found at www.toshhealth.com.  There are MANY more

as well, so look them up and enjoy eating healthy!

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

 -Thomas Edison

“We do not stop exercising because we grow old-we grow old because we stop exercising.”

-Dr. Kenneth Cooper

            The first quarter of the Wellness Program is complete!  As a company, we have lost over 1200 pounds!  Congratulations to everyone for the amazing improvement we’ve seen.   There have been several questions over the past couple of weeks that we would like to address.  The following are answers to the most frequent questions:

• Vitamin D test results will be sent directly to the corporate office.  Kristi will review the results and Wellness incentives will be based on those levels.  Each employee will be emailed and given their vitamin D levels.
• Each employee/spouse will be given information showing their blood test results for this quarter (if applicable) and suggestions on how to improve if necessary.  While we will NOT be applying penalty for blood test results this quarter, those numbers WILL be applied next quarter.
• Gym usage reports and workout logs MUST be turned in by the end of the first week of the month at the end of each quarter.  If they are not sent to Kristi by that time, those reports will NOT be applied to the discount.
• Premium payments that are applied for both employee and spouse will be taken out of the employees’ paycheck over a 6 week period.  This means we will NOT be taking the full premium amount out of just one check.
• If the spouse of an employee is currently effective on the medical insurance and the employee is signed up on the Wellness Plan, the spouse MUST participate in the program or no discounts will be given to the spouse-meaning premium payments will be applied.  This does not apply to pregnant employees/spouses.