Are you a mindful eater?

February 8, 2013February 8, 2013 ~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments

I’m glad that the movie theatre is dark while I’m eating my popcorn. I say this because I once had a traumatic experience watching the man sitting in front of us gobble down his gigantic tub of popcorn before the house lights were dimmed for the film. He was shovelling in that corn like there was no tomorrow. It was mesmerizing to see. There was a certain hypnotic poetry in the fluid piston-like rise and fall of one arm as he swiftly filled and then emptied each fistful. His mouth never seemed to shut – even as he somehow managed to chew and swallow while escaping kernels flew about his head and shoulders. Now that’s mindless eating for you. And good Lord, is that what I look like, too?!

But psychologists who study such things tell us that mindful eating, on the other hand, can be a useful method for aiding behaviour change to help with healthier eating and weight loss. Even better, focused attentive eating habits are something that we can practice on our own. So says Dr. Andrew Schwartz, writing in Consumer Reports last month. Here’s what else Dr. Schwartz had to say: Continue reading “Are you a mindful eater?” →

Six steps to stop emotional eating

October 18, 2012October 18, 2012 ~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 7 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas

Karen Trainoff knows a thing or two about emotional eating. Years ago, this Heart and Stroke Foundation dietician was a newly divorced single mother. She gained a whopping 70 pounds after she discovered the nightly comfort of sitting down to a big bowl of creamy mashed potatoes after her son’s bedtime – night after night, week after week, month after month.

Hers was a good example of eating driven by emotions rather than hunger. It’s no secret that food can bring us comfort. But when we eat as a way to cope with problems such as depression, boredom, anxiety, anger, frustration or stress, the results can lead to poor self-esteem and unwanted weight gain, which can in turn increase our risk of heart disease and stroke. Continue reading “Six steps to stop emotional eating” →

My debut on the national news

July 6, 2012March 25, 2018 ~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 16 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters

It all started when I was contacted by Melanie Glanz, a television producer with CBC News from Toronto. She was working on a report about hospital food, she explained. Would I be willing to be interviewed for this news feature?

Hospital food? I assured Melanie that I was not a dietitian or nutritionist or hospital administrator. Not an expert on hospital food at all – rather, more like just a mere victim. But she persisted. She had read my blog article called Hospital Food: The Best Reason to Keep Your Heart Healthy and Avoid Hospitalization. And she told me she really needed a patient’s perspective on such an important topic.

I agreed, albeit a tad reluctantly. What was there to say, after all, about hospital food that hasn’t already been whined about by generations of patients? “Hospital food is bad!” After that, I didn’t think I’d have much else to say. Continue reading “My debut on the national news” →

Is your doctor telling you to “meditate, eat veggies, walk, quit smoking?” If not, why not?

June 26, 2011March 26, 2016 ~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 20 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters

Newsweek once called his advice “the state of the art in psycho-cardiology” – a lifestyle regimen best known for the stringency of its ultra-low-fat diet, but with equal emphasis on exercise and stress reduction. And in The Atlantic, the famous preventive medicine guru Dr. Dean Ornish has written an essay called Why Health Care Works Better than Disease Care. Dr. O is founder and president of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute.

And his research studies were the first to claim that lifestyle changes can reverse cardiovascular disease without drugs.

He’s a rare duck: a man with the letters M.D. after his name who shuns the prescription pad and Big Pharma’s domination of what’s been called “marketing-based medicine”. Instead, he has long advocated preventing – and even reversing – heart disease without drugs or surgery through changing your lifestyle. He actually recommends two different diets: the prevention diet and the reversal diet. The reversal diet is a very strict low-fat diet designed for people who have diagnosed heart disease.

Alas, so far I have yet to meet any heart patient who has been successful in sticking to this extremely restrictive diet for any significant length of time. Continue reading “Is your doctor telling you to “meditate, eat veggies, walk, quit smoking?” If not, why not?” →