Small changes with how you manage your life
make a big difference with how you can live your life!
Chef Bon's Diet Plan Helpful Diet Videos Bon's Diet Thoughts & Advice
Bon's Daily "Get Fit" Challenges
(Pick 3 to 5 for each week. You can mix & match)
1) Do sit ups or crunches when you wake up, before bed or both
2) Eat 8 oz of “live culture” yogurt each day
3) Walk ½ hour a day, either alone or with a friend, at as quick a pace as you can while still maintaining a conversation
4) Have fresh fruit with hot oatmeal or granola for breakfast or another meal
5) Dance in your home, either to music a wii-type program, for 20 minutes
6) When you wake up in the morning, stretch for 5 minutes: including gentle head & shoulder rolls, a spine stretch and touch your toes
7) Incorporate dark leafy greens, either raw or cooked in at least 1 meal each day
8) Eat an orange or red fruit or vegetable (such as sweet potato, winter squash, pomegranate, tomato) daily
9) Avoid white flour. Only eat baked goods from whole or sprouted grains
10) Each time you eat, take a 10 – 20 minute break after you consume half your meal. After the break, eat the rest of your meal slowly
11) Do not sit while you watch TV. Make sure you are doing some sort of exercise while enjoying your shows. Stretches, exercise equipment and weight training are good options for this activity
12) Avoid or limit soda & alcohol (Just look at the calories and see how much you can afford within your dietary parameters. For you artificial sweetener lovers, I have an upcoming blog article just for you.)
13) Avoid or limit candy and pastries (If you cant go cold turkey... How about 1 day of NO candy, cake, cookies or pastries, then 1 day of LIMITED sweets?)
14) Meditate for 10 minutes before bed
15) Do ballet, tai chi or yoga stretches. You can find videos to stretch with on www.Youtube.com and www.Hulu.com
16) Make sure that produce and whole grains make up at least 2/3 of the volume of your daily diet
17) Keep hydrated! Drink at least 10 cups of (non-alcoholic & non-soda) liquid each day. For a hydration calculator, check out this link: http://nutrition.about.com/library/blwatercalculator.htm
18) While at work, stand up and stretch at least once or twice an hour
19) While at work, perform stomach exercises or leg lifts when sitting at your desk. You can find videos to stretch with on www.Youtube.com
20) Play a game with friends or family, such as basketball, tag, skateboarding, soccer, street hockey – anything that keeps you moving & breathing hard for at least 20 minutes
21) Do not eat any food after dinner. Only consume herbal tea and watered down fruit juice. If you absolutely must eat something, try to stick with plain, raw produce.
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Time to jump start your diet?
 No, this is not me. Is she you?
Bathing suit season will be here soon! Need to shed a few pounds before slipping into your summer outfits? Watch the Diet Tips for some straight forward advice on how to get your diet started.
Meanwhile, Eating Well and Cooking Light both have "easy to make and yummy to eat" recipes that support Rachel Richardson's great diet tips. |
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Your daily workout can be fun!
(for more "inspirational" clips, visit our facebook page)
Why My Diet?
For the first time in my life, I am in the same situation as my clients. Until a few months ago, I ran a large kitchen. Between putting away several thousand dollars of food delivery each day, lifting huge pots filled with heavy food, cleaning & sanitizing our work space, and walking... lots of walking... Every day my job gave me a great workout!
Then I decided to start this nutritional education wellness center and spent the next few months sitting. Don't get me wrong. I have been working! But now, instead of running a kitchen I run an office of 1 staff member (me). Often I work from 6 AM to 1 AM, only taking breaks to raise my son. Those of you who have started businesses know exactly what I am taking about! Things are going well and I am lucky with the amount of interest people are taking in my services. BUT I am not physically moving very much. When I experiment with a recipe, there is no one but me to eat the product. The result? I gained 18 pounds. Seriously, this has to stop. First of all, I refuse to buy a whole new wardrobe. Secondly, no one wants to take diet advice from the fat lady. Believe me, I know this to be true!
By starting my dream business, I have changed my daily lifestyle. Now I must adjust my diet & exercise commitment to go along with it. Since I have both the short term goal to return to my "happy" weight and the long term goal to maintain it, I have a lot of planning to do. I divided my diet plan into 3 sections:
1) Diet
I already maintain a healthful diet. My cravings are mostly what I tell everyone else they should eat. But when I cook in a commercial kitchen all day I am never hungry. Smelling the food and taking occasional tastes really puts the kabosh on my appetite. Now that I spend hours sitting & writing about food, I am hungry all the time! I'm talking about a deep, gnawing hunger down to the pit of my stomach! Wait a minute - is that actually hunger or stress, nerves & exhaustion? Hmmm... Either way, I need to control just how much of this healthful food I am eating.
2) Exercise
I am not getting enough exercise, especially for my thighs and butt!
3) Rest VS Stress
Every time I try to relax, I think of my looooooooong "to do" list to get my business up & running. I am really excited about my new venture but I am also extremely tense. Every job and project I have done in the last 10 years has been with this in mind. I keep thinking "What if I was wrong & this is a bad idea? If so, I have just wasted the last decade of my career!" That is a lot of pressure to put on myself.
My Diet Solutions:
If I just diet to lose weight, I will not learn how to manage my new life. I am actually more interested in regaining my strength & living healthfully than in losing weight. But if I do this right, the weight will eventually come off and my daily life will be harmoniously balanced.
So I looked at what I need to change in my day-to-day living.
1) I need to remove stress related "calorie triggers". As a chef, I love to have a glass of wine with dinner. Normally, that is not a problem. But these days 1 glass leads to 2 or more. Then I start to snack & nibble to absorb the alcohol. By cutting out the evening glass of wine, I can easily remove up to 500 calories a day from my diet. (...up to 1000 calories when I hit the chocolate, brie & crackers...) Since I don't want to fight myself every evening, I will not eat any food or drink except herbal tea or watered down juice after 8:30 PM. That gives me time to enjoy dinner before the food curfew starts. I can have 1 glass of wine every other night if I want. This is important because I do not do well with resisting the completely forbidden fruit. I think the rest of my diet is pretty good, but I will let you know if it needs tweaking.
2) I need to exercise every day. This is easy to say, but when I get caught up in researching I lose track of time. I will schedule my workouts in pen in my daytimer. That way I will take them as seriously as the rest of my scheduled meetings.
3) I need to rest & sleep more. Now, instead of bringing my laptop to bed and literally falling asleep on the job, I will leave my work at the office (which is also my dining room table). Besides, computers make very uncomfortable pillows! I also do not allow any work or unpleasant thoughts into my bedroom. When I wake up with a jolt at 4 AM, I remind myself that the best thing I can do for any issue is to relax, get my rest and deal with it in the morning. I sleep much better now! Also, my jaw is once again loosening up. Yay! After all, a well rested & relaxed metabolism works much better than a tense & tired one.
I listed a bunch of diet challenges on our diet page. Some I chose for a week, some I just pick for the day. It all depends on my schedule & how I am feeling. But when I am mindful of 3 or 5 challenges each day, I treat my body with more grace and detailed care. We will see where this path takes me!
For more details about this crazy diet plan, visit our Chef Bon's Diet Blog page.
Then I decided to start this nutritional education wellness center and spent the next few months sitting. Don't get me wrong. I have been working! But now, instead of running a kitchen I run an office of 1 staff member (me). Often I work from 6 AM to 1 AM, only taking breaks to raise my son. Those of you who have started businesses know exactly what I am taking about! Things are going well and I am lucky with the amount of interest people are taking in my services. BUT I am not physically moving very much. When I experiment with a recipe, there is no one but me to eat the product. The result? I gained 18 pounds. Seriously, this has to stop. First of all, I refuse to buy a whole new wardrobe. Secondly, no one wants to take diet advice from the fat lady. Believe me, I know this to be true!
By starting my dream business, I have changed my daily lifestyle. Now I must adjust my diet & exercise commitment to go along with it. Since I have both the short term goal to return to my "happy" weight and the long term goal to maintain it, I have a lot of planning to do. I divided my diet plan into 3 sections:
1) Diet
I already maintain a healthful diet. My cravings are mostly what I tell everyone else they should eat. But when I cook in a commercial kitchen all day I am never hungry. Smelling the food and taking occasional tastes really puts the kabosh on my appetite. Now that I spend hours sitting & writing about food, I am hungry all the time! I'm talking about a deep, gnawing hunger down to the pit of my stomach! Wait a minute - is that actually hunger or stress, nerves & exhaustion? Hmmm... Either way, I need to control just how much of this healthful food I am eating.
2) Exercise
I am not getting enough exercise, especially for my thighs and butt!
3) Rest VS Stress
Every time I try to relax, I think of my looooooooong "to do" list to get my business up & running. I am really excited about my new venture but I am also extremely tense. Every job and project I have done in the last 10 years has been with this in mind. I keep thinking "What if I was wrong & this is a bad idea? If so, I have just wasted the last decade of my career!" That is a lot of pressure to put on myself.
My Diet Solutions:
If I just diet to lose weight, I will not learn how to manage my new life. I am actually more interested in regaining my strength & living healthfully than in losing weight. But if I do this right, the weight will eventually come off and my daily life will be harmoniously balanced.
So I looked at what I need to change in my day-to-day living.
1) I need to remove stress related "calorie triggers". As a chef, I love to have a glass of wine with dinner. Normally, that is not a problem. But these days 1 glass leads to 2 or more. Then I start to snack & nibble to absorb the alcohol. By cutting out the evening glass of wine, I can easily remove up to 500 calories a day from my diet. (...up to 1000 calories when I hit the chocolate, brie & crackers...) Since I don't want to fight myself every evening, I will not eat any food or drink except herbal tea or watered down juice after 8:30 PM. That gives me time to enjoy dinner before the food curfew starts. I can have 1 glass of wine every other night if I want. This is important because I do not do well with resisting the completely forbidden fruit. I think the rest of my diet is pretty good, but I will let you know if it needs tweaking.
2) I need to exercise every day. This is easy to say, but when I get caught up in researching I lose track of time. I will schedule my workouts in pen in my daytimer. That way I will take them as seriously as the rest of my scheduled meetings.
3) I need to rest & sleep more. Now, instead of bringing my laptop to bed and literally falling asleep on the job, I will leave my work at the office (which is also my dining room table). Besides, computers make very uncomfortable pillows! I also do not allow any work or unpleasant thoughts into my bedroom. When I wake up with a jolt at 4 AM, I remind myself that the best thing I can do for any issue is to relax, get my rest and deal with it in the morning. I sleep much better now! Also, my jaw is once again loosening up. Yay! After all, a well rested & relaxed metabolism works much better than a tense & tired one.
I listed a bunch of diet challenges on our diet page. Some I chose for a week, some I just pick for the day. It all depends on my schedule & how I am feeling. But when I am mindful of 3 or 5 challenges each day, I treat my body with more grace and detailed care. We will see where this path takes me!
For more details about this crazy diet plan, visit our Chef Bon's Diet Blog page.