By Sarah Jenks

Thanksgiving is a loaded holiday. On one hand it’s an amazing celebration full of family, friends and fabulous food, and on the other hand it’s the perfect opportunity for spiraling into guilt and starting a caustic diet cycle.

This year instead of beating yourself up and trying to “un-do” your “bad behavior,” I want to just forgive yourself.

Try this:

Sit with your eyes closed and imagine the you that was sitting at your Thanksgiving table on Thursday. With all of that food in front of her, and all the wine, and celebration, it would’ve taken a super hero to not go back for thirds. Look at her, and tell her you forgive her. Of course it was impossible to be “good” – it was Thanksgiving!

SAY IT OUT LOUD: “I FORGIVE MYSELF.”

When we can forgive ourselves and release the guilt we are far less likely to overeat. It’s the negative feelings that drive us straight into the pint of ice cream in the first place.

Also, resist the urge to restrict your food this week. If you go into starvation/diet mode, your cravings are going to come back with guns blazing by Friday. Just be even, eat how you normally do and the sluggishness will naturally disappear.

Sarah Jenks, founder of theBreathtakingBride.com, helps women fall in love with their bodies and lose weight through exploring the emotional reasons of why we eat. Sarah believes that you can talk about the benefits of broccoli until you are blue in the face, but real change won’t happen until we pull back the veil of fad diets and calorie counting to reveal the true cause of our over eating. Feeling lost about weight loss? Visit her website to download her free guide: “What to do if you feel fat, hopeless and ready to give up.”

Guest contributor: Kavita Jhaveri-Patel

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how eating late is not good for your waistline, but what I didn’t address is what you can or should eat if you happen to have a day that you eat late.

I mean it is impossible to be perfect, and life is life, so there will be days that eating past 8:00 pm is what has to happen. In an effort to make sure you know what to do in all situations, here is my list of foods that are 8:00 pm or after approved.

Unlike Ginger’s pickings for late night eating, the foods that I am about to mention are foods that digest quickly, this is essential because when you eat later at night your body is moving into sleep mode after 8:00 pm and you don’t want that stuff rotting in your stomach, so foods that digest are a must.

A caveat to list below, is if at any point during the day you KNOW you are going to have late nighter meal then make sure you have a big lunch! So you can keep it light at night easily.  Remember I am all about losing weight by accident; this should be easy on you!

1. Cooked Greens & Veggies – Sautee up some broccoli, kale, spinach, or whatever green or veggie you love, add a dash of sesame oil, and you are good to go. Cooked vegetables are easy to digest. Anytime you eat late at night you bloat in the morning, but eat greens will help that.
2. Whole Fruit  – grab a piece of fruit or multiple pieces and eat it whole. The fiber in the fruit will help your body to digest the sugar in the fruit slowly, which prevents your blood sugar levels from spiking (when blood sugar levels spike up and down, weight gain is a result).
3. Yogurt – sweeten it with some maple syrup or honey, or create a savory version with some sea salt and cumin (Indian style). The probiotics in the yogurt will help you digest quickly and it will feel light but feel good in your stomach.

Try to stay away from carbs and meat, because those food categories are known to require more energy and your stomach  works overtime ensuring the bloating effect the next morning.

Leave your comments below and as your mother always taught you share share and share. Tweet and Facebook up the skinny, baby!

Body confidence expert and health and lifestyle speaker Kavita Jhaveri-Patel. She has been featured in Time Out New York, Healthy Style NY, and has been mentioned on FoxLive News. Receive her free report 7 Mistakes Most Women Make When Trying to Lose Weight and How to Avoid Them by clicking here.

Guest contributor: Kavita Jhaveri-Patel

I was getting lunch the other day and I ordered a salad, and the lady behind the counter, making my salad, asked me if I’d like low fat or regular dressing. I sat there for a moment, knowing what low-fat meant, and replied “I will have the real stuff, give me the regular.”

It dawned on me in that moment when I saw 4 other women order the low fat dressing that I had to reveal the truth to you about low fat, low calorie, and non-fat crap.

Have you ever wondered how they make it low fat, low calorie, and non-fat? I mean the reality is, real food has calories and certain fats. The definition of calorie straight from wikipedia (the ultimate source, obviously) is a metric of energy. I left out some of the complicated math stuff. But basically it is a unit of energy.

Of course it is energy—that is why we eat food in the first place!

What companies do to market low calorie and low fat products, to you, is they substitute the fat for corn syrup or sugar and they substitute real sugar with artificial sweeteners to make it low or no calorie. Hence, they add chemicals or sugar, so you feel like you won’t gain weight. But the reality is that it can have the opposite effect because you are now eating something not from nature but man made, so who knows how your body is going to react.

Let’s take ranch dressing as an example, they took out vegetable oil and replaced it with corn syrup and other chemicalized sugars to make the Fat Free version.

So, now your body will experience a blood sugar spike, which by the way is the biggest contributor to weight gain. When your blood sugar levels go up and down, your body thinks it is in emergency mode and stores fat.

Another example is Quaker Oatmeal, which you would think is good for you. However look at the ingredients, what they did to make it Lower Sugar is added sucralose, an artificial sweetener which naturally has no calories because it is totally fake.

I will dedicate an entire post to artificial sweetener, but I have to tell you right now if you eat Equal, Sweet n Low, Splenda, or NutraSweet, stop now! This is not from nature to say the least, and additives like this have proven in studies to cause weight gain.

Also look out for these ingredients in packaged foods, such as aspartame, saccharin, sucralose, and acesulfame potassium.

Okay to sum things up, avoid Fat Free, Low Fat and Low Cal crap. Eat the regular stuff; your weight will thank you for it. You will be more satisfied, and your body will know what to do with the real ingredients that you are consuming.

NOTE: Indicated only the first 10 ingredients.

Regular Ranch Dressing:

Vegetable Oil (Canola Oil and/or Soybean Oil), Egg Yolk, Sugar, Salt, Cultured Nonfat Buttermilk, Natural Flavor, Spices, less than 1% of Garlic (Dried), Onion, Vinegar

Fat Free Ranch Dressing:

Water, Corn Syrup, Maltoexrin Sugar, Modified Food Starch, Buttermilk (Adds A Trivial Amount of Cholesterol), Salt, less than 2% of Vinegar, Garlic Puree, Onion, Garlic (Dried), Green Onion (Dried)

Quaker Instant Oatmeal Lower Sugar Maple & Brown Sugar:

Whole Grain Rolled Oats (With Oat Bran), Sugar, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Salt, Calcium Carbonate, Guar Gum, Caramel Color, Sucralose (Splenda Brand)

Body confidence expert and health and lifestyle speaker Kavita Jhaveri-Patel. She has been featured in Time Out New York, Healthy Style NY, and has been mentioned on FoxLive News. Receive her free report 7 Mistakes Most Women Make When Trying to Lose Weight and How to Avoid Them by clicking here.

Guest contributor: Kavita Jhaveri-Patel

Happy Presidents Day! Have you ever seen this commercial about high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)? If not watch it and then watch the video above. I promise you will laugh out loud. The video above is a spoof on this commercial.

And I have to tell you, HFCS is soooo bad for you, especially in the quantities that we are eating them in. HFCS is, definitely not like sugar, and is completely artificial.

HFCS is made by taking corn starch, adding an enzyme that never existed in the corn starch in the first place, boiling it, and voila, extremely sweet man made artificial sweetener. Corn is subsidized in the US therefore making HFCS cheap and accessible.

You will read in other articles that HFCS is okay in moderation, and it might be, BUT the reality is that we are having large quantities of it daily without even knowing it.

Soda is the biggest HFCS enabler… did you know the typical American drinks over 60 gallons of soda every year?

Have you ever felt like you can’t stop eating and you’re not sure why?

HFCS, simply put, is a chemical that the body has no idea how to deal with it. So, it wreaks havoc in our system. It throws off an important hormone in our system called leptin, which tells your body when to stop eating. This hormone helps regulate appetite and fat storage, and therefore is linked to obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.

So, in order to start dropping lbs check the ingredients of everything you own and throw out the stuff that has HFCS in it. Check the following food list as a starter:

• Bread
o HFCS: Wonderbread, Pepperidge Farm’s line of 100 percent whole grain breads, Weight Watcher’s bread, and Sara Lee Heart Healthy Whole Grain Breads.
o Non-HFCS: Check ingredients, Arnold’s Natural Fiber and Flax bread

• Pancake Syrup
o HFCS: Hungry Jack, Aunt Jemima
o Non HFCS: Vermont Natural Maple Syrup

• Ketchup
o HFCS: Heinz
o Non-HFCS: Muir Glen

• Cereal
o HFCS: Kellogg’s Raisin Bran Crunch, Special K, and Smart Start Healthy Heart.
o Non-HFCS: Kashi, Nature’s Path, and Erewhon

• Yogurt
o HFCS: Fruit or sweetened Yoplait & Dannon
o Non-HFCS: Plain yogurts, Fage Greek Yogurt

• Nutrition Bars
o HFCS: Power Bars, Balance Bars and Zone Perfect Bars
o Non-HFCS: Larabars, Kind Bars

Leave your comments below on how many foods you found HFCS in and the foods that seem to be the most surprising to you. Also share this important information with your family and friends.

Body confidence expert and health and lifestyle speaker Kavita Jhaveri-Patel. She has been featured in Time Out New York, Healthy Style NY, and has been mentioned on FoxLive News. Receive her free report 7 Mistakes Most Women Make When Trying to Lose Weight and How to Avoid Them by clicking here.

Guest contributor: Kavita Jhaveri-Patel

Do you feel like this puffer fish after every meal? Most people experience bloating after a meal because their digestion is not in the best state. Don’t worry, this is not something irreversible like a tattoo, it is something you can totally heal.

Here is a highly simplified science lesson for ya on digestion…

Digestion begins in your mouth with chewing, once swallowed the food gets broken down even further in your stomach, it then proceeds to your small intestine. Your small intestine is lined with millions of hair like villi and 800 different kinds of good bacteria that help to transport the vitamins and minerals from your food to your blood stream.

When the bacteria is not promoted or plaque builds up making the villa stick to one another, our bodies receive less of the vital nutrients because our digestion isn’t working effectively. The result of all of this is water retention, gas, and bloat.

Alright enough of the boring science stuff. What can you do about it?

Here are 3 fail safe ways to beat the bloat!

1. Cut out the gluten – It isn’t as hard as it looks. For most people whole wheat products are healthy and good, but if you find you become bloated quickly then you may want to cut out the gluten to see if this helps. Gluten is the sticky sugary substance in whole wheat products. Instead eat more brown rice, polenta, kasha, and millet. Try to cut the gluten out for 5-6 days and see how you feel.

2. Reduce the dairy – We are having way too much dairy these days. Replace your daily dose of milk with almond milk. See if this makes a difference for you. If you are bold I would say try to eliminate it from your diet just like the gluten for 5-6 days and see how you feel.

3. Drink more water – Drinking lukewarm water first thing in the morning will help you cleanse your system and hydrate your body. The best way to drink water is sipping room temperature water all day long.

Be your own scientist, try out these simple tips and see how great you begin to feel after eating!

Body confidence expert and health and lifestyle speaker Kavita Jhaveri-Patel. She has been featured in Time Out New York, Healthy Style NY, and has been mentioned on FoxLive News. Receive her free report 7 Mistakes Most Women Make When Trying to Lose Weight and How to Avoid Them by clicking here.