I got a little side tracked with the 12 Days of Fitness promotion post, but I’m back on track with my weight loss tips series again.

Tip # 3: Eat more beans

That’s right eat more beans. Can beans help you lose weight, you ask?? Possibly. A recent study showed that women who had a serving of beans in their diet most days of the week weighed less than women who didn’t eat beans. Now, there are a lot of ways to interpret these findings. I’ll give you my take: eating more fiber helps you lose weight (or maintain weight once you’ve lost it).

Truth be told, weight loss tip #3 was actually going to state “eat more fiber”, but I thought that “eat more beans” was a bit more provocative and would make you take more notice! Did it work???

The reason why increasing fiber intake helps with weight loss is that eating foods with fiber helps you feel fuller faster. Fibrous foods also take longer to digest, so they keep you feeling fuller a bit longer than quickly digested foods.

Many of us don’t know what the heck to do with beans or we think that they’re too labor intensive because we’ll be boiling them the night before in order to eat them the following day. There’s an easy fix to this. Eat canned beans (rinsed and drained) or frozen beans. I think the easiest way to add beans to your diet is to throw a few tablespoons of beans into a big salad. At the beginning of the week, I open and drain a can of garbanzo beans or kidney beans and put them in a plastic container. I reach for them throughout the week to put on salads. Beans are a decent source of protein, so it’s a great way to add protein to a meal. I have three cans of beans sitting in front of me as I type this. Look at the nutrition you get in just one half cup of beans:

Garbanzo: 120 calories, 6 g. fiber, 6 g. protein, 20 g. carbohydrate, 2 g. fat
Pink beans: 80 calories, 6 g. fiber, 6 g. protein, 20 g. carbohydrate, .5 g. fat
Black beans: 130 calories, 6 g. fiber, 8 g. protein, 24 g. carbohydrate, 0 g. fat

Aside from throwing beans into a salad, here are some other ideas to get some beans into your weekly meal plan:

Add beans as a side dish
-Combine black beans with a few tablespoons of fresh salsa
-Sprinkle a little salt, pepper and garlic pepper on pinto beans
-Microwave frozen lima beans with a few sprinkles of onion flakes

Add beans to lean ground turkey seasoned w/taco seasoning and wrap in a whole wheat tortilla

Add beans to soups and stews

Beans are an inexpensive food full of nutrition and fiber. And…….eating them can be a healthy part of a weight loss program!

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Many of us “boomers” have tried a lot of hair-brained diets over the last few decades. There have been some doozies! Remember the grapefruit diet?

Unfortunately, a lot of us are still tied up in the “diet” loop and go through periods of trying to live on a near-starvation diet to lose weight. I really do understand why women do this, but my baby boomer weight loss tip #2 for you is: STOP DIETING.

First, let me define what I mean by “diet”. I’m referring to a restrictive way of eating (usually very restrictive in calories) that isn’t really something you can live with for the rest of your life. Sometimes I’ll use the word “diet” to refer to a way of eating. I don’t mean that here. What I mean by “diet” in this post are things like eating only 800 calories a day, or eliminating a whole food group (bread, for example) or a macronutrient (dietary fat, for example) from your eating plan.

All of the above are examples of things you really can’t live with the rest of your life. The problem with dieting like this is that we lose muscle when we go too low in calories, and when we eliminate a whole food group or macronutrient, well, is just isn’t realistic. Very low calorie dieting really comes back to haunt us when we go back to “regular” eating (and we always do!).

Muscle IS our metabolism! If we lose some muscle due to severe dieting (because our body has had to break down some muscle for energy), we end up with a slower metabolism. This is bad for a boomer body. Really bad. We’ve got hormonal issues to deal with, bone issues, skin and hair that is changing (and, heck, some of us have teenagers at home!). We don’t need to add muscle loss to our list of issues! We have enough things to keep us busy. Let’s not let lost muscle mass be another thing to add to the list!

So, how does a boomer lose weight and maintain muscle? One way is by eating regularly. Here’s a fool proof plan for you:

• Eat small meals about every 3-4 hours. I suggest most women aim for 3 small meals and 2-3 small snacks throughout the day. This keeps you full, keeps your blood sugar steady and keeps your metabolism slightly elevated several times during the day, as your body burns a few extra calories during digestion.

• Include some lean protein, a little healthy fat and some produce in every meal or snack. Protein and fat take longer to digest and therefore keep you fuller longer. Healthy fats include olive oil, walnut oil, avocados, almonds, and nut butters.