Committed to Weight Loss for 2024?
Dietician Marisa Schor offers practical tips to becoming a mindful eater while still enjoying a variety of foods.
After 37 years with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and now with the AJT, , Jaffe’s focus is lifestyle, art, dining, fashion, and community events with emphasis on Jewish movers and shakers.
Setting New Year’s resolutions to lose weight dates to before Jane Fonda’s call to fitness.
A recent Forbes New Year’s resolutions study showed that the top objectives for 2024 were fitness, weight loss, and improved diet. Advice ranging from the Mayo Clinic to Atkins points out that 80 percent of resolutions fail.
Argentinean-born Marisa Schor weighs in with her experience as a credentialed dietician to get and stay on the road to manage weight loss.
She stated, “If I could give one and only one [piece of] advice to my clients is … start your day with breakfast. Not just a bar ‘on-the-go’ (candy wrapped in a healthy costume) but a nutritious breakfast containing carbs, protein, and vitamins … as simple as egg salad on wheat, high fiber cereal with milk and fruit. Don’t wait for lunch on an empty stomach. I encourage people to enjoy the foods, but I also teach what is healthy balanced nutrition. Our bodies will utilize protein, carbohydrates, and fats whenever it needs. It’s not going to ‘wait’ until you consume a particular food group. So those claims about eliminating food groups from a diet in order to achieve health make no sense to me. I just stick to the science.”
Schor’s practical advice for losing and maintaining a healthy weight:
* Replace oil with cooking spray. One tablespoon of oil contains 120 calories. If you use a non-stick spray instead of frying, you will automatically save extra calories. And does anyone use only one tablespoon of oil?
* Swap your evening ice-cream dessert with a cup of low-calorie yogurt. Choose the kind that contains a maximum of 10 grams of sugar per cup. Add granola for crunchiness, and you just saved over 150 calories!
* Pick a smaller size plate. Many of us “eat with our eyes,” so use a 9-inch plate to satisfy your needs and feel full without overdoing it. Aim to fill half of the plate with vegetables, one-quarter with lean protein, and the rest with starch (potatoes, rice, corn, legumes).
* Use applesauce instead of oil for baking. When making goodies like cake, muffins or bread, substitute all or most of the oil or butter with applesauce.
* Substitute zucchini or heart of palms pasta for wheat pasta. If you’re in the mood for pasta, veggie noodles save calories and add extra antioxidants and fiber.
* Eat some protein with every main meal. Protein foods (like eggs, nuts, fish) keep you full longer and help prevent sudden sugary cravings.
The goal is to find new ways to cut unnecessary calories and decrease chances of unwanted weight gain. Being a “mindful” eater has tremendous benefits to maintain a healthy weight in the long run.
Hailing from South America, Schor made Aliyah with her family to Netanya, Israel. After completing military service there and becoming proficient in multiple languages, she worked in the travel industry. Upon immigrating to California, Schor earned an MBA in nonprofit administration, before shifting to her real career passion — nutrition and dietetics — including tough chemistry classes and 1,200 hours of clinical field work while working as a Zumba instructor (which she still does).
She also became a specialist in two other areas: obesity and weight management, and nutrition support. Now she works as a clinical dietitian in a hospital system and sees patients with congestive heart failure, uncontrolled diabetes, kidney complications, geriatric swallowing issues, tube feeding, and/or cancer patients with poor appetites who need urgent nutrition optimization.
Schor teaches and Zooms classes for the general population for $45 a session by sharing stories, recipes and cooking methods, and overall support. Classes are in sets of four, 90-minute sessions spread over two weeks. She glowed, “The typical positive feedback at the end of the series about how much was learned makes my heart full.”
Schor proffers, “We as dietitians know there are coaches, but as a credentialed dietitian, I’m able to ‘read’ each client and personalize exact needs. I also assess blood laboratory test results. This is the first step in the process of evaluation. It’s the actual ‘mirror’ of what happens internally.”
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