Student Loan Blog : diet

7 Steps to Help You Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions

Student Loan Girl — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 14:15:00 GMT

If you’re like most other people in this country, any well-intentioned New Year’s resolutions you may have made for 2008 will have fallen by the wayside come 2009.

According to a 2005 survey, only 8% of people in the United States actually accomplish their resolutions (“New Statistics: … Are New Year’s Resolutions a Thing of the Past?,” Welch Media, Dec. 13, 2005).

Making Resolutions You Can Keep

Why so many unmet and abandoned goals? Some people bite off more than they can chew, setting resolutions that are unrealistic or simply making too many. Some put so much pressure on themselves to succeed, they give up at the first obstacle. Some just lose focus, their New Year’s resolve slipping away a little more each week.

When resolutions are big or vague, or when you haven’t really charted out how you’re going to achieve them, you’re more likely to give up. To have a successful New Year’s resolution, you need something concrete that you can accomplish and a well-defined path for getting there.

Setting Yourself Up for Success

If you have goals you want to reach or changes you want to make in ’08, these seven steps can help with turning your aspirations into resolutions you can actually keep and then keeping them.

1. Start with a list. Dedicate some time to deciding what’s most important to you and the things you really want to accomplish in 2008: Losing weight, saving money for a summer in Europe, taking that drama class that has absolutely nothing to do with your major. Let go of those things you think your parents, friends, boss, or professors want you to do, and write down only what’s meaningful to you. If your resolution isn’t something you really want, it’s unlikely you’ll see it through.

2. Choose one resolution and stick to it. Out of everything on your list, identify the three or four things you’re most passionate about or that are most urgent. From this short list, decide what takes top priority, your number one goal for 2008. With a singular focus instead of multiple resolutions, you won’t feel as overwhelmed and you’ll have a better chance of accomplishing your goal. Once you’re committed to your number one objective, go ahead and rank the rest of your short list: second priority, third, etc.

3. Be specific but realistic. Once you’ve identified your top priority for 2008, make sure it passes the SMART test: Your resolution needs to be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. “Losing weight,” for instance, isn’t a SMART goal. But this is: Lose 15 pounds (specific, measurable, attainable) by June 1, 2008, (specific, timely) by going to the gym three times a week and eating healthy, nutritious food two out of three meals a day (specific, realistic).

4. Focus on the process, not the finish line. Don’t obsess about whether or not you’ll accomplish your goal — when you only focus on the end product, you’ll miss all the progress you’re making along the way. Instead, focus on the process and the small steps you need to take each day: Hitting the gym, eating a healthy meal. Break up your long-term goal (losing 15 pounds over five months) into smaller short-term goals to keep you going: “I will lose three pounds this month.”

5. Don’t beat yourself up. Realize that you’ll probably stumble along the way, whatever you’re going for, and give yourself permission to be less-than-perfect. Go easy on yourself when you miss a day at the gym or eat too much pizza at lunch. Focus on what you’ve done right — all the days you have gone to the gym or eaten healthy — instead of what went wrong. And then get back on track. If you put too much pressure on yourself to avoid failure at all costs, you may become discouraged, and you’ll be more likely to quit as soon as you hit a stumbling block.

6. Celebrate small victories. When you’ve met one of your smaller goals, say, losing three pounds out of your total 15, reward yourself with something you enjoy. Go to a movie, spend an extra hour on your XBox, buy yourself a new shirt or pair of jeans that look great on you. Decide what your reward will be for meeting your next mini-goal, and then work toward that. Rewards are great motivators and can help keep you going on those days when the end of the road seems hard to get to and still far away.

7. Repeat the process. Accomplishing your top goal may take some time. No worries. The key is making steady progress and working toward your mini-goals, one day at a time. Once you’ve met Priority #1, you can go back to the list you made in Step 1 and take on Priority #2. And if you can’t get to number two this year, don’t sweat it — you have next year. You’ll start 2009 with one successful resolution under your belt and the knowledge that you’re one of the small 8% who actually meet the New Year’s resolutions they make.

New Year’s Resolutions for Students

Need some ideas for your top priority for 2008? Try these lists of smart and realistic resolutions for students:

Top 5 New Year’s Resolutions for College Students

Student New Year’s Resolutions

Freshman New Year’s Resolutions

New Year’s Resolutions for Seniors

New Year’s Resolutions for Graduate Students

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Death by Popcorn

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 14:43:00 GMT

Microwave popcorn “pushers” grossed well over a billion dollars ($1.33 billion to be exact) in the year 2000.

But this popular, ubiquitous snack food may be adversely affecting your health, making you sick and potentially even leading to death.

We’re totally serious: Your microwave popcorn could be killing you.

Smog, Carbon Monoxide, and Now—the Waft of Bogus Butter

Whether you’re settling in on the couch to take a TiVo break or just looking for an easy snack, microwave popcorn has a tantalizing go-to convenience: five minutes and you’re in hot buttered heaven.

But that rich, savory smell is exactly what got one Colorado man seriously sick. “When he broke open the bags, after the steam came out, he would often inhale the fragrance because he liked it so much,” writes Gardiner Harris in a New York Times article (“Doctor Links a Man’s Illness to a Microwave Popcorn Habit,” Sep. 5, 2007).

That fragrance comes from diacetyl, a chemical added to microwave popcorn to give it its buttery flavor and smell. Although eating foods that contain diacetyl hasn’t previously been found to pose health risks, inhalation of the fumes produced when diacetyl is heated has been linked to “popcorn lung,” a respiratory disease found in workers at food-flavoring factories and popcorn plants.

The Colorado man, Wayne Watson, went to his doctor, plagued by a worsening cough and deteriorating shortness of breath.

A self-confessed “Mr. Popcorn,” Watson told his personal physician, Dr. Cecile Rose, that he had been eating at least two bags of microwave popcorn every day for over 10 years. Rose discovered the popcorn link on a hunch, asking Watson about his popcorn consumption after noticing similarities between Watson’s symptoms and those of popcorn factory workers afflicted with popcorn lung.

Following her theory, Rose measured levels of diacetyl in Watson’s home after he made popcorn and found levels of the chemical were comparable to those in microwave popcorn plants. Naturally, she encouraged Watson to kick his popcorn habit.

Six months later, Watson’s lung condition has improved. But that hasn’t alleviated concerns among the medical community and industry officials: Until Watson, popcorn lung had only been found only in flood-flavoring and popcorn plant workers, not in everyday consumers.

Professional Poppers Plagued by “Popcorn Lung”

Popcorn lung, medically referred to as bronchiolitis obliterans, is the obliteration of tiny airways in the lungs and can be fatal. When the vapors from heated diacetyl are inhaled over a long period of time, Harris explains, “the small airways in the lungs [can] become swollen and scarred. Sufferers can breathe in deeply, but they have difficulty exhaling.”

Flavoring manufacturers have so far paid out over $100 million as a result of lawsuits brought by affected workers, according to ABC News (“Could Microwave Popcorn Be Toxic?,” May 16, 2007).

ABC recounts the case of Jerry Blaylock, a 53-year-old employee for a flavoring company in St. Louis, Mo. After just 10 months at the plant, Blaylock developed the condition and his lungs now only function at 45 percent capacity. Blaylock says he can no longer take his grandchildren to amusement parks or the zoo.

ConAgra Foods, manufacturer of Orville Redenbacher popcorn, has acknowledged a concern for “workplace exposure” to diacetyl, but told ABC News that “everyday use of its popcorn was safe for consumers.”

Despite ConAgra’s and other manufacturers’ assurances that the disease is isolated to plant workers, Watson’s case—which, according to Daniel DeNoon at WebMD, led Rose to fire off a letter on July 18 to the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration—has raised concerns about the risks to consumers (“Microwave Popcorn Linked to Lung Harm,” Sep. 5, 2007).

Stopping the Pop, at Least for Now

So what does this mean for those of us who love our microwave popcorn and refuse to part with it, in spite of all the evidence that those delicious buttery aromas could be harming us?

You could continue eating it, but with some precautions. Here are some suggestions for dealing with the deadly fumes when your bag is fresh from the microwave:

§ Open it underneath your stove’s fan in the kitchen while holding your breath.

§ Have your least favorite roommate open it for you, then pretend you never read this article.

§ Open the bag and eat as much as you can as quickly as possible without breathing. Hope you don’t burn yourself.

For those of you who have the willpower to stay away from your five-minute snack that’s loaded with deadly diacetyl, you won’t have to deny yourselves forever.

Pop Weaver has already eliminated diacetyl from its products. And makers of major-league brands Orville Redenbacher, Act II, Pop Secret and Jolly Time have announced they’ll also be releasing diacetyl-free versions of their microwave popcorn.

Waiting until then to indulge your craving for a whiff of bagged imitation butter may be the wisest and healthiest move you can make.

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