Expert Tips on How to Make Healthy Habits Work for Your Life

Speaker 1:   Welcome back to Good Day Kentucky. By this time of year, most of us have made and probably broken our New Year’s resolutions to get healthier. Our next guests say that healthy living and creating healthy habits doesn’t mean giving up all the things that you love. So, joining us today with the details are Dr. Gary Foster, he is the Chief Scientific Officer at WW, the new Weight Watchers. And also acclaimed chef, restaurateur, television personality, and WW ambassador, Eric Greenspan. Welcome to the show, gentlemen.

Eric Greenspan:    Thank you. Thanks for having us.

Gar y Foster:         Pleasure to be here.

Speaker 1:   Well, let’s get right to it. Dr. Foster, why do so many people tend to give up on their New Year’s resolutions? I’m guilty of it too.

Gar y Foster:         Yeah, it’s a really good question ’cause it’s really common. What happens really is it’s not the resolution itself that’s the problem. What’s wrong with wanting to lose weight and get healthy in the new year? It’s often the way people think about it in their approach. They are attracted to approaches that are overly rigid and restrictive ’cause there’s very clear rules to follow. Unfortunately, those rules like, “I can never eat this. I can only eat that,” really undermine success from the very get-go.

From a behavioral science point of view, you need to enjoy the foods that you love for this to last. So, those kind of approaches are short-lived and that’s why they’re so common and popular the first couple weeks of January, things like keto and no sugar or whatever plan. Then February now, a time when people want to reevaluate and say, “What’s a plan I can stick to in the long-term?”

Speaker 1:   Right, right. Now, what is the key to forming lasting habits instead of just chasing short-term fixes?

Gar y Foster:         Again, it’s about the approach. It’s a thing that we’re fond of saying at WW, the new Weight Watchers, it’s about progress not perfection. We bake in flexibility into our program. We appreciate and, in fact, celebrate that people don’t eat the same on a Monday night as they do on a Saturday night. That’s important to us as a program principle and really important to our members.

As another example, we have over 200 ZeroPoint foods that really help people make healthier choices and get away from all the angst about how much of this, how much of that. So, as a result, our rooting in behavioral science and being obsessed with flexibility and livability, I’m happy to report that our new Freestyle program is our most effective and livable program in our very long history.

Speaker 1:   Oh, I love it. Now, chef Eric, you’re known as the King of Comfort foods. So, it might be surprising to for people to hear that your balancing the healthy habits with your passion for delicious food. So, what inspired you to get healthier?

Eric Greenspan:    I mean, look, I’ve always been obsessed with food. I’ve always had a love for food but that obsession and love kind of started to dwindle away and turned into a challenge for me, and I needed to get the love for food back. So, to do that … I mean, look, I eat for a living and so I needed something that was flexible, that was livable, that wasn’t so rigid and WW Freestyle really gave that to me. And it works! I mean, I’m over 50 pounds lighter in under a year.

Speaker 1:   That’s amazing and that’s hard work to do a lot of times for a lot of people that are struggling to lose weight. What are some simple hacks that we can do in the kitchen to simplify meal planning and preparation in our own homes?

Eric Greenspan:    For me, the hacks really are always about focusing on delicious and making delicious food but making smart choices. And so, focusing on those zero point foods that the doctor pointed out are really, really important. For example, I have this macaroni and cheese that’s in our cookbook, Cook Up Comfort, and we really … You got to have macaroni in it but I like to add cauliflower to it to kind of stretch it and make it more filling and satisfying. The cheese sauce, it’s not just cheese and cream and butter, it’s roasted squash mixed with non-fat Greek yogurt. Then we used really strong cheese and then kind of stretched that flavor through. So, it’s still indulgent, it’s still luxurious, but it’s become healthy.

For me, most important, what’s been the most effective is the WW app. It helps me track, it helps me learn, and it’s got Connect in it, which is a platform where you get to meet and interact with an entire community. I think that I find that having access to a community of people who are experiencing what we’re experiencing and walking the journey with you is the greatest hack of all.

Speaker 1:   Ah, that’s awesome. I love that. And where can people go for more information?

Eric Greenspan:    Super easy, ww.com. It’s all there.

Speaker 1:   Awesome! Well, gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us today, we really appreciate it. And you are watching Good Day Kentucky. Keep it right here.