Healthy Eating: The Results

Now that Kirsten had a nutrition consultation, completed a food cleanse, and spent two weeks eating an ultra-healthy diet, she has new knowledge and tested tips to share with us. What did she learn? What tools helped the most? Let’s find out!

Kirsten started her journey with a one-on-one consultation with Keri Glassman, author and founder of NutritiousLife, and says Glassman’s Slim Calm Sexy Diet was equally helpful, providing recipes, nutritional facts, and quick references like ingredient substitutions. ”Knowing what each food has to offer (and not offer) makes it much easier to choose healthy foods,” says Kirsten. “Being aware is what can make or break your level of success.”

Here are five items that Kirsten found indispensable over the last two weeks.

Cuisineart 8-Piece Nonstick Pots and Pans Set
“These truly ‘nonstick’ pots and pans made it so easy to cut out unwanted fats while cooking. Clean-up was a breeze, too, because I wasn't busy scraping away particles that became one with the pan.”

Cuisineart SmartPower Premier Blender
“Experimenting with different types of smoothies entertained me for a freakishly long time, but this blender can also whip up a serious batch of salsa. Clean up was easy, and the smaller portions helped me maintain my cool without over indulging.”

Cool Gear Containers
“With sturdy utensils built in, it was easy to bring anything for lunch. The separate, built-in compartments are nothing short of genius!”

KitchenAid Salad Chopper
“My obsession with "Slim Slaw" (from Slim Calm Sexy Diet) pretty much began on day one of the cleanse—and this chopper was the easiest way to make it. It was fun to use, and life was so much easier when chopping fine, consistent pieces. Every kitchen should have one!”

Tempted to start your own healthy-eating makeover? Score Kirsten’s favorite products in our 14-Day Makeover Challenge: Cooking sale (ending 4/12 at 10AM EDT). You can also learn more about our makeover series and follow our hair and fashion challenges.

14-Day Makeover Challenge: Healthy Eating

Week Two: One week down, one to go! When we left off with Kirsten last week, she was armed with newfound nutrition knowledge and on her way to the grocery store to stock up on fresh produce. Now she's at the halfway point of our 14-Day Makeover Series: What's working? What's not? Did she survive the food cleanse? Let’s see...

After meeting with Keri Glassman, founder of Nutritious Life, last week Kirsten started a three-day, whole-food cleanse from Glassman's Slim Calm Sexy Diet. It meant lots of vegetables, just a little bit of fruit, and absolutely no processed foods. How'd Kirsten fare? Day one, she fought off coffee cravings, but by day two she was surprised by how high her energy level was — sans caffeine. After day three, she was sold on Glassman's cleanse. Here's what she had to say:

"It was so much easier than I thought it was going to be. I was eating constantly, was hardly ever hungry, and my energy increased. Coming off of the cleanse, I incorporated new healthy foods in addition to sticking to some semblance of the way I’d been eating—since I liked how I felt so much."

Kirsten's been off the cleanse for five days. She's still eating very healthy, but sticking to her new routine is getting tougher. What’s the hardest part? Resisting takeout at work when co-workers pull out delivery menus. Limiting coffee to a single cup per day, minus the Splenda (she bid all artificial sweeteners adieu). And maintaining her willpower during nights out with friends when she made her one ‐ and only — slip.

Despite the abundance of temptations, there've been several refreshing discoveries. Kirsten's thrilled by what a cheap snack fresh fruit makes and is quickly becoming a smoothie addict with her new CuisineArt blender — score your own, plus more of her favorites, next Tuesday (4/10) during our Inside ideeli Makeover sale. Meanwhile, recipes from Glassman's Slim Calm Sexy Diet are now staples in Kirsten's diet (two egg whites mixed with one whole egg in the morning, cucumber with rice vinegar in the afternoon). And one of her favorite new recipes is Slim Slaw — a mix of cabbage, almonds, rice vinegar, and dijon mustard — which is easy to make, thanks to her new salad chopper.

Tune in next Wednesday to see how far Kirsten's come in two weeks with the final post of our healthy-eating challenge. Learn more about our 14-Day Makeover Series, and check out our latest challenge — hair — where one ideeli employee got a bold, new cut and color at a top NYC salon.

Healthy Eating: Meet the Expert

Changing a habit is hard work, especially when it comes to eating well. That’s why we enlisted nutrition expert Keri Glassman — founder and president of New York-based Nutritious Life and author of Slim Calm Sexy Diet, The O2 Diet, and The Snack Factor Diet — to give our 14-day Makeover Challenge participant, Kirsten, all the ingredients she needs to reach her goals. (Click here, to learn more about Kirsten.)

We sat down with Glassman to talk about jump-starting our own nutrition makeovers. Here’s what we learned.

Q: You talk a lot about reaching a “calm place” with food, what does that mean?
A. Calming down in regards to your relationship with food will ultimately cause you to decrease overall stress and eliminate excess weight. It’s what I call ‘eating empowered,’ and it’s all about knowing ‘I can have that’ and getting away from ‘I can’t have that.’

Q: You describe your method as a “whole person” approach. Since “whole” is a word that’s thrown around a lot in the world of nutrition, how do you define it?
A. I always say: ‘whole with a [capital] W!’ This is because I approach nutrition by looking at a person’s WHOLE life. If someone is crazy stressed, not sleeping, or has no order in her kitchen, it can be nearly impossible to implement even the best nutrition plan.

Q: A big part of your program is adhering to what you call “the 8 pillars of nutrition” — what are they?
A. It’s not just about diet; it’s about getting adequate hydration, exercise, managing stress, getting sufficient sleep, pampering yourself, being aware of ‘your’ world, and even having a healthy sex life. You don't have to be conquering all of these pillars all of the time, but you should be focusing on as many as you can. It will not only make you feel better, but it will also help you stay consistent with your overall healthy lifestyle and lose weight for the long haul.

Q: How should people prepare before they change their eating habits?
A. For many people, I start with switching up the way they hydrate (taking out soda, upping water intake, adding in green tea). Then we set up an exercise routine and figure out one thing daily that they can do for themselves to help decrease stress and provide happiness.

Q: If a person can only make one change, what’s the best place to start?
A. The biggest initial change I like to see is the elimination of added sugars and artificial sweeteners and upping the intake of veggies (especially greens at lunch and dinner). These sweeteners alter your perception of food, making it very difficult to decrease sweet cravings.

14-Day Makeover Challenge: Healthy Eating

Week 1: We are what we eat, so we’re kicking off our makeover series with the food challenge. Our sample coordinator, Kirsten, has already promised to trade sugary snacks for healthy meals, but now she’s put her four main goals into writing:

1. Make healthier choices
2. Cook and bring lunch from home
3. Be more active, specifically walking home from work every day
4. Do all of the above on a budget.

To give Kirsten a running start, we hooked her up with Keri Glassman, owner of Nutritious Life and author of Slim Calm Sexy Diet, The 8 Rules Diet, and The O2 Diet. The two met at Glassman’s Manhattan office, where Kirsten learned her first tenet of healthy eating: ask what food can do for you. Will it give you energy? Improve your skin? Or make you crash? It’s what Glassman calls empowered eating. “If you focus on what’s good for you,” she says, “you want to do it.”


But empowered eating is more than just nutrition — that's just one piece of the puzzle. Because healthy habits breed even more healthy habits, she looks at a client's whole life before delving into food.

Late to bed and early to rise Kirsten almost never gets eight hours. And sleep, Glassman says, is a prerequisite to healthy eating. She recommends Kirsten enter wind-down mode 30 minutes before bedtime. This means turning off the TV and Internet, taking a hot shower or bath, and spraying some yawn-inducing lavender. Then getting into bed, making a to-do list for the next day—casting all worries aside—and saying goodnight.


With a prescription for a good night’s sleep, Kirsten gets her homework for the week. She’s not only going to give up Splenda (and all artificial sweeteners) cold turkey, but also start a three-day, green-food-only cleanse while reading excerpts of Glassman's book, Slim Calm Sexy Diet. And with this arsenal of advice, Kirsten sets off to her first week of healthier eating.

Check back Wednesday for a Q&A with Keri Glassman and next Tuesday to see what’s cookin’ with Kirsten, one week into her healthy eating challenge. Want to learn more about the ideeli 14-Day Makeover Challenge? Click here.