Lauren Slayton on The Top Five Challenges of Winter Weight Loss—And How to Overcome Them

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

Nutritionist Lauren Slayton will at Winnetka's True Juice tomorrow morning at 11 a.m. to sign copies of her new book, The Little Book of Thin.

Billed as a "diet survival book," the tome offers tips for staying healthy and losing weight through scenarios that make some of us balloon, including a particularly rough winter. In advance of her appearance—and because she feels for those of us shivering away in Chiberia—Slayton gave us five tips for maintaining optimum health in the wintertime. Here are her slimming words to live by.

Lauren Slayton's List: How to Overcome The Top Five Obstacles to Winter Weight Loss

Obstacle 1: Hibernation we're all guilty of only doing the essential errands in this weather. But you need time outside to de-stress and get activity in. Walking or strolling is as important as exercise for weight loss and for mood.
Solution:Get an activity tracker like a Fitbit. The first step is admitting you have a problem. When it's clear you have done a tenth of the 10,000 steps you should get in the day, you'll start to work on adding more. Invest in ski gloves or pick up hand warmers, and spend some time outside.

Obstacle 2: Supermarketlessness. if you're not venturing outside you're likely not hitting the market as often as you should, and you think you can get away with it because pasta never goes bad. The problem with this is that the healthiest foods are the ones that are perishable.
Solution: Embrace your freezer. When you go to store get ingredients for a batch of meatballs—we have "green balls" in The Little Book of Thin—made with grass-fed beef or organic turkey. Also snag a few bags of organic frozen vegetables you can add to soups.

Obstacle 3: Mega Winter Blues. It's easy for your mood to dip in the winter, and this hasn't been any typical winter. If blues were of the "powder blue' variety last year, this year they're navy.
Solution: Choose some mood-elevating food such as fermented foods or "probiotic" foods. Most of your serotonin is produced in your gut. These foods help regulate the good bacteria in your gut, keeping your winter blues in check. There's a great Chicago-based company called Windy City Organicsthat produces a line of chocolate and almonds with probiotics called Sunbiotics. Low-fat (never nonfat) yogurt and kombucha are other options.

Obstacle 4: Hot Chocolate to the rescue. I get it. I understand you'd like to warm up, but a sugary drink can pack on the pounds before you even notice it.
Solution: I suggest Matcha, a powdered green tea that's really super-powdered. It has a more mellow taste than many green teas and boosts your metabolism and energy. It's fantastic with frothed almond milk on top—latte-esque.

Obstacle 5. The wrong mindset. "The last thing I'm doing in this weather is dieting"
Solution: Being healthy isn't always about subtraction. There are great ingredients worth adding to your diet that offer numerous health benefits all winter long. Miso, for example, is sold as a paste and can be used for salad dressings, with fish, in soup, and in something like the broccoli-quinoa salad we feature in The Little book of Thin. It's fermented soy, which is the best soy to eat, and those fermented foods? Weight angels. South River Miso is unbelievable. The other worthy addition is hemp seeds or hemp hearts. These look like sesame seeds but are a source of omega 3s, that help with belly fat. Sprinkle over yogurt, oatmeal or salads.
· Lauren Slayton [Foodtrainers]
· True Juice [Official Site]