Nutrition Frenzy

Don’t judge a food by its glycemic index. A guide to good and bad carbs

Here’s a riddle: What do a Twix candy bar, a Pizza Hut supreme pizza, and a Betty Crocker chocolate cake have in common?

Answer: They’re all “low glycemic” foods. And according to many nutrition experts, that qualifies them not only as healthy but also as great diet fare. For example, NutriSystem has pegged its marketing campaign on the science of the “glycemic advantage,” which the company claims is the key to losing weight while allowing you to eat the foods you love.

What is all this glycemic science?

A bit of background: The glycemic index (GI) ranks foods based on the impact they have on your blood sugar. So the higher a food’s glycemic index, the higher it elevates the amount of glucose coursing through your veins. The idea is that this overload of glucose leads to wild swings in blood sugar (it goes up, then comes crashing down), which ultimately causes you to crave more carbs.

The fitness factor
Another surprise: The glycemic index of a food isn’t a set number. University of Toronto scientists found that the value can vary by 23 percent to 54 percent from person to person. What’s more, it can also differ within the same person. Scientists at Syracuse University discovered that a single weight-training session reduces the effect of a high-sugar drink on blood glucose by 15 percent for 12 hours after an intense workout.

Exercise uses the glucose stored in your muscles. And to replenish those stores after a workout, your body starts shuttling more of the glucose from your bloodstream to your muscles where it’s packed away for future use. This helps reduce blood-glucose levels quickly, even after a high-sugar meal. Consider it another reason to lift weights: That extra muscle gives you a larger storage area for glucose.

Complex carbohydrates
The definition for these is simple: Any carbohydrate that’s composed of more than two sugar molecules.

Starch: This is a bundle of glucose molecules held together by a weak chemical bond. As a result, it’s broken down easily into pure glucose and absorbed quickly.

Fiber: Like starch, fiber is a bundle of sugar molecules. However, human digestive enzymes can’t break the bonds that hold them together, preventing absorption.

Glycemic load: A better number?
Even experts who promote the glycemic index realize it’s not perfect. But is their solution really an improvement?

To address the flaws in the glycemic index (GI), Harvard University scientists came up with another number to base food choices on. It’s called the glycemic load, and it takes into account a food’s portion size as well as its GI. You can calculate a food’s glycemic load by dividing its GI by 100 and then multiplying that by its grams of digestible carbohydrates (total carbs minus fiber).

Just Have a Plan for Getting Your Diet Back on Track, Experts Say

No matter how earnestly you resolve not to overindulge this Thanksgiving, you will probably eat more than you should.

After all, a typical Thanksgiving meal can add up to 3,000 calories or more. And if you snack throughout the day or eat two big meals, you could easily double that for the day.

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One of the biggest culprits? Pecan pie. A single slice with whipped cream has about 800 calories — more than a meal’s worth of calories in a single dessert.

You won’t find much that’s low calorie elsewhere, either, unless your feast happens to have a raw veggie plate. Here’s how some other Thanksgiving favorites stack up:

Roasted dark and white meat turkey with skin — 450 calories
Homemade stuffing with gravy — 600 calories
Cranberry relish — 200 calories
Candied sweet potatoes — 400 calories
Green bean casserole — 190 calories
Pumpkin pie with whipped cream — 400 calories
Cup of eggnog — 400 calories
Who even wants to think about how long it would take to work all that off!

In November 2005, Thomas walked away from the finale of NBC’s Biggest Loser $100,000 richer after losing 185 pounds in nine months.

Now a motivational speaker, Thomas specializes in helping extremely obese people lose weight.

Thomas’ strategy for staying in control during the holidays involves planning.
“If you plan to get some exercise the morning of Thanksgiving and the morning after, that will go a long way to keeping you on track,” he says. “And develop a plan for holiday eating so you don’t eat everything in sight.”

Some of Thomas’ other tips include:

Enjoy the foods you really love in reasonable portions, but skip the foods you don’t.
Plan activities to compliment the day that everyone can do together. “Make it about more than just the food,” he says.
If you are the cook or are contributing to the holiday meal, make a dish that you like that meets your nutritional needs.
Clear the table and put the food away immediately after the big meal and send food home with guests.
Have reasonable expectations.
“You probably won’t lose weight during the holidays, but with careful planning you can avoid gaining weight,” he says.

Higher-protein meals may help overweight and obese people burn more fat, the results of a small study suggest.

Research has shown that overweight people are less efficient at burning fat after a meal than thinner people are. In the new study, Australian researchers looked at whether the protein composition of a meal affects that weight-related gap.

They found that overweight men and women burned more post-meal fat when they ate a high-protein breakfast and lunch than when they had lower-protein meals. That is, the added protein seemed to modify the fat-burning deficit seen in heavy individuals.

“Our research suggests that people with higher body fat burn fat better after a high-protein meal than people with lower levels of body fat,” lead researcher Dr. Marijka Batterham, of the University of Wollongong in New South Wales told Reuters Health.

A number of studies have suggested that high-protein diets may help people shed weight more easily — possibly, in part, because protein suppresses appetite better than fat or carbohydrates do.

The current study did not look at weight loss, so it’s not possible to tell whether the increased fat-burning seen in overweight participants would translate into fewer pounds over time, Batterham said.

But answering that question, she said, will be the next step.

The findings, published in the journal Nutrition & Dietetics, are based on 18 adults whose post-meal metabolism was tested on 3 separate days. The average age was 40 years, eight subjects were overweight, six subjects had a normal weight, and four were obese.

On day one, they were given a “control” breakfast and lunch composed of 58 percent carbohydrates and 14 percent protein. On the other 2 days, their meals were more balanced, with about one third of calories coming from protein and another third from carbohydrates.

In the 8 hours after the control meal, the investigators found that overweight and obese participants burned less fat than their thinner counterparts did. But that gap was closed when participants ate the higher-protein meals.

The protein-rich meals contained low-fat dairy, lean meat and eggs, along with bread and vegetables as carbohydrate sources. Batterham said she and her colleagues are now testing whether vegetarian sources of protein have similar effects on overweight adults’ fat metabolism.

Quirky Thanksgiving trivia:

In 1953, someone at Swanson severely overestimated the amount of turkey Americans would consume that Thanksgiving. With 260 tons of frozen birds to get rid of, a company salesman named Gerry Thomas ordered 5,000 aluminum trays, recruited an assembly line of women armed with spatulas and ice-cream scoops and began creating mini-feasts of turkey, corn-bread dressing, peas and sweet potatoes — creating the first-ever TV dinner. Thomas later said he got the idea from neatly packaged airplane food.

Football & Feastin’

Thanksgiving is ruled by two very powerful f-words: “food” and “football.” Nearly as old as the sport itself, the tradition of watching football on Thanksgiving began in 1876, when the newly formed American Intercollegiate Football Association held its first championship game. Less than a decade later, more than 5,000 club, college and high school football teams held games on Thanksgiving, with match-ups between Princeton and Yale drawing more than 40,000 fans out from their dining rooms. 1934 marked the first NFL game held on Thanksgiving when the Detroit Lions took on the Chicago Bears. The Lions have played on Thanksgiving ever since — except, of course, when the team was called away to serve during World War II.

Franksgiving

FDR learned the hard way not to mess with some traditions. In 1939, the President declared that Americans should celebrate the annual feast one week early, hoping the decision would spur retail sales during the Great Depression. But Americans did not react kindly to the New Deal meal. Some took to the streets while others took to name-calling; the mayor of Atlantic City solved the controversy by declaring his residents would simply enjoy two meals — Thanksgiving and “Franksgiving.” After two years of squabbling (or gobbling, as it were), Congress adopted a resolution in 1941 setting the fourth Thursday of November as the legal holiday

Mary Had a Little Thanksgiving Obession

The woman who wrote the classic nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb” also played an integral role in making Thanksgiving a national holiday. After a 17-year letter-writing campaign, magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale finally convinced President Abraham Lincoln to issue an 1863 decree recognizing the historic tradition.

Americans at the Abbey

In 1942, London’s Westminster Abbey held Thanksgiving services for U.S. troops stationed in England. More than 3,500 soldiers filled the church’s pews to sing America, the Beautiful and The Star-Spangled Banner — the first time in the church’s 900-year history that a foreign army was invited to take over the grounds. It was an ironic gesture given the holiday’s origins as a festival for pilgrims fleeing religious tyranny in Britain.

Read more by clicking above. Happy Thanksgiving!

But rich diet is only one factor in rising rates of ‘the disease of kings’

Courtesy of JoNel Aleccia: Dr. Stephen Vogel should know better than to put chopped chicken livers on his Thanksgiving menu.

As a veteran victim of five years of gout attacks, the retired Gainesville, Fla., surgeon can more or less count on an excruciating flare-up of the acute arthritis that afflicts him and at least 3 million other people in the United States.

But does that mean he’ll steer clear of the savory spread at his brother’s house on Thanksgiving? Not a chance, said Vogel, 69, who is a walking, talking, noshing example of why rates of gout have doubled in the U.S. in recent years.

Indeed, gout has become the most common form of inflammatory arthritis in men older than 40, and increasingly common in women after menopause, said Dr. John Sundy, director of rheumatology and allergy research at Duke University.

Most long-term treatment of the disorder has relied on a drug developed in the 1960s, but on Monday, an advisory committee of the federal Food and Drug Administration recommended U.S. approval of the first new treatment to manage gout in four decades.

It’s not clear exactly how common gout is. A 10-year study of more than 4 million managed care patients in 1999 detected gout in 41 of every 1,000 people older than 75, up from 21 in 1,000 in 1990, according to the Journal of Rheumatology. Rates were more than 31 in 1,000 for people 65 to 74. Current rates have not been pegged, especially in younger people, because recent large studies have not been conducted.

At least one emergency department in Connecticut is keeping track on a small scale, however. At Windham Hospital in Willimantic, Conn., gout diagnoses appear to be up 23 percent over last year, according to Dr. Gregory Shangold, the ED director.

Gout is triggered by high levels of uric acid in the blood, a condition that occurs either when too much of the waste product is produced by eating certain foods, or too little is excreted by the kidneys. In either case, it accumulates, creating concentrations of needlelike uric acid crystals that pile up in the spaces between the joints.

Uric acid typically builds up over time, usually decades. While a single lavish meal isn’t enough to create conditions for gout, a flare can be sparked by a bout of binge drinking, by sudden dehydration or other changes in kidney function, or by trauma such as surgery or a heart attack. In some cases, a stubbed toe on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night has been enough to send a susceptible patient into an attack.

Have an attack of gout ? Check out this new medication.

Splurge a little with smaller groups because they allow you more time to be creative. “Offer specialty dishes like a dressy appetizer or savory starter.

Take strategic shortcuts if you have a larger group. “For example, jazz up a store-bought pound cake with a drizzle of homemade cranberry sauce,” Callahan says. “Or you can steam precut vegetables, like baby carrots, and toss them with a simple glaze of honey and chopped fresh dill for a simple side dish.”

Lighten up classic dishes. “With just a few tweaks, you can take a traditional dish that might be heavy on fat or sodium and make it more healthful,” says Cooking Light senior editor Phillip Rhodes. For example, canola oil has nearly half the saturated fat and more healthful, unsaturated fat than other oils; use it in place of traditional vegetable oil in baked goods.

At the table

Serve buffet-style. “This approach is especially useful for larger groups, as it keeps guests circulating and lets them eat at their own pace,” Tutera says.

Keep your willpower strong. In a study conducted at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, researchers found that dining in a group causes the average person to eat 44 percent more calories than he or she normally would eating alone. Mindful eating is key to maintaining your equilibrium. Make a conscious effort to balance your plate with plenty of fruits and veggies, and a healthy portion — about three to four ounces — of protein, says Barbara Rolls, Ph.D., professor of nutritional sciences at Pennsylvania State University.

But don’t stress about weight gain. Myth holds that people put on five to seven pounds during the holidays. However, the average weight gain during the six-week span from Thanksgiving to New Year’s is just under one pound, according to a yearlong study of nearly 200 people published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Even though enjoying delicious holiday dishes might not increase your waistline by as much as you’d expect, calorie consciousness is still important. Take a second to look at every bite before you eat it. This psychological connection to your food will help you keep a mental checklist of how much you’re consuming.

Be thankful. No matter how you celebrate, welcome guests and gather for a brief toast, blessing, or prayer before dining together, Tutera says.

You can safeguard the nutrients in your mashed potatoes by cooking them a little differently this year.

The trick? Boil them whole. The reason? Cubing your potatoes first will slash their potassium content by as much as 50 percent.

Potassium and More
Okay, boiling them whole does take a bit longer. But the payoff is that you get not only more potassium but more of other important minerals, too: magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, iron, and zinc. (Roasting, baking, or microwaving whole potatoes also preserves more potassium, by the way.)

Why You Need It
Potassium helps your body regulate blood pressure and heart rate, as well as nerve and muscle function. And food is your best source.

To Microwave or Not to Microwave
Q. Does microwaving really zap all the vitamins and minerals from vegetables? If so, what’s the best way to cook them?

A. The jury’s still out on this one. Although some studies suggest the microwave is to blame for sucking nutrients out of your food, others point a finger at the water in which they are cooked.

For most fruits and vegetables, any type of cooking lowers the nutrient content. So for now, a good rule of thumb is: less is more.
Leave skins on whenever possible. Many fruits and vegetables hold most of their antioxidants in their skins. Simply wash well before cooking/eating.
Lightly steam vegetables instead of boiling, sautéing, or roasting. Better yet, go raw with a fresh salad.
If you prefer to blanch your veggies, dip them into boiling water for the least amount of time possible.
The exception is the red tomato. Cooking actually increases its level of lycopene — an antioxidant thought to help prevent certain types of cancer, heart disease, and vision loss.

Thanksgiving marks the beginning of a season where eating is central to the festivities. While it’s also the season of indulgence, it’s easy to plan a holiday meal that’s delicious and healthful. Whether you’re serving two or 20, these guidelines will help make sure your big dinner is a success.

In the kitchen

Set a timetable. Create a game plan for the day, and know exactly how long it takes to prep and cook each item. Consider when the dishes will be in and out of the oven, and determine whether you have enough room for everything, Callahan says. If you’re cooking several items in one oven, keep pans spaced so that none touch. Doing so maintains the airflow inside the oven required to ensure thorough cooking, Bone says.

Assess your gear. Gather your china, silverware, glasses, and linens at least five days in advance. You want to be sure you have enough plates and glasses, the silver is polished, and you have time to launder linens if needed. Know what you’ll be using: the oven, the stove, the microwave? Will you need a roasting pan? Make sure ahead of time the one you get fits in your oven. What about a meat thermometer for testing doneness? It’s smart to keep a running list of equipment you need — that way, you can know just what to buy or borrow.

Know your serving sizes. “Keep track of how much food you’re making,” Bone says. “Usually a pie or cake serves 10 to 16 people. You may decide you only need to make one dessert.” If you’re hosting only a couple of guests, you can adjust the presentation. “For instance, if your cake makes two layers, frost only one, and then you can freeze the other for another occasion.”

Look for nutritional opportunities. Many foods we eat during the holidays are healthier than you think, containing nutrients that may help prevent disease. For example, one baked sweet potato contains nearly 500 percent of the recommended daily amount of vitamin A and almost 50 percent of your vitamin C. “There’s an added benefit to obtaining these vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals from a variety of foods, since they work synergistically to create positive health effects,” says Melissa Ohlson, R.D., a spokesperson for the Cleveland Clinic Heart Center.

Courtesy of webmd: Enjoy the holiday feast without the guilt — or the weight gain.

Get Active
Create a calorie deficit by exercising to burn off extra calories before you ever indulge in your favorite foods, suggests Connie Diekman, MEd, RD, former president of the American Dietetic Association (ADA).

Eat Breakfast
While you might think it makes sense to save up calories for the big meal, experts say eating a small meal in the morning can give you more control over your appetite. Start your day with a small but satisfying breakfast — such as an egg with a slice of whole-wheat toast, or a bowl of whole-grain cereal with low-fat milk — so you won’t be starving when you arrive at the gathering.

Lighten Up
Whether you are hosting Thanksgiving dinner or bringing a few dishes to share, make your recipes healthier with less fat, sugar, and calories.

Use fat-free chicken broth to baste the turkey and make gravy.
Use sugar substitutes in place of sugar and/or fruit purees instead of oil in baked goods.
Reduce oil and butter wherever you can.
Try plain yogurt or fat-free sour cream in creamy dips, mashed potatoes, and casseroles.

Police Your Portions
Thanksgiving tables are bountiful and beautiful displays of traditional family favorites. Before you fill your plate, survey the buffet table and decide what you’re going to choose. Then select reasonable-sized portions of foods you cannot live without.

Skip the Seconds.
Try to resist the temptation to go back for second helpings.

“Leftovers are much better the next day, and if you limit yourself to one plate, you are less likely to overeat and have more room for a delectable dessert,” Diekman says.

Choose the Best Bets on the Buffet.
While each of us has our own favorites, keep in mind that some holiday foods are better choices than others.

Slowly Savor
Eating slowly, putting your fork down between bites, and tasting each mouthful is one of the easiest ways to enjoy your meal and feel satisfied with one plate full of food, experts say. Choosing whole grains, fruits, vegetables, broth-based soups, salads, and other foods with lots of water and fiber add to the feeling of fullness.

Go Easy on Alcohol
Don’t forget those alcohol calories that can add up quickly.

Be Realistic
The holiday season is a time for celebration. With busy schedules and so many extra temptations, this is a good time to strive for weight maintenance instead of weight loss.

Make your usual workout burn more calories — without working a stitch harder — with this simple switch: Do cardio before you strength train.

Doing cardio first — brisk walking, cycling, swing dancing,
whatever — can help you do your full workout, and thus burn more calories, instead of pooping out halfway (not ’cause you have to poop, but because your legs feel exhausted). And finishing your workout with weights helps boost postworkout metabolism — the rate at which your body burns calories after you’re done. The result is an overall higher calorie burn. Plus, muscle burns more calories than fat, upping the total even more.

That said, if you can do only one, do strength training. But don’t make the choice. We don’t. Both of us think physical activity is SO important that we both make it a priority on our schedules.

Also, don’t start obsessing about what you do when. Yes, cardio-first workouts help you get a calorie-burning bonus. But if you’ve only got 20 minutes — enough for a quickie weight routine — grab it. ANY kind of exercise burns calories. It’s far more important to get moving than to chew it over so long that you end up doing nothing.

In fact, what’s so gratifying about exercise is that unlike the list of things you need to clean out of your life (Cheetos, excuses), physical activity is something you can add almost as much of as you want. All while watching Raymond reruns. Don’t have a treadmill in front of the TV? Get some dumbbells. Or do sit-ups. Or jumping jacks. Just do something!

Experts: Nixing commercials may lower number of heavy kids by 18 percent

Banning fast-food advertising on television in the United States could reduce the number of overweight children by as much as 18 percent, researchers said on Wednesday.

But the team at the National Bureau of Economic Research questioned whether it would be practical to impose that kind of government regulation — something only Sweden, Norway and Finland have done.

“We have known for some time that childhood obesity has gripped our culture, but little empirical research has been done that identifies television advertising as a possible cause,” said economist Shin-Yi Chou of Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.

“Hopefully, this line of research can lead to a serious discussion about the type of policies that can curb America’s obesity epidemic.”

For their study, funded in part by the federal government, Chou and colleagues used data on nearly 13,000 children from the 1979 Child-Young Adult National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, both issued by the U.S. Department of Labor.

“The advertising measure used is the number of hours of spot television fast-food restaurant advertising messages seen per week,” they wrote in the Journal of Law and Economics.

“Our results indicate that a ban on these advertisements would reduce the number of overweight children ages 3-11 in a fixed population by 18 percent and would reduce the number of overweight adolescents ages 12-18 by 14 percent.”

Slide show

Perspectives on obesity
A Daryl Cagle editorial cartoon roundup on the growing problem of obesity in the U.S.
msnbc.com

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 13.9 percent of children aged 2 to 5 are overweight, 18.8 percent of those aged 6 to 11 are and more than 17 percent of those 12 to 19.

The percentages have been steadily rising.

Television watching is also known to raise obesity rates, both because children exercise less and because it can interfere with sleep.

Lifestyle changes should come before medicine, says a researcher whose recent study detailed the benefits of statins for people with a low heart disease risk.

Last week, news broke that a study of nearly 20,000 adults found that people with low cholesterol levels could still reduce their risk of heart attack or stroke by taking a statin known commercially as Crestor. It led to speculation that the number of statin prescriptions could skyrocket.

But even Dr. Paul Ridker, the lead researcher of the study, suggests other interventions before a prescription.

In the study, people with a high level of what’s called a C-reactive protein benefited from Crestor. But Ridker shared his recommendations for someone with a high C-reactive protein score with the Boston Globe:

“The first, second, third, and fourth intervention for anyone with elevated hs-CRP is get to the gym, lose a few pounds, throw away the cigarettes, and start thinking about a healthier diet. That remains overwhelmingly the most important intervention for lowering cardiovascular risk,” he said.

Another doctor, Leslie Cho, of the Cleveland Clinic, said she recommends lifestyle changes first.

Background: Surprising statin research
The Jupiter trial has yielded results that are being called “landmark,” though there is plenty of skepticism, too.

The trial “found that in people whose cholesterol levels were normal the risk of a heart attack risk was reduced by 54 per cent and stroke by 48 [after taking the drug]. The combined risk of heart attack, stroke and heart-related death fell by 47%, as did the odds of undergoing surgical procedures,” reported the Daily Telegraph.

Patients in the study took a drug called rosuvastatin, which is made by AstraZeneca under the name Crestor. The pharmaceutical company also funded the study.

Those with normal cholesterol levels had a higher C-reactive protein level, which the Daily Telegraph describes as “a marker of inflammation and has been thought to indicate a risk of cardiovascular problems in the future.”

Jupiter’s results caused quite a stir at last week’s American Heart Association’s meeting in New Orleans, where they were presented. When it was announced, AstraZeneca’s stock price rose in London, according to Bloomberg.

Lori Mosca, a professor of medicine at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, jokingly repeated a question to Bloomberg that she had heard at the Heart Association meeting: “Should we put them in the drinking water?”

Mosca had different thoughts: “Are we going to use this like aspirin therapy? This finding is clearly expanding the universe of who should receive cholesterol pills, but we need to carefully evaluate at what point it becomes cost effective to treat the majority of people.”

Trim your food costs — and your waistline — with these simple tips

Buy in bulk
Bulk items are usually cheaper. That’s because there’s no expensive packaging included. Those savings are passed directly on to you. You also have the freedom to choose how much or how little to buy each time. Best buys include whole grains, dried beans and legumes, nuts and seeds, and cereals. Some health food stores sell spices in bulk as well.

Go seasonal
Out-of-season fruits and vegetables are sometimes imported, expensive and often tasteless. Plan menus and choose recipes around what’s currently in season. You’ll enjoy better flavor AND lower prices, especially at this time of year.

Shop locally
Local grocers carry plenty of regional produce. Farmers markets are a great source for healthy bargains too. For the best deals, shop often and look for end-of-the-day specials.

Grow your own
Slash your spending even further by supplementing your produce purchases with homegrown items. If you don’t have space for a garden, you can at least grow your own herbs. Plant your favorites in small pots near the kitchen. Take a snip or two as needed.

Make it from scratch
Yes, it takes more time, but preparing a dish at home rather than picking up a pre-made version can save up to 50% or more. It also ensures your dish is healthier because you dictate the amount of oil or salt it contains. And best of all, this guarantees no hidden preservatives.

Shop the outer aisles
In most markets you’ll find the healthiest ingredients on the perimeter of the store — fresh fruits and vegetables, lean proteins including fish and chicken, and fat-free and low-fat dairy products. The inner aisles contain most of the processed foods, including soda, candy, chips and snack foods. Aside from the fact that they contain empty calories, they also take a big (and unnecessary) bite from your food budget.

Load up on legumes
Beans and legumes offer a myriad of health benefits as diverse as their varieties. Black beans, garbanzos, pintos — they’re all excellent sources of fiber. They’re also rich in folic acid, calcium, iron, potassium, zinc and antioxidants. The complex carbohydrates they contain provide steady energy that lasts well beyond mealtime. A stellar source of protein, legumes may be the biggest money saver of all as they cost a fraction of the price of most animal proteins.

Olive oil — the unsaturated fat that’s great for your heart — is making headlines again. But this time it’s for helping something a little lower down: your stomach.

Research suggests that polyphenols in olive oil may inhibit the bacterium that causes most stomach ulcers.

Heard of H. Pylori?
Antibiotics are the treatment gold standard for Helicobacter (H.) pylori, the ulcer-causing bacterium that’s tough enough to survive the acidity of people’s stomachs. But resistant strains of H. pylori are now found worldwide. Fortunately, some researchers are seeking alternative therapies, and in recent studies, the polyphenols in olive oil showed tremendous potential. Not only could they withstand the harsh gastric juices of the stomach, but they also seemed to kill off H. pylori pretty handily — even antibiotic-resistant strains.

Olive Oil Power Boosters
To protect the polyphenols in your olive oil and get the most out of the stuff, store it in a dark bottle away from sunlight, and don’t overheat it.

Get More from Your Olive Oil
No doubt about it. Olive oil has a rep as one of the healthiest fats on the planet. Why? It’s full of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, good fats that increase healthy HDL cholesterol –HDL helps clean out your arteries as it moves through them.

But that’s not all olive oil does. Using it on food may be as good for you as kicking a smoking habit. See, microscopic substances in urine reveal how well your body is defending itself against everyday cancer-causing cell damage. Think of cell-damagers as shrapnel: too much means your body is taking some serious hits. But in studies, men who eat more olive oil have less shrapnel. In fact, the drop is similar to what smokers get when they quit.

There’s nothing easier than drizzling olive oil over veggies or using it as a dip for bread. (Don’t go crazy, though; even good fats need to be served with a light hand.) But when you’re cooking with olive oil, be careful not to overheat it, which is easy to do because it has a relatively low “smoking point.” That’s when it starts to burn, which kills the benefits and ruins the flavor, shifting it from rich and slightly fruity to something more like burnt charcoal. Personally, we don’t cook with the best stuff (extra-virgin olive oil), because it starts to burn so fast, at about 320 degrees Fahrenheit. But virgin olive oil can be heated to about 400 degrees before its goodies start going up in smoke. Or try this trick: Instead of heating olive oil in the pan, just spritz some on veggies, fish, or taters before cooking them.

Best-selling author gives tips on how to beat procrastination

Since the late 1980s, Nike has been telling us, “Just Do It!” If only we simply needed a sneakered kick in the butt.

Dan Ariely says people are more likely to attend to work duties than diet or exercise.

“The world is designed to create procrastination problems,” says Dan Ariely, Ph.D., James B. Duke professor of behavioral economics at Duke University and the author of “Predictably Irrational.”

“Our emotions get the better of us, and we tend to forsake our long-term goals in favor of short-term desires. It’s a major source of human misery.”

Ariely surveyed almost 3,000 Oprah.com users to explore how procrastination toys with our lives. He found that while people have a general tendency to drag their feet, certain tasks are real “back burners” for pretty much everyone.

Of the 12 activities listed (including chores like holiday shopping, paying bills, and scheduling doctors’ appointments), exercising and starting a diet are the two people put off the most, topped only by evaluating their retirement plan.

Work duties like completing assignments and returning voice mails are attended to much more promptly. Even when people express a willingness to deal with their most avoided to-dos by setting deadlines, the data revealed, they are likely not to follow through.

“Just recognizing the problem,” says Ariely, “is the first step to overcoming it.”

1. Pull a Ulysses

“The hero of ‘The Odyssey’ realized that, left to his own devices, he would succumb to the seduction of the Sirens’ song, so he had himself tied to the mast of his ship, limiting his ability to behave badly later,” says Ariely.

Try to outsmart the temptation of your short-term desires. Don’t go grocery shopping when you’re hungry, and ask the waiter not to even show you the dessert menu.

2. Borrow from your own success.

If you’re good at handling job demands, translate the same tactics to the areas where you procrastinate. “Work seems more urgent because others are depending on you and there are deadlines to meet,” Ariely says. “That’s what helps make it a priority.” Oprah.com: Five ways to get a life

Invest in a trainer to give your workouts more structure, or arrange to walk regularly with a friend, whom you’ll let down if you don’t show up.

3. Get in your own face.

Celebrity trainer Jim Karas adds that constant reminders of your mission will help keep you from deferring it. Find a photo of yourself when you last felt happy and confident about your appearance, and make it your screen saver.

Put mirrors all over your house and look at yourself constantly, he suggests. “People go around wearing blinders. They don’t want to see reality. The more you look at yourself, the more you will want to make a difference — now.”