Nutrition Frenzy

Gabrielle Reece of Yahoo Health has these great hints and tips for living a healthier lifestyle!

1. Drink only water, with the exception of your beloved coffee in the morning. According to studies, this would eliminate 20% of our caloric intake and help all of our body functions run more smoothly.

2. Cut down your portions
I’m not even going to say what to eat and not eat. I’m just saying if you are having that sub at lunch cut it in half. We all overeat, so just eat until you are full. I’ts difficult to do, so halve the food and get it away from you. If it’s sitting there you will want to eat it.

3. Don’t skip breakfast
You will have a 70% chance of overeating throughout your day if you skip breakfast.

4. Keep a food journal
This will help you see exactly what you are eating and when. You will even be able to see patterns of grabbing food at stressful moments, etc. Journaling just makes you aware and in charge of your food–not the other way around.

5. If you can avoid it, don’t eat after 7 p.m.
On business dinners or birthday gatherings don’t worry about it. But when you can, try to finish eating earlier in the day.

These are great tips for anyone wanting to be healthier. This is a great start, along with cutting out processed foods, cutting down meats, increasing your vegetable intake (minus the starchy, carb-loaded vegetables). Another great tip is to walk at least 30 minutes per day! Good luck!

Here’s how to quickly and easily crush a craving for chocolate: Use your feet.

Literally. A walk worked wonders for a small group of chocoholics. When compared with a couch-potato group, the chocoholics experienced a major drop in chocolate cravings after only 15 minutes of putting one foot in front of the other.

Keeping the Pace
It’s a concept that’s gaining clout. Other research has shown that exercise reduces cravings for alcohol and cigarettes, too, by stimulating the activity of feel-good brain chemicals. This is the first study to apply the concept to chocolate cravings. Keep your pace moderately brisk and you may stifle that craving for up to 10 minutes after the walk. And by then, your thoughts should have moved on!

Cravings Schmavings
Need more help getting those comfort-food cravings under control? Here are some other ideas for you:

Stressed? Bored? Angry? Know why you’re reaching for food.

Wet your whistle. Science shows that people often confuse hunger and thirst.

Try an appetite suppressant. Not a pill — a natural one

A new study shows eating half a grapefruit before meals helps dieters lose more weight.

The crux of the study is this: Go Whole. Although grapefruit juice and grapefruit capsules also may have pound-shedding potential, whole fruit was clearly the winner in the study — probably because the whole fruit has appetite-controlling fiber as well.

Back in the 70s and 80s, I remember my mom buying crates of Grapefruit. She’d eat one a day to help lose weight and control her appetite. (What she didn’t do was change her eating habits overall and exercise at that time). The study followed a group of people over twelve weeks who ate 1/2 a grapefruit before meals, ate sensibly and walked for 30 minutes a day. They lost more weight than the other group who didn’t eat 1/2 a grapefruit.

Although I love the aroma of grapefruit, the immunosuppressants I take due to the kidney transplant I have bar me from eating it. It’s thought even the smell of grapefruit may have weight loss benefits. Do they make grapefruit-scented air misters?

That’s an awful lot of grapefruit though. One-half before each meal every single day? Don’t know if I could do it, but there are alot of people who swear by it. Do you or would you try this meal plan? It’s important to remember you still have to eat sensibly (low-fat, low-cholesterol and low-carbohydrate) and exercise (at least walk 30 minutes per day).

In my article, “How I lost 41 Pounds”, I discuss how I mentally prepared to lose weight and how I went about eating and exercising.

I firmly believe that one must deal with losing weight, exercising in their minds first, or they will ultimatley fail. The year before I lost weight but gained it back. Why? Because I hadn’t wrapped my mind around wanting to lose weight first. Sure, the prospect of losing unwanted fat was appealing, but there was no long-term plan to keep the weight off.

Losing weight is a lifetime committment. No pillls, liquids or strange diets will ever work unless you’re totally and 100% committed to sticking with them for the rest of your natural born life. That would get old, at least for me.

What did work for me, was eating sensibly: A variety of fruits and vegetables, fixed in appetizing looking and tasting ways. I knew I wouldn’t stick to eating steaming lumps of goo twice a day for the next thirty or forty years. So, I began buying vegetarian and low-fat cookbooks. I still eat meat (afterall, i’m a midwestern-meat-and-potatoes boy from the midwest). Over the past few years, I have definately opened my palate to new foods and experiencing new and interesting tastes.

Exercise was a four letter word. But, I knew I had to do something or i’d die of a heart attack or stroke. I lost 41 pounds by walking. It took a year, and I followed the FDA’s recommended guidelines of losing a pound a week. No, it wasn’t exacty a pound a week. The first few weeks I lost ten to twelve pounds, then nothing for weeks and weeks. Then five or six more came off. That’s how weight loss worked for me. It came off in spurts. There was plateaus when I felt like giving up, but I kept picturing myself at my previous weight.

What do I suggest? Start small, make acheivable goals, expand your palate.

Personal trainer says even a 10-minute workout gets you closer to fitness goals

NUTRITION

Dr. Melina Jampolis, a San Francisco, California, physician nutrition specialist, is the diet and fitness expert for CNNhealth.com. She focuses exclusively on nutrition for weight loss and disease prevention and treatment.

1. Go for very specific goals.

Make an actual list. Don’t be vague. Instead if “looking better,” write down specifics, such as being able to run around with kids at the park or not wearing a baggy T-shirt to the beach. It’s an internal motivator.

2. Volunteer.

Good karma could be good fitness. Volunteer activities such as coaching a youth soccer game, walking shelter dogs or cleaning up a beach encourages movement and exercise, Jampolis said. When it comes to burning calories, think outside the gym.

“Look for active volunteer opportunities with any form of movement,” she said.

Cheryl Forberg is a behind-the-scenes nutritionist for NBC’s show, “The Biggest Loser.” She is a registered dietitian and chef. She has a weekly blog and is the author of the book “Positively Ageless.”

1. Make over your kitchen.

Get rid of foods that have lower nutritional values, such as white sugar, bread and pasta. If junk food isn’t in your kitchen, you can’t be tempted, Forberg said.

2. Healthy snacking helps.

Having a snack sustains healthy blood sugar levels and energy. This way you don’t feel famished and end up overeating. She recommends a piece of fruit with a protein or healthy fat — perhaps a few nuts with an apple, a cheese stick or a carton of yogurt for a snack.

“Combining protein and carbohydrates keeps you full longer and sustains blood sugar longer and keeps your energy levels,” she said.

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Walking shoes? Check. Sweat socks? Got ’em. Pedometer? Yes, siree. Now, nibble on a few of these before your power walk: raisins.

A little raisin appetizer before your workout may work as well as a sports drink in helping you keep pace and could crank up your fat-burning engines to boot.

Same but Better
In a study, endurance athletes ate either sports gel or 2.5 to 3 ounces of raisins before doing 45 minutes of cycling. Blood samples were collected before and during their workout. Results? The raisin eaters had no problem keeping pace with the gel takers and had higher blood levels of free fatty acids. Translation: Raisins revved up their metabolisms to burn more fat.

More Reasons for Raisins

Raisins are loaded with antioxidants and good-for-you nutrients like fiber, iron, and potassium. So keep a stash on hand to help you meet your fruit intake needs when your fruit bowl runs empty. They’re super easy to sneak into most meals:

Sprinkle raisins on hot cereal, like this slow-cooker Overnight Oatmeal, or on crusty whole-grain bread smeared with peanut butter.

Toss raisins into your favorite lunch salad.

Use raisins in Indian-inspired cuisine.

Put ’em on pizza! That’s right.

Drink This, Drop Pounds

There’s an affordable way to get more fat-burning power from your workouts, and it doesn’t involve hiring a personal trainer or drinking a weird-tasting liquid from a fancy sports bottle. Sipping green tea before a workout may help you incinerate your spare tire faster.

In one small study, extracts from green tea helped men burn 17% more fat during a 30-minute, moderate-intensity cardio workout. It’s not clear how green tea boosts metabolism, but it’s possible that something in the healthy brew makes fat more available as fuel, so you oxidize more of it when you exercise. And, unlike sports drinks, green tea doesn’t contain calories, so you don’t even have to do extra time to burn off the beverage. Plus, while it’s turning your workout into a fat-blitzing bonanza, green tea is also helping to steady your blood pressure, protect your memory, and cut your cancer risk. That’s a lot of power in a little tea bag.

Just keep two things in mind if you usually do your workouts after the sun goes down: 1) green tea contains some caffeine — about 30 milligrams per 8 ounces; and 2) a good night’s sleep may do more for your weight loss efforts than green tea will.

When I lost 41 pounds in 2007, I watched what I ate, exercised and drank a lot of varieties of hot and cold Green Tea! It does work.

Many Americans are failing to meet the minimum recommendations for exercise, although confusing guidelines are making it difficult to assess, researchers reported on Thursday.

Depending on which federal exercise recommendations are used, either about half or about two-thirds of Americans meet minimum goals, the team at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

“Additional efforts are needed to further increase physical activity,” they concluded in the CDC’s weekly report on death and disease.

“Approximately one third of U.S. adults did not report meeting minimum levels of aerobic physical activity as defined by the 2008 Guidelines.”

Under guidelines released by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department in October, the minimum recommended aerobic physical activity is 150 minutes — two and a half hours — a week of moderate activity such as brisk walking, or 75 minutes a week of vigorous activity such as running.

Just under 65 percent of adults reached that goal, the CDC said.

The government’s Healthy People 2010 objectives call for at least 30 minutes of moderate activity five days a week, or 20 minutes of vigorous activity three days per week. Only 49 percent of those surveyed met these goals.

For the study the CDC used a telephone survey of 399,000 U.S. adults.

The CDC said it is easier to meet overall goals of minutes of exercise per week.

“Existing scientific evidence cannot determine whether the health benefits of 30 minutes of activity, 5 days per week, are any different from the benefits of 50 minutes, 3 days per week,” the report reads.

It may be less confusing to advise people to get exercise when they can, the CDC said.

The Institute of Medicine has stronger guidelines. A 2002 report from that group said people should exercise at least an hour a day to maintain health and weight.

About a third of Americans are obese and another one-third are overweight, the CDC says, and they are at higher than acceptable risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

You can quickly crank up your fat-burning furnace if you follow a simple plan.

Whatever you do for exercise — walk, run, bike — just throw in a few short spurts of high-intensity effort. It could boost your fat-burn rate by 36 percent in a couple of weeks!

Turn Up the Burn
Although sustained, moderate exercise does have its fat-burning benefits, new research suggests interval training may be best. When moderately active women did a 60-minute cycling workout — but instead of peddling the whole time, they did 4-minute bursts of high-speed peddling followed by 2-minute rests — they bumped up the fat-burning power of their workouts significantly, after just 14 days.

Love to walk like I do? Follow this routine:

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