Archive for May, 2009
Beware the Prepackaged Smoothie
We were in the grocery store the other day and were looking around at the prepackaged smoothies that are in the referigerated juice section of the store, and I started looking at the nutrition substance in these “all natural” smoothies that are supposed to be healthy alternatives to high fat snacks or even meal replacements. What I found was not only that they were pretty high in calories for a fairly small amount of juice, which probably wouldn’t fill you up too much or at the very least leave you starving in the near future, but they were not really “all natural” as they claimed.
One even had some fancy name for what I thought might be high fructose corn syrup, which is anything but healthy, and certainly is not all natural. These smoothies were plus very high in sugar, and they weren’t thick which means they didn’t really have much but reconstituted frozen juice concentrate. whether you look at the ingredients one that was supposed to be made exclusively of mango was really a mix of apple juice, banana puree, some mango puree, pineapple juice and some other sort of juice that was anything but mango. that leads me to believe that it’s nearly like you are drinking empty calories.
Sure, you may be getting some advantage such as vitamin C considering it is juice, but other than that, you are getting a high calorie snack or meal that doesn’t fill you up and may in fact put your appetite on high for the rest of the day considering it is so high in sugar. I actually prefer to build my own smoothies at home. that way, you know precisely what’s going into them, and you know you’re getting whole, fresh (I use frozen) fruit that is going to fill you up with fiber and good nutrients.
I think I’ve shared my recipe for at home fruit smoothies already before here, but in case I have not, here it is. You take a good vanilla light yogurt. My favorite is Dannon Light and Fit vanilla yogurt. You get the most bang for your buck with Dannon Light and Fit whether you compare it to other low fat vanilla yogurts. It’s a little thinner, but it’s additionally about fifty calories less per serving and has less carbohydrates. It additionally happens to taste the best I think.
Use the fruit of your choice, but for highest nutrition value, try blueberries or blackberries, which have tons of antioxidants. You may additionally add ground flaxseed meal, which adds much needed, filling fiber. I like it considering it makes it a more robust texture and keeps you fuller longer, plus it helps keep you regular! It plus happens to have valuable omega 3 fats in it.
Next, add ice, and voila, you have yourself a low fat, great tasting smoothie. It all should amount to less than 300 calories too, so it’s a great breakfast or even a lunch whether you want to compose it that. For added calories and protein and filling ingredients, you may additionally add some protein powder to it.
Original post by EatingToLive
Is Grapefruit Really a Good Diet Food?
I remember being a small child and even hearing about the wonders of grapefruit when it came to weight loss. It was all the rage. Dieters went to the stores and bought grapefruits by the droves. There were diets committed to grapefruit, where all the dieter ate was grapefruit for several consecutive days, supposedly boosting their fat burning capabilities and flushing toxins out of the bodies. There was additionally a specific diet that was used in hospitals where a person drank grapefruit juice with their protein in the , supposedly helping to enhance their fat burning abilities for the rest of the day.
So, is grapefruit really some miracle weight loss food, or is that all a bunch of hype, like a lot of other things in the diet and weight loss arena? Well, it turns out that grapefruit is really good for you, and may be a great diet food as well. The reason is a natural compound/chemical found in grapefruit (but plus found in other fruits, it’s just in grapefruit in a fairly high concentration), called pectin. Pectin is believe to enhance the fat burning capability of the body, hence the diet craze by grapefruit.
If you’ll notice, grapefruit’s reputation as a great diet food has largely gone by the hill now, being replaced by other food fads such as the acai berry, which by the way has very little evidence of being anything other than a very compelling antioxidant, which is great, but how great for weight loss? Other foods that have replaced the grapefruit as a great diet food are almonds, which contain protein and omega 3’s and are touted as a great natural appetite suppressant since they lead to a greater sense of fullness and satiety.
Also in the good diet food arena today are foods like spinach, kale, low fat dairy products like yogurt, egg whites, and lettuce, all of which contain whole nutrients that help you keep full, whether by way of protein or fiber. Grapefruit is still a very healthful food to eat, I just wouldn’t count on it as a weight loss method.
Original post by EatingToLive
Jillian Michaels Master Your Metabolism Book Is Out
Jillian Michaels, who seems to become more and more popular as day goes by, has come out with another book on blasting away fat and helping humans lose weight who have not responded to their liking when dieting and eating healthier. The book, Master Your Metabolism, is all about how the current American diet, which is rich in processed foods and a lot of chemical additives, is mostly about going organic and eating unprocessed, whole foods in order that your body may restore it’s natural hormone balance that helps it to achieve it’s ideal weight and weight maintenance.
She really advocates an organic diet that is high in unprocessed foods like organic fruits and veggies, and stresses the importance of vitamin C since it is a effective antidote against a stress hormone called cortisol, which has been strongly linked to weight gain. She plus talks about how getting decent sleep every night is extremely critical considering of the hormones it helps to both stimulate helpful hormones and supress the unhealthful ones that are counterproductive to your weight goals.
She says that when you sleep at night you produce the most HGH, which is human growth hormone, the hormone that keeps us lean and healthy in our younger years and tails off toward our later years, which accounts for more body fat and less muscle tone.
For example, she says that sleeping helps you produce a hormone called leptin which helps you feel fuller. The reason you feel ravenous all day after not sleeping decent is considering your body has not produced adequate of that natural chemical. plus she says sleep helps you to supress the production of cortisol, which helps in your weight goals as well. However, although she points out a lot of helpful and educational anecdotes and facts about why undoubtful things are fundamental in your diet and other things are counterproductive, she really advocates the organic, whole foods and seems to feel that processed foods are majorly responsible for a lot of the obesity and inadequate metabolisms.
I love to be educated on things like that, so that would be a book for me. I think it says a lot of things that some folks may not know, but someone who is savvy in how to eat for optimum health may feel that some of it is repetitive. As always, her book is competitively priced, just like her workout dvd’s, which is always appreciated, and something that I feel is really vital considering she is making that data available to humans who really need it. She’s extremely motivational, and I still love her workout videos too.
Original post by EatingToLive
Health Care Workers Train Through Medical Simulation
Soldiers and pilots use simulation training to learn accuracy, safety and confidence. Now, University of Missouri medical, nursing, health professions and University of Missouri- Kansas City pharmacy instructors are using medical simulation to train students to recognize safety risks, communicate effectively and work with other health professionals……..
Original post by Heather Craven
Protein erbin could become treatment target
A new protein identified as critical to insulating the wiring that connects the brain and body could one day be a therapy target for divergent diseases, from rare ones that lower the pain threshold to cancer, Medical College of Georgia scientists say. They report that week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online Early Edition that in the peripheral nervous system that controls arms and legs, the protein erbin regulates the protein neuregulin 1, stabilizing and interacting with the ErbB2 receptor on Schwann cells so they can build myelin, which insulates the wiring……..
Original post by Heather Craven
Low Fat Delicious Waldorf Chicken Salad Recipe
This recipe has become one of mine and my boyfriend’s recent favorites, what with the summer season coming up soon, and the warm weather arriving, we wanted something light and easy for lunches, and I’d had some delicious chicken salad at restaurants that combined similar ingredients, only I could tell they weren’t low fat considering of the excessively rich flavor of it. However, with just some minor tweaks, you can manufacture a delicious, low fat and high fiber and nutritional value chicken salad, without even using that much chicken, believe it or not!
This is a waldorf style chicken salad, which means it combines fruits and chicken and mayo basically. I’m going to write the exact recipe I use below so you can duplicate it with delicious results for you yourself or you and your family. For a lunch notion, you can put that chicken salad on a whole wheat pita for an additional 110 calories, or you can put it in a low carb wrap for about an additional 70 calories, depending on which type of low carb wraps you use.
This plus adds more fiber, which means you stay fuller and satisfied longer. By the way, that is a good meal for dieting, considering my boyfriend and I have lost 30 pounds collectively so far and that is one of the items we love to eat, so you can feel good about it!
Ok, here’s my recipe for low fat, low calorie, high fiber Waldorf Chicken Salad :
3 chicken breasts, you can marinate them or not, I like to marinate mine overnight in a low fat, low calorie vinegarette dressing for adding juiciness and flavor. I pan fry mine, or you can broil them, whichever way you want is fine.
Let the chicken breasts cool. When cooled, slice and dice them or shred them, whichever you prefer.
I like to use about 1/4 cup of raisins mixed with dried cranberries and white raisins. Sunmaid makes bags of these that are already mixed, and you can use them on salads too, they’re delicious on salads.
1 whole apple. I like to use sweeter apple varieties such as fuji or gala, but you can use whatever apple floats your taste boat. Diced up the apple into small squares. that adds greatly to the fiber substance and nutritional value. Remember the saying “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”?
1/2 cup of plain chopped walnuts. I cut mine up in a nut chopper, but you can cut them up into little pieces with a knife too, it’s just a little more duration consuming.
3/4 cup of Low Fat Mayonnaise by Hellmans. manufacture certain it’s the Low fat variety and not the Light, considering the Light has more than double the calories and fat in it, and you don’t sacrifice too much taste and flavor by using the Low fat version, considering there are so many other flavors in that recipe that produce up for it.
1 half red onion, diced small.
Mix that all together until the mayo is thoroughly mixed in with all the other ingredients. It will be a somewhat loose mixture, but it’s still very satisfying and tasty. I plus like to add a dash of salt and pepper to mine, but whether you’re watching your sodium you can of course skip that part.
Original post by EatingToLive
What is the “Diet Plate”
There’s a new notion that I’ve always thought would be good, and I was actually surprised no one had put one to market yet, of course at least not that I knew of. But now someone has, and it might just catch on. Except they didn’t originate in America, the diet obsessed land, they put it out in Britain. It’s called the Diet Plate, and for about forty bucks (yikes!), you can purchase the Diet Plate and you get a free diet bowl to go with it. What are they, and how can they help you lose weight?
Well, all the Diet Plate is, is a tool to help you control your portions and take the guesswork out of your portion sizes for various food groups. For example, it has drawn the sizes of protein servings, veggie servings (which happen to be unlimited, so enlarged as they are not in a buttery or creamy sauce of some kind) and last but not least (and unfortunately usually the most fun to eat of the groups, and plus the smallest allowance as we all know too well), the carbohydrate group. that last group could be some sort of pasta, a baked potato, or bread of some sort, and of course for diet plans it’s the smaller portion of the three.
Now, for the free bowl that comes with the Diet Plate, that is used for breakfast cereals, to show you what kind of portion of cereal constitutes a good amount of calories for your breakfast. I’m not certain how many folks would actually use that since a lot of society prefer to have things like yogurt, meats and fruits and perhaps english muffins or something of the sort for breakfast, but there you have it, and it’s free, so who can complain!
This whole portion control thing is really the key to losing weight, but additionally I believe that eating the right combinations of foods and what types of starches, veggies, fruits and meats you eat really matters as well, so hopefully the plan and directions that come with explains that some foods may be better choices, regardless of portions, just from a nutritional value and filling value to keep you fuller longer and keep you on your diet.
I always like the unlimited veggies part, but too many times humans think that that means they can eat things like creamed spinach or veggies in butter sauces, and that’s not the case. So while portion control is an urgent part of weight loss and healthy weight maintenance, I think that the types of foods you choose will keep you healthier and on a diet longer considering it kicks in your natural appetite suppressants, or on a good eating plan for the rest of your life, whereas low quality foods will just assemble you hungrier.
Oh, and portion control doesn’t just apply for meals, it of course applies additionally for snacking all through the day, which is often forgotten whether one is practicing portion control with meals.
Original post by EatingToLive
