This is not new information for most of us, but it’s always nice to be reminded of the benefits of our healthy habits or a reminder of why we should develop these habits.
Celebrity trainer and former body builder Rich Barretta shares the four healthy-eating rules his clients swear by, which you too can easily adopt with Shape Magazine.
1. Cut back on booze
If drinking is a big part of your social life, your waistline may suffer. Not only is alcohol loaded with carbs and empty calories, but people tend to make bad food choices when they’re buzzed. A couple sugary cocktails can easily add up to a thousand calories (half of the average person’s daily need), so Barretta advises avoiding alcohol altogether. If you are going to indulge, opt for a glass of wine or slim down your drink with smart swaps like trading tonic for club soda.2. Just say “no” to fried food
“Grill it, bake it, broil it, steam it, just don’t fry it,” says Barretta. Frying something perfectly healthy, such as chicken, takes away nutrients, while adding fat and calories. Plus, by eating fried foods at restaurants that still use trans fats, you run the risk of raising artery-clogging bad cholesterol and lowering fat-clearing good cholesterol3. Avoid carbs at night
There’s no need to deprive yourself of carbs, but you should be conscious of when you eat them. By consuming high-carb foods (potatoes, rice, pastas and breads) early in the day, you have more time to burn them off. At night, carbs are more likely to go unused and be stored as fat. Barretta’s rule of thumb: Stick to lean protein and veggies after 6pm.4. Pass up processed foods
We all know that fresh foods are better for us, but often reach for processed products out of convenience. While it’s challenging to cut out processed foods entirely, there are certain ingredients Barretta suggests you steer clear of, including high-fructose corn syrup, MSG, white flour and processed sugar. Your best bet is to shop around the perimeter of the grocery store, where you’ll find fresh meats and produce.
Men and women have different nutritional needs - therefore there are foods that are more important for each to eat. Here are a few, and why they’re important:
- Tomato Sauce - protects against prostate cancer.
- Oysters - boosts zinc intake, which helps with the male reproductive system.
- Broccoli - protects against bladder cancer, which is especially popular in men.
- Peanut Butter - protects against heart disease.
- Watermelon - has tons of potassium, therefore protects against high blood pressure.
- Papaya - contains tons of vitamin C, which protects against gallbladder disease.
- Flaxseed - potential weapon against breast cancer.
- Tofu - High in soy protein, which can lower cholesterol and may minimize menopausal hot flashes and strengthen bone.
- Buffalo Meat - contains a lot of iron, which helps with anemia (this condition occurs more in women.)
- Collard Greens - may help with osteoporosis.
Food manufacturers love them because they’re cheap, give food a longer shelf life and add flavor. We love to hate them because they make foods like donuts, pastries and fries hard to resist, but are a hazard to our health and diet.
Artificial trans fats—also called partially hydrogenated oils—raises LDL an artery-clogging bad cholesterol that leads to heart attacks and, in large amounts, decrease HDL which is our fat-clearing good cholesterol.
The government has stepped in, in some states, to ban restaurants from using artificial trans fats when cooking. When you’re cooking at home here’s a list of things you should be using instead of margarine and other oils.
* Avocado
* Canola
* Flaxseed
* Nut (like hazelnut, peanut, or walnut)
* Olive
* Safflower
* Sunflower, corn or soybean
OAKLAND, Calif., March 11 /PRNewswire/ — Findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association on the largest weight loss maintenance study to date reinforce Kaiser Permanente’s approach to obesity prevention. The combination of both personal contact and web-based support are identified as the key to successful, long-term weight management. Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore., was the coordinating center for the Weight Loss Maintenance Trial of 1,032 overweight and obese adults and provided five of the study co-authors.
“The big discovery of this study is that losing weight and keeping it off is possible if you have ongoing, long-term support,” said study second author Victor J. Stevens, Ph.D. a senior researcher at Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Health Research. “Everyone in this country — men, women, and children of every racial group — is getting heavier because our society promotes eating too much and not getting enough exercise. We all need a personal health coach, and hopefully health care systems can provide that. That’s why Kaiser Permanente does research: to find successful programs that fit into routine medical care, and that’s what this study shows.”
The study, presented at the American Heart Association’s Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Metabolism Council Meeting in Colorado Springs, Colo., found that brief personal counseling and web-based intervention strategies offer the best hope in keeping weight off over three years. Of the study’s participants, 287 were from Kaiser Permanente’s Northwest region.
“The takeaway message of this study for people wanting to keep weight off long-term is: adopt a healthy diet; focus on lifestyle changes you can sustain; reduce calorie intake; keep notes daily on how much you eat and exercise; set specific, realistic goals you can meet; seek encouragement from family, friends and co-workers to support your healthy choices; and remind yourself again and again of your original motivation and the health benefits of weight loss,” said lead author Laura P. Svetkey, MD, a professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. “People need to remember that even a few pounds of weight loss can have a big impact on health.”
The model used in the study mirrors some of the techniques and resources offered to Kaiser Permanente members.
“We know that frequent follow-up is best, so we try to make that as easy as possible with a weight maintenance newsletter with tips, tools and techniques from clinical findings, research and patient sharing, online programs to keep people connected electronically and help them key an eye on portion size,” said Trina Histon, Ph.D., director of Kaiser Permanente’s Weight Management Initiative. The initiative provides Kaiser Permanente clinicians with weight loss tools for their patients. “We make it easy to get encouragement through the email your doctor tool and our online Balance Program at kp.org . We have to meet people where they are on the journey of weight loss and maintenance because people need different things at different times.”
Kaiser Permanente also helps promote obesity prevention in the community by supporting 30 farmers markets at Kaiser Permanente medical centers in six states, a Healthy Picks Vending Machine Initiative and TV Turnoff Week, as well as a Healthy Eating Active Living program in 27 communities across the US that makes it easier for people to choose healthy foods and get more active.
“Kaiser Permanente recognizes that good health requires more than exceptional health care at the doctor’s office or hospital. Health research like this benefits not only our members but the community at large — that’s why we extend our care by sharing our research to improve the health and well-being of our members and our communities,” said Raymond J. Baxter, Ph.D., senior vice president, Community Benefit.
Given that two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, these study findings are especially relevant.
“When your weight goes up, so does your blood pressure, risk of diabetes, stroke and heart disease, and wear and tear on your joints, back, hips and knees. Weight gain isn’t an aesthetics issue — it’s a health issue,” said co-author Stevens, a member of Kaiser Permanente’s Care Management Institute’s Weight Management Initiative (http://www.kpcmi.org/weight-management/index.html).
Any time we avoid cramming pills into children’s systems, parents have to listen and take note:
Characterized by hyperactivity, impulsiveness, and the inability to focus, ADHD is the most commonly diagnosed behavioral disorder in childhood, affecting from 3 percent to 5 percent of U.S. school-age children. Most parents and physicians treat ADHD with medication—in fact, the use of medication tripled worldwide between 1993 and 2003, with the United States prescribing more medication for ADHD than any other country. Yet some parents have taken a rigorous look at their child’s diet, as a substitute for or in conjunction with meds, in an effort to minimize symptoms and ultimately sidestep a dependency on drugs.
Medication produces fast results and is preferred by many physicians, parents, and teachers. “It does improve behavior, it is easy, it is quick, but the problem is it doesn’t heal anything,” says clinical nutritionist Marcia Zimmerman, a former research scientist at Stanford University Medical Center and author of the book The ADD Nutrition Solution: A 30-Day Drug-Free Plan. “And moreover, when a child has been on these meds for a period of time it develops side effects and you have to use more drugs to relieve the side effects.”
A nutrition approach takes longer to show results. “With dietary supplements you can see improvement in behavior in a week or two,” says Zimmerman. “A food approach is more of a long-term thing—a 30-day plan, for example.”
There are many ADHD-healing diets to choose from.
Read more.
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