Diet and Nutrition

Your Temptation-Free Kitchen Survival Guide

Your kitchen is the key to your weight loss success. By simply stocking it with the ingredients for healthy meals and snacks, you won’t be able to make a bad decision, even when those late night munchies hit.

So, what do you keep and what do you toss? Here’s your guide to cleaning out your kitchen and setting yourself up for success:

Grab a garbage bag and toss:

  • High-fat dairy products like cream cheese, heavy cream, full fat milk, cheeses, creamy salad dressings and full-fat yogurts. (more…)
Posted on August 25, 2024 by Kelly

Don’t Trust Your Scale

If you are a scale junkie, you might not like what I have to say.

If you get on the scale multiple times a day, and let those numbers decide what kind of a day you’re going to have, you are not only driving yourself crazy, you’re also wasting your time.

Your weight fluctuates day to day, hour to hour, three, four, even five pounds at a time. It’s normal, and it has nothing to do with how well you have been dieting or how hard you have been exercising. You can’t control it.

If you are a rational human being, you know that it is impossible to gain five pounds of excess fat in a day unless you entered a pie eating contest. So why would you let that stupid number on the scale rule your life? (more…)

Posted on August 24, 2024 by Kelly

The Twitter Diet–Public Support or Humiliation?

Twitter DietWe’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: social support is key to a successful diet. But can social media fill this need? For New York Times writer Brian Stelter, it has. “I thought it would make me more accountable, because I could record everything I ate instantly,” he writes. He began his Twitter diet at over 270 pounds, and now weighs less than 200. Stelter tweeted about what he ate, his calorie count, and how much he exercised. “By Sept. 3 I’ll have lost 75 pounds. I’m already thinking ahead to the fall, when I’ll have to learn how to maintain my new size.”

But like any weight loss endeavor, the journey has not been easy. At first, Stelter thought that he would encounter criticism for the seemingly self-absorbed approach to wight loss. Instead, he found that being honest about his eating habits was even harder. Heavy drinking and late-night fast food didn’t get tweeted. “Within days, I stopped posting the daily log of bites and sips. I disappeared from the account for almost a week at a time.” (more…)

Posted on August 23, 2024 by Health Buzz

The Dangers of Water Bottles

Do you refill your water bottles and use them over and over? Well, it is definitely better for the earth to reuse water bottles, but what about your health?

There have been several studies done on the dangers of reusing plastic water bottles. According to the Canadian Bottled Water Association, bottles are made for single use and should be recycled after that use. The CBWA advises against reusing bottles or containers as a whole. (more…)

Posted on August 23, 2024 by Matt

Guilt Free Happy Hour on the Rachael Ray Show

Tune in this Wednesday, August 25 to the Rachael Ray Show to find out how to not derail a week’s worth of great dieting with Happy Hour.

On the show, Liz Vaccariello, author of 400 Calorie Fix, reveals her strategies for making the best choices the next time you belly up to the bar:

“Liquid calories are very dangerous,” Liz warns, “because we don’t have an awareness of what we’re consuming and we’re not getting full as we’re drinking – and we also have completely out of whack serving sizes!” While the standard serving sizes are 8 ounces for beer, 1.5 ounces for spirits and 5 ounces for wine, you’re often being served a lot more alcohol, especially when ordering a large margarita or draft beer. “So we’re trying to give you strategies to eyeball and know when you’re placing your order how much you’re consuming,” says Liz. (more…)

Posted on August 23, 2024 by heather

Women More Likely to Overeat After Exercise Than Men

In my experience as a personal trainer, women like to blame exercise for a lot of things: making them tired, making them bulk through muscle gain (oh, please), and making them overeat. The last one is when I like to politely remind them that we, as humans, do in fact possess the gift of freewill, and exercise is not what brings the chips to their lips after a workout, it’s their brain, which makes the decision to eat it sound okay.

This doesn’t mean, however, that the hunger is not real. Women especially experience energy cravings after tough workouts, which can be hard to suppress. According to an article in the ACSM Exercise and Sports Sciences Reviews, there are several studies that suggest exercise promotes higher responses in energy-regulating hormones in women than it does in men. The more calories women burn, the more calories they crave after exercise. The result?  Women crave more food after exercise than men, making them more likely to overeat after a workout which can have disastrous effects on their goals.

Just one more biological reason men can lose weight easier and faster than women. (more…)

Posted on August 23, 2024 by Kelly

Is Crunchy Fruit the New Snack Trend?

I recently came across a new product called Funky Monkey, which is a snack tailored towards children. The product promotes being all-natural, real fruit made with the company’s own proprietary freeze-drying process of creating fruit that crunches. Each bag highlights that there is one serving of fruit in every bag. Similarly, Chef Boyardee just started advertising in their canned food line that one serving of vegetables is in every can.

Since when did a serving of fruit come in the form of a crunchy chip or a serving of vegetables come in the form of canned pasta with artificial flavors, colors and preservatives? The healthiest and best options will always be eating the whole fruit or vegetable to get all vitamins, minerals and fiber these amazing produce have to offer. (more…)

Posted on August 22, 2024 by Amy

Why Women Gain Weight and Don’t Know Why

Guest bloggers, Kenneth Schwarz PhD and Julie North Schwarz are the authors of Maria’s Last Diet and Breaking Up with Food. Dr. Kenneth Schwarz is a psychologist and psychoanalyst specializing in personal change and goal achievement. Julie North Schwarz writes about the non-food issues related to women’s weight loss. For more help with the psychological side of dieting, visit their website: Maria’s Last Diet.

Sometimes weight gain comes unannounced, uninvited, unwelcome, an intruder into your life. And yet, upon closer observation, there are reasons. You just weren’t looking their way.

The reasons, if not purely physical and metabolic (which they can be, but not often) have their origins in psychology, feelings, coping skills and life situations.

The reasons are there, but many times they creep in and exert their influence without your permission, and without your conscious knowledge.

And yet, as people, we have enormous reserves of brainpower: We can think; we can investigate; we can observe; we can change things. (more…)

Posted on August 21, 2024 by GuestBlogger

Interview with Hormone Diet Author, Dr. Natasha Turner

Dr. Natasha Turner, author of The Hormone Diet

Natasha Turner is one of Canada’s leading naturopathic doctors and natural health consultants. Her passion for promoting wellness, fitness and integrated medicine makes her a sought-after speaker for corporations, the public and the education of other medical professionals. Her book, The Hormone Diet, is a national bestseller and has been receiving critical acclaim, including praise from Christiane Northrup, MD.

DietsInReview.com had an opportunity to speak with Dr. Turner and her approach for hormone balance. Here is an excerpt of that conversation:

This book is one of the first book that talks about the importance of hormone balance for men. Why should men be concerned about keeping their hormones in check?

Most people hear hormone and think women and menopause. But the approach outlined in The Hormone Diet can be used by both men and women. I see many men in my office of all ages that are experiencing anxiety, depression, weight gain, belly fat, low testosterone levels and low libido.

Hormone imbalance is the cause of so many of our health conditions. The research and clinical experience that is included in this book is applicable for both men and women. It is important to recognize that men will naturally get quicker results than women on The Hormone Diet. Both men and women will ultimately get to the same place, but at a different rate. (more…)

Posted on August 20, 2024 by heather

Drinking Wine Helps Keep You Smart

There’s more good news for vino enthusiasts. In moderate amounts, wine may reduce your risk for dementia and stave off any decline in your thinking.

Norwegian researchers studied the drinking habits of more than 5,000 men and women over seven years. Some of them were not alcohol drinkers. What they found was that the wine drinkers scored better than the non-drinkers on various tests of cognitive function.

The women who said they drank wine at least four times over two weeks had a lower risk of scoring poorly on the tests as compared to women who had less than one drink during the same period. Those women who didn’t drink alcohol scored lowest on the tests. (more…)

Posted on August 19, 2024 by Jason

The Fibromyalgia Diet

Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition that affects about four percent of the American population, the majority of which are women.

The Mayo Clinic characterizes fibromyalgia by fatigue, widespread pain in the muscles, ligaments and tendons, and multiple tender points on your body where slight pressure causes pain.

Fibromyalgia is still in its early stages of being properly understood by the medical community, but because of the increased awareness of this nebulous condition, medical researchers and professionals are confident about some of the known symptoms, risk factors and preventive measures.

While there is no cure for fibromyalgia, certain treatments have shown promise in controlling the condition. In addition to pharmaceuticals like the popular drug, Lyrica, that can help alleviate some of the symptoms, many doctors, and complementary and alternative medical practitioners highlight the importance of nutrition as a way to alleviate symptoms, reduce the risk of flare-ups and improve quality of life. (more…)

Posted on August 19, 2024 by heather