Diet and Nutrition

10 No-Nonsense Tips for Improving Your Heart Health Today

Heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death in both men and women. Luckily, it’s preventable and controllable. With new cholesterol guidelines from the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology, more and more Americans will be prescribed drugs known as statins to lower cholesterol. Of course, there’s another way to get results: Diet and exercise are the foundations for heart health and are without the side effects of drugs.

I’m a Registered Dietician, a Culinary Nutritionist, and Author of “Beyond The Mediterranean Diet: European Secrets Of The Super-Healthy” but I have an even deeper personal connection to this topic: I was diagnosed with high cholesterol at age 9.

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Posted on February 11, 2024 by GuestBlogger

How Do Your Eating Habits Measure Up Compared to the Rest of the Country?

By Janis Jibrin, M.S., R.D., Best Life lead nutritionist

Have you ever wondered about how your diet habits compare to other Americans? Check out the findings below, from a national survey of American adults ages 18 to 80 by the International Food Information Council, to see.

Weight and Health:

90 percent describe their health as good or better. Most—62 percent—report having “excellent” or “very good” health.

56 percent say they’re trying to lose weight.

27 percent are trying to maintain their weight.
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Posted on February 11, 2024 by BestLifeDiet

The Daily Table Wants to Sell You Old and Ugly Food

Would you buy expired or ugly food? That’s the question being posed by the former president of Trader Joe’s, Doug Rauch.

The food in his new store wouldn’t actually be expired, but instead would be food that is past its “sell-by” date, making it unusable for sale in traditional grocery stores.

His store, The Daily Table, is set to open in Dorchester, Massachusetts in May and will be part grocery store and part cafe. It will specialize in making healthy, inexpensive food available to those who might not otherwise have access.

“When I run down to meetings in the city in Boston,” Rauch told Salon. “I’d say most families know that their kids need to eat better. Most families know that they’re not giving their kids the nutrition they need. But they just can’t afford it, they don’t have an option.”

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Posted on February 10, 2024 by Elizabeth

Work it Off: Burn off the 330 Calories in a Cinnamon Roll

For the people of Portland, OR, this past Friday was a snow day. We received 5 or so inches of snow—more than has fallen on the city in the past several years—which effectively shut down schools, businesses, transportation, and more. However here’s a sad truth: Freelancers don’t get snow days. We’re like the postal service: Rain, snow, sleet, flu… we’re prepared to stamp our timecards and get the job done. And there was a job to be done: The Biggest Loser season 15 grand finale had taken place earlier in the week and our site was still flooded with traffic from people interested in hearing what the trainers had to say about the whole debacle. To make the day a little sweeter I decided to start my morning with a cinnamon roll. Not a monstrous Cinnabon-style treat. Just a small pastry from a neighborhood bakery.

My neighbors might be skiing around the block (seriously) and sledding down their sloped driveways, but I was enjoying a little of the white stuff (frosting!) too. (more…)

Posted on February 9, 2024 by Jessica Cassity

Mark Bailey Drops 65 Pounds and His Pants – For New Cookbook

Mark Bailey is a speaker, motivator and full time chef with a culinary focus on breakfast food. He’s even penned a cookbook titled, “Cooking in Boxers with Chef Bailey: 50 Ways to Keep Your Mate In Bed.” Today he’s a champion for living a balanced life and incorporating healthy meals and exercise into his daily routine, but he admits it took years to break his bad habits.

How did Mark (Chef Bailey) go from, “chubby boy” to the guy pictured in his undies on a cookbook? This is Mark’s 65-pound true weight loss story.

“My weight struggles began when I was 12 years old,” Mark explained. “I like to say this is when my ‘fat gene’ kicked in because prior to my preteen years, I was a relatively thin kid. But by 13, I had become a chubby boy.” Mark said eating second helpings was a regular habit, especially when it came to mama’s home cooking. This pattern of overeating followed him into his adult years. In his late twenties, while visiting his parents, Mark started looking through old photos. “It was at this moment, that I came to realize I had spent the better half of my young adult life yo-yo dieting,” he said. “This eye-opener motivated me to not only make a change but approach my weight loss effort differently.”

Instead of focusing solely on losing weight, I had to figure what I needed to change permanently thereafter to keep the weight off. My workout routine was about to become a way of life instead of just a means to an end.

Chef Bailey’s 4-Step Plan:

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Posted on February 8, 2024 by Dani Stone

Biggest Loser Trainers Speak Out About Rachel’s Weight Loss

The public has spoken up about Rachel Frederickson’s shocking weight loss on “The Biggest Loser” season 15. So has the media. Finally, the trainers from the show are releasing statements. Although between you and me, it’s pretty easy to read between the lines on this screen shot from the big reveal:

Here’s what the stars of “The Biggest Loser” have to say:

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Posted on February 6, 2024 by Jessica Cassity

Biggest Loser’s Rachel Makes Headlines with Her Weight Loss

On Tuesday, February 4th, our own Brandi Koskie tuned into the season finale for “The Biggest Loser” season 15. She was watching the program from her living room, which was unusual—she’s been in the audience at well over half of the past season’s finales. What she saw shocked her, and she’s not alone.

The winner of the contest had lost a shocking 60% of her body weight, reducing her 5’5″ frame to a painfully thin 105 pounds. Although Koskie was one of the first to rally against NBC and the show, telling them they’d gone too far, other news outlets soon followed suit. Winner Rachel Frederickson said she feels “absolutely great”, but this didn’t stop any of the concern for her and criticism for the way the “game” is played.

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Posted on February 6, 2024 by Jessica Cassity

“I Feel Absolutely Great.” Biggest Loser’s Rachel Frederickson Speaks About Her Win and Shocking Weight Loss

Last night’s Biggest Loser finale wasn’t exactly the celebration we were all hoping for. Rachel Frederickson, a favorite to win, and one of our favorite contestants to watch, was named the Biggest Loser over Bobby Saleem and David Brown. Her victory should have been wonderful, but instead had a sour taste to it.

What stuck out was how thin she appeared to be. At just 105 pounds, Rachel lost 60 percent of her body weight during her Biggest Loser journey, setting a new record for highest percentage of body weight lost during the show. NBC has offered “No comment” about Rachel’s weight loss.

Mary Hartley, R.D., spoke out against the speed at which Rachel lost weight.

“Fast weight loss is often associated with muscle loss and protein-calorie malnutrition since protein from the muscles and organs is converted to glucose to feed your brain. Muscle glucose makes up for the lack of glucose coming in. Rapid weight loss, and any starvation, leads to psychological changes that promote binge eating as the body attempts to replace lost mass.”

From a starting weight of 260 pounds, Rachel lost 155 pounds in 7 months. What concerns us about her weight loss is Rachel admits to being 5’5″ tall which puts her current BMI at 17.5. That’s solidly in the underweight range, and she is the only contestant in Biggest Loser history (worldwide) to end their season underweight.

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Posted on February 5, 2024 by Elizabeth

Amazon Fresh’s Grocery Delivery Needs Some Work

Amazon has come a long way over the years and has certainly changed the way consumers shop. And with their recent launch of Amazon Fresh, they are slowly attempting to tackle the online grocery shopping industry as well.

For the past five years the service has been available only in Seattle, where Amazon launched the pilot grocery project and tried to work out the kinks. To be fair, this is one of the longest-running tests in tech history. But based on recent reviews about its newest expansions to Los Angeles and San Francisco, it sounds like maybe they should have kept trouble-shooting for a little bit longer.

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Posted on February 5, 2024 by Katie McGrath

Rachel’s 60 Percent Weight Loss is Nothing to Celebrate; Biggest Loser Should be Ashamed

UPDATE: Editor Brandi Koskie spoke with WCCO radio in Minneapolis, MN, about Rachel’s shocking weight loss. Listen to the conversation here:

105 pounds. 60% loss? Rachel is beautiful, but @biggestlosernbc that is not healthy. We both know that. We shouldn’t celebrate that.

That’s what I tweeted tonight once the confetti fell on the Biggest Loser stage. Reactions of shell-shocked viewers, like this one, poured in. And there are more below.

I don’t think I’ve ever been this uncomfortable watching the finale. Rachel just looks so sickly. She shouldn’t be able to win. #BLfinale

— Bobby (@Elbobbo87) February 5, 2024

Rachel Frederickson may have won Biggest Loser season 15 tonight, but there’s very little to celebrate. She looked stunning when she was finally revealed during the live finale, but awe turned to shock when millions of viewers at home noticed her frail, skeletal frame.

“I knew it would come to this someday, just wish it hadn’t,” was the comment from a trusted insider who attended the finale. For years people have wondered if the $250,000 prize money would push contestants too far. This isn’t the first time a finalist has looked too thin on that scale; but no one has ever looked as frighteningly emaciated as Rachel did tonight.

“It’s so much worse in person, isn’t it?” I texted, following the show’s ending.

“I legitimately cried,” our insider told us upon seeing Rachel in person. “[NBC] should be beyond ashamed.”

NBC has “no statement,” confirmed at 9:15am today.

My sentiments were the same as my insider’s. Rachel’s final weigh-in put her at 105 pounds. That’s not how much she lost, that’s her current weight, a 60% total weight loss off of a starting weight of 260 pounds. That percentage, most likely one of the highest in show history, absolutely secured her win. (more…)

Posted on February 4, 2024 by Natalie K

Why Do (or Don’t) We Eat Healthy Food?

The minds behind Sullivan Higdon & Sink’s (SHS) FoodThink are at it again, and this time they’re taking a good look at the how and why of eating healthy. Their new white paper, “Our Appetite for Healthy Eating,” covers everything from attitudes about healthy foods to our attempts to eat right.

According to research conducted by SHS, 61 percent of Americans make the commitment to eat healthy. Of course, there’s a lot of variation in that claim.

From “Our Appetite for Healthy Eating”: Organic shoppers, for instance, are 31-percent more likely to say they’re committed to healthy eating. On the other hand, those who believe their cooking skills to be sub-par are 13-percent less likely to say they’re committed to healthy eating.

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Posted on February 4, 2024 by Elizabeth

Diet and Nutrition

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