Diet and Nutrition

4 Ways to Stay Healthy Watching Reality TV

Bachelor Jason Mesnick created some serious drama amongst his finalists.

According to the status updates on Facebook, half of the population (including some men) were watching the Bachelor: After the Final Rose last night to see the twists, turns, and drama. I can only imagine the traffic if I was also connected through Twitter. The consensus seems to not be in Jason’s favor. The disapproval seems mostly focused toward Jason, not Molly, and certainly not Melissa, who handled herself well, especially considering the situation. A break up is always difficult, but I cannot imagine being on national television in that moment. (more…)

Posted on March 3, 2024 by Brooke Randolph

The 10 Worst Restaurant Foods

Restaurant food choices are laden with shocking calorie counts.

What would we do without our healthy allies David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding, who brought us Eat This Not That!? They have done some homework for us on the WORST foods you can eat or even split with another person for 2024. And my friends, it doesn’t look pretty. Get out the smelling salts and sit down as you read on about how nutritionally-offensive some of your favorite restaurant and grocery store eats stack up:

(FYI: This list is in no particular order. It’s all bad news.)

1. Bob Evans’ banana pecan pancakes = 1,543 calories

2. Marie Callender’s Creamy Parmesan Chicken Pot Pie = 1,060 calories

3. Blimpie Veggie Supreme 12″ = 1,106 calories (more…)

Posted on March 3, 2024 by heather

Raisins and Walking — Smart Steps for Heart Health

Filling the Featured Guest Blogger of the Month for March is Julie Miller Jones, Ph.D., L.N., CNS, a professor emeritus of The College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota. She also serves as the national nutrition advisor for the California Raisin Marketing Board.

On the heels of national Heart Health Month, there’s good news for older Americans. A new University of Connecticut study, published in the journal Metabolism: Clinical and Experimental, finds eating raisins and walking may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease for both women and men in the 50 to 70 year-old age range. Raisins are not only fat and cholesterol-free, they also contribute heart-healthy components, such as fiber, potassium, and antioxidants. (more…)

Posted on March 3, 2024 by GuestBlogger

Incorporate the Dietary Guidelines for Americans into your Life

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans is a publication of health oriented recommendations that are written every five years, first debuting in 1980. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Department of Agriculture (USDA) are responsible for producing these guidelines. The objective to these guidelines is to provide “authoritative advice for people two years and older about how good dietary habits can promote health and reduce risk for major chronic diseases.” These guidelines emphasize that eating right and being physically active shouldn’t be viewed as a diet or weight loss program, rather as essential tools to a healthy lifestyle. These guidelines provide broad “key” recommendations and specific ones for certain age groups/populations.

Some of the “key” recommendations/guidelines include:

Weight Management: “To maintain body weight in a healthy range, balance calories from food and beverages with calories expended.” (more…)

Posted on March 2, 2024 by Kinsey

Kiwi: A Hidden Nutritional Gem of a Fruit

Healthy fruits and vegetables don’t have to be restricted to the standard fare we’re all used to. Take kiwi for example. When was last time you had this exotic little fruit? Never, you say?

The green fruit with a fuzzy exterior packs a powerful nutritional punch. In fact, Rutgers University conducted a study of the 27 most popular fruits (can you name 27?), and they named kiwi the “most nutritionally dense” among them.

Here are some of the many benefits of kiwi: (more…)

Posted on March 2, 2024 by Jason

Find Your Happy Weight

From BMIs to skin calipers, there are many different tools and calculations you can perform to measure your weight. But many of these numbers are just that – numbers that are averaged from hundreds of statistics on risk factors for illness and other health predictors. What about finding your ideal weight? The one that feels good for you and most importantly, that is realistic.

In a recent health article by Karly Randolph Pitman, she elucidated five tips for finding your healthy weight. The five tips are:

1) Recognize Your Own Body and its Own History. Self magazine features a healthy weight calculator that takes into account your age, height, children and activity level. As a caveat, I took this health assessment and if I weighed what the Self Happy Weight calculator suggested I could weigh, I would not be very happy. While Pitman’s other tips for finding your ideal weight are pretty spot-on, this Self Happy Weight Calculator could use some fine-tuning. (more…)

Posted on March 2, 2024 by heather

When You Have No Sick Days

It’s a safe bet that several of you have been feeling under the weather recently. Although we are more susceptible to germs and illness when worn down physically, mentally, or emotionally; sometimes illness just seems to attack (and often at the most inopportune times). Unfortunately, as adults we can’t depend on our moms to make us chicken noodle soup and we have responsibilities that do not allow for sick days. Keeping yourself in healthy mental, emotional, and physical states is a major responsibility. It’s something that we have to work at every day and something we have to work harder at when one of those areas is suffering. (more…)

Posted on March 1, 2024 by Brooke Randolph

Dieting Boils Down to One Thing: Calories

It seems that most people sweat the details when they try to lose weight. While there are a few things you need to consider (like exercise), when it comes to eating, researchers have found that dieting is much simpler than you may think. That is, no matter which diet you choose, it all comes down to one thing: calorie restriction.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, looked at four low-calorie diets, and all of them yielded an average loss of 7% of body weight at six months and 6.4-7.9 pounds lost at two years.

“Weight loss is very simplistically just reducing the amount of calories that you take in, and any kind of healthy diet that allows you to do that is the best,” says Frank M. Sacks, M.D., of the Harvard School of Public Health. (more…)

Posted on February 28, 2024 by Jason

We Love Greek Yogurt

This week, we love Greek Yogurt. For breakfast, a mid-afternoon snack or even as a dessert, this creamy and super nutritious snack is one of our trusted go-to foods.

Greek yogurt has a tangier and richer texture than most other yogurts. Sorry Dannon and Yoplait, but when it comes to nutrition, Greek yogurt has you beat. With 15 to 20 grams of protein, 25% of your calcium needs, immune-boosting live bacteria and 120 to 150 calories per serving, it is no wonder that Greek yogurt has become a staple food for health devotees and nutrition connoisseurs.

Greek yogurt has a heaven-sent texture of being super rich and yet also light and fluffy at the same time. The most popular brands are FAGE (pronounced “fa-yeh”) and Oikos, but specialty stores like Trader Joe’s have their own brands as well. Most varieties come in full-fat, reduced-fat and fat-free versions. Trust us: They are all divinely decadent!

While the possibilities of eating Greek Yogurt are endless, we like ours best topped with crushed almonds, fresh berries and drizzled with honey.

Posted on February 27, 2024 by heather

Vitamin D Deficiency Linked to Common Cold

We associate catching a cold with dreary winter weather. So maybe it’s appropriate then that the sunshine vitamin – vitamin D – could be the savior.

According to the largest study to date that has taken a look at the link between vitamin D and its power against colds, at least 50 percent of the subjects involved had insufficient levels.

In the study, Dr. Adit Ginde of the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine and colleagues at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston found that people who had low blood levels of vitamin D were more likely to report having had a cold than those with higher amounts. To compound the problem, the risk of a recent cold or other respiratory infection seemed to rise as vitamin D levels dropped. (more…)

Posted on February 27, 2024 by Jason

Celebrities Who’ve Battled Eating Disorders

As we continue to bring awareness to National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (February 22 – February 28), it is fitting that we highlight some of the more well-known cases of eating disorders that have affected some of Hollywood’s most talented starlets.

Nicole Richie and Victoria Beckham are well-known faces of eating disorders.

Tinseltown is known for its hypercritical attitude toward body image and weight. Female entertainers, by far, bear the sharper brunt of this fierce and oftentimes unfair sword than their male colleagues. From the latest media-bashing of Jessica Simpson to the dissection of Hollywood’s new mom’s post-baby bodies, there is little wonder why as many as 10 million females (and 1 million males) are fighting a life and death battle with an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia and millions more are struggling with binge eating disorder, according to the National Eating Disorder Association.

While no one wants to see anyone suffering from a disorder of any kind, celebrities who have been forthright about their weight struggles open up a dialogue for the rest of us who may be too shamed or too fearful to voice our stories.

Here is a look at the more well-publicized cases of eating disorders in young Hollywood women. (more…)

Posted on February 27, 2024 by heather

Diet and Nutrition

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