Diet and Nutrition

Choose the Next Biggest Loser and Win!

Now that you’ve seen the first episode of Biggest Loser: Families, you probably have your hunch about who will take home Biggest Loser title and $250,000 prize. So, let’s hear it! Who will win this season?

biggest loser

Make your selection now. After the finale in December, we’ll hold a drawing for all the correct answers. One of you will take home our Biggest Loser Prize Pack- with a Biggest Loser Cookbook, Success Stories, Fitness and workout DVDs, a value of $40.

Don’t miss any of the Biggest Loser coverage and news. Sign-up for the all-new Biggest Loser Updates newsletter today!

Posted on September 15, 2024 by Natalie K

Aspartame 101

Aspartame, simply defined, is an artificial sugar that is a simple chemical compound made up of: two amino acids (phenylalanine and aspartic acid) and a methyl group (CH3).  The combination of these compounds creates a product that is 200x sweeter than sucrose.

aspartame

This sweetener is marketed under a number of trademarked names, including: Equal and NutraSweet and is an ingredient in around 6,000 consumer foods and beverages sold worldwide!

artificial sweetners

In the digestive tract, enzymes split aspartame into its three parts, then the body absorbs the two amino acids and uses them just like it had come from food protein.  Great caution needs to be taken when consuming this product because this sweetener contains phenylalanine.  Products containing aspartame must have a warning label for people with phenylketonuria (PKU).  PKU is an inherited disease that inhibits a person’s ability to dispose any excess phenylalanine.  An accumulation of phenylalanine and its by-products is toxic to the developing nervous system, causing irreversible brain damage.

During metabolism, the methyl group momentarily becomes methanol, a methyl alcohol, which is potentially toxic.  Enzymes then convert methanol to formaldehyde, another toxic compound.  Finally, formaldehyde is broken down to carbon dioxide.  Before aspartame could be approved, the quantities of these products generated during metabolism had to be determined, and they were all found to be below the threshold that would cause harm.

An Italian study found that aspartame caused cancer in female rats and fueled the controversies surrounding aspartame’s safety.  However, statements from the FDA and other sources indicated that such a conclusion is not supported by the data.

The Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) for aspartame is 50mg per kilogram of body weight, this is extremely high and the mass majority of our population does not even come close to this amount.  Most people who use aspartame consume less than 5mg per kg of body weight per day.

In my opinion, it is best to go as natural and organic as you can and that your wallet allows you to, but if you decide to consume these products it’s OK!  Just try to limit the amount of artificial sweeteners you put into your body.

Posted on September 15, 2024 by Kinsey

New Paper Chips are Like ‘Flavored Air’

Slim ChipsUsually when you say a food tastes like cardboard, it’s not a compliment… or at least not supposed to be realistic. But if you’re trying Slim Chips, you’d actually be telling the truth, because it’s made out of paper!

Your eyes aren’t deceiving you – the zero-calorie snack Slim Chips are made from paper! The product is the brainchild of Icelandic designer Hafsteinn Juliusson. This is how he describes the chips on his website:

Slim Chips are good and they contain no calories. Instead of getting fat you can now eat paper with different flavors. It’s like eating tasty air. The Slim Chips are made out of edible paper and pure organic tastes.

So, if you want to cut calories, consider eating some flavored air! I’m not sure what “organic tastes” are exactly.

The Slim Chips come in sweet potato, blueberry, and peppermint. No word on its availability, but you can learn more at the designer’s site.

Posted on September 14, 2024 by Jason

Social Support Promotes Weight Loss

Social support is defined as the encouragement and help provided to you by other people.  Studies have shown that social support plays a major role in helping individuals lose and maintain weight loss, suggesting that support enhances the dieter’s feelings of control and confidence.  Social support can come from family members, your spouse or significant other, close friends, or coworkers.  Studies also have shown that the more social support a person receives, the better the weight loss results.weight loss partner

In a study that examined what happened when friends joined and participated in a group weight-loss program together.  Both weight loss and maintenance was better with the people who had social support compared to those individuals who participated in the program on their own. Social support can help you lose weight, but negative social support can definitely bring you down and interfere with your goal.  You can suffer from the negativity and not lose any weight or gain the weight back.

*It is important to surround yourself with positive people that focus more on how your feeling rather then the number/total pounds you’ve lost… you should never focus on the pounds lost! So, it is really important for you as the dieter, as the individual that is trying to lead a healthier life, that you are aware of the people you surround yourself with.  Do your best to have positive, encouraging, uplifting people around you.  Not those that make low-blow comments that are trying to bring you down for whatever reason (possibly due to their insecurity).

Posted on September 13, 2024 by Kinsey

Jillian’s Back!

Bob Harper places Jillian Michaels amongst the best trainers in the world. The contestants she trains on Biggest Loser might call her the toughest or maybe even meanest! Either way, her results are nothing short of amazing as she leads these individuals to not only physically push themselves, but to look deep inside and overcome their emotional barriers.

Check out this preview from the new Biggest Loser: Families, in which Jillian and yellow team member Jerry Skeabeck help him to overcome his challenges. Jerry enters the house with more health problems than any current or previous Biggest Loser contestant.

Posted on September 12, 2024 by Natalie K

Wal-Mart Good for Your Health?

Is it possible that big box stores like Wal-Mart actually help people lose weight? I’ve given my two cents on this subject before. My unscientific opinion has been that if food keeps getting cheaper and cheaper, it usually coincides with more and more processed foods, which leads to unhealthier consumers.

Not so fast, apparently.wal-mart

According to Zubin Jelveh at Portfolio.com, there’s a study that found no evidence that the proliferation of Wal-Mart stores has led to weight gains. The funny thing is that it seems they coincide with slight weight loss.

From Portfolio.com:

Charles Courtemanche from University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Art Carden of Rhodes College in Tennessee looked at county-level data on big box stores (different versions of Wal-Mart stores as well as Costcos) and survey data which captured residents’ demographic information as well as eating, shopping, smoking, drinking, and exercising habits. They found that one additional regular Wal-Mart store (which doesn’t sell groceries) was associated with a drop of 0.5 pounds for a person of the average height. An additional Super Wal-Mart, which does sell groceries, was associated with a weight drop of 0.18 pounds.

The theory is centered around the idea that cheaper food allows for more money to buy fresh fruits and vegetables.

I’m still skeptical. For one, there seem to be too many variables to prove their theory. Plus, the study also found that an additional Wal-Mart also led to decreased exercise. Either way, it seems there are other factors to include, like a a down economy that may lead people to eat out less, which should have a positive effect on waistlines.

Posted on September 12, 2024 by Jason

Sarah Palin’s Diet and Workout Regimen

It’s often said that our leaders should lead by example. That’s exactly what Alaska Governor and VP candidate Sarah Palin is doing. One of the most striking things about Gov. Palin is how physically fit she is. Thanks to an active life and a healthy diet, even after five children, she looks great.

sarah palin

Palin grew up in a family of runners and has been doing so all her life. It’s her workout of choice. Pre-pregnancy, she enjoyed running anywhere from 7-10 miles each day; since giving birth to her son she is running about 3 miles every other day. During her pregnancy she switched to aerobics. She also says that she keeps dumbbells at home for weight training and that the best upper body workout is snowmobiling, which she and her family enjoy together.

Given her unique climate, where it can drop to 20 below, she often runs at midnight during the summer months and has to run in layers of fleece and tough trail shoes. Her current shoe of choice is the Nike Air Structure Triax.

As for eating, it’s a diet far more exotic that what we eat in the lower 48 states. She drinks a lot of water, and says her diet is “heavy in wild Alaskan seafood, moose, caribou and fresh fruit.”

Even the fittest people have their vices, and for Sarah Palin, it’s a  skinny white-chocolate mocha- her “staple in the morning.” She acknowledges breakfast is very important, but hasn’t yet “bought into it.”

This healthy lifestyle is sure to give her the stamina needed to fight hard on the campaign trail. Hope those red states have plenty of moose and caribou!

Posted on September 12, 2024 by Natalie K

Dr. Phil’s Ultimate Weight Loss Race

For the last two days, Dr. Phil has dedicated his show to weight loss with the Ultimate Weight Loss Race, bringing healthy competition to day time television. dr. philIt sounds a little like the Biggest Loser meets the Amazing Race; six teams of two will be racing across the country and competing to lose the most weight. Each team has their own trainer, and to add to the similarities, Kim Lyons, previously seen on the Biggest Loser, is one of the trainers.

Kim is training the pink team, Ferris State University juniors Annette and Emilie, battling that “freshman fifteen” and sabotaging themselves and each other.

annette and emilie

Married only five years, the green team, Phil and Tiffany from Maryland, say they argue daily. Their trainer Nathaniel Best, a Sergeant in the Marine Reserves, claims that his training style is not that of a Drill Sergeant and will likely utilize his martial arts training.

phil and tiffany

Shawnee Harkins, a former firefighter and EMT who emphasizes diet and a personal support team, will be training the purple team, 21-year old twins Joe and Lauren from New York.

joe and lauren

Minnesota father Verne is blaming quitting smoking for his obesity and himself for his son Patrick’s inactivity. The blue team will be trained by Miss Fitness America Pageant Champion Nicole Rolollazo.

verne and patrick

Zubevi “Strong” Khalfani will be promoting water and discipline to help the orange team lose this weight. Jeff and Richard, brothers from California and both former high school football stars, report gaining weight through emotional eating following the deaths of their father and grandmother.

jeff and richard

Surprised audience members Meleneise and Toria, Michigan stay-at-home-moms who admit to using their children as an excuse for unhealthy eating habits and teasing each other about their weight, were selected to be the final team. Their trainer Jeremy Rucker emphasizes a holistic approach and is certified in biomechanics.

meleneise and toria

I’ll be keeping an eye on Dr. Phil’s Ultimate Weight Loss Race and explaining some of the psychological principles discussed on the show and in his 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom in future posts.

Posted on September 12, 2024 by Brooke Randolph

Orthorexia: When Eating Healthy Goes Too Far

On 20/20 this past Friday night, they featured a new kind of an obsessive compulsive disorder called “orthorexia.” Orthorexics are individuals who take eating healthy to an extreme. They avoid eating not just a few things like trans fats or meat, but thousands of different kinds of food all in the name of health. It is a psychological addiction to food, but it differs from anorexics, who have a pathological fear of being fat. Orthorexics’ weight often plummets to anorexic levels. But they differ from anorexics because they know they are thin and want to gain weight.

orthorexia

It is no question that we are a culture that is extremely health conscious. We spend billions of dollars each year on diet products, books and supplements. But what makes orthorexia different than just abstaining from dairy, like vegans do, or not consuming any refined sugars is that orthorexics are obsessed with keeping their food pure. They avoid all processed food in addition to many fresh fruits and vegetables if they are not organic or certified by certain organic standards. Most of their day is either spent preparing their own food or thinking about food. Their obsession affects all aspects of their lives, particularly their relationships, as activities like family meal times and dining out are soon eliminated as their pursuit to be pure takes over.

No one way of eating is shown to be a leading culprit in enabling someone to become orthorexic, but raw foodists were associated with a higher risk of developing orthorexic tendencies.

The result is that most orthorexics become dangerously thin, because as the list of foods they can eat becomes smaller and smaller, so does their body weight. One of the orthorexics featured on the ABC program died when her weight plummeted too low to support her body from functioning.

As someone who is deeply involved in the yoga community, I have encountered scores of people who have let their desire to be healthy spiral out of control into a full-fledged addiction and obsession. I once met a man who only ate beets and another who only ate one meal a day which was the same day after day. Looking at some of these extreme cases, vegetarianism is a soft way of eating.

I am sure that we have all met people who have quirky or bizarre eating habits or dietary preferences. But what makes orthorexia so alarming is that as our awareness of and preoccupation with health increases, the more likely it is that we will see more cases similar to those shown on last week’s television show. To learn more about this disorder and to educate yourself on some of the telltale signs of orthorexia, watch this video.

Learn more about Orthorexia and how to treat it, in this book Health Food Junkies.

Posted on September 11, 2024 by heather

“Healthy” Fast-Food = Fat Food

By now, most of us know that a burger, fries and a Coke for lunch, (even if your burger has veggies on it and your Coke is Diet Coke) is not the wisest fast-food lunch option if you at all care about your health. So in recent years, fast-food chains have added healthier items to their menus. From fresh salads to grilled chicken breast sandwiches, most of them have done OK with giving us a healthier selection of fare to choose from.

But oftentimes, a name is truly deceiving.  Enter Lisa Lillien, the creator of the Hungry Girl website and cookbook, to crack open some of the misnomers of fast-food “healthy” eating.

According to Lillien, Quiznos Flatbread Chopped Salads are a calorie and fat nightmare! If you have ever chowed down on their Roasted Chicken with Honey Mustard Flatbread Salad, we have some alarming news for you: Your seemingly innocent lunch salad was packed with  74g fat and 1,110 calories! Are you still breathing?quiznos salad

And if you’re an Arby’s fan, you’ve been duped if you think that eating one of their Market Fresh Sandwiches was a free ticket to indulge in dessert later on in the evening. The Roast Turkey and Swiss weighs out to be 708 calories and 30g fat with over 300 of the calories coming from the bread alone. Yikes!

So what should you do? Lillien suggests a number of lunch tricks that will save you heaps of calories, fat grams and even money. From eating one of Subway’s Fresh Fit 6-inch sandwiches to packing your own lunch, where you have control over the ingredients used and the portions, are just two ways to prevent a lunch disaster.

Subway

If you must dine at a fast-food restaurant for lunch, most every chain has a few fresh salad options.  Opt for this rather than a greasy burger. But be careful with the dressing or adding fried chicken, cheese, or croutons to your mound of greens. Opt for the low-fat dressing or skip the dressing entirely and choose grilled chicken breast and leave the extra cheese and croutons out.

Eating lunch should be a fun and enjoyable break in your day, but it should not break your waistline as well. If you know ahead of time where you are going for lunch, scope out the restaurant’s website for their nutrition information. Plan ahead what you’re going to eat, right down to what kind of drink you are going to have. This will prevent you from succumbing to temptation, even if the rest of your dining partners are chowing down on fries and milkshakes. You will thank yourself.

Don’t forget to use another great resource, Eat This, Not That offers pages of insight on where to dine and restaurants to avoid.

Posted on September 11, 2024 by heather

Thinking = Weight Gain?

Thinking may make us eat more. Can it get much more depressing than that? Well, it appears that “food for thought” actually has some practical meaning…

A study, published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, split 14 college students into three groups for a 45-minute session of either relaxing in a sitting position, reading and summarizing a text, or completing a series of memory, attention, and vigilance tests on the computer.reading

Even though the study involved a small sample size, the results were pretty dramatic. The students who did the computer tests downed 253 more calories, or 29.4 percent more than the couch potatoes. Those who had summarized a text consumed 203 more calories than the resting group.

Blood samples revealed that the intellectual work made glucose levels fluctuate more, possibly because the body demands food to restore glucose, a sugar used as fuel for the brain.

It’s not exactly a license to act like a vacuous blob. This doesn’t actually imply that dumb and lazy people have a better chance of being skinny… even if sometimes we may think that about certain people (wink wink). You need look at the big picture. Even if you happen to consume extra calories, you still are expected to eat healthy foods, and maybe consider a little extra emphasis on exercise to counter that overworked cranium of yours.

Posted on September 11, 2024 by Jason