Diet and Nutrition

Yada Yada Yada… Yuck!

Seinfeld was a TV sensation in the ’90s and will run in syndication for eternity. Its impact on pop culture is pervasive. But, would anybody ever think it would impact a dietary study? The famous “double dipping” episode has inspired a study on the practice of dipping your chips twice, and it came to the conclusion that people like George Costanza transferred about 10,000 bacteria to the dip bowl.

Kick-off the Super Bowl with lighter foods

January first you woke up and decided to shuck those extra holiday pounds. You found a diet that you like and something comfortable to stick with. You’ve been doing well- steadily losing weight, feeling better about yourself. And then- the first road block of the dieter’s new year- Super Bowl.

This Sunday living rooms across America will be piled high with testosterone, beer and plenty of greasy favorites- tempting your self-control. To help you through this main event of eating, as Super Bowl is America’s second largest day of food consumption behind Turkey Day, I thought I’d share some healthier options.

Now listen- healthier does not been bland or boring. These tasty munchies will have your guests saying “we want more” and never once questioning how low-fat-carb-calorie they might be.

Our top Super Bowl food picks are:
Chipotle Chicken Cups
Stuffed Mushrooms
Beef Jerky
Crock Pot Hot German Potato Salad
Chicken and Red Chili Tamales
Pork Fajita Pitas
Buffalo Chicken Wings
Fireside Chili

Don’t deprive your sweet tooth either. Check out Cherry Almond Popcorn Clusters, Rocky Road Brownies and Smorgasbord Fruit Salad.

If these don’t trip your tastebud trigger- search through the more than 600 recipes on Diets In Review that are low-carb and Weight Watchers friendly.

Whether a Patriots or Giants fan- the real winner will be your delicious and healthy Super Bowl buffet.

Biggest Loser: Episode 5

Welcome to another episode of Twists and Turns! I’m really having a lot of fun watching this season of Biggest Loser– but I don’t know how much more of this my nerves can handle. This week we’ve got trainers competing, Jillian crying (yes, the bully wept), no one giving into temptations, couples being torn apart. Last night was pretty intense for me- I can’t imagine being the brunt of all of the producer’s mind games.

Let’s address the fact that Bob totally stacked the deck in his favor. By winning the run against the escalator competition, he was able to pick the teams who would only be training with him. Jillian said he’s “got blood in his mouth from the last four seasons” because the contestants she trained have been the Biggest Losers. Fair enough. But he took all of big guys- the grey, black and orange teams. The new Blue team is born. Jillian bawled her eyes out while she watched everyone being separated. I think it created an interesting dynamic for players and trainers to work together. How good is that for ratings though?

So the new Black team has the former blue, yellow and purple teams. What everyone would agree is the weaker of six couples- but they are not short on spirit or spunk.

My “Cry of the Night” came from Brittany. During the second challenge each team (new blue versus black) had to walk backward on the escalator for as long as possible. Last team standing would split $10,000. The new blue team, of which Brittany is on, is younger. So I really thought this was an easy win. I was so disappointed in that entire team. Two and three minutes in team members are bailing. You can’t hang? Jillian makes you spend hours at a time on the treadmill. So everyone bails- leaving Brittany to compete alone. She hung as long as possible and finally stepped off. She stepped off to cheers, hugs and applaud and I cried right along with her. Nice work Brittany!

Quote of the week goes to Bernie. He had two really dynamite choices last night, but I think I settled on – “The best way to describe Jillian’s last chance workout is just medieval torture.” There was a lot on the line going into this week’s weigh in. The newly formed blue and black teams had to weigh in against one another. The team who lost had to choose one person to send home. Not team- as in the two people who came together – but individual person would go home.

I don’t know why this bothers me so much- but it does. How can you break up these people? Sure it’s incentive to make them work harder- but the entire theme of the season. In any event- Bob’s new blue team totally womped the new Black team- 50 pounds to 17 pounds. It was heartbreaking to watch them find someone to send home. But in the end, Jenn of the purple team was selected to leave the Biggest Loser Ranch. The tearful goodbye was evident of things to come as each goodbye will continue to get so much harder.

Next week, Biggest Loser is promising “the most shocking elimination yet.”

Dr. Phil Calls Bistro MD To Help In “Extreme Weight” Case

With a case of extreme obesity slowly killing a man, Dr. Phil has called upon Bistro MD and Dr. Caroline Cederquist M.D., the developer of the diet with hopes that her expertise and her medical delivery diet can offer critical help to the situation.

On the show, which aired yesterday, January 29, Dr. Phil employs his popular team approach, and he’ll have input from his usual posse of medical experts for Kevin, who at age 44 has reached the stunning weight of 715 pounds. But faced with a weight problem that extreme, not just any doctor has the depth of experience to offer meaningful help.

So Dr. Phil called in Bistro MD and Dr. Cederquist, a board-certified family and bariatric physician who has at the core of her treatment a focus not on extreme diets or radical regimens, but on addressing the metabolic irregularities that develop in overweight people from a few pounds overweight to hundreds of pounds.

“Kevin is disabled and virtually homebound,” says Dr. Cederquist. “He has gained 300 pounds in the past five years. He suffers from diabetes and severe sleep and breathing difficulties. Problems with his joints and his sheer mass make it almost impossible for him to move around, and as a result, he scarcely leaves his bed, let alone his house. Getting him from home to the Dr. Phil studios was a major undertaking.”

Dr. Cederquist said Kevin had been rejected for weight-loss surgeries because the medical conditions related to his obesity makes him too high-risk as a candidate for surgery. He has sunk into a depression over his worsening situation, and resorts to eating for comfort, further worsening his conditions—and his despair.

“These are often people who have been successful at everything else in their lives, and they cannot understand why their efforts to lose even 20 pounds are so futile,” she says. “But for them, it’s just not as simple as eat less, burn more. Losing weight is not just about eating less of the wrong things; it is about eating more of the right things.”

Because Kevin’s high-risk status prevents him from pursuing bariatric surgery, Dr. Phil’s staff assessed a number of options for Kevin, and ultimately, Dr. Phil asked Dr. Cederquist to help with Kevin’s case. She had developed a home diet delivery program that specifically addresses both the practical and metabolic problems most people as well as Kevin must overcome. The home delivery diet, called BistroMD, is a home-delivered diet that Dr. Cederquist developed.

The gourmet foods in the BistroMD diet will help Kevin deal with both the practical and the medical challenges he faces. The meals are portion-controlled and designed to preserve lean muscle tissue as the dieter loses body fat. Because they are low in glycemic load, the foods also tend to reduce the sugar and carb cravings that lead so many to abandon their dieting attempts.

While Kevin is an extreme example, his metabolic abnormalities are common and are becoming more so. Currently 70.8% of men and 66.2% of women in the U.S. are overweight. The vast majority of overweight people develop metabolic abnormalities as they gain. But with the right nutritional program is the underlying principle of the Bistro MD diet. The macronutrients of the diet include adequate lean protein spread throughout the day, controlled portions of complex carbohydrates and the right amount of “good” fats.

This article borrowed from Bistro MD.

The Secret

I’m the best at keeping secrets. All my friends know this, and so I’m the first one that they come running to with some juicy gossip. But sometimes, I need to share. Not just for me, but for your benefit too.

The editor-in-chief of Men’s Health magazine, has a new book out that goes deep inside the very secretive world of restaurant food. You will be amazed and disgusted and hopefully, motivated to make some better choices.

The book, titled “Eat This, Not That“, does a terrific job of showing you the differences between two commonplace food options. I also love the review of 9 typically “healthy” choices. Buy the book, and check it out for yourself!

A secret that I have to share though, is that as a former restaurant owner, it was our mission to inject so much fat into our foods, that you would feel as satisfied as a well-fed baby, and return to our restaurant again and again. How do we do that? Well, for one, we would use butters and oils that have higher than average saturation levels, which allows them to cook for longer at higher temperatures without burning. Yep, you heard me right. A tablespoon of restaurant oil has even more fat than the oil you use at home. We also would use cream in places you have never even heard of. Oh, and that asian vinaigrette that sounds so low-cal? Um, sorry, but we used Mayonnaise as the first ingredient.

So yes, better food choices start with full disclosure, and you, dear dining out consumer, have every right to ask to see the recipe.

Diet Troubles at Work

The workplace is a diet disaster waiting to happen every day. Even the most well-intentioned person can fall prey to temptations that lurk just around the cubicle. The New York Times has a nice little piece about people who struggle with their workplace diet. Each gives their story and how they handle the difficult situations, including one who lost 50 pounds doing the South Beach Diet in secret.

Cloned food

Just a few weeks ago, the Food and Drug Administration issued a statement saying that meat and milk from cloned animals is as safe as their non-cloned counterparts. I don’t know about you, but this issue still does little to alleviate my concerns over the immediate and longterm effects of consuming cloned food. The government did say that it would not yet release cloned food into grocery stores. At least not yet right now. Hmmmm……

Laughter is the best medicine

A friend recently forwarded an email to me with common misconceptions about dieting and losing weight. I laughed so hard that I assume a few calories were burned, and thought you could use a laugh too. What’s the point of working so hard at exercising, giving up foods and steadfastly sticking to a diet if you can’t enjoy a good laugh at ourselves once in a while?

Q:  I’ve heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life; is this true?
A: Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that’s it. Don’t waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that’s like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer?  Take a nap.

Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?
A: You must grasp logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken.  Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable.) And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.

Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?
A: No, not at all. Wine is made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that means they take the water out of the fruity bit so you get even more of the goodness that way.   Beer is made out of grain.  Bottoms up!

Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?
A: Well, if you have a body and you have fat, your ratio is one to one.  If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one, etc.

Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?
A: Can’t think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No Pain… Good!

Q: Aren’t fried foods bad for you?
A: YOU’RE NOT LISTENING!  Foods are fried these days in vegetable oil. In fact, they’re permeated with it.  How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?

Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?
A: Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.

Q: Is chocolate bad for me?
A : Are you crazy?  HELLO!  Cocoa BEANS? Another vegetable!  It’s the best feel-good food around!

Q: Is swimming good for your figure?
A: If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.

Q: Is getting in shape important for my lifestyle?
A: In shape? What kind of shape? “Round” IS a shape.

Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets.

Rethinking our health

Has anyone read Gary Taubes’ controversial book “Good Calories, Bad Calories?” In the book, Taubes debunks the widely known theory that the twin epidemics of obesity and diabetes in this country are due to an excessive amount of fat in our diets. Instead, he combs through thousands of research studies and data from all over the world and comes to the conclusion that these conditions are due to an excess amount of refined carbohydrates in our diets like sugar, white flour and other starches that digest quickly.

His book, although very scientific, is a fascinating look at how our emphasis on a low-fat, low cholesterol and low sodium diet may have been just a well-postulated hypothesis by the medical, nutrition and public health professions with no conclusive and definitive evidence by clinical trials to prove that these kinds of diets would in fact keep us lean and prevent heart disease.

So, if you’re willing to think out-of-the-box when it comes to what we’ve been told and preached to for years on preventive health and nutrition, this is a book that is definitely worth the mental labor put into reading it.

Yummy for your tummy

As a chef’s wife, I am constantly having to raise the bar on nightly dinners. Not that chefs are hard to please; quite the contrary. A little known secret about fancy-schmancy chefs is that because they spend their day cooking gourmet food, when they come home, really, all they want is a sandwich and a cold beer.

However, I’m competitive, and I like showing off in the kitchen. So imagine my surprise when looking for recipes using pomegranates (which are in season right now and are gorgeous, not to mention full of anti-oxidants), I found a fantastic recipe on Weight Watcher’s website! Using POM pomegranate juice, which I love; fresh beets, which I always want to get but am flummoxed by what to do with them; and citrus (on sale right now-Yes!), this side dish is only 5 points, and extremely satisfying. In fact, I found very little variance from how a chef would prepare this dish, and the recipe, other than that a chef would probably add Extra Virgin Olive oil and some crumbled goat or feta cheese at the finish, for a mediterranean flavor.

Don’t worry about the quality of the port wine that you use in the recipe, just get the least expensive. But do get the Ruby port, and not the Tawny. “Tawny” refers to the winemaking method whereby the port is aged in wood, so when the wine reduces (cooks down) in the recipe, you could be left with some bitter flavors. “Ruby” is always what you want to look for when buying port wine for cooking. And note that cooking wine eliminates the alcohol, which reduces the calories!

I’m off to go have fun in the kitchen! Catch up with you later……

Check out more healthy Weight Watchers recipes here.

A Lunch Lady Fights the Good Fight

“We’re killing our kids with food.” Those are the powerful and shocking words from a former celebrity chef who is on a crusade to save our children. Read this inspiring story of one lady’s passion to change how kids eat in their schools. When you stop to think about the powerful corporations who have a vested interest in essentially poisoning our children’s health, it really is infuriating. Parents, it’s time to fight back.