Tag Archives: family

Seven Ways to Avoid Binging at a Buffet

Cooking over the holidays has most of us to closing our home kitchens for a few days to recuperate. If you’re still entertaining family and friends, hitting up the local buffet may seem like the best way to keep everyone fed without spending an arm and a leg. Buffets are also great for New Year’s hosts who want to set up a variety of food options for people to munch on as they count down the last hours of 2024.

buffet line

Whatever your reasoning may be, buffets seem like an answer to many holiday eating conundrums. However, they can create more problems than they solve, especially when it comes to your waistline. We’ve got tips from Brian Wansink, PhD, of the Cornell Food and Brand lab, as well as ideas of our own to help you navigate buffet-style eating.

Choose a smart seat
Where you sit can have a big impact on how much you eat. By sitting with your back to the buffet, you are less tempted to go up and grab another dish. You also may want to consider choosing a booth over a table. Wansink found that slimmer individuals tend to go for booths. This creates a more comfortable seating arrangement like what you would find at a sit-down restaurant, and can discourage you from eating more than one plate of food.

(more…)

Click and Connect: 3 Ways to Stay in Touch with Your M.D.

by Bob Greene for The Best Life.com

The routine goes something like this: You decide you need to see your doctor so you make an appointment. You show up at your scheduled time and wait in the waiting room. You get called into an exam room and wait some more. Someone—a nurse or PA—eventually stops in to do some routine checks. After some more waiting, you finally get to see your doctor. The visit lasts all of about 10 minutes, during which time you try your best to ask all the questions you have (hopefully you’ve remembered to write them down) and share information about whatever issue has brought you into the office.

Bob Greene Click and Connect

Doesn’t exactly seem like the best use of your time—but what other options do you have? Plenty—and many of them can be found online. Over half of Americans are interested in their doctors taking to Facebook and Twitter so they can interact with them via social media.

Facebook: Almost one-third of doctors have accepted friend requests from their patients on Facebook, says research from George Washington University’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences. It’s also possible that they have a professional “page” instead of a personal one that you can access.

(more…)

Free IVF Offered as Prize for the Cade Foundation Race for the Family

Grab your friends, family, dog or even just your headphones and participate in a virtual 5k. The Cade Foundation is hosting its annual Cade Foundation Race for the Family this year with a little twist. It’s a virtual race. Participants are asked to register, then prompted to participate in their own locations instead of coming together for a big race.

family running together

The Cade Foundation Race for the Family is held to raise money to help fund grants for families facing infertility. The Cade Foundation was started in 2005 and is named for founder Dr. Camille Hammond’s mother who carried and delivered Dr. Camille and Dr. Jason Hammond’s triplets after the couple had struggled with infertility for five years. By providing information support and financial assistance, the Cade Foundation looks to help needy families overcome infertility, often through in vitro fertilization.

(more…)

Dan Savage Turned Sex Advice Career in to Life Advice with It Gets Better

Daniel Keenan Savage was born October 7, 1964 in Chicago, Illinois. Dan’s parents, William and Judy Savage, were of Irish ancestry and raised him and his three other siblings in a Roman-Catholic household. After high school, Dan attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he majored in theater and history. He became theater director at the university and used the stage name Keenan Hollahan. Hollahan was his grandmother’s maiden name.

In 1991, Savage moved to Madison, Wisconsin after he graduated college and started a sex advice column called Savage Love. The openly gay writer used the column as a forum for his opinions on love, sex, and family. The column’s popularity grew and Savage Love Live on Seattle’s radio was born. From 1994 to 1997 people would call him on the radio to get advice about relationships, sex, and family. During 1998 to 2000 Dan wrote an advice column called Dear Dan.

Dan kept writing pieces for different media outlets during the 21st century. He began to tour the country with speaking engagements at various types of events about relationships, sex, family, politics, and issues in society. In 2005, Dan married Terry Miller in Vancouver. A few years later, the couple adopted a son named D.J. (more…)

How to Ask Your Family For Help With Your Holiday Diet

Holidays are hectic and everyone walks in with certain expectations and hopes. People have prepared food in anticipation of sharing it with loved ones. Others may be wanting everything to be just like it was the year before. At the dinner table or even at the family gathering may not be the best time to tell your family about your food plan or to ask for their help in sticking to your weight loss goals.

To avoid emotional reactions from your loved ones, you may want to share this information several weeks in advance to give them time to work through any disappointment they may be feeling or to plan healthier options for the entire family. With large families like mine, it is difficult to get everyone in the same room or make sure everyone is hearing important announcements. There are times that it is most helpful to have individual conversations with the majority of family members; however, there are also times when sending a kind of newsletter may be the most effective and non intimidating way to share your goals with family members.

(more…)

Dealing with Family Food Pushers This Holiday Season

Food is the first and most basic way that we nurture each other. It is one of the reasons that many of us turn to food for comfort.

Providing nourishment was one of the very first ways that our mother’s soothed us as infants, both feeding us and soothing us emotionally by holding us close. When your grandmother or aunt offers you another helping, insists you try the dessert, or even tells you look too thin, it may simply be a desire to express love to and nurture you. This desire can be more intense during the holidays as sentimentality heightens emotions.

When people are pushing food to express their love, a hard rejection can be experienced as personal rejection. You may be able to distract them with loving attention. The most direct response may be to thank them sincerely for the offer or compliment and tell them that you have had enough to eat or that you are avoiding certain foods for health reasons. It can sometimes help to also offer an expression of appreciation to reinforce the positive relationship.

(more…)