posted Mar 24, 2011, 12:53 PM by Chris Sorensen
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updated Mar 24, 2011, 12:59 PM
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Never Skip BreakfastYes, mornings are crazy. But they’re also our best hope at regaining our nutritional sanity. A 2005 study synthesized the results of 47 other studies that examined the impact of starting the day with a healthy breakfast. Here’s what they found:
People who skip breakfast are more likely to take up smoking or drinking, less likely to exercise, and more likely to follow fad diets or express concerns about body weight. Common reasons cited for skipping were lack of time, lack of hunger, or dieting.
Bad news. Sure, it would seem to make sense that skipping breakfast means eating fewer calories, which means weighing less. But it doesn’t work that way. Consider:
People who eat breakfast tend to have higher total calorie intakes throughout the day, but they also get significantly more fiber, calcium, and other micronutrients than skippers do. Breakfast eaters also tended to consume less soda and French fries and more fruits, vegetables, and milk.
Breakfast eaters were approximately 30 percent less likely to be overweight or obese. (Think about that—people who eat breakfast eat more food, but weigh less!)
| SkinCarrots are loaded with vitamin A, which helps balance the pH of your skin's surface, making it just acidic enough to fend off harmful bacteria. Plus National Cancer Institute researchers found that people with the highest intakes of carotenoids—pigments that occur naturally in carrots—were six times less likely to develop skin cancer than those with the lower intakes.
Heart Cornell University researchers found that eating one Red Delicious apple a day can block LDL oxidation, resulting in an 8 percent drop in levels. Bonus: Apples (and their skins) contain soluble fiber, the kind that scrubs artery walls clean. Cut one up and mix it into your oatmeal, another top source.
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posted Mar 24, 2011, 12:38 PM by Chris Sorensen
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updated Apr 22, 2011, 9:12 AM
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The HCG DietBasically: Daily injections of the female pregnancy hormone, with a prescription via a doctor, or more sketchy ordered off the internet, all while eating a 500-calorie diet.
You could do daily injections of imagination, a 500-calorie diet in and of itself is going to cause you to lose weight. And not the healthy way. Sure, a low-calorie diet is the most recommended way to lose weight, but you have to cut those calories in a healthy and sustainable way, while giving your body the calories it needs. Calories are energy and fuel, and our bodies need those to simply operate, and yes, to lose weight. "[500 calories] is not enough calories to support normal brain function," says registered dietitian Rebecca Scritchfield in "HCG Diet: Look Elsewhere for Weight Loss." Expert's Take: "We need energy, and calories provide our bodies with energy to survive and thrive. If you don't give your body enough calories, especially from carbohydrate-rich foods (that supply the brain with much needed glucose), it will retaliate by breaking down lean muscle mass to produce glucose to fuel the brain, red blood cells and entire central nervous system," says Elisa Zied, MS, RD, author of Nutrition At Your Fingertips and founder and president of Zied Health Communications, LLC. She continues that "If you don't fuel up by taking in an ideal number of calories each day--for most that's around 2,000 calories a day (though that number can vary based on age, gender, and activity level)--it'll slow down to utilize the few calories you're giving yourself; this slows metabolism, and your body will not be able to function properly at all--you'll have little energy and that'll be the least of your problems! This diet is the ultimate crash diet--just like you wouldn't crash your car on purpose, why would you crash diet with this type of thing/diet?" Adds Mary Hartley, RD, MPH, and director of nutrition at Calorie Count, "Reputable studies refute the effectiveness of the hCG Diet and respected medical organizations warn against it. Still, it is freely promoted all across the Internet, and so buyer beware!"
For the rest of the most crazy diets of 2010, Click Here. |
1. The Worst Food in America
Cheesecake Factory
Bistro Shrimp Pasta2,727 calories
78 g saturated fat
1,737 mg sodium The troubling truth is this entire list of America’s Worst Foods could be fueled solely by the Cheesecake Factory’s atrocious fare. No restaurant combines elephantine portion sizes with a heavy-handed application of cheap cooking fats more recklessly than the Factory folk, resulting in dishes like the 2,582-calorie Chicken and Biscuits and the 2,455-calorie French Toast Napoleon. But it’s a relatively healthy-sounding plate of shrimp pasta that wears the tainted crown, delivering to your bloodstream more saturated fat than you’d find in three packages of Oscar Mayer Center Cut Bacon and as many carbs as you’d slurp down from 1½ cases of Amstel Light. Gross.
1. The Worst Dessert
Uno Chicago Grill Mega-Sized
Deep Dish Sundae2,800 calories
136 g fat (72 g saturated)
272 g sugar The troubling truth is this entire list of America’s Worst Foods could be fueled solely by the Cheesecake Factory’s atrocious fare. No restaurant combines elephantine portion sizes with a heavy-handed application of cheap cooking fats more recklessly than the Factory folk, resulting in dishes like the 2,582-calorie Chicken and Biscuits and the 2,455-calorie French Toast Napoleon. But it’s a relatively healthy-sounding plate of shrimp pasta that wears the tainted crown, delivering to your bloodstream more saturated fat than you’d find in three packages of Oscar Mayer Center Cut Bacon and as many carbs as you’d slurp down from 1½ cases of Amstel Light. Gross.
For a list of the top 20 Worst Foods of 2010, Click Here. |
posted Mar 22, 2011, 10:30 AM by Chris Sorensen
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updated Mar 24, 2011, 12:59 PM
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1) The Thermic Effect of Eating: Roughly 10 percent of the calories you burn each day get burned by the act of digesting your food. But not all foods are created equal: Your body uses more calories to digest protein (20 to 35 calories burned for every 100 calories consumed) than it does to digest fats and carbohydrates (5 to 15 calories burned for every 100 calories consumed). That’s why adding lean, healthy protein to each meal and snack will help you burn more calories. Even better, protein can dull hunger and protect against obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
2) Exercise & Movement: Lifting weights in the gym, running to catch the bus, twiddling your thumbs during a meeting, and winking at attractive attendees across a crowded room all fall into this category. It’s a common misconception that fit people burn off the majority of their calories at the gym. Even superhero athletes like Tom Brady and Serena Williams only smoke about 10 to 15 percent of their calories by moving their muscles while exercising. That doesn’t mean that exercise isn’t important, however—it’s just not important in the way you think. What exercise really does is to help with Burn #3.
3) Basal (Resting) Metabolism: This one’s the biggie. Your basal, or resting, metabolism refers to the calories you burn when you’re doing nothing at all. Sleeping, watching TV, sitting through yet another mind-numbing presentation on corporate profit-and-loss statements—you’re burning calories all the while. In fact, between 60 and 80 percent of your daily calories are burned up just doing nothing. That’s because your body is constantly in motion: Your heart is beating, your lungs are breathing, and your cells are dividing, all the time, even when you are asleep. |
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