Blog
4 Bad Habits that Are Making You Sick
What happens when you don’t sleep enough, skip breakfast, don’t exercise, or hold grudges? Find out how these behaviors are harming your health.
What happens when I only sleep five hours?
The inside story: No one knows for sure why sleep is necessary, but there’s no doubt that getting too little throws a wrench into your body’s works. For example, studies show that a sleep debt lowers levels of the hormone leptin, which helps keep your appetite under control. Implication: Sleep too little, and there’s a good chance you’ll be soon overeating. Sleep deprivation also boosts levels of stress hormones, which prompt your body to send more glucose into your bloodstream. Too little sleep also makes your body less sensitive to insulin.
But that’s just the beginning. Research shows that sleeping too little shuts down production of certain chemicals in the immune system that defend your body against germs. Shortchange yourself on shut-eye and you may want to have a box of tissues and cough medicine handy: A 2009 study found that people who sleep less than seven hours a night are up to three times more likely to develop a cold.
Other studies show that even modest sleep deprivation – cutting back from your usual eight hours a night to six hours, for instance – can turn up levels of chronic inflammation, which increases the risk for many conditions, including heart attacks, strokes, and osteoporosis.
PLUS: 8 Things That Are Making You Fat
Then, there are the immediate effects. When the alarm clock blares you out of a deep sleep, you’re apt to start the day in a sour mood. As the day passes, you’re also likely to feel dull witted and foggy. Some neurologists believe that one purpose of sleep is to give your brain a chance to build and strengthen the wiring between neurons. Studies show that well-rested people learn new information faster and have sharper memories. Short sleep reduces your reaction time, too, making you at risk for car accidents and other mishaps.
BOTTOM LINE: While some people can get by on relatively little sleep, most of us need seven to eight hours a night. Experts say one sign that you’re getting adequate sleep is that you can wake up on time every day without using an alarm clock.
What happens when I skip breakfast?
The inside story: When you wake up after a long night’s rest, your body has gone as much as 12 hours without a meal. That means one thing: You need fuel. More precisely, it means there’s probably a shortage of glucose in your bloodstream. If you don’t eat breakfast and head out the door with low blood sugar, one organ in particular won’t be operating at full speed: your brain, which requires a steady flow of blood sugar to run effectively. And even a mild case of low blood sugar can leave you queasy and jittery. You may also feel less sharp-witted. Studies of school children have shown repeatedly that kids who eat breakfast have better memories and learn more than their classmates who don’t.
What’s more, blowing off breakfast is a set-up for pigging out later on. “Breakfast is important for keeping your appetite under control the rest of the day,” says endocrinologist Suma Dronavalli, MD, of the University of Chicago Medical Center. In other words, skip breakfast and by noontime your groaning stomach will convince you to skip the salad and order a Dagwood-size sandwich, instead. Most people more than compensate for the calories they miss at breakfast by overeating at lunch and dinner – especially foods high in saturated fat, the kind that plugs arteries.
PLUS: Lose Weight Around the Clock
Meanwhile, breakfast skippers are also more likely to snack on junk food between meals. One study found that women who usually nixed breakfast were able to take off four pounds – simply by adding a nutritious meal in the morning. Eat breakfast regularly and you’ll not only lose weight, but your blood sugar should shape up, too.
BOTTOM LINE: More than three quarters of people who lose weight and keep it off eat breakfast. Sitting down for the morning meal may also make you up to 50 percent less likely to develop insulin resistance, the problem that causes type 2 diabetes.
What happens when I spend the day sitting around?
The inside story: Remember that old saying “the devil finds work for idle hands”? Spending a lazy day on the sofa may not seem evil to you, but your body finds plenty of ways to make trouble with the sugar, or glucose idling in your bloodstream. Taking a walk or getting any other type of physical activity forces muscle cells to soak up glucose, which it uses to produce energy. On a day when you don’t give your muscles enough work to do, glucose goes unused. Over time, a sit-around lifestyle encourages two major problems:
* Your body converts some unused sugar to fat. Build up too much and your butt, thighs, and belly will expand. The latter flab depository is the most worrisome; research shows that fat cells around the waistline produce chemicals that cause insulin resistance and low-grade inflammation, which promotes heart disease and other conditions.
* Having lots of glucose lingering in the blood increases levels of dangerous compounds called AGEs that damage nerves and blood cells. That’s why high blood sugar causes diabetes complications such as blindness and kidney disease.
Getting up off the sofa and heading out the door for a walk can help you to avoid these fates, of course. Exercise is a reliable fat burner and research shows that physical activity lowers levels of AGEs, too – among many other benefits.
BOTTOM LINE: Sitting around all day may help you get caught up on your favorite cable shows, but it is also a set-up for bad blood sugar, weight gain, and all the problems they can cause.
PLUS: 13 Ways to Have More Energy at Work
What happens when I spend the day really angry?
The inside story: There’s nothing wrong with getting angry – it’s perfectly natural and healthy to get ticked off now and then. Staying angry is another matter altogether: It’s terrible for you. Apart from wrecking your mood and alienating others, fuming all day can make it much harder to manage diabetes. Anger is a form of emotional stress, which causes your body to release adrenaline and other related hormones. One effect of these “stress” hormones is to raise blood sugar. Also, stress may make you indulge in bad habits, such as eating junk food, which can make matters worse.
There’s more. Letting your anger boil all day can damage your heart. Do you get irked and annoyed now and then, but you’re able to shrug it off? No big deal. But scientists now know that clinging to anger raises blood pressure. While that’s not a big surprise, a recent Yale study found that people who tend to let their anger stew also have high levels of a substance called endothelin, which is known to trigger heart attacks by causing plaques in the arteries (clumps of fat, cholesterol, and other gunk) to burst open and form blood clots. Other research has found that intense, sustained anger can actually cause an arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat, which can stop your ticker from ticking – permanently.
BOTTOM LINE: Day-long anger can be toxic, so find a way to let it go. Write down your rage in a journal. If a friend or family member made you mad, tell ‘em. Or just go outside and scream – whatever helps you blow off steam.
How to reduce cholesterol
More than 100 million Americans have high cholesterol (above 200 mg/dL), which can clog arteries and cause heart attacks and strokes.
The good news is that there are a variety of time-tested strategies you can use to lower your cholesterol and decrease your risk for heart problems.
Some are better than others, some are easier, and some are cheaper. Here’s a rundown of what’s good and what’s bad about cholesterol-lowering approaches.
Statins
Pros: Statins include drugs such as Lipitor, Zocor, and Crestor (all the generic names end in statin), and they can lower LDL, or “bad,” cholesterol by more than 50%. “Across the board, they are clearly a wonder drug,” says Thomas Pearson, MD, PhD, the Albert D. Kaiser professor of preventive medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, in Rochester, N.Y.
Cons: Side effects can be serious, including muscle inflammation and increased liver enzymes. Cost is also an issue, although several statins are available in generic form, including Lipitor, which became available as a generic at the end of 2011.
Niacin
Pros: Niacin is a B vitamin that lowers both LDL cholesterol and triglycerides, fats that can be harmful at high levels. It also raises HDL, or “good,” cholesterol. “It’s a powerful drug,” Dr. Pearson says. It comes in tablets to be taken two or three times a day, or in an extended-release formula, which needs to be taken only once a day.
Cons: Niacin should be administered only under the care of a physician because doses high enough to affect cholesterol can increase the risk of gout and liver problems, Dr. Pearson says. People with type 2 diabetes also need to be careful, as it can raise blood sugar.
Dietary fiber
Pros: Dietary fiber—found in beans, fruits, and other foods—binds to cholesterol, lowering LDL levels by about 5%, Dr. Pearson says. “It fills you up and often doesn’t have a lot of empty calories in it,” he adds. “It could be called a modest addition to the therapeutic regimen.” It’s also cheap and easy, available at grocery stores.
Cons: Despite its availability, Americans seem to have a hard time getting enough fiber. Experts recommend 25 to 35 grams a day, yet most adults get only about 12 grams.
Exercise
Pros: Exercise is a great way to raise HDL. People who have had a heart attack can reduce their death risk by 25% with exercise compared with usual care, Dr. Pearson says. “Physical activity is an amazingly important behavior,” he says. “You could argue that it’s an absolutely essential part of either community or therapeutic regimens.”
Cons: Exercise requires more effort than popping a pill, and communities often aren’t set up to make it easier. “There’s no place to walk; it’s unsafe; you may get run over; there are crime issues,” Dr. Pearson says. “We need to engineer our environments better.”
Red yeast rice
Pros: This dietary supplement is derived from a fungus that grows in rice and contains small amounts of lovastatin (Mevacor). It can be effective in people who can’t take statins, says Jacob Warman, MD, chief of endocrinology at the Brooklyn Hospital Center, in New York City. Although different people see different benefits, he says, “it always works to some extent.”
Cons: Dietary supplements aren’t tightly regulated in the United States the way drugs are, so there can be confusion about concentrations and proper dosages. A 2008 study found a 100-fold difference between the highest and lowest levels of monacolin among various supplement brands tested.
Bile acid sequestrants
Pros: Drugs such as Questran (cholestyramine), Welchol (colesevelam), and Colestid (colestipol) trick the body into producing extra bile, which lowers LDL cholesterol by about 15% to 20%, Dr. Pearson says.
Cons: You have to take a lot of them to get a measurable effect, Dr. Warman says. Side effects can include constipation, stomach pain, and nausea. They can bind to other drugs, such as corticosteroids and some blood-pressure drugs, making them less effective unless you take the drugs three hours apart, Dr. Pearson says.
Low-fat diet
Pros: Choosing healthy food such as fish and veggies over red meat and french fries is relatively straightforward, and Dr. Warman estimates it could lower cholesterol by up to 20% in some people. Societies with low-fat diets, such as Japan and parts of the Caribbean, have lower levels of heart attack and stroke.
Cons: Much like exercise, it can be hard to eat a healthy diet consistently. Some people have to go all out—adopting a vegan diet free of animal products, for example—before they see any difference, Dr. Warman says. Diet changes may not be enough to trump genetics, so don’t hesitate to switch strategies if your cholesterol won’t budge.
Lovaza
Pros: Eating fish is good for the heart. This prescription drug delivers omega-3 fatty acids—the healthy fats found in fish and fish oil—in a concentrated dose. It can help lower triglycerides in people with very high levels.
Cons: Side effects can include burping, infection, flulike symptoms, upset stomach, and change in sense of taste. Be sure to talk with your doctor before taking Lovaza if you have fish allergies or are pregnant, planning to become pregnant, or breastfeeding.
Pros: This medication can prevent the absorption of cholesterol in the intestines. “There’s very little downside and it’s very well tolerated,” Dr. Warman says. It can result in about a 20% reduction in cholesterol, and it can be taken in combination with statins, which isn’t true for all drugs.
Cons: Zetia isn’t as powerful as a statin, and it isn’t available in a generic form.
15 More Ways to Improve Cholesterol
15 Ways to Find 15 Minutes for Exercise–Every Day
The secret to finding time for a workout is really about one simple strategy: ditching the stuff that’s wasting your valuable time. Here are 15 easy ways to shave 15 extra minutes out of your day–and put them toward your fitness goals.
1. LOG OFF FACEBOOK People average seven hours a month on the social site. Do the math and it works out to 105 minutes each week, or 15 minutes every single day. You don’t have to banish FB, but limit it to two short sessions a day.
2. SAY NO! When someone (not your boss) asks you to do something you don’t have time for, say, “I’m sorry, I can’t”–and feel the freedom wash over you.
3. PLAN YOUR DAY Schedule your biggest task of the day for when you’re most focused and productive. You’ll get it done more quickly than if you try to tackle it during a natural low point.
21 Ways to Make Your Workout More Fun
4. RESIST MULTITASKING Trying to do too many things at once often means getting nothing done. Pick an item from your to-do list, and do it and only it. Each task will get done faster when it gets your full attention.
5. RECORD YOUR SHOWS An hour-long TV show contains just 40 to 42 minutes of real content–the rest is commercials. Invest in a digital TV recorder so you can free up time to pursue more healthful activities, like 15-minute workouts.
6. DON’T BE A NEATNIK Is it really all that important that your apartment is spotless? Stop wasting precious potential gym time polishing picture frames.
Fitness Rules You Should Break
7. BUY TIME Pay for services that suck up tons of time. Before you pooh-pooh the idea of hiring a cleaning service, sit down and do a little math. When you think of the few hundred bucks you blew on shoes and all the time you’ve spent scrubbing the tub, you may want to reconsider your expenditures.
8. PUT IT IN INK You find time for everything on your calendar because it’s there in black and white. Block out your workouts as you would work appointments.
9. SET A TIMER All the little things you plan to do for just a few minutes–surfing the Web, cleaning the fridge–can suck away hours. Keep a kitchen timer nearby. When you start a task, set it for 15 minutes. Then stop when the bell rings.
Print-and-Go: The Stand-Up Abs Workout When a paper comes across your desk or an e-mail hits your inbox, deal with it right away. Piled-up paper and messages create distracting clutter, and you waste time revisiting each issue again (and again).
10. TOUCH IT ONCE
11. PICK UP THE PHONE It can take 15 e-mails or texts to accomplish what you could do in a 40-second phone call.
12. BE DECISIVE You can easily waste hours choosing what color to paint your walls or which brand of sneakers to buy (it’s called analysis paralysis). At some point, you need to stop waffling and move forward. Set a time limit, say 45 minutes, for comparison shopping, weighing pros and cons, etc., then make a decision and go forth.
13. PUT THINGS IN THEIR PLACE I used to waste precious time looking for my keys. At any given time they could have been anywhere-pockets, drawers, purses, or my personal favorite, hanging from the door lock. Finally, I bought a 75-cent hook, hung it by the phone as my designated key spot, and have not lost my keys since. Try this trick with anything you lose regularly. It works.
14. SET OUT YOUR STUFF Setting out your exercise clothes at night makes it far more likely that you will get up and get moving for a morning workout, instead of hitting snooze (or worse, skipping the whole affair entirely) because it’s too daunting to get up and start rummaging around for your workout gear.
15. GET UP 15 MINUTES EARLIER Vow to work out at 5 a.m. every day and you’ll never do it. But even the most nocturnal of night owls can roll out of the sack a mere 15 minutes earlier in the morning. Even if you don’t use that extra time for your workout, you’ll get to the office earlier than usual, so you’ll be more likely to take that 15 minutes for yourself later in the day.
BCWAP December 10th 7am & 9am
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT:
December 1, 2011 Jean Rabinowitz, DVM
(530) 902-0524 cell
HYPERLINK “mailto:jrabinowitz67@sbcglobal.net” jrabinowitz67@sbcglobal.net
“Get Fit for the Paws” Event on December 10 to Raise Money for Sick and Injured Pets
4RFriends and Elite Fitness and Performance hold second annual fundraiser on to raise money to give life saving medical care and find homes for animals who would otherwise be euthanized
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Those looking to donate to a worthy cause while fighting holiday weight gain should head to Elite Fitness and Performance on Saturday, December 10, 2011, for the second annual Boot Camp With a Purpose to benefit 4RFriends. Two sessions, at 7 am and 9 am, will be held at the independent gym located at 1770 36th Street, Sacramento. Class fees are $10 in advance, and $15 on the day of, and all fees will go to 4 R Friends, to fund the medical care of sick and injured abandoned pets in our community.
The Boot Camps are 90 minutes long and are suitable for all levels of fitness. In addition to the rigorous and fun workout, attendees can expect to meet some of 4 R Friends’ recently rescued pets, including Zippy, a scruffy little terrier who required reconstructive surgery after having his muzzle tied shut by his former owners. Participants will also have an opportunity to talk to members about 4 R Friends’ rescue and educational activities, purchase t-shirts, pick up disaster pet preparedness guides and posters of rescued pets, and share some (nutritious) treats afterward.
“Thanks to JC Charles, owner of Elite Fitness and Performance, we are able to offer a fun, healthy way to raise money for a great cause,” explains 4 R Friends founder Jean Rabinowitz, DVM. “One hundred percent of these contributions are used to provide life-saving medical care for pets that would otherwise be euthanized or die.”
That includes dogs like Nellie, a boxer puppy who was at last year’s Boot Camp. Nellie had been relinquished to the vet for euthanasia by her owners after a choking incident left her with severe lung damage. Three days in the ICU restored her to health, and she met her future family at the event.
“Adopting Nellie was possibly the very best decision our family has ever made. We are all absolutely smitten, including our older dog Paul,” says Rosalie Paine, Nellie’s owner. “We are so grateful to 4 R Friends for saving her life so we could give her a better one.”
4 R Friends is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization founded by a local veterinarian and group of individuals dedicated to decreasing the euthanasia of healthy and treatable pets in our community. The organization’s name stands for its four main activities: rescue, rehab, re-home, and reach-out. 4 R Friends provides emergency, life-saving medical care to sick and injured pets who are either abandoned, relinquished, or stray, and who would be euthanized or die without care. Rescued pets come to 4 R Friends for a variety of reasons. Some families lack the financial means to treat their pets’ injuries; there are those who can’t care for pets after illnesses; and others come from local shelters that lack the resources to provide requisite care to stray and abandoned animal. After the pets have been rehabilitated in foster homes, they are adopted into loving, forever homes.
In addition to saving injured and sick animals, 4 R Friends’ members go to local schools and provide education on safe and responsible pet handling and ownership, in an effort to cultivate the next generation of responsible pet owners.
Rabinowitz says, “I find that children can be excellent conduits of information to their families. Once we impress upon them the need to spay, neuter, and vaccinate their cats and dogs, they can be very effective messengers to their parents.”
The inaugural Boot Camp with a Purpose was held last November and benefited 4 R Friends. More than 60 people attended, and more than $1,500 was raised in class fees and additional donations. Since then, Elite Fitness has held Boot Camps with a Purpose to benefit a different charity every month. Their Boot Camps are a favorite, mixing high intensity total body circuit training and aerobic activity. The trainers help modulate the work-out to be both safe, fun, and challenging to all fitness levels.
Owner JC Charles says, “I welcome the chance to give a little back to those in need, and to expose Elite’s fun, demanding brand of training to more of the community.”
Details:
What: Boot Camp with a Purpose – benefitting 4 R Friends
When: Saturday, December 10; first session starts at 7:00 a.m., second session starts at 9:00 a.m.
Cost: $10 in advance; $15 at the door
Where: Elite Fitness, 1770 36th Street, Sacramento
To register in advance, call JC at 916 698 5938 or contact Elite on-line at www.efitnessperformance.net.
Black Friday/ Small Business Saturday
*EFP News Flash!* In support of the Holidays, Black Friday, and Small Business Saturday, EFP is offering 4 personal training sessions for $99.00 or 12 Bootcamp classes for $99.00!!! Get this offer quickly as it expires on November 30, 2011. It is for first-time guests only or previous members who have not been with the gym for 6 months. Give the gift of health for the holidays ! NO EXCUSES! DESIRE COMMITMENT RESULT! BE EFP STRONG.
6 Shortcuts to Speed Your Fat Burn
Most things worth achieving—getting a college degree, finding your perfect mate, building a career, raising a family—take time and effort. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want to take a few shortcuts when it comes to achieving the body of our dreams. Fortunately, you can hit fast-forward on your better-body goals with these simple, science-backed tricks for speeding your fat burn. No, you won’t transform overnight, but you could start to see results within a week, and even the world’s biggest brainiac can’t earn a bachelor’s degree that fast!
Join the Breakfast Club
People with a lifelong habit of eating early have a waistline about 2 inches smaller than that of breakfast skippers, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reveals. An A.M. meal may boost metabolism; plus, it helps your body make less of an enzyme that raises cholesterol. Rise and dine—within 90 minutes of waking up.
Snack Regularly
Going too long without food (five hours or more) slows your metabolism, causing your body to burn less fat than normal, says Debra R. Keast, Ph.D., president of Food & Nutrition Database Research in Okemos, Michigan. It can also lead to blood sugar dips, cravings and hunger that make it harder to control your choices at the next meal or snack. The fix: Have a healthful snack about three hours after breakfast and another three hours after lunch, suggests Lauren Slayton, R.D., founder of Foodtrainers in New York City. Try a 6-ounce nonfat plain Greek yogurt with 1 cup of sliced strawberries, or 2 Wasa light rye crackers topped with ¼ cup part-skim ricotta cheese and a drizzle of honey. These 100-to-200-calorie snacks will help keep your blood sugar and insulin levels steady and your energy level humming along.
Get Green Tea
Drinking three cups of the brew daily may spark your metabolism to burn 30 extra calories a day, a study in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise shows. Doesn’t sound like much? That’s 3 pounds off a year—diet-free! The compound ECGC in the tea makes it easier for your body to burn fat. Sip your way slim today!
Pump Some Iron
Start thinking of your gym’s weight room as the “lose weight” room. Strength training, which only about 17 percent of women do, speeds metabolism, torches calories, and sculpts sexy muscles. It’s so effective, in fact, that you should put cardio on the back burner and make strength training 60 percent of your routine—no joke, says Holly Perkins, an ExerciseTV trainer in Los Angeles. Embrace free weights, especially barbells, which work more muscles (you have to hold them steady as you lift) than machines. Remember that the muscle you’re gaining weighs more than the fat you’re shedding; at first, you may not drop pounds, but you’ll be smaller and firmer—go by how your jeans fit.
Clock Your Sets
To melt fat faster while you strength train, limit the time between sets. Exercisers who waited only 35 seconds between sets decreased their body fat by 27 percent more after eight weeks than those who rested three minutes, researchers at San Antonio Catholic University of Murcia say. Shorter rests keep your metabolism humming along and your heart rate up, so they shave minutes off your time at the gym and help your afterburn for hours once you’re back at your desk.
Want to try strength training but are intimated by the weight room? No worries! Try these do-anywhere, easy-to-follow moves with weights at Self.com.
10 Steps to a Thinner, Healthier You
Daily do’s
We get it: You want to lose the jiggle but don’t want to blacklist your favorite eats, count every single calorie, or overdose on gym hours. The great news is, you can drop weight without dieting: Experts say making small change-ups to your day is one of the best ways to lose. We grilled health and fitness pros for the tweaks that will help your shape the most. Road test a few, and you could shed 5 (this week!), 10, or even 20-plus pounds without a whole lot of effort
Power up PB
”Buy natural varieties of peanut butter and pour off the oil sitting on top. Each serving will have 20 fewer calories and 2 to 3 fewer grams of fat. It’s a small difference that’ll add up to a couple of pounds per year.” —Amelia Winslow, personal chef in Los Angeles and founder of the healthy food blog Eating Made Easy
Pop to it
”Skimping on fiber will make you gain weight. Forget the pretzels and go for a bag of low-fat popcorn. It has five times the fiber and only 90 calories for six cups, so it’s filling and satisfying. A recent study found that when women doubled their daily fiber intake from 12 to 24 grams, their bodies absorbed 90 calories less per day. You could lose almost 10 pounds in a year!” —Tanya Zuckerbrot, RD, author of The F-Factor Diet: Discover the Secret to Permanent Weight Loss
”Kick up your heels and go dancing with your girlfriends—or have a solo dance session at home. Fast-tempo dances are not only a blast to do, but in an hour you’ll torch 400 to 500 calories. That’s equivalent to light jogging on the treadmill, but it’s way more fun!” —Christine Avanti, author of Skinny Chicks Eat Real Food: Lose the Fake Food and Kickstart Your Weight Loss
Switch things up
“At the gym, lift one set of heavier weights than you’re used to. And on your walk or run, add backward walking and sideways shuffling in one-minute bursts. You’ll challenge your muscles in new ways, work them at a variety of angles, and improve your balance. These things will tone you up and burn extra calories.” —Gunnar Peterson, celebrity trainer to A-listers (including our December cover star Sofia Vergara!) in Beverly Hills, California
Switch things up
Nix nighttime eating
“Cutting out after-dinner snacking is a quick way to help you shed 5 pounds in a week. At night, we’re usually scarfing down junky foods in front of the TV—and it’s easy to consume a meal’s worth of calories, plus belly-bloating sodium. If you’re typically hungry before bed, it might mean you’re eating dinner too early, so push it back. Snack on fruit at 3 p.m. Then at 5 p.m., have a snack bar. At 7:30, you’ll be ready for dinner, and you’ll be eating late enough to stay full for the rest of the evening.” —Heather Bauer, RD, author of Bread Is the Devil: Win the Weight Loss Battle by Taking Control of Your Diet Demons
Be a crunch monster
“Fill your plate with crunchy, chewy foods like carrots, apples, and whole grains. They take more time to chew, and their fiber makes your body work harder to digest them—so you’ll burn more calories during your meal. Eating this way can increase your total calorie burn by 5% throughout the day!” —Leslie Bonci, RD, director of sports nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Center for Sports Medicine
Keep it simple
“Just focus on cooking wholesome food; you’ll eat well and could even lose 5 pounds in a week. For breakfast, have yogurt and some fruit; for lunch, eat a soup and a winter salad with tuna and walnuts; at dinner, fill your plate with 3 to 4 ounces of fish or chicken, a couple of veggies, and a piece of fruit. And feel free to use a bit of butter or olive oil—you don’t have to deprive yourself.” —Mireille Guiliano, author of The French Women Don’t Get Fat Cookbook
Beat booze bloat
“Downsize your wine glass to cut calories. Wine glasses today are giant goblets, so it’s easy to pour 6 ounces, or one-and-a-half servings, without noticing. That means those two glasses a night might actually be closer to three (almost half a bottle!), adding up to 300 calories. Instead of drinking this way every day, have a regular-size 4-ounce glass a couple of times a week. You could drop more than 20 pounds this year.” —Tim Church, MD, director of preventive medicine research at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
”Slip exercise into everyday life, and make it fun. Head outside and go ice skating with friends or shape a snowman with your kids. You can even stage a pillow fight in your living room. That burns 82 calories in 20 minutes, plus you’ll laugh the entire time!” —Missy Chase Lapine, author of The Speedy Sneaky Chef
”Season and butter the bottom of foods. For example, butter the bottom of toast, and salt the bottom of potato rounds. This sounds weird, but it really helps with weight loss. When you eat foods this way, the flavor hits your tongue right away, and you actually taste more of it. Ultimately, that means you can cut out at least half the belly-bloating salt or butter.” —Devin Alexander, chef and host of FitTV’s Healthy Decadence and author of The Biggest Loser Quick & Easy Cookbook
Dine in slow-mo
“Make sure you’re the last one to start eating and also the last person to finish. I do this, and it helps me slow down and chew my food properly instead of inhaling what’s on my plate—and more. Eat this way and you’ll take in fewer calories at your meals.” —JJ Virgin, PhD, author of Six Weeks to Sleeveless and Sexy: The 5-Step Plan to Sleek, Strong, and Sculpted Arms
Dress the part”Make a few changes to your party outfit, and you’ll beat the temptation to overindulge. At a cocktail party, carry a clutch instead of a purse. With a cocktail in one hand and your handbag in the other, you won’t be able to reach for too many hors d’oeuvres. And wear a form-fitting dress—it’ll be your biggest reminder to not revisit the food table for seconds.” —Keri Gans, RD, author of The Small Change Diet: 10 Steps to a Thinner, Healthier You
Go by the numbers
”Stop eating when you’re at a 5 or 6 on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 1 is famished and 10 is Thanksgiving full). When you stop at 5 or 6, chances are 20 minutes later, you’ll feel like a 7 or 8. This tactic is great for parties and vacations—and could save you lots of calories per meal.” —Ellie Krieger, RD, host of Cooking Channel’s Healthy Appetite and author of Comfort Food Fix
5 Top Swaps for Thanksgiving Dinner
Search Google images for photos of “obese Pilgrims,” and you’ll come up empty.
That’s because, unlike us, our ancestors didn’t struggle to control their weight. (Well, that and the fact that they didn’t have cameras.)
Our forebears stayed naturally lean, and believe me, they weren’t dieting: They enjoyed a hearty feast as much as we do. But the “traditional” food we eat on this holiday bears almost no resemblance to what the Pilgrims ate during theirs. When they sat around the dining table in their bonnets and cockle hats, they weren’t scraping mayonnaise-based casseroles from Pyrex dishes or passing around sticky slices of pecan pie glued together with corn syrup. More likely, they were eating lean game meats and whatever vegetables they’d recently harvested. They ate real food, in other words—and as a result, they stayed real lean.
Now, I’m not saying you need to go out and hunt elk with a musket. But if you want to walk away from this holiday feast without looking like you’ve been stuffed, you need a few smart strategies. And I’ve got them. The swaps presented here are the same kind of simple, painless upgrades that have helped thousands of Eat This, Not That! readers literally lose tons of weight— like Nichole Storms, who lost 130 pounds in just one year. Storms tried to eat well, so she followed whatever nutrition tips she picked up from friends and family. Problem was: “Everything that everyone told me was completely wrong.” Now, when people ask her how she dropped nearly half her body weight, she tells them it was simple: She finally learned how to eat.
With that in mind, here are five simple swaps for Thanksgiving dinner, courtesy of the all-new Eat This, Not That! 2012. Choose smartly and you’ll still walk away from the table satisfied—but with 1,200 fewer calories in your belly. Make the same swaps when you reheat the leftovers, and you’ll actually start shedding pounds this holiday season!
1. YOUR STARCHY SIDE DISH
Eat This!
Roasted Potatoes (1 cup)
115 calories
0 g fat (0 g saturated)
12 mg sodium
Not That!
Turkey Stuffing (1 cup)
350 calories
28 g fat (12 g saturated)
840 mg sodium
YOU SAVE: 235 calories!
Stuffing is the edible equivalent of a sponge, slurping up all the butter or turkey fat it encounters. That’s why the numbers on that Stove Top package are so deceptively conservative; they don’t reflect the fat-riddled nature of the finished product. Stick with roasted potatoes instead and save yourself the calorie equivalent of a third-pound of lean turkey!
2. YOUR VEGETABLE SIDE
Eat This!
Succotash (1 cup)
160 calories
1 g fat (0 g saturated)
562 mg sodium
Not That!
Creamed Corn (1 cup)
400 calories
22 g fat (N/A g saturated)
580 mg sodium
YOU SAVE: 240 calories!
A good rule when it comes to vegetables? Disqualify any dish that begins with “creamed.” In this case, starch-heavy corn converges with calorie-dense dairy fat to create a side dish with more than a third of your day’s recommended fat limit. Succotash, on the other hand, offsets corn’s excessive starch load with the slow-digesting fiber and protein of beans, helping you fill up quicker and take in fewer calories overall.
3. YOUR ENTRÉE
Eat This!
Turkey breast (4 oz) with homemade cranberry sauce (2 Tbsp)
195 calories
4 g fat
265 mg sodium
Not That!
Dark turkey meat (4 oz) with canned cranberry sauce (1/2-inch slice)
410 calories
10 g fat (4 g saturated)
320 mg sodium
YOU SAVE: 215 calories!
Ditching dark for light meat is an effortless way to cut calories from your plate. And when it comes to condiments, steer clear of canned cranberry sauce—an 8-ounce can has 63 grams of sugar, making it a third sweeter than a Hawaiian Blizzard from Dairy Queen. The cranberry sauce you make yourself, loaded with chopped berries, citrus, and nuts, is far tastier and it puts you in control of the sugar.
4. YOUR SWEET SIDE
Eat This!
Roasted Butternut Squash (1/2 cup) with olive oil
50 calories
1 g fat (0 g saturated)
4 mg sodium
Not That!
Candied sweet potatoes (1/2 cup) with marshmallows
250 calories
8 g fat (5 g saturated)
270 mg sodium
YOU SAVE: 200 calories!
Unless you’d rather finish your dinner with a two-mile run than a two-hour nap, plan on skipping this saccharine side. You’d need the run just to burn off one serving. Sweet potatoes are wonderfully nutrient-rich, but their benefits are lost once they’ve been basted in butter and topped with clumps of refined sugar. Alternatively, butternut squash provides carotenoids, vitamin A, and potassium, with fewer than half the calories and carbohydrates of this sweet-potato dish. Just set your oven to 400°F, drizzle with olive oil, and roast the cubed squash until soft—about 30 minutes.
5. YOUR PIE
Eat This!
Pumpkin Pie with whipped cream (One slice with 2 Tbsp whipped cream)
338 calories
14 g fat (4 g saturated)
25.5 g sugars
Not That!
Pecan Pie a la mode (One slice with ½ cup Vanilla ice cream)
677 calories
29 g fat (6 g saturated)
47.5 g sugars
YOU SAVE: 339 calories!
Pie is a Thanksgiving necessity, but eat just one slice of pecan (with ice cream), and you’ve taken in a third of the calories you should eat in a day. Do that once a week and you’ll be 10 pounds heavier within a year! Make the shift to pumpkin pie and you cut your calorie load in half while earning the nutrition boons of potassium, iron, and vitamin A