I found this great interview at EMax Health read and rearead this interview as you shop and start getting ready for the holidays. Don’t just go out and say “I’m not on Weight Watchers this week” as it is easy to have everthing in small quantities instead of feeling sick from eating to much of everything.

A Q&A with Head of Training for Weight Watchers, Palma Posillico, Provides Tips on Healthy Holiday Weight Management

Each year millions of people look forward to sitting down at the table with loved ones for a special holiday meal. Woven into the nostalgia of the holidays are those favorite dishes that evoke memories of childhood and family togetherness, but also bring along the guilt and weight of extra calories and excessive portions. Palma Posillico, head of training for Weight Watchers International, establishes the guidelines and curriculum that Weight Watchers meeting room Leaders use. Therefore, she is ultimately responsible for guiding millions of Weight Watchers members – through those Leaders – on their weight loss journey. In the Q&A below, Posillico offers suggestions on how to enjoy the holidays while maintaining a healthy weight.

How much weight does someone typically gain at the holidays?

Although it is commonly believed that the typical person gains about five pounds during the holidays, the good news is, this does not appear to be true. The most reliable study to-date suggests that the average weight gain in the period from Thanksgiving to New Year’s is just less than one pound, although those already overweight tend to gain more.
Read the rest of this entry »

Looking to make a change and lose some weight? I have reviewed the top diet on the internet and you can go and read over 200 comments people have made about why this diet has worked well for them, as well as some of the problems.

Tags: food, food courts, head, head of training, new years day, Palma Posillico, thanksgiving, Weight Watchers International

Here are the last 25 best diet tips from Renees fit site. She finally revealed the source of these tips. These are from Prevention magazine.

How Can I Conquer My Downfall: Bingeing at Night?

1. Eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The large majority of people who struggle with night eating are those who skip meals or don’t eat balanced meals during the day. This is a major setup for overeating at night.


2. Eat your evening meal in the kitchen or dining room, sitting down at the table.


3. Drink cold unsweetened raspberry tea. It tastes great and keeps your mouth busy.


4. Change your nighttime schedule. It will take effort, but it will pay off. You need something that will occupy your mind and hands.


5. If you’re eating at night due to emotions, you need to focus on getting in touch with what’s going on and taking care of yourself in a way that really works. Find a nonfood method of coping with your stress.


6. Put a sign on the kitchen and refrigerator doors: “Closed after Dinner.”


7. Brush your teeth right after dinner to remind you: No more food.


8. Eat without engaging in any other simultaneous activity. No reading, watching TV, or sitting at the computer.


9. Eating late at night won’t itself cause weight gain. It’s how many calories–not when you eat them–that counts.

How Can I Reap Added Health Benefits from My Dieting?

1. Fat-free isn’t always your best bet. Research has found that none of the lycopene or alpha- or beta-carotene that fight cancer and heart disease is absorbed from salads with fat-free dressing. Only slightly more is absorbed with reduced-fat dressing; the most is absorbed with full-fat dressing. But remember, use your dressing in moderate amounts.


2. Skipping breakfast will leave you tired and craving naughty foods by midmorning. To fill up healthfully and tastefully, try this sweet, fruity breakfast full of antioxidants. In a blender, process 1 c nonfat plain or vanilla yogurt, 1 1/3 c frozen strawberries (no added sugar), 1 peeled kiwi, and 1 peeled banana. Pulse until mixture is milkshake consistency. Makes one 2-cup serving; 348 calories and 1.5 fat grams.


3. If you’re famished by 4 p.m. and have no alternative but an office vending machine, reach for the nuts–. The same goes if your only choices are what’s available in the hotel minibar.


4. Next time you’re feeling wiped out in late afternoon, forgo that cup of coffee and reach for a cup of yogurt instead. The combination of protein, carbohydrate, and fat in an 8-ounce serving of low-fat yogurt will give you a sense of fullness and well-being that coffee can’t match, as well as some vital nutrients. If you haven’t eaten in 3 to 4 hours, your blood glucose levels are probably dropping, so eating a small amount of nutrient-rich food will give your brain and your body a boost.


5. Making just a few changes to your pantry shelves can get you a lot closer to your weight loss goals. Here’s what to do: If you use corn and peanut oil, replace it with olive oil. Same goes for breads–go for whole wheat. Trade in those fatty cold cuts like salami and bologna and replace them canned tuna, sliced turkey breast, and lean roast beef. Change from drinking whole milk to fat-free milk or low-fat soy milk. This is hard for a lot of people so try transitioning down to 2 percent and then 1 percent before you go fat-free.


6. Nothing’s less appetizing than a crisper drawer full of mushy vegetables. Frozen vegetables store much better, plus they may have greater nutritional value than fresh. Food suppliers typically freeze veggies just a few hours after harvest, locking in the nutrients. Fresh veggies, on the other hand, often spend days in the back of a truck before they reach your supermarket.


7. Worried about the trans-fat content in your peanut butter? Good news: In a test done on Skippy, JIF, Peter Pan, and a supermarket brand, the levels of trans fats per 2-tablespoon serving were far lower than 0.5 gram–low enough that under proposed laws, the brands can legally claim zero trans fats on the label. They also contained only 1 gram more sugar than natural brands–not a significant difference.

Eating Less Isn’t Enough–What Exercising Tips Will Help Me Shed Pounds?

1. Overeating is not the result of exercise. Vigorous exercise won’t stimulate you to overeat. It’s just the opposite. Exercise at any level helps curb your appetite immediately following the workout.


2. When you’re exercising, you shouldn’t wait for thirst to strike before you take a drink. By the time you feel thirsty, you’re already dehydrated. Try this: Drink at least 16 ounces of water, sports drinks, or juices two hours before you exercise. Then drink 8 ounces an hour before and another 4 to 8 ounces every 15 to 20 minutes during your workout. Finish with at least 16 ounces after you’re done exercising.


3. Tune in to an audio book while you walk. It’ll keep you going longer and looking forward to the next walk–and the next chapter! Check your local library for a great selection. Look for a whodunit; you might walk so far you’ll need to take a cab home!


4. Think yoga’s too serene to burn calories? Think again. You can burn 250 to 350 calories during an hour-long class (that’s as much as you’d burn from an hour of walking)! Plus, you’ll improve muscle strength, flexibility, and endurance.


5. Drinking too few can hamper your weight loss efforts. That’s because dehydration can slow your metabolism by 3 percent, or about 45 fewer calories burned a day, which in a year could mean weighing 5 pounds more. The key to water isn’t how much you drink, it’s how frequently you drink it. Small amounts sipped often work better than 8 ounces gulped down at once.

How Can I Manage My Emotional Eating and Get the Support I Need?

1. A registered dietitian (RD) can help you find healthy ways to manage your weight with food. To find one in your area who consults with private clients call (800) 366-1655.


2. The best place to drop pounds may be your own house of worship. Researchers set up healthy eating and exercise programs in 16 Baltimore churches. More than 500 women participated and after a year the most successful lost an average of 20 lb. Weight loss programs based on faith are so successful because there’s a built-in community component that people can feel comfortable with.


3. Here’s another reason to keep level-headed all the time: Pennsylvania State University research has found that women less able to cope with stress–shown by blood pressure and heart rate elevations–ate twice as many fatty snacks as stress-resistant women did, even after the stress stopped (in this case, 25 minutes of periodic jackhammer-level noise and an unsolvable maze).


4. Sitting at a computer may help you slim down. When researchers at Brown University School of Medicine put 92 people on online weight loss programs for a year, those who received weekly e-mail counseling shed 5 1/2 more pounds than those who got none. Counselors provided weekly feedback on diet and exercise logs, answered questions, and cheered them on. Most major online diet programs offer many of these features.

Tags: (800) 366-1655, Baltimore, Brown University School of Medicine, cancer, counseling, dehydration, food, Food suppliers, heart disease, nutrient-rich food, olive oil, online diet programs, online weight loss programs, peanut oil, Pennsylvania State University, Peter Pan, registered dietitian, sports drinks

More ideas from Renee’s site to improve your eating habits.

What’s Your Best Advice for Avoiding those Extra Holiday Pounds?

1. Don’t tell yourself, “It’s okay, it’s the holidays.” That opens the door to 6 weeks of splurging.


2. Remember, EAT before you meet. Have this small meal before you go to any parties: a hardboiled Egg, Apple, and a Thirst quencher (water, seltzer, diet soda, tea).


3. As obvious as it sounds, don’t stand near the food at parties. Make the effort, and you’ll find you eat less.


4. At a buffet? Eating a little of everything guarantees high calories. Decide on three or four things, only one of which is high in calories. Save that for last so there’s less chance of overeating.


5. For the duration of the holidays, wear your snuggest clothes that don’t allow much room for expansion. Wearing sweats is out until January.


6. Give it away! After company leaves, give away leftover food to neighbors, doormen, or delivery people, or take it to work the next day.


7. Walk around the mall three times before you start shopping.


8. Make exercise a nonnegotiable priority.


9. Dance to music with your family in your home. One dietitian reported that when she asks her patients to do this, initially they just smile, but once they’ve done it, they say it is one of the easiest ways to involve the whole family in exercise.

How Can I Control a Raging Sweet Tooth?

1. Once in a while, have a lean, mean salad for lunch or dinner, and save the meal’s calories for a full dessert.


2. Are you the kind of person who does better if you make up your mind to do without sweets and just not have them around? Or are you going to do better if you have a limited amount of sweets every day? One RD reported that most of her clients pick the latter and find they can avoid bingeing after a few days.


3. If your family thinks they need a very sweet treat every night, try to strike a balance between offering healthy choices but allowing them some “free will.” Compromise with low-fat ice cream and fruit, or sometimes just fruit with a dollop of whipped cream.


4. Try 2 weeks without sweets. It’s amazing how your cravings vanish.


5. Eat more fruit. A person who gets enough fruit in his diet doesn’t have a raging sweet tooth.


6. Eat your sweets, just eat them smart! Carve out about 150 calories per day for your favorite sweet. That amounts to about an ounce of chocolate, half a modest slice of cake, or 1/2 cup of regular ice cream.


7. Try these smart little sweets: sugar-free hot cocoa, frozen red grapes, fudgsicles, sugar-free gum, Nutri-Grain chocolate fudge twists, Tootsie Rolls, and hard candy.

What Can I Eat for a Healthy Low-Cal Dinner if I Don’t Want to Cook?

1. A healthy frozen entree with a salad and a glass of 1 percent milk.


2. Scramble eggs in a nonstick skillet. Pop some asparagus in the microwave, and add whole wheat toast. If your cholesterol levels are normal, you can have seven eggs a week!


3. A bag of frozen vegetables heated in the microwave, topped with 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese and 2 tablespoons of chopped nuts.


4. Prebagged salad topped with canned tuna, grape tomatoes, shredded reduced-fat cheese, and low-cal Italian dressing.


5. Keep lean sandwich fixings on hand: whole wheat bread, sliced turkey, reduced-fat cheese, tomatoes, mustard with horseradish.


6. Heat up a can of good soup.


7. Cereal, fruit, and fat-free milk makes a good meal anytime.


8. Try a veggie sandwich from Subway.


9. Precut fruit for a salad and add yogurt.

Technorati tag: eating, nutrition, health,

Tags: Cal Dinner, dietitian, food, leftover food, microwave

Renee has done it again. She promises on Saturday to let us know where she got these top 100 tips:

1. Have a V8 or tomato juice instead of a Diet Coke at 3 pm.


2. Doctor your veggies to make them delicious: Dribble maple syrup over carrots, and sprinkle chopped nuts on green beans.


3. Mix three different cans of beans and some diet Italian dressing. Eat this three-bean salad all week.


4. Don’t forget that vegetable soup counts as a vegetable.


5. Rediscover the sweet potato.


6. Use prebagged baby spinach everywhere: as “lettuce” in sandwiches, heated in soups, wilted in hot pasta, and added to salads.


7. Spend the extra few dollars to buy vegetables that are already washed and cut up.


8. Really hate veggies? Relax. If you love fruits, eat plenty of them; they are just as healthy (especially colorful ones such as oranges, mangoes, and melons).


9. Keep seven bags of your favorite frozen vegetables on hand. Mix any combination, microwave, and top with your favorite low-fat dressing. Enjoy 3 to 4 cups a day. Makes a great quick dinner.


10. The best portion of high-calorie foods is the smallest one. The best portion of vegetables is the largest one. Period.


11. I’ll ride the wave. My cravings will disappear after 10 minutes if I turn my attention elsewhere.


12. I want to be around to see my grandchildren, so I can forgo a cookie now.


13. I am a work in progress.


14. It’s more stressful to continue being fat than to stop overeating.


15. Skipping meals. Many healthy eaters “diet by day and binge by night.”


16. Don’t “graze” yourself fat. You can easily munch 600 calories of pretzels or cereal without realizing it.


17. Eating pasta like crazy. A serving of pasta is 1 cup, but some people routinely eat 4 cups.


18. Eating supersize bagels of 400 to 500 calories for snacks.


19. Ignoring “Serving Size” on the Nutrition Facts panel.


20. Snacking on bowls of nuts. Nuts are healthy but dense with calories. Put those bowls away, and use nuts as a garnish instead of a snack.


21. Thinking all energy bars and fruit smoothies are low-cal.


22. A smoothie made with fat-free milk, frozen fruit, and wheat germ.


23. The smallest fast-food burger (with mustard and ketchup, not mayo) and a no-cal beverage. Then at home, have an apple or baby carrots.


24. A peanut butter sandwich on whole wheat bread with a glass of 1 percent milk and an apple.


25. Precooked chicken strips and microwaved frozen broccoli topped with Parmesan cheese.

Tags: energy bars, microwave, no-cal beverage, smallest fast-food burger

Here is a list of great health tips from a great site, Renee Gets Fit

1. Add just one fruit or veggie serving daily. Get comfortable with that, then add an extra serving until you reach 8 to 10 a day.
2. Eat at least two servings of a fruit or veggie at every meal.
3. Resolve never to supersize your food portions–unless you want to superize your clothes.
4. Make eating purposeful, not mindless. Whenever you put food in your mouth, peel it, unwrap it, plate it, and sit. Engage all of the senses in the pleasure of nourishing your body.
5. Start eating a big breakfast. It helps you eat fewer total calories throughout the day.
6. Make sure your plate is half veggies and/or fruit at both lunch and dinner.
7. Eating out? Halve it, and bag the rest. A typical restaurant entree has 1,000 to 2,000 calories, not even counting the bread, appetizer, beverage, and dessert.
8. When dining out, make it automatic: Order one dessert to share.
9. Use a salad plate instead of a dinner plate.
10. See what you eat. Plate your food instead of eating out of the jar or bag.
11. Eat the low-cal items on your plate first, then graduate. Start with salads, veggies, and broth soups, and eat meats and starches last. By the time you get to them, you’ll be full enough to be content with smaller portions of the high-calorie choices.
12. Instead of whole milk, switch to 1 percent. If you drink one 8-oz glass a day, you’ll lose 5 lb in a year.
13. Juice has as many calories, ounce for ounce, as soda. Set a limit of one 8-oz glass of fruit juice a day.
14. Get calories from foods you chew, not beverages. Have fresh fruit instead of fruit juice.
15. Keep a food journal. It really works wonders.
16. Follow the Chinese saying: “Eat until you are eight-tenths full.”
17. Use mustard instead of mayo.
18. Eat more soup. The noncreamy ones are filling but low-cal.
19. Cut back on or cut out caloric drinks such as soda, sweet tea, lemonade, etc. People have lost weight by making just this one change. If you have a 20-oz bottle of Coca-Cola every day, switch to Diet Coke. You should lose 25 lb in a year.
20. Take your lunch to work.
21. Sit when you eat.
22. Dilute juice with water.
23. Have mostly veggies for lunch.
24. Eat at home.
25. Limit alcohol to weekends.

Tags: beverage, Coca-Cola, food, food journal, food portions, Renee Gets Fit

I have run across Susans Weblog which is a nutrition weblog produced by a Vegan in New York City. Although I eat a fair amount of red meat it is interesting to see how others eat and this weblog article tackles one of the big issues of vegitarian eating which is incomplete proteins.

Susan’s Nutrition Weblog: You Complete Me

Technorati tags: nutrition, protein, fitness

Tags: New York City

I found this article at Sign on San Diego. It is a geat article on the value of these “other” egg products that we see in stores. I only eat eggs on the weekend when I am hungry for a bigger breakfast with the kids and have always wanted to know more about these eggs. I bought them once and they tasted like eggs but just never bought them again…

Remember the days when shopping for eggs was just a question of large or jumbo?

Today’s supermarkets present dizzying choices: “free-roaming,” “omega-3,” “100 percent organic,” “cage-free,” “compatible with cholesterol-reducing diet,” “natural sunlight,” “hand-gathered,” “vegetarian diet,” “high vitamin E,” “humane harvest,” “vegetarian hens with roosters.”

It’s a trend born of the egg’s new and improved nutritional rap and fueled by the zeal of low-carb dieters. And these designer eggs bear designer prices.

So what makes them different? It boils down to two things: what the hens eat and how they are housed.

Technorati Tags: egg, supplement, nutrition, fitness
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Alabama, Alberta, allergic reactions, American Heart Association, Anne Van Beber, associate professor and chairman, associate professor and chairman of the department, Canada, canola oil, Consumer Reports, designer, egg products, Environmental Protection Agency, fish oil pills, food, food staff, high-oil fish, reducing diet, San Diego, San Francisco Chronicle, Texas Christian University, the Edmonton Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, University of Alberta, vegetarian diet

Glucosamine & Chondroitin Double Strength

I know that many people have back or knee problems and that joint pain is a real big problem in north america today…actually my wife is one of those that suffers from back pain. One of the supplements tha people are using successfully to help alleviate joint pain is Glucosamine with Chondroitin One of the things that you can try is
Glucosamine & Chondroitin Double Strength

Here is more info on the double wammy of these to great supplements:

Glucosamine and chondroitin are building blocks of connective tissue and are key components of the joints.

For detailed discussions of these nutrients, please see the individual articles for glucosamine sulfate and chondroitin sulfate.

Glucosamine is a simple molecule that is available as a supplement in several forms: glucosamine sulfate, glucosamine hydrochloride and N-acetyl-glucosamine (NAG). The glucosamine sulfate (GS) form (stabilized with a mineral salt, such as sodium chloride or potassium chloride) is the only form consistently shown in clinical trials to be effective for people with osteoarthritis (OA).

Chondroitin sulfate(CS) is a much larger and more complex molecule than GS. Like glucosamine, it is a major constituent of cartilage and has been the subject of many clinical trials. CS supplementation has proven to be an effective treatment for people with OA.

When to take glucosamine, chondroitin sulfate, or both: The popular idea that GS is clinically “preferred” over CS, or that CS is “not necessary,”1 has not been examined (let alone supported) by appropriate comparative research. An analysis of controlled clinical trials evaluated the independent effects of GS and CS in the treatment of OA.2 The authors concluded that the overall efficacy in trials of CS for people with OA exceeded the overall efficacy of GS for people with that condition. However, more than one-third of CS supplements have been reported to contain less than 40% of the amount of CS listed on the label.3 Moreover, no single clinical trial has compared the effects of the two supplements.

Many people with osteoarthritis take combinations of CS and GS or glucosamine HCl. This practice may be based on the suggestion, made in a best-selling book,4 that GS and CS in combination have stronger effects than either supplement alone. Although this idea may sound appealing, and may be harmless, it is based only on anecdotes and hypotheses. The theory that GS and CS work synergistically in the treatment of osteoarthritis remains unproven. To date, no clinical trials have compared glucosamine/chondroitin combinations with either of the supplements taken individually.

One preliminary trial found that the combination of glucosamine HCl (1,600 mg per day), CS (1,200 mg per day), and calcium ascorbate (1,000 mg per day) was effective at reducing joint noise, pain, and swelling in people with osteoarthritis of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ, or jaw joint).5 However, this study was not well controlled and the outcomes measured were highly subjective. Moreover, participants in this study were allowed to use aspirin and ibuprofen, so the exact effects of the nutrient combination cannot be accurately assessed.

Similarly, the combination of glucosamine HCl (1,500 mg per day), CS (1,200 mg per day), and manganese ascorbate (228 mg per day) was evaluated in a double-blind trial and was associated with significant symptom reduction and improvement on x-ray for osteoarthritis of the knee (less so for spine). However, subjects were allowed to use acetaminophen for pain, and comparative effects of a glucosamine HCl/chondroitin sulfate combination and the individual nutrients were not examined.

health, fitness, supplements

Tags: acetaminophen, back pain, osteoarthritis, pain, potassium chloride, sodium chloride, treatment of osteoarthritis, x-ray

I just ran across a great page at MSNBC with a bunch of celebrity fitness tips. Most of the info is pretty basic but it is also really interesting to have so much in one place

MSNBC – The Fit List: Weekly celebrity workout tips

Also there are links at the bottom of the page to news stories on Fitness and Health that MSNBC is covering

Another article from eVitamins . This time on the value of taking amino acids

What does it do?
The branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) are leucine, isoleucine, and valine. BCAAs are considered essential amino acids because human beings cannot survive unless these amino acids are present in the diet.

Where are they found?
Dairy products and red meat contain the greatest amounts of BCAAs, although they are present in all protein-containing foods. Whey protein and egg protein supplements are other sources of BCAAs. BCAA supplements provide the amino acids leucine, isoleucine, and valine.

Why do athletes use it?
Some athletes say that branched-chain amino acids

helps improve strength training results.
helps improve endurance.

What do the advocates say?
A good deal of research has been done on branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) in athletes, but results are quite mixed. BCAAs do not seem to enhance training benefits or exercise performance in most situations. Some athletes, however, may experience increased mental clarity during exercise or may be less susceptible to infections caused by the stress of exercise. Performance under extreme conditions, such as high altitude or heat, may also be improved with BCAAs.

How much is usually taken by athletes?
Some research has shown that supplemental BCAAs (typically 10 to 20 grams per day) do not result in meaningful changes in body composition,1 nor do they improve exercise performance or enhance the effects of physical training.2 3 4 5 6 7 However, BCAA supplementation may be useful in special situations, such as preventing muscle loss at high altitudes and prolonging endurance performance in the heat.8 9 One controlled study gave triathletes 6 grams per day of BCAA for one month before a competition, then 3 grams per day from the day of competition until a week following. Compared with a placebo, BCAAs restored depleted glutamine stores and immune factors that occur in elite athletes, and led to a reported one-third fewer symptoms of infection during the period of supplementation.10 Studies by one group of researchers suggest that BCAA supplementation may also improve exercise-induced declines in some aspects of mental functioning.11 12 13

Are there any side effects or interactions?
Side effects have not been reported with the use of BCAAs. Until more research is conducted, people with ALS should avoid taking supplemental BCAAs. In one study, supplementation with a large amount of BCAAs (60 grams) caused alterations in the blood levels of tryptophan, phenylalanine, and tyrosine.14 The changes in the blood levels of these amino acids could, in theory, cause depression in susceptible individuals. Until more is known, individuals with a history of depression should consult a doctor before supplementing with BCAAs. People with kidney or liver disease should not consume high amounts of amino acids without consulting their doctor.

Tags: dairy products, liver disease