I thought that this would go without saying but I continually run onto people that seem to be eating well but destroy what they eat with the dressings that go on their foods.

My sister makes quite possibly the best Caesar salad dressing that the world has ever known. I like it and everyone in my family and our friends like it as well. The trouble is that even if the lettuce is almost calorie free there is a part of the Caesar salad recipe where you add 2 cups of oil. Oil as we all know is 100% fat.

Another example. My wife uses Pam for cooking instead of butter. No matter what the can of Pam says it is of course 100% oil, this is OK when you compare it to using 3 times as much butter but still do not minimize the impact that these “trace” amounts of oil have.

What does this all have to do with chicken? Well chicken is very good as a protein source because it has close to no fat and is very balanced for it’s amino acid profile. The trouble with chicken is that when you cook it you will find that it can get dry and you add come kind of sauce to make it less dry tasting. These sauces tend to be bad. This is the same story with tuna, where people will add mayo and salad dressing to the tuna to make it better and less dry.

And there is another fat food, Mayonnaise is very high in fat as well.

So as you look through the foods that you like and the foods that you eat, see what there is that is high in fat as an addition to your regular good food. You of course can leave in whatever you wish, but there is a chance that you will find some stuff in your diet that you just do not care much about that is ruining the good work that you are doing in the rest of your diet and with your exercises.

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.

Is having kids bad for you? Yes says Helena Laroche, M.D., of the University of Iowa, and her colleagues. This is a story that has got a lot of press in the last few days as a study at the UI shows that parents eat more high fat foods and in general eat more than people without kids.

I hate to be the one that brings up some of these lifestyle differences because I have two kids but there are a few factors that would lead to obesity in parents. Those living with children also more frequently ate high fat food such as cheese, ice cream, beef, pizza and salty snacks but not chocolate, they reported online for the Jan. 4 issue of the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.

So why do I think as a parent that we parents have more of a problem with obesity than non-parents.

1. Junk food abounds – Having kids around means that there is a lot of oppotunity to eat the McDonalds, Pizza Hut and any other fast food that it just makes life easier to have the kids eat. This is not good for them or you, as we weaned ourselves from the easy way out we just overcooked so that there was a lot of leftovers for my lunch and future dinners.

2. Cleaning up the plates – Kids only eat until they are satisfied and if there is food left on the plate they will leave it. I am the most guilty of cleaning the plates. I hate to throw out any food but instead I have tried to more often than not throw the leftover food but instead pack it away for the kids next snack.

3. Treats – Again bad for us and bad for them. There is always chocolate and chips in the house. Why? I will never know. My wife is better at keeping these out of the house than me.

4. When can I exercise? – Single people and couples do have extra time to go to a gym as well as the disposable income often to join a place to work out outside of the house. I know that my wife and I let our gym memberships lapse after the birth of our first and nver joined back and instead workout at home when we find time.

5. When do I get to eat my good meals? – This time I do better than my wife. We eat with the kids but for breakfast my wife feeds the kids first and often does not get a chance to sit down to breakfast so this can lead to the danger of missing meals and then binging to make up the difference. My wife does not do this but given the opportunity I definitely do.

So there are really a lot of differences in the fitness and eating habits of singles or couples compared to those with kids. I think probably the best way to avoid any of the problems really does come down to planning your eating and planning your exercise but as we all know planning takes work and most of us will avoid it if there is an opportunity.