A 20 oz bottle of coke = 240 calories.  Those calories can add up faster than you think.  Here is some food for thought...

Do you have a weekly habit of drinking soda or another sweetened beverage (i.e. sweet tea, juice, or coffee beverage with added sugar)?  One drink consumed on a weekly basis equals nearly a 4 pound weight gain a year.    

Do you drink 3 beverages a week?  That would equal nearly an 11 pound weight gain annually.  

Do you have a habit of drinking one 20oz soda a day?  This would equal roughly a 2 pound weight gain every FOUR weeks!  Which would be a 25 pound weight gain each year!  All from one beverage, consumed daily.  

Start today and cut back on the number of soda or sweetened beverages you consume each week, or month.  If you were to cut out 4 sodas a month, you would reduce your weight gain by 3 pounds a year.  Can you cut out more than that? Reduce the amount of soda or sweetened beverage consumed annually by 3 sweetened beverages a week, and you could save yourself an 11 pound weight gain annually,  or nearly a pound a month!  

Think about your drink, pick a better beverage... one without empty calories (or calories just from sugar, which are found in sweetened beverages).  A great substitute is sparkling water!  Not the kinds with sweetener in them, but one such as Arrowhead sparkling water, La Croix, or Trader Joe's sparkling water.  These all have carbonated water with a hint of NATURAL flavor (usually from the essence of fruit, you know the kind of stuff you get when you squeeze the peel of an orange).  

**All calculations are based on a 240calorie beverage.  If you consume a beverage with more calories, you will gain even more weight annually!!!**

Quick Nutrition Tip

Watching what you are eating? Take a step in the right direction by taking pictures of everything you eat and drink. Its like a digital food journal! It may open you eyes, and/or make you more aware of the choices you are making daily.

Watch your budget and your waistline

One of the best ways to improve your diet and your food budget is portion control!  

As Americans, we eat very large portions.  Think steak house dinner with a 12 or 16oz steak for one person, served with a huge baked potato.  This is after your appetizer of bread and salad, and maybe even a bloomin' onion or baked potato skins.  All of which is way more food than any one person needs in one sitting.  The steak alone exceeds one person's protein portion for the entire day! 

By learning proper portion sizes and using portion control in your eveyday life, not only will you cut your food costs, but you will also cut down on your waist line!   That 12oz steak dinner could be shared with someone else at the dinner table, and you split the bill.  In fact, you could even split a 6 oz steak and get the proper amount of protein needed with an even smaller price tag.  You save on cost, and calories. Don't forget it will also save you from that horrible feeling of being overly full.  

Get started today by watching how big your portions are while eating.  Think your portions are alright, consider comparing them to recommendations by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans or Choose Your Plate. You may be surprised at how far off your portions are compared to what you should be eating.  For example, a baked potato should be the size of a computer mouse… not the size of your plate. 

Watching what you are eating???

Try using smaller utensils, plates, bowls, and cups!!!  

Research has shown people who use smaller bowls and spoons eat less then people who have larger bowls and spoons.  One of the researchers sited in the study below- Painter, JE- did a TV spot with people eating ice cream.  The people who had the little pink sample spoons from Baskin Robbins and a small bowl ate less and were JUST AS SATISFIED with the smaller amount of ice cream eaten when compared to people who had larger bowls and spoons and ate more ice cream.  

Also, if you keep the food you have eaten in front of you, you are less likely to overindulge. Don't let the server clear all the plates and dishes from your table while you are eating at a restaurant.  Keep the empty soda/drink cups on the table too!  

Final application:  When eating nuts (such as pistachios) if you crack the nut and eat it from the shell while keeping the cracked shells in front of you, you are less likely to overindulge and are more satisfied with less pistachios eaten than compared to someone who eat pre-cracked pistachios (or other nuts).  Basically- crack the nuts yourself, you will slow down, eat less, and still feel full!  

When you serve your dinner at home tonight, use the salad plate instead of the standard dinner plate.  Use the small (short) cup, instead of the big 16oz cup.  And don't clear the table of any foods eaten until you are completely done eating.  Happy Eating! 

Research citation:  Wansink B, Painter JE, North J.  Bottomless bowls: why visual cues of
portion size may influence intake.  Obes Res. 2005 Jan;13(1):93-100

Healthy foods cost more???

Think it's too expensive to eat healthy... think again!

A new research study that was just released shows ounce for ounce, calorie for calorie... healthy foods cost the same as junk foods. And in some cases, healthy foods are cheaper! 

Myth Dispelled! Healthy Foods not more expensive... read on

A Diet You Can Manage

First off, a diet is completely an inaccurate term- I was just trying to get your attention. It is not a diet, it is a lifestyle. Let's talk about ways we can make eating healthy part of your everyday life.

To start a lifestyle of healthy eating, it takes many small steps. Take the following scenarios for example:

• When someone decides to run a marathon for the first time, how do they approach it? Do they wake up one day and run a marathon? No.
• When someone wants to start a company, does it happen over night? No. 

So then why do we expect to have a perfect "diet" instantly?
Why do we think we can wake up on Monday and go on a diet to lose weight. Really?! And we think we are going to be successful with that?

Tell me, a persons who wants to run a marathon but doesn't train at all...do they make it to the finish line? No. They might if they hitched a ride or took a short cut, but that is cheating! They did not run across the finish line because they work hard to get to that goal, they did it by cheating.  You want to train for a marathon and pass through the finish line because you trained and worked hard to make it to your goal!  Winning is only fun if you put hard work into it, not if you stole it by cheating.

The same basic principle of working hard to achieve your goal applies to eating healthy! You need to take several small steps to get to your ultimate goal if you want to be successful.

Truly your GOAL should be TO EAT HEALTHY & BE SUCCESSFUL DOING IT.   Not just to diet or lose weight.

Ideas for getting started TODAY:

-Write a food journal for three days.

• Write down EVERYTHING you eat AND drink. Make sure to estimate serving sizes as accurately as possible.
• Be honest. If you ate 4 fun size Snickers bars, write very single one of them down. If you don't, you are only cheating yourself. 
• Do not eat differently than you normally would.  Otherwise, you will not get an accurate depiction of what you eat on a daily basis. 
• Lastly, make sure one of those days is a weekend! Some people have a tendency to eat differently on weekends, or drink beverages they don't normally drink during the week (eh, em... alcohol).
• After you track what you eat for a few days, enter it into a program such as MyFitnessPal. This is a government ran app, you can track your daily food intake, and track your exercise. 
• If you prefer, you can even enter your food intakes into the app on a meal or daily basis instead of waiting until the end of the three days.  Do note, you may pay more attention to calories, fat and protein consumed if you enter your intakes in to MyFitnessPal the same day you are eating, this can cause you to have a slightly different picture of what you actually eat.  This is because you are paying more attention to your food, and you are less likely to eat mindlessly (i.e. those 4 fun size Snickers bars).  

These first couple of steps may seem tedious, but they are basic... and necessary. Think about it, if (or when) you plan your financial budget, you have to track your spending for a few months to get an idea as to where all your money goes. Same concept! You must track EVERYTHING you eat for a few days in order to get a better picture of what you eat everyday.  Writing down you food intake everyday will also give you an idea as to we're to start you journey to a eating healthy lifestyle.

Let's think of some examples of what you can change after you track your food intake.

• BEVERAGES: Do you drink a lot of calorie and sugar filled beverages? Juice, soda, whole milk, or alcohol? If you are drinking anything other than plain water, plain coffee or plain tea (no added sugars, sweeteners or creamers), you can probably use some help in this area
• Do you drink whole, try switching to 2% milk.  Or if you already drink 2%, aim for 1% or fat-free.
• SNACKS: Do you have a lot of little snacks through out the day? Those little candies from the jar on secretary's desk can add up significantly over time. Consider taking a mid-afternoon snack with you to work, that way you aren't raiding the candy drawer at 2 or 3pm to make it to the end of the work day. This may even help hold you over until dinner better and help you to not over eat dinner! Win-win!
• ADD-ONS: Do you add a lot of ranch, cheese, butter or other fatty, calorie filled food item, dip or added fat to your foods? Try cutting back, if not cutting it out.
• SKIPPING MEALS: Do you skip breakfast? Or another meal? It's probably best to have a least a snack instead of completely skipping. Otherwise, once you do end up eating, you are far more likely to overindulge.  That then leads to extra calories consumed and weight gain, and is not beneficial to your eating healthy lifestyle.

These are just many ideas to get a jump start on your path to eating right for your healthy diet lifestyle.

• By no means should you do everyone of these things at once!!! Repeat, do NOT attempt to make all these changes at one time. 
• You should pick only one thing to change and dedicate your focus to that. Once you have mastered than, move onto the next lifestyle change to master. 
• Changes should be made no more frequently than once a week, and more ideally, should be done with a 2-3 weeks period apart from one another.  This will help you to be successful and master your new changes in lifestyle!!

If you already know one of your weaknesses, without doing the food intake for three days... consider picking a small change you know will help you, but is also FEASIBLE!  If your goal means to give up something you know you will pick up again in 6 months and eat an entire grocery store's worth of that item, pick something else.  You want to pick something that you know you can change, that way you set yourself up for SUCCESS! 

Good Luck! And remember, start today with ONE small change towards a better lifestyle.  

Working out in the Airport

It should be more culturally acceptable to work out when doing nothing in public!!

I'm not talking about full on push-ups in public, but more like movement to keep you going. For example, my husband and I were waiting for our plane to board earlier this morning and I started doing squats. He looked a me like I was crazy. There may have been other people who had the same impression, but who cares. I sure don't, I'll be the one looking decent in my shorts and swim suit this summer.

If everyone started doing this, people wouldn't think you were crazy. You would be crazy NOT to be using your down time effectively, by working out in public!

Now, I know I'm a dietitian. Food is my specialty, but nutrition, healthy and exercising go together... It comes with the territory. I'm not trying to be a fitness expert, or step on the toes of fitness experts'. I more so trying to motivate people to get moving, to burn extra calories when ever possible. The occasional squats while in line might not cause you to loose 10 pounds this month, but it will take you one step closer to getting you healthier AND it may even pave the way to more intense workouts in the future... Just a thought. If it doesn't, at least your are getting in some sort of physical activity.

Food (and exercise) for thought! Get out there and getting moving today, not tomorrow!

Healthy Eating Myths

So I was reading different stuff on my phone, having fun surfing the Internet and playing with my new twitter account. Man, someone was reading my mind yesterday!!

I recommend going to the link below for the WebMD article about myths about eating healthy... This definitely supports what I posted about last night. Particularly the part about a diet being all or nothing and thinking of it as something too big to tackle. Take the first step now. Make an oath to make one small change every week or month. One small change can make a huge difference in the long run.


@WebMD_Blogs: I don’t have time to #cook, and other myths that keep unhealthy food habits alive: http://t.co/fW7uQ15Y @mtjacobsen

Start Tomorrow, TODAY

Trying to balance the heavy load of family, work, school, household obligations, so on and so fourth, can be really time consuming... I hear it all the time.  People say they don't have time to do this, and they need more hours in a day to do that.

Well, are you ever going to have time to do the things that matter most?  When is your health going to trump everything else and take the front seat?  If you don't have your health, you don't have your life.

Remember this:

Tomorrow will always be waiting for you another day, but the future starts today.  You need to take action today!  Get a start on your future now.... not tomorrow. 

Classic example, I'll start my diet tomorrow or on Monday.  I have heard this one a 1,000 times.  Why does it have to be another day to start?  Why can't it be NOW?!?!

Part of me speculates it because you are too overwhelmed to start the task.  Or do you truly want to take on the task?  Are you just talking big game, and not really ready to act on it?

Starting a "diet" can be overwhelming.  You can't eat this, you should eat that... but don't have too much.  Too many rules! My next post is going to be my take on a healthy lifestyle and eating right... from a realistic dietitian's perspective. 

Back up.  Let me reiterate that a REALISTIC dietitian's perspective.

I know that not everyone will stop drinking regular soda, or give up candy or chips, or can afford to eat organic.  We have to work together to find ways to improve our eating habits and our lifestyle.

Stay tuned for more... until then, Sleep Good & Dream BIG! 

Parents pick meals

Tonight is school night for me. I am in class for a four hour peroid, and dinner is up to my husband.  He generally does a good job making something for the girls, but sometimes he lets the oldest pick out what they are going to have for dinner.  The night he lets her pick = problems in the future. Once she starts picking, she thinks she can always call the shots at dinner. 

You pick the meals:
Parents should pick what is going to be eaten, and when it is eaten... the kids should pick which of those foods are eaten, and how much of them. These rules or guidelines for meal times should always be applied at meal time, and are based on priniciples defined by Ellyn Satter.  I would highly recommend going to her website and reading "How to Feed Children" for the age(s) of kids(s) which pertain to your family. She has some amazing information on her website and in her books that I apply with my family on a daily basis.  It works!

Lesson for the day
Mom and/or dad pick dinner, the kids pick which of those foods they eat (and how much of them).

Asian Inspired Meal

Ingredients

1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 lb frozen chicken, thawed
2 medium zucchinis, sliced 1/4 inch pieces and cut in 1/2
4 small red, orange, and yellow bell peppers, julienned
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp lite or reduced sodium soy sauce
Optional
1 Tbsp sesame seeds

1 cup white rice
2 cups water

Add rice and water to a small pot.  Bring to a boil.  Cover and reduce to a simmer.  Cook 15- 20 minutes.

In a large skillet, add oil and garlic. Heat until garlic is aromatic, then add chicken and cook over medium heat.  Cook chicken until nearly done, remove from pan and cut into chunks.  Add back to pan, and add zucchini; cover and cook for about 5 minutes.  Add bell pepper and cook for another 3-5 minutes.  For crispier vegetables, remove from pan and serve.  For softer veggies, continue cooking to desired texture.  Top with sesame seeds.  Serve with a quick dinner salad for some extra vegetables with dinner.

To speed up the cooking process, I usually butterfly cut my chicken.

Kid friendly note: have the kids help prepare the vegetables.  Kids are more likely to eat foods that they help prepare, or even grow! Start a family garden and get your kids in the kitchen! Yes, my 6 year old eats this food.  The baby eats the zucchini with the rice, and small pieces of the bell pepper, we are still working on her :)

Sorry this took a little longer than expected to post!! Hope you enjoy!

National Herb Week!

It's National Herb Week! Apparently I was celebrating and didn't even know it... On Sunday my family and I got some new herbs and planted them in our garden.

New to the collection: Oregano, thyme, basil, and parsley!
Herbs we already had include: Sage, rosemary and chives.

My husband planted the herbs in our garden, and even planted a few smaller portions of the plants in a container for us to keep in the kitchen.

Next task! Learn how to use all the herbs we have, and make sure they don't go to waste.  We could shared 'em, but we should also think of some ways to preserve them for times a recipe calls for the herbs and we don't have fresh ones on hand.

Now the research begins for some new ideas.  Do you preserve your herbs?  Or have ways to use large amounts of them so they don't go to waste?  Or do you crop share with other people?