Healthy Spring Recipes~Kate Olson

Real Nutrition April 22, 2014

Health Spring Recipes

Spring is finally here! Time to step away from those hearty stews and “stick-to-
your-rib” dinners that we find so comforting during the colder months, and move

towards cool, refreshing, colorful spring meals.

One of my favorite healthy recipe resources is Eating Well magazine and website.

Check out 10 Spring Dinners in 30 Minutes (http://www.eatingwell.com/

Also you can find some great recipes and menu ideas for upcoming spring holidays

like Cinco de Mayo, Mother’s Day, and Memorial Day.

PIZZA!~ By Kate Olson

Real Nutrition April 14, 2014

Pizza! Pizza!

Not sure if this is true with all dietitians, but I like to consider myself someone

who likes to eat like everyone else. Yes, I like fruits, veggies, whole grains, and the

occasional tofu dish, but my favorites still include things like pizza.

And not the whole-grain crust with lite cheese kind (although I’ll eat this too), but

the deep dish, butter crust, inch-thick cheesy kind.

I try, however, to limit my intake of such sinful foods. The exception in my family

is holidays and family celebrations. This weekend we celebrated my daughter’s 9th

birthday and her meal choice for her party was Lou Malnati’s.

This got me thinking how it compares to other Chicago-style pizza in terms of

nutrition status. Turns out they are pretty comparable. Check out the nutrition

info below for some of our favorite Chicago pizzas.

Nutrition Info for a slice of cheese pizza (approximately 1/4 of a 9” pizza):

Lou Malnati’s

470 calories, 10g saturated fat, 430mg sodium

Gino’s East

435 calories, 7.5g saturated fat, 330mg sodium

Giordano’s Stuffed Cheese

500 calories, 12g saturated fat, 910mg sodium

And just for fun….I wasn’t able to calculate exactly for a comparable sized slice to

those above, but I can tell you what’s in an Individual Size Deep Dish from Uno’s.

Uno’s Individual Cheese Deep Dish

1,750 calories, 35g saturated fat, 2,750mg sodium

So the moral to the story is, limit your portions and the frequency with which you

eat these pizzas. And NEVER order the individual pizza!!

References:

http://www.loumalnatis.com/nutritional-info

http://www.ginoseast.com/shop/deep-dish-cheese-pizza-9/

http://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/giordanos/cheese-stuffed-pizza

http://www.unos.com/nutrition.php

Real Nutrition by Kate Olson

Real Nutrition April 9, 2014

Top 10 Reasons to Reconsider a Long-term High-Protein Diet

1. Your body, specifically your brain and your heart, needs at least 130g of

carbohydrate daily in order to function optimally.

2. Eating large amounts of animal-proteins may be high in saturated fat, potentially

contributing to elevated lipid levels and risk for heart disease.

3. High-protein diets may not provide adequate amounts of vitamins and minerals

that we tend to find in plant-based foods such as whole grains and fruits.

4. Animal-proteins do not provide fiber, phytochemicals, or antioxidants.

5. High-protein diets can lead to loss of calcium through the urine.

6. Excessive intake of red meat may increase risk for colon cancer.

7. High-protein diets may be stressful on the kidneys, especially a concern for those

with diabetes or kidney failure.

8. High-protein diets increase risk of dehydration by increasing urine output.

9. Inadequate carb intake causes your body to break down muscle to make glucose,

potentially leading to a loss of lean body mass.

10. Variety is the spice of life.

Reference: Wardlaw, G.M. and Smith, A.M. Contemporary Nutrition. 9th

York: McGraw Hill, 2013.

Learn nutrition tips and ideas by following me at Twitter or Facebook.

http://realnutritionbykate.blogspot.com/

A National Push for More Home-Cooked Meals~Kate Olson

A National Push for More Home-Cooked Meals

A recent AP article printed by Shaw Media (http://www.nwherald.com/2014/03/14/michelle-obama-cooking-at-home-has-its-advantages/aswk6ge/?page=1) discussed current and future initiatives of the Let’s Move anti-childhood obesity effort by the first lady, Michelle Obama.

In addition to pushing for healthier food products, better school breakfast and lunch programs, and improved Nutrition Facts food labels, the first lady would like to push Americans to make more healthy, home-cooked meals.

As a dietitian and a mom of three, I understand how the typical family struggles with not only healthy eating, but eating at all, with our hectic work schedules, school, and after-school commitments.  I know many families, including sometimes my own, that grab dinner on the way to practice or don’t eat until after 8:00 p.m. 

Eating healthy does take time to plan and execute, but it can be done, even with a busy schedule.  If it can’t, then maybe we should consider the importance of fitting the time in to do it.  Not only for the benefits of eating better, but to preserve that special family time around the table that so many of us miss out on these days.

Follow me on Twitter or check my Facebook page for daily tips this week on how to better fit healthy cooking at home into your schedule.

http://realnutritionbykate.blogspot.com/

Heatlhy Weightloss~ Mayo Clinic Staff

Weight loss: Strategies for success

Make your weight-loss goals a reality. Follow these proven strategies.By Mayo Clinic Staff

Hundreds of fad diets, weight-loss programs and outright scams promise quick and easy weight loss. However, the foundation of successful weight loss remains a healthy, calorie-controlled diet combined with exercise. For successful, long-term weight loss, you must make permanent changes in your lifestyle and health habits.
How do you make those permanent changes? Consider following these six strategies for weight-loss success.

1. Make a commitment

Permanent weight loss takes time and effort — and a lifelong commitment. Make sure that you're ready to make permanent changes and that you do so for the right reasons.
To stay committed to your weight loss, you need to be focused. It takes a lot of mental and physical energy to change your habits. So as you're planning new weight-loss-related lifestyle changes, make a plan to address other stresses in your life first, such as financial problems or relationship conflicts. While these stresses may never go away completely, managing them better should improve your ability to focus on achieving a healthier lifestyle. Then, once you're ready to launch your weight-loss plan, set a start date and then — start.

2. Find your inner motivation

No one else can make you lose weight. You must undertake diet and exercise changes to please yourself. What's going to give you the burning drive to stick to your weight-loss plan?
Make a list of what's important to you to help stay motivated and focused, whether it's an upcoming beach vacation or better overall health. Then find a way to make sure that you can call on your motivational factors during moments of temptation. Perhaps you want to post an encouraging note to yourself on the pantry door, for instance.
While you have to take responsibility for your own behavior for successful weight loss, it helps to have support — of the right kind. Pick people to support you who will encourage you in positive ways, without shame, embarrassment or sabotage. Ideally, find people who will listen to your concerns and feelings, spend time exercising with you or creating healthy menus, and who will share the priority you've placed on developing a healthier lifestyle. Your support group can also offer accountability, which can be a strong motivation to stick to your weight-loss goals.
If you prefer to keep your weight-loss plans private, be accountable to yourself by having regular weigh-ins and recording your diet and exercise progress in a journal.

3. Set realistic goals

It may seem obvious to set realistic weight-loss goals. But do you really know what's realistic? Over the long term, it's best to aim for losing 1 to 2 pounds (0.5 to 1 kilogram) a week. Generally to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week, you need to burn 500 to 1,000 calories more than you consume each day, through a lower calorie diet and regular exercise.
When you're setting goals, think about both process and outcome goals. "Exercise every day" is an example of a process goal. "Lose 30 pounds" is an example of an outcome goal. It isn't essential that you have an outcome goal, but you should set process goals because changing your your habits is a key to weight loss.

4. Enjoy healthier foods

Adopting a new eating style that promotes weight loss must include lowering your total calorie intake. But decreasing calories need not mean giving up taste, satisfaction or even ease of meal preparation. One way you can lower your calorie intake is by eating more plant-based foods — fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Strive for variety to help you achieve your goals without giving up taste or nutrition.
In particular, get your weight loss started by eating a healthy breakfast every day; eating at least four servings of vegetables and three servings of fruits daily; eating whole instead of refined grains; and using healthy fats, such as olive oil, vegetable oils and nut butters. In addition, cut back on sugar, choose low-fat dairy products and keep meat consumption to a 3-ounce portion (about the size of a deck of cards).

5. Get active, stay active

While you can lose weight without exercise, exercise plus calorie restriction can help give you the weight-loss edge. Exercise can help burn off the excess calories you can't cut through diet alone. Exercise also offers numerous health benefits, including boosting your mood, strengthening your cardiovascular system and reducing your blood pressure. Exercise can also help in maintaining weight loss. Studies show that people who maintain their weight loss over the long term get regular physical activity.
How many calories you burn depends on the frequency, duration and intensity of your activities. One of the best ways to lose body fat is through steady aerobic exercise — such as brisk walking — for at least 30 minutes most days of the week.
Any extra movement helps burn calories, though. Think about ways you can increase your physical activity throughout the day if you can't fit in formal exercise on a given day. For example, make several trips up and down stairs instead of using the elevator, or park at the far end of the lot when shopping.

6. Change your perspective

It's not enough to eat healthy foods and exercise for only a few weeks or even months if you want long-term, successful weight loss. These habits must become a way of life. Lifestyle changes start with taking an honest look at your eating patterns and daily routine.
After assessing your personal challenges to weight loss, try working out a strategy to gradually change habits and attitudes that have sabotaged your past efforts. And you have to move beyond simply recognizing your challenges — you have to plan for how you'll deal with them if you're going to succeed in losing weight once and for all.
You likely will have an occasional setback. But instead of giving up entirely after a setback, simply start fresh the next day. Remember that you're planning to change your life. It won't happen all at once. Stick to your healthy lifestyle and the results will be worth it.

Double the Detox with These Water Additions By POPSUGAR Fitness

When you're trying to get your health back on track, there are many ways to detox your way to feeling better. The best way to flush out toxins, however, is simple: lots and lots of water. But you don't have to drink it plain; you can add a little flavor as well with these delicious (and detoxifying) additions. Add all of these to a large pitcher or bottle of water and drink throughout the next day for an effective way to detox! It helps to let these pieces soak overnight in your fridge to let the flavors meld.

• Lemon: Lemon water makes for a powerful detox drink; lemon juice helps to cleanse and alkalize the body. Add one thinly sliced lemon to a large pitcher, or squeeze fresh lemon juice into your glass.
• Mint: Mint adds a touch of sweetness without the sugar to your water, and it also helps settle your stomach and aids in digestion as well.
• Cucumber: Cucumber water isn't just for spas. Adding a few slices of cucumber to your water makes for excellent rehydration, and cucumber contains anti-inflammatory properties, as well.
• Ginger: The spicy root helps cleanse out your system, aids in digestion, and settles your stomach. A little goes a long way, so start with a few thin slices or grate a tiny piece into your water and taste before adding more as necessary.

How to Get Fit in a Few Minutes a Week~By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS of the New York Times

High-intensity interval training, a type of workout that consists of very brief bouts of very strenuous exercise, has become enormously popular in recent years. A main reason is that although such workouts are draining, they can be both very effective and very short, often lasting only a few minutes.

But people take notably different approaches to this form of exercise. Some complete only one sustained, all-out, four- or five- minute bike ride or sprint — a single interval — and then are done. Others practice standard interval training, involving repeated brief bursts of almost unbearably taxing exertion, interspersed with restful minutes of gentler exercise. Some people perform such sessions two or three times per week; others almost every day.

The science of intensive interval training has, though, been lagging behind the workout’s popularity. Past studies of HIIT, as the practice is commonly known, had established that as measured by changes in cellular markers, standard short-burst HIIT training may improve aerobic fitness up to 10 times as much as moderate endurance training. But scientists had not determined whether a single sustained interval likewise improves fitness, or the ideal number of HIIT sessions per week.

So to clarify those issues, researchers at two of the laboratories most noted for HIIT science set out to learn more about the best way to do interval training.

First, for a study published this month in Experimental Physiology, scientists at McMaster University in Ontario gathered 17 healthy young men and women and divided them into groups. Ten of them were asked to exercise on two separate days. On one day they completed a standard HIIT session consisting of four 30-second bouts of all-out, tongue-lolling effort on a stationary bicycle, alternating with four minutes of recovery between. On another day they completed a single uninterrupted interval lasting for about four minutes, by which time each rider had combusted the same amount of energy as during the stop-and-go session. Before and after the workouts, the scientists gathered blood and muscle samples.

Separately, the remaining seven volunteers did the continuous four-minute workout three times a week for six weeks. The researchers again collected blood and muscle samples, and monitored changes in the riders’ athletic performance by having them ride as hard as possible for a specified period of time.

When collated and compared, the data showed that the physiological differences among the two groups of riders were notable and, in some ways, strange.

On the one hand, the scientists found no significant variations in how the muscles of riders in the first group responded to a single session of interval training, whether of the standard stop-and-go variety or a sole sustained effort. In both cases, the riders showed immediate, post-exercise increases in their blood levels of certain proteins associated with eventual improvements in endurance capacity.

But when the researchers checked blood and muscle tissue in the second group of riders after they had completed six weeks of single-interval training, some of the pending improvements seemed to have evaporated. These riders’ muscle tissues now had only average — not augmented — amounts of the chemicals that help cells to produce more energy, a reliable marker of fitness. This finding was in stark contrast to the results of earlier work by the same researchers, in which they found that six weeks of standard short-burst HIIT exercise resulted in significant, sustained gains in these markers.

The implications of the new study are not altogether clear, said Martin Gibala, the chairman of the department of kinesiology at McMaster University and senior author of the study, but “it would appear,” he said, “that there is something important, even essential, about the pulsative nature” of on-off HIIT training if you wish to reap sustained physiological improvements.

In more practical terms, before you riff on your current workout, check to see whether reliable science supports your improvisation.

That caution is underscored by the results of the other major new study of interval training, this one published this month in PLOS One and undertaken at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. In it, scientists asked volunteers to perform a total of 24 standard HIIT sessions over either three or eight weeks, meaning that the volunteers exercised either three times per week or almost every day and sometimes twice on the same day.

At the end of the prescribed time, those who had completed three HIIT sessions per week had improved their endurance capacity by almost 11 percent. But those exercising daily displayed no such improvements and, in some, endurance declined. Only after those volunteers had quit training altogether did their aerobic capacity creep upward; after 12 days of rest, their endurance peaked at about 6 percent above what it had been at the start, suggesting, the researchers believe, that daily high-intensity interval sessions are too frequent and exhausting. In that situation, fatigue blunts physical adaptations.

The takeaway of both studies is that it is best, if you wish to perform high-intensity interval training, to stick to what is well documented as effective: a few sessions per week of 30- or 60-second intervals so strenuous you moan, followed by a minute or so of blessed recovery, and a painful repetition or four. Done correctly, such sessions, in my experience, get you out of the gym quickly and inspire truly inventive cursing.