Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of saying you should completely avoid a food or listing foods in a good or bad list. I think it’s more important to practice moderation, with an understanding that sometimes moderation means once a week, but with other foods it should mean once a month. However, there are a few foods that I personally tend to avoid 100% of the time because they provide little-to-no nutritional value, or the fat/calorie component exceeds any potential positives of the food.
My list of foods to avoid include:
Chicken Pot Pies. The flaky pastry and meat-filled center sounds good and comforting, but you are doing more harm then good when eating these. Most of the time you will see that these pot pies have around 500 calories and 10 grams of fat, but after looking closer you will see that is for only half of the pie. So for those of you who would normally eat the whole thing, you’re consuming ~1000 calories and 20g of fat!
New years is right around the corner, meaning everyone is determining their New Year’s resolution. What will yours be? For most/many, it is to lose weight or to get into shape. Here are a few helpful tips for getting you a jump start on your weight loss goal:
1. Start small. Make realistic, attainable goals. You want to stay motivated, so by setting and meeting small goals will keep your fire burning and you will feel strong to take on another more challenging goal.
2. Try to eat out less often. Unless you are personally preparing your food you truly have no idea what or how many calories and fat you are taking in.
3. Incorporate exercise into your routine. If you’re not ready for daily exercise, doing some every other day would be great, especially if you never exercise.
Some of the nation’s largest food and beverage companies are implementing a common nutritional standard and using a universal logo on packaging to denote healthier foods in our grocery aisles, which they are hoping will help consumers identify and purchase healthier foods. This logo and packaging are part of the Smart Choices Program, which is expected to hit our grocery stores the middle of next year.
This logo will appear on the front of the products’ packaging and will include the Smart Choices logo, a check mark, the calories per serving and number of servings in the package. The Smart Choices Program logo signifies foods that limit unhealthy ingredients and feature healthy ones.
This month, we’re pleased to have Molly Wangsgaard join us in the Diet Blog as our Featured Guest Blogger.Molly is a Corporate Dietitian and Program Development Manager for Jenny Craig, Inc., and will be sharing some helpful strategies on how to maintain your healthy eating and exercise behaviors during this tempting time of year.
It’s only the second week of December, and you may already be concerned about the possibility of a calorie-laden month ahead. For some, Halloween candy may have started an extra month of unplanned eating; for others, Thanksgiving may have been the official kickoff of the “it’s-the-holidays-so-I-might-as-well-splurge” mentality.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, many of our successful Jenny Craig clients began their weight loss journeys specifically at this time of year. These people chose to not just survive the holidays — but to thrive all year long. And you can too! It may not always be easy (we all know holiday temptations are all around us), but with a can-do attitude and a healthy, weight loss mindset, you can start taking control of your weight and your health today.
Flu season is here and it is nearly impossible to avoid catching the cold. I have come up with a few ways to help you prevent this from happening. I am definitely a germ-a-phobe and pretty much go to the extreme when it comes to touching rails, door handles, or even shaking hands. I avoid touching rails whenever possible and use paper towels to turn or open door handles. I like to wash my hands every hour while at work and I encourage you to do so as well. Proper diet, sleep, and exercise will also help lower the chances of you catching the cold bug. Eating a variety of foods such as fruits, veggies, meats, dairy, and grains will provide your body with the proper minerals and nutrients to help protect and fight against the flu.
So, while working out, I encourage you to:
1. Wash your hands every 10 to 15 minutes
2. Wipe down and disinfect the machines after using them
3. If there is hand sanitizer available, use it whenever possible
What if someone could tell you what the healthiest foods to eat were, so that you’ll never have to pore over nutrition articles or read scores of health books to find out what you should be eating to be at your healthiest?
Well, wonder no more. Author Jonny Bowden has covered it for you in his book, The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth: The Surprising, Unbiased Truth About What You Should Eat and Why. This guide doesn’t just include which foods contain the most nutrients, but it also gives recipes for how to prepare some of the more exotic list-makers like yucca. And if you’re ailing from achy joints or a runny nose, Bowden tells you which foods are best for combating your condition. The 150 Healthiest Foods also educates you on how much of each food you should eat so that you absorb the health benefits without going overboard.
Let’s discuss. First off, she does a great job of noting that things should be consumed in moderation. This I 100 percent agree with and have mentioned numerous times. Moderation is key. You can eat just about anything as long as you practice moderation (both serving size and how frequently you consume an item). After that, she mentions that diet and exercise are essential for healthy living, another point I totally agree with. Then she gets into her potato sales pitch, mentioning potatoes have only “110 calories and zero fat and cholesterol”.
Whether you’re just beginning to start eating healthier or you’ve been doing it for a while, you can easily find yourself in a rut and doing the same boring dishes over and over again. You may find yourself wanting to cheat more often or that healthy foods don’t sounds that appealing. However, you can easily introduce new and exciting ways to keep your nutrition efforts interesting.
Below is a list of 15 different things you can do to spice up your nutrition life:
1. Experiment with new foods and combinations. Purchase a new fruit or vegetable each week and try it in a meal. This way you can look forward to something new and you can really expand your food options.
2. Take advantage of ready-to-use foods. Fresh-bagged salads, frozen vegetables, etc. Just stay smart about it and read the food label.
3. Add legumes/beans to your salads.
4. Try meat alternatives. The food industry has come along way with providing us with tofu or veggy-based meat alternatives. Buy some and try it out!
5. Use herbs and spices to add color, savory taste and sensational aroma.
Simply put, when you eat food your body begins the digestion process and breaks down the sugar (or carbs) into glucose. The glucose is then absorbed into the blood stream where it waits to enter the cells, so the body can use it for energy. Insulin helps get glucose into the cell. In people with diabetes, there may not be enough insulin to get the glucose in; therefore the glucose sits in your blood and gives a high reading when you test your blood glucose level.
Diabetes can affect anybody! Here are a few different types of diabetes:
Type I (Insulin Dependent)- anyone who is dependent on insulin to keep their blood glucose levels under control because their pancreas does not produce insulin.
Type II (Non-Insulin Dependent)- anyone who can control their blood glucose levels with diet, exercise, and/or oral medications. Their pancreas typically secretes insulin, but the body has built a resistance and doesn’t utilize it sufficiently.
Medication Induced- when medications cause an increase in blood glucose levels
Gestational- when a woman develops high blood glucose levels during a pregnancy.
Obesity is a problem in our country and sadly it is effecting many children. There are numerous complications associated with obesity, including diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, and depression. Due to this increased obesity occurrence in children, many have become dependent on medication to help control the severity of these health complications.
A recent study found some shocking results regarding children and medication use:
- The number of children taking drugs to treat chronic conditions increased across all treatment classes evaluated
- In use of blood pressure medications, lipid-lowering agents, diabetes drugs, and antidepressants, prevalence for youths 15-19 was at least two times greater than in 10- to 14-year-olds and three times greater than in youngsters 5 to 9
- Overall, girls took more blood pressure medication, even though boys are more likely to have hypertension
- Children more than doubled their use of type 2 diabetes medications between 2002 and 2005, with girls 10-14 showing a 166% increase
- The largest increases in high blood pressure treatments were seen in teens 15 to 19
Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of saying you should completely avoid a food or listing foods in a good or bad list. I think it’s more important to practice moderation, with an understanding that sometimes moderation means once a week, but with other foods it should mean once a month. However, there are a few foods that I personally tend to avoid 100% of the time because they provide little-to-no nutritional value, or the fat/calorie component exceeds any potential positives of the food.
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