The Easter Bunny’s basket is full of heart healthy flavanols…well, as long as the basket is carrying chocolate.  A recent study, once again, showed that as little as a square of dark chocolate (about 7-10 g) can have a significant impact on your cardiovascular health.  In the study, 19,357 people between the ages of 35-65 were assessed.  Those who at an average of 7.5 g of chocolate per day over a ten year period had lower blood pressure and an estimated 39% lower risk of having a heart attack or stroke compared to those who ate the least amount of chocolate (average 1.7 g/day).  So, what’s the take away?  You can enjoy a moderate amount of dark chocolate (45%cocoa or more).  What is moderate? Keep it to no more than 20 g/day (about 85 calories).  That is half of a regular sized 40 g candy bar.  Help yourself to not overeat chocolate by either breaking the bar into pieces before you dig in or buy the individually wrapped squares of chocolate.  One of my favorites is the 60% cocoa Hershey’s Extra Dark Pomegranate - each square is 10 g and 43 calories.

Tags: baby fat diet, chocolate, dark chocolate, health, healthy eating, Hershey's, Hershey's Extra Dark, nutrition, weight loss

How much exercise do you get? If you’re walking 30 minutes, five times a week you may need to hoof it more than twice as much - if you don’t want to gain weight that is.  A new Harvard study published in this week’s JAMA, and reported in this Wall Street Journal article, found that women need 60 minutes of moderate exercise a day to prevent weight gain as they age if they consume a normal diet. The current federal guidelines say 30 minutes five days a week, of moderate intensity activity is recommended.  Keep in mind, if you up the intensity you can decrease the amount of time and still burn the same number of calories. For example, about an hour of walking at a pace of 3 mi/hour is equivalent to jogging for 30 minutes at a pace of 6 mi/hr or do a combo of some jogging and some walking for 45 minutes.

An hour may seem like way more than you can do, but I find it stress-relieving and therapeutic to go outside for a walk and take in the beauty of nature. The hour flies by.  Strapping up my shoes and getting out the door is probably the hardest part. With a pile of laundry waiting and a sink full of dishes, there are distractions galore. But I get over it. I put the baby in the stroller and know that I’m doing what I need to do for my longterm health - and to keep off the baby fat I worked so hard to get rid of. So get over the guilt, exercise is necessary for your waistline and your wellbeing. And whatever you can do, be it 30 minutes or the full 60, it’s all better than nothing.     

Tags: 60 minutes, exercise, Harvard study, JAMA

I just ran across and interesting study - taxing soda is estimated to help people drop 5 pounds a year.  At the University of North Carolina researchers looked at price, energy intake and weight and found that if the proposed 18% soda tax is implemented, people would consumer 56 fewer calories each day, which amounts to 5 pounds/year for young to middle-aged adults.  As the price of foods increase, the consumption of those foods decrease.  For now, New York has tabled the soda tax discussion.  However, it is interesting to note that soda had the largest price decline over a 20 year period, second to pizza. The price of a liter of soda went from $2.71 to $1.42, a staggering 48% decrease.  So, these foods are actually getting cheaper and (we already know) people are eating more.  Don’t fall prey to unhealthy choices because of cheaper prices — in the long run, it can end up costing you your waistline and health.  In my practice, one of the ways that I help my clients lose weight (and it is the easiest way to lose weight), is to have them cut down on their sugary drinks.  By cutting down your regular sodas by two 12 oz bottles a day - you can lose a whopping 29 pounds in one year!  Each 12 oz can has 140 calories.  Now, if you drink the 20 oz bottles, you can lose 54 pounds in one year.  It is really that easy — challenge yourself today to cut down by two.

Tags: baby fat diet, health, nutrition, soda, soda tax, weight loss

We’re hearing more and more about the health benefits of vitamin D - from preventing colon cancer to keeping the heart healthy to maintaining bone health. It’s all the buzz in the nutrition community. Doctors are more routinely checking levels, as a huge percentage of people are deficient.  Why is this so? The amounts once considered adequate seem to be too low and way too low at that. 400 IUs is the current recommended intake however new research shows that 1000-2000 IUs may actually be the right amount. Active vitamin D can be made by the body when exposed to sunlight, however with the use of sunscreens it seems we’re blocking this process. And for many months, November to April, much of the U.S. doesn’t get enough sunlight for adequate vitamin D production either.  (States north of Georgia included.) What to do? Up your intake of vitamin D rich foods - milk, certain cheeses, salmon, yogurts. Be sure to read the label because not all dairy foods are fortified with D.  Take a vitamin D supplement of 1000 IUs daily. Your multi probably has 400 IUs but you need more. Researchers who study this vitamin say that it’s very difficult to have toxic levels of the nutrient so you don’t need to worry about having too much with these amounts.

Tags: 1000 IUs, bone health, colon cancer prevention, heart health, vitamin D

I’m certain by now you’ve heard that nuts are good for you. Research finds that eating 1.5 ounces of nuts per day (as long as it doesn’t increase the number of calories in the diet - which means you should swap chips, pretzels or crackers for nuts rather than having them on top of what you normally eat) can keep your heart healthy.  Nuts are even a dieter’s friend.  The reason? They are one well balanced food - fiber-rich carbs, heart-healthy unsaturated fats, and tide-you-over protein.  I tell all of my clients to have a handful of nuts each day as a snack. The key is to keep it to just a handful.  Here’s an idea to help you: take an empty mint container (eg. Altoids box) and fill it with your snack of nuts. That’s about the amount you should have. Which kind? Any is fine and a variety is even better - almonds, walnuts, pecans, pistachios, cashews, hazelnuts. Go Nuts!

Tags: almonds, health benefits, nuts, pistachios, well balanced

I am constantly trying to create and find healthy and quick recipes that my kids will eat between baseball games and gymnastics and basketball and dance…you get me.  Well, last night before baseball we created another winner that I want to share with you –

Turkey and Sweet Potato Tacos

Pre-cooked white turkey breast (or if you have the time, cook it yourself)

Sweet potatoes

Whole wheat/low fat tortillas

Start the sweet potatoes in the microwave — cook for 10 minutes or until they are soft.  Meanwhile, cut turkey into strips and heat (stick in microwave with the sweet potatoes for the last 3 minutes of cooking).  Put tortillas between two humid paper towels and heat for about 20 seconds, depending on your microwave.  Once everything is heated, cut open sweet potatoes and mash the insides with a fork (no skins). Then put the mashed sweet potato and cooked turkey in the tortilla.  Add a glass of low-fat or non-fat milk and you have a great meal.  My family loved it.

Tags: baby fat diet, health, healthy recipes, nutrition, weight loss

Do you ever eat when you’re not hungry? I’m guessing the answer is yes; I know I have. There are lots of emotions that can lead to eating - sadness, boredom, anger, even happiness. When we feel especially emotional, chances are our eating is a reaction to the feeling. One key to getting emotional eating under control is by getting in tune with our hunger.  A hunger and fullness scale is a good tool to use to clue in to whether our eating is out of physiological need or emotional reaction. The scale is from 0 to 10, with 0 meaning you are so hungry you feel faint and can’t think straight and 10 meaning you’re so stuffed you feel sick to your stomach and could throw up. We want to live somewhere between a 2, 3, hungry but not starving, and a 5, 6, satisfied but not overly full.  Every time you’re about to reach for something to eat, ask yourself what number you are on the scale from 0-10. If you’re not a 2 or 3, do something else to busy yourself rather than eat.  Go for a walk, write an email, call a friend, hop on an exercise bike, scrapbook, read, etc. If you are truly hungry, than go ahead and eat, but keep distractions to a minimum and focus on the food. Think about the taste of the food, what it smells like, the texture, the last time you ate that same food, what memories it invokes. Becoming a mindful eater will help you greatly in your weight loss efforts because it slows down your eating. Plus, you will really enjoy your food more when you truly taste it.

Tags: emotional eating, hunger, hunger fullness scale, mindful eating, Mindless Eating