Hidden Calories in Beverages
If you are working to lose weight you need to make adjustments to your food choices. However, don’t forget what you drink has an impact on your success also. There can be a surprising amount of calories in beverages.
Let’s say you are reducing your calorie intake to 1500 calories per day. If you stop at Starbucks for a 16 oz Vanilla Frappucino with 2% milk, a 12 oz. can of Dr. Pepper with lunch, and a 16 oz. sweetened ice tea with dinner, you’ve consumed around 565 calories just from what you drank. . . and this is assuming you consumed water between meals. That leaves you just 935 calories to “spend” on food for the day if you are going to achieve your goal of 1500 calories per day.
1. Portion size
Keep your portion sizes small. For example, you do not need a 12 ounce glass of juice in the morning, cut back to 6 ounces of fruit juice or better yet replace the juice with a piece of fruit. A 12 ounce glass of juice contains 192 calories.
2. Read food labels correctly
What is Your Biological Age?
Do you watch the Biggest Loser? If so, you have seen each contestant visit a doctor at the start of the season and many times they’ll learn their actual ‘biological’ age. This usually ends up being a shocker, such as a 28 year-old whose physical condition is that of a 55 year-old or something drastic like that. Telomeres are a tool that can be used to fairly accurately identify your biological age.
I recently participated in a webinar hosted by Spectra Cell Laboratories and lead by Dr. Mark Houston discussing telomeres.
What is a telomere?
Telomeres are a DNA sequence that appears at the end of each chromosome. Chromosomes comprised of DNA are in each cell of our body. Our DNA is protected at each end by telomeres. Dr. Houston describes a telomere as a safety cap or ball cap on the end of each chromosome. They protect the chromosome and DNA from things like oxidative stress. As the telomere becomes damaged the chromosome and cell function ineffectively the cell begins to die.
Telomere Shortening
As a normal part of aging, telomeres become shorter. Once a telomere becomes shortened there is no way to lengthen the telomere.
There are many factors that influence how quickly telomeres shorten. Here are some of the factors that impact telomere length:
Million Hearts: Prevent 1 Million Heart Attacks and Strokes in 5 Years
On September 13, 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services launched Million Hearts. Million Hearts is aimed to prevent 1 million heart attacks and strokes over the next five years.
Cardiovascular disease costs $444 billion annually in medical costs and lost productivity.
Million Hearts focuses on two goals:
1. Empower Americans to make health choices.
This includes preventing the use of tobacco, reducing sodium and trans fat intake. Taking this steps can mean decreased medical treatment (and costs) for blood pressure and cholesterol.
2. Improve care of those who need treatment.
The initiated is targeted to using Aspirin for people at risk, promotion of Blood pressure control, Cholesterol management, and Smoking cessation. This treatment focus is being referred to as the “ABCS” and is intended to cover the major risk factors for heart disease, which means prevention of heart attacks and strokes.
Midlife Weight Loss Reduces Heart Disease Risk
You are at greater risk of heart disease if you were overweight as a teen, compared to those who gained weight later in life. However, it was never clarified if this was because overweight teens become overweight adults OR does being overweight during your teen years cause irreversible damage.
Good news has come out of recent research published in The Archives of Internal Medicine that indicates losing weight mid-life can reduce heart disease risk if you’ve been overweight since your teens.
This research was conducted by Harvard Medial School reviewing data on 19,000 Harvard alumni who entered their freshman year of school between 1916 and 1950. Follow up on these individuals occurred over 82 years and evaluated at habits, heart disease, body mass indexes.
Study results found the heaviest students were most likely to become overweight adults. Obese freshmen men had almost double the risk of dying from heart disease later in life compared to those of normal weight during their college years. Freshmen men who were overweight their freshmen year also had a substantially increased risk of dying from a heart disease.
The good news came when researchers factored in middle age and any change in weight at that time. Men who began college overweight or obese, but lost weight and were considered normal weight in middle age no longer had an increased risk of dying from heart disease.
7 Tips to Lower Cholesterol & Still Enjoy Thanksgiving
The holidays are here again, so let’s review some tips so you stick with your diet to lower cholesterol levels AND still enjoy a satisfying Thanksgiving meal.
Tip #1: Pass the Gravy
Traditional gravy is a high fat source. To make your gravy a little healthy, use a spoon to remove fat from meat and poultry dishes prior to mixing up your gravy. Another option to remove the fat is to freeze the pan drippings and then remove them before making gravy. Next, don’t go overboard. Add a little gravy for flavoring and pass it on.
Tip #2: Trim the Turkey
Limit your turkey to about 4 ounces. This would be right around the size or a deck of cards. Select white turkey meat without the skin to cut back on unnecessary fat calories.
Tip #3: Stuff the stuffing right
Boost your veggie intake by sautéing a lot of veggies into your stuffing. Some veggies may include finely diced celery, carrots, and onions.
Cholesterol and the Gene Apolipoprotein E
Are you someone that has followed a heart healthy diet “to the letter” and still struggled to lower blood pressure or cholesterol levels? If so, it’s possible the diet didn’t work for you due to your specific genetic makeup.
Mapping of the human genome (13 year project that identified all genes in human DNA) was completed by scientists in 2003.
For the most part, genes are the same between individuals, with just a 1% variation. This small difference is what accounts for our unique physical attributes, biological processes, and metabolism. It’s also this slight difference that makes one individual more susceptible to heart disease than another.
Nutrigenomics
This has opened the door for nutrigenomics and the role it can play disease prevention. You see, dietary recommendations, such as Dietary Reference Intakes and Recommended Dietary Allowances, are established to meet the needs of 99% of the population from a statistical perspective. However, a “one size fits all approach” doesn’t necessarily work. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s a great foundation to base your diet around, but if you have a specific disease or increased risk for disease, this is where nutrigenomics can step in.
Nutrigenomics looks at the interaction between nutrients and genes, because how we respond and metabolize nutrients is influenced by our genes.
Apolipoprotein E
The Apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype influences coronary heart disease risk. APOE was discovered back in 1970 and can bind to triglyceride rich lipoproteins and acts as a binding mechanism for receptors.
