The Secrets to Holiday Eating
The holidays bring an overabundance of food to our lives! Oh, how easy it is to overfill, gain weight, and then be left with guilt and frustration. Try out these tips to save your waistline and feel great about yourself after the holidays have passed!
- Avoid skipping meals and snacks earlier in the day prior to a holiday meal. This is a sure-fire way to set you up for cravings, overeating, or binge eating.
- Take an active role in planning the holiday meal. Suggest a sit-down meal vs. buffet style.
- Offer to make a healthy dish or two to share at holiday gatherings. This will help to balance out the more rich dishes.
- Allow yourself to eat dessert moderately. Depriving yourself will only lead to feeling left out and may result in “backlash” eating later on.
- Plan ahead so you’re not starving. Find out what time the holiday feast will take place so you can be sure to not arrive hungry only to find out that the meal won’t be served for another 2 hours!
- Be active! Take part in active games like tag football, a neighborhood walk, or a scavenger hunt.
- Focus on other activities and socializing vs. eating and food. Enjoy conversation with family and friends, play card or board games, sing festive songs, or watch a holiday parade.
- Have a plan in place for times when you may notice yourself overindulging. Step away from the table, get some fresh air, or journal your thoughts.
- If you feel like you’ve “blown it”, remember that the holiday is only one day out of 365 days of the year. This one day alone can’t possibly impact your weight or appearance. Use this experience to shape your next holiday into one that feels more successful!
These are just a few of the strategies you can implement to prevent holiday weight gain. Join dietitians Ursula Ridens RD and Lisa Nelson RD for the free teleclass “10 Secrets to Survive the Holidays Without Gaining Weight“. You’ll learn more about steps you can take to stop holiday weight gain and have your specific questions answered. Go to https://www.lisanelsonrd.com/newu/holidaycall.html to sign up!
How to Cook Vegetables to Retain Nutrients
Yes, how you prepare vegetables and how long there are exposed to heat affect nutrient content of fruits and vegetables. The main nutrients “lost” during cooking include water soluble B vitamins and vitamin C. Many of these water-soluble vitamins are leached into water when cooked. You can preserve the nutrient losses by using the cooking liquid in soups or sauces. Steaming or microwaving vegetables are too cooking methods that preserve nutrients.
Also, chopping vegetables after cooking can preserve nutrients. A study found that carrots left whole when cooked retained 25% more of certain nutrients. This is likely due to the increased surface area exposed for nutrients to leach out of vegetables while they are in water. A taste test was also completed and the carrots that were cooked whole were preferred based on flavor. Cooking carrots whole preserves nutrients and natural sugars that impact flavor.
You will enhance flavor and nutritional content by cooking vegetables whole and chopping them afterwards.
All the best,
Lisa Nelson RD
Heart Healthy Tips
http://www.hearthealthmadeeasy.com
How to Read Food Labels for Fat and Sodium
You know you should be reading food labels, but what’s the point if you don’t know what you’re looking for? Let me give you a few guidelines you can follow to make food labels work for you.
1. Select foods with less SODIUM than the following amounts per serving:
Frozen or packaged dinners – 500 mg
Microwave Popcorn – 350 mg
Desserts & Cookies – 250 mg
Cheese – 200 mg
Chips, Pretzels – 200 mg
Bread, Crackers, Rolls – 140 mg
2. Select foods with less FAT than the following amounts per serving:
Frozen dinners – 10 g
Cheese – 5 g
Microwave Popcorn – 5 g
Lunch Meat – 3 g
Soup – 3 g
Snacks – 3 g
Bread, Crackers, Rolls – 3 g
Frozen yogurt or Sherbet – 2 g
Remember, when reading labels look at the serving size. A serving size is not necessarily an entire can of food. If a can contains 3 servings and you eat 1 can, you need to multiply the sodium or fat per serving times 3. For example, I have a can of chicken noodle soup with 920 mg of sodium per serving and 6 servings per can. If I eat the entire can, I consume 5520 mg of sodium (920 x 6). If you want a refresher on how much sodium you need everyday, review the post – Reduce Salt to Lower Blood Pressure.
All the best,
Lisa Nelson RD
Heart Healthy Tips
http://www.hearthealthmadeeasy.com
Meal Planning – Do you know what you're having for dinner?
It gets very old day after day having to worry about what you’re going to eat for three meals each day and snacks. Throw in changed plans and crazy schedules and the fast food lane is suddenly looking more and more appetizing.
A simple way to make the burden of meal preparation much easier is to plan ahead. Planning a menu does not have to be complicated, it simply requires investing a little time each week to plan ahead.
There are many benefits to planning your meals.
A meal plan saves you money. Having a plan will reduce unexpected trips to the grocery store and impulse purchases. You can also work leftovers into your plan to reduce wasted food.
A meal plan saves you time. By planning ahead you’ll have the ingredients you need on hand versus last minute stops at the grocery store, trips to the neighbors, or searches to the bottom of your freezer.
A meal plan promotes weight loss. By having a plan in place you decrease the stress of thinking about what you’re going to eat everyday. You’re less likely to “cheat” and grab a treat from the vending machine because you planned ahead and have a healthy snack of nuts and dried fruit on hand. You’re less likely to opt for the drive thru because you have everything you need for supper at home and ready to go.
All you need to do is pick one day each week to outline your meals/snacks for the week to come. Make sure you have the ingredients you need on hand. Use your menu plan to create your grocery shopping list and stock your fridge/cupboards with the ingredients you’ll need for the week.
All the best,
Lisa Nelson RD
1-A-Week Weight Loss Tips
Cholesterol Too Low – What are the dangers of a too low cholesterol?
Cholesterol Too Low – Cholesterol is often viewed as “bad” these days and many people are doing everything they can to lower cholesterol levels as much as possible. This isn’t necessarily a good thing.
Cholesterol is essential for many normal bodily functions. Enzymes use cholesterol to produce vitamin D, steroid hormones (estrogen, progesterone, testosterone), stress hormones, and bile acids for digestion. Cholesterol forms a membrane that surrounds all cells and is also a critical part of regenerating damaged endothelial cells (inner layer of blood vessel walls).
For most individuals, if you do not eat enough dietary cholesterol the liver produces the cholesterol needed for bodily functions. The amount of cholesterol in your diet determines how much the liver produces.
Cholesterol is essential for optimal health and pushing levels too low can cause problems. Back in 1994, the American Heart Association issued a statement noting an increase in deaths from trauma, cancer, hemorrhagic stroke, respiratory diseases, and infectious diseases in individuals with cholesterol levels less than 160 mg/dl. It’s worth noting that a large number of these deaths seemed to be due to poor health unrelated to the low cholesterol levels.
However, since then many studies are linking low cholesterol levels with depression, suicide, impulsivity, aggression, and anxiety when levels drop below 160 mg/dl. One psychologist suggested having too low cholesterol alters brain cell function and the brain cells with low cholesterol levels may have fewer receptors for the mood-elevating neurotransmitter serotonin. This could be the reason low cholesterol levels increase rates of depression.
With the rapidly rising use of medications, such as statin drugs, I’m noticing individuals reporting cholesterol levels that are dropping into potentially dangerous territory. Work with your physician to ensure you maintain healthy cholesterol levels appropriate for you.
Be sure to sign up for the free e-course How to Lower Cholesterol in 8 Simple Steps.
All the best,
Lisa Nelson RD
Heart Healthy Tips
Vitamin D Deficiency Symptoms – How does low vitamin D affect your heart?
Lisa Nelson RD #9: Vitamin D Deficiency Symptoms – Is there a connection between vitamin D and heart disease? What level vitamin D should individuals maintain to prevent heart problems?
Dr. Shelby-Lane: It is a known and documented fact that too little Vitamin D puts the heart at risk. Yet many patients are not routinely tested, and if so, they do not take the proper steps to reach optimal Vitamin D levels between 50 to 100 ng/dL. Most lab tests give 30 as a low normal, yet this is not optimal. This can by done by diet, sun exposure (in most cases) or adequate supplementation. But most of all, people are not tested. Research suggests Vitamin D deficiency may be an unrecognized heart disease risk factor.
Researchers say a growing body of evidence suggests that vitamin D deficiency increases the risk of heart disease and is linked to other, well-known heart disease risk factors such as high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes.
For example, several large studies have shown that people with low vitamin D levels were twice as likely to have a heart attack, stroke, or other heart-related event during follow-up, compared with those with higher vitamin D levels.
“Vitamin D deficiency is an unrecognized, emerging cardiovascular risk factor, which should be screened for and treated,” says researcher James H. O’Keefe, MD, director of preventive cardiology at the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Mo., in a news release. “Vitamin D is easy to assess and supplementation is simple, safe and inexpensive.”
Most of the body’s vitamin D requirements are met by the skin in response to sun exposure. Other less potent sources of vitamin D include foods such as salmon, sardines, cod liver oil, and vitamin D-fortified foods like milk and some cereals. Vitamin D can also be obtained through supplements.
Vitamin D deficiency is on the rise. Vitamin D deficiency symptoms are traditionally associated with bone and muscle weakness, but in recent years a number of studies have shown that low levels of the vitamin may predispose the body to high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, and chronic blood vessel inflammation (associated with hardening of the arteries). It also alters hormone levels to increase insulin resistance, which raises the risk of diabetes.
In a review article published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, researchers surveyed recent studies on the link between vitamin D deficiency and heart disease to come up with practical advice on screening and treatment.
They concluded that vitamin D deficiency is much more common than previously thought, affecting up to half of adults and apparently healthy children in the U.S.
Researchers say higher rates of vitamin D deficiency may be due in part to people spending more time indoors and efforts to minimize sun exposure through the use of sunscreens. Sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of 15 blocks approximately 99% of vitamin D synthesis by the skin.
“We are outside less than we used to be, and older adults and people who are overweight or obese are less efficient at making vitamin D in response to sunlight,” says O’Keefe. “A little bit of sunshine is a good thing, but the use of sunscreen to guard against skin cancer is important if you plan to be outside for more than 15 to 30 minutes of intense sunlight exposure.”
Testing for Vitamin D Deficiency
Vitamin D levels can be measured with a blood test for a specific form of vitamin D called 25-hydroxy vitamin D (25(OH)D). Vitamin D deficiency is defined as a blood 25(OH)D level below 20 ng/dL. Normal levels are considered to be above 30 ng/dL.
Again, criteria for optimal levels is between 50 to 100 ng/dl.
All the best,
Lisa Nelson RD
Heart Healthy Tips
