Eating For Health

Whether you are an NFL fan or not, everyone knows that NFL players are in shape.    Many teams now have a dietitian/nutritionist coaching them on good nutrition.   In the nutrition class I taught, I showed a video of an NFL team being consulted on eating to win with nutritionist/dietitian Leslie Bonci .   In the video, an NFL player noted how he ate 3 chicken breasts and 8 egg whites for breakfast. Bonci showed the team members that protein is important but so are other foods like fruits and veggies.   Recently, MSN has a great article on 3 simple principles to follow to get in shape and stay healthy for life, according to an NFL nutritionist ,   Mike Minnis .    Sounds easy.   What are these 3 principles?   Principle 1:   Maintain a healthy weight by understanding energy balance Nutritionist Minnis says understanding energy balance means: the balance of the calories you take in versus the calories you burn up.   Take i...

After being in our homes for that past few weeks, many of us have added on some unwanted pounds.   Now that the weather is better, can walking help you lose some of that weight?   Popsugar has a good article , “Yes, You Can Lose Weight Walking as Little as 30 Minutes a Day..”.   What are some keys to know about walking and weight loss? Amount of time – note the article indicates walking 30 minutes a day.   Much research has shown that if you want to lose some fat, you need to exercise for more than 20 minutes.   So, a 30-minute walk is a great way to start. How often?   Aim for walking and exercising for at least 150 minutes a week .   That breaks down to at least 21 minutes a day.   If you walk 30 minutes a day, you will meet and exceed the recommendation for 150 minutes a week of exercising. How long?   One may not get quick weight loss by walking.   But a JAMA Internal Medicine article reported that without changing their diet, ...

Look around and you will see so many kids who are overweight.   Often these kids also have parents who are overweight.   CDC reports that childhood obesity in the USA has become a very serious problem.   Being overweight puts adults and children at risk for poor health.   How many kids in the US are obese? For kids ages 2-19 years of age: 18.5% are obese which equates to 13.7 million obese kids in the USA 13.9 % of kids ages 2-5 are obese 18.4% of 6-11-year olds are obese And 1 out of 5 or 20.6% of 12-19-year olds are obese Moms (and Dads) play an important role in helping prevent obesity in their kids.   Medical Press has a good article discussing 5 healthy habits of Moms that can reduce obesity risk in their kids.   The article published by the journal BMJ discusses research about 17,000 female nurses and their 24,289 kids and looked at five healthy habits of the moms.   These 5 healthy habits lowered their kids risk of being ove...