Food Choices For Dieting

Have you ever wondered what to eat while you are dieting? Well today is your day. These are just a few suggestions for you to supplement on those tough days.

Food Choices Meats: avoid using anything cured or processed with honey. You may try boiled ham. If you would like to purchase lunch meat these are great too, but use only low fat or fat free. All the lean cuts are legal, as long as they are prepared using healthy methods.

Chicken is permitted as well as turkey but limit the quantity of dark meat. You may want to snack on rolled up lunch meat wrapped in lettuce. Add a bell pepper, scallion or some avocado to add a little flavor. You may want to add condiments that do not have sugar. Stay away from ketchup unless it is sugar free.

Try adding a little fish and shell fish. You can have 1% or fat-free cottage cheese, milk, or plan yogurt, but remember no more than two servings a day. Remember to stick to cheeses containing no more than six grams of fat per serving. Use egg whites and egg substitute. Try scrambling two egg whites with a small amount of vegetables, or eat a hard boiled egg. Eat as many as you would like!

Vegetables are a great choice. Cut up and dip sparingly into hummus (see website for recipe) or some fat free, sugar free dressing. Good snacks are cauliflower, cucumbers, snow peas, zucchini, celery, and asparagus. Try a few nuts. Peanuts (20 small), pecan halves (15), and pistachios (15) are all great snacks to eat during the day. These items are suggested to supplement your diet. Please use them sparingly, so it does not hinder your weight loss goals. To your success in living healthy,

Red Pepper: Hot Stuff For Fighting Fat?
Food scientists in Taiwan are reporting new evidence from laboratory experiments that capsaicin - the natural compound that gives red pepper that spicy hot kick - can reduce the growth of fat cells. The study is scheduled for the March 21 issue of the ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-weekly publication. [click link for full article]

Obesity Drives US Surgical Procedure Volumes Higher
Millennium Research Group (MRG) has conducted a detailed analysis of surgical procedures in its US Surgical Procedure Volumes 2007 report. The report finds that over 11 million Americans are considered morbidly obese, and by 2011, over 13 million will be- driving the volume of surgical procedures in the US throughout the next five years. [click link for full article]

Is Subway Better Than McDonald's?
Subway have taken aim at McDonald's with their new "Fresh Fit" meals. The combo meals are compared side-by-side against a Big Mac meal. Subway's meal comes out at 265 calories, while the Big Mac meal hits a gluttonous 1230 calories. But there's more to it than that......

High BMI Associated With Lower Likelihood Of Being Discharged Home After Hospitalization For Stroke
Individuals with a higher body mass index (BMI) tend are less likely to be discharged directly home after hospitalization for an ischemic stroke, according to a report in the March issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. An ischemic stroke occurs when the flow of blood to a part of the brain is blocked or reduced and sufficient amounts of oxygen cannot be delivered to brain tissue. [click link for full article]

Potential Link Between Obesity And Environmental Chemicals
A team of researchers at the University of New Hampshire is investigating whether the increasing ubiquity of chemical flame retardants found in foam furniture, carpeting, microwaves and computers might be related to the climbing rate of obesity in the United States. [click link for full article]

Fruit Juice: Making Kids Fat?
Research from Australia has concluded that children who drink 2 cups of fruit juice or fruit drinks per day were more likely to be overweight or obese than those who did not. It seems that the more fruit juice consumed, the more chance of being overweight: "Children who drank more than three glasses of soft drink - three quarters...