on Jan 5, 2015 in Fitness, Nutrition, Weight Loss, Wellness Blog
Healthy Balance – Weight Management and Healthy Living Program Convenient, affordable, and led by experts, the Healthy Balance Program is based on three basic ideas for success: Healthy Eating, Daily Habits, and Physical Activity. Programs are offered weekly. Start whenever you’re ready and stay as long as you want. Program has a $50 one-time materials fee and then the program is $10 a session. Programs typically run in 14-week cycles. Focus is on developing healthy eating habits, healthy lifestyle habits, an active lifestyle, and mindful eating. Programs offered in Clairemont Mesa, La Mesa, Otay Mesa, and San Marcos Kaiser Permanente Medical Office buildings. Call to enroll: (858)...
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on Jan 5, 2015 in Nutrition, Wellness Blog
You have probably heard that you should strive to eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, but what you may not have heard is the average person actually needs about 9 servings a day for optimum health. A serving being about 1/2 to 1 cup of vegetables or about 65 calories worth of fruit. When setting government guidelines for nutrition, researchers concluded the average American consumes about 1 and a half servings of fruits and vegetables a day (and that’s counting the tomato and lettuce on their hamburger!) The guidelines were set low at 5 servings, because they didn’t think people would take the goal of nine servings a day seriously. Every activity we do throughout the day, including activities like concentration and digestion cause oxidative damage in the cells of our body. Only the vitamins and phyto-nutrients in fruits and vegetables can help our body correct this oxidative damage. Most of us woefully underestimate the amount of fruits and vegetables it takes to keep us in balance. Each meal should include 2-3 servings of fruits and or vegetables and each snack at least one...
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on Dec 17, 2014 in Nutrition, Weight Loss, Wellness Blog
How many years have we heard that chicken is a better choice than beef because it is lower in saturated fat? Well it seems that when it comes to chicken things have changed. Studies that track foods to weight gain clearly indicate that meat eaters compared to vegans have higher BMIs (Body Mass Index – an indicator of obesity). When looking specifically at different types of meat, numerous studies indicated that the food most highly connected to elevated BMI was chicken! What happened to chicken? Well for one thing, over the last 30 years chickens have been selectively bred to be intense growers (grow quickly to maturity). Chickens that mature quickly mean improved profits for poultry growers, but the unexpected outcome of selective breeding/feeding is drastic consequences in the nutritional value of chicken. Today’s chickens have a lot more fat and less nutritional value. A serving of chicken in 1940 had 95 calories and 10 grams of fat, a serving of chicken in 2011 contains 200 calories and 23 grams of fat. The selective breeding has also had an impact of how well the chicken is able to make a very important fat called DHA (Docosahexaenoic Acid). DHA is an omega-3 fat that is extremely important to brain and eye health for humans. These new breeds of chicken are not able to make DHA in their muscle tissue like old chickens. They are so much lower in DHA that it would take eating 6 current day chickens (about 9000 more calories worth of chicken) to equal the DHA level in one chicken form 1970! Some researchers have theorized that this drastic decrease in omega-3 DHA could be one reason that there has been such a dramatic increase in Alzheimer’s and other mental health disease over the last 20...
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on Dec 2, 2014 in Nutrition, Wellness Blog
If you live in an industrialized nation, you formed plaque in your arteries before you finished your teen years. But research clearly shows that damage to arteries can be reversed with diets that emphasize whole, plant-based foods. Fruits and vegetables in particular, have protective factors for heart disease because they contain plant nutrients that decrease platelet aggregation (which can lead to clots, strokes, heart attacks, etc.) The top fruits that help keep your blood flowing include tomatoes, kiwis, grapefruit, and strawberries. The greatest of these are tomatoes, particularly tomato seeds. You know, the gushy mess inside a tomato that a lot of us toss out. It seems that the yellowish liquid that surrounds tomato seeds contains powerful nutrients that decrease clotting factors in your blood and reduce plaque. So powerful are these nutrients that they are more effective than taking an aspirin a day. Unlike aspirin which thins the blood and increases risk of unwanted bleeding, the nutrients in tomatoes decrease platelet aggregation and plaque build-up without affecting normal blood clotting; meaning your blood clots when you need it to , but not when you don’t. “Let Your Food Be Your Medicine and Your Medicine be Your Food”...
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on Dec 1, 2014 in Nutrition, Uncategorized
Most people hear the word genetically modified and think what’s the big deal? Isn’t that just a fancy term for describing the manipulation of plant DNA to make a new version? Genetically modified does mean that scientists controlled the pollination of certain plants to create new hybrids. Hopefully to create a better versions of some foods, i.e. sweeter tomatoes, more hardy plants, etc. The acronym GMO stands for Genetically Modified Organism. This is different. Instead of just manipulating plant DNA, scientist inserted virus and bacteria DNA into the plant DNA. According to federal regulations, this alters the new plant so significantly that it is reclassified as an animal and not plant form. How safe it is to eat these foods remains unclear. A 2013 review of 1,763 GMO studies found no clear evidence of toxic or harmful effects. But other studies have shown a transferring of the DNA from GMO foods with human DNA in the gut. The long term consequences are unknown at this time. Sixty-one countries, including most of Europe require food to be labeled for GMO content. The United States and Canada do not. You may think that you don’t eat GMO foods, but you would be wrong. Sixty to eighty percent of packaged foods in your supermarket contain ingredients derived from genetically modified crops. Even eighty percent of foods labeled “natural” were shown to contain at least one GMO ingedient by one study. The three largest crops that have been genetically modified with virus/bacteria DNA include soybean (oil), beet (sugar), and corn. If you want to avoid GMO until there is a better understanding of the long-term health consequences buy certified organic as these foods are regulated to not contain...
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on Nov 4, 2014 in Nutrition, Wellness Blog
A study published in the Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism (2013) found that a single serving of four Brazil nuts lowered blood cholesterol levels faster than Statin drugs and kept cholesterol levels down even a month after eating them! Sounds too good to be true? Maybe, but The Department of Chemistry at University of Santa Maria and the Department of Nutrition at Franciscan University in Brazil conducted a study that found just that. They took 10 men and women who had elevated blood cholesterol levels and fed them one dose of four Brazil nuts. Just nine hours after eating the four nuts, the blood cholesterol levels of the subjects in the study started to drop. Blood cholesterol levels continued to drop over the next 48 hours, leveling off to a total drop of 20 points. Considering that Statin drugs take four days to lower blood cholesterol, this is impressive. Even more astounding, the test patients continued to maintain the lowered blood cholesterol levels for one month after ingesting the nuts. Since they only followed the test subjects for one month, we are left wondering how long the lowered blood cholesterol effect may have lasted. What could explain these phenomenal results? Researchers theorize that perhaps it is the anti-inflammatory effect of the naturally high levels of selenium found in Brazil Nuts. While this is only one study done on only ten people; it isn’t enough research to make a definitive conclusion. But considering there are no negative side effects from eating a few Brazil nuts and the potential to naturally lower blood cholesterol without taking dangerous drugs, it seems a reasonable nutrition strategy! ...
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