Healthful Bites

Since I have an unusual affinity for health magazines, I subscribe to nearly all of them. So here are the latest fitness, beauty and nutrition findings that especially caught my eye in July issues of my favorite publications!

• Cardio intervals not only jack up your calorie burn during the workout, but after, say FITNESS magazine experts noted in the July/August issue. So while you’re hitting the showers and traveling back home or to the office, your body will be incinerating an additional 65 calories post-interval session, compared to a steady paced workout.
• The average woman weighs herself 6,000 times in her lifetime, according to a onepoll.com survey mentioned in Shape magazine’s July issue. Your clothes can be a good monitor too and won’t make you crazy like tenths of a pound can do with daily weigh-ins.

 (Image from Sole Collector)

• Speed up to outstep strokes, Harvard researchers say. Women who walked at a 20-minute mile pace are 37 percent less likely to suffer a stroke than non-walkers. Pushing your heart keeps blood pressure and inflammation in check and just 20 minutes each day can do the trick! (Shape, July 2010)
• Swap shaving cream for baby oil when shaving! The baby oil slicks down legs for a simple shave and won’t wash away as easily—keeping moisture locked in after exiting the shower. (SELF, July 2010)
• Pass it on…when a pal tells you her good news, celebrate with her and pass along major kudos.  Reveling in another’s happy news can make the good vibes spread like wildfire! (FITNESS, July/August 2010)
• Losing weight may actually be simpler than maintaining it, many dieters have found. But experts say that setting new goals over time can keep your motivation moving. Whether it’s a race or trying a new food every week, the novelty will keep things fun and set your eyes on (maintaining) the prize. Then keep with all those lifestyle changes you implemented during your diet regimen and watch the scale stay steady! (FITNESS, July/August 2010)
• Fascinating strength training fact: you will burn 33 percent more calories after supersets versus weight sets with rest in between. The back-to-back nature rotating between two exercises that defines supersets keeps your body moving and muscles challenged. (Women’s Health, July 2010)

 (Image from Inspired Fitness)

• The National Restaurant Association has noted a trend: 73 percent of adults say they are seeking to dine more nutritiously at restaurants compared to just two years ago. Mind you, this is what restaurant patrons say, not do, but thinking about good choices gives you a leg up over those who aren’t considering it (see: stages of change).  A few quick tips from Women’s Health to shrink your eating out calorie counts:

Beware of Arby’s Tangy Southwest Sauce. Two ounces of the goo has 230 calories. You could get an entire fast food grilled chicken salad for that amount!

Order “naked” at Qdoba. No, not sans-clothes, but sans-tortilla! Your burrito will come in a bowl—which is generally less messy because you side step filling avalanche disasters.

This naked thing must be a trend! Get your chicken at Popeye’s “naked” for grilled rather than fried poultry in sandwiches and salads.

Have you eaten anything at restaurants before checking the nutrition information beforehand, then regretted doing so after performing a little research later on?

Weighty Wager

Gambling on cards, horses or football…that you’ve heard of. But weight loss? Yes, there are actually several online tools that help you stay accountable to yourself and others by putting money on it.

Health experts have known for quite some time that sharing your goals with others increases success because of the added accountability and support—so that’s where the “broadcasting your weight loss goals” comes in. And the money? Well, it seems that feeling good and improving health may not be enough of an incentive for some looking to drop a few pounds.

Workplaces have been incentivizing weight loss for years: the thinking being that a healthier employee reduces absenteeism and insurance costs. Now this idea is available on a personal level.

Two sites in particular are mentioned in a TIME magazine article about the concept: Healthywage and StickK. A person who wants to lose weight sets a goal for his or herself, picks a “wager,” possibly with a referee moderator to confirm the truthfulness of results, and signs a contract of sorts. Users can invite friends and family members to check in on progress throughout the bet, hopefully increasing success through peer pressure.

Interestingly, if you miss your goal, the funds that have been anteed up can be surrendered to an “anti-charity” (for example, this might entail a donation to another political party) through some of these programs or they may just take the money to continue the Web site’s mission.

Do you agree with the concept of making weight loss a “higher stakes” (well at least mentally for some) affair? Would you be interested in betting on yourself to achieve a health goal?

(Image from Infoniac)

Slow Your Roll

Scientists are trying to combat speed eating early in people’s lives, hoping to foster healthy eating behaviors and habits in childhood (which can then last a lifetime). But rather than keeping tabs on the subject’s weight, the researchers measured plate weight. More than one hundred children tracked their eating speeds by eating their meals on a plate which sits on a scale for a study published in the British Medical Journal.

After one year of eating with the food scale (treatment group) or with a plate on a table (control group), the children with the scales ate at a slower pace and weighed less than their peers. In fact, by the end of the study, the scale eaters ate 11 percent slower than their baseline rates.

How fast food disappeared from the plate—or how quickly the plate content’s weight diminished—was graphed. A food therapist created an ideal eating speed graph, which was compared with the subjects graph. These images are compared instantaneously and if the subject is eating too quickly, the electronic scale “tells” them so.

Becoming a more mindful eater helps many people feel fuller with less food or become better at recognizing when they are full so they don’t eat past their full point. After a follow-up, the slower dining results from this experiment seemed to last for at least six months post-scale meals.

While it’s not practical for all humans, or children, to mount scales in their dinner tables, these findings exhibit the power of being more mindful at meals.

Do you consider yourself a fast eater? If so, is this problematic or you or does it work out fine?

(I don’t even want to know how many pounds of hot dogs a speed eater consumes in minutes at the Nathan’s Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest!)

Water cooler conversation starter: Beautifulpeople.com, a dating Web site, recently kicked off 5,000 members for putting on pounds over the holidays. The site founder said that he didn’t want “fatties roam the site.” Whoa. Who defines what is “beautiful?”