Under Construction: Your Body--Kathleen Equite

Leftover Turkey: Yummy!

2007-11-24T10:27:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving Dinner may be enjoyable and delicious to have on Thanksgiving Day, but what about the days to follow? While some people may look forward to having leftover turkey, others do not. Foodfit, part of the HealthCentral Network, has some ideas on what could be done with that extra turkey. The leftover turkey could be used to make healthy soups, salads, tortillas, sandwiches and wraps. Foodfit provides different types of recipes that could be done in these five different categories. Within each turkey recipe, foodfit provides the ingredients needed, the cooking instructions, and the nutritional information of each one. A summary of the recipe can be found beside the nutritional information provided, which includes the preparation time, visitor ratings and any low-fats or riches in regards to the basic five food groups. There is also an extra link where a person can go to in order to get the turkey recipe personalized to fit their own nutritional needs.

Below are the food recipes that can be done with the leftover turkey. Enjoy!

Soups
Tex Mex Turkey Soup
Old-Fashioned Turkey Soup

Salads
Charlie trotter's Smoked Turkey and Middle Eastern Couscous Salad with Artichokes and Lemon-Chive Vinaigrette

Sandwiches and Wraps
Cranberry-Turkey Salad Sandwiches on Focaccia
Roast Turkey, Sun-Dried Tomato and Basil Wraps
Roast Turkey Sandwiches with Cranberry Sauce and Cream Cheese
Turkey and Roasted Red Pepper Wraps with Tarragon Cream Cheese
Turkey and Roasted Red Pepper Sandwiches on Focaccia

Tortillas
Turkey and Corn Tortillas with Chipotle Salsa

Restaurant Menus and their Nutrition

2007-11-18T20:32:00.000-08:00

There are some restaurants that include healthy dishes in their menus. Wendy's has a section in their food menu called Garden Sensations Salads that allows a person to order a healthy meal versus a “junk” meal with fatty acids, partially hydrogenated oil, and other not-so-healthy ingredients. Arby's fast-food restaurant also offers its customers nutritional facts and information on the food allergens that pertains to the different meals it has. The food facts for their market fresh sandwiches and wraps include information such as the serving weight, calories, cholesterol, and other few. The healthy section of a menu allows a person to make a well-informed decision as to whether or not they want to consume any fatty foods. It also enables the person to decide how much of these ingredients they would like to consume per meal.

Another restaurant that offers a healthy section of meals in their menu is Olive Garden. The restaurant has low-fat selections, selections under 20g, and a no sugar added desert selection. However, the Center for Science in the Public Interest did an analysis on three Garden Fare meals to see how accurate the nutritional facts were to the public. There were some differences between the stated amount of calories and the actual amount of calories of the meal. Although such was the case, the three meals are still recommended to have because they are healthier than the other food meals.

A Workout Plan For You

2007-11-04T19:10:00.000-08:00

Fitness centers were created in order to prevent or lessen any health problems. They provide a variety of services that aid in maintaining a healthy lifestyle as well as the body form you would so dearly desire. There is a fitness center at Florida Gulf Coast University, and it is open to all students, faculty, staff, alumni and even outsiders. It offers a variety of services that aid in having such a healthy lifestyle. One can find a personal trainer that can supervise every move that one makes and guide one in meeting health-related goals. If one would rather not have a personal trainer, one can always go to the second option of having a personal work-out plan developed by a certified personal trainer.

Whatever the case may be, one goes to the gym in order to stay in shape and lose weight. The only difference is that not everyone has the same workout plan as the person. There is no “one shoe fits all,”said behavioural scientist Neil King from Queensland University of Technology. Losing weight and staying in shape depends on the compensatory responses of one, such as how hungry one is and the food intake due to the energy expenditure. It also depends if it is due to a biological drive or if it is on a reward-basis. Thus, the workout plan of a person differs from others so much that a person may lose some pounds while under supervision of a personal trainer and yet another person may lose a couple more or less pounds than the former while under supervision. It all depends...

The Circumference of the Waist Equals...Health Risk Factors

2007-10-28T18:17:00.000-07:00

A study found that a connection exists between the abdominal obesity, otherwise known as the waist circumference, and the risk of a person to suffer heart disease and diabetes. That is what researchers of a global study called International Day for Evaluation of Abdominal Obesity (IDEA) said on October 23, 2007. If a person's measurement of the waist increases, so does their risk of having cardiovascular disease or diabetes.

The study had recorded each of the individuals' age, gender, presence of heart disease or diabetes as well as their waist circumference. This was done by placing a tape measure between the lower ribs and iliac crest of the hips of the individual, which measured the weight, height and their calculated BMI.

Body Mass Index (BMI) and waist circumference are good indicators of CVD and diabetes, but BMI only measures obesity; it does not include the variation of body fat distribution in each individual. Waist circumference indicates the fat hidden within the abdomen and has a stronger relationship in determining the risk of CVD and diabetes. The IDEA study has proven that it is important to measure a person's waist as well as his/her “BMI, blood pressure, blood glucose, and lipid levels, in order to identify patients who are at increased cardiovascular and diabetes risk,” said Beverly Balkau, Ph. D., lead author of this study. “The WC [waist circumference] is so easy to measure in the clinic,” because it includes visceral fat –“an important determinant of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.”

U.S. Schools Get Rid of Junk Food

2007-10-22T10:14:00.001-07:00

It was reported on Monday that U.S. school cafeterias and fundraisers are including less and less amount of fatty foods, also known as “junk food.” Instead of offering French fries in the cafeteria or cookies and other high-fat goods in the vending machines, schools are now offering healthier choices to the students. These choices include “salads, low-fat or non-fat yogurt, and low-fat salty snacks like pretzels and baked chips.”

Media reports show there is a significant difference from the amount of French fries offered in school cafeterias from the year 2000 to 2006. In 2000, about 40 percent of US schools used to serve French fries to students; in 2006, about 19 percent of the schools did. As for the fundraisers that were done in schools, 54 percent sold fatty goods in 2006 in comparison to 67 percent in 2000.

Public-health officials still wanted to approach this very cautiously, though. They were still not satisfied by the amount of physical education that schools lack into the students’ daily activities. They were aware 90 percent of schools already provide such an education; however, they don’t all offer it to every student age group as a daily activity. It is a must that students participate in daily activities because “Kids that learn this at an early age will practice this into adulthood,” said Jan Harp Domene, president of the national PTA. If they do not do so, then generations to come will be known as “couch potatoes!”

Weight-Loss Plans Not Heart-Healthy?

2007-10-07T20:08:00.000-07:00

Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Medical School compared eight of the most popular weight-loss programs to rank which program provided the more healthiest plan to follow to prevent heart disease. The eight popular dietary plans were: the Ornish Plan, the Zone Diet, Atkins, two Weight Watchers plans, two of South Beach Diet Phases, the New Glucose Revolution and the 2005 MyPyramid plan. Out of these eight plans, the most heart-healthy proved to be the Ornish diet plan and the lowest heart-healthy proved to be the Atkins 45-g carbohydrate plan.

The ranking was based on the Alternate Healthy Eating Index (AHEI), where the amount of fruits, vegetables, fats, fiber, nuts, soy and white meats that are consumed determine the success a diet has to be a heart-healthy one. The highest score, which determines such healthiness, is that of 70. While none of the dietary plans received a perfect score, study author and clinical psychologist Sherry Pagoto said all eight programs have the ability to be heart-healthy and have proven to result in weight-loss. The Ornish plan only came in first due to its emphasis as a very low-fat, low-calorie, mainly vegetarian plan for people who have survived a heart attack. The ideal weight-loss plan for a person should be based on something they can follow and that consists of the same type of foods they already eat so as not to cause a drastic change.

Latinos Offer Healthier Lifestyle

2007-09-30T05:35:00.000-07:00

Latino food recipes can help create a more healthier lifestyle than what the fast-food restaurants and processed foods offer. The lifestyle of Latinos in their homeland includes natural grown fruits, vegetables as well as other food ingredients from their own, or nearby, farmlands. They do not have to worry about their food being processed, as it is in the United States, and becoming obese, overweight or developing other health risks.

Because of the processed foods that the United States offers its residents, diabetes, cancer, stroke, and heart disease are some of these health risks that people tend to face. Esther Marshman, a Latino resident located in Salinas, California, mentioned having developed diabetes after moving down from Mexico. She has started her own restaurant in California, where not only Latinos can enjoy of their healthy diet, but Americans as well.

The healthy ingredients of a Latino recipe can be seen in the 1996 Latin American Diet Pyramid. This tells how many grains, fruits, and physical exercise, among other things, a person needs to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Esther mentions that changing diets from French-fries and greasy, processed foods to a Latino one would benefit in the long-run. Substituting certain foods to more natural flavored foods can reduce a person's health-related risks. Two recommendations are: switch corn tortillas to flour tortillas and fattier, refried beans to whole beans. And the common: switch from processed, artificial flavored ingredients to organic ones and begin enjoying a Latino dish!

New Fast Food Restaurants, say ¡Adiós!

2007-09-23T20:37:00.000-07:00

McDonald’s, say good-bye. Burger King, say good-bye. Fast-food restaurants, say good-bye. It has been proposed to have a two-year suspension on any new fast-food restaurants from opening up in South Los Angeles by city councilwoman Jan Perry. Her proposal is so the city could focus more on the existing problem between fast-food restaurants and health problems, and so the results could be a long-term plan to alleviate such a dilemma. Such health problems that south Los Angeles faces are high obesity rates among children and adults in comparison to the rest of the county, high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease, not to mention that this area contains the county’s highest concentration of fast-food restaurants. While some public health experts in the area seem to be happy about the proposal, there are others within the restaurant industry that criticize it by saying it will only permit full-service, sit-down restaurants to open.

Fast-food restaurants contain fatty foods, high calories, high cholesterol, and fat grams, among others, which causes a person to have health problems. This two-year suspension on opening up new fast-food restaurants in south Los Angeles could decrease such health problems and improve the type of “healthy” meals they offer. Burger King pledged on September 19, 2007 to have healthier meal plans to offer children under 12. Healthier food items include “flame-broiled Tenders, organic unsweetened applesauce…low-fat milk” and apples cut into pieces resembling French fries. The prospective year that children and parents can expect this to take effect is 2008.

Mrs. Obesity: Champion Thrice Again

2007-09-15T18:17:00.000-07:00

Florida is the 34th obese state in the United States. Colorado is the leanest state of all 51, but Mississippi is the most obese state of them all.

It was Thursday, September 13th, that the 2007 Obesity Report had reported these findings, making an emphasis that Mississippi had been ranked with the highest amount of adult obesity in the nation three times in a row. Out of all 51 states; none faced a decrease in adult or child obesity.

In Mississippi's Breaking News Story, anesthesiologist Dr. John Turner said cardiovascular disease is found to be the highest health problem among its obesity residents, especially within its larger population of African-Americans. The ones who are to be EXTRA careful are women because they tend to take care of others, rather than of themselves, and they believe cancer is their biggest concern. Men have chest, arm, and neck pain as symptoms for a heart attack, but women only show fatigue as their #1 symptom. While cardiovascular disease may be decreasing in men, it is found to be increasing among the women living in the Mississippi Delta.

Exercising and eating just the right portions of food (eating healthy), can lower an individual's obesity problem. Being able to control the intake of food and not allowing the food to control the individual is just one of the obstacles one has to be determined to overcome.

Scale, Scale On The Floor...Again

2007-09-11T22:08:00.001-07:00

One of the conflicting issues that a person, particularly a female, may go through is with the weight scale. Did I go down/up? How much do I weigh today? And the most intimidating question, “Should I go ahead and weigh myself, especially in a public area?”

The media is a huge factor influencing how much the weight scale is used, making it a constant resource for a person. Since television portrays a specific type of physically-fit female and muscular male figure, males and females tend to find those the “right” body to be. Therefore, both try to develop a similar physical body as those shown on magazines, T.V., movies, etc., making use of the weight scale more apparent. Because there are persons who may constantly check their weight on the scale, Tips of When to Use a Weight Scalecan help keep it at a minimum.

A person can appear to weigh more than usual because of any water that may be in the body system or, in a female's case, due to their monthly cycle. Fatty tissues in the body, such as in the buttocks and the chest area, could also increase the amount that a person weighs. If one attends the gym or works out by simply exercising, they might also get an increase in their weight due to the amount of muscle being developed. A person checking their weight status is not bad, it is only considered bad when it becomes a constant, daily check-up.