We all know that most of what fast food restaurants offer are loaded with fat, calories, sodium, and other things that are bad for our health. Given that, I think you’ll be surprised at some of the “fast food shockers” we’re going to talk about today. I came across this information on AOL’s Body site where they had a quiz called “Test Your Fast Food knowledge” So here we go…

Which has the fewest calories?

A. Big Mac
B. Grilled Chicken Club
C. 20 McNuggets
D. Large Fries

Answer: Big Mac - That’s right, a Bic Mac  with 540 calories has fewer calories than a grilled chicken club.

Which has the most calories?

A. Corn muffin
B. Glazed doughnut
C. French Toastix
D. Egg McMuffin

Answer: A corn muffin has the most- 500 calories! 

How many calories are in a packet of Wendy’s honey mustard dressing?

A. 80
B. 180
C. 280
D. 380

Answer: 280

A Whopper with cheese has how many fat grams?

A. 17
B. 27
C. 37
D. 47

Answer: 47

Which pizza topping adds the most calories?

A. Onion
B. Sausage
C. Green Pepper
D. Mushroom

Answer: Sausage

Which Taco Bell item has the most calories?

A. Taco Salad
B. Soft Taco
C. Gordita
D. Chalupa

Answer: Taco Salad

Eating healthy foods can really make a difference in your mood and how you feel. Today we’re going to talk about the different foods to eat that will boost your mood if you’re feeling anxious, nervous, depressed, sad, or lacking energy. With a few changes to your diet, you can easily improve your mood, so let’s take a look!

Protein for energy

Protein can give you a boost in energy thanks to the norepinephrine and dopamine found in protein. Great protein sources include:

• Beans
• Lean poultry
• Lean red meat
• Cheese

Carbs to ease anxiety

If you’re feeling really anxious, carbohydrates just may be what you need to calm yourself down thanks to the boost in serotonin production you have after eating carbs. Try a healthy cereal like “Go Lean Crunch” which is high in fiber and will give you the carbohydrates that you need.

Calm those nerves

If you’re really nervous about something, seek out foods that will stimulate the release of dopamine. Sources include:

• Bananas
• Leafy greens
• Milk

Get rid of depression

Omega-3 fatty acids can help you ease the symptoms of depression. Try to incorporate fish into your diet because it is a great source of these Omega-3 acids. Try foods like:

• Salmon
• Tuna
• Sardines

Turn that frown upside down

Bad moods not only make your day a little harder to get through, but they can also make it miserable for those around you. Studies have found that if your levels of selenium are low, you’ll be more irritable.  Here are a few sources of selenium to help you turn that frown upside down.

• Sunflower seeds
• Whole grain cereals
• Brazil nuts

Source

As I’ve mentioned before, sometimes it’s so hard to come up with different ways to cook chicken. I’m always keeping my eye out for a recipe that’s not only healthy, but delicious. Just today I found a great recipe that’s figure friendly and perfect for this beautiful Fall weather!

Healthy Ways to Cook Chicken - Chicken with Apples and Cider Sauce Recipe

All you’ll need:

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, 4 to 6 oz. each
salt to taste
freshly ground black pepper
flour for dredging
2 apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1/3 cup apple cider
2/3 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup non-fat sour cream
1 tablespoon chopped parsley

All you’ll do:

1. Heat the olive oil in a large, non-stick skillet. While the oil is heating, season the chicken with salt and pepper and dredge it in flour (optional).

2. Sauté the chicken over medium-high heat until golden brown, about 2 minutes on each side. Remove the chicken to a platter and keep warm.

3. Add the apples and apple cider, stir with a wooden spoon to release any caramelized bits that may be stuck to the pan and cook until the cider has reduced by half.

4. Add the chicken broth, chicken and any juices that have accumulated on the platter. Simmer until the chicken is cooked through, about 10 minutes.

5. Remove the chicken to a clean serving platter and keep warm. Simmer the broth mixture until it has reduced by half, about 5 minutes. Add the sour cream and stir until it is thoroughly combined. Spoon the sauce over the chicken, sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Nutritional info:

Serve this with a green salad, and it’s a perfect Fall meal!

Source: Foodfit.com

I’d really like to think that I am always mindful when I eat, and I gauge my fullness by how I feel and not by how much food I have left sitting on my plate, but I’m not sure that’s always the case.  A recent study found that people eat more with their eyes than they do with their stomachs, and use the amount of food remaining on their plate or in their bowl to determine if they’ve had enough to eat.

So how did they go about performing this study to determine that people used visual clues instead of clues given by their brains that signaled they were full? They used a specially rigged “bottomless” bowl of soup! This is how it worked:

Four people would sit at a table for 20 minutes, each eating from an 18-ounce bowl of tomato soup.  The catch was that two of the bowls would never get empty, thanks to tubing running from the bowls to a six-quart vat of soup hidden under the tables.

The results? Well, those who ate from the normal bowls of soup each ate about 9 ounces while those with the bottomless bowls ate about 15 ounces of soup. When asked to estimate how many calories were consumed, those with the normal bowl guessed 123 when in reality it was 155. Those with the bottomless bowls estimated that they ate about 127 calories when in reality they ate about 268 calories worth. Certainly this would be considered mindless eating.

Reading this study was a great reminder of how important it is to pay attention to the signals that our bodies give us that tell us when we’re full. It was also a great reminder for me that when I eat, I shouldn’t be doing anything else like watching TV, or talking on the phone, or whatever else I do to multitask when I eat. The next time you sit down for a meal, stop to think about how you determine when you’re full and if you use those important clues from your brain, or if you’re the type to just clean your plate and eat everything on it.

Source: Retuers

A few days ago we talked about the foods that are thought to be good for us, but only if we are mindful of how it’s prepared.  For example, a lettuce salad is great for you (assuming it’s made with dark greens), but not if it’s loaded with cheese, croutons, bacon, and creamy dressings.  Today I thought we’d take a look at some other foods that are food for us, but only if it’s prepared with health in mind. Here’s Figure Friendly Club’s list of “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.”

So where’s the ugly? Well, we could take each of the foods listed above a little further to make them ugly. Like fried fish slathered with tarter sauce, now that’s ugly! Or white refined grains like white bread slathered with butter, another ugly situation! Or how about a “fruit” drink from Jamba Juice like the Power Size Razzmatazz drink with a whopping 620 calories! Now that’s ugly!

Lately I’ve been trying to soak up and learn as much as possible about Mindfulness. For those of you who aren’t too familiar with Mindfulness, I like to think of it as a way of living where you’re intentionally aware of your thoughts and actions in each and every moment. Practicing mindfulness can improve so many different aspects of your life. Often times mindfulness is associated with meditation, but it can also be applied to eating. When it is applied to eating, I think you’ll find that your attitude towards food will change, and with that change in attitude will come a healthier life and perhaps even weight loss too.

Here are a few suggestions on how you can be mindful while you’re eating:

• Be Thankful - Start each meal by being thankful.  Think about where it is that your food comes from, and the nourishment that it offers you, and be thankful for that.
• Create the environment - Choose to free yourself of rules and unrealistic expectations and be flexible - allow yourself to eat new foods.
• Five Senses - Eat with the five senses. Look at your food, taste it, touch it and feel for texture, smell the aroma, and listen - is there are crunch when you eat it?
• Have control - You have the power to take control over your eating by being mindful about the portion and choices of food that you eat.
• Look beyond a craving - Be mindful of your cravings and whether they mean that you’re really hungry, or that you’re just bored or stressed.

I absolutely love the practice of mindfulness, especially when it comes to eating. It’s so easy to eat while on the go, or eat in front of the TV and not pay attention to what it is and how much food is going into our mouths. These types of unhealthy habits could lead to problems of being overweight and eventually obesity. Another important part of eating mindfully is to slow down so that you’ll have the opportunity to realize when you’re full and stop eating before you overeat.

By practicing mindful eating, I think you’ll find that you form a healthy relationship with food which is key to losing weight and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

When I’m at the grocery store, I always like to take a look at what others around me are buying. Anybody else do that? I’ve just been fascinated with what people buy and try to determine what they’d make out of the ingredients they have. Maybe part of that is because sometimes I feel like I make the same meals over and over again, and I like to know what other people are making. Given that, you’ll understand why I was so excited when I came across GroceryLists.org.

GroceryLists.org, as you can imagine, is a site filled with other people’s grocery lists. It was started by a guy back in 1997 who found an abandoned grocery list in a parking lot, and it seemed interesting, so he kept it. Every time he came across another list, he kept it. The site now has over 1600 grocery lists due in part to others who have sent in the abandoned grocery lists they’ve found.

I found the best way to get started is by taking a look at their “Top 10” lists. Otherwise, you can browse on your own through the 1600+ lists.  They’re all images that were scanned in, so what you see is the real thing! I must admit, it’s also funny to see all the spelling mistakes people have made. On one list, someone needed “close hangers.” I think they meant “clothes hangers.”

One of the biggest changes I have made in my life ever since I chose to live a healthy life style is the portion of food that I eat. Until I actually started to pay attention to how much food was going in my mouth, I really didn’t think twice about how big my portion actually was. I love the saying “everything in moderation” because it’s true.  The key word though is moderation, and actually defining moderation.

What exactly is moderation? It’s so hard to determine what the proper portion is, when you don’t have a visualization of what a portion of something actually is.  For example, one serving (three ounces) of meat, poultry or fish is about the size of a deck of playing cards. Go on, go get a deck of playing cards. Take a look, the steak you eat is probably twice the size, if not more, of the deck of cards!

Now, make a fist, and take a good look at it. Your serving of rice or pasta shouldn’t be any larger than that.Think about your latest trip to Olive Garden or the last pot of spaghetti you made. The portion you get at the restaurant, or what you dish up on your plate is actually several portions!

When you take the time to keep track of portion control, and choose your foods wisely, it makes a huge difference in the progress of your weight loss. When I go out to restaurants to eat, I select a meal that I’d like, but I cut everything in half and take the rest home. This is something that I do every single time, it has become a habit. A healthy habit, and one I plan on keeping for life.

Once I made this change, the weight started coming off like it never had before.  45 pounds, and several dress sizes later, I’ve learned to take charge of portion control. Every single restaurant that you go to is sure to give you more than one portion of food. Remember, you can enjoy everything in life, but everything in moderation.

I’m always looking for resources on the Internet that will help me to maintain my current weight which took so much work to get to. One website that I stumbled upon is www.calorieconnect.com which is a free online wellness center.    It would have been nice to find something like this about a year ago when I was counting calories like crazy, but that’s okay :)  They have a few different free services, but my favorite is their calorie counter.

With the calorie counter, all you have to do is start typing the name of a food that you have eaten, and it will instantly start pulling up results for you to choose from.  For example,  I was searching for wheat bread. After I was done typing in my search, it pulled up a list of different wheat bread items.  Then I could click the one that fit my search, and all of the dietary information is displayed from calories and fat to carbs and calcium.  The picture below shows what their calorie counter looks like.

Another option is to create a profile where you can keep track of nutrition and exercise targets.  I created a profile in just a couple of minutes.  You enter your age, sex, height, and weight, and then it calculates your BMI or your body mass index.  This is a very general indication of your weight status. For example, my normal BMI is between 108 and 146 pounds. 

After you’ve created a profile, you can create nutrition and exercise targets. This includes what your daily goals are for calories, fat, protein, calories burned, minutes exercised ,etc.  Each day you can enter in your values for each of them, and then you can track your progress and targets, and view 7 day and 30 day averages.

Part of the calorie counter includes recording the foods that you have eaten so that you can easily keep track.  Another nice feature is that you can add a custom food to the database, one that they don’t have but that you have the information for. Really, this entire site is about keeping track of the elements that will help you stay healthy, and lose weight.  I’ve found CalorieConnect very helpful, and hopefully you will too.

I am one of those that tends to be an emotional eater. This emotional eating comes from any variety of emotions; happy, sad, anxious, bored, lonely, etc. And usually, the foods that I eat are considered comfort foods that aren’t so healthy. There’s definitely a connection between mood and food. For example, when you’re down and depressed, food can be a way to distract yourself from thinking about your problems. Another connection comes from certain foods like chocolate, which release small amounts of mood and satisfaction elevating opiates.

The Mayo Clinic has put together a very helpful list of ways that you can regain control of your eating habits so that you’re able to stop your emotional eating. They’re all easier said than done, but with work and effort, would be possible.

1. Learn to recognize true hunger: Is your stomach rumblin’ and grumblin’? If not, you’re probably really not hungry.
2. Know your triggers: The important thing here is to recognize you eating patterns so that you can avoid negative ones.
3. Look elsewhere for comfort: Instead of eating those comfort foods, take a walk, listen to music, exercise, call a friend.
4. Don’t keep unhealthy food around: Simply put… keep the junk at the store! This is much easier said than done. But, it’s true. If unhealthy foods are around, you’ll likely go for them when you’re stressed.
5. Snack healthy: Find healthy snack options that also satisfy you so that you won’t be craving potato chips and ice cream. One of my favorite snacks is veggies and dip with a fat-free dip, or apples with a little bit of low-fat peanut-putter for some protein.
6. Eat a balanced diet: This is important. If you’re eating a balanced diet and getting enough calories, chances are that you’ll feel fuller for a longer period of time.
7. Exercise regularly and get adequate rest: I think getting adequate rest is something that a lot of us have a hard time with. We have to be doing 50 different things in 50 different places which makes it difficult to adequate time for rest.

Like I said, all of those things are so much easier said than done. It might be best to focus on just one or two of those components instead of trying to do them all at once. One of the things that I have learned to do best is to recognize true hunger. When I stopped to think about what I was eating and when, there were many times throughout my week that I ate simply because I was bored. Emotional eating can really take you off track when you’re trying to lose weight, but using the suggestions above will help you to meet your weight loss goals, and change your lifestyle.

Source: Mayo Clinic [Via Yahoo Health!]