Week # 4 - What's in a Label?

Have you ever picked up a bag of greasy, potato chips and tried to make sense of the nutritional label? Well besides the fact that most information on that label will subtly read DO NOT EAT ME, it helps to know specifically what to look for in order to make better dietary decisions. 

Let’s break down some of the important elements that make up a label by looking at an example:

 1. First, start at the top. The most important part of the nutritional label is the serving size. This piece of information will help you make sense of the rest of the label since all of the nutrients listed on the label relate to one serving of that food item. A bag of potato chips may say it only has 100 calories per serving, but the serving size could be 5 chips. 

2. Next, check out the calories. This will give you an idea for how many calories are in one serving size and how many calories are from fat.  Calories provide a measure of how much energy is in a serving of food. Calories from fat are just that…calories only from fat. Fat is the most energy dense nutrient providing nine calories for each gram of fat consumed. Some labels don’t list the calories from fat but it’s simple to calculate on your own. In the example above, there are twelve grams of fat. Take that number, multiply it by nine and you get (approximately) 110 calories from fat. You can also calculate the calories you get from protein and carbohydrates. Both contain four calories per gram. 

3. The nutrients shown in this section are those that should be consumed in limited amounts. Make sure your food contains fewer saturated and trans fats and relatively more polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. Also avoid foods that are high in cholesterol, sodium and sugar. 

4. Some of the more important nutrients in the food are listed in the section shown in green.  The amount of fiber, vitamins and minerals you consume should be based on your own personal daily caloric recommendation.    These should be consumed in enough amounts to improve and maintain health and reduce the risk for diseases. Notice that dietary fibers are one portion of total carbohydrates. The total carbohydrate category includes everything from complex carbohydrates (providing great nutritional value), such as whole grains, to simple carbohydrates (providing little nutritional value) like glucose.  

5. The footnote section of the label serves as a guide showing the percent daily nutritional values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. 

6. The actual Percent Daily Value calculations shows how much of a specific nutrient one serving of the product has as a percentage of how much you should eat during your entire day. Again, this label is based on a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet and should be adjusted accordingly based on your caloric needs. 

Collectively reading a food label takes time and practice. Hopefully this example serves as a starting point to get you in the habit of checking out the label before you eat what’s inside. 

Week # 3 - Taking Control

Did you know that as of 2010, over 63% of Americans were overweight? There seem to be two big reasons.  They don't understand their calorie needs, and they don't take action.  Right now, you are doing both.  Good job!

If you did your homework in week one and calculated your basal metabolic rate (BMR) and multiplied it by your activity level, then you know what to eat to maintain your weight.  If you didn’t do this, DO IT NOW.  Studies have shown that most people have NO idea how many calories they need, or how many they have eaten.

Choosing a health goal weight
You can't just choose your high school weight as your goal weight.  That's silly, but a lot of people do it.  Your doctor can point you in the right direction, but I also found a great online calculator.

Goal Weight Calculator

All you need is your height and your approximate body fat percentage.  Then you look at their charts and decide what your goal body fat % is.  As a guideline, a six pack doesn't start showing up until you're down to about 14% body fat for men (or around 20% for women).  So don't go crazy plopping in single digits.  You're not a magazine model - you are a person living in real life. 

Taking control

http://www.bmrcalculator.org/

Go back to the BMR calculator and this time enter your goal weight instead of your actual weight.  If you remember, Fictional Frank had a BMR of 1784 & daily calorie needs of 2765.  If I enter a goal weight for Frank, I get a BMR (the death line – do not cross) of 1662 calories per day.  Then I multiply it by his activity level (1.55) and get 2,576 calories per day.  This means that if Frank starts eating 2,576 calories per day his body will eventually become his goal weight.  Notice that Frank is only eating about 200 calories less per day.  The weight loss will be slow, but Frank will lose weight without losing muscle, mostly without being hungry, and without giving up his favorite foods.  

The best part is that when Frank hits his goal weight… nothing changes!  He just keeps on eating 2,576 calories each day.  Also, notice that his weight loss calories of 2,576 per day is not below his current BMR times 1.2 (1,784*1.2=2140).  He doesn’t want to ever go below that Basal Metabolic Rate of 2,140.

If you have been attempting to lose weight for a long time, you may have been under eating for a long time.  If the calorie number you calculated based on your activity level seems too high... you may have been under eating.  The bad news is that your metabolism is probably slow.  The good news is that in order to lose weight you need to eat MORE.  No kidding. 

Diets Don’t Work
The reason diets don’t work is they usually rely on starving yourself in the short term.  Many diets tell women to eat close to 1000 calories per day (or 1500 for men)  Then, even when you get to your goal weight, you still don’t know how to eat normally!  You know how to eat to get fat, and you know how to starve, but you don’t know how to eat to maintain weight.  Using the above BMR method will teach you how to maintain your goal weight, and your body will automatically take care of the weight loss.

A Warning
People will try to tell you they know how to lose weight.  They will tell you that you need to eat much less to lose weight.  Don’t listen to them.  They reason that they think they know so much about losing weight is that they have been working on it for decades.  Maybe people want to compare their weight loss with yours to see who is “faster”.  Tell them research has shown that the faster a person loses weight, the more likely they are to gain it back.  You want permanent weight loss, not fast weight loss.  It's better to make a teeny weeny change that will be permanent than to do something drastic that you can’t maintain.

Enter your goal weight into the calculator and start eating like a healthy person.  No crash diets, no giving up stuffed crust pizza or cinnamon rolls, just take it slow and easy.  Let's get serious here - you don't actually care about weight.  What you care about is being healthy.  Your weight will change slowly, but your health will improve quickly as soon as you get serious.  Try not to confuse the two.

If you want to learn more about why your under eating is harmful, or why nearly all diets fail checkout the following much longer (and marginally more boring) blog post:

The Problem with Diets

Week # 2 - Do I have to track calories?

It's time!  You knew this was coming, right?

Do you really need to count calories?  It depends.  If your eating has been out of control for a long time, or you have health problems that are diet related (like hypertension, high cholesterol, fatigue etc.) then you could benefit from tracking your calories.  Also, if you are lifting weights, competing in a race or otherwise need to be at the top of your game…  You would benefit from tracking your calories.

Why track calories?

Some people don’t want to track calories because it takes effort.  However, tracking calories is just something that many healthy people do.  They don’t do it just to lose weight, but to make sure they have the proper fuel to perform their best.  

For starters, it’s very hard to lose weight healthily without tracking your calories.  It’s just too easy to under eat (or over eat depending on the person).  Also, there a lot of hidden calories that you may have been ignoring like adding a ton of mayo to your sandwiches.  Tracking calories will help you decide which calories you want to keep (must have cheese!) and which you could cut back on (maple nut lard bars).

On the bright side, after several months of tracking your calories you will start to get pretty good at estimating how many calories are in foods.  At that point maybe you can stop worrying about keeping a log, but can just have a running total in your head for roughly where you are for the day.

How to track:

Paper tracking is easy and can be done anywhere.  I’m gonna include excel tools in the paper class.  It works, but its old school.  It works pretty well if you are just writing down what you ate, but if you are tracking calories, it is a lot more work to look up how many calories foods are.  Using electronic and web based methods may limit where/how you enter your food, but it’s faster and most tools will analyze your diet for you. 

Warning – many calorie trackers will recommend a calorie intake level for you.  They can be wrong, so go with the BMR*activity number that you figured out in week 1.

Which to choose?

There a zillion calorie tracking programs to choose from, but some of them are designed to sell you stuff.  I prefer to stick to the ones that have minimal ads.  Popular choices include:  livestrong.com, Calorieking.com, Loseit, DailyBurn, or Thedailyplate.  Many of these websites can be accessed by PC, phone or iphone/android app.     These have a good reputation for having large databases of food so you don’t have to manually enter much.

Here is a link to an article that discusses 10 big name iphone apps for tracking calories.  LINK (Most of these have an android version)

I use an online tracking program that has a companion iphone app.  Once I got used to doing it, I spend at most 10 minutes a day tracking my calories.  Most of your online tracking options are free, so try all of them!  Find the one that is easiest for you and that will be the fastest for entering recipes or meals that you eat often.

Today's reading is short.  Do you know why?  Because this weeks homework has to be done between your ears.  Tracking calories is actually not hard.  You don't need me to tell you all about it.  It just takes effort.  Decide if your health is important enough to you to put in more effort.  You almost can’t go wrong with HOW you choose to track calories.  You just have to take the leap and DO IT.  Decide to track your calories for 1 month and commit to staying within your calorie budget.   

Even the largest container fills one drop at a time.  Your health and fitness will also improve one drop at a time.  Remember that real progress is slow and you are okay with that.

Week 1.5 Breakfast is totally Rad

You wouldn’t make it far from your driveway on an empty tank of gas, so why would you leave the house without filling up your tank first? Eating a healthy breakfast is no different for our bodies. A good breakfast fuels you up and gets you ready for the day. Breakfast is important because it is what your metabolism is based on for the day. If you give your body fuel to burn early on, it will burn more calories throughout the entire day.

So, you are probably wondering what a nutrient-dense breakfast looks like. The main focus is eating a breakfast that is filling and has the proper nutrients to satisfy you until your next meal. If there is any meal where you want to load up on protein and complex carbohydrates, it is breakfast, not only because proteins and complex carbs are filling, but because you have the entire rest of the day to burn the provided calories. Eating a complete breakfast sets the pace for the day since you won’t be as inclined to over-eat at other meals. Often, breakfast foods are high in sugar and other simple carbohydrates which do not provide the necessary nutrients to get you through the day.   So here are some tips and helpful hints on what a nutrient-dense breakfast should look like:

·         Make sure your breakfast includes complex carbohydrates (such as whole grain cereal, whole grain bread, wheat bread or fruit, brown rice), protein (such as egg whites, peanut butter, lean meat, poultry or fish or nuts, quinoa,), and healthy fat (such as peanut butter, nuts, light cream cheese)

·         Include whole grain products instead of refined products

·         Choose low-fat dairy products (skim milk, low-fat yogurt and low-fat cheeses, such as cottage cheese and natural cheeses).

·         Limit intake of fried foods, grease, and extra gravies/sauces

·         Aim to include fresh fruit at breakfast rather than fruit juice, which can be high in added sugars.

Menu ideas for healthy, dense breakfasts:

 300 Calorie Breakfasts at Home or On-the-Go

1 pack Nature Valley granola bars, handful of nuts, 8 oz skim milk

1 mini whole wheat bagel w/ 1 Tbsp light cream cheese, 1 small banana, 4 oz skim milk

1 wheat English muffin toasted w/2 slices lean ham, 1 slice of 2% cheese, ½ cup sliced fruit, 4 oz skim milk

Carnation Instant Breakfast/Protein Shake, 1 pack Nature Valley granola bars

400 Calorie Breakfasts at Home or On-the-Go

1 cup cereal w/ ½ cup skim milk, ½ cup sliced fruit, handful of nuts, 1 string cheese

1 slice wheat toast, 1 Tbsp peanut butter, 1 fruit, 8 oz skim milk

Yogurt cup w/ handful of nuts, ½ cup sliced fruit, 1 wheat English muffin w/2 slices of lean ham

Carnation Instant Breakfast /Protein Shake, 1 pack Nature Valley granola bars, 1 banana, 1 yogurt

500 Calorie Breakfasts at Home or On-the-Go

1 whole wheat bagel w/ 2 Tbsp light cream cheese, 1 small fruit, 8 oz 2% milk

2 whole wheat waffles w/ 2 Tbsp butter, drizzled with syrup, 1 string cheese, 8 oz skim milk

1 wheat English muffin w/ 2 cooked egg whites, 2-3 slices lean ham, 1 slice 2% cheese, 1 small fruit, 8 oz 2% milk

1 pack Nature Valley granola bars, 1 small fruit, 2 string cheese, 8 oz 2% milk