13 Ways to Deal With Food Temptation

 13 Ways to Deal With Food Temptation

 
Let's be honest: Improving your eating habits is hard, even when you are doing the shopping and cooking. But what do you do when you are constantly being tempted to eat more by the people around you, or the situation you're in? Relax. While resisting temptation is never easy, we've come up with stay-in-control strategies for 13 of the most common situations in which temptation might call. If there's a common theme, it's this: Be prepared! By having a plan (or merely a script for what to say) you can make smart eating choices in every situation that life throws at you.

1. It's birthday-cake time at work
Passing on your colleague's cake looks as curmudgeonly as refusing to sing 'Happy Birthday,' but it's hard to celebrate the 300 calories, about half from fat, packed into a simple slice of store-bought frosted yellow cake. The socially acceptable way out is to ask for a thin slice, and then eat a small number of bites you've decided on beforehand, says dietician Elizabeth Somer, author of Eat Your Way to Happiness. You're most likely to keep your promise to yourself, adds Somer, if you've eaten right all day, without 'saving room' for cake. Another calorie-saving trick: leave the icing on your plate and just eat the cake. And while most office parties involve soda, skip it and bring a full coffee mug.

4 Steps to Burn 1200 Calories a Day

4 Steps to Burn 1200 Calories a Day

 
Burning 1,200 calories is not as difficult as it may seem. A 100-lb. person can burn more than 300 calories just sleeping, as estimated by Health Status Internet Assessments. Take into consideration breathing, digesting and the overall functioning of your body to stay alive, and you are very close to burning 1,200 calories without trying.

Step 1
Perform 90 minutes of physical activity per day. A person who weighs 180 lbs. and runs at 6 mph for 90 minutes will burn over 1,200 calories, as estimated by Health Status Internet Assessments. Using the elliptical will burn 1,200 calories for a 160 lb. person in 90 min. Lighter people may have to perform more vigorous exercises compared to heavier people to achieve a 1,200-calorie expenditure. "The bodies of people who are larger or have more muscle burn up more calories--even at rest,"

11 Tips to Get The Most Out of Doctors

11 Tips to Get The Most Out of Doctors - By Doctors

 
 To be a smart patient, you can't be passive; you need to be a first-rate Sherlock Holmes. Like Holmes, smart patients ask intelligent questions and have the instincts (and guts) to politely challenge things they don't understand. They don't need to know the most esoteric medical details, but they need to put at least as much effort into finding out the basics about their health as they did in getting the driving directions to our office. Ultimately, you are the person most responsible for the success of your health. Here, what great doctors know that great patients can learn.

1. Get your stories straight. Bring your spouse or partner to your doctor's appointment when you're giving your health history or describing a problem; there are a lot of questions that only a partner can answer (such as how many times an hour you stop breathing while asleep). But beware the doc's sixth sense. When you tell us that you rarely tear into the Pringles after 8 p.m. or that you've been taking your cholesterol-lowering drugs with the discipline of a Marine, your spouse will shoot you (or us) a look that says, "Are you kidding me?" We never miss it. And hey, sometimes your spouse wants to blow your cover. It's called love. But if you try to snow us, we might try to trip you up. For example, we'll ask if you're fit enough to climb three flights of stairs. You'll say yes, unless you're over 85 or bedbound. Then we'll ask, "When was the last time you climbed three flights?" You'll say "Maybe a month... " and your spouse will send a look that says, "You haven't climbed three flights of stairs since we voted for Ike."

5 Tips to Deal With Food Cravings

5 Tips to Deal With Food Cravings

 
Do you find yourself craving specific foods to your detriment? Find out when to give in to your desire, how to control cravings, and when they can be a sign of an underlying health problem.

1. Give in to the best cravings
In a weight loss study by the USDA Agricultural Research Service, the people who lost the most weight gave into their cravings for more caloric foods but did so less frequently than their larger counterparts. The bottom line: Choose the Ben & Jerry's Super Fudge Chunk you crave over the low-fat frozen yogurt. Just be sure not to choose it often.

4 Reasons to Skip Late Night Snacks

4 Reasons to Skip Late Night Snacks

 
Late night snacks are my favorite way to guarantee I get to the leftovers before my husband can scarf them down.

The way I see it, it's like the old proverb about bears in the woods -- if no one sees me eating it, was it really my fault the pizza disappeared?

But some recent news on the nocturnal munchies front has just made me re-think that tub of Chubby Hubby.
Turns out late night eating is bad for more than just your marriage.

 

1. Your teeth. A new study has found that folks who snack in the middle of the night are more likely to lose their teeth as they age. The problem? No one is brushing their teeth after that spoonful of peanut butter at 2 a.m. And your saliva is slowing down -- so the food isn't being broken down.