Archive for the 'Diet' Category

Caffeine can perk you up, help you be more creative, and perk up your
attitude. But if you get too much you can lose focus, become jittery
and inattentive. Here are some strategies for dealing with this very popular substance. (Part one of this article can be found here)

Strategy One: Eliminate caffeine completely. Caffeine is a drug and it can cause adverse reactions in some people. Caffeine side effects include elevated blood pressure, stomach upset, increased blood sugar swings, sleeping disorders, and skin rashes. If you suffer from conditions such as TMJ or tinnitis, caffeine can elevate the symptoms. If you have adverse effects it is probably best to eliminate caffeine completely.

Getting off caffeine can be a challenge as you will probably experience some pretty severe headaches for several days. You can minimize this in two ways. If you go cold turkey, taking an over the counter pain medicine like Advil or Tylenol can reduce the headaches. Just make sure the pain medicine does not contain caffeine. You can also use our next strategy of reducing your caffeine intake to slowly wean yourself off caffeine over a couple of weeks. You still may experience some headaches but they may not be as severe.

Strategy Two: Reduce Caffeine intake. When you brew your coffee or other caffeine drink just mix in a decaffeinated version to give you the same tasty brew without all the caffeine. I personally like a mix of 1/3 coffee and 2/3’s decaf. This allows me to have two great cups in the morning without the side effects. The secret is to find a good naturally decaffeinated version that tastes good.

There are actually many great tasting decaf coffees on the market, from Gevalia to Starbucks. Start out with a 50-50 ratio and see how you feel and then add or subtract decaf on subsequent days to find a mix that works for you. I have tried prepackaged half-cafs and found that most do not taste good at all, so I would suggest buying separate packages.

Strategy Three: Change Your Caffeine Source. Coffee contains quite a bit of Caffeine per cup. If you want to reduce your caffeine intake, try green tea instead of coffee. Both drinks have plenty of anti-oxidants per cup but you may find that green tea has fewer side effects than coffee. There are many flavors on the market and one of the best I’ve found is a Jasmine Green Tea.

There are many other caffeinated drinks such as black tea, soft drinks, and energy drinks that populate our market. Selling caffeinated drinks brings in billions of dollars worldwide. Here is a short list of some of the popular ones and a listing of the amount of caffeine that they have. You can find a complete caffeine list here.

My personal recommendation is to get off caffeine completely for a couple of weeks and see how you feel. I usually do this every six months. Caffeine is in so many products that we love, including chocolate,
coffee, and most teas that it can be a challenge to completely
eliminate it from your diet. You’ll need to be diligent to completely get off of it.

If you feel great, you may want to consider staying completely off of it. I personally feel lethargic and uninspired when I am caffeine fasting. I usually find that a small amount of caffeine a day works well for me. By tuning my caffeine amounts in coffee in the morning and having some green tea throughout the day, I get many of the positive effects without losing focus and having the blood sugar swings.

I would like to hear about your experiences with caffeine both pro and con. Please leave your comments.

Technorati Tags: Caffeine, coffee, diet

I love coffee. The wonderful aroma of a delicious Columbian brew first thing in the morning is like magic. I take a few sips of this wonderful concoction and I’m starting to wake up. Soon the day doesn’t seem so dreary and those negative thoughts seem to drift away. Within a cup or two the ideas start to flow and this is where coffee provides its miraculous effects. Soon my mind is a creative machine. The ideas and thoughts come quickly and it’s like being in a different world.

The words start to flow on paper, the graphics start to appear on screen, and a bunch of unrelated ideas soon join together to form a new creation… to actually come to life in the form of a new article, a picture, or a grand new invention.

This is the power of Coffee and its magic ingredient… caffeine.

Soon the second cup is gone and I reach for more. I pour a third cup and keep working. Soon that is gone and without realizing it I pour another and grab a donut to keep going. Soon this creative world becomes jittery and I find it hard to focus. The ideas jump around and I try to organize my thoughts. I keep working but now things are different. It’s like a haze has come over my mental landscape. Everything becomes somewhat fuzzy.

Things all of a sudden take a downward spiral. As my blood sugar spikes and then drops, I start to feel tired and very lethargic. I start to yawn and suddenly I become very hungry. I need another donut and another cup of coffee to keep going. So I head to the kitchen and the process starts all over. But after the second donut and the fifth cup of coffee I’m really in a haze. I feel jumpy and unfocused and I’m starting to feel lethargic again.

This process continues until lunch, where the coffee is replaced by a caffeinated soda and the donut is replaced with an over-processed meal of super-sized fast food. I come back to work and suddenly find that I need a nap. I’m so tired I can hardly work.

Have you ever had this experience? For more and more people around the world this is becoming commonplace.

Too many empty, over processed, sugary calories along with too much caffeine.

The long lines at Starbucks and other coffee shops will attest to the growing addiction.

The growing waistlines will attest to the excessive amounts of calories we find ourselves ingesting.

Yet try to get off caffeine and you’ll find yourself with the worst headache of your life. If you do succeed you may find yourself lethargic and unmotivated.

Is there a way to enjoy the good effects of coffee and caffeine without the side effects?

We’ll look at some strategies in our next post…

Be sure to explore our other nutritional tuning articles 1 2 3

Technorati Tags: coffee, caffeine, diet

Think about meals that you really enjoy. They have some common characteristics. A meal that satisfies will have wonderful aromas, colorful ingredients, and taste really good. A full meal will include a variety of tastes and have enough volume to satisfy and make you pleasantly full.

The problem we have in our modern society is a meal like this will likely have a huge amount of processed content. Content that tends to have a lot of fat, sugar, and highly refined carbohydrates. The average fast food combo is a calorie nightmare with many popular meals coming in over 1000 calories.

This is slightly better than the average restaurant meal, that is super sized with huge portions, and contains huge amounts of fat and sugar. It’s not uncommon to have meals top 1500 to 2000 calories in one sitting. Add in that huge chocolate dessert and you may tip the scales at 3000 calories. Multiply this by three meals a day and you really have a problem… (not to mention those Grandé Starbuck’s lattés at 500-600 calories apiece)

The average sized person should have 2000-2500 calories a day to be healthy and maintain weight. Men tend to carry more muscle so they will usually burn more calories than women. With this in mind, you can see how easy it is to overeat, with one meal possibly containing all the calories you need for a whole day. It takes just 3500 excess calories to gain a pound of weight.

So what can we do to have satisfying meals and not feel deprived and be hungry all the time?

Enter Volumetrics, a fantastic eating plan based around the principle of energy density in food. Energy density is simply the amount of calories per gram of food. For the same calories, you can eat a larger portion of lower-energy density food. By adding low density vegetables, high fiber and water-packed ingredients, as well as lowering the fat content of a favorite dish, you can create low calorie meals and keep the basic taste you enjoy.

As an example, Raisins are dried grapes. 100 calories worth of raisins fill only one-quarter cup, while 100 calories of fresh, whole grapes fill one and two-thirds cups. You’ll feel satisfied after one and two-thirds cups of grapes, but if you’re eating raisins, you’re likely to keep filling your mouth.

Barbara Rolls Phd, is the creator of this program and has written two popular books on the subject that can help you create tasty and fully satisfying low calorie meals with just minor changes. Her latest book, The Volumetrics Eating Plan, gives you the complete science behind the program. She takes you inside her food lab and shows you the results of her extensive experiments.

I found this book fascinating and also very enlightening. Her research shows that the average person will tend to eat the same volume of food whether it is high or low density. Create low density meals and you’ll feel satisfied without gaining weight.

Her research is very complete and she backs it up with practical and easy to make recipes. She also offers strategies for eating out at restaurants and also acceptable fast food choices. While much of her content is common sense, some of her findings really explain why we have an epidemic of obesity in the United States.

Her original paperback focused directly on weight loss. Called The Volumetrics Weight Control Program, this book is a diet focused version of her program and offers straight forward recipes and strategies to help you lose weight and keep it off… effortlessly.

Her books have received rave reviews and will make a great addition to your diet and fitness library. I have taken many of her low density meals and added them to my weight loss strategy. It is really easy to “tune” your daily calorie intake with her plan. Her meal plan choices are arranged in 400 and 500 calorie segments which make them easy to calculate and follow.

Her audio book is available on CD and is a great way to learn about her plan while driving or commuting. Her accompanying diet PDF has her meal plans that you can view on your computer and then print out. I was pleasantly surprised how interesting the audio was. I would highly recommend the audio book version if you are pressed for time or have a long commute.

This plan has helped me take my Nutritional Tuning idea to a new level. Either of these books with their extensive recipe lists will make a great addition to a complete fitness plan such as 5 Factor Fitness or Body for Life. All of her recipes have a food density listing which makes it extremely easy to get filled up without the calories.

Her soup recipe modifications make the point. She has pictures of a standard soup and one that has been modified with lower density ingredients. It’s easy to see that you’ll have a much better bowl of soup for the same calories with just some simple modifications.

I think I’m going to make some soup….
Technorati Tags: diet, fitness, nutrition

I’m a big fan of diet and exercise programs such as 5 Factor Fitness and Body for Life. With summer upon us I have set myself a goal to lose 10 pounds over the next three months. With my current job, I sit behind a desk a lot more than I used to and I need to fire up a dedicated program to overcome the slow weight gain this has brought on.

I’ve decided to use the exercise and weight training framework of Body for Life along with some healthy and easy to create food choices. The exercise program is pretty straight forward with aerobic exercise three days a week along with three days of weight training.

The food part is designed around 1700 calories a day divided into 6 smaller meals. This is where the tuning part comes in. Most diets are based around three substantial meals, which has the effect of spiking blood sugar right after a meal and then dropping off. This leads to the dreaded late morning and after lunch slumps.

To overcome this it’s best to have 3 smaller meals each followed a few hours later by a nutritional snack. This will keep blood sugar levels more constant and help keep you at your peak all day. Over the last couple of years I’ve experimented with many different meals and snacks and have found a trio that works really well for me.

All three are easy to make and are completely portable so I can take them with me on the run. I can custom “tune” them to adjust fiber, protein, and calorie levels. I can also add a variety of ingredients to change flavors and add the needed variety to make them palatable week after week.

Here is the Tunable Trio…

1. Power Shakes. These are great for breakfast and they are portable enough to take with you anywhere. You can make one in under three minutes with just a blender and a few readily available ingredients. These are easily “tunable” with the addition of protein powder or psyllium fiber. A great resource for Smoothie recipes is the book, The Abs Diet by David Zinczenko from Men’s Health Magazine.

Here is one of my favorites from David’s book….

1 Cup 1% Milk
2 Tablespoons low fat vanilla yogurt
3/4 cup instant oatmeal (cooked in water)
2 teaspoons peanut butter
2 teaspoons chocolate whey protein powder
6 ice cubes
Optional: 1 tablespoon psyllium powder for insoluble fiber

Mix ingredients in a blender until smooth. Makes 2 eight ounce servings.

I love this recipe and it can be easily modified by adding a banana, cinnamon, or substituting vanilla protein powder. The basic recipe comes in at 220 calories with 12 grams of protein and 3 grams of fiber. I usually add some psyllium for added fiber and find it really fills me up and gives me lasting energy. It’s quick to make, tastes delicious, and I can make two meals from one recipe. I usually share this with my wife for a quick on-the-go meal in the morning.

2. Convenient Muffins. Muffins have gotten a bad rap with the fat laden behemoths that you find at Costco or your local convenience store. Most have 30-40 grams of fat and come in at 600-800 calories apiece. This type of muffin is a total diet killer. With some simple modifications you can create muffins that are healthy, tasty, and will stick with you with good amounts of protein and fiber.

The key ingredient to great muffins is Oat Bran. It has a mildly pleasant taste and you can make them sweet with the addition of brown sugar or honey. The great thing about this basic oat bran muffin is that it is easy to add ingredients to completely change the flavor. You can add your favorite fruit to easily make banana, peach, or blueberry muffins.

With the addition of protein powder, yogurt, or psyllium fiber you can “tune” your muffins to make them healthier and not spike your blood sugar. These ingredients add satiety to the muffins and you’ll find they will stick with you longer and not give you the usual blood-sugar dip of so many high carbohydrate snacks.

Here is a basic recipe that is easy to modify.

2 cups oat bran cereal, uncooked
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 carton (8 oz) plain low fat yogurt
2 egg whites, slightly beaten
1/4 cup skim milk
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons canola oil
1/2 cup blueberries
Option 1: One scoop vanilla protein powder
Option 2: Two tablespoons psyllium powder
Substitutions: Substitute a banana or peaches for the blueberries

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Line 12 medium muffin cups with paper baking cups. Combine oat bran, brown sugar and baking powder. Add combined yogurt, egg whites, skim milk, honey, and oil, mixing just until moistened. Fold in blueberries or other fruit. Fill muffin cups almost full. Bake 18-20 minutes or until golden brown.

I’ve used this recipe with a variety of different fruit substitutions. The basic muffin recipe comes in at about 130 calories apiece, so they make a great snack that is easy to take with you. I usually add the protein powder and psyllium and I find they will keep me going all morning.

3. English Muffin Sandwich: The basic English muffin is a great vehicle for sandwich creation. You can add a variety of things to make great tasting, low calorie meals that are easy to take with you. Thomas’s English Muffins now offer a 100 calorie variety that is just perfect for tuning your diet. It has additional fiber and is low fat.

You can add low fat turkey, chicken, or beef lunch meat for an under 200 calorie meal. With the addition of low fat cheese and tomato slices you can create a fast deluxe sandwich in just minutes. For breakfast I like to cook up some Morningstar veggie sausage patties and make a low fat sausage muffin. I can have two of these for under 400 calories and be filled up all morning.

For additional food items, check out Devin Alexander’s Fast Food Fix. She has taken many of our common fast foods and modified them to be healthier and quick to make from home. She has a popular cooking show on the Discover channel where she will show you how easy it is to cook your favorite foods at home.

If you like the smoothies and are looking for more recipies, be sure to pick up the Abs Diet 6 Minute Meals book. This has all sorts of great tunable recipes to fix almost any diet plan.

When you are out shopping be sure to pick up some protein powder, oat bran, and some psyllium powder. These three ingredients allow you to add protein, soluble fiber and insoluble fiber to almost any meal.

If you are looking for healthy alternatives to fast food and the usual over processed packaged foods why not give the tunable trio a try. You’ll save calories and have some delicious meals you can take with you on the go. Enjoy!

For an overview on Tuning Your Life see our previous post.

Technorati Tags: diet, fitness, meal planning

The Mercedes spit and sputtered as I pulled it into the stall. I lifted the hood and put it on the scope. The engine was misfiring and a large spike showed on the oscilloscope screen. I shut it down and started the tune up. I removed and replaced the spark plugs, changed the air and fuel filters, and changed the oil and checked the air pressure in the tires.

Once I had replaced the parts and fluids I started the car back up and started the tuning process. I adjusted the engine timing, set the fuel mixture, and adjusted for a smooth idle. I then checked the engine on the dyno as I increased the engine speed. With a few more adjustments the car was running as smooth as a kitten. The dyno readout showed increased horsepower and better fuel efficiency.

What came in as a sputtering and polluting mess left the shop that day as a smooth, powerful and efficient machine just as the maker had designed it. Years ago, when I was a Mercedes and Volvo Technician, this was a daily occurrence. I always loved tuning cars as I could make so much difference with just a few parts and and a few fine adjustments.

We can use the same tuning process with our lives and see some amazing results. Over the next few weeks we’ll explore some ways we can tune our lives to feel better, have more energy, and become much more efficient. Consider some of the following life tuning scenarios.

Nutrition Tune Up: We’ll talk about some handy customizable foods that will allow you to fine tune your fiber, carbohydrate, and protein intake throughout the day. Using custom Muffins and Shakes we’ll be able to find the best nutritional mix to keep you feeling your best all day.

Caffeine Tuning: Caffeine can perk you up, help you be more creative, and perk up your attitude. But if you get too much you can lose focus, become jittery and inattentive. We’ll look at ways to tune your intake to help you get the benefits without the side effects. We’ll also look at alternatives to coffee and also discuss ways to get off caffeine altogether.

Change Your Fluids: Instead of high calorie sodas, lattes, or chemical laden diet drinks, we’ll look at some easy to create low calorie drinks that taste great, provide variety and are good for you. With these beverages you’ll find it much easier to get those recommended 8-10 glasses of water per day.

Adjust Your Timing: Add some easy to implement time management solutions to your life and see increased productivity and efficiency. Handy downloadable tools will make these changes a snap.

Navigational GPS For Your Life: Just like a GPS in your car, we’ll come up with some simple daily directions to help you get to your life destination step-by-step. Easy to use Goal setting techniques will have you on track in no time.

Stay with us over the next few weeks as we start our life tune up.

First up… Nutritional Tuning…

Technorati Tags: diet, fitness, organization

As a kid my favorite cookies were Nabisco Oreos. These delicious little gems were the best. You could take them apart and eat the fluffy filling and then finish off with cookie outsides. Dipped in milk these were like Manna from Heaven. Since they were expensive we didn’t get them very often, but when we did they were a wonderful treat.

With the passing of the years and the slowing of my metabolism, these have been off limits for years. I still love them, but my willpower to pass them up is not great. At 55 calories per cookie, you can really damage your diet quickly with these little pucks of joy.

The other day I was walking through the lunch room at work and noticed out of the corner of my eye a bag of Oreos in the snack machine. But this wasn’t any ordinary bag, it had a description that I had never seen before on any cookie bag.

It said 100 Calorie Pack.

What? That must mean you get 2 cookies! But I looked closer and had to buy a bag just to check it out. I put 2 quarters in the machine and I soon had a bag of Oreo’s in my hand. I quickly opened them with a sense of excitement. I could now have a bag of my favorite cookies without killing my diet.

Just then the excitement died… the new cookies had no filling! How could this be? An Oreo is not an Oreo without the filling. I took a close look at one of the new cookies. It was a flat dry cookie with some little white sprinkles on it. This could hardly be called an Oreo.

I tasted one and it was like eating a dry version of just the Oreo cookie. It was OK… but certainly not a real Oreo. I noticed in the same machine that there were 100 calorie packs of other popular snacks.

I thought to myself… This is marketing brilliance!

100 Calories is pure genius!

The cookie companies can now sell smaller portions and make people happy at the same time. 100 calories will fit on almost any diet plan. Compared to the regular cookies in the machine at 360 calories, this was a dieter’s Nirvana.

When I looked at the ingredients, it was the usual processed stuff, with sugar, flour and corn syrup. Nothing to recommend here. But if you don’t have a healthy snack like an apple or orange with you, these new snacks might be an acceptable alternative to satisfy your sweet tooth without killing your diet.

Technorati Tags: diet, marketing