prevention magazine

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There’s a catch, though. Here’s what you need to know.

By Mandy Oaklander, Prevention

There’s no need to speed up every time you drive by a fast-food joint with a rumbly stomach. We all succumb to the siren song of fries every once in a while, and according to a recent survey on Prevention.com, 80 percent of you eat fast food at least occasionally. The drive-through mantra to remember? In moderation, friend. In moderation.

But moderation wasn’t on the minds of these brave souls. In fierce (and sometimes foolish) exhibitions of brand loyalty, some people will go to extremes in their efforts to lose weight. We can appreciate the urge to simplify your diet — it sure makes deciding what to have for dinner a breeze — but go too simple and you might not be getting the nutrients you need. Take the five devoted diners in our "Five Fast-Food Diets For Big Weight Loss." Sure, their meal plans might have helped them shed pounds in the short term, but we hate to think about what havoc those McNuggets can wreak over time.

Make Any Meal Healthier

1. Starbucks Diet
Think you’re a Starbucks regular? Meet Christine Hall, a 66-year-old law librarian who ate all of her meals from Starbucks for two years. Every. Single. One.

That doesn’t mean she drank three Frappuccinos a day, of course. Hall noshed on the bistro boxes for lunch and paninis for dinner, reported Shine. Hall’s expensive diet allowed her to drop nearly 80 pounds and qualify to be an organ donor, which are both great things. But depending on one fast-food shop to deliver all your nutrients? Not our tall, pumpkin-spiced cup of tea.

2. Convenience-Store Diet
If you’re a sucker for Snickers, do yourself a favor and stop reading now. This diet is a meal plan you do not need to know exists.

We’re talking about the convenience-store diet, a two-month experiment performed in 2010 by Mark Haub, PhD, professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University. A nutrition professor seems like an unlikely candidate for eating straight-up junk for 60 days, but his mission was to demonstrate that no matter how you get your calories, as long as you cut them back, you can drop pounds.

He did so by mostly consuming Twinkies, Doritos, and snack cakes. But he also supplemented with vitamins, exercise, protein shakes, and some fresh veggies. Here’s the scary part: Professor Haub lost 27 pounds, and his good HDL cholesterol went up. But you might want wait for a more long-term guinea pig before you toss the kale for Kit Kats.

See which other fast-food diets are good for weight loss after the break!

We are pumped to share one of our favorite stories from Prevention here on FitSugar!

If it isn't good for you, it's no good for your kids, either. Here's the right way to snack — deliciously and healthily.

By Mandy Oaklander and Diana Kelly, Prevention

It’s back-to-school time, and if you’ve got kids at home, that probably means your pantry is jammed with family packs of snacks that aren't good for you and aren't good for your children — but man, are they convenient. With all of the new foods on the market, the snack aisle can be a daunting place for a health-conscious mom who’s trying to feed her kids nutritious foods and avoid unnecessary temptations for herself.

“When it comes to snacking, what’s good for the child is good for the parent,” says Elizabeth Ward, RD, author of MyPlate For Moms, How to Feed Yourself and Your Family Better. "I don’t make a distinction between what kids are eating for snacks vs. what parents should be eating. You can feed kids of all ages the same foods; you change the portion sizes."

Ward says snacks should consist of whole foods whenever possible and should contain protein and carbs and fiber if you can squeeze it in, too.

We know you’re going to want to munch on your kids’ snacks, too. That’s why we found the healthiest options out there. Here, six healthy kids’ snacks moms and dads will want to steal.

Why Feeling Hungry Isn’t a Bad Thing

See which kid snacks to add to your healthy diet after the break!

We are pumped to share one of our favorite stories from Prevention here on FitSugar!

How to respond to stressful situations without heading to the fridge!

By Melissa Roberson, Prevention

If we could all try to learn healthier habits in a stress-free bubble (real life, in other words), the going would be a lot easier. Who hasn’t received an irritating email and had a sudden urge for a bag of chips, not baked?

When it comes to weight loss, stress reduction is extremely important, according to Pam Peeke, MD, MPH, and author of the just-published The Hunger Fix. "When life’s stresses hit, you must learn to adapt and adjust without resorting to self-destructive habits — your False Fixes," she writes.

"Studies have shown," writes Peeke, "that forming what is referred to as an implementation intention (‘If I encounter situation X, then I will perform behavior Y') increases your probability of carrying out your goals.

"These problem-solving skills require creativity, and by flexing those cognitive and creative muscles . . . you’ll also exercise and thus strengthen your PFC [prefrontal cortex], giving you a Healthy Fix that will make you more creative! Definition of a virtuous cycle."

Thirteen Foods That Fight Stress

Learn how to fight stress eating after the break!

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Enjoy these easy food fixes for your most beautiful complexion ever

By Sally Wadyka, Prevention

The path to beautiful skin just might be through your stomach. "When the body is out of balance, one of the first places it reveals itself is the skin," says Ruthie Harper, MD, a board-certified internist in Austin, TX, who specializes in nutritional medicine. "If you're not getting the right nutrients, skin gets cheated out of what it needs for optimal health and beauty." Learn to make the most of your body's skin-stomach connection with these seven food fixes that give you a healthy, glowing complexion while warding off a host of skin conditions.

1. Power Up With Probiotics
When the stomach's natural flora gets out of whack because of stress, infection, or a course of antibiotics, you may experience digestive ills and skin problems such as acne, psoriasis, and eczema, as well as dullness and wrinkles. "If your gut's bacteria balance is unfavorable, the toxic bacteria can leak through microscopic holes in the wall of your gastrointestinal tract and travel throughout your body, including to your skin, causing inflammation that prevents the skin from functioning properly," says Frank Lipman, MD, an integrative physician and director of Eleven Eleven Wellness Center in New York City. The best way is to take a probiotic supplement (available at most health-food stores) or consume fermented foods such as kefir, yogurt, buttermilk, miso, kimchi, and sauerkraut.

Probiotics: Europe’s Best-Kept Health Secret

2. Explore Prebiotics
Prebiotics are undigestible nutrients that stimulate the growth of good bacteria in your gut. To prevent problems, keep your digestive tract populated with good bacteria, which "coat the lining of your gut and help seal it so unwanted substances can no longer leak out and cause irritation," says Whitney Bowe, MD, assistant medical director of cosmetic and laser services at Advanced Dermatology in Ossining, NY. Sources include whole grains, bananas, onions, and garlic.

See more foods that help skin after the break!

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Your diet isn't working. Here are the sneaky reasons why
By Jenna Birch, Prevention

You cleaned out your fridge. You shelled out for new workout clothes. You took the pizza delivery guy off speed dial and (finally) remembered where your pots and pans were hiding. So where the heck are the weight loss results?

The problem is, many of our most dearly held healthy eating rules are far too open to interpretation. Done wrong, that low-carb diet could backfire — or worse, set you up for a heart attack. And your new slimmed-down, veggie-based meal plan? It might mean you're eating more calories than you were before.

To bust the diet myths that are putting results out of your reach, here, our expert-backed tips.

Foods That Speed Up Your Metabolism

1. You went gluten-free "just because"

If you go gluten-free and you don't have celiac disease or gluten intolerance, you may be missing out on the host of vital nutrients found in whole grains, such as folate and fiber. "Why skimp on healthy foods if you don't have to?" says Samantha Heller, RD. "Gluten free does not necessarily mean low calorie, either." So trade your lunchtime sandwich on wheat for a protein-packed salad a few times a week, but don't cut gluten products altogether unless you have a medical need.

2. You swore off sweets

You're eating a heaping plate of rice and veggies. Your friend's chowing down on chocolate cake . . . and yet you're the one struggling to lose weight? "I tell my patients, 'You can lose weight eating candy and soda and gain weight eating brown rice and broccoli,'" says Heller. Obviously, we aren't recommending a candy-bar diet. New research, while hotly debated, indicates that not all calories are created equal.

"Studies suggest that what we eat matters," Heller says. Bottom line, don't give up the rice and veggies, but make sure you eat a varied diet. Swearing off certain foods only leads you to binge when you do indulge, according to research.

See four more reasons you're not losing weight after the break!

We are pumped to share one of our favorite stories from Prevention here on FitSugar!

Fast fixes for when you're feeling less than fab

By Stephanie Castillo, Prevention

You know how it goes. You wake up in the morning, glance at yourself in the mirror, and decide you're "too fat" to go anywhere. Instead of interacting with the outside world — mirrors! people! — you’d rather sit at home watching too many hours of Keeping Up With the Kardashians and eating cheese fries . . . with your hands. Hey, we've all been there. But would you believe us if we said it's all in your head?

It’s true, say researchers at the University College London.

Feeling thin or fat is an illusion constructed in our posterior parietal cortex — an area of the brain that integrates sensory information from different parts of the body. Unlike your sense of touch, there are no specialized receptors in your body that send information to the brain about the size and shape of your body parts, says lead study author Henrik Ehrsson, MD, PhD. "Instead, the brain appears to create a map of the body by integrating signals from the relevant body parts such as skin, joints, and muscles, along with visual cues," he says.

Which means that if you spend the day sending your brain the wrong cues about your body, it's going to give you the wrong image.

See more tricks on turning that fat feeling around after the break!

We are pumped to share one of our favorite stories from Prevention here on FitSugar!

Why you need a diet drink detox — stat!

By Mandy Oaklander, Prevention

Pop quiz! What’s the single biggest source of calories for Americans? White bread? Big Macs? Actually, try soda. The average American drinks about two cans of the stuff every day. "But I drink diet soda," you say. "With no calories or sugar, it’s the perfect alternative for weight watchers . . . Right?"

Not so fast. Before you pop the top off the caramel-colored bubbly, know this: guzzling diet soda comes with its own set of side effects that may harm your health — from kick-starting kidney problems to adding inches to your waistline.

Unfortunately, diet soda is more in vogue than ever. Kids consume the stuff at more than double the rate of last decade, according to research in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Among adults, consumption has grown almost 25 percent.

But knowing these seven side effects of drinking diet soda may help you kick the can for good.

Can Diet Soda Make You Fat?

Kidney Problems

Here’s something you didn’t know about your diet soda: it might be bad for your kidneys. In an 11-year-long Harvard Medical School study of more than 3,000 women, researchers found that diet cola is associated with a twofold increased risk for kidney decline. Kidney function started declining when women drank more than two sodas a day. Even more interesting: since kidney decline was not associated with sugar-sweetened sodas, researchers suspect that the diet sweeteners are responsible.

See how diet soda can actually cause weight gain after the break!

We are pumped to share one of our favorite stories from Prevention here on FitSugar!

Peer inside the daily diary of a woman on a liquid cleanse. Plus: top nutritionists weigh in on whether these explosively popular diets help — or harm — your health

By Holly C. Corbett, Prevention

Nothing riles up health writers like the debate over the relative merits and perils of detox diets. In one camp, you have women convinced that cleanses are needed to flush harmful toxins from your body; in the other are people persuaded they're dangerous fad diets that deprive you of essential nutrients (and then trigger binges). I was in neither, so I decided to give one a whirl myself.

Now, I'd like to say my motivation was pure professional curiosity: a desire to use my body as a research tool so that I could better report on a trend that celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow to Beyoncé have sworn by, inspiring legions of women in their wake. But that wouldn't be completely true. When I volunteered to test a liquid cleanse, it just so happened I had a trip planned to a tropical island just one week later. If, in the name of journalism, I could also feel better in my two-piece, well, wouldn't that be nice?

There are countless trendy detox diets out there, but I opted for the Master Cleanse. Sure, subsisting on spicy lemonade for 10 days sounded like cruel and unusual punishment. But unlike other cleanses that cost hundreds of dollars, this one was super easy to follow, and it was cheap. In fact, the only ingredients required were laxative tea, organic lemons, cayenne pepper, and maple syrup.

Ten days sounded like a bit much, so I tasked myself with trying it for five. Here is my daily diary of what happened. Warning: you'd best stop here if toilet humor isn't your cup of (laxative) tea.

Debloat Your Belly!

See if the cleanse worked after the break!

We are pumped to share one of our favorite stories from Prevention here on FitSugar!

It's one of the most popular label claims around, but there are some surprising ingredients lurking in your "all natural" health foods

By Tracy Miller, Prevention

Natural Foods That Aren't

Unless you have a green thumb with lots of outdoor space and the time to grow your own grub, sticking to a diet free of processed ingredients can be challenging. (If you are that person, can we come over for dinner?) Otherwise, you do your best, eating whole foods whenever possible and opting for the most unadulterated, natural options you can find when you buy from the box or the bag. Or so you think.

The problem is, labels can be misleading. You’d need several pairs of hands to count the number of “100 Percent Natural” claims you see in just one aisle of the supermarket. That’s because neither the US Food and Drug Administration nor the Federal Trade Commission have a strict definition for the term: the FDA says it "has not objected to the use of the term if the food does not contain added color, artificial flavors, or synthetic substances." But hold up: without getting so much as a wrist slap, so-called “natural” foods can still contain a wide range of processed sweeteners, lab-produced “natural” flavors and colors, additives, and preservatives.

"Natural Foods" That Aren’t!

Lately, though, some brands’ health halos have been showing some tarnish. General Mills currently faces a lawsuit over claims its "100 Percent Natural" Nature Valley granola bars contain two processed ingredients — maltodextrin and high maltose corn syrup — that don't exist in nature. And Snapple recently beat a suit that took issue over the high-fructose corn syrup in its "natural" drinks (the company has since introduced recipes with real sugar).

But those are just two examples — unfortunately, there are many others. Here, we take a look at the ingredients in some of your favorite “natural” foods, so you can decide for yourself what's real and what's not.

See what natural foods may not be as healthy as you think after the break!

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Having a low-energy day? Sometimes the problem is lack of sleep . . .

But even if you're well rested, certain diet or exercise habits or other lifestyle choices can bring on a slump. And surprisingly little things — like the size of your Starbucks order or how you decorate your office — can hurt or help your energy levels. Make some of these tweaks, like eating for energy, to recharge your batteries and power through your day.

1. Have bran for breakfast

Eating a morning meal rich in fiber may make you more alert during the day. A Cardiff University study found that subjects who ate a high-fiber cereal in the morning showed a 10 percent reduction in fatigue, lower incidence of depression, and better cognitive skills. One theory: fiber helps slow down the absorption of food in the stomach, which keeps your blood sugar levels steady to sustain energy levels for a longer period of time.

Signs You’ve Had Too Much Caffeine

2. Order a small latte — and sip it slowly

Experts say it's best not to rely too heavily on caffeine, but if you're an unapologetic java junkie, try spreading your intake out more evenly over the day. Mini servings of caffeine (eight ounces of coffee or less) every few hours keep you awake, alert, and focused for longer than a single jumbo one would, according to sleep experts. "When you quickly drink a large coffee, the caffeine peaks in your bloodstream much sooner than if you spread it out over time," says Harris R. Lieberman, PhD, a research psychologist with the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine.

3. Eat more often

Following a strict three-square-meals-a-day plan may be sapping your vigor. "Eating small meals frequently throughout the day — every three to four hours — helps keep your blood sugar up, so you don't experience energy crashes or get so ravenous that you overeat," explains Kathy McManus, RD, director of the Department of Nutrition at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Each meal should have some carbohydrates, protein, and healthy monounsaturated fat, like a salad topped with four ounces of chicken and drizzled with olive oil.

See three more tips for fighting fatigue after the break!