FitSugar

You Asked: Potassium and Sodium, What Is the Connection?

FitSugar — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 11:00:00 PDT

Dear FitSugar,
Since you have been covering a lot of ground on sodium and potassium, I heard that sodium and potassium levels compete with each other, so if the presence of one mineral rises, the amount of the other drops. Is that true?

I thought this was an interesting question, but a little out of my league, so I asked my friend, nutritionist Rania Batayneh, MPH of Essential Nutrition For You.

Here's what she had to say:

With regards to sodium and potassium in the body, the first thing to know is they are key electrolytes in the body- the third of importance is chloride. These electrolytes found in the body have a great influence on the flow of water between the various fluid compartments because of something referred to as osmotic pressure. They also influence the contraction of muscles and the transmission of nerve impulses by the nervous system. With regards to your question, it is seen in cells, for example, that potassium is constantly pumped into cells and sodium is constantly pumped out of the cell. This maintains our Na+/K+ (sodium/potassium) balance. Furthermore, it is often said that sodium (salt) is considered to be the dietary factor most related to blood pressure, but is appears that the sodium/potassium ratio is more important that the absolute amount of sodium.

I find that all very interesting and it reinforces the notion what you put in your body affects your body on a cellular level. Rania is a wealth of knowledge! If you have some specific questions for her, I encourage you to take advantage of her free 15 minute consultation. Especially if you would like to talk about creating an eating strategy that is right for you.

You Asked: The Science of Snacking

FitSugar — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 08:45:00 PDT

Dear FitSugar-
Do you know how many calories you can allow in a day for snacking? What should a snack consist of nutrition wise?

I love snacking and I too had some questions about snacking so I consulted nutritionist Rania Batayneh, MPH of Essential Nutrition For You. Here's what she had to say:

One key factor you should think about when you snack in between meals is that it is all about SMART SNACKING. If you are simply adding calories to your day that may result in weight gain depending on your activity levels. You want to make sure that your snacks are between 100 – 200 calories and ideally you will want to fuel your body every 3-4 hours, so you may end up having both a mid-morning and a mid-afternoon snack.
Now, one purpose of snacking is to prevent over-eating or being starved at lunch or dinner. With that said, you want a snack that has a balance of protein, carbohydrate and some fat. For example a string cheese and an apple comes it at 160 calories, a non-fat fruit flavored yogurt averages from 60-140 calories, or 1/4 cup of nuts comes in at 200 calories.

Need some more inspiration when it comes to healthy snacks, check these Snack Attack ideas for all your snacking needs. You should also take advantage of Rania's free 15 minute consultation if you would like to talk about creating an eating strategy that is right for you.

Nutrition Questions Answered

FitSugar — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 14:30:00 PDT

March is National Nutrition Month (here are some quizzes to test your nutritional knowledge) and since the month is about to go "out like a lamb" I thought a short interview with a nutritionist would be a great way to end our celebration of the month.

I met with nutritionist Rania Batayneh, MPH, of Essential Nutrition For You. I had a lot of questions for her and she in turn had some really great answers. So informative, in fact that I wanted to share them with you. Here is a bit of the interview for you to read. You are sure to learn a thing or two from it - I sure did.

FitSugar: Is it important to eat protein at breakfast?

Rania: I always recommend that my clients have a balance of protein and carbohydrate at every meal. You can incorporate protein into your breakfast by eating a ½ cup of non-fat plain yogurt or cottage cheese with fruit. Other ideas include a veggie omelet with 1 whole egg and 2 egg whites and 1 slice of toast. If you are more the cereal or granola type, you will get protein in your milk, or you can try it with ½ cup of cottage cheese which will give you 14 grams of protein.

FitSugar:I have heard that it is good to avoid carbs at night…is that true and why?

Rania: Our bodies use carbohydrates during the day to fuel our brain and muscle. At night we are less active, so that means that we do not need that “immediate energy” that comes along with carbohydrates. Now, realize that vegetables are carbohydrates but they are not the starchy variety that you want to eliminate. Enjoy veggies and a protein source at night.

By limiting your carbohydrates at night, your body will actually be burning fat at night- thus allowing you to become naturally leaner and feel less bloated in the morning.

There are a couple of more questions, so

read more FitSugar: What do you think of fasting as a means to detox your body? Are there foods you recommend for detoxing the liver, and/or kidneys? Rania: I am not an advocate of “detox” diets or fads that exist out there. What most of us do not know is that the body naturally detoxifies itself through our lungs (think….breathing), sweating, and through the liver and kidneys (always check to see that your urine is not too bright yellow- a sure sign that you are dehydrated). For optimal “detoxing” make sure that you are hydrating daily, eating at least 25 grams of fiber/day to keep you regular and limit your consumption of packaged and processed foods. Think fresh is best and natural. FitSugar: Do you have a supplement you recommend? Rania: In all of my years as a Nutritionist I have never recommended a supplement until now- MONAVIE- you can learn more about it on my website at www.essentialnutritionforyou.com. I have been using if for 3 months now and what I notice most is a boost in my energy, my skin looks better ( I don’t’ need to use my Retin-A every night) and best of all, my sugar cravings are down. I used to be a dark-chocolate chip kind of girl and now I go anywhere from 4-8 days without it. I enjoy using this product and I believe that prevention is the key to living well. Check out Rania in action on MSNBC - gives her interpretation on the recent study claiming that diet soda is making Americans fat.

National Nutrition Month: Seeing a Nutritionist

FitSugar — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 11:00:00 PDT

There is so much nutritional information out there to process and at times it just gets overwhelming. Since, March is National Nutrition month I thought I would go see a nutritionist to help me weed through all the information and get some personalized info too. Let me tell you it was a pretty cool experience.

I met with Rania Batayneh of Essential Nutrition For You, who is also a wellness coach. I have to say this combo makes a lot of sense since we want to eat well so we can live well. Rania holds a Masters in Public Health with a Nutrition focus, but you can also choose to meet with a Registered Dietitian. While many seek the advice of a professional when they are stalled dieting, there are other reasons to work with a nutritionist or dietitian - like to improve energy, to eat healthier, regain the feeling of your fitness level from yesteryear.

Here's highlights of what to expect:

Initial Phone Interview: Assess and clarify your goals and discuss your basic health and eating history. This is an informational interview for you too, so use it to get a feel of the person and see if they are someone you want to work with.
Food Journal: Track all that you eat for 5 days including a weekend (from experience Rania knows a lot of structure and good habits fly out the door on Saturday and Sunday). This is valuable information for the nutritionist to learn how and what you eat.

There's more, so

Metabolic Rate: This measures how efficiently your body burns calories so you know how many calories you can consume to maintain your weight, or how many calories you can healthily cut if you are looking to lose weight. The test is done after a 12 hour fast.

The nutritionist will analyze all this information and figure out how to optimize your diet based on your goals. For instance if you suffer from an energy drop in the afternoon, you might be told to have a protein/carb snack and then learn foods that meet these requirements. You will hopefully learn that changing your diet doesn't mean suffering and eliminating an entire category of food. Rather than being told exactly what to eat, you leave with a bigger picture - what to eat and why, as well as eating, cooking and shopping strategies. Reminds me of the saying "If you give a man a fish he will eat for the day. Teach him how to fish, and he will eat forever." All and all, I would say it was an informative experience. After an initial meeting, you can choose to meet weekly which is beneficial if you are working with a wellness coach. Or you can meet in person every three to four weeks, but chances are high you will keep in touch with your nutritionist via e-mail. Just e-mail your food journal, the nutritionist analyzes it and sends back food suggestions and new strategies if needed. Pretty cool and easy to fit into the busy life that likely got you off the healthy track in the first place.

A Doctor Dishes: Which "Superfoods" Are Worth the Cost?

LearnVest — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:15:00 PST

We're thrilled to present this smart LearnVest story here on Savvy!

Most people you speak to these days are trying to stretch every dollar as far as possible - even the ones they spend buying apples and oranges.

Food prices are expected to increase yet again this year, and food manufacturers are making portions smaller without reducing prices. Not surprisingly, a recent Rasmussen poll found that 93 percent of adults report paying more for groceries now than they did a year ago.

So how can we supercharge our grocery dollars and get them to do overtime for us?

Yes, some foods are obviously a better nutritional deal than others (think apples vs. potato chips), but there’s another class of foods that blows the rest of the field away in terms of nutrients and health-protecting qualities: superfoods.

Superfoods can help prevent diabetes and heart disease, repair damage to your body’s cells, and more. But before you go piling them into your cart, know that some superfoods are better nutritional bargains than others. As a doctor and a mom, I’ve sleuthed out which ones are worth the extra cost in terms of their long-term health benefits. Below is the scoop on which ones may help you age better, ward off cancer, and more.

What to Know Before Buying Superfoods

Before we dive into what to buy, there are a few important things to remember about consuming these foods:

Eating foods fresh and in their natural state, especially fruits and vegetables (rather than in pill or powder supplement form), usually allows us to absorb the greatest amount of their nutrients. The way a superfood is processed or cooked can significantly lower its antioxidant content.
If the superfood can’t be eaten fresh, look for easy and appetizing recipes containing it. No matter how “super” a superfood may be, if you don’t know how to cook it, you’ll probably let it go to waste.

Are Superfoods "Good Buys" If I’m Shopping on a Budget?

Read on to find out.

The Essential Habits of a Healthy Home Cook

Michele Foley — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 03:05:00 PST

Unless you know what you're doing, cooking at home can be as detrimental to your health as eating out. As far as your body is concerned, cooking with processed ingredients high in saturated fat, sugar, and sodium might as well be like eating McDonald's. But becoming a healthy cook isn't as hard as you think. Here are some essential habits for healthy home cooks, starting from the moment you set foot in the grocery store to the second you put dinner on the table.

Shop the Right Way
Healthy cooking starts with strategic grocery shopping. Create a meal plan for the week and stock your cart with whole, fresh, and organic foods, lean proteins, and unrefined grains: an easy way to do this is to shop the perimeter of the grocery store. When you do have to buy prepared foods, choose products with the fewest and simplest ingredients. Healthy grocery options can be expensive, but here are six ways to save money when shopping organic.

Fill Your Toolbox
If cooking from scratch seems daunting, arm yourself with a few healthy kitchen gadgets. From steamers to kitchen scales, these tools will help cut back on prep and cook time, reduce the amount of fat in your dishes, and even make calorie counting and portion control easier. Here are a few of our favorite healthy cooking gadgets.

Learn how to cook healthy at home after the break!

The Top Fat-Burning Foods

Health — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 04:10:08 PST

We are pumped to share one of our favorite stories from Health.com here on our site.

By Paige Greenfield

It's true: certain foods have a very high thermogenic effect, so you literally scorch calories as you chew. Other eats contain nutrients and compounds that stoke your metabolic fire. Feed your metabolism with these.

Whole Grains
Your body burns twice as many calories breaking down whole foods (especially those rich in fiber such as oatmeal and brown rice) than processed foods.

Health.com: Best Superfoods For Weight Loss

Lean Meats
Protein has a high thermogenic effect: you burn about 30 percent of the calories the food contains during digestion (so a 300-calorie chicken breast requires about 90 calories to break it down).

Low-Fat Dairy Products
Rich in calcium and vitamin D, these help preserve and build muscle mass - essential for maintaining a robust metabolism.

Health.com: Ditch Five Pounds Without Trying

Green Tea
Drinking four cups of green tea a day helped people shed more than six pounds in eight weeks, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reports. Credit EGCG, a compound in the brew that temporarily speeds metabolism after sipping it. To up your intake, keep a jug of iced tea in the fridge.

Keep reading to see other foods that burn fat!

A Reader Recipe: Roasted Ham and Split Pea Soup

Fit Community — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:05:27 PST

Split pea soup is a good way to get that much-needed fiber. FitSugar reader For the Love of Fiber shared this roasted ham and split pea soup recipe in our Healthy Recipe group.

If you were like me and roasted a dee-lish (and pasture-raised) ham on Christmas, save the ham bone (and some of the meat) for a body and soul-warming pot of split pea soup. This soup is amazing in so many ways:

It’s absolutely delicious – Really and truly. It warms you from head to toe on a cold Winter’s day or evening.
Filling – Really, filling. This soup packs a whopping does of fiber in each serving (21 grams) and protein (32 grams), which keeps you fuller, longer.
Glycemic-friendly – The soluble fiber content in split peas (16 grams/serving) slows sugar absorption, which eliminates those nasty spikes (followed by the inevitable crash). Diabetics, take note.
Low calorie – For those counting, each serving comes in under 400.
Nutrient-dense – Not only do you get the amazing benefits from the ham-bone and (hopefully) chicken-bone broth (rich in calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and other trace minerals, as well as glucosamine and chondroiton), split peas are a fantastic source of potassium, which is superb for heart health (coupled with fiber, of course!), and iron and zinc, two essential nutrients for building your immunity, which is critical in the coming months, when flu and cold season really peaks.

If after all of these pros, you still can’t get past the green hue, put on a blindfold and go to town. You will thank me later.

See the recipe after the break!

The Burning Question: Is Doing a Detox a Good Idea?

Health — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 04:12:46 PST

We are pumped to share one of our favorite stories from Health.com here on our site.

Cleanses have become a "celeb trend", but are they really safe?
By Health.com

NO: It's risky — and you don't need it.
Glenn Braunstein, MD, professor and chairman, department of medicine, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles

Our bodies have built-in detoxifiers.
The liver, the kidneys, and the colon are naturally designed to remove toxins and eliminate them through our waste, so there's no need for additional help.

A (Safe!) Jump-Start Cleanse

It's potentially harmful.
Many extreme programs, like fasting, juice diets, and the Master Cleanse, can leave the body weak and devoid of vital nutrients, like protein and essential vitamins, even if you do them for a short time. Colonics — which flush the colon with warm water to remove a supposed buildup of waste there — carry the risk of dehydration, infection, and even perforation of the colon wall.

Diet Tricks the Pros Tell Their Friends

Detoxes can create more toxins.
Plans that severely restrict food can cause the body to burn fat for fuel. Burning large amounts of fat releases chemicals called ketones into the blood — and a buildup of these can cause bad breath, loss of appetite, nausea, and in rare cases, coma or death.

Keep reading to hear the argument for detox cleanses.

Can Diet Soda Make You Fat?

Shape — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 04:34:20 PST

We are excited to share one of our fave stories from Shape here on FitSugar. This week Shape turns to nutritional consultant Mike Roussell, PhD, for some help!

Q: I'm a Diet Coke junkie. Despite having 0 calories, could this habit be sabotaging my weight-loss efforts?

A: In a word: no. While drinking diet soda every day isn't exactly good for your health, the chances of it sabotaging your weight-loss efforts are slim. The common misconception regarding the role of diet soda and weight gain comes from a couple of studies that received a lot of media attention. One such study looked at more 6,500 participants and found that diet soda drinkers were 67 percent more likely to have diabetes and 37 percent more likely to have metabolic syndrome (a combo of symptoms that is basically where pre-diabetes meets heart disease). What's more, data from the Framingham Heart Study, the longest running heart disease study in the US, found a 56-percent increase in metabolic syndrome when people drank one or more diet sodas per day!

Find out how diet soda affects weight gain after the break!