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Weekend Reading: In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

FitSugar — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 03:00:00 PDT

I have a new food bible. It is not written by a chef, a nutritionist or a dietitian, but a journalist. The irony of dispensing nutritional advice as a journalist is not lost on the author of In Defense of Food ($21), Michael Pollan.
He actively wonders throughout this great little book on the circumstances that led food, the sustenance of life, to become so vulnerable that it needed to be defended from bad government policy and bad science. The complexities of government politics and macronutrients lead the US population down a slippery slope of very processed low fat foods.

There's more so

read more. Pollan details our recent food history, back to The Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs or the late 1970s, and provides a little back history answering questions why cereal became a breakfast staple at the turn of the 19th century. If that sounds overly dry, like a piece of toast with no butter and jam, it is not. This book is a surprisingly exciting read. Yes, this eater's manifesto, as the sub title declares, is truly a page turner and it is useful too. Pollan has created some rules to serve as eating guidelines. The main tenet is simple: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Easy to follow and apply at every meal – these seven words could change your life. There is a catch though; Pollan doesn't consider processed food to be actual food. He's a label reader too and shuns unpronounceable ingredients. The last third of the book breaks down his basic principle of eating into many sub rules for more guidance. The book is worth reading and the guidelines worth following. You can buy the book at Amazon, but chances are high it is for sale at your local bookstore too.

How to Get Your Metabolism Moving

Health — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 03:03:06 PST

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

Does your metabolism grind to a halt after 35? Can certain foods rev it up? Answers ahead — and they're good.
By Paige Greenfield

Here's something to feel good about: your body is a calorie-burning machine. You'll even torch a few while reading this article. The point is, every single thing you do — from breathing to eating to sleeping — uses energy. The number of calories it would take just to lie in bed all day is called your resting metabolic rate. And just like your curly hair or warm personality, yours is unique.

"There are so many factors that determine your metabolic rate," says Janet Rankin, PhD, professor of human nutrition, foods, and exercise at Virginia Tech. Among them: your height and weight (bigger people burn more calories), your gender (women have slower metabolisms than men), your age (your metabolic rate declines as you get older), how much muscle or fat you have (muscle burns more calories than fat does), and your DNA.

Health.com: Little Ways to Lose Big Pounds

Although you can't rewire your double helix or switch back the clock, there's still plenty you can do to be a fast burner, Rankin says. All you need to do is remember these four research-backed truths.

Cardio Revs Your Metabolism For Hours Afterward
Resistance training often hogs the metab-boosting spotlight. It's no wonder, since a pound of muscle at rest fries three times as many calories as a pound of fat. However, cardio is every bit as crucial for keeping your metabolism humming.

New research explains why: In a study published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, people pedaled a stationary bike as hard as they could for 47 minutes.
The finding: They slashed 190 calories above their resting metabolic rate for 14 hours after their workout. Add that to the 519 calories, on average, the cyclists scorched from the workout itself, and that's one heck of a sweat session.

"If you do just two to three vigorous bouts of exercise per week for 45 minutes, you could lose a pound of fat every two weeks from the combination of calories expended during exercise plus what you burn afterward," says study author David Nieman, PhD, a professor of exercise science at Appalachian State University.

So how can you tell if you're pushing hard enough? Any sweat-inducing activity you can sustain for 45 minutes will do the trick.

More useful tips after the break.

Foods That Improve Dry Skin

Michele Foley — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 12:34:27 PDT

The humid days of Summer leave skin feeling moist and supple, but Fall's cooler temps have just the opposite effect. Since there's less humidity in the air, skin is more likely to become dry, uncomfortable, and itchy - often resulting in a red flaky mess! Besides using a rich moisturizer, turning down the heat, and using a humidifier, eating these foods can also help improve dry skin.

Water
From a food perspective, the best thing you can do to keep skin from getting dry is to keep hydrated. Drinking water is essential in promoting skin circulation at its base. (It’s also a much cheaper option than expensive creams.) Use our stat calculator to find out how much water you should be drinking. Beyond drinking water, eat fruits and veggies that have a high-water content like melon, apples, oranges, pineapple, celery, and cucumbers.

Foods High in Omega-3 Fatty Acids
The good-for-you fats help soften dry skin by holding in moisture and plumping it up, which will can also help decrease the look of wrinkles - instant face lift! In fact, having an omega-3 deficiency can exasperate symptoms of dry skin and in some cases may even lead to eczema. Foods high in omega-3s include salmon, tuna, and trout. If fish isn’t your thing, look for flaxseed, avocado, and walnuts.

See which other foods to add to your diet after the break!

The Best Supplements For Your Skin

Prevention — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 04:27:00 PDT

We are excited to share one of our fave stories from Prevention here on FitSugar!

Skin Health
By the Editors of Prevention

Your birthday suit is pretty good at taking care of itself, but this process changes over time. Through natural exfoliation, your skin sheds dead cells as younger ones, generated deep in the epidermis (skin's top layer), migrate upward to replace them. In young, healthy skin, cells take about 28 days to reach the surface and flake off 12 days later, but as you age, renewal slows; new cells aren't produced as quickly, and old ones hang on longer.

Your skin also loses its luster over time as free radicals - generated from things like stress, cigarette smoke, and the skin's top enemy, the sun--cause cell damage that leads to discoloration and even cancer. Your body starts producing collagen, a protein that helps keep your skin plump and elastic, more slowly, causing the outer skin to become more prone to creasing and wrinkling. Cells also tend to lose moisture faster, due to hormonal changes, so skin becomes drier and less glowy.

Lifestyle factors, like avoiding excess sun exposure and wearing sunscreen when you head outdoors, getting plenty of sleep, washing and moisturizing your face at night, combating stress, and getting plenty of exercise, can all keep your skin healthy and youthful longer. And certain vitamins and supplements can help fight wrinkles, discoloration, and other signs of aging, too. But a key distinction here is that most of them work best when applied topically, not through pills or diet.

11 Foods That Give You Beautifully Radiant Skin

Best supplements

Omega-3s: These supplements aren't just making headlines for heart health - dermatologists also recommend them to help prevent dry skin and problems like psoriasis and eczema. These fats are a key component of the lubricating layer that keeps skin supple, and they aid in the production of hormones that improve skin texture and help combat the inflammatory damage wrought by free radicals--one of the causes of wrinkles and blotchiness. To get enough omega-3s in your diet, supplements are often recommended in addition to eating fish, walnuts, and other food sources.

Topical nutrients

You can get these from food or multivitamins, but for optimal skin health, use products that contain them too.

Vitamin A: Derivatives of this vitamin are known as retinoids, and you can find them in OTC or prescription products. They're proven--through more than 700 studies! - to reduce wrinkles, fade brown spots, and smooth roughness. The downside to their effectiveness is potential side effects. Retinoids can cause redness, scaling, and flaking that can last for weeks or more; OTC products tend to be milder than Rx ones.

More About Retinoids and Products That Contain Them

Vitamin B3: This B vitamin, commonly known as niacinamide, helps boost production of the compounds that comprise your skin's outer barrier, which helps it lock in moisture better. The ingredient is also shown to help reduce redness in rosacea patients and is especially helpful if you have dry or sensitive skin.

Vitamin C: Proven to mop up the free radicals that trigger wrinkling, sagging, and other aging changes, vitamin C also helps smooth and firm skin and fade brown spots. In one study, women who treated sun-damaged skin with a C cream for 6 months saw significant improvement in fine lines and discoloration. Though the benefits of retinoids and vitamin C sound similar, using both delivers more complexion perfection.

Vitamin E: This powerful vitamin eases dry skin (by helping skin retain its natural moisturizers) and bolsters UV defense. A slew of skin care studies document its superstar status. In one, E significantly reduced the number of skin-damaging free radicals created after exposure to cigarette smoke. Others show that when it's used before UV exposure, skin is less red, swollen, and dry, which is why the ingredient is often included in sunscreens.

See 7 More Doctor-Proven Beauty-Boosting Supplements

The Best Supplements For Your Skin

9 Easy Ways to Clean Up Your Diet

Prevention — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 12:42:25 PDT

We are excited to share one of our fave stories from Prevention here on FitSugar!

Rules to help you eat less junk and slim down naturally
By Joe Kita, Prevention

Back to the Basics
Base your diet on Mother Nature's finest foods and the weight will come off

Food used to be simple. You ate what you grew on the land or you bought from nearby farmers. Processed food was nothing more than canned, frozen, or cured. Today, food is much more complicated - and we're both better and worse off for it. We can eat a greater variety of healthy foods than our ancestors did (think fresh berries in Winter), but we also can eat a lot more highly processed, chemical-laden ones. And that fare seems to be winning the day, if our epidemics of obesity and diabetes are any indication.

But an increasing trend toward clean eating - with its emphasis on whole, fresh, traditional fare - could mark a turning point in our sometimes dysfunctional relationship with food and help us achieve good health, culinary satisfaction, and optimal fitness.

To help you clean up your own diet and reap the benefits (weight loss and possible decreased risk of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer), we created these nine rules. Start taking baby steps to adjust your diet, and you'll be eating clean in no time!

7 Healthy-eating mistakes you could be making.

Toss a few heavily processed staples
Instead of overhauling your pantry all at once, start by eliminating corn oil and soda - both highly processed, says Nina Planck, author of Real Food: What to Eat and Why. "That alone," she says, "is a huge first step." Another easy step is replacing refined breads and pastas made from white flour with ones made from whole grains.

Focus on favorite foods
To keep it simple, assess what part of your diet supplies the most calories, suggests Mary Ellen Camire, PhD, a professor of food science and nutrition at the University of Maine. If you're an omnivore, buy meat that comes from grass-fed cattle and eggs from pasture-raised chickens, but stick to conventional produce instead of organic. If you're a vegetarian, buying organic produce makes more sense.

There's more so keep reading.

Forget the Fountain of Youth, the Secret Is in Your Diet

Michele Foley — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 19:07:52 PDT

There's probably no better road map to aging than the face. A wrinkle here, a sunspot there - all signs that we're growing up. Let's be real; there's no magic cure for wrinkles and the other effects of aging, but there are preventive measures to take that don't involve fancy creams or weekly visits to the esthetician. Wrinkles, dry skin, and sun spots, all common signs of aging; find out which foods will stop them dead in their tracks. The fountain of youth is just a meal away.

Wrinkles

If someone mentioned that smiling left such an (ever) lasting impression, some of us may have been a little more selective with what we found funny. It seems that no matter what age you are when it happens, wrinkles still have the ability to make you feel, well, old. Keep in mind, aging isn't the only thing that causes wrinkles: smoking, sun damage, and all that squinting, smiling, and frowning also contribute to those little - and sometimes, not-so-little - lines that find a home on our face.
Preventative Foods: Vitamin C serums are huge in the skincare world as a good line of defense against wrinkles. They also come with a hefty price tag. Guess what? Science says, an orange a day keeps the wrinkles away! A study showed that participants who ate a diet high in vitamin C and linoleic acid were less prone to wrinkles. While we're talking fruit, you may want to up your berry intake, too. The antioxidant powerhouses are key in keeping skin free of environmental stress that help contribute to aging.

Learn which foods help with dry skin and sunspots after the break

Dirty Secrets of Outlet Shopping

LearnVest — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:15:51 PDT

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

Oh, the outlet mall.

It gleams like an oasis of designer savings in the desert. It’s a day of promised savings, rewarding the dedicated shopper who will find a trove of off-price goods that were sold at luxury retailers - perhaps last season, but who’s counting?

Right?

That is occasionally still true. But over the last few decades, as retailers recognized the profitability of attracting Americans looking for a deal (yes - they will use this great quality about you against you!), they began to build an industry around outlet shopping that is completely separate from their regular business. And it’s working–there are 13,000 outlet stores around the country, and every year outlets draw more tourists than attractions like Washington D.C.’s museums or Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell.

The industry is based on some secret tactics designed to fool the customer - don’t be suckered.

What to know what they are? Check out the outlet mall's dirty secrets after the break!

Lil Links: Dr. Oz Shares His Thoughts on Autism

LilSugar — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 00:05:27 PDT

Dr. Oz's primer on Autism - Circle of Moms
Tina Fey's daughter, Alice, inherited her mom's funny bone - Celebrity Baby Blog
Sandra Bullock and baby Louis head out on the town - Celebrity Baby Scoop
Protect his sperm with an iPad - The Stir
The perfect pregnancy getaway wardrobe - FitPregnancy
Predicting baby's gender - The Bump
Room service on snow day - Momfilter
Dr. Oz's favorite healthy foods - Health
In defense of ugly babies - Momformation
What role does music play in your home? - The Poop