What's the Deal with SODIUM?

Last night on ABC.com, a study was announced about the infamous food product: SALT.

According to the study, excessive salt consumption was linked to nearly 2.3 million cardiovascular deaths worldwide in 2010.

That's a lot of people.

Even worse, that means that 1 in 10 Americans die from too much sodium in their diet.

Now, this is only one study, so until more comes out, this cannot be taken too literally. BUT, the idea that salt can cause this much fatality is incredulous! It's almost saying that not only is sugar a silent killer, but so is salt.

The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans already has about 1/2 of the population in America on a low sodium diet. They say healthy Americans should not consume more than 2300 mg/day, but if you are over the age of 50, have any disease, or are African American, one should not consume more than 1500 mg/day.

With food being so processed these days, it seems as if it is almost impossible to not eat at least 1500 mg of sodium per day!

So how do we combat this?

First of all, we eat less processed foods. Focus on incorporating whole foods into your snacks and meals. Rather than reaching for a protein bar, vegetables and hummus provide you with more nutrients and is less likely to have added sodium..

Also, we read nutrition labels. Food companies are allowed to be 20% off on those labels! Read them carefully, and ALWAYS TACK ON 20% MORE!

Finally, we exercise. Salt is sodium and chloride: two elements our bodies use as electrolytes. When we sweat, we get rid of those electrolytes. If you do eat a lot of salt one day, do some high intensity cardio so that you can sweat some of it out. *JUST NOTE YOU WON'T SWEAT IT ALL OUT, AND YOU NEED TO REPLENISH YOUR BODY AFTERWARDS*

Let's eat healthy everyone!

Love always,
Jo

Spinach and Cheese Omelet

I LOVE BREAKFAST. There, I said it. It is the most amazing meal in the entire world. And no, I cannot function without it.

Not only is it great because it helps you start the day off right, gives you needed energy to get through the day, and jumpstarts your metabolism BUT, breakfast food has to be the best category of food there ever was!

One of my absolute favorite breakfasts is an omelet. Living in a dorm though, that requires getting to the dining hall for breakfast...and with 8 AMs most of the days of the week, I find it really hard to get there. Now that I am home for spring break though, I decided to make myself an omelet today. BEST. DECISION. EVER.

I would have taken a picture of it...but I ate it before I realized I should...so...sorry =/

Here's the recipe:

1 whole egg
1 egg white
2 oz ground turkey
1 handful spinach
3 mushrooms, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
1 oz fat free cheddar cheese

Stir-fry the turkey, mushrooms, spinach, and onion in a skillet with 1/2 tbsp of olive oil at medium-high heat until it begins to brown (about 5 minutes). Then, remove the ingredients from the skillet, clean the skillet, and add another 1/2 tbsp of olive oil and the beaten eggs. When bubbles start to form on the edges, lift a portion of the eggs with a spatula to let the runny eggs flow beneath the cooked eggs. After about a minute, flip the omelet.

Add cheese and the stir-fry mixture onto half of the omelet. Fold over the omelet to cover the contents, serve on a plate, and then enjoy!

Nutritional Information (estimate)
Calories: 204
Protein: 29 g
Carbohydrates: 7 g
Fat: 6 g

Pair the omelet with an apple and a glass of green tea, and you have the greatest breakfast...EVER.

GO TRY IT TOMORROW. IT'S DELICIOUS.


Love,
Jo

How To Reward Yourself!

Hey guys! When Nemo hit Boston, I decided to film a video but I didn't get around to editing/uploading until today...haha so here it is!

Also, stay tuned because something really exciting is going to be announced Friday!

Love always,
Jo

The Best Nutrition & Fitness Apps

For someone new to a healthy lifestyle, the gym can be one of the most daunting places on campus. FitRec is often crawling with students who look like part-time bodybuilders, not to mention those workout machines that resemble ancient torture devices. So first I’d like to commend you for stepping out and heading to the gym! You are not alone in this new world of running shoes and broccoli (and adorable Lululemon yoga pants). And with the busy schedule and limited resources of a Collegiette™ like yourself, leading a healthy lifestyle can be pretty difficult. Here’s a list of the health and fitness apps that keep me on track.

NIKE+ Running
This is by far my favorite running app. It syncs with your iPod to give you the best running experience andtracker! Unfortunately, you need the Nike+ iPod
gadgets ($29.00 at Apple) to track everything, but if you are a Nike fanatic, you will love it. You can tell your iPod how long you want to run for (miles and time) and it does all the work for you, even alerting you how far you have gone periodically. Then, when it syncs with Nike+ Running, you can see how far you ran, your average mile time, and how many calories you burned. You can even rate how it felt so that you can compare runs and track your progress!

RunKeeper
This one is for you Asics lovers…RunKeeper gets more personal. They ask for your weight and height, skill level, and your running goals (lose weight, finish a race, etc). With all that information, they give you a goal to hit like running a 5k in 10 weeks. Then, it gives you different training schedules to choose from so you don’t even have to think about it! You just follow what it says and accomplish your lofty running goals!

Nike Training Club
Okay, you guessed it. I love Nike. This app works for everyone and absolutely no gadgets are needed! First, you choose what goal you wish to achieve (Get Lean, Get Toned, Get Strong, or Get Focused). Next, you put in your skill level and the app gives you a few workouts you can choose from that are hard enough to make you sweat but easy enough for your skill level. Also, every time you finish a certain amount of workouts, it rewards you with a new title (and getting rewards is everyone’s favorite thing).

Daily Workouts
This app is a bit more flexible than the others. Every day, you just pick what you want to work on, whether it’s abs, arms, butt, legs, cardio, or even full body. Then you pick how long you want to work out for (5-30 minutes) and it goes through each workout with you until the workout is complete. I love using this one when I don’t feel like leaving my room but I want a workout because no equipment is needed for any of the moves!

ShopWell

I have become obsessed with this one. It starts off by getting all your information, your nutritional goals, what you find important in your diet, what you want to minimize in your diet, and any allergies you may have. Next time you go shopping, you can scan in a barcode of a product you may want to buy and it will let you know if it is a strong match for you. Not only that, but it ranks it by percentage so you know how strong of a match it is. It also tells you what part of the nutrition facts label pertains to you, as well as what in the ingredient list works (and doesn’t work) for your specifications. If something is a poor match, it will tell you why, and then give you suggestions of similar products that better fit into your qualifications.

MyFitnessPal
Have you ever heard that journaling what you eat is the best way to lose weight? Well, it helps tremendously and this app makes it so much easier! Again, this app asks for the usual height, weight, and goals information. It then sets up how much calories you should eat in a day along with the breakdown of carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, and minerals. All you do is type in what you ate for each meal and it calculates your daily caloric intake. Then, you can go back and see what you ate on the days you may have had too much sugar or sodium. Very useful for us non-math majors!

So, there you go! Download all or some of these (FREE) apps and kick your healthy butt into gear - soon that overwhelming feeling you’ve been experiencing at the gym will be a thing of the past!

Should I Go Gluten-Free?

The new trend in nutrition has been gluten-free products. People (mainly celebrities) have been switching to no gluten and seeing amazing benefits, making this one of the biggest trends in eating today. Some people are contemplating it but cannot seem to give up the bread of pasta. So, if you are wondering if the switch is right for you, keep on reading.

Gluten is protein that can be found in wheat, barley, rye, and malts. It's what makes dough rise, if you will. Gluten-free products starts becoming a "thing" when two different disorders started becoming prevalent in our population: celiac disease and gluten sensitivity.

Celiac disease is a genetically linked autoimmune disease. For those with this disorder, gluten sets off an immune response to make the body rid itself of gluten created antibodies that attack and damage the small intestines. This is why it is known that if you have celiac disease, you may be at risk for cancer if you eat gluten.

Gluten sensitivity is just like celiac disease except that on the celiac disease test, you will come up negative.

Gluten-free diets are beneficial to those who have these disorders because it will halt all the symptoms, which include joint pain, anemia, diarrhea, constipation and fatigue.

For everyone else, going gluten-free won't do much for your diet. So, why is going gluten-free so popular? Well, it turns out that in about 1 in about 133 Americans actually have one of these two disorders. That is a pretty high number.

If you feel any of the symptoms, check with your doctor to see if a gluten-free diet is right for you.

MAGIC WEIGHT LOSS PILL?!

So I watched Dr. Oz again today...

Now I don't not like (what?) Dr. Oz. He is obviously a very intelligent person who has a lot of great credentials. I just don't get why he tell people only about quick fixes? Like whatever happened to just eating right? (Hey, I heard that it works for a lot of people).

Today, he had a coffee bean supplement. And yes, the studies are remarkable. There are no side effects, weight loss is superb, and it makes you feel full. It's all good and great, but what happens when you stop taking the pill? Also, the studies had the people do no physical activity and eat just like they would normally. And then, on the show, Dr. Oz did not even try to mention that maybe if you ate well and had regular physical activity, you could lose even more.

So in the end, Dr. Oz was promoting this supplement for a quick way to lose weight. Not helping people learn the right way to eat is what causes yo-yo dieting. I just wish Dr. Oz would just put in a disclaimer that eating right is important. I mean, it is 80% of maintenance in weight loss.

Pre/Post Workout Meals

As more people start getting interested in nutrition and fitness, more people get confused on what exactly they should be eating every meal. The talk about pre- and post-workout meals has become really confusing for some. So here it is, simplified:

Pre-workout Meal

This meal is the meal eaten BEFORE a workout. It supplies your body with the nutrition needed to ensure optimal performance during the workout. There are 3 things you need to do to ensure optimal performance. First, you need to reduce muscle glycogen depletion. Second, you need to reduce muscle protein breakdown. Thirdly, you need to post workout cortisol levels. You are probably thinking that is too much science for me. BUT it is really easy to do these three things. All you need to do is provide your body with two things:

1. Carbohydrates
2. Proteins

All you need in your pre-workout meal is that: carbs and proteins. As long as you provide your body with that, you are on the right track. If you want to get specific, you need approximately a quarter of your body weight in each IN GRAMS. You can either have it in solid form 60-90 minutes before your workout, or you can have it in liquid form (like a protein shake) 30 minutes before your workout.

Post-workout Meal

This is the meal eaten AFTER a workout. It supplies your body with the right nutrition to aid in repairing, rebuilding, and recovering. You need to accomplish a few more than 3 things with this meal. You need to:

• replenish the muscle glycogen that was lost
• reduce the muscle protein breakdown
• increase muscle protein synthesis
• reduce muscle soreness and fatigue
• greatly enhance overall recovery
• reduce cortisol levels

It is exactly the same, though. To provide all of this to your body you need to give it 2 things:

1. Carbohydrates
2. Proteins

It is that simple. This meal should be eaten within the hour after your workout to ensure proper nutrient intake. Again, if you want to be more specific you need about a quarter of your body weight in each but you can up the carbohydrates to about half of your body weight in grams.

More Detailed Information

What exactly is this Glycemic Index?

The Glycemic Index (GI) has been the "new thing" on the nutrition newsfeed now. Most of the newest weight loss books have used it to determine what you should be eating and what you should avoid. The problem is that most people don't actually understand what the GI means and how it works. Even I sometimes don't understand it completely...and I'm studying to become a dietitian! So without further ado, here is a nice straight-forward way of explaining the Glycemic Index.

1. The GI ranks carbohydrates on a scale of 0 to 100 on how fast they raise your blood sugar levels after eating.
2. If the carbohydrate has a bigger number (70+), your body digests it really fast. Therefore, it spikes up your blood sugar level really fast as well.
3. If the carbohydrate has a lower number (55 or less), you body digests it slowly which produces a gradual spike in your blood sugar level.
4. You want to eat things that have a lower GI because they help control your appetite, delay hunger, and reduce insulin levels This is really good if you're a Type 2 diabetic or diabetes runs in your family (It runs in my family so this is really important for me).
5. Low GI Foods: bran, rolled oats, whole grain/wheat, most if not all vegetables, most fruits, hummus, wheat pasta, and most if not all beans

There you have it. A sure fire way to eat carbs and know that you are being healthy. Here is a full GI foods list if you want to see more foods that have low GIs as well as High GIs. Enjoy your carbs the right way from now on everyone!

Healthy Recipe #2: Peanut Butter Smoothies!

So, I decided to make weekend blog posts recipes because they are fast and easy to write (and therefore, give me time to enjoy my days off). So for today, I am writing out my favorite kind of smoothie for breakfast or a snack before dinner. All throughout high school, I don't think I touched a stove. Then, in college, I wasn't allowed to nor have anything more than a microwave and a fridge in my room. So, I am pretty new at all these recipes and what not. But, being the science geek that I am, I just pretend I'm in Chemistry lab (yeah. I know.), so now cooking is not only really easy but also one of my favorite things to do (in my defense, my parents are both chemical engineers. It was how I was raised to think!)

Anyway, a lot of recipes for "healthy protein" smoothies call for protein powders. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a protein powder that doesn't have milk products in it unless I order it. And if I order it, then I have to pay shipping and handling (and who wants to do that?). I remembered that one of my friends used peanut butter to make smoothies and I decided to give it a try. It's pretty good too! Tastes a lot like peanut butter though so if you're not a fan, you might want to add a lot more of the fruit. 

Here's my recipe for a peanut butter smoothie:

1 Tbs. peanut butter

1/2 cup fruit of choice (think of it as a PB&J sandwich. what's your favorite jam?)

1/2 cup ice (optional - if you don't freeze the fruit, you might want to add the ice)

1/2-1 cup of almond milk (play around with it!)

Put it all in a blender and enjoy!! (while blending, make sure you dance because...well, what else are you going to do?)

Today, I made this for breakfast. My fruit was strawberries!! Yesterday, I made it for a snack before dinner (I'm kind of obsessed with this), but I used blueberries. You can really do whatever you want with this and it will come out good!! Here's a video of my blueberries one: BLUEBERRY SMOOTHIE

Healthy Recipe #1: Omelettes!

My favorite breakfast is an omelette. During the school year, the dining hall has a very limited breakfast option. My friend and I would always try to get there as early as possible before class (which for us meant about a half hour before our class) and get into the omelette line. Now that I'm home for the summer, I crave a delicious omelette almost everyday. Unfortunately, I had never made an omelette in my life...until this summer. After much experimenting, I have found my favorite way to make an omelette AND it includes tomatoes (which if you know me, you know I actually cannot stand tomatoes). Here it is!

Ingredients:
1 cup spinach
1/2 cup mushrooms
1/4 cup tomatoes
3 egg whites

Procedure:
Add some extra virgin olive oil (about a teaspoon) to a skillet set to medium heat. Also add about 1/4 cup of water. Saute the spinach and mushrooms until the spinach wilts and the mushrooms start to brown. Add the tomatoes. Now, wait until the water has evaporated completely before you add the egg whites. Then, cook for about 3 minutes and you should be good to go! Sometimes, you might mess up the omelette (I know I do), so just make it scrambled!

This is a perfect way to start the day if you have the time before work. Add a fruit if you don't think it will fill you up and you should be on your way!

Happy Eating!

Would You Believe TV Doctors?

Recently, LA Times published an article called "TV not always a healthy channel for advice". This article caught my eye because I have noticed that my mother loves watching Dr. Oz's new talk show. Now, I am not trying to bash on Dr. Oz because he is an intelligent man (I mean, look at his credentials!). But, does he honestly think he can give women in this country advice about nutrition and food? Just having registered dietitians and certified nutritionists on the show isn't hiding his thoughts. It makes me look at him skeptically because I know he didn't study to become a dietitian; he studied to become a cardio thoracic surgeon.

So why are people believing everything that doctors on television are saying? This article gave great examples on why people should be more skeptical when watching health shows on television. My favorite one was the first example: probiotics and digestive enzyme supplements. Dr. Steven Lamm, an assistant professor at NYU, guaranteed on The View that in Less than half a decade, everyone will be taking a probiotic and a digestive enzyme supplement. (WAIT, WHAT?!) This man was promoting his book "No Guts, No Glory" where he claims that probiotics and digestive enzymes are crucial to overall gut health. Unfortunately, there is no real evidence about that. An enzyme expert (you see, someone with the education and certification), Dr. John Willams, has stated that the only people who need to take digestive enzymes are those with pancreatic diseases. It is also worthy to note that Dr. Lamm is a paid consultant for Ezymedica (a company dedicated to providing enzyme-focused supplements). 

I found this story so interesting because my sister was interested in "The Beauty Detox Solution" by certified nutritionist Kimberly Snyder. In this book, Snyder promotes probiotics and digestive enzymes. She even has her readers make raw saurkraut (it's so you can get natural probiotics and digestive enzymes) and eat a cup of it before dinner everyday. Now, maybe it's because I never liked saurkraut that I find this a little far-fetched, but I don't think I would take the time to have cabbage ferment for 3-5 days in a room, let alone make sure I always have enough. 

I realize that now more than ever people are more aware of their health and are trying in every possible way to stay healthy. Unfortunately, people are looking in the wrong places. If you were dating a guy, would you take advice from a friend who has been single for over a year? Because chances are, that person does not know how to keep a guy. Therefore, why are you listening to someone who studied a different category in medicine for most of their adult life? Chances are, they don't know much about nutrition.

Leave in a comment your thoughts about this!

LA Times Article