Nutrition information is often confusing and conflicting, making healthy food choices a challenge. Fortunately, there are some recommendations that are consistent. Among these is eating more fruit and vegetables. Depending on how you consume these foods, you may be missing some of the nutrients that make them so healthy. This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.
Posted in Health & Fitness
Tagged diet, fruit, health, healthy eating, nutrition, vegetables
Valentine’s Day is this week, so you may be the lucky recipient of a box of chocolates. Hopefully you enjoy it! Of course, eating too many sweets, including chocolate, isn’t a good idea. But eating certain types of chocolate has been linked to some health benefits.
The idea that chocolate may be healthy is no doubt welcome news for chocoholics. But it may leave you wondering if eating chocolate really is healthy. The answer depends on what you mean by chocolate and what you mean by healthy. This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.
Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels
Posted in Health & Fitness
Tagged antioxidants, cacao, candy, chocolate, healthy eating, nutrition, sugar, Valentine's Day
Many people are trying to create a healthier lifestyle by eating healthier, making time for exercise or other activity, and reducing stress. Frequently, the focus is on what they can do at home, from prepping meals to joining a gym or going to yoga class.
But many people spend a major part of their day at work, where healthy options are often limited. From the box of donuts at a morning meeting to a quick fast food lunch, eating well at work can be difficult. And for people who have office jobs, it also likely means lots of time sitting at a desk.
Fortunately, there are things you can do to make your time at work a little less damaging to your health. Even better, these steps can also make you more productive and feel better throughout the day. This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.
Posted in Health & Fitness
Tagged desk stretches, exercise, healthy eating, nutrition, office exercise, physical activity
Have you made your New Year’s resolutions yet? If not, there is still time. Among the most common resolutions are changes to improve health, including quitting smoking, losing weight, and starting an exercise program. Making a resolution is one way to get yourself started on a journey toward better health.
However, it’s important to approach your resolutions with a clear and realistic mindset, as this can increase the chances of success and make the process more enjoyable. This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.
Here are seven tips for sticking to your New Year’s resolutions:
Making healthy New Year’s resolutions is a great way to improve your overall well-being and quality of life. By setting specific, achievable goals, making a plan, starting small, and seeking support, you can increase your chances of success and make the process more enjoyable. Remember to be kind to yourself and stay motivated, and you’ll be well on your way to a healthier new year!
There is a problem at the North Pole! Santa’s reindeer are unable fly, putting his Christmas plans in jeopardy. It turns out that the reindeer are suffering from a common problem, one that you might be dealing with, too. Fortunately, Santa has a solution that can help his reindeer and save Christmas. This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.
According to the children’s book Too Fat to Fly by Doreen Belleville, Santa’s reindeer have gained weight in the “off season.” Too much sitting around and too many snacks and treats have resulted in weight gain to the point where the reindeer simply can’t do their job. Sound familiar?
Whether it comes during the holidays or gradually throughout the year, weight gain is common for many people. And, like the reindeer, it often goes unnoticed until it is too late—trying to fit into your old suit or favorite dress, for example.
It’s not just the weight that is the problem. The long, lazy vacation has allowed the reindeer to become unfit. They simply aren’t strong enough and don’t have the endurance to pull Santa’s sleigh. Again, a decline in fitness over time is something many of us experience and we may not notice it until we do something strenuous that makes it clear we are out of shape.
In the book we learn that the solution is both simple and well-known. Santa charges his elves with getting the reindeer back in shape, in terms of both fitness and fatness. The snacks are replaced with healthy meals containing lots of fruits and vegetables. And days spent lying around are now spent in the gym and going for walks outdoors.
Like many of us, the reindeer have a tough time adjusting to their new exercise routine. The treadmills are tricky for them, until they get the hang of it. For many of us, exercise equipment and new types of exercise can be intimidating. But with some guidance from the elves (or a personal trainer) you may find that trying new forms of exercise can really help you, just like it did for the reindeer.
The reindeer followed a diet that emphasized fruits and vegetables. Despite the controversy over which diet is the best, almost everyone agrees that more fruits and vegetables and fewer calories from added sugars will help you lose weight. These foods are lower in calories than many other options, contain fiber to help you feel full, and replace less healthy foods you might otherwise pick. Carrots and apples, what the elves picked for the reindeer, are excellent choices, but pretty much any fruits and vegetables will work. Of course, you should eat other foods in moderation, too, including whole grains, meat, and dairy.
The good news is that the diet and exercise program helped the reindeer lose weight and get back in shape in time for Christmas can work for you, too. While you may not see such rapid results, if you are careful with what you eat and dedicate time every day for exercise, you can lose weight relatively quickly. It’s not easy for people or for reindeer, but weight loss and improved fitness are achievable.
Looking forward, continuing to eat a healthy diet and exercising regularly can save you the trouble of trying to lose weight next year at this time. It is always easier to maintain weight and stay fit than it is to lose weight and get back in shape. I’m sure that’s a lesson Santa will teach his reindeer!
Posted in Health & Fitness
Tagged Christmas, exercise, healthy eating, reindeer, santa, sugar, weight loss
Happy Thanksgiving week! While this Thanksgiving may different when it comes to gathering together with family and friends, food will certainly be a part of the holiday. Even though many of our favorite dishes are not the healthiest choices, they make an appearance on the table each year. For many of us, Thanksgiving dinner is a day marked by overindulgence and poor nutrition choices.
In an effort to make Thanksgiving dinner healthier, recommendations for modifying or replacing traditional dishes are a common theme in magazines, on the morning TV shows, and on the web. While these suggestions are meant to be helpful, I’m not sure they actually serve to make a significant impact on health. In fact, the foods we eat and the way we eat them may be the healthiest part of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.
Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels
Posted in Health & Fitness
Tagged family, healthy choices, healthy eating, nutrition, thanksgiving
If you have been gaining weight or find it more and more difficult to maintain your weight, you are not alone. According to current statistics, one-third of U.S. adults are obese and two-thirds are considered overweight. Being overweight is now the norm in America, since only about 3 in 10 people are at a healthy body weight.
This is consistent with other reports that show that the waistlines of Americans are expanding. One study looked at the percentage of adults who had a high waist circumference (over 35 inches for women and over 40 inches for men). Overall, the average American added over one inch to their waist circumference over the past decade. As of 2012, over half of U.S. adults meet the criteria for abdominal obesity. This is bad news, since excess fat, especially around the waist, increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease.
It wasn’t always this way. As recently as the 1980s the prevalence of obesity was much lower, around 15%. There has been much interest in figuring out why this widespread weight gain has occurred. While there is no single cause, there are a host of factors that contribute to the obesity epidemic. This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.
Among the forces that seem to be working against you are your genetics and our environment, specifically as it relates to eating and activity behaviors. Over the past several decades our “food environment” has changed so that now low-quality, high-calorie food is readily accessible and more nutritious food is harder to find and more expensive. Our “activity environment” has changed, too. For most of us, the physical activity that was common at work and home years ago has been replaced by lots of sitting. While there are genes that influence our eating and activity behaviors, these genes have not changed enough over time to explain the obesity epidemic.
A practical explanation for weight gain, both for individuals and the population as a whole, is that we are eating more and expending less energy through activity. Indeed, even small changes in energy balance can add up to increased weight over time . One study, however, suggests that there may be other factors that may have contributed to the rise in obesity beyond eating and activity.
Among these factors are exposure to certain chemicals in the environment, the use of prescription drugs that cause weight gain, and how our current diet has changed the bacteria in our intestines, that we now know regulate our physiology in surprising ways. For example, bisphenol A (BPA), still found in some plastics, food containers, and receipts, alters normal hormone activity in a way that may increase fat storage.
There is some good news, though. Eating a healthy diet and being active everyday can help you lose weight and maintain a healthy weight. This is true whether your concern is changes in your own eating and activity habits or these other potential causes of weight gain. Indeed, regular exercise may help treat many conditions, like depression, for which prescription medications that may cause weight gain are often used. And a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and low in added sugar may help restore more normal gut bacteria which might help with weight control.
Until we know otherwise, eating smart and moving more is still your best approach to weight control and good health.
Posted in Health & Fitness
Tagged activity, BPA, diet, exercise, healthy eating, obesity, weight gain
Breakfast is often thought of as the most important meal of the day, for good reason. Eating a healthy breakfast provides energy to start the day and can be helpful for weight control. In children, a healthy breakfast is essential for proper growth and development and is linked to improved attention and learning in school. Unfortunately, many common breakfast foods are more like candy and soda than a healthy meal to start the day.
This is also true for breakfast drinks, including coffee drinks. Many popular coffee drinks are more similar to a milkshake than to actual coffee! This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.
Take, for example, the grande (16 oz) Mocha Frappuccino blended coffee drink from Starbucks. This drink has 410 calories, 15 grams of fat, 61 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein. To put this in perspective, 61 grams of sugar is more than most people should have in an entire day!
You could order this drink with nonfat milk and no whipped cream. That’s a good idea, but it will still have 270 calories, 1 gram of fat, and 59 g sugar. That’s still a lot of sugar!
Let’s compare that to a small (16 oz.) McCafe Mocha Frappé from McDonald’s, which is essentially a coffee milkshake. It has 500 calories, 20 grams of fat, 66 grams of sugar, and 8 grams of protein.
Sure, the calories and sugar in the coffee drink aren’t quite as outrageous as the milkshake, but it’s close. This is especially clear when you compare the coffee drink to actual coffee. A grande (16 oz.) Pike Place Roast from Starbucks has 5 calories and no fat or sugar. If you like cream and sugar in your coffee, that adds 5 grams of sugar, 3 grams of fat, and about 50 calories, still way less than either “coffee” drink.
If you don’t want plain coffee a better choice might be a grande Starbucks Cappuccino, which has 140 calories, 7 g fat, and 10 g sugar. Get one with nonfat milk and you cut out 60 calories from fat. If you are worried about how much sugar you consume and how many calories you drink (you probably should be!), this is a much better coffee drink choice than a milkshake!
This isn’t specific to Starbucks. A medium (16 oz.) iced coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts has 130 calories and 28 grams of sugar. And that doesn’t include a donut.
Does this mean you can’t enjoy a delicious coffee drink? Of course not. But don’t try to fool yourself by calling it coffee. Depending on what you order, it may essentially be a milkshake! I think we can all agree that is not part of a healthy breakfast.
I call this idea that unhealthy food makes its way onto our breakfast table Candy & Soda for Breakfast. Foods like donuts and pastries are often topped with icing and it would be difficult to distinguish many muffins from cupcakes. Many “fruit” drinks contain little to no juice but plenty of added sugar, so they are essentially soda without bubbles.
And it’s not just breakfast, either. Lunch, dinner, and snacks frequently include foods that look like a healthy choice—yogurt, nuts, and granola bars are a few examples—but really are candy and soda in disguise.
Posted in Candy and soda for breakfast!, Health & Fitness
Tagged coffee, diet, health, healthy eating, milkshake, nutrition, unhealthy eating
Since Earth Day is this is a good time to think about the impact we have on our environment and what we can do to reduce that impact. The good news is there are ways we can “go green” that are good for our health and the health of our planet, as I explain in my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.
Posted in Health & Fitness
Tagged earth day, environment, healthy eating, organic food
Valentine’s Day is this week, so you may be the lucky recipient of a box of chocolates. Hopefully you enjoy it! Of course, eating too many sweets, including chocolate, isn’t a good idea. But eating certain types of chocolate has been linked to some health benefits.
The idea that chocolate may be healthy is no doubt welcome news for chocoholics. But it may leave you wondering if eating chocolate really is healthy. The answer depends on what you mean by chocolate and what you mean by healthy. This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.
Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels
Posted in Health & Fitness
Tagged antioxidants, cacao, candy, chocolate, healthy eating, nutrition, sugar, Valentine's Day
Dr Parr Says... 