Time is a precious commodity and finding time to exercise can be difficult. I  try to squeeze in some exercise while my kids are at practice. Because of their various practice locations, I often find myself running in different areas. I have at least four routes in three cities. But before I blindly go running in unfamiliar territory, I plan my route using Gmaps Pedometer.

Whether you are a runner, walker, bicyclist, skater, hiker, or professional cart wheeler, this is a great tool to plan your route and know how many miles you will be covering – it will even tell you how many calories you will burn. You can input your starting point in the Jump In field across the top and use the Zoom feature to pinpoint your location. There are several options along the left-hand side which you can configure to your liking. I prefer to use the manual setting as sometimes I run through a park, which is not a marked street and can only be properly measured manually. You can also save your routes for future reference.

Always remember: safety first. Before I start a new route, I drive the route first (if possible) to find out if there are sidewalks, crosswalks, proper lighting, how much traffic to expect, etc. and that the route is generally safe (drivers who fail to yield to people in crosswalks not withstanding). For trails and parks, you should consider going with a friend. And always remember to let someone know where you are going and when to expect you back.

Happy trails! 

There was an interesting article in the Health section of Forbes.com yesterday discussing the ten very healthy foods we don’t get enough of according to nutritionist Jonny Bowden. Here is his list:

Kale: King of Vegetables

1. Cherries
2. Blueberries
3. Kiwi
4. Grass-fed Beef
5. Wild Salmon
6. Flax Seed
7. Whey Protein Powder
8. Kale
9. Coconut
10. Dark Chocolate

Dark chocolate, now you’re talking. Jonny also talks about what he believes are flaws in the current food pyramid (soon to be revised by the USDA, by the way) such as “demonizing fat”. Not all fats are bad – some play a vital role in a healthy diet. He recommends people follow a Mediterranean diet which includes fruits, vegetables, grains, fish and healthy oils, all of which can be found in the list, above. Here is a link to the full article: Forbes.com – Health. You can get more detailed information on the benefits of each of the foods listed by clicking on the In Pictures link.

In contrast to what we should be eating but don’t hear enough about, is a recently published study in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association which shows that if we ate the food advertised on television, we would eat 20 times the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of fat and 25 times the amount of sugar. This assumes a person eats 2,000 calories a day of the foods advertised during prime time and Saturday morning programs. Not only would we eat way too much fat and sugar, according to Michael Mink, lead author and assistant professor of health sciences at Armstrong Atlantic University in Savannah, GA, we would eat less than half of the RDA of fiber, dairy, fruits and vegetables. You can read more about the study here: New York Times Fitness and Nutrition.

Unfortunately, we can’t always rely on food manufacturers to tell us the whole story when they are promoting their products. The results of this study speak to how important it is to read and understand a nutritional label. If you aren’t sure about the nutrition information of fruits and vegetables, you can find out by visiting the FDA’s web site at: FDA Nutrition Information. There you will find nutritional information for the top 20 most frequently eaten raw fruits and vegetables (and seafood, too) in the U.S. Another great tool can be found at NutritionData.com. You can look up almost any food, from kale to kiwi, and find a complete nutritional profile.

Maybe the kale people should produce a few commercials of their own: This program is brought to you by Kale – the Super Vegetable. Got Kale?

Sometimes it's better to take a walk.

There are a lot of fitness gadgets out there that promise to melt away the pounds or give you rock-hard abs with minimal effort in only a few minutes a day. Like the saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. There are no short cuts or magic bullets that will make you fit overnight. You have to make fitness an integral part of your life. 

But, there are some fitness gadgets out there that are good for a laugh. Ellen DeGeneres seems to come across these on a regular basis and demonstrates them, with great hilarity, on her daily talk show. This first video clip is for the Hawaii Chair. The clip is a few years old, but I still laugh every time I see it. I hope you enjoy it, too: Ellen DeGeneres Show: Hawaii Chair. 

I have never used a Hawaii Chair, but I’m thinking we should get one for the office – purely for the entertainment value.  

Ellen is also a big fan of the Shake Weight and she has featured it on her show several times. Unfortunately, as of this blog posting, the Shake Weight montage from yesterday’s show is not yet available for public consumption, but you can see one of the earlier clips here: Ellen DeGeneres Show: Shake Weight. 

I’m not passing judgment on either of these contraptions, but in my humble opinion, before you spend your money on a fitness gadget, it’s a good idea to do some research. In many cases, you’ll save yourself some money and closet space. 

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there!

There are several health benefits to eating fiber, such as lowering cholesterol and aiding in the prevention of heart disease. It also helps you to feel full. According to the American Dietetic Association, the recommended daily amount of fiber is 25 grams for a woman and 38 grams for a man. (After age 50 it drops to 21 grams for women and 30 grams for men).

So, exactly how much is 25 grams? Sounds like more than my system can handle, if you know what I mean. As someone born and raised in the U.S., I have only a minimal grasp of metrics, even after surviving that less-than-stellar experiment in the 1970s when the country decided we would all learn the metric system in school. As my teenage son would say – epic failure.

Fruit with Fiber

After using a conversion calculator, I found out 25 grams is less than 1 ounce (.88 to be precise). Since I do have a good concept of ounces, partially thanks to the TSA’s rules on a 3 oz. minimum for liquids, I’m now thinking that I can easily eat 25 grams of fiber per day. So what are good sources of fiber that will get you to that 25 or 38 gram recommendation? Check out WebMD’s 6 Foods and Tips for More Fiber. Between my morning oatmeal, bananas, veggies and Triscuit addiction, I have a good start but could do a little better.

Please forgive this shameless plug, but I am responsible for sales, after all. Here comes the shameless plug: KeepWell is an excellent source of fiber and puts me over the 25 gram mark when I don’t have time to eat my veggies. 

WebMD recommends that when you increase your fiber intake, you also increase your water intake and that you add fiber gradually. And if you have any GI issues, always check with your doctor first.

With the U.S. obesity epedemic showing little or no signs of improving, processed foods have come under increased scrutiny, and rightfully so. Many processed foods, also known as RTE (Ready-to-Eat) are full of fat, sodium, sugar, and artifical flavors and colors; and are almost completely void of nutritional value. 

Too tired to cook? Healthy RTE to the rescue.

But the reality is that most of us buy processed foods because we don’t have the time or energy to cook from scratch. Luckily, there are some good choices out there; you just have to know what to look for. To help you find them, Prevention magazine recently asked five top nutritional experts to identify RTE foods that are actually good for you. The experts developed a list of 100 healthy processed foods which was then narrowed down to the top 49 by Prevention staffers who conducted taste tests. You can check out the entire list by visiting: http://tinyurl.com/22l7htq

 There are some great choices on the list that both taste good and are good for you. There’s something from just about every aisle of a grocery store,  from soup to nuts. A personal favorite is Le Grand Garden Pesto Sauce. 

Here’s some food for thought: “The physical dimension involves caring effectively for our physical body-eating the right kinds of foods, getting sufficient rest and relaxation and exercising on a regular basis” From The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. 

Enjoy your weekend and be well.

Strength Training Takes Many Forms

A colleague and I were recently discussing the importance of strength training, aka weight training or resistance training. What’s great about strength training is that it can be done in several ways: with resistance machines, free-weights (dumbbells, barbells, kettle bells), rubber tubing (more effective than you might think), or your own body weight as in push-ups, squats or abdominal crunches.

Strength training is an important subject for me as osteoporosis runs in my family and it is a condition I refuse to have. Strength training can increase bone density and reduce the risk of osteoporosis so I make strength training a regular part of my workout routine. There are several other benefits including  increasing lean muscle mass and burning calories more efficiently.

My colleague told me about a terrific web site from the Mayo Clinic. TheHealthy Lifestyle section of the web site has excellent information, written in plain English, on exercise, nutrition, weight loss, stress reduction, and more. The articles are written by credentialed professionals in their respective fields. If you weren’t sure why you should strength train, here is an excellent reason from Edward Laskowski, M.D., a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., and co-director of the Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine Center:

Muscle mass naturally diminishes with age. If you don’t do anything to replace the lean muscle you lose, you’ll increase the percentage of fat in your body, but strength training can help you preserve and enhance your muscle mass — at any age.”

So, no strength training = the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man (or in my case, woman).

I don’t know about you, but increasing my body fat percentage is something I want to avoid. I know some woman think strength training will make them look like a bodybuilder. Well, it won’t. Unless that is your goal and those ladies train very hard to get that way. There’s a world of difference between muscle tone and competing in the Ms. Olympia contest.

I normally use a combination of the methods mentioned above and do three sets of 15 reps. As someone who is pressed for time (aren’t we all), there are times when I need to leave the gym before I can complete all of the strength training exercises I would like to. Imagine how excited I was to find out that I could cut down on the amount of time I spend strength training and still get all of the benefits of my normal routine.

The Mayo site features a podcast by Dr. Laskowski who explains why multiple sets are not necessary/productive. You can listen to it here (approximately eight minutes in length): Podcast: Weight training for busy people — 5 timesaving tips.

I went to the gym last night and gave it a try: only one set for each exercise. This knocked nearly 30 minutes off of my typical strength training workout and allowed me to do several more exercise and even add a few extra minutes of cardio. It did feel a little strange not to do all those sets and reps, but I did feel good about getting to do more exercises.

For more information on strength training or related topics, I encourage you to visit Mayo Clinic’s Healthy Lifestyle web site. They have a Q&A section, podcasts and even exercise videos.

Several times each year I travel on business or with my family and stay at a particular hotel chain that owns numerous properties with several price points. I like to stay in the smaller hotels that cater to business people and families that need a more home-like atmosphere, including a kitchen.

Most of these types of hotels offer complimentary breakfast each morning. The highlight of my breakfast is making my own waffle. At home, we make waffles about as often as the World Cup comes around, but when I travel, I will have one every morning I am at the hotel. There is something fun about pouring batter into that commercial waffle-making contraption, giving it a flip and waiting 2-3 minutes (although it seems like 15) for the warm crunchy goodness that awaits you.

Besides rating hotels on things like cleanliness, staff friendliness, etc. I would like to see hotels rated based on waffles*.

• Do they have more than 1 waffle maker?
• Do they offer more than 1 flavor or variety?
• What about the accoutrements like syrup, butter, fruit and whipped cream, the essentials that are critical to fully enjoying a waffle?

*Note to hotels: please notify me in advance of my trip if the waffle maker is not working (which caused a near riot in a hotel in Phoenix last April) so I can change my reservation.

After enjoying my hotel waffle this morning, I decided to look up the nutritional information for several waffle mixes. While not the best choice for a healthy breakfast, some recipes are better than others as some are high in saturated fat and cholesterol, presumably from the eggs and milk, and sometimes buttermilk, that are used in the preparation. At least I opted for the sugar-free syrup and butter substitute.

While many waffle mixes are mostly processed wheat flour, you can find healthier versions including whole grain and wheat-free on websites like mrbreakfast.com.

I even went so far as to find out if I could purchase a commercial-grade waffle maker, but realized it would take up too much counter space and that the novelty might quickly wear off. But I did find some good reviews on counter-friendly models at consumersearch.com.

As Donkey from the original Shrek said, “We can stay up late, swapping manly stories, and in the morning, I’m making waffles!”

I vaguely remember learning to read and am pretty decent at reading a map (even without satellite navigation), but it would have been great if someone would have taught me how to read a nutrition label while I was in grade school. My mom was good at limiting the amount of sugar, fats and refined foods that made it into our cupboards and frig. I even remember “the cereal rule”: I was only allowed to eat cereal with less than 9 grams of sugar per serving. 

As an adult I have learned the importance of reading and understanding a nutrition label and how to make that skill (unlike 10th grade geometry) work to the benefit of me and my family. I believe this skill is something  we should teach kids in grade school so they have a firm grasp on what they are putting in their bodies, which can help them make better choices and hopefully avoid obesity and its related diseases. 

 The FDA’s web site features a section called How to Understand and Use the Nutrition Facts Label.  Below is one of the charts on the site. If nutrition labels were color-coded as they are in the FDA’s example, I think much of the confusion would be eliminated and we would all have a better understanding of the do’s and dont’s of nutrition. 

Sample Label for Macaroni & Cheese

The FDA’s web site has a lot of good information on the nutrition facts label including serving size, daily values and nutrients. For example, did you know that while both nonfat milk and reduced fat milk have the same amount of calcium (30%), for most adults the nonfat milk is a better choice because it has no saturated fat and 40 less calories per serving than reduced fat milk?

Each Friday we will bring you an interesting, fun, or just plain strange piece of information that caught our eye.

This week, we offer up an article from Fast Company about a unique idea in portion control. As many of you may know, dinner plates in the U.S. have  grown over the past 60 years from an average diameter of 9 inches to 13 . On top of the extra volume, we also tend to to overload our plates with the wrong types of food. While this idea from two design school grads in Milan, Italy is more about whimsy than nutrition, it’s an innovative idea that could actually make a difference in helping to control what and how much one eats. Here is a link to the full article: http://www.fastcompany.com/1636181/amost-genius-plates-double-as-nutritional-infographics

Nutritional Infographic Plate

Does any know if Color Me Mine (the place where you can paint your own p0ttery) is still around? I’d like to paint my own plate. Here’s what it might look like:

Remember - all things in moderation.

Wishing all of you a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. Be well.

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting with Corinne Kantor (aka the Food Cop). Corinne is a nutrition educator and registered dietetic technician.

I attended one of Corinne’s nutrition workshops in southern Orange County where she talked about the importance of committing to a healthy lifestyle vs. dieting, reading labels and understanding nutritional information. She had lots of great information but one thing that struck me as particularly interesting was her discussion on fluids (probably because this is an area I tend to neglect and know I should work on). Under normal conditions, adults following a 2,000 calorie-per-day diet need approximately 2-3 liters of water per day. Corinne pointed out that some fruits and vegetables are very high in water content. Here is a list of some of those fruits and vegetables:

While I’ve always known that watermelon was aptly named, I never knew that spinach and zucchini had such high water content. Good to know.

You can contact Corinne by visiting her web site at www.thefoodcop.com.