Tummy problem: The dangers of belly fat

A pot (or beer) belly is not something we usually associate with good health, right? Well as it turns out, even for people with overall healthy weight, carrying extra pounds in the midsection spells danger. In fact, people with normal weight who carry their fat at their waistlines may be at higher risk of death over the years than overweight or obese people whose fat concentration is typically on the hips and thighs. 

Image source: huffingtonpost.com

As the Mayo Clinic researchers put it, the distribution of fat matters whatever the scale says. 

The study, which was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine assessed the five- and 10-year mortality risk in men and women with normal body mass index (BMI) and central obesity compared with those who are classified as overweight or obese based on their BMI. The study tracked more than 15,000 participants who were followed for an average of 14.3 years as part of the U.S.-based Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey or NHANES III. In the study, 11 percent of men and 3 percent of women were of normal weight but had an elevated waist-to-hip ratio, and they were at greater mortality risk (for men, twice the risk) than overweight or obese participants. 

The reason? Belly fat is often deposited in the liver, where it makes inflammatory substances that contribute to diabetes and heart disease, explained the study’s senior author, Dr. Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, preventive cardiology chief at the Mayo Clinic. 

Image source: emed.com.au

So how big a belly is considered risky? Take the measurement of the narrowest part of your waist and then divide that by the measurement of the widest part of your hips. If you are a guy, and the result is more than 0.9, then you have “central obesity.” For women, it’s a waist-hip ratio of 0.85 or more. It is critical then to make serious lifestyle changes to lower risk of acquiring a fatal disease. 

The findings may be a bit jarring, right? But they serve as a wake-up call for all of us to really take our health seriously. Your thoughts? Let me know on Facebook.

Building Muscle on a Budget: Three Affordable and Healthy Protein Sources

How much protein you need in your diet depends on your fitness goals, as well as your current weight and your daily caloric intake. An average, sedentary person needs approximately 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight, according to U.S. dietary recommendations, but people who regularly exercise with the intent of building muscle mass need more.

Most fitness experts recommend at least one gram of protein per pound of body weight. For a person that weighs 150 pounds, that means eating 150 grams of protein daily. The easiest way to get this much protein on a daily basis is to eat meat. However, there are other, more budget-friendly sources of protein you can buy at most supermarkets. The following are three examples.  

Image source: care2.com

 1. Eggs Eggs are cheap, widely available, and packed with protein. One large egg provides six grams of protein, and two eggs contain as much protein as a serving of meat or fish. Eggs also provide 14 different nutrients, including vitamins A, B-12, D, and E, and is a good source of folate. Don't forget to eat the yolk, too. Egg yolks contain half the protein found in eggs and the lutein in them may actually even help prevent heart disease.

2. Peanut butter If you're not allergic, peanut butter is a great plant-based protein source. Just two tablespoons provide eight grams of quality protein, as well as a variety of other vitamins and minerals. While peanut butter contains a large amount of dietary fat, most of it comes in the form of monounsaturated fat (MUFA), which promotes heart health. In addition, a study of more than 83,000 women in the U.S. found that those who ate peanut butter regularly had a 21 percent lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. Make sure to buy regular, full fat peanut butter as reduced fat versions typically have more sugar in them to make up for the missing fat.

Image source: huffingtonpost.com

3. Garbanzos Garbanzos or chickpeas provide a lot of bang for your buck: 100 gram serving contains approximately 15 grams of protein. It also provides 15 grams of fiber as well as magnesium, folate, calcium, iron, and vitamin B-6. Use pureed chickpeas to thicken and add flavor to soups and stews, or mash them and use them to make hummus or falafel. However, you can't live on protein alone. The key to improved athletic performance, better body composition, and better health is a balanced diet rich in whole foods that contain a variety of nutrients.

I'm Annie Joubran, a health and fitness enthusiast. Subscribe to my blog for more tips on healthy eating and exercise.

The American Diet: Have Our Eating Habits Finally Changed?

Pizzas, burgers, soda, and hot dogs. All these food items are ubiquitous in the American diet. Unfortunately, none of these is healthy and can even beef up the risks for developing deadly diseases like stroke and cancer. But with hundreds of programs meddling in the contents of a typical American’s plate, is the country finally eating right?

Image source: hollylegare.com

New reports indicate a sustained decline of calorie intake for the last few years. Soda consumption posted the greatest drop record of more than 25 percent for the average American. The awareness for the effects of unhealthy food consumption began in the late 1990s, thanks to the explosion of scientific research that found the American diet culpable of the obesity epidemic and other malnutrition-related diseases. 

The consumption of high-calorie foods peaked in the early 2000s. Calorie reduction means lower incidences of obesity, which is one of the leading causes (and its associated conditions) of death in the country.

Figures, however, vary from various study groups, which take into account age, gender, and income class. The improvement is most pronounced in the middle to high-income population and among young adults and middle-age citizens. Male and female groups have little disparity between them.

Images source: dosomething.org

While the bad eating habits of the country are somewhat being reined, still more than a third of American adults are still considered obese and many others overweight. The statistics can be discouraging, although we are finally seeded on a positive nutrition position (in general) for a brighter and healthier future.

For more discussions and links to nutrition-related topics, follow me on Twitter. I’m Annie Joubran, your partner in physical wellness.

Things Fitness Technology Won't do for you (and why)

There's little doubt that most people like to do things the easy way. Often, many believe that purchasing exercise trackers and other bits and pieces of technology would be enough to transform them into eager fitness buffs. And then, when they inevitably crash and burn, they lament all the money they've wasted on the trackers and equipment that they've barely used.

Image source: observer.com

Fitness trackers and other equipment can definitely help people measure the effectiveness of their exercise routines. Although very useful, they alone are not enough to keep a person motivated to stay on track.

Devices can't do things that people must do for themselves, such as develop fitness plans, set fitness priorities, and build determination. They also cannot provide positive reinforcement (though one's reinforcement can be derived from its data), and make strategic corrections to fitness and exercise habits. Machines cannot think, and while they can make quick work of measuring progress, they won't do the job of achieving fitness for the person.

Image source: Forbes.com

The tool is only as good as the tool user.

To fully take advantage of the benefits of trackers (or any other fitness tool, for that matter), people must take the time to slowly develop the fundamental mindset for a fit lifestyle. Once this is mastered, they can choose the right tools that would suit the right job.

Follow Annie Joubran on this Twitter account for more updates on fitness issues.

REPOST: Pregnancy diets and early years nutrition: spreading the word

Encouraging women to follow a certain dietary program during pregnancy and breastfeeding is crucial to the good health of the child and his or her early-life development. Read the article below for more on the benefits of pregnancy and breastfeeding nutrition plans:

A mother’s diet during pregnancy and in the first few months post-birth is vital for her child’s development and wellbeing. So why isn’t the message getting through to everyone?


Flour power: the tendency to graze and eat on the hoof means children can grow up unaware of the social and nutritional importance of home-cooked food. | Image source: theguardian.com

What’s the best way to improve the health of Britain? For participants at a recent Guardian roundtable, the answer was simple: improve the nutritional health of pregnant women and young children, and the benefits will roll down through the generations.

How to make that improvement was more complicated, although participants at the Danone Nutricia Early Life Nutrition-sponsored roundtable were optimistic that it is possible.

There was broad agreement that opportunities to put out positive messages to parents and parents-to-be were being lost, and one change that would make a huge difference was to encourage better collaboration between government and the food industry. But this partnership was either not happening, or, when it did happen, was being undermined by media negativity.

“Government and industry need to work much more closely together – however, the problem is that we’ve not developed trust in the industry,” said Paul Gately, professor of exercise and obesity at Leeds Beckett University.

“At the moment it’s easy for the media to drive a wedge. We need dialogue and debate so industry and government can work collaboratively.” It was, he said, “one of the shames of the past decade that we’ve not addressed the issue”. Where companies run healthy eating initiatives they are overwhelmingly positive, said Gately.

Helen Crichton of Danone Nutricia Early Life Nutrition said her organisation was one of 780 partners signed up to the Department of Health’s Public Health Responsibility Deal, a commitment to improve nutrition and health. However, in doing so companies such as Crichton’s set themselves up to be criticised, even when they’re prepared to take a positive and active stance.

So how could better collaboration make a difference? Various speakers criticised the fact that healthy eating messages were often negative: eat less red meat, or less sugar, or cut down on calories. But positive messages were more likely to be effective. “The industry talks about benefits not problems, and that’s where collaboration could really start to have some impact,” said Gately.

Participants returned, time and again, to the fact that nutrition – so much a feature of life in Britain during the second world war – had since been dramatically downgraded. Food and its production was not given sufficient emphasis in school or at home.

Richard Marsh, chief executive of the Institute for Food, Brain and Behaviour, noted that as a nation we tend to see health as “pharma-centred” rather than nutrition-centred, despite the fact that better nutrition could have a far greater impact on health than popping pills.

The sheer enjoyment of food and eating together was also being lost; eating on the hoof and grazing was undoubtedly having an effect on children’s eating habits, taste preferences and behaviours, said Crichton.

Ella’s Kitchen founder Paul Lindley said: “Food is what brings people together, but they’re not eating together very often and very young children aren’t learning the art of conversation or the joy of eating with others.”

Improving the diet of pregnant women was one of the most effective ways to change the health of the population, participants agreed. Good nutrition is crucial to early brain formation. However, according to a study by Alberta Pregnancy Outcomes and Nutrition, only 27% of women during pregnancy and 25% of women at three months post-birth meet the current EU recommendation for DHA (docosahexaenoic acid, an omega-3 fatty acid). This is essential for neurological development – embryos in utero and newborns cannot make their own and so are dependent on obtaining the nutrient via their mother through the placenta or breast milk.

Supporting women to eat well during pregnancy and breastfeeding was especially important because early-life nutrition is so complex that it is not well understood, even by professionals. “Infant nutrition is a highly complicated issue,” said Gately. “In my field, obesity, we tend not to get involved before the age of five because it’s our view that we don’t know enough about it to start tinkering around with issues when we don’t know what the outcome will be.”

Despite the problems, some participants mentioned examples of good practice. Lucy Cooke, honorary senior research associate at University College London, said she knew of nurseries where young children helped grow vegetables and were then able to taste them at snack time. Crichton said there is a new qualification for nursery chefs, available in some London colleges, to equip them to menu plan and cook for small children.

One major area of concern at the roundtable was that public health messages tend not to be universally effective, with disadvantaged and vulnerable groups being consistently hard to reach. What that meant in practice, said Gately, was that messages on, for example, child obesity were very successful in general terms, but when you look at the figures more closely it’s clear that disadvantaged groups aren’t taking them on board. Too often, participants agreed, messages about healthy eating and nutrition were only taken on board by the people least in need of them – the “worried well”.

“I’m really worried about that group of people who are hard to reach,” said Cooke. “Messages are lapped up by the middle classes, but it’s how you reach the proportion of the population who are vulnerable that’s important. I don’t see any sign of anyone taking it seriously. There may be stirrings, but there’s an awful lot to do.”

Even where nutrition was taken seriously, and public health messages were issued, they were too often inconsistent, or even contradictory. One solution would be to create a system, similar to that used in Canada, whereby any new public health message had to be filtered through a central point. If the next government could do just one thing to improve the nation’s nutrition, said paediatric dietician Judy More, this should be it.

Also key, More said, was informing newly pregnant women of the importance of nutrition and providing them with the correct information. On both counts, midwives and GPs were failing. Nutrition wasn’t being mentioned at early antenatal appointments – often, she said, because women were overweight and midwives didn’t want their relationship with them to get off to a bad start by talking about what would obviously be a difficult topic. She also lamented the fact that there was very little in the way of training on nutrition for either GPs, or later on in a child’s life, many messages were shrouded in confusion and there was a lack of willingness to take a lead on proper advice.

“There’s a lot of confusion over breastfeeding,” said Cooke. “The Department of Health says breastfeed to six months, but baby foods say 4-6 months on the jar.” More agreed. The fact was, she said, that from a health visitor’s point of view it was easier to give out the straightforward message that babies should be weaned from six months, but actually the “right” time was when a mother felt the baby was ready, and there was no harm in weaning from four months.

“There’s an inconsistency and no one really wants to take responsibility for giving advice,” said Lindley. “When is the right time to wean? What foods should you give?” These questions really matter, he pointed out, for the child’s long-term as well as short-term health. “The earlier children have vegetables, the more likely they are to like vegetables when they’re older,” he said. Confusion over whether to wean at four or six months was causing all sorts of problems, and advice at this crucial moment should be made much clearer.

Visit this Annie Joubran Twitter page to know more about healthy living, dieting, and proper nutrition.

REPOST: Six myths about nutrition and health

Are fats and carbohydrates really bad for the body? Nutrition and health professionals offer the following advice to help people stir clear from nutrition myths:  

 

Image Source: bostonglobe.com

We all have our own food orthodoxies, at least some of which probably embrace the nutrition myths all round us.

Glossy magazines and popular websites promote the latest food fad or offer stern warnings against your favorite treats; your mother calls up with third-hand advice that originated on daytime television or with your great-great-grandmother in the century before last.

It can be confusing and frustrating.

To help clear things up, six local nutrition and health professionals have offered to debunk some of the most common — and, to them, annoying — misconceptions they hear bandied about.

 

Myth No. 1: Fats and carbohydrates are bad for you.

Fact: Both can be part of a healthy diet, but you should limit saturated and trans fats and processed carbohydrates, according to Kate Sweeney, a registered dietitian who manages the Nutrition and Wellness Service at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

“The truth really is that carbohydrates themselves are not fattening. Fat itself is not fattening,” Sweeney said. “Too much of anything is fattening.”

Sweeney recommends eating whole foods: fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables with the skins intact and whole grains such as brown rice, quinoa, buckwheat, and whole oats rather than processed carbohydrates such as white bread, white pasta, or white rice.

‘They treat their bodies like calculators, basically, by counting every calorie that crosses their lips. Calories do matter, but hormones matter more, and that’s what I try to teach my clients.’ Keri Mantie, personal trainer and strength coach 

“Research just came out that shows that whole grains reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease,” she said.

Healthy fats, she said, can come from avocados, nuts, nut butters, olives, olive oil, and flax oil.

“Not all fats are created equal, just like not all carbohydrates are created equal, and lot of them actually help lower your cholesterol,” Sweeney said.

 

Myth No. 2: Frozen vegetables are less nutritious than fresh vegetables.

Fact: Vegetables are typically frozen at peak ripeness and may be more nutritious than fresh vegetables bought from the produce department out of season, said Joan Salge Blake, a registered dietitian and a clinical associate professor of nutrition at Boston University.

“It’s like having Rachael Ray in your freezer — they’re all prepped and ready to go,” said Blake.
She said that the nutrients in vegetables are not damaged by freezing, but they can be damaged by overexposure to air. And overcooking will cause them to lose some water-soluble vitamins.

And if you’re like many shoppers, Blake said, a bag of frozen broccoli could wind up being a more palatable option than broccoli you bought fresh but then forgot about in the “produce graveyard” in the bottom drawers of your refrigerator.

“When we finally pull it out, it’s no longer that vibrant green, but rather it’s that combat green,” Blake said.

Myth No. 3: Eating later at night causes weight gain.

Fact: It doesn’t matter when you eat; what’s important is how much you eat all day, according to Michelle Davis, a bariatric dietitian in the Weight Loss Surgery Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Dealing with patients who have often struggled with their weight for years, Davis said, she often hears of strategies that don’t have a solid foundation.

“A lot of people will say, ‘I stop eating at 7 p.m. because if I eat any later than 7 I will gain weight,’ ” she said. “There’s no science, necessarily, behind this cutoff point.”

Late-night eating can be unhealthy, Davis said, because it often includes snacking while watching television, which could include both unhealthy foods and unmeasured portion sizes. But what matters for weight and overall health isn’t the hour when you consume food, but how much you have eaten — and how much you’ve burned off — across the board.

Image Source: bostonglobe.com

 

Myth No. 4: Eggs give you high cholesterol.

Fact: Cholesterol levels in the human body tend to be affected less by cholesterol in our diets than they are by the saturated fats and trans fats we eat, according to Tara Linitz, a registered dietitian at Massachusetts General Hospital who also has a master’s degree in exercise science.

Linitz said older research led to concerns about the cholesterol content of eggs, but more recent studies have shown that eating eggs in moderation — up to three or four whole eggs a week, and unlimited egg whites — is not likely to have negative effects.

A whole egg is actually very nutritious, Linitz said: a complete protein that also contains many vitamins and nutrients, including choline, a nutrient that is found in relatively few foods and is currently being studied for a possible link to brain health.

 

Myth No. 5: Only adults develop high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

Fact: Children as young as 2 can have both conditions as a result of genetics, diet, or a combination of the two, according to Skylar Griggs, a registered dietitian and clinical nutrition specialist for the Preventive Cardiology Clinic at Children’s Hospital Boston.

Griggs said the clinic, the largest in New England for pediatric patients with high blood pressure and high cholesterol, sees patients as young as 2 and as old as 25, many of whom have genetic predispositions to cholesterol abnormalities.

Before putting any child on medication, dietitians at the clinic will attempt to address the problem by changing diet and activity levels, which often involves more than just the child whose blood pressure or cholesterol is elevated, Griggs said.

“It’s very hard for a child to change their dietary habits if the entire family isn’t on board,” she said.
For children with elevated LDL, or “bad” cholesterol, dietitians recommend restricting saturated fats and trans fats. For high triglycerides, another type of fat found in blood, they suggest cutting down on sugar and processed carbohydrates, replacing them with whole grains. For children who don’t produce enough HDL, or “good” cholesterol, they recommend more exercise and more healthy fats.

In each case, Griggs said, dietitians suggest removing the dangerous foods from the home entirely.

“It’s important for parents to understand that purging all those things out of the house removes the temptation,” she said.

 

Myth No. 6: Counting calories is the best way to lose weight.

Fact: The composition of the foods you eat is as important as the number of calories you take in, said Keri Mantie, a personal trainer, strength coach, and fat-loss coach with a master’s degree in applied exercise science.

Mantie said that too often, people trying to lose weight plan their diets around calorie counts rather than taking a more critical, broader view of what kinds of calories they are putting into their bodies.

“They treat their bodies like calculators, basically, by counting every calorie that crosses their lips,” she said. “Calories do matter, but hormones matter more, and that’s what I try to teach my clients.”

She said a fast-food blueberry muffin might have same number of calories as an omelet packed with vegetables, but the omelet will give you lasting energy and keep you feeling full until lunchtime nears, while the muffin will give you a short burst of energy followed by a crash, as your body quickly burns through the processed sugar it contains. Soon you feel hungry again.

Nutrition expert Annie Joubran believes that eating food in moderation and regular exercise can help people lose weight more effectively than any diet and fitness fad. For more discussions on health and wellness, subscribe to this blog.

REPOST: 15 Fitness Tricks And Tactics For 2015

Want to get in shape this year? Check out the following scientifically based fitness hacks, tricks, and tactics from MensFitness.com.

Image Source: mensfitness.com

Calculate your “fitness age” so you can hit the ground running.

Determined using your VO2 max and waist size, your fitness age fluctuates with your general health, not years, and is a primo indicator of mortality. Visit mensfitness.com/fit-age for the formula, then go knock a few years off at the gym.

Work out with people fitter than you to improve 20% more.

Watching a partner do an exercise better than you spurs you on to perform it better yourself.

When running, focus on a target to get there faster.

Keep your eyes on a faraway object such as a tree or sign, and you’ll get to it faster and with less effort than if you allow your attention to wander.

Use custom running-shoe insoles to lower your risk of injury.

Podiatrist-prescribed custom insoles allow less force to impact your feet than prefabricated insoles.

Stop feeling selfish for going to the gym.

Don’t ditch your workout because of guilt. The happiest family men find that their “me time” improves the health of the entire family.

Bench press fast to hit a new PR.

Speeding up the concentric (pushing) phase of the bench press results in accelerated strength gains.

Work out in the sun to slow weight gain.

Moderate UV exposure (while wearing sunscreen, of course) releases nitric oxide in the skin, which can help you shed pounds and lower diabetes risk.

Run at a 10% incline for double-fast conditioning.

Interval runs on a moderate hill or a treadmill set at a 10% incline up your VO2 max and jumping ability in half the time it takes with level training.

Compress to progress faster.
Wearing compression gear for 24 hours post-workout speeds recovery and cuts muscle soreness.

Blast music during HIIT.

A power playlist will boost performance. Plus, the longer you listen to music during a session, the more enjoyable it becomes.

Don’t let extra pounds discourage you from sticking to your fitness plan.

No workout is in vain—even if you don’t lose all the weight you want, you’ll still have a healthier heart and stronger metabolism if you consistently strength train.

Design a “PRISE”-winning workout formula.

Eat protein (P) daily and do a four-hour mix of resistance training (R), intervals (I), stretching (S), and endurance (E) weekly—called the “PRISE” plan—and in 16 weeks you can lose up to five pounds more than people who do just one type of exercise.

Drink milk—it does the body (in motion) good.

Milk provides more effective hydration, energy, and protein after exercise than run-of-the-mill sports drinks.

Work out for more than just looks.

Exercise boosts sleep, mood, and memory.

For more squat reps, lift weights first, do cardio after.

For more squat reps, lift weights first, do cardio after. Saving the cardio till after you’ve done your resistance training boosts lifting performance.

Annie Joubran blogs about fitness and nutrition. Catch her on Twitter for more health and wellness tips.