Fit Communications

Here’s the second installment of my list of quick and nutritious foods for those in a hurry.

6. Baked potatoes. Does this surprise you? If you have a bag of potatoes and a microwave handy. the lowly potato definitely becomes a convenience food. Grab the food scrubber and give the potato a going-over under running water. Poke a few holes in it with a fork or sharp knife. Wrap it in a paper towel, toss it in the micro, and within a couple of minutes, you have a nutritious source of carbs and vitamins. Because I count calories, I weigh food to make sure of the quantity. A typical 200-gram potato (about 7 ounces) has about 154 calories, 4 grams of protein, 4 grams of fiber, 35 grams of carbohydrate, and less than 1 gram of fat. It’s a decent source of vitamin C and B vitamins as well. Make sure you eat the skin: that’s where a lot of the vitamins are hiding. As always, I’m using the USDA National Nutrient Database for calorie and nutrient counts.

Some of you are highly evolved persons who cook every day, carefully plan your five to six small daily meals, and pack the lot into a cooler before you leave the house in the morning. All I can say is, I admire you. Someday I may get that organized. Or maybe not.

I don’t cook much, I sort of kind of plan my daily meals, and on good days I throw several items in a plastic bag and lurch out the door. It helps that I keep frequently consumed foods in the fridge at work. I do track calories and grams of carbohydrate and protein daily, using a Google spreadsheet. But given the rather laissez-faire manner in which my planning occurs, I really appreciate certain foods that make my life easier.

Here’s part one of my can’t-live-without foods:

Raise your hand if you’ve ever read an article in a women’s fitness magazine that recommended a daily weight-loss diet that provides around 1,300 calories. Yeah, I thought you had.

This afternoon I paged through the latest Oxygen magazine—or maybe it was Oxygen’s annual glutes special—and found sample menus for such a diet. Keep in mind that Oxygen promotes intense physical activity—both weights and cardio. Keep in mind that these far-too restrictive diets are often said to be the food plans followed by female fitness athletes.

That is simply impossible unless the women in question are anorexic.

Here’s an interesting story from the Associated Press that makes me wonder what the teens in question are eating at home. I probably know the answer to that, and it isn’t vegetables and fruit.

The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey has been trying to help teenagers learn to like vegetables and has been serving things like steamed carrots, greens, vegetable stir-frys, and so on. Some of the kids literally spit out the carrots. Vegetables don’t taste like food to them, apparently, and it isn’t the kids’ fault. Clearly they haven’t been getting carrots and broccoli at home—and just as clearly, those haven’t been the mainstay of school lunch programs.

It’s time for schools to get extremely serious about removing all the junk food from both machines and the cafeteria. Now I sound like an old person: When I was a kid, you either ate the school lunch, brought something from home, or went hungry. You didn’t have the option to buy burgers or pizza (unless that was the cafeteria meal of the day). And you shouldn’t have that option.

Schools operate for the public good, and they’re not obliged to give the youth in their charge non-nutritious food simply because that’s what kids prefer.

Anyway, here’s the link:

Eating healthy is a hard lesson to teach teens
New Jersey program holds out hope it’s never to late to set good habits

I hope soon to provide some information about what Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga, Tenn., is doing to improve children’s health. Memorial is working on a pilot program with some Hamilton County schools in order to combat the child-obesity epidemic. The program may eventually be expanded to additional schools. Let’s hope so. Our kids need it.

I just finished reading Leslie Goldman’s Locker Room Diaries. It was interesting and made me vow to quit being so shy when changing clothes in the locker room. I’ll never be comfortable with walking around undressed, as some women are (more power to them), but at least I can try to become less self-conscious.

In any case, having just read Leslie’s book, which devotes a lot of discussion to "scale behavior," I was aware of the woman who hopped on the scale last Friday. She and I had begun and ended our workouts about the same time. She was probably about my age and had obviously come from work to do her workout.

She stepped on the scale, and I looked away, knowing that a lot of people feel self-conscious on the scale.

A couple of seconds later, she let out a minor whoop and said to me (there was nobody else around), "I’ve lost eight and a half pounds in a month!"

I said I thought that was fabulous and told her that I’d lost about 30 pounds a little more than a year ago. Then we had a little chat about how much harder it is to lose fat when you’re 40- or 50-something.

She said she’d been completely ignoring the doughnuts and junk food people bring to work, and then we got to talking about why people bring in such lousy food as "treats." Anybody of normal intelligence knows that cookies, doughnuts, enormous muffins, and so on are special-occasion food—not the sort of fare anybody needs on a regular basis. But how many people bring bananas, fresh strawberries, homemade low-fat muffins, or fresh vegetables?

I know, some of you probably work at enlightened companies where that’s the norm. But in my case, I bring (my own) food from home every single day–and almost every single day make a decision not to eat the chips, cookies, Krispy Kremes, and other junky offerings that magically appear in our kitchen.

Here’s a challenge: If we do have occasion to bring food for everyone, let’s make it something that actually does our co-workers good.

And here’s a horrible (apparently true) story: The successful loser of eight and a half pounds said that one of her co-workers brings Krispy Kreme doughnuts to work almost every day. She commented to the KK-bringer that it must be expensive buying doughnuts so often.

The colleague replied that she had a family member who worked at Krispy Kreme, so she got a discount–and then she added that perhaps by eating lots of doughnuts some of the older workers would vacate their jobs more quickly and create promotional opportunities for the younger ones.

I said, "I hope she was kidding." My locker-room companion said, "Knowing her, I don’t think she was."

Yikes: Career sabotage via Krispy Kremes!

Indulge me: this has nothing to do with women’s fitness.

On the other hand, it could.

I just read an interesting article on msnbc.com, one in a series on how senior news editor Mike Stuckey is coping with prostate cancer. What I liked: once Mike received the diagnosis of prostate cancer, he changed his diet radically.

No, he’s not eating alfalfa sprouts and drinking rice milk (although those could be healthy choices). He’s eating many more vegetables and fruits and cutting way back on some of his former favorites: sausage, cheese, red meat, nacho chips, and so on.

Changing his diet wasn’t all that difficult, he says, once he realized that it could help save his life.

Most of us don’t have a cancer diagnosis at the moment, but one in three of us will have one at some point in our lives. Why not make the dietary changes now?

The ultimate payoff could be a longer, healthier life; the short-term payoff will be increased energy and probably a better-looking midriff and rear end.

Here’s the article:

Battling bad cells with good eating
Had enough of cancer, urine and assorted penis facts for now? Good, let’s talk about food! In his battle with prostate cancer, MSNBC.com’s Mike Stuckey finds that it’s not very hard to do the right thing when it comes to nutrition.

A story posted in mid-July on MSNBC.com’s diet and health section begins as follows:

With excess weight a greater problem than ever, the question of whether
changing eating habits or exercise is more likely to produce weight
loss is vital.

No, that question isn’t vital. It misses the point entirely.

Here’s the point: Most of us aren’t as healthy as we could be because we make poor food choices, eat too much, and move too little. As a result, the majority of the population is overweight. These are indisputable–the kind of obvious conclusions the U.S. government presents in its 2005 Dietary Guidelines.

If those factors are endangering our health, the solution is striving for greater health by making better food choices, eating the appropriate amount of food for our activity level, and engaging in regular physical exercise.

So why does this article’s author–a registered dietician–pose the irrelevant question "should we eat better or exercise in order to lose weight?"

The problem–overweight–has multiple causes, including too many calories and too little activity. The solution has to involve both food choices and physical exercise.

You can find the full article here.

I can’t read a magazine these days without seeing an article or a blurb about antioxidants—for heart health, for cancer prevention, for healthier skin. It’s all good motivation for me to continue improving my diet.

About a year and a half ago I went on a big crusade to eat more fruits and vegetables (primary sources of antioxidants), and although my intake has been higher than it had been before, I’ve got a long way to go.

Have been reading Dr. David Katz’s books (The Way to Eat; The Flavor-Point Diet) and finding them interesting. He talks a lot about fruits and vegetables, and again, I’m on a crusade—not following a new “diet” but seeking greater health.

Because I’m always in a rush and rarely take time to cook, the trick for me is to go raw and focus on food I can wash, pack, and eat in a trice. So berries, apples, sweet peppers, tomatoes, and baby carrots are good options. I always have healthy snacks with me (I get overly hungry most days if I don’t eat every two to three hours), so it’s just a matter of carrying fruit/veg snacks in addition to my usual South Beach cereal bars, yogurt, whole-wheat pita, and light mozarella sticks.

The best news of all: coffee is one of the best sources of antioxidants in the American diet. I’ve got that one covered.

The February issue of More magazine includes a two-part article written by two friends who have entirely different approaches to food and body weight. One woman is a size 12 who enjoys food and says that once she made peace with her (not really very large) body, she got a lot more sane about food. She talks about her irritation with her friend who wears a size 6 and follows a very regimented food plan.

The regimented friend also has her say, explaining that she used to be overweight and has been able to lose weight and keep it off by participating in a 12-step program. Her program requires her to weigh or measure everything she eats, and she follows very specific, indeed, rigid rules. She never deviates from her food plan–which means never eating dessert or drinking wine, for instance.

Although the article was interesting, I was somewhat bothered that it seemed to suggest that rigid rules (and zero indulgences) are required in order to maintain weight loss. The successes of the people who belong to the National Weight Control Registry suggest otherwise.

In a nutshell, NWCR members are people who have lost at least 30 pounds and kept it off for at least a year. (Once I get to the one-year anniversary of my weight loss, I plan to sign up.) From what I read, these successful "losers" stay on track through exercise, portion control, and healthy food choices. Portion control and exercise in particular help give people the flexibility to have dessert now and then–unlike the size 6 woman in More. It’s great that she’s maintained her loss, and it may be that rigid control is the ticket for her. I just don’t think that works–or is necessary–for most of us.