Teen/Parent Nutrition Workshop this Saturday

Just a reminder that I’m offering a Parent & Teen Nutrition Workshop this Sat, July 18th from 10:30 to 11:45 am at Ladera Oaks Swim and Tennis Club in Portola Valley, CA. This workshop will cover a variety of nutrition topics related to teens, including: eating for athletic performance, pre-and post-practice snacks, nutrition for optimal test taking, acne prevention through diet, and “food and mood”.

The charge is $20 for members, $25 for guests and $30 for parent/teen duos. Though not required, reservations can be made by calling Elizabeth at 650-854-3101, ext 163 or emailing elizabeth@laderaoaks.com. For more information, please visit my website at bewellcoaching.com. If you can’t make it, I will be posting a summary on my blog next weekend.

Be Well, 

Carolyn

How to Love Your Vegetables: Part II

Recently I wrote about the importance of eating vegetables – how they have the highest nutrient density of all foods, but they are the category most people fall short nutritionally. Vegetables can be delicious – it’s just a matter of knowing what to do them. Here are more ideas for getting more into your daily diet:

If you’re not a vegetable fan or your kids aren’t, try adding vegetables to other dishes. Vegetable purees are a  great way to go. Try mashed cauliflower in place of mashed potatoes – it has a nice, sweet flavor to it. Add pureed carrots or zucchini to meatloaf, casseroles, pancake batter, muffins and quick breads, and chopped broccoli, mushrooms, or green beans to spaghetti sauce. Vegetable purees can even be snuck into desserts – thereby enhancing their nutrition as well as their flavor. There’s a great book called “Deceptively Delicious” by Jessica Seinfeld with great recipes for kid-tested desserts and snacks using butternut squash, cauliflower, spinach, carrot and banana purees. I also recommend keeping a can of pumpkin on your shelf year-round, not just during the holidays. It’s loaded with betacarotene and potassium – great for blending into smoothies, home-made soups, pancakes or puddings.

Dip into vegetables. For snacking, instead of chips and salsa, dip raw or lightly steamed veggies in salsa, hummus, mashed avocado or home-made guacamole, marinara sauce or a lowfat yogurt cucumber dip. This is another way of getting kids to eat more vegetables – just find a topping they like (ketchup and mustard work, too!).

Add vegetables to egg dishes. If you’re scrambling eggs or making an omelet, toss in some mushrooms, chopped onions, bell pepper and cooked asparagus.

Serve chicken or fish warm over a bed of wilted greens instead of rice or pasta.

Pile vegetables into your sandwiches.  And don’t stop at lettuce and tomato –add cucumbers, shredded carrots, onions or peppers to name a few. Or, make a lettuce wrap instead of a regular sandwich (substitute romaine lettuce leaves for the bread).  

Top your pizza! This another great way to sneak more veggies into your kid’s diets. Whether you make your own pizza, buy it frozen, or get it as takeout, load it up with extra veggies, including broccoli, tomatoes, green and red bell peppers, red onions, and mushrooms.  If you’re making your own, go easy on the cheese to reduce saturated fat, but load on the tomato sauce for extra lycopene.

Make vegetables the main dish. Plan your meal around an entree salad, vegetable soup, or stir fry. Add small servings of other foods — lean meat or poultry or low-fat dairy products — as side dishes. Entrée salads are great for summer – toss some fish, chicken or lean beef on the grill and then add it to a big salad

Legumes are a class of vegetables that include lentils, beans (including soybeans) and peas. Low in fat with zero cholesterol, legumes are high in folate, potassium, iron and magnesium and are an important vegetarian source of protein.  Legumes are also very versatile and inexpensive. Keep cans of beans and lentils on your shelf  and you can add accent to a salad, create a healthful soup, stew or casserole, puree them for dips and spreads or soups or combine them with rice for a main vegetarian entrée.

If you already eat plenty of veggies, good for you, but branch out and try some new ones, such as artichokes, eggplant, asparagus, Swiss chard, bok choy, beets, parsnips turnip or mustard greens and jicama. The greater the variety the better insurance that you are getting all of the phytonutrients vegetables contain. So mix it up!

Be Well,

Carolyn

Upcoming Parent and Teen Nutrition Workshop

Are you “between a rock and a donut” in getting your teen to eat healthfully? Is poor nutrition affecting your teen’s weight, study habits, athletic performance and/or moods?Do you know what  nutrients your teen needs more of? Proper nutrition is critical not only for physical and cognitive development during adolescence, it can also affect everything from your teen’s grades to his or her complexion.

I will be conducting a Parent & Teen Nutrition Workshop on Sat, July 18th from 10:30 to 11:45 am at Ladera Oaks Swim and Tennis Club in Portola Valley, CA. This workshop will cover a variety of nutrition topics related to teens, including: eating for athletic performance, pre-and post-practice snacks, nutrition for optimal test taking, acne prevention through diet, and “food and mood”.

The charge is $20 for members, $25 for guests and $30 for parent/teen duos. Though not required, reservations can be made by calling Elizabeth at 650-854-3101, ext 163 or emailing elizabeth@laderaoaks.com. For more information, please visit my website at bewellcoaching.com.

Be Well, 

Carolyn

How to Love Your Veggies: Part I

Vegetables are to nutrition the way that stretching is to exercise:  most people know they’re good for them, but they don’t really like ‘em so it’s easier to skip ‘em. But skip them you shouldn’t since vegetables have the highest nutrient density of all foods. In other words, per calorie they offer the most nutrients, including vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and other phytonutrients that help reduce blood pressure, cholesterol, prevent cancer, heart disease and boost your immune system in general. 

OK, now that you know why you should be loving your vegetables, here are some delicious ways to get more into your diet:

1. Frozen vegetables are one of your best, most convenient nutrition bargains. They are as nutritious if not more nutritious than fresh vegetables because they are flash-frozen when they’re harvested and they’re usually the pick of the crop. Trader Joe’s and Safeway each have a wonderful variety of frozen veggies, many of which are organic. Frozen vegetables also offer a convenient way in obtaining a variety of different colored vegetables in one meal. Variety is important as each color provides different phytonutrients. Economically, frozen veggies are a year-round bargain. Whereas fresh vegetable prices fluctuate depending on availability, frozen vegetables are affordable and available year-round.

2. If you don’t have much time to prepare meals, buy a combo microwave steamer/rice cooker and buy pre-washed, pre-cut fresh vegetables and steam them – no prep necessary.

3. Broil or grill skewered, sliced vegetables (zucchini, bell peppers, eggplant – even tomatoes) serve warm with lemon juice and olive oil. Or, combine with lean meat, fish or chicken for kebabs.

4. Add sea vegetables ( a great source of natural iodine and other trace minerals) to your salads or steamed veggies. They’re great for a sluggish metabolism as the iodine they contains helps keep the thyroid healthy.  Dried kelp, dulse and wakame – dry flakes can be sprinkled on veggies or warmed in soups. Try Gomasio, a Japanese seasoning combining sesame seeds and dried sea vegetables. It’s delicious sprinkled on salads or steamed vegetables. 

5. Make a big batch of salad at one time to keep in your fridge so you can take single servings all week long. Add in slices of avocado and some sprigs of parsley or some sprouts when you serve it up. But the point is you already have the basic salad pre-made. Speaking of parsley, when you’re eating out, don’t toss the parsley garnish – that may be one of the most nutritious foods on your plate. It’s loaded with vitamin K – an essential nutrient for bone health as well as vitamins C and A, folate and iron. It also aids in digestion – which is probably the original reason it was used as a garnish.

6. If you’re someone who likes a lot of flavor in your food, mix up some of your favorite herbs and spices to season your veggies such as basil, tarragon and oregano; sprinkle them with Parmesan cheese, drizzle them with olive oil, or cook them in garlic and onions (both of which are extremely healthful in themselves). Turmeric makes a great vegetable topping and it’s also a very healthful spice. Curcumin, the component in Turmeric that gives it its yellow color has been shown to kill cancer cells in lab tests. It’s also a great anti-inflammatory  – in fact studies have compared it favorably with NSAIDs such as Advil. Sprinkle it on steamed veggies or in your salads or soups.

I will offer more delicious ways of incorporating vegetables into your diet in a future post.

Be Well,

Carolyn

A Gluten-Free Blog/Website Worth Checking Out

I recently discovered glutenfreegirl, a blog/website for celiacs and others with varying degrees of gluten intolerance. It offers gluten-free recipes and product recommendations as well as links to other celiac disease blogs and websites. The author, Shauna James Ahern, is refreshingly candid in discussing her own experiences before and since her diagnosis and she approaches the challenges of living with celiac disease in positive, upbeat manner.

If you or a loved one has celiac disease, it’s worth checking out.

Be Well,

Carolyn

 

 

http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/2007/05/do-you-have-celiac-disease.html

Milk: The Original Sports Drink

No, I don’t wear a milk moustache, but yes I am a big believer in drinking low-fat milk for health and performance. It really does do a body (especially an active body) good.

Cow’s milk has been out of vogue recently as people are increasingly turned to soy milk instead,  believing it to be a healthier alternative. Others avoid cow’s milk because they are lactose-intolerant. That’s a shame because milk is the ultimate superfood, loaded with calcium for healthy teeth and bones, vitamin D for optimal calcium absorption, vitamin A for healthy skin and eyes, potassium for proper electrolyte balance and muscle contraction, riboflavin for help in extracting energy from cells and protein for building and repairing body tissues.  

Recent research has also shown that drinking milk after a workout is a great way to both re-fuel and re-hydrate as it contains an ideal ratio of protein and carbohydrates to restore glycogen levels. Though it contains extra calories, chocolate milk may be an even better post-workout sports drink because of its slightly higher carbohydrate content than regular milk.

Other research suggests that drinking low-fat milk may help you burn fat. Some researchers believe it’s the amino acid leucine in milk that promotes fat burning.  Other studies suggest that it’s actually the calcium in milk that facilitates fat burning. Calcium supplements, by the way, have not be found to be as effective in facilitating fat burning as eating lowfat dairy products.

Soy milk, on the other hand, if consumed in large amounts can impair thyroid function, potentially lowering basil metabolic rate. It also contains phytates which can impair vitamin and mineral absorption. This is one of the reasons why most soy milks are fortified with vitamins and minerals.

And, if you’re avoiding cow’s milk because you’re lactose-intolerant, Lactaid milk is available just about everywhere these days – I’ve even seen it for sale at Longs and Target. Safeway even sells their own lactose-free milk under their own label and it’s slightly cheaper than the Lactaid brand.

Lactaid milk is slightly sweeter than regular milk because the enzyme lactase added to the milk breaks down the complex sugar lactose into glucose and galactose, two simpler sugars that the body can more easily digest. The result is a slightly sweeter taste for no additional calories. As someone who avoided milk for years because of lactose-intolerance, I am so happy to find Lactaid milk so available these days! Oral supplements of lactase are also available to take with a meal containing dairy products. Please note that if you are allergic to any of the proteins in milk (i.e., whey and casein) Lactaid milk is not the solution for you because it isn’t the lactose you’re allergic to.

Be Well,

Carolyn

Aqua Pilates: Training Your Core in the Pool

Recently I blogged about the benefits of aquatic yoga. Pilates is another form of exercise that can be performed very effectively in the pool. While Joseph Pilates probably never imagined his principals being applied in an aquatic environment – pilates and the pool are natural bedfellows. 

The Pilates Method is unique in that it offers resistance (primarily of the abdominal, low back and buttocks muscles) and flexibility training simultaneously. Pilates also enhances spinal alignment, coordination, balance and body awareness. Furthermore, by fostering bilateral strength and flexibility of opposing muscle groups, Pilates exercises both help prevent and rehabilitate injuries.   

Most of the “Pool” Pilates exercises I teach incorporate the buoyancy of the deep water with the natural resistance of the water. My clients can modify the difficulty of the movements by controlling the range of motion and speed of their movements. I have them wear a flotation device and hold one or two  buoyant barbells for upper body stability in order to isolate their core muscles.

Core conditioning is even more challenging in deep water when there is no gravity to provide stability. Just remaining upright in deep water demands co-contraction of back and abdominal muscles. When this “core-stable” deep water posture is combined with movement, the trunk muscles are further challenged. At the same time, because the exercises are performed without gravity, there is no loading of the spine.

Take your Pilates or other core conditioning workout to the pool this summer. You can cool off and improve your core fitness all at once.

Be Well,

Carolyn

Yuck! A Dirty Fridge Can Be Deadly

I couldn’t believe this disgusting story when I read it in my local paper. It would be funny if it wasn’t so  serious. The message here is clear:  clean out your refrigerator regularly! These poor people had to be hospitalized just from the combination of fumes from moldy food and the disinfectants they used to clean up the mess. Imagine how sick they would’ve been had they eaten the spoiled food!  

Food poisoning can be deadly and even a mild case will leave you feeling miserable. Now that the weather is getting warmer we’re outside barbecuing and picknicing – but both can be a recipe for disaster if precautions aren’t taken. Check out these simple tips to enjoy outdoor dining safely. 

Be Well (and clean out that fridge tonight!),

Carolyn

Why are Asians At A Higher Risk for Type II Diabetes?

You may be surprised to learn that while Asians tend to weigh less than other ethnicities, they are actually at greater risk for Type II diabetes. In fact, a recent nationwide telephone health survey found that cases of Type II diabetes were 60% more prevalent in Asian compared with African Americans or Caucasian populations.

Part of the reason appears to be genetic, part due to diet and lifestyle. Genetically, while Asians typically have a lower body weight than Caucasian, they tend to carry more visceral fat (deep abdominal fat) which is associated with diabetes as well as heart disease.  

Culturally, one of the challenges Asian diabetics face is altering their diet to reduce their consumption “simple” carbohydrates which are high on the glycemic index. Unlike whole grains, refined grains such as white rice (a staple in Asian diets) lack fiber which helps stabilize blood sugar. During processing, white rice is stripped of the brown-colored rice bran, the natural fiber that slows down the breakdown of brown rice into sugar once consumed. Asian diets are also traditionally lower in protein than western diets. Similar to the effect of eating fiber, protein helps balance blood sugar levels when consumed with carbohydrates.

Asians are also less likely to exercise vigorously than diabetics of other ethnic origin. They are more apt to take a tai chi class, for example, than run on a treadmill or lift weights in the gym. Aerobic exercise and strength training can favorably alter body composition, reducing body fat and adding lean muscle tissue, further reducing risk of diabetes. 

Fortunately two new studies are specifically focusing on the prevention and treatment of Type II diabetes in Asian populations. A four-year study conducted by the University of San Francisco is currently looking for Chinese diabetic adults born outside of the US. Participants in the UCSF study will attend classes to learn to manage their disease. For more information, call (415) 476-3889.

A second, 5-year cohort study spearheaded by Sutter Health and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) is aimed at preventing and treating diabetes in California’s 6  largest Asian ethnic groups: Asian Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Koreans, and Vietnamese This study will attempt to identify diabetes risk factors specific to both Asian-Americans in general and the various Asian ethnic groups in particular. For more information, contact PAMF at 650) 321-4121.

Be Well,

Carolyn

Whole Foods for Whole Fitness: Tips from My Nutrition Workshop

Below are highlights from my nutrition workshop, “Whole Foods for Whole Fitness”  held at Equinox Fitness on June 6th.

1.  Aim for a diet rich  in “whole foods” - foods that are unprocessed and unrefined, or processed and refined as little as possible before you consume them.  It doesn’t require eating a raw food diet, but when you cook it means you’re cooking from scratch as much as possible. And, when a food comes in a package, the fewer the ingredients the better.  Most importantly, those ingredients shouldn’t require a chemistry degree to identify. Processed foods are usually loaded with added sugars, sodium and artificial ingredients but are lacking in fiber and nutrients unless they are synthetically fortified. Plus, from a weight loss perspective, the more processed a food, the less energy your body uses to process it.

2. Eat more vegetables! The more the better! Vegetables have the highest nutrient density of all foods. Your plate should look like a painter’s palate – full of vegetables of all different colors  - each color offer different phytonutrients. Try frozen vegetables for an affordable, convenient year-round alternative to fresh.

3. Beware of misleading marketing when purchasing whole grains – particularly cereals and breads. Branch out and try some new whole grains if you’ve gotten into a rut – Quinoa for example, which contains the highest protein content of all whole grains. Here’s a good whole grain guide for a more complete list.

4. Make sure you’re eating adequate lean protein. A simple gauge is to eat half of your body weight in protein grams. You may need more than that if you’re an endurance athlete or a body builder.

5. Don’t be afraid of fat – just choose the healthy kind. The beneficial fats are polyunsaturated fats found primarily in cold water fish, some nuts, seeds and oils and monounsaturated fats, found in nuts, seeds, avocados and olives and vegetable oils. These fats help reduce LDL cholesterol levels and boost HDL levels and therefore reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease as well as cancer. Polyunsaturated fats also help decrease inflammation and can help alleviate mild depression and arthritis symptoms. 

6. A healthful, easy-to-digest, low-fat snack combining complex carbohydrates, lean protein and a little healthy fat will facilitate a high-quality workout as well as help in your recovery. Here are some suggested pre- and post-workout snacks or mini-meals:

 -Whole grain cereal and milk

-Plain yogurt with berries and a few chopped walnuts or slivered almonds

-1/2 of a turkey or peanut butter sandwich on whole grain bread

-Small handful of nuts and a piece of fruit

-apple and a hard-boiled egg

-Banana dipped in natural peanut butter or almond butter

-Veggies (raw or steamed) dipped in hummus

In summary, pre-workout snacking helps 1) sustain your energy throughout the workout, 2) facilitate your post-workout recovery, and 3) keep your appetite under control after exercising.

7. Start your workout already hydrated and be sure to hydrate throughout and afterwards. An electrolyte replacement drink may be necessary only if you’re exercising vigorously for more than an hour or you sweat profusely or you take heated yoga classes regularly or the weather is very warm and humid.  Otherwise sports drinks provide empty liquid calories you may not need and you’re better off eating a whole foods diet with lots of fruits and vegetables to replace electrolytes lost in sweat. If you do choose an electrolyte -replacement beverage, I recommend Recharge – a natural alternative to Gatorade.

These suggestions are geared toward a general audience. For a comprehensive, customized nutrition plan tailored to your individual needs, please visit my website for more information.

Be Well,

Carolyn