MyNetDiary Blog

What the Belly Really Holds

Excess body fat doesn’t always distribute itself evenly over our bodies. Sometimes we see a concentration of it around our midsections, including our belly, hips and thighs. Unfortunately, when this happens it can signal that our excess weight can lead to more serious health issues. Carrying extra weight in these areas have been associated with increased risk for heart disease, stroke, dementia, high blood pressure, Alzheimer’s disease and type 2 diabetes. And though genes may play a role in this, it can also be triggered by our lifestyles and eating habits. 

While it would be nice to point to high-fat foods as the culprit behind a bulging belly, any kind of excess calories lead to weight gain in our midsections. However, there is one exception to this. High calorie drinks, especially ones with alcohol, have been shown to be linked specifically to belly fat. Our livers are so busy burning off the alcohol it can’t get to burning fat, so the excess is stored in the midsection. 

We can guard ourselves against excess calories by keeping a food diary, but we can also be aware that certain fats can actually redistribute existing fat in our bodies to our bellies. Trans fats, according to research by Wake Forest University, have been shown to redistribute fat tissue to the stomach area. 

In addition to avoiding trans fats, we can also eat foods high in fiber. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has shown that diets high in whole grains can trim extra fat from our waistlines. 

And when it comes to the differences between men and women, it’s men who tend to collect more belly fat than women. However, once a women hits age 40, estrogen levels drop and body fat can get redistributed to the belly. 

All is not lost though if you have belly fat. If you are actively losing weight through diet and exercise, belly fat is often the first to come off. Spot exercising, such as doing crunches and sit-ups to get rid of belly bulge, do not work quite in the way we hope them too. They can have some benefit, but not a lot. Aerobic exercise is the best for burning fat. 

Tell us, what has helped trim your waistline? You can share your tips on our MyNetDiary Facebook page or in our Community Forum!

Keeping Track of More than Calories

Calorie tracking apps like MyNetDiary are designed to make counting calories and recording exercise an easy process, thus encouraging users to log accurately and daily for the best results. In fact, MyNetDiary does a lot more than lets users keep track of calorie intake and exercise, as seen here in this interview on Radio Nutrition with MyNetDiary’s consulting Dietitian, Katherine Isacks, MPS, RD. MyNetDiary allows Maximum members to track up to 48 different nutrients, instead of the basic 12 found on Nutrition Facts panels.

However, one of the most important features users can take advantage of with a food journal has to do with something we can’t quantify or chart. It’s the simple and elegant Notes feature where you can record things like mood, temptation, thoughts and distractions. And if you have yet used Notes, now may be the time.

According to a new study, one’s emotional awareness around eating may have a noticeable impact on one’s diet. Emotional eating and overeating are too often and closely connected. Perhaps an event, a conversation, an emotion can derail us from our healthy eating plan, and if we didn’t take note of it, it can happen again and again without us understanding what’s happening.

In the mentioned study, 94 obese women and 56 control participants were asked about parental bonding, eating habits and their emotional awareness. The results showed that obese women exhibited deficits in emotional awareness and used emotional eating to regulate how they feel.

By keeping notes about how you feel when you crave and when you eat foods, or even just “junk foods,” you can look back over these at the end of the week to find if there is a “cause and effect” tied to emotion and food. Maybe your portion size grows when feeling stressed or sad. Maybe you grabbed a donut instead of an apple for a snack after a phone call with a family member.

In another study published in Eating Disorders, participants who were able to practice responding to internal appetite signals were able to improve their binge-eating symptoms. One trick to practice this would be to use Notes to rate and record your feeling of hunger on a scale from 1 – 10 before each meal. With the Daily Bottom Line you can see if there’s a difference between calorie intake on days you ate meals feeling a level 5 hunger versus a level 7, etc.

The real bottom line, however, is that it’s important to take advantage of every tool at your disposal and to be aware of all the influences on your diet and exercise. It is with these tools we can identify patterns, both helpful ones and ones that hurt our goals.

Tell us, what have you done to combat emotional eating and how has keeping track of more than just calories helped you succeed? Post on the MyNetDiary Facebook page or Community Forum. 

Keep Your Diet Out of the ‘Red Zone’ During Super Bowl XLVI

Super Bowl XLVI is this Sunday, and while it serves as one of the largest televised events of the year (sports-related or otherwise), it’s also an unspoken excuse to sit on a couch for four hours while downing high-calorie snacks and drinks. But you don’t have to send your diet into the “red zone” this weekend in the name of team support. You just have to have the right game plan!

Starting today, you can up your exercise regimen for the next three days in anticipation of ingesting more calories on Sunday. Keep track of those “extra calories” you burn these next three days so you can cash them in on snacks and drinks during the big game.

If you’re heading to a friend’s house for a potluck, make sure you at least bring a healthy dish to eat. Don’t expect everyone else to cater to your diet restrictions or limitations. Just be realistic that the Super Bowl is about party foods, not health foods. It’s likely others at the party will appreciate having something available on the lighter side too. 

Think about your field position in relation to the snack table. Don’t sit down next to the nachos or strap a bucket of wings to your knees. Put some distance between you and the food so you’ll have to get up to get a refill. 

Don’t grab the football-sized plates if possible. If your host only has dinner plates, fill it with veggies first, leaving yourself only a small amount of room for the fattening stuff. Small appetizer plates are best. 

Fill up before you watch. You don’t have to start the game on an empty stomach! You can fill up at home or with healthy foods before you start watching. This will help you avoid mindless snacking while you’re hungry and paying attention to the game. 

Hire a water boy. Okay, this one is meant to be funny, but in reality, you want to be drinking as much water before, during and after the game as you can. Alcoholic drinks and sodas have a lot calories in them, so quench your thirst with the good stuff as often as you can. 

In the end, remember that your goal for that day is to watch the game and enjoy your time with friends and family - not to see how much food you can fit in your stomach. And your goal for this year is to be healthy and lose weight - not derail yourself during the last football game of the season. 

Keep an eye on the prize - your health! Have fun and go Giants/Patriots!

Boost Your Willpower by Exercising It (and Feeding It!)

Bacon – a love story

I love bacon. It tastes heavenly just pan-fried, baked or even microwaved. And it works beautifully in many recipes. It can turn a so-so recipe into something special. But it is also high in calories, saturated fat and sodium. So what is a bacon-loving but health conscious person to do? Keep it or ditch it?

Nutrition

One ounce of cooked bacon (about 28 grams) is equivalent to about 3½ slices of cooked bacon.  On average, this portion size provides (and microwaving is just a hair lower than the other cooking methods):

145 calories

11 g total fat (68% of total calories)

3.7 g saturated fat (23% of total calories)

10 g protein

0 g carbs

31 g cholesterol (10% of 300 mg daily limit)

612 mg sodium (27% of 2300 mg daily limit)

2% DV iron

Are You Getting Enough Iron?

How ironic that one of the most abundant minerals on earth, iron, also happens to be the mineral most likely to be too low in the human body. Iron deficiency anemia is the most common nutrient deficiency in the world and it affects both children and adults. This is primarily because heme iron, the kind that is most easily absorbed into our blood, is concentrated in certain foods that not everyone has consistent access to, can afford, or is willing to eat. Heme iron comes from animal sources, with the highest concentration in mollusks, liver, kidneys and red meat/poultry.

The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for iron (from heme and non-heme sources) for men of all ages and women over 50 years is 8 mg/day. Women up to age 50 years need 18 mg. Women who are pregnant need a whopping 27 mg; whereas those who are breastfeeding need only 9 mg.

Heme Iron

See the list below for particularly good sources of heme iron. The iron value displayed is for the plain, cooked versions of these foods, typically braised or simmered. Iron values were obtained from the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Nutrient Data Laboratory. MyNetDiary expresses iron as a percentage of your RDA in logs and reports.

3 oz cooked portion (85 grams):  Iron (mg)
Mollusks:  Clams:  23.7 mg (note that canned clams are a lot lower in iron, only 2.3 mg)
Mollusks:  Cuttlefish:  9.2 mg
Mollusks:  Octopus:  8.1 mg
Mollusks:  Oysters:  6.6 mg
Mollusks:  Mussels:  5.7 mg
Liver:  Pork:  15.2 mg
Liver:  Chicken:  9.9 mg
Liver:  Beef:  5.6 mg
Liver:  Veal:  4.3 mg
Kidneys:  Lamb:  10.5 mg
Kidneys:  Beef:  4.9 mg
Kidneys:  Pork:  4.5 mg
Duck:  Peking and Wild:  3.8 mg
Duck:  All others:  2.3 mg
Beef:  Trimmed, lean cuts:  2.5 – 3 mg
Turkey:  Dark Meat Only:  2 mg
Chicken:  Dark Meat Only:  1.1 mg
Pork:  Most Cuts:  < 1 mg

Non-Heme Iron

What if you are vegetarian, allergic to seafood or hate organ meats? Can you meet your need for iron from plants and fortified foods? Probably, yes.

Best plant sources of iron include fortified breakfast cereals and grains (e.g. ¾ cup of Kellogg’s bran flakes = 18 mg), mature soybeans (1 cup cooked= 8.8 mg), lentils (1 cup cooked = 6.6 mg), average of other cooked dried beans (1 cup = 4.3 mg), sesame seeds (3 tbsp or 1 oz = 4.2 mg), cooked spinach (1/2 cup = 3.2 mg), tofu (1/2 cup firm = 2 – 3.4 mg), and poppy seeds (3 tbsp or 1 oz = 2.7 mg).

Although plants can be quite high in iron, they contain the non-heme type which is more poorly absorbed than heme iron. Non-heme iron can get bound up (chelated) with other food components found in plants, such as phytate (e.g. found in legumes, whole grains, and spinach) and calcium. As well, polyphenols found in tea, coffee and cocoa can also decrease absorption of non-heme iron. Key cooking strategies to enhance or improve absorption of non-heme iron from plant sources include:

• Cook with foods high in vitamin C or other acidic foods (e.g. peppers, tomatoes, citrus fruit, etc)
• Cook in a cast iron skillet
• Soak and sprout beans, grains, and seeds before using

Low-Fat Diets Losing Ground?

The 50+ year-old mantra, “Eat a low-fat diet,” may be on its way out of the American conscious, according to mounting reports that the approach has little scientific support and may lead to dieters disproportionately increasing their carb and sugar intake. According to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, increased carbohydrate and sugar intake causes more health problems than fat intake, including obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and hypertension.

Dr. Edward Saltzman, who is interviewed in the article, says that fat used to be public enemy No. 1, but now research is showing that carbohydrates, especially those in refined flour and sugar, are the leading cause of metabolic diseases.

Americans eat, on average, 250 to 300 grams of carbs a day, accounting for 55 percent of their caloric intake. Conservative estimates suggest that carb intake should be half the average. What happens when we eat carbs is that those carbohydrates are converted into sugar in our bloodstream, and the more refined the carb the quicker it converts into blood sugar. To manage the body’s blood sugar, our pancreas produces insulin, which moves sugar into cells where it is stored as fuel (in the form of glycogen). The body eventually tires of converting heavy loads of carbs in the system and the pancreas can’t produce enough insulin to keep up with the glycose in the blood, thus diabetes develops.

Additionally, carbs “bully” fats and convince the body to burn them first as fuel before fats, and the carbs that go unburned get stored as fat. This fat remains as long as there are new carbs being introduced in the body, and with their high prevalence in the American diet, it’s a steady stream.

With the stronger emphasis put on properly managing carb intake and the fact that not all fats are bad (see “Fats” at MyNetDiary.com), the government-mandated “low-fat” messaging is getting lost quicker than those extra holiday pounds we put on over Christmas.

Lastly, news like this is a reminder that with MyNetDiary’s food journal, you can keep a close eye on more than just calories (meaning fats - all types - and carbs), making it a comprehensive tool for healthy living.

Additional Resources:
-”About Low Carb Diets” - MyNetDiary
-”A Big Fat Debate” - Huffington Post

RIP: Jack LaLanne - “Godfather of Fitness”

On January 23, Jack LaLanne passed away at 96 years young. LaLanne was many things - a TV celebrity, an entrepreneur, a chiropractor, a world-record setter, an inventor and a juice fanatic. Chances are that most people today know him for starting a juicing craze in the 90s by marketing the “Juice Tiger” and “Jack LaLanne’s Power Juicer.” But he also hosted the longest-running television exercise program ever created, The Jack LaLanne Show, which aired for 34 years. And at 42, he set the world record for push-ups: 1,033 in 23 minutes! He also performed many incredible swimming feats around his home city of San Francisco.

In 1936, LaLanne opened his own gym/health spa in Oakland, California, and was one of the first professionals to encourage people to train with weights, including women (although many critics thought it would make women look too masculine). Doctors at the time thought that weight-training, in general, would cause people to have heart attacks and lose their sex drive. LaLanne never listened.

In fact, LaLanne went on to create some of the most well-known pieces of exercise equipment still found and used in gyms today. If you’ve ever done leg-extensions or used a pulley machine with cables and weight selectors, you owe a debt of sweat to Jack LaLanne. He also invented the first model of what became the Smith Machine, and on his 95th birthday he published a book, Live Young Forever, in which he discusses how he kept active and healthy in his advanced years.

LaLanne was very conscious of his diet and promoted a mostly vegetarian fare that included fish. He often criticized the “average” high-fat American diet because he felt people ate foods for which they did not know the calorie content or nutritional value. He was often quoted for his two simple rules of nutrition: “If man made it, don’t eat it” and “If it tastes good, spit it out.” LaLanne’s opinions about coffee, food additives and drugs were that they masked the effects of malnutrition and if people ate more natural foods, their bodies would not crave these things.

Other icons in the industry, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, revered LaLanne and believed he led billions of people to healthier lives through his promotion of fitness, exercise and healthful dieting. What do you think? Did LaLanne positively influence your life, or your parent’s life? Please share your story with us.

November is American Diabetes Month

In the never-ending effort to raise awareness about diabetes, the American Diabetes Association has used November as “American Diabetes Month,” giving us all the chance to discuss the importance and seriousness of diabetes prevention and control. Please help us spread the word about this important cause.

In the United States, nearly 24 million children and adults are living with diabetes and an additional 57 million Americans are at risk. Unless the current trend ends, one out of three children born today will face a future with diabetes. Since 1987, diabetes-related deaths have increased by 45 percent, while deaths related to heart disease, stroke and cancer have declined.

The effects of diabetes are often severe, causing nerve damage, slowed digestion, sexual dysfunction, heart disease, stroke, possible amputation, and diabetes is the leading cause of new cases of blindness in adults. Diabetes is not only debilitating, it is also costly. It is estimated that $1 out of every $5 spent on healthcare is for diabetes-related care, and those who have diabetes spend over two times as much on healthcare compared to those without diabetes.

Diabetes does not always present early clear symptoms. Approximately one out of three people with type-2 diabetes experience no symptoms or go undiagnosed for years. This is why it is very important to take early action in addressing the possible onset of diabetes and why “American Diabetes Month” should be recognized every month, not just in November.

What You Can Do:

• Learn how to survive the upcoming holidays with the “Celebration Survival Guide” available at stopdiabetes.com.
• Take control of your health and request a free copy of “Top Five Ways to Stop Diabetes and Get Healthy Right Now!” or “What Can I Eat?” booklet by calling 1-800-DIABETES.
• Become an Advocate for the cause and help stop diabetes through any number of advocacy efforts.
• Talk to your doctor about your risk for diabetes and monitor the foods in your diet.
• The ADA recommends that everyone over 45 get tested for diabetes and those under 45 who are overweight be tested.
• The Diabetes Prevention Program has shown that diet and exercise were more effective than medication in delaying the development of diabetes, and the DPP says that moderately exercising 30 minutes a day combined with a 5-10 reduction in weight can reduce diabetes development by 58 percent.

Stress, Diet & Your Gut

Does stress throw your gut into a tailspin?  Do certain foods or beverages make you miserable – cause pain, cramping, gas, diarrhea, heartburn, indigestion, belching, bloating, or nausea?  If you said yes, then you probably have a sensitive gut!  One of the most helpful, consumer-oriented publications that I have recently read on the gut-diet-stress connection is the Harvard Medical School Special Health Report, “The Sensitive Gut.” The information contained in this post comes from this report, as well as from the American Dietetic Association’s Nutrition Care Manual.

Our gut and brain are intimately connected – nerve signals are sent to and from both organs.  When people experience stress, their body prepares for “fight or flight.”  These neural signals put the gut on standby so that the body doesn’t waste energy on digestion when it needs to focus on survival.  This system works well when a true life-threatening stress exists, but ends up creating a functional gut disorder when it is chronic.  Can chronic stress be the cause of your gut distress?  Not all of us are aware of when we are experiencing chronic stress.  Here are some common stress-related symptoms:

Physical: stiff muscles (especially in the neck and shoulders), headaches, sleeping problems, shakiness, recent loss of interest in sex, recent weight loss or gain and restlessness.

Behavior: procrastination, teeth grinding, difficulty finishing work, change in food or alcohol intake, increase in smoking, withdrawing from others and brooding about stressful situations.

Emotional: crying, feeling overwhelmed, can’t relax, concentrate, remember or make decisions, nervousness, quick temper, depression and loss of sense of humor.

Chronic stress can be managed.  What works for you?  For many, exercise, cognitive behavior therapy (learning how to change negative self-talk), relaxation techniques (e.g. deep breathing, meditation, massage, tai chi, and yoga) and antidepressant medication are effective.

Heartburn

Stress can cause or make heartburn worse.  What is heartburn?  It could be reflux or GERD (gastro-esophageal reflux disease) – the back-flow of stomach acid into the esophagus.  A working sphincter is supposed to prevent back-flow, but damage over time can make it leaky.  Acid reflux can cause pain and damage to the esophagus.  If you have chronic heartburn, please get it checked by your physician for appropriate treatment. Diet and lifestyle changes might not be enough – you might need GERD medication.

Some factors can make GERD worse, so take a look at the list below.

Foods/beverages: alcohol, caffeine (especially coffee), chocolate, high-fat foods (especially fried foods), mint and carbonated drinks (e.g. soft drinks).

Eating patterns: eating large meals, lying down within 3 hours after eating or not staying upright after eating (e.g. bending over, straining, etc).

Other factors: smoking, being overweight or obese and certain medications (e.g. oral contraceptives, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, bronchodilators, osteoporosis drugs, certain antidepressants, and calcium-channel blockers).

Tips to help you control GERD symptoms:

• Eat smaller meals:  eat 3-5 smaller meals instead of 1-2 large meals.
• Avoid foods that “burn” after eating.
• Stay upright for 3 hours or more after eating.
• Avoid tight belts or waistbands while you eat.
• Eat in a calm and relaxing environment.
• Lose weight if you are overweight.
• Wait at least 2 hours after eating a meal before exercising vigorously.
• Sleep with the head of your bed frame raised about 6 inches.

Tracking Can Help

Do you know which foods make your heartburn or reflux worse?  Tracking your food and beverage intake will help you identify dietary triggers.  I found MyNetDiary to be extremely helpful in identifying dietary components and amounts that trigger my GERD symptoms.  Now that I know my triggers, I can avoid them to help manage my GERD.

Have questions about this topic?  Let’s hear from you!  Post your questions on MyNetDiary’s Community Forum.

Best,
Kathy Isacks, MPS, RD
Consulting Dietitian for MyNetDiary

Disclaimer: Please note that we cannot provide personalized advice and that the information provided does not constitute medical advice. If you are seeking medical advice, please visit a medical professional.