How Many Sodas HaveYou Have Today?

How many sodas have you had today? How about your kids? 

The average American drinks an estimated 56 gallons of soft drinks each year, nearly a gallonof soda every week.  Before you grab the next can of soda, consider this: one can of soda has about 10 teaspoons of sugar, 150 calories, 30 to 55 mg of caffeine, and is loaded with artificial coloring and sulphites. All of that amount of sugar, calories and harmful additives in a product that has absolutely no nutritional value. Studies also have linked soda to osteoporosis, obesity, tooth decay, and heart disease.

Soft drinks are being marketed toward children and teenagers who are among the largest consumers. Marketers spend close to $500 million dollars a year to reach children and adolescents with messages about sugar-sweetened drinks, more than they spend on any other category. Teenage boys drink, on average, three or more cans of soda per day, and 10 percent drink seven or more cans a day. The average for teenage girls is more than two cans a day, and 10 percent drink more than five cans a day. A child’s risk for obesity increases an average of 60 percent with every additional daily serving of soda.

Schools and Soda Consumption

While these numbers may sound high, they’re not surprising considering that most school hallways are lined with vending machines that sell, of course, soft drinks. It’s not uncommon for schools to make marketing deals with leading soft drink companies from which they receive commissions, based on a percentage of sales at each school.

Getting rid of vending machines in schools--or replacing their contents with pure water and healthy snacks--could make a big difference, as vending machines can increase the consumption of sweetened beverages by up to 50 or more cans of soda per student per year.

Let’s take a look at some of the major components of a can of soda.

In one can of Soda, you will find:

• Sugar. Soft drink manufacturers are the largest single user of refined sugar in the United States. It is a proven fact that sugar increases insulin levels, which can lead to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes, weight gain, premature aging, and many more negative side effects. Most sodas include over 100 percent of the recommended daily amount (RDA) of sugar.

• Aspartame. This chemical is used as a sugar substitute in diet sodas. There are over 92 different health side effects associated with aspartame consumption which include but not limited to brain tumors, diabetes, emotional disorders, and epilepsy/seizures. When aspartame is stored for long periods of time or kept in warm areas it changes to methanol, an alcohol that converts to formaldehyde and formic acid, which are known carcinogens.

• Caffeine.Caffeinated drinks cause jitters, insomnia, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, elevated blood cholesterol levels, vitamin and mineral depletion, breast lumps, and perhaps some forms of cancer.

• Tap Water. Tap water is the main ingredient in bottled soft drinks. Everyone needs to avoid drinking tap water because it can carry any number of chemicals including chlorine, trihalomethanes, lead, cadmium, and various pollutants. 

Soda is one of the main reasons, nutritionally speaking, why many people suffer health problems. Aside from the negative effects of the soda itself, drinking a lot of soda is likely to leave you with little appetite for vegetables, protein, and other food that your body needs. If you are still drinking soda, stopping the habit is an easy way to start improving your health.

How to Keep the Holiday Weight in Check: Enjoy the Holidays by Using Your Head

Cakes. Pies. Cookies. Fudge. Eggnog. Buffet tables filled with rich foods. It's no wonder many people feel holiday weight gain is unavoidable. But experts say you can still enjoy the holidays without abandoning healthier habits.

People generally gain about a pound during each holiday season, according to researchers from the National Institutes of Health. The problem is that this annual holiday weight gain tends to add up over the years and can eventually lead to obesity.

So watch what you eat while keeping in mind that falling off the wagon once during the holidays doesn't mean you should give up on healthy eating and maintaining your weight for the entire season.

Keep in mind that a holiday is just a day, it's not a holi-week, it's not a holi-month. For one day, it's okay. Just remember the following day is a new day, and it is back to healthy eating.

Tips for Avoiding Holiday Weight Gain

• Tackle the buffet table with a plan. Always survey the buffet table first and then get in line with your plate and choose the things you really want, including healthy choices.
• Have a snack before you go to a party. Most people, knowing they're going somewhere, will not eat during the day, saving up their calories. That's a nightmare waiting to happen because you'll end up eating too much because you're so hungry.
• Bring a healthy dish with you. If you're going to someone's home for a potluck or buffet, bring a low-fat, low-calorie offering. Be the one who says, ‘I'll bring a vegetable’ or ‘I'll bring a salad’.
• Engage in the leftover battle. If you're at someone else's house, don't leave with leftovers. If you're throwing the dinner party, send everyone home with leftovers.
• Talk at parties, rather than eat. Use the time to catch up with friends and family, not just to eat food.
• Keep up your normal exercise routine. You'll be able to relieve holiday stress, burn excess calories, and avoid weight gain.

Remember, you can still enjoy holiday goodies — just use your head before you open your mouth.

Coffee Talk with Jessy!

Hi everyone,

What I want to talk about today is the most common factors I see weekly during consultations and talking to clients. Excess weight may be associated with harmful health conditions including cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes, certain cancers, high blood pressure, osteoarthritis and sleep apnea. Excess weight-related illnesses are the second leading cause of death in the United States after smoking-related illnesses, claiming up to 300,000 lives a year.

Adding a few pounds as you age does not appear to significantly increase health risk. However, greater weight gain can lead to trouble. For instance, a recent study found that females who gained less than 22 pounds since the age of 18 had no increased risk of mortality. However, women who gained 22 pounds or more since the age of 18 were seven times more likely to die of heart disease and 50 percent more likely to die of cancer than were women whose weight remained stable.

The way your body fat is distributed may be as important as how much you weigh. Central obesity -- fat concentrated around the stomach -- may present greater health risks than fat located elsewhere on the body. Abdominal fat is associated with increases in heart disease, stroke, diabetes and hypertension.

Doctors like to use a fruit metaphor, invoking the difference between "apples" and "pears" to describe weight distribution. To determine which type you are, measure your waist at its narrowest point. Next, measure your hips at the widest expanse of your buttocks. Divide your waist measurement by your hip measurement. Women should have a ratio of less than 0.8 (or a waist no larger than 35 inches); men, less than 1.0 (or a waist no larger than 40 inches). If you have too much abdominal fat, make a special effort to live a healthy lifestyle.

Regular increased physical activity and lots of fruits and vegetables can help you maintain a healthy weight. If you have medical conditions like high blood pressure, see your doctor regularly.

Keep up the good work everyone!

 Jessy Hamawi, Club Fitness Nutritionist and Personal Trainer

Hidden Fat Content in Your Diet

Do you obsess over every calorie you consume, but do you worry about the fat content? Fat grams are just as important to consider as calories, and you may be surprised at which foods have a shockingly high fat content. It's probably no surprise that greasy cheeseburgers, French fries, and pizza are loaded with fat. But did you know that even certain vegetables and healthy fish can have a high fat content? Keep in mind that fat is an important part of a healthy diet and not all fats are bad. The fat content of a given meal should be evaluated just as closely as its calories.


Fat Content in Your Diet: How Much Fat Is Okay?
It's important to pay attention to how many fat grams you eat each day to make sure you're getting just the right amount of fat in your diet and no more. The AHA recommends that no more than 30 percent of your daily calories should come from fat. Based on the average daily total intake of 2,000 calories, this means we should eat less than 65 grams of fat each day.
There are two kinds of fats, commonly considered "good" and "bad" fats. Saturated and trans fats are bad, as they contribute to a number of health problems, like heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. Unsaturated fats can actually protect your body from some of these conditions. Still, that doesn't mean you can eat them without limit because too much of any fat, or of any food for that matter, can lead to weight gain.
When tracking the fat content of your meals, make sure that most of your fat intake is in the form of unsaturated fats, that less than 20 grams are coming from saturated fats, and that hardly any are from trans fat.
 
Fat in your Everyday Foods

Think of the foods that frequently make up your daily meals. Have you ever considered their fat content? Here are some commonly eaten foods:

• Average fast-food hamburger: 36 grams
• Average fast-food fish sandwich: 24 grams
• 10 French fries: 8 grams
• One ounce of potato chips: 10 grams
• One slice of cheese pizza: 8 grams
• Two ounces of bologna: 16 grams
• One hot dog: 14 grams
• Three slices of cooked bacon: 10 grams
• One ounce cheddar cheese: 8 grams
• One cup whole milk: 7 grams
• Two tablespoons of peanut butter: 14 grams
• One teaspoon of butter or margarine: 4 grams
• One serving of most breads, bagels, and cereals: about 1 gram

If some of those numbers don't look that bad to you, pay attention to the amounts and serving sizes of each of them. When was the last time you ate only one ounce of potato chips, just 10 fries, or a single slice of pizza? So think about the fat content before indulging.
 
Surprisingly High-Fat Foods
While the high fat content of certain foods is no surprise, you may not realize that many other foods are loaded with hidden fat:

• Movie theater popcorn (because of the way it's processed)
• Packaged meals with added sauces, butter, or oil
• Highly marbled red meats, including some cuts of beef and lamb
• Chicken and other poultry if the skin is eaten
• Salad dressings

Perhaps the biggest hidden sources of fats to watch out for are prepackaged snack foods and meals. They often contain dangerous trans fats - frequently listed as partially hydrogenated oil or vegetable shortening in the ingredients - because they give these foods a longer shelf life. Trans fats are particularly unhealthy for your heart and cholesterol levels and should be avoided as much as possible.

Article written by the Club Fitness Nutritionist and Personal Trainer Jessy Hamawi

 

What are Trans Fats??

Everywhere you look these days labels and commercials shout the absence of trans fats in our favorite foods. You ask yourself what are trans fat? Trans fats are made by a chemical process called partial hydrogenation where liquid vegetable oil is packed with hydrogen atoms and converted into a solid fat. Unlike saturated fats which occurs naturally in many foods, polyunsaturated fats, monounsaturated fats and trans fats are largely artificial and ideal fats for the food industry to work with because of its high melting point, its creamy, smooth texture and its reusability in deep-fat frying.

The food industry capitalizes on the unique characteristics of trans fats to serve a variety of purposes in many different foods. Partially hydrogenated fats, or trans fats, extend the shelf life of food. They also add a certain pleasing mouth-feel to all manner of processed foods. Think of buttery crackers, popcorn, crispy fries, fish sticks, creamy frosting and pastries; all these foods owe those qualities to trans fats. In the past, hydrogenated fats were seen as a healthier alternative to saturated fats: using stick margarine was deemed better for you than using butter, yet numerous studies now conclude the opposite.

Several prominent studies indicate that trans fats and hydrogenated oils induce many negative side effects, and due to their prevalence in a variety of food items these effects are magnified for persons with unhealthy diets. People with large quantities of trans fat and hydrogenated oils in their diets have been consistently shown to be at greater risk for heart disease, clogged arteries, high triglyceride levels in the blood, and high LDL (bad) cholesterol. Also some studies suggest diabetes and some types of cancer may be triggered by trans fats as well.

Food manufacturers tried to reduce or remove trans fats in time for the January 2006 labeling deadline, when trans fats had to be listed on nutrition facts labels. America's burger chain, Wendy's, was among the first of the big fast-food chains to change. New York City's Board of Health voted unanimously in December 2006 to ban trans fats in all its 24,000 restaurants, from high-end eateries to fast-food joints, becoming the first city in the United States to impose such a ban. Restaurants were banned from using most oils containing artificial trans fats by July 2007, and eliminate them from all its foods by July 2008. Currently, food manufacturers are required to state the number of grams of trans fats per serving. The new labeling requirement make identifying the amount of trans fat in foods easier for the consumer and eliminates the guess work that was once involved when adding trans fat in its various forms as partially hydrogenated or hydrogenated ingredients.

There are several steps you can take to avoid trans fats in your diet. Avoid fast food and commercial baked goods, as these often contain hidden trans fats, but most importantly, read food labels. The FDA requires packaged foods to disclose the amount of trans fats in food products. So how do you know how much is too much? The FDA recommends that a healthy adult consume no more than 10% of saturated fat and no more than 35% total fat intake of your total calorie intake. Look out for the words "shortening", "hydrogenated" and "partially hydrogenated oil", as these indicate hidden trans fats. Labels can say "0 grams of Trans Fat" even if partially hydrogenated fats are listed in the ingredients as long as a serving size contains less than 0.5g of trans fats. The catch is that all those fractions of a gram can add up if you eat more than a single serving. In an age where obesity related diseases are the greatest killers of the American public, it is vital that every person be knowledgeable of what they put into their body, to increase your knowledge about nutrition please visit www.eatright.org
 
Sources: American Dietetic Association. (2010). Retrieved on August 10, 2010 from http://www.eatright.org/public/
U.S National Institutes of Health. (2010). Retrieved on August 10, 2010 from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/dietaryfats.html

Article by the Club Fitness Nutritionist Jessy Hamawi