Holiday Fashion

Christmas is fast approaching.  Wondering what to wear to your holiday festivities?  Here's some tips from Yahoo's The Thread:

Avoid: Head-to-toe red. Unless you want to look like Mrs. Claus herself, stay away from A-line dresses, solid reds, wide black belts.  Go with separates!  Pick one area to use your "red" (red skinny jeans with a silk shirt or a sweater, a red skirt tucked into a belt).  Scout's honor, you will look much more tres chic!


Avoid: Holiday-themed sweaters.  Unless you are going to an "Ugly Christmas Sweater Party" or are aiming to pay homage to the Griswolds, leave them in the closet!  Reach for the fitted sweaters with embelishments.  Skinny jeans, heels.  Badda-bing, badda-bang!

Avoid: Oversized bows.  Leave the bows for the presents!  This is not the 80's so stay awa from ostentatious bows with satin and taffeta. If you feel the need for a bow, go with tiny, flat, and barely-there.  Much more flattering.

Avoid: Over-accessorizing.  "Deck the tree, not yourself".  If you're into chandelier earrings, multi-strand necklaces, bangles and fistfuls of rings that's great... but choose one!  When worn all at once it's overwhelming!
Avoid: Too much plaid.  Mixing the prints makes for a holiday no-no. A fitted flannel with skinny jeans and tall boots or a plaid scarf over a slim, knit top are easy and stylish ways to incorporate the pattern into your wardrobe without overdosing!

At Home Treatments for Clear Skin

If you're like me, this hot then cold, dry then wet weather is wreaking havoc with your skin.  If it's not, please do me a favor and don't tell me!! :)  I found this really great article online the other day with some great "at home" skin care tips that sound really easy to do and a lot cheaper than these name brand products.

Check it out:

http://health.yahoo.net/articles/skin-conditions/photos/7-home-treatments-super-clear-skin#1

Target Deals!

Just in time for those last minute gifts!!

TARGET BABY: MOBILE EXCLUSIVE! Spend $50 on baby, get a $10 gift card. Online only. Thru Sat. Enter "BABYMOBILE" @ checkout: www.target.com/baby

The Grinch

Every year at my job they do a contest encouraging people to maintain, not necessarily lose, weight during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.  It's called "The Grinch Stole Pounds".  You weigh in prior to Thanksgiving and weigh in again sometime in January.  If you at least maintained your weight you get a small prize and are entered into a drawing for a bigger prize.  Seeing as how I have about 10 pounds I am dying to shed, I figured why not.  I managed to lose half a pound over Thanksgiving break, but have since gained a full pound back :(   Our Employee Health office sends out emails regularly during this season with helpful tips to help us reach our goal during this contest.  I figured I would share the latest email with y'all because I'm sure I'm not the only one trying to watch her weight this Christmas season:



Good afternoon!


As you purchase your holiday snacks, please review this list for some healthier choices:


Instead of…. (Enjoy)…

Fried tortilla chips Baked tortilla chips (reduced sodium version)

Regular potato chips Pretzels or low-fat potato chips

High-fat cookies and crackers Graham crackers, rice cakes, fig bars, ginger snaps

Regular baked goods Baked goods made with unsaturated oil, egg whites or egg substitutes and fat-free milk

Devil’s food cake Angel food cake

Ice cream bars Frozen fruit bars

Ice cream Sherbet, frozen low-fat yogurt

Pudding made with whole milk Pudding made with fat-free milk

Doughnut Bagel



Enjoy your holiday snacks, but make good choices when you can! Remember: don’t over-eat the “good” snacks – they still have calories.

The GRINCH

My Hero

My husband was on TV!! (most of it you can't understand cause it's in a foreign language)

http://www.kohavision.net/video/cosmo/5097/

Check him out!!

Pump Some Iron

Over the past year I have packed on about 20 lbs.  I can't stand it.  My goal is to lose 10 of that before my husband comes home.  I'm trying to eat healthier, eat less, and do *SOME* exercise in what little bit of free time I can find.  So far I've been focusing on cardio (walking, jogging, aerobic videos, etc) foregoing strength training thinking I would hit the weights after I started shedding some pounds.  Then I ran across the following article:

Despite study after study supporting the benefits of strength training, many women still opt for cardio over weights. Maybe they’re worried about “bulking up.” Women have seen a few too many beefy men grunting it out in the weight room and fear that if they pick up a dumbbell, they’ll suddenly start to resemble a linebacker, too.




This can happen, although it’s extremely rare, as we reveal in 6 Ways to Beat Your Bad Genes. But for most women, “this just isn’t possible,” says personal trainer and Prevention fitness expert Chris Freytag. “Ladies have too much estrogen in their hormonal makeup.”



So what is the secret to looking toned (think: Michelle Obama’s arms, which we have the secret to) but not tough? Strength training.



Here, nine reasons why women should strength train at least two or three times a week.



1. Your metabolism will soar.

As women age, they naturally lose muscle mass. This causes your metabolism to slow, which means you could start building a spare tire by the time you reach your 30s. “When you do weight-bearing exercises, you start revving up your metabolism—and it keeps burning for many hours after your workout,” says Wayne Westcott, PhD, director of fitness research at Quincy College and Prevention advisory board member.



2. You’ll you burn fat.

Muscle tissue is more "active" than fat tissue, with each pound burning about 30 calories a day just to sustain itself. So even if you’re sitting on the couch or are stuck at your desk for eight hours a day, the extra muscle mass you develop will burn more calories, helping you finally get rid of that spare tire—and keep it off for good. (If you want to love your lower body more than you do, check out this fat-blasting do-anywhere workout from Freytag.)



3. Your body will get tighter.

While cardio is important and will help melt fat, weights sculpt your body, creating curves and definition right where you want it. They also help fight the effects of gravity, making you much less likely to have arm jiggle in your upper arms. (Scientists discovered the three best moved for perfect upper arms—check them out.)



4. You’ll fit into your skinny jeans.

“One pound of fat takes up much more space than one pound of muscle,” says CrossFit athlete and certified level-1 trainer Cheryl Brost, a 41-year-old mother of two. “So even though muscle weighs more, what do you want all over your body? Something that’s bulky, like body fat, or something that’s lean, and takes up less space, like muscle?”



5. You’ll reduce your risk of heart disease and diabetes.

Curbing age-related muscles loss isn’t just good for your looks; it can protect your heart and help ward off type 2 diabetes, too. "Muscle helps remove glucose and triglycerides from the bloodstream, which reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes, as well as hardening of the arteries," says Timothy Church, MD, PhD, a preventive medicine expert at Pennington Biomedical Research Center. For specific exercises that can reduce your diabetes risk, check out our Diabetes Exercise Solution.



6. Your blood pressure could drop.

"Strength training lowers blood pressure for ten to twelve hours after each session, which gives your heart a break," says William Haskell, PhD, professor emeritus of medicine at Stanford University. "How strength training does this is not completely understood, but it probably has subtle effects on everything from hormones to nervous system regulation."



7. You can do it anytime, anywhere.

You don’t need a lot of space or a lot of special equipment to get a great strength workout, says Westcott. Simply using your own bodyweight through the use of pushups, planks, chair dips, squats, and pull-ups is enough to tone and strengthen your entire body. Bonus: You can do it indoors, which means you don’t have to weather the cold, freezing temps of winter or the scorching heat of summer.



8. You’ll blast loads of calories.

Plyometric strength moves (think squat jumps and burpees) and kettlebell workouts skyrocket your heart rate, which boosts the calorie burn of regular strength training routines. These types of workouts give you cardio, strength, and sculpting all in one, which is a great timesaver, says Freytag.



9. It’s good for your bones.

Strength training is one of the 12 best ways to break-proof your bones. “Lifting weights can help counteract age-related bone loss,” says Ethel Siris, MD, director of the Toni Stabile Center for Osteoporosis at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City. “Strengthening your muscles also improves balance and keeps you as strong as possible which lowers your chances of a fall-related fracture.


(cited from: http://health.yahoo.net/experts/yourbestfitness/why-women-dont-should-lift-weights)

DUH!! I knew all of that.  Learned it in college.  But that was YEARS ago :) so I must have tucked it away in a neat little corner of my mind and forgot about it.  Glad I ran across this article!  I'll start pumping some iron ASAP!!

Diet Schmiet

Today at work I received the following email from a physician at the hospital where I work. It refers to the common misconception that if you drink diet drinks or eat "diet" foods, you may not necessarily be doing yourself any favors. On a personal note, I can vouch for the artificial sweetener effect. I am addicted to Coke. It's sad really. Especially when I was in college, it helped me stay awake and alert all day and well into the night for study sessions. I majored in Exercise Science in college and for one of my classes we did a caloric intake assessment. Based on what I found, I was going to gain an ungodly amount of weight over the next 10 years from soda calories alone! So being the "smart" person I am, I switched to Diet Cokes. Guess what? I gained weight over the next two months. Since I really didn't like the taste of diet sodas and it seemed to be having the adverse effect I was looking for, I switched back. I didn't have all the facts or scientific data to prove what was going on, just my own anectdotal evidence. The following email explains what happened:





By Dr. "X"



Are you using artificial sweeteners and opting for low-cal "diet" foods in an effort to control of your weight?



If so, you may be surprised to learn that research has repeatedly shown that artificial no- or low-calorie sweeteners are anything but good news for weight loss... Contrary to popular belief, studies have found that artificial sweeteners such as aspartame can:



• Stimulate your appetite



• Increase carbohydrate cravings



• Stimulate fat storage and weight gain



Now, yet another study1 has been published showing that saccharin and aspartame cause greater weight gain than sugar.



The belief that artificially sweetened foods and beverages will help you lose weight is a carefully orchestrated deception. So if you are still opting for "diet" choices for this reason, you are being sorely misled. Ditto for diabetics, as recent research has shown aspartame also worsens insulin sensitivity.



The fact that these are still being promoted as "diet" flies in the face of any rational behavior. One wonders why the FTC doesn't come down like a ton of bricks on these companies for massively fraudulent marketing.



New Study Negates Weight Management Claims of Artificial Sweeteners



The featured study, published in the January 2013 issue of the journal Appetite2, was done by a Brazilian research team with the Faculty of Medicine of the Federal University do Rio Grande do Sul. Rats were fed plain yogurt sweetened with either aspartame, saccharin, or sugar, plus their regular rat chow, for 12 weeks.



"Results showed that addition of either saccharin or aspartame to yogurt resulted in increased weight gain compared to addition of sucrose, however total caloric intake was similar among groups," the researchers write.3



The reason for the similar calorie consumption between the groups was due to increased chow consumption by the rats given artificially sweetened yoghurt. This type of compensation has been found in previous studies4 as well, indicating that when your body gets a hit of sweet taste without the calories to go with it, it adversely affects your appetite control mechanisms, causing increased food cravings. The authors concluded that:



"Greater weight gain was promoted by the use of saccharin or aspartame, compared with sucrose, and this weight gain was unrelated to caloric intake. We speculate that a decrease in energy expenditure or increase in fluid retention might be involved."



You Actually Gain Weight by Using "Artificial Sweeteners



A 2010 scientific review published in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine (YJBM)5 discussed the neurobiology of sweet cravings and the unexpected effect of artificial sweeteners on appetite control. It cites several large scale prospective cohort studies that found positive correlations between artificial sweetener use and weight gain, which flies in the face of "conventional wisdom" to cut calories in order to lose weight. For example:



"The San Antonio Heart Study6 examined 3,682 adults over a seven- to eight-year period in the 1980s. When matched for initial body mass index (BMI), gender, ethnicity, and diet, drinkers of artificially sweetened beverages consistently had higher BMIs at the follow-up, with dose dependence on the amount of consumption. Average BMI gain was +1.01 kg/m2 for control and 1.78 kg/m2 for people in the third quartile for artificially sweetened beverage consumption.



The American Cancer Society study7 conducted in early 1980s included 78,694 women who were highly homogenous with regard to age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and lack of preexisting conditions. At one-year follow-up, 2.7 percent to 7.1 percent more regular artificial sweetener users gained weight compared to non-users matched by initial weight... Saccharin use was also associated with eight-year weight gain in 31,940 women from the Nurses' Health Study8 conducted in the 1970s."



Experiments have found that sweet taste, regardless of its caloric content, enhances your appetite. Aspartame has been found to have the most pronounced effect, but the same applies for other artificial sweeteners, such as acesulfame potassium and saccharin.



The reason why glucose or sucrose (table sugar) tends to lead to lower food consumption compared to non-caloric artificial sweeteners is because the calories contained in natural sweeteners trigger biological responses to keep your overall energy consumption constant. This was again evidenced in a study9 published last year, which concluded that:



"The results support the hypothesis that consuming non-caloric sweeteners may promote excessive intake and body weight gain by weakening a predictive relationship between sweet taste and the caloric consequences of eating."



In essence, real sugar allows your body to accurately determine that it has received enough calories, thereby activating satiety signaling. Without the calories, your appetite is activated by the sweet taste, but as your body keeps waiting for the calories to come, sensations of hunger remain.



"Human research must rely on subjective ratings and voluntary dietary control. Rodent models helped elucidate how artificial sweeteners contribute to energy balance. Rats conditioned with saccharin supplement had significantly elevated total energy intake and gained more weight with increased body adiposity compared to controls conditioned with glucose. Saccharin-conditioned rats also failed to curb their chow intake following a sweet pre-meal...



Increasing evidence suggests that artificial sweeteners do not activate the food reward pathways in the same fashion as natural sweeteners... Lastly, artificial sweeteners, precisely because they are sweet, encourage sugar craving and sugar dependence... Unsweetening the world's diet may be the key to reversing the obesity epidemic," the YJBM review states.10



That last statement is probably the most accurate conclusion there is. Americans in particular are addicted to the flavor sweet, which appears to trigger a complex set of biological systems, pathways, and mechanisms that in the end leads to excess weight gain whether that flavor comes loaded with calories or not.



Another Oft-Ignored Mechanism Driving Weight Gain from Artificial Sweeteners



Another reason for aspartame's potential to cause weight gain is because phenylalanine and aspartic acid – the two amino acids that make up 90 percent of aspartame -- are known to rapidly stimulate the release of insulin and leptin; two hormones that are intricately involved with satiety and fat storage. Insulin and leptin are also the primary hormones that regulate your metabolism.



So although you're not consuming calories in the form of sugar, aspartame can still raise your insulin and leptin levels. Elevated insulin and leptin levels, in turn, are two of the driving forces behind obesity, diabetes, and a number of our current chronic disease epidemics. Over time, if your body is exposed to too much leptin, it will become resistant to it, just as your body can become resistant to insulin, and once that happens, your body can no longer "hear" the hormonal messages instructing your body to stop eating, burn fat, and maintain good sensitivity to sweet tastes in your taste buds.



What happens then?



You remain hungry; you crave sweets, and your body stores more fat. Leptin-resistance also causes an increase in visceral fat, sending you on a vicious cycle of hunger, fat storage and an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and more.



Additionally, large doses of phenylalanine can lower important neurotransmitters like sero¬tonin,11 which also influences satiety. Decreased serotonin levels reduce feelings of satiety, which can then lead to over-eating or binge eating. In the end, the research tells us that artificial sweeteners are nothing more than a pipe dream when it comes to being a dieter's aid, because contrary to what the marketing campaigns claim, low- or no-calorie artificial sweeteners are more likely to help you pack on the pounds than shed them.



What's the Answer for Stubborn Weight Gain?



The first thing you need to understand is that counting calories is typically useless for weight loss. This is because calories are NOT created equal, and will not have identical effects on your weight or health. And, as reviewed above, trying to fool your body with artificial sweeteners devoid of calories is not the answer. In fact, it will likely make matters worse.



Secondly, it's important to realize that the preferred fuel for your body is fat, not carbohydrates. Switching from a carb-based diet to a fat- and protein-based diet will help rebalance your body's chemistry, and a natural side effect of this is weight loss, and/or improved weight management once you're at an ideal weight. One explanation for this is that you don't really get fat from eating too much and exercising too little. Nor do you get fat from eating fat.



In fact, there's reason to believe that most people's health would benefit from having:



• As much as 60-70 percent healthful fats in their diet, and



• No more than one gram of protein per kilo of lean body mass or about 0.5 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass. (Can be increased by 25 percent if pregnant or aggressively exercising). To determine your lean body mass, calculate your body fat percentage and subtract that from 100. So if you are 20 percent body fat you would have 80 percent lean body mass. Then, multiply that times your current weight to get lean body mass in kilos or pounds



Dr. Richard Johnson's latest book, The Fat Switch, dispels many of the most pervasive myths relating to diet and obesity. He discovered the method that animals use to gain fat prior to times of food scarcity, which turned out to be a powerful adaptive benefit. His research showed that fructose activates a key enzyme, fructokinase, which in turn activates another enzyme that causes cells to accumulate fat. When this enzyme is blocked, fat cannot be stored in the cell.



Interestingly, this is the exact same "switch" animals use to fatten up in the fall and to burn fat during the winter. Fructose is the dietary ingredient that turns on this "switch," causing cells to accumulate fat, both in animals and in humans.



In essence, overeating and excess weight could be viewed as a symptom of the wrong proportion of macronutrients. You're simply not feeding your body the right fuel. It's not necessarily the result of eating too many calories, per se, but rather getting your calories from the wrong sources. In simple terms, when you consume too many sugars and carbs, you set off a cascade of chemical reactions in your body that makes you hungry and leaves you craving for sweets.



Even if you have the highest quality raw and organic foods, if you have a non-optimal combination with identical calories, you will likely gain weight. So listen to your body and if you are one of the two-thirds of people who are overweight, seriously consider radically reducing your carbs and replacing them with fibrous vegetables, lowering your protein levels to the quantity discussed above, and replacing those missing calories with healthy fats from coconut oil, olives, olive oil, avocado, pastured grass fed butter, and nuts. You can also try intermittent fasting, which will give you a radical jumpstart in your ability to normalize your weight.

A patient brought these into the clinic for Christmas last year and they are DELICIOUS!! So I plan on trying to make them myself this year:

These Chocolate Pecan Meringues Cookies are simply tiny meringues chock full of chocolate and pecans. They keep for a long time - as long as they stay nice and dry. Getting them dry in the first place involves leaving them in a turned-off oven overnight – hence the name "Forgotten Cookies" often given cookies of this type.

Prep Time: 15 minutesCook Time: 45 minutes"Drying" Time: 8 hoursTotal Time: 8 hours, 60 minutesYield: About 2 dozen cookies

Ingredients:

• 6 egg whites
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup finely chopped bittersweet chocolate or cocoa nibs
• 1 cup chopped pecans

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 225°F. In a large bowl beat egg whites until very frothy. Add salt and continue beating until the egg whites form stiff peaks (when you lift a beater out not only does a peak remain in the bowl of whites, but you can turn the beater upside down and the peak on it will hold its shape against gravity).
2. Reduce speed of the beater or mixer to medium-slow and add sugar 3 or 4 tablespoons at a time. Let each addition dissolve into the whites before adding another. Once all the sugar is added the whites should look glossy and as smooth as ice.
3. Gently fold in chocolate or cocoa nibs and pecans.
4. Line three large baking sheets with parchment paper or silpat baking mats and drop spoonfuls of the mixture on the pans. Bake for 25 minutes, rotate pans, bake for another 25 minutes, and turn the oven off. Let the cookies sit and slowly but surely dry out overnight. In the morning turn the oven back on to 200. Let it come to temperature, bake the cookies 15 minutes, turn the oven off, and let them sit until the oven is completely cool.
5. Store cookies in an airtight container. Since they are just meringue and chocolate and nuts they keep several weeks. If it’s humid out or starts to rain they may start to stick. Just dry them out in a 200° oven for 10 -15 minutes.

Sinfully delicious!  :)

I'm Baaaack!

Can't believe it's been so long! And guess what, it's Christmas time again. That means new Christmas pics. Can you believe how much AlyCat has grown?!

Time sure does fly!