Annie’s Healthy Weight & Eating Blog

Here’s a neat free assessment. You can do a lifestyle questionnaire at Real Age (the website of Oprah darling Dr. Oz and his partner Dr. Roizen), that will tell you what your body’s age is based on things like your diet, how often you exercises, your stress management, health history and on and on. It takes 10-15 minutes to do. You’ll get a pitch to sign up for their program once you’ve completed the assessment. But, just for the assessment information, it’s worth the time, and maybe you’ll learn a little something.

If you are interested in the cultural issues that underlie the obesity epidemic, the Rudd Center at Yale’s website is required reading. They have done some great research on the social stigmatization around weight, and in my opinion have some of the most progressive and comprehensive ideas on making real change at the national level.

Here’s some info from their site on the shift in public opinion around obesity. Interesting reading!

There has been an interesting trajectory of public opinion about obesity. The majority of Americans are clearly concerned with obesity and there is growing support for obesity-targeted policies. The following table presents the changes that have been found in support of strategies that influence the environment in order to promote better nutrition.

Source: Brownell KD. The chronicling of obesity: Growing awareness of its social, economic, and political contexts. J of Health Politics and Law. 2005; 955-64.

I am looking people to share their story for two projects that I’m working on:

1) If you live in the Boston area, and have used conscious eating as part of your weight managing lifestyle, I would love to connect with you. There is a new, very cool sounding TV program about alternative health, and we’ve been talking about doing a piece on conscious eating. Email me if this sounds like you.

2) For a new website that has the goal of supporting people interested in launching a positive life change, I am looking for a few people to e-interview about the first 30 days of a new weight-management program - what you experienced, and advice for others taking the plunge. Again, shoot me an email if you’re willing to share.

Thanks!

Annie

I’m home from BEA (and from a quickie follow up to Harvard graduation – my smarty nieces & nephews all graduated the same year – 4 of them!).

While traveling to NYC can be stressful, if you’re braced for it, there’s just no other place to get a great overview of trends in the world of books and publishing. It’s a big circus of the latest & greatest, and a marketing extravaganza.

One trend that I was delighted to see was that there is a growing collection of authors excavating the topic of mind-body eating with a nod to yogic and spiritual principles, the laws of attraction, and the gut brain-head brain relationship. If you’ve read my book, you know that’s my approach, so I felt that I found some dietary family members there.

One discovery was Pierre Pallardy, who has a book out from Rodale has called Gut Instinct. He is a French osteopath/dietitian who has been working the two-brain theory (that we have a second brain center in the abdomen, and through relaxation and other techniques we can improve digestion) for decades. His method entails belly breathing, abdominal massage (it reminded me of Japanese Do-in massage), abdominal meditations, mindful eating (eating slowing and in a relaxed way, enjoying your food– in essence the way you’d envision they eat in France!). Nutritionally, I like his approach too – he abhors reducing diets, fasting, or other manipulations to the diet, and just goes for balanced normal eating. He’s not into a vegan diet, which is one area that I disagree – I think vegans can be very healthy if they take their diet in wholesome, hearty way.

If you are dietitian exploring how the recent science on the gut brain may impact daily lifestyle, this is a great book for you – you won’t agree with every nutritional guideline, but Pallardy gives us lots to think about, and has a truly innovative approach that has merit.

If you are a yoga teacher, this book illustrates how desperately those who struggle with weight and eating (in essence the entire US population) need yoga. And it will give you some new tools for your therapeutic yoga toolbox.

Enjoy!

This year I hit on a quick and easy recipe that did the trick for me. Through my 2-week cleanse this spring I had at least one of these Asian slaw-salads most every day. It’s rekindled my love of cabbage – which, being in the brassica family (with broccoli and onions), is a phytochemical-packed cleansing powerhouse.

Asian Slaw-Salad

What you’ll need:

• A good chef’s knife
• A clean cutting board
• 5 minutes

Ingredients:

• ½ c Savoy cabbage sliced thin
• ½ c Red cabbage sliced thin
• 1 slice fresh ginger, diced with skin trimmed
• ¼ c diced red pepper
• 1 medium carrot, diced
• 1 Tbsp fresh cilantro if available
• 2 Tbsp Asian salad dressing or
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 2 tsp rice wine vinegar

Putting it together:

Toss everything together and eat.

I got into the ritual of making this in a beautiful bowl that I love to eat out of. This slaw-salad has been a mainstay of my 3pm-give-me-carbs attack. It usually worked, and when I still craved something starchier, a few crackers didn’t turn into a box of crackers after having a bowl of slaw. Sometimes I double the recipe, and sometime I have two. It’s very low in calories and nutritionally dense, and has lots of fiber, the secret weapon of the weight-conscious.

Let me know how you like it.

Annie

Kudos to the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), who were the driving force behind the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)’s new ban on the touting of dairy products as weight-loss foods. The FTC decision was based on the overwhelming lack of scientific evidence to support the claim. The dairy industry’s huge-budget, celebrity-starred campaign around milk and dairy for weight loss was based on a tiny study funded by the industry. Most health researchers clearly agree that most dairy products are more closely linked to weight gain than loss. Dairy fat is one of the most highly saturated fats in all the foods we eat.

Unfortunately, I think the damage is done. That was a huge campaign, and targeted nutritionists as well as women via beautiful big print and TV ads over several years. They were convincing, and I’m sure that most Americans would say that dairy products will help them lose weight.

If only we got the message that it’s the fat in dairy that’s the culprit. But unfortunately, since the dairy industry didn’t want to speak badly of the bulk of its products, we never fully got that message. In the end, I’m afraid; dieters are more confused than ever.

Can dairy fit into a healthy diet? Sure, if you look for low fat and fat free options, and are conscious of your overall caloric intake. The PCRM doesn’t agree with me on that, though – they prescribe to a vegan diet, no dairy or animal products at all. A vegan diet, featuring lots of fruits and vegetables, whole grains and vegetable proteins, is likely the healthiest one we can eat. (What other type of vegan diet is there? I know many teens that are vegans but don’t like fruit or vegetables and eat pure junk food.) A nutrition nightmare and part of the reason that teen girls have the worst diets of any age or gender group (they average something close to 30% of their needs for calcium, this during their prime bone-building years). But anyway, I personally and professionally feel that if someone is not interested or able to go vegan, that organic low fat dairy can certainly be part of a very healthy diet.

Anyway, the message is: dairy fat, found in dairy foods, is not part of a winning weight-loss (or maintenance) strategy.

Read the PCRM’s May 11^th announcement on the issue here.

Spring is the season to open up the house, empty out the closets, and clear out the clutter and cobwebs. It’s also the time when those in northern climes might wince as they uncover their bodies (winter is such a great time to cover-up, burrow in and just forget about it, right?). I wish you just a momentary wince or none at all.

As a dietitian and yoga teacher, the idea of nutritional cleansing fascinates me. Each time I cleanse (I don’t fast and I only do very gentle cleanses, by the way. I think fasting and harsher cleansing can do more harm than good – more on this later) I reaffirm my everyday cleansing diet – that is, cleaning up my diet as a way of life. My spring cleanse this year was more about being strong in my own wellness than about nutritional goals per se. I have a tendency to allow stress from others’ poor lifestyle habits influence how I take care of myself. Since my fruit & vegetable cleanse with herbal support (I used Yerba Prima support products this time), I’ve worked harder to resist being swayed by well-meaning loved ones gifting me treats.

For the next couple months, I’ll tease this topic of nutritional cleansing and detox, let you what I’m thinking about it, and the resources that I have found helpful.

So first, why even do it?

Our environment has changed for the worse in the past 100 years. The EPA estimates a grand total of 4.3 billion pounds of the 650 toxic chemicals they follow were released into the environment in 2005. Other groups estimate that 1,000 newly synthesized compounds are introduced each year.

Toxic chemicals enter into our bodies through the air we breathe, the food we eat and the water we drink. While our bodies have an elegant system of removing toxic chemicals from the body (via the work of the liver, kidneys, lungs, skin and digestive system), there has been an increase of toxins in the environment, and at the same time a decrease in the nutritional quality of the average American’s diet. The deterioration of our diet (through eating large amounts of processed foods, chemicals and hormones, and not enough healthy fruits, vegetables and unadulterated whole grains and clean proteins) impairs the ability of our body to effectively detox. That’s the basic rationale for learning a little about detoxing and occasionally focusing on it as a means of maintaining overall health.

Here is the EPA’s brochure from their Toxic Release Inventory (TCI), and a more detailed report. You can find loads more information at www.epa.gov.

EPA 2005 Toxic Chemical Inventory (TCI) - overview brochure

You can find the full eReport on the EPA website.

In future postings, we’ll review the basics of nutritional cleansing, the mental aspects of cleansing, safe vs. not-so-safe cleansing, resources available to you, products I know of, and some non-nutritional cleansings.

May you be happy

May you be healthy

And may you stand in the light of your own truest self

Annie

I’ve been fortunate to have experienced lots of great vegetarian cookbooks this winter. The raw-foods movement has fascinated me, and there are flurry of beautiful books that inspire. I also love books by dietitians. RDs, in my opinion are well-educated and underappreciated, and while our professional organization tends to sell our collective souls too easily to the processed food industry and big pharma, please don’t let that detract from the wisdom you’ll often find among this crew - like anything, you need to find the good eggs. With RDs, they’re are lots of them.

One good egg I’ve been blessed with connecting with this winter is Jill Nussinow, MS RD, “The Veggie Queen”. She’s a California-based nutritionist, and I’ve found her cookbook an inspiring one for the everyday cook (which, for the most part, I am). Jill is a fan of mushrooms, as am I, and she’s into her pressure-cooker. The appeal of a 12-minute soup, or 5-minute mashed potatoes tell me that last year when someone left this cute little pressure-cooker in our house (long story) that I was right to keep it. Now I have some coaching about how to use it and why to pull it out from the back of that bottom kitchen drawer. Her cookbooks is lovely to hold, and features culinary tips as well as a view into her Farmer’s market lifestyle. Jill illustrates, I think, the degree to which sustainable eating really is a lifestyle.

Find out more about Jill and her book The Veggie Queen, at www.theveggiequeen.com.

Another recent entree in the vegan cookbook genre that I’ve been having a good time with this winter is Blossoming Lotus’ World Fusion Cookbook. This is another beautiful book - this one in full Technicolor, high production value loveliness. Healthy cats in Kauai know Blossoming Lotus well - and if you ever make it to the north shore here, a meal at the restaurant is a must. It’s a great place to bring your non-veggie friends to see just how delicious and refined vegan cuisine can be.

So I’ve been cooking from this book through the winter, and the one drawback for really wide appeal is that it’s very Hawaii-centric. Many ingredients just aren’t available or as good off-island. And, the secret to many BL dishes is pureed macadamia nuts! Heavy cream it isn’t, and I suppose if you are living the vegan lifestyle you can boost the healthy fat a bit, but for those who must be weight conscious, just know that you’ll need to be conscious of how much of those fab rich sauces you slather on you veggies.
Another small detraction is the cutesy recipe names. Now, just being in Hawaii tends to make the most hard-nosed Easterner a little whimsical. But I think the book would be stronger if it settled down in that area a bit.

Overall, it’s an inspiration. A beautiful book to hold, and some great ideas that really could be modified to accommodate the possibility that not everyone can live in paradise.

Find out more about the book and their very cool scene at www.blossominglotus.com/about_book.htm
Happy healthy eating.

I’m happy to share that Every Bite Is Divine was selected as a finalist for the 2007 Nautilus Book Awards! I’m particularly excited about this one, because the Nautilus honors books that help people live consciously and promote positive social change. Since my mission is to help those struggling with weight and eating to release some of their suffering around these issues, I’m jazzed.