The Health Blog: Free Health & Nutrition Information

Have you noticed how when people who are overweight lose a bunch of weight in a short time period, they seem to have flaps of loose skin leftover that seems to sag and stay on forever?

I’m not really overweight but I did have twins in 2001. I’m very petite (4′11″, started out probably around 100 lbs at the beginning of the pregnancy) so I got extreeeeeeemely stretched out by the end. Afterwards, even though I lost the 70 lbs I gained, I still had this huge fold of skin on my tummy that has never gone away in 6 years.

At least, I really thought it was mostly skin. Everybody said so.

Now that I’m cleaning up my diet and working out more, I’ve been wondering if this flap of “skin” would always be there. Almost everybody I talked to about it said yes, unless I had surgery (which is not an option for me).

How depressing.

And then, a few days ago I came across this article:

The Myth of Loose Skin

It made so much sense to me, and it gave me hope. The guy really sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. Basically, the gist of the article is that skin is thinner than paper. So all that “loose skin” is really not just skin but a layer of fat. And fat CAN be gotten rid of with proper diet and exercise! And the skin will adjust. So, read it and tell me what you guys think. It sure gave me hope for my “twin skin” problem!

Oh, and if anyone out there (Ryan? Anybody?) has tips on what specific exercises to do to work on the tummy fat, please give me suggestions. I’ve been doing lots of crunches and cardio and need more ideas.

On Monday February 26, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) held a press conference that put the spotlight upon several chain restaurants which offer single-course menu items each loaded with 2,000 calories or more. In their March issue of the Nutrition Action Healthletter, the article titled “X-treme Eating: Increasingly Indulgent Menus Entice Diners to Pig Out” detailed the caloric and fat content of these dishes. Many contained over a day’s requirement of calories and more than two days’ worth of fat. CSPI Executive Director Michael Jacobson is pushing for city, state, and federal laws requiring nutrition information on chain restaurant menus.

In response to this report, Philadelphia City Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown (pictured at left) proposed a measure requiring chain restaurants that operate within the city to provide nutrition information for their menu items. Required information includes caloric content, fat, carbohydrate and sodium. The proposition has been praised by CSPI as well as by Sara Solomon of Temple University’s Center for Obesity Research and Education. “Knowledge, if not power, is at least progress,” stated Solomon, in regards to fighting the obesity epidemic.

Says Councilwoman Brown, “Consumers want to know.” And by all indications, she’s absolutely right. Customers who were interviewed on the street by Philly’s ABC news affiliate WPVI seemed to whole-heartedly support her new proposal. As they exited chain restaurants, they were asked if knowing the caloric content of the dishes would affect how they order. One young woman from Ridley Park said, ” If I knew what was in [the food items], and the calorie intake, would I change my mind? Absolutely.”

A WPVI reporter placed calls to members of the Philadelphia’s restaurant industry. He received no response. (I imagine that the restauranteurs are all busy getting in contact with the NRA — no, not the gun people… The National Restaurant Association — to learn what their collective answer should be. I also imagine that their answer will have much more to do with the well-being of their restaurants’ profits than with the health and well-being of their customers.)

What do you think? Would you support a menu labelling proposal if your city representative suggested it?

For a few years, my kids had almost the same breakfast every morning - cheerios in soy milk, occasionally with a piece of fruit on the side. We didn’t do dairy and I didn’t want them to have sugar, so this seemed the best option to me at the time. They loved this breakfast.

Awhile back, I was looking for a healthier option to this breakfast. I was reading some things about soy that concerned me, especially since my kids were having it every single day - and I was also looking for ways to increase their fruit and veggie intake.

So here are 2 ideas I eventually came up with and now they’re staples that my kids beg for in the morning! They haven’t asked for either cheerios or soy milk in quite awhile.

Idea 1:
Fruit smoothie - blend a few ripe bananas with water, add another fruit - strawberry, mango, date… the possibility is endless. A plain banana based smoothie is actually more delicious than one would think. You don’t *have* to add yogurt or soy or dairy or protein powders in there! It’s good all by itself. (I would argue, that it’s BETTER all by itself). :)

Idea 2:
Banana milk and fruit cereal bowl. Blend 2-3 bananas with enough water to make a milk-like consistency, pour into a bowl of diced fruit pieces and little berries. You can add a few nuts too if you want, but fruit alone digests better in your stomach. It looks VERY attractive because the banana milk is light yellow and the fruit pieces are very colorful! My kids’ favorite fruits to go in their cereal are the berries - blueberries, raspberries, blackberries.

Today I thought I’d share something I’ve been making my 5 yr olds to get them interested in eating lots of leafy greens. Greens are the food highest in mineral (per calorie), and I want to make sure my kids are getting plenty of minerals, but some kids have a hard time with greens. My kids don’t mind eating them but I was trying to get them to eat bigger portions of tender leafy greens.

So here’s what I did.

They’re really into pirates right now and one day I decided to make a “Treasure Salad.” I took a big pie plate for each kid and covered the entire bottom area with some fun salad fixin’s that they like. Fresh orange slices, almonds, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, baby carrots, mango pieces, pineapple. Then, I shredded a bunch of lettuce and piled it all on top of the plate to make a mountain, covering all the fixin’s I had on the bottom. I squeezed fresh orange juice over the lettuce mountain.

When the kids first saw it, they were like, “What??? We’re having just plain lettuce?” and I said, “It’s a treasure salad! Eat all your lettuce to get to the bottom and you may find some treasure!”

Lets just say, it worked like a charm. I’ve never seen them eat lettuce more enthusiastically. They ate and ate and ate, and were so excited when they got to the bottom and there was all this “treasure”! :) They savored each bite of the juicy fruit, veggies and nuts I had “hid” on the bottom.

Now, they ask me for a Treasure Salad several times a week. I hope this will be a family tradition/meal that they will take with them when they grow up!

I’d love to hear any creative ideas you all have had to help your children make healthy choices. I will be sharing a couple more ideas this week that has worked with my kids.

As I often do, I’m reviewing expenses with my wife, and we’re considering cancelling our gym membership.

We got it because we not only wanted a good gym to exercise at, but we also wanted affordable child care. (Since we both exercise at the same time, we put our two children in the “Kid’s Club.”)

But there’s a problem. While my wife and I are exercising, our daughter is vegging out in front of a TV for 90 minutes!

The Kid’s Club has videos playing constantly. My son is immune at this point. He just plays on the slide. But my daughter can’t resist watching cartoons. So she gets a whopping 90 minutes of viewing time two or three times a week.

That’s a lot of TV.

This right now is a big factor in our decision. Because while the gym is healthy for us, it’s not healthy for my daughter. Something to think about…