Healthy Eating with Jhet

Week 26 – Nutritional Goal

Here are last weeks numbers:

I knoticed that my weight went up by a pound this week and I think I know why. Saturday I ate out at a burger place and another day I had pizza. I didn’t have the nutritional information for the burger place so I had to leave that day out. Other than that I did fine with what I was eating. If I had been able to get the nutritional info for the burger, etc. my sodium, fat and saturated fat numbers would have been higher for sure. It was only one day but I’ll have to watch it. Especially since I could see the effect in my weight.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Fruit and Vegetable PLU Codes

Have you ever wondered what those little stickers mean on the fruits and vegetables you buy? They are not simply codes for the cashier to properly ring up your food in the grocery line. The numbers on those stickers tell a story about the produce if you know how to read them.

There are three different classifications that the PLU stickers can indicate. Organic, chemically grown and genetically modified. But what do those three categories mean and how do you tell by the PLU code what you are holding?

Organic – The fruit or vegetable was grown naturally without using any chemicals. If you are holding an organically grown product in your hand the number on the PLU sticker will start with the number 9. As an example, an apple with a code of 95001 would be an organically grown apple.

Chemically grown - Chemicals such as pesticides were used on the fruit while it was being grown. This is the code you will probably see most often. Chemically grown fruit and vegetables will have a code starting with a 4 and they will be four digits long. An example would be an apple with the code 4501 on the sticker.

Genetically modified - Scientists poked and prodded the fruit or vegetable and modified it’s genetic makup. Genetically modified fruits or vegetables will begin with an 8 and have five digits in the code. So the code 85001 would indicate that the product was somehow genetically modified.

More information on organic foods can be found at: http://www.organicconsumers.org/

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

 Loading ...

Morning Smoothie

I don’t think I’ve posted this before so I’m going to go ahead and let people know how I make my morning smoothie. First, here is the calorie information:

300 Calories
3 g fat
1g saturated fat
66 mg sodium
64 carbs
7 g fiber

What are the ingrediants?

Take the following: 1/3 of a serving of frozen strawberries, 1/3 serving frozen peaches, 1/3 serving frozen cherries, 1 frozen medium banana, 1 cup orange juice, 1/2 cup of 1% milk.

How do I prepare it?

Blend all the ingredients in a blender or smoothie maker and you’re done. If you want to cut back on the calories I’d suggest using half a banana and 3/4 cups of OJ with no milk. That would also cut out the saturated fat I believe.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Week 25 – Nutritional Goal

So this is the week that I ate a pizza one day:

I don’t kow if the pizza is related to this or not but my body fat went up by .1.  I kinda doubt it is but it makes for fun with numbers! The pizza did have the effect of increasing my average fat and saturated fat numbers. But the biggest area seemed to be the sodium. the average increased by 300 mg. 

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Week 23, 24 – Nutritional Goal

I combined the last two weeks nutritional information this time.

I’m still doing very well with my goals and I’m keeping my waist and weight down to normal. The only thing I keep messing up on is recording my weight on Tuesdays which means I post the weeks results later.

Ps- I’m having a pizza today so lets see how that affects next weeks numbers

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Mercury Poisoning

Everyone wants to eat healthy if they can, right? And what could be healthier than fish! There is alot of protien and omega-3 in fish so it has to be good for you. What could possibly go wrong? Well you’re about to find out

There is this girl I know. I’ll call her Jane. Well despite being skinny, Jane decided she wanted to lose a few pounds. So she went on a diet. Specifically she chose to try the zone diet. She’s been eating meals based off of it for about a year now. I don’t know if she strictly stuck to the whole diet for the year but I do know that she kept eating meals based on the diet. One thing she ate alot of was albacore tuna. She was having it at least once a day, every day.

Then she started noticing that her hair was getting thinner. So she did what any normal person would do…searched the internet! She ran across a website that told her one of the symptoms of mercury poisoning was hair loss. Other symptoms can include:

• General nausea with no explained cause
• Debilitating fatique & exhaustion
• A metallic taste in the mouth
• Difficulty concentrating
• Mental fuzziness
• Fainting spells
• Unexplained headaches
• Tingling in the hand & feet
• Neurological problems such as numbness, muscle weakness
• Altered vision and/or hearing.

From there she searched around for the source of her mercury problem. It was the tuna. You’re only supposed to have a maximum of 4 oz of albacore tuna per week. She was having at least 20 oz. There is a very nice calculator she found that tells you how much mercury specific types of fish have.

So now what? First she stopped eatiing tuna immediatly. Then she read somewhere that she should see a dermatologist about the issue of the hair loss to see what they could do. The dermatologist basically told her to stop eating the tuna and gave her some cream for her scalp. He told her that she could get a test done to verify that it was mercury poisoning but he couldn’t do it. She searched around but she couldn’t find anyone who could do the test.

So far that is where she was at.

(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)

 Loading ...

What Is Moderation?

You can have sugar in moderation. Eating fast food is fine in Moderation. Having icecream is ok as long as it’s in MODERATION. Those vitamins you’re taking are ok in MODERATION. MODERATION, MODERATION, MODERATION … AHHHH! What is moderation?!?!

You hear it all the time when looking up information on losing weight but what does it really mean? How do you really know when you’ve crossed the line from moderation to excess? To be honest I don’t know that there is a definitive line that is the same for everyone but I’m going to give my thoughts on the matter.

How I define moderation for myself is this: If I am still meeting all of my stated weight loss / healthy eating goals, then I am still eating in moderation. This kind of goes back to my You’re Going To Fail philosopy in a way. You need to set up reasonable goals for yourself and stick to them. I created my Diet Modification Plan as a set of goals and stuck to it.

Did I eat pizza and sugar and fatty food? YOU BET! But I didnt do it to the point that I failed at my defined goals. Some days I came close to failing at meeting those goals and that is when I realized that I was eating too many things that were not good for me. If I eat half a pizza I know that I’m going to have to watch my sodium and saturated fats closely for the rest of the week. That doesn’t mean I dont have it, it just means I don’t have it again that week.

This is why keeping track of your daily intakes is so important. I use an excel sheet but you could use anything as long as you know what you are eating. None of the this, "Oh, I don’t need to write it down I know what I eat." garbage. It doesn’t work the same and it is so much easier when you take little steps and record it in your food journal every day.

After reading so many articles talking about "in moderation", I just had to put my 2 cents into it.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

The End of Overeating

I’ve been hearing a lot about this book by David Kessler called The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite. I think I first heard about it on Wisconsin Public radio one night when driving home from work. I didn’t catch all of the show but what I heard was fascinating. The author was talking about how the food industry intentionally modifies foods so that it triggers the pleasure centers of your brain so that you want more. The problem is that this causes you to overeat and is at least partially responsible for the obesity epidemic going on in America today.

The author of The End of Overeating has some credentials behind him as well. He is the former FDA commisioner and graduated from Harvard with an M.D. degree.

I had completely forgot about the radio show until I ran across another article on womenshealthmag.com today. If I can find the link to a podcast of the radio show I’ll post it here.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Week 22 – Nutritional Goal

Well, I did pretty good over the July 4th holiday weekend. There was a couple of days that I couldn’t record my numbers but on the 5 days that I could I did well.

My weight has creeped up a bit (0.2 lbs) with this weeks numbers. I’m pretty sure that it is because of the two days I didn’t record. I had some higher sugar (I was bad and had alot of pop) and fat intake for those two days. I wish I could have recorded everything I ate but it just wasn’t practicle on those two days.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Lipoprotein (a) And Heart Attacks

It looks like another type of cholesterol besides LDL (low density lipoprotein) is behind some of the heart attacks people are having. It’s called Lipoprotein (a). Typically LDL is treated with statins such as the drug Lipitor. Unfortunately statins do not affect lipoprotein (a).

So how do people get high lipoprotein (a) levels? From what I have read so far it is mostly hereditary.

So what can you do to lower lipoprotein (a)? Asprin is one way to lower it. Another way to lower lipoprotein (a) is to take Niacin (B-3). Dr. Oz recomends between 30mg and 500mg in his book You Staying Young. Anything more than that and he says to talk to your doctor first.

Here is an article about this issue from WebMD.com.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...