Vol. 4, No. 5
May 21, 2007

Does This Entrée Make Me Look Fat?

When I was a kid, going out to a restaurant was reserved for special occasions: a birthday, an anniversary or some other significant life event. Not anymore. Food dollars spent on meals away from home comprise nearly half of total food costs. And, while you can ask for dressing on the side, less oil and no bread on the table, you can't control everything that goes on in a restaurant kitchen.

While menu items labeled "low-fat," or "light" must meet standards of the Food and Drug Administration, you take more of a chance with traditionally high-fat offerings than you would with something that's relatively healthy to begin with. The next time you dine out at an ethnic restaurant, choose from the following list of healthy choices (but watch portion sizes!):

Chinese

• Beef with broccoli

• Chicken chop suey

• Hunan tofu

• Mandarin pancakes

• Moo shu shrimp

• Shrimp with broccoli

• Shrimp with garlic sauce

• Stir-fried vegetables

• Teriyaki chicken or beef

• Szechuan seafood

Japanese

• Sushi

• Sashimi

• Sabu-shabu

• Teriyaki Pork and noodles in soy-flavored broth

• Glaze-grilled scallops

• Mabemono

• Pinecone squid

• Sukiyaki chicken or beef

Indian

• Bhuna (fish or lamb)

• Chicken or fish tikka

• Kheema matter

• Lentils and vegetables with chicken of fish masala

• Rice or chi ken pilaf

• Saag (chicken or lamb)

• Tandoori chicken or shrimp

• Vindaloo (beef, chicken or fish)

Italian

• Chicken marsala

• Chicken cacciatore

• Cioppino

• Linguine with red or white clam sauce

• Pasta marinara (without meat)

• Shrimp marina

• Shrimp primavera

• Spaghetti with eggplant

• Veal cacciatore

Mexican

• Arroz con pollo

• Burrito (chicken, beef or seafood)

• Camarones de hacha

• Fajitas (chicken, shrimp or vegetarian)

• Shrimp enchilada

• Soft fish or chicken taco

For more ideas, check out the book, "Eating on the Run," by Evelyn Tribole, MS, RD  

Top Ten Ways to Improve Your Workout

Source: American Council on Exercise

The first step in improving your health is finding—or making—the time to exercise. But just going through the motions won't give you the health benefits you're looking for. Doing the same workout over and over can get boring and you're unlikely to see improvements because you're recruiting the same muscle fibers. Changing things can bring amazing results. Here are ten great ways to improve your workout.

• Change the mode or intensity of your training. Altering your routine will help you avoid conditioning plateaus and force your body to adapt to new movements and levels of intensity. Get creative and challenge yourself.

• Hire a personal trainer. Working out with a personal trainer allows you to focus on the exercise at hand and let the trainer worry about the routine. A trainer will keep your workouts fresh and always progressing.

• Eat properly and stay hydrated. Without proper nutrition and fluid intake, there is no way you can have a great workout. Your body needs these fuels to build muscle and repair damaged tissue.

• Emphasize quality over quantity. Although it may seem that working out more often would be the best way to get fit, more intense workouts performed less often will actually produce greater results. Your body needs rest to recover and repair damaged muscle tissue and avoid injury.

• Incorporate mind-body training. Mind-body fitness has been associated with improved muscular strength, flexibility, balance and coordination, as well as increased mental development and self-efficacy.

• Exercise at the right time for your body. Work with your body's natural energy level-not against it. Exercise when you usually have the most energy, rather than putting your workout off until a time when you might not feel your best.

• Get a workout partner. Exercising with a partner makes you accountable to someone else for each workout and can improve adherence to a program. A partner can inspire you to push yourself a little bit harder when your energy level is not at its peak.

• Emphasize breathing. When strength training, take full breaths during each exercise, exhale upon exertion and inhale as you release. During cardiovascular exercise, full breaths will deliver as much oxygen as possible to the working muscles, making them more efficient.

• Use a heart-rate monitor. A heart-rate monitor is a great tool to gauge how hard your body is working and can help you stay within your target heart-rate training zone.

Listen to music. Music can make a workout more fun and give you that extra burst of energy you need to work your hardest.

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Thanks! LM