Nutrition


  • Are You in the 9-to-5 Food Rut?


    Does this sound familiar? Despite being a fan of a variety of foods, you find yourself eating the same healthy foods repeatedly because it’s part of your routine—it’s easy, tastes good and you can automatically get what you need at the grocery store without having to think about it. If this sounds like you, you’re not alone. We’re the first to admit that we have love affairs with a handful of our meals for these very reasons and we could eat them every day without ever getting bored. But what could be so bad about eating the same foods all the time, especially if the foods are healthy ones?

    Why Should I Add Variety to My Diet?

  • 7 Wonderful Foods That Will Give You Great Skin

    There are many tasty foods that can give you great skin, and including some of them in your eating plan is essential. When you have a healthy skin, you look much younger and fresher, no matter how old you are. The foods you consume every day play a significant role in the health of your skin as well as your overall health. Nowadays it’s hard to choose foods that are tasty and healthy at the same time. Hopefully, this list of 7 foods to eat to have a gorgeous skin will help you keep your skin healthy and young.

  • 5 Foods for a Flatter Stomach

    If there were foods that you could eat to get a flatter stomach, would you eat them? We would (and we do!)! Here are five foods that you should consider adding to your diet (if you don’t eat them already).

    Yogurt contains probiotics, which are good-for-you bacteria that aid in digestion and fight against bloating and constipation. It also contains protein, which keeps you feeling satisfied so that you don’t end up diving into a bag of chips (or other foods that would lead to overstuffing and bloating your belly, as well as cause weight gain) soon after eating it.

    Look for yogurt without a lot of added sugar; yogurt often is high in calories, which will backfire because excess sugar causes your body to retain water and look bloated and puffy.

    To boost protein even more, go for Greek yogurt, which can contain as much as 17 grams of protein per 6-ounce serving, making it the perfect satisfying snack or accompaniment to oatmeal and berries at breakfast. Try Creamy Oats and Fruit Pudding or a Pomegranate Banana Protein Smoothie.

    Aim for one serving of yogurt per day.

    Tomatoes contain the magical combination of water and potassium, which brings on an instant flat stomach by flushing excess sodium, water and bloat from your body and belly. Plus, they’re fiber-packed (goodbye constipation and the puffiness that comes with it!) and super-low in calories, so you can eat a lot of them without gaining weight.

  • Breaking Down Beans

    By The Nutrition Twins

    Tammy Lakatos Shames and Elysse ("Lyssie") Lakatos

    If you pay attention to food and nutrition trends, you’ve likely noticed that over the last several years more people are opting for vegan or vegetarian diets. Lifestyle surveys confirm this upsurge in people who are cutting back on meat. And even if they’re not making a drastic change to eat entirely animal- or meat-free, more Americans are trying to incorporate Meatless Mondays into their repertoires. We’ve witnessed this with our own clients, who either are trying to avoid the saturated fat in many types of meat, get healthier, cut calories, go a little greener or avoid eating once-living creatures.

    Legumes (a.k.a. beans) are packed with protein, so they’re great alternatives to animal options, plus they are hearty, fiber- and nutrient-rich, cholesterol-free and inexpensive. You can add beans to almost anything for an extra protein boost—they’re great in soups, salads, pasta and side dishes.

    If you’re not a bean connoisseur but want to do a little experimenting with the mighty bean in your diet, read on—we break it down for you below, in alphabetical order. In case you’re new in the bean world—you can enjoy them dried or canned. The best way to prepare dried beans is to soak them to rehydrate before cooking.

  • Belly Bloat: What You Should and Shouldn't Eat and Drink

    Tammy Lakatos Shames and Elysse (“Lyssie”) Lakatos

    Every year as swimsuit season approaches, one of the most common questions we’re asked as registered dietitians is what can be done to avoid feeling and looking bloated. Everyone wants to know which foods to eat to flush out the excess fluid in the abdomen that makes us feel like leaving the t-shirt or cover-up on rather than freely sporting the bathing suit. And while there are a few key bloat-reducing foods worth sharing, it’s equally as important to remember that some foods can have the opposite effect. Here are four foods that can help you to look and feel light and svelte, and four foods to watch out for that can make you feel water-logged and get you into “bloat” trouble.

  • A Calorie Is Just a Calorie…or Is It?

    What if there was more to weight loss than simply consuming fewer calories than we expend? A new study challenges nutritional dogma and suggests that the type of diet we follow could have a profound effect on the number of calories we burn each day.

    New research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that losing weight—and, more importantly, keeping it off—is not just a matter of eating fewer calories. Instead, the type of diet one follows—low-fat, low-glycemic or low-carb—may significantly affect metabolic rate. Researchers found that people burned about 300 fewer calories per day while following a low-fat diet when compared to the low-carbohydrate diet.

  • 4 Common Breakfast Mistakes That Prevent You From Reaching Your Goals

    Tammy Lakatos Shames and Elysse (“Lyssie”) Lakatos

    You’ve probably heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. And although eating the right breakfast fuels your body, provides long-lasting energy and satiety, prevents overeating at lunch and sets the tone for the entire healthy day, we love all three meals. Each on is equally important in its own way. That being said, it’s not just eating breakfast that’s important, it’s choosing the right one. Consuming the wrong breakfast can be worse than eating no breakfast at all. And if you’re trying to muster up energy to work out and eat the right foods to get fit, eating the right breakfast is critical to your success.

    Here are the top four breakfast mistakes—and how to fix them.

  • COMBAT BREAKFAST BOREDOM WITH THIS MIX AND MATCH FOOD GUIDE


    Everyone can benefit from eating breakfast. From weight loss and muscle repair to improved mood and focus, a morning meal benefits your body. When you sleep, your metabolism slows down. Rather than go through the day with a sluggish metabolism, jump-start it with breakfast. Information from the National Weight Control Registry, a database of more than 10,000 people, shows that 78 percent of those who successfully maintain weight loss eat breakfast every day. It's never too late to create a new habit, but it does take some planning and practice.

    Studies show that eating breakfast may boost memory, enhance cognitive ability and improve attention span. This not only helps children in school, but adults at work and at tasks of daily living. Stabilized blood sugar levels are likely the reason for these improvements. Because we wake up with low blood glucose due to our fasted state, a meal that contains a balance of carbs, protein, fiber and fat will raise blood glucose to a healthy level and keep it steady for hours.

  • 5 Nutrition and Diet Apps to Get You Through the Holidays


    These five holiday diet apps can be helpful sidekicks for people who find fitness and nutrition difficult during the holiday season, when there’s less time for exercise and more food around every corner.

    1. MyFitnessPal

    MyFitnessPal helps users track exercise, diet, calories and more. It has a barcode scanner and claims to have the largest food and calorie database in the world, including more than 3 million foods and restaurant meals. It tracks your weight, but also projects your future weight based on what you consume in a day. (This can be a great motivational nudge in the right direction, especially when you’re surrounded by rich holiday foods.)

  • 4 Health Foods With Hidden Dangers


    By Tammy Lakatos Shames and Elysse (“Lyssie”) Lakatos, The Nutrition Twins®

    It probably comes as no surprise that, as registered dietitians, we’re always promoting healthy foods. However, through the course of our careers, every now and then an otherwise healthy food that we recommend to include in a healthy diet unexpectedly has something worrisome turn up in it. Here are four healthy foods that fall in this category and easy fixes to avoid the hidden dangers.

    1. Plain, unsalted microwave popcorn

    It’s whole-grain, fiber-filled, crunchy and delicious, and makes a great snack. At 100 calories for 3 cups popped, it’s an excellent weight-loss snack.