JANUARY 21, 2008

SERVING SIZE If you only had time to read one thing on a nutrition label, what should it be? The serving size. Sure, it’s important to check out the grams of saturated fat, trans fats, cholesterol, sugar, sodium, and more. But one of the most commonly skimmed over items on a nutrition label is the servings per container. You may glance at the label and see “200 calories” and eat the whole thing, but if you looked a little closer you may be shocked to find that your food item has 2.5 servings per container. That means your seemingly smart 200 calorie snack is now a 500 calorie meal! And it’s not just the calories that more than double – it’s everything else on the label. You could be eating 100% of your daily limit for saturated fat if you’re not checking the serving size. Portion control is one of those things we all wish was programmed in our minds at birth. Unfortunately, years of bad eating habits have skewed our idea of what makes up a serving size. If you’re not sure how much you should be eating, check the label. And if you have to count out each individual chip, do it. (LifeScript)

Fat Burning Zone vs. Cardio Zone
Many gyms have charts listing a “fat burning zone” and a “cardio zone” on their cardiovascular machines. These ranges are confusing because they lead you to believe that you are burning more fat, or only fat, when exercising at certain intensities. The most important thing to remember is that exercising at a higher intensity is better than exercising at a lower intensity when it comes to burning calories. There is a lower-intensity “fat burning zone” in which you utilize a greater percentage of calories from fat than at higher intensities. However, the total number of calories burned at that rate is less. For example, let’s say you bike at a low intensity and burn 100 calories. Seventy-five of those calories burned might come from fat. At first glance, that looks good. But if you bike at a higher intensity for the same period of time, you might burn 200 total calories, with 125 of those coming from fat. Your percentage of fat calories burned drops, but you burn more total calories and more total fat calories at the higher intensity. The bottom line: for sustained weight loss, you have to burn more calories than you take in. Trying to focus on burning fat calories won’t help. Calories are calories –the goal is to burn as many as possible. (SparkPeople)

Boiling or steaming broccoli can deplete, respectively, 34% and 22% of its vitamin C stores, says a new study published in the Journal of Food Science. But microwaving it instead preserves more than 90% of this cancer-fighting nutrient. During boiling and steaming, nutrients leach into the added liquid, which is usually discarded. Microwaving, on the other hand, cooks vegetables by heating up their natural water content. Just stir halfway through to ensure food cooks evenly! (Prevention)

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