Foods with Stealth Health Powers

Foods with Stealth Health Powers

Pork Chops

Per gram of protein, pork chops contain almost five times the selenium—an essential mineral that's linked to a lower risk of prostate cancer—of beef, and twice that of chicken. And Purdue researchers found that a 6-ounce serving daily helped people preserve their muscle while losing weight.

Mushrooms

This fungi's metabolites—by-products created when mushrooms are broken down during digestion—have been shown to boost immunity and prevent cancer growth, report researchers in the Netherlands.

Full-Fat Cheese

This dairy product is an excellent source of casein protein—one of best muscle-building nutrients you can eat. What's more, Danish researchers found that even when men ate 10 ounces of full-fat cheese daily for 3 weeks, their LDL ("bad") cholesterol didn't budge.

Best Tailgate Foods

Best Tailgate Foods

The Best Burger Meat

Laura's Lean Beef 92% Lean Ground
If you're grilling burgers, make them from this beef. It's so flavorful, all you need is salt and pepper to season.

The Best Pickles

Woodstock Farms Organic Kosher Whole Dill Pickles
Eat these crisp pickles straight out of the jar, Snooki-style, or pop a few slices atop a grilled chicken sandwich.

The Best Hot Dog

Applegate Farms Uncured Beef Hot Dogs
One taste and you'll never eat another dirty-water dog from the stadium again.

The Best Chicken

Bell & Evans Organic Boneless/Skinless Breast Meat
It's the juiciest, most flavorful supermarket poultry we've ever tasted.

The Best Burger Bun

Arnold Select Sandwich Thins, Whole Wheat
Less bread so you can taste more meat.

The Best Steak

Laura's Lean Beef Ribeye Steak
We usually like a little more fat on our steaks, but this richly flavored beef deserves kudos.

Best Nutrition Secrets

Best Nutrition Secrets

Keep serving dishes off the table.
Researchers have found that when people are served individual plates, as opposed to empty plates with a platter of food in the middle of the table, they eat up to 35 percent less!

Think before you drink.
The average person drinks more than 400 calories a day--double what he or she used to--and alone gets around 10 teaspoons of added sugar every single day from soft drinks. Swap out sweetened teas and sodas for no-cal drinks and you could lose up to 40 pounds in a single year!

Eat protein at every meal.
Dieters who eat the most protein tend to lose more weight while feeling less deprived than those who eat the least protein. It appears that protein is the best nutrient for jumpstarting your metabolism, squashing your appetite, and helping you eat less at subsequent meals.

Think fish.
Consuming two 4- to 6-ounce servings of oily fish a week will sharpen your mind. Among the best: salmon, tuna, herring, mackerel, and trout. They're high in docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which may reduce your risk of Alzheimer's. Study participants who had high blood levels of DHA also performed better on noverbal reasoning tests and showed better mental flexibility, working memory, and vocabulary than those with lower levels.

Ways to Eat Healthily at the Thai Restaurant

Ways to Eat Healthily at the Thai Restaurant

You might think you’re doing yourself a favor by going out to eat at your favorite Thai restaurant, but many of the appetizers and entrees on the menu are anything but healthy. Take for example the Pla Muok Tad. It may sound exotic, but this plate is essentially the fried calamari from an Italian joint with a different dipping sauce. That means 800 or more calories per appetizer portion. Read through our list of the best and worst Thai foods, to learn what you should order and avoid at your favorite Thai restaurant.

Summer Rolls
Lean pork or shrimp mixed with vegetables and rice noodles and wrapped in a thin sheet of rice paper – summer rolls might be accurately thought of as healthy and unfried egg rolls. They have roots in Vietnam, but they're common in other parts of Asia and available on most Thai menus. Just make sure you order a summer and a not a spring roll, or you'll be right back in the fryer.

Satay
These meat skewers are grilled and then coated in a spicy peanut sauce, which brings to your table lots of flavor and protein with relatively little fat. Consider this one of the good guys: An entree portion has fewer than 300 calories.

Pla Muok Tad
It may sound exotic, but this plate is essentially the fried calamari from an Italian joint with a different dipping sauce. That means 800 or more calories per appetizer portion.

Tom Yum
A high-protein, low-calorie soup featuring lean meat and mushrooms simmered in broth with lemongrass, cilantro, and other seasonings. You'll do fine with any bowl of tom yum, but the best options are the ones that feature shrimp or mixed seafood.

Mistakes That Keep You Fat

Mistakes That Keep You Fat

Skipping Meals or Snacks
Not eating can mess with your body's ability to control your appetite. But it also destroys willpower, which is just as damaging. "Regulating yourself is a brain activity, and your brain runs on glucose," says Martin Ginis. If you skip breakfast or a healthy snack, your brain doesn't have the energy to say no to the inevitable chowfest.

So skipping a feed helps turn us into gluttons at night. Your starving brain "just doesn't have the fuel it needs to keep you on track, monitoring your diet."

Break it: This one's easy. Spread your calories out into three meals of about 500 calories each, and two snacks of 100 to 200 calories each, says Liz Applegate, Ph.D., director of sports nutrition at the University of California at Davis. Most men who are trying to lose weight still need at least 1,800 to 2,200 calories a day, says Applegate. More important, change your mindset, she says. Think I'm going to start a new routine, not I'm going to restrict myself. Restriction leads to overeating.


Speed-Eating
Use the nondiet approach: You're not denying yourself food, you're just eating it more slowly. Savoring it. Allowing your body some time so you don't keep eating when you're full.

In an experiment published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 17 healthy men ate 11/4 cups of ice cream. They either scarfed it in 5 minutes or took half an hour to savor it. According to study author Alexander Kokkinos, M.D., Ph.D., levels of fullness-causing hormones (called PYY and GLP-1), which signal the brain to stop eating, were higher among the 30-minute men. In real life, the scarfers wouldn't feel as full and could be moving on to another course.

Break it: Your body is trying to tell you something, so give it a chance. Slow down and enjoy your food, says Dr. Kokkinos. Put away the newspaper and turn off the TV. Try this breathing trick from The Yoga Body Diet: Inhale while counting slowly to five; exhale and count slowly to five; repeat three to five times before eating. A study in a 2009 issue of Journal of the American Dietetic Association shows that yoga increases mindful eating and results in less weight gain over time.


Pigging Out on Weekends
Weekend feasts can cause trouble beyond Sunday. In a recent study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers used rats to examine the effects of palmitic acid on leptin, a hormone that helps regulate appetite. Palmitic acid is found in saturated fat, an ingredient often featured in your favorite weekend grub.

"We found that within 3 days, the saturated fat blunts or blocks the ability of leptin to regulate food intake and body weight," says study author Deborah Clegg, Ph.D., of the University of Texas Southwestern medical center. So a Friday to Sunday of burgers, fries, and wings may prime your brain to overeat on Monday.

Break it: You don't have to go cold turkey (though turkey on whole wheat is always smart). McDaniel suggests that your reward for a healthy week should be one cheat meal, not an entire weekend of them. After all, having an all-you-can-eat weekend is like eating poorly for nearly 30 percent of your week. That means you'd be eating well just 70 percent of the time. We call that a C minus. Do you really want below-average results?