Mom's diet may make for fat babies

A new study from the Journal of Neuroscience found that what you eat while pregnant can result in overeating and obesity in the child. The study was done on rats, however, it does seem to make sense that exposure to a high-fat diet in utero can lead to changes in brain development in the fetus, which create an appetite for fat. The offspring from those fed the high fat diet ate more throughout life, began puberty earlier (a common issue with overweight children as well) and weighed more as compared to those offspring from animals fed a balanced diet.
Bottomline eating a balanced, healthy diet during pregnancy offers advantages to you and your children:

• it will help you gain the right amount of weight so taking it off post-pregnancy is easier
• it helps to keep your child's weight down and him healthy throughout his life

While I would be the last person to tell you not to enjoy a some indulgences during pregnancy - chocolate was part of my diet everyday for all of my pregnancies - just make sure you balance it out with lots of nutritious fruits, veggies and whole grains.

Tactics to keep the weight off

While losing weight is certainly a feat, keeping the pounds off seems to be a bigger challenge for most people. Why? As you lose weight your calorie needs decrease because you're carrying around less mass and therefore, to keep losing weight or even to just stay at your present weight, you have to take in less and less calories over time or increase the number of calories you're burning. Here are some proven tactics to keep those lost pounds, lost:

• Exercise. A new study found that exercise and not the type of diet you follow is the real key to keeping off the weight. Researchers found that regardless of which diet was followed, low-fat or moderate fat, some weight regain was inevitable; they say increasing exercise is a more effective approach.
• Eat breakfast. One study found that women who eat breakfast have lower BMIs, a measure of overweight, than women who skip breakfast. And you should include some milk or yogurt in that breakfast, too.
• Drink milk. A new study found that eating three servings of dairy each day helped people maintain weight loss while eating more calories than the people that only had one serving of dairy each day. Both groups successfully kept off the 10 percent of body weight they'd lost (for the 6 months of the study) however the 3-a-day dairy eaters had about 150 more calories each day than the 1-a-day. This suggests drinking milk or eating yogurt may allow someone trying to maintain weight loss to eat a little more and still keep all the weight off.

Are bananas a magic diet food?

There's a diet craze going on in Japan called the Morning Banana diet that's been all over the TV and web sites. Check out this article on WebMD. Your first thought may be "why is there a diet craze in Japan? Aren't they a pretty lean population?" It was my first reaction but I guess it's a good indication that the issue of overweight has gone global.
Essentially the diet says that in the morning if you eat only bananas and water, have no dairy products, alcohol, or food after 8 PM then you will lose weight. It allows any food for lunch, dinner and snacks. Sound ridiculous? Well, much of it is - there's nothing magical about bananas that make it a diet superfood moreso than any other fruit - but there are some principles in the plan that (when tweaked a bit) can help in losing weight and keeping it off which we talk about in the Baby Fat Diet.
1. They say: Drink only room temperature water. We say: Stick primarily to non caloric drinks; water is an excellent choice, but tea and coffee are okay too and have lots of disease-fighting antioxidants.
2. They say: Don't eat after 8 PM. We say: Stop eating 2-3 hours before bed; late night eating is usually mindless munching of empty calories.
3. They say: Have only bananas and water for breakfast. We say: Eat a fiber-filled, well balanced breakfast. Have as many colorful fruits and vegetables as you can in your day, aiming for at least 5; they are filling for few calories and have tons of nutrients.
4. They say: Exercise only if you want to. We say: Incorporate movement into your day as much as possible by actively playing with your kids and make an effort to work up to 30 minutes a day of deliberate exercise; it's very important to helping take the weight off, keep it off and keep you healthy for life.
As for the Japanese, they traditionally eat lots of fish, brown rice and vegetables, foods that are certainly healthful and relatively low in calories. I'm thinking just go back to that eating plan and overweight won't be a problem.

School lunches - are they healthy?

Most children love buying lunch at school -- it is a very big step towards Independence once they begin Elementary school. (That is unless you have a very picky eater and send them to school with their lunch every day - as a dietitian, I find that sometimes allowing picky eaters to buy lunch at school once a week can help them break bad habits.) A study was recently conducted that looked at the healthfulness of school lunches. When comparing the nutritional intake of those who bought school lunch to those who brought their lunch, the results were surprising. Those purchasing lunch actually had higher vit A, C, B6, folate, calcium, thiamin, iron and phosphorus intakes. They also drank more milk and ate more vegetables and had fewer sweets, sweetened beverages, and snacks. On the flip side, although the number of calories were similar the amount of fat and saturated (bad) fat as well as sodium were higher for those purchasing lunch. So, the schools still have some work to do in improving their lunches. Bottom line: It is a good idea to balance bringing lunch and buying lunch. Let your children pick two days a week to buy their lunch and prohibit a la carte items (in many schools you can put a block on this). On the other days, pack a healthy lunch and have your child buy milk at school. Here is an example of a healthy sack lunch--
- whole wheat bread with either cheese and all natural lunch meat without preservatives or all natural peanut, almond or sunflower butter with all natural jelly.
- a fruit or two
- trail mix with high fiber cereal, almonds and semisweet choco chips
- milk - buy at school

Dieting causes excess pregnancy weight gain

A new study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association reports that dieters and restrained eaters tend to gain more weight than recommended during pregnancy. Many who diet or have restrained eating habits may feel "free" to eat the foods that they typically stay away from. The deprivation felt before pregnancy can cause overeating during the pregnancy. The result is gaining excess weight. This extra weight can put you at risk for delivering a large baby, a c-section, and a shorter time spent breastfeeding as well as being overweight after having the baby. Interestingly and also alarming is that research shows that excess weight gain during your pregnancy puts your baby at risk of being overweight by age 7. So, what can you do? Look at your pre-pregnancy eating habits, do you jump from diet to diet, do you feel deprived in what you allow yourself to eat, do you tend to feel guilty when you eat something you enjoy? If your answer to these types of questions is yes, then you may be at risk of gaining too much weight during your pregnancy. The good news is once you have identified yourself as at risk, you can deal with it -- try the following to help yourself.
- Visit MyPyramid for pregnancy and breastfeeding and estimate how many calories and servings of foods from each food group you need to have a healthy pregnancy
- Ask your doctor to recommend a dietitian to help you plan your meals and calories needs.
- Get a subscription to a healthy pregnancy magazine to support your healthy living behaviors
- Make sure and stay active to keep the feel good hormones circulating (with your doc's permission)
- Get at least 7 hours of sleep to help curb your cravings
- Eat every 2-3 hours to keep yourself from overeating

Great lunchbox addition

There's a great product that I've been putting in my kids' lunchboxes - it's called Wateroos. Not only are they healthy - they're really just water with a touch of flavor but no sugar or calories - but the kids love them b/c they look just like juice boxes and have cute characters on the front. Starting kids off early and teaching them to enjoy the pure, natural taste of water is extremely beneficial - developing this good habit avoids the need to drink sweet or flavored beverages and in most cases lots of sugar or artificial sweeteners. It can be really hard to break the habit of overconsuming sugary sweet or diet drinks once you're an adult and realize it's best to stick to water. Drinking too many calories is a very common habit that I see in my patients who need to lose weight. The first thing we cut out are coffee drinks, juices, sodas and smoothies; it's much more satisfying to eat your calories than to drink them. Even diet drinks can be overdone and aren't really good for your teeth. So, the earlier you can develop the water habit, the better.
There's also a good website, www.drinklesssugar.com, which compares different lunchbox drinks so you can see how much sugar is in various beverages.

Eat to lose weight

I just had a conversation with the nursing staff at my doctor's office yesterday concerning weight loss. They had been trying to lose weight and had successfully lost some weight but were now at a plateau. These women are educated and know what they should be eating, but they were not aware of how much and when they should be eating. This became obvious when I dug a little further and found that both went the whole work day without eating, so from 8-6pm they did not eat a thing. Additionally, one of them had not eaten yet, and it was already noon. This nurse in particular even made the comment that she used Weight Watchers to successfully lose the bulk of her weight and they made her eat all the time. After speaking with them the possible problem became clear -- in response to their baffling question of "why am I not losing weight" I was able to provide a simple answer...YOU MUST EAT TO LOSE WEIGHT! Going all day without eating will only sabotage your efforts at losing weight (and staying energetic and happy and let's not forget, healthy). In fact, the US weight loss registry shows that those who lose weight successfully eat breakfast at the same time every day. So, what does that tell us? We need to eat on a schedule. The body needs to know when to expect food, so that it does not try to conserve energy. We want the body to feel free to burn calories. Another important factor are all of the nutrients that are missing from their diets because of their limited food intake during the week. You also need key nutrients to help your body burn energy efficiently. Additional problems with not eating all day can also include overeating at other meals, feeling as if it is okay to eat higher fat foods since you did not eat all day, etc. (You know all the inner talking we do to rationalize unhealthy eating.) So, here is my advice...
1. Eat breakfast at the same time everyday to break your overnight fast -- make your body confident, so that it will burn energy efficiently.
2. If you do not have time for a sit down lunch during the day, that is okay, just make sure to bring healthy snacks with you and eat every 2-3 hours during the day.
For example,
-- if you eat breakfast at 7 am, by 10 am make sure and have a piece (or two) of fruit.
-- by 12 pm make sure and have an all natural peanut butter (2tbsp) sandwich with no added sugar jelly (1 tbsp) and whole wheat bread
-- by 2 or 3 pm have a homemade trail mix (high fiber cereal, handful of almonds, raisins and a few semisweet chocolate chips) and another piece of fruit
3. Make sure and eat a healthy dinner with at least two vegetables if you did not eat any veggies during the day.
4. If you are hungry before you go to bed, eat a high fiber cereal and skim milk as a snack.