Health
Slashing
Calories 5 tips that will change how you cook or eat.
C
utting a few calories here and there won’t instantly show up on the scale – but making consistent changes will. Here are 5 effortless ways to sidestep excess calories throughout your day.
• Drink your coffee or tea plain – a recent study published in
Want to improve your health? Get a gym membership!
I
f exercising more was one of your New Year’s Resolutions, chances are you’ve already given up or you’re already on the verge of doing so. A new study from the Iowa State University suggests that people with a health club membership exercise more, so you might want to consider joining in one.
Benefits Duck-chul (DC) Lee, an assistant professor of kinesiology and corresponding author of the paper, says the study found people who belonged to a health club not only exercised more – they also had better cardiovascular health outcomes. Those health benefits were even greater for people who had a gym membership for more than a year.
Members vs. non members Gym members were 14 times more aerobically active than nonmembers and 10 times more likely to meet muscle-strengthening guidelines, regardless of their age and weight. The results were similar in both men and women. Gym members overall had a more active lifestyle. Researchers say members were just as active outside the gym and in their daily lives, which contributed to better health outcomes like lowering the odds of being obese, lower resting heart rate and higher cardiorespiratory fitness. Elizabeth Schroeder, lead author and a former Iowa State graduate student, says while most people join a gym to lose weight, the research shows the many benefits of exercise. n
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the journal Public Health found that people who drink their coffee black consume about 69 fewer calories a day.
• Get more fiber at breakfast – if you choose a high-fiber
breakfast, you’re going to feel full sooner and eat less of it overall (oats are one good option).
• Cut back on cooking oil – when you’re sautéing vegetables
or cooking on a stovetop, one of the best things you can do is to use a nonstick cooking spray instead of putting oil in your pan. You can also sub in a few tablespoons of chicken, beef, or vegetable broth.
• Don’t eat in front of the TV – eating a meal while watching
the television unconsciously makes you overeat because we’re not paying attention to portion sizes and our brains may not fully register that we’ve eaten at all!
• Do more cooking at home – eating out may be the fast
option but it may help to know that home cooking on top of its other benefits, helps you cut calories. A study in the journal Public Health Nutrition found that people who cooked dinner six or seven nights a week consumed about 150 calories fewer per day than those who cooked once a week or less. n