Be a breakfast lover

It will help you lose weight!

We all know breakfast is healthy, yet many of us don't eat it. But morning eaters tend to take in fewer calories later in the day and have lower levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol than the rest of us, an American Journal of Clinical Nutrition study reports. Use these tips to make breakfast a must.

You skip it because You're too tired or in a hurry.

How to love it Have a quick bowl of whole-grain cereal. Research in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association suggests cereal eaters consume less fat during the day.

You skip it because Your stomach is iffy first thing.

How to love it Drink your meal, says Steven Margolin, a nutritionist at the Longevity Wellness Center in New York City. Blend a banana and 1 cup mixed berries with 1 cup crushed ice, 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup lowfat yogurt. Serve cold.

You skip it because You're never hungry until noon.

How to love it Don't snack or eat dinner late. When your body goes 8 to 10 hours without food, it will beg you for energy to start the day.

30 healthy, quick picks… great snacks with less than 200 calories

 

Craving salty?

• 5 olives (any kind) (45 calories)
  
• 1 small Martin's pretzel (50 calories)
  
• 2 oz Applegate Honey and Maple Turkey Breast wrapped around 2 bread-and-butter pickles (80 calories)
  
• 1/4 cup hummus, 3 carrot sticks (80 calories)
  
• 1 Laughing Cow Light Swiss Original wedge, 3 pieces Kavli Crispy Thin (85 calories)
  
• One 1-oz package tuna jerky (90 calories)
  
• 1 oz buffalo mozzarella, 1/2 cup cherry or grape tomatoes (94 calories)
  
• 1 bag Baked! Cheetos 100 Calorie Mini Bites (100 calories)
  
• 15 Eden's Nori Maki Crackers rice crackers (110 calories)
  
• 1 cup unshelled edamame (120 calories)
  
• 50 Eden's Vegetable Chips (130 calories)
  
• One 1-oz package of Planters NUT-trition almonds (130 calories)
  
• 1/4 cup Trader Joe's Chili con Queso, 18 baked tortilla chips (140 calories)
  
• 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds in shell (143 calories)
  
• 2 pieces (30 grams) prosciutto, 4 dried figs (154 calories)
  
• 1 Subway Turkey Breast Wrap (190 calories)
  

Craving sweet?

• 1 package Original Apple Nature Valley Fruit Crisps (50 calories)
  
• 1 packet O'Coco's Mocha cookies (90 calories)
  
• 1 Jelly Belly 100-calorie pack (100 calories)
  
• One 100-calorie pack Trader Joe's Chocolate Graham Toucan Cookies (100 calories)
  
• One 100-calorie Balance Bar (100 calories)
  
• 1 Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino bar (120 calories)
  
• 1 package Back to Nature Honey Graham Sticks (120 calories)
  
• 1/2 banana rolled in 1 tbsp frozen semisweet chocolate chips (123 calories)
  
• 2 tbsp Better 'n Peanut Butter, 4 stalks celery (124 calories)
  
• 1 bag Orville Redenbacher's Smart Pop Butter Mini Bags topped with a spritz of butter spray and 1 tsp sugar (126 calories)
  
• 24 Annie's Chocolate Chip Bunny Graham cookies (140 calories)
  
• Half of a 1.08-oz container of M&M's Minis mixed with 1/3 cup lowfat granola (145 calories)
  
• 1 McDonald's Fruit 'n Yogurt Parfait (160 calories)
  
• 1 container Fage Greek Total 2% fat yogurt, 2 tsp honey (173 calories)
  

Maintaining a Healthy Heart

 
Every day during the weeks before Valentine's Day, Martha Lowry sent an e-mail to her colleagues at Purdue University Calumet, speaking to them about matters of the heart.

Lowry, the school's wellness director, wrote about the physical and the emotional heart, touching on subjects like blood pressure, cholesterol and cardiovascular exercise as well as heart-to-heart talks and counting your blessings. 


"They are connected," Lowry said. "Stress or emotional problems can lead to physical problems.

Emotional health is good for your physical health." 


February isn't only a time for Valentine's Day lovefests; Congress has also designated it American Heart Month since 1963, according to the American Heart Association. 


During February, the AHA beefs up its efforts to promote research and education on heart disease and stroke. 


Heart-Healthy Tips

Here are some heart-healthy tips to remember.

Heart Attack Warning Signs

• Chest discomfort: Be mindful of discomfort in the center of the chest that lasts more than a few minutes, or that goes away and comes back. It can feel like uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness or pain.
  
• Discomfort in other areas of the upper body: This can happen in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw or stomach.
  
• Shortness of breath: This often happens along with chest discomfort, but also can occur before.
  
• Other signs include breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea or lightheadedness.
  

Tips for Taking Charge of Your Health

• Schedule yearly check-ups with your doctor to have your blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose levels checked.
  
• Exercise 15 to 30 minutes a day, even if it's by stepping, marching or jogging in place while you watch television.
  
• Take a water bottle wherever you go and sip it throughout the day. It will keep you hydrated.
  
• Keep packages of unhealthy food hidden. Instead, keep raw vegetables and fruits ready for when you want a snack.
  
• Keep your cholesterol down by eating foods low in saturated fat, such as lean chicken or turkey, fruits and vegetables, low-fat yogurt and pasta.
  
• Limit your salt intake. It may be disguised on food labels as sodium alginate, sodium sulfite, sodium caseinate, sodium hydroxide, disodium phosphate, sodium benzoate, monosodium glutamate (MSG) and sodium citrate.
  
• Don't smoke. If you smoke, quit.
  
• Avoid fad diets. If you want to lose weight, eat 200 to 300 calories less per day and exercise at least 30 minutes five days a week.
  

How Exercise Affects Your Heart

Look around; about three-quarters of the people you see are either inactive and out of shape. But you run or work out regularly, and this makes many changes in your body because of a process called adaptation. When you work out, you stress your body, but not hard enough that you break it down. During the recovery period your body becomes stronger, so next time you can work out a little harder. This process can continue up to a limit, which varies for different people. In this series we shall look at the adaptation of your body, and see how it differs from most of the sedentary people you see each day. 


Your heart is a muscle whose job is to pump blood. Exercise strengthens muscles and makes them larger. The left ventricle, a lower heart chamber, is especially likely to become larger, with thicker walls, in regular exercisers. This is so characteristic it is called "athlete's heart."

When your heart becomes stronger and larger it can push out more blood with each beat, so it doesn't have to work so hard. If your heart pumps about 70 milliliters of blood per beat, and your heart rate is 70 beats per minute, you pump 4,900 milliliters of blood in a minute. After exercising for a while your heart improves, and can pump maybe 80 milliliters with each beat. To pump the same 4,900 milliliters per minute, it need beat only about 61 times per minute. It is not unusual for aerobically fit recreational athletes to have resting pulse rates in the 50s, or even in the 40s.


There is a maximal value for your heart rate, a rate that it cannot exceed. You can measure your maximal heart rate by taking a treadmill maximal stress test. You run on a treadmill at gradually increasing pace and incline until you reach exhaustion. Your maximal heart rate doesn't change much after you've been exercising for a long time. It might increase slightly if you develop an ability to push yourself harder as you gain experience in high intensity workouts. Over time, your maximal heart rate decreases, although much more slowly than that of a sedentary person.


Some coaches teach competitive runners to judge workout intensity by their heart rates. In practice, you can do just as well by assessing how you feel: hard or easy. 
The biggest benefit of monitoring your heart rate probably is that it prevents you from working out too hard on easy days. If you enjoy gadgets, you might like to wear a heart rate monitor, but recreational athletes don't need one.


When you see the people around you, think about your powerful heart slowly and surely pumping blood all around your body, while two thirds of those folks may have hearts beating twice as fast to do the same job.