ILANA KATZ MS, RD, CSSD

MARCH IS NATIONAL NUTRITION MONTH

So there is no better time to focus on healthy food and lifestyle choices. What you choose to eat today, and everyday, and the exercise you engage in, will affect yourfuture well-being. First and foremost, a great start would be eating a variety of foods and Colours!

Yes, eat a Rainbow a day since each colour in your food represents a different phytonutrient (micronutrients coming from plants, vitamins and minerals), and that does not mean M&Ms or skittles.

Did you know that you can make your day more nutritious by simply increasing your vegetable intake?

VEGETABLES:

can increase the amount of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants your body receives. It may seem challenging to add extra veggies, but it doesn’t have to be! Here are some tips!

♥ Plan some meals around a vegetable main dish, such as a vegetable stir- fry or soup. Then add other foods to complement it.

♥ Try a main dish salad for lunch. Go light on the salad dressing.

♥ Include a green salad with your dinner every night.

♥ Shred carrots or zucchini into meatloaf, and casseroles.

♥ Include chopped vegetables in pasta sauce or lasagna.

♥ Order a veggie pizza with mushrooms, green peppers, and onions, and ask for extra veggies.

♥ Use pureed, cooked vegetables such as potatoes to thicken stews, soups and gravies. Grill vegetable kabobs as part of a barbecue meal. Try tomatoes, mushrooms, green peppers, and onions.

FITNESS CORNER

Take your routine outside!

The weather is warming up, so take it to the streets or nature trail or park! There are endless exercises you can do outdoors. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Sprinting intervals. Vary intervals with different intensities. Examples: Sprint 20 seconds, walk 20 seconds, repeat 5 times. Jog 40 seconds, sprint 10 seconds, walk 10 seconds.

Uphill: Make good use of any hills to sprint up, use your arms to help. Walk back down.

Squats and lunges: Feel it in thighs, calves and butt. Squats can be done 1 or 2 footed; feet together or split stance; controlled and slow or fast and powerful; one continuous movement/held at the bottom. Lunges go forwards/backwards; walk and lunge or on the spot; wide/narrow.

Push ups: Push up against anything. The floor, a bar, a bench, with your feet on a raised platform (e.g. bottom of a slide), or an even higher platform to give you a vertical push up. Try all different angles to work different areas of your upper body.

Which Salad Should You Have? Take a Look!

Restaurant Cals Fat (g) Sat fat (g) Sodium (mg)

Applebee’s

Fried Chicken salad, 1060 75 21 2130

w/dressing

Fried Chicken salad, 640 40 16 1220

w/o dressing

O’Charley’s

Fried Chicken Salad 900 42 12 3100

Pecan Chicken Salad 1020 60 11 2020

Panera Bread:

Chopped Cobb Salad 500 36 9 1120

Wendy’s

Apple Pecan Chicken 580 37 9 1590

Let’s Talk Breakfast!

If you and your kids regularly skip breakfast due to lack of time or wanting more sleep, remember that eating a wholesome, nutritious morning meal will save you time in the long run!

♥ By recharging your brain and your body, you’ll be more efficient in everything you do.

♥ Kids who skip breakfast are more tardy and absent from school more often than children who eat breakfast on a regular basis…

♥ Skipping breakfast strongly linked to the development of obesity. Studies show overweight and obese children, adolescents, and adults are less likely have breakfast each morning than their thinner counterparts.

♥ Missing meals, especially breakfast, can make weight control difficult.

Breakfast skippers eat more food at the next meal or munch on high calorie snacks to reduce hunger.

RECIPE OF THE MONTH

Loaded Spinach Salad

Ingredients:

8 eggs, 6 c spinach, 4 T Blue Cheese Dressing divided, 8-ounce can beets rinsed and sliced, 1 c shredded carrots, 2 T chopped pecans, toasted

Preparation:

Place eggs in saucepan; cover with water. Bring to simmer over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook at lowest simmer for 10 minutes. Pour out hot water, run cold water over eggs until completely cooled. Peel eggs, discard 6 of yolks, chop remaining yolks and whites. Toss spinach and 2 T dressing in large bowl. Divide between 2 plates. Top with chopped eggs, beets, carrots and pecans. Drizzle with remaining 2 T dressing. Add additional veggies for variety and color!

Nutrition: 300 calories; 13 g fat ( 3 g sat , 6 g mono ); 216 mg chol; 26 g CHO; 22 g pro; 8 g fiber; 823 mg sodium; 592 mg potassium.

Nutrition Bonus: Vitamin A (240% daily value), Folate (35% dv), Vitamin C (30% dv), Calcium (15% dv)

MYTH BUSTER:

You can target one area of your body for weight loss

This is a myth, pure and simple… No matter how much exercise you do for a specific region of the body, it’s physiologically impossible to lose body fat in a targeted area. Worse yet, the areas of your body that gain fat the fastest are the last to see it go. Fat is lost or gained throughout the entire body. Furthermore, the last area where people tend to lose fat from is the areas where they gain it first. So for most men, the abdominal region is the most difficult area to trim, while in women, the hips, buttocks, and thighs are the trouble spots.