Exercise Exercise Exercise!

It's holiday season again! Thanksgiving is a time of celebration for most people in America, and with that celebration comes a lot of delicious food. A lot of people ask how to eat healthier during the holiday season, and it's a good question! It's hard to navigate the pumpkin pies, the extra serving of turkey, or the creamy green bean casserole. It's also hard to give up or alter the food that means so much to us emotionally. But that doesn't mean your health has to be sacrificed for good taste.

Yes, there are ways to make traditional holiday food healthier, but if that's not your jam, this is my suggestion--exercise! Exercising can be forgotten about, especially for students who go home during the holidays. Simply not walking to classes every day can significantly decrease the amount of exercise you are getting. And while exercising will help your body burn extra calories consumed during the holidays it also has so many other benefits as well!

Exercising gives you energy, can help prevent certain diseases, puts you in a better mood, and decreases stress! All in addition to helping you manage your weight. Some simple ideas for incorporating more exercise into your day while away for the holidays are listed below:

• Walk the dog
• Park farther and walk more to get to the store
• Clean your car
• Play outside 
• Go for a short jog or walk 
• Go for a bike ride
• Find a local trail to hike
• Dance
• Do an exercise video if it's too cold outside
• Rake leaves

Come up with your own fun ideas for being more active! And involve friends and family so you have company and support during the season!

Alcohol and Diet

Alcohol consumption is considered part of our diet and can impact human systems in various ways. The first thing to consider with consuming alcohol is that it affects every system in our body! Even with the smallest amounts. But when you consider heavier drinking it can have even bigger impacts on our body including

• Affecting the pathways our brain uses to process information
• Causing liver problems such as inflammation and eventually liver disease
• Heart beat irregularities
• Certain types of cancers

Another consideration when consuming alcohol is the calorie content of drinks. On the most basic scale, alcohol contains 7 calories per gram. Thus providing calories without any nutrients. More practically, about 12-ounces of beer contains about 150 calories, 4-ounces of wine contains about 70 calories, and 1-ounce 80 proof liquor contains about 65 calories. If you are going to drink alcohol, realize that it does provide calories without providing other nutrients. So drink in moderation for calories sake to avoid extra calories. 

How much alcohol is too much alcohol? Our bodies can metabolize one drink per hour (on average). One drink is classified as 12-ounces of beer, 4-5 ounces of wine, and 1.5-ounces of 80 proof liquor. Keep this one drink rule in mind while consuming alcohol. Also, keep in mind that binge drinking is classified as having 4 or more drinks within 2 hours. Binge drinking can have even more serious consequences including more impaired judgement and health consequences such as alcohol poisoning.

So if deciding to drink, be smart about it. Fit it into your daily calorie requirements, plan ahead and make decisions about how much to drink before starting to drink, and remember that drinking impairs every body system including your judgment. 

Reliable Nutrition Information

Nutrition information is everywhere! Billboards, newspapers, websites, and just in our every day conversations. With so much information being thrown at us from so many different sources it can be difficult to determine what is good information and what may not be.

The best and easiest place to start finding reliable nutrition information is on the ChooseMyPlate.gov website. This website is published by the USDA and is based off of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans--a peer reviewed set of nutrition guidelines. The ChooseMyPlate website offers a variety of resources including healthy eating tips, tools for estimating food intake needs, and interactive tools like SuperTracker that allows you to input the foods you eat and assesses your diet. For more in depth nutrition information and to read why MyPlate makes the recommendations it does, you can also look at the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. This report is updated and published every five years to reflect the most up-to-date nutrition information. To access the document follow this link.

Now these are just two resources you can use to find nutrition information. But what if you come across an article and want to know if it's valid? Well, there are a few things you can look for that will help you tell. First, you should look at the author who wrote the article. Do they have credentials to be giving nutrition advice? If they are a Registered Dietitian, they are likely to be sharing good, reliable information. You can tell this if you see R.D. next to their name (which stands for Registered Dietitian). If the author is not a Registered Dietitian, it's harder to tell. For example, if the article is written by a doctor, it may or may not be reliable. Doctors aren't actually required to have nutrition backgrounds, so it may not be reliable. Then again, this doctor may have extensive experience and knowledge on nutrition, thus making it a reliable source. See how it can get a little complicated? Your best bet is to stick with the information outlined on the ChooseMyPlate website, USDA websites, FDA websites, or to seek out community resources to answer your nutrition related questions.

The best resource for nutrition information is a Registered Dietitian. In order to be considered a Registered Dietitian, an individual must meet certain academic requirements (bachelor's degree in nutrition/dietetics), have 1200 hours practical experience, and pass a nationally certifying exam. These strict regulations ensure that Registered Dietitians are passing along reliable information. In contrast, a nutritionist does not have any standards to define that term. Anyone could consider themselves a nutritionist without any education. Just something to pay attention to.

There are other community resources that are reliable even if they don't come straight from a Registered Dietitian. Cooperative Extension agencies in each county have agents that focus on nutrition and health. The information that the agents share is also reliable. Likewise, information and resources coming from universities are also good sources of information based on academics.

If you're interested in contacting a dietitian on campus, Katherine Ingerson serves as the Registered Dietitian for UGA Foodservices. Her email is ingerson@uga.edu. You can also talk to one of the two Registered Dietitians at the University Health Center. Check out the website for more information!

Eating Out in Athens

Eating out can sometimes pose a challenge for eating healthy, but if you know some key things to look for, you can enjoy eating out while still making healthy food choices. The easiest way to make eating out healthier is to learn key words typically found on a menu. Look for foods cooked or described using the words below for the healthiest options:

• Baked, grilled, steamed, or roasted items rather than fried
• Items served without gravies or cream-based sauces
• Light items or items specified on the menu as healthier or low-fat options

Besides looking for key words, use these other tips for making a meal healthier when eating out:

• Order water instead of a higher-calorie beverage like soda or sweet tea
•  Have salad dressing served on the side so you can control the amount used
• Order an appetizer as an entree as the portions tend to be smaller
• Package half of your meal to eat as leftovers the next day
• Avoid adding extra butter or toppings to your food items

Eating out should be an enjoyable experience, and by using these tips you can help make it a healthy experience as well!

Eating Healthy during Stressful Times

Having stress can sometimes lead to unhealthy behaviors, especially this time of year during mid-terms. But stressful times don't have to mean unhealthy times. The healthier you can stay during stressful times, the better your body will function for that big mid-term or paper. But it's not always easy. One of the first things you can do is figure out the triggers that make you stressed out. Think for a second about some of the potential stressors you may encounter in the near future. Identifying stressors in your life will help you figure out how to avoid those, or if they're unavoidable, help you to better cope with them. Other ideas for ways to manage stress and stay healthy are listed below: 

• Find a friend where you both will encourage each other to stay healthy and hold each other accountable. 
• Try to only eat when you're hungry. If you find yourself wanting to eat when stressed try another activity like going for a walk, talking to a friend, journaling, drawing, exercising, listening to music, or playing with a pet.
• Maintain healthy eating habits. The more unhealthy your diet becomes the less energy you will have and the worse you will make your body feel.
• Try to get as much sleep as possible. Stressful times can leave you with little sleep, but without proper sleep your immune system could become impaired making you more susceptible to sickness.
• Avoid overdosing on caffeine, especially if it's found in high sugar beverages. Both caffeine and sugar only provide short term energy highs, potentially leaving you more drained shortly afterwards.

These are just some generic ideas for managing stress. Think of other ways that you personally deal with stress and write those down some place you can reference. Then try incorporating these habits into your day if you're feeling stressed. 

Fad Diets

It seems like almost every day, there's a new diet out there claiming to be the answer to healthy eating. It can be hard sometimes to figure out which diets are healthy. Most diets have both positive and negative aspects, but unless the diets are overall healthy, you should stick to the dietary recommendations made by MyPlate or by a dietitian. Here are some red flags to look for when evaluating a new fad diet:

• Cutting out any whole food group (i.e. carbohydrates, fats, protein, grains, dairy) is a red flag because that means you are cutting out a whole group of nutrients needed by your body.
• If the fad diet is based on research, check the research the diet references. If the diet is based off of only a few limited studies this is a red flag because the diet lacks evidence.
• Promising a quick fix is a huge red flag since the only way to lose weight is to simply burn more calories than consumed. 
• Diets that require you to take supplements to meet nutrient needs. This is a red flag because our daily nutrient needs can be met by food unless under certain medical circumstances. 

These four red flags can help you spot a fad diet that might not be healthy or safe. A big key to always remember is that you lose weight when you burn more calories than you consume. So if you aren't either consuming less calories or exercising to burn more, weight loss will not happen. The best diet to follow is that recommended by MyPlate because it contains a variety of different foods to supply your daily nutrient needs. If you are exploring a new diet and have more specific questions, you may wish to speak to a dietitian who can help you evaluate the diet more in depth. 

Choosing Healthy Snacks

Incorporating snacks into your diet can be a healthy way to keep from getting too hungry in between meals. And choosing those snacks wisely can help add nutrients to your diet, rather than just empty calories. Some ideas for healthy snacks include:

• Whole pieces of fruit. Try to remember to grab an apple, banana, pear, or orange on your way out of the dining hall to have as a snack later.
• Crackers or pretzels with peanut butter. The protein in the peanut butter will help you stay full longer, and both of these foods will store for long periods of time to just keep on hand when needed.
• Applesauce cups can be an easy and tasty way to get in another serving of fruit as a snack. And you don't have to have a refrigerator to store applesauce if you buy the pre-packaged variety.
• Dry cereal stores easily and for long periods of time as well. Cereal can also be a good source of whole grains and certain vitamins. Make sure to look for whole grain varieties when purchasing cereal. The ingredients should list "Whole grain" or "Whole Wheat" as one of the first ingredients.
• Trail mix again is easy to store and is a great snack to keep you full until your next meal. The nuts found in trail mix contain healthy fats and many needed nutrients like vitamins and minerals. And if the trail mix contains dried fruit as well, that counts towards your daily fruit needs.
• If you do have a refrigerator to store perishable items, keeping yogurt cups on hand is a good idea for snacking. Choose low-fat or fat-free options to cut down on extra saturated fat.
• Carrots and hummus is another great snack idea if you have access to a refrigerator. The carrots will add vegetables to your diet and the hummus adds protein.

It's important to remember that snacking can fit into your daily requirements! A common misconception is that eating late at night can cause weight gain, which may prevent people from snacking after dinner. But it is not the timing of when we eat that causes weight gain, it's the balance of calories over the entire day that influences our weight. If snacking late at night causes you to consume more calories than needed, then weight  gain will occur. However, if you are hungry and haven't met your daily calorie needs, snacking will not cause weight gain. So if having a snack helps you focus on what you're working on later at night, then pick a healthy snack to have. Getting a sense of your daily needs and requirements will help you figure out if snacking can fit into your diet. As mentioned in an earlier post, try using the USDA's SuperTracker tool to track your calorie needs and balance your healthy snacks.