5 common Diet myths to get your eating on track

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by Rania Batayneh, MPH, with Eve Adamson, author of the One One One Diet
Don't let weight-loss myths sabotage your efforts. Just because something worked for your friend (or coworker or neighbor or second cousin) doesn't mean it always works. Here are the top-five weight-loss myths that not only stall your weight loss but can also make you gain.
Are you ready to look truth squarely in the eye?
Myth #1: Gluten is bad.
This is one of those fads everyone's talking about these days. "Quit gluten! Quit wheat! Wheat gives you a big belly and chronic diseases and makes you obese and practically kills you the second you eat a slice of bread or a bite of pasta!"
Slow down for a second.
I feel sorry for gluten. It's a nutritious protein that comes from rye, wheat, and barley. It's true that some people can't eat it, just as some people can't eat strawberries, peanuts, or cheese, but for most people, gluten is a perfectly safe and nutritious. The idea that wheat is somehow genetically modified beyond recognition, or that it's so starchy you can't possibly stabilize your blood sugar if you eat it is blatant exaggeration.
Giving up gluten is no guaranteed path to weight loss, and could even lead to weight gain. A few studies even report nutritional deficiencies in people on long-term gluten-free diets, especially among those who rely on a lot of packaged gluten-free foods. If you substitute gluten-free bread, cookies, tortillas, and cake for your gluten-containing favorites, you're going to be eating just as many carbs and just as much sugar.
There is one kernel of truth to the wheat bashing: People eat way too much of it. The only reason some people lose weight going gluten free is they eat more natural whole foods and get their formerly excessive carbohydrate intake back into balance. That's all great, but you don't have to give up gluten to do it.
Myth #2: Meat is bad, and dairy is really bad.
The other big food group that dieters tend to ban is animal products. I have no problem with people who want to eat vegetarian or vegan for ethical reasons. A few studies have shown that vegetarians have lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol, and a lower risk of heart disease than meat eaters. I hear your arguments. But weight loss is not necessarily one of the benefits.
Why? Because you can easily eat a junk-food diet and still technically be a vegan. Plenty of less-than-nutritious foods don't contain animal products. White bread; most types of sweeteners, including high-fructose corn syrup; margarine; and fried potato and corn chips are all vegan.
I've met plenty of overweight and even obese vegetarians and vegans. It's not the stereotype, but the reedy-looking celebrity vegans who write the books have careers that demand they stay in good shape.
Now let's turn our attention to dairy. Sure, eating huge hunks of cheese or heaping bowls of ice cream isn't healthy and is out of balance—not to mention very high in fat and calories—but you don't have to give up dairy altogether unless you have ethical or medical reasons to do so. One of my favorite foods is low-fat Greek yogurt, which is very high in protein compared to conventional yogurt, and has a rich, creamy texture. Cottage cheese can be a healthy snack or meal and a base for many delicious recipes. I often recommend string cheese as part of a healthy snack.
The bottom line is that you still need to stay in balance. You can't just cut out a food group and assume everything about your diet will be fine as long as you don't eat that one thing. That's not how it works.
Myth #3: Organic food is diet food.
I had a client once who told me that she didn't understand why she wasn't losing weight because she was eating all organic. She'd read in a book that the chemicals in food make us fat, and that if you just eat organic, you won't be fat.
"What did you eat today for breakfast?" I asked.
She paused. "A quarter of an organic cherry pie."
Hmmm.
The word organic is seductive, but it's also misleading. Organic means a food is grown without pesticides or other chemicals and is not genetically modified. But the label says absolutely nothing about the nutrient value of the food itself, or whether it's a good dietary choice, or whether it has excessive fat, sugar, or starch. No wonder she wasn't losing any weight.
Chemicals scare people—so much so that they can forget what losing weight is really about. I understand the concern. It's a toxic world. Many of my clients are concerned about the effects of toxins in foods and choose organic foods to avoid some of this chemical load. Our environment is contaminated with chemicals, and nobody can avoid them entirely. So while eating organic food might lighten your toxic load a bit, it's certainly no magic weight-loss bullet. Calories are calories, fat is fat, and sugar is sugar, even when it comes without the pesticide sprinkles.
Myth #4: Paid diet plans work best.
If I had a nickel for every client I've ever had who was a dropout from some paid diet plan, well, I'd have a lot of nickels. You're likely to find that you're highly motivated—at first. But when reality sets in and you get tired of eating the packaged foods or counting the points or not getting to have what you really want, that's when motivation flags.
Sure, there are success stories from these programs. But has anybody checked two or three years down the line? The percentage of people who keep the weight off is dismally small. Those fine-print disclaimers really are true: Losing weight and keeping it off through a paid diet program is not a typical result. Most people don't have that kind of success. They might lose weight, but most of the time, they gain it back.
In fact, a study from UCLA that analyzed 31 long-term studies found that although people can often lose 5 to 10 percent of their body weight on any diet, most people regain the weight and more within four to five years, and that dieting itself is actually a consistent predictor of future weight gain! My clients have told me that when they were on a paid diet program, they did great, but they didn't know what to do once they went off it. They didn't learn anything. So they yo-yo and end up gaining more weight in the long run.
Myth #5: Diet food helps you lose weight.
Diet foods are fake foods—or more precisely, fake "foods." Manufacturers use all kinds of food-processing tricks and chemicals to trick you into thinking you just ate a blueberry pie or a chocolate eclair or a regular cola, when all you really ate was artificial sweetener, filler, or even wood pulp.
If you eat this stuff, your brain might be fooled for a few minutes, but your body won't be. Fake foods cause all kinds of trouble in your body. Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis tested 17 severely obese people to see how their blood sugar and insulin would respond to artificial sweeteners. When study subjects drank sucralose (a common artificial sweetener) before a glucose challenge test, they had higher blood sugar peaks and a 20 percent higher insulin level than when they drank just water before the test.
Fillers and chemicals that mimic natural flavors have similar effects. Your body feels full temporarily, but because it isn't getting the nutrients that should coincide with a full feeling, it gets confused, and you end up hungrier.
Then there are all those "fat-free" foods. Studies show that where a person might eat one real cookie, he or she is more likely to eat 10 fat-free cookies (because, hey, they're fat free, right?). That results in a calorie overload, not a calorie deficit.

Your diet sucks. No, not the odd cheese-curls-for-dinner days. We mean the average 400 calories a day you suck down through a straw. A recent study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that around 37 percent of our total daily liquid calories come from sugar-sweetened drinks. And here's the really crazy part: Guzzling those beverages has a bigger impact on our waistlines than anything else we eat. "People don't reduce food intake when they drink their calories from soda and other beverages," says Barry Popkin, Ph.D., a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina. The silver lining is that cutting back on those oversweetened fluids can be an easy way to kick-start weight loss. Where to begin? This guide is a good place. Drink These Freely Tea We may live in the land of the Big Gulp, but for the rest of the world, tea is the most popular beverage after water. And for good reason: Hot or cold, it's calorie-free, and studies have found that compounds in green tea known as catechins rev your metabolism for up to 24 hours—meaning it actually helps you burn more calories. But when you load this naturally good beverage with sugar, you detract from those health benefits. So order unsweetened when you can, and check labels: Every four grams of sugar is the same as one cube or packetful. If you're up for brewing your own, try this recipe for iced cucumber green tea, from Maggie Moon, M.S., R.D., of the U.S. Tea Council. Boil a quart of cold water, then let it cool for 10 minutes before adding eight to 10 green-tea bags. This will extract the flavor and antioxidants without scorching the tea, which can make it bitter. Steep for one minute, then remove the bags. Peel and dice a cucumber, reserving eight to 10 slices for garnish. Peel and grate one tablespoon of fresh ginger. Distribute cucumber and ginger evenly among four glasses with ice. Top each with eight ounces of tea and garnish with cucumber slices. Coffee Like tea, unsweetened coffee is filled with healthy compounds and almost no calories. But if you're a fan of sugary coffee concoctions, you down 206 more calories a day on average than people who sip straight joe. Not ready to break up with your barista? Try an Americano (espresso plus water) or a café au lait with skim milk. If you can't skip cream and sugar, be stingy with them or use low-cal or fat-free versions. Go Easier On These Milk Researchers at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville found that having three servings of low-fat dairy per day can lead to weight loss of 10 percent or more. Dairy contains calcium and the amino acid leucine, which together promote fat burning, says Michael Zemel, Ph.D., director of the university's Nutrition Institute. And a study of overweight women at Northern Illinois University found that soy milk was just as effective as nonfat cow's milk in helping them shed pounds. But stick to skim or low-fat moo juice and light soy milk; otherwise, the calories add up quickly. Alcohol Happy hour is good for plenty of things, but weight loss isn't one of them. Savoring a drink every now and then does have perks, including reducing your risk of heart disease, but alcohol packs a lot of calories into a small glass, and it may even stimulate your appetite. And unlike the calories in fat, carbohydrates, and protein, those in alcohol can't be stored in your body, so they have to be used immediately. As a result, your body stops burning fat until the alcohol is processed—that's roughly an hour for every drink. Most wines ring in between 100 and 120 calories a glass, but you can stretch it out by adding club soda and ice to make a spritzer. If you can't stomach that, have a Bloody Mary—a six-ounce glass delivers around 76 calories. That's reasonable. Juice If it comes from fruit, it must be healthy, right? Not so much. Many juices have added sugars. And in terms of health benefits, you're always better off eating whole fruit instead. A medium orange has a mere 59 calories, and its 12 grams of sugar come with three grams of belly-­filling fiber. A typical eight-ounce glass of OJ has 110 calories, twice as much sugar as the fruit, and no fiber. For a healthier juice fix, try watering it down, says Lisa Jones, R.D., adjunct professor of nutrition at La Salle University in Philadelphia. Mix four ounces of your favorite kind with 32 ounces of water. You'll get the flavor with fewer calories. Diet soda No-cal pop may not pile on the pounds directly, but new research from Purdue University suggests that drinking these artificially sweetened beverages can screw with the brain's ability to measure caloric intake. Drink them often enough and you may actually start to crave sweets more. Plus, if you swig diet drinks all day, you're taking in fewer healthy liquids, such as tea. Get your carbonation fix with zero-calorie seltzer instead, or make your own with a home soda maker that carbonates your drink of choice.

Your diet sucks. No, not the odd cheese-curls-for-dinner days. We mean the average 400 calories a day you suck down through a straw. A recent study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that around 37 percent of our total daily liquid calories come from sugar-sweetened drinks. And here's the really crazy part: Guzzling those beverages has a bigger impact on our waistlines than anything else we eat.

"People don't reduce food intake when they drink their calories from soda and other beverages," says Barry Popkin, Ph.D., a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina. The silver lining is that cutting back on those oversweetened fluids can be an easy way to kick-start weight loss. Where to begin? This guide is a good place.

Drink These Freely

Tea We may live in the land of the Big Gulp, but for the rest of the world, tea is the most popular beverage after water. And for good reason: Hot or cold, it's calorie-free, and studies have found that compounds in green tea known as catechins rev your metabolism for up to 24 hours—meaning it actually helps you burn more calories.

But when you load this naturally good beverage with sugar, you detract from those health benefits. So order unsweetened when you can, and check labels: Every four grams of sugar is the same as one cube or packetful. If you're up for brewing your own, try this recipe for iced cucumber green tea, from Maggie Moon, M.S., R.D., of the U.S. Tea Council. Boil a quart of cold water, then let it cool for 10 minutes before adding eight to 10 green-tea bags. This will extract the flavor and antioxidants without scorching the tea, which can make it bitter. Steep for one minute, then remove the bags. Peel and dice a cucumber, reserving eight to 10 slices for garnish. Peel and grate one tablespoon of fresh ginger. Distribute cucumber and ginger evenly among four glasses with ice. Top each with eight ounces of tea and garnish with cucumber slices.

Coffee Like tea, unsweetened coffee is filled with healthy compounds and almost no calories. But if you're a fan of sugary coffee concoctions, you down 206 more calories a day on average than people who sip straight joe. Not ready to break up with your barista? Try an Americano (espresso plus water) or a café au lait with skim milk. If you can't skip cream and sugar, be stingy with them or use low-cal or fat-free versions.


Go Easier On These

Milk Researchers at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville found that having three servings of low-fat dairy per day can lead to weight loss of 10 percent or more. Dairy contains calcium and the amino acid leucine, which together promote fat burning, says Michael Zemel, Ph.D., director of the university's Nutrition Institute. And a study of overweight women at Northern Illinois University found that soy milk was just as effective as nonfat cow's milk in helping them shed pounds. But stick to skim or low-fat moo juice and light soy milk; otherwise, the calories add up quickly.

Alcohol Happy hour is good for plenty of things, but weight loss isn't one of them. Savoring a drink every now and then does have perks, including reducing your risk of heart disease, but alcohol packs a lot of calories into a small glass, and it may even stimulate your appetite. And unlike the calories in fat, carbohydrates, and protein, those in alcohol can't be stored in your body, so they have to be used immediately. As a result, your body stops burning fat until the alcohol is processed—that's roughly an hour for every drink. Most wines ring in between 100 and 120 calories a glass, but you can stretch it out by adding club soda and ice to make a spritzer. If you can't stomach that, have a Bloody Mary—a six-ounce glass delivers around 76 calories. That's reasonable.

Juice If it comes from fruit, it must be healthy, right? Not so much. Many juices have added sugars. And in terms of health benefits, you're always better off eating whole fruit instead. A medium orange has a mere 59 calories, and its 12 grams of sugar come with three grams of belly-­filling fiber. A typical eight-ounce glass of OJ has 110 calories, twice as much sugar as the fruit, and no fiber. For a healthier juice fix, try watering it down, says Lisa Jones, R.D., adjunct professor of nutrition at La Salle University in Philadelphia. Mix four ounces of your favorite kind with 32 ounces of water. You'll get the flavor with fewer calories.

Diet soda No-cal pop may not pile on the pounds directly, but new research from Purdue University suggests that drinking these artificially sweetened beverages can screw with the brain's ability to measure caloric intake. Drink them often enough and you may actually start to crave sweets more. Plus, if you swig diet drinks all day, you're taking in fewer healthy liquids, such as tea. Get your carbonation fix with zero-calorie seltzer instead, or make your own with a home soda maker that carbonates your drink of choice.

Best Holiday Weight Loss Tips

Stay Fit Over the Holiday Season and Beyond

Over Christmas, or indeed any extended holiday period, excessive eating and drinking and too little exercise can cause you pack on the pounds and lose fitness as well. You can do something about it. Apply these tips and maintain your fitness -- and keep those pounds off.

Weight Management and Fitness Tips

• Compensate, compensate, compensate! Successful weight losers and maintainers know how to use this technique, which is just common sense. The idea of compensation is simply to keep energy input (food) and energy output (activity and exercise) in balance so you don't put on the pounds.  It means that if you've eaten to excess one meal or day or week, or not kept up with your activity program on a daily or weekly basis, then in the next period, you 'compensate.' Eat light for the next meal or day, or exercise harder or more regularly the next day or week. You do have to understand that you have overeaten or under-exercised, and then to have the will to adjust in the next period. It may sound simple, but too few actually implement it. It allows you to enjoy some of the foods and relaxation you like without getting the whole metabolism out of balance. Compensate.
• Limit portions or limit meals, or both. You need to prevent overeating and over-drinking one way or another. The snack meals at morning and afternoon can pile on the calories. Control these, or compensate the next day or meal and cut back or even fast for that meal. Have several alcohol-free days each week.
• Cut back on fat, refined carbohydrates and sugars, and alcohol. This is food ceasier said than done when you want to enjoy yourself, but excesses of the three food categories are mostly where the excess calories and body fat come from. Reduce intake of fried foods, fatty cuts of meat, cheeses, fatty processed and packaged foods, pastries, sweets, cakes, pop and soft drinks, beer, spirits and wine and similar foods. Cutting back does not mean eating none of these; you are entitled to enjoy the festivities -- but be selective.
• Exercise or train five days each week, and make sure you move seven days each week. An hour of brisk walking expends about 300 calories. That's pretty much the equivalent to a big fancy slice of pecan pie, so you need to be active, very active during any period where you are tempted to overeat fancy foods. If you're on holidays, stay active because incidental, non-exercise activity is important. We all like to read and relax on holidays, but make time to get moving, even if it's recreational walking, skating or skiing.
• Do 2-3 workouts each week of at least 600 calories. Yes, this is asking a lot for most people on holidays, but you can reach this by jogging for about 50 minutes (at around 6 miles/hour pace), even in two different sessions. Or, you can do a weights session of 9 exercises of 3 sets of 12 repetitions, and do a 20 minute jog the same day to give you approximately the same energy expenditure.
• Play a lot; move more. Play with the kids, the grand kids, the nephews and nieces. Any type of activity that is not formal exercise is important because it helps keep your metabolism higher so you burn more calories during day-to-day activities.

Thanks for Reading...

5 Easy Ways to Start Losing Weight NOW

A new Gallup survey found that a full 51 percent of adults are hoping to drop pounds—yet only about half of them say they are truly doing something to downsize. We get it: Embarking on a weight-loss plan feels so daunting. But it doesn't have to be; all it takes to get started is a few tiny lifestyle tweaks that get you on your way to reaching your goal. Here, five beyond-simple weight-loss strategies to get you started:
Start your day with oatmeal: Research shows it can help keep hunger at bay better than other cereals
Ditch the guilt: Recent research shows beating yourself up about eating something indulgent can sabotage your weight-loss efforts. Instead, look at treating yourself as a celebratory—not shame-inducing—event.
Ignore the scale: Numbers go up and down and stall in a plateau all the time, which can do a number on your motivation. A better idea: Focus on healthy habits rather than weigh-ins—it's likely to result in more pounds dropped, according to a recent study.
Don't drink your calories: Around 37 percent of the average person's daily liquid calories come from sugar-sweetened drinks. Stick to water, unsweetened ice tea, or black or skim milk-infused coffee.
Avoid eating later at night: People who usually eat dinner around 10 p.m. consume 248 calories more per day than people who eat earlier, according to a recent study.

7 Habits That Make You Fat

According to recent research, the average person makes 200 decisions every day that will influence his or her weight. And most of these decisions aren’t monumental choices, like “Should I become an elite marathon runner?” or “Should I move to Wisconsin and live entirely on bratwurst and cheese curds?” Most, in fact, are tiny little choices—habits, really—that over the long run, lead us down one of two paths: the road to ripped, or the freeway to flab.

And guess what? That’s great news! Because it means that you don’t have to run marathons—or even give up bratwurst—to start losing serious weight. You just need to break 7 very simple, common habits—tiny changes that have nothing to do with diet and exercise, but have everything to do with dropping pounds, looking great, and making a huge improvement in your health.

Fat Habit #1

Putting the Serving Dishes on the Table

Researchers at Cornell University found that when people served themselves from the kitchen counter or the stove, they ate up to 35 percent less food than they did when the grub was on the kitchen or dining room table. When there’s distance between us and our food, the scientists theorize, we think harder about whether we’re really hungry for more.

Fat Habit #2

Getting Too Little (or Too Much) Sleep

A sleep schedule is vital to any weight-loss plan, say Wake Forest University researchers who tracked study participants for 5 years. In the under-40 age group, people who slept 5 hours or less each night gained nearly 2½ times as much abdominal fat as those who logged 6 to 7 hours; also, those who slept 8 hours or longer added nearly twice as much belly fat as the 6- to 7-hour group.

People with sleep deficits tend to eat more (and use less energy) because they’re tired, says study coauthor Kristen Hairston, M.D., while those who sleep longer than 8 hours a night tend to be less active.

Fat Habit #3

Not Multitasking While Watching TV

We don't need to tell you that too much TV has been linked to weight gain. But here's what you may not realize: You can have your TV and watch it, too. Just do something else at the same time. Washing dishes burns 70 calories every 30 minutes. So does ironing. Here's another thing to keep in mind: Cutting TV time even a little helps you burn calories, say researchers at the University of Vermont. In their study, overweight participants who cut their viewing time in half (from an average of 5 hours to 2.5) burned an extra 119 calories a day. “Nearly anything you do—even reading—uses more energy than watching TV,” says study author Jennifer J. Otten, Ph.D.

Drinking Soda

Researchers say you can measure a person’s risk of obesity by measuring his or her soda intake. Versus people who don’t drink sweetened sodas, here’s what your daily intake means:

½ can = 26 percent increased risk of being overweight or obese

½ to 1 can = 30.4 percent increased risk

1 to 2 cans = 32.8 percent increased risk

More than 2 cans = 47.2 percent increased risk

That’s a pretty remarkable set of stats. You don’t have to guzzle Double Gulps from 7-Eleven to put yourself at risk—you just need to indulge in one or two cans a day. Wow. And because high-fructose corn syrup is so cheap, food marketers keep making serving sizes bigger (even the “small” at most movie theaters is enough to drown a raccoon). That means we’re drinking more than ever and don’t even realize it: In the 1950s, the average person drank 11 gallons of soda a year. By the mid-2000s, we were drinking 46 gallons a year. A Center for Science in the Public Interest report contained this shocking sentence: “Carbonated soft drinks are the single biggest source of calories in the American diet.”

Fat Habit #5

Taking Big Bites

Dutch researchers recently found that big bites and fast chewing can lead to overeating. In the study, people who chewed large bites of food for 3 seconds consumed 52 percent more food before feeling full than those who chewed small bites for 9 seconds. The reason: Tasting food for a longer period of time (no matter how much of it you bite off) signals your brain to make you feel full sooner, say the scientists.

Fat Habit #6

Not Eating Enough Fat

You don’t have to go whole hog on a low-carb diet to see results. Simply swapping a few hundred calories of carbs for a little fat may help you lose weight and reduce your blood-insulin levels, according to researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. People in their study who consumed just 43 percent of their calories from carbohydrates felt fuller after 4 hours and maintained their blood-sugar levels longer than those who ate 55 percent carbs.

Carbs can cause blood-sugar levels to spike and then crash, leading to hunger and overeating, says study author Barbara Gower, Ph.D. Fat, on the other hand, keeps you satiated longer. Some easy swaps: butter instead of jam on toast; bacon instead of potatoes; low-fat milk instead of a sports drink.

Fat Habit #7

Not Getting the Best Guidance!

Signing up for e-mails (or tweets) that contain weight-loss advice can help you drop pounds, a new study reveals. When researchers from Canada sent diet and exercise advice to more than 1,000 working adults weekly, they discovered that the recipients boosted their physical activity and ate smarter. People who didn’t receive the reminders didn’t change. Lucky for you, we publish the best diet and fitness guidance every single day.

Thanks for reading!

15 Terrible Snacks For Weight Loss

Attacking the snacks

From the Cheerio-toting toddler to the vending machine-loving employee, we're a nation obsessed with snacks. How obsessed? Most of us eat nearly 600 calories a day—that's roughly a third of our food—in snacks rather than meals, according to a 2010 study from the University of North Carolina. 

That's a lot of snacking, something that can make or break your weight loss efforts. “There is a right way and a wrong way to snack,” says Katie Ferraro, MPH, a San Diego-based registered dietitian at Ingrain Health. Done right, snacking can keep your appetite in check, fuel your workout, and give you valuable nutrients. Done wrong, and you're downing gut-busting snacks loaded with sugar and fat, says Ferraro.

And here's where it gets tricky—it's all too easy to be fooled into thinking seemingly healthy snacks are good for your waistline. Here are 15 weight loss-sabotaging snacks to avoid, and the tasty swaps to make instead.

Instead of: Strawberry yogurt

Reach for: Plain Greek yogurt with fresh strawberry slices

Some fruit-on-the-bottom varieties of yogurt contain 26 grams of sugar in a six-ounce container (that's the equivalent of three Oreo cookies). And while 12 grams of that comes from the milk itself, the rest is from the sugar-packed fruit flavoring. A recent study review published in the BMJ found that cutting back on sugar is associated with about a two-pound weight loss, while eating more results in a similar amount of weight gain. Stick to plain Greek yogurt for less sugar and a healthy dose of protein.

Instead of: ½ cup of trail mix with chocolate pieces

Reach for: A fruit-and-nut bar

The standard serving size of trail mix is a quarter cup, a measly amount that most of never come close to sticking to—especially when eating straight out of the bag (just two handfuls put you at 350 calories!). A fruit-and-nut bar, like KIND Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt or a LaraBar is great way to meet your craving for something nutty and slightly sweet, but in a single-serve package that you can’t overdo.

Instead of: An ounce of pretzels

Reach for: An ounce of salted, shelled pistachios

Pretzels pack 450 mg of sodium—that's nearly 20% of what you need in an entire day. Besides not being a good call for your heart, excess sodium can also make uncomfortably. Salted nuts, on the other hand, contain just a quarter the sodium. And if you're worried about the fat in the nuts, don’t be: While the pistachios do have 50 more calories per serving than the pretzels, they also contain twice the protein and three times the fiber to keep you fuller longer. Plus, people who added nuts to their diet lost more weight compared to those who snacked on pretzels, according to a recent UCLA study.

Instead of: ¼ cup of soy nuts

Reach for: ½ cup shelled, steamed edamame

While a quarter-cup of soy nuts is 130 calories, a single-serve packet of edamame (which can be steamed in the microwave and is available in the freezer section of your grocery store) is only 90 calories. Translation? You get twice the food for fewer calories. 

Instead of: A can of diet soda

Reach for: 12 oz of unsweetened sparkling water with fruit slices

Many people drink zero calorie sodas when trying to stave off hunger between meals. However, the artificial sweetener you're knocking back along with the bubbles has been linked to an increased risk of weight gain—the sweeteners may negatively impact your metabolism, as well as throw off your brain's ability to regulate your appetite, finds a 2013 study in Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism. If you’re really just thirsty instead of hungry, opting for sparkling H20 provides that filling carbonation, while adding fruit (orange, lemon, strawberries) adds a hint of sweetness with a boost of nutrition.

Instead of: Two rice cakes

Reach for: One cup of air-popped popcorn

Rice cakes have long been labeled a diet food because they’re low in calories and fat free. But they’re also sky high on the glycemic index, scoring 82 (pure sugar is 100). The glycemic index is a measure of how a food raises your blood sugar and insulin (the higher the score, the greater the increase). And according to Australian research, people who ate a diet lower on the glycemic index lost twice as much fat compared to those on higher glycemic diets.

One cup of air-popped popcorn is only 31 calories, has a lower glycemic index (55), and also counts as a serving of whole grains. Plus, you can jazz up plain popcorn with zero-calorie spices—like cinnamon, cumin, chili powder—to make it tastier. 

Instead of: A 16-ounce bottled smoothie

Reach for: A homemade smoothie

At first glance, the bottled smoothie might look like a good pick at only 150 calories. But look closer and you’ll see that that one bottle contains two servings (or 300 total calories), and, let's be real, most of us aren't just going to drink half the bottle. A better bet? Make your own and contol the calories yourself.

Instead of: One ounce of banana chips

Reach for: A banana

Banana chips appear to be a sound choice because they’re made from bananas—how bad could they be, right? Bad. They’re usually fried, meaning they contain eight grams of saturated fat (40% of your daily value) and 145 calories. A diet high in saturated fat has been found to disrupt the production of key hormones that regulate your appetite, which could make you feel hungry when you’re not, finds a study in the British Journal of Nutrition. Opt for a large banana, which offers only 121 calories and zero grams of saturated fat.

Instead of: A grande 2% pumpkin spice latte

Reach for: A grande non-fat latte 

While a pumpkin latte feels like the perfect fall snack, it’s not exactly bursting with pumpkin. Rather, it’s bursting with sugar, clocking in at 47 grams of sugar and 310 calories—and that’s without the whipped cream. To put that in perspective, an unsweetened latte contains 18 grams of sugar (from the milk). That means, the pumpkin drink packs 29 added grams of sugar, or more than seven teaspoons of sugar. Women are only advised to get six added teaspoons of the sweet stuff a day to prevent weight gain, according to the American Heart Association. Go for a skim latte instead, which contains no added sugar and only 130 calories.

Instead of: A chocolate pudding cup

Reach for: One ounce of dark chocolate 

When you’re craving something chocolate-y a pudding cup gets a good rep as a diet-friendly treat. But you’ll satisfy your craving more if you go for the real deal, an ounce of 70% (or higher) dark chocolate. It contains 168 calories (just a few more calories than the average pudding cup, which ranges from 120 to 150 calories), plus less sugar and carbs, and more satiating fiber. The chocolate also has antioxidant-packed cocoa, which, per a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine, may be the reason people who eat it a few times a week are thinner than those who don’t. If portioning is an issue for you, Endangered Species Organic Dark Chocolate Chimp Mints ($50, pack of 64; amazon.com) come in .35 oz each (so you can have 3!), or try 1-oz Scharffen Berger 70% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate bars ($4;amazon.com).

Instead of: A handful of baby carrots

Reach for: A handful of baby carrots dipped in 2 Tbsp hummus

Sure, your mouth will be busy chewing like a rabbit, but once you stop munching, you're still going to be hungry. Carrots alone likely don’t have enough calories to keep you full for very long—so as good as your intentions are, your hunger may drive you to dip into the office candy stash soon after. Instead, pair them with a protein source like hummus, which will help slow digestion and keep afternoon cravings at bay.

Instead of: ½ cup of canned pears

Reach for: 4 dried plums

Even though it’s fruit, the canned pears are swimming in sweetened syrup, and they’re also low in fiber, with only one gram per serving. Eating four dried plums—aka prunes—provides a few less calories (91 in the dried plums versus 100 in canned pears) and ups your intake of fiber to three grams. Women should aim to get 25 grams of fiber per day—but most only eat half that—and increasing your intake by 10 grams a day is associated with a smaller waist circumference and weight, according to a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Instead of: One serving of cheese crackers (27 crackers)

Reach for: A half of a turkey sandwich on whole wheat with a slice of avocado

Twenty-seven cheese crackers in a serving sounds like a sweet deal, but like all bargains, if it sounds too good to be true...well, you know how it goes. The crackers are high in simple carbohydrates like enriched flours, which spike blood sugar and create cravings (for more crackers). You can decrease that response and slow digestion with 100% whole grain bread, a source of protein, and healthy fats. Upping the intake of whole grains helped female dieters lose nearly two pounds more and decrease their body fat by one additional percentage point than a group that ate refined grains, according to a study in the Journal of Nutrition.

Instead of: ½ cup granola with one-cup skim milk

Reach for: One packet of instant oats

If you get hungry before lunch, you might want a second breakfast—and that’s okay! But granola is little more than sugar and fat, which is why this healthy-sounding snack can run upward of 360 calories. And people tend to eat bigger portions when the food is labeled healthy (like granola is), according to a recent French study. The instant oats, on the other hand, contain about 150 calories and can be easily whipped up in a cup with hot water. Oats also offer a surprisingly good amount of protein, plus slow-digesting fiber from whole grains.

Instead of: 100-calorie pack of cookies

Reach for: One-third cup of roasted pumpkin seeds

Smaller packages actually backfire, according to a study from Arizona State University, which found that people tend to eat more 100-calorie packs because they appear to be diet food. Besides, cookies—even diet versions—are almost always devoid of nutrients. Pumpkin seeds contain good fats and protein and can be pre-portioned out into individual bags to take to work. A one-third cup serving of roasted seeds is just 94 calories.

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10 Top Fat Burners at Gym! Burn More Energy with These Exercises

'Fat burning' has become a potent phrase in the fitness industry because it's easy to relate body fat to the use of fat directly as fuel. Your body's energy expenditure environment is somewhat more complicated than that, but in any case, burning body fat is a reasonable aim of any fitness program.
Ultimately, fat burning and energy expenditure are inextricably tied together. 'Do work' and this will count towards fat burning either directly or indirectly. All you need to be concerned about is moving, the more the better. Work done is a factor of time and intensity: How hard you work out, and how long you work out. Extend those two parameters and you will burn fat and lots of it.
Although weight training has certain advantages for muscle building and fat loss, moderate to high-intensity aerobic, continuous exercise (like running or cycling) over extended time is still king for energy expenditure and fat burning. Weight training and muscle building does increase your metabolism because muscle has a slightly higher metabolic rate that non-muscle tissue. 
You don't even have to exercise outside to get big benefits from this type of exercise. Here are ten great fat-burning exercises you can do in most gyms, especially in the winter when outside conditions are not favorable..
With all exercises, work up your fitness prior to doing an exercise or program that is too high in intensity or volume.
1. High-rep barbell hang-power-clean push press. Do this with a moderately light barbell at the hang position in front, dip and bring barbell to chest and thrust overhead before return to hang position. Do 15-20 reps in a set by 3-5 sets, one minute rest between.
2. Treadmill. Classic treadmill running, at moderate to high heart rate intensity, around 75-80% maximum heart rate. Use elevation setting if required. Try to do at least 30 minutes non-stop.
3. Rowing machine. As with the treadmill, choose a moderate to hard setting and try to row for 30 minutes non-stop.
4. Stationary Bicycle. Similar to treadmill and rowing machine: do 30 minutes at 75-80% of maximum heart rate.
5. Step-Ups. Use a moderately high step and do 30 steps (up and down) by three sets with one minute rest between.
6. Elliptical Trainer. For a break from impact, do 30 minutes at moderate to high intensity on the elliptical trainer.
7. Weighted Lunge. Hold a dumbbell of moderate weight at the sides and lunge forward, bending the front knee and extending at the hips. Lunge with alternate legs. Do 10 lunges with each leg for each set, and three sets with one minute break in between -- 60 lunges in all.
8. Step Machine. As an alternative,or for variety, use the step machine instead of the platform step-ups. Again, do 30 minutes non-stop.
9. Romanian Deadlift. The modified deadlift is a great energy expender. Start with a lift from the floor as with a normal barbell deadlift, and lower to just below the knees before raising the bar again to the standing position. Repeat for 20 repetitions. Keep the back straight. You will need to use a lighter bar than you would for your best deadlifts. Do three sets, rest one minute between.
10. Cable Woodchops. You can work up a sweat with the cable exercise with long repeats. Alternate upper arm for each set. Do 10 reps in a set with each arm.
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