School's Back! Lunch Box Ideas

Children need to eat a variety of foods everyday to stay healthy and help them concentrate and learn at school. However, packing a lunch box and trying to keep it delicious, healthy and interesting can be quite a task for many of us - but it doesn’t have to be if you follow a few simple steps:

A lunch box should always include:

• Fruit (fresh is best, but tinned and dried are also suitable)
• Vegetables or salad ingredients
• A meat or protein food such as lean meat, hardboiled egg, fish or nuts
• Dairy foods such as a cheese slice or stick, milk or yoghurt
• Starchy food such as high fibre bread rolls, pita or flat bread, fruit bread or grain crackers
• Water (frozen water can be used as a freezer brick to keep foods cold)

Suggestions for lunch box meals and snacks include:

• Cold pasta spirals mixed with salad vegetables and lean meat e.g. ham, pastrami 
• Rice with vegetables mixed in it with lean meat e.g. ham, pastrami
• Mini pizza with cheese and pineapple
• Avocado and lemon with salad on a wholemeal wrap
• Bagel with vegemite and low fat cheese
• Corn or rice cakes with peanut butter
• Grainy crackers with slices of cheese
• Plain popcorn as a snack
• Yoghurt, low fat milk or low fat custard (freeze overnight to ensure it stays cool)
• Small packets of dried fruit and nuts as snacks
• Include extra celery and carrot sticks
• Fruit

Foods should be simple and easy to prepare, ready to eat and appetising after several hours in the lunch box. Keeping food stored in an insulated lunch box or one with a freezer pack will keep food fresher for longer - particularly important for those hot summer days.

As well as keeping lunch simple, try to encourage children to help choose and prepare their own lunch. Praise children when they choose healthy foods for their lunch box. They may even want to have a Masterchef lunch box competition between siblings for some fun and variety.

Most importantly - don’t forget your own lunch! Set a good example as children learn from their parents more than you may think therefore prepare your lunch and snacks while the children are doing theirs. Make it a healthy family approach for all to benefit from.

Healthy & Happy New Year

Christmas is over...

...So where to from here?

Research from the United States has found that the average end of year holiday weight gain is 0.5kgs and this weight increase is not reversed over the following year. Regardless of whether your festive season went to plan or could have been better, the silly season for 2010 has passed and we are faced with a new year ahead.

The New Year presents a good opportunity to re-evaluate where we are at with our health plans to set those New Year’s Resolutions. Ask yourself - what would I like to achieve in 2011? Remember, a few parties don’t make you overweight; it’s what you do the other 350 odd days of the year that matters.

Here are a couple of recommendations for getting started:

• Make sure you have a healthy environment around you - This means throw away any of those Christmas leftovers – weight loss is hard enough without having fruit mince pies, rum balls, peanuts and boxes of chocolates laying in the house. If possible, give these away to guests, neighbours or even colleagues at work.
• Set goals for what you want to achieve in 2011 - what are the greatest advantages with being healthier in 2011? It could be more energy, feeling better, looking better or improved health. Think of your resolutions as new goals for the year. Set short term goals to accompany your longer term goals.

A good way to approach this is to include goals that encompass a variety of aspects of your life:

• External goals e.g. Eating habits, food choices, exercise, shopping, reading food labels, health outcomes, etc.
• Internal goals e.g. Managing comfort eating, stress management, self-esteem, negative thought patterns, assertiveness, etc.

Write down your goals and put them somewhere noticeable (eg. office, study, fridge, back of toilet door, etc) so that you are continuously aware of your target.

Guidelines for setting goals include:

• Keep it real - Make your plans realistic and achievable. Consider your lifestyle and how reasonable your resolutions are. This may also involve starting small, for example, if you are doing less physical activity, maybe set a goal to increase this by one extra session per week and build on it weekly.
• Be specific – Set specific goals so that you know exactly what you are aiming to achieve and so you are able to measure your progress. For example, if you want to drink alcohol, how many standard drinks will you have?
• Plan – Think ahead and be prepared. This definitely applies to food and exercise – know what events or activities are coming up and re-arrange your original plan accordingly. This could be returning to work or ensuring the kids are all prepared for school.
• Anticipate setbacks - Let’s say the Christmas / New Year break didn’t go exactly to plan. Don’t worry, it’s not the end of the world! We have a new year ahead of us remember! The important thing is to remain focused. Return to your normal routine with meals and exercise as quickly as possible and keep in mind that one meal or one day is not going to make a significant difference in the overall scheme of things.
• Dealing with setbacks is part of the behaviour change process. Don't get downhearted if you experience them; see them as an opportunity to learn about yourself instead. Avoid 'all or nothing' thinking and learn to accept your mistakes and then move on. Does a musician cease playing when an incorrect note is played? Does a tennis player pack up after they serve a fault? They learn from the mistake and grow in experience so that they improve for next time.
• Reward yourself - Develop a system of non-food related rewards for behaviours that support your goals. Don't wait until the very end - set milestones and reward yourself as you go. For example, get a massage, buy a new CD or book.

Overall remember your goals and resolutions are an ongoing process, not an overnight transformation.

We hope you had an enjoyable Christmas and Happy New Year, from the staff at WWMC!

References

Stay Cool This Summer – How to Avoid Heat Illness

Despite what has been an unseasonably mild summer to date, the hotter days are becoming more frequent and it is important to be aware of the dangers of exercising during this time of year. Summer climates increase the risk of developing heat illnesses such as heat stroke when exercising, resulting in many debilitating health complications such as:

• Feelings of tiredness, weakness, dizziness and faintness
• Dehydration and headaches
• Excessive fatigue
• Heat cramps

So what can you do to help yourself avoid these possible side effects?

Pre-exercise

• Hydrate effectively – Daily water requirements during summer increase to a minimum of 4L per day
• Drink 2-3 cups of water 2 hours before and 1 cup 10-15min before undertaking exercise
• Avoid hot foods, alcohol and heavy foods that increase your core temperature
• Choose lightweight, light-colored and loose-fitting clothing as well as wearing a hat
• Use sun block with an SPF rating of 15+ or higher

During exercise

• Avoid exercise during the hottest time of day; train closer to sunrise or sunset
• Drink 1 cup of water every 15minutes throughout exercise
• If you feel any headaches, fatigue or irritability or notice your exercise performance decreasing, stop exercising and cool off

Post-exercise

• Weigh yourself before and after exercise and replace any lost fluids accordingly
• Drink 1.5L of water for every kilogram of fluid you lost during exercise
• Try to avoid too much sports drink, however for intense exercise above 60min, these may help to further accelerate water intake after exercise in the heat

Remember: Planning ahead for exercise in the heat will assist you in avoiding the health complications associated with heat illness this summer.

References

WWMC January 2011 e-Newsletter References

Healthy & Happy New Year

1. Yanovski, J.A. (2000), A prospective study of holiday weight gain, NEJM, vol. 342: pp.861-7.

Stay Cool This Summer – How to Avoid Heat Illness

1. Quinn, E. 2009, Hot Weather Exercise Safety: Tips for preventing heat stroke, heat exhaustion, heat rash and dehydration’,http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/enviromentalissues/a/Exercise_Heat.htm
2. Sawka, M.N., Burke, L.M., Eichner, R., Maughan, R.J., Montain, S.J., Stachenfeld, N.S. 2007, Exercise and Fluid Replacement, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 377-90.
3. Sawka, M.N., Montain, S.J. 2000, Fluid and electrolyte supplementation for exercise heat stress, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 72, no. 2, pp. 5645.



calories To Lose Weight, if your goal is to lose weight with exercise calorie calculator

Counting calories accurately is essential if your goal is to lose weight, and the only way to do that is to record what you eat and drink accurately.

Because it’s so easy to forget your exact food intake during the day, the solution is to keep a small notepad or food diary in your
handbag or pocket wherever you go. That way, every time you eat something, you can make a note of it. Then when you’re counting your calories up for the day, you can use your notepad to jog your memory to ensure that every single mouthful is counted.

But it’s not just the forgotten nibbles that can make the difference between calorie counting success and failure! It’s also worth evaluating your portion sizes. Many of us stop weighing or measuring portions of foods after the first few weeks of recording food intake and instead rely on judging our portion sizes by sight. Unfortunately, this often means portions and calories gradually creep up, stopping us from losing weight.

The good news is, once you’re counting calories accurately, you’ll be able to identify your problem areas and ditch them from the menu once and for all – along with those excess pounds.

Counting 'Forgotten' Calories

You might forget about these nibbles but they soon mount up the calories…

4 oven chips pinched off your kid’s plate	48 calories
6 extra strong mints while stuck in a traffic jam	71 calories
1 leftover sausage in the fridge	135 calories
1 chicken nugget left on your child’s plate	37 calories
A sliver of cheese while you’re cooking	124 calories
A handful of peanuts in the pub	155 calories
A chocolate digestive at a work meeting	90 calories
Slice of birthday cake for your colleague’s birthday	294 calories
5 Maltesers from a friend’s packet	48 calories
6 crisps from the packet your child’s eating	65 calories
1tsp sugar in your coffee because you’d run out of sweetener	16 calories
Couple of swigs of cola from your partner’s can	40 calories
½ slice of toast with butter left by your child	82 calories
2 slices of leftover pepperoni from your husband’s pizza	48 calories
1tsp of peanut butter from the jar while waiting for your toast	30 calories
2tbsp pasta and tomato sauce left by your child	70 calories
Slice of ham from the fridge	30 calories
Two mouthfuls of your partner’s donner kebab	82 calories

Calorie Intake to lose FAT!

Sensible weight loss for healthy adults should start with a 500 calorie intake reduction from what the body requires. Then if progress halts for a week or so, calorie intake can be reduced by burning a further 200 calories. This way the body can slowly establish a new energy balance, rather than shocking the system into breaking down lean weight, which actually helps keep the metabolism high, meaning more calories can be burned!

It is also recommended that light exercises should be performed (with doctor/physician approval first), in order to increase calorie burning. Relying solely on diet to lose fat weight may lead to disappointment!

The calorie intake should never go below a 1200 calorie diet mark, and in most cases, should stay above 1500 calories.  Remember, with 3500 calories to each pound, losing stored fat will be a gradual process therefore, a reduction in calorie intake should be gradual too!

Exercise calorie counter by Chris Buskirk

The calorie counter shown below calculates how many calories you have burned depending on your weight and how many miles you have run. Health studies have shown that heavier people burn more calories when they are exercising, than lighter people. Hence the reason you need to type your current weight into the exercise calorie calculator below.

Your Weight	Miles run	Calories burned

My Comment

 article source http://www.howtoloseweighthealthy.com/

Citrus Mint Crush

(serves 4-5) - yields about 5 cups

Ingredients:

• 1-¼ cups cold water
  
  


• 2 cups lemon-flavored sparkling water
  
  


• ½ cup sugar
  
  


• ½ cup tightly packed mint leaves
  
  


• ¾ cup fresh squeezed orange juice
  
  


• ¾ cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
  
  


• 1 tbsp grated orange zest (no pith)
  
  


• Crushed ice (optional)
  
  


• Mint sprigs for garnish (optional)
  
  

Preparation:

• In a medium saucepan, add water and sugar and cook over medium-high heat until sugar dissolves, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and let cool.
  
  


• Coarsely chop mint leaves and set aside.
  
  


• In a medium sized bowl, add the cooled sugar-water then stir in orange juice, orange zest, mint and lemon juice. Cover bowl and refrigerate until chilled through.
  
  


• Pour mixture through a fine mesh strainer into a large pitcher. Discard remaining orange zest and mint leaves.


• Stir in sparkling water then serve over crushed ice. Garnish with a mint sprig.
  
  

Make 4 Servings:

Weight loss recipes Amount Per Serving (¼ of recipe (121 g)): 128 Calories, 1 g Protein, 33 g carbohydrates, 1 g Dietary Fiber, 0 g fat, 0 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 11 mg sodium

Paleolithic Diet Clinical Trials, Part V

Dr. Staffan Lindeberg's group has published a new paleolithic diet paper in the journal Nutrition and Metabolism, titled "A Paleolithic Diet is More Satiating per Calorie than a Mediterranean-like Diet in Individuals with Ischemic Heart Disease" (1).

The data in this paper are from the same intervention as his group's 2007 paper in Diabetologia (2). To review the results of this paper, 12 weeks of a Paleolithic-style diet caused impressive fat loss and improvement in glucose tolerance, compared to 12 weeks of a Mediterranean-style diet, in volunteers with pre-diabetes or diabetes and ischemic heart disease. Participants who started off with diabetes ended up without it. A Paleolithic diet excludes grains, dairy, legumes and any other category of food that was not a major human food source prior to agriculture. I commented on this study a while back (3, 4).

One of the most intriguing findings in his 2007 study was the low calorie intake of the Paleolithic group. Despite receiving no instruction to reduce calorie intake, the Paleolithic group only ate 1,388 calories per day, compared to 1,823 calories per day for the Mediterranean group*. That's a remarkably low ad libitum calorie intake in the former (and a fairly low intake in the latter as well).

With such a low calorie intake over 12 weeks, you might think the Paleolithic group was starving. Fortunately, the authors had the foresight to measure satiety, or fullness, in both groups during the intervention. They found that satiety was almost identical in the two groups, despite the 24% lower calorie intake of the Paleolithic group. In other words, the Paleolithic group was just as full as the Mediterranean group, despite a considerably lower intake of calories. This implies to me that the body fat "set point" decreased, allowing a reduced calorie intake while body fat stores were burned to make up the calorie deficit. I suspect it also decreased somewhat in the Mediterranean group, although we can't know for sure because we don't have baseline satiety data for comparison.

There are a few possible explanations for this result. The first is that the Paleolithic group was eating more protein, a highly satiating macronutrient. However, given the fact that absolute protein intake was scarcely different between groups, I think this is unlikely to explain the reduced calorie intake.

A second possibility is that certain potentially damaging Neolithic foods (e.g., wheat and refined sugar) interfere with leptin signaling**, and removing them lowers fat mass by allowing leptin to function correctly. Dr. Lindeberg and colleagues authored a hypothesis paper on this topic in 2005 (5).

A third possibility is that a major dietary change of any kind lowers the body fat setpoint and reduces calorie intake for a certain period of time. In support of this hypothesis, both low-carbohydrate and low-fat diet trials show that overweight people spontaneously eat fewer calories when instructed to modify their diets in either direction (6, 7). More extreme changes may cause a larger decrease in calorie intake and fat mass, as evidenced by the results of low-fat vegan diet trials (8, 9). Chris Voigt's potato diet also falls into this category (10, 11). I think there may be something about changing food-related sensory cues that alters the defended level of fat mass. A similar idea is the basis of Seth Roberts' book The Shangri-La Diet.

If I had to guess, I would think the second and third possibilities contributed to the finding that Paleolithic dieters lost more fat without feeling hungry over the 12 week diet period.


*Intakes were determined using 4-day weighed food records.

**Leptin is a hormone produced by body fat that reduces food intake and increases energy expenditure by acting in the brain. The more fat a person carries, the more leptin they produce, and hypothetically this should keep body fat in a narrow window by this form of "negative feedback". Clearly, that's not the whole story, otherwise obesity wouldn't exist. A leading hypothesis is that resistance to the hormone leptin causes this feedback loop to defend a higher level of fat mass.