“Quality” Carbs: It’s Not Just About Your Six-Pack!

It seems as though every week we learn something new about the real power of nutrition. Recently, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) funded scientists at the Laboratory for Nutrition and Vision Research and found some interesting information.
Age related macular degeneration (AMD) and the vision loss associated with it may be connected to the “quality” of carbohydrates.

One study showed that a regular consumption of a “slow carb” ( low glycemic index) diet provided a protective effect against macular degeneration. A food’s glycemic index is an indicator of how fast the carbohydrate it contains will spike blood sugar levels.

So how do you keep your glycemic index in check? To learn more about which carbs produce only small fluctuations in our blood glucose and insulin levels, check out http://www.glycemicindex.com/ and follow their recommendations:

1. Pile half your dinner plate high with vegetables or salad
Aim to eat at least five serves of vegetables (this doesn’t include the starchy ones like potatoes, sweet potatoes or sweet corn) every day, and aim for foods with a variety of of colors.

2. Cut back on most potatoes
If you are a big potato eater and can’t bear the thought of giving them up, you don’t have to. Just cut back on the quantity. Don’t be afraid of trying other starchy vegetables like sweet potato, yams or taro, steamed, roasted or mashed.

3. Swap your bread
Choose a really grainy bread where you can actually see the grains, granary bread, stoneground wholemeal bread, real sourdough bread, soy and linseed bread, pumpernickel, fruit loaf or bread made from chickpea or other legume based flours.

4. Replace those high GI crunchy breakfast flakes
These refined breakfast cereals spike your blood glucose and insulin levels. Replace them with smart carbs like natural muesli or traditional (not instant) porridge oats or one of the lower GI processed breakfast cereals that will trickle fuel into your engine.

5. Make your starchy staples the low GI ones
Look for the low GI rice’s, serve your pasta al dente, choose less processed foods such as large flake or rolled oats for porridge or muesli and intact grains such as barley, buckwheat, bulgur, quinoa, whole kernel rye, or whole wheat kernels and opt for lower GI starchy vegetables.

6. Learn to love legumes!
Include legumes like beans, lentils and chickpeas in your meals two or three times a week, more often if you are vegetarian. Add chickpeas to a stir fry, red kidney beans to a chili, a bean salad to that barbecue menu, and beans or lentils to a casserole or soup.

7. Develop the art of combining
No need to cut out all high GI carbs. The trick is to combine them with those low GI tricklers to achieve a moderate overall GI. How? Lentils with rice (think of that delicious classic Italian soup), rice with beans and chili, tabbouli tucked into pita bread (with falafels and a dash of hummus), baked beans on toast or piled on a jacket-baked potato for classic comfort food.

8. Incorporate a lean protein source with every meal
Eat lean meat, skinless chicken, fish and seafood, eggs, milk, yoghurt or cheese, or legumes and tofu if you are vegetarian. The protein portion should make up around a quarter of the plate/meal.

9. Tickle your taste buds
Try vinaigrette (using vinegar or lemon juice with a dash of extra virgin olive oil) with salads, yogurt with cereal, lemon juice on vegetables like asparagus, or sourdough bread. These foods contain acids, which slow stomach emptying and lower your blood glucose response to the carbs in the meal.

10. Go low GI when snacking

If it is healthful and low GI, keep it handy. Grab fresh fruit, dried fruit, or fruit and nut mix, low fat milk and yogurt (or soy alternatives), fruit bread etc for snacks. Limit (this means don’t buy them every week) high GI refined flour products whether home baked or from the supermarket such as cookies, cakes, pastries, crumpets, crackers, biscuits, irrespective of their fat and sugar content. These really are the ‘keep for the occasional treat’ foods.

Keep your eye on the serving size. Remember portion caution with carb rich foods such as rice, al dente pasta and noodles, potatoes etc. Eating a huge amount of these foods, even of the low GI variety, will have a marked effect on your blood glucose. A cup of cooked noodles or al dente pasta or rice plus plenty of mixed non starchy vegetables and a little lean protein can turn into 3 cups of a very satisfying meal.

Most of all, recognize that protective nutrients are in each and every meal that you eat, and we all my have the power to stave off certain age related conditions.

Fit and Fun?

Fitness for life is something many of us would like to think that we have, but how do we measure our own success? If I can run a 5K without experiencing cardiac arrest, does it mean that I’m ‘fit’? Or if I’ve moved on to the advanced yoga class, will this classify me as ‘fit’? Just how do I rank amongst others my age and just what should fitness measure?

To answer these questions, I’ve decided to take the plunge and take the President’s Fitness Challenge Program. As you may remember from Junior High days, The President’ Council of Physical Fitness and Sports focused on youth fitness, seemingly trying to motivate kids towards healthy fitness levels. I remember these tests as being nothing but humiliating, confirming that “jocks” were indeed jocks, and that the non-athletes (me) should just give it up. I shared the same amount of love for physical fitness tests as my love for my starched gym uniform. None.

Fast forward a few years (okay, more than a few) and here I am wondering if my own fitness levels are up to federal standards. Fortunately, the President’s Council has created the first-ever Adult Fitness Test. “What began as a national youth fitness test has grown up. Today, the President’s Challenge takes staying active beyond the school gym and into everyday life.”

The Adult Fitness Test is actually a series of four tests that give one a general measure of fitness in four health related areas: aerobic capacity, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, and body composition. First, you need to find out if you are healthy enough for testing, easily accomplished via a screening questionnaire. Second, it is recommended that adults find a partner to help collect and record the results for each challenge.

Fortunately, you don’t need to perform the challenges in any particular order or even on the same day. Once you’ve finished, you can record your results online and even get suggestions of ways to improve fitness in that particular area. Each test includes a “FITT” box which recommends Frequency (F), Intensity (I), TIme (T) and Type of exercise (T). Put the four together (FITT) and you get specific ways to improve your level of fitness. You can also compare your results to others and follow your own progress. And no starchy uniforms! What’s not to like?

This June, I’m off to visit www.adultfitnesstest.org and I’m inviting others to join in. Be sure to let us know what you think of the test after completion. Not a bad way to start the summer, eh?

Bionic Nation?

The statistics made me pause. Then shudder. According to the Center for Disease Control, arthritis is the leading cause of disability in the country, limiting the daily activities of roughly 20 million people and costing more than $80 billion (yes, billion) annually. Osteoarthritis currently afflicts roughly 46 million Americans, and that number is projected to grow to 67 million within a few decades. And get this: The American Academy of Orthopoedic Surgeons predict that the number of first-time total knee replacements is predicted to increase by 673 percent within this same period. 673 percent?

Given the enormity of this disease, all of us need to get up to speed about osteoarthritis. To begin with, what is it?

OA is a major debilitating disease causing gradual loss of cartilage, primarily affecting the knees, hips, hands, feet and spine. If you think that you are not a potential victim because you exercise regularly, stretch, and keep an active lifestyle, you should still be concerned, because here is the rub: While vigorous exercise is essential to every aspect of healthy and successful aging, our joints seem to be rebelling in unison. While some say that repetitive stress associated with certain types of exercise is what wears out our hips and knees, others say that exercise or repetitive activity alone does not cause arthritis in the joint. They add that genetic factors along with added weight and/or the result of a previous injury in which the cartilage is damaged is what promotes arthritis.

So what’s a person to do? Can osteoarthritis really be prevented?

The Arthritis Foundation makes the following recommendations to protect joints and prevent osteoarthritis:

Maintain your ideal body weight. Excess weight puts stress on your joints, especially your hips, knees, back, and feet.

Move. Exercise strengthens muscles around joints, this can help prevent wear and tear on cartilage in a joint.

Maintain good posture. Good posture protects your joints from excessive pressure, especially your neck, back, hips, and knees.

Do a variety of physical activity. Alternate periods of heavy activity with periods of rest. For example, if you do weight training one day, do aerobic exercise the next day. Repetitive stress on joints for long periods of time can cause the excessive wear and tear that can lead to osteoarthritis.

Pay attention to pain. If you have joint pain, don’t ignore it. Pain after activity or exercise can be an indication you have overstressed your joints and that they need to rest.

Forget the weekend warrior. Start new activities slowly and safely until you know how your body will react to them. This will reduce the chance of injury.

Avoid injury to joints. Wear proper safety equipment. Don’t leave helmets and wrist pads at home. Make sure your safety gear is comfortable and fits.

Stay tuned, aging athletes. The sad and brutal fact is that cartilage simply doesn’t grow back!

Calorie Counting at Chain Restaurants

Future visits to The Cheesecake Factory (and other major restaurants) may be quite a difference experience soon. Inside the new health reform legislation is language that will require calorie labeling on (chain) restaurant menus, menu boards, vending machines, and drive-through displays. The legislation applies to those chains with twenty or more outlets, and requires them to provide additional nutrition information upon request.

Some states have already passed similar legislation, but this new federal standard will supersede the varied local and state requirements. Interestingly enough, the National Restaurant Association dropped its longstanding objection to menu labeling last year and supported the recently passed legislation by Congress.

Margo G. Wootan, the director of nutritional policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, believes that this new piece of legislation is a huge victory for consumers and “one of dozens of things we will need to do to reduce rate of obesity and diet-related disease in this country. With the health reform legislation passed, Congress is giving Americans easy access to the most critical piece of nutritional information they need when eating out.”

I envision myself pouring over the published calories and having my menu decision influenced by this information. Do you think it will make a difference to you? Is ignorance really bliss? Or will this new law make for some new discoveries?

Either way, it will be quite interesting to see if this action helps transform portion size, offerings, and the American diet.

Today’s My Birthday

Last month, I was at the gym as usual, trying to kick it up a notch by introducing some interval training. I was really working it, lost in the aura of my ipod (thank you, Rolling Stones), challenging myself for a real run and gun for sixty seconds here and there.

Soon thereafter, an acquaintance asked me if I was doing a new routine and wanted to know why I was pushing myself so hard. I explained that I was turning fifty next month, and I thought I should see how much I could handle, even if only for a very short time. She looked at me, exasperated.

“You’re turning fifty? Wow…you look great. But why are you telling me you’re almost fifty? I mean, no offense, but you really shouldn’t be telling anyone!”

Huh? I shouldn’t? Should I feel shame? (Nope. Don’t feel shame.) Embarrassment? (That’s kind of an odd word to use, isn’t it? Should I feel shocked? (Well okay…yes, the shock factor set in a few months back, but I’ve reached the point of total acceptance.) What should I feel?

One word does it for me: blessed. Each and every year presents new opportunities and new challenges, and as I get to know myself better, I really do feel more respect for who I am and who I’ve become to be. Sure, it feels odd to (physically) be fifty when I really do feel the same as I did when I was much younger. But it is what it is and I’m embracing it with huge, open arms.

The majority of my friends who’ve been turning fifty haven’t thrown a party for themselves. Everyone has celebrated in their own, independent way. Is this because we’re women, and turning fifty is clearly “over the hill”? Or is fifty something that one simply doesn’t celebrate? Is this the time that we really start lying about our age? If so, what are we afraid of?

Are our lives supposed to be so perfect by this time that if they’re not, we’re upset by that? I say bah! Seize it, grab it, celebrate it. I’ve chosen to use the excuse of a birthday to get together with close friends and hike, eat, and enjoy our health and the simplicity of being together. The fact that it’s my birthday is almost coincidental…I’m just marking time.

One thing many of us do, be it a birthday or a new year, is think about where we are and where we’d like to be. The fact that this year will be pivotal in my life (my youngest daughter will head off to college) may, in fact, be even more earth shattering than the birthday itself. Luckily for me, the two circumstances have forced me think long and hard about where I’m headed. And that’s not such a bad thing.

Time will tell if I start to futz about my age. For those of you that do, I’d love to hear from you. For those of you who don’t, I’d love to hear about that too. And hey…. anyone out there taking “advantage” of joining the (yes, I’m saying it) AARP?

Thanks for the birthday wishes.

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