Breakfast, lunch, and dinner - more Americans are eating out these days. It’s nice to be able to sit back, relax, and not have to worry about fixing a meal. But food portions have increased steadily since the 1950s and many of us are eating too much.

In the 1950s a serving of French fries was 2.4 ounces, according to www.mealsmatter.org. Today, a serving of French fries is 7.1 ounces or more. The food industry, responding to market demands, produced glasses as big as pitchers and plates as big as platters.

Today, huge servings are so common we think they are “normal.”

While many restaurants are giving us a good deal on food, it’s a bad deal when it comes to your health. Vanderbilt University wellness experts, on their Health Plus Website, say many Americans could be “innocently overeating,” and wonder why they’re gaining weight.

An “Action on Obesity” conference report, published in the April 2005 issue of “Mayo Clinic Proceedings,” cites some causes of weight gain: increased portion size, dining out at restaurants, and consuming energy-dense foods, such as snacks and carbonated drinks.

Eating out is okay if we keep serving sizes in mind. What’s the difference between a portion and a serving? A portion is the amount you choose to eat, including return trips to the buffet table. A serving is a measured amount based on food pyramid groups. According to MayoClinic.com, we may be “overlooking an important part of a healthy diet - serving sizes.”

And the serving sizes we need to eat in order to maintain a healthy weight may be smaller than we think. Calculating serving sizes is a learned skill, according to Mayo Clinic, and you need measuring cups, spoons, and a food scale to do it. You’re not going to bring these things to a restaurant, so what’s the solution?

Mayo Clinic says you can compare serving sizes to objects:

3 ounces of meat, fowl or fish = a deck of cards; 1 cup of vegetables = size of your fist; 1 apple = a baseball; 1/2 cup pasta = one ice cream scoop; 1 1/2 ounces of cheese - two dominoes; 1 cup dry cereal - a large handful

Can you continue to eat out and keep a healthy weight? Yes, if you follow these tips.

1. STUDY MENU OPTIONS. Ask your server if you can make any substitutions, such as veggies for French fries, and low-calorie salad dressings. Ask for vinegar and oil if low-calorie dressings are unavailable.

2. CHOOSE LOW CALORIE FOODS. These foods include grilled chicken, steamed vegetables, fresh fruit, and salad with dressing on the side. Choose whole grain bread and eat one serving (a slice or roll) only.

3. ORDER SUGAR-FREE DRINKS. In a brochure called “How Much Are You Eating?” the USDA says we should moderate our intake of sugar. One sugar sweetened carbonated beverage may contain 10 teaspoons of sugar. Instead of sugar sweetened drinks order plain water or unsweetened iced tea.

4. CHECK SERVING SIZES. Before you take one bite of food calculate the serving sizes on your plate. Eat half your meal (or less) if the servings are too large. Take the rest of your food home for another day.

5. EAT VEGGIES AND FRUIT FIRST. Many restaurants are serving meat, chicken, and fish portions that would feed two or more. Eating low-energy-dense foods (low-calorie foods that fill you up)will make it easier to eat one serving of protein.

6. EAT SLOWLY. It takes a while for the mind to realize you are full. Eating slowly and chewing your food well gives your mind time to process this fact. You’ll also enjoy your food more. Stop eating the minute you feel full.

7. CHOOSE FRUIT FOR DESSERT. If fresh fruit is on the menu, choose it for dessert and ask the server to hold the whipped cream. After eating a huge meal you may wish to skip dessert. You also have the option of taking dessert home, cutting it into smaller servings, and freezing it.

Keep these tips in mind whenever you go to a restaurant. Share these tips with family members and friends. Your food serving smarts will help you to have a healthy and long life.

Copyright 2005 by Harriet Hodgson. To learn more about her work go to http://www.harriethodgson.com.

Harriet Hodgson has been a nonfiction writer for 27 years and is a member of the Association of Health Care Journalists. Her 24th book, “Smiling Through Your Tears: Anticipating Grief,” written with Mayo Clinic psychiatrist Dr. Lois Krahn, is available from http://www.amazon.com. A five-star review of the book is also posted on Amazon.

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Ok, I’ll stop shouting. However, one of the most frustrating comments I deal with is “I’m exercising, I’m eating right, and I’m not losing weight.”

Allow me to first say that our obsession with the scale borders on fanatical. At the extreme some of you jump on the scales many times a day. This is a recipe for frustration, despair, disappointment, and failure. (Can you think of any other really bad things to add here?)

The reasons are,

1) your bathroom scale weight is ONLY a reflection of the force of gravity against you, meaning, it doesn’t tell you the important stuff like how much of your weight is body fat and how much is lean tissue.

2) Your weight can fluctuate WILDLY during the course of the day, depending on, among other things, your hydration level. And you ladies have a really tough time with this during your monthly cycle.

A couple of the most accurate ways to tell you are progressing toward (or maintaining) your goal weight is to have periodic pictures taken of yourself, and, also, gauge how well your clothes fit. Pictures and clothes don’t lie. Period. Even looking at yourself in the mirror is subjective, but picture and clothes tell the whole story.

If you must use a bathroom scale use one that also measures your body fat %. Several of these are available on the market at affordable prices. Links to some are below. If you exercise (and you do don’t you? hmmm) please look for a model with an “athlete” mode.

Personally, I use a TANITA model, but that was the best model at the time I bought mine 3 or 4 years ago. Do your own research.

My friend Jack gave me a great tip on using the scales to YOUR advantage. He and his wife, Terri, take their bathroom scales and skew the indicator to read something that is completely out of line with reality. E.g. Instead of an initial setting of zero you might choose 18.

How does this help? Well, when you look at the number. . .it’s just a number and doesn’t mean anything to you. Then record this number in a chart or spreadsheet and take the difference between this weigh-in and the last. Over time you can watch your “weight” trend up, down, or sideways.

Monitoring you “weight” this way removes the obsession with watching the scales. You then focus on progress. If you see the trend going up and you haven’t been in the weight room building muscle, then you can arrest the fat gain before it’s out of control.

On the flip side, if your “weight” is trending down and that’s the direction you want to go, great! However, if you are in maintenance, or you are losing too fast, action can be taken immediately.

It is still better if you use a scale that measures body fat %, however, short of that this is a great tip. Don’t overdo it on the weigh-ins however. Weighing yourself more than once a week can be counterproductive.

Lance Curtis is a personal trainer and author of “7 Keys to Unlock The Sexy Dream Body Inside of You!”

To claim your free copy go to http://ThePersonalTrainingGuru.com

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There is a lesson to be learned from our history of technological advances. Think about it. When personal computers went mainstream, we quickly abandoned our typewriters. The introduction of DVD’s saw the eventual demise of VHS and virtually all forms of videotape. And perhaps most impressive, a towering wave of cell phones and mobile communication has crashed hard on a generation of payphones. So, in the spirit of nutritional advances, it should come as no surprise that today’s vitamin C offerings are light years ahead of what we had a few years ago.

Of course, this isn’t to imply that the Vitamin C we’ve been taking for all these years was in some way ineffective. Traditional Vitamin C supplements have served the industry well for over 70 years and will always have their place in human wellness. But, as with any genre of science-based health products, it would be difficult (and unfair) to ignore the potential of similar products that show such strong promise in improving the quality of our lives. We’ve laid witness to this before; first in 1957 with the introduction of CoQ10, and then again in the 1970’s with fish oil and omega-3 fatty acids. Fast forwarding to the dawn of this 2nd millennium, we once again find ourselves at the cusp of a revelation that will most certainly pave a path of good health for decades to come.

So without further ado, let’s take a closer look at Amlathe new king of vitamin C.

The use of Amla fruit (Emblica officinalis, Phyllanthus emblica) has been a fundamental part of India’s practice of Ayurvedic Medicine for centuries, and is one of the planet’s most concentrated sources of natural vitamin C.1 And despite centuries of use in Ayurvedic medicine, most health-savvy consumers are still unaware of just how concentrated it truly is. So to help put things in better perspective, let’s do some simple comparisons.

It has been estimated that, gram for gram, Amla fruit extracts contain as much as 35 times as much vitamin C as limes, 30 times more than oranges, and a mind-boggling 160 times more than apples. That said, 100 grams of Amla will typically yield over 500 mg of vitamin C.2 What’s even more impressive, the vitamin C found naturally occurring in Amla is non-acidic and therefore won’t cause the discomfort that many have experienced when taking traditional vitamin C supplements.3

This helps illustrate two very powerful points of interest. First, Amla appears to be an extremely potent antioxidant that utilizes a natural source of vitamin C. The vitamin C in Amla bonds with tannins, thus preventing it from being destroyed by light and heat. This helps ensure better utilization within the body. Next, supplementing Amla makes it possible for people with various stomach and digestive sensitivities to reap the life-enhancing benefits of a compound they might otherwise be unable to take.4

As mentioned earlier, these high concentrations of vitamin C have made Amla a staple among Ayurvedic practitioners. And while much of this can be attributed to the extract’s strong antioxidant properties, Amla’s potential extends far beyond healthy cells. Research continues to show that, based on its unique profile of active constituents, Amla seems to offer a number of beneficial effects that could not be achieved via synthesized natural-form vitamin C. We now know that Amla contains notable amounts of cytokine-like substances, such as zeatin, z. nucleotide and z. riboside, amid rich concentrations of minerals and amino acids.5

Based on its cooling, antipyretic, antiseptic and rejuvenating properties, Amla has been equally revered for the role it plays in digestion. So much in fact, that it is one of the three main fruits that comprise Triphala, a digestive tonic that contains Amla, Harada and Behada fruits. Long before it piqued the interest of vitamin C researchers, the use of Amla was considered by many Ayurvedic practitioners to be highly effective in rejuvenating the digestive system.6 It has mild laxative properties that encourage normal digestion, assists in the utilization of fats and cholesterol, modulates immune function, facilitates the elimination of toxins, fortifies the liver, supports normal cholesterol balance and prevents lipid peroxidation. And because of its strong antioxidant properties, Amla can help fight free radicals within the GI tract.7,8

Regardless of how you choose to look at it, Amla’s complex profile of naturally occurring compounds makes it one of the most versatile extracts available to ever hit the consumer market. Be sure to look for a formula that contains Phyllanthus emblica extracts yielding at least 50% natural ascorbic acid, by weight.

References

1. Kaviratna AC, Sharma P (translators), Caraka-Samhita, Second Revised Edition [volume 3], 1996 Indian Books Centre, Delhi

2. Arora, BB. Development of Unani Drugs from Herbal Sources 1985, P.234 Vitamin C from Amla in equivalent to Vitamin C from Synthetic sources.

3.Ghosal S, Triethi VK, and Chauhan S, Active constituents of Emblica officinalis: Part 1.-The chemistry and antioxidative effects of two new hydrolysable tannins, Emblicanin A and B, Indian Journal of Chemistry 1996; 35B: 941-948.

4. Anonymous, Case Study on Amla-related patent, Technology Information, Forecasting & Assessment Council (TIFAC) Bulletin, 2001; 7(3-4): 6-6.

5. Williamson EM (editor), Major Herbs of Ayurveda, 2002 Churchill-Livingstone, London.

6. Maharashtra Medical Journal June 1980 Volume XXV No. 35

7. International Journal of Indian Medicine July 1985 P.56.

8. Journal Research Ayurveda Sidhha 1985-6(3), P. 137-138.

Jayson Kroner is a nationally and internationally published health and fitness journalist, an IFA certified sports nutritionist and personal trainer, co-author of the book 7-Syndrome Healing, and consultant to some of the natural product industry’s most well respected manufacturers.

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