Welcome to “FitnessMantra Weekend”, your once-a-week health news update. As always you can also stay updated with the latest in fitness news by subscribing separately to the Fitness Mantra del.icio.us feed.

This week the best story has to be from the MSNBC article Take a good look before you gobble. The crux of the article is pretty straightforward: “If we could really see all that we’re putting in our mouths, we’d probably eat a lot less.”

The article works off the old axiom that it takes our stomachs at least 20 minutes to send the “Full” signal to our brains by which time it’s likely we have already chowed down more food than we really need.

The article goes on to describe this startling experiment:

In a study published this month in the journal Perceptual and Motor Skills, my colleague Dr. Collin Payne and I promised a free chicken wing buffet to 52 graduate students (17 men and 35 women) while they watched the Super Bowl at a sports bar in Urbana, Ill. As part of the study, the waitresses were instructed to clear the dishes at only half of the tables.

If people had their tables continually cleared, they continually ate. Clean plate, clean table, get more, eat more. Their stomachs didn’t keep track of how much they’d eaten, so the students kept on eating until they thought they were full. Each of these people ate an average of seven chicken wings apiece.

The students who did not have their table bused were less of a threat to the chicken population. After the game was over, they had eaten an average of two fewer chicken wings per person — that’s 28 percent less than those whose tables had been bused.

- Take a good look before you gobble

So, the best advice for people who are trying heard to control portions? Put everything you are going to eat in a given session onto your plate an then begin eating - studies mentioned in the article show you are likely to eat 14% less per sitting and believe me - that can make a big difference in your weight over long periods of time!
Here are the week’s top health and fitness stories:

1. Why eating soup could be the key to losing weight: Eating soup with a meal could be the answer to the obesity crisis, according to scientists in the US.
2. Nutrition, On the Cheap: Eating healthfully is easy to do when you have the money to dine on wild Alaskan salmon, arugula and fresh raspberries. But is it is possible to eat well on a tight budget?
3. Take a good look before you gobble: If we could really see all that we’re putting in our mouths, we’d probably eat a lot less.
4. Study links calorie restriction to longer life: Scientists have known for seven decades that mice, dogs, fruit flies and other animals given diets bordering on starvation tended to live up to 40 percent longer than their better-fed cousins.
5. Take the ‘Magic Road’ to a healthy Latino diet: A new food pyramid, designed to encourage Latinos to eat healthier, touts the staples of traditional Latin-American cooking as the path to better nutrition.
6. Environment, routine behind rise in obesity: study: The speed at which Canadians are becoming obese and overweight suggests that everyday environments and routine modern behaviours may be to blame
7. Kids chowing down on faux junk food in W.Va.: Dominated by doughnuts, pizza and foods-on-a-stick, the average school menu in West Virginia can read like the offerings at a glutton’s dream buffet.
8. Yoga helps breast cancer survivors: In breast cancer survivors, the Iyengar method of yoga not only promotes psychological well-being, but seems to offer immune system benefits as well, according to research reported Monday.
9. How pistachios help the heart: A handful or two of pistachio nuts a day could keep heart disease at bay, research suggests.
10. KFC, Taco Bell finish switch to trans-fat-free oil: KFC’s fried chicken buckets soon will be stamped with a health message along with the famous likeness of its founder, Colonel Harland Sanders. The banner proclaims that its chicken has zero grams of trans fat per serving.
11. Fatsecret: For Fat People Who Want To Be Less So: There’s a new Australia-based social network called FatSecret - it’s designed to help overweight people leverage a network of friends and online resources to lose weight.
12. Kids ‘eat more after watching ads’: Obese and overweight children who watch food adverts on TV more than double their food intake afterwards, new research suggests.

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Have a great weekend!

Technorati Tags: health, fitness, health news, fitness news, health links, fitness links, del.icio.us

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Probably no macro-nutrient is as misunderstood or mischaracterized as fat is. While it is generally known that excessive fat in our diets tends to lead to clogged arteries and a variety of heart-related issues, it is also clear that the body cannot survive without fat. As I pointed out in Fat Fiction, our brains are almost 60% fat and fat is vital for the functioning of many of our internal organs including the heart and lungs.

But with so many varieties of fats like saturated, unsaturated, trans fats etc. it’s no wonder that misconceptions are rife and finding the right information even more difficult. Well, the American Heart Association has come to the rescue with a feature titled “Face The Fats“.

According to introduction on the site it will give you enough information to help you know things like which fats are good and which to avoid, which foods contain which types of fats and even how much fat you should consume each day.

It all begins with the Fats 101 primer that answers basic questions like “Does My Body Need Fat?” (you already know it does!) and whether fats can be part of a healthy diet. In the same section you can find detailed information about the various types of fats like Saturated and Trans Fats. These are very informative and will satisfy the quest of most readers to know what these fats really are and how each type affects their health.

You can wrap up your “Fat Finding” tour with a nifty tool called “My Fats Translator” (has it’s own website!). Just plug in your age, gender, height, weight and physical activity and the tool churns out not only the total number of calories you need to maintain your weight but it goes one step further: it actually ells you how many of those calories should come from fats and within that it gives you limits for saturated and trans fats. I have touched upon this topic in one of my earlier quick tips: “Know where you are getting your daily requirement of fat from“.

Now, I agree this kind of detailed counting is going to be almost impossible to keep track of on a daily basis but given that most of us eat in a consistent pattern everyday, just maintaining a food diary for a week will give us a quick estimate of whether we are atleat close to our daily limits or not. Pretty soon one should be able to eyeball foods and know how it will affect our diet plan for the day.

Finally what health website worth its salt is complete without a few mascots or comic characters? The AMA surely doesn’t want to disappoint you here: Behold the “Bad Fat Brothers“, a flash-based website about two very creatively named characters called Sat and Trans (ouch).

Supposed to represent the two types of fats that are bad for you, these two characters come replete with bad James-Bondish jokes like “We’re real heart-breakers”. Once on the site, entering the diner will start a little webisode where the two brothers will entice you with all sorts of foods laden with bad fats.

Go ahead and explore the site. If you can numb yourself to the poor jokes you will actually learn something useful and have fun while at it - perfect for a younger audience to whom parents wish to impart the knowledge of healthy eating.

Here’s to healthier eating with a better understanding of fats and the knowledge of how the right quantity of the right variety of fat can be a huge asset to our diets.

Technorati Tags: health, nutrition, fats, saturated fats, trans fats, american heart association

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