Naked Body Scanners: If You Must Be Exposed

Naked Body Scanners: If You Must Be Exposed

"Now, if you do decide to go through the body scanners… here’s how you can make the best of an insane situation: Demand a hard copy.

That’s right. If they are going to radiate you and your family … you at least deserve a copy of the photos. Why would you want a copy? Because a full body scan will reveal muscle imbalances in your body. These muscle imbalances are the cause of most back and neck pain. A healthy body looks perfectly symmetrical when standing. But that’s not the case for most people. Most people have hips out of place, uneven shoulders, tilted heads. We’re a mess."

Haha, nice.

The Vegetable Band

The Vegetable Band

I saw this years ago, but it's still a pretty neat idea.

Intervention.

I recently watched and episode of Intervention that focused on a man in his mid twenties with type 1 diabetes. I have to give credit to the producers for deciding to do an episode with this topic. Typically Intervention follows drug addicts or individuals with eating disorders (only Anorexia and Bulimia from what I have seen) but I think it's important to bring attention to other topics in relation to depression, like this episode. I have yet to see an episode with COE (compulsive over eating), or concentrating on other diseases people aren't treating. But I'm sure Intervention won't let me down.

Obesity please?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH81IPAzvm4

I have mixed feelings about this.

I believe our lives are our own and we should be able to do with them what we want. But in saying that I realize I only believe this to a certain degree. I think it's irresponsible to this woman to be taking such a huge change with her life when she has a child. I think it's very unfair that she is disabling herself from completing to many activities that her daughter would love to do with her mom.

But, I guess maybe she would think that things I would do as a parent are wrong. Like restricting my child to eating certain foods...

Proposed policy change: definition and energy value for dietary fibre.

I haven't completely read this yet, but I will sometime today.

Health Canada dietary fibre definition and energy value

How many minutes a day should you exercise

I posted earlier about the changes that the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology and paticipACTION made earlier this week. Specifically I posted a link for a post on Weighty Matters.

The writer of the blog made a new post regarding his opinion.

"So my answer to the question of how many minutes a day should you exercise? As many minutes as you can enjoy, and every single one of them count."

Nutirtion Action Newsletter

My mom purchased me a subscription to this newsletter a couple years ago (and renewed it for me!).

I think most public libraries carry it. It's definitely worth a look.

A little frustration.

It's unfortunate that the rich seem to get rich and the poor seem to get poorer. I mean even in Canada it's hard for many people to access education. I have been lucky enough that my parents co-signed a loan for me so I could attend school. I worked through out university to try and keep my debt down, though 4 years later it is...huge. Even though I have completed my degree I still have a line of credit and OSAP to pay back. Unfortunately, because of this I will likely not complete a dietetic internship within the next few years (until I have paid of my debt and made enough money to support myself without income for a year...). So that sucks. By the point where I can afford to complete it I might need to take a refresher course too. I could go the route of completing a masters, because then I wouldn't have to start paying my debt back (cause I am in school). But I don't really want to, plus I'm not sure if my marks are good enough (I'd love to blame that on the fact that I worked through out school, but I know other people have too).

It sucks that to become a registered dietitian they make it so hard. I don't simply mean that people have to be smart, but you need to have access to money.

But I guess that's how it is for a lot of occupations, and I could be in a much harder position then I am right now. It still is discouraging though.

Maybe there is something hidden in the system that could help me out. Haven't found it yet, but I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Living with Size Zero

I Eat 33,000 Calories a day - Lisa Sellers

Food inc.

If you haven't seen these you should.

Food inc.

Fast Food Nation


Or read one of these:

Fast Food Nation

Chew on This

What does 100 calories look like?

I'm sure lots of people out there have seen stuff like this before. But I always thing it's pretty fun. So I'm going to do it for my own enjoyment.

100 calories OR less:

1 Medium apple (also oranges, bananas, pears...)




3 Cups of dry popped popcorn (You can always use spices!!)



1/2 Cup yogurt or cottage cheese (varies depending on fat content and brand)
TIP: try freezing your yogurt and eating it partially frozen with a spoon (you may need to defrost it) or putting a Popsicle stick in individual packages before freezing.
TIP: Add fruit to your cottage cheese or yogurt (if you buy plan yogurt you can use it for lots of other dishes)



1 Cup of cooked oatmeal (not prepackaged - cooked with water, if you don't want to increase calories add sweetener...)


8 Shrimp (yummmy...depends on size, dip them in low cal seafood sauce)



1 Cup of baby carrots + 2 tbsp of hummus (or 1/4 large pita and 2 tbsp hummus)





1/2 of a medium cantaloupe!!!




1 cup of strawberries and 3 tbsp yogurt (Dipping the strawberries in the yogurt makes it last a lot longer)




I think the above choices are better then this:



But I understand the concept, a little portion control never hurt anyone. Now it's just remembering to only eat 1 pack!

Here are a few more (there are unlimited choices really)

10 M+M peanut filled candies



1/6th of McDonald's large size fries (ouch, so a full one is 600 cals!)





And finally, my favorite. Mmmmm....

One hard boiled egg.

NOTE: Egg do not directly impact your cholesterol, so enjoy your eggs!

I love Oatcakes.

Ingredients: Oatmeal (76%), vegetable oils, wheat flour, sugar, sea salt, sodium bicarbonate



I don't know many people who buy Oat Cakes, but if you haven't had them before I'd give them a try. I've heard that a lot of grocery stores don't carry them so you might need to look around a bit.


Here's some nutrition info (from the brand above compared to Tim Horton's):




I actually am surprised the highland oat cakes don't have a higher fibre content, since it's basically just oatmeal. They may not be the healthiest snack in the world, but I think they're decent. They always make me feel pretty satisfied, definitely more satisfied then eating granola bars or stuff like that. They are really nice with cream cheese and jam, sorta like a lil'cheese cake.

I have never tried the Tim Horton's ones, but I thought it might be interesting for comparison.

Apparently you should be exercising less...

I read about this on another blog. Check out the original posting here:

Weighty Matters: Canadian health authorities recommend we exercise less

I think that it is pretty crazy they would change the recommendation. It isn't as if the original recommendation of 30 minutes of exercise a day for adults was out of control. I mean, it didn't have to be intense exercise right?...just walking for a half hour a day...

I think I agree with the idea of this blog - maybe they changed it so people would feel that they could actually reach their goal of following the guidelines.

Who knows.

Kelly Clarkson

I wanted to write another post about body image, and apparently my new found love for Kelly Clarkson will come to use.

I think most people know about BMI (the body mass index AKA Quetelet index), which was created in the 1800's by a guy named Adolphe Quetelet. Body mass index is the individual's body weight divided by the square of his or her height. The calculated number is then compared to a standardized values to predict if someone is underweight, normal, overweight or obese.

There are some pretty obvious problems with this method but I think the biggest is that it doesn't consider muscle mass.

There are other methods of determining true fat mass to muscle mass ratio. I'm not going to go into detail about them, but in on of my courses I had some methods completed on me. I am apparently overweight, both according to BMI and according to the actual fat mass recommendations.

Click here to calculate your BMI.

I always sort of new by these classification I would be considered overweight, but I guess I didn't want to accept it. There are a lot of people out there that say being overweight is always bad. But I disagree. I am healthy. I eat pretty well, I exercise pretty regularly (even if it's not always super intense) and I am happy with my body (though I know I could lose some weight and gain some muscle). So I wonder if the people that argue that you have to fit perfectly into the "healthy" range understand that health for some people isn't just about fitting into these standards.

I personally find that when I try to loss weight I become too obsessed with thinking about food and what I'll eat next. I really don't think the extra 10lbs or so that is putting me in the overweight section is worth me fighting my body and my hunger. I also don't think the extra 10 lbs I'm carrying around is going to dramatically change my health. I can still go outside and run for an hour if I want without panting, I can still do all the things I love to do. So why is there such a big stigma attached to carrying some extra weight around?

Kelly Clarkson's been getting some attention because of her weight gain over the last few years.

Before:


After:







I think it's sad that someone who is in the spotlight gets so much negative attention for something like this. She has obviously gained some weight, but I think that is something that typically happened when someone goes from being about 18 (when she got famous) to almost 30. Maybe people shouldn't gain weight as they get older, but I think they typically do. Why is the public so disgusted if it happens to someone who is famous when it so often happens to us "regular people"? I personally think she still looks great. I imagine at some point she will probably end up losing some of the weight too.

This is what she has to say about it:

“I work out when I want to work out; I don’t work out when I don’t want to work out. After a long day and I’m tired, yeah, a cookie helps. It makes me feel good. It’s soul food! There’s a reason why it’s called that. I drop, like, 15 pounds when I’m on tour.” (from Entertainment Weekly)

Just because I don't think being overweight is bad, doesn't mean I don't agree that if you are living an unhealthy lifestyle you shouldn't strive to change it. Just like I don't mean that being very obese should be acceptable, simply because there are many health condition associated with carrying excess weight. But I do think that it is important to feel our best and not to let societies standards, and even scientific standards decide what our best is for us.

Real Food for Real Kids

In my job search I came across this company which is hiring (I'm keeping my fingers crossed I hear from them!), and I thought I'd share it with...well myself...since I haven't posted the link anywhere for people to read this yet. Haha. But it's pretty awesome.

Real Food for Real Kids

Here's some of their basic info:

"At Real Food for Real Kids, we use whole, natural and organic ingredients to make food, fresh from scratch, every day. By catering to childcare centres, elementary schools, and camps, we help children and their families celebrate real food and instill lifelong healthy eating habits."

" Our mission is to...

Change the way children eat and understand food.

Provide children with delicious, healthy, all-natural meals and snacks.

Reconnect children and families to real food.

Inspire future generations to make healthier choices, every day.

Support local farmers and producers who are as committed to responsible and sustainable business practices as we are."

They have lots of recipes, resources, info about companies they support, products, education and other stuff on their website.

Even if I don't get the job, I still think it's great to see a company out there that wants to help instill healthy eating habits in children!!

Body Image.

How our bodies look is a very important in the culture we live in. The importance of how we look to other leaves a definite marks on our own body image, whether we believe the standards of beauty derived by our culture or not. In North America, and many other places in the world, we are constantly surrounded by images of beautiful people (who have often been edited to look pretty unrealistic). It's safe to say many of us don't really feel like we are beautiful. Maybe it's just corporations creating and then playing on our insecurities to sell some make up or cosmetic surgeries or items we don't need to be healthy and happy.

The most extreme recent example I can think of, and probably you too, is of Heidi Montag's recent transformation into a completely different person. She had already had at least one surgery and then went about having 10 more at once:
I'm not sure why any plastic surgeon would argee to completing so many surgery's at once...but I guess that's another post all together.

Now what are we average looking people suppose to think when someone who looked like this (before ANY surgery):

...decides to have 10+ surgeries because she thinks she isn't beautiful enough! (Well, it makes us all feel like she's insane!!!!) I've talked to different people about her before and after looks. There seems to be mixed ideas about how good she looked before. I think she looked pretty fantastic and definitely like a real person, sometimes little flaws are what make someone look extra cute, it's something a little different...you know? Even though there is conflict over if she was very beautiful to start, everyone I know has agreed that she went waaaayy to far trying to reach her preconceived idea of beauty. She just looks a little strange now.

I wonder if she did all this just for publicity and money...but then I think, "she risked her health and whole life for that?". She is obviously a pretty mentally unstable person to go through all of this. But I do think this is a great example of how much pressure people feel, especially women feel, to be thin and "perfect" (according to our cultures standards).

Here are two more updated photos:

Regarding the last post.

I am about to stop posting for the night. I was tired a long time ago. But now that I have this blog I feel like I need to fill it up with information that interests me so that if someone does decide to read it one day they find something useful.

I was thinking about the Orthorexia video and how horrible it would be. Even as a nutrition major I do not think very much about what I eat. I think, but I don't worry about if it's organic or if it's dying....I take the appoach of not wasting...I don't want to waste this carrot, it's only got a day left or...oh the cheese is a little moldy I will just cut the mold off and eat the rest...(...is that gross?).

I think the society we live in has really taught us to see our bodies in a different way then our relatives were taught in the past. I feel that in the past our grandparents, or at least mine, would appreciate their bodies for the strong, healthy, energetic bodies that they were. Without health they would have no livelihood. There were less convenience foods and unhealthy foods available. I don't think our grandparents had the novelty of stoppping at a gas station and buying a dozen donuts. So obviously their environment was a little different. BUT I still feel we all need to learn to love our bodies for what they give us.

We need to treat them like we treat other things that belong to us: we need to take care of them, to nurture them, and to strengthen them the best we can. The better health we are in now, the healthier we will be if something (illness, disease, accidents) does happen in the future, and the easier it will be to recover.

Don't forget to enjoy life today. Go for a walk. Play in the sun. Use a swing set. Do something to use your body and remember how great it feels to have one that works as well as it does.

Orthorexia?

I had never heard of this until today. Thoughts?




Some of this seems a little reasonable. But once I got to the end I could hardly believe it. The stuff they said to stay away from was almost all good! Eggs? Really? Fruit? Really? Wow!

I think it's better to take a chance on eating less healthy foods then it is to starve your body of the calories and the nutrients it needs. Even if you don't get quite enough micronutrients, at least you'll get most of them.

I understand this is basically an obsessive compulsive disorder, but it is still frustrating for me to watch.

"You become what you consume. You consume dead food and death accelerates its presence eventually it takes over."

Well yeah, of course. Eventually we'll die! If this guy can get a nutrition job, why can't I?!

NOTE: Cooking certain foods in water can cause water soluble vitamins to dilute into the water...reducing the vitamins available. BUT many foods also require cooking so we can actually absorb some of the mironutrients.

Is sugar sweet enough?

Sugar vs. Sweetener.

I feel like we often become very dependent on artificial sweeteners, especially those of us to have dieted. We all probably know that the best way to decrease sugar consumption is gradual, ultimately resulting in whatever your goal is. Though we understand this we don't necessarily follow it and often rely on artificial sweeteners to satisfy our sweet tooth.

I believe that there is plenty of sugar we consume that we do not know about, so we shouldn't forget to look at the hidden sugar in our foods when trying to decrease sugar intake. But today I thought I'd take a little look at artificial sweeteners.

What we eat depends on who we are and what are conditions are. I generally believe that sugar in small amounts is much, much healthier then artificial sweeteners. But I understand that for some people using sweeteners could dramatically decrease their weight, especially if they are a avid pop drinker (though the pop should gradually be removed from the regular diet). But we cannot be perfect at what we do, including eating.

For those of you who don't know much about artificial sweeteners there are many different types. Most people are at least familiar with Aspartame and Splenda (which is actually a brand name).

Here is a little overview of some of sweeteners (at least that I am familiar with)

1. Aspartame (Equal) - I think this may be one of the most well known sweeteners, it was introduced to the market around 1980. There has been a great deal of controversy over whether it should be on the market or not. Mainly because of concerns regarding the initial research completed in the 70's on safety. But alas, it still is on the market. I would personally limit aspartame consumption because I believe the research that says byproducts of aspartame breakdown cause alot of harm.

2. Sucralose (Splenda)- This is the MOST SWEET sweetener. Surcralose is rather new on the market, or it would seem that way. It was certified for the market in the early '90's. But, I think it has gotten to be the dominant sweetener on the current market. I imagine you all remember the initial (fairly recent) commercials for Splenda, they were very homely and showed mothers and children. The main benefits is it is very strong so very minut amounts are needed to increase sweetness. Sucralose is just sucrose (table sugar) with a chlorine atom replacing a hydroxy group (hydrogen + oxygen). So in theory is it was broken down to the subsequent parts it should be safe because we consumed sugar and chlorine daily. I personally believe this is one of the safer sweeteners on the market. But...not as safe as sugar (in reasonable amount of course)!

4. Acesulfame potassium - Typically blended with other sweeteners because it can have a bitter after taste. You see this in diet pop often with aspartame. There are safety concerns over this sweetener, and on top of that it is mixed with another sweetener that could be bad for us!? Some have suggested it may be a carcinogen...which basically means it can cause cancer. Animals studies have suggested that acesulfame potassium can affect insulin secretions in rats. Which is pretty strange if you think about it. I do not feel comfortable taking in something that will affect my insulin levels...I am happy with my insulin levels thank you.

5. Saccharin (sweet'n'low) - Just another example of a sweetener that has always had differing opinions on whether it was healthy or not. If the FDA is not sure if it is healthy why was it ever legalized for use?....

6. Steviol glycoside (Stevia)- Heat-stable, pH-stable, and does not ferment, does not induce a glycemic response when ingested - sounds like a miracle! Too bad it may be a mutagen...which is exactly what it sounds like - it might mutate your DNA causing cancer.

7. Sugar alcohols - These are not as sweet as sugar and contain less calories. I guess they do not really fit in the with the group listed above because they are nutritive...they give calories and I don't think they are created in a lab. I believe that they have less calories largely because we cannot properly digest them in our bodies and so we pass them more or less intact. When they reach the intestines still intact water moves into the intestines causing -OOOPSY - some watery stool. Have you even noticed that diet pop gives you diarrhea? These little buggers could be why!

So that's just a little overview of some of the sweeteners. I did not really go into as much detail as I would like. But I am getting a little sleepy! So I will just outline my main issues with sweeteners and then be off:

1. Health concerns - Basically all of the sweeteners mentioned (and probably most that haven't been) have been suggested to cause some kind of harmful health effects. The ones that don't, like splenda/sucralose, simply may not have been on the market long enough to see long term effects. We have to remember that everyone is out to get a buck, and sometimes other people ultimately pay the price. Do we really trust the people who are deciding what products are allowed on the market?

2. Calories - How many calories are we really saving?...Is the risk of health concerns worth it...or would you rather teach yourself to enjoy sugarless tea?

3. Cost - Should we be willing to drop an extra few dollars for sweeteners to bake with instead of sugar?...Or could I just find a new recipe that uses half the sugar? Or uses applesauce?...

4. Where are these sweeteners coming from? Typically I think they have been created in labs...it is weird to eat things that are not natural at all?...


I guess there is plenty of competition in the food industry...so who knows what is true and what is a smear campaign. I am by all means not covering all the artificial sweeteners out there, and some of my information may be a little off....so don't quote me on anything. But I really do feel it is important to think about what it is we are putting in out bodies. Why is it such a big deal if people splice genes of fish into fruit, but we're completely fine with eating items that come from a lab that are basically poison?

Just a thought.

Who is this girl?

Greetings!!

I decided to create this blog to document some of the nutrition info I come across. I don't know if anyone will actually want to read this since there are so many excellent nutrition blogs out there by much more qualified people. I am a new graduate from a nutrition program at a Canadian university. One of the courses I took was called nutrition education. We had to complete about 2 assignments over the semester and she gave us for to choose from. One was a nutrition blog, which I regretfully did not do.

As of now I am unemployed and currently looking for full time work within the nutrition field, hopefully in some type of counseling. I thought that having a blog might help to discover which areas I am most interested in and keep me busy.

I plan to eventually apply to internships to become a registered dietitian. My hopes are high, but maybe not as high as my grades were...

I think that is enough explaining. I want to get down to the good stuff.

I'm not a writer, so ignore any back grammar/spelling in the future.