That's Fit

Vitamin C might help you lose a few, and it might help you keep those few off too.

Research shows that the human body needs sufficient vitamin C to burn fat, the key to keeping excess weight from stacking up. Nothing too difficult about what to do with this news: Pop your C supplement or chew on some vitamin C-rich foods before your next fitness feat. Even better, snack on it throughout the day if you can. Try some grapefruit in the morning, have an orange for lunch, and fill your dinner plate with treats like red bell peppers, broccoli, and brussels sprouts.

Some background: Vitamin C study participants with low concentrations of C in their blood walked on a treadmill for one hour and burned 25% less fat than people with adequate C in their blood. It didn't take much to bring fat-burning levels up, though. A dose of C is all it takes to create carnitine, a substance that turns fat into fuel.

How much C do you need? Click here to find out.

My little guy loves brown rice salads. He cannot wait to see what "chunks" I have included in my latest recipe. If your kids (or significant others!) are plain rice eaters, why not help them branch out a bit by adding some nutritious "chunks" to their rice.

You may be dealing with picky eaters, so start slowly, adding things you know they'll love. Some pretty safe bets:

• corn kernels
• sweet peas
• steamed carrots
• raisins
• slivered almonds

Now you've been successful, so push the envelope a bit and try:

• chick peas
• chopped spinach
• zucchini
• broccoli
• butternut squash

Broccoli is so nutritionally awesome, I dare say I am not going out on a limb by declaring broccoli the Supreme Ruler of the Veggieverse. Clearly you all are realizing right about now that I spend far too much time with my super-hero-obsessed son.

Pardon my digression, but I'm right, aren't I? If broccoli can be death-defying, cancer-fighting, calcium-rich and just plain yummy, then why shouldn't we put it on a well-deserved pedestal?

Try putting it on a plate instead -- with these three recipes: one easy, one cool, and one stealthy.

Chris recently put broccoli on his list of death-defying foods for its preventative benefits against certain forms of cancer. But the benefits of broccoli don't stop there. Recent research from the UK shows that a compound found in broccoli may reverse heart blood vessel damage caused by diabetes.

The compound sulforaphane, found in broccoli, boosts the production of enzymes that protect blood vessels. In addition, it reduces certain molecules that can do cell damage.

People with diabetes have an increased risk of heart disease and stroke due to damaged blood vessels. Cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, are beneficial to heart health.

Growing your own produce is an economical way to feed your family healthfully. As an added perk, pulling all of the weeds helps to burn a few calories each day.

If you haven't gotten around to planting a garden this summer, you're not too late. There are plenty of veggies that can still thrive even into the fall. Perhaps even into the winter, depending on the weather conditions where you live. Divine Caroline has a list of edible goodies that can be planted now and enjoyed in the coming months:

• Long-maturing crops such as carrots, cabbage, and potatoes can be planted now for regions with October frost dates, or in August for regions with November frost dates.
• Medium-maturing crops like broccoli, Swiss chard, and kale take about two months to mature. You can plant them now or hold off a bit longer for fall growth.
• Fast-maturing crops such as spinach, arugula, and leaf lettuce mature in about a month and can be planted as late as September. Plant some now and then plan to plant again for a second crop in the fall.

We've all heard about foods so super in their powers they can fight off disease. This past week, broccoli made headlines for its ability to protect men from prostate cancer.

How exactly is this possible?

Researchers believe a chemical in broccoli sparks hundreds of genetic changes, activating some genes that do battle with cancer and turning off others that fuel tumors. This study is more than just evidence backing the notion that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables reduces cancer risk. It's the first human trial that looks at the potential biological mechanism at work. We know it's good to eat fruits and veggies. Now we know why.

Specifically, the broccoli eaters in this study showed 400 to 500 positive genetic changes. Men carrying a gene called GSTM1 enjoyed the most benefit. About half the population have this gene.

It's no mystery that vegetables are good for you. The list of reasons why spans far longer than the space provided between these margins.

That's why I decided to focus on one health benefit in particular: the apparent relationship between vegetable consumption and reduced lung cancer risk. Women's Health magazine reports that people who eat at least one daily serving of vegetables lower their risk of this cancer by as much as fifty percent compared with people who ate less veggies than that.

Because they are high in antioxidants, veggies are formidable opponents for carcinogenic free radicals and tobacco smoke, say folks at Women's Health. Keep your lungs healthy by adding broccoli, spinach, and other cancer-fighting vegetables to your daily diet.

Broccoli -- it's the bane of every child's existence at a dinner table, but it also happens to be a known cancer fighter. So, for that reason and myriad others, kids and adults alike would do well to grin and bear through the somewhat lackluster flavor. Of course, there are a number of ways you can spruce up the taste -- the way you season it, what you top it with, and even how you cook it. But, of all your broccoli-enhancing choices, boiling it is probably the worst idea.

This has less to do with taste and more to do with your health, according to researchers from Warwick University in England. Based on the findings during a 2007 study, boiling broccoli for even ten minutes can reduce its immune-boosting, cancer-battling glucosinolates by as much as 80 percent.

To keep your broccoli in fighting form, either steam it or keep boiling time to five minutes or less (doing so demonstrated only a ten percent reduction in glucosinolates). As for more specific tips on how to improve the taste of this cruciferous vegetable, I'll leave that information to you. Cooking is not even close to my thing.

Feeling and looking like a superstar starts with eating superstar foods and when it comes to summer salads, you might know that veggies are good for you but do you know which ones are the best? In terms of antioxidant levels there are five veggies that stand out from the rest and you'll want to be sure to throw as many of them as you can in your salads this summer. Which veggie do you think is the absolute richest in antioxidants?

An easy way to lose weight is to include more fruits and vegetables in your diet. Produce is famous for jamming massive amounts of vitamins, nutrients and fiber into very few calories. With most produce, you can consume lots of food for a very low caloric price. More bang for your buck that is!

I ask my personal training clients to try to include at least five meals per week consisting of pure produce. No meat. No grains. Most folks eat at least 21 meals per week, so this five meal plan doesn't deter anyone from getting enough protein. What it does do though, is get them to try new fruits and learn new ways to turn veggies into a meal.

Another benefit to this effort is that by keeping a few meals to just produce, you will more than likely be cutting quite a bit of calories out of the day. Over time, the more you rely on fruits and vegetables for snacks and meals, the more likely you'll be to achieve and maintain your ideal weight.

If you're looking reduce your cancer risk by delivering a solid one-two combination, a tasty and healthy fight plan is to eat fish and broccoli together.

Because many types of fish contain selenium, which has been shown to increase levels of cancer-fighting enzymes, you're already off to a good start. Then, by adding broccoli -- because the vegetable contains a great deal of sulforaphane, a compound that offers similar cancer-fighting effects as fish -- you're following your initial jab with a solid right cross.

What's more, researchers at the Institute of Food Research found that when combined, fish and broccoli were 13 times more effective at slowing the growth of cancer cells than each food was all by itself. It's clear, then, that making this healthy meal combo part of your regular diet may help send cancer to the mat.

In our house, we tend to keep food in our fridge for longer than most people. It's part laziness, part iron stomachs and part frugality, but whatever the cause, I'm often left scratching my head wondering if I should use a certain ingredient in my next meal. But I recently came across this handy timeline for storing common fruits and veggies:

• Carrot (peeled): 51 days
  
• Tomato: 36 days
  
• Garlic: 30 days
• Broccoli: 27 days
• Strawberry: 22 days
  
• Asparagus: 22 days
• Spinach: 19 days
• Grapes (black and green): 14 days
• Peppers (red and green): 14 days
• Cucumber: 8 days
• Lettuce: 8 days

Surprising, yes? I thought the times on many of these were much shorter. This is good news though, particularly for those month-old carrots in the back of my fridge.

Fitzness Fiends is a section devoted to you, the reader! We all have learned so much on our path to becoming more fit, and now it's time to learn from and inspire each other! Fitzness Fiends are constantly working to better themselves. Some are perfect, some are not. All have health on the mind. Please send Fitz your answers to these questions with a photo of yourself. Time for you to be the motivator!

Name: Russell Hay

Age: 30

Occupation: Software Engineer

How often do you exercise? Three to four days a week.

What type of exercise do you do? Trapeze (& other aerial arts like Rope and Silk), Yoga, Acrobatics and Acrobalance

Broccoli's really gotten a bad rap over the years as the vegetable kids (and at least one president) won't eat. High in vital nutrients like vitamin C, K, and folate and low in calories, though, broccoli really is a star in the vegetable world. Now there's yet one more reason to enjoy broccoli: Researchers recently discovered that when they gave broccoli extract to rats, their hearts worked better. Specifically, their hearts pumped better and suffered less damage when under stress.

Want to learn more about broccoli's better qualities? Visit The World's Healthiest Foods to see why this old classic should be a part of your diet on a regular basis.

My little family and I really love Christmas. Ginger, 4 and Parker, 2 are really young and adore all of the excitement that Santa brings. It's just pure fun, so we tend to take advantage of every little moment that we can.

Within the next few days we'll start preparing for Santa and his reindeer's arrival. The gingerbread houses are already decorated, so at the grocery store we'll get cookie mix and broccoli for Santa. Carrots, glitter and something else for the reindeer. Read this, if you're not so sure why Santa will be receiving broccoli.