That's Fit

I'm thinking back to the dinner I had last night. I'm visualizing it: Spinach lettuce, red grapes, shredded carrots, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, topped with salmon. No dressing. Just a bowl full of healthy stuff, all mixed together, simply scrumptious.

This visualization exercise is intended to cause me to eat fewer calories today. Not sure it's working. I think it's making me hungry instead.

According to the August issue of The Oprah Magazine, the findings of a study published in the journal Physiology & Behavior (2008) reveal that women who wrote a detailed description of their last meal (it happened to be lunch for this study) ate fewer cookies than those who didn't. OK, so maybe I should have written down my dinner items. No. I don't think that would have worked any better. Obviously, for some, journaling past meals does work. Might want to try it and see if it works for you.

Time for another installment of Sample-6, where I offer an easy combination of meals and healthy snacks. In case you haven't heard, eating 5 to 6 small, healthy snacks/meals per day is the optimal way to increase your metabolism and lose fat through diet alone. What happened to 3 squares, you may be wondering? Gone the way of the dinosaurs.

With that, here's a great Sample-6:

BREAKFAST: Bowl of steel-cut oats; 1tbsp of almond or all-natural peanut butter; 1 glass of milk

MID-MORNING SNACK: Plain yogurt mixed with fresh berries; a handful of almonds

LUNCH: Tuna mixed with mashed avocado, olive oil and spinach, spread on toasted wholegrain bread

MID-AFTERNOON SNACK: Sliced cucumber, celery and peppers dipped in hummus

DINNER: Grilled salmon; steamed broccoli; small portion of brown rice

EVENING SNACK: 1/2 cup of low-fat cottage cheese mixed with 1tsp of horseradish and a dash of pepper

For more great ideas for healthy snacks and meals, visit AOL Body by clicking here.

Summer's almost here. But that doesn't mean school's out for everyone -- think daycare programs, summer camps, educational field trips -- which means there's still reason to pack kid lunches long into June, July, and August. For all you lunch packers out there, may I suggest this: Go organic.

If you've not already gone organic for your kid lunches, let this post inspire you. And if you don't have a kid in a summer program this year, use this inspiration to plan ahead for Fall. Practice at home and you'll be set for a healthy school year ahead.

Why organic for your kiddos?

Every morning, I pack my son's lunch for school (or day camp during the summer). For a while, I bought him those coolers in fun shapes like soccer balls and so forth. But after he lost three or four of them, I gave up on the concept. I also tried using a strong plastic baggie and freezing a thin layer of water in it. I didn't care if those got lost, but my son certainly cared when the baggies got a hole and spilled thawed water all over the rest of his lunch.

The best solution I've found is using edible ice packs. Take a look at your child's lunch and see what could be frozen. The frozen foods will keep your child's lunch cold and, by lunchtime, they should be thawed and ready to eat. Some perfect items for freezing include:

• Yogurt tubes
• Cans of fruit (individual serving sizes)
• Pudding cups
• Grapes
  
• Juice box
• Homemade cookies or muffins.
  

Skipping meals is often a tactic for those who are trying to lose weight, but it's really not a good idea. Sure, you cut a bunch of calories all at once, but then you set yourself up for a crash and binge later on in the day. It's far easier to control your hunger when you're satisfied by light, nutritious foods.

Lunch is an especially important meal of the day. What you eat during your mid-day meal will give you energy for the rest of the day to come. The best way to ensure a healthy lunch is to pack it yourself, though with careful thought you can still find nutritious choices at restaurants and fast food joints.

When packing your lunch, make sure to include a high quality protein and whole grains, plus plenty of fruits and vegetables. Here are a few suggestions:

• lettuce salad with nuts and/or fish
• a simple stir fry
• a sandwich on whole grain bread with plenty of veggies
• hummus on pita bread
• peanut butter and banana sandwich
• leftover chili from your dinner the night before

Speaking of leftovers, as long as you're a healthy cook, they're an excellent choice for lunch as well. For more lunch ideas, as well as breakfast and dinner, visit AOL's Summer Quick Fix and check out their Mix 'n Match Meals.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, right? Most people will agree, but there are two side to every story. Diet Blog recently discussed the other side to the breakfast debate, based on the fact that most research on the importance of breakfast is funded by companies with a vested interest in your early AM food consumption -- namely companies who sell things like cereal, orange juice, frozen waffles and so on. They give a number of reasons why breakfast might not be as essential as we think -- you can check them out there.

I'm a staunch breakfast eater, if for no other reason then I am really freaking hungry when I wake up. I don't eat a lot -- a protein smoothie or a bowl of cereal will do -- but I have to have something or I won't be able to concentrate on anything for the first few hours of the day because I won't be able to hear anything above the growling of my stomach.

What about you? Is breakfast essential to your morning? Do you think we're being misled on the breakfast front?

Just picked up a little recipe card from Kraft at the grocery store today, and thought I'd share it with you. The apple-cheddar stacker recipe offers protein, calcium, fiber, and energy. A decent little snack for the kids or you!

Ingredients:

• 3 oz Kraft 2% Milk Reduced Fat Sharp Cheddar Cheese
• 1 small apple, cut into 24 slices
• 2 tbsp. sugar
• 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 24 TRISCUIT Crackers

Oh the good 'ol days when lunchtime was for nothing but eating, visiting with friends, and relaxing. When is the last time you did nothing but eat on your lunch break? We're a society of stressed-out, always-busy, multi-tasking maniacs most of the time, which of course sets us up for snarfing down fattening convenience foods from fast food joints and vending machines in an effort to save time. Not good. Not good at all.

Life is about more than just how much you accomplish each day and although being as productive as possible is not a bad thing, there's definitely something to be said for slowing down to smell the roses. Here's some good advice on how to make the most of your lunch break:

Get outside Depending on where you work, you're probably cooped up indoors in the same place for most of the day, so get outside and breath some fresh air to recharge your body and your mind.

Since my return to working in an office (at least on a part-time basis,) I've been giving some consideration to lunches. The consensus, at least among most of my co-workers, is that bringing your own lunch is not only healthier for the wallet, but healthier for the waistline too. But these days, it seems like healthy choices are available everywhere -- even fast foods joints have some sort of customizable salad option, and with nutritional information often available, it's easy to make a healthy choice. And considering I don't spend every day at the office, eating out two times a week isn't such a financial burden.

But I'm curious -- is it more common to buy a lunch or bring one? Judging by the line-ups in the food court, I'm inclined to say that bringing your lunch is a thing of the past, but then again, the microwaves at work come with their own set of line-ups. So what about you?

Lunch is one of the most challenging parts of balancing a healthy lifestyle with a full-time job. If left to their own devices most people seem to gravitate towards fast food, high-sodium microwave meals from the vending machine, or (perhaps worst of all) skipping lunch altogether, so it's no wonder that complaints of feeling hungry again within only a few hours of lunch are fairly commonplace. But no worries! Self magazine has some pointers (and recipes!) to help us all customize healthier midday meals based on whatever individual workday challenges we may be facing.

Stuck at your desk all day? If you know you're going to be fairly inactive the best lunch is something that stays away from bread-based carbs and focuses instead on lean protein with veggies and fruit, i.e. a salad with chicken or steak, veggies (broccoli, peppers), and fruit (orange slices, cranberries).

While I don't typically find the time to cook, prepare, and present creative kiddie meals for my little boys, this clever lunch idea caught my eye. I'm not saying I'll set out on a mission to prepare this healthy masterpiece, but you might and that's why I share Family Fun magazine's Lunch Ahoy idea with you.

First things first: Create our own veggie vessel by carving out half of a pickling cucumber, plum tomato, or yellow pepper. Then: Fill your vessel with tuna salad and push one end of a celery or carrot stick into the tuna. This is your mast. Finally: Set a triangle sail of pepper, lettuce, or cheese next to the mast. If you want to really go crazy, serve on a blue plate with a few fishy crackers.

How cute is this?

A neighbor of mine told me he's trying to lose weight by eating only Special K cereal for breakfast and lunch. I assume he's eating a normal dinner. But virtually skipping those first two meals of the days just isn't going to work.

When you skip meals, your body thinks you're in famine mode, and it reacts by reducing your metabolism. A lower metabolism means slower weight loss. Instead of skipping meals, you should eat at least four times per day -- breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner. Try not to leave more than three or four hours in between meals and snacks, and you'll find losing weight is not as hard as you'd imagined.

I know, it seems eating less would help you weigh less. But it doesn't. Consider this news a gift. You get to eat -- the healthy stuff, anyway -- and lose weight too. Is there anything better?

I'm sure that being diagnosed with diabetes would be tough to deal with both emotionally and physically, and one of the hardest aspects must be the many lifestyle changes that those with the disease must undergo to get healthy again. For example, I'm a big fan of food and I love going out for dinner at a great restaurant. I think that if I were diagnosed with diabetes, giving up sumptuous meals at local eateries would be pretty tough to deal with.

The good news is, that according to this, all of you fellow foodies out there who are trying to overhaul your diet because of a diabetes diagnosis don't have to give up tasty meals out at restaurants. As the piece point out, not only can you still eat out, your lunch or dinner doesn't have to be boring.

However, it will take some advanced planning. It's important to know what exactly you can eat, how the food will be prepared and how much of it you can safely consume. Diabetic diners will also need to remember to eat at the right time in order to stay balanced. While it will take a bit of time, preparation and research ahead of time, dining in restaurants doesn't have to be a thing of the past. If you'd like more in depth information, please view the entire article here.

Eating healthy meals is important. But timing your meals is really important too. Most people are stuck in an age-old way of eating throughout the day -- very small breakfast, small lunch, no snacks and a huge dinner and dessert right before bed. But we seem to have it all wrong; this article from CBC advises the following:

• Eat a hearty breakfast as soon after waking up as possible. You might have all sorts of reasons for skimping on breakfast or missing it all together, but keep this in mind: On average, those who always eat a good breakfast are healthier, have a normal BMI and are more productive throughout the day.
  
• Don't let a busy schedule annihilate your lunch plans -- those who skip lunch are more likely to have high cholesterol
• An afternoon snack is a necessary way to keep your energy up between lunch and dinner. Plus, if you don't have an afternoon snack, you're more likely to over-indulge at dinner. Just make sure it's a healthy one -- between 150 and 200 calories is ideal.
  
• Don't eat dinner right before you go to bed. And there's no need to make it the biggest meal of your day -- afterall, those extra calories won't be used when you're sleeping.
  

I'm a firm believer in eating small meals throughout the day when I'm hungry, but I have a flexible schedule that allows me to do that. When do you do most of your eating?

I was elated to read in my first-grader's school newsletter on Monday that first and third-grade students will have their Body Mass Index (BMI) measurements calculated during the month of October. I'm not sure why these two grades were chosen, but I'm happy to see some attention paid in the public school system to the issue of childhood obesity.

After I read this exciting BMI announcement, I flipped through a few more newsletter pages and landed right on the school's lunch menu. Interesting what I found. On October 9, kids can ingest loaded fries or a chicken patty -- fried or breaded, I assume -- and on October 10, they get to pick either a hamburger or a corndog. On October 17, the options are chicken fried rice or beef nachos. Chicken nuggets make the menu on many-a-day. So does mac and cheese. And pizza is served every Friday. Now I know there are nutritional guidelines that float around somewhere near where this food is prepared and perhaps I'm jumping the gun and making claims that are not warranted -- but I can't bring myself to believe these food items are very healthy. I do know fruits and vegetables are served as side dishes so that's a plus. Still, I'm just not OK with what comes out of our school cafeteria.

My question is this: If administrators are willing to screen kids for obesity, can't they do a little preventative maintenance and fuel our kids with the good stuff? I know crappy food costs less than healthy fare, but isn't the health of our nation's children worth it? I think so.