Your body needs a healthy amount of fat daily. But choose wisely and don't overdo it

When it comes to losing weight, is controlling your appetite your biggest issue? Here come the scientists to the rescue. They've created an olive-oil based emulsion that can help reduce appetite. In testing, a milkshake was served to volunteers, and it had the results they were hoping for. The mixture maintains a higher level of volume in the stomach -- giving a longer-lasting feeling of being full. More testing is needed, but the next plan is trying to add the emulsion to processed foods to see if it has the same effect.

Martin Wickham, from the Institute of Food Research (the developers of the emulsion), told the Daily Mail, "It is important to keep weight down, and this is a more acceptable way of doing it than restricting your food intake on a diet."

But there's a fly in the emulsion.

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Nuts and olive oil are clearly good diet choices. But ever wonder which one is better? RealAge names nuts as the healthier option.

In a year-long study, people who ate a Mediterranean diet and added an extra ounce of nuts (a small handful) had a lower rate of metabolic syndrome compared to those who ate the same diet but upped their olive oil intake by four to five ounces per day. The theory behind this finding is that olive oil is extracted from olives, but nuts are a whole food and have more fiber, protein and minerals. Olive oil is still important -- just like nuts do, it helps reduce abdominal fat more than low-fat diets do.

A healthy diet, exercise and regular physicals can help prevent metabolic syndrome, a cluster of conditions that occur together, increasing your risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Conditions include obesity (mostly the "apple shape"), elevated blood pressure, elevated level of blood fat (triglycerides), a low level of good cholesterol (HDL) and resistance to insulin.

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Salmon is by far my favorite type of seafood. Not only is it delicious, it's good for you, too; it's rich in omega 3 fatty acids, vitamin D, selenium, protein, and vitamins B3 and B12.

While it's important to me to serve healthful meals for me and my son, I'm not the world's most innovative cook. That's another reason why salmon is tops on my list. It's so easy to cook ... you really can't go wrong. My favorite method is to drizzle it with just a tiny bit of olive oil, sprinkle some paprika on top, and grill it. The same method works in the oven, too. I usually pair it with some seasoned brown rice and steamed asparagus.

Real Simple has eight salmon recipes that are much more creative than my stand-by preparation method. The Dill Salmon Burgers sound awesome as does the Blackened Salmon.

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Steamed zucchini and summer squash coins is probably my very favorite side dish. I also enjoy dicing zucchini and adding it to marinara sauce for whole-wheat spaghetti. So I'm sure I would love this healthy alternative to pasta.

Using a vegetable peeler, you'll slice zucchini into long, thin strips. Cook the strips in a bit of olive oil, adding a small amount of salt and pepper to taste. You can enjoy the zucchini as is, or top it with marinara sauce and some grated Parmesan for a pasta-like treat. Filling enough for a main course, this is a recipe that packs a lot of flavor and nutrition while being very low in calories.

Want some more ideas for zucchini recipes? Debra has the scoop on 10 tasty recipes.

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Like most diet, fitness and health news fans, I love a good scary nutrition piece or an unusual health tip. But when I read about the woman who claims to be 120 years old (which would make the her the oldest living person) and reportedly drinks a glass of olive oil a day, I did a double take. Yes, the blogger actually said this woman may have already consumed 2,737 gallons of olive oil! Crazy, right?

Well, that's not the craziest part. While doing some research for a follow-up article I wrote about whether olive oil can really help slow aging, I found out drinking a glass of olive oil a day would mean consuming 1900 calories and 200 grams of fat a day -- and that's not counting any actual food you'd naturally want to eat in addition to olive oil. So basically anyone who actually drinks a glass of olive oil a day, without a side order of a super-intense fitness routine, would probably start to see weight gain. And if you didn't cut back to smaller tumbler's full, you could head for obesity, and then scary obesity-related diseases.

That's not to say olive oil consumption in moderation can't be beneficial for your heart. I for one, however, am going to stick to my few tablespoons of olive oil a day.

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