Growing recipes adding to obesity?

(Via AP) CONCORD, N.H. – Eating at home can save you some cash, but beware the calorie cost.

Though restaurants often take the blame for portion distortion — the trend of serving up ever larger helpings — cookbook recipes have done some Supersizing of their own, a study published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine found.

“There’s so much attention that’s been given to away-from-home eating and so much attention that’s been focused on restaurants and the packaged food industry, it makes me wonder whether it’s actually deflecting attention from the one place where we can make the most immediate change,” says Cornell University marketing professor and msnbc.com contributor Brian Wansink, who directed the study.
The study, which looked at how classic recipes have changed during the past 70 years, found a nearly 40 percent increase in calories per serving for nearly every recipe reviewed, about an extra 77 calories.

The study identified the trend in numerous cookbooks, but it focused on American kitchen icon “Joy of Cooking,” first published during the ’30s and regularly updated with new editions since then, most recently in 2006
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Superbowl Snacks Healthy Alternatives

Super Bowl Sunday is much like a white trash Thanksgiving. You get to hang out with friends, watch football, drink beer and eat lots of food all without the whole family and appreciation thing. However, the biggest difference is that it’s an all day snacking free for all – leading many to drastically underestimate the total number of calories consumed. The average number of calories people eat from snacks on a typical day should be less than 400, but on Super Bowl Sunday the average is 1200!

Here are some healthy alternatives and recipe ideas to try for the big game. Not hosting a party? Ask if you can bring something, we doubt the host will say no thanks.

The best part about the following 2 recipes are that they share many common ingredients making your lists shorter and less expensive.
Here is your grocery list for the two recipes:
4 Rustic Potatoes
Large Tub Sour Cream
Fat Free Cheddar Cheese
2 Large slicing tomatoes
1 Bunch Green Onions
Low Carb/High Fiber Whole Wheat Tortillas (Cedars or Josephs)
1 Grilled Chicken Breast

Homemade Potato Skins (86 calories vs TGI Fridays 281 calories)
Baked Potatoes
Fat Free or Low Fat Cheddar Cheese
Chopped Tomato (Or Bacon Bits)
Fat Free or Low Fat Sour Cream (or Plain Greek Yogurt)
Green Onion (Scallions)
Directions: Pierce cleaned potatoes with a fork and microwave for 10 minutes ( 5 minutes on high per potato). Allow to cool and cut down the middle. Scoop out insides, leaving about a 1/4 inch of pulp. Spray with some I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter or rub inside and out with canola oil. Place potatoes on a baking sheet in the over for 20 minutes or until crisp at 375 degrees. Sprinkle tomato or bacon bits and cheese on top and return back to the oven until cheese is bubbly. Top with sour cream and a little green onion.

Superb Chicken Quesadillas
High Fiber Whole Wheat Tortillas (Like Joseph’s or Cedars)
Fat Free Cheddar Cheese
Diced Grilled Chicken breast
Chopped Tomato
Green Onion
Fat Free Sour cream
Directions: Heat and spray large round frying pan. Place tortilla onto hot pan and sprinkle with cheddar cheese, chicken, scallions and tomato. Let cook for about 3-5 minutes or until side facing down is starting to turn brown and crispy, then fold into half like an omlette. Let cook another 2-3 minutes until sides have melted together. Cut into 4 slices and top with sour cream and chives. YUM!

Buffalo wings and pizza are synonymous with Superbowl grub. That is why I’ve included two great alternative to the guilty duo.

Morning Star Buffalo Bites (5 bites for 200 Calories vs. typical chain restaurant serving 500 Calories)
I love anything made by Morning Star! I’m not a vegetarian but I am a health nut. Their chicken nuggest, veggie burgers, chick’n strips, everything is delicious so it came as no suprise to me when I tried the buffalo bites that I fell in love! Still a little high in calorie it’s a saving grace compared to typical wings.

Amy’s Cheese Pizza Snacks (5 bites 198 calories vs greasy average 1/8 of a pizza 275)
These frozen finger foods are a convenient and healthier option to eating pizza! Less fat and calories, they also make for a neater eating environment.

Want to see the foods and how delicious they look like? Check out the Healthy Superbowl Snack video from last year when I debuted these delicious recipes. Please excuse the Patriotic enthusiasm. If you only we knew our fate…

Exercise Suppresses Appetite

If you’re on a diet and feel hungry before it’s time to eat again, try working out! A new fitness study says that exercise suppresses your appetite. According to the the American Physiological Society, when doing aerobic activity like walking on a treadmill for 60 minutes, your body produces a surge in hunger squashing hormones! The effect lasts for about 2 hours including the duration of your exercise.

Build Muscle To Fire Up Your Metabolism

Even though the study produced promising results, it’s still unknown if the suppression of the appetite hormones has any effect on the suppression of eating. Researchers are excited about furthering their research to find more effective ways to use exercise to help weight control.

While several hormones help regulate your appetite, the researchers only looked at the two major ones, ghrelin and peptide YY. Ghrelin is a hormone that is known to stimulate appetite while Peptide YY is an appetite suppressing hormone.

The study looked at the effects of the two hormones after a 60-minute walking based workout on a treadmill vs 90 minutes of weight lifting. The researchers concluded that walking or any aerobic activity is better at suppressing one’s appetite than non-aerobic exercise based on the analysis of the levels of ghrelin and peptide YY the body produced.

Even though this study is early in the works, before your Christmas meal, go for a long walk to see if perhaps it helps you restrain from overeating! Better yet, fire up your metabolism in just 4 minutes with our Fastest Workout ever. Or check our the Number 1 Fat Burning Exercise! It may sound easier than it is, but give it a try and your waist will thank you!

Sexercise: How Bedroom Beats The Gym!

This article has the potential of overpopulating an overpopulated world but let the facts be known. Did you know that having sex three times a week burns the same calories as running about several miles per week?

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Who is Victoria Secret? Steal Her Model’s Fitness Routines!

Get fit this holiday season with the tips from Victoria’s Secret Runway models.

Before they strut their stuff down the catwalk for national television, the “angels” amped up their cardio this year and even cut out carbs this year.  Shame on you for thinking they were just born like that!

This year’s broadcast will feature newbies Marisa Miller, Doutzen Kroes and Miranda Kerr alongside Secret alumns Heidi Klum, Karolina Kurkova, Adriana Lima, Alessandra Ambrosio and Selita Ebanks.  Last month the newest threesome went to Miami for the new runway show that airs on CBS December 3rd, 2008.

“I love feeling so sexy and I love to be on this runway, but you’re nervous because it’s lingerie and it’s on TV,” Kroes told the AP.  “There are so many people seeing you live, it’s not like a picture when there is Photoshop after.”  But we know all about the reassurance of Photoshop so we feel your pain hunny.

Kroes, a 23-year-old from from the Netherlands, claims she normally eats what she wants because she exercises frequently, but went on a strict sugar- and carb-free meal plan for the upcoming show.  She adds that she also spends many extra minutes a day jumping rope in preparation. “For other fashion shows you can be skinny, but for Victoria’s Secret, you need definition,” says Kroes, 23.

A California native, Miller (who is a shocking 30 years old!) stays relaxed and tries not to psyche herself out too much.

“I’m a little shy and unassuming, which might be hard to believe with my job, so I don’t have to quite become another person out there but I have to think about letting it all go. My last outfit was a black velvet one-piece with pink feathers on the back. I had to show the camera my tailfeathers so I did give a little spin,” she says.  “When you’re on the runway, you’re moving so it’s all about toning up.”

And just how do the ladies feel about being half naked in front of their family as well as millions of viewers at home?

“My mom didn’t mind seeing me up there in my underwear ,” Kerr says. “I am 25 and it’s all very lovely and like a costume. It’s beautiful and romantic … it’s not like standing up there in my everyday underwear. It’s a theatrical show and everyone is there to have a good time.”

Wanna re vamp your workout routine?  Check out the newest application from diet.com that let’s you build your own workout video!  Very cool and you must check it out.  Since it is getting cold out and you may not be willing to venture out in the cold here are a couple of home workouts to tone your abs and lift your butt!