diet

Managing diabetes is a family affair. Learn how to ask for help when you need it from your parents, partner, and children.

You don’t have to skip parties just because you have diabetes. Learn how to navigate high-calorie party foods without ruining your diet.

Common kitchen tasks can be a real challenge when you have arthritis. Here's how to prepare your meals with less pain.

More people are avoiding foods that contain gluten, a protein in wheat, barley and rye. But is gluten really bad for most of us? Our Healthy Skeptic has the facts.

Is the old saying about beans and your heart really true? Get the answer along with more fascinating facts about beans.

Having trouble keeping those New Year's health resolutions? Simplify your aims with these tips, and you just might see results.

Drop the diet.
About 95 percent of dieters eventually regain lost weight. Instead of counting calories or carbs, just shoot for eating more healthfully.

Skip superfoods.
Don't chase after the latest "superfoods" like acai berries. Instead, focus on broad categories-fruits, veggies, whole grains, fish, legumes-that constitute a healthful diet.

Forget those buns of steel.
Changing your physique requires hours a day in a gym. But don't let that deter you from getting moderate exercise on most days, which can provide an array of benefits.

Can eating a late night meal or snack cause you to gain weight? Our Healthy Skeptic weighs in.

Do your New Year's resolutions include losing weight? If so, consider adding these proven strategies to your weight-loss toolkit in 2011:

Get sleep
Studies have shown sleep deprivation can cause you to eat more.

Be picky about whom you eat with
Women who dine with men consume fewer calories than those who eat with other women, one study found.

Count calories
If you're trying to lose weight, counting calories is more important than adding up fat and carbs.

Eat salads, broth soups and fruits and vegetables
These foods are relatively high in water and fiber, and low in calories.

Get 60 minutes to 90 minutes of exercise a day
For most people, an hour of activity daily is necessary to maintain weight. You may need
more exercise to lose weight.

Happy New Year from Everwell.com!

If you've recently eaten at Panera Bread, a 50-year-old restaurant chain with more than 1,400 locations, you may have noticed the calorie counts on the chain's menu. Some of the information could cause your jaw to drop:

• 430 calories fro a cinnamon crunch bagel
• 720 calories for a Smokehouse Turkey panini
• 1040 calories for a Italian Combo sandwich

If the fact that one sandwich can have 1040 calories (not including the drink and potato chips) seems shocking, get used to being shocked. The new health care reform law will require restaurants to own up to the calorie counts of the food on their menus. Panera is just ahead of the curve.

A few municipalities—most notably New York City—already require restaurants to display some nutritional data on their menus, an effort to educate consumers and allow them to make healthier eating decisions.

So far, the evidence is mixed as to whether menu calories will make a difference in eating habits. In New York, researchers found that people weren't ordering less calorie-laden foods from restaurants but they were visiting cafes less often—which could be a sign of calorie-conscious decision making or the bad economy.

Some people are glad to see calorie counts: It makes it easier to eat out with diabetes or stick to a weight-loss diet.

But calories don't tell the whole story about nutrition. In fact, restaurants need to provide much more information before consumers can make a true "healthy" choice.

For example, some salads may have more calories than a cheeseburger. But that doesn't make the burger a healthier pick. The salad may have has less saturated fat and sodium, along with more fiber and nutrients.

Restaurants, already bristling at putting calorie counts on their menus, aren't likely to voluntarily add information about saturated fat, sodium or dietary fiber. But as a consumer you can still use the calorie information to make good eating decisions. Here's how:

1. Make an educated guess as to where the calories are coming from. Not all high-calorie foods are created equal. Some fruits, for example, are high in calories but contain important nutrients. A salad could get a lot of their calories from added fruit. On a hamburger, the calories are coming from the bun, the condiments and all the unhealthy saturated fat.

2. Cut the calories in half by reducing portion size. Restaurants often serve gigantic portions. Either order a smaller serving (the half-sized Italian Combo sandwich at Panera Bread only has 570 calories) or ask the restaurant to put half your order in a take out box. Find more tips on how to eat out without gaining weight.

3. Use common sense when comparing items. You don't have to be a registered dietitian to know that green leafy vegetables are better for you than a burger and fries, even if the salad has more calories. Salads become nutritional hazards when you add lots of toppings and creamy dressings. But you can make a restaurant salad healthier by opting for a vinaigrette and skipping the croutons and cheese.

Finally, you can learn more about a restaurant's menu before you dine. Many big chain restaurants put their nutritional information online. As Everwell's registered dietitian says, the more you know, the more you can eat.

Related Links:

How to dine out on a diet

Eggs have gotten a bad rap for being high in cholesterol. But can they be part of a heart healthy diet? Our Healthy Skeptic is on the case.

Having trouble getting to sleep? Certain foods can make getting to sleep—and staying asleep—harder.

Soups, salads and other foods that are high in fiber and water can make you feel fuller and help you lose weight.

Nutrition coach Rovenia “Dr. Ro” Brock comes to the rescue of a detective who’s been investigating too many fast food restaurants.

Dining out with a dietitian is a bit like being behind the wheel of a car with a driver's ed instructor in the back seat. The pressure's on to make a good impression. While the burger and fries may be calling your name, you probably end up going for the grilled fish and steamed veggies. It's far less likely to raise eyebrows.

In her blog, Everwell's registered dietitian Carolyn O'Neil describes a recent meal with a group of fellow nutrition experts. She writes that "there were impassioned pleas for splitting entrees, sauce on the side, spinach steamed not creamed, salads sans croutons, and probing questions about how much oil is brushed on the broiled fish."

For Carolyn, the experience wasn't intimidating as it would be for most of us non-dietitians. But it did provide an opportunity to pick up some tricks for eating out on a diet. Here are five that she shares:

1. Start with soups that aren't creamy. They're usually low in calories and help fill you up.

2. Ask the wait staff to remove, or better yet, never bring free foods such as bread and chips to the table. Otherwise, you can consume hundreds of calories before you even get your main dish.

3. Choose only one starch. If you want the bread, skip the potato. If you want the chips, skip the rice and beans.

4. Never assume grilled, baked, or broiled means without butter or oil. Always ask questions of the wait staff. Most chefs add extra butter even when not necessary.

5. Share an entrée or ask the server to put half your meal in a to-go container.

For advice from Carolyn on eating healthfully at fast food restaurants, check out this video.

Resolved to get healthier in 2010? If so, good for you. Of course, the big challenge with any resolution is following through. When it comes to health resolutions, there's another one: making sure you're following sound advice.

Too often, the health advice we get is filled with hype, half-truths, and spin. While we think we're helping ourselves, our efforts may actually be wasting time and money, and doing little to promote our health. They may even cause harm.

Here are some pitfalls to avoid for three common resolutions.

1. LOSE WEIGHT
We're bombarded with ads for weight loss plans that promise dramatic results, and bookstore shelves bulge with guides that offer all kinds of "secrets" to help us shed those unwanted pounds. The sad reality is that there are no magic bullets for weight loss, and over the long term, dieting rarely works. About 95 percent of dieters eventually regain lost weight.

One reason is that most diets leave us feeling deprived, and we fall back on our old eating habits. Another is genetics. No matter how much they diet, people prone to be heavier are unlikely to become skinny, and even if they do shrink substantially, their bodies eventually return to a higher weight. (Just ask Oprah.) This doesn't mean we're completely powerless regarding our weight, just that there are limits to how much we can control.

If you've tried and failed at counting calories, cutting out carbs, or combining foods, consider a different approach: focus on eating healthfully (meaning more fruits, veggies, and whole grains, and less junk food) and getting more physical activity. Unlike many diet plans, this method offers no guarantees to melt away pounds quickly. But it will make you healthier, give you more energy, and help you feel better.

2. EAT BETTER
Every day, it seems we hear about another food that we're supposed to eat to ward off illness. Acai berries, pomegranate juice, green tea, dark chocolate, yogurt, garlic, tomatoes. The list goes on and on. While there's nothing wrong with most of these foods–indeed many are quite healthful–the claims for them tend to be overblown.

In recent years, there's been an explosion of research on all kinds of constituents in superfoods–everything from alpha-linolenic acid to zeaxanthin. Though this line of inquiry is interesting scientifically, it's still in its infancy. Because foods contain multiple nutrients, which may interact with one another and with other foods to affect our bodies in a myriad of ways, teasing out the precise effects of a single constituent in one food is tricky, to say the least. But that hasn't stopped superfood promoters from pushing the misleading idea that specific foods, in isolation, are proven to keep us healthy.

While it's tempting to believe that tossing some blueberries into a cup of ice cream will keep heart disease at bay, what matters in the long run is our overall diet–not whether we include one specific food or another. Instead of stuffing yourself with superfoods, focus on broad categories–fruits, veggies, whole grains, fish, legumes–that constitute a healthful diet. When you can choose a variety of foods you like, rather than specific ones you feel compelled to consume, it makes eating far more enjoyable.

3. EXERCISE
We've all seen those ads for gadgets promising to give us rock-hard abs or thinner thighs. Targeted exercises can in fact strengthen muscles in a particular area, but they can't get rid of fat that covers those muscles. How quickly and easily fat disappears depends on where it's located, as well as your age, gender, and genes. But in any case, it requires vigorous, whole body exercise. Unfortunately, you can't spot reduce flab with ab crunches or leg lifts alone.

Likewise, you generally can't reshape your body with moderate exercise. Yet that's sometimes the promise we get from fitness clubs or personal trainers. Certainly, a half-hour a day of walking on a treadmill or riding a bike is highly worthwhile; it can provide an array of benefits from improved heart health to increased energy. But don't expect it to give you a perfectly-sculpted body. Changing your physique requires far more intense, sustained activity.

False promises about exercise create unrealistic expectations that eventually lead to disillusionment. After failing to get the results we're led to expect, we may give up entirely. Don't let that happen to you in 2010. Set reasonable goals–and get going!

Even people who carefully watch what they eat tend to blow it once Saturday and Sunday roll around. Dr. Bruce Dan shows you why weekends can wreak havoc on your diet.

Dietitian Carolyn O’Neil comes to the rescue of an actor whose late-night rehearsal schedule is wreaking havoc on his waistline and blood sugar levels.

Dietitian Carolyn O’Neil comes to the rescue of some firefighters whose high-fat diet is proving more dangerous than their occupation.