Nutritional planning involves balancing macronutrients, understanding calorie formulas, and identifying the functional properties of whole foods to manage weight and chronic conditions effectively.
As 2016 comes to a close and we’re finishing off the last of the leftover turkey and sweet potato casserole, we start looking ahead to 2017. But while most New Year’s resolutions have the best intentions, it’s rare that they all end up sticking with us.
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So you’ve finished carving your pumpkin and moved on to marveling at your masterpiece. But wait: Don’t toss out those pumpkin seeds! Packed with nutritional value, they make the perfect fall snack.
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If you’re the type who struggles to meet your daily vegetable intake, here’s an end to your plight. There’s a tasty — and healthy — way to prepare your vegetables: sliced like fries and then crisped in the oven.
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Dietary supplements and herbs provide alternative treatments to several disorders, and can complement conventional medical techniques. However, the active ingredients in some herbs can interact with specific pharmaceuticals, increasing or decreasing the drugs' efficacy and potentially leading to side effects.
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While it seems intuitive that more "natural" sweeteners, like organic tapioca syrup, would offer a healthier alternative to normal sugar, that's not necessarily the case. Both options are loaded with calories and sugar but offer very little nutritional value.
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Made from a mixture of liver, fat and seasoning, pâté works well as a snack or dinner party hors d'oeuvre, served with crackers and crudités. Because it has a relatively small serving size but high calorie count -- 90 calories per ounce -- pâté is easy to overeat, so monitor your portion size when snacking.
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Your body responds to injury by controlling the thickness and thinness of your blood. Thickening your blood to form clots prevents severe bleeding after injury, but abnormal blood thickness can cause spontaneous clot formation, causing heart attack or stroke.
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Vitamin D -- an essential nutrient found in dairy products, fatty fish and fortified cereals -- plays a role in your health. It helps maintain strong bones and teeth, supports nerve and muscle function and interacts with your parathyroid gland to help maintain your body's hormone balance.
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If you're looking for a convenient breakfast on the run, it's hard to beat a bagel -- just slap on some peanut butter, or add a few veggies, and go. Cinnamon raisin bagels aren't your best choice for healthy bagels, because they're made with refined grain flour, instead of healthier flour made from whole grains.
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Almond milk may be marketed as a substitute for dairy milk, but it's not entirely nutritionally equivalent. When you're trying to lose weight, both almond milk and skim milk have distinct advantages.
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The muscles in your hands receive inputs from motor neurons, nerves that stimulate muscle contraction. Damage to these motor nerves can cause abnormal nerve signalling to your hand muscles, leading to uncontrolled hand movement or shaking hands.
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It's not possible to burn fat on just one area of your body, but lowering your overall body fat levels will slim down your stomach, waist, legs and thighs -- in addition to your back, arms and face.
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Black pepper is a nutritious and low-cal seasoning, but it won't make you lose belly fat. While preliminary evidence points to black pepper's potential benefit for fighting obesity in some cases, other studies have failed to show any fat-burning benefits.
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That stubborn fat that pushes out over your waistband can be frustrating. The lower abs are a common "trouble zone" for many women and men and fat in your midsection can be some of the hardest to lose.
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Your body requires energy to function: each cell relies on a source of energy to drive the chemical reactions required for digestion and metabolism, cellular communication, cell division and growth, hormone synthesis and several other physiological processes.
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Your tissues rely on structural proteins to help support your cells and maintain the structure of the tissues. Collagen and elastin are two such structural proteins, found in several tissues throughout your body.
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Adding legumes, such as lentils, to your diet offers health benefits. The Linus Pauling Institute notes that legume consumption correlates with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes. Both dried and sprouted lentils boost your legume intake.
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All salts share a similar chemical makeup -- they're made primarily from sodium chloride and serve as a concentrated source of sodium in your diet. Specialty salts, such as pink or grey sea salts, also contain trace amounts of minerals that affect the appearance and flavor of the salt.
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Fruit makes up an essential part of a balanced diet, and it should be a staple in your meal plans when you're trying to lose belly fat. Exactly how much fruit you need depends on your age and gender, but you should aim for 1.5 to 2 cups each day, under USDA ChooseMyPlate guidelines.
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A coarsely ground grain made from wheat, semolina makes regular appearances in pastas, couscous and bread, as well as in breakfast cereals, such as Cream of Wheat. Like other wheat grains, semolina contains gluten, which makes it unsafe for those suffering from celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity.
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