Vitamins, Slowing Down and Active (not) Kids: Friday Tips, Tricks and Inspiration

Happy winter Friday, fit friends!  Here are your tips, tricks and inspiration:

We all know that savoring our food leads to more satisfaction in eating and helps calm those cravings. It's also true that our brains need time to receive the message that we have had enough. The biggest benefit to slowing down though, is the social one. When we are savoring our meal, we have time for conversation, time to really hear our dinner partners and read between the lines. Even when dining alone, savoring that meal allows us time to think through our day (just past or just starting) and feed our souls as well as our bodies.  In that tack, let's start with these 5 tips to eat slowly from Fooducate. To these I would add two tips from Weight Watchers: Put your fork down between each bite -- it's harder than it sounds -- and/or take a small sip of water between bites.

This week's trick focuses on another way we may be tricking ourselves. As I've long suspected, yet another study seems to show that taking vitamins just isn't a good use of your money! We need to get as much nutrition as possible from our food, folks! If that isn't enough, this scary article from the New York Times demonstrates that some people have suffered real harm from dietary supplements. Please be both wise and cautious in your use of supplements.

Do you think your kids are active? I think mine are! Yet this new study highlighted in Obesity Panacea shows many are not as active as we think. My kids hate it when I read things like this because I start enforcing our hour-a-day-rule for exercise to earn screen time. I think teens and pre-teens are at the greatest risk because their school day is sitting-based. Hopefully this little bit of inspiration will get our kids moving and us, as well. I have started watching my own screen time since reading this study.

That's it for this week's news. If you are facing a weekend of inclement weather as we are, think of ways to get the whole family out for some fun and activity. Maybe a visit to a local skating rink or bowling alley will add some fun to your weekend! Have a great one!

Fun Friday! Tips, Tricks and Inspiration!

Woot, woot! It's Friday.  I am posting late after a fun day with the kids but it's still Friday, so it counts, right?

My tip of the day is actually a question: Why are you taking a multi-vitamin? I have eschewed them for myself, finally, but in the spirit of full disclosure, I am still giving them -- irregularly -- to the kids. There is so little evidence that vitamin supplements do what we want them to and yet, inexplicably, millions of us take them. Check out this interesting Fooducate article and let me have your thoughts, please.

Do you have any tricks for eating out?  My favorite trick used to be to get a to-go container when the meal was delivered and put half of it away to take home. The down-side to that is that if it is as tasty as I hope it will be, then I will actually eat that half the next day. In fact, I have moved restaurant food to the category of "occasional treat" and therefore, taking it home to eat again, I am still  eating it and even though the calories are more reasonable, does not really fit with my larger goals. Now, I split a meal. I like it not only for the calories saved, I am very much enjoying the aspect of choosing my meal with someone else; quite often I wind up with quite a different meal then I'd have selected on my own. There is a sweetness in sharing that brings intimacy to the meal. I love it!

I have been inspired by Hunt, Gather, Love  (a Paleo Diet blog) for some time. I am not a person who has embraced Paleo, but there are aspects of it that appeal to me. So I was surprised by her April post entitled, "Breaking up with Paleo." Her reasoning made sense to me; for me, I just can't understand why if all this beautiful food grows on the earth, why should I avoid it?  I have successfully avoided most breads for months now consuming processed starches about once a week and as an exception. Otherwise, we mostly shop and eat from the outside aisle and serve a lot of potatoes, rice, oatmeal, legumes and grits as starches. Since I started restricting breads and processed grains, I know I do experience a "sugar crash" after I eat them and I also know that it does not happen for me after potatoes, rice, oatmeal, beans or grits. I do not think I'm willing to live without them even temporarily so Paleo is out for me. I love the "purity" of it though, and will keep learning from the Paleo community.

I hope you've found something useful here. Have a wonderful weekend!