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Create Healthy Habits for Kids with Ziporah Janowski of Camp Shane Mar 08, 2010, 1:05 am.

Camp Shane is the world’s longest running weight-loss camp for children. In business for more than 40 years, Camp Shane provides a friendly and supportive environment that helps campers learn to eat healthfully and have fun doing it. “As someone who has seen thousands of parents struggle with how to continue their child’s weight loss at home, I’ve learned that cooking and eating with your kids at home is one of the simplest and most effective weight loss tools that parents can adopt,” said Ziporah Janowski, co-owner of Camp Shane.

camp shane

I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to ask Ziporah a few questions about healthy habits to instill in our children. Read below for her answers, and check out the amazing smoothie recipes she’s shared with us – Banilla Shake, Blueberry-Orange Whirl, and my favorite, Very Berry Smoothie.  All are less than 175 calories and will help your kids achieve the recommended servings of fruit every day.

What do parents need to know about the basic nutrition needs of children? (i.e. RDA fruits/vegetables)

All children require a full range of essential nutrients, especially protein, iron, calcium, and vitamin A. In terms of recommended amounts of grains, fruits and veggies, dairy, protein, fats and sugars we recommend parents try to adhere to the guidelines set by the USDA food pyramid. As far at total caloric intake, for kids it varies greatly depending upon age. For example, a 3-year-old needs about 1,300 calories daily, whereas a 10-year-old needs about 2,000 calories daily and a teenager should consume approximately 2,800 calories per day. The best way to ensure kids get the food they need and still maintain a healthy weight is to provide them with a wide range of nutritious foods that are low in saturated fat and sugar.

produce

Parents need to find activities that their children like to do and help them develop skills so they feel good doing them. We particularly like to encourage sports that can be practiced for life such as swimming, tennis, biking, hiking and running. Kids will understand the benefits of being active by doing – they will feel better and have more energy. And it is fun! For times when you are at home, a Wii Fit can be a terrific activity for the whole family. And everyone in the family should have a pedometer and have a contest to see who can log the most steps; aim for 10,000 steps a day (5 miles)!

If parents could implement one healthy change for their children, what should it be?

Cooking more meals at home! Cooking at home is one of the single best ways for kids to stay healthy and learn about nutritious foods. In addition to saving money, it’s a fun way to make healthy eating a family affair.

How do parents/children overcome the negative stigma of camps like Camp Shane and actually embrace the many benefits?

Unlike traditional “fat camps” or “boot camps,” Camp Shane focuses on having fun while achieving long-term, realistic weight loss goals. Because of this, our campers have an extremely high success rate when it comes to keeping weight off for the long-term. Overall, we try really hard to provide a friendly, supportive and non-threatening environment. I recommend checking out our website and watching some of the videos of our campers—this is a quick way for parents and kids to dispel any negative preconceived notions and to see us for who we really are!

Post from: Diets in Review Blog

Create Healthy Habits for Kids with Ziporah Janowski of Camp Shane

Twitter Finds: Self-confidence, Cold-Fighting Foods and More Mar 05, 2010, 10:00 am.

Filed under: Diet & Weight Loss, Fitness

fitsmi

Self-confidence should be self-defined. It shouldn’t depend on a look or a number or a voice from someone else. -operation beautiful

FitnessMagazine

RT @FITNESSkristen I think 90% of people on the train this morning were coughing/sneezing. Fight a cold w these 6 foods http://bit.ly/apBIEK

EatThisNotThat

This drinkable disaster contains the sugar of 17 Chewy Chips Ahoy! cookies: http://bit.ly/9BH1nv

MyTrainerBob

How about a Daily Challenge.. Give me 5 MINUTES of alternating lunges today. You have all day to do it. Great FAT BURNER.

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Overwhelmed by all of the “Follow Friday” recommendations on Twitter? Each week AOL Health’s Twitter alias Healthpop and That’s_Fit search the Twittersphere for the greatest diet and fitness Twitterers, and each week, we’ll highlight the best-of their best tweets (no Twits here). Got any great advice for our Fit Follow Friday post? Give us a shout on Twitter and let us know all about it!

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Feast Like the Greeks Feb 26, 2010, 12:51 pm.

In this week’s Recipes for Health, Martha Rose Shulman offers five meat-free recipes commonly eaten in Greece during religious holidays when observant Greeks abstain from most animal products.

In “Now Eat This,” Chef Rocco Dispirito Makes Over America’s Favorite Comfort Foods Feb 25, 2010, 1:05 am.

now eat this

So when I opened “Now Eat This,” the newest cookbook from Chef Rocco Dispirito, and found that I could have have fried chicken, mac ‘n cheese and a brownie for less than 500 calories and less than 20g of fat, I was very interested. And I think you will be, too!

A few years ago, Rocco realized he’d put on about 30 pounds. That’s what happens when you work around food for more than 25 years; in Rocco’s case, really good food. So he set-out to change that, calling himself “a latecomer to the diet/exercise weight loss experience.” He says his body protested, carrying 20 percent body fat, but he pushed through with the help of a trainer and a dedicated fitness plan. He followed a modified Atkins diet, gave up alcohol and carbs and stuck to high-protein eats. That, plus double-cardio sessions six days a week, helped him get back in shape, and take on a triathlon and an iron man.

heba and chef rocco

Biggest Loser 6's Heba Salama with Chef Rocco Dispirito

Soon thereafter, Biggest Loser came calling, and invited Rocco to be a guest chef on season 5 (and again for season 6 and 7). They asked him to make healthier versions of the contestants favorite comfort foods, which in “Now Eat This” he calls “bad boy foods” or “downfall dishes.” Rocco tells us that Biggest Loser gave him “the most impossible parameters I’ve ever been challenged with” to create these recipes: no fat, no sugar, no cholesterol, no salt, and no artificial ingredients. But he did it, and did it well. In fact he modified the Mint Chocolate Chip Frozen Yogurt he prepared for contestant Mark Kruger and published it in “Now Eat This.”

Between his Biggest Loser experience and his personal weight loss, Rocco became motivated to write “Now Eat This.”

“I was angry that there weren’t cookbooks out there that addressed how to make food healthy and taste good at the same time,” he tells us, “You’d think with all the experts out there, and the amount of chefs writing cookbooks, someone would say ‘Hey I can make fried chicken three or four hundred calories less and still make it taste pretty good.’” So he asked himself, “Why don’t I put my money where my big mouth is?”

Believe me, he did. “Now Eat This” features “150 of America’s favorite comfort foods.” Rocco says he could have guessed at what those were, but enlisted the help of Twitter to identify what these recipes should be. Then he set to work, testing as many as eight recipes each week in his kitchen (down to one every three weeks when he got to desserts because of the difficulty in “breaking the code”). The result is a collection of recipes that are all under 350 calories, low in fat and no sugar.

Not to downplay the difficulty in making these healthier versions of our bad boy favorites, but cutting the calories and fat does seem accomplishable when you try; for instance, his faux frying technique that makes many of his recipes possible. But eliminating sugar completely and retaining the flavor? That seems like a task. Rocco admits it was “relatively easy” and notes that his recipes call for readily-available ingredients like all-natural Truvia, Splenda (“for those who don’t care about the chemicals”), agave nectar and relying on the natural sweetness in foods.

now eat this brownies

Chef Rocco's brownies from "Now Eat This" have only 53 calories per serving.

In addition to his favorites of the fried chicken and mac ‘n cheese, he calls the “Now Eat This” Brownies the hero of the book. He was able to get this sinful dessert down to an astonishing 53 calories and 1.6 g of fat per serving. How? He used black beans because “They are a high quality ingredient, tremendous nutritional value, full of fiber, that provides me with a texture I need to make brownies and chocolate chip cookies taste like they were made from flour and fat.”

His insider recommendation: chill the brownies and eat them the next day, he says they are remarkable that way. Rocco also says this about the brownies: “They can be an all day snack bar because they are high protein, high fiber… very little fat, there’s no downside to eating those, you could eat 10 per day.”

One of Rocco’s other favorite foods is bacon, one he says “I don’t want to live without.” When he began experimenting, he says “turkey bacon wasn’t good enough.” That’s when he found the Hormel Real Bacon Bits, which made the 331 calorie Spaghetti Carbonara possible. He says they render, or blot, the bacon which reduces the fat about fifty percent.

“Now Eat This” is as family-friendly as it is dinner party-friendly, making this an essential for any home cook who wants to enjoy and serve favorite comfort foods without sacrificing health, quality or flavor. You’re bound to find several of your personal favorites revamped in this colorful new cookbook.

Order “Now Eat This” for yourself, publishing March 2, 2010.

Try these Biggest Loser recipes by Chef Rocco:

Season Six Recipes

Thanksgiving Recipes

Fast-Food Alternative Recipes

Post from: Diets in Review Blog

In “Now Eat This,” Chef Rocco Dispirito Makes Over America’s Favorite Comfort Foods

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