Reddi Wip, the Perfect Post Workout Food

Monday, I was innocently watching the Bachelorette after eating the world’s greatest kale salad (part of our dream July 4^th menu). I was in a pretty good mood until a commercial came on. Two women come in from a tough workout, they are exhausted. One of them goes to the fridge and pulls out Reddi Whip (naturally, who wouldn’t think workout then whipped “cream”). Her friend asks, “what are you going to do throw away the past hour?” With that nasty squirt sound, the fridge friend says, “of course not, it’s only 15 calories” and ruins a bowl of berries with a plop of canned crap.

Is this seriously an angle they are trying to take? I get that unhealthy products exist. I even can sort of grasp the fun factor with the desserts mentioned on the RW site such as “Berry Patriotic Pie” etc. 

This, gross as it is, makes more sense than RW = healthy

There are even some other undertones (not really sure why one friend has to lie down on the floor hmn) in the workout commercial that seem plausible than squirting some weirdly spelled faux cream at any time especially after a great workout. What’s even crueler is what this TV spot preys on. It’s very easy to fall into the “I deserve”  a treat post workout mindset. RW’s advertising company is saying now you can have your cake and eat it too.

And what exactly would you be eating for “only 15 calories?” This is where things get really funny. On the Reddi site they have a comparison of Reddi Wip to its competitor Cool Whip. Get this, RW has No Hydrogenated Fats! And, the first ingredient is “real cream”! Do they think that with cream as a first ingredient we will not notice “propellant” a few ingredients away? Or the sweetener party that will only inflame your body after that workout? This "I'm better than you marketing" drives me nuts. It's not about what's absent from a product but what worth (or worthlessness) the product contains. Does "I didn't murder that person, I only seriously harmed them" sound insane? Well this is food insanity.

When I told Carolyn about this post she asked, “do people still use Reddi Wip?” And maybe this is a desperate attempt by an ad agency to reposition a brand. I just don’t get it, Do marketers think people are this stupid? It’s like the Oscar Meyer spot that touts that their dogs are gluten free (and made from dog meat). Or wait, are there people that watch and say, wow that red can may hold the answer to my post snack workout snack question? And please, I know how you think and do not judge bachelorette viewers.

Have you seen this commercial? Do you think it’s just advertisers being advertisers or is this super sneaky? Any other commercials that bug you? Who should Desiree pick?

You Really Need One of These

This isn't my Fitbit (mine is black) or my total today

I am lazy. I spin, I run, I do barre classes where teachers yell “abs in” but then I sit. I sit in taxis, I sit at my desk, I sit when I’m editing and I sit when I’m in sessions with clients. I sit too much. How do I know this? Well my Fitbit told me so.

I’m not generally a numbers person. I think calorie counting is a waste of time and both Marc and my accountant know I will make every excuse to avoid a meeting that involves budgets, spreadsheets or anything in that realm. So it’s a little surprising that my latest fixation involves numbers and I can’t get enough of it. I should warn you ahead of time, I've turned into a Fitbit evangelist.

What was that? You haven’t heard of a Fitbit? Fitbit is part of the new generation of pedometers. It tracks the number of steps you take in a day, the distance you cover and your calories burned. It then wirelessly syncs to your computer. You’re emailed reports, graphs and most importantly encouragement. 

All of a sudden, I find myself thrilled when I forget an item at the store and have to make a return trip. I’m now the first one to pop up and answer the doorbell and I’ll clean the kitchen or do loads of laundry if it’s nighttime and my numbers are pathetic. One evening, I contemplated taking the kids out for ice cream and it wasn’t because the weather was nice, nope. I was going to take my kids to get a sugary scoop so that I could get some steps…sounds like an addict’s behavior if you ask me.

I quickly learned that I have two types of days. On some days I have 7,000 or more of my 10,000 “goal” daily steps before midday. I’ll fly past 10,000 those days. But when I’m writing or the weather is lousy or when have to spend a lot of time in a car hitting 5,000 can be a challenge. My average daily total may be above 10,000 but it wouldn’t be if I weren’t conscious of this. 

I should mention that the placement of the Fitbit zip gets a little tricky for ladies. It’s made to go on your waistband which works nicely if you’re in pants, workout pants or pajamas (yep, put it on my pajamas and walking to brush my teeth gets me 40-ish steps). However, with the temperature rising there are maxi dresses and mini dresses. You can clip it on your bra but there are times that doesn’t work (ok there are times where a bra doesn’t work) and then I have no choice but to clip it on the side of my dress, it looks like a blackberry under my arm but what other choice do I have?

No, there’s no shot I’ll forego the fitbit for fashion. One day I found myself at a workout class and all of a sudden I realized Fitbit was at home. I was devastated. A Facebook friend said it well when posting on this topic “Lost my fitbit. I feel so… unquantified". However, another friend with a Fitbit told me she didn’t feel it changed her behavior. Whaaaatt? Sure changed mine.

There are other “fish” in the tracking sea. My children received Nike’s Fuelband as presents and we all compete with our step totals (totally unfair they have PE and recess). I just hope they can handle spreadsheets and budgets better than I can.

Do you have a Fitbit or other tracking device? Are you as crazy with it as I am (please say yes)? 
How active would you say you are in the course of your day? Could you be more active?

Should you eat cherries and waterrmelon?

Semi typical bbq spread

As summer approaches, one of the food perks is increasingly exciting fruit. Over Memorial Day weekend, I received a couple of emails from clients wondering “can I eat cherries and watermelon?”  The easy answer, if you’re at let’s say a barbeque is if you’re choosing between cherries or watermelon and this

then let’s be sensible, fruit is always the healthier pick. This seems obvious but if cherries and watermelon are mentally categorized as “all sugar” things get confusing.  If we’re comparing “apples to apples” or in this case cherries to apples, how do we judge a fruit and which are best to eat?

Pesticides

When you’re at a market or farm stand, if everything isn’t organic you want to choose wisely.  Many of your berries are on the dirty dozen list. Cherries are higher pesticide and really should be purchased organic. Watermelon on the other hand is a member of the “Clean 15” a low pesticide fruit. If organic isn’t an option, watermelon is one of your best choices. If you're unconvinced about organic, plug a few favorite fruits into this site; they list pesticides and type (carcinogen, endocrine disrupter the appetizing list goes on) it's eye opening to say the least. 
Score 1 for watermelon.

Antioxidants

Another gauge for fruits is ORAC a measure of antioxidants. While cherries don’t have an ORAC score as high as blueberries or blackberries, they have a commendable 3747. Watermelon comes in at 140. These scores are per 100 grams of food so the water content of watermelon works against it here.
Cherries a winer here.

Calories, Fiber, Sugar

All fruit is fairly low in calories. Watermelon and strawberries are some of the lowest with cherries and grapes almost double in calories. Fiber all stars include raspberries and blackberries with 8 grams per cup. Cherries have 3 and watermelon only 1 gram. For me, this is a drawback of these fruits. Fiber helps promote satiety and regularity. I advise clients to keep lower fiber fruits for snacks; at breakfast higher fiber choices are preferable to start your day. Another great measure for foods is Glycemic Load (different from glycemic index as it takes into account commonly consumed portions). Most non-dried fruits are low GL (less than 10). Grapes, bananas and cherries are higher and watermelon, apples and strawberries are less than 5 or very low.
Watermelon lower in calories and Glycemic Load.
Cherries have slightly more fiber.

Bragging Rights

With Father’s day approaching, if you’re stumped on what to get for dad (or your husband, father in law, grandfather etc.), you may want to consider watermelon . Watermelon contains more lycopene than tomatoes making it my #1 prostate health food. Cherries have their own reasons to brag. Cherries and more potently cherry juice is on par with aspirin as a pain reliever. It’s useful for pain from both gout and exercise and has been tested in studies with athletes. Cherries also have notable melatonin content.

So, are watermelon and cherries good to eat? They are, they’re both healthy. If you’re actively trying to lose weight I would choose watermelon over cherries. And just for a reminder with all the delicious summer fruit, in the name of knowledge is power it is possible to overfruit.

Are you a cherry and watermelon eater or are you "sugary fruit"phobic? What are your favorite fruits and approximately how much fruit do you have a day?  Any fruits you limit? For extra credit who said “knowledge is power”?

“Googling is cheating”

 Lauren Slayton

 nutritionist, googler and hypocrite

Our contribution to baseball snack this weekend (watermelon). The next day someone brings doughnuts to game with some silly "Bloomberg says these are ok" disclaimer/joke, not funny.

Is Your Weight Stuck? It May Be Your Salad.

Salads are the quintessential weight loss food.  However, grouping all salads together and assuming they are healthy is like presuming all siblings are alike because they’re in the same family (and that’s complete nonsense). In February’s Allure I was interviewed for a fun story called “Eating Amnesia”. It’s all about the calories that sneak into our mouths that we forget about or never even realize. One section of the article discusses salads, “a bed of lettuce isn’t a magic wand that turns anything low calorie. 

There are the obscene salads at chain restaurants across the country with “crispy” aka fried chicken and noodles that I have to think everyone knows aren’t a nutritious choice. Chili’s Quesadilla Explosion salad with 1300 calories over 2000mg of sodium and Applebee’s Chicken Bruschetta Salad also almost a day’s worth of calories and a day and half of sodium are not uncommon on chain restaurant menus. Salads with Steak, Mexican and Asian salads tend to be high calorie. Aside from the flagrantly unhealthy salads, there are the salads that I find more deceptively damaging. These are salads that seem OK but are just a little too interesting. The popular Cosi Signature Salad has chicken and cranberries and vinaigrette. It seems like a decent option but has 623 calories. Le Pain Quotidien, a place I love, has a shrimp salad that’s over 500 calories.  These are the salad traps more of my clients fall into.

A salad doesn’t have to be unhealthy to be too much. Dried fruit is going to run you at least 100 calories and 2-3 tablespoons of sugar.  Cheese in your salad will be 150-200 calories and can be, in case of feta, up to 800 mg of sodium. In terms of dressing- most condiment cups hold 2 to 2.5 ounces. For various establishments this is 200-350 calories from dressing alone. Restaurants and salad bars sometimes use more than a condiment cup’s worth. And that piece of bread that’s so small and free with your salad is 100ish calories but I know, you never have the bread (wink, wink). So you can easily be at 500+ calories before the lettuce, veggies or protein.

Sometimes, what I call an “entrée” lunch is a cleaner choice:

Grilled Chicken, 2 cups of broccoli and a little olive oil = 345 calories

Poached Salmon, 2 cups of asparagus and some oil for cooking is 400 calories.

These calculations use a Blackberry-sized (no iPhone for me) piece of protein or 5oz. Many restaurants will give you a gross amount of protein- ½ to ¾ pound is “normal” ick. And a sandwich on 1-2 pieces of sprouted bread with lean protein and veggies can be a nice lunch option too.

If you’re a salad enthusiast or saladophile my suggestions are:

• Choose a good green as your base. I love dinosaur or lacinato kale, butter lettuce (Gotham Greens are fantastic in NYC) or escarole.
• Add a minimum of three other veggies.
• Keep “treat” ingredients: nuts, seeds, avocados, dried fruit, avocado, chickpeas to 1 per salad. You can have walnuts and dried cherries and goat cheese but not on the same day.
• Protein should be Blackberry not laptop sized.
• Don’t eat ingredients in your salad you don’t generally eat (chips, croutons-greasy white bread, bacon).
• For dressing, use olive oil and lemon or olive oil and vinegar with 1 tbs of oil.
• Your whole salad shouldn’t be the size of your head or in a bowl you would use for a family of 4.

One of our Foodtrainers’ favorite salads is Gotham Greens butter lettuce, jarred tuna, red onion, jicama and cabbage, 1/3 avocado sliced, olive oil, lemon juice and of course hot sauce, salt and pepper.

If you’re looking to loose weight keep salads at around 400 calories give or take. If you watch size and “treats” they can be a healthy choice, as long as you don’t have eating amnesia.

What’s your favorite salad green? Overall salad? Favorite “treat” ingredient? How similar are you to your siblings?

Since When is Dessert Everyday?

Not to sound creepy but I’ve been watching you. It’s late at night; you’re cleaning the kitchen or just arrived home from a dinner out. Perhaps the kids are asleep. It’s quiet. You feel a little tired but there’s something that needs to happen before you go to sleep.  Maybe it’s a piece of dark chocolate or a Skinny Cow. It isn’t much you say, maybe 100 calories. After all, what’s wrong with a little dessert?  I’ll let you draw your own conclusions shortly.

Last summer, back when it was warm, I caught a segment my close friend (and fellow nutritionist) Keri Glassman did on frozen desserts. She presented her top treats and the reasoning behind her selections.  At one point the anchor, Storm Field, looked at her and said “but we shouldn’t have these daily, right? Why all of a sudden are people having dessert everyday?” Not bad for a weatherman, Storm had a good point. Keri concurred during the segment and I nodded as I watched.

 A day doesn’t go by without a client asking me something to the effect of  “I need new ideas for after dinner snacks.”  And I come through full of ideas for healthy baked apples and microwavable chocolate “soufflés”.  Some clients chomp on frozen wild blueberries and others (like myself) love medjool dates. The unbelievably sad truth is that we don’t need any of these things daily, especially if weight loss is a goal.

I wouldn’t be a dietitian if I didn’t do a little calorie counting here and there (though I far prefer talking about juicer issues). Let’s take that 100 calorie after dinner snack (aka dessert). That seemingly tiny treat, nightly, adds up to 36,500 calories in a year. And we all know that the treat isn’t always tiny. Well that 36,500 divided by 3,500 calories in a pound is 10.43. Simply put that Skinny Cow may be keeping you from getting skinny. I learned today that skinny is a bad word (diet Pepsi is catching plenty of slack for their new skinny can versus what’s in the can); many people don’t want to be skinny. If you don’t have 10 pounds you want to lose, I’m not talking to you but for the other 99% of you reading this, at least you know what needs to go.

If you’re suddenly feeling panic stricken, don’t. I’m not making house calls (yet) and swooping in to confiscate the candy. I’m not saying you have to do away with the dark chocolate. I have a couple of options. The first, we’ll call Show Yourself a Skip. If you’re someone who has something every night of the week, commit to a skip night or 2.  For starters I would pre-plan the skip nights, for example you can start the week with skips every Monday and Tuesday.  This will remove the automatic nature of dessert eating and you’ll hopefully be able to ask yourself “do I need something or can I skip it” down the road.  For those of you who need more of an intervention, I suggest Dessert Detox. Try a week where you end your eating day with dinner. Check back with me and let me know how it goes.  And for the record, I’m not actually watching you.

Are you someone who has dessert daily? Do you think dessert has shifted from a sometimes event to an all-the-time thing? Can you see Showing Yourself a Skip or Dessert Detox in your future? I’ve ditched the dates, detox for me.

Would you Like a Side of Kale With That?

On more than one occasion, my husband and I have found ourselves watching a show that airs on ABC Friday nights called “What Would You Do?” Using actors, actresses and hidden cameras the show sets up certain scenes: someone banging another person’s car or a woman breast feeding at a restaurant or a parent harshly scolding a child and tapes how strangers respond. It’s fun to see who speaks their mind or sticks up to someone and of course how people feel when they find out that the scene wasn’t real. This past Friday’s show placed an overweight woman at a restaurant ordering large amounts of unhealthy fare. The actor-waiter was scripted to inform her it was “a lot of food” or suggest healthier alternatives.  His suggestions were presented with varying degrees of malice.

Some fellow patrons stuck up for the woman telling the waiter he was “rude” or that it wasn’t his business (my husband pointed out that much of the outrage came from equally overweight customers). Others, though in the minority, felt the waiter was trying to be helpful. While watching the show, I was filled with “can you imagine if this actually happened?” but I feel differently after mulling this over. I’m wondering if there isn’t a tactful way to do this.  If we could eliminate the meanness, is there a way a waiter could steer people in a healthy direction much like a register person asks if you want fries with your order or a server reveals his favorite items on a menu? This is all unlikely because restaurants have a financial interest in us eating more and not less and generally do not have our health or weight in mind but it could be interesting. I’ve had servers, especially when dining in a group, say “I think you have enough food ordered” which never seems to offend.

And then I started to think that a waiter’s comments might not be that different from calorie counts on menus. Whether we want to know or not, we now see just how many calories that Starbucks scone has (440). Do people feel this is rude or that it’s a not restaurants’ place to tell us this? No, for the most part, buzz kill aside, people feel it’s good information to have. So when it comes to observing a hit and run, I might not speak up if the person seemed scary. With breastfeeding in public, booby covered I’m fine. And if a waiter suggested I add a side of kale to my dinner, I might have to kiss him. If I did, "what would my husband do"?

Do you think it’s a waiter’s place to steer customers in a healthy direction? Do you like or dislike calorie counts on menus? And do you think we actually know what we would do until we’re in the situation?

Watching Weight Watchers

I don’t belong to a gym anymore. As much as I like to run outside, I despise what one of my fellow bloggers refers to as the “dreadmill.” When I had a gym membership I saw too many people simply going through the exercise motions. Perhaps they were on the elliptical but concurrently reading or chatting; needless to say I can’t imagine they were getting much out of these “workouts.” We all know there’s a difference between a good sweat and gym activity where you barely need a deodorant  re-apply. There is a difference between quantity and quality. Weight Watchers, the  well-known weight loss program, is attempting to show their members that this difference applies to food.

The original Weight Watchers Points system pretty much allowed people to fit any food into their repertoire provided they did so in the right quantity. I have had clients, Weight Watcher alums, who joked that they could eat pizza every day using the points. Of course this would mean eating little else to allot for the pizza. Though I’m a nutritionist, I can see the appeal of the pizza diet.  However, you don’t need a degree in dietetics to know this isn’t the best way to eat for health, for energy…even for weight loss.

Kudos to Weight Watchers, with 750,000 members enjoying the points system, for overhauling a successful system.  The day the new PointsPlus system was revealed, I was interviewed for a yahoo story on the changes.  I likened the change to going from PC to Mac, a recent transition I had made. Change, especially when it comes to something you use daily or multiple times a day, isn’t easy. We take the leap hoping that in the long run the change will be worthwhile. One has to think that Weight Watchers wouldn’t have risked all of this if the results will not be the same or better. A side note, never in the 9 years of Foodtrainers, have I received more new client inquires as the day the Weight Watchers story ran. Also interesting is the fact that many of the people curious about our services were surprised they had to pay (at all!).

One of the main changes in PointsPlus is that fruit and vegetables are “free” meaning you can technically eat as many as you want to. When I first heard this I was encouraged as this would nudge people to eat  fruits and vegetables they may have previously passed on as a “waste of points".  For weight loss though,  I’m curious to see how people fare with unlimited fruits. I’ve always held that it’s possible to “over fruit” or eat a fair amount of calories from fruit and slow weight loss. We’ll have to see if people end up eating a bunch of bananas a day and how this works out.

Another feature of this new system is that a food hierarchy is presented. Foods with the same calories may have different amounts of points based on their ingredients, fiber and how long they will keep you satiated. Again, this is logical and Weight Watchers is moving away from "a calorie is a calorie" fallacy. While it may sound cynical, I am not sure Weight Watchers members will embrace this concept. In a recent New York Times story on the changes, one woman expressed that she was used to eating anything she wanted and now would feel as though she was on a diet. To that I say, Weight Watchers is a diet and as adults we should realize some foods are superior to others.

I tip my invisible hat to Weight Watchers; to me the PointsPlus plan is sound and has the ability to move hundreds of thousands of people in a better food direction. We’ll have to wait and see if people want to stop reading their magazines while working out and really start eating better.

Have you ever done Weight Watchers? What do you think of the new plan? Do you read while working out?

Pinkberry Phone Call

As you may know, on August 9th we wrote a blog post about frozen yogurt shops, including Pinkberry. Our intention was to show our readers that some options at Pinkberry (and similar places) were healthier than others and that if customers need to pay close attention to yogurt calories and additional toppings. The next thing we knew we were contacted by Pinkberry’s legal team and we decided to replace the original post with a replacement post Pinkberry Peace Talks in which we invited Pinkberry to speak to us sans lawyers, answer our questions and dispel some of our confusion. This new post was written on August 18th. I was hopeful Pinkberry would be in touch but there was no word when I left for vacation on the 19th.

A week later, I was in our hotel room in France and saw an email on my blackberry entitled “Pinkberry Request” it stated:

I work with Pinkberry and Suzanne Ginestro, Vice President, Brand Management; Pinkberry would like to have a conversation with you at your convenience. She has a written response to your blog, which she would like to go over and answer any questions.

I was happy to hear from Pinkberry but after the previous legal communication I was appropriately nervous. After some schedule negotiating a conference call was slated for September 1st. Prior to the call, we were sent Ms Genertro’s statement. In the first paragraph I was encouraged to read “we are grateful for you for seeking a constructive dialogue and we apologize for the formality of our original notice and agree that in this case, personal contact with you would have been a good route from the onset.” Regardless of any “brand managing” at work, this was very nice to hear.

As for the answers, below you’ll find our questions raised, portions of Pinkberry’s answers and our conclusions.

1. Would you be open to presenting your nutrition facts in a manner that’s easier to understand?
Pinkberry: stated that if they were to list nutritionals for all flavors and sizes on their website it would be quite cumbersome. They also stated that in New York city and in January nationwide, by law, all calories are on the menu. Pinkberry uses the smaller sizes in all marketing and displays information that is “consistent with industry standards.” Pinkberry also said they find that most people order smaller sizes for snacks and the larger sizes for meals or to share with others.

Foodtrainers: as we told Suzanne on the phone, the nutritonals on the website are difficult to follow and compute. Just because confusing serving information is the norm doesn’t mean it works for consumers. We love that Pinkberry chooses to highlight the smaller sizes for marketing but customers should note that what they may choose will be larger or more calories. And if all frozen yogurt customers saw smalls and minis for snacks and larger sizes for sharing, we’d be thrilled. We asked Ms Ginestro if Pinkberry would consider labeling the large a take home container, they were excited to share the news that they were releasing a take home container-which is in fact larger than the large! Hm. Credit to Pinkberry though, throughout our conversation our comments were met with “we don’t disagree” or “we would consider that” and we were never met with defensiveness or indifference.

2. Have you considered flagging lower calorie or healthier options for your customers?

Pinkberry: pointed out that they tend to feature fruit in all of their images and that “well over two thirds of orders are topped with fresh fruit.” Their fruit is hand cut daily. They also have other fun toppings and that they pride themselves on giving customers “a tremendous number of choices which satisfy their needs which change depending on the occasion.”

Foodtrainers: we suggested to Suzanne perhaps having a card or notation for “under 200 calorie options.” The number of choices Pinkberry mentioned makes it difficult not to be tempted, at the register, to add chocolate chips or brownie bites to your yogurt with blackberries. Though yogurt and topping calories are provided adding them all up on the spot isn’t the easiest. Our other comment was that in some ways the small with a fruit topping on the flyers can be very different from what our clients may actually walk out with which was the sentiment of our initial post. We’d love to work with Pinkberry on some “sensible snacks” if they’d like our help.

And finally the swirl size, our question on our post was “can you clarify some swirl size questions”
Pinkberry: explained to us that there’s a “standard procedure on how to swirl yogurt, which includes weighing.” Each size, takes into account the cut and a swirl above it. Ms. Ginestro told us all about the swirling and even told us how “beautiful” the proper swirl was. In the course of the conversation, we sensed Ms. Ginestro’s enthusiasm for her brand.

Foodtrainers: this was a topic I was so happy we received information on. The swirl size, though not uniform upon observation at some local stores is meant to be. Furthermore, the lack of using the scale was a break from procedure and a case of franchise variety. Every store has a scale and any order can be weighed upon request. A mini is 3 ounces and a small is 5 ounces. You definitely need to be careful and ask for your cup to be weighed if you want to know how many calories you are getting and avoid an over-filled cup. When we inquired why they do not indicate how many ounces should be in each cup size and that it would be helpful to indicate this so that customers would know how much each size should weight, Suzanne said they would consider sharing this information. It would be nice to post a reminder similar to “employees must wash hands” something along the lines of “weigh your options, for proper portions all orders should be weighed.”

We finished the conversation with renewed faith in Pinkberry and their effort to provide healthy options. They take their product very seriously and understandably stood by customers having a wide array of interesting, tasty options at their stores. We think Pinkberry is a good choice for many of our nutrition clients, for a treat, provided they have the information to know what they are choosing.