It's safe to say many of us have gained a few pounds during quarantine and are aching to lose them as we inch closer to normalcy following the rollout of vaccines.  When the fridge is within close reach, it can be awfully difficult to resist the chips, ice cream, or whatever else we deem Covid comfort food.  But here's the good news: Losing weight is more mental than anything else. If we're in the right frame of mind, we can achieve results -- sometimes far quicker than anticipated.  And here's even better news: You don't have to starve yourself to shed those pesky pounds.  Two keys to success, both of which are easy to recall (as they begin with the same word), are: 1. Exercising moderation when it comes to one's eating habits. 2. Exercising physically.  Though I've done a pretty good job at maintaining my weight the last couple of years, it's been a mission to drop an extra 15 or so pounds I've been carrying around. I thought that as long as I ate ...

Tis the season to be jolly! Here are a few fun facts regarding the holiday season in the U.S. that you may not know: 1. Nine in 10 Americans say they celebrate Christmas while 32% view it as more of a cultural holiday than a religious one. 2. USPS will deliver 16 billion holiday letters, packages, and cards. 3. Over 100 million Americans will travel for the holidays this year. 4. 86% of Americans say they buy holiday gifts for family or friends. 5. Americans aim to spend an average of $935.58 each during the holiday shopping season this year. 6. Total holiday sales are expected to be over $655 billion. 7. 85% of Americans say they will probably give someone candy as a gift. 8. Americans eat about 3,000 calories worth of food during a typical holiday dinner. 9. 22 million turkeys are eaten for Christmas. 10. Americans bought nearly 26 million real Christmas trees last year and more than 13 billion fake ones. The facts I found most surprising were #7 and #8 abov...

Can you guess where people buy most of their junk food? Chances are that fast-food restaurants like McDonald's and Burger King come to mind. A new study described in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition , however, reveals that U.S. adults buy the bulk of their empty-calorie foods and sugar-sweetened beverages at grocery stores and supermarkets. The new findings challenge the "food desert" hypothesis, which states that a lack of access to supermarkets and grocery stores in some underserved communities worsens the obesity crisis by restricting people's access to healthy foods. In other words, contrary to popular belief, access to healthy foods in a supermarket does not hinder Americans' consumption of empty calories. The study looked at data from 4,204 adults who reported their daily food intake in two nonconsecutive 24-hour periods in 2011 and 2012. The analysis determined that nearly half (46.3 percent) of U.S. adults consume sugar-sweetened b...

It's often been said -- and I believed this myself before conducting further research  -- that calories eaten at night are more fattening than those eaten early in the day. This seems logical given that we're closer to bedtime, and our bodies are mostly inactive during sleep. For this reason, many people are often advised to eat heavy breakfasts and very light dinners. But this isn't the case. Doctors and dietitians say that calories are calories, no matter what time you eat them. In reality, what matters are the total calories you take in. Weight gain is simply eating more calories than you burn; it doesn't matter whether it takes place at 7 a.m. or 11 p.m. What and how much you eat, coupled with any physical activity over the course of the day, ultimately determine whether you gain, lose, or maintain your weight. People eat at night for a host of reasons often unrelated to hunger, like coping with boredom or stress. And after-dinner snacks tend not to be con...

Thinking, of all things, can make us overeat. Studies show that intellectual activities -- from reading to writing -- can make people eat more than when they're merely resting. Researchers discovered that intellectual work leads to more pronounced fluctuations in glucose levels than rest periods, perhaps because of the stress of thinking. The body reacts to these fluctuations by demanding food to restore glucose, a sugar that serves as the brain's fuel. Glucose is converted by the body from carbohydrates and is delivered to the brain through the bloodstream. Because the brain cannot produce glucose, it needs a constant supply. Moreover, brain cells require twice as much energy as other cells in the body. Interestingly, studies in animals have shown that consuming fewer calories overall leads to sharper brains and longer life, and most researchers concur that the findings generally extend to human beings. Caloric overcompensation following intellectual work, coupled wi...

Several studies suggest that eating spicy foods can increase metabolic rate by increasing temperature. Capsaicin, the compound that lends red chili pepper its potent kick, creates the biggest bump in heat generation, which helps burn more calories immediately after a meal. Ginger and black pepper have been shown to produce similar results. Moreover, studies have shown that on average a meal containing a spicy dish, like a bowl of chili, can temporarily increase metabolism by about 8 percent over a person’s normal rate, an amount considered negligible at best. But besides a slight boost in metabolism, spicy foods may also increase feelings of satiety. One study looked at a group of adult men and found that those who were served hot sauce with appetizers before a meal went on to consume roughly 200 fewer calories at lunch and in later meals than their peers, who did not consume anything with capsaicin. The researchers suggested that capsaicin may function as an appetite suppressant....