Week 8 of 52 Weeks, 52 Ways to a New You, is about nothing more than the tooth.  Good dental hygiene is imperative to good health.   Though I hope you are already doing it, your 1 small change this week is to:

Brush your teeth at least twice a day and floss at least once a day

Periodontal Disease (inflammation/infection in the tissue around your teeth) has been associated with an increased risk of the following health concerns:

March is National Nutrition Month and Week 8 of 52 Weeks, 52 Ways to a New You highlights one of the best ways to kick off my favorite month:

Eat Breakfast Everyday!

Daily Caloric Need	Recommended Calories for Breakfast
1200	300-400
1400	350-450
1600	400-550
1800	450-600
2000	500-650
2200	550-725

Week 7 of 52 Weeks, 52 Ways to a New You should make you go hmm.  As in, hmm I bet when health experts say to eat a rainbow they aren’t referring to skittles®.  While this blog is about making small changes every week, this change may be a bigger challenge than we expect:

Cut Out the Artificial Colors!!

Growing up my brothers and I would have to beg our mom to buy Fruit Loops® or Fruity Pebbles®.  Thank goodness my mother had common sense and rarely gave in, her argument being, in addition to the unnecessary sugar content, “all that fake color can’t be good for you.”  Even though she probably didn’t know all the reasons these falsely colored cereals weren’t good for us, none the less, she was right.  

There are people on both sides of the artificial color debate.  Some say that there isn’t enough evidence that the current FDA approved artificial colors are harmful.  Others believe that the current body of evidence, pointing to various side effects such as contributing to ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and/or cancer, is enough to have the colors banned.  Many European countries have already banned most or all of the artificial colors we use here in the United States.  

I’m not here to debate the level of harm artificial colors can cause.  Although, I do believe that basic common sense, as it did my mother, should tell us not to eat them.  My advice being, to cut out foods with artificial colors.  My philosophy on healthy eating involves getting as close to the way nature intended.  I was appalled when I read that the reduced-sugar jelly I almost bought had red #5.  To me the obvious fake color made it look less appetizing.         

While many foods are obviously artificially colored, ie: most powdered drink mixes, juice drinks, and fruit flavored candy.  There are many more that require a closer look.  The only way to be sure if a food does or doesn’t contain an artificial color is to read the ingredient label.  

The most widely used artificial colors in the United States includes:

• Blue #1 and Blue #2
• Green #3
• Red #3 and Red #40
• Yellow # 5 and Yellow #6 

To open your eyes to where artificial colors can be hidden, here is a list of common items that may likely contain artificial color.      

Week 6 of 52 Weeks, 52 Ways to a New You isn’t anything you probably haven’t heard a million times:

Eat Your “Dark” Green Vegetables:  At least 1 cup per day.

For generations we have heard that we need to eat our green vegetables.  Most people who told you to eat your green vegetables growing up probably didn’t even know why they are so important to eat.  We are continually learning more and more benefits of eating fruits and vegetables and that includes the many benefits of green vegetables.  Most people know that vegetables contain vitamins and minerals but what a lot of people don’t know is that vegetables, including green vegetables, are chalked full of phytonutrients (plant nutrients).  Phytonutrients help plants fight off disease; mold, bacteria, fungus, bugs, etc.  

Vitamins and minerals are essential to keeping you alive.  Phytonutrients, however, are not essential to keeping you alive but what they do is very extraordinary.  They help your body function at its best and can help prevent many diseases including cancer.  Thousands of phytonutrients have been discovered but only hundreds have been studied in depth.  Research supports that phytonutrients work best when combined with other phytonutrients.  Some fruits and vegetables have a hundred or more phytonutrients.  What this means is that it is best to eat phytonutrients and not seek them from a pill, powder, liquid or other type of supplement.  Since most supplements don’t contain hundreds of types of phytonutrients they aren’t going to be as effective as eating the whole plant.  Plus, the processing that plants undergo as they are put into supplement form may make their phytonutrients less effective.  

If that hasn’t convinced you to eat your greens, how about the fact that they are low in calories and high in fiber.  Making them a great way to fill up and not out.  In other words, they are a great food to help you lose weight and/or maintain a healthy weight.  

Here are some suggestions on ways to get in some dark green vegetables everyday:

1. Pack a vegetable in your lunch every day.  Even if you are having a carry-in or a catered lunch at work add your vegetable to whatever is being provided.  
2. Dark leafy greens piled high on a sandwich or in a wrap are a great way to get at least 1/2 a cup in.  Because leafy greens are so light and fluffy 1 cup of greens actually only counts as 1/2 cup toward your vegetable intake.  
3. Buy a bag of broccoli that is already cut up.  It doesn’t get much easier than opening a bag and munching away.  You can also add the pre-cut broccoli to a stir-fry, steam it, or add it to your spaghetti sauce.
4. Use dark leafy greens, such as spinach, arugula, romaine, or field greens, instead of iceberg lettuce when you make a salad.
5. Dice up some green peppers and load them on your pizza or stuff your omelet with them.  You can also cut them into strips and crunch away!
6. If you don’t like cutting vegetable try asparagus.  After washing it, hold a stalk with both hands about a quarter to a third of the way up from the bottom and bend it in half.  It will snap in 2, discard the fibrous bottom portion and steam the rest.  Kids love to help with this too. 

         
So this week your small permanent change is to eat at least 1 cup of dark green vegetables everyday.  While 1 cup of vegetables per day is well below the recommended amount for most people this should leave plenty of room for all the other colors of vegetables in your daily diet.  I’ll leave that to another week though.  Remember we are working on small changes that are meant to be permanent.  

Week 5 of 52 Weeks, 52 Ways to a New You, is sure to have you moving.  Although I am a Dietitian this blog is about more than just healthy eating, it’s about helping create a healthy lifestyle.  Making a daily caloric balance is not only about calories in but calories out.  In other words, limiting what we eat isn’t always enough, we also need to kick up the calories we burn.  So this week I am going to have you make 1 small permanent change and that is to:

Go The Distance

Let me explain what I mean by this.  Find ways in your daily routine to walk a few extra steps.  You may even find it helpful to clip on a pedometer so see trends in your daily distance walked.  If you want a concrete goal, aim for 10,000 steps per day on your pedometer. Here are a few ideas to help you STEP IT UP, and go the distance: