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Take two popular menu items: A Carrot Walnut Muffin or the Chocolate Croissant. Which one's healthier? Surely your health-conscious conscience jumps at the thought of starting your day with carrots and walnuts, yet the truth is fuzzier. Au Bon Pain's healthy sounding muffin offering packs 540 calories-plus 7 grams more fat, double the carbs (73 g vs. 34 g), and the four times the sugar of a 300-calorie Starbucks Chocolate Croissant! Remember, "muffin" is just a way to get you to eat cake for breakfast.

 

Best Defense: Find the unhealthiest word on any menu item, and let that be your guide. After all, the calorie count of a fish fry is not about the fish, it's about the fry.

 

2. Foods on the "low carb" menu

Anything "low" in one thing is usually high in something else. Consider Applebee's Low Carb Breakfast Bowl, which is super low-carb but starts your day with 52 grams of fat-nearly an entire day's worth. This 660-calorie meal is like dumping an entire farm's worth of animals into one heart-stopping combination of eggs, sausage, bacon and cheese. Their Ham, Egg & Cheese Biscuit won't make Dr. Atkins happy, but it will save you 210 calories and 28 grams of fat.

 

Best Defense: Eat for balance. Don't be fooled by eating only "low-carb" or "low-fat."

 

4. The salad "decoys" trick

Restaurants have discovered a brilliant way to get you to order cheaper, more caloric food-they give you the option to order something else. It's called "decoy marketing" in the restaurant trade. The idea is that punctuating a menu with healthy items like salads gives customers permission to order larger, junkier, more caloric meals than they would otherwise. A study at Boston University demonstrated how this worked; researchers saw French fries orders triple when salad was also an option. It's a phenomenon experts have dubbed "vicarious goal fulfillment." In other words, by simply acknowledging a healthy option, diners feel they have satisfied their dietary goals and can order whatever they want.

 

Best Defense: Remind yourself before you look at the menu that you're on a mission to eat well. Remember that a burger has the same calorie count whether it's next to the spring salad or the spring lamb.

 

5.Good-for-you foods with bad-for-you toppings

When a restaurant chain makes its mark serving massive slabs of fat and calories, even their attempts at "lite" foods can be corrupted by an instinct to slather and garnish. Take, for example, Ruby Tuesday's Avocado Grilled Chicken Sandwich. How bad could this be? Well, by serving you a jumbo portion and topping it with bacon, Swiss and mayonnaise, the chain has built a 1,311-calorie monster with 2,833 mg of sodium and 64 grams of fat.

 

Best Defense: Customize it. If you like the sound of a grilled chicken avocado sandwich, then ask them to serve you exactly that-and maybe ask for a little mayo on the side.

 

6. It's "grilled"

"Grilled" chicken at your local chain may be healthier than the breaded and fried option, but it's nowhere near as healthy as the same version made on your own backyard grill. Most restaurants use a "grill" that's actually a griddle-basically a giant frying pan, which requires a generous oil slick to prevent sticking; often it's the bacon fat saved from breakfast. If you're on a strict diet and "flame grilled" options aren't available, ask for your food to be prepared to your liking. 

 

Best Defense: Ask if "grilled" means "flame grilled." If not, ask for it broiled, which will give you a similar effect-with less of the grease.

 

7. Sneaky serving sizes

At Outback, starting your meal with an order of Coconut Shrimp sounds harmless-after all, it's only 307 calories per serving. But you'd better make sure your dining companion is hungry, because Coconut Shrimp is an "Aussi-tizer to Share," and one plate is meant to be split by two. Meanwhile, the Medium Wings, which are also on the "to share" menu, say they're 500 calories a serving-yet one plate packs 2,003 calories, because it's for four people, while the Bloomin' Onion has 327 calories, but in fact packs 1,959, because it's meant to be shared by six. Confused yet?

 

Best Defense: If there's any question, always ask how many people a dish serves. Then do a head count.

(Sourced from Adventures Sport Weekly

 

Winter greatly limits exposure to the sun -- and sunshine is the main source of vitamin D, a nutrient famous for preventing depression. Add to this the increased hours of darkness and the frantic schedules of the holiday season, and it's no wonder that the dark dog of depression takes the joy out of life.

However, you're not helpless against this seasonal sadness. You can fight it with the right foods and supplements, as well as certain types of exercise. In fact, if you know that you often start feeling sad and lonely later in the year, start working on your natural anti-depressant now, and enter the new year feeling good.

 

1. Turkey contains tryptophan, which helps cure depression because it's a precursor for serotonin, the "feel good" hormone that helps control mood. You can purchase turkey parts or ground turkey in most grocery store.

 

2. Brown rice, which can be used as a substitute for white rice and potatoes, contains natural segments of the vitamin B complex and folic acid.

 

3.Two other good nutritional aids to preventing or curing depression are fish oil and vitamin D. Always check with your doctor before adding supplements to your diet.

 

4. As mentioned in #2, vitamin B complex is a good aid in fighting seasonal depression.  Taking weekly B-12 shots (offered in our center) will combat that mental depression while also causing relief from fatigue, insomnia, inabilities to concentrate, and more!  Stop in or call to find out further details on both our vitamin B-12 shot, and vitamin B-12 MIC shot.