It's my pleasure to announce the winners of the RealJock Nu4You Fall Weight Loss Challenge. Everyone in this Challenge has been absolutely fantastic.  Remember that our scoring system focuses on more than your weight loss percentage, but on all of the following factors that will help you keep your weight off for the long-term!

   -Percent Body Weight Loss
   -Record Keeping
   -Eating Breakfast
   -Exercise
   -Monitoring Weight
   -Low-fat Diet
   -Sportsmanship

Thank you to everyone for participating in the Challenge, and we hope that you will keep up with your nutrition goals, and tell your friends about Nutrition for You and Nu4You.net

 First Place

Matt45710 Total Score: 97.2

Matt45710 lost 21 lbs an excellent 11.4% of his original body weight during the challenge.    Although this wasn't the highest percentage weight loss accomplished by TigerFrank with 30 lbs and 13.5% Matt45710 excelled across the board in all of our critical numbers!

Congratulations Matt45710 you win a Polar F6 heart rate monitor and a hand held body fat tester! 

Second Place

Ctocity Total Score 93.8

Ctocity lost 16.6 lbs an excellent 8.6% of his original body weight.  The second place spot was a very close contest between ctocity score 93.8, jkw69 score 93.4  and thegaytekeeper  score 93.2.  We spent a lot of time checking and re-checking the numbers for these 3 because the scores were so close.

Congratulations to ctocity who will win a Polar F6 heart rate monitor!

Fantastic Results

As we finished the challenge we had 23 out of the original 33 contestants finish the challenge.

Really great statistics for the 23 finishers of the Challenge:
100% of the Finishers lost weight.
Group Starting Weight: 5,319
Group Ending Weight:  5,007
Pounds Lost: 312 during the challenge (or 1,092,000 calories!)
Average Weight Loss Per Person: 13.6 pounds
Average Weight Loss Per Person Per Week: 1.5 pounds
The largest weight loss: 30 pounds
The least weight loss: 5 pounds
Contest Length: 9 weeks

 

O.k. of course not.  But today when I was finishing up my morning workout at my athletic club I noticed something.  I looked over into the lounge area and there was a huge tray of donuts there for the taking.  Free of charge.  Congratulations on a good workout it said!  I couldn't believe it.

Wow. I've talked about mixed messages before and how detrimental it is to your nutritional well-being.  This is just one glaring example of how it can get out of hand. There are two things that are important to recognize.

1. It's very easy for people to distract you with bad or over-simplified advice

The headline "Donuts are good for your workout" certainly caught your attention.  It's something we want to be true, but unfortunately it's not.   When you read nutrition advice on the web, or see and hear it on radio and television, you need to take a look at the motivations of the qualifications of the person providing the advice.  Do they really just want to sell you pills? or food? their book? or advertise their thigh master?  If so they still might have credible advice, but remember that it's always going to be skewed towards their own product, not your health.  Also take a look at the credentials of the people providing nutrition advice.  If that person is not a registered dietitian (RD) then they are not focused 100% on nutrition and diet.  Even a licensed M.D. generally only has a small amount of training in nutritional science.

At Nutrition for You we are clear about our motivation and credentials.  We want you to lose weight and we want you keep it off permanently.  We want you to be proud to tell everyone that meets the "new you" how you did it with sound nutrition, not fad-diets, gimmicks, or pills.    Our program was created and is maintained by Manuel Villacorta, MS, RD, CSSD a board certified registered dietitian, and certified specialist in sports dietetics and a team of people that want you to succeed.

2. Mixed messages do not help you with weight loss

Everyone has to eat, so it generally fools all of us to think we are food experts.  We're not.  If we were we wouldn't have an obesity epidemic in the United States.  What works for one person may not work for you.  Each of us is an individual.  If you follow food, nutrition, and weight loss expertise from everyone you'll get many conflicting messages and end up even more confused.

What do I mean by mixed messages will not help?  Here are some examples:

• Your friend telling you that carbs are bad (they aren't) and that they lost 25# on Atkins while snacking on a muffin is a mixed message.
• Your grocer telling you that Organic is always better even if the food was shipped overseas using a lot of fuel rather than locally cultivated.
• Web sites that give you solid nutrition advice but have ads saying "How I Lost 44 Lbs Fast!" on the same page is a mixed message.
• and yes, Donuts in your gym is a mixed message.
  

Nutrition for you will not give you mixed messages to confuse you. We really want you to succeed so we want you to focus on what we teach you.  We are experts at weight loss and weight management.  Work with us with your mind open and ready for a change and you will succeed.

Whether or not to buy organic or conventionally grown foods is a big topic that many of our members contemplate. Read on to learn more about which items you should consider buying organic and where convential foods are ok.

The Clean and Dirty Details of Organic!
Organic foods can be 50% more expensive than conventionally grown foods. However, the more organic foods you eat, the less pesticides you consume. It is especially important for children to consume organic foods. New studies suggest that pesticides are linked to ADHD, obesity, diabetes and learning disorders in kids who don't yet have the immune system to be able to flush out these toxins.

Produce:
Here are two lists: one for produce that we recommend you buy organic and one for produce where conventional is ok.

Produce "Dirty Dozen" *Highest in pesticide residue: buy organic if you can.	Produce "Not-So-Dirty-Dozen" *Lowest in pesticide residue: ok to buy conventionally grown.
Peaches Apples Sweet bell peppers Celery Nectarines Strawberries Cherries Pears Grapes (imported) Spinach Lettuce Potatoes	Papayas Broccoli Cabbage Bananas Kiwi Sweat peas (frozen) Asparagus Mangoes Pineapple Sweet corn (frozen) Avocados Onions

Meat and Poultry:
It is very important to buy meat and poultry that has not been treated with antibiotics. Public health authorities recognize that antibiotic use in live-stock (used to fatten them up and prevent disease caused by over crowding and unsanitary living conditions) has led to people contracting antibiotic-resistant infections. The World Health Organization and the American Medical Association have urged farmers to stop using antibiotics. However, many farmers still continue to use antibiotics. So, when it comes to meat and poultry definitely buy meat that has not been treated.

What labels mean:

BEST: Certified Organic: Meat that bears this label is raised without the use of antibiotics or related drugs and meets other rigorous standards set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). When organically raised animals become sick, they are treated with antibiotics but do not receive the organic label. A third party certifies these standards.

BEST: No Antibiotics Added/Raised without Antibiotics: This label indicates that the animals have not been fed antibiotics at any point in their lives. Meat from sick animals treated with antibiotics cannot be sold under this label claim. Although the USDA approved the use of this claim, compliance is not certified by a third party.

OK: Natural/All-Natural: The USDA defines a "natural" meat product as one that "contain[s] no artificial ingredient or added color and is only minimally processed." Meat labeled "natural" may or may not have been treated with antibiotics.

DOESN'T MEAN MUCH: Free-Range/Free-Roaming: These labels have been approved by the USDA for poultry that have been allowed access to the outdoors (though they may never actually go outdoors) but the claim implies nothing about the antibiotic use practices of the producer.

Milk:
Many dairy farmers use the bovine growth hormone (bGH) to increase cattle weight as well as milk production. Though the FDA concluded that there are no risks to drinking milk from cows treated with this hormone, the issue is still being researched. bGH has been banned in Europe and Canada. Since there are so many dairies that don't use this hormone, we suggest buying from them if you can. Buy milk/milk products labeled organic or "rbGH free."

Whether you buy organic or not, here are some tips:

• Buy local produce whenever possible.
• Reduce pesticide residues and other contaminants by:
  *Washing and scrubbing all produce (even produce with skin) under streaming water (don't use soap).
  *Remove peel from fruits and vegetables.
  *Remove outer leaves of leafy vegetables.
  
• Discard produce that has been out of refrigerator for more than 4 hours.
• Trim visible fat and skin from meat and poultry (pesticides residues collect in fat).
• Eat a variety of foods from different sources.
• Prioritize: The majority of your organic food dollars should be spent on avoiding produce which carry the most pesticides.

Created by Kate Haisch, BS, Dietetic Intern

Resources:
Brannon, Carol Ann. "Organics: Separating Science Fiction from Fact." Today's Dietician 10.4 (2008): 8-14
Bareuther, Carol. "Mission Organic: 2010." Today's Dietician 10.4 (2008): 30-34
UCS: What's in the Meat You Eat?

As a co-founder and developer for Nutrition for You I am always trying to see what our competition is doing and to keep track of the latest trends with online companies.  Not just other companies that are direct competitors, but with how other companies are packaging their services.  One of the most common is Facebook.  Today Facebook was in the news because one of their cofounders Duston Moskovitz and their "top engineer" Justin Rosenstein are leaving to create a new startup.

The reason this is important to Nutrition for You and makes me post periodically about sites like Facebook is advertising.  So many online sites are writing content and updating their site with the main goal of getting as many users as possible.  Not to build a community, but to advertise to you. Facebook founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg has done a wonderful job of bringing together people with social content that they find useful and entertaining.  Advertising on Facebook should be fine with most people, because if you don't like it, you can quit any time.  No committment required.

But for nutrition and health and weight loss it is a completely different story. Most free nutrition, health, and weight loss sites are trying to sell supplements, and food products, weight loss machines, books, and gimmicks.  All of these are conflicting messages.  By simply going with a free or cheap online service driven by advertising or product sales you cannot be certain that they really have your best interest in mind.

Everyone likes a good deal.  And free is the best deal for many. However it isn't always the best deal if you are trying to commit to something like losing weight permanently.  You need to invest in yourself.   By joining Nutrition for You you will be more likely to commit because you do have a small amount of money invested.  We also provide expert coaching and all of our coaches want you to succeed, and will help you stay committed.  Invest in yourself.  Prioritize yourself.  More importantly commit to changing your relationship with food.  When you commit, so do we. We want every single person that joins our site for weight loss to lose weight and succeed.  We don't want to advertise to you. That makes us feel good and we hope it makes you feel good too. 

If you are a personal trainer and would like to incorporate our nutrition tools in your personal training program we have tools just for you.  You can read more about our tools for personal trainers on our web site.  There is also a new powerpoint demo as well as a PDF of the presentation to show you some the tools themselves. 

Personal Training + Nutrition = Great Results!

Weight Watchers may be one of the largest and most recognizable brands on the web, but how does it measure up to Nutrition for You?

To answer that we have added a service comparison to the Nutrition for You web site.    We felt it was important to document how Nutrition for You surpasses many of the better known weight loss brands out there today.  We are very proud of the fact that we have addressed many of the deficiencies of other programs like Weight Watchers, NutriSystem, FitDay, eDiets, and Jenny Craig.

Our goal at Nutrition for You is to give you solid, science-based nutrition advice and the help you need to succeed.  One size does not fit all when it comes to weight loss and weight management.  Each and every person is different.  Any program that does not take that into account is going to be hit or miss.

This is an instance where bigger is definitely not better.   As always if you have any questions about Nutrition for You just ask!

You may have heard the alarming statistics about America’s weight problem: 65% of Americans are obese or overweight.  Ten years ago about 10-15% of the nation was labeled obese today it is 20-29%.   So, what should we do?  Should we wait until a pharmaceutical company discovers a magic pill?  Or should we learn how to eat properly and control our self-destructive behaviors?

Pharmaceutical companies have spent millions of dollars researching the “magic pill.”  Many have been released on the market only to have dire consequences.  These companies propagate the illusion that there is a simple weight-loss solution requiring no effort.  They instill false hope that lifts peoples’ spirits, only to drop them farther down in the end.   And let’s not forget that most of these drugs can only assist people in losing 10 to 15% of their weight.

Here are some facts about the top 4 anti-obesity drugs:

1. Sanofi-Aventis by Merk, Pfizer was supposed to stop the munchies while in clinical trials, however one major side-effect?  Suicide.   

2. Orexigen by Vivus, Amylin.  This company found that by combining drugs that treated seizures, addiction and diabetes a person could shed more pounds than taking the drugs alone but the side-effects were memory loss, dizziness, and depression.  

3. Fen-Phen by Arena pharmaceuticals.  Remember Fen-Phen the “super drug?”  It produced double-digit weight-loss but was found to cause heart disease, so the FDA requested the pills be taken off the market.  But Arena is not ready to give up yet.  They are currently working on a pill that promises not to affect the heart and will deal directly with the appetite-controlling center in the brain.  But I ask you, if heart disease was the side-effect of the last pill, what kind of effect might the new and improved pill have on the brain?

4. Alli is the only FDA approved over-the-counter weight-loss product.  Alli promotes weight-loss by decreasing absorption of fat by the intestines, which reduces the number of calories you absorb.  However, the average weight loss is a modest 6 pounds greater than diet and exercise alone and the pill’s side-effects include:

o    Gas with an oily anal discharge
o    Loose stools or diarrhea
o    More frequent bowel movements that are hard to control


The answer to weight loss is clear.  There are no magic pills that will solve your problems.  Just like any important endeavor, weight loss takes time, work, discipline, motivation and stamina.  Once you have learned how to lose weight the healthy way, this knowledge is yours forever.  If your weight creeps up a few pounds, you will know what to do.  You won’t have to call your doctor to get another pill that will detrimentally affect your health.  Stick with a smart and realistic weight loss plan and you will be successful!

One of the things that Nutrition for You is very proud of is the fact that our site is free from advertising.  Marketers and other business entrepreneurs frequently ask us, "Why would you turn down free advertising revenue?"

The answer is simple.  We do not want any distractions or worse yet conflicting information to get in the way of our members success.

If you go to most "free" web site services, and many "pay for use" online services you are bombarded with advertisements.  It's a great market for advertisers as they know the exact demographic to target.  It's not great for you.

I was recently reading an article on a competitor's site about how important breakfast is.  It is good solid nutrition advice that Nutrition for You also believes in.  However on the same page there were ads for Botox,  Low Carb-Dieting and other fad diets, and a picture of a big, excruciatingly bad for you, fast food sandwich.  The advertisements may not all be bad or detrimental to nutrition, but they get in the way and often have conflicting information.

The fact is that when you have paid sponsors you frequently deliver content that is contradictory.  For instance when you are reading about eating a healthy high fiber breakfast; does it really help you focus on the topic at hand by flashing a large animated Botox ad at you or showing a picture of an 800 calorie, 50grams of fat and zero fiber?  The answer is no.

These are just a few examples of why we believe that selling advertising and products on our site is not in your best interest and one of the reasons we chose to be a subscription based rather than free online service.

by Kate Haisch, BS, Dietetic Intern

Hello everyone,

 We just wanted to say "hello world" and kick off the Nutrition for You blog.