This site is built around the idea of making the employee more fit.  Training like an athlete

Image via Wikipedia

is a great step in the right direction.  Controlling your diet can be even a larger step in the right healthful direction.

According to a report published online in Preventive Medicine, a weight management intervention designed for military members who are inactive and retired, and their families, could improve their health in addition to lowering medical expenditures.<more>

At the Everett Fire Department we will be initiating a short dietary analysis for all members who are willing to take the time to complete the food log.

A personalized report will be generated utilizing the Diet Grader program.  With this report you can begin to make positive changes to your diet and just maybe join the personnel in the military study with reduced medical costs.

“The investigators estimated that the savings in medical costs for the first two groups would equal $500 per participant and the expenses of providing the program would be regained in three years”.

So listen up City of Everett and similar employers, the cost benefit is as much in your financial favor as it is in the health favor of the employee.

Holiday Weight Gain

The holidays are a wonderful time of year, but for those of us watching our weight it’s “the danger zone.”  The National Institutes of Health report that typical Americans gain only about a pound of body weight during the holidays.  That doesn’t sound like much but studies have also found that the weight we gain during the holidays tends to stay with us and accumulates over the course of our adulthood.  Yikes!

So what can we do this year to avoid any weight gain?

Try the following tips:

• Drink lots of water
• Keep up your exercise routine despite your other activities
• Cut back on meals when you’re eating snacks at other times during the day
• Eat what you like, but take only small portions
• Don’t eat after 7:00 p.m.

Source: National Institutes of Health; Health Guidance.org

Also consider this tip for your holiday recipes:

Try replacing the dairy product called for in your holiday recipe (such as cheese, milk, and sour cream) with a low-fat or nonfat version, saving a significant number of calories. Terry Conlan, the author of Fresh (Favorite Recipes Press, 2002) and the executive chef at the Lake Austin Spa Resort in Austin, Texas, says his single favorite product for cooking is fat-free sweetened condensed milk. “It does everything that whole condensed milk will do for a lot less calories,” he says. “We use it to make flan, cream pies, roasted tomato bisque, and much more.” Conlan also recommends melting reduced-fat or fat-free cream cheese to use in lieu of heavy cream or half-and-half. For example, he makes a quick and easy key lime pie using fat-free sweetened condensed milk with a combination of fat-free and reduced-fat cream cheese.

Source: Diet Detective