Are you packing your bags for that last trip before Labor Day and flying to your destination?  If so, consider giving a little thought to your food choices en route and your selections can give you the energizing start you want for your final summer fling. Choose cancer-fighting foods but also watch calories to help your efforts to stay at a healthy weight.

Start with breakfast:

Avoid: Cinnamon rolls. While they may smell enticing, the “classic” version has almost 900 calories – at least half of what most women need in a day.  The multi-bun packs have thousands of calories.

Choose: Honey Whole Wheat Bagel with Peanut Butter or Egg.  If it’s huge, eat half and spread the p.b. yourself.  ½ bagel with 1 Tbsp. peanut butter or 1 egg = 250 calories (approx).

Add: 1 cup orange juice and coffee and skim milk.

All this for 500 calories or less – protein, dairy, fruit and a little whole grain, no added sugar.

On the Plane:

Avoid: Sugary beverages – calories and no vitamins, minerals or fiber.

Choose: Club soda with lime; Mix juice half and half with club soda. You’ll get the refreshing sensation of carbonation with none or half the calories.  A good thing since your activity level is pretty low.

Add: If you are really hungry, the ½ oz of peanuts or pretzels may be just the thing, but if you’re not hungry, save them for later.

For less than 200 calories – water, maybe a little 100% juice and small snack.

For Lunch – in the airport or to take along:

Avoid: The fast food value meal.  (What did you think I’d say?)

Choose: You may find places that have pre-made salads and sandwiches.  Fortunately most will have food labels.  Look for a lunch of about 500-600 calories that contains some vegetables, a protein source and whole grain (not always possible).

Salads – these should contain actual greens and vegetables.  Limit fried toppings, cheese and salad dressings – 2 Tbsp of dressing should be plenty.

Deli sandwiches – look for vegetarian options or tuna salad so you can avoid the processed meat linked to colon cancer.

Fast food – choose the small burger or the snack wraps.

In all cases choose water, milk or unsweetened tea for the beverage.

In general think New American Plate – 2/3 or more of your plant contains vegetables, fruits or whole grain and 1/3 or less has animal products.

What are your airport healthy eating strategies?

Cancer Prevention, Diet, Weight Hide

Getting to, and staying, a healthy weight is one of the most important ways to prevent cancer but the quest to lose weight is not easy. Take, for example, the recent findings of a survey from a British company.

British women last an average of only 19 days on a diet. And with about three diet attempts yearly, dieting costs add up to more than $39,300 (£25,233) over the course of a lifetime.

The Engage Mutual survey of 3,000 women showed that cost of dieting includes gym memberships, health magazines, and exercise clothes. But by far, food accounts for the heft of the diet bill: Over the course of the 19-day diet, women spend an extra $67 (£43) on food, and $42 (£27) on branded slimming foods.

The top temptations that led to women breaking their diet were chocolate, crisps, wine and pizza.

Losing weight and staying at a healthy weight is all about making lifestyle changes that last. For help transitioning to a healthier eating pattern, take a look at AICR’s New American Plate, which focuses on portion and proportion.

So for dieters, what are your dieting downfalls? Ice Cream? Pasta? And what is a crisp anyways?

Cancer Prevention, Diet, Weight Hide

Obesity rates continue to rise in the U.S.

The number of adults who are overweight or obese increased in over half the states according to a new report released in June.

The relatively good news is that the rate of childhood obesity is stable, but it is still too high.

Here’s a rundown of the stats:

Number of states with increased adult obesity –28

Number of states with adult obesity rates above 25% – 38

Number of states with adult obesity rates above 20% in 1991 – 0

Number of states with adult obesity rates above 20% in 2010 – 49

Number of top ten obese states also in top ten for poverty – 7

Cancer cases caused by overweight/obesity in the U.S. every year – 100,000

You can see find information on many health issues in your state at the “Trust for America’s Health” website.  This group, along with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation compiled and released the report.

You can find information on reducing your risk for cancer through a healthy weight here.

Where does your state rank in this report?

Weight Hide

Today’s issue of Cancer Research Update features the results of a new consumer survey that suggests most Americans are pretty happy with their overall health, yet about two-thirds are concerned about their weight.

The survey, conducted by the International Food Information Council Foundation, found that 57 percent of respondents are extremely or somewhat satisfied with their health and 70 percent were concerned about their weight. The goal of losing weight was the primary reason people changed their diet or were physically active.

And if the survey holds for all Americans, our nation still has more to learn when it comes to nutrition and a healthy weight.
•    With about two-thirds of Americans trying to lose or maintain their weight, 77 percent are not meeting the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Physical Activity Guidelines. (Physical activity can help you prevent cancer too.)

•   Only 12 percent of Americans can accurately estimate the number of calories they should consume in a day. (Some healthy-looking foods can be shockingly high in calories; here’s some salad examples.)

•    Only 28 percent said protein is found in plant sources (nuts and beans are good sources of plant-based proteins).

• When it comes to calories consumed versus calories burned, most Americans (58 percent) do not make an effort to balance the two (for maintaining weight, you really need to).

What nutrition news have you learned – from AICR or other health organization – that you didn’t know a year ago?

Diet, Weight Hide

Of the days’ worth of food below, which do you think would be more filling?

The food on the right is certainly more colorful and offers a lot more to eat than the few choices on the left.

A new AICR review of the research on calorie (or energy) density and weight loss has found that diets low in calorie density can play an important role in efforts to achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

The photo above is a great example of how calorie density works. Both 1575 calories, the food on the right contains more low calorie-dense foods – fewer calories, but more food weight.

Low calorie dense foods, such as fruits and non-starchy vegetables have a lot of water, so by filling up on these, you satisfy your hunger, but eat fewer calories.

Read more about how to make your plate heavier, but with fewer calories.

The AICR brochure More Food, Fewer Calories contains strategies on following a low-calorie dense diet along with more information on the health benefits.

After you’ve tried some of these ideas, share your successes with us.

Photos: Dr. Barbara Rolls, Penn State University, used with permission.

AICR Press Release, Cancer Prevention, Diet, Weight Hide

AICR’s expert report concluded that carrying excess body fat is a convincing cause of six different cancers (colorectal, postmenopausal breast, esophageal, endometrial, kidney and pancreatic) and a probable cause of gallbladder cancer as well.  That means that in the US alone, obesity is responsible for over 100,000 cancer cases every year.

And as obesity figures continue to rise, that number is likely to grow even larger.

How did we get here?

Last week, at the 3rd International Congress on Physical Activity and Public Health, many researchers presented data tracking recent trends in the amount of leisure-time physical activity we’re getting, nowadays. But one of the keynote speakers, Dr. William Leonard of Northwestern University, presented an intriguing talk that took the long view.

The very long view.

Like, hundreds of thousands of years long.

Dr. Leonard is an  anthropologist, you see.  He talked about how humans evolved, specifically how how changes in our diet and activity level changed our body type.

Basically, said Dr. Leonard, as our brains got bigger, they placed larger demands on our metabolism, and our diets became more nutrient- and calorie-dense to support them.

Leonard proposed that the recent and much-talked about uptick in the calorie-density of our foods over the past few decades (higher fat content, larger portion sizes) is simply an extension of what’s been happening to us, on an evolutionary scale, for millions of years.  But the difference is key: dietary changes that used to to take thousands and thousands of years to occur have happened within a single lifetime.

Even so, he suggested that we might be missing the real story by focusing so much on the increase in calories in our diets.  In fact, he notes, while calorie content of the diet in the developed world has increased since the fifties, that increase leveled off in the 80s.  Yet obesity rates continued, and continue, to rise.

To explain this, he suggests that it’s decreased calorie expenditure that plays a larger role in obesity than caloric intake.

Throughout our evolution, our caloric intake increased to match greater and greater needs we placed upon our bodies – hunting calorie-dense animals is more demanding than gathering low-calorie-dense crops. But this eon-old trend toward increased calorie-burning is now experiencing a dramatic reversal: Our jobs have become much more sedentary since the 80s and the advent of the computer.

Our bodies have evolved over millions of years to actively and effectively meet our caloric needs from the environment. But now we’re suddenly accelerating the trend toward more calories – and by changing the physical environment to make things easier, we’re reversing the evolutionary trend toward burning more calories.

The net effect: we’re upsetting an equilibrium our species has managed to maintain for thousands and thousands of years.

Cancer Prevention, Diet, exercise, Physical Activity, Research, Weight Hide

A lot of this issue’s Cancer Research Update focuses on the benefits of physical activity for cancer prevention, which is a relatively new area of study.

It’s clear that being physically active helps us lose and/or control weight. Weight control is the obvious reason to be active, now that research shows excess body fat causes seven different cancers.

Less is known about exactly how physical activity helps fight cancer independent of weight.  Studies show that it does, but can physical activity reduce cancer risk regardless of the number on the scale?

To learn more, read the full story in CRU.

And if you want a mental health boost as well as a physical one, try exercising outside. A new study in Environmental Science & Technology found that just five minutes of “green exercise” per day improves mood and self -esteem. Green exercise is any activity that takes place outdoors, such as a backyard garden or walk in a park.

With warmer weather, there are precious few excuses not to add some fun activity into your day. AICR has plenty of “Moving More” strategies here. If you have a fitness tip of your own, please share.

Cancer Prevention, Physical Activity, Weight Hide

Forget serving bowls.  If you’re trying to cut back to lose some weight, a simple strategy may help in a big way.

According to a Cornell University study titled “Serve Here; Eat There,” if you leave the serving dishes off the table you may eat less.

The researchers studied the amount of food 78 adults ate under different conditions.  They served some meals from the kitchen (“plated the food”) and allowed serving dishes to be on the table at other meals.

They found that people refilled their plates fewer times if food was served from the kitchen.  Overall, people ate 20% fewer calories (men ate about 29% less) when serving dishes were absent from the table.

Finding healthy ways to reduce extra body fat could help Americans reduce cancer cases by 100,000 every year according to AICR.  Learning to eat smaller portions and limiting “seconds” is one strategy experts say works.

So to lower your risk for cancer and other chronic disease, try this at home: Serve the food in the kitchen and leave the serving dishes off the table – with one exception.  Leave vegetable serving bowls on the table.  You may find you and your family emptying the vegetable bowl rather than filling up on pasta or meat.

How do you serve your meals?

Behavior Change, Diet, Weight Hide

Spicy-food lovers take note: The same process that leads to beads of sweat forming when biting into a chili pepper may actually increase energy expenditure, if the findings from a preliminary (and small) study hold up.

Researchers from University of California, Los Angeles’ Center for Human Nutrition presented their findings at the ongoing Experimental Biology conference.

The stuff that gives chili peppers that searing heat-inducing zing is called capsaicin. (It sets off the pain receptors on our tongue.) In the lab, capsaicin has shown cancer preventive properties; you can read about the research here, and find out how to squash that burning sensation if it’s too hot.

The UCLA scientists studied the non-burning version of capsaicin, called DCT for short. Thirty-four participants drank a low-calorie liquid meal replacement for 28 days. The participants were divided into groups: one group took a DCT supplement after the meal – either a low or high dose – another group took a placebo.

Researchers determined energy expenditure (heat production) in each subject after he or she consumed one serving of the test meal. They found that at least for several hours after the test meal was eaten, energy expenditure was significantly increased in the group consuming the highest amount of DCT. The energy expended was almost double that of the placebo group, suggesting it may help dieters by increasing metabolism.

There are plenty of caveats to this study – e.g, it’s small, limited to a single meal – but it does buoy the evidence, once again, that there is a lot of hidden health benefits inside plant foods. That supports AICR’s recommendation to eat plenty of a variety of fruits and vegetables: it will add flavor, healthful compounds, and maybe even help with weight loss.

Do you love chili peppers, hate them, or a little of both? Have a good chili pepper story?

Diet, Research, Weight Hide

The reasons to make physical activity part of a daily routine just keep building. For one thing: there’s the evidence linking physical activity to reduced cancer risk. The latest incentive to get active comes from a new study that found exercise speeds learning and improves blood flow to the brain in monkeys.

Previous studies have linked improved learning to exercise in rodents; but this study examines this link in monkeys. The study is published in the journal Neuroscience; you can read the release here.

Physical activity can reduce cancer risk; can it make us learn better?

In the study, one group of monkeys was aerobically active – running on a treadmill for an hour each day, five days per week, for five months. Another group simply sat on the treadmill for the same amount of time.

Cognitive tests found that the exercising monkeys learned one task twice as quickly as the sedentary animals.

When it comes to exercise and cancer prevention, the link between physical activity and reducing cancer risk is clear. Regular activity acts with weight control – and excess body fat causes several different cancers – and also appears to have biological effects that lower cancer risk, such as strengthening the immune system.

Want to see if you are active enough? Take our quiz.

If you already incorporate physical activity into your day, how did you get into the habit? Any tips?

Cancer Prevention, Physical Activity, Research, Weight Hide