Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

This week exercise more to maintain weight in middle age, the secret to getting motivated, and how lysine and arginine increase satiety.

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I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

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After years of failed diets and nearly giving up on health completely, Roger uses a new approach to eating well and being active that he actually loves. By slowly implementing small changes in his healthstyle, he loses 26 lbs in one year and feels like he’s “just getting started.”

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//instagram.com/p/OFZvGKAedu

The same thing happens every day. Whether it’s raining or the sun is shining. Whether we had a late night encounter with raccoons or we’re well-rested. Shortly after lunch every afternoon my dog Toaster wanders into my office and puts his little head on my lap.

It’s time to go to the park.

While it’s clear that Mother Nature plays a roll in his timing (potty time is a an excellent trigger), it doesn’t take more than a glance to realize that there is a deeper motivation under all that fluffy fur.

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Photo by bark

I’ve always considered myself an active person. I joined my first gym at age twelve (my mom lied and told them I was fourteen to get around the age limit––a terrible idea, but that’s another story), and spent my high school years as a ballerina dancing nearly 20 hours per week. In college I stopped dancing but focused more on the gym, then dabbled in tennis, then long-distance running in graduate school.

As an adult I settled into a comfortable routine of working at my desk or lab bench, then spending at least an hour at the gym 5-6 days per week. Most of us would not consider this a sedentary lifestyle, and indeed it is far more active than most Americans. Unfortunately, spending long stretches of time sitting throughout the day is considered sedentary and has been shown to increase metabolic risk and mortality, even in normal weight and otherwise active people. And that meant me. Scary, right?

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For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

I did a couple fun interviews last week that I’ve embedded below. The first was an interview of me on BakeSpace about losing weight eating what you love. The second was interview with friend and filmmaker Graham Hancock, one of the first readers of Foodist who has already lost 35 pounds.

This week around the internets we learn how to break the takeout addiction, burn more calories while eating less, and five of my secret ingredients on Oprah.com.

Want to see all my favorite links? (There’s lots more). Be sure to follow me on on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato,  Google+ and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you. (And yes, I took that pepper heart pic myself).

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For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

This week the importance of small amounts of exercise, new problems with fructose and why you shouldn’t eat at the wrong time of day.

Want to see all my favorite links? Be sure to follow me on on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato,  Google+ and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you. (And yes, I took that pepper heart pic myself).

Links of the week

• Good and Bad, the Little Things Add Up in Fitness <<We often think we need to make a special effort to get enough exercise, when in fact the little things we do add up and are often more important. (New York Times)
• Study: Midnight Snacks Mess Us Up on a Molecular Level <<Eating affects your circadian rhythms, and doing it at the wrong times can have negative consequences. Eat meals at consistent times and in daylight whenever possible. (The Atlantic)
• Let’s Ask Marion: Can It Really Be Healthier To Be Overweight? <<This is a great illustration of why we should avoid the temptation to oversimplify the health science that appears in the news. (Food Politics)
• Fructose Has Different Effect Than Glucose On Brain Regions That Regulate Appetite <<New data suggesting that added sugar is worse for weight control than other forms of carbohydrate. (ScienceDaily)
• CARBOHYDRATES: BAD FOR THE AGING BRAIN <<Keep in mind that body weight isn’t the only reason it’s important to eat healthy. (Dr. Weil)
• Do the Brain Benefits of Exercise Last? <<Exercise is also important for brain health, and new research (though still not peer-reviewed) suggests you need to keep it up to maintain the benefits. Big shock, right? (New York Times)
• Are You Eating These Important Supplemental Foods? <<Though this is very similar to my underrated health foods post, but it’s a great reminder and there’s a few additional ones in here worth noting. (Mark’s Daily Apple)
• How to Learn to Love Healthy Food (Even If You’re a Picky Eater) <<Fantastic advice. I agree with almost all of it. (Lifehacker)
• Exercise in Short Bursts Is Effective <<A nice reminder that for exercise, it really doesn’t take much. (Wall Street Journal)
• Moroccan Carrot and Chickpea Salad Recipe <<This looks so darn good. Moroccan food is my favorite. (101 Cookbooks)

What inspired you this week?

For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

And we’re back! Sorry for the hiatus, I had to spend a few weeks finishing up a big project I’m working on. Keep calm and carry on.

This week lard is making a comeback, salt may improve your coffee, and why we aren’t eating more GMO animals.

Want to see all my favorite links? Be sure to follow me on on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato,  Google+ and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you. (And yes, I took that pepper heart pic myself).

Links of the week

• So There’s Arsenic in Our Rice—Now What? <<This is a bit terrifying, and a great reminder of how dangerous it can be when we don’t respect our environment. (The Atlantic)
• LARD MAKING A COMEBACK <<Did you think lard was bad for you? Think again. (Dr. Weil)
• Scientists fret over FDA slowness on genetically altered animals <<BS of the week. Why anyone besides corporations would want genetically modified animals to enter our food chain faster is beyond me. They claim they can make “meat with healthier fat” (see previous article) and can remove allergens from milk (while inadvertently increasing others—as described in this article). But as these examples illustrate, we don’t understand nutrition well enough to pretend we can improve upon nature just yet. Related: If you’re in CA, vote Yes on 37. (LA Times)
• Use a Pinch of Salt to Keep Veggies Bright and Green (and Other Creative Uses for Salt) <<This is cool and worth reading. Salt supposedly improves bitter coffee and the consistency of scrambled eggs, in addition to preserving color and adding flavor. (Lifehacker)
• F.A.D.-Free Tuna Comes to Safeway – Affordably <<Good news for tuna lovers. (NY Times)
• Fish linked to heart failure risk, omega-3 results mixed <<The headline is sort of confusing, but the take home message is that eating fish is helpful while taking supplements may not be. (Medline)
• BUILD STAMINA WITH STAIR CLIMBING <<Taking the stairs is an underrated way to improve fitness. (Dr. Weil)
• Exposure to Herbicide May Increase Risk of Rare Disorder <<Yet another reason to avoid herbicides and pesticides, particularly if you’re pregnant. (ScienceDaily)
• ChefSteps Offers Free Online Culinary Lessons from Modernist Cuisine Alumni <<This looks beyond awesome. I can’t wait. (Lifehacker)
• SPICED LENTIL SOUP WITH COCONUT MILK <<Looks like a delicious fall dish. Lentils and coconut pair beautifully together. (Sprouted Kitchen)

What inspired you this week?

It’s amazing to me how easy it is to forget to move.

This year was the first time in about 5 years that I found myself gaining weight. It wasn’t a lot, just 5 lbs over 6 months or so, but it was strange for me since I didn’t think I was doing anything different.

I write and think about healthy living all the time, and I absolutely love the food I eat. I no longer crave sugar, and avoiding it isn’t hard. If anything I have eaten healthier than ever during this time, since I started working at home and control 100% of my meals. I’ve been eating the same or better quality food than I always have, and have even improved on my mindful eating techniques.

So what gives?

I didn’t think the problem was exercise, since I still go to the gym 4-6 days a week. My workouts have actually gotten better, and I’ve noticed welcome improvements in several aspects of my physique (thank you kettlebell!). I wasn’t upset about how I looked, I had just gotten slightly larger and didn’t know why.

Then about 6 weeks ago I figured it out: I had stopped walking.

When I was still in my PhD program I had a substantial walk to work, at least a mile each way if I took the campus shuttle, and about 2.5 miles each way if I walked the whole distance (I did this rarely, but tried to squeeze it in when I could). I also worked in the lab, running back and forth between rooms and up and down stairs to get equipment. Though I came home each evening and worked on Summer Tomato until the wee hours of the morning, I was not sedentary.

Even during my brief stint in the corporate world after graduation I had a walking commute to work. But after I quit in January I just stayed at home writing. At first I had a standing desk/table I was using, but logistics and a problematic elbow forced me to move to the coffee shop across the street where most of my work gets done now. This sedentary shift correlates exactly with when I noticed my pants getting tighter.

What’s crazy to me is that this amount of exercise seems so inconsequential it doesn’t even register in my brain until months after the change has occurred (did I mention I was still working out almost every day?). And it’s not like I never think about this stuff, I noticed when I first started walking that I effortlessly dropped weight. How could I forget that non-exercise activity (NEAT) is so important?

It’s easy to forget, but this is good news. It means that it is not a chore to burn more calories—in fact, you will hardly notice. All you need to do is make an effort to be a little more active throughout the day, and work to build more activity into your daily routine.

To solve my problem, I turned to my puppy Toaster. He needs to get out and walk a few times a day, so I thought why not improve both of our lives by making a daily pilgrimage to the bigger, better park that’s about a mile from the house instead of the smaller, dirtier park that is closer and more convenient? He gets more exercise and behaves better, I get my walk in, and we both have more fun. Win-win.

I’m happy to report that my pants are fitting better again and I’m back down to my normal weight.

If you don’t have a dog, there are plenty of other ways to move more. Avoid elevators and escalators, walk to lunch or between floors in your building, do chores more enthusiastically at home and park further away in the parking lot. Just standing up more can make a difference. These things add minuscule amounts of time to your tasks but add up significantly for your health.

Unlike structured, high-intensity exercise, walking and other low-intensity movements don’t make you hungrier. There’s good evidence that increasing your daily activity can burn hundreds of extra calories each day and may be one of the most effective ways to impact your energy balance (i.e. burn more without eating more). This is not true of more formal exercise, which tends to make people hungrier. Importantly, non-exercise activity correlates with body weight in obese as well as normal weight individuals, so everyone can benefit from extra movement.

Even if you already work out regularly you should still strive for additional daily activity. Amazingly, high-intensity exercise doesn’t lower your inclination toward NEAT, but raises it. In one study, scientists measured NEAT 3 days before and 3 days after overweight individuals performed either moderate or high-intensity exercise. There was no measurable change in NEAT until the third day after exercise, when it increased 17% after moderate activity and 25% after intense activity. That’s impressive.

When you’re as busy as I am, it’s easy to make excuses about why extra effort is impossible. But adding a little extra movement to your normal, daily activities is far and away the easiest way to lose weight and improve your health, so why not?

I’ve also found a substantial meditative value in incorporating more physical activity. Several of my most complex problems have been solved during my walks and I’ve been plowing through podcasts and audiobooks, which I swear makes me smarter. Your brain truly appreciates a break from the screen.

Ironically, it took noticing that I was “reading” less to make me examine what was different in my life—I realized I was listening to fewer audiobooks because I was walking less, and put 2 and 2 together. Problem solved.

It’s easy to be lazy and just wait for the elevator with everyone else, even though you know the time it saves you is insignificant. But today I hope I’ve convinced you that it’s worth resisting that urge and making an effort to be more active. Try making it a game or competing with your friends using pedometers like the FitBit for extra motivation.

Love these tips? Subscribe now to get more healthy eating tips and recipes. 

Originally published September 12, 2011.

For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

This week my biggest fear about GMO has come true, why your kids might be eating Twinkies for breakfast and 101 reasons to walk more and take the stairs.

Want to see all my favorite links? Be sure to follow me on on Digg. I also share links on Twitter (@summertomato), Google+ and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• Insects Find Crack In Biotech Corn’s Armor <<I’ve never been nearly as worried about the effects of GMO foods on human health as about food security and sustainable ecology. This is exactly the sort of thing we should be worried about, and it only took 15 years. (NPR)
• Certain plate colors may help you eat less <<I love psychological tricks like this. (ABC News)
• Some children’s cereals packed with sugar, study finds <<Duh of the week. Are you surprised that breakfast cereals have as much sugar as a Twinkie? I’m not. (Washington Post)
• A little reward might get kids to eat veggies <<I like this because it seems simple and effective. I don’t have kids, but if you try this let me know how it works out. (Medline)
• Not all fish oil supplements pass muster, Consumer Reports says <<Be careful with the supplements you take. Check Consumer Labs or Consumer Reports for the latest info. (Los Angeles Times)
• Environmental Claims For Farmed Fish Don’t Hold Up To Scrutiny <<Hopefully one day the standards for fish will be up to par, until then take eco-labels with a grain of salt. (NPR)
• Taking the stairs makes you more fit, saves you time, study says <<Though I imagine this isn’t always true and depends on several factors, I’ve always found taking the stairs to be more than worth it in most situations. (Los Angeles Times)
• Want to Cut Chocolate Cravings? Take a Walk <<Isn’t it cool how that works? (Medline)
• KALE, CRANBERRY & QUINOA SALAD <<What a beautiful idea for a healthy and seasonal dish. (Beyond the Plate)
• 23 and 1/2 hours: What is the single best thing we can do for our health? <<I insist that you watch this. Insist.

What inspired you this week?

For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

We have some fabulous reading this week including a dose of reality for the cavepeople in the room, some scary news about the effect of pollution on birth defects, and a TV commercial that makes me want to ride my bike to France.

Want to see all my favorite links? Be sure to follow me on on Digg. I also share links on Twitter (@summertomato), Google+ and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• The Five Failings of Paleo <<As many of you know I agree with a lot of the paleo diet tenets, but have been known to criticize it as well. This post sums up my objections brilliantly. (Free The Animal)
• Hitting the Road to Get to Work, and Back <<I love this. I’m a huge fan of the active commute. (New York Times)
• FDA Asleep on the Job? New Study Has Harsh Criticism for How Agency Determined that Gulf Seafood was Safe <<From the new report: “53% of Gulf shrimp samples were above levels of concern for pregnant women.” Nice one FDA, you are now the proud distributor of today’s BS of the week. (On Earth)
• Pollutants Linked to 450 Percent Increase in Risk of Birth Defects in Rural China <<One reason to consider going organic during pregnancy, 450% is a big number. Scary stuff. (ScienceDaily)
• IOM releases tough report on front-of-package labeling <<Excellent analysis of the new food packaging label debate. I hope this gets implemented, though I doubt it will. (Food Politics)
• Is MSG Safe? (Part 1 of 2) <<People ask me about MSG sometimes, and this is promising to be a good analysis. Note: I didn’t link to the full article because it has an annoying auto-play feature. You might want to turn down your volume before clicking over. (Nutrition Over Easy)
• Hold the fries! Men who eat junk food are more likely to be infertile <<Want to test it out? (Daily Mail)
• Omega-3 Fatty Acids Shown to Prevent or Slow Progression of Osteoarthritis <<More good news for fish eaters. (ScienceDaily)
• Pulled Pork & Roasted Tomato Donburi (Rice Bowl) à la Ivan Ramen <<I’m infatuated with Japanese food right now, and can’t wait for my trip to Tokyo in April. Thanks for the preview Fuji Mama!
• Exercise can’t always be this much fun, but it can be enjoyable <<Why doesn’t America have commercials this cool?! (note: hide your kids, hide your wife) Also, the article I link to above makes some good points about exercise. (via Los Angeles Times)

What inspired you this week?