Calories

In an age of long commutes, late sports practices, endless workdays and 24/7 television programming, the image of Mom hanging up her dish towel at 7 p.m. and declaring "the kitchen is closed" seems a quaint relic of an earlier era. It also harks back to a thinner America. And that may be no coincidence. A new study, conducted on mice, hints at an unexpected contributor to the nation's epidemic of obesity - and, if later human studies bear it out, a possible way to have our cake and eat it too, with less risk of weight gain and the diseases that come with it. Just eat your cake - or better yet, an apple - earlier.

In an age of long commutes, late sports practices, endless workdays and 24/7 television programming, the image of Mom hanging up her dish towel at 7 p.m. and declaring "the kitchen is closed" seems a quaint relic of an earlier era. It also harks back to a thinner America. And that may be no coincidence. A new study, conducted on mice, hints at an unexpected contributor to the nation's epidemic of obesity - and, if later human studies bear it out, a possible way to have our cake and eat it too, with less risk of weight gain and the diseases that come with it. Just eat your cake - or better yet, an apple - earlier.

It was evidently good enough for Gilligan and Robinson Crusoe. But is coconut water a healthy choice for people who aren't stranded on a deserted island? A longstanding treat in tropical regions across the globe, coconut water hit U.S. supermarkets a few years back and is now being marketed with a vengeance. Sometimes billed as nature's sports drink, the slightly sour beverage has also acquired a reputation for being able to improve circulation, slow aging, fight viruses, boost immunity, and reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease and stroke.

Anyone who's gone on a diet knows: It's easier to avoid potato chips if you don't have any. So it's not a surprise that researchers found that California high school students eat less fat and sugar and fewer calories at school than their peers in states that allow the sale of snacks with more of those items. What's more, the California students didn't compensate outside of school; they ate an average of 158 calories a day fewer than students in the other states, according to the study published Monday in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.The California students' consumption outside of school was approximately the same as the students in the other states.

A calorie is . . . A unit of energy. First described in the 1800s, a calorie is technically the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius. But in the health and nutrition world, a calorie is the potential energy in food and the amount of energy the body uses, according to the American Dietetic Assn.'s Complete Food and Nutrition Guide. "We need this reference value in the same way we'd need to know how many pieces of wood to build a certain size house," said San Diego registered dietitian Janice Baker, a certified diabetes educator.

Some good buys for your health and your pocketbook: Buy fresh fruits and vegetables in season. Buy frozen otherwise. Frozen is cheaper and may even be better for you than fresh. That's because produce is usually frozen at its ripest, which is usually when it maxes out in nutrient content too. Some nutrients do break down or leach out in the freezing process, but most make it through.

Whenever I hear about some amazing way to boost resting metabolism, my male-bovine-droppings detector goes berserk. Take the perennially popular one stating that 1 pound of muscle burns an extra 50 calories a day while at rest — so if you gain 10 pounds of muscle, your resting metabolic rate (RMR) soars by an extra 500 calories each day. Awesome! And also drivel. I'm more likely to believe bears use Porta-Potties and the pope is a Wiccan. Though its origins are uncertain, any number of fitness magazines have made the "50 calories per pound of muscle" statement.

A medium-sized popcorn and medium soda at the nation's largest movie chain pack the nutritional equivalent of three Quarter Pounders topped with 12 pats of butter, according to a report released today by the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest. The group's second look at movie theater concessions -- the last was 15 years ago -- found little had changed in a decade and a half, despite theaters' attempts to reformulate. CSPI bought multiple servings of popcorn from the three largest movie chains, Regal Entertainment Group, AMC and Cinemark, and had them analyzed in an independent lab. It found that a Regal medium popcorn -- 20 cups -- contains 1,200 calories, 60 grams of saturated fat, and 980 milligrams of sodium.

Feeding a sweet tooth won't just lead to weight gain and a mouthful of cavities. A new study suggests that diets high in added sugars can alter levels of important blood fats and increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. The study, published in the Wednesday edition of the Journal of the American Medical Assn., found that people who got at least 25% of their daily calories from added sugars of any kind were 3.1 times more likely to have low levels of so-called good cholesterol in their bloodstream than people who got less than 5% of their calories from added sweeteners.

When 11-year-old Matthew Garcia of Lancaster wants to get some exercise, he bypasses the two bicycles in his garage and heads to the Antelope Valley Family YMCA for one of his favorite workouts ? an electronic game with light-up targets and a scoreboard that tests his throwing, catching and speed skills. At home, he jumps on the Wii Fit alone, or with his mother. When he's working out, he has one thing on his mind, and it's not his heart rate: "I always think about how much fun I'm having.

When it comes to weight control, exercise doesn't matter. Non-exercise is what counts. That may sound like heresy, but, in fact, it's a theory based on years of highly respected research - and the science behind a little high-tech gizmo called the Gruve Solution. The Gruve is one of a gaggle of gadgets called personal activity monitors that you can carry in your pocket, hang on a keychain, wear like a watch. In this case, you "get your Gruve on" - as its maker, Gruve Technologies, likes to say - by attaching it to your waistband.

Burger King is getting healthier -- or so the fast-food chain would have you believe. BK has unveiled a new menu that includes 10 dishes it says will appeal to diet- and fitness-conscious consumers. These taste treats include Caesar salads, smoothies and wraps. "We spent the last year analyzing every aspect of our business to better understand what our guests expect from the Burger King dining experience," says Steve Wiborg, the company's North American president. "We found that consumers wanted a broader range of menu options to complement our signature fire-grilled burgers.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new contestant in the who-can-top-this outrageous new fast food item: the bacon milkshake from Jack in the Box. The bacon shake is made with no actual bacon, just real vanilla ice cream, bacon-flavored syrup, whipped topping and a maraschino cherry, according to the website. We were thinking this had to be the most trayf food known to mankind before we saw the ingredient list. We'll get to the nutritional info in a minute. The item is proving to be somewhat polarizing, with some people loving the product (or the idea of it, at least)

Staying on a diet while eating out is getting easier as more restaurant chains offer menu items that don't break the calorie bank. The newest entrant is the Daily Grill, which just debuted its Simply 600 menu. The lunch and dinner items , which are 600 calories or less, include a blackened ahi tuna salad (319 calories), a pan-seared salmon burger (554 calories), fish tacos (548), a Thai noodle chicken salad (472) and chicken meatballs with angel hair pasta (590 calories). Fat grams were not revealed.

Eating out can be a minefield for dieters -- even the most healthful-looking salad can contain more than 1,000 calories. But a study that used education and a mindful approach to eating proved successful in getting participants to lose weight while dining out. The study, released Tuesday in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior , included 35 healthy women age 40 to 59 who ate out often -- on average 5.6 times a week. Some were assigned to attend six weekly sessions that focused on education and mindful eating meditations designed to help people consume less fat and fewer calories while eating out and prevent weight gain.

Eating excess calories will add extra pounds, but eat too little protein and you could be putting more fat on your body, a study suggests. The study, released Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. , looked at how three diets with different protein contents influenced weight gain and body composition. Those findings may have larger implications for combating obesity. Researchers, led by Dr. George Bray of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana,  put 25 people age 18 to 35 on a weight maintenance diet for 13 to 25 days.

Americans are eating out more and more: According to the National Restaurant Assn., 49% of every food dollar in the U.S. is now spent in restaurants, up from 25% in 1955. What that means is we have less and less control over just what goes into our food — and the numbers, now available per California law, are sometimes shocking. Even healthful-seeming selections can pack a calorie-, fat-, salt- or sugar-laden punch. Salads, long touted as a virtuous choice, are a prime example.

Hey, boys and girls, it's free Slurpee day at 7-Eleven stores! To celebrate the company's sort-of birthday (check the date - it's 7/11. Get it?) the company is giving away 7.11-ounce Slurpees at participating stores. But because this is a blog about health we couldn't let this auspicious occasion pass without letting you know what you'll be sucking down if you give in to the Slurpee. Most 8-ounce Slurpees weigh at in about 70 calories, which isn't too bad in the grand scheme of things, provided you don't pair it with a couple of Twinkies, a bag of Doritos and some Skittles.

Think nothing gets through to teenagers when it comes to making better dietary choices? Try telling the texting, video-game-playing, sofa-bound generation what it'll take to burn off the calories in one of their favorite soft drinks and they will run -- not walk, run! -- for the bottle of water beside it, a new study suggests. A message that required a bit more calculation -- the percentage of daily calorie intake a soda represents -- also succeeded in discouraging the purchase of sugar-sweetened beverages.

If shopping is a sport, does that mean you can burn serious calories doing it? Yes, and that's good news to all you Black Friday and weekend shoppers hitting the stores. An average 150-pound person can burn about 470 to 500 calories in three hours shopping -- not too shabby and no doubt needed after yesterday's turkey, stuffing and pie, which, for some, totaled thousands of calories. But you augment that by thinking of your shopping expedition as a workout sans gym. We spoke with Studio City-based personal trainer Robert Reames of Gold's Gym Fitness Institute about how to maximize those hours in the mall.