Uncategorized Archives - Shane Weight Loss Camps & Resorts

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

The Health Benefits: “Secrets of the Superfruit”

Tuesday, January 29th, 2013

Camp Shane Office wants to share this article from Time Magazine

By Alexandra Sifferlin Monday, Jan. 21, 2013

Pitaya - Super Fruit

Director, David Ettenberg of Camp Shane and Shane Diet & Fitness Resorts was reading this article in the Time Magazine and wanted to share it with our blog readers. We are always looking for ways to stay healthy and this new super fruit caught our attention. Somewhere in a warehouse near downtown Philadelphia, Eric Helms is hoarding pitayas. “It is low in sugar,” he explains of the Nicaragua-grown fruit, “and it’s very of the moment.” Or so he hopes: now that he’s bought exclusive U.S. importing rights to the pitaya, he’s blending it into upwards-of-$8 concoctions at his Juice Generation bars in New York City. In a few months, he says, it just might become America’s next great superfruit.

He’s not alone. After the success Pom Wonderful has had juicing high-antioxidant pomegranates, a new generation of entrepreneurs is aiming to parlay the health benefits of other fringe crops into million-dollar superfruit empires. In the past year alone, we’ve witnessed the emergence of the golden berry, the baobab fruit, the lingonberry and others.

But are they really as healthy as they seem? Like all fruits, superfruits tend to be high in fiber and antioxidants, which make them better snacks than most. But experts worry that the superfruit label–which comes from marketers, not the FDA–tricks people into thinking a single serving can confer all health benefits, “which is not true,” says Jeffrey Blumberg, a nutrition professor at Tufts University. In the right mix, though, pitayas and their ilk can indeed be super. They just might have to mingle with the masses. “Apples and bananas are good too,” says Blumberg.

Take the time to look for these new super fruits in you local grocery stores. I have seen some exotic one’s arriving at my local market on a regular basis. It never hurts to try something new. The kids will find it exciting as well because it is not something they are use to having.

Visit us at www.campshane.com and www.shanedietresorts.com

Email This Post

Tags: Camp Shane, fruits, healthy diet, healthy eating, healthy snacks, pitayas, Shane Diet Resorts, snacks, super fruits, superfruits
Posted in Healthy Eating, Healthy Lifestyles, Nutrition in the News, Uncategorized | No Comments »

5 Diet Myths That Pack on Pounds

Tuesday, January 29th, 2013

At Camp Shane, we educate our campers on nutrition, fitness and making lifestyle choices that create a foundation for effective weight loss and long-term health. According to a recent ABC News article, many popular misconceptions about dieting can keep you from taking the right course of action to reach your goals. Blaming weight gain on any of these half-truths will keep you stuck in your rut and derail your motivation, says Julia Valentour, MS, program coordinator and media spokesperson for the American Council on Exercise.

Here are five of the most pervasive diet-related rumors and the real scoop on how to hit your goal weight for good.

1. “Strength training will bulk me up”

First, let’s tackle the myth that a pound of muscle weighs more than a pound of fat. A pound is a pound – whether it’s made up of muscle or fat. That said, muscle is denser than fat and takes up less room, so two women who weigh the same can look much different if one has a higher ratio of lean muscle mass to fat, says Valentour. “Muscle weight is a good weight because you look firmer, smaller, and fitter. It’s also more metabolically active, so just having more muscle will boost metabolis

It’s important to incorporate strength training into your routine so you burn calories at an optimal rate all day long—and using heavier weights could help maximize your efforts. Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that working out with heavy weights even for as few as 3 to 6 repetitions increased exercisers’ sleeping metabolic rate—the number of calories burned overnight—by nearly 8%. That’s enough to lose about 5 pounds in a year, even if you did nothing else!

2. “I exercise every day, so I can eat whatever I want”

Would be nice, right? But that’s not how it works if you’re trying to lose weight, unfortunately. “You can out-eat your workout,” says Valentour. Even though you burn calories and fat when you exercise, it’s often not as much as you think—or what the readout on the treadmill tells you.

Valentour recommends eating 250 fewer calories per day and aiming to burn an extra 250 calories a day; that creates enough of a calorie deficit to achieve an average weight loss of a pound a week.

3. “It’s harder for women to lose weight than for men”

Okay, this one has some basis. Biologically, men are built with more lean muscle mass (the compact, tight muscles that keep metabolism humming) than women are—meaning his metabolism is working at a 5 to 10% higher rate (even if he’s the same height and weight as you) when you’re lying on the couch together. Annoying, isn’t it?

Another biological challenge women face is that we generally have more body fat than men do, and our bodies are more inclined to store it. On top of that, women lose about 1/2 pound of calorie-burning muscle mass a year during perimenopause and sometimes a pound a year during menopause. With the deck stacked against you, why bother trying to fit back in your skinny jeans?

You can do something about these problems, but it’s going to take some work—and sweat. Add strength training to your fitness routine at least twice a week to shed fat and build lean muscle mass that will fire up your resting metabolism.

4. “All calories are equal, so it doesn’t matter what I eat”

Ever since you learned what a calorie is, you’ve been told that they’re all alike: Whether you eat 500 calories’ worth of celery stalks or cake, your body will burn or store them equally, right? Wrong. New science shows that when it comes to weight loss, calories are nowhere near alike.

Some foods take more work to eat—and therefore burn more calories while you’re digesting them. Just the act of chewing fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean cuts of meat can increase your calorie burn by up to 30%! And then your stomach and intestines do their jobs. In a Japanese study, researchers found that women who ate the foods that required the most work had significantly slimmer waistlines than those who ate the softest, easiest-to-eat foods. The fiber and protein in such foods take so much effort to digest that your body doesn’t absorb some of their calories.

The Active Calorie Diet is a smart new plan from Prevention magazine that takes advantage of all the new knowledge about calories. By choosing more Active Calories and fewer processed foods, you’ll set your fat-burning engines on high all day long so you’ll lose more weight—without feeling hungry.

5. “Eating fat will make me fat”

Fat-free products are so-o-o over. There’s nothing special about fat that packs on pounds: Getting enough fat in your diet—the Institute of Medicine recommends that it make up 20 to 35% of calories—is essential for good health, but the type of fat matters.

Monounsaturated fats – MUFAs – come from the healthy oils found in plant foods such as olives, nuts, and avocados. A report published in the British Journal of Nutrition found that a MUFA-rich diet helped people lose small amounts of weight and body fat without changing their calorie intakes. Another report found that a breakfast high in MUFAs could boost calorie burn for 5 hours after the meal, particularly in people with higher amounts of belly fat. Pair these delicious healthy fats with a reduced-calorie eating plan and you’ll lose weight and reduce belly fat.

Limit saturated fats and avoid trans- fats in your diet. Both kinds can cause health problems.

Read the full article here.

Camp Shane has weight loss programs for children, teens, young adults and adults in New York, Arizona, California, Georgia, and Texas. Visit us on the web at www.campshane.com or www.shanedietresorts.com. You can find us on Facebook (Camp Shane), Twitter@campshane, YouTube, or call 914-271-4141.

Email This Post

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

HOW ADDICTIVE IS SUGAR – THE AFFECTS IT HAS ON OBESITY

Friday, January 25th, 2013

This article was provided by a Camp Shane employee who’s family lives in the UK. We found it to be so true and wanted our blog readers to see that not only is sugar consumption a problem in the United States, but also a problem in other countries. Read on and see that there are things we can do to help not only ourselves but our children have a healthier quality of life. That we have the control to not only stop childhood obesity but yet another way to lose weight. I know that I have cut out all soda and am a firm believer in WATER as the perfect thirst quencher.

How addictive is sugar?

Sugary drinks do not fill up children as fast as the solid form of sugar, so there is a risk of overconsumption

Prime Minster David Cameron revealed this week in the House of Commons that he has trouble stopping his three children from over-indulging on sugary, fizzy drinks.

His comments came after Labour MP Keith Vaz, who has Type 2 diabetes, reminded him that a third of all primary school leavers are obese or overweight, yet they consume cans of cola that contain up to eight teaspoons of sugar.

So how important is sugar in the fight against obesity?

A study published this week in the British Medical Journal investigated the link between sugar consumption and body weight by looking at the results of previous studies. It found that getting people to reduce sugar intake in their diet was associated with a reduction in their weight of about 2.2lb (1kg) in adults.

The findings also suggested that sugar increases body weight by promoting overconsumption of energy. In other words, the taste of sugar could lead us to want to eat more of it.

The idea that sugar is bad for our health is not new.

Forty years ago, a book written by British physiologist John Yudkin claimed that high sugar consumption was linked to heart disease.

“You can make dog poop taste good with enough sugar.”

Prof Robert LustigUniversity of California

We know that sugar also causes tooth decay and that eating too much sugar-laden food can lead to a poor diet lacking in nutrients.

But some experts say that sugar has actually helped to fuel the obesity epidemic.

‘Toxin’

Robert Lustig, professor of paediatrics at the University of California, is well-known for his research into the effects of dietary sugar. He believes that sugar is addictive.

In a recent interview he said: “There are five tastes on your tongue: sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami.

“Sugar covers up the other four, so you can’t taste the negative aspects of foods. You can make dog poop taste good with enough sugar.”

Lustig goes on to say that table sugar known as sucrose, which is a made of two sugars (glucose and fructose) chemically bound to each other, is identical to high fructose corn syrup – which he describes as a “chronic toxin”.

Dr Alex Richardson, senior research fellow at the University of Oxford and founder director of the UK charity Food and Behaviour Research, agrees with Lustig and says that there is far too much sugar and empty carbohydrates in children’s diets.

A spoonful of sugar in every cup of tea adds up…

“We find that highly processed foods are making up massively more of children’s diets. Things like cakes, biscuits, snacks and crisps.

“Fruit and vegetables are so vital for children. They provide essential vitamins and minerals, but so often a third of a plate of child’s food is sugary rubbish and a small amount is veg or fruit.”

She warns that a diet high in sugar could lead, in the long term, to Type 2 diabetes.

Full up

Sugar comes in all shapes and sizes. It can occur naturally in fruit and milk, which is not a concern, but when sugar is added to foods such as cereals, desserts, confectionery, processed meals and soft drinks it can become a problem in large quantities.

Sugar can be listed under the names sucrose, glucose, fructose and maltose in the ingredients.

‘Added sugars’, as they are known, are a good source of energy but provide no other nutrients.

Sugary drinks are thought to represent more of a health issue because they do not fill us up as quickly as the sugars in solid food do.

The British Dietetic Association’s advice on sugar says: “Some research suggests that sugary drinks make it harder for us to regulate the overall amount of calories eaten and a regular intake may be a factor contributing to obesity in children.”

Sugar consumption in the UK has declined whilst obesity and diabetes rates have increased”

Sugar Nutrition UK

But the BDA maintains that sugar does not makes us fat.

“Sugary foods and drinks can only make us gain weight if overall we eat more calories than we use for energy.”

Sugar Nutrition UK, a research body which is funded by the sugar manufacturers, refutes the suggestion that sugar is toxic or addictive.

“Sweet treats are not toxic. Major expert committees have considered the evidence in regards to sugars and all of the diseases addressed by Lustig, and all have concluded that there is no evidence of any harm attributed to current sugar consumption levels.”

They also said that sugar intake was not increasing in line with obesity rates.

“Sugar consumption in the UK has declined whilst obesity and diabetes rates have increased. Data from the government’s national dietary surveys show that intakes of sugars have declined over the last decade, whilst rates of obesity and diabetes have been increasing.”

The Labour party has called on the government to set legal limits on sugar, fat and salt in some foods to tackle the rise in obesity.

The Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt responded by saying that through voluntary agreements with food manufacturers progress was being made to encourage the production of healthier foods – and tackle obesity.

At present, the World Health Organization recommends that added sugar intake should be limited to 10% of total energy intake but the American Heart Association suggests a lower limit of 5%.

Improving the quality of carbohydrates and reducing intakes of refined grain products and potatoes is also recommended in a bid to lower sugar intake in the general population.

If the sugar product is in the refrigerator or cabinet then it is accessible as an option in you or your child’s diet. Remove these products from the house and the urge to drink the sugar product will go away over a short period of time. Another trick for sugar based fruit drinks add water to them I guarantee you that your child will not even notice. Simply empty out 1/3 of the juice product and replace with water and slowly you can increase that as your child get’s used to a small amount of sugar being removed.

Camp Shane wants you to keep up the good work!!!! join us in the fight against obesity.

visit us on our website at www.campshane.com for child weight loss or for our adults looking to lose weight our resort website is www.shanedietresorts.com. KEEP ON READING OUR BLOGS.

Email This Post

Tags: Camp Shane, Childhood Obesity, children's weight loss, diet, effective weight loss, healthy diet, losing weight, obesity, obesity rate, Shane Diet Resorts, sugar, weight loss program for adults
Posted in Childhood Obesity, Diabeties, Fitness, Healthy Lifestyles, Nutrition in the News, Parenting, Uncategorized, Weight Loss Camps, Wellness | No Comments »

Figuring Out Fat and Calories

Tuesday, January 8th, 2013

At Camp Shane, we offer many nutritional resources (including cooking classes!) to help you and your child plan and understand what a healthy weight loss menu typically looks like. From all you hear, you’d think fat and calories are really bad for you. While it’s true that many people eat more fat and calories than they need, we all require a certain amount of fat and calories in our diets to fuel our growth and activities — everything from solving a math problem to racing up and down the soccer field. So what’s the truth on fat and calories?

What Are Fat and Calories?

Fats, or lipids, are nutrients in food that the body uses to build cell membranes, nerve tissue (like the brain), and hormones. The body also uses fat as fuel. The fats which aren’t burned as energy or used as building blocks are stored by the body in fat cells.

A calorie is a unit of energy that measures how much energy food provides to the body. The body needs calories to function properly.

Food Labels: Calories

Food labels list calories by the amount in each serving size. Serving sizes differ from one food to the next, so to figure out how many calories you’re eating, you’ll need to do three things:

Look at the serving size.
See how many calories there are in one serving.
Multiply the number of calories by the number of servings you’re going to eat.

For example, a bag of cookies may list THREE cookies as a serving size. So, if you eat SIX cookies, you are eating TWO servings. To figure out how many calories those two servings contain, you must double the calories in one serving.

When looking at food labels, you may be surprised at some of the serving sizes. For example, on the labels of six cold breakfast cereals, the serving size ranges from ½ cup to 1¾ cups. You would have to more than triple the smallest serving size to compare the calories in that cereal with the calories in the cereal with the largest serving size (1¾ cups). A small bag of corn chips may contain two or more servings — although most people would eat the entire bag! That’s why it’s important to check the serving size of all foods on the label.

Food Labels: Fat

When it comes to fat, labels can say many things. Low fat, reduced fat, light, and fat-free are common terms on food packages. Strict rules govern the use of these phrases. By law, fat-free foods can contain no more than 0.5 grams of fat per serving. Low-fat foods may contain 3 grams or less of fat per serving.

Foods marked reduced fat and light are a little trickier, and can be still be high in fat. The requirement for a food to be labeled light is that it must contain 50% less fat or one third fewer calories per serving than the regular version. Foods labeled reduced fat must contain 25% less fat per serving than the regular version. So, if the regular version was high in fat to start, a 25% to 50% reduction may not lower the fat content enough to make it a smart snacking choice. For example, the original version of a brand of peanut butter contains 17 grams of fat and the reduced fat version contains 12 grams. That’s still a lot of fat!

It’s helpful to know how many of the calories you eat come from fat. The 2010 U.S. dietary guidelines recommend that children ages 4-18 get 25% to 35% of their daily calories from fat. But food labels don’t always show the percentage of fat in a food. It is easy to calculate, though. Divide the number of calories from fat by the number of total calories and multiply by 100:

For example, if a 300-calorie food has 60 calories from fat, you divide 60 by 300 and then multiply by 100. The result shows that food gets 20% of its calories from fat:

4, 4, and . . . 9?

Calories in food come from carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. A gram of carbohydrate contains 4 calories. A gram of protein also contains 4 calories. However, a gram of fat contains 9 calories — more than twice the amount of the other two.

That’s why one food with the same serving size as another may have far more calories. A high-fat food has many more calories than a food that’s low in fat and higher in protein or carbohydrates.

For instance, a ½-cup serving of vanilla ice cream contain 178 total calories (8 calories from protein, 108 calories from fat, and 62 calories from carbohydrate).

Compare this with the same serving size (½ cup) of cooked carrots which contains 36 total calories (4 calories from protein, 0 calories from fat, and 32 calories from carbohydrate).

But let’s face it, who wants a heaping bowl of cooked carrots over ice cream on a hot summer day? It all comes down to making sensible food choices. The goal is to make tradeoffs that balance a higher-fat food with foods that are lower in fat to keep the fat intake at about 30% for the day. So if you really want that ice cream, it’s OK once in a while — as long as you work in some lower-fat foods that day.

Not All Fats Are the Same

Although all types of fat have the same amount of calories. Some are more harmful to your health than others. Two of the most harmful are saturated fat and trans fat. Both can increase a person’s risk of heart disease. Food labels show the amounts of saturated fats and trans fats in a particular food.

Saturated and trans fats are solid at room temperature — like butter, shortening, or the fat on meat. Saturated fat comes mostly from animal products, and in some tropical oils (such as palm kernel oil and coconut oil). Small amounts of naturally occurring trans fat are also found in whole dairy and meat products.Trans fats are often found in packaged baked goods (cookies or crackers), and can also be found in fried foods. Because saturated fat and trans fat raise blood cholesterol levels, a gram of one of these fats is worse for a person’s health than a gram of unsaturated fat. One of the most common sources of trans fat in today’s foods is partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Hydrogenation is a process that changes liquid oils into a solid form of fat by adding hydrogen.

Unsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature. Unsaturated fats can be polyunsaturated or monounsaturated. Polyunsaturated fat is found in soybean, corn, sesame and sunflower oils, or fish and fish oil. Monounsaturated fat is found in olives, olive oil or canola oil, most nuts and their oils, and avocados.

Fat and Calories in a Healthy Diet

Fats should be eaten in moderation. The American Heart Association recommends that people get as much of their daily fat intake as possible from unsaturated fats, and limit saturated fats and trans fats.

For teens, however, it’s a bad idea to try to avoid fat completely. A certain amount of fat is necessary for development, especially during puberty when the body grows very quickly. Fats are also needed to absorb certain vitamins that are essential for proper growth. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat soluble, meaning they can only be absorbed if there is fat in a person’s diet. Body fat cells also act as insulation to keep the body warm and help protect and cushion internal organs.

Like fat, you need a certain amount of calories in your diet to fuel your body. In fact, nutritionists do not recommend calorie counting for teens unless a doctor has recommended it. If you are concerned about your weight, speak to your doctor.

Maintaining a healthy weight means choosing a variety of foods that are low in fat and added sugars. Think about substitutes for foods containing a lot of sugar, fat, or calories. For example, drink water or skim milk instead of soft drinks. Or choose mustard instead of mayonnaise on your sandwich.

Being aware of the amount of fat and calories you eat makes sense, as long as you eat a balanced diet. Establishing sensible eating habits, choosing foods wisely, and exercising regularly are the keys to long-term good health.

Source: http://kidshealth.org/teen/nutrition_fitness_center/nutrition/fat_calories.html#

Email This Post

Tags: effective weight loss, healthy diet, healthy eating, portion control, weight loss camp for kids
Posted in Fitness, Healthy Eating, Healthy Lifestyles, Uncategorized | No Comments »

5 Strategies for Highly Effective New Year’s Resolutions

Friday, January 4th, 2013

Jeremy Dean, a research psychologist at University College London, doesn’t like the idea that you’ve made a New Year’s resolution yet again this year, but he knows you’ve gone ahead and made one anyway.

“Most resolutions are too vague, too hard and too spontaneous,” he says. “You’re better off taking the time to think things through and putting the necessary preparation into place so you have a chance of succeeding.

Still, if you’re going to do this thing, he wants you to do it right. Here are five strategies from Dean’s new book, Making Habits, Breaking Habits, for making your resolutions stick.

Balance good and bad

A positive outlook is a good start to a resolution but it will only get you so far. You also need to think about everything that can stand in your way.

Psychologists call this technique “mental contrasting.” It works, Dean says, because it fires up motivation and because it better prepares you for what can go wrong.It also stops you from wasting time. If a goal isn’t realistic, you’ll realize it as soon as you’ve thought through the negatives. If it’s too hard, you’ll quickly abandon it.

Focus on process

Fantasizing about being rich or thin can be oddly de-motivating, because it allows you to taste just enough success to stop you from taking action.

“You’re a lot more likely to reach your goals if you focus on the steps you need to take to get there rather than the end result itself,” Dean points out.

According to Dean, putting all your energy into process allows for the possibility of achievement even if your overall efforts are flawed. You master new habits more easily because you reinforce the skills you need to succeed whether you reach the desired result each and every try.

Think “If/ Then”

Resolutions that are too vague are doomed to failure, Dean says. But so are ones that are hyper-specific. Strike the happy medium by turning resolutions into “if/then” statements.

Let’s say your aim is to live a more active lifestyle. Starting off with the idea you’d like to walk the stairs more often, craft your goal like this: If I come to an elevator, then I will take the stairs or get off one floor early and take the stairs from there.

Such a statement links the actions you wish to take (walking stairs) with a common situation (coming to an elevator), increasing the likelihood that you’ll follow through because it allows you to hook your habit onto a chain of events in your day that’s already taking place. Just don’t tie your goals to a definite time of day. Dean says this is a no-no because it promotes clock watching and if you get off schedule for some reason, you lose the opportunity to practice your new habit.

Also, building an “or” into the “then” part of the equation gives you more choices to complete your goal.

Replace don’t erase

When most people decide to address a bad habit such as smoking or binge eating, they usually try to squelch it. You’re better off trying to replace the bad habit with a better one.

So, instead of trying to completely terminate a habit like nighttime snacking, Dean suggested replacing the junk food for which you normally reach with some fruit. Studies show this is often more successful than trying to suppress the temptation to eat altogether because it dampens your obsession and allows you to conserve your limited reserves of self-control.

Keep on repeating

Just how long does it take to create a new habit? In a study carried out at University College London, 96 participants were asked to make an everyday behavior such as drinking more water, eating more fruit or exercising into a regular practice. More than half the participants couldn’t hack it and quickly dropped out, but those who kept at it took an average of 66 days before the new routine became automatic and subconscious.

There was some variation: Simple tasks such as drinking a glass of water before breakfast took only about 20 days to take hold. Exercise proved to be the most stubborn goal; one participant who lasted until the end of the study took 84 days to make doing 50 sit ups a day a regular occurrence.

Dean said that each time you repeat the same action, consider it a mini-victory and know that it moves you one step closer to making your resolution an official habit.

“It’s like climbing a very steep hill,” he said. “It’s hard to start but eventually it levels off and by the time you get to the top, it’s a lot easier to keep going.”

Read the full article at: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ways-make-years-resolution-stick/story?id=18115180#.UOW1d-QzOM1