Buying organic: Where to save, where to splurge

Eating organic is a huge trend and is only getting bigger--even store brands are getting in on the action with generic organic products. But do you really need to buy EVERYTHING organic? Probably not. There are plenty of non-organic products you can safely eat. One rule of thumb is that if you're going to peel off the skin (avocados, bananas) you don't really need to worry about buying the organic version (unless it's the same price...if it is, why not?). If it's something that's coming straight from the farm to your mouth (lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries) then it's wise to spend a little more and go organic. Here's the "dirty dozen" list of produce that's worth the splurge and the 12 least contaminated.

12 Most Contaminated Peaches Apples Sweet Bell Peppers Celery Nectarines Strawberries Cherries Pears Grapes (Imported) Spinach Lettuce Potatoes 12 Least Contaminated Onions Avocado Sweet Corn (Frozen) Pineapples Mango Asparagus Sweet Peas (Frozen) Kiwi Fruit Bananas Cabbage Broccoli Papaya

Resting Metabolic Rate: How many calories do you actually need?

It's been awhile since I posted! Studying is taking up a lot of time and I just back from a short (but very fun) vacation. But it's time to get back at it. I've had a lot of conversations lately about how many calories to eat, and one number that I hear is 1200 per day. That is actually the very, very lowest a female is supposed to go in terms of calories. At 1200, you are flirting with the "starvation mode" line your body identifies when it decides to hold on to fat even harder to keep you from starving. If you are a very small person, 1200 might be OK for weight loss. But for most of us, ideally we'd stay in the 1400-1600 range--only a few hundred above that 1200 line, but enough for our body to know it's OK to burn off the fat!

Where does this number come from? Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) is the amount of calories your body burns just sitting on the couch all day not moving a muscle. Basically, what it takes to keep your heart pumping and your organs functioning for the body weight you currently have. The rate varies with gender, age, weight, height and activity level. The activity level is the one thing you have the most control over. There are levels 1-5 of activity levels, and the difference between being "inactive" (level 1) to "extremely active" (level 5) can be up to 1,000 calories per day! That means that someone who is at level 5 will lose 2 pounds more per week than an inactive person before you even count the exercise calories burned.

Here's an example of RMR and how you can use it to figure out calorie needs. Put your information into an RMR calculator such as this one: http://www.webmd.com/diet/healthtool-metabolism-calculator
Just to see how much activity factors into metabolism, check your rate for all 5 activity levels. Here are my numbers:
inactive: 1655
lightly active: 1896
moderately active: 2138
very active: 2379
extremely active: 2620

I consider myself "moderately active" right now. So if I eat around 1500 calories, I have a 638 calorie deficit every day through eating. In 5 or 6 days, this will translate to a 1 pound weight loss. Since this is only what your body burns (hence "resting" rate), I get to add in how many calories I burned through exercise to determine my total weight loss. Very soon, I will start training for race and at that point I will be "very active" and my body will be burning an extra 240 calories per day just because I increased that level. This translates to an extra 1/2 pound in a week not even counting my exercise calories! So you can see how important it is to be active--it truly makes an impact on your health in measurable ways. This formula also explains why it gets harder to lose weight as you get smaller. As your weight goes down, so does your RMR making it harder to get to that same calorie deficit.

One other thing I use my RMR for is to help me deal with the little fluctuations on the scale. As we all know, weight can vary by up to 5 pounds on simple things like how much water you've had or what time of the month it is. Since we know the RMR is the number it takes to MAINTAIN your weight, we also know that if you eat that number of calories you won't gain any weight. So if you use your RMR as your max calories per day (no matter what!), you know you havent gained weight no matter what the scale says. It puts a little more logic and a little less emotion into weighing in, which will hopefully keep you motivated as you continue.

What should you really be eating each day?

There are a lot of tough things I'm trying to learn right now, but one chapter I thought would be easier is the nutrition chapter, since it's something I've been teaching myself for the last several years. To some extent it has been, but there are definitely some new things I'm learning about what exactly we should be putting in our bodies every day. The government has had different variations on what it recommends for nutrition. If anyone remembers the "4 basic food groups" policy or the "food pyramid," it looks a lot different than what they are recommending today. It's a good change for sure, but in my opinion, it's pretty hard to do. Example 1: My book says that the government is now recommending 9 servings of fruits and veggies per day (I thought it was 5). Five of these are to be veggies and four are fruit. Does that seem like a ton to anyone else? I find it a bit of a challenge to work in 3 per day personally.

While I am a little skeptical of government given health advice, the new nutrition site is actually pretty cool. You can get a personalized plan based on your specific info and it gives pretty detailed info on what you should eat, etc. I just wish this was more widely publicized so it could get into the hands of people who need it! Check out the website for yourself and see what it tells you to eat: http://www.mypyramid.gov/