Nicci Micco

The Best Dietary Supplements That Just Might Save Your Life

Erin McCormick-Interactive Producer — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 21:09:21 +0000

These Supplements May Save Your Life…

Danielle Schupp, a registered dietitian who is affiliated with a top fitness club in New York City, works with people who are generally committed to a healthy lifestyle. Her clients eat well, exercise and take the supplements—vitamins and minerals—they think they need. The problem, as Schupp notes, is they often don’t really know what they need. “I had a client in her mid-forties who had recently discovered her bone density was low,” recalls Schupp.

Nicci Micco

Anna Roufos

The truth about vitamin and mineral diet supplements.

December 2006

4 Reasons to Love Milk

Paula Joslin — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 19:01:22 +0000

1. It helps keep your weight in check.

Several observational studies show that people who consume more dairy products weigh less and have less body fat than those who consume less. Milk seems to satisfy our hunger better than other drinks—perhaps due to its protein, suggests a study published in 2009 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. In that study, people who drank skim milk felt fuller and ate less at their next meal than people who drank a fruit drink.

Nicci Micco

Why milk is good for your body.

July/August 2010

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Do You Need An Omega-3 Supplement?

Paula Joslin — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 21:08:25 +0000

If you don’t eat fish—the main food source of the omega-3s DHA and EPA—at least two to three times a week, you might consider a supplement (or fortified foods), says Joe Hibbeln, M.D., Acting Chief, Section on Nutritional Neurosciences at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Here’s help.

Nicci Micco

Find out how to decide if taking extra Omega-3 is right for you.

May/June 2010

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The Delicious Dinner Diet

Penelope Wall-Web Producer/Writer — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:26:10 +0000

Dieting used to be about what you couldn’t eat: Fat. Carbohydrates. Anything that wasn’t cabbage soup. But the latest science shows that when it comes to losing weight, what’s most important isn’t really what you’re eating. It’s how much.

Nicci Micco

A tried-and-true approach to losing weight the healthy way.

January/February 2010

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How to Score a Healthier Heart

Sarah Hoff — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:24:02 +0000

With the NFL playoffs under way, even part-time football fans are tuning in on Sundays: rooting for favorite teams, challenging refs’ calls, cringing when a player gets injured. But few on the sidelines are thinking about these guys’ hearts—and neither are the players, says Leslie Bonci, R.D., C.S.S.D., team nutritionist for the Pittsburgh Steelers, reigning Super Bowl champions. “The worst they’re thinking about is an injury. It isn’t a heart attack now or 20 years down the road,” says Bonci, author of Sport Nutrition for Coaches (Human Kinetics, 2009).

Nicci Micco

Pittsburgh Steelers nutritionist Leslie Bonci helps players eat to beat the odds of heart disease.

January/February 2010

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EatingWell's 500-Calorie Dinner Challenge

Nifer — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:14:42 +0000

The best way to lose weight is to set a daily calorie goal and keep yourself accountable to that goal by keeping a food diary. But how do you cut calories from your diet sensibly?

Jessie Price

Nicci Micco

Jump-start your weight loss with our 500-Calorie Dinner Challenge!

EatingWell 500 Calorie Dinners (2010)

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3 Ways to Beat Your Age

Penelope Wall-Web Producer/Writer — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:24:39 +0000

A poor diet and couch-potato tendencies are two ways to accelerate aging—but they’re not the only behaviors that can make you old beyond your years. In YOU: Staying Young: The Owner’s Manual for Extending Your Warranty (Free Press), just out, Mehmet C. Oz, M.D., and Michael F. Roizen, M.D., discuss other “major agers” and ways to combat them. Here are three tips from the book to get you started.

1. Squelch stress.

They say: “Stress isn’t just something you write off as a need for spa treatments; it’s a major biological driver of aging.”

Nicci Micco

Tips on staying young from Mehmet C. Oz, M.D. and Michael F. Roizen, M.D.

November/December 2007

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What Does a 1,500 Calorie Diet Look Like?

Nifer — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:13:56 +0000

Most people will lose weight on a daily diet of 1,500 calories, which is the total calorie count for all the food pictured above. If you want to be even more precise about cutting calories, this simple calculation will give you a daily calorie goal that can help you lose a healthy 1 to 2 pounds per week.

Calculate your calorie goal

YOUR CURRENT WEIGHT X 12 = calories needed to maintain your weight

To lose 1 pound/week: Cut 500 calories/day
To lose 2 pounds/week: Cut 1,000 calories/day

Nicci Micco

Create your own 1,500-calorie day with these delicious and satisfying meals to help you lose weight.

EatingWell 500 Calorie Dinners (2010)

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Should You Buy Organic Apples?

Penelope Wall-Web Producer/Writer — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 17:08:34 +0000

As a nutrition editor, I know the value of eating loads of fruits and vegetables. I prefer to buy local when I can, but I’ve never been a purist about eating only organic. Now that I’m a mom, there are some foods I feel more comfortable about buying organic. Apples are one of these foods. Twenty-five years ago, mothers had to worry about Alar, a spray used to redden apples and make them ripen at the same time. Luckily, I don’t have to: Alar’s manufacturer pulled it from the market in 1989 after reports linked the chemical to cancer.

Nicci Micco

Plus, 4 ways to reduce your exposure to pesticide residues.

September/October 2009

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The Family Tree: Celebrate Fall with a Trip to the Apple Orchard

Penelope Wall-Web Producer/Writer — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:20:25 +0000

Big fluffy clouds—the kind that morph into elephants and dragons, old-man faces and battleships—float across a cerulean sky. The air is crisp and scented with sweet fruit and fresh-cut hay.

A wagon trundles by every 15 minutes or so, carrying a cargo of laughing kids and their parents. Honeybees buzz purposefully from tree to tree. Normally, stinging insects freak me out. But not when I’m picking apples.

These are some of the most vivid images of my childhood.

Nicci Micco

Bring home the bounty to enjoy in these savory and sweet apple recipes.

September/October 2009

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Hard Cider-Braised Lamb Shanks

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Healing with Honey

Sarah Hoff — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:46:30 +0000

The ancient Egyptians, Chinese, Greeks and Romans all considered honey a basic component of any first-aid kit and today, we’re hearing more and more about honey’s healing power. We sort through the claims and the science.

A Diet Helper?

Nicci Micco

Sorting through the claims and science of the health benefits of honey.

March/April 2009

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A Diet Helper? In a 2008 study in the Journal of Food Science, scientists reported that rats that were fed a honey-sweetened diet gained 23 percent less weight than those that ate food spiked with refined sugar over one year. (One rat year equals about 20 human ones.) “The honey we used was high in antioxidants so it is possible that this led to greater fat burning,” says Lynne Chepulis, Ph.D., lead researcher and author of the book Healing Honey (Brown Walker Press, 2008). Chepulis points to research linking other antioxidant-rich foods (e.g., green tea) with speeding up your metabolism. But not all honeys are rich in antioxidants. Another study, published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, found that the most common type of honey—clover—doesn’t have many more antioxidants than refined sugar.

Bottom line: Research linking honey with weight-loss benefits is preliminary at best. Adding any sweetener to your diet without subtracting another can lead to weight gain.

A Cough syrup? Researchers at Penn State University tested honey against dextromethorphan—the active ingredient in most cough medicines—as a cough suppressant in children and found honey to be more effective. Sweetness may be honey’s “active ingredient.” The brain part that registers sweet tastes and the part that causes coughing are located near each other so sensing sweetness may affect coughing, says author Ian M. Paul, M.D., who published the study in 2007 in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

Bottom line: If you’re trying to soothe a child’s cough, or yours, try honey. Don’t give it to a baby younger than one: honey may contain spores of a bacteria that causes botulism, which an infant’s immature immune system can’t handle.

Relief from Allergies? The theory is this: Honeybees gather pollen from the very plants that cause your itchy eyes, so consuming a small daily dose of the local honey—and subsequently these pollens—may stimulate your immune system and reduce allergies, explains Miguel P. Wolbert, an allergist and immunologist at the Allergy & Asthma Care Center in Evansville, Indiana. But the pollens that cause sneezing and congestion—such as ragweed—are windborne, while the pollens bees collect are too heavy to fly in the breeze. Windborne pollens can fall onto flowers, get picked up by bees and end up in honey, says Wolbert, “but it’s likely to be a very, very small amount.” Not enough to make a difference. And, so far, no clinical evidence shows that honey alleviates allergy symptoms.

Bottom line: It’s not likely that honey will help your allergies, says Wolbert, but, “I don’t tell my patients not to eat it.”

High-Fructose Corn Syrup and Mercury

Penelope Wall-Web Producer/Writer — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:31:15 +0000

Two studies released January 26, 2009 reveal that high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), an ingredient common in processed foods, may contain mercury. One of the studies, published in the journal Environmental Health, found that almost half of 20 commercial HFCS samples tested contained mercury. The second report revealed that of 55 foods tested—including yogurts, salad dressings and condiments containing HFCS—about one-third had detectable mercury levels.

Nicci Micco

What you need to know about high-fructose corn syrup and mercury.

EatingWell talked through the findings with an author of both studies, David Wallinga, M.D., food and health director of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. Here’s what you should know:

1. Mercury in fish has been linked with thwarted brain development in babies. Mercury, a heavy metal, occurs naturally in the environment and is released into the air through industrial pollution. It can accumulate in streams and oceans where certain microorganisms can turn it into methylmercury, a highly toxic form of mercury that accumulates in fish and shellfish. (Generally, fish that are higher on the food chain and live longer contain more mercury.) Methylmercury is known to have toxic effects on the nervous system.

While there’s no conclusive evidence that, at levels found in fish, mercury is a danger to adults, it is a concern for the very young, whose nervous systems are still developing. Thus, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency recommend that women of childbearing age and young children avoid certain types of fish that contain high levels of mercury (shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tile fish) and limit other seafood to 12 ounces per week.

2. Eating foods containing HFCS may put you at additional risk for mercury exposure. "Up till now, just about everyone thought that exposure to mercury [through food] came from fish and seafood," says Wallinga. "The Environmental Health study finds detectable mercury in about half of the HFCS-foods tested. If that were to hold true across the high-fructose corn syrup industry then the possible exposures could be pretty significant."

3. Not all high-fructose corn syrup contains mercury. Mercury isn’t inherent in HFCS. The sweetener gets contaminated when it’s made with caustic soda that has been produced by manufacturing plants that use mercury in their manufacturing processes. These mercury-dependent processes are unnecessary and outdated; in fact, 90 percent of the U.S. plants that make caustic soda have upgraded to a mercury-free technology. "The main point is we don’t need to make HFCS in ways that contaminate it with mercury," says Wallinga. "There are ways to make high-fructose corn syrup using caustic sodas made from these cleaner technologies."

4. It’s impossible to tell what products are most likely contaminated. And, until now, the companies that made the foods found to contain mercury may not have even considered asking how the HFCS they put in their products was made. (The companies that make the HFCS itself do know whether mercury is used to make the caustic soda they source.) "In the short term, the consumer is in the dark about where their HFCS-laden foods and beverages come from," says Wallinga. "I think a reasonable approach would be for people to elect to avoid foods with [HFCS] until they know more about the products they want to buy and eat."

5. You can help reduce mercury in food ingredients, such as HFCS. Write to your legislators, suggests Wallinga. "I would say this: 'Pass legislation that, beginning now, will phase out the use of mercury in chlor-alkali plants [which produce caustic soda]. And begin now to monitor food-grade products, including caustic soda, from those plants to make sure that they’re free of mercury.' "

Tilapia: the fish for the future?

Sarah Hoff — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:23:50 +0000

Nutrition experts urge us to eat more fish; yet, worldwide, we’re already consuming seafood at a rate that is not sustainable. Wild fisheries are overexploited and, some say, fish farmed in traditional open pens can pollute surrounding water. What’s an environmentally conscious consumer to choose? In terms of sustainability, you can’t beat tilapia from a tank, says Michael B. Timmons, Ph.D., professor in the biological and environmental engineering department at Cornell University and author of Recirculating Aquaculture (Cayuga Aqua Ventures, 2007).

Nicci Micco

Explore this delicious eco-friendly fish.

July/August 2007

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Tilapia are low on the food chain and adaptable—basically, easy to cultivate. And people have been doing so for years: a bas-relief on a 4,000-year-old Egyptian tomb shows tilapia held in ponds. Today nearly all tilapia farmed in the U.S. are raised in self-contained aquariums that purify and recycle water. These so-called recirculating aquaculture systems often employ “biofilters”—microorganisms that feed on nitrogen—to treat wastewater. Bacteria break down some fish waste into nitrogen (which the microorganisms absorb for fuel) and other organic compounds that can be used to grow plants and algae, which are fed back to the fish. Sediment is removed from the tanks mechanically, and 99 percent of the water is recycled. “It’s a highly efficient system,” says J. Emmett Duffy, Ph.D., professor of marine science at The College of William and Mary in Gloucester Point, Virginia.

The system (which can be used to grow nearly any fish) is particularly efficient when you’re raising tilapia, omnivorous fish that can get all the nutrients they need from small plants, algae and bacteria. Carnivorous fish, such as salmon and tuna, on the other hand, need to eat smaller fish. “Farming carnivorous fish has a fairly significant environmental impact,” says Duffy. “Scouring the ocean for the prey fish can harm ecosystems.”

Tilapia don’t just survive on simple plants and microorganisms, they thrive on them: tilapia utilize nutrients more efficiently than other fish, thanks to a digestive tract that, extended, is about 13 times their body length. (A trout’s is less than three-quarters the length of its body.) “That gives them a lot of time to extract nutrients,” says Timmons. And because tilapia are so good at converting plant fuel into high-quality protein, they’re an economically wise choice. “Tilapia is by far the most sustainable commercially available fish,” says Timmons.

So what’s the catch? Not all tilapia farmed worldwide are cultured in recirculating systems. So try to buy tilapia grown stateside. Likely, its source won’t be identified. Ask at the fish counter.

A Delicious Way to Diet

Penelope Wall-Web Producer/Writer — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:26:09 +0000

Monica Walsh had tried pretty much every diet on the planet, including a three-week fast that worked—but made her feel “really unhealthy.” But after having a heart attack, the 47-year-old salesperson from Orlando, Florida, swore off fad diets and started looking for a more sensible solution. Jenn Moore, 35, an attorney who lives in Arlington, Vermont, was in the best shape of her life before she got pregnant, but six months after her son was born she was still carrying 20 pounds of “baby weight.” Mark Catalana, 43, a teacher in St.

Nicci Micco

Learn how nine readers lost weight on the EatingWell Diet and how you can too.

January/February 2009

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What do all these people have in common? Answer: They all wanted a better way to lose weight—and they’re not alone. When we issued a call for volunteers to participate in our three-month EatingWell Diet Challenge last summer, we got an overwhelming response: in just one week, we received more than 1,000 e-mails from people telling us why they were excited to try our diet.

After careful selection, we invited nine men and women (including Monica, Jenn and Mark) to join our Challenge. In return, we asked that they share their experiences in this issue.

For 12 weeks, the participants followed the principles and recipes of our cookbook, The EatingWell Diet: 7 Steps to a Healthy, Trimmer You (The Countryman Press). They tracked their calories and exercised. We offered them feedback on what they were eating and helped them troubleshoot their challenges.

“Losing weight isn’t rocket science. If you eat less and exercise more, you’ll lose,” says Jean Harvey-Berino, Ph.D., R.D., chair of the University of Vermont’s Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences and co-author of The EatingWell Diet. “But the hardest part of losing weight is figuring out how to engineer your life so that you’re able to do this.” Harvey-Berino has made a career of teaching people to lose weight by making small daily changes. Through her research, she has helped more than 1,000 people lose an average of 21 pounds in six months. Based on Harvey-Berino’s clinically tested weight-loss principles, the EatingWell Diet has the potential to help you and thousands of others lose weight too.

It’s already helped our Challenge participants. Collectively, over the three months, they lost a total of 112 pounds. Eager to get started? Here’s how:

[header = Step #1: Be Ready]
Step #1: Be Ready

Most diet plans encourage you to start yesterday—or at least right this very minute. Never mind that your company is going through layoffs and right now, quite honestly, may not be the best time to overhaul your lifestyle. But you heed their calls and you begin. Then you...fail. Again. In contrast, the very first step of the EatingWell Diet is deciding whether you’re actually ready to make a lifelong commitment to eating better and exercising regularly.

One year ago would not have been a good time for Marie Morrissey, 44, to start a diet. The Houston mother of two was entrenched in law school and her days were a blur of classes, mock trials and caring for her family. Marie knew she needed to lose weight but she also knew that she couldn’t commit to making meaningful changes until her life became less busy. Serendipitously, just as she was wrapping up her degree last July, we announced our Diet Challenge. “The timing was perfect,” says Morrissey. “Having just graduated law school, I felt I owed it to myself and my kids to find a sensible way to live.”

When she weighed in the first week of the diet, Marie, who is 5'5", registered 170 pounds—which was both sobering and motivating. “The number on the scale depressed me at first. I haven’t had this much weight to lose since right after I delivered my kids,” she told us. “But the only thing I can do is to work on it.”

And that she did. Because the timing was right, Marie was able to commit fully and lost 13 pounds in 12 weeks. She still has eight pounds to lose to bring her body mass index, or BMI (an estimate of a person’s body composition calculated from height and weight) into the “healthy” range—but having resolved to continue her new healthy habits, she is confident that she’ll reach her ultimate goal in the next few months. “I have given up too many times in the past,” Marie says. “I promised myself that I would take this journey one last time. It may take me longer than 12 weeks but I know this will be the last time I lose the same 20 pounds.”

[header = Step #2: Set Goals]
Step #2: Set Goals

Ramona Chavez, 29, has struggled with her weight and body image her whole life. Over the years, she has tried all sorts of strategies—from low-carb “fad” diets to strict vegan regimes. Some helped her to lose weight—but eventually the pounds crept back. In the months just before the EatingWell Diet, nothing seemed to be working. “I had become so frustrated. I wasn’t losing weight. I was actually gaining,” she says. Before starting the diet, Ramona’s weight was an all-time high of 165 pounds—a weight that, for her height (5'2"), corresponded with a BMI in the “obese” range.

To bring her weight into the healthy BMI range, she needed to lose 30 pounds.

In the past, Ramona would have set her sights on this number and simply started completely cutting out certain foods, such as meat, fried foods and dairy—a tactic that she says, “just made me want to eat them more.” Eventually she’d become frustrated and give up altogether. It’s a common weight-loss mistake: setting your goals—and expectations—too high. Then, when you eat an “off-limits” food, you feel like you’ve failed and give up completely.

No one can eat perfectly all the time: we wanted to help Ramona lose her “all-or-nothing” eating mindset and, instead, focus on setting realistic short-term goals, each of which would bring her one step closer to achieving her long-term goal of losing 30 pounds. We helped by giving her a simple formula:

Calculate Your Calorie Goal
Your current weight x 12 = calories needed to maintain your current weight
To lose 1 pound/week: Cut 500 calories/day
To lose 2 pounds/week: Cut 1,000 calories/day

Using our formula, Ramona calculated that, to maintain her current weight of 165 pounds, she was consuming 1,980 calories per day. By subtracting 500 calories from this number, she arrived at a daily calorie goal of 1,480 calories. Achieving this calorie target each day would enable her to lose one pound per week. (If your goal is to lose two pounds per week, you would subtract 1,000 from your “maintenance” calorie level. Note: For healthy weight loss, we don’t advise losing more than two pounds per week. Also, if you calculate a daily calorie goal that’s less than 1,200, set your calorie goal at 1,200 calories. Below that, it’s hard to meet your nutrient needs—or feel satisfied enough to stick with a plan.)

Finally, Ramona set “sub-goals” to help her meet her calorie goal, such as limiting snack foods at night—and buying single-serving snack foods.

“Breaking up the goals was a nice way to remind myself of the little habits I need to practice every day to reach my overall goal of losing 30 pounds,” says Ramona, who got down to 156 pounds by the end of the Challenge. “It also makes even small achievements feel like victories.” Her next milestone is to hit 148 pounds, which is 10 percent less than her starting weight. (Research shows that, if you’re overweight, losing just 5 to 10 percent of your body weight can improve blood pressure, lower cholesterol and provide better blood-sugar control.)

[header = Step #3: Keep Track]
Step #3: Keep Track

Once you establish a calorie goal, record everything you consume—and the number of calories in these foods and drinks. “Writing down every single morsel that goes into my mouth forces me to reflect on portions and food choices,” says Lynn Fowler, 43, of Newtown, Connecticut. “Sometimes the idea of writing something down stops me from putting it in my mouth.”

Use a tracking system that suits you. If you’re always on the run, you might carry a small notebook or make entries on your PDA. If you have all-day access to a computer, you could design a spreadsheet, like Lynn did, or use an online tracker. Whatever method you use, be sure to tally the calories as you go. If you wait until the end of the day, you’re more likely to exceed your target.

To help ensure that your calorie counts are as accurate as they can be, measure or weigh your portions, at least for the first week or two. Most people tend to significantly underestimate the calories they consume. In one study, people underestimated the calorie content of restaurant dinners by as much as 956 calories! In fact, if you are eating out, look up the calorie counts before you go to help you to make better choices. For example, at McDonald’s a Premium Southwest Salad with Crispy Chicken and ranch dressing has 600 calories. The same salad with grilled chicken and low-fat vinaigrette has only 360 calories.

[header = Step #4: Be Aware]
Step #4: Be Aware

Write down not only what you eat but where, how and with whom. “Journaling” this information can help you identify situations and foods that trigger you to overeat. “Once I looked at my journal and saw where the problems were, they were much easier to fix,” says Rebecca Oechsner, 34. Rebecca realized that she had a habit of munching on cookies and potato chips late at night, after her 4-year-old daughter went to bed. Since Rebecca tended to unwind at the end of the day with a snack, she learned to keep healthier ones—such as popcorn—at the ready and to budget for those calories so she could enjoy a late-night snack and still meet her daily calorie goal. Rebecca also noticed that her usual coffee drink contained 240 calories, and this inspired her to switch to a (smaller) “skinny” latte, which satisfied her craving at about half the calories.

On a positive note, when Rebecca reviewed her journals, she saw that making truly satisfying low-calorie meals helped her reach her goals without feeling deprived.

[header = Step #5: Move More]
Step #5: Move More

“Calories in” is only one half of the weight-loss equation. Exercise is equally important. We recommended that, each week, our dieters set a goal to burn 1,000 calories through “programmed” aerobic exercise—such as brisk walking or jogging, cycling or rowing. In addition, we also suggested that they amp up activity in their everyday routines—taking the stairs instead of the elevator, for example.

When it comes to burning calories, what matters most is going the distance. It makes no difference whether you run two miles in 16 minutes or walk them in a half hour. You can assume that you burn about 100 calories for each mile you walk or run—which means that our participants were aiming to put in two miles a day, five days a week. (For cycling, estimate 100 calories for every three miles you ride.) Of course, indoor exercise equipment, such as treadmills, elliptical trainers and rowers, can help track calories for you. Models that ask you to enter your weight are the most accurate but even these machines are only estimating your calorie burn, as everyone’s metabolism is different.

It’s important to keep your “calories in” (eating) and “calories out” (exercise) goals totally separate. Using longer workouts to “buy” brownies will sabotage your success because most people tend to underestimate the calories they consume and overestimate the calories they burn through exercise. Consider this: You can polish off two cookies in just a few minutes but you’d have to run or walk four miles to burn off the 400 calories they contained.

[header = Step #6: Get Support]
Step #6: Get Support

It used to be that if Jenn Moore was having ice cream, so was her husband, Troy Hermansky. “I would fill up a giant coffee mug and hand it to him—because I wanted a giant mug myself and it made me feel better if he was having one too,” says Jenn. “He’d say he didn’t want it, but then, since it was there, he’d eat it anyway.” Now if Jenn wants ice cream, she portions out a small dish for herself. “I may ask Troy if he wants some but I don’t automatically bring him a big cup anymore,” she says. “I know he’s trying hard to lose weight, too, and I don’t want to sabotage him.”

Recognizing that losing weight is easier if you have someone to support you, Jenn and Troy decided to do our Diet Challenge together. Jenn still had to lose 19 of the 54 pounds she’d gained while pregnant with their son Jude, now 1. Troy was eager to shed the 30 pounds he’d gained after a career change and divorce a few years earlier. “My blood pressure is already high. I don’t want to set myself up for the host of [other] health problems that come with being overweight,” he told us at the start of the diet. By the end of the three months, Jenn and Troy had each lost 17 pounds. Doing the diet together was helpful for many reasons. They conquered and divided when it came to planning healthy meals (Jenn shopped; Troy cooked). They exercised as a family. They split entrees when they went out to dinner. “When you have a partner, that person can be an enabler in a lot of ways,” says Troy. “Just being on the same page really was the secret to our success.”

But not everyone has support at home. In fact, a few diet participants—we won’t name names!—mentioned that, at times, their partners were “diet saboteurs,” suggesting caloric cocktails or hearty breakfasts at moments of weakness. The participants eventually figured out ways to outsmart these situations: they’d sip one glass of wine then switch to seltzer or they’d decide what to order at breakfast before they got to the café so they wouldn’t be enticed by the aromas of bacon and baked goods. And, luckily, friends stepped in as supporters. Rebecca, for example, turned to a co-worker for exercise motivation. “We work in a building that has nine flights of steep stairs,” she says. “We decided to climb up and down all nine flights at least once a day, sometimes twice a day.”

[header = Step #7: Get a Life (Plan)]
Step #7: Get a Life (Plan)!

Weight management is a lifelong journey, not something you do for a few months and then move on. And if anyone knows this, it’s Bryan West, 40, who owns a food-service management company in Columbus, Ohio. “Every day is difficult for me—truly,” says Bryan. “I work in the food industry so there are options—distractions—around me all the time. Additionally, I have a very active social schedule. Food is always at the center of these events.” About five years ago, Bryan’s weight hit 245 pounds. It was a real wake-up call, says Bryan, and since then he’s been steadily working toward a healthy weight. But after losing 35 pounds, he hit a plateau at 210 last summer and wanted to re-energize his efforts. So he decided to try the EatingWell Diet. He lost six pounds and dropped a pants size, despite a hectic work schedule that included travel nearly every week.

His ultimate goal is to get down to about 180 pounds. “I actually find it hard to believe that my final weight goal is in reach,” he says. But Bryan knows that to achieve this—and even to keep the weight he’s lost from creeping back—he’ll need to remain vigilant. To that end, he’s outlined a plan, which includes tracking calories daily, scheduling exercise into his calendar at the start of each week and revisiting his goals each month. He’ll also rely on some of the specific strategies that have helped him in the past with his biggest challenge, eating out. In his own words:

• “I will take more time reading the menu and consider combinations like a side salad plus an appetizer instead of a full meal.”
• “I will ask how dishes are prepared. I’ve been surprised several times by fried items on salads.”
• “I will ask for salad dressings to be served on the side.”
• “I will end my meals with a cup of fresh coffee while others are enjoying dessert. I don’t drink much coffee so I enjoy a good cup—especially in nice restaurants.”

[header = Secret Weapon: Delicious Recipes]
Secret Weapon: Delicious Recipes

So often, weight-loss programs call for prepackaged meals or, at best, bland dishes like plain baked chicken and steamed vegetables. But once you learn the right tricks (replace fat with flavor from spices and herbs) and realize that a little butter can taste as good as a lot, you can enjoy delicious, flavorful recipes and still shed pounds. For Monica Walsh, who lost 16 pounds during our diet, incorporating new recipes that were low in calories and high on flavor was the easiest part of the entire Challenge. “I love to cook,” says Monica. She pulled her boyfriend, Jim, into the diet, too, and he also lost about 15 pounds. (Next, she plans to help her 70-year-old mother follow the diet’s principles.) “We knew whatever EatingWell recipe we made, it would be a nice meal. Of course, we did like some recipes more than others.” The recipes in The EatingWell Diet emphasize lean sources of protein, low-fat dairy and vegetables—all foods that, research suggests, may help you feel full on fewer calories. Many meet the criteria for our healthy-weight icon: they contain 350 calories or less, and have less than 20 grams of total fat and less than 5 grams of saturated fat.

In the end, the nine people who took our EatingWell Diet Challenge lost well over 100 pounds simply by eating delicious, healthy recipes, getting regular exercise and connecting with their supportive families and friends. Making time for cooking and exercising took commitment, prioritizing and a little bit of problem-solving but all our dieters agreed that such efforts yielded big returns: health, happiness, a smaller number on the scale—and the confidence to keep it all going.