For many, January is the time of New Years resolutions. Eating healthier is an especially popular resolution, but a few months into the new year, many have given up on their goal.

As MU Extension county engagement specialist in nutrition and health education, Gina Luca educates residents of Andrew and Buchanan counties on a variety of diet and health topics and serves as a connection between communities and MU Extension.

Lucas recommends a balanced diet of five to seven servings of fruits and vegetables a day, lean protein and whole grains.

Half of your plate should be fruits and vegetables, Lucas said. A little less than a quarter of your plate should be some kind of grain. We also recommend a protein, and for those avoiding meat it doesnt have to be meat.

Any diet that focuses on one specific kind of food should be treated with caution, according to Lucas. The Keto diet, which requires participants to get 75% of their calories from fat, has been gaining popularity in recent years, but Lucas warns of unintended consequences.

If done incorrectly, you can have electrolyte imbalance, dehydration. It can be very dangerous for those who are diabetic or those who have some kind of heart condition, she said.

Intermittent fasting has similarly risen in popularity. Followers fast for several hours a day before consuming all of their calories during a dedicated eating window.

It can lead to binge eating or overeating, Lucas said. This is another diet thats not safe if youre diabetic. It can impact your energy levels, it can lead to nutrient deficiencies.

The best diet is balanced, according to Lucas, and accompanied by physical activity. Its recommended to moderately work out for 150 minutes a week or vigorously for 75 minutes a week.

If youre not anywhere near that, get better, Lucas said. Some activity is better than none. Five minutes of physical activity does have benefits.

Anyone who wants to make a change should start slowly by incorporating more healthy foods and exercise step by step.

If you end up failing, start again, Lucas said. It doesnt have to be Jan. 1 to make a positive change.

Every Missouri county is covered by a MU Extension office that offers help and advice for people looking for more information. To learn more, visit https://extension2.missouri.edu.

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The do's and don'ts of dieting - News-Press Now

As early as third grade, Chlo Hilliards mother was sending her off to school with Slim Fast shakes for packed lunches. Albeit elementary school is meant to be a creative playground, scholastic adventure and perhaps brilliant season of discovery, coming-of-age wasnt as fun for someone like Hilliard. For as long as she could remember, her entire identity was shaped around her towering physical appearance.

Standing over six feet tall and wearing a size 12 in shoe and dress by the tender age of 12, Hilliard could hardly fit in while growing up in her largely Hasidic Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. Navigating such an overwhelmingly white and orthodox environment as a young, Black girl surely didnt soften whatever blows or bullies that came with her already-unique challenges.

After decades of fad diets, weight loss pills, and unrealistic expectations, Hilliard made the life-altering decision to stop punishing herself over what she thinks she should look like: I'm healthy, I work out, I have a trainer, I'm in good shape, but I may never have a six-pack and I just need to be fine with that.

Hilliards moment of truth set her on a path to self-actualization and the results are hilariously illustrated in her new book F*ck Your Diet (And Other Things My Thighs Tell Me), a collection of essays that explore race, feminism, and popular culture. Taking inventory of childhood trauma and societys reinforcement of Eurocentric beauty ideals, Hilliard, 39, turned her personal misadventures into gut-busting comedy and witty teaching moments.

When it comes to food and diet, it's a much more complicated conversation than we've been having when it comes to social and political influences, she explains to BET. And it's not just genetics; it's where you live, what you can afford, and what you have access to. Once you figure out the bigger picture, you kind of can breathe a sigh of relief, because youve realized youre not the problem.

She continues: You also have to factor in economically what do they have access to or don't have access to; a lot of people in this country live in food deserts.

In the spirit of #2020 vision, Hilliard looks to help young Black and Brown girls everywhere set their eyes on the horizon instead of the scalebecause why play small when you can live larger than life? Though she is not a doctor or a medical professional, she has done extensive research in the space and we are curious to know what works for her.

From eating better to dating wiser to working smarter, she gives us a few practical tips to a healthier lifestyle this year. Adapt the ones you think you can, and discard the ones you can't. Everything is all about balance.

F*ck Your Diet out now.

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F*ck Your Diet Author Chlo Hilliard Wants To Give The Conversation About Black Women And Weight A Makeover - BET

IT seems that just about every week there's a new diet craze.

And like many fads, they will go out of fashion just as quickly as they came in.

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Usually, a fad diet will promise rapid weight loss and other health benefits, without any scientific evidence to support them.

But one dietitian has admitted that there are a handful of diet trends that shouldn't be ignored.

In fact, Sydney-basedSusie Burrell says that when followed the right way they can even provide long-term results.

Here, she reveals the five fad diets she believes are the most effective...

Over the last couple of years, droves of celebrities have credited the keto diet for keeping them in shape.

But the high-fat, low-carb isn't actually anything new.

It was originally developed in the 1920s to help patients suffering from epilepsy.

Writing on her blog, Susie said:"A keto approach requires followers to reduce their carbohydrate intake to an extremely low level so that ketosis or fat burning is induced as the body breaks down fat stores directly to be utilised as fuel.

"A keto approach requires followers to replace carbohydrate intake with fat."

A keto approach requires followers to replace carbohydrate intake with fat

She explained that the diet requires followers to break up their food intake to 10 per cent carbs, 70-80 per cent fats and just 15-20 per cent protein.

"This is why you see a lot of avocado, butter, eggs and cream utilised in keto diets," she says.

"The reality is that most diets that claim to be keto are actually just low in carbohydrates as opposed to achieving these ratios of fat, protein and carbohydrate.

"In real life, achieving these ratios in your diet is somewhat challenging but if you can, and do follow it, it will work very effectively."

The paleo diet is often dubbed the "caveman diet" because it promotes a diet similar to that of our stone age ancestors.

Before modern agriculture developed around 10,000 years ago, people typically ate foods that they could hunt or gather, such as fish, lean meats, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.

Susie writes: "The focus on fresh, unprocessed food naturally supports weight loss, as does the complete avoidance of processed carbohydrates.

"The only down side tends to be an especially low intake of dietary calcium and while fibre intake from vegetables and fruit may be adequate, a number of followers find the lack of insoluble fibre intake from grains and legumes can result in constipation."

A very low calorie diet (VLCD) is a clinically supervised diet plan that involves eating about 800 calories a day or fewer.

It usually involves replacing normal food with low-calorie shakes, soups, bars, or porridge containing milk.

It's not an easy diet to follow and it's not generally recommended without the supervision of a doctor - but it does work.

VLCDs work extremely effectively but the issue is that once they are ceased most if not all weight tends to be regained

Susie explains: "Very Low Calorie Diets that generally utilise meal replacement products and diet shakes to achieve an extremely low calorie intake of just 800 calories per day have again been used for many years in clinical settings to achieve weight loss.

"Now commonly utilised by weight loss surgeons prior to surgery, VLCDs are extremely effective in reducing fat stores in the liver whilst also inducing ketosis as overall calorie and carbohydrate intake is extremely restrictive.

"VLCDs work extremely effectively but the issue is that once they are ceased most if not all weight tends to be regained unless underlying eating habits are significantly altered long term."

The 5:2 diet is a type of fasting diet based on the idea of scoffing what you like five days of the weeks and severely restricting for the other two.

The part-time aspect appeals to many people because there is no restriction on what youeat for five days of the week.

On the fasting days, dieters are meant to eat 25 percent of their recommended calorie total - 500cals for women and 600cals for men.

Susie says they've been shown to be effective in supporting relatively slow weight loss at between 1kg and 2kg a month.

She added: "It appears that significantly restricting calorie intake for brief periods has a number of metabolic benefits in the body which in turn support fat metabolism.

"The biggest issue is that you will not lose weight as quickly as many desire."

The last diet approach Susie highlighted is the low card diet.

She explains that like the keto diet, carbs are restricted to about 10-20% of your overall intake.

But as it's not as high fat, it leaves you with more room for protein that keto does.

Susie adds: "Low carbohydrate diets, or diets that require followers to eliminate virtually all bread, rice, cereal, pasta, fruit and starchy vegetables are extremely effective in achieving fat metabolism, at least in the short term.

"The issue for most is that as soon as any of these high carb foods are reintroduced weight tends to be rapidly regained and becomes more and more difficult to lose in subsequent attempts."

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The 5 fad diets that DO help you lose weight fast and its good news for keto fans - The Irish Sun

Athletes need to eat every three to four hours which is why making snacks an integral part of your diet is critical.

by Nancy Clark

I wish I didnt have snack attacks. I eat way too much chocolate

I eat only healthy foods during the day. My snacking problem starts the minute I get home from work. Chips are my downfall

I try hard to not snack after dinner, but I have a bad habit of getting into the ice cream

Day after day, I hear athletes complain about their (seemingly) uncontrollable snacking habits. Some believe they are hopelessly, and helplessly, addicted to chocolate. Others believe eating between meals is sinful and fattening; snacking is just plain wrong. Some equate snacking to doing drugs. They bemoan they are addicted to sugar and cant eat just one cookie. Snacking is all or nothing.

Despite the popular belief that snacking is bad, the truth is that snacking can be helpful for runners. Athletes get hungry and need to eat at least every three to four hours. That means if you have breakfast at 7:00, youll be ready for food by 10:00 or 11:00, particularly if you run in the morning. By 3:00 p.m., you will again want more food. For students and others who train mid- to late-afternoon, a pre-run snack is very important to provide the fuel needed to have an effective workout.

The trick is to make snacks a part of your sports dietpreferably with an early lunch at 11:00 that replaces the morning snack. (Why wait to eat at noon when you are hungry now?) and a second lunch instead of afternoon sweets, to energize the end of your work or school day. A planned wholesome meal is far better than succumbing to sugary snacks or stimulant drinks.

Snacking problems commonly occur when runners and triathletes under-eat meals, only to over-indulge in snacks. Inadequate breakfasts and lunches can easily explain why snacks can contribute 20 to 50 percent of total calories for the day. Fingers crossed those snacks are nutrient-rich!

To easily and painlessly resolve nutrient-poor snack attacks, eat before you get too hungry. Hungry triathletes (and all people, for that matter) tend to crave sweets (and fats) and can easily eat too many donuts, chocolate chip cookies, candy barsfoods with sugar (for quick energy) and fat (for concentrated calories).That honking big muffin can easily win out over a piece of fruit, hands down!

Athletes who report they eat well during the day but get into trouble with snacks at night need to understand the problem is not the evening snacks, but having eaten too little during the active part of their day. Snacking is the symptom; getting too hungry is commonly the problem. One way to eliminate a mid-morning snack attack is to have a protein-rich, satiating breakfast (such as 3 eggs + avocado toast + a latte for 500-600 calories) as opposed to just a packet of oatmeal (only 100-150 calories). Enjoy soup + sandwich for lunch (500-700 calories), not just a salad with grilled chicken (only 300 calories).

Identifying hunger

Do you spend too much time thinking about food all day? If so, your brain is telling you it wants some fuel. Thinking about food nudges you to eat. If you were to never think about food, youd waste away to nothing.

Other hunger signals include feeling droopy, moody, cold, bored (Im eating this popcorn just because Im bored), unable to focus, and easily irritated. If you fail to honor these hunger signals, they will escalate into a growling stomach (too hungry) and an all-out snack attack. Prevent hunger; eat enough during the active part of your day.

Please remember that hunger does not mean Oh no, Im going to eat and get fat. Hunger is simply a request for fuel. Just as a light on the dashboard of your car signals when your car needs gas, your brain sends you hunger signals when your body is low on fuel. To not eat when you are hungry is abusive to your body (and mind) and puts your body into muscle-breakdown mode, which is counter-productive for athletes.

Losing weight without daytime hunger

Even if you want to lose undesired body fat, you should eat enough to feel satiated during the active part of your day. You can lose weight (diet) at night when you are sleeping. This is opposite to how most runners eat: They diet by day, then attack the snacks at night. They eat the whole pint of ice cream, too many chocolates, and/or non-stop chips. Winning the war against hunger requires white knuckles. Not sustainable and not fun. The better bet is to fuel by day and diet at night by eliminating high-calorie evening snacks.

Dieting runners commonly report the most concerns about snack attacks. As one marathoner complained, Im hungry all the time. If that sounds like you, and you feel hungry within the hour after you eat a meal, experiment with eating heartier meals. For help figuring out a food plan that works for you, I encourage you to meet with a registered dietitian (RD) who specializes in sports nutrition. The referral network at http://www.SCANdpg.org can help you find a local sports nutrition professional.

Winning the war against snack attacks

I encourage my clients to convert snacktime into mealtime. Instead of reaching for cookies, candy, caffeine, and other typical snack foods, they opt for a peanut butter & banana sandwich for an early lunch at 10:00 or 11:00ish. (As long as they have a flexible eating schedule, no need to eat a donut just to bridge the gap to the more traditional eating time of noon.) They then can enjoy a later second lunch at 2:00 to 3:00ish, which gives them energy to be productive throughout the last hours of the workday.

By enjoying two lunches instead of snack foods + one lunch, they generally end up eating more quality calories and fewer sweets. If their meal schedule is inflexible, I nudge them to at least snack on mini-meals instead of sweets:

The benefits of being well fed are fewer snack attacks, more energy, and easier weight management. Give it a try?

Sports Nutritionist Nancy Clark, MS, RD counsels both casual and competitive athletes in the Boston-area (Newton; 617-795-1875). The new 6th edition of her best-selling Sports Nutrition Guidebook offers additional information on how to manage snack attacks. Visit http://www.NancyClarkRD.com. For her online workshop, visit NutritionSportsExerciseCEUs.com.

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Winning the War Against Snack Attacks - Triathlon Magazine Canada

Madonna is a legendary singer in the music industry. Since the 1980s, she has been releasing numerous hit singles, touring all over the world, and achieving things that most artists can only dream of.

Although Madonna is 61 years old today, it does not seem like she will slow down anytime soon. Fans are no doubt aware that, in order to have Madonnas youthful energy, the singers lifestyle focuses a lot on fitness and healthy eating.

However, Madonna is human like everyone else, and she definitely has cheat days where she can relax and indulge a bit. Read on below to find out which mouth-watering food is her go-to cheat meal.

Anyone who has seen Madonna perform will understand just how much choreography is involved in her shows. Because of this, she has to work out six days a week to stay in shape. Her workouts are also quite intense.

She does a combination of circuit training, interval training and resistance training, her personal trainer, Craig Smith, told the Daily Mail. We focus on elongating the muscles and maintaining a svelte, lean dancers physique.

Since Madonna is a dancer, Smith incorporates some dance elements into her workouts. However, Madonna often varies her routines to also include things like yoga, push-ups, planking, and weight-lifting. Smith revealed that she works with weights that are 2.5 and 5 pounds.

Her workout sessions are known to be difficult for an average person. Madonna even once joked that when she has her friends try them, her friends end up going to the bathroom and puking.

However, Smith shared that Madonna is usually able to do these workouts because she eats a healthy diet every day.

Madonnas former private chef isMayumi Nishimura, who specializes in macrobiotic cooking, which has a lot of influence from the food that is traditionally eaten in East Asian cultures. Madonnas macrobiotic diet, for example, focuses a lot on eating whole grains, vegetables, legumes, fermented soy sauce, and fish. Additionally, she often cuts out eggs, meat, dairy, and wheat from her everyday life.

In one interview, Nishimura revealed that Madonna was first introduced to the macrobiotic lifestyle by her former husband Guy Ritchie.

Guy Ritchie was the one who wanted to have the macrobiotic food in first place, Nishimura said. But during his film production he deserved meat. Madonna and the kids sometimes have some, too.

Nishimura also shared what some of Madonnas favorite food is, saying: She has a soup as a starter and as a main vegetables. Thats all. Her favourite dish is the inside-out avocado roll and she loves Quinoa.

Additionally, Madonna eats fruits, but she is not a fan of tropical fruits. Instead, she prefers to things that can be found seasonally and locally.

Another part of Madonnas unique diet consists of eating six small meals throughout the day instead of three big ones like most people. According to her trainer, Smith, this habit actually is good for her intense workouts because it boost her metabolism and maintain her energy throughout the day.

When Madonna wants to take a break from her strict diet, she can be found cheating with some fatty comfort food.

In an interview with Us Weekly, she said: My most fattening indulgence is either pizza or french fries. Or potato chips, actually. Love them all.

However, she did say in another instance that she does not eat as much pizza as everybody else, so its safe to say that she does not give in to her cravings all that often.

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Madonna Has a Go-To Cheat Meal That Will Leave Your Mouth Watering - Showbiz Cheat Sheet

Its the beginning of 2020 and many of us are pursuing our New Years resolutions, and for some, those goals include starting a healthy routine.

Getting back on a healthy track can include resetting the body with a detox, and juice cleanses are often a popular way of doing just that.

Its no secret that this popular diet can hit your wallet, so are juice cleanses really worth forking out the big bucks for?

Peggy Kotsopoulos, Holistic Nutritionist and author of Kitchen Cures: Revolutionize Your Health With Foods That Healtold Daily Hive in a phone interview that you can do a juice cleanse from home but be prepared that it can be a process between juicing and cleaning the juicer when youre done.

If you can do it from home, its so much more worth it,Kotsopoulos said, it is more cost-effective, and you can choose your own ingredients.

Kotsopoulos said when youre juicing from home, you can better control the contents and quality of the foods going into the juices compared to when youre buying.

You want to make sure its organic, and that gets really expensive if you get it through a service or through a store, she said.

SherSor/Shutterstock

[The juices] can be really sweet if you get them through a service or a package. They have these red beet juices, which are so high in sugar,Kotsopoulos said about packaged juice cleanses.

For example, sometimes store-bought juice cleanses can have six juices in a day. There might only be two green juices in there, there might be an orange juice, which has carrot and might have turmeric, Kotsopoulos said, but its very sweet.

When youre juicing from home,Kotsopoulos recommends sticking to green juices and using organic cucumber and celery as a base because you get a lot of water and output in terms of juice.

To customize the juices,Kotsopoulos said you can add herbs that have detoxifying effects to help cleanse your liver and the body of heavy metals, and to sweeten the juices, apples and pears are your best options.

When youre shopping for a juice cleanse, you can find some packages ranging from one to seven days. I personally dont recommend juice cleansing for more than three days,Kotsopoulos said.

While juice cleansing gives your digestive system a break, clears up your skin a little, and eliminates toxins,Kotsopoulos says the most important thing when it comes to eating well and cleansing and detoxifying is where are the toxins going you have to eliminate them from your system, explaining that you need fibre for the toxins to bind to in order to be flushed out.

Youre not getting any fibre in a juice cleanse, at all. Youre just getting the juice it can be high inchlorophyll and vitamins and minerals and all that goodness,Kotsopoulos said. If you were going to do a smoothie for example, that has the fibre in it, youre still getting all that nutrients in it, or eating a green salad but the fibre is the most important thing to bind on to the toxins to help eliminate it from your body.

Plus, your energy levels really decline after a while,Kotsopoulos said, because youre not getting enough calories.

Youre doing calorie restriction for three days, lets say, and thats taxing on your body in a whole other way: your metabolism tends to slow down, you feel sluggish, you might not feel great and thats all normal, but thats because youre also not getting all the nutrients and all the calories and the energy and the protein that you need, she said.

So thats why the shorter the duration, the better [when youre juice cleansing], Kotsopoulos said.

I would just do it if you kind of want to reset your system a little bit, like one day is fine, three days max,Kotsopoulos said.

Shutterstock

Going into a juice cleanse, its best to prepare ahead of time by at least a week by incorporating more fruits and vegetables into your diet, as well as lean protein and fats,Kotsopoulos said. Thatll ease the burden on your system.

When you are on a juice cleanse,Kotsopoulos said its important to listen to your body; for example, if youre not feeling well on the first day, dont push yourself. You can add a salad or nuts to snack on if youre feeling low on energy. The point of [juice cleansing] is to make you feel better at the end of it.

Kotsopoulos said another great way to reset your system on a daily basis, is having a glass of room-temperature water with a squeeze of lemon and cayenne pepper each morning about a half hour before you have breakfast, supplements, or anything to drink, adding when youre sleeping at night is when your body is actually working the hardest to heal or repair and eliminate toxins, and the lemon juice helps to cleanse the liver.

Kotsopoulos said drinking green juice doesnt have to be just when youre cleansing; its great to include into your daily lifestyle routine as a snack during the day.

For recipe ideas, including juicing and smoothies, you can followKotsopoulos online on Twitter and Instagram.

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Juice cleansing: Weighing the pros and cons of this detox diet | Dished - Daily Hive