Social Workout

Elixirs

Fruit Salad with a Superfood Twist

If you've got kids, they'll love this, and if you don't, prepare for your inner child to be very happy! As the season changes I can also sense my cravings and hunger levels fluctuating. I'm beginning to invite in more fruit (tis the season!) and in some ways I feel like I'm re-learning my pallete and nutritional needs. This fruit, nut, seed, and spice salad is nice because it's pretty filling though not over the top, and you can make it quickly. The fruit is nourishing and satisfying to your sweet tooth, and I've written about the wonders of goji berries and chia seeds, two other ingredients, before.  So, roll up your sleeves, grab your knife and your favorite bowl and toss these top quality ingredients together to make a sweetly satisfying dish.

Elixirs

Chia Seed Oatmeal Feeds Your Brain and Your Heart

I'm having a new love affair with chia seeds — their texture is so filling, they help with my digestion, and they're super easy to make great puddings with. Plus, chia seeds have a terrific balance of both Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids, an ideal combo for optimal brain function and emotional balance. Did I mention they're high in fiber, they absorb water to help keep your body hydrated, and because they expand (beware when making dishes/smoothies with them, you need less then you think) you feel fuller faster and are getting a power punch of nutrients and satisfaction in a single serving? This chia seed "oatmeal" makes an excellent breakfast, dessert, or snack. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Impractical Eating

"Nutella Is A Healthy Breakfast For Your Kids." Really?

I was changing in the Reebok Sports Club locker room the other afternoon, absentmindedly listening to the TV in the background, when this sentence snapped me out of my daydreams: "As a mom, I'm a great believer in Nutella..."

So began a 30 second spot, in which Nutella attempted to sell the message that chocolate hazelnut spread is a healthy snack for kids: "Moms, Nutella is a healthy snack for your kids! Spread it on multigrain bread, and they'll love it!" Really? Nutella? The Nutella that contains 200 calories, and 11 grams of fat, per a 2 tbsp serving?

Scientific

Eating Eggs For Breakfast Makes You Impervious To All-You-Can Eat Buffets At Lunch

You already knew a hearty breakfast with some protein keeps your fuller longer than, say, scarfing a donut. But now the official scientific evidence is in.

Food Inc.

Subway Lets You Add Pickles and Olives to Your Breakfast Sandwich

As of yesterday, Subway serves breakfast. In keeping with their whole custom sandwich thing, you can choose a sub roll, an English muffin or "toasty" flatbread, then fix it up with eggs, cheese, and all the vaguely-breakfast-sandwichy fixings you'd like. For example, pickles, tomatoes, olives, and lots of varieties of pepper; lettuce apparently crosses the lunch line and isn't offered. Low fat options abound. Though a visit to the Subway website presents much more amusing things than the calorie counts of breakfast sandwiches. You can arrange to have any one of Subway's six breakfast personalities call you in the morning, like a hotel wake up call. I particularly like the voice of Gogo Bot 4000. The site also informs you that "Pepperoni Is The New Bacon" and that you can "Spice Up Any Sub With 'Roni." Though, I noted when cruising the breakfast options, apparently not before 11 A.M. 'Roni starts at lunch.

Scientific

Bring Home the Bacon, But Only For Breakfast

More breakfast news: Bacon is better for you before noon. Age old wisdom says a calorie is a calorie, but a new study examining the timing of food intake found the effect of food varied with time of day eaten. Rats who ate high-fat foods at the end of the day gained weight and showed signs of metabolic syndrome. Rats who ate high-fat foods right after waking went on happily with their lives, no extra fat, no metabolic syndrome. The researchers' explanation: Eating fat in the morning "turns on" your fat metabolism and primes you to efficiently metabolize the rest of your food throughout the day. 

Poet Laureate

Flossing, Green Tea, and Checking Your Testicles the Keys to Good Health

Men’s Health recently had Doc Oz from the aptly-named The Dr. Oz Show and asked that he write up list of 25 things men should do to be healthy. I’ve read the whole thing, and am astounded Men’s Health managed to use every item on the list to shamelessly plug themselves, but also learned a few things along the way, such as “Avocado” is Aztec for “Testicle”; a man’s waist size should be half his height or less when the tape measure is wrapped around at belly-button level; and your poop should be “smooth and S-shaped, like your colon.” I’ve cleverly summarized the whole thing — check it out after the jump!

My Body

Keri Glassman on Double Breakfasts and Planning Ahead

Keri Glassman, MS, RD, CDN, is the Founder and President of Keri Glassman, Nutritious Life, a former All-American lacrosse player, and the author of several books, including, most recently, The O2 Diet.

I start my day usually somewhere between 5:30 and 6:00 A.M. I’m a morning person, I’ve always been a morning person. I absolutely love getting up in the morning when I’m well rested. So I’ll get up and have coffee and breakfast, I'll have green tea and water and take my supplements. And then I go to the gym in my building. I like to be back upstairs by 6:30 or 6:45, before my kids are up, and then I’m making lunch for my son, and making them breakfast. Sometimes when I come back from the gym I have eggs. Two yolks and five whites, and I’ll split it with the kids. And then I’ll have a slice of hemp bread, I’m really into hemp bread right now. French Meadow hemp bread is the best.

flog 10/3

breakfast: 1/2 banana
water
2 ww pumpkin spice pancakes (made @ home)
chopped walnuts
real maple syrup
hot water w/ fresh lemon juice

late lunch at Jason's Deli:

Other Places

L.A. Report

Gay Denny's

Give it up for Hollywood! I'm live blogging from Hugo's Restaurant, informally known among Hollywood insiders as "Gay Denny's," because it's like a diner for discerning, body-conscious customers. (They have two locations: West Hollwood and Studio City.) The menu offers green salads and kelp noodles for the skinny set, and blueberry pancakes and cheeseburgers for the self indulgers. Portions are huge and affordable, and they have pretty much every kind of tea and juice you could want, and in combinations you didn't know you needed: Green tea lemonade! (Free refills!) They serve breakfast until 4PM daily, and allow any and all substitutions. My standby: A green frittata made with egg whites, chard, beet greens, kale, spinach puree, broccolini, zucchini, asparagus, quinoa, garlic and extra virgin olive oil, and topped with alfalfa sprouts and an apple-mango-mint sauce. Just $11.50! Take that Denny's Lumberjack Slam! Better yet, they let you and your laptop hang out for as long as you like. Great for star sightings. I just watched Rosanna Arquette wish Gabriel Byrne good luck for the Emmy Awards this weekend....

Los Angeles