Most Americans don’t get enough dairy products in their diets. To increase your consumption of dairy products—milk, yogurt, and cheese—start at breakfast.

At breakfast:
• Eat cereal with a serving or more of skim or 1% milk.
• Make oatmeal with skim or 1% milk instead of water.
• Spread low-fat or nonfat ricotta cheese and honey or fruit preserves on toast.
• Jazz up low-fat or nonfat yogurt with wheat germ, granola, or crunchy cereal.

At lunch:
• Eat a container of yogurt.
• Top sandwiches with a slice of low-fat or nonfat cheese.
• Finish lunch with a glass of ice-cold skim or 1% milk.
• Make soup with skim or 1% milk.

At snack time:
• Sip on hot cocoa made with skim or 1% milk instead of coffee or tea.
• Munch on fresh vegetables with a dip made from lowfat or nonfat yogurt.
• Nibble on popcorn sprinkled with Parmesan cheese.
• Try a smoothie made with low-fat or nonfat yogurt and your favorite fruit.
• Try a coffee drink like cafe latte made with skim or 1% milk.

At dinner:
• Make scalloped potatoes with skim or 1% milk and lowfat or nonfat cheese.
• Add low-fat or nonfat cheese to a casserole or meat loaf.
• Top vegetables with melted low-fat or nonfat cheese.

At dessert time:
• Make pudding with skim or 1% milk.
• Try low-fat or nonfat yogurt or low-fat or nonfat cottage cheese mixed with fresh fruit.
• Top apple pie with a slice of low-fat or nonfat cheese.

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—Asparagus, Green Garlic, and Goat Cheese Quiche (The Cilantropist)
Benefits: Just one cup of asparagus packs Vitamin A, fiber, iron, and is a good source of plant protein. Garlic can help lower cholesterol and blood pressure, and goat cheese is lower in calories but higher in vitamins D and K than standard cow’s milk cheeses.

—Avocado and Dried Blueberry Scones (Family Fresh Cooking)
Benefits: Avocados pack a nutritional punch, with Vitamin K, Vitamin B-6, and carotenoids, which have a protective and antioxidant effect. Avocados can also help prevent against high blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke, and are a wonderful source of healthy fats.

—Yogurt Cheesecake with Orange Shortbread Crust (A Spicy Perspective)
Benefits: Greek yogurt is a deliciously thick and creamy type that provides a good amount of protein—almost twice the amount of standard yogurts, which can help you feel full and satisfied longer. It also contains substantially less sugar, but still has all the same healthy bacterias and tons of calcium. Opt for the fat-free variety for all the benefits and none of the guilt.

—Spinach, Portobello, and Parmigiano Frittata (Bell’alimento)
Benefits: Spinach is a nutritional super-food. It’s low in calories and chock full of Vitamin K, Vitamin A, manganese, folate, fiber, calcium, protein, and iron. It has also been suggested that spinach has cancer-fighting antioxidants, can help improve cardiovascular health, and improve brain function. Portobello mushrooms are also nutritionally dense, with fiber, selenium, niacin, and phytochemicals, which work as powerful antioxidants.

—Honey Whole-Wheat Strawberry Shortcakes (Simple Bites)
Benefits: Whole grains can help reduce cholesterol, blood pressure, and the risk of heart disease, and contain antioxidants, B Vitamins, Vitamin E, and fiber. Strawberries have Vitamin C, manganese, and are also a powerful antioxidant.

—Baked Eggs in Ham (Babble Family Kitchen)
Benefits: Eggs are a fantastic source of nutrients, with tons of protein, healthy fats, Vitamin A, Vitamin D, Vitamin E, and choline, which is essential for cell membrane function. Ham is rich in B vitamins and is a great choice for meat protein, with no saturated or trans fat.

—Eggs Benedict with Smoked Salmon and Yogurt Hollandaise (A Food Centric Life)
Benefits: With 14 grams of protein in only a 70-calorie portion, smoked salmon is fantastic low-calorie choice. It also has a healthy amount of beneficial fats, including omega-3 fatty acids, which can protect cardiovascular health, plus Vitamins A, E, D, B-12, and antioxidants.

—Skinny Hummingbird Cupcakes (Skinny Taste)
Benefits: These cupcakes use bananas, which are a great source of fiber and potassium, a nutrient most Americans are lacking in their diets. Potassium can protect cardiovascular health and prevent muscle cramping. Throw in pecans, and you’re also getting protein, fiber, and a healthy serving of good fats.

—Rosemary Cheddar Cornbread Muffins (The Realistic Nutritionist)
Benefits: Rosemary is a wonderfully fragrant herb that packs Vitamins A, C, and B-6, as well as healthy lipids and antioxidants. Cornmeal is a great alternative for baked goods, with a much richer nutritional profile than flour. Its a whole grain and contains niacin, folate, Vitamins B-6, E, and K, as well as 18 amino acids.

What else will help make you feel strong? Great breakfast menus to fuel your workouts, healthy lifestyle advice from bestselling authors, and fitness trends are at your fingertips in the new Tips on Healthy Living newsletter.

In our walk-in refrigerator, the produce takes up a small set of shelves, a stack of four or five roughly six feet wide and two feet deep. Primarily, this space is used for bags of produce already cut up in some far-off processing plant: precut broccoli florets, bags of shredded cabbage and carrots for coleslaw, bags of chopped romaine and baby spinach, shredded carrots, sliced mushrooms.

As far as whole produce, the stuff we cut up ourselves, there isn’t much. I see a box of tomatoes, a few dozen heads of iceberg lettuce for burgers, grape tomatoes, a few sweet peppers, lemons and limes. The meat comes in frozen, but, save for the ribs and fried foods, uncooked; the Cargill ground beef gets portioned into hamburgers from the five-pound packs in which it is shipped. But everything else we have in the kitchen, every soup and sauce, every chicken wing with bone or without (the latter being, essentially, chicken nuggets) comes premade in a bag, often frozen. Even the seasonings come this way.

The lack of produce can be explained easily by one thing: cost, the cost of the produce itself and of the labor it takes to prepare it. Restaurant executives often sideline fruits and vegetables not just because of their high price tags, but because they are harder to store, can spoil and lead to waste, and undercut sales of more profitable items—like processed foods. Produce also gets sidelined because of the “special handling” it requires, which is to say it must be cleaned and chopped before it gets anywhere near the line.

The same economic calculus applies to the overwhelming presence of processed food, particularly preprepared foods like the chicken wings, which need only to be dropped into the fryer for reheating and crisping; the ribs, which come precooked and presmoked, reheated on the grill with a slathering of sauce; and the frozen Triple Chocolate Meltdown cake, nuked by Rico and Hector, thrown on a plate with a scoop of ice cream, and squirted with fudge sauce. None of this requires more than the most basic attention on the part of the cooks. And it saves incredible amounts of time and money. I never get a look at Applebee’s inventory and cost documents, and food distributor data are notoriously hard to come by. But in 2007, Slate reporter Ulrich Boser found that an Angus country-fried steak from Sysco typically yields a five-dollar profit. This kind of faux cooking graces the white tablecloths of high-end restaurants as well as the booths of Applebee’s. Thomas Keller, the renowned chef heading up the French Laundry, was using frozen fries in his kitchen in 2007, and the same year Belhurst Castle, a prestigious spa and inn lauded by Wine Spectator, was serving Sysco’s Imperial Chocolate Cake, defrosted and garnished with fresh raspberries.

For what it’s worth, the cooks I work with know the difference. On one of my first nights in the kitchen, Calixto chatted me up, asking about where I’d worked before, and had I ever been in a kitchen? I said not really, and asked him where he’d worked besides Applebee’s.

Over at Junior’s, he said, indicating a famous Brooklyn diner-style restaurant. And they’ve got a real kitchen over there, not like here.

What do you mean? Isn’t this a real kitchen?

Nah, nah, he said. For onion soup, you cut up the onions and make the soup, he said, closing his eyes in reverie before snapping them back open.

Not defrost a bag of it like here.

1. Don’t Panic
Surely panic doesn’t get anyone anywhere. I try to reassure my patients that worse things in life could be happening to them and they need to relax. The more stress they feel, the more they are likely to start eating foods that they’ve worked so hard on limiting.

2. Step Away from the Scale
Lots of my patients get too obsessed with the scale and it rules their life. So many factors can influence a number on the scale that has nothing to do with real weight gain, e.g. sodium and bloating. I make sure they commit to weighing themselves no more than 1 time per week, on the same day at the same time. Some of my patients have discovered from an analysis in their gym that they may not still be losing actual pounds but do continue to lose inches and a percentage of body fat.

3. Re-evaluate Your Food Journal and Portion Sizes
At this point most of my patients have been food journaling for quite a while. What I have found is that some of them have become rather lazy with their journaling. The extra nibbles, bites from other people’s plates, beverages, and so on are no longer appearing on their journals and they aren’t even aware they are doing it. Sometimes their portions need to be slightly changed; the 1 cup of pasta needs to be taken down to 3/4 cup and volume of veggies need to be increased. I encourage everyone to approach food journaling as if they’ve only just begun to do it, recording 100 percent of everything that goes in their mouth.

4. Step up Your Exercise Routine
For a lot of my patients exercise wasn’t a regular activity until they started seeing me. As time goes by the exercise they are doing becomes easier to perform and they are no longer expending as many calories while doing it. I usually recommend that they try something new that will challenge them a little more and while doing so burn more calories. Simply adding an additional day of fitness also may help. And I remind them that every little bit of activity counts, i.e. stairs instead of escalators, getting off a subway/bus stop early, or parking the car further away in parking lots.

5. Be Patient
When the scale stops moving, it is always a good time to reassess one’s goals. I ask my patients to focus on the why they wanted to lose weight in the first place and then to not give up so easily on that reason. I refer them back to the “Rome wasn’t built in a day” mantra; encourage them to stay in the health and weight loss game and not sabotage all their hard work because of a number.

So, instead of focusing on the doom and gloom of a weight-loss plateau I encourage my patients to look at it as an opportunity—an opportunity to congratulate themselves on what they’ve achieved so far and to refocus on where they are going. Because in the end of the day, it isn’t the number on the scale that matters most, but rather how you feel about yourself.

What else will help make you feel your best? Great breakfast menus to fuel your workouts, healthy lifestyle advice from bestselling authors, and fitness trends are at your fingertips in the new Tips on Healthy Living newsletter.

In particular, these findings are critical for teens and young adults, who are far and away the primary consumers of energy drinks. The study found that 30 to 50 percent of American teens reported using energy drinks, and 62 percent reported using sports drinks at least once a day. Researchers found that the acid in both types of drinks began stripping tooth enamel after only five days of consistent use.

Enamel helps protect teeth from decay, cavities, and sensitivity, and naturally wears away over time. Accordingly, it makes sense to try to preserve and protect it, especially during our younger years. Constantly bathing teeth in erosive acid can have an irreversible effect—once enamel is gone, it’s gone for good. Beverage companies continue to load these drinks with acid and have no responsibility to inform consumers of the amount on the label. As a result, consumers are pretty oblivious to the fact that it’s even an issue.

Researchers stress that while any one factor can’t be blamed for tooth decay (after all, an individual’s genetics, hygiene behavior, lifestyle, and diet all play a big part), it’s still important to keep the amount of citric acid you consume in check—including other forms of it, like lemon or other fruit juices.

For optimum dental health, try rinsing with water or chewing sugar-free gum after you consume any kind of acidic food or beverage, and if you’re an energy drink connoisseur, start cutting back and replacing the habit with a low- or no-acid (or sugar) alternative. There are great, natural ways to get an energy boost without slugging back energy drinks.

Today, you can join Chloe in a live UStream chat here at 2PM EST/11AM PST. If you’re on Twitter, you can tweet your questions for @ChloeCoscarelli with the hashtag #chatSS.

Photo courtesy of Richard Reinsdorf

According to a new study, up to 20 percent of kids who had suffered a concussion had unresolved symptoms after 1 year, including forgetfulness, difficulty staying focused and paying attention, headaches, and fatigue. Ultimately, the goal is to find if there are any risk factors associated with lingering effects, and what course of action is needed for those whose symptoms persist.

But currently, researchers can’t answer one important question: What are the long-term or permanent effects these kids may face? Stories of professional athletes suffering concussions and falling into early dementia raise troubling concerns. But only time will tell, and hopefully studies will uncover ways to help predict and treat lingering problems and ultimately slow any further progression.

For now, parents are taking these findings to heart, and talks have begun across the country to implement better equipment standards and safer guidelines in children’s athletics with the goal of preventing these kinds of injuries from occurring in the first place.

Downplaying injuries simply isn’t an option. It’s critical that everyone involved, especially the kids, knows the signs of and risks involved with head injuries. Even a mild bump or blow to the head can cause a concussion, and it doesn’t always involve a loss of consciousness. Headaches or head “pressure,” nausea, dizziness, blurry vision, grogginess, trouble focusing, sensitivity to light or noise, and tingling or numbness are all red flags to watch for after a head injury and reasons to seek medical help.

Here is a full list of observed symptoms to watch for:
• Appears dazed or stunned
• Vomiting or complaining of nausea
• Confusion
• Memory problems (difficulty learning new information)
• Amnesia (loss of memories from before and/or after the injury)
• Any loss of consciousness
• Difficulty with coordination or balance
• Behavior or personality changes
• Slowed thinking, reaction, speaking, or reading
• Slurred or nonsensical speech
• Seizures

Seek help from a medical professional immediately if your child or loved one has any of these symptoms.

Information is wealth and health. Great breakfast menus to fuel your workouts, healthy lifestyle advice from bestselling authors, and fitness trends are at your fingertips in the new Tips on Healthy Living newsletter.

These eight natural remedies can help you breathe easier:
Quercetin, a bioflavanoid found in many fruits and vegetables, helps to blocks the release of histamine. It is found in the skin of red apples, red grapes, red onions, and green tea

Stinging nettles are a natural antihistamine and one of the best natural remedies for allergic rhinitis. Bromelain, which comes from the enzymes in pineapple stems, can also be helpful. It’s an anti-inflammatory, which cuts down on the amount of mucus. It also helps your body absorb quercetin better. Both support the immune system. All of these nutrients are available as supplements.

Fish oil contains Omega-3 essential fatty acids, specifically EPA and DHA, which help to reduce inflammation and can help protect you from the misery of hay fever, sinus infections, and asthma. A good brand is Nordic Natural Arctic Cod Liver Oil.

Zinc is another good immunity booster. It stabilizes the cell wall. If you’re able to stabilize your immune system, you’re less likely to react to allergens. You can find zinc in lozenges and supplements.

Acupuncture is a popular form of alternative allergy treatment. It moves chi, which helps balance the body’s energy. Just be sure you use a licensed practitioner.

Homeopathy stimulates the body’s natural reaction to cure itself. The Boiron Allergy Care Kit is a good place to start. One of the ingredients, Histaminum, will block most of the histamines that are circulating. Another, Apis, prevents the swelling of the mucus membranes of the nose, and Gallphimia works well for hay fever. There are no side effects and it doesn’t interfere with other medications. It’s safe for kids, too.

Use a neti pot to clear your head. Nasal washing removes allergens from your nose. A side effect of antihistamines is that they thicken up your mucus. Nasal washing can help with this and relieve pressure, headache, dark circles under the eyes, post-nasal drip, cough, and bad breath. A nasal wash thins the mucus and keeps everything flowing so it doesn’t stagnate and cause a sinus infection on top of your allergies. You can buy a ready-mixed solution that contains salt (sodium chloride), sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) without preservatives are best. Or make your own by adding a 1/4 teaspoon of non-iodized salt or sea salt, and a 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda to a cup of warm water. Make sure you use distilled water and a sanitized pot. Use it once or twice a day.

Fill the air with the wonderful smells of essential oils such as pine, cedar, and eucalyptus by using an aromatic diffuser. This will help open up sinus passages. Diffusers can even be set on timers. You can also try a steam inhalation of essential oil of Lemon Balm. Just boil some water, put 5 to 10 drops of the essential oil into the water, carefully lean over a hot bowl of it with a towel over your head, and inhale.

How else can we help make you feel great? Great menus to fuel your workouts, healthy lifestyle advice from bestselling authors, and fitness trends are at your fingertips in the new Tips on Healthy Living newsletter.

Riboflavin. One of the theories used to explain a migraine headache is that it is caused by reduced energy production within the mitochondria, units of cells of blood vessels in the head. Therefore, because vitamin B2 (riboflavin) can potentially increase cellular energy production, it was thought that this vitamin might prevent migraine. In one double-blind study with riboflavin—400 milligrams (mg) daily—the proportion of patients who improved by at least 50 percent was 15 percent for a placebo and 59 percent for riboflavin. There were no side effects attributed to the riboflavin therapy. It is notable that riboflavin is as nearly as effective as drugs for migraines, but is much safer and relatively cheap.

Magnesium. An insufficiency of magnesium may also play a significant role in many headaches. Several researchers have demonstrated substantial links between low magnesium levels and both migraine and tension headaches. A magnesium deficiency is known to set the stage for the events that can cause a migraine attack or a tension headache. Low brain, tissue, and cellular concentrations of magnesium have been found in patients with migraines, indicating a need for supplementation, since a key function of magnesium is to maintain the tone of the blood vessels and prevent overexcitability of nerve cells. Magnesium supplementation can be quite effective in preventing migraine headaches. The recommended dosage is 150 to 250 mg three times daily. Magnesium bound to citrate, malate, or aspartate is better absorbed and better tolerated than inorganic forms such as magnesium sulfate, hydroxide, or oxide, which tend to have a laxative effect. An increased intake of high-magnesium foods such as nuts, tofu, and green leafy vegetables also makes a lot of sense.

Petadolex®. This standardized extract from the butterbur plant (Petasites hybridus) has been shown in several double-blind studies to produce excellent results as a treatment for migraine headaches, without side effects. In one study, 60 patients with headaches randomly received either 50 mg of Petadolex twice daily for 12 weeks, or a placebo. Petadolex reduced the frequency of attacks by 46 percent after four weeks, 60 percent after eight weeks, and 50 percentafter 12 weeks of treatment. (The results for the placebo group were: 24 percent, 17 percent, and and 10 percent, respectively.) Petadolex is generally well tolerated, but diarrhea has been reported in some individuals. If this side effect occurs, discontinue use. Its safety during pregnancy and lactation has not been determined. The typical adult dosage ranges from 50 to 100 mg twice daily with meals.

What other tips can help make you feel your best? Great breakfast menus to fuel your workouts, healthy lifestyle advice from bestselling authors, and fitness trends are at your fingertips in the new Tips on Healthy Living newsletter.

While the idea of strutting around in a two-piece might seem like a far-off (and slightly anxiety-producing) dream right now, don’t worry—there’s still plenty of time to reach your goals by summer. Stay motivated and stick to a healthy fitness plan that combines circuit, interval, and strength training that will boost your workouts into overdrive.

Circuit
Mix up your average workout by starting with about 10 minutes of cardio, followed by 15 to 30 reps of strength training, and repeat two more times. Rest no more than a few minutes between each exercise (but be sure to catch your breath and keep hydrated), and you’ll have burned about 600 calories and given your metabolism a hefty boost.

Intervals
There’s no better way to burn more calories fast than interval training. Alternate between periods of high-intensity exercise and low-intensity exercise to really get the most from your cardio workout. Intervals can be applied to almost any cardio exercise—running, biking, jumping rope, or dancing. Plug a few days of intervals into your weekly routine and you’ll notice a difference. Just be sure to always warm up, cool down, and know your limits. Oh yes, and please clear the floor of anything that might trip up your fast-moving booty.

Strength Training
Overall body strength is key to health. When lifting weights, do three sets of 15 to 20 reps, using a weight that’s challenging, especially during those last few reps. You want to feel the burn! Focusing on core strength is essential, too; it whittles down your midsection, back, and buns while improving overall stability and posture. Crunches, planks, leg raises, and swimming are all excellent core strengtheners. Looking for a little direction? Try this great strength-training program from Olympian Kara Goucher.

What else will help make you feel strong? Great breakfast menus to fuel your workouts, healthy lifestyle advice from bestselling authors, and fitness trends are at your fingertips in the new Tips on Healthy Living newsletter.