HealthHacks

I can’t believe they are actually going to do this, but according to recent reports McDonald’s is set to introduce — a least for a limited time — a Bigger Big Mac. Weighing in at 690 calories, the new burger will be 40% larger and pack-in 130 more calories than the current version.

Set to debut in Europe, the burger is being introduced to coincide with the Summer World Cup games.

This is an amazing move given all the money and effort they put into rebranding themselves after the film Super Size Me. That movie effectively killed super sizing, and forced the company to emphasize their healthy menu items (at least in the commercials). Just this week they rolled out an adult happy meal complete with exercise video.

So, why risk their image and roll this thing out then? These things sell, salads don’t.

Still it’s a surprising move.

[tags] fast food, McDonald’s, Big Mac, hamburgers [/tags]

If you suffer from chronic headaches, you may have been told to avoid certain trigger foods such as chocolate, MSG, and caffeine. What you may not know is that foods such as bananas, nuts, and even veggie burgers can contribute to the problem — up to 72 hours after you eat them. This can make it very difficult to isolate which food is the culprit.

NPR talks to David Buchholz a neurologist at Johns Hopkins University and author of the book Heal Your Headache about how to stop the pain.

Herbal supplements and alternative treatments are a booming business; and while much of it is hocus pocus and snake oil, there are legitimate non-traditional therapies your doctor may be unaware of. Fortunately, Consumer Reports has just released a new online product aimed at consumers who wish to explore natural treatment options, but want proof of efficacy.

Boasting a database of over 13,000 natural products, each is ranked according to its effectiveness for the specific condition. The site also warns of possible safety risks and drug interactions.

Access to the site runs $4.95 a month or $19 annually, and can be reached here.

[tags]herbs, alternative medicine, product ratings, health, medicine [/tags]

The Shangri-La Diet is unlike any diet you ever have come across; it is, in the truest sense, a hack.

It does not involve consciously choosing to eat less of any food; you may eat whatever you currently enjoy in whatever portion you like. All that is required is consuming approximately 100 to 200 calories a day of either sugar water, or a flavorless oil (such as light olive oil).

Sounds ludicrous, no?

How could adding additional calories of sugar and fat help you to lose weight?

To answer that, it would help to have a brief refresher on classical conditioning and Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov, you may remember, was a Russian physiologist who performed a series of experiments on dogs. He noted that when he began presenting a stimulus, such as a bell, before feeding the dogs, they soon began to associate the sound of the bell with the food. This caused them to reflexively salivate at the sound of the bell in anticipation of the food.

The Shangri-La diet posits that this same associative force works to bind flavors, calories, and appetite. When someone first eats a new food, the flavor is novel and unassociated with calories. Quickly, however, the flavor comes to be associated with the caloric content of the food. The stronger the flavor and the quicker the food raises blood glucose levels, the stronger the association may become.

When these familiar-flavored foods are consumed regularly, it signals the brain that safe, calorie rich foods are readily available. As a consequence, appetite is upregulated. This makes perfect sense from an evolutionary perspective.

What then of unfamiliar or flavorless foods? The exact opposite: they lessen the appetite. And that is precisely the impetus for drinking the sugar water and/or olive oil. Though they taste sweet and/or oily, they are not perceived by the brain as flavors. As a result you lose weight without the usual struggle.

My take: I have just begun to try the diet and will update you periodically with my results. Interestingly, when I told my wife about this diet, she said that it was well known in Cuba that drinking the juice of sugarcane cut the appetite. It was often used by workers in the cane fields. Stay tuned….
You can find more information about the book here.

[tags] weight loss, diet, lifehacks, health, nutrition, reviews, Shangri-La diet[/tags]

If you’ve spent anytime in the supermarket lately, you’ve likely encountered the 100-calorie-package phenomenon. It started in July of ‘04 when Nabisco introduced a small line of snack foods meted out in 100 calorie packs.

The idea was to offer consumers a way to manage their portions while simultaneously boosting profit margins.

It’s brilliant from a marketing perspective: offer the consumer less product at a higher price. But it’s also a fantastic tool for the consumer: portioning out 100-calorie servings allows people to reacquaint themselves with realistic portion sizes (not to mention the fact that people’s hunger cues have been shown to respond to the size of the serving container — bigger packages cause you to naturally eat more).

It comes as no surprise, then, that these things are selling like 100-calorie hotcakes. Information Resources (IRI) data show that sales grew 82.3% to $115 million in the past year.

Given this success, more companies are jumping into the game. From the introduction of the original 4 products 2 years ago, there are now 44 100-calorie choices — including cans of Coca-Cola.

While it’s best to eat whole, unprocessed food exclusively, if you are going to indulge in processed snack foods, this is the way to do it.

[tags]business, health, nutrition, diet, marketing, food, snacks [/tags]