Ahhh, it's finally summer: backyard barbecues, cocktails at the pool, baseball games, and lots of fried chicken, ribs, potato salad, ice cream, hot dogs, and beer. Summertime living may be easy, but if you’re not careful, summer's fattening foods can really pack on the pounds. While most people are more active during the summer, it may not be enough to burn off all the extra calories from fattening summer treats.

High-Fat Meats on the Barbecue
The bad news: barbecue can sabotage your waistline. A 20 ounce T-bone can weigh in at 1,540 calories and 124 g fat; an average cheeseburger has about 750 calories and 45 grams of fat; and pork or beef ribs? They come from the fattiest part of the animal. The good news: You can go lean with cuts like pork tenderloin, skinless chicken breast, and lean ground beef.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game
Hot dogs and sausages are favorite summer treats for many of us, but you might want to save them for baseball games. It’s not just about fat or calories (after all, you can choose lower fat varieties) but hot dogs, bratwursts, sausages and most dogs are high in sodium. A typical hot dog has 280 calories, 15 grams of fat, and 1,250 mg of sodium, while a 6-ounce kielbasa has 330 calories, 24 grams of fat, and 1,590 mg sodium.

Mayonnaise-Based Salads
A small half-cup portion of typical potato salad has 180 calories and 12 grams of fat; the same amount of coleslaw has about 150 calories and 8 grams of fat. To cut calories, try making your salads with light mayonnaise; or mix mayo with low-fat yogurt, light sour cream, or chicken stock. Or why not try a German-style potato salad, using more vinegar than oil? Then toss lots of veggies into any salad to increase the fiber and nutrients.

Washington , D.C. tops the American College of Sports Medicine's new list of America 's fittest cities. The list is based on personal factors -- including the percentage of residents who smoke, are obese, get regular physical activity, eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables per day, and have conditions such as diabetes and heart disease -- and on local resources, such as parks, farmers' markets, number of primary health care providers, and crime rates. Data came from sources including the CDC, U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the nonprofit Trust for the Public Land.

Here is how the cities ranked:

   1. Washington, D.C.
   2. Minneapolis-St. Paul
   3. Denver
   4. Boston
   5. San Francisco
   6. Seattle
   7. Portland
   8. San Diego
   9. Austin, Texas
  10. Virginia Beach, Va.

Here are a few tidbits that I thought you might find interesting:

The Food Pyramid
The CDC reported that fewer than 2% of adult men and only 3.5% of adult women meet the USDA Food Pyramid guidelines of 3 1/2 to 5 cups of fruits and vegetables daily.  They even included jam, jelly, french fries and ketchup! Aim for a variety of fruits and vegetables, in different colors.


Looking for a Good Reason to Stay (or Get) Skinny?
Being overweight increases your risk of premature death by 20-40% in healthy people who have never smoked. Being obese raises it 100-200%, according to a major study of 527,000 members of AARP.  This findings of this study were recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
 

Go Eat at Guilt Free at Macaroni Grill
Guilt-Free Kebabs at Romano's Macaroni Grill?!? There's not a whole lot on the Macaroni Grill menu that's guilt-free, so these new skewered meals -- called Spiedini -- are a welcome addition. Choose from chicken or jumbo shrimp grilled on rosemary skewers and served with roasted veggies. Fancy! The Shrimp Spiedini entree has 330 calories and 9g fat, the Chicken one has 425 calories and 12g fat, and both are packed with fiber. Not bad. There's a beef version, too, but sadly the stats aren't impressive AT ALL.
 
P.S. They also have a "skinny chicken" dish that's very low, and you can always order "lunch" portions for dinner, as well as whole wheat pasta.


Eat Your Fiber!
Eating fiber has been linked to a reduced risk of many illnesses, such as heart disease, diabetes, and digestive problems. It's not surprising that a large, long-term Dutch study has found that people who eat lots of fiber live longer. For every additional 10 grams of daily fiber (about 3/4 cup of beans or 2 cups of vegetables), there was a 9% reduction in overall mortality rates and a 17% drop in coronary death rates, regardless of such factors as body weight and fat intake.

I recently received this information from Denny's and thought it was worth sharing with all of you.

Denny`s is once again putting their guests first by introducing their new Better For You menu additions. Denny`s believes Better For You items will give guests additional meal choices that will complement Denny`s current menu selections. Better For You menu choices will launch in June, 2009 and will include delicious items with reduced fat or sodium such as turkey bacon, chicken sausage, wheat pancakes, egg whites, fresh fruit, granola and yogurt. They will also add terrific choices for kids: dippable vegetable sticks (carrots, celery and cucumber), apple slices, spaghetti, Jell-O and yogurt. The dippable vegetable sticks will also be part of the general menu. Denny`s will also be eliminating or replacing certain meals on the children`s menu determined to be higher in sodium or fat.

In addition to the Better For You menu, Denny`s will also soon offer smaller portions for some favorite menu items that consumers want but are heavier in sodium and fat content. They include decreasing their meatloaf portion by one-third and their Brownie portions by 30%. The company has already reduced sodium in shrimp skewers by 25%, cheese sauce by 20%, and hash browns by 25%. They will continue to review other opportunities to decrease portions and sodium over the next year and ongoing.